Bernard Avishai describes Ben Caspit, an Israeli TV host, as a populist journo and then quotes these statements from him the other night:
Caspit wanted to talk about the public statement Friday by Likud’s Limor Livnat, a formidable minister in Netanyahu’s coaliton, that the freeze only proves Obama is anti-Israel, that "we have fallen into the hands of a terrible administration." …
"[I]n essence," Caspit said, "she [Livnat] said courageously what most of us think. The Americans–this administration–and I don’t fear them because I am not, lucky for all of us, a minister–is really an administration that burdens us, that is awful and terrible for Israel." … Later… Caspit said: "What, and soon we’ll have to freeze in Jerusalem? This is unprecedented." [Guest] Gideon Ezra protested that, for example, starting a new settlement in Nof Zion–"which is really Jabel Mukaber"–is an absurd provocation; that the key is to strengthen moderate forces among the Palestinians. Caspit’s answer in the form of a question: "So we will have given up 10 months of settlement for nothing, just so the goyim will say we are okay."..
Avishai says that Obama should "refocus the conversation not only on what Israelis should stop doing, but on positive steps that make concrete what positive steps the world community–goyim–expect Israelis and Palestinians to take." Avishai’s steps are not particularly convincing to me. It all seems way too little too late. Why, just consider the stunning arrogance of Caspit’s statement. This is the stuff of Greek mythology. This man sees no reason on human terms to end the colonization process and attempt to dismantle apartheid– he has no sense of anything owed an occupied people. No, it is just to get rid of the pressure from the goyim. It reveals to me the psychic damage of the blank check the Israel lobby has granted Israel for decades, and the damage of putrid ethnocentrism, a hubris born of the Leon Uris statement in Exodus that Jews can only rely on themselves.
