The Signs of War in the North, They Are a Changin’

 

We just had the usual late spring three day national exercise where one day they hold coast to mountains, north to south siren head for the shelters practice scenarios. Then there was the news that the IDF and emergency services were practicing for a potential and unprecedented assault where thousands of rockets would be launched in mass swarms with as many as a thousand rockets per wave, something well beyond anything that the Iron Dome with even every other system assisting could ever be hoped to prevent. The estimates were that under such an assault there could be as many as four-thousand deaths and untold casualties in the first few days. Where such news stories likely unnerved a great number of those reading them, I had been feeling something was amiss and even mentioned that to people after the practice shelter runs just seemed eerily more like a premonition than a practice session. The claims is that Iran is planning this little warm welcome by arming Hezballah in Lebanon with more rockets than they would likely be capable of launching even if given free range to do so for two to three weeks. Then they are also attempting to set up a secondary strike location near the Golan Heights likely to strike the IDF forces guarding that front and potentially also giving the Iron Dome and other anti-missile systems a second set of angles to compute on their intercepts. Perhaps that explains the serious tautness permeating the air making each breath full of the tensions strangling the very oxygen needed for life itself.

 

Will these feelings really be a true forecast of what is to come later this summer or just a case of the nerves which will be remembered with great laughter at my expense. I will welcome the humbling experience but then again there are many other threats which could also make life less enjoyable here in Israel. Fortunately the BDS people have not succeeded to any great extent outside the university and college campuses despite the great dilemmas and threats of the past few weeks with the FIFA affair and the Orange CEO misfire and retractions followed by repeated apologies and protestations of great affection for and loyalty to providing service in Israel. Meanwhile, it appears that the crisis of upsetting the Israeli public was far more concerning than any threat from the BDS crowd whose loud screaming has proven to be unnerving but eventually harmless and without any real harm if ignored. Still, the initial reaction from the CEO of Orange could prove troubling should other CEOs prove to be anywhere near as panicked as the Orange executive then Israel might end up facing some difficulties but also should these companies have such easily spooked in response to empty threats CEOs then perhaps they should find a new CEO made of sterner stuff. But the BDS is a mostly empty threat while Iran is a very real threat with great complications.

 

The main complication is what should Israel do if they realize that an attack is imminent from Iran, strike at Iran in a preemptive strike to prevent what would be an existential threat to Israeli existence and risk President Obama leading the charge in the United Nations Security Council to destroy Israel by referring them to the International Court of Justice at the Hague for attacking another United Nations member nation with the American President believing the Iranian claims that they had no such attack planned and Israel really was the greatest threat to peace in the Middle East and even the entire world. The following destructive actions from the United States, European Union, United Nations, and the international court systems which could result in a majority of nations recalling their ambassadors and closure of the Israeli Embassies in their nations and even the United Nations might eject Israel and cancel the United Nations Resolution which was theoretically the reason Israel became a nation. The fact that the United Nations and the world’s nations turning against Israel could not actually have any effects on the fact that Israel is a nation as Israel meets the requirements that define a nation so despite whatever actions the rest of the world might decide to take, Israel would remain a nation unless overrun by the nations of the world as revenge for their perceived unprovoked attack on Iran, though that is also highly unlikely.

 

