Root causes and red herrings - Martin Sherman

by Martin Sherman

Article 24 [PLO Charter] stipulates precisely what is not included in the "homeland" of "Palestine" and where sovereignty is not to be exercised. It unequivocally forswears Palestinian claims to "any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and Gaza."

More than two years before any Israeli presence in what are now the "occupied territories," Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser issued a public message: "We shall not enter Palestine with its soil covered in sand, we shall enter it with its soil saturated in blood" (March 8, 1965).

This chilling declaration of genocidal intent by the leader of the largest Arab nation was not an isolated aberration. 

Quite the contrary, it was typical of a pervasive Judeo-phobic frenzy that prevailed throughout the Arab world, well before the notions of "occupation" and "settlements" -- the current buzzwords for rallying anti-Israeli sentiment -- had any practical significance, or even conceptual relevance.

On May 18, 1967, following the withdrawal of the U.N. peacekeeping forces in Sinai, in compliance with Egyptian demands, the Cairo-based radio station Voice of the Arabs blared: "As of today, there no longer exists an international emergency force to protect Israel. We shall exercise patience no more. ... The sole method we shall apply against Israel is total war, which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence."

Two days later, Gen. Hafez Assad, father of current President Bashar Assad and then-Syria's defense minister and later president, boasted: "Our forces are now entirely ready. ... The time has come to enter a battle of annihilation."

On May 27, Nasser reiterated his murderous goal: "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight."

Four days before the outbreak of war, on June 1, Iraqi President Abdul Rahman Ali -- later assassinated by Saddam Hussein -- threatened: "The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified. ... Our goal is clear -- to wipe Israel off the map."

The mood on the Jordanian front and among the Palestinians, together with their Arab "patrons," was strikingly similar.

On Nov. 18, 1965, Nasser remarked: "Our aim is the full restoration of the rights of the Palestinian people. In other words, we aim at the destruction of the State of Israel. The immediate aim: perfection of Arab military might. The national aim: the eradication of Israel."

Jordan's King Hussein, apparently impressed by this bluster, entered into a military pact with Egypt on May 30, 1967, despite bitter acrimony between Nasser and himself. He declared: "All of the Arab armies now surround Israel. The UAR [Egypt], Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Lebanon, Algeria, Sudan and Kuwait. ... There is no difference between one Arab people and another, no difference between one Arab army and another."

At the time, the entire West Bank and Gaza, territories now claimed for the establishment of a Palestinian state, were under Arab control. Nasser ruled Gaza, Hussein the West Bank. Yet neither undertook the slightest initiative to initiate any self-governing Palestinian entity in these territories.

Somewhat premature flush of triumph

What is even more astounding is that the Palestinians themselves in effect eschewed any aspirations of sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza, which appear to have been totally irrelevant to "full restoration of the rights of the Palestinian people" in the eyes of both the Palestinians and of the wider Arab world. 

The rhetoric from Palestinian leaders was no less bellicose.

On May 27, Ahmad Shukeiri, Yasser Arafat's predecessor as chairman of the PLO, gloated: "D-Day is approaching. The Arabs have waited 19 years for this and will not flinch from the war of liberation."

A few days later, on June 1, in a somewhat premature flush of triumph, he crowed: "This is a fight for the homeland. It is either us or the Israelis. There is no middle road. The Jews of Palestine will have to leave. We will facilitate their departure to their former homes. Any of the old Palestine Jewish population who survive may stay, but it is my impression that none of them will survive. ... We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants and as for the survivors -- if there are any -- the boats are ready to deport them."

So as the Arab armies massed against it, Israel began to brace itself for the coming war, preparing mass graves in Tel Aviv and other cities in anticipation of heavy civilian causalities.

'Liberation' equals 'annihilation' 

Shukeiri's use of the words "liberation" and "homeland" is revealing. They clearly did not apply to the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, since both were under Arab rule and certainly not considered the "homeland" toward which Palestinian "liberation" efforts were directed.

The true significance of these terms emerges with stark clarity from the text of the original version of the Palestinian National Charter -- formulated in 1964 -- three years before any post-1967 occupation.

Article 16 states: "The liberation of Palestine ... [is] necessitated by the demands of self-defense" and "the Palestinian people look forward to [international] support ... in restoring the legitimate situation to Palestine ... and enabling its people to exercise national sovereignty and freedom."

Article 24 stipulates precisely what is not included in the "homeland" of "Palestine" and where sovereignty is not to be exercised. It unequivocally forswears Palestinian claims to "any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and Gaza."

It is difficult to imagine a more authoritative source for exposing as bogus the Palestinian claim that the West Bank and Gaza comprise their "ancient homeland."

Indeed, even within the pre-1967 lines, long before the alleged "root causes of the conflict" -- "occupation" and "settlements" -- were part of the discourse, Israel was condemned as a colonial, fascist, expansionist power.

According to Article 19: "Zionism is a colonialist movement in its inception, aggressive and expansionist in its goal, racist in its configurations, and fascist in its means and aims. Israel, in its capacity as the spearhead of this destructive movement and as the pillar of colonialism, is a permanent source of tension and turmoil in the Middle East."

The implication is clear. To remove enduring "tension and turmoil" in the region, their "source" -- Israel -- must be removed.

Accordingly, we must conclude that the only conceivable "plain-English" translation for the "liberation of the homeland" must be the "annihilation of Israel."

Hatred frozen in time

 

The 1964 Palestinian National Covenant was replaced by a 1968 version, which in the guise of "the liberation of Palestine," continued to advocate the destruction of Israel as a necessary precursor for Middle East peace, in blatantly explicit terms.

Article 22 states that the "liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence and will contribute to the establishment of peace in the Middle East."

Any thoughts that the reference was now to the post-1967 "occupied territories" is quickly dispelled by Article 19, which declares: "The partition of Palestine in 1947, and the establishment of the State of Israel are entirely illegal, regardless of the passage of time."

Article 20 delves even further back, to 1917, to deny the validity of Jewish statehood in any portion of the Holy Land: "The Balfour Declaration, the Palestine Mandate System, and all that has been based on them are considered null and void. The claims of historic and spiritual ties between Jews and Palestine are not in agreement with the facts of history and the conception of what constitutes statehood."

