Much, if not most, of the world's mainstream media has bought into the fiction of the Arabs' David to the Jews' Goliath for quite some time now.
Netanyahu gets labeled a "hardliner" for refusing to cave into the Palestinian Arabs' idea of "negotiations," whereby Ramallah does all the taking while the Jews do all the giving. I know Christmas is coming, but Israel is not Santa Claus.
The news reports out of Ramallah state that Abbas (joined by the Arab League) rejects any Israeli defense presence in the Jordan Valley. And on December 4, 2013 senior Palestinian Arab leaders called for the same pressure to be placed presumably on Israel as was used to produce the recent "deal" over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
In other words, they want the world to agree to two more alleged "peace for our time," disastrous Munich-style deals instead of one. They well recall how the first one turned out after Chamberlain's sellout of the Czechs in 1938.
Israel did not have much choice on the resume-negotiation issue.
Despite a good argument that could be made for it to have turned down Washington's invitation to "negotiate," most of the world would have only blamed the Jews even more if it was a no show. But President Obama has long-espoused the Saudi Peace Plan–upon which much of the current negotiations are based. Among other things, that plan calls for a return to the '67 lines.
The way this story is largely being reported is telling as well. Not that this is new "news." Much, if not most, of the mainstream media has bought into the fiction of the Arabs' David to the Jews' Goliath for quite some time now.
Like too many other would-be sources of ethical enlightenment, the press prefers its Jews as perpetual victims. That includes Jewish writers as well.
Sympathy for dead Jews, victims of the Holocaust, still exists in some circles, but Israel's quest for empathy in attempts to balance its own existential needs with those of enemies sworn to its extinction and the slaughter of its people too often ends in failure.
Consider a few examples which appeared back in late July 2013–just when the invitations to the current round of Jew arm-twisting (aka "peace negotiations") were being prepared.
Taking its cues from such sources as the State Department, which fought President Truman over Israel's very rebirth, the Arabs themselves, and from the Obama Administration, which has openly sided with much if not most of the Arabs' key demands, the press has repeatedly turned out such paraphrased gems as you will see below.
Note that the pan-Arab narrative has just been accepted hook, line, and sinker.
That the Arab nation of Jordan sits on some 80% of the original 1920 Mandate of Palestine does not even enter into the equation. That Arabs already have almost two dozen states on over six million square miles of territory, created largely on other, non-Arab peoples' lands, apparently has no importance as well.
Falling "far short" of Palestinian Arab demands means, among other things, that Israel will not allow itself to be inundated by millions of allegedly returning Arab "refugees", This is rarely explained–and when it is, is often done in a accusatory way. Recall that more Jews fled Arab/Muslim lands due to the war Arabs started with their invasion of a reborn, minuscule Israel in 1948 than vice-versa. They did not have other multiple states to go to.
Where in such reports is there a meaningful attempt to provide Israel's position regarding a return to those pre-'67 war armistice lines (never official borders)?
Why is there no mention of the final draft of UNSC Resolution 242 which assured Israel, after it was forced to fight in 1967 to break the Arabs' blockade (a casus belli) and deal with other hostile acts, that it would finally get more secure and real borders to replace the Armistice lines of 1949 - impposed after the combined Arab assault?
Those arbitrary lines left Israel a mere 9-15 miles wide for almost two decades–a constant invitation to be attacked and bisected. As President George W. Bush said, Texas has driveways wider than that. A reading of 242′s architects, like Lord Caradon and Eugene Rostow, should be mandatory for anyone writing about this topic.
Instead, Netanyahu routinely gets labeled a "hardliner" (or worse) for refusing to cave into the Palestinian Arabs' idea of "negotiations," whereby Ramallah does all the taking while the Jews do all the giving. I know Christmas is coming, but Israel is not Santa Claus.
Netanyahu is merely asking for what Israel was promised: a meaningful territorial compromise built into UNSC Resolution 242–along with other reasonable expectations., such as recognizing Israel as a Jewish state Since this position runs counter to Arab demands for Israel's complicity in its own demise, Netanyahu indeed will fall far short of Arab expectations–as he must. We and he knew this would happen right from the start, but came to the party anyway.
It cannot be repeated too often that any 22nd Arab state, if it does arise, can not be allowed to arise via the gross endangerment of the Jews' sole one. That self-evident idea appears to be too much to hope for these days. Just read your local newspaper.