Don’t Have to Say Palestine to Build Palestine

 

Much of the news has granted President Trump great credit for not actually saying “Palestine” in his meetings with Israelis, or in Saudi Arabia, or in Washington D.C. when meeting with Mahmoud Abbas. As we mentioned in yesterday’s article, President Trump was also given high marks for getting Mahmoud Abbas to agree to meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu without any preconditions. Instead, President Trump had actually presented a series of steps meant to facilitate the Palestinian economy and expand their area to relieve any crowding. The particulars were to expand their industrial park (with which we have no real problem), opening the Allenby Bridge crossing to Jordan (we are good with this but Jordan might have something to say here), to ease and make entering Israel for the Palestinian workers easier which could make the slipping of terrorists into Israel easier, looking into extending Israeli rail service into Jenin which has a history as being a terror hotbed which would make for impossible security threats to meet, and finally to allow the Palestinian Authority (PA) to build in the sixty percent of Judea and Samaria where they currently are not permitted to build, which in understandable terminology, allow the Palestinians to build in Area C allowing them to build everywhere throughout Judea and Samaria which in time would mean that all of the area that the PA demands pushing Israel back to the pre-Six Day War lines, the 1949 Armistice lines, the Green Line. As we pointed out, this would all but guarantee a renewed Arab-Israeli war more likely on the level of the 1948 Original War to Annihilate the Zionist Entity where over a half-dozen Arab armies attacked the newly born State of Israel. The difference this time is the numbers of dead will be horrific as the weapons on the Arab side will be far more advanced and devastating than in 1948 and the IDF is also more capable and this time is equipped with one of the most proficient Air Forces in the world which makes up for their lesser numbers. Still, should Iran join the Arab, war that might very well bring nuclear weapons into the mix and should that come into play the results would be beyond imagination.

 

The main thing, which was asked of Israel and tentatively approved by the Knesset just before President Trump was to arrive, when this was presented allowing next to no time for debate and thus the considerations had to be made with minimal exchange of information and was more of a political putsch than a vote, Israel was meeting preconditions under another name, again. Already there has been some pushback from Jewish Home Party and the Jewish communities in Area C. The theory is that the Palestinian building will be restricted to areas near their existing cities. We fear that this will be taken advantage of by spreading rapidly moving people from the cities to the surrounding areas eventually making for vacated central areas and an ever-growing spread, in an effort to place as many and as wide an area for Arabs to build new realities on the ground. These expanded areas will claim more land until they will have changed the complexion to such an extent that the final result will be almost all the Jewish settlements being forced to be abandoned forcing hundreds of thousands of Jews to be relocated and made homeless as the PA takes all of Judea and Samaria. What the world refuses to admit despite the reality being thrown in their collective faces by the PA leadership and spokespeople on a regular basis, is the Arabs do not want their own state, they want to destroy the Jewish state. The Europeans do not really care and often act in sympathy with the Arab cause having no real problem should Israel be wiped from the map. Far too many European political leaders and personalities believe that the Jews are supposed to be a people without a homeland who live at the pleasure of their betters, their hosts. The Jews are supposed to be a people who are to be chased from one place to another whenever things become difficult as somebody has to be to blame and as everyone knows, the reason for the hardships is often laid at the feet of the Jews. These same individuals who believe the Jews do not deserve a nation of their own also demand that when the Arabs finally rid the world of Israel that none of the displaced Jews should be permitted into their country as they do not care to tolerate these unbearable and impossible people, these Jews. The hatred in many cases is palpable and though many try to place the blame on the Muslims, these detestable views predate the influx of Muslims since the start of the Syria War and the failure of numerous other Arab and Muslim communities and countries.

