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Guest Column: The Road from Qatar to the Gaza Strip

October 16, 2014

Guest Column: The Road from Qatar to the Gaza Strip, The Investigative Project on Terrorism, Reuven Berko, October 15, 2014

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Throughout its history, Hamas, like ISIS, has been committed to the concept of the global caliphate, which it plans to help construct by creating its own Islamic emirate on the ruins of the State of Israel.

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In a recent speech, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor mentioned the central role of Qatar in supporting international terrorist organizations. Money flowing from Qatar to Hamas, for example, paid for the terrorist attack tunnels dug from the Gaza Strip under the security fence into Israeli territory, and for the thousands of rockets fired at Israeli civilian targets in both the distant and recent past. In response, State Department spokesperson Marie Harf rushed to Qatar’s defense, claiming it had an important, positive role in finding a solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Qatar’s funding for Islamist terrorist organizations all over the world is an open secret known to every global intelligence agency, including the CIA. It was exposed by Wikileaks, which clearly showed that funds from Qatar were transferred to al-Qaida. Qatar also funds the terrorist movements opposing the Assad regime in Syria, such as the Al-Nusra Front, encourages anti-Egyptian terrorism in the Sinai Peninsula and within Egypt itself, and is involved in Islamic terrorism in Africa and other locations. It accompanies its involvement in terrorism targeting Israel and Egypt (through the Muslim Brotherhood) with vicious and inflammatory propaganda on its Al-Jazeera TV channel.

Qatar also spends millions of dollars supporting the Islamic Movement in Israel, a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood headed by Sheikh Ra’ed Salah. The Islamic Movement is responsible for ongoing acts of provocation on the Temple Mount and in Judea and Samaria, and incites the entire Islamic world against Israel, claiming that the Jews are trying to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque and replace it with the Jewish Temple. The incitement continued even as the Islamic Movement’s sister movement, Hamas, fired rockets at Jerusalem and endangered both the mosques on the Temple Mount and Jerusalem’s sites sacred to Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

As Qatar’s representative, the Islamic Movement, which has not yet been outlawed in Israel, contributed to Hamas what it could during Operation Protective Edge by instigating riots, blocking roads and seeking to foment a third intifada which, according to the plan, would be joined by Israeli Arabs to augment the deaths of thousands of Israelis killed by rockets and the mass murders through the attack tunnels planned for the eve of the Jewish New Year.

In his recent UN speech, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rebutted Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ accusations of Israeli “genocide” of the Palestinian people. He reminded his audience of Hamas’ use of Gazan civilians as human shields and of the rockets fired to attack specifically civilian Israeli targets. Unfortunately, he did not mention the Hamas charter, which calls for the murder of all the Jews. The fact that Abbas now heads a national consensus government in which Hamas is a full partner commits him to the slaughter of the Jewish people – a true genocide – and it is to the disgrace of the international community that such an individual was permitted to address the UN instead of being tried for war crimes.

In fact, the similarities between Hamas and ISIS are clearly stated in the Hamas charter, which defines Hamas as part of the Muslim Brotherhood’s global Islamic movement. One of its objectives is to fight “infidel Christian imperialism” and its Zionist emissaries in Israel in order to impose the Sharia, Islamic religious law, on the world. According to the charter’s paragraph 7, Hamas’ intention is to slaughter every Jew, as ordered by Muhammad and those who accept his legacy. That is the basis for the threat issued by ISIS “Caliph,” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, that under his leadership, Islam will “drown America in blood.”

Throughout its history, Hamas, like ISIS, has been committed to the concept of the global caliphate, which it plans to help construct by creating its own Islamic emirate on the ruins of the State of Israel. Since its founding, Hamas has attacked Israel and murdered thousands of its citizens exactly as ISIS has attacked and murdered “infidels.” They share the same slogans, with “There is no god but Allah” and “Allah, Prophet Muhammad” inscribed on their flags and headbands. Hamas terrorists have blown themselves up in Israel’s coffee shops, hotels, restaurants, buses, malls and markets, wherever there are large concentrations of civilians. The way Hamas executed suspected collaborators during the final days of Operation Protective Edge bore the hallmarks of the al-Qaida execution of Daniel Pearl and the ISIS beheading of James Foley and others.

In the decades during which Hamas has carried out a continual series of deadly terrorist attacks against Israel, wearing the same “Allah, Prophet, Muhammad” headbands as ISIS terrorists, the international community rarely voices its support for Israel, or takes into account that by defending itself Israel also defends the West, which has failed to understand that “political Islam” inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood was setting up shop in the free world’s backyard and that the ticking bomb was set to go off sooner than expected. The West has not clearly condemned Qatar for openly supporting Hamas and its terrorist activities against Israel or demanded that it stop.

While Israel responded to Hamas’ rocket attacks on civilian targets to keep thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Israeli civilians from being killed, the international community demanded “proportionality.” That requirement kept Israel from responding as it should have and encouraged Hamas to fire ever more rockets at “military targets” such as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. When Israel built its security fence to keep Hamas suicide bombers from infiltrating into Israeli territory to blow themselves up in crowds of civilians, the international community opposed it, rushed to embrace the Palestinians’ vocabulary of “racism” and “apartheid,” and willingly played into the hands of Hamas and Abbas. This reaction occurred although Israel is the only truly democratic country in the Middle East, where Jews and Arabs can live in peace without “apartheid.”

Today President Obama says he “underestimated” the threat posed by ISIS, while Israel has been warning the world of extremist military Islam for at least a decade, as Netanyahu warned the world of a nuclear Iran in his UN speech.

The international community has been curiously silent about the genuine apartheid in the Arab states neighboring Israel. There, descendants of the original 1948 Palestinian refugees, by now in their fourth generation, still live in refugee camps, do not have citizenship, and are excluded from jobs and social benefits. Israel, however, absorbed hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees, many of them destitute, who fled Europe and were expelled from the Arab countries when the state was founded, and were given citizenship and enjoy full rights, as do the Arabs who remained in Israel after the War of Independence.

Israel, which has nothing against the Palestinian people, would like to see the Gaza Strip rebuilt for both humanitarian reasons and to give Hamas something to lose. Radical Islamic elements around the globe, however, including Hamas, ISIS, al-Qaida, the Al-Nusra Front and Hizballah, all financed by Qatar, do not want to see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolved. They all have the same global agenda, based on fueling the conflict to unite Islam around it, under their leadership.

