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 in Need of Bold Zionist No Excuses Leadership

 

Israel is under attack both from without and within. What is most depressing is that the same people finance most of both kinds of groups sworn to tear Israel down. There are channels used by European government and NGOs to pass heaping amounts of funding through various channels to what are licensed Israeli NGOs as well as financing European and international NGOs all with the same designs, to destroy the Jewish state by all means available. The most used method has been to challenge Zionist efforts and organizations in Israeli courts for internal NGOs and some of the external NGOs and in European and international courts by international and European NGOs and by European governments often using one another’s courts in complimentary efforts. The usual targets are to embargo or otherwise target Israeli exports which are often placed on the defensive of having to prove that none of their product, including their wrappers, shipping containers, labels or even inks came from beyond the Green Line which despite being Israeli sovereign lands by the enactment of the San Remo Conference Agreement and Article 80 of the United Nations Charter are now simply referred to as belonging to some imaginary entity called Palestine which touts a series of terrorist leaders who would be imprisoned in virtually any other nation if they were to use similar violent tactics and subversions anywhere in Europe. With the United States following the European lead concerning Israel and still attempting to tell Israel and American Jewish associations that Israel has never seen a more advantageous and supportive administration, a view fully supported by some of the most liberal and anti-Zionist Jewish organizations in the United States, has backed Prime Minister Netanyahu into a corner where he is too timid to defy President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry most likely under some threats of the United States surrendering Israeli sovereignty to the Palestinians and any other claimants who might claim territory as being their ancestral lands against the Israelis in the United Nations Security Council.

 

The initial reaction by the political leadership in Israel has been to cringe, duck down tight and hope the barrages from Washington pass overhead and nobody gets hurt. The problem is there have been numerous people who have been hurt and continue to be hurt by the acquiescence by Israeli political leadership who out of fear of facing actual threats coming to fruition have led the government in destroying Jewish buildings, many which proved to have been legal but too late, using an overt leftist Supreme Court to approve destruction orders allowing the political leaders to claim their hands were tied. Some of these destructions have been rushed through before the legal teams working with the Jewish owners have had sufficient time to chase down the legal paperwork to prevent the destructions making their eventual production simply too little too late. The forces pushing to force Israel to surrender all of Judea and Samaria along with all of East Jerusalem are the same leftist anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist forces which pressed for the Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip and its fall to Hamas and the barrages of rockets on ever more of Israel in each assault leading to the next war. All those politicians, pundits, and various others with marginal credibility all know full well their claims that once the Palestinians have been given the West Bank that their claims will be satisfied and all terrorism and related threats will vanish from Israel’s future are completely false. They have ears just as anybody with ears and even the most minimal interest and curiosity have come to know that the Palestinian claims are to all of Israel. Anybody caring to attend the demonstrations at their neighborhood college campus hearing the Palestinian supporters chant of, “From the river to the sea Palestine must be free!” know exactly what the Palestinian demands are, all of Israel with every last Jew removed or they will remove them final solution style.

 

Furthermore, they know that the Israeli claim that giving up Judea and Samaria along with East Jerusalem will bring rockets to the heart of Israel are true. They also know that such a situation will bring all tourism to Israel to a screeching halt the minute a single passenger airliner or cargo airline is shot out of the sky landing or taking off from Ben Gurion International Airport as every airline insurance company will immediately terminate any insurance for any airline carrier, be it passenger or cargo, if they persist in flying to Ben Gurion or any other airport within Israel. El Al will lose their insurance and be closed down as they operate out of Israel and what good is an Israeli airline which does not fly into or out of Israel. Then the first close call, not necessarily a hit, on any ship coming to an Israeli port the same will end all sea traffic in and out of Israel with the exception of some intrepid Israelis in their private small craft, which will have become uninsured should they not move its mooring to Crete or further. The cynical pro-Palestinian peace camps know that should Israel surrender what they cynically call the West Bank adopting the same terminology invented by Jordan during their occupation of Judea and Samaria as well as East Jerusalem between 1948 and 1967 in order to remove the Jewish roots of the occupied areas, occupied from who, by the way, Israel would be the correct answer. During the nineteen years under Jordanian occupation not only was there no mention of Palestinian lands being under occupation, there were also no attempts to return to the Palestinians any lands. The knowledge cynically denied by the anti-Israel organizations, politicians, and individuals is the threat to Israel. Why would these entities go to such extents to deny any threats which might be posed to Israel by turning over Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem to the Palestinians? Their drive is to destroy Israel by any means necessary which has been a desire started initially by the British immediately after they received the Mandate to establish the Jewish state in the Mandate lands granted their oversight. While the Zionists were too weak to oppose any British perfidy they demanded that the Zionist Congress sign off on allowing an Arab state to be formed west of the Jordan River for guarantees that the lands east of the Jordan River would remain sacrosanct belonging solely to the future Jewish state. At the same time other English politicians and leaders promised the Arab leadership they would never permit sufficient Jewish settlement to form the Jewish State. This was why the British immediately recognized the Jordanian occupation of Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem along with one singular other nation, Pakistan. The rest of the British efforts to prevent Jewish immigration to Israel even when it could have provided the Jews of Europe an escape from the coming holocaust the British refused to open the area to Jewish immigration. There will always be forces both overt and covert working to the detriment of Israel. Additionally, Israel has more enemies thanks to the Arab and Muslim world’s animosity as well as sufficient enemies in Europe, South America, most ardent leftist politicians, anti-Semites the world over, and those who are held at the tender mercies of the oil producing nations already strongly opposed to Israeli existence.

