Yariv Oppenheimer and the Politics of the Radical Left

 

Why are we writing about the radical left while ignoring the alt-Right? That is easy, because all you need do to find out everything which is defined as evil on the right is watch the mainstream media. We are going to talk about a specific radical leftist who is seeking to become a Minister of the Knesset in the upcoming elections. How so we know this person is a radical leftist. Well, perhaps the first hint is his name and history. His name is Yariv Oppenheimer and his claim to fame was his being the former director of the Peace Now movement. He has spent much of his active life demanding that Israel pull back to the Green Line, divide Jerusalem and give the Palestinian Authority everything they demand and then there will be peace. Of course, he does not bother to explain why there was terrorism against Israelis before the Six Day War when Israel was within the Green Line. He does not explain why there were violent attacks on Jews in Hevron and Jerusalem in the 1920’s and 1930’s while the British ruled and there was no Israel. He has no reason for why the earliest Zionists had to have women with rifles sit atop their vehicles and guard the men while they were digging the irrigation channels and waterworks in the late 1800’s when the initial development of the future Jewish state was undertaken. He also ignores the calls in the Quran and by Mullahs around the world who call on Muslims to murder Jews throughout history right up to the modern times both in the Western world as well as the Islamic world. But allow us to now move on to some recent quotes where he frames his political views and those who he describes as being on the right or far right, well, at least not on the left.

 

Yariv Oppenheimer stated, while calling on his supporters to back his bid for a place on the Meretz Party list in their primaries, “In the next Knesset there must be a strong representative for the Peace camp.” But wait, he has more to say including, “Imagine the next Knesset for a moment, Yesh Atid – not left, Gantz/Yaalon – not left, Gabbay – not left, Kahlon – not left, Orly Levy – not left.” Gabbay, the leader of the Zionist Union from the Labor Party is not left, from what perspective? Yesh Atid and Ganz/Yaalon and even Kahlon would be considered left of center if not leftists by most pundits, but not Yariv Oppenheimer. But he had more to ask, demand, state, whatever, saying, “They will not fight against the occupation, they will not fight settlers’ representatives, they will not defend human rights organization, they will not stand up against the Smotrichim (referring to Jewish Home MK Bezalel Smotrich) and Hotovelys (Likud Dep. Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely). The Knesset is the most important arena in Israeli politics and I will not be abandoned. That is why I want to be there, to make a sharp and clear voice, to fight and win. To deal with the Right on the committees, in the plenum, in the media. To help the Left regain the trust and heart of the public.” These quotes can be found reported on Arutz Sheva.

 

From the view of Yariv Oppenheimer, the Meretz Party would be considered the neutral center and perhaps the communists might be left of center if not fellow travelers in his idea of middle of the road politics. Yariv Oppenheimer would probably find many of the European political leaders to be far on the right, as they have not broken off relations with Israel over its actions in the occupation. His entire measuring rod is based on the occupation where anybody who is not insisting that Israel surrender all the regions liberated in the Six Day War to form a new Arab state called Palestine. One can only ask him what Israel should do when the terrorism increases after such a surrender and the demand is for all of Israel just as it was before the Six Day War in the initial charter of the PLO written in 1964 with assistance from the KGB. He might actually advise that the Jews move returning to the countries from whence they came. One can only wonder where the Jews who were expelled by the Arab and Islamic worlds across MENA (Middle East and North Africa) will go. What should the Jews whose families have lived in Israel for two or three generations and others whose families trace their ancestry here in the Promised Land since the times of King David, where do these Jews go? Yariv Oppenheimer is one of those leftists with whom one cannot have a rational discussion because he had his own facts and no amount of evidence or truths can alter his rosy view of how the world could be if just everyone would listen to him and his friends on the extreme left. He knows that he and his fellow travelers are the only people who have the correct answers to all the world’s ills and who can heal every problem if they would just be given a chance.

 

Yariv Oppenheimer, formerly of Peace Now, Seeking Place on Meretz List

 

Where is our proof? Israel has had experience with such dreamers before, back in 1993 and the years of work behind the scenes in secret which brought forth the Oslo Accords. The Oslo Accords were designed secretively in Norway with assistance from the United States State Department using half a dozen Israelis; Ron Pundak and Yair Hirschfeld who began the negotiations before official Israeli involvement, then joined by Yossi Beilin who also was not part of the Israeli government, and finally including Shimon Peres (Foreign Minister), Uri Savir (former Director General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and head of the Israeli negotiating team) and Yitzhak Rabin (Prime Minister). The team which devised the Oslo Accords were a group of left and far left individuals and politicians with some from academia and all avid peace activists who firmly believed that the fourteen-hundred years of anti-Semitic violence which crested and lulled only to swell into activity over and over since the formation of Islam and the slaughter of the Jews of Medina to the modern day simply by signing a peace of paper and returning to the original lines from which the Six Day War was initiated by Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other Arab forces. These were the predecessors to the likes of Yariv Oppenheimer and his ilk, so it is not like his ideas are anywhere near new, but the left never fails, they just conveniently forget and when reminded they simply explain that that was then and their perfect answer to the problems may appear to be exactly the same but it is not because this is now. This answer always makes my head hurt because I know when I hear such poppycock that I am talking with one from the lunatic-left.

