THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume IX, Issue # 217, November 17, 2007
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
AUCTIONING JERUSALEM FORETELLS
ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER'S DEMISE
By Jonathan Schanzer & Asaf Romirowsky
PROPOSING THE DIVISION OF JERUSALEM: POLITICALLY WEAK, UNPOPULAR, & DESPERATE ISRAELI PRIME
MINISTERS SEEKING TO ACHIEVE PEACE THROUGH THE APPEASEMENT OF THE PALESTINIAN ARABS -- REWARDING HAMAS
& OTHER ISLAMIC TERRORIST GROUPS FOR THE TERROR WAR THEY ARE WAGING AGAINST ISRAEL -- ENDANGERING
ISRAELI NATIONAL SECURITY -- THE ROAD TO "PEACE" THAT IS REALLY THE ROAD TO A GREATER WAR
FULL STORY:
"Peace is achieved through concessions. We all know that," said embattled Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to a crowd
of businessmen last week, implying that parts of Jerusalem could be offered to the Palestinians in exchange for peace.
This is not the first time Olmert indicated that he was willing to split up Israel's capital. Last month, he publicly pondered
whether it was really "necessary to also add the Shuafat refugee camp, Sawakra, Walaje and other villages and define them
as part of Jerusalem."
Drawing from the history of other desperate Israeli prime ministers who have put Israel up on the auction block, Olmert's
time in office is probably near its end.
The Prime Minister's recent statements can be seen only as a last gasp effort to revive his flatlining premiership. After
demonstrating an utter lack of leadership during Israel's confrontation with Hizbullah last Summer in Lebanon, few Israelis
have any confidence in their Prime Minister. Indeed, he has miserably low approval ratings (as low as 2% in recent polls),
with political challengers circling for the right moment to pounce.
Olmert is now chasing peace with the Palestinians at all costs, in a desperate attempt to secure his place in world history,
knowing full well that future Israeli history books will not be kind. This fits a sad, but familiar, trend of other sputtering
Israeli prime ministers in recent history.
Take Israel's current Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Under pressure from the Clinton administration during the July, 2000,
Camp David talks, he became the first Israeli Prime Minister to officially consider re-dividing Jerusalem. Despite the fact
that this infuriated a majority of the Israeli public, as demonstrated in popularity polls, the embattled Barak forged ahead.
When the talks ultimately failed, thanks to Yasir Arafat's intransigence, the Palestinians launched the al-Aqsa Intifada.
Barak was blamed for the violence, leading to an even steeper drop in his popularity. Ariel Sharon went on to win the 2001
elections by a landslide 63 percent.
Barak's plummeting popularity even before the Intifada was inextricably linked to the former Israeli commando's
willingness to violate Israel's longstanding red lines: no division of Jerusalem, no return to the 1949 borders, no return of
Arab refugees, and no foreign army west of the Jordan River. But, faced with a legacy of failure, Barak clung to the notion
that a peace deal ceding parts of Jerusalem might ultimately secure his place in history. In the end, it only ensured his
defeat.
One can also argue that Shimon Peres, who became Prime Minister by default in 1995, after the assassination of Yitzhak
Rabin, also ensured his own demise by dangling Jerusalem as a concession to the Palestinians. An architect of the Oslo
Peace Process, Peres pushed tenaciously forward toward peace, even when Israel was bloodied by a brutal campaign of
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad suicide bombings. Despite the fact that the Palestinian Authority never reigned in
Hamas, Peres never stopped pushing for peace. And he never took the question of Jerusalem off the table. Instead, he
allowed the Palestinians to hold elections in Jerusalem in 1996, which was largely viewed as a gesture of possible future
concessions. Thus, when Benjamin Netanyahu challenged Peres in the next election, he hammered Peres' blind
commitment to a failing peace process, and charged that Peres would even surrender control of Jerusalem. This, alone,
may have cost Peres the election.
When Olmert, Barak, and Peres raised the specter of Jerusalem, their political shelf lives had all but expired. Indeed, when
Israeli politicians discuss the fate of Jerusalem to please the U.S. State Department or Palestinian negotiators, they are
indicating to the Israeli public that they have given up on popular support. Instead, they make a last ditch effort to secure
their own place in history.
Olmert's recent talk of dividing Jerusalem is a sign that new Israeli elections are almost assuredly around the corner.
Refusing to go quietly, he is endangering the unity of Israel's capital, just as his moment in history comes to an end.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Israel & the Arabs -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- Radical Islam & Islamic Terrorism
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Jonathan Schanzer is Director of Policy at the Jewish Policy Center and Editor of In Focus Quarterly. Asaf
Romirowsky is an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum and Manager of Israel & Middle East Affairs for the
Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.
The foregoing article by Jonathan Schanzer and Asaf Romirowsky was originally published in the American
Thinker, November 13, 2007, and can be found on the Internet website
maintained by the Middle East Forum, a think tank which seeks to define and
promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam, working for
Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote constitutional
democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly asserting U.S.
interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
MEF News, November 16, 2007
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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