Long past time for the architects of Middle East failures to be quiet - by Jonathan S. Tobin

Longtime State Department peace processors who helped wreck the region under Clinton or Obama, and are now the first to criticize the Trump plan, lack credibility.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS,org..
30 January '20..

Disdain for President Donald Trump and the people who work in his administration runs deep in the media, as well as the foreign-policy establishment. At the core of this attitude is the current administration’s rejection of the conventional wisdom about diplomacy and the Middle East that governed American policy for decades.

Trump’s critics frame the debate about the administration as one that pits experts against amateurs. In this telling, Trump and his aides are a pack of bumbling ignoramuses. They are depicted as foolishly ignoring the advice of people who are more experienced and much smarter than they are, and thereby making already bad situations, such as the ongoing confrontation with Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, worse.

It’s true that Trump had no foreign-policy experience before becoming president. The team that he appointed to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian struggle was similarly lacking in diplomatic credentials. In particular, the trio of presidential adviser/son-in-law Jared Kushner, Middle East special envoy Jason Greenblatt and America’s ambassador to Israel David Friedman were essentially Trump’s real estate industry cronies rather than the sort of veteran policy wonks who would have been expected to fill such important slots in a more “normal” administration.

That’s why the critiques of Trump’s actions—his withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and reimposition of sanctions on the regime, recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the Jewish state’s right to the Golan, as well as his attempts to force the Palestinian Authority to cease funding terrorism—didn’t just elicit strong critiques from the ranks of those who had served in past administrations. The tone of the analyses that poured forth from liberal think tanks where alumni from the Clinton and Obama administrations, as well as some from the two Bush presidencies, now serve has been not so much harshly disapproving as dripping with contempt.

The same attitude is present in the commentary from establishment types about the Middle East peace plan that was rolled out this week in a White House ceremony. In an odd echo of the rage at Trump being heard from the leadership of the Palestinians, foreign-policy veterans have, for the most part, responded to the plan with a mixture of incredulousness, anger, predictions of doom and, most of all, with sneering condescension.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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President Trump’s critics shouldn’t encourage Palestinians to make another mistake (but they will) - by Jonathan S. Tobin

Contrary to the bad advice they’re getting from the Democrats and J Street, Palestinians need to accept that the U.S. plan is their best chance for statehood.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
28 January '20..

As far as those Americans who despise President Donald Trump, as well as many of those Jews and Israelis who feel the same way about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the ceremony unveiling a new U.S. peace plan for the Middle East was a sham.

With the Palestinians refusing to even talk to the administration—let alone negotiate with Israel about implementing the plan’s terms—chances of the “deal of the century” solving the conflict remain exactly zero. Trump’s opponents see his determination to recognize Israeli sovereignty over all of Jerusalem, as well as the green light his plan gives to annexation of West Bank settlements, as an outrage. And they dismiss his offer of statehood to the Palestinians—provided that they recognize the legitimacy of the Jewish state and cease support for terrorism—as meaningless.

In essence, all those denouncing Trump’s terms are advising the Palestinians to stick to their refusal to talk until a new American president takes office.

Whatever you think about Trump, it is the worst possible advice anyone could give to the Palestinians.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what many Democrats are doing. The same is true of allegedly “pro-peace” Jewish groups like J Street. Rather than encouraging the Palestinians to start negotiating, the “experts” about the Mideast are applauding their decision to reject Trump’s proposal out of hand. Sadly, they are once again serving as enablers for a Palestinian Arab leadership that has, over the course of the last century, failed their people miserably as they pursued a futile war against Zionism.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Ready to R&R: Running Up To The Peace Process - by Shoshana Bryen

The PA appears to have mistaken America as an “honest broker” for America as a “neutral party.” Between Palestinians and Israelis, the United States is not, and should not, ever be “neutral.” With Israel we share goals, values, and history; with the Palestinians we do not.

Shoshana Bryen..
JewishPolicyCenter.org..
27 January '20..
Link: https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2020/01/27/running-up-to-the-peace-process/

We have to wait until President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan is unveiled to discuss it; those already discussing are likely to be wrong. But it is worth reviewing where Israelis, Palestinians, Arab states, and Americans have been — and why this time may be different.

The central flaw in the “Palestinian-Israeli peace process” has never been addressed. There has not been — and there is not now — a shared goal toward which Israelis and Palestinians can be induced to work. Instead, each side has three specific and irreconcilable objectives.

