Avigdor Lieberman, the Deal Breaker

 

Introduction of Issues
As leader of the Yisrael Beitenu Party, Avigdor Lieberman has decided to use the leadership position to mount attacks upon the Haredi and religious Israelis. His complaint revolves around a set of complaints including that public transport be allowed to operate on the Sabbath; the recruitment law which requires every citizen, including all Haredi, serve in the IDF; and for all Yeshivot students and other Torah and religious oriented education students be required to attend regular general state education system which allows for their Torah and religious specific education on their own time. One can only but imagine what his next demand might be at some future critical points such as, well, cutting all public subsidizing of religious oriented schools which are not licensed as having certified general education systems and then Synagogues and on and on. Perhaps he would call for expanding on the court order demanding co-ed seating at a religious concert where the vast majority preferred separate seating and most others might feel some disappointment but worthwhile to hear the concert in Synagogues, the Western Wall and everywhere else where this practice of separation is currently enforced.

 

Avigdor Lieberman

 

 

Dear Avigdor Lieberman

 

Avigdor Lieberman, you have been moving inexorably leftward to such an extent that these claims of being conservative is starting to ring hollow. We understand that you support the IDF and this is commendable. But your rubbing elbows with the Blue White Party, a group which has stated their support for the Two State Solution paradigm with surrendering lands to provide the Palestinian Arabs their own state up to the, as Gantz stated very early in the campaign, Separation Barrier. You entered into vote sharing with the Blue White Party which completes cementing your leftward drift reaching a point well past center. Your claims, just as those of the four generals and Yair Lapid, that you support the right-wing and the Israelis living in the Shomron appear as valid as the claims of the average apparatchik spreading disinformation. Your demands of Netanyahu for your support in the April elections was not made with any degree of honesty. You knew that those demands would force the Haredi Parties out of the coalition leaving Bibi with about the same situation we are facing once more, the only government available would be a unity government with Blue White which would break-up the Likud Party with many of the religious and honest conservatives fleeing to the other right wing parties which stand stronger on these issues. Your antics will eventually lead to Jewish Home, National Union–Tkuma and New Right gaining in strength where they will be able to control the discussions and sooner or later take over some future, sooner rather than later, coalition. These are your positions and the items upon which you have decided to take your stand. One of your main complaints is that the secular population and non-Jews not be forced to lead a religious life by the state. Allow us to discuss this point even if it is but the smallest part of your crusade.

 

Your demands go far beyond freeing those who would rather not be put out by religious laws and be free to desecrate the Sabbath with the blessings of the law and the State. Instead, you would instead force by the law to reside in a secular state which would force their allowing vehicle traffic on their streets on Shabbat and that Torah education be pushed into the region of an elective such as after school clubs except with a heavy study load. You have left no room, by your own admission, and refused to allow for any compromise or middle ground. Maybe there can be some middle ground such as allowing each city, township, community and neighborhood be permitted to decide such laws concerning Shabbat and whether they preferred to observe the Sabbath. Also, perhaps a certain amount of secular education could be considered to be met by any Yeshivot and other Torah or religious oriented education, in order to receiver accreditation or certification which could make them more attractive to those who desire a balanced education. The schools which fail to meet the standards would not be shuttered and those which choose to remain with their current education system be permitted to do so. People could decide for themselves which educational opportunity they wish for their children. All that is needed is for more free choice and as broad a selection be allowed to be presented to the public. There has to be some happy medium by which both communities, religious and secular, be allowed to choose for themselves. As far as the draft issue, a real sticking-point for the past few governments, could be set allowing for a percentage of the Yeshivot and other Torah or religious oriented education systems be permitted deferments. The enlistment from the Haredi and religious communities has been rising over the past decade and is predicted to continue as their communities have been slowly moving towards what you would call normalization. Your stance that it is unfair that the secular public is forced to obey religious laws and your solution is for the religious community to live under secular laws, which often makes their lives impossible as they would prefer to live them. You are simply demanding that everything be done under your preference and who cares about those who have different views and desires.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Same Tired Old Peace Plan?

