Crushing Truck Terror in Jerusalem

 

Truck ramming terrorism returns to where such first found targets, Israel. On the promenade in the Amon Hanatziv neighborhood in Jerusalem where soldiers were getting off a bus, a truck rammed into the crowd on Sunday killing four and wounded seventeen (disturbing video below). The attack could have been far worse if not for the timely acts of a civilian security guard/guide who shot the terrorist as he was turning the truck for a second ramming. Quoting an interview printed in the Jerusalem Post, they reported,
Security guard and tour guide Eitan Rund told Army Radio that after the truck drove into the crowd, “I saw the truck go in reverse, and then I realized that it wasn’t an accident. I ran toward him [the driver] and emptied my whole clip. He drove backward and onto the wounded again. They were motionless, some wounded and some scared. It wasn’t a good scene. There was hesitation to open fire. I have no doubt that this was a significant factor, because all they tell them recently is to be careful. It could be that a few minutes less of hesitation and the situation would have been better.”

 

 

 

We here at BTC find the fact that soldiers at the scene, many of them armed, were so hesitant to fire at the terrorist that this might have produced the first fatalities due to the recent events and the trial that found Sergeant Elor Azariya guilty of manslaughter. We had predicted just such a scenario where soldiers would die from hesitating to shoot fearing legal repercussions in our recent article, What the Guilty Verdict of Sgt. Elor Azariya Will Mean. From the video it appears that nobody at the scene could have prevented the truck striking the crowd as it came screaming from the street directly into the people departing the bus with less than a second to react. Perhaps, if there was hesitation, it came once it appeared the terrorist was attempting to turn the truck for a second run. The evidence that some hesitated was the fact that the cab of the truck was not riddled with 5.56mm rounds having punched holes in the chassis and smashing through the windshield. Instead, the windshield appears to have approximately a dozen holes signifying bullet strikes with a few appearing to have multiple hits (see image below). The reality is that after twenty seconds of the above video, when the soldiers waiting a short distance from the attack behind a Jersey Wall barrier start to run in a direction away from the terrorist and the truck, a number can be seen to have weapons and are showing absolutely no interest in running towards the truck to engage but are running away. The soldiers with weapons were amongst some of the last to flee, but they appear not to be advancing to shoot and engage the terrorist. This was some of the evidence that perhaps shooting terrorists has become something viewed as a dangerous idea and as long as anybody else is engaging, then best not to shoot and end up tried for needlessly placing too much firepower at the target.

 

Truck From Jerusalem Ramming Terror Strike

 

The IDF officer, Col. Yaniv Aluf, commander of the IDF Officers School, was the officer who carried out a preliminary investigation of the attack. His report conflicts with the version of events reported by the civilian security guard’s interview where he reported that soldiers hesitated. Col. Yaniv Aluf’s investigation suggested that at least two cadets fired toward the terrorist at close range. Major General Moti Almoz agreed with the Colonel claiming that it was wrong to suggest that soldiers were hesitant to shoot or especially that the Azaria conviction had any bearing on the incident. Major General Almoz added that the soldiers likely did not know initially that this was a terrorist attack and were probably thinking it was a car accident. Almoz was quoted stating, “The moment that they realized that it was an attack, two cadets fired toward the truck.” That was two soldiers out of how many who were armed, that would be a point worth knowing. With the numbers of soldiers and the many that had weapons, that truck should have looked more like those in movies where the vehicle falls apart once touched and not simply having a dozen bullet holes in the windshield. We are fairly sure that there will be no responses from any of the soldiers at the scene as they were likely briefed and instructed not to talk to the media.

 