The Palestinians — both Hamas and Fatah — seek:

- An independent state without recognizing a legitimate and permanent state of Israel in any territory. Both factions are willing to accept a temporary agreement with Israel on the way to the fulfillment of the PLO Charter to which both are committed. (Reading the Charter will tell you what else they are committed to, and it isn’t a “two state solution.”)
- Sovereign control of East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state.
- The right of entry for all remaining 1948–1949 Arab refugees from Britain’s Mandatory Palestine, as well s their descendants, to any place within pre-1967 Israel in which they or their antecedents claim to have lived.

Israel seeks three different things:

- Recognition of the legitimacy and permanence of Israel within finalized “secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force”: U.N. Resolution 242’s security promise to Israel.
- The capital of Israel in Jerusalem and Israeli protection for Jewish patrimony in the eastern part of Jerusalem.
- “End of conflict; end of claims.” After an agreement, the Palestinians will not be able to press additional claims against Israel for territory or other “rights.”

Beyond the issue of objectives, all previous “Palestinian-Israeli peace processes” were doomed because they operated as if the protagonists were on an island in the middle of the sea rather than in the middle of the Middle East. Until recently, the Palestinians counted on lip service, at a minimum — guns and money in better cases — from the so-called “Arab world” and a variety of African and Middle Eastern states. This broad, if shallow, support covered up the fact that the Palestinians were the weakest link in regional politics. It was impossible for Palestinian Authority (PA) strongman Mahmoud Abbas — let alone Hamas — to recognize the legitimacy of Jewish nationhood and accept a split, rump state squeezed between Jordan and Israel if the Arab states with the money and the guns didn’t go along.

President Trump’s Mideast moves show why Israeli deterrence is crucial - by Evelyn Gordon

...Despite Iran’s willingness to engage in military provocations, it has shown no desire to risk serious military consequences on Iranian soil. Indeed, it has escalated very carefully, moving up to each new level only after concluding—based on the non-response to previous attacks—that it could do so safely. And so far, it’s been right: Even the attack on the Saudi refineries, its worst to date, drew no military response from Riyadh or Washington. But years of Israeli airstrikes against Iranian and Iranian-affiliated targets have proven that the Jewish state won’t let Iranian aggression go unanswered, and any Iranian escalation will be met commensurately.

Evelyn Gordon..
JNS.org..
16 October '19..

U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest Mideast decisions cast Israeli airstrikes in Syria and (reportedly) Iraq in a different light. Previously, these airstrikes seemed to be aimed solely at preventing Iran from establishing military infrastructure in both countries that could threaten Israel. But it now turns out they were also sending an important deterrent message: If Tehran attacks Israel, Jerusalem will have no qualms about striking back.

The conventional wisdom has been that even if these airstrikes were necessary for Israel’s defense, they posed a real risk of escalation. And obviously, that remains a possibility.

But given Trump’s latest moves, they may actually be making war less likely by letting Tehran know that Jerusalem—unlike, say, Saudi Arabia—won’t sit with folded hands if it suffers a significant Iranian attack like last month’s strike on Saudi oil facilities. The realization that Israel has both the ability and the will to hit back hard might well deter Iran from launching such a strike, even though it now knows that it wouldn’t be risking an American response.

For this reason, much of the rhetoric about how Trump’s recent decisions will affect Israel is overblown, even though the decisions themselves are unequivocally horrible. Strategically, the U.S. withdrawal from northern Syria abandons that area to very bad actors (Turkey and/or Iran). It’s also a moral atrocity, as it abandons the Kurds to Turkey’s tender mercies despite their having been America’s most loyal and effective partner against the Islamic State. And it signals the world that Washington won’t protect its allies, thereby reducing the incentive to be an American ally. Trump’s inaction after Iran destroyed half of Saudi Arabia’s oil processing capacity sent a similar message.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Israel, Iran and Trump: Behind the rhetoric - by Ruthie Blum

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has had faith that Washington would be his key ally in any confrontation with the Islamic Republic. It was Trump, after all, who withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Ruthie Blum..
JNS.org..
27 August '19..

Referring to a Talmudic dictum relating to self-defense, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a video clip on Sunday morning, explaining the preemptive strike launched by the Israel Defense Forces in Syria on Saturday night.

“If someone rises up to kill you, kill him first,” he began, before uncharacteristically acknowledging that the IDF was behind the airstrikes, which were carried out after the Israeli defense establishment discovered that a special Quds Force unit was dispatched by Iran to Syria to murder Israelis on the Golan Heights with explosives-laded drones.

Standing next to a somber-looking IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, Netanyahu stressed that the “complex” military operation was undertaken to thwart a “very imminent” Iranian threat, and declared that Israel would continue to uncover and prevent further such plans by the regime in Tehran.

