ROBIN SHEPHERD: ISRAEL’S ELECTION WON’T CHANGE PALESTINIAN REJECTIONISM
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/5706/israel_s_election_won_t_change_palestinian_rejectionism
Robin Shepherd is a British-born political commentator and analyst. He is Director of International Affairs at the Henry Jackson Society.
Most Westerners have no clue about the Israeli elections, unsurprisingly given the propaganda from outlets like the BBC. The truth is, Israelis are mainly voting on economic and social matters, the Palestinians will reject genuine peace whoever is elected, and Israel will continue to be demonised in the West regardless.
To much of the Western world, Tuesday’s Israeli elections are about one thing: will those pesky upstarts get rid of that awful Mr. Netanyahu and finally elect a prime minister who is serious about getting a two-state solution with the poor, beleaguered Palestinians.
In Israel, and among those who have the courage to see things as they really are, it’s about something quite different, two things in fact.
First, like their British counterparts facing an election in May, the main issues for Israelis centre on the general cost of living crisis, real wages, jobs, and the astronomical and exclusionary cost (even for people with good jobs) of buying a house.
Israel, though living in a very abnormal region, is a normal democracy in which voters have normal concerns.
Second, it has never in the past made the slightest difference who Israel has had as its prime minister: the demonisation of the country over the dispute with the Palestinians has spanned governments led by leftist Labour, centrist Kadima and rightist Likud.
And it won’t make any difference today. The Palestinian side has been rejecting two-state solutions since the UN partition plan of 1947. They rejected the Clinton plans in 2000 and 2001. They rejected Ehud Olmert’s overtures later the same decade.
They make no effort to prepare their people for genuine peace: the large majority of Palestinians tell opinion pollsters that they only support a two-state solution as an interim measure; a stepping stone to a one-state solution involving the demise of the Jewish state.
Mahmoud Abbas, the so-called “moderate” leader of the Palestinian Authority routinely glorifies terrorism. And all that is before we’ve even begun to talk about the vile anti-Semitic murderers of Hamas.
If you relied on Western media outlets like the BBC or CNN you’d be largely clueless about Israel, in spite of (or because of?) the vast amount of coverage the country is afforded.
That’s because the reporting is saturated in ideology; most Western journalists commenting on Israel are better described as political activists. They’re on a mission, and it’s not to tell the truth.
Comments are closed.