This implacable repudiation cannot be ascribed to wrath induced by post-1967 Israeli occupation. They echo, almost verbatim, those articulated in Articles 17 and 18 of the pre-occupation 1964 Covenant, underscoring the unbroken persistence of the Palestinians enmity towards Israel, regardless of any temporal or territorial parameters.

From Shukeiri to Abbas

 

This provides the conceptual context for the unrelenting refusal of the allegedly moderate Fatah leader, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, to acknowledge that Israel is the nation-state of the Jews. After all, he is merely being faithful to his National Covenant (both original and current) according to which "Jews do not constitute a single nation with an identity of their own," and the establishment of Israel comprises a "violation of the basic principles embodied in the Charter of the United Nations."

Significantly, despite a promise to former U.S. President Bill Clinton and a vague letter that certain -- unspecified -- articles have been abrogated, the covenant has not been formally changed or redrafted. Indeed, to fulfill the pledge to Clinton, no fewer than 28 of the 33 articles would have to be annulled or amended.

Israel would be sadly remiss not to publicly portray Abbas, the current chairman of the PLO, as adhering to the principles laid down by Shukeiri, the first chairman of the PLO, who drafted the original National Covenant.

This was starkly illustrated at the Sept. 2011 U.N. General Assembly session when Abbas theatrically exclaimed: "After 63 years of suffering: enough, enough, enough."

How reminiscent this was of Shukeiri's 1964 declaration, 47 years earlier at the first session of the Palestinian National Council, that "Palestinians had experienced 16 years of misery."

Clearly then, both past and present PLO chairmen steadfastly condemn the birth of Israel -- not the "occupation" -- as the "original sin" that is exclusively to blame for Palestinian suffering and misery.

Certainly can't fault them for inconsistency. 

'The Arabs are the same Arabs'

Accordingly, one might be forgiven for conceding that late former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir may just have had a point when he cautioned that "the Arabs are the same Arabs, and the sea is the same sea."

Indeed there are those who might see corroboration for this abrasive assessment in the fact that the allegedly "pragmatic" Fatah movement (established in 1959) found no need, at its 2009 Convention in Bethlehem, to amend its constitution (also formulated in 1964 but not to be confused with the Palestinian National Covenant). 

This constitution specifies the "goal" of the organization as: "Complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence."

It goes on to stipulate the "method" by which this "eradication" is to be effected, i.e. "armed struggle," and emphasizes that this "is a strategy and not a tactic. The Palestinian Arab people's armed revolution is a decisive factor in the liberation fight and in uprooting the Zionist existence, and this struggle will not cease unless the Zionist state is demolished and Palestine is completely liberated."

Significantly, the Fatah emblem shows "Palestine" as extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

Separating 'red herrings' from 'root causes'

 

Over the last two decades, Israel has allowed itself to be manipulated into a perilous and potentially tragic situation. To have any hope of extricating itself from this unenviable position, it must be very clear as to what this conflict is really about -- and what it is not.

It must separate the "root causes" from the "red herrings." Mistaken diagnosis will result in mistaken policy choices which are liable to precipitate "terminal" consequences.

It is time to acknowledge the unpalatable fact that the enmity of Arabs towards the Jews and the Jewish state is: 

Not about borders but about existence.

Not about what the Jewish people do but about what the Jewish people are.

Not about the Jewish state's policies but about the Jewish state per se.

And not about Jewish military "occupation" of Arab land but about Jewish political existence on any land.

Israel must internalize these truths and undertake a policy to convey them with conviction and vigor to the world. Otherwise Israel may well be "liberated."

Martin Sherman

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=15889

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Palestinians: When in Doubt, Try Intimidation - Khaled Abu Toameh

by Khaled Abu Toameh

-- the PA foreign minister wishes to maintain the right to threaten Jews at the Temple Mont without being documented or caught on camera.

• The Palestinians argue that security cameras on the Temple Mount would be used by Israel to identify and arrest Muslim worshippers who protest against visits by Jews. What they seem to have forgotten is that these "protesters" regularly harass Jewish groups and individuals touring the Temple Mount.
• While Mahmoud Abbas claimed he was in favor of the plan to install the security cameras, his Islamic clerics and Palestinian Authority (PA) officials continued to incite against the plan
• The straw that broke the Jordanian back was a leaflet that was distributed at the Temple Mount during Friday prayers two weeks ago. The leaflet urged Muslims to smash any cameras installed at the holy site.  
  
• In one blow, Palestinians have managed to undermine Jordan's historic role as "custodian" of the holy sites in Jerusalem and humiliate King Abdullah, who was the mastermind of the camera plan.

Succumbing to Palestinian intimidation, Jordan has dropped its plan to install surveillance cameras at the Haram Al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary), or Temple Mount.  

The cancellation of the plan is seen as a severe blow not only to Jordan, but also to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who, in October 2015, brokered the agreement to install the cameras at the site.  

Kerry announced then that Jordan and Israel had agreed to round-the-clock video surveillance, with the goal of reducing tensions at the Temple Mount.

Since then, however, the Palestinians, who have unleashed a wave of violent attacks on Israel in a purported response to Israeli "provocations" at the Temple Mount, have been campaigning against the plan to install the security cameras there. This week, it turned out that this campaign of intimidation was not in vain.  

The Palestinians argue that the cameras would be used by Israel to identify and arrest Muslim worshippers who protest against visits by Jews to the Temple Mount. What they seem to have forgotten is that these "protesters" regularly harass Jewish groups and individuals touring the Temple Mount. The "protesters" are known as murabitoun (the Steadfast) and their main mission is to stop Jews from touring the Temple Mount. Some are affiliated with the Palestinian Authority (PA), while others are on the payroll of the Islamic Movement in Israel.  

How Kerry will respond to this spit in the face remains to be seen. Not a sound was heard from him throughout the months of the Palestinian campaign to scuttle the plan.  

With the U.S. deafeningly quiet on the subject, the Jordanians were left alone to deal with the Palestinian intimidation.  

As the Palestinian threats intensified, Jordan's King Abdullah dispatched his foreign minister, Nasser Judeh, to an urgent meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.  

At the meeting, Abbas did his old bait-and-switch trick. Claiming that he was in favor of the plan to install the security cameras at the Temple Mount, his Islamic clerics and Palestinian Authority officials continued to incite against the plan.  

