Life in the Stone Age

Posted on January 2, 2022 by Victor Rosenthal

Almost every day that passes sees attempts to murder Jews, because they are Jews. Some of these can even be called attempts at mass murder. No, I am not only talking about rockets launched from the Gaza strip and aimed at Israeli towns and cities. I am referring to something which almost never makes the news outside of Israel, and often goes unmentioned even here: what I have called “smalltime terrorism,” which includes firebomb and rock-throwing attacks against Jews.

If you think rock-throwing is only an annoyance, watch the video here and think about this: a rock thrown from an oncoming vehicle at one in the opposing lane strikes its target at a velocity equal to the sum of the speeds of the two vehicles, plus whatever the thrower adds to it, less a bit due to air resistance. So a rock thrown at you from a car traveling at 100 km/h (60 mph) may hit your windshield at more than 200 km/h. Let’s say the rock is 10 cm (4.1”) in diameter; it will weigh nearly 1.5 kg, or more than 3 pounds. A brick could weigh twice as much.

Such a projectile is a deadly weapon which can smash through safety glass. Even if it does not also smash your skull or crush your chest, even if it misses you entirely, it can cause you to swerve off the road, as happened to Asher Palmer and his 1-year old son Yonatan, who were murdered by Arab rock-throwers.

But what if your vehicle is a bus with 30-50 passengers? What if you are a bus driver that has to fear every oncoming car day (and especially night) in and day out? Some of the roads are narrow, with unforgiving drop-offs or rocks on either side. Last night, two buses were attacked in this way, and only sheer luck (or a miracle) prevented a tragedy. Attempted mass murder.

Throwing stones at Jews has a long history, especially in the Muslim-Arab world. Edward Said, the Palestinian-American intellectual famous for the book Orientalism, symbolically (or ineffectually) threw a stone in the direction of Israeli soldiers at the Lebanese border. It is probably the most popular form of anti-Jewish terrorism practiced by Palestinian Arabs, since it is cheap, easy, and can be practiced by terrorists of any age. Sometimes Arab terrorists build barriers in the middle of a road to force cars to stop, and then attack them with rocks before trying to drag the occupants out and beat or kill them.

The Jewish state was created so that Jews would not have to live among cultures where the of stoning Jews is an everyday occurrence. Or, for that matter, stabbing them, shooting them, or running over them with cars. But that’s what Jews face here today. And they are expected to not defend themselves. So far this month four Palestinian Arabs have been killed by Israeli soldiers or police while attempting to commit murder, or immediately after. Palestinian officials are outraged. How dare we? They are supposed to kill us, not the reverse.

The problem is the same one that the Jewish people faced after they left Egypt and found their way to the Land of Israel. It is one that has beset human tribes since there were human tribes: the need to truly possess our land and repel those that want to take it from us. The ancient and elemental nature of the struggle is demonstrated by the fact that it is partly fought with stones, the oldest of weapons.

A solution to this problem will not be found in the realm of high technology, nor in the halls of diplomacy or international law. We will not get it from the Americans along with F-35s. It will begin with the understanding that it is our land, from the river to the sea (as the Arabs are fond of saying), and that it is the mission and the responsibility of the Jewish people to populate it, and to rule it. It is our ambiguity about this mission that allows our enemies to become strong enough to think that they can prevail.

Posted in Israel and Palestinian Arabs, Jew Hatred | 1 Comment

How Not to Treat an Enemy

Posted on December 30, 2021 by Victor Rosenthal

News item:

Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced on Wednesday that Israel would implement a series of measures intended to prop up the indebted Palestinian Authority and ease Palestinians’ daily life. …

Israel will provide the PA with a NIS 100 million loan ($32.2 million) on tax revenues Israel collects on Ramallah’s behalf, in an attempt to reduce the PA’s spiraling deficit. Ramallah, the PA’s seat of government, has seen dwindling foreign aid for years, and almost none from its biggest backers in 2021. …

According to another Israel official, Gantz told Abbas that a series of economic measures are being weighed, including lowering fees for purchasing fuel and a pilot program to allow shipping containers to enter the West Bank from Jordan via Allenby Bridge.

Such steps “would likely add hundreds of millions of shekels to the Palestinian Authority on an annual basis,” said Gantz, according to the official. …

Gantz and Abbas, in their Tuesday meeting, also discussed legalizing more Palestinian construction in the West Bank.

As you probably know, the Knesset passed a law in 2018 that requires Israel to deduct a sum equivalent to the amount that the PA pays to convicted terrorists in Israeli prisons and to the families of “martyrs” from tax revenues collected on behalf of the PA. This loan and an even larger one (500 million NIS) given to the PA in August partially neutralizes the law. It’s hard to see how Israel can complain about the Biden Administration circumventing its own law against the PA’s “pay to slay” program, when her government does the same thing.

