FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו

News item:

In a surprising decision, the High Court of Justice on Sunday rejected a compromise agreement struck between the government and residents of Migron, the largest illegal outpost in Judea and Samaria. The agreement would have allowed the residents to remain in their outpost several years after a mandatory evacuation deadline, but was struck down on the grounds that no group of people is above the law…

This 50-family community, located several miles north of Jerusalem, has become a bone of contention since its establishment in 1999. Left-wing groups claimed the families who set up the community’s first bungalows had illegally trespassed onto privately owned Palestinian land, whereas the residents claimed that they had obtained the necessary authorization to establish the new community. Last August, the High Court of Justice ruled in favor of the left-wing organization Peace Now, which petitioned the court on behalf of the alleged Palestinians [sic] owners of the property. The state was ordered to evacuate the residents and dismantle the site by April 2012, in what was hailed by some as the most important court decision on disputed construction in Judea and Samaria in years.

Without going into all the details, I want to note a few facts.

First, only a small part of the community is built on land that may belong to Palestinians, but the government decided that all of it must be ‘dismantled’.

Second, no Israeli court ruled on the substance of the case — on the question of whose land it was. The government made its decision on the basis of a report written in 2005 by one Talia Sasson, who was head of the state prosecutor’s office at the time.

Sasson is a board member of the New Israel Fund, a member of the Public Council of Yesh Din, a foreign-funded left-wing NGO which carries out ‘lawfare’ against Israel in the name of ‘human rights’, and a Knesset candidate of the fringe New Movement-Meretz party (which has 3 seats out of 120 in the Knesset). She is a professional opponent of the Jewish presence in the territories. Her objectivity is more than questionable, it is non-existent.

Migron residents claim that the land in question was distributed by King Hussein in the 1960’s, was never cultivated or built on, and that the Palestinians that ‘owned’ it were not aware of this until ‘reminded’ of it by Peace Now.

They suggest that if a similar situation had arisen inside the Green Line, an agreement for compensation would have been worked out, rather than an order to ‘dismantle’ the entire community.

The original filing was made by Peace Now, and it provided the attorney.

Peace now is one of numerous organizations ‘watching’ settlements and their residents, listening to and documenting Palestinian complaints, filing lawsuits (as in the case of Migron), producing reports, talking to journalists, etc. Other groups include B’Tselem, Rabbis for Human Rights, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Yesh Din, etc. which are active in or in connection with issues concerning communities in Judea and Samaria.

These organizations are staffed by extreme left-wing Israelis, Arabs and international volunteers. They have almost no support in Israel, and are funded — with millions of Euros and dollars — from European governments, the EU, the US-based New Israel Fund, etc. In a sense, they are the shock troops of the worldwide anti-Israel movement on the ground in Judea and Samaria.

There are also numerous other NGOs, specializing in Jerusalem, Gaza, Arab citizens of Israel, the IDF, etc. NGO Monitor has tirelessly documented their activities and funding.

This is just one area in which Western money is deployed against Israel. Of course the Palestinian Authority (PA) itself — arguably a hostile entity — receives billions of US dollars each year. At a 2007 “donor conference” the international community pledged $7.7 billion for the period of 2008-2010! Keep in mind that the PA pays salaries of employees in Gaza who are either doing nothing or working for Hamas, as well as stipends to activists who are in Israeli prisons for offenses including murder and terrorism.

But even that isn’t all that the world — primarily the US and the EU — is doing for the Palestinians. There is UNRWA, the special Palestinian refugee aid organization, whose function is to encourage growth in the population of stateless Arab ‘refugees’ and prevent their resettlement in any country — except their ‘return’ to an Israel that 95% of them have never seen. UNRWA’s budget in 2009 was $1.9 billion.

What about the special UN organizations in addition to UNRWA, like the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, and the Division for Palestinian Rights? The International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People? The United Nations Information System on the Question of Palestine (UNISPAL)? Don’t forget the salary of the antisemitic Richard Falk, “UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967”.

What proportion of the UN budget is concerned with the Palestinians? More than you think, when you look at the inordinate attention paid to resolutions condemning Israel in the General Assembly, the UN Human Rights Council, and numerous other agencies.

The Palestinian culture is all about destroying the Jewish one in Israel. I once called them the “anti-Jews” because they invert reality and claim the history, the land, even the Zionist strategy of the Jews. They imitate us in almost every way, except that their story is a lie.

