Crack down on UNRWA and finally end the fiction of Palestinian refugees

From NY Post, 27 December 2017, by Richard Goldberg, senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies:


Fake aid to fake refigees

As the UN General Assembly voted to reject America’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, US Ambassador Nikki Haley issued a stern warning: We’ll remember this the next time you come calling for more hard-earned American taxpayer dollars. Most nation-states called her bluff, leaving many to wonder what comes next.

If President Trump wants to use his financial leverage at the United Nations to strike at the heart of the anti-America, anti-Israel institutional infrastructure, he should look no further than the agency responsible for Palestinian refugees: the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

By most definitions, refugees are those forced to flee their country because of persecution, war or violence. Nearly every refugee in the world is cared for by the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees, whose ultimate goal is repatriation, resettlement and integration. The exception? Palestinian refugees.

Arab states insisted on a different definition for Palestinian-Arab refugees of the Israeli War of Independence — and a different agency to care for them. Today, millions of people are referred to as “Palestinian refugees” even though the only home they, and in many cases even their parents and grandparents, have ever known is either a refugee camp or an Arab host nation like Jordan.

Rather than use the billions of dollars of international assistance provided since 1950 to resettle and integrate Palestinian-Arab refugees — just as Israel successfully resettled and integrated Jewish refugees from the Middle East, North Africa and the Soviet Union — UNRWA’s mandate has always been to keep Palestinians as perpetual refugees.

In truth, it’s not a refugee agency but a welfare agency, which keeps millions of people in a permanent state of dependency and poverty — all while feeding Palestinians an empty promise that one day they’ll settle in Israel.

Yet the United States remains the agency’s largest single-state donor.

Unfortunately, every time Congress tries to expose the fiction of “the Palestinian refugee,” it runs up against a State Department fiercely protective of UNRWA and its mythology. In 2012, an amendment to the annual State-Foreign Operations appropriations bill asked the Obama administration a simple question: How many of the Palestinians currently served by UNRWA were personally displaced by the 1948 war?

The point was to confirm to the world that there are only a relative handful of true Palestinian refugees still alive who may be entitled to repatriation or compensation. The rest, the descendants, are impoverished Palestinian-Arabs who will either become citizens of a future Palestinian state or be absorbed by Arab host nations.

While an official report was eventually sent to Congress, its contents were kept classified to keep the American public from knowing the truth. The Trump administration can take a giant step toward Middle East peace by declassifying that report, updating it and formally adopting a definition for Palestinian refugees that makes a clear distinction between refugees displaced by the 1948 war and their descendants.

The administration and Congress should work together to change the way America funds UNRWA, making clear to taxpayers how much money goes to refugee assistance and how much subsidizes a culture of welfare and terrorism.

Future funding of the agency should be tied to a clear mission of resettlement, integration and economic self-sufficiency. A timetable and work plan should be established for UNRWA’s integration into UNHCR. Conditions should be set in the annual foreign bill, giving Haley the leverage she needs to force changes in the agency’s next biennium budget.

Nations of the world showed their true colors last week. Far too many cared more about castigating Israel than their relationship with the United States.

UNRWA is a case study in the institutional bias that America helps fund at the United Nations. Shining a light on this agency and making it a centerpiece of a new reform agenda would be a victory for American taxpayers and a defeat for the international movement to castigate our closest ally in the Middle East.

How to Defund the U.N.

From WSJ 25 December 2017, by John Bolton, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute:


U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley listens during a Security Council meeting concerning Israel and Palestine in New York, Dec. 18. 
PHOTO: DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES

As an assistant secretary of state in the George H.W. Bush administration, I worked vigorously to repeal a hateful United Nations General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism. Foreign diplomats frequently told me the effort was unnecessary. My Soviet counterpart, for example, said Resolution 3379 was only a piece of paper gathering dust on a shelf. Why stir up old controversies years after its 1975 adoption?

We ignored the foreign objections and persisted because that abominable resolution cast a stain of illegitimacy and anti-Semitism on the U.N. It paid off. On Dec. 16, 1991, the General Assembly rescinded the offensive language.

Now, a quarter-century later, the U.N. has come close to repeating Resolution 3379’s original sin. Last week the U.N. showed its true colors with a 128-9 vote condemning President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

This seemingly lopsided outcome obscured a significant victory and major opportunity for the president. Thirty-five countries abstained, and 21 didn’t vote at all. Days earlier the Security Council had endorsed similar language, 14-1, defeated only by the U.S. veto. The margin narrowed significantly once Mr. Trump threatened to penalize countries that voted against the U.S. This demonstrated once again that America is heard much more clearly at the U.N. when it puts its money where its mouth is. (In related news, Guatemala announced Sunday it will move its embassy to Jerusalem, a good example for others.)

While imposing financial repercussions on individual governments is entirely legitimate, the White House should also reconsider how Washington funds the U.N. more broadly. Should the U.S. forthrightly withdraw from some U.N. bodies (as we have from UNESCO and as Israel announced its intention to do on Friday)? Should others be partially or totally defunded? What should the government do with surplus money if it does withhold funds?

