Dan Crenshaw, the Biblical Warrior for Congress

“The American-Israeli bond runs deep, born out of mutually held values of democratic norms, rule of law, and freedoms of religion and opportunity. As a long-time supporter of Israel, I will ensure that our alliance does not waver, and that America continues to support Israeli security, advocate for her on the international stage, and contain the threat from Iran and terrorism across the region.”

The above quote is taken from Dan Crenshaw’s website.  With his runoff victory in the Republican primaries in Houston’s congressional district on May 22nd, Crenshaw is set to face the Democratic challenger.  This race for congressman already sees Crenshaw out to a large lead.

There is no doubt that both Republican candidates are staunch supporters of Israel, but Crenshaw’s unwavering tone on his support and his personal connection to people in areas “Palestinians” want for their state put him on a different level.

Yet, Dan Crenshaw appears to get the idea that the USA and Israel have a natural bond that goes beyond security necessities.  This bond is Biblical.  The USA has always saw itself as a facilitator for the Jewish return to Zion.  As far back as the founding fathers in whom there was a real debate on making the official language of the USA Hebrew to Abraham Lincoln’s desire to help the Jewish people return to their ancient homeland, the USA has taken the mantle as an extension of Israel.

Dan Crenshaw was nearly killed in his third tour of duty in the Middle East.  He spent days in a coma and lost his eye.  He has been blessed to continue and assuming he will be victorious this November, his blessings will continue. Blessings are drawn when one makes it a point in doing the Creator’s will by standing up for truth and justice. Crenshaw certainly has continued in that path and despite the fact that Washington D.C. is a swamp, with Biblical values, Dan Crenshaw will do just fine.



Inane …Again! Tom Friedman on Gaza

Tom Friedman’s last piece on Gaza is a “masterful” blend of personal bile & bias, liberally laced with logical inconsistencies, factual inaccuracies and even blatant non-sequiturs

What if all two million Palestinians of Gaza marched to the Israeli border fence with an olive branch in one hand and a sign in Hebrew and Arabic in the other, saying, “Two states for two peoples: We, the Palestinian people of Gaza, want to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish people — a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, with mutually agreed adjustments. – Thomas L. Friedman, Hamas, Netanyahu and Mother Nature, New York Times, May 22, 2018.

…the American conduct of the peace process bears an unhappy resemblance to the custom of treating diseases by placing leeches on the body of the afflicted person: It was based on an inadequate understanding of the pathology it attempted to cure, it did not solve the problem it was intended to fix, and it sometimes made it substantially worse. – Michael Mandelbaum, The Peace Process Is an Obstacle to Peace, Commentary, April 14, 2016.

 

The really disconcerting thing about the New York Times columnist, Tom Friedman, is that, at times, he can actually produce some sensible and insightful articles—as long as he is not writing (or more precisely, ranting) on Israel. Or Trump. Or the Palestinians. Or Barack Obama…

Sadly however, whenever he makes one of his far-too-frequent forays into any of these “touchy” topics, his journalistic output invariably degenerates into patently partisan pamphleteering.

 

Lip-service to “balance”

But even compared to his past inanities, his latest column, “Hamas, Netanyahu and Mother Nature”, is a real doozy—a “masterful” blend of personal bile and bias, liberally laced with logical inconsistencies, factual inaccuracies and even blatant non-sequiturs.

Friedman begins his column feigning journalistic impartiality and paying perfunctory lip- service to “balance”, with some cursory condemnation of Hamas, acknowledging “its utter failure to produce any kind of decent life for the Palestinians there, whom Hamas has ruled since 2007”.

He accuses the Islamist terror group of “Cynici[al] and Reckless Disregard for One’s Own People in Pursuit of a Political Fantasy [capitals in original- MS] ”, and of “facilitating the tragic and wasted deaths of roughly 60 Gazans by encouraging their march, some with arms, on the Israeli border fence in pursuit of a ‘return’ to their ancestral homes in what is now Israel”.

