By Nehemia Shtrasler, Haaretz – 28 May 2010
www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/our-bleeding-heart-prime-minister-1.292703
Netanyahu’s efforts to thwart a Palestinian ban on settlement goods are no doubt guided by his concern for the Palestinians
How can we rely on those Palestinians? For 43 years, they have been building the settlers’ homes with the sweat of their brows, paving roads for them and building their fences, and then suddenly, out of the blue, a boycott? Is that the way for partners to behave? Is that how they pay us back after we educated them for so many years to be our hewers of wood and drawers of water?
The prime minister, too, doesn’t understand this ungratefulness. At the Likud faction meeting this week, he complained bitterly about the Palestinian Authority’s decision to boycott 500 items produced in the settlements and to halt the work of the 6,000 people who are building settlers’ homes. “They think they can do everything they want,” the prime minister concluded angrily as his heart bled over the terrible injustice being done to us while the whole world looks on and says nothing.
But really, how can they do this to us? After all, we provide them with work, a living, a good life, wealth and happiness, and they respond with ill feelings. Do they not know that without Arabs it’s impossible to build? After all, the boycott could force the settlers to build their homes themselves, and why should the lords of the land suddenly start working in construction? That’s only good for the natives. That’s why there’s an occupation that can supply modern slaves who work for half price, just like during apartheid.
The Yesha Council of settlers also doesn’t understand what the boycott is about. It responded with sharp words and denounced the “hostile act.” MK Uri Ariel (National Union ) proposed a counter-boycott, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that it was “unacceptable for the Arabs to wage an economic war against us.”
Shraga Brosh, the president of the Manufacturers Association, believes that it’s a scandal; this view is shared by ministers Avigdor Lieberman and Benjamin Ben-Eliezer. Because only we are allowed to carry out a publicity campaign to buy “blue and white.” They are forbidden to develop their economy because their very essence must be to support us, their good masters. It’s a fact that we sell them all the surplus from our factories, all the rejects, as well as all the medicine that has expired. Otherwise where would they get medicine from? We also pass work on to them. They are the ones who sew our shoes and produce the coals for our barbecues on Independence Day, because, after all, any work is respectable.
During that Likud faction meeting, Netanyahu revealed a terrible secret, according to which “the Palestinians tried to prevent us from being accepted into the OECD.” That’s just one more scandal in a long series, because if this plot of theirs had succeeded, he wouldn’t now be able to go to Paris, and then to Canada and the United States. He wouldn’t be able to enjoy the expensive double bed that El Al installed for him on the plane because simple first class is not suitable for such a VIP.
Netanyahu doesn’t understand why the Palestinians opposed our joining the OECD. After all, they must return us a favor for cutting down their olive trees and plundering their land, for the killings, curfews, roadblocks and administrative detentions. Don’t they understand that when we join the OECD we will become richer, and then we’ll raise their salaries, give them generous pensions, annual vacations, clothing and social benefits? After all, Netanyahu said at the faction meeting that “Israel is striving for an economic peace, and we are working all the time to advance the Palestinian economy.” What nobility!
Netanyahu also doesn’t understand how they can refuse to accept his generous offer for “economic peace” and continue to struggle for an independent state. It’s true that economic peace means a peace between a horse and its rider, but after all, what does an Arab want? A pita and some olives. And we’ll give them plenty of those. On the other hand, if they dare be independent, who can guarantee that enough olives will remain for them?
And Netanyahu has another reason for being angry with them. He said they are “polluting our water sources.” Indeed, that is the height of inconsideration. After all, we invested hundreds of billions in the West Bank to set up fancy recycling plants for sewage water, and hundreds of billions more to improve the environment in their villages and towns. Just look at the fruits of our investments in the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, which are known for their quality of life, cleanliness, beauty, spacious classrooms and sewage and water facilities that work just like in Switzerland.
So how do they dare sidetrack the recycling plants and allow sewage to flow into the nearest wadi, which unfortunately leads the smelly water to “our water sources”? After all, everyone knows that all the water between the Jordan River and the sea is ours.
The high point of Netanyahu’s bitter dirge about the Palestinians came when he explained that “they themselves will be harmed by the boycott,” so it is wrong. At that point, it finally became clear to me that we are dealing with a humane and sensitive person of the first order. All his efforts are guided by concern for the Palestinians so that they should not be harmed by the boycott. And that’s what doesn’t allow him to sleep at night.
That apparently is also the reason he demanded that El Al install a special double bed on the flight to Paris. So that maybe, despite everything, he would be able to forget his concerns about the Palestinians for a few minutes and catch a little shut-eye.