Therefore, Qatar continues to support global Islamic terrorism. On Sept. 13, Qatar paid the Al-Nusra Front a ransom of $20 million to free abducted UN soldiers from Fiji. The world praised Qatar for its philanthropy, but in effect, it was a brilliant act of manipulation and fraud, both filling the Al-Nusra Front’s coffers and representing itself as the Fijians’ savior. Qatar is using the same underhanded trick in the Gaza Strip. After sending Hamas millions of dollars to fund its anti-Israeli terrorist industry, itpledged $1 billion to help rebuild the Gaza Strip during last weekend’s conference in Cairo.

While the world hopes Operation Protective Edge was the last round of Palestinian-Israeli violence, senior Hamas figures reiterate their position of gearing up to fight Israel again. Not one Hamas leader is willing to agree to a full merger with the Palestinian Authority to establish a genuine unified Palestinian leadership. Hamas rejects even the idea of disarming or demilitarization as part of an agreement to rebuild the Gaza Strip and promote the peace process. Unfortunately, no one has suggested it as a pre- condition for any U.S. dollars that will be contributed to the reconstruction of Gaza.

All that is left now is to hope that the billions of dollars poured into the Gaza Strip for its rebuilding will be accompanied by the disarmament of Hamas and the establishment of an honest mechanism for overseeing the money and materials Egypt and Israel allow into the Gaza Strip. It is imperative that they not be diverted to rebuild Hamas’ terrorist infrastructure and tunnels, or to bribe UNRWA officials to look the other way, as has happened so often in the past. There is every indication that only Hamas and Qatar know whether there is anything to justify that hope.

Dr. Reuven Berko has a Ph.D. in Middle East studies, is a commentator on Israeli Arabic TV programs, writes for the Israeli daily newspaper Israel Hayom and is considered one of Israel’s top experts on Arab affairs.

Categories: Caliphate, Gaza, Hamas, Islam, Islamic State, Israel, Palestinians, Jihad, Middle East, Qatar, Terrorism
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The demise of ‘responsibility to protect’ at the U.N.

October 15, 2014

The demise of ‘responsibility to protect’ at the U.N., Washington Times, Clifford D. May, October 14, 2014

(The UN’s “responsibility to protect” doctrine now applies principally to groups favored by the multicultural international community, such as the “Palestinians” from wicked Israel, disfavored by the international community. Those needing protection from Islamic terror must look elsewhere. But where? The U.S. of Obama?– DM)

UN logoIllustration on the illusion of “Responsibility to Protect” by Linas Garsys

[I]’s ludicrous to propose that the U.N. Security Council — whose permanent members include neo-Soviet Russia and anti-democratic China — should be vested with the authority to pass judgment on the legitimacy of such missions.

While the Islamic State is currently attracting the most attention, it is the Islamic Republic of Iran — which has been using proxies to kill Americans on and off for the past 35 years — that could soon have nuclear weapons as well as missiles to deliver them to targets anywhere in the world. Hezbollah and other terrorist groups offer an alternative means of delivery. Iran’s radical Shia rulers are more sophisticated than the Sunni jihadis displaying disembodied heads on pikes. However, their goals differ little from those of their rivals.

[T]he notion of an international community that can prevent or halt mass atrocities is a chimera.

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Remember R2P? Not to be confused with R2-D2 (a robotic character in the “Star Wars” movies), “Responsibility to Protect” was an international “norm” proposed by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan following the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and the mass murders in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica a year later. The idea was for the “international community” to assume an obligation to intervene, militarily if necessary, to prevent or halt mass atrocities.

Why has R2P not been invoked to stop the slaughters being carried out in Syria and Iraq? Why isn’t it mentioned in regard to the Syrian-Kurdish city of Kobani, which, as I write this, may soon be overrun by barbarians fighting for what they call the Islamic State?

Here’s the story: In 2009, Mr. Annan’s successor, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, issued a report on “implementing” R2P. The foreign-policy establishment cheered. For example, Louise Arbour, a former U.N. high commissioner for human tights, called R2P “the most important and imaginative doctrine to emerge on the international scene for decades.” Anne-Marie Slaughter, an academic who served under Hillary Clinton at the State Department, went further, hailing R2P as “the most important shift in our conception of sovereignty since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.”

In 2011, President Obama cited R2P as his primary justification for using military force to prevent Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi from attacking the opposition stronghold of Benghazi.

If that was the apogee of R2P, the nadir was not far off. The intervention in Libya has led to chaos and bloodshed with no end in sight. Meanwhile, in Syria, four years ago this spring, Bashar Assad brutally cracked down on peaceful protesters.

Mr. Obama made Mr. Assad’s removal American policy but overruled the recommendation of his national security advisers to assist Syrian nationalist opposition groups. Civil war erupted. Self-proclaimed jihadis from around the world flocked to Syria to fight on behalf of the Sunnis. The opposition was soon dominated by the al Nusra Front, an al Qaeda affiliate, and the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL), whose leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, broke with al Qaeda and, audaciously, declared himself caliph, or supreme leader.

As for Mr. Assad, he is supported by the Islamic Republic of Iran, deploying both its elite Quds Force (designated in 2007 by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization) and Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based militia loyal to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Russia also backs Mr. Assad, even supplying on-the-ground military intelligence specialists.

With no U.N.-approved R2P effort to rescue the innocent civilians of the region from these brutal forces, the death toll in Syria and Iraq has topped 200,000, and the number of refugees is in the millions.

Failed experiments, like crises, should not go to waste. Among the lessons to be learned from the R2P debacle: First, the notion of an international community that can prevent or halt mass atrocities is a chimera. If such work is going to get done, the United States has to do it, perhaps supported by a coalition of the willing and, with few exceptions, not particularly able. Second, it’s ludicrous to propose that the U.N. Security Council — whose permanent members include neo-Soviet Russia and anti-democratic China — should be vested with the authority to pass judgment on the legitimacy of such missions. Third, American power should be used primarily in pursuit of American interests. Sometimes that will include humanitarian interventions, but that’s a decision for Americans to make.

This, too, should be clear: While the Islamic State is currently attracting the most attention, it is the Islamic Republic of Iran — which has been using proxies to kill Americans on and off for the past 35 years — that could soon have nuclear weapons as well as missiles to deliver them to targets anywhere in the world. Hezbollah and other terrorist groups offer an alternative means of delivery. Iran’s radical Shia rulers are more sophisticated than the Sunni jihadis displaying disembodied heads on pikes. However, their goals differ little from those of their rivals.

In response to this dire and deteriorating situation, Mr. Obama should be instructing his advisers to present him with a range of strategic options. I’d recommend conceptualizing the global conflict not as disconnected “overseas contingency operations,” and not as akin to World War II, but more like the Cold War. That is to say, the United States should plan for a long, low-intensity struggle. In particular, we should support those willing to fight the jihadis who threaten them.

