The Forgotten Front in Terror War

 

The forgotten front in the terror war would mean to eradicate yet another group claiming ties to the Islamic State, the same entity of which President Trump promised to rid the world. Of course President Trump meant and everyone understood that this meant from Iraq and Syria, there one so-called rebirth of the Caliphate. He did not mean to also eradicate the Islamic State everywhere some group claimed to be part of the Islamic State. That means the presumed rebirth of the branch originally started by al-Baghdadi in the Sinai Peninsula, let alone the forgotten front which spread across much of Africa in what is termed the Transition Zone. The most likely area which the Islamic State claims to be operating from has shifted to the Sinai Peninsula between Egypt and Israel (see map below). The Islamic State operates at times with the assistance of the Hamas terror rulers of the Gaza who are capable of arming and training members of the Islamic State as Hamas operates in the Sinai Peninsula in order to broaden their border for attacking Israel. Hamas has also cooperated with the Islamic State a few months back in launching rockets into the Israel southern port city of Eilat at the southernmost tip of Israel. Thusfar, the Islamic State has not taken any direct credit for attacks on Israel always allowing Hamas to claim credit. It was the Islamic State which took credit for the planning of an explosive device which downed a Russian air carrier’s Jet this past summer. The flight originated in Sharm el-Sheik and was destined to return to Russia when it crashed into the Sinai Peninsula after the bomb was detonated. The most recent development was Egypt granting Israel permission to overfly the Sinai Peninsula to make airstrikes on the Islamic State. The fact that Egypt sought Israeli assistance in their fight with the Islamic State has not as of yet shown any actual warming of relations, but this was still a step towards perhaps some form of détente which could only benefit relations between these neighboring countries. This may have been something which we will eventually be informed that the hands of President Trump had some amount of massaging. It is very possible that Egypt sought the assistance of the United States and President Trump advised Egyptian President Sisi that he had a very capable neighbor who could assist at a similar level of capabilities as could the United States and perhaps he might seek Israeli assistance and give Prime Minister Netanyahu a call. President Trump has implied heavily that he would prefer for the problems in the Middle East be addressed and solved by the nations of the Middle East. He probably talked with the leaders of the MENA area and likely told them that they need to cooperate more with Israel even if such cooperation were not done openly initially. President Trump has made it clear he desires the Sunni Arab States normalize relations with Israel as a leading step in solving many of the area’s difficulties. Cooperation between Egypt and Israel against the Islamic State and Hamas as well as the other terrorist entitles operating in the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza, as these are a threat to both nations’ stability, and at least their peace of mind. This cooperation in conducting air strikes could be the first step.

 

Sinai Peninsula

 

Islamic State in the Sinai Peninsula and Hamas in Gaza are not the forgotten front in the war against the Islamic State. Perhaps it has slipped everyone’s mind that Boko Haram pledged their loyalty to the Islamic State when it was known as ISIS believing them to be the rising star of Islamic superiority. Despite their failure in Iraq and Syria, Boko Haram has continued to operate spreading terror across Nigeria and many of the neighboring nations including Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, Benin, Togo, Ghana and beyond (see map below). Some of the reason the world has not intervened more is these nations are just as suspicious of European and American assistance as they are threatened by Boko Haram part of the Islamic State. These nations are very aware of their recent history in the past with European colonialism and fear inviting any return of the Europeans as they fear that doing so would give these nations the opportunity to interfere with more than the assist with the terrorists and they know that already the European industry, and to a lesser extent the Americans as well, grabbing up much of the African raw material wealth such as iron and other ores, coal, oil, lumber and other even more rare and precious materials such as diamonds and other gems and the rare metals such as gold, platinum and silver. These nations though still developing are aware that they will have just as much if not greater need of these raw materials and thus cannot just allow Europe to mine them dry. These suspicions are well founded but also ignore a greater threat, resurgent Islam.

 

Map of Nigeria with Africa

 

What much of the world has chosen to ignore or may actually be blind and unaware that the one of the greatest colonialist empires of all history second in size only to the Mongol Empire at its height is the Arab-Islamic Empire which reaches from the Atlantic coast of Africa to the Philippine Island of Mindanao in the Pacific. As we have covered repeatedly, the Arab-Islamic conquest came out from the Arabian Peninsula and spread rapidly as the other empires were all in their declining years and collapsing thus leaving a great area of weakness. The Arabs first spread across the entirety of the Arabian Peninsula where they cleansed these lands of its large and prosperous Jewish and Christian merchants, traders, caravan drivers and tradesmen through conversion, exile or death and gave the idolaters the choice of conversion or death thus the vast majority converted, at least outwardly. The next expansion of the Caliphate conquered the last vestiges of the Persian Empire, the Levant which included the Israelite homelands which had the main body of Jewish populations and much of the Hebrew heritage including the permanent capital of the Hebrews, the Jews, Jerusalem plus the center of the religious history in such areas as Hevron, Tiberius, Caesarea, Nazareth, Shechem, Bethlehem, Jericho and Beersheva. This expansion also pushed back the Byzantine Empire to the walls of Constantinople as well as taking Egypt and along the southern Mediterranean Coast. The final expansion reached the outskirts of Tours where The Hammer Martel defeated the Islamic forces ending that advance and the Islamic advanced into India where that conquest dragged to a halt.

