The Signs of War in the North, They Are a Changin’

 

We just had the usual late spring three day national exercise where one day they hold coast to mountains, north to south siren head for the shelters practice scenarios. Then there was the news that the IDF and emergency services were practicing for a potential and unprecedented assault where thousands of rockets would be launched in mass swarms with as many as a thousand rockets per wave, something well beyond anything that the Iron Dome with even every other system assisting could ever be hoped to prevent. The estimates were that under such an assault there could be as many as four-thousand deaths and untold casualties in the first few days. Where such news stories likely unnerved a great number of those reading them, I had been feeling something was amiss and even mentioned that to people after the practice shelter runs just seemed eerily more like a premonition than a practice session. The claims is that Iran is planning this little warm welcome by arming Hezballah in Lebanon with more rockets than they would likely be capable of launching even if given free range to do so for two to three weeks. Then they are also attempting to set up a secondary strike location near the Golan Heights likely to strike the IDF forces guarding that front and potentially also giving the Iron Dome and other anti-missile systems a second set of angles to compute on their intercepts. Perhaps that explains the serious tautness permeating the air making each breath full of the tensions strangling the very oxygen needed for life itself.

 

Will these feelings really be a true forecast of what is to come later this summer or just a case of the nerves which will be remembered with great laughter at my expense. I will welcome the humbling experience but then again there are many other threats which could also make life less enjoyable here in Israel. Fortunately the BDS people have not succeeded to any great extent outside the university and college campuses despite the great dilemmas and threats of the past few weeks with the FIFA affair and the Orange CEO misfire and retractions followed by repeated apologies and protestations of great affection for and loyalty to providing service in Israel. Meanwhile, it appears that the crisis of upsetting the Israeli public was far more concerning than any threat from the BDS crowd whose loud screaming has proven to be unnerving but eventually harmless and without any real harm if ignored. Still, the initial reaction from the CEO of Orange could prove troubling should other CEOs prove to be anywhere near as panicked as the Orange executive then Israel might end up facing some difficulties but also should these companies have such easily spooked in response to empty threats CEOs then perhaps they should find a new CEO made of sterner stuff. But the BDS is a mostly empty threat while Iran is a very real threat with great complications.

 

The main complication is what should Israel do if they realize that an attack is imminent from Iran, strike at Iran in a preemptive strike to prevent what would be an existential threat to Israeli existence and risk President Obama leading the charge in the United Nations Security Council to destroy Israel by referring them to the International Court of Justice at the Hague for attacking another United Nations member nation with the American President believing the Iranian claims that they had no such attack planned and Israel really was the greatest threat to peace in the Middle East and even the entire world. The following destructive actions from the United States, European Union, United Nations, and the international court systems which could result in a majority of nations recalling their ambassadors and closure of the Israeli Embassies in their nations and even the United Nations might eject Israel and cancel the United Nations Resolution which was theoretically the reason Israel became a nation. The fact that the United Nations and the world’s nations turning against Israel could not actually have any effects on the fact that Israel is a nation as Israel meets the requirements that define a nation so despite whatever actions the rest of the world might decide to take, Israel would remain a nation unless overrun by the nations of the world as revenge for their perceived unprovoked attack on Iran, though that is also highly unlikely.

 

Where, in all reality, an assault out of Iran is unlikely at this time, an assault from out of Syria coordinated with Hezballah in Lebanon as well as assisting in the Syrian assault as the last hurrah attempting to gain allies to assist Bashir al-Assad as his position has become more untenable with every passing week and it is rapidly becoming desperation time where any possible hope will be attempted no matter how far-fetched or remote the probability for success. An assault on Israel, especially one which leaves Israel sufficiently hurt that Assad can claim that he has accomplished what the rest of the Arab world has failed in achieving, making Israel reel from the damages of a swarm rocket attack, as swarm attacks are the known Iranian tactic for overwhelming opponents hoping for marginal success, would the world finally back an Israel equivalent strike to prevent similar follow on attacks or turn on Israel claiming the tired accusation of disproportionate response, as they are want to do. The possibility that such an attempt would assist Assad in any way shape or form is ludicrous and would only result in an assault by Israel on the areas of Lebanon controlled by Hezballah to wipe out every possible missile and rocket storage areas and launchers and also destroy every last possible Hezballah base, training area, bunkers, tunnel systems and any other assets that Israeli intelligence has identified. There will be the unfortunate necessity to strike the storage and launch sites in southern Lebanon which are largely below the Litani River, an area which the United Nations forces in Lebanon, UNIFIL, were supposed to prevent Hezballah from rearming and rebuilding their infrastructure according to United Nations Resolution 1701 which brought the last Lebanon War to an end. Unfortunately the UNFIL forces have had great difficulty and quickly simply gave up and refused to risk any confrontation while the European UNIFIL troops simply took their equipment and returned to Europe refusing to assist claiming the risk was too great and the potential for success too low, and there even have been those seen to aid Hezballah in their operations in southern Lebanon. This has allowed Hezballah to place launchers and missiles and rockets in virtually every civilian structure including schools, apartments, homes, hospitals and virtually every other structure imaginable. The intents of Hezballah is exactly the same intent Israel experienced last summer during Operation Protective Edge where Hamas fired the majority of their rockets from next to the same exact types of buildings and had their underground bunkers beneath hospitals and schools in attempts to maximize the civilian casualties in order to generate as much bad media coverage as possible.

