Israeli left chills public support for annexation
New campaigns by the Israeli political left seem to be effectively throwing cold water on the public's support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s annexation plan.
A comedian sits in a Tel Aviv cafe, a huge gift-wrapped package on the table in front of him. “I’ve been asked to bring you a gift. Looks good, doesn’t it?” beloved thespian Dov Navon asks the camera. “This was given by the bigmouth American to a friend of his in Israel, who knows a thing or two about presents.” The bigmouth is obviously President Donald Trump and his friend is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The background music evokes gaiety and innocence, but when Navon opens the package it blows up in his face, leaving his shocked face blackened by smoke. The bit ends with the message, “Annexation is a gift that will blow up in our face.” On its first day, the viral video logged over 100,000 views, becoming a hot news item. Its credits directed viewers to the sponsor the Geneva Initiative, an organization established 20 years ago to advance the vision of two states for two people.
Ahead of the July 1 target date for the start of Israeli annexation of West Bank territory, the group choose a shocking message for its campaign to win over Israeli public opinion. It succeeded beyond all expectations. Representatives of the political right railed against what they described as a leftist organization’s cynical exploitation of the national trauma of suicide bombings in major city cafes during the second intifada.
“The left presents: The peace process that blew up in our face in cafes,” Knesset member and former Transportation Minister Bezalel Smotrich of right-wing Yamina tweeted in a cutting response. “We have not seen such a display of self-awareness in a long time.”
Smotrich was giving voice to Israeli fury at the terror attacks that took the lives of over 1,000 Israelis just after the Camp David summit 20 years ago at which then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak presented then-PLO chief Yasser Arafat with a generous proposal diving the land between the two peoples.