Where, in all reality, an assault out of Iran is unlikely at this time, an assault from out of Syria coordinated with Hezballah in Lebanon as well as assisting in the Syrian assault as the last hurrah attempting to gain allies to assist Bashir al-Assad as his position has become more untenable with every passing week and it is rapidly becoming desperation time where any possible hope will be attempted no matter how far-fetched or remote the probability for success. An assault on Israel, especially one which leaves Israel sufficiently hurt that Assad can claim that he has accomplished what the rest of the Arab world has failed in achieving, making Israel reel from the damages of a swarm rocket attack, as swarm attacks are the known Iranian tactic for overwhelming opponents hoping for marginal success, would the world finally back an Israel equivalent strike to prevent similar follow on attacks or turn on Israel claiming the tired accusation of disproportionate response, as they are want to do. The possibility that such an attempt would assist Assad in any way shape or form is ludicrous and would only result in an assault by Israel on the areas of Lebanon controlled by Hezballah to wipe out every possible missile and rocket storage areas and launchers and also destroy every last possible Hezballah base, training area, bunkers, tunnel systems and any other assets that Israeli intelligence has identified. There will be the unfortunate necessity to strike the storage and launch sites in southern Lebanon which are largely below the Litani River, an area which the United Nations forces in Lebanon, UNIFIL, were supposed to prevent Hezballah from rearming and rebuilding their infrastructure according to United Nations Resolution 1701 which brought the last Lebanon War to an end. Unfortunately the UNFIL forces have had great difficulty and quickly simply gave up and refused to risk any confrontation while the European UNIFIL troops simply took their equipment and returned to Europe refusing to assist claiming the risk was too great and the potential for success too low, and there even have been those seen to aid Hezballah in their operations in southern Lebanon. This has allowed Hezballah to place launchers and missiles and rockets in virtually every civilian structure including schools, apartments, homes, hospitals and virtually every other structure imaginable. The intents of Hezballah is exactly the same intent Israel experienced last summer during Operation Protective Edge where Hamas fired the majority of their rockets from next to the same exact types of buildings and had their underground bunkers beneath hospitals and schools in attempts to maximize the civilian casualties in order to generate as much bad media coverage as possible.

 

Hamas also understood that Israeli missile defense and the fact that Israelis have shelters built into most buildings with them required in every new apartment, each apartment and not just the building, and in every newly build office building and retrofit being completed on most older buildings and many schools have been fortified to resist rocket fire; this the Israelis would be vastly more protected and thus the Israeli emphasis on life would serve to minimize Israeli casualties while in Gaza the Hamas efforts would intentionally cause excessive casualties amongst the civilians even making many levels higher directly caused by the overt Hamas efforts. They used this disparity and the media jumped at the reports basically asking over and over again how come there are so few Israeli casualties while there are reportedly thousands of Gazan civilian casualties being reported. There was an interesting finding confirmed by the United Nations investigations that there was almost and even number of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other combatant casualties as there were civilian casualties. The fact that Hamas and Islamic Jihad used the bunker and tunnel systems to keep their fighters as safe as they were able while refusing the civilians any similar access to these areas of safety.

 

The fact that the IDF attained a virtual 1:1 ratio was unprecedented in modern warfare by any military since the advent of modern warfare. World War I was the last war where civilian casualties were appreciably lower than civilian casualties having a ratio of 2:3 of civilians to combatants killed. World War II had a ratio of 2:1 civilians to combatants killed while the Korean War had a ratio of 2:1 civilians to combatants as well. The Viet Nam war numbers are very controversial and range in ratios of civilians to combatants from 1:3 or 1:1 or the more similar to previous wars of 2:1. The two Chechen Wars had ratios of 10:1 in the first war and over 4:1 in the second with a total of approximately 7:1. The NATO war in Yugoslavia had a 4:1 ratio of civilians to combatants. The Iraq War produced a ratio of well over 4:1 civilians to combatants by the numbers estimated by the Iraqi figures and 1:2 civilians to combatants by Coalition numbers, a case of believe whomever you like. The winner for most contested numbers as well as estimated worst numbers was the totality of the drone warfare by the United States in Pakistan. The United States claims that the total number of civilians killed during the past two years was a total of twenty to thirty civilians against numbers approaching between five-hundred and one-thousand militants and terrorists. Daniel L. Byman of the Brookings Institution estimated a ratio of 10:1 as being much closer to the truth. The reported worst ratio ever reported for a single strike, thus the worst possible example and should be taken as such and not an actual comment but more as an example how in modern warfare a single attack can go so absolutely wrong. The report was from the British paper the Guardian which reported, “On 15 October 2010, Hellfire missiles fired from a Predator or Reaper drone killed Hussain, the Pakistani Taliban later confirmed. For the death of a man whom practically no American can name, the US killed 128 people, 13 of them children.” This single attack produced a civilian to combatant ratio of 128:1, fortunately this worst case scenario has had no similar such tragedies as far as we could ascertain.

