Showing posts with label Opinion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Opinion. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 17, 2017



From “recognizing Palestine” to voting against Israeli “settlements” Europeans are simply feeding the crocodile…

A trend started in Europe in 2014: Parliaments in various European countries began holding “symbolic votes” to “recognize the State of Palestine.”

These votes are symbolic in that they don’t have the power to create a Palestinian State. There is no State called “Palestine” and historically there is no such thing as “Palestinian People.” The invention of the Palestinian people is, on the timeline of history a very new thing and it’s possibly the greatest marketing spin ever (it is certainly proof that if you say the same thing over and over, with enough vehemence, eventually people will believe anything).

The invention of a Palestinian people occurred for the same reason that Israel was twice called Palestine by conquering nations – to break the connection between the Land of Israel and the People of Israel.

The European governments voting to recognize Palestine as a State have said that their goal is to express their displeasure to Israel about the lack of progress in the “peace process” and in resolving the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

The conjunction of these “symbolic votes” with the wave of terror attacks against Israel illuminates their dishonesty.

Teenagers kidnapped and murdered on their way home from school, women and babies murdered while waiting for the busses and trains. Men murdered while praying in a synagogue. People stabbed while shopping for groceries. Police attacked. Public transportation attacked. Kindergartens attacked. Cars attacked. The list goes on and on but maybe, in the European mind, it is logical to blame the victims for the attacks on them – especially if they are Jews.

Winston Churchill, one of the greatest statesmen that ever lived, said “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”

I believe this is the true motivation behind these votes. The European countries are feeding their local “crocodiles”, hoping to be eaten last.

It won’t work.

To the Swedes that have declared their recognition of “Palestine” – I declare that I recognize the Free State of Malmo and the other Swedish cities and areas that have submitted to the will of Allah and the growing Islamic State.

To the British that have declared their recognition of “Palestine” – I declare that I recognize the Islamic Emirates of Britain which currently include Birmingham, Bradford, Derby, Dewsbury, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Luton, Manchester, Sheffield, as well as Waltham Forest in northeast London and Tower Hamlets in East London. May you enjoy the freedom of submission to Allah. I will encourage all British women saying, the hijab will give you freedom. The burqa is even better. This way your Muslim brothers will know that you are decent God-fearing women and that it is the kufar that should be raped, not you.

To the French that have declared their recognition of “Palestine” – I declare that I recognize the freedom of the Islamic Zones of France. Paris, Lyons, Marseilles or Toulouse won’t change much under sharia rule, will they?

Sadly, the list goes on. Spain, maybe Belgium next. In the Kuregem district of Brussels, police are forced to patrol the area with two police cars: one car to carry out the patrols and another car to prevent the first car from being attacked. In the Molenbeek district of Brussels, police have been ordered not to drink coffee or eat a sandwich in public during the Islamic month of Ramadan.

In the Netherlands, a Dutch court ordered the government to release to the public a politically incorrect list of 40 “no-go” zones in Holland. The top five Muslim problem neighborhoods are in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht.

The list goes on and on.

Recognizing Palestine is simply an attempt to appease and deflect local Islamic wrath. Unfortunately for the countries of Europe, putting the focus on Israel and Jews does not halt the creeping sharia that is taking over Europe.

Israel can be fed to the crocodiles but their hunger will not be assuaged.

The truth is, there is no “Israeli-Palestinian conflict”. There is a conflict between Islam and all other religions and cultures. Israel and Jews are a convenient target because we are an island in a sea of Islamic nations. We are close. And our ideals directly appose theirs.

We are an example, not the cause. Placing the blame on us will not “save” anyone else.

Recognizing Palestine will not stop people like “jihadi-John”. Interesting that the British got so worked up over that British beheader and seem to have forgotten that Lee Rigby had his head chopped off in the streets of London, in broad daylight.

Recognizing Palestine will not stop the harassment non-Muslims are experiencing in France, Holland, Norway, Germany… It will not stop the violence against women or the attacks on police.