Many elements were complicit in creating and amplifying the Palestinians, from the Nazis that worked together with Haj Amin al-Husseini to plan a Final Solution for the Middle East, and the antisemitic KGB that taught Arafat how to appeal to the Western Left, to the naive do-gooders who still think that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs is fundamentally a human-rights issue.

The actual question has almost nothing to do with the Palestinian Arabs and whether they have a state. It has to do with whether the Jews can continue to have one. There is a huge amount of human energy and financial resources that are being wasted in support of the Palestinians. It wouldn’t be necessary if the world could simply get used to the idea of a Jewish state.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians, Migron, UN

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has proposed yet another investigation of Israel’s ‘crimes’, this one in respect to settlements. It passed by a vote of 36 in favor, one opposed (the US), and 10 abstentions. Israel has announced that it won’t cooperate, and is considering withdrawing its ambassador to the UN office in Geneva.

I am not particularly interested in writing another post excoriating the UNHRC or the UN itself, which is a vile institution, far less than worthless. Rather, I want to summarize some important issues about ‘West Bank settlements’ — that is, Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria — and why I support them. Here are a few reasons:

International law — and justice

The League of Nations Mandate called for ‘close settlement’ (see also here) of the land by Jews. UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 call for secure and recognized boundaries for all states in the region, including Israel, to be established by direct negotiations between the parties. Neither the Jews nor the Arab states accepted the 1949 armistice lines as borders, and the ethnic cleansing of Jews in 1948 followed by the illegal Jordanian occupation of Judea and Samaria until 1967 did not make them so. Jews lived in the territories before 1948, and have as much right to live there today as then.

The argument that the 4th Geneva Convention prohibits the transfer of Jews into ”occupied territories” fails for several reasons, including the status of the Jewish presence there and the original intent of the Geneva Convention.

The Palestinian Arabs wish to establish a state in the territories where Jews will not be permitted to live (statements to the contrary are disingenuous), indeed from which they will be expelled. This is racist.

Security

The Palestinian leadership — Hamas and the PLO — do not hide the fact that they are committed to the replacement of Israel by an Arab state. Further, Hamas’ founding principles include genocide against the Jews, arguably everywhere, not just in Palestine. The withdrawal from Gaza provides a lesson about the consequences of Palestinian sovereignty close to Israel’s population centers. The topography of the area (which contains hills overlooking Israel’s coastal plain and the Jordan valley) makes it strategically essential for the defense of the Jewish state (so is the Golan, incidentally).

There is no doubt that a Palestinian state in the territories will become a base for both terrorist and diplomatic attacks on the remaining state of Israel. The Palestinians have said so more than once. The only way to insure that they will remain in Jewish hands is to populate them with Jews.

Zionism

Judea and Samaria (and of course Jerusalem) are of paramount importance in history of the Jewish people. Although the Jewish state was founded in part to provide a place for Jews to live normal lives free of antisemitism, it was founded here and not in Africa or Siberia for a reason: to remind Jews of their history and peoplehood. This isn’t limited to religiously observant Jews, although today, unfortunately, they tend to be almost the only ones who take Jewish peoplehood seriously. But you can ask — and the Palestinians do — what would happen to Zionism and Israel without the connection to Jewish history and holy sites.

But…what about all those Arabs?

The overriding reason given by Zionist opponents to Jewish communities across the Green Line is that if Israel were to annex the territories, there would be even more Arab citizens of Israel, ultimately a majority. Israel would then be faced with the choice of maintaining its democracy, or remaining Jewish by denying Arabs the vote.

There are reasons to doubt this: the Palestinian authority lies about how many Arabs live there (what else is new), the Arab birthrate is not as high as they say and is trending lower, and the Jewish birthrate is relatively high there. But there is a much more important reason that this is not a critical issue:

There is no necessity for Israel to annex all of Judea and Samaria. The great majority of Arabs (97% or so) live in areas (designated A and B) that are under the administration of the Palestinian Authority (PA). They already have a (poorly, but that’s their problem) functioning government. There are very few Arabs in the areas where the Jewish communities are located. Israel could simply make “area C” a part of Israel, and offer citizenship to any Arabs living there.

Of course this would not make it possible for the Palestinians to have the contiguous state they claim to desire. Which brings us to the next topic:

Why should a ‘Palestinian’ state be created on the backs of the Jewish People?

