Sa'ar added, "The PA never stopped paying salaries to terrorists – the PA only changed its method. Terrorists now receive the money from Palestinian postal branches. The PA even makes additional payments to terrorists released under the agreement."

Sa'ar sharply criticized the European Union, saying "instead of demanding accountability from the PA, the European Union whitewashes the PA. The EU ignores the ongoing crimes of paying terrorists – and in practice encourages terror. The EU seeks to reward the PA with its own terrorist state." He noted that President Trump's 20-point plan stipulated that the PA would receive no legitimacy without genuine reforms, including "the Palestinian Authority will take all necessary steps to immediately stop paying salaries to terrorists imprisoned in Israel and to families of terrorists who were killed."

According to Hirsch, 160 of the 250 terrorists released in the latest ceasefire deal became millionaires thanks to monthly payments of roughly 8,000 shekels ($2,250) over many years. "The Palestinian Authority rewards our child murderers with hundreds of millions of shekels annually, exactly as a prize for their participation in terror," Hirsch said. "The payments accumulate to millions and they leave prison for a life of prosperity – not remorse."

On the hostage issue, Sa'ar said the nation of Israel will never forget Hungary's role in the struggle to bring them home. However, he added, "The struggle has not yet ended. Hamas still holds 13 of our deceased hostages. This is a clear violation of the agreement. We know Hamas can return most of the deceased hostages easily. Hamas is delaying the return and bringing them back at a slow, calculated pace to postpone the second phase – its disarmament. Hamas behaves barbarically, abuses families who have waited for more than two years and only want to bring their sons to burial. Hamas must immediately return all those it holds."

During the meeting, Sa'ar gave Hungarian Foreign Minister Szijjártó a personal letter of thanks from former hostage Omri Miran, who also holds Hungarian citizenship. In the letter, Miran thanked the Hungarian government for its efforts to secure his release. Miran asked Foreign Minister Sa'ar to deliver the letter to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, President Tamás Sulyok, and Foreign Minister Szijjártó as recognition and gratitude for the Hungarian government's efforts toward his release.

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There was a time when Israel fought wars using devastating force with the goal of nothing less than a complete, decisive victory over its enemies. But that time has long since passed. The resounding, arguably miraculous victories that Israel achieved in wars like the 1948 War of Independence and the 1967 Six-Day War now seem like ancient history.

Indeed, for the last 30 years, Israel has responded to attacks by its enemies, not with the kind of overwhelming force that it once used to subdue its enemies, but with compromises, concessions, or, at best, very limited, haphazard military operations. This strategy has led to one disaster after another.

In the 1990s, Israel agreed to the Oslo Accords and relinquished control over most of the Gaza Strip and nearly all major cities in Judea and Samaria. In return, Israel got the Second Intifada, during which Palestinian terrorists senselessly murdered one thousand Israelis. In 2000, Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon. In return, Israel got the Second Lebanon War, which Hezbollah started by bombarding Israel with rockets as they entered Israeli territory, killed eight IDF soldiers and abducting two more. In 2005, Israel withdrew completely from the Gaza Strip. In return, Israel got nearly two decades of rocket attacks, the abduction of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, and finally, the October 7 massacre, the worst atrocity committed against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.

Israel desperately needs a return to the strategy of achieving absolute victory over its foes. And as the expression goes, "There's no time like the present," when Israel is now facing war on multiple fronts.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of pushback against such a strategy, both within and outside Israel. Push-back from naïve members of Israel's political class, now orchestrating the mass demonstrations calling for a ceasefire that would keep Hamas in charge of Gaza and not guarantee the liberation of all remaining hostages, setting the stage for another catastrophe resembling October 7.

These demonstrations are counterproductive, to say the least. They only encourage Hamas to extract more concessions from Israel. Furthermore, according to a recent poll by the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS), 55% of Israelis believe that the demonstrations are being held not to free the hostages but to overthrow the government.

Besides, most Israelis are not in the mood for further compromise or concessions. Indeed, 62% of Israelis polled by JNS oppose a ceasefire deal with Hamas, and 61% agree with the sentence: "Only military pressure on Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and planned military actions including hostage rescue operations can lead to the release of the hostages."

There is also pushback against a strategy of decisive victory from Israel's Western allies, particularly its strongest ally, the United States. The Biden Administration has repeatedly said that Israel cannot defeat Hamas. Wrong. Biden and company just don't want Hamas defeated because destroying the terrorist group would interfere with their agenda of appeasing Iran, the leading sponsor of global terrorism – the tyrannical regime to whom Biden has given billions of dollars in sanctions relief. Money that Iran has used to accelerate its nuclear weapons program and fund its terrorist proxies –Hamas, Hezbollah, and Yemen's Houthis.

Throughout his term in office, Biden has acted like British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain did before World War II. Chamberlain believed he could appease Hitler. Thus, he let Nazi Germany have a chunk of Czechoslovakia as part of the infamous Munich Agreement, which he held aloft in his hand proclaiming, "peace for our time," believing he had stopped Hitler from making any new conquests.

Six months later, Nazi Germany took over all of Czechoslovakia. And six months after that, the Nazis invaded Poland, triggering WWII. So much for peace in our time. Appeasement and compromise did not convince Hitler and Nazi Germany to choose peace over conquest, nor will either tactic persuade Iran and its proxies – today's Nazis – to do so.

Fortunately, once WWII began, the Allied powers strived for absolute victory over Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Indeed, they inflicted such devastation upon both countries that when the war was finally over, the populations of each country realized that continuing to support their respective ruling regimes was futile and would only lead to disaster. Thus, after Germany and Japan surrendered, their populations offered no further resistance and eventually chose leadership committed to democracy and peace. Eighty years later, Germany and Japan are vibrant democracies, not to mention economic powerhouses.

Similarly, Israel must pursue no less than a decisive victory against its enemies, beginning with Hamas and Hezbollah. Recent poll data from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) actually shows that the devastation Israel has already inflicted on the Gaza Strip is beginning to change the minds of its people and their support for Hamas. This change was originally not recorded as Hamas had doctored PCPSR polling data to inflate their support. But now, thanks to the efforts of Israel's finest in the IDF, we know the truth.

Whereas 57% of Gazans supported Hamas back in December 2023, just 31% supported the terrorist group in March of this year. But perhaps what is most encouraging is that in contrast to December last year, when 56% of Gazans supported armed resistance, just 28% said the same in March of this year. In fact, by March, more than two-thirds of Gazans favored either political negotiations or non-violent resistance to Israel to achieve Palestinian aims. This is clear evidence that what happened during WWII, when the German and Japanese people began realizing the futility of supporting their respective genocidal regimes, is now happening in Gaza.

Recent history shows that strong military pressure, not concessions and appeasement, leads to peace. In fact, the use of strong military pressure is what has allowed Israel to achieve peace with some of its Arab neighbors. After decades of suffering devastating losses in wars with Israel, several Arab states concluded that trying again and again to destroy the Jewish state was futile. Thus, they gradually pursued peace with Israel. First, Egypt in 1979, followed by Jordan in 1994, and then the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan in 2020-2021. In all these cases, Israel did not make unreasonable concessions that would place its security at risk.

