Iraq’s Lessons for the Jordan Valley
Iraq’s Lessons for the Jordan ValleyEvelyn Gordon
@EvelynCGordon 06.27.2014 – 12:20 PM
via Iraq’s Lessons for the Jordan Valley « Commentary Magazine.
If Israeli-Palestinian peace talks weren’t already dead, the Iraqi army’s collapse in the face of the radical Sunni group ISIS might well have killed them. After all, one of the key disagreements that emerged during the nine months of talks was over Israel’s military presence in the Jordan Valley, which Israel insisted on retaining and the Palestinians adamantly opposed.
The Obama administration’s proposed solution was to let Israeli troops remain for a few years and then replace them with U.S.-trained Palestinian forces, perhaps bolstered by international troops. But as Israeli officials bluntly told officials in Washington earlier this week, if U.S.-trained Iraqi soldiers weren’t willing to fight ISIS to protect their own country, why should anyone think U.S.-trained Palestinian soldiers in the Jordan Valley would be willing to fight fellow Arabs to protect Israel? And with a well-armed, well-funded jihadist army having taken over large swathes of Syria and Iraq and now even threatening Jordan (ISIS seized the main Iraq-Jordan border crossing just this week), how can anyone confidently assert such fighting won’t be necessary?
U.S. officials responded by setting up a straw man: They passionately defended General John Allen, the man responsible for both security training in Iraq and drafting U.S. security proposals for Israeli-Palestinian talks, as if Israel’s main concern were Allen’s competence. But Allen’s competence is irrelevant. The real issue is that no matter how competent the trainer is, no amount of training can produce a functional army if soldiers lack the will to fight. U.S.-trained Iraqi Sunnis aren’t willing to fight ISIS to protect their Shi’ite-dominated government. U.S.-trained Palestinian Authority forces weren’t willing to fight Hamas to retain control of Gaza in 2007. And international troops have repeatedly proven unwilling to fight to protect anyone else’s country.
This isn’t exactly news. Prior to the 1967 Six-Day War, when Egypt demanded that UN peacekeepers leave Sinai so Egyptian troops could mass on Israel’s border unimpeded, the UN tamely complied. UN peacekeepers stationed in south Lebanon since 1978 have never lifted a finger to stop Hezbollah’s cross-border attacks. Nor is this problem unique to Israel. As the Washington Post reported in January, the UN has sent record numbers of peacekeepers to Africa in recent years, and African regional groups have contributed additional thousands, yet these troops “have failed to prevent fresh spasms of violence.” Indeed, they are frequently ordered explicitly not to fight unless they themselves are attacked–rendering them useless at protecting the people they’re ostensibly there to protect.
But even without such orders, how many soldiers really want to die in a far-off country in a quarrel that isn’t theirs? I can’t blame a Fijian for being unwilling to die to prevent rocket fire from Lebanon on Kiryat Shmona; why should he consider that worth his life? And for the same reason, it’s hard to imagine any non-Israeli force in the Jordan Valley thinking it’s worth their lives to stop, say, ISIS from marching on Tel Aviv. Only Israeli troops would consider that worth fighting and dying for. And that’s without even considering the fact that ISIS already has a Palestinian contingent, so any attempt to attack Israel through the territory of a Palestinian state could count on enthusiastic local support.
As even left-wing Haaretz columnist Ari Shavit admitted this week, it was one thing to propose leaving the Jordan Valley back when the eastern front appeared to pose no threat. But it’s quite another now, when ISIS poses a serious threat.
In a region as volatile as the Middle East is today, the idea that Israel should abandon defensible borders in exchange for “peace” with a state that could collapse as suddenly as Syria and Iraq both have is folly. And anyone who thinks U.S.-trained or international forces can replace defensible borders should take a long, hard look at the Iraqi army’s collapse.
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WarSclerotic 
June 29, 2014 at 4:35 PM
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joopklepzeiker posted: “Iraqâs Lessons for the Jordan ValleyEvelyn Gordon
@EvelynCGordon 06.27.2014 – 12:20 PM
via Iraqâs Lessons for the Jordan Valley « Commentary Magazine.
If Israeli-Palestinian peace talks werenât already dead, the Iraqi armyâs collapse in”
June 29, 2014 at 4:52 PM
C
June 29, 2014 at 4:54 PM
Finally!
