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No, Mr. President, You Don't Fully Understand Israel's Fears

(Times of Israel) David Horovitz - Discussing Israeli reservations about the Iran nuclear deal, President Obama asserted in an interview with Israel Channel 2 last Tuesday that "I can say to the Israeli people: I understand your concerns and I understand your fears." But here's the thing, Mr. President: You don't. Most of us endorse every word you had to say about the necessity to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians in order to maintain Israel as a Jewish democracy. We share your worries about what becomes of that "Palestinian youth in Ramallah," embittered and frustrated by the status quo. You know full well that the Jewish state and its people want nothing more than to live in peace and tranquility alongside their neighbors. What you haven't fully internalized, however, is the extent to which Israelis have been battered by recent history, and continue to be battered by the events unfolding all around us. You seek to assure us that this deal with Iran is in our own best interests when we know that Iran - which almost daily calls for our destruction - will paint any agreement as a victory and a vindication, and will utilize that ostensible victory to step up its efforts to harm us. We know that it was your negotiators who blinked, who never forced the regime to choose between survival and its nuclear program, when the financial leverage was available to impose that choice. Have you really internalized that Hamas booted out the forces of Mahmoud Abbas from Gaza in a matter of hours in 2007, and that there is every reason to believe that Hamas would seek to do the same in the West Bank were Israel to do as you wish, and pull out? A single Hamas rocket that landed a mile from the airport last summer prompted two-thirds of foreign airlines to stop flying to Israel for a day and a half - including all the major U.S. airlines. Hamas rule in the West Bank would close down our entire country. Barely a decade ago, we were murdered in our hundreds by an onslaught of suicide bombers dispatched from the cities of the West Bank where we had relinquished day-to-day control. The writer is the founding editor of the Times of Israel. He previously edited the Jerusalem Post (2004-2011) and the Jerusalem Report (1998-2004).
2015-06-08 00:00:00
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