It will not stop bombings, stabbings and hijackings in the cities of Europe or the heartland of America.
The world has lost its head. Logic has left the building and there is no sign of it ever coming back.
Appeasing the bully never works. Blaming the victims is never right.


The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is being spread by with bombs, guns and torture. It is much easier in Europe. Little violence is needed to convince Europeans to cede their countries and their culture. Creeping sharia is chomping huge bites out of Europe. Soon the “crocodiles” will swallow it completely.




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Monday, January 16, 2017

By Petra Marquardt-Bigman

Several recent articles provide a wealth of data that indicate how truly miserable conditions in many Arab countries are, and how grim the outlook for much of the Arab world is. The most shocking data are from Syria (though the situation in Yemen is probably similarly dire). A recent NYT article outlines the devastation wrought by five years of war in Syria:

Let’s take a look at the numbers. (While the following statistics are estimates, they will, if anything, get worse with the continuing matrix of wars in Syria.) More than 80 percent of Syrians live below the poverty line. Nearly 70 percent of Syrians live in extreme poverty, meaning they cannot secure basic needs, according to a 2016 report. That number has most likely grown since then. The unemployment rate is close to 58 percent, with a significant number of those employed working as smugglers, fighters or elsewhere in the war economy. Life expectancy has dropped by 20 years since the beginning of the uprising in 2011. About half of children no longer attend school — a lost generation. The country has become a public health disaster. Diseases formerly under control, like typhoid, tuberculosis, Hepatitis A and cholera, are once again endemic. And polio — previously eradicated in Syria — has been reintroduced, probably by fighters from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Upward of 500,000 are dead from the war, and an untold number of Syrians have died indirectly from the conflict […] With more than two million injured, about 11.5 percent of the prewar population have become casualties. And close to half the population of Syria is either internally or externally displaced. A 2015 survey conducted by the United Nations refugee agency looking at Syrian refugees in Greece found that a large number of adults — 86 percent — had secondary or university education. Most of them were under 35. If true, this indicates that Syria is losing the very people it will most need if there is to be any hope of rebuilding in the future.”

But the future also doesn’t look rosy for the rest of the Arab world. MEMRI recently summarized some of the relevant findings of the latest UN Arab Human Development Report (AHDR), which focuses on “challenges and opportunities facing youth in the Arab region.” Needless to say, the comprehensive UN report is carefully “balanced,” which is to say it tries hard to package all the bad news with some slightly better news or upbeat talk about opportunities that are waiting to be seized.
As the MEMRI summary notes:

“While we would have wished otherwise, in reviewing the report we find that the critics of the ‘Arab Spring’ were more realistic in their assessment of the events of 2011 than those who were inclined to see bright stars in the sky. […] Arab youth today remain mired in poverty; they are politically marginalized and voiceless, economically disenfranchised, and socially prone to radicalization and violence. Theirs is a fragile and often volatile existence.”
“The [UN] report highlights the fact that in the last decade the region has experienced ‘the most rapid increase in war and violent conflict’ compared with other regions of the world. The Arab world also has ‘the dubious distinction’ of comprising the largest number of failed states showcasing a high scale of ‘fragility and failure’ in addition to being the source of the largest number of refugees and displaced people. While the report would not predict the level of conflict in the region, it does project that number of people living in conflict areas will increase from 250 million in 2010 to over 305 million in 2020.”

If you check out the report itself, there are plenty of findings that indicate how dire the situation in many Arab countries is and how little chance there is for rapid improvement – indeed, further decline seems more likely:

“the region still scores lower than the world average on the HDI [Human Development Index] and already lags three of the world’s six regions, namely, East Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Central Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean. By the year 2050, the region is projected to rank fifth, only a little ahead of sub-Saharan Africa.”

“Evidence shows that the prospects of young people in the region are, now more than ever, jeopardized by poverty, economic stagnation, governance failure and exclusion, all compounded by the violence and fragility of the body politic.”

“Overall, the quality of education is poor. Standardized international tests in education such as the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Programme for International Student Assessment show Arab countries scoring well below the average.”