Only through strength has Israel defeated its enemies and achieved peace in the past, and only through strength will it continue to do so now.

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Against the backdrop of the picturesque landscapes of vineyards, Palestinians have been illegally developing a cottage industry of luxurious vacation compounds in Area C – territory where Israel should have full control under the provisions of the Oslo Accords.

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Nestled deep within the heart of Judea and Samaria, these vacation homes and resorts cater to Palestinians by providing a unique experience, complete with spacious guest houses, pristine lawns, inviting pools, and gourmet dining establishments.

One such establishment, located in the Palestinian village of Batir not far from the Jewish community of Beitar demonstrated just how popular they are. After being asked on Facebook about its availability, it responded that "in August, the occupancy is full, sorry." For a fee of NIS 1,200 ($315) guests can get a bed and breakfast experience for an entire day in such a complex.

The watchdog Regavim, which has been closely monitoring these trends, has shared with Israel Hayom some of the findings showing the systematic expansion of these luxury vacation accommodations far from the scrutiny of Israeli authorities. What makes this even more intriguing is that some of this activity has been endorsed and backed by the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism, with their stated objective being "to prevent settlers from taking over the territory," according to Regavim.

Video: Illegal Palestinian activity in Judea and Samaria / Credit: Regavim

Field coordinator Menash Shmueli of Regavim's Judea and Samaria division recently used drone technology to document at least four such compounds, with one of the most significant establishments situated in the village of Batir.

"They started this six months ago in that village, with the B&Bs situated on the border of the Green Line, where there's no fence, affording views of Jerusalem," Shmueli explained. Batir, in recent years, has transformed into a tourist destination, boasting archaeological digs, high-end dining, and other forms of entertainment. This is further complemented by the absence of a security barrier due to it being a UNESCO-designated area.

In the city of Jericho, the Regavim team located an establishment situated partially in Area A (where there is full Palestinian control) and with another part in Area C, bordering the Hasmonean Palaces archaeological site.

Shmueli says that this complex might be owned by Israeli Arabs and offers activities such as ATV tours and various attractions at a rate of NIS 1,500 per day. "This complex matches the standards of a five-star hotel, boasting three bedrooms, three bathrooms, and two kitchens," Shmueli told Israel Hayom.

"Their strategy is very easy to discern – by promoting those sites they claim that they could help 'prevent an Israeli takeover of Judea and Samaria.' A developer usually seeks peace and tranquility rather than noise, so ostensibly it appears counterproductive to build in a contentious location. This is why the Palestinian Authority backs these projects. Instead of single-family homes, these become complexes where thousands of people visit each year, reinforcing the Palestinian presence in the area," Shmueli told Israel Hayom.

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My Jewish identity precedes my Israeli identity. I believe that Jewish continuity is the utmost goal. Israel, as far as I'm concerned, in addition to being my homeland, is the most effective tool for ensuring Jewish continuity, especially for those who are not ready to take part in religious rituals.

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The two most important projects that I initiated in the first half of the 1990s – the Taglit-Birthright project and the Oslo Accords, which I believe are two sides of the same coin, even though at first glance they seem distinctly different: Taglit is designed to strengthen the connection between young Jews around the world, and between them and their Israeli peers, and Oslo was intended to lead towards an Israeli-Palestinian agreement focused on a permanent border, guaranteeing a Jewish majority in Israel for many years to come. I see both as main components in ensuring Jewish continuity.

During my lifetime I supported solutions that were supposed to lead to this goal. I supported a Palestinian Jordanian state and the London Agreement from April 1987 between King Hussein and Shimon Peres, which is written, not by chance, in my handwriting. After then Prime Minister, Yitzhak Shamir, rejected the agreement, and after Hussein announced in July 1988 that he was giving up his claim to the West Bank in favor of the Palestinians, and after the PLO accepted the famous Security Council Resolution 242 in 1988, I made a public call to open negotiations with him and took action in the Knesset, to repeal the law that prohibited any contact with the PLO.

Yitzhak Shamir surprised many by agreeing to participate in the Madrid Conference of 1991, following which negotiations between delegations from Israel and delegations from Syria and Lebanon began in Washington, also including a joint delegation of the Jordanians and Palestinians, but it soon became clear that he was doing all he could to avoid promoting them. He later admitted that he intended to drag out the talks for ten years. I decided that if the Labor Party would lead the government in the 1992 elections, I would make an effort to overcome the differences between the Israeli and Palestinian positions.

I intended to initiate informal talks between Israeli and Palestinian parties, to bring about agreements on all issues related to the interim settlement, to suggest to Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin that they put the solutions on the table of the heads of delegations, and to get them to sign an agreement of principles, without necessarily knowing how the agreement was reached and who was standing behind it.

When Terje Larsen, head of the Fafo Institute for Labour and Social Research, came to me and asked what he could do to help advance the faltering peace process, I brought up the idea of ​​the informal channel and he promised that Norway would host such a channel. We talked about the possibility of talks between Faisal Husseini, the most powerful Palestinian in east Jerusalem, and myself and we met a few days before the elections – Husseini, Larsen, my friend Dr. Yair Hirschfeld, who accompanied me in my contacts with the Palestinian leadership in Jerusalem, and myself. We decided that if the Labor Party wins the elections, and if I have a political position, we will establish a channel of communication in Oslo.

The agreement that Peres hid from me

The plan did not come to fruition due to a development that I did not consider. After the elections, Rabin appointed Peres as Foreign Minister and I was appointed Deputy Foreign Minister. After everything was ready for the meeting between Hosseini and myself in Oslo, I brought up the topic during my daily conversation with Peres, at the end of the day. I did not consider going to Norway without informing him of the plan, and I estimated that he would have no objection to it, due to the freedom of action that he had given me in my various positions.

But when I sat down in front of him with the portfolio of topics, I had to talk to him about, I saw that Peres' face had changed from the day before. I asked why he was upset, and he told me that he arranged a meeting with Husseini (with whom he used to meet occasionally), but when he informed Rabin about this meeting, the Prime Minister demanded that this meeting be canceled.

I was very surprised and then Peres revealed a secret to me, that if I had known earlier – I would not have agreed to be appointed as his deputy. He apologized for not notifying me earlier and admitted that he felt very uncomfortable telling me that in exchange for his appointment as foreign minister, he had to promise Rabin that he would not hold any negotiations with the US, or bilateral negotiations with the Arab factors. No more, no less.

Now I had to make a quick decision: if I had told Peres about my intention to meet with Husseini, he would have asked me to refrain from doing so, because Rabin would be convinced that I had traveled on Peres's permission. I decided not to go to Oslo, and not to inform Peres about the possibility of having a channel in Norway. I made up my mind to present the existence of the channel to him and Rabin, only if I have a signed agreement between the parties. I asked Hirschfeld to travel in my place, and instead of Husseini, who did not want to go to Oslo without me. He suggested that Ahmed Kriya (Abu Ala), the Palestinian "Minister of Finance," be appointed as Hirschfeld's interlocutor. The first meeting in Oslo was held on January 20, 1993, four days after the Knesset approved, in its second and third reading, the cancellation of the ban on meetings with PLO members.

