Why do they do it?

Submitted by John B (Spain), Jan 28, 2009 at 11:49

In this article you pose a question asked by a reader and then your answer:
"The enemy of Israel is its traitorous leadership that is intentionally working to destroy the Jewish state and bring upon world Jewry another Holocaust. To refuse to make this clear and to continue to suggest incompetence is the problem, is to enable the leadership and, thus, become a traitor oneself."

And your reply: If one is a traitor to Israel by not seeing its leadership as "intentionally working to destroy the Jewish state, and bring upon world Jewry another Holocaust," then color me guilty. I see the leadership as incompetent but not malign, much less suicidal.

While the accusatory tone of your questioner is not helpful, especially as it gives reason to your response, I think there is an aspect to your reader's question that needs consideration. And this is: How did such able and competent people come to be so incompetent? To climb the slippery pole of political power takes strength, determination, intelligence, perceptiveness and persuasive ability. From whence comes the incompetent and pathetic wail: "We are tired of fighting" ? Or the unnecessary moves that are so damagingly to Israel's disadvantage.

As you point out further along the situation now is not being foisted on Israel by the US. You say: Yes, from 1973 to 1993, that was indeed the pattern. Since the Oslo accords, however, the Israel leadership has not just been a willing accomplice of its U.S. counterpart but has often taken the lead - e.g., Oslo itself in 1993, the withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, the Camp David II meetings in 2000, the Taba negotiations of 2001, and the Gaza withdrawal of 2005.

It seems there is definitely more here than meets the eye. What it is, one can only speculate. But one does need to look at all the facts.
I have an advantage and that is that I lived through the post 1950s political transition of sub-saharan Africa. I realise that Israel is a completely different scenario, however the pattern to the events that are happening, what I might call the "techniques of transition" that are occurring, seem to me to be ones that I have seen before.

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