A New Strategy for Israeli Victory

 Daniel Pipes Commentary 12-14-16

  

https:www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/a-new-strategy-for-israeli-victory/

Israeli–Palestinian diplomacy sadly fits the classic description of insanity: “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” The identical assumptions—land-for-peace and the two-state solution, with the burden primarily on Israel—stay permanently in place, no matter how often they fail. Decades of what insiders call “peace processing” have left matters worse than when they started, yet the great powers persist, sending diplomat after diplomat to Jerusalem and Ramallah, ever hoping that the next round of negotiations will lead to the elusive breakthrough.

The time is ripe for a new approach, a basic re-thinking of the problem. It draws on Israel’s successful strategy through its first 45 years. The failure of Israeli–Palestinian diplomacy since 1993 suggests this alternative approach—with a stress on Israeli toughness in pursuit of victory. This would, paradoxically perhaps, be of benefit to Palestinians and bolster American support.

I. The Near Impossibility of Compromise

Since the Balfour Declaration of 1917, Palestinians and Israelis have pursued static and opposite goals.

In the years before the establishment of the new state, the mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, articulated a policy of rejectionism, or eliminating every vestige of Jewish presence in what is now the territory of Israel.¹ It remains in place. Maps in Arabic that show a “Palestine” replacing Israel symbolize this continued aspiration. Rejectionism runs so deep that it drives not just Palestinian politics but much of Palestinian life. With consistency, energy, and perseverance, Palestinians have pursued rejectionism via three main approaches: demoralizing Zionists through political violence, damaging Israel’s economy through trade boycotts, and weakening Israel’s legitimacy by winning foreign support. Differences between Palestinian factions tend to be tactical: Talk to the Israelis to win concessions from them or not? Mahmoud Abbas represents the former outlook and Khaled Mashal the latter.

On the Israeli side, nearly everyone agrees on the need to win acceptance by Palestinians (and other Arabs and Muslims); differences are again tactical. David Ben-Gurion articulated one approach, that of showing Palestinians what they can gain from Zionism. Vladimir Jabotinsky developed the opposite vision, arguing that Zionists have no choice but to break the Palestinians’ intractable will. Their rival approaches remain the touchstones of Israel’s foreign-policy debate, with Isaac Herzog heir to Ben-Gurion and Benjamin Netanyahu to Jabotinsky.

These two pursuits—rejectionism and acceptance—have remained basically unchanged for a century; today’s Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Labor, and Likud are lineal descendants of Husseini, Ben-Gurion, and Jabotinsky. Varying ideologies, objectives, tactics, strategies, and actors mean that details have varied, even as the fundamentals have remained remarkably in place. Wars and treaties came and went, leading to only minor shifts. The many rounds of fighting had surprisingly little impact on ultimate goals, while formal agreements (such as the Oslo Accords of 1993) only increased hostility to Israel’s existence and so were counterproductive.

Palestinian rejection or acceptance of Israel is binary: yes or no, without in-betweens. This renders compromise nearly impossible because resolution requires one side fully to abandon its goal. Either Palestinians give up their century-long rejection of the Jewish state or Zionists give up their 150-year quest for a sovereign homeland. Anything other than these two outcomes is an unstable settlement that merely serves as the premise for a future round of conflict.

The “Peace Process” That Failed

Deterrence, that is, convincing Palestinians and the Arab nations to accept Israel’s existence by threatening painful retaliation, underlay Israel’s formidable record of strategic vision and tactical brilliance in the period from 1948 to 1993. Over this time, deterrence worked to the extent that Israel’s Arab-state enemies saw the country very differently by the end of that period; in 1948, invading Arab armies expected to throttle the Jewish state at birth, but by 1993, Arafat felt compelled to sign an agreement with Israel’s prime minister.

That said, deterrence did not finish the job; as Israelis built a modern, democratic, affluent, and powerful country, the fact that Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, and (increasingly) the left still rejected it became a source of mounting frustration. Israel’s impatient, on-the-go populace grew weary with the unattractive qualities of deterrence, which by nature is passive, indirect, harsh, slow, boring, humiliating, reactive, and costly. It is also internationally unpopular.

That impatience led to the diplomatic process that culminated with the handshake confirming the signing of the Oslo Accords on the White House lawn in September 1993. For a brief period, “The Handshake” (as it was then capitalized) between Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin served as the symbol of successful mediation that gave each side what it most wanted: dignity and autonomy for Palestinians, recognition and security for Israelis. Among many accolades, Arafat, Rabin, and Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The accords, however, quickly disappointed both sides. Indeed, while Israelis and Palestinians agree on little else, they concur with near-unanimity on Oslo having been a disaster.

When Palestinians still lived under direct Israeli control before Oslo, acceptance of Israel had increased over time even as political violence diminished. Residents of the West Bank and Gaza could travel locally without checkpoints and access work sites within Israel. They benefited from the rule of law and an economy that more than quadrupled without depending on foreign aid. Functioning schools and hospitals emerged, as did several universities.

Yasir Arafat promised to turn Gaza into “the Singapore of the Middle East,” but his despotism and aggression against Israel instead turned his fiefdom into a nightmare, resembling Congo more than Singapore. Unwilling to give up on the permanent revolution and to become the ordinary leader of an obscure state, he exploited the Oslo Accords to inflict economic dependence, tyranny, failed institutions, corruption, Islamism, and a death cult on Palestinians.

For Israelis, Oslo led not to the hoped-for end of conflict but to inflamed Palestinian ambitions to eliminate the Jewish state. As Palestinian rage spiraled upward, more Israelis were murdered in the five years after Oslo than in the 15 years preceding it. Rabble-rousing speech and violent actions soared—and continue unabated 23 years later. Moreover, Palestinian delegitimization efforts cost Israel internationally as the left turned against it, spawning such anti-Zionist novelties as the UN World Conference against Racism in Durban and the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

From Israel’s perspective, seven years of Oslo appeasement, 1993–2000, undid 45 years of successful deterrence; then, six years of unilateral withdrawals, 2000–2006, further buried deterrence. The decade since 2006 has produced no major changes.