 

Hamas also understood that Israeli missile defense and the fact that Israelis have shelters built into most buildings with them required in every new apartment, each apartment and not just the building, and in every newly build office building and retrofit being completed on most older buildings and many schools have been fortified to resist rocket fire; this the Israelis would be vastly more protected and thus the Israeli emphasis on life would serve to minimize Israeli casualties while in Gaza the Hamas efforts would intentionally cause excessive casualties amongst the civilians even making many levels higher directly caused by the overt Hamas efforts. They used this disparity and the media jumped at the reports basically asking over and over again how come there are so few Israeli casualties while there are reportedly thousands of Gazan civilian casualties being reported. There was an interesting finding confirmed by the United Nations investigations that there was almost and even number of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other combatant casualties as there were civilian casualties. The fact that Hamas and Islamic Jihad used the bunker and tunnel systems to keep their fighters as safe as they were able while refusing the civilians any similar access to these areas of safety.

 

The fact that the IDF attained a virtual 1:1 ratio was unprecedented in modern warfare by any military since the advent of modern warfare. World War I was the last war where civilian casualties were appreciably lower than civilian casualties having a ratio of 2:3 of civilians to combatants killed. World War II had a ratio of 2:1 civilians to combatants killed while the Korean War had a ratio of 2:1 civilians to combatants as well. The Viet Nam war numbers are very controversial and range in ratios of civilians to combatants from 1:3 or 1:1 or the more similar to previous wars of 2:1. The two Chechen Wars had ratios of 10:1 in the first war and over 4:1 in the second with a total of approximately 7:1. The NATO war in Yugoslavia had a 4:1 ratio of civilians to combatants. The Iraq War produced a ratio of well over 4:1 civilians to combatants by the numbers estimated by the Iraqi figures and 1:2 civilians to combatants by Coalition numbers, a case of believe whomever you like. The winner for most contested numbers as well as estimated worst numbers was the totality of the drone warfare by the United States in Pakistan. The United States claims that the total number of civilians killed during the past two years was a total of twenty to thirty civilians against numbers approaching between five-hundred and one-thousand militants and terrorists. Daniel L. Byman of the Brookings Institution estimated a ratio of 10:1 as being much closer to the truth. The reported worst ratio ever reported for a single strike, thus the worst possible example and should be taken as such and not an actual comment but more as an example how in modern warfare a single attack can go so absolutely wrong. The report was from the British paper the Guardian which reported, “On 15 October 2010, Hellfire missiles fired from a Predator or Reaper drone killed Hussain, the Pakistani Taliban later confirmed. For the death of a man whom practically no American can name, the US killed 128 people, 13 of them children.” This single attack produced a civilian to combatant ratio of 128:1, fortunately this worst case scenario has had no similar such tragedies as far as we could ascertain.

 

What this whole discussion about ratios of civilian to combatant was simply to put into perspective the fact that the IDF conducts itself with the restraint and discipline often recalled in military training as control of fire, the confirming of targets and assuring that the long field of fire is free of noncombatants thus minimizing the harm to noncombatants. What people need to realize that in warfare where if you do not eliminate an enemy combatant whence you have the opportunity then you are risking the lives of many of your fellow soldiers and potentially to yourself. Should a Hamas, Islamic Jihad or other terror combatant in Gaza present themselves as a target believing that no Israeli would ever shoot them because they have strapped two young children to their chest hiding their torso from being viable targets due to the children he has unmercifully and illegally as such is a grievous breach of the rules of warfare, but these are terrorists who have a sizeable disregard for the rules of war. They should understand one of numerous rules of war that states that should a combatant utilize a protected building, item or person to protect their position or person, then that protected building, item or person is no longer protected and can be determined as a legitimate target if not shooting the target otherwise protected item to remove the combatant and end the threat of the actual target, such as permissible providing no other alternative is available. Thus far there have been no reports where any IDF soldier had targeted any combatant terrorist who has thusly protected themselves unless they were positive that they had a shot which they confidently could make without causing undue threat to the innocent children beyond the horrors they are already experiencing. Simply put, there have been incidents where trained snipers were embedded in combat units and took such shots usually targeting the combatant’s head thus causing the innocents no harm and possibly saving their lives.

