UK Parliament favors recognition of Palestine

Posted on October 14, 2014 by Victor Rosenthal

News item:

After a four-hour debate during which over 50 MPs spoke, the British Parliament overwhelmingly voted in favor of the government recognizing Palestine as a state on Monday night.

The ayes had it when 274 MPs voted to adopt the non-binding motion and only 12 voted against it.

The original motion stipulated that “this House believes that the government should recognize the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel.”

During the debate it was amended to include the words “as a contribution to securing a negotiated two-state solution.”

It should be noted that “non-binding” means non-binding:

Prime Minister David Cameron and his government ministers abstained from the vote, which was called by an opposition lawmaker, and Cameron’s spokesman earlier said foreign policy would not be affected whatever the outcome.

It should also be noted that the amended resolution doesn’t make any sense. If the action is intended to contribute to a two-state solution, then that implies that a Palestinian state doesn’t yet exist to recognize.

Of course it doesn’t make sense even without the amendment, because ‘Palestine’ has no borders or economy short of the international dole, and its unity government is a sham which does not control much of its population.

The practical significance is that a huge majority in Parliament thinks that the creation of an Arab state in the territories would be a good thing. This seems to be the conventional wisdom everywhere in Europe, despite the clearly horrendous security consequences for Israel.

In fact, as the debate shows, many of the MPs think that supporting a Palestinian state is the moral position to take, even going so far as to cite the Balfour declaration! The irony in this is that Britain acted consistently during the Mandate period and afterwards to subvert the intent of the declaration and the Mandate to provide for a national home for the Jewish people.

In fact, from a moral point of view, Britain ought to be harshly criticized for its actions in shutting the door to escape for millions of future victims of Hitler’s Holocaust before and during the war, as well as cruelly preventing survivors from reaching Palestine until its rule was ended in 1948, not to mention assisting the Arabs in their war against the new state of Israel afterwards. It is remarkably hypocritical today for MPs to claim that morality drives them to continue the cynical anti-Jewish policy they have followed since the 1920s.

The resolution was aided — in fact, it came up early in the debate — by a statement signed by 363 Israelis urging Parliament to approve the resolution. This statement, unlike the amended parliamentary resolution, doesn’t mention negotiations between Israel and the PA:

We, Israelis who worry and care for the well-being of the state of Israel, believe that the long-term existence and security of Israel depends on the long-term existence and security of a Palestinian state. For this reason we, the undersigned, urge members of the UK Parliament to vote in favor of the motion to be debated on Monday 13th October 2014, calling on the British Government to recognize the State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel.

The signers are the usual suspects, led by Alon Liel, a former Foreign Ministry director who has come out in favor of cultural boycotts of Israel and who sees the alternative to an independent ‘Palestine’ as an “Israeli apartheid state.” Others are the heads of foreign-supported left-wing NGOs like Peace Now, Breaking the Silence, Physicians for Human Rights (Israel), the New Israel Fund, etc. Left-wing politicians, academics, artists and journalists round out the group.

These 363 more or less lead what they call the “Peace Camp” in Israel, which clings to the counterfactual idea that peace is obtainable by giving the Arabs what they want — something which has been disproved by events multiple times. But since the salaries and careers of many of them have come to depend on it, they are unable to notice this. The movement has minimal grass-roots support in Israel and would probably vanish if the foreign sources of money dried up.

The UK resolution, as amended, is similar to the statement made by the new Swedish Prime Minister, who also started out declaring that Sweden would recognize ‘Palestine’, but then walked it back, with the Swedish Embassy in Israel saying that this would only happen once negotiations had produced a two-state solution.

Both of these acts are practically meaningless, but indicate the degree to which Europeans have accepted the Palestinian and left-wing narratives of ‘a people under occupation’ — rather than an old-fashioned war against Jewish self-determination.

Posted in Europe and Israel, Israel and Palestinian Arabs, Israeli Politics | 1 Comment

Reconsider the loyalty oath

Posted on October 11, 2014 by Victor Rosenthal
Anti-IDF poster distributed in Haredi neighborhoods

Anti-IDF poster distributed in Haredi neighborhoods

One of the interesting things about the State of Israel is that it is suffused with people that hate it and want to destroy it.

