Israel Badly Needs To Face Reality

There's a name for trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different result, thanks to Albert Einstein. It's called insanity.And sadly, we're once again witnessing the Israeli government doing just that.

Anyone who still thinks there's any life in the so called 'peace process' and the so-called 'two state solution' is playing this game and wearing blinders.

First, this nonsense has been tried several times with absolutely no success. This was what Oslo was supposed to be all about, remember? And remember how it turned out, with a terrorist squat in Judea and Samaria and one in Gaza? Exactly. 

If we look at the facts, there have been several times when the Arabs who refer to themselves as 'Palestinians' have been offered peace deals...at one time, three different Israeli left wing prime ministers offered the Palestinian Authority ninety-five, and then ninety-six percent of the “occupied” territories. And the 'Palestinians; refused, just as they're refusing now. I wonder why....wait, of course it's an easy one to figure out...this is what they really want:

Why yes! What they want isn't peace. They want no Israel to exist at all. How hard is that to figure out? OK, it's obvious They never intended at all to live in peace with the Jews. After all, they have never kept a single part of any agreement they've signed and have actively promoted terrorism in their mosques, media and schools.  Abbas habitually refers to imprisoned terrorists as 'holy martyrs' for deliberately targeting and killing Jews and Palestinian media actually encourages this...and then of course there's the money you get whether your killed or just thrown in jail, $500 and up depending on how many Jews you killed. It's a nice income by Palestinian standards.

Oslo, of course was a product of Bill Clinton, who had Arafat to the White House more than any other foreign leader.Since Labor leader Yizhak Rabin owed President Clinton for some clandestine aid in getting him elected Prime Minister, Oslo was a done deal, a terrorist enemy right next door to Israel that resulted in zero peace and a lot of dead and maimed Jews.

And guess what? Nothing, I mean nothing has changed. It wasn't so long ago that PLO leader Jibril Rajoub said openly that "If we had a nuclear weapon I'd use it on Israel tomorrow."  This is the same terrorist who the Israelis actually gave medical care to. They also gave Medical care to Abbas and to his wife. Can you imagine doing this for  someone who hates you with all his heart and wants to exterminate you?

And we haven't even mentioned Hamas yet. My point is simply this...the Arabs who call themselves 'Palestinians' have no interest in peace with Israel. We can accept that as a given, simply because it's be proven numerous times.

The latest manifestation of this fairy tale about peace is known as 'The Deal Of The Century' presented by the Trump administration. And as much as I respect President Trump, it's at least a viable attempt. But it won't ever work since its just another attempt to get the PLO to accept something they will never accept and don't want.

And frankly, as written, it's not really that good a deal for Israel. Let's look at why, shall we?

First of all,Israel is being asked to give up something it owns anyway.

The land in question is Judea and Samaria, AKA The 'West Bank' although it's only that if you're looking at it from Jordan. After WWI, the UK was given a Mandate by the League of Nations to administer all of what was then the former Turkish province known as Palestine. Originally, all of this was supposed to be the Jewish State. A couple of years later, The Brits asked the League for permission to divide the area, the reason being that they wanted a kingdom for one of the Sharif of Mecca's sons, Abdullah. He wanted Syria but so did the French, so what he got was 78% of 'Palestine' as the Arab State, Jordan which consisted of everything east of the Jordan River.  The Jews were to get the other 22%, everything west of the Jordan River for the Jewish state. This division was agreed on and signed on to by the Brits, The Jews, the Arabs and the League in 1922 in a treaty called the San Remo Accords.

The Brits saw to it that the Arabs got their state very quickly. And then proceeded to do everything they could to stop the Jews from establishing theirs in numerous ways. They deliberately limited Jewish migration to what became Israel while allowing unlimited Arab migration. This came to a head when the Brits chose to violate the San Remo accords and stopped all Jewish migration . In 1939, Britain anti-Semitic Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain issued an order not to let any Jews into Palestine at all... at a time when thousands of Jewish refugees from Germany and other countries who had fled to France and other countries had nowhere else to go.

Not content with that,  after WWII, when Labour's Clem Atlee took over, he made the decision to not allow Jews into Palestine. The Brits  even had their own concentration camp on Cyprus for any survivors of the Holocaust they caught trying to get in, and in some cases, they even sent Jews back to the very same camps in Europe they had been  imprisoned in.

In 1948, when Israel declared its independence  the UN recognized it, although  Britain didn't. The UN also made the San Remo Accords part of its charter, in Article 80...which has never been  removed or repealed.

So under international law, Everything west of the Jordan River belongs to Israel. They have no need to bargain about it or make any exchange that will only result in more terrorist violence.

 Israel lost this land for 19 years  because in 1948,  Brit PM Clem Atlee armed the surrounding Arab armies to the teeth, even though they were openly promising a second Holocaust three years after Auschwitz was liberated. Not only that, but he sent British officers to command the Jordanian Arab Legion under Colonel John Glubb, a known anti-semite. It was these officers who oversaw the ethnic cleansing of every Jew in Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem as well as the destruction of many Jewish shrines and synagogues. While the UN never recognized THAT illegal occupation, they never did anything about it either.

To add insult to injury, the areas Israel is going to be allowed to regain officially involve established Israeli communities already existing  for years. You know, what the UN and EU like to refer to as 'settlements.'

In fact, most of this area was promised to Israel as part of GW Bush's 'Road Map' in exchange for giving up Gaza. These are the same commitments Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary Clinton swore didn't exist even though  they were referred to in a Bush speech and in the agreement itself. Arik Sharon, who made the agreement with GW Bush was in a coma at that point, and of course Bushie Boy kept his mouth shut.

Not only that, but the EU is threatening Israel with sanctions if they make these areas an official part of Israel. And the US is still thinking it over, whether Israel gets even this much.Some deal hmm? And here's the cherry on top. Israel has to give the PLO 4 years to decide if they'll abide by any part of this, And during those 4 years Israel is not allowed to build anything in areas they've lived in for years!

Some sovereignty!

And here's the real loser......some of the land the 'Palestinians' and the PLO would retain based on this 'deal' are within easy shooting distance of some of these Jewish communities. These attackson Jewish communities are even actually happening now in Judea and Samaria.

Second, Israel is being asked to give any 'Palestinians' living in these areas Israeli citizenship.

True there aren't that many of them, but would Trump and the US give citizenship automatically to people who had been brain washed to hate America for three generations? People who may conceivably have blood on their hands? People who in many cases have citizenship in a country that has a 'treaty' which is basically a cease fire and which still is extremely hostile to America? That's exactly the situation between Israel and Jordan. There have been numerous instances when 'Palestinians' given work permits in Israel have committed terrorism.

Third, the map lines as now drawn simply give the 'Palestinians' a closer range to shoot from. Several of the Israeli communities we're talking about would be easy targets.

And finally, Fourth,the object here, 'peace' between Israel and the PLO is a non-starter. They're not interested in peace and they never have been. It's that simple. And both the Trump Administration and Israel's current government are fooling themselves if they think this means peace with the PLO and Hamas.

Allow me to present a way to actually achieve peace that will definitely work and end this once and for all.

And the irony of it is that it could have been done years ago.

In the Six Day War, Jordan attacked Israel. The IDF pushed the Jordanian troops back across the river. At that time, they could easily have sent the 'Palestinians' who all had Jordanian citizenship back across the Jordan River as well, and this entire mess would have been avoided. However, Israel's Labor government made a mess of things. They made the mistake of thinking these Arabs would be able to live in peace with them, and it turned out to be a huge mistake.

The Israelis built virtually the entire infrastructure in Judea and Samaria....the power grid, the water systems, schools, houses, roads, sewage, irrigation,hospitals, even a university. Their reward of course was that first Intifada. They definitely should have seen that coming.

The way to finally solve this problem is to do what should have been down back in 1967. Simply move the Arabs who call themselves 'Palestinians' across the river, perhaps with cash settlements for people who can actually prove they purchased and own property. This  is certainly more than the Arabs gave the almost one million Jews they ethnically cleansed from the Arab world after 1948. They plundered them for everything they had and these Jews left with the clothes on their backs. 

Jordan of course would not like this but there's not much they could do about it, especially since they have already agreed to abandon all claim to Judea and Samaria. Jordan's  midget King Abdullah would also be upset because many of these  people tend to cause problems where ever they go...Iraq, Kuwait,Lebanon, Egypt and yes, Jordan, which Arafat almost took over in 1970's Black September.