“The rise of women in Arab countries is inseparably and causally linked to the future human development of the Arab region. The pervasive disempowerment of women in Arab countries is grounded in cultural, social, economic and political factors. As the 2005 and 2009 AHDRs observed, the seeds of discrimination are embedded in cultural beliefs and traditions in childraising, education, religious structures, the media and family relations.”

Among the particularly noteworthy figures in the report is the following, which shows that the overwhelming majority of Arabs consider religion, i.e. mostly Islam, as “an important part” of their daily life:



This is also an interesting finding in the context of the ongoing mass migration to very secular Europe – a migration that is most warmly welcomed by liberals who don’t think much of their own religious fellow citizens and look down on religious Americans. The importance of religion for Arabs is also noteworthy in the context of another finding in the UN report:

“It is mainly because of its high levels of social and religious intolerance that the region stands out among countries at similar levels of development around the world. Tolerance is a core value in pluralistic societies and a cornerstone of more democratic systems. […]  This wide regional deficit and lack of progress on values of tolerance are worrying for the future of democracy in the region.”

While Israel has so far managed to remain “a villa in the jungle” – as Ehud Barak once put it famously – it is clearly bad news that the region looks set to remain mired in conflict and that so many fundamental factors are likely to impede social progress and economic development. A year ago, a still very relevant article in The New York Jewish Week outlined the resulting problems for Israel as explained by veteran political analyst Ehud Yaari. The article begins with an anecdote:

“Ehud Yaari characterizes his friend Bernard Lewis, the eminent scholar of the Middle East [who turned 100 last May], as possessing ‘this ability to see into the future.’ Over a recent dinner in Israel, Yaari asked Lewis what he thought the Middle East would look like in fifty years. Without hesitating, Lewis leaned over the table and said decisively, ‘Any Arab who can will be out of here.’”

Unfortunately, many of those who can’t escape the hopelessness of the Arab Middle East may end up fueling sectarian conflict and bloodshed. And for frustrated young Palestinians, it is obviously tempting to commit terror attacks. In a very interesting piece published a few days ago, Yaari writes about Israel’s efforts to curb the wave of attacks that started in fall 2015, and it turns out that the motivations of the mostly young perpetrators clearly reflect the deep discontent and frustration as well as the religious fervor described in the UN report on the Arab world:

“most of the attackers came from the fringes of West Bank society: young people struggling with social marginalization, who had experienced repeated setbacks in their private lives or faced insurmountable personal or financial hardship. The collective profile of the assailants identified most as frustrated individuals who felt that their lives had reached a dead end, to the point that many sought salvation through martyrdom. Many of those captured during assaults told interrogators that they believed that death for the sake of jihad would reward them with the recognition they failed to obtain in life.”

Regarding the motivations of the surprisingly high number of female assailants, Yaari writes:

“Investigations showed that almost all of these women—including a 72-year-old grandmother from Hebron—were seeking to escape family hardships, such as pregnancies out of wedlock, arranged marriages, violence within the family, and so forth. Quite often it seemed that these women were seeking death or arrest in order to break away from their environment. In more than one instance, a young woman would wave a kitchen knife or scissors far from the Israeli soldiers, not posing any real threat, knowing that she would be immediately taken into custody.”


For some more on Palestinian frustration and discontent, you can check out this recent lament on “A Life of Degradation and Bitterness under Fatah Rule,” and this curse of “Israel, Hamas and Fatah” – the latter by a Palestinian who was “born and raised as a proud refugee from the Jabalia Refugee Camp in Gaza.” As much as the Palestinians may see themselves as part of the Arab world, it is definitely uniquely Palestinian to be “born and raised as a proud refugee” in a Palestinian city among Palestinians.



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I am very pleased to announce a new columnist, Divest This!, the foremost expert in what's really going on in BDS-land.

Welcome!



After a brief hiatus to deal with some family matters, it’s time to return to the fight, both at Divest This! and now with a weekly column at the incomparable Elder of Ziyon site!

