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

Debunking Mahmoud Abbas's Lies On Israel And The Balfour Declaration

As a 'recognition' of the centennial of the issuing of the Balfour Declaration (November 2nd, 1917) the notoriously anti-Israel UK Guardian decided to give Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas an op-ed entitled "Britain must atone for the Balfour declaration – and 100 years of suffering" (no link,but you can find it if you like). It contains a number of outright lies. And while Abbas, a Soviet trained apparatchnik and agent is pretty good at manufacturing this propaganda, someone from the Guardian obviously helped him concoct this, based on the language, much of it drawn verbatim drawn from past anti-Israel screeds from, of course, The Guardian.

As ludicrous as the thing is, Mahmoud Abbas's lies rates a serious debunking.Walk with me awhile in the Valley of Truth...

For starters, the op-ed refers to Abbas as the 'President of Palestine'. That's a hilarious title, considering that he's an unelected dictator now serving in year 12 of what was supposed to be a 4 year term! But let's continue...

 Lord Balfour as having 'signed a letter promising the land of Palestine to the Zionist Federation, a recently established political movement whose goal was the creation of a Jewish state. He promised a land that was not his to promise, disregarding the political rights of those who already lived there.'

What the Balfour declaration actually said was that Britain was in favor of creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine. And contrary to Abbas's nonsense, it specifically mentioned safeguarding the civil and religious rights of non-Jews living there, and of Jews living in other countries. Not only that, but the Balfour declaration meant nothing by itself. It was the League of Nations that created a Palestine Mandate under British control that was designated specifically to create a state that gave  rights of  sovereign specifically to Jews. And as we'll see, Britain bent over backwards when it came to Arab political rights.

It's also worth mentioning that Lord Balfour didn't create this on his own. It was the British cabinet that signed off on this. And they did it to reward the Jews for their help in WWI. Without Chaim Weismann, a skilled chemist discovering a process to enable fixing nitrogen out of the air, British troops would almost certainly have run out of ammo and artillery shells on the Western Front because of the success of German U-Boat attacks. Jews living in Palestine aided General Allenby's conquest of the Levant considerably with espionage and sabotage against the Ottomans at considerable personal risk, and an entire unit of British Jews fought alongside the Anzacs at the debacle in Gallipolli, something Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull pointed out in his visit to Jerusalem last week.

While most of the Arabs fought for their Ottoman masters, the few who didn't as part of the desultory Arab Revolt by the Sharif of Mecca received almost the entire Arabian Peninsula and ultimately 78% of the Palestine Mandate as their reward for taking a weak garrison in Aqaba well behind the fighting lines and sabotaging Turkish railways. Certainly the League of Nations rewarding the Jews with rights of sovereignty in their ancient homeland where a number of them already lived should have been no problem, since the land in the Palestine Mandate didn't belong to the Arabs either. It belonged to the Ottomans, who ceded it to the Allies under the Treaty of Sevres. So 'Palestine' like the rest of the ceded Ottoman lands belonged to the victorious allies, to do whatever they wished with it.

  'British policy, to support Jewish immigration into Palestine while negating the Arab-Palestinian rights created severe tensions between European Jewish immigrants and the native Palestinian population.'

Oh boy.

Chaim Weismann, representing the Zionist movement and Emir Faisal, the third son of the Sharif of Mecca met and made an agreement to accede to a Jewish State in part of the Palestine Mandate. Faisel and Hussein were more than willing, since the British promised as a sweetener to create an Arab state out of most of the Mandate for his second son, Abdullah and give his first son Ali what became Iraq.  So on 23 March 1918, in Al Qibla, the daily newspaper of Mecca, Feisel  urged the Arabs to to welcome the Jews as brethren and cooperate with them for the common welfare.

The British then went back to the  League of Nations to negotiate borders for an Arab state in Palestine, thus fulfilling their agreement with Emir Feisal. In the 1923 San Remo Accords, an agreement the Arabs were happy to sign off on, the Arabs received 78% of the Palestine Mandate for a state governed by Abdullah. It was called  Trans-Jordan, later Jordan. The border the Arabs agreed to accept was the Jordan River. And accordingly, British removed a number of Jewish families who had settled east of the Jordan River to the other side, although no Arabs were removed from the 22% promised to the Jews.

The proof of this is the fact that so many of the 'settlements' like Ariel and the  Gush Etzion bloc were first built in the 1920's after San Remo, on land legally purchased from the local Arab Muktars. 

The tension was caused by the Arabs, led by the British appointed Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. The British did little to stop it, and Arab violence became endemic. 

The British also responded by repeatedly limiting or even cutting off Jewish migration entirely to what was supposed to be the Jewish part of the Mandate while allowing in unlimited Arab migration.  The worst example of this was the White Paper of 1939, which cut off all Jewish migration and denied Jews desperate for a haven from the coming Holocaust a refuge.That was something the League of Nations planned to take up as a violation of the conditions of the Mandate, until WWII erupted and made the League irrelevant. The death toll of the Holocaust was vastly increased as a result.

'Palestine (the last item on the decolonisation agenda) led to our greatest catastrophe – in Arabic the Nakba.'

 In 1948 Zionist militias forcibly expelled more than 800,000 men, women and children from their homeland, perpetrating horrific massacres and destroying hundreds of villages in the process. I was 13 years old at the time of our expulsion from Safad.

Let's compare this with what Abbas has said on other occasions, shall we?

The Wall Street Journal on June 5th, 2003 made reference to an article penned by Abbas (AKA Abu Mazen) in an article entitled “Abu Mazen Charges that the Arab States are the Cause of the Palestinian Refugee Problem" ( emphasis mine) :

"Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) wrote an article in March 1976 in Falastin al-Thawra, the official journal of the PLO in Beirut: ‘The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny, but instead they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, imposed upon them a political and ideological blockade and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live in Eastern Europe.’”

But wait, there's more. Here's Mahmoud Abbas's own version of his family's 'expulsion' in 1948.

  In an interview with Al-Palestinia TV in 2009, Abbas admitted that his family was not expelled or driven out, but rather left voluntarily out of fear that the Jews might take revenge for the slaughter of 20 Jews in the city during the Arab pogroms of 19 years earlier:

“I am among those who were born in the city of Tzfat (Safed). We were a family of means. I studied in elementary school, and then came the naqba [calamity, namely, the founding of the State of Israel – ed.]. At night, we left by foot from Tzfat, to the Jordan River, where we remained for a month. Then we went to Damascus, and then to our relatives in Jordan, and then we settled in Damascus.

“My father had money, and he spent his money systematically, and after a year, the money ran out and we began to work.

So embarrassing when one's lies are contradicted from one's own mouth isn't it...and Abbas and his family aren't the only ones who left voluntarily.

Haj Amin al-Husseini, who was allowed back into mandatory Palestine in spite of his work for Hitler and the Nazis during WWII is on record as actively encouraging Arabs to leave what became Israel so that the Arab armies could massacre the Jews. The idea was that afterwards, these Arabs could return home again and have the pick of the dead Jew's wealth, property and women.  Al-Husseini was joined in that by that by other Arab media. Which is exactly why the Arabs who left took those house keys with them. And at this link, you'll find a number of quotations from the Arab press admitting it.

