The Hidden Trap in UNSC 2334, Israel and Palestine

 

The entirety of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 can be found at the end of the article for those willing to suffer through its tedious and tendentious prose and are welcome to peruse the entirety of the document. The one saving grace is it is not that long a read. The first item is that the preface, the longest section of the article, completely undermines the rest of the resolution. Had this in any way been reflective of its claims for reaffirming Res. 242, Res. 338, Res. 446, Res. 452, Res. 465, Res. 476, Res. 478, Res. 1397 and Res. 1515; then it would have called for negotiations to establish borders which would provide Israel with defendable and defined borders. If, when mentioning the settlements, it would have only pressed for limited or no additional settlements and limitation on expansion of existing settlements only to accommodate population increases, there would not have been the attempt to criminalize the settlements nor would it press for their dismantlement as was the seeming intent. Further, there would have been no mention of using the 1949 Armistice Lines, the Green Line, as the basis for any future borders. Finally, the resolution flies in the face, as did all the previous other than Res. 242, of the United Nations Charter as according to Article 80 of said Charter, the United Nations was considered the enforcing power for the Mandate System inherited from the League of Nations along with all other agreements and resolutions produced under the League of Nations which would define Israel’s borders to the east as being the Jordan River, period and end of discussion unless Israel decides to grant any claims of the validity they seek. Let us stress, that is validity they seek, not claim. The truth of the matter and the only decision under International Law any court can reach is that Israel owns all of Judea and Samaria and the Palestinian Authority and any other entity have no valid claim to one inch of the lands west of the Jordan River. This is more than our opinion as it was also the decision of the Court of Appeal of Versailles, France. Then there is the advisory opinion from the Honorable Justice El Araby, an Egyptian who sat as an adjudicator on the International Court of Justice when they were requested to make a ruling on the Israeli security barrier and whether it could be legally placed as designed. He 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.”

 

The entire reason for the presage of UNSC 2334 by President Obama and his administration was in order to set up this current Paris conference where his plan is to press for them to advise for the recognition of a state for the Arabs. This would need to be pushed and be ratified and presented officially before noon EST of January 20, 2017 and then taken for a near immediate vote by the UNSC on a resolution recognizing such state, setting its borders as probably the Green Line, President Obama’s wildest dream, and making it a Chapter Seven Resolution which is enforceable by military force. Such a resolution would make any attack upon Israel for the stated purpose of forcing them from the lands that the United Nations gave to the Arabs for their state as legal and fully backed by the nations of the world. Such a resolution would also place any nation aiding Israel is such a war as vulnerable to being brought before the International Courts and sued to cease and desist or face sanction and possibly military force to end their support. Basically, such a resolution would tie the hands of every nation to turn their hand against Israel bringing the Biblical prophecy of the world turning its hand being against Israel and every nation becoming the enemy of the Jewish State. We hope we do not have to remind anyone of what follows as there are four horsemen in the New Testament and the Messiah in the Old Testament and the following is not pretty at all. But that is the direction that the European Union, President Obama, Secretary of State Kerry, other select people from the Administration and many of the Arab World all would like to see become reality. President Obama is in such a rush because first he wants to get even with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu for opposing the Iran treaty and not respecting President Obama and bowing to his desires at every turn and because he realizes that since Hillary Clinton did not win the election as expected, that President Trump is not going to continue the war against Israel and might change things away from the current direction making this the last time in the foreseeable future that forcing this solution and the making of a new Arab state possible. President Obama is aware that such an opportunity to force this issue is now or never and he cannot rest without giving it everything he is able.

 

The reality is that the political winds are changing and are going to blow for a while in a completely different direction and it is very probable that the world’s attentions will be swinging away from the Middle East and become more centered on economies and containment of the troubles plaguing the Middle East to only the Middle East which will also bring the refugee immigration, or should we say invasion, to a quick and unmerciful end. The war in Syria is likely to be brought to a close with whatever agreement is necessary being imposed and likely the nation made into three states; one Alawite under Bashir al-Assad; one Kurdish which may even include some of the lands from northern Iraq included and the state of Kurdistan, which had been a promise that the British made during World War I but found oil more important than their promises, finally brought into fruition; and the final a Sunni state which could very easily be divided between Turkey and central Iraq leaving southern Iraq as either the remnant of Shiite Iraq or merged into Iran. These divisions would respect tribal and ethnic division with the Sunni with the Sunni, the Shia with Shia and the Kurds finally realizing their independence. Such a strategy would also provide the Middle East with much needed ethnic borders and potentially greater security and peace, imagine that.

