If as all are assuming and Benyamin Netanyahu is chosen by President Rivlin to attempt to form a ruling coalition, the choices which Netanyahu makes, and the sacrifices he decides are either favoring his intentions or necessary for assuming power, will be scrutinized by the Religious Zionists who have already made a huge sacrifice taking away votes, mandates and eventually influence from their normative parties such as Jewish Home (: הַבַּיִת הַיְהוּדִי), Yachad (יַחַד) and any other nationalist, Zionist, religious or politically conservative party and entrusted Netanyahu and the additional Knesset Ministers to carry out their desired goals. There have been signs that Netanyahu recognizes these sacrifices but it will remain for all to witness for how long he keeps these trusts in mind and for how long, if at all, the additional Ministers remain faithful to the traditional and core principles found within the Likud foundational documents and beliefs. Some of the important trusts which Netanyahu could perform immediately after the Knesset votes affirming his coalition range from the easy, shattering the silent building freeze and allow extensive enlargement of the communities in Judea and Samaria including allowance for the seeding of new communities and industrial and other economic centers across the width and breadth of Area C and, further down the road, adding new ventures in Area B.
Netanyahu can alter the conversation of forming an independent Arab state by stating that Israel is willing to allow a semi-autonomous Arab entity which rules its denoted area independent of Israel as far as governing themselves much as they currently live but remaining as an autonomous entity within Israel and reliant on the IDF for any defensive requirements and restricted from acting on the international level such as making treaties with other nations or acting in ways detrimental to the needs, requirements, political policies or relations beyond those already existent within Israeli foreign policies and relations. As Prime Minister of Israel he should bring the Levy Report to the forefront of Israeli actions towards the lands of Judea and Samaria and stress the commitments that Israel expects the world to recognize as explained and set out in the report’s conclusion.
As Prime Minister, Netanyahu must also begin and reinforce stressing constantly Article 80 of the United Nations Charter and bring to the fore the San Remo Conference documents and surround these two legally binding principles recognized and presumably enforceable under International Law making an airtight irrevocable claim of ownership over all of Judea and Samaria as well as the rest of the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. These ideas and their implications should end any further claims that International Law forbids Israel from annexing all of Judea and Samaria as long as the Arabs residing within the annexed areas retain full religious rights, full human rights, full legal rights, and virtually any form of rights imaginable with one very important exception, they may be denied political rights. This is the situation which must be stressed due to its importance and revealing the full rights pertaining to the Israeli rights to all the lands making them not only no longer contested but that their occupation by the Arabs is illegal and that any autonomy granted to the Arabs by Israel cannot and will not be construed as allowing for an independent Arab State or any other state as the lands were preserved for the Jewish State under International Law without even a sliver of doubt or contention by any other entity.
During the forming of the Twentieth Knesset, Prime Minister Netanyahu must make every effort not to include Yesh Atid and thus place Yair Lapid in the opposition thus any disturbance which emanates from him will not be a direct threat to the coalition or cause the governing coalition to be dissolved. The formation of a ruling coalition which is stable and supportive of the principles which Netanyahu was elected to pursue, protect and empower should be the foremost thought and a requirement of which each party must agree to value just as stridently and with vigor equal to that used backing their primary issues without exception. Here is the list of the Parties according to ideology and probability to be included in the coalition to those expected to be relegated to the opposition: Likud – 29, Jewish Home – 8, Yisrael Beiteinu – 6, Shas – 7, United Torah Judaism – 7, Kulanu – 10, Yesh Atid – 11, Arab List – 14, Meretz – 4, Labor/Hatnua – 24. Likud could ally with their 29 mandates and add Jewish Home, Yisrael Beiteinu, Shas, United Torah Judaism, and Kulanu reaching a total of 67 total seats while avoiding including Yair Lapid and his Yesh Atid. Of course should the Labor/Hatnua take the remaining mandates and swing Kulanu and they also would have over 61 mandates which makes Kulanu, or technically Yair Lapid the deciders of the results of the election and whether or not Likud is able to put together their required mandates and form a government. Hopefully Netanyahu will use the wiles and strong turnout and support for his party to form his coalition. This process will be noted and hopefully will not cause concern but what will really matter are those few items the such as honestly putting the building freeze out of our misery and permit building and allow such building in all areas of commerce, industry and residential allowing for strong and attractive communities. Then there will be the initial pressures to restart the peace process in which Netanyahu will need to bring the argument and propaganda to rest and replace it with the facts, treaties and accords which define which lands belong to whom and under, that ever so mentioned and used to bludgeon Israel, International Law which should stand firmly beside Israel and all her claims to retain all of her lands, period!
