Tag: Judea and Samaria

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Israel Moves to Annexation as the Ultimate Solution

The Israeli Cabinet is set to approve the landmark Greater Jerusalem Bill next week, in a move that will officially see 19 communities in Judea and Samaria that surround Jerusalem become part of the Jerusalem municipality in what critics say amounts to annexation.

The fact is, Israel has been quietly moving towards annexation over the past year. Of course there are levels of annexation and the strategy has been to apply Israeli law when possible to communities in Judea and Samaria. Without fanfare or public announcements, the Israeli government has been quietly using laws available to them to create a defacto change on the ground within communities beyond the “green line.”

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked has already proposed new legislation making Israeli law even for Israelis living beyond the Green Line.  Although slammed as “creeping annexation” by critics, former military advocate general Maj. Gen. (res) Danny Efroni, not seen as a right-wing champion, has come out in support of such legislation due to the practical management of Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria and the needs of everyday living.

“The challenge,” says Efroni, “is maintaining the status quo while guarding the interests of civilians in the area.”

This seems to be the strategy that Israel is now taking, which is a blend of unilateralism and practical development in a stretvh of land now under Israeli rule for 50 years.  Prime Minister Netanyahu is said to love the Status Quo, but seeing a chance to create irreversible facts on the ground has made moves to create defacto annexation without any big announcements.

By simply applying Israeli laws evenly to Israeli communities regardless of location as well as expanding the jurisdictional control of Jerusalem to those communities closes to the capital, the question of sovereignty can be set aside for a more feasible annexation that seems to keep all sides at the table.

Then again the PLO, despite their intractability has rightly said that the Greater Jerusalem Bill will destroy the 2-State Solution, which makes the passage of the bill a potential a trigger to a broad Arab uprising. Or does it?

Recognizing the Reality

Netanyahu’s game plan has always been about allowing reality to take hold and eventually when reality took hold, the imaginary dreams of the “Palestinian” Arabs would vanish.  The utilization of the status quo as a concept in securing confidence in the Israeli body politic while all the time creating a situation where Jewish life can actually flourish in Judea and Samaria by merely making jurisdictional and bureaucratic changes may seem overly cautious to many on the right, but this strategy is now clearly the best and most balanced approach to ensuring Judea and Samaria remains in Jewish hands.

The cabinet is not altering Oslo (which is long dead), but carefully applying sovereignty within the confines of previously agreed powers. Afterall, the PLO  can complain, but they signed away their rights to what is now Area C the moment Arafat shook Rabin’s hand on the White House lawn.  No where in that agreement, does Oslo prevent Israel from applying its own rules to communities found within Area C.

Why is this point importan?  Because no one can claim Israel is doing anything out-of-bounds since the “Palestinian” Arabs agreed to give Israel those rights.  Let’s remember Area C is between 60% and 70% of Judea and Samaria.

While not annexing the land directly, applying Israeli law and reorganizing the Gush Etzion regional council as well as Givat Ze’ev, Maale Adumim, and others into a Greater Jerusalem block paves a careful path forward in creating normalization without breaking any previous agreements. This cleverly corners the PLO within its own unhinged rhetoric.

Furthermore, the approach now being taken by Israel, recognizes that Jewish communal life is an unquestioning reality in Judea and Samaria. That reality coupled with a “Palestinian” leadership unable to accept basic facts and a willingness to discuss a practical solution means that a new careful approach is necessary.

The Greater Jerusalem Bill, Shaked’s Israeli Law legislation, and other quality of life developments like approving housing for thousands of Jews in Judea and Samaria form the most intelligent approach to legal annexation now on the table.  Is it perfect?  Not at all, but the move are practical and leaves the PLO cornered and on borrowed time.

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Is Ayelet Shaked Leading a Revolution in Judea and Samaria?

Known for her tough stance in regards to Israel’s overtly left-wing activist court, Ayelet Shaked is leading another battle that is riling the left. If she wins she will change the relationship between Israel and the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

Known as the Settlements Regulations Law, the measure drew severe criticism fromt he left, when it was passed in the Knesset earlier in the year.  Now, 13 left-wing NGOs have petitioned the Suprement Court to nullify the law. The law would effectively legalize 4,000 Jewish homes built with government help on private “Palestinian” Land.  This land often time lies vacant and unused as most owners abandoned it decades earlier.

Having lost at the ballot box election after election, the left and its European partners decided to use Israeli Supreme Court as a tool to upend Jewish growth in Israel’s biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria.  Most NGOs locate a tacitly related relative to the original landowner, most of the time living in Amman.  Once located these NGOs file a complaint with the Supreme Court. Almost always, the Supreme Court has ruled in the Arab’s favor.

This process has led to whole communities becoming uprooted, even if they were established decades ago. The Settlements Regulations Law is the first major step to reeling the power of the Supreme Court in relation to housing in Judea and Samaria and handing it back to the Knesset. The Law not only grants legality to these communities, it compensates the Arab 125% of the value of the property.

This is what Ayelet Shaked meant when she told the Jerusalem Post last week that “We want to revolutionize our [legal] perception,” she said. “Foremost is that it is possible for [the Knesset] to legislate [for Judea and Samaria] and in addition that we don’t solve one injustice with another.”

As usual, the left is caught up with the present Supreme Court case. Yet, they themselves are blind to what is actually playing out. Whether or not the Supreme Court rules in favor of the Settlements Regulations Law, is not the point. For years, the left has had a superficial strategy in dealing with the natural and just recalmation of Jewish land in Judea and Samaria, but this strategy ended up being just a set of tactics, that the right could never figure out how to take down until Shaked decided to go where no one dared to go before.

By taking on the root cause of the internal challenges facing the State of Israel, Shaked has made a solution that is far more attenable than settling another hilltop. By limiting the power of the Supreme Court to constitutional decisions, these matters which are essentially a matter of eminant domain can be decided primarily by the Knesset itself.

This is why those who back Judicial activism are so incensed by Shaked.  The elite left has finally seen the proverbial writing on the wall.  What makes matters worse for them is they are cornered.  If they fight too hard against Shaked they will make her into an unmovable leader of the right and set her up to be a possible candidate for Prime Minister after Bibi Netanyahu leaves.

On the other hand, if they do not oppose her, their judicial cartel will wither and die along with the last remaining avenue for the left’s battle against the Jews in Judea and Samaria.  Essentially, Shaked has set up the ultimate Gordian Knot.

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Amichai, Replacement Community for Amona Receives Funding From the Government

In blow after blow to the assumption that Arab “Palestine” will replace Judea and Samaria as an independent state, the Israeli cabinet approved the budget for the first Jewish community to be built in Judea and Samaria in the last 25 years.

