World Suffers from Palestine Fever

Last Friday Finland and Denmark became the latest European countries to upgrade the status of the Palestinian Authority diplomatic missions to full-fledged Embassy status placing them on an equal status with every other nation in the world. The Palestinian entity is now treated by the United Nations, UNESCO, many countries, NGOs, many religious organizations as well as their ruling councils and now also by Google as being a real nation despite their glaring deficiencies. The Palestinians have no independent currency, no borders, no established capital city, and the population possesses no individual identity which serves to differentiate them from the surrounding native populations. But why allow such minor items get in the way of granting premature recognition to the Palestinian entity and in the process snub Israel presenting them with what amounts to a preemptive establishment of Palestinian statehood without demanding them to reach an agreement and have an actual treaty with Israel when one can simply forgo such technicalities. I would like to be able to believe that when Mahmoud Abbas has gathered sufficient nations who have granted them equal status as a national state as they have such others as the United States, France, England, China, India, Brazil, Australia, and the rest of the almost two-hundred nations of the United Nations that he will also receive their support in declaring whatever borders he chooses.

 

I can honestly visualize the day coming within a decade when Mahmoud Abbas will stand before the United Nations General Assembly and demand that they resolve to have the member nations to assist in every manner necessary to establish the state of Palestine within its natural borders from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean sea and receiving a standing ovation right before an overwhelming consensus vote affirming his request. This vote would necessitate another vote follow it where the United Nations finally would affirm that it has discussed but never approved before, a vote to rescind the United Nations General Assembly declaration which allowed the establishment of the Jewish state of Israel. Then the world will have chosen to stand behind the Palestinians and enforce their desire to not just form their state within borders sharing the land with Israel, but to form their state in place of and atop the corpse of the state of Israel. Can there be much doubt as to the inevitability of such a ruling when the vote to establish a Palestinian state over the objections and in denial of United Nations Security Council resolutions pertaining to the establishment of said state by the astounding affirmation of one-hundred-thirty-eight votes in favor, nine votes against and forty-one abstentions? And once this precedent has been established, what country would remain safe, independent, and free from being dissolved by a vote of the United Nations that was then used to align all the power of all the world’s militaries against them to erase whatever state fell on the wrong side of the masses who would then hold the powers of fate to thusly destroy any nation they so desired.

 

Would anybody actually be surprised if the United Nations General Assembly once they had established the legitimate power to dissolve any nation that the Non-Aligned Movement groups of one-hundred-twenty member nations and seventeen observer nations would not use their overwhelming majority in the United Nations General Assembly to realign the world in their favor at the expense of those whom they accuse of having oppressed, exploited and pilfered them and their resources by the colonial and imperial nations as well as the industrialized world? The only reason such has not yet been acted upon has been that limitations placed on the powers of the United Nations General Assembly while the main authority and the right and power to resolve for the use of force was reserved solely to the United Nations Security Council. This is much of what has been behind an ever growing demand to reform the Security Council to allow a realignment of those countries holding permanent status, removal of the veto power of the permanent status members allowing them to prevent any action by their simple vote without having to give any reasons, and strip or dilute the powers of the Security Council and transferring many of those powers either exclusively to the General Assembly or at a minimum a share of such powers. Once such a revolutionary reconstruction and redefinition of the powers and responsibilities within the branches of the United Nations has been enacted even should it require a complete rewrite of the United Nations Charter, does anyone really feel safe that this would not lead inevitably to a conflagrative conflict that would envelop the world and leave in its wake a world in ruins with most of its major cities having been laid waste and starvation being the normal state of existence persisting for an indeterminate amount of time while the world attempted to rebuild from the ashes. This would not be the aim or even the desire of those who would initially support dissolving the Jewish state of Israel and replacing it with the twenty-second Arab state established for those claiming to be a separate peoples known as Palestinians, but it would be the eventuality which such inevitably would spawn. That is the one problem when expedience trumps thought, there will always be unexpected consequences hiding in the shadows of the future, and they would often be dire and extremely undesirable. But caution has proven not to be a welcome element when emotions run hot and actions are the result of the moment coming into fruition free of restraining contemplation. I have realized that if you do not think things through before acting you usually find yourself later asking yourself what was I thinking.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Looking to the Future and the Completion of the Peace Process