 

That leaves Libya which could be divided into so many smaller states except that would create the problem of constant wars between the tribes or a larger problem of a neighboring state of terrorist forces taking hold of this dysfunctional area. This is already a problem but even the terrorists found attempting to establish a safe area in Libya to be next to impossible. Sometimes conflict is unavoidable and Libya has been a cauldron of trouble ever since the Romans and Carthage fought their wars there and during the Caliphate and Ottoman eras with the Barbary Pirates and even up to the time Thomas Jefferson sent the United States Marines into Tripoli taking the harbor and forcing an end to the pirating of American vessels, well, until the next time they thought America had been weakened and had to be taught again that they were mistaken. These were the Barbary Wars, 1801–1805 and 1815–1816, bracketed the War of 1812 where the British attempted to retake their former colony and failed. The Barbary Pirates figured such a war had weakened the United States and needed to be shown otherwise. The Italians were given Libya after World War I and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire until 1947, approximately the time many of the European nations resigned from their colonial holdings. For more on Libya and its problems through the ages, one can go here, and hopefully that will be sufficient coverage of Libya.

 

Israel, in the meantime, will eventually be granted all that which was and is still promised her. This means that the eastern border will end up being the Jordan River. The only decision the world need make is how much drama, needless suffering, necessary time to undo the damage caused by the broken promises, and the number of lives, both Arab and Israeli, will be wasted getting to the rightful and just fulfillment of promises. For those who are going to challenge about the British promise to the Arabs that they would be granted a state within the British Mandate, that was satisfied when seventy-eight percent of the British Mandate was used to make the Arab state of Jordan. The remainder, as stated in the Churchill White Papers, was to be granted the Jews for their homeland. Those claiming the division suggested under UNGA Res. 181, that division was merely a General Assembly Resolution which are suggestive in their enforcement and as soon as either side refuses such a resolution it becomes null and void and cannot be resurrected no matter how badly one desires to steal as much land and make Israel so vulnerable as to make her defense impossible just to see Jews murdered and Israel destroyed again. The Arab League refused that solution and invaded Israel on May 15, 1948; the very day Israel came into being with the Jordan River as her legal boundary.

 

The problem the world is having over Israel can be simplified to one thing; many, possibly most, of the world do not believe nor desire that the Jews be permitted their homeland. The Western World and much of the remainder of the planet are fully aware of the ancient history of the Jewish People in Israel and their Capital city, eternal Capital city, of Jerusalem. These anti-Semitic views desire the Jew to be the tiny minority which is defenseless and can be beaten, stolen from, demeaned and otherwise simply used as a punching bag by any and every nation at their whim. They want Jews not permitted to own land or have any property of their own beyond a suitcase and whatever they can carry at a moment’s notice. They desire the Jew they abused for the past twenty-five-hundred years with the brief exceptions when they revolted and threw off the yokes of Greek Rule and then Roman Rule. They want the Jew to continue to suffer the intended punishment forced upon them by the Romans with their dispersal which was intended to end the existence of the Jewish People. The Jewish fate was to be the same as every other people the Roman treated thusly such as the Carthaginians and various other tribes whose names have been lost to antiquity and are known only to those who study ancient histories and even they likely miss a good number of peoples who have been defeated by the conquering empires from Egypt, Hittite, Minoan, Persian, Babylonian and on through the ages. The Chinese, Mongols, Japanese and Indian in Asia and the Aztec, Inca and others who ruled before the European colonization in the Americas where people who were erased from history as after conquest they assimilated and disappeared. Even the Jews had their lost tribes when the northern ten tribes were carried off by the Assyrians and were never seen again though there are beliefs that these tribes are now returning to Israel from their varied places around the globe.

 

Some who desire the destruction of Israel believe that it is necessary otherwise their religion is devalued. This was the historic position of numerous Christian religious groups and was even named replacement theology. This form of preaching exists today and was exactly what was preached at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago under the direction and religious teaching of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and what President Obama listened to during sermons for the twenty years he attended this church. His claim to never have listened or heard these preaching has actually made them even more dangerous as their effect was then subliminal and affecting President Obama’s thoughts through subconscious influences and could have been partly responsible for his determination to destroy Israel and thus the Jewish People, just saying. The damages of replacement theology was based on the supposition that the Jews had been cast off by Hashem and were now under the influence of the devil, except there is no devil or hell in traditional Judaism, and thus were replaced by the Christian Church. With time the Christian Church became the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. Then would come the Protestant Reformation where the protestant churches each replaced the Catholic Church. Somewhere off on another argument is Scientology but that gets way too complicated. The one item which was necessary for all these replacements to remain valid was for the Jews never to return to Israel as once the Jews returned to Israel, then the promise of their eventual return from exile by Hashem would be fulfilled and thus mean they were still the Chosen People and invalidate their replacement as such. Then there is Islam which basically claims to be the final and only valid religion of Hashem, except now they change the name to Allah, and according to Islam the Christians have joined the Jews as having been replaced. This is the ultimate replacement theology because the Muslim took the precaution of claiming there can never be another religion as they are the final rendition of the Abrahamic faiths. Islam also claims that Allah has promised them they will conquer the world and end all these false faiths through whatever means necessary. It all gets messy after a while but everybody agrees that the Jews are not to return except the Muslims in the Quran do accept that Jerusalem and Israel are the homelands of the Jews, just do not tell the Palestinian Arabs as they would get very upset with you. The one agreement of the Western religions is that the Jews must not be allowed to return and set up home in Israel and especially with Jerusalem as their Capital City; well, until sometime in the late 1960s and early 1970s when many decided maybe there was room to permit the Jews to return home. Thanks.