The Oslo exercise showed the futility of Israeli concessions to Palestinians when the latter fail to live up to their obligations. By signaling Israeli weakness, Oslo made a bad situation worse. What is conventionally called the “peace process” would more accurately be dubbed the “war process.”

The False Hope of Finessing Victory

Why did things go so wrong in what seemed so promising an agreement?

Moral responsibility for the collapse of Oslo lies with Yasir Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, and the rest of the Palestinian Authority leadership. They pretended to abandon rejectionism and accept Israel’s existence but, in fact, sought Israel’s elimination in new, more sophisticated ways, replacing force with delegitimization.

This said, the Israelis made a profound mistake, having entered the Oslo process with a false premise. Yitzhak Rabin often summed up this error in the phrase “You don’t make peace with friends. You make it with very unsavory enemies.”² In other words, he expected war to be concluded through goodwill, conciliation, mediation, flexibility, restraint, generosity, and compromise, topped off with signatures on official documents. In this spirit, his government and all its successors agreed to a wide array of concessions, even to the point of permitting a Palestinian militia, always hoping the Palestinians would reciprocate by accepting the Jewish state.

They never did. To the contrary, Israeli compromises aggravated Palestinian hostility. Each gesture further radicalized, exhilarated, and mobilized the Palestinian body politic. Israeli efforts to “make peace” were received as signs of demoralization and weakness. “Painful concessions” reduced the Palestinian awe of Israel, m–ade the Jewish state appear vulnerable, and inspired irredentist dreams of annihilation.

In retrospect, this does not surprise. Contrary to Rabin’s slogan, one does not “make [peace] with very unsavory enemies” but rather with former very unsavory enemies—that is, enemies that have been defeated.

This brings us to the key concept of my approach, which is victory, or imposing one’s will on the enemy, compelling him through loss to give up his war ambitions. Wars end, the historical record shows, not through goodwill but through defeat. He who does not win loses. Wars usually end when failure causes one side to despair, when that side has abandoned its war aims and accepted defeat, and when that defeat has exhausted the will to fight. Conversely, so long as both combatants still hope to achieve their war objectives, fighting either goes on or it potentially will resume.

Thinkers and warriors through the ages concur on the importance of victory as the correct goal of warfare. For example, Aristotle wrote that “victory is the end of generalship” and Dwight D. Eisenhower said: “In war, there is no substitute for victory.” Technological advancement has not altered this enduring human truth.

Twentieth-century conflicts that ended decisively include World War II, China–India, Algeria–France, North Vietnam–United States, Great Britain–Argentina, Afghanistan–U.S.S.R., and the Cold War. Defeat can result either from a military thrashing or from an accretion of economic and political pressures; it does not require total military loss or economic destruction, much less the annihilation of a population. For example, the only defeat in U.S. history, in South Vietnam in 1975, occurred not because of economic collapse or running out of ammunition or battlefield failure (the American side was winning the ground war) but because Americans lost the will to soldier on.

Indeed, 1945 marks a dividing line. Before then, overwhelming military superiority crushed the enemy’s will to fight; since then, grand battlefield successes have rarely occurred. Battlefield superiority no longer translates as it once did into breaking the enemy’s resolve to fight. In Clausewitz’s terms, morale and will are now the center of gravity, not tanks and ships. Although the French outmanned and out-gunned their foes in Algeria, as did the Americans in Vietnam and the Soviets in Afghanistan, all these powers lost their wars. Conversely, battlefield losses suffered by the Arab states in 1948–82, by North Korea in 1950–53, and by Iraq in 1991 and 2003 did not translate into surrender and defeat.

When a losing side preserves its war goals, the resumption of warfare remains possible, and even likely. Germans retained their goal of ruling Europe after their defeat in World War I and looked to Hitler for another try, prompting the Allies to aim for total victory to ensure against the Germans trying a third time. The Korean War ended in 1953, but North and South have both held on to their war goals, meaning that the conflict might resume at any time, as could wars between India and Pakistan. The Arabs lost each round of warfare with Israel (1948–49, 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1982) but long saw their defeats as merely transient and spoiled for another try.

II. The Hard Work of Winning

How might Israel induce the Palestinians to drop rejectionism?

For starters, a colorful array of (mutually exclusive) plans to end the conflict favorably to Israel have appeared through the decades.³ Going from softest to toughest, these include:

• Territorial retreat from the West Bank or territorial compromise within the West Bank.
• Leasing the land under Israeli towns on the West Bank.
• Finding creative ways to divide the Temple Mount.
• Developing the Palestinian economy.
• Encouraging Palestinian good governance.
• Deploying international forces.
• Raising international funds (on the Marshall Plan model).
• Unilateralism (building a wall).
• Insisting that Jordan is Palestine.
• Excluding disloyal Palestinians from Israeli citizenship.
• Expelling Palestinians from lands controlled by Israel.

Trouble is, none of these plans addresses the need to break the Palestinian will to fight. They all manage the conflict without resolving it. They all seek to finesse victory with a gimmick. Just as the Oslo negotiations failed, so too will every other scheme that sidesteps the hard work of winning.

This historical pattern suggests that Israel has just one option to win Palestinian acceptance: a return to its old policy of deterrence, punishing Palestinians when they aggress. Deterrence amounts to more than tough tactics, which every Israeli government pursues; it requires systemic policies that encourage Palestinians to accept Israel and discourage rejectionism. It requires a long-term strategy that promotes a change of heart.