You see, the 'Nakba' Abbas is talking about was actually a failed attempt at genocide, only three years after Auschwitz was liberated. To Abbas (and apparently his morally delinquent pals at the Guardian) the fact that it failed is cause for mourning and sorrow.The Arabs knew that genocide was their goal. And so did the British, who armed, trained and in the case of Jordan officered that attempt. If the Brits need to atone for anything, it's not the Balfour Declaration but their collaboration in trapping desperate Jews in Europe seeking refuge in what was supposed to be their land  on the eve of the Holocaust to appease the Arabs. And collaborating actively with the next attempt by the Arabs in 1948  to massacre the Jews of Israel. 

Oh, and those numbers Abbas cites? According to the last British census in 1947, there were 700,000 or so Arabs in the part of Palestine west of the Jordan. The ones who lived in Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem were never expelled by anyone, because the Jordanian Arab Legion illegally occupied those areas and ethnically cleansed every Jew living there. Only about 600,000 Arabs or less lived in what became Israel. This included Druse, Bedouin and Christians. We also know that 120,000 Arabs stayed in Israel and later became Israeli citizens with full rights. Now the last time I checked, that would mean that about 480,000 or so Arabs left Israewl when the Arabs attacked, not '800,000.'

I'm not suggesting that some of these Arabs weren't forcibly driven out by the exigencies of what was, after all, a war of survival. But th elarge number who stayed shows that there were obviously many instances where those Arabs who wanted to  simply stayed put, and decided not too listen to what Haj Amin al-Husseini and the Arab countries were telling them to do.

Now, if you want to see real ethnic cleansing in action, all you need do is examine the behavior of the Arab world after 1948. Almost a million Jews were thrown out of Arab countries they had lived in for decades forcibly simply because they were Jews,  after everything they owned was plundered. Israel took in most of them, and the property, bank accounts and businesses stolen  from them in today's money is conservatively estimated at a trillion dollars U.S.

There's a bit more nonsense about 'occupation' that's too ridiculous to even need a rejoinder. (Fun Question...which country's territory is Israel supposedly 'occupying?' It can't be 'Palestine,'  which doesn't exist as a country. Even the UN hasn't signed off on that one just yet. And it can't be Jordan, since Jordan relinquished all claim to Judea and Samaria as part of the peace deal with Israel.)

But one thing that bears looking at who's writing this and what he and the PLO have created. Here we have Soviet trained dictator  who actively supports terrorism,  pays convicted murderers out of donor aid based on how many Jews they've murdered, and  holds them up as heroes and 'holy martyrs.'

Abbas is a Holocaust denier who's book on the matter,written when he was being trained by the Soviets  in Moscow is required reading in the Palestinian schools and used as a standard text in what passes for Palestinian education.

And human rights? Here's what someone who formerly lived under Abbas and Fatah's rule had to say about them:




And speaking of human rights, do you notice that the regimes shown here attacking Israel have a little something in common in terms of their own human rights situation? 

I could also mention that 'honor killings' still occur in Abbasistan with distressing regularity, that journalists dare not voice any criticism of the regime and that homosexuals are persecuted and even killed there. I could also get into how Abbas became a billionaire and why he and his Fatah cronies live so well while his people struggle, but I digress.

You see, there's  no reason, really, to expect anything better from Abbas. Like his former boss Yasser Arafat, he is always going to lie, cheat, and steal. He's always going to foment violence and murder. It's what he was trained to do by the Soviets, it pays really well and at this point, his main objective is to keep  the status quo going, since actual peace would get a lot of people thinking about why they need parasites like Abbas and Fatah any more. They might even start asking awkward questions about where all that donor aid money went and try to do something about it.

The really interesting question is why so many people seem interested in being his enablers and  collaborators. Especially people who claim to care about human rights, democracy and justice.

Could it be, just maybe, that it's because helping a thug like Abbas and his friends is a fashionable and acceptable 'Anti-Zionist'  cover up for the real agenda... attacking Israel, the only Jewish State?

Plus ça change plus c'est la même chose...the more things change...you know the rest I assume.

Is There A Road To Mideast Peace? Only Using Reality Versus Fiction

 

Now that the Trump Administration has shown itself to be unabashedly pro-Israel, the usual suspects in the media and elsewhere are spreading their usual logorrhea* on the subject of Mideast peace and of course, the vital necessity of a Palestinian state.

What's interesting is that most of what these people are suggesting has been tried in the past, and it hasn't worked. Their usual suggestions involve the old clunker of land for peace (by Israel of course, not by the Arabs who call themselves 'Palestinians'), boosting Palestine's economy, Jerusalem as a shared capitol 'for all faiths' as one of them put it, and borders on the old 1948 ceasefire lines. In exchange for which Israel obtains a guarantee from the Arabs of peace.

None of this would work, even if Israel gave in to all of 'Palestine's' demands. I'll explain why as briefly as possible, and then tell you what I think might actually achieve Mideast peace, since I live in the real world.

'Land for peace' has already been tried and it's been a total failure except for once, with Egypt and that's because Anwar Sadat actually needed peace, liked the idea of getting Sinai back and a nifty $1.5 billion every year in badly needed US aid in exchange for a few promises. It's been a dismal, blood soaked failure every other time for Israel every other time it's been tried, especially when dealing with the Arabs whom call themselves Palestinians.

The Israelis have no reason to trust Hamas and Fatah since they've repeatedly violated Oslo and the Road Map, which were essentially land for peace deals. If you've actually been there, you understand giving 'Palestine' the high ground in Judea and Samaria (AKA the West Bank to the initiated) also involves a major strategic risk for Israel, since it puts both Israel's most populated areas and Ben-Gurion airport in easy missile range. No reason Israel should give this area up to its mortal enemies for some 'promises.'



The Jordan Valley, overwhelmingly populated by Israelis is another point worth mentioning. Putting that in 'Palestinian' hands gives Iran free access to 'Palestine' via Syria and Jordan, and allows Iran to do what they did with Hezbollah and Hamas...arm them with missiles. If you were Israel, would you do something that stupid for 'promises' by the Arabs?

Boosting 'Palestine's' economy? Well, that's been going on for quite some time. The results have done very little to achieve Mideast peace. If 'Palestine' were a normal country, I'd agree that trade helps peace. It isn't and it won't. Proof of this is that prior to the First Intifada, Israel literally built 'Palestine's' infrastructure - schools, roads, power grid, universities, hospitals, etc. and that even continued after Oslo, before Arafat showed his true hand in the Second intifada.

Palestine' under Arafat and Abbas has received more aid than any developing country in history. The only results have been fat bank accounts in Jordan, the Emirates and Europe, excessive 'security forces,' luxurious villas for the elites, a growing payroll of convicted terrorist killers and their families, and a few monopoly industries wholly controlled by the Fatah mafiosos.

'Palestine' is essentially a kleptocracy. According Mahmoud Dahlan, Abbas and Arafat's former 'security chief', Abbas personally embezzled more than $1.3 billion personally from aid money and 'taxes', and he and the other Fatah cronies take a cut of all economic activity. The IMF says that at least 50% of the donor aid money gets 'diverted' into the bank accounts I mentioned, spent on supporting jihad and incitement against Israel, and supporting the resulting jailed criminals and their families. The main reason American-born former primes minister Salem Fayyad was fired by Abbas is because he actually started exposing some of this thievery.