Odd, isn't it? All refugees are supposedly taken care of by UNHCR(also known as the UN Refugee Agency) except one...the almost 1 million penniless Jews ethnically cleansed by the Arab world in1948.Most of them ended up living in tent cities in Israel.  They never received a dime except from Jewish charities. President Trump, to his credit, mentioned this in his peace plan, although without actually suggesting any, kind of payback by the countries involved in stealing well over a billion and a half dollars US in property, homes, businesses, bank accounts and personal property according to the most conservative estimates.

Oh, but wait, there's another group the UNHCR doesn't handle They're handled by one of the UN's biggest and well funded sections,  UNRWA which is solely devoted to the care and welfare of these alleged 'Palestinian' refugees many who left willingly under orders from the Arab States attacking Israel and their leader, Haj Amin al-Husseini. Except these refugees were never refugees at all! In 1954, the Jordanian Parliament gave Jordanian citizenship to all of them including the ones in the UNRWA facilities. And even UNRWA's first American Chief Executive to the US Congress admitted that since they didn't bother checking, many of these 'refugees might never have lived in 'Palestine' at all, but were given food, lodging etc anyway. And unlike any other group of refugees, the train just keeps on rolling.

These people supposedly 'fled ' from Israel 72 years ago but the UN makes sure their refugee status is hereditary! No other group of refugees gets this kind of gravy train. Could it be because they picked the right enemies, the Jews?

I have to give President Trump credit for finally ending US funding of UNRWA. Among other things, UNRWA's schools teach 'Palestinian' kids to hate Jews and that terrorism against Jews is a holy act that will make them 'holy martyrs' as Abbas calls them.  UNRWA has even been caught hiding terrorists and arms in their schools, Mosques and other buildings. 

In short, Jordan is the Arab 'Palestinian' State and the Jordan River the logical and legal boundary between that and Israel. It's time Israel realized  this, instead of wasting time with so called peace plans that have never and will never work.

It's time Israel faced reality.

Rob Miller writes for Joshuapundit. His articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Examiner, American Thinker, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The San Francisco Chronicle, Real Clear Politics, The Times Of Israel, Breitbart.Com, Yediot and other publications

Why Israel Voted For Life- The Real Story of Israel’s 2019 Elections

The Israeli 2019 elections are over, and in spite of all the nonsense in the garbage press, there’s only one major reason why it turned out as it did. In the end, Israel voted for life, plain and simple.

The results are as follows, but basically they can be understood as the collapse of the Israeli Left and a final verdict on the Left’s worst mistake… Oslo and the fallacy of the so called ‘two state solution.’

Bibi Netanyahu has won a record breaking fifth term as Israel’s prime minister. And the new government he will form will likely be further to the right, more nationalistic and much more stable then the current one with at least 65 seats or more. They may even get more because Israeli law specifies that those parties who fail to make the vote threshold (3.5%) must distribute their votes to another party.

The Blue and White Party, with former Labour General Benny Ganz and his co-chairman former TV Talking head Yair Lapid were supposed to win and oust Netanyahu. A lot of the Israeli press was touting them, since basically, the Blue and White party consisted of politicians who favored Oslo and the two state ‘land for peace’ solution. Ganz has always been noted for his hostility to Israelis who live in Judea and Samaria and Lapid’s sole claim to fame aside from his TV antics was that he was once finance minister as part of the usual Israeli political horse trading. I remember asking one of my Israeli friends in Lapid knew anything about finance.His response? “Well, I think maybe he knows how to use an ATM.’ Actually a pretty accurate answer as it turned out. In the end, they got 34 seats, almost all of them based on votes from Tel Aviv, which is almost akin to New York in terms of its politics. I doubt the Blue and White will be around for the next election. The entire Left coalition got perhaps 50 seats or so, including the Arab parties.

 
Israel’s Leftist Labour Party, which ruled the country for decades is essentially out of the picture. They won all of six seats in the new 120 member Knesset. The EU funded ultra Left Meretz Party had a grand total of four seats.

All the polls of the 2019 Israeli Elections had Blue and White leading Israel’s Left to victory.The press even trumpeted Israel’s attorney general’s last minute ‘indictments’ of Netanyahu for corruption, things that in most other countries would not even be questionable. Like our own president, Netanyahu has a lot of haters on the Left. Among his other sins, it was MIT grad Netanyahu who as finance minister rebuilt Israel’s economy by privatizing a number of things the government shouldn’t have been owning and encouraging entrepreneurship, pushing joint government and private industry projects, and generally turning Israel from a quasi-Socialist state with a struggling economy into the economic powerhouse it is today. The Left has never forgiven him.

So why did he win?

To understand that, you have to review both the past and the recent present.


The mantra of the Israeli Left was always 'land for peace.' The idea with Oslo was that this would work out like the deal with Egypt. There would be peace, and Israel's diplomatic status and image with foreign countries and the UN would be improved. Actually, that deal never really worked that way. Only since Egypt's Al Sissi took over has there been real co-operation between the two governments, based on a mutual distaste for Islamist terrorism.

The Camp David Accord was different because Anwar Sadat really wanted peace. Yasser Arafat was a Soviet trained terrorist who had no intention of it. It was President Bill Clinton who really created Oslo and gifted Arafat with his own kleptocrat fiefdom. Mr.Bill loved Yasser. He had him to the White house more than any other foreign dignitary, even though he knew Yasser Arafat had ordered two US diplomats tortured to death in the Sudan. And after Mr. Bill intervened in the Israeli elections to get Labour's Yitzhak Rabin elected, the time was right. Arafat, huddled away in Tunis with his small group of thugs was given territory to have as an autonomous region (not a sovereign state) in exchange for renouncing terrorism, avoiding incitement to violence and embracing peaceful co-existence.

Needless to say, he did nothing of the kind. The ensuing bloodbath and suicide bombings mounted up as the most appalling atrocities were committed while Rabin and the Labour Party talked about sacrifices for peace. And Israel's seeking peace resulted in even worse foreign relations with the EU and UN, demanding more and more concessions of Israel and only Israel.

The same thing happened after Gaza. The UN, President George W. Bush and his Roadmap and the EU all promised Gaza would strengthen Arafat as a gesture for peace, and that Gaza would never be allowed to become a security problem for Israel. None of those guarantees were worth the paper they were written on either.

Most Israelis realize now that the entire 'Oslo/Land for peace/ Two state solution'  nonsense is and always was a total fallacy. you can't allow a den of rattlesnakes or a pack of rabid dogs to live in your backyard and expect to have peace. It doesn't work that way. And tthat's really what Israel's 2019 elections were about.

Netanyahu announcing that he's going to annex the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and that he is committed to make them part of Israel is a major change. Among other things, it means those communities will be under Israeli law rather than military law. It gives them permanency.
Likewise, Netanyahu finally coming up with the courage to say there will be no 'Palestinian State' is also a major step. There's no reason for one and never has been, especially since Jordan gave these Arabs citizenship back in 1954 and most of these 'Palestinians'   still have it, including Mahmud Abbas. 'Palestine' has received more aid money than any other developing nation in history. What is there to show for it except some fat bank accounts in the EU and the Emirates? Nothing except a terrorist squat with murder for hire as its chief export.

The  Israeli 2019 elections were the  electorate finally saying 'Ani lo friar'*  once and for all. Recent terrorist attacks, including the brutal murder and rape of a nineteen-year- old girl and the murder of a Rabbi with ten children definitely help solidify this sentiment.

Another reason for Netanyahu's win is his diplomatic successes.  His relationships with the UN and some of the nations in the  the EU are a problem , but the relations to the UN and these particular EU Nations with any Israeli leader would be the same. They have their far Left and a lot of Muslim migrants to appease.

But Israel under Netanyahu has fostered very close relationships with Russia's Putin, India's Modi,  Brazil's Bolsanaro, numerous African nations, Australia's Scott Morrison, Egypt's Al Sissi and other Arab nations and of course, our own President Trump, Vice President Pence and the Republicans in congress. Ganz had zero foreign policy experience, and neither did Lapid.

And of course, Israel's economy remains robust.

So how will this affect America? In several ways.