The article I’ve quoted from above does not mention anything that the PA will do for Israel in return. Will they end “pay for slay?” If they had wanted to, they could have done so long ago and would not need to accept “loans” (which I am prepared to eat my hat if they repay). But the leaders of the PA, from Mahmoud Abbas on down, have consistently said that if there is only one penny left in their treasury, it will go to the prisoners.

What about incitement of terrorism? The PA actually committed to end incitement, back in the days of Yasser Arafat. Of course, as you probably know, they never did this, continuing to honor terrorists in their schools and media, and to name sporting events after them. PA officials claim regularly that Israel is planning to destroy or defile the al-Aqsa mosque, creating riots and inspiring terrorism. Incitement continued after the 500 million shekel “loan” in August, and there is no indication that it will stop now.

Improving the daily life of the Palestinians by fattening the PA is a joke, as any resident of the PA will tell you. The last thing they do with their resources is to help their citizens (except for a few “connected” ones).

So why is Israel giving cash and other concessions to the PA? The stated reason is that it is necessary to strengthen the PA; if it collapses, the territories are expected to fall into the hands of Hamas, which would turn it into a launching platform for rockets next door to Tel Aviv.

One might think that the best solution to that problem would be to weaken Hamas, rather than strengthening the PA. But our government is also concerned about protecting Hamas, which, if it collapsed, might be replaced by worse organizations, like Palestinian Islamic Jihad or even ISIS. So Israel permits the introduction of millions of dollars from Qatar in order to prop up Hamas.

There is something very wrong here. The PA and Hamas tell us in no uncertain terms that they want us to disappear. They do so in language as bad or worse than that of the Nazis. And they try to kill our citizens, with rockets and knives and bullets. Our response is to try to restrain them from killing us (doing the least collateral damage possible), and pay them. Has this ever been the way a nation successfully defended itself against its enemies?

This is also the way we deal with Hezbollah. Yes, we attack shipments of advanced weapons from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon via Syria; but some get through on the ground, by air, and by sea. Little by little Hezbollah builds up its deterrent against us.

I am naïve, I am told. I don’t understand the realities of the complex situation. We need to gain time so that we can deal with Iran. The US and Europe will punish us if we act aggressively. The status quo, in which we buy a small, manageable amount of terrorism, is actually the best situation we can hope for. And so on.

We are giving in to extortion: from the PA and Hamas, but also from the anti-Israel regimes in the US and Europe. We are taking the easy course, which results in a slow degredation of our strategic position, against Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran. Our defensive, protective, strategy, which includes antimissile systems, physical barriers, interdiction of weapons shipments, as well as payments to our local enemies, is a strategy for buying time and avoiding confrontation. But it does not permanently weaken our enemies; indeed, it preserves them.

Are we waiting for some external event to come along and reverse the decline of our strategic position? Maybe a revolution in Iran? I wouldn’t hold my breath. A miracle is always welcome, but counting on one is a poor strategy. If things continue as they are now, a point will be reached when our enemies feel that they are in a position to prevail, and at that point will trigger open conflict. This was the essence of the plan described by Yasser Arafat in 1974, and it has only changed in detail since then.

There is also the psychological damage from this policy. For example, what is the message sent to the PA, when we pay them for quiet and they return antisemitic incitement against us? Does it not justify their behavior, in their minds and in the minds of their supporters around the world? The propaganda campaigns paint us as oppressors, land thieves, people who don’t belong here. Payments are construed as compensation, reparations to our victims.

A better strategy is an aggressive policy to weaken and destroy our enemies, one at a time if possible. It would be much more convenient to deal with Hezbollah if we didn’t have to worry about Hamas opening a second front; and similarly with the PA. And it goes without saying that Iran depends on Hezbollah to deter us from striking their nuclear project.

So why are we trying to avoid conflict with all of them? And why are we strengthening them?

Posted in Israel and Palestinian Arabs, War | 2 Comments

The UN Declares War on Israel

Posted on December 26, 2021 by Victor Rosenthal

If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.
– Abba Eban

“Off with her head!” the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved.
“Who cares for you” said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by this time.) “You’re nothing but a pack of cards!”
— Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

The so-called “United Nations” has reached a new low in its descent from an idealistic organization dedicated to humanizing the behavior of nations, into a massive scam operation whose only consistent objective, aside from the enrichment of its employees, is the destruction of the Jewish state.

In an email sent on 24 December, longtime UN watchdog Anne Bayefsky wrote,

Two and a half hours ago the UN General Assembly’s budget committee (a committee of the whole, i.e. composed of all 193 member states) decided to fund a new “Commission of Inquiry” established by the UN Human Rights Council that is intended to emasculate the state of Israel. Without exaggeration, it is the most hostile and dangerous anti-Israel body the UN has ever created. It will decide Israel is guilty of apartheid, validate and unleash criminal prosecutions of Israelis, significantly magnify pressure on “third states” and “business enterprises” to engage in BDS, and insist on an arms embargo against Israel. It is permanent in duration. It will have 18 permanent UN staff funded by the regular budget – which means 22% of it will come from American taxpayers, create an in-house legal bureau to seek criminal charges against members of the IDF and the highest echelons of the Israeli government (“command responsibility”). The three members of the “Inquiry” have been appointed – and all have public records of extreme anti-Israel animus. Notorious supporter of Durban and the Goldstone report – former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay – is the Chair. The first report of the “Inquiry” is due in June 2022.

