Some Israeli leaders, like our present government, express surprise that some nations, like the Arabs, untill 1981, didn't automatically recognise the right of the Jewish People to existence independently in the State of Israel when the state was declared in 1948.
Their attitude was based on their pride in our 3000 year history of achievements; we gave the world monotheism, the Bible, the ten commandments.
Netanyahu and his followers are so taken up by these wonders of the Jews that they forgot the bitter experience, despite our wonderful achievements, that the nations had 2000 years of Jews amongst them yet they didn't consider us a gift from God, on the contrary, most of those nations were antisemitic and persecuted us.
It's true that Herzl, founded the Zionist movement because he believed that antisemitism was caused by the Jews, being a nation without its own land, was a despised nation of wanderers among the other nations.
He believed that the establishment of a Jewish state in their own land would bring an end to anti-semitism and would cause the Jews to be respected as equals among the nations.
No matter how right Herzl was, recognition and good relations with other countries didn't follow automatically with the establishment of the state.
It would have been naive and narrow minded to expect this and Israel's early leaders, like Abba Eban, Moshe Sharett and others toiled long and hard to develop friendly relations with local Arabs in addition to our Arab neighbors and foreigners further afield.
It shouldn't have been a surprise to us that it would entail hard work of fostering good relations and bonds of friendship for us to be recognised by the nations
Only after fighting 3 wars to destroy Israel, one Arab nation, Egypt, recognised Israel's right to exist.
After 5 years Jordan followed but the rest of the Arab world is still antagonistic towards us.
There is still a long, hard road ahead and war isn't going to do the trick, neither is Netanyhu's kind of elitist, isolationist, better than thou attitude.
This is the image that Netanyahu has created in the world outside Israel.
Joining provocative nationalists like Lieberman and Eli Yishai has strengthened this image.
The very presence of these three characters as Israel's leaders puts off any foreigner from seeking a relationship with Israel.
There is in fact nothing these guys can do to ameliorate the ogre-like isolationist, elitist Jewish image they have in the outside world.
The only way to foster good relations with a world that once hated Jews is to get rid of these leaders and to go back to the painstaking, hard job of humbly stretching out the hand of friendship to our Arab brothers especially and to the world in general.
Their attitude was based on their pride in our 3000 year history of achievements; we gave the world monotheism, the Bible, the ten commandments.
Netanyahu and his followers are so taken up by these wonders of the Jews that they forgot the bitter experience, despite our wonderful achievements, that the nations had 2000 years of Jews amongst them yet they didn't consider us a gift from God, on the contrary, most of those nations were antisemitic and persecuted us.
It's true that Herzl, founded the Zionist movement because he believed that antisemitism was caused by the Jews, being a nation without its own land, was a despised nation of wanderers among the other nations.
He believed that the establishment of a Jewish state in their own land would bring an end to anti-semitism and would cause the Jews to be respected as equals among the nations.
No matter how right Herzl was, recognition and good relations with other countries didn't follow automatically with the establishment of the state.
It would have been naive and narrow minded to expect this and Israel's early leaders, like Abba Eban, Moshe Sharett and others toiled long and hard to develop friendly relations with local Arabs in addition to our Arab neighbors and foreigners further afield.
It shouldn't have been a surprise to us that it would entail hard work of fostering good relations and bonds of friendship for us to be recognised by the nations
Only after fighting 3 wars to destroy Israel, one Arab nation, Egypt, recognised Israel's right to exist.
After 5 years Jordan followed but the rest of the Arab world is still antagonistic towards us.
There is still a long, hard road ahead and war isn't going to do the trick, neither is Netanyhu's kind of elitist, isolationist, better than thou attitude.
This is the image that Netanyahu has created in the world outside Israel.
Joining provocative nationalists like Lieberman and Eli Yishai has strengthened this image.
The very presence of these three characters as Israel's leaders puts off any foreigner from seeking a relationship with Israel.
There is in fact nothing these guys can do to ameliorate the ogre-like isolationist, elitist Jewish image they have in the outside world.
The only way to foster good relations with a world that once hated Jews is to get rid of these leaders and to go back to the painstaking, hard job of humbly stretching out the hand of friendship to our Arab brothers especially and to the world in general.
1 comment:
Shalom Leon;
This is your "big" brother speaking. Good blog of Netanyahu, Lieberman and Yishai, who I will henceforward refer to as "Bibi's Bunch". Personally. I think you were a little too gentle on Bibi's Bunch. I think these guys pose a bigger threat to Israel than Ahmedinejad, and all his leftie supporters combined. And yes, as you noted in an earlier blog, Israel being a democracy, they can be gotten rid of a lot easier than in Egypt. But herein lies a problem. Because Israel is a democracy, in reality, Bibi's Bunch are really the face of their supporters. Bibi's Bunch's message has resonated with those supporters. By the same token, Tzipi & Co have failed at the same job. So Tzipi & Co have a job to do - they have to get their message out more clearly. Maybe the unrest in Egypt is a blessing in disguise. Perhaps it will serve to concentrate the minds of both Tzipi & Co and Bibi's Bunch. I'm not optimistic, though.
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