United Nations Delivers Statehood to Palestinians, Now What?

After all the political maneuvers, the acrimony aimed at both sides, and a few speeches it came down to a vote which provided little surprise. The promotion of the PLO into a recognized State now called Palestine passed by 138 votes in favor, 9 votes opposed, and 41 abstentions leaving 5 countries not voting. It just might be that the five countries whose United Nations ambassadors did not even bother to vote and likely went so far as to skip the whole event, and this was more of an event than it was a serious debate, were the smartest of them all. The PLO, more accurately, the Palestinian Authority has been granted statehood and their flag now is recognized as the national flag of Palestine. The items which were not defined by the resolution are a few little triflings and obviously something any normal country would already be able to answer. Little things of almost no importance such as which city is their capital city; what is their legal tender, their monetary items used in place of having to barter; what was the date it was founded; what are the national bird, tree, fish, tree, flower, dance, defining activity, or favorite anything? Well, let’s just leave those items aside for now and hope they get worked out at a later date and instead try to discern what actions the newest country on the planet Earth will be likely to tackle first and get an idea of their priorities.

One obvious item which should be high on the list for the “country” of Palestine is getting the two separate entities that currently rule in mutually exclusive areas somehow into being a single entity. Whether this is done through election or by negotiations between Fatah and Hamas, this is going to prove to be a very steep and challenging mountain to climb over. This may very well be one of the most interesting political campaigns ever and will definitely have more uncertainties and possibilities for violent confrontations in place of debates. Whatever the eventual outcome, my bet is if elections are held then Hamas will take a comfortable majority and in any elections Mahmoud Abbas will demand that he receive one of the top spots in the administrating of the government. There will be a rush by well over one-hundred countries, judging from the United Nations vote, which will rush to recognize the nascent country of Palestine, and these will come even before a capital city has been designated making building embassies somewhat difficult. It is likely just the same as some of these countries though anxious to recognize Palestine may be more hesitant to send a delegation and ambassador to set up an embassy.

Fortunately, there are some straight forward items that the country of Palestine will likely take up as soon as possible. There is a high likelihood that as part of a peace offering to Hamas the Palestinian State will sue in the ICC (International Criminal Court) to force Israel to remove their sea embargo on the Gaza Strip and also to be allowed to reopen the airport in Gaza City. There will be efforts to have Egypt completely open the Rafah and other borders with Gaza while also pushing Jordan to open all the crossings over the Jordan River allowing both parts of Palestine, the West Bank and Gaza, to import whatever they wish to their heart’s delight. This might not initially be used to import the tons of weapons that Israel worries about but eventually such imports will commence and after that problems are pretty much guaranteed. Also, within a short while there would be offers of military alliances and mutual defense treaties, all of which will be intended to prevent any attacks by Israel and after these are in place the terror attacks out of both sides of Palestine would begin to climb.

The real confrontation with Israel will begin once the leadership of Palestine makes the decision to sue in the ICC to have all the Israeli citizens removed from within their borders. This step will not occur until sufficient numbers of nations have recognized Palestine and also denoted that the 1949 Armistice Lines, also known as the Green Line or the 1967 Lines, are the recognized borders and have also recognized al-Quds as the Capital of Palestine and that the Capital includes all of the Old City and everything which belonged to Jordan before the Six Day War. The one thing that is inevitable is that eventually there will be some action, claim, demand or overt act of terror resulting in an unacceptable number of casualties and fatalities which will lead to a state of war. No matter what else may occur, the inevitability is a state of war between the country Palestine and Israel.

That is the inevitability of today’s vote. All of the speeches in favor of granting statehood and forming a country named Palestine spoke of the increased probability for peace and an end to all the violence that has plagued Israel and her neighbors over the years. They were very impressive and well worded speeches. Unfortunately, none of those speeches had any relevance to the realities set into motion by today’s vote recognizing the twenty-third Arab Muslim country. What has been set in motion is an unavoidable finality of one more Arab war to annihilate Israel. Where many may claim I am being simply overly dramatic and painting a picture of dread that is wholly erroneous, I really hope those making such a claim are proven correct. I cannot see any path which does not result in another Arab/Israeli War and this may be the final and worst war the Middle East has ever seen, and they have seen more than their share over all of history.

Beyond the Cusp

Benghazi and Gaza Reveal Government Spin Over Action

In the United States the public is being slowly traumatized by the horrors slowly coming to light as the putrefied onion that is Benghazi, Libya is slowly peeled one rotting later after another while in Israel there is the escalation by the terror governance in Gaza of rockets being hurled across the border at civilians and often timed to strike while children are transiting to or from school thus traumatizing the millions within the ever increasing range of these explosive projectiles. In both countries the government in general and the leadership in particular; President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton, United Nations Ambassador Rice and others in the Administration in America and Prime Minister Netanyahu and the military and coalition leadership in Israel; are dodging responsibility and avoiding directly addressing the truth in a futile hope that neither problem will have any defining affect upon the upcoming elections. The similarities in both of these horrid and tragic instances go further than simply the attempt to wish them away by each nation’s leaders, they also have similar solutions which are based on honestly admitting some painful truths, taking responsibility for protecting the people and interests of the nation, giving an honest and complete assessment of the realities each nation faces, admission of mistakes and shortcomings committed by those in the positions of leadership and decision making, and finally refusal to take bold steps that would protect those in harm’s way and use necessary military steps that would prevent any further damages and show an understanding and consideration for protecting those who stand vulnerable from these threats.

