As Independence Day celebrations were winding down Tuesday night, Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made a guest appearance on Channel 2's left-wing
satire show Eretz Nehederet. One of the final questions that the show's host
Eyal Kitzis asked the premier was how he would like to be remembered after he
leaves office.
Netanyahu thought a moment and said, "I'd like to be remembered as the
leader who preserved Israel's security."
On the face of it, Netanyahu's stated aspiration might seem dull. In a year
he'll be the longest-serving prime minister in the state's history, and all he
wants is to preserve our national security? Why is he aiming so low? And yet,
the studio audience reacted to Netanyahu's modest goal with a thunderclap of
applause.
After pausing to gather his thoughts, a clearly befuddled Kitzis mumbled
something along the lines of, "Well, if you manage to make peace as well,
we wouldn't object." The audience was silent.
The disparity between the audience's exultation and Kitzis's shocked
disappointment at Netanyahu's answer exposed - yet again - the yawning gap
between the mainstream Israeli view of the world, and that shared by members of
our elite class.
The Israeli public gave our elites the opportunity to try out their peace
fantasies in the 1990s. We gave their peace a chance and got repaid with
massive terror and international isolation.
We are not interested in repeating the experience.
We will be nice to leftists, if they are polite. We might even watch their
shows, if there's nothing else on or they are mildly entertaining. But we won't
listen to them anymore.
This is why US President Barack Obama's visit last month had no impact on
public opinion or government policy.
Obama came, hugged Netanyahu and showered us with love just like Bill Clinton
did back in the roaring '90s. He praised us to high heaven and told us he has
our back. And then he told us we should force our leaders to give Jerusalem,
Judea and Samaria to our sworn enemies even as they teach their children to
aspire to kill our children.
And we smiled and wished him a pleasant flight home.
Obama had no idea what he was getting into when he came here. Like Kitzis and
his colleagues on Channel 2, Obama surrounds himself with people who, like him,
prefer fantasy to reality. In Obama's world, Islamic jihad is about the West,
not about jihadists. In Obama's world, the most pressing issue on the international
agenda is apartments for Jews in Jerusalem and Efrat. And in Obama's world,
what Israelis need more than anything else is for leftist Europeans to love us.
Talk about retro.
But a lot has changed since the 1990s. Twenty years after Yitzhak Rabin shook
Yasser Arafat's hand on the White House lawn and so officially ushered in
Israel's Age of Terror, most Israelis don't really care what the Europeans or
the Arabs think of us.
The Europeans prattle on about Israeli racism, and threaten to put yellow stars
or some other nasty mark on Israeli goods. They ban Israeli books from their
libraries in Scotland. They boycott Israeli universities, professors and
students in England. In Italy they hold rallies for convicted mass murderer
Marwan Barghouti at their national Senate. And in France they butcher Jewish
children.
And then the likes of Catherine Ashton expect us to care what they think about
us. Well, we don't.
For their part, Americans are bemoaning the resignation of the unelected
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, and insisting that he was a true
partner for Israel, who just couldn't make a go of it due to forces beyond his
control. While most recognize Fayyad's departure has nothing to do with Israel,
some US pontificators have blamed Israel for Fayyad's failure. Elliott Abrams,
for instance, wrote, "Israeli governments also gave him less cooperation
than he deserved." To that we answer, Fayyad was nothing more than a
Western delusion, like Arab peace with Israel.
Fayyad didn't have a chance of leading the Palestinians because he never
personally killed a Jew. And the Palestinians only accept murderers as their
leaders. But the fact that he never killed a Jew personally didn't render
Fayyad a partner for Israel.
Fayyad dutifully used donor funds to pay the salaries of terrorists in Judea,
Samaria and Gaza every month.
He led the Palestinian branch of the boycott, divestment and sanctions war
against Israel. He made working for Israelis and buying Israeli goods criminal
offenses. Fayyad personally led raids into private homes to inspect people's
refrigerators to see if they had Israeli cottage cheese on their shelves. He
organized and attended bonfires where they burned Israeli goods.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is not the sort of behavior you
would expect a peace partner to engage in.
The Americans who insist on mourning Fayyad's departure refuse to accept the
obvious fact that Palestinian aspirations for statehood are a cheap, shoddy,
for-export-only Arab product. The Palestinians don't want a state. They want to
destroy Israel. Unable to accept this basic fact, the Americans invent lies
like Fayyad-as-peace partner and try to shove them down Israel's throats. Well
good riddance, Salam Fayyad.
Obviously Fayyad is not the last word in Western delusion. They will think of a
new perfect solution to replace him in short order.
