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News item:

(IsraelNN.com) The High Court ruled Sunday that the government is legally allowed to release 230 terrorists on Monday as a “good-will gesture” to the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority. The government approved the release last week.

The court rejected an appeal from the Land of Israel Legal Forum, which argued that Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert should not be allowed to release the terrorists as their release is a step with long-term implications. Olmert should not be allowed to make decisions with a long-term impact because he merely a caretaker Prime Minister, Forum attorneys said.

Another group that attempted to prevent the release was the Almagor umbrella group of terror-victim organizations. Almagor Director Meir Indor pointed out that approximately 80 percent of released terrorists have resumed their terror activities…

If Israel is getting anything in return for these ‘gestures’, it isn’t apparent. Almagor (which has the photographs of 179 Israelis murdered since 2000 by released terrorists on its site) says that 143 of the prisoners to be released were arrested for attempted murder and almost all of them were arrested since 2006. This sounds to me like a somewhat high-risk group.

Olmert has released several hundred terrorists and pardoned hundreds more, in an attempt to strengthen PA Chairman Abbas and promote negotiations with the PA….

Abbas says there will be no peace with Israel until all terrorists are released from Israeli prisons, including those guilty of dozens of murders. [my emphasis]

I submit that there have been no negotiations with the Palestinians in a normal sense of  ‘negotiations’ since the ‘process’ began back in the early 1990’s, and so there’s nothing to promote. Real negotiations comprise both sides moving toward each other’s position, step by step. The Hebrew phrase is masa umatan — taking and giving.

The Palestinians have never given anything, ever. Even the promise made in 1993 to change the PLO charter so that it would not call for the violent destruction of Israel was never fulfilled.

Abbas continues to insist on all prisoners being released, on all refugees ‘returning’ to Israel, on every inch of land occupied in 1967 being transferred to the Palestinians. The official Palestinian media continues to incite hatred, despite countless promises to stop. Nothing has changed since the days of Arafat.

Meanwhile, Israel only gives. Land is transferred, prisoners released. Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem is de facto surrendered.

The Palestinians and their friends will tell you that Israel is confiscating land, building ‘new’ settlements, etc. But actually more and more territory is coming under their control; and it’s certain that the Obama administration wants to push this to the limit in 2009.

Caretaker PM Olmert is working harder than he ever did to ‘negotiate’, despite the fact that the majority of Israelis have shown — the Likud is way ahead in pre-election polling — that they do not approve of the direction the government is going. Better he should spend his time planning strategy for the felony trial he will shortly face.

If you were Abbas, would you do anything differently? All he needs to do is wait.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Almagor, prisoner release, Abbas, Olmert

Little by little, it’s becoming clear that the Obama policy toward the territories will be this:

• Minimize Israel’s footprint in the West Bank, preferably to the pre-1967 border,
• Establish a Palestinian state, and
• Police the arrangement — protect Israel from terrorism and the terrorists from Israel — with international troops stationed in the West Bank.

Caroline Glick writes (“Netanyahu’s Grand Coalition“),

People who have been in close contact with Obama’s foreign policy transition team have privately acknowledged that the widespread belief that Obama will move swiftly to put the screws on Israel is fully justified. According to one source who has spent a great deal of time with the transition team since last month’s US elections, Obama’s people are “scope-locked” on Israel.

The source reports that Gen. Jim Jones, Obama’s designated national security adviser, is Israel’s most outspoken critic. The source, who held a two and a half hour meeting with Jones, told his associates that Jones is keen to deploy NATO forces, perhaps including US troops, to Judea and Samaria.

Jones’s plan, which is vociferously opposed by the IDF, would make it impossible for the IDF to carry out counterterror operations in the areas. As a practical matter, the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens who live in the areas would be imperiled. Just as Hizbullah has used UNIFIL forces in south Lebanon as a shield from the IDF behind which it has rearmed and reasserted control over the border zone, so too a NATO force would facilitate an empowerment of Hamas and Fatah, which would unify, arm and organize free from the threat of IDF counterterror operations.

