Israel's Politicians Talk Too Much

The increased diplomatic tensions this past week between Syria and Israel are, in many respects, the result of politicians in Israel simply talking too much and giving the press free access to their comments.

Defense Minister's Barak's comments earlier in the week at the Herzlia Conference were intended to open a door to further peace negotiations with Syria but ended up being misinterpreted by the Syrian Foreign Minister as a threat of war. He responded with verbiage of his own to counter Barak's comments.

At that point Barak should have clarified his statements and the incident should have ended. But on Thursday along comes Foreign Minister Liberman and adds his two cents threatening Syria that if ware breaks out Israel will win and the Assad family will fall from power. Predictably there was a strong reaction from the Syrian side as well.

Knowing when to keep one's mouth shut is not rocket science. A simply misunderstanding regarding one comment uttered in Hebrew and badly translated into English has triggered a full scale symphony by the drums of war. In this part of the world, the transition from talk to action never takes very long and, as one member of the Knesset opined, Israel is playing with fire by pursuing this line of incompetent diplomacy.

Hopefully, the fires of anger will die down before a shot is fired but, more importantly, someone has to tell our politicians that often silence is the better part of valor.

Sherwin Pomerantz
Jerusalem, January 5, 2010