The people of Israel selected their lists of new legislators almost a month ago. Benjamin Netanyahu’s list received the most support among Israelis – 25 per cent – entitling his centre-right party to 30 members in the 120-seat Knesset and enabling him to undertake the task of cobbling together a governing coalition.
The president of the United States was clearly unhappy with the results. Ceaselessly, for nearly two weeks after the election he and his officials publicly pilloried Netanyahu whenever possible.
They justifiably criticized the Israeli prime minister for patently expedient, ethnically inappropriate remarks he made prior to the election in an 11th-hour appeal for their vote. But they unjustifiably criticized him for remarks he made that were appropriate, self-evident and truthful concerning the viability of reaching a two-state solution with the Mahmoud Abbas-led Palestinian leadership, especially in light of the current violent, unsettled circumstances in the region. President Barack Obama wilfully distorted the full context of Netanyahu’s remarks, ignored his subsequent elaboration upon his original comments and resumed a personal campaign of ostracizing Netanyahu.
Some of our American coreligionists were also very unhappy with the results of the Israeli elections, none more so, it seems, than the political commentator Peter Beinart. He was so angry with “Jewish Israelis” for not voting the way he wanted that he urged Jewish Americans to “punish” the Israeli government for not adopting Obama’s peace plan. In a March 19 article in Ha’aretz, Beinart suggested a list of punitive measures that he, like-minded Jewish Americans and the American government can – indeed must – implement until, presumably, Jewish Israelis finally behave the way he knows is best.
“Israelis have made their choice. Now it’s time to make ours,” Beinart wrote.
It does not seem to bother Beinart that his call to “punish” the lawfully elected government of Israel places him shoulder to shoulder alongside the haters of the Jewish state. He has substituted wishful thinking for reasoned judgment. This is not surprising since the ideology that provides him with the framework for solving Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians – American liberalism – and that he unquestioningly embraces does not mesh with the facts-on-the-ground of the region, the irrefutable, harsh reality that he refuses to acknowledge.
The essence of that reality can be glimpsed in the following abbreviated list:
1. At least three times since 2000, Abbas has rejected signing a peace treaty with Israel.
2. Like his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, he cannot concede – among other things –that Israel is the sovereign state of the Jewish People.
3. Like his predecessor, Abbas has repeatedly violated the Oslo accords of 1993.
4. Three times since the summer of 2005, when Israel unilaterally left the Gaza Strip, the Jewish state has been at war with the genocidal, Islamist leaders of Gaza.
5. Abbas has entered into a unity pact with those same Islamist leaders.
6. Time and again, through its incitement against Israel, its collaboration with Israel’s rabidly violent enemies and its hostile actions against the Jewish state, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has shown its indifference to trying to win the confidence of a majority of Israelis.
In a real sense, therefore, it was Abbas’ PA that effectively “elected” Netanyahu’s centre-right, 30-person list.
Beinart ignores this. He is slavishly captive to his ideology. Indeed, the ideology itself seems more important to him than the human beings for whose betterment he claims his ideology stands.
Beinart’s repeated pronouncement of love for Israel reminds one of the Peanuts cartoon in which the often-testy Lucy dramatically professes her long-lasting and abiding love for all humanity. Then, noting the doubting look on Charlie Brown’s face, Lucy clarifies her bombastic proclamation by stating that “it’s just people I can’t stand.”
At every opportunity, Beinart proclaims his love for Israel. Perhaps, like Lucy, it’s simply the Israelis he cannot stand.