The grim reality comes in the form of the names of the deceased. Three female soldiers – 20-year-old Lt. Yael Yekutiel of Givatayim, 22-year-old Lt. Shir Hajaj of Ma’aleh Adumim, and 20-year-old Sec.-Lt. Shira Tzur of Haifa – and one male soldier, 20-year old Sec.-Lt. Erez Orbach of Alon Shvut, were declared dead at the scene. Additionally, the hospital reported that two cadets were seriously wounded, and fifteen other officers and cadets sustained less severe wounds. Our prayers are that they all make recoveries such that there can be some small miracles from this horrifying event. The terrorist was identified as Fadi al-Qanbar, from the nearby neighborhood of Jebl Mukaber, long a source of incitement and attackers. Some reports claimed that the terrorist’s family was known to have ties to terrorist activity. Before anybody asks why this person was not under surveillance, even if such a tactic was thought to be a deterrent, there are not sufficient security personnel to follow every potential terrorist within the areas under Israeli control. As far as giving the Arabs the lands the world claims would satisfy them and end the terror, one question if you don’t mind, why were the Arabs launching terror attacks before June of 1967 when there was no “occupied territory” and why were there pogrom like riots in Jerusalem and Hevron in the 1920’s and 1930’s before there was even a State of Israel. The terrorism has nothing to do with “occupied territory” unless you claim all of Israel is “occupied territory” and every home and apartment where lives a Jew is “occupied territory,” then you might be closer to correct. Mahmoud Abbas has stated numerous times that he will only end terrorist activities when all of Israel has been defeated and made Judenrein. That is his final compromise, all of Israel destroyed and every Jew dead. How is Israel to negotiate with such?

 

All the conferences like we will speak on tomorrow and all the wondrous exclamations of how peace can be attained by Israel for a small price, all these grand and eloquent statespersons from Europe, the United States State Department and President Obama from the White House all misunderstand Mahmoud Abbas’s claim to his desire for the missing 22% which is rightfully Arab. If we may be permitted a quote from Egyptian Judge, Justice El Araby, from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and who sat in judgement as part of the panel which heard the case where the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) sought an advisory opinion in 2003 from the ICJ on the legality of the security barrier erected by Israel. The Honorable Justice El Araby warned the UNGA and others that filing further ran some risks, as he stated,

 

“The international legal status of the Palestinian Territory (paras. 70-71 of the Advisory Opinion), in my view, merits more comprehensive treatment. A historical survey is relevant to the question posed by the General Assembly, for it serves as the background to understanding the legal status of the Palestinian Territory on the one hand and underlines the special and continuing responsibility of the General Assembly on the other. This may appear as academic, without relevance to the present events. The present is however determined by the accumulation of past events and no reasonable and fair concern for the future can possibly disregard a firm grasp of past events. In particular, when on more than one occasion, the rule of law was consistently side-stepped. The point of departure, or one can say in legal jargon, the critical date, is the League of Nations Mandate which was entrusted to Great Britain.”

 

This advisory would be well heeded by these coming conferences and potential United Nations Security Council endorsing and attempting to enforce any grand solution on Israel by establishing an Arab State of Palestine with defined borders which Israel had not agreed to grant. The truth is that under real and standing International Law derived from the Balfour Declaration, the San Remo Conference, the Treaty of Sèvres, Treaty of Lausanne, the British Mandate, the Churchill White Papers, Anglo-American Convention, Article 80 of the United Nations Charter et al. For a fairly straight forward coverage of the rights for the establishment of the State of Israel at the very minimum on all lands west of the Jordan River, please refer to Legal Rights and Title of Sovereignty of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel and Palestine under International Law. The reality is that any Arab State can thus far only be established in Gaza as Israel voluntarily, if also foolishly granting too much relying upon trust in promises in a private letter from a President of the United States which apparently can be ignored once they leave office as proven by President Obama claiming the letter has no legal standing and he did not make and thus will not keep the promises within, let that be a cautionary note to all putting faith in promises from American Presidents. Any further release of land by Israel would be excessively foolish but it is also the sole legal manner in which there can be any future state for the Palestinians and as long as their terrorist means and claims to erase all of Israel killing all the Jews found within continue, there will be no such surrender of territories for that purpose or any other. The ongoing threat to take Israel before the ICJ and win the rights to lands, according to Abbas all of the lands, but any lands will find their decision handed down being that all the lands belong rightfully to Israel and that only through an agreement, a treaty, can there be anything resembling an Arab State within the borders of the Jordan River west to the Mediterranean Sea. This is why despite constant threats from Abbas and his merry henchmen and the European Union and numerous European governments to take Israel before the ICJ and force Israel to grant the Palestinians their rightful state has and never will happen is because they all know the legal rights and claim Israel holds to these lands and they are aware that they would not only lose in the ICJ but that all future arguments they wish to present would become worthless. Even should the Arabs conquer the lands, they would still revert to the Jews whenever they decided to sue in the ICJ for their rightful inheritance and the only manner around such would be to get a representative for Israel to sign a surrendering document giving up all claims to these lands. We would advise against holding your breath as that will cause unconsciousness.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Weeds in the MENA Garden