 

Israel is the proverbial bridesmaid but never the bride when it comes to being accepted through much of the world. Will the world ever accept anything Israeli, yes, of course they will. They will accept the technological products, software, agricultural advances, medical procedural advances, medical imaging technology, weapons advances, drone technology and the numerous other areas where Israel leads the world and is often more than happy to share these advances. Such has been evidenced by the sharing with the third world the technology of drip irrigation which allows for irrigating fields with a fraction of the water required from conventional methods. There is the Save a Child’s Heart Organization which not only flies children in to Israel to perform delicate life-saving heart operations but also sends their specialists to third world nations to perform operations and teach the surgeons in the hospitals which the Save a Heart Foundation sets up with the necessary medical equipment necessary to perform these lifesaving procedures and remain ready to advise over the internet or to fly in upon request for any difficult or unusual situations. Israel has even taken the precaution of flying children with a family member from any Arab or Muslim nation to Israel after having them flown to a neutral nation before being brought to Israel and returned them by similar manner to avoid their facing any difficulties and their visit to Israel never will show on any of their paperwork such as Passports. For the treatment Israel provides to enemies as well as friends and even compared to their own IDF soldiers one can read an account which proved to be a life changing experience for Brigitte Gabriel’s autobiographical work Because They Hate.

 

There are a few things about Israel which most people are not aware but might change your view and have you look into Israel with a different viewpoint and the things you may find will amaze you. First is that Israel is not some nation out to claim any areas commonly purported as Greater Israel and extending from central Iraq to the Nile in Egypt. All Israel really cares to claim, even the most avid Zionist, is simply the lands promised under the San Remo Conference Agreement which extend from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, which is where the Palestinian claim derives just as their claimed history closely mirrors the history of the Jews minus the persecutions. The main expectation Israel extends to the peoples of the world is for them to base their laws and nations on the Noahic Code, seven laws of Noah. The religious Jews in Israel realize that the main purpose of Israel besides being a homeland for the Jewish people is also for the people of Israel to live their lives in such a manner as to be an example for others to follow. It is not their place to expect others to follow their example no matter how perfectly they manage to conduct their individual and collective lives. Still, the purpose of Israel and her people is to live in as exemplary a manner simply in the hope of realizing the joys of living a life in service of the L0rd G0d and observing the totality of His Commandments by which we fulfill our half of the covenant and we have faith that once we all work towards observing the Commandments that He will fulfill the promises of lives fulfilled. We are not guaranteed that the world will love us, our history pretty much has taught us the opposite, but that is not the point, living a G0dly life is sufficient reward in and of itself. There are numerous items which makes a number of the Commandments impossible to fulfill but with faith the answer to these challenges will be presented in due time. It is not always heartening to admit but our time scale is not that of the L0rd and all we can do is our best and hope that we will live long enough to witness the fulfillment of our Covenant with the L0rd. Until such time we must be content with perfecting ourselves and aiding one another in their efforts to do the same. Still, many wish our political leaders would have more faith in our nation and would stand against those who would prefer to see Israel fail because as the leaders of Israel your first responsibility is to Israel and us her people first, foremost and without any secondary thoughts or distractions.

