ISRAELIS go to the polls next Tuesday to choose a new leader. Ahead is Benjamin Netanyahu, a right-wing hard-liner who has little time for the two-state solution, was vehemently against Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and, who, for years, has been banging the drums of war against Iran. This silver-tongued, ruthless individual is highly dangerous.
Successive Israeli governments have proved over and over again that they’re not interested in relinquishing land for peace. Instead, “peace process” has become nothing more than a carrot held up as balm for Palestinian discontent and to appease the international community.
Israelis have lived in a state of conflict for so long it has become the norm.
Israeli children are indoctrinated in schools to believe that Eretz Israel is the be all and end all of everything.
I once asked a seemingly well-balanced Israeli teenager whether she would like to visit Paris, London or Rome one day. “Oh no!” she said. “Our country is the best in the world. Why would I want to go anywhere else?”
For young Israelis, the army is like a giant social club and its hardware their playthings. Most find the experience pleasurable. It is little wonder they grow up to become immune to the suffering of the other when the other has been systematically dehumanized in their eyes.
As the new Obama presidency has shown us, the tectonic plates of our world are shifting and with them new attitudes. Israelis need to change their own else wait for the day when the piper will finally have to be paid.
Source: Arab News (Read More.....)