Discussion of the plan entitled “Security First”, proposed by “Commanders for Israel’s Security”, which claims to “Improve Israel’s Security and International Standing”….

 Imbecility squared – Part 2

By Martin Sherman 

[  Brief  review of Part I]

With changing patterns of Arab enmity, the major challenge to Israel’s existence as the Jewish nation-state is no longer repulsing invasion, but resisting attrition

A comprehensive Israeli policy declaration [a]ccepting, in principle, the Arab Peace Initiative (API), with requisite adjustments to accommodate Israel’s security and demographic needs, as a basis for negotiation.

Key political measure in plan entitled “Security First”, proposed by “Commanders for Israel’s Security”, which claims to “Improve Israel’s Security and International Standing”.

The Arab Peace Initiative does not need changing or adjusting, it is on the table as is…Why should we change the Arab Peace Initiative? I believe that the argument the Arab Peace Initiative needs to be watered down in order to accommodate the Israelis is not the right approach. – Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, Paris, June 3, 2016.

Last week I began a critical analysis of a plan put forward by a group calling itself “Commanders for Israel’s Security” (CIS) comprised of over 200 former senior officers/officials from the IDF and other security services. Part I

To recap briefly:

I argued that the plan, which purports to offer a formula “to extricate Israel from the current dead end and to improve its security situation and international standing”, is a deeply flawed policy prescription, both in terms of the political principles on which it is based and the practical details which it presents.  As such, it is highly unlikely to achieve the objectives it sets itself. Indeed, it is far more likely to precipitate precisely the opposite outcomes, exacerbating the very dangers it claims it will attenuate.

To recap briefly, the major political components which comprise the plan call for Israel to:

(a)  Proclaim, unilaterally, that it forgoes any claim to sovereignty beyond the yet-to-be completed security barrier, which, in large measure, coincides with the pre-1967 “Green Line”, adjusted to include several major settlement blocks adjacent to those lines; but,

(b)   Leave the IDF deployed there—until some “acceptable alternative security arrangement” is found – presumably the emergence of a yet-to-be located pliant Palestinian-Arab, who will pledge to recognize Israel as the Jewish nation-state; and

(c)    Embrace the Saudi Peace Plan–a.k.a. Arab Peace Initiative (API), subject to certain—but significantly, unspecified—changes which the Arabs/Saudis recently resolutely refused to consider.

Learning lesson of Gaza; ignoring lesson of South Lebanon

CIS claims (pp.28-29) that it has learnt the lesson of the unilateral Gaza disengagement, when the IDF evacuated the territory, allowing the Islamist Hamas to take over. Accordingly, their plan “calls for the IDF to remain in the West Bank and retain complete security control until a permanent status agreement with the Palestinians ushers in alternative concrete, sustainable security arrangements.”

So while CIS may indeed have learnt the lesson of Gaza 2005, it seems to have forgotten the lesson of Lebanon 2000.

Indeed, as I underscored last week, the combination of the first two elements—the forswearing of claims to sovereignty over Judea-Samaria, on the one hand; and the continued deployment of the IDF in that territory, on the other—replicate precisely the same conditions that prevailed in South Lebanon until the hasty retreat by the IDF in 2000.  This unbecoming flight was orchestrated by then-PM, former IDF chief of staff and Israel’s most decorated soldier, Ehud Barak, under intense pressure from Left-leaning civil society groups such as “Four Mothers”, to extricate the IDF from the “Lebanese mud” and “bring our boys back home”.  Thus abandoned to the control of Hezbollah, the area was swiftly converted into a formidable arsenal, bristling with weaponry capable of hitting almost all major Israeli cities.

Unsustainable political configuration

Today, after the poorly conducted military campaign by the mighty IDF against a lightly armed militia, left defiantly undefeated after five weeks of fighting, this arsenal has reportedly swelled almost ten-fold in quantity and improved immensely in terms of quality/precision.  Indeed, were not Hezbollah mercifully distracted by the need to support its erstwhile benefactor, the beleaguered Bashar Assad, it is far from implausible that this terrible stockpile would have already been unleashed against Israel.

For anyone with a modicum of foresight, it should be clear that CIS’s prescription of deploying the IDF for an indeterminate period in territory over which it lays no sovereign claim—and hence, by implication, acknowledges that others have such claims to it—creates an unsustainable political configuration, which sooner or later will generate irresistible pressure on Israel to evacuate it—leaving the country exposed to the very dangers the IDF deployment was intended to obviate.

Indeed, as pointed out last week, if implemented, CIS’s proposal would, in a stroke, convert Judea-Samaria from “disputed territory” to “occupied territory” and IDF from a “defense force” to an “occupying force”. Worse, it would do so by explicit admission from Israel itself.

Formula for open-ended occupation

Moreover, by conditioning the end of IDF deployment on the emergence of “a permanent status agreement with the Palestinians [which] ushers in alternative concrete, sustainable security arrangements”, what CIS is in fact promoting is a formula for open-ended occupation, whose duration is totally dependent on the Palestinian-Arabs.

After all, according to CIS’s plan “the IDF [is] to remain in the West Bank and retain complete security control”, until some suitable Palestinian  interlocutor appears, sufficiently pliant to satisfy Israel’s demands for said “permanent status agreement and concrete sustainable security arrangements”, but sufficiently robust to resist more radical domestic rivals, who oppose any such agreement/arrangements.