The commission will “investigate” Israel’s actions during the May 2021 war with Hamas. This 11-day warlet was initiated by Hamas, which fired some 4,260 rockets at Israeli towns and cities, as well as provoking anti-Jewish riots in cities with mixed Arab and Jewish populations. Israel’s response, as always, was primarily defensive, and also as always, undertook to keep damage to civilians and their property to a minimum. But like the tendentious and ultimately discredited Goldstone Report on the 2008-2009 Gaza war, this commission will certainly rely on “findings” generated by anti-Israel NGOs based on “data” provided by organs of Hamas, and will determine that Israel acted from motives of racism with genocidal intent.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that one of the primary motivations of Hamas for provoking conflict with Israel is to be able to generate material that can be used to attack Israel in international political and legal forums. The intent is to cause the nations of the world to treat Israel as it did apartheid South Africa, with boycotts, divestment, and sanctions, as well as to initiate criminal proceedings against Israeli leaders and military officers. In addition to the direct economic damage that could be done by this program, the propaganda effect would be to deter even friendly nations from supporting Israel in the event she is attacked by her enemies.

The ultimate goal – of both Hamas and the UN – is not to change Israel’s behavior. It is to end its existence as a Jewish state.

Bayefsky described the Commission and its objectives here and here. She notes that it is “unprecedented in its funding, staffing, and permanence.” It will cost almost $12 million in its first three years, and almost $5.5 million in each succeeding year. It will have three times as many staff members than were charged with investigating North Korea in 2013 (and those were temporary – this commission has no end date). She adds,

The Israel inquisition is the largest boondoggle in the history of the UN human rights system: it will fund 790 days of travel for experts and staff every year from 2022 on – forever. Those are two UN employees provided food and accommodation and airfare to roam around demonizing the Jewish state every day of every year. That is also more travel days than any of the Council’s current human rights investigations about anything, anywhere.

This is far more dangerous than the Goldstone report (and not only because they are not taking any chances by appointing someone with a conscience to head it, as happened with Richard Goldstone). In effect, the UN is creating a permanent diplomatic, political, and legal army to do battle with Israel, forever.

Bayefsky’s suggestion for a response is that Israel and her supporters should submit evidence to the commission that describes the myriad instances of incitement, terrorism, racism, antisemitism, and violations of international law by Hamas and the PLO. But I am not so sure. There comes a point at which cooperation with a clearly biased enterprise legitimizes it. One of the Trump Administration’s greatest gifts to Israel was its departure from the UN Human Rights Council, probably the single most anti-Israel part of the UN, which produced 14 anti-Israel resolutions this year (compared to five for the entire rest of the world), and which proposed the new Commission of Inquiry. Naturally, the Biden Administration has rejoined it.

It’s often said that Israel has no choice except to be part of this corrupt institution, because being outside of it would be worse. Maybe not. The UN, which was originally created to stop wars and genocides, has never succeeded in doing that. Today, at least in the case of Israel, it actually makes such things more likely, rather than less. It may be time for Israel to stop pretending that the UN has any legitimacy or any moral standing, and leave the organization; time for Israel to “grow to her full size” like Alice, and expose the UN as the corrupt, racist, antisemitic institution that it is.

Posted in The UN | 5 Comments

Remembering the Sbarro Massacre

Posted on December 23, 2021 by Victor Rosenthal

In my previous blog I wrote incorrectly that 16 Israelis were murdered in the 2001 Sbarro Restaurant bombing, with one victim remaining unconscious only to die later.

The truth is that 15 died in the explosion or immediately after, and 130 were injured, some of them very seriously. A 31-year old woman named Chana Nachenberg, who was there with Sarah, her toddler daughter, suffered a traumatic brain injury from one of the pieces of shrapnel in the bomb, and entered what doctors call a “persistent vegetative state.” Chana is still alive 20 years later, and still unresponsive. Her daughter Sarah was one of the few at the location who escaped unhurt.

A person in a vegetative state has some brain function, but is not able to communicate. Sometimes they recover, but the longer they have been in this condition, the less likely it becomes. Are they in any sense aware? Nobody knows, but I hope not. Here is something Sarah wrote about her mother some years ago. Twenty years is a long time, the length of a generation. Think about what happened in your life in the past 20 years. Today Sarah has a daughter of her own.

I was informed of my error by Arnold Roth, who lost his daughter Malki in the bombing. Malki was 15, and had gone to Sbarro’s for pizza with a friend, Michal Raziel. Both girls were among the murder victims. Several years ago I met Arnold for lunch in Jerusalem, and as we walked back along Jaffa Road toward his car and the bus station, I suddenly realized that we were at the corner with King George St. where the Sbarro restaurant had been. There is a plaque at the location with the names of the victims on it. I could only imagine what Arnold was feeling.

