UPDATE (5:00 pm Monday): At this hour, Benzion Netanyahu, the 102 year old father of PM Benjamin Netanyahu is being buried in Jerusalem.
TODAY’S BLOG:
Ehud Olmert has been having quite the time of it lately. Suddenly perceived as an elder spokesman of the Israeli “Left”, Olmert has been flitting from one venue to another telling one and all about his achievements as Israeli prime minister and Benjamin Netanyahu’s failures. All of this gallivanting about is in advance of his probable going to prison as a result of fraud charges stemming from illegal monies he personally solicited and used while Prime Minister.
Olmert himself has become an almost sadly amusing figure, yet his endless speaking engagements have served to inform us of the delusions of the Israeli Left–particularly as they relate to making peace with the Palestinians. These delusions were on display yesterday as he spoke at The Jerusalem Post Conference in New York.
After blithely blaming the Palestinians for “not answering” his peace plan in 2007-8 and Ehud Barak’s in 2000, Olmert suggested that the real culprits who sabotaged “his” peace process were unnamed right-wing ministers in his government who did not want the talks between him and PLO/Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to succeed.
How these “unnamed” ministers were supposedly able to sabotage the direct talks between Olmert and Abbas is anyone’s guess. And what relationship these “ministers” supposedly had to do with Abbas’s failure to even respond to Olmert’s ridiculously generous offer is impossible to fathom. Suffice it to say that like all on the Israeli Left, the paranoid Olmert will ultimately look to anyone except himself and the Palestinians to explain away the Palestinian’s lack of commitment to peace.
And who would Olmert have us believe is the obstacle to peace now? Certainly not the Palestinians. In Olmert’s world, it is Prime Minister Netanyahu who is “not doing enough to make peace.”
And what exactly should Netanyahu do?
“[He] should present the Palestinians with plans and let them respond.”
Present the Palestinians with plans? Let them respond?
This is the grand delusion of the Israeli Left.
Never mind that in 64 years the Palestinians have never made a concession to peace; never mind that the Palestinians have rejected one ridiculously generous offer after another offered by Israeli Prime Ministers for peace; the Left believes that if Israel will just continue offering peace plans, one day the Palestinians will suddenly come to their senses and make peace, and the entire Middle East will sing kumbaya and live in harmony.
And if you believe that any of that will ever happen dear reader, I’ll be happy to sell you some waterfront property in the middle of the Sahara Desert.
—
As noted in recent blogs, a list of vocabulary for Israel supporters to begin using is appended to this blog (and every blog for the next month).
1. Use ‘Judea and Samaria’ instead of ‘the West Bank‘.
2. Use ‘Jewish community’ instead of ‘settlement‘.
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3. Use ‘construction of Jewish homes, schools, and hospitals’ instead of ‘settlement activity‘.
4. Use ‘new Jewish communities’ instead of ‘outposts‘.
5. Use ‘Jewish community member’ instead of ‘settler‘.
6. Use ‘conservative politicians’ instead of ‘right-wing politicians‘.
7. Use ‘PLO’ or ‘Palestine Liberation Organization’ instead of ‘Palestinian Authority‘.
8. Use ‘Palestinian Islamic Terrorist Organization–HAMAS’ instead of merely ‘Hamas‘.
9. Use ‘Israeli men, women, and children’ instead of ‘Israeli citizens‘.
10. Use ‘Palestinian cities’ instead of ‘Palestinian refugee camps‘.
11. Use Palestinian ‘settlements’ instead of Palestinian ‘villages’ or ‘hamlets’.
12. Use Palestinian ‘settlers’ instead of Palestinian ‘farmers’ and ‘villagers’.
13. Use international ‘lawbreakers’ instead of international ‘activists’.
14. Use ‘the suicide bomber prevention fence instead of the ‘separation fence’ or ‘wall’.
15. Use ‘eastern Jerusalem’ or the ‘eastern neighborhoods of Jerusalem’ instead of East Jerusalem. The city of Jerusalem must never be divided again.
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.