And what if such an interlocutor fails to emerge? Clearly, CIS’s plan prescribes persisting with the Israeli military presence in the territory because, as CIS itself concedes: “The situation on the West Bank require …continued deployment of the IDF until satisfactory security arrangements are put into place within the framework of a permanent status agreement”. 

Therefore all the Palestinian-Arabs need to do to ensnare the IDF in what will inevitably become the “West Bank mud”, an easy target for guerilla attacks by a recalcitrant population backed by armed Palestinian internal security services, is…well, nothing.  All they need to do is wait until mounting IDF casualties in a “foreign land” create increasing domestic pressure to “bring our boys back home”, and mounting international  impatience with open-ended “occupation” create growing external pressure, which make continued IDF deployment no longer tenable—and withdrawal becomes inevitable, without any “permanent settlement” or “concrete sustainable security arrangements”.

Renege or replace?

But even in the unlikely event that some Palestinian partner could be located, who agrees, in good faith, to conclude a permanent status agreement and implement acceptable security arrangements that allows the IDF to evacuate Judea-Samaria, how could Israel ensure this agreement will be honored and these arrangements maintained over time? Clearly it could not!

Once the IDF withdraws, Israel has no way of preventing its Palestinian co-signatories to any accord from reneging on their commitments—whether of their own volition, due to a change of heart, or under duress from extremist adversaries. Even more to the point, barring intimate involvement in intra-Palestinian politics, Israel has no way to ensure that their pliant peace-partner will not be replaced—whether by bullet or ballot—by far more inimical successors, probably  generously supported by foreign regimes, who repudiate their predecessors pledges. Indeed, it is more than likely that it would be precisely the “perfidious” deal struck with the “nefarious Zionist entity” that would be invoked as justification for the regime-change.

But whichever of these outcomes emerges in practice, Israel is likely to be confronted with a situation where it no longer has security control in Judea-Samaria and a hostile regime perched on the hills overlooking the runways of Ben-Gurion airport, adjacent to the trans-Israel highway, and within mortar range of the nation’s capital.

It would be intriguing, indeed, to learn how CIS members, given their cumulative 6,000 years of experience in Israel’s various security agencies, see this situation as one that would  achieve their plan’s principle goal: “to enhance personal and national security.”

Resisting attrition; not repulsing invasion 

To be fair, CIS do assure us that: The IDF [as] by far the most potent military force in the region… can provide effective security and address all challenges within … any future borderline as agreed-to by our government and endorsed by our people…”

But of course, the question is not only whether the IDF can secure the borders, but at what cost in terms of both resources and casualties (both military and civilian).

It is of course true that, for over four decades, Israel has not faced a tangible threat of large-scale invasion by conventional Arab forces. However, today, with the changing pattern of Arab enmity, the major challenge to Israel’s existence as the Jewish nation-state is no longer repulsing invasion, but resisting attrition.

The Arab stratagem is no longer the cataclysmic annihilation of the Jewish state, but the ongoing erosion of Jewish will to maintain the Jewish state, by making Jewish life in it unbearable – both physically and psychologically.

Attrition vs Invasion (cont.)

Of course, the looming specter of a nuclear Iran may, on the one hand, reinstate the cataclysmic approach; on the other, it may “merely” provide a protective umbrella under which attrition can continue with greater intensity – and impunity.

Indeed, one of the most explicit expressions of this attrition-oriented intent came from Yasser Arafat in Stockholm, in an address to Arab diplomats, barely a year after being awarded the Noble Peace Prize: “The PLO will now concentrate on splitting Israel psychologically into two camps…We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare… I have no use for Jews. They are and remain Jews…”  This overt admission of malice, echoed repeatedly elsewhere by other Palestinian-Arab spokespersons, should have removed any doubt as to what lay ahead.

Now, imagine if after forgoing sovereignty beyond the security barrier as per  CIS’s prescription, the IDF pulled out of Judea-Samaria –whether pursuant to some accord or a combination of domestic pressure and international chagrin. Imagine, if in the absence of any agreement or despite prior agreements, this territory falls—as it almost inevitably will—to the control of some radical regime with no commitment to any understandings—implicit or explicit—with the “Zionist entity” Imagine how much more ominous and onerous that attrition would be along the almost 800 km frontier, abutting Israel’s heavily populated coastal plain  and from the heights commanding its urban and commercial centers.

Capitulation masquerading as “initiative”

No less disturbing is CIS’s embrace of what is perversely called the “Arab Peace Initiative” (API), which prescribes: (a) Complete withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines including the Golan Heights (b) a “just solution” to the problem of Palestinian refugees, a clear allusion to the “Right of Return”; (c) the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state on “the Palestinian territories occupied since 4 June 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital”.

Alarmingly, on its website, CIS declares: “We believe that the government of Israel can and should formulate a regional initiative based on an appropriate response to the positive potential encapsulated in the Arab Peace Initiative.”

Sadly, the growing acceptance of the API does not, as CIS would have it, reflect faith in military strength but rather psychological weakness. It is not a sign of confidence but a symptom of resignation, even desperation. Indeed, its acceptance is driven by the fact that the API is the only thing that the Arabs do not reject. Thus, to reject the API is to admit the unpalatable truth that there exists no path to a mutually agreed resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Indeed, for all intents and purposes, the API is a document of capitulation. It reflects acquiescence to virtually all Arab demands that successive governments, over a decade and a half, have rejected as unacceptably hazardous. It forgoes virtually all the gains of the 1967 Six Day War, and imperils some of those of the 1948 War of Independence. Willingness to agree to it, even as a basis for negotiations, is a clear signal that every Israeli “No,” however emphatic initially, is in effect a “Maybe” and a potential “Yes” in the future.

