The death of a frog

As the parable of the amphibian goes, will Israel reach the lethal boiling point where it has made one concession too many?

Martin Sherman
Op-Ed/JPost
29 November '10

“…if you place [a frog]… in a pot of tepid water…, it will float there quite placidly. As the water gradually heats up, the frog will sink into a tranquil stupor …and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death.”
– Daniel Quinn, The Story of B

For anyone concerned with the fate of the nation-state of the Jews, there is a grave caveat in this citation from a well-known American author. It is a caveat that will be ignored only at great peril, and one that is becoming increasingly pertinent – especially in the light the ever-more perceptible signs of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s readiness to embrace measures that he promised to eschew (such as a renewed building freeze); and the growing friction between him and ministers in his government (such as Moshe Ya’alon and Silvan Shalom) who are insisting that he in fact honor the promises he made.

In recent years, Israel has back-pedaled repeatedly on positions it has taken, continuously “adapting” to situations that expose it to ever-greater security risks and consenting to circumstances that would have seemed inconceivable in the not-too-distant past.

An appropriate point of departure to illustrate the severity of this disturbing phenomenon, and to gauge just how drastically Israel has allowed its positions to be eroded with the passage of time, is Yitzhak Rabin’s last address to the Knesset. On October 5, 1995, exactly one month before his assassination, Rabin sought Knesset ratification of the Oslo II agreements (or to give their full title “The Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip”) that were signed two weeks previously.

Restoring public awareness of this erosion – and the comprehension of its significance – is crucial, particularly since the median age of the Israeli population is just over 28. This means that roughly half of all Israelis were not yet in their teens in the “Oslo period” and thus have no real personal recollection of the events that took place during those fateful days – other than what was provided by the misleading and distorted coverage in a biased press, both at home and abroad.

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