Abbas's foreign minister, Riad Malki, denounced the plan as a "new trap." He warned that Israel would use the cameras to arrest Palestinians under the pretext of "incitement." 

Malki is here referring to the male and female Muslim worshippers whose mission is to harass and intimidate Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount. Thus, the PA foreign minister wishes to maintain the right to threaten Jews at the Temple Mont without being documented or caught on camera.
 

Palestinian Arab young men with masks, inside Al-Aqsa Mosque (some wearing shoes), stockpile rocks to use for throwing at Jews who visit the Temple Mount, September 27, 2015.

The Islamic Movement in Israel, headed by Sheikh Raed Salah, joined the chorus of critics by issuing its own threats to thwart the camera plan.  

The straw that broke the Jordanian back was a leaflet that was distributed at the Temple Mount during Friday prayers two weeks ago. The leaflet urged Muslims to smash any cameras installed at the holy site. Who was behind the leaflet remains unclear, but sources in East Jerusalem blamed Palestinian activists and members of the Islamic Movement in Israel. The latest threat came as Jordan announced that the cameras would be installed at the site in the coming days.  

Jordanian Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour made no bones about the decision to drop the plan: it was, he stated, a direct response to Palestinian "opposition" and "reservations." He also noted that Israel had agreed to the installation of the cameras.  

"At the beginning, Israel tried to hinder the project through various means," Ensour said. "But we were able to overcome that." He said that Jordan was nevertheless "surprised" by the reaction of the Palestinians to the cameras initiative.  

Jordan has made clear that it was the Palestinians, and not Israel, who foiled the installation of more than 50 surveillance cameras at the Temple Mount as a stop towards easing tensions there.  

Yet, no reaction from Kerry.

In one blow, Palestinians have managed to undermine Jordan's historic role as "custodian" of the holy sites in Jerusalem and humiliate King Abdullah, who was the mastermind of the camera plan. They managed to do so largely thanks to the failure of the U.S. Administration to follow up on the implementation of the Kerry-brokered agreement.  

We are seeing an old movie. Once again, the Palestinians have strong-armed their way to disaster. Their incessant intimidation fails to achieve a truly worthy goal: a better life under a non-dictatorial regime.  

Once again, the Palestinians have prevailed -- and in their win, they lose yet again.
 

• Follow Khaled Abu Toameh on Twitter

Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist, is based Jerusalem.  

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7894/palestinians-intimidation  

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The Sweet Face of Islam - Richard Butrick

by Richard Butrick

--as I began to investigate the Quran and the traditions of Muhammad’s life for myself in college, I found to my genuine surprise that the pages of Islamic history are filled with violence. How could I reconcile this with what I had always been taught about Islam?

After a nasty terrorist attack one can expect to read about how unrepresentative of the true doctrines of Islam such acts are. Not infrequently we are treated to the remarks of an attractive young Muslim woman explaining that Islam is the religion of peace, inclusion and justice for all. Usually we are reassured that Muslims love America and are patriotic, Constitution-supporting citizens. Recently, Republican Muslim Coalition President Saba Ahmed draped in an American flag, proclaimed that she was a proud, patriotic American. After Trump’s misguided remarks that due to terrorist attacks (San Bernardino) Muslims in America needed to wear identification, the Facebook post of Marwa Balkar went viral:

I chose the peace sign because it represents my #Islam. The one that taught me to oppose #injustice and yearn for #unity. The one that taught me that killing one innocent life is equivalent to killing humanity.

One is naturally inclined to believe that someone who is a Muslim and is brought up in a Muslin community knows whereof he/she speaks. And that may be quite correct as regards their assessment of the attitudes of their own community. But it does not follow that that they speak with great knowledge of the Koran or Sunnah or of Sharia law. Even less does it follow that they understand the ultimate agenda of the various Islamic front groups in the U.S. that are affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood or the Wahhabi supported fronts of Saudi Arabia. They may be recruited by such organizations to put a nice face on Islam but that hardly means that that is what the ultimate agenda is of such organizations.

As a case in point, here is an interesting account of the rude awakening of a Muslim American who grew up in a patriotic Muslim community in Hamtramck, Michigan.

As a Muslim growing up in the United States, I was taught by my imams and the community around me that Islam is a religion of peace. My family modeled love for others and love for country, and not just by their words. My father served in the U.S. Navy throughout my childhood, starting as a seaman and retiring as a lieutenant commander. I believed wholeheartedly a slogan often repeated at my mosque after 9/11: “The terrorists who hijacked the planes also hijacked Islam.”
Yet as I began to investigate the Quran and the traditions of Muhammad’s life for myself in college, I found to my genuine surprise that the pages of Islamic history are filled with violence. How could I reconcile this with what I had always been taught about Islam?

The point being that in the last analysis the rank and file and acolytes of Islam can be led to believe whatever their handlers at the time find it tactically expedient for them to believe as they are led down road to Islam Uber Alles. In particular, what matters is the real agenda and beliefs of Islam’s front organizations and their leaders. And what is maddeningly incompressible about that is the extent to which the Muslim Brotherhood and the Saudis have been able to dupe U.S. leadership. Hiding behind the Islamophobia ruse, front groups in the U.S. have suckered the Obama administration into believing in the patriotic, constitution supporting sweet face of Islam, here are the real agendas.

The Saudi agenda. For decades, the Saudis sent ambassadors who were “just like us,” drinking expensive scotch, partying hard, playing tennis with our own political royalty, and making sure that American corporations and key individuals made money. A lot of money. In return the Saudi’s got to fund their Wahhabi supremacist, Jew hating, female subjugating message in their mosques and madrassahs. This despite the fact that the Saudis would never let us fund a church or synagogue in Saudi Arabia.

And the 28 pages excised from the 9/11 Commission’s report? Those pages allegedly document Saudi complicity. Our own government kept those revelations from the American people. Because, even after 9/11, the Saudis were “our friends.”

The Muslim Brotherhood agenda. The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by Islamic cleric (and Hitler admirer) Hassan al-Banna after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

The group seeks as its end-game to install a Sunni Islamic caliphate throughout the world. The explicit goal of the Muslim Brotherhood. as stated by al-Banna, is that given that is the nature “of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.” Both former Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden and ISIS “caliph” Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi were members of the Brotherhood. Its current spiritual leader, Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, has a knack for bashing Jews and praising Nazis. The Muslim Brotherhood’s motto remains: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”

Yet the president continues to regard the various front groups of MB as legitimate organization combating Islamophobia and acting as “rational agents” in the political arena. In fact, he has just had the leaders of the following Islamic front organization over to the White House on Muslim Brotherhood Day: CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations); MPAC (Muslim Public Affairs Counci); ISNA (Islamic Society of North America).

