Beware of Bidens Bearing No Peace Plan

 

United States Vice President Joe Biden is kicked off a Middle East tour Monday in the UAE (United Arab Emirates) but we all know where the trip will end and what the build-up will do for expectations for pressure to be placed on the Israelis in order to beg and grovel to get Mahmoud Abbas just to have him insult us and make broad claims of Israeli intransigence and refusal to make the needed sacrifice for peace. The reality is, and everyone in governments of Europe, the United States, United Nations and every corner of the globe is that Mahmoud Abbas cannot afford to make peace as doing so would lose him the one thing which keeps him alive and in power, the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) working intelligence and preventing any challenge or takeover by Hamas, Islamic State or any other terror group which would unseat and behead the leadership of the PA (Palestinian Authority) within days, weeks at the longest, of the Israelis pulling from Judea and Samaria (a.k.a. West Bank). Further, if Mahmoud Abbas did reach an accord and established his presumed dream of an Arab state named Palestine, or any other name, then he would have to actually provide real services to a much larger area as Israel provides most of the services in Area B and all the services in Area C which combine to make around three-quarters of the contested areas. Combine these additional government responsibilities and services with the fact that the amounts of aid received by the PA would soon dry-up as there would no longer be any conflict with Israel after such an agreement and without the conflict with the Jewish State the Europeans and United Nations would move on to some other pressing problem like forcing Israel to accept ten million Syrian refugees which Europe was refusing to accept. Without the funds the PA, now a real state, would simply become the latest failed state incapable of providing services or meeting the payroll leading to rioting and the eventual complete collapse of the state of Palestine while the exhortations by Mahmoud Abbas pleading for financial assistance in order to at least reach some form of equilibrium and functionality as without aid, Abbas might even threaten that they would need to declare war on Israel to force the world to take notice.

 

 

United Nations Headquarters
and Piece of New York Skyline
including the Trump Tower

 

 

The announcement before Biden left Washington last week was that neither President Obama nor anybody from the administration expects the visit to produce anything concerning the peace process as Biden will be discussing military aid package for the next decade with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and the military command of Israel. If past experience is any indicator of future events, which it more often than not is, then there will be no military aid without concessions for peace and the Israeli leadership will be pressed and pressed and then threatened with an end to military aid, cancelling the F-35 JSF jet fighter deal, withholding of the United States veto in the Security Council on moves for Arab statehood, thus granting Palestinian statehood using the Green Line, the 1949 Armistice Line, which the Arab League demanded never be used as a border ever. There might be threats that the United States would assist and encourage the French to go forward with their plans for final peace talks which if they failed, then the world through the Security Council and General Assembly of the United Nations in a universal accordance would establish Palestine. There may even be floated the idea that Israel not only take whatever steps required to allow the formation of an Arab state named Palestine but also be made responsible for assisting and coordinating with the new state and held as the guarantors for its successful function. Granted this sounds preposterous, but this is not as far-fetched as you might first believe. Israel had been tasked with assisting the PA Security Forces assuring their functioning in Area B before the United States took to training the Palestinian Security Forces in Jordan for urban warfare and other tactical exercises under the command of Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton who succeeded Lt. Gen. William “Kip” Ward in December 2005. Their training has been similar in nature to elite infantry training in the United States. Why such training is provided to a security force which is not responsible for military tactics, but that is what the United States feels the security forces for the PA are going to need.

 

The reason that the United States may have for the extreme training would be believing they might be required to defend an actual nation of Palestine from any threats. But what threats as the neighbors of such a state would be Israel and Jordan, neither of which would have any reason for attacking the PA state unless attacked by them first. The only real threat would be terrorist groups such as Islamic Jihad, Hamas, al-Qaeda and Islamic State. In case of any of these entities attempting to take over any PA State would also pose direct threats to both Israel and Jordan thus it would be in both neighbors’ interest to assist the defense of the PA state if such was requested or possibly even if it was not, as long as the assistance was temporary as nobody desires a reinstating of any occupation. But this training was likely at the behest of the PA leadership which then begs a different question, why would the PA desire an offensive trained security force as security militaries are usually designed to hold their own ground and not having full infantry assault training as they are not exactly going to be forging beachheads from the West Bank as the Jordan River, Dead Sea and Sea of Galilee are the closest bodies of water. Still, there has to be a reason for the PA to have their security forces trained in general combat techniques and in urban warfare in addition to anti-terror operations. The anti-terror operations has an obvious reason, they wanted to understand the methodologies of how the IDF would respond to any major terror campaigns so as to be capable of blunting IDF efforts. Urban warfare training might be applicable against any attempt by Hamas to make an overt takeover of Judea and Samaria as they had done in Gaza. Of course the PA forces in Gaza had been trained and still managed to lose the entirety of Gaza within a few days when the final push came and the PA forces proved useless.

