Using the "J" Word

Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu reportedly had a discussion with German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in which he told him frankly that Judea and Samaria ( AKA The West Bank) "could not be Judenrein."

For those who don't know, that's an old Nazi expression meaning "cleansed of Jews".The sign above was awarded to a German state that had achieved this goal.

To a German, that had to have struck a nerve. And I think Netanyahu was entirely correct to do so, since German ReichsKanzeller Angela Merkel just went public a week ago saying that Israel must stop all building in settlements "otherwise we will not arrive at a two-state solution that we need urgently."

Now, based on what I know about Steinmeier and Merkel, I would grant that they are both people of good will who would never agree to the idea of Israel's destruction and no doubt Netanyahu's use of a term from the old days of nacht und nebel horrified both of them. But sometimes, you have to call things by their right name to make people understand clearly what you mean.

Germany and much of the EU may desperately need a two state solution to appease their restive Muslim populations at home, but Israel definitely doesn't.

The Saudi 'peace' ultimatum that Obama endorsed and that the Palestinians are insisting on is precisely a recipe for judenrein, as well as Israel's national suicide.

There's absolutely no benefit to Israel in giving up the strategic Golan Heights to the Syrians and Hezbollah and all of Judea and Samaria (AKA the West Bank), including land legally purchased from the Arabs via the Jewish National Fund to the Palestinians...especially as it will likely become Hamastan.

There's no upside to the Israelis also giving up half of Jerusalem, which means that Jews will be denied access to their holiest sites and will have to watch their religious shrines desecrated by the triumphant Arabs, just as they were prior to 1967.

And there's no benefit in Israel making thousands of their own citizens homeless, unemployed refugees retreating to indefensible borders and allowing what's left of the Jewish State to be flooded by thousands of genocidal Arab `refugees' and their descendants.

There's no rationale for Israel to commit what amounts to national suicide in exchange for a guarantee of ill-defined `normalized ties' and peace from the Arabs...at least for as long as that lasts. Even as I write this, the Arabs are refusing to make even a pretense of any kind of gestures towards normalization until the Israelis unconditionally agree to all their demands... even with the US pushing for the Arabs to make a token gesture of some kind.

Having resettled almost a million Jews on its territory that were ethnically cleansed from the Arab world after 1948,( and nobody is even mentioning any compensation or justice for those refugees) there's no reason Israel should have the sole responsibility for paying the costs involved in resolving an Arab refugee crisis that only occurred because the Arabs attempted to commit genocide against the Jews of Israel and attacked it.

The entire history of Middle East peace negotiations since Oslo resembles nothing so much as a case history at a battered woman's shelter, with an absurdly inept counselor in charge:

"Maybe if you give in on this, he'll stop hitting you. OK, that didn't work, but maybe if you try this, I'm sure he'll keep his promises and stop abusing you. OK, but I'm sure if you just give in a little more, there'll be peace between you and an end to the violence..."

Ethnic cleansing of Jews out of Judea and Samaria because the Arabs hate Jews and refuse to live in peace and equality with them in the same country is no magic solution for peace..quite the opposite. After all, if Jews are forced to accept the fact that they're not allowed to live in Hebron or Gush Etzion or Gilo simply because they're Jews, what makes Tel Aviv or Haifa so different? Or when it comes down to it, New York or London? it's a slippery slope. And complacent Lefty American Jews who think Israel doesn't matter to them all that much and blindly support Obama's attempt to force the Arab ultimatum on Israel would do well to remember that Jews have had to negotiate that particular road in the not-too-distant past.

What Netanyahu is doing is serving notice that he's no longer going to allow fence sitting. This is entirely commendable. If the Europeans - and I am no longer just referring to the Germans - want to participate in a second Holocaust even inadvertantly, they will not be able to pretend any longer.They will have to make a choice knowingly, and live with it.

And if forcing them to acknowledge that choice means making them uncomfortable about the matter, so be it.