Israel does not owe the Palestinian Arabs a state, in part because the Palestinian narrative in which ‘their land’ was ‘stolen’ is false, and in part because a ‘people’ whose culture is based on hatred and whose highest honors are given to the most vicious murderers are not owed anything by a civilized world.

Keep in mind that when offers of a contiguous sovereign state were made, including evacuation of many Jewish communities (2000 and 2008), they were not accepted because they did not include right of return or other conditions that were incompatible with the continued existence of a Jewish state next door.

The political organization appropriate for the Palestinian Arabs in Judea and Samaria is probably not that of a sovereign state. I believe that the best that can be offered today is some kind of autonomy, in a framework of Israeli security control.

There are other ‘peoples’ that don’t have their own state, for various reasons. There are 22 Arab states in the Middle East — all of which define themselves in ethnic or religious terms (or both), by the way. Why create yet another, at the expense of the one tiny state of the Jewish people?

Technorati Tags: Israel Palestinians, settlements

Egyptian aircraft destroyed on the ground in 1967. Is Israel changing its traditional military doctrine?

When Iron Dome was first deployed, I was concerned. Now that it has proven itself in battle, perhaps saving countless lives, I am even more concerned.

This is not to say that Israel should not add more Iron Dome and other defensive systems. Every life is valuable. But Iron Dome’s success also has a downside.

Israel’s traditional military doctrine is based on the need to defend a small nation with a small regular army and little strategic depth. For this reason, the IDF has tried to take the war to the enemy, to fight outside of Israel’s borders, and to win quickly and decisively. This doctrine also makes it possible for the IDF to fight less often, by maintaining a posture of deterrence.

A primarily defensive strategy, even if supported by effective technology, turns this doctrine upside down. And this is not reasonable, neither from a military and technological standpoint, nor from a political and psychological one.

Every advance in offensive ability, either technological or tactical, has a defensive response; which, in turn, is overtaken by new offensive capabilities. Iron Dome shoots down a remarkable percentage of short-range missiles, but at a severe economic disadvantage. It can be saturated by a massive bombardment, there can be technical failures, etc.

It is impossible to rely on defense alone, because Israel simply isn’t big enough to absorb the damage when the defensive systems are not 100% effective. More importantly, a strictly defensive posture has zero deterrent ability. Why not fire rockets at Israel if the worst that can happen is that they will get shot down?

Now of course the Israeli government and the IDF will tell you that they are not replacing the traditional aggressive doctrine with a more passive one. Did not the IDF go after rocket teams in Gaza aggressively during last week’s barrage?

Yes, it did. But the response was aimed at the smaller terrorist militias and a few of their personnel. The terrorist infrastructure in Gaza was left in place, just as Hizballah is allowed to have tens of thousands of rockets aimed at Israel and an elaborate structure of bunkers, communications systems, arms depots, etc. poised in southern Lebanon, ready to take the next war to Israeli territory. Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah has even threatened ground incursions into Israel.

Israel is not hunkering down into a totally defensive posture. But it’s impossible to doubt that a change in the balance is taking place.

To be fair to Israel’s leaders, there is enormous international pressure on Israel not to fight offensively. One of the main reasons that Operation Cast Lead was terminated without overthrowing Hamas was pressure from the incoming Obama administration. But at least the fighting was in Gaza and not in the streets of Sderot.

The Obama administration approves the idea of a primarily defensive posture for Israel, and will probably be happy to help fund additional anti-missile batteries. My guess is that if they could pass a law that would permit Jews to have only defensive, not offensive, weapons, they would do so.

Nevertheless, it is essential that Israel return to its traditional posture of preemption and aggressive defense, despite the effectiveness of its defensive technology and the pressure from outside. More important even than the military aspects are the psychological effects of the shift, both on Israelis and their enemies.

I have already mentioned the fact that a strong deterrent can obviate the need to fight at all (which is why Israel must never give up its nuclear weapons), but it is also important for the self-respect of the population. Someone who sees himself as a target, albeit a well-protected one, begins to think that he deserves to be a target — or that he should live and work somewhere else, where he would not be a target.

The much-derided concept of “the new Jew” of the early Zionists, although it had silly and misconceived aspects (like the anti-religious stream), was correct in demanding an end to the idea of the Jew as passive victim.

Israel’s enemies are strengthened when defense is overemphasized. Their contempt for Jewish victims and their belief that it’s acceptable to try to exterminate them are augmented. Jews and Israelis are different from anyone else. What happens when you shoot, for example, at Russians?