Amichai is the replacement community offered to the evacuees of Amona in order for their community to leave their homes quietly.  Amichai will be built next to Shilo, the site of the Biblical Tabernacle, and religious center for Israel until King David established Jerusalem.

Amichai Israel
Amichai, just East of Shilo marked in blue

With the Trump administration seemingly not interested in getting involved with internal Israeli matters, the Netanyahu government has been laying the groundwork for establishing some sort of extended Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.

Last week, the government upgraded the status of Jewish Hebron to a municipal council at the same time Netanyahu stated clearly that “Israel will remain in Judea and Samaria forever.” With Amichai going forward and 300 more homes to be built in Bet El, the unfolding strategy does not involve Palestine or at least not Palestine located on Israel’s Biblical Heartland.

By going ahead and building in the Shilo block, the government sends three messages.  The first is that whenever the left tries to tear down a community using the courts, a new legal one will be built. The second is that Area C (where a majority of Jews live in Judea and Samaria) is and will be Israeli.  The third is, Oslo is dead.

With an American veto guaranteed, the Trump administration too distracted domestically, and a region in chaos, Israel is finaly free to develop its country the way it sees fit.  So where does that leave the Abbas clan and its vehicle for corruption called the Palestinian Authority?  Heading towards the dumpster.

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Why is the Trump Administration Taking it Easy on Israel’s “Settlements?”

The so-called “peace process” between Israel and the “Palestinians” living in Judea and Samaria has constant ups and downs with no real breakthroughs of substance.  This past week as Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt visited the region, reports have it that the two informed Mahmoud Abbas that there would be no settlement freeze.

With this message in hand, PA officials told the London-based Al-Hayat that Kushner said the following:

“It is impossible to talk about halting the construction of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, or considering this as a condition for the resumption of negotiations, since the issue of this issue would bring down the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.” 

With only the Al-Hayat as a source, news media outlets began repeating this mantra.

The official White House response simply “this is nonsense.”

Putting off the propensity for news outlets to repeat unsourced stories, the important part here is that the Trump administration will not force Israel into a settlement freeze.

The Trump administration may have gone under a dramatic change when Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka, but Trump himself has been shaped over the years by a circle of friend that are extremely pro-Israel. Furthermore, Trump is of the opinion that repeating past mistakes in the peace process will not only not bring peace, but could destabilize the region even more.

The Trump administration, despite the NSC now fully in the hands of globalists like H.R. McMaster, views Israel as a strategic puzzle piece in the Middle East. The last time there was a serious push by the USA for a two-state outcome was in 2007-2008 at the end of Olmert’s term.  Israel was at a vastly different point in its economic and geo-political situation.  The Israel of now, is considered an economic power house, having forged ties into the East and Africa.

With all the changes on the ground, along with Iran’s push towards hegemony across the Middle East, the US administration may want a comprehensive peace plan, but the contours of that plan will have nothing to do with the “Palestinians” in Judea and Samaria.

The Dahlan Plan Takes Flight

In July I wrote the following:

The plan that appears to be taking shape is that Dahlan will essentially become the defacto ruler of Gaza.  Supported by the UAE and Egypt he will lead a Gaza that is independent of Fatah and Ramallah. Without Gaza included in a future deal, the ability to annex Judea and Samaria, including all the area where Palestinian Arabs live appear to be doable. Once you subtract the population of Gaza from the total population of Palestinian Arabs West of the Jordan River, Israel will still have a comfortable 70/30 Jewish majority.

The nature of annexation is not clear, but the fact that it is Israel who is determining Area A housing solutions mean the ball has already dropped.  The question will only be if and when Dahlan takes over Gaza, will he be able to cut Hamas’ outsized control down to size or will the Islamist group prevent him from exerting real authority.

Although things can change, it is clear that the emerging plan that seems to be building behind the scenes between the Sunni alliance that is most interested in working with Israel is a permanent separation between Gaza and Judea and Samaria, which they call “the West Bank.”

Jared Kushner Promises Plan in Four Months

According to Israel HaYom Jared Kushner has promised to deliver a “peace-plan” to Mahmoud Abbas in the next three to four months. This has less to do with the US administration’s desire to build a comprehensive plan on the back of a former terrorist and Holocaust denier, than the need to keep things in check as the US continues to build a counterweight to Iran. This counterweight is being built on the backs of Israel and Saudi Arabia, with an emerging Kurdistan providing stability in Northern Iraq.

Back to Settlements

The vision within the Trump Administration and moderate Arab states is that a permanent settlement between Israel and the “Palestinians” can incorporate two opposing narratives.  With Gaza as a solidified political union backed by the UAE and Egypt, Judea and Samaria can be viewed by both Jews and Arabs as an extension of their “homeland.” This is why Trump himself has distanced himself from overt support of the “Two-State Solution” because the emerging solution is an acceptance that there will never be agreement on everything, but rather what needs to be built is long-term coexistence.

According to the San Remo conference of 1920, Jews have a right to settle anywhere within the boundaries of the Palestinian Mandate, which at that time reached not only from pre-1967 Israel but covered Judea and Samaria and present day Jordan as well.  What we could be seeing is the first attempt to get back to the idea of sovereignty and homeland.  With emerging realties and real threats to the Arab world from Iran, the idea of Jewish settlement throughout its historic homeland is becoming separated from the question of final sovereignty over the same piece of land.

By separating the two issues, creative decisions can be made in respect to a final outcome, which allows for the Jewish communities to thrive in Area C, while providing for the understanding that Palestinian Arabs live amongst them in Areas A and B.

Or Judea and Samria itself can be rolled into Israel.  Without Gaza, the population can be integrated and those not wanting to become part of the Israeli milieu can be paid to leave.

Whatever the outcome, the narrative has shifted away from Israel being an occupying power to one which has rights within its historic homeland.  That alone, makes the news trickling out from Kushner’s meetings relevant and important.

 

 

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The Humanitarian Paradigm- Hobson’s Choice for Israel (Part I)

Only one policy paradigm can sustain Israel as the nation-state of the Jews and prevent it becoming untenable either geographically or demographically—or both.

…when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth, – Sherlock Holmes in “The Sign of the Four”

Hobson’s Choice: a situation in which it seems that you can choose between different things or actions, but there is really only one thing that you can take or do – Cambridge Dictionary

As the more-than– century old dispute between Jews and Arabs over control of the Holy Land nears its third post-Oslo decade , four archetypical approaches have emerged in the public discourse for its resolution—and one for its “management”(a.k.a. its perpetuation).

In this two-part series I will assess the merits (or lack thereof) of these various approaches –both those which endorse (full or partial) Israeli annexation of territory across the pre-1967 Green Line and those which eschew it.

