FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו

In September of 1982, Lebanese Christian ‘Phalange’ leader and President-elect Bachir Gemayel was assassinated, most likely on Syrian orders. Believing that the PLO was responsible, Christian militias entered the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, and massacred a number (estimates vary widely, but it is probably in the hundreds) of residents.

Israeli soldiers were nearby, but did not intervene. An commission (the Kahan Commission) was appointed to investigate the affair, and concluded that while the IDF did not take part in the massacre, it was ‘indirectly responsible’ — officers should have known what was happening and taken action to stop it. Ariel Sharon was held personally responsible, and ultimately forced to resign as Defense Minister.

It appears that the US now has its own Sabra/Shatila massacre to contend with.

Last Friday, Iraqi troops raided a settlement north of Baghdad populated by members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), killing at least 30.

Iran’s FARS news agency calls them a ‘criminal’, ‘terrorist’ group which is supported by the US.

Jubin Afshar describes what happened over the weekend:

Since last week the Iranian dissidents have been warning of an imminent attack. On Friday, thousands of Iraqi forces stormed the camp with armored vehicles and breached its protective fencing, killing and wounding many. There are reports of shelling of civilian residences in the camp and looting of areas overrun by Iraqi forces…

There are reports that US forces in nearby Baquba, who are tasked with monitoring security in Ashraf and intervening if necessary, did not respond to appeals for help at the camp. This all occurred during the visit to Iraq by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates…

Robert Gates was quoted by AFP to have “called for restraint” but mentioned that the US military would not have any role but to provide medical assistance, essentially remaining passive while a lethal attack was being carried out against a defenseless civilian population.

There is no doubt that the PMOI was at one time an armed militia. But even the Iranians admit that they are now unarmed:

Lieutenant Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) General Hossein Salami had underlined that the [PMOI] which has committed numerous crimes against the Iranian nation should be dissolved immediately.

“The disarmament of the Monafeqin (i.e. Hypocrites, as [PMOI] members are called in Iran) is not an important issue but the main issue is the existence of the grouplet which should be dissolved,” General Salami reiterated on Sunday. — FARS

This is not the first time Iraqi forces have attacked the PMOI refugees:

The attack is reminiscent of a similar brutal attack in July 2009, simultaneous with the uprisings in Iran, which resulted in the death of 11 dissidents. That attack resulted in widespread international condemnation of the Iraqi regime which has moved increasingly close to Iran’s rulers. — Jubin Afshar

Interestingly, the PMOI is classified as a foreign terrorist organization by only two countries in the world: the US and Iran. In another article, Afshar discusses the difficulties the organization is experiencing in getting the designation removed here in the US:

The State Department branded PMOI … as an FTO in 1997 in what a former administration official described as a goodwill gesture to the Iranian government. A policy that stemmed from a naïve reading of Iran and based the FTO designation on politically expedient foreign policy goals rather than facts, the PMOI contends.

Afshar is an apologist for the PMOI, so he doesn’t discuss its somewhat unsavory history in detail.

The PMOI has a violent past including assassinations of officials of the Shah’s regime — and American technicians working on defense projects in Iran in that period. The State Department also says that they ‘supported’ the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran.

After the Shah fell, the Khomeinists soon turned on them, and in 1982 the PMOI fled to Iraq where they were protected by Saddam Hussein. From Iraq, they carried out attacks against Iranian regime targets, and they also helped Saddam put down Shiite and Kurdish rebellions. In 2000 they even carried out a mortar attack on the offices of the Supreme Leader and the President in Tehran. In return, Saddam gave them money and weapons.

The alliance of convenience with Saddam Hussein caused big problems for the PMOI with the present Shiite-dominated regime in Iraq, and the US still considered it a terrorist organization and even bombed its camps at the beginning of the Iraq war. But

When American forces arrived at Camp Ashraf shortly after the fall of Baghdad, the MEK fighters offered no resistance and agreed to disarm. Their tanks, armored personnel carriers, and heavy artillery were confiscated. MEK fighters also agreed not to attack private and public properties in Iraq. In return, Camp Ashraf was put under the protection of Coalition forces and was shielded from the turmoil experienced elsewhere in Iraq…

Subsequent to the ceasefire agreement, US officials launched a review of Camp Ashraf residents to determine if they should be prosecuted for terrorism. American authorities also worked closely with their French counterparts to investigate the MEK’s support of terrorism. Later, in July 2004, the US military designated MEK fighters in Iraq as “protected persons” consistent with the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention. — Gawdat Baghat: United States-Iranian Relations: The Terrorism Challenge

Now, as the American presence in Iraq is drawing to a close, apparently the Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki, with the encouragement of Tehran, intends to settle accounts. But there are good reasons — in addition to our obligation to this now-unarmed group — why the US should not stand by and allow this to happen:

First, the [PMOI’s] terrorist attacks against American targets ceased almost three decades ago. Most of these attacks took place when the Shah was in power or shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution. Since then, the [PMOI] has focused its attacks on Iranian targets. Even attacks on Iran apparently have come to a halt. The last [PMOI] terrorist attack was on an Iranian village close to the border with Iraq in 2003.

