Who’s Pressuring Bibi?

By: Moshe Feiglin

Published: December 23rd, 2009

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If Barack Obama didn’t exist, Benjamin Netanyahu would have had to invent him.

During my recent trip to the U.S., I saw the television in the airport broadcasting Obama’s address to the nation. Obama squirmed as he explained why he is sending another 30,000 soldiers to Afghanistan. In Vietnam the Americans had one clear enemy; in Afghanistan it is hard to understand who is against whom. The Afghan mud is sucking the U.S. deeper and deeper into a war that Obama promised to end.

On the domestic front, the White House is attempting to explain to the citizens how the miniscule sum of $1.2 trillion (yes, that’s one thousand, two hundred billion!) that Obama has decided to spend on his grandiose health plan will heal the failing American economy. Fortunately for Obama, the Tiger Woods scandal has stolen the limelight from America’s pressing military and economic issues. On this U.S. visit, I didn’t hear Israel mentioned even once on the news.

There is no doubt about it. If Netanyahu would want to stand his ground, he could easily deflect any American pressure. Obama has his own troubles, and is not interested in a head-on battle with Israel’s many supporters in the U.S., particularly in Congress. But Bibi needs Obama to create the illusion of American pressure.

Ariel Sharon destroyed Gush Katif despite the fact that President Bush was opposed to the scheme. Sharon was a bulldozer and did not use Uncle Sam as an excuse for his exploits until late in the game. This is not to say that Obama is a lover of Israel. He wants Israel to retreat, and he is happy to provide Bibi with the excuse that Sharon did not need.

Will Obama act where his determined predecessor did not – and attack Iran? Of course not. Our short history shows that every time Israel has faced an existential threat, America abandoned Israel to her enemies. The Iranian threat is no different. What we will not do for ourselves, nobody will do for us.

During the 10-month building freeze – that will naturally continue indefinitely – Iran’s defense capabilities will continue to improve. We are giving up our right to our land in exchange for the resuscitation of an old principle: that for the right to live, the Jew has to pay in hard currency. After all of this, we will still be forced to act alone against Iran – just under more difficult conditions.

Will Netanyahu then regain his backbone? I doubt it. His decrees in Judea and Samaria are not only immoral; they are also illogical. In order to try to understand the rationale behind them, we must return to the days of Sharon and the Expulsion. It is not Obama, but rather the Israeli Left that Netanyahu is so anxious to please. As the existential Iranian threat closes in, we can only hope that Israeli society will elect authentically Jewish leadership that fears only God.

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Netanyahu’s Evil Plan

Bibi Netanyahu explains his building moratorium in Judea and Samaria as follows: ” with the intention to encourage the renewal of political negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and states in the region, and for other political reasons.”

Clearly, the decree has not restarted negotiations between Israel and the PA. Nor have U.S. and European pressure been reduced. That being the case, one would expect Netanyahu to nullify the freeze. But Bibi remains stalwart and, even worse, is allowing Defense Minister Ehud Barak to run amok in the settlements.

Why? ” for other political reasons.”

Bibi will not be able to expel the Jews from Judea and Samaria Gush Katif-style. It is simply too expensive. His new plan is based on the Algerian model. When de Gaulle decided to terminate French rule in Algeria, 1.4 million French “settlers” had no way to defend themselves and they fled to France en masse. Israel’s hallucinatory leaders do not shy away from duplicating such a scenario.

In order to push his plan through public opinion, which would normally be opposed to such a move, the government must separate the Judea and Samaria residents from the rest of Israel’s citizens – and turn them into criminals. In that way, the public will get used to the idea that this particular sector has no human rights. That is the only reason that Bibi is continuing with the building freeze and allowing Barak to do as he pleases inside the settlements. Israel’s Left has a long history of pitting one Jew against the other in order to strengthen its control – from the days of “The Saison” and the Altalena to the present.

It is of utmost importance that we understand what the government is planning. This will allow us to plan accordingly and take appropriate action – that will not only protest the government’s actions, but actually stop them.

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Who’s Pressuring Bibi?

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