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Just a few comments on President Bush’s speech about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict today. This is a long post, but there’s a lot there — and it doesn’t look good.

He said:

Israel has taken difficult actions, including withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank. Palestinians have held free elections, and chosen a president committed to peace. Arab states have put forward a plan that recognizes Israel’s place in the Middle East.

Obviously, he does not mention that the Palestinians elected a Hamas government in those free elections! More importantly, note the reference to the Arab League (Saudi) ‘peace’ initiative. There is really no positive way to construe this initiative, and it’s disappointing to see the US endorsing it.

In Gaza, Hamas radicals betrayed the Palestinian people with a lawless and violent takeover. By its actions, Hamas has demonstrated beyond all doubt that it is [more] devoted to extremism and murder than to serving the Palestinian people…

There’s another option, and that’s a hopeful option. It is the vision of President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad; it’s the vision of their government; it’s the vision of a peaceful state called Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people. To realize this vision, these leaders are striving to build the institutions of a modern democracy.

This comparison is strained. Yes, Hamas overthrew Fatah in Gaza. Both sides committed atrocities in the fighting; Hamas won because Fatah was poorly led and unmotivated. But the vision of both factions is similar in some important ways: both believe in violent ‘resistance’ against the Jewish state. Their founding documents say it and their actions prove it.

In terms of “serving the Palestinian people”, Hamas is arguably better than Fatah, which has provided an umbrella for criminals of all kinds who prey on the population, and whose officials are uniformly and massively corrupt. Both sides care more about killing Jews than helping Arabs.

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The fighting in Lebanon between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam (a radical Sunni Islamist group) has been going on since May 20. Today,

In Nahr el-Bared, heavy fighting continued as the army pounded suspected militant hideouts with artillery shells and tank fire.The fighters responded with machinegun fire and rocket-propelled grenades, according to the officials…

The army was making progress toward Fatah Islam positions, the officials said. Witnesses also reported seeing a few Lebanese flags hoisted on the roofs of destroyed buildings inside the camp where the army appeared to be in control…

The use of Katyusha rockets appears to be a new tactic by the militants to ease the military pressure and expand the battles outside the camp. The militants fired at least six Katyusha rockets Saturday and 19 rockets on Friday that crashed into villages neighboring the camp, slightly injuring two people and causing damage to property. — Ha’aretz

The Lebanese have directed huge amounts of firepower at the terrorists (imagine if Israel did this!) but they continue to resist.

Where did they get Katyushas and launchers? Who is supplying them? Who benefits from their activities? Most observers seem to believe that Syria is behind them, but even the US and Saudi Arabia have been accused of supporting them (as an anti-Hezbollah force). Members seem to be Saudis, Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinians and various jihadists who had fought in Iraq. They may or may not be linked with al-Qaeda, but they appear to share its ideology.

The Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon are full of organizations like this, some more successful than others. There are more than 400,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon (overall, more than 4 million claim refugee status) and the locals don’t like them:

Lebanon barred Palestinians from 73 job categories including professions such as medicine, law and engineering. They are not allowed to own property. Unlike other foreigners in Lebanon, they are denied access to the Lebanese healthcare system. The Lebanese government refused to grant them work permits or permission to own land. — Wikipedia

The Arab nations as well as the Palestinian Fatah and Hamas groups continue to reject any solution to the refugee problem that is not a return to “their homes” in Israel. It would be ironic if the result of this policy is the destabilization of the host countries.

Technorati Tags: Fatah al-Islam, Lebanon

It looks as though the IDF, at least, is capable of rational thinking:

“The IDF is preparing itself for an all-out war, and this is a major change in the military’s working premise following the Second Lebanon War,” said Major-General (res) Eyal Ben-Reuven, who served as the Northern Command chief’s deputy during the [second Lebanon] war…

When conflict breaks out with Syria, he said, Israel will face a challenge, because the Syrians “will be willing to take military and civilian hits but will strive to harm the Israeli home front in order to gain future achievements in a political process and to further split Israeli society.”

“Therefore, the IDF’s mission will be very focused and will have to be quick, in order to neutralize as quickly as possible the strategic areas threatening Israel’s soft underbelly…”

Ben-Reuven explained that in order to carry out such missions successfully, an extensive ground operation will be needed, and for this purpose the IDF is currently renewing its maneuvering abilities, including training and perfecting technology. — YNet

If we listen to what they say, nothing would make most Arab leaders happier than the opportunity to eliminate Israel. Nothing has changed in this regard since 1947. It is one of the only things that almost all Arabs can agree about.