 

 

If one were to ask the European Union, the United States, the United Nations and the world media who is responsible for the unrest throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) the resounding echoes would continue to scream Israel for likely the rest of eternity, but is that an honest assessment or simply a knee jerk automatic programed response spurred by anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic hatreds? The easiest way to tell would be to take a quick whirl around the MENA nations and see what the truth is. Let us start our excursion at the western edge and head to the east and see what we will see.

 

A map of MENA nations is almost up to date and is only missing the Sudan, and as the Sudan was split after years of tribal and religious violence, South Sudan; and some go so far as to include Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Djibouti, Eretria, and Somalia.

 

Coming into the North of Africa from the Atlantic Ocean the first country we would visit would be Western Sahara where we would find Morocco has occupied Western Sahara since 1975 in violation of resolutions by the United Nations Security Council and International Court of Justice ruling. Any efforts to dislodge Morocco from Western Sahara have been blocked directly by the United States whose full support of the Moroccan occupation shows no sign of relenting. The conflict reemerged as the “Independence Intifada” in 2005 which has remained as depicted in map below. Despite numerous efforts to defuse the situation the standoff remains.

 

Occupied Western Sahara
by Morocco Shaded Area
and Western Sahara Unshaded

 

Continuing on from the Morocco-Western Sahara conflict we next visit Mauritania which has had a rocky recent history including two military coups, the first was in 2005 followed eventually by elections for a new president in 2007 followed by the second coup in 2008. General Abdul Aziz took power after the coup but found the nation had few supporters amongst them predominantly were Morocco, Libya and Iran while the United States and European nations rejected the legitimacy of the coup continuing to refer to Abdallahi as the legitimate president of Mauritania. After the resignation of Abdallahi there were elections which allowed Abdel Aziz to become the civilian president. In February 2011 there were waves of unrest as the Arab Spring spread to Mauritania demanding President Mohamed Abdel Aziz institute political, economic, and legal reforms. The unrest culminated in April of 2012 as thousands of people in Mauritania attended demonstrations in the capital calling for President Mohamed Abdel Aziz to resign. Currently the nation is under military rule with the legal system based on Islam and Sharia.

 

Heading across the southern end the picture in Mali, Niger and Chad is the constant internal strife between Christian governments and Islamic uprisings with much of the major horrific attacks conducted by the terrorist group Boko Haram which literally means Western education is forbidden. Boko Haram follows Saudi Wahhabism and has pledged their loyalty to the Islamic State. Along the north there has been steady unrest in Algeria and especially Libya since the NATO backed coup where President Obama declared that the United States was leading from behind in the ouster of and eventual execution (murder) of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. In Libya the nation is in fractious rule of numerous terror groups and tribal armies with some having declared alliance with the Islamic State. In the south east there is the Sudan which bled in the south especially in the Darfur area. Eventually the Sudan was force to divide allowing South Sudan to become independent. In October of 2015, South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir issued a decree establishing twenty-eight states in place of the ten constitutionally established states. The decree established the new states largely along ethnic lines. He took it to the parliament for approval as a constitutional amendment in November and the South Sudanese parliament empowered President Kiir to create new states.

 

