Wanted: a somewhat less murderous Palestinian Authority

Posted on October 3, 2015 by Victor Rosenthal
The funeral of Eitam and Na'ama Henkin, October 2, 2015

The funeral of Eitam and Na’ama Henkin, October 2, 2015

The other day Eitam and Na’ama Henkin were shot to death by Arab terrorists in front of four of their children, in Samaria not far from the place where five members of the Fogel family were brutally butchered in 2011.

The Henkins’ murderers haven’t been caught yet, but we know a lot about who they are. This is something we should talk about, because in a very real sense, many of you – Israelis, Americans and Europeans – are paying them.

“Credit” for the “operation” was claimed by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades (via Palestinian Media Watch):

Fatah Central Committee member Mahmoud Al-Aloul posted:

“The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement Fatah, accepted responsibility for the Itamar operation (i.e., murder of Eitam and Naama Henkin), carried out against settlers, leading to their deaths.”

[Official Facebook page of Fatah Central Committee member Mahmoud Al-Aloul, Oct. 1, 2015]

So who are these creatures?

First, you need to understand that ‘Palestinian’ political groups have their own private armies. This probably sounds strange to you; it would be as if the US Republican Party had a militia that went around shooting people suspected of being Democrats and fighting with the Democrat militia. But that’s the way it has always been among the ‘Palestinians’.

The Al-Aqsa Brigades belong to Fatah, the party of Yasser Arafat, now led by Mahmoud Abbas. Fatah are the folks that brought us the Munich massacre and other bloody murders.

At the risk of confusing you, I have to bring in two other organizations: the PLO, an umbrella organization for ‘Palestinian’ groups, and the PA – Palestinian Authority – the official ‘government’ of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria.

In 1993-4, when the Israeli government made the historic mistake of signing the Oslo agreements, it agreed to recognize the PLO as the ‘representative of the Palestinian people’ and to establish the Palestinian Authority to temporarily govern the Arabs of the territories. Arafat was the first PA president. Since Arafat’s death in 2004, Abbas has been president, although his term expired in 2009.

The PA is in essence the PLO, and the PLO is dominated by Fatah. Abbas is the head of Fatah, the Chairman of the PLO, and the President of the PA.

The murderers of the Henkins belong to the private army that answers to Mahmoud Abbas. And Mahmoud Abbas’ PA receives about $400 million in aid from the US alone, as well as donations from the European Union and other countries. It gets money from the UN’s special Palestinian-only refugee agency, UNRWA, for ‘refugees’ living in Judea and Samaria. Many non-governmental agencies funnel cash into projects run by the PA. Israel collects customs duties for goods entering the country for use in the PA areas and transfers this money to the PA. The PA also has a massive debt to Israel for electricity.

The overall total comes to more than a billion dollars a year, leaving out the large sums that go to UNRWA facilities in Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas.

Much of the funding goes to ‘security forces’ whose job is – please don’t laugh too hard – to ‘fight terrorism’. Many of the ‘security officers’ moonlight in the Al-Aqsa Brigades. It’s a protection racket, except that we aren’t protected. I must also mention that with all the ‘security forces’ it has, the PA has to depend on the IDF to protect it from Hamas.

In addition, the PA maintains Arafat’s incitement and anti-Jewish indoctrination machine. Arguably the murder of the Henkins was a direct result of incitement by Abbas himself.

Periodically there are calls to cut funding to the PA because so much of the aid is stolen by corrupt officials and because the PA continues to pay salaries of terrorists in Israeli prisons. But it never happens, because it is argued that if the PA collapses, then unless Israel takes over, Hamas or even ISIS will come in – and that would be much worse.

Israel really, really doesn’t want to be responsible for the welfare of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria, and that’s understandable. In a real sense, the PA areas aren’t presently ‘occupied’ by Israel, despite what the Arabs claim. And both sides like it that way.

I think we have to call the PLO’s bluff. Disband or destroy the private armies, remove the most corrupt officials (starting with Abbas), and cut aid by the amount that is being paid to prisoners. Force them to end the incitement. Will the PA dissolve itself and invite Hamas to take over – and incidentally, settle scores with the families that have supported the PLO/PA?

I don’t think so. I think self-preservation will prevent that. We won’t get a Zionist PA, but at least we can have a somewhat less murderous one.

Posted in Israel and Palestinian Arabs | 3 Comments

How to build an “Iron Wall” today

Posted on October 2, 2015 by Victor Rosenthal

As a Zionist, I believe that a Jewish state is a necessary condition for the continued survival of the Jewish people. Our state faces some acute challenges, including the direct military threat from Iran and its proxies and the recent coalescence of a global anti-Jewish conspiracy of the Left. But there is another, chronic, struggle, and that is with the Arab Muslims of the land of Israel.

