Is a War Coming in Israel?

 

I have people asking me this question almost everywhere I go and in every group with which I associate. Apparently, I am considered a bit of an authoritative source even to those around me, quite complimentary. The simple and easiest answer is to simply say, “Yes.” Then they ask, How soon? That is where I get to say that I have no idea, but eventually something will go wrong. Then we get into the nitty-gritty and so will we as this article attempts to give a better answer that is more accurate and backed by facts and reality as seen from here in Israel. Such a discussion inevitably ends up being based heavily upon Iran and secondarily Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

 

Hamas is the easier part of the equation, and that even includes their partners in Gaza, Islamic Jihad. These two terror outfits play a version of good cop-bad cop, which we like to call bad cop-worse cop. The game goes something like this on a quiet day. First, a quick definition of a quiet day which consists of any day with one or less rockets and under a dozen new fires in the south. The world media also have a definition of a day where nothing happened in Israel. Their definition is very simple, if Israel did not respond with any ground engagement or aerial strike which can be described as way over the top and thus disproportional to whatever the provocation may have been committed against Israel. So, under the rules of the world media, there has probably been virtually no mention of anything untoward going on in Israel. According to their reporting, there has not been a single terrorist strike including the incendiary kites and balloons. According to their no rockets means that neither Hamas nor Islamic Jihad have launched any form of attacks on Israel. There were twenty new fires started on Friday and less that twelve hours after the new agreement for quiet along the border went into effect. Hamas claims that they are unable to prevent the rioters along the border as it has simply grown beyond their ability to prevent at least on some level. Hamas points their fingers at Islamic Jihad which is already pointing back at Hamas. This leads the world media to conclude that neither terror group attacked and all the rioting is simply grassroots demonstrations where there are no incentives such as the three-hundred dollars paid to anyone rioting and launching attacks upon Israel, at least according to the world media. This can lead to the world media referring to any Israel response to the rioting along the border as an unprovoked attack as there has been no recognized attack upon Israel, there has simply been some small amount of mischief and nothing for the Israelis to get upset over. Sorry, but we find anything over a dozen new wildfires set by these incendiary balloons, kites and now drones dropping these packages even further into Israel and potentially targeted using GPS coordinates or using a camera mounted on the drone and driving it to its target location. But the world media will simply say that it is but a matter of time before Israel devises a means of intercepting the balloons, kites, and of course the drones. Of the three, the drones are the easiest to knock out of the air as the electronics inside are vulnerable to a directed EMP pulse while kites and balloons are a separate matter and a bit of a challenge.

 

When Israel hits Hamas with any accusation that they are breaking any agreement for quiet, they claim that the rockets fired were done by Islamic Jihad and they have been told to stand down and if they refuse, what can Hamas do to end their launching rockets if Islamic Jihad so desires. You know, free choice terrorist style. Sooner or later Hamas owned rocket launchers get itchy fingers and they begin to join in on the launching of rockets. At some point, the world has to recognize the Israeli right to protect her lands and peoples from these attacks. Even when the one fatality about a month ago was a Palestinian Arab staying illegally in a house in southern Israel and this was almost the only struck that day. Still, Israel suffers other forms of trauma from such attacks. The world has been led to believe that the Israeli Iron Dome systems prevents rockets from reaching their destination within populated areas, which is mostly a valid statement as it has intercepted successfully over 85% of rockets fired. That still leaves that other 15% which get through and strike within the heavily populated areas within Israel. Additionally, even when the rocket is intercepted and prevented from reaching the target and now prevented from detonating its war head, there is still a matter of large and substantive remains of the rocket and interceptor which will strike the ground with all the force gravity is able to impart to them. There are also people suffering from shock who require treatment and in rare instances shock victims can reach a point where their shock spurs a heart attack or convulsions along with other reactions to the explosions. Even when intercepted, the rocket and interceptor will cause an explosion of lesser levels than the rocket would make if it struck, but still loud enough to add to the fright. Until you have been under such attacks, one really cannot appreciate the level of adrenaline and other physical changes your body goes through reacting to a situation where your life is in real jeopardy and there is nothing you can do but pray. You reach a point where your helplessness overwhelms your ability to remain calm and from there it is but a short time before one succumbs to their panic. There have been times where the rockets continued one every hour to hour and a half for days. There have been multiple launches placing anywhere from fifty to two-hundred rockets into the air in a short few minutes to a quarter of an hour and occasionally more where it literally rains rockets. Add in the fear that your child might forget the warnings you instructed that morning and on their way home from school find one of the rigged balloons and becomes the next victim to Hamas terrorism. The border rioters were provided a new way for attacking the Zionist entity and its Jews by attaching explosive devices and poisoned sweets in a colorful bag to their balloons hoping that some innocent child picks up the package and it detonates or they eat the poisoned candies, worse still, share the newly found candy. When your child is a mere five minutes late coming home from school or play become the longest five minutes in their parents’ lives fearing the worst. This is normalcy for over a million Israelis and every so often a politicians, including Bibi, make the mistake of speaking the reality of this situation, that as long as they do not attack Tel Aviv and the surrounding region, then Israel can restrain militarily and it has been this lack of reaction which has driven the silence of the terror attacks daily thrown at Israel.