Reservations rejected.

Apparently aware that, as currently formulated, the API is too pernicious to be approved by the Israeli public, CIS tries to preempt criticisms of its acceptance of the so called “peace initiative” by adding a proviso that it should be adjusted “to accommodate Israel’s security and demographic needs, as a basis for negotiation”.

But suggestions that “adjustments” might be made were rapidly and resolutely rejected by both the Saudis, who authored the initiative and the Arab League, who endorsed it. And why wouldn’t they? For as CIS’s proposal clearly shows, continued Arab intransigence is sure to engender further Israeli compliance …

To be continued.

Tel Aviv Terror Attack Shatters Five Myths  Stephen M. Flatow   June 13th, 2016

http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/tel-aviv-terror-attack-shatters-five-myths/2016/06/13/

The June 8 terrorist massacre in Tel Aviv exposed all five of the major myths that cloud discussions of Israel and the Palestinians.

Myth #1: “The problem is the settlements”

This was not a massacre of “settlers.” The attack did not take place in some disputed territory. Nobody can claim that the victims “provoked” the violence by living in some predominantly Arab area. These were people drinking coffee in the heart of Tel Aviv.

Myth #2: “It was a reaction to the occupation”

The attackers are residents of the village of Yatta. The Israeli occupation of Yatta ended when Israeli troops withdrew from the territories where 98 percent of the Palestinians reside in late 1995. Yatta has been under the rule of the Palestinian Authority for nearly 21 years.

Although Israel’s critics continue to falsely claim that the Palestinians live under “Israeli occupation,” the Israeli public knows better. The Israel Democracy Institute/Tel Aviv University monthly Peace Index survey for May 2016 found 71.7 percent of Israeli Jews say it is wrong to categorize Israel’s status in the territories (it rules the areas where Jews reside) as “occupation.”

Myth #3: “The Palestinian Authority condemned the attack”

The Palestinian Authority (PA) never calls such attacks “terrorism,” and always brackets the attacks on Israelis together with Israeli actions against terrorists, thereby justifying the attacks on Israelis. Its response to the Tel Aviv massacre was no different. It declared: “We condemn violence and attacks against civilians on both sides, whatever the justification.” The PA “not only condemned the attack in south Tel Aviv early on Monday morning, but also the recent Israel Defense Forces strikes on Gaza, and attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank and in Jerusalem,” according to Israel’s Channel 10 television network.

Fatah, which is chaired by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, explicitly defended the massacre. According to the Palestinian news agency Ma’an, Fatah issued a statement calling the attack “a natural response” to Israeli actions.

Fatah media committee head Munir al-Jaghoub explained, “Israel must realize the consequences of its persistence to push violence, house demolition policies, forced displacement of Palestinians, raids by Israeli settlers to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, and the cold-blooded killing of Palestinians at checkpoints.”

That’s the equivalent of the Democratic Party defending the San Bernardino massacre of 2015. Imagine U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Fla.), head of the Democratic National Committee, saying the killings in southern California were the “consequences” of President Barack Obama sending drones to carry out the “cold-blooded killing” of al-Qaeda members.

Myth #4: “Ordinary Palestinians are against terrorism”

Israel Hayom reports that, “In Ramallah, Tulkarm, Qalqilya, Jenin, and other cities, people danced in the streets, set off fireworks, and handed out treats while praising the attacks.” When the PA’s schools, newspapers, television stations constantly praise terrorists as “heroes” and “martyrs,” it is no wonder ordinary Palestinians have come to feel the same way.

The cities where the celebrations took place would be the heart of a future Palestinian state. They are just a few miles down the road from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Can those who celebrate massacres be trusted with a sovereign, independent state next door to Israel?

Myth #5: “The major American news outlets are staffed by objective, professionally trained journalists; if their coverage of Israel is unflattering, that’s because of Israel’s own policies, not because of media bias”

CNN’s Twitter announcement of the attack put the word “terrorists” in quotation marks, stating, “Two ‘terrorists’ captured after Tel Aviv attack, Israeli police spokesman tweets.” The Washington Post’s correspondents in Israel, William Booth and Ruth Eglash, exhibited the same bias. They described the terrorists as “gunmen,” “assailants,” and “attackers”—but never as terrorists, and only indirectly as Palestinians. And the headline-writers at Washington Post headquarters came up with this gem: “4 Killed in Tel Aviv Market Shooting that Officials Labeled Terrorist Attack.”

Perhaps copies of the Washington Post should bear labels of their own: “Warning: The reporting in this newspaper may be hazardous to the truth. It is often slanted for the purpose of protecting the Palestinian cause against criticism.”

About the Author: Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney in New Jersey, is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.

Explaining Palestinian “Heroes”

JONATHAN S. TOBIN / JUNE 9, 2016

In the aftermath of yesterday’s terrorist atrocity at Tel Aviv’s Sarona Market that left four Jews dead, some Israelis, as well as some of their foreign friends and critics, sought to try to make sense of the crime. Why do Palestinians seek to murder random Israelis sitting in cafes? And, as is often the case with such ruminations, the impulse to blame the victims—the people of Israel who are targeted by terrorists—was irresistible. Ron Huldai, the city’s leftist mayor and a former general, claimed the real culprit was the “occupation.” For him, the Israeli presence in the West Bank creates terrorism because Israel is the only country in the world that rules territory where others live and no one has taken a step toward peace. Both of those statements were risible falsehoods, but the real answer for the crime came from the Palestinians.