 

What this whole discussion about ratios of civilian to combatant was simply to put into perspective the fact that the IDF conducts itself with the restraint and discipline often recalled in military training as control of fire, the confirming of targets and assuring that the long field of fire is free of noncombatants thus minimizing the harm to noncombatants. What people need to realize that in warfare where if you do not eliminate an enemy combatant whence you have the opportunity then you are risking the lives of many of your fellow soldiers and potentially to yourself. Should a Hamas, Islamic Jihad or other terror combatant in Gaza present themselves as a target believing that no Israeli would ever shoot them because they have strapped two young children to their chest hiding their torso from being viable targets due to the children he has unmercifully and illegally as such is a grievous breach of the rules of warfare, but these are terrorists who have a sizeable disregard for the rules of war. They should understand one of numerous rules of war that states that should a combatant utilize a protected building, item or person to protect their position or person, then that protected building, item or person is no longer protected and can be determined as a legitimate target if not shooting the target otherwise protected item to remove the combatant and end the threat of the actual target, such as permissible providing no other alternative is available. Thus far there have been no reports where any IDF soldier had targeted any combatant terrorist who has thusly protected themselves unless they were positive that they had a shot which they confidently could make without causing undue threat to the innocent children beyond the horrors they are already experiencing. Simply put, there have been incidents where trained snipers were embedded in combat units and took such shots usually targeting the combatant’s head thus causing the innocents no harm and possibly saving their lives.

 

The one item we can be assured of is that should Hezballah begin raining rockets, mortars, artillery rounds and missiles into Israel and largely targeting civilian areas with approaching one-thousand-two-hundred or more which would overwhelm even the extremely effective Iron Dome systems and the other systems developed to augment Iron Dome providing a layered defense system, but even such would never be capable, as neither would any other earthly system, of intercepting such a volume of projectiles. The only way to prevent such a threat would be to blanket style attack taking out every potential asset Hezballah has destroying their arsenal in place in both Lebanon and Syria. There would be no viable alternative and do not even go down that blind alley known as the United Nations which will be screaming for Israel to practice restraint and not escalate the threats and violence. And if Israel should actually listen and scale back her response leaving the vast majority of the Hezballah weapons systems intact then who will prevent Hezballah from launching another thousand-plus projectiles on day two then once again there would be the United Nations which will be screaming for Israel to practice restraint and not escalate the threats and violence. Then the third day after Israel called off a night of horrific raids destroying everything they know where it exists using the most accurate munitions in the Israeli arsenal leading to yet another day of approaching or exceeding a thousand projectiles followed immediately by the United Nations which will be screaming for Israel to practice restraint and not escalate the threats and violence. Hezballah is reputed to have over one-hundred-thousand rockets and missiles and this does not include artillery rounds or mortar rounds. This means that Hezballah would be capable of continuing such thousand rockets and missiles for over three months as they would have sufficient to last at least one-hundred days before requiring any restocking by Iran.

 

The threatening reality is that Iran is currently resupplying Hezballah ahead of any conflict and by the time they pull the covers off the launchers and launching the rockets and missiles while all the time the United Nations which will be screaming for Israel to practice restraint and not escalate the threats and violence. I realize the United Nations reference might be getting a little repetitious but just realize how the Israelis feel when we are always told to show restraint as it must be permissible to target Israelis even though only about three out of four Israelis are Jews. We heard the complaints during last summer’s war with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and friends where reporter after reporter would ask why there were so many Gazan civilian deaths and virtually no Israeli civilian casualties. If my memory serves me correctly there was one reporter at least who slipped up and instead of saying Gazans and Israelis but instead stated there were vastly more Arab casualties than Jewish casualties and it begs the questions as to where are the dead Jews in comparable numbers to the Arab deaths in Gaza. He likely stated it the way many others also saw the conflict as so many Arab dead and almost not even a single dead Jew.