 

So, you ask why I claim that the Oslo Accords are a failure when they have never been fully implemented. Well, have you ever looked into what has been the impediment to such enactment? Well, even if you have, allow us to elaborate. When the Oslo Accords were introduced and accepted by the Israeli government at the time, the very same people who were the designers were also the government which was to implement these Accords and realize a real and lasting peace. What went wrong? Yasser Arafat is what went wrong as he refused to accept the peace plan he had just had a hand in forming claiming that it was not what he desired and that the only thing he was willing to accept was all of Israel with the Jews ruled by their superiors, the Arabs, more accurately, him. President Clinton then initiated the Camp David Summit where these talks came to a climax during a meeting in Paris. President Clinton received from Yasser Arafat what were the minimum demands he required to make peace. Then President Clinton met with the new Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak who, despite being provided with what Yasser Arafat had figured the American President would believe was acceptable and doable but that the Israelis would never agree, Ehud Barak balked, argued and in the end was cajoled into accepting the demands of Yasser Arafat. President Clinton went to bed leaving aids to process the agreement and inform both sides that Arafat’s demands were to be met by Barak. The next morning, President Clinton, Secretary of State Madeline Albright and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak along with subordinates were waiting for Yasser Arafat to join them for the signing in the main rotunda of the hotel lobby with the media prepared to witness this historic event. Yasser Arafat entered the lobby and walked past everyone down a hallway with Madeline Albright hustling to try and catch him and out the door into his car to the airport and back to Jordan. A last ditch effort was made as the Clinton Presidency was coming to a close called the Taba negotiations. These failed as Yasser Arafat refused to even offer any alternate position simply rejecting every offer made. If the actual initiators of the Oslo Accords were unable to forge a peace, how does Yariv Oppenheimer think making the same offers are going to succeed. We know, that was then and this is now and we will do it better.

 

There was another attempt at making peace when another leftist captured the office of Prime Minister with a Labor formed coalition in 2008 under Ehud Olmert. Mahmoud Abbas has admitted he rejected the offered peace plan. Again, this had followed pressure to force something out of Israel in 2005 which resulted in the Ariel Sharon Gaza Disengagement which was to allow for the Palestinian Authority to prove they could build operating governance with an economy and all the services and other specifics which go with such. This was the brainchild of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and fully backed by President George W. Bush. The Palestinian Authority failed miserably and then they lost Gaza to Hamas in a bloody coup in 2007 and the rest has been rockets, firebombs, incendiary balloons and kites and terror tunnels plus three wars and counting. One can only postulate and fear hearing what Yariv Oppenheimer claims he knew would solve the problems with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza. Maybe he could solve the problem which has stymied Egypt and Saudi Arabia in uniting Hamas and Islamic Jihad back under Palestinian Authority rule, then maybe somebody might listen to what he has to offer.

 

What is frightening is that there are similarities between how the left won elections leading to the 1993 Oslo Accords and the 2008 offer by Ehud Olmert and the upcoming elections with one exception. In those past elections, Right Wing governments had collapsed and called elections. The parties on the right splintered into numerous parties behind the many different egoistic personalities with recriminations and accusations each calling the others out for splitting the vote. The Israelis were sickened by the acrimony and went for the left where there was apparent unity and thus a better sounding future plan for the nation. All because the numerous parties on the right spent much of their efforts tearing into the other parties from which they had split and then came the counter accusations all of which painted an ugly picture. It is no wonder that the left won these elections. Maybe the right has learned their lesson, maybe not, time will tell. The idea of a coalition from the left including Yariv Oppenheimer should be frightening enough to force those on the right to find the means of coming together for the love of Israel and to avoid yet another suicidal peace offer where ideas like the Gaza Disengagement are enacted. But the Gaza Disengagement was performed by a Likud leader who formed his own personal party, Kadima, which formed a coalition with numerous leftist Ministers of the Knesset joining others from the right all in a concerted effort to enact the demand from the United States of an Israel pullout from all of Gaza gifting it to the Arabs without receiving anything in return or demanding that they actually do anything except take the gift and turn it into a terrorist haven under Hamas after a coup.