Economic weapons can be powerful if used correctly, which has not been the case in the past. For example, though sanctions brought Iran’s rulers to the negotiating table, premature relief from sanctions pressure has encouraged Iranian intransigence as the talks proceeded.

Also long overdue is a serious war of ideas — it’s insufficient to leave that to Bill Maher and Ben Affleck on HBO. Bottom line: We are not really engaged in a conflict against “violent extremism” or even “terrorism.” What we’re confronting are ideologies derived from fundamentalist readings of Islamic scripture. Proponents of those ideologies stress the supremacy of one religion — much as communists stressed the supremacy of one class, and Nazis of one race. There is no reason to suppose that saying this clearly, rather than obfuscating, will radicalize Muslims not already favorably inclined toward killing infidels.

Our aim should be, to borrow a phrase from Mr. Obama, to “degrade and eventually defeat” jihadism. Nothing is more imperative than preventing Iran’s rulers from taking the next, short steps toward a nuclear-weapons capability that they clearly intend to use to threaten not just their neighbors, but also Americans for decades to come. For an American president, this is where the R2P needs to begin.

 

Categories: Hamas, International Community, Iran, Iraq, Islam, Islamic State, Israel, Palestinians, Middle East, Obama, Syria, Terrorism
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Anti-Semitic Text on UNRWA Website Claims ‘Jews Promoted Social Corruption’‏ (VIDEO)

October 14, 2014

Anti-Semitic Text on UNRWA Website Claims ‘Jews Promoted Social Corruption’‏ (VIDEO), Algemeiner, Dave Bender, October 14, 2014

(There’s little new here, mainly more of the same from Ban Ki-Moon and the U.N. Rocket Warehouse Agency. To expect, even to hope, for objectivity is to be deluded.– DM)

ban-ki-moon-netanyahu-300x194Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon meet on Tuesday in New York. Photo: UN Photo/Evan Schneider.

Ban, speaking at a Gaza reconstruction conference in Cairo on Sunday, and in Ramallah a day later, said Israel was at fault for “a restrictive occupation that has lasted almost half a century, the continued denial of Palestinian rights and the lack of tangible progress in peace negotiations.”‎

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Investigative pro-Israel blogger, Elder of Ziyon, on Monday uncovered a report, in Arabic, posted on the the United Nations Refugee Works Agency (UNRWA) website, that accuses Jews of supporting “social corruption.”

Entitled, “The Historical Development of Human Rights Throughout History,” the document purports to be a summary of human rights policies held by a number of civilizations over the ages, including Jewish thought on various aspects of Mosaic prohibitions against “murder, adultery and theft.”

While the article begins by praising Judaism as “a heavenly religion revealed to the Prophet of Allah Musa [Moses], peace be upon him included human rights through its focus on the goal of liberating the individual and the community. The right to freedom from oppression is a supreme value highlighted in Jewish holy books (Rashidi: 2005: 60). The commandments of Moses, peace be upon him, include prohibiting murder, adultery and theft.”

But soon enough, the anti-Semitic and anti-Israel stereotypes kick in.

“But if we look around us at communities supposedly protecting human rights and at well-known oases of democracy we do not see [human rights] but instead charges that the victim was a terrorist or supporter of terrorism, and also pornography justified freely as rights. We see monopoly and fraud justified by the right of ownership and earnings in any form (Mokbel: 2005: 5) All of this happened as a result of distortion and misinformation by the Jewish clergy. The Jews in the sixth and seventh centuries promoted social corruption (1981: 39), and the claim that they are God’s chosen people demonstrates that the Jews did not know anything about human rights,” the author claimed.

In a related development, both the Bnai-Brith and the Anti Defamation League on Tuesday criticized recent remarks by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon holding Israel almost exclusively responsible for the summer’s clashes with Hamas in Gaza.

Ban, speaking at a Gaza reconstruction conference in Cairo on Sunday, and in Ramallah a day later, said Israel was at fault for “a restrictive occupation that has lasted almost half a century, the continued denial of Palestinian rights and the lack of tangible progress in peace negotiations.”‎

In response, Bnai-Brith demanded that Ban “refrain from making biased, inflammatory remarks perpetuating a false image of Israel as an occupying aggressor. Ban, in his comments, did make mention of Hamas rocket attacks that were ‘fired indiscriminately causing fear, panic and suffering.’ However, he does not account for anti-Israel terrorists’ role in igniting and sustaining conflict—a stunning and inexplicable omission.”

The group said that “the open fanaticism, terrorism and armament of Arab extremists is the patent ‘root cause’ of recurring conflict with Israel.”

Donor nations pledged some 5.4 billion dollars – 1.4 billion more than the Palestinians themselves had requested – at the session.

The ADL, for its part, expressed “deep dismay” at what they termed Ban’s “stunning lack of objectivity” in remarks made alongside Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah in Ramallah, and in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Mr. Ban’s failure to publicly call on Palestinians to reject violence, recognize Israel’s right to exist and avoid actions which might undermine the hope for reconciliation sends precisely the wrong message,” ADL National Director Abraham Foxman charged.

“It encourages Palestinian unilateral steps and conveys to Hamas there are no consequences for its murderous terrorism,” he said.

Ban “consistently places the onus on Israel,” according to Foxman, who contended in a statement that “such a one-sided characterization of the ‘root causes’ undermines the Secretary General’s credibility as an unbiased observer.”

Watch a video of Ban’s meeting with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin at the Presidential Residence:

Categories: Ban Ki-Moon, Gaza, Hamas, Ideology, Israel, Jewish occupation of Israel, United Nations
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U.S. airstrike in Mosul underscores military questions ahead in dealing with Iraqi cities

October 9, 2014

U.S. airstrike in Mosul underscores military questions ahead in dealing with Iraqi cities, Washington Post, Dan Lamothem October 9, 2014

(Will the IDF be asked for advice on limiting civilian casualties as it did, successfully, in Gaza? Probably not. Soliciting and following it would be politically inconvenient. — DM)

IS in MosulMilitants from the Islamic State parade down a main street in Mosul, Iraq, in June in a Humvee they commandeered from Iraqi troops. (AP Photo, File)

[T]he planning, along with the U.S. launching its first airstrike inside Mosul on Wednesday, raises questions about how the United States and its partners will be able to assist in an urban military campaign if their mission is restricted to an air campaign and advising Iraqi forces.

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Shortly after retired U.S. Gen. John Allen arrived in Baghdad as the new U.S. envoy to the coalition against the Islamic State, he made it perfectly clear what part of the plan against the Islamic State militant group included: taking back Mosul.