I approved for Yair to include his former student, Dr. Ron Pundak, while Abu Ala, Maher al-Kurd, and Hassan Asfur joined him on the Palestinian side. Already in the first talks, it became clear that the PLO representatives, who informed the Israelis that they were representing Arafat, were ready to reach an interim settlement in the form of autonomy in the Gaza Strip and an autonomous zone in Jericho. Issues that seemed impossible to agree on in Washington were settled in Oslo. There were crises, there were difficult moments, and even tears, but an initial paper was already agreed upon after the second round.

Between Oslo and Washington

When Yair and Ron returned to Israel, they were very excited, and it was clear to us that we now had to get the green light from Rabin and Peres, to proceed towards a more detailed document, that included schedules, exact locations, etc. During my daily meeting with Peres, I placed the document on his desk, and after he read it and was very impressed, we held a conversation with Yair and Ron, and Peres said he would show the document to Rabin at their weekly meeting.

I was very tense. Presumably, Peres had to confirm his suspicions to Rabin that he would breach the agreement between them and end the bilateral talks. I feared that because of this, Rabin would announce that he was renouncing the new channel. But Peres returned with Rabin's approval.

I don't know what exactly went on in the conversation between the two, but the deadline Rabin set for an agreement with the Palestinians, and which he repeated in all his public election campaigns, came closer and closer, but he had nothing in hand. His other attempts to send envoys to negotiate with the PLO did not promote the political process, and suddenly a draft agreement was put on his desk that was in line with his own opinions!

We immediately arranged a third meeting with the Palestinians. In the following weeks, Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Uri Savir, and the appointed legal advisor to the ministry, Yoel Singer, joined the talks. The channel remained confidential, but it became official, and Rabin established a four-way forum in Israel that moderated the issues and negotiators who participated in it besides himself – Peres, Singer, and me. He never added another person from any of the bureaus, and in retrospect, Rabin was criticized for this.

The Mutual Recognition

The forum's most important decision was to respond to Abu Ala's proposal and hold secondary negotiations that would try to lead to mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO. From the moment this happened, there was no room for my original consideration of holding a "shadow team" behind the scenes, which would submit a document to the parties for signature. The Oslo process was put on stage. The historic recognition between the Jewish and Palestinian national movements, after years of searching for alternatives (mayors, village associations, and non-PLO Palestinians, on the one hand, and non-Zionist Israelis, on the other), was the real upheaval for the Oslo Accords.

In a long conversation between Rabin and myself, I told him that my takeaway from the talks in Oslo is that we have someone to talk to and that it is not worth wasting the "meeting of the stars" that had been created (the PLO's weakness after Arafat's support for Saddam Hussein, the loss of support in the Arab world, the loss of Soviet backing and turning the Hamas into a political threat, as well as President Bill Clinton's need for a significant political move, and Rabin's own commitment to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians), in order to divert the talks towards a permanent settlement, and not suffice with an interim agreement that would only encourage the extremists on both sides to torpedo.

Rabin did not deny the logic of the proposal but opposed it for two reasons. One – if the talks on the permanent agreement fail, he said, it would be very difficult to resume talks on the interim agreement; and second – Oslo is part of the process that began at the Madrid Conference, which adopted Begin's idea for Palestinian self-government for a five year period. When we announce the Oslo Accords, and when the Right wing criticizes us for the move, we can easily prove the connecting thread.

Like a Bar Mitzvah Boy

On September 31, 1993, a hot day in Washington, when the Accords were signed on the lawn of the White House, people from all over the world came to watch the event. I felt like a bar mitzvah boy, with heads of state and foreign ministers coming to shake my hand and congratulate me.

When the agreement was signed, and Clinton, Rabin, and Arafat shook hands – it seemed that a historic peace agreement had been signed. However it was not a peace agreement, and the elating ceremony created exaggerated expectations.

In the fall of 1994, I received a phone call from the Chief Rabbi of Norwegian Jewry Rabbi Michael Melchior, asking me if I was interested in receiving the Nobel Prize. I told him that the ones who should receive the prize are the ones who are taking responsibility for this move, and those are Rabin and Peres. Melchior told me that most members of the Nobel Peace Prize committee are leaning towards the Rabin-Peres-Arafat trio, but committee member, Kåre Kristiansen, was threatening to resign (and indeed did so) if Arafat was awarded the prize. An alternative option was suggested to award the honorable prize to Mahmoud Abbas and me, as the ones who mastered the move behind the scenes. I refused and asked him to apologize on my behalf.

The grip of the Right

The interim agreement became a permanent agreement in Netanyahu's hands, when he demanded that the Palestinians act and cooperate as if there was a peace agreement between the sides. The Palestinians rejected several proposals for a political settlement, and Israel – mainly in the construction of settlements in Judea and Samaria – contributed its share to the elimination of the permanent agreement.

The Oslo Accords failed because they are actually still here. The Right's "success" in perpetuating an interim settlement and expecting it to behave like a peace agreement is costing all parties too much.

The main argument of the Oslo's critics is not that we did not try to reach a permanent agreement in Oslo, but that it was a grave mistake to regard Arafat as a partner, and that he came to the negotiating table with the clear intention of returning to a violent conflict with us.

But the truth is that the disagreement between us is on the question of the consent to divide the western Land of Israel between the Palestinians and us. Those who prefer the "integrity of the land" over a Jewish state under the auspices of a Jewish majority, will not agree to any Palestinian partner.

Oslo's critics tend to forget that the gates of hell for terrorism were opened in February 1994 by a doctor in an IDF uniform, wearing a kippa], who murdered 29 Muslim worshipers in the Cave of the Patriarchs. 40 days later, at the end of the days of Muslim mourning, suicide terrorism began in Hadera and Afula.

Oslo's critics do not see any connection between Ariel Sharon's provocation on the Temple Mount in September 2000 and the Intifada that broke out the next day. They have a paradigm, and they are not interested in any "interference."

The attempts of the Right to find Palestinian partners who would not demand a state for themselves have all resulted in nothing, and even if they had succeeded, they would have very quickly caused a situation by which the Palestinian majority would demand the realization of their just rights. The Palestinians under our rule (such as Faisal Husseini and Hanan Ashrawi) were not ready to hold significant political negotiations with us, arguing that only the PLO, under the leadership of Arafat, is the legitimate agent to hold negotiations with Israel.

When we returned from the talks in London in 1987 with a document agreed upon by King Hussein, and which determined that Jordan would take responsibility for the negotiations, with the cooperation of Palestinians who oppose terrorism, the Likud, led by Shamir threw us down all steps, and the king transferred the West Bank into Palestinian hands.

And the main thing – if Oslo was so disastrous, how is it that I have been calling for its abolition for two decades, and all Right-wing governments, including the current one, are eagerly clinging to it?

The biggest obstacle to the division of the land is the fact of the large dispersion of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, and this problem can be solved by establishing a confederation (modeling the early days of the European Union) between Israel and a Palestinian state, which will allow any settler who wishes to remain in his home as an Israeli citizen and a permanent Palestinian resident, but with a clear border between the two countries, and the extent of its openness will depend on the security situation at the time.

Only those who do not want an agreement, and do not understand its importance, will continue to claim again and again that the disputes are impossible to solve and that there is no partner. Giving up, in my opinion, is giving up on Zionism.

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1.

