Nothing will help the Obama administration put together the former American Middle East coalition that was once grounded in a solid Saudi-American partnership. Too much distrust has been injected into the relationship for it to be salvaged. Obama’s visit to Saudi Arabia is a poor attempt in public relations damage control.
When Obama was sworn in on January 20th 2009, hopes ran high that a new type of American paradigm would be played out across the globe. Pundits didn’t actually believe Obama really looked at the world the way he said, but Barack Hussein Obama has proven to be true to his word. Obama has refashioned the Middle East by essentially burning down bridges between long term American Allies in the Sunni world and the USA government. The idea was to spur real democratic change reflected through tolerance for the Muslim Brotherhood and rapprochement with Iran in a mad attempt to instill some sort of amiability in the Muslim street.
Instead of winning over Iran and the Sunni street, Iran openly pivoted to Russia and the Sunni street grew antagonistic towards the Muslim Brotherhood.
What Does this Mean for Israel
It is no secret that the Saudis and other Gulf States have grown closer to a strategic partnership with Israel. This has become so open that some Gulf leaders have suggested to drop the “Palestinian Issue.” With plummeting oil prices and an encroaching Iran, Israel is beginning to play a far more constructive role in the Middle East when it comes to its once erstwhile foes.
However promising Israel’s new found position is, a long term partnership with the Saudis and their Gulf allies is not close to becoming solidified due to a variety of diverging interests. For one, Israel is at war with Radical Islam and the Saudis happen to be one of the biggest bank rollers for many of these terror groups. The Saudis are also a primitive society, whose social morays are stuck in an Islam that has never climbed out of the Middle Ages. Israelis not only don’t connect to this sort of culture, there is broad antagonism from all quarters in Israel against the Saudi and Gulf state expression of Islam and Shariah Law.
Israel’s continued pivot to the East and their behind the scenes relationship with the Kurds and now burgeoning partnership with East Africa paints a very different path into Israel’s future than what will be a short lived relationship with the Sunni Gulf States.
One thing Obama can be credited for, is that his policies in the Middle East has caused Israel to chart its own course and one that is far more natural and promises to be built on mutual respect and advancement.
The US and others, while suggesting they are strong supporters of Israel and its need for security, in reality are not promoting peace. Their policies are actually sustaining and rewarding terror.
Let me explain…
President Obama, for example, has repeatedly stated throughout his administration that America’s commitment to Israel’s security is “unshakable.” No doubt these are reassuring words to Israel and its friends around the world. However, his actions contradict his words.
How so? It has been the policy of the US and others to condemn the ‘settlements’ and the ‘occupation’ as the main obstacles to achieving peace with the Arabs. For those who subscribe to said view, where were the ‘settlements’ or ‘occupation’ in 1948 or 1967? They did not exist.
However, in order to see the folly of blaming the lack of peace on these issues, we should look at what the statements imply:
They suggest the US is attempting to be balanced. This is meant to appeal to the Arab world which thinks the US has been too supportive of Israel for many years.
They allow the US to avoid tackling the real issues which are preventing peace.
Placing accurate blame
The Arabs flatly refuse to accept the right of Israel to exist. The charters of the PLO, Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas’s own party Fatah, all require its destruction. Is the US devoting anywhere near as much attention to combating this as they are about condemning ‘settlements?’ Absolutely not. Abbas has repeatedly stated he will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Israeli leadership has consistently committed to recognizing a state for the so-called ‘Palestinians,’ yet is the US applying equal pressure on him to recognize Israel? Again, no.
Another issue is money.
The US and others believe if there is measurable improvement in the overall economic environment of the Arabs it would reduce their “frustration,” which many believe motivates their terror attacks against Israelis. For the uninformed Arab, terror against Jews has been ongoing since the rebirth of Israel in 1948. Moreover, such statements carry with them an implied justification for the terror and provide additional incentive for more of them. In my view, there exists no moral equivalence between justice and terror.