 

Islamic Conquests Under the Caliphs

 

Islam had been adopted though altered slightly when taking root in the southern Philippines and in Indonesia and other areas in the Far East. The further expansion of Islam was performed under the rule of the Ottoman Empire which, though greatly contracted, lasted until World War I where they joined Germany and the Austria-Hungarian Empire which lost to the Allied Powers of Britain, France, Italy, Japan and near the end, the United States. This led to the Sykes Picot Agreement, the Mandate System which allowed for the formation of the Jewish Homelands, and the dividing of the rest of the MENA nations by the European powers. The European colonial rule lasted less than a century making it all but irrelevant when compared to the Arab-Islamic and Ottoman-Islamic rule which lasted from approximately 650 until the end of World War I in 1915, which is more than a twelve-hundred-fifty years Islamic rule. Additionally, since the European powers left and even under their rule, the area remained under the influence of Islamic faith. The Islamic ruled world still reaches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Philippine Islands (see map below). Islam is still expanding with some claiming it is in another period of conquest and the main area they claim is under siege is Europe as the Syrian and other refugees pour into Europe arriving by boat and land as they make their way from North Africa, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and as far as Eritrea and Somalia. What will be the end result of the Islamic advances into Europe is something which will require watching, but still we need speak of the forgotten terror war and Islamic State.

 

Display of the Muslim Nations of the World in the Middle East, Asia and Northern Africa in Green with Israel depicted in Red

 

The Islamic State branch called Boko Haram is a threat to the larger western parts of the African Transition Zone (see map below) and has been active for the past three decades if not longer. The war of terror is waged between the northern area under Islam attempting to spread southward and convert or replace the Christians and Animists residing along this belt. France was involved assisting areas which were once French colonies and still have a sizeable French population. The United States has provided Special Forces to assist with training and tactics in Niger and Nigeria. The United States worked largely with the African Army, a group made up of forces from numerous central and southern African nations. These troops are a fine example of nations uniting for their mutual defense and that is the greatest example of mutual assistance we can see today. The problem is that Islam utilizes a tactic which makes defense expensive and eventually Islam will expand until the world either surrenders to Islam or unites to stop their encroachment. Part of the reason for this is the belief that once land has been touched by Islam, then it becomes Islamic permanently and must never be permitted to fall into the hands of others to rule. This is part of what is behind the Islamic refusal to recognize Israel and allow the Jews their ancestral homelands and why in many Islamic texts and maps that Spain is referred to as Andalusia and is claimed to be an Islamic country. The ruler in Spain since 1692 and the reconquest of Spain by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella who also implemented the Spanish Inquisition to cleanse Spain and return it to Catholicism. Still Islam claims that one day Spain will return to their rule.

 

African Transition Zone

 

The Boko Haram kidnapping of young women and turning them into sex slaves or forced marriages and forced conversion is something which should enrage every free person of the world. The idea that just because this is happening in Africa thus that makes it of less importance is as nefarious an idea as we can find. The people under this threat deserve the complete and total assistance just as much as anywhere else on the planet. The way we treat the least amongst us is how we are to be judged. The spread of Islam is occurring on at least four continents if not across the entirety of the globe at some stage. Central Africa in this Transition Zone is one of the major regions under assault; Europe is another with the influx of Islamic refugees who are surprisingly largely male adults of military age without women or children. The intent is probably to marry and then convert women which will permit the children to be Muslim and prevents these women from marrying a Christian or human secularist and having non-Muslim children. There has also been a definitive increase in violent terrorism largely of Islamic origins. Islam is also pressing into Central Asia though this is a far quitter front. Lastly, Islam is working to make inroads into the United States through the public education systems, the colleges and through the politics as they infiltrate the power structures of the Democrat Party largely and attempting some infiltration of the Republicans as well. So that means that Islam is working to some extent in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and has a large area of control in South America in the Tri-Border Area (see below). About all that leaves are the Island continent of Australia and Antarctica free of Islamic pressures, for now.

