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Martin Sherman

Dr. Martin Sherman (www.martinsherman.net ) is founder and executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies (www.strategicisrael.org)

Politics

Obama: Worse than Chamberlain?

by Martin Sherman
written by Martin Sherman

“Iran will become a nuclear power. The only mystery over how that will happen is whether Obama was inept or whether he deliberately sought to make the theocracy…strategic power.”- Victor Davis Hanson

In its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, even as it was funneling cocaine into the United States…Meanwhile, Hezbollah — in league with Iran — continues to undermine U.S. interests in Iraq, Syria and throughout wide swaths of Latin America and Africa, including providing weapons and training to anti-American Shiite militias – Josh Meyer, The secret backstory of how Obama let Hezbollah off the hook, Politico, Dec. 18, 2017.

It is becoming clear that the liberal President Obama…in complete contradiction of his saintly statements, effectively gave a green light to an entire web of ongoing crimes, based on his perception – ridiculous in itself – that it was in America’s national interest to do so—Prof. Abraham Ben-Zvi,  No moral backbone Dec. 19, 2019,

The really chilling aspect of the Obama incumbency is that it is genuinely difficult to diagnose whether the abysmal results we see represent a crushing failure of his policies or a calculated success; whether they are the product of chronic ineptitude or purposeful foresight; whether they reflect myopic misunderstanding, moronic incompetence or malicious intent. – Into the Fray: Will the West Withstand The Obama Presidency?, Nov. 28, 2013.

Earlier this week, a scorching piece of investigative journalism in the widely-read political publication, Politico, catapulted the ill-conceived 2015 Iran nuclear deal, mendaciously railroaded through by the Obama administration, back into the center of media attention.

Well, sort of.

No record in “The paper of record”?

For although numerous media channels did swoop down on the report that, in order to secure some agreement with Tehran over its nuclear program, the Obama White House deliberately strove to obstruct an extensive Drug Enforcement Administration operation, codenamed “Project Cassandra”, targeting the Iran-backed terror group, Hezbollah–it appears to have been studiously ignored by several major Obamaphilic outlets.

Indeed, Google as I might, I could find nary a reference—even the most oblique or remote— in the New York Times to the almost 15,000 word investigation. Or in the LA Times. Or the Washington Post. Or on CNN. Or MSNBC…

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), on the other hand, did address the matter. In an editorial headlined “Obama’s Pass for Hezbollah”, it called for a Congressional investigation into the allegations that the Obama administration “had shut down, derailed or delayed numerous…Hezbollah-related cases with little or no explanation”—despite evidence that “Hezbollah had transformed itself…into an international crime syndicate that…was collecting $1 billion a year from drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities”.




In fairness, it should be noted that the liberal-leaning National Public Radio (NPR) did air an interview with the exposé’s author, Josh Meyer. However, in a breathtaking example of politically partisan obfuscation, the host of NPR’s Morning Edition, Rachel Martin attempted to defend the indefensible.

Media mumbo-jumbo

Summing up Meyer’s deeply disturbing investigation, she concluded: “…this was obviously a historic deal, the Iran nuclear deal.. It has become a central part of Barack Obama’s presidential legacy. [T]he premise was all about making the world safer.” Then transparently trying to minimize the gravity of Meyer’s revelations, Martin suggested: “The takeaway from your piece and your reporting seems to be that there were just more tradeoffs involved in this deal than the public knew about.”

Just more tradeoffs involved than the public knew about???!!! Really?

Turning a blind-eye to “tons of cocaine” smuggled into the U.S. by a Mexican cartel; rivers of dirty cash, traced to “the innermost circle of Hezbollah and its state sponsors in Iran”; procurement of deadly weapons used to “kill hundreds of U.S. soldiers” Just another trade-off???   Imagine if the American people had known!

In his closing comment, Meyer managed to dispense with Martin’s mumbo-jumbo of “making the world safer”: “It is somewhat ironic…that in their efforts to make the world a safer place they did allow a group that was a regionally focused militia-slash-political organization with a terrorist wing to become a much more wealthy global criminal organization that has a lot of money that can now be used to bankroll terrorist and military actions around the world.”

“Making the world safer…”?
Indeed, there could be little more ludicrous than the contention that Obama’s foreign policy made the world “a safer place”. For virtually in every corner of the globe, the opposite is clearly the case. Virtually, everywhere it was applied, the Obama-doctrine was dramatically and definitively disproven. Indeed, wherever the administration took action—or refrained from action—disaster followed debacle, leaving a gory trial of death, destruction and devastation. America’s traditional allies were alienated and abandoned; its traditional adversaries embraced and emboldened. Time and again, the US saw its prestige as a power degraded; its credibility as an ally drastically diminished.

Whether in Egypt, or Libya; in Yemen or Iraq; Syria or Turkey, Obama never failed in putting the wrong foot forward.

In Egypt, he embraced the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood but coldshouldered General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the man who managed to oust it, and save the county from plunging into an Islamist abyss. In Libya, Obama “led from behind” into ousting a chastened Kaddafi—and into the ongoing bloody turmoil that has engulfed the country ever since; In Syria, his reticence left the more moderate rebel forces without support, emboldened Russia and created a vacuum that Iran, with its capabilities greatly enhanced and its coffers greatly replenished by the 2015 nuclear deal, eagerly rushed to fill; In Iran, during the 2009 Green Revolution, he turned his back on the millions protesting against the incumbent tyranny, thus making the  prospects for any positive regime-change increasingly remote. In Iraq, his grave underestimation of the threat ISIS posed precipitated gruesome carnage of genocidal proportions…  

And so, under Obama, the world got safer and safer…

Puzzling, perturbing and perverse

It is against this backdrop of pervasive foreign policy failures that the fateful Iran deal should be scrutinized—together with the reasons for the exorbitant price the Obama administration was willing to pay for it, and the light this might shed on the motivations behind the US endorsement of it.

For as I pointed out in a previous INTO THE FRAY column (see introductory excerpts): “… it is genuinely difficult to diagnose whether the abysmal results we see represent a crushing failure of his policies or a calculated success; whether they are the product of chronic ineptitude or purposeful foresight… whether they reflect myopic misunderstanding, moronic incompetence or malicious intent.”

