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ISRAEL

Biden’s settlement delusions Contrary to the administration’s claims, history proves that the settlements are neither illegal nor an impediment to peace. Eric Levine

https://www.jns.org/bidens-settlement-delusions/

Last week, the Biden administration reversed the “Pompeo Doctrine,” which recognized that Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria are not “per se inconsistent with international law.”

Biden’s record of being wrong on every single important foreign policy issue of the last 50 years remains unblemished. His decision is wrong as a matter of law and fact. It is also bad politics and undermines Israeli and American national security.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken summed up the administration’s position by saying, “It’s been longstanding U.S. policy under Republican and Democratic administrations alike that new settlements are counterproductive to reaching an enduring peace. … They’re also inconsistent with international law. Our administration maintains a firm opposition to settlement expansion. And in our judgment, this only weakens—it doesn’t strengthen—Israel’s security.”

History disproves Blinken’s claim that “settlements are counterproductive to reaching an enduring peace.” In fact, Israel has always been willing to remove settlements to achieve peace.

The 1978 Israel-Egypt peace treaty required that Israel dismantle its settlements in the Sinai. Prime Minister Menachem Begin did so, deploying the IDF to physically remove those settlers who refused to leave. Clearly, the settlements were not a barrier to peace.

In 2005, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered the evacuation of all Israelis from Gaza and turned it over to the Palestinians. Like Begin before him, Sharon sent the IDF to remove the settlers who would not leave. There were no Jews in Gaza for 18 years. Only after the Oct. 7 massacre did Israelis return to exercise their legitimate and legal right to self-defense.

The Illusion of a Palestinian ‘Demilitarized’ State by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20460/demilitarized-palestinian-state

[A]ny commitment to a demilitarized state by the Palestinian leadership would be legally worthless.

“Any treaty is void if, at the time it was entered into, it conflicts with a ‘peremptory’ rule of general international law (jus cogens) – a rule accepted and recognized by the international community of states as one from which ‘no derogation is permitted.’ Because the right of sovereign States to maintain military forces essential to ‘self-defense’ is such a peremptory rule, Palestine, depending upon its particular form of authority, could be entirely within its right to abrogate any pre-independence agreement that had compelled its demilitarization.” [Italics in original.] — Louis René Beres, professor emeritus at Purdue University, and an expert in international law and political science, jurist.org, December 23, 2023.

“Therein lies the jurisprudential core of the Palestinian demilitarization problem: International law would not necessarily require Palestinian compliance with any pre-state agreements concerning the use of armed force. From the standpoint of such authoritative law, enforcing demilitarization upon a sovereign state of Palestine would be sorely problematic.” [Italics in original.] — Louis René Beres, jurist.org, December 23, 2023

“Unhidden, both the Arab world and Iran still have only a ‘One-State Solution’ for the ‘Israel Problem.’ It is a ‘solution’ that eliminates Israel altogether, a physical solution, a ‘Final Solution.’ Even today, official Arab maps of ‘Palestine’ (PNA and Hamas) show the prospective Arab State comprising all of the West Bank (Judea/Samaria), all of Gaza and all of Israel. They knowingly exclude any references to a Jewish population and list ‘holy sites’ of Christians and Muslims only.” — Louis René Beres, jurist.org, December 23, 2023

No one can stop a future Palestinian state from becoming a lawless and militarized state. Such a state on Israel’s doorstep would pose a direct and grave threat to Israel’s existence and actually facilitate the mission of the Iranian regime and its terror proxies to murder more Jews.

As part of its effort to promote the idea of a “two-state solution,” the Biden administration has been talking about the need to establish a “demilitarized” Palestinian state next to Israel.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is reported to have asked the State Department for a “review of what a demilitarized Palestinian state would look like based on other models around the world.”

2024 demographic reality sets the record straight Yoram Ettinger

http://bit.ly/4c2GegI

Demographic reality contradicts conventional wisdom

*The number of annual Jewish births in Israel surged by 69% from 1995 (80,400) to 2023 (135,639), compared to a 17% increase of annual Arab births in Israel during the same period, as reported by the February 2024 Monthly Bulletin of Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS).

*The 2023 Jewish births (135,639) were 76% of total births (178,454), compared to 69% in 1995.

*In 2024 (based on the 2022 data), the Jewish fertility rate (3.03 births per woman) is higher than the Arab fertility rate (2.75), as it has been since 2016. It is higher than the fertility rates in all Muslim countries other than Iraq and the sub-Sahara Muslim countries.

