WarSclerotic

Erekat: Hamas Not, and Never Was, a Terror Group, Israel National News, April 7, 2014

(It all depends on the meaning of “is” “terrorist group.” On the theory that Fatah is not a terrorist group, Hamas must not be one either. As the “peace process” between Fatah and Hamas continues, that between Israel and the Palestinians continues to disintegrate. — DM)

Saeb Erekat

The Palestinian Authority, controlled by the Fatah terror group, is once again trying its hand at “unification” with its sister terror group, Hamas. As asign of Fatah’s “goodwill,” Saeb Erekat, the PA’s top negotiator and a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, called on Hamas toimplement all previous agreements with Fatah in order to “fight together against Israel.”

Erekat made the comments Saturday at a conference titled “The Strategy of Resistance.” Erekat said that “we demand that Hamas, more than ever before, implement the Cairo and Doha agreements. The political movements have an obligation to resolve their differences at the ballot box, and not through bullets.”

Hamas and Fatah have been at odds since 2007, when Hamas took over the Gaza Strip, booting out Fatah, which retreated to Palestinian Authority-controlled areas of Judea and Samaria. Centered in Ramallah, Fatah has sought to regain control of Gaza – and is willing to reconcile with Hamas, if that is what it takes.

“I hereby declare, in the make [Sic] of President Mahmoud Abbas and the directorate of Fatah, that Hamas is a Palestinian movement, and is not and never was a terror group,” Erekat added.

The Left must sober up, Israel Hayom, Dr. Haim Shine, April 7, 2014

[T]he naive optimists on the Left have managed to convince third parties, including the U.S. State Department, that the lack of peace is Israel’s fault. The Palestinians, they say, are the poor victims of the Zionist vision. The Left insists that only when Israel buckles under U.S. pressure will peace arrive in the region, with “every man under his vine and under his fig tree” (1 Kings 4:25).

President Barack Obama divides the world into victims and tyrants, masters and slaves, strong and weak. As a result, he has signed off on the Left’s vision. Having fully embraced the Palestinian victimhood narrative, he has repeatedly dispatched Secretary of State John Kerry to region.

. . . .

Peace talks should not be considered a sacred value. Our situation is not going to get any better if they were to be extended by nine months. The truth is simple: We must erect an ironclad wall to shield us from those who would like to have two states for one people. Of course, those two states will not include the Jewish people.

The peace talks never really took off, and now, it seems, they are all but over. Time and again, Israel offers to make major concessions in the hope of reaching a lasting peace, only to be rebuffed by a hostile and intransigent Palestinian counterpart who refuses to accept Israel’s fundamental right to exist. This Palestinian rejectionism has nothing to do with the borders of the country.

Palestinian negotiators are not going to come to terms with the State of Israel in the foreseeable future because of Islam, because of the refugees, and because of the vested interests of the various Arab states. Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti during the British Mandate, was of the belief that there was no room for both the Jews and the Arabs in the Land of Israel. He would preach this “either/or” approach everywhere he went.

As a result of this ideology, any Arab leader who would surrender even one square inch of territory would essentially sign his own death warrant. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is cognizant of this “land or life” paradigm. The two-state solution is good for Israel advocacy efforts, but it is unfeasible; there is simply no Arab partner to embrace it.

When will the Left realize that it has been on a fool’s errand? When will it sober up and abort its incessant efforts to make Israel relinquish parts of its historic homeland and compromise vital security assets?

Optimism is a noble virtue. But in this violent region, where martyrdom often trumps the sanctity of life, naivete and shortsightedness are dangerous traits to have. The wheels came off the peace wagon a long time ago. It has been at a standstill and covered in mud ever since.

But the Left has tried to push it forward time and again. It has failed to convince Israelis that they should embrace the path it has charted. Why? Because they know that a return to the 1967 borders would ultimately have Israel withdraw to the water’s edge.

Nevertheless, the naive optimists on the Left have managed to convince third parties, including the U.S. State Department, that the lack of peace is Israel’s fault. The Palestinians, they say, are the poor victims of the Zionist vision. The Left insists that only when Israel buckles under U.S. pressure will peace arrive in the region, with “every man under his vine and under his fig tree” (1 Kings 4:25).