First, it will definitely affect President Trump's deal of the century peace plan if it even gets aired. Since I doubt Netanyahu wouldn't have told President Trump what he had in mind beforehand, and the president has already confirmed that his plan does not require a 'Palestinian' state.That makes president Trump smarter than any President since Reagan, who said exactly the same thing about the necessity of such a thing.

I doubt this doesn't change a few things. But since Mahmoud Abbas has already said no to anything Trump comes up with, it's probably a dead issue.

Second, the recent anti-semitism coming from almost every Democrat running for president in 2020 and those of anti-semitic Democrat members of congress is going to be one more issue to divide things. Thanks mostly to Barack Hussein Obama, this stuff is now out in the open as the Democrat Party follows the trend set by the UK's Labour Party. The only Democrat presidential hopeful to go to AIPAC's convention was Cory Booker, who actually has a Jewish constituency in New Jersey. The rest boycotted it.  I expect this to continue as Israel haters  like Beto O'Rourke, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg among others fight for the nomination. Buttigieg in  particular is the craftiest of the three, masking his contempt for Israel by attacking Netanyahu and thus claiming that attacking Israel's democratic choice 'isn't anti-semitism'  and pushing for that same old two state nonsense. I wonder if Buttigieg knows hoow gays are treated in 'Palestine?'

Beto actually called Netanyahu a racist.  BTW, anyone who thinks Mayor Buttigieg is the sort of person you want running America should check what he's done to South Bend, Indiana as mayor. The media's hushing this up, but I have a feeling it's going to come out as things heat up.

American Jews are going to become more divided...until they wake up. For many Jews in the past, especially those closest in age to the Holocaust, Israel was a major issue. It isn't anymore for a significant number of today's Jews, for various reasons.

There are a number of things responsible for the change.  As Israel went from a socialist, left leaning country to a more capitalist, nationalist state with a strong military most Israelis not only took pride in but served in it, many Jews who already leaned hard to the Left became estranged.

A large part of this increasing trend was the coverage Israel received from the media here in America. The New York Times and the alphabet networks were especially dishonest and repugnant, as was the BBC in Britain. Aside from demonizing Israel, they also sold the 'Palestinian' cause to these young Jews with the preconceived script of the Arab David versus the Israeli Goliath...carefully avoiding the vicious attacks on 'Goliath.' They also popularized the myth of Israel as 'occupier' and an 'apartheid state' committing 'war crimes.' This was the strategy of the Big Lie on steroids.

On universities where the Left had control (that is, most of them) Jewish students were made to feel uncomfortable by both radical professors and anti-Israel student groups. A great number of Mid East studies Departments were essentially bought by the Saudis for the express purpose of giving an academic luster to the 'anti-zionist ' agenda. This propaganda was especially well received by a number of black and other minority students, adding pressure to Jews to virtue signal by damning Israel and become part of the in crowd.

Finally, the nomination of Barack Hussein Obama served as a test for those 'good Jews' to virtue signal and vote for the first black president, even to the point of ignoring his many anti-semitic and anti-Israel mentors. His establishing J Street with the financial backing of anti-Israel billionaire George Soros gave many of these Jews a banner to march under to pretend they were pro-peace no matter how many of their fellow Jews the 'Palestinians' brutally murdered. These Jews simply made a choice - Obama over Israel. Not even Obama's appeasement of the genocidal Iranian regime made any difference. Many of them have made the same choice today...the resistance and the newly anti-Israel Democrat Party over pro-Israel President Trump. Will they continue to make that ultimately self hating and suicidal error? Time will tell. In the UK, it took awhile before Britain's Jews awoke to what Labour had become  and by then it was pretty much too late.

Interestingly enough, as a number of young American Jews go left, associate themselves with the increasingly anti-Israel Democrat Party  and distance themselves from Israel and religious observance, their contemporaries in Israel are doing exactly the reverse, getting closer to religion and moving right politically.

There's a reason for that.

While these young Israelis were too young to experience the signing of Oslo Accords in 1993 and 1995, these younger Israelis lots of them religiously observant to some degree, grew up with the consequences. They grew up with the so-called Second Intifada, which began in September 2000. they saw their friends and contemporaries murdered by Israel's 'peace partners and saw the government doing little about it. They went to the funerals of their friends murdered by homicide bombers and in many case experienced them firsthand, even though they survived.

Trust me, when you experience something like that and what it looks like, sounds like and smells like, it changes your entire perspective about 'land for peace' and 'the two state solution.' When you see parents sobbing over their dead children, when you see grown men in tears picking up their dead bodies while  you can actually hear the 'Palestinians' celebrating this in the distance all the rhetoric you've been fed by left wing politicians, the media and what's known as the international community is revealed as the horse manure it really is. You never forget. Never.

The Israeli Left is essentially history now.  The most Netanyahu's new government is going to allow is a small enclave in Area A where the majority of Arabs live, a place where they lack statehood but can run their lives domestically. and frankly, I wouldn't even give them that much. A 'Palestinian' enclave would simply be a cancer in an otherwise healthy area. Most of these people are Jordanian citizens, including Mahmoud Abbas. There's no reason they shouldn't return there, where they can mouth their hatred of Jews to their heart's content without hurting anyone but themselves.

Israel has finally gotten out of it's defensive crouch. There won't be any more cringing over the latest nonsense from the UN or questioning over the ownership of the land from the river to the sea, land not only promised to the Jews by the Almighty but by the League of Nations Palestine mandate, its reaffirmation by Article 80 of the UN Charter and the San Remo accords that even the Arabs agreed to. It's time to end this.

Selah.

*'I'm no sucker'







Rob Miller writes for Joshuapundit. His articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Examiner, American Thinker, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The San Francisco Chronicle, Real Clear Politics, The Times Of Israel, Breitbart.Com, Yediot and other publications.
Follow him on Twitter here and on Facebook here.

Why Trump's Policies And Israel's New Law Could Lead To Real Peace

 

Amid headlines from the usual suspects about President Trump 'criticizing Israeli settlements' (including the leftist press in Israel) the truth is that Trump's policies and Israel's new law could lead to real peace.

What President Trump actually said was that the creation of new settlements was not helpful when it came to “the process of reaching peace."

With a meeting coming up between the president and Israeli PM Netanyahu, someone he's been on friendly terms with for years, it's obvious that the Donald is laying the groundwork for a serious attempt at a deal. In an interview with Israel Hayom, President Trump had some revealing things to say.

After praising PM Netanyahu, voicing his expectation of an excellent future relationship with Israel and harshly criticizing the Iran deal, the conversation turned to Jerusalem and Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

Actually President Trump has said nothing negative about building and expanding existing Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. Nor will he. In fact when he was asked whether he was going to condemn Israeli announcements of building in existing Jewish communities like the previous administration, he responded "No, I don't want to condemn Israel. Israel has had a long history of condemnation and difficulty. And I don't want to be condemning Israel. I understand Israel very well, and I respect Israel a lot, and they have been through a lot. I would like to see peace and beyond that. And I think that peace for Israel would be a good thing for the Israeli people, not just a good thing, a great thing." ...

" They [ new settlements] don't help the process. I can say that. There is so much land left. And every time you take land for settlements, there is less land left. But we are looking at that, and we are looking at some other options we'll see. "

That hardly qualifies as 'criticizing settlements.' It's simply a self-evident statement and an attempt at prepping the ground with an appearance of neutrality pending any coming negotiations. And President Trump also had this to say about relocating the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem:

Q: How soon will you decide on the issue of relocating the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem?

"Well, I want Israel to be reasonable with respect to peace. I want to see peace happen. It should happen. After all these years. ... Maybe there is even a chance for a bigger peace than just Israel and the Palestinians. I would like to see a level of reasonableness of both parties, and I think we have a good chance of doing that."

Q: And the embassy?

"I am thinking about the embassy, I am studying the embassy [issue], and we will see what happens. The embassy is not an easy decision. It has obviously been out there for many, many years, and nobody has wanted to make that decision. I'm thinking about it very seriously, and we will see what happens."

Q: You always speak about making good deals. Don't the Palestinians have to make concessions as well?

"Yeah. They do. Absolutely. It has to be good for everybody. No deal is good if it is not good for everybody, and we are in that process, and we will see what happens. People have been in that process for many decades, and it has been going a long for a long time. So many people think it cannot be made. I have very smart people that ... say a deal can't be made. I disagree with them. I think a deal should be made, and it can be made," he concluded.