Some Jerusalem Arabs, for example, are doing their best to destroy the light rail system that services Jewish and Arab neighborhoods. Why? Because it serves Jewish and Arab neighborhoods. It represents coexistence or ‘normalization’. And these Arabs, who are permanent residents of Israel with all the benefits except the right to vote, could have full citizenship for the asking. But they are proving a Palestinian nationalist point by spurning it — and by attacking any manifestation of good relations between Arabs and Jews.

Not every anti-Zionist is an Arab. There are also those among the Haredim who hate the state. The illustration at the top of this post is a poster opposing efforts to draft Haredim that has appeared in Haredi neighborhoods:

“Keep this area clean!” one poster bellows in red ink, mimicking an oft-repeated slogan of kitchens and bathrooms across Israel. Above and below that line, however, it says, “For the sake of our future! For the sake of our children! … This area is free of Hardakim!”

“Hardakim” is a bastardized term for Haredim who join the army, coined from an acronym, Haredim kalei da’at, or “weak-minded Haredim.” It’s no coincidence that the term is strikingly close to the word “haydakim,” meaning bacteria or microbe – exactly the sorts of creepy crawlies that put cleanliness at stake.

This particular image shows a grinning buffoon of a soldier barreling through a stone wall in pursuit of a trio of terrified Haredi boys crying out for their mothers. In the top left corner, a knitted skullcap –- known across Israel as a symbol of the religious Zionist movement, or those Orthodox Israelis who integrate into modern society and willingly serve in the IDF -– morphs into a cockroach or some other ambiguous bug. …

With long hooked noses and clownish bodies on the IDF soldiers, angelic postures for Haredi children and themes of contamination versus cleanliness, the posters bear a disquieting resemblance to the Nazi propaganda that was plastered across the streets of Berlin and Munich in the years before World War II, critics say.

If this isn’t enough, we have the post-Zionist Left, the ones exemplified by Ha’aretz writer Gideon Levy and journalist Rogel Alpher. Their Oslo-syndrome guilt is so pathological that for them, Israel can do no right. Alpher urges enlightened Israelis to flee the country, and Levy grinds out the most vicious anti-Israel propaganda week after week.

Finally, among the immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union, there are, incredibly, old-fashioned Jew-haters, including neo-Nazis.

All of these anti-Zionists and Jew-haters benefit from the modern, developed, tolerant and democratic state of Israel in which they live, while at the same time they try to kill it.

Israel is a country of 8 million, not 316 million like the US, and it faces a great challenge from the organized opposition to its existence from Iran and other Muslim nations, the UN, and various Jew-haters throughout the world. It doesn’t need internal enemies.

My proposal is to resurrect the disreputable idea of a loyalty oath. Everyone — Jews, Arabs, other non-Jews — everyone living in and benefiting from this island of sanity in the crazy Middle East, should be asked to affirm their loyalty to the state if they want to live in it. They don’t have to agree not to criticize its policies, but they have to agree in principle to the idea that there ought to be a Jewish state, they will obey its laws, and that they will not try to subvert it.

Every minority — and that includes Haredim — will have to understand that there is one state and its laws apply to everyone. There are alternatives for the anti-Zionists: there are 22 Arab countries plus the Palestinian authority for Arabs to choose from; there are Haredi communities in the US and Europe where they will not have to serve in an army or do national service; there are ‘enlightened’ European countries for such as Levy and Alpher. And of course the Russian Jew-haters can go back to Russia.

The idea of a loyalty oath was very unpopular. It was called racist, anti-democratic, fascist, etc. I know the Arabs will cry bloody murder at such a proposal. They already have.

But there is nothing racist about an oath for everyone. There is nothing undemocratic about agreeing to obey the laws that have been passed by a democratically elected Knesset. There is nothing fascist about accepting the idea of Jewish self-determination in our homeland.

Posted in Israeli Arabs, Israeli Politics, Jew Hatred, Post-Zionism | 2 Comments

Was the Parchin explosion an Israeli air strike?

Posted on October 9, 2014 by Victor Rosenthal
Parchin before and after (small)

Click the image to see an enlarged version (courtesy IsraelDefense.com)

Here you can see before/after satellite photos of the Iranian Parchin nuclear development facility which recently was the location of a huge explosion in which at least two workers were killed.

Parchin is the place where the Iranians are suspected of working on detonators for nuclear devices. International inspectors have asked to be admitted to the facility several times and have been turned down.