After establishing these two initiatives Bibi can then address the social issues with solid economic steps which are reasoned and fully debated moving ahead with measured steps and firm reliance and faith in the practices established by previous similar situations which produced the desired results. In numerous instances what may be required is for the government to get out of the way and relegate some functions to religious institutions that are better suited for some functions such as free kitchens which feed those in need of such assistance. There will also be those functions which government is best suited to solve and should act. This should come naturally to Netanyahu as he proved in a previous government when he was assigned the Economy Minister. Such problems are usually traceable to a few requirements which make achieving a goal which would protect the poor and provide relief with minimal red tape. The same is true of many items burdening the Middle Class. As stated, Netanyahu will be facing the closest scrutiny from more than the usual entities as he received a strong mandate from people outside his party and beyond his base and these people have known grievances and demands and they will watch sitting on nervous expectations that had best be addressed with a sense of urgency. So, as said all too often after elections, we will wait and see with open minds and soaring hearts all kept within reason by good Jewish kidneys. (Oh yes, we had a whole article using the Biblical reference by King David to kidneys and their blessings and importance in so many ways, honest.)
The media relays the results of polls taken every day and often more than once a day if there are two polls available. If no new poll is released they discuss the trending of the polls over the last few days or the polls this week compared to last week or anything in order to stress the same point endlessly, the race is between Labor and Likud and everyone else are insignificant. They claim that the choice is between returning current Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and taking the chance with Yitzhak Herzog-Tzipi Livni splitting the position between them. Netanyahu has the disadvantage in that the majorities of the Israeli media caters to the Tel Aviv liberals and mostly are antagonistic against the Prime Minister and would really love for their hopes to be realized and have Herzog and Livni sharing the time as Prime Minister. There was a report last week which actually went so far as to test if all of the Arab parties were to run a joint campaign along with Meretz and the Communist Parties they would have sufficient numbers to challenge for the spot of having to share the office of Prime Minister on some kind of rotating schedule that only a fiction novelist or a theoretical mathematician could make up a formula. This fantasy was probably run so they would not have to note that the one poll available showed not only Netanyahu wining but with Labor not taking second place, though I have yet to see such a poll.
The fact that no poll has shown much difference at the top with Labor and Likud both hovering between twenty-two and twenty-five mandates and taking turns leading over the other makes the entirety of the polling both irrelevant and questionable as to what exactly is their sampling distribution. There are likely a number of sampling biases which make these polls potentially far off from what the actual distribution of the actual electorate, but that will not bother these reporters of fact and fancy. The problem is that by their daily repeating the same basic numbers and whittling the race down to between two parties the newsmakers and pollsters are reinforcing the idea that nobody outside the two parties which have traded the office of Prime Minister between themselves with barely an iota of difference to show for it they are robbing the Israeli public of seeking someone outside of these two overly tried and not so true choices. Additionally, one must wonder from where they get their samples for these polls. From the numbers I have seen it appears they are sampling heavily in Tel Aviv and its surrounding suburbs and other cities, western Jerusalem, Haifa, a few areas in the Galilee, of which much would include some of the Arab cities, Eilat and Beersheba and that is about it. There is probably little if any polling taken from East Jerusalem and the Israeli populations living beyond the Green Line or the population bordering Gaza in the south. This leaves out a fairly large segment of the population which is less likely than the rest of Israel to vote outside of the traditional leading parties. By ignoring such in their polling, as we suspect, they leave these people with a false impression that if they do not vote to support either Labor or Likud then they are only voting for minor members on what may be the coalition and not deciding on who will win and lead the coalition. Why might this be important?