What President Trump is doing here is straight out of 'The Art Of The Deal.' He is deliberately positioning himself so that the U.S. can appear as a reasonable arbiter. With the Israelis, whom he knows are the far more reasonable party, he's holding out certain carrots; an embassy in Jerusalem, recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's undivided capitol as well as  recognition  of Jewish communities and their right to natural growth in Judea and Samaria. There's also the promise of demanding real life meaningful concessions from the Arabs whom call themselves 'Palestinians' as part of any deal  as opposed to just taking Abbas's word for it. He's even holding out the promise of formal relations between Israel and the other Arab states. While those relationships exist in reality, especially with Saudis Arabia and the Gulf States, they're clandestine. And Trump's disdainful mention of the Iran deal maybe points to something big in the future. Nothing unites like a common enemy.

With the 'Palestinians',  Trump's using the stick.

Some fake news articles from the usual sources have mentioned that  'officials' are reaching out to the Arabs whom call themselves 'Palestinians' ot reassure them nothing's changed.  It's news to their leaders, who are literally going berserk. President Trump not only froze $21 million Obama gifted to 'Palestine' indefinitely, he's also defunding UN bodies who recognize 'Palestine' like UNESCO. And the U.S. just blocked a UN appointment for former 'Palestinian' PM Salem Fayyad. In contrast, Trump selected as U.S. Ambassador to Israel none other than David Friedman, who supports moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem as well as the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria.

What Trump is doing with the 'Palestinians' is the equivalent of training a puppy. He's letting them know there are consequences for their incitement, violence and intransigence and that if they want to receive certain privileges like anything resembling statehood they had better behave appropriately.

This is something they have never have had to deal with before, and it might actually result in peace if they get the message. The Donald is just setting up the climate for a shot at making a deal, and if Abbas wants anything at all he's going to have to be willing to come to the table with real concessions that mean something or wind up with NOTHING.

Don't be surprised if Abbas ends up with demilitarized autonomy in Area A and perhaps some of Area B when and if a deal gets made...exactly what they were supposed to get under Oslo, rather than 'statehood.'

Another piece of the puzzle has to do with so new legislation passed by the Israeli Knesset.

Israel's newly passed Regulation Law, legalizes Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria that were unknowingly built on land that may have been privately owned by Arabs or where the inhabitants had permission from the Israeli government to do so.

The law provides for a legal settlement to owners of private land who can prove their claims of 125% of the land's assessed value or the equivalent of 20 years rent on the raw land.

Basically, this is eminent domain, similar to laws in many other countries that allow private land to be acquired for public benefit. In many cases, title would have transferred by adverse possession (open use of the land for a statutory period without an objection from the owners) without compensation being required. Again, most countries have this kind of law, so the Israeli government is actually being more lenient in passing this law then they need to be.

This is direct defiance  to the UN's bigoted Resolution 2334, which sought to impose a ridiculous settlement with no regards to Israel or to previous agreements whatsoever.

You'd never know it listening to the UN squawk, but in actual fact,  the Regulation Law changes very little. All of the Israeli communities and almost all of the Israeli population live in Area C, which was always under Israeli sovereignty according to Oslo and was always supposed to be retained by Israel in any peace settlement, at least until Barack Hussein Obama came along. The governing authority, in some cases the Israeli government and in other cases the IDF is already permitted to acquire privately owned land for public benefit just as governments in most countries do.

What the new Regulation Law does is simply this; in places where Israelis built settlements on privately held Palestinian property without knowing it was privately owned or received the government’s consent for building  there, the Israeli government is now required to impose eminent domain and compensate the owners as described above, either 125% of the land's assessed value or the equivalent of 20 years rent on the raw land. As opposed to evicting people whom may have lived on the land for decades.

While Israel's Supreme Court might challenge this law, there's a decent chance it won't. Israel Supreme Court is far more to the Left than the Israeli government or even the majority of most Israelis, because of the bizarre way the justices are chosen...they pick their own successors. There's currently legislation pending to change that, and since a thumbs down on the Regulation Law might be an incentive to the Knesset approving this  legislation on how Supreme Court justices are chosen, the Court may choose simply to not address it.

The 'Palestinians' saw Resolution 2334 as a victory, giving them everything they wanted while giving up nothing. Trump's actions and the Israeli Regulation Law are showing them how wrong they were. The 'Palestinians'  are now being shown in no uncertain terms that they had better be prepared to make real concession and actually negotiate in good faith for once if they want anything at all. Whether they take that opportunity is anyone's guess, and I personally doubt they will. But if they actually do, than Trump's polices and Israel's new law could actually lead to real peace.

The EU's Anti-Israel Labeling Scheme Is Starting To Fall Apart

As I predicted, the EU's new diktat 'yellow starring' goods made or grown in Judea, Samaria, East Jerusalem and the Golan has suffered serious backlash.

Today, the Czech Republic joined Hungary, Germany and Greece in formally voicing criticism of the EU's diktat. Since the labeling procedure, size and format is not specified, there's little doubt in my mind that it will either be ignored or at best marginally complied with in these countries. The same is true of countries like non EU members Switzerland, Bulgaria,Albania (the last two have reasonably close ties to Israel)and the other Balkan states. EU countries like Poland, Romania, and Cyprus are unlikely to go along with it either for the same reason.

What all these countries have in common with the exception of Germany (and of course, Bulgaria and Albania) are small or non-existent Muslim populations they have no need to appease. Germany of course has historical reasons for feeling particularly uneasy about something like this, while warm relations between Bulgaria, Albania and the Jews are longstanding.

 


While EU foreign policy czar Federica Mogherini might claim that this move by the EU is merely "technical guidelines on the indication of origin, which is in no way a boycott," most Europeans know better, and so does Ms. Mogherini.

There are literally over a hundred territorial disputes in the world, some involving countries like India and China, some even involving EU members. But Israel and Israel alone is being singled out for this treatment. And the real meaning is quite clear. This is the EU picking sides in this struggle between Israel and the Arabs whom call themselves 'Palestinians' and they've chosen to side with the Arabs. These 'guidelines' are essentially the opening shots in an attempt by the EU  to make economic war on Israel and to force Israel back to indefensible borders.

It will fail for a number of reasons.

Israel imports far more from the EU than it exports, and only a small percentage of the $14 billion trade between Israel and the EU is impacted by these new guidelines. A counter boycott of EU goods by Israel and its supporters worldwide would affect the EU a lot more than it would hurt Israel since almost nothing Israel imports from the EU is anything it can't produce domestically or obtain elsewhere.

For that matter, the EU has been threatening this for quite some time, and most Israeli producers whom grow any items with a shelf life in the areas mentioned cut back on imports to the EU along time ago. They're exporting to Russia, India, East Asia, Australia, Canada, the US, non-EU Europe, the Caucasus and yes, even the Arab world after repackaging. Expect that strategy to be mirrored in  Europe, where a lot of countries will simply wink and ignore the labeling diktat.

The EU choosing to side with their murderous welfare recipients in Gaza and Mahmoud Abbas's little reichlet  instead of a vibrant western democracy like Israel makes little sense considering the problems the EU already had to deal with.

This isn't going to end well for them.

The Blood Of Zion Cries Out

 

Early this morning, four Jews at morning prayers were murdered in a synagogue in Jerusalem after two Palestinian broke in and assaulted the worshipers with gunfire and meat cleavers.

Many others were wounded and four are in critical condition.

The terrorist attack took place in Har Hof a predominantly Orthodox neighborhood at the at the Kehilat Yaakov synagogue on Agasi Street.

The Murder victims were identified as Rabbi Moshe Twersky, the head of the Torat Moshe yeshiva, 59; 40-year-old  Rabbi Aryeh Kupinsky; 50-year-old Rabbi Kalman Levine; and 68-year-old Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Goldberg(HY"D). Rabbi Kupinsky, Rabbi Levine and Rabbi Twersky were all American citizens, while Rabbi Goldberg was a British subject. A Druze policeman, 30-year-old Master Sergeant Zidan Sif subsequently died of his wounds as well, and all Israel will mourn and honor him.

The killers stormed the synagogue at 7 AM local time. There was no warning and no way for the victims to defend themselves.The rabbis were murdered during the sacred prayer of Shimoneh Esrei, with siddurim (prayer books) in their hands and their tefillum on.

