And at least equally as grievous: 20 years ago Israel signed the Oslo Accords and with open eyes, established the Palestinian Authority that, according to the prime minister at that time, Yitzhak Rabin, was supposed to fight Hamas without being bothered by the High Court or human rights organizations. He also promised that there would be no rockets from Gaza. Meanwhile, as a result of these accords, an entity has emerged whose Gazan part is an Islamic terror state, and its other part might also become an Islamic terror state with territorial contiguity from the outskirts of Be’er Sheva to the hills overlooking Afula, and Israel still promotes this idea, which everyone knows might put all of Israel in great danger. So can Israel be believed when she claims that her security is important to her?
Some countries of the world support the Arab effort to establish a Palestinian terror state with money and UN resolutions, and the State of Israel does nothing against the billions that flow into its territory for the purpose of establishing a terror entity as a Trojan horse within its territory (according to Arafat’s definition). So if the State of Israel so disregards the security of its citizens and permits its neighbors to establish a terror state on lands within its own territory, then why would the nations of the world take the Israeli cries of existential danger posed by Iran, which is located a thousand kilometers away, seriously?
Israel cannot expect the world to be concerned if Israel does not regard itself, its existence and its rights with urgency and determination. This is the true and profound reason that the Israeli message about Iran did not touch the hearts of the world’s leaders, and the guilty party is we ourselves, the collective Israeli, we, the Right and the Left together, each one because of its acts of commission and its acts of omission as well.
There are too many Israelis who go out into the world and spread the idea that the State of Israel is an occupier, is illegitimate and has no right to exist. In Israel we do nothing to those people, and they continue to receive their salaries from the academies or from the Israeli film industry, meaning, from the citizens of Israel. They with their words – even if not explicitly – justify what Iran wants to do to us, and we continue to pay them their bloated salaries. So who is to blame if the nations of the world do not think it so horrible if Iran will have nuclear weapons to destroy Israel with?
And worst of all, Israel’s chief negotiator stands in a conference in the United States and defends the idea of establishing a Palestinian state on Israeli land, without her having any promise that this country will not become a Hamas state, whether by means of elections, as happened in January of 2006 or by a violent takeover as happened in June 2007. So with such a negotiator, who calls to establish a terror state within the Land of Israel that will threaten the coastal land and Jerusalem from the hills of Judea and Samaria, is anyone surprised that the nations of the world do not take Israel’s security claims seriously?
When Israel relates to its rights and its security more seriously regarding the Arabs, the world might listen more to our security worries concerning the Iranians. Anyway, the world does not think that there is any difference between Arabs and Iranians.
Translated from Hebrew by Sally Zahav with permission from the author.