 

French President Francois Hollande and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas

 

Anyway, apparently that short allowance has worn out and passed it use-by date and been rescinded. Now the United Nations, European Union, United States State Department (the same United States State Department which advised President Harry S. Truman not to recognize Israel but Harry listened to what his mother taught him as a child, go Mom!), numerous European countries, politicians around the globe, the Arab world, the Muslim world and many in Hollywood (where would we be without Hollywood thespians telling us what to think) and who knows who else, maybe Communists and Scientologists (though who knows anything about the Scientologists) all attempting to uproot Israel or weaken her until she cannot defend herself and find some means to eliminate the Jewish State. Did the world learn nothing from the attempts thus far to eliminate Israel and how miracles have saved her to date? In 1948 Israel did not even have a military, no chain of command, the British had taken every weapon they could find, there was no real Israeli Air Force, an Israeli tank was a car with a large caliber gun and a half dozen Arab nations and seven militias attacked within hours of the sun rising on Israel for the first time in nearly two thousand years and somehow Israel survived. In 1967 Israel was outgunned and outmanned by approximately hundreds-to-one and in Six Days took the Golan Heights, liberated Judea and Samaria from Jordanian occupation (yes, you read that right, Jordanian occupation) and conquered the entirety of the Sinai Peninsula surrounding the Egyptian Third Army. Miracle, come on, you can say it, miracle. The miracles have continued since then as in a recent Gaza conflict where there was one such event as here is one of the many articles documenting this miracle, praise Hashem. Here is what was reported by the actual Iron Dome commanding officer who related the story.

 

“A missile was fired from Gaza. Iron Dome precisely calculated [its trajectory]. We know where these missiles are going to land down to a radius of 200 meters. This particular missile was going to hit either the Azrieli Towers, the Kirya (Israel’s equivalent of the Pentagon) or [a central Tel Aviv railway station]. Hundreds could have died.”

“We fired the first [interceptor]. It missed. Second [interceptor]. It missed. This is very rare. I was in shock. At this point we had just four seconds until the missile lands. We had already notified emergency services to converge on the target location and had warned of a mass-casualty incident.”

“Suddenly, Iron Dome (which calculates wind speeds, among other things) shows a major wind coming from the east, a strong wind that…sends the missile into the sea. We were all stunned. I stood up and shouted, ‘There is a G0d!’ I witnessed this miracle with my own eyes. It was not told or reported to me. I saw the hand of G0d send that missile into the sea.”

 

The truth is Israel cannot surrender a single inch of the land the world demands she grant to those sworn to her destruction. Read yesterday’s article and view the pictures there and at the look provided and you can see how if Israel gives the Arabs the Judean Hills all of Tel Aviv to the Mediterranean Sea is visible. The same goes for Haifa and Ashdod and Netanya. The entirety of the central Israeli coastal plain would become uninhabitable as shoulder fired wire guided anti-tank rockets which are guidable could be utilized to target individual structures up to half way across Israel. Rocket and artillery fire could be sight adjusted targeting central downtown Tel Aviv. Jerusalem would be completely cut off from the remainder of Israel and West Jerusalem could be starved into submission. Ben Gurion International Airport would become a shooting gallery and no plane could land or take off with any degree of safety. All of Israel could be brought to a standstill at the mere whim of Mahmoud Abbas, assuming he remained in power. The chance that Hamas or Islamic State would replace the Palestinian Authority would be more than probable; the only question would be which one would move first as that would be the reality Israel would face within months of such an eventuality as is being considered in Paris. Finally, there is one saving grace for as long as the world does not force Mahmoud Abbas or anybody who would follow him as leader of the Palestinian Authority to accept such a peace, they would have to turn down any offer which left anything of Israel intact and should the world manage to remove the Jews, then they would flee from such a situation. The reality is that once Israel is removed from having the IDF provide security in all of Judea and Samaria, then whoever leads the Palestinian authority and the rest of the security and leadership would be dead within six months as whichever terror group replaced them just as what happened in Gaza. Abbas knows this and that is why he may talk of peace but he will never accept any peace as he has enriched himself and plans to live well and spend the stolen funds as do the rest of the Palestinian authority kleptocrats. Ridiculous as it may seem, but Mahmoud Abbas is an ace in the hole as he will never accept peace whether it comes from the European Union, United Nations or whatever council the future provides, and that is something Israel has counted on in the past though few will admit such.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Jordan Death Penalty Conundrum and Israel