It should be obvious that the plan cannot possibly work. Here are a few of the reasons:

• The IDF prevents terrorist attacks by intercepting  terrorists before they strike, sometimes as they are on the way to their targets. This is made possible by excellent intelligence gathering by the Shabak (Internal Security Service) in the territories. NATO could not possibly do as well, even if they were as motivated, which they will not be. Will they hire local Palestinians to be interpreters and interrogators?
• The natural lack of motivation — why should, for example, Polish, Romanian, Lithuanian or Turkish troops (just a few random examples from NATO’s 26 member nations) risk their lives to prevent terrorism against Israel?
• NATO troops will be at the mercy of suicide terrorists and can be forced to leave at any time. What will happen the first time a truck bomb wipes out a whole platoon of them? What if some of these are Americans?
• Politically it is impossible to make a Palestinian government out of Fatah, which has no support from Palestinians who are not on its payroll. How long will foreign troops have to stay?

As Glick points out there is real danger that the Fatah and Hamas factions — neither of whom is committed to living at peace alongside Israel, regardless of what Fatah spokesmen say in English — will overcome their differences (at least in a working agreement), which would combine the resources of Fatah (arms and cash provided by the international community) with the fanatical commitment to Israel’s destruction that characterizes Hamas.

All this because the Obama team believes that once the ‘peace’ agreement is made, the Arab and Muslim world will end the conflict with Israel — and will have no further reason to oppose the US, which they supposedly do because we support Israel.

It should be obvious that the opposite will occur. Any border issues will immediately become of greatest importance to the Arabs. Demands for ‘return’ of ‘refugees’ will escalate. We will start hearing even more about the ‘plight’ of the Israeli Arabs, trapped in a Jewish state which  denies their ‘basic political rights’. Israel will be expected to release every last Palestinian prisoner, regardless of his or her crime. Anti-Israel and anti-Jewish incitement in the Arab and Iranian media will continue, just as it did after the ‘peace’ treaty between Israel and Egypt or the withdrawal from Gaza. Once 1967 has been reversed, the focus will move to 1948.

Israel will make practical sacrifices that will prove deadly for some of her citizens, and peace will be no closer.

And what will the US get from all of this? Iran’s main geopolitical goal — to replace the US as the controlling power in the Mideast — will not go away. Indeed, one of Iran’s stumbling blocks has been US-aligned Israel, and anything that weakens Israel helps Iran.

Terrorists everywhere will be encouraged because it will clear to them that no matter how the US or Israel try to spin the withdrawal from the territories, it was violence and threatened violence that brought it about.

Obama seems to understand the idea that ultimately he is responsible for the outcome of his policies. He is also reportedly a quick study. It is to be hoped that he will come to the understanding that his advisors are leading him down a dangerous path before too much damage is done.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Obama, James Jones, Nato, West Bank, IDF, terrorism

News item:

The United States routinely attempts to gather information on Israel’s assumed atomic arsenal and secret government deliberations, a new official history of Israel’s intelligence services, reviewed by Reuters, says.

While espionage by allies on their friends is not uncommon, a new Israeli state-sponsored publication acknowledges it openly.

The book “Masterpiece: An Inside Look at Sixty Years of Israeli Intelligence,” claims American spy agencies use technologies like electronic eavesdropping, and specially trained staff located in the US embassy in Tel Aviv, for “methodical intelligence gathering.” [my emphasis]

Arrest one and send him to prison for life, based on secret evidence.

Then see if Bush will pardon Jonathan Pollard before he leaves office.

Technorati Tags: espionage, Israel, Jonathan Pollard

After 9/11 there was a running dispute over the question “Do they hate us for what we do, or because of who we are?” Liberals tended to suggest that a history of Western colonialism and exploitation, combined with poverty, disease and technological backwardness in the Muslim world were the root causes of the conflict, whereas conservatives saw it as ideological — they hate us because of our freedom, democratic institutions, sexual equality, etc.

If you ask Gunnar Heinsohn, he would say that both explanations are wrong.

Heinsohn is a proponent of the ‘youth bulge’ theory which holds that a great deal of war, terrorism, genocide and general violence are a result of young men who have no place in their societies. In societies where the eldest son inherits land or position from his father, the younger ones need to make a place for themselves, often violently.