Eye witness Ya'akov Amos said: 'The terrorist moved to within a metre of me then started shooting. One, two, three, bang, bang, bang. I immediately hit the ground and tried to protect myself with a prayer stand. He kept screaming 'Allah hu'Akbar'.

 

There was blood everywhere, so much that one of the medical workers slipped in it and broke his leg.

The international reaction was interesting. Even U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry seemed shocked, with his voice quavering. He even used the "T" word and called for an end to incitement against Jews.

Phillip Hammond, Britain's Foreign Secretary contented himself with a bloodless statement that 'both sides' should seek to 'reduce tension.' President Obama, of course, said much the same thing. Somehow, I doubt they would have merely talked about both sides reducing tension if four imams had been murdered by a Jew and Qu'rans profaned in this way.

Israel's economics minister Naftali Bennett was interviewed by the BBC today, and provides us with another indication of exactly how sick and depraved Britain has become when it comes to Israel and the Jews.



(just a hint - when Bennett mentions Abu Mazen, he is using Mahmoud Abbas's nom de guerre, the terrorist name he used as Arafat's second-in-command.)

Notice how the interviewer doesn't even address the issue of Abbas inciting terrorism, but pulls the case of an Arab bus driver who died yesterday, as though that made the savage murder of four Jews at prayer legitimate. That Arab driver, by the way, had a full investigation and an autopsy done on him and there is no doubt he committed suicide. Unlike the Palestinian Authority, Israel jails murderers no matter who they are.

I really felt like saying 'Kol Hakavod' when Bennett held up a picture of one of the victims, which the interviewer hastily told him to put down lest he upset the gentle sensibilities of her viewers. I think it is absolutely essential to do just that - to let the British public see what their government is funding and supporting. And I hope it upsets them to the point of utter shame.

At the end of the interview, Bennett says that Britain is going to have to make a choice of whether they support the Free World or not. As I'm sure Bennett knows, the British Government has already made that choice.Which is why, perhaps, they feel compelled to put up with soldiers being beheaded in broad daylight and no go areas for police and non-Muslims in London and other large British cities.



The murderers were both killed in a shootout with police at the scene. They were Ghassan and Oday Abu Jamal from the Jabal Mukaber neighborhood in east Jerusalem. Needless to say, they were acclaimed as heroes and martyrs by all the factions of the Arabs whom call themselves Palestinians.







 "We responded with shouts of joy when we received the news about their deaths," Ala'a Abu Jamal said of his cousins Ghassan and Uday Abu Jamal to Yedioth Aharonoth. "People here distributed candies to guests who visited us, and there was joy for the martyrs."

In a message published on its official new website Al-Resalah, Hamas said the attack was “a quality development in fighting the occupation. We highly value the heroism of its operatives.” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri praised the attack on Qatari news channel Al-Jazeera as “heroic,” calling for more attacks of the same kind.

 Hamas MP Mushir Al-Masri happily wrote on Twitter that “Jerusalem has nothing but men who love martyrdom. The heroes of the knife are in Jerusalem. The heroes of the run-over [car attacks] are in Jerusalem. In Jerusalem men take revenge.”

And he posted this on his Facebook page:

The Arab killer is asking 'Where are they hiding?" Needless to say, in spite of what this cartoon shows none of the worshipers were armed.

And Fatah? Mahmoud Abbas, AKA Abu Mazen issued a 'condemnation' that wasn't one. In a statement (in English, not Arabic)it said that “The Palestinian presidency" condemns violence "from whatever source" and "demands an end to the invasions of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the provocations of the Settlers."

In other words, 'So sorry, but unless you surrender Jerusalem to us expect more of the same.'

This is the same Mahmoud Abbas who accused Jews of “contaminating” Al-Aqsa Mosque last week, who just a few days ago was telling his people, in Arabic, to 'defend Jerusalem' by any means necessary. This is the same Mahmoud Abbas who said nothing when Fatah published cartoons and Facebook posts encouraging terrorist attacks on Jews and “days of rage” to defend the 'threatened' Al-Aqsa.

Tawfik Tirawi, former chief of the Palestinian General Security in the West Bank and a member of Fatah’s Central Committee made it even plainer, and in Arabic. Today he told a radio station in Hebron that the attack was “nothing but a reaction to the recent crimes of the occupation and the settlers in occupied Jerusalem and across the nation. The threats of the occupation against our people and the Palestinian leadership, represented by the president, will only increase our efforts in safeguarding our rights.”

His remarks were reprinted on Fatah's official Facebook page.

I should make something clear here. This is not the fault of Abbas, or Hamas, or any of the Arabs who identify themselves as Palestinians.

It is the fault of the Israeli government.

A significant number of the Palestinians are simply acting as they have always acted since the 1920's, and these tendencies were unleashed even further once Arafat and the PLO were allowed in to take over after Oslo.



Israeli governments since Oslo have always allowed themselves to be pressured to ignore these instances of sheer horror...to release  convicted murderers, to make concessions to the terrorist entities on Israel's borders, and most of all to avoid  finishing them off entirely when their violence and bloodshed mandated a response. This has been especially true since Barack Obama, who styles himself as the Palestinian's very own community organizer entered the White House.

Is it any wonder that this sort of thing continues to happen? Is it really so puzzling that after allowing Hamas to continue in Gaza and maintaining any kind of relationship with Abbas and the PLO once they allied themselves openly with Hamas that they would resort back to Arafat's tactics?

Yasser Arafat himself outlined for his followers what this war was really about. On Jordanian TV, right after signing the Oslo Accords he was criticized for signing a peace agreement with the Jews. He responded by reminding his audience of the Peace of Hubidiyeh, a treaty Mohammed made with the Quraysh tribe that he violated as soon as he was strong enough to massacre them, a story every Muslim knows. And then he outlined exactly what this war was about, saying that "either the Jews will push us into the sea or we will push them into the sea."

Arafat, the leaders of Hamas and numerous members of Fatah have sung the same songs for years. Is it their fault that Israeli governments for years have refused to take them seriously?



It is time they did.

The violence in Jerusalem can be curtailed, not by more security patrols and not by putting guards in front of every synagogue and public building but by teaching the Arabs whom call themselves Palestinians that there are real world consequences for their actions.

As you may have noticed, no matter how much innocent Jewish blood is spilled, it is always Israel who is advised to 'reduce tensions' and 'avoid provocation.'  It is always Israel who is castigated for building homes for its people, in spite of over an estimated 40,000 illegal Arab-built structures in East Jerusalem, and an entire city  being constructed from scratch with EU and US Aid money that encroaches on Israeli communities in Area C of Judea.

This is the first time I have ever heard John Kerry mention the constant hatred being spewed by the mosques, media and schools in both Gaza and in the PLO occupied areas of Judea and Samaria as something counterproductive to any real peace. And even his condemnation of this horror as well as the other ones from the UN and EU that will no doubt be voiced are maddeningly hollow..because they still fund and support this evil.

As Naftali Bennett said, they are going to have to choose sides, and that particularly applies to the United States.But Israel has some choices to make as well.

Are they going to settle for the status quo and a war of attrition that favors Israel's enemies? Or are they are they going to do what's necessary to end it and win the right to live peacefully?

I've always favored Israel simply delineating its own borders and annexing that land,along with a transfer of populations to the respective sides of those borders. But at the very least Israel should answer every terrorist attack with the outright annexation of more land in Judea and Samaria, showing the Arabs whom call themselves Palestinians that they are there to stay, and that attacks on Israel cost them dearly. Build on the land, and call the EU's bluff. In the unlikely event that they follow through on their threats to indulge in sanctions,they have a lot more to lose than Israel does right now economically.

When there are violent riots, as there were in Jabal Mukaber today, simply arrest the perpetrators,take away their Israeli ID cards and expel them to Gaza or to Area A for Abbas to deal with.Aside from providing real world consequences, it will also separate those Arabs who like the good life in Israel and are willing to live in peace (and there are more of them them you think) from those whom want to poison the well with violence.

Make the disarmament of Hamas an iron clad condition for any further reconstruction aid, especially since Hamas is already diverting money and materials to remaking its terrorist infrastructure. Both the EU and Secretary of State Kerry have given lip service to the importance of disarming Hamas for peace. Hold them to it.

If the Muslim Waqf that is in charge of the al-Aqsa Mosque continues to incite riots and stone throwing on the Temple Mount and refuses to allow Jews to enjoy it peacefully, simply explain to them that the next time it happens the police will respond in force, the Waqf's control of al-Aqsa and the Mount will be ended, the members of the Waqf expelled from Israel and the mosque shut down.

