What Is Your Definition of Peace? March 18, 2015
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We start on the phones with Rami in Washington, DC. Great to have you on the program, sir. You're up first today. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, how you doing?
RUSH: I'm very well. Thank you.
CALLER: I was intrigued to call you because I heard you say that Netanyahu wants peace.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: Even though he stated that there would never be a Palestinian state and then had a semi-racist rant toward the Arabs inside the Israel 48. I was curious, first of all, how could you say that he wants peace when he obviously does not want peace, including continuing to build settlements --
RUSH: I must have a different definition of peace than you do. What is your definition of peace?
CALLER: My definition of peace is finding middle ground where everyone can live happily ever after, basically. In my opinion --
RUSH: Can you tell me where on earth does that exist?
CALLER: Here in the United States, you know. I think there's a great mix of people all around, you know, you can live with all the different kinds of people, and there's peace. And, you know, the thing that is important to --
RUSH: See, I don't even agree with that.
CALLER: -- Judaism, they are not -- (crosstalk)
RUSH: I can go to Ferguson, Missouri, right now and find you an entire city population that does not think they're living in peace and does not --
CALLER: That's not what you asked. (crosstalk) Northern Virginia DC area, but we're getting off of the subject here.
RUSH: No, I'm not getting off the subject. I'm staying focused on it. You have a totally skewed definition of peace. Let me ask, how come it is that every time we got close to a Palestinian state, the Palestinians or the Arabs sabotage it?
CALLER: Is that how you feel? Let me ask you a question.
RUSH: What do you mean, how I feel? I'm thinking about. It's not about how I feel.
CALLER: That's absolutely your opinion, that's absolutely your opinion, that's a perspective you have. That's not an actuality. That's not a truth. You're presenting it as truth and it's not a truth. And let me explain why.
RUSH: You don't even live in the real world. You're robotic. You're spouting robotic things at me. I'm trying to actually talk to you and use critical thinking. In the first place, you won't tell me what the definition of peace is. I'll tell you what peace is. Peace is the absence of threat and the presence of justice.
Now, peace, to Al-Qaeda, is an entirely different thing than peace to Americans. Peace to the Nazis and the Soviets was an entirely different thing than it is to people like you and me. And I'm telling you that peace to the Palestinians and whoever it is that's seeking this so-called two-state solution is a much different definition than the Israeli definition. This is one of the problems. How can you say it's peace when the people who want their own state want to use it as a staging area to wipe the Jews off the map? How in the world could the Jews sign on to that? Where is the peace in that?
I think this is all smoke and mirrors. I think Netanyahu wants peace. I think Netanyahu wants everybody to be happy. I think Netanyahu would be happy if everybody would just drop their grievances, live happily ever after, as you say, but I don't think we have people that actually want to do that. I think there are people to whom peace is the end of their business. We have people to whom peace is the end of their power. People to whom peace is the end of their notoriety and fame.
So until we can even agree on a definition of peace, you just automatically conclude that a two-state solution equals peace. It doesn't. It's one of the most provocative things that could happen. The root word being "provoke." And you do not have peace if, at the same time, somebody's being provoked. So yours is a politically dominated or oriented definition of peace, whereas mine is real. You automatically can disqualify Netanyahu as a man of peace because he doesn't agree with your political solution to the problem, therefore he's not a man of peace? He's more a man of peace than any other name you could give me over there.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You know, this whole two-state solution is the biggest myth on the face of the earth. The Palestinians do not want a two-state solution. The Palestinians want a one-state solution. They don't want there to be an Israel. Honestly, folks, all that would have to happen for there to be a Palestinian state, given the politics of the day, there has been so much pressure for that, the only reason there isn't a Palestinian state is that the Palestinians -- Hamas, Hezbollah -- will not renounce their objective to wipe Israel off the map.
Now, why in the world would you make a two state agreement with people like this? I've never understood it. Intellectually this makes no sense to me. This entire Middle East peace process I think has become -- it's not what it is. The entire Mideast peace process, by definition, has no end. It's a job. What do you want to be when you grow up? "I want to be involved in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process." Oh, you want to make career out of that? "Yes, I do. I want to be in that. That's my career." Really? "Yeah, because I know it's never gonna happen. It's never gonna get solved. There's never gonna be a negotiated settlement."
