William Mehlman

In his much admired 1993 book A Place Among The Nations, Benjamin Netanyahu recalled how members of Sayeret Matkal, his elite commando unit, used to keep in shape by doing a daily 10-mile jog covering Israel’s pre-June 1967 midsection—from the Mediterranean shore to Kfar Saba. An Israel again reduced to those dimensions, an Israel shorn of the West Bank, he declared, would be indefensible—geographically and politically.

Of the geographical importance of the mountains of Samaria, he observed that "to an invader from the east, the range is an extraordinary obstacle…Such an invader enters the West Bank in the Jordan River Valley, which is the lowest point on earth, more than a thousand feet below sea level. He then has to fight his way up a cliff face that rises a daunting three to four thousand feet within a space of seven to nine miles. This is terrain that…is virtually impassable to tanks and other heavy equipment. No amount of electronic gadgetry can replace a stone wall thousands of feet high as an obstacle to war."

Politically, Netanyahu regarded the Israeli Left’s case for abandoning Judea and Samaria as chillingly analogous to the specious demographic brief presented fifty-five years earlier by the British and French for the surrender of Czechoslovakia’s German-speaking Sudetenland to Hitler. Totally ignoring the fact that Czech defenses were concentrated in precisely that area, a 1938 London Times editorial quoted by Netanyahu importuned the Prague government to "[make] Czechoslovakia a more homogeneous state by the cessation of that fringe of populations who are contiguous to the nation with which they are united by race. The advantages to Czechoslovakia of becoming a homogeneous state might conceivably outweigh the disadvantages of losing the Sudeten German district."

Reviewing Netanyahu’s book for National Review, Eliott Abrams, Deputy National Security Advisor for Global Democracy Strategy averred that “one can read these same arguments in the New York Times today.” In Israel they are chiseled in stone. The demographic bogeyman is ever at the barricades in the Olmert government’s crusade to set Israel’s clock back to pre-June 1967.

Three years after the publication of A Place Among the Nations and in no small measure on the wheels of its impact, Netanyahu rode to electoral victory over a heavily favored Shimon Peres, becoming Israel’s third Likud prime minister. It didn’t take but the twinkling of an eye for the combined forces of the national Zionist camp and the Chabad Hassidim who assured his victory to realize they’d been had. In October 1996, on the heels of three-days of Arab rioting over the inauguration of an archeological tunnel outside the Western Wall that claimed 15 Israeli lives, Netanyahu withdrew IDF forces from all but three percent of Hebron. That left the five hundred residents of Israel’s second holiest city bereft of any hope of enlarging the community they’d resurrected in 1968 on the ashes of the Jewish yishuv decimated in a 1929 Arab auto-da-fe.

Netanyahu’s response to the anguished protests of half the country, including members of his own Likud party, was to cop what is known in judicial circles as the stare decisi plea, citing his assumed obligation to honor an agreement by the preceding Rabin-Peres government under the Oslo Accords to make a gift of Hebron to Yasser Arafat. Moreover Clinton, facing reelection the following month, felt sorely in need of a Hebron pullout to burnish his image as a Middle East problem solver. However much it violated Jewish sensibilities, the deal would have to stand. With the acquiescence of coalition partners The Third Way and the ultra-Orthodox Shas party paid for at the prevailing rate, the Hebron giveaway had no trouble sailing through the Knesset. Arch-leftist Yossi Beilin, however, couldn’t resist applying a little vinegar to the wounds Netanyahu inflicted on Likud when he assured the prime minister he could ignore the recriminations of Uzi Landau and Benny Begin, two of the party’s most passionate voices. “He needn’t worry about Begin and Landau,” Beilin declared. “I will give him my vote in place of theirs.”

Hebron wasn’t Netanyahu’s last contribution to the health and welfare of the Clinton presidency. A year and a half later at the Wye Plantation in Maryland, the Prime Minister agreed to hand over to Arafat 13 percent of the Judean and Samarian heartland whose importance to Israel’s security he’d so stoutly proclaimed in his book. That Arafat would renege on his pledge to disarm and dismantle his terror gangs and turn off his anti-Israel propaganda faucet should have been a foregone conclusion. However, in sitting still for a Clinton volte face on a promise to deliver Jonathan Pollard into his custody in exchange for the land grab and the release of 750 Palestinian captives, Netanyahu appended a dangerous post-script to the stare decisi concept he claimed he was obligated to honor in the Hebron redeployment. He didn’t free the 750 prisoners, but two years later at the 2000 Camp David II summit, Prime Minister Ehud Barak did, getting nothing in return. Eight years after the price for his freedom was paid, Jonathan Pollard remains behind bars.

Mr. Netanyahu is soliciting the Israeli electorate for another chance at the brass ring. Given the incredible weakness and ineptitude of the Olmert regime, his relatively high standing in the polls comes as no surprise. Were elections to be held now, the Likud might garner 30-plus mandates against an estimated 15-17 each for Kadima and Labor. President Shimon Peres would be compelled to invite Netanyahu to form the next government. What kind of government would that be? Given his undisputed success as finance minister in broadening the free-market parameters of the most robust economy in the region, one could anticipate continued economic growth and a further easing of the centralized grip on the nation’s distribution and service mechanisms.

The political profile of a new Netanyahu is far less clear. His promoters make a strong case for his having learned from past errors. But those who thought he might have demonstrated this with a plea of forgiveness for his failure to shake himself loose of the Sharon government early enough to have rallied the nation against the destruction of 25 Jewish communities in Gush Katif and northern Samaria have every reason to question that assumption. Netanyahu has conceded no errors, asked for no pardon. Ensuring Sharon’s support of his economic reform package took precedence over averting the Gush Katif disaster. “It probably wouldn’t have made any difference,” was the lame response of one of his apologists.

Would a second Netanyahu government brave the thunder of the White House and State Department and say no to the creation of a Jihadist state in Judea and Samaria as inimical to Israel’s survival? Or would we again be informed that the previous government’s acquiescence to this suicidal decision obviated any change of course? The portents are not encouraging. Mr. Netanyahu is standing firm against the repartition of Jerusalem but even Tzipi Livni isn’t keen on that one. He has yet to reject unequivocally the creation of a terrorist state in Israel’s heartland.

The jury will remain out on these issues until after Israel goes to the polls in early 2009 or hopefully sooner. Netanyahu’s less than passionate exception to the goings on at Annapolis does not add to the national Zionist camp’s confidence in him as bearer of the opposition’s banner. His advocates claim his anti-Annapolis message was muffled by an antagonistic media. That’s undoubtedly true, but how loud was the voice they are charged with muffling? Not nearly loud enough, in the view of many. They will be listening for a higher decibel level in the critical months ahead. Meanwhile, the search for the man who wrote A Place Among The Nations will remain a work in progress.

William Mehlman represents AFSI in Israel and is co-editor of the Jerusalem based internet magazine ZionNet (www.zionnet.net).