An article from Haaretz.com by Akiva Eldar, just goes to show that with political leaders, the likes of Netanyahu the current prime minister of Israel who plays and exploits the fear of the masses, the state of Israel will never be able to find real peace with its Palestinian, Arab and Iranian neigbours. Read on:
Published 02:38 27.12.10Latest update 02:38 27.12.10
Netanyahu is sowing fear and we are harvesting hatred
Instead of warning of the dangers of continuing the conflict, Netanyahu chooses to exploit the primitive fear of the other.
By Akiva Eldar
How frightening! Masses of Sudanese refugees are threatening to erode our achievements and corrode our existence as a Jewish and democratic state. How frightening!
Iran is threatening to destroy us, and the world is once again standing by. How frightening! If we get out of "Judea and Samaria," the Palestinians will fire anti-aircraft missiles at Ben-Gurion International Airport. How frightening!
The Palestinians are refusing to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, so as to flood the State of Israel with Arab refugees and rip out parts of the Galilee and the Negev. And those who wish to destroy Israel have begun a deligitimization campaign against the Jewish state within the 1948 borders. How frightening!
This is a collection of the nightmare scenarios of the Benjamin Netanyahu school of thought. One day Netanyahu - the scariest prime minister in the history of Israel - is complaining about the Palestinians refusing to speak with him about Nablus and Hebron, and the next day he's scaring the populace with statements about the Palestinians plot to take over Carmiel and Be'er Sheva.
In the morning Netanyahu gets his picture taken with Turkish pilots who came to fight the Carmel fire; in the evening, he's instilling fear with his implication that the world is once again standing by as the Jews are facing annihilation.
The common denominator of all the prime minister's frightening messages is that what the Jews do isn't important; what's important is that the goyim hate us. Even if we give the Arabs the Tel Aviv coast, they won't rest until they throw us into the sea.
In 1996 the fear campaign against Palestinian terrorism and the danger that Shimon Peres would divide Jerusalem brought Netanyahu to power. In the absence of suicide bombers, and while Peres is dozing in the President's Residence, Netanyahu is finding, and inventing, new fears.
Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook wrote more than a century ago that exaggerated fear is the source of all weakness - physical, ethical and intellectual.
There is no doubt that from a cognitive perspective, the prime minister is aware of the heavy toll that Israel's current policies currently exact and will exact in the future. But he is overcome by the fear of tough decisions that entail necessary risks. For Netanyahu, the fear that freezing settlement construction will lead to a coalition crisis is greater than the fear that freezing negotiations will lead to a crisis over Israel's international standing.
But instead of warning of the dangers inherent in the continuation of the conflict, Netanyahu has chosen to exploit the primitive fear of the other. Instead of warning of Israel's increasing isolation, he is increasing the public's fear of the unknown. Those who are feared are hated and those who are hated are killed, Nelson Mandela has said.
Netanyahu is sowing fear, we are harvesting hatred, and our children are killing and being killed.
Read the article in full here.
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