 

When might a war begin with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza? Providing Hamas is able to curtail attacks when Israel has reached a point where actions are being considered, then an open conflict is unlikely. Sooner or later, Israel will be forced to attack Gaza in response to the nearly constant attacks simply to bring the slowly escalating terror attacks to an end. The problem is that as long as any Israeli response only addresses the stocks of rockets and explosive or poisoned packets thus preventing bringing about temporary quiet. Bibi Netanyahu might order a heavy air attack response to the border terror and especially if these daily attacks start including rocket firing as well or simply as a sign of strength and caring about the border regions and the terrorism inflicted upon them shortly before the mid-September elections. This leads to there having been such increasing levels of violence which no national leader would permit against their own people without some form of retribution with the aim of ending these attacks. What one need remember when taking in news reports about events in Israel is that almost every one of these reports will open going into painful, possibly excruciatingly so, detail of every move taken by Israel with great emphasis on attacks using aircraft. Only deep into the report will the actions by Hamas and Islamic Jihad be mentioned and if one is very lucky, the report will actually finally speak of the fact that the Israeli attack was in response to the terrorist attacks upon Israel. Another one of the medias’ methods for placing Israel in the worst light possible, the media reporting will list numbers of casualties on both sides using Islamic Jihad and Hamas numbers for civilians injured and killed as a result of the war. What is left out is that the terrorists use methods and tactics which drastically increase the number of innocent civilians within Gaza placed in direct jeopardy hoping to get as many civilians listed as casualties while Israel has invested in bomb shelters and building stronger buildings able to withstand rockets and minimize the threat they will cause those within. The Gazan terrorists also will take one of their own terror troops who was killed in the fighting and take his weapons and ammunition off their fellow terrorist’s body and, presto, you now have an instant murdered civilian. It often takes weeks, though Israel has increased their efficiency. For Israeli sources to pour over the data from the Palestinian health authorities and check the names on the death certificates screening them for known terrorists and rectifying their erroneous intentional use to inflate the number of civilian deaths when they were actually a combatant. The way the two sides fight and treat their civilians is the reason for the lopsided toll on civilians. When sirens sound in Israel, the people simply head for the nearest shelter for protection while in Gaza, when there is going to be fighting the terror units place civilians to the fore to maximize their deaths, the terror government provides no shelters and does not require new building to have built in shelters on every floor, if not every single unit and finally the terrorists instruct the medical personnel to count every death as the death of an innocent and seldom as what it actually is, the death of a terrorist.