But in their endless search for the next silver bullet, the Europeans and the
Americans and their Israeli followers miss the fact that the easiest way to build
a secure and peaceful world is not by wooing terrorists. The best way to
achieve these goals is by accepting the world as it is. This is what the
Israeli people has done. True, we needed to have our fantasies blown away in
suicide bombings before we reconciled ourselves to this simple truth. But life
has been better, happier and more secure since we did.
The "international community's" inability to accept that sober-minded
contentment is better than pipe dream fantasies has caused leftist writers in
Israel, Europe and the US alike to express mystification at a recent survey
carried out by the OECD, which ranks Israelis among the happiest people in the
world. The ranking made no sense to commentators.
Israelis work harder than other members of the OECD. We complain more than
other members of the OECD. We don't have "peace." And yet, we are
among the happiest people in the OECD.
What gives? For decades before we embarked on the phony peace process, Israel
was a model socialist state. We had paralyzing tax rates and failed government
industries that crowded private entrepreneurship out of the market. Monopolies
ran every sector and provided shoddy goods and horrible services at
astronomical prices. The Histadrut labor union owned most of the economy along with
the government and in every sector, Histadrut commissars ensured that anyone
with an ounce of initiative was subject to unending abuse.
Nirvana.
Just around the time we began extricating ourselves from our socialist
straitjacket, we were also recognizing that the peace thing wasn't everything
it was cracked up to be. And at that point we began to understand that
happiness and success aren't about what other people give you - money,
treaties, a phone line after a five-year wait. Happiness and success are about
what you accomplish.
At that point, sometime between 1996 and 2000, Israelis began creating large
families and embracing the free market.
Today, with an average of three children per family, Israelis are the fecund
outliers of the industrial world. And as David Goldman at PJ Media has
demonstrated, there is a direct correlation between children and human
happiness. This is why fruitful Israelis have the lowest suicide rate in the
industrial world. When you have children, you have a future.
And when you have a future, you work hard to secure it, and have a generally
optimistic outlook.
What could be so bad when your kid just lost his first tooth? Israelis are also
happy because we see that we can build the future we want for our families and
our country even without another glitzy signing ceremony at the White House
every six months. Our country is getting stronger and more livable every day.
And we know it.
Those on the international stage that share our view that life is about more
than pieces of paper signed with Arab anti-Semites recognize what is happening.
For them Israel is not "that shi**y little country." It's "The
Little Engine that Could."
Take the Chinese. Last July China signed a deal with Israel to build an inland
port in Eilat and a 180- km. freight railway to connect Eilat to Israel's
Mediterranean ports in Ashdod and Haifa. The purpose of the project is to build
an alternative to the Suez Canal, in Israel. The Chinese look at the region,
and they see that Egypt is a failed state that can't even afford its wheat
imports. The future of shipping along the Suez Canal is in doubt with riots in
Port Said and Suez occurring on a regular basis.
On the other hand, Israel is a stable, prosperous, successful democracy that
keeps moving from strength to strength. When the freight line is completed, as
far as the global economy is concerned, Israel will become the most
strategically important country in the region.
Then there is our newfound energy wealth. Israel became energy independent on March
30, when the Tamar offshore gas field began pumping natural gas to Israel. In
two to three years, when the Leviathan gas field comes online, Israel will
become one of the most important producers of natural gas in the world.
Moreover, in 2017, Israel will likely begin extracting commercial quantities of
oil from its massive oil shale deposits in the Shfela Basin near Beit Shemesh.
Geologists assess that the field alone contains some 250 billion barrels of
oil, giving Israel oil parity with Saudi Arabia. Chinese, Russian and
Australian firms are lining up to sign contracts with Israeli energy companies.
International analysts assess that Israel's emergence as an energy power will
have a stabilizing impact on the global economy and international security.
Israel can end Asia's oil and gas hunger. It can reduce European dependence on
Russia. It will remove OPEC's ability to dictate world oil prices through
supply manipulation.
Israel's discovery of its energy riches couldn't have come at a more propitious
time. Had Israel discovered its oil and gas 65 or even 20 years ago, we
wouldn't have had the economic maturity to manage our resources responsibly.
But now, with our free market, our hi-tech sector and our entrepreneurial
culture, we can develop and manage our resources wisely and successfully.
At 65, Israel is becoming a mature, responsible, prosperous and powerful player
in the international arena. The only thing we need to ensure that we enjoy the
fruits of our labors is security. And the one thing we can do to squander it
all is place our hopes in "peace." And so we won't, ever again
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