I am deliberately not distinguishing between the Arabs of Judea/Samaria, Jerusalem, or the rest of Israel, because the difference is only a matter of degree of hostility. In some cases the hostility is explicitly based on religion, insofar as it is unacceptable for a Muslim to live under non-Muslim (especially Jewish!) sovereignty. In others, it is nationalistic, either a broader Arab nationalism or the ‘Palestinian’ version; and finally there is simple ethnic/cultural rejection of the Other. It wouldn’t be wrong to add that there is an element of envy and greed to take for themselves the fruits of development that have come to the Jewish population as a result of their enterprise.

Be that as it may, the violent behavior of Arabs toward Jews in the land of Israel has a long, ugly history, including a murderous pogrom in Tzfat in 1834, riots in Mandate Palestine in 1921, 1929 (including the Hevron massacre) and 1936, the intifadas, and of course the long history of terrorism – both the ‘official’ variety of the PLO and Hamas and the ‘personal’ kind – here.

Recently, the ‘Oslo Generation’ of Arabs influenced by Palestinian Authority media and the educational system established by Yasser Arafat have been engaging in activities ranging from harassment to assault to murder of Jews. Social media have taken the place of inflammatory speeches by the Mufti, to great effect, but the idea is the same. They’ll make our lives hell, they think, and we’ll leave.

Ze’ev Jabotinsky recognized early that the Arabs will not reconcile with a Jewish state unless there is absolutely no alternative. In his 1923 essay “The Iron Wall,” he wrote,

To imagine, as our Arabophiles do, that they will voluntarily consent to the realisation of Zionism in return for the moral and material conveniences which the Jewish colonist brings with him, is a childish notion, which has at bottom a kind of contempt for the Arab people; it means that they despise the Arab race, which they regard as a corrupt mob that can be bought and sold, and are willing to give up their fatherland for a good railway system. …

As long as the Arabs feel that there is the least hope of getting rid of us, they will refuse to give up this hope in return for either kind words or for bread and butter, because they are not a rabble, but a living people. And when a living people yields in matters of such a vital character it is only when there is no longer any hope of getting rid of us, because they can make no breach in the iron wall. Not till then will they drop their extremist leaders whose watchword is “Never!”

As in so many things, Jabotinsky was prescient.

What is the solution? Is there one?

Historically, a conqueror either killed a conquered people, enslaved them, or expelled them. The first and second options are morally unacceptable, and the third impractical and probably politically impossible (although it’s certain that if the Arabs had won any of our wars they would have implemented a combination of all three).

Meir Kahane suggested (Uncomfortable Questions for Comfortable Jews, 1987) that those Arabs who would agree to “accept the Jewish state of Israel as the exclusive state of the Jewish people” could stay as resident aliens with civil but not political rights, while others could accept compensation and leave or – if they refused – be expelled. This is a somewhat kinder solution than killing or slavery, but was still considered beyond the pale.

And that is unfortunate, because – as Jabotinsky made clear – there is no voluntary solution possible. The more we try to conciliate the Arabs and compromise in order to try to satisfy their national aspirations, the more we display to them our weakness and inability to hold on to the land that we’ve taken possession of.

Today the Arabs are confident that they are winning. We continue to send them the message that for whatever reason, we are weak, we are paralyzed and can’t do anything to stop them. The only way to stop Arab terrorism and harassment is to change the rules, to turn things upside down. To create an iron wall. To make the actions of the terrorists – the big ones and the little ones – themselves negate the Palestinian project.

So what do I suggest?

First, take away the oxygen of publicity. Israel is full of foreign ‘journalists’ with agendas, international activists, operatives of hostile NGOs, and so forth. Get rid of them, and don’t let them back in. Declare flash points like Nabi Saleh military zones and arrest ‘Palestinian’ and left-wing journalists when they enter them. Take away press credentials from the provocateurs. Don’t allow foreign sources to bankroll Israeli subversives. If Palestinian radio and TV are guilty of incitement, take them off the air. Why should Israel be as much of an open society as the US is when the threats facing it are so much greater?

Second, whenever possible, expel troublemakers. Perhaps we can’t implement Kahane’s solution in general, but we could for specific cases, like the Tamimi family. Bassem Tamimi was born in Judea/Samaria in 1967 prior to Israel’s conquest of the area, and may have Jordanian citizenship. If so, he should be deported. Israeli Arabs involved in terrorism could have their citizenship revoked and be sent to Gaza or the Palestinian Authority. Those actively working to destroy the state should forfeit the privilege of living in it. And while we are talking about troublemakers, throw European ‘charities’ out of the territories.

