Author: Martin Sherman

Dr. Martin Sherman (www.martinsherman.net ) is founder and executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies (www.strategicisrael.org)
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Iran & the chilling significance of the “No Alternative” argument

The attempt to justify the 2015 deal with Iran, as being the only viable alternative to allowing it to develop nuclear weapons, is both infuriating and disingenuous.

The prime minister of Israel is deeply opposed to it, I think he’s made that very clear. I have repeatedly asked, what is the alternative that you present that you think makes it less likely for Iran to get a nuclear weapon? And I have yet to obtain a good answer on that. Barack Obama, on the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Office of the White House Press Secretary, April 11, 2015.

President Obama has been crystal clear. Don’t rush. We’re not in a rush. We need to get the right deal…No deal is better than a bad deal. And we are certainly adhering to that concept.  Obama’s Secretary of State, John Kerry, “No deal is better than a bad deal”, Politico, Nov. 10, 2013.

Why would the mullahs cheat on a deal as good for them as this one?…Simply put, this is one terrific agreement for Tehran. And Iran is likely to have no interest in violating it…It’s the cruelest of ironies that Iran is reaping huge rewards for giving up something it wasn’t supposed to be doing in the first place. Aaron David Miller, “Iran’s Win-Win…Win Win Win Nuke Deal”, Daily Beast, July 20, 2015. 

The Iran nuclear deal, concluded in July 2015, was catapulted back into the headlines on Monday, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed that the Israel intelligence services had managed to spirit away a huge trove of documents from the heart of Tehran to Israel.

 

A dodgy deal, born of deception

The documents prove that, in contradiction to public declarations of it leaders, Iran had, indeed, planned to produce nuclear weapons, to develop the ability to deliver them by means of ballistic missiles, and had secretly stored the information in an undisclosed location—presumably for use at some future date, chosen by the Iranians. After all, if this was not the Iranian intent, why bother to store them at all—never mind surreptitiously conceal such storage?

Reactions to Netanyahu’s exposé ranged from the fervently enthusiastic to the dismissively blasé, with opinions being roughly divided between those who opposed the 2015 deal; and those who endorsed it—the former seeing it as a telling endorsement of their prior position, the latter, refusing to be moved by the revelations.

Those who would attempt to diminish the significance of the remarkable intelligence coup, by claiming that what Netanyahu revealed produced nothing substantially new, or anything demonstrating that Iran had breached the 2015 deal, largely miss the point.

Indeed, it is difficult to know what is worse—whether these claims by the deal’s adherents (or more accurately, apologists) are true, or whether they are not.

For if they are true, then the deal was signed with the co-signatories fully aware that the the deal was “born in sin”, and based on blatant deception and deceit on the part of the Iranians—to which they were willingly complicit. Alternatively, if they are not true, then the co-signatories were blatantly hoodwinked by Tehran, and are now disingenuously trying to deny their incompetence and gullibility.

 

“…the cruelest of ironies…”

For the real point brought home by Netanyahu’s revelation is not that the deal has been violated, but that it should never have been made in the first place. As former senior State Department official, and today Vice President at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, Aaron David Miller, points out, the absurdity of the deal is that it awards “Iran … huge rewards for giving up something it wasn’t supposed to be doing in the first place” (see introductory excerpt).

Indeed, if anything, Miller understates the absurdity.

For, in fact, the deal does not really require Iran to “give up something it wasn’t supposed to be doing in the first place”, but merely to suspend it. Worse, under the terms of the agreement, Iran was essentially allowed—even empowered—“to continue doing things it wasn’t supposed to be doing in the first place”—like developing ballistic missiles to carry nuclear war-heads, fomenting and financing terror across the globe, and effectively annexing other countries–either directly (as in Syria) or by tightly-controlled proxies (as in Lebanon).

In light of all this, the two major claims advanced by the deprecators of Netanyahu’s exposé —i.e. (a) that they heralded nothing new; and (b) indicated no breach by Iran—appear to be specious indeed.

 

Premature and prejudicial

After all, since Netanyahu divulged only a small fraction of the seized material, it is somewhat premature and prejudicial to determine whether there are any new, previously unknown elements of any consequence in it.

Moreover, as it stands at the moment, it is impossible to know whether Iran is adhering to the deal, or violating it. For it is precisely in those locations, where such violations are likely to take place—its military sites—that Iran has refused to allow inspections!

Thus, according to an August 2017 report by Reuters, Iran brusquely dismissed a U.S. demand for nuclear inspectors to visit its military bases as “merely a dream”.

When U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, pressed the IAEA to seek access to Iranian military bases to ensure that they were not concealing activities banned by the 2015 nuclear deal, an Iranian government spokesman, Mohammad Baqer Nobakht, rejected this outright: “Iran’s military sites are off limits…All information about these sites are classified. Iran will never allow such visits.”

Accordingly, given the telling evidence provided by Israel that Iran lied consistently about its weapons program in the past, and given the faulty inspection regime in place today, the cardinal question should not be whether there is any compelling proof that Iran is in breach of the nuclear deal, but whether there is any such proof that it is in compliance with it.

 

“Obama chose to ignore the peril…”

This grim assessment is underscored by an opinion piece just published by nuclear expert, Ephraim Asculai, formerly of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and today a senior Research Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies. He observes: “…the “deal” with Iran dealt only partially and temporarily with the issue of preventing Iran from accomplishing its original program”, noting that “[although]… much of the information disclosed by the prime minister was known –now it is authenticated.”

According to Asculai, “Former US President Barack Obama chose to ignore the potential… But the looming crisis did not disappear. When the term of the [deal] is up in a few years, Iran will legally resume its enrichment activities.”

He warns: “The deal was not a good one. It left Iran with the potential to resume its weapons development program at will, did not really deal with the issue of the development of the nuclear explosive mechanism, did not deal with the issue of missile development, and the verification mechanism is an inefficient one, dealing only with limited issues and not using all available inspections powers.”

Asculai acknowledges the value of Netanyahu’s presentation: “The presentation did a very important thing: it presented evidence of the technical details of Iran’s past program…that includes designs, locations and probably stocks of materials…” explaining that: “This evidence is essential if the IAEA inspectors want to verify that these are no longer active, that the materials are all accounted for and the staff are all interrogated and prove that they are not engaged in the new project.”