That is the easy part of this exercise. The one thing which has been proven is that there are a large segment within Israel who is tired of the same political gamesmanship and the trading the lead position between two parties which offer no real difference. Both Labor and Likud have agreed to surrender lands to form an Arab state out of lands which by international law and every treaty since 1920 has denoted as reserved for the Jewish state, end of statement. The only agreement which suggested otherwise was a nonbinding resolution from the United Nations General Assembly which was immediately rejected by the Arab League making it null a void. The entirety of the Arab claims to an Arab state beside Israel on Israeli land derives from that rejected resolution which was negated by the very Arabs who wish to now use it for their advantage as they found that Israel was a little more difficult to erase from the map than they had figured. They rejected that resolution in order to erase Israel from the map at the birth of the nation and invaded with troops representing more than a half dozen nations and with an advantage of hundreds against each Israeli soldier and Israel survived. They tried again in 1967 and failed again losing even more land which Israel returned the majority when making peace with Egypt thus meeting the requirement to return lands and retaining those lands Israel felt she was necessary for her to have defendable borders. When after the Israeli war to retain her founding in 1948-9 Egypt gained control of Gaza and Jordan gained control of Judea and Samaria which Jordan renamed the West Bank when they annexed those lands. Other than Britain and Pakistan every nation and the United Nations referred to the Jordanian control of these lands as an occupation rejecting the annexation. Here is the sixty-four-thousand dollar question; to who did the lands of Judea and Samaria belong that Jordan was thus occupying? If you guessed Israel as the proper owner of those lands occupied by Jordan go to the head of the class. The same was true of Gaza which Egypt occupied. This was amongst the reasons that Egypt and Jordan did not retain these lands when making their peace with Israel; they knew full well that those lands belonged rightfully to Israel.
The next question would be when was the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), the forerunner of the Palestinian Authority, first organized and come into existence and what was the stated aim of the PLO? The answer is that Yasser Arafat with his second in command Mahmoud Abbas declared the existence of the PLO in 1964 with the stated aim to eradicate Israel and return the occupied lands to their rightful owners, the Jordanians. You see in 1964 the only lands Israel occupied were its boundaries as set in the Armistice of 1949 which is also known as the Green Line and often referred to as the 1967 lines or boundaries. The lands of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) were still under Jordanian occupation and Gaza was still occupied by Egypt in 1964 thus if the Palestinians Arabs having their own state in those areas as is so demanded today, it could have been established between Jordan and Egypt without even bothering to ask or demand anything from Israel. The Palestinian Arab desire is not for their own state but to erase the Jewish state, to destroy Israel and return all of the lands to Islamic rule. Thus the chanted phrase heard so often around the world at demonstrations and such of, “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free,” That is the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea which pretty much defines the eradication of Israel the last time I checked a map and not two nations living side by side in peace and security. Maybe with this in mind we should return to the Israeli upcoming elections.