Aside from that, there's no upside for Israel in helping the 'Palestinians' make more money to buy missiles and bullets to shoot at them. Palestine has nothing Israel needs, except perhaps a certain amount of cheap labor. And even that has pretty much been done away with after a number of Palestinian workers turned on their fellow workers,both during the Second intifada and the more recent Knife intifada. So Israel is importing guest workers now when that becomes necessary.

The bottom line is that there's no incentive or upside for Israel to strengthen the economy of what amounts to a hostile regime. Been there, done that, just like 'Land for peace'

Jerusalem a city of shared faiths? It already is, at least since the Israelis annexed it after Jordan attacked them in 1967. Under the Arabs, it was anything but. Every Jew living there in 1948 was ethnically cleansed. 28 historic synagogues with their Torah scrolls were burnt to the ground, Jewish tombstones from the Mount of Olives were used as paving stones and the Kotel, the holiest site in Judaism was used as a garbage dump and latrine. The Israelis aren't giving it back. Especially after experiencing violence and hideous vandalism at other Jewish holy sites like the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's tomb that they actually attempted to share with the Arabs who call themselves 'Palestinians.'

What I'm trying to point out here is that the usual demands made on Israel for peace have two things in common. They've already been tried and they haven't worked.

One argument frequently used is that because of them munificent aid we give Israel, they should be willing to negotiate some of these things. Actually, in terms of dollars and cents, the aid Israel receives is small considering what Israel gives the U.S. in goods, access and services. There's a healthy argument that from a financial standpoint, Israel might be better off giving up the aid and simply doing what most of our other allies, like Turkey do - charging the U.S. the going rate.

The going rate Israel could charge America per year just for maintaining and guarding America's Mideast Strategic Arms depot on its soil alone would probably come close to the amount of the aid we give them per year just by itself. The chief benefit for Israel isn't the aid, by US backup internationally. And as I said, the Israel-US relationship is weighted heavily towards the US and is one of our few foreign policy bargains.

The argument is that Israel should simply bend over and endanger its people for the sake of US support doesn't wash. That support can be subject to change when you have a president that hearts Islamists and does not like Israel at all. Commitments and even written treaty guarantees change suddenly change then, as we've seen,with someone like Barack Hussein Obama in charge. And Arab 'good will' when it comes to the Jews and other infidels is also rather shaky and subject to change, especially when they think they have the upper hand militarily. But land and strategic positions last a lot longer, and can only be reclaimed by blood. The Israelis have simply bent over too many times.

For that matter, we give 'Palestine' a substantial amount of aid too and get zero for it. None of the people msking these arguments ever mention what we should demand from 'Palestine' based on that. It's always Israel that has real concessions are demanded. Never 'Palestine.' Funny thow that works, no?

If you've walked with me this far, I suppose you see where I'm going. Because of their hostile and violemt behavior, 'Palestine' has nothing Israel wants, and Israel has no reason to trust them. In any event, any deal Abbas makes is not going to be accepted by Hamas, so even the idea of peace is a farce. Even assuming Fatah and Abbas cut some kind of deal and offer Israel uncontested ownership of Jerusalem, forego the so-called right of return and recognize Israel as a Jewish state or make some kind of pledge for peace, so what? Israel either has those things already, isn't going to deal on the items in question and realizes that 'peace' is likely to be a mirage anyway.

Trump's idea, I'm sure, is a sort of grand bargain involving not just the Palestinians but the whole Arab region as a way of unifying against Shi'ite Iran. Some of these countries would go along, and some of them are even trading and engaging in security cooperation with Israel under the radar, but the Palestinians remain problematic. Half the Mideast has already tossed them out of their countries as a violent, divisive element. But they have also used the Arabs whom call themselves Palestinians as a propaganda point against Israel for decades. They're in a trap of their own making, with the possible exception of Egypt and al-Sissi.

So here's how to really achieve a lasting Mideast peace.

Fatah and Hamas will never make peace with Israel. Period. We have Bill Clinton to thank for insisting that a murdering, corrupt thug like Arafat be rescued from obscurity in Tunis and made the new 'Palestinian' strongman. The start of any peace process will be to realize that it isn't a peace process so much as a divorce, and likely not an amicable one.

In exchange for recognition of Palestine by Israel, Israel could make a final offer consisting of the following conditions:

• Israel would recognize a Palestinian state in Area A of Judea and Samaria, where the vast majority of the Palestinians live. Area C where the majority of Israelis live would become part of Israel. Borders in Area B would be negotiated by the parties. Once borders are negotiated, appropriate population swaps would be completed.

• An immediate end to Palestinian incitement in its mosques, media and schools.

• An immediate end to financial support for convicted terrorists in Israeli jails and their families.

• The new Palestinian state would be completely demilitarized. Jordan isn't going to attack them, and neither is Israel unless Palestine violates this new, binding agreement. There's no need for more than a small, lightly armed police force. Palestine would agree to turn over non-police weaponry like the armored cars Obama gave the two combat brigades he had General Keith Dayton train and arm for use against Israel.

• The new Palestinian state will make a complete break of all relations with Hamas unless Hamas signs the agreement and complies with all its terms. That won't happen of course, but it's worth putting in there.

• Palestine would officially declare the conflict over, agree to recognize the new borders as final and abjure all claims on Israeli territory. Israel would likewise recognize Palestine as a state.

This gives the Palestinians a state on pretty much the same terms as Oslo, which of course they violated. It separates the two sides and gives the Palestinians a chance to build a state based on something other than stealing donor aid and fomenting violence and hatred of Israel. If Abbas really wants a Palestinian state he'll take it, because the other things he wants he isn't getting anyway.


*a Ten dollar word for excessive BS

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 and other publications.

A Final Act Of Hatred - Obama Attacks Israel's Legitimacy At The UN

 

Outgoing President Barack Hussein Obama has devoted a chunk of his remaining time and attention in office to indulge in a spiteful, personal demonstration of his hatred for Israel. It's the final attack of the most anti-Israel administration in U.S. history. And it isn't finished yet.

A reluctant Egypt had been prepared to present an incredibly biased anti-Israel UN Security Council resolution, a bigoted text that had been in the works for some time. But Egyptian President Asissi, after a conversations with president-elect Donald Trump  and Israeli prime Minister Netanyahu pulled the resolution indefinitely. As various diplomatic sources reported, Al Sissi decided that antagonizing the incoming president and straining his security arrangements with Israel weren't worth a UN resolution he didn't want to present anyway.

President Obama had been colluding on this all along with the Palestinians, even advising on wording. He contacted the anti-Israel countries of New Zealand, Venezuela, and the Muslim nations of Senegal and Malaysia to quickly co-sponsor the resolution and get in on the floor quickly for a vote. It passed 14-0, with the U.S. abstaining as planned.

In spite of the outright lies being told by the administrations lackeys, Resolution 2334 represents a major change in U.S. policy.