 

Aiding and abetting Iran’s nuclear ambitions

Asculai goes on to address Netanyahu’s critics: “From the first international reaction we learn that the general opinion was that there was no proof that Iran violated the agreement” and asks, pertinently: “[B]but is that the real issue?”

For, as he correctly notes: “Had Iran wanted to prove it had abandoned any nuclear weapons-related program it should have consented to opening up its archives, sites and materials to international inspections. It did not do this because this is not its intention”.

Asculai berates detractors of Netanyahu’s presentation and their attempt to dismiss its importance, accusing them of aiding and abetting Iran in its quest for weaponized nuclear capability: “By stating that Iran did not do wrong, these deniers are becoming accessories to its nuclear ambitions”, asking in exasperation: “Is this what they really want?”

In concluding his article, Asculai calls on Netanyahu to map out alternatives: “The prime minister should have presented the possible solutions,” and urges: “It is not too late to do so”.

Indeed, the alleged lack of an “alternative” has constituted the major thrust of the criticism of the proponents of the deal, echoing Obama’s 2015 dismissal of Netanyahu’s rejection of it: “The Prime Minister of Israel is deeply opposed to it. I think he’s made that very clear. I have repeatedly asked, what is the alternative that you present that you think makes it less likely for Iran to get a nuclear weapon, and I have yet to obtain a good answer on that.”

 

Infuriating and disingenuous

The attempt to justify the deal with Iran as being the only viable alternative to allowing the Islamic Republic to develop nuclear weapons is both infuriating and disingenuous.

It is infuriating because the very acceptance of the 2015 deal flies in the face of repeated prior commitments by the Obama administration to eschew bad deals. Indeed, as John Hannah pointed out in a scathing appraisal of the process led by Obama that culminated in the deal: “…the mantra guiding his Iran policy all along has allegedly been ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’.”

Moreover, the claim of “no alternative’ is disingenuous because it was none other than Obama, who laid out the alternative to the current deal – which assures Iran’s weaponized nuclear capability, permits the production of missiles that can threaten European capitals, provides funds to propagate terrorism and to destabilize pro-US regimes.

After all, in Obama’s own terms, the alternative was “no deal”! 

Indeed, it was not that opponents of the deal did not offer cogent alternatives.

It was that the proponents designated–and apparently still designate—anything that Iran did not agree to as “impractical” or “unfeasible”.

Clearly, if the underlying assumption is that the only “practical” option is a consensual one—i.e. one which Tehran willingly accepts; rather that a coercive one—i.e. one which Tehran is compelled to accept, say, by intensified sanctions, backed by a credible threat of military action – then the proponents of the deal might be right that there was no “available” alternative.

Making abrogation inevitable

But by this, they are cutting the ground from under their own feet—and the very logic underlying the deal they endorse.

Indeed, the very assumption that if the deal is abandoned, Iran will acquire nuclear weapons, virtually ensures that it will.

For, if the Iranian leadership believes that co-signatories were unwilling to confront a weak, impoverished, non-nuclear, pre-deal Iran with a convincing coercive threat, why would it possibly believe that they would be willing to do so with a greatly empowered and enriched, near-nuclear, post-deal Iran?

Accordingly, if the US and its allies were not willing to confront Tehran with a credible specter of punitive, coercive action, which will compel it to abandon its nuclear program, then clearly there is no inducement for it to adhere to the deal – making its future abrogation inevitable…at any time Iran deems expedient.

That is the true—and chilling—significance of the unfounded contention that there is “no other viable alternative”.

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Syria-Reaping the storm Obama sowed

If surrendering US primacy in the region to Russia was the result of US passivity and inaction, the intrusion of Iran into Syria can very definitely be attributed to ill-conceived, active American policy.

 

So rather than offer false promises…we have to take a long view of the terrorist threat, and we have to pursue a smart strategy that can be sustained…we have to draw upon the strength of our diplomacy…Just think about what we’ve done these last eight years without firing a shot…We’ve eliminated Syria’s declared chemical weapons program. – Barack Obama, Address on Counterterrorism, December 6, 2016.

 

With respect to Syria, we struck a deal where we got 100% of the chemical weapons out… – John Kerry, Obama’s Secretary of State, Meet the Press, July 20, 2014.

“We were able to find a solution that didn’t necessitate the use of force that actually removed the chemical weapons that were known from Syria, in a way that the use of force would never have accomplished. Our aim…was…to deal with the threat of chemical weapons by virtue of the diplomacy …We were able to get the Syrian government to voluntarily and verifiably give up its chemical weapons stockpile.”– Susan Rice, Obama’s National Security Advisor, NPR , January 16, 2017.

The past years have been ones of great trauma and tragedy in Syria.

Sadly, ongoing trends may well herald trauma and tragedy on even a greater scale – not only for Syria itself, but for the entire region, and well beyond.

On the cusp of catastrophic conflict

Indeed, barely five years ago, few analysts—if any—would have predicted that the world would be poised on the brink of a militarized confrontation between the US and Israel on the one hand, and Russia, Iran, Syria and possibly Turkey (perversely and paradoxically a NATO member), on the other.

Yet these are precisely the emerging contours of the conflict on whose cusp we are now perched.

Much of the blame for the unfolding drama of human misery must be laid squarely and unequivocally on Barack Obama—and his disastrous policy decisions.

The source of virtually every vector of bestial brutality that has converged on Syria in the last half-decade—and which now threaten to diverge from it and engulf others, both near and far—can be traced back to the previous administration’s foreign policy preferences.

Indeed, a straight line can be drawn from the flaccidity of the Obama positions on US military presence in Iraq and his disdainful dismissal of the threat posed by ISIS; his disregard for his own “red lines” in Syria over Assad’s use of chemical weapons, coupled with his surrender of US influence to Russia; and of course, his capitulation to the tyrannical theocrats in Tehran on Iran’s nuclear program.

After all, the substantive content of these policies were so patently divergent from their declared purpose, it is difficult to reconcile their adoption with genuine good faith—unless one assumes almost child-like naiveté or staggering ignorance, neither of which are reassuring qualities for a leader of the world’s most powerful nation.