Despite decades of U.N. “reform” efforts, little or nothing in its culture or effectiveness has changed. Instead, despite providing the body with a disproportionate share of its funding, the U.S. is subjected to autos-da-fé on a regular basis. The only consolation, at least to date, is that this global virtue-signaling has not yet included burning the U.S. ambassador at the stake.

Turtle Bay has been impervious to reform largely because most U.N. budgets are financed through effectively mandatory contributions. 
Under this system, calculated by a “capacity to pay” formula, each U.N. member is assigned a fixed percentage of each agency’s budget to contribute. The highest assessment is 22%, paid by the U.S. This far exceeds other major economies, whose contribution levels are based on prevailing exchange rates rather than purchasing power parity. China’s assessment is just under 8%.

Why does the U.S. tolerate this? It is either consistently outvoted when setting the budgets that determine contributions or has joined the “consensus” to avoid the appearance of losing. Yet dodging embarrassing votes means acquiescing to increasingly high expenditures.

The U.S. should reject this international taxation regime and move instead to voluntary contributions. This means paying only for what the country wants—and expecting to get what it pays for. Agencies failing to deliver will see their budgets cut, modestly or substantially. Perhaps America will depart some organizations entirely. This is a performance incentive the current assessment-taxation system simply does not provide.

Start with the U.N. Human Rights Council. Though notorious for its anti-Israel bias, the organization has never hesitated to abuse America. How many know that earlier this year the U.N. dispatched a special rapporteur to investigate poverty in the U.S.? American taxpayers effectively paid a progressive professor to lecture them about how evil their country is.

The U.N.’s five regional economic and social councils, which have no concrete accomplishments, don’t deserve American funding either. If nations believe these regional organizations are worthwhile—a distinctly dubious proposition—they are entirely free to fund them. Why America is assessed to support them is incomprehensible.

Next come vast swaths of U.N. bureaucracy. Most of these budgets could be slashed with little or no real-world impact. Start with the Office for Disarmament Affairs. The U.N. Development Program is another example. Significant savings could be realized by reducing other U.N. offices that are little more than self-licking ice cream cones, including many dealing with “Palestinian” questions. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees could be consolidated into the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Many U.N. specialized and technical agencies do important work, adhere to their mandates and abjure international politics. A few examples: the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization. They shouldn’t be shuttered, but they also deserve closer scrutiny.

Some will argue incorrectly that unilaterally moving to voluntary contributions violates the U.N. Charter. In construing treaties, like contracts, parties are absolved from performance when others violate their commitments. Defenders of the assessed-contribution model would doubtless not enjoy estimating how often the charter has been violated since 1945.

If the U.S. moved first, Japan and some European Union countries might well follow America’s lead. Elites love the U.N., but they would have a tough time explaining to voters why they are not insisting their contributions be used effectively, as America has. Apart from risking the loss of a meaningless General Assembly vote—the Security Council vote and veto being written into the Charter itself—the U.S. has nothing substantial to lose.

Thus could Mr. Trump revolutionize the U.N. system. The swamp in Turtle Bay might be drained much more quickly than the one in Washington.

Trump’s Security Strategy: The Impact on Israel

From 

The Jerusalem Herald December 22, 2017

, byAmbassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger

:

US army 

(Image credit: The U.S. Army (Hovering Hawks) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

US President Donald Trump’s national security strategy – as enunciated on December 18, 2017 - reflects a realistic assessment of clear and present threats to the US, rejecting the politically-correct worldview of the foreign policy establishment, which has been crashed, repeatedly, against the rocks of reality. It provides a prescription for the enhancement of the flourishing, mutually-beneficial US-Israel relationship.

Contrary to the US and West European government, academic and media foreign policy establishment - which are highly critical of Israel and top heavy on wishful-thinking concerning the supposed Arab Spring, ostensible democratization and peaceful coexistence of the Arab World – Trump recognizes the complex and inherently brutal reality of the Middle East. Trump is aware of the lethal threats posed by Shiite (Ayatollahs) and Sunni terrorism and the threats posed by the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement.

Apparently, Trump does not embrace the myth of the Palestinian issue as – supposedly - a core cause of regional instability, a crown-jewel of Arab policy-makers, nor the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

According to Trump, apologies, appeasement and multilateralism have been replaced by America-first patriotism, the independence of unilateral US military action, the resurgence of the US posture of deterrence, an expanded defense budget and peace-through-strength.

Will Israel leverage these principles in its own battle against Islamic/Arab terrorism and its public relation posture in the US?  

Trump underlined US national goals, which already benefit from Israel’s own experience and knowhow, harboring a much greater, mutually-beneficial potential:

1. Improving ballistic missile defense and cyber technologies feature Israel as a top partner with the US in the area of groundbreaking research, development and production;

2. Operational and technological homeland security and counter-terrorism highlight Israel’s unique experience as a game-changing contributor to the US’ intelligence, training and operations;

3. The stress on innovation underscores Israel as a platform of cutting-edge technologies for over 200 US hightech giants, as well as the leading battle-tested laboratory of the US defense industries, upgrading the latter’s research and development, global competitiveness, exports and employment-base.