There is a media phenomenon that was prominent during the 2006 Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead, in which civilian casualties on the Arab side were exaggerated, often invented by elaborate scams. Of course part of this was simply in order to create hatred for Israel, but it was also intended to deter an active (as opposed to passive) self-defense. It may have succeeded by causing the US to ramp up pressure for a cease-fire.

IDF policy to combat this by reducing the percentage of civilian casualties is self-defeating. It can’t be 100% effective (and even if it is, the Arabs and their media supporters can invent atrocities). But insofar as it forces operations to be less aggressive in nature, it reinforces the primarily defensive posture.

This trend must be reversed. As the next war draws nearer, one hopes that Israel will strike preemptively, take the war to the enemy’s territory, and win quickly and decisively in keeping with its traditional doctrine, relegating defensive technology like Iron dome to its secondary function of protecting military bases and the home front — while the offensive capability of the IDF puts a permanent end to the threats facing the nation.

Technorati Tags: Israel, IDF, Iron Dome, deterrence, self-respect

The USS Dwight Eisenhower. Do the Iranians really want to fight the US?

AP item yesterday:

JERUSALEM – Israel views the threat posed by a nuclear-armed Iran with greater urgency than the rest of the world, Israel’s defense minister said Monday.

Ehud Barak also reiterated recent Israeli assessments that Iran’s nuclear program is on the verge of becoming immune to disruptions by a possible military strike.

New York Times item yesterday:

WASHINGTON — A classified war simulation held this month to assess the repercussions of an Israeli attack on Iran forecasts that the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead, according to American officials.

Do we have a problem here? Is the Obama Administration using its favorite mouthpiece to warn Israel that if it attacks Iran, then — as Bret Stephens put it in today’s Wall Street Journal [subscription required] — “American blood will be on [its] hands?”

Here is how it might happen, according to the leaked war game story:

The two-week war game, called Internal Look, played out a narrative in which the United States found it was pulled into the conflict after Iranian missiles struck a Navy warship in the Persian Gulf, killing about 200 Americans, according to officials with knowledge of the exercise. The United States then retaliated by carrying out its own strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Hmm, wouldn’t it be really, really stupid of the Iranians to piss off the US Navy? I think so, but the real story here is not what is theoretically possible — after all, an Iranian missile could hit a  ship of the Great Satan tomorrow, if the Iranians were that dumb.

The real story is “why is the administration helping Iran deter Israel from bombing its nuclear facilities?”

Certainly Iran has threatened that it would retaliate against an Israeli attack by attacking US forces. But actually carrying out this threat would be suicidal. Sure, the American people don’t want another extended war, but they would happily approve a punitive bombing campaign that would wipe out the nuclear program, and a bunch of other military assets.

The Iranians know this, the US administration knows this, and both sides know the other knows it. The point of the Iranian threats is not to influence our government or military, but to generate sentiment in the US against an Israeli attack and against Israel. And apparently the administration wants to help them do that, which is why they leaked this story to the Times.

I don’t know for sure what the administration’s reasoning is. Certainly their conservative Sunni allies would like to see Iran defanged. Probably the US is telling them “don’t worry, when the time comes, we’ll take care of it.”

One obvious reason is that the administration simply doesn’t want any trouble or uncertainty before the election. But the time frame involved is such that this puts Iran into Ehud Barak’s “immunity zone,” in which an Israeli attack would not be effective.

To put it another way, the US wants Israel to give up its ability to be “[master] of our fate,” in the words of PM Netanyahu, in order to help re-elect the President.

The election is not the only issue. The administration wants Israel dependent on it so that it can pressure it into making concessions to the Palestinians, so that it can realize its wish — based on ideology and an (unattainable) desire to make friends in the Muslim world — to force Israel back to 1949 lines. A triumphant Israel which has eliminated, or at least seriously delayed, the Iranian nuclear threat — and most likely also destroyed much of the capability of Hizballah — will be in a much stronger position in negotiations.

[Although the nuclear threat is more dramatic, the sword hanging over Israel’s head from the Iranian-controlled Hizballah is almost as dangerous, and more immediate. It will certainly also be a target if Israel chooses to strike Iran.]

Israel is facing one of the most difficult moments of its life. Once again, as in 1967 and other times, an Israeli PM is faced with choices that may make the difference between life and death for his nation and his people. Once again, the US is proving to be a slim reed to lean on.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Obama Administration, Iran, Hizballah, NY Times