It demonizes Israel, yet again, as the 'occupying power' in disregard of all historical and legal norms. It refers to Judea, Samaria (AKA the West Bank) as well as east Jerusalem as 'occupied Palestinian territory,' a neat trick since there never was a Palestine and the 1994 peace treaty between Jordan and Israel didn't even mention a Palestinian state.

It calls for Jerusalem, with the Old City, which contains all the Jewish holy sites including the Western Wall to be ceded to 'Palestine.' That means those sites will be desecrated as they were during the nineteen year Jordanian occupation, and will be closed to Jews forever. Yes, it is now the official position of the United States of America that the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, inhabited by Jews for thousands of years except for a 19-year hiatus between 1948-1967 when the Jews were ethnically cleansed from the area is now 'occupied Palestinian territory'. This delegitimizes Israel and the Jewish people and concurs with the anti-semitic UNESCO resolution of October,2016 that nullified all Jewish and Christian ties and connections to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and referred to all of the Holy sites there by their Muslim names. Obama saw to it that United States voted against that UNESCO resolution, but there was an election going on then. That's obviously why the Obama administration vetoed a similar resolution to 2334 in 2011 before his re-election run, but didn't veto 2334. There's no election going on now, and Barack Hussein Obama's situation has obviously changed. Now he can take off the mask without any cost or consequences.

This new diktat creates the boundaries for 'Palestine' giving them all of Judea and Samaria as well as East Jerusalem. In other words, it legitimizes the creation of 580,000 Jewish refugees as well as totally unsafe borders for Israel. It also violates the Oslo Accords and the Road Map, agreements the U.S. was a signatory to that stated unequivocally that any settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority could only be achieved through direct negations between the two parties. And for the first time, it legitimizes Obama's call for imposing a Palestinian state on the 1948 ceasefire lines, another total departure from previous U.S. policy.

 



It calls for member nations, “to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967” which legitimizes boycotts. And it calls for an immediate end to all Israeli construction In Judea, Samaria. According to this resolution, Israel isn't even allowed to build a kindergarten or repair a road.

This again is an Obama policy, not something historic. Obama's UN ambassador Samantha Power is noted for calling  for the U.S. to unilaterally invade the region, force Israel into indefensible borders, engage in ethnic cleansing by throwing every Jew out of Judea, Samaria, and East Jerusalem, turn those areas over to 'Palestine' and establish a U.S. peacekeeping force there to keep Israel from retaliating against the inevitable terrorist attacks on its civilians that would result from the new borders.

What this UN resolution calls for is pretty close to that, but Ambassador Power had the unmitigated gall to lie about it anyway. She defended the U.S. abstention as an act to save the so-called “two-state” solution, something she said Israeli 'settlements activities' are supposedly jeopardizing. She even had the nerve to quote President Ronald Reagan and deliberately take him out of context to justify the vote she just cast. In a 1982 statement, President Ronald Reagan did call for an end to "the use of any additional land for the purpose of settlements.” In that statement, quoted by Ambassador Power, President Reagan said that "the immediate adoption of a settlement freeze by Israel, more than any other action, could create the confidence needed for wider participation in these talks."

The part she conveniently left out was that in his speech, President Reagan was referring to a freeze on new settlements during a “period of transition,” which would “begin after free elections for a self-governing Palestinian authority” and could prove that “Palestinian autonomy poses no threat to Israel’s security.” President Reagan also said that “the United States will not support the establishment of an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza,” but suggested instead “self-government by the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza in association with Jordan.”

Sounds like Ronaldus Maximus understood the true nature of the 'Palestinians' and why 'statehood' for them was a singularly bad idea. Even the Oslo Accords only referred to limited autonomy, not a separate Palestinian state.

You see, it's not Israel's communities in Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem that have prevented a settlement.   As Mahmoud Abbas himself admitted, it was President Obama's idea to make a building freeze a major issue when it wasn't before, even to the point of creating a major diplomatic incident between the US and Israel over what was essentially a local zoning issue and then harshly criticizing Israel for rejecting an offer to resume the freeze that the US never made in the first place.

What's prevented a solution is the continued refusal of the Arabs whom call themselves 'Palestinians' to negotiate anything. negotiating, of course means making concessions to thew other side, and Abbas has said repeatedly that he's unwilling to make a single concession to Israel. And why should he, especially now?

President Obama started out his presidency letting anyone who was paying attention that he had  a major problem with America's alliance with Israel and wanted to create lots of 'daylight' between the two countries.  

He was thoroughly schooled in his disdain for Israel by his mentors from his earliest days, Frank Marshall Davis, Edward Said, Louis Farrakhan, Jeremiah Wright, Khalid al-Mansour, Bill Ayres and others. Abbas, as a trained Soviet apparatchnik recognized Obama's training instantly and knew that all he had to do was hold out until Obama gifted him what Abbas, wanted, without any concessions whatsoever.

No one with a shred of intellectual honesty can separate this UN action from Jew hatred. This resolution not only meets Natan Sharansky's famous '3D' definition of anti-semitism, ( Demonization, Double Standards, Delegitimization) but actually conforms to the U.S. Department of State's official working definition of it.

So, where does this go from here?

Reaction in the U.S. itself was mixed in some interesting ways.

President-elect Donald Trump was predictably outraged. Aside from his own warmth towards Israel and the Jewish people, this an attempt by a lame duck president to impose a policy on him as an incoming president was despicable, and Trump made no bones about saying so.

Trump apparently found out what was up, and had called for Obama to veto the resolution the day before it went tothe UN, saying, "As the United States has long maintained, peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians will only come through direct negotiations between the parties, and not through the imposition of terms by the United Nations,” the president-elect said in a statement Thursday.

"This puts Israel in a very poor negotiating position and is extremely unfair to all Israelis."

And Trump warned the U.N. shortly after the vote via Twitter that “things will be different” after his inauguration.

Many members of congress also expressed outrage. As you can imagine, this was mainly the Republicans. Sen. James Lankford, (R-OK), a member of the Senate appropriations subcommittee responsible for making foreign aid funding decisions, tweeted, "U.N. funding should be up for discussion if the anti #Israel resolution is approved."  Senators Lindsay Graham, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton and others also voiced disgust at this and are calling for defunding the UN, unless this is repealed.

The Israelis,of course, are livid at this deliberate betrayal. But they should have expected it. This was always going to happen with Barack Hussein Obama in the White House, and I predicted it a long time ago. Needless to say, Israel isn't going to abide by any of this.No country would, unless they were collectively suicidal.

Contrary to popular belief in some circles, Israel is not dependent on American military aid. They have their own thriving arms industry and the amount involved is a relatively small part of their defense budget, although it undoubtedly helps. Actually, as I've pointed out before, the U.S. gets far more in goods and services from Israel than we pay out, and Obama's ' generous' new aid package was actually a reduction,not an increase and came with some major strings attached.

The real reason Netanyahu accepted it was an attempt to mollify what he understood was an anti-Israel president, and to try to avoid losing the alliance's real benefit for Israel...that of a trusted friend who would fend off what amounts to institutionalized Jew hatred in the sewer the UN has become. Frankly, after eight years of this president, he should have known better.