All these groups have funneled money to terrorist groups, regard Israel as a terrorist nation and reject the designation of Hamas and Hizb’allah as terrorist groups. And, most importantly, support the imposition of Sharia.

Hijacked Islam? When Muslims (Sunni, Shia) have the upper hand is there any other kind? Meanwhile Islam’s useful idiots dance the taqiyya on the yellow brick road to dhimmitude.

Richard Butrick

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/the_sweet_face_of_islam_.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Knowing your ABC: A primer to understand the different areas of Judea and Samaria - Hillel Frisch

by Hillel Frisch

Even avid followers of Israel’s political scene might be confused over what areas A, B and C mean more than 20 years after they came into existence.

Knowing one’s ABCs, everyone would agree, is indispensable to attaining literacy and a gateway to Western literature and culture.

Similarly, knowing the difference between areas A, B and C in Judea and Samaria and the ramifications thereof is indispensable to understanding the politics and violence that affects many of us on an almost daily basis.

Take any social or political activity of consequence for either Israelis or Palestinians, from agriculture to construction to employment, settlement and of course security and taxation, and the importance of these designations is bound to come up.

Why even avid followers of Israel’s political scene might be confused over what areas A, B and C mean more than 20 years after they came into existence probably has to do with the fact that they emerged in legal documents related to the Oslo negotiations – especially the interim agreement between Israel and the PLO signed in September 1995 known as the Oslo II Accord, which extended the jurisdiction of the newly formed Palestinian Authority to the major towns in Judea and Samaria. The PA had secured jurisdiction over most of Gaza and Jericho a year-and-a-half earlier.

Legal documents are typically only read by the professionals, in this case, officials, diplomats and senior military officers.

Yet one hardly has to be either to understand the basic differences between these three types of jurisdiction or the very important fact that they were intended to have meaning for only five or six years until a final settlement to the Palestinian issue was supposed to be achieved.

The date for that auspicious occasion, then-US president Bill Clinton, then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and then-PLO leader Yasser Arafat agreed, was to take place no later than five years from the establishment of the PA in May 1994, that is to say, in 1999.

Seventeen years later, a final agreement seems as distant as ever. This also means that the differences between the legal distinctions of areas A, B and C and realities on the ground have grown over the years. Yet, though they have grown, Israel, the PA, the United States and most if not all of the international community still regard these legal distinctions and the documents in which they were inscribed as binding, only to be supplanted by the signing of a final agreement.

The following primer tries to make sense of these differences and their ramifications on issues such as settlements, security and the prospects for a peaceful resolution of the Palestinian issue.

What areas A, B and C basically mean

The differences between areas A, B and C, all pertaining to Judea and Samaria, are relatively simple.

Area A is the space in which the PA has political and military jurisdiction over its residents – all of whom are Arab.

This includes all of the major towns and their immediate environs – with the partial exception of Jewish Hebron, which came under exclusive Israeli control in the 1997 Hebron protocol between Israel and the PLO. This area comprises approximately 18 percent of Judea and Samaria’s land mass.

According to the Oslo Accords, the PA was never given jurisdiction over Israeli citizens and foreign nationals.

Israeli citizens have the right to enter and pass through Area A unmolested, provided that they are not involved in illicit activity, in which case the PA can only temporarily apprehend them until they are transferred to the Israeli authorities. Joint Israeli-PA patrols were intended to handle these cases.

THE NEXT letter in the alphabet signified less built-up areas, many of which shared their space with settlements created in the massive settlement drive in the 1980s launched by the Likud government. Area B comprises approximately 22% of Judea and Samaria.

In Area B, Israel and the PA share jurisdiction.

Israel enjoys exclusive jurisdiction over the Jewish inhabitants and exclusive authority over security for both its Arab and Jewish inhabitants. The PA has political, administrative and police jurisdiction over the Arab inhabitants. They are subject to its laws, pay the necessary taxes and benefit from the same public services the PA provides in Area A.

Strictly speaking, only the IDF and the Israel Police can make arrests in these areas.

MOST OF geographic Judea and Samaria (60% of the area) is designated Area C, over which Israel has exclusive jurisdiction both administratively and in security matters.

Area C’s distinguishing characteristic is that it is sparsely populated – by Arab or Jewish inhabitants.

Most of this area lies east of the populated mountain spine from Jenin in the north to Hebron in the south. The eastern slopes descending and including the Jordan Valley are characterized by harsh climate and low to no rainfall. The Jordan Valley, the South Hebron Hills and the area in the vicinity of Ma’aleh Adumim – from east of Mount Scopus to Jericho – are by far the most politically contested spaces in Area C, due to both Jewish settlement and Israeli security concerns.

IT IS clear that the alphabetic division of the area reflected Israeli geostrategic logic more than Palestinian interests and that Israel had the upper hand in the negotiation process.

The division was supposed to facilitate Israeli security control, while relieving Israel of the burden of caring for the area’s Arab inhabitants.

Before signing off on the formal division into areas A, B and C, it is important to note what was left out of the alphabet – the letter “J” for Jerusalem. The issue of Jerusalem in the relevant legal documents was mentioned only as one of five crucial issues that were to be resolved in the final talks.

This meant that Jerusalem remained formally under exclusive Israeli jurisdiction.

Between theory and reality Israel’s upper hand in the negotiation process was undermined by its policy on the ground in the six years between the emergence of the PA and the outbreak of the second intifada. This policy is highlighted by the policy of the Defense Ministry, the IDF and the government to buy quiet by turning a blind eye to PA encroachment with the encouragement of many Western governments.

The activities of Orient House, the shadow east Jerusalem municipality headed by Faisal Husseini, were probably the most striking deviation from the strategic logic of the Oslo agreements.

HUSSEINI, ALTHOUGH dubbed a “peace advocate,” was, in fact, one of the major and more extreme Fatah leaders with clout behind him up until his death in 2000.

Palestinian security agents soon penetrated east Jerusalem and often kidnapped Arabs who were suspected of being informers, or for expressing opposition to Arafat, or even for penal matters.