 

Jordanian law has a very strict, irreversible, strident punishment for any Arab or Muslim who dares to sell land of any sort to a Jew. The punishment for committing such an act of daring-do is death. Where Palestinian courts have sentenced an unknown number of Arabs for selling land to a Jew, also referred to as ‘the enemy’ in another law; there are the Jordanian laws, which change usually becoming more stringent, as well as laws passed by the Palestinian legislators who have made any number of laws which have referenced selling lands, homes, apartments, facilities, and other references to properties which all carry a sentence of death. Often an Arab brought to trial for selling land to a Jew, the enemy, a middle man making a purchase for a Jew, any non-Palestinian and whatever other laws they can find even to accuse them of blaspheme guarantees that a death penalty will be sentenced for multiple offenses. The catch is that even after the courts have sentenced an individual to death, the penalty cannot be legally carried out until the President, currently Mahmoud Abbas who is serving in the eleventh or twelfth year of his four year term, has to approve the execution. Thus far it is assumed that President Abbas has never approved an execution though the BBC claims that he has approved three executions. What is beyond ridiculous is that Israel has refused to apply Israeli civil law and has left the areas of Judea and Samaria under military law but has at least annexed and applied Israeli law to East Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority has, along with many in the international community even beyond the Arab and Muslim worlds including many European nations, the European Union and beyond, refuses to recognize Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem. This means that in East Jerusalem Jordanian laws no longer applies and an Arab is permitted to sell land, an apartment or any property to anybody they choose. The drawback is that the Palestinian Courts will still hold a trial and convict you sentencing you to death and send that order to Abbas for his approval. The truth is that once one is even suspected of selling property to a Jew, even if only because an investigation has been opened, they are at a much higher risk of non-judicial execution, often at the hands of the Palestinian Security Forces who in many ways are the police as well as the supervising authority. We here at BTC have no doubt that at some point, should things continue as they have over the past fifty years, then soon the Palestinian courts will be convicting Arabs who have lived in Israel and are and have been Israeli citizens all their lives as the Palestinian Authority does claim that all the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea belongs to them, the entirety of the 22% of the British Mandate lands which were not granted to Jordan for the initial Arab state in the Palestinian territories under the British Mandate. Why does Israel allow the continued application of such prejudicial law which targets Jews solely for exclusion from property transactions?

 

The entirety of this discussion and the institutionalized bigotry at the United Nations, within the European Union and many of its individual nations and throughout the NGO’s professing to be human rights enforcers extreme who have found that all of human suffering and every single human rights violations are perpetrated by Israel depends on a single premise, that being that before November 29, 1947, nothing existed and the world as we know it and all the nations of the Earth came into being at that time just as the United Nations was violating Article 80 of their own Charter and all the laws, treaties, conventions and other international forums which it recognized and made inclusive within the United Nations framework and took the proclamations made by the League of Nations resolving the results from World War I and identifying national borders throughout Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Northern Africa. The reason that the world has to begin on November 29, 1947, is because on that date the United Nations took the remaining 22% of British Mandate lands and divided it in what they called an even patrician with half for the Jews and half for the next Arab State carved from the original British Mandate after the 78% land grab where the British issued the Churchill White Paper which tore that land from what would have been the Jewish State to satisfy a promise to the Arab Hashemites to a homeland in return for their assistance in World War I. The White Paper left the Jewish State to be founded on the lands west of the Jordan River but that was unfair cried the Arabs. The Jews are taking all of our lands, we demand more. So the United Nations took a strong stand and insisted that the Arabs settle for half of the remaining land and allow the Jews the remainder which was divided so the Jewish lands was predominantly Negev Desert (see map below). The Arabs took one look at this United Nations General Assembly Resolution, a suggestion which is only valid if accepted by both parties, and immediately rejected it protesting that it was unfair, they wanted it all, period. They swore they would annihilate the Jewish State the moment dawn broke on its first day of existence.

