Will a new Israeli leadership change course?

Never have the stakes been so high, yet the profound lack of any meaningful leadership is exactly the catalyst that could put the nation of Israel in peril.

The opinions of Barack Obama is often used as an excuse for Israel’s series of capitulations over recent years but surely the time has come to stand up to a hostile US President and his Secretaries of State. However, how Israel will ever deal effectively with external issues without first getting its own house in order is beyond comprehension. A country with a shambolic electoral process that produces one useless coalition after the other is no longer an option.

Let’s face reality. Israel has tried everything with these people, the so called “Palestinians”, yet not one agreement has been honoured. The Oslo Accords have proven to be a disaster, so too land for peace, the two state solution, release (not once but twice) of batches of terrorist murderers with blood on their hands, cessation of building activities for periods of time. Even the act of recognising a people who never existed in all of history, the so called “Palestinians” was not enough to result in a modicum of peace. The facts are that Israel’s supposed negotiating partners for peace were never once held accountable for their actions and whether one likes it or not, the blame for this rests solely with Israeli leadership, or more to the point the lack thereof. Never once did this leadership ever consider debunking any aspect of the fictitious “Palestinian” narrative.

In the last few years we were witness to an Israeli leadership cowered and berated by none other than the likes of Hillary Clinton the former US Secretary of State who had the audacity to complain to Netanyahu about building construction in the western part of Jerusalem. A woman who at the height of the recent war with Hamas told the world that Hamas places its missiles around civilian population centres “because Gaza is a small place and there were not many places they (Hamas) could put them”. All this and yet we witnessed an Israeli leadership that never attempted to set this woman and the world view she represents straight!

I would remind readers that it was Hillary Clinton who along with her boss watched in real time as the American Ambassador and his staff in Libya were butchered by a rampaging Islamic mob, then had the audacity to blame the attack on a video about Mohammed that aired in the US some six weeks prior, in spite of the fact that the Libyan Government stated categorically that the video had nothing to do with the attack. All this while US Special Forces were ready on standby waiting for the “go” to save the Ambassador!

What has happened over just the last decade or so can be described as nothing less than catastrophic. We’ve seen the Oslo Accords, where not one violation on the Arab side was deemed sufficient for Israel to declare it null and void. The accords provided that the “Palestinian” security forces were to be issued with side arms but when more sophisticated weapons were introduced, Israel looked the other way. When the indoctrination of Arab children in hate did not stop but in fact accelerated, Israel looked the other way. When Yasser Arafat was caught out preaching jihad in Arabic to his assembled throng, it was that “elder statesman” Shimon Peres who ran to his defence saying that Arafat was referring to a “jihad for peace”.

Lack of a strong resolve was clearly evident in mid 2014 when Israel went to war to protect itself from thousands of rockets that were fired indiscriminately at its civilian population from Gaza. Instead of prosecuting the war with Hamas with a determination whose sole object should have been the destruction and unconditional surrender of the enemy, Israel again ended this war prematurely and inconclusively, leaving the Hamas command and control infrastructure relatively intact.

In the history of warfare, no nation on the face of the earth has a “Purity of Arms” doctrine such as Israel. An insane doctrine which gives advance warnings to the enemy, a doctrine that calls off strikes literally at the last second thereby allowing military targets and targeted terrorists (along with supposed “innocent” civilians) to escape unscathed. This doctrine needlessly prolonged the war and thereby invited the inevitable worldwide propaganda campaign against Israel to build up, demanding that Israel and not the terrorists cease hostilities. This doctrine protected people who sympathise with Hamas’ aims, put Israeli soldiers lives at risk and ensured that in all future confrontations, Hamas will always use human shields as a propaganda ploy. There is only one answer to this and that is for an Israeli leadership to arise to announce that in all future confrontations no targets will be aborted and that human shields will henceforth be treated as enemy combatants.

Even during hostilities, all the Prime Minister of Israel could say is that the country’s goals were: “The restoration of quiet and the restoration of security for a lengthy period for the citizens of Israel.” Excuse me, restoration for a lengthy period of time! Foolish me for thinking that this time the goals were to be the destruction of Hamas once and for all and by doing so giving peace a real chance.

Even during hostilities, Israel continued to supply the residents of Gaza with electricity, quality drinking water, goods and medical attention all of which aided the “Palestinians” to continue their war making effort. So called humanitarian gestures that again prolonged the war, thereby again putting Israeli lives at risk.

Additionally, we witnessed the spectacle of the Israeli Prime Minister repeating the usual mantra that “Israel has the right to defend itself” to which I say of course it has. But by Israeli officials repeating this mantra ad nauseam, it only conveys the impression that they are begging for world approval to do just that. It is time this language ceased, not only by Israeli officials but by Diaspora leaders as well, as it clearly does not command respect but in fact contempt.

Will a new Government made up of coalition members whose party platforms rarely agree on anything be able to make substantial headway on issues that matter, who knows?

Will a new Government find the way to remove leftist court judges appointed by Tzipi Livni, who knows?

Without Livni’s unsettling presence, will a new Government incarcerate “Israeli” Arab Hanin Zoabi and her kind for treason or will the likes of Zoabi and Ahmad Tibi be allowed to remain in the Knesset emitting forth their usual treasonous vitriol?

It is time for Israel to finally do what needs to be done, such as:

• Walking away from the so called “peace process”.
• Advising that in the event of further hostilities, that the IAF will be unleashed.
• Retaking control of the Temple Mount, control Israel foolishly granted to the Waqf courtesy of then Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan, in his desire to appear magnanimous after the 1967 war.
• Taking unilateral action on borders and handing the welfare of those people outside those borders to the UNHCR, Jordan, Egypt or whoever.
• Expelling all foreign and hostile NGOs and UNRWA, whose presence only ensures that a refugee problem will remain in perpetuity.

It is for all the above reasons I say that for Israel to extricate itself from the pit it has dug itself into requires a strong leader who can explain to a hostile world that the days of concessions are over and that the days of indulging the Palestinian Authority with their fictitious narrative are also over. In short it is time for Israel to start acting like a sovereign power in control of its own destiny and put the nation on a 180 degree turnaround.