There has been speculation that the explosion may have been a ‘work accident’, sabotage, or even an air strike.

IsraelDefense.com writes,

Satellite images of the Parchin area, to the east of Tehran, prove: the explosion reported by the Iranian media had, indeed, occurred inside the military compound in Parchin, where, according to western intelligence agencies, trials are being conducted on nuclear missile fuzes. Satellite images obtained by Israel Defense and analyzed by specialist Ronen Solomon clearly show damage consistent with an attack against bunkers in a central locality within the military research complex at the Parchin military compound.

The locality in question is situated at the center of the compound, adjacent to another installation where, according to intelligence sources, the trials being conducted involve controlled detonation of fuzes intended to serve as triggers for nuclear devices. The locality consists of a sizable testing center and what appears to be an area with bunker-shaped structures. “Before and after” images indicate that a complete section of structures was simply eliminated by an unexplained explosion.

The explosion wiped several testing units off the face of the earth while inflicting collateral damage on adjacent buildings, with traces of fire clearly visible in a section located in a sparsely afforested area.

It’s possible that burning material thrown off from the main explosion ignited the  structures in the small circle and the field between them. But in that case it’s strange that there is no similar damage apparent anywhere else outside the large circle. Could this be an indication that the damage was indeed caused by a deliberate attack, and the buildings in the small circle were a secondary target?

I don’t know. But if it were an attack and Israel was responsible, then we can shortly expect leaks from the Obama Administration to that effect!

Posted in Iran | 1 Comment

These are not the old ‘American values’

Posted on October 8, 2014 by Victor Rosenthal

News item:

WASHINGTON — The White House remained firmly behind its criticism of Israeli settlement construction and pushed back on Monday against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s retort that the US rebuke goes “against American values.”

White House spokesman Josh Earnest pointedly noted that American values were responsible for US support of Israel and for building the Iron Dome anti-rocket system to protect Israelis.

“When it comes to American values, it’s American values that led to this country’s unwavering support of Israel,” Earnest said. “It’s American values that have led us to fund and build an Iron Dome system to protect the lives of countless Israelis.”

“It’s clear how American values dictate or at least guide our thinking,” he added.

The ‘settlement construction’ in question is the building of 2610 units — 800 of which are intended for Arab residents —  in a Jerusalem neighborhood just across the Green Line called “Givat Hamatos.” The plan actually received final approved in 2012, but a recent announcement by the Mayor of Jerusalem was publicized immediately before PM Netanyahu’s meeting with President Obama by Peace Now, which called it “destructive to the two-state solution.”

The White House and State Department responded predictably, with exceptionally harsh statements that the action would “distance Israel from even its closest allies” and “call into question Israel’s ultimate commitment to a peaceful negotiated settlement.”

The US also strongly criticized the action of several Jewish families to legally purchase apartments in the Arab-populated Silwan neighborhood of Jerusalem — a place where Jews lived prior to the ethnic cleansing of 1948.

None of this is surprising, given the administration’s policies. But as a (former) American, I think I know something about American values. And this ain’t them.

There is no question that Israelis are grateful to the US for its support of the Iron Dome system, which doubtless saved many lives. But the actions of the administration during the recent Gaza war are troubling.

While they seem to have no problem with Jews hunkering down and trying to deflect missile attacks, US officials — including Obama — were highly critical of Israel’s striking the sources of those attacks, despite the fact that the 1:1 ratio of civilian to combatant casualties was far better than the the US record in recent and current conflicts.

John Kerry pressured Israel to accept a Qatari-Turkish draft of a ceasefire agreement, despite the fact that these nations were the major backers of Hamas, and their proposal — as opposed to the Egyptian draft that was finally accepted — was advantageous to Hamas.

And although it is hard to prove, it is probably true that the FAA ban on US flights to Israel’s Ben-Gurion airport was instigated from the White House. The ban, which was followed by similar actions by non-US airlines, had the potential to seriously damage Israel’s economy. It was seen by many in Israel as a shot across its bow.

So is trying to deter a country from striking back at an aggressor consistent with American values? The US certainly responded with great force to Pearl Harbor and to 9/11 (even if its targeting was a little off in the latter case).

Fighting back against aggression is clearly an American value, as the US’ own actions and any John Wayne or Clint Eastwood movie should make clear. But as many observers noted during the Gaza war, the US supports Israel’s right to self-defense in principle, but not in practice.