This brings us to Egypt where the recent history has played out live and large in the Western media. The Arab Spring riots led to the removal of President and military strongman Mubarak. The elections were held fairly soon after Mubarak was forced to step down largely by the United States backing of the Muslim Brotherhood. These elections overwhelmingly approved Muslim Brotherhood candidate Morsi to the presidency and a large Muslim Brotherhood majority in the parliament. Within the year new rioting broke out protesting the implementation of Sharia despite warnings from Turkish President Erdogan to the Morsi government to slow their radical changes or face resistance. This led to the military removing Morsi and arresting him for election fraud. New election instated former General of the Army Sisi as President though he still had an Islamist and presumed Muslim Brotherhood controlled parliament. The Obama administration refused to recognize Sisi and demanded that Morsi be reinstated; a request which was roundly ignored. Unrest still exists between Egypt and the United States which will be resolved by the Presidential election this November in the United States. As to what either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump might choose to do is a complete mystery at the present time as neither has addressed foreign policy beyond Hillary’s claim to deep knowledge claiming her time as a Senator of New York and a stint as Secretary of State under President Obama which included the Benghazi, Libya fiasco amongst other miscues and Trump claiming to have conducted business deals with numerous foreign governments and met many world leaders though particulars remain largely unconfirmed. Egypt has also faced unrest largely from the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic State where both are vying for control of the Sinai from where they would presumably unseat Sisi and retake the presidency. Hamas in Gaza was seen as providing assistance to these and some Iranian backed groups in the Sinai thus earning themselves a complete sea and land embargo enforced by Egypt from their waters and land borders with Gaza. The Egyptian blockade is often ignored with the large amount of attention paid to the Israeli “blockade” which is actually an inspection of goods before allowing their delivery to Gaza usually within one or two days done to assure that weapons are not being imported by Hamas and the other terror groups which rule Gaza. Egypt too is a work in progress.

 

We will return to Israel subsequently but meanwhile on to Lebanon where the terror groups Hezballah runs the government with an opposition often afraid to act to remove the terror group as previous attempts have resulted in untimely deaths. Lebanon cannot be addressed without discussing Syria and the state of war which has more facets than hewn crystals. The main three forces are Syrian dictator Bashir al Assad who has retreated to the Alawite tribal areas along the Mediterranean coast and Lebanese border. Assad is backed by Iran and their proxy, Hezballah, out of Lebanon. These are the Shiite forces which also receive tactical support largely in the form of air strikes by the Russians who are protecting their port area along the Mediterranean coast. Inland there are Sunni groups, oft referred to as terror groups, supported largely by Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Finally there are the forces of the Islamic State which stretch into Iraq where they face the Iraqi Army backed by Iran who uses mostly IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps) placing Iran at either end of the Islamic State. The Islamic State has been largely self-financed though there have been rumored support from Qatar. There is another group in northern Iraq and extending into northeastern Syria which is controlled by Kurdish Militias which are opposed strongly by Turkey. The Kurdish forces were at one time rumored to be receiving training by Israeli trainers on a clandestine mission though many have refuted that this was just a means of explaining the Kurdish forces resilience and holding their own against Islamist forces considered to be better equipped.

 

This takes us to the Saudi Peninsula and Jordan which we can count as a single unit of the GCC (Gulf Coordination Council) which is a group backed mostly by Saudi Arabia which includes Kuwait and the Gulf States and to a lesser extent, Jordan. Saudi Arabia has a close working relationship with the Egyptian government of President Sisi who are jointly facing terror groups including those supported or aligned with Islamic State as well as Iranian backed terrorists and the Houthi Tribes in the Yemen civil war, a front where Iran backed and Saudi Arabian backed forces are in direct confrontation. The United States has opposed and presumably attempted to prevent, though with little success, arms shipments to the Houthis by Iran and also opposed the bombing sorties from Saudi Arabia with equal lack of success and the belligerents continue to fight on. In the southernmost areas of Yemen, the prized areas which overlook the narrow passage from the Red Sea into the Arabian Sea, called Bab el-Mandeb Strait are a group of fighters originally claiming alliance with al-Qaeda but recently changing their alliance to presumably the Islamic State. These groups have benefited directly from Saudi raids as has the currently recognized Hadi-led government.

 

Yemen Battle Map

 