In a veiled reference to Lebanon—home base of the Iranian terrorist proxy Hezbollah—Netanyahu then warned, “Any country that enables the use of its territory for attacks on Israel will suffer the consequences.”

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Like to know the real reason the Palestinians are refusing to attend the Bahrain conference? - by Lt. Col. (Res) Maurice Hirsch

The conference will focus on the economic development of the Palestinians, and not the P.A. In doing so, the plan clearly, albeit not explicitly, reflects the reality that the P.A. and PLO no longer represent all of the Palestinians. The plan also clearly reflects that the Trump administration is questioning what happened to the billions of dollars of international aid that have been pumped into the P.A. over the past two and half decades. This is the worst nightmare of the P.A. and PLO and the real reason they refuse to participate in the conference.

Lt. Col. (Res) Maurice Hirsch..
JNS.org..
24 June '19..

Both the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority are boycotting the U.S.-initiated economic conference that starts tomorrow in Manama, Bahrain. While they would like to believe that their absence undermines the legitimacy and essence of the conference—promoting Palestinian economic development—the truth of the matter is that their absence is probably the only opportunity to achieve results.

At one time the P.A. and PLO were potentially important actors in the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Today there is no question that they represent a small and ever shrinking percentage of the Palestinians.

Their participation in the Bahrain conference would contribute nothing of substance. While the world has developed in the past few decades, the P.A. and PLO have stayed the same, rejecting offer after offer to resolve the conflict once and for all.

While trying to create the impression that the P.A. and PLO rejection of the Trump administration’s economic plan is a result of their principled fight for the interests of the Palestinian people, the truth is that their goals are simply to stay in power and promote the elimination of Israel.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Bahrain and John Kerry, Kushner is repeating the same mistake - by Ben-Dror Yemini

It's difficult, very difficult, to wean an entire community off illusions. After all, the "forces of progress" cultivate illusions. It's a lot easier to invite people to a workshop in Bahrain.

Ben-Dror Yemini..
Israel National News..
22 June '19..
Link: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/264947

John Kerry, who served as US Secretary of State under former US President Barack Obama, claimed more than once that poverty leads to terror. We'll give the poor economic prosperity, he thought, and the level of terror will drop. If anyone thought that the Trump administration had changed direction - the "deal of the century" proves that nothing has changed.

The economic workshop, to be held this week in Bahrain, is proof. We'll give the "Palestinians" economic prosperity, says Jared Kushner, who leads the Trump administration's peace deal staff, and the level of enmity will drop.

Both Kerry and Kushner, along with many others, should know that this is an illusion. The poor in Africa do not choose terror. There are millions of poor people in Nigeria. They don't choose terror. And among the "Palestinians" as well, those who choose violence are not necessarily poor.

The city of Shechem (Nablus) has enjoyed relative prosperity in recent years, thanks to the buying power of Israeli Arabs. Has it changed anything for Zakaria Zubeidi? After all, in recent years he has enjoyed status and is well-to-do financially. But he went back to terror. Because the brainwashing and incitement are a lot stronger than the options of money and prosperity. All the mass terror attacks in the US were carried out by successful, middle-class Muslim youth. Did any of that prevent them from choosing terror?

The biggest obstacle to achieving peace was and remains the fantasy of a "Palestinian right of return," which are supported by not insignificant portions of academia, the media, and the Israeli and global Left. In this sense, the anti-Israel campaigns are not promoting peace. They are preventing it. In order to advance towards peace, we need to look the "Palestinians" in the eye. They'll act like adults the moment we treat them like adults. Anyone who walks around campuses around the world and turns Israel into a criminal is someone who encourages their fantasies, someone who is funding UNRWA, someone who is cultivates the illusion of return - and someone who is perpetuating the problem.

It's difficult, very difficult, to wean an entire community off illusions. After all, the "forces of progress" cultivate illusions. It's a lot easier to invite people to a workshop in Bahrain. Kerry's mistake was in his theory regarding poverty and terror. Kushner, it's sad to see, is repeating that exact same mistake.

The full article was published in the Yediot Ahronot newspaper.

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Question. Could the Trump administration be siding with J Street? - by Stephen M. Flatow

...I am very surprised and deeply concerned at the possibility that the Trump administration could be falling into the old Obama pattern of pressuring Israel to make unilateral concessions in order to appease media pundits and Israel-bashing activists. I hope that Knesset Member Kisch was mistaken. I am anxiously awaiting an unequivocal denial from U.S. officials that they are asking Israel to let the squatters of Khan al-Ahmar continue their theft of Israeli public land.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
19 June '19..

Has the Trump administration taken J Street’s side in the dispute over an illegal Arab settlement on the outskirts of Jerusalem?

