KNOW THINE ENEMY

Israel gets back on the phony peace process train.

There are iron rules of warfare. One of the most basic rules is that you have to know your enemy. If you do not know your enemy, or worse, if you refuse to act on your knowledge of him, you will lose your war against him.

This basic truth appears to have eluded Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

This week we have been beset by the bizarre and sudden appearance of Jason Greenblatt, President Donald Trump’s negotiations chief.

Greenblatt’s mission is apparently to reinstate the mordant peace process between Israel and the PLO.

The peace process that Greenblatt is here to reincarnate died 17 years ago.

In 2000, PLO chief and Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat killed the peace process when he initiated a massive terrorist war against Israel, right after he rejected peace and Palestinian statehood at the Camp David peace conference.

In rejecting peace, the architect of modern terrorism made clear that his claim seven years earlier that he was willing to reach a compromise with Israel, based on partition of the Land of Israel between a Jewish and an Arab state, was a lie. As the nationalist camp had warned at the time and since, the PLO was not remotely interested either in statehood or in peace. Arafat’s willingness to engage Israel in negotiations that led to its transfer of security and civil control over Gaza and the Palestinian population centers in Judea and Samaria to the PLO was simply another means to the only end the PLO ever contemplated. It was a means of weakening Israel as a step toward achieving the PLO’s ultimate goal of destroying the Jewish state.

In 1993, when then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin agreed to recognize the PLO, his implicit assumption was that if Arafat was lying, Israel would walk away from the peace process. It would retake control over the areas it had ceded to PLO control and things would go back to the way they were before he made the gamble, indeed they would be better. Whereas for years Israel had been under pressure from the Europeans and the Americans to recognize the PLO, if Israel recognized the terrorist group and the PLO responded by showing that it remained dedicated to Israel’s destruction, the world that had been pressuring Israel would end its pressure.

The Europeans and the Americans would rally to Israel’s side against the PLO.

In 2000, after Arafat blew up the negotiations table with his suicide bombers, then-prime minister Ehud Barak announced triumphantly that he had ripped the mask off of Arafat’s face.

Now everyone would recognize the truth about the PLO. Now the Europeans and the Americans would rally to Israel’s side.

Of course, things didn’t work out that way.

In the seven years between Rabin’s decision to gamble on Arafat, and Barak’s declaration that the truth had finally come out, the Europeans and the Americans and the Israeli Left had become addicted to the notion that the PLO was a peace movement and that Israel and its so-called settlers were the reason that peace hadn’t been reached.

That is, by the time the true nature of Israel’s enemy had become clear, it was too late. It didn’t matter. In recognizing the PLO, Israel had legitimized it. Refusing to recognize the nature of its enemy, Israel had empowered it, at its own expense.

By the time Arafat removed his mask, the legitimacy he had received from Israel seven years earlier had rendered him untouchable.

The West had become so invested in the myth of PLO moderation that rather than punish him for his terrorist war, the Europeans and the Americans punished Israel for complaining about it. Indeed, the more Israelis Arafat’s henchmen murdered, the more committed the Europeans and the American foreign policy establishment and political Left became to the PLO.

Israel, in the meantime, became a diplomatic outcast.

In the 17 years since Arafat showed his true colors, neither he nor his heir Mahmoud Abbas ever did anything to indicate that the PLO has changed its spots. To the contrary. The PLO’s leaders have made clear over and over and over again that Arafat’s decision to reject peace in favor of never-ending war against Israel was no fluke. It was the rule.

The PLO doesn’t want a state. If it did it would have accepted sovereignty in Gaza 12 years ago, when Israel withdrew and took its citizens with it. If it wanted a state, then Arafat and Abbas would have accepted Israel’s repeated offers of statehood over the years.

The PLO that is greeting Greenblatt in March 2017 is the same terrorist organization it was when Arafat announced its formation in December 1964.

Given this unchanging reality, it is deeply destructive for Israel to continue paying lip service to the fake peace process. And yet, that is precisely what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is doing.

Trump’s election gave Israel an opportunity to finally get the Americans to recognize the reality they have spent the past 17 years refusing to accept. Unlike Barack Obama, Trump was not wedded to the notion that Israel, and its religious Zionist community, is to blame for the absence of peace. He was not obsessed with appeasing the PLO as his predecessors have been for the past generation.

Trump was not interested in getting involved with the Palestinians at all. But rather than seize the opportunity he was handed, Netanyahu seems to have decided to throw it in the trash.