Moreover, after Israel is forced for the umpteenth time to neutralize murderers of innocent civilians, we hear the ever-present catcalls that they are using disproportionate force. My response to this is something I heard years ago- “if the response to terrorism is seen as less acceptable than terrorism itself, we invite more of it.”
If the Arabs wish to express frustration regarding their poor economic condition, I say they have that right. However, they should be expressing it at the appropriate party, and that is not Israel.
The responsibility of the economic plight of the Arabs belongs to their own leadership.
When Yasser Arafat formed the Palestinian Authority in 1994, he promised new hospitals, clinics, educational institutions and improvements to the general infrastructure. He also promised greater employment opportunities. However, instead of delivering on his promises, he took complete control of all media, as well as the flow of money. None of the promised improvements took place. With virtually no independent oversight this became a recipe for corruption.
He and his cronies systematically stole huge sums of money, while the average Arab remained in abject poverty, which is the case today.
Such information rarely gets much attention, and certainly not in Arab media, heaven forbid!
Tracking the money
Here are some rather incredible facts:
Since its formation, the Palestinian Authority has received over $31 billion in foreign aid. In 2014 alone they received well over $2 billion. Of that amount the US provides the most by far- roughly $400 million, followed by the European Commission ($140 million), Saudi Arabia ($103 million), the UK ($95 million), etc. [see chart] In fact the Arabs have received more money than any other group of people in human history. If you take into account historic inflation, the PA has received more money than the US gave to rebuild all of Europe under the Marshall Plan after WW ll,” according to Calev Myers of the Jerusalem Institute of Justice who has studied this extensively. The funds were given to 17 countries with a combined population of 300,000,000. By comparison the number of Arabs living in Judea/Samaria, commonly referred to as the West Bank, is just under 3 million, or equal to 1% of post WWll European population. Yet they have been given more money than all of Europe!
With respect to Arafat, while the average Arab suffered, his wife Suha who lived in Paris received $200,000 per month from him. She also is alleged to have received numerous bulk payments, one of which was $11 million according to reports. Where did this money come from? More important, what happened with the vast amount of international aid given to the PA?
When Arafat died in 2004 an investigation showed he had $1 billion stashed away in Swiss bank accounts. Plus, he supposedly was in control of up to $6 billion in assets. His widow refused to reveal the location of the stolen money unless she was awarded a ‘finder’s fee.’ Rumor is the investigative team paid her as much as $40 million. The team was led by Mahmoud Abbas.
The Presidential Guest Palace in Surda, Ramallah being built by Mahmoud Abbas at a cost of $13 Million
Since then, Abbas has traveled down the same road of corruption of his predecessor. His personal wealth is said to be as much as $1 billion. However, since he is not subject to financial accountability, who really knows? He is currently constructing a $13 million mansion for himself.
Another area of fiscal irresponsibility is the PA owes roughly $300 – 400 million to Israel in unpaid electricity bills. Given Mr. Abbas’s accumulated stolen wealth, no doubt he could write a personal check for the entire amount.
In reality the economic well-being of the Arabs has long been in their own hands. However, they have never been able to realize it because their leadership has literally stolen it. Meanwhile, western leaders bemoan the presumed poverty driven frustration as the reason for terror, while international money keeps lining the pockets of corrupt leadership, and the average Arab continues to live in poverty.
Someone needs to have a blunt conversation with Mahmoud Abbas.
As for the Arab health care system, it remains so under developed many of them in desperation come to Israel for needed care. Indeed, in 2014 when tensions were extremely high due to the disappearance of three Jewish teens, who were later found murdered, Abbas’s wife was having surgery in an Israeli hospital. Plus, in the midst of the current spate of terror, which Abbas has fueled with hateful rhetoric, his brother-in-law had life-saving surgery in Israel. Israel even treated the granddaughter of Ismael Haniyeh, Hamas’s leader in the Gaza Strip.