 

That leaves the question of what further use might having military operations training and general combat techniques be useful and what goals might the PA security forces, which number in the thousands of officers, be used towards? The only other target which the Arab Palestinians have ever claimed beyond driving the Jews into the Mediterranean Sea has been to overthrow the Monarchy of Jordan and allow the Arabs, who identify with the cause and quest for power of the PA against Israel, take complete control over Jordan. The main obstacle has been their lack of training and the fact that King Abdullah II’s military consists largely of tribesmen loyal to the crown which shows them preferential treatment and favor over the larger Palestinian population. This does not mean that the Palestinian people are not treated well and they do receive much support from the King and the government but the loyal tribesmen, especially those serving in the military and making up the reserve forces, serving the King in a show of gratitude. King Abdullah II has gained major support of the people from his actions when the Jordanian pilot captured by the Islamic State was tortured and executed in a barbaric manner burning him alive while trapping him in a cage and using the video as a message of superiority over Jordan and as a recruitment tool. Still, there have been those Jordanian Arab Palestinians, who have joined the Islamic State, as have peoples from all of the surrounding Arab Sunni states, but generally the population of Jordan are more sympathetic with the Arab Palestinians in Israel and desire that their military be more supportive of the fight against Israel even to the point of directly aiding the PA in any general uprisings such as the current intifada.

 

 

Jordanian Armed Forces Crest

 

 

One must also remember the attempt by Yasser Arafat to overthrow the Jordanian monarchy and government in the early 1970s. The attempt to overthrow the Jordanian monarchy and take control of Jordan, something the many Bedouin tribes would oppose and who make-up the officer core due to their loyalty to the King, resulted in routing the coup attempt by Yasser Arafat. Their failure in Jordan was what forced the PLO into Lebanon where they quickly attempted a takeover of the Lebanese government resulting in Syria attempting to grab control over Lebanon taking advantage of the turmoil and confusion. This led to the Israeli intervention at the invitation of the Lebanese Christian militias. This resulted in a prolonged Israeli presence creating a buffer zone protecting the Israeli north. This interventional force did suffer a steady number of casualties from suicide bombings and other attacks which the left and the media in Israel used to apply pressure with sizeable demonstrations often by foreign financed NGOs from the left leading to Israel ending the interventional force presence. This permitted Hezballah to set-up their bunker systems and rocket launchers in the extreme south of Lebanon which eventually led to the very costly Second Lebanon War. One must also remember that Hezballah was a direct result of the PLO efforts to overthrow the Lebanese government in the mid and late 1970s.

 

The PLO was the direct progenitor of the PA which is as the PLO before it a direct arm of power projection of the Fatah movement. Any attempt to paint the PA as democratic is a farcical effort as there have been no elections, free or otherwise, since the debacle brought on by United States pressure to hold open elections which were won in large part by Hamas and not Fatah. This led directly to the Hamas flexing of their abilities and mastery and control in Gaza to oust the PA which had denied them their proper victory by basically imposing Fatah supremacy using the Presidency of Abbas. He assumed the position after Arafat’s demise as Arafat’s number two since the founding of the PLO, taking over of Arafat’s roles as leader of Fatah, the PA, PLO and presumed President for Life of any future state. The final straw for Hamas was the cancelling of Presidential election which they were sure to oust Abbas, something Abbas refused to permit as he exercised every bit of his powerful position to put a clamp on all PA and other political functions and preserve what he could.