For, as more and more emerges as to what we know – and what we don’t– about the noxious deal brewed by Obama and his minions (e.g. the obstruction of Project Cassandra), it is becoming increasingly difficult to accept that negotiations with Iran were conducted in good faith.

Indeed, this very question is posed by Prof. Victor Davis Hanson of Stanford’s Hoover Institute. In in a scathing essay, Is Obamism Correctable?, he writes: “Iran will become a nuclear power. The only mystery over how that will happen is whether Obama was inept or whether he deliberately sought to make the theocracy some sort of strategic power.”

It is a question that cannot be skirted—for much that surrounds the actions of the previous administration regarding its policy towards Iran is puzzling and perturbing—even perverse.

From preventing to permitting proliferation

It would appear that, for Obama, there were good reasons to keep the US public in the dark as to the details of the nuclear deal. As I pointed out elsewhere (POTUS vs US),

not only was there significant—and increasing—opposition to the deal, but the more people knew about it, the more they opposed it- see here and here.

But beyond the question of duplicity and concealment, there lies the question of motivation.

After all, the deal with Tehran was in large measure, a dramatic point of inflection in US policy towards Iran. Rather than being a hard-won triumph, it was an unexplained, unnecessary capitulation, which not only departed from, but contradicted, long-held principles.

 

This is vividly illustrated in a WSJ article, The Iran Deal and Its Consequences, by two former Secretaries of State, Henry Kissinger and George Shultz. They point out that “For 20 years, three presidents of both major parties proclaimed that an Iranian nuclear weapon was contrary to American and global interests – and that they were prepared to use force to prevent it.”

However, under Obama, they warned: “…negotiations that began 12 years ago as an international effort to prevent an Iranian capability to develop a nuclear arsenal are ending with an agreement that concedes this very capability…”

 

In an earlier appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Kissinger reiterated the far-reaching weakening of US positions: “Nuclear talks with Iran began as an international effort, buttressed by six U.N. resolutions, to deny Iran the capability to develop a military nuclear option. They are now an essentially bilateral negotiation over the scope of that capability…The impact of this approach will be to move from preventing proliferation to managing it.”

Thus, under Obama, the US moved from a firm commitment to prevent proliferation to feebly consenting to permit it—hopefully somewhat delayed.

Untethered to America’s founding Judeo-Christian heritage

How is this radical sea-change to be accounted for?

As I have underscored in numerous previous INTO THE FRAY columns, Obama himself was in effect a point of inflection in the history if the US presidency.

Indeed, it is difficult for anyone—other than the willfully blind or the woefully biased—to deny that in the formative environment, in which Obama’s political credo coalesced, many of the influences, and many of the personalities/organizations that shaped his political consciousness, were, at least partially, sharply divergent from – even antithetical to – the ethos that made America, America.

Accordingly, only the overly naïve—or excessively partisan—could believe that these inputs would not color his political instincts and policy preferences. Consequently, under his administration, US national interests – and the manner in which they should be pursued – were perceived being fundamentally different from the way they were perceived by almost all his predecessors.

Indeed, Obama was the first US president who was explicitly and overtly untethered–cognitively and emotionally—from the moorings of America’s Judeo-Christian cultural heritage, and who genuinely conceived of Islam as not inherently opposed to American values or interests.

This –for anyone who understands that the US constitution is not a Sharia-compliant document—is likely to a problematic perspective

The Chamberlain analogy

The Chamberlain analogy has been applied to Obama; and the Munich analogy, to the Iran nuclear deal he was so eager conclude, as to reflecting a repetition of the kind of appeasement of tyranny that led to the horrors of World War II. Indeed, it has been invoked not only by his political adversaries, but concerned political supporters as well.

Thus, two-time Obama voter, Prof. Alan Dershowitz warned that, if as a result of the nuclear deal, Iran acquired nuclear weapons, Obama’s legacy would be similar to the disgraced British prime minister, whose capitulation to Nazi Germany precipitated arguably the greatest carnage in human history.

However, capitulation by Obama to Tehran is far more difficult to comprehend than Chamberlain’s to Hitler. For the disparity between the strength of the mighty US and the then economically emaciated and drought-ravaged Iran was vastly greater than the power differential between Britain and the resurgent Germany of the late 1930s.

After all, America’s  GDP outstrips Iran’s by a factor of more than 40, its per capita GDP is 10 times higher; it has over four times the population of Iran, and is six times its size.

But perhaps the most significant comparison concerns military prowess.

While the US defense budget is around $600 billion, most published estimates put Iranian defense expenditure at that time at around 2% -3% of that of the US.

Worse than Chamberlain?

Accordingly, with more than 40 times the resources devoted to military capabilities than Tehran, the claim, that some other more favorable deal could not be imposed on an impoverished Iran, rings decidedly hollow – if not manipulatively mendacious.

It certainly seems wildly implausible that the only other alternative was to allow Iran to pursue, with virtual impunity, all its other nefarious , non-nuclear malfeasance across the globe, while empowering it militarily, enriching it economically and entrenching it politically—thus  making any regime-change in the foreseeable future highly unlikely.

Clearly then, the question of whether Obama will be judged as worse than Chamberlain cannot be avoided.  But will America be able to muster the moral courage to contend with it honestly?

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Borders

A Palestinian State? What could possibly go wrong?

by Martin Sherman
written by Martin Sherman

There is precious little reason to believe that any Palestinian state established in areas evacuated by Israel would not swiftly degenerate into a mega-Gaza overlooking greater Tel Aviv.

 

The nightmare stories of the Likud are well known. After all, they promised rockets from Gaza as well. For a year, Gaza has been largely under the rule of the Palestinian Authority. There has not been a single rocket. Nor will there be any ... – Yitzhak Rabin, Radio interview, July 24, 1995. 

 

In the history of international politics, there have been numerous ideas that proved both myopic and moronic. But few—if any—have proved more so than the ill-conceived idea of foisting statehood on the Palestinian-Arabs. Compounding the folly of this fatal fiasco is the fact that it was not only completely predictable—but persistently predicted.

