Stand for Israel

But Evelyn Gordon sure does at Commentary’s Contentions blog.

Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, showed up in Israel and publicly lamented that Israel’s vibrant “peace movement” (what, hawks are a “war movement”?) is so much less visible.

“There was a left that made itself heard and a real desire for peace,” Kouchner told French radio. “It seems to me, and I hope that I am completely wrong, that this desire has completely vanished, as though people no longer believe in it.”

Gordon:

Kouchner is, of course, half right: even most Israeli leftists have stopped believing peace is possible in the foreseeable future, which is precisely why the peace movement and the political Left have largely collapsed. But that is a far cry from saying that Israelis have stopped wanting peace. The desire remains as strong as ever; it’s just that most Israelis currently see no way of fulfilling it.

Nor is it really hard to see why Israelis have stopped believing. First, every territorial concession since the 1993 Oslo Accord has produced only more terror. Palestinians killed more Israelis in the first two and a half years after Oslo than in the entire preceding decade, and in 2000-04 (the height of the second intifada), Israel’s terror-related casualties exceeded those of the entire preceding 53 years. The withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 led to the Second Lebanon War, and the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 produced daily rocket barrages on southern Israel. To most Israelis, bombs and rockets exploding in their cities don’t look much like peace.