Rather than being horrified by the cold-blooded murders of innocents carried out in their names, spontaneous Arab demonstrations of joy about the killings broke out in various places in the West Bank and even in Jerusalem. On social media, the slaughter was celebrated with hashtags like #RamadanOperation. A Palestinian anchor on Al Jazeera television crowed that the terrorist attack was “the best answer to stories about the peace process.”

Palestinian leadership also responded according to form. Hamas openly celebrated the attacks, prompting a comical reaction from United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who expressed shock that a terrorist group would think that terrorism was a good thing. The Palestinian Authority issued a cryptic statement that said it “rejected” attacks against civilians, a stance consistent with their policy of posing as an opponent of terror when speaking to the West while signaling Palestinians that they approve it. The ruling Fatah Party’s Twitter account said Israel “was reaping the repercussions” of its policies toward the Palestinians. Moreover, we know the two terrorists who are now in custody will be paid pensions by the PA; the same as they do for all others who commit acts of terrorism. Sooner or later, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas will also demand their release, the same as he does for other terrorists. The pair will doubtlessly be lauded as “heroes” by the official PA media and eventually some public place will be named for them to honor their bloody deed.

On its face, this is counterintuitive. The two killers did the Palestinian cause no good. Such acts don’t make the international community more willing to waste time promoting Palestinian statehood. By striking at Jews in Tel Aviv rather than at soldiers or West Bank settlers—a group that many critics of Israel think deserve to be targeted for terror—the pair reminded the world that the goal of the Palestinians isn’t two states or merely getting Israel out of the West Bank and Jerusalem. Both Hamas and the supposedly moderate Abbas are open about their belief that all of Israel, including cosmopolitan and liberal Tel Aviv, where many people would be only too happy to celebrate the creation of a Palestinian state, is “occupied” territory. But Palestinians don’t lament this blot on their cause and national honor. To the contrary, they think this crime, like others committed against Jews, is a laudable act.

Israelis like Huldai and many others look at this awful situation and think that there must be some logical explanation or rational way out of the mess. They believe Israel must be able to do something to solve the problem. The “status quo” cannot continue, they say, but the awful truth is that it can because the alternative is the creation of another Gaza-like Palestinian state in the West Bank that would make terrorist murders like yesterday’s atrocity even more commonplace.

Let’s backtrack for a moment and note for the record that the idea that Israel’s position in the West Bank is unique is absurd. There are up to 200 territorial disputes in the world in which nations argue about sovereignty over land. What’s different about this one is that the international media treats the Palestinians as if they are the only ones in the world with a valid complaint about their situation because their opponents are Jews. But the really unique element in the conflict is the fact that Israel is the only country in the world that is marked for complete elimination by its adversaries. No other people in the world are considered to be unworthy of a national home or the right of self-defense in the way that the Jewish state is singled out for such treatment.

Moreover, the idea that Israel hasn’t tried “to take a step toward some kind of agreement,” as Huldai foolishly said, is equally ludicrous. In 2000, 2001, and 2008, the Palestinians were offered a state in almost all of the West Bank, Gaza, and a share of Jerusalem and their answer was “no” each time. Since then, they have refused to negotiate seriously with Israel and failed to take advantage of the fact that even the supposedly right-wing Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu has accepted a two-state solution and offered withdrawals from the West Bank.

It must also be pointed out that, in 2005, Israel withdrew every soldier, settler, and settlement from Gaza. Instead of progress toward peace, that led to the establishment of a Hamas-run independent Palestinian state in all but name that operates as one large launching pad for terrorism. The prospect that a similar withdrawal from the larger and more strategic West Bank would repeat that experiment is why a majority of Israelis continue to re-elect Netanyahu rather than members of Huldai’s party and regard advocacy for more retreats as not so much mistaken as insane.

The status quo has continued not because more houses or apartments are being built in existing Jewish communities in the West Bank or Jerusalem (almost all of which are in places that peace processers conceded would remain in Israeli hands even if there were an agreement with the Palestinians). Nor does it continue because hard-hearted men who don’t want peace lead Israel. If Palestinians wanted a two-state solution, they could have had one many years ago. They refuse because the price of Israeli acceptance of a Palestinian state is Palestinian acceptance of the legitimacy of a Jewish state alongside it no matter where its borders might be drawn. And that price remains too high for any Palestinian leader or the Palestinian public to accept.

Terrorism against Jews didn’t begin in June 1967. The Palestinians have been waging a century-long war on Zionism and that struggle has become inextricably linked with their sense of national identity. That’s why they cheer people who commit indiscriminate murder against Jews and call them heroes. They were doing that long before the Six Day War, let alone the two intifadas, and it is not illogical to suppose they would continue to do so even if Israel were so foolish as to withdraw its forces from the West Bank as it did in Gaza.

While some Israelis search their souls in vain for enough guilt about winning wars launched against them that would have ended the “occupation” of Tel Aviv, this is a futile quest. The status quo will change when the Palestinians stop thinking of people who kill random Jews as heroes and when they are ready to accept peace with the Jewish state.

That is why it is important that the world react to crimes such as yesterday’s murders by avoiding statements calling on both sides to show restraint or use it as an excuse for more pressure on Israel to make concessions. For too long, Palestinians have been led to believe that they could prevail against Israel if they had enough patience or were willing to shed more blood. When a sea change in the political culture of the Palestinians makes a change in their thinking possible, they will find Israelis willing to accept a deal. Until then, they will continue cheering terrorists and doom themselves to pursuing a hopeless effort to eliminate Israel that keeps a status quo neither side wants in place.