Third, make terrorism unproductive. New construction in Judea and Samaria should be undertaken in honor of the victims of terrorist atrocities. The homes of terrorists should be destroyed. Israeli Arabs whose family members are caught throwing rocks should be barred from receiving National Insurance payments, as MK Miri Regev has suggested. Symbolic terrorism, like the vandalism at the Mount of Olives cemetery, should be taken seriously and the perpetrators punished. Needless to say, there should never, ever, be a prisoner release for political reasons or in exchange for hostages.

Fourth, although we don’t have to exclude all Arab residents of the state from participating in politics as Kahane wanted to do, there should be no anti-Zionists in the Knesset. What is the message sent by the presence of Haneen Zoabi, when she has clearly violated the Basic Law which excludes anyone who negates the existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state? Ask the Supreme Court, which voided a law passed to expel her on just these grounds.

For Jabotinsky, Zionism was a given, “moral and just.” Before we can demonstrate to the Arabs that the land of Israel belongs to us, we need to believe it ourselves. Unfortunately the legal establishment in Israel, especially the Supreme Court, seems to have de facto accepted the idea that Israel is already a ‘state of its citizens’ and not primarily a Jewish state. It’s quite likely that most of my suggestions above would run afoul of the Court. A new Basic Law declaring that the state belongs to the Jewish people and exists for their benefit could make it easier to fight back.

The Arabs justify their violence by asserting that the land is theirs and they are “resisting occupation” when they throw their firebombs (they often falsely claim that such “resistance” is legitimate under international law). International opposition to Israel is based on the idea that we are “illegal occupiers.” So why doesn’t the government adopt the Levy report, which presents a juridical opinion that Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria is not a belligerent occupation, and Jewish communities there are legal? Why isn’t there an official, well-funded information campaign underway to present Israel’s legal and moral position to the world? And why isn’t there a similar campaign to delegitimize the false ‘Palestinian narrative’?

To answer the question I posed earlier, yes there is a solution to Arab hostility. It is to understand that we will never make Zionists out of the Arabs, but we can give them a choice: they can be good neighbors despite their animosity – or they can leave.

Posted in Israel and Palestinian Arabs, Terrorism, Zionism | 1 Comment

Nasty, brutish and short

Posted on September 29, 2015 by Victor Rosenthal

During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man.

To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues.

No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.

— Thomas Hobbes

Under the command of Barack Obama, the USA is galloping out of the Middle East. This is both because Obama does not want his attention to domestic issues to be diverted by foreign entanglements, and because the US is no longer able to apply its power to the extent necessary to control events in the region.

Unfortunately, before precipitously withdrawing the US flailed about like a whale in a swimming pool, smashing existing political structures (Iraq, Libya) without giving sufficient consideration to what would replace them. It did not intervene where it should have (Syria) and took the wrong side in other cases (Egypt). It almost completely ignored sub-Saharan Africa, which has already regressed into a Hobbesian state of nature. And last but assuredly not least, it unleashed Iran as a soon-to-be nuclear regional powerhouse.

I also blame the previous administration. While I believe that George W. Bush was an idealist with the best of intentions, he and his team were way out of their depth.

The loss of control which has allowed truly barbaric entities like ISIS and Boko Haram to arise also prompted a mass migration, unprecedented in modern times, from the imploding regions into Europe, to which the ideological and moral bankruptcy of the European Union has contributed. The consequences of this will shortly be felt, and may include the destabilization of some countries that are considered ‘normal’ today. The state of nature will be coming to much of modern, progressive Europe too, in the near future.

So now the vacuum is being filled by an almost overwhelming variety of forces. Some, like the Islamic State and many of the militias fighting in Syria most likely do not have a future. Others, like the new Russian Empire or the rising Shiite caliphate under the auspices of the Islamic Republic of Iran, unfortunately do.

From Israel’s point of view, it seems like there is rarely any good news. Flush with cash as sanctions evaporate even before ‘implementation day’ of the nuclear treaty, Iran is buying weapons from Russia and forging an alliance with her in Syria. Israel has been reduced to begging Russia to let it interdict shipments of game-changing arms to Hezbollah; whether Hezbollah will receive them is now more in the hands of Russia than those of Israel.

Israel is a tiny nation with little strategic depth, Obama’s America is no longer necessarily an ally, and there are internal issues that weaken Israel. But she has survived until now against great odds. She has leaders who understand the threats, she has an air force that even great powers have reason to fear, and she has a nuclear deterrent. Her enemies, if I may repeat one of my favorite unattributed quotations, have never been able to remove their hands from each others’ throats long enough to destroy her. I’m guardedly optimistic.

The age of the American Empire will probably be measured by future historians as stretching from the end of WWII to just about now. One can speculate what date will be used to mark the beginning of the decline – the challenge offered on September 11, 2001 that was never really taken up? Or possibly the election of Barack Obama, who has been called “the first post-American president.” I myself prefer to use the Iran deal – an unforced surrender to perhaps America’s greatest enemy – as the marker.