And allow Israelis to sue the PLO and Hamas in Israelis courts for damages to property and person, taking the judgments out of the tax monies Israel collects for the PLO.

These are the sort of steps that are ultimately going to defeat the Third Intifada. It's long past time to treat Hamas/Fatah like the hostile entity it is. And if it becomes necessary to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, so be it.

I am tired of seeing headlines like I saw today, tired of seeing the Arabs whom identify themselves as Palestinians celebrating each new atrocity, tired of seeing world leaders being complicit with this evil.

And I am especially tired of Israel accepting this hypocrisy. I am sick to death of it. It is one thing to be the Jew among nations, but something else entirely to live on your knees and internalize it.

Selah.

It's Time To Give Abbas What He's Asking For

 

Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority have what they think is a clever scheme up their sleeves.

Abbas and the Arabs who identify themselves as Palestinians have announced that the PA is going to go to the U.N. Security Council and General Assembly on Sept. 15 to demand a resolution that Israel be forced to provide “a clear and defined timetable for withdrawing from the Palestinian territories.”

By 'Palestinian Territories' , Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas/Fatah mean all of Judea and Samaria as well as half of Jerusalem, an area now inhabited by something like 500,000 Jews who would be forced to become refugees



And if the UN doesn't give Abbasa what he wants?  Threats and blackmail.

PA 'commissioner for international relations' Nabil Shaath said  that PA leader  Abbas has issued an order for the Palestinians to prepare the paperwork to go to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and demand that it try Israel for war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated against the Palestinians if they don't get the UN resolution they want.

 

In an interview on Palestinian television, Abbas said he insists on “bringing the Israeli occupation to an end” and establishing a Palestinian state that would exist alongside Israel in peace.

Sure it will. Especially with Hamas involved. You can trust Mahmoud Abbas's word on that.

“The only thing remaining for the negotiating teams is to outline the borders between the countries,” Abbas said. “We will not agree again to designating areas A, B, C. We want for every country to know what [its] borders are. Israel is the only country in the world without clear borders.”

 

Abbas is actually incorrect in that last statement ( there are numerous border disputes ongoing throughout the world) but I  actually like his idea, for once. In fact, I've been saying Israel ought to unilaterally delineate its borders for years.

I think it would be a great idea.

Israel should immediately announce that its going to give Abbas what he wants. Israel's  newly declared and annexed borders will include all of Area C, where only a few thousand Arabs live that's under full Israeli sovereignty anyway.. The borders will also  include the strategic Jordan Valley, again mostly populated by Israeli Jews, and essential for ensuring that Abbas can't import any nasty toys he shouldn't have from say, Iran. And they would also include any bits of Area B  necessary to demarcate a clear and defensible border between Israel and 'Palestine'..Jericho,  and part of the area surrounding Hebron perhaps. By the way, 98% of the Arabs whom identify themselves as Palestinians live in Areas A and B. Talk about your attempted land grabs! Abbas would be left with Area A, the part under Palestinian sovereignty per Oslo (which the PA never abided by anyway) where the majority of the Arabs whom identify themselves as Palestinians live, and the parts of Area B not necessary for Israel's security needs.

Jerusalem? How about the fifth of never?

Israel should announce this formal adoption of its new borders before Abbas goes to the UN on September 15th. And Israel should add three additional things:

As part of this arrangement, Israel will remove any Israelis on Abbas's side of the border to Israeli territory, and any Arabs who are not Israeli citizens on the Israeli side to the new  'Palestine'. Let's make this a real divorce.

Israel will remove all IDF troops currently patrolling any areas on Abbas' s side of the border and remove them to Israel's new borders. That should make for some entertaining moments as Abbas and the rest of the Fatah Old Guard break out their Jordanian passports and make a run for it to avoid being gunned down by Hamas, who have massive popular support now in all of 'Palestine'.

Since Abbas and Fatah are now partners with a genocidal terrorist group, Israel should let Abbas and his friends know that Israel now considers Hamas/Fatah a hostile entity. Any attacks on Israel or its citizens, terrorist, diplomatic or otherwise will be considered an act of war and dealt with accordingly...perhaps by further land appropriations in Judea and Samaria as a start.

So Abbas will get what he asked for..clearly designated borders and his Jew free reichlet, 'Palestine.' It won't be what he wants or says he can accept, but tough tahini.

And the UN? As I write this, Abbas and Hamas/Fatah are crying about how broke they are because no one, not even the EU let alone the Arabs has forked over more than a small amount of the funds pledged for the Hamas/Fatah government...and as we all know, 'Palestine ' has received more aid per capita over the years than any other developing nation in history, but virtually none of it has been used to build an economy. One of the longest  and most successful scams in world history may finally be coming to an end.Perhaps the PA can dip into its private multi-billion slush fund created by skimming and stealing donor aid and use it for the people it was intended for. I'm sure Abbas and his cronies from the Fatah Old Guard would gladly want to replace the money they umm..'borrowed' for 'Palestine'. Ri-ight.

If the 'international community' doesn't even trust Hamas/Fatah enough to fund them, do you actually think they're going to do anything concrete to enforce Abbas's attempt to blackmail Israel? For that matter, can you recall the last time the UN did anything really effective?  I can't. When it comes to pimping for  'Palestine' the international community relies on Israel taking them seriously. A simple 'no thanks'  would clarify things quite a bit, and given Israel's vibrant economy, any hot air and worthless paper that comes out of the UN would have a lot less of a negative impact on Israel than people imagine in the long term.You see, Israel has a future. And countries with a future don't need to live on their knees or in a perpetual defensive crouch.

And try as Abbas and his friends might, the fact that 'Palestine' is a dysfunctional kleptocracy with no future can't be blamed on Israel. It will always be one no matter how much aid money they get. So indeed, Israel should give Abbas exactly what he's asking for - end the so-called 'occupation' and all Israeli connection with this new 'Palestine' and let them make a go of it. Let Qatar pick up the tab as 'Hamas/Fatah's new mark if they're stupid enough to fall for the con.

I doubt Netanyahu has the stones to do it, but it's time someone called this superannuated mafioso's bluff. Long past time.

Ridiculous To Criticize Israel's 'Appropriation' Of Vacant Land In Judea

 

The latest cause for criticism of Israel has to do with its declaring 4,000 dunams of vacant land (about 1.54 square miles) in the Israeli bloc of communities known as Gush Etzion to be public land, and thus available for building.

The response from the usual suspects was predictable.

“We have long made clear our opposition to continued settlement activity,” a US official told Reuters. “This announcement, like every other settlement announcement Israel makes… is counterproductive to Israel’s stated goal of a negotiated two-state solution with the Palestinians.”

“We urge the government of Israel to reverse this decision.”

Someone should tell this man (not that he'd listen) that the 'negotiated two-state solution' ship sailed a long time ago. That was before Mahmoud Abbas partnered up with Hamas. And even if it was still viable, Israel isn't going to give up the area in question anyway and retreat to the kind of borders John Kerry and Barack Obama envision

The British and French, with all those restless Muslim voters to appease were even stronger in their language.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said in a statement "The UK deplores the Israeli government's expropriation of 988 acres of land around the settlement of Etzion."

"This is a particularly ill-judged decision that comes at a time when the priority must be to build on the ceasefire in Gaza. It will do serious damage to Israel's standing in the international community."

Really, Mr. Hammond? Are you guaranteeing that Hamas will disarm if Israel doesn't build a few houses on vacant land it controls? And why is the ceasefire a priority for Israel, rather than for Hamas? Wouldn't disarming Hamas do a lot more to 'build on the ceasefire?'

France also rebuked the Israeli announcement on Monday, with spokesman Romain Nadal saying that France "condemns" the action and "calls on the Israeli authorities to reconsider their decision."

The UN, of course, also weighed in, saying it was 'alarmed by yesterday’s announcement by Israeli authorities to declare as so-called ‘state land’ nearly 1,000 acres of land in the Bethlehem area of the West Bank."

The wording of the UN statement is revealing. Actually, the area in question is adjacent to Gush Etzion, a bloc of Israeli communities with almost 100,000 people in it rather than Bethlehem, a small town of 25,000 now controlled by the Palestinian Authority. The biased language is obvious.

