|
Trending Topics
|
Israel's Determination Unshaken
(Los Angeles Times) Edmund Sanders - An Egyptian mob stormed Israel's Embassy in Cairo. Turkey is threatening to dispatch warships off Israel's coast. Yet the external pressure appears to be only hardening many Israelis' resolve to do what they say they've always done: Go it alone. "In our region, peace is not made with the weak and obsequious," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week. "Peace is made with a strong and proud Israel." "Israelis maintain a general perception that the world is hostile towards them anyway and don't believe the world would embrace them if they only changed their ways," said pollster Tamar Hermann, a sociology professor at Israel's Open University. "Those who say Israel is isolated are greatly exaggerating the situation," said Professor Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University. "Our rivals in the Arab world are busy with domestic problems and are less capable of mobilizing force against us," he said. "We should sit and weather the crisis. Sometimes doing nothing is the best strategy."