After All the UN Speeches Will Anything Change?

By week’s end all the speeches at the opening for the General Assembly of the United Nations will have been spoken, all the rallies finished screaming, all the banners and signs put away, and only the final press reports will remain to be published. Very few if any minds will have been changed. Iran will still be spinning their centrifuges as fast and as many as possible while calling for an end to Zionism and America as is required of any leader of the Islamic world. Egypt will continue to appear just friendly enough to keep the United States bountiful taps open and pouring forth cash while Egypt creeps ever more solidly towards their Islamist goals with their eye on the top position. Turkey will continue its slide towards their goal of becoming the new leader of the united Islamic world. Iraq will continue to speak with one voice to their American benefactors as the infidel troops slowly depart while cozying up to Iran allowing Iranian supply trucks carrying the troops and weaponry across to supply Syria with their lifeline. And President Bashar Assad will continue the carnage refusing to surrender as to do so would likely cost him his life. Europe will continue their monetary game of kick the Euros in attempts to infuse funds to stave off a total collapse of the European Union and with it the Euro itself. Israel will still be drawing red lines in the sand while the leader of the United States continues his Mr. Magoo imitation concerning the Iranian nuclear weapons program. And the major news outlets in the United States can return to full time coverage of the November Presidential Elections issuing meaningless polls even through the day when the only poll that actually matters is ongoing. Just as the ancient Chinese curse goes, we do indeed live in interesting times.

 

There actually will be one demand made which might actually have a direct influence on the future, possibly even the near future. While most of the experts and talking heads are chasing every rumor that claims that an Israeli strike on the Iranian nuclear sites is imminent, a real challenge which could force a Middle East conflagration is taking place a lot closer to Israel. During his speech, Mahmoud Abbas will likely demand that the General Assembly grant the Palestinian Authority recognition as a non-member State in the United Nations which is a step above their current classification as a non-member observer in the United Nations. Abbas will likely point to the Palestinian Authority membership in UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) which was approved shortly after the failed attempt last year by Abbas to attain full member State in the United Nations in the Security Council. Should he succeed, then we can expect an even more vigorous world tour by Mahmoud Abbas collecting recognition as a full-fledged State and exchange of Ambassadors wherever possible in an attempt to then use these ties to force Israel to surrender everything back to the Green Line, also known as the 1949 Armistice lines which even the Arab League demanded never be used as a border. This would entail the demolition and relocation of close to three-quarters of a million Jews from beyond the Green Line and East Jerusalem. This would also remove access for Israelis to any parts of the Old City of Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, and the Kotel (the Western Wall and the Plaza adjacent to the Wall). This would also mean the surrender and likely destruction of the industrial parks and vineyards and wineries in the ensuing riots if things go as they did in Gaza when the greenhouses were left intact for Palestinians to use. The greenhouses were destroyed and their pipes turned into rockets and mortar tubes and rocket launchers which were then turned on Israeli civilians living within range of these weapons in Gaza. This would also result in thousands of Palestinian Arabs losing their jobs and source of income as well as the University in Ariel would also be closed and half of its students are Palestinian Arabs who would no longer be receiving their education. But such sacrifices are right and proper as by this means the Palestinian forces will be better able to shut down all of Israel from the Judean Hills and soon be able to gather forces to finish off the Jews and Israel once and for all. Apparently any sacrifice must be made for the cause.