Inducing a change of heart is not a pretty or pleasant process but is based on a policy of commensurate and graduated response. If Palestinians transgress moderately, they should pay moderately; and so on. Responses depend on specific circumstances, so the following are but general suggestions as examples for Washington to propose, going from mildest to most severe:

When Palestinian “martyrs” cause material damage, pay for repairs out of the roughly $300 million in tax obligations the government of Israel transfers to the Palestinian Authority (PA) each year. Respond to activities designed to isolate and weaken Israel internationally by limiting access to the West Bank. When a Palestinian attacker is killed, bury the body quietly and anonymously in a potter’s field. When the PA leadership incites violence, prevent officials from returning to the PA from abroad. Respond to the murder of Israelis by expanding Jewish towns on the West Bank. When official PA guns are turned against Israelis, seize these and prohibit new ones, and if this happens repeatedly, dismantle the PA’s security infrastructure. Should violence continue, reduce and then shut off the water and electricity that Israel supplies. In the case of gunfire, mortar shelling, and rockets, occupy and control the areas from which these originate.

Of course, these steps run exactly counter to the consensus view in Israel today, which seeks above all to keep Palestinians quiescent. But this myopic viewpoint formed under unremitting pressure from the outside world, and the U.S. government especially, to accommodate the PA. The removal of such pressure will undoubtedly encourage Israelis to adopt the more assertive tactics outlined here.

True peacemaking means finding ways to coerce Palestinians to undergo a change of heart, giving up rejectionism, accepting Jews, Zionism, and Israel. When enough Palestinians abandon the dream of eliminating Israel, they will make the concessions needed to end the conflict. To end the conflict, Israel must convince 50 percent and more of the Palestinians that they have lost.

The goal here is not Palestinian love of Zion, but closing down the apparatus of war: shuttering suicide factories, ending the demonization of Jews and Israel, recognizing Jewish ties to Jerusalem, and “normalizing” relations with Israelis. Palestinian acceptance of Israel will be achieved when, over a protracted period and with complete consistency, the violence ends, replaced by sharply worded démarches and letters to the editor. Symbolically, the conflict will be over when Jews living in Hebron (in the West Bank) have no more need for security than Palestinians living in Nazareth (in Israel).

To those who hold Palestinians too fanatical to be defeated, I reply: If Germans and Japanese, no less fanatical and far more powerful, could be defeated in World War II and then turned into normal citizens, why not the Palestinians now? Moreover, Muslims have repeatedly given in to infidels throughout history when faced with a determined superior force, from Spain to the Balkans to Lebanon.

Israel enjoys two pieces of good fortune. First, its effort does not begin at null; polls and other indicators suggest that 20 percent of Palestinians and other Arabs consistently accept the Jewish state. Second, it need deter only the Palestinians, a very weak actor, and not the whole Arab or Muslim population. However feeble in objective terms (economics, military power), Palestinians spearhead the war against Israel; so when they abandon rejectionism, others (like Moroccans, Iranians, Malaysians, et al.) take their cues from Palestinians and, over time, will likely follow their lead.

Palestinians Would Benefit from Their Defeat

However much Israelis gain from ending their residual Palestinian problem, they live in a successful modern country that has absorbed the violence and delegitimization imposed on them.⁴ Surveys, for example, show Israelis to be among the happiest people anywhere, and the country’s burgeoning birth rate confirms these impressions.

In contrast, Palestinians are mired in misery and constitute the most radicalized population in the world. Opinion surveys consistently show them choosing nihilism. Which other parents celebrate their children becoming suicide bombers? Which other people gives higher priority to harming its neighbor than improving its own lot? Hamas and the Palestinian Authority both run authoritarian regimes that repress their subjects and pursue destructive goals. The economy in the West Bank and Gaza depends, more than anywhere else, on free money from abroad, creating both dependence and resentment. Palestinian mores are backward and becoming more medieval all the time. A skilled and ambitious people is locked into political repression, failed institutions, and a culture celebrating delusion, extremism, and self-destruction.

An Israel victory liberates Palestinians. Defeat compels them to come to terms with their irredentist fantasies and the empty rhetoric of revolution. Defeat also frees them to improve their own lives. Unleashed from a genocidal obsession against Israel, Palestinians can become a normal people and develop its polity, economy, society, and culture. Negotiations could finally begin in earnest. In all, given their far lower starting point, Palestinians would, ironically, gain even more from their defeat than the Israelis would from their victory.

That said, this change won’t be easy or quick: Palestinians will have to pass through the bitter crucible of defeat, with all its deprivation, destruction, and despair as they repudiate the filthy legacy of Amin al-Husseini and acknowledge their century-long error. But there is no shortcut.

The Need for American Support

Palestinians deploy a unique global support team consisting of the United Nations and vast numbers of journalists, activists, educators, artists, Islamists, and leftists. No obscure African liberation front are they, but the world’s favored revolutionary cause. This makes Israel’s task long, difficult, and dependent on stalwart allies, foremost the U.S. government.

For Washington to be helpful means not dragging the parties back to more negotiations but robustly supporting Israel’s path to victory. That translates into not just backing episodic Israeli shows of force but a sustained and systematic international effort of working with Israel, select Arab states, and others to convince the Palestinians of the futility of their rejectionism: Israel is there, it’s permanent, and it enjoys wide backing.

That means supporting Israel’s taking the tough steps outlined above, from burying murderers’ bodies anonymously to shuttering the Palestinian Authority. It means diplomatic support for Israel, such as undoing the “Palestine refugee” farce and rejecting the claim of Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital. It also entails ending benefits to the Palestinians unless they work toward the full and permanent acceptance of Israel: no diplomacy, no recognition as a state, no financial aid, and certainly no weapons, much less militia training.

Israeli–Palestinian diplomacy is premature until Palestinians accept the Jewish state. The central issues of the Oslo Accords (borders, water, armaments, sanctities, Jewish communities in the West Bank, “Palestine refugees”) cannot be usefully discussed so long as one party still rejects the other. But negotiations can re-open and take up anew the Oslo issues upon the joyful moment that Palestinians accept of the Jewish state. That prospect, however, lies in the distant future. For now, Israel needs to win.