Moreover, Israel has been “the largest US aircraft carrier” – as suggested by the late General Alexander Haig - which does not require US soldiers, deployed in a most critical region for US national security, sparing the necessity for the US to deploy a few more real aircraft carriers and additional divisions to the area between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean (at an annual cost of $15BN-$20BN).

The President announced that allies of the US, which benefit from US protection – in the form of US military bases and personnel – “should reimburse the United States for the cost of defending them.” However, unlike Germany (70,000 US troops), South Korea and Japan (40,000 troops each), etc., Israel does not require US military bases and/or personnel, on its soil, for its defense.

In fact, Israel constitutes a most effective, reliable, battle-tested and uniquely unconditional US beachhead, stretching the strategic arm of the US in a most critical region for the American homeland and national security.

Will President Trump’s realistic national security talk be matched by effective walk?

Islamic terrorism: myth and conspiracy theory build augmented reality

From The Australian, January 2, 2018, by Sherry Sufi, chairman of the West Australian Liberal Party’s policy committee:


British police officers and emergency services work on Westminster Bridge in the aftermath of a terror incident. 
Picture: AFP

Another day. Another terrorist. Another misdiagnosis.

We’ve long been told by ­“experts” that terrorism is the ­result of the perpetrators being mentally ill, poor, unemployed, uneducated or marginalised. Yet al-Qa’ida leader Osama bin Laden was a billionaire and Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi holds a PhD.

So much for poverty and lack of education.

Present-day Muslims, irrespective of whether they are terrorists or normal citizens, collectively subscribe to an augmented reality featuring a struggle between the imperialist forces of America, ­Israel and their Western allies on one side and the global community of Muslims on the other.

Blind trust in conspiracy theories does more to influence this world view than critical inquiry. No, not the “moon landing never happened” or “Elvis is still alive”- type theories. More so “the Jews, the Freemasons and the illumi­nati control the world” and “September 11 was an inside job to demonise Muslims”-type theories.

Romanticising over the lost glories of a once mighty Islamic empire that stretched from China to Spain remains a favourite pastime in learned Muslim circles. British and French colonialism are deeply ­resented for playing divide-and-conquer between Turks and Arabs in the 1920s to dismantle the Ottoman Empire, the last ­Islamic caliphate on earth.

European Ashkenazi Jews are begrudged for colluding with the British Empire to create Israel in 1948 in the heart of the Islamic world. Many believe the goal of Zionism is to usurp more Arab land and create “Greater Israel” stretching from the rivers Nile in Egypt to the Euphrates in Iraq.

Many similarly believe that ­Israel has a secret plot to demolish the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque to rebuild the third Jewish temple over the holy site.

From the 1991 Gulf war to the 2001 war on terror in Afghanistan and the 2003 Iraq war, every case of American military intervention in Muslim nations is perceived as a “crusade” against Islam, despite each having occurred with the support of co-operating elements within those nations.

Liberating Jerusalem from the Zionists, toppling pro-American puppet regimes in Muslim nations and challenging America’s might as the world’s sole superpower are fantasies that lie at the core of this world view.

These are the exact ­aspirations extremist Muslims are striving hard to bring to reality by means of asymmetric warfare, otherwise known as terrorism.

When we see Muslims condemning extremist Muslims, what they’re essentially saying is that suicide bombings, stabbings, kidnappings, beheadings and mowing down pedestrians are unacceptable means to advance these ­aspirations.

They’re not necessarily saying the aspirations are the problem. The condemnation is directed at the means, not the end. Muslims and extremist Muslims often yearn for the same political outcomes. Except one finds an outlet in words, the other in ­weapons.

Islamic State publishes an ­online propaganda magazine called Dabiq. It contains graphic images of Muslim corpses following American drone strikes on al-Qa’ida cells in Yemen and on Taliban hideouts in Pakistan. Such images come with captions reporting more civilian deaths than ­those of terrorists.

The myth that American and Israeli militaries are deliberately killing Muslim civilians because they feel threatened by Islam is the single greatest driving force ­behind radicalisation.

Dabiq urges Muslims worldwide to fight the ­injustices inflicted by “the Crusaders and the Jews” by killing their ­civilians. This call to action ­appeals to some because they are already predisposed to deep-seated anti-American, anti-Zionist resentment.

The British Empire colonised both Hindus and Muslims in the Indian subcontinent for the same length of time. There are prominent Hindu anti-imperialists who believe Britain owes reparations to India, yet there is no Hindu lone wolf mowing down British pedestrians on Westminster Bridge.

America dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan during World War II, yet the Japanese haven’t set up terrorist organisations ­urging people to storm a gay nightclub in Florida and gun down 50 unarmed civilians trying to dance the night away.

America has a longer history of military intervention in Latin America than it does in the Middle East, yet there are no Hispanic ­hijackers flying planes through the World Trade Centre.