 

All of this has not altered the grand plan of the PLO, and thus perhaps the PA, of a grander scheme and power play toppling the governances around the area and setting up their claim to be the true leaders of the Arab world. These efforts failed in the 1970s and are no closer to fruition today as Fatah is only holding on to power in the contested areas of Judea and Samaria, oddly enough, because of the efforts by Israel to keep Hamas and others from replacing them The PA would easily be toppled which would lead to a catastrophic terror war emanating from the then former PA controlled areas with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and who knows who else all perched on the southwest in Gaza and direct east in Judea and Samaria overlooking central Israeli population and industrial heart of Israel. This could lead to a far more disastrous rocket war from Hamas with their rockets all but incapable of missing vital targets in and around Tel Aviv and the central core of Israel, a heavily developed area. That is the reason that Israel has supported allowing the PA to remain in Abbas’s incapable and bumbling hands. The alternative is the devil Israel does not know and does not want to know. What they do know is that Abbas has less ability to control anything beyond incitement against Israel. Abbas is in a particularly uncomfortable position of needing to continue aggressions against Israel while making sure not to force any overt actions from Israel. Abbas is also relying on Israeli intelligence and presence in the contested areas of Judea and Samaria to prevent his being overthrown and very likely murdered even by those in the PA who believe him incompetent, or at least impotent in the face of Israel and their ‘occupation’ of the Israeli ancestral heartlands, Judea and Samaria.

 

Eventually this house of cards, which is the toothless PA, will unify, overthrow Abbas and believe they are ready and prepared to topple Israel. And on that day the contested areas will no longer be contested but in open revolt, a very temporary revolt, after which there will be imposed a one state solution and the end of incitement and the presence of the United Nations monstrosity that is UNRWA in Judea and Samaria. The truth is that the only result to the contested areas is complete and total control by Israel. Even if the world were to force the Arab state of Palestine on Israel, it would be a defenseless state, complete nonfunctional and failed state, and from the very beginnings would only devolve from there, with the ever fractious shards attempting to destroy the others and make a name by attacking Israel. Eventually Hamas or worse would emerge as the central power and this would lead to a costly and final war as Hamas or worse cannot be allowed to occupy any of the highlands overlooking central Israel. To allow such is suicide by the immediate thousand cuts made by inexpensive rockets needing no real guidance to strike at the heart of Israel. When such events do unfold, which are all but inevitable, Abbas will likely be the very first casualty and potentially at the hands of the very troops who now guard him, dying as every Caesar before has fallen. As soon as they are not paid their exorbitant salaries their loyalty will wane evaporating into the mists from whence they were born, and that will be the end of the PA. Very soon thereafter Israel will necessarily need to end the entire fiasco before it causes irreparable harm to Israeli infrastructure with attacks against her civilian populations where thousands are affected daily, and not the sparsely populated Negev regions.

 

The similar threat by Hamas and their longer range Iranian provided rocket engines and the ever larger payloads they carry deeper into the Israeli center which sparked the last Gaza War and will eventually lead to the final Gaza war which will result in the decimation of Hamas and Islamic Jihad and the crippling of any other sizeable force. The entire Arab Palestinian existence is that of two failed states whose only lifeline is their threatening Israel and being paid to do so. That cannot be permitted to reach its final goal of destroying Israel and murdering the six million plus Israeli Jews. The threat will eventually become sufficiently capable or sufficiently destructive despite their lack of credible force, only credible destruction, that will ultimately cause the quick and violent end of the Arab Palestinian autonomous states, Hamas’s Gaza and Fatah’s PA in Judea and Samaria. That is the sole finality and the one out for the PA is a successful takeover of Jordan giving them the arms necessary to bring on their destruction that much faster as the use of these weapons’ systems on Israel is an overt act of aggression and declaration of war, the final war.

 

Perhaps the best Israel can do is send Biden home joining those awaiting the election with the premise that it can’t get any worse. We are aware the Russians and Iranians are doing whatever they can, knowing that for them nothing could be better than Obama.
Beyond the Cusp

 

Israel in Need of Bold Zionist No Excuses Leadership

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Israel Will Not Protect the World Alone This Time

 