 

One last link to something I read after completing the article that is well worth a quick read titled, Supporting Middle Eastern Christians is Zionism. Please take a moment to read as the combination working with the article’s author, Father Gabriel Naddaf, may really surprise you, it almost did me.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Time to Permanently Put the Saudi Plan Permanently to Rest

 

Once again the United States President and who knows who else are likely to echo granting their voices in agreement with the call by Mahmoud Abbas for Israel to return to talks based on the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, originally known as the Saudi Plan. Abbas is claiming that such a call comes without any preconditions which is interesting as, would not the Arab Peace Plan from 2002 count as a precondition or is the backing from multiple Western leaders become so automatic when this is presented that Abbas can feel comfortable claiming that this is an understood starting point which holds nothing particularly controversial. Unfortunately that has become the case so maybe a quick and cursory review of the main particulars is in order before addressing anything further. Such a review might actually prove to make the Arab Plan be a little less appetizing after understanding all it entails.

 

The main features which will be discussed and assumed to be the actual main points applied are that the 1949 Armistice Lines, the Green Line or the pre June 1967 Lines will be the initial starting point for all discussions for final borders. This includes the following parts of the contested lands being granted to form the twenty-second Arab State in the Middle East and North Africa; Area A, Area B, and Area C. This agreement grants Israel possession of the following parts of the contested lands; none, not a single square millimeter. The Arab Plan calls for the sharing of Jerusalem with it being divided such that the Eastern parts of Jerusalem are granted to the Arab State and Western Jerusalem to Israel. In theory it calls for all of the holy sites shared by the three religions to be have shared access but leaves them under Arab control, policing and enforcement of all sharing rights, something that many in the leadership of the Fatah Party, the PLO and also within the Palestinian Authority have claimed will never be permitted to come to fruition as they refuse to permit non-Muslims to tread on such Muslim holy places as the Temple Mount and the Western Wall (Kotel), referred to by Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif (Arabic: الحرم القدسي الشريف‎), the Noble Sanctuary and the Al-Buraq Wall (Arabic: البُراق). So, the first lie in the Arab Plan of 2002, which was first proposed by the leadership of Saudi Arabia, was that the Temple Mount and Kotel would remain accessible to Jews and the Temple Mount to Christians throughout the year. Currently the only times during the year that the Temple Mount, Nazareth and Bethlehem are made readily available to Christians without any bothersome wait times or threat of harm are during the Christian Holy Periods around Christmas and Easter. This is largely for economic purposes as they have a market in souvenirs and service industries such as hotels and restaurants, many of which depend on the Christian visitors’ business to make their annual profits. As far as Jews being able to visit, there are not any Jewish holidays where easy access is permitted, proof of which can be verified by searching on Jewish visitations to another site which is supposedly to permit universal access, Joseph’s Tomb (Kever Yoseph, Hebrew: קבר יוסף) in Shechem (Nablus). So, summing up the initial state of the Arab Plan from 2002, the Arabs get initial promise of ownership of all of the contested lands and the Israelis get none of the contested lands.

 

I can hear the more informed screaming at me about the minor land swaps which are mutually agreeable such that the Israelis get to keep their major settlement areas in exchange for lands from the Negev Desert and the Galilee or other lands. Yes, there is the stipulation that mutual land swaps can be permitted such that the Israeli communities, many which were started within the first years after the Six Day War in June of 1967 with such communities being both in East Jerusalem and Area C. Many of the places which became under Jewish residence were homes which the families had been forced to abandon under threat of death by the Jordanian Army after Jordan occupied the areas of Judea and Samaria which they renamed the West Bank so as to conceal their Jewish history. Others were rebuilt areas which had belonged to Jews and were abandoned and afterwards either destroyed or inhabited by Arabs. In some cases where former Jewish homes were now inhabited by Arabs then new neighborhoods were built relatively close to these former communities and these Jews took up residence in the new locations along with other Jews seeking to form a religious community or even in some instances to be close to work either in Israel or within the businesses in new industrial parks, industries and businesses which employ Jews and Arabs working side-by-side. The problem with the lands swaps part of the equation is the part where it states only under mutual agreement. That small inclusion means that if Abbas and the Arabs simply refuse to mutually agree then there are not going to be any land swaps and bordering on eight-hundred-thousand Jews will need to be relocated to areas within Israel and a sizeable number of industrial and other sites owned by Jews employing both Jews and local Arabs will also need to pick up and relocate within Israel or simply pack it up and not reopen simply abandoning their dream. This would be particularly true for the supermarkets and some other chain stores that will simply be closing their stores and moving their inventory to their other stores within Israel. Still, simply to force the relocation of near to 800,000 Jews and numerous other ventures back within the Green Line at a cost so prohibitive as to make such an idea unconscionable. The Gaza disengagement cost in excess of one-billion-dollars and has still yet to be concluded as there exists far too many people still not resettled, not with new employment, lost businesses as many worked and lived within Gaza and many of those employers also lived in Gaza and have yet to be able to relocate or relocation is unfeasible and they are simply still seeking work. Should there be a need to now absorb numbers approaching an additional one-million Jews and potentially also Christians, Druze and even those who may have been part of the Jordanian public from before the Six Day War who would prefer to reside in Israel over residing in the Arab state should it be formed to include their residences. There is a known possibility that there may be a fairly sizeable population who might attempt to be included in the relocation of people from the Jewish communities and Jews residing in East Jerusalem and in the guaranteed confusion, or even if there are those who have friends they may have worked alongside of who are willing to assist them in relocating within Israel along with the Jews. The imposing difficulties in relocating the Jews residing within East Jerusalem and the Jewish communities east of the Green Line could lead to an entire new facet of the negotiations.

