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Mubarak:

“Israel hasn’t learned the lessons of the Yom Kippur War and it prefers to solve its problems by force rather than by peaceful means” — Jerusalem Post

Of course the lessons of the Yom Kippur War are exactly the opposite. After the 1967 war Israel wanted to ‘solve its problems’ peacefully, but the Arabs responded with the “Three No’s” (no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it).

Forty years on, there have been negotiations with a few Arab countries, and some form of recognition from even fewer. If true peace is to be distinguished from a US-paid-for cease-fire, then Israel has peace with just one Arab country, Jordan. So lesson one was that the Arabs, mostly, are not interested in peace.

Lesson two is that the Arab states will attack Israel if they think they will succeed. So permanent military preparedness and good intelligence are essential for survival.

And lesson three is this: if Egypt is building up her army and buying tanks and planes, it’s not for directing traffic in Cairo.

Technorati Tags: Mubarak, Israel, Egypt

Iranian anti-Israel agitation is heating up:

Millions of Iranians attended nationwide rallies Friday in support of the Palestinians, while the country’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Israel’s continued existence was an “insult to human dignity.”

“The creation, continued existence and unlimited (Western) support for this regime is an insult to human dignity,” Ahmadinejad said. “The occupation of Palestine is not limited to one land. The Zionist issue is now a global issue” …

In the capital Teheran, hundreds of thousands of people poured into the streets as they chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” Some protesters also burned American and Israeli flags. — Jerusalem Post

Why does he care, actually? Is his hatred of Israel a result of his love for the Palestinians? I doubt it, since Iranian-backed Shiites are busily torturing and killing Palestinians in Iraq. He could stop that in a minute if he wanted to.

Is he afraid that Israel will prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power? Israel does not, unfortunately, have the firepower to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations, and she is highly vulnerable to an Iranian counterattack. In this connection, he should be much more worried about the US, which has both the power and — because of the Iranian threat to Gulf oil producers — the motivation.

No, I think the reason is that Israel is a bone in Iran’s geopolitical throat. Iran envisions herself as the leader of a great Islamic caliphate, stretching all the way to the Mediterranean. Imagine Lebanon under the control of Hezbollah and Syria’s Alawite rulers (whom many do not even consider Muslim) replaced with a similar group. Israel, which would strongly and effectively oppose such changes, must be gotten out of the way before they can occur.

We also shouldn’t minimize the propaganda value of destroying Israel. I’m always amazed by the honest depth of hatred most Arabs and Muslims have for Israel. Older Americans may remember how ‘Communism’ was hated so passionately here in the 1950s. This possibly comes close to the feeling of the “Arab street”, although I think the combination of today’s powerful media and the lower educational levels in the Arab world compared to the West have made their feelings even stronger. Anyway, there’s no better way to win the hearts of this constituency than to credibly threaten Israel.

Iran’s main antagonists are the US and Saudi Arabia, and what they are struggling for is control of the oil resources of the Middle East, and the stranglehold on the world’s economy that this would provide. There is no more important prize in the world today.

Israel’s primary task at this moment is to oppose the Iranian proxies in the neighborhood — Hamas and Hezbollah, and Iran’s ally Syria. These represent the direct present threats to her security. It is to be hoped that the ‘big boys’ — the US, Saudi Arabia, the EU — will be worried enough about Iranian ambitions to take action.

Technorati Tags: Iran, Israel

The November Mideast Summit, if it takes place, will not produce an agreement on ‘core issues’ (borders, refugees, Jerusalem) between Israel and the Palestinians, but only a ‘statement of principles’:

The US-sponsored Mideast conference scheduled to take place in Maryland in November will only be one step in the peace process, rather than its goal, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed on Wednesday afternoon.

The parties did not agree on the content of the joint statement they plan to present at the US summit, but did agree that the negotiations teams will hold intensive meetings starting next week in order to discuss the statement’s wording. — YNet

This isn’t surprising, since Abbas’ demands as he has so far enunciated them can’t possibly be acceptable to Israel. They include complete Israeli withdrawal to pre-1967 lines, the return of the descendants of the 1948 refugees to Israel, and the re-division of Jerusalem according to the lines established by the Jordanian occupation of 1948 — which would result in the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, and even the Hebrew University and the original Hadassah hospital becoming part of the Palestinian state.

A serious complicating factor is a recent report that Abbas is (or shortly will be) conducting secret negotiations with Hamas. Although one can say that the 40% of the Palestinian population in the Hamas-controlled area can’t be ignored, there’s another side to this argument: as long as so many Palestinians are ruled by the violent, rejectionist Hamas, there can’t be a meaningful peace agreement.

Nevertheless, Condoleeza Rice will be coming to the region next week. She will vist Israel and several Arab countries, and her goal will be to get as much ‘progress’ made toward an agreement as possible.

As usual, this will mean pressuring Israel for concessions in the negotiations, as well as “bolstering” for Abbas: prisoner releases, removal of checkpoints, etc. None of this will improve Israel’s security, and the prospects for the summit to produce a peace agreement are exactly zero.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians, Mideast summit

Here’s more about the great hope for Palestinian leadership, Marwan Barghouti, by Caroline Glick:

In the interests of “strengthening” Abbas and Fatah, last week Infrastructures Minister and former defense minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer recommended releasing Fatah terror chief and convicted mass murderer Marwan Barghouti from prison. Ben Eliezer and Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai defend their position by extolling Barghouti as “the new Yasser Arafat.” [! — ed.] It was during Ben Eliezer’s tenure as defense minister that the IDF arrested Barghouti in April 2002. Four months later, the State Prosecution submitted his indictment. Israel indicted Barghouti of 26 counts of premeditated murder, accessory to murder, solicitation of murder, attempted murder, criminal conspiracy, membership in a terrorist organization and terrorist activity…

In its 2004 verdict, the Tel Aviv District Court found Barghouti guilty of five counts of murder. Regarding the other murders, the court felt he had “moral responsibility” but that he had no “legal responsibility,” for the carnage he directed, incited and financed…

In an interview with Army Radio last week, Ben Eliezer explained that freeing Barghouti is necessary to “strengthen Fatah” against Hamas. Rather than castigating Barghouti for his close ties to Hamas, Ben Eliezer presented them as an attribute. In his words, the arch-terrorist is “well-respected by Hamas.” He then said, “For us he might be a murderer, but I’d like to remind you that Arafat was no less of a murderer, and we approached him as well.”

Ben-Eliezer failed to note the irony of his statement. Yes, Israel “approached” Arafat and lo and behold, Arafat remained a murderer committed to Israel’s destruction. As a result of Israel’s decision to “approach” Arafat, some 1,500 Israelis are dead today and Palestinian society is the most jihadist society in the world.

It seems to me that part of the problem is that a large enough and violent enough segment of the Palestinian population is not prepared to accept a truly moderate leader, or even to allow one to surface. Being a murderer is almost a qualification for Palestinian leadership.

This will not be solved by helping the Palestinians annoint another bloody murderer whose life has been devoted to killing Jews.

Let the Palestinians figure out that they are not going to replace Israel with an Arab state. The sooner they understand this and come to terms with the existence of the Jewish state, the sooner they will be able to put their terrorist national character behind them, become a normal people and get their own state.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians, Barghouti