Peres, the Israeli left and the Oslo syndrome

I titled an earlier post about Israel's President Shim'on Peres "Israel's Jimmy Carter" and claimed that he is a useful idiot.

Kenneth Levin, the psychiatrist author of THE STOCKHOLM SYNDROME, has also written THE OSLO SYNDROME: Delusions of a People Under Siege which applies the former syndrome to Israel. It is not surprising that all its 13 readers who reviewed it on Amazon gave it 5 stars. Here's one review:

This book is problably the most detailed and researched book ever written on the history of how liberalism has infected and destroyed the State of Israel. Through the constant appeasment of its enemies who want nothing but the death of Israel, Israel has backed itself into a corner from which even the author (I infer) feels it has little chance of recovering. This book is a must read for anyone who cares about Israel!

Emphasis mine. Note that the reviewer concurs with my Peres argument. as well as my claim for years that Oslo has been a fatal strategic blunder by Israel. Here's Benny Morris (Palestinians Dupe West):

Palestinian strategy is rather simple (and not particularly clever, though it does manage to take in a surprising number of Westerners): Because of the demographic threat (an Arab majority in a Jewish state) and because of international pressure for self-determination for the Palestinians and an end to Israel's military occupation, Israelis will eventually accept, however reluctantly, a Palestinian state encompassing the Palestinian-majority territories of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Israel will eventually unilaterally withdraw (as it has already done from the Gaza Strip). So why offer or give the Israelis recognition and peace in exchange?

Rather, once this mini-state is achieved, unfettered by any international obligations like a peace treaty—and having promised nothing in exchange for their statehood—the Palestinians will be free to continue their struggle against Israel, its complete demise being their ultimate target. Inevitably, the armed struggle—call it guerrilla warfare, call it terrorism—will then be resumed. And, alongside it, so will the political warfare—the delegitimization of the Jewish state and, most centrally, the demand for the refugees of 1948/1967 to be allowed to return to their homes and lands (what the Palestinians define as the "Right of Return"). The refugee issue plays well with public opinion in the West, which somehow fails to notice that such a return will mean that Israel proper will become an Arab-majority territory, i.e., no more Jewish state. In democracies, what publics accept or support eventually becomes what leaders advocate.And, on the military and political levels, no one will be able to fault the Palestinians.

They will have broken no treaty and violated no solemn agreement. They won't have signed a "no further claims" clause or a "no more war" commitment, as Barak, Clinton and Olmert had demanded as essential components of a two-state peace settlement. They will have received their mini-state, a launching pad for further assault on Israel, without giving anything in return. 

The West is not necessarily duped -- that's what they really want.

UPDATE: The delusion that has been defeating Israel:

Dozens of protesters gathered in front of the Israeli embassy in Egypt’s capital, Cairo, on Wednesday and demanded that Egypt sever ties with Israel and end gas exports to it, AFP reported.

According to the report, the protesters got together on a bridge next to the high-rise building where the embassy is located and chanted: “the people demand the cancellation of normalization” as well as “the gas must stop,” referring to Egypt’s exports of natural gas to Israel.

One of the protesters was left-wing blogger Hossam el-Hamalawy, who claimed the demonstration came in response to recent remarks by Israeli President Shimon Peres, who praised the Egyptian revolt that toppled the government in February and caused former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to step down.

AFP quoted el-Hamalawy as saying that “Peres issued a statement recently calling on Egyptian youth to normalize (with Israel), and this is the Egyptian youth's response.”