But with that benefit now gone, the Israelis have learned a vital and important lesson, one Obama didn't intend. This blatant treachery united the vast majority of Israelis. It proved that Netanyahu and the Israeli Right were correct all along. They now know that there's absolutely no benefit for them in making any concessions, or negotiating anything.Israel could reduce itself to an enclave around Tel Aviv and it would still be too much. And they would still be libeled as 'the occupying power' and face more demands no matter what.

What President Obama and his creatures don't understand is that instead of preserving the fallacy of the so-called two-state solution, this has killed it. In spite of a few indeterminate words about “all acts of violence against civilians, including acts of terror, as well as all acts of provocation, incitement and destruction” Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have never taken anything like that seriously because they have never suffered any consequences at all for it from the UN,the U.S. or the 'international community.' The aid has kept coming in, and no matter what horrendous atrocities they commit against Israeli civilians or what gets taught in the Palestinian Authority's mosques, schools and official media, no matter how well they reward the perpetrators, there's no penalty for their actions. Just pro forma 'condemnations of all violence against civilians' and calls to 'reduce tension' as if Israel was equally at fault.

This resolution essentially legitimizes terrorist attacks on Israelis as 'resistance' and don't think the 'Palestinians' won't rev things up. The Israelis know that and will respond in a far more decisive way than before now that they fully understand that to the UN, nothing they do to defend themselves is legitimate. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Instead of a partner for peace or someone to negotiate with in good faith, Israel, for the first time since the Second Intifada is going to treat Hamas and the Palestinian Authority as exactly what they have always been in reality - a toxic, hostile enemy.

Israel will build in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria like never before. And they may very well annex Area C at the least. After all, if the UN calls the Western Wall inJerusalem and Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, some of which have existed since the 1920's 'occupied Palestinian territory,' why not?

As for President Obama, his plan is to double down.

 

Today, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made a speech which basically defended 2334. He re-emphasized the lie that the U.S. has always opposed 'settlements' in Judea and Samaria and has always supported a two state solution on the 1948 cease fire lines or to use Kerry's terminology, 'the pre 1967 lines.' The truth, of course is that no U.S. Administration ever called the Jewish communities in Judea,Samaria and Jerusalem 'illegal' before, or called for a two state solution on the 1948 cease fire lines. This is Obama's policy and his alone.

He also trotted out the old line that "“It is the only way to ensure Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state living in peace and security with its neighbors.”

He seems to forget that Israel is already a Jewish, democratic state with 20% of its population consisting of Arabs, most of whom are fully integrated into Israeli society with the full protection of law. How many Jews live in Abbas's 'Palestine?'. Abbas has already said that no Jews will be allowed in his little reichlet. If anyone has a problem with remaining democratic, it isn't Israel.But you'd never know that to listen to John Kerry. he also repeated the call for a divided Jerusalem and the de facto creation of 580,000 Jewish refugees.

As for peace and security, why would he or any sane person believe that the Arabs whom call themselves Palestinian have any intent of living in peace with Israel, no matter what? Kerry made a mention of their incitement to violence and glorification of terrorists, saying, "The murders of innocents are still glorified on Fatah websites.”

“Despite statements by President Abbas, too often they send a different message by failing to condemn specific attacks and by naming public squares, streets and schools after terrorists.”

Is Kerry really that blind and clueless to think that's going to change, especially since there's no consequences for it, and it's being rewarded by the UN and the Obama Administration?

Kerry made a vague promise in his speech that the US would not seek further UN action. That doesn't mean they won't condone it, help plan and compose  it, and do their best to help push it through.

On January 16th, there's a long planned French-sponsored conference that will focus exclusively  Israel and establishing a Palestinian state. Israel is not attending, but the U.S. will be there.

On January 17th, there's yet another UN Security Council meeting  scheduled.  The UN normally moves quite slowly, but rest assured that both the Paris conference and the meeting have already been pretty much scripted. My guess is that another resolution arises out of it.

 President Barack Hussein Obama isn't through attacking Israel yet.

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Yet Another Reason Israel Can't Rely on Agreements With The Obama Regime

Because agreements with this president and his team rarely mean anything, especially when it comes to Israel.

A little over two decades ago, Israel signed a piece of paper called the Oslo Accords with terrorist Yasser Arafat and gave the PLO control of part of Judea and Samaria and a piece of Gaza in exchange for commitments that were never kept. One of the many reasons it was a huge mistake is that it legitimized one of Israel's enemies and gave them a base to operate out of. And being a piece of paper, it's subject to interpretation by the U.S. and others, and almost never in Israel's favor, especially since Barack Obama slithered into the Oval Office.

A case in point on how this works is the US State Department's temper tantrum over supposed 'unequal treatment' American citizens whom refer to themselves as Palestinians.

"The US government seeks equal treatment and freedom to travel for all US citizens regardless of national origin or ethnicity," State Department spokesman John Kirby said.

"Specifically, the US government remains concerned at the unequal treatment that Palestinian-Americans and other Arab-Americans receive at Israel's borders and checkpoints."

Kirby did not address the specifics of individual reports, instead referring reporters to Israeli authorities.

What's the unequal treatment? That those Americans whom identify as Palestinians can only enter Israel via the Allenby Bridge from Jordan rather than Ben-Gurion Airport.Which, by the way is exactly what the Oslo Accords stipulate and what the PLO, Israel and the United States agreed to and signed on to!

You think the risk of terrorism and the need to screen Americans whom identify themselves as Palestinians might just have something to do with that? That Israel is trying to avoid a potential terrorist from shutting down its major airport?

To make this even more ridiculous, the State Department's own website clearly tells Americans whom claim to be Palestinians not to enter Israel via Ben-Gurion and that they are required to enter from Jordan:

"Many Palestinian nationals or dual nationals seeking to enter via Ben-Gurion have been sent back to the United States upon arrival," the website notes. "Others have been allowed to enter Israel but told they cannot depart Israel via Ben-Gurion without special permission, which is rarely granted."

This is especially revealing in view of what the Obama regime is asking Israel to accept when it comes to retreating to the pre '67 cease fire lines and the farcical Iran deal. When you can't trust people to keep existing agreements, why trust them on new ones?

The Swedes Throw A Tantrum Over Israel

Sweden's foreign minister Margot Wallstrom is angry at Israel, and she unloaded publicly today.

"It is unacceptable how they have been talking about us and everybody else," Wallstrom said in an interview with Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter. "It has irritated not only us, but the Americans and everyone who has anything to do with them right now."

She's in a snit because she was scheduled to arrive in Israel in mid-January in order to attend a memorial service for the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who saved Jews during the Holocaust. And, just a coincidence, to have meetings with high level Israeli officials. Instead, the Israeli government and Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman told her that those meetings weren't going to happen...at which point she canceled the trip, which gives you a good idea how much she and her government actually cared about honoring Raoul Wallenberg.

The reason for the Israeli government's response was Social Democrat Prime Minister Stefan Lofven using his inaugural address in parliament last year to announce that his country would recognize a Palestinian state along the pre-1967 lines.

Here's what the Swedish government actually endorsed by backing that: the creation of 500,000 Israeli refugees; the forced retreat of Israel to indefensible borders; the legitimacy of Hamas as part of the government of this new 'Palestine'; the casual tearing up of treaties and agreements signed by the PLO; and the redivision of Jerusalem and the barring of Jews forever from their holy sites.