Obama: The most Islamophilic president ever

Significantly, the consequences of Obama’s “legacy’ have been so unambiguously calamitous that even the once sycophantic Obama-phile, Jeffrey Goldberg, penned an article (The Atlantic, April 7, 2017), disapprovingly headlined: The Obama Doctrine, R.I.P. With uncharacteristic acerbity for someone once so unreservedly supportive of the former president, Goldberg admits: “The 2013 Obama-Putin deal to disarm Assad of his chemical weapons was a failure… The argument that Obama achieved comprehensive WMD disarmament without going to war is no longer, as they say in Washington, operative.”

However, I hesitate to deem these decisions “errors of judgement”, for the really disturbing thing about Obama’s foreign policy is that it is difficult to know whether the appalling outcomes they produced were the result of well-intentioned, but unintended, blunders—or of malevolent and deliberate intent.

For whatever one might believe regarding Barack Obama’s genuine religious affiliation, one thing is beyond any honest dispute: He is without doubt the most Islamophilic president to ever to hold office, unabashedly unmoored to the bollards of the Judeo-Christian legacy that has underpinned—indeed, shaped—the character of the United States since its inception. This undoubtedly colored his view of America’s national interests and the appropriate manner in which they ought to be pursued, in hues very different from any other White House incumbent.

“…Muslims built our tallest building”

Thus, in his seminal outreach address in Cairo (June 2009) to the Muslim world, which in many ways laid the corner-stone for the subsequent orientation of his administration’s foreign policy, Obama, with scant historical corroboration to back himself up, declared: “I…know that Islam has always been a part of America’s story”—adding somewhat incongruously “…Muslims have enriched the United States …They have [among other things] built our tallest building”…just a few years after Muslims knocked down two of America’s tallest buildings. No kidding!

He then proceeded to draw a highly questionable equivalence between the ethos of the US and that of Islam: “America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles — principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”

Just how ludicrous his alleged parallel is, is something I have dealt with elsewhere –see Will the West Withstand the Obama Presidency?, and will thus forego any further elaboration here. However, it would be imprudent to ignore how this clearly articulated perspective impacted his policy-making.

Few have expressed what effect this overtly professed proclivity in Obama’s political credo (conveyed in his 2009 Cairo address) had on his administration’s ensuing foreign policy more succinctly than former Israeli ambassador to the US, Michael Oren.

From Cairo 2009 to Syria 2018

In a 2015 “Foreign Policy” essay, Oren excoriates Obama’s “naiveté as peacemaker, blinders to terrorism, and alienation of allies.”

Referring to Obama’s Cairo speech and other similar remarks made at the start of his incumbency, Oren observes: “These pronouncements presaged what was, in fact, a profound recasting of U.S. policy.”

He recounts that whenever leaders “ were perplexed by the administration’s decision to restore diplomatic ties with Syria — severed by Bush after the assassination of Lebanese president Rafik Hariri — or its early outreach to Libya and Iran, I would always refer them to that text. When policymakers back home failed to understand why Obama stood by Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who imprisoned journalists and backed Islamic radicals, or Mohamed Morsi, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and briefly its president, I would invariably say: ‘Go back to the speech.’ ”

In the essay, written barely a month before the July 2015 deal struck with Iran, Oren berates Obama’s “unique approach to Islam”, and his “assumption that a nuclear deal with Iran will render it ‘a very successful regional power’ capable of healing, rather than inflaming, historic schisms”, adding dryly: “That assumption was scarcely shared by Sunni Muslims, many of whom watched with deep concern at what they perceived as an emerging U.S.-Iranian alliance.”

“The Terrible Cost of Obama’s Failure in Syria”

The utter failure of the Obama doctrine can no longer be papered over. Its calamitous consequences are now beginning to be openly acknowledged in the mainstream media.

Thus, earlier this month, a withering review of what Obama has helped wreak in Syria appeared in “The Atlantic”—where the once obsequious Goldberg is Editor-in-Chief—under the caustic title “The Terrible Cost of Obama’s Failure in Syria”, detailing the atrocities inflicted on the civilian population since the administration’s glowing predictions that “we struck a deal where we got 100% of the chemical weapons out”.

But as tragic as the wholesale slaughter of civilians by Assad—once considered a “reformer”—are, there are many other grave, more strategic ramifications of the now widely discredited Obama doctrine.

The failure to assess the true nature of the threat ISIS posed in Iraq allowed the civil war there to spill over into Syria, compounding the carnage there. The uncontrolled escalation of fighting—and the absence of any US initiative to reign in Assad’s brutality—led to massive flows of refugees fleeing into Turkey and from there, into Europe—precipitating massive socio-cultural tensions across the continent, and threatening to undermine much of the domestic societal fabric.

Moreover, much like nature, politics abhors a vacuum. So when US reticence created a power vacuum in Syria, it was Putin and the Ayatollahs who were only too eager to fill it.

Freeing the Iranian tyranny from its bonds

But if surrendering US primacy in the region to Russia was the result of US passivity and inaction, the intrusion of Iran into Syria and the establishment of an ominous military presence there, together with the threat of a Shi’ite land bridge, linking Iran to the Mediterranean Coast, can very definitely be attributed to ill-conceived, active American policy.

After all, the current Iranian brazenness in Syria (and other portions of the region) would be inconceivable without the 2015 nuclear deal, ushered in by the Obama administration. Indeed, it is difficult to envisage the Iranian regime, prior to the deal, crippled by sanctions and deprived of assets, being able to orchestrate its current provocative mischief. The Obama orchestrated deal freed it from these inhibiting constraints and allowed it to pursue its global agenda of terror and aggression.

For in reality, there were only two ways to effectively restrain Tehran, force it to dismantle and discard its nuclear program, and to curtail its promotion of international terror.

In the short run, this involved maintaining—even tightening—the sanctions, which brought it to the negotiating table in the first place, backed up by a credible threat of military action against Iranian infrastructure—its dams, bridges, power plants and its tele-communication installations—in the case of continued defiance.

In the longer run, Iranian compliance with acceptable international norms can only be assured by regime-change—and replacement of the current tyrannical theocracy by rulers not driven the will to impose its fanatical brand of Islam across the globe.

