So let’s see if we have this straight: The British parliament decides to “recognize” the “state” of “Palestine.” It thus reverts to exactly the same displays of courage and integrity it showed back when Britain recognized the right to self-determination of the Sudeten Germans in 1938.
All this from the occupiers of Gibraltar, the Falklands, Wales, Scotland, Ulster, and the Channel Islands.
The Brits are joined by the Swedes in this belch of “recognition.” You remember Sweden, the country that was too cowardly to choose a side in either world war and that provided iron ore to feed Hitler’s war machine. Yes, Sweden, which refuses to recognize the rights to self-determination of its own Samis, and whose journalists recycle medieval blood libels about Jews murdering gentiles and selling their body parts.
An interesting twist to the story is the latest demonstration by Israel’s radical left of its contempt for democracy and Israeli sovereignty. The Israeli left, led by tenured academics, is willing to endorse pretty much anything harmful to its own country. It has been urging European countries to “recognize the state of Palestine.” A petition organized by Amiram Goldblum of Hebrew University, a founder of Peace Now, and Alon Liel, an ex-diplomat who now teaches at Tel Aviv University, was signed by dozens of Israeli academics.
These two were among the initiators and organizers of a pseudo-poll last year that claimed to show Israeli Jews favor apartheid. The “poll” was an exercise in distortion and tendentious manipulation and was thoroughly discredited by serious social scientists.
Now the same “Israel is an Apartheid Regime” propaganda team is back, rallying the rest of the anti-Israel academic left to attempt to bypass and neutralize Israeli sovereignty.
No one is stopping Israel’s radical left from peddling its ideological wares in the marketplace of public opinion. In fact, leftists exercise control over two of Israel’s daily newspapers and also dominate nearly all of the television and radio broadcasts. The problem for the left is that it has failed miserably in attracting mainstream Israelis. Its anti-Israel lobbying has fallen flat on its face.
The public simply repudiates the left’s agenda. Surrender never proved to be the grand vote grabber the left expected. Certainly since the recent war in Gaza, almost no one in Israel still favors the so-called two-state solution. Almost no one is willing to see Israel withdraw from the West Bank and allow a Palestinian terror state to operate there. Almost no one is willing to reward Hamas with concessions.
The left understands that its ideas have been soundly rejected. Since it is incapable of persuading Israelis of the correctness of its agenda, it has decided to recruit others to do the job, asking foreign countries and organizations to coerce Israel into adopting the very political platform favored by the left but rejected by more than nine of ten Israelis.
Goldblum has a track record of calling for Europe to override Israel’s sovereignty and impose policies on Israel that are opposed by most Israelis. In a speech in May 2012, he urged Israeli leftists to stop wasting their time attempting to persuade the public. He asked fellow leftists to instead go abroad and recruit pressure groups to coerce Israel into accepting the Israeli left’s agenda.
The Israeli far left ferociously opposes not only Israeli sovereignty but also freedom of speech for non-leftists. The Israeli signers of the petition calling on European countries and others to negate Israeli sovereignty and “recognize” the “state” of “Palestine” not only view their own country in the most negative of lights, they reject basic democracy for anyone who disagrees with them.