Doc's Talk: In a post-American world, no one cares about "Palestine"‏

Friday, July 11, 2014

In a post-American world, no one cares about "Palestine"‏

http://libertyunyielding.com/2014/07/10/post-american-world-one-cares-palestine/

In a post-American world, no one cares about ‘Palestine’

Alert analysts have been pointing out this week that Hamas’s situation is different in the current “Israel-Gaza war”: different from the situations in 2009 (Cast Lead) and 2012 (Pillar of Defense), and more unfavorable for Hamas.

While I think these are good analyses (see here and here, for example), there’s a larger context in which Hamas has lost momentum and support. It’s not just Hamas that is seeing its foreign patronage evaporate. It’s the Fatah-Hamas unity government. It’s the whole enterprise of Palestinian statehood on the post-Oslo, post-Intifada model.

The Fatah-Hamas strategy

Fatah and Hamas came together early in June in a strategic gamble: Fatah gambled that turning its back on the Oslo-based peace process would generate momentum for a new assault on Israel through the unilateral establishment of a Palestinian state, backed by – presumably – the Arab League and the OIC.

Hamas has been pulling out all the stops to provoke Israel in the last several weeks: the kidnapping and murder of the Israeli teens; ramping up rocket attacks; launching heavier, longer-range rockets against Israel’s population centers; trying multiple times to infiltrate Israeli territory with terrorist operatives; lobbing rockets at the nuclear reactor at Dimona. This is a significant broadening of the scope and kind of attacks over the wars of 2009 and 2012. (For frequent, often in-depth updates, see especially Elder of Ziyon and Israel Matzav.)

But it isn’t a desperation move. It’s a tactic to draw Israel into a ground invasion of Gaza – and by that means to rally the Arab world to the Palestinian cause. Fatah’s eye may be on Arab and other Muslim governments; I think Hamas’s eye is at least partly on the jihadis who may respond to a call to arms against Israel.

Hamas has accompanied the actions with propaganda videos aired on its TV station: slickly produced videos issuing bloodthirsty warnings to Israelis. The whole campaign is considerably more overt and orchestrated than what we have seen in the previous conflicts over Hamas’s attacks from Gaza since 2006.

Fatah, meanwhile, has not repudiated Hamas’s actions in any way. In fact, Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reported yesterday that Fatah has issued a threatening video of its own, promising Israelis that “death will reach you from the south to the north…the KN-103 rocket is on its way toward you.” PMW has documented threats from Fatah on social media as well, along with statements of solidarity with Hamas.

Fatah may hope to draw Israel into deploying combat forces into Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) as well. A Fatah planner would hope to begin lobbing those rockets into Israel once the IDF has rolled ground troops into Gaza, forcing Israel to open a second front and perhaps widening the political import of the conflict. (Fatah-linked operatives are already participating in the attacks from Gaza.)

According to reports on Wednesday, moreover, Fatah, in the guise of the Palestinian Authority leadership, will also sign documents for establishing membership in international organizations this week – including the International Criminal Court. Mahmoud Abbas hopes to leverage the ICC to weigh Israel down with war-crimes accusations and sanctions.

The Tower points out that Fatah and Hamas can be charged with war crimes if they manage to join the ICC as a Palestinian state – and that the unity government between the two of them puts the Palestinian Authority in violation of UN standards anyway.

Why the strategy is outdated

But we are past the time when that meant very much to actual geopolitical decisions. The sense of strategic unity between Fatah and Hamas as they prosecute an all-out push against Israel indicates that both of those entities recognize the world has changed. They are cutting the tether to the expectations of the Oslo era. That’s what they’re doing right this minute: burning that bridge.

Their intention is to create momentum for a pan-Arab campaign to intimidate Israel and present her with a fait accompli. They propose to start with the unifying spectacle of Israel having to attack the Palestinian Arabs in force.

But the joke, if we want to call it that, is on them. The world is past Oslo. It’s also past “Palestine.” This is not so obvious to most observers yet, I think, but it is nevertheless true. The concept of a Palestinian state was only viable and geopolitically desirable (to some) within the construct of the Pax Americana, in which borders were settled, and there were limits set by American power on the aspirations of hegemonic wannabes and self-proclaimed caliphs.

Those limits are gone now. The utility of a state of Palestine to the aspirations of more powerful actors is now a big question mark. No one in the capitals of the Muslim world actually cares if Fatah presides over a state, or if the people in the Palestinian territories have a fully official seat in the United Nations. Why would anyone care, when the meaning of the UN itself is now gravely compromised?

The UN concept has no force without a supremely powerful United States behind it. It is only a matter of time before the man on the street begins to realize that. But leaders from Vladimir Putin to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi see it clearly already. All bets are off. A “state of Palestine,” in the borders by which Gaza and the West Bank are currently delineated, is an unimportant prize – even for radical Islamists – in a world in which it will be possible to redraw borders all the way from the Zagros Mountains of Iran to the shifting sands of the Western Sahara.

The territory is important. But gaining access to it by proclaiming a Palestinian state is not. There are other, potentially better ways of gaining position on Israel’s flanks. No one’s borders are now sacrosanct – especially not Mahmoud Abbas’s.

Pace Joel Pollak (Breitbart link above), Iran isn’t “tied down” with ISIS in Iraq so much as confronted with an entire region – and long-term Iranian strategy – in flux. Iran has actually been reconsidering the geostrategic significance of both Gaza and Hamas since the Syrian civil war became a desperate, open-ended death struggle in 2013. The Iranians can’t help seeing that whatever form of organization eventually subdues Syria, the profile of what “Syria” is will quite probably be altered. The same is true of Iraq, and almost certainly of Lebanon.

Other nations – Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan – see a threat in these dynamics. But there are also a number of visionaries, including leaders in those nations’ governments, who see opportunity.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi isn’t the only one. He’s just the guy with some current momentum and notoriety. Mohammed Morsi in Egypt was another such visionary – one we may not have heard the last of – with a different strategic approach. Recep Tayyip Erdogan is one as well: with yet a third vision and type of approach. We are seeing different models for promoting the emergence of state-Islamism, from the guerrilla thuggery of al-Baghdadi – reminiscent of the Taliban (or of Dokku Umarov in the Caucasus) – to Erdogan’s ponderous, conventionally statist neo-Ottoman approach and Morsi’s Bolshevist assault on the ballot box.*

The legacy monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Jordan, and the al-Sisi government in Egypt, are coming together to attempt to preserve some kind of status quo against the forces of instability and revolution. But – and this is important – they understand clearly the moment they are in. They, like the status-quo-busting radicals, have the opportunity to rewrite what the status quo is. There’s no America fencing them or anyone else off from such a project. We mustn’t make outdated assumptions now about what they will put their weight behind.

It can’t be stressed enough that our Pax Americana-era assumptions are now outdated. The rate at which we see them cast aside will only accelerate. Someone may decide in 2014 that Hamas, Gaza, Fatah, and/or some combination of them could be useful to him for a while. But it’s quite possible that no one will. Each actor in this open-ended drama has bigger designs now than being the patron of the little “Palestinian” state ... [See rest at link]

J.E. Dyer
CDR, USN (Ret.)
Hemet, CA

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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.

Doc's Talk