Tyranny empowered, enriched & entrenched

Sadly, Obama obviated both these possibilities.

By unequivocally taking the military option off the table and relinquishing his pledge that “no deal is better than a bad deal”, he left Tehran secure in the knowledge that if the West backed away from the use of force against a weak, impoverished, non-nuclear Iran, there was little chance of it being adopted later, against a stronger, richer nuclear Iran.

Secondly, by abolishing the sanctions and freeing billions of Iranian assets, Obama empowered the current regime militarily, enriched it economically, and entrenched it politically. Thus, he inevitably made any chance of regime-change commensurately more remote.

Accordingly, without any real threat to its grip on power, the ruling tyranny was left unencumbered to pursue its malevolent designs in Syria; and together with the Russians, prop up their puppet, Assad, while developing a military presence to threaten Israel, and enhance its hegemonic aspirations across the Mid-East and beyond.

This is clearly a situation which Israel cannot tolerate, bringing the potential for large-scale militarized confrontation perilously close.

The bitter fruits of appeasement

The last great global conflict was the result of appeasement—and the attempt to assuage tyranny by concessions. In the aftermath of the Obama era, we are left to hope that yet another ill-advised attempt to appease tyranny will not precipitate yet another human catastrophe.

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Gaza – The collapse of “the land-for-peace” concept

Israel must convey that it will consider the continuation of the “March of Return” an overt act of war, and all the participants in it, enemy combatants—who must expect to face all the risks that entails.

… this wasn’t a fight against the occupation. This wasn’t a march for peace. This wasn’t resistance to the settlement enterprise. This was…the desire to annihilate Israel—as the march’s organizers publicly declared—and the crazy shouting of the march’s participants. “Khaybar Khaybar, ya yahud,” which is the Muslim battle cry, from days of old, to slaughter Jews. Not Zionists. Not Israelis. Jews. – Ben Dror Yemini, YNet, April 4, 2018.

The mass demonstrations that took place over the weekend on the fence separating Gaza from Israel, underscores two points of grave significance. The one relates to past decisions made by Israel; the other to future ones it will have to make.

With regard to the past, it is clear that the formula of land-for-peace has failed dramatically, disastrously and definitively.

“Land-for-peace” has failed both Jew and Arab

After all, it was in Gaza that the misguided experiment of attempting to foist self-rule on the Palestinian-Arabs was initiated with Yasser Arafat’s triumphant return to the coastal enclave in July 1994, amid much fanfare and international acclaim.

The events of last Friday have proven just how unfounded the high hopes of peace and prosperity, back then, were. For the process that was set in motion in mid-1994 has-predictably—brought only trauma and tragedy to Jew and Arab alike, precipitating three devastating wars, with a fourth widely deemed inevitable.

However, although it has imposed several serious security challenges on Israel—such as suicide bombing, overhead rockets, underground terror tunnels, lone-wolf knifing and ramming attacks—what it has wrought on the Palestinian-Arabs is far worse—particularly in Gaza, where it all began.

With frequent and extended power outages, soaring unemployment, pervasive penury, undrinkable water, polluted beaches and awash in flows of raw sewage, the largely destitute Gazan population has been the real victim of two-statism and the ill-conceived initiative to grant them political sovereignty. To make matters even worse, the head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, locked in a fierce power struggle with Hamas that (mis)governs Gaza, is threatening to make the situation of the hapless Gazans even more desperate—by further cutting off funds to reduce electric power, food and medical supplies.

So almost a quarter-century since the Oslo Accords were signed, allowing self-rule to the Gazan-Arabs, and well over a decade after Israel completely evacuated the Gaza Strip, removing any remnant of Jewish presence, all the perversely named “peace process” has produced is hordes of Gazans, tens of thousands strong, massing at the border, egged on by their leaders to obliterate Israel—within the pre-“occupation” borders—in what was dubbed the “March of Return”.

A March to destroy Israel

This was clearly articulated in the fiery proclamation by the head of Hamas, Yihya Sinwar, who vowed: “The ‘March of Return’ will continue. It will not stop until we remove this transient border. Friday’s protests mark the beginning of a new phase in the Palestinian national struggle on the road to liberation…and the return of the Palestinian refugees and their descendants to their former homes inside Israel…”

He continued, declaring “The ‘March of Return’ affirms that our people cannot give up one inch of the land of Palestine … The protests will continue until the Palestinians return to the lands from which they were expelled 70 years ago”.

The reference to erasing the “transient border” between Gaza and pre-1967 Israel, to the “return of the Palestinian refugees and their descendants to their former homes inside Israel and…the lands from which they were expelled 70 years ago” removes any doubt as to the purpose of the so-called “March of Return”.

For this clearly indicates that the sense of “grievance” that the March is intended to address is not any alleged injustice due to the “Occupation” (which began in 1967, just over 50 years ago) but the existence of Israel as a Jewish state (established in 1948 i.e.–70 years ago).

Thus as Gatestone’s Bassam Tawil aptly points out in his “A March to Destroy Israel”: “Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yehya Sinwar… did not hide the real goal behind the ‘March of Return’—to destroy Israel”.

Significantly, Tawil’s grim diagnosis closely reflects the appraisal by left-leaning columnist Ben-Dror Yemini (see introductory excerpt) that the March was a manifestation of the “the desire to annihilate Israel—and.. to slaughter Jews. Not Zionists. Not Israelis. Jews”

“We will eat the livers of the Jews”

Israel can ill-afford to treat the “March” as anything less ominous—especially in light of the manifest resolve to continue—even, escalate—the hostile rally on the border. Indeed, recent reports suggest that the participants will attempt to obscure the vision of the IDF forces with smoke screens produced by burning huge quantities of old tires and blinding IDF sharpshooters with mirrors and lasers, to allow rioters to breach the fence, undetected.

One needs little imagination to picture the ghastly consequences should even a tiny fraction of the frenzied mob, pressing against the fence, were to burst through and overrun a single Israeli community close to the border, butchering the residents, ravaging the women, and razing the homes. After all, it was none other than Sinwar himself who unabashedly pledged publicly that the invading Gazans would “eat the livers” of Israelis they encountered.