Having missed some comings and goings over the last couple of months, it’s time to take a look at what’s gone on that might impact the fight against BDS which – as all of you reading this should know by now – is simply a propaganda tactic in a multi-faceted global war against the Jewish state.

Starting from the top, the surprising result of last year’s US election is clearly going to have a more  dramatic impact on domestic and international politics than, for example, English teachers deciding not to join an academic boycott

Given the effort many of us put into fighting on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people, it’s sometimes difficult to admit how little control we have over the most significant factors impacting our struggle. 
At the top of the list, global geopolitics – the interplay of state and powerful non-state actors – will always dictate the terms within which our battles play out.  Simply put, if those involved with the decades-long war in the Middle East between kings, dictators and religious fanatics determine that attacking Israel is in their interest, there will be war.  Similarly, if Western governments decide it is in their interests to cater to 50+ Islamic states vs. one Jewish one, then – at best – Israel and its friends will be forced to fight an uphill battle on unfriendly terrain.

Who leads Israel is the second most influential factor over what situations Israel’s supporters will have to deal with.  If you look over Israel’s success (starting with founding of the state, defending it, ingathering exiles and liberalizing and expanding its economy) and failures (notably Oslo and its aftermath – including the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza), these were all actions instigated by Israeli leaders at the time.  Yes, those leaders were responding to pressures generated by the aforementioned geopolitics.  But no amount of outside influence (short of invasion) can impact a democratic society more than choices made by its own government.

A close third behind geopolitics and who runs Israel is who runs America.  For a variety of historical reasons, the alliance between Israel and the US has become so vital to the Jewish state that the occupant in the White House can have an outside effect on everything Israel is doing or trying to do. 
Fortunately, Israel benefits from strong support from power structures beyond 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, notably Congress, but ultimately the American people.  As we have seen over the last eight years when the US President was hostile to Israeli interests, strong support for the Jewish state from every level below the Executive Branch (down to the man and woman on the street) creates constraints with which even a popular President must contend.

With a handful of days left to go in his presidency, I think it’s fair to accept that those who criticized the soon-to-be ex-President as harboring an ideological dislike of Israel and letting that drive irrational policy choices were right, while those who felt his animus was driven more by incompetence in delicate foreign affairs overall were wrong.  (We won’t bother with those who tried to pretend that Obama’s needless warring on Israel were examples of “tough love” offered by a sincere friend.)

A President unfettered by democratic constraints (as all Presidents are during their lame duck session) provides the opportunity to let the political id run wild.  And given all he could have done (or not done) during his last weeks in office, it is telling indeed that Obama used this period to throw Israel to the jackals at the UN, even at the cost of cementing his reputation as betrayer (not to mention further eroding his own party’s support of and by Jewish Americans and other friends of Israel).

With a week to go, there is still a possibility that the administration will use its last days in office to kick an ally in the face one last time.  Fortunately, much of this can be undone by the incoming President (there are ways, after all, to marginalize the UN that don’t require expending political capital getting it to reverse its most horrendous official pronouncements).

But if the last eight years (really the last eight decades) teach us anything, it is to not count on the occupant of the White House, or anyone else, to solve our problems for us.  And with the keys to the Executive Mansion changing hands in just a few days, it’s worth drawing some lessons from the past that can help us navigate an unpredictable future.





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Sunday, January 15, 2017





Hatem Bazian backed by supporters
Hatem Bazian, a Palestinian-Arab instructor of Near Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, is calling for the elimination of Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people.

In a recent blog post entitled, Trump’s Appointment of David Friedman is the Official End of Oslo, Bazian argues that because President-Elect Donald Trump appointed David Friedman the incoming U.S. ambassador to Israel this means that the "peace process" is concluded and that, therefore, Israel has no right to exist as the Jewish state.

Let us see how he gets from point A to point B.