Since Malki’s death, Arnold and his wife Frimet have taken on two tasks. One is to help provide home care alternatives for disabled children, and to this end they established the Keren Malki Foundation in her name. The other is to get justice for their daughter, one of whose murderers walks free.

The Sbarro bombing was one of the most horrifying episodes of the Second Intifada, when Palestinian suicide bombers exploded on almost a daily basis in buses, restaurants, markets, and railroad and bus stations. The attack was planned by Ahlam Tamimi, then a 20-year old journalism student who chose the location and accompanied a suicide bomber, Izz al-Din Shuheil al-Masri to the restaurant. Al-Masri carried a guitar case containing 5-10 kg. of explosive and hundreds of nails and other shrapnel. Tamimi left him there and returned to Ramallah, where she had a part-time job as a TV news presenter, and reported on the attack to her Palestinian audience. A remarkably cold killer, Tamimi later smiled broadly and thanked Allah when an interviewer noted that she had killed seven children, and not just three as she had thought. She has said that she is not sorry for what she did and would do it again.

Tamimi was sentenced to 16 consecutive life sentences, and the bomb-maker, Hamas commander Abdullah Barghouti, to 67 (!) of them for his role in multiple murders. But in 2011 when the Israeli government foolishly agreed to trade 1027 convicted terrorists for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, Tamimi was among them. She was released and deported to Jordan, where she was given a job on Jordanian TV and became a media celebrity. Frimet Roth wrote then that the release and hero’s welcome of Ahlam Tamimi made her feel as though her daughter were being murdered a second time.

Chana Nachenberg, Malki Roth, and another victim, Shoshana Hayman Greenbaum – who was pregnant – all had American citizenship, and the US has demanded Tamimi’s extradition, in part due to the efforts of Arnold and Frimet Roth. But Jordan refuses to honor its extradition treaty, probably because the king fears the reaction of his subjects. Apparently American officials agree with him, because they haven’t tried to force him to give her up, despite her position on the FBI’s list of most wanted terrorists.

In the last few weeks there has been an uptick in Palestinian terrorism against Israelis. There have been stabbings, car rammings, an attempted mass shooting (only one death, thanks to quick police reaction), and the recent ambush of a car carrying yeshiva students, which resulted in the death of one of them. And of course, there is also the “background noise” of daily rock-throwing and firebomb attacks which don’t make the news, even in Israel, unless a terrorist gets lucky and kills someone. We get used to all of this, and perhaps don’t think about the suffering of the terror victims and their families. And we don’t dare ask ourselves what it must be like to be as full of hate as Ahlam Tamimi.

One thing that we do know is that Palestinian terrorism is more than just an expression of rage; it is a targeted act with a specific objective. Terrorists and their supporters believe that they can make life here unbearable for Jews, who will pack up and “go back where they came from.”

This is a remarkable mistake for Palestinians, who are usually relatively clever and resourceful. Very few Israeli Jews have a place to go “back” to; certainly Mizrachi Jews are not welcome in North Africa, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and so on. Nor do the descendants of Jews displaced or murdered in the Holocaust, nor the children of those who came from Eastern Europe and the Russian Empire prior to WWII. I doubt that Russia would welcome former Soviet Jews, either. But even those from Western countries, like the Roths, are not going anywhere, despite the pain, sometimes felt very personally, of terrorism.

Israel is not a colony, and it is not a temporary arrangement. The land is soaked in Jewish blood, and the Jewish people have taken root in it. The idea that they can be dislodged by Palestinian terrorism, either the organized kind coming from Hamas or the random acts of hatred by “lone wolf terrorists” is ludicrous. All the terrorists can do is provoke a reaction – one that may ultimately lead to their expulsion in a second Nakba.

Posted in Israel and Palestinian Arabs, Terrorism | 3 Comments

Where Do You Think We Live?

Posted on December 19, 2021 by Victor Rosenthal

I’ve been writing regularly for fifteen years, and to my very great sorrow, there is one story that I find myself writing over and over. Here is the 19 December 2021 version:

On Thursday night, three yeshiva students were riding in a car near Homesh, which is in Samaria northwest of Shechem (the site of the biblical story of the rape of Dina and the “disproportionate” reaction of her brothers Shimon and Levi). Arab terrorists fired on the car from ambush with automatic weapons, killing Yehuda Dimentman, 25 years old, married and the father of an 9-month old child, and wounding two others.

Last night, the terrorists that carried out the attack and those that helped them were arrested in a joint operation of the IDF, the Border Police, and the Shabak (general security agency). What this usually means is that they were taken into custody by a special unit of the Border Police known as the Yamam, on intelligence provided by the Shabak, with security support from the IDF.