1 I analyzed this topic for Commentary in December 1997 in “On Arab Rejectionism.”

2 Which, curiously, paraphrased the statement of a PLO leader, Said Hammami, 15 years earlier.

3 I reviewed these proposals in detail for Commentary in February 2003 in “Does Israel Need a Plan?”

4 Injuries and deaths from traffic accidents in Israel in the period 2000-2005, for example, came to 30,000 while terrorism-related injuries amounted to 2,000.

Egyptian Daily Close To Egyptian Intelligence Reveals Minutes Of Secret Palestinian Authority Meeting With John Kerry, Susan Rice; U.S.-Palestinian Coordination On UNSC 2334 [Summary & Excerpts]

In mid-December 2016, a Palestinian Authority (PA) delegation met in Washington with officials from the outgoing Obama administration for secret talks.

 On December 27, 2016 the Egyptian daily Al-Youm Al-Sabi', which is close to Egyptian intelligence services, published an exposé of the minutes of the secret talks. 

 The Palestinian delegation included PLO Executive Committee secretary and negotiating team leader Saeb Erekat; Palestinian general intelligence chief Majid Faraj; Husam Zomlot, strategic affairs advisor to Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud 'Abbas; Palestinian Foreign Ministry official Dr. Majed Bamya; Palestinian negotiations department official Azem Bishara; Palestinian intelligence international relations department chief Nasser 'Adwa; and head of the PLO delegation to Washington Ma'an Erekat.

 “The Palestinian side began its meetings on December 12, 2016 when Saeb Erekat and Majid Faraj met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. The next day, the two met with National Security Advisor Susan Rice. The entire delegation met with an American team that included four representatives of the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security, for a six-hour political-strategic meeting. Majid Faraj concluded his visit with a lengthy meeting with the CIA chief."

The minutes of the "top secret" meeting of Kerry, Rice, Erekat, and Faraj reveals U.S.-Palestinian coordination leading up to the UN Security Council vote on Resolution 2334 regarding Israel's settlements, which was adopted December 23,2016.

It states that the sides "agreed to cooperate in drafting a resolution on the settlements" and that the U.S. representative in the Security Council was "empowered" to coordinate with the Palestinian UN representative on the resolution.

The meeting also was aimed at coordinating Kerry's attendance at the upcoming international Paris Conference set for January 15, 2017, in order to promote a further international move regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Kerry offered to propose his ideas for a permanent arrangement "provided that they are supported by the Palestinian side."

Also Erekat warned that if the U.S. Embassy was moved to Jerusalem, the Palestinians would call to expel U.S. Embassies from Arab and Muslim capitals, the report said.

The report added that Kerry and Rice had fulsomely praised 'Abbas's policies and how he handled matters, and harshly criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that he "aims to destroy the two-state solution."

...

"They praised the substantial efforts of the Palestinian security apparatuses, specifically Palestinian [general] intelligence, led by Majid Faraj, as part of what they called 'the struggle against terrorism.' [The two] maintained that Palestinian-American collaboration in this area is among the closest of all the coordination between American apparatuses and security forces in the region."

...

"The Palestinian delegation thanked Kerry and Rice, and expressed Palestinian President Mahmoud 'Abbas's esteem for the views of U.S. President Barack Obama, Advisor Rice, and Secretary Kerry, and particularly for Kerry's speech at the Saban Forum in early December," the report added that the two U.S. officials had congratulated 'Abbas "for his stunning success at Fatah's Seventh General Conference and for his long and courageous speech (like those given by the late Cuban ruler Fidel Castro), during which he reiterated his positions and founding principles regarding his adherence to the peace process and his opposition to violence and terrorism in all forms." 

…

They also "praised 'Abbas's courage, positions, leadership, and adherence to the culture of peace and to peace as a strategic option, in addition to his opposition to violence and terrorism, to the ongoing security coordination, and to his being considered a uniquely strategic and courageous leader in the Middle East. The success of [Fatah's] Seventh General Conference. they [said], had effectively ended attempts by Muhammad Dahlan and others to weaken President 'Abbas, who must now act to tighten his relationship with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt."

…

"Rice asked the Palestinian delegation to convey U.S. President Barack Obama's gratitude to Palestinian President Mahmoud 'Abbas for honoring all his commitments to him, and added: 'Abbas was open and honest regarding all his commitments, especially regarding [Palestine] refraining from joining the 16 international organizations [as a member state].'"

…

Kerry and Rice stressed that "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu aims to destroy the two-state solution, and ..that all Netanyahu has to offer is maintaining the status quo, in addition to guarantees to improve [Palestinian] living conditions.”

They Clapped while They Took Away Jerusalem from the Jews Rabbi Aryeh Spero American Thinker 1-4-17

Subject: Rabbi Spero -They Clapped while They Took Away Jerusalem from the Jews..superb.....

On Dec. 23^rd, 2016, the day before Channukah, the now infamous anti-Israel-anti-semitic UNSC Res. 2334 came before the UNSC for a vote.  That resolution passed when the U.S. on orders from anti-Israel Obama,  did not veto, but rather abstained from voting on the resolution thus enabling the remaining 14 anti-semitic nations to vote yes.

Rabbi Aryeh Spero does not mince words in saying the bringing forth and passage of this UNSC resolution 2334 was an act of antisemitism and the anti-Semites who voted for this resolution or enabled it as did Obama, reveled in having passed it by applauding themselves.

This is an excellent article worth reading.

They Clapped while They Took Away Jerusalem from the Jews

  Rabbi Aryeh Spero     American Thinker  1-4-17

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/01/they_clapped_while_they_took_away_jerusalem_from_the_jews.html

Normally, when the U.N. Security Council passes a resolution, a vote is taken and the result recorded. Period.  Something very unusual happened after the Security Council voted to declare Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria as Arab/Islamic land. The representatives of the nations applauded and celebrated what they had just done by giving themselves a standing ovation. They clapped not so much in behalf of what they gave to “Palestinians” but more so in declaring the Jewish tie to the Old City of Jerusalem as illegitimate and Israel’s attachment to the Temple Mount and Judea and Samaria as illegal. It was a celebration by too many of the nations of the world against the history of the Jewish People and their Covenant to the Holy Land. It was an act of anti-Semitism.