The shockwaves of the Oslo Accords will continue to accompany us on our path as a nation, and, just like in the mourning process, in which mourners move from denial to acceptance, this is a national process with psycho-historical and psycho-political components.

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The regions of the Land of Israel with which the agreements dealt with are more than mere "territories" that control the heart of the country and more than an obstacle to a contiguous route from Iran, through Iraq, and Jordan to the Samarian Hills in the western Land of Israel. All these are true, but these territories are first and foremost the cradle of our birth as a nation. It was in these places that the Bible was written and our ancient nationalism was shaped. These were the subjects of our dreams during the long, dark night of our exile: Jerusalem, Shiloh, Beit El, and Hebron. We have been dreaming of returning there to renew ourselves as a nation.

2.

Israeli nationalism is supplemented by the religious element or Jewish core of our identity, which is inextricably linked to these territories. The first stage of our national revival toward the end of the 18th century and during the 19th century was carried at the expense of the religious dimension. The Jewish elites rebelled against the religious establishment and cast off religion: the Torah and the halachic practice. It was these religious elements that back then were identified by young Jews as being primarily responsible for the despondent political situation of the Jewish people and its economic and social deterioration. Their anger grew stronger with the 1848 revolutions and the expansion of civil rights.

Video: PM Netanyahu speaks about judicial reform / Credit: Twitter/Prime Minister's Office

In Micha Joseph Berdyczewski's story "Mahanaim" (the beginning of the 20^th century), the hero looks at his peers skating on the ice whose "souls echo with the confidence that exists when everything is well." He is jealous of them. Why is our fate different than theirs? The result: "Once he was just the son of a patrimony, and he was the guardian of that patrimony, and now he had gone out of its domain and he toiled to break off from everything he had acquired within its walls... He has emerged from darkness to light, from slavery to freedom..." There were many thousands like him.

3.

In psychological terms, what the Jewish elites did was patricide. They expelled the ancestral father – the Jewish God – who had stood at the head of the family for thousands of years. It is one thing if we believe in or are indifferent to religious faith, but it's a fact that for thousands of years, the Jewish people had a God who was responsible for the content of the lives and deaths of the individuals who made up the people. This faith, which has withstood trials and tribulations that no other nation has endured, and for which the best of its sons and daughters have given their lives, became the main component of the collective psychology of the people and its raison d'être.

The way to emerge from a state of national slumber and return to history was to disconnect from the religious umbilical cord. The psychoanalyst Margaret Mahler talked about the process of growing up in terms of separation-individuation – separation from the parental umbilical cord in order to form an independent personality. In national terms, what happened to us was the separation from the religious umbilical cord by rebelling against God (the ancestral father) and his representatives on earth (the religious establishment) in order to form an independent collective personality (the national individuum). At first, we returned to history with the revival of the national nucleus, which until that time had been dormant and wrapped in religious law, and after we returned to history, we returned to our ancient homeland and established an independent state.

Independence expressed not only political liberty but also a distancing from the religious dimension, which was relegated mainly to the personal sphere. Israel's Declaration of Independence managed to accommodate this complexity: On the one hand, it mentions some twenty times the word Jewish with its various conjugations (Jewish State, Jewish People, etc.), and on the other hand, it only hints at the fact that there once stood at the head of the family that was now forming the third Jewish republic (or kingdom) an ancestral father. Loyalty to this father and his laws was a real, not an imagined, foundation for the People. The compromise reached to add the vague expression "Rock of Israel" – which alludes to God (see: 2 Samuel 23:3) – at the end of the Declaration of Independence cast a veil on the face of the God of Israel. It seems that this is the deep-rooted cause of the many complexities that characterize Israeli society even today.

4.

The Six-Day War, or rather its results – the rapid victory and the liberation of the historical parts of the Land of Israel and Jerusalem above all - was an unplanned surprise, almost a historical accident. The direct encounter with the cradle of Jewish history exposed to the Israeli public in a very powerful way the theological meaning that is signified behind these liberated regions, and made it aware of the possibility of the return of the repressed religious dimension to the heart of political and public life. From the perspective of secular and liberal Israel, a dormant giant had awakened and it threatened the normalcy liberal Israel thought it had achieved: In other words, the Six-Day War marked the return of theology to history and from there to politics. It was a move that led Israel in the opposite direction from the "patricide" from which Israel's social elites had grown.

It is this – and not our control over another people – that is the root of the resistance of some among us to maintain our grip on the cradle of our historic motherland. The desire for a peace achieved by giving up on parts of the motherland loaded with historical and religious meaning, expressed a desire for normalcy, for an escape from an ancient fate and destiny that often throughout history appeared to have been thrust on us against our will. Hence, the negative use of the term "messianic," which was used now no longer as a hope for world peace come the end of days, but an expression of irrational considerations in policy, politics, the military, and more. The bitter struggle against the settlements and the settlers is also a part of this since it is religious Jews who have gone outside of the framework designated for them and have taken on the national task of settling in the historic lands of Judea and Samaria as they seek to lead the Zionist locomotive.

5.

It is now 30 years since we gave up the heart of the land in a failed attempt to make peace. It is through this prism that we can also explain the root of the public debate regarding judicial reform and, in fact, the role of the Supreme Court: Is it an equal authority between the three branches of power, or whether it is a gatekeeper that is designed to protect secular Israel from the return of the religious dimension to the heart of Israeli existence. Hence the exaggerated apocalyptic expressions that come from the side of the protesters, as if the end of the state is nigh.

In the Book of Jonah, we learned that the refusal to accept our destiny (in the case of Jonah: to hear the word of God ) found expression in Jonah's flight from the mountains to Jaffa, to the coastal plain, and his decision to sail out to sea with all the implications of being forgotten and forgetting identity which are inherent in that. But we also learned that those who flee will find themselves at the heart of a storm – a storm at sea, an economic storm, or even a terrible war and a danger of extermination – and then they will have no choice but to be vomited out on the shores of the Promised Land as survivors who have escaped from the sword, and to climb up the hill once more.

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The news about the death of the Oslo Accords turned out to be premature – after all, Israel is investing in multiple resuscitation efforts to keep the Palestinian Authority alive. But it is symbolic that even as it continues to collapse beneath our feet, we are informed of the death of Abu Alaa (Ahmed Qurei), one of its architects, in Ramallah.

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For the past two decades, Qurei served as the chairman of the Legislative Council and prime minister of the Palestinian Authority. He was involved in all the Palestinian-Israeli contact over the years and participated in the agreements signed by both sides – the Oslo Accords.

Qurei – born in Abu Dis, in 1937 – joined the ranks of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1968 when the organization moved to Lebanon and established there a "state within a state", which served as a base for terrorist activity against Israel. He was the financial planner of the organization, and over time, became Chairman Yasser Arafat's confidant. Later, he was elected to the leadership of the PLO.

In the early 1990s, he was sent by Arafat to participate in the secret talks with Israel that led to the Oslo Accords. He was described by his Israeli interlocutors as pragmatic and flexible, but according to his own testimony, the apparent moderation he displayed was intended to ensure the full realization of the Palestinian national goals. After all, he believed in the Phased Plan – or the "Salami method" – according to which each stage in the struggle with Israel has its own uniqueness and characteristics, and therefore it is possible at one stage or another to agree to compromises and concessions, provided that this does not mean giving up on the final goal of the Palestinians, even if this goal has to be obscured at times.

