IMRA Weekly Commentary..
04 July '13..
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni pulled all the stops this week in a presentation in which she tried to explain why Israel must press forward to create a sovereign independent Palestinian state.
She didn't focus on the need for peace – there aren't many people left in Israel who are silly enough to think that creating a sovereign independent Palestinian state had anything to do with peace.
She touched on the demographic issue – but that's also a hard sell these days what with declining Arab birth rates, increasing Jewish birth rates and that in any event it's a problem we will face – if we ever actually face it – decades from now. When you consider that Israeli policy makers seem to work with a planning horizon of hours, days, weeks – at best months – a possible problem in 2040 isn’t exactly going to dictate what should be done this July.
So Livni set aside peace and demographics and threatened her audience that any minute now and the world is going to launch economic sanctions against us.
Let's set aside for the moment the prudence of the Justice Minister of Israel making remarks that for all intents and purposes inadvertently constitute a call on the world to put Israel in the penalty box.
Instead let's take this threat at face value.
If Justice Minister Tzipi Livni genuinely believes that any day now we are going to be shut off from trade with the European Union because we haven't ended the "occupation" then by the very same logic, if we accept the demands of Mahmoud Abbas and free all the pre-Oslo terrorists and have a settlement freeze but the talks stall because we actually have some red line, what then does she think is going to happen?
Does Ms. Livni really think that Israel's red lines are actually acceptable to the world?
Sure, she would no doubt argue that if Israel negotiated in good faith that that would suffice.
But is holding to your red lines – any red lines – negotiating in good faith in the eyes of the world?
To be clear: I don't actually think that the European Union is going to shut us off anytime soon.
It's just that if the excuse for bad policy decisions is avoiding sanctions then there is a good chance that even worse policy decisions will be needed in the future to avoid sanctions.
And finally: if you think we have something to lose from sanctions, it is nothing as compared with what we stand to lose if indeed a sovereign Palestinian state comes to be.
Tourism? Business investment? Immigration? Young educated couples raising their families here? Not if there’s a terror state a stone's throw away.
Link: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=61435
Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.
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She's an idiot. Most Arab countries happily do business with Israel, but they don't publicize it.
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