 

The reality has been that since the decision that started with the November 1917 Balfour declaration that was then codified into the San Remo Conference that was further incorporated into the Treaty of Sèvres and completed by the League of Nations as the Mandate System that was transferred to the United Nations through Article 80 of the United Nations Charter eventually leading to the declaration of the State of Israel, there were powers from all points on the globe which fought tooth and nail against the Jewish State and the Zionist enterprise. The British were a nation with a split personality that was so deeply seated that even amongst the British Jews there were some of the most ardent Zionists and the most despicable anti-Zionists. Some have accused us of being particularly harsh to those Jews who oppose Israel and we plead guilty with explanation. One of the first rules derives from the Latin, “Primum non nocere.” Hippocrates, an early Greek physician, was credited with being the original source though the exact phrase does not appear exactly in his famous medical oath though it is often credited with being found there. The English for primum non nocere is “first do no harm.” This should be the first criteria for members of any group where some amongst them are attempting to do some project in the service of the whole group such as the Zionist efforts to reestablish the nation state of the Jews and their history. Some might phrase this as ‘if you cannot help, then just get out of the way.’ Further, when Jews work against other Jews it simply empowers those whose desires are to directly harm Jews even to the point of removing them first from their nations and then from all nations and ridding the world of Israel. But Jewish timidity has been a problem that we have suffered from despite the reputation we have where timidity would seem to be the least of our conditions. Truth is Jews as a rule are hesitant and timid simply because of the centuries, over twenty-five centuries, of having no homeland of our own and having one empire after the next ravaging our lands and attempting to make being a Jew against the laws of the land in order to wipe us from the face of the earth. The most often used means was to make circumcision a crime punishable by death. And face it, circumcision is not exactly an act that once performed can be hidden from detection. A simple search of the affected area and the evidence is self-evident. Another means was to make reading of the Torah illegal, which led to the readings of the other books of the Bible, which is continued today in the readings of the Haftorah. Another means was to make the lighting of the Shabbat candles or any special Shabbat celebration punishable by death, the same punishment for all of these other crimes and numerous others and then there were the punishments where leaders from the community, often Rabbis, were tortured to death usually before cheering crowds in an amphitheater or arena. Their punishment was similar, if not identical, to the punishments of the early Christians and sometimes even more brutal.

 

Throughout history, there have been practices against Jews that are often ignored by teachings of history but which were a part of the ways of life across Europe and the Muslim world. When the plague struck across Europe, the Jews were less likely to be struck down often due to the fact that the Jewish faith requires weekly cleaning of the home and at Passover and complete cleansing of their homes to the extent of removing all furniture and cleaning every nook and cranny within an inch of its life. This led to the Jewish ghetto having fewer rats thus fewer fleas and less plague. This led to the rest of the town or city to claim the Jews spread the illness or were poisoning the cities wells. This led to burning Jews at the stake as punishment for their crimes. When the Muslims lost battles, they would often blame the Jews for having sold their plans to the enemies leading to their defeat as there could be no other explanation and thus the Jews had to be punished. This would lead to rounding up the Jews accused of such perfidy and then publically beheading them or other more ingenious forms of execution. When the Crusaders were leaving for the Holy Lands, they would often loose their fighters on the Jewish ghettos such that they would get the taste for killing human beings, as they could not afford to have them freeze up in their first battle, hesitate, and thus be killed before they actually were ready to fight for real. This bloodied the troops such that when they got to the Holy Lands they could fight effectively. When the Christians or the Muslims would capture, recapture, re-recapture (the lands in the holy Lands changed hands regularly) Jerusalem and surrounding areas such as Bethlehem, Akko, Nazareth and other surrounding places, they would murder many of those not of their faith. This meant that the Christians killed Muslims and Jews while the Muslim killed the Christians and Jews. Perhaps you noted something consistent, whenever a town changed hands there would be a percentage of the Jewish population killed. Anyways, you get the idea and unfortunately, so have the Jews but this history has made many Jews sensitive, jumpy and often too timid for their own good. It might be due to things like the British Peel Commission. Yet one of the things Jews are often accused of is being overbearing and haughty. Go figure.

