The most important lesson Yitzhak Rabin taught us
For me personally, the most profound and enlightening statement former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin ever made about Israel is that it "must fight terror as if there is no peace, and make peace as if there is no terror."A Symbolic Consulate in Jerusalem-What will the dilettantes think of next?
In his characteristically laconic way, the war hero and tragic victim of radical politics gave our nation a guiding principle by which to follow.
Israel, however, finds itself sandwiched between a corrupt Palestinian Authority administration in Ramallah — masquerading as representatives of the Palestinian people — and the theocratic extremist regime of Hamas, sitting on endless stockpiles of guns, rockets, explosives and bodies to throw into the fray.
The aftershock of Rabin's assassination and the subsequent collapse of peace talks between the Jewish state and the Palestinians have put Israeli leaders on the defensive, unwilling to accept even the smallest overture or possibility that one day, God forbid, both parties might sit together in the same room and talk about anything other than security issues.
So now that peace is no longer an option, fighting terror is the only thing that matters.
But Rabin understood something very fundamental about the two sides of this conflict — without peace, there is only terror. If both sides do not show any willingness to talk, the radicals would rise up and take control.
Both Israel and the Palestinians have decided that the dangerous and bloody status quo is good enough for them.
Israel continues to occupy the West Bank and blockade the Gaza Strip because there presently seems to be no other way to maintain security, while Fatah enjoys international recognition for perpetuating the suffering of its people and Hamas draws the sword of Jihad and death.
As improbable as it may seem, the US State Department proposes to open a Consulate in the heart of Jerusalem dedicated to serving the PA and its exclusively non-Jewish, so-called Palestinian residents, of the areas in Judea and Samaria, governed by the PA.
Why not open the Consulate in Ramallah, where the PA maintains its government offices? It makes no rational sense to open a Consulate to the PA in what amounts to a foreign country. Moreover, apparently, the approximately 60,000 US citizens who live in Judea and Samaria (including parts of Jerusalem beyond the so-called Green Line) who are Jewish would effectively be excluded.
Besides being invidious discrimination of the most sordid variety, it is hard to imagine why the US would actually reward the PA for being Judenrein, including their jailing those convicted of violating their noxious laws prohibiting the sale land to a Jew. Is this ‘Jim Crow’-like paradigm the new policy of choice of the State Department?
The whole notion of opening a separate official Consulate office outside of the regular US Embassy in a country is for the purpose of serving as a convenience to US citizens and other legitimate US business purposes in a foreign country. Why then open a Consulate in a location that is not convenient for the intended constituency to be served?
Palestinian official: "We don't want a US consulate in Ramallah or Abu Dis. The consulate has to be in the occupied city of Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Palestine."
— Khaled Abu Toameh (@KhaledAbuToameh) October 19, 2021
Noah Rothman: The Rising Terror Threat Is Another Consequence of the Afghanistan Debacle
Perhaps. But why now? Domestic and international law enforcement have identified a conspicuous uptick in chatter among aspiring terrorist actors linked to the Taliban’s successful reconquest of Afghanistan. “That’s where they see this rallying cry and their opportunity. Now it’s ‘time to buy a gun, run people over with a car,’ do whatever they’re going to do,” one FBI official told Defense One reporter Jaqueline Feldscher.
Among those who might be enthralled by terroristic violence but find the Taliban uninspiring, the revivified Islamic State presents an attractive alternative. “ISIL has unmistakably positioned itself as the uncompromising rejectionist force in Afghanistan and has the potential to recruit quite a lot of people on that basis,” the FBI official continued. “You may see ISIS grow significantly in Afghanistan.”
Indeed, you’re likely to see every manner of radical Islamist organization enjoy a recruiting boom, particularly inside Afghanistan. That became apparent to foreign intelligence agencies mere hours after the collapse of the Afghan government. “Foreign intelligence officials said they are detecting signs that the Taliban’s victory has energized global jihadists,” the Washington Post reported one day after the fall of Kabul.
Although the ideological distinctions between groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State matter a great deal to Westerners, they don’t seem to preoccupy those inclined toward violence as long as violence is the result. “God willing,” on al-Qaeda militant quoted by the Post said, “the success of the Taliban will be also a chance to unify mujahideen movements like al-Qaeda and Daesh.” Just as the Islamic State’s short-lived caliphate in Syria and Iraq inspired acts of self-radicalized terrorism all across the globe, the reestablishment of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is likely to have the same effect.
As former National Counterterrorism Director Michael Leiter wrote recently, the U.S. and its allies “have made incredible strides” in the struggle against Islamic radicalism since 9/11. We are “vastly safer” now “than we were the last time the Taliban ruled Afghanistan.” But that didn’t happen by accident. It was an unfinished labor involving the development of local informants, friendly governments, actionable intelligence, and, of course, well-placed military assets capable of executing kinetic operations in a timely manner.