One thing that is certain is that the downhill trip will be rapid. Obama’s posturing in the international arena is already being recognized as such, while Vladimir Putin and Iran achieve objective after objective. As J. E. Dyer pointed out, Obama has lost credibility with allies and partners, not to mention deterrence with enemies. And although this might change, there seems to be little competent opposition to the Obamist ideology in the US.

America has so far been protected from massive Muslim immigration by its fortunate geography, but that may not last in the age of cheap air transportation. Americans who complain about uncontrolled immigration from Mexico and Central America have no idea how lucky they have been to receive immigrants who simply want a better life rather than ones whose ideology is directly opposed to the ideals of Western civilization, and who want to remake the world in accordance with their shari’a model.

Africa and much of the Middle East are in chaos, large chunks of Europe are already lost, Israel is endangered, and the US has lost its way. Unless the course of history can be reversed, even more of humanity will very soon be living lives that are “nasty, brutish and short.”

The US, at least on paper, is still the world’s strongest economic and military power. It is still possible – I hope – to reverse its decline so that it can once again be a source of strength for democratic states around the world, a counterbalance to the aggressive Russians and Chinese, and a force to prevent the Iranian takeover of the Middle East. That will mean, at the very least least, doing whatever is necessary to prevent the nuclear armament of Iran.

But that would take a kind of leadership that America hasn’t seen in generations.

Posted in American politics, Iran, Islam | 1 Comment

The story of a lie

Posted on September 28, 2015 by Victor Rosenthal

The Jewish people and their state are the target of an unending, worldwide hate offensive. Our reactions differ. Some of us get angry (that’s healthy). Others ignore it. And some become convinced that where there’s smoke, there must be fire. Maybe they hate us because we’re hate-worthy?

Nope. They hate us for a lot of reasons, including religion (that’s a big one for Muslims), envy, guilt, and greed – and sometimes it’s just a family tradition. But in fact we are pretty decent, as homo sapiens goes, and so is our country.

The facts don’t support the hate industry, so the folks who want us dead have also developed a lie industry to provide fuel for the haters. Today I want to look at one lie of the many excreted by that industry, a lie that is told over and over and has certainly been the cause of the deaths of numerous Jews and Arabs.

Ariel Gold Facebook postThe woman who posted this, Ariel Gold of Ithaca, NY (h/t: Petra Marquardt Bigman), is a piece of work herself, a Jew who describes her occupation on her Facebook page as “delegitimizing Zionism at [sic] Community Activist.” If she does anything else for a living, it’s not evident from her posts, which display her as a one-person demonization machine.

But this isn’t about her (read Bigman’s article if your blood pressure is too low today), it’s about the lie above. So what actually happened at the Temple Mount on July 26th this year? Let’s look at the report in Ha’aretz, which nobody can accuse of being right-wing:

After a few months of relative calm at the Temple Mount compound, violence was reported at the Jerusalem site Sunday morning, with dozens of Palestinians youths barricading themselves at the Al Aqsa Mosque and clashing with Israel Police forces sent to the scene. …

During the altercation, police eventually stormed the mosque itself. An unknown number of officers were wounded, and three East Jerusalem residents were arrested for allegedly throwing rocks at Border Police.

Jerusalem police said they received information about Arab youths barricading themselves within the mosque overnight Saturday to confront police and prevent visits to the holy site on Tisha B’Av – the Jewish day of remembrance for the destruction of the First and Second Temples. …

According to the police, the clashes broke out after the Palestinians began throwing stones and shooting fireworks at Border Police and police forces that arrived at the mosque’s entrance. Afterwards, the youths fled into the mosque, throwing stones and bricks at the forces from within, and firing fireworks at them. An unidentified liquid was also thrown at the police.

So it was police, not “right-wing settlers” who “stormed” the mosque, and it was because the thugs (not “worshipers”) inside were planning to violently attack Jews who wanted to visit the site – not to enter the mosque and not to pray, because the status quo that Israel has accepted forbids it.

The “status quo” derives from the ill-considered decision made in 1967 by Moshe Dayan to give civil and religious control of the Muslim institutions on the Mount to the Jordanian waqf. Over the years, the Muslims have arrogated more and more power to themselves, at first forbidding Jews to pray, bring a prayer book, or even move their lips suggestively anywhere on the Mount. Recently they have begun to harass and try to intimidate Jews who try to visit by screaming at them from close quarters. Most of the time, the Israeli government has acquiesced in order to try to defuse Muslim agitation, but of course that is exactly the point of the agitation.

The “Al-Aqsa is in danger” meme has been used over the years to incite riots as well as terrorist violence against Jews, often by Hamas and its affiliates. Now the supposedly ‘moderate’ leader of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, has joined in the anti-Jewish incitement. Speaking on official PA TV,

His honor [Abbas] saluted the Murabitin [the ones that scream in the faces of Jews on the Mount] and stated: ‘Every drop of blood that has been spilled in Jerusalem is holy blood as long as it was for Allah. Every Martyr (Shahid) will reach Paradise, and everyone wounded will be rewarded, Allah willing.’