Clearly, Israel cannot afford to treat this initiative to launch a popular invasion of its sovereign territory with anything other than zero tolerance. For even the perception of partial Palestinian success is likely to ignite similar mass marches in Judea-Samaria, on Israel’s northern border and even among Israeli Arabs in the Galilee, the Ara Valley and the Negev.

Misguided moderation

In confronting this impending danger, Israel must avoid the intellectual pitfall of thinking that matters can be contained by adopting moderation as a policy guideline. Quite the reverse is true. Nothing could coax the Palestinian-Arabs more into sustaining and escalating their action than the belief that Israel’s response will be “moderate” a.k.a. proportionate. Indeed, nothing could motivate them more than the conviction that Israel will refrain from undertaking punitive measures that will inflict unacceptable – a.k.a.
disproportionate—cost on them.

One only need look at how the Gazans have enhanced their capabilities in rocketry and tunnel excavation to understand how grave the peril will be if they are allowed to persist, unchecked, in their new stratagem of popular invasions of Israel. Thus, Israel’s response must be determined by the overall potential threat entailed in such attempted invasions, not by the specific actions of the participants on any given day—just as its response to Hamas’s attempt to develop missile capability should have been determined by the overall potential threat entailed in it amassing of a vast arsenal of such weapons, not by the damage caused by the firing of several rockets on any given day.

How different Israel’s situation would be today if it had followed this recommendation. How dire it will be if it fails to follow it regarding the future threat.

Avoiding the prognosis of the “algorithm”

There is a conceptual “algorithm” that clearly illustrates why moderation will propel the conflict to spiral out of control, into levels of violence previously unimagined—or at least into levels of violence well above those that moderation was intended to prevent.

For if one is confronted by violence from hostile antagonists, and one confronts it with minimal force to contain it, the result will not create deterrence but only immunize the aggressors against fear of their opponents’ response and motivate them to initiate greater violence in the next round—which, if again, is only confronted by minimal force, will again not deter but only immunize against fear and herald yet another round of (greater) violence.

Thus, over time, the tit-for-tat exchange of moderate responses, in which the aggressors are secure in the knowledge that they will suffer only costs they are prepared to bear, will escalate to degrees previously unforeseen.

Indeed, only if the aggressors believe that their adversary will respond with massive, disproportionate force, and they will suffer unacceptable losses, are they likely to refrain from launching their initial hostilities.

Clearly then, moderation is liable to undermine deterrence and precipitate the very outcome it was intended to prevent.

“March” is an act of war; the participants, enemy combatants

Clearly, Israel cannot allow the sustained specter of large, potentially violent—even lethal—mass demonstrations to endure for long. After all, this will inevitably draw off and pin down large numbers of troops, which will severely disrupt other IDF activities. This could obviously be used as a distraction or diversion to facilitate perpetration of other terror activities.

Accordingly, Israel must convey, unambiguously, that it will consider the continuation of the “March of Return” an overt act of war and all the participants in it, enemy combatants—who must expect to face all the risks that this entails.

Only by sending this clear and unequivocal message, only by credibly conveying that it has the resolve to act on it, will Israel be able to avoid allowing the current crisis to degenerate into an untenable strategic threat.

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Lauder’s lame lament

According to Ronald Lauder, Israel must be either perilously insecure; or demographically untenable. This is an utterly false dichotomy.

“…the Jewish democratic state faces two grave threats that I believe could endanger its very existence…The first threat is the possible demise of the two-state solution…The second, two-prong threat, is Israel’s capitulation to religious extremists and the growing disaffection of the Jewish diaspora.” – Ronald S. Lauder, New York Times, March 18, 2018.

Earlier this week the president of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald Lauder, published an Op-Ed in the New York Times, entitled Israel’s Self-Inflicted Wounds.

In it, he made a bewildering claim.

Lauder’s bewildering call for homophobic, misogynistic tyranny

According to Lauder, Israel can only remain a democratic Jewish state if it agrees—with some yet-to-be-identified amenable Palestinian-Arab—to establish what almost inevitably would be—if past precedent, prevailing reality and future projection are any criterion—a homophobic, misogynistic Muslim majority tyranny, on the highlands overlooking Israel’s densely populated coastal plain, dominating its only international airport, and abutting major transportation routes.

If, indeed, Lauder believes that some future Palestinian state would be anything other than said homophobic, misogynistic tyranny, with most of population drenched in inciteful, Judeocidal hatred, he never bothered to indicate that—and certainly never provided any persuasive argument, why he felt that this would be the case.

This is, to say the least, disturbing.

After all, there is little reason to surmise that once the IDF pulls out of Judea-Samaria, what happened before—every time Israel vacated territory—will not happen again.

Regrettably, Lauder seems to blithely ignore the catastrophic consequences that resulted from doing precisely what he proposes… in Gaza—where the ill-conceived effort of trying to foist self-governance on the Palestinian-Arabs culminated not only in a grave security threat to Israel, precipitating three mini-wars, but also a grave humanitarian crisis for the hapless residents of that coastal enclave.

Endorsing a mega-Gaza on the fringes of Greater Tel Aviv

As a result, not only Hamas and its murderous Jihadi surrogates have weapons that can reach Greater Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion Airport, but Israel is now compelled to construct a massive barrier along the 50 kms border with Gaza, reportedly 6 m above ground to prevent surface infiltration by terrorists; and 40 meters underground to prevent sub-surface infiltration via terror tunnels.

The construction of this barrier was deemed by IDF’s Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, “the largest project” ever carried out in Israel’s military history.

There is, as mentioned, little reason to believe that if the IDF were to evacuate Judea-Samaria to facilitate the implementation of the two-state formula, the resultant realities would not follow the same path as Gaza. Significantly, the proponents of such evacuation, Lauder included, have not—and cannot—provide any persuasive assurance that it will not. Certainly, such an outcome cannot be discounted as totally implausible—and hence must be factored into Israel’s strategic planning as a possibility with which it may well have to contend.

Accordingly, if Israel’s evacuation of Gaza gave rise to the need to build a multi-billion shekel above- and below-ground barrier to protect the sparsely populated, largely rural south, surely the evacuation of Judea-Samaria is likely to give rise to a need to construct a similar barrier to protect the heavily populated, largely urban areas, which would border the evacuated territories.