Words, doctors, nurses are never gonna end this. The Middle East peace process is in fact a job and a career. It's a company. It's an enterprise. It is not what everybody thinks it is. The Middle East peace process does not exist so that one day there might be a resolution.
The Middle East peace process practically was invented so that diplomats would have something to do.
I challenge you. Go back, pick any period, go back to the 1960s, go back to the 1970s, the only thing different is the names of the people involved. The arguments are the same. The reasons to do it are the same. The reasons not to do it are the same. The objections by both parties are the same. Nothing changes. Oh, there's skirmishes here and there that change, say, the size of Israel from one year to the next. We might have a fence built here or there. You might have settlements in the West Bank, but in terms of the big picture, peace in the Middle East, there's no such thing, at least it's not gonna be achieved by the Middle East peace process.
The Middle East peace process may as well be its own university where you go but you never graduate. It's always there. It's always gonna be something to aspire to, to be a part of the Middle East peace process. But the biggest mistake anybody can never make is to think that the Middle East peace process is going to lead to a solution, because it isn't, it can't, by definition. The objectives change. I mean, one year the objective will be a Palestinian state. The next year the objective will be the Israelis giving up the West Bank or the occupied territory, whatever, but the overall thrust of this thing never, ever really changes.
There isn't a solution to it, by definition, because just like Al Sharpton really doesn't want an end to racial strife in America, neither do Hamas and Hezbollah want an end to the strife in the Middle East. Too many people are getting too much money. Too many people are getting too famous. Too many people are getting wealthy. Too many people are getting notoriety. You got too much business going on here. There's all kinds of money being allocated, thrown at it. It's a great chance for you to get your fist full of it, if you can get yourself involved in this somehow.
But the Palestinians, I mean, like we had this caller, "Well, Netanyahu doesn't want peace because he openly rejected a Palestinian state, which means he rejects the two-state solution." There is no one state solution to this because the Palestinians do not want two states. They want one. The Palestinian objective -- and by Palestinian, look, Hezbollah, any of the terrorist groups, Hamas, Hezbollah, you name it, then throw their sponsors in there -- Iran -- has anybody listened to what any Iranian leader has been saying since 1975 and before?
I don't care whether it's Ahmadinejad. I don't care whether it was the Ayatollah Khomeini. I don't care whether it's the current Ayatollah Khamenei. I don't care who it is, the current Iranian president is devoted to the end of Israel. That must happen for the 12th imam to come out of the well. And they're open about it. The people on the Palestinian side of this are the same.
Why do you think, ladies and gentlemen, in every negotiation -- have you heard the term "right of return"? Do you know what that means? (interruption) Tell me, Mr. Snerdley. I don't want to put you on the spot, but you're a good barometer. What does the "right of return" mean? (interruption) That's exactly right. In every negotiation in the so-called Middle East peace process the insistence, Palestinians, on a right of return by which millions of Palestinians would be permitted to resettle in Israel, and it's a nonnegotiable demand. It's nonnegotiable.
If we're gonna have a solution to the Middle East peace process, there must be right of return. Right of return is predicated on the belief that there never was an Israel, there never should have been an Israel, and there should not now be one. And the right of return is simply our way of saying, Israel is ours, and we want the right to go back to it. And when we get there, it isn't gonna be called Israel anymore.
Well, why in the world -- no sane Israeli would agree with that. It can't possibly ever be agreed to, which is why -- and this is just one of the many examples that I could cite to prove to you that peace is not really what's being negotiated here, depending on who you're talking about and how you define it. This right of return is -- look at it as an inside-outside strategy. You vote Israel out of existence from within, and you terrorize it out of existence from without.
