At Risk

So Ehud Barak's latest remark is that US military aid to Israel is "at risk" if Israel doesn't produce a "daring" initiative for "peace".

Sometimes I just don't know if Barak is a fig leaf or a fifth column in Netanyahu's government.

Contrast Barak's threats of international protests and the risk of lost military aid to Likud MK Danny Danon's practically prescient op-ed in the NY Times that responds to Ehud Barak's remarks even before they were written.

Danon writes that Israel has made difficult decisions in the past that were internationally unpopular, but right, such as annexing Jerusalem and the Golan.

"In each of these cases, Israel’s actions were met with harsh international criticism and threats of sanctions; all of these decisions, however, are cornerstones of today’s reality."

And Danon does offer a daring plan that Israel can offer for peace, but a plan that Barak would virulently disagree with.

Danon say that "[Netanyahu] should in fact do the opposite: he should annex the Jewish communities of the West Bank, or as Israelis prefer to refer to our historic heartland, Judea and Samaria. "

Danon is offering a very daring plan.

"[Israel] could then extend full Israeli jurisdiction to the Jewish communities and uninhabited lands of the West Bank. This would put an end to a legal limbo that has existed for 44 years."

And as for the Palestinians, "we would be well within our rights to assert, as we did in Gaza after our disengagement in 2005, that we are no longer responsible for the Palestinian residents of the West Bank, who would continue to live in their own — unannexed — towns."

In short, like in Gaza, they can do whatever they want, have whatever government they want, kill each other as much as they want, as long as they don't threaten Israel.

This is a peace plan that the majority of Israelis could accept.

And as for US military aid, the end of US military aid would be the end of the shackles locking Israeli military industries out of major deals, where Israel was forced to cancel deals because of US pressure. It would also allow us to not have to buy the F-35 and instead allow us to develop and sell) our own equivalent of the F-22. It would also be the end of the US's Middle East cornerstone and bond to the only stable (an democratic) country it can actually (proven) count on in the Middle East.

Mr. Netanyahu. If you want to go to Washington and make a daring offer for peace, then you need go no further then listen to your own party member Danny Danon.



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