Indeed as I will show—barring divine intervention (something only the more pious than myself can rely on as a policy input—of these five (four plus one) options, all but one are demonstrably incompatible with the long-term survival of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.  All but one—demonstrably—do not address adequately either the geographic imperatives and/or the demographic imperatives that Israel must address to avoid becoming either geographically untenable or demographically untenable (or both).  

Israel as the nation-state of the Jews

It is—or at least should be—manifestly self-evident that for Israel to endure over time as the nation-state of the Jews, it cannot (a) withdraw to geographical/topographical confines that make it impossible to maintain ongoing socio-economic routine in the country’s major commercial centers, or (b) allow the Jewish majority to be so diminished that maintenance of the Jewish nature of the state is imperiled.

Accordingly, it is in terms of their ability to contend with these undeniable imperatives that the alternative proposals for resolution/management for the conflict must be evaluated as appropriate policy prescriptions for Israel if—at the risk of appearing repetitive—it is to retain its status as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

I belabor this point of the long-term preservation of Jewish sovereignty, as a necessary precondition for the acceptability of competing policy proposals, because if one is prepared to forego it, other proposals, which are unable to ensure such an outcome, may well be acceptable—like for instance the post-Zionist call for a non-Jewish state of all its citizens.

Bearing this brief introductory clarification in mind, let’s begin the critical analysis of the proffered alternatives, which this week I shall confine to policy proposals that eschew full or partial  Israeli annexation of territory—deferring analysis of those that endorse such annexation for next week.

Managing the Conflict: Mowing the lawn won’t cut it

The conflict management  approach—as opposed to conflict resolution – is ostensibly the least proactive, least provocative—and most pessimistic—largely reflecting the recent assessment of Jared Kushner that there may well be no solution to the Arab-Israeli  confrontation.   

In a column written last August, I pointed out the grave detriments this approach entailed, detailing how, over the last two-and- half decades, the military prowess of the terrorist organizations have developed far beyond anything imagined,  and how Israel’s political positions have been drastically eroded.

Thus, when Israel left Gaza (2005), the range of the Palestinian rockets was barely 5 km., and the explosive charge they carried about 5 kg. Now, their missiles have a range of over 100 km. and warheads of around 100 kg. Likewise, when Israel left Gaza, only the sparse population in its immediate proximity was threatened by missiles. Now, well over 5 million Israelis, well beyond Tel Aviv, are menaced by them. Moreover the terror organizations have exploited periods of calm to further enhance their infrastructures and other abilities, which were barely conceivable a decade ago—including a massive tunneling enterprise and the development of naval forces, commandoes and underwater capabilities.

But it is not only in the exponential growth of the terror groups’ martial prowess that the endeavor at conflict management has been a resounding failure. The same can be said—arguably even more so–with regard to the ever-tightening political constraints Israel faces.

Mowing the lawn won’t cut it (cont.)

Perhaps one of the most dramatic and disturbing indications of just how far Israeli positions have been rolled back over the last two decades is reflected in the views articulated by Yitzhak Rabin, in his last Knesset address (October 5, 1995), a month before his assassination. In it he sought parliamentary ratification of the Oslo II Accords, then considered by much of the Israeli public as excessively dovish and dangerously concessionary.

There can be little doubt that if today, Netanyahu were to embrace, verbatim, Rabin’s 1995 prescription for a permanent accord with the Palestinian-Arabs in the “West Bank , he would be dismissed—scornfully, disparagingly and angrily—as an “unreasonable extremist”.

It of course requires little analytical acumen and a mere smidgeon of common sense to grasp that–whatever one may believe the real size of the  Arab population of Judea-Samaria to be—Israel cannot keep  an increasing and increasingly recalcitrant and irredentist population indefinitely in a state of suspended disenfranchised political limbo.  

In this regard, it should be remembered that, today, with the changing nature of Arab enmity, the major existential challenge to Israel’s existence as the Jewish nation-state is no longer repulsing invasion, but resisting attrition—both militarily and politically.

Accordingly, by eschewing decisive proactive measures to contend with a predicament that entails a mounting threat and decreasing freedom to deal with it, “conflict management” has become a prescription for avoiding immediate confrontations that can be won, thereby risking having to contend with later confrontations that cannot be won—or can be won only at ruinous cost.

Two-States: A mega-Gaza overlooking Tel Aviv?

Of course, the policy paradigm which, for decades, has dominated the discourse on how to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict  is that advocating a two-state outcome.   Bizarrely, support for this formula has always been the sine-qua-non for admission into “polite company” while opposition to it was the perceived hallmark of the uncouth and ignorant.  

Just how perverse this situation is can be gauged from the fact that there is no persuasive reason to believe –and certainly none has ever been provided by two-state proponents – that a Palestinian state will be anything other than a homophobic, misogynistic, Muslim-majority tyranny, whose hallmarks would be: gender discrimination, gay persecution, religious intolerance, and political oppression of dissidents—and which would rapidly become a bastion for Islamist terror.

After all, one might well ask, why would anyone purporting to profess to liberal values, wish to endorse the establishment of such an entity — which is clearly the utter negation of the very values invoked for its establishment?!

Readers will recall that it was in Gaza that the initial optimistic attempts to implement the two-state idea were made. So, how events unfolded there should be instructive as to how they may be expected to unfold in Judea-Samaria. For in the absence of a compelling argument to the contrary—and as mentioned, none has ever been presented—there is little reason to believe that  if Israel were to evacuate the “West Bank”  the outcome  would not be largely similar to that which followed Israel’s evacuation of Gaza.

Indeed, unsubstantiated hope aside, there is neither sound theoretical foundation nor empirical evidence on which two-state proponents can base any prognosis for the  success of their political credo.  

A mega-Gaza (cont.)

Accordingly, the prudent working assumption must be that any attempt to implement the two-state principle in Judea-Samaria will result in a “mega-Gaza”—and that measures, similar to those required to protect the Israeli population in the South, would be required as well on Israel’s eastern border.

But unlike Gaza, which abuts sparsely populated, largely rural areas, the “mega-Gaza” that almost certainly will emerge in Judea-Samaria would abut Israel’s most populous urban areas. Unlike Gaza, which has no topographic superiority over adjacent Israeli territory, the prospective “mega-Gaza” in Judea-Samaria will totally command the adjacent coastal megalopolis, in which much of Israel’s vital infrastructure (both civilian and military) is located, where 80 percent of its civilian population resides and 80% of its commercial activity takes place.

But perhaps most significantly, unlike Gaza, which has only about a 50-km. front with Israel, the envisioned “mega-Gaza” in Judea-Samaria would have a front of up to almost 500 km!

