The main challenge I believe, is to create what I call an awakening in the West. The West is sleeping. In many terms it reminds of the situation before World War II. It's very clear, the threat is very clear. You just have to listen to them. You have just to read the textbooks, and Westerners prefer to ignore it because of many reasons, to postpone for tomorrow, for the next week, for the next year, for the next generation, not to confront it. So we need an awakening. Moshe Yaalon
My Saturday night dream date? Moshe Yaalon. This evening was off the record (water boarding couldn't get it out of me) but I can tell you that Israel needs a Yaalon -a tough, straight, precise warrior that understands the existential threats to Israel, the existential threat the global jihad presents to the West, and the reluctance of the West to face up to reality.
I hope he runs for Prime Minister. He is no light weight and they need a leader, a visionary with a set of brass ones.
I did a blogger interview with him here after hudna 1701 was passed at the UN. Much of what we covered tonight is there. His position(s) are the same, but more so. Listen to the Q&A, Download Yaalon830.wav Here ia an excerpt.
Yaalon: It is up to the Israeli democracy now to deal with the challenge, and as I said I see the last war in Lebanon as a failure in terms of mismanagement in the political level and the senior military level. The best way for those who are responsible is to resign and not to go to a long process, but it might be a longer process using the democratic means to deal with this kind of failure and responsibility, but Israel should be strong. Israel should be able to stand, and we are able to stand. Actually, one of the positive outcomes of this conflict is the civilians and the endurance of the Israeli society. Although the Israeli people in the North were attacked for about 33 days, in the end Israel is flourishing ..., economically. You can go now to the north. There is a lot of reconstruction, but the damage is not so significant like in Lebanon and we will be able to deal with it and to go now with our economical and civilian life, but at the end our ability to stand should consist of what I said in terms of what I said in term of understanding the situation, I call it clarity. In the last decade, I believe that we were confused, we were deluded by our leadership, by our media. We were deceived, we were manipulated, and we should understand, this is a challenge, we shouldn't be afraid of it, but in order to have the right solution we should agree about what is a problem and we need some clarity regarding understanding this challenge, and I believe that at the end-- we are actually-- At the end, we are a healthy, democratic society, and we will find a way to cope with it, to deal with it. I might be a longer process because of the political difficulties, but I believe in our strength and our ability to cope with it.
IMAO, Israel is rudderless and the actions of the people of late indicate a frustration, a "powerlessness." I thought they would have stormed the Knesset long ago. I was wrong. They were failed by their leadership and they are being sold out by the State Dept robot Condi Rice.
Check out this excerpt from Condi's frightening interview with Cal Thomas here; hat tip Tom
QUESTION: You're all over the conservative Jewish blogs for remarks you made recently on the Palestinian state, your commitment to it, living side by side with Israel, and that's been the policy of the Administration since day one.
SECRETARY RICE: Yes.
QUESTION: I'd like to know what evidence you have — I read, and I know you do and a lot more than I do, the sermons, the editorials in the Middle East, the right of return idea, which a lot of people think is just basically overwhelming for a Jewish population with millions and millions of Arabs in the so-called Diaspora. What evidence do you have that teaching their schoolchildren at the ages of four and five to be martyrs, to show up in their little uniforms with plastic guns and their headbands, textbooks one grenade plus two grenades equals, you know, three grenades — what evidence do you have out there that if they had an independent state that they would lay down their arms and not complete the mission of killing the Jews and throwing them out?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, you can look at any opinion poll in the Palestinian territories and 70 percent of the people will say they're perfectly ready to live side by side with Israel because they just want to live in peace. And when it comes right down to it, yeah, there are plenty of extremists in the Palestinian territories who are not going to be easily dealt with. They have to be dealt with — Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestinian territories — they're terrorists and they have to be dealt with as terrorists.
But the great majority of Palestinian people — this is — I've been with these people. The great majority of people, they just want a better life. This is an educated population. I mean, they have a kind of culture of education and a culture of civil society. I just don't believe mothers want their children to grow up to be suicide bombers. I think the mothers want their children to grow up to go to university. And if you can create the right conditions, that's what people are going to do.
QUESTION: Do you think this or do you know this?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think I know it.
QUESTION: You think you know it?
SECRETARY RICE: I think I know it.
QUESTION: Is it because — do you think you know it because you want to believe it or do you think you know it because of conversations with tens, scores, hundredsSECRETARY RICE: Well, lots of conversations with Palestinians. But also it's — look, if human beings don't want a better future, don't want their children to grow up in peace and have opportunities, then none of this is going to work anyway. But I really believe that the people of the Middle East — not the extremists — want the same things that everyone else wants. I haven't seen a society yet where it wasn't true. Let me put it that way. I haven't seen a society yet where ordinary people, given an opportunity, wouldn't opt for a better life and for peace.
QUESTION: But then you have this incredible religious component which says, you know, your guarantee for heaven is if you blow somebody up.
SECRETARY RICE: Yeah, except for those leaders who don't seem to be so anxious to lead the surge and go to paradise.
QUESTION: Oh, of course they don't. No, they have plenty of recruits.
SECRETARY RICE: Yeah, they do have plenty of recruits. But the ideology, that kind of ideology of hatred and hopelessness does not have a chance against an ideology of hope and a better future. We just have to realize that because of the way that the politics of the Middle East has developed for the last 60 years, that ideology of hope and a better future has not been there.
I don't believe that most people in the Middle East really want to blow themselves up and believe in this ideology any more than most Russians actually wanted to believe in international communism. There are always extremists who are going to do that. There are always ideologues who are going to believe and they are always going to recruit from a pool of disaffected people. So you both have to lessen the pool of disaffected people, give them alternatives, and people choose other paths. I just don't see a society yet where that hasn't been the case.
Hey Condi, Palestinians Embrace Terrorism - Strategy Page
UPDATE: Rick points to this poll;
Percentage of Palestinians who endorse a two-state solution in the September 2006 poll conducted by the Palestinian Jerusalem Media & Communication Centre: 46.6%.
UPDATE: Carl points to The Augean Stables. Richard Landes says that Condi is a master of what he calls cognitive egocentrism