The city, Iraq’s second most populous, fell to Islamist fighters in June, as they captured broad sections of the country’s north. Mosul has remained under their control since, with religious shrines destroyed, women forced into marriage and human rights activists and others murdered after publicly disagreeing with the Islamic State.

Plans to retake Mosul already are underway. Kurdish militia troops are preparing for a complex battle to retake the city, according to a Los Angeles Times report. And Allen said Iraqi forces will launch operations to retake Mosul within the next year. [Emphasis added. — DM]

“It’s not a single battle,” he said, according to the New York Times. “It’s a campaign.”]

imrs

But the planning, along with the U.S. launching its first airstrike inside Mosul on Wednesday, raises questions about how the United States and its partners will be able to assist in an urban military campaign if their mission is restricted to an air campaign and advising Iraqi forces.

The U.S. has launched hundreds of airstrikes in Iraq and Syria in the last two months against the Islamic State, but until Wednesday they all had been carried out outside population centers. The primary targets have been militant training camps and groups of fighters who have massed in vehicles or on foot, making them obvious marks for U.S. aircraft.

As the U.S. and its partners intensified their airstrikes against the militant group in recent days, they hit a variety of targets around many of Iraq’s other major cities, including Baghdad, Irbil, Fallujah and Ramadi. Some of the strikes have been designed to keep militants out of areas they do not control, but Fallujah fell to the Islamic State months ago, and Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, remains heavily contested.

Officials in Anbar told the Wall Street Journal this week that they are concerned the entire province could fall in coming days. They also raised concerns that too much attention has been devoted to Kobane, a Syrian town on the Turkish border that is under assault by the Islamic State and also is in danger of falling.

 

Categories: Air strikes, Gaza, Hamas, Iraq, Islamic State, Israel, Palestinians, Syria, Urban areas
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Who Does Turkey Support?

October 7, 2014

Who Does Turkey Support? Gatestone Institute, Burak Bekdil, October 7, 2014

(Oh well.

— DM)

In short, to finish off jihadists, Washington will now work with the man who until recently funded and reinforced these same jihadists, and is proud of his love affairs with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas’s overseas command center happens to be based in Turkey. Good luck.

Turkish soldiers in tanks are lined up along Turkey’s border with Iraq, “observing” ISIS troops close in on the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, in what appears an approaching massacre.

In pragmatic Islamist thinking, one does not properly become a “martyr” if he gets killed by an army other than Israel’s.

As of this writing, on the Turkey-Syria border, CNN correspondent Phil Black hourly beams pictures of the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobani, with a black ISIS flag atop a building in the eastern part of the city, as Turkish soldiers in tanks lined up along the Turkish border “observe” ISIS troops close in for the approaching massacre.

Washington is expecting Ankara wholeheartedly to fight the rougher boys of the Islamist camp to which it belongs? Good luck.

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Last week, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden had to zigzag between the truth that accidentally spilled out of him and Washington’s pragmatism. In a speech at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Biden said: “[Turkish] President (Recep Tayyip) Erdogan, he is an old friend, said you were right, we let too many people through, now we are trying to seal the border.”

The “people,” however, whom Erdogan said Ankara had “let through” were the jihadists whom Turkey had supported with arms and money, and who have now become an international nightmare.

In other words, the U.S. vice president was publicly saying that the Turkish president had confessed to supporting terrorists.

Then Erdogan threatened: “If he [Biden] really said that, he would become history for me.” Finally, a White House statement announced: “The vice president apologized for any implication that Turkey or other allies and partners in the region had intentionally supplied and facilitated the growth of ISIL or other extremists in Syria.”

Erdogan has never hidden that he is ideologically a next of kin to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Hamas’s overseas command center happens to be based in Turkey. Erdogan has been Hamas’s staunchest (non-Hamas) cheerleader in the last decade, and the Brotherhood’s key regional ally. Press reports say that Turkey has recently welcomed in the Brotherhood’s top brass, who were expelled on Sept. 13 from their five-million-star hotels in Qatar. Ankara has not denied that it is offering a safe haven to the leaders of the Islamist organization.

In short, to finish off the jihadists who have captured large swathes of land in Iraq and Syria, Washington will now work with the man who until recently funded and reinforced these same jihadists (and their various offspring) and is proud of his love affairs with Hamas and the Brotherhood. More ironically, a U.S.-led coalition of nations including Arab states recently killed one of Erdogan’s heroes when the coalition forces struck an ISIS camp in Syria.

733Turkish tanks near the border with Syria, October 2014

When, in 2010, a Turkish-led flotilla that included the ship Mavi Marmara sailed towards Gaza to “break Israel’s siege” of the Hamas-controlled land, Erdogan greeted everyone on board as “heroes.” And when the Israel Defense Forces [IDF] raided the Mavi Marmara and killed nine Turks aboard, Erdogan greeted the Turks as “martyrs.”

Since then, Erdogan has vehemently denied any Turkish governmental support for the Mavi Marmara. He claims he was merely objecting to “Israel’s unjust oppression of the Palestinians.”

But, he insists, no governmental involvement at all.

About a fortnight after the incident, the foreign press in Turkey received a package from the Press and Information General Directorate, a government office reporting to Erdogan. The envelope did not contain a letter, or an explanatory note. Instead, its only content was a DVD, the cover of which showed a photomontage of an Israeli soldier pointing a rifle at a vessel. The vessel was encircled in David’s Star. The DVD cover read: “Moments of Horror.” The line below that read: “Interviews With the Injured Aboard the Aid for Gaza Ship / With English Subtitles.”

As the package arrived, the radio was still quoting Erdogan and his ministers as saying that the flotilla was entirely a nongovernmental initiative.

The Mavi Marmara incident was a wake-up call to Jerusalem, where diplomats had earlier been unrealistically optimistic about building a working relationship with Erdogan despite several other, earlier, warnings, including Erdogan’s famous tirade in Davos against (then) Israeli President Shimon Peres that, “You (Jews) know well how to kill!” The Turkish government has since frozen ambassadorial-level diplomatic relations between Turkey and Israel, and Erdogan has increased his calculated explosive rhetoric against Israel.

Erdogan’s principal argument was that a foreign military had killed Turkish nationals outside of Turkey; that those who were killed were martyrs; and that he would never allow a foreign military to harm one single Turkish citizen. Once again, he was wrong.

One of the lucky survivors of the Mavi Marmara was Yakup Bulent Alniak, an Islamist activist for the Turkish “humanitarian aid group” IHH which organized the Gaza-bound flotilla. IHH is listed by many Western countries as a terrorist organization; but its members, including Alniak, were simply heroes for Erdogan.