 

The one item we can be assured of is that should Hezballah begin raining rockets, mortars, artillery rounds and missiles into Israel and largely targeting civilian areas with approaching one-thousand-two-hundred or more which would overwhelm even the extremely effective Iron Dome systems and the other systems developed to augment Iron Dome providing a layered defense system, but even such would never be capable, as neither would any other earthly system, of intercepting such a volume of projectiles. The only way to prevent such a threat would be to blanket style attack taking out every potential asset Hezballah has destroying their arsenal in place in both Lebanon and Syria. There would be no viable alternative and do not even go down that blind alley known as the United Nations which will be screaming for Israel to practice restraint and not escalate the threats and violence. And if Israel should actually listen and scale back her response leaving the vast majority of the Hezballah weapons systems intact then who will prevent Hezballah from launching another thousand-plus projectiles on day two then once again there would be the United Nations which will be screaming for Israel to practice restraint and not escalate the threats and violence. Then the third day after Israel called off a night of horrific raids destroying everything they know where it exists using the most accurate munitions in the Israeli arsenal leading to yet another day of approaching or exceeding a thousand projectiles followed immediately by the United Nations which will be screaming for Israel to practice restraint and not escalate the threats and violence. Hezballah is reputed to have over one-hundred-thousand rockets and missiles and this does not include artillery rounds or mortar rounds. This means that Hezballah would be capable of continuing such thousand rockets and missiles for over three months as they would have sufficient to last at least one-hundred days before requiring any restocking by Iran.

 

The threatening reality is that Iran is currently resupplying Hezballah ahead of any conflict and by the time they pull the covers off the launchers and launching the rockets and missiles while all the time the United Nations which will be screaming for Israel to practice restraint and not escalate the threats and violence. I realize the United Nations reference might be getting a little repetitious but just realize how the Israelis feel when we are always told to show restraint as it must be permissible to target Israelis even though only about three out of four Israelis are Jews. We heard the complaints during last summer’s war with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and friends where reporter after reporter would ask why there were so many Gazan civilian deaths and virtually no Israeli civilian casualties. If my memory serves me correctly there was one reporter at least who slipped up and instead of saying Gazans and Israelis but instead stated there were vastly more Arab casualties than Jewish casualties and it begs the questions as to where are the dead Jews in comparable numbers to the Arab deaths in Gaza. He likely stated it the way many others also saw the conflict as so many Arab dead and almost not even a single dead Jew.

 

We can only guess how many were thinking where were the dead Jews in significant numbers despite their knowledge of the extents that the Israeli government and construction companies have gone to fortify safe areas in order to prevent Israeli casualties, Jewish, Arab, Christians, Muslims (yes Israeli Muslims and perhaps one should ask how many Jews are allowed in Arab Palestinian areas), Baha’I and others all living in some degree of terror during the war last summer and would be just as terrorized should the potential warfare that Iran and Nasrallah has hinted awaits Israel, if not more so. The real problem is if the signals from Iran are anywhere near accurate, there might also be another front opened up from out of Gaza initiated by Hamas and coordinated with Islamic Jihad and the other forces which Iran has kept on their payrolls. The real fear is if any warfare this summer should turn into a full-scale and all-out war with far more than the Iranian allies with potentially Turkey adding their forces as well as Iraq and who knows who else. My prayers are for nobody to be even frightened this summer because no violence or threats of violence beyond that we have already heard. May peace grace the hot and hazy days of summer.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Israel and an Out of Control President

 