Back when Saddam Hussein was actually developing nuclear weapons material and was having the perfect nuclear reactor being built by profiteering interests from France and had bunkers constructed by an equally monetarily enterprising German company and believing they had the world fooled as the Europeans were more concerned by their bottom line and the United States was apparently blithely ignorant of the Iraqi game; so the weight of dispatching the central items of what was potentially the Iraqi nuclear weapons development central point, the reactor was relegated to the Israelis acting alone. The Iraqis were not using the technically challenging uranium differentiation system, which in the early 1980s was a rather daunting challenge, and instead was opting for a plutonium producing reactor. This left the Iraqis with what was apparently an unfettered romp to develop nuclear weapons while appearing to remain compliant to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) of which Iraq was a signatory. And so it remained until the morning of June 7, 1981 when the Israelis launched “Operation Opera” to destroy the French built and almost ready to have its nuclear fuel rods installed Osirak Reactor which was capable of producing weapons grade plutonium. The entirety of the Western world opposed any attack on the reactor or accompanying buildings as the Europeans relied on Iraqi oil or had too numerous business dealings and other profitable relations which may have faced difficulties or potential cancellation should Iraq suspect the Western powers in any way supported any such attack. Even within Israel there were the expected and usual detractors against Israeli actions including the then leader of the opposition Labor Party Shimon Peres, Yitzchak Shamir predicting extreme and non-survivable reactions and backlash as well as those in the cabinet who also opposed any attack for various reasons chief of which was the effect it would have on the peace treaty with Egypt. Prime Minister Menachem Begin still pushed the idea for an intervention to destroy the reactor forward in hopes the Cabinet would eventually see there was no other viable choice. There were logistics problems which had to be overcome such as but not limited to removing external fuel tanks on the F-16s in order to equip them with the heavy munitions necessary for the attack, assign F-15s to guard the bombers to, from and during the attack in case of Iraqi countermeasures, as well as training the pilots to fly on the floor to avoid being detected by any Arab radar and choosing a route which would also minimize detection. The final trigger which finally won approval for the attack was the knowledge that the fuel rods had been prepared for shipment from France to Iraq which if installed would have resulted in a radioactive cloud from any assault making the vote a now or never choice. This changed the critical opposition to now support the attack. The original attack date was set but it became necessary to call off the attack and reschedule it for the next month. Fortunately this setback still permitted the attack to be set before the fuel rods were to be installed in the reactor or even be stored in close proximity to the reactor buildings themselves. The Osirak Reactor was destroyed and Israel faced censure at the United Nations with President Ronald Reagan refusing to use the American veto to protect the Israelis as he too felt betrayed by their attack without first having received his approval, something he had all but assured was not forthcoming even had it been sought. The remainder including the Western world’s great reliefs and their acclamations and thanks, even if belated, that they were not facing a nuclear armed Saddam Hussein in either the first or second Gulf Wars.

 

Looking at Iran one might be tempted to claim that it seems like, if we may be permitted to steal a quotation from Yogi Berra, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.” This time it’s not Iraq but their neighbor, Iran. It is not Saddam Hussein but rather the Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei. This time it is a Shiite ruler not a Sunni ruler though it is once again an adversary of Saudi Arabia. And just like the last time, the Saudis Royals are not about to launch any attack, especially not on their own and highly unlikely they would ally with and accompany the Israelis. The United States is once again against any such attack and threatens to withhold any usual protection at the United Nations Security Council should Israel choose to ignore their opposition and attack anyways. The Europeans are once again all after the rewards of trade agreements they are already salivating over as the United States takes the brunt of any criticisms for the near obvious bad deal of a lifetime as President Obama is willing to take the scorns and suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune if it permits him to construct a new kingdom in the Middle East to replace the old alliances with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel with one where the United States and Iran share the hegemony with Iran the hegemony taking care of the Middle East and the United States free to attend to other concerns. This alliance comes complete with other supporting characters including but not limited to Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and potentially Yemen and whichever other nations the ever slowly devouring appetite of the Ayatollahs set their attentions towards. Additionally, the Russians are playing the role of the Soviet Union in the Middle East and beyond with an unsurprising echo of the Soviet past with the Russian President being Colonel Putin formerly of KGB fame and China will be China taking advantage of any situation the world inadvertently creates, like the need by Iran for an outlet to sell their crude oil. Thus the world is hurling full steam ahead towards a nuclear armed nation which remains the inheritors of the Persian Empire’s proud historic past with all of its attitude of empire which they traded in order to name themselves after the Nazi master race Aryan, or Iran in Farsi, and add to such the trait and heritage of the potentially suicidal belief patterns of Shia Islam and these nations central to permitting this nuclear arming of such a nation all claim Israel has lost it and gone over the deep end when they claim that perhaps a second look might be a good idea.