Second, western, Arab, and Israeli intelligence services have long appreciated the [PMOI] for its sources deep inside Iran. The [PMOI] provided useful intelligence data in 2002 when it held a press conference in Washington and revealed the existence of a secret uranium enrichment facility in the Iranian city of Natanz. The IAEA later confirmed the claim. This revelation has proven crucial in strengthening the international nonproliferation position in the ongoing confrontation related to Iran’s nuclear program.  — Baghat

The PMOI claims to have renounced terrorism, and to support democracy, religious and ethnic tolerance, etc.

Some points:

1. The al-Maliki regime is clearly moving closer to Iran. When US forces leave, it’s hard to imagine any other future for Iraq except as a satellite of Iran. The fate of the residents of Camp Ashraf doesn’t look promising.
2. Although our administration takes pains to hide this fact, the US is presently being confronted by Iran in a struggle for control of the Middle East and its vital resources. Why then does the US appear to take Iran’s side against dissidents that could be our allies in this struggle?

Technorati Tags: Iran

Remember the Iranian bomb? We don’t hear much about it from our president these days, but

Iran is proclaiming significant gains in its nuclear program, progress that Western officials and experts say could effectively erase setbacks from recent cyber attacks and shorten the timeline for acquiring nuclear weapons.

Scientists from Iran’s atomic energy program, in announcements over the past three days, said they have successfully tested advanced centrifuges for enriching uranium and are less than a month away from starting the country’s first commercial nuclear reactor. The announcements, linked to the observance of “nuclear technology day” in Tehran, underscore recent assessments by intelligence officials and Western nuclear experts suggesting that Iran is preparing to speed up its production of enriched uranium. — Washington Post

I guess the ‘biting sanctions’ were more or less toothless, and the tough talk about nothing being off the table was just that — talk.

Indeed, almost any criticism of Iran coming from the White House has been muted recently, despite the violent suppression of demonstrations (several demonstrators were killed in February), and multiple attempts to ship massive amounts of weapons to Hizballah.

Our administration has been also particularly easy on the Iranian ally/satellite regime in Syria, where hundreds of anti-regime protesters have been shot.

And it hasn’t stuck up for traditional US allies, either. Barry Rubin writes,

In an unprecedented statement, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC, consisting of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) has condemned Iran for trying to overthrow them. Tehran has been at it since 1979 but this is the first time that these countries have been so bold…

Meanwhile, Iran is threatening Saudi Arabia, which the Iranian parliament’s foreign affairs and national security committee said, “should know it’s better not to play with fire in the sensitive region of the Persian Gulf.”

The Saudi government responded that this was an “irresponsible” statement containing “void allegations and blatant offense against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.” And, said the Saudi version of parliament, Iran’s position “fuels sectarianism,” a codeword for pitting Shias against Sunni Muslims. Iran must “stop these hostile policies and respect the rules of good neighbourliness … so as to preserve the security and stability in this region which is key for the entire world.”

The GCC’s secretary-general, Abdullatif al-Zayani, … condemned “Iran’s meddling in the internal affairs of GCC countries” that “threatened security and stability in the region.”

Where is U.S. policy in all of this? Nowhere at all. It is not siding with the GCC. At best, the United States is neutral between the two sides. Such a position is a terrible mistake.  The new development is that the U.S. government has stopped criticizing Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. But it hasn’t started helping them.

If Washington doesn’t support the GCC against Iran, who will? And the expansion of Iranian influence–on the eve of Tehran getting nuclear weapons–is catastrophic for U.S. interests.

On the other hand, the US did take sides against Egypt’s Mubarak, the other pillar of opposition to Iran in the Mideast.

What I want to know is this: it sounds absurd to say that the US has taken a turn toward Iran and away from its former friends, Israel and the conservative Sunni regimes. But the old saying “if it walks like a duck, etc.” seems to apply here.

Is American policy becoming pro-Iranian?