 

Should the General Assembly grant the Palestinian Authority recognition as a State, a near certainty when one figures the near unanimous support coming from the 120 nations of the Nonaligned Movement (NAM), it will start a ball rolling which can only lead to one finality, another Arab-Israeli War. The only possible benefit from such an eventuality would be should Israel be victorious and retain control over all the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea including the Golan Heights, then the seemingly endless Peace Process will have come to a conclusion. Israel would be entitled to retain these lands after having once again gained them in a defensive war. One might ask how I can be so sure such a war would be a defensive war and not initiated by Israel. My certainty is simple to explain. Should the Palestinian State come into being resultant to the United Nations General Assembly and the cooperation of sufficient nations to force the issue, then one of two scenarios will result. The first and less likely scenario would have the Palestinian Authority ruling over a peaceful State preventing any terrorist attacks from being perpetrated against their neighboring State of Israel while also allowing for Israelis with the proper authorizations to visit Jewish Holy Sites just as Palestinians will be allowed to transit between Gaza and the West Bank in a similar manner. That does not necessarily mean a total absence of terror attacks as to expect such would be ridiculous, though a preferred result. What I mean is that any terror attacks that occur will be the exception and the ruling Palestinian Authority would prosecute and take the necessary steps to minimize and discourage any such attacks. Should this be the situation, then there would be no conflict.

 

The other scenario would be having condition similar to what currently exist between Gaza with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda in Gaza and other terrorist entities launching multiple rocket and mortar attacks every week seldom ceasing their assaults. This would include any form of terrorist or military attack such as the raids that have recently come from out of the Sinai Peninsula and the tunneling from Gaza and other attempts at infiltration in order to set off explosives, either remote detonation or suicide attack. Should the Palestinian Authority State allow a free fire set of conditions to exist threatening daily life, flights from Ben Gurion International Airport, manufacturing, power plants, electrical and water distribution systems, or the general safety of Israelis in their everyday living, these actions are a casus belli for war and any response to such provocations would be considered a defensive war under International Law and the Geneva Conventions. One would hope and pray that the first scenario would be the result and it actually would become two states for two peoples living side by side in peace, security and mutual prosperity. 

 

There is hope that peace will result should the United Nations decide to assist the Palestinian Authority in avoiding negotiations.  Instead of seeking a compromise with Israel, the Palestinian Authority is choosing to use the blunt force of a United Nations edict in place of responsible consent between two sides, Israel and the Palestinians. Still, should a peace result replete with mutual respect, freedom of movement for reasons of religious observances, family unity, commerce and mutual beneficial interactions and trade, then a positive and productive end will have been attained. If, on the other hand, belligerence, denial, hard-heartedness and violence be the result from either side, then the world owes the side pursuant of peace and the victim of any violence both an apology and support in establishing conditions of peace and security no matter what extent efforts must reach. I have serious doubts but also reserve a large amount of hopes and prayers that a serene and mutually beneficial relationship can be attained. All it will take is mutual respect and a mutual effort to bridge any differences and extend the hand of friendship. Sometimes the simplest things are the most difficult to achieve and calming the stormy waters that have existed for decades if not centuries is not an easy task. But like anything worthy of effort, this too starts with simply starting each day deciding that today will not be the day I resort to violence and hatred, today will be another day where I treat my neighbors as full-fledged human-beings with more in common with me than what makes us different, and different does not have to mean we be lacking in mutual respect and acceptance. One day at a time and soon it will feel normal and become easier with each successful day. We can hope and pray and these things work best if we hope and pray together in harmony.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Mr. Abbas Goes to Paris

Mahmoud Abbas is reportedly heading to Paris in order to meet with United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as well as new elected French President Francois Hollande as well as a possibility of meeting with European Union Foreign Affairs Chief Catherine Ashton, and the British, German and Norwegian foreign ministers. Along with a group of representatives of several Arab Countries, this virtual cornucopia of diplomatic officials will be in Paris for a “Friends of Syria” meeting in hopes of bridging differences between Arab and Western positions over the Syrian Civil War. Mahmoud Abbas will be in Paris seeking assistance in placing pressure on Israel to surrender to as many of his plethora of unilateral demands as preconditions before he will deign sit and pretend to negotiate before, as was the precedent set by Yasser Arafat, stalking briskly from the negotiations claiming loudly and vehemently he will not continue to be insulted. Of course, should he not achieve gaining the full accommodation of pressuring Israeli compliance with his every demand, then he will still demand for every single precondition his imaginations can fancy accumulating them as each second passes. Saeb Erekat has stated that Mr. Abbas will stress the importance of releasing Palestinian Authority murderer, terror master, bomb maker, and violent jihadist all of whom have the blood of innocent Israeli civilians upon their hands who serve sentences, even those serving numerous life sentences, jailed in Israeli prisons. Maybe a quick look at a short list of some of the preconditions which Mr. Abbas seeks to have the entire world assist him in shoving down Israel’s throat should be up next.

