The Stakes After Gaza

Charles Krauthammer comments on demands for yet more Israeli concessions:

The Gaza menorah was carried off in a very remarkable and significant way, perched on a horizontal rod borne on the shoulders of men walking one behind, the other.

Seen in profile, that image has a shocking familiarity. If you go to the eastern entrance of the Roman forum today, you will see the huge triumphal Arch of Titus erected in the year 81 to commemorate the conquest of the Jews and the destruction of the Jewish state — Judea — in the year 70. One of the friezes shows the seven-branched menorah being carried out of the temple in Jerusalem — as booty and symbol of the conquest of Judea — perched on a long horizontal staff borne by Roman soldiers walking one behind the other.

Why is this significant?

What follows is the world saying, almost in unison, that the Gaza evacuation is just the beginning of a total Israeli retreat, one Dunkirk to be followed by many more. What follows is Condoleezza Rice declaring that "it cannot be Gaza only," a thrilling encouragement to the Palestinians jeering the Israeli withdrawal with chants of "Gaza today, Jerusalem tomorrow."

Remember, this is supposed to be one of Israel's friends. You know, the Great Satan that upsets the Islamic world with its "reflexive support for Israel", "irrespective of what Israel does".

This is a prescription for Israel's suicide. Or rather murder, because the Israelis are not prepared to march blindly into further unrequited concessions. The final concession will be getting into boats and sailing back to where?

Poland?

In his policy-setting Rose Garden speech of June 2002, President Bush explicitly endorsed a Palestinian state and said that to achieve it, the next step was up to the Palestinians. Since then the only thing the Palestinians have done is to bury Yasser Arafat, an act of reverence but not exactly an initiative.

In the interim, the Israelis have withdrawn from Gaza, destroyed four West Bank settlements to create geographic contiguity for Palestinian territory in the northern West Bank, and once again repeated their support of a Palestinian state. The Palestinian response has been Katyusha rockets into Sderot, promises of renewed terrorism and chants for total victory.

Krauthammer's conclusion?

What is at stake is whether the world, led by the United States, will demand Arab acceptance of that single Jewish state, or whether the United States will continue to push Israel from one concession to another until one day another arch is erected, this time in Jerusalem itself, commemorating the destruction of history's third and last Jewish commonwealth.

If the history of the Zionist movement has taught us one thing it is that if Jews don't take care of themselves, nobody else will. Contrary to what "anti-Zionists" will have you believe, Israel cannot rely on the Great Satan to back it up in a fight. Yet again, Israel will have to say "no" to the world. But, as Golda Meir once said, Israel will have its secret weapon. No alternative.