Likewise, his honor [Abbas] emphasized that the State of Palestine will not exist without Jerusalem, and that the capital of the Palestinian State has to be East Jerusalem, which was occupied in 1967. He noted that we will not allow them to carry out their actions and divide the Al-Aqsa [Mosque], and stated: ‘The Al-Aqsa [Mosque] is ours, and they have no right to defile it with their filthy feet. We will not allow them to, and we will do everything in our power to protect Jerusalem.”

But who cares about the truth? Not Ariel Gold – and not her Facebook friends.

Ariel Gold FB comments

Posted in Information war, Israel and Palestinian Arabs, Jew Hatred | Comments Off on The story of a lie

The sin of self-defamation

Posted on September 25, 2015 by Victor Rosenthal

When you see a thief you fall in with him,
and throw in your lot with adulterers;
you devote your mouth to evil,
and yoke your tongue to deceit;
you are busy maligning your brother,
defaming the son of your mother.
– Psalm 50

I’m writing this the day before Yom Kippur, so I’m thinking about my mistakes, some of which are even sins. But my thoughts keep wandering. Is it worse to commit many sins and repent for them, or to sin less but insist that you don’t sin at all? What about committing few sins but admitting to ones that you didn’t commit?

That sounds insane, but characterizes the Jewish people, or at least elements therein. Since the Zionist enterprise created – at massive cost and against great odds – what in many ways may be the best modern state on the planet earth, Jews have been repenting for their success.

How is it possible, says the little devil that sits on the shoulder of writers like Ari Shavit or Peter Beinart and whispers in their ears, that Jews should have all this, Jews that were despised in the civilized world for at least 2000 years and whom many important people today still despise?

They don’t deserve it, says the devil. They must have stolen it. They must have committed massacres and ethnically cleansed the indigenous people from their land. Because, as Mahmoud Abbas, a proud ‘Palestinian’, says, Jews have filthy feet that defile the land. You never hear Mahmoud Abbas admitting his sins, or indeed the sins of any ‘Palestinian’, unless of course it is an Arab that has challenged his authority as the dictator of the Palestinian kleptocracy.

They can’t prove that the massacres and ethnic cleansing happened, but they know in their hearts that it had to happen, because otherwise the Jews would still be living the kind of life they truly deserve, paying jizya to Muslim rulers or eating dirt in the ghettos of Europe in between Easter-time pogroms like my grandparents did.

We fought wars and like all wars not every bullet fired was perfectly just. We made mistakes. But we weren’t Nazis, we weren’t Arabs and we weren’t even Americans or British. We fought in self-defense and we did what was necessary to survive.

Amira Hass, a Jewish woman and writer for the Ha’aretz newspaper, famously said that “throwing stones is the birthright and duty of anyone subject to foreign rule.” Hass doesn’t agree with me that the Jewish people has a birthright, the same as any indigenous people, and that it is the land of Israel, and that even the Jew-despising nations recognized this in international law, and that there is no ‘foreign’ rule here. But getting stoned to death is a long tradition among Jews (it’s even mentioned in the Yom Kippur liturgy), and for Amira Hass it’s what we deserve. The Jewish people cheated their ordained fate, and it’s the Arabs’ duty to punish them.

Even the President of the State of Israel doesn’t feel comfortable with his ‘Jewish privilege.’ The morning after an ugly crime in which three Arabs were burned to death, when the police investigation had barely begun, he announced that “Jewish terrorists” were responsible for the crime. Now it’s almost two months later and the Jewish terrorists are still not in hand, despite assurances from various government officials that they know who did it, “in principle,” (the words of Moshe Ya’alon) anyway. But it had to be Jews, because we know that Jews, especially right-wing extremists, are guilty of everything. To be a Jew is to be guilty.

So why are we surprised when the non-Jewish world expects us to sit down with representatives of the PLO, still a criminal terrorist gang, and offer up our land in return for promises (which nobody in their right mind expects that they will keep)? When the Arabs said that we massacred them, ethnically cleansed them, burned them, stole their land, were descended from Khazars, and never even had a Temple on the Mount where we put our “filthy feet,” did we object? Only a little. Mostly we said that we suffered a lot in the Holocaust, both sides have made mistakes, and our security is important to us.

What we did not say was that we are the indigenous people of the land of Israel, we have a biblical, historical moral, and legal right to the land – recognized in the Mandate – and it isn’t a sin to defend ourselves, our history and our rights.

It isn’t a moral policy – or a particularly effective one – to try to ingratiate ourselves with those who hate us by accepting guilt for crimes that we didn’t commit. Self-flagellation engenders contempt, not respect. And it isn’t moral or effective to be silent and fail to demand the justice that we truly deserve.