He only agreed to discuss his strategic goal for dealing with the Palestinians after his cabinet forced him to do so on the eve of his trip to Washington last month.

At that meeting, Netanyahu said that he supports establishing a “Palestinian state, minus” that would have formal sovereignty but would be demilitarized. Netanyahu also offered that he envisions Israeli sovereignty being extended to the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria.

There are many problems with Netanyahu’s plan. But its most glaring deficiency is that it continues to treat the PLO as a legitimate organization rather than a terrorist organization.

By doing so, Netanyahu not only throws a lifeline to an organization that uses all the legitimacy Israel confers on it to weaken Israel strategically and diplomatically. He empowers Israel’s detractors in the US and Europe that have spent the past quarter-century blaming Israel for the absence of peace and acclaiming the PLO and its terrorist chiefs as moderates.

It is not surprising that Trump reinstated Obama’s demand that Israel curtail Jewish property rights in Judea and Samaria after Netanyahu pronounced his support for Palestinian statehood. If Netanyahu won’t disavow the anti-Israel diplomatic unicorn, then why should Trump? And if Trump is maintaining allegiance to the myth of PLO legitimacy, then it only makes sense for him to also adopt the patently absurd, and virulently anti-Israel, assumption that Jewish home building is the reason there is no peace.

Similarly, with Netanyahu willing to accept the PLO, and the concomitant assumption of Jewish culpability for the absence of peace, why would Trump consider replacing Obama’s anti-Israel advisers with advisers supportive of the US-Israel alliance? After Netanyahu left Washington last month, Trump decided to retain Yael Lempert as the National Security Council’s point person for the Israeli-Palestinian portfolio. According to a report in The Weekly Standard, Democrats in Washington long viewed Lempert as one of the most radical opponents of Israel in the Obama administration.
Trump also decided to keep on Michael Ratney, the former US consul in Jerusalem, as the man in charge of the Israeli-Palestinian desk at the State Department. Ratney’s appointment brought shouts of joy from anti-Israel activists led by John Kerry’s former negotiations chief Martin Indyk.

Perhaps these personnel decisions would have been made even if Netanyahu hadn’t maintained his allegiance to the lie of PLO legitimacy. But Netanyahu’s support for the PLO made it much easier for these opponents of Israel to keep their jobs.

By all accounts, Jason Greenblatt is a friend of Israel and a supporter of the US alliance with the Jewish state. Greenblatt studied at a yeshiva in Gush Etzion many years ago. On Thursday, he took the step that no US envoy has ever taken of meeting with the heads of the local councils in Judea and Samaria.

And yet, whatever his personal views may be, this week he came to Israel to discuss limiting the legal rights of Israelis in Judea and Samaria.

He was accompanied on his trip by Lempert.

Greenblatt visited with Abbas in Ramallah and delivered no ultimatum when he asked the Palestinian Authority “president” (whose term of office ended in 2009) to scale back the murderous anti-Jewish propaganda that permeates all facets of Palestinian society under the PLO.

Greenblatt politely listened as Abbas demanded that Israel agree to withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines in a future peace, agree to release terrorist murderers from its prisons and end all construction for Jews in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem.

Greenblatt then discussed continued US economic subsidization of Abbas’s terrorism- steeped kleptocracy, in the name of economic development.

In other words, whatever Greenblatt’s personal views on the issues, as Trump’s envoy, he put us all back on the phony peace train.

Netanyahu argues that Israel has to give legitimacy to the PLO and support Palestinian statehood, because if it doesn’t, then the Sunni Arab states won’t work with Israel in its efforts to stymie Iran’s regional power grab and stall its nuclear weapons program. This claim, however, is untrue.

The Saudis, Egyptians and Jordanians are working with Israel on countering Iran because they need Israel to help them to weaken Iran.

They need Israel to help them to convince the Americans to abandon Obama’s pro-Iranian Middle East policy.

In other words, Netanyahu is paying for Sunni support that he can get for free.

Rabin believed that Israel would emerge stronger from his decision to recognize the PLO, one way or another. Either Israel would achieve peace. Or Israel would get the Americans and the Europeans off its back once the PLO made clear that it was lying about wanting peace. Rabin was wrong.

Israel paid gravely for Rabin’s error in judgment.

It will pay a similarly high price, if not a higher one, if Netanyahu continues to repeat Rabin’s mistake of failing to know his enemy.