Given this, and given some of the cultural attitudes prevalent in the Arab world, the best way to prevent war is to be fully prepared and to ensure that Israel’s adversaries are aware of this. A “credible deterrent” is what it is usually called, and it means that Israel’s enemies know that if they attack, the response will be devastating — they will not achieve their goals, and the price will be more than they are willing to pay.

This did not happen in the Second Lebanon War, where — despite significant losses — Hezbollah was left standing, and Israel was damaged diplomatically and psychologically. In particular, Israel’s inability to counter Hezbollah’s missile warfare reduced the credibility of Israel’s deterrent.

The political leadership must also be careful that its actions do not undermine the deterrent capability of the military. That is, if their behavior is construed as appeasing or conciliatory, this is interpreted by the Arabs as weakness (why would Israel give anything up if they could defend it?).

The best way to achieve peace, therefore, is not to seek it by negotiations at a point when Israel’s deterrent capability is believed to be low. In this situation, the goal of peace is best served by strengthening the IDF. The time for negotiations in when the Arabs believe that the military option is not open to them.

It would be a good thing if the Arabs were able to perceive this without an actual confrontation, but I think they are still prone to self-delusion in this area.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Arabs, IDF

In keeping with the general theme of surrender and appeasement, Israel is permitting the Muslim Waqf to dig ditches and do who knows what else on the Temple Mount without archaeological supervision. This has been going on for years. On the other hand, Israeli construction of the Mughrabi Gate walkway, far from the Mount, was stopped because of fear of Arab disturbances.

A bulldozer was seen last week ripping up earth on the Temple Mount, at the Dome of the Rock platform. It slashed a long gash, purportedly to lay new electric cables. With crude, damaging handling, it exposed a largely gray deposit, which according to archaeologists is a sure-fire indication of “archaeologically significant” matter.

Incomprehensibly, despite TV air-time and print space, these revelations by the Archaeologists Committee for the Prevention of the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount (CPDATM) failed to cause much stir…

Only videos taken with a hidden camera brought to the fore the destructive work at the site associated with Jewish history’s most sensitive relics. The officers on hand, moreover, according to testimony by archaeologist Prof. Yisrael Caspi, CPDATM head, forbade him from picking any remains out of the rubble.

Caspi and other archaeologists were warned that they had better not even try to bend down, lest they stretch out an arm to touch anything. A policeman was finally dispatched to maintain particular vigilance against Prof. Eilat Mazar, most suspected of a proclivity to lay a hand on a pottery shard. Speaking for the CPDATM, Mazar expressed “the deepest distress at the continued official disregard and disrespect for the incalculable archaeological importance of the Temple Mount”…

While Muslims under ostensible Israeli rule are free to physically impinge on the deepest Jewish sensitivities, they raise shrill outcries whenever Israel dares do anything even in the Mount’s vicinity, such as the (now halted) construction of a new pedestrian walkway in lieu of the dangerously dilapidated one to the Mughrabi Gate.

Foreign governments acted as if this Muslim outcry were legitimate, even though Israel was acting with complete archaeological supervision and international scrutiny, and the claims of structural threat to the Temple Mount or any mosque were obviously spurious. Yet when the same elements who protested then use bulldozers on the Temple Mount itself, with no supervision and causing obvious damage, they are “protected” from Israeli archaeologists by Israel’s own authorities. — Jerusalem Post (my emphasis)

This is not hard to understand. If Dr. Mazar and her friends threatened to blow up or behead anyone who ‘insulted’ Judaism or came within 100 yards of its holy places, then maybe they would take notice.

Technorati Tags: Temple Mount, Waqf, Eilat Mazar, Israel, Jerusalem

On May 15, 1974 three terrorists from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), a group headed by Nayef Hawatmeh, infiltrated across the Lebanese border into the town of Ma’alot, where they murdered 31 Israelis, including 26 children in the Netiv Meir elementary school. The ‘reason’ for the attack was supposed to be a response to the “shuttle diplomacy” of Henry Kissinger, who was attempting to negotiate peace between Israel and the Arab nations.

Hawatmeh and the DFLP are now hosted by Syria. They have been responsible for various other terrorist acts, but since the mid-1990′s, their ‘military’ capabilities in the territories have declined. Maybe they’re getting old.