There are over 200 wars currently on the world stage, as well as millions of suffering refugees and people under severe and calculated oppression. The solutions to these conflicts and the suffering of these millions are daily overlooked by the U.N. and the world’s nations. The “Palestinians” are not being tortured and live better than their Arab counterparts elsewhere. And there is a legitimate question whether they even constitute a nation. Yet their complaint reaches center stage as if the tranquility of the entire world depends upon their satisfaction. No, it is not their condition that rouses the world as much as their being a vehicle for the world to once again question the legitimacy of Jewish peoplehood and their desire to deny the Jewish People sovereignty in their land.

Of course, we will hear that the celebration and the attacks against Israel are not motivated by anti-Semitism, but rather are a consequence of the actions of the Jews.  But it is always the same story. Jews deserve condemnation either because they are communists, or capitalists, or purveyors of the Black Plague, too rich, too poor, or, in this case, taking someone else’s land. Too many Europeans believe that Jews are always guilty of taking that which belongs to someone else -- since, in their mind, nothing should be permanently possessed by the Jews.  Helen Thomas, the late Lebanese American reporter, represented that point of view when she said: “The Jewish land is not in Palestine, but in Poland”, while the Poles for centuries said the Jews don’t belong in Poland but rather in Palestine.

Nations concerned about the need to retain Muslim enclaves are gleefully ready to evict Jews from their millennium-old Jewish Quarter within Jerusalem. Fine gentleman that don’t want “facts-on-the-ground Jewish settlements” have no problem with Muslims and Arabs establishing their own facts-on-the-ground settlements in that very contested land of Judea and Samaria, the West Bank. High-minded representatives that speak of tolerance and multi-culturalism have no problem with Palestinian Muslims declaring that Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria must be Judenrein. This open hypocrisy and cavalier indifference -- the two differing set of rules -- are nothing but historic, garden variety anti-Jewishness.

Even among people that for generations have been secular, the notion of God having chosen the Jewish People and having covenanted for them a Promised Land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan is too much to bear.

That Barack Obama coordinated this stab in the back of Israel and granted to Islam the holy and historic places of the Jews is not surprising. Obama’s outlook is Islam Über Alles.  As Col. Ralph Peters has stated describing Obama’s perspective and action:

Praise Muslims, ignore Christians, and blame Jews.”  

While Obama finds it easy to socialize with leftwing Jews and employ Jews to implement his agenda and articulate his transnational narratives, he does have a problem with the concept of Jewish sovereignty in those places where he feels Islam must prevail.  His idea of Judaism, as he has stated, is for the Jewish people to sacrifice its aspirations in behalf of causes he considers more important: for example, the Black cause in America and the cause of Islam worldwide… and especially the cause of “Palestinians.”

Truth is, Obama feels this way even regarding America -- that America should subsume its needs in behalf of movements and countries he deems more worthy. Obama has a strange morality.  So as to spare the honor and the good name of Islam he has refused to fight during his tenure in behalf of the millions of innocent Christians being killed by the bloody hands of radical Islamic forces, and has ignored the pain of victims of Islamic terror by focusing and sermonizing about “Islam as a religion of peace and tolerance.”

It is difficult, therefore, to determine if Obama’s orchestration of the Resolution against Jewish sovereignty in its historic land was motivated purely by anti-Semitism or in part by his anti-Western, pro-Islamic worldview. What is not in question, however, is the anti-Semitism of the European countries that voted to tear Israel from its sacred land and roots. And, that is because each one of the European countries voting against Israel is headed by a leader who is not anti-Western and certainly not uncomfortable with his own country’s sovereignty and needs. This was a vote by them directly and uniquely against the Jewish State.

Obama’s brazenness and confidence in being able to treacherously betray Israel did not arise out of a vacuum. It arose out of a knowledge culled during his last eight years that no matter how he mistreated or endangered Israel most of the Jewish community that voted for him, and many of the high level Jewish elected officials, would not criticize him nor come to Israel’s defense.  

The deal that Obama made with Iran, a deal that facilitates their ability to fulfill their wish of shooting nuclear warheads into the heartland of Israel, was made possible by the consent of the many Jewish Senators who had the ability to stop this dreadful potential Holocaust by simply voting against the measure. They did not. These Jews chose Obama over the lives of the children of Tel Aviv and Haifa.  Even Senator Chuck Schumer announced that he would not try to derail the Deal. In the end, he was allowed to vote against the Deal once Obama determined that he had enough votes to pass the Deal without Schumer…so that Schumer could save face. The other Jewish Senators didn’t even feel the need to save face with the Jewish community.

From the very beginning when Obama insulted Prime Minister Netanyahu by forcing him to enter the White House through a side door and abruptly left the Israeli delegation during a meeting, bereft of any courtesy, the Jewish Democrat senators and congressmen have stood behind Obama. Too many Jews preeningly walked out when Netanyahu fulfilled the request of then-Speaker John Boehner to address the Congress, doing so because they knew that was what Obama wanted them to do. Congresswomen Jan Schakowsky from Chicago was proud to publicly humiliate the Israeli PM in front of the world. Why, then, would Obama think there would be any problem with him once again singling out Israel for demonization and humiliation?

Obama, Kerry, Biden, and Hillary Clinton have been the Four Horsemen of the Israeli Apocalypse. The good-natured Joe Biden seems to always become “angered and insulted” when it comes to Israel. Hillary Clinton, while professing concern for Israel, in actuality evinces outrage and yells at an Israeli Prime Minister if he dares allow a child’s playroom to be added onto a Jewish apartment in King David’s Kidron Valley. Many Jewish Senators, be it Boxer, Feinstein, Franken, Sanders, seem to support Israel only in the breach. We hear of their love and concern for Israel only when they are announcing their criticism of Israel.