Reflecting on the entirety of the period after the liberation of Judea, Samaria, Benyamin and reunified Jerusalem I have realized how drastically things have changed since June of 1967. There was great hope and joy that came with the reunification of Jerusalem and having the Old City once again available for Jews and Christians to visit and enjoy their holy sites throughout the Old City and in the eastern heart of Eretz Yisroel. Looking back at that period using that hindsight which is always 20/20 vision coming from crystal clear thought I realize that Israel should have simply annexed whatever lands would have best served the future of the country. Instead Israel limited their annexations to the rest of Jerusalem and its immediate surroundings including the Mount of Olives and the historic cemetery as well as the vital Golan Heights. In hindsight it becomes clear that Israel should have simply annexed all of Judea, Samaria, Benyamin and anything else which made up the areas liberated from Jordanian oppression. Annexing the Golan Heights was wise and it might have even been expedient to have also annexed a mile or so of the lowlands east of the Golan Heights so as to be able to assure that no obstacles, tunnels or other structures of a military nature would even compromise a clear field of view and security from snipers or encroachments for the forces stationed along the heights. And finally it might have served Israel to also have retained at least part of the Sinai Peninsula, in particular the eastern sections from the easternmost mountain range to the eastern fork of the Red Sea assuring that the Straights of Tiran are never again used to cut off Israel’s seaway to all of Asia and the eastern coast of Africa. But that was not the path chosen and it is far too late now to concern ourselves with such fantasies.

 

The greatest error made after the reunification of Jerusalem was allowing the Muslim Waqf to retain control and enforcement of their will over the Temple Mount. This error in judgment has resulted in the destruction of countless priceless archeological artifacts dating back to the periods of both the First and Second Temples. This Jewish heritage has been permanently lost for all times. That mistake pales compared to the most grievous error and mistaken policy decision very likely in all of history. I am referring to allowing Yasser Arafat to return and granting that arch terrorist to hold any position or power. Allowing anyone with the moral depravity to dispatch youths with murderous vests filled with explosives into restaurants, malls, and other venues with the intent of murdering as many innocents as possible to hold any office which commands respect is a miscarriage of decency. The irony of pretending that Yasser Arafat, and after him, Mahmoud Abbas, were people with whom a peace could be negotiated was a fools folly. The vision of bringing two nations into existence living together in mutual peace, security and cooperation was beautiful even if it ended up being a futile venture. The idea was noble but the actual implementation was a completely different matter in which there would be no beauty to be found. After such disappointment and with the realization that an impasse has been reached, now what are the available options and which should be Israel’s target going forward?

 

The question is, knowing what is now known, what path is open which actually can be obtained and how would Israel be best served in reaching whatever goal is deemed to be the most equitable while still providing for a real and enforceable peace along with security for Israel and her citizenry. The first item that has to be resolved in order to begin is to understand precisely what the honest and actual position the Palestinian leadership would be willing to accept. In order to accomplish this not so small a feat one would be required to research and actually listen to speeches, broadcasts, editorials, and even school lessons which are shared between the Palestinians in their private conversing. This is actually something which is seldom taken into account by the Western mainstream media, European Union, European governments, and the American mainstream media and government. For reasons that escape all sanity, apparently there are almost no people in the Western World who are able to translate Arabic into English, French, German or any other native Western language thus their usual suppositions and position on all things concerning the Arabs and Palestinians relating to Israel are simply based on the propaganda which Mahmoud Abbas, Salam Fayyad and other Palestinian and Arab spokespeople relay in interviews and speeches made in English, French, German, or any language other than Arabic or Farsi. We know that in the European languages that the Palestinian positions are simply that they desire peace above all else and are completely willing to make peace if Israel would simply stop being so stubborn and agree to some simply items which Abbas often claims are just responsibilities which the Israelis need to perform and then negotiations may proceed and peace would be right around the corner. These minor little items actually fit well with what these same spokespeople say in Arabic, and what is that exactly? Let’s see.