 

President Trump is unveiling his economic part of the Deal of the Century which, if present rumors are correct, another attempt to send good money after bad. The rumors tell of a plan to economically revitalize the Palestinian Authority and relieve the economic malaise which is Gaza. If this sounds eerily familiar, that is because it is the same plan used by the Bush Roadmap and Clinton’s initial attempts at Oslo. In each case there were millions and billions of dollars flushed down the kleptocratic drain once more. Were these monies used to build someplace new in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt in order to allow the Palestinian Arabs to get out from under the kleptocratic regimes, then it would avoid being a means for wasting away the investments by granting contracts to relatives and friends for buildings which are seldom realized or dedicated to the entertainment and better living of the current elites. The embezzlement of any amount of funds is the norm and will negate any and all attempts at investing for the future. To those at the top of the financial tree, there is no time like the present for stealing from the mouths of the people, especially the poorest so as to keep them agitated and enraged. The same story will be fed to them about how Israel stands between the people and their rightful riches while their actual riches are being stolen. If President Trump and his supposed expert advisors, which include his son-in-law Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt, David Friedman and Kushner aide Avi Berkowitz, are the only ones who have seen the plan, then no one knows what is in the plan. For all we know, even President Trump has not been so privileged, though we hope he too has approved whatever plan is going to be presented. The end of the week and the presentation in Bahrain should provide a flurry of excitement followed by inertia setting in until the money disappears.

 

What is troubling is the introduction is to be presented around the concept of, “You can’t let your grandfather’s conflict hold back your children’s future.” The actual name will be the, “peace to prosperity” plan. The implication is for investments to be made financed by an international consortium with the intent of providing employment and economic incentives for building a functioning Palestinian Arab society. This is going forward leaving the same people who have murdered every effort at an economic investment and instead absconding with a percentage of the investments and using the remainder for financing the leaders’ life styles and making more weapons, explosives, incendiary bombs, and for their new program of using drones for targeted attacks upon Israelis, their farms and their communities as well as targeting on occasion the IDF positions. What is the attraction for President after President trying the same policy and expecting different results simply because they are willing to throw even more money than the last try. Believe us when we inform you that there is no amount of money so great that the leadership governing the Palestinian Arabs cannot find alternative pathways for it being spent. This is akin to giving a drug user money to make sure he stops using drugs and instead cleans up and gets a job. There is no amount of money which will survive the tangled finances of the Palestinian governance leaving anything for empowerment. The money will be used principally for paying terrorists and their families, the very first thing on Mahmoud Abbas’s agenda for any funds which are available by his own admission. So, just in case President Trump has other intentions for the United States taxpayers’ money, despite what he may desire, Mahmoud Abbas will use it first and foremost to pay those who have murdered and crippled Israelis and he even has a chart defining how much one receives depending on the number of victims and other variables (see below). With such evidence, we wonder how much more the world requires before they discover that terrorism and the murdering of Israelis (preferably Jewish Israelis) has been made into a profession with a very generous sized renumeration which is promised to continue for as long as the world continues sending the Palestinian Authority, basically meaning Mahmoud Abbas, funding these payments are first to be paid. Let this attitude and the fact that the best paying job is to go into Israel and murder an Israeli and then get arrested and you are now providing your family with economic security for as long as this fiasco is financed. Imagine how many murders Abbas will be able to finance with four or five or even six and a half billion with a ‘B’ dollar gifted intended to provide a better life for the average Palestinian Arab. Abbas is willing to spend the money doing exactly that, as long as the average Palestinian Arab family has at least one member willing to murder another human being, specifically an Israeli, which has shown to have been the incentive for all too many terror attacks.

 

Palestinian Authority Remunerations for Terrorists

 