 

Tri_Border Region of South America Terror training haven and Iranian proxy state in the Americas and Base of operations for the 17 March 1992 Israeli Embassy Bombing murdering 29 injuring 242 and the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) 18 July 1994 bombing murdered 85 injured over 800 and now we must add the murdered Argentine Prosecutor Alberto Nisman to AMIA fatalities

 

One can only wonder what it is going to take for the world to fully realize that it is under assault and has been since 622 when Islam first set out to conquer the world. Then the world was smaller but the more they conquered, the larger the quest became as more and more of the world was revealed. Islam will never stop of its own volition; it will take outside pressures to make it modify its activities. Islam must conquer the world because the Quran dictates that the entirety of the population of Earth must surrender to Allah and follow his laws under Islam and there can be no other religion. That includes Atheists as a religion and secular humanists are considered idolaters and thus to be converted. There is no means around their belief in what Allah demands of them, complete surrender of their will, accept their predetermined lives and conquer the world for Allah. The rest is simple, do exactly as the Imams instruct and Allah will reward you, do not surrender to Allah, then you will be amongst the damned. The Quran claims to be the last and final world from Allah. Muhammad claimed to be the final Prophet and his revelations were to replace all which had come before replacing Christianity and Judaism with Islam and Muhammad was to be the last reformer and after him there would be nothing more. This is the premise in the Quran and it is to be accepted by all on Earth or they are to be put to the sword. One can have no other faith but Islam as long as Islam continues on its current definitions and the rule of Abrogation which places the violent teaching of Medina as the preeminent teaching and the teachings of Mecca which run counter are abrogated and nullified. That means the peaceful parts of the Quran have been replaced. The difficulty is the Quran is arranged for memorization with the shortest verses in the front and the longest verses at the end. It is not in chronological order or any other arrangement which makes sense other than for memorization starting in one’s youth. This is why the words of the Imam in their teaching are so important, change what they teach and Islam is altered. That is the challenge for Islam, the challenge for the remainder of the world is to force such an alteration in their Imams teaching or otherwise force Islam to live peaceably with the rest of the world’s religions.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Arrow of History or Circle of Reality or Neither

 

There are presumably two versions of the path of human history; one is based on the Arrow of History and the other is Circular Path of History. The former is the idealist who believes that history can be corrected and placed on a path to a more perfect reality where governance is taken from its Hobbesian State on to the targeted perfected society. The latter is the realist camp where history has been and will continue to revolve through the same errors, fixes and other acts and reactions repeated adinfinitum. One can read how this was applied by President Obama as he went from his initial idealist views and eventually matured into a realist view according to Charles Krauthammer.

 

The liberal or idealist versions of history and governance, in theory, result in targeting treaties, trade agreements, interconnectivity, United Nations governance overview and other Universalist actions by which undesirable actions such as aggressive conquests of territories is mediated or prevented by a form of semi-formed morass of soft glue. This version spends little if any capital to adjust individual governance and instead seeks to restrain all governance limiting them to affecting solely within their borders and prevented from any external interaction to channels approved and writ large in treaties and trade pacts. These are the dreamers who view an eventual world governance forming some utopian eventuality without repeating the same mistakes repeatedly.

 

The Conservative or realist versions of history and governance, in theory, aims at improving individual governance in order to prevent the aggressions and other disruptive effects of the cycle of history. Their view has used the observation that democracies seldom go to war with their adversaries and are more likely to mitigate differences through peaceful means. They believe that the path to nirvana must pass through democratization of governances worldwide using nation-building as their main tool. This method has the drawback that it requires a long and possible indefinite involvement of troops, advisors and security personnel who will be required to prevent any challenge outside of elections. Even changes affected through elections may still require intervention by this realist view in order to prevent any drifting into a position where the governance becomes established and uncontested such as would have occurred in Egypt had the Muslim Brotherhood remained the elected power in Egypt as this would have resulted in their taking the position of approving access to the ballot. This was prevented by an almost as dangerous event where the military removed the Muslim Brotherhood governance and the Commander of the Army, General Sisi, came to power as the newly elected President. This government will also require watching to assure that the Presidency does not simply become the highest position of the military always filled by the former Commanding General. When and if President Sisi either is not a candidate or is defeated, the next President and their history will tell us much about if Egypt has become a true democracy and whether it will long remain one, free of either straight and enforced through arms dictatorship or a Muslim Brotherhood theocracy where the democratic voting is but a fig leaf covering the reality beneath.