The likely best known one was the one first introduced early in President Obama’s Presidency when President Obama stated that Israel should freeze all building of any sort anywhere in Judea, Samaria or East Jerusalem in order to entice the return of Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinians to the negotiations. This has never been previously mentioned or even dreamed of in anybody’s wildest imaginations and once stated there was no way in which Mahmoud Abbas or any other member of the Palestinian Authority could hold a position less favorable to the cause of the Palestinians than the President of the United States had shown to be. Under increasing pressures, Prime Minister Netanyahu relented and met the demand placed upon him by President Obama and announced a complete building freeze on Judea and Samaria (aka West Bank) but not East Jerusalem maintaining that Jerusalem will remain the undivided Capital City of Israel. The building freeze was not set to be open ended as was initially implied by President Obama in his speech but was set for ten months as a preliminary time frame to observe what developed. What developed was absolutely nothing anywhere near as was claimed would result should Israel simply comply with this one small stipulation. Instead, for almost nine full months all that was heard from both Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, and Saeb Erekat, lead negotiator for the Palestinian authority, were a series of additional preconditions and some extremely inventive definitions of the idea of preconditions. The additional preconditions were defined as anything except a demand, simply obligations the Palestinian Authority expected from Israel, steps Israel would need to take to convince the world of their sincerity, investments in the peace process, or steps that are obviously in the interest of the Israelis if they desire peace among other even more twisted definitions depending on which news source you used.

Some of the lesser preconditions can be grouped together for your ease of reading and so your patience is not tested are; pulling all IDF units out of the West Bank leaving the Jewish residents under Palestinian authority protection, permitting the Palestinian authority to import weapons and weapon systems in order to upgrade their capabilities, the repeated demand for prisoner releases of varying numbers or sometimes particular prisoners such as Mustafa and Marwan Barghouti who are both terror masters, and always the final deal-breaker of Right of Return for as many as five and a half million Palestinian refugees. Add to this the continuing claim by both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas that despite Israel removing every civilian and IDF troop from Gaza that it is still occupied territory. These are in addition to the Palestinian Authority government constant honoring terrorists and terror masters by naming streets, parks, children’s camps, soccer tournaments, public buildings, schools, and numerous other places with great fanfare and publicity. This is also despite the glorification of martyrdom in schools, on television, in film, and in public celebrations. Add to all of this the fact that the Palestinian Authority has yet to modify their Charter by removing its clause demanding the total and complete destruction of the Jewish State or lived up to the vast majority of other obligations and agreements. And the last item is the Palestinian efforts to achieve recognized statehood through whatever route which can be utilized unilaterally such as acceptance into the United Nations, incorporation into United Nations organizations such as UNESCO, thus avoiding negotiations with Israel as stipulated in the Oslo Accords. The Palestinian Authority, like the PLO before it, and Mahmoud Abbas, like Yasser Arafat before him, have attempted to utilize any deceit, prevarication, avoidance, or any available means to avoid negotiations as there has never been and never will be an honest desire by the Palestinian to make peace as that would require, at least temporarily, recognizing Israeli existence.