Op-Ed: Netanyahu, It’s Time for an Authentic Jewish Response
Stop waiting. Stop over-calculating. Stop counting on our so called friends who don’t give a damn.
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Published: Friday, June 27, 2014 7:58 AM
Sam Green
The writer made aliyah 13 years ago from the UK, served in the IDF and…
► More from this writer
Mr. Prime Minister, why do you waste your time running to the West to try to prove Hamas kidnapped our boys? Do you really think they care? Do you see how weak you look when you do that?
Why, oh why do we always threaten a harsh response when something like this happens and then back down because of international pressure or because of Ramadan or some other craven excuse?
We might have had the boys home already, Mr. Prime Minister! And you know it. All it takes is a simple text message to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh: “Free our boys now or you die”. What would that coward do? Decide to suddenly become a martyr? Great. Lather, rinse and repeat to his replacements. Then lather, rinse and repeat to their replacements. All the way down to the roots. Until either they are completely decimated and demoralized or we get our boys back. Either way, we win. But we lack two little ingredients: courage and faith.
When will we stop with this defeatist strategy of trying to be understood by a cynical and indifferent world? Let us be feared instead. Learn from our history: Kind David said: “I will pursue my enemies, and overtake them. I will not leave any of them alive”. Only King David brought real peace to Israel – where his predecessor, Saul, for all his kindness to the cruel, ended up being cruel to the kind and took his own life.
Mr. Prime Minister, why are you waiting for Obama and the EU and Russia to box us in completely on Iran? We all know that the only thing Obama, Ashton and Putin really care about is preventing Israel from having a viable future.
Why bother trying to garner international attention? It’s only brought us trouble. Instead we could have taken care of the Iranian threat quietly and directly – with no talk and no warnings. One or two EMP devices and it would have been finished while the rest of the world was rubbing their eyes. Instead – we warn, we threaten, and we get the international community to act – AGAINST US!
Now we’re up against an Iran shortly to be bolstered by an internationally ratified agreement.
Is this what we waited 2000 years for? So the world’s most advanced military can knock politely on doors in the middle of the night asking if we can have our boys back?
Do it Bibi. Stop waiting. Stop over-calculating. Stop counting on our so called friends who don’t give a damn. Fear no man. Do everything it takes so that the Arabs will be terrified to touch a single Jewish child ever again. It’s not impossible. It’s what history demands of us. It’s what G-d demands of us.
Yes, I’ll say it. It’s a Chillul Hashem (desecration of G-d’s Name) that we have to turn to G-d to bring back our boys as if we were helpless nothings! Hashem must be exasperated with us already. “Look”, He must be saying. “Didn’t I give you a state of your own? A powerful army? Outstanding military technology? Why aren’t you using the tools I gave you?”
Is this what we waited 2000 years for? So the world’s most advanced military can knock politely on doors in the middle of the night asking if we can have our boys back?
But not, G-d forbid, during Ramadan – because that might disturb their well-earned holiday break. And the kids have got to get up early tomorrow for their Hamas summer camp on the Temple Mount so they can take 3-fingered selfie salutes and spit on some more Jews.
Let’s be honest with ourselves, here. Have we really performed the necessary level of human effort required? Or are we kidding ourselves (and sinning) by relying to some extent on a miracle?
Look at what we look like, man! Is this how King David would have acted? Is this how Bar Kochba would have behaved? Is this what Herzl envisioned? Is this what Begin would have been proud of?
Turn the tables on our enemies, Bibi. Stand up and act. Fast. With no fear. Never again. For our sake. For Hashem’s sake. For our children’s sake.
Binyamin Netanyahu, fulfill our great-grandfather, Jacob’s prophecy: “Benjamin is a ravenous wolf. In the morning he devours his prey. In the evening he divides the plunder.” Implement an authentic Jewish response. Now.
June 29, 2014 at 8:41 PM
I’m sorry, it’s unfortunate, Bibi’s bent, he’s spent, he lost it somewhere along the line. I personaly think that towards the abortive end of Amud Anan, Hillary came and castrated him, permanently. On the other hand, you know, your piece here has got me thinking…..yes, we have been waiting for 2000 years to return here and slowly, slowly, but surely come to realise together as a united nation that we really have no one to rely upon other than…….”A song of ascent: I lift my eyes to the mountains from whence come my help? My help is from God, who makes heaven and earth!”
Let’s not make light of the united prayers of the Jewish people. THIS is what is going to prevail.