Accordingly, what might be expected to concentrate two-staters’ minds, more than anything is that, after evacuating Gaza, Israel is now undertaking what IDF Chief-of Staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisencott, called the “largest project” ever carried out in the history of the IDF—a wall along the entire Israel-Gaza border,  not only several  storeys above ground but – to contend with the tunnel threat– several storeys below it !!  Now imagine a project over ten times that scale along a “mega-Gaza” in the east…

Next week: Analyzing Annexation

As mentioned, next week I will focus attention on those approaches which advocate full or partial annexations of the territories across the 1967 Green Line. In the analysis I will demonstrate that without an operational plan for dramatically reducing the Arab presence  east of the Jordan River, the former will result in the Lebanonization of Israel, creating a single society so fractured by interethnic strife that it would be untenable as the nation- state of the Jewish people; while the latter will result in the Balkanization of Israel, dividing the territory up into disconnected autonomous enclaves, which will be recalcitrant, rivalrous and rejectionist, creating an ungovernable reality for Israel.

Accordingly, by a logical process of elimination, I will show that the Humanitarian Paradigm, advocating funded emigration of the Arab residents of Judea-Samaria (and eventually Gaza) is the only policy paradigm consistent with the long term survival of Israel as the nation-state of the Jews, and hence—for those dedicated to the preservation of the Zionist ideal—Hobson choice.

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The Truth About Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria

For 50 years now, Israel has endured censure from global bodies and foreign countries for its construction and development of Jewish communities in the ancient Israelite tribal territories of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and western Menasheh, a.k.a. Judea & Samaria, referred to by the international community as the “West Bank”.

These Jewish communities are routinely condemned as illegal and illegitimate under international law and wielded as a political tool with which to tarnish Israel’s reputation. However, this position glaringly fails to take into account elementary history, Jewish indigeneity to the Land of Israel, and the applicability of international law.

 

Judea & Samaria form the heartland of the homeland of the Jewish People—the Land of Israel—which Jews have inhabited for 4,000 years.

 

  • Since the era circa 2000 BCE when the biblical patriarchs and matriarchs first settled and constructed in Shechem, Beth-El, Ai, and Hebron (a.k.a. Mamre/Kiryat Arba), Jews have been an autochthonous people throughout the area.
  • Judea & Samaria consist of the ancient Israelite tribal territories of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and west Menasheh.
  • Jewish predominance in the area ended as a result of the Jews being besieged and starved, slaughtered, sold into slavery, exiled, and expelled by their imperial Roman conquerors and occupiers following The Great Revolt (66-73 CE) and The Bar Kokhba Revolt (132-135 CE).
  • Arabs only became a major presence in the area following the Islamic conquests of 634-636 CE under Caliph Umar’s imperial Muslim armies led by Khalid ibn al-Walid, Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah, Amr ibn al-A’as, and Shurahbeel ibn Hasana.

 

Judea & Samaria never constituted an independent Arab state under sovereign authority.

 

  • After being conquered by Sultan Selim I, these areas were controlled by the Ottoman Empire from 1516-1917, ruled as sub-districts of the province of Damascus from the imperial Ottoman capital at Istanbul.
  • Following the War of Independence of 1948, Jordan illegally occupied Judea & Samaria from 1948-1967 and prohibited Jews from living in these areas, contravening the Mandate for Palestine adopted by the League of Nations in 1922.

 

Jews finally reclaimed Judea & Samaria in the defensive Six Day War of 1967.

 

  • In June 1967, with belligerent Arab armies from Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq poised to exterminate Israel, Israel launched pre-emptive strikes and within a week had achieved stunning victories which included regaining its historic heartland.
  • As the aboriginal people of the Land of Israel, Israeli settlers are repatriating and repopulating the historic land of their forebears.

 

The Fourth Geneva Convention (GCIV), an international treaty adopted in August 1949 in the wake of Nazi atrocities and signed by Israel in 1951, was designed to protect civilians and regulate the rules of war, not to adjudicate or arbitrate disputed territories.

 

  • From the normative Jewish/Israeli perspective, Judea & Samaria were areas liberated, not occupied, in 1967 and therefore Section III of the Fourth Geneva Convention does not pertain.
  • Jews possess the legal right to settle in Judea & Samaria.
  • Section III, Article 49 (1) of the GCIV states: “Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.” ( Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949. https://www.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/ART/380-600056?OpenDocument) Since Israel regained control over Judea & Samaria in 1967, locals Arabs have not been forcibly displaced and today they number approx. 2.78 million alongside approx. 371,000 Jews.
  • Section III, Article 49 (6) of the GCIV states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” (Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949. https://www.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/ART/380-600056?OpenDocument) Jewish inhabitants of Judea & Samaria are not forcibly implanted therein by Israeli governments, but reside there voluntarily.
  • “The provisions of Article 49 (6) regarding forced population transfer to occupied foreign territory should not be seen as prohibiting the voluntary return of individuals to the towns and villages from which they, or their ancestors, had been forcibly ousted. Nor does it prohibit the movement of individuals to land which was not under the legitimate sovereignty of any state and which is not subject to private ownership. In this regard, it should be noted that Israeli settlements in the West Bank have been established only after an exhaustive investigation process, under the supervision of the Supreme Court of Israel, and subject to appeal, which is designed to ensure that no communities are established illegally on private land.” (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Israeli Settlements and International Law.” (Nov 30, 2015. http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/peace/guide/pages/israeli%20settlements%20and%20international%20law.aspx)
  • While Israel does not accept that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies de jure, it has stated that on humanitarian issues it will govern itself de facto by certain GCIV provisions.

 

Jewish communities in Judea & Samaria are explicitly recognized as subject to exclusive Israeli jurisdiction within bilateral agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.

 

  • These agreements affirm that settlements remain under Israel’s remit “pending the outcome of peace negotiations, and do not prohibit settlement activity.” (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Israeli Settlements and International Law.” Nov 30, 2015. http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/peace/guide/pages/israeli%20settlements%20and%20international%20law.aspx)

 

Numerous Israeli settlements have been re-established on sites formerly home to native Jewish populations, in an expression of the Jewish People’s profound historical and ongoing connection to its homeland, the cradle of Jewish civilization.

 

  • A significant number of settlements are situated in loci where previous Jewish communities were forcibly expelled by Arab armies or militia, or slaughtered, as was the case with the ancient Jewish community of Hebron in 1929.

 

The only illegal or unauthorized (under Israeli law) settlements in Judea & Samaria are those Jewish outposts established without Israeli building permits.

