Cheers and Cash for Terrorists!

Video Of The Week - Are Israeli Supreme Court Justices Super-Heroes? https://tinyurl.com/2dacurce

 For the full article from JNS by Jonathan s. Tobin, go to https://tinyurl.com/4ftcwy55

In his initial phone conversation with new Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, to congratulate him and the rest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on taking office, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken conveyed two contradictory messages.  As his boss, President Joe Biden, has done in the last two years, Blinken gave assurances that the administration was committed to Israel’s security and the alliance with Washington. He then got to the real purpose of the call: to “emphasize the continued U.S. commitment to a two-state solution and opposition to policies that endanger its viability.”

This is the same message that the Israelis have been receiving from both left-wing and mainstream American-Jewish groups and leaders grudgingly welcoming Netanyahu’s new government. They still cling to the illusion that the phrase “two-state solution” is a magic formula that must be propped up despite the evidence of the last three decades that the Palestinians have no real interest in it.  This is in stark contrast to public opinion in Israel, where even most of those who voted for the Yair Lapid-led coalition that was defeated by Netanyahu’s right-wing/religious bloc want no part of the kind of policies favored by Biden and liberal Jews abroad.  Other than for far-left parties like Meretz, which failed to garner enough votes to win seats in the Knesset, the “peace process” with the Palestinians is a dead letter in Israeli politics. Still, few American-Jewish liberals, for whom this issue is an article of faith, seem willing to grasp that their Israeli counterparts have largely discarded faith in the two-state myth.

The release on Thursday from jail of Karim Younis, Israel’s longest-serving security prisoner, is an example of an incident that has a profound impact on Israeli public opinion, but makes no impression on Americans.  The 65-year-old Arab Israeli from a village near Haifa was one of three terrorists who, in 1980, kidnapped and killed IDF Cpl. Avraham Bromberg, 20, when he was on leave and hitching a ride home.  While Maher is expected to be released in a few weeks, Karim had the distinction of being the terrorist serving the longest consecutive time in an Israeli prison.

Anyone who was expecting the latter to emerge after 40 years in jail a changed man repenting for his callous crime, or for his release to be ignored by fellow Arabs ashamed of his conduct, knows nothing about Palestinian society.  Indeed, he was defiant upon his release, expressing pride in his evil act and stating that he would have been glad to give another 40 years for the Palestinian cause. Despite the efforts of Israeli authorities to ensure that the event be a low-key affair, Karim Younis was treated to a hero’s welcome in his village where, draped in a Palestinian flag, he was carried around on the shoulders of his many admirers. 

This is hardly an isolated case, as a shockingly biased article published last week in The New York Times showed, Palestinian society is obsessed with honoring “martyrs” who died trying to kill and injure Israelis and Jews. The conceit of the piece centered on the assertions that the Israel Defense Forces have been killing growing numbers of civilians, and that 2022 had been the “deadliest year” since 2005 for Palestinians. But efforts to smear the IDF are being undermined by the fact that most of the Palestinian casualties from such encounters are claimed as operatives by Hamas, Islamic Jihad or terror groups, like the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, associated with the Fatah Party that runs the P.A.  The valorization of terror is an integral element of Palestinians’ culture. It’s part and parcel of the way their national identity is inextricably tied to the century-old war on Zionism.

All of the above explains why Israeli voters turned their back on parties that support a two-state solution and brought to power a coalition that has stated its determination not to tolerate more Palestinian terrorism.  Unless and until Americans acknowledge the reality of the conflict and the nature of Palestinian politics, the disconnect between the two countries about two states will continue. What both the administration and liberal Jews need to finally understand is that if their coveted solution is dead, it wasn’t slain by so-called Israeli hard-liners. It was murdered by Palestinian cheer and cash for terrorists.

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