Just as these infringements occurred in Jerusalem, they also occurred in Areas B and C. The fear they created must have made it more difficult to gather intelligence, the bloody ramifications for which the Israeli public paid dearly in the first two years of the second intifada, when highly sophisticated squads of up to 12 terrorists belonging to Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah expertly planned – undetected – large suicide bombings over an extended period of time.

MEANWHILE, THE PA achieved effective sovereignty over Area A, over which the Israeli authorities had the right to “hot pursuit,” and Israeli citizens the right to do business and pass through.

Soon after the signing of the 1993 accord, settlers and most Israelis were barred from entering Area A after a few Beit El and Ofra inhabitants endangered their lives in attempting to exercise their right. Area A also became off limits to the IDF.

As a result sanctuaries of terrorism appeared in Arab towns such as Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarm and Bethlehem.

So ingrained did the idea of PA sovereignty become, that when the IDF entered Gaza in April 2001, for the first time since the signing of Oslo II, the US secretary of state assailed Israel for the operation as “excessive and disproportionate,” demanding that Israel withdraw its forces – a demand with which Israel quickly complied.

Tragically, for the 1,050 victims of Palestinian terrorism and their families, while Israeli sovereignty was being violated in Jerusalem, Israel effectively lost its right to prevent terrorism in Area A between 1996 and 2002.

Operation Defensive Shield

It was only after 9/11 and Iranian complicity in the massive shipment of arms to the PA, exposed through the interception and takeover of the boat Karin-A in February 2002, that the US gave the green light for Israeli penetration of Area A.

The suicide attack at a 2002 Passover Seder held in the Park Hotel that killed 33 Israelis – including many Holocaust survivors – provided the resolve to switch gears from a policy of essentially absorbing casualties to a major frontal assault.

At the end of March 2002, Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield, reconquered all the major Arab towns in Judea and Samaria, and essentially changed areas designated A to the status of B, where the IDF became responsible for security. Nothing characterized that change more than the preventive arrests carried out by the IDF almost on a daily basis ever since.

The numbers of those arrested is mind-boggling by Western standards.

In 2007, IDF forces, typically at night, arrested 7,000 Arabs. The arrests declined to half that number in 2012, but have increased since with the reemergence of terrorism on a large scale.

In 2015, the numbers of those arrested rose once again to 6,000, especially during the months that coincided with the present wave of violence.

To give a sense of proportion, a senior security official in the British Home Office announced alarmingly that the authorities arrested 281 terrorist suspects in Great Britain in 2014.

IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) forays into PA territory to make preventive arrests have been the most effective means by far in reducing terrorism (at least until the present wave of “own-initative” terrorism). Thus, terrorism declined by a greater percentage before the erection of the security barrier than after it.

The PA and the EU in Area C

Israel has not been alone in changing the actual status quo in the alphabetic division of Judea and Samaria.

Whereas Israel reduced PA control in Area A in its fight against terrorism, the PA and the EU, with financial support from Arab states such as Qatar and Kuwait, have in the past decade sought to actively encroach on Israeli rule in Area C, where according to the accords, Israel has exclusive administrative and security control.

The major arena in this intense yet quiet war extends from Anata (bordering the light rail depot on the northern side of the Jerusalem-Jericho highway) to Abu Dis and Eizariya – 3 km. to the south – and land on both sides of the highway parallel to Ma’aleh Adumim all the way down to Jericho.

THE PA and EU’s major objective and its weapon are not only clear but one and the same: to create continuous Arab settlement from the south to the north of the West Bank.

Israel would like to prevent that contiguity by building on E-1, the area that would create continuous settlement from Ma’aleh Adumim to Jerusalem.

But, as Israeli building dwindles into insignificance under the stern gaze of Uncle Sam and a frightened Israeli prime minister, the PA, with the help of the EU, has succeeded in housing 120,000 Palestinians in a space no larger than 9 sq.km. This number is more than double the number of inhabitants of Ma’aleh Adumim and the other Israeli localities in the area extending to Jericho.

One hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants? Where do they all live? The answer can be found in Waze, but you probably don’t need it. Reach the French Hill junction, continue on Route 60 to Jericho, and just 1 km. from the junction look north, literally meters away from the security barrier.

Lo and behold, you’ll find an urban jungle so dense it makes Bat Yam look like New York’s Central Park.

Welcome to Ras Khamis and Ras Shahada, which block from view the village of Anata, home to the prophet Jeremiah from Anatot. According to Palestinian media, Nasrin Alian, an attorney with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, 120,000 inhabitants live in this urban monstrosity alone, all of which was created since 2007.

Umm Ishak al-Kaluti, in the same media site, confirms that 10 years ago she owned one of the few homes on this once barren hill.

Most of the area is within the official municipal line and is thus formally under Israeli sovereignty; the remainder is Area C, which Israel presumably controls.

Yet, hundreds of six-to-10-story apartment buildings were built there, all of which are illegal, as a senior officer in the Border Police in charge of security in the area confirmed.

THIS OFFICER and Jamil Sanduqa, head of the makeshift local council of Ras Khamis, supported by the PA and the EU, would both agree, despite the quiet war, that these neighborhoods are a human disaster.

Sanduqa characterizes living there as “life imprisonment.”

The only road that traverses this urban nightmare is two lanes wide. It is continuously clogged all the way to the 24-hour outpost manned by the Border Police which allows passage into Jerusalem.

Fire trucks would find it impossible to reach the scene in the event of even a small emergency such as fire from an electric short circuit or an explosion of gas balloons, most of which are illegally placed – let alone an earthquake.

Garbage burns in the open with devastating health effects on the inhabitants and probably on the inhabitants of French Hill as well. This is also true of A-Zaim, a smaller version of Ras al-Khamis just two kilometers south, which is designated as being in Area B.

In A-Zaim, illegal building is taking place toward the highway in violation of international conventions that stipulate mandatory distances between the building line and major arteries of traffic.

One must assume that the Israeli officials in Beit El responsible for seeing that the PA operates within legal confines have very rosy glasses. Otherwise, how can one explain that these illegal buildings, which can easily become ideal shooting sites for terrorist snipers, have not been dismantled?

FROM MA’ALEH Adumim onward, the EU has identified Beduin makeshift encampments as the chief weapon for transforming Area C into the would-be Palestinian state.

