Would you buy a used car from Israel's Left?

By Philip Brodie

Since Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke to the US Congress last week, Leftists in Israel have announced that the EU and the US should pressure Israel to withdraw back to 1949 borders ( called, euphemistically, the 1967 lines). At the same time, Opposition leader Tzipi Livni calls for Israel to move quickly to a two-state solution.

However, something is missing from these calls--details. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but every time Leftists call for peace and withdrawal, they never discuss details. Have you noticed that? But if peace is our goal, we had better ask questions—and get answers-- before we sign anything.

You wouldn’t buy a used car without asking detailed questions. Why would you sign a peace accord that way?

Here are some questions the Left needs to answer:

1. We see the word, ‘peace’ in the news virtually every week. Sometimes, in a good week, we could see the word ten times. It’s wonderful. We have so many Israeli columnists who love peace. The problem is, I can’t seem to find the same enthusiasm in our designated Arab peace partners. Instead, what I see from them are such words as, ‘there will be no Jews in our new State,’ ‘we will destroy the Jewish entity’, ‘we will not recognize the Jewish State', and ‘Jerusalem is ours’.

Question: How do you explain to the Israeli public that what appears to be an obvious disconnect between what Israel says about peace and what the Arabs say really means we have a trustworthy peace partner?

2. The Arabs have declared that they want a Jew-free State. This would mean removing up to 400,000 Jews from the West Bank. This is a problem because the Charter of the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi Germany’s leaders, after World War Two, stated clearly that the deportation or complete transfer of a population can be both a war crime and a crime against humanity—and the UN endorses this concept.

Question: Given the fact that we are already in trouble at the United Nations, why is it a good idea to tell the UN to help the Arab commit a government-sponsored crime against humanity?

3. Recent history tells us that the Israeli government has not yet successfully rehoused, retrained and re-employed some 8,000 Jewish Gush residents who had been removed from Gaza in 2005.

Question: If Israel cannot successfully move 8,000 people, how are they going to do a better job moving and rehousing up to 50 times that number?

4. Every month, we see in news reports that the government has budget difficulties. Apparently, our government is not exactly flush with cash.

Question: How will our government pay for moving up to 400,000 Jews?

5. My friends have trouble buying a house. They say real estate prices have skyrocketed because there aren’t enough houses to go around.

Question: What will happen to real estate prices—and our economy—if, suddenly, there were 90,000 displaced Jewish families looking for a place to live?

6. The Arabs demand that Israel must move back to pre-1967 borders. Members of the IDF Command have claimed that such an arrangement would make defending ourselves almost impossible, for a variety of reasons.

Question: How do you explain to the public that the IDF Command is dead wrong?

7. The Arabs claim that there can be no peace with us unless we accept their ‘law of return’. This will bring up to 6 million Arabs into Israel.

Question: Where does the money come from to support the sudden influx of 6 million new immigrants who have no jobs, no place to live, cannot afford to pay for health care and have never been to Ulpan?

8. It seems that every time our government appears serious about peace, Mr Abbas of the Palestinian Authority seems to hold up another map of a new state of Palestine that displaces Israel.

Question: How do you explain to the Israeli public that these new maps mean peace for Jews?

9. Whenever someone on the Left says, 'peace', someone on the Right says, 'peace is not possible', and when someone on the Right says that, the Arabs publish something that sounds like they want to kill Jews.

Question: How do you explain to the Israel public that (1) the Right is wrong, and (2) the Arabs are not really talking about killing Jews?

10. Our religious heritage teaches us that the land of Israel belongs to G-d.

Question: how do you justify giving away something that your own religion says does not belong to you?

Peace is wonderful. Nevertheless, before you jump to join the Left, I have a suggestion: don’t buy anything until you get satisfactory answers to these questions.

You don’t buy used cars without details--and you don’t buy ‘peace’, either