There may be a real problem with President Trump’s Deal of the Century if it will be based on providing presumably financial incentives and aid for the average Palestinian Arab as attempting another economic build-up in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority ruled regions will take all the funds and nothing will change. The Palestinian Arab ruling elite cannot allow the people to become comfortable as comfortable people are difficult to pressure into committing terrorist acts. The central interest of the payments to those who have attacked and particularly killed Israelis only works if the region is depressed and there are insufficient jobs such that people become desperate and decide to sacrifice their freedom for financial security for their family. The Palestinian Arab governance is based on terrorist actions in the hope that such acts will drive the Jews from Israel allowing them to finally destroy the Zionist entity. What Abbas and the entire Arab world do not understand is that the Jews have waited for over two thousand years to return to their ancestral homelands under their own rule. This is our homelands and we plan on keeping them and really have nowhere else to go. Take the half of the Israeli population descended from the Jews forced from their homes across the Arab world of the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) over fifty or even sixty years ago. They are not able to return to their former lands as they would be murdered upon arrival. Then there are those descended from surviving the Holocaust who were unwelcomed in the towns and cities where they had been forced into ghettos or sent to the concentration camps. These also have no other homeland and such is the case for the vast majority of the Israeli population. This is home and the Arabs will never realize their dream of destroying all of Israel and removing the Jews from the land. One reason is that the real occupation is the Palestinian Arabs residing on lands promised to the Jewish People with the signature of King Faisal who headed the Arab League at the time of the signing of the Mandate System derived from the San Remo Conference and other treaties of the day. The lands west of the Jordan River were all set aside for the Jewish State and that is the reality under international law. But then again, the Arabs also believe that Andalusia should still belong to them despite the existence today of Portugal and Spain. But wait a few more years until Arabs and other Muslims start claiming regions of Europe which include entire cities and provinces after they have established Sharia courts and are enforcing Sharia on the populations both Muslim and the remainder who will be endangered. For what they will be facing, read about the spread of Islam across northern Africa and the frightening events which brought on a Christian reaction using similar tactics learned from Islam of convert or die. When it was found that Christians under Islamic rule were being forced to convert, the Spanish responded with the Inquisition. This made the Spanish Jews wanted by both Christians and Muslims so many of the Spanish Jews headed to safer climes accepting an invitation by Poland leading to an enlarged Polish Jewish population until World War II decimated the Jews of Poland.

 

Right now, just looking around the world and it is becoming more clear every week that the only place where Jews are guaranteed to be protected by the government is in Israel. The United States is mostly safe for Jews but that is changing with alarming speed. Europe is close to becoming unsuitable for Jews to reside with any comfort. Should Jeremy Corbyn win the British elections coming up, then there is the possibility that the British Jews will flee the British Isles for places more conducive to their general health and well-being. Some will make the mistake of believing and choosing the United States as their safe port which will only delay the final move which is coming for many Jews, that is to Israel. What will the world say when over three-quarters or even four-fifths of the world’s Jews have returned home to Israel. Will the United Nations still be claiming that we have no attachment to the land? Anybody who has witnessed the reclamation of these lands and the making them productive again from the disaster which greeted the initial Jewish immigrants coming back home in the mid to late nineteenth century, how can they not argue that the Jews and the land being one. Israel has taken a land which for all intents and purposes was forsaken swamps, rock strewn hills and a land devoid of people and spirit and made it into one of the most vibrant and productive societies on the planet. If the way the Jewish People were greeted and accepted by the land itself which had lain barren and undeveloped for two millennia while the Jews were refugees strewn across the face of the earth. The land and the people are one and neither is capable of reaching their ultimate achievements without one another. The Jewish People and the Lands of Israel are intertwined and each without the other are incomplete. Trump’s plan, if it is dependent upon an economic resurgence fueled by billions of dollars, we hope he is ready to watch just that many billions of dollars going completely to waste except for the tunnels, bombs and terrorists that they can purchase. That has been the result before with an uptick in the levels of violence every time the Palestinian Authority or Hamas members in Gaza received an influx of money no matter the source be it Qatar, the European Union or the United States. This is what has occurred every previous attempt to economically revitalize the Palestinian Arab society. Some things are so completely broken beyond the world’s ability to repair such that they would be best forgotten and allowed to finish deconstructing as they would have done long ago without the billions if not trillions or more which have been thrown at the Palestinian Arab societies without a single iota of progress or improvement. Here we go again with increased terrorism until the money runs dry, which it apparently never will until the world has been drained of its capital, and then the Palestinian society will finally collapse.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Hamas not Observing Ceasefire as Usual

 

We all have likely seen the cartoon or the rephrasing of the main idea of the cartoon and Hamas observing a ceasefire. Well, they are at it again having launched over ninety rockets this otherwise quiet Shabbat morning. Saturdays are Hamas’s favorite time to launch broadsides at Israel as most troops are off base for the weekend and the ones remaining may not normally be assigned the positions they may be manning. This time it comes after sporadic firing on Friday afternoon along with continued rioting along the Gaza border which included shooting by Hamas into Israel at the IDF positions put in place to prevent Terrorists from infiltrating Israel and murdering Israelis. As we type this abbreviated report, we realize that this is not news, there are no big surprises and it goes without saying that Israel struck back eliminating two rocket launchers. We could list the places where warning sirens wailed, the casualties were one boy injured while dashing to make it to a shelter in time and a few cases of shock. There were reports that rockets struck highway 4 and inside one community doing minimal if any actual damage. In Israel some of the potholes on the roads are where rockets struck because they were not tracked to strike anywhere there were people. The Iron Dome did intercept dozens, let us stress, dozens of Hamas rockets which might have done inordinate amounts of damage and potentially killed or injured Israelis.