The process of identifying, locating, and capturing terrorists has been developed to an extent probably unmatched anywhere else in the world. The technological and operational abilities of Israel’s security forces are extraordinary. But after this point, Israel’s ability to deal with terrorism falls apart.

When Yamam operators call out a terror suspect, there are several possible outcomes. Sometimes they surrender (one officer told me that “sometimes the tough terrorists cry for their mothers”), and sometimes they open fire. Almost invariably, the latter scenario ends with the terrorists dead and the officers unhurt. The officers are extremely professional and don’t shoot when it isn’t necessary. Lately it seems that the terrorists have come to understand that, and give up peacefully.

And then? Yehuda Dimentman is dead, his wife is a young widow and his child does not have a father. His murderers will be tried, convicted and sent to prison, probably with life sentences. This usually will be reduced to 20-25 years, with eligibility for parole after two-thirds of the sentence has been served (multiple murderers usually get multiple consecutive life sentences). This, of course, assumes that there is no “prisoner exchange” – which would better be called a ransoming of hostages – beforehand.

There have been several such exchanges, with the best known being the 2011 trade of 1027 Arab prisoners for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. One of the released prisoners was Ahlam al-Tamimi, who masterminded the 2001 Sbarro Pizza bombing in which 17 Israelis died and numerous others were injured. Tamimi was sentenced to 16 life sentences (one of her victims died only recently). Although she is wanted for murder by the US (several of her victims were American citizens), Jordan refuses to honor its extradition treaty, and she remains free as a Jordanian media celebrity. Most security prisoners believe that they, too, will not need to finish their sentences.

While they are in prison, Arab security prisoners enjoy conditions far better than most Jewish criminals. They are housed together with other members of their factions, to avoid friction. Prison authorities allow the prisoners to be more or less autonomous, negotiating with the leaders of the factions – who are essentially the commanders of the terror groups – for the conditions in the prison. In the most disgraceful and embarrassing incident in the history of the Prison Service, female guards were deliberately ordered to work in areas near “important” prisoners who then sexually assaulted them.

As is well known, the Palestinian Authority (PA) pays generous salaries to the families of prisoners, with a sliding scale based on the length of their sentences. In the case of the bombing of the Sbarro Pizza parlor, as of 2019, mastermind Ahlam Tamimi, the family of suicide bomber Izz Al-Din Al-Masri, and bomb maker Abdullah Barghouti, had received a total of $910,823 for their bloody work. The payments haven’t stopped. Although the US passed a law – the Taylor Force Act, named after an American murdered by terrorists in Israel – the Biden Administration has resumed aid to the PA. And although the Israeli Knesset passed a similar law, requiring that the amount of such payments be deducted from tax revenues that Israel collects on behalf of the PA, the government decided to make up the amount deducted with a “loan” to the PA!

When terrorists are released, they return home to a hero’s welcome. The Palestinian media and school systems present them, especially the ones who were “martyred” in the commission of their acts, as examples for young people to follow. Indeed, dying while trying to murder Jews has become the most popular form of suicide for mentally unstable Arab teens or women who have “dishonored” their families and have no place to go.

Although the houses of terrorists are sometimes destroyed, the Supreme Court often refuses to allow house demolitions. And when it is allowed, the Palestinian Authority provides a new house. Attempts to expel the families of terrorists, take away work permits from relatives, or close roads to towns where terrorists live have been stymied by legal objections as “collective punishment.”

I ask our leaders and legal scholars: where do you think we live, in Scandinavia, Switzerland, or Canada? What message are we sending to the terrorists when we make their jail time as pleasant as possible, even including providing girls for them to abuse? What do they learn when we tell them that we refuse to finance terror, and then “loan” them $500 million to make up for payments withheld? The PA is in essence Fatah, the movement of Yasser Arafat, dedicated to our destruction. Hamas is radical Islamist movement, with the same objective. Why do we negotiate with them, transfer money for them, provide electricity and water for them, do anything at all except fight them and kill them?

Arab terrorists are attacking us on the roads on a daily basis, throwing large rocks and firebombs that can and have killed drivers and passengers, laying ambushes and trying to lynch us, and from time to time spraying us with bullets as happened to Yehuda Dimentman. They stab us in the streets of our capital city, claim our holy sites as their own, teach their children to murder, and always, above all, look for soft targets. This behavior is familiar to anyone who has read the Bible: it is the behavior of Amalek.

They are our enemies, but we have forgotten what an enemy is. We have forgotten that when you are faced with an enemy, you kill him or he kills you. It is not as complicated as people think. We are physically strong enough to win, to crush Hamas and the PLO, and expel them from our homeland. What we lack is the will, not only the will to crush our enemies for once and for all, but even the will to execute murderers and punish the families and clans that support them.

This isn’t Scandinavia, nor Switzerland, nor Canada. If we want to survive here, we need to regain the respect that we have lost as a result of our spiritual weakness. How do we do that? A step at a time. Start with executing terrorist murderers, then punish their families, their clans, their hometowns. Make terrorism more painful for them than for us. Respond disproportionately to provocations like rocket attacks. Don’t make threats that aren’t carried out. Above all, remember why we are here – and the consequences of giving up.