Obama has his own deep-seated hostility toward Israel as well as his personal identification with those things Islamic that appear to propel him to mistreat Israel in the way he delights.  But his job has been made easier by Jews in his administration who gave him the Green Light to continually make Israel the heavy. For eight years Ben Rhodes has been writing the script that enabled Obama to achieve victory for his Iran Deal, isolate Netanyahu, and pull the rug out from under Israel during the Gaza War, push Israel to recede to its pre-67 Auschwitz borders, and concoct, every other year, an accusation that the Israelis “insulted” Obama and therefore deserve condemnation.

Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod were his chief strategists in the early years when the war against Netanyahu and Israel was launched by the White House.  Wendy Sherman was his chief negotiator for the Iran Deal and Jack Lew was a chief advisor and, later, the Treasurer who figured out how to release the billions of dollars to the mullahs of Iran while convincing the Jewish community that “the Deal with Iran was in the best interest of Israel.”

I am not disheartened by Obama’s antipathy to a confident, independent, sovereign Israel. I wrote about his antipathies eight years ago. It’s old news. I am deeply disturbed by the glee of the nations in trying to mastermind Israel’s piecemeal disintegration and their indifference to the Israeli people.

The U.N. Resolution took place on the eve of Chanukah. Then, like today, there were Hellenized Jews who collaborated with powers outside Judea to diminish Israel’s strength and sovereignty and bring it under a cosmopolitan, transnational New World Order. In the days of the Maccabees, these renegade Jews were scornfully identified for their betrayal, endangerment, and disloyalty. Today, I’m afraid, they will be the honored guests and Keynote Speakers at all too many of the annual Dinners of leading American Jewish organizations.

Rabbi Aryeh Spero is  president of Caucus for America, and author of Why Israel Matters to You.

Obama’s Self-Serving Cybersecurity Spin

 Jeffrey A. Eisenach   Wall Street Journal   Updated Jan. 4, 2017 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/obamas-self-serving-cybersecurity-spin-1483488382?mod=rss_opinion_main

There’s real cause for alarm, but it isn’t the recent malware.

Misleading the American people to advance a political narrative has been a hallmark of President Obama ’s foreign policy. The most recent example is the administration’s attempt to conflate the hacking of the Democratic Party with potential cyberattacks on critical infrastructure.

Last week, federal officials told the Washington Post that malware linked to Russian hackers was found on a laptop at Burlington Electric, a Vermont power company. By Monday the Post had recanted, writing that investigators “are finding evidence that the incident is not linked to any Russian government effort.”

But Americans could be forgiven for feeling spooked—for worrying that the hack of the Democratic Party was a lot more serious than previously thought, and that perhaps critical systems are facing a new and dangerous threat.

This simply isn’t the case. The kind of malware involved in these two intrusions is neither new nor particularly sophisticated. It is run-of-the-mill spyware that has probably been implanted on thousands of networks around the world, from home computers to those inside banks, power companies and government agencies.

These bugs are freely available online, and the code found at the Democratic National Committee and the power company isn’t even the latest version. The notion that such a mundane piece of software reveals a new and ominous threat to critical infrastructure is laughable.

Which isn’t to say American infrastructure is safe. It is common knowledge in the cybersecurity community that the U.S. power grid and other critical systems are infested with sophisticated malware placed there by foreign actors. If activated, that software has the potential to cause serious harm, similar to how the Stuxnet virus disabled Iran’s nuclear centrifuges in the early days of the Obama administration. In 2012 then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned of a “cyber Pearl Harbor” that would “cause physical destruction and the loss of life,” as well as “paralyze and shock the nation.”

The risk of a serious cyberattack, for now, is moderated by the threat of retaliation: China, Iran and Russia know that the U.S. would strike back if attacked—and not necessarily only in cyberspace. But the cyber equivalent of mutually assured destruction won’t protect us for long. Rogue states like North Korea, and other actors such as Islamic State, are quickly gaining cyberwarfare capabilities. These groups don’t fear retaliation in the same way.

Cyberthreats pose a clear danger to national security, and building an effective defense will take a concerted effort by the Trump administration. Americans are right to be concerned. But by playing on those fears, the Obama administration is putting politics ahead of the national interest.

Mr. Eisenach is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and lead author of its recent report “An American Strategy for Cyberspace.”

Report: Kerry, Palestinians held 'secret meetings'

Says 2 sides 'agreed to cooperate' in drafting U.N. resolution against Israel

Bob Unruh   1-2-17

U.S. officials stunned the free world, especially their own citizens and those of close ally Israel, just before Christmas when they abstained from a U.N. resolution condemning Israel for building housing.

But they mostly have insisted they had nothing to do with bringing the resolution to the international organization’s agenda, an assertion that conflicts with a new report from an Egyptian daily newspaper, the Al-Youm Al-Sabi’.

The publication says that just days before the U.N. Security Council vote, a Palestinian Authority delegation met in Washington with Obama administration officials “for secret talks.”

The details of the Egyptian report has been documented by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

MEMRI said the Egyptian paper, “which is close to Egyptian intelligence services, published an expose of the minutes of the secret talks, according to the report, by Ahmed Gomaa, the Palestinian delegation included PLO executive committee secretary and negotiating team leader Saeb Erekat; Palestinian general intelligence chief Majid Farah” and others.

“According to the report,” MEMRI said, “the minutes of the ‘top secret’ meeting of [Secretary of State John] Kerry, [National Security Adviser Susan] Rice, Erekat, and Faraj revealed U.S.-Palestinian coordination leading up to the U.N. Security Council vote on Resolution 2334 regarding Israel’s settlements, which was adopted December 23.

“It states that the sides ‘agreed to cooperate in drafting a resolution on the settlements’ and that the U.S. respresentative in the Security Council was ’empowered’ to coordinate with the Palestinian U.N. representative on the resolution,” MEMRI said.

