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Peace Process

Voting for a pipe dream

Kadima and the left lead tired electorate by the nose


By Stan Goodenough
March 27, 2006

When a tired and uninspired Israeli electorate goes to the polls Tuesday, those supporting the Kadima and Labor parties will be voting for an outcome, the central component of which they will never see realized.

Thus will they waste their ballots on a pipe dream, and this at the most crucial juncture in the restored country?s history, when those dedicated to its destruction are deadlier and more motivated than ever.

?Think about it,? wrote currently pro-Kadima CNN reporter Guy Raz on Friday:

?Israelis are essentially voting in a kind of referendum on the future of their borders -- and the stakes couldn't be higher.?

Yes, Kadima?s primary promise to the nation is that it will, within four years, set the country's ?final? boundaries in place.

When it does, the Jewish state will have ?disengaged? from the Palestinian Arabs, consolidated or ?converged? its settlements into three large blocs, relinquished the rest of the land, and proclaimed that, as far as Israel is concerned, the ?occupation? is over.

Labor is fully with this program, only differing on how soon to implement it.

But a fairly formidable lineup of international opponents to this unilateral Israeli action will ensure that it never takes place. They will refuse to recognize the self-declared borders and will reject the Israeli insistence that the ?occupation? is no more.

In so doing, they will render the results of this ?referendum? meaningless. The conflict will rage on, Kadima will be discredited, but Israel will have irretrievably relinquished its national treasures and assets, and lethally compromised its security, all in vain.

The opponents of this principle pillar in Kadima?s platform include the Palestinian Arabs and all the Arab states, all Muslim countries, China, Japan, North and South Korea, India, Russia, Ukraine, South Africa, New Zealand, the European Union, the United Nations and the United States.

In a word: the world.

Of course, the Israeli right wing is also opposed ? but that camp?s position is of least concern to their leftist countrymen.

What Israelis are super-sensitive to is international opinion. Their prime ministers have proven to be extremely vulnerable to pressure from abroad, particularly when it comes from the United States.

No matter how strongly they feel when they vote for Kadima tomorrow, these wishful-thinking Israelis will once again bow to the demands of the international community.

They always have. But the consequences this time will be more painful and a whole lot more dangerous than before.

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