Genuine Realism

Genuine Realism—A Sequel to "Wishful Thinking Realists"

Paul Eidelberg


Is it realistic to believe that while Islam is conquering Europe and spreading throughout America that there is an economic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, indeed, that making Palestinians prosperous will transform them into bourgeois democrats?   Is it not the case that many Islamic terrorists, including those that destroyed the World Trades Center, came from middle class families?

Is it realistic to think that a few million "Palestinians" are going turn their back on 1.5 billion Muslims on planet earth?   Is it realistic to believe that these Palestinians are going to trash their fourteen-century religion, overcome its equally long hatred of Jews, and genuflect to Bibi, who insists that they recognize Israel as a Jewish state?  This strikes me as a page from Alice-in-Wonderland—to put it kindly.

Of course, Bibi and his allies may be disingenuous, merely playing the "politics of peace."   Many politicians and pundits pose as "politically correct" because they lack the courage to be politically incorrect.  Like Hamlet said of men's conscience, "Islam doth make cowards of them all."  It takes intellectual probity to see Islam for what it is.  This is especially, but not exclusively, true of superficial secularists.  It's difficult for such secularists to take any religion seriously, especially one that strikes them as utterly alien and irrational.

If you ask any religious Jew whether genuine peace is possible between Israel and the Palestinians, I dare say nine out of ten will say no, and he will add that those who think otherwise are not realistic.

To clinch the argument, a large majority of Israel's own Arab citizens, who enjoy a relatively high standard of living and possess educational and professional opportunities unequalled in the Islamic world, identify with Israel's enemies and are therefore committed to Israel's demise—contrary to their own economic interests.

Genuine realism requires a candid theological understanding of Islam correlated with a candid review of Islamic history—a correlation of the Quran's venomous hatred of "infidels" and Islam's genocidal slaughter of Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, Hindu, and Armenian communities.

Genuine realists like philosopher Lee Harris and psychiatrist Wafa Sultan know that Islam's ethos of Jihad makes it an enemy of civilization.

Genuine realists know there are no evidentiary grounds to expect the Palestinians to renounce that Islamic ethos—the precondition of peace—and become bourgeois democrats, unless you so devastate them as to eradicate their desire to wage war for a hundred years—as the Allied powers did to Germany.

As indicated in "Wishful Thinking Realists," the economic approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is based on a Marxist mode of thought: the primacy of economics over religion.  Marxism involves a simplistic view of human nature.  By the way, one reason why Bibi is so lucid is because he is rather superficial.   Consider his insistence on "reciprocity" in negotiating with the Palestinian Authority.  What can these Arabs give Israel that is comparable to Israel's heartland, Judea and Samaria?  Assume Bibi knows this.  Then his talk about reciprocity is "politically correct" flapdoodle, which Arabs must surely laugh to scorn.

His talk about "reciprocity" has nothing to do with realism. If Bibi were a realist, he would know that a non-compromising approach to dealing with non-compromising Muslims is the only genuine realism.  Secure in his prestige as an orator, however, Bibi talks foreign policy; he does not make foreign—certainly not a Jewish foreign policy.

So he plays a game of "political correctness."  You can hardly expect him to say in public that Israel is confronted by a foe with which genuine peace is impossible?  He could confirm this "politically incorrect" position by recalling the Camp David Summit of July 2000, when Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Yasser Arafat s a series of concessions including Israeli withdrawal from the entire Gaza Strip and 95 percent of the West Bank; the subsequent creation of an independent Palestinian state in the aforementioned areas; the dismantlement of all Israeli settlements in those areas given to the Palestinians; land compensation outside of the West Bank for settlements to remain under Israeli sovereignty; and Palestinian rule over East Jerusalem and most of the Old City (excluding the Jewish Quarter) and "religious sovereignty" on the Temple Mount. In exchange, the agreement called for Arafat to declare an end to the conflict and a prohibition of future claims on Israeli land. Arafat rejected the proposal and made no counter-offer.

There's a little secret here.

No leader of the Palestinian Arabs is going to sign a peace treaty with Israel—will recognize Israel as a Jewish state—because he knows he will be assassinated soon thereafter as was Anwar Sadat.  Does Bibi know this?  Is this why he endorsed a Palestinian State?  If so, who is Netanyahu deceiving, and how many "politically correct" pundits are keeping his secret?

If this assessment is correct, does Bibi have any constructive plans for Israel's future, plans that will preserve Israel as a Jewish polity?  I intend to address this issue on my Monday morning (November 15) report on Israel National Radio.