Lastly let us finally look at Israel. On the Golan Heights IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) have returned fire when fired upon by intention and otherwise has unofficial drop points for wounded individuals, civilian and combatant though no difference is noted, wounded and in need of treatment. IDF soldiers take these wounded and treat them in their field facility with the more serious cases transferred to Israeli hospitals for treatment. After treatment the individuals once sufficiently recovered are returned from whence they came at same drop points. All sides can view the individual drop points and all points are respected by other fighting factions in an unarranged agreement as all sides use this treatment method and no one side wishes to risk being cut-off from Israeli treatment and have to rely on whatever resources they have available. We have no information as to whether any Iranian forces have received treatment from the Israelis though if placed in civilian clothing they would receive the same treatment as any other individual. The Israeli border with Lebanon is currently quiet as Hezballah has sufficient on their plate with forces in the Syrian conflict and rumored even to have some fighting with IRGC or Houthis in Yemen. Intelligence believed to be accurate estimated that Hezballah has stores of rockets of varying size and capable of striking Tel Aviv, Bathsheva and even Ashkelon as well as guided missiles from Iran capable of striking anywhere in Israel including the southernmost port city of Eilat carrying warhead as large as two kilos and potentially five or ten up to one-hundred kilos warheads on their short and medium ranged rockets of which they possess as many as one-hundred-seventy-five-thousand. On their larger missiles they have warheads of as much as seven-hundred-fifty kilos on modified Zilzal-2 with a four-hundred km range and which they possess an estimated one thousand. Their Fateh-110 missile has a range three-hundred km range striking at Mach 3.5 carrying a four to seven-hundred kg warhead of which Hezballah possess more than twenty-thousand and lastly there is the Shaheen-II two stage missile which has a range of two-thousand km making able to strike anywhere in Israel and into Egypt. Each missile is capable of flight altitude of up to three-hundred km, is GPS guided, and varies a one-thousand plus kg warhead making it potentially capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and retaining it guidance hardware. It is doubtful that Iran has, let alone provided Hezballah with a deliverable nuclear warhead. Such is not far from the horizon for Iran but their providing Hezballah with such a weapon is doubtful.

 

The remaining fronts for Israel are with Jordan and Egypt which are both peaceful and with the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Judea and Samaria as well as with Hamas and ally Islamic Jihad and other terror and criminal groups in Gaza. The front with the PA is largely one where there are terror strikes which can be planned by Abbas and the his PLO terror groups or the less planned but instigated through calls for violence from PA figures, PLO figures or any of a litany of groups most of which are either headed by Mahmoud Abbas or are willful practitioners at his beck and call. The most recent round were stabbings carried out largely by Palestinian Arab and some Israeli Arab youths as well as car rammings along with rock and Molotov cocktail throwing with rioting which are carried out routinely by PA controlled terror groups, the Tamini family instigators who work closely with European Union and other European NGOs whose main aims are to cause any violent response by Israel which is filmed and the instigation causing the defensive act is edited and with careful editing and juxtaposition of stock footage, prerecorded footage or actual footage with any questionable instigations by the Arabs edited over or out completely compiled into the final product which is then transmitted throughout European news agencies within a matter of a couple of hours and they run with it unedited as if it were an actual news story followed by their governments and the European union then condemning Israel for use of disproportional force or the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Gaza front is another area where Iran attempts with some success to smuggle arms mostly containing rocket motors and rocket parts and technology. Funding for Hamas comes from UNRWA as well as from the PA making the European Union, United States, United Nations and individual European nations as well as numerous Arab countries direct or indirect financiers of Hamas terrorism and rocket attacks as well as Arab instigations and propaganda which permeates their entire society from their media to the schools, summer camps soccer leagues and every aspect of childhood and raising the children to hate Jews as well as Israel. The Hamas Charter calls not only for the annihilation of Israel but of Jews worldwide. Similar language is found in Islamic Jihad and Hezballah pamphlets and charters or constitutions. The hatred goes well beyond Israel and includes Jews everywhere as well as Western culture and societies. Hamas and their allies as well as Hezballah desire a world caliphate under Sharia and openly claim so. The main difference is whether the caliphate would be Shiite or Sunni, for the rest of us that is a minor comfort.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Israel, Judea, Samaria, and World Idiocy

 