Of course, what's really bothering Margot Wallstrom and the Swedish government is that those damned stubborn Jews won't roll over and appease Islamists - like Sweden, for instance.

In her interview, Wallstrom claimed Sweden supports Israel, Palestine and peace, but then she launched into the usual diatribe of 'anti-Zionists'

"Israel has been extremely aggressive," she said.

"They have continued with their settlement policies, they have continued demolitions, they have continued with their occupation policies which entail a humiliation of Palestinians, which makes the (peace) process difficult."

Yes, in her mind Hamas wasn't being aggressive at all in launching rockets at Israel civilians or in funding terrorist raids to kidnap and murder Israeli civilians. And Abbas and his Hamas allies haven't engaged in constant incitement, lawfare, terrorist attacks and failure to actually negotiate anything.

Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon tried to clue the Swedish people in during an interview broadcast on Swedish Radio, saying, "The Swedish foreign minister would not have been given any official meetings in Israel if she had traveled here. What Sweden did was an utterly unfriendly action."

It was more than just 'unfriendly.' Sweden may be famed for its neutrality but its Leftist government has essentially decided to pick sides in a war. Can they possibly be so clueless as to not understand that officials of Sweden's government aren't welcome in Israel, the country they chose to align themselves against?

And the government is backing up their choice with hard cash going directly to Hamas.

Margot Wallstrom may claim Sweden supports Israel and peace, but the actions of her government prove otherwise. Israel hardly needs enemies with the kind of 'support' they're getting from Sweden.

Kerry's Talks With Iran Deadlocked As Iran Calls For Israel's Destruction

 

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry chaired a four hour meeting with an Iranian delegation that included Iran’s deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamad Javad Zarif.

Secretary Kerry's 'agreement that was never and agreement' on Iran's rogue nuclear weapons program continues to fall apart at the seams.

The Iranians have flat outrejected any limits on their enrichment program (and let's remember, a nuclear energy program doesn't require enrichment). The Iranians have also refused to consider reducing the size and output of their centrifuges that can enrich uranium both to levels needed for reactor fuel or for nuclear warheads.

 

According to the Associated Press Kerry caved and promptly put a new U.S. proposal on the table that is based on removing piping connecting the centrifuges...as if that piping can't be reconnected in between inspections!

The Iranians are also adamant about any inspection of their military base at Parchin where there's substantial evidence that nuclear weapons research has gone on, nor will Iran make any concessions on its fortified nuclear facility at Fordo or on its heavy water reactor at Arak. The Arak reactor has no peacetime application whatsoever, and the reactor can be used to produce plutonium, an alternate path to nuclear weapons.

You may remember that last November, Secretary Kerry was claiming that the Iranians had agreed to suspend operations at Arak.The Iranians were quite prompt to reply they said no such thing, just one of the many details Kerry and President Obama claimed the Iranians agreed to that they absolutely didn't, and something Iran said it wouldn't ever make concessions on. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime got over $12.5 billion in badly needed funds and the dismantling of what was left of the sanctions that was years in the making for this faux 'agreement' anyway. As I said at the time, it's a wonder Secretary Kerry returned with his pants and shoes on after that bit of negotiating....

The next topic of conversation was the Islamic State. As I reported earlier, the Iranian response to Kerry's attempt to get them on board as part of President Obama's coalition was pretty much along these lines:

 

Deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi refused the idea of any coordination of efforts with the Great Satan, he did say that his government was in agreement with Western powers on the evil  nature of Islamic State, saying,  “we couldn’t agree more that ISIL [Islamic State] is neither Islamic, nor a state.”  Most Sunnis, not just Islamic State feel the same way about Shi'ites, of course.


But they did have a unique suggestion for Kerry.

Araghchi said that Israel’s actions in Gaza can “only be called genocide,” and said that Israel's existence was a rallying cry for Islamic State. So Islamic State's destruction and demise must thus be tied to “an end to the Israeli occupation of Arab lands.”

Since the Iranians (and the Arabs whom identify themselves as Palestinians) have said many times they consider all of Palestine 'occupied Arab lands' and Iran funds and arms genocidal groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah, there's no mistaking what Aragchi meant. It's a reprise of the old Iranian call to wipe Israel off the map.And keep in mind, Aragchi isn't just speaking on his own. That doesn't happen in a regime like Iran's. This is official policy.



In fact, if the 'Palestinian Authority’s ambassador' to Iran, Salah Al-Zawawi is to be believed, Iran has already begun shipping weaponry and missiles to Fatah as well:

“I would like to reiterate my gratitude to the Islamic Republic of Iran for the training, financing, and weapons it has provided us, as well as for its political and diplomatic positions regarding Palestine. Iran has helped us to attain our great victory,”

“I am not saying that Palestine will be liberated tomorrow, but we have made real strides on the path to liberation. A missile with a 200 kilogram warhead will carry a warhead of 100 tons in the future, because weapons change as men change. We just need to cross the scientific threshold to get to our goal.”

Ah yes, the old goal of pushing the Jews into the sea. And perhaps later after the missiles are developed, a spare nuke, once the Iranians develop one? Just for the record, a top Iranian military commander recently confirmed that the Islamic Republic is sending weapons to Fatah.

Israeli PM Netanyahu may one day be sorry he didn't defy President Obama and take out Hamas when he had the opportunity. A three front war with Fatah, Hamas and Hezbollah as adversaries is not out of the question at all.

And Secretary Kerry? There's no indication that he voiced any objections to this call for Israel's ethnic cleansing by Iran. Not that he agrees with it per se, but he appears to be far more focused on what concessions he can make to Iran to get some kind of piece of paper signed before November 24th, the new deadline that was agreed to after the Iranians ran out the clock on July 20th, the official deadline. Iran received an additional bribe of a mere $2.8 million to keep these 'talks' going after that fiasco.

Meanwhile, the centrifuges are turning and Iran hasn't given up anything. Nor will they. They know whom they're dealing with.

 

Top PA Official: Youth Soccer Match With Israel 'Crime Against Humanity'

Jibril Rajoub, the deputy secretary of the Fatah Central Committee went ballistic over a recent youth soccer match between Palestinian and Israeli children hosted by the Peres Center for Peace as a way to build bridges between Israeli and Palestinian children.

Rajoub, a member of the Fatah Old Guard wrote in a September 6 Facebook post, “Any activity of normalization in sports with the Zionist enemy is a crime against humanity.”

He said the match represented “an Israeli attempt to cover up their crimes against [Palestinian] athletes,” according to a Palestinian Media Watch report released Monday.

Perhaps he's forgotten about his part planning the massacre of Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972, or all the other very real 'crimes against humanity' he, Abbas and the others in Fatah have happily participated in.

The kids themselves appear to not be affected by the hatred their adult leaders are pushing...at least not yet. Over 600 children from Israel and the Palestinian territories were scheduled to take part this year in the Twinned Peace Soccer Schools events.

“I love it when we play together like this. I hope that one day there will be peace between Arabs and Jews and that there will be no more wars and death,” a Palestinian boy told AFP after the first event.