It is also hard to understand why the US insists that any building across the Green Line, even in Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem like Givat Hamatos, violates American values. It doesn’t even violate the American desire to divide Jerusalem on the principle that Arab neighborhoods will become part of ‘Palestine’, because it is already a Jewish neighborhood. What it does violate is the PLO contention that all of the land that was illegally occupied by Jordan between ’48 and ’67 was thereby transformed into ‘Palestinian land’ and belongs to them. But this is illogical, and anyway they believe that everything belongs to them.

Finally, the most glaring contradiction to American values is the objection to Jews living in Silwan. Arabs can live wherever they want in the eastern or western parts of Jerusalem. Why should Jews be prevented from doing so? There is a word for this, and it is entirely in opposition to present-day American values: segregation. It is remarkable that President Obama, who is exquisitely sensitive to civil rights issues in other contexts, doesn’t apply the same reasoning to Jews.

There are other American values that the administration is violating. One is the idea that you don’t stick your nose into other people’s affairs, especially to intervene on the side of a racist bully, which is what the PLO and Hamas are. More specifically, you don’t insist on taking away someone’s land in order to give it to terrorists who will use it as a launchpad for violence.

Apparently the administration’s idea of “American values” is more akin to doctrinaire left-wing European values. But I don’t think most real Americans agree.

Posted in US-Israel Relations | 1 Comment

Europe loves ‘Palestine’

Posted on October 5, 2014 by Victor Rosenthal
New Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven makes inaugural address calling for recognition of 'Palestine'

New Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven makes inaugural address calling for recognition of ‘Palestine’

European governments, in part responding to pressure to appeal to Muslim residents, to appease oil-producing nations — who haven’t stopped wanting to weaken Israel despite their worries about Iran — or perhaps because of anti-Jewish feelings that are under the surface, are pressing harder than ever to give another piece of the land of Israel to the Arabs.

In a brilliant example of non-sequitur argument, Sweden’s new Prime Minister, Stefan Lofven announced in his inauguration speech that

The conflict between Israel and Palestine can only be solved by a two-state solution, negotiated in accordance with international law. It must guarantee both the Palestinians [sic] and Israelis’ legitimate demands for national sovereignty and security …

A two-state solution requires mutual recognition and a will to peaceful co-existence. Sweden will therefore recognise the state of Palestine.

This is the first time a sitting member of the EU has recognized ‘Palestine’, a non-state that has no borders, economy, control of its population, or legitimate government (elections are four years overdue in the Palestinian Authority). Nevertheless, international recognition is one of the most important prerequisites for statehood, and Sweden’s action will be significant.

It should be obvious that Lofven’s statement makes little sense. Palestinian demands for sovereignty do not come from a desire for peaceful coexistence — otherwise there would already be a Palestinian state — but to make Israeli security, and ultimately Jewish sovereignty, impossible.

The ‘legitimate demands for national sovereignty’ made by Palestinian Arabs are not equivalent to those of Israel, because they are disingenuous. They are part of a program to deny Jewish sovereignty and to possess the land and property of the Jews of Israel. A “two-state solution” as envisaged by the Arabs and doubtless by Lofven involves Israel ceding control over areas that are essential to its security.

The Arab position also includes a right of ‘return’ for the descendents of Arabs that fled the country in 1948, which would convert Israel into an Arab-majority state. The PLO (not to mention Hamas) doesn’t hide its intention to continue the struggle until “all of Palestine is liberated.”

The Europeans are able to rationalize their behavior — which just happens to be politically advantageous — by appealing to the historical and conceptual narrative sold by the Arabs and other enemies of Jewish sovereignty. The narrative portrays the establishment of the state of Israel as an act of colonialist expropriation of indigenous land.

As I’ve said before, this requires a massive distortion of historical fact – suddenly, Arabs from Syria or Egypt who had been in Palestine for one or two generations have to be presented as the remnants of a millennia-old ‘Palestinian’ civilization, and Jews who were hated and exterminated in Europe have to become ‘European colonialists’.

Nevertheless, this fits perfectly with the post-colonial worldview that is popular in academic and left-wing circles. The effect is to sanctify what is really a racist attempt to end Jewish self-determination in the only place it exists in the world and ultimately to ‘purify’ the Middle East by ridding it of Jews.