Gaza vs Judea-Samaria: The daunting difference

There would, however, be several significant differences.

For, unlike Gaza, which has a 50 km border with Israel, any prospective Palestinian-Arab entity of the kind Lauder envisions in Judea-Samaria, would have a frontier of anything up to 500 km—and possibly more, depending on the exact parameters of the evacuated areas.

Moreover, unlike Gaza, which has no topographical superiority over its surrounding environs, the limestone hills of Judea-Samaria dominate virtually all of Israel’s major airfields (civilian and military); main seaports and naval bases; vital infrastructure installations (power generation and transmission, water, communications and transportation systems); centers of civilian government and military command; and 80 percent of the civilian population and commercial activity.

Under these conditions, demilitarization is virtually irrelevant—as illustrated by the allegedly “demilitarized” Gaza. For even in the absence of a conventional air-force, navy, and armor, lightly armed renegades with improvised weapons could totally disrupt the socioeconomic routine of the nation at will, with or without the complicity of the incumbent regime, which, given its despotic nature, would have little commitment to the welfare of the average citizen.

Faced with this grim prospect, any Israeli government would either have to resign itself to recurring paralysis of the economy, mounting civilian casualties and the disruption of life in the country, or respond repeatedly with massive retaliation, with the attendant collateral damage among the non-belligerent Palestinian-Arab population, and international condemnation of its use of allegedly “disproportionate force.”

By ballot or bullet?

But it is not only demilitarization that is largely irrelevant.

So too is the alleged sincerity of any prospective Palestinian “peace partner”. For whatever the deal Lauder envisions being struck, its durability cannot be assured.

Indeed, even in the unlikely event of some Palestinian, with the requisite authority and sincerity to conclude a binding deal with Israel, did emerge, he clearly could be removed from power – by ballot or bullet – as the Gaza precedent clearly demonstrates. All the perilous concessions made to him, on the assumption of his sincerity, would then accrue to a far more inimical successor, whose political credo is likely to be based on reneging on commitments made to the “heinous Zionist entity.”

Accordingly, there is every reason to believe—and precious little not to—that any Palestinian state established in any area evacuated by Israel would—sooner or later—degenerate into a menacing giant Gaza-like entity overlooking greater Tel Aviv—with all the attendant perils such an outcome would entail.

In the past few days, a new danger, spawned by two-statism, has emerged in Gaza—the specter of mass marches of tens of thousands towards the fence separating Gaza from Israel. According to Ehud Yaari, an international fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the objective of such Hamas marches is “clearly an attempt to break through the fences, and they are ready to tolerate losses…”

In another analysis of the planned march, Jonathan Halevi warned that the organizers have been “authorized to decide for the mob to break through the border fence between Gaza and Israel, and they have hinted at their intention to issue such an order.”

The menace of mass marches

Halevi points out that the “national committee” for the “march of return” is led by one of the leaders of Islamic Jihad in Gaza, and comprises various nationalist and Islamic organizations, including political movements such as Fatah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad.

According to Halevi, the committee coordinates its activities with Palestinian organizations in Judea-Samaria that are planning to organize similar “marches of return”, whose avowed strategic goal is the realization of the “right of return” of Palestinian refugees from 1948 and their descendants.

Clearly, if such marches do take place, Israel and its military will be put in an unenviable (to greatly understate matters) predicament—having to choose between mowing down large numbers of (largely unarmed) civilians and being inundated with international censure and possibly sanctions; or allowing frenzied mobs to overrun and ravage Israeli towns, villages and farming communities located close to the border, and to raze their homes, rape their women and butcher their residents.

Is Lauder seriously suggesting that Israel evacuate more territory to afford the Palestinian-Arabs greater freedom to conduct such pernicious and potentially lethal rallies??

After all, for two-statism to work, the Palestinian-Arabs will have to morph into something that they have not been for over a hundred years. There is, however, not a shred of evidence that they are likely to do so within any foreseeable time frame. To the contrary, as time progresses, such metamorphosis seems increasingly remote.

Lauder professes deep love for Israel. So one can only scratch one’s head in bewilderment as to why he would urge “our beloved nation” to pursue a path that has proved so perilous in the past—with little reason for it to be any less so in the future.

“Capitulation to religious extremists”? Give us a break, Ron!

The second purported mortal threat that Lauder sees imperiling Israel’s existence is its alleged “capitulation to religious extremists” and “the growing disaffection of the Jewish diaspora”.

As for Israel capitulating to religious extremism, Lauder charges: “…the spread of state-enforced religiosity in Israel is turning a modern, liberal nation into a semi-theocratic one”.

On this, allow me, as a decidedly non-observant Jew, to blurt out: Give us a break Ron!

After all, for anyone remotely familiar with the realities of Israeli society—the glut of seafood restaurants offering their fare on Friday nights, the congested highways on Saturdays, the throngs of shoppers flocking to the crowded department stores and coffee shops open on the Sabbath, the skimpy bikinis on crowded beaches over the weekend, the carnal content freely available in the national media—this is clearly complete claptrap.

Indeed, the overwhelmingly greater part of everyday life in Israel is such that most non-Orthodox Jews would feel entirely comfortable here. Any discomfort some might sense would probably be because they occasionally find some of it overly licentious, rather than restrictively puritan.

It is of course, true that Orthodox Jewry does have a monopoly of certain official and ceremonial aspects of Jewish life. But that has always been the case and is hardly an alarming new development, indicating that Israel is sliding from being a modern, liberal nation into a semi-theocratic one.

How the two-state dogma empowers religious Orthodoxy

Quite the opposite. The current situation reflects the outcome of the workings of Israeli democracy, not Israeli theocracy. It is the consequence of the power structure determined by free and fair elections and not the diktat of some authoritarian high priest, ensconced by divine decree.

In this regard, little analysis is required to discover a crucial, but seldom recognized, truth regarding the socio-political realities in Israel. Virtually all the political power of the religious parties is a direct result of the political schism between the secular parties over the issue of two-statism. For it is only because of the intra-secular rivalry over the appropriate territorial dimensions of Israel that give the religious parties their hold over “the balance of power” and allow them to wring disproportionate political gains from their coalition partners—much in the same way as Avigdor Liberman’s stridently secular Yisrael Beitainu faction managed to coerce Netanyahu into giving him the defense portfolio.