 

  • Outposts are small settlements usually consisting of less than 1,000 residents, some of which were established on state lands and others on private Arab land. Estimates of the number of outposts range from around 50 to over 100, depending on the classification of an outpost as a standalone entity or a settlement neighborhood.
  • In recent years the Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has determined to retroactively legalize at least some outposts on state lands and to dismantle those on privately-owned Arab property.
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Why Did Bibi Netanyahu Agree to Build 14,000 New Homes for PA Arabs on Israeli Land?

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_btn title=”FOR $5/MONTH YOU CAN SUPPORT ORIT’S WRITING” color=”primary” size=”lg” align=”center” button_block=”true” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.paypal.com%2Fcgi-bin%2Fwebscr%3Fcmd%3D_s-xclick%26hosted_button_id%3DPBTQ2JVPQ3WJ2|||”][vc_column_text]Last night it was announced that Netanyahu approved 14,000 new housing units for 50,000 Arab residents of Qalqiliya for construction in Area C, which is under full Israeli responsibility.

News reports add that the construction would double the size of the city, located in Area A at the expense of land in Area C which was intended for Israeli development. Doubling the size of Qalqiliya, which sits on the green line 9 km from the Mediterranean is a dangerous development.

The announcement drew immediate criticism from Netanyahu’s right leaning ministers, Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked:

“We objected to the plan called ‘carrot and stick,’ which was and remains a program of reward for terror and the promotion of the Palestinian takeover of Area C. There is no doubt that the plan’s meaning is stringent against the very limited scope of construction approved by the prime minister for Israeli settlements.”

“The Israeli government must promote Israeli interests in Judea and Samaria, not those of the Palestinians. In light of these implications, we will demand a freeze on the plan until the cabinet can discuss it or marketing of 14,000 housing units for Israelis in Area C [is carried out to balance the Arab building plan],” the two said.

 

Today reaction was just a serious from Bibi Netanyahu’s own party.  Tourism Minister Yariv Levin said the following:

“The PA continues to incite to terror and harm the security of Israeli civilians. The PA systematically disregards all of its obligations, therefore it is right that the decision to expand Qalqilya be reassessed, as the damage inherent in the plan is great.”

 

With all of the push back from vital members of the Prime Minister coalition and essentially those that have their ears to the base of the right, why did Netanyahu approve the building, which would radically change the balance between Arab and Jewish areas in Judea and Samaria?

The Trump Peace Initiative Takes Shape

All the moves we are seeing whether they are the Saudis freezing out Qatar, to the PA coordinating with Israel to shut down Hamas are intending to create the atmosphere where Israelis would feel comfortable enough to sit down with the Arab world to negotiate. Trump’s team does not want to repeat the same mistakes as the past. A regional initiative where Israelis and Arabs learn to rely on each other against Iran’s drive for regional control is there to provide a back drop for the next phase, the contours of a Palestinian state.

So what are the contours of this future Palestine under the Trump initiative?

Let’s assume both sides begin talking and agree to the following:

  • Demilitarized Palestine
  • Jewish communities stay even outside the blocks
  • Israel annexes settlement blocks

With these three elements agreed upon the complicated questions of security control, Jerusalem, and refugees will then come into play.  By this time the Sunni Arab States and Israel will have some sort of normalized relationships.  Direct flights, trade relations, and what not.  Trump’s plan rests on the fact that Israel craving this normalization will make the requisite concessions for the Arabs to sign on to making peace or the Arabs needing Israel’s help against Iran, will concede elements to Israel.  There is a logic to all of this except that neither side views this as a real estate deal and so unless one of the sides capitulates completely the process will break down.  Unfortunately, by then Israel will have lost Area C and perhaps more.

The real question is why the Trump administration has not entertained another plan altogether? Why has it insisted on the same old Arabist approach with just different semantics associated with it?

Why has the Prime Minister agreed to build so many houses rather than just telling President Trump, no?

There are a number of possibilities:

  1. He believes the process will break down and so he can freeze them.
  2. He needs a new foil and will allow his right flank to stop the plan, which is a strategy he employed numerous times with Obama.
  3. He really wants to build more Arab homes.

Any of the above could be the answer. With Bibi you never know and that is the challenge.  We are being led down a path where no one except the Prime Minister knows the end game.

The problem with the “peace process” itself is that it is being built by people with little or no understanding of the complex issues Israel and its neighbors deal with. It’s true, the Arabs are being herded towards making peace, but it is Israel that will end up sacrificing the most whether or not Trump lands the ultimate deal or it fails along the way.

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THE LIMITS OF ISRAELI POWER

Time for Israel to take control of its future.

On Thursday, US President Donald Trump bowed to the foreign policy establishment and betrayed his voters. He signed a presidential waiver postponing the transfer of the US Embassy to Jerusalem for yet another six months.

Ahead of Trump’s move, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a last-ditch bid to convince Trump to move the embassy to Jerusalem. But it was not to be.

Israel’s failure to convince Trump to do what he repeatedly promised US voters he would do during his presidential campaign shows the disparity in power between Israel and the US.

Israel lacks the power to convince foreign nations to recognize its capital – much less to locate their embassies there. The US, on the other hand, not only has the power to recognize Jerusalem and transfer its embassy to Israel’s capital whenever it wishes to do so, it also has the ability to convince dozens of other countries to immediately follow its lead.

The disparity between what the Americans can do and what Israel can do was on display on Monday evening in a glittering hall at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. There, Bar-Ilan University conferred its Guardian of Zion award on former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton. In his acceptance speech, Bolton presented his vision for the resolution of the Palestinian conflict with Israel.

Bolton’s views are important not merely because his past work at the State Department and the UN brought the US some of its only diplomatic victories in recent decades. His views are important as well because of his close relationship with Trump.

Bolton began his discussion Monday evening by rejecting the “two-state solution.” The two-state model, he noted, has been tried and has failed repeatedly for the past 70 years. There is no reason to believe that it will succeed now. This is particularly true, he said, given the lack of Palestinian social cohesion.

Hamas controls Gaza. The PLO, which is supposed to be Israel’s peace partner, barely controls parts of Judea and Samaria. At a time when more cohesive Arab societies are unraveling, the notion that a Palestinian state would survive and advance regional peace and stability is laughable, Bolton argued.

Bolton then turned to his preferred policy for resolving the Palestinian conflict with Israel, which he dubbed “the three-state solution.” Under his plan, Egypt and Jordan would work with Israel to solve the Palestinian conflict. Egypt would take over the Gaza Strip and Jordan would negotiate the status of Judea and Samaria with Israel.

The crowd at the King David responded enthusiastically to Bolton’s proposal. This is not surprising.