But the Oslo agreement collapsed and with it the Palestinian hopes for achieving their national goals. Qurei blamed Israel for the failure and avoided any responsibility for its demise. In his opinion, it was the Six-Day War that created the predicament in which the Palestinians find themselves today.

Now there is no one left of the historical leadership of the Palestinians, except for the 88-year-old Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. A look at the group that surrounds Abbas today reveals that it has no cohesion, no vision, no courage, and no charisma.

The death of Qurei marks the drawing of the curtain behind the founding generation of the PLO and the approaching end of the Oslo era. It also seems to signal the end of the Palestinians' pipe dreams and the bookend for the Palestinian movement, which initially took the form of a violent struggle that lacked any chance, with terror squads devoid of leadership and organization. Looking at the daily reality in Gaza and Judah and Sumaria – it seems that the Palestinians are returning to their starting point.

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The post Is the Palestinian national movement heading toward disarray? appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Faisal Husseini, who held the Palestinian Authority's Jerusalem portfolio, gave an interview shortly before his death in the summer of 2001 in which exposed the fraud at the heart of the Oslo process. Speaking with Al Araby newspaper, Husseini said that Yasser Arafat, his deputies and henchmen never saw the "peace process" as a way of achieving peace with Israel. Oslo for them was a means to advance their goal of destroying Israel, "from the river to the sea."

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Husseini described the Oslo process as a "Trojan Horse." Arafat and his people were the hostile army that infiltrated the city "in the belly of the wooden horse." When Arafat rejected Palestinian statehood and peace at the Camp David summit in July 2000 and initiated the Palestinian terror war two months later, it was as if he and his men exited the horse and began the fight.

"This is the beginning of the real work," Husseini explained.

The PLO used the seven years that preceded the Palestinian terror war to build up their power. Arafat held "peace" talks and Israel paid through the nose for the privilege of sitting across the table from him and his apparatchiks. Israel gave them the Gaza Strip. Israel gave them the Palestinian cities and villages in Judea and Samaria. Israel gave them weapons and ammunition. Israel gave them international legitimacy. Israel – and with Israel's permission, the nations of the world – gave PLO terrorists billions of dollars every year. Israel permitted the EU and the CIA to arm and train Arafat's terror legions.

Arafat promised that in exchange for all that, he would fight terror and build the institutions necessary to run a state. Instead, he and his minions transformed the cities Israel gave them into terror bases. They used the funds to finance terror armies. They used the international legitimacy Israel's recognition conferred to escalate and expand their political war against Israel's right to exist.

The Israeli public didn't need Husseini's interview to know that Oslo was gravest strategic error in Israel's history. The first Palestinian suicide bomber blew up at a crowded bus stop seven months after Yitzhak Rabin and Arafat shook hands at the White House on Sept. 13, 1993. Between their handshake and the beginning of the Oslo war in September 2000 the number of Israelis killed by Palestinian terrorists was twice the total killed from 1967-1993.

Despite the public's opposition, today, 28 years after Oslo's launch, we are still living the world Oslo unleashed. The strategic and political realities the Oslo process created still dominate the life of the country. The Palestinian Authority still exists. It still finances and incites terror and wages its political war against Israel. The Oslo-obsessed "international community" still demands that Israel "make painful concessions for peace," and together with the Israeli Left, insists that the "two-state solution" is the only possible way to resolve the Palestinians' never-ending war for the annihilation of Israel.

For years, led by Shimon Peres, the Israeli Left dismissed public opposition to their radical, failed policy with the jeering catcall, "What's the alternative?" – as if Israel's only option is surrender to Palestinian terrorists in the name of "peace."

A year ago, we caught a glimpse of the alternative: the sovereignty plan, which was supported by America. That plan showed that there is an option for governing Judea and Samaria and securing the interests of both Israel and the Palestinians that doesn't involve empowering a terrorist organization.

As for peace, the Abraham Accords showed that the key to peace with the Arab world isn't kowtowing to Palestinian terrorists.

The key to peace is Israel's military, economic, diplomatic and social power. The parties to the Abraham Accords made peace with Israel because we are powerful, because Israel stubbornly defends of its rights and interests.

Last year's glimpse of the true alternative to surrender seems like a distant dream today. The Lapid-Gantz-Bennett government has embraced Oslo's tired, insipid slogans and presents them as original ideas – as if we were all born yesterday.

"Security for prosperity," Lapid's plan for "stabilizing" Hamas-controlled Gaza, is an attempt to repackage Oslo's requirement that Israel give the Palestinians everything they demand up front in exchange for vague promises of Palestinian moderation sometime down the line.

In Lapid's plan, Israel will let Hamas rebuild its missile stores and terror infrastructures by transferring astronomical quantities of civilian aid. Hamas will respond by temporarily suspending its missile attacks on Israel.

"The international community," will guarantee Hamas doesn't use the humanitarian id to do what it has been doing since seizing control over Gaza 15 years ago, even though "the international community," has passively and actively supported Hamas for 15 years.

"Gaza residents," will overthrow Hamas if it blocks prosperity by using "humanitarian aid" to build its their terror arsenals, even though the Palestinians of Gaza and Judea and Samaria support Hamas and want elections so that Hamas, which has been diverting humanitarian aid for 15 years, will oust Fatah and the PLO from power.

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Although PA Chairman and PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas has no public support, he is Israel's "legitimate partner" for peace. He's our partner for fighting terror even though he incites and finances terror. The Lapid-Gantz-Bennett government is committed to expanding Abbas's powers to empower "moderates."

The IDF, Lapid says, can't fight endless rounds of war with Hamas. But then again, the IDF is so powerful that he argues Israel can afford to let Hamas rebuild its arsenal and military infrastructures.

And if all this fails to convince, Lapid brought out the big guns, "international legitimacy." Israel can't live without "international legitimacy" and it won't have any if it doesn't give the Palestinians everything they demand. Anyway, it all makes sense because the only alternative is "the two-state solution."

How is it possible after all we have been through and all we have learned and seen that we are still living in the Oslo reality?

The answer begins with name of the phony peace process: Oslo. It was a Norwegian production, not an Israeli one. In 1993, the anti-Israel Norwegian government asked two Israeli peace activists who worked at a think tank connected with then-deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin to come to Oslo to meet with senior PLO terrorists. They agreed despite the fact that Israeli law then banned all contact between Israeli citizens and PLO members.

Although they represented no one, Yair Hirschfeld and Ron Pundak were happy to oblige and carried out negotiations as if they were Israel's representatives. When the talks advanced to a certain point, they told Beilin about them. And he told Peres.

After Arafat, (with Israeli coaching) scuttled the official peace talks that Rabin's representatives were holding in Washington, Peres told Rabin. Whether unwilling to get into an open battle with Peres that could potentially bring down his government, or hopeful that something positive might come from the anti-democratic exercise, Rabin agreed to make the Oslo deal official policy.

