Doc's Talk: The Myth of Mideast Stability

Monday, September 26, 2011

The Myth of Mideast Stability

Elliot Jager

The U.S. Ambassador to Israel recently told the International Conference on Economic Regional Cooperation in Tel Aviv that unless Israel and the Palestinians resume negotiations, "the lack of peace will decrease stability dangerously" in the Middle East. The Ambassador was merely repeating an idea that has become diplomatic dogma—the notion that the absence of a peace deal contributes "dangerously" to regional instability.

But the Israeli-Palestinian impasse, in relation to Middle East instability, is like a lighted match tossed into a three-alarm fire. The number of Arab League member-states not riven by violence and upheaval can be counted on one hand, with fingers to spare. The reasons for the Mideast's rolling boil are unconnected to the Jewish state. Tunisia, where the Arab Spring began this year, remains a desperate place, in which unemployed teachers have threatened to commit suicide. After months of quarrels with other political groups, the Islamist party has agreed to elections for an assembly that will write a new Tunisian constitution. Given the Islamists' ascendancy, the odds that a Western-style democracy will emerge are low.

In post-Mubarak Egypt, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is baiting Israel in his bid to establish Turkey's regional leadership, continued his campaign with a trip to Cairo. Having won the adoration of Cairo's masses, old guard Muslim Brotherhood leaders pointedly warned the premier of non-Arab Turkey against making a play for Middle East hegemony. "We welcome Turkey and we welcome Erdogan as a prominent leader," said Essam El-Erian, the Brotherhood's deputy leader, "but we do not think that he or his country alone should be leading the region or drawing up its future." The Egyptians discouraged Erdogan from visiting Gaza or Tahrir Square; and Erdogan's Obama-style speech at the Cairo Opera House, meant to rally the Muslim world against Israel, was not broadcast live in Egypt. No matter who rules Egypt, its rivalry and tensions with Persia and Turkey will continue.

In near-forgotten Iraq, Sunnis and Shi'ites are still at each others' throats. In Syria, violence perpetrated by President Bashar al-Assad has claimed more than 2,400 lives, with no end in sight. The Shi'ites in power in Iran will likely stand by their client Assad, though they have backed off their public support. But Saudi Arabia's Sunni leaders have sided with the Sunni Syrian street, while Sunni Turkey has openly hosted anti-Assad opposition groups. Even the possibility that Syria will fragment can't be ruled out. Israel is nowhere in the picture.

Lebanon's fate is ever more precarious. The country's neighboring Syrian hegemon lies politically stricken, while Beirut's more distant Persian overlord is riven by acrimony between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. No wonder Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati—a puppet of Lebanese Hezbollah, allied with Syria and Iran—complains, albeit with notable understatement, about the "unhealthy mood" in Lebanon's polity. Lebanon's Maronite Patriarch, Bechara Boutros al-Rai's, with Hezbollah's boot on his neck, finds himself praising the Assad regime. Other Christian leaders feel emboldened enough to challenge Hezbollah's corruption.

Instability driven largely by the absence of political legitimacy is endemic throughout the region. Take oil-rich Libya: Centrifugal tribal forces, fractious Islamists beholden to the Gulf States, and comparative modernizers all vie for control. It's anyone's guess whether the country will cohere in the hoped-for post-Qaddafi era. Neighboring Sudan has been partitioned, yet north-south fighting continues along the new border. The situation is no less bloody in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is trying to finesse a deal to protect Riyadh's Sunni interests against those of the Iranian-backed Shi'ite Houthis. Here, too, the question is whether a war-ravaged country can hold together. Meanwhile, a similar Iranian-Saudi rivalry plays out in Bahrain.

Israel and the Palestinian situation are no part of these equations. Nor are they factors in the foreboding that regional turmoil continues to produce among the Christian, Druse, Alawite, and Berber minorities in the region—not to mention the Kurds, whose homeland stretches across parts of Iran, Iraq, and Turkey and whose rightful case for self-determination has been oddly shunted aside by champions of the Palestinian cause.

Conversely, there is no reason to think that UN approval of Palestinian statehood will increase regional stability. Certainly it will not increase prospects for long-term security in Jordan's Hashemite Kingdom. For the past several weeks King Abdullah, ostensibly angered over an Israeli remark implying that Jerusalem might pursue a "Jordan is Palestine" strategy, has lashed out at Israel and protested his fidelity to the idea of Palestinian statehood. Yet the king knows that Israel is his bulwark and that the threats to his throne come from Jordan's internal Islamist opposition, deep-seated economic woes, and the kingdom's episodically restive Palestinian Arab majority, not to mention the nightmare scenario of a Hamas takeover in the West Bank.

Speaking of Hamas, the UN's recognition of Palestinian statehood on the terms proposed by the Palestine Liberation Organization, which rules the West Bank, will not even increase stability within the Palestinian polity, let alone throughout the region. Can anyone imagine Hamas granting Mahmoud Abbas safe passage to visit Gaza?

The turmoil in the Arab world will persist irrespective of what happens on the Israeli-Palestinian track. To be gripped by the delusion that solving the "Question of Palestine" will deliver stability to the Middle East requires overlooking intrinsic regional, tribal, ethnic, and religious fault lines. The Middle East will continue to boil no matter how much "Palestine" is empowered, no matter the extent to which Israel's security interests are denigrated, and no matter how much diplomatic capital is invested in an attempt to fill the bottomless pit of the Palestinian sense of victimization.

Thus, no matter how much the international community wishes to cater to the Arabs on the "Palestine" issue, Israeli security cannot realistically be traded for regional stability. Misguided UN action on the Palestinian issue can have no significant constructive impact on regional unrest and will not provide breathing space for Arab and Muslim rulers threatened at home or abroad.

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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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