That disturbing question has suddenly entered the ongoing controversy over a piece of Israeli public land near Ma’ale Adumim, a major suburb of Jerusalem. Several dozen Arab families began squatting there some years ago, alongside the highway that goes from Jerusalem to the Jordan Valley. They call their encampment “Khan al-Ahmar.”

The illegal settlers in Khan al-Ahmar don’t own the land. They don’t rent it. They don’t have any construction permits. They simply set up some tents there and waited for sympathetic journalists and Jewish “peace” activists to go to bat for them, which didn’t take long.

The Israeli authorities have more than enough reason to remove the illegal settlers. It’s obviously a security hazard to have an Arab encampment situated adjacent to a heavily traveled Israeli highway. It’s also hazardous to the children of Khan al-Ahmar itself, who reportedly run back and forth across the road at will.

But most of all, there is a vital principle at stake: Should Israel enforce its own laws, or should it bend those laws whenever The Washington Post or the European Union start complaining?

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Question. Why Is the Palestinian Authority Opposed to the Upcoming Economic Conference in Bahrain? by Pinchas Inbari

The Bahrain assembly needs to inform the “Palestinian leadership” that the “Arab masses” have other troubles, and they are no longer interested in the Palestinians.

Bahrain skyline (Eduard Marmet/Flickr)

Pinhas Inbari..
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs..
10 June '19..
Link: http://jcpa.org/why-is-the-palestinian-authority-opposed-to-the-upcoming-economic-conference-in-bahrain/

The Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Labor is currently busy slandering Israel to international labor organizations by accusing it of robbing the rights of Palestinians working within Israel proper. This is outrageous, because they should be thanking Israel for taking security risks by employing citizens of the Palestinian Authority, for whom the failing Palestinian Authority is unable or does not want to. Furthermore, this reveals why the Palestinian Authority is so opposed to the upcoming economic conference to be held in Manama, capital of Bahrain, at the end of June.

The framework of the United Nations organization includes most of the international organizations that have an automatic majority against Israel. By strengthening this context, the PLO gains a compelling solution that could obligate Israel to accept positions that it cannot normally agree upon, such as on the 1967 borders or the refugee question.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman’s recent remarks on Israeli claims in Judea and Samaria only intensified Palestinian concerns regarding the loss of a primary lever for putting pressure on Israel, specifically, the United Nations and the international organizations connected with it.

The conference in Manama is a regional framework that is outside the parameters of the United Nations. Therefore, Palestinian participation in it would be tantamount to an admission that the PLO’s United Nations strategy has failed.

Why President Trump’s Middle East Initiative Is Doomed To Fail No Matter What He Does - by Jonathan S. Tobin

As futile as their quest seems, Jared Kushner’s plan is also a breath of fresh air after decades of American efforts to accommodate Palestinians’ unwillingness to admit that they’ve lost their long war against Zionism.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
TheFederalist.com..
23 May '19..

For once, the foreign policy establishment and the veterans of past U.S. administrations are at least partly right about President Donald Trump. His Middle East peace initiative, the first part of which is due to be unveiled next month at an “economic workshop” in Bahrain, won’t succeed. The “ultimate deal” that will end the conflict between Israel and Palestine certainly won’t be struck at that meeting.

The Palestinian Authority has already made it clear that it won’t attend the Bahrain event or negotiate on the basis of Trump’s plan. Longtime State Department peace processor Aaron David Miller wasn’t wrong when he told The New York Times that if the United States could have “bought peace in the Middle East through economic development,” it would have done so long ago.

That means that it is almost certain the president will be denied the satisfaction of brokering a deal that eluded his predecessors. Under the current circumstances, Palestinian leadership and the political culture that sustains them simply won’t allow it. But that is not the only way to look at the Trump/Kushner plan.

A Template for Peace

For all of the abuse the administration is taking from the establishment for attempting the impossible, by sticking to a plan that puts economics first and refusing to prioritize pandering to Palestinian intransigence, as all his successors have done, Trump is creating a template for peace that makes sense. Even more to the point, it is being welcomed by most of the Arab world.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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The Good Prince, the Bad Prince and the Iran Deal - by Victor Rosenthal

...I know I am not exaggerating when I say that President Trump is a controversial figure in the US. But he is not controversial in Israel, where almost everyone agrees that he has been the most pro-Israel president – in terms of actual actions, not just words – since Truman. And most Israelis would be happy to see him re-elected in 2020. But that’s up to American voters to decide. And unfortunately, perhaps in part because Trump has been so pro-Israel, many of his opponents have moved in the opposite direction. Six of the most likely candidates to oppose Trump have said that if elected they would restore US participation in the nuclear deal – that is, they would remove the sanctions re-imposed by President Trump.