Something to think about on Yom Kippur. May we all be blessed with a peaceful year.

Posted in Israel and Palestinian Arabs, Israeli Society, Jew Hatred | 2 Comments

Occupation Shmoccupation

Posted on September 20, 2015 by Victor Rosenthal

The Yesha Council, the voice of Israelis living beyond the Green Line, published a little pamphlet called “kibush kishkush,” which one could translate as “occupation shmoccupation” (in Hebrew, here).

The booklet refutes some of the common misconceptions about the communities in Judea and Samaria and the people that live in them. It includes statistics and historical information for Israelis who have learned everything they know about ‘settlements’ and ‘settlers’ from media and educators who have presented a picture distorted by the politics of the Left.

It points out that attempts at trading land for peace have failed and only resulted in more Arab terrorism against Jews. It expresses the belief that Judea and Samaria are historically an inseparable part of the state of Israel. It asserts that ‘Palestinians’ are just Arabs that happen to live in a particular place.

To me, it’s entirely unexceptional. I’ve made arguments for these positions over and over. But to Isabel Kershner of the NY Times, it’s cause for wonderment. In a short article published on Friday, she displays her bias and historical ignorance. She writes,

It presents the settlements, which most countries consider illegal, as a normal, integral and now inseparable part of Israel, noting that hundreds of thousands of Israelis live in 150 established communities, many founded in the 1970s and ’80s.

Like many others Kershner doesn’t distinguish between international law as it is interpreted by legal scholars, and the political and racist rejection of the state of Israel that is behind UN resolutions. The phrase “which most countries consider illegal” is boilerplate that apparently is required in all writing that mentions settlements which appears in outlets like the Times.

What remains unclear is why, nearly half a century after Israel conquered the territory from Jordan, the Yesha Council felt the need to explain the settlement enterprise in Hebrew to Israelis. …

The Palestinians, the booklet says, are “a name used to describe Arabs who live in the territories of Judea and Samaria,” the West Bank’s biblical name. The occupation, according to the booklet, is a fiction. Rather, it says, the lands in question were freed by the Israeli Army in the Arab-Israeli War of 1967.

What is unclear to me is how Kershner could have been the Times’ Jerusalem correspondent since 2007 and never opened a book about the history of the place she is reporting from. If she had done so, she would not imply that somehow “the West Bank” belonged to Jordan and then was ‘conquered’ by the IDF!

In 1948 Jordan invaded the territory that had been set aside by the Mandate for a national home for the Jews, occupied Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, violently ethnically cleansed its Jewish population, declared it part of Jordan and renamed it the “West Bank.” Only Britain, Iraq and Pakistan recognized the annexation.

The 19-year long illegal Jordanian occupation was ended by the IDF in 1967, and the booklet is quite correct in calling this a liberation rather than a conquest. And “Judea and Samaria” is not just the “biblical” name of this territory, but it was the usual name for it until 1950, when the Jordanians changed it.

The line between this territory and the rest of Israel, the ‘Green Line’, is simply the spot where the IDF and Jordanian armies disengaged in 1949. The cease-fire agreement makes it clear that neither side intended for this line to be a border (the Jordanians thought there should be no Jewish state at all, and the Israelis wanted a defensible border).

Next time you are having an argument about whether a Palestinian state should be established according to pre-1967 lines, ask how the illegal 19-year Jordanian occupation of land originally set aside for Jewish settlement magically changed it into ‘Palestinian land.’ Especially since the ‘Palestinian people’ are mostly descended from Arabs that migrated into this land in the last 200 years or so, and their distinctive ‘Palestinian’ consciousness is comprised of their opposition to Jewish sovereignty.

Israelis are treated to a consistent barrage of propaganda from leftist media on the subject of “The Occupation,” and how it is illegal, immoral and destructive of the Israeli nation. They are told that ‘settlements’ are the reason there is no peace and that ‘settlers’ are all ‘price tag’ vandals. They still vote for Netanyahu, because they understand that the remedies of the Left would mean the end of their nation and the death or dispersal of the 6 million or so Jews that live here. But I suspect that the propaganda is successful to some extent.

The Yesha Council booklet assumes a Zionist perspective, and so it seems strange to those who are used to hearing the leftist and Arab narratives – or, like Kershner, who are employed at disseminating them.

Posted in Israel and Palestinian Arabs, Israeli Society, Media | Comments Off on Occupation Shmoccupation

Israel’s two greatest strategic mistakes

Posted on September 18, 2015 by Victor Rosenthal

The murder of Alexander Levlovitz in Jerusalem when he was driving home from a Rosh Hashana dinner, is the latest in a series of cases of Jews killed or seriously injured by rocks and firebombs thrown by Arabs. The daily attacks in Judea/Samaria and Jerusalem rarely make the news outside of Israel, and even here we seem to accept them as natural phenomena, like large hailstones or volcanic eruptions, until someone dies or is maimed for life.