Suffice it to say the case of Muslim victimhood is exceptionally eruptive.

It is my contention that unless the myths and conspiracy theories that underpin this augmented reality are comprehensively refuted, Muslims worldwide will continue to remain susceptible to radicalisation.

For now, let’s focus on internalising the diagnosis of the problem presented in this article. As to how the associated world view may be refuted will be a subject for a future article. Stay tuned.

Twilight over the "Palestinian Cause"

From Gatestone Institute, December 21, 2017, by Guy Millière:

• Reports from the West Bank after the Six Day War show that the Arabs interviewed defined themselves as "Arabs" or "Jordanians", and evidently did not yet know that they were "the Palestinian people". Since then, they were taught it. They were also taught that it is their duty is to "liberate Palestine" by killing Jews. The Palestinians are the first people invented to serve as a weapon of mass destruction of another people.
• "The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality, today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese." — PLO leader Zuheir Mohsen, interview in the Dutch newspaper Trouw, March 1977.
• Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the European Union has become the main financier of the "Palestinian cause", including its terrorism. They are also contributing to war.
• Iran, strengthened enormously by the agreement passed in July 2015 and the massive US funding that accompanied it, has been showing its desire to become a hegemonic power in the Middle East.
• The grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdulaziz ibn Abdullah Al ash-Sheikh, recently issued a fatwa saying that "fighting the Jews" is "against the will" of Allah and that Hamas is a terrorist organization.

For many years, "Palestine" has not stopped aspiring to new heights in the so called "international community". "Palestine" has been present at the Olympic Games since 1996, and, later, became a permanent observer to UNESCO and the United Nations. The vast majority of the 95 "embassies" of "Palestine" are in the Muslim world; many others are in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe. In 2014, the Spanish Parliament voted in favor of full recognition of "Palestine." A few weeks later, the French Parliament did the same. 

There is no other instance in the history of the world where a state that does not exist can have missions and embassies presumed to function as if that state did exist.
Now the time has probably come for the "Palestinians" to realize that they have lost and fall back to earth, as noted by the scholar Daniel Pipes.

Have "Palestinian" leaders been showing by their speeches and actions that they are ready to rule a state living in peace with their neighbors and with the rest of the world? All "Palestinian" leaders have incessantly incited terrorism, and do not hide their wish to wipe Israel off the map.

Is there a long-standing aspiration by the "Palestinian people" to have a state and to live peacefully within that state? The answer is actually no. The "Palestinian people" were invented in the late 1960s by the Arab and Soviet propaganda services. As PLO leader Zuheir Mohsen told the Dutch newspaper Trouw in March 1977:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality, today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese."

Reports from the West Bank after the Six Day War show that the Arabs defined themselves in interviews as "Arabs" or "Jordanians"; they evidently did not know that they were the "Palestinian people". Since then, they were taught it. They were also taught that it is their duty to "liberate Palestine" by killing Jews. The Palestinians are the first people invented to serve as a weapon of mass destruction of another people.

Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the PLO, at the Arab League summit in Rabat, Morocco, 1974. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Is there at least a historic past that gives legitimacy to the aspiration to create a "Palestinian state"? The answer again is actually no. There is no Palestinian culture distinct from the cultures of the Muslim Arab world, no monument that can be defined as a "Palestinian" historic monument, except by falsifying history.

More basically, would a hypothetical "Palestinian state" be economically viable? Again, the answer is actually no. Territories occupied by the Palestinian movements survive only thanks to international financial assistance from the West.

How then could so many countries wish for so long to create a state whose rulers would likely be regressive, corrupt "Palestinian" leaders; whose inhabitants would be used as killing machines, whose history is non-existent-to-falsified and whose economic potential seems zero?
The answer is simple.
Behind their support for the creation of a "Palestinian state", those countries have been pursuing other goals. For decades, countries of the Muslim world obsessively wanted one thing: the destruction of Israel.

They tried to reach their goal through conventional warfare, then terrorism, then diplomacy, then propaganda. They blamed only Israel for all the evils of the Middle East.

All the while, they know who the "Palestinian" leaders are and what they do. They know that the "Palestinian people" were invented. They know why the "Palestinian" people were invented. They know that a "Palestinian state" will not have a viable economy. Yet they have been committed to a strategy of destabilizing and demonizing a non-Muslim nation, Israel.

They call the "Palestinians" "victims"; terrorism, "militancy"; and incitement to kill, "resisting occupation". They have been trampling rightful history and replacing it with myth.

They press "Palestinian" leaders to "negotiate", knowing perfectly well that no agreement will ever be signed and that negotiations will end in bloodshed.

They propose only "peace plans" they know Israel must reject – those which include the "'49 'Auschwitz' armistice lines" or the "right of return" for "Palestinian refugees", who numbered half a million in 1949, but near five million today.

They recognize a "Palestinian state" while knowing that the "state" they recognize is not a state, but rather a terrorist entity without defined borders or territory, and imbued with a will to spill more blood and create more mayhem.

