Let's Stop Dancing to the Other Guy's Tune............................from Dan Friedman

“We do not have to account to anybody, we are not to sit for anybody's examination and nobody is old enough to call on us to answer. We came before them and will leave after them. We are what we are, we are good for ourselves, we will not change and we do not want to.”

 

-- Zev Jabotinsky, 1911

 

 

[Caroline Glick is out with her highly anticipated new book, The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East. From the coming attractions she supplies below, it appears to be her attempt to lay down a new paradigm for a settlement of the Muslim Arab-Israeli conflict. I wish her the best and urge everyone to read it. But bearing in mind that I haven't, please excuse an off-the-cuff comment.

Jews are exceptional in almost every way. We don't eat the same (kosher) food as anyone else, don't dress the same (Shatnez), and we use languages (Hebrew and Yiddish) spoken only by Jews. I could go on. But that's the way our Creator wants it.

Therefore, to the degree Glick's alternative is an Israeli response meant to defeat old canards and address false Hobson's choices, Ms. Glick is flirting with a pitfall that could lead Israel in circles. The reason is simple. The Nations will never voluntarily stop inventing new hoops for Israel to jump through. Never, that is, until the Jews are no longer a "threat" – and we all know what that means.

It's axiomatic – or should be - that the problems Jews confront in the Jewish state must be dealt with by applying uniquely Jewish solutions. Considering our history and the suffering Jews have endured at the hands of the Nations for millennia, we have earned the right and have inherited the duty to manage our national affairs in a manner that we see fit. If there’s a better way to take the bat out of our antagonists’ hands, I don’t know it.

Looking over our shoulders, or trying to win over the hopeless hecklers in the back of the room, just won’t do. I trust Caroline Glick will agree. She is, after all, a great Jewish patriot in the spirit of Ze’ev Jabotinsky. df]