 

Time’s Strings Eternally Slipping Away
Time’s Springs Clocking Gears Forward
Time Passing Second by Second Forever
Minute by Minute and Hour by Hour
Days Moving Always Onward

 

One unique democracy which was enforced by the military which was quite unique was the governance of Turkey as designed by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk after the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. This democratic governance was assured by the military where they were to guard against a religious takeover of the government. There were a number of military interventions and each resulted in a special election held within a relatively short period and Turkey returned to its democratic constitution, the same constitution which charged the military with the power of preserving the democratic nature of Turkey. Around 2005 the military in Turkey had planned to replace the government as they had decided that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had established himself as a permanent religious ruler over Turkey and that he had rigged future elections to preserve his rule. As Turkey was also seeking entry into the European Union, something which would never come to be no matter what Turkey would do to please the Europeans, and the leadership of the European Union, numerous European governments all advised the Turkish military to stand down and President Bush threatened an end of American aid to Turkey and questioned their continued membership in NATO should the military replace the government even with their holding new special elections within ninety days thus Recep Tayyip Erdoğan remained in power, the military went through a shake-up replacing every general who might stand against Erdogan with a cherry picked general and the courts were restructured and Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) have held power even to the point of forcing new elections when after a regular election the AKP did not hold a majority of the Ministerships and between the two elections there were many incidents which were suspicious. Thus dies a democracy.

 

We have a slightly different view of the paths of history and it combines the two varieties, it takes the circular path of the realists and we will add to it the arrow of history of the idealists and makes a spiral of history. Let us try and sort this out and explain. Let us go back in ye old way-back machine to the time of the biblical character of Abraham. Before Abraham there was human sacrifice where the lame, the weak, the unproductive, the young and the old were routinely removed through human sacrifice. Enemies taken prisoner were either worked to death, abused in all manners of degradations including physical, sexual and demeaned eventually being used in human sacrifice. Some societies’ members of the society would compete to become such a sacrifice as it was viewed as an honor to be sacrificed for the good of the rest. With the intervention of the sacrificing of Isaak, humanity took a step away from its violent and abhorrent past towards what is today viewed as civilized behavior. This was the arrow of history moving the circle such that it would continue to spiral until almost no society used human sacrifice as a set practice.

 

Later there was another firing of the arrow and pushing the spiral along with the handing down of the Law at Mount Sinai. What is not often thought about was that the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, came along with the Ten Commandments and the guide to good governance and the first set of laws defining human rights. The concept that any ruler is not to gather great wealth in horses, cattle, gold, currency or possessions as well as tasked to write their own Torah, book for book, chapter by chapter, paragraph for paragraph, sentence for sentence, word for word and letter for letter perfect, free of any mistake even in the form of the individual letter and their formation is written in Torah. Every letter started with the top which was always the letter Yudh and from that the rest of the letter is formed. There were laws of property and ownership, recompense for loss of property. The guidance for judgeship and the application of the law free from influence of wealth or poverty, high position or beggar or any other difference making reference for the application of the law to be blind to all but the law. Further, the society was instructed to treat the stranger with respect, those taken in war were to be granted decent respect and slaves had rights to decent treatment and being well cared for. These and many other laws which we retain today in many Western lands were all found within Torah with many in Deuteronomy.

 

Life continued and governments came to try new forms with the noted advancing by the Greeks with a Republic. This form of government almost died before the Persian Empire but was quite possibly preserved by the Spartans at Thermopylae in a land and sea battle which is still studied by modern armies in their military colleges. The arrow widened the spiral for a period and the spiral turns anew. Religious tyranny would threaten the spiral again with the fall of the Roman Empire and later the Byzantine Empire and the threat of Islamic religious tyranny rolling through Europe destroying Christianity and rule of the people. Charles the Hammer Martel prevented further invasion of Europe from out of the west at the Battle of Tours in 732AD. On the eastern front in Europe the advance of the Ottoman Empire was turned back twice at Vienna. The initial battle was the Siege of Vienna of 1529 where the Ottomans captured Vienna and after rested only to retreat subsequently as this was the Ottoman Empire’s high water mark. This assault was led by Suleiman the Magnificent. The second Siege of Vienna was in 1683 beginning on September 12 by Kara Mustafa leading a force of 150,000. King John III Sobieski of Poland broke the siege after about two months and this marked the end of threats from the Ottoman Empire which collapsed after World War I.