 

We can only guess how many were thinking where were the dead Jews in significant numbers despite their knowledge of the extents that the Israeli government and construction companies have gone to fortify safe areas in order to prevent Israeli casualties, Jewish, Arab, Christians, Muslims (yes Israeli Muslims and perhaps one should ask how many Jews are allowed in Arab Palestinian areas), Baha’I and others all living in some degree of terror during the war last summer and would be just as terrorized should the potential warfare that Iran and Nasrallah has hinted awaits Israel, if not more so. The real problem is if the signals from Iran are anywhere near accurate, there might also be another front opened up from out of Gaza initiated by Hamas and coordinated with Islamic Jihad and the other forces which Iran has kept on their payrolls. The real fear is if any warfare this summer should turn into a full-scale and all-out war with far more than the Iranian allies with potentially Turkey adding their forces as well as Iraq and who knows who else. My prayers are for nobody to be even frightened this summer because no violence or threats of violence beyond that we have already heard. May peace grace the hot and hazy days of summer.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Where Does BDS Anti-Israel Movement Get Funding?

 

The BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions)Movement claims to be a grass roots institution simply out to make the world understand the cruelty and inhuman treatment the Israelis foist upon the Arabs and how Israel has its designs on stealing everything through the settlements grabbing up all the Arab lands. About the only thing they do not purport is that Israel is guilty of its seeking a ‘Greater Israel’ which is a reference to the lands granted to Abraham would include everything from the Euphrates River to the Nile River. That is just another libelous accusation made through twisting the words in Torah or some of the accompanying volumes of books of commentary on the Torah, Bible (Old Testament) and even volumes of books commenting on the commentary which in turn have books commenting on those commentaries. When your religion has been around for over three-thousand years you tend to gather a whole lot of commentaries and directives which certain subgroups within Judaism hold sacred and live by them some unbelievable strictly and others close enough. The one thing you are most certainly guaranteed is that any subject you wish to choose you will very likely find Jews in some commentary arguing for the proposed view you seek. Sometimes the position is one actually followed by some group of Jews and other times the person takes that unfavorable side simply to play devil’s advocate and provide challenges to another presumed wise person who abides by the opposing argument. So what we end up having are some commentaries made not as an argument or presumed hope of them being followed but being used as a tool to push some to complete their arguments and frame their discourse more succinctly and more accurately. When somebody comes to you and claims that the Talmud instructs the Jews to do something that sounds somewhat ridiculous or not at all Jewish from what you have observed, then it is most likely one of those Devil’s advocate arguments, which in itself is an odd way to argue when one considers that traditional Judaism does not believe in the Devil or fallen angels and Hell; but that will need to wait for another time when I have been taught Torah and some of those commentaries no matter how obscure.

 

