Outrage at Israeli hardliners is often premature

Outrage does not replace analysis, facts or general norms. The outrage over the visit to the Temple Mount by the new Israeli Minister for National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, is understandable. It is voiced not only outside but also within Israel by rational and non-ideological actors.

Rightly so, because: This visit is programmed as a provocation. He unnecessarily exacerbates an already explosive situation. On the other hand, you don't have to jump over every stick and exhaust yourself.

This applies not least to the Palestinian opposition. Unless, for her part, she wants to exacerbate the conflict and is just waiting for a favorable opportunity to do so. That visit is neither a "crime", as the terrorist organization Hamas claims, nor a "new climax" in the conflict (PLO) or a breach of the long-established status quo approved by Islamic and Jewish leaders.

It says that this place of holy Islamic mosques can also be visited by Jews and Christians. It is also quasi-holy for Jews and Christians, because before that the Jewish temple, in which Jesus also acted, stood here. Unlike Muslims, however, Jews and Christians are not allowed to pray there.

This is not a problem even for religious Jews, because according to the religious laws (halacha), really pious Jews are not allowed to pray there, at least in certain areas. Ben Gvir takes himself too seriously (here too) when he demands that Jews also be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount.

In relation to Israel in general and nationalistic-religious Israel and its leaders, the willingness to sober analysis does not seem to apply almost worldwide, including in Germany - today under Prime Minister Netanyahu as little as yesterday and the day before yesterday. It did not exist for the first Likud Prime Minister Menahem Begin from 1977, nor for his successor Yitzchak Shamir from 1983, for Ariel Sharon from 2001 or for Benjamin Netanyahu, 1996-1999, 2009-2021 and since December 2022.

Begin was labeled as a quasi-eternal terrorist. Almost in unison, the "experts" painted the next war with Arab states on the wall. It was not the if that was disputed, only the when. In fact, in 1977-1979 he and the congenial President of Egypt, Anwar al-Sadat, created the peace treaty that is still in effect today.

By 1982, Israel had cleared the entire Sinai Peninsula it had conquered in 1967, including its oil wells - and got peace. What's more, part two of the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement contained concrete offers to the Palestinians. Their dynamic would inevitably have led from far-reaching self-government to state self-determination. But the Palestinian leadership, led by Yasser Arafat's PLO, turned down the offer and continued to resort to violence.

At that time, unlike today, a two-state solution would not have been a fact-free empty formula, but a fact-based possibility, because at the end of the 1970s there were hardly any Jewish settlers in either the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. Today there are almost 700,000 in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

About a year after this historic peace, Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt had described Israel - he meant Begin - as the "greatest threat to world peace". Does it sound much different to Netanyahu today?

Begin accomplished a second feat. In June 1981, shortly before the completion of an Iraqi atomic bomb by dictator Saddam Hussein, he had the Iraqi nuclear reactor near Baghdad bombed. The "international community" raged and predicted a "conflagration". That didn't happen. German companies also helped with the renewed nuclearization of Iraq.

Prime Minister Schamir was also considered “actually” a terrorist and a hit-and-run politician. He acted extremely cautiously in 1991 during the second Gulf War, in which he did not allow himself to be drawn - despite Iraqi rockets that hit Israel.

Ariel Sharon also visited the Temple Mount in October 2000. Although Israel's then Prime Minister Ehud Barak had shortly before offered the Palestinians the Gaza Strip, 97 percent of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as their capital, the second intifada began as a result of Sharon's visit. It ended with the defeat of the Palestinians - and even more Jewish settlers. The Palestinians had once again gambled away the chance of founding a state. Was the reaction to the Temple Mount visit worth the loss?

In the summer of 2005, the same Sharon, now Prime Minister himself, followed the advice of the Europeans, Germans and others: "Land for peace". He pushed through Israel's withdrawal from the entire Gaza Strip in 2005. The country-for-peace world dreamed of a Middle Eastern Singapore in Gaza. Instead, Hamas established its reign of terror in Gaza in 2007 after a Palestinian civil war.

When Netanyahu became prime minister again in 2009, the alarm bells went off again in Germany. Again a "wildfire" was predicted. Instead, there was a rapprochement with Oman, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Sudan and in 2020 the Abraham Accords with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

I confess: I was also much more sympathetic to Israel's (more) liberal previous government. But feelings are no substitute for analysis. Let's look at the head of the Israeli-Arab Muslim Brotherhood, the "Raam" leader Mansour Abbas.

Far from enthusiastic about the new government, he is willing to cooperate. Ideologies are less important than concrete achievements for the people, in this case: for the Israeli Arabs. Prime Minister Netanyahu promptly put 30 billion shekels in the budget for Israeli Arabs - and astounded all the prophets of doom.

Michael Wolffsohn is a historian and publicist. He was university teacher of the year 2017. Most recently he published “Jewish World History – short and different” (Herder).