 

Scientific discoveries and philosophical and political progress has slowly over time made for what we consider to be a more civil and peaceful society though the deaths due to war increased century to century or even often decade to decade until the dropping of two bombs, one on Hiroshima and the next on Nagasaki and warfare has become a far more dangerous endeavor and thus became something fought solely in far more limited manner. This will remain a great push forward by the arrow by necessity and fears of complete annihilation. This fear might continue indefinitely or some nation may decide to use nuclear weapons, perhaps even the most damaging and effective city killing thermonuclear device leading to an ever widening nuclear meltdown of societies possibly leading to a new dark age where the spiral of history could go through a devastating recoil very much like the loosing of a stretched coiled spring. Whether such has happened before in history is a question for which we have no definitive answer.

 

The hope is that the spiral will continue to move mankind into a more perfect society where individual liberties and freedoms are protected and even advanced. The threat of an unwinding of the coil taking mankind back to a tribal uncivil set of brutal societies where tribe fights tribe for limited wealth and resources is ever present. The greater the coils spread and stretch separating one modern society compared to another modern society, there is a tension which will always threaten to recompress the spiral forcing the coils to spring backwards undoing much of what has been invested in stretching the spiral straining it as if a coiled spring. This is why we need to employ both versions of changing history for the better, invest in a tangle of treaties, trade deals, international agreements and other entanglements while also seeking to perfect society by aiming to expand democratic rule and human rights. These two forces must be combined with the third force which defines the separation of the individual coils of the spiral, the advancement of the human individual. That is the necessary change, the only true and real advancement, the improvement of the individual and their rights and standing as equals. Making merit, action and accomplishment, resulting from education, intelligence and ability, as the determining of one’s standing and wealth within the society and allowing for every individual to possess the power and ability to advance and achieve position to the best of their abilities and efforts is the basis of modern society and need be spread throughout the world if it is to remain so.

 

The improvement of the individual is the only guarantor of advancement thus one of the most important items which must be achieved is the enlightenment of the individual and the freeing of all people as individuals and given the potential for advancement through actions and abilities. That is where the challenge is situated in the world today. In too many places the people are oppressed and kept all but enslaved by a small number of elitists. Elitism is the enemy of actual progress and must be avoided and defeated and replaced with a society structure which values the individual and desires of the individual to be the engine for advancement of the society and for the greater good of the entirety of society instead of enriching only the few. Humankind since the earliest days of human sacrifice has progressed and if one were to make a comparison then humankind has advanced from the tribal stage similar to baboons who attack other tribes fiercely without mercy to a stage of chimpanzees who stake an area and do not impinge on their neighbor unless in a form of actual warfare and are hopefully to be able to reach the point where our society is more similar to the Bonobo communities which are peace-loving and generally egalitarian. That is a crude comparison but it is also a fairly symbolic view of the potentials of our simian predecessors whose societies resided with very different resources and competition for these resources where they either competed for every morsel, competed to protect their area, their zone or they shared and lived with peace and where any differences are settled without undue violence. The problem is we are at a cringe-worthy point in human history where either great strides are right before us or a great decompression forcing a recoiling of the spiral and a loss of advancements to a more primitive place where the individual has no real rights and the few stand over their perceived lessors. The fall of the society which had progressed from Abraham through Moses, the Greeks, Romans, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the Information Age and should we be fortunate, the Biologic Advancement and virtual immortality bringing the “Age of Aquarius,” at any point could destroy almost all progress and reset the entire string.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Coming Internationalized Pressure in Israel Again!

 

We have all the signs one might need to realize that the fix is in and the demands will all fall on Israel. The understanding of those in Paris and those “experts” Makovsky and Ross at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) as well as an unsigned editorial on June 1, 2016 in the Washington Post all making the supposition that the first step towards a settlement requires concessions from Israel to make evident that Israel is serious about reaching an equitable peace with the Palestinians and allow Mahmoud Abbas to feel comfortable with even discussing the necessary requirements for a lasting peace. Never mind that Abbas has made evidently clear that no matter what the settlement and peace even to include Israel pulling completely back to the 1949 Armistice Lines (the Green Line) and redividing Jerusalem while also bringing every Jew from the vacated lands into Israel, the Arabs would retain the right to protest the continued occupation, code words for terrorism and assaults on Israelis. This demand to retain their right to violent confrontation is demanded despite Israelis leaving their homes, businesses and complete cities behind for the Palestinian who would still destroy everything in an orgy of obliteration as nothing touched by a Jew can be allowed to remain standing. This was exactly what happened in Gaza and why the quarter of a million dollars’ worth of greenhouses were destroyed and all their tubing and equipment used to make rockets which were returned to Israel in explosive volleys. But the demands are always for Israel to sacrifice and concessions and give in to any and all demands just to have Abbas laugh and spit in their faces and once again claim, “Not nearly enough.” What would be enough? Abbas has answered that in Arabic. Enough is the founding of Palestine from the (Jordan) River to the (Mediterranean) Sea where the land must be made Jew free. If that means a second Holocaust, then all the better as that would be a great start at quenching their bloodlust which Hamas defines as the murdering of every Jew anywhere on Earth they are found. But Israel must satisfy this vampiric lust that is the Arab Palestinian craving.