Alniak survived the IDF raid in 2010 but lost his life recently, at the end of September, when a U.S.-Arab coalition struck one of the largest ISIS camps in Syria. A coalition of foreign armies had killed a Turkish citizen whom the Turkish leader had declared a hero, but since then Erdogan has remained mute.

Will Erdogan downgrade Turkey’s diplomatic ties with the U.S. and five Muslim nations because their militaries killed a Turkish citizen outside of Turkish territory? No. Probably because, in the pragmatic Islamist thinking, one does not properly qualify as a “martyr” if he gets killed by an army (or armies) other than Israel’s.

As of this writing, on the Turkey-Syria border, CNN correspondent Phil Black hourly beams pictures of the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobani, with a black ISIS flag atop a building in the eastern part of the city, as Turkish soldiers in tanks lined up along the Turkish border “observe” ISIS troops close in for the approaching massacre.

Washington is expecting Ankara wholeheartedly to fight the rougher boys of the Islamist camp to which it belongs? Good luck.

Categories: Hamas, Islamic jihad, Islamic State, Syria, Turkey
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Wiping out Israel would be easier from West Bank, Hamas official says

October 7, 2014

Wiping out Israel would be easier from West Bank, Hamas official says, Israel Hayom, Dr. Ronen Yitzhak, October 7, 2014

[Some] have said Hamas wants to create an Islamic emirate in Gaza,” says senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar tells Palestinian news outlet Al-Ayyam. “We won’t do that, but we will build an Islamic state in Palestine, all of Palestine.” Daniel Siryoti.

al-ZaharSenior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar | Photo credit: Reuters

If Hamas manages to establish a foothold in the West Bank, it would be able to wipe out Israel and establish an Islamic state in its stead, senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar told Palestinian news outlet Al-Ayyam on Wednesday.

The interview, translated and posted by Palestinian Media Watch on Sunday, revealed Hamas’ previously covert intention of taking over the West Bank.

“[Some] have said Hamas wants to create an Islamic emirate in Gaza. We won’t do that, but we will build an Islamic state in Palestine, all of Palestine,” he said.

According to al-Zahar, if Hamas could “transfer what it has or just a small part of it to the West Bank, we [Hamas] would be able to settle the battle of the final promise with a speed that no one can imagine.”

Al-Zahar alluded to Hamas’ goal with a passage from the Quran: “Then when the final promise came, [We sent your enemies] … to enter the Temple in Jerusalem, as they entered it the first time, and to destroy what they had taken over with [total] destruction,” implying a war in which Israel is wiped out.

In August, it was released for publication that the Shin Bet security agency uncovered a Hamas plot to topple the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Hamas then claimed it was an Israeli ploy to disrupt the recently struck Palestinian unity deal.

Categories: Hamas, Islamic State, Israel, Palestinians
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Telling the truth in the hall of lies

October 2, 2014

Telling the truth in the hall of lies, Israel Hayom, Dror Eydar, October 2, 2014

1. It was not unnecessary. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address at the United Nations General Assembly was only unnecessary in the eyes of the usual suspects. And in the eyes of Netanyahu’s enemies. But the speech was broadcast to millions of American viewers from coast to coast. This refutes the leftist commentators’ claim that the speech was directed only at an Israeli audience.

Israelis know the things he said in his speech, but we need a messenger to relay our truth to the world. It is important that once every year, the head of the Jewish state comes to New York to tell the truth at the United Nations hall of lies. It is among the duties of any statesman worthy of his title.

The leftist commentators also claimed that in his genocide speech, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas served the Israeli Right. Wrong. He doesn’t work for us. He revealed his true self, and that is a truth that the Left rejects.

2. Channel 2 commentator Amnon Abramovich slammed Netanyahu’s speech for lacking a solid peace plan. Labor and Meretz chairs Isaac Herzog and Zehava Gal-On echoed the assertion. And what about them? Do they have a plan? This is not the 1980s; we’ve already tried the Left’s snake oil solutions. Never mind the Israeli radicals and the Arab Knesset factions — they’d rather see us all go to hell and Israel cease to exist in its current form, or at all — but what does the rational, reasonable Left have to offer on the topic? What do they mean when they call for a “diplomatic solution” to the conflict?

Here is the Left’s ingenious plan, in a nutshell: A withdrawal to 1967 borders (with land swaps for settlement blocs), including a withdrawal from the Jordan Valley and the division of Jerusalem (including the Old City!) and an agreement resolving the refugee problem. The Left is divided on the question of how many refugees should be allowed to “return” to Israeli soil. This plan includes the evacuation/expulsion of (approximately) 100,000 Jews. They will be given the option of remaining where they are, under Palestinian sovereignty. Yeah, right.

The Palestinians have already twice rejected reckless deals involving this plan (offered by former prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert). But let’s say that they were open to it: Excuse me, have we lost our minds? We withdrew from Lebanon — we got Hezbollah. We withdrew from Gaza — we got Hamas. The Israeli Left claims they won’t allow Hamas to take control over the Palestinian Authority — what are they planning to do, then? Dictate to our neighbors who they elect to power? And then, when the Arab winter begins to encroach on the Samarian hills, will they continue to conceal the truth behind catchphrases like “peace agreement” and “diplomatic horizon”?

3. I heard a radio program on which Israeli poet Nathan Zach complained about the establishment of Jewish towns and communities so close to the Gaza border. Why so close to Gaza? Is there not enough room throughout the Negev? With this complaint, Zach was trying to justify the fact that Hamas fires rockets at us. We pushed them, and they reacted… poor Hamas. The heroes living in the kibbutzim and communities along the Gaza border have now become illegitimate in the eyes of the crazy Left. They are now in the same category as the settlers.

4. The man who embodies the idea of a double standard, Israeli Arab MK Ahmad Tibi, concluded recently that saying that the IDF is the most moral army in the world is actually an oxymoron because occupation contradicts morality. He was being gentle. Last year, Tibi called the IDF an army of murderers. But we are not occupiers, Mr. Tibi. Most of the Palestinian population is currently under self rule, in the Palestinian Authority, which functions as a state. As for the rest of Judea and Samaria — it is the land of our forefathers. In any case, we never conquered land belonging to a Palestinian entity (which never existed), so at worst the land is disputed, not occupied.

As far as we’re concerned, the Arabs are the ones who invaded our land in the seventh century. Ever since the 1880s, the Zionist waves of immigration (aliyah) brought with them hundreds of thousands of people from Arab states. They came here looking for work, while the Jews were coming back to their homeland – the only place for them on earth. That is why the IDF is not an army of occupation but rather a force tasked with protecting Jews from what the Arabs of the region planned to do to us in 1948 and failed. They call their failure to kill us “Nakba” – a catastrophe.