So you terrorize Israel with bombs from Gaza and bombs from Hamas and bombs from Hezbollah, and then while the peace process is going on you then demand the right of return. And both of those stratagems are designed to effectively bring about the end of the Jewish state. The people who believe in this two-state solution, like our caller here from the last hour, the only people who really believe in it are Western liberals such as American liberals, Western European socialist liberals.
But Netanyahu has to live in reality. He cannot live in a, "Gee I wish it could be better" world. He cannot live in, "You know, people can be perfected" world. He has to deal with what is. He cannot make policy on what he hopes might be someday. He has to deal with the reality. And it is a reality that I dare say no American can relate to. His reality is this, 'cause he knows you cannot have a Palestinian state in the context of a two-state solution unless the Palestinian state accepts Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, and they do not. And they will never say they do.
The charter -- folks, this is so academic. The charter, you look at Hamas and the Hezbollah charter, the charter calls for the elimination of Israel and the Jewish people. Now, there are people that live in Fantasy Island, Western libs that think this two-state solution. Diplomats, by definition, diplomats who don't live in reality. Think Marie Harf.
(imitating Harf) "Well, you know, what we think is, if both sides would simply lay down their arms and come to the table and be honest about their feelings for one another and themselves, that we could probably strike a common ground, and therefore we might be able come to --" This is the kind of thing, this neophyte, ignorant, willfully just oblivious attitude toward evil in the world and the reluctance to recognize that there are good guys and bad guys. That's the kind of people who will say, "The Palestinians don't really mean that they want to wipe Israel off the map. They're just saying that."
Well, Netanyahu can't take that chance. No Israeli leader can take the chance that they don't really mean it. A Western liberal might say that because that's what a Western liberal would do. A Western liberal would say something outrageous and stupid and insane, knowing full well that his voters know he doesn't really mean it; he's just throwing 'em some red meat. And so the Western liberal who acts that way thinks that his counterparts on the Palestinian side, they're just doing the same thing. Come on. They know they have to live side by side with Israel.
No, they don't want to do that. So it's a hypothetical, pretend, quasi-utopia versus a hard, cold reality. And the people on the side of reality have to deal with that. They can't deal with a pretend never-never land. They have to deal with what is real and on the ground, the threats that are posed and the people who make them. The reason Netanyahu is reviled, the reason Netanyahu is despised, and I would dare say the reason any prominent conservative is hated and despised is because Netanyahu punctures the fantasy that the liberal utopia is possible.
Netanyahu punctures the fantasy of the Western liberal, that there aren't any bad guys. There are just two sides with different desires. Netanyahu punctures holes in their entire belief system and forces them to face the realities that he must when they would prefer not to. So they hate him, just as they hate any conservative who is effective in blowing up their little security systems that they concoct for themselves.
END TRANSCRIPT
Related Links
Weekly Standard: WH Avoids Congratulating Bibi
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We start on the phones with Rami in Washington, DC. Great to have you on the program, sir. You're up first today. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, how you doing?
RUSH: I'm very well. Thank you.
CALLER: I was intrigued to call you because I heard you say that Netanyahu wants peace.
RUSH: Yeah.
RUSH: I must have a different definition of peace than you do. What is your definition of peace?
CALLER: My definition of peace is finding middle ground where everyone can live happily ever after, basically. In my opinion --
RUSH: Can you tell me where on earth does that exist?
CALLER: Here in the United States, you know. I think there's a great mix of people all around, you know, you can live with all the different kinds of people, and there's peace. And, you know, the thing that is important to --
RUSH: See, I don't even agree with that.
CALLER: -- Judaism, they are not -- (crosstalk)
RUSH: I can go to Ferguson, Missouri, right now and find you an entire city population that does not think they're living in peace and does not --
CALLER: That's not what you asked. (crosstalk) Northern Virginia DC area, but we're getting off of the subject here.
RUSH: No, I'm not getting off the subject. I'm staying focused on it. You have a totally skewed definition of peace. Let me ask, how come it is that every time we got close to a Palestinian state, the Palestinians or the Arabs sabotage it?
CALLER: Is that how you feel? Let me ask you a question.
CALLER: That's absolutely your opinion, that's absolutely your opinion, that's a perspective you have. That's not an actuality. That's not a truth. You're presenting it as truth and it's not a truth. And let me explain why.
