The other day I saw a poster at the light-rail stations declaring: "With Bibi and Bennet we'll stay stuck with the Palestinians forever". It was signed (in Hebrew and English) "[The] Experts on Peace and Security". Besides the nice alliteration (b and b) there wasn't anything nice or explanatory about the poster.
Let's start with the signature: the folks who are giving us this prophecy claim to be experts (in Hebrew they used the definitive "the"), as if to say: "We here up on our Olympus (or maybe Delphi) of expertise – and without any political or personal agenda, of course (lol) – do declare that not only are we experts on what was, we are also experts on what will be". We are "the" experts, no one else. As it says in the Good Book: "I am the expert, by God, there shall be no other expert before ye!"
Well – I'm sure you remember that "experts" can be as dumb as the next guy, especially when it comes to predicting the future. I mean tell me the truth: weren't you afraid that on the first of January in the year 2000, the world as we knew it would end, because of the 2ky bug, and that's why you stayed away from elevators that night? Remember the "experts" who assured Golda Meir that the Egyptians weren't planning war in 1973? The experts that advised Chamberlain that he could do business with the German chancellor?
The next thing that bugged me was the anonymity of such a dramatic declaration: can't you guys put your face and names where you put your money? Well I assume the money comes from abroad, from people who don't like Netanyahu or Bennet, so it may not have been any Israeli voters' money. Still the question remains: "Who the heck are you? Are you the experts who thought it would be hunky dory to bring thirty thousand terrorists from Tunisia and give them not only rifles but dictatorial rule over the hapless Arab inhabitants of Judea and Samaria? If you are the same guys as the Oslo Accords – then no thanks! Fool me once – shame on you; fool me twice – shame on me!
The other thing that bugged me was: what's your vision for the future? Once upon a time we were told this fairy tale about peace and a "new Middle East" – which in the meantime looks a lot like the seventh century Middle East. Then when public busses started blowing up we were told it's the "peace process", which changed into the "diplomatic process" after suicide bombers blew up in night clubs and hotels. That morphed into "the process", that later evolved into "separation from the Palestinians", which apparently is the real goal of these experts and their cohorts. Not because it will bring peace, not that it will be better for the Arabs, not because they have some better and shining vision on the horizon, but because that has become the goal in itself: to see as few Arabs as possible. Now I venture to guess that these experts and their milieu also see very few religious Zionists, prefer not to see Chareidim (non-Zionist ultra-Orthodox Jews), see as few Sephardim as they can and preferably no "settlers" at all. I guess they prefer to see their own clones, or people as close as possible to themselves. Not much of a vision – unless you're a wolfish racist wearing the sheep's cloak of liberalism.
Now I ain't much of an expert, but I been learned a thing or two. One is: we the Jews are back home to stay, from Eilat to Metullah, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. Two: the Arabs are also here and most of them to stay. I hear from a different crowd of experts – those that are to my mind more attached to reality – and they say that many if not most of these Arabs would prefer to be residents of the Jewish state of Israel. I mean – look around our neighborhood, at almost all the Arab states in the spring and winter Middle East, and then you'll see how good the Jewish state looks to the local Arabs. So sure the present political leaders of the local Arabs are, well, a bunch of expletive-deleted whatchamacallits, but the people are people. Hey! The Arabs deserve better "experts" that can lead them to peace, harmony and the pursuit of happiness!