Doc's Talk: Who's being rational?

Friday, December 14, 2007

Who's being rational?

line Glick
THE JERUSALEM POST

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LIFE IN southern Israel is unbearable. Since last January, on average, 6.3 mortars and rockets have been fired from Gaza on southern Israel every day.
As Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna'i warned the heads of the communities around Gaza last week, due to the improvements in the Palestinian arsenal since Israel vacated Gaza two years ago, the Palestinians now field missiles and rockets with extended ranges that place 130,000 Israelis under threat of missile attack.

Wednesday, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi made clear that if Israel wishes to secure its citizens there is only one thing it can do. It can conquer Gaza.

In a speech at Tel Aviv University, Ashkenazi explained, "It is impossible to defeat a terrorist organization without eventually controlling the territory. The good situation in Judea and Samaria is the result of our control over the area and we will not be able to achieve victory in the conflict [in Gaza] simply with indirect fires and attacks from the air."

Presumably Ashkenazi made this point Wednesday morning at the security cabinet meeting. But apparently, he was no match for his competition.

Squared off against Ashkenazi was Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. Livni warned her colleagues that securing southern Israel will destroy the peace process. If Israel secures the south, the Arabs and the Bush administration will get really mad. And "moderate" Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas will turn his back on the peace process and reunite his US-trained Fatah forces with the Iranian-trained Hamas forces. Livni's message was clear: The government must choose between security and the peace process.

Livni won the argument. The peace process won out against the security of southern Israel.

The Olmert government's preference for process over substance is not unique. Indeed, it is malady shared by governments throughout the free world. The philosophical foundations of this malady are similarly common ones.

THE SEPTEMBER 11 attacks on the US intensified a dispute that had been brewing since the end of the Cold War about the definition of rationality. The two warring factions in the debate, which has raged throughout the free world, can be referred to as the rationalizers and the rationalists. Each side has given its own definition of rationality and those competing definitions have formed the basis of the camps' competing policy prescriptions for contending with the threat of Islamic terrorists and their state sponsors ever since.

The rationalizers include politicians like Olmert and Livni and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and security and policy apparatuses like the CIA, the State Department, the Foreign Ministry and their counterparts in Europe.

The rationalizers define rationality as susceptibility to foreign pressure and willingness to be appeased. According to this view, if your antagonist is willing to negotiate with you, then he is rational. And since he is rational, he is capable of being appeased. And since he is willing to be appeased, he isn't really your enemy.

The US intelligence community's National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear capabilities and intentions is a textbook example of the rationalizers' view. The NIE, which asserts that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 as the result of the program's exposure and the international scrutiny that followed, concludes that "Teheran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic, and military costs." And since Iran is rational, the NIE recommends that the US and its allies make Iran an offer which entails "some combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways."

The rationalizers' view of rationality is alluring for two main reasons. First, its essential argument is that the West is solely responsible for determining whether the world will enjoy peace or suffer the ravages of war. If Western states cough up a proper package of concessions, then the terrorists and their state sponsors will negotiate with them. If Western nations refuse to make the necessary concessions then the terrorists and their state sponsors will attack them and the nations of the West will have only themselves, and their obstinacy to blame.

Beyond that, since the Arab and Islamic world's rationality is solely a function of Western will, the ideology of jihad which informs terrorists and their state sponsors is immaterial. As far as rationalizers are concerned, there is no reason to close down jihadist Web sites or indoctrination centers. Indeed, there is no reason to challenge the validity of jihadist doctrines and values as all.

This view too, resonates in the NIE. The report makes no mention of the fact that Iran's regime was founded on the values of jihad. It ignores the fact that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his supporters believe that by fomenting Armageddon they can hasten the coming of the Shi'ite messiah and bring forth an era of Islamic global domination in a world in which the US and Israel are but bitter memories. Had the NIE taken these ideological views into account, its authors might have noted that it makes perfect sense for the ayatollahs to be pursuing nuclear weapons.

But taking the Iranian regime's ideology, values and aspirations into account would involve crossing the lines into the opposing rationalists' camp. For rationalists, it is rational for a state's policies and actions to reflect and advance its values, aspirations and beliefs. As a consequence, it is essential to understand and confront those beliefs, values and aspirations.

Just as the rationalizers' views are attractive because they place all the power to determine issues of war and peace in the hands of Western nations, so the views of the rationalists are unattractive because they assume that the free world cannot alone determine the course of events. It cannot influence a society's adherence to jihadist beliefs and aspirations. The most it can do is take actions to prevent jihadist societies from acting on their beliefs.

When Ashkenazi explained that the conquest of Gaza is the only way to secure southern Israel, he was representing the rationalist camp's view of rationality. Since the Palestinians overwhelmingly support the jihadist aim of destroying Israel, it is rational for them to attack Israel for as long as they can. Since Israel cannot change the way the Palestinians understand the world and the meaning of life, the only way it can protect its citizens from murder is by taking away the Palestinians' ability to attack.