Posted in Terrorism | 5 Comments

A Message to our Arab Citizens

Posted on December 16, 2021 by Victor Rosenthal

A recent editorial in the Jerusalem Post views with alarm recent statements by some media and political personalities that the Post sees as advocating “ethnic cleansing.” For example, journalist/political consultant Itamar Fleischman remarked on the anti-Jewish riots that took place in several mixed Arab-Jewish cities in May, saying

The bottom line is that we have a situation in which Arabs forgot the Nakba. … And the solution is to remind them of the Nakba. We should tell them as soon as now that if they don’t start to come to their senses, and if they keep trying to murder our children, their next stop is beyond the Jordan River or in al-Yarmuk [refugee] camp in Syria.

Radio host and former MK Yinon Magal said something similar: “if you’ll keep killing Jews, we will exile you again.” And Betzalel Smotrich, MK and leader of the Religious Zionist party, spoke bluntly in response to anti-Zionist comments by Arab members of the Knesset:

I am not holding any conversations with you, you anti-Zionists. You are supporters of terror, enemies. You are [here] due to a mistake because [Israel’s first prime minister David] Ben-Gurion didn’t finish the job and throw you out in 1948.

The Post’s editorial writer said that such public statements “raised a red flag,” and that

The Jewish people should be particularly sensitive to such racist remarks. People who know firsthand the outcome of extreme racism should be the first to cry out when they witness or hear a form of institutionalized racism.

Arabs in Israel should not have to live in fear of possible expulsion. They are not terrorists, and the vast majority of them are ordinary law-abiding citizens who hate violence.

He added that “[t]he best way to quell Palestinian nationalism within Israel is to make Arab citizens feel that they belong.”

While I agree that the vast majority of Arab citizens of Israel are “ordinary law-abiding citizens who hate violence,” I disagree that the comments of Fleischman, Magal, and Smotrich were inappropriate. There is a real issue with the Arabs of Israel – leaving aside the Arabs of Judea/Samaria and Gaza – which is not going away, and can’t be made to go away by telling the Jews not to be “racist.”

What is the issue? First, it has nothing to do with “race,” and accusations of “racism” do not illuminate the problem. In a nutshell the conflict is a national one, over the historical question of to whom the Land of Israel belongs, and over who gets to determine the character of the state that is established here.

I’ve written enough about the competing narratives and I don’t want to go into them here. Obviously I believe that the existence of the Jewish state as the nation-state of the Jewish people is justified. That implies that Jews get to choose the flag, the national anthem, and other symbols of the state. And more practically, they can also choose immigration and citizenship policies that will lead to a continued Jewish majority.

Is this situation entirely “democratic?” That depends on your point of view. Yes, there is a Jewish majority which supports the continuation of the Law of Return for Jews, and does not want to change it to include the descendants of Arab refugees from 1948. But isn’t that law in itself anti-democratic? The Zionist answer to that question is that the Jewishness of the state takes priority over its other characteristics. The state strives to provide equal rights for all its citizens, but not at the cost of giving up its identity as a Jewish state. As a result, Jews in Israel have a different status than non-Jews: they are the owners of the state.

It’s impossible to finesse this issue. I myself wrote that there is no contradiction inherent in the formulation “a Jewish and democratic state,” because all citizens, Jews and Arabs, have full civil and political rights. That is true, as far as it goes. But it’s our country, not theirs.

The Arabs – and I think this includes virtually all Arab citizens of Israel – vehemently reject this, because in their historical narrative, they are the owners, and the Jews “stole” the land from them. Statements to this effect are regularly made by Arab members of the Knesset. So while most Arabs do not take part in violent attacks on Jews and Jewish property as happened in May, the idea that we can prevent such occurrences by “mak[ing] Arab citizens feel that they belong” is fantasy. They will not “belong” unless they are given ownership, and we are not going to do that.

Asking the Arabs to give up their narrative is a fool’s errand, and it would be wrong to try to brainwash them with our version of history, even if as a matter of fact it is correct. And if Israel’s Jews should give up their Zionism – as some on the Left would like – then the Jewish state will have failed, and will soon disappear into the mass of Arab states surrounding it.

What we should say to our Arab citizens is something like this: this is a Jewish state and you are a national and religious minority in it. You have all the civil and political rights of any citizen and will not be discriminated against. This is a free society with a free-market economy where you can live better than in any other country in the region. We will treat you with respect, and we appreciate your contribution to Israeli cultural and economic life.

But we insist that you do not try to subvert our state, help its enemies, or engage in insurrections. There are many other states in the world; some of them are defined as Arab-Muslim states, and some are “states of their citizens.” If you can’t accept the minority status that is available here, then go somewhere else.