 

The media simply regurgitates every lie they are fed by the terrorist leadership placing Israel in the worst possible light and then editorialize about how Israel is a mass slaughterer of innocents ignoring all facts such as the true count which takes about a week or so after the end of fighting to fully vet the facts from the lies. But there is little chance for a ground assault into Gaza at this time but can never be completely ruled out as Hamas and Islamic Jihad could begin tomorrow morning firing fifty rockets or mortars per hour and double the rate every few days and soon Israel has to do whatever is required to bring the terror barrages to a strict and complete end, and that is a ground offensive in order to protect lives. Yes, a ground offensive saves lives of Gazans while placing the soldiers of the IDF facing far greater hazards to their lives. There exists a far easier means of ending the violence in Gaza by bombing every suspected location where rockets, warheads, explosives and other tools of the terror trade are stored. Such bombing raids would be required to bomb most of the school buildings, numerous Mosques, health clinics, homes, apartments, and the areas used for weapons manufacture. The reality is that in order to rid Gaza of the weapons, explosives, rockets and other terror tools would require a virtually every building within the regions where the poor and less well-off reside and where most of the damaged and destroyed apartment buildings are found which their government, the terrorist leaders, have decided not to rebuild after each conflict such that they can point to the previous damage claiming it is brand new damage from the most recent conflict. In some way that is true as it has been a continuous battle to contain the terrorism keeping it from spreading its caustic hold which attempts to destroy all it touches. An example of the slanted reporting is shown as when Israel cleared a small section of land along the southern Gaza border pre-2005, the media made a great debacle out of the whole affair yet when Egypt cleared five to ten times the area (see image below) the media completely ignored their actions.

 

Egyptian Forces Destroy Rafah Homes on Border with Gaza October 2014
(photo credit: REUTERS)

 

The surreal threat comes from Hezballah in Lebanon and their stockpile of tens upon tens of thousands of rockets and with more still being manufactured as well as missiles provided by Iran. A coordinated upgrading of the larger of the Hezballah rockets has been instigated by Iran who is providing Hezballah with guidance packages which can be fit into their warheads or their rockets transforming them into targetable missiles. This makes each rocket turned missile worth ten or more plain rockets as it would take that many rockets to make certain you struck your intended target. Hezballah is closer to the definition of a military as they have received generous training and arming by Iran through the IRGC. As Iran has forces in Syria in addition to the IRGC forces which have been fighting in Syria in support of Bashir al-Assad using both to provide arms and provisions for Hezballah which is also assisting the fight in Syria as well as supporting the Houthis in Yemen who are also armed and trained by Iran. Iran would arm Hamas and Islamic Jihad to a level comparable to Hezballah if it were not for the fact that Israel prevents such from the sea while Israel and Egypt assist one another in preventing such over land provisions for the terrorists in Gaza. Egypt has been angered by attacks in the Sinai Peninsula which have been aided and supported by Hamas and Islamic Jihad against Egyptian forces and personnel. As far as when the coming war with Hezballah, this war will apparently not be initiated by Israel without a provocation traceable to Hezballah, and even then, any Israeli response would be measured. Israelis really wish to live in peace without threats hanging over our heads or over our borders. Currently, there exists Iranian interlocuters at both the northern and southern borders and Iran has been making overtures to Mahmoud Abbas as well as some of the other leadership including some of his rivals. Iran looks at the regions controlled by the Palestinian Authority and its terrorist entity of the PLO and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, such that Iran will have Israel almost surrounded. Any war in the north will be the result of attacks from within Lebanon and not starting from within Israel. In many ways this could prove to be a disaster. Israel is fully aware of the locations for all of the Hezballah rocket and missile storage sites, their weapons depots, most of the bunkers and their interconnecting tunnel system. Israel knows where each rocket launcher exists including the one under the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

 

The presumed intimidation Iran believes their ability to command the terror forces against Israel is producing is, in all reality, simply nonexistent. One would think that Israelis were walking around shaking in their boots fearing that their next step could easily be their last. Such an assessment is ludicrous as Israel remains just outside the top ten happiest nations coming in at a respectable eleventh, well ahead to the United States which is ranked seventeenth. Iran also has designs on Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the gulf states. This is the reason that Iran is allied with the Houthis in Yemen, so as to attain a southern front against Saudi Arabia and control of a maritime choke-point the Bab-el-Mandeb at the southernmost end of the Red Sea and a point that should Iran close down this waterway they would basically be closing off the Suez Canal isolating Europe from Asia. Such a blockade would be against maritime codes and make Iran a pariah amongst the nations. Iran could go do far more by closing the Strait of Hormuz allowing only their own oil to be passed through and to the rest of the world. As far as Israel is concerned, Iran poses a far greater threat than any other nation. This is amplified by their ongoing threats to destroy the Jewish State in the first half of this century. As they hold ultimate control over the actions of Hezballah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas and IRGC units in Syria and potentially out of the Sinai Peninsula where they may have organized other terror groups who use that region for supply and training. This would leave Israel with only their border with Jordan being free from attack. Iran might even go as far as using the IRGC to remove Mahmoud Abbas and their taking control of the regions in Judea and Samaria under Palestinian Authority control. That would all but encircle Israel. The only thing which could make this worse would be for an Iranian naval task force to also attack from the Mediterranean Sea forcing a naval battle with the Israeli naval units which protect that region.

