Brainwashed by propaganda?

I decided to update this post – after the security theater of the week with the Palestinians and Israelis – as if Israel really needs the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish State and as if not building a few houses is going to give the Palestinian leaders a reason to stop terror and live in peace.

I normally blog about data security issues – I specialize in helping medical device manufacturers secure their software, protect their patient data and comply with regulations like HIPAA.

However – the recent terror flotilla to Israel, the double moral standard of the UN Human Rights Council condemning Israel 25 times in the past 3 years without condemning once human rights violations in Iran and Darfur – makes one pause to think.

In Israel there is a general feeling that Israelis are to blame for the world hating Israelis.

There are at least six versions to this way of thinking – first is anti-semitism (people hate Israelis because they are Jewish), a second version is that extreme left university professors have provided the political rhetoric and ammunition for our enemies,  a third version is that our political leaders are weak and or corrupt (Bibi and Barak),  a fourth version is that the occupation has corrupted Israeli morals, making Israelis despicable in the eyes of the world, a fifth version is that if we would only get our public relations sorted out and speak with a British accent – then the world would accept Jewish presence and a sixth version says that the Palestinians, Iranians and Syrians really want peace – and that if Israel would only stop the occupation and down-size, then we would have peace and the world would accept the Jewish nation – once it had been reduced to an acceptably small, bite-sized portion.

I believe that all versions rest on one question which has not been fundamentally tested – which is what do our neighbors really want?

Deborah Fink from the organisation Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG), said it was “disgusting” that so many children were present to support the Israeli state.

They’ve been brainwashed. We wouldn’t bring loads of children out to things like this. They go to schools where they’re brainwashed with Israeli propaganda.

Ms Fink is one of many British Jews who campaign for an end to the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.

Apparently Ms. Fink is mind-controlled by Palestinian propaganda and has conveniently forgot that Israel does not occupy Gaza, having left that area almost 5 years ago. Read more at BBC News – Gaza Crisis. I recommend that Ms. Fink read about the unilateral disengagement from Gaza in August 2005.

Unfortunately, we – Israelis are mind-controlled as well and have forgotten our primary mission – which is the development of the state of Israel – not down-sizing, not outsourcing nor appeasing terrorists.

There is I believe, a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes terrorists tick.

In order to test the assumption behind the various Middle East peace plans of the past 30 years – it is important to test an important hypothesis – “Israel’s neighbors want peace”.

Let’s conduct  a “gedanken experiment”  using 2 assumptions, which I believe are accepted by most politicians today – and consistent with US, Russian and European foreign policy:

Since there is wide agreement in Israel, the US, Europe and Muslim countries, that Israel holds the keys to regional peace – then it becomes a question of price – how much are the other parties (Syria, Palestine, Iran, Turkey …) willing to pay to acquire that product – i.e. peace.

The price might be – how much land Syria is willing to give us in return for peace or how much water Turkey is willing to give us in exchange or how much land Palestine is willing to pay in return for peace or how badly Iran wants Israeli  technology for clean power generation.

Once we have agreed on the price – it’s just a question of agreeing terms of payment and issuing the PO.

If the thought experiment is correct then, the current Israeli strategy of paying the buyer to take our product seems ludicrous.

If the thought experiment is incorrect – then one or more of our assumptions must be false – either our neighbors don’t want peace, peace is not a valuable commodity or – Israel doesn’t hold the keys to acquiring peace in the Middle East.

Reading past the political vitriol of Iran and Abu Maazen,  it’s therefore important to examine our assumptions, starting with the question – “What do terrorists really want?”  and understand why Israel is losing the war against terror.