Also at the meeting, Rice “pointed out the ‘danger’ of the incoming Trump administration’s policies, the report stated, adding that both she and Kerry had advised President Abbas to make no preliminary moves that might provoke the new administration.”

“Rice even offered to help arrange a meeting between the Palestinian delegation and a representative from the Trump team, by enlisting the help of World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder.”

MEMRI reported, “Also at the meeting, Erekat warned that if the U.S. Embassy was moved to Jerusalem, the Palestinians would call to expel U.S. embassies from Arab and Muslim capitals, the report said.”

The Egyptian newspaper said the two sides “agreed to collaborate regarding a resolution on the settlements. … during the meeting, the American side focused on coordination of positions between Washington and Ramallah regarding the resolution on the settlements, which was brought to a vote in the Security Council and adopted several days ago.”

The report stated that “the minutes of the meeting reveal American-Palestinian coordination regarding the resolution on the settlements” and that Kerry and Rice stressed that “they were willing to cooperate with a balanced resolution, and that Washington’s U.N. mission was authorized to discuss this matter with the Palestinian representative to the U.N., Ambassador Riyad Mansour.”

It continued: “The U.S.’s representative to the Security Council coordinated with the Palestinian ambassador on the issue of the resolution condemning the settlements.”

The Egyptian report said Kerry “raised the possibility of presenting ideas for a permanent solution, provided that they are supported by the Palestinian side … and this refers to principles that have already been raised as part of the Framework Agreement.”

“He also proposed that the Palestinian delegation travel to Saudi Arabia to discuss these points, but according to the minutes, he did not contact the Saudis on this matter. [Additionally,] according to the minutes of the meeting, National Security Advisor Susan Rice rejected, and ridiculed, the offer to propose ideas, arguing that the [incoming] administration of Republican President Donald Trump will completely oppose them.”

It continued: “According to the minutes of the meeting, Susan Rice asked whether the Palestinian delegation could meet with a representative from Donald Trump’s team. She clarified that she could request intervention and could organize this by means of World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder. Saeb Erekat responded that he had already asked but that Lauder could not. He added: ‘We were told that they were still organizing the new administration, and that once they were done, they would officially meet with the Palestinian side.'”

Also, “the Palestinian side officially demanded that the 1987 U.S. law designating the PLO a terrorist organization be rescinded. Furthermore, both sides agreed to establish a bilateral commission to examine visa requests from Palestinians and entry and movement visas for Palestinian leadership in the U.S.,” the report said.

The report concluded, “John Kerry and Susan Rice asked that the meetings be classified ‘Top Secret’ and that what went on in them not be leaked, in light of the sensitivity of the transition between the two U.S. administrations.”

 Obama and Israel, strike and counter-strike

  Caroline B Glick, JPOST

Resolution 2334 asserts that Israel has no right to any of the lands it took control over during the Six-Day War.

UNSC Resolution 2334 was the first prong of outgoing President Barack Obama’s lame duck campaign against Israel.

US Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech on Wednesday was the second.

On January 15, stage 3 will commence in Paris.

At France’s lame duck President François Hollande’s international conference, the foreign ministers of some 50 states are expected to adopt as their own Kerry’s anti-Israel principles.

The next day it will be Obama’s turn. Obama can be expected to use the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr. Day to present the Palestinian war to annihilate Israel as a natural progression from the American Civil Rights movement that King led 50 years ago.

Finally, sometime between January 17 and 19, Obama intends for the Security Council to reconvene and follow the gang at the Paris conference by adopting Kerry’s positions as a Security Council resolution. That follow-on resolution may also recognize “Palestine” and grant it full membership in the UN.

True, Kerry said the administration will not put forward another Security Council resolution.

But as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained in his response to Kerry’s address, there is ample reason to suspect that France or Sweden, or both, will put forth such a resolution. Since the draft will simply be a restatement of Kerry’s speech, Obama will not veto it.

Whether or not Obama gets his second Security Council resolution remains to be seen. But whether he succeeds or fails, he’s already caused most of the damage. A follow-on resolution will only amplify the blow Israel absorbed with 2334.

Resolution 2334 harms Israel in two ways. First, it effectively abrogates Resolution 242 from 1967 which formed the basis of Israeli policy-making for the past 49 years. Second, 2334 gives a strategic boost to the international campaign to boycott the Jewish state.

Resolution 242 anchored the cease-fire between Israel and its neighbors at the end of the Six Day War. It stipulated that in exchange for Arab recognition of Israel’s right to exist in secure and defensible borders, Israel would cede some of the territories it took control over during the war.

Resolution 242 assumed that Israel has a right to hold these areas and that an Israeli decision to cede some of them to its neighbors in exchange for peace would constitute a major concession.

Resolution 242 is deliberately phrased to ensure that Israel would not be expected to cede all of the lands it took control over in the Six Day War. The resolution speaks of “territories,” rather than “the territories” or “all the territories” that Israel took control over during the war.

Resolution 2334 rejects 242’s founding assumptions.

Resolution 2334 asserts that Israel has no right to any of the lands it took control over during the war. From the Western Wall to Shiloh, from Hebron to Ariel, 2334 says all Israeli presence in the areas beyond the 1949 armistice lines is crime.

Given that Israel has no right to hold territory under 2334, it naturally follows that the Palestinians have no incentive to give Israel peace. So they won’t. The peace process, like the two-state solution, ended last Friday night to the raucous applause of all Security Council members.

As for the boycott campaign, contrary to what has been widely argued, 2334 does not strengthen the boycott of “settlements.” It gives a strategic boost to the boycott of Israel as a whole.

It calls on states “to distinguish in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.”

Since no Israeli firm makes that distinction, all Israeli economic activity is now threatened with boycott. Tnuva is an “occupation” dairy because it supplies communities beyond the 1949 lines.

Bank Hapoalim is an “occupation” bank because it operates ATM machines in post-1967 neighborhoods in Jerusalem. The Fox clothing chain is an “occupation” chain because it has a store in Gush Etzion. And so on and so forth.