 

This brings us to yet a different fear that even should Likud win a plurality and be chosen to form the next coalition, it is possible that Prime Minister Netanyahu, the leader in the Likud Party, could decide he has had it with the egos and personalities of the right, in particular the new split off parties if that becomes the case, and instead of attempting to form a delicately balanced right wing government, he could form what is laughingly called a National Unity Government which is presumably a left and right coalition. This was what Kadima claimed to have formed which resulted in the Gaza Disengagement. Such governments have a problem in that the driving spring of momentum is driven not by the right wing party which formed the government coalition but by the left wing parties as they press the need for their numbers to prevent a collapse of the coalition. One might accurately call forming such a government as dancing with the devil as the result almost always is that the left gets their way but the right wing agenda is buried. One can bet that if Meretz were included in such a coalition and Yariv Oppenheimer made his way onto their list and into the Knesset, the one thing we can guarantee, he will never remain silent and will press and press until his ideas are implemented simply because he knows so much more than everyone else and his ideas are those which will bring perfection in the relations between the Palestinians and Israelis by applying the exact same things which have never worked previously. Yariv Oppenheimer’s difficulty is that he is unable to perceive the reality that the Palestinians, like the Arabs of the Khartoum Resolution where they agreed to the Three No’s, “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel.” There is an even easier interpretation of the Khartoum Resolution, “No Israel,” which is the reason that nothing which allows the Jews to rule over themselves in any region would be acceptable. Even were the Jews to make a self-supporting domed colony on Mars completely independent of the Earth, the Islamic World would still demand that they be given that colony simply because the Jews must always be under their care and never to rule themselves or anyone else. But do not feel left out, according to the Quran, Islam will rule the world and everybody will submit to Islam and Allah. As has often been stated, what starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews. Meanwhile, there is a person who believes that the furthest left wing party, or at least extremely close to furthest left wing, has claimed that everything right of him including Labor, Hatnuah, Zionist Union, Yesh Atid, Ganz/Yaalon and even Kahlon, all are either far left, left, left-leaning, left-center or at worst center with a little toe pointing to the right as far right wing anti-peace parties. The first thing which all need know is that there is no party in all of Israel which is anti-peace though there are some anti-surrender. Yariv Oppenheimer is politically so far left he probably cannot see the center and would be an ally of Bernie Sanders in the United States or possibly claim that Bernie was a right wing fanatic, really.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

What the Guilty Verdict of Sgt. Elor Azariya Will Mean

 

Military court handed down guilty verdict finding Sergeant Elor Azariya guilty of manslaughter. The verdict was in at his arrest, with only the formalities left to complete, in this most obvious result in the universe. The media tried this case before the first military hearing or first witness was called. There was never the slightest doubt in the media, neither the Israeli nor the world, as the left slant of the media will always side against the military because they use violence instead of talking things out in a reasoned manner like they would as the real adults who keep us safe. The media has some less than reasoned beliefs; especially when it comes to the military, law enforcement or any other use of violence performed protecting the public. It’s that reasoned thing where adults would resolve such serious and difficult problems such as the five day weather forecast, political elections, budget issues and arresting violent, armed and dangerous felons or preventing terrorist attacks; oh, wait; the media run and hide when such problems arise and only come forth to complain about how law enforcement or the media used any amount of violence in resolving such situations. We are not going to debate the verdict or whether Sgt. Elor Azariya was justified or not and will leave that to the media, they will be salivating over this, and the demonstrators who will present the opposite views. Our apologies to the few media such as Arutz Sheva which will give all sides all the print they need to tangle and dice the verdict and evidence into second-by-second slices and view them from top, bottom, right, left, front, back, outside and inside and any other manner conceivably possible.

 

Our concern will take us on a different tack. This verdict will place the fear of imprisonment above and beyond the already burdensome Rules of Engagement (ROE), a military hierarchy which either fears or aligns themselves with the left, political establishment which also fears the media or is elected by them, and a public which is almost as equally divided. The losers from this verdict, other than Sgt. Elor Azariya, will be the soldier in the field who when facing any questionable situation where there might be any doubt or opening for leftist outrage will have an extra question in his decision protocols, will I face charges and is it worth my life to act or simply take cover and be safe from prosecution. Remember that at the other end of the infantryman’s rifle are very often terrorists who will have absolutely no decision protocols, they simply shoot first, second and continue to shoot until stopped, stopped by that soldier working through the ROE and now the political and legal challenges which are distractions far outside the norm for soldiers in what is in all honesty a combat zone. These soldiers are actually volunteers in a manner of speaking as if any Israeli teen upon graduating High School can find a means of avoiding military service by one of three alternatives, civilian service or seek some deferment or a long overseas vacation. The most honorable is civilian service but most Israelis choose the IDF and many religious Jews apply for the elite infantry units knowing they will face the harshest of training rigors and an uphill battle to meet and exceed all qualifications as well as have to compete against one another for the limited slots available. The highly motivated, altruistic, selfless, servants of Israel carry the weight of protecting their nation and its people on their shoulders. Now they also need to gauge the emotional state of the world, the probabilities of some prosecutor deciding to make a name for themselves before leaving the service and entering the work force hoping to polish up the resume and hoping if they do decide to use their weapon, whether the media might find reason to explode an expose doubting the need for discharging their weapon.