Toward the end of his remarks, Tibi mentioned that he didn’t like the photo that Netanyahu showed at the U.N. (of rocket launchers next to children in Gaza), but that this does not justify the murder of hundreds of children. This begs the question: Putting all other rocket launch squads aside, should the particular launcher in the photo have been bombed, according to Tibi? If not, should we have waited for the rockets to explode on our children?

5. At the Channel 2 News studio, Opposition Leader Isaac Herzog was joined by three journalists who share his views. Tibi was also made to feel at home there. How is it that the only representative of the Israeli majority on the Channel 2 program, Communications Minister Gilad Erdan, was not joined by a single journalist who thinks differently than his or her colleagues?

Categories: Hamas, Israel, Palestinians, Netanyahu, United Nations
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Obama’s Peace Process for Iraq, Syria and the Islamic State begins [Caution: includes satire]

October 2, 2014

Obama’s Peace Process for Iraq, Syria and the Islamic State begins [Caution: includes satire], Dan Miller’s Blog, October 2, 2015

Obama was heard to remark during a recent presidential golf game,

“Israel is a terrorist war criminal. It won’t even yield to my reasonable demands for a two state solution with my beloved Palestinians, whose children and other innocent civilians it relishes murdering. However, Iraq, Syria, ISIL, etc. are humanitarians and will recognize that I am like them, as I lead them to peace through the Light of My true wisdom and greatness.”

FINALLY, He has a plan!

His best plan yet!

Obama functions at His very best with no intelligence. Intelligence would imperil His domestic and foreign priorities and perhaps even His brilliant world view.

I don’t think the problem is Obama’s inattentiveness. It’s not the demands of his golf game. It’s not his incessant fundraising. It’s his worldview. [Not satire.]

(The video is not satire)

The first Peace Process phase

In Iraq and now in Syria, Obama is trying to appear less humanitarian. It’s the initial focus of His Peace Process (PP), through which He plans to arrange a three state solution among the Non-Islamic Islamic State, its cohorts, friends and associates, Iraq and Syria. During His initial PP phase, He intends to gain credibility with and empathy from the Islamic State, et al. Accordingly, He has lifted His rules of engagement, previously intended to minimize civilian casualties, when striking forces of the Islamic State, et al.

The White House revealed on Tuesday that its usually strict rules of engagement, intended to prevent civilian casualties of US airstrikes, have been relaxed in the current offensive against the Islamic State and other radical Islamist groups. [Emphasis added.]

National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden told Yahoo News in an email that a much-publicized statement last year by President Barack Obama that US drone strikes would only be carried out if there is a “near certainty” of no civilian injuries would not apply to the US campaign against jihadi forces in Syria and Iraq.

Hayden wrote that the “near certainty” rule was intended “only when we take direct action ‘outside areas of active hostilities,’ as we noted at the time.

“That description — outside areas of active hostilities — simply does not fit what we are seeing on the ground in Iraq and Syria right now,” she continued, but added that the strikes, “like all US military operations, are being conducted consistently with the laws of armed conflict, proportionality and distinction.”

The statement came after reports that a dozen civilians, including women and children, were killed on September 23 after an errant Tomahawk cruise missile hit a house in the village of Kafr Daryan, in Syria’s Idlib province, believed to be a stronghold of al-Qaeda-linked militants. [Emphasis added.]

In a briefing to the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week, Syrian rebel commanders described scenes of devastation as the bodies of women and children were pulled from the beneath the rubble of the destroyed building, which was apparently being used as a shelter for displaced civilians. [Emphasis added.] [Not satire.]

It’s His most clever strategy yet, and only Obama could devise it: by showing the Islamic State, et al, that He agrees with their strategy of maximizing casualties, both combatant and civilian, Obama will easily convince them of the benefits of the true peace and security His PP will provide.

When asked whether, during the next Gazan conflagration, Israel should adopt His modified rules of engagement, Obama was heard to mumble at the 15th hole, “That’s entirely different. Hamas does not threaten My popularity in My country.” State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki hinted at much the same in August:

US State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki delivered an unusually strong condemnation of an Israeli strike near a Gaza school being used as a shelter in Rafah, saying that the US was “appalled” by the “disgraceful shelling outside an UNRWA school. [Emphasis added.]

The shelling, which left 10 people dead according to Palestinian reports, drew harsh condemnations worldwide, including from the United Nations, London and elsewhere, amid growing international criticism of the 27-day-long operation. [Emphasis added.]

The IDF issued a statement saying that forces had targeted three Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists on board a motorcycle in vicinity of an UNRWA school in Rafah, and added that “the IDF is reviewing the consequences of this strike.”

However, the US said that the presence of combatants did not justify targeting areas near the school. [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

Before the reports of the latest strike came in, senior White House adviser and Obama confidant Valerie Jarrett addressed the ongoing violence on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday morning.

Describing the conflict as “a devastating situation,” Jarrett asserted that “Israel absolutely has the right to defend itself, and we are Israel’s staunchest ally.”

At the same time, she added that “you also can’t condone the killing of all of these innocent children,” referring to the hundreds of civilian casualties reported in Gaza over the course of the past three weeks. [Emphasis added.] [Not satire.]

Neither Psaki nor Jarrett mentioned Obama’s popularity at home expressly. However, increasing civilian (mainly Muslim) casualties in Iraq and Syria, and demanding that Israel do even more to engage in strictly proportionate kinetic actions against Hamas Islamists, are both calculated to increase Obama’s popularity at home. This twofer is consistent with an address prepared for Him by my confidential White House informant, The Really Honorable I.M. Totus:

Israel’s actions have been disgracefully disproportionate and must stop. If they do not cease before I leave for my much needed family vacation at Martha’s Vineyard on August 9th, my red line will have been crossed and upon my return I may issue an Angry Executive Decree chastising Israel. Here is what Israel has done and what it must stop doing:

Israel has used WMDs (Weapons Minimizing Death and Destruction) including “Iron Dome,” warning sirens and shelters to thwart missile attacks. The Palestinians in Gaza have no even remotely comparable WMDs: They have no Iron Domes, their tunnels — clearly dug as air-raid shelters — have been destroyed maliciously and their air-raid sirens often can not be used due to Israel’s inhumane refusal to furnish electricity. They are therefore forced to use civilians, including small children, to guard their missile sites. They do so in the forlorn hope that Israel will take pity on them and refrain from attacking. Merciless Israel continues to attack, wantonly and intentionally wasting the precious lives of many innocent Palestinians. [Emphasis added.] [Satire.]

Second PP phase

Unlike the Obama Nation and its splendid coalition of the unwilling, the Islamic State, et al, have no aircraft. Nor have they any WMDs comparable to the Iron Dome used by wickedly ferocious Israel. Despite that, airstrikes have done little to diminish their effectiveness.