The initial volley of the final confrontation escalated when Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu accepted United States Speaker of the House Boehner’s invitation to address a joint session of Congress pertaining to the situation with Iran and their nuclear weapons program along with updating the Congress on the situation as best as could be described of the state of the P5+1 negotiations with Iran presumably to prevent their attaining nuclear weapons. The necessity for this address to Congress and the over the top reaction from the White House was due to the simple fact that the President and his Administration refused to brief the respective members of the Congress on the state and intents of the President in the negotiations with Iran. This pressed the Congress to find an alternative means to gain this information. It probably was in the mind, even if just subliminally, of Speaker Boehner when he chose to make the invitation with minimal lead time in informing the White House, a lead time which though denied by the Administration did exist as was leaked but ignored by much of the mainstream media with their failure to mention the thirty minutes before initiating the invitation the White House had been informed. As far as waiting for Presidential approval before extending the invitation, the simple fact that a previous communication of an invitation for Prime Minister Netanyahu to address Congress waited numerous weeks before the President responded and the Israeli leader gave this address on May 24, 2011, but the wait time would have been unacceptable as that would have pushed the address off beyond the end of the Iran negotiations making it no longer relevant. If one remembers, the White House’s demand which was ignored, strongly suggested the speech be put off until the end of March or even April, either date making the speech being put off until the negotiations were either completed or to be finalized within a few days as the negotiations had a March 24 deadline for a framework to be completed and the final agreement to be completed by March 31.

 

The assault from President Obama and the members of his administration started out well beyond cordial as they demanded that the White House had not been contacted about the speech, which was quickly denied and this altered the attack to claiming the President had not been informed as required by protocols and that the President’s approval was normally necessary before such an invitation was acted upon. Truth of the matter which never received coverage in the media is that there is no requirement for gaining the President’s approval as the Congress is presumably a coequal branch of the government and has as much right to invite people to address the Congress or brief them in private without observing any imagined protocols. The advising of the White House is merely an unnecessary but polite gesture and is not required before the invitation has been issued but solely upon its confirmation and then simply so the President may assign somebody or attend the address himself. Having somebody address a joint session of Congress requiring the President’s approval is as absurd a concept as the White House required to gain approval from the Congress to address the nation on national television or for the Supreme Court to require approval from either remaining branch of the government to invite the testimony of an expert in their deliberations and information gathering for a case before the Supreme Court. So, this presumed break with some imagined protocol was the initial assault and that the President had been insulted and took great feelings of disrespect and that the invitation was a slap in the face of the President was all over the top grandstanding. Truth of the matter is that the Congress has no requirement to inform the President of any actions they plan to take and the only requirement of interacting with the Presidency is to send on to the President passed legislation for his signature or veto as required in the Constitution, anything beyond such is out of courtesy and polite discourse, something which has not exactly been granted the Congress by the President since the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives as the President worked with the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to block any and everything the President disapproved of legislation wise by preventing it being considered by the Senate allowing for the charge of a Republican do nothing Congress. Respect and consideration of polite interaction is a two way street and had been completely absent in the direction of the President with the Republican Speaker of the House since he took the position from Nancy Pelosi at the beginning of the term following the 2010 elections.

 

The first volley after the speech which was of consequence was the determination by the Administration an order pertaining to the 1987 assessment of the nuclear situation of all known and suspected nuclear capable nations. The summary and full report on the assessed state of the Israeli nuclear weapons program was declassified with the Pentagon ordering the release of the declassification results, but the Pentagon retained the classification of information about nuclear research in Italy, France, Britain and other NATO countries releasing solely the Israeli report. This was done out of pure spite and was the shot across the bow informing Israel that any independent actions or any diverging from the exact demands and directives issued from the White House are to be obeyed to the letter or else Israel will be further compromised. This action was taken for a number of reasons other than a warning to Israel and at the same time a punishment of Israel for not putting off the Prime Minister Addressing Congress until the White House had a completed or near completed agreement with the Iranians making the address superfluous and the information in the address worthless. It needs to be said that the declassification of the United States Pentagon assessment of the state of the Israeli nuclear program was declassified before Benyamin Netanyahu had won reelection as the next, or continuing, Prime Minister of Israel. Any retribution for Netanyahu having the audacity of winning an election where the White House with assistance financially from the State Department actively campaigned and gathered funding from across Europe and from individual donors in an effort which had as its slogan, “Anyone but Bibi,” which was officially defined as efforts for a new governance so as to further conceal the real intent, the election of the Labor Party Leader Yitzhak Hertzog and Hatnua Party founder Tzipi Livni who were running on a joint ticket under the name of “The Zionist Union.” The initial reaction from the White House for this insult of actually campaigning and taking the steps necessary to win the election which included the honest and correct warning made in the afternoon of the election day as a means of spurring those who had yet to vote to make an extra effort to do so as the V2015 effort, in conjunction and financially backed by the OneVoice NGO which received funding from the State Department of $350,000 for the time period leading to and during the elections in Israel, headed by President Obama’s campaign director from his reelection campaign of 2012 Jeremy Bird and four other high campaign organizers. The final and most incredible tie to the Obama campaign is the rallying call for the anti-Netanyahu campaign of, “Change,” just change without the Hope part, maybe this was the reason they were unsuccessful. We had an article with some additional information including a directive from Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Lee Zeldin to Secretary of State John Kerry demanding information on the depth and breadth of the United States efforts through OneVoice, V2015 (aka V15), and the State Department in the Israeli elections titled Obama’s Deceits Over Israeli Elections.