The three frontrunners for the Prime Minister’s leadership of Israel are defined as between Benyamin Netanyahu and the tag team pair of Yitzhak Herzog and Tzipi Livni. Let’s take them in reverse order. Tzipi Livni is a well-known entity. She was a solid Likud member and right-wing Zionist through and through before delusions of grandeur struck her with a touch of insanity. When Ariel Sharon was not able to get the rank and file of Likud to support his unilateral disengagement from Gaza which meant removing close to ten-thousand Israelis from their homes, businesses and communities as well as removal of all IDF troops and security gathering from Gaza he formed a new party named Kadima which Tzipi Livni joined with promises of future high positions dancing in her head. The turning all of Gaza over to the Arab Authority under Mahmoud Abbas, that is Abbas the Holocaust denier who also was fundamental in supervising the funding and approving the plans for which he provided funding of the Munich Olympics murdering of the Jewish teams and their coaches in the Olympic village as well as the funding and particulars in the assassination of an American Ambassador in the Sudan in 1973, would prove to be fateful beyond anything imagined at the time. That means it led directly to the takeover of Gaza by Hamas and the thousands upon thousands of rockets rained down on innocent Israeli civilians ever since which have resulted in three wars in response. Ariel Sharon was struck down by a stroke and subsequently passed on after spending the remaining years of his life without ever regaining consciousness. This placed Tzipi Livni as the favored person to take the next elections for Prime Minister and after the votes were counted it appeared that was to be so as Kadima won twenty-eight mandates and Likud won a mere twenty-seven. Tzipi Livni was on the cusp of winning the Prime Minister’s chair and all that remain was the Israeli President choosing her to form the coalition. The selection fell to Israeli President Peres who had left the Labor Party to also join Kadima before being elected to be President so of course he would choose Tzipi Livni to form the next coalition as Kadima had the most mandates and had won the election. Inexplicably it was not to be so as President Peres decided to give the nod to the second place Likud party placing Netanyahu as Prime Minister. Ever since that day Tzipi Livni has been possessed with becoming the Israeli Prime Minister to make up for having it stolen from her by Netanyahu who she holds responsible for cheating her out of what should have rightfully been her chance to grab the golden ring and lead as she was born to lead. This acting as if fated and her delusions which had her making offers to Abbas which were not approved by the Prime Minister when she was trusted to negotiate with the Arab Authority to try and reach an agreement was simply further evidence that Livni was losing her grip on reality. She now believes that this election was called to prevent her from completing the negotiations and once again she was cheated by Netanyahu, this time from a Nobel Peace Prize. I obviously fear her ever sitting as Prime Minister.
Labor Party Leader Yitzhak Herzog has made his feelings quite clear in that he believes that Prime Minister Netanyahu is solely responsible for the soured relations between the White House and the Israeli government. He discounts the good relations which Netanyahu has forged with the Congress and the people of the United States and has set as his campaign theme his promise to repair the damage and reconcile with United States President Obama. He has made it clear that flexibility is what is required and that regress is what must precede progress with the White House. Considering the animosity President Obama has shown for Israel and her safety and interests, making nice and bending to his will can only result in a disaster for Israel. The one saving grace is that even if Herzog were to bend and agree to everything President Obama demands and thus present to Abbas the 1967 lines and east Jerusalem and the withdrawal of every Jew back inside the Green Line, which would be a disaster waiting to happen for Israel, the dangers such a deal would place Israel in would be irrelevant as even such a deal would be refused by Abbas as he would demand the right of return for five-million plus Arab refugees. Even should President Obama also make that one of his demands and Herzog agree, I would continue to expect Abbas to live up to the expectations of Abba Eban who once said, “The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” The problem is that once any Israeli Prime Minister agrees to any negotiations point, even if it is refused by the Arabs, the next negotiations will be demanded to begin from that point with everything once previously agreed with included as the starting point and then a list of a number of further demands to be debated. Eventually those debate points become preconditions which Israel is obliged to meet, as if they were as claimed, Israeli obligations. The fact that Herzog is promising to make amends to President Obama and claims that the problem with Prime Minister Netanyahu is that he has been unwilling to make a sufficiently generous and proper offer which would be acceptable to Mahmoud Abbas and that he would be willing to go that extra mile to make peace as getting a peace agreement with Abbas’s signature is necessary because such an agreement will end the terrorist attacks and flowers will bloom and kittens will rain down on little parachutes from the skies. (There are some who believe this situation must have occurred in Nahariya thus providing the town with wall to wall cats everywhere.) Still, a Prime Minister Herzog would weaken any future Israeli attempt to negotiate if that is what is truly desired by the Israeli people, which could be what this election could and should be about, maybe the next one if not this.