Zionism: An irrational and misunderstood fear ADNAN OKTAR 6-6-16

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Zionism-An-irrational-and-misunderstood-fear-456102

The writer is a Turkish Muslim TV commentator who has authored more than 300 books in 73 languages on political, faith-related and scientific topics.

Born of the Westphalian peace of 1648, nationalism spread across the world in earnest with the onset of the French Revolution in 1789 – so much so that the dreams of a nation state shaped international politics for 150 years. It was nationalist enthusiasm which fueled wars of independence. Those who were responsible for these wars burned with the desire to unite those of the same cultural background, the same language and living in the same region under one banner. However among the hundreds of nationalist liberation movements, one is invariably singled out, maligned and placed at the center of sinister conspiracy theories.

Aspiring to reunite and emancipate the Jewish people scattered around the globe under one state, this movement for independence, named after the Mount Zion in Israel, came to be called Zionism. The Jewish people, a diaspora community, banished from everywhere it had sought refuge, determined to establish its own state in its ancestral lands. While every contemporary nationalist movement enjoyed friends and suffered enemies, Zionism faced unique, unbridled hostility from virtually every political current (save, in large part, Protestant Liberalism).

Following suit, non-aligned nations vehemently opposed the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in any part of the historic Jewish homeland. /6943/Home_Page/Article_Pages/in_read_TOP

Today, anti-Israelism under the guise of anti-Zionism has become the main expression of anti-Semitism, of enmity to Jews.

An entire nation is targeted, for verbal or physical violence, women, children, elderly, innocent and oppressed alike – simply because of their Jewish nationality, and their demand to be seated at the table of nations with all of their peers. Despite the presence of 22 Arab countries, tied to a single ethnic origin, only the desire of the Jewish people to establish its own sovereign state has been subject to fierce opposition.

Nevertheless, Israel is concurrently a safe haven for millions of persecuted people, those who fled the Nazi genocide, Soviet brutality or violence in many other countries. /6943/Home_Page/Article_Pages/in_read_middle 

Nearly one million Jews, leaving all of their assets behind, were forced to immigrate from Arab countries in the aftermath of the 1948 war.

Yet, Jewishness is not understood in racial or traditional ethnic terms in the State of Israel, unlike its counterparts. It is a country of multiculturalism, one which hosts varying faiths and diverse ethnic backgrounds, in contrast to its Arab neighbor countries. One-fifth of the Israeli population is Arab, while the overall, majority Jewish population is comprised of over 70 cultures speaking 35 languages and dialects. Additionally, Arabic is an official language, alongside Hebrew, in the state of the Jews. The sacred places of all faiths are protected: There are nearly 400 mosques, all safeguarded since the declaration of Independence of the State of Israel.

Despite this fact, Zionism is equated in ever widening circles with a conspiracy to control and exploit the whole world.

Anti-Semitism is the only explanation for this phenomenon, a modern rendition of old, irrational Judeophobic rhetoric. Zionism, despite the well-accepted consensus in the Middle East, is simply the aspiration of the Jewish nation, who have been oppressed, persecuted and suffered greatly throughout history, to live freely and in safety in their ancestral lands. The Jewish people have been a part of these lands for 3,500 years, and were expelled from there long ago by the oppressive hand of the Roman Empire. The emergence of the State of Israel is the realization of this small nation’s dream of a homeland where they can ultimately live in safety and govern themselves.

Many if not most Muslims are unaware of the true meaning of Zionism. When asked about the reasons they oppose it, they define Zionism as “an evil system which aims to destroy the world order” and falsely believe that Zionism is the source of all evil. Moreover, many Muslims are under the illusion that anti-Israelism is piety, and this makes them unjust when it comes to Jews. Therefore, it is crucial to properly define Zionism to the Muslim-Arab public and to put an end to so much senseless Jewish hatred.

Hatred of the State of Israel and Zionism do not comply with the spirit of the Koran.

Murdering innocent Israelis or promoting expulsion of Israelis from their ancestral homeland, as is increasingly common not only in the Arab world but in European leftist circles, is symptomatic of a lack of conscience. The state of Israel may have its faults – which state does not? For its excesses and where it has committed crimes, it should be judged based on the law. Islam has a principle of “individual criminal responsibility” just as we see in international law. An entire state cannot be incriminated or punished without making any discrimination between the innocent and the guilty or the right and the wrong, and irrespective of context. The claim of some Muslims that “they fight against the Jewish people in the name of the Koran” is an act of ignorance and in violation of the Koran since God explicitly grants the Jewish people the right to live in the Holy Land: “Remember when Moses said to his people, ‘My people! Remember God’s blessing to you when He appointed Prophets among you and appointed kings for you, and gave you what He had not given to anyone else in all the worlds. My people! Enter the Holy Land which God has ordained for you. Do not turn back in your tracks and so become transformed into losers’” (Koran 5:20-21).

God informs us in the Koran – this is also promised in the Torah (Deuteronomy 30) – that the Jewish people shall gather and live in these lands in the End Times: “We said to the Children of Israel after that, ‘Dwell in the land and, when the promise of the hereafter comes, We will gather you as a mingled crowd’” (Koran 17:104).

Despite these unambiguous Koranic injunctions, no one in the Middle East seems to support or approve of Zionism.