International aid funding murderers
Aside from pilfering money meant to improve the lot of the average Arab, there is another disturbing aspect of how international aid is being used by the PA.
Approximately 16% of their total budget is designated to reward terrorists and their families. This is done under what is called The Law of the Prisoner.
Here’s how it works:
If an Arab commits a crime against an Israeli and is imprisoned he becomes eligible to earn a large monthly income. It can be as much as $3,500, ($42,000 annually) which is five times greater than the average Arab earns. The monthly income is on a sliding scale. The most heinous crimes get the highest monthly stipend.
You’ve heard the old saying “crime doesn’t pay?” These terrorists are proof it does pay. US and European taxpayers are the ones who are providing the “pay.”
Abbas’s actions are nothing short of criminal, plus he is guilty of using international humanitarian aid to reward murderers.
While the likelihood of him being imprisoned is remote, here are few suggestions for the US and others:
Stop blaming Israeli ‘settlements’ and ‘occupation’ for the lack of progress toward peace.
Demand Abbas condemn terror against Israelis and take steps to eliminate it.
Require mutual national recognition and hold him accountable if he refuses.
Demand the PLO, Fatah and Hamas amend their charters which call for Israel’s destruction. (no legitimate peace partner is party to a charter calling for the others destruction)
Insist the PA set up independent oversight and engage in complete financial transparency and accountability.
Demand the Law of the Prisoner be scrapped. Inform the PA financial aid will be terminated if murderers continue to be financially rewarded.
At the end of the day the effort of the US to appear balanced by maintaining the status quo is not only failing to move the peace process forward, it is actually perpetuating an environment which will never produce peace.
What is needed is for world leaders, especially the US, is to get blunt with Abbas as well as the Arabs, and stop trying to persuade Israel to further compromise its security by rewarding those who uncompromisingly seek its destruction with land and money.
Sometimes Internet rumors do in fact exhibit a modicum of truth. The Internet has been filled with conspiracy theories on the sudden rise of ISIS. Connecting this to Benghazi and the hidden hand of the USA behind it all.
A now declassified Department of Defense document seen here, proves that the government had an awareness that ISIS would directly develop from aiding Jihadist against Assad. Given that even the Obama administration isn’t naive enough to think these rebels would remain on a tight leash, the question must be asked: why would the administration be dumb enough to repeat the same policy that gave birth to Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaida?
Block Iran
Most conventional thinking revolves around the idea that ISIS or at least its predecessor was funded or allowed to metastasize as a block towards Iran’s advancement across the Middle East to the Mediterranean. It would seem that America’s funding of the various groups that would form ISIS is proof enough. Besides that, America has taken a very lax approach to bombing the group. The fact that Saudi Arabia in concert with the West has supported Jihadists against Assad seems to complete the puzzle.
But what happens if we are actually wrong about this? What happens if the plot is far more thick than we think? What happens if funding ISIS is about a whole new Middle East and the Obama administration has crafted all of this for some much larger purpose?
Chaos Leads to Order…Always
The theory of spontaneous order is an idea whose roots date back over 2,000 years ago. The theory is based on the idea that reality as we know it strives for order. This is why in seemingly chaotic situations some sort of order always prevails.
Obama and Kerry had to know that nothing good would come out of funding Jihadists. Nothing that is, unless they wanted the chaos that has now been unleashed on the Middle East. The forces are ripe for a new order and if one compares the speed of the rapprochement between Washington and Tehran it is no coincidence it has occurred over the backdrop of this growing chaos.
By creating the chaos or at least allowing it to mutate into a real enough threat, rapprochement with Iran can be peddled as a necessity. This is exactly why there has been a full court press on showing Iran as a truly amicable partner as we noted here. Strategically speaking the Obama administration has always seen Iran as the only country that could truly bring stability to the Middle East. Obama himself was never really enamored by the aging Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and as a revolutionary he felt his Shiite friends could be counted on as new strategic asset.