Victor Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
25 April '19..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2019/04/the-good-prince-and-the-iran-deal/

It’s become a truism that the hatred and harassment of individual Jews and Jewish communities that once was prevalent in the lands of the diaspora before the rebirth of a Jewish state has since morphed into loathing and persecution of that state.

There are other parallels. Jewish communities in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East had a precarious existence, depending on the good will of the local prince or emir. If the ruler liked the Jews – or, probably more correctly – found them more useful than despicable, they could live their lives relatively undisturbed. If, on the other hand – well, you know the story.

Today the position of the Jewish state is also dependent on powerful people and entities far beyond Israel’s control. In particular, the State of Israel is strongly affected by the policies and actions of the US. In America, foreign policy, and especially practical actions and reactions to events in the international arena, are primarily in the hands of the president and his appointees. These days, the President of the United States is the “prince” whose attitude most affects whether Israel thrives or withers.

Israel could have tried harder to reduce her dependence on the US and her susceptibility to pressure from the American government. She should have. I would like to believe that the desirability of this is becoming evident to Israeli officials, but the pull of “free” military hardware is hard to ignore. And there is some truth in the idea that Israelis simply admire the US and value a close relationship with her.

In recent times, Khamenei has been playing Haman to the American president’s Ahasuerus. The Iranian playbook calls for Israel to be battered by simultaneous attacks from Hezbollah’s and Hamas’ rocket forces, and invaded by proxies from both the North and South. The regime is working on increasing the number, payloads, defensibility, and accuracy of the rockets in the hands of her proxies as well as in Iran herself. At the same time she is developing new proxies by establishing Iraqi Shiite militias in Syria, modeled on the Lebanese Hezbollah. All this is intended to be shielded under a nuclear umbrella, whose development is proceeding.

Taken by itself, it seems that war between Israel and Iran is guaranteed. But there is one other possibility – the only alternative that I can imagine, given the objectives of the Iranian regime. And that is that the regime can be toppled by internal opposition encouraged by economic pressure from the US.

It’s a longshot, because a regime that is demonstrably willing to shoot down anti-government protesters in the street, that is buttressed by paramilitary militias, and that terrorizes and murders opposition figures, is hard to overthrow. The regime is quite prepared to control the allocation of resources in such a way that the general population suffers bitterly as long it remains in power, so economic pressure needs to be tough and protracted.

The alternative is a very destructive war for both Israel and Iran. If it comes to this, then I would hope that Israel will strike preemptively and hard. But that’s another discussion.

This is the Palestinian reality that the Deal of the Century is about to be dealt - by Khaled Abu Toameh

...Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has undoubtedly read the Hamas charter. He knows that if he accepts any peace plan that does not include the expulsion of all Jews from their homes, he will be denounced by his rivals in Hamas as a traitor. Abbas is also aware of Hamas's threats to shower Israel with rockets. He knows that at the same time as Hamas attacks Israel, it will seek to flatten him for "betraying" Arabs and Muslims in "allowing" Jews to continue living in "their" state. This is the Palestinian reality that the "Deal of the Century" is about to be dealt.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
17 April '19..

April 15 marked the 18th anniversary of the firing of the first Hamas rocket toward Israel. On this day, 18 years ago, Hamas's military wing, Izaddin al-Qassam, launched its first rocket attack at Israeli population centers near their border with the Gaza Strip.

On the eve of this occasion, Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader of the Gaza Strip, threatened that his movement will continue to fire rockets at Israel. The rockets, he said, will be fired at Israeli "settlements" not only near the border with the Gaza Strip, but also at supposed "settlements" in the Israeli cities of Ashkelon, Ashdod and Tel Aviv.

Sinwar said that the recent Egyptian-sponsored ceasefire understandings between Hamas and Israel are not a peace agreement. The understandings, he explained, do not require Hamas to disarm or halt, near the border with Israel, the weekly demonstrations, also known as the "Great March of Return."

"The understandings do not have any political dimension," the Hamas leader said. "I promise that if a war is imposed on us, the occupation will have to evacuate its settlements, not only near the Gaza Strip, but also in Ashdod, Ashkelon, the Negev and even Tel Aviv. Remember this promise."

Sinwar's threats serve as a reminder that Hamas and other Palestinian terror group consider Israel one big settlement that needs to be annihilated. Hamas and the other terror groups do not see a difference between a Jew living in the West Bank and a Jew living in Tel Aviv or Ashkelon. To terror groups, all these Jews, regardless of whether they live in the West Bank or in Israel proper, are "settlers" and "colonists."