Since 1967, Israelis have hoped for Jordan and Egypt to work with them to solve the problem of the Arabs of Judea, Samaria and Gaza who lived under Jordanian and Egyptian occupation from 1949-1967.

Unfortunately, Israel’s support for Bolton’s plan is irrelevant. Israel is powerless to advance it. Israel cannot convince Arab nations to help it resolve the Palestinian conflict any more than it can convince the PLO to cut a peace deal with it.

Like PLO leaders, the leaders of the Arab world know that they cannot help Israel with the Palestinians.

Doing so would involve disowning the Palestinian narrative.

The Palestinian narrative claims that the Jews of Israel are colonialist interlopers who stole the land from the Palestinians, its rightful owners. The narrative makes no distinction between Tel Aviv and Hebron. All of Israel is a crime against the Arab world. All of Israel is illegitimate.

The overwhelming majority of the Arab world believes the Palestinian narrative. For an Arab leader to walk away from it or even to signal an attenuation of his fealty to it in the interest of regional peace would be the riskiest of moves.

Israel has nothing to offer Arab leaders that could induce them to take that risk.

Although it is far from certain, the US may very well have the ability to convince Arab leaders to do so. If Trump decided that this is the way to advance peace in the Arab world, chances are he would make some headway. In other words, Bolton’s three-state plan is a plan that only America can adopt. It cannot be an Israeli plan no matter how enthusiastically the public supports involving Jordan and Egypt in solving the conflict.

Given Israel’s inability to offer the Arabs anything valuable enough for Arab leaders to risk life and limb to accept in exchange for helping to solve the Palestinian conflict, as Israel considers its own options in relation to the Palestinians, it needs to limit its goals to things that it can achieve without them. In other words, the only steps that Israel can take in relation to the Palestinians are unilateral steps.

For the past 50 years, hoping that the Arabs – and since 1993, the PLO – would finally make peace with it and so settle the permanent status of Judea and Samaria, Israel refused to take any unilateral actions in relation to its permanent interests in Judea and Samaria. Rather than apply its legal code to Judea and Samaria, it opted for the stop-gap measure of installing a military government to run the areas on the basis of Jordanian law.

Between 1994 and 1996, Israel canceled the military government in the Palestinian population centers in Judea and Samaria and Gaza. In 2005, when it withdrew, it canceled the residual military government in the rest of Gaza. Since then, the only area that remains under the Israeli military government is Area C in Judea and Samaria. Area C includes all of the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria, and strategically critical areas including the Jordan Valley, the Samaria mountain range and the south Hebron Hills.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Netanyahu gave an interview with Army Radio where he set out part of his vision for the permanent status of Judea and Samaria. He limited his statement to the military status of the areas. He said that under any possible future scenario, Israel must retain full security control of the areas. This, he said, is the lesson of Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

That pullout led to the transformation of Gaza into a Hamas-controlled hub of global jihad. Moreover, under Hamas, the Palestinians turned Gaza into one big, densely populated missile-launching pad against Israel.

While justified, Netanyahu’s position obscures more than it illuminates about his long-term vision for Judea and Samaria.

What does he mean by security control? Would the IDF remain in sole control over Israel’s eastern boundaries or would it serve as an overall coordinator of foreign forces operating along the border? Would IDF forces be confined to fortified positions while the Palestinians reign free in the open areas, as was the case in southern Lebanon in the years leading up to Israel’s disastrous withdrawal in 2000? Or would the IDF have freedom of action and maintain the initiative throughout Judea and Samaria? Moreover, does Netanyahu envision the IDF remaining the only military organization operating in Judea and Samaria in the long term? Beyond the security issues that require clarification, Netanyahu’s statements make no mention of the rights of Jews to live in Judea and Samaria.

Does he believe that Jews should be permitted to live permanently in the areas that Israel controls? If so, why are they subjected to the Jordanian legal code used by the military government and which proscribes their right to purchase land and register land sales? This brings us to the issue of governance. What does Netanyahu think about the military government in Area C? Does he believe that the 50-year reign of generals should continue until the Arabs choose to resolve the Palestinian conflict with Israel? What if this means that the generals will continue to rule over hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens for another 50 or 100 or 150 years? Does he, on the other hand, prefer to transfer governance responsibility in Area C to the Palestinians and place the nearly 500,000 Israelis in the area under Palestinian control? In the course of his remarks, Bolton noted that if Jordan is responsible for the Palestinians of Judea and Samaria, the issue of Jerusalem will be removed from the equation. After all, if their capital is Amman, Israel has no reason to divide its capital city.

And this brings us back to Jerusalem, which Trump spurned on Thursday.

As is the case today, 50 years ago, Israel had no power to influence the positions of foreign governments regarding its capital city. But in contrast to its decision to establish a military government in Judea and Samaria, Israel didn’t wait for foreigners to give it permission to act where it had the power to act in order to change the status of the city and ensure its ability to govern and control its capital for generations to come.

In 1967, the government voted to expand the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem to include the eastern, northern and southern quarters that had been under Jordanian occupation since 1949.

Everyone benefited from the move – including the foreign powers that still refuse to recognize the simple fact that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.

Washington and the rest of the governments of the world know that their refusal to recognize Israel’s capital does not endanger Israel or its control of Jerusalem. They are free to bow to Arab pressure, safe in the knowledge that Israel will continue to protect the unified city.

Trump’s decision to sign the waiver delaying the embassy move is a betrayal of his campaign promise, but it doesn’t change the situation in Jerusalem. Last week, Israel celebrated 50 years of sovereignty over its united capital. Jerusalem will be neither more nor less united if and when the US moves its embassy to the capital.

Perhaps Trump will eventually keep his word and move the embassy. Perhaps he will continue to breach his promise. And as far as the Palestinians are concerned, perhaps Trump adopts Bolton’s three-state plan in relation to Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Perhaps he will maintain his predecessors’ slavish devotion to the establishment of a PLO state.

Israel can’t control what Trump will do any more than it can influence what the Arabs will do. And so it needs to take a lesson not only from its bitter experience of withdrawing from Gaza, but from its positive experience of taking matters into its own hands in Jerusalem.

The time has come, at the outset of the second 50 years of Israeli control over Judea and Samaria, for Israel to take matters into its own hands. Our leaders must stop beating around the bush. They need to use the powers they have to secure Israel’s military and civilian interests in Judea and Samaria for the next 50 years as best they can. And they need to stop waiting for someone else to solve our problems for us.

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. 

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The Horrors at Hand

“The action of discouraging an action or event through instilling doubt or fear of the consequences.”

–The Oxford English Dictionary entry on the word “Deterrence.”