We’ve Been Tricked
No two countries have felt more slighted than Obama’s rapprochement than Israel or Saudi Arabia. Not only have the Sunni states been put into a precarious position, but their resources have been used to fight a war that has led to the raison d’etre itself for the USA to basically switch sides.
For Israel, there is perhaps nothing better than the solitary realization that we have nothing else to rely on than the Almighty himself.
With oil prices down to $30 and falling fast Russia cannot afford to put the kind of emphasis on military campaigns it needs to in order to be counted on to defeat Islamic extremists. This leaves ISIS in a far better position than the Obama administration would have everyone believe. It also means that the transition to a multi-polar world is no where near done. One thing that is clear, Israel should not jump into any strategic alliance even if it seems helpful in the short term. In the great global shift we find ourselves in, strategic alliances are hard to come by.
Listen to today’s podcast for greater insight on where things are going. Hang on to your seats change starts now!
Hamas was planning large scale suicide bombing attacks in Jerusalem. At least 25 Arabs were arrested planning these attacks. Where? In Abu Dis University. It is good to know that the University is teaching live training.
Arabs from around the Middle East agree: Israel is not our enemy. Over 100 thousand likes support an image showing the difference between the suffering of an Arab prisoner of a Syrian jail and Samir Kuntar in an Israeli prison. The difference is clear, the Syrian prisoner looks starved and frail, while Kuntar is plump. Arabs are finally waking up to the realization that Israel is not their enemy. Let’s see if the trend continues.
Well the fabled rapprochement seems to be stuck in neutral. Turkey is wiggling for room, but cannot have it both ways. More likely than not this won’t go anywhere, especially since Russia and Israel are collaborating on far deeper level than originally thought.
Ron Dermer, the Israelis Ambassador to the USA, gave the White House presents for the holidays. There is only one thing, they were all gifts produced in Judea, Samaria, and the Golan.
None of us should be shocked at the above thinking. Since the head of the UN ultimately thinks Israel is behind ethnically cleansing Arabs from Jerusalem, it is logical for him to also believe we are the ones responsible for the Arab violence in Israel. Essentially, according to the UN our very existence is the reason for the terrorism itself. Jews are the cause and the target of the terrorism. Old fashion anti-Semitism at its best.
Egypt and Israel clearly have a tacit understanding and defense alliance in dealing with joint threats. This is proof that the alliances in the Eastern Mediterranean are changing and consolidating behind Israel, Egypt, Cyprus, and Greece with an energy consortium as a joint interest between them. If this is really the case, the future is bright for the four.
The Jewish world should be outraged from Obama’s comparison, but then again American Jews largely voted for Barack Hussein Obama and in like fashion they will find some reason to agree with him. Any thinking person should be outraged, but it’s almost 2016 and it seems the world has gotten incredibly ignorant. First and foremost most of the Syrian refugees are Muslim and able-bodied young men. This does not mirror the typical refugee from anywhere else in the world.
The latest attack occurred outside the community of Avnei Hafetz. Residents of the Old City of Jerusalem had been visiting their daughter in Aveni Hafetz when their car came under fire. The idea that these attacks are lone wolf has become preposterous. The government has in word moved on from this theory, but has not been able to crack the forward momentum of the Arab war across the Land of Israel. Terror is merely a tactic to be employed to instill fear in the wider public. Treating terror with band aid or reactive measures will not work. Only a complete offensive campaign will crush the Jihadist cells and force Abu Mazen (aka Mahmoud Abbas) to sue for peace. Sadly the government is far reaching this conclusion.
Obama might have used his time with President Reuven Rivlin repairing his relationship with Israel by saying all the platitudes necessary, but he has squandered years trying to push something on both sides that has no reality on the ground. Sadly if Obama wanted real peace, the One State Solution is the only way forward.