 

Even if all of these were conceivably settled, most people would claim that there would now be peace and the negotiations and all are completed. They would be wrong to think so because there is still one last item to be addressed, the “Right of Return” for what probably number at least four to five million Arab refugees. There will be a secondary difficulty when considering this area, the Arab refugees who have been forced from their refugee camp in Syria and are now double refugees. There will also be the problem that without accurate numbers and names as UNRWA has probably not been the most prodigious of bookkeepers or the most trustworthy travelers of the straight and narrow so there just might be a propensity to fudge the numbers and names of the Arab refugees from the camps which were in Syria to include possibly countless Syrian refugees who simply desire a safer place to live, or possibly a place to live as anywhere would be an improvement, or so they would think; and I would find disagreeing with such sentiments to be quite difficult. So, in addition to the somewhere between four-and-a-half-million to six-million actual refugees and their children and their children and in many cases their children and even one more generation after that all from the 1948-9 Arab initiated war to annihilate the Jewish nations immediately after its birth plus those actually displaced from the 1967 Six Day War, there could be any number of additional refugees whose names are similar to the names of actually registered refugees largely because they were likely family members who remained in Syria when their cousins, uncles, aunts or whomever had decided to seek their fame and fortune within the British Mandate lands which laid west of the Jordan River. To give an easier to understand example let us look to New York City and neighboring New Jersey. New York City will be the British Mandate lands with Manhattan representing the lands west of the Jordan River, Central Park representing West Bank and the rest of New York City being Jordan. Before the Six Day War Jordan occupied Central Park and the rest of Manhattan was Israel and there were refugees living in camps throughout the region including across the rivers and tunnels in New Jersey representing Lebanon and New York State representing Syria and any other location with any Arab refugee camps from the war. After a subsequent war where the Jews in Manhattan liberated the occupied lands of Central Park thus finally having control as it should have been according to every applicable treaty up to that point. Now the world is claiming that all of Central Park is occupied now by Israel who is controlling Central Park area they won in a purely defensive war and to whom the land was to be used solely to establish the Jewish State of Israel. The only theory which allows for the lands of Central Park to belong to a group of Arabs referred to as Palestinians in order to fabricate a history which implies that when Israel defeated the Jordanian Army, they actually defeated the Palestinian Arab Army, who were wearing Jordanian uniforms, probably because their uniforms were on backorder, you know how those problematic orders from advertisements found on matchbook covers can be. That is where the situation stands with one change, about a quarter to three fifths of Central Park which represents Judea and Samaria (West Bank) are currently governed by Mahmoud Abbas as the Chairman of the Fatah Party and the last person to win the election to the Chairmanship, or President as he changes which one we should refer to with the utmost ease, after the death of Yasser Arafat and who was presumably to stand for the next parliamentary elections later in 2005 but after realizing the sizeable victory that Hamas had won in the Parliamentary election it was decided by Abbas that he did not need to stand for election a second time in such a short period and thus put his election off until 2009. Well, that election never occurred as Mahmoud Abbas decided that because Hamas had pushed the Palestinian Authority, or at least most of the Fatah Party members of the Palestinian Authority, out of Gaza and taken control of the enclave and basically became the independent state of Hamastan. These events were preceded by the Israeli complete withdrawal of Jewish residents and IDF bases and patrols, a complete and total withdrawal presumably for the reason of allowing the Arabs to rule themselves which they have done repeatedly electing Hamas, an internationally recognized terrorist group known to receive assistance from Iran and to be fomenting much of the terrorist activity in the Sinai Peninsula, a series of attacks and other crimes which Egyptian President al-Sisi is attempting to quell. Hamas along with Islamic Jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood and other terror and criminal entities regularly launch rockets and mortars into Israel. These assaults, which almost universally targeting civilian targets including homes, schools, synagogues, shopping areas and especially large yellow school buses, often ramp up into the hundreds of missiles with a serious number striking farther and farther north with each instigation which eventually requires IDF intervention to curtail these assaults. What is even more surprising is that Hamas has a refugee camp just outside of Gaza City which they have taken no effort to allow these people to be integrated into the society and instead often use them for digging the more dangerous tunnels. So, now back to the regular story which follows our example near perfectly, or such is our hope.