President Barack Obama divides the world into victims and tyrants, masters and slaves, strong and weak. As a result, he has signed off on the Left’s vision. Having fully embraced the Palestinian victimhood narrative, he has repeatedly dispatched Secretary of State John Kerry to region.

But Kerry recently returned home empty-handed, leaving behind scorched earth. Israel hoped the renewed talks would convince Obama that the Palestinians are the victims of a bellicose ideology and spineless leadership. It hoped that Obama, after watching the two sides engage in negotiations, would sober up and realize that Israel’s insistence on a viable peace and meaningful security measures has nothing to do with the Palestinians becoming victims. And let’s not forget that the deal to relaunch the peace process last year came with a heavy moral price: Israel agreed to release a large number of deadly terrorists.

The Left’s efforts to have the collapse of the talks attributed to the Israeli government — and specifically to the housing and construction minister — only weaken Israel at the negotiating table. Those who view new housing units in greater Jerusalem as an obstacle to peace must have been burying their head in the sand.

Rather than leave the coalition, Israeli ministers have resorted to attacking their own government. But their statements, which serve as fodder for our adversaries, are just mind-boggling. When the Palestinians agreed to hold peace talks, they knew that there were no guaranteed results. So why are they complaining now?

Peace talks should not be considered a sacred value. Our situation is not going to get any better if they were to be extended by nine months. The truth is simple: We must erect an ironclad wall to shield us from those who would like to have two states for one people. Of course, those two states will not include the Jewish people.

US arms Syrian rebels with first heavy weapons, anti-tank BGM-71 TOW missiles – raising war stakes.

BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missile

Two Syrian rebel militias judged moderate in Washington have in the last few days taken delivery and begun using – mostly in the Idlib region – the first advanced US weapon to be deployed in more than three years of civil war, debkafile’s military sources reveal. It is the heavy anti-tank, optically-tracked, wire-guided BGM-71 TOW, which is capable of piercing 50mm thickness of Syrian tank armor and Syrian fortifications at a range of 4 kilometers. Armed with this weapon now are Brig-Gen. Abdul-Hila al Bashir, the new commander of the rebel Free Syrian Army, which is headquartered at the Golan town of Quneitra, and Jamal Maarouf, head of the rebel Syrian Revolutionary Front fighting in the north.

The appearance of this advanced missile radically alters the balance of strength on the Syrian battlefield. It also denotes a striking change in Obama administration policy, which hitherto flatly resisted every demand to provide Syrian rebel groups with the heavy arms essential for them to have any chance of standing up to Bashar Assad’s superior military strength.

Our sources report that in the last few days, the new weapons are being airlifted in through two routes: the southeastern Turkish town of Diyarbakir on the Tigris, and the giant northern Saudi King Faisal Air Base at Tabuk near the Jordanian border.

US Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, arranged during his visit to Israel last week for the Netanyahu government to waive a standing agreement between the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel, whereby Saudi Air Force F-15 fighters are not stationed in Tabuk given its proximity to Israeli air space.

Dempsey explained that they were needed as air cover for the American transports flying the new weapons in via Saudi, and the convoys ferrying them onward from the Saudi base to their destination in southern Syria through Jordan. Stationed at the Tabuk air base too is a squadron of French fighter jets.

The route from Turkey to Syria runs through the “Kilis Corridor”, which is a narrow rebel-controlled strip 40 kilometers long from the southern Turkish town of Gaziantep up to the big Syrian town of Aleppo.

From his headquarters at Quneitra, opposite IDF positions on the Golan, Gen. al Bashir commands most of the Syrian forces fighting Bashar Assad’s army in the south.

Maarouf and his Syrian Revolutionary Front operate from a base in the southern Turkish town of Antakya.

In the last of his recent press interviews on April 2, Maarouf disclosed that some of the Front’s operations against the Syrian army were carried out in conjunction with al Qaeda’s Jabhat al Nusra.
Our military sources report that Syrian tank armor is not thick enough to withstand the BGM-71 TOW rockets. To save his tanks, Assad has shifted the brunt of his anti-rebel operation to heavy air force bombardments, which claim a heavy toll among civilians.

Washington is therefore confronted with its next decision about whether to give the rebels sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons as well.
According to our sources in Washington and Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov obtained from US Secretary of State John Kerry a commitment, when they met in Paris last week, not to supply the rebels with hand held anti-aircraft missiles.