This leaves Netanyahu who has been Prime Minister since 2009 without making any progress but at least only losing ground in the field of world opinion, something which would be unavoidable no matter who was Prime Minister. The problem with Benyamin Netanyahu is that he lost some pivotal points to President Obama and completely missed some opportunities to regain the upper hand. When President Obama forced him to make an apology on the spot on Air Force One, Prime Minister Netanyahu might have been better served to have refused to take the phone or to have offered a half apology such as he regrets that Prime Minister Erdogan (he was the Turkish Prime Minister at that time) has chosen to make such a monumental problem which has caused this rift between former friends and allies and that we regret that it proved necessary to resort to force in response to the ambush onboard the Mavi Marmara and Israel hopes that relations are able to be repaired and as Prime Minister of Israel Netanyahu is willing to meet and discuss any difficulties. There was another pivotal point when Prime Minister Netanyahu was visiting the White House and President Obama reaching the height of hubris, turned to leave the meeting in the middle of discussions and instructed Prime Minister Netanyahu and his advisors to talk amongst themselves and let one of the staffers know when they were ready to meet President Obama’s demands but right then he was going to head to the family quarters in the White House to have dinner with his family and he would return should the Israelis reach some acceptable position. That should have been greeted with an agreement that perhaps both sides were too hungry for cordial discussion and perhaps a fresh start the next day is in order and that they will await the President’s call should he care to continue the discussion, meanwhile Netanyahu and advisors are also going to have dinner at Maison Blanc (one of if not the highest rated restaurant in the nation’s capital). Prime Minister Netanyahu started out in his relations with President Obama with two strikes against him and double vision blurring his being able to judge the coming pitches which were guaranteed to be sharp curve balls. President Obama had set his position on Israel on his initial Inauguration Day when he made his very first call from the Oval Office in the White House that afternoon calling not a head of state or even an ally but he made that first phone call to talk and joke with his friend Mahmoud Abbas. To make matters worse, once Abbas wore thin and was no longer best friend forever, President Obama has let slip who is his best friend currently and that person is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Still, the greatest mistake Netanyahu made was to agree that the two state solution was the only acceptable resolution to the Arab demands for their own state within Israeli lands. Once he made that promise he lost all bargaining power with the American President as all he cared was to hear that agreement to extrapolate to a total Israeli surrender sometime in the future and still within the time frame of his time in office. This is still President Obama’s dream, to force an Arab state next to or even instead of Israel whichever proves necessary and doable.
That brings us to what can Israelis do to avoid the traps which have been set all along the path to reconciliation with the Arabs and Mahmoud Abbas as their leader. The choice needs to take the past and the leading events which have brought Israel to this juncture. One of the largest teachable moments was given when Israel pulled the unilateral disengagement of Gaza and the subsequent takeover by Hamas and the ensuing wars between Hamas and Israel. When Israel pulled completely out of Gaza they were supposed to be granted some warming and greater acceptance that Israel was making an effort to meet and win the hearts and minds of the Arabs. The result was not love or even mild support but instead when Hamas took over and began raining rockets and mortars down on Israeli civilians all along the Gaza border and beyond the world sat silent as if nothing was out of balance or demanding denunciations. Finally, when the numbers of rockets became too large and too frequent Israel reacted militarily and one would think that Israel going into Gaza to protect her civilians would have met with support from at least the Europeans or the American President, but nothing of the sort was coming. Instead of understanding or standing with Israel as she defended against the rain of rockets into civilian areas there not only was no support or understanding from the Europeans or the American President but instead there came condemnations from Europe and a call for both sides to show restraint from the United States. The same was the situation the next two times Israel was forced to defend herself with this last summer the United States President taking the additional step of refusing to allow resupply of necessary weaponry including the essential guided munitions which permit for precise targeting thus reducing collateral damage. So we have established the world will hate Israel even when Israel surrenders land in the hopes of peace only to get naked aggressions in exchange for granting land to the Arabs. So much for ever receiving the approval from Europe and not from the current President in the United States, so what next? If the desire is for more of the same then Netanyahu is your man as this is exactly his plan whether he admits so or not and if you want this on steroids potentially surrendering the entirety of Judea and Samaria along with East Jerusalem, then the Livni-Herzog shared Prime Minister are your choice. Choosing thusly will not only place Israel’s future in doubt but will have surrendered many Jewish holy sites which will probably be destroyed just as they were destroyed by the Jordanians. What Israel requires is a new face with a new plan to replace the same old tune where it is Labor then Likud then Labor then Likud back and forth making few if any changes but both making small concessions, the same territorial concessions which have changed the vernacular from Israel retaining almost all of Judea and Samaria along with East Jerusalem to Israel returning to what Abba Eban referred to as the “Auschwitz Borders.”