In a talk he gave Thursday at Israel’s RAFAEL  (Armaments Development Authority), Heinsohn described the options open to superfluous young men in youth-bulge societies:

1. They emigrate, i.e. opt for colonization without bloodshed.
2. They engage in crime and decimate each other in gangs.
3. As young officers they stage coups in the army, where promotion is rare for them.
4. They engage in civil war or revolutions, masking their ambitions behind selfless service for true gods, tormented peoples, brotherly values, etc.
5. They oust minorities from their jobs by genocide or expulsion.
6. They engage in cross-border warfare to find their place through bloody colonization or again genocide.

In the case of blocked emigration youth bulge territories can never exist without killing, so to speak, but will always oscillate from gang wars to terror, civil war, genocide and war.

Heinsohn didn’t invent the youth bulge theory, but he has generalized it and applied demography to explain various historical events — the Crusades, major wars, etc. He thinks that the existence of a youth bulge — which he defines as “growing  population with at least 30 per cent of males aged 15 to 29” is an almost certain predictor of violent instability in a society.

And nobody has a bigger youth bulge than some of the Arab societies that have recently been focal points for terrorism and violence.

The age distribution of  a population at a given time can be shown graphically a diagram called a ‘population pyramid’. You can create them yourself from the US Census Bureau’s International Database. Here is one for a country that is highly unlikely to be the source of the next Mongol horde, Germany:

In Germany the ratio of men aged 40-44 to boys  from 0 to 4 is about 1 to 0.5. The problem in Germany and many other European countries is to find young people to do the work to to support the growing number of retirees. Young people are not faced with a lack of high-status positions to move into as their elders move out of them — rather, there are not enough skilled young people to take over from the older generation. Heinsohn calls a graph shaped like this an indicator of  ‘demographic capitulation’, the shape of a society in decline.

Now let’s look at the profile of Saudi Arabia in 2001, the source of most of the 9/11 hijackers:

Saudi Arabia has about 3.2 boys from 0-4 for every one 40-44 year old.  And 31% of Saudi males are in the dangerous 15-29 age group. Because of the huge discontinuity around ages 30-40, there are few positions available for young men to step into; and Saudi society has not invested in the kind of social infrastructure that might help provide high status positions. To add insult to injury, there are not enough women to go around in the 20-35 year old groups.

One of the most extreme examples of a youth bulge is the Gaza strip:

In Gaza there are 4.2 boys in the age group 0-4 for every man aged 40-44! Today there are about 222,000 men from 15-29, which is about 29% of the male population. The huge bulge in the younger age groups will ensure a supply of fighting men for years to come. Gaza is an example of ‘demographic armament’, says Heinsohn.

It’s not only a question of numbers. Soldiers from Western democracies tend to be only sons so the society is less willing to risk them. And they have something to lose at home so they are less likely to take risks:

With 31m fighting-age males aged 15 to 29 in 2008, Afghanistan and Pakistan combined are almost just as strong as the USA with 33m. But for a future war the Afghanis and Pakistanis still have 41m boys aged 0-14 in reserve, while the Americans can only count on 31m, of whom a quarter are overweight. While, according to 2008 statistics, the Americans are only sons, Afghanistan’s and Pakistan’s 41m boys under 15 include 26m who are also fed and loved but hardly have any chances of a future career. This situation is similar to that of Europe in 1914-1918, when ten million young men were sent to the slaughter. They were born in the 1890s when European women – with the exception of France – had as many babies as the women from Gaza and Afghanistan have today but did not have back then.

Of course the West has superior technology. But this can be offset by asymmetric warfare:

Only if youth bulge warriors seek a pitched battle, can a western high-tech soldier deal with large numbers of them from his bomber turret or missile launcher. But in close quarters combat or on nation building missions he is doomed to fail. This is the crucial disadvantage of western democracies after 1950: They are part of a demographic imbalance with foes whose second to nth sons can fight until death without endangering the survival of their home country while losses on their own side will demographically exterminate whole families.

Paradoxically, Western attempts to ameliorate conditions in the third world often make things worse. A paradigm case is the operation of UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency) in Gaza and Palestinan refugee camps elsewhere.  UNRWA provides welfare services to Palestinians which encourage them to have as many children as possible; but there is no infrastructure of jobs to absorb them. As the population grows, UNRWA simply asks for more money, creating a completely dependent society whose sons are angry and seeking status and meaning in life. They often find it in the terrorist militias or criminal gangs.