 

Particularly puzzling—indeed perverse—is the fact that any prospective Palestinian state is almost certainly likely to embody the very antithesis of the values invoked for its inception by the liberal-Left Establishment.

 

Corrupt kleptocracy or tyrannical theocracy

 

After all, there is little reason to believe that any such state would be anything other than a misogynistic, homophobic Muslim majority tyranny and a bastion for Islamist terror groups–whose hallmarks would be gender discrimination against woman/girls; persecution of homosexuals, prosecution of political dissidents, and suppression of non-Muslim faiths. Indeed, its liberal-Left devotees have certainly never provided any remotely compelling argument why it would not be. Neither has the empirical precedent set since the ill-considered 1993 Oslo Accords began the ill-fated process of prodding the unprepared Palestinian-Arabs towards self-government.

 

After all, since Arafat’s triumphant return to Gaza in July 1994, despite massive financial aid, almost unanimous international endorsement, and a series of Israeli governments, whose pliant leniency towards repeated Palestinian malfeasance exceeded the bounds of reason and common sense, the Palestinian-Arabs have failed to create anything remotely resembling a sustainable, productive society. Indeed, all they have managed to produce is a corrupt keptocracy under Fatah and a tyrannical theocracy under Hamas.

 

Thus, after a quarter-century, notwithstanding the huge advantages it enjoyed —that, arguably far outstrip those that any other national liberation movement has had at its disposal—the Palestinian-Arab leadership has little to show for its efforts. All it has brought its people is an untenable and divided entity, with a dysfunctional polity, barely capable of holding even municipal elections; and an emaciated economy, crippled by corruption and cronyism, with a minuscule private sector and bloated public one, patently unsustainable without the largesse of its alleged “oppressor”, Israel.

 

Gaza: The gravest indictment of two-statism.

 

Gaza, where the misguided experiment in two-statsim was first initiated back in 1994, sparking a surge of deluded optimism, has now become its gravest indictment—for both Jews and Arab alike.

 

For Arabs in Gaza, the specter of “humanitarian disaster” hovers over the general population, awash in untreated sewage flows, with well over 90% of the water supply unfit for drinking, electrical power available for only a few hours a day, and unemployment rates soaring to anything between 40-60%. Accordingly, there should be no surprise that a recent Palestinian poll found that only 6% of Gazans had a positive perception of prevailing conditions in the enclave, while almost 80% considered them bad or very bad.

 

For Jews in Israel, ever since governance of Gaza has been transferred to the Palestinian-Arabs, it has been a hotbed of terror from which numerous deadly attacks have emanated.

 

Israel’s unilateral 2005 evacuation of the entire area, with the demolition of over a score of thriving Jewish settlements and the erasure of every vestige of prior Jewish existence—including the exhuming of graves and the removal of graveyards for fear of desecration by Palestinian-Arab hordes—did little to temper the Judeophobic fervor of the Gazans.  Significantly, the only remnant of Jewish presence left by Israel were two dozen synagogues, which were all immediately razed to the ground by frenzied Arab mobs.

 

Huge enhancement of terrorist capabilities

 

Moreover, if there were any hopes that Israel’s departure from Gaza would spur the Palestinian-Arab leadership to divert the focus of its efforts from terror-related activity to constructive nation-building, they were soon to be dispelled.

 

Indeed, quite the opposite occurred. Exploiting the absence of the IDF, the Palestinian-Arab terror groups in Gaza embarked on a feverish drive to enhance their capabilities to inflict harm on Israel and Israelis. To illustrate the point, when Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the rockets which the Palestinian terror groups had at their disposal, had a range of barely 5 km and a carried an explosive charge of around 5 kg. Today, they have missiles with ranges over 100 km and warheads of 100 kg—i.e. they have enhanced these capabilities by a factor of 10!

 

Moreover, they have developed additional abilities that were barely conceivable back in 2005—such as a naval strike force to attack Israel from the sea. But arguably the most menacing development is the excavation of an extensive array of tunnels underneath much of Gaza—including attack tunnels reaching into Israel to facilitate raids to murder or abduct Israeli citizens and soldiers.

 

Incessant terror attacks from Gaza forced Israel into three large-scale military operations (in 2008, 2012 and 2014) to restore some semblance of calm on its southern border—and a fourth round seems increasingly unavoidable as rockets continue to be fired at Israeli civilian centers.

 

Costly campaigns; considerable casualties

 

These campaigns inflicted considerable Israeli casualties—almost a hundred fatalities and well over a thousand wounded. The Palestinians suffered far higher losses—among other things, because of the tactics employed by Hamas of using civilians to shield their armed combatants.

 

Moreover, these campaigns cost the Israeli economy many billions of dollars—in direct military and civilian outlays, as well as lost production—as millions of Israelis remained huddled in shelters for weeks, with the country’s cities, towns and villages under repeated bombardment – see here, here and here. To this must be added the massive expense of protecting the civilian population from continual interbellum terror attacks—such as the need to build numerous fortified structures in homes, public buildings, educational centers and kindergartens.

 

Israel has, of course, also been forced to invest huge sums in a quest to find an effective response to the overhead threat of rockets/missiles and the underground menace of tunnels.

 

The former has resulted in the largely effective “Iron Dome” which has generally kept the Israeli civilian population safe from overhead attack—by intercepting generally very cheap, primitive projectiles with very expensive and sophisticated ones.

 

The underground tunnels have proved a more challenging problem, and Israel has diverted enormous resources in search of a solution to the threat they pose. Recent successes in discovering and destroying some of such tunnels suggest that good progress has been made in regard.

 

In addition to these technological efforts, Israel has undertaken the construction of a physical anti-tunnel barrier along the entire fifty-plus km border with Gaza, dubbed by the IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, “the largest project” ever carried out in Israel’s military history. Reportedly planned to extend into the sea, this giant barrier will comprise a six meter wall above ground and an underground concrete barrier, replete with advanced sensors, reportedly reaching depths of 40 meters.

 

Now imagine a giant Gaza overlooking Tel Aviv

 

Accordingly given the resounding failure of the endeavor to confer self-determination on the Palestinian-Arabs—and the enormous cost incurred in contending with that failure—it seems utterly incomprehensible that not only do demands to persist with it continue—but also to greatly expand it!