They have relied on turmoil, blackmail and lies to encourage the rest of the world to think the situation requires drastic international intervention.

They have been saying they want a "Palestinian state", but never that they want this state to renounce terrorism and end the conflict.

Instead, they have been waging a vicious war they have long hoped to win.

For more than thirty years, they benefited from the support of the Soviet Union. It financed wars (1967, 1973), terrorism, diplomacy and propaganda. The Soviet Union made the "Palestinian" enterprise an "anti-imperialist" cause -- a means of strengthening Soviet positions and galvanizing the enemies of the West. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, but the effects of its support for the "Palestinian cause" for a time remained. Many countries hostile to the West still support and recognize the "Palestinians" while pretending to ignore that they are recognizing a terrorist entity. They are contributing to war.

Countries of the Western world, subjected to the pressures of the Muslim world and the Soviet Union for many years, have gradually given way, some even before any pressure was applied.

France chose its camp in 1967, when General Charles de Gaulle launched what he called an "Arab policy" after its defeat in Algeria. French foreign policy become resolutely "pro-Palestinian" -– in an apparent effort to deflect terrorism, obtain inexpensive oil and compete with the US -- and has remained so to this day. Western European countries have gradually adopted positions close to those of France. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the European Union has become the main financier of the "Palestinian cause", including its terrorism. Western European leaders know what the real goals are, yet they repeat without respite that creating a "Palestinian state" is "essential". They are also contributing to war.

Although a long-time ally of Israel, the United States changed its Middle East policy in the beginning of the 1990s to positions closer to those of the Muslim world. American politicians and diplomats pressured Israelis to negotiate with "Palestinian" leaders and seemed to have lost sight of what the "Palestinian cause" was secretly about. Wishful Israeli leaders agreed to negotiate. The tragic result was the Oslo Accords and the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA). It quickly became a new base of anti-Israeli terrorism. A wave of lethal, anti-Israel attacks started immediately, with a stepped-up anti-Israel diplomatic and propaganda offensive right after. A "two-state solution" was invoked. American leaders, as if they had slept through several years, started to say that a "Palestinian state" had to exist. Three American Presidents proposed "peace plans", also contributing to war.

An additional "peace plan" is expected soon, but the parameters will be profoundly different. President Donald Trump appears to wish to break with the past.

He recently told Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that "Palestinian" leaders were liars. None of the American negotiators he chose seems to have the slightest illusion about the "Palestinian" leadership or the "Palestinian cause".

The Taylor Force Act, passed on December 5 by the US House of Representatives, plans to condition US aid to the "West Bank and Gaza" on "the actions taken by the Palestinian Authority to end violence and terrorism against Israeli citizens"; the Act could be adopted soon by the Senate. The PA rejected all the requirements in the Act.

The Muslim world is also undergoing change. Iran, strengthened enormously by the agreement passed in July 2015 and the massive US funding that accompanied it, has been showing its desire to become a hegemonic power in the Middle East. The mullahs' regime now holds three capital cities in addition to Teheran: Baghdad, Damascus, and Beirut. Iran attacks Saudi Arabia and supports the war led by the Houthi militia in Yemen; it intends to seize Sanaa and take control of Bab El Mandeb, the gateway to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. Qatar and Turkey have established close ties with Iran.

Saudi leaders appear aware of the danger. King Salman chose his son, Mohamed bin Salman, as heir to the throne, and gave him broad powers. "MBS", as he is known, seems intent on leading a real revolution. Militarily, he is head of the 40-member Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition, and has declared his desire to "end terrorism". Economically, he is in charge of an ambitious reform project aimed at making his country less dependent on oil: Saudi Vision 2030. All Saudi leaders in disagreement with the new orientations of the country were placed under arrest and their assets confiscated. Mohamed bin Salman has identified Iran as the main enemy, and recently described its Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, as a "new Hitler." Qatar and Turkey have been subjected to intense Saudi pressure to distance themselves from the Iranian regime. The grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdulaziz ibn Abdullah Al ash-Sheikh, recently issued a fatwa saying that "fighting the Jews" is "against the will" of Allah and that Hamas is a terrorist organization.

Mohamed bin Salman has the support of the Trump administration; Vladimir Putin who, while being allied to Iran, may want a balance of power in the Middle East, and Xi Jinping, who is facing the risk of a Sunni Islamic upheaval in China's autonomous territory, Xinjiang.

"Palestinian" leader, Mahmoud Abbas was reportedly summoned to Riyadh, where King Salman and Mohammed bin Salman told him that he had to accept the plan proposed by the Trump administration or resign, and that it would "risky" for him to consider launching an uprising – which he has anyway, although being careful to keep it lukewarm.

During the month of October, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a close ally of Mohamed bin Salman, invited the leaders of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas to come to Cairo for a "reconciliation". He apparently demanded control of the Gaza Strip to be handed to the Palestinian Authority. It also seems that the Trump administration and President Sisi told Hamas leaders that they had to approve the terms of the "reconciliation" agreement, and that if they carried out any attacks against Israel, they risked complete destruction.