For them, Tel Aviv, Ashkelon, Ashdod and all Israeli cities are no different than Jewish communities and neighborhoods in east Jerusalem and the West Bank. That's why Hamas and the terror groups consider all "settlements" -- inside Israel and in the West Bank -- as legitimate targets for their rockets.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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The Israeli people were ‘with the Golan.’ They were right. - by Jonathan S. Tobin

Thankfully, past efforts to trade the Golan to Syria for “peace” failed. Israel is right to seek to foreclose the possibility of such a mistake in the future.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
13 March '19..

Sometimes, the best deals are the ones you don’t make.

This week’s news that Hezbollah is seeking to establish a cell in the Golan Heights from bases in Syria without the knowledge of the Bashar Assad regime illustrates the foolishness of Israel ever leaving the strategic plateau. It’s also a reminder of the close escape Israel had in the 1990s, when it vainly sought to trade land for peace with the current Damascus dictator’s equally tyrannical father Hafez Assad. And it is the memory of such past follies that is motivating both the Israeli government and some of its American friends to push for recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan.

For the first time this effort has met with at least a modicum of success when the U.S. State Department changed its description of the Heights from “Israeli-occupied” to “Israeli-controlled” in its annual global human-rights report released on Wednesday. This also comes after a visit to the Golan by U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during the course of which he vowed to lobby U.S. President Donald Trump to formally recognize that it belonged to Israel.

Given that Trump has already scrapped a decades-old policy of not recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the possibility that the United States will do just that can’t be discounted. Few are foolish enough to suggest that Israel hand it over to Assad while his country is still wracked by a civil war and foreign armies still operate there with impunity. But the international community and the American foreign-policy establishment have not given up their insistence that the Golan will always be Syrian territory.

Why then push for U.S. recognition now?

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So much for the peace fantasists in Israel and abroad who continue to harbor any hope - by Ruthie Blum

Al-Ghoul continued: "...Mongoloid Greenblatt, together with President Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Zionist [US] Ambassador [to Israel David] Friedman can prattle on as much as they wish about the ominous deal. However, they should know for certain that without the signature of PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas no deal will pass, and their foolish steps and policy will continue to be pointless.”

Ruthie Blum..
JNS.org..
05 March '19..

The Palestinians have been busy for the past week demonstrating in word and deed that U.S. President Donald Trump’s “deal of the century” will be dead on arrival.

In an op-ed on Sunday in the official, Palestinian Authority-controlled daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, who served as national-affairs adviser to former P.A. Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, launched an assault on the White House. While he was at it, he offended all people with special needs.

As Palestinian Media Watch reported, Al-Ghoul wrote, “Anyone who looks at [Trump envoy Jason Greenblatt] discovers that he has external and inner characteristics similar to those suffering from Down syndrome: He is short, his eyes are similar to Mongoloid eyes, he prattles unrestrainedly, and is politically retarded.”

Al-Ghoul continued: “The ill Greenblatt is not the only one who has Down syndrome, for it strikes all the components of the American administration. Anyone who examines the general genes of the components of the Trump administration sees that it is a politically crippled creature. … Mongoloid Greenblatt, together with President Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Zionist [US] Ambassador [to Israel David] Friedman can prattle on as much as they wish about the ominous deal. However, they should know for certain that without the signature of PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas no deal will pass, and their foolish steps and policy will continue to be pointless.”

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Is This Clear Enough? There is "No Place for the Zionist Entity in Palestine" - by Bassam Tawil

This is what members of the US administration needs to ask themselves: What will happen the day after a Palestinian state is established? The answer, according to Hamas and Islamic Jihad (and other Palestinians) is that the Palestinians will use this state to continue the "armed struggle" until the liberation of the occupied cities of Tel Aviv, Nazareth, Tiberias, Jaffa and Haifa...Any land that is given to Abbas and his Palestinian Authority in the West Bank will be used in the future by Hamas and Islamic Jihad as a base for launching rockets and missiles into Israeli cities. Then, the terror groups will not need accurate, long-range rockets to achieve their plan to destroy Israel's population centers: they will be sitting right across the street from them.

Bassam Tawil..
Gatestone Institute..
26 February '19..

A Palestinian terror group says that its engineers have developed "accurate and destructive" missiles that can reach the "occupied" cities of Tel Aviv, Netanya and Jerusalem. Abu Hamza, spokesman for the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Iranian-funded Islamic Jihad organization in the Gaza Strip, threatened that his group's "rocket unit" would turn Israeli cities into "hell."

"There is no place for the Zionist enemy on the land of Palestine," Abu Hamza said. "Either they leave this blessed land, or they will be dealt one painful strike after the other."

