The counterproductive panicking over talks with the Palestinians failing

...It could very well turn out that Avigdor Liberman's return to the Foreign Ministry can serve as a catalyst for a sea change in Israeli discourse – shifting from what appears to be efforts to panic the public into accepting dangerous concessions to laying the groundwork so that the Jewish State can weather the consequences of being true to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s adage that “no deal is better than a bad deal.”

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
06 November '13..




It seems that each day someone else tries to throw us into a panic over our negotiations with the Palestinians.

#1. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's outgoing national security adviser, Yaakov Amidror, warned Sunday that Israel could face international boycotts - and worse - if the talks with the Palestinians fail.

#2. Justice Minister Tzipi Livni suggested in a live interview on Israel Radio's noon news magazine the next day that the international atmosphere in the event the talks failed would make it difficult for Israel to engage in military operations to defend itself.

#3. President Shimon Peres then opined for the umpty-umpth time that there simply is no alternative to making a deal with the Palestinians creating a sovereign Palestinian state.

What is the operative conclusion from the above warnings?

That the Jewish State should cut a deal at any price?

This is patently absurd.


This is not the time to bewail our misfortune.

It is time for our leaders to prepare for the very real possibility that the talks will fail.

Let me add to the "do list": it is time for our leaders to prepare for the very real possibility that the American bridge proposal will not be acceptable.

To be clear: that's not to say that the warnings of Amidror, Livni and others are necessarily inaccurate.

The point is that the response to the threat of a boycott and other difficulties is not capitulation.

The test of true leadership is how they faces such challenges – not how they explains to their constituents why they succumbed to the threats.

It could very well turn out that Avigdor Liberman's return to the Foreign Ministry can serve as a catalyst for a sea change in Israeli discourse – shifting from what appears to be efforts to panic the public into accepting
dangerous concessions to laying the groundwork so that the Jewish State can weather the consequences of being true to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s adage that “no deal is better than a bad deal.”

Link: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=62280

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