Daniel Pipes: Why Palestinians Need an Israel Victory
How to escape this 25-year dead end?Inside Israel: Digital Warriors Gather in Jerusalem
The study of history shows that wars typically conclude not through negotiations but through defeat and victory. According to the military historian Victor Hanson, "Conflicts throughout history become serial when an enemy is not utterly defeated and is not forced to submit to the political conditions of the victor." Defeat means giving up war ambitions. Victory means successfully imposing one's will on the enemy.
It's a simple, universal truth that Palestinians well understand. In July 2017, Fatah declared that the "campaign for Jerusalem has effectively begun and will not stop until a Palestinian victory and the release of the holy sites from Israeli occupation." Nor are they alone; thinkers and warriors in all eras concur on victory as the goal of warfare. For example, the ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu wrote "Let your great object be victory." U.S. general Douglas MacArthur stated that "It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it." Victory is an intuitive human goal that only overly-sophisticated moderns could lose sight of.
Therefore, to gain Palestinian acceptance, Israel must return to its old policy of deterrence, of punishing Palestinians severely when they aggress. One example: When three family members were murdered in July 2017 while sitting down to Sabbath dinner in the Israeli West Bank town of Halamish, the Israeli response should have been to construct new buildings in Halamish and extend its boundaries.
That's deterrence; it's more than tough tactics, which Israeli governments already pursue; it means developing consistent policies to break rejectionism and encourage Palestinian acceptance of Israel. It implies a strategy to crush irredentist Palestinian ambitions so as finally to end the demonizing of Jews and Israel, recognize historic Jewish ties to Jerusalem, "normalize" relations with Israelis, close the suicide factories, and shutter the entire machinery of warfare. This process will be neither easy nor quick: it requires Palestinians to suffer the bitter crucible of defeat, with its attendant deprivation, destruction, and despair. Unfortunately, there is no shortcut.
A change of heart implies, not just a permanent absence of violence against Israelis but shutting down completely, everywhere from the United Nations to the university campus, the Palestinian-driven campaign of delegitimizing Israel.
If Palestinian defeat is good for Israel, it is ironically even better for Palestinians, who will finally be liberated from ugly ambitions, revolutionary rhetoric, and genocidal fantasies. An educated and skilled people can then improve its life by building its polity, economy, society, and culture. Think of this as a miniature version of post-1945 Germany. And if diplomacy is now premature, issues such as Jerusalem, borders, and resources can be fruitfully discussed after a Palestinian defeat. The two-state solution, an absurdity at present (it means asking Israel to strengthen its mortal enemy) will make good sense after a Palestinian defeat.
T here is no such thing as an armchair warrior.”
That admonition — to get involved and not consign yourself to sitting and carping — was repeated over and over in different ways by participants at the first-of-its-kind #DigiTell18 Conference, hosted by Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy. The aim of the conference, held at Jerusalem’s YMCA Hotel, was to bring together 60 activists from 15 countries on six continents, all of whom are on the front lines in the battle against anti-Israel bias and disinformation on the Internet.
Among the participants were some of the biggest names in Jewish digital media, including blogger “Elder of Zion,” who works anonymously — and intensively — on behalf of Israel; others represented global organizations like Stand With Us, a pro-Israel advocacy group. What united them all was a shared commitment to counter anti-Semitism and its contemporary version, anti-Zionism, on social media, and to protect Jews in Israel and the world over. The stories they shared served as proof that work in the digital room can bring about positive changes.
For instance, one participant related how he shamed a restaurant owner into dropping his anti-Israel business practices. When the restaurateur posted an “Israelis not served here” sign in his window, this digital warrior publicized the story, leading thousands of people to give this restaurant a one-star rating on its social media page. As a result, the restaurant’s ratings dropped from 5 to 1.5. After a local journalist picked up the story, the owner removed the sign, though he never apologized. In this way, thousands of people around the globe created change with their keyboards.
Another participant, a high-school student from Holland, described how he and his friends succeeded not only in preventing the appearance of Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh at a BDS-sponsored event in Amsterdam, but also at several other locations. Odeh, who is responsible for the murder of two Israeli students in 1969, served jail time in Israel, and then lied about it on her immigration application in the US. As a result, she was recently deported from the United States. The BDS movement is now using her as a featured speaker around the world to spread anti-Israel hate.
David Collier: Now the Labour party attack Jewish festivals, as Passover celebration is mutilated
An attack on the Jewish religion:
What has any of this got to do with the religion? Isn’t JVL simply an ‘anti-Zionist’ movement? Firstly, it is important to remember a simple lesson. Never believe a word that JVL says. They claim they are not even anti-Zionist at all, except everyone there wants to see Zionism, and Israel, taken apart. To gain any acceptance by left leaning Jews at all, they spin lines about ‘having trouble with Israeli policy’. With the media they feign moderation. It is little more than a masking exercise, and this week they were unmasked again. This time not over Israel, but Judaism.
In six days Jewish people across the world will be sitting down to celebrate Passover. It is an important, ‘biblically derived‘ festival. It is one of the most important dates in the Hebrew calendar. Jews all over the world are currently engaging in a ‘spring clean’ in preparation, and on Friday night will read the story of the Exodus from Egypt in a text called the Haggadah.
A few days ago, Jewish Voice for Labour uploaded a replacement text onto their website. The entire version is available for download on the internet.
In total it is fourteen pages long and last night I went through it. It is an attack on Jewish tradition, Jewish prayer, Jewish culture and the Jewish religion. It makes a mockery of one of the most important dates in the Jewish calendar. This is reproduced for the masses by a group inside the Labour Party that claims it represents Jews. What has Zionism got to do with a Jewish festival? Why can’t Jews sit down as they have always done, and celebrate a religious festival like everyone else? Why is our basic identity under attack? These are the tags, that JVL chose to use to place it on their website