What the world needs to understand is that the conflict currently going under the name of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is simply a rebranding of the original Arab-Israeli Conflict which began all the way back near the beginning of the last century. It has had many violence filled events such as the riots in Hevron and Jerusalem in 1922, 1929, 1933, 1936, and 1939. Then there was the first Arab Israeli War which is usually referred to as Israel’s War for Independence in 1948 and 1949. There was the Six Day war in 1967 followed by its second staging in 1973. There has been the terror war from the early 1920’s which continues today which too has had some special events. Other than the numerous riots mentioned earlier there was also the founding of the PLO in 1964, three full years before the War of 1967 and any presumably occupied territories, numerous kidnappings, attacks across the northern border by Hezballah, and the near countless rockets launched from Gaza and recently out of the northern Sinai Peninsula. The rebranding of the Arab Israeli Conflict into the Palestinian Israeli Conflict was implemented as the former made Israel to appear to be the weaker side of the conflict and the new moniker placed the Arab cause as the little David fighting the massive Israel Goliath. Do not believe anything has changed. This change came about when the Arab countries, realizing they likely could not defeat Israel in a straight up military versus military war decided to change tactics and try to wear Israel down and eventually either gain the necessary weapons or military strength and abilities to once again try the frontal military conflict route.

Then there is one last item which needs to be understood before any real solution can be implemented. It has never been and will never be for the foreseeable future the Arab, Muslim, Palestinian or whatever name is placed to struggle against Israel idea to settle for anything less than the complete subjugation of the Israeli Jews or the complete annihilation of every Jew in Israel (or, as Hamas has in their Charter, the world). Should by some major mishap the Palestinian find themselves in a position where they have to accept and sign a peace with Israel and establish Palestine, this will not be the end of the conflict. There have been numerous times that both Arab and Muslim leaders as well as Palestinian leaders and spokespeople have stated plainly that even should they attain a state in all of the land lost in the 1967 War, that is just the first stage towards the elimination of the Zionist State. This is almost always said in Arabic or Farsi but on a few rare occasions somebody has slipped and plainly said in English the truth that the only solution acceptable is a Final Solution. All the efforts to establish a Palestinian State are fruitless endeavors which will bear no fruit and will only change the starting point of the eventual next Middle East War when it is thought Israel has been brought low enough for her defeat. That is so very unfortunately the real truth of which everybody prefers to deny and pretend that all these efforts will truly end the drive to undo the founding of the Jewish State. It is simply appallingly amazing that in so much of the world there are calls for removing the Jews from within countries as happened in numerous Muslim countries between 1948 and 1953 yet in many of these same countries they also call for the destruction, or secretly work towards the destruction of Israel, of the only Jewish State. That begs an obvious question, if the Jews should be sent packing from countries where they are a minority and the only Jewish country should be wiped out, then where do these haters pretend that the Jews should live. And yes, that was a rhetorical question put forth simply to provoke thought. One can always hope to point out insanity so that it can be rectified and a real and truthful discussion free of pretenses may take place. Now that is something that would be so very welcome.

Beyond the Cusp

Terror on Israel Ramping Up, Why?

Over the past couple of weeks all forms of terror attacks against Israelis have been on the rise. In Judea and Samaria (West Bank) there has been a steady increase over around half a year in the numbers and severity of rock throwing at Israeli motorists. These attacks in the last couple of months have easily escalated to the point where virtually every attack has the potential to become fatal as was the attack against twenty-five-year-old Asher Palmer and his infant son Yonatan driving in their family van. The number of attempts at carjacking has also increased over the same period and the intended victims have escalated from almost exclusively women to people of either gender or age. Some of these attempted carjacking have now become a dual-phase attack where not only is the car a target, but also the person has become targeted for kidnapping. There was even recent rioting after a funeral where Jews were attacked and Jewish property damaged in Hevron. This brought back memories of the pogroms in Hevron in 1929 which were accompanied by similar mass attacks in Jerusalem.

There has opened a new front for attacks against Israel where the terrorists stage their assaults from out of the Sinai, Egypt. These attacks are mostly instigated by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda and other terror groups who have extended their operations from the Gaza Strip into the Sinai, in some cases with the assistance or under protection of Bedouins living in the Sinai. These attacks have covered the entire spread of attacks from rocket launches and mortar firings all the way to carefully coordinated and planned military style ambush attacks against motorists as well as the IDF stationed on the border. Egypt has claimed innocence and claims that such attacks are not possible as they have complete security and control in the Sinai. The numerous destructions of pumping stations and valve junctions in the natural gas lines prove not to be the case. The latest attack ambushed the teams building the border fence requiring Israel now provide IDF protection at each building site.