 

For despite the Palestinian-Arabs proven inability to successfully meet the challenges of self-determination—even on a minuscule scale in Gaza—pressures still endure—in defiance common sense and intellectual integrity—to extend the experiment to the territory of Judea-Samaria.

 

The scale of this predestined folly is perhaps best illustrated by the size, cost and complexity of the previously mentioned anti-tunnel barrier under construction.

 

After all, if the IDF were to evacuate Judea-Samaria, there is little reason to believe that it would not follow the same path as Gaza and descend into tyrannical Islamist theocracy. Indeed, the proponents of such evacuation 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 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.

 

A giant Gaza overlooking Tel Aviv (cont.)

 

There would, however, be several significant differences.

 

For, unlike Gaza, which has a 50 km border with Israel, any prospective Palestinian-Arab entity 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.”

What could possible go wrong?

 

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 struck, its durability cannot be assured.

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, based on both past precedent and sober political analysis, there is every reason to believe—and precious little not to—that any Palestinian state established in any area evacuated by Israel would swiftly degenerate into a mega-Gaza, overlooking greater Tel Aviv—with all the attendant perils such an outcome would entail.

 

So, in response to the question “What could possibly go wrong?” the answer must be “Pretty much everything”.

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Borders

Sinai – The Descent into Depravity

by Martin Sherman
written by Martin Sherman

Ironically, the case of Sinai, once held up as the crowning vindication of the land-for-peace principle is likely to turn out to be its one of its most tragic and traumatic failures.

Militants detonated a bomb inside a crowded mosque in the Sinai Peninsula on Friday and then sprayed gunfire on panicked worshipers as they fled, killing at least 305 people and wounding at least 128 others. Officials called it the deadliest terrorist attack in Egypt’s modern history. – New York Times, November 24, 2017.

The Sinai Peninsula with its strategic depth, mineral wealth and economic potential is now deteriorating into a lawless “no-go” region, rapidly falling under the control of the most ruthless extremists on the face of the globe. – INTO THE FRAY: Suicide Nation? August 11, 2011.

If the Egyptian authorities do not move quickly to crush the extremists and regain control, the Sinai Peninsula could soon become a separate Islamic emirate run by Salafis, Hamas and Al-Qaeda – Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone, August 5, 2011.

In my column last week, dealing with just how fortunate Israel was in not adopting the land-for-peace formula in the Golan, and detailing the deadly dangers that ensued from attempting to apply it elsewhere, I wrote: Sinai [is] now descending into the depravity and brutality of a jihadi-controlled no-man’s land — with no good options on the horizon.

Gruesome corroboration

Tragically, almost at the exact time that the column was being posted, the grim prognosis was given gruesome corroboration. Reportedly over three dozen “militants”, attacked a mosque in Northern Sinai, near the town of Bir al-Abed, on the coastal road connecting El-Arish and Port Said. Using explosives and automatic weapons, they cut down hundreds of worshipers including almost 30 children. Most of the attackers appeared to have escaped.

Its dreadful dimensions aside, such gory incidents as this are is not uncommon in Sinai. Indeed, it is “merely” yet another link in a chain of ongoing murderous assaults by jihadi groups against Egyptian forces stationed in the peninsula, dating back over half-a-decade, to the period immediately following the end of the Mubarak-era (from mid-2011). However, there has been a discernable uptick in attacks since the 2013 ousting of Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim-Brotherhood affiliated government by a military coup, headed by incumbent president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum

There is —or at least, there should be—little surprise at the advent of lawlessness and violent insurgency in one form or other in Sinai.

After all, following the evacuation of the peninsula by the IDF under the terms of the 1979 peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, strict conditions for its demilitarization were imposed. For Israel, this was the central pillar of the entire peace accord and a critical element in its overall security.

However, these conditions seriously curtailed Cairo’s ability to enforce law and order in a relatively “undomesticated” region, where dutiful respect for central authority, never mind meticulous observance of its laws, were hardly the hallmarks of the indigenous inhabitants’ ways and mores.

Accordingly, with Egypt’s emaciated capacity to assert control, the largely nomadic gangs, clans, and tribes that comprise much of the population, were left relatively unfettered to pursue lawless activities, which included gun-running, drug-smuggling, human trafficking, abduction and extortion. There have even been horrific reports of rape, beheadings and trafficking of organs taken from African kidnap victims, trying to reach Israel.

With the ascendancy of radical Islam across much of the Mid-East, this fundamentalist doctrine found fertile ground among the fractious Bedouin tribes of Sinai, with their contentious relations with the regime in Cairo—particularly after the removal of the largely likeminded Morsi by the military in 2013. Indeed, they showed an increasing affinity for the most extremist jihadi ideology. Thus, one of the most active jihadi groups, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (Supporters of Jerusalem) was previously an al-Qaeda affiliate but in late 2014, pledged its allegiance to ISIS, changing its name to Wilayat Sinai (Sinai Province of the Islamic State).

Demilitarization endangered

Significantly, the reverses suffered by ISIS in Syria and Iraq have increased the attractiveness of Sinai as a destination for many racialized fighters looking for alternative methods to wage Jihad. Indeed, by some reports, today they constitute up to 80% of the Sinai Province’s fighting force. This not only poses an increasing challenge for the Egyptian regime, but for Israel it imperils the major component of its peace treaty with Egypt – the demilitarization of the Sinai Peninsula.

For clearly, the strict enforcement of demilitarization leaves Egypt incapable of imposing law and order. According, it is only if Egypt is allowed to breach the conditions of such demilitarization that it can acquire the ability to contend with the increasing challenge of lawlessness and rejection of government’s authority.

And indeed, in the past Egypt has repeatedly asked Israel to consent to it deploying troops that exceed the stipulations of the peace treaty—including the introduction of tanks, helicopters and fighter planes. As a rule, Israel has agreed to such requests—and has even refrained from responding when increased deployments have been made without its prior approval.   

But such largesse could be—indeed is more likely than not to be—a dangerously slippery slope—for a number of reasons.