In his opening remarks Bazian claims:
Trump’s appointment of David M. Friedman as the new ambassador to Israel brings an end to 70 years of U.S. official policy on Palestine centered on U.N. resolutions 181, 242 and 338 with a two-state solution as the final outcome.
Other than as an implied fallacious "last straw" argument, just how he draws this conclusion from Trump's appointment of Friedman remains unexplained. While Bazian is correct that the two-state solution is a corpse, it was neither Trump, nor Friedman, who killed it. In truth it was still-born upon conception for the simple reason that the Palestinian-Arabs, as an irrational religious imperative, never had the slightest intention of accepting a state for themselves in peace next to Israel to begin with.

Upon arbitrarily deciding that Friedman's appointment means the end of the so-called "peace process," Bazian then insists that people everywhere should therefore "call for Israel’s annexation and demand one person, one vote rather than allow Apartheid to masquerade as democracy."

Just how Bazian came to believe that he is in any position to demand anything from anyone, much less his Jewish enemies, is hard to imagine. Nonetheless, by "annexation" he presumably means the potential Israeli annexation of Judea and Samaria. If so, Bazian is one of those academic anti-Zionists nurturing the hope that Israel can be defeated via demographics.

Many Israelis and diaspora Jews wish to see Israel annex the ancient heart of the Jewish homeland.
Bazian wishes for this, as well, with the anticipation that the hostile Arab majority could then force its will upon the Jewish minority within the Middle East. Just as for thirteen hundred long years, from the rise of Muhammad to the demise of the Ottoman Empire, Muslims held non-Muslims as slaves and dhimmis, so Bazian hopes to see a return of Muslim domination to the Holy Land.

Although subjugating non-Muslims is integral to Islam, Bazian should however be careful what he wishes for.

If Israel annexes Judea and Samaria it will remain a majority Jewish democracy. This is true for a number of simple reasons. The first is that the Palestinian Authority habitually inflates the numbers of Arabs living in Areas A and B and it is, therefore, highly questionable whether Israel would become a majority Arab country in the future. Furthermore, despite popular opinion otherwise, the birthrate among Palestinian-Arabs is declining while the birthrate among Jews is increasing.

More importantly, of course, Israel is under no suicidal obligation to offer citizenship to enemies of the Jewish people or the Jewish state. If Israel does annex Judea and Samaria it will likely institute pathways to citizenship for those Arabs with no political-religious agenda that involves either the murder or subjugation of the Jewish people. This is to say that Jihadis, terrorists, and anti-Semitic anti-Zionists will probably not be eligible to participate in the political life of the country, if they are permitted to remain in the country at all.

In order to determine eligibility for citizenship, Israel could easily institute a two or three year national service requirement with political enfranchisement dependent upon the demonstrated good-will of the individual Arab. Those who demonstrate a true desire for good citizenship within the Jewish state will be allowed citizenship. Those who do not, will not.

However, let's give Bazian the benefit of the doubt and assume that what he really wants is what is good for everyone in that part of the world. In this case, Bazian is telling the Jewish people that despite Jewish history under the brutality of Islam they are under a moral obligation to hope that a Bazian-style single-state will emerge that will not trample their well-being and civil liberties.

Now, how is that for a roll of the dice?

Bazian would have the Jewish people dependent upon the goodwill of Palestinian-Arabs in an Arab-dominated state. Does he honestly expect that after centuries of dhimmitude and theocratically-based Arab aggression it makes sense for the Jewish people to gamble the very lives of their children on Arab-Muslim hospitality?

The notion is ridiculous on its face and the great majority of Jewish people will have none of it.

Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.









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Thursday, January 12, 2017


 Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column


To whom does the land belong?

All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations. – Charter of the United Nations, chap. 1, art. 2, p. 4

In May 1948, with the end of the British Mandate, various Arab nations invaded Palestine with the encouragement of their patron, Britain, with the intention of seizing the territory for themselves. In particular, Jordan (then called Transjordan) occupied Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, killing or driving out the Jewish population of these areas.