On the contrary, hostility to Zionism is now assumed, and to buck that trend is to risk one’s life. In truth, Muslims are ordered by the Koran to act fairly and conscientiously, hence should advocate not only for the rights of the Palestinians but also the Jewish people as well.

Muslim intellectuals, religious scholars and politicians should stand out among others not by fueling the existing hatred for the Jewish people but by emphasizing the beauty of coexistence in these Holy Lands. They should explain that advocating for the rights of Palestinians is not tantamount to exhibiting hostility to Jews.

It is an incontestable right for Israelis to have the desire for self-determination, as the Palestinians do. When the Arab-Muslim world recognizes Israel’s right to exist as an independent and sovereign state, this century-long bloodshed will cease.

The greatest benefit here would certainly be shared by the Palestinian people, who suffer due to war and security precautions.

Needless to say, the spirit of peace and brotherhood is an urgent need for the local community. The sporadic warfare has cost a fortune, which could have been used for the welfare of people instead. More important, this useless war has claimed the lives of thousands of young and elderly, civilian and soldiers alike. Once the Arab world decides to acknowledge Israel as a neighbor, it can focus on developing the well-being of the Palestinian people, and of the other Arab peoples doing far less well than the Palestinians, too. The effort and means spent on conflict, destruction and hostility will be transferred to the construction and embellishment of the region; swords made into plowshares, hatred turned to science, art and technology.

The biased, baseless outlook regarding Zionism in the Islamic world has over time warped into a misplaced phobia of Jewish people. It is now high time to put an end to this pointless, anti-Koranic opposition to Israel and the Jewish people. Explaining Zionism in an accurate way and ending this cycle of hatred is incumbent on Muslim intellectuals everywhere.

The writer is a Turkish Muslim TV commentator who has authored more than 300 books in 73 languages on political, faith-related and scientific topics.

THERE ARE NO MODERATES IN THE IRANIAN REGIME! by Karmel Melamed Jewish Journal of Los Angeles (online)

http://www.jewishjournal.com/iranianamericanjews/item/there_are_no_moderates_in_the_iranian_regime

Last year around this time many of my friends in the American Ashkenazi community were troubled by the strong opposition many Iranian American Jews including myself had to the “Iran Deal”. Unfortunately they believed the “talking points” put out by the Obama administration that the Iranian regime had somehow magically became “moderate” overnight with the election of Hassan Rouhani as Iran’s president. This month as a year has passed after the signing of the “Iran Deal” it seems as if many in the American Jewish community are finally and slowly waking up from their slumber to realize that they were fed lies by the current U.S. administration about the Iranian regime being “moderate” as the behavior and actions of the Iranian regime has been more dangerous and even more radical than before.

A large number of Iranian Jews now living in the U.S. either fled Iran or escaped that totalitarian radical Islamic regime in the months and years since its 1979 Islamic revolution. I know this personally as my family and I fled Iran in 1980 after our innocent Jewish family member was wrongly executed on false charges of spying for America and Israel. As the Jews of Iran, we quickly realized that the new Islamic regime that took power in Iran turned religious minorities including Jews into third class citizens and left them in constant fear for their lives or fear of seizure of their assets by the regime on fabricated charges. We all quickly realized the true anti-Semitic nature of this Islamic regime and fled Iran because of the dangerous actions of the ayatollahs ruling the country. This regime in Iran continues to be a regime that not only has zero tolerance for Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians and Baha’is, but imprisons and executes Iranian Muslims who oppose the regime’s brutal Islamic dictatorship.

Over the last near four decades, we the Jews of Iran who live in the West, have spoken out about the anti-Semitic, violent and unpredictable nature of the current Iranian regime to our brethren in America by retelling our stories of imprisonment, torture, property confiscation, anti-Semitism and even execution of our family members. Our stories have all fallen on deaf ears as American Jews and other Americans who supported the Obama administration falsely believed administration officials who made claims that Rouhani and his regime had spontaneously turned a page and miraculously become “moderate”. They believed the propaganda put out by the “smiling and quietly spoken Rouhani” during his 2013 media blitz of the U.S. They believed the false stories of the Iranian regime becoming instantly “moderate” that was put out by the regime’s apologist groups such as the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) and J-Street. Yet today after one year, the hard facts about the Iranian regime’s evil actions and dismal human rights record are indeed unpleasant and should stir the conscious of anyone who values life, liberty, tolerance and human decency.

Actions speak louder than words and the Iranian regime’s actions during the Rouhani years are anything but moderate. According to Ahmed Shaheed, the United Nations top expert on the human rights in Iran, in 2015, executions in Iran were at “the highest rate in over two decades,” with at least 966 individuals being executed. According to Shaheed’s recent report, in 2014, 753 people were executed in Iran and “at least 73 juvenile offenders were reportedly executed between 2005 and 2015”. Shaheed’s report also states that since the implementation of the amended Islamic Penal Code in 2013, many prisoners in Iran reportedly convicted of “national security crimes” were arrested merely for the peaceful exercise of a right to freedom of assembly and association. Just last week more than 30 students who partied at a graduation ceremony in northern Iran had each received 99 lashes each for violating the Islamic regime’s morality code since they danced and drank alcohol at their festivities. Likewise the Iranian regime has not stopped its segregation of men and women in public areas, nor stopped its harassment and imprisonment of LGBT, nor stopped the arrest and torture of union and labor organizers, nor stopped the censorship of journalists, writers, artists, and musicians.