 

Never mind the history of the Jews living in Arab lands, a history every bit as bloodied and evil in its intents and rocky coexistence where Jews lived at the whim of every local potentate following the conquest by Islam of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) including the holy lands, which had been the Jewish homelands for over two-thousand-years by the time of their conquest, which were plagued with near constant violence as the Christian Crusaders attempted to liberate Jerusalem from Islamic colonization replacing it with Christian colonization which had been free of challenge as the Byzantine Empire for almost a millennia before the Muslims conquered the Jewish homelands. The lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea was the Israelite homelands from the time of Joshua and the Israelites who left Egypt approximately forty-years earlier in the Exodus and now conquered the lands the Torah stated was theirs by the decree of the Creator, Hashem. The Torah demanded that they expel the idolaters from the lands, smash and destroy their idols and high places and cleanse the lands of the abominations. There was no demand to murder or exterminate the Canaanites unless they came to fight and destroy the Israelites. They were only to be sent packing into other lands, something which three-thousand plus years ago there was more than enough for the Canaanites to resettle elsewhere and continue there idolatry and live happily ever after. There are claims that the Palestinians are the descendants of the Canaanites which is as ridiculous as their claim to have been descendants of the Philistines. The only problem is the Arabs of three-thousand-years ago were still worshipping their idols in the Arabian Peninsula largely in Mecca and Medina. There was no Islam and today there are no remnants or descendants of either the Canaanites or the Philistines. Now back to the insanity that is the unexplainable fixation the Western World appears to suffer from when it comes to Israel and their multitude of misconceptions.

 

Let us review a few basic facts, facts which are often just thrown out the window when it comes to appeasing any who wish to destroy Israel. The League of Nations and by Article 80 of their Charter, the United Nations, and the British Crown, and the Christian world at the end of World War I, a far more religious and knowledgeable of history, particularly Biblical history, and who realized that since the fall of Israel and subsequently Judea, both Israelite Jewish nations, there had been numerous empires whose land included ancient Israelite lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea including but not limited to the Babylonian Empire, Persian Empire, Greek Empire of Alexander, Ptolemaic Greek Empire, Seleucid Greek Empire, Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, Caliphate, Napoleonic Empire, the Crusaders, and Ottoman Empire but none of which ever placed even a provincial capital within these lands with them most often ruled from Damascus as the weather was milder and far more comfortable than the hot and dry lands which was the homeland of the Israelites, the Jews. The only peoples to make their kingdom centered on these lands with Jerusalem or Shechem as their capital city were the Israelites either as the tribes which formed a loose federation not united until the rule of King David and King Solomon. There were brief kingdoms when the yoke of either the Greek Empire or Roman Empire was briefly thrown off with the most famous being the Hasmonean Dynasty the product of the Maccabean Revolt which was the rising of pious Jews against the Seleucid king who had tried to eradicate their religious practices and force Greek idolatry onto the Jews and who placed idols in the Second Temple desecrating it further with the sacrifice of pigs in an effort to completely extinguish any religious attachment of the Temple with Judaism. Even that effort by the Seleucid king was initiated from Damascus as he did not care to reside with the Jews who he found particularly troublesome and stubborn as they refused to be Hellenized, well, a core of them refused and the ones that had become Hellenized were also murdered during the Maccabean Revolt. The Romans tried to stamp out Judaism as a religion as well and initially this resulted in the Bar Kokhba revolt which resulted in the overthrow of Roman rule ever so briefly. This was the Third Jewish–Roman War or the Third Jewish Revolt as if nothing else we were stubborn to the end. The Romans even used their ultimate weapon for destroying a peoples and their culture by erasing them from history through dispersing them to the far corners of their empire removing the majority from their native lands. This was done with the survivors of the Carthaginians after the Third Punic War and has anyone met a Carthaginian lately? This was the Roman’s most dire weapon as it robbed a people of any coalescing or binding legacy or even a core group but the Jews had their own secret weapon, Torah. With the Torah and the laws and recorded history there was a binding agent which was portable and went wherever the Jews went and no matter how scattered each Jew had the Torah, the same laws, the same legacies, the same promise of redemption and a return to Eretz Yisroel no matter how long it might take. As it turns out it took almost two-thousand-years but in May 15, 1948 (Iyar 6, 5708) the British left and from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea the modern state of Israel was born.