 

The preconditions include but are not limited to, release all of the Palestinians held in Israeli prison system with an emphasis on those who are convicted terrorists or security risks, complete Israeli building freeze in West Bank and East Jerusalem, Netanyahu to submit a map of the proposed Palestine and having the map be acceptable to Mahmoud Abbas, remove all IDF and Border Police from Palestinian claimed areas, allow free import of weapons for Palestinian Security Forces, allow training exercises between Palestinian Security Forces and Arab countries’ militaries, agreement from Israel for utilizing the pre-1967 War Armistice Lines as the basis for Palestinian State allowing for exchanges if and only if Abbas approves of them, Israeli accept the Right of Return for all Palestinian refugees into Israel with full citizenship and with or without Israel acceptance the Palestinians demand the right to continue resistance until all of their land has been liberated. Once one takes these demands and digests them it becomes apparent that the only final situation the Palestinians are willing to accept is a one state solution with such state being the Palestinian state and that state must be rendered free of any Jews. What makes this even more obvious is that once you translate what is said between the Palestinians and their allies in the Arab world, you quickly realize that the sole acceptable solution is a Palestinian Arab state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, every single iota of what they believe is Palestine without any Israel. It is the way it is drawn in their textbooks and on the map in Mahmoud Abbas’s office; it is the way the Arab League depicts the final solution; it is the way many in Europe and at the United Nations believe to be perfectly acceptable if not preferable.

 

Once Israel and Israelis fully understand that as long as there is any semblance of Palestinian governance they will not have peace, then Israel will be able to decide exactly what their path going forward should be. Should the Israelis, and the Jewish people, decide that they will continue to live in their own lands where their ancestors resided and are the lands depicted in the Bible, then they too will realize the same thing the Palestinians already have realized, the only solution will eventually be a one state solution. Even if there were sufficient arable land for two viable nations, there is no existing politics which would permit such. Should the day ever arrive where a Palestinian state were founded alongside of Israel, it would simply become the end of the first phase of the conquest and deportation, or worse, of the Jews and their state, Israel. Once this is recognized as the truth of the situation, then it also becomes apparent that for the Jewish state of Israel to survive, it much first prevail in a struggle which has but one possible resolution, a single state where the winner of the conflict takes all of the land and the other side is either deported or murdered. This realization makes the next step painfully obvious; the people of Israel will need to decide whether or not the existence of their state is worth the efforts it will take to keep the land upon which it sits. If the answer is as expected, in the affirmative, then the Israelis will need to implement and execute whatever responses are necessitated in order to establish Israel as the existing state and decide if the Arab populations which are currently considered to be Palestinians is allowed to remain as legal alien residents, deported with compensation for loss of properties, or given a path by which they would attain Israeli citizenship.

 

My preference, though fortunately it is not my place to decide, would be to allow a path for those Palestinians who wished to be able to become Israeli citizens, those who would prefer to remain but not become Israeli citizens should be allowed alien status and those who want no part of the Jewish state of Israel should be given a parting gift and transportation to their desired destination provided the destination country is willing to accept them. The one additional provision which would probably be a necessity is to establish a law that should a member of a family commit an act of terror, the entire family will be deported and the individual perpetrating the act of terrorism will not be eligible to receive compensation for loss of property along with whomever resided in the same location as the terrorist. If Mother and Father live with a young adult who commits an act of terror, then their claim to compensation would initially be voided. Of course some legal challenge might be allowed in exceptional cases, but such would need to be evaluated on an individual basis. Such may not be even close to resembling the perfect solution, but the fact that the Palestinians as an entirety refuse to accept the existence of the Jewish state in any size, manner or form is the impetus forcing such measures. Should the Palestinians wish to avoid such an inevitability, they would be advised to make a real and lasting peace and accept sharing rather than insisting on removing all vestiges of Jewish presence.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Palestinian State a Concealed Islamic Arab Weapon

Bring up the subject of a Palestinian state and you are virtually guaranteed to begin a heated debate at any gathering. Everybody has their own idea of who is to blame for the frozen negotiations, what it would take to restart the negotiations, where to place borders, all the way to whether the Palestinians who resort to violence terrorists or freedom fighters and millions of arguments inbetween. What is almost never discussed is the period after such a state would be formed and what a future with a country Palestine formed and independent alongside of Israel. This should be a situation that should be given serious consideration before even thinking of entering any negotiations which could result in allowing such a state to come into existence.