Posted in Israeli Arabs | 1 Comment

How to Remove the Iranian Threat

Posted on December 12, 2021 by Victor Rosenthal

I devoutly hope that what I am about to write is completely wrong. Nothing could make me happier than to find out that I’ve been fooled by the clever misdirection of our military leaders, and that in fact they are prepared to deal with Iran.

The impression that I get from reading between the lines of this survey of Israeli capabilities based on sources in the military and security establishment, and other comments made by such sources in recent weeks, is that

  1. Israel does have the ability to severely damage the Iranian nuclear project; but
  2. she is not prepared for an all-out war with Iran and Iranian proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, the PA, and even elements of the Arab population inside the Green line; and
  3. military planners are just beginning to wake up to the fact that such a widespread conflict is inevitable.

One bright spot is that some of Israel’s leadership (perhaps with the exception of Defense Minister Benny Gantz) does finally understand that there will absolutely not be direct help from the US, and that in the best case the Americans will continue to supply Israel with essential ammunition and spare parts for her American weapons. In the worst case, the US will try to stop Israel from proceeding.

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, the idea of a surgical excision of Iran’s nuclear capability, as was done to Iraq in 1981 and to Syria a few years ago, is not realistic. The Iranian program is being carried out on several parallel tracks in multiple locations, and unlike the Iraqi and Syrian attempts to nuclearize, it is being run by native scientists and administrators. The know-how to rebuild the program will remain even if all the hardware is destroyed.

There is also the fact that the conventional capabilities of Iran’s proxies in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza are as great a threat – probably a greater threat at this time – than the specter of nuclear bombs. Tens of thousands of rockets, missiles, and drones, including some capable of precise guidance are deployed and ready for use. Removing the Iranian threat requires that this danger also be neutralized.

Especially in Lebanon, but also in Gaza, an attack on these installations would be complicated and expensive. Because they are deliberately embedded in the civilian population, it would entail great loss of life. Contrary to  popular misconceptions, such an attack is permissible by the laws of war (indeed, the location of offensive weapons in civilian areas as practiced by Hamas and Hezbollah is itself a war crime). Nevertheless, the international reaction, would probably include sanctions and might even prompt intervention on (ironically) “humanitarian” grounds.

What is becoming clear is that what will be required of Israel is an all-out effort to take Iran off the playing field. Only “cutting the head off the snake” can interrupt multifarious activities of the Iranian regime, which include subversion throughout the world, regional expansionism, and the prospect of nuclear terrorism. Only a rapid, bold stroke can accomplish this without precipitating a long and bloody conflict that would bring untold misery to everyone in the region, to Israel and her neighbors together.

I don’t know if the Israeli leadership fully understands this yet, and has planned for it. Because there is no easy, surgical, way out. The Iranian regime itself must be taken down, perhaps to be replaced by a less fanatic domestic opposition.

What would such a “bold stroke” look like? I can only speculate. Possibly it would be an EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) strike to cripple power, communications, and transportation, combined with conventional bombing of key installations and targeted killings of important military and civilian leaders. It would probably have to include the insertion of special forces personnel tasked to destroy key targets that can’t easily be hit from the air.

How do we know that the forces that might take over from the regime would be from the liberal opposition and not an even more fanatical group than the present gang? We don’t, but if the initial strike is carried out properly, they will have to rebuild the country’s infrastructure before being capable of restarting the nuclear and military adventures of the current regime.

Hezbollah and Hamas will remain, but when they understand that their source of money and weapons has been cut off, they will be easier to deter.

What I am suggesting is a very risky business, obviously, but it seems that the alternative is to try to live with a nuclear-armed Iran, whose ruling regime has threatened over and over again to wipe our state from the face of the earth, and which has surrounded us with well-armed proxies prepared to help bring that about. The present entirely defensive strategy will not protect us – it already would not protect us if Hezbollah were to launch a full-scale attack.

Are we ready? The feeling I get is that our leadership thinks it has a year or more to prepare to take action against Iran, and it is not clear what the dimensions of that action will be. I am not so sure that we have a year. Perhaps the Iranians don’t have a missile or drone with sufficient range and the capacity to carry a nuclear warhead today, but could they arrange for a nuclear truck bomb to explode in Tel Aviv? It’s unlikely, but not unthinkable.

I know PM Naftali Bennett is a creative thinker, and there are some resourceful and original thinkers in the IDF, despite its top-heavy bureaucracy. It’s up to them to come up with a plan and to bring about its acceptance and execution – before the opportunity evaporates.

Posted in Iran, War | 3 Comments

Strengthening the Walls of the Ghetto

Posted on December 9, 2021 by Victor Rosenthal

This morning I sat down with my newspaper, my coffee, and my cat, to read that the IDF held a ceremony on Tuesday to mark the completion of the massive and sophisticated barrier on the border (or whatever it is) with the Gaza Strip.