For the unenlightened, that is not an insult, it simply means those who have yet to be informed, yes, we try to inform the untold, that is part of our mission statement. Now, where were we? Oh yea, Judea and Samaria are Jewish lands from the ages starting with King David and King Solomon and were originally an integral part of what was declared the State of Israel on the morning of May 15, 1948 under a declaration by the United Nations despite the objections of the nations of the Arab League and their allies. But that did not deter them from attempting to make a small adjustment to the United Nations declaration and simply genocidally vanquish the nascent state of Israel murdering every last person they found. To this end they gathered forces from seven Arab nations, an untold number of militias, various military officers from various armies from World War II who fought for European nations and the Mufti of Jerusalem demanded that Arabs take refuge beyond the Jordan River, in Lebanon or behind the Egyptian military aligned in Israel’s southern border. The Arabs who remained within Israel fell into two groups, the first was Arabs who truly desired to remain in Israel and live in peace and be a constructive element in Israel’s future, and those who were interested in attacking the Jews fighting to retain their nation from behind. The Israelis had a good idea who were the friendly Arabs and when those whose loyalties were in doubt proved by the action of a large numbers of their population to be a fifth element, that was when the Israelis out of necessity drove many of the questionable Arabs out before their troops after being ambushed a number of times by some of these communities striking from behind. This was behind the initial refugee crisis where those who left their homes were forced into camps as were those pressed out for Israel due to their allying with the invading Arab armies. Further, in the wars which began on May 15, 1948 and ended in an armistice in 1949 resulted in Israel losing parts of Judea and Samaria to Jordan and the Gaza to Egypt. Jordan attempted to annex their gained lands so they changed the name to West Bank and the world, except for Britain and Pakistan, refused to recognize the annexation. It was after the 1967 Six Day War that Israel liberated these very same lands but the deceit had already started with the 1964 founding of the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) demanding that an Arab state replace all of Israel. That demand is no different today; it just is demanding it from within Israel instead of in an occupied area.

 

So, let us frame the actual demands as they stand with added notes about the world at large. Israel has reached peace accords with two of her former invaders after a series of wars which though initiated by Arab powers that they either were unable to eliminate Israel but wrested control over some Israeli lands in the process of attempting to eradicate Israel and her non-Muslim populations, as in the 1948-9 war or have lost any advantage gained by attacking without provocation and then having the occupied areas returned to Israel control and even losing additional lands as in 1967 and again in 1973. Israel returned the entirety of the Sinai Peninsula for a cold peace with often cooperation on security matters which are to both parties’ favor with Egypt. Egypt agreed, nay, insisted on Israel retaining her lands which Egypt had occupied between 1948 and 1967, the area known as Gaza. Jordan subsequently made her peace with Israel surrendering back to rightful Israeli control of the areas of Judea and Samaria as well as Eastern Jerusalem making, once again, the Jordan River the boundary between the two nations as it had been on that fateful morning of May 15, 1948 when Jordanian, Iraqi and Saudi Arabian forces stormed across the Israeli border racing to reach the sea and take control of the port cities. These invading forces were aided by Arab militias under orders from Mufti of Jerusalem Hajj Amin al-Husayni, the same Hajj Amin al-Husayni who spent the entirety of World War II in Nazi controlled lands raising all-Muslim forces which terrorized and plundered the areas Jewish and Serbian Christian populations with the blessings of the Nazis. Further, he was reputed with having advised at the Wannsee Conference where the ‘Final Solution’ was drafted and the Holocaust was placed in motion. Some reports claim that the Mufti demanded the Germans not simply exile the Jews onto the British Mandate lands in the Middle East thus taxing British and French forces in the area to take care of the refugees but instead exterminate European Jews and once in control of the Middle East and North Africa continue the extermination in those areas as well. These were the forces assailing the nascent state of Israel on her very first day of existence and before she had even gathered any formal military and where some Jews fought the invaders with stones having no arms other than slings. A swift Arab victory and the erasure of Israel appeared imminent but that was a short lived image of the situation.

 

 

Soon their efforts were blunted before they could reach their goals and finally fought to a standstill setting the Armistice Green Line as the new reality where Jordan remained in control until early June of 1967 when Jordan joined Egypt and Syria in the attack the Jordanians had been sold was going well by Egypt and Syria despite their losing on both fronts. That act despite Israeli warnings caused the loss of her occupied lands. On the Syrian front in 1967 Israel gained control of the Golan Heights, which the Syrians had used for snipers to randomly shoot Israelis walking to and from schools, tilling their lands, harvesting crops, driving on roads and other serious provocations known and the like. Israel had annexed the Golan Heights after gaining control of them from Syria during the Six Day War of June 1967. When considering the actions and the presence on occasions of terror groups aligned with al-Qaeda such as the al-Nusra and also forces attached to Islamic State with the occasional artillery or mortar round landing within the Israeli border to show for such volatile situations, Israel has adopted a policy of returning fire upon the offending source as computed by Iron Dome or similar tracking utilities. The Israeli decision to annex these vital hilltops has proven invaluable with the turmoil currently playing out on the border with Syria which is showing no sign of mitigation of the grievances and the introduction of Iranian, Russian and Hezballah forces backing Bashir al-Assad’s claim to the lands he ruled some five years ago when his intransigence on demands for rights and representative governance were refused and the largely peaceful protesters turned upon with regime forces which ignited this strife which has claimed upwards of five million lives with a large percentage being civilians and tens of millions of refugees made homeless who are now making their way across Turkey, Greece or even Italy and on into Europe. That pretty much encapsulates much of the actions over the past sixty-eight years.