The Mandate, which was established for the benefit of the Jewish people and which called for settlement of Jews in what was then called Palestine, echoed the language of the Balfour declaration, which referred to a “national home” for the Jewish people. The Zionist leadership of the yishuv (the pre-state entity in the land of Israel) quite reasonably interpreted this as a sovereign state. But the British preferred to see it become part of its Arab client states or at least ruled by Arabs.  They had gotten used to “Palestine” as part of their empire, and didn’t trust the Zionists. They also feared Soviet influence over a Jewish state, since the leadership of the yishuv represented the left wing of Zionism. And of course the usual anti-Jewish attitudes played a role. 

So Britain subverted the Mandate by being partial to the Arabs throughout its existence, encouraged Arabs from the region to immigrate to Palestine, fought against Jewish immigration – even for Jews fleeing the Holocaust – tried to prevent the declaration of the Jewish state in 1948, and supported the Arab invaders with arms and even British officers. 

In 1949, the new state of Israel and Jordan signed a ceasefire agreement which delineated the boundary between the Israeli- and Jordanian-controlled areas. Moshe Dayan drew a line on a map with a green pencil, and this boundary henceforth was called the Green Line. The cease-fire agreement very clearly stated that the Green Line was not a border; it had no political significance and only marked the locations of the opposing forces at the time of their disengagement. The Jordanians were adamant about this, because they viewed the situation as unsatisfactory and temporary: they did not accept the existence of any Jewish state in “Palestine” and intended to eliminate it in the future. In 1950, Jordan violated the UN Charter and annexed the territory it had acquired by aggression, calling it the “West Bank.” Only Britain and its client Pakistan recognized the annexation.

In 1967, Jordan again attacked Israel, and as a result Israel conquered the area that Jordan had been illegally occupying.

To whom does this land belong?

Israel, the state of the Jewish people who were the intended beneficiary of the Mandate, would seem to have the strongest claim. But at this point another claimant arose, the PLO. The PLO, with Soviet help, jumped on the bandwagon of decolonization and fraudulently claimed to represent an indigenous “Palestinian people” that had been dispossessed by Jewish colonists. It received great support at the UN and throughout the “international community” as a result of the influence of Arab oil-producers, by terrorist blackmail of European nations, and again because of anti-Jewish attitudes. Its narrative fit in quite well with fashionable “third-worldism” and anti-racism (despite the fact that its own ideology was itself highly racist).

During the period of 1967-1988, Jordan maintained significant influence in the territories, paying salaries and pensions to civil servants and providing other benefits to inhabitants. Israel did not object to this and allowed the continuation of Jordanian law for such things as land transfers. Israel acted as a military occupier even though the land she was “occupying” did not belong to any other state. But she hoped that at some point there would be a peace agreement in which part of the territory would be given to Jordan and the rest annexed to Israel.

In hindsight this was a bad idea, since it weakened Israel’s claim to having liberated land that originally belonged to her. It made room for the unsound Geneva Convention arguments for the illegality of Jewish settlements.

In 1988, Jordan renounced all claims to Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem in favor of the PLO. It should be obvious that King Hussein did not have the right to give away what he did not own – not the parcels of land that he had used to bribe local sheikhs prior to 1967 and which so bedevil Israel's settlement enterprise today, and not the totality of Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem to the PLO. 

In 1993, Israel made a further mistake, this one disastrous for the prospect of peace and Israel's security, when she signed Oslo I and recognized the PLO as the sole representative of the “Palestinian people.” This validated the fraud which elevated the descendants of recent Arab migrants to a “people” with an equal or greater claim on the land than the Jews, and which gave new life to the moribund PLO – which was and still is a corrupt band of gangsters and terrorists who extort and exploit the Arabs under its control, while it indoctrinates them to extreme hatred and incites murder.

But after all this, the question remains: to whom does the land belong?

The American position on this has evolved over the years, in my opinion in the wrong direction. UNSC resolution 242 was passed after the 1967 war, and it was interpreted by the West (but not by the Soviets or Arabs) to mean that Israel would return some of the territory it had conquered to Jordan, Egypt and Syria in return for agreements to end the conflict. How much and which land would be returned would depend on what was needed for “secure and recognized boundaries.” There was no suggestion that Israel had to compensate anyone if she did not return 100% of the territory. There was no implication that the land across the Green Line was prima facie the property of the Arabs.