The BDS movement and idea has really been in the news in Israel lately and for good reason. First we had the arch-terrorist Jibril Rajoub (a.k.a. Abu Rami) whose first position within Fatah was to organize and take part in activities in and around Hevron to the detriment of the Jews; this was presumably his responsibility in efforts to end the so-called occupation. In 1968 he was arrested for aiding Egyptian officers in making their way back to Egypt without being caught by the Israeli authorities for which he spent four months in prison. He was only sixteen at this time but still well on his way. While in prison he was influenced and joined Fatah which after serving his prison sentence he took up his assigned duties. In September of 1970 his future terror prospects looked very dim as he was caught and arrested for lobbing a grenade at an Israeli army bus near Hebron. Jibril Rajoub was tried and found guilty leading to his being sentenced to life in prison. Well, obviously he did not remain there as in 1985 he was part of a one-thousand-one-hundred-fifty prisoner release in exchange for three Israeli hostages held by the PFLP terror group. His colorful history had him arrested for minor offences, all things considered, and served additional time in prison before being expelled into Lebanon from where he found his way to Tunisia where he worked closely as an aid to the most infamous of the Arab arch-terrorists, Yasser Arafat. As part of the Oslo Accords he was granted a new lease on continuing his efforts to destroy Israel and this past week he played that position to the maximum. As the Palestinian Football Association President presiding over soccer teams he also took the opportunity at the FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association or in English International Federation of Association Football) 65th annual Congress which met in Switzerland to announce his intentions to push for Israel to be unlisted and booted from the football world’s governing body which would have denied Israel the right to play in any FIFA tournament or to even play against FIFA teams. Such a ban would probably have mushroomed to other sports and made Israeli athletes persona non grata in the world of sports. Jibril Rajoub played his filing in the media like a trained professional instigator by his alternately claiming he would file the motion and then retract that statement only to deny he had detracted the statement and the world was all titillated watching every nuanced move orchestrated for maximum coverage, and boy did he get coverage. Some might ask what does an Arab Palestinian Authority official have to do with the BDS movement which is a grassroots organizations with no actual structure, simply they have supporters and volunteer organizers and activists which is why the BDS movement does not have official offices or accounts in any banks or financial institutions as there are no payrolls or anything nefarious like an international structure which coordinates the events and spends millions of dollars, Euros, Pounds or whatever currency of the realm is required. We will get to the connection, be patient please. The eventual end to the Jibril Rajoub staged a well-orchestrated routine where he did not file as he was aware from the very beginning that he would not have sufficient support to get Israel banned, but it did give some demonstrators the opportunity to burst into the meeting hall and throw red flags at the Israeli representatives and chant some call to boot Israel from soccer. These were presumably grassroots BDS supporters who just happened to all appear on the same day at the same time replete with red flags to throw at the Israeli delegation and so conveniently so as to garner more press coverage of the idea that Israel was subversive even to something as pure and good as soccer. Never mind the other woes FIFA is suffering right now as everybody knows that soccer is the one sport that united the world, well, apparently except for Israel? Well, not quite as Israel is still a member, a respected member of FIFA.

 

Right on the heels of the FIFA fiasco was the British National Union of Students (NUS) voting to boycott all things Israel including every Israeli company without regard to its location because the BDS movement is growing and realizing the reality that it is not the settlements alone that are the problem, it is the existence of Israel itself and that the Jewish State must be brought down and the Jews punished for existing at all, and to even strive and believe themselves worthy of a state of their own, how nineteenth century is that? They filed Motion 518a which was titled “Solidarity with Palestine: Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions” which was tabled. The NUS was the same body which refused to take any measures to boycott or even denounce ISIS at their meetings last year but Israel needs to be brought low. The vote and everything about the BDS movement at the NUS conference was denounced and voided by the Universities UK which is the actual ruling body and has the sole power in areas such as the BDS protests and any divestments, sanctions or boycotts (did I get that all in the wrong order, shame on me for ignoring the BDS name). In a press release the Universities UK stated “firmly opposes academic boycotts on the basis that they are inimical to academic freedom, including the freedom of academics to collaborate with other academics.” They continued emphatically emphasizing “Given the reported perception in Israel that UK universities support an academic boycott. The board of Universities UK wishes to confirm its previously stated position that it is firmly opposed to any academic boycott of Israeli universities.” They added just to make sure everybody understands their position and displeasure with the NUS grandstanding and offensive behavior in this matter stating that, “The board also confirms its view that all universities must uphold, in the interests of free expression of ideas, the fundamental right of academics to question national and international policies.” That put that BDS effort to bed once and for all for this year, it will return next year.