 

There have been more than just a few articles which point to the fact that the world is relying on good old Israel to ride over the hill and rescue the world from itself once more. They even point to the fact that there exist a number of Sunni nations including but not limited to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States which would potentially offer their assistance or at least give spiritual support. There is some bad news for the world; it is going to take a whole different level of support if they really expect Israel to suffer the ramifications of and the promised denunciations, trade embargoes, United Nations sanctions, and other barbs and mistreatments in size and scope potentially previously unimagined. Israel has stated that they are quite capable and up to the task of striking and setting the Iranian nuclear program back potentially months or even for over a year or even two years. That is not the question; the question is whether it is worth the severe and unprecedented ramifications that is the main concern for Israel. Israel has to weigh whether it will be beyond her ability to guarantee that Iran has too much to lose by using their nuclear weapons once they develop and build them, whether that be in ten months or the ten years that President Obama promises, making it thus worth the price which would be guaranteed in the retaliatory strikes by Hamas, Hezballah, Syria, IRGC and a guarantee that Iran will use their first nuclear weapon on Tel Aviv no matter what the cost even should it require using it from aboard a ship making a suicide run for the shoreline beaches of Tel Aviv. The consequences of assaulting the Iranian nuclear sites are well known to Israel as well as her neighbors in the Middle East. These are the very same consequences which have intimidated the other nations who, like Israel, will be threatened by a nuclear weapon armed Iran. It is this threat which may well lead to a nuclear weapons arms race throughout the Middle East and North Africa with Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and even the Gulf States leading the way. This too must also be included in the Israeli calculus. The one thing heard repeatedly is that there is no threats which Israel could use to deter the Iranians from carrying out their threat to launch a nuclear attack on Tel Aviv once they have sufficient a store of nuclear weapons to follow up with further strike should Israel retaliate.

 

That leads us to the question of exactly what threats could Israel utilize to prevent a nuclear attack by the Iranians once they are sufficiently armed. The unfortunate, or potentially advantageously, truth about the threats which would be most effective on Iran is that they would also be very disconcerting and threatening to the rest of the Muslim world. It is obvious that should Iran drop any nuclear weapons anywhere, or everywhere, across Israel that Israel would strike every population center across all of Iran, Syria, Shiite Iraq and Hezballah portions of Lebanon and thus these would not be sufficient deterrence to prevent an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel. But then peer pressure may be exactly what might be required to pressure Iran from striking at Israel. The first targets Israel needs to assure Iran will be targeted beyond her borders should be every holy shrine and city in all of Shia Islam. Going beyond this point would be potentially dangerous for Israel as it would also potentially push what might be uncomfortable allies throughout the Muslim world forcing them to become an ally with Iran against Israel. Still, some concern might be given to such targets as to the two cities which Iran has placed as their most prized desire in all the world and the reason that Iran and Saudi Arabia are so set against one another, Mecca and Medina. These are the most prized cities in all of Islam and before World War I were under the care of the Hashemite Royal Family. That changed with the fall of the Ottoman Empire when the Saudi Royal Family forcibly took control of Mecca and Medina. This was the reason behind the British promise to grant the Hashemite family a kingdom in exchange for their assistance during World War I and thus Jordan today ruled by a Hashemite King. Such a threat though of destroying Mecca and Medina would be a counter attack as a last ditch response after a disastrous attack which had likely destroyed the majority of the Israeli population and economic centers simply by striking central Tel Aviv with any nuclear weapon. With such damage already inflicted on Israel there would be so little left to risk as Israel as a functioning nation would be in serious jeopardy. In a perfect world Israel would not be facing such a predicament but then again in a perfect world President Jimmy Carter would not have given the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini the support in dethroning the Shah and thus the Ayatollahs would not be in power in Iran. But in a really perfect world the United States would not have overthrown the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh placing the Shāh Mohammad-Rezā Pahlavi into power reestablishing the Iranian Royal family. Perfect worlds can be so confusing and lead to a tangled web that takes some serious untangling. I guess the world would never be a perfect place and then who knows if we would actually really like what a perfect world might give us as result, who knows.

 

Beyond the Cusp