Netanyahu's message of unending war

[Jefferson23]

The prime minister has no vision besides the continued occupation, the settlements and the 'fight against radical Islam.'

Haaretz Editorial | Oct. 1, 2014 | 6:09 AM

The New Year edition of MarkerWeek is devoted to the indecision felt by some young Israelis regarding whether to build their lives in the State of Israel or to emigrate to the United States or Europe; whether to move far from their families and the local culture for the sake of a Western standard of living. The speech of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the United Nations General Assembly gave them little reason to stay. Netanyahu described Israel as the vanguard of Western culture’s existential struggle against radical Islam — as a state doomed to unending war.

Netanyahu looks around and sees the new Nazis of Hamas, Islamic State and Iran plotting a Holocaust for the Jewish people. To him, even Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas seems like a Nazi striving for a “Judenrein Palestine,” while the Arab states, tainted as they are with anti-Semitism and hypocrisy, are about to consign Israel to the claws of Iran.

Netanyahu is not interested in an agreement with the Palestinians, denies the existence of the occupation and is unwilling to withdraw from the West Bank in any case. Want peace? Look for it in Abu Dhabi and Cairo, not in Jerusalem and Ramallah. Even Abbas — who, like Netanyahu, awoke the national traumas in his speech and wrapped them in hot-headed exaggerations — offered a practical plan for an agreement, instead of merely despair and destruction.

It seems that Netanyahu, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN, has not yet achieved the gravitas of statesman and leader. He is so focused on “hasbara” that he does not care how his statements are received at home.

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.618514

[BillZBubb]

1. Netanyahu knows the cost of Israeli annexation of the West Bank.

And he's willing to pay it, even if it means perpetual war. He believes grabbing that land is worth any price. And with the USA bankrolling a lot of the cost, it's a bargain.

[Carlos Rodrigez]

4. if it is a bargain,

you can hardly blame him.

[Mosby]

2. truth is that smart israeli kids can earn more in the us

Though there are significantly less social services in the United states than israel.

It's a myopic view, that Bibi is focussed more on terrorism instead of social issues and haaretz fails to acknowledge or discuss the vast differences in social service spending in the two countries.

the writer really shows his lack of understanding by stating that Israel's future is being compromised by "the housing crisis, the integration of minorities, the collapse of the law-enforcement system and the weakness of the educational system", that pretty much sums up the problems in the us much more than israel so if the author wants to find reasons why some young people want to leave israel he or she is going to have to abandon a ideological perspective and actually start dealing with reality. And the reality is that the us lags far behind israel in educational and social service spending, and is experiencing a gutting of the middle class as we speak.

[ladjf]

3. Netanyahu, the non-stop, bully blabber mouth. nt