Were EU officials to allow such encampments in their home states, they would find themselves behind bars for abetting housing that is in contravention of civic ordinances in third-world states, let alone states that comprise the EU.

These fast-growing encampments are also too close to a major highway, bereft of sewage systems and organized garbage disposal.

The Israeli authorities have leveled an area just south of Abu Dis that would provide all these amenities, yet the EU continues to abet this inhuman settlement.

Obviously, the EU believes that any illegal means justify the end of creating a Palestinian state. The story is being repeated in the Southern Hebron Hills.

Conclusion

It turns out then, that a document written and signed in 1995 that created areas A, B and C, if hardly dramatic in its own right, sets the stage for dramatic, often painful events.

It directly relates to current affairs such as the recent proposal made by IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot to give back to the PA sole security control over Area A.

Will Israel repeat the mistake of providing Hamas and Islamic Jihad with sanctuaries from which to launch not only attacks with makeshift weapons, as in the current wave of violence, but also massive suicide bombings, as in the second intifada?

The same can be said of the lenience Israel is showing in the face of massive illegal building abetted by the EU and some other Arab states. Israel then, might be repeating the same mistake it made between 1996 and 2002 when it allowed the PA to encroach on areas B and C, for which it paid dearly in the second intifada.



Hillel Frisch is a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He can be reached at Hillel.frisch@gmail.com

Source: http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Knowing-your-ABC-448963

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Our Estranged Generals - Caroline Glick

by Caroline Glick

Our generals are not on the same page as the rest of us. In fact, they aren’t even reading the same book.

It’s been a long time in coming, but it finally happened.

The IDF General Staff has lost the public trust.

This is terrible for the General Staff. But it is more terrible for the country, because the public is right not to trust our military leaders. They have earned our distrust fair and square.

The final straw came in less than optimal circumstances.

But such is life. Things are never cut and dry. On Purim, Sgt. Elor Azaria killed a terrorist in Hebron as he lay on the ground, shot, following his attempted murder of one of Azaria’s comrades.

Still today, we don’t know whether Azaria acted properly or improperly. He claims that he believed the terrorist had a bomb beneath the heavy jacket he was wearing in the middle of a heat wave.

Azaria claims that he shot him because he feared that the terrorist – who was moving – was trying to detonate the bomb. This view was shared by emergency personnel at the scene caring for the wounded soldier.

But even before he had a chance to tell his story, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon had already declared Azaria guilty of murder. Based on an initial field investigation and a snuff film produced by the European-funded anti-Israel group B’Tselem, Eisenkot and Ya’alon excoriated Azaria and pronounced the soldier, who was decorated for his service just last year, a rotten apple.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu initially joined them in their condemnations. But when he realized that the public wasn’t buying it and that the evidence was far from cut and dry, to his credit, Netanyahu walked back his remarks.

Ya’alon and Eisenkot, in contrast, have refused to let the uncertainty of the situation affect them.

Their continued assaults on the soldier have compounded the damage. Their stubborn refusal to give Azaria the benefit of the doubt and admit that he may well have comported himself properly indicates that they have no idea how their statements are being viewed by the public, or worse, they may not care. They may simply be playing for another audience.
And here lies the beginning of the real problem.

For the public – including the five thousand citizens who came to the support rally for Azaria at Rabin Square on Tuesday – the critical moment was when the film of Azaria being led away from the scene in handcuffs was broadcast on the evening news. That image, of a combat soldier who killed a terrorist being treated like a criminal, was the breaking point for the public. Whether he was guilty or innocent was beside the point. The point was that his commanders – beginning with the defense minister and the chief of General Staff – were treating him like a criminal instead of a combat soldier on the front lines defending our country from an enemy that seeks our destruction.

This image, combined with Ya’alon’s and Eisenkot’s increasingly shrill and caustic condemnations of Azaria, was a breach of the social contract between the IDF and the public. That social contract says that we serve in the IDF. We send our children to serve in the IDF. And the IDF values us and values our sons and daughters as its own.

The sense that our generals are not on the same page as the rest of us has been gnawing at us since at least April 2002, in the aftermath of the battle in Jenin, during the course of Operation Defensive Shield.
Back then, fearing CNN and the UN, IDF commanders sent a reserve battalion into Jenin refugee camp, the epicenter of the Palestinian murder machine, without air cover and without armored vehicles. Thirteen reservists were killed in one day. Twenty-three soldiers were killed in the three-day battle.

The sense of alienation continued through the war in Lebanon four years later when the IDF conducted one of the most inept campaigns in its history. Soldiers were sent willy-nilly into battles with no strategic purpose because the General Staff wanted to “stage a picture of victory.”

This sense has been maintained in successive inconclusive campaigns in Gaza.

Now, with the General Staff’s decision to turn Azaria into a scapegoat at a time when it is failing to defeat the Palestinian terrorist wave in Judea and Samaria, that gnawing sense that something is amiss has become a certainty.

Our generals are not on the same page as the rest of us. In fact, they aren’t even reading the same book.

Our generals are motivated by three impulses and strategic assumptions that are not shared by the majority of Israelis.

The first of those is their willingness to sacrifice soldiers in battles, and, in the case of Azaria, in show trials, in the hopes of winning the support of the Europeans and other Western elites. This impulse is not simply problematic. It is insane, because for more than a decade, it has been continuously proven futile.

At least since the battle in Jenin, it has been abundantly obvious that the Europeans will never support us. The Europeans, along with the UN and the Western media, ignored completely the lengths Israel went to prevent Palestinian civilian casualties in Jenin. They accused us of committing a Nazi-style massacre despite the fact that not only wasn’t there a shred of evidence to back their wild allegations. There were mountains of evidence proving the opposite. The Palestinians were massacring Israelis and would have continued to do so, had the IDF not retaken their population centers and so ended their ability to strike us at will.

And yet, despite the trail of UN blood libels from Jenin to the Goldstone Report and beyond, despite the faked media images of purported IDF bombings of civilians in Lebanon and Gaza, despite the hostility of EU diplomats and politicians and the open anti-Semitism of the European media and public, our generals still care what these people think about us.
Eisenkot and his generals still believe that by giving soldiers sometimes life-threateningly limited rules of engagement, by forcing every battalion commander to have a legal adviser approve his targeting decisions, the Europeans will be convinced that they should stop supporting our enemies.