In discussions between Israel and the PLO during the 1990s, the idea of land swaps was raised. After all, Israel had given Egypt 100% of the Sinai in return for peace; weren’t the Palestinians also entitled to 100%? And if Israel kept settlement blocs, then shouldn’t she give the Palestinians an equal amount of land from somewhere else so they wouldn’t be “cheated?” Land swaps were discussed in President Clinton’s negotiations in 2000-1, and also proposed by Ehud Olmert in 2008, but in both cases no agreement was reached. The swap idea was just a proposal to make the deal more attractive.

President Obama, however, introduced the idea of “1967 lines with mutually-agreed swaps” as a firm basis for negotiation in 2011. This represents a significant shift away from UNSC 242, by requiring compensation for land across the Green Line that becomes part of Israel. It implies that the PLO has title to this land now, and must be paid for whatever Israel takes. But this is sheer nonsense: Jordan could not bequeath to the PLO what it didn’t possess, either de facto or de jure.

Obama, unfortunately, is not a student of history but an ideologue; and the ideology that appeals to him is that of the “plight of the Palestinian people,” about which he has been talking since his Cairo speech in 2009. And he has chosen to take action in the last days of his administration to make the diplomatic landscape fit that ideology.

The position that all land across the Green Line is “Palestinian land” has now been formalized in UNSC resolution 2334, passed in December when the US did not veto it, and which the Israeli government believes was actually “created” by the Obama Administration. Note that while the resolution affirms UNSC 242, it goes on to contradict the long-held Western interpretation of it.

Much of the erosion of Israel’s position can be laid at her own feet. She should have been more aggressive about claiming her rights early on. But I think that today – before the second shoe of the pair that includes UNSC 2334 drops – Israel should make a clear statement of her rights to the land, something like this:

Israel believes that her claim to Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, based on the Mandate for Palestine and her historical claim of aboriginal rights [explicated here by Allen Hertz] to the Land of Israel, is stronger than that of any other claimant. Israel would be within her rights to annex these areas today.

Israel categorically rejects UNSC 2334 and the idea that she does not hold title to all of the land in question.

Nevertheless, Israel has on several occasions been willing to cede some of the land in return for a real peace agreement that ends the conflict and cancels all Arab claims (including right of return) against Israel.

However, any such agreement must, in the words of UNSC 242, provide for “secure and recognized boundaries,” which include continued Israeli possession of certain strategic areas like the Jordan Valley and the hill country adjacent to Israel’s population centers.

Israel’s security is also not consistent with a fully sovereign Palestinian entity. Such an entity must be demilitarized and Israel must retain control of airspace and other strategic features of the territory.

The PLO would never agree, since this directly contradicts its narrative. But it’s the truth.

Go for it, Bibi.





