Barak Goes Off the Reservation

Ehud Barak is the odd man out in Israel’s government. Netanyahu brought him in as Defense Minister to create a stable coalition. Since then Barak has been destroying Jewish homes in Judaea and Samaria, built during the “freeze,” with a dedication worthy of a better cause. Recently he made a fiasco of Israel’s takeover of the Mavi Marmara.


Barak joined Netanyahu’s government last year because he shared the opinion of Netanyahu and 70% of Jewish Israelis: The Palestinians are not interested in peace but in destroying Israel, unilateral withdrawals (Barak was responsible for one, from Lebanon ten years ago) merely encourage terrorist radicals, so all the talk about a negotiated peace between Israel and the Palestinians is just for show. Unfortunately, Barak is just about the only person in his party who’s wised up about the true prospects for “peace.” He’s under a lot of pressure to promote an “active policy,” which means giving up something for nothing—e.g. dismantling Israeli settlements—in order to entice the Palestinians to make peace.

Barak now appears to be going off the Netanyahu reservation. He’s calling for “an assertive diplomacy,” a code word for unilateral Israeli action. Barak’s faith in unilateral actions, of the dismantle-settlements-and-retreat kind, has been restored. He now wants Israel to make unilateral concessions, but not because that will promote peace with the Palestinians. He knows it only whets their appetite for more. He wants to do it because Barack Obama wants Israel to do it, and keeping the United States happy is vital to Israel’s security.

The United States is certainly vital to Israel’s security but that doesn’t mean that Barak’s new policy is a good idea. It isn’t. It’s hard to tell with Obama. He may want Israel to make unilateral concessions because that conforms to his abstract ideals of peace and justice in the Middle East. He’s swallowed the Palestian narrative, hook, line and sinker. Or he may want it because he wants to make the Arabs happy, and squeezing Israel is the way to do it. In practice, he’s acting as the Arabs’ tool.

Israel cannot, for its life, do what Obama wants. To do so is to prove to the Palestinians and the broader Arab world that they can get Israel to make unilateral concessions simply by getting the Americans to demand them. And that way lies the road to Israel’s demise. Barak may talk about “assertive” policies, but the real word for his policy is “appeasement.”