Technorati Tags: Iran, Obama Administration

PM Netanyahu has been talking about an Israeli initiative to head off UN recognition of ‘Palestine’:

While there is speculation that Netanyahu is interested in a Palestinian state within temporary borders, with the final borders to be negotiated at a later date, others believe Netanyahu’s plan entails a reiteration of the goal of two states, and the announcement that the IDF will turn control of all the major cities in the West Bank over to the Palestinian Authority, giving it control over some 90 percent of the Palestinian population. Under this plan, the IDF would no longer operate inside the cities, except in extraordinary circumstances. — Herb Keinon, Jerusalem Post

The ever-patriotic Ha’aretz speculates thus:

Netanyahu mulls pulling IDF forces out of Palestinian [sic] West Bank

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is weighing a withdrawal of Israel Defense Forces troops from the West Bank and a series of other measures to block the “diplomatic tsunami” that may follow international recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders at the United Nations General Assembly in September…

Netanyahu is still uncertain to what extent the withdrawal would be, but it will probably not include the evacuation of settlements.

(I included the headline from the Ha’aretz article to illustrate their commitment to unbiased journalism).

Now, the PM may not be planning anything like this. At this point, nobody — probably not Netanyahu and his advisers — knows what diplomatic tack he will take to oppose the effort to declare a Palestinian state in the UN.

Nevertheless, the logic behind these ideas escapes me.

The Arabs are saying “we won’t negotiate because we can get everything we want from the UN without giving Israel anything” — no security arrangements, no recognition, etc. And Israel considers responding by saying “no, wait — let’s make more concessions! Let’s weaken and endanger ourselves!”

I expect that the Arabs will accept concessions offered and then continue their concurrent diplomatic whining and violent terrorizing. Why would any other action make sense for them?

I’d like to see a different approach. This one hasn’t worked yet.

I would like to hear PM Netanyahu tell the UN that he is sorry, but conditions are not ripe today for a Palestinian state. Given the danger of Hamas being supported via a newly hostile Egypt, because of the threat from Hizballah in Lebanon, Israel cannot permit the creation of another entity which will certainly be hostile, which expresses its hostile intentions every day, next door.

Surely the UN will understand that with all the instability in the Middle East today, now is not the time to add more (note that this is the opposite of the “linkage theory“).

When will it be possible for there to be a Palestinian state?  It will be when the Arab world is ready to make peace with Israel — when Hamas and Hizballah are disarmed, when Egypt and Syria stop trying to solve their domestic problems by bellicosity toward Israel. And when the Palestinian Arabs are prepared to say, “this is the end of the conflict” (note that this is the opposite of the sequence prescribed by the Arab Initiative).

After the 1967 war, the UN expressed the idea that peace can come along with recognition and secure borders in UNSC resolution 242. Since then, the Arabs have said ‘no’ a thousand times, and punctuated these negations with violence. And every time, the ‘international community,’ often along with Israel, takes another step closer to the Arab position.

But there was nothing wrong with the original one. Secure borders, recognition and disarming the terrorist militias are necessary for peace.

The Israeli position should be based on demanding these things, not on giving them up!

Technorati Tags: Israel, Arabs

General William Tecumseh Sherman (seated, center) with staff

“War is cruelty. There’s no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.”

“If the people raise a great howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not popularity seeking.”

“War is Hell.” — W. T. Sherman

News item:

During Operation Cast Lead in January 2009, maps used by commanders operating on the ground in Gaza highlighted some 1,800 buildings and various infrastructure sites that should not be attacked and next to which troops needed to operate with extra sensitivity.

The list included hospitals, United Nations facilities, schools, power grids, flour mills, food storage centers and various homes and office buildings.

Senior IDF officers have told The Jerusalem Post that new maps being drafted by the Gaza Division in the Southern Command ahead of a possible future operation in Gaza now include more than 3,000 sites that are off-limits to attacks. — Jerusalem Post

This new kind of war that Israel is forced to fight is unprecedented.

Remember that Israel supplies most of Gaza’s electricity and water. I once wrote a satirical piece about a lathe operator in Gaza calling the Israel Electric Company and complaining about interruptions to his power. How can I make rocket nozzles, he asked. And of course the Israeli apologized: sorry, we’re having a labor dispute and the union is applying sanctions.

Very Israeli, but in the history of warfare until very recently, completely insane.

Could you explain this to Eisenhower, to Churchill, to Ulysses S. Grant, to William T. Sherman? I don’t think so.

