Upping the Ante
by: Schvach Yid

Not so long ago, Ynetnews.com carried a story that reported King Abdullah of Jordan has announced plans to obtain a nuclear capability for his kingdom (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3442222,00.html) the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (not to be found in any old Negro spiritual, I’ll have you know!). This, says the Jordanian king, is exclusively for ‘peaceful’ purposes, eg., desalination.

The ruse is obvious and the current Israeli leadership should learn the lesson well. When faced with intransigence, raise the stakes. Make your adversary pay. The King of Jordan knows this ploy of brinksmanship.

Israel’s great mistake following its victories in the ’67 War was to place the conquered ‘territories’ on lay-away for eventual reclaim by the Arabs. The Arabs knew, and know, this, so they proceeded to play ‘rope-a-dope’ games with Israel. And why not; after all, Israel offered the Arabs a freebee. Just what did the Israelis demand in return from the Arabs? Peace? ‘Be good and you can have your toy back’, Israel condescendingly chided the conquered Arabs. ‘When you learn how to behave yourself, you can come back into the house and have your dinner’. The Arabs aren’t children, and they aren’t playing games.

Not so long ago, the American TV chef and jockey of Epicurean pursuits, Anthony Bourdain, chose to commemorate Israel’s fiasco of August 2006 with a replay of his experiences in Lebanon during that event, where he had located himself and his crew for a TV shoot (no pun intended) just prior to the onset of military festivities. After having been ushered around warring Lebanon by Israelis (‘Mr. Wolf’, et. al.) he and others were scooped up by a detachment of rescuing US Marines (Halls of Tripoli – Lebanon – is a US Marine ‘thang’), Bourdain narrated a telling truism; he commented (quote approximate): ‘it was so nice to be spoken to as adults again’.

The condescensions of Israel’s foreign policies have been self destructive for the Jewish State. Once conquered in 1967, ‘the territiories’ should have been annexed into Israel proper. There is not, nor would there have been, a ‘Greater Israel’ (this rubric sounds like a fabrication of the fundamentalist Left). Israel should have built settlements galore, as well as a couple of cities. Nabalus and Ramallah should have been ‘moved’ to Jordan. Then and only then, when the Arabs had been informed in no uncertain terms that they really had lost, would they have had a reason to negotiate in earnest with Israel concerning ‘peace’.

The same held true for the ‘status’ of Jerusalem. That the prospect of the presence of Jews on the Temple Mount constitutes, for the Moslems, anathema should define for Israel, and for the rest of the non-Moslem world, the identity of the problem for the absence of peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. How and why can the presence of Jews on Har HaBayit antagonize Moslems, and how can the Moslems ever expect peace with Israel if they adhere to this. A Jewish religious presence as source of antagonism for the Moslems means that peace can never exist between Jew and Moslem. This being the case, why should the Jews – Israel – capitulate by self-negation? Why should Judaism concede to Islam?

This was mistake number two committed by Israel’s vision-limited leaders upon their military victories in 1967. The keys to the Temple Mount belong in Jewish hands. ‘But this will lead to violence’, the anti-Jewish Jews will proclaim. So what, let the Jew-hating Moslems pay.

Israel is now faced with the prospect of a redemption-ushering event. Israel may now be able to do t’shuva for its error of 1967. Ynetnews.com has posted another article at http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3443895,00.html, and this time a Sheik has given Israel the key. Complaint doesn’t work; demands do, as do more substantial measures. Rubber bullets are like banishment to one’s room. They just don’t count, and they don’t achieve anything other than to inform one’s adversary that the rubber bullet shooters don’t mean business. The Arab Moslems do.