 

All of this from Hamas and Islamic Jihad comes possibly as an Iranian ordered increase in activity against Israel as a response to President Trump having cancelled the issuance of any further waivers for importation of Iranian oil. The Mullahs in Iran had threatened to attack Israel should the United States take such steps while also threatening to strike at American forces in Middle East including especially the Persian Gulf region as well as along the Strait of Hormuz which they also threatened to close to all outgoing oil shipments. This would terminate as much as thirty-percent of world oil shipments. The Iranians are not insane, they just act as if they were. They know that attacking the American fleet would bring horrific retaliation ordered by President Trump. Having Hamas and Islamic Jihad pound away at Israel causes minor resultant strikes by Israel at the usual targets more as an effort to calm the Israeli public by pretending to have actually done something. We have been writing slowly and reading social media and what few news reports we can find. Saturday, Shabbat, is not the easiest of times to receive reports, but some is getting through. There have been additional rockets fired, one home has been struck but fortunately the family has escaped, one woman has been reported to have been seriously injured and the barrage remains off the international radar. It is only Israelis being inconvenienced and there has been no war started against Hamas and Islamic Jihad and Israel has obeyed the rules and not struck anything vital and has avoided hurting any of the world’s precious little Palestinian friends.

 

Let us talk about something which is seldom mentioned. That is the economics behind these attacks. These rockets being fired out of Gaza are inexpensive ranging from a mere tens of dollars to potentially possibly as high as a thousand dollars for their highest range and largest rockets. Then we look at the Israeli side of this economic equation and we find that each interceptor costs approximately fifty-thousand-dollars each. As Israel has very probably intercepted dozens of rockets, that would likely require anywhere from exactly two-dozen to as many as several dozens of these Iron Dome interceptors. This runs the cost of this one day of protection for all Israeli citizens from half-a-million-dollars to as high as two-and-a-half-million-dollars. Yes, what you read is accurate and is also the major differentiation between the two sides. Hamas and Islamic Jihad both receive or steal from supplies provided into Gaza by Israel after it has been checked for weapons and certain military use materials. Still, Israel is consistently forced to permit tons, literally tons, of building provisions such as cement, concrete, steel, aluminum and others which Hamas and Islamic Jihad take over ninety-percent of these provisions leaving the Gazans without sufficient materials to rebuild their shattered lives. Hamas and Islamic Jihad use these materials to construct bunkers, tunnels, underground rocket firing positions and infiltration tunnels which Israel largely (if not entirely) detected and destroyed which simply drove Hamas and Islamic Jihad to simply build more believing Israel has just been getting lucky.

 

This theft of material and other criminal activities conducted by the Gaza terrorists is what is causing the financial, economic, societal and environmental collapses and the destruction of those items most necessary for life. There have been reports that virtually all ground-water in Gaza has become undrinkable and may soon reach the tipping-point where it will become unable to support normative forms of life. This has been a direct result of a total disregard for the people, their health and the environment by those who rule in Gaza. This has nothing to do with Israel. Some Gazans, when they are assured of having total anonymity, have expressed their desire for Israel to takeover Gaza such that their lives would improve. Similar reports have also come from the areas under the Palestinian Authority. Many Palestinians are becoming very sick and tired of having their lives destroyed by the very people who are supposed to care for them. In Israel there are some who also call for the retaking of Gaza and of all of Judea and Samaria removing the terrorist infrastructure and remove the terror leaders who are behind much of the terrorism. In Gaza the children are trained in school to hate Jews and Israel and are indoctrinated into believing that if they give their lives while murdering Israelis they will go to heaven and live a life they could only dream of living. Mahmoud Abbas has gone further by paying the Palestinians for murdering Israelis at such a rate that their family could live comfortably on such a stipend. This will eventually have two effects, numerous families, eventually a majority, will rely on these payments for their support. Both societies are dysfunctional and becoming worse and less stable. The governances are unstable as they steal from the economies slowly destroying the society and all which is dependent upon a solid and steady economic stability. These kleptocracies are destroying their societies through their steady theft of resources draining resources as the leadership enrich themselves. Despite the Palestinian Arabs being the most well-supported groups receiving far more aid than any other group (see graph below), despite the receipt of the greatest amount of aid by the Palestinian Arabs, outside of the terror leaders and criminal gangs, the people themselves are amongst some of the poorest. That is far more accurate in describing Gazans while there are some who have found a means of enriching themselves through shrewd dealings but the average Palestinian leads a meager life compared to their counterparts within Israel.