 

Peel Commission Truncated Jewish State of Israel and Expanded Transjordan

 

So, back to the ramifications of what has just transpired with the “No Preconditions” allowances now being established and more lands and routes into Israel and Jordan for Arabs from the PA as well as potentially terrorists and more lands being sacrificed for the privlidge of speaking with Mahmoud Abbas who will demand that the Jews give, give, give, and give more. Mahmoud Abbas has the PA schools teach that not only are Bethlehem, Jenin, Ramallah, Jericho and the whole of Samaria and Judea along with East-Jerusalem all PA lands but so are Nazareth, Akko, Beersheva, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Haifa, Eilat, Netanya, Herzliya, Peta Tikva, Tel Aviv and all of Jerusalem as also parts of Palestine despite them all being inside the Green Line and in areas considered internationally as inside Israel. They teach and demand that all the Mandate Lands are Palestine, which actually includes Jordan as well which they also claim they will one-day rule. Their claim is that the Jews must depart from all the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and surrender these lands to the Palestinian Arabs which includes as many as eight-million refugees including those who were exiled a second time from Syria and are now strewn across Europe. Many Europeans have no problem with their claims as long as none of the exiled Jews try to enter their country. And if World War II was any indicator, Jews can forget the United States as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated about taking in German Jews in the 1930’s as Hitler sought some nation to take the Jews off his hands, “The United States has enough Jews, we do not need any more of them.” The truth is if the Jews in Israel are to survive, both those from the developed world and the other half from the Muslim lands, then we need to defend and protect the lands promised to us by the world because the world will not care if we lose every inch and then would simply claim to be so concerned as long as we were not attempting to enter their lands, and then they would have a million reasons why we were not welcome and perhaps they would demand the Jews living in their lands be expelled to join the rest of the wandering Jews with no homeland again.

 

The truth is the only hope for a Jewish People is for a Jewish homeland and that is Israel and Israel is from the River to the Sea. No matter what lands the Arabs are awarded by our friends in the Trump Administration, and we appreciate the efforts by a number of them starting with Nikki Haley at the United Nations and also David Friedman who is the American Ambassador in Israel and others, they will never be content as long as a single Jew remains living in Israel. As this is the reality and we know that the Arabs will never stop pushing as long as there is an Israel, there will come the day when we will have nowhere left to back into as we are all living in Tel Aviv with half sleeping on the beach, hopefully we will wake up and learn that we need to fight for what is ours, period, when this day arrives we will have to fight and take what is ours. Until we show the world that we, the Jews, will fight for what is ours and defend all that is ours and had been ours since before London or Paris were camps where a family sat around a fire shivering in the cold telling stories of the coming summer and hoping to make it until then, thus enforcing our claim to our homelands and bring an end to the Arab attempts to steal away all that is ours rightfully. Once we fight and make our claim and take our lands with a show of force so fierce that it scares them senseless, then the world will leave us be as they will know we mean business and that we will not tolerate their perfidy any longer. Then we will have a secure Israel and the sooner we realize this and take the steps which we must take, the sooner we will have a real and lasting peace. Joshua did not have the lands handed him, he needed to take the lands and clear the squatters out as Hashem commanded. We need to take a page from the book of Joshua and realize the truths known by King David and King Solomon. We need to have the bravery of Bar Kokhba and Ze’ev Jabotinsky and regain the knowledge they shared and we require. Then there will be a Jewish State of Israel established for all time and until then we will suffer humiliations at the hands of our own leaders.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Promise Israel Should Tell Obama

 

There has been much projecting on what President Obama might do to release his vengeance on Prime Minister Netanyahu and to hurt Israel permanently under International Relations. Israel should be wise and quietly relate to Administration officials that any drastic alteration from the agreed settlement reached through direct negotiations will be met with determination and resolve. Further information on what is meant by determination and resolve should be met that the degree to which such responses might take would be situationally dependent and would take actions measurable to any provocation or attack on the status-quo which the Administration was always so concerned about over the last eight years. Israel fully expects that said status-quo will continue and there will be no surprises or alterations placed on the balanced situation. This situational reactive desire will include any changes at the United Nations, The Hague or in any other international forum and not solely actions by the United States including lack of action allowing changes to occur. Should Israel find all things remain within the broader definition of the status-quo, then there would be no appreciable moves by Israel. Just believe that Israel is prepared to counter any move aimed at compromising Israel and the guarantees in place from before the election and including all expectations from promises and previous apparent intentions.