Despite what Iran’s foreign minister Mohammed Javad Zarif might say to U.S. media outlets, the Iranian regime continues to spread anti-Western and anti-Semitic propaganda on their state-sponsored television programs and online sites. Just recently, the Iranian regime’s Islamic Propaganda Organization that runs the “Sarcheshmeh Cultural Institute” organized the second official Holocaust Cartoon competition in Tehran that offer up to $50,000 to cartoonist who featured the most “interesting Holocaust denial and anti-Israel cartoon”. Another backer of this Holocaust cartoon competition is the “Owj Media and Arts Organization” that is directly affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards. Both of these organizations and Iranian state-run media outlets boasted about their organization of such disgusting anti-Semitic events. Again how can anyone in their right mind believe the Iranian regime today under Rouhani has become “moderate” when such revolting events are funded and sponsored by entities affiliated with the regime. If Rouhani was such a “peace-loving” and “moderate” leader, then why has he not once spoken out against these vile Holocaust denial events or ordered them shut down? The reason is simple, he’s no moderate and has no objections to such events.

But the anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial garbage spewed by the Iranian regime is nothing new for the Iranian regime or a recent development under Rouhani. This disgusting behavior has a long and proud tradition dating back to the inception of the Islamic republic in Iran. The regime has always maintained warm relations with notorious anti-Semites, including former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke and other American neo-Nazi groups. Furthermore, the Iranian regime has a long history of ties to European neo-Nazis groups and Holocaust deniers. For example, the Iranian regime proudly announced many years ago that it paid for the legal defense in France of French Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy, who was convicted and fined $80,000 in 1998 in France for denying the Holocaust. Garaudy was subsequently welcomed in Tehran as a hero, where he met with the Iranian Supreme leader Ali Khamenei. In 2012, Khamenei publicly grieved the death of Garaudy in a personal Twitter message. Additionally Iranian state-run media outlets have also frequently cited the writings of the neo-Nazi American leader William Pierce. In October 2014, the Anti-Defamation League reported that the regime’s annual Holocaust denial conference in Tehran hosted Maria Poumier, a French denier; Claudio Moffa, an Italian denier; and Kevin Barrett, an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist and frequent contributor to Iran’s English-language, state-run news network, Press TV.

According to Iranian Jewish activists I have interviewed in Los Angeles, many believe the sources of anti-Semitism in Iran today not only come from Iranian regime “hardliners”, but also other more “moderate” factions in the regime. Long before Ahmadinejad made a name for himself among the anti-Semites, the Iranian regime, under the supposed “moderate” President Mohammad Khatami, had begun funding Holocaust deniers and publishing their materials in Iran and all over the world. During the Green Revolution in Iran from 2009 to 2010, several “moderate” leaders in Iran staged public media campaigns of attacking the Islamic hardliners in Iran, not for their atrocities against the Iranian population or their Islamist fanaticism, but for allegedly being of Jewish descent! To accuse someone of being Jewish in Iran is equivalent to calling someone a child molester in the U.S.

Yet even worse, the regime’s anti-Semitism is not only limited to within Iran, but the Iranian ayatollahs have also tried to export it to the U.S. in recent years. I reported myself in March 2015 that Los Angeles based Iranian-Jewish activists launched a grass-roots campaign to boycott performances by Akbar Abdi, a notorious Iranian-Muslim anti-Semitic comedian who had received a visa from the U.S. State Department and planned to perform at various venues in the U.S., including performing Farsi-language shows in Southern California. A video on YouTube from 2013 shows Abdi being given a film award by Ahmadinejad and using derogatory terms to describe Jews. The campaign against Abdi ultimately resulted in the cancellation of his show in Los Angeles, as well as other shows in Southern California.

As if all of these actions and recent history of radical anti-Semitism were not proof enough of the Iranian regime’s lack of “moderate” leaders and “moderate behavior”, the Iranian regime’s leadership throughout this year has gone above and beyond to show America and the world that they are anything but moderate. For example, despite the recently signed “Nuclear Deal”, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard launched two ballistic missiles in recent months. On each missile’s side, printed in both Farsi and Hebrew, were the words “Israel must be wiped off the face of the earth.” Both missiles had a reported range of 1,250 miles and actually flew some 850 miles in tests. (By the way, Israel is only 600 miles from the Iranian border). The Iranian regime’s Navy has also fired missiles near U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf and also piloted a drone above an American aircraft carrier earlier this year in the same area. Then, just to ensure that there was no misunderstanding, in January, the “moderate” Rouhani ordered his defense minister to speed up production and testing of long range missiles. Let us of course not forget the Iranian regime’s thugs at sea who seized two boats manned by U.S. sailors in the Persian Gulf, held them captive and then humiliated them in front of international media news outlets.

Again and again, if American Jews and even American non-Jews look at the very real facts and crystal clear actions of the current Iranian regime, they will realize that there are indeed no moderates operating in the regime. The term “moderate” is a misnomer and lie spun by Obama administration officials and pro-Iranian regime lobby groups in the U.S. who want to hide the clear brutality and dangerous nature of Iran’s radical Islamic regime. These individuals are either totally delusional about the dangerous nature of Iran’s regime or in some way stand to economically benefit from sanctions being removed on the Iranian regime’s officials, ayatollahs and Iranian Revolutionary Guard. We in America and in the free world must recognize the true brutal and dangerous nature of this current Iranian regime by re-imposing sanctions on this regime before it regains its economic strength and then spreads its cancerous form of radical Shiite Islamic dogma and terrorism to our shores. Wake up America, there are no moderates in the Iranian regime! Just take it from us in the Iranian American Jewish community whose families suffered tremendously at the hands of this evil Iranian regime during the last 37 years.