Although the meeting is three weeks away, furor over Trump’s opposition to allowing Muslim immigration while global Jihad is on the march has drawn the ire of just about everyone in the elite wing of both the Democrats and Republicans. Bibi cannot cancel the meeting and it is not his style. Whether or not Trump always presents issues in a nuanced manner, a vast amount of Israelis agree with the current Republican front runner. Bibi understands this and while he needs to balance the meeting with some PC statement in order to assuage the White House, the meeting will go forward.
It is clear that Putin sees his mission to exterminate ISIS as well as the Syrian opposition to Assad. To Putin they are one and the same. This entails Russia successfully destroying Turkey’s supply lines to their ISIS allies. Right now Russia is doing this in the Western part of Syria by obliterating the Turkmen bases in the Kızıldağ district on the border of Turkey. After Kızıldağ the next logical place for Putin to focus on would be the remaining supply route from Turkey into Syria and that would be from the border of Turkey and Syria near Jarabulus a Syrian city that has a population 11,500. The road from there leads South along the Euphrates River to the Islamic State’s capital of Raqqah.
If Putin and Syrian ground forces continue to advance against both ISIS and the Turkish supply lines, ISIS will be crippled, leaving only Iraq as a solid territory under their rule. Yet, that too could be under fire soon as the Iraqi government has asked Russia to step in and kick Turkish forces from Northern Iraq.
If Russia succeeds with the help of Syrian and Iranian ground forces, Turkey will end up with an emboldened Kurdish presence to its South as well as a generational setback to Erdogan’s grand designs to be the neo-Sultan of the Middle East. The Sunni World would be in upheavel and the Middle East and the bulk of the world’s oil supply would be held by Russia and the Shiites (save for Saudi Arabia).
Closing the Bosphorous is Turkey’s Only Recourse
Below is the relevant text from the Montreux Convention Articles 19, 20, and 21 of agreed upon in 1936:
Article 19.
“In time of war, Turkey not being belligerent, warships shall enjoy complete freedom of transit and navigation through the Straits under the same conditions as those laid down in Article 10 to 18.”
“Vessels of war belonging to belligerent Powers shall not make any capture, exercise the right of visit and search, or carry out any hostile act in the Straits.”
Article 20.
“In time of war, Turkey being belligerent, the provisions of Articles 10 to 18 shall not be applicable; the passage of warships shall be left entirely to the discretion of the Turkish Government.”
Article 21.
“Should Turkey consider herself to be threatened with imminent danger of war she shall have the right to apply the provisions of Article 20 of the present Convention.”
We are all aware by now that Turkey has been slowing down Russian vessels and with that a Russian warship had a soldier standing on it with a shoulder guided missile in plain site. According to the above treaty Russia broke article 19 and Turkey very well may use that in the coming days to close the straits. Putin will have to reopen them by force setting the stage for a broad war against NATO. Erdoan is banking on NATO stepping in. Putin believes they will at the most make a token gesture out of Europe’s fear of having their gas cut in the dead of winter.
Of course Obama and the USA are stuck between two converging realities. With the ISIS attack in San Bernadino last week, Obama would be hard pressed to defend Turkey given Russia’s proof that Erdogan has been assisting ISIS and then again not defending Turkey would mean that Russia and Iran would be in control of much of the Middle East and the Black Sea with Russia having an acute ability to dictate the future of Europe. Right now Obama seems frozen or pre-occupied in order to turn the domestic situation to some sort of advantage for his agenda.
Iran Filling the Void in the Syrian Golan
While Russia makes moves to flatten Turkey and their aspirations, Iran is using their tactical pact with Russia to take over the positions ISIS and Al Nusra once had in the Syrian side of the Golan. Israel’s leaders have made bellicose statements, but Iran stands undeterred as their pincher move is rapidly set up. Israel has one move and that is to strike now while Russia is involved in the North, but that brings another set consequences. The die is cast. The next moves on the chessboard of the now expanding Syrian conflict is Israel’s and Turkey’s.