 

Finally we had the little BDS confusion at Orange where their CEO Stephane Richard made comments after receiving pressures from BDS activists in Europe and especially from Egypt as well which cause Stephane Richard to panic and immediately turn to the usual European response when anti-Semites challenge their position on the ‘Jews and their little nation’ Stephane Richard simply agreed and denounced Israel claiming that Orange would break off their agreement with Partner Communications, the Orange affiliate in Israel, except that it would be costly due to potential lawsuits being filed in those unfriendly Israeli courts who would condemn Orange despite any evidences provided claiming they don’t really hate the Jews. For the week following the outspoken and base hatred expressed by Orange CEO Stephane Richard, we have now been serenaded as is Stephane Richard is planning in asking for Israel’s hand in marriage. We have heard what a lovely nation Israel is and how important our good relations are to Orange in general and CEO Stephane Richard in particular. The apology has been laid on like a thick, rich layer of whipped cream atop a luscious ice cream Sunday with three flavors of ice cream and rich chocolate and caramel heated nice and hot poured all over the top until it pooled at the bottom. We must all wonder if next week that Orange CEO Stephane Richard will be buying Israel a beautiful bouquet of roses or will it be an outlandish floral arrangement containing no less than one-hundred flowers, bouquet so large it will take their large truck to deliver the flowers. Actually, it would be best if everyone would stop with the hypocrisy and just let everything lie and it will pass. All the backtracking and false compliment and flattery is getting old and stale faster than they are delivered. A simple ‘We’re sorry but we panicked’ would have sufficed as the Israelis have seen worse than this and even in the past couple of weeks.

 

Now that we have taken a quick look-see of the BDS movements activities for the last couple of weeks one can realize that whoever is financing this effort worldwide has some very deep pockets. The reality is that the financers of these BDS efforts are constantly claiming to be out of money and being unable to pay their employees and if billions, if not trillions of Euros, dollars, Pounds Sterling, Pecos, Ruble, Wan or any other currency and denomination and need it immediately. The BDS movement used to have another name and was started in 1948 around May 14th oddly enough. The original system of boycotting, divesting and sanctioning Israel was the Arab League boycott and Arab League blacklist. The boycott is obvious and the blacklist was a long list of companies which either used Israeli provided parts in their products or were otherwise entangled with Israeli interests. For quite a while the Arab League required that every shipment brought into their nations had to sign an affidavit stating that none of the products had Israeli parts and that their company had no relationship including selling to Israel. This eventually caused a problem as that would have meant that the Arab nations would not be able to buy most weapons systems, especially from the United States and many companies in Europe.

 

There was one particular article which revealed much about the BDS movement on Arutz Sheva titled Who is Really Behind BDS? We Can Cut Off BDS at the Spigot”. Here are a few of the more vital quotes which will fill in much of the debate about the BDS movement and after which I will attempt to give some additional information. Much of the article was items many of us realized and knew but the placing them all in a coherent and cognizant manner drew the big picture beautifully. I would advise that we all read the article itself at the link above as the author was quite complete as he traced the history and the current modus operandi of a terrorist organization using political means to further their financially based efforts to isolate Israel as well as politically and socially isolating Israel making even giving minimal support in some meaningless conversation to be an unforgivable sin and breach of polite behavior. What is sickening is how many Jewish groups are out there using very enticing and misleading names who almost exclusively back the BDS movement and are themselves working to destroy Israel. They use Lawfare which is using the courts to attack Israel and tie up any pro-Israel groups in the courts fighting against suits brought merely as nuisances but they are effective in forcing these groups supporting Israel spending inordinate amounts of time defending themselves from the attacks and thus not protecting Israel in the media and through other programs. This was the modus operandi of the IRS auditing an astounding number of conservative or libertarian groups during the year and a half before the 2012 elections thus preventing these groups from campaigning. Many of these groups were small Tea Party groups who made the mistake of calling themselves ‘Pleasant Valley Tea Party Association’ which got them immediate and in depth invasive IRS auditing and slowing requests for tax exempt status where the questions got to the point of being ludicrous, but they did prevent them from campaigning against President Obama, the same tactic appears to be used against many pro-Israel groups.