*In 1969, Israel’s and Judea and Samaria’s (West Bank’s) Arab fertility rate was 6 births higher than the Jewish fertility rate. In 2015, both fertility rates were at 3.13 births per woman, reflecting the dramatic Westernization of Arab demography in Judea and Samaria and pre-1967 Israel, triggered by Arab modernity, urbanization, the enhanced social status of Arab women, older wedding age (24), expanded participation of Arab women in higher-education and the job market, a shorter reproductive time (25-45 rather than 16-55) and the increased use of contraceptives. 

*In 2023, there were 43,353 Israeli Jewish deaths, compared to 31,575 in 1996, a 37% increase, compared to a 43% increase in 2022 (while the size of the population almost doubled!), which reflects a society growing younger. In 2023, there were 6,108 Israeli Arab deaths, compared to 3,089 in 1996, a 98% increase, which reflects a society growing older.  

*In 2023, the number of Israeli Jewish deaths was 32% of Jewish births, compared to 40% in 1995 – an expression of a society growing younger. In 2023, the number of Israeli Arab deaths was 14.3% of Arab births, compared to 8% in 1995 – a symptom of a society growing older.

*Israel’s robust Jewish fertility rate is attributed to high-level optimism, patriotism, attachment to Jewish roots, frontier mentality, communal solidarity, high regard for raising children, and a declining number of abortions (34% decline since 1990, while the policy on abortion is liberal).

*In 2024, there is a potential wave of Aliyah (Jewish immigration) of some 500,000 Olim (Jewish immigrants) from the Ukraine, Russia, other former Soviet republics, West Europe, Argentina, the USA, etc., awaiting the Israeli government recognition of Aliyah as a top national priority (as it was until 1992), resuming a pro-active Aliyah policy. 

*Contrary to conventional wisdom, Israel’s Jewish emigration has declined since 1990, where there was an addition of 14,200 to the number of Israelis staying outside Israel for over a year. In recent years, the annual addition of emigrants has declined to an average of 7,000, while the overall population of Israel doubled itself from almost 5 million to almost 10 million. Thus, in 2020, there was an unusually high addition of 10,800 (probably due to  COVID-19 related travel restrictions), and in 2021 there was an addition of merely 1,400 (due to COVID-19).

ICC Language Indicates Bias against Israel Moshe Phillips

https://www.sdjewishworld.com/2024/03/03/icc-language-indicates-bias-against-israel/

The International Criminal Court is examining Israel’s policies in what it calls the “occupied Palestinian West Bank.” But how can the court possibly render a fair verdict when that very term is a complete and utter falsehood?

For as long as any of us can remember, the phrase “occupied Palestinian West Bank” has been a regular part of the vocabulary used by the media, as well as the political and diplomatic world. The fact that those words have been around for a long time doesn’t make them true.

Contemporary American English includes all sorts of names and phrases that don’t mean what they actually suggest. “French fries” are not French. “Koala bears” are not bears. “Driveways” are for parking, not driving—and parkways are the opposite. That’s all great fodder for stand-up comedians who specialize in observational humor.

But the way the terms “occupation,” “Palestinian” and “West Bank” are used is no joking matter.

“Occupation” was accurate for a short period of time. But Israel’s “occupation” of the territories in question ended long ago.

The Israelis first occupied those areas in self-defense during the Six-Day War in June 1967. Between 1993 and 1995, however, that occupation came to an end. It was replaced by an agreed-upon division of the region between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The Israelis withdrew from the parts where 98% of the Palestinian Arabs reside. There are no Israeli troops, no Israeli administration and no Israeli military governor there anymore. So who exactly is “occupying” it? The Palestinian Authority, of course.

The P.A. has its own armed troops (euphemistically called “security forces”), its own administration and its own governors. It runs the courts, the police, the schools, the news media and everything else that constitutes an occupation.

The only part of the area that Israel occupies is where Israelis reside. And that Israeli presence is stipulated by the Oslo Accords. Not that Israel’s right to the area is based on the Oslo agreement, of course. It’s based on 3,000-plus years of continuous Jewish inhabitation and many centuries of Jewish national sovereignty—not to mention international law and the Hebrew Bible. But the fact is that the P.A. agreed to it.

Escalation Towards an Independent Terrorist State by Nils A. Haug

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20450/independent-terrorist-state

Both US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron reveal their simplistic, and somewhat imperialist, Western approach to a complex Middle Eastern situation, irrespective of the aims and intentions of the two parties chiefly involved: the radical Islamists of Gaza and the West Bank, and the State of Israel itself.