RUSH: You don't even live in the real world. You're robotic. You're spouting robotic things at me. I'm trying to actually talk to you and use critical thinking. In the first place, you won't tell me what the definition of peace is. I'll tell you what peace is. Peace is the absence of threat and the presence of justice.
Now, peace, to Al-Qaeda, is an entirely different thing than peace to Americans. Peace to the Nazis and the Soviets was an entirely different thing than it is to people like you and me. And I'm telling you that peace to the Palestinians and whoever it is that's seeking this so-called two-state solution is a much different definition than the Israeli definition. This is one of the problems. How can you say it's peace when the people who want their own state want to use it as a staging area to wipe the Jews off the map? How in the world could the Jews sign on to that? Where is the peace in that?
I think this is all smoke and mirrors. I think Netanyahu wants peace. I think Netanyahu wants everybody to be happy. I think Netanyahu would be happy if everybody would just drop their grievances, live happily ever after, as you say, but I don't think we have people that actually want to do that. I think there are people to whom peace is the end of their business. We have people to whom peace is the end of their power. People to whom peace is the end of their notoriety and fame.
So until we can even agree on a definition of peace, you just automatically conclude that a two-state solution equals peace. It doesn't. It's one of the most provocative things that could happen. The root word being "provoke." And you do not have peace if, at the same time, somebody's being provoked. So yours is a politically dominated or oriented definition of peace, whereas mine is real. You automatically can disqualify Netanyahu as a man of peace because he doesn't agree with your political solution to the problem, therefore he's not a man of peace? He's more a man of peace than any other name you could give me over there.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You know, this whole two-state solution is the biggest myth on the face of the earth. The Palestinians do not want a two-state solution. The Palestinians want a one-state solution. They don't want there to be an Israel. Honestly, folks, all that would have to happen for there to be a Palestinian state, given the politics of the day, there has been so much pressure for that, the only reason there isn't a Palestinian state is that the Palestinians -- Hamas, Hezbollah -- will not renounce their objective to wipe Israel off the map.
Now, why in the world would you make a two state agreement with people like this? I've never understood it. Intellectually this makes no sense to me. This entire Middle East peace process I think has become -- it's not what it is. The entire Mideast peace process, by definition, has no end. It's a job. What do you want to be when you grow up? "I want to be involved in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process." Oh, you want to make career out of that? "Yes, I do. I want to be in that. That's my career." Really? "Yeah, because I know it's never gonna happen. It's never gonna get solved. There's never gonna be a negotiated settlement."
Words, doctors, nurses are never gonna end this. The Middle East peace process is in fact a job and a career. It's a company. It's an enterprise. It is not what everybody thinks it is. The Middle East peace process does not exist so that one day there might be a resolution.
I challenge you. Go back, pick any period, go back to the 1960s, go back to the 1970s, the only thing different is the names of the people involved. The arguments are the same. The reasons to do it are the same. The reasons not to do it are the same. The objections by both parties are the same. Nothing changes. Oh, there's skirmishes here and there that change, say, the size of Israel from one year to the next. We might have a fence built here or there. You might have settlements in the West Bank, but in terms of the big picture, peace in the Middle East, there's no such thing, at least it's not gonna be achieved by the Middle East peace process.
The Middle East peace process may as well be its own university where you go but you never graduate. It's always there. It's always gonna be something to aspire to, to be a part of the Middle East peace process. But the biggest mistake anybody can never make is to think that the Middle East peace process is going to lead to a solution, because it isn't, it can't, by definition. The objectives change. I mean, one year the objective will be a Palestinian state. The next year the objective will be the Israelis giving up the West Bank or the occupied territory, whatever, but the overall thrust of this thing never, ever really changes.
There isn't a solution to it, by definition, because just like Al Sharpton really doesn't want an end to racial strife in America, neither do Hamas and Hezbollah want an end to the strife in the Middle East. Too many people are getting too much money. Too many people are getting too famous. Too many people are getting wealthy. Too many people are getting notoriety. You got too much business going on here. There's all kinds of money being allocated, thrown at it. It's a great chance for you to get your fist full of it, if you can get yourself involved in this somehow.