Israel is at a point where she needs, nay, requires a change from the same-old same-old and a drastic turn from the past exercises of giving concessions for the privilege of being spat upon and saying thank you and here is another concessions and some lands you can demand from us for perpetuity into the future. Israel needs a leader who can explain to the people in plain language a future with hope and promise instead of hardships and potentially a deadly decay through pressured negotiations and all which comprises as their conclusion. Likud had an opportunity to offer such change but their list proved that they were not about to select new leader and offer up Danny Danon but overwhelmingly they chose not to change horses in midstream. That leaves looking to the other parties for a choice. The candidate most likely to be in a position to be capable of receiving sufficient votes to receive the nod from President Reuven Rivlin to form a ruling coalition making their party chairman and the holder of the first slot on their ballot becomes Prime Minister. The closest party which is within ten points of the current polling leaders is the Jewish Home Party which is running along with Tacoma Party and together they are approaching twenty votes and real contention. The leader who would become Prime Minister would be Naftali Bennett. His campaign slogan is for Israel to stop apologizing. He makes his point in this video below.
Naftali Bennett has realized and stresses those Israeli efforts to play nice and bend and twist to meet every expectation in order to please European governments, the European Union, United Nations, United States, Arab nations, and to prove the BDS and other detractors that Israel is really not such a bad place and that the people are humane and caring. Despite these efforts, the world continues to hate Israel and make more and more demands seemingly with the end result being little or no Israel left. Bennett is suggesting that as long as we are going to be treated in this manner, Israel may as well give the Europeans primarily something they can really sink their teeth into and complain about and return some of what was initially intended to make up Israel. His point makes some sense that as long as everybody will demand concessions from Israel, even as just an enticement to bring Abbas and the Arabs to the negotiating table, is ridiculous and; if anybody will be required to offer something of material worth for Israel, it is the Arabs who should be required to concede something of value before Israel would be required to return to the negotiations table. Every week Abbas decides that he is better off demanding greater offerings before he comes to the table, Israel should annex another few acres of lands. There needs to be a price that the Arabs pay for their intransigence and the best price is land. Bennett’s line for Israelis to stop kowtowing before every nation hopefully will be taken to heart across the width and breadth of the land. Perhaps offering less land and reclaiming much every time Abbas and the Arab spokespeople decide not to negotiate Israel should annex another piece of land or a city. The areas Israel target initially should be the areas where there exist large numbers of Jews already residing followed by the cities of importance from out of the Bible. That means annexing all of Jerusalem then Hevron followed by Shechem (currently known as Nablus), Jericho and so on. The world will go into potentially new areas of indignance with a slight possibility of a few going into catatonic shock completely incapable of speech. Much of the world may initially refuse to recognize the areas annexed by Israel as legitimate but over time they would adjust. Any areas annexed which has a large number of Arabs not citizens of Israel, these people should be offered a choice of continuing to reside in Israel as legal resident foreigners or to relocate at which point they would be given remittance for their property plus a generous relocations allotment and airfare or other transportation costs taking them to whatever country they wish to reside. Areas which Israel would not wish to extend her direct rule would be granted semi-autonomy where they would elect their own leaders and be left to run their own lives but would be under Israeli security and the lands would be considered part of Israel. Perhaps in some future period complete independence may be considered but such would not be guaranteed. Whether or not Abbas and the other kleptocrats would be permitted to remain would be determined at such time as would necessitate such a decision. Needless to say that such actions would negate the Oslo Accords relegating them to the dustbin of history as they already have been shattered by the recent unilateral declarations and moves committed by the Arab Authority which negated their solemn commitments under the Oslo Accords.