 

The article pointed out that “The Arab league spokesman confirmed that all data of the Arab League boycott and Arab League blacklist has now been transferred to BDS, working under the control of each PLO legation in more than 100 countries, under the supervision of the PLO Negotiations Department, which coordinates activities with the central offices of the Palestinian Authority.” This is one of the driving reasons that Mahmoud Abbas desires to become a recognized entity and thus allow the Arab Palestine Authority to open embassies and consulates in every nation and major city worldwide. This is important as the article points out the manner as to how the BDS movement is financed when they pointed out, “Since supervision of funds for Palestinian humanitarian services in the PA or UNRWA hardly exists, and since more than one nation provides cash for each of the Palestinian humanitarian services, that means that a cash surplus exists which PA can allocate for BDS activists to finance their operations.” This allows the Arab Palestinian Authority to distribute cash funds to their BDS organizers, instigators, activists and also pay for the establishment of on campus BDS groups who keep up the defamation of Israel year round and often make life on campus for anybody outwardly Jewish to become a living nightmare as they are heckled and hassled everywhere they go on campus and in some instances the harassment reached the point of violence against the Jews much like when the Jews were removed and disallowed from holding teaching positions or attending universities in the late 1930s in Germany.

 

There are two related statements about the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) not ratifying the OSLO Accords and thus being free to act in any manner they wished and not be in violation of the Oslo Accords as they had never ratified the treaty. It was the PLO and Yasser Arafat’s way of crossing his fingers so he could say anything without actually completing the deal and complying with the agreements. The first points out how the public have never been informed of this treachery and deceit despite their once being well known but now not referenced or taught and thus forgotten by most the first commentary pointed out that even a far leftist organization and media outlet found this behavior reprehensible. The article states, “Only three weeks after the Oslo Accords were initialed on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993, pending ratification by both sides, a prominent left wing journalist, Pinchas Inbari, reporting for the Mapam (Meretz) newspaper Al Hamishmar from the PLO headquarters in Tunis, reported that PLO leader Yassir Arafat announced that on the day of the scheduled PLO ratification, October 6, 1993, the PLO leader could not or would not convene the necessary quorum for ratification. As a result, the Oslo Accords have gone unratified to this day.” The point that the people were never really made aware of the perfidy committed by Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, his second in command, as they point out that, “What has escaped public attention is that the PLO never ratified the ‘declaration of principles’, the most fundamental document of the Israel-Palestinian Oslo Accords, nor did the PLO ever cancel its charter to destroy Israel, which was another major clause in that accord.” The basic truth is that for the entire time since September of 1993 when the Oslo Accords were formally put in place, Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas and the rest of the executive council of the PLO and thus of the newly established Palestinian Authority (PA or as we refer to them because they are no different than the Arabs residing or fleeing Syria as well as the Arabs of Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran, the Arab Palestinian Authority) were recognized of representing an organization which did not actually exist as the Oslo Accords were never signed by the Arab side. The Western nations went along with this facade because the alternative was too horrible for them to even consider, support the Jews and Israel in retaining all the lands promised them by treaty that the Europeans and United States as well as the League of Nations and subsequently the United Nations such that the treaties which affect the defined borders of Israel are the actual International Laws thus everything else is some weird manifestation of anti-Semitism, anti-Israel, and anti-Zionism. The BDS financial system is known fully well by the Western nations and the Arab nations as they both pour trillions of Euros, dollars, however you wish to measure the financial cesspool the Arab Palestinian Authority and related groups such as Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PLO, PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), and numerous other groups and families all benefit from this inflow on monies as long as they are sufficiently high enough in the pecking order that they are trusted to use at least a pittance of the cash allotted you to spend on the betterment of the Arab suffering if it is not too much of a problem.

