.
Commentary:
We’ll begin with the totally absurd first.
It appears as if the election position of Ehud Barak and his Labor party has become sooo dire that he has completely given up on wooing centerist voters in favor of bringing Meretz voters back. Otherwise, why else would he offer such an outrageously absurd idea as a 48-kilometer tunnel connecting Gaza with Judea “…under Israeli sovereignty with Palestinian control of the traffic”?
According to Israel National News reports on Barak’s Gaza-Judea tunnel scheme:
The tunnel would create territorial continuity allowing for the establishment of a Palestinian Authority-led Arab state in both Gaza and areas east of the 1949 armistice line, he explained.
In an elections conference held at Ben-Gurion University, Barak told students that a tunnel from the city of Beit Hanoun in Gaza to the town of Dura near Hevron would cost two or three billion dollars, an amount he termed “reasonable”. The PA would be allowed to make free use of the tunnel, he said.
Imagine; like the kid left alone with the proverbial cookie jar, Ehud Barak would give Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, etc. freedom of movement in this tunnel to transport terrorists, Grad, Kassam and Katyusha rockets, other contraband, weaponry and ammo back and forth between Gaza and Judea wreaking havoc on Israel’s national security. If actually carried out, this rush of manure to the brain would render the entirety of Israel a rocket and mortar target range. With a bit of luck, leftist rocket scientist Ehud Barak’s Labor party will sink to a single-digit morass in the coming elections.
Ha’aretz reports that Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni made a case for her peace policies and elections Monday at the 9th annual Herzliya Conference:
“What kind of country will we have?” asked Israeli Foreign Minister and Prime Minister candidate in the upcoming elections, Tzipi Livni, as she made her case for the policies she represents at the 9th annual Herzliya Conference.
“We can not miss this opportunity [for peace],” she went on to say. “Peace is in our interest… The enforced ‘choice’ between peace and security is incorrect and anyone forcing the public to choose between the two is deluding himself, the public and does not understand the world we live in.”
Beneath these words is a flawed policy of displacing tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes in Judea and Samaria, thus opening the way for rocket and mortar bombardments, as in Gaza, which will wreak havoc on the everyday life of millions of Israelis in the center of the country.
Livni appears guided totally by faulty PA demographics numbers which she and other left wingers use to justify their policies. Despite the existence of an American-Israel Demographic Research Group (AIDRG)demographic study which speaks of an 1.8 million person inflation in PA demographics statistics and which debunks dire predictions of a demographic threat to Israel as a Jewish state, Livni remains married to these bogus PA demographics stats. By the way, check out this Jerusalem Post commentary by Evelyn Gordon on the myriad of reasons NOT to vote for Tzipy Livni and Kadima.
Ted Belman, the author of the internet site Israpundit and author of; “There Is No Demographic Bomb For Israel” using the demographic research group’s data, writes:
As Israelis come to understand there is no demographic time bomb, they will be more inclined to vote against the two-state solution.
Then we have Yisrael Beiteinu’s Avigdor Lieberman who is sounding ever more right-wing; undivided Jerusalem, no concessions — as if he did Big-time T’Shuva — NOT! This is the same Lieberman who has been bantering around dividing Jerusalem and land swaps — handing the Arabs the Jordan Valley rather than Yehuda and the Shomron. No wonder Bibi makes sounds like he wants him in a coalition. Watch how quick Netanyahu dumps him for the English-inarticulate Livni’s Kadima party.
And then there is Binyamin Netanyahu and his Jerusalem and Gaza doubleheader.
On Jerusalem, The Jerusalem Post reports that Bibi’s comments during a Tour of the Mount of Olives:
…He came to the controversial site in the capital in order to bring attention to reports that his main competition, Kadima leader Tzipi Livni, had agreed to give up portions of the city in negotiations over the past 14 months with her Palestinian counterpart, Ahmed Qureia. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reportedly told US Middle East mediator George Mitchell last week that Livni had agreed to divide the city.
“We did not return to Jerusalem after praying for it to be rebuilt for 2000 years in order to give it up,” Netanyahu told a throng of reporters from around the world at the City of David. “We did not unite the city in order to divide it, and my government will maintain a united Jerusalem. A sane country does not give its capital to its enemies.”
Later on, Netanyahu visited a Jewish-owned home on the Mount of Olives that had been purchased from Arabs by organizations working to reclaim property in the city for Jews. He then visited a lookout point over the Mount of Olives cemetery and the Temple Mount, where former Likud prime minister Menahem Begin is buried.
“The people buried here prayed that there would be a day when Jerusalem would be rebuilt,” Netanyahu said. “The foreign press is here because they understand that this election is about whether our capital will be given to our enemies. The Likud and I are committed to maintaining a united Jerusalem with defensible borders. But for that, we need as large a Likud as possible, because only the Likud can maintain a united Jerusalem.”
While Netanyahu was touring an archeological site in the City of David, Arabs heckled him from the rooftop of a nearby building.
In another piece, The Jerusalem Post reports that Likud leader Netanyahu has promised that a government under his leadership would topple Hamas on the Gaza Strip during a tour of Ashkelon after Tuesday morning’s Grad bombing. Netanyahu further noted that “Tzipi Livni and the people of Kadima scoffed at the predictions regarding rocket fire…”
The Jerusalem Post further reports former IDF chief of staff and Likud candidate Moshe Ya’alon’s Gaza comments to a panel on terrorism at the Herzliya Conference:
Israel’s withdrawals from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon were construed as “victories to Jihad.”
“History has taught us that capitulating to terror only invites more terror,” he said. “In the case of Israel, steadfastness against terror also includes standing firm, without discussing any territorial concessions. We have learned that our concessions over the past 15 years have brought upon us only more terror, rockets and bloodshed.”
Interesting that Netanyahu claims “we need as large a Likud as possible, because only the Likud can maintain a united Jerusalem.” Perhaps that’s why we recall how Bibi used technicalities to drop Moshe Feiglin from the 20th spot which Feiglin legitimately won in the Likud primary, to the 36th spot on the Likud list and Likud promptly dropped by 6 mandatim in the opinion polls.
The question: Is Bibi, who often makes these Jewish sounding pronouncements, really Jew enough and man enough to stand behind these words come what may?
We can only hope that Binyamin Netanyahu, should he become prime minister, stays true to his words spoken today at the Mount of Olives, rather than repeating past monumental blunders as giving away 80% of Hevron and not opposing the Disengagement until it was too little, too late. MB