Islamic Jihad is the second-largest Palestinian terror group in the Gaza Strip, after Hamas. Neither group recognizes Israel's right to exist. Both say they are committed to the "armed struggle until the liberation of all Palestine, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River."

The leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad see Israel as one big settlement to be uprooted from the Middle East.

For them, there is no difference between a Jewish settlement in the West Bank and any other city inside Israel. As far as they are concerned, Tel Aviv, Ashdod, Haifa and Nazareth are all "occupied" cities. Palestinian weather forecast bulletins often publish names of cities inside Israel on a map that does not mention the word Israel.

The Palestinian leaders say that the conflict with Israel will end only when Israel is annihilated.

"We won't give upon one inch of the land of Palestine," said Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. "We will continue to fight until all the refugees return to their homes" -- meaning areas in Israel within the "green line" 1949 armistice borders.

In 2017, Hamas published a document of "General Principles and Policies," in which it claimed that it was ready to accept a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 lines (West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem) -- but without Hamas recognizing Israel's right to exist or Hamas "giving up all of Palestine."

In other words, Hamas is saying that it would not oppose the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem; it would use these territories as a launching pad to "liberate the rest of Palestine."

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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The absolute absurdity of land swaps - by Victor Rosenthal

The next time someone tells you that the “West Bank” is “Arab land,” ask them how nineteen years of illegal Jordanian occupation made it so.

Victor Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
22 February '19..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2019/02/the-absurdity-of-land-swaps/

Recent hints about what might be in Donald Trump’s deal of deals indicate that it includes Israel annexing parts of Judea and Samaria containing major settlement blocks, in return for “land swaps” in which a Palestinian entity would receive land that is presently within the Green Line.

I am not sure where the idea first surfaced, but it was included in the Clinton Parameters, the offer made at the 2000 Camp David summit, which was rejected by the PLO.

Let’s consider the history.

Prior to 1948, all of the land from the river to the sea was a single entity, the British Mandate for Palestine, established in 1922 and intended to constitute or contain a “national home for the Jewish people.” In 1947, Britain had had enough rioting and terrorism from both Jews and Arabs in the territory of the Mandate, and wanted to be done with its obligation. Over the years, they had lost interest in the Jewish national home, and felt that their interests would best be served by Arab control of the area. But others supported the establishment of a Jewish state, for various reasons.

There was the worldwide Zionist movement, and of course the Yishuv, the Jewish settlement in Eretz Yisrael itself, which had already put into place the structure of a shadow state. There were Christian Zionists, who believed that the establishment of such a state would be a fulfilment of Biblical prophecy. There were elements in the US who thought that the Jews deserved recompense after the Holocaust. There were those who saw a Jewish state as a convenient destination for millions of Jewish refugees that nobody wanted. And there was Stalin, who saw in the socialist leanings of the leadership of the Yishuv a possible ally in a very strategic neighborhood.

So the UN proposed a compromise and recommended a partition of the area of the Mandate into a Jewish and an Arab state. The Jewish Agency, happy to get any kind of state no matter how attenuated, accepted it, although both Begin and Ben-Gurion were apprehensive, correctly expecting war. The Arabs – both those who lived in the Mandate and the Arab nations – rejected it. Why should the Jews get anything at all? The nonbinding recommendation (UNGA 181) of the General Assembly was never implemented. It’s important to understand that it was only a recommendation, with no legal force. Both Jews who say “the UN gave us a state” and Mahmoud Abbas, who in 2016 called for the implementation of the partition on its original lines, are wrong.

In May 1948, the State of Israel was proclaimed without specifying borders (although an agent of the “provisional government” wrote to US President Truman that the state was declared “within the frontiers approved by the General Assembly… in [Resolution 181],” it’s not clear if this had any legal significance). It has been persuasively argued by Eugene Kontorovich that Israel inherited the borders of the Mandate, since there was no other entity that could have a claim on it.

Taking a closer look at the Kushner compromise - by Stephen M. Flatow

...American Jewish and Zionist organizations should not be sitting quietly on their hands, “waiting to see” what exactly the Trump Mideast peace plan will say. All one needs is a little logic and common sense to understand that whatever the details, the essence of Trump’s plan will pose a great danger to Israel. We need to speak out now—to stop the plan from being put forward at all—because once it is unveiled, there will be a steamroller of pressure that could be impossible to stop.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
19 February '19..

The precise details of the forthcoming Trump administration Mideast peace plan are not yet known, but the basic principle was declared by senior adviser and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner at last week’s Warsaw conference.

“Both sides will have to make compromises,” he said.