Right now this kind of terrorism is particularly prevalent, while at the same time a battle between police and rioting Arabs continues on the Temple Mount. The Arabs are upset because Israel’s government has decided that it is not acceptable for screaming mobs of Muslims to accost Jews trying to visit the Mount, where they are nevertheless not allowed to pray. There is continuous incitement on social media and in mosques calling on Muslims to “defend al-Aqsa,” which they can do on the Temple Mount or on highway 443.

Ever since the riots orchestrated by al-Husseini in the 1920s, the accusation that Israel plans to replace the al-Aqsa mosque with a Jewish temple has been effective in producing violent behavior among Muslims, despite its almost comical falsehood. Anything that Israel does in connection with the Mount is used as a pretext to make this accusation. The reason it works has to do with the first of two ideological principles that serve as foundations for Arab violence against Jews in Israel. Failure to take these principles into account led to the two greatest strategic errors made by Israel’s leaders since the founding of the state.

One principle is that of Muslim supremacy, according to which it is absolutely unacceptable that non-Muslims should in any way govern or control Muslims. A corollary is that a non-Muslim presence in what Muslims consider a holy place pollutes it. The so-called ‘status quo’ that has existed on the Temple Mount since it came under Jewish control in 1967 is a compromise – and you know compromises never fly with Muslims – to try to get around this. The status quo places the Mount under civil control of the Jordanian waqf, and allows non-Muslims to visit on a limited basis, but not to pray there.

Making this deal was the first great strategic error, because it should have been obvious that the Arabs would never be satisfied with anything less than full sovereignty over the Mount. Over the years, it has been a flash point for violence; and Israel has usually bowed to the threat of violence and little by little allowed its hard-won sovereignty to erode. For example, on several occasions the waqf has carried out construction projects while ignoring Israeli laws about safeguarding archaeologically sensitive areas; in fact, Jewish artifacts have been deliberately destroyed and Israel did nothing.

The other principle is the Palestinian Narrative, which asserts that the Jewish state is illegitimate, built on land stolen from indigenous ‘Palestinians’, and that violent ‘resistance to occupation’ is justified (indeed, more than justified: worthy of the highest praise).

The narrative got a massive boost from the second major Israeli mistake: the Oslo accords.

Oslo was not just a tactical error which led to the Second Intifada and thousands of dead Jews and Arabs, but also a strategic and ideological error from which Israel is suffering even today, long after the Intifada has been suppressed. The Oslo process implicitly validated much of the Palestinian narrative, asserting that Israel recognized the terrorists of the PLO as the representatives of the “Palestinian people” and spoke of “mutual legitimate and political rights.” Today the heritage of Oslo is the popularity in Washington and Europe of the idea that the 1949 armistice lines mark a border between Israel and ‘Palestinian’ territory, something that Yitzhak Rabin would have very vigorously opposed.

Recovery from these mistakes will be a long process and require a great deal of resolve and persistence. Among the difficulties associated with the Temple Mount is the position of Jordan, whose prestige in the Muslim world is directly tied to the waqf being in control of the Mount. No matter how King Abdullah feels about the PLO, Hamas and Palestinians in general – one suspects that his feelings are less than warm – he cannot appear less committed to Muslim sovereignty there than they are.

If Israel were to evict or sideline the waqf and take over full control, as it should have done in 1967, the pressure on Abdullah to take action would be immense. At the same time, he is dependent on Israel for the survival of his minority regime, which would place him in an impossible situation, perhaps even lead to an Islamist coup.

Only a gradual approach to recover sovereignty bit by bit, will work. Outlawing the screaming Muslim mobs on the Temple Mount was a good first step, but even that small step has had its price in Arab violence.

Neither are there easy ways to undo the damage done by Oslo. Arafat should have been killed in 1982, and the PLO should have been destroyed (both were saved by American intervention – US Marines escorted the PLO onto ships bound for Tunis). The moribund PLO never should have been revived and brought back to Israel in 1993. Unfortunately, we don’t have a time machine to go back and undo these errors.

One of the first acts of Yasser Arafat after Oslo was to take control of the media and educational system, which he turned into engines of indoctrination against Israel, Jews and ‘normalization’ – anything that might tend to reduce tensions between Jews and Arabs. 22 years later, a generation of Arabs that grew up under this system are stoning, burning and stabbing Jews to death whenever they have an opportunity.

Unfortunately, nothing has been done to change this. Oslo has long been abrogated and the Palestinian Authority has no legal authority; but Israel is afraid that if the PA collapsed it would be replaced by Hamas or worse. So it continues to prop it up. But the hateful incitement from PA media and its educational system must be stopped before it breeds yet another generation of terrorists.