Along with these other escalations, one must include the recent increase in the number of indirect weapon fire out of the Gaza Strip at southern Israel. There was a recent rocket attack directed from the northern Gaza Strip at the beachfront area along the Mediterranean Sea near Ashkelon. The massive barrage in the past two days where over forty rockets have been fired into southern Israel forcing millions of Israeli to take refuge in bombproof shelters surrendering any semblance of normalcy forces one to seek a reason behind this escalation. This has all the appearances of a coordinated assault which implies that it is being conducted with some ulterior motivation. The fact that these attacks are being perpetrated by a number of various groups on multiple fronts leads one to look beyond the Palestinian Israeli conflict for the reason. The first places to seek an answer might be the countries which might benefit the most should the world’s attention be distracted by violence between Israel and the Palestinians, a diversion we have witnessed on a number of previous occasions. So, who might it be interested in instigating such violence?

Syria would likely be the immediate culprit which would come to mind, but we should probably not simply jump to the most obvious answer quite so fast. Sure, Bashir Assad would benefit greatly if the world’s attention were to be diverted to Syria’s neighboring country, Israel but it is highly unlikely that Syria has the ability to cause either those in the West Bank or in the Gaza Strip to act on their behalf. Another suspect might be Egypt where currently there is the growing possibility for conflict between the two groups currently competing for power and control, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian Military. This is a possibility but is not really likely as it would require both sides to cooperate in order to have both the West Bank and Gaza erupt at the same time. Were it just the West Bank, then one might suspect the Egyptian Military while were it just Gaza then one would suspect Hamas under the direction of their patriarch, the Muslim Brotherhood. This leaves only one last suspect, Iran.

Iran has been playing their old game of saying yes while their actions are contrary. Iranian President Ahmadinejad recently announced Iranian intent to possibly forgive enrichment of uranium to 20% if the Europeans would guarantee them a supply of 20% enriched uranium for their medical reactors and purposes. Then the Iranian negotiators with the P5+1 at their meeting just held in Moscow refused to budge on any of the terms demanded by the permanent five members of the Security Council plus Germany. The Iranians even refused to allow further negotiations until the P5+1 had changed their demands and offered to meet Iran with respect and reasonable offers. Add to this obvious motivation for Iran to create a diversion the fact that Iran is also deeply invested in keeping President Bashir Assad in power. That is made more difficult while the whole world is focused upon the civil war and the slaughtering of innocent people ongoing in Syria. So, Iran, which has had an alignment with Hamas previously and also has agents operating under Islamic Jihad as well as likely agents from the al-Quds Brigades from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) also leading terror cells in both Gaza and the West Bank as well as other close by in both Syria and Lebanon, it would be well within the Iranian’s abilities to instigate a new terror war against Israel, or at least an increase in terror to the point of forcing an Israeli response of greater strength than simply one or two air strikes. Should the increased levels of terror continue on all fronts against Israel one might need to look to Tehran for the instigating influence behind the violence. This could very easily lead to an even more hostile and dangerous situation between Iran and Israel when added to the nervousness in Israel over the Iranian nuclear program, especially now that talks appear to have once again hit another wall of Iranian refusals. Should we be correct in our suspicions for the increased terrorist events plaguing Israel and Iran remain adamant in opposing any compromises on their nuclear uranium enrichment program, could this be the final ramping that ends in actual open conflict? Perhaps such a conflict will prove inevitable and this may be the initial steps to the unavoidable war which so many have been spending so much effort vainly trying to avoid. Let us hope this is not the case but be prepared just in case.

Beyond the Cusp