 

Iran is currently conducting wars in Syria backing Bashir al-Assad, Iraq where they have decimated the Sunni population and are also driving the Kurds out squeezing them between the Iraqi and Iranian forces and Turkey sweeping in across northern Syria, Yemen where they are supporting the revolution against the elected government using the Houthis and IRGC forces, in Lebanon through Hezballah Iran can take control there at their leisure, and surrounding Israel and Saudi Arabia while threatening Jordan; yet, they have the nerve to claim Israel is attempting to conquer the region. Iran is the threatening hegemonic power in the region but they know they can always distract the United Nations, European nations, European Union, the various human rights NGOs and numerous other political entities by screaming that Israel is doing ethnic cleansing or conducting genocide or is an Apartheid regime or any of any number of tropes used against the Jewish State here in the not so civilized era and divert all attention from themselves. The current exception to this rule is President Trump. This does not mean that the Republicans are all that enthused with Israel or that the Democrats have much nice to say or think about Israel, but it does point out that the vast majority of Americans still support Israel. The problem in the United States is that the Democrat Party has adopted a new outlook for the future which does not include Israel or even necessarily the Jews. Still, the vast majority of Jews support the Democrat Party through thick and thin, and it is getting thinner every day but the leftist Jews simply refuse to see. Iran will start the next large conflagration and it will start in the waters around Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. Where their initial target will be the United States naval fleets, they will attack Israel if by no other means than using Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezballah and whomever else they can find including the IRGC in Syria and elsewhere. Once Israel has neutralized Hezballah in Lebanon and retaken the Gaza forcing Hamas and Islamic Jihad into the Sinai where Egypt will deal with them at the first sign of trouble, then as far as Israel is directly concerned, this conflict will have ended. Certainly, Iran could launch ballistic missiles at Israel potentially even having nuclear warheads. The Israeli layered anti-missile defense augmented by the American units manning the THADD systems should prove to be an effective blocking force against any Iranian ballistic missiles. The main hope is once Iran has forced a war in the Middle East upon the world that the United States and her allies will make a very quick and resolute end to the problems caused by Iran and then turn the country over to the people and allow them to elect new leadership within three or four months and then the United States should simply leave a small detachment behind and otherwise go home. Removing the current Iranian leadership would allow the entirety of the Middle East to at least catch its breathe before any new problems arise.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Trump Peace Initiative Starting on Wrong Foot

 

President Trump’s Middle East economic package has been unveiled and it promises simply more of the same failure as we have seen before. Step one, promise to provide economic stimulus which will create jobs and provide economic opportunities for the average Palestinian Arab. This time they are talking about fifty-billion-dollars worth of stimulus. What exactly is the intention and how this plan can get beyond the same problems every previous plan had run into is beyond our ability to figure out. Perhaps it is the amount which is the intended difference as perhaps they are figuring that even the Palestinian deep pit cannot manage to pilfer, redirect and otherwise conceal such an amount. The Palestinian leadership has proven to be amongst the world’s best at stealing any and all funds invested. As displayed in the bar graph below, it is evident that the Palestinian Arab relief efforts far outpace those of any, if not all, the other needful places everywhere on the Earth. As any tour of Gaza will prove, even when provided with building materials, somehow, they build so many tunnels and bunkers such that they end up incapable of rebuilding much of the damage from even the war between Hamas with Islamic Jihad against the Palestinian Authority when Hamas took control of Gaza in a bloody coup. In each war, as time progressed, Hamas and the supportive NGO’s put forth the claim that Israel not only destroyed the same building from the previous engagements but caused further damage. The reality is the previous damages were never cleared or rebuilt; they were left in whatever condition they were when the fighting ended. Most of the buildings damaged or destroyed had been utilized as rocket-launching positions, ambush positions and other military uses with the intention of maximizing the damage done. Of course, this has been encouraged by the numerous NGO’s whose main purpose in life is to mar the Israeli reputation and to bring Israel before the numerous United Nations agencies and international courts for war crimes, crimes against society or any other criminal activities imaginable. The anti-Israel agenda has been turned into an industry which has been heavily financed by the Arabs and Islamic world as well as numerous far left institutions and funds. One can expect these NGO’s to line up to grab some of the pot of goal about to be dumped into the cesspool which is the Palestinian Arabs cause.