The public opposed Oslo from the beginning. To get the Oslo deals approved by Knesset, Rabin required the support of the anti-Zionist Arab parties. Once the ultra-Orthodox Shas party left his government, to survive Rabin needed to entice two lawmakers from the far-right Tzomet party to bolt their party, and abandon their ideology. He bought them off with a ministry and a deputy ministry and got the second Oslo deal through Knesset with a one-vote majority.

Rabin and Peres were able to push ahead with Oslo because the media and the legal fraternity supported their efforts to demonize its opponents. Zionists became "enemies of peace," collaborators with Hamas and Fatah. Rabin coined the term "murderers of peace." Opposition leaders who gave firmly documented heart-rending speeches against Oslo were accused of "incitement." Victims of Palestinian terror were dubbed "victims of peace."

When Ariel Sharon became prime minister at the height of the Palestinian terror war, he opted to end the media's demonization of him by joining the Oslo mob. Arguing that things look different from the Prime Minister's Office, Sharon adopted the Left's policy of mass expulsions of law-abiding Israeli citizens from their homes in Gaza. True, Sharon was reelected in a landslide in 2003 by running against the Left's expulsions platform. But he didn't care. He expelled 10,000 Israelis from their homes in 2005 and 18 months later, as he had previously warned would happen, Hamas seized control of Gaza. The media swooned.

Benjamin Netanyahu preferred to ignore Oslo in the hopes that it would wither on the vine and disappear in the face of the success of the diplomatic alternative he built on the basis of Israel's strength. Despite the wild success of his efforts, Oslo survived the sovereignty plan and the Abraham accords, and of course, Netanyahu's tenure in office. And now it is roaring back.

In pre-Yom Kippur interviews, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett echoed Sharon when he said he left his ideology and political positions behind when he entered the Prime Minister's Office. Tuesday night, Bennett's sidekick, Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked warned of growing "incitement and extremism."

The Lapid-Gantz-Bennett government is sort of a Rabin-Peres government on steroids. Rabin bought his right-wing turncoats with one ministry and one deputy ministry. Bennett was able to extort a two-year premiership and Gideon Sa'ar got to be Justice Minister. The Rabin-Peres government needed the anti-Zionist Arab parties to pass the Oslo deals. The Lapid-Gantz-Bennett government needs the anti-Zionist Arab parties for everything. And like the Rabin-Peres government, the current government owes its survival to the wall to wall support it receives from the media and the legal fraternity.

This is the heart of the matter. Oslo has survived despite the fact that it has been a catastrophe for Israel on every level for 28 years because Israel's permanent ruling class supports it.

In the early years of Oslo, I was a witness to the process that brought Israel's diplomatic and military leaders, along with the senior civil service to put reality aside, and embrace Oslo's illusion of peace. During Oslo's heyday, from 1994-1996, as an IDF captain in the Defense Ministry, I served as a core member of Israel's negotiating team. I sat in the negotiating sessions in Cairo, Taba and Eilat.

The fraud was obvious even then. Every two weeks, I wrote and circulated detailed reports setting out how the Palestinian officials left the negotiating halls each week and ordered their people to breach every promise and pledge they had just made in the halls. I documented the fraud, the Oslo lie. And I saw how one by one, commanders and senior officials who understood the danger and knew the truth embraced "the new narrative" while ignoring the facts in most cases.

We won't be able to bury Oslo at the ballot box – although winning elections is a precondition for burying it. Oslo will only be finally laid to rest when we compel Israel's permanent ruling class to abandon it in favor of Zionism – and the truth.

The post Why Oslo still rules appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

A decision by the IDF's Civil Administration that would severely cut back on the possibility of Israel settlements encroaching on privately-owned Palestinian land while also preventing the Palestinians from building illegally on land that is under Israeli control has been approved by the attorney general and is waiting for a green light from the nation's leadership, Israel Hayom has learned.

The IDF's Civil Administration, which operates under the auspices of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) has recommended a process of regulation of land ownership in Judea and Samaria that would replace the unwieldy and lengthy process currently in use. A land survey would be conducted after which land belonging to Israel would be officially declared as such.

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How would it work? The land would be mapped, and anyone claiming ownership would be invited to presented documents proving the land is in fact theirs. Then a list of all lawsuits filed by people claiming to own land would be compiled, and each case would be investigated. Each case would resolve the status of a given piece of land, and its owners would be designated. These decisions could be appealed to a judge assigned to oversee the process of regulation. Once this process is complete, a list of all land ownership would be compiled and the lands would be officially registered. Once that registration is complete, there will be no further avenue for appeal.

After World War II, the British Mandate began a process of land ownership regulation. In 1948, the Jordanians continued the process in Judea and Samaria, and managed to complete approximately one-third of the work by the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel captured those territories. The lands whose ownership has already been regulated mostly lie in the Jordan Valley, northern Samaria, Maaleh Michmesh in Binyamin, and Mount Hebron.

Meanwhile, land ownership in Israel, with the exception of certain areas of the Negev Desert, was also clarified and registered. In 1967, the GOC Central Command issued a directive that froze the process of regulating land ownership. In the years that followed, a method of surveying the land was established.

The method was used to survey the land, and land that had not been worked for a long period of time was declared state-owned, allowing the government to declare ownership of some 780,000 dunams (193,000 acres) in what would become Area C. However, as time went on, the process became increasingly cumbersome and expensive, leading to a wave of objections, appeals, lawsuits, and petitions to the High Court of Justice filed by both Palestinian individuals and leftist organizations.

Currently, there are some 106,000 dunams (26,200 acres) of land in Judea and Samaria that have already surveyed but not declared state-owned land, and hundreds of thousands of dunams of land that is lying fallow that has not been surveyed or declared state property, meaning that dozens of settlements across Judea and Samaria are still awaiting regulation of their status.

The Civil Administration has a team that is charged with investigating the status of this land, and it carries out about two regulatory processes a year.

Recently, MK Maj. Gen. (res.) Uzi Dayan contacted Defense Minister Benny Gantz and asked why it was taking the Civil Administration so long to declare land that had already been surveyed the property of the state.

In response to Dayan's request for information, a COGAT representative wrote: "Our primary recommendation is to regulate the land in Judea and Samaria gradually, with definitive and final results. The advantages of regulating land ownership are greater than the resources invested in declaring lands to be the property of the state, when they are attacked by appeals and in the courts, a long process that sometimes takes years."

The COGAT recommendation won the support of former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked. Attorney-General Avichai Mendelblit looked into it and approved it. It was submitted to the Prime Minister's Office and to all the defense ministers who have held the post in the last two years. Now the recommendation is waiting for the government to implement it.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority has started its own process of regulating land ownership and has some 600 PA employees working on claims. The PA is now claiming ownership of considerable land in Area C even though existing surveys show that it is was supposed to be declared Israeli land.

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The Civil Administration does not recognize land registration by the Palestinian Authority, but the more time passes, the greater the chances are that the Palestinians will be able to establish the land as theirs de facto.

A senior settlement official said Sunday that "the attorney general's recommendation is welcome news, a step that must be taken to finally provide a solution to the PA's eating away at state-owned lands and the many problems of regulating established, as well as young, settlements. This must be done without hurting any ownership rights of any part of the population. We hope that the leadership will adopt it."