“They [Hamas] told us in all of their statements that their charter is to destroy Israel and exterminate the Jews. Other countries have said the same thing. It’s also in the Houthis’ charter. It’s in Iran’s direct messaging. I think that when they tell you they want to kill you, you should believe that. I think that’s the lesson.” — Safra Catz, CEO of Oracle, ynetnews.com, February 24, 2024.

Realistically, the Palestinian claim to Gaza is based on tenuous grounds. Gaza is not the traditional homeland of the so-called Palestinian people. They are simply a collection of nomadic Arabs who forged that identity for political expediency. This arrangement was openly stated by the late PLO executive committee member, Zoheir Moshen, in an interview with James Dorsey for the Dutch newspaper Trouw, on March 31, 1977: “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 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.”

Even if a political compromise were reached over Gaza, or, the “1949 Armistice Line” as in the revised 2017 Hamas charter, the violent struggle for control over the rest of Israel, particularly the West Bank — the “heart” of Israel — will persist.

Both US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron reveal their simplistic, and somewhat imperialist, Western approach to a complex Middle Eastern situation, irrespective of the aims and intentions of the two parties chiefly involved: the radical Islamists of Gaza and the West Bank, and the State of Israel itself.

The hard truth is that for millennia, the land of Israel, whether occupied by Jacob’s tribes or others, has been the domain of countless generations of Israelites. The vast majority of Israel’s citizens, and many Jews in the diaspora, understand their rights to retain their homeland after escaping 400 years of slavery in Egypt. At its core, the debate over this tiny area of land is founded on three primary factors: spiritual, national, and political. In the result, the conviction of the majority populace is that not one square inch of the current boundaries of Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel) can belong to anyone who might harm them again, although people of peace are always graciously allowed to reside among them.

How the US Abandoned Israel under Biden by Robert Williams

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20415/us-abandoned-israel

“Israel must again be a safe place for the Jewish people. And I promise you: We’re going to do everything in our power to make sure that it will be.” — US President Joe Biden, October 18, 2023.

It did not take long, however, for the Biden administration to completely turn that promise on its head. The reversal began with US demands on Israel to scale down military operations, which were already scaled down….

“Israel implemented more measures to prevent civilian casualties than any other nation in history…. Israel’s use of real phone calls to civilians in combat areas (19,734), SMS texts (64,399) and pre-recorded calls (almost 6 million) to provide instructions on evacuations is also unprecedented.” — John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute, United States Military Academy West Point, newsweek.com, January 31, 2024

The only relevant country that has apparently not been invited to the “urgent” discussions [to reward terrorists unilaterally with a soon-to-be-militarized Palestinian State] is Israel.

Biden, clearly, seems not that intent on making Israel or the Free World a safe place again. At least not if it might compromise his reelection.

“I come to Israel with a single message: You are not alone,” US President Joe Biden said right after the October 7 massacre by the terrorist organization Hamas of Israelis, Muslims, Americans, Europeans, Filipinos and Thai visitors enjoying a Saturday holiday in southern Israel. “As long as the United States stands — and we will stand forever — we will not let you ever be alone,” Biden continued.

The Nitwits on Campuses Who Want an End to Israel Do they know – or care – how they would fare under Islamic Law? by Hugh Fitzgerald

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-nitwits-on-campuses-who-want-an-end-to-israel/

These campus nitwits and stormtroopers in posse endlessly chant their dislike — no, their hatred — for the tiny Jewish state, and their hope for its disappearance, with its Jewish population expelled or killed, so that it may be replaced by a twenty-third Arab state “from the river to the sea.” On the other hand, they find the terror group Hamas, “the resistance” that showed its mettle on October 7, thoroughly admirable.

Here are a few snapshots of the latest demonstrations, which on some campuses are now a monthly or even a weekly affair.

At Stanford, you can see the “Sit-In To Stop Genocide” here:

No one in the Stanford crowd seems to have any problem with describing the war in Gaza as a “genocide,” even though we know that, in order to save civilian lives, the IDF has used every possible means to warn people to leave areas, and to notify civilians to get away from individual buildings that are about to be targeted. It has dropped millions of leaflets, sent millions of pre-recorded messages, made 79,000 phone calls. And if Israel were intent on committing a “genocide” of the Gazans, why is the sister of Yahya Sinwar now being treated in an Israeli hospital?