As of Tuesday, the U.S. and its coalition partners had conducted nearly 310 air attacks on Islamic terrorist targets, more than 230 in Iraq and 76 in Syria, a Pentagon spokesman said.

And while the air campaign has forced the terrorists to change their tactics, “We still believe ISIL remains a very potent force,” Admiral John Kirby told reporters on Tuesday. [Emphasis added.]

“Yes, they’ve changed some of their tactics, there’s absolutely no question about that, in response to the pressure that we put them under, but that doesn’t make them less dangerous or less potent over time,” Kirby said. [Emphasis added.] [Not satire.]

Accordingly, during the second phase of His PP strategy, Obama will cease all air strikes. He will also require Iraqi, coalition and any U.S. boots on the ground to use only stolen or abandoned weapons, ammunition and vehicles. As the photo provided below clearly shows, Islamic State, et al, forces have little more than rocks for weapons and that is not fair. Neither is forcing them to steal the few they do have, vigorously punished under Sharia law.

islamic-state-stoning-from-dabiq-magazine-ip_0 (1)

Additionally, all lethal weapons heretofore provided to those fighting disproportionately will now be provided only to the Islamic State, et al. Obama will make it perfectly clear that, in return, non-Islamic freedom fighters must read their rights under Sharia law (to be drafted by Attorney General Holder) to all whom they intend to execute. If convenient, the notification must be read in languages they are believed able to understand.

These steps will level the playing field and help the non-Islamic Islamic State, et al, to understand that Obama is the Messiah of true Peace, Virtue and Understanding based on true Islamic values under Sharia law, as recently articulated in a letter signed by one hundred and twenty-six moderate Islamists (not satire). They may even accept Him as the Mahdi, an honor greater even than His highly regarded and equally well deserved Nobel Peace Prize.

Third PP phase

With the realistic understanding of His life, His universe and everything which Obama will thus give to them, they will follow Him anywhere He may lead, particularly from well behind. They will jump, shout with joy and fire our their rifles into the air when He receives His second Nobel PP prize.

Conclusions

According to Reuters, Obama met with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House on October 1st — the same day that His new rules of engagement increasing civilian casualties in Iraq and Syria were announced.

Even as Netanyahu pressed Obama over Iran in White House talks, the president urged the Israeli leader to help find ways to prevent Palestinian civilian casualties like those inflicted in the recent Gaza war between Israel and Hamas militants.

. . . .

While Netanyahu put the emphasis on Iran, Obama was quick to focus on the bloody 55-day Gaza conflict, which ended in August with no clear victor. This followed the collapse of U.S.-sponsored peace talks between Israel and Palestinians in April. [Not satire]

“Iran? Nukes? What’s wrong with that,” Obama didn’t ask. He probably knows that a nuke deal allowing the Islamic Republic of Iran to get (or to keep) nukes will enhance His popularity ratings if Iran doesn’t actually use them until He leaves office in January of 2017, in accordance with His informal understanding with the Islamic Republic. And to Him, that’s what matters. When He leaves office, anything bad that happens will be somebody else’s fault, as He will be quick to point out.

Anne in PT, my favorite Israeli blogger, wrote a serious article about Obama’s hypocrisy titled Hypocrisy as demonstrated by the White House. She began,

In this post I want to highlight the brazen double standards and utter screaming hypocrisy demonstrated by that ill-mannered hostile man who stands at the head of Israel’s ostensible best friend, America. [Not satire.]

She then does so, clearly and well. I had considered writing a similar article but didn’t have the stomach for it. Therefore, I tried to write this bit of satire instead.

Categories: Hamas, Iran, Iranian nukes, Iraq, Islam, Islamic State, Israel, Palestinians, Netanyahu, Obama, Syria
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EDITORIAL: Mr. Netanyahu’s tutorial for Obama

October 1, 2014

EDITORIAL: Mr. Netanyahu’s tutorial for Obama, Washington Times, September 30, 2014

Netanyahu at UNFILE – In this Monday, Sept. 29, 2014 file photo, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 69th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters.

He tells it like it is, and the president should listen this time.

President Obama must absorb this. He came to office thinking there is little moral difference between Israel and Hamas and its Palestinian cohort. He seems to identify more with the Palestinians, observing that Israeli intransigence, not the distortion of Islam, is the infection festering in the Middle East.

***********************

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a courageous leader and a glutton for punishment. He never hesitates to stand up to those who despise him and his country, and indeed despise the West and the civilization it brought to the world. Some of his critics dream of beheading him if they could. He rebuts their lies, stares them down and corrects the record. He understands that what they seek is not peace, but an opportunity to destroy Israel and the Western civilization it represents.

He stared them down again this week at the United Nations General Assembly, and he’ll be in Washington on Wednesday to visit an American president who clearly doesn’t like him and delights in humiliating him. He gave the assembled diplomats the tutorial they needed, whether they wanted it or not, on life in the real world. We hope the president was listening.

The prime minister applauded the president for recognizing the threat of the Islamic State, or ISIS, but reminded the delegates that there’s still more to recognize. “ISIS and Hamas are branches of the same poisonous tree,” he said. “ISIS and Hamas share a fanatical creed, which they seek to impose well beyond the territory under their control.” Islamic terrorism is a cancer, he said, and “to protect the peace and security of the world we must remove this cancer before it is too late.”

President Obama must absorb this. He came to office thinking there is little moral difference between Israel and Hamas and its Palestinian cohort. He seems to identify more with the Palestinians, observing that Israeli intransigence, not the distortion of Islam, is the infection festering in the Middle East.

He said early on that he wanted a settlement with the Palestinians that would require Israel to retreat to its 1967 borders, before its Islamic neighbors ganged up to go to war and, instead of destroying the Jewish state, got a good country licking themselves. Mr. Netanyahu’s warning of the true aims of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran were ignored. On an afternoon in 2010, the president invited the Israeli prime minister to the White House, presented him with a list of 13 demands, and when Mr. Netanyahu wouldn’t agree to them, rudely told him that he was off to supper with his family and his absence would give Mr. Netanyahu time to reconsider his answer.

The prime minister spent the next hour cooling his heels in the Roosevelt Room and was then summarily dismissed, in a remarkable display of bad manners and diplomatic discourtesy, and told that he hadn’t given sufficient thought to buying the Obama solutions. The president snubbed him on several additional occasions. He once instructed Vice President Joe Biden to tell a group of U.S. senators, assembled to listen to a briefing on Iran’s nuclear program, to “ignore” anything Mr. Netanyahu might say about Iran and its pursuit of the nuclear bomb.