Dayan said in response: "I'm a big supporter of establishing [Israeli] sovereignty in the Jordan Valley and Judea and Samaria. We need our eastern border to be the Jordan River. Until that happens, we must not leave the field empty. We need to ensure that the vast majority of settlements are regulated. Given the response from COGAT, I intend to apply pressure and take care that the response is adopted, and becomes a work plan, so that when we go back to talking about sovereignty, a situation will be created in which all settlements, outposts, and neighborhoods, are regulated. It will be a contribution to future generations," he said.

The post Will government implement plan to regulate both Israeli and Palestinian land in Area C? appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

"Do you take your tea with sugar? Honey?" Noa Rothman asks me in her kitchen in Ramat Hasharon.

"We don't use sweetener during the week of the Rabin yahrtzeit," I blurt out. Noa bursts out laughing, and I heave a sigh of relief.

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I ask her why she laughed.

"When it's obvious it wasn't meant to offend, I laugh," she says.

Q: And when they refer to the days before the memorial ceremony as the 'Rabin festival'?

"Once it hurt me, at the beginning. Not anymore."

Q: What does hurt you, 25 years after the assassination?

"My wound is the cries of 'Traitor.' One of the hardest nights my grandfather had was the night of the [failed] mission to rescue [kidnapped IDF soldier] Nachshon Waxman, when Nir Poraz was killed, and the meetings that were hardest for my grandfather were the ones with Batia Arad [the wife of MIA navigator Ron Arad]. But he never avoided responsibility. Ideologically, there's no problem with debating a move, but to take it to places of terrorist attacks and talk against my grandfather with people screaming 'Rabin is a traitor!' in the background, is infuriating. And to think that's where our current leadership came from is a real slap in the face. People didn't realize how hurtful calling him a 'traitor' was.

"In our family, because my grandfather was murdered in a political context, we needed to represent him. But we weren't representing or admiring a living leader, we were upholding the name of someone who was dead … Our experience was life in a political home, and in a certain sense, the murder didn't change how we had behaved before it. It changed the way I looked at things and the desire to get justice for Grandpa. To get justice every time he was insulted."

Q: After his death?

"Yes. For example, when Bibi stood with [former PLO leader Yasser] Arafat a few years after criticizing Rabin for doing the same, and upheld the Hebron Accord – Oslo III – in a faulty manner, he didn't say, 'Forgive me, Rabin, you're not a traitor,' or 'I'm doing this because I have no choice.' Netanyahu opted for Oslo even though Rabin himself said that part of the Hebron accord would be implemented only if the Palestinian side made guarantees. And no one on the Right stood up and told Netanyahu: 'There are holes in your deal.'

"[Arik] Sharon asked to have the picture of the signing of the Oslo I Accord taken down from the wall of the Prime Minister's Office after he bombed the Muqata during the Second Intifada. That was cynicism. After that, he carried out the disengagement from Gaza, which was considered a left-wing model, the model of the Lebanon security zone. Do we have that model now? No. There is no security."

'Oslo is still in effect'

Q: If we're discussing left-wing models, what do you see as the reasons for the failure of the Left?

"Leaders' egos, atrophied systems, and the fact that there is a constant attempt to disguise themselves as 'Right' rather than being on the Left."

Q: What does the Left have to offer?

"Reality is left-wing. With all the happiness about peace with Khartoum, the PLO's three 'nos' were cancelled in the Oslo Accords: No to recognizing Israel, no to negotiations, and no to peace. There is no Arab boycott."

Q: They were cancelled at a time of terrorism. So maybe the Left's historic role is over.

"Oslo came before the Intifada. There was a blood-soaked reality, terrorist stabbings, and demonstrations all over the country. Oslo didn't come after a time of peace. The moment [Anwar] Sadat got on a plane the terrorism began, as did the realization that we couldn't defeat it militarily. Every attempt to form a Palestinian leadership failed. At the Madrid conference, Yitzhak Shamir and Netanyahu laid down the framework for a state against a state. My grandfather didn't wait to be elected in 1992 to release the doves of peace. He saw that as the jewel in the crown of a life spent serving his people. So for him to end that stage of his life with three bullets in his back and being accused of treason is not something that can be overlooked by anyone who was close to him and knew him. And it hurts."

Q: But he wasn't really accused of treason.

"There was focus on 'din rodef' [pursuing a person for crimes]. These questions were asked and there were rabbis who discussed the issue, and I don't think it will bring him back, but it has to mark the boundaries of discourse for us all. I remember the day when [Yigal Amir's ex-girlfriend] Margalit Har-Shefi was applauded in Beit El, it was a knife to my heart."

Q: Why do you think they applauded? They were happy she was back home.

"No, they were happy about the murder. You can't be that happy when we were so sad."

Q: The same could be said of the Rabin family, who weren't sad when people in Beit El were sitting shiva for those murdered in terrorist attacks.

"Maybe. There is a social gap. You understand it one way, and I in a different way. With us, when you're sad, you can't all of a sudden be happy about something else. I remember the demonstrations, the pictures of him [Rabin] with a keffiyeh. They hurt – not because I have a problem with a keffiyeh, btu because the intent was to insult. The day the peace agreement with Jordan was signed in 1994, I was on TV for the first time in my life. It was me, the daughters of Shaul Mofaz and Ehud Barak, and a boy from Ofra and a boy from the Golan Heights. I remember that the boy from Ofra didn't know me. They were standing next to me and he said, 'Have you seen Rabin's kid?' I shriveled. They were expecting to see someone with a devil's tail. Today, I'd introduce myself. But then? I froze."

Q: It's not certain he was looking for a tail.

"There was incitement."

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Q: Did Bibi call Rabin a traitor?

"He said once that he [Rabin] is not a traitor. I remember Bibi's hysterical cries the night of the murder. He came to the studio and said, 'You're not Likud, I don't want your votes, I'll support Shimon Peres because government is changed in an election, not through murder.' He hasn't said that since. In other words, he knows when to call the extremists to order, but he wakes up too little and too late."

Q: Might violence against Netanyahu be on the way?

"I'm not a prophet of violence. I'm a victim of the last round of it … Rabin was of evil intentions, but his intentions were good. What you have as a public servant are the purity of your intentions. It's a little like modern-day high priests. I'm more biblically-minded that you are, hon," she says with a smile.

"It's the way I was brought up. No home had more pathos than mine. My father wrote the anthem of the Sayeret Matkal unit. For anyone who spent their life in public service, as a teacher or a police officer or as prime minister, the accusation of treason is the worst one there is."

Q: Netanyahu is a public servant, too.

"But there is no faith in him. If I look at the number of Netanyahu's policy decisions and you had to characterize them, they'd fall in the center-left. But the terminology incites against the Left, and spurs on the other side. We are drowning in the gap between reality and the text. As a society, we've fallen into that abyss, because he [Netanyahu] speaks against the Left and implements policy of the Left and then the Left loses out. It's not that the Left has nothing to offer, it's that Netanyahu expects huge praise for every little thing he does. And then the Left is always at fault, even though they're not in power."

Q: So the Left would go along with Bibi, but the terminology prevents them from doing so?

"No, there are two aspects to it. One is the style, the other is like what happened with Oslo III. You can't promote a plan and at the same time complain that it's a bad one."

Q: But it was a long time ago.