At Harvard, a black student harangues his audience here:

He repeats again and again that “there is no black liberation without Palestinian liberation.” And he insists that “there cannot be freedom anywhere as long as Palestine is not free.” He reminds his audience that he is a “history major,” which, I presume, is supposed to testify to the breadth and depth of his knowledge.

I wonder what that black student thinks of the hundreds of thousands of black Africans who are now being held as slaves by Arab masters in Niger, Mali, and Mauritania? I suspect he thinks nothing, because he has never heard a word about those slaves. And if he did hear about Arab slave masters and their black slaves, he would dismiss it as a fiction promoted by “Zionist propagandists.”

At Columbia, students chant “We don’t want two states. We want all of it” here:

In their most recent demonstration, the Columbia students poured fake blood on the snow in the middle of the campus — meant to represent, of course, not the blood shed by Israeli victims of Hamas’ atrocities on October 7, but rather, the blood of the innocent civilians who, we are expected to believe, were being deliberately murdered by the IDF in Gaza.

Fortunately, universities have girded their loins and are one by one showing that they are prepared to face down the pro-Hamas protesters. MIT is the latest in a growing list of schools that are cracking down on pro-Palestinian student organizations, citing similar grounds. The MIT student group that was suspended is Coalition Against Apartheid – an offshoot of the better-known Students for Justice in Palestine. Columbia has banned two pro-Palestinian groups. So has George Washington University. Brandeis University has permanently suspended all pro-Palestinian groups on campus. A congressional investigation into antisemitism on American campuses, obviously prompted by the hideous spectacle of these menacing pro-Palestinian groups, has now begun. Things are looking up.

US and Israel facing the mutual threat of Islamic terrorism Yoram Ettinger

http://bit.ly/3T7N2lM

*FBI Director Christopher A. Wray visited Israel on February 14, 2024, during the Israel-Hamas and Israel-Hezbollah wars, meeting with leaders of the Mossad, Israel’s Secret Service, and Israel’s National Police in order to benefit from Israel’s unique urban and tunnel warfare experience and battle tactics in the war against Islamic terrorists, who are advancing the vision of Iran’s Ayatollahs and the Moslem Brotherhood.

*Director Wray considers Israel’s as the most effective battle-tested laboratory of the US armed forces, law enforcement agencies and defense industries.

*Director Wray is aware of the Ayatollahs’ and Hezbollas’ growing entrenchment in Mexico, along the US-Mexico border and throughout Latin America. In fact, since the early 1980s, Iran’s Ayatollahs and Hezbollah have entrenched themselves in Latin America, bolstering collaboration with the drug cartels of Mexico, Columbia, Bolivia, Ecuador and Brazil, all Latin American terror organizations, and each anti-US Latin American government. They supply the drug cartels underground tunnel construction equipment, and train them in the areas of car bombs and Improvised Explosive Devices. In addition, they have leveraged the convoys of illegal aliens from Guatemala to the US-Mexico border, smuggling terrorists and drug traffickers into the US.

*Islamic terrorism has targeted the US since the early 19th century irrespective of US policy and independent of the identity of the US President.  Thus, Islamic terrorism afflicted the US during the presidencies of both Trump and Obama, G.W. Bush and Clinton, Reagan and Carter.

*Hamas is a branch of the Moslem Brotherhood – the largest Sunni terror organization with religious, educational and welfare branches – whose charter aims to topple all national Islamic regimes, establish a universal Islamic society, bring the Western “infidel” – and especially the USA – to submission, and establish Islam as the only legitimate and divinely-ordained religion.

Israel and Lebanon: Do cedars line the road to Tehran? It is imperative that the West switch from passivity and hope of moderation in Tehran—the very concept that failed on October 7—and turn to a more forward-leaning strategy. David Wormser

https://amgreatness.com/2024/02/21/israel-and-lebanon-do-cedars-line-the-road-to-tehran/

U.S., French, and British diplomats are burning the midnight oil to concoct a formula to avoid escalation of the fighting started by Hizballah along the Lebanese-Israeli border shortly after Hamas’ invasion into Israel from Gaza on October 7. It is indeed a volatile situation, one that cannot simply fade out or smoothly slide into quiet. Israel has made clear it can neither accept a ceasefire in place along the northern border nor simply allow the current expanded border conflict to persist at the level at which it is currently fought. For Jerusalem, the realities on the ground require substantial change.