Now Amr Moussa of the Arab League is calling for a ‘no-fly zone’ over Gaza. Hamas launches hundreds of rockets, fires a high-tech laser-guided antitank weapon at a school bus, attempts to tunnel under the border in multiple locations, three-quarters of a million Israelis have to live in bomb shelters, and the Arabs expect international intervention to protect them?

If you want to protect some Arabs, go intervene in Syria, where security forces are shooting down demonstrators like plastic ducks in a carnival shooting gallery.

I really don’t get it. They get to make war, including the most vicious terrorism against civilians imaginable (Itamar), and we get to … fight them without hurting anybody.

The next war will be like the kind of game I played in the street as a boy: throw a ball at someone and run for one of the designated locations of sanctuary. Touch the fireplug and you are safe.

Blockades used to be legitimate weapons of war. Real ones, in which the enemy either surrendered or starved. Today even a partial blockade to prevent an enemy from receiving strategic materials is considered inhumane.

Turkey called Israel’s response to Hamas rockets ‘disproportionate’ because more Hamas operatives than Israeli civilians were killed. For their information, ‘proportionate force’ in the laws of war used to mean the minimum amount of force needed to achieve a military objective. Since the rockets continue to fall, then this proves that more, rather than less, force should have been used. But the old definition seems to be falling by the wayside, at least where Israel is concerned. Today, anytime an Arab is killed, soldier or civilian, it’s ‘disproportionate’.

It’s as if OSHA regulations (for non-Americans, OSHA is the agency responsible for workplace safety) were extended to the battlefield. Soon rubber bullets or paintballs will be required in all IDF weapons.

There is no doubt that war with Hamas in Gaza (and Hizballah in Lebanon) is unavoidable. Even more so than in previous wars, if present trends are indicative, Israel will be fighting with both hands and one foot tied behind its back.

For Hamas and Hizballah, in a modernized version of Sherman’s famous words, war will indeed be heck.

Technorati Tags: Israel, war, Hamas, Hizballah, Sherman

The scar.

President Obama’s scar has created a lot of excitement among bloggers, some of whom suggest that he may have had brain surgery, performed either by human doctors or extraterrestrials. I’m not speculating.

What I would like to know, though, is this:

Is there anything that could count as a reason for him to not force Israel to give up as much as possible of Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem to create a Palestinian state?

One would think that the fact that US sort-of-ally Egypt is in turmoil and is likely to soon be ruled by anti-American Islamists or Arab nationalists would be a reason that this is not the best time to weaken Israel and strengthen Hamas.

One would also think that the fact that Lebanon is now dominated by the terrorist Hizballah is another reason, the fact that the Jordanian regime is struggling yet another. Yemen will soon be in the anti-Western column. Even Saudi Arabia is worried. It’s hard to see how Syria or Libya could get worse, but despite the wishful thinking in some of the media, none of these countries is moving toward democracy.

Look at it this way: what seems to be happening is that relatively stable, moderately pro-Western regimes are changing, and the direction of change is to reduce US influence. So what is the advantage of helping to create yet another radical, aggressive and ultimately (when Hamas takes over) Islamist Arab state, while at the same time undermining the strongest, most stable democracy and US ally around?

And if you think ‘Palestine’ will be pro-American because of all the money we are giving their corrupt leadership, you don’t understand the ideology of this leadership, or the power relationships in the Mideast.

I am speaking from America’s point of view here. From Israel’s, it’s even worse. Instead of facing heavily armed terrorist proxies on two sides, it will be three (if Arabs could breathe in water, it would certainly be four).

There is only one explanation for this. The Obama Administration does not expect Israel to survive and has decided that its future lies with the Muslim bloc. So it is making the best of a bad deal — after all, it’s hard to ignore all the anti-American propaganda in the region — and, within limits set by its desire to prevent a revolt by pro-Israel voters in the US, encouraging Israel’s demise while pretending to support it.

That is the only way to understand why the administration is very concrete about what it wants Israel to give up, and very vague about how its security requirements will be met. International guarantees, peacekeeping forces, etc. have never worked to keep peace when one of the parties doesn’t want to be peaceful. In the most polite terms possible, these promises are bullshit.

Here’s what’s behind the scar: Obama and his team are prepared to sacrifice Israel for Peace In Our Time. If  Israeli policymakers don’t understand this by now, the state is in trouble.

Americans: the loss of Israel would mean the loss of the Middle East to radical Islam. If you don’t think radical Islam is a real threat to the US, and indeed, to Western civilization, if you want the US to be the kind of nation that allies with Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, then go ahead, re-elect Barack Obama.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Obama administration, appeasement