 

I know what some are saying, wait BTC people, what about Gaza and the West Bank, they were not Israel and they are between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and they were Palestine. Well, actually no. What did happen was from November 29, 1947 after the United Nations General Assembly voted to allow the partition of the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea between the Jews and Arabs, in the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 when the trouble began. This was a non-binding resolution, as every General Assembly resolution, as only the Security Council is empowered to pass binding enforceable resolutions and then only if they do so under Chapter Seven as a Security Council Chapter Six Resolution is the same as the General Assembly, a non-binding resolution. With a non-binding resolution from the United Nations, as soon as any of the affected institutions, nations or individuals rejects the resolution it is immediately voided and can no longer be considered as having any validity. The British were leaving on the following May 15, 1948 divide or not. What happened was the Zionist Congress immediately accepted the partition as they were willing to take anything as that was better than the British being made to remain. The Arab League rejected it out of hand and made a call for Arab nations to gather and destroy the abomination to Islam which a Jewish State would pose. Seven Arab nations, a number of militias and an Arab Force under the Mufti of Jerusalem, the infamous Mohammed Amin al-Husseini who spent World War II in Berlin and demanded that the Nazis assist in the liquidation of the Jews in the Arab world after they conquered the world, a fait accompli in his mind as in Hitler’s. Things went in a different direction as history relates with the defeat of Nazi Germany and the Axis Powers. The Mufti commanded two Balkan Muslim regiments which were involved in numerous war crimes and the Mufti was initially listed as one to be tried in the Nuremberg Trials but the British removed his name and flew him to Jerusalem to take command of the Arabs who were fighting the Jews in a low-grade war as the British were preparing to depart. These were the forces he commanded and were within the Jewish lines causing difficulties and were one of the reasons that some Arab villages were forced beyond the front lines as they had armed and were preparing to assault the Jewish forces from the rear if left behind the front lines where the Arab armies were fighting the newly formed and not entirely regimented Jewish forces. When the fighting was finally halted the front lines divided Jerusalem and Jordan had occupied parts of Judea and Samaria which they renamed West Bank as Judea sounded a little too Jewish, the Egyptians held Gaza and the Syrians the Golan Heights. These Arab areas held by Jordan, Egypt and Syria were occupied Jewish lands as per the League of Nations, the United Nations, the San Remo Conference, and numerous other treaties and conferences which were held after the defeat of Germany and the Austria-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires after World War I. All of these and especially the British and French Mandates were recognized by the United Nations which is how Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel were brought into being and recognized by the world bodies.

 

Bet all that history and the fact that it was the Arab nations who occupied Israeli Lands never enters into their equations. There is a simple reason for this and it is best described by disposing another myth we have seen repeatedly of late, the myth that the United States has been the bestest of friends with Israel from the start and never even did anything that might have caused Israel distress or possibly led to its destruction. Granted President Harry Truman voted for and recognized Israel both in the November United Nations vote and gave recognition on the morning of May 15, 1948. What everyone ignores was that immediately after that the United States imposed an arms embargo against Israel. That’s right, as the Jews needed arms, any arms as they had very few and virtually no air forces or armored vehicles. The initial Israeli armored vehicle was a 50cal machine gun atop a 1930s car or truck. Israel turned to one nation for most of the arms they received, Czechoslovakia. Fortunately there were quite a few World War II tanks and some airplanes sitting in Czechoslovakia and they were willing to sell them at a budget rate as they knew exactly how it felt to be tossed to the wolves as an appeasement. Eventually the French and, believe it or not, the Soviet Union also sold Israel some equipment. Somehow, though out-gunned, out-manned and greatly out-numbered, Israel fought her heart out and while not winning, they survived with some lost territories to Jordan, Egypt and Syria. These lands remained occupied and without even a peep of demanding their “State of Palestine” while these Arab nations held these lands.

 

