Israel's recent land grab in the West Bank is the largest in three decades and will only make the situation in the West Bank and Gaza even worse. Abbas has been a great friend to Israel and Israel pays him back by appropriating 990 acres of land in the West Bank. They will only cause Abbas to be further alienated from his own people. The Arab radicals will say " you see what happen to Abbas the Israelis just screwed him you can only deal with Israel by being with us Arab extremists."
Perhaps BiBi believes the US is so busy on so many other fronts in the world today that we have nothing to worry about . After putting Hamas in their place we are “golden,” the only country in the world seriously going after terrorists. But BiBi is wrong in his strategy. The enemies of Israel want examples to prove that Israel is unreasonable and secondly to prove there is point in negotiating with this bully. BiBi has just played into the enemies' hands. He might have won this recent battle with Hamus but his high-handed behaviour could cause us to lose the War!
We must show our enemies that we are firm but reasonable. Not that we want more and more of Palestinian land as the Arab extremist claim.This land is not that important that more lives of either side must be lost. We must stop focusing myopically on try to get your opponent to say you are right and I have always been wrong. This will never happen. In difficult deep rooted conflict the parties must look for the smallest amount of common ground and build on it every day! In doing so you are attempting your opponent to agree to act in ways that get you what you really need, even when the other party doesn't agree with you! This should be the prudent behaviour of Israel towards its opponents.
Surveys in North America and Western Europe among Jews by generation show that the younger you are as a Jew the less Israel means anything to you! One of the main results from these attitudinal studies are that younger Jews believe in more numbers than ever that the propaganda against Israel that it is in fact a bully is correct! Within the next 20 to 25 years the US foreign policy toward Israel is expected to greatly change toward Israel. Since, American Jews shall be so assimilated that they will not see any need for Israel to be treated as “special case”. Israel must stop managing its strategies in a bubble, and not considering the impact of its behaviour on its greatest supporters in the world -all of us Jews in North America.
Alan Levy