Note to Obama: Iran Isn’t Changing

JONATHAN S. TOBIN / MAY 31, 2016

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/note-obama-iran-isnt-changing/

In recent months, the Obama administration has been trying to pay as little attention to what is going on in Iran as it can. The reason is that, while it was trying to sell the country on the Iran nuclear deal, the foundation of many of their arguments was that the agreement was part of a process that, as President Obama put it, to help Iran “get right with the world.” The decision to enter into secret negotiations with the Islamist government were depicted as a reaction to the election of a supposed moderate, Hassan Rouhani, as president of that country and therefore a response to a shift toward a more liberal attitude from Tehran at home and abroad that needed to be encouraged. This was recently exposed as a fraud when Obama advisor Ben Rhodes boasted of the White House’s ability to spin a credulous press in a New York Times profile. But with every passing month since the deal began to be implemented, it has become crystal clear that the only thing that is changing about Iran is that the regime is getting richer.

The latest evidence that the radical Islamists are still very much in charge in Tehran comes with the election of Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati as the chairman of the Assembly of Experts, the body that is tasked with electing and removing the country’s Supreme Leader as well as supervising his activities. In other words, Jannati will be in charge of replacing the current Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. That’s a critical position since the person in that post and not President Rouhani that truly runs the country. If Jannati and his cronies are in charge of a succession for Khamenei, then there is no doubt that his successor will be just as, if not even more of an opponent of rapprochement with the West and a supporter of Iran’s current policy that aid terrorists and seeks regional hegemony.

Moreover, Jannati is among the most hard-line radicals in a ruling elite full of hard-line radicals. He not only hates Israel and advocates the maintenance of the theocratic government’s suppression of rights, especially for women, he’s also an exponent of the most virulent hate against the United States and the West. Coupled with the election of a new speaker of Iran’s parliament, Ali Larijani, who is also seen as an opponent of the not-terribly-moderate Iranian moderates, it appears that the Tehran government remains completely in the grip of the radicals.

That may be a bad thing but what has it to do with the nuclear deal? The administration argues that despite the evidence of Iran’s misbehavior in recent months, including its illegal missile tests and aggressive funding of terror groups, it is abiding by the terms of the nuclear agreement. That may or may not be strictly true since the monitoring of Iran’s nuclear program isn’t nearly as intrusive as we were promised. But even if Iran isn’t cheating, the direction of the regime matters greatly.

That’s because in a decade the Iran deal will expire. At that point, the only thing stopping the highly advanced nuclear program that Iran was allowed to keep in the agreement from developing a nuclear weapon is a sea change in Tehran. If Khamenei’s successor and the rest of the clerics running things there are as filled with “Death to America” fervor as Jannati, then you can bet that it will mean more than just a government where the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has the freedom to do as it likes. It will ensure an Islamist regime that is determined to use the wealth the West is showering it with to amass even greater power and the invulnerability that a bomb would give it.

But when confronted with this evidence that Iran had no interest in “getting right with the world,” the United States had nothing to say about Jannati’s elevation. State Department spokesman Mark Toner was asked about it and said, “we don’t have any comment” on this not insignificant piece of news.

That was curious, especially when compared to Toner’s willingness to pipe up about recent changes in Israel. As Times of Israel editor David Horovitz aptly pointed out in his column, the juxtaposition of the silence about Jannati and Washington’s comments about Prime Minister Netanyahu’s appointment of Avigdor Lieberman as minister of defense was curious.

Toner said Lieberman’s joining the Cabinet “raises legitimate questions about what direction it may be heading in and what policies it may adopt.” Interestingly, Toner added to that by saying he had “seen reports from Israel” about the coalition and noted that some of the new government’s ministers “oppose a two-state solution.” That may be, but Lieberman is not one of them since he has always backed two states though the lines he would draw would not be the same as some liberals.

The State Department has the right to raise questions about anything it likes, but it is remarkable that the administration feels free to bash a democratically elected government while remaining circumspect about an oligarchic radical theocracy that it has also correctly labeled as the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world.

How do we explain this difference?

One might argue that the U.S. is more invested in the affairs of an allied government as opposed to that of a foe like Iran. But the distinction goes further than that. The Obama administration has, in fact, been doing its best to maintain good relations with Iran and to avoid any behavior that might be interpreted as undermining its radical theocrats. On the other hand, it has been actively plotting to change Israel’s government. If it is particularly upset about Lieberman, it is not because they think he will interfere with peace negotiations that Palestinians don’t want or that he will start a war. It’s because Secretary of State Kerry was actively involved in the maneuvering by which it was hoped that the opposition Zionist Union Party would join Netanyahu’s government. The idea, like past efforts to topple or hamstring Netanyahu, was to use U.S. influence to tilt Israel to the left as opposed to the intentions of its voters that gave a majority to the current center-right coalition. The collapse of that gambit was yet another humiliation for Kerry and a triumph for Netanyahu, though whether it will work out well for him in the long run is a matter of opinion.

But what these two stories show us is that despite Obama’s occasional claim to the contrary, U.S. policy in the Middle East is now oriented toward appeasing Iran and isolating Israel. This is no way to treat an enemy or ally. Whoever succeeds Obama needs to realize that Iran isn’t moderating but unless the U.S. is really willing to write off the strategic Middle East, It’s U.S. policy that has to change.