The second impulse separating our generals from us is that almost to a man, members of the General Staff want a Palestinian state to be established in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem and they want that state to be joined in some way with Gaza.

After 15 years of Palestinian terrorism and political warfare, our security brass still believe that the PLO is Israel’s partner. It doesn’t matter to them that the PLO is driving the current wave of terrorism just as it drove all the previous ones.

This is the reason that Eisenkot and his ideologically driven generals insist that we leave the Palestinian population centers after we spent so much blood and treasure fighting our way into them 14 years ago.

This is the reason that while Eisenkot and his generals insist that the PA security services are helping us fight terrorism even though no help would be necessary if the PA wasn’t inciting terrorism.

The generals’ stubborn faith in the notion that Palestinian terrorists who seek the destruction of our country will magically be transformed into allies the minute we turn the keys to our security over to them, sets them apart from the vast majority of Israelis.

Most Israelis support a theoretical Palestinian state that is at peace with us. Most Israelis would be willing to give up substantial amounts of territory if doing so would bring peace with the Palestinians.

But most Israelis also recognize that the Palestinians are not interested in peace with us and as a consequence, it makes no sense to give them any land. Most Israelis recognize that you can’t trust the good intentions of leaders who tell their school-age children to stab our school-age children.

The third impulse separating our generals from the public is their embrace and glorification of weakness. On every front, for more than 20 years, members of the General Staff have embraced the notion that there is no military solution to any of the security threats facing the country.

Until the Syrian civil war, the generals believed that if we left northern Israel vulnerable to attack and invasion by giving the Assad dynasty the Golan Heights, then the Assads would be magically convinced to ditch their Iranian sponsors and make common cause with an Israel that could no longer defend itself.

They have opposed attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, insisting that we can trust the US, even though it has been obvious for years that the US would take no action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

As for the US, the IDF embraces strategic dependency on the US. They insist that we can trust the Americans even though the Obama administration sided with Hamas in Operation Protective Edge. They continue to argue that we can depend on American even though the Obama administration is actively enabling Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. Utterly foreign to them is the notion that Israel would strengthen its alliance with the US by acting independently against Iran’s nuclear facilities, because doing so would prove that Israel is not a strategic basket case but a regional power that commands respect.

They oppose destroying Hamas’s military capabilities.

As a consequence, they have conducted four campaigns in Gaza since the 2005 withdrawal that all lacked a concept of victory. And by the way, the General Staff enthusiastically supported the strategically irrational withdrawal from Gaza.

When the public gets angry at our generals for not striving to defeat Hamas, for instance, they look at us like we fell off of Mars. Why would they want to defeat Hamas? Their job is to contain Hamas. And they are doing their job so well that Hamas managed to dig a tunnel right under their feet.

What explains our generals’ embrace of positions that most Israelis reject? Why are they willing to sacrifice soldiers and embrace Orwellian notions that weakness rather than strength is the key to peace? It is hard to say. Perhaps it’s groupthink. Perhaps it’s the selection process. Perhaps it’s overexposure to Europeans or Americans. Perhaps they are radicals in uniforms. Perhaps it is none of those things.

But whatever the cause of their behavior, the fact is that behavior has alienated them from Israeli society. In treating Palestinian terrorists with more respect than it accords its own soldiers, the IDF General Staff is earning the public’s fury. And in their contemptuous dismissal of the public’s loss of trust, our generals – including Ya’alon – are demonstrating that they have become strangers to their own society. This of course is a calamity.

The IDF lost the public’s trust at Purim. Let us hope that at Passover, our generals will leave their bubble and begin repairing the damage they caused. They are not in Europe. They are here.

And they need to be with us.


Caroline Glick is the Director of the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Israel Security Project and the Senior Contributing Editor of The Jerusalem Post. For more information on Ms. Glick's work, visit carolineglick.com.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/262603/our-estranged-generals-caroline-glick

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

It's the same jihad, just the form varies - Dr. Mordechai Kedar

by Dr. Mordechai Kedar

Originally published as "Sorry to tell you, but…."

The peace movements turned Israel's image into that of a weak and soft defeatist country, the exact opposite of the kind of country that achieves peace in the Middle East

My dear friends, Jews in Israel and the Diaspora.

I am sorry to tell you that the terror attacks we from which we suffer today and yesterday, a week ago, a month, a year and a decade and century ago, are all part of the same war, the same struggle, the same Jihad waged against us by our neighbors for over a century. Sometimes it is a full scale war with tanks, noise, flames, planes and ships and sometimes it is a war on a slow burner known as "terror" with explosions, stabbings and shots. Each of these is Jihad in Arabic, each is aimed at Jews just for being Jewish.

I regret to remind you of the fact that this war began way before the establishment of the Jewish state declared in 1948. The riots and massacres of 1920, 1921, 1929, 1936-39 et al, were not due to a Jewish state or what our enemies call the "occupation" of 1948, and certainly not because of the 1967 "occupation". The bloody and cruel massacre of the Jews of Hevron in 1929 was carried out against Jews who were not part of the Zionist movement, quite the contrary. The Palestine Liberation Movement (Fatah) was founded, may I remind you, in 1959 and The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964, years before the 1967 "occupation" that was a  result of Israel winning the Six Day War. 

I hate to point out to you that the shouts we heard, mainly in the 1948 War of Independence, were "Itbach al Yahud" – "Butcher the Jews" – and not the "Israelis" or the "Zionists," because their problem is with the Jews who refuse to be dependent on the mercy of Islam, refuse to live as dhimmi, protected ones, the way Islam mandates for Jews and Christians. In the Arab world, children still sing (in Arabic): "Palestine is our country and the Jews are our dogs." The dog, in Islamic tradition, is an unclean animal. Sharia law stipulates that if a Muslim is praying and a dog, pig, woman, Jew or Christian walks in front of him, his prayers are worthless and he must begin the entire ritual once again.

It is not pleasant to tell you this, but Israel's enemies' most popular chant is (in Arabic) – "Kyber, Khyber O Jews, Mohammed's army will yet return." Khyber is an oasis in the Arabian Peninsula that was populated by Jews until Mohammed slaughtered them in 626 C.E. The chant commemorates that event and threatens a repeat performance.  The Jews, according to the Koran (Sura 5, verse 82) are the most hostile enemies of the Moslems. Verse 60 states that Allah's curse and fury upon them turned them into monkeys and pigs. Since when do monkeys and pigs have the right to a state? Since when are they entitled to sovereignty?