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Wednesday, January 11, 2017


How's this for a stunner? According to the latest Peace Index,* a poll of Israeli attitudes put out by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) and Tel Aviv University (TAU), the majority of Israelis (57%) think Barack Obama has had an unfriendly attitude toward Israel during his tenure. Of course, the IDI and TAU are both bastions of liberal thought, so you can probably assume the actual number of Israelis who think Barry hates us is closer to, oh, a gazillion percent.
It's no surprise that we think Barry O. hates us here in Israel. It is kind of surprising, however, when you look at what Israelis think about the by now, infamous abstention on UNSC Resolution 2334. One might have thought that the IDI and TAU, being slanted so far left they're in danger of falling over, would find a way to skew their poll so that it attributes the motivating force behind the resolution to settlement construction.
But no.
The majority of Israelis polled, (52.9%), as it turns out, are certain the resolution was all about hostility toward Israel, rather than any principled stand on settlement construction. And since that is the case, some 62% (!!!) of Israelis polled feel that in light of the Security Council resolution, we should "continue" building homes in "the territories." Which is a funny thing to say, considering there hasn't been any settlement construction to speak of under PM Netanyahu, except for some (inadequate) natural growth expansion. Obama has made sure of that.
Still, it's nigh impossible to get 62% of Israelis to agree on anything at all, so let's look a bit closer at the number of Israelis who think we should Build Baby, Build.
89% of those on the right say Israel should keep building
83% of moderate right Israelis say Israel should keep building
45% of the center says Israel should keep building
21% of moderate left Israelis say Israel should keep building
15% of the left says Israel should keep building
That final figure (15%!!) kind of jumps out and makes one wonder what prompts that many leftist, anti-settlement, pro-two-state-solution, land-for-peacenik Israelis to favor building in the territories. Could it be that Security Council Resolution 2334, or perhaps the U.S. abstention of same, finally brought home (if you'll excuse the expression) to them that when the UN and Barack Obama speak of "territories," they don't just mean Judea and Samaria, but Jerusalem, and probably Haifa, Tel Aviv, Beersheba, and all parts in between?
It would be nice to think so. Because fixing problems always begins with a frank assessment of the problem. Part of that problem is the blame game.
The Israeli left traditionally blames settlers for the lack of peace in the region. This belief was the driving force behind Disengagement. The left needed a scapegoat. They needed to punish someone. The settlers were "It." All 11,000 of them. That is the number of Jews expelled from Gaza and Northern Samaria in order to make Disengagement possible.
Expelling those settlers made the left very happy. It made them cheer. But the thing is, all of us can see the results of Disengagement. All of us can see what happens when you boot out the settlers and give the land they made bloom to the Arabs. You get Hamastan on your border. You get tens of thousands of rockets shot from the land you gave them into the part you still have. You get terror tunnels invading your kibbutzim.
The left is beginning to see these simple truths. That the only answer to a world that doesn't want Jews to build homes in Israel—the land promised to the Jews—is for Jews to build homes in Israel.
Building homes won't stop the terror. Not altogether. But it will make a dent in that terror. Because it's giving an inch that makes them attack you until you give them a mile. The more you give, the more they will demand, the harder and more cruelly they will attack you. That's just the way it is.
It has always been thus.
Building, on the other hand, says, "No. We're not going away. We're digging in our heels."
Now most Israelis (71%) believe that under the Trump administration, Israel will have a free hand in this renewed desire to build the land of Israel. Or at least, we won't have anyone tying our hands to keep us from doing so. Even the Arabs believe this (81%). They know that when Obama goes, there goes the constraints, the blackmail, the nasty lashing out at Israel. They know that no one in the White House is going to get in the way of Jewish building now that Barry's going away for good.
It's all so close and yet so far away. The dream of a racist Judenrein Arab state on Jewish soil may yet be declared in Paris before Obama's timeline runs out. But it will matter little to how we run our affairs in Israel. We know it and the Arabs know it, too. Jews are gonna build homes in their homeland, because they can and they will.
We'll keep on building because there is nothing wrong with Jews building homes and everything right. Unless you're Obama and the UN Security Council. And there is this sense that these two entities have had their day in the sun and that this particular sun is waning. They will hurt us all they can and then they will render themselves completely irrelevant as the world begins to understand that their hate is just hate. Even if it's Jew-hate.
It's going to happen. People will see that homes are just buildings and that it is terror, not buildings, that prevents peace. All over the world, they will awaken and see it.
There may be some blips along the way. But we can smell truth dawning, getting ready to sit pretty in the sunshine and put some color in its cheeks.
And it's only a week and counting until it happens.
*From the IDI press release: The Peace Index is a project of the Evens Program for Mediation and Conflict Resolution at Tel Aviv University and the Guttman Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research of the Israel Democracy Institute. This month's survey was conducted by telephone on January 2 and 3, 2017, by the Midgam Research Institute. The survey included 600 respondents (500 Jews, 100 Arabs), who constitute a representative national sample of the adult population aged 18 and over. The maximum measurement error for the entire sample is ±4.1% at a confidence level of 95%.



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