“As long as the Arabs feel that there is the least hope of getting rid of us, they will refuse to give up this hope in return for either kind words or for bread and butter, because they are not a rabble, but a living people. And when a living people yields in matters of such a vital character it is only when there is no longer any hope of getting rid of us, because they can make no breach in the iron wall.”
—Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Iron Wall, 1923
There is an interesting pattern (call it a leitmotif) that typically runs through the writing of Jewish liberals like Jeffrey Goldberg, who today provides us with a prime specimen right here.
Be it the murder of infants in their bed, or Abbas’s shocking fabrication of history in the New York Times on Tuesday, every Arab assault on Israel is just another reason both sides need to try harder to reach an “agreement.” Goldberg adheres closely to this liberal protocol. He begins on a promising note by devoting about the first 65% of his essay gently exposing the “contradictions” in Abbas’s vicious lie. But that formality is just a tease in the run-up to the standard-issue liberal sales pitch, which in Goldberg’s iteration goes something like this:
“There is no particular reason to hope for a successful peace process when the leader of the Palestinians is selling a false history of Israel’s independence… Mahmoud Abbas cannot bring himself to note that the Jews accepted the partition plan, while the Arabs rejected it, and went to war to extinguish the new Jewish state in the cradle, and then lost their offensive war.”
Yet:
“Mahmoud Abbas…. could be president of an independent state of Palestine on the West Bank and Gaza with a capital in Jerusalem. If only he — and, of course, Prime Minister Netanyahu — could find a way to avoid rehearsing old grievances and instead work toward a future in which both parties don’t get all that they want, but get enough to live.” (Sigh. If only.)
What cloying condescension! – especially to the proud Muslim Arab standing atop 1300 years of real history that commands him to hate and subjugate the Jews.
Sadly, this is the canned sound effect an obsessed (but sincere) Jewish peace processor produces in order to stay on the liberal kibbutz and still sound like a sane man. In the final analysis, though, the only thing separating the liberal Jeffrey Goldberg from the extremist Tony Kushner is the theatrics they employ before the curtain comes down on Israel in the last act.
Maybe that’s why the “peace process” is a perennial crowd pleaser. It’s the triumph of sweet fantasy over bitter experience.