Unfortunately this point of view has become the conventional wisdom in much of Europe, which is suffering from dual guilt for its responsibility for several hundred years of real colonialist exploitation throughout the world, and of course the murder of millions of Jews by the Nazis (with a great deal of European cooperation, thank you).

If the new Swedish PM would like to improve the lot of the Palestinian Arabs, he should favor a form of less-than-sovereign autonomy for Arabs in parts of the territories, with overall Israeli security control over borders, airspace, etc.

But that will never happen, because according to the conjunction of post-colonialist doctrine and political correctness that has infected the dying European societies, every group that claims indigenous status (except for Jews) has a right to sovereignty. And the more violently that group behaves, the stronger their claim.

Posted in Europe and Israel, Israel and Palestinian Arabs | 3 Comments

How not to treat an ally

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Victor Rosenthal
Israel's Iron Dome antimissile system intercepts a Palestinian Qassam rocket over Sderot

Israel’s Iron Dome antimissile system intercepts a Palestinian Qassam rocket over Sderot

From President Obama’s remarks before meeting with PM Netanyahu:

I think we also recognize that we have to find ways to change the status quo so that both Israeli citizens are safe in their own homes and schoolchildren in their schools from the possibility of rocket fire, but also that we don’t have the tragedy of Palestinian children being killed as well.

It’s not exactly his words that I find objectionable. Only a monster could think that it isn’t tragic when children are killed. It is what the statement suggests.

It is as if Obama is holding out his two hands: on one sit endangered Israelis and on the other dead Palestinian children. The suggestion is that the two things are equivalent. But in reality, they are like night and day. Hamas is doing its best to kill Israelis. Israel is trying to defend itself while hurting Gaza residents as little as possible, consistent with fighting a war.

That’s obvious. But there is more. The emphasis on “Palestinian children” serves to recall the ugly meme — a blood libel, really — that is popular in anti-Israel circles, that the IDF deliberately targets children. This is not only entirely false but an inversion of reality — it is Palestinian terrorists who have gone after Jewish children in numerous attacks.

Of course Obama would never say that, and probably deny it if asked. But his carefully-worded statement brings it to mind.

It is also notable that the President doesn’t use the word ‘Hamas’. Neither did any of the anti-Israel demonstrators during the war. The suggestion is that Israel attacked ‘Gaza’, not Hamas, even though Israel’s air and ground operations specifically targeted Hamas assets and sources of rocket fire.

Yes, this is subtle. But I don’t doubt that it is deliberate. If you didn’t know better, you might not realize that rather than a story about suffering Gaza residents, this is actually the saga of a continuous effort by terrorists to kill Israelis, broken up by Israel’s attempts at deterrence.

2005: Israel gave the Palestinians what they said they wanted and stopped occupying Gaza. Every soldier and civilian left. Palestinians, who had been shooting rockets from Gaza since 2001, launched even more rockets.

2007: Hamas overthrew the PA and took complete control of the Gaza strip. Rocket attacks increased, and longer-range rockets were introduced. Israel blockaded Gaza to prevent the entry of weapons, but continued to allow food and humanitarian goods to enter. Israel continued to provide water and electricity to Gaza (and continues to do so today).

2008: Almost 3000 rockets were fired from Gaza at Israel from January until a cease-fire went into effect in June. But in November Hamas broke the ceasefire, and Israel responded with Operation Cast Lead. Air attacks and ground fighting continued until January 2009. Israel did not carry out the third phase of the operation, which would have included entry into Gaza city and the overthrow of Hamas, for various reasons — including the wishes of the incoming Obama Administration.

2012: Rocket attacks had resumed almost immediately after Cast Lead, and in November 2012, in response to a barrage of over 100 rockets in 24 hours, Israel launched Operation Pillar of Defense — 8 days of air attacks against Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets. For the first time, Palestinians fired rockets as far as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Although Israel called up 60,000 reserve soldiers for several days at a cost of millions of dollars, there was no ground incursion. A ceasefire was mediated by Egypt and the US which was simply an agreement of “quiet for quiet.”

2013: Rocket attacks began again, including during President Obama’s official visit. In March, the Israeli Navy intercepted a ship carrying numerous long-range rockets and other weapons to Gaza from Iran.