But then, predictably, he quickly reverts back into his almost Pavlovian, Israel-bashing, Bibi-phobic mode—basically dismissing the importance of his previous censure of Hamas and shifting the onus onto…Israel: “So much for the “bad” Palestinian leadership. What’s Israel’s approach to the secular, more moderate Palestinian Authority in the West Bank…Answer: nothing.”

 

Moderate, secular Palestinian Authority??

The secular moderate Palestinian Authority!

Really??

Gee, I wonder if Friedman was referring to the same “moderate secular” Palestinian Authority, whose leader, Mahmoud Abbas, not too long ago, referred to the Jews as desecrating the Temple Mount with their “filthy feet”? Or who recently explained that the slaughter of millions of Jews during the Holocaust was due to their practice of usurious moneylending? Or who orchestrated a vicious campaign of incitement against the Jewish state, and praised the bloody violence in terror attacks against the Jews, proclaiming: “We bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah, Allah willing. Every Martyr (Shahid) will reach Paradise, and everyone wounded will be rewarded by Allah.”

That moderate, secular Palestinian Authority???

Friedman has of course, been long been captive to the seductive deception of two-statism. At the base of this dogma is the belief that, among the Palestinian-Arabs, there is a leader sufficiently reasonable to cut a deal acceptable to Israel and sufficiently authoritative to ensure its implementation.

Accordingly, in order to sustain their political credo, (or rather, “cult”), two-state adherents have to conjure up imaginary Palestinian-Arabs and an imaginary Palestinian-Arab society, significantly different from those that actually exist on Planet Earth.

 

Favoring fantasy over facts

Indeed, Friedman would do well to heed the somewhat contrite confession of yet another dogged advocate of two-statism, Aaron David Miller, formerly a senior State Department official, deeply involved in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, and today, vice president of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

In a recorded exchange, with the suitably gloomy title, “Today’s Bleak Prospects for Israeli-Palestinian Peace”, Miller acknowledged: “I would draw from my own experiences that when we failed in diplomacy, and particularly in the pursuit of Arab- Israeli negotiations, it was almost always because Americans – let’s forget the Israelis and the Palestinians for a moment—chose to see the world the way they wanted it to be, rather than the way it actually was.”

Significantly, this closely parallels the assessment expressed in the opening excerpt by Michael Mandelbaum, Professor of American Foreign Policy at The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, that “the American conduct of the peace process …was based on an inadequate understanding of the pathology it attempted to cure.”

Indeed, Mandelbaum puts his finger precisely on what Friedman, and those of his obsessive ilk, refuse to acknowledge. Writing in the final stages of the Obama administration, Mandelbaum counsels: “The next administration should tell the truth about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict: namely, that the responsibility for creating and perpetuating it rests with the Palestinian side.

 

Friedman: Favoring fantasy over facts

Of course, Friedman will have none of this hardnosed realism. For that, heaven forfend, would be to admit error of staggering proportions.

Accordingly, he embarks on a flight of fantasy into the realm of “what if”.

Wistfully, he asks: “What if all two million Palestinians of Gaza marched to the Israeli border fence with an olive branch in one hand and a sign in Hebrew and Arabic in the other, saying, ‘…:We, the Palestinian people of Gaza, want to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish people …’”

Well, perhaps the question Friedman should ask himself is: Why don’t they??

A truthful answer to this would be: “Because it is not in their nature!”

For, if they did, they would not be who they are! Indeed, as I have argued repeatedly in the past, the Gazans are not the hapless victims of their leadership. To the contrary, they are the very crucible in which that leadership was formed and from which it emerged.

After all, it was the general public that elected Hamas into power, over a decade ago, in an election generally considered free and fair—and with the outcome by-and-large reflecting prevailing electoral sentiment. Even today, there does not seem to be a major anti-Hamas metamorphosis in the overall attitude of the Gazan public.

 

Scant regret over Hamas?

Quite the opposite.