PERHAPS THE strangest aspect of the rationalizers' disparagement of the importance of ideology is the lengths they go to in order to ignore jihadist ideology on the one hand and appease it on the other. Agents in counter-terror units of the FBI, for instance, are discouraged from studying the Koran. Their chiefs argue that only a tiny minority of Muslims in the US and worldwide ascribe to a religious-supremacist interpretation of the Koran which upholds and encourages terrorism, slaughter and war to the death against non-Muslims and therefore what the Koran says is irrelevant.

Yet if it is true that only a tiny minority of Muslims think that Islam is a supremacist political as well as religious creed, then the rationalizers should treat the actual jihadists with contempt similar to that which they exhibit towards white supremacists. After all, doing so shouldn't bother the rest of their co-religionists who reject their views. But the opposite is the case.

FBI agents undergo Islamic "sensitivity training" by people who are themselves the subjects of their counter-terror investigations. US military personnel at Guantanamo Bay are forced to wear gloves when they touch copies of the Koran belonging to their jihadist prisoners.

More disturbingly, in their rush to placate this irrelevant tiny minority of jihadists, Israeli, US and European officials willingly trounce their core values of the rule of law and freedom of expression. In Israel, Israeli Jews who build homes without permits are prosecuted to the full limit of the law and ejected from their homes. Israeli Arabs who have built entire towns illegally are ignored by authorities in the interest of avoiding diplomatic consequences or stirring up passions.

In the US, one can stand outside the White House and burn the American flag without fear of criminal charge. But if a person draws a pig on a copy of the Koran in a public library, he is liable to find himself under arrest for committing a hate crime. And in Europe, you can participate in a demonstration invoking Islam as you call for the destruction of Britain or Holland or Demark without fear of legal action, but if you publish a caricature of Muhammad in your newspaper, you may find yourself the subject of a criminal probe and forced into hiding for promoting racism.

In Israel, it is difficult to convince people that the ideology of jihad is unimportant. But the rationalizers have two other ways to convince the general public and their political base that they are right to ignore the enemy's actions and intentions and concentrate on efforts to appease. First there is the fear factor. Given the overwhelming nature of the Arab and Islamic world's hatred of Israel and the Jewish people, Israel's rationalizers defend their preference for imaginary peace processes over security by arguing that Israel cannot afford to fight a war. Far better than facing that hatred on the battlefield is the option of preemptive surrender. As the rationalizers argue, if Israel shrinks into the 1949 armistice lines, builds a big wall and hides behind it, then maybe the Arabs will forget that we're still here and leave us alone.

Politically there is the fact that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Kadima party was founded on the view that territory has no defensive value and that preemptive surrender is a reasonable national strategy. To acknowledge that territory is important or that surrendering territory to your enemy strengthens your enemy and weakens you would involve admitting that Kadima's founding principles are all wrong. So Olmert and Livni and their associates maintain the fiction, do nothing to secure southern Israel and seek to transfer Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria to Fatah terrorists.

Since September 11, the rationalizers have won most of their policy battles with the rationalists and the results of their victories have been both ironic and tragic. As a result of the rationalizers' control of policy, the only ones who consistently engage in the rational pursuit of their interests, values and aspirations are the jihadists and their state sponsors. For their part, the leaders of the free world seem intent on living out George Orwell's observation that "the quickest way of ending a war is to lose it."

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This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847336347&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

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The IDF’s Minorities in Numbers and Pictures

In honor of IDF Diversity Week, we present diversity through numbers and pictures. Each year, more and more Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and immigrants from around the world take on the responsibility of defending Israel.

MUSLIMS:

Muslim Arab Israelis are not required to draft in the IDF, but there are many who volunteer. In 2013, there were over 200 Muslims serving in the IDF and over 300 in the reserves.

Bedouins:

Bedouins are nomadic Muslims who were in Israel when modern borders were set in place and are now considered Israeli citizens. They are not required to draft but a growing number choose to enlist. In 2012, there were over 1,400 Bedouin Muslim soldiers doing regular IDF service and almost 1,500 in the reserves.

Read more:http://www.idfblog.com/2014/02/27/truth-idf-numbers-pictures/#more-34027

Are you aware that in 2013, Middle class taxes go up-significantly?

In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent… This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent… When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

Why is HAMAS Inside Tampa Schools?

Clare Lopez

Kelly Miliziano, who teaches history classes at Steinbrenner High School in the Tampa, Florida area apparently thinks it’s perfectly OK to invite a senior official of a HAMAS-affiliated organization into her classroom to discuss Islam with her students. According to local media reports, not only has this been going on for years, but in spite of the civil and criminal proceedings that could result from such reckless negligence, the Hillsborough County school superintendent, Mary Ellen Elia, and the chairman of the school board, Candy Olson, also expressed approval for students under their responsibility to be exposed repeatedly to guest speaker, Hassan Shibly, who is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Tampa area.
More...