It's good to know with the region on fire, the UN, Obama Administration, UK and France have their priorities in the right place!

The Hamas/Fatah unity government known as The Palestinian Authority was predictably florid in its rhetoric.

Chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, formerly the right fork of Yasser Arafat's tongue was in overdrive.

“The Israeli government is committing various crimes against the Palestinian people and their occupied land,” he told AFP. “The international community should hold Israel accountable as soon as possible for its crimes and raids against our people in Gaza and the ongoing Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.”

The response from the Arabs whom refer to themselves as Palestinians can be discounted, since they're essentially a hostile entity to Israel. But let's look at what the other actors are saying.

  The biased, hypocritical nonsense spewed by the UN, the Obama Administration and other members of 'the international community tells you everything you need to know. Their idea of the perfect solution to everything is for Israel to retreat to the indefensible pre '67 borders and hand Mahmoud Abbas and his Hamas allies the keys. They have the outcome of any 'negotiations' all worked out in advance and then get upset when Israel doesn't go along with the program of its own extinction.

The area in question is vacant land adjacent to Gush Etzion. That puts it in Area C, a part of Judea and Samaria that is under Israeli sovereignty anyway according to the Oslo Accords and the Road Map, both of which the United States was a signatory to as well as Israel and the Palestinians. Since there are no counter claims of ownership, there was no reason for Israel not to make it public land, and they had every right to do so.

 

Moreover, they had a compelling reason to do so. Among other things, this is a response to the kidnapping and murder in June of three Israeli teenagers in the Etzion Bloc by Mahmoud Abbas's good friends and partners Hamas.That heinous crime set off Operation Brother’s Keeper, the huge search effort to locate the teenagers and a crackdown on Hamas operatives in Judea and Samaria that put hundreds behind bars.

This new land will be an extension of a community in Gush Etzion known as Gvaot, home to a number of families and a well known winery. Now, it can become a city.That's the appropriate response to what happened. They destroy, Israel builds.

 

And actually, this is one of the more intelligent things the Netanyahu government has done, and I hope it continues.

After each attack on Israel, whether its terrorism, lawfare or diplomatic, put some more land under Israeli control and then annex it. Trust the Land. Build on it. Let a thousand bulldozers sing..

 
 

Just like a recalcitrant puppy that continues to make on the rug, providing real world consequences for bad actions will send a message soon enough that better behavior is called for. That is what may actually bring about realistic negotiations in the end, if it happens at all.

Israel's New Challenge: Defeating The Third Intifada

Israel once again finds itself fighting in Gaza.

The reason's fairly simple. The lust for Jewish blood among a substantial number of the Arabs who identify themselves as Palestinians is simply their strongest impulse, their raison d'être. There is no peace, because one side simply wants the other dead.

There is not a single Israeli civilian or soldier in Gaza today, not since Israel removed the 8,000 Jewish residents who had lived there over 30 years from their homes and gave it to the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians as a sacrifice 'for peace.'

The Palestinians could have built whatever kind of society they wanted in Gaza. But even before Hamas took over, Gaza's main export to Israel was terrorism. Israel, with Egypt's assistance, maintained a blockade on Gaza to curtail the import of heavy weapons, usually emanating from Iran that saved Israeli lives, but cost Israel deeply when it came to the 'international community', who always seem to have special rules when it comes to Israel defending itself. The carnage emanating from Gaza has slowed at times, but literally thousands of rockets, mortar shells and terrorist strikes have emanated from Gaza, and they've never ended. Israelis became used to running for shelter, especially in the south:

 

This latest onslaught saw over 100 rockets in 24 hours rained down on Israel, and with Hamas rejecting offers from Israel of 'quiet for quiet', that's where we stand now. The Israelis have carried out a number of decisive strikes and have called up 42,000 reserves, while Hamas has launched missiles at central Israel, at Jerusalem, and at Tel Aviv, a step they had to know was going to provoke an Israeli ground response.

So what's the story behind the story? Why is Hamas going for broke now, and what does it mean? Whether Israel realizes it or not, they are facing the Third Intifada, although how it unfolds is still developing. Of course, it doesn't look like previous intifadas because circumstances and tactics have changed. But the end goal is the same. And the chief strategist isn't Hamas, but Mahmoud Abbas.


 


Hamas has been isolated by Israel and the new Egyptian government of al-Sisi, who has declared Hamas' parent movement the Muslim Brotherhood an illegal terrorist organization. Weapons coming in from Iran have slowed considerably, and money is tight. A sign of this was the attempt by Hamas ally Robert Serry, the supposedly neutral UN Mideast envoy to illegally funnel $20 million to Hamas in Gaza from Qatar.

The current Hamas and Fatah unity government agreement came about, mostly on Abbas' terms, because of Hamas' sharply reduced fortunes, while Abbas has the UN, the Obama Administration and the EU funding and backing him, even with Hamas now on his team. According to my sources, part of the negotiations also involved joint efforts towards the goal both Hamas and Fatah agree on, the destruction of Israel.

 

The Israelis, already outraged at the unity agreement and the West's apparent willingness to fund a murderous terrorist group like Hamas were further energized by the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens by Hamas operatives, whose mutilated bodies were found shoved into a hole near Hebron. In response, the Israelis began to obliterate the Hamas infrastructure in Judea and Samaria.

But then, the subsequent murder of Arab teen Mohammed Abu Kheidr by what appear to be a trio of Jewish football hooligans suddenly presented Hamas and Fatah with a golden opportunity. It was used as a signal to launch what had already been planned. Vast riots, violence and destruction took place throughout Israel egged on by Fatah while Hamas stepped up its rocket and mortar attacks.

Hamas also had plans to join Fatah in the ground attack on Israel itself. They had a huge tunnel dug from Rafah under Israel's border fence for a massive planned assault on Israeli communities in the south, and tried an amphibious attack on Israel's coast. Both attacks were repulsed with heavy losses. Meanwhile, Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system and the IDF’s air strikes on Hamas' infrastructure were even more effective than Hamas had planned on and that Israel had hoped.

 

Israel's 'peace partner' Mahmoud Abbas has also been doing his part. Fatah has several hundred militiamen in Gaza, including members of the Palestinian Authority security forces who have their salaries paid by Western governments. They have eagerly joined in firing rockets at Israel's civilians. Abbas has done nothing to stop them.

Abbas has several huge assets his old boss Yasser Arafat could only have dreamed about, and they're key to understanding what's being planned. First and foremost, in Barack Hussein Obama, Abbas has a president in the White House who loathes Israel and who sees himself as Palestine's community organizer.

Second, even though Mahmoud Abbas was Arafat's right hand man when it came to terrorism, he was always more of a back room strategist and facilitator. Abbas was content to be the man behind Arafat, leaving the spotlight to the ranting old coward. Because he stayed in the background, he can now be presented as 'moderate Abbas', Israel's so-called peace partner and gifted with millions in aid money and concessions. Even the theft of much of that money by Abbas and the Fatah old guard, the partnership with the genocidal Hamas and the corrupt and anti-democratic rule of Fatah have not been allowed to get in the way of this narrative

And finally, the seeming separation of Hamas and Fatah is a major advantage. Not only can Mahmoud Abbas present himself as a 'moderate' alternative compared to Hamas. Abbas can talk vitriol and hatred towards Israel in Arabic ( or have his surrogates do it) to gin up the crowds while presenting himself as a peace maker to President Obama and the EU. With Hamas now officially part of his team and Abbas controlling the purse strings, his ability to mouth pleasantries about peace while orchestrating violence and war against Israel at the same time is enhanced in a way Arafat's never really was.

During this Third Intifada, Abbas has never once seen fit to condemn the Fatah-driven Arab violence in Israel or the Hamas rocket attacks, or to call for calm. With Hamas now losing the war it started, Abbas has opened up his second front:



He contacted UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and got him to issue a statement demanding that Israel exercise 'maximum restraint':

 "I firmly condemn the multiple rocket attacks launched from Gaza on Israel. Such attacks are unacceptable and must stop." 

"I also urged (Israeli) Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu to exercise maximum restraint and to respect international obligations to protect civilians. I condemn the rising number of civilian lives lost in Gaza," he said. 

Maximum restraint, against an enemy firing missiles at its civilian population, an enemy who attempted to cause thousands of civilian casualties by targeting Dimona, where Israel's nuclear plant reportedly is?