The Olmert government has apparently decided that, in the name of “strengthening Abbas”, it’s time to forgive and forget, or at least to forget:

In a move aimed at helping Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas gain approval of the new PA government, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will approve allowing Nayef Hawatmeh, the Damascus-based leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), to travel to Ramallah on Wednesday to participate in a meeting of the PLO’s central assembly…

Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna’i said on Friday that Israel should allow Hawatmeh into Ramallah since this could help strengthen Abbas in face of the growing Hamas threat in the Gaza Strip. — Jerusalem Post

The string of concessions, pardons, abasements, and humiliations that Israel seems bound to suffer in order to “bolster Abbas against Hamas” seems to never end. Each step is worse than the preceding one, as Israel and the US arm, finance, and appease the Fatah terrorists in an attempt to create a counterforce to Hamas.

And it’s all for naught. Didn’t they learn anything from the disaster in the Gaza strip where the well-armed Fatah men were routed by the better organized and highly motivated Hamas forces? Everything we gave Fatah ended up in the hands of Hamas.

Don’t they understand that the more they support the corrupt Fatah, the less popular it becomes among Palestinians?

Fatah is not going to defeat Hamas, and even if it could it would not be an alternative, being in principle no less rejectionist than Hamas.

Better simply put a bullet or 31 in the back of Hawatmeh’s head, and announce the end of another terrorist murderer. That kind of action will probably have a much more positive effect on the ultimate outcome than any more ‘strengthening’ or ‘bolstering’ that we do for Abbas.

Technorati Tags: Hawatmeh, DFLP, Israel, Abbas

Everyone wants a two-state solution:

The next few weeks are critical in reviving the Middle East peace process, Jordan’s King Abdullah II said Friday.

Abdullah spoke after a meeting with Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The two agreed that peace in the Middle East could only be achieved through a two-state solution. – Jerusalem Post

But what does this really mean?

Assuming that one of the two states is Israel, then probably the idea is that Israel will sign a peace treaty with the Abbas/Fayyed government in the West Bank.

Two states, yes, but no ‘solution’ in a real sense. About 43% of the Palestinian population lives in Hamastan (Gaza). Hamas also has influence in the West Bank, and despite the continued flow of money and arms to Abbas’ Fatah, is probably more capable in a military sense than Fatah. So what are the options?

Will Hamas see the light and evaporate, giving full control to Abbas? Hardly likely.

Will Hamas be isolated from the world and wither away? This seems to be what the US is hoping for. But it’s also not likely. Iran is happy to fund Hamas’ military budget, and certainly it will not be possible for the rest of the world to ignore the needs of the population. Israel cannot hermetically seal Gaza without creating a humanitarian crisis.

The most probable outcome is some kind of unity between the Palestinian factions, as favored by Egypt and Saudi Arabia. If this happens, there’s no doubt that Hamas, by virtue of the greater degree of commitment of its adherents, will come to dominate the regime. In that case, Israel will have a two-state solution in which her partner is a antisemitic, terrorist entity whose primary reason for being is to destroy her.

Another possibility is for Israel to crush Hamas militarily. There’s no doubt in my mind that there will soon be an opportunity, since Hamas is likely to join in the next flare-up instigated by Hezbollah, backed by Syria and Iran. Alternatively, Israel could try to preempt a two-front war by attacking Hamas now. This wouldn’t be easy nor would it be cheap in terms of lives, for both sides.

Of course, if Israel were to succeed in destroying Hamas, the question of who would fill the power vacuum arises. It’s not at all certain that it would be somebody friendlier than Hamas.

Realistic solutions — for any number of states — are hard to come by.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Hamas, Fatah, Palestinians

This could be good news:

One of the Palestinian terror operatives who kidnapped Cpl. Gilad Schalit in a cross-border raid near Kerem Shalom last June has been arrested, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) announced Friday afternoon, lifting a gag order.

Muhammad Salameh Abed Zufi, 30, was apprehended in Rafah on June 9. — Jerusalem Post

One hopes that information can be extracted from him that will lead to Schalit’s location being pinpointed. Although an operation to rescue him would be difficult and dangerous — both for Schalit and for his rescuers — it may turn out to be the best alternative.

I’ve mentioned the Israel Police Yamam unit before. Although it has been used for many purposes, such as intercepting suicide bombers and arresting fugitives, the original purpose and focus of the unit is hostage rescue operations. The training of this group’s operatives and the technology available to them is awesome.

In the past, perhaps for political reasons, Israel has not always employed the Yamam when it would have been the best choice for a particular mission. If it turns out that it is possible to rescue Schalit, and if this is judged to be indeed the best course of action, then there are probably few (if any) police or military units anywhere in the world that could do it better.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Schalit, Shalit, Yamam