After all, not a single piece of religious legislation has ever been passed in the Knesset without overwhelmingly more secular MKs voting for it than religious MKs.

Accordingly, if Lauder wishes to break the power of the Orthodox factions in the Knesset, all he need to do is this: Urge the left-leaning secular parties to forsake the fatally flawed and failed formula of two-statism and the disproven land-for-peace doctrine on which it is based, to allow a unified secular bloc in the Knesset, which could operate freely without “extortion” from the Orthodox parties, who would no longer hold the balance of power.

Simple really. Merely elementary arithmetic.

Lauder’s false dichotomy

Lauder presents his reader with a stark choice, claiming: “…13 million people live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. And almost half of them are Palestinian…If current trends continue, Israel will face a stark choice: Grant Palestinians full rights and cease being a Jewish state or rescind their rights and cease being a democracy”.

He thus concluded: “To avoid these unacceptable outcomes, the only path forward is the two-state solution.”

Even without engaging him on his demographic assessments and projections, this is a wildly misleading representation of reality and an utterly false dichotomy.

For there is a way to retain Israeli democracy while avoiding the territorial peril entailed in the two-state formula, and the demographic dangers entailed in enfranchising the enemy.

This is the Humanitarian Paradigm on which I have written frequently— and which entails initiating incentivized emigration of the Arab residents in Judea-Samaria through a comprehensive system of enticing incentives for leaving and daunting disincentives for staying.

I would urge Lauder to familiarize himself with the details of this paradigm. Indeed, I am sure he will soon discover—as I have shown elsewhere—that it is the most humane policy option if it succeeds, and the least inhumane if it does not. Perhaps then, he will be able to abandon his false dichotomy and adopt an alternative that addresses both Israel’s geographic and demographic needs—without forsaking its democracy.

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AIPAC and the progressives “uncompelling” case

In pursuit of bipartisanship AIPAC should strive to persuade “progressives”, not pander to them”; to convert them, not coopt them.

The progressive narrative for Israel is just as compelling and critical as the conservative one – AIPAC PresidentMort Fridman, March 5, 2018.

Almost two weeks have passed since the last AIPAC conference and much of the Israel advocacy world is still abuzz over the brouhaha created by the explicit endorsement by the organization’s leadership of two-statism—a position out of step with that of the current governments of both the US and Israel—who, at best, pay highly dubious lip service to the idea.  

 

An ill-founded & ill-advised call.

In several respects the uproar is a little surprising. After all, almost identical sentiments were expressed by senior AIPAC officials at last year’s conference.

Thus, mid- way through his 2017 address, AIPAC CEO Howard Kohr called on the US to undertake “steps [that] could…create a climate that encourages the Palestinians to negotiate in pursuit of the goal we desire: a Jewish state of Israel living side by side in peace and security with a demilitarized Palestinian state ”.

This of course is virtually indistinguishable from the contentious call he made mid-way through his address this year, proclaiming: “We must all work toward that future: two states for two peoples. One Jewish with secure and defensible borders, and one Palestinian with its own flag and its own future.”

Last year, the alleged rationale of the embrace of the two-state formula was the endeavor to cultivate bipartisan support for Israel by avoiding alienating Democrats in Congress, who tend to support the idea.

This year, the professed rationale was essentially similar, with a slight shift of emphasis from retaining support of Democrat legislators to retaining the membership of “progressive” Jews from whom the two-state paradigm has almost sacred significance.

It is a call that was ill-founded and ill-advised last year—and is no less ill-founded and ill-advised this year.

 

Touting tyranny in pursuit of bipartisanship?

Indeed, immediately following the 2017 conference I published a column entitled, AIPAC – Touting tyranny in pursuit of bipartisanship, .

In it, I urged that “Instead of trying to resurrect the decrepit zombie of two-statism in pursuit of bipartisanship, AIPAC would do better to assist in promoting Zionist-compliant alternatives.”

After all, as I pointed out, as important as bipartisanship is, it is in fact a means to achieving a goal – not a goal in itself—and it is crucial that this distinction be kept clearly in mind.

Thus, in his 2017 address, Kohr declared: “…we are here because we are the bipartisan voice in America needed to help keep Israel safe in a dangerous world.

It is clear therefore that AIPAC’s objective is “keeping Israel safe in a dangerous world” and bipartisanship, a means to achieve it.

In my previous INTO THE FRAY column, I posted several graphic photos, showing how hopelessly vulnerable Israel would be if it relinquished the highlands of Judea-Samaria—the territory earmarked for a future Palestinian state—to Arab control.

They dramatically underscored how setting up such a state would make “keeping Israel safe” immensely more difficult and its world, vastly more “dangerous”—which also makes AIPAC’s endorsement of two-statism starkly self-contradictory—even self-obstructive.

 

Dangers dramatically depicted.

Significantly, these dangers were vividly articulated by none other than the late Shimon Peres in his Oslo-era book, “The New Middle East” (1993): “Even if the Palestinians agree that their state have no army or weapons, who can guarantee that a Palestinian army would not be mustered later to encamp at the gates of Jerusalem and the approaches to the lowlands? And if the Palestinian state would be unarmed, how would it block terrorist acts perpetrated by extremists, fundamentalists or irredentists?

Doesn’t get much clearer than that.

This echoes an earlier warning which Peres issued a decade-and-a half earlier, cautioningt: “The major issue is not [attaining] an agreement, but ensuring the actual implementation of the agreement in practice. The number of agreements which the Arabs have violated is no less than number which they have kept”. (Tomorrow is Now, Jerusalem: Keter, 1978, p. 48).

One can hardly believe that there is any cause for enhanced belief in Arab credibility since then—given the myriad of subsequent Arab breaches of agreements.

Accordingly, rather than endorsing the two-state formula in an effort to entice liberal leaning legislators to support Israel and to persuade progressive Jews to persist in their membership of the organization, AIPAC should embark on a totally different course

 

A particularly perverse political paradox

However, it is not only in the realm of security that promoting the two-state principle is counter-productive for AIPAC. If anything the moral case for rejecting it even more compelling.