And you'll notice Ban Ki-moon isn't condemning Hamas for using civilians as human shields, not that Hamas would care anyway, By the way, that's a major violation of the Geneva Convention that the Hamas-Fatah unity government is now a signatory to and promised to abide by. Ban himself took their application.

 


Ban convened a special meeting of the Security Council , but of course, the Palestinian violation of the Geneva Accords wasn't a topic of conversation. Instead, the talk is all about a ceasefire that leaves Hamas and its weaponry in place. Even President Obama suddenly called Israeli PM Netanyahu after weeks of silence, offering to mediate a truce to protect Hamas.

Abbas even had the gall to accuse Israel of 'genocide' against the Palestinian people

“It’s genocide — the killing of entire families is genocide by Israel against our Palestinian people,” he told the meeting of Palestinian leadership at his Ramallah bureau. “What’s happening now is a war against the Palestinian people as a whole and not against the factions.”

“Shall we recall Auschwitz?” he added.

Those words are almost comical in their hypocrisy to anyone who knows anything about Mahmoud Abbas' long history as a Holocaust denier.

Genocide? Imagine what the death toll would be if the IDF wasn’t dropping warning leaflets in advance and doing their best to avoid civilian deaths in an environment where Hamas is hiding behind those civilians in order to do their best to kill Israeli ones.


Ironically, it’s Abbas who has applied for 'Palestine' join the International Criminal Court (ICC) where he plans to charge Israel with war crimes in a sympathetic EU environment.

That's the strategy Abbas and his Hamas partners are going to use in the Third Intifada to attack Israel ..terrorist strikes, sabotage and Arab riots in Israel, continued rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza, and increasing diplomatic and legal assaults via the 'International community'.

Here's how Israel can defeat it.

First of all, a ground assault and the defeat of Hamas is a necessity. It won't be pretty, it will not be without cost and it will require Israel to take steps that the usual suspects won't like. But there really is no choice.

Israel doesn't have the luxury of leaving Hamas in place with a secure base to attack her from. This time, the rocket fire penetrated much further north than expected into central Israel. The attempted attack on Dimona, the suspected site of Israel's nuclear facility was nothing less than a real attempt at genocide by Hamas, which fortunately failed. And now that Hamas has demonstrated it can attack the populated areas of Israel, can Israel afford to roll the dice that they'll get lucky again when the next outbreak of attacks by Hamas occurs in a year or so?

Hamas simply cannot be allowed to hang on to its weaponry. The only conditions under which Israel should even consider a ceasefire is demilitarization, with Israel in charge of making sure it's carried out, and an insistence by Israel of the non-recognition of the Hamas-Fatah unity government by the UN, EU and the other western powers. Since that’s unlikely, the next step is to destroy Hamas militarily, and that will take boots on the ground. For all of Israel's attempts to minimize civilian causalities, they are going to occur in fighting an enemy who uses civilians as human shields. Nevertheless, it should be done as quickly as possible, and Hamas' leaders either killed or arrested, tried and imprisoned.

Since Hamas is embedded in Gaza City with a large civilian population, the quickest and easiest way to defeat Hamas is not to send tanks and ground forces into the streets of the city itself, but to drop leaflets giving Hamas 24 hours to surrender and then cut off the water, electricity, food shipments and communications lines to the city while continuing pinpoint air strikes and using loud speakers to demand that Hamas allow the civilians to evacuate. The lack of water in particular will force Hamas to come out to fight on Israel's choice of terrain, not theirs. And Hamas will be defeated and decimated.

At that point, Mahmoud Abbas will likely demand that Gaza be turned over to him. That demand should be refused outright. Instead, Gaza should be annexed by Israel, and at least half to two thirds of its population either transferred to Area A, the part of Judea and Samaria under Arab occupation and ruled by Abbas. Or perhaps some of them could be sent to Egyptian jurisdiction for a suitable quid pro quo by Israel. Gaza, over time can be repopulated with Jews, who will make it the Singapore it always had the potential to be. Repatriation of foreign nationals to their country of origin is not against the Fourth Geneva Convention per se, especially since the UN, to all intents and purposes is treating Palestine like a state. But if necessary, Israel should resign from the Convention, since no one they are likely to be fighting with in the future honors it anyway.

Israel needs to take some advice from an unlikely source, President Obama's White House Mideast chief, Phillip Gordon. This piece of work was speaking at a conference put on by the far Leftist paper Ha'aretz in Tel Aviv Wednesday, and blamed Israel (of course!) for not being serious about peace while rockets were actually hitting the city:

“How will Israel remain democratic and Jewish if it attempts to govern the millions of Palestinian Arabs who live in the West Bank? How will it have peace if it’s unwilling to delineate a border, end the occupation and allow for Palestinian sovereignty, security and dignity?

As an ironic side note, the conference itself had to be moved because of the rocket attacks by Israel's 'peace partners.'

Still, as stupid, bigoted and offensive as Green is, he's actually on to something.Israel does need to delineate a border and allow the Palestinians sovereignty.The only problem is allowing Palestine's unelected dictator Mahmoud Abbas any part in it. The Israelis are constantly told in tones that suggest a used car salesman desperate to close a sale that this is the most moderate Palestinian leader Israel is ever likely to get. If that's true, than the real problem is that Israel actually has no peace partner. It might occur to Green and his ilk that this is the reason why years of negotiations have failed, not Israel's intransigence. Abbas is no Anwar Sadat.

Delineating a border and Palestinian sovereignty are excellent ideas, but it will need to be done by Israel.Once Hamas is militarily defeated, Israel can mark out its borders in Judea and Samaria, annex those areas and relocate any Jews living outside them to Israel, while repatriating any Arab non-citizens living in the Israeli areas to the new borders of Palestine, perhaps with some financial compensation. That’s certainly more than the Arabs gave the almost one million Jews they ethnically cleansed from their countries after 1948.

The ironic thing is that while Abbas will now have the contiguous, Jew free reichlet he wanted, something will become apparent quite quickly.The only real chance for Palestinian sovereignty was always close relations with Israel. 'Palestine' under Arafat and Abbas has always been a corrupt kleptocracy and an international welfare case. All of Palestine's useful infrastructure, the schools, the hospitals, Bir Zeit University, even the zoos were all built by Israel.Fatah has never been able to govern and 'Palestine' will almost certainly collapse anyway in short order unless it gets funding from the EU, the Saudis or Qatar, and they all have other places to spend their money.

At that point of collapse, a new generation of Palestinian leaders may very well be a position to change things, although I have my doubts. In the meantime, 'Palestine' is unfortunately going to have to be treated not as a neighbor but as a hostile entity to be closely watched, and told in no uncertain terms that any aggression, lawfare or otherwise will lead to serious consequences. That’s how a hostile divorce works. They brought this on themselves.

The usual suspects from the international community will certainly squawk, but all one has to do is look at their behavior over the past few years to realize that anything Israel does to protect itself is going to get an adverse reaction. For all their condemnations of Palestinian violence directed against Israel, they were still prepared to support and finance a government containing Hamas as a partner, an organization all of them admit is a terrorist group. They are doing it as I write these words.

But between the EU's financial crisis and the difficulties with Syria, Iran and Iraq, the international community has its hands full. They will voice the usual, expected sentiments, but the fact that there is actually a Palestinian state in part of Area A will mitigate much of it as some time goes by. They have other,much more serious concerns and are will move on after a few weeks.

It is Israel's responsibility alone to defend its people and ensure their national rights, especially given the genocidal enemies they face. Anyone who quibbles at this should remember all of the supposedly iron clad guarantees Israel was given when it retreated from Gaza by United States, the EU and UN, all whom pledged that Gaza would never be allowed to become a security threat to Israel. In the end, none of those guarantees were worth the paper they were written on, and the same thing is true about any proposed security guarantees on Judea and Samaria today.

Many in Israel have an unvoiced, guilty realization as the rockets fall on Israel. They know now that Oslo was a huge mistake, and that ripping 8,000 Jews from their homes in Gaza was not the panacea they thought it was, but an immoral, hateful act that led to the war Israel finds itself in today. I take no pleasure in saying this, but everything those of us predicted who opposed the 'disengagement' has come to pass, and it has left Israel with a choice - to rule Gaza or to suffer repeated carnage from those whom inhabit it now who want every Jew is Israel dead.

That is the truth of the matter, and Israel will have to face up to it if they wish to live in peace.