The "peace plan" evidently to be presented by the Trump administration is provoking the extreme anger of "Palestinian" leaders. The goal of the "plan" seems to be to revive an open ended "peace process", allowing Saudi Arabia and the members of the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition to move closer to Israel and push the "Palestinian cause" toward the back burner.

On November 19, an Arab League emergency meeting held in Cairo strongly condemned Hezbollah and Iran. Moreover, for the first time in fifty years, a meeting of the Arab League did not even mention the "Palestinian" question.

President Trump's recognition on December 6 of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has led to restlessness and acrimony both in the Muslim world and among Western European leaders. Sunni leaders allied to Saudi Arabia, however, as well as Saudi Arabia itself, seem too concerned about the Iranian threat to quarrel with Israel, the United States or really anyone. Western Europe has almost no weight in what is taking shape; all it has shown is cowardice, fear, and continued contempt for a fellow Western democracy: Israel.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, now in the twelfth year of his four year term -- and apparently seeing that he is getting little support -- appeared to seek divine intervention: he asked the Pope for help. There would be "no Palestinian state without East Jerusalem as its capital," Abbas said. He sounded as if he had begun to understand that the "Palestinian cause" could be fading, and, with other "Palestinian" leaders, called for "three days of rage". A few protesters burned tires and American flags – the usual.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to convene in Istanbul on December 13, and urged leaders of Muslim countries to recognize Jerusalem as the "occupied capital of the Palestinian state". Saudi King Salman stayed well away as did almost all other Sunni leaders. He only sent a message saying that he calls for "a political solution to resolve regional crises". He added that "Palestinians have right to East Jerusalem" – the least he could do; he did no more. Erdogan is mainly supported by Iran, today's foremost enemy of Saudi Arabia and other Sunni countries.

"It will not be the end of the war against Israel," said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, "but it could be the beginning of the end of the "Palestinian cause".

It now seems a good time for Western European leaders who still blindly support the "Palestinian cause" to cut their losses, both politically and economically. Taking the side of Erdogan and the mullahs in order to support a terrorist entity that will never be a "state" will do nothing to help them fight either terrorism or the increasing Islamization of Europe.

Behind Iranian Lines

From JPost, 15 December 2017, by Jonathan Spyer:


Qais al-Khazali

...[Recently], a recording emerged of an Iraqi Shi’a militia leader called Qais al-Khazali visiting the Lebanon-Israel border area. The short video shows him in the company of two other uniformed men. They are in the village of Kafr Kila, which is adjacent to Metulla.

...Khazali is the leader of an Iran-supported force called Asaib Ahl al-Haq [AAH] (the League of the Righteous). In the manner preferred by the Iranians, the organization doubles as an armed militia and a political party. It was prominent in the Shi’a insurgency against the US and its allies just over a decade ago. Today, AAH is a key component in the Hashd al-Sha’abi (Popular Mobilization Units), the gathering of Shi’a militias raised up in the summer of 2014 to fight Islamic State when the Sunni jihadists were gunning for Baghdad. AAH has also played an important role in the Assad regime’s war in Syria.

...Khazali’s appearance at the border is the latest and most graphic demonstration that Israel can no longer consider its long standoff with Hezbollah as a closed conflict system between a state and a small, albeit well-armed militia. Iran has now breached the boundaries of this system.

On November 19, pro-Iranian Syrian and Iraqi forces completed the capture of Abu Kamal, a dusty town on the Syria-Iraq border 640 km. east of Quneitra. In so doing, Iran secured its land route from Iran through Iraq and Syria, to a few kilometers from the Quneitra crossing. It also secured a road for the supply of Hezbollah.

Iran is taking orders neither from Russia, nor from the nominal Syrian government of Bashar Assad in its activities in Syria. Rather, with thousands of militiamen on the ground in the country, it is building its own independent infrastructure. This includes the facility at al-Kiswa, 13 km. south of Damascus, bombed by Israeli aircraft on December 2. Iranian personnel are also present closer to the Israeli border.

In Iraq, as the war against Islamic State winds down, the Popular Mobilization Units is establishing itself as a permanent armed force. Already a year ago, its continued mobilization was confirmed by law. Now, components of the PMU are securing their status as political forces, ahead of the Iraqi elections scheduled for May. The Badr Organization was licensed to take part in the elections 10 months ago. On November 6, AAH also received its license from the Iraqi Higher Elections Committee to participate in the elections.

Using the kudos gained by their role in the war against Islamic State, and while maintaining their military capacity, these parties are set to perform well. And in cooperation with former prime minister Maliki, they may well emerge as the dominant force in Iraq after the elections.

All this has the slight flavor of déjà vu about it. On a smaller scale in Lebanon, similar Iranian clients who knew how to combine military and political activity are now in a position of unchallenged dominance of the country.

So put all this together – the achievement of the Iranian land corridor through Syria to Lebanon and the Israeli border, the burgeoning political and military strength of Iran’s proxies in Iraq, the Iranian efforts to push their presence and infrastructure to the border with the Golan Heights – and the potential scope and look of a future conflict between Israel and the Iran-led regional bloc becomes clear.