 

For the record, the rest of this editorial is purely the desired reactions BTC would hope have been communicated at least as strongly as above and potentially including some of what follows. One item which the world need understand is Israel will never allow any rescinding of our having annexed all of Jerusalem including the Old City, the Kotel and Plaza and the Temple Mount. These are all vital historic lands upon which there can be no debate, end of story. It is the intent of Israel to retail all of Area C which has been the intent from the very beginning of negotiations and Israel is adamant on this point. Area A will be permitted as Palestinian lands and agreements need be found to divide the lands in Area B such that each state has contiguous borders in the division in Judea and Samaria. All of these agreements depend on the Palestinians and the Arab nations recognize Israel as the home of the Jewish People and all reach a peace and agree that all hostilities will end. The situation is and has always been the Arab/Israeli conflict and not limited to just the Palestinians but the Arab and Muslim worlds. Any final agreement which falls short of this level of acceptance is a formula for eventual warfare and as such is unacceptable to Israel who desires peaceful and even beneficial relations with the other nations in the MENA nations (Middle East and North Africa – see map below). Israel will also retain the Golan Heights, particularly since there is no true Syrian government and the Islamic State, which is being enriched with Saudi Arabian funds and arms, could easily take these heights long enough to launch a severe attack upon Israelis residing in the Galilee. These same heights were previously used by Syrian snipers to practice their craft murdering farmers who were simply tending their fields and animals. That is another reason Israel must retain these high lands. Finally, the Jordan valley and overlooking heights will remain defended by the IDF as this is the first line for the defense of Israel. These minimal states need to be communicated through whatever channels used for official warnings and staunch positions. These are Israeli stances which have been presumably eroded but are being reestablished and former promises from San Remo through Article 80 of the United Nations Charter and the original mandate system. These promises need be realized and any compromise within the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea will be permitted by the good graces of Israel and not through any external pressures or threats.

 

(MENA)
Middle East and North Africa
Including Turkey and Iran
With North Central Africa

 

Israel must take whatever defensive measures and precautions necessary to assure that should there be a parting vengeance shot from the White House in a manner which would be difficult or impossible for the Trump Administration to counter and return everything to the equilibrium which existed before any action by a parting President Obama, then Israel will have procedures and actions which would assure Israel’s rights and safety for the future. These are warnings and military planning with troops drilled and practiced for carrying out whatever is necessary to execute each of the responses to any of a complete series and span of potential attacks at the status-quo. Israel should be prepared to limit the Palestinian Authority (PA) to Area A and limited parts of Area B but none of Area C and if the Security Council were to pass an enforceable resolution, then Israel need act even if it causes a potential for a confrontation and be prepared to hold their ground and should world powers then demand Israel relent and it becomes apparent that an actual confrontation is in the making, then Israel will have little choice but to slowly pull from lands as necessary and also terminate all water, power and other services which the PA is behind on their payments. The world might be capable of forcing a settlement on Israel giving the PA everything that President Obama has continuously threatened to recognize, namely the pre Six Day War borders on Israel, there is absolutely no reason for Israel to power, water, feed and totally support such an open and immediate threat to her safety. There is no means other than invading an independent nation, Israel, and take control of the power grid, water systems and other utilities and even broadcast frequencies so as to provide free everything for the PA and force Israel to provide such support through invading a sovereign state, an act of war. That begs the question as to which nations would attempt an invasion just to enact such a spiteful assault by Barack Hussein Obama as he leaves office. One would hope none of the main powers would enforce such but Israel should be prepared for even the most unlikely of situations, the world backing a temper tantrum. Israel actually could annex all of Judea and Samaria followed by deportation of every officer from the PA and all of the security personnel, particularly the ones with terror ties which include the majority of the police and security personnel. This must be one possible solution which should be reserved only should President Obama attempt to give all of Judea and Samaria to the PA as a gift and claim the United States recognizes their invented nation. Such cannot be permitted to stand as within days either Hamas or Islamic State would take possession of the lands which then would allow them to pose a direct threat to Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion International Airport and the majority of infrastructure, business and residential neighborhoods, a completely untenable situation. This is the threat and potential situation facing Israel and why the leadership must make any action by President Obama have consequences which are spelled out in advance such that there can be no surprise or claim that the reaction was not anticipated. The real aim is to preserve the status-quo such that the system can continue for as long as the world demands that terrorists of the PA must be coddled as if they actually cared for the people residing under their corrupt rule. The day will come, possibly soon, when the people living under the PA will demand real leadership and an end to their impoverished state directly due to the thieving of their leadership. On that day the Israelis will know that the Palestinian people are ready to have peace and a future for their children and themselves.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Disastrous Faults Within Peace Process Evident in Catastrophic Collapse