The United States leadership needs to admit that it is very possible and even likely that the changes brought on by the so-called Arab Spring are more likely to result in situations less favorable to the West, freedom, liberties and even the economies of the nations where the Muslim Brotherhood or other Islamist entities have taken over the governance and are going to resemble an Arab Winter and relations are going to turn colder, not warmer. This places our personnel in the embassies, consulates, and other assets in greater threats of danger either directly from the new governance or from other terror-like threats acting with the permission of the governments if not directly being organized by these governments. It will not only be unwise to allow for security to be provided by the governments of the countries in which there are personnel and must insist on having United States Marines on duty guarding these people or should let it be known that American personnel will be pulled if forced to do so as well as financial and other consequences. Niceties cannot be extended if they will result in the death or threats of violence to American personnel. There are times when niceties must be put aside and putting forth a steel gloved hand becomes necessary instead of a white silk glove that President Obama appears to believe will solve everything. Reality is often not as pretty and in this case is extremely unseemly and ugly, but the truth is the truth.

Meanwhile, in southern Israel there have been close to one hundred rockets, mortars, bombs and other attacks originating from the Gaza Strip in less than one week. While the Iron Dome system protecting the city of Ashkelon has been of adequate success by intercepting at least eight rockets fired in its theater, there are simply not sufficient Iron Dome systems to protect all of the communities. There have been mounting casualties and an even larger number of people suffering stress and other nervous attacks and disorders as a result of this seeming declaration of war. If this many explosive rockets and mortars had been fired across a border into any country in the world other than Israel, the United Nations would be holding emergency sessions and there would be world-wide concern and denunciations against the senseless violence and provocations. Of course, since these attacks are against Israel there will be no fury of concern, hand-wringing and denouncements unless and until Israel should retaliate with any appropriate force which will be labeled as disproportionate as is the custom of the world in its current state of affairs. But just because the rest of the world will likely get their panties in a wad should Israel launch a ground attack that is carefully planned and executed sweeping through the entire length and breadth of the Gaza Strip searching every single building, shed, hospital, and mosque for rockets, mortars, rocket launchers, mortar launch tubes and any other such equipment of war and confiscate and destroy every single piece found does not preclude the possible necessity for just such an action. There should also be arrests of every leading terrorist and the rocket, mortar, bomb and explosive expert should be arrested or taken as prisoners of war to be released once all violence originating from the Gaza Strip has ceased for twelve straight months and a treaty negotiated. It may even have reached the point in time where returning IDF forces into the Gaza Strip to patrol the area and keep the peace has become a desirable and necessary option. Simply promising to reinforce the homes, businesses, hospitals, schools, malls, and other buildings to make them better able to withstand the rocket attacks is insufficient, irresponsible and completely inadequate. Election or no election in the offing, protecting the people of Israel is job one Mr. Netanyahu, not the strengthening of your coalition in the Knesset. What may not be obvious to you is that by assuring the safety and security of the people you also assure the size and loyalty of your coalition in the Knesset.

In both the United States and Israel there will be elections within a few months. The United States will have their election within fourteen days and may very well end up a referendum not only on President Obama’s performance in his first term, Obama Care, the economy, or any of the other items the American people have been fed for the whole election year thus far, it may well be a referendum on Benghazi and who will most likely keep the American people safe and the United States strong and respected with a sufficient dose of feared that nobody would ever consider attacking Americans anywhere in the world. In Israel the election might be a referendum on the authenticity of a return as an innocent man into politics by Ehud Olmert, or the return of Tzipi Livni. What should be the issues are a leader who will put the final nails to seal the coffin where the Oslo accords have been laid for some time by Mahmoud Abbas and his refusal to compromise or even discuss compromise, protection of the citizens living under constant threat in southern Israel from the rockets, mortars and other attacks originating from the Gaza Strip under the direction of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and related terror groups, the acceptance and application of the Levy Report along with all it implies, and stand firm before the hatreds and bigotries of too much of this world and establish that Israel is entitled to every millimeter of lands guaranteed under the numerous agreements including but not limited to the Peel Commission, San Remo Conference, Churchill White Papers, and Article 80 of the United Nations. The other way in which the United States and Israel are facing a similar situation is the possibility that the upcoming election in each country could have an effect on the entirety of each country’s future beyond what anyone can anticipate. Act One in two weeks and Act Two scheduled for late January of next year. The time between these two important dates should prove interesting, especially on how the results of the first could have influences on the second. These surely are interesting times but as such, are these a good thing or a curse as the Chinese believe.