 

Graph of Aid Money to Palestinian Territories and other needful locations

 

Mahmoud Abbas has made it quite clear that the “Pay-to-Slay” funds are paid out before any and all other items are funded. He has stated openly that even if the entire amount the Palestinian Authority was funded was equal to the funds necessary to cover the payments to terrorists, then it would all be utilized to pay the terrorists (see video below). Despite such a damning confession about the “Pay-to-Slay” being his first and foremost importance for funding above all else, the United Nations, European Union and numerous European countries and international NGO’s still swear that the Palestinian Authority is not encouraging terrorism. What is even more disturbing is that the highest paying position outside the leadership who are part of those who take a percentage of all funds provided their organizations is the murder of Israeli civilians. The Palestinian Authority even has an entire payment schedule which has been published (we have included one below). There is an even increasing amounts that are paid for the more Israelis a terrorist is able to murder. Then there are additional payments for specific other criteria such as if the terrorist has a family, is a resident of Jerusalem or a resident of Israel. Mahmoud Abbas has gone off the rails ever since President Trump announced the relocating of the United States embassy to the Israeli capital of Jerusalem. For Abbas, this was an aberrant act which was in direct opposition to the interests of the Palestinian Authority. What Abbas only states in Arabic and often not recorded is that the Palestinian Arabs cause is completely honest to the Khartoum Resolution of September 1, 1967, and the three no’s; “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel.” The only peace deal acceptable to the Palestinian Authority or to Hamas is any settlement in which Israel ceases to be the Jewish State and is instead returned to Islamic rule. This was the entirety behind the Khartoum conference.

 

 

Palestinian Authority Remunerations for Terrorists

 

Starting off this next peace initiative by promising to “invest” in the Palestinian economy is nothing new and the elites are probably already dividing up the funds and decided what minimal improvements they will use through which to distribute the funds to the right people who are in the loop and proven to share the wealth with all the right people. Theirs is a polished system through which how the cash enters their area of control, they have proven to be able to digest any amount of money regardless of the gross amount provided, but fifty-billion-dollars is the largest amount ever intended to be used to invigorate their economy and thus could be a real challenge. President Trump’s team has stated that this time the funds will be distributed with more care and will not be invested in the Palestinian leadership as has been the previous efforts. As the elites are all attached financially to the Palestinian leadership and likely to share the wealth which could be flowing into their coffers as this is necessary if they intend to live long enough to deposit their share of the funding. This latest approach to find the required means for hammering out peace between the Palestinian Arabs and Israel will be facing the same complex system which is quite practiced at distributing funds into the right people’s pockets including making sure that the “Pay-to-Slay” funds make their way to the true heroes of Palestinian society. These are also the people for whom roads, government buildings, schools, sports teams, sporting contests, parks, playgrounds and just about everything else including people’s first child’s name and some name all their children after terrorist murderers. Terrorism is the most glamorous of occupations, and it is considered an honorable profession. Such has become the attitude of Palestinian Arab society due to the indoctrination which children are exposed to as their educational curriculum. This is the societal norm which exists in the Palestinian Arab regions and the longer they are permitted to expend efforts at spreading their hatred of Israel and Jews to the Israeli Arabs is simply one more reason that the present ruling elites must be removed and preferably deported from all of Israel.