Then in 1964 the KGB assisted the formation of the PLO placing their well-trained duo of Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, both trained in Moscow, in charge of their PLO anti-Jewish terror organization. You will never believe what their slogan was. They claimed that Israel was occupying their Arab homeland of Palestine. This is in 1964 and a full three years before the 1967 Six Day War where Israel liberated her occupied lands as well as conquering the Sinai Peninsula. Israel, the nation unwilling to sacrifice for peace returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt when the two nations made peace and ended their belligerency. Israel, in August of 2005 pulled every Jewish citizen from the Gaza and removed their IDF forces and even reinterred their dead to cemeteries within Israel and left the entire greenhouse industries intact for the Gazans to have some form of agriculture and production. The greenhouses were torn apart and used to make rockets. The Palestinian Authority lost the Gaza to Hamas which had won the elections and controlled the Palestinian Parliament. Mahmoud Abbas assumed office and his term presumably ran out in 2009 and the world awaits the elections for President, hint, don’t hold your breath as he knows in a fair election he will lose, and losing that election may cause him to lose more than just an election. So, Israel surrendered Gaza for peace and received Hamas and rockets and invasion tunnels. Now Makovsky and Ross are some of the people behind the international demands that Israel provide cement so that Gaza can be rebuilt. Small problem, Israel has been providing the cement but nothing is being rebuilt. Reports state that Hamas is appropriating over ninety-percent of the cement for the rebuilding of their tunnels including new tunnels supposedly reaching miles under the border into Israel. Thanks to the European and American wunderkind Israel is providing cement to Hamas to use to destroy Israel. This actually should be of little surprise as since 1948 much of the Western World governments in some form or another have adopted positions and policies which could not be any more injurious to Israel than if they were intentionally attempting to destroy the Jewish State. But we all know that the Western World could not be working to hurt Israel because Israel dictates policy to the Western World, right?

 

 

There has been a confab in Paris in order to find a new plan to restart the Palestinian-Israel peace talks. The good news is there were a number of nations participating and the Israelis would not be present to muck things up. The sad news is even with this perfect set of conditions it does not appear they will succeed. The Paris peace parley ended with a call for another conference by the end of the year. The Palestinians are unhappy because all they got was a lousy communique and a “non-binding” one at that. They had anticipated a supposed binding demand that Israel surrender at least Jerusalem and back to the Green Line pulling all Jews back with their retreat. All they got was a lousy T-shirt. Even the Foreign Ministers at the Paris Conference knew that there is no chance for peace and Israel is not the problem. When meeting in quiet rooms behind closed doors without the media and other outside interference they all know that the problem is that Mahmoud Abbas will only accept a complete demolition of Israel replacing it with an Arab State. The PLO had a similar plan but with one difference, they claimed that as soon as they finish cleansing the land of all things Jewish they were going to give the land to Jordan. They did not pretend they desired to have a nation to run; they just wanted the Jewish State dead and gone, all traces gone. The PA is the PLO with international recognition. That is the reality but in order to be able to claim that progress is being made and an intransigent Mahmoud Abbas and Arab World there is only one other hope, pressure Israel, threaten Israel, do what it takes to make Israel make moves knowing that no matter what Israel does it will not make a single iota of difference, Abbas will just say “No.” That is the reality, plain and simple, Israel pressed to make useless and empty moves because everybody knows that Abbas is the obstruction and it makes no difference who replaces him as the leadership of the Palestinian Authority are all hardened terrorists who desire only one thing, dead Jews and no more Israel. That is their minimum acceptable result and nothing short of that will change anything. Well, except if Israel does what she should have done on June 11, 1967 and reestablished rule over every inch of the previously occupied Jewish and Israeli lands from 1948 and end the ridiculous charade of attempting to mollify the unappeasable. It is and always has been a fool’s game and it is simply foolish to continue the charade not to mention dangerous. Give Abbas one last proposal where he gets areas A and B and when he refuses then simply push the Palestinian Authority leaders and fighters out into Syria and then offer to buy out anyone who prefers leaving otherwise they can either remain as resident aliens or they may choose to follow a procedure which will result in citizenship after a reasonable time and passing a background check. Any known terrorists will be invited to depart, an invitation which cannot be refused. That is the best and least injurious path to peace and with time this would lead to a lasting peace as Egypt and Jordan do not desire another costly war with Israel which leaves Syria and Lebanon. Syria barely exists as a nation and who knows who will be the next leader, if any, in Syria. In Lebanon the problem is with a terrorist entity backed by Iran, Hezballah, and they are currently engaged in Syria up to their proverbial necks. Once that war is finally resolved, perhaps Iran will not be able to continue to provide Hezballah with any further rockets and missiles and they will decide that threatening Israel is better than warring with Israel. If Hezballah instead decides war is preferable then Israel needs to end that problem once and for all even if that requires retaining lands to the southern shore of the Litany River, the Biblical northern border of Israel as can be seen in the map of the Tribes of the Israelites after their conquest of the lands. Israel has no desire to reach to the Euphrates River as was acquired by King David and King Solomon at the greatest extent Israelites had ever ruled. The Litani River would be defendable should Hezballah insist that they too will not rest until Israel is no more. Iran, you ask? The world will decide that problem as they are positioning to be a threat to places far beyond Israel and that is where the world had best start to pay closer attention, honest.

 

Beyond the Cusp