 

The direction taken by the White House has been direct, overt and as obvious in its targeting as described by the White House and also personally by the President that they have been forced to reassess the relationship and support that the United States has granted Israel and whether the United States is served by providing continued protection for Israel at the United Nations and other international institutions. We gather the obvious definition for the somewhat vague other international institutions is actually any of the various international courts, in this case the ICC, International Criminal Court, should the Palestinian Authority bring charges against individual Israeli military or political individuals or Israel itself for presumed war crimes or crimes against humanity as has been regularly threatened by Mahmoud Abbas for over a decade. The most grievous of these efforts which the United States has presumed to offer protection is when the United Nations Security Council is petitioned by either the Palestinian Authority or any actual nation pertaining to the recognition and granting of statehood officially often including that said state should be formed around the 1967 lines which is a reference to the 1949 Armistice Lines which are also referred to as the Green Line and was at its forming written into the armistice itself that these lines were to never be intended or used as a border officially denoting statehood.

 

This clause was added by the Arab League and the Arab states involved in the 1948-9 War, also called the Israeli War for Independence or more accurately as the efforts at the founding of the state of Israel to, with genocidal intent, eradicate the nascent Jewish state by the seven Arab armies which included Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and additionally the Arab Brigades under the command of the Mufti of Jerusalem (it must be noted this was the Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini who spent most of World War II with his close friend Adolph Hitler and the rest of the Nazi Hierarchy), and command support provided by British and German officers who had impressive military command experience as well as some European pilots who volunteered their services and actually flew combat missions. In one instance in January 1949 in which IAF pilot Ezer Weizman managed to shoot down one attacking British piloted Spitfire aircraft killing its British pilot which brought condemnations and accusations from the British government, revealing they were aware of the participation of their officers and pilots aiding the Arab efforts.

 

Back to the present after a short interlude into past events and the implications from the very beginning of the saga of this fourth rendition of the Jewish State on the Promised Lands gifted to Abraham and established after the Exodus from Egypt and opposed by virtually every single government but the friend of the many who have received care after disasters or other emergencies where the Israeli relief teams arrive in force often being the initial caregivers and often to places off the maps and beyond the beaten paths, the smaller places overlooked by the main efforts which are almost always placed at the capital city or other major metropolises. These smaller Israeli teams may not be physically attached to the main effort or central field hospital, but do receive support and supplies and attention similar in scope and often building schools and a medical clinic complete with supplies and equipment and also training for indigenous local personnel and when these teams depart, always a tears flowing moment, with hugs and nary a dry eye on either side, the equipment and supplies in the clinic remaining behind and the school is complete with desks and chairs, paper and pencils, office supplies and equipment, a complete school ready for students, and even a remaining Israeli to teach and assist with training teachers. This is the truth, those who receive Israeli aid learn of the real Israel, her people whose love for mankind is beyond measure. Israel has won the hearts of people, strangers who received loving and caring as if they were longtime friends or family as this is the manner the teams who Israel deploys are among the most caring combined with proficiency and true empathy and love for those they assist as if they were angels. Still, President Obama knows not the kind and caring heart of the Israeli people, he knows little of the struggles Israel has endured, he knows nothing of the hundreds of thousands Jews from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) who arrived without a shekel’s worth of money and a few suitcases hurriedly packed and often all that was allowed, true refugees who had also lost their homes, businesses, farms, herds, lost everything and came seeking shelter who instead of being thrown into camps and scorned were treated as the brothers and sisters they were and taken into Israeli society; he knows not of the influx of Russians when finally the Jews were allowed to return home and who have been taken into the society to the point that in some places such as Nahariya there are places where the language spoken is as often Russian as it is Hebrew; he knows nothing of the take of the Ethiopian Jews, the Indian Menashe Jews or the numbers of other Jews found scattered in every corner of the earth and all greeted and arranged for their return to their ancestral lands and the efforts to include them into their homeland.