So how can the explosive power of Gaza be defused? In the long run, ending the UNRWA policy of rewarding unrestricted population growth will work, but it will take 25-30 years before the huge number of today’s children reaches an age at which they become less dangerous. In hindsight, Israel made a great error by permitting the hostile UNRWA — 90% of its employees are Palestinian ‘refugees’ themselves — to create the demographic bomb.

From a military point of view, Israel would be foolish to invade and re-occupy Gaza. There simply are not enough Israeli soldiers to do this and Israel’s technological advantage would be reduced insofar as the fighting becomes more close-quarters. Suicide terrorism against occupiers becomes possible as a result of the pathologically high motivation of young men with nothing to lose. Any incursions should be short and with well-defined objectives. An overall strategy of containment with surgical actions when necessary to counter particular threats is probably the best approach.

Technorati Tags: Gunnar Heinsohn, Israel, Gaza, demographics, population pyramid

Eli Lake, writing in The New Republic [Nov. 26], has compared Barack Obama’s nominee for National Security Advisor, Gen. James Jones, with Hillary Clinton in regard to their attitudes toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Here’s some of what he said:

During the Bush administration, the State Department was the source of every call for envoys, roadmaps, summits, and efforts to revive the peace process. And for most of the Bush era, these calls were rejected by the White House and Pentagon — which believed that the Israeli-Palestinian struggle was a symptom of deeper pathologies within the Islamic and Arab world, and not the underlying cause of Middle Eastern terrorism. Within the Obama administration, this dynamic is likely to be reversed. It may be the White House — and, more specifically, the likely national security advisor, James Jones — that will be the passionate proponent of peace processing. Or, as he told the newsletter Inside the Pentagon last month, “‘Nothing is more important” to regional security in the Middle East than resolving the Israeli Palestinian conflict…

…Jones said that the Palestinians should be granted increasing degrees of local sovereignty over the West Bank until an independent state is born — with an emphasis on giving the Palestinians experience with governance. On Sunday, Ha’aretz reported that Jones favors dispatching a NATO force to keep the peace in the interim.

Clinton, on the other hand,

…is asking if even the Palestinian moderates are ready to govern. At AIPAC’s annual policy conference in 2005, she said: “How do we expect to have a democratically elected Palestinian government if their textbooks are still preaching such hatred, and this if we allow this dehumanizing rhetoric to go unchallenged? Because what is happening is young minds are being infected with this anti-Semitism, and that is going to run counter to what we hope can happen over the next years as we do work for peace and stability.”

Jones apparently fits right in with  Defense Secretary nominee Robert Gates and Obama advisors Brzezinski and Scowcroft. One might ask how a person with his considerable military competence expects the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority [PA] to control a ‘Palestine’ composed of rival armed gangs (someone recently said that Mahmoud Abbas’ authority extends only to several office buildings in Ramallah).

The answer is that he doesn’t — he thinks NATO will keep the peace, in place of the IDF. It’s hard to see how a Palestinian ‘government’ whose power derives from foreign troops and is opposed by a majority of Palestinians will lead to a successful independent state. And let me quote myself on the value of NATO forces in the West Bank:

Leaving aside the irony that NATO troops might include those from traditionally anti-Semitic Eastern European countries, can we expect that they would put their lives in danger to protect Israel any more than the UN forces in Lebanon have done? What will happen the first time a Hamas suicide bomber kills 15 or 20 NATO soldiers? — FresnoZionism

As Clinton points out, ‘Palestine’ is not ready to live peacefully alongside a Jewish state. But ‘realists’ like Robert Gates and Jones see the immediate creation of a Palestinian state as the top priority, and the terrorism emanating from it as something that can be managed.

It’s interesting to wonder what would happen if Jones gets his wish and a Palestinian state is invented. Hamas and Hezbollah will certainly continue their aggression against Israel, since their ‘grievance’ — that there is a Jewish state of any size — would not have been redressed. Iran will continue supporting Hezbollah in its inexorable takeover of Lebanon. Syria will not disarm its thousands of missiles pointed at Israel. Islamic fundamentalists will not stop in their attempts to destabilize Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Iran will not stop its nuclear program.

In fact the only significant change is likely to be that Palestinian terrorism against Israel will increase as the highly motivated and effective IDF is replaced by NATO in the West Bank.

Technorati Tags: James Jones, Hillary Clinton, Israel, Eli Lake, NATO