Firstly, as Yoram Meital of Ben Gurion University points out, even if Egypt is successful in quelling the jihadi resistance, there is a distinct danger that it will not subsequently remove the excess forces. He warns: “… the Egyptian leadership would find it difficult to order the evacuation of its forces from the Sinai once the operation is over. Egyptian public opinion would no doubt demand that the troops remain in the Sinai, as a testimony to Egypt’s control over its entire sovereign territory.”

And indeed it well might!

Creeping remilitarization of Sinai

Clearly, this raises the specter of the creeping remilitarization of Sinai—a prospect which may be a little less troubling were it possible to ensure that al-Sisi or some likeminded successor were to continue to hold the reins of power in Egypt indefinitely. But this would be a highly imprudent hypothesis on which to base Israel’s long term strategic planning.

After all, in the last decade, the volatility and unpredictability of Egyptian politics has been amply demonstrated—from the unexpected fall of Mubarak, through the surprising rise of Morsi and his equally unforeseen fall, to the astonishing coup of al-Sisi, whose current hold on power is anything but secure.

But more on that a little later.

There is however, a no less disconcerting prospect. This is that despite the reinforcements, over and above the peace treaty stipulations, the Egyptian military will not be able to subdue the jihadi insurgency. Indeed, in this regard there is growing concern over, and criticism of, al- Sisi’s strategy—and increasing doubts as to whether it has any chance of success.  

Reflecting this skepticism is the following caveat from a prominent security studies institute: “… questions remain if Egypt can destroy or even contain Wilayat Sinai [the ISIS affiliate, Sinai Province]. The IDF is preparing for the likelihood that the group will strike across the border: targeting Israeli civilian towns or military positions the same way it has attacked Egyptian security posts.”

An excruciating dilemma?

This clearly raises several trenchant questions of crucial importance for Israel:

–  If the Egyptian forces lack the tenacity and motivation to meet the challenge of containing the Islamist aggression, what will be the fate of all the excess weaponry introduced into Sinai to defeat them?

–  What if these weapons, like the US arms in Iraq, fall to the insurgents—then to be turned against Israel?

– And if the jihadis turn their attention to Israeli targets, how is Israel to respond?

Inevitably, this will leave Israel impaled on the horns of an excruciatingly difficult dilemma. It shares a 200 km border with Sinai, which also abuts the Gaza Strip from the south-east.

If, as in the scenario suggested previously, Egypt fails to impose its rule in Sinai and hostilities break out regularly along Israel’s southern border, possibly in coordination with Hamas and other radical elements in Gaza, Israel may well find itself facing the threat of its southern Red Sea port, Eilat, being cut off from the rest of the country and much of the Negev under constant attack.

In these circumstances, it is difficult to see how Israel could contend adequately with such a menacing situation without being compelled to take—and hold—large portions of Sinai, still formally under Egyptian  sovereignty -and thus blatantly violate the peace accord with Cairo.

The repercussions of such an initiative are difficult to comprehend and even more difficult to calculate.

The Muslim Brotherhood: “Down”, but not “out”

It is beyond dispute that the al-Sisi regime is interested in avoiding hostilities with Israel and has dealt its Islamist rivals—particularly, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB)—a devastating blow. However, while it is clear that the MB has been severely eviscerated and is obviously “down”, it would be more than ill-advised to consider it “out”.

For not only has the organization shown considerable resilience and resourcefulness in adversity in the past, it still retains considerable public support. Moreover, al-Sisi is facing severe challenges at home. As a 2016 Brookings Institution report cautions:

In a classic authoritarian bargain, President Sissi came to power two years ago promising security, stability, and economic prosperity in exchange for near-total political control. Now, that bargain is in the process of breaking down, since he’s failed to deliver on all three fronts.”

Against this backdrop, one other source warns: “Unemployment among Egyptian youth, who have been the jihadi foot soldiers, is above thirty per cent—a ticking time bomb…”

Accordingly, while the current regime is indeed well-attuned to Israel’s security needs, the prospect of a future regime-change can certainly not be discounted as wildly implausible, nor can the ascendance of a successor regime, far less amenable—even vehemently inimical—to the Jewish state and its security.

Ethiopia: Egypt’s “elephant in the room”

Ethiopia, separated from Egypt’s southern border by Sudan, a vast country in its own right, is rarely bought up in the discussion of Sinai and future scenarios that may emerge.

This is a grave omission! For Ethiopia, in many respects, is Egypt’s “elephant in the room”.

Why?

Ethiopia is currently in the final stages of construction of a massive high dam on the Blue Nile, Egypt’s most important water source, which provided  the bulk of the country’s of   supply.

Accordingly, Egypt has grave concerns that the dam, The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), will adversely affect the downstream flow it receives today.

So serious are Cairo’s fears that it has even hinted that it would be prepared to use military force to halt construction or even destroy the dam.

To date, the two countries have been unable to come to any agreement on the construction of GERD, or how to contend with the repercussions for the downstream flow to Egypt—making the prospect of conflict between them ever closer.

However, conflict with Ethiopia would be a daunting prospect for an impoverished Egypt. Apart from the great distance it would have to project military force to be effective is the (not widely- known) fact that Ethiopia’s population is significantly larger than that of Egypt’s and its economy (one of the fastest growing in the world) is significantly stronger.

Thus, a clash with Addis Ababa is likely to siphon off huge resources from other activities in Egypt, leaving it with scant means—and motivation—to quell the insurgency in Sinai— and leaving the jihadis with greater freedom to pursue their brutal goals there.

The writing on the wall

For Israel then, the writing is on the wall. For as I wrote back in August 2011, the country may well have to face an emerging lose-lose strategic predicament ,which will force it to decide between: 

• Allowing Sinai to degenerate into an Afghanistan-like haven for al-Qaida and ISIS-like jihadi organizations; or

  • Allowing a possibly hostile Egypt to remilitarize the area in an attempt to reestablish law and order; or
    • Reasserting Israeli control of Sinai, effectively repudiating the peace agreement with Cairo.

So, ironically, the case of Sinai, once held up as the crowing vindication of the land-for-peace principle, may yet turn out to be one of its most tragic and traumatic failures.