The initial lesson almost everybody will claim is that nothing notable resulted from the Likud primary elections. Binyamin Netanyahu easily won the top spot and Danny Danon retained a seat in the Knesset. Yuli Edelstein, followed by Gilad Arden – then Israel Katz, Miri Regev, Silvan Shalom, Moshe Ya’alon, Ze’ev Elkin and Tzachi Hanegbi rounded out the top positions. The presumably big story is that none of the Likud leadership mentioned ceding land for making a Palestinian state, nor making conciliatory moves to placate the Demands of the European Union, nor surrendering lands demanded by the United Nations nor folding before pressures from United States President Obama nor buckling to demands made by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) threats nor bending under to the compulsion emanating from any of the European governments nor mollifying to any pressures to relent claim to any land claims by any Arab or Muslim entity. This would have been laudable and reassuring except for the lack of claiming anything concerning the surrender of lands beyond the Green Line. Probably the one comment heard in the reporting was an assurance that the Western Wall would remain under Israeli control made by Tzipi Livni and Yitzhak Herzog which would have made the perfect invitation to address that the Likud would not only retain control over the Kotel but would keep all of Jerusalem, the settlements, the Jordan Valley, the Judean Hills and all of ancient Israel, but no such retort was presented. The question of what they are in favor of committing themselves to about the ancient homelands of the Jewish State, of the lands of Judea and Samaria is a question of paramount importance and the answer must not contain any ambiguities or vagueness and must be replied to without even the slightest hesitation of falter so as to be given spontaneously proving it is their default and singular position. Such must be the position and response to the state of mind of any candidate on any list before a true Zionist can feel comfort in granting any party their vote.
There was some disconcerting news pertaining to the subterfuge around efforts to keep Moshe Feiglin from attaining a safe position or even any position on the Likud list and with that news one might also question if these efforts also had an effect on Tzipi Hotovely just missing making the list of favorably situated spots when she missed being in the twentieth spot and that pushed her back to the twenty-sixth spot behind some seats reserved for party regional leadership and people chosen by the Prime Minister personally. Another step towards proving that Likud stands firmly in the nationalist camp and also the Zionist camp would be Benyamin Netanyahu placing Tzipi Hotovely in one of his discretionary spots assuring her a better chance at continuing to serve and have an additional Zionist voice in the Knesset. The next step which the Zionist camp must take careful notes to will be the filing by the parties of their official lists. If any Zionist belongs to a party which places within its list any appreciable numbers of candidates who have ever stated their approval to surrendering Judea and Samaria and permitting a new Arab state which will most assuredly become another Hamastan either through elections or by force of arms, just as did Gaza, then one should seriously consider giving their vote to another party. There should be little if any room for Ministers to the Knesset who would allow another debacle such as the events which formed Kadima and led to the unilateral disengagement from Gaza producing a similar result with Judea and Samaria. This was one fear that occupied my mind and led to great consternation when after the last elections when Prime Minister Netanyahu immediately chose to bring into his potential coalition Tzipi Livni’s Hatnuah Party (הַתְּנוּעָה) which had not only surrender lands for peace members on her party list but also was headed with the ultimate land for peace person outside Labor, Meretz and the Arab Parties. When Tzipi Livni was then given the position to be the lead Israeli for negotiating and dealing with the Palestinians and all that would eventually entail, which came way too close to my worst fears, I said prayers that like Pharaoh, Abbas and companies’ hearts would harden and refuse every offer. That is apparently exactly what came to be as Abbas once again proved the wisdom of Abba Eban who stated referring to the forming of another Arab nation west of the Jordan River that, “The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”