All this is taking place, by the way, at a time when the West is busy practicing politics in Iraq and Lebanon, backing supposedly moderate and certainly toothless figures such as prime ministers Saad Hariri and Haider al-Abadi.

Seen against this background, Khazali’s tour of the area north of Metulla is the latest item of evidence confirming the growing boldness, broadening dimensions and advancing agenda of the Iranians in Iraq and the Levant.

A Palestinian State? What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

From Algemeiner, 15 December 2017, by Martin Sherman:


Ramallah

...any prospective Palestinian state is almost certainly likely to embody the very antithesis of the values invoked for its inception by the liberal-Left Establishment.

Corrupt kleptocracy or tyrannical theocracy
...there is little reason to believe that any such state would be anything other than a misogynistic, homophobic Muslim majority tyranny and a bastion for Islamist terror groups — whose hallmarks would be gender discrimination against woman/girls; persecution of homosexuals, prosecution of political dissidents, and suppression of non-Muslim faiths. Indeed, its liberal-Left devotees have certainly never provided any remotely compelling argument why it would not be. Neither has the empirical precedent set since the ill-considered 1993 Oslo Accords began the ill-fated process of prodding the unprepared Palestinian-Arabs towards self-government.

After all, since Yasser Arafat’s triumphant return to Gaza in July 1994, despite massive financial aid, almost unanimous international endorsement, and a series of Israeli governments, whose pliant leniency towards repeated Palestinian malfeasance exceeded the bounds of reason and common sense, the Palestinian-Arabs have failed to create anything remotely resembling a sustainable, productive society. Indeed, all they have managed to produce is a corrupt kleptocracy under Fatah and a tyrannical theocracy under Hamas.

Thus, after a quarter-century, notwithstanding the huge advantages it enjoyed — that, arguably far outstrip those that any other national liberation movement has had at its disposal — the Palestinian-Arab leadership has little to show for its efforts. All it has brought its people is an untenable and divided entity, with a dysfunctional polity, barely capable of holding even municipal elections; and an emaciated economy, crippled by corruption and cronyism, with a minuscule private sector and bloated public one, patently unsustainable without the largesse of its alleged “oppressor,” Israel.

Gaza: The gravest indictment of two-statism
Gaza, where the misguided experiment in two-statsim was first initiated back in 1994, sparking a surge of deluded optimism, has now become its gravest indictment — for both Jews and Arab alike.

For Arabs in Gaza, the specter of “humanitarian disaster” hovers over the general population, awash in untreated sewage flows, with well over 90% of the water supply unfit for drinking, electrical power available for only a few hours a day, and unemployment rates soaring to anything between 40-60%. Accordingly, there should be no surprise that a recent Palestinian poll found that only 6% of Gazans had a positive perception of prevailing conditions in the enclave, while almost 80% considered them bad or very bad.

For Jews in Israel, ever since governance of Gaza has been transferred to the Palestinian-Arabs, it has been a hotbed of terror from which numerous deadly attacks have emanated.

Israel’s unilateral 2005 evacuation of the entire area, with the demolition of over a score of thriving Jewish settlements and the erasure of every vestige of prior Jewish existence — including the exhuming of graves and the removal of graveyards for fear of desecration by Palestinian-Arab hordes — did little to temper the Judeophobic fervor of the Gazans.  Significantly, the only remnant of Jewish presence left by Israel were two dozen synagogues, which were all immediately razed to the ground by frenzied Arab mobs.

Huge enhancement of terrorist capabilities
Moreover, if there were any hopes that Israel’s departure from Gaza would spur the Palestinian-Arab leadership to divert the focus of its efforts from terror-related activity to constructive nation-building, they were soon to be dispelled.

Indeed, quite the opposite occurred. Exploiting the absence of the IDF, the Palestinian-Arab terror groups in Gaza embarked on a feverish drive to enhance their capabilities to inflict harm on Israel and Israelis. To illustrate the point, when Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the rockets which the Palestinian terror groups had at their disposal, had a range of barely five kilometers and a carried an explosive charge of around five kilograms. Today, they have missiles with ranges over 100 kilometers and warheads of 100 kilograms — i.e. they have enhanced these capabilities by a factor of 10.

Moreover, they have developed additional abilities that were barely conceivable back in 2005 — such as a naval strike force to attack Israel from the sea. But arguably the most menacing development is the excavation of an extensive array of tunnels underneath much of Gaza — including attack tunnels reaching into Israel to facilitate raids to murder or abduct Israeli citizens and soldiers.

Incessant terror attacks from Gaza forced Israel into three large-scale military operations (in 2008, 2012 and 2014) to restore some semblance of calm on its southern border — and a fourth round seems increasingly unavoidable as rockets continue to be fired at Israeli civilian centers.

Costly campaigns; considerable casualties
These campaigns inflicted considerable Israeli casualties — almost a hundred fatalities and well over a thousand wounded. The Palestinians suffered far higher losses — among other things, because of the tactics employed by Hamas of using civilians to shield their armed combatants.