The fatal flaws plaguing the Israeli Palestinian peace process have been blatantly evident since within weeks of the September 1993 signing of the Oslo Accords when it became evident that the Palestinian tactic of placing demands and preconditions front-loaded on the negotiations forcing the Israelis to surrender, sacrifice and compromise on vital and central issues of disagreements before they will agree to enter negotiations. This has been the main and central tactic used by the Palestinians for advancing their positions and demands safely without the necessity of negotiating honestly or even having to compromise on any of their absolutist demands such as their refusal to recognize Israel as the nation of the Jewish People, demanding the redividing of Jerusalem placing all of the holy sites in the Old City and the Temple Mount beyond the reach of Israelis and the world’s Jewry, Israeli building freezes throughout the entirety of the disputed lands including all of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Jerusalem, their insistence on resettling over five-million refugees and their descendants within Israel using the flood of Arab Muslims to fundamentally change Israeli demographics thus destroying the Jewish majority and defeating Israel through democratic voting at the next election and their demand which resulted in the latest impasse, the release of terrorists including terror masters as well as others who have Israeli and Jewish blood on their hands often having murdered numerous men, women, children and even infants. The exchange which was supposed to be the measure for the continued releasing of Palestinian terrorists was to be progress in the peace negotiations leading to a permanent resolution establishing a stable peace providing security and two independent nations living in peace side-by-side.

 

One might note that the initial indications that the negotiations were doomed to failure became evident when the Palestinians early in the talks began stating red-lines which were basically tailored to refuse or directly counter every position expressed by the Israelis. When Prime Minister Netanyahu mentioned in a speech that just as he had recognized the Palestinian right to have their own state, he insists that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the home for the Jewish People. Mahmoud Abbas held a press conference the next morning to announce his red-line that the Palestinians and the entirety of the Arab world would never recognize Israel as the home for the Jewish People. Abbas went even further claiming that Judaism is a religion and as such was not entitled to establishing a home nation and instead should live within states under the rule of others. When the Mayor of Jerusalem at a celebratory event mentioned the advances and successes that the reunified Jerusalem has enjoyed since June of 1967 emphasizing the more recent advances under his time as Mayor, a Palestinian leader demanded that Israel commit to the dividing of Jerusalem returning Jerusalem to the Palestinians as it was their eternal capital city despite there never having been a Palestinian nation in all of history and no nation for which Jerusalem was its capital city other than the Jewish States over the past three-thousand-five-hundred-plus years. The final stumbling block was the rising angst that arose within much of the citizenship of Israel, with the obvious lack of any progress, the Palestinian obstructionism and refusal to negotiate in good faith, the measurable increase in terrorism, which possibly could have been a result of the terrorist releases leading to mass protests, and a political crisis developed threatening to topple the governing coalition should the final release of twenty-six of the worst terrorists had been executed. The straw that very likely broke the camel’s back was a statement by Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat positing last month that Abbas was staying in talks solely for the sake of the terrorist releases. This was a major prompting for Israeli officials to reconsider completing the deal for as was mentioned above, the releases were always to have been contingent on real progress in the talks, something the Palestinians have fought to prevent at every turn.

