Israel and the betrayal of the intellectuals

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The problem with being an intellectual is that you rarely have your ideas tested in the real world. But sitting on the sidelines enables you to use extreme rhetoric to advance crackpot notions that, when embraced all too frequently, end up heaping tragedy upon humanity. 

It is not surprising, then, that 800 Israelis — with prominent intellectuals leading the charge — have “discovered” the road to peace between the Arabs and Israelis. They alone have found the path to peace that has eluded so many for so long. 

They are asking the European parliaments to pass a resolution that would call for the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, with “Israeli recognition of Palestine and Palestinian recognition of Israel.” The letter went on to denounce the “political deadlock and ongoing occupation and settlement, which leads to conflict with the Palestinians and torpedoes any possibility of an agreement.” 

This is all too reminiscent of the American intellectuals’ movement to bring about unilateral disarmament in the early 1960s. Harold Brown, President Jimmy Carter’s Secretary of Defense, revealed where such policy would have ended up. As Brown, himself a strong advocate of arms control and disarmament, stated after three years in office: he finally understood the Soviets. When we build missiles, they build missiles. When we stop building missiles, they build missiles. 

If Israelis have learned anything over the years, it is that when they make concessions, the Arabs up the ante. More Arab and Israeli blood has been spilled since the 1993 Oslo Accords than beforehand. Israel’s unilateral 2005 withdrawal from Gaza led to the creation of a terror state on its borders and death raining from the sky on its southern cities.

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