Commentary/Contentions
20 May '11
Has there ever been a moment like the one Benjamin Netanyahu had today following his meeting with President Obama? I can’t think of one. When has a president ever made a joint appearance with the leader of an ally in the wake of a controversial policy proposal, only to have that ally push back against him publicly? Netanyahu’s powerful—and surprisingly graceful, considering the context—remarks can be read in full here. The only moment that even remotely compares wasn’t a diplomatic one; it was when Elie Wiesel, during the dustup over Ronald Reagan’s visit to the Bitburg cemetary in West Germany in 1985, was given a Medal of Freedom and with beautiful understatement said to the president, “This place is not your place.” We got a glimpse of the Bibi that so electrified the world in the late 1980s and early 1990s when he was serving as Israel’s chief spokesman in the English language in this stunning passage:
We’ve been around for almost 4,000 years. We have experienced struggle and suffering like no other people. We’ve gone through expulsions and pogroms and massacres and the murder of millions.
But I can say that even at the dearth of — even at the nadir of the valley of death, we never lost hope and we never lost our dream of re-establishing a sovereign state in our ancient homeland, the land of Israel. And now it falls on my shoulders as the prime minister of Israel at a time of extraordinary instability and uncertainty in the Middle East to work with you to fashion a peace that will ensure Israel’s security and will not jeopardize its survival.
I take this responsibility with pride but with great humility, because, as I told you in our conversation, we don’t have a lot of margin for error and because, Mr. President, history will not give the Jewish people another chance.
It was very nervy of Bibi, and certainly opens him up to the charge of being chutzpahdik with Israel’s greatest ally. But what exactly did he have to lose? He faces a hostile president, but one who governs a country overwhelmingly supportive of Israel. Could things get worse with Obama than they were last year? And could things get better for Netanyahu if Obama finds he is paying a price for being at odds with the American people on one of the few foreign policy issues they care about?
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Benjamin Netanyahu is a great man. From his heart, True and real. All can see. The burden he carries for his love of his people."I take this responsibility with pride but with great humility"
ReplyDeleteB"H - Netanyahu has a "historic" (secular) vision of Jewish rights and Jewish duties on the Land of Israel. His is not a Torah vision and therefore as Jews, we are under huge risks for being governed by him and by the likes like him and by their coalition governments of the day. The Jewish people are here to be not for themselves, as other nations, but for Hashem, for our G-d. If we want to preserve our G-d given Land, we have to fulfill our G-d given purpose. In order to be effective, we have to do this as a nation and we have to do it publicly and consistently, as if we considered the issue as the backbone of our policy. "Wanting to achieve peace with the palestinians through serious negotiations" is not something that points into this direction and therefore should be rejected as it says: "Do not make a covenant with them" (Deut. 7:2). The Torah gives us clear instructions on how to achieve and maintain peace and if we are too arrogant and want to think it up by ourselves all the time, against G-d's orders, then we will have no peace, only wars and struggling.
ReplyDeleteVery diplomatic... plenty of room for Obama to pressure...
ReplyDelete