Beyond the Cusp

Rocket Barrage Continues Four Wounded Two Seriously

More than fifty rockets have been fired across the border wounding four, two of them critically. Some of the wounded were found to be foreign agricultural workers who are simply helping with the harvest to support their families. What would your reaction be if this were the beginning of an article in your local news media outlets, print, radio, and television? Instead of this report being about rockets fired into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, what if it were about southern Florida and the rockets originated in Cuba, or if this had been eastern Pakistan with the rockets fired by India or if the rockets were fired from Chechnya into Russia? We could go on listing such possible places and combinations for pages but these will suffice. Would we not expect in each case there to be some response by the nation made victim by the rocket fire and whose citizens live with fear of just such events being commonplace in their lives. This has to be put in perspective of these fifty rockets are just one day’s strike in a chain of such strikes totalling in excess of 10,000 rockets to date. Would not the United States acting on Florida’s behalf, Pakistan, or Russia be within their rights to respond and respond harshly to such a provocation, such that is tantamount to an act of war? Surely such retribution would be accepted by the majority of the rest of the world and might even find aid arriving from other sympathetic nations as well as much noise made against the aggressors in the United Nations, through many NGOs and in the general discourse coming from governments throughout the world. I predict we will see a similar level of scorn and denunciations of actions coming from all entities, governments and of course the United Nations with all its disparate agencies. But what we will hear will be different from what we could expect in each of the alternate situations described above.

Should the world hold true to its normative form, we can expect calls for Israel to show restraint and to not strike at the assets of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the other known terror groups which populate Gaza and were responsible for this attack. The warnings to Israel will inevitable include reasoning that should Israel strike back it will simply cause the terrorists to be motivated to strike back as retaliation. Israel will be instructed to simply absorb this strike in the hopes that by not striking back, the terrorists will respond with quiet and peace and everyone will live happily ever after. Needless to point out that should such terror strikes have been perpetrated against any other country that the world would accept their retaliation and many might even go so far as to applaud such. But not Israel. Israel is supposed to sit there and allow its citizens to be murdered and traumatized, its properties and infrastructure to be blown to pieces without so much as a murmur of indignation. When Israel does strike in retaliation for this grievous act of war we will likely hear from numerous Muslim countries, the European Union along with many of its member nations, the United States, Russia, China, international NGOs, the alphabet soup of United Nations agencies and especially the United Nations General Assembly to all roundly condemn this overt, harsh and unilateral, unjustified attack on innocent Palestinians. The entirety of Hamas rocket, mortar, IED, and other attacks will be neatly placed out of sight and the world will act as if Israel was the initiator of any and all violence in the Middle East. There will even likely be motions for sanctions against Israel brought before the United Nations Security Council which will hopefully be vetoed and placed rightfully into the waste basket. But there will be one cry which will pierce through the cacophony of denunciations and declarations of unity with the people of Gaza which will ask, “But Israel deserved this as a result of the blockade and their starving of the oppressed Palestinians and what about the occupation.”

Once more let us clear up the misinformation about events and the order in which they occurred which will make those willing to listen to gasp in disbelief and then run to check our facts; we welcome such scrutiny. We all probably will agree that Israel gained possession of the Gaza Strip as the result of the June 1967 Arab Israeli War. Israeli actions in this war has been adjudicated and was found to have been a defensive war as Egypt had initiated the war with their closing of the Straights of Tiran (a casus belli in and of itself), Egypt and Syria in coordinated actions massed troops on Israel’s northern and southern borders, both Egypt and Syria had announced their intent to push the Jews into the Sea, and Jordan was not brought under attack until after they rejected the Israeli calls for Jordan not to attack and they struck anyway. It is also hard to argue against that fact that Israel removed every Israeli and all IDF troops from Gaza in 2005 leaving it completely under Palestinian authority rule and control. There was no embargo or blockade of Gaza at this time. By the end of 2007, Hamas had assumed full control of Gaza after a coup which removed the ruling Palestinian Authority from the enclave. Even after Hamas had taken control of all of Gaza through its violent purge of all things Fatah, Israel still had not put in place the embargo and naval blockade. It was after rockets were fired into Israel by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terror interests which have found safe haven in Gaza that Israel acted and put in place the embargo and naval blockade. After the incident with the flotilla and the violent attack on the IDF units enforcing the blockade that the United Nations held an investigation and hearings on the Israeli blockade which was found to be legal and within the applicable demands for legitimacy in international law. The only interaction that Israel has with Hamas and the Gaza governing entities is the transfer of humanitarian aid, supplying some of the water and electricity to Gaza, and offering and supplying Gazans with medical treatments in Israeli hospitals very often at no cost. This is considered by some as a form of occupation but one can only imagine the howling and tragedy that would be noted should Israel cease these “occupation motivated assistances”. Now all we can do is wait and see if Israel retaliates in equal measure or if they instead target a number of leaders of the terror groups operating within Gaza and the resultant highly charged insanities that will follow whichever action Israel should employ. Even if Israel were to not retaliate, something that has occurred in the past, history has shown that this only serves to engender even larger and bolder attacks as not acting is perceived as weakness and an inability to act. This is one truth in the Middle East that the Western nations have yet to figure out or understand. They appear to be unable to see the world through anything beyond their rose colored glasses which filter out any and all truths which they will to wish away.

Beyond the Cusp