 

What seems to get lost in this mix is that these young people are facing terrorists who do not have ROE, do not wear uniforms, hide behind civilians, ambush civilians, hate life and worship death. The situation often is not cut and dry; and doubt, if permitted to permeate any situation, can be fatal as when fighting terrorism, delay results in the soldier’s life. These are the truths and we can rely that as time passes this decision will cause some unfortunate soldier to delay, consider one too many consequences, figure one too many angles, second guess before shooting and never get off that saving shot. It may well cost that soldier their life or worse, watching a civilian they were sworn to protect lose their life which would haunt them for the rest of their life. These are the stakes which these youth face regularly and adding more tension to their young lives is criminal, and we do not need any trial to figure this out. Was there no other means for the IDF handling this difficult situation? Unfortunate truth is, probably not after the media made such a monstrous crime of the century uproar about the shooting of a terrorist, injured and presumably subdued though not yet restrained, who had just stabbed another soldier and attacked others at the scene. Is such a mitigating factor? Apparently not in this or any case as they are enforcing the toughest and most moral code of any military in the world. For potentially making the IDF a target for recrimination by the world, its media and propaganda for the terror masters to radicalize more and more terrorists, Sgt. Elor Azariya may end up spending the next twenty years of his life in a military prison and his life will never be the same nor likely ever recover from this ordeal.

 

 

Knowing some will demand our opinion, I will speak for myself and not the remainder of our small staff, though the staff likely would agree. Was Sgt. Elor Azariya guilty of the manslaughter charge? That I cannot tell as I am not and never was a lawyer, intellectual, judge, politician or part of a paid media. Some of the above mentioned have the legal knowledge and possibly the background to judge fairly while others are simply presumptuous enough to claim that right. I can only speak as one who has carried a rifle and was in a combat unit though I fortunately never had to shoot any enemy targets, and in war that is what all enemy are, targets. The first thing in a case where an enemy has been taken prisoner but is not yet secured as they are seriously injured requiring medical attention, one must know the mind of the enemy. Would they still pose a threat and are they sufficiently guarded to prevent such threat. From what I have read, the terrorist in question was not being actively guarded, though there were sufficient soldiers that should he become a menace by one of their judgements of the terrorist’s acts and movements, then the terrorist would be neutralized, killed. This is what occurred and what was on trial here was the danger level the terrorist posed. Here we need consider the motivation to kill us the terrorists keep within them. We know they viscerally despise and hate us wishing us all dead. They would do anything to hurt and kill us. I guess the best way I could describe the level of animosity held by the terrorists is to point out that they would be willing to die to kill a little girl’s puppy because it would make her cry and place them in paradise as is his sick, perverse and beastly interpretation of his religion, and that level of hatred is only prevented from performing more acts of hostility and illogical violence when they are completely neutralized either through restraints or death. The terrorist was not restrained, you figure it out.

 

Beyond the Cusp 

 

Israel and Her Jewish Problem

While I understand there are Jews who are not Zionists but even the vast majority of these non-Zionist Jews still do not take an antagonistic position when it comes to Israel. Many of these non-Zionist Jews may become Zionists given the right stimuli and certain situations. That aside, I cannot understand why any Jew would go beyond being a non-Zionist, and would actually take an antagonistic, anti-Zionist position seeing wrong in every action of the Jewish state. I am even more baffled when those who hold such an anti-Israel view also choose to remain living in Israel if they feel the Jewish state cannot do anything right and it causes them such angst and embarrassment. But even more puzzling is that a group of Rabbis from Israel have taken up the Palestinian cause against Israel to the point of manufacturing grievances and aiding the Palestinians in their lies when they assault and caused major physical harm to fellow Jews. This happened recently in an incident near Eish Kodesh where a large mob of Palestinians from a neighboring village used trucks and assistance from Palestinian police to corner and abduct Israeli hikers and dragged them to a remote house at the outskirts of their village beating them even after IDF troops arrived and eventually bartered their release. Thanks to video reports depicting, recounting and praising the Palestinian actions but which contradicted the claim that they intercepted the Jews entering their town with the intent of doing damage by committing what are called price-tag crimes, these videos distributed by the Palestinians showed their chasing down the small group of two dozen Jewish hikers across fields assaulting them with rocks and clubbing them when they had sufficiently closed the distance. Despite the evidence to the contrary, the IDF subsequently arrested a number of the youngest Jewish hikers largely to interrogate them to force a confession to validate the Palestinian story line. This was simply the latest example of the truth being inconsequential and any claims made by the Palestinians being taken as the unadorned fact never to be questioned by Israeli authorities when the subject is the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria.