Thus, perhaps one of the most perverse political paradoxes that prevails in the discourse on the Israel-Palestine conflict is the support of those who profess to cherish liberal values for the establishment of yet another homophobic, misogynistic Muslim-majority tyranny, whose hallmarks would be gender bias against women/girls, persecution of homosexuals, the prosecution of political dissidents and religious intolerance against non-Muslim faiths.

Indeed, no two-stater has, to the best of my knowledge, ever advanced a persuasive argument why the entity, which two-state advocates endorse, will be anything but the antithesis of the very values they invokes for its establishment.

Accordingly, given past precedents, present realities and future projections, it is difficult to see how two-state advocacy is anything other the endorsement of the establishment of a mega-Gaza overlooking greater Tel Aviv (see here) dominating Israel’s only international airport (see here) and abutting its major transport axes (see here). .

So unless one assumes the wildly improbable, implementation of the two-state principle—and the establishment of a Palestinian state—will culminate in realities that are the utter negation of the very values for which it was purportedly supported.

This is something that AIPAC must seriously consider in assessing its support of two-statism. For in its quest for bipartisanship by strongly endorsing the perverse two-state prescription in order to mollify miffed Democrats, AIPAC is in fact….

How should I put this? Touting tyranny?

 

Gaza: The ghoulish gruesome culmination of two-statism

Just how delusional and detached from reality “progressive” support for two-statism is, was underscored earlier this week by an attempt by unknown assailants to assassinate the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority who was visiting Gaza for the inauguration of a new, foreign funded water purification plant.

The event further underscored—if any additional proof were required—just how little progress has been made over the last quarter century in advancing the cause of Palestinian nationhood.

Indeed, despite:

– virtually worldwide political endorsement of their cause,

– highly favorable international media coverage,

– massive financial aid; and

– numerous compliant Israeli governments,

all the Palestinians have managed to establish is a corrupt kleptocracy in Judea-Samaria and a tyrannical theocracy in Gaza, with a dysfunctional polity—which, for over a decade, has been unable to conduct proper municipal elections, never mind legislative or presidential ones; and a feeble economy—crippled by corruption and cronyism with a bloated public sector and a miniscule private one, utterly dependent on foreign aid.

Nowhere is the appalling failure more evident than in Gaza, where the ill-fated experiment of foisting self-governance on the hapless Palestinian-Arabs was first attempted—amid much fanfare and celebration.

The dismal results are not difficult to discern.

Awash in flows of raw sewage, with virtually all natural sources of water undrinkable, with perennial and prolonged power outages disrupting the regular operation of desalination and water purification plants, with polluted beaches becoming a grave public health hazard, and with much of the enclave’s resources being diverted from the civilian sector to building military infrastructure to battle the hated “Zionist entity”—the outlook for the average Gazan looks bleak indeed, with little hope of any respite on the horizon.

For this, Gazans have two-staters—and two-staters alone—to blame.

 

The “progressives” utterly un-compelling narrative.

The jury is no longer out on two-statism!

When it first became the centerpiece of Israel’s Mid-East policy, back in the early 1900s—after being considered border-line treason for decades—there were two-state proponents, who promised that sweeping benefits would be reaped; and two-state opponents who warned of the dire dangers it would wreak.

Today—a quarter century later—the results are unequivocal. None of the benefits, which the proponents promised, have been fulfilled, while all the dangers, of which the opponents warned, have indeed materialized.

Thousands of Jews and Arabs have paid with their lives and limbs on the altar of the false deity of “progressive” political correctness.

So when the AIPAC president declares that “The progressive narrative for Israel is just as compelling…as the conservative one”, it it difficult to know on what he bases such a contention. For it is demonstrably untrue.

It is—to be charitable—un-compelling in terms of its security implications for Israel. It is un-compelling in terms of its moral ramifications. It is un-compelling in terms of its political pretensions. It is un-compelling in terms of its socio-economic outcomes—just ask the folk in Gaza.   After, all it is they who bear the full brunt of “progressive” two-statism

 

Progressive poppycock

In a recent article, threateningly titled, AIPAC won’t win back progressives until it faces hard truths about Israel, two professed progressives, Jeremy Ben-Ami and Jill Jacobs, write: “the argument that ‘Israel’s security cannot be fully ensured and its promise cannot be fully realized until she is at peace with all her neighbors,’ which AIPAC’s CEO Howard Kohr shared with the crowd during his welcoming remarks, is one that we have each made time and again.”

Could it be that the authors are trapped in a time warp! Apparently they haven’t heard that Israel is doing fine in “realizing its promise”. On the cutting edge of nearly every field of human endeavor, with its GDP per capita overtaking a number of  EU countries, its technology sought after worldwide, expanding its influence and exports in Asia and Africa…

Of course it would be more than intriguing how they would recommend Israel reach peace with all its neighbors. By surrendering the Golan to Syria?? (Just as well the “progressives didn’t prevail on that score). By withdrawing from Gaza and removing every vestige of Jewish presence. (Oh Yes. We did that.) Or by withdrawing to the international border with Lebanon (Drat! That didn’t work). Or by evacuating the entire Sinai—now being taken over by brutal Jihadi gangs?

Indeed, in the face of blatant balderdash, it is becoming increasingly difficult to reconcile calls for embracing a progressive narrative with genuine concern for the well-being of the Jewish nation-state—at least on planet Earth.

Persuade rather than pander; convert rather than coopt

As I mentioned earlier, the pursuit of bipartisanship is a worthy goal for AIPAC—but not if it means sacrificing its core mission to “help keep Israel safe in a dangerous world”.

Thus, in its endeavor to achieve its goal of bipartisan support for Israel, AIPAC should focus efforts on persuading “progressives” to forsake their regressive two-state agenda, rather than pandering to them by embracing it.

By highlighting two-statism’s perilous security implications, its pernicious moral ramifications and calamitous socio-economic consequences, AIPAC should convince “progressives” that two-statism is the utter negation of all the values they purport to cherish, and will result in precisely the realities they would wish to avoid.

Accordingly, AIPAC should seek bipartisanship by converting progressives—not co-opting them.

That is the only way its leadership can save this proud organization from sinking into irrelevance.