Subsequent meetings of the two heads of state were cool, some more correct than others, but all with lectures from the president, who imagines that he knows more about the region than Mr. Netanyahu or others who actually live and work there.

The occasion on Wednesday is less auspicious than occasions in the past. Mr. Obama has climbed into a coalition of strange allies with his strategy to blunt a fanatic Muslim surge through the region. The president is getting a late education in the reality of that region. We can only hope he’s listening this time to those who, like Mr. Netanyahu, an ally with insights, actually knows what’s going on there.

 

Categories: Hamas, Islamic State, Israel, Palestinians, Netanyahu, Obama
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The irony of endorsing Palestinians while bombing ISIS

October 1, 2014

The irony of endorsing Palestinians while bombing ISIS, Washington Times Editorial, Louis Rene Beres, September 30, 2014

(Irony? Perhaps it’s idiocy as well. In any event, please see also In Iraq, Syria, US lifts rules meant to protect civilians. — DM)

Hamas ISIllustration on Netanyahu’s comment that ISIS and Hamas “are branches on the same poisonous tree” by Linas Garsys/The Washington Times

Even while bombing ISIS, aka the Islamic State, Mr. Obama continues to endorse the creation of a Palestinian state, a plainly jihadist country that would inevitably be run by some adversarial combination of Hamas and the PA. . . . Why, it is time for . . . [Obama] to inquire, should we be fighting Islamist terrorists in one part of the Middle East, and simultaneously supporting distinctly similar others, just a short distance away?

**********************

Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded strongly to an earlier verbal attack launched by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. To be sure, as Mr. Netanyahu pointed out, Palestinian allegations of an Israeli-inflicted genocide were not only preposterous but also deeply ironic. After all, both the PA and Hamas are unambiguously on record in favor of eradicating Israel altogether, an open expression of criminal intent.

Addressing another irony, Mr. Netanyahu pointed out that “ISIS and Hamas are branches of the same poisonous tree,” and that there can be absolutely no justification to fighting one while supporting the other. “Hamas is ISIS, and ISIS is Hamas,” the prime minister declared correctly. On all of these points, however, it is not entirely clear that President Obama is on the same page.

Even while bombing ISIS, aka the Islamic State, Mr. Obama continues to endorse the creation of a Palestinian state, a plainly jihadist country that would inevitably be run by some adversarial combination of Hamas and the PA. Somehow, Mr. Obama doesn’t want to acknowledge that any Palestinian Arab state would promptly exhibit the very same jihadist tendencies as our own current terrorist targets in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. Why, it is time for him to inquire, should we be fighting Islamist terrorists in one part of the Middle East, and simultaneously supporting distinctly similar others, just a short distance away?

Where are we now heading? At some point, if they can finally reconcile, the PA and Hamas will declare the existence of a fully sovereign Palestinian state. Any such state, however, whatever its theoretical “self-determination” rationale, and whatever its finally agreed-upon administrative form, would enlarge the risks of terrorism and war.

Already, Palestinian orientations to aggression are very easy to decipher. Official PA maps identify Israel as merely a part of Palestine. In essence, both the PA and Hamas have agreed upon a cartographic destruction of Israel proper — not a “two-state solution,” but rather a conspicuously “final solution.”

Any Palestinian state could have a directly detrimental impact on American strategic interests and, of course, on Israel’s physical survival. After Palestine, Israel, facing an even more expressly formidable correlation of enemy forces, would require greater self-reliance. Any such enhanced self-reliance would then call for a more coherent and more openly disclosed nuclear strategy, one focusing comprehensively upon deterrence, pre-emption, and war-fighting capabilities; and a corollary and interpenetrating conventional war strategy.

By definition, a Palestinian state would make Israel’s conventional war capabilities increasingly problematic. In response, Israel’s national command authority would likely make the country’s still-implicit nuclear deterrent less ambiguous. Any such retreat from deliberate nuclear ambiguity, if incremental and limited, and if undertaken in coordinated conjunction with certain calibrated efforts to control escalation, could serve Israel as a potentially potent force multiplier.

Ending long-standing policy of keeping its “bomb in the basement” might enhance Israel’s security for a time, but could also heighten overall chances of hostile nuclear weapons use. If, for example, Iran were allowed to “go nuclear,” which now seems rather certain, belligerent nuclear violence would not necessarily be limited to Israel and Palestine. Ultimately, it could take the form of a genuinely unprecedented nuclear exchange.

Significantly, a nuclear war could arrive in Israel not only as a “bolt-from-the-blue” surprise missile attack, but also as a manifestly catastrophic outcome, intended or otherwise, of escalation. If, for example, an enemy state such as Iran were to initiate “only” conventional or biological attacks upon Israel, Jerusalem might still opt to respond with certain fully nuclear reprisals. Or, if this enemy state were to commence hostilities employing solely conventional attacks upon Israel, Jerusalem’s non-nuclear reprisals might then be met, in a still palpably uncertain strategic environment, with certain enemy nuclear counterstrikes.

In all such adversarial circumstances, Israel would be compelled to successfully demonstrate escalation dominance. The challenge to Jerusalem of any such complex demonstration could be significantly enlarged by the presence of a new and probably pernicious state ofPalestine.

The establishment of a Palestinian state could immediately undermine Israel’s necessary demonstration of escalation dominance. Jerusalem would then need to raise even further the capability threshold of its relevant conventional forces. A more persuasive Israeli conventional deterrent, to the extent that it could prevent enemy-state conventional or biological attacks in the first place, would then be required to reduce Israel’s now-expanded risk of exposure to an outright nuclear war.

After Palestine, and without any reasonable doubt, the area’s correlation of forces would become markedly less favorable to Israel. Now, the only credible way for Israel to consistently deter large-scale conventional attacks would be to maintain visible and large-scale conventional force capabilities. Of course, enemy states contemplating first-strike attacks upon Israel, using chemical or biological weapons, would be apt to take most seriously Israel’s nuclear deterrent. Whether or not this Israeli nuclear deterrent had remained entirely or partially undisclosed could also affect Jerusalem’s deterrent credibility.

In sum, Israel still needs a sufficiently strong conventional capability to deter or possibly to pre-empt conventional attacks, enemy aggressions that could lead, via escalation, to unconventional war. Doubtlessly, Mr. Obama’s road map would only further impair Israel’s already minimal strategic depth, and, if duly recognized by enemy states, Israel’s associated capacity to wage conventional war. These key calculations should finally be understood in Washington, as well as in Jerusalem, not only for Israel’s sake, but also because a Palestinian state would quickly become receptive to assorted jihadist preparations for expanding anti-American terrorism.

 

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