 

As long as there are Israelis in positions of authority who will believe any lie they are told if it reinforces their disdain for the Jewish residents of Samaria and Judea and also any claims against religious Jews then Israel will continue to have detractors who quote these Israeli leaders before the world as they condemn Israel at every turn. I am not sure if it is due to these authorities fearing or having feelings of animosity against religious Jews and/or Jews living in the settlements, as residents of Judea and Samaria are maligned by their detractors, which drives them to believe any charge which supports their intolerance. Where I would want the authorities to investigate any reports of criminal activity, the over the top persistence that authorities have taken against these two sectors of Israeli society makes one question their real motives. The fact that much of the political elite in the Knesset, the Prime Minister’s office, the Attorney General’s Office, the Courts and other government institutions often do not react and investigate what appears to be an obvious series of injustices one after another finding the truth and communicating it immediately, instead there is often animus displayed when many government officials are queried by the press about such instances, an animus which is totally unjustified if one simply would have inspected the record which shows that the Jewish residents in Judea and Samaria along with the religious communities have almost uniformly been found innocent despite the herculean efforts to find them guilty of anything they can throw at them. Israelis need to demand of their government that they support all the citizens of the nation, especially against spurious accusations originating out of pure animus from Israel’s enemies. The problem is that in order to do so the Israeli citizenship would need to challenge far more than those in government but would need to challenge the hierarchy of the individual parties and the manner in which Ministers of the Knesset are chosen. Those parties which use exclusively a primary system without any interference from the Party officers would not require as much of an adjustment as those where their lists are decided in back rooms by the so-called elite of the party. In any case, there needs to be some manner in which a person can run for a seat in the Knesset and gain that seat independently from the political machines run by the individual parties. Establishing such a path would allow for populist candidates who lack party influence but have general popular support are able to run and gain a seat in the Knesset without having to bribe some established politicians into forming a party in the hopes of gaining at least the minimum percentage to be rewarded seats.

 

Israel has sufficient enemies throughout the world without having her own citizens turn against her and makes consistent attempts to destroy the nation at every turn. Honest questioning is one thing and universal rejection of almost every policy and decision is something worthy of question. Many of these Israeli Jewish detractors hold Israel in such dispute that they have even, as Yariv Oppenheimer of Peace Now has, taken the side of those whose stated intent is the destruction of the State of Israel. Such actions border on if not qualifying the perpetrators as traitors to their country, yet these very same people are often the go-to-first people by many from the far left media within Israel as they also back anybody who takes a stand detracting Israeli efforts. Between these and the existence of Ministers of the Knesset who also take every opportunity to speak against Israel from within the Knesset itself, such leaves the defenders of Israel with a rough road to tread always up a steep slope and filled with obstacles in order to counter the damage and lies spread to a world seemingly veraciously hungry to believe every accusation leveled at Israel. One of the Knesset Ministers was a former advisor and aide to the late Palestinian arch terrorist Yasser Arafat yet is permitted to hold a position in the Israeli Parliament. When running for the Knesset, this Minister was validated by the Israeli Supreme Court as a valid candidate who could not be restricted from entering the Knesset simply because he used to be an aide to the arch enemy and stands for the eradication of the Jewish State. Israel has to get past its peculiarity of questioning its every action and going to the greatest of lengths to see every side of every issue and investigating every accusation to be completely assured that they had done nothing untoward before announcing any position which is supportive of its citizens, military, officials, and general positions. Perhaps it might be possible that Israel find the courage to believe in itself and refute these scurrilous accusations until somebody else has taken the time to attest to the validity of an accusation before apologizing for every action even before their own full review has been completed. Israel must stop apologizing for existing and instead demand the respect she deserves but will never receive until she believes in herself. That confidence will come once the Jews realize that they deserve a nation as much if not more than any other nation’s peoples.

 

Beyond the Cusp