Yourish.com

Pretty disgusting idea, that headline, right?

Not according to the Washington Post.

For a nation that longs for normalcy and acceptance, one question being debated here is whether Iron Dome will motivate Israel’s leaders to pursue peace with the Palestinians and the wider Arab world or insulate them from having to do so.

“It is an amazing new toy,” said Tom Segev, an Israeli historian whose work often challenges Israel’s official account of the state’s founding. “I say toy because it has turned the horrors of war into a video game. Watching it in action, you forget what this is all about — a deep, historical conflict, and life and death.”

Barry Rubin points out the utter depravity of this theory.

So how do we get from here to demands that Israel must keep doing what has failed and the claim that the weaker is Israel’s strategic position the more it can and should make concessions and take risks? Such a stance is just about equivalent to saying that it is a pity that U.S. counterterrorism measures are working because if there were more September 11 type attacks that succeeded the Americans would be nicer to Muslims. Or if the British air force had only not defeated the Luftwaffe perhaps Prime Minister Winston Churchill wouldn’t have been so insulated from the need to make peace with the Axis.

It’s part of the Israeli Double Standard, of course. Only Israel stands accused of not wanting peace because Iron Dome is successfully lowering the Israeli death toll. And as Barry notes:

What’s most infuriating about all of this is not just that Israel has tried so hard to make peace–including risks and concessions–but the precise attacks referred to in the Post article were made possible only because Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in an attempt to promote peace!

Exactly. But now that Israel has the ability to protect herself from those risks, the anti-Israel forces must focus anew on weakening Israel in the international arena. Iron Dome is working? Let’s denigrate it and blame Israel! Fewer Israelis dying than terrorists? Let’s call them out on “disproportionate response”!

Special categories are constantly created to bash Israel. Has the concept of “proportional response”–that if defending yourself you shouldn’t do too much–ever been applied to anyone other than Israel? Can you imagine an American journalist writing an article suggesting that if only England got hiT harder by IRA terrorism it would treat the Irish better in Northern Ireland?

A new intifadeh is brewing? Blame Israel, no matter what!

Meanwhile, there is some concern by Israeli intelligence officials of a new intifadah on the West Bank. This would be due to new confidence created by the UN’s decision to make Palestine a non-member state (the UN’s contribution to peacemaking); a rapprochement between the Palestinian Authority, which rules the West Bank, and Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip; and the Palestinian Authority’s wish to compete with Hamas in attacking Israel and trying to kill Israelis.

So yes, the headline to this post is disgusting. And yet, it is what so many on the anti-Israel side believe. It’s another version of the insistence of the rest of the world that Jews don’t get to defend themselves. It’s one of the reason that so many excoriate Jabotinsky–even though he was right. Jews need to be able to defend themselves. Nobody else is going to do it for us.