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But for the grace of God- Iran in Syria & the lessons for Israel

by Martin Sherman
written by Martin Sherman

Only by resisting territorial concessions on the Golan, Israel prevented deployment of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards on the fringes of the Galilee; only by resisting territorial concessions in the “West Bank” can Israel prevent them from deploying on the fringes of Greater Tel Aviv.

Israel has a strategic interest in disassociating Syria from the extremist axis that Iran is leading. Syria is not lost, Assad is western educated and is not a religious man. He can still join a moderate grouping. –  Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, Chief of Staff of IDF, Nov 13, 2009.

…we should not belittle the signals of peace coming from Syria. – Ehud Barak, Israeli Defense Minister, Nov 13, 2009.

Syria is the key to regional change for us. If I was prime minister, I would pin all my hopes on Syria.” – The late Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, former Israeli Defense Minister (2001-2002), May 23, 2010.

Just how appallingly wrong these assessments by the most senior echelons of the Israeli security establishment proved to be was driven home by a recent BBC report, indicating that the Iranian military is engaged in the construction of what appears to be a permanent military base in Syria. But more on these—and other—disturbing lapses in judgment a little later.

Permanent Iranian presence in Syria?

Based on satellite images commissioned by the BBC, the report suggests extensive ongoing construction between January and October this year, just outside a site used by the Syrian army near the town of El-Kiswah, 14 km (8 miles) south of Damascus.

It comes on the heels of evermore disturbing accounts of the increasingly pervasive presence of Iranian forces throughout Syria – with Russian endorsement and US acquiescence – together with growing concern that Tehran will soon attempt to deploy both air and naval forces, including submarines and set up weapons production plants to supply its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah.

In the discussion of the ramifications of these revelations, attention appeared to focus mainly on two cardinal issues: (a) The significance for the completion of the “Shi’ite arc of influence”, stretching from east of the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean and the creation of a land-based logistical supply line from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon; and (b) the stern warnings issued by Israel that it would not permit an Iranian takeover of Syria, hinting that it would be prepared to use military force to prevent this.

However, there is another vital element germane to the expanding Iranian military presence in Syria—and one that has received remarkably little media attention. It is, however, one whose relevance Israel will ignore at its peril.

Inconvenient but incontrovertible fact

After all, as ominous as the current Iranian military deployment in Syria is, it might well have been far more menacing. Indeed, the fact that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is not perched on the Golan Heights, overlooking the Sea of Galilee, is solely because Israel did not fall prey to the seductive temptation of the land-for-peace formula, as urged by many, in both the international community and in its own security establishment (see introductory excerpts)—and did not cede the strategic plateau that commands the approaches to the entire north of the country.

One can only shudder with dread at the thought of the perilous predicament the country would be in, had it heeded the call from the allegedly “enlightened and progressive”  voices, who – up until the gory events of the Syrian civil war that erupted in 2011—hailed the British trained doctor, Bashar al-Assad, as a moderate reformer, with whom a durable peace deal could be cut – f only an intransigent Israel would yield the Golan to his regime.

Indeed, it is an inconvenient—albeit incontrovertible—fact that every time Israel has relinquished/abandoned territory, to Arab control, that territory has – usually sooner rather than later – become a platform from which to launch lethal attacks against Israel – almost immediately in Gaza; within months in Judea-Samaria; within years in south Lebanon and after several decades in Sinai, now descending into the depravity and brutality of a Jihadi-controlled no-man’s land—with no good options on the horizon.

This is something Israeli policy makers dare not disregard. For as dangerous and detrimental as the outcomes of previous withdrawals proved to be, they are likely to pale into insignificance compared to consequences of territorial concession in Judea-Samara (a.k.a. the “West Bank”).  


Compounding the gravity

Indeed, even the Golan, with all its vital strategic significance, cannot match the importance of the highlands of Judea-Samaria, commanding Israel’s urban megalopolis in the coastal plain. As I have pointed out elsewhere, any forces deployed on these highlands command all of the following: major airfields (civilian and military) including the country’s only international airport; major sea ports and naval bases; vital infrastructure installations (power transmission, water systems, and communication networks); main land transport routes (road and rail); principal power plants; the national parliament and most government ministries; crucial centers of civilian administration and military command; and 80% of the civilian population and the commercial activity in the country.   

Significantly, all of these strategic objectives will be within easy range of weapons being used today against Israel from territories previously relinquished to Arab control.

Compounding the gravity of any threat entailed in Israel yielding sizeable portions of Judea-Samaria to the Palestinian-Arabs are reports of renewed ties between Iran and Hamas, purported to be “stronger than ever.”  

An Iranian proxy over-looking Tel Aviv?

Addressing journalists in Gaza last August, Hamas leader, Yehiyeh Sinwar declared that the terror group had restored relations with Iran after a five-year rift, due to Hamas’s refusal to support Assad, and is using its newfound financial and military aid to gear up for new hostilities against Israel. According to Sinwar, “Today, the relationship with Iran is excellent, or very excellent”, adding that Iran is “the largest backer financially and militarily” of the organization’s military wing.

Clearly, were Israel to withdraw from Judea-Samaria, there is little that it could do to curtail the spread of Iranian influence. Indeed, without the IDF to prop up the corrupt kleptocracy of Fatah, it is more than likely that Hamas, increasingly an Iranian proxy in the mold of Hezbollah—despite being on opposite sides of the Sunni-Shia divide—could mount an effective challenge for power. This could be done either via the ballot (a recent Palestinian poll shows that Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh would trounce Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas) or by the bullet—as it did in in Gaza in 2007, and could well do again in Judea-Samaria, especially if bolstered by Iranian backing

Accordingly, just as it was only Israel’s resistance to territorial concession on the Golan that prevented the deployment of Iranian Revolutionary Guards on the fringes of the Galilee, so only by resisting territorial concessions in the “West Bank” can Israel prevent Iranian Revolutionary Guards (or any other Jihadi elements) from deploying on the fringes of Greater Tel Aviv.

Assessing new “peace initiatives”: Rank is no recommendation

These are the grim realities that any future “peace initiative” must take into consideration.

This caveat takes on special significance in light of rumors that a new “peace” initiative is currently brewing within the Trump administration, seemingly enamored with the allure of cutting “the ultimate deal”.