 

President Obama does not recognize the rockets out of Gaza as much as he notices the Israeli response which according to him and the leadership of many across the globe, particularly in Europe and the nations making up MENA, that Israel must show restraint after all nobody was killed and the rockets only struck around their town or hits a school or home causing trauma as well as property damage, something considered necessary to note when any Gazan home is struck. He knows of the disparity in the death toll but refuses to actually include that Israel spends millions upon millions to protect their citizens from rockets while Hamas and Islamic Jihad use the people of Gaza to protect their rockets and that Israel not only takes care to protect its people as best they are able, but takes greater care to avoid killing Gazan civilians as best as they are able while Hamas and Islamic Jihad use the Gazan civilians as protection devices for their ammunition stores, their rocket launches, their command posts which the central one is located underneath the largest hospital in Gaza, and basically place the Gazan civilians in direct line of fire attempting to have as many killed by those actions as they possibly can; yet even by the United Nations and European examinations of the casualty lists, they all found that there was virtually a one to one ration between combatants killed and civilians killed, an unprecedentedly low number for civilian casualties for urban combat. By comparison the United States drone strikes ordered solely during President Obama’s period as Commander in Chief and the person who gave the final order for each strike has a ratio of 19-to-1 and approaching 20-to-1, a far cry from the Israeli numbers. Still, the one thing President Obama takes as proof that Israel is the main hindrance from the Arab Palestinians being granted statehood largely because Mahmoud Abbas told him this and it was backed by the Europeans from almost every front and because he believes that the Jewish state has to be at fault because that is what he has heard from virtually every mentor and teacher he has ever believed to be credible and an anchor for his viewpoint throughout his life. We need look no further than his pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright or his childhood mentor in Hawaii, Frank Marshall Davis, his more contemporary relations with William Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Rashid Khalidi, Carl Davidson and the Reverend Louis Farrakhan. These are the roots from which the tree grew and was watered with their ideals and politics which include beyond the Marxist and his indoctrination as a follower of Saul Alinsky and his political principles for political warfare and implementation of socialist views which he purported. These are simply the cause for the further irritation over the election victory despite all efforts by the White House to deny Netanyahu another term. President Obama has taken this defeat personally as if it was he who was in place of Yitzhak Hertzog and that Netanyahu had bested President Obama himself when he won the election. This is just a further look inside the megalomaniacal, narcissistic, vainglorious and overtly arrogant neurotic individualist who is the current President and Disaster in Chief who has decided to ramp the war against Israel to the top of his to do list and colored it in red, underlined in purple, and circled in cyan just to assure he will not miss it every time he references his to do list.

 

There had been hopes that as long as President Obama had apparently decided that while he was more than likely not going to lift a finger to protect Israel before the United Nations, all its individual agencies and the collection of international courts, he was at least not ready to propose any charges or motions against Israel, only permit such motions and charges to flow unimpeded by the United States on to their conclusion. This leaves one last concern, how far is President Obama willing to go on this path. Perhaps we will conclude with this concern in a little while. Apparently President Obama may not have requested the announced plans to begin talks at the United Nations on a new Security Council resolution to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace process as was announced Friday by the French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. This proposal is similar in nature to the Arab proposal this past December which was defeated by there not being sufficient support to produce the necessary nine votes in favor so there was no need for a veto by any of the five permanent members of the Security Council, France, Britain, Russia, China, and of course the United States. Fabius stated before Agency France Press (AFP), “I hope the partners that were reluctant will be less reluctant. It is necessary to move forward to have a solution to this problem,” In earlier comments to AFP Fabius stated, “Only the creation of viable sovereign Palestinian state… will ensure peace and prosperity in the Middle East.” He wished for negotiations to resume to achieve “a comprehensive and lasting peace accord,” which needs to be based on the principle of the “two-state solution.” It is already well known and documented that President Obama supports the two-state solution and goes further demanding they be formed along the Green Line, the 1967 lines, with agreed upon swaps which is the same as saying that all the Jewish residences beyond the Green Line and in East Jerusalem are to be abandoned and will likely be destroyed within days of the Jews being removed. The current make-up of the Security Council has changed since the last time in December when a similar proposal was rejected. We covered these changes and what they meant in our article If Only! If Only!!! These changes make the likelihood somewhat more promising that it will pass unless one of the permanent Security Council members uses their overriding veto, the very veto President Obama has been threatening to withhold. This makes the wording of the French proposed resolution extremely important and even more important is whether it will be granted Chapter Seven making it a binding resolution backable by military force if so decided or a Chapter Six which makes it a strong recommendation but a whole slew of Chapter Six resolution as well as General Assembly resolutions which are also simply recommendations which become void at whatever point any participating member decides that they no longer support the resolution. Such rejection may come at the very beginning or any time after, it makes no difference.