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post

 

Let’s Dissect Trump’s Statement on Communities in Judea and Samaria

With all of the uproar concerning Donald Trump’s supposed about face concerning Jewish communities in Judea and Samria (collectively known as “settlements”) it is important to look at the entire statement from the administration’s press secretary Sean Spicer.

“The American desire for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians has remained unchanged for 50 years. While we don’t believe the existence of settlements is an impediment to peace, the construction of new settlements or the expansion of existing settlements beyond their current borders may not be helpful in achieving that goal. As the President has expressed many times, he hopes to achieve peace throughout the Middle East region. The Trump administration has not taken an official position on settlement activity and looks forward to continuing discussions, including with Prime Minister Netanyahu when he visits with President Trump later this month.”

Although the elite media seems bent on misreporting the above statement as opposition to “settlements,” the Trump administration seems to be indicating the opposite.

“…we don’t believe the existence of settlements is an impediment to peace…”

This line is pretty explicit, President Trump does not believe “settlements” are the reason why there has been no peace agreement. It is true the administration then goes on to dictate the extent of Israeli “settlement” construction it deems permissible, however the contours of this are so vast, it would include all government building tenders in the foreseeable future.

Some explanation is needed.

Each community has what is called a blue line or community border.  This is far larger than the built up areas within the communities.  Many communities would be able to double or even triple and in some cases quadruple in size before they were maxed out. The statement does not make a distinction between “settlement blocks” or “isolated settlements.”  Essentially the Trump administration is saying to Israel, don’t make a big deal every time you build some houses and we won’t make a big deal back.

This approach allows President Trump to continue support for Judea and Samaria without disturbing the growing alliance of Sunni Arab states and Israel in opposition to Iran.

Eessntially, what the elite media is reporting is nothing other than fake news.

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Rep. DeSantis: “All of this Land Belongs to the Jews”

Watch Rep. DeSantis of Florida, schools the left and the UN by injecting basic historical facts into the discussion regarding the “peace process” between Israel and the Arabs.

Rep. DeSantis points out the following:

  • The “West bank” otherwise known as Judea and Samaria is Jewish Land
  • The Arabs have rejected all “peace deals”
  • Even today’s Jordan originally belonged to the Jews

 

 

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Amona Rejects Deal With Government, Forcing Bibi’s Hand

Whether or not the government raises Amona is yet to be seen, but one thing is clear, the village’s residents understand that their mission is not personal but one that is national. The residents of Amona rejected the deal forged between Bibi Netanyahu and Naftali Bennett last week in which the Regulation Law will be passed on the back of Amona’s destruction.  The government wants the country to believe that they offered the residents of Amona an amazing deal where they would be moved 100 meters and stay on the hillside. Yet, that is not the actual deal.

Amona released a statement last night saying why they rejected the deal:

“Over the past year we led our lives with a single purpose – the desire to remain home. A desire to stay on the Amona hill.

“The struggle we led resulted in many achievements for the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria. Among other things we brought the advancement of the Regulation Law.

“Unfortunately, in the final stretch of the campaign for our homes – we were left out of the Regulation Law. We are left facing a bitter truth of an expected eviction: The destruction of our homes and community, and trauma for our children and for us.

“We were willing to accept the destruction of our private homes, and a move from place to place, if only a Jewish community would remain on the hill. But the proposed arrangement does not provide any guarantee or commitment that we will indeed receive an alternative home. In light of this and in view of the uncertainty in the proposal, the residents of Amona decided tonight, after ten hours of debate, to reject the proposed layout.”

The government is cornered now.  Bennett staked his political future on standing up for the settlement enterprise and with this rejection and revelation of the deal’s finer points Naftali Bennett has far less street creds to ensure a base of support to grow on. As for Bibi, he is no Olmert interested in showing the left that he is willing to destroy Jewish homes based on a Supreme Court ruling heavily influenced by interference from countless international leftist organizations.  Destroying Amona will not go without a fight. Land of Israel activists will not let his government’s betrayal of promises he made go unanswered and may end his career the next time there is an election.

Amona may be razed, but by rejecting an awful deal the residents have put Judea and Samaria first by showing the hypocrisy behind government actions in the biblical heartland. If they were to have agreed to this deal they would have been subjected to being in a constant state of homelessness and owing thousands of dollars on their homes.  Their response will make the present government and future ones deal with communities in Judea and Samaria differently.