 

UN Palestine Partition Versions of 1947 and included within UN General Assembly
Resolution 181 which was rejected by the Arab League negating the UN Resolution as
if either side rejects such a UN Resolution which is non-binding, it invalidates the entire
agreement rendering it mute from that point forward. Jerusalem was to be managed by a
corpus separatum (Latin: “separate entity”) set up consisting of an international groups
most likely to be rotated. This offer was accepted by the Zionist Congress but having
any General Assembly Resolution accepted by one side and rejected by the other is
simply one hand clapping, useless.

 

Their threat was real and over half a dozen Arab armies and militias invaded Israel the morning of May 15, 1948, at dawn, the first sunrise over the Jewish State. Because the Arab League and all representatives for the Arab people rejected the compromise put forward by the United Nations General Assembly, Resolution 181 was voided as if it had never existed. The above map is now always flashed by Arab League members as the actual borders and that Israel attacked the Arabs and gained lands in 1948. The reality is that the World War I decisions which were validated and made enforceable by the United Nations, an obligation and not a suggestion, are the rules which apply and have applied since the start in the 1920’s and is the reason everybody starts in 1947 or even 1948 proposing a lie. The reality is Israel was the Jewish State west of the Jordan River and Jordan was the Arab State east of the Jordan River (see map below). This made the Gaza Strip captured by Egypt as well as Judea and Samaria (West Bank) captured by Jordan were both illegally held lands as they were gained by a war of aggression. Israel responded to the massing of armies on her border by Egypt and Syria in late May and into June of 1967 by attacking a day before intelligence reported the attack was scheduled by President Nasser. Lebanon joined almost immediately and Jordan began a debate and mobilized their forces while Israeli leaders pleaded for them to reconsider telling them the reports on television and radio by Egypt and Syria of great advances towards Tel Aviv were false, lies, and propaganda and that they were being decimated on all fronts. Jordan ignored and assaulted Western Jerusalem forcing Israel respond by diverting troops headed for the Sinai Peninsula and Jordan was pushed back beyond the Jordan River. Israel had liberated the Gaza Strip as well as Judea and Samaria (West Bank) while also gaining the Golan Heights and the entirety of the Sinai Peninsula gaining one bank for the Suez Canal. As these territories were gained in a defensive reaction to impending massive attacks on three borders, the lands gained could be legally retained or a good amount retained providing a case can be made that the new borders would provide greater defense for the nation. Israel used this to annex the Golan Heights from which Syria used to train snipers by having them shoot farmers working in their fields in the Israeli Galilee north. Israel could have retained the entire Sinai Peninsula as the Suez Canal would make for a good defensive front or they could have retained half the Sinai Peninsula holding the mountains and the passes through them. Instead, Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula in its entirety in exchange for a peace treaty with Egypt while Egypt refused to request the Gaza Strip. Israel offered Judea and Samaria to Jordan who refused the area ceding it to Israel. That should have been the end and the map below would have been the result but the world demand that Israel be made to fall all the way back to the original 1949 Armistice Lines which were the line defining Israeli borders before the June 1967 Six Day War. This is unheard of for any nation other than the United States in the latter half of the Twentieth Century. Somehow it is doubtful the United States would want to keep the areas of Europe and the Pacific and Asia they fought within during World War II. Israel would be well served in retaining the lands up to the banks of the Jordan River.

 

British Mandate as prescribed division between Arab State of Jordan and Jewish State of Israel

 

The first cry which comes from every front is to repeat the big lie that Israel retaining all of Judea and Samaria is impossible because then Israel will have to choose between being Jewish or being Democratic. The added population would only become a threat in twenty to forty years depending on growth rate of populations which you choose, and if you take the most recent and have trends continue one finds that Israel remains Jewish into the foreseeable future. Some claim that this creates a problem because the Arab refugees in the camps who have languished there since 1948 would be left in these camps indefinitely and must be relocated into Israel. This is the reason these Arabs have been kept in these camps which resemble apartment blocks more than refugee camps with tents. These unfortunate people have been retained in the camps for the reason of overwhelming Israel with these refugees and their descendants. The Palestinian Arab refugees are the sole refugees in the world whose status is passed on to their children and their children and their children presumably forever. What has been forgotten is that there were almost one-million Jews forced from the Arab and Muslim world between the founding of Israel and 1960 who relocated into Israel where they were moved into the general population as rapidly as was possible. These Jews now make up close to half the population of Israel and makes another claim a lie. We hear the Jews need to return to Russia and Europe where they all came from. Well, what about the other half who came from Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Algeria, Tunisia, Yemen, Qatar, Kuwait and other Arab and Muslim nations. Does anybody honestly believe that these nations would take their Jews back? When they refuse, then where do the Jews they rejected and their children go? And those Israelis who have one parent from European or Russian lineage and the other from the Middle East or North Africa? Have a lottery sending half to Europe and the other half to where when the Arab and Muslims refuse them? The Palestinian Arab refugees were being absorbed by the nations where the camps are located but when the PLO was founded in 1964, Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas with the rest of the leaders as well as the Soviet Union all demanded these Arabs be returned to and kept in camps so they could be used to inundate Israel and vote the Jews into the sea.

