RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan stands to lose more than any other party from the establishment of a State of Palestine. While the potential dangers and complications for Israel of such a state could be significant, Jordan would face threats to both its social stability and its foundational idea: that it governs the Arab population on both banks of its eponymous river. In addition to the substantial political and security difficulties such a state would create for Jordan, it could also jeopardize its continued viability by shifting the locus of political leadership for a majority of Jordanians away from Amman and towards Ramallah.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Palestinian statehood is a moribund idea. Despite official pronouncements, none of the principal parties seem very keen on achieving it, least of all the PA.

However, if, through some unilateral action, a State of Palestine were to be declared in the territory comprising Areas A & B, the repercussions (mostly negative) would affect the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan more than any other party, including Israel.

The dangers to the Kingdom would manifest themselves on three levels: the political threat, the security threat, and the existential threat.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270300/golan-heights-recognition-thwarted-swamp-ari-lieberman

Last week, House Foreign Affairs Committee Member, Congressman Ron DeSantis (R.,-Fla.), proposed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act recognizing the Golan Heights as an integral part of Israel thereby validating Israel’s 1981 annexation of the territory. Though non-binding, the declarative resolution, which would have likely passed if brought to the House floor for a full vote, would have sent a strong message to the world, but chiefly Israel’s enemies, that after eight years of relentless hostility from the previous American administration, the US-Israel alliance is back on track and stronger than ever.

But for inexplicable reasons, the amendment didn’t pass muster with the House Rules Committee and consequently, never made it do the House floor for a full up or down vote. Sources close to the matter stated that the White House put pressure on Speaker Paul Ryan to kill the resolution and render it dead on arrival. The White House for its part denied playing any role in the shelving of the resolution claiming to have only recently become aware of its existence. When contacted by the Washington Free Beacon for comment on the matter, Speaker Ryan’s office remained uncharacteristically mute.

On the heels of President Donald Trump’s historic decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city and transfer the United States embassy there in compliance with U.S. law, a congressional resolution recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan would have represented a powerful one-two combination. It would have signaled an end to past anachronistic foreign policies dictated by the swamp.

Up until June 1967, the Golan Heights, a rocky volcanic plateau overlooking Galilee, served as a platform for Syrian artillery strikes against Israeli Galilean villages and collectives. It is roughly 45 miles long and 17 miles wide at its widest point. From 1948 until 1967, Syrian artillery harried and harassed Israeli farmers tilling their fields and fishermen tending to their business in the Sea of Galilee, also known as the Kinneret. In addition to artillery strikes, the Syrians also tried to divert the Golan’s waters from flowing into the Jordan River in an effort to deprive Israel of water resources. In sum, rather than using the Golan for productive purposes, the Syrians used the plateau to rain death and destruction and make life for Israelis miserable.

On June 5th 1967, Israel, rather than waiting for its enemies to hit first, acted resolutely and launched a preemptive strike against its belligerent Arab neighbors. While Israel was engaged in battling Egyptians to the south and Jordanians to the east, Syria decided to take advantage of the situation to indiscriminately shell Israeli towns, villages and farming collectives in Galilee.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/gaza-militants-fire-mortars-into-israel-1527591761

TEL AVIV—Israeli jets launched airstrikes against targets in Gaza in response to militants firing mortar shells and rockets into the country, ramping up tensions after weeks of deadly clashes at the border fence.

More than 60 targets were hit in total in two waves of airstrikes, including a munitions manufacturing site, military compounds, munitions warehouses and a tunnel that extended into its territory, which belonged to Gaza ruler Hamas and militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Israeli military said.

The Israeli strikes came as militants in Gaza fired mortar shells and rockets into Israel through the day, setting off sirens in several border towns that continued late into the night, in what Israel’s military called the largest such attacks from the Palestinian territory since the 50-day war known as Operation Protective Edge in 2014.

“We are the closest to war we have been since Operation Protective Edge.…If a war breaks out that we are not interested in and that they aren’t interested in—it depends solely on them,” Israeli Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz told Army Radio.

The Israeli military said late Tuesday that militants in Gaza launched a total of about 70 mortars and rockets into Israel in several barrages by 8 p.m. local time, including some that were Iranian made.

Three Israeli soldiers were injured and were receiving medical treatment, but the Iron Dome defense system intercepted most of the projectiles, the Israeli military said. One of the mortar shells from the morning volley landed in the playground of a kindergarten before children arrived and no one was injured, it said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which Israel says is backed by Iran, for the attacks.

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s armed wings issued a joint statement claiming responsibility for the attacks on Israel. They said the attacks were a response to Israel’s recent attacks that have killed Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants as well as for violent clashes during recent protests.

The groups faulted Israel for this week’s violence, citing events “48 hours ago.” and said they won’t “not let the enemy impose a new equation killing our people for free.”

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, on Tuesday called for an emergency Security Council meeting to respond to attacks on Israel from Gaza. CONTINUE AT SITE

It is no wonder, then, that the classified State Department report’s findings — showing that billions of taxpayer dollars have been funneled over the years into an organization that has seems to have been perpetuating a fraud — that the Obama administration kept its content a secret from the American public.

UNRWA is anything but a humanitarian organization interested in the welfare of the Palestinians whom it claims to have spent the past nearly 70 years assisting. It is, rather, a self-serving political body that has bolstered Arab/Palestinian rejectionism and perpetuated Palestinian suffering, thereby preventing peace and prosperity.

Its dissolution is long overdue.

In early 2018, President Donald Trump froze a large portion of the funding that the United States provides annually for UNRWA (the United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestine Refugees a in the Near East). Prior to imposing the $125 million freeze, Trump tweeted: “[W]e pay the Palestinians HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect.”

The president’s move came in response to the fact that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his henchmen yet again were rejecting American and Israeli peace overtures. Yet it was both welcome and necessary for reasons well beyond Palestinian intransigence. UNRWA not only has an abominable record of ties to terrorism, which makes a mockery of its mandate to ” provide relief, human development and protection services;” but its entire existence is based on a false premise — a special UN definition of “refugee” for Palestinians that sets them apart from other people in the world categorized as such. It thus has been able for decades to keep cash flowing freely into its coffers, providing “humanitarian services” for millions of Palestinians who are not refugees by any measure. As the ZOA’s Morton Klein and Daniel Mandel recently wrote:

“All this stands in stark contrast to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the international body that deals with all refugee problems other than the Palestinian Arabs. UNHRC observes a universal definition of refugee status, one that applies solely to those who actually fled their country during hostilities, civil war, natural disaster, or other disturbances. UNHCR works to resettle refugees quickly and dismantle the temporary refugee camps housing them. Nor does it count descendants as refugees.