Despite what you think, peace with Egypt was achieved only after Sadat realized that despite Arab efforts to destroy Israel in the 1948 War of Independence, the 1956 Sinai Campaign, the 1967 Six Day War, 1970 War of Attrition, and even the 1973 Yom Kippur War that took Israel by surprise, the Jewish state managed to push back all the Arab armies and bring the war to their territory. That is why Sadat understood that Israel is not conquerable and that there is no choice other than making peace, even if this peace is temporary and based on the precedent of the 628 C.E. Hudabiya Peace in which Mohammed gave a 10 year hiatus to the infidels of Mecca, but broke it at the end of two years when they fell asleep on the watch.

Yassir Arafat did not sign the Oslo Accords because he believed in peace, but because, calling it the "Hudabiya peace," he saw the agreements as a Trojan horse that would hoodwink the Jews. The only objective of the Oslo Accords was to create a Palestinian entity with an army and weapons that would be used to destroy Israel when the time was ripe. He repeated this constantly, but our decision makers explained that he is only saying it for domestic consumption, and when suicide bombers set themselves off in our streets, the victims were called "victims of peace." Since when does peace require victims? And when will the rifles we allowed them to obtain be turned on us?

It saddens me to tell you that all of Israel's efforts to please the Hamas Gazans failed, and Hamas went on from being a terrorist organization to becoming a terrorist state. Deathly rockets, attack tunnels, suicide bombers -  all are considered legitimate in the eyes of Gaza's Jihadist government, so to hell with the lives of the men, women and children living there, and to hell with their welfare, health  and assets. The Gazans are pawns in the hands of Hamas, the Jihad and the Salafists, all of whom appointed themselves the liaison between the residents of Gaza and Paradise, having already given them a taste of hell on earth.

It pains me to tell all the soul-weary peace seekers in Israel and the world, that the concrete and iron that you forced us to give the Jihadists in Gaza in order to rebuild their destroyed homes, were used to build tunnels of death both to Gazans and Israelis. Instead of building hospitals, schools and infrastructure, the Jihadists built an infrastructure of death, suffering and disaster.

You were wrong again – basing your policy on pipe dreams, delusions and hopes instead of on facts and figures. Analysts, including me, are not entirely blameless: they said in wondrous harmony that when Hamas has to bear the responsibility for food, electricity and welfare in Gaza, its leaders will become more moderate, realistic and pragmatic. 

We were wrong:  Hamas, despite leaving the opposition in order to rule, has not ceased its Jihad against Israel and has not removed Israel from the top of its list of priorities, nor has it changed in the slightest its wholly negative view of the "Zionist entity."

I hate to ruin the "two states for two peoples" party, but I must, because what is happening in Gaza today is exactly what will happen to the second Palestinian state you are trying to establish in Judea and Samaria. Hamas will be the winner of elections for the legislature, as they were in Gaza in January 2006, and will win the presidential elections as well. If they don't they will take over all of Judea and Samaria in a violent putsch, just as they did in Gaza in 2007. And when that happens, what will you say? "Ooops…we didn't know…we couldn't imagine…?"  So now you know and do not have to extrapolate. This should be your working hypothesis. If Gaza's Hamas is digging tunnels of death in the sand today, it will be digging through rocks to build them from Judea and Samaria – and let's see you find them and blow them up when that happens.

And to anyone with a short memory, let me refresh it: In July 2014, Hamas managed to shut Ben Gurion Airport for a day by launching rockets from Gaza. If and when they gain control of Judea and Samaria, they will be able to shut Ben Gurion down with a slingshot, and will be able to overlook all the runways from the Beit Arye heights. Anyone who does not believe me should get into his car and drive to the top of the hills to the east of Ben Gurion Airport, located in "conquered, occupied territory" (conquered from whom, precisely?). 

Due to Israel's wind conditions, most of the planes that land in Ben Gurion approach from the east, cruising right over those very same hills. Will Hamastan allow planes headed for Israel to circle and approach landing from above its territory? Just what price will Israel have to pay after an RPG or machine gun shoots down one El Al plane, G-d forbid? Will we offer them Jerusalem so as to calm them down?

And if we are already talking about Jerusalem, what will you do when the State of Hamas presents you with an ultimatum: Jerusalem or war? The Temple Mount or we shut down Ben Gurion Airport? And when the world supports their demand for Jerusalem, letting Israel pay the price of calming  down radical Islam, what will you say? And when the snipers go back to shooting at passersby on Jerusalem streets from the walls of the Old City as their Jordanian brothers did until 1967, where will you hide? Behind concrete walls? A security fence? Or will you simply move Israel's capital city to Tel Aviv? 

I am sorry to disappoint you but the worst thing that ever happened to Israel's hopes for peace was the rise of the peace movements, those calling for Israel to establish a terror state in Judea and Samaria and give up East Jerusalem for it. In the Middle East, he who expresses a desire for peace, talks about his yearning for peace and offers his land and country as bribery in exchange for a paper which has the word "peace" on it, is looked upon as someone who lost a war and is begging for his life. 

The peace movements turned Israel's image into that of a weak and soft defeatist country, the exact opposite of the kind of country that achieves peace in the Middle East. In the violent and radical region where Israel is trying to survive, anyone considered weak gets kicked, you know exactly where, and is sent to hell in the best case, or butchered and beheaded as a matter of course. 

In the Middle East, peace means that your enemies leave you alone because you are too strong, threatening and dangerous to start up with. In the Middle East only the unvanquished obtain peace. 

Anyone who does not accept these facts, who is not ready for "blood, sweat and tears," he who impatiently demands "Peace Now" does not belong in the Middle East. Here, we have room only for the brave, the strong, the steadfast and those who believe in the justice of their cause. Anyone who lacks those traits can find a suitable home somewhere else, where life is peaceful, quiet, prosperous and blooming. May we suggest Paris, Brussels, Madrid, Boston or San Bernardino….

Kosher and happy Passover wishes to all the Children of Israel!

Written for Arutz Sheva, translated from Hebrew by Rochel Sylvetsky, Arutz Sheva Op-ed and Judaism editor.


Dr. Mordechai Kedar

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/18770#.VxveVnqzdds

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.