 

The last item that everyone ignores is that the terms of the Mandates and all the other treaties, conferences et. al. demand that while the Jewish State, Israel, must respect the property rights, the right to work, education civil and religious rights of their Arab peoples, they do not have to extend political rights to the Arab population. That means they do not have to make them full Israeli citizens and could allow the Arabs to have semi-autonomous regions where they rule themselves but Israel retains the right and responsibility for security and defending those lands. The Arabs could be given rights in places to participate in local elections but not in national elections. There are numerous solutions all of which start with applying Israeli law over all the lands and put an end to using Jordanian laws. This would allow Arabs to sell their land and seek a new life possibly with relatives in Canada or relatives in Egypt or anywhere between. This would bring to an end the enslavement of the Palestinian Arabs by threatening their lives if they wish to sell their lands and move. As things stand now, every Palestinian Arab can and many are being forced to remain despite desiring to sell their lands, even if they were to sell to another Arab as the Palestinian Authority and Hamas both desire having as many Arabs remain within what might eventually become Israel as a deterrent against Israeli efforts to purchase much of the lands from Arabs eager and willing to sell and start a new life elsewhere. This freedom to relocate is denied them by leaders who are stealing their future in every way conceivable. Spread fair laws, allow people to use their lands to their best advantage and get the terror fronts off their necks. The worst deprivation in the Arab world outside Syria and the war zones is the life-crippling internment of Arab Palestinians just to spite Israel and their leadership’s willingness to deprive them of a better and free future through imprisoning them in camps or in neighborhoods where cronyism and embezzlement are standards of governance. Even with these problems, the Palestinian Arabs have one of the highest standards of living in the Arab world, though their standard of living is far below that of Israeli Arabs. How often have you heard those truths? You do not hear that the Israeli Arabs have a good life and the Palestinians are all but enslaved by their own people and their own dictatorial leaders. In Syria Bashir al-Assad first used nerve gas on a Palestinian camp and first used barrel bombs on that same Palestinian camp. The Palestinian camps in Syria were bombarded for week after week and in most cases little was left standing. These camps which consisted of cement apartment blocks were levelled almost to the ground and made Aleppo look like a nice place to live at those times. Now nowhere in Syria seems like a nice place to live outside some Druze mountain villages. Even the Kurdish regions have become an intolerable war zone with the Turkish Air Force and Army doing everything in their power to murder even the youngest of the children and destroy all of the Kurdish lands. That is how Turkey is fighting in Syria, telling the world they are fighting the Islamic State when they are making the world safe for the Islamic State as the Kurds were one of the most effective groups fighting the Islamic State. Just another little black and white lie printed in your morning newspapers. Just another brick knocked from in the wall.

 

Beyond the Cusp 

 

Islamic Hierarchy Should be the Target as Well as ISIS

 

Is Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL or al-Qaeda offshoot) honestly that horrific a threat and challenge that it should be treated as an individual threat needing a solution before any further assessment can be conducted? If you were to make this an inquiry of the United States State Department, they would answer in the affirmative and probably make Islamic State the sole terror threat requiring attention. Pose this same question to the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and their answer would place Islamic State as the immediate threat but would follow that up with a litany of other threats hiding in the background, in the darkest of recesses. So, which assessment is the most accurate and which should be utilized to address future actions. Obviously the Pentagon assessment is more in depth while the State Department takes a mere cursory glance seeking the least invasive path and the least need for involvement having a minimal footprint. This demands further explanation more as to why the Pentagon explains a path which is far deeper and requiring greater invasive solutions and the State Department leaves most of the problem unaddressed and untouched. The reasons are simple and would be obvious to any observers. The Pentagon is funded by the width, depth and breadth of a threat and gains funding and importance through greater involvement. The State Department gains funds by having obscured threats which it can assign staff to investigate and report threats in such a manner as to allow them to linger, requiring greater inspections over the longest time frame. Thus any military assessment should be judged knowing their report will make the threat the greatest potential possible while State Department assessment should be realized to define the situation calling for minimal involvement in order to preserve the situational threat generating further investigations. The best path would more often than not be somewhere between the two assessments.

