Today is the 10th day of April, the 28th day of Nissan, and the 13th day of the counting of the Omer. Thirteen in Jewish tradition is a lucky number, one with many positive associations. Today is also Wednesday, the day in which the Levites would say in the Temple of Old, ?God is a God of Vengeance, Oh God of Vengeance Appear, Judge the Earth and take revenge on the haughty.? Today is also a different kind of day, a historic day. A special day. A day of unique infamy. Today it is official. As of today, the Oslo ?process? imposed upon Israel by its Left has killed more Israelis than the Six Day War.
Let me repeat that. As of today, Shimon Peres, Yossi Beilin, Yossi Sarid and the rest of the Oslo Left have managed to cause the death of more Israelis than Gamal ?Abdel Nasser and his buddies did in the 1967 Six Day War. We will never know whose death it was that tipped the scale officially. It was one of those murdered on the bus exploded by Colin Powell's dear friend and partner in negotiations, Yasser Arafat, at the Yagur junction next to Haifa this morning. These deaths, like all those before then, are the direct result of the suicidal mega-stupidity of the Israeli Left.
There are however some differences between the Oslo carnage and the deaths in the Six Day War. In 1967, virtually all of those Israelis killed died in battle. They died while fighting, while defending their nation. They died in glory and in honor. Those murdered by the policies of the Israeli Left were Jewish civilians, children, women and old people. They died as their leaders ordered them to cower, in shame and disgrace. They died as their own politicians from the Left lectured them about how insensitive and racist they are, about how greedy they are, so unwilling to ?share? their land with the Palestinians and to understand the ?Other.?
The 1982 invasion of Lebanon also produced a death toll of similar dimensions, something that caused public support for the continuation of that war to evaporate at the time. Ever since, the Israeli Left has used that war and its toll as a bogeyman to stampede Israel into abandoning any attempt at defending itself, and to follow the path of unilateral capitulation and national suicide. Not a day has gone by without the Left screaming that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is a criminal who caused deaths in Lebanon in 1982. Yet those deaths were also of heroism, soldiers dying while battling terrorist Nazis. Not the Oslo deaths of dishonor and cowardice, the deaths of children and old people, produced by the stupidity and treason of the Jewish Left.
The Jewish Left invented a theory according to which peace must be pursued by endless demonstrations to the world of Israeli weakness and defeatism. If only Israel convinces the entire world and especially the Arabs of how cowardly and weak it is, peace will result. Of course, in the real world, and especially in the Middle East, violence, atrocities and fascism are caused by demonstrations of weakness and cowardice. All of history is full of examples of this phenomenon. The past 100 years is a history of endless proofs that Jewish ?restraint? induces Arab atrocities and Nazism. If the Israeli Left had sat down in 1990 and planned a campaign that was designed to engineer the greatest increase possible in Arab violence, they could not have come up with a better plan than Oslo. In fairness, the Likud, the same Likud that failed to respond militarily to the SCUD attacks on Israel by Iraq, the same Likud that laminated Oslo under Netanyahu, shares the blame.
The Israeli Left with its Likud fellow travelers have not only killed nearly 800 Israelis during the era of Oslo Cowardice and Stupidity. They have also turned all of Europe into one large Nuremberg Rally. Another of their achievements is that - thanks to Oslo and in contrast with the situation before 1993 - Israel cannot attack Arab Nazis and murderers holed up in towns within the Land of Israel without risking a major confrontation with the United States and a cut off of all ties with Europe.
Human history is the history of the defeat of bad ideas and the eventual victory of good ideas. However, that?s only in the long run. In the short run - which may in fact last for a very long time - bad ideas generally hold the day. Only if one waits them out long enough are bad ideas defeated. I have not the slightest doubt in the world that, in the long run, the history books will record Oslo as one of the stupidest ideas ever to be formulated in human history, quite possibly the very stupidest. It is only a matter of time before it is so recognized. In the long run, there is no question of how Oslo will be viewed. The only serious question is whether Israel and Jewish history will end before that happens.
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Steven Plaut teaches economics at the University of Haifa.
Let me repeat that. As of today, Shimon Peres, Yossi Beilin, Yossi Sarid and the rest of the Oslo Left have managed to cause the death of more Israelis than Gamal ?Abdel Nasser and his buddies did in the 1967 Six Day War. We will never know whose death it was that tipped the scale officially. It was one of those murdered on the bus exploded by Colin Powell's dear friend and partner in negotiations, Yasser Arafat, at the Yagur junction next to Haifa this morning. These deaths, like all those before then, are the direct result of the suicidal mega-stupidity of the Israeli Left.
There are however some differences between the Oslo carnage and the deaths in the Six Day War. In 1967, virtually all of those Israelis killed died in battle. They died while fighting, while defending their nation. They died in glory and in honor. Those murdered by the policies of the Israeli Left were Jewish civilians, children, women and old people. They died as their leaders ordered them to cower, in shame and disgrace. They died as their own politicians from the Left lectured them about how insensitive and racist they are, about how greedy they are, so unwilling to ?share? their land with the Palestinians and to understand the ?Other.?
The 1982 invasion of Lebanon also produced a death toll of similar dimensions, something that caused public support for the continuation of that war to evaporate at the time. Ever since, the Israeli Left has used that war and its toll as a bogeyman to stampede Israel into abandoning any attempt at defending itself, and to follow the path of unilateral capitulation and national suicide. Not a day has gone by without the Left screaming that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is a criminal who caused deaths in Lebanon in 1982. Yet those deaths were also of heroism, soldiers dying while battling terrorist Nazis. Not the Oslo deaths of dishonor and cowardice, the deaths of children and old people, produced by the stupidity and treason of the Jewish Left.
The Jewish Left invented a theory according to which peace must be pursued by endless demonstrations to the world of Israeli weakness and defeatism. If only Israel convinces the entire world and especially the Arabs of how cowardly and weak it is, peace will result. Of course, in the real world, and especially in the Middle East, violence, atrocities and fascism are caused by demonstrations of weakness and cowardice. All of history is full of examples of this phenomenon. The past 100 years is a history of endless proofs that Jewish ?restraint? induces Arab atrocities and Nazism. If the Israeli Left had sat down in 1990 and planned a campaign that was designed to engineer the greatest increase possible in Arab violence, they could not have come up with a better plan than Oslo. In fairness, the Likud, the same Likud that failed to respond militarily to the SCUD attacks on Israel by Iraq, the same Likud that laminated Oslo under Netanyahu, shares the blame.
The Israeli Left with its Likud fellow travelers have not only killed nearly 800 Israelis during the era of Oslo Cowardice and Stupidity. They have also turned all of Europe into one large Nuremberg Rally. Another of their achievements is that - thanks to Oslo and in contrast with the situation before 1993 - Israel cannot attack Arab Nazis and murderers holed up in towns within the Land of Israel without risking a major confrontation with the United States and a cut off of all ties with Europe.
Human history is the history of the defeat of bad ideas and the eventual victory of good ideas. However, that?s only in the long run. In the short run - which may in fact last for a very long time - bad ideas generally hold the day. Only if one waits them out long enough are bad ideas defeated. I have not the slightest doubt in the world that, in the long run, the history books will record Oslo as one of the stupidest ideas ever to be formulated in human history, quite possibly the very stupidest. It is only a matter of time before it is so recognized. In the long run, there is no question of how Oslo will be viewed. The only serious question is whether Israel and Jewish history will end before that happens.
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Steven Plaut teaches economics at the University of Haifa.