“…the Arab states can permit themselves a series of military defeats while Israel cannot afford to lose a single war…a military defeat of Israel would mean the physical extinction of a large part of its population and the political elimination of the Jewish state…To lose a single war is to lose everything…”

–Yigal Allon, “Israel: The Case For Defensible Borders,” Foreign Affairs, October 1976.

“…the lack of minimal territorial expanse places a country in a position of an absolute lack of deterrence. This in itself constitutes almost compulsive temptation to attack Israel from all directions. Without a border which affords security, a country is doomed to destruction in war.”

–Shimon Peres, Tomorrow is Now, 1977.

For anyone who needed it, this week’s horrific chemical airstrike on civilians in Northern Syria provided a jarring reminder of the merciless realities that prevail throughout the Arab world — and of the fate Israel and her citizens would be subject to, were it not for the military might of the IDF.

Brutal bestiality of Hobbesian anarchy 

Of course, apart from the means used to perpetrate the latest atrocity, there was nothing really exceptional about it. According to the latest estimates, only a few dozen people (100-150) were killed, a mere fraction of one percent of the fatalities incurred in the ongoing Syrian civil war, in which hundreds of thousands have been slaughtered with unspeakable brutality (beheadings, immolations, disembowelments, dismemberments…).

But, of course, such barbarism is not confined to the Syrian theater. Across virtually all the Arab world, bloodcurdling waves of indiscriminate killings have repeatedly ravaged entire countries. As the perversely named “Arab Spring” dramatically underscored, nowhere else is the brutal bestiality of Hobbesian anarchy — as the natural state of the human condition — more vividly demonstrated than in the Arab world.

In stark contrast to Eastern Europe (with the exception of the former Yugoslavia), where the downfall  of despotism led fairly rapidly to a relatively orderly transition to democracy, wherever the restraining “cork” of Leviathan tyranny was removed in the Arab world, violence and bloodshed have swept away any semblance of civil order.

Invariably, whenever vent was given to vox populi, the result was mob rule.  In Egypt, the election of the Muslim Brotherhood brought a noxious mixture of domestic repression, the breakdown of law and order and economic meltdown, only halted — albeit tenuously — by the re-instatement of strict authoritarianism.

Tightening the iron grip of tyranny

In other places, such as the allegedly “moderate” medieval monarchy of Saudi Arabia — author of the much-vaunted “Arab Peace Initiative” — the rule of law is only maintained by the tightening of the iron grip of tyranny. As written in a New York Times editorial, titled “Saudi Arabia’s Barbaric Executions“: “The regime has become only more repressive in the years since the Arab Spring.”

This recrimination followed an earlier editorial, “Saudi Arabia’s Execution Spree,” in which — with slightly greater hyperbole — the “paper of record” reported with alarm: “Saudi Arabia’s justice system has gone into murderous overdrive…” The Times warned that many of those “scheduled for imminent execution on terrorist charges…are citizens whose only crime was protesting against the government,” adding ominously that “[t]his wave of killing has prompted some to compare Saudi Arabia to the Islamic State.”

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Reminding its readers of the real nature of the desert kingdom, the Times charged: “the executions were not out of character for Saudi Arabia. The country has a dismal human rights record with its application of stern Islamic law and its repression of women and practitioners of religious traditions other than Sunni Islam…the mass execution this weekend followed a year in which 158 people were executed, the most in recent history, largely based on vague laws and dubious trials.”

This, then, is the briefest tour d’horizon of the pervasive savagery that permeates large swathes of the Arab world, whether perpetrated by incumbent regimes against its populace or perpetrated against incumbent regimes by its populace.

But for the grace of God…

It is a savagery that is amply reflected in the Palestinian-administered areas, both in Gaza under Hamas and in the “West Bank” under Fatah.

Curiously, this is somehow never realistically factored into the chronically short-sighted policy proposals Israel is pressured to accept in the typically ill-conceived efforts to end the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The horrendous potential inherent in this endemic myopia is perhaps most starkly illustrated by the Syrian example.

Up until the outbreak of the 2011 civil war, many — including then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — were still referring to the internet-savvy,  British-educated eye doctor, Bashar Assad as a moderate “reformer” who could be a credible peace partner for Israel. A veritable chorus of enlightened, erudite voices urged an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights in a land-for-peace deal with Damascus.

Today, in view of the gruesome events that have transpired since then — with Assad morphing from reformer to war criminal — it is chillingly clear what a huge error that would have been.

If, on the one hand, the anti-Assad forces prevail, Israel would almost certainly face the unpalatable prospect of Jihadi forces — associates of ISIS or Al Qaeda (or both) — deployed on  the Golan Heights, overlooking the city of Tiberias and commanding the Galilee. If, on the other hand, the pro-Assad forces prevail, Israel would, with similar certainty, face the no more palatable prospect of pro-Iranian Hezbollah forces — or even detachments of Tehran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) itself — deployed there.

This is the grim reality that, but for the grace of God, Israel would be forced to confront today had the proponents of land-for-peace carried the day…

Failure to internalize lessons of past  

Yet despite the inescapable lesson that the Syrian episode provides regarding the enormous perils entailed in relinquishing territory, it seems that inexplicably, nothing — literally nothing — of what should be learned from it has percolated into the consciousness of the decision makers-dealing with the “peace process.”

Had the land-for-peace advocates prevailed on the Palestinian front, it is more than likely that Israel would be facing a prospect similarly perilous to the one it would be facing had it withdrawn from the Golan in pursuit of a forlorn hope of peace.

As past experience has repeatedly shown, every time territory has been relinquished or abandoned to Arab control, that territory has – usually sooner rather than later – become a platform from which to launch lethal attacks against Israel. It occurred almost immediately in Gaza, within months in Judea and Samaria, within years in south Lebanon and after several decades in Sinai, a region now descending into the depths of depravity and unspeakable brutality, with no good options on the horizon.

Moreover, every time territory was relinquished or abandoned by Israel, the security situation that developed was far more menacing than that which preceded it. Significantly the only areas from which Israel is not gravely threatened are those which Israel has not yet relinquished in its quest to attain peace, namely the Golan, Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley.

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Baffling conundrum for future historians…

Despite the accumulating mountain of evidence refuting its feasibility, despite the repeated failures of attempts at its implementation, despite the glaring flaws in its conceptual rationale, the land-for-peace doctrine (or dogma), and its equally unfounded corollary of  two-states-for-two-people, still dominates the discourse on the Middle East conflict.