Not if Jibril Rajoub and the PA have anything to say about it. A number of PA officials echoed Rajoub's sentiments

"The Palestinian organizers of this match betrayed the blood of the children of Gaza and of the martyrs, which has yet to dry a week after the end of the barbaric Israeli aggression,” said Palestinian Olympic Committee member Abd al-Salam Haniyeh in an article published last Thursday by Palestinian news agency Sama

Haniyeh went on to demand that Rajoub punish the Palestinian organizers associated with the match, who hail from Yatta. “Immediately interrogate the organizers of the match, settle the account with them and prosecute them on charges of serious treason against the blood of the martyrs [who died in the Gaza conflict] and violating the decisions made by the Palestinian sports community’s leadership,” Haniyeh urged.

Last year, in an interview with Palestinian TV, Rajoub stated his opposition to participating in sporting events with Israelis and threatened to remove anyone accused of doing so from the Palestinian Football Association.

Jibril Rajoub,you might remember is the PA leader who said that if the Palestinian Authority had a nuclear weapon, they would use it on Israel the next day.

It's pretty easy to predict what's going to happen here, because I know how these things usually end up. Remember that Arafat, Abbas, Rajoub, and the rest of the Fatah mafia were trained by their Soviet masters on how to enforce party discipline.

The organizers, coaches and any other Palestinian adults involved in this will receive a visit from Fatah thugs in the 'security forces' and will receive a lesson, a physical one if necessary on the error of their ways. The program will be cancelled, because all of a sudden no Palestinian children or adults will be participating in it. If the regime decides it's necessary, the kids who were involved, especially if they were exposed to the hated Jews enough to see them as human beings will be subjected to intense reprogramming.

There will be no real peace between Israel and the Arabs whom identify themselves as Palestinians as long as Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad and the other allied factions are around.You could sign any papers you want and give in to all their demands, and that wouldn't change.

An Awesome Quote On Israel That Sheds Real Light By Robert F. Kennedy

I remember working on Bobby Kennedy's campaign as a very, very young teenage precinct captain in California. He was by far the most able and intelligent of all the Kennedys, and I've always felt it was a national tragedy that he never made it into the White House.There's a lot more I could say about his assassination, which occurred while I was attending the victory party over his winning the California primary,but I'm going to censor myself. Suffice it to say that had certain members - one in particular- of Kennedy's security team been doing the job they were getting paid for that night, Robert Kennedy wouldn't have been killed.

Let it be noted however that current leftist darling and Obama ally Bill Ayers dedicated his book, 'Prairie Fire' to Kennedy's murderer.

I never saw this quote before, but it's typically insightful. The Ottoman sultan encouraged Jewish migration to Palestine because he wanted tax revenues out of the villayat, and he saw that the only two even marginally successful areas in what was mostly a depopulated barren wasteland were Jerusalem and Safed, Jewish majority cities. It was Jewish migration, starting in the1880's that created the farms and commerce that drew Arabs from the Hejaz, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon to the region. And in the period Kennedy mentions, there was further migration from Arabs in these areas because over one third of Palestine's Jews were in uniform fighting the Nazis and the British allowed unlimited Arab migration to deal with the resulting labor shortage. At the same time, to its eternal shame, Britain  prohibited  any Jews from coming to Palestine and doomed them to the Nazi death camps.

Now you know where most of the Arabs who identify themselves as Palestinians came from. That includes Yasser Arafat, an Egyptian.

One State Jew State Two States Hey! A Real Solution For The Arab -Israeli Conflict

Jewish Home Party leader and Israeli economic minister Naftali Bennett has excited some ire over a recent editorial he published in the Wall Street Journal

In short, his proposal, which he calls the 'Stability Plan' contains these main elements:

1) Complete self-government for Palestinians living in Area A and B, with Israel getting rid of all checkpoints and the dismantling of Israel's security barrier.

2)Encouragement by Israel to get multinational corporations to invest in Palestinian areas by offering economic incentives such as insurance guarantees and tax breaks, as well as streamlining the export process for Palestinian manufacturers. Bennett calls for Israel, known as the "Startup Nation," to build a "Startup Region."

3) The part of Judea and Samaria known as Area C, where the overwhelming majority of the Population are Israeli Jews would be annexed by Israel, with the Arabs living in Area C to be given full citizenship.

Essentially, Bennett's 'Stability Plan' is a mixture of Israeli PM Netanyahu's often stated ideas on jump starting the Palestinian economy combined with a restatement of Caroline Glick's 'One State solution', with which I have my own reservations.

Taken at face value, Bennett's proposal isn't entirely wacky, merely very unrealistic. Oddly enough, he tells us why in the beginning part of the article, which deals with the merger of Fatah and the genocidal Hamas:

Hamas is a terrorist organization dedicated to Israel's destruction. The group has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings and missile attacks. That is the organization's very mission: The Hamas charter calls for perpetual jihad against the Jewish State while forever rejecting peace negotiations or compromise. Israel will not negotiate with a Palestinian government that includes Hamas.

Not just against Israel, by the way, but Jews world wide. And Hamas is already strategizing about creating a new front for launching terrorist attacks against Israel from the much closer platform of the Arab occupied areas of Judea and Samaria. Not, perhaps, a good time to be talking about tearing down Israel's highly successful security barrier!

Bennett also ignores that the Palestinian Authority has already pretty much rejected any idea of creating a 'start-up' region and real any economic cooperation. The PA already does its best to prevent Palestinian shops from carrying Israeli-produced goods and frequently confiscates them.

And if, as Bennett says, an Israeli government isn't going to negotiate with a Palestinian government that includes Hamas ( assuming Hamas would ever negotiate anything with a country who's existence it soesn't recognize), how exactly are all of these deals on trade and investment supposed to be worked out? Not to mention the illogic of strengthening the economy of someone who's an avowed enemy.

Another huge problem with both Glick (and Bennett's) scenario is the idea that Israel will swallow a poison pill consisting of Arabs living in Area C, a majority of whom have been radicalized and indoctrinated for two generations that violent terrorism is a great thing and killing Jews is a holy act. Making these people full citizens merely creates a larger,more indigestible Umm al-Fahm.

The very term 'Stability Plan' denotes the idea that rather then solving this impasse, it will just be allowed to continue. The Hamas/Fatah government isn't going to allow that to happen, and neither will the EU, the UN and quite possibly the Obama Administration.

One thing Bennett gets entirely right is the fact that the current status quo In Judea and Samaria is unsustainable. The Arabs whom identify themselves as Palestinians don't want an actual two state solution, and thanks to the Oslo Accords and the Wye Agreement, the areas under Arab sovereignty and Jewish sovereignty are so tangled and confused as to make any solution along those lines entirely unworkable.

 

A real solution is fairly simple, in my view. And it's based upon realizing that this is not about creating any kind of 'partnership' between Israel and people sworn to its destruction, but a divorce.

The Palestinian Authority has already declared that it's no longer bound by Oslo or the Road Map, and Hamas and Islamic Jihad never were. So there is certainly no reason for israel to be bound by agreements that are essentially no longer in force.

Some maps were meant to be redrawn.