 

So, what do these realities have to do with Islamic State? A fair analogy would be somebody waking one morning feeling poorly and upon looking in the mirror they notice there are red blotches all over their face and further checking they find more such red blotches all over their bodies. Reacting to these skin lesions they make an appointment with a physician. The question becomes what type of physician they should call. The initial assessment is the patient has a skin condition so they might make an appointment to visit a Dermatologist and treat the skin ailment while ignoring the underlying disease. The result is the patient will remain ill and would need visit the dermatologist repeatedly while if they had visited an Internal Medicine Doctor they quite possibly would have been admitted to a hospital and undergo a more rigorous cure than they would receive from a Dermatologist but would also be cured. Simply put, if you have the measles you do not visit a dermatologist, you visit a doctor of Internal Medicine. The State Department is the Dermatologist and the Internal Medicine Physician would represent the Military. So, the military will present a harder path with the greatest potential challenges you will be presented with and some painful choices need to be made. The State Department provides for a simple and immediate repair of a situation while leaving the underlying problems churning away and no difficult choices would be necessitated. So, the path you choose will likely be somewhere between the two, which one you follow more closely will dictate the level of curative actions and their lasting effects.

 

Making war on Islamic State is a requirement of immediate urgency, President elect Donald Trump will need answer the riddle of how far does he wish to peel back the onion. A fully committed military campaign to destroy Islamic State presence in Syria and Iraq could be executed taking no longer than three or four months. The time it would take would depend on how ruthless and how close to barbarism the military forces will be permitted by their Rules of Engagement (ROE). The obvious problem with such tactic is that such a solution does little to permanently change the situation. When choosing civility while fighting barbarians, one makes leaders and financiers unaffected, they will just wait for the opportunity and start right up anew. The sponsors must be made to pay a price, even to threats on their lives, before anything will change. This was proven in all theaters of World War II where German leaders needed to be hunted down even to the last bunkers in Berlin and the Emperor of Japan had to be convinced the allies could utterly destroy his nation without losing any of their military forces. This has also been proven in the current “War on Terror” where we are treating the rash and ignoring the disease.

 

By now most Westerners realize the problems caused by terrorism and the threat posed by Islamic State. Where many fall down is in linking the two problems and realizing that these two problems though often unrelated directly, both have a root cause and any logistics, funding, know-how or other support for both are derived from the same pool of sponsors. The source for both terrorism and Islamic State come from the various wealthy and powerful governing entities throughout the nations of MENA (Middle East and North Africa) and the infrastructure put in place utilizing the tribal make-up of the society often pitting one tribe against another tribe in order to procure additional power and a broader area from which to operate. Should one trace the cash flowing into the coffers of Islamic State one would see a trend that the same monies also fund the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, al-Qaeda and other Sunni terror masters and their operations. Much of the funding originates in or by those close to the Saudi Royal family as well as graft skimming funds from government funding by Egyptians and other Sunni ruled nations supporting the Sunni, Muslim Brotherhood, forces worldwide. There also exists an extensive Shiite terror networks which is not quite as expansive but still a very real threat. These groups are financed, organized and run by the Iranian government and the Grand Ayatollah (Arabic:آية ‌الله العظمی) and Supreme Leader of Iran. The leadership of these terror forces controlled by Iran starts with the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) who incorporate the leadership of Hezballah and oft time Hamas as well. The reach by Iran is not as diffused as are the disparate Sunni terror forces. Much of the reason behind this is simply numbers. The Sunni make-up slightly over four-fifths of Muslims worldwide while the Shiites find themselves around a mere 17% of Muslims worldwide thus Shiite power structure by necessity must be more centralized and rigid while the Sunni can easily create anywhere from three to five separate groups.

 

Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps IRGC

 

What people in the United States need know is that the current fighting between Islamic derived forces and the Western forces, particularly in and around the Mediterranean Sea is just the latest stage in the war with the Barbary Pirates. Truth be told, the European interests back to around 632 onto the current age have felt constant rumblings of discontent filled by dreams and desires to return to their ages of conquest and swallow Europe as they have tried before only to meet a standoff or complete defeat as was Andalusia, as was Spain. Much of the march of Islam colonizing the entirety of MENA has been accomplished by Sunni though there have been Shia heroes through the ages. Still, this fight to choose the ultimate ruler, the single Caliph who talks the talk but all are curious if one can be found who additionally walks the walk. Despite gaining a sizeable following and demanding he be recognized as Caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi will not become the Caliph restoring the Caliphate as the requirement is a vast stretch of lands which are individually owned and most have real air power which would decimate any ground assault not possessing sufficient air cover, something which likely plagues al-Baghdadi day and night and he likely dreams of having sufficient fighters and the people to launch adequate air support. The Arab and Islamic worlds are far too tribal and fragmented each refusing to particularly perform feats of great valor and have somebody outside your team ending up with all of the glory. The tribal overriding thought power need be abandoned should Islam ever desire to become great again and have yet a second sense of glory and accomplishment. Such an accomplishment will take a true Caliph, one such as the last Imam, the one who leads the final conquests leading to an Islamic World running under Sharia, the Islamic Code of Laws as preached by Mohammad and the original force.