According to the findings of a very recent poll, conducted just as the unrest on the Gaza border began to flare up, by the leading Palestinian polling institute (in conjunction with the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung), in a presidential election, a Hamas candidate would trounce Fatah’s incumbent Mahmoud Abbas by almost 2 to 1. Even in legislative elections, it seems that Hamas would hold its own against the rival Fatah faction.

Underscoring just how detached Friedman’s prescription is from reality is another finding in the poll: Almost 70% of Gazans support a return to an armed intifada. Moreover, Gazans chose “Armed Resistance” by about 2 to 1 over “Negotiations” and “Popular Non-Violent Resistance” as the preferred course of action against Israel.

Indeed, Friedman’s idea of Palestinian-Arabs, extending an olive branch with one hand, and placards proclaiming peaceful intent with the other, is not entirely new. He proposed the identical formula back in a 2011 anti-Bibi screed shortly after the fall of Mubarak in Egypt and in which virtually all his analyses/prognoses proved to be embarrassingly mistaken.

Yet, unchastened by his massive misreading of Mid-East realities back then, Friedman sallies forth yet again with his implausible proposal—now, if anything, even more implausible than before.

 

Banking on amnesia or ignorance?

Friedman empathizes (at least partially) with the Gazans’ rage: “I appreciate the Gazans’ sense of injustice. Why should they pay with their ancestral homes for Jewish refugees who lost theirs in Germany or Iraq?

Of course, unless Friedman is woefully misinformed, he is wildly—perhaps even willfully—misleading!

For the Arab residents of Israel did not lose their homes during the 1948 War of Independence to accommodate Jewish refugees, fleeing persecution in Europe and the Arab countries.

They lost them because of the failure of their Arab patrons’ aggressive initiative to annihilate any vestige of Jewish political independence. Accordingly, the 1948 displacement of Arabs was a result of categorical Arab refusal to accept a Jewish state and of the resultant Arab defeat in the Arab attempt to destroy it.

Friedman goes on to speculate on how better things might have been “if only” the hopelessly improbable had transpired. He laments: “If Hamas had chosen to recognize Israel and build a Palestinian state in Gaza modeled on Singapore, the world would have showered it with aid and it would have served as a positive test case for the West Bank. Hamas chose otherwise.”

On reading this, one can only shake one’s head in puzzlement and wonder whether Friedman is banking on the ignorance or the amnesia of his readers.

After all, the international community has showered aid on Gaza, only to have most of it diverted into construction of military infrastructure to be used against Israel, or into the personal bank accounts of the corrupt cliques who rule the enclave, and their complicit cronies.

Surely Friedman must know that Gaza has not degenerated into the current cesspool that it is because of any lack of international funding or of Israeli largesse. It has done so despite an abundance of both!

 

Infuriating and disingenuous
Friedman “graciously” acknowledges that “Israel has no choice but to defend its border with Gaza with brute force.”

But then, nimbly sidestepping the morass in Gaza, he goes on to berate Israel anyway, regarding Judea-Samaria: “… I find it a travesty that a country with so much imagination in computing, medicine and agriculture shows so little imagination in searching for secure ways to separate from the Palestinians in the West Bank…”

Of course to accuse Israel of showing insufficient endeavor in searching for ways to “separate” from the Palestinians is both infuriating, and disingenuous. Indeed, Israel has gone to incredible—even recklessly irresponsible —lengths to try and foist self-governance on the Palestinians—whether in terms of negotiated sovereignty under the 1993-5 “imaginative” Oslo Agreements or in terms of the unimaginably asinine unilateral abandonment of Gaza in the 2005 Disengagement, where even Jewish graves were unearthed to accommodate “separation”.

As it turns out, the real problem is not achieving “separation”—as the Gaza episode clearly shows. The real problem is to ensure that the post-separation realities will not be those that arose following the separation in Gaza—i.e. that Israel will not face a hostile mega-Gaza on the fringes of Greater Tel Aviv, overlooking Ben Gurion Airport and abutting the trans-Israel highway.