 

Everybody gets all stuck on things such as placement of borders, control over the Holy Basin and the Old City of Jerusalem. Another important debate concerns the Right of Return of Palestinian refugees into Israel, a really hot button issue. But it is rarely discussed except as an alternative to the Right of Return is allowing the refugees to return into the newly founded Palestinian state. This issue should not be seen as an alternative to the Right of Return for refugees to inside Israel but what allowing them to return from the numerous camps into Palestine would mean going forward. The Palestinian state will have sufficient problems becoming economically viable with its current population but should another five plus million Palestinian refugees who likely have few employable skills after spending their entire lives sequestered in camps where they were denied virtually all basic rights with extreme limitations on employment positions that were permitted. The plight of the Palestinian refugees who were kept almost in prison camp conditions in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and others have been denied any opportunities to live a normal life. Considering the population of Palestinians currently in the West Bank and Gaza is currently approaching five million so if all the refugees kept in camps in other countries were to return the population would basically double. With the current unemployment in the Palestinian population approaching twenty percent, adding in such a large number of new refugees who would also pose a challenge to find appropriate employment along with the fact that once the Jewish businesses are moved back behind the borders, many of the Palestinians employed in these industrial parks will end up losing their jobs as the border between Palestine and Israel will not likely be very porous. But the real problem would come much later down the road.

 

The one prediction which many people hold is that whatever form the Palestinian state ends up taking, if it is designed to be a stand-alone entity then it very likely will become a nonfunctional state as the foreign aid from the world began to dwindle. As the state began to experience life without the financial support it currently enjoys there would be those who would turn to terrorism as old habits die hard. Should things get really bad, desperate even, and terrorism rose to a level similar to either intifada, then it may become necessary that Israel make an incursion into the Palestinian state even if it meant causing a war. The likelihood of such  becoming a reality is increased when one recalls that Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Salafist groups, and even Fatah and the PLO which make up much of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank have all reserved the right to continue the struggle until they have liberated all of Palestine from the River to the Sea. That alone is a guarantee that terrorism is planned to continue even after the Palestinian state has been established. So, with this as the likely scenario, what would be the result?

 

Should Israel face an ever growing terrorism problem where the attacks of any form, be they suicide bombers, rockets or full-fledged incursions by armed groups raiding and terrorizing Israeli citizens, destroying property, burning crops, and stealing herds, eventually Israel would have to respond with the IDF. Once the Palestinians are living in their own universally recognized state then any terrorist attacks would be tantamount to an act of war. A repeated and growing terrorist threat would definitely be interpreted as acts of war. What would be the result if Israel had to take military interventions to attempt to destroy terrorist infrastructure? How would the world react in such an instance? Taking into consideration how the world reacts to current uses of force by Israel in response to terrorist attacks, any such endeavor by Israel would probably result in the United Nations holding panicked meetings to determine how to prevent Israel from simply annexing the Palestinian areas undoing everything that it took to establish the Palestinian state. And what might be even worse is if Israel intervention did result in the annexation of the Palestinian areas sending everything back to square one, there would be a dangerous difference as the Palestinian population would be double resulting from the refugee influx. This would mean that Israel would find it necessary to monitor and police twice the number population while attempting to pacify any terrorist cells or forces. Such a situation would be today’s problems on steroids with demonstrations and riots reaching levels and sizes which would eventually result in a situation where the resultant casualties could easily become horrific. Such a calamity would be guaranteed if the Palestinians used a similar tactic as was utilized during the second intifada where men with semi-automatic and full-automatic assault rifles stayed concealed behind youths both male and female and would open up when the from behind the youths throwing rocks and bricks waiting to get in close range and then open fire. These situations potentially become high casualty clashes with very unfortunate results. Simply put, allowing a Palestinian state has problems of unimaginable proportions should the full numbers of refugees be allowed to be repatriated into the Palestinian state. It would be advantageous to address this potential situation before allowing the formation of the Palestinian state and set a reasonable number on the refugees allowed to return while making as many as possible to be finally absorbed by their host nations just as Israel absorbed and repatriated the nearly eight-hundred-thousand plus refugees who entered Israel from the combined expulsions and other violent actions taken by the Arab and Muslim world in the first decade after the formation of Israel. This is something that should have been addressed long ago but instead the Arab and Muslim world made the fateful decision that the Palestinian refugees and their families for the ensuing generations were to be utilized as a bludgeon with which to pound Israel rather than accept them as fellow human beings and shown them the respect due any person, especially those who turn to you for help. But we must deal with things as they are, not as we would have wished them to be. The problem is that now these unfortunate victims have swelled in numbers to the point that they are now potential human threats to the possibilities for a successful Palestinian state in the future.

 

Beyond the Cusp