Clearly, this is a situation that will baffle historians of the future. They will struggle to understand why such a fatally flawed and failed formula could endure for so long as the dominant paradigm for the resolution of the conflict. They will grapple with the conundrum of why, despite its minuscule chance for success and huge cost of failure, it was a formula that was widely designated “realistic” and “rational”; why despite the daunting perils it entailed, it was considered “prudent” and “pragmatic.”  They will fail to comprehend why so many who professed to be “pro-Israel” obdurately insisted that Israel demonstrate its good faith by exposing itself, time and time again, to absurd risks, and subjecting its citizens to appalling dangers by adopting a policy that has been repeatedly disproven, but somehow never discredited and certainly never discarded.

But perhaps what future historians will find the most baffling of all, is why successive Israeli governments — clearly aware of the grave hazards this formula entailed for their country and their people — never managed to remove it from the discourse and replace it with an alternative Zionist-compliant prescription for a more secure and stable future.

Indeed, there is little doubt that hisorians will deem the fact that such an alternative paradigm did not emerge to replace the two-state proposal to be a catastrophic failure of the Israeli leadership and a tragic testimony to its intellectual impotence and incompetence.

Again, but for the grace of God…

Just as Israel might have been facing a formidable array of hostile Islamist forces deployed on the terrain commanding the north of the country had it withdrawn from the Golan, and transferred control to a purportedly credible Syrian “peace partner,” so Israel may equally face a formidable array of hostile Islamist forces deployed on the terrain commanding the coastal megalopolis if it withdrew from the highlands of Judea and Samaria, and transferred control to a purportedly credible Palestinian “peace partner.”

Once control is relinquished, there is little to ensure that its allegedly peaceable Palestinian partner will not be replaced by some less amicable successor – or even if he remains in power, that he continues to honor his commitments in exchange for which Israel relinquished the territory. After all, such violation of commitments may not be the result of bad faith on the part of Israel’s “peace partner,” but due to pressures of influential domestic rivals.

For just as Hezbollah and/or ISIS/Al Qaeda affiliates may well have taken up positions in the Golan, so too, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and/or Salafist elements may take up positions on the highlands of Judea and Samaria — whether in compliance with, or in defiance of, Israel’s “peace partner.”

There will, however, be important differences!

The horrors at hand

Whereas, in the north, the post-withdrawal border would have been about 70 km long, abutting a largely rural and relatively sparsely populated region, in the east the post-withdrawal frontier could be anything upward of 500 km, abutting a largely urban and relatively densely populated area.

Even with primitive weapons, presently available in abundance to the terror organizations in “demilitarized” Gaza, all of the following would be within striking range: virtually all Israel’s air fields – military and civilian – including its only international airport, Ben Gurion; its major sea ports of Haifa and Ashdod, and naval bases; its centers of civilian government and military command; vital infrastructure installations/systems, including power generation and transmission; desalination plants and water conveyance, communication hubs, major transportation axes (rail and road); and 80% of the nation’s civilian population and its commercial activity.

Given the combination of tempting vulnerability and the blatant disregard of Israel’s adversaries for human life so graphically demonstrated in recent years, the horrors, for both Jew and Arab, that are likely to result from any further Israeli withdrawals are not difficult to foresee.

With its hospitals, schools and kindergartens hopelessly exposed to the callous whims of heartless terrorists, Israel would be forced to take massive military action to defend its vulnerable civilian population, whether by preemptive strikes to forestall aggression, or retaliatory operations to deter future attacks. Given the length of the frontier, the nature of the topography and presence of numerous civilian centers together with the robustness of the response required, widespread collateral damage would be inevitable…

Arab attacks, Israeli response, international recriminations, Arab reprisals, Israeli retaliation…

This would be the unavoidable chain of events that would certainly emerge from continued pursuit of the land-for-peace dogma.

These are the horrors at hand it would undoubtedly precipitate…

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MAKING ISRAEL JUDENREIN: Are Trump and Bibi Close to Freezing Jewish Construction Again?

As the vaunted Regional “Peace Deal” appears to be in the process of being cooked up between Bibi Netanyahu and the Trump administration, the question persists why the need to restrict building outside of the generally accepted “settlement” blocs?  Let’s assume for a second that peace is at hand, that the Arabs really will sit down and make peace with Israel, then what would it matter if Jews are living anywhere beyond the arbitrary green line or even the “blocs?”

Israel is a tiny state.  Even with Judea and Samaria added in, the width is about the size of New Jersey’s waste line, not big.  Blocs are a convenient way of expressing areas that are built up, but in most cases “isolated” Jewish communities exist within minutes of the defined “bloc.”  There is no real way to draw the line. Ten years ago no one considered Kochav Yaakov or Ofra North of Jerusalem part of the Greater Jerusalem bloc, but in 2017, most Israelis do.

In a letter to the government the Land of Israel Lobby wrote the following:

“The freeze is illegitimate, not even ‘in the meantime’ or as an ‘interim stage’, and certainly no freeze or construction restrictions outside the blocs,” the letter said. “The bloc plan is the plan of the Palestinian State and there is no justification for a right-wing government to accept it, either temporarily or partially,” the heads of the lobby say.

The Peace Camp Should Stand Against Building Freezes for Jews

Those who genuinely want peace should stand against the Arab demand that Jews refrain from building in any area of their ancestral homeland.  The litmus test for peace is not borders or security, but whether the other side can tolerate the other among them.  The Arabs demand that any future “Palestinian” state be void of Jews or judenrein essentially proves they are not ready for peace.  Furthermore, those in the Israeli government or the USA supporting such ideas must be taken to task for their support for racist and anti-Semitic policies. Whether it is the Trump administration or Bibi’s government contemplating the next “freeze,” they must be told in a serious manner that no peace will come from Jews being told they cannot build simply because they are Jews. After all if another minority would be told they cannot build or own a house simply due to their religious, national, or cultural background, it would be deemed racist.

The Spirit of the Holocaust Has Never Ended

The State of Israel afforded Jews around the world an opportunity to shrug the millennia of exile and rebuild their nation inside their ancestral homeland.  The Holocaust, encapsulated by the Final Solution was just the most extreme measure of Hitler’s desire to make Europe judenrein or free of Jews.  Construction freezes for Jews only is denying the Jewish people’s right to self determination as Jews.  True, there are no gas chambers or crematorium’s waiting for the Jewish Nation these days, but the spirit of judenrein continues unabated from Hitler to now.  Arab hate for Jewish life in the Levant will not cease by freezing Jews out of their right to build and live as they wish. In fact, the opposite is true. Construction freezes will never satiate the Arab world, for its hate for Jews stems from a deeper place so they will always ask for more, just as Hitler moved from simple deportation to the Final Solution.

In order for there to be peace, all demands on Jews to refrain from building should be dropped and instead demands should be placed on the Arabs to deal with their Jewish neighbors as neighbors and fellow human beings. Until then their is nothing to talk about.