In this regard, Israel must internalize the lessons of the past and robustly resist pressures to relinquish further territory to Arab control. In particular, it must be wary of counsel from individuals and organizations, who have demonstrated, consistently and conclusively that—no matter what their past experience and seniority—their judgement cannot be trusted (see introductory excerpts). After all, as the past clearly indicates, when assessing such initiatives, rank is rarely any recommendation.

Indeed, not only have the “top brass” of Israel’s security establishment been hopelessly and hazardously wrong in appraising Assad’s role as a peace partner, they have been equally wrong in predicting his imminent fall – see for example here,  here, here, here, here and here.

Israel can ill-afford such lapses in judgement when it comes to making fateful decisions regarding concessions in Judea-Samaria that would critically imperil the vast majority of the nation’s population.  

With this in mind, it cannot for a moment forget what–but for the grace of God—our fate in the Golan would have been.

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Politics

Israel’s Ruinous Right

by Martin Sherman
written by Martin Sherman

Perhaps the gravest threat facing the nation today is the twin perils of a dangerous, delusional “Left” and an impotent, incompetent “Right”, unable to decisively and definitively discredit it.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions – attributed to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, circa. 1150

It is neither an easy nor an enviable undertaking today for anyone trying to alert the public as to the perilous vulnerability in which the nation currently finds itself.

Deceptive signs of success and strength

After all, there are so many reassuring signs that seem to contradict such dour and dire assessments. Everywhere one looks, there are myriad signs of increasing success, affluence and strength—ever-wider highways, spanned by ever-more impressive interchanges, snake through ever-wider areas of the country, ever-more imposing glass and steel skyscrapers soar into urban skylines across the nation, the economy continues to be robust, with GDP spiraling upwards and—almost inconceivably a few years ago—the shekel was deemed the second strongest currency in the world.

Israeli technological achievement is increasingly sought after across the globe, living standards continue to surge, ever-more luxurious hotels and ever-more sumptuous restaurants abound, frequented increasinglyby domestic clientele. Overseas travel, once a rare extravagance for a privileged few, is now an experience enjoyed by millions of Israelis, who flock to far-flung destinations every holiday season. A burgeoning leisure industry, once unimaginable a few decades ago—from mountain biking and wind-surfing through gourmet dining to blue water yachting—flourishes, attracting growing circles of the population.

On the security front, Israel far outstrips its enemies in terms of martial prowess. Many of its traditional adversaries have disintegrated. The meltdown in much of the Arab world has all but eliminated any threat of conventional military assault on the country—at least until very recently.  

Dangerous sense of complacency…or denial?

While all of this is true—and Israel has indeed much to be proud of—it seems to have given rise to a dangerous sense of complacency. Or is it denial?

For while some of the dangers that once confronted Israel have undeniably diminished—even disappeared—others, no less menacing, have emerged. (Indeed, it may even be—as we shall see—that some of the allegedly erstwhile dangers may well be reappearing—with a vengeance).

Of course, compared to the 1970’s, the threat of large-scale invasion by armies of Arab states has considerably receded. However, today the new threat is that of ongoing attrition by state-backed non-state, or quasi-state actors. To gauge the gravity of this threat, consider the following assessment by one well informed pundit regarding Israel’s northern border: “Hezbollah’s augmented arsenal has transformed it, from an Israeli perspective, from a manageable border menace to a strategic threat.” Reflecting similar concern is the ominous caveat from the left-leaning Institute for National Security Studies: “Hezbollah remains the most serious conventional threat Israel is facing, more than Hamas or Iran.”

Likewise, in the south, the quasi-state entity, Hamas, has increased its capabilities exponentially since Israel’s 2005 unilateral abandonment of Gaza, enhancing its high trajectory weaponry from ranges of 5 km to ranges of 100 km, and from war heads of barely 5kg to over 100 kg—while excavating a menacing system of attack tunnels and developing naval capability for assaults from the sea.

Unlearnt Lessons from deeds done…and undone

Underpinning the burgeoning military prowess of Hezbollah and Hamas is the support provided by Iran which, if it ever acquired weaponized nuclear capability, could supply a deterrent “umbrella” under which both could operate with relative impunity—together with any other terror organization that Tehran chose to sponsor.

But in recent months, the Iranian factor has acquired even more—and more immediate—significance. Exploiting the gory turmoil of the Syrian civil war, Iran has, with recent Russian backing and with no US objection, managed to set up a formidable military presence in Syria, virtually on the border with Israel, with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) operating unimpeded to recruit, train and equip locals to prepare for “battle against ‘the Zionist enemy’”.

So with the Iranian presence in Syria, Israel might soon find that it is once again faced with the need to contend with the threat of conventional military forces—on precisely the front where it was considered no longer relevant!

For Israel, the lessons of what it has done—and what it hasn’t—should be clear.

After all, the previously cited instances of non-state/quasi-state actors developing into strategic threats, able to menace millions of Israelis and to paralyze the nation’s economy, were the direct result of Israel abandoning territory to Arab rule—the center piece of the policy prescriptions promoted by the Israeli Left wing.

Conversely, the fact that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is not perched on the Golan Heights, overlooking the entire north of the country, is precisely because Israel did not act in accordance with this perilous prescription.

(Significantly, had the fortunes of war turned out differently, and Sunni rebels prevailed, Israel would still have been in the unenviable position of having ISIS or al-Qaeda affiliates deployed there.)

The significance for the Left/Right divide  

For readers wondering what this rather lengthy appraisal of Israel’s geo-strategic situation has to do with the domestic political divide within the country, the answer is simple.

Wherever the concessionary policy of the Left has been adopted, dreadful danger and devastation—for Jew and Arab—have ensued. Indeed, it is difficult to identify a single danger that the Right warned of that did not materialize, nor a single benefit that the Left promised that did.

By contrast, wherever the policy of the Left has been eschewed, terrible trauma and tragedy has been avoided.

Clearly then, a quarter century, since the Land-for-Peace paradigm was adopted as the centerpiece of Israel’s security and foreign policy, the jury is no longer out—or at least should no longer be out.

After all, virtually all that has —and has not—happened has totally vindicated the Right-wing claim that Israeli territorial concessions would not bring peace and security; and totally eviscerated the Left-wing claim that they would.

