It's probably similar to what many Israeli Arabs feel when some Israeli says that the entire West Bank is Israeli land, and the Pal refugees now living their should move themselves to Jordan to make room for the Israelis.
One small difference: if that's what Israel had wanted to do, they could have done it in 1967. The Arabs know, despite all the party line about genocide, atrocities, yada, yada, that the Israelis have not driven them out of the West Bank, nor did they carpet bomb them, and the chances of their doing so now are effectively zero.
Ahmedinijad and his charming package of celebrating nuclear power, denying the Holocaust, expecting the Mahdi, and declaring that Israel is a temporary aberration that will be wiped off the map soon, is a new phenomenon. Israelis have to weigh the chances that this guy will put motive, means and opportunity together and give the wiping off the map a good college try.
A good chunk of Israel's population is made up of Holocaust survivors or the relatives of Holocaust survivors. Israel takes this kind of threat extremely seriously. Israel knows that it is a small country on tiny strip of land. |
