Peled is a typical self-hating Israeli far-Leftist. He is the son of Matti Peled, one of Israel's most extreme anti-Zionist Leftists, a man once active in Israel's Communist Party. Not content to pour out anti-Israel venom in the Israeli Leftist-dominated press, Peled feels the urge to do it in the LA Times. He begins by telling us that he used to be a grad student at UCLA, I guess so we will know how smart he is, and that -- as such -- he predicted that if the Jews build housing in East Jerusalem, it would harm peace. And to think -- he actually had the clairvoyance to predict that, all by himself, from Los Angeles. (When I was a grad student at Princeton I predicted that if Israel made countless unilateral concessions to the Arabs, they would STILL continue their war against Israel and Israeli Leftists would STILL say the Jews are all to blame, and I am sticking by my clairvoyance.)

Peled then tells us that his 14 -year old niece was one of those murdered in the Ben-Yehuda Street bombings a few days ago. The niece's parents and the rest of the Peled family commemorated her loss by inviting a PLO spokesterrorist to come to the funeral and speak out there against Netanyahu. Oh, Shimon Peres, the midwife of Oslo, was also invited.

The rest of Peled's article is devoted to showing how the PLO's position is entirely just, whereas Israel's position under Netanyahu is entirely wrong. He pontificates about how Oslo consists of a "historic compromise" between the Israeli and Palestinian "peoples", whereby Israel agrees to allow the Palestinians to set up a state, and the Palestinians agree to stop terror and recognize the legitimacy of Israel.

A few minor problems with Peled's uncanny insights. First, Israelis never agreed to any such "historic compromise" and oppose the very idea by large majorities. Second, there is no reason to think the Palestinians would abstain from terror even if Israel never had built anything in East Jerusalem, which of course is all the more reason why such building should take place and be accelerated. Third, forgotten by Comrade Peled, is that no one seems to have informed Arafat and his goons that this is the deal they have agreed to. Arafat's understanding of Oslo is a process by which Israel makes peace with the Palestinians while the Palestinians continue to war against Israel and seek its destruction. Arafat himself insists this is the case, several times a day. And finally, while Oslo might involve some PLO half-hearted promises along the lines suggested by Peled, it involves no PLO fulfillment of any such promises.

Peled then repeats the now well-familiar dribble about how Arafat is really REALLY trying to crack down on those darned Hamas terrorists, but he just cannot do so, unable to find them except when publicly embracing them, in contrast with all those Palestinian "collaborators with Israel" he has no difficulty in locating, torturing, raping and executing. Comrade Peled also blames Israel for the suffering of Palestinians who are kept from their jobs in Israel whenever Israel has the chutzpa to close its borders after Palestinian atrocities against Jews. He regards free access to Israel as a Palestinian entitlement, in contrast with free access to California by Mexicans, and presumably the inevitable blowing up of Israeli children that accompanies such free access is also an inalienable Palestinian right. and entitlement.

But the real thrust of Peled's poison pen is that all terrorism in the Middle East is directly attributable to Netanyahu and the Likud, and the title of Peled's piece is "Blame the Government (of Israel) for Israeli Deaths". He closes with a call for all people of conscience from around the globe to pressure the Israeli government to defy the wishes of the Israeli electorate and surrender to all Arab demands. Like other Israeli Leftist self-haters, he regards Israel's refusal to place its head within a hangman's noose to be proof of its evil character and aggressive intentions, and calls for all lovers of peace to pressure Netanyau to get on with the process.

Now Peled's niece is not the first close relative of an Israeli far-Leftist to be murdered by Palestinian terrorists. The son of a Leftist columnist for Yediot Ahronot, Nahum Barnea, was one of those killed in one of the Jerusalem bus bombings two years back. There have been others.

Israel has been led down a path of suicide by its Leftist "Post-Zionists", a path with existential dangers. It is a path whose inherent failure was obvious from the start. While there is something ironic in the fact that family members of Israel's Leftists have become victims of the Oslo "peace process" they espouse, there is nothing comforting in this. I have long argued that Israel will be unable to jettison Oslo until there is a national consensus that this is necessary, which means -- only when the Leftists themselves have recognized the failure of Oslo. And this will not occur until the bloodbath triggered by Oslo is so great that even Israeli Leftists change their "minds".

The response of people like Peled, who react to the murders of children in their family by Palestinians by escalating their demands for Israeli surrender and concessions, is instructive. It is an indication of how truly awful the coming Oslo-initiated bloodbath in the Middle East.
# Click for the B'tzedek commentary index.