Moreover, these campaigns cost the Israeli economy many billions of dollars — in direct military and civilian outlays, as well as lost production — as millions of Israelis remained huddled in shelters for weeks, with the country’s cities, towns and villages under repeated bombardment — see  here, here and here.”

To this must be added the massive expense of protecting the civilian population from continual interbellum terror attacks — such as the need to build numerous fortified structures in homes, public buildings, educational centers and kindergartens.

Israel has, of course, also been forced to invest huge sums in a quest to find an effective response to the overhead threat of rockets/missiles and the underground menace of tunnels.

The former has resulted in the largely effective “Iron Dome” which has generally kept the Israeli civilian population safe from overhead attack — by intercepting generally very cheap, primitive projectiles with very expensive and sophisticated ones.

The underground tunnels have proved a more challenging problem, and Israel has diverted enormous resources in search of a solution to the threat they pose. Recent successes in discovering and destroying some of such tunnels suggest that good progress has been made in regard.

In addition to these technological efforts, Israel has undertaken the construction of a physical anti-tunnel barrier along the entire fifty-plus km border with Gaza, dubbed by the IDF chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, “the largest project” ever carried out in Israel’s military history. Reportedly planned to extend into the sea, this giant barrier will comprise a six meter wall above ground and an underground concrete barrier, replete with advanced sensors, reportedly reaching depths of 40 meters.

Now imagine a giant Gaza overlooking Tel Aviv
Accordingly given the resounding failure of the endeavor to confer self-determination on the Palestinian-Arabs — and the enormous cost incurred in contending with that failure — it seems utterly incomprehensible that not only do demands to persist with it continue — but also to greatly expand it.

For despite the Palestinian-Arabs proven inability to successfully meet the challenges of self-determination — even on a minuscule scale in Gaza — pressures still endure, in defiance of common sense and intellectual integrity, to extend the experiment to the territory of Judea-Samaria.

The scale of this predestined folly is perhaps best illustrated by the size, cost and complexity of the previously mentioned anti-tunnel barrier under construction.

After all, if the IDF were to evacuate Judea-Samaria, there is little reason to believe that it would not follow the same path as Gaza and descend into tyrannical Islamist theocracy. Indeed, the proponents of such evacuation have not — and cannot — provide any persuasive assurance that it will not. Certainly, such an outcome cannot be discounted as totally implausible — and hence must be factored into Israel’s strategic planning as a possibility, with which it may well have to contend.

Accordingly, if Israel’s evacuation of Gaza gave rise to the need to build a multi-billion shekel barrier to protect the sparsely populated, largely rural south, surely the evacuation of Judea-Samaria is likely to give rise to a need to construct a similar barrier to protect the heavily populated, largely urban areas, which would border the evacuated territories.

There would, however, be several significant differences.

For, unlike Gaza, which has a 50-kilometer border with Israel, any prospective Palestinian-Arab entity in Judea-Samaria would have a frontier of anything up to 500 km (and possibly more, depending on the exact parameters of the evacuated areas).

Moreover, unlike Gaza, which has no topographical superiority over its surrounding environs, the limestone hills of Judea-Samaria dominate virtually all of Israel’s major airfields (civilian and military); main seaports and naval bases; vital infrastructure installations (power generation and transmission, water, communications and transportation systems); centers of civilian government and military command; and 80 percent of the civilian population and commercial activity.

Under these conditions, demilitarization is virtually irrelevant — as illustrated by the allegedly “demilitarized” Gaza. For even in the absence of a conventional air-force, navy, and armor, lightly armed renegades with improvised weapons could totally disrupt the socioeconomic routine of the nation at will, with or without the complicity of the incumbent regime, which given its despotic nature, would have little commitment to the welfare of the average citizen.

Faced with this grim prospect, any Israeli government would either have to resign itself to recurring paralysis of the economy, mounting civilian casualties and the disruption of life in the country, or respond repeatedly with massive retaliation, with the attendant collateral damage among the non-belligerent Palestinian-Arab population and international condemnation of its use of allegedly “disproportionate force.”

What could possible go wrong?
But it is not only demilitarization that is largely irrelevant. So too is the alleged sincerity of any prospective Palestinian “peace partner.” For whatever the deal struck, its durability cannot be assured.

Even in the unlikely event of some Palestinian, with the requisite authority and sincerity to conclude a binding deal with Israel, did emerge, he clearly could be removed from power — by ballot or bullet — as the Gaza precedent clearly demonstrates. All the perilous concessions made to him, on the assumption of his sincerity, would then accrue to a far more inimical successor, whose political credo is likely to be based on reneging on commitments made to the “heinous Zionist entity.”

Accordingly, based on both past precedent and sober political analysis, there is every reason to believe — and precious little not to — that any Palestinian state established in any area evacuated by Israel would swiftly degenerate into a mega-Gaza, overlooking greater Tel Aviv — with all the attendant perils such an outcome would entail.

So, in response to the question “What could possibly go wrong?,” the answer must be, “Pretty much everything.”