It is always nerve racking when offers are made where almost the entirety of Judea and Samaria and especially if Eastern Jerusalem is included which initially guarantees that Jews will lose all access to the Temple Mount and the Kotel and additionally the Synagogues which were so painstakingly refurbished and restored will once again be torn asunder and be once again defiled. There is still one last thing which granting the Arabs and Abbas their state and Hamas taking control within one year or two is that within six months of Hamas rising to power Israel will once again be facing a war of extinction against who knows how many armies. The war that would follow Hamas taking over Judea, Samaria and Eastern Jerusalem would be frightful and potentially the most dangerous situation since the War of Independence as it is surreal yet potentially possible, if not probable should such a war come four or five years down the road, that the Arabs would have a number of European nations aiding their efforts and arming them with top of the line NATO equipment. It might even become a worst case scenario should Turkey also become a party to the conflict and demand that the rest of NATO come to the aid against the nation warring with Turkey, a fellow NATO member who is permitted such a request. Where it is unlikely, though not completely out of the realm of possibilities, that the United States would aid Turkey against Israel, but it is nowhere near as certain when one considers that the numerous European NATO members might comply with the request resulting in a much broader war and increases the potential for Israel to be defeated without, as assisted Israel in all her previous conflicts, the good L0rd assists once again.
The one thing that Israel needs to make sure does not happen is for the leftists make up the lead in any coalition, especially if the Prime Minister position will be occupied by Tzipi Livni as she most assuredly would surrender the store simply to assure herself a legacy. Tzipi Livni is driven to become the Prime Minister who achieved peace with the Arabs and received a Nobel Peace Prize for her heroic and valued leadership. The question with her deciding what is acceptable could potentially lead to her insisting that Israel retain Tel Aviv but hopefully she not surrender both the Negev Desert and the Galilee central plains and hills and certainly not surrender Netanya and Nahariya. Of course she might not get the opportunity as Yitzhak Herzog would be allowed first shot at surrendering almost all of Israel. Yitzhak Herzog recently vowed to shut down the World Zionist Organization’s Settlement Division, which functions as an operational arm of the government to build and establish communities and infrastructures in Judea and Samaria. Herzog stated on ‘Meet the Press’ Saturday night, “As Prime Minister I will close the Settlement Division and open it later to serve the Negev and the Galilee. We see again and again the same group takes over the interests of the state and Netanyahu gave in to it.” This is a blanket inference that the lands beyond the Green Line are of little concern and that Yitzhak Herzog is willing to surrender all of Judea and Samaria forcing almost one-million Jews from their homes, something which the Israeli voters must take the efforts to avoid giving this man any power. Not only is that necessary but the Israeli voters must make certain that whichever party gets to form the next government is a party headed by a devout and solid Zionist who knows that not only without Jerusalem does Israel fail, but also without Hevron, Shechem, Jericho, and possibly also Bethlehem. These are the minimalist demands and retaining all the lands promised by treaties are reserved solely for a Jewish State where the peoples living within have individual rights, commercial rights, property rights and religious rights but political rights are reserved for the Jews when voting and ruling the nation come into question. This was decided immediately after World War I and was ratified by the European nations, Japan and the United States and ratified by the United Nations. Without going into detail, here is the thumbnail sketch one more time, The San Remo Conference implemented the Balfour Declaration word for word as their conclusion; following that decision the British had the mandate and proposed splitting the mandate with three-quarters approximately was to be utilized for an Arab state and would be defined as the lands west of the Jordan River while the lands east of the Jordan River, that less than one-quarter of the Mandate lands, would be reserved into perpetuity for the Jewish State where all people living within were to keep their properties, businesses, religious rights, civil rights and all rights with the exception of political rights which could be granted them if and only if the Jewish government deemed them to have such powers. All of these treaties were adopted subsequently by the United Nations under Article 80. Get it, got it, good!
Beyond the Cusp 