 

So, the current situation is easily summed-up; Israel has made peace with three of the four nations bordering her and the fourth is in no shape currently to make any decisions about their mutual border. As discussed, Israel having annexed the Golan Heights is well within her rights according to all International Law as once Israel had returned any sections, let alone all; of the Sinai Peninsula she had fulfilled her obligations for returning lands, not all of the lands, nor the lands, nor any other absolute amount of lands. Israel was also to retain lands necessary for her continued security which was aimed at the time as the Golan Heights and the area of Judea and Samaria west of the Jordan River and many anticipated Israel retaining half of the Sinai Peninsula to the central mountains but Israel surrendered all of the Sinai. Once the peace treaties had been reached with Jordan and Egypt by which all the occupied Israeli lands of Gaza, Judea and Samaria had all claims vanquished it appeared that things in the Middle East between the Arabs and the Jews were settled. That was not to be the case as the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) which was formed in 1964, a full three years before the Six Day War of June of 1967, for the expressed purpose of threatening all of Israel with a challenge claiming the Arabs residing in Israel were actually an ancient culture which had their lands stolen by the Jews in the 1948-9 War and that the Israelis were evil, despicable European invaders and were intent on colonizing the entirety of the Middle East and beyond forming a greater Israel and subjugating the Arab Peoples, the indigenous Arab peoples with a nine-thousand year history going back to the time before. The Arab Palestinians, with generous assistance from the KGB, established these claims against all of Israel between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea except for the area under Arab controlled by Jordan and Egypt as these, Gaza, and parts of Judea and Samaria (referred to by Jordan as the West Bank) leaving the Jewish controlled areas as their target to form a new twenty-second Arab state. After Jordan and Egypt had relinquished their claims to any Israeli lands the PLO simply included those areas as their lost homelands which had to be returned to them completely cleansed of the Jews. They would claim that the Europeans must allow their Jews to return home ignoring the known fact that the entirety of the Arab and Muslim worlds attempted to cleanse themselves of their Jews and a vast number of them settled in Israel. There had been no mention of these Jews being returned or accepted as originating from the Arab lands all despite passports being held by these former refugees. There was a reason for the difference between the Arab refugees who are still languishing in refugee camps not included but rather kept separate from their brothers and sisters, all too often literally, while the Jewish refugees were taken in, given immediate citizenship and allowed full rights and became productive members of Israeli society. Their inclusion has been so complete that today it is difficult to tell children from the two groups of Jewish refugees apart as the great number of marriages across the societal lines, an occurrence nearly impossible in Arab society as there has been a stigma put upon the Arab refugees such that no Arab nation desires to include them into their society at large. This insane mistreatment goes so far that it even has led to a large refugee camp attached to Gaza City, an area controlled by Hamas since the 2007 coup, with the refugees camps surrounded with Concertina Wire with that being largely the only apparent difference as the refugees are housed in apartments almost identical to the apartments where the Gazans reside including many of the members of the Hamas ruling terror groups as well as other terror groups permitted to operate from within Gaza such as Islamic Jihad (they are almost co-rulers in the area), al Qaeda and even Islamic State. Hamas permits these terror entities to operate within the area it controls even to the point of permitting refugees to leave the camps in order to carry out terrorist acts against Israel. There are additional refugee camps near Ramallah in the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Mahmoud Abbas and again there is little to differentiate the refugee Arab Palestinians from the free Arab Palestinians and even their surnames sound disturbingly similar. One can only wonder what could drive a people so far as to literally imprison their brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles and friends into refugee camps and then refuse to permit them work or any gainful activities outside their camps. Further, the vast majority of these ‘refugees’ are under the age of forty years of age, many under eighteen and have resided within the camps their entire lives. The UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) has taken on the job of tracking any refugee who have gotten from the camps and made a life for themselves in elsewhere, some as far flung as Los Angeles. The truth is according to the United Nations and UNRWA, once a family is designated as Palestinian refugee, then their generations inherit that honor and even in cases of cross marriage, an Arab Palestinian refugee and any other Arab be they Iraqi, Egyptian, Saudi or any other nationality, their children additionally become refugees. There were refugee camps in Syria one of which, the Yarmouk Refugee Camp, was heavily shelled and bombed by Bashir al-Assad once it was learned that some of its refugees had escaped and joined with one of the Islamist groups fighting Assad which made the entire camp a legal target in their now five year old war. The Yarmouk Camp was thoroughly destroyed and many of its former residents now have the unique privilege of being double refugees; they are now Syrian war refugees and Arab Palestinian refugees.