 

Over the past week the recriminations have flown back and forth each side blaming and condemning the other for intransigence and destroying the opportunity for peace. The Israelis released statements condemning the Palestinians for their obstructiveness and threatening to apply for memberships to numerous United Nations and other international organizations establishing their statehood without needing to reach a peace with Israel. The Palestinians continued to insist that Israel release the remaining terrorists, continued threatening to establish their statehood independent of negotiations with Israel through joining United Nations and other international organization, demanded that United States Secretary of State Kerry intervene and force Israel to release the remaining terrorists. The Palestinians even volunteered their demands for extending the negotiations past the scheduled April ending date. They expected that the United States would pressure the Israelis by any means necessary to release four-hundred additional terrorist prisoners including arch terror master Marwan Barghouti, enact a complete building freeze within all the areas the Palestinians claim to have title over, and Israel guaranteeing to accept the “Right of Return” for all five-million plus refugees. Needless to point out that both sides were feeling tense and suspicious with both sides blaming the other for blowing-up any chance for peace.

 

The emergency forced Secretary of State Kerry to make a special trip to try and put the negotiations back on the rails. He held an emergency meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu before returning to Europe for another scheduled meeting fully expecting to return and speak with Palestinian Chairman Abbas. Chairman Abbas did not wait to even hear what Secretary of State Kerry had to say and instead signed the paperwork which sent the requests for membership to fifteen international agencies, some agencies of the United Nations and others were simply international groups. The associations the Palestinian has applied to join are:

1. The Four Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 and the First Additional Protocol.

2. The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

3. The Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

4. The Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in armed conflict.

5. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

6. The Hague Convention (IV) respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its annex: Regulations Concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land.

7. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

8. The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.

9. The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

10. The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

11. The United Nations Convention against Corruption.

12. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

13. The International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.

14. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

15. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

 

Letters of accession to the aforementioned international treaties were signed by Palestinian Authority Chairman Abbas and directed to Paul Garnier, the permanent representative of Switzerland to the United Nations, Robert Serry, the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, and to the deputy head of the permanent mission of Holland to the United Nations. These actions by the Palestinians resulted in Secretary of State Kerry cancelling his visit to discuss the situation with Chairman Abbas as for all intents and purposes the peace process has been exploded possibly beyond resurrection by the most recent actions and reactions with sufficient blame to allow for the supporters of either side to blame the other. I guess that is the one thing we can expect if nothing else in the near future is flying ramifications, extreme and fanatical accusations, many loud and often nonsensical tirades intended to be understood as well stated position explanations. Below are two examples of such reasoned flowing insanity.

 

Al-Damiri stated in a live PA TV broadcast of him speaking at an event marking the graduation of new officers in the PA Security Forces. “The challenges facing us… drugs. You don’t know how many problems we’ve had these past two weeks… A shocking amount of drugs that the Israeli occupation has spit up and vomited onto our land. A lab was even made in the Tulkarem District. The lab turning marijuana into heroin has been seized.”

 

Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel Knesset Minister from the Jewish Home Party criticized the Palestinian Authority Wednesday evening reacting to news that Ramallah had turned to the UN to apply for legitimacy and recognition breaching of the conditions set as part of the setup of the peace talks. Ariel wrote on a Facebook post, “The Palestinians applying to the UN breaks all the rules and we have to respond in kind – by canceling the Oslo Accords, which have only brought terror and murder. The Palestinians have proven once again that there is no reason to give them false gifts, and release terrorists and murderers for a process whose conclusion is well known in advance.”

 

Beyond the Cusp