Israelis—and indeed, it is appropriate to speak of the people rather than just its government since polls suggest a powerful majority, nearing a consensus—understand that Hamas’ invasion was a smaller version of Hizballah’s plans for the northern border communities at the hands of Hizballah’s Radwan force. The Radwan force itself is the template upon which Hamas modelled its Nukhba force—the elite terror army that spearheaded the October 7 invasion.

At the same time, also as a result of the catastrophe of October 7, Israel has learned that a defensive strategy alone—a border wall and missile defense—will not protect Israel from another deadly surprise attack. As a result, Hizballah’s very presence in southern Lebanon is now understood by Israel to be so dangerous that neither the current parameters of the border violence nor the status quo ante before October 7 are unsustainable, and that escalation is only a matter of time. Thus, diplomats are scurrying feverishly not only to reach a ceasefire but also to convince Hizballah to redeploy its terror forces kilometers northward in order to answer Israel’s need for a sharply expanded buffer zone.

The last war in 2006 between Israel and Hizballah ended in a UN Security Resolution (UNSCR 1701). The resolution defined a 30-km-wide buffer zone and an international force to enforce it. Sadly, neither the UN force (UNIFIL) nor the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) ever enforced it, and Hizballah almost immediately drifted back to establish itself in full along Israel’s northern border. Moreover, the UN resolution also called for Hizballah’s dismantlement and the demarcation of the Israeli-Lebanese border. Hizballah never disbanded, although the border Israel defined was acknowledged by UN surveys as the proper line.

Hizballah maintains this fiction of an unresolved border in order to justify its continued existence as a legitimate Lebanese faction defending Lebanese territory from an occupier, therein tying the legitimacy of its continued existence to the irresolution of the border. As such, it persists in demanding the ceding of territory, some of which Israel has held since 1948, as part of the border modification.

If press reports are to be believed, the current formula crafted by diplomats—which Israel has neither accepted nor rejected—is an immediate ceasefire that within days enables the withdrawal of Hizballah forces to at least 10 km northward. The idea emerges from the Israeli tactical concern that the longest-range anti-tank missiles, which so deeply threaten Israeli communities, can accurately hit targets 10 kilometers away. Distancing Hizballah 10 km would also obstruct the Radwan force’s ability to strike without detection since it must traverse a long distance before it even reaches the border. To enforce the withdrawal, the Western powers suggest that a reinforced LAF deployment into the vacated areas can keep Hizballah out reliably enough to allay Israel’s concerns. Moreover, the currently reported ceasefire proposal by the West uses the term “border modification” rather than “border demarcation,” suggesting a subtle but important concession to Hizballah already.

It is a bad deal. It should be rejected by Israel and abandoned by Western diplomats.

Hamas: Palestinian Civilians Are Also Terrorists by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20400/hamas-palestinian-civilians-terrorists

When Hamas decided to drag the entire population of the Gaza Strip into another war with Israel on October 7, it did not care what would happen to Palestinian civilians.

If the hostages were indeed held in an apartment of a Palestinian family, this shows that Hamas has no problem placing Palestinian civilians in harm’s way.

Consequently, Hamas has no right to complain about the death of civilians in the war it initiated against Israel while it uses its own people to hold innocent kidnapped Israelis.

Hamas leaders leading lavish lives in Qatar and Lebanon do not care about the two million Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, nor do the leaders of the terrorist organization who are hiding in the vast network of sophisticated tunnels in the Gaza Strip. All they care about is their own survival

“The humanitarian aid is being stolen by those who call themselves resistance fighters. They claim they are defending us, but they are stealing all the aid coming into the Gaza Strip and then they sell it to the people for a very high price.” — Palestinian man in Gaza, X (twitter.com), February 16, 2024.

On February 15, sources in the Gaza Strip reported that Hamas terrorists killed Ahmed Abu al-Arja, a Palestinian boy, while he was trying to get food for his family.

[T]he participation of some Palestinian civilians in the October 7 massacre and the kidnapping of Israelis is extremely worrying: it illustrates that a large number of people in the Gaza Strip actually do support Hamas and its terrorism against Israel.

Since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, leaders of the Iran-backed terrorist group have been trying to distance themselves from the atrocities by holding Palestinian civilians responsible for some of the crimes, including the murder, beheading, rape, torture, kidnapping, mutilation and burning of hundreds of Israeli men, women, and children.

These are the same civilians that Hamas has long been using as human shields in its Jihad (holy war) to murder Jews and obliterate Israel.

First, Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as human shields, then it accuses them of perpetrating atrocities against Israelis.