 

The final question is what will be the result and exactly how far will President Obama decide he is willing to go. Will he fully commit to a Chapter Seven resolution and all that it entails? This may be the upcoming test which will determine whether or not President Obama has gone around the bend and entered an area previously unthinkable. The French proposal likely will just entail another round of negotiations with a time limit for the two sides to reach an agreement and then if no agreement is reached then the Security Council might be requested to resume deliberations and decide what comes next if anything. On the other hand the French proposition might not only include a deadline for reaching an agreement but might have the worst possible of measures where it calls for the formation of an Arab state using the Green Line as the border including East Jerusalem as the new State’s capital city and for all the Jewish residents to be removed by a set date after which the Arab State named Palestine (assumed) will have become a reality at long last. With such a clause in a Chapter Seven Resolution could at that point, should Israel refused to comply, require military force used to enforce the Security Council Resolution and then would President Obama actually order troops from the United States military to join the United Nations efforts to force compliance and the removal of every Israeli Jew residing past the Green Line? It is all but guaranteed if there exists such a clause calling for the enforcement of an Arab state with the Green Line as its borders, there is absolutely no way in the universe, let alone the earth, that Abbas will make any other arrangement or permit any land swaps as he would receive everything he presumably demands and have it granted by the European and American military might. That would be his idea of perfection as once the foreign troops had presumably successfully forced the complicity to the resolution, he could then request the United Nations remain to protect the Arab state from the Israeli threat. This would place the United Nations forces in place of the IDF in protecting Mahmoud Abbas and his government from a Hamas takeover which would otherwise take place. This would also have these United Nations troops preventing any Israeli attempts to interdict to prevent terrorism, enter the Arab state to make arrests as Israel cannot depend on Abbas and his courts to incarcerate terrorists, they name streets after them, and the terrorists would have free reign as far as crossing into Israel as the United Nations troops are only there to prevent Israeli ability to enforce laws against crimes perpetrated on her, not stop terrorists from entering Israel or returning to the safety of the new Arab state with its permanent military, the United Nations protective force manned by-in-large by the United States military forces. Would President Obama actually send troops against Israel? I pray that offer never becomes available to him in such a manner as supporting a United Nations resolution as I fear he would not even need to think about it, he would do so willingly and send more than requested, but possibly less than required. Such a situation would probably be sufficient for Israel to retreat rather than fight against United States or European troops as that would bring too much hardship on both sides and the Israelis are not at war with the United States or European people and never would take such a position unless such was forced upon them. Let us hope that things are not ramping up towards crazyland, we will not enjoy crazyland.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Obama Forbid It Ever Coming to That

 

Since the results of the Israeli elections were announced, the rumors coming out of Washington D.C. have been troubling to say the least. The singular item which has been part and parcel of every set of rumors has been the threat to no longer act in defense of Israel at the United Nations. As the United States can only veto resolutions effectively in the Security Council and Israel has effectively mostly ignored nonbinding resolutions while occasionally acting hurt or surprised, probably to amuse and entertain those who follow such events, the threats can only be about certain Security Council resolutions. This makes the question very simply, is President Obama intending to only permit Chapter 6 resolutions or has President Obama been driven so beyond the cusp that he intends to also stand aside or even support Chapter 7 binding and backed by military intervention resolutions, more often than not United States military force. It would be a very sad day that when the first combat troops from the United States deployed to Israel would be fighting against Israel in efforts to set borders establishing an Arab Palestinian state including cutting Jerusalem in half and setting up denial of rights for Jews to the majority of the ancient Jewish and Hebrew holy sites just as it was when Jordan occupied the heartlands of ancient Israel and Judea. This being done in the name of the American people, probably some of the greatest friends and supporters of Israel, is one of the most upsetting of ideas that before the current American leadership would have been unthinkable. There have been times when relations were tested such as when President Reagan did refuse to prevent the United Nations condemnation of Israel over their bombing of the Osirak reactor in Iraq before it was put online and producing bomb material for Saddam Hussein, something Israel was later thanked for when the United States was facing an Iraq without nuclear weapons. With the Iranian nuclear negotiations and the related fiasco, the whole reaction to the elections and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s address to Congress accepting Speaker of the House Boehner’s invitation has all been more of a panic over lost prestige than reasoned exception of intended slights.