"Oslo is still in effect. And the only thing that still works there is them [the Palestinians] threatening to cut off security coordination, and are afraid it will happen … So Oslo still works, even though the Likud denigrates it. Bibi could have cancelled it long ago, but the fact is, he didn't."

After years of being involved in politics from the personal angle, Rothman jumped in and ran for the 22nd Knesset on Ehud Barak's Democratic Camp list, which started off promisingly and wound up as a joint list with the ruins of Meretz and Labor. Rothman was ninth on the list and did not make it into the Knesset.

Q: What did you learn from your experiment with politics?

"I realized that what the right-wing side has and we don't is an elite that they can recruit. With us, there is no high-level education about involvement, so it's very easy to frighten and deter people. Because wealth, power, and elite sound similar to them. They don't realize that it is vital for an elite to enlist. That exists in my parents' generation. The big donors and manufacturers are people who make a contribution to Zionist and combine responsibility for the community and society with their patriotism. In my generation, something in the illusion of universalism and globalism freed us of our obligation. Maybe COVID has shed some light on the part we have to play, because you couldn't escape to the Maldives. For you, everyone is an elite that takes part. Once a year, I do reserve duty at the Yitzhak Rabin Center, but that's it. I'm the daughter of a generation that was abandoned in terms of values."  

Q: What you're describing can be seen in politics. The Left is crumbling.

"Right. In the next election, what will they try to do? More Blue and White? Now another line of retired military people who still haven't gone a round? These aren't bad people. It's the lack of personal involvement and the lack of ability to cooperate and accept responsibility."

Q: Will you try politics again?

"If I think I can make a difference, I won't be able to say no. Do I want to? No. I didn't want to last time. I'm also not a victim. There are people who do things that are a lot worse, right? I'm lucky. But no one should rush to change places with me, you don't know what it's like."

Q: Why do you take part in the anti-government protests?

"Because I worry that there is an attempt to change the balance of power, so Israel's liberal character is in danger."

Q: Wouldn't it be better to focus the protest at Balfour? On achieving something?

"I'm against the game of attacking the protests. In 2011 it was a fashion show of activism. I lived on Rothschild Blvd. then and the activists camped out there very soon and that put an end to it. Now we have a solid core, and the groups that have attached themselves are as serious as a bunch of gypsies. They drag them in by their homemade signs. I don't have a US passport – I don't have anywhere else to go, and I can't think of anywhere else. My language is everything I am."

Q: What will happen when Bibi goes."

"There will be faith in the government."

Q: Who would you want to replace him?

"This is the Left's problem – they have no one to offer. If Bibi goes, he will be replaced by a group, and if it can be 50% women, it would be better. Who said we need one person?"

Q: There needs to be one person. Otherwise, it won't work. Polls show that the person running closest to Bibi…"

"Is [Naftali] Bennett."

Q: Right.

"I have a problem with most of Bennett's worldview. But I'm willing to disagree ideologically with the prime minister on the condition that he gets up every morning and works on my behalf. I would prefer Tzipi Livni or Ehud Barak, but they aren't running. Or Yair Lapid. Names aren't my problem. My problem is the discourse."

Q: This year there have been a few initiatives for a Rabin memorial ceremony. Which one do you like?

"I saw a post about a ceremony in Rabin Square, under the slogan 'We argue, but we are brothers,' proposed by the council that runs the pre-military preparatory academies. That's the message: instead of learning songs of brotherhood, learn tolerance. These are things that promote dialogue."

The post 'Reality is left-wing' appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

The reasons are mostly psychological, obviously, but we should nevertheless address the lessons learned from the events that began 20 years ago after then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount. The date itself was random: PLO leader Yasser Arafat wanted a bloody battle, and if Sharon hadn't gone to the Mount, Arafat would have found another excuse.

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Arafat was looking for a "war of liberation." He rejected the (generous) proposals made to him at Camp David, and sought a state for his people that would be built on a foundation of fire and blood. He believed that a few days or weeks of fighting in which Israel sustained wounded and casualties would prompt Israel to make additional concessions. But there was one critical thing that Arafat failed to take into account: a few months earlier, Israel had withdrawn from the security zone in southern Lebanon. The Arab world saw that withdrawal as a panicked retreat. Hassan Nasrallah compared Israeli society to a spider web and used the eruption of violence in Judea and Samaria to kidnap three IDF soldiers on Mount Dov.

Israel could not, and did not want to, give in again and in responded mercilessly to the Palestinian attacks. Every event ended in a resounding victory for the IDF. Instead of changing tactics, Arafat kept his back against the wall. He spurned every attempt to relaunch the peace process, and raised the stakes of the violence. He started with shooting attacks, and even allowed members of Fatah's Tanzim branch to take part in them, and then let the worst Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists out of PA prisons.

The flood of veteran terrorists into the field was felt immediately. The number of terrorist attacks, particularly suicide bombings, spiked, as did the number of Israelis wounded and killed. Ehud Barak lost the prime ministership to Ariel Sharon, who adopted a brave and coolheaded policy when he decided to let Israel rack up credit at home and abroad before giving the green light for an operation that would wipe out terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank.

There were two main events along the way to that operation. The first was the suicide bombing at the Dolphinarium nightclub in Tel Aviv in June 2001 (21 people killed), which caused the Bush administration to lose faith in Arafat and basically cut him off; and the suicide bombing at the Park Hotel in Netanyahu on the eve of Passover in 2002 (30 people killed). After the seder night bombing, Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield. Along the way, the 9/11 attacks hit New York, and terrorism lost its legitimacy in the eyes of the world. Rather than understanding that, the Palestinians dug in. They are still paying the price for that.

When Israel retook control of Area A, security forces gained the freedom to operate throughout Judea and Samaria, but mostly, it restored Israel's self-confidence. Since then, it has depended mainly on itself. This is particularly noticeable when compared to what is taking place in the Gaza Strip, where there are heavy restrictions to IDF activity, especially since the 2005 disengagement, which was also a belated response to the wave of terrorism that started in Sept. 2000.

Still, Israel opted – and has opted ever since – not to cancel the Oslo Accords. Moreover, despite the lack of political contact with the Palestinian Authority, the two sides' security apparatuses have been cooperating for 15 years, often intimately, saving the lives of many people on both sides. They even worked together against major challenges like an intifada comprised of "lone wolf" stabbing attacks. PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who in the meantime has turned out not to be a partner in peace, is the one leading a path that is different from that of his predecessor, which opposes the Israeli occupation through mostly non-violent means.

It is unclear how long Israel will continue to enjoy quiet in Judea and Samaria (and Gaza). The Palestinian problem is here to stay. Israel has made a lot of progress since 2000, but the Palestinians are stuck far behind. They have lost on every front: diplomatic, security, economic, and social. If they aren't given some prospect, at some point, they might rouse themselves and look for a violent way out.

So Israel would do well to implement the main lesson of the Second Intifada: to take the initiative. To control events, rather than being dragged into them; to mark a target and go after it. Since then, Israeli society has proven that it is willing to pay the price needed for that to happen. It will do the same in the future if it needs to, and truth be told – in the present, if the leadership gives it a clear way to fight the battle against COVID.

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The post Implement the big lesson of the Intifada: Initiate and control appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.