Both of these mistakes were made because Israel assumed that compromise was an effective tactic when dealing with Arabs. Compromise is greatly admired in the West, where magnanimity is associated with strength. In the Middle East, an offer of compromise is understood as an admission of weakness. If I can take all of something, then why should I give you any? Therefore, I must not be strong enough to take it.

I am sure that the Arabs were surprised when Moshe Dayan offered them control of the Temple Mount. After all, Israel had conquered Jerusalem. Many of them were probably expecting to be kicked out of their homes, as the Jordanians had done to the Jews in 1948. But instead of teaching them that they had been defeated, Dayan gave them hope that by continued struggle they could prevail.

And if they do, you had better believe they will not be magnanimous.

Posted in Islam, Israel and Palestinian Arabs, Terrorism | Comments Off on Israel’s two greatest strategic mistakes

Why negotiations with the PLO are a waste of time

Posted on September 15, 2015 by Victor Rosenthal

Any “two-state solution” is a bad idea. It is inconsistent with Israel’s security – Judea and Samaria will quickly resemble Gaza – and it generally (but not always) implies that the Jewish people do not have full legal title to the land from the Jordan to the Mediterranean.

It’s also impossible to implement, because Jews and Arabs have entirely different ideas of what it means. This ambiguity has doomed all negotiations between Israel and the PLO from Oslo to the present.

For an Israeli Jew, the idea is usually stated as “two states for two peoples,” living peacefully side by side. It’s understood that a partition of the land would bring about an end to the conflict.

For the PLO and most other Arab circles, this is not the case. I am indebted to Azmi Bishara, a former Arab member of the Knesset (who fled the country to avoid prosecution for allegedly passing information to Hizballah during the Second Lebanon War) for explaining this:

The “two states for two peoples” slogan turns an historical settlement of a conflict into an acceptance of Zionism as an idea, whereas the two-state solution comprises an acceptance of an existing situation – on condition that any agreement between Israel and Palestinian leaders includes the establishment of a Palestinian state and the refugees’ right of return.

Initially, this was a political deal that the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) accepted. However, the PLO did not intend to make a concession regarding its understanding of history, nor must it abandon the contradiction between itself and Zionism as a concept; otherwise, it will give up the right of return and the rights of the Palestinians within Israel.

Bishara’s rejection of “Zionism as an idea” is based on the ‘Palestinian narrative’ that I discussed here. According to it, there is no Jewish people, only a religion. And the Jews have no moral or legal right to the land of Israel. Any ‘recognition’ of Israel, like that made by the PLO at Oslo, is only the acknowledgement of an (unjust) state of affairs, not an acceptance of it.

The Jewish state, he says,

… doesn’t consider itself to be the state of more than a million people who are its citizens and the indigenous people of the land – the Arabs who remained within the 1948 boundaries of Palestine remain the original inhabitants of the country. The occupation turned them from an actual majority into a minority.

They are not immigrants who must give up their identity and integrate with another people as though they had chosen to immigrate. Hence, in addition to their individual rights as citizens, they also have collective rights as indigenous inhabitants. First and foremost of these rights is the preservation and development of their identity and their relationship with the land and with other Arabs.

As I have argued, the Jewish people are the indigenous, aboriginal people of the land of Israel. They are the “original inhabitants,” not the ‘Palestinians’, who are relatively new to the region and didn’t even see themselves as a ‘people’ until the 1960s. This is the basis, recognized in the League of Nations Mandate, that the moral and legal rights of the Jewish people rest upon.

Bishara’s idea of a two-state solution is one that includes both the so-called ‘right of return’ of descendants of Arab refugees to Israel (not to ‘Palestine’) and a change in the status of the Arabs living in Israel to a people with national rights as well as civil rights. ‘Palestine’ would be an Arab state, and ‘Israel’ would be a bi-national state.

The PLO’s “understanding of history” is the Palestinian narrative, in which European colonialist Jews occupied Arab Palestine and dispossessed its “true owners.” This precludes a permanent end of conflict and a recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people, even if it withdraws to the 1949 armistice lines. This is why Mahmoud Abbas would never agree to these things, and why he always insisted that no Jewish prime minister ever accepted “the two-state solution.” According to the Arab definition, none did.

I expect that President Obama will shortly resume pressure on Israel to surrender to PLO demands and withdraw from Judea, Samaria and parts of Jerusalem.

I would hope that Israel will not only present the argument from security, but also make the starting point the historical, moral and legal rights of the Jewish people to all of the land of Israel, on the grounds that the Jewish people are its original, indigenous inhabitants.

Posted in 'Peace' Process, Israel and Palestinian Arabs, Israeli Arabs | Comments Off on Why negotiations with the PLO are a waste of time