Resolution 2334 gives Europe and its NGOs a green light to wage a complete trade and cultural boycott against all of Israel.

Obama is not using his final weeks in office to wage war on Israel because he hates Netanyahu.

He is not deliberately denying 3,500 years of Jewish history in the Land of Israel because the Knesset is set to pass the Regulations Law that will make it marginally easier for Jews to exercise property rights in Judea and Samaria, as Kerry and UN Ambassador Samantha Power claimed.

Obama’s onslaught against Israel is the natural endpoint of a policy he has followed since he first entered the White House. In June 2009, Obama denied the Jews’ 3,500 years of history in the Land of Israel in his speech in Cairo before an audience packed with members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Instead of the truth, Obama adopted the Islamist propaganda lie that Israel was established because Europe felt guilty about the Holocaust.

Throughout his presidency, Obama has rejected the guiding principle of Resolution 242. His antisemitic demand that Israel deny its Jewish citizens their civil and property rights in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria simply because they are Jews is just as antithetical to 242 as is Resolution 2334.

In his speech, Kerry repeatedly castigated the government while flattering the Israeli Left in yet another attempt to divide and polarize Israeli society. Kerry’s professed support for the Israeli Left is deeply ironic because Israeli leftists are the primary casualties of Obama’s anti-Israel assault.

In the post-242 world that Obama initiated, the UN makes no distinction between Jerusalem and Nablus, between Gush Etzion and Jenin, or between Ma’aleh Adumim and Ramallah. In this world, Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog’s plan to retain a mere 2-3% of Judea and Samaria is no more acceptable than Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett’s plan to apply Israeli law to 60% of the area or to other plans calling for Israeli law to be applied to all of Judea and Samaria. All are equally unlawful. All are equally unacceptable.

For the next three weeks, the government’s focus must be centered on Obama and minimizing the damage he is able to cause Israel. Since Israel cannot convince Hollande to cancel his conference or Obama not to give his speech, Israeli efforts must be concentrated on scuttling Obama’s plan to enact a follow-on resolution.

To scuttle another resolution, Israel needs to convince seven members of the Security Council not to support it. Only measures that secure the support of nine out of 15 Security Council members are permitted to come to a vote. The states that are most susceptible to Israeli lobbying are Italy, Ethiopia, Japan, Egypt, Uruguay, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia.

Netanyahu’s furious response to 2334 advance the goal of blocking a vote on a follow-on resolution in two ways. First, they create Israeli leverage in seeking to convince member states to oppose voting on an additional resolution before January 20.

Second, Netanyahu’s seemingly unrestrained response to the Obama administration’s onslaught enables Donald Trump to join him in pressuring Security Council members to oppose bringing a new resolution for a vote.

By taking an extreme position of total rejection of Obama’s actions, Netanyahu is enabling Trump to block a vote while striking a moderate tone.

In three weeks, Obama’s war with Israel will end. His final legacy – the destruction of the land for peace paradigm and the two-state policy-making model – obligate Israel, for the first time in 50 years, to determine by itself its long-term goals in relation to the international community, the Palestinians and Judea and Samaria.

Regarding the international community, the Security Council opened the door for its members to boycott Israel. As a result, Israel should show the UN and its factotums the door. Israel should work to de-internationalize the Palestinian conflict by expelling UN personnel from its territory.

The same is the case with the EU. Once Britain exits the EU, Israel should end the EU’s illegal operations in Judea and Samaria and declare EU personnel acting illegally persona non grata.

As for the Palestinians, Resolution 2334 obligates Israel to reconsider its recognition of the PLO. Since 1993, Israel has recognized the PLO despite its deep and continuous engagement in terrorism. Israel legitimized the PLO because the terrorist group was ostensibly its partner in peace. Now, after the PLO successfully killed the peace process by getting the Security Council to abrogate 242, Israel’s continued recognition of the PLO makes little sense. Neither PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas nor his deputies in Fatah – convicted, imprisoned mass murderer and terrorism master Marwan Barghouti, and Jibril Rajoub who said he wishes he had a nuclear bomb so he could drop it on Israel and who tried to get Israel expelled from FIFA – has any interest in recognizing Israel, let alone making peace with it. The same of course can be said for the PLO’s coalition partner Hamas.

An Israeli decision to stop recognizing the PLO will also have implications for the Trump administration.

In the aftermath of 2334, calls are steadily mounting in Congress for the US to cancel its recognition of the PLO and end US financial support for the Palestinian Authority. If Israel has already ended its recognition of the PLO, chances will rise that the US will follow suit. Such a US move will have positive strategic implications for Israel.

There is also the question of the Palestinian militias that are deployed to Judea and Samaria as part of the peace process that Obama and the PLO officially ended last Friday. In the coming months, Israel will need to decide what to do about these hostile militias that take their orders from leaders who reject peaceful coexistence with Israel.

Finally, there are the territories themselves. For 50 years, Israel has used the land-for-peace paradigm as a way not to decide what to do with Judea and Samaria. Now that 242 has been effectively abrogated, Israel has to decide what it wants.

The no-brainer is to allow Jews to build wherever they have the legal right to build. If the UN says Israel has no rights to Jerusalem, then Israel has no reason to distinguish between Jerusalem and Elon Moreh.

More broadly, given that for the foreseeable future, there will be no Palestinian Authority interested in making peace with Israel, Israel needs to think about the best way to administer Judea and Samaria going forward. The obvious step of applying Israeli law to Area C now becomes almost inarguable.

Shortly before Obama took office eight years ago, he promised to “fundamentally transform” America. Trump’s election scuttled any chance he had of doing so.

But by enabling Resolution 2334 to pass in the Security Council, Obama has succeeded in fundamentally transforming the nature of the Palestinian conflict with Israel. Israel’s actions in the coming weeks will determine whether it is fundamentally transformed for better or for worse.