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The Decision on Destroying Amona is the Crossroads for the State of Israel

The State of Israel has shown very little problem in destroying flourishing communities over the green line.  Over 11 years ago it destroyed all of Jewish Gaza just to placate the Bush administration.  Settler activists pray that Amona will be different, but with the legal system firmly controlled by the left and the politicians unwilling to take the steps to change it, Amona’s fate appears to be sealed.

However, it does not need to be this way.  Amona is a test case for how the State of Israel views itself.  Will it allow dubious land claims by Arabs who are funded by the extreme left and foreign governments dictate policy or will it chart an “Israel First” course. No other threat to Israel’s existence is as ominous as the precedent about to be set at Amona and if it is destroyed similar cases will pop up all over Judea and Samaria.  We see this in Susiya, which is now claimed by squatters from Yatta a former Jewish city now populated by Arabs.

Amona’s destruction would not only be precedent setting, it would prove it pointless to put one’s trust in state authorities.  Not one of the politicians in the government can and will stop Amona from being destroyed, only the Prime Minister.  Only Bibi can, if he decided that Jewish values trump foreign influence be able to save Amona.

Amona puts the future of the State of Israel on the table and in the hands of unelected judges. Can it be stopped…yes, but only if we are willing to call into question the ineffectiveness of elected officials to stand up to foreign powers.

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John Kerry Demonizes Jewish Pioneers in Judea and Samaria…Again

John Kerry is at it again.  After assuring that Iran not only gets the keys to a nuclear bomb, but billions of dollars to embolden their terrorist desires, Kerry has now set his sites on Jewish families living in the biblical heartland of Israel. In a closed door meeting with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu railed against Israel’s “settlement policy” as the real reason for the stalement in “peace” talks.

It was said that John Kerry paid a token comment Arab terorism, yet pushed the idea that Israel is moving closer and closer to a bi-national state.

“Now, every single terrible act of violence, every new settlement announcement, takes us not closer to peace; they take us closer to a one-state solution,” he was quoted as having said. “That is no solution. It is an invitation to perpetual conflict. And as Shimon Peres himself said, it will bring one war, not one state. Make no mistake about it, I believe that is the risk if we continue on the current course.”

Of course the fear of a bi-national state is unfounded as the Arab population in Judea and Samaria continues to decrease and without including Gaza into the calculation, experts now say annexation of Judea and Samaria would leave Israel with a comfortable Jewish majority at 70/30.

Of course the fear mongering and faux peace plan pushing is just cover for old fashioned anti-semitism.  Denying Jews the rights to own and live freely in any land is anti-semitism. How much more so is the impact of such disguised hate than in Judea and Samaria, the heart of the Jewish homeland.

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Break the BDS

Trump Advisor: “The State Department Should Be Ashamed”

In an interview with Haaretz, Trump’s Israel affairs advisor David Friedman agreed with Bibi Netanyahu’s assertion that the removal of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, a demand the PA and State Department make amounts to ethnic cleansing.

Below are Friedman’s comments:

“Prime Minister Netanyahu makes exactly the right point. The Palestinians want Israel to absorb countless ‘refugees’ – people who never lived in Israel and whose ancestors were never forced to leave Israel – while their so-called ‘state’ is required to be, as the Nazis said, judenrein (devoid of Jews). It is an entirely racist and anti-Semitic position.”

“Arabs live and work side by side with Israelis in the State of Israel. They attend universities, enjoy the strongest human and civil rights (including women’s rights) in the region, and have access to world class health care. There is no better place for Arabs to live in the Middle East than in the State of Israel. With this background in mind, the Prime Minister of Israel correctly observes that the Palestinian demand to remove all Jews from their ancestral homeland in Judea and Samaria is nothing short of an attempt at ethnic cleansing. The State Department should be ashamed of their misguided reaction to Mr. Netanyahu’s remarks.”

“The United States frequently refers to the ‘two state solution’ as two states for two peoples. The Palestinian response – which the U.S. State Department refuses to challenge – is ‘one state for two peoples (Israel) and a second state just for Palestinian Arabs.’ It is no wonder that the State Department under Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have lost credibility in the region.”

Yes, The West Wants to Ethnically Cleanse Israel of Jews

Turning the tables on the long-held “wisdom” that Israel/PA peace is rooted in the brutal removal of thousands of Jews living in areas “Palestinian” Arabs claim for a future state, Prime Minister Netanyahu cleverly put the final nail in the already long dead “peace” process.

“There will be no ethnic cleansing of Jews in Judea and Samaria,” the Prime Minister said in his short video.

