Israel, the Palestinians, and the Media War

Melody Sucharewicz, a German native who emigrated to Israel, is now the international public relations emissary for her adopted country. She was recently interviewed by Politically Incorrect, and some excerpts are below.

She is in the PR business, so Ms. Sucharewicz’ answers don’t wander very far off the reservation. Nevertheless, she has some interesting things to say:

Melody, what do you think of Benjamin Netanyahu?

Politicians find themselves in no vacuum. They are always under political pressure, and in the case of Israel, in geopolitical perils as well. Netanyahu is under pressure by the right-wing coalition. Netanyahu is involved heart and soul with the issue, that can be clearly seen in his interview with Larry King — after the meeting at the White House with Barack Obama. He wants peace for Israel and stands with the idea of a Palestinian state.

Would another government have reacted any better to the Gaza flotilla?

A political leader is not an avatar that can be pieced together with ideal qualities and superior powers, there is no such thing as an ideal prime minister. Besides Netanyahu there are not really any workable alternatives. The political tops in Israel are not ideal, but they struggle with the most complicated conditions.

What do you think of the founding of a Palestinian state?

A Palestinian state would be advantageous for both sides; most people in Israel wish for the Palestinians to have their own country, for whatever reasons. Any alternative would lead to catastrophe for the Jewish state.

Fatah and Hamas fight each other. Is the solution even feasible?

That is a problem. An agreement between Abbas and Netanyahu would be possible, if Abbas would declare himself available for direct dialog, but Hamas wouldn’t accept it. A two-state solution would only be practical in the West Bank. But Gaza would always be unchanged — a danger for Israel and for the Palestinians there — therefore no feasible solution. In theory, an economic confederation between West Bank, Israel and Jordan would be thoroughly reasonable. The opposite of the legitimate, economic aspiring Palestinian state to the terror regime in Gaza where great misery rules would be immense, it is that already. The question is, whether the Palestinians in the Gaza strip would apply the determination and energy needed to disarm Hamas and its terror among their own people.

With the blockade, it isn’t an issue of a collective punishment, as some “human rights organizations” like to put forth. It is a matter of averting a basis for terror, of limiting the threat for Israeli civilians. In this terror regime there is only dictatorship and oppression. In the Gaza Strip, there is an Islamic custom police. Christians are murdered if they don’t convert over to Islam. Fatah members area lynched, but that doesn’t seem to interest the “human rights people.” The misery in the Gaza Strip is not the result of Israeli policy.

As long as Hamas functions as a proxy for Iran, doesn’t accept the existence of Israel, and demands that Sharia rule the world, a solution is unthinkable.

Even though some dubious media and NGOs like to present otherwise, Israel’s Gaza policy is anything but ‘imperialistically’ motivated — otherwise, for what purpose would Ariel Sharon have taken the trouble in 2005 to withdraw off the Gaza Strip? The coexistence between Jews and Muslims, by the way, didn’t work out too badly until a few fundamentalists with self-interests intervened, above all Mufti Al Husseini. He brought about pogroms against Jews and entered into a coalition with the Nazis. This coalition was the beginning of the constant conflict that has lasted until today.

What do you think of the Israel policy of US President Barack Obama?

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Up till now, Obama hasn’t been too effective with his policy. His strategy of a paradigm shift to appeasement still has produced no success, rather it has at the same time had a counterproductive effect on relations with Israel. Obama’s inaugural address in Cairo contained some problematic overtones. He, perhaps unintentionally, even equated the meaning of the Holocaust for the Jews with the meaning of the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 for the Palestinians. For the main target group of the Cairo speech especially is that such a dangerous as well as absurd minimalization. It serve as the legitimization of the fight against Israel for radical elements in the Arab world. The cause for this is presumably a mixture of his ‘socialization’ in the Middle East conflict by means of questionable ‘agents’ such as his ex-pastor and mentor Jeremiah Wright with his stated appeasement policies in relation to the Muslim world.

But the last meeting between Obama and Netanyahu was good and gives reason for optimism. As a result, it looks like Obama’s position on Israel and also his influence in the conflict is refreshingly constructive.

How do you assess the Iranian threat?

The Iranian threat is serious. Israel, Europe and the US cannot afford to have a nuclear Ayatollah government under Ahmadinejad. The diplomatic dialog cannot become a goal in itself. If it leads to nothing — and right now it looks very strongly that way — then new arrangements need to be made.

The question is, whether a military intervention by Israel is possible. It is possible as a last option, should Israel’s existence be seriously threatened, and it is that way with a nuclear Iran. We hope that it doesn’t come to that.

The ambitions of the Ayatollah regime are nevertheless transparent. For Iran as well as Hamas and all other fundamentalists, the annihilation of Israel is only an intermediate goal. World peace comes for these ‘lunatics,’ only when Sharia rules the whole world, then can Christians and Jews live as subordinates in peace with the Muslims

What do you say to the resolution by the German Bundestag that Israel must cancel the Gaza blockade?

Like many others, I was baffled. The citations of the parliamentarians also amazed me. On the front, there was a lot of self-satisfaction about the unusual cohesion of all four fractions. The question is, whether that was a constructive contribution for the Middle East conflict. Unfortunately not. It strengthens Hamas and all other radical groups that make use of the ‘photogenic’ situation of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to delegitimize Israel. That creates neither peace nor freedom for the Palestinians. This resolution is probably the result of the usual information vacuum: Israel is not performing quickly and well enough when it has to representing reality. Any representative of the Bundestag who would have sat in a helicopter and watched as a mob of 40 terrorists with iron rods and knives charged against the Israeli soldiers, and as the soldiers received the first command to shoot only when three of them were already half dead being lynched; if the same representative would have also seen the copious video material in which members of the Turkish mob declared their objective in this trip with broad smiles and gleaming eyes, that is ultimately to die as shahid for Allah, then they would not have arrived at this resolution.

It is similar with the immediate call to end the blockade of the Gaza Strip. That is easy to say when one lives in peaceful Germany and still has never been visited by Qassam rockets or the blood-thirsty suicide attackers. Criticism, above all by Israel’s friends like Germany, is important — when it is constructive, fair and based on detailed, balanced facts. I doubt that all of these criteria were fulfilled in the local resolution. For example, it calls once again for the improvement of the humanitarian situation in Gaza, but not for the release of Gilad Shalit, or at least for the improvement of his ‘humanitarian situation’ through access by the Red Cross. Furthermore, the question arises as to why the Bundestag, of all events related to foreign affairs, so strongly concentrates on Israel’s Gaza policy.

Read the rest at Politically Incorrect.