 

The reality of the Arab Israeli conflict is that the Palestinian Arab terrorism is just the latest form of warfare taken by the Islamic Arab world to destroy Israel. What this means is that there is no amount of money which could ever find a remedy to the conflict which the Arabs will accept if Israel remains the Jewish State. First item is that Islam, despite the fantasies politicians tell, is completely incompatible with democracy. Further, they are taught that the Jews are lesser beings requiring their Islamic better to care for them. We will skip exactly what caring for the Jews actually entails. From the promise of a slaughter “about like the massacres of the Mongols or the Crusades,” by Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League at the start of the Arab War of Annihilation begun against Israel the morning of her founding on May 15, 1948; their intent has never wavered from this attitude. This was their intent in the 1967 Six Day War and again for the 1973 Yom Kippur War. After the Six Day War, the Arabs decided to also include terrorism to force the Jews to flee from their violence. This was an agreed tactic established actually in 1964 when the KGB working with the Arab League established the Palestinian Liberation Organization headed by two trained Arab KGB elements, Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas. Their purpose was to make life so horrific and dangerous for Israelis that the Jews would flee going back to the nations from whence they had come. This has not worked quite as well as the Arabs had planned as the numbers of Jews has continued to increase over time. There is one other item which is counterintuitive for anybody who believes the claims of the Palestinian Arabs and their propaganda elements. This is that despite claims that Israel has been attempting genocide and ethnic cleansing, the numbers of Palestinian Arabs has greatly increased over the years as well. This is but one of the numerous lies peddled by the Arabs concerning Israel and who is occupying whose lands. Under International Law, the eastern border of Israel is the Jordan River into the Golan Heights and to where it empties into the Dead sea and continuing south. Gestate on this for a while and look at a map and fairly soon one comes to the realization that the Palestinian Arabs are occupying parts of Israel, how’s that for an opposite to everything that the entire imbroglio has been built upon lies and other infirmities which threaten to have the Arab cause collapse should the world ever get past their disingenuous acceptance of the Jewish State. In time we will cover this further.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Crux of the Arab-Israel Conflict, Part I

 

Most of the protests over the Arab Israel Conflict, now reestablished by the Arabs after numerous failures to destroy Israel, starting around the turn of the Twentieth Century in 1901, even before Israel had been founded and as the first Jews began returning even before the Balfour Declaration, have claimed that Israeli intransigence is the cause of the continuing conflict. As we will see, that has things quite backwards but does keep closely to the Arab propaganda which has been a multi-billion-dollar effort and counting. The actual history of this conflict often surprises people until they reach out and attempt to verify the truth and validate or disqualify what they have read. We invite people to make an honest effort to verify or vilify what we claim. We try and give links often enough but much of the information is easily researched and should not require links to be verified.

 

When the San Remo Conference decided to put the Balfour Declaration into treaty form, the Arabs initially agreed, or at least King Faisal had no problem as his main concern was to free the Arab lands from Turkish Ottoman rule and saw allowing the Jews their homelands as a fair and decent price for the Arabs to gain their independence from the defeated Ottomans. This was surprising and unacceptable to many in the British aristocracy and ruling elites, though there was a core element which supported the Jews returning to their ancestral lands. Some in Europe saw this as a means of ridding themselves of their Jewish problems. The actual result was that only a few Jews who were the original Zionists were interested in returning to Eretz Yisroel. These Jews returned to a land largely uninhabited, strewn with boulders, mostly rocky soil, swamps where there was decent lands and no real water systems and general arid conditions with a rainy season followed by a longer arid season. These Jews drained swamps, cleared land and began on a building project to distribute and store water for irrigation and general needs. As the Jews cleared land it made for an economic opportunities which Arabs then began to relocate to what would become Israel. Amongst these Arabs were groups who decided that it would be far easier to simply steal lands already cleared and irrigated than to try and prepare lands for their own usage. This led to the Jews having to defend their farms and projects which they often did by placing their wives with rifles atop the trucks as they prepared the water systems.