Condemnation was swift, yet despite the implications of such a stance, the West’s view that it is appropriate to remove Jews from their homes while Arabs can continue to build and expand is not only overtly anti-Semitic, it is down right hostile to the very country it needs to bring to the table if it really wants a deal.

Yet, that is it.  The West doesn’t care about a deal that doesn’t achieve the same goals it had when it hoped the rag-tag army of Jews would be wiped out by the five nation strong Arab juggernaut nearly 70 years ago.  A deal for the West must end in a neutered Israel, an Israel dependent on the West for defense.  If Israel holds onto Judea and Samaria or at the very least provide security for the Jews living there, Israel would retain its sense of indigenous connection to its most sacred areas.

Break the BDS

For the Arabs and the West, their neo-colonial aspiration rest on the removal and disconnect of the Jewish people from places like Hebron, Shilo, and Elon Morey.  These are the places that form the foundation of the Jewish people’s connection to their ancient land.

Bibi Netanyahu’s video revealed the truth underlying the West’s drive for peace.  The truth is that the peace process is merely a back door attempt to destroy the Jewish state. This is why both Foggy Bottom and the PA are so incensed with it.

Bibi Netanyahu: This is How to Fight BDS

Break the BDS

As the BDS picks up steam around the world supporters of Israel are finding unique and successful ways to not only buy from Israel, but lend a hand to those pioneers on the frontlines of Judea and Samaria.

Lev HaOlam, an organization dedicated to sending monthly packages of goods produced in Judea and Samaria to Israel supporters around the world is one of the most successful organizations in breaking BDS activities.

“People who subscribe to Lev HaOlam are receiving every month a box full of those beautiful products and every product has its story, his connection the family that produces it. Where they live, why they live there,” says Nati Rom, founder of Lev HaOlam.

Lev HaOlam received a big endorsement last year when Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the cabinet members came to visit their offices. The support was clear. “These attempts are part of systematic attempt to boycott the State of Israel,” the Prime Minister said.

With supporters of Israel around the world uniting, Lev HaOlam has seen a huge boost over the last year. Still, the organization says much more can be done.  Afterall, the livelihood these producers in Judea and Samaria depend on their products getting sold. Without constant purchases, sustainability is hard. Lev HaOlam is filling in the gaps.

 

 

Defeating Foggy Bottom in Israel

History will mark Israel’s election last year as a watershed moment.  Whether the country fully identifies and supports Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu really doesn’t matter. As Minister Zeev Elkin said yesterday, “Likud’s victory saved Israel.”

The State Department dispatched countless operatives to insidiously inject themselves into last year’s election campaign on behalf of the Zionist Union, in an operation that can only be described as meddling and string pulling. The Israeli electorate rebuffed these actions by handing Likud an enormous victory.

With the revelation of a secret deal between Herzog and Abbas now publicized, the V15 and Foggy Bottom’s strategy becomes even more gross.  Essentially, the State Department under directives from the Obama administration sought to unseat and defeat Prime Minister Netanyahu. By doing so their aim was to place a puppet government in charge of Israel in order to sign a final status agreement with the Arab Palestinians.  This agreement would have divided Jerusalem and created a sovereign terror entity in most of Judea and Samaria.

“In my contacts with the Palestinian Authority chief during 2014 I made efforts with the goal of reaching an understanding that would have prevented the wave of terror which I saw coming,” Herzog responded to the report.

The idea that any agreement, especially one that is a product of Western covert force would have prevented the current wave of terror is ludicrous. The Palestinian Authority has no ability to stop the terror as it is.  Placing Abbas and his Western supported mafia in charge of even more land would have spelled complete destruction for the State of Israel.

By voting for Likud last year the Israeli populace was sending a message to the American government. “Stay Out!” It is true, billions of dollars in US aid flows into Israel annually and although many in Israel rightly claim, we no longer need it, the fact is even when we take the money the US gets a tremendous return on it.  Unlike other countries that actually survive solely because they are being propped up by American aid, Israel provides the American military with forward intelligence and details from multiple fronts in the Middle East it cannot collect on its own. This intelligence sharing comes at a price and that is military aid.

This aid has gotten to Foggy Bottom’s brain and instead of respecting the relationship, they have repeatedly abused it.  The Israeli voter used last year to move on and proved ready to redraw the relationship if needed.  Last year was not an expression of love for Bibi, but a rejection of American neo-colonial influence, along with those politicians in Israel willing to play the puppet to a foreign puppeteer.