2014: After Hamas operatives kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teenagers in June, Israel arrested numerous Hamas members in Judea and Samaria. Hamas responded with a rocket barrage from Gaza, and Israel initiated Operation Protective Edge, which developed into a 50-day war. Hamas fired some 4500 rockets into Israel during this period, and Israel attacked more than 5000 targets in Gaza. Although Hamas lost or used up about 2/3 of its estimated 10,000 rockets, it remains in power.

Palestinians in Gaza (mostly Hamas, but also other factions) have been trying to kill Israeli civilians for the past 13 years, and have provoked three wars, none of them conclusive — in part because of heavy US pressure on Israel to stop fighting. Palestinian tactics include firing rockets from heavily populated areas, schools, mosques, etc., and the use of civilians as human shields.

Obama Administration officials have suggested that Israel was not doing enough to reduce civilian casualties during its operations, despite the fact that the ratio of civilians to combatants killed has been considerably lower than that in US or NATO operations — indeed, the administration has been embarrassed by evidence of a double standard in connection with its operations against ISIS.

Obama and administration officials continue to insist that Israel is an ally. Then why do they consistently support its enemies’ narrative that Israel’s actions are disproportionate or worse? Why do they continue to suggest that Israel’s defense is morally equivalent to Hamas’ offense?

Posted in Terrorism, US-Israel Relations, War | 3 Comments

Yet another Zionist crime against the Palestinian people

Posted on September 30, 2014 by Victor Rosenthal
Silwan

Silwan

Here is a news story from Ha’aretz which describes yet another Zionist crime against the Palestinian people:

In a strategic move by the Elad nonprofit organization, dozens of young Jewish settlers [sic] entered some 25 apartments in seven buildings in the East Jerusalem village of Silwan on Monday night. This was the largest influx of settlers into buildings in that part of the city in 20 years.

The settlers’ entry was accompanied by police officers and privately hired security guards. Most of the buildings were empty, and thus there were no confrontations with Palestinian residents after the settlers arrived there.

In one building, however, there were residents who resisted and the Jews retreated. In another case, a confrontation broke out between a young Palestinian and the new tenants, and police separated them.

The newcomers have locked themselves in the buildings and they are being guarded by the police.

As in similar incidents in the past, the right-wing Elad organization is hiding behind a company registered abroad — in this case, Kandel Finance. Attorney Avi Segal, who represents the firm in Israel, would not provide any details about it or about the process involved in purchasing the property.

Residents of Silwan mentioned several local Palestinians, mostly members of a family that owns [sic] the structures, as having “betrayed” their relatives in exchange for large sums of money. …

In any event, this is an unprecedented success for Elad, which has managed over the past two decades to change Silwan beyond recognition, transforming it from a Palestinian locale into a mixed neighborhood with a highly successful Israeli tourism center at its heart …

The takeover of buildings earlier this week in Silwan occurred at the end of the most violent summer East Jerusalem has known in decades. Settlers living in that part of the city, who have been suffering from attacks of stone-throwing, firecrackers and firebombs almost every evening, complain that the police are ineffective in dealing with the Palestinian youths involved.

For their part, police officials have expressed optimism in recent days regarding an impending end to the wave of violence. Over the next few days, it will become clear whether the influx of new Jewish residents in Silwan will thwart progress toward a calmer atmosphere.

Do you see what the duplicitous Zionists are trying to do? They are permitting Jews to live in a part of Jerusalem which Arabs have decided must remain pure! Silwan is in eastern Jerusalem, which the Jordanian army wiped clean of Jews in 1948. And now the Zionists are bringing them back.

They are creating, God forbid, a mixed neighborhood.

The Arabs have decided that any part of the land which was illegally occupied by Jordan for the 19 years following Israel’s independence belongs to them. And one of their rules appears to be that a Jew may not live on ‘Palestinian land’ (in fact, in the Palestinian Authority there is a law that forbids Arabs, on penalty of death, from selling land to Jews).

I should point out that the reason the organization that bought the buildings won’t release any details is that even in Jerusalem an Arab who sells to a Jew is likely to be murdered.

Eastern Jerusalem, although many people like to pretend it isn’t, is part of Israel. It was part of the land the Palestine Mandate earmarked for a Jewish national home. It came under Israeli control in 1967, and it was formally annexed in 1980.