 

These refugees were placed under the care of UNRWA (The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) which unlike every other refugee agency or legislating body all of which agreed that only those residing in the location at the time of there being forced to flee were considered refugees and only until they could be repatriated or assimilated into the nation where their camp was located or where they were residing after fleeing. The approximately 850,000 Jews who were forced from their homes either through legal means or threats of violence were covered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and those refugees who virtually all came to Israel and were integrated into Israeli society no question asked, well, other than name and general history and such. These refugees arrived from the founding of the state of Israel through the early 1960s and led to the numbers of Jews residing today in Israel being a near perfect split between the Ashkenazim from Europe, the United States, Canada and the rest of the English speaking world and the Sephardim from the Middle East, North Africa, Portugal, Spain and across South and Central America and some even from the southeastern United States. (for an interesting story on some families who can trace their roots and the roots of their community back to when the Spanish Inquisition came to their small community in what would become the southwestern parts of the United States titled, The Next Exodus? New Mexico’s Crypto-Jews Seek Liberation ) .

 

Unlike the UNHCR which was where the Jewish refugees both from Europe after the Holocaust (Shoah) and those from throughout the world of which the majority were from the Muslim and Arab worlds while every Arab refugee claiming status of returning to lands within Israel were placed under UNRWA thus assuring that their decedents would into perpetuity be classified as refugees and be imprisoned within the refugee camps barred from obtaining any reputable or decent waged job and definitely not an occupation other than terrorism as these camps regularly produce a greater than average share of terrorists compared to other populations and would reside in the camps until somehow a miracle would place them back into a house which likely does not exist, if it ever did. It is simply unbelievable, incredulous, farfetched, and approaching impossible that all of the Arab refugees resided within the Green Line and none in Judea, Samaria (West Bank) or Gaza or anywhere else in the world. Still these Arab brethren of their minders, their keepers continue to sit around day after day simply living for that singular event to come in their lives where Allah comes and takes them by the hand and settles them into the house they believe they abandoned either voluntarily or by demand of the Israeli military during any of the wars. This is one of the two main sticking points.

 

The other sticking point would come as to when haggling over the land swaps. It is not like the Palestinians do not know exactly what areas the Israeli desire; there are large built-up residential areas and the necessary shopping malls and shops. They also know full well that Israel has already announced and passed a resolution annexing all of Jerusalem making it the undivided historical and permanent Capital City. Sharing any part of Jerusalem is beyond reason for the Jewish people as we remember the pains and difficulties which came as a result of an unfortunate act of generosity allowing the Waqf to maintain their jurisdiction over the Temple Mount, a decision which has steadily become a greater and greater imposition as they have tightened a noose of religious oppression against any non-Muslim religious claims to anything they can even imply as theirs. The Waqf has permitted heavy excavation equipment to dig large trenches and simply dumping anything which has even the slightest possibility of containing historical relics from before the times of Islam. This act of desecration went further than any other act which the Arabs have perpetrated against the Jews. Such willful destruction of priceless artifacts which could have served as such a great witness to the Jewish ties to the land and its history went beyond the criminal destruction of historic artifacts and entered a realm only witnessed as the sacrilege committed in the name of Communism which served the purpose of replacing the religious institutions with the worship of the State as the provider of all which was to be determined as goodness and we have borne witness to the horrors spawned by Communism from the starvation of the peoples of the Ukraine to the murderous implementation of Communism by Mao Tse-tung in China to the killing fields under the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot in Cambodia.