 

Graph of Aid Money to Palestinian Territories and other needful locations

 

What is further troubling about the rockets out of Gaza is that they are occurring in the immediate aftermath of the establishing of another ceasefire. It has become the signature of almost every Hamas agreement to the imposition of a ceasefire. For their firing rockets, launching incendiary kites and balloons, shooting at IDF units and other offensive attacks for hours beyond the official time set for the ceasefire, their hopes are that Israel will react strongly and then they will scream to the European Union, the United Nations and to countless NGO’s pointing at the Israeli breaking of the newly established ceasefire. The fact that Israel was responding to Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other violence against Israel is considered inconsequential as attacking Israelis using terror is considered a normal activity and thus must be understood, not reacted upon. The world basically desires for Israel to simply take whatever punches are dealt to us; while were they attacked by one-thousandth the terror in a single attack on their nation, then they would be screaming war and demanding blood. But Israel is supposed to tolerate the terrorism against us. After all, did not Israel build the most awesome interception system called Iron Dome? That keeps you safe as we have noticed and the poor Gazans do not have such a device. This is not Israel’s fault as Hamas and Islamic Jihad have spent more on terrorism than Israel spent in the development of the Iron Dome; so it is obviously a matter of priorities. The Israeli priorities are the safety of their people and the preservation of life while Hamas and Islamic Jihad invest in destruction and deal in death, both their own people and Israelis. Hamas and Islamic Jihad use the death of Gazans as a weapon against Israel and use all their funds in attempts to develop means of destroying Israel. Hamas and Islamic Jihad claim they love the land but their every act appears to be attempts to completely destroy that same land. But what is the worst are the actions of the world in their demands that Israel absorb all the terrorism thrown at her while allowing every other nation to react militarily against any group perpetrating terror violence against them. That is the worst of all the double standards Israel receives. It is completely uncovered in that Israel is forced to accept rockets launched into her territory for the hours ensuing the initiation of a ceasefire as if the ceasefire actually states that Israel cease hostilities at some adopted time while the terrorists get to continue shooting at Israel for a number of hours after the onset of the ceasefire. This double standard is unsustainable.

 

What the world is unaware of is that many Israelis are becoming sick and tired of the double standards and being a punching bag. Many have come close to the end of their patience and others have reached the end of our wits. Prime Minister Netanyahu, Bibi, is the master at doing as little as required to get around actually addressing the situation. His reluctance to act has thus far worked to continue to allow him to remain as the Israeli Prime Minister. The fact is that Bibi is seen as the most capable to protect Israel from much of the world including those hotbeds of anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic activists such as the United Nations and the plethora of organizations it supports. While Bibi is pretty much safe from any challenge from the left, something this past election proved as he faced what many in the media predicted was going to be his final comeuppance. Where Bibi is vulnerable is from a competent leader with the correct view willing to propose ending the terrorist governances threatening Israel from within her borders. A candidate who would inform Mahmoud Abbas and the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad that no longer would Israel tolerate their terrorism nor would it tolerate their subjugating their people to line their pockets. A leader who promised a new day where Israel would no longer tolerate terrorism of any nature and if necessary was willing to take over the regions and replace their terrorist leadership. The main idea which would cause a challenge for Bibi is somebody finally coming out and credibly laiding out the plan to address and end terrorism either by the Palestinian Arab leadership otherwise Israel will take all the steps required to end these threats. All Israel requires is just such a leader, if only we knew where to find such a person.

 

Beyond the Cusp