 

Expansion of Islam Across MENA and into Europe before Ottoman Rule

 

There are realities which must be faced and faced immediately. Before there can be progress the new President already has a large pair of conflagrations he need work out a solution which will probably require a fair number of military service personnel. A President Trump must use all the forces at his disposal in order to remove Islamic State from the picture. After this has been accomplished the next task will be forming a governance or set of governances such that Libya becomes a normative entity capable of trade with the world which will bring wealth to these governing bodies and the people as well. Once Libya has been resolved and returned to viability it will become time to deal with Russia and do similar for Syria. Russia will press for the entire area be returned to Bashir al-Assad while the remaining “rebel” forces will protest loudly and just as vehemently as they have all along. Meanwhile, a refuge for the Kurdish population will necessarily be needed while Turkey and her President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, are edging towards conquest and taking lands formerly belonging to both Syria, a lifelong enemy, and Iraq, whose Saddam Hussein had stashed thousands of barrels of nerve agent and other chemical and nuclear weaponry in an attempt to evade justice. Erdoğan’s hopes and dreams of reestablishing the Ottoman Empire will be muted. Once again all these solutions do little to nothing about remedies for the tribal alliances and primitive culture which keeps the nations of MENA suffering while other nations quite distant as in the Horn of Africa and as far east as Pakistan and Afghanistan are all experiencing national traumas from forces at the tribal area. These problems were exasperated by the imposition of the Sikes-Picot Agreement of 1916 which set arbitrary borders, making self-rule all but impossible. Sikes-Picot ignored tribal alliances and clan structures splitting these entities between three nations in some cases and two at others which simply added wood to the fire. Sikes-Picot also redrew the maps of Eastern Europe breaking up the Austria-Hungarian Empire. All of this eventually led to World War II and has set in motion the potential for a third shooting war, World War III. The problem is amplified with the knowledge that Eastern Europe is also facing economic distress along with threats from Russia to incorporate them back under soviet style land and they wish to remain free.

 

These areas are powder kegs just waiting for the fire from a mistakenly tossed match or misread of any situation to have the entirety of these places to sheepishly huddle under Russian wings. The United States lack of influence throughout the MENA area as well as the entirety of the globe for the last eight years has left foreign policy in such turmoil as to provide room for threats from all sides and levels. The world, and the United States and allies in particular, are facing an invigorated Russia, a China willing to manufacture Islands in order to further their goal of taking certain Islands which they claim as have other nations. These threats are backed by a new and proficient fleet China is building, a worthy blue-water fleet. Add to this the dual threat of a nuclear armed North Korea who has already developed and tested a number of nuclear warheads and appears to be attempting to manufacture an EMP device to knock out the power grid in North America thus neutering the United States military and causing widespread death. Along with North Korea we also will be facing a nuclear armed Iran who has the missiles with advanced guidance and range capabilities with which to deliver them. Once Iran is confirmed to have nuclear weapons one can safely assume that Saudi Arabia will call in their markers for their financing of the Pakistani bomb thus instantly becoming a nuclear armed nation as well. After this the proliferation across all of MENA will likely occur with blinding speed. From that point the rest of the world will be rapidly acquiring nuclear weapons and from there to annihilation of the human race is a short trip and it all might take place in a blink of an eye. It is truly sobering realizing how so very close we are from slipping beyond the cusp into a reality even Hollywood was unable to imitate believably.

 

The race now is to educate and bring the third world somewhere even with the advanced world. By this we mean to teach them from our mistakes such that the world benefits. These newly acquired nuclear capabilities must be impressed not to use them for the sake of humanity. At the same time the world need share its many secrets and the desire to go into space beyond just the solar system but to other star systems even beyond our cluster setting out to truly become a space-born people. That need be our goal if we plan on being a long lived species. I guess we will soon know if the Earth will become the origin of a truly enlightened space based society or will the Earth need await the next great catastrophe to rid it of a stagnant humanity so another intelligence reaches senescence and go off into space and be the long lived Earth born species.

 

Beyond the Cusp