 

Blatant Bibi-phobic bile

But oblivious to all this—to past precedents, present realities and future probabilities— for Friedman, the real culprits are easily identifiable: Netanyahu and Trump!

Clearly willing to stand up for his so called “liberal” principles down to the last Israeli, Friedman pontificates: Israel has never been stronger than it is today. Hamas has never been weaker. If there were ever a time for Israel to take a few calculated risks to try to nurture a different pathway with Palestinians in the West Bank, it’s now”.

Leaving the reader to puzzle over what on earth a weak Hamas in Gaza has to do with taking huge risks in Judea-Samaria, Friedman rails on with puerile pique: “Unfortunately, its [Israel’s] prime minister is too cowardly, and America is too slavishly supportive, for that to happen”.

While I have many criticisms of Netanyahu, it is patently absurd to accuse him of being cowardly, unless Friedman is suggesting that to be “courageous” Netanyahu must bow to enemy demands; unless to be “courageous” is to concede to pressures to expose Israeli citizens to unacceptable risks…

And as for the overly “slavish support” of America, Friedman seems to have forgotten that for eight years, the White House was occupied by a president who was anything but “slavishly supportive” of Israel—and yet nary a sign of separation appeared on the horizon… I wonder why!

Clearly then, drivel is drivel, even when it appears in the purported paper of record—leaving one to wonder how this stuff gets published!

Trump Puts the Screws on North Korea and Iran

News today that President Trump decided to pull out of his much vaunted summit with North Korean despot Kim Jong Un sent shockwaves around the world.  US markets dipped on the news.  Once Trump pulled out of the JCPOA (aka Iran nuclear agreement) this should not have been a surprise to anyone.  There has been overwhelming evidence for some time now that Iran and North Korea have been working together.  Iran was essentially helping North Korea financially with all the oil cash it began to receive in order for North Korea to test Iranian advances in their nuclear program.

Ultimately Trump understands that a true hardline approach is needed with these actors.  As China threatens Taiwan and Iran moves towards resuming nuclear development in order to reach full breakout, North Korea’s true intentions never matched their photo ops.



With Israel and Jordan increasingly cornered by Iran and Hezbollah, the Trump administration sees war on the horizon.  In a situation with war against Iran, having North Korea play games with diplomacy is downright dangerous.  The Trump administration has decided to take a hardline against North Korea and thus be ready for the coming hot war on the verge of breaking out.

In the months to come watch for Iran to make moves against Israel by way of Hezbollah, while it directly pushes against Saudi Arabia.  Kim Jong Un is now embarrassed. With China threathening Taiwan and Iran on the move, North Korea has nothing holding it back from going all in.




Is Trump Preparing to Slay the Palestinian Fairy Tale?

With rumors flying that President Trump is readying the release of his long awaiting Israel-Palestinian peace plan, obersvers have noted the non-commitment there still is to the two-state paradigm.  Trump Assistant Victoria Coates can be heard below  insisting that the administration “is not committed to the two-state formul” and explains that it means “whatever the sides want.”




So what is Trump planning to release?

Given the recent events surrounding his decertification of the Iran deal, moving the embassy to Jerusalem, the Gaza riots, as well the Palestinian Authorities response to all of this, it would seem improbable that Trump is banking on the kleptocracy and mafia of Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah to be able to commit to a peace plan.

With all of the noise in the past week there has been one country conspicuously quiet and that is Jordan. The fact is, Trump’s non-committal to a two-state paradigm appears to be setting the stage for the only real solution to the Israel-Palestinian conundrum and that is the “Jordan is Palestine” model with some tweaks.

The original Palestinian Mandate was made up what is today Israel (both pre 1967 and post 1967) and Jordan.  While the Balfour declaration said that the Jews deserved a homeland in Palestine clearly meaning both sides of the Jordan River, the British ended up splitting the Mandate in two along the Jordan River (although originally it as supposed to be 10 km East of the Jordan River).  The East side became Trans Jordan and was given to the Hashemites in 1922 as a reward for their help during World War One.  The Hashemites were originally from Mecca and were chased out by the House of Saud.

