Israel, Like the United States, Can’t Seem to Let Well Enough Alone — Provocatively Thumbing Its Nose at Palestinians and Presumably Iran

© 2012 Peter Free

 

24 April 2012

 

 

Some nations, like people, cannot seem to escape their addiction to self-destructive behavior

 

To wit: Israel.

 

According to the Associated Press, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government just legalized three illegal settlements on the West Bank: Bruchin, Rehalim, and Sansana.

 

Netanyahu’s government also wants to evade an Israeli Supreme Court ruling that ordered the destruction of 5 Israeli apartment buildings in Ulpana.  The buildings had had apparently been constructed on privately-owned Palestinian land in violation of long-standing Israeli law.

 

 

Citation

 

Associated Press, Israel legalizes 3 West Bank settler outposts, seeks to defer demolition of 4th, Washington Post (24 April 2012)

 

 

Self-serving hypocrisy and lies

 

What is interesting here is that a former Israeli government had found that Bruchin and Rehalim were illegal settlements.  And even Netanyahu’s government admits that Sansana was supposed to have been built inside Israel proper.

 

But these inconvenient facts, and the Israeli Supreme Court’s ruling in regard to Ulpana, are not enough to deter Netanyahu and his right-wing supporters from their provocative talk-walk.

 

 

Why Israel’s settlement actions are provocative

 

The West Bank arguably does not belong to Israel.  Israel captured it after the 1967 war and began moving settlers into the region.  According to the Associated Press, about 500,000 Jewish people now live there.

 

Naturally, Palestinians don’t like seeing Israel settle an area that they consider to be their homeland.

 

And I doubt that David Hale — United States Special Envoy for Middle East Peace, and currently in the region — is particularly happy, either.

 

 

Why Israel’s provocative game-playing is probably self-destructive

 

Israel has spent the last couple of decades increasingly isolating itself from the rest of the world.  Its only stalwart ally is the United States.  Without America, Israel would long ago have ceased to exist.

 

Israel’s American support has depended on Americans’ unquestioning loyalty to their Zionist friends.  But passing time and a growing list of geopolitically questionable Israeli over-reactions and provocations seems to be unraveling some of these ties.

 

Before too long (historically speaking), the U.S. Zionist lobby is going to lose its ability to intimidate fair-minded Americans by calling their criticisms of Israel anti-Semitic.

 

As we become more genuinely color and culture-blind, we will be more willing to describe people’s behavior for what it objectively is.

 

Once its friends see Israel for the aggressively apartheid state that it is increasingly becoming, Zion is going to have to face its enemies with significantly less confidence than it has now.

 

Put another way, only a fool talks “smack,” when surrounded by adversaries.  Under Prime Minister Netanyahu, Israel is acting the part of the “come kill me” idiot.

 

Watching this, of course, is Iran — which much of the rest of the world is hypocritically harassing for that nation’s presumed intent to manufacture nuclear weapons.  Unhelpfully, Israel, by unintelligently formalizing its settlement of West Bank territory, gives Iran one more reason to lust after weapons of mass destruction.

 

Israel’s geopolitical logic?  Short-sighted.

 

Occupying the West Bank, as a “possession” ploy in peace negotiations, may work on the tactical level.  Strategically, however, it deprives Israel of its “good guy” arguments.  Israel just becomes another abrasively obnoxious player on a world stage filled with similarly unattractive entities.

 

 

The moral? — Keep acting like the battle-provoking fool, and you will eventually be treated like one

 

If Israel keeps going the unnecessarily provocative way it has been, eventually it will call for help and no one with enough clout to matter is going to answer.