 

The original plan under the San Remo Conference was that the British Mandate would be to establish the Jewish State. The British took their Mandate as requiring that they allow a Jewish State in some area but not all of their Mandate. Their decision was to use the Jordan River, a natural boundary, as the border between their Arab State and their Jewish State. This gave the Arabs 78% of the land which would become Jordan, and the Jews 22% of the land which is still being fought over and debated. This was the initial two state solution. Any subsequent deal would be the second two state solution and as the Palestinian Authority and Hamas cannot play well with one another, there would be necessitated a three state solution if any peace were to be imposed which gave each interest their own region. But in order to be fair, it is worth noting that there were a series of Arab revolts where they attacked Jewish areas with all too often the British forces which were supposed to keep the peace simply standing by observing until they became threatened. In one of the Hevron riots, the British soldiers simply watched and when the Arab rioters then turned their attentions to the British, the British officer pulled his sidearm and fired one shot and the riot ended. This officer knew he could have ended the entire affair at any point simply with such an action but refused to stop the riot while the Arabs were attacking only the Jews. This was an indicator of the attitude of all too many of the British when it came to the Jews.

 

The British throughout Jordan and Iraq and in coordination with the French in Syria encouraged Arabs to relocate, even paying some and forcing others into the region which was slated to be the Jewish State such that the Jews would always be in the minority and thus unable to declare their independence. This was further implemented through a series of White Papers and other edicts which restricted the numbers of Jews permitted to move into the future Jewish State. This became particularly alarming as they all but closed entry for the Jews in the late 1930’s and through the end of World War II and until after they surrendered the Mandate. The British even set up camps and, in some rare cases used former concentrations camp locations, corralled the Jewish refugees from the Nazi concentration camps who had no homeland to return to, as it was quickly learned that all too many towns and villages were simply murdering any Jews attempting to return as they had already moved others into the Jewish homes and businesses and their return would have caused distress. This led many, many Jews to simply decide they were going to return to their ancestral lands as they were no longer welcomed in Europe. Most of these Jews ended up in the refugee camps where the British kept the numbers permitted to emigrate to the Holy Lands limited. The Movie “Exodus” gave a very optimistic but unrealistic end to the attempt of the ship SS Exodus to take Jewish refugees to Israel. The actual ship was boarded by the British in international waters, killing three of those on board and injuring some ten. In the end, after a stop in France where the French did all they could to be rid of the ship, the SS Exodus was sailed to Hamburg, Germany, a British occupied zone, where the Jews were placed in a camp for the duration. As is well known, as soon as the British were officially no longer responsible and had surrendered their Mandate occupation, Israel declared her independence.

 

As Israel declared her independence in May of 1948, which was soon after the Holocaust, many people claim that Israel was founded as an apology by the Europeans for allowing the Holocaust. This would have been a neat trick as the San Remo Conference was held from April 19, 1920 through April 26, 1920, quite a few years and almost two decades before the start of World War II, and thus the Holocaust. Did the Holocaust have something to do with the United Nations vote to approve their plan, Resolution 181, which was released on November 29, 1947, and partitioned the lands west of the Jordan river into two states, one Arab and one Jewish? This was an attempt at making a second two-state solution and is the grandfather of the modern idea that there is this pressing need for a two-state solution west of the Jordan River. That, of course, completely ignored the original two-state solution in which the Jews received a mere 22% of the Mandate lands. The Arab League refused this proposition and as it was a General Assembly Resolution, as soon as one side refuses to accept the compromise, the entire plan becomes defunct and void and is basically tossed aside and forgotten. Well, except for this one which we will get back to in a while. The reason the Arab League refused to accept Resolution 181 was because they had already aligned seven nations which were going to attack Israel as soon as it was founded. Thus, on the morning of May 15, 1948, the armies of Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Lebanon along with the fighters under the Mufti of Jerusalem and numerous other militias attacked Israel which had not had time to even consider putting together her military. Fairly soon the several groups of militias, the Hagenah and other groups within Israel, even including several Arab villages, cobbled together a military force and soon turned the tide and began pushing the Arab armies out of Israel. This was when the world powers stepped in and called for a cease to the fighting and eventually armistices were arranged. Due to the early end to the war, the Jewish forces with their Arab friends were not provided the time to repulse the invaders completely from what was supposed to be the Jewish State. This left Gaza under Egyptian control and the Shomron (West Bank) in Jordanian hands.