Did You Know... Ignoring the Call to Islam will Bring Jihad

‘Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing] that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa.’
-- Yousef al-Qaradawi , Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader The Arabic word ‘Da’wa’ means the “call to Islam.” But do not think that Da’wa is the same thing as an invitation to an optional holiday event. The classical Islamic doctrine of jihad mandates that enemies must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax before it is permissible to attack them.
Clare M. Lopez

Who is being discriminated-facts tell the truth

Religious bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,409 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-bias offenses showed:

65.4 percent were anti-Jewish.
13.2 percent were anti-Islamic.
9.5 percent were anti-other religion, i.e., those not specified.
4.3 percent were anti-Catholic.
3.8 percent were anti-multiple religions, group.
3.3 percent were anti-Protestant.
0.5 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2010/narratives/hate-crime-2010-incidents-and-offenses.

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview

with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive, said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

The Arab Apartheid

Ben-Dror Yemini
In 1948, the Arab countries refused to accept the UN partition proposal and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs fled because of the war and a larger number of 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (the "Jewish nakba").
Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time, occurring in dozens of other conflict points and affecting about 52 million people. In all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state.
Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. Instead of assimilating the refugees, they crushed them despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation - instituting a regime of apartheid. So the "nakba" was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The "nakba" is the story of the apartheid, oppression, abuse and denial of rights suffered by the Arab refugees at the hands of the Arab countries. (Maariv)

International Law and Military Operations in Practice - Col. Richard Kemp

"Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. "

Lost Historical Moments

What Rabin’s last Knesset speech really said:repudiation of a Palestinian state

Rabin ruled out a fully sovereign Palestinian state :

“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”

Rabin ruled out a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and thus a return to the pre-June 1967 borders :

“The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Rabin ruled out withdrawing form the Jordan Valley:

“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”

Rabin ruled out uprooting settlement blocs, like the Gush Katif bloc in Gaza (which was subsequently uprooted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon):

“The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

AND

Rabin ruled out removing any settlement before coming to a full peace agreement with the Palestinians:

“I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”

Rabin insisted on Israel retaining full security control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, contrary to Israel’s relinquishment of the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt:

“The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.”

Correcting Oslo Myths-Part 2

3) Kuttab laments that the post-1993 Oslo process resulted in a Palestinian Authority "whose ministers and legislators are not guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank ...."

Before free passage or other perquisites, PA leaders were obligated, among other things, to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end anti-Israeli, antisemitic incitement in schools, mosques, and communications media, and resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. They met none of these commitments, sometimes bolstering terrorism and greatly increasing incitement.

4) Kuttab complains that under Oslo the PA got "lightly armed police ---- but no real sovereignty over the land or contiguity between our communities in Gaza and the West Bank."

Oslo agreements repeatedly were revised, regardless of Palestinian non-compliance, until the authorized number of police grew from 8,000 to 40,000. Though they were to be the only armed forces in the territories, Israeli estimates early in the second intifada put the number of gunmen - police, "security services," terrorists, and armed gangs - at 85,000. Their armament reportedly included not only heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Sovereignty was to be negotiated in the envisioned 1998 "final status" talks - after a five-year period of confidence-building. Palestinian leadership chronically undermined the process. Palestinian terrorism made the 1993 - 1998 Oslo period more deadly for Israelis than the 15 years preceding it.

The United States doesn't have contiguity between the lower 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii; territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip - that is, through the 20 miles of Israeli territory between them - was never promised and would destroy Israeli contiguity.

5) "Palestinians have been made to endure hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, an eight-foot wall deep in our territories, and tight Israeli control over borders."

The security barrier is not "deep in Palestinian territories," but rather encompasses less than 8 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is mostly a fence, rarely a wall; the land in question is not "our [Palestinian] territories" but disputed territory to which, according to the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Jews as well as Arabs have claims; and there are no international borders, only the 1949 armistice lines with Jordan. Under 242, borders remain to be negotiated. As for checkpoints - like the security barrier and "tight Israeli control" - Palestinian Arabs precipitated these measures themselves. No terrorism and there would be no fence or tight Israeli control and few checkpoints - like before the first intifada.

Correcting Some Oslo Myths

1) In Oslo "Israeli, Palestinian and other world leaders promised that ... Palestinian sovereignty would be solidified."

No, they didn't. The 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo agreements outlined a process by which final status negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be reached. The process required an end to anti-Israel terrorism and incitement and a commitment to peaceful negotiations. The PA, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other terrorist groups, sabotaged the process from the start.

2) "The reality is that, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that it is inadmissible to occupy land by force, Palestinian territories are still under foreign military occupation."
Wrong again. Resolution 242 (1967) does note "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." It also affirms the right of every state in the area "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." There were no "Palestinian territories." Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not have "secure and recognized boundaries," so retention of some of those territories was possible under 242. Israel is not a "foreign" military occupier in the West Bank but, pending final negotiations, the lawful military administrator as a result of a successful war of self-defense.

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