 

The only solution which makes sense since the complete destruction of stable governance throughout much of the Arab lands with Egypt narrowly escaping a plunge into the darkness which is Islamist Theocratic dictatorial rule with the Sunni version of Shia Iran with Muslim Brotherhood Imams sitting with absolute power and the power resting with the Muslim Brotherhood supported by Al-Azhar University was return to military rule until a proper governance was established. There was a price to pay for this salvation and that was a return to the strongman backed by the military and chosen by the military with the present president being the former Chief of Staff General of the Army Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. President Sisi did win an election and the test of whether democratic rule has finally come to Egypt or if they have fallen back under military dictatorship will be realized when the next elections are held and if they have beyond just the trappings of fair democratic elections or are actually verifiably honest democratic elections. Currently it is far too early to tell. Jordan has remained above the fray quite possibly because of the actions of one of the leaders in causing the fighting in Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State. When the Islamic State downed a Jordanian fighter and captured the pilot, First Lieutenant Muadh al-Kasasbeh, they could have simply held him or ransomed him or amazed the world and returned him unharmed to Jordan. Instead they very publically for all to watch burned him alive and as he was fully engulfed in flames in a video posted by the Islamic State to the Internet as if it were an enlistment poster for the group. This barbaric act and the rage shared by the people of Jordan and their King may have served to deepen their trust in his honest leadership and saved Jordan from any crumbling before the anarchic forces swallowing the Middle East from Iraq to Monaco. This leaves Israel still facing a potential situation that should the Islamic State gain sufficient power they might decide that Jordan was ripe for the taking and as a result be right on Israel’s doorstep. Should there be either a Palestinian authority Fatah led government or a hybrid Hamas-Islamic Jihad government, either would necessarily fall before the Islamic State with Hamas likely simply merging while Fatah would likely flee into Israel seeking asylum as they would be no match against Islamic State and the leadership would fear facing a horrific death if captured by the Islamic State Islamist fanatics. It is exactly because of the turmoil, confusion, violence and instability of the entirety of the Middle East that Israel must establish the most defendable borders possible against ground attack such as from Islamic State or ground supported by air attack coming from Lebanon as the Syrian war may decide that involving Israel would actually alter the inevitable breakup of the former nation of Syria. That makes it imperative that Israel end the games and simply declare the Oslo Accords in all of its mutated and contorted forms dead from this day forth. Those not connected to violence or terrorism will be permitted to remain but the higher officials will need to find a new home most likely in Europe who appeared to love them and support their hatreds of Israel. Europe is in the state of taking in all the Islamic refugees they are capable, or almost as many as offered, so a few hundred more should not even be noticed except for the media swarm asking pointed questions such as are they planning on a return, will they take their complaints to the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, be assisting one of the various terrorist armies in order to gain favor when they face the Israelis without even a single aircraft, or the ever ubiquitous where are you going from here? I can picture Abbas as he responds to the media as pictured below, and wouldn’t it be the best answer he could ever give.

 

 

 

Any way one slices it, the Arabs have more than sufficient time, offers and Israeli concessions that if they have refused everything up until now, then it may as well be, “Hasta la vista, baby!” Oh, and whatever they say, “I’ll (we’ll) be back” would be the most unadvisable as such would be tantamount to a declaration of war.

 

Beyond the Cusp