 

There have been editorials claiming that the reaction by the President is exactly the kind of reaction a narcissist who also has fears and self-doubts and takes things so personally as if everything revolves around him and also any act is intentionally committed to affect him personally would react. Unfortunately for President Obama, I can honestly lay his concerns aside as neither my wife nor I had him in mind when we voted this past week. We apologize for not taking President Obama’s feelings into consideration but maybe he can take some solace in the fact that neither of us voted for Likud though we did support parties considered even more Zionist than Likud and have probably more hesitations and greater degrees of trepidation of a government led by Netanyahu as he has already proven that he cannot be trusted to keep a promise for more than a few days before wilting before the hurt feelings of President Obama. I realize that President Obama really wanted the next Israeli Prime Minister to be somebody other than Bibi, which meant Tzipi Livni and or Yitzhak Hertzog, because they would have consulted with President Obama before ordering their lunches for the day, let alone anything truly important. The truth is that President Obama is going to have to actually work at getting the Israeli Prime Minister to dance to his tune if Netanyahu manages to cobble together a coalition without breaking too many rules. The good news is that with the right threats combined with some heart felt anger mixed with a dash of well-stated demands and finally a no small amount of pleading, the next Israeli Prime Minister might act or at least appear to act just as President Obama desires.

 

Somehow I doubt that suggestion would sit too well with President Obama, so why not give him some sagely advice which might actually make things better rather than making fun of the situation. Here is an idea which nobody has ever attempted whose time may be due. Why not try to have Mahmoud Abbas present an actual written presentation of what he would accept as a solution and then ask the Israeli leader, once you have said document in hand, if he would make a counter proposal or possibly even accept the proposed solution as presented. I bet if you could get Mahmoud Abbas to actually tell the world exactly what he would accept and allow, then everybody could to see for themselves exactly what would be considered acceptable to the Palestinians. Thus far the Palestinian leadership from Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas and everybody accompanying this parade of malcontents has only had to say “no” to every offer from Israel and the entire world then demanded Israel surrender a little more. Then when that was also rejected the world pushed Israel again to surrender a little more. In the twenty years since Oslo Israel has been backed into a corner where there is no more to give and still survive. Israel cannot survive allowing the Palestinians to possess the Judean Hills overlooking Tel Aviv and the heart of modern Israel. Israel has played this game for too long. President Obama, have somebody read the San Remo Conference treaty to you and realize that is the International Law which defined Israeli borders. Those are the borders the world guaranteed Israel including the United States back in 1920, long before the Holocaust or anything else everybody loves to present as facts today. So, read that treaty to Mahmoud Abbas and tell him that should he make a reasonable demand of Israel in this his one opening to actually get his own state as long as he will be reasonable and considers the reality of the San Remo Conference and how that changes the hype around the Palestinians. This also affects the Palestinians going to the ICC; as if Israel is dragged to the ICC, they will simply lay a copy of the San Remo Conference treaty on the Judges’ tables and quietly await their decision as they interpret International Law in light of a treaty which had as signatories every member of the League of Nations even including Persia; you might know them better by their adopted name relating their presumed Aryan supremacy, Iran.

 

But instead of threatening the Israeli people and subjecting the world to an almost guaranteed conflagration which will most certainly follow any rocket barrage striking the greater Tel Aviv megalopolis, especially if any of downtown Tel Aviv and its skyscrapers in its central district were to be struck, causing thousands of deaths similar to the World Trade Center’s destruction in scope and numbers as any such assault would entail hundreds rockets in the initial few hours before Israel could respond adequately to end the attack. So, just a suggestion that for a change it be attempted to have the Palestinians present an actual proposal, I bet it will not be as easy as everyone claims. I know what the knee-jerk response will be, “Everybody already knows the Palestinians only want what is rightfully theirs.” Well, apparently President Clinton did not know what they wanted as he extracted what he thought was exactly what the Palestinians wanted and the result was Yasser Arafat bolting from the room in Paris and returning to his bunker and starting the Second Intifada as had been his plan from even before the negotiations had begun. So, just to satisfy the world’s curiosity as I am sure everybody would claim that this idea would be almost a no brainer as the Palestinians would be able to put their idea of a fair treaty down on paper and allow it to be presented to the Israelis with the understanding that if the Israelis accepted it then there would be an agreement and a signing within a week and if the Israelis did not agree at least the differences would finally be presented and the world can work with both parties from that point and reconcile any differences. But for nothing more than a change of agendas and demanding Israel make the offer, allow the Palestinians to start the ball rolling, we’ve rolled it far enough. We will wait for your answer and the presentation of the demands the Palestinians requested you make in their name, oh, and be just as demanding that they be fair and making an honestly presentable proposal and not just demand that they be given all of Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem and that Israel accept the right of return of five million Arabs as we all know that is a nonstarter. Then once you have a reasonable proposal from Abbas, call us, we’ll leave the line open for you.

 

Beyond the Cusp