Accordingly, it seems almost inconceivable that despite being repeatedly disproven, the political doctrine of the Left has never been decisively discredited and certainly never definitively discarded.

Indeed, the very fact that this hopelessly failed formula continues to be not only a viable political prescription domestically, but one that continues to enjoy dominant international status, is the most strident condemnation of the political acumen of the Right in Israel—and its financial benefactors.

Dangerous delusional Left vs impotent incompetent Right  

Accordingly, if one were called upon to best articulate the prevailing syndrome that characterizes Israeli domestic politics one would be hard pressed to find a more apt and accurate stipulation than the following: A dangerous and delusional Left promoting a fatally flawed and failed formula which an incompetent and impotent Right is neither capable of invalidating nor of producing a convincing, comprehensive and compelling alternative.

Indeed, for a good number of years, the Right conspicuously refrained from offering any countervailing paradigm and focused almost exclusively on denigrating the Left-wing Land-for-Peace proposal and (correctly) underscoring its deadly defects and detriments.

Accordingly, as I pointed out several years ago: “…the political “Right” has found itself unable to respond effectively to the pointed and pertinent question from ‘left-wing’ adversaries: “So what’s your alternative?” With no comprehensive countervailing paradigmatic position to promote or defend, the ‘Right’ found itself gradually forced to give way under the weight of this onerous question, and to adopt increasing portions of the failed formula it had rejected.”  Lamentably, this culminated in Netanyahu’s calamitous 2009 acceptance of Palestinian statehood—which hitherto he had vigorously opposed.

Indeed, “today the formal position of the major ‘right-wing’ faction, the Likud, the party of Menachem Begin, founded on the ideas expounded by Ze’ev Jabotinsky, has, except for detail in nuance and tone, become indistinguishable from the positions [once] expounded by the ‘far-left’ Meretz faction”.

Left’s sins of commission vs Right’s sins of omission?

Accordingly, up until a few years ago, it could be deemed with a large degree of accuracy, that Israel is mired in an impasse that is the regrettable product of the sins of commission by the Left and the sins of omission by the Right.

However, in the last 4-5 years, some ideas—originating largely from civil society initiatives, rather than incumbent politicians—have emerged and are being advanced as an alternative to the pernicious two-state, Land-for-Peace proposal.

But as well intentioned as they undoubtedly are, virtually all these alternatives are poorly thought through. Almost without exception, their point of departure appears not be Israel’s strategic imperatives and how to adequately address them, but rather an endeavor to provide a proposal that is something other than the two-state Land-for-Peace formula.

Sadly, as appallingly risk-fraught as the two-state concept is, not everything that is not a two-state proposal is necessarily better than the two-state proposal. Indeed, most the alternatives being advanced by the Israeli Right demonstrably endanger the future of the Zionist enterprise no less—arguably, even more—than the two-state paradigm, which they are meant to replace.

Typically, such alternative proposals fall into three major categories:

– Those that propose to preserve the status quo by means of “conflict management”.
– Those that propose the annexation of all the territory in Judea-Samaria, together with its Arab residents.  

– Those that propose partial annexation of Judea-Samaria and suggest allowing some sort of self-rule to Arab residents in a quilted patchwork of miniscule disconnected enclaves in about 40% (or less) of the territory.

The Lebanonization or the Balkanization of Israel

None of these proposals chart a clear path to a strategic future, in which Israel can fulfill the raison d’etre for its establishment – i.e. can endure over time as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

Indeed, as I have repeatedly been at pains to point out:

– The “conflict management” approach is little more than “kicking the can down the road”  towards an even more risk-fraught future, waiting for the Palestinian Arabs—for some yet-to-be-articulated reason—to morph into something they have not been for the last 100 years and show little signs of becoming in the foreseeable future. Last week, I underscored the increasingly untenable situation that attempts to “manage the conflict” have wrought in the environs of Jerusalem by quoting the caveats of an erstwhile advocate of this approach. Indeed, it is difficult to comprehend what outcomes “conflict management” adherents envisage resulting in the long-run, from a policy of open-ended discriminatory rule over an increasing—and increasingly recalcitrant—population, held in indefinite political limbo.

– The full annexation of Judea-Samaria and the incorporation of the Arab residents into the permanent population with some form of enfranchisement will inexorably result in the Lebanonizaton of Israeli society and the eventual Islamization of the country—even if the optimistic demographers are right in their assessment, and after annexation, the Muslim sector will comprise “only” 35-40% of the population.

– Partial annexation of Judea-Samaria and restricting the bulk of the Arab population to a  patchwork of miniscule disconnected semi-autonomous enclaves will lead to an unsustainable Balkanized situation—with a tortuous border of anything up to 2000 km, making it almost impossible to demarcate and secure Israel’s sovereign territory, effectively rendering that sovereignty meaningless.  

Failure on the Right   

The political Right in Israel has failed to capitalize on its adversaries’ failures, on its own electoral successes and the clear, innate support it enjoys in the Israeli public.

It has failed to convey how ludicrous it is for anyone professing to subscribe to enlightened liberal values to endorse the establishment of yet another homophobic, misogynistic Muslim majority tyranny—which is of course what the real significance of the two-state formula is.

Inexplicably, still somehow intimidated by disproven dictates of political correctness, the political Right fails to identify the Palestinians for what they really are—and how they define themselves as a collective – an implacable enemy and not a prospective peace partner.

The political Right has failed to correctly conceptualize the conflict as a clash between two collectives with irreconcilable core objectives in which only one can emerge victorious and the other vanquished—and hence, both morally and practically, Israeli collective security must be given priority over individual enemy rights.

It has failed to formulate a policy which adequately addresses Israel’s geographic and demographic imperatives necessary to ensure its survival as the nation-state of the Jews. To the contrary, instead of Israel’s strategic imperatives dictating the objectives of its diplomacy, it has allowed diplomatic difficulties to dictate Israel’s strategic policy.

Only once these failures have been adequately redressed, can the Israeli Right begin to formulate policy alternatives that will be any less perilous than the two-state, Land for Peace paradigm which it rightly—and righteously—rejects.

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