In 1922, Abdullah, the emir and soon to be King of (Trans) Jordan was placed in power over a people not his own and effectively came to rule a majority population of Palestinian Arabs. Jordan today is a shaky monarchy having need to keep the Palestinian population from gaining too much power in order to survive.  This is why the current King Abdullah often uses Israel as a scapegoat to hide his own policies.  This strategy is no longer working.

Trump’s plan appears to be in favor of some sort confederation between the Hashemite Kingdom in Jordan as a Palestinian entity and an autonomous area in most of Areas A and B in Judea and Samaria. Area C would be retained by Israel.   When it comes to Jerusalem the current situation appears to be the best way to make all sides happy.  Jordan would still hold onto its custodial rights over the Muslim and Christian holy sites in the Old City of Jerusalem and Israel would retain security control.

Essentially a combination of the Jordan is Palestine model and Naftali Bennett’s plan seen below. The difference being Jordan would control A and B as noted above, while Bennett leaves it in the hands of the Palestinian Authority.



Why do I think this is the plan?  Because Trump wants a deal and yet he wants a deal that works.  Relying on the Palestinian Authority to sign or even uphod a deal is pointless. Doing so would destablize both Israel and Jordan. By basing his deal on the peace deal already agreed to by Israel and Jordan, Trump would effectively be ending the Palestinian-Israel conflict simply by recognizing history and reality.

So if this plan makes sense, why hasn’t it been tried before? The answer lies with the King of Jordan.  Up until now he has always used the Palestinian issue as a distraction. The King fears that an acceptance of the “Jordan is Palestine” model would effectively doom his regime in a rapid fashion.

The Trump team appears to understand that and is perhaps readying some sort of carrot for the royal family. It remains to be seen what that is

ISRAEL-INDIA ALLIANCE: Israeli Defense Contracts to India Continue to Soar

Despite India’s publicly cool reception over Washington’s embassy move to Jerusalem, the Modi government continues to build on its alliance with Israel by becoming the top Israeli arms and defense importer for 2017.

In general, there has been a very large increase of Israeli defense contracts to the Asia-Pacific region.  The Asia-Pacific region holds 58 percent of Israeli defense deals making it by far the largest region for Israeli defense contracts.  Israel’s top three customers, all from the region, include India, Vietnam, and Azerbaijan.

India leads with US$715 million worth of purchase, then Vietnam at US$142 million and Azerbaijan at US$137 million follows next.

According to the Jerusalem Post, Israel’s military exports rose by 41 percent in 2017, the third consecutive year of increased defense exports, which brought in nearly US$9.2 billion in contracts.



Last month, India ended its ban it had placed on Aerospace Industries and the Rafael Advanced Defence Systems Ltd both of Israel, which remained blacklisted since 2006 due to allegations of bribery.

India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a lawsuit demanding the closure of the criminal investigation against the two companies, which led to US$2 billion deal between India and Israel’s Aerospace Industries. The lawsuit closure led to an agreement between the two nations under which the Israeli company would supply India with Barak 8 surface-to-air missiles.

India’s Concern About China and Pakistan Has Strengthened the Military Cooperation With Israel

Most India-Israel observers have always noted the warm cultural relations between the two ancient countries.  Yet, in today’s geopolitical upheavels along with Chinese economic expansion westward by way of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and Chinese military alliance with Pakistan, India’s military cooperation with Israel has taken a front seat to the growing trade and cultural ties.

With Pakistan arming itself with Chinese weapons and excacerbating tensions in Kashmir, India and Israel have now grown even closer.

While India may have skipped the US embassy dedication, it barely uttered a peep over Israel’s border defense against Hamas terrorists who posed as civilians.  Perhaps this is because, India too has begn to face a militant Pakistan prepared to utilize similar tactics against the only Hindu majority country in the world.