 

The reality is that much of the monies sent to the Arab Palestinian organizations is siphoned off for use in the multi-billion dollar BDS organizational leaders, activists, organizers, and antagonists who all need funding in order to achieve their assigned goals. The full time BDS representatives and leadership that exist on almost every campus and in every city where there exists an Arab Palestinian consulate, embassy, or simply an office, they become the cash delivery resource who are sent probably funding in the millions if not more to finance the BDS movement activities in their assigned region. Such items as fees for using a park grounds for a demonstration, the signs, banners and other items do not simply appear out of the thin air, the microphones, bullhorns, whistles, speakers, tables, literature and everything else which goes into a successful week long demonstration on a university or college campus. These Arab Palestinian Authority outlets, be they embassies, consulates or merely offices and in some cases a completely underground operation, all are used as the pipelines to the BDS main middle managing organizers, publicists, media contact point people, marshals, and such cannot afford to fly to Ramallah every month for their allowance as that just might draw some international attention, though maybe I am giving the world too much credit as the world often appears to be capable of not seeing any of the thousands of rockets fired into Israel at civilian targets and only see the Israeli response and demand Israel stop its aggressions while saying nothing about the rockets, ambush tunnels and expanding use of young children as makeshift bullet proof vests. One has to grant that having a four year old screaming while strapped to one’s chest during a firefight is beyond the cusp and right into the deep recesses of evil insanity which permits such irreverence for life. Meanwhile we have the PLO organized, Fatah manned and Arab Palestinian Authority (PA) financed BDS movement which is simply an extension of the original Arab boycott and blacklist of companies ‘contaminated’ by Israeli exposure. The BDS movement is the PLO terrorist group’s attempt to take their economic war against Israel worldwide and as we have seen in these quotes and these actions that the BDS movement pushes a complete isolation of Israel in all venues including goods and services, music performances, academics, speeches by Israel supporters must be forced to cancel and finally politically isolated until Israel has been diminished and dies a natural death as any living, breathing, compassionate human entity would if left in complete isolation not permitted any interaction and starved of life’s necessities.

 

Fortunately there are sufficient numbers of leaders and strong willed people that are fighting the BDS syndrome by simply acting and being humane and human. Israelis and their government are finally wakening to the damage caused by the BDS movement and other related groups and hopefully there are those who can at least dry up much of the Western monies from financing BDS forcing the dictatorial rulers in the Middle East to pay for all of the BDS. But this fight is far more than just the BDS movement or even the government financed groups which excoriate Israel ranting about the worst treatment or how the Israelis treat the people held hostage and starved in Gaza. Let’s use this as the example. Gaza received two thirds of their electricity and all their drinking water from Israel and Israeli companies are not paid by the Arab Palestinians or their governing representatives. That is but the tip of the situation. Any nations wishing to provide goods for Gaza may do so as long as there are no dual use items or actual weapons included in their shipment and the Israelis will deliver every ounce of it into Gaza for Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PLO or the PA to distribute. Additionally, Israel provides tens of truckloads of food, medical supplies and other items daily even including every single day of last summer’s military operations in Gaza as nothing stops these transfers as the Israelis have no desire to have the people of Gaza suffer in any manner. Unfortunately for the residents of Gaza the same cannot be said for their governing entities. Often Israel had sent the trucks with food which is perishable if not taken and stored properly with some degree of immediacy. These truckloads were simply left in the sun to rot by the rulers in Gaza just so there would be an emergency and food shortage for visiting United Nations, European Union or whoever was scheduled to tour Gaza. Often during these inspections or visits the power lines from Israel are disconnected and once the parliament in Gaza covered their windows with blackout blankets and had photographers take pictures of their meeting in the darkness so they should have stories written about how the Israelis refused to provide sufficient electricity and they are forced to work in complete darkness. The blankets did not quite completely cover the windows and the bright sunlight outside could be seen in many of the pictures, but still there was an international hue and cry demanding that Israel fulfill their obligation to provide the electricity that the government in Gaza had paid for, despite their never having paid one single Agorot, let alone Shekels.

 

Beyond the Cusp