Kushner’s statement follows numerous similar statements by American officials, including the president himself. In his Feb. 9, 2017 interview with Israel Hayom, U.S. President Donald Trump said: “I think that both sides will have to make significant compromises in order for achieving a peace deal to be possible.”

That was followed by a report in The Jerusalem Post on Feb. 20, 2018, quoting Kushner and the administration’s other top Mideast envoy, Jason Greenblatt, saying that “both sides are going to love some of [the plan] and hate some of it.” And then-U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said in a Feb. 22, 2017 speech in Chicago: “The plan won’t be loved by either side. And it won’t be hated by either side.”

Let’s take a closer look at what the both-sides-have-to-compromise approach means, both in principle and in practice.

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When the interests of the United States and regional stability call for letting some relationships remain under wraps - by Jonathan Tobin

By trying to force Arab nations to go public with pressure on the Palestinians, the United States could undermine the struggle against Iran for the sake of a hopeless cause.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
13 February '19..

This week’s Warsaw summit was supposed to be about rallying the world against the threat that Iran poses to international peace. But given the complete lack of interest on the part of either America’s Western European allies or the Russians in reconsidering the disastrous nuclear deal that empowered and enriched Tehran, that was never going to work.

But the United States is also reportedly hoping to use the gathering to help set the stage for a renewed effort to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians that the administration has been preparing for the last two years. The problem with that approach is that Trump or presidential adviser/son-in-law Jared Kushner have grasped one element of the region that eluded their predecessors, though they still don’t understand the intractable nature of the conflict.

The conceit of the still secret Kushner plan, which will reportedly be formally rolled out after Israel’s April elections, is the notion that Arab nations are far more interested in resisting Iran than in any further tension with Israel. That basic assumption is correct, as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan and the rest of the Sunni world are sick to death of being dragged into a crisis by a Palestinian leadership that has no intention of ever making peace with Israel or accepting a two-state solution.

It is also true that, thanks to Iran, these same nations have found themselves in a far closer embrace with Israel than anyone would have expected a decade ago. The Obama administration’s policy of allowing Syria to descend into chaos, which was exploited by both Russia and Iran, threatened the security of the entire region. Even worse, Obama’s appeasement of Iran made the Arab states think that the United States was abandoning them.

At that point, under-the-table relations between most of the Arab world and Israel shifted to the point where most of these nations no longer even bothered to pretend that they were hostile to the Jewish state or cared much about the Palestinians.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Setting Red Lines For "The Trump Deal" Now - by Dr. Aaron Lerner

A vague reply to the Trump deal when it is announced will make it considerably harder for us to hold by critical red lines in the future that were already violated by the deal that we declined to reject.

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
14 February '19..
Link: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=73457

Our ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, disappointed me tonight when he asserted on Israel Radio that it was good that the release of details of the Trump "deal" was postponed until after our elections.

He noted that if the details of the deal were made public today that this would be the focus of the elections.

Why would it be bad for there to be a public debate of the details of the deal?

Why can't I know before I cast my ballot what Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the leaders of the other lists think about the offer?

These are the red lines I would like to cast my ballot in support for:

A sine qua non of both the Israeli ethos and the bilateral alliance — that Israel defends itself by itself - by Evelyn Gordon

...two basic facts. First, there are things Israel needs from Trump more than troops in Syria. And second, asking America to keep soldiers anywhere for Israel’s sake violates a sine qua non of both the Israeli ethos and the bilateral alliance — that Israel defends itself by itself.

Evelyn Gordon..
Algemeiner..
05 January '19..

Like most pro-Israel commentators, I’m appalled by US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw American forces from Syria. Nevertheless, this is the wrong issue for pro-Israel activists to pick a fight over. Criticizing the decision on grounds unrelated to Israel — of which there are many — is fine. But to imply that US troops should remain in Syria for Israel’s sake is to betray the fundamental tenet of the American-Israeli alliance: Israel will defend itself by itself; it will never ask America to put soldiers in harm’s way for its sake.

It’s worth underscoring just how unique this makes Israel among American allies. America has fought to defend Europe repeatedly. It fought for South Korea in the 1950s, South Vietnam in the 1960s, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in 1991. And there’s an understanding, often anchored in bilateral or multilateral treaties (such as NATO), that America would fight for many other allies if necessary, like Japan, Canada or Australia.

But with Israel, the agreement has always been that Israel would see to its own defense, while America would provide it with the means to do so. That arrangement suited both sides. For America, it was much less costly in terms of both lives and money than having to defend Israeli militarily (a point I explained in detail here). And for Israel, it satisfied a deeply ingrained lesson of Jewish history: Relying on others for protection always ends badly for the Jews.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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