By Jan Willem van der Hoeven
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
(Albert Einstein)
Well did the Psalmist express the anguish being felt by many Israeli men and women today:
“In my distress I cried to the Lord, and He heard me. Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips and from a deceitful tongue. What shall be given to you, or what shall be done to you, you false tongue? Sharp arrows of the warrior, with coals of the broom tree!
Woe is me, that I dwell in Meshech, that I dwell among the tents of Kedar! My soul has dwelt too long with one who hates peace. I am for peace; but when I speak, they are for war.” (Psalm 120)
‘I am for peace; but when I speak, they are for war.’
As Israeli politicians and commentators increasingly voice in public these days: ‘We have no real peace partners.’ Even Abu Mazen – the world’s hope for ‘peace’ with Israel – has no power over his own Palestinian Arabs, and thus is certainly in no position to make peace with Israel, however much money and political assistance the West and even Israel are willing to undergird him with as their last hope for a deal with the Jewish state.
Despite all this, the Western powers – claiming always to have tiny Israel’s best interests at heart – advise, cajole and pressure this nation continually, in a monotonous refrain, to “take risks for ‘peace.'”
Well – Israel has been doing this since the 1993 signing of the OSLO accord – when they trusted a pathological liar and ruthless terrorist Yasser Arafat, and his gang, to make real peace with them. They gave him weapons, autonomy and political acceptance throughout the world, resulting in him even being crowned with the fabulous Nobel Prize for peace!
And it all came to nothing. No, less than nothing. True to his nature, Arafat used the guns and weaponry granted him by deceived and gullible Israeli leaders to continue his war against the Jews, and many Israelis were massacred by the very guns he received in OSLO.
The territory in which Arafat was allowed to enjoy autonomy was transformed into training camps for terrorists and a safe haven for “suicide” bomb-makers, who shredded Jews by the hundreds in buses, discos, coffee shops, hotels and pizzerias.
Nevertheless – this sick and often anti-Semitic world did not so much as berate Arafat for totally failing to keep his promises to Israel, instead pestering Israel with more requests as if nothing had happened. Ignoring the glaringly obvious, it kept sounding its tattered refrain: Israel must take more risks for peace.
And so, under the persistent pressure and prodding of the world – Israel decided to take more risks, withdrawing first from Southern Lebanon – which Israel accurately called its security zone – and afterwards withdrawing 100 percent from the Gaza Strip.
The risks were in vain; the gambles lost: Not only did the withdrawals fail to secure peace, they increased exponentially the ability and the resolve of the terrorists to attack: thousands of Katyushas falling on the civilian population in Northern Israel and thousands of Kassam and Grad rockets on Israel’s southern civilians.
Lebanon and Gaza, as a result of “these risks for peace,” are now in the hands of the ruthless terrorist organizations Hizbollah and Hamas.
When – yes when – will there finally arise a strong and courageous Israel leadership who will dare take a stand against this increasingly cowardly and hypocritical world and say to them, ‘Enough is enough?’
If there is one nation that has taken risks for peace, more than any other nation would have done, and more than was justified for her already battered and disappointed people, it is Israel. Don’t you ever dare to come to us again with your worn out and counterproductive “please take risks for peace – we are your friends.” We did it and it brought us endless terror and the deaths of our beloved people.
Thank you very much, but we are through with your destructive advice for ‘our peace!’
© Israel My Beloved