I don't care whether it's Ahmadinejad. I don't care whether it was the Ayatollah Khomeini. I don't care whether it's the current Ayatollah Khamenei. I don't care who it is, the current Iranian president is devoted to the end of Israel. That must happen for the 12th imam to come out of the well. And they're open about it. The people on the Palestinian side of this are the same.
Why do you think, ladies and gentlemen, in every negotiation -- have you heard the term "right of return"? Do you know what that means? (interruption) Tell me, Mr. Snerdley. I don't want to put you on the spot, but you're a good barometer. What does the "right of return" mean? (interruption) That's exactly right. In every negotiation in the so-called Middle East peace process the insistence, Palestinians, on a right of return by which millions of Palestinians would be permitted to resettle in Israel, and it's a nonnegotiable demand. It's nonnegotiable.
If we're gonna have a solution to the Middle East peace process, there must be right of return. Right of return is predicated on the belief that there never was an Israel, there never should have been an Israel, and there should not now be one. And the right of return is simply our way of saying, Israel is ours, and we want the right to go back to it. And when we get there, it isn't gonna be called Israel anymore.
Well, why in the world -- no sane Israeli would agree with that. It can't possibly ever be agreed to, which is why -- and this is just one of the many examples that I could cite to prove to you that peace is not really what's being negotiated here, depending on who you're talking about and how you define it. This right of return is -- look at it as an inside-outside strategy. You vote Israel out of existence from within, and you terrorize it out of existence from without.
So you terrorize Israel with bombs from Gaza and bombs from Hamas and bombs from Hezbollah, and then while the peace process is going on you then demand the right of return. And both of those stratagems are designed to effectively bring about the end of the Jewish state. The people who believe in this two-state solution, like our caller here from the last hour, the only people who really believe in it are Western liberals such as American liberals, Western European socialist liberals.
But Netanyahu has to live in reality. He cannot live in a, "Gee I wish it could be better" world. He cannot live in, "You know, people can be perfected" world. He has to deal with what is. He cannot make policy on what he hopes might be someday. He has to deal with the reality. And it is a reality that I dare say no American can relate to. His reality is this, 'cause he knows you cannot have a Palestinian state in the context of a two-state solution unless the Palestinian state accepts Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, and they do not. And they will never say they do.
The charter -- folks, this is so academic. The charter, you look at Hamas and the Hezbollah charter, the charter calls for the elimination of Israel and the Jewish people. Now, there are people that live in Fantasy Island, Western libs that think this two-state solution. Diplomats, by definition, diplomats who don't live in reality. Think Marie Harf.
Well, Netanyahu can't take that chance. No Israeli leader can take the chance that they don't really mean it. A Western liberal might say that because that's what a Western liberal would do. A Western liberal would say something outrageous and stupid and insane, knowing full well that his voters know he doesn't really mean it; he's just throwing 'em some red meat. And so the Western liberal who acts that way thinks that his counterparts on the Palestinian side, they're just doing the same thing. Come on. They know they have to live side by side with Israel.
No, they don't want to do that. So it's a hypothetical, pretend, quasi-utopia versus a hard, cold reality. And the people on the side of reality have to deal with that. They can't deal with a pretend never-never land. They have to deal with what is real and on the ground, the threats that are posed and the people who make them. The reason Netanyahu is reviled, the reason Netanyahu is despised, and I would dare say the reason any prominent conservative is hated and despised is because Netanyahu punctures the fantasy that the liberal utopia is possible.
Netanyahu punctures the fantasy of the Western liberal, that there aren't any bad guys. There are just two sides with different desires. Netanyahu punctures holes in their entire belief system and forces them to face the realities that he must when they would prefer not to. So they hate him, just as they hate any conservative who is effective in blowing up their little security systems that they concoct for themselves.
END TRANSCRIPT
Related Links
Weekly Standard: WH Avoids Congratulating Bibi