Arabs living there can have Israeli citizenship if they wish, or they can remain permanent residents with all the benefits of citizenship except voting, if they want to make a political statement (personally, I would like to see them swear loyalty to the Jewish state or get out, but that’s just right-wing extremist me).

By the way, Ha’aretz, the use of the word ‘settler’ for a Jew living in Israel’s capital is particularly offensive.

I am expecting to hear that the US State Department, the EU and others find this action ‘unhelpful’ or worse.

But I ask: who are the racists here? Who is trying to introduce apartheid? And who chooses to use violence?

Posted in Israel and Palestinian Arabs | Comments Off on Yet another Zionist crime against the Palestinian people

What is the alternative?

Posted on September 28, 2014 by Victor Rosenthal

All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it’s impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer. — Machiavelli

Recently, in response to my saying that the Palestinian Authority was more trouble than it is worth, a reader asked “what exactly is the alternative?”

To broaden his question a bit, we might ask “what is the alternative to what Israel is doing now,” which is essentially as little as possible — reacting to threats, but taking no initiatives.

I hate to disappoint him, but I don’t have a detailed solution worked out. I don’t know enough to develop one. I will leave the details to the experts, like Caroline Glick, Yoram Ettinger, and others.

I am a former logic teacher so I am not good at coming up with new plans. What I am good at is showing where ideas are contradictory, and deducing the implications of facts. So here is some logical thinking about Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.

Logic can tell us where a solution does not lie, and one place is negotiations with today’s Palestinian leadership for another partition of the land into Jewish and Palestinian states. A truly sovereign Palestinian state in the territories is inconsistent with Israel’s security, and anyway there is insufficient overlap between the bottom lines of the parties to reach an agreement.

Even more so (a fortiori or adraba) is it not possible to reach such an agreement in the framework of mediation or arbitration by entities hostile to Israel, like the Arab League, the UN or the Obama Administration. If somehow a partition were imposed by external powers, it would certainly, sooner or later, lead to the end of the Jewish state.

Since most of the nations of the world seem to favor partition, either they consistently believe that there should not be a Jewish state, or they — for various political reasons — assert two contradictory propositions: that the Jewish state should exist and that the land should be partitioned. The latter is the public position of the Obama Administration.

My analysis of the thinking of Obama and his circle is that they can make these contradictory statements because they simply ignore considerations of Israel’s security. The reversal of the outcome of the 1967 war is top priority — it is the only priority in this connection — and their thinking stops there. So they can go on to say that they are committed to Israel’s security because they don’t think about what that means in practical terms. This, anyway, is the most generous interpretation I can come up with.

In any event, it’s clear that if Israel is to survive, it will have to go against the wishes of almost the entire world, including its ‘ally’, the US. The reason that Israel is presently behaving in an entirely reactive way and taking no initiative is that Israeli leaders believe that any positive action will bring about retaliation from its allies and enemies alike.

This is the excessive prudence in avoiding danger that Machiavelli warns us against. It is psychologically and diplomatically a dangerous tactic, because it broadcasts weakness and invites more pressure to conform. If Israel stays put as Palestinian positions become more extreme, the ‘consensus point’ moves away from Israel.

The Left continually says that ‘the status quo is unsustainable’ because the world will ultimately step in and sanction Israel. I think they are correct in this, but their conclusion — that Israel should make further concessions to achieve an agreement with the Palestinians — is a non-sequitur, and its implementation would be disastrous.

My argument is that Israel should move in the other direction — for example, take steps that increase, rather than decrease, its degree of sovereignty in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem (I know that legally it is fully sovereign in all of Jerusalem, but de facto it is another story in many areas).

It should respond disproportionately to terrorism, without overly restrictive rules of engagement.

It should move forward with the understanding that the world will not approve of its actions, but it should act in accordance with its security needs, not the desires of external powers. After all, most of these powers do not wish it well as it is.

It should also present the reasons for its actions transparently in public diplomacy. For example, there is no reason to pretend that a “two-state solution” is its objective.

There could be economic and diplomatic retaliation, but Israel’s economy is strong and its leverage will improve with the development of its natural gas resources. Anyway, if we do nothing the pressure will only increase.

From a security point of view, it is better to be respected, even feared, than liked (Machiavelli said something like this too). The Jew among nations cannot expect to be liked, but it could be respected.

Posted in 'Peace' Process, Information war, Israel and Palestinian Arabs | 4 Comments