I have seen the same solution to all this for almost fifteen years now. Israel needs to unilaterally delineate its borders, annex those areas and move any Jews on the Arab side to the Israeli side and move any Arab non-citizens to the Palestinian side, including almost a quarter million Arabs whom identify themselves as Palestinians in the Jerusalem area alone. The new map would be redrawn with the idea of contiguous borders, with outlying Arab cantons like Qalkilya, Bethlehem,  and parts of Tulkarem, Jenin,  Hebron and Tubas being annexed to the  Israeli area for the sake on that contiguity which  would almost certainly also consist of Area C and the Jordan Valley.

The Israeli government should make clear to whomever ruled 'Palestine' that while Israel was prepared for peaceful relations, any terrorism or violent attacks on Israeli territory would not only result  in disproportionate retaliation but the annexation by Israel of more Arab territory.

Any agreements between Israel and the new Arab state would be determined from scratch. No more free electricity, water or other amenities unless new agreements were made.

The advantages to this are self-evident. Because  the Clinton Administration and the Rabin government allowed Arafat to take over the Arab areas of Gaza, Judea  and Samaria, 'Palestine' was and is never going to be a democratic state living in peace next to Israel for a long time, if ever. The fact that the Palestinians would never accept it is moot, because they don't accept Israel period. But they would have the Jew free reichlet Abbas and Hamas have always wanted to determine their own destiny, and Israel's possession of the Jordan Valley and control of the airspace would eliminate most of the shipments of heavy weapons and insure a mostly demilitarized 'Palestine'.

Such a solution would also likely minimize the diplomatic feedback. Oh, it would certainly occur (after all, in much of the EU and UN anything short of a successful jihad against Israel is going to provoke that) but by and large the world is tired of Palestine, and the EU in particular have much more pressing problems to deal with.H having a 'Palestine' to point to point to would eventually make a lot of the international reaction fade away.after a short period of intense reaction to the level of say, Jammu and Kashmir.

This, by the way, is the way is how every single refugee crisis in history has been successfully solved, and exactly why the refugee crisis resulting from the 1948 attack against Israel has not been. As desirable as a one state solution might seem, I think that all things considered, this works a lot better.

Crossposted at Jews Down Under

A Nice Bit Of UN Hypocrisy On Israel

UN Secretary General Ban-Ki-Moon had a few things to say as the deadline for Israeli-Palestinian talks passed.

The Secretary General urged Israel and Palestinians, as well as the international community, to "reflect on how to preserve the prospects for a two-state solution."

Ban also urged the parties to refrain from unilateral actions that could prevent peace negotiations from resuming.

According to Ban's spokesman Stephane Dujarric, the secretary general "urges caution and (calls the parties to) avoid any unilateral action that would reduce the chances of seeing negotiations resume and reach an agreement ."

"Avoiding unilateral action' ? After the Secretary General just approved the unilateral actions of 'Palestine' by accepting Mahmoud Abbas' applications to join UN bodies and conventions in violation of all previous agreements?

 

And wouldn't you call signing Abbas and Fatah a unity agreement with a genocidal terrorist group like Hamas 'unilateral action'?

Ah, I see..that only applies to Jews and Israel!

What Caroline Glick’s One State Plan Unfortunately Misses

Caroline Glick has a new book out entitled 'The Israeli Solution: A One State Plan For Peace In The Middle East.'

As someone who has enjoyed her writing and clear thinking on this subject for some time, I regret to say that while she gets most of her facts right, I think she makes some unfortunate if well meaning miscalculations as far as her idea for solving the situation goes.

Ms. Glick's solution is simple; forget about the Two State solution. Israel should annex all of Judea and Samaria, put it under Israeli law, depose the Palestinian Authority and offer the inhabitants Israeli citizenship and, as she puts it, a better life for themselves and their children in "a pluralistic, liberal democracy with a first-world economy."

Here's why her solution is impractical at this point. First off, let's not forget that Israel tried this between the '67 was and the First Intifada, thinking they could live with these people in peace. Israel built schools and universities, hospitals, created jobs and a decent economy for the locals. And in the end, it was a horrific failure. It will even be worse now, with two decades of indoctrination by Arafat and Abbas, and Hamas (whom these people voted for to rule them in a free election) to stir the pot.If most of them weren't willing to buy into what she's offering then, why would they now? Even in Israel itself, there are almost 300,000 Arabs whom identify themselves as Palestinians and refuse to take Israeli citizenship. How successful to you think Israel is going to be with 1.5 million or so Palestinian Muslims who have been radicalized to hate Jews like poison for twenty plus years?

In fact, my lil' Birdie within the Palestinian Authority e-mailed me laughing about this just the other day. He's said for a long time that Abbas should disband the PA and just drop the whole mess in Israel's lap. Abbas and the Old Guard with their Jordanian passports and the money they've stolen would mostly depart, but the Hamas and Fatah commanders who would be left would embark on another massive war against Israel's civilians. The massive terrorism and the inevitable Israeli crackdown, complete with the biased press coverage and a plentiful supply of Pallywood 'bleeders' would make things infinitely worse while solving NOTHING. Remember, the Palestinians now have two fully equipped and trained combat infantry brigades courtesy of Gen.Keith Dayton and the American Taxpayer. The IDF could certainly defeat them, but the cost in PR and bloodshed would be horrendous.

Also, she assumes that the UN, President Obama and the EU would accept an Israeli annexation of this kind. All of them are totally invested in the idea of a second Arab Palestinian state, and in the case of the EU there are Muslim voters to consider.And as dysfunctional as 'Palestine' is and as much money as it costs them, it's what they want whether it makes sense or not. The Israelis unfortunately started this when they bought into Oslo, and the international backlash would be intense.You would see real claims of 'occupation' at that point and a spur for Obama, the EU and the UN to actually do something about it.

Annex Judea and Samaria and put it under Israeli law? Sure. Make the Pals Israeli citizens? The majority would never accept it. And those whom did would be subject to bloody retaliation by Palestinian terrorists as 'collaborators' .

There's a far better solution,and one I've been repeating for what, fifteen years now? As desirable as Israel having all of Judea and Samaria might be, Oslo pretty much ended that, and swallowing the poison pill of 1.5 million mostly hostile Arab Muslims is no road to peace, no matter what the demographics favoring a Jew9ish majority.

This is about a divorce.

Israel should forget about the mythical two state solution, and simply delineate the borders it needs unilaterally. That would probably entail leaving Area A and perhaps a little more territory to the Palestinians to make whatever they wanted out of it, while annexing Area C, the Jordan Valley and any parts of Area B Israel deemed necessary. At that point, Israel could simply remove any Jews on the Arab side of the line to Israeli territory and any Arabs whom are not Israeli citizens to the Arab territory (perhaps with compensation for property), and then defend those borders appropriately, warning Abbas or whomever takes over that any attacks on Israeli territory or Israeli citizens will be dealt with appropriately.

The international feedback would certainly occur (after all, in much of the EU and UN anything short of a successful jihad against Israel is going to provoke that) but Abbas is already on record as having a totally rejectionist stance anyway, and that and having a 'Palestine' to point to point to would eventually make a lot of the international reaction fade away. As that old Middle East saying goes, the dogs bark and the caravan moves on.

Read the rest at the Times of Israel.