They call it an “iron wall,” 65 km long, with a fence that rises to a height of 6m above the ground and a concrete barrier below it whose depth is not specified, but is said to go deep enough to stop the tunnels that Hamas loves to dig. There is also a barrier that extends into the sea at its northern end. The whole system is rich in various kinds of sensors, radar, cameras, and even remotely controlled weapons. The IDF reports that numerous tunnels were discovered and destroyed during the construction of the underground barrier.

The system took three and half years to build at a cost of 3.5 billion shekels, or more than US$ 1.1 billion. That is a lot of money that could be used for many other purposes, but given the situation it was necessary.

There is nothing quite as frightening for civilians living near Gaza or on the northern border near Lebanon than the prospect of a terror tunnel opening up a few meters from their homes. In some cases, residents heard sounds of digging and voices speaking Arabic before a tunnel was discovered. Hamas had plans to kidnap civilians and execute mass casualty attacks through these tunnels, and during Operation Protective Edge in 2014, some 14 tunnels that crossed the border into Israel were destroyed, plus several more inside the strip.

You may recall that Hamas terrorists infiltrated through a tunnel back in 2006, attacked an IDF post near Kerem Shalom at the southern end of the strip, killed two IDF soldiers and wounded several others including Gilad Shalit, who was carried back through the tunnel to Gaza, where he was held for more than six years. He was ultimately released in exchange for 1,027 prisoners in Israeli prisons, many of them murderers serving long sentences. These prisoners represented both Hamas and other terrorist factions, and many returned to terror activities.

But barriers in general have not proven effective deterrents to attack, because ways are almost always found to bypass or neutralize them, as happened with the Maginot and Bar-Lev lines. And while Hamas may not be able to go over or through the new barrier, they can still launch rockets and fire mortar shells over it, as well as release incendiary and explosive balloons to be carried by the prevailing winds into nearby fields and Jewish communities. The inexpensive rockets, even when most of them are intercepted by Iron Dome, comprise an effective form of economic warfare, with each Iron Dome launch costing some $40,000 (usually at least two interceptors are fired at each incoming rocket at a cost of $40,000 each).

Just as the mounted cavalry was neutralized by the machine gun, and the machine gun made less effective by the tank, Hamas rockets are presently neutralized (except economically) by Iron Dome. But the advent of precision-guided rockets and drones can change the equation. Today we know that Hezbollah has some quantity of them, and probably Hamas has some or will get some soon.

The new barrier also doesn’t prevent Hamas from exporting subversion to sympathetic Arabs in Judea/Samaria and even among Arab citizens of Israel.

Those of you who regularly read my columns know what’s coming. Pure defensive measures, building the ghetto walls higher and stronger, can only hold an enemy at bay, not defeat him. And technological advances by the aggressor, like precision-guided rockets, can tip the balance quickly. The only way to defeat an enemy is by moving from defense to offense. So while defensive technology, like the barrier, may be necessary for survival, it is not sufficient for victory.

Everything I’ve said so far deals only with the tangible or kinetic aspects of the conflict. The psychological aspect is another story entirely. The message that we send to ourselves, our friends, and our enemies, by our reliance on defensive technology and tactics, is that it is if not acceptable, it is still understandable that savage Jew-haters will continue to bombard our country with the intent to kill as many of us as possible. And soon – this, actually, has already happened – many people begin to think that it is acceptable after all. We become the guy at the carnival who sticks his head through a canvas sheet and dodges balls thrown by the patrons.

For the sake of our national honor as well as to maintain deterrence, such a situation cannot be allowed to stand.

Hamas is a deadly infection, and it has turned Gaza into a pocket of pus on the side of our country. Walling it off is only a temporary expedient; curing the disease will require wiping out the bacteria that cause it. The danger to our citizens in the south and ultimately in the entire country can only be ended by crushing Hamas as a military and political force, which calls for an intensive campaign, including a ground incursion.

It’s sometimes suggested that if Israel destroys Hamas, then what will arise in its place will be worse. The answer is that in that case, we’ll need to destroy the replacement as well. It is also said that the expense and difficulty of ruling the strip in the event that there is no acceptable autonomous leadership will be too great.

But keep this in mind: in January of 2009 Israel was poised for a ground invasion of Gaza, which was called off after Tzipi Livni was summoned to the US and apparently given an ultimatum by officials of the incoming Obama Administration (the same one that supported Hamas’ parent group, the Muslim Brotherhood, in Egypt). Since then, we have found it necessary to have four small but costly wars, and to spend 3.5 billion shekels on a barrier – and the threat remains. What if we had gone ahead and conquered Gaza and killed the war criminals leading Hamas?

Or go back further, to 2005, before Hamas had control of the strip. What if Israel had not withdrawn, if we had not destroyed numerous successful Jewish communities and displaced 8,000 people? What would the situation look like today? Would it be better or worse? Would it have been more “costly and difficult” than a series of wars and the building of a massive barrier?

I think the answer is clear. Cowering behind the walls of the ghetto is a poor idea both practically and psychologically. Rather, we must bring Hamas to total defeat, like Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

Posted in Israel and Palestinian Arabs, War | 2 Comments