 

Had the fighting been permitted to reach a more timely conclusion, the Israeli forces would have stopped and advances and simply defended the lands which were promised them. That would have meant that Israel would have retained Gaza while the Egyptian military would have continued forcing all Arabs to retreat ahead of their forces clearing the population as they retreated into the Sinai and the Jordanians along with the Saudis and Iraqis would have been pressed back across the Jordan River, a natural barrier against any assault in either direction and as natural a border as any in the world (see cutaway image below). But things are seldom permitted to continue until Israel had a complete victory and ends the conflict as most of the world would prefer to be rid of Israel and with her the world’s Jews. This leaving the entire question without a complete and final solution has only led to the problems still festering today and remaining unsolved largely because the world refuses to recognize and keep the promises they made the Jewish People.

 

Cutaway View of Tactical Advantage and Necessity
of the Jordan Valley and Judean Hills for Defending
Coastal Plains and Israel Alongside the Mediterranean Sea

 

There would be a war in 1956 over Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser closing the Suez Canal to European shipping and the Strait of Tiran to Israeli shipping. This caused an alliance between France, Britain and Israel who gave the Egyptian President a deadline for reopening these waterways or face a military solution. When the deadline passed, the British and French continued talking while Israel attacked the Sinai Peninsula. Israel quickly took the Sinai and was sitting along the eastern shores of the Suez Canal. Needless to point out, international hew and cry was for those mean Israelis to return the Sinai with United States President Eisenhower leading the charge. Israel withdrew after the waterways were reopened. The next war was the Six Day War in early June of 1967, where Egypt and Syria had massed troops along the Israeli border threatening to drown the Jews in the Mediterranean Sea. Egypt once again closed the strait of Tiran which was recognized as an act of war. Israel decided to believe the threats from Egypt and Syria and as Egypt had already committed an act of war closing the waterways to Israel shipping, Israel launched an air attack against Egypt. The war had already entered its third or fourth day after the closing of the strait which placed Egypt in a state of war with Israel. This initiated hostilities as the Syrian forces came off of the Golan Heights before being halted by the IDF. Believing the reports on Egyptian and Syrian radio and other media that they were defeating the Jews and closing on Tel Aviv and refusing to believe Israeli reports of the opposite, Jordan quickly joined the fight. In the end, Israel again conquered the Sinai Peninsula, liberated Gaza and the Shomron and took the Golan Heights. The original lands which were to be Israel had included the Golan Heights, but the British gifted it to the French to give to Syria rather than allow it to be part of Israel due to its military importance (see image below). This is where things remained until October of 1973 and the Yom Kippur War where Egypt and Syria attacked Israel almost defeating her before the IDF could fully respond. By the end of hostilities, the Israeli forces were closing on Alexandria and Cairo in Egypt and Damascus in Syria. The United Nations backed by Russia and the United States insisted that Israel return to the final position from the Six Day War with which Israel complied.

 

Topographic Map of Golan Heights and Jordan River Valley

 

The United Nations had passed a resolution after the Six Day War in which Israel was to “return land,” this is important wording as it does not say the lands, all lands, but simply land. Israel was also to retain lands which would provide Israel with security and defensible borders. Nobody wants to admit that this actually meant Israel retaining the Golan Heights and reestablishing her eastern border as being the Jordan River, but that was the feeling and implications back in September of 1967. When Israel and Egypt reached their peace agreement, Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula while Egypt refused to accept Gaza leaving that problem with Israel, quite intentionally. Subsequently, Israel and Jordan reached a peace agreement and Jordan refused the Israeli offer to permit them to take back the Shomron though they did insist on control of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem by their Waqf. Their Waqf has slowly altered the rules on the Temple Mount and used rioting as a method for demanding that the rioters be calmed by banning Jews permission to visit the area. The rioters often use the al-Aqsa Mosque as their armory where they store rocks and planks along with other items which they use against the police and other officials who are attempting to restore order (see picture below). The return of the Sinai Peninsula, a region approximately three times the size of Israel, fully satisfied the demands initially from the United Nations and should have been the end with Israel able to define her borders as the Jordan River, the Golan Heights, and her recognized borders with Lebanon and Egypt. But the world does not always play by their own rules.

 

al-Aqsa Mosque Set for Use as Armory for Rioting

 

Beyond the Cusp