Column: A Peek at Israel's Radical Left

When you look closely at what has been going on in Israel one question seems fairly obvious. Is the "leadership" of the Jewish State hell-bent on committing suicide?

Joseph Farah, writing for WorldNetDailey.com in an article titled "Israel's Auschwitz Borders" asked the question in a slightly different way:

"Do you know what the new borders of Israel would be under the plans being drawn up now for a "viable, contiguous Palestine"? I call them Auschwitz borders. I don't know why the Jews don't see it."

Farah's article covers some important ground. He says:

"Now, I'm not a Jew. I'm a Christian Arab-American journalist who believes in freedom first, peace second. And I've got to tell you that the demands on Israel right now are demands for the nation to commit political, military and cultural suicide.

They are willingly helping to build a national concentration camp of half the world's Jewry surrounded by hostile maniacs who want to eradicate them. Israel's new borders under a Rice plan will be indefensible. Creating a new Palestinian state with contiguous borders and relying on Israel to come up with all the necessary real estate requires cutting Israel in half from north to south.
It might create a "viable" Palestinian state, but it will destroy the viability of Israel."

Now, it is clear that Farah knows better when he says, "I don't know why the Jews don't see it" but he is missing an important point. It is not that the Jews don't see it. They see it very well, and that is why they voted for Ariel Sharon and not Avraham Mitzna in the last elections -- before Sharon's transformation into another Mitzna, or into Sharon-Beilin, as Ari Shavit put it in an article for Haaretz last week.

Sharon-Sharon is the Sharon that was elected. Sharon-Beilin is the one that has devolved into what we see today -- a Sharon that is lauded by the Left for what they are hoping will be a mad rush back to the Auschwitz borders.

So, what gives?

Does Sharon-Beilin not see the dangers ahead? Are Mitzna and Beilin blind? Is this blindness contagious? What motivates the Israeli Left?

Let's look to the Israeli left to see what they are revealing about themselves -- for this I usually look at Haaretz and lately I have found a useful tool in sifting through their articles to find the most revealing and extreme. I do this by searching for articles from Haaretz that are picked up by Counterpunch.org, the Chomskyite site where only the most extreme of anti-American and ant-Israeli writings are posted.
This past December, in one of the most interesting of these pieces, Ari Shavit interviewed Amos Elon in his home in Italy. Elon is, in Shavit's words, "The man once the preeminent journalist in Israel..." "The man who was the chief chronicler of the Israeli story..."

In one of the most telling parts of the long interview -- all of which can be found at Counterpunch.org but no longer at Haaretz, according to my Google search -- Shavit asked Elon what he thought about Sharon's disengagement plan:

Shavit: What you're saying is that it's an illusion to think that the disengagement will solve the problem.

Elon: Of course it's an illusion. Gaza will explode. I think there will be a terrible explosion there. That's why I still say today that the victory in the Six-Day War was worse than a defeat.

Shavit's next question might have pursued the madness of Elon's preferrence that Israel would have been destroyed in 1967, and many thousands of Jews killed, to the victory that "led" to the "occupation." Could Elon have really meant that? You would think that Shavit might ask but he didn't. This is how he followed up:

Shavit: You were the preeminent Israeli journalist. Respected, admired, well-connected. In 1986, you left it all behind. When you look back, do you feel any regret? Does it pain you that young Israelis don't even know your name?

Not much of a follow up, don't you agree? Shavit essentially went back to square one and mixed flattery with a question about Elon's feelings and regrets. You would think that any Israeli would be offended and shocked by his comment about the Six-Day War and that questions about going forward with disengagement would be forthcoming but instead Shavit changed the subject.

Maybe I haven't answered the questions as to what motivates the Left and Sharon-Beilin in their rush back to the Auschwitz borders but I think I have shed some light on how strange and shocking those answers might be. If you are interested, you might want to read the whole interview on Counterpunch, keep an eye out for future postings and take a look back at those already there.