 

The efforts of Israeli Archeologists who went to the dumping grounds location and sifted through tons of what was now debris which had been crushed and pulverized attempting to break any object into dust and for their efforts a few small items were recovered while these items themselves bore witness to the attempted and largely successful theft of the artifacts and history which would have served further to telling the story which binds the Jewish People to this land, but that was exactly their intent. Where the Arabs may not know the extent that the lands mean to Judaism, they are not completely blind to the fact that they hold claim to the very heart of what was once the central hub of the political and religious life in ancient Israel and Judea and it is this heart they intend to keep from the Jewish people. The Arab Palestinians know that their retaining possession of these areas is akin to the theft of the rich history which once adorned the museums and in many cases the buildings themselves throughout the areas under control of ISIS where these objects are destroyed simply because they were not part of a history which paid homage to Allah. It is such blindness which would lead to the destruction of the Pyramids, the Sphinx and the other wonders of Egyptian history solely because they were structures which attested to the greatness of the civilization under the Pharos which predated Islam and thus is of no importance in the reasoning, the mad reasoning and fanaticism which is ISIS. That same wonton destruction and radicalized thinking which drives many of those who attempt to destroy ancient artifacts and relics simply because they might serve to provide witness and further tie the Jewish People with their great history which was attempted to be destroyed once before by Rome and now are facing again, this time by a destructive and retrograde force driven by misbegotten primitive religious zeal bent on the destruction of all which does not serve their narrow views. It is simply to deny any of the lands placed in trust with the British for the formation of a Jewish State which has driven the efforts of the Arabs initially to attempt to steal just over three-quarters of these lands with the formation of Jordan and are now attempting to steal the remaining twenty-two percent in stages no matter how long these efforts take. The drive by the Arabs in the name of Palestine, a place that has no history or rights to any of this land but who are sworn to deny it from the Jews taking it by leaps or by mere dots of land on a map if that is what is required. For the reason of denial of any parcel of land from the Jewish State that there will be no lands swaps considered viable by Abbas and his minions as by refusing the continued existence of the Jewish communities beyond the Green Line that they can inflict the greatest trauma and difficulties for the Jews and perhaps just drive even ten Jews to forget their desires to build their future in the lands promised them which will serve as sufficient victory. Even the recognition provided this misbegotten conception of an Arab Palestinian people with a history reaching back thousands of years is a function of desired destruction of the Jewish history. Examine their purported history and you will see it is nothing more than a bastardization of the Biblical story of the Jewish story being applied with the willful cooperation and allying of the European and Western media which sees the Arabs as being the put upon party by their Jewish oppressors, a story and perception carefully molded by the Arab leadership in conjunction with the leftist and their media allies who view any and all Western religion as a tool of oppression which must be destroyed by any means possible. This attempt to destroy any vestige of Judeo-Christian ethics, and there can be none stronger than the Jewish State, the originator of the entire base on which Western culture rests, which thus must garner efforts beyond any others towards its destruction. We can view a small corner of this war on Judeo-Christian ethics and morality in the fight to destroy the Judeo-Christian definition of marriage from its traditional meaning of one man with one woman to instead virtually anything one’s heart desires. This effort could not be made any more ludicrously evidenced by the marriage of a Japanese man to a mannequin back in the ancient history of the last century, a story which has led others to places best left uninvestigated. There will be no peace promised by Abbas until the entirety of Israel has been replaced by the Arab state and the western world is playing the leading role in complicity. It is the simple story of death by a thousand cuts, in this case the carving up of Israel until the Jews are once again homeless and left at the untender mercies of the rest of the world. For some this is exactly how it is supposed to be as should the Jews reestablish their homelands in Israel it would destroy much of the structure built around the forsakenness of the Jews by G0d as punishment for their sins and their replacement. The initial replacement was by the Christians who were in turn replaced by Islam when they supposedly entered into sinfulness and diverted from the true word of G0d as given by Allah. Islam made one major adjustment to the replacement of Judaism and Christianity by also incorporating into their religion the concept that they were the final replacement and only true religion for all time. This is the other leg behind the desire to destroy Israel before it gets any further and to deny the Jews the Old City of Jerusalem, the core and center to Jewish life and where the Temple sat in centuries past.

 

Beyond the Cusp