RUTHFULLY YOURS

By misrepresenting the poster burning “ceremony” as a reflection of widespread Palestinian rage concerning Trump’s policy on Jerusalem, the international media is once again complicit in promoting the propaganda of Palestinian spin doctors. The journalists, including photographers and camera crews, have been handed detailed schedules of events that will take place in different parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

When we sit in our living rooms and watch the news coming out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, let us ask ourselves: How many of these “events” are, in fact, media burlesques? Why are journalists allowing themselves to be duped by the Palestinian propaganda machine, which spews hatred and violence from morning until night?

It is high time for some self-reflection on the part of the media: Do they really wish to continue serving as a mouthpiece for those Arabs and Muslims who intimidate and terrorize the West?

The “rivers of blood” we are being promised are flowing as we speak. Yet, it is the knife that Arabs and Muslims take to one another’s throats that is the source of this crimson current, not some statement made by a US president. Perhaps that could finally be an event worth covering by the roving reporters of the region?

A short three hours after US President Donald Trump phoned Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas to inform him of his intention to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a number of Palestinian photojournalists received a phone call from Bethlehem.

The callers were Palestinian “activists,” who invited the photographers to come to the city to document an “important event.” When the photographers arrived, they discovered that the “important event” was a handful of Palestinian “activists” who wanted to burn posters of Trump in front of the cameras.

The “activists” waited patiently as the photojournalists and cameramen set up their equipment to get the “important event” on film. Shortly thereafter, the media was abuzz with reports about “angry Palestinian protesters taking to the streets to protest” Trump’s intention to move the embassy to Jerusalem and his recognition of the city as the capital of Israel. The five Palestinians who were filmed burning the Trump pictures were made to look as if they were part of a mass protest sweeping Palestinian communities.

For years Israel has been blamed for standing in the way of peace with its Arab neighbours. When it rejected a “peace plan” by the the Saudi regime which would have brought about Israel’s destruction, it was excoriated for turning down a chance to end the Middle East conflict.

Now the new Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has proposed another peace plan. Unlike its predecessor, according to the New York Times, this one would enable the Palestinians and the Arab world to live in peace and harmony alongside the State of Israel. The century-old Arab war of extermination against Israel would end.

Prince Mohammed has told the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to accept this plan or he’s finished. The Palestinians have been screaming betrayal ever since to anyone who will listen.

Lo and behold, Europeans have a new bogeyman. Prince Mohammed is now being painted as a weak, useless dilettante and his plan is being opposed and rubbished in Europe. Why? Because this astonishing Saudi reversal (assuming these details are at least mostly true) is being driven by the Saudis’ need to prevent the Iranian regime from achieving the regional hegemony towards which they are steadily driving, and to do that the Saudis need both America and Israel to join the fight against their common enemy. And to that end, the Saudis are not prepared to allow the Palestinians to get in the way. They have become dispensable.

The Iranian regime oppresses its own people, is driven by deranged hatred of the Jews and states that its goal is to destroy Israel. The Palestinian regime oppresses its own people, is driven by a deranged hatred of the Jews and states (in Arabic) that its goal is to destroy Israel.

The Europeans support the Palestinians and do not see the Iranian regime as their enemy – even though it has been in a state of self-declared war against the west since it came to power in 1979 and is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. Instead they are turning the Arab leader who is fighting their common enemy, and who may be prepared to make a historic peace with their ostensible ally, into a foe.

Go figure.

“For people who say “all this sets back the peace process,” the short answer is “what peace process?“

Since Jerusalem is actually Israel’s capital and since it will continue to be so in any putative peace settlement, I don’t see how this blocks such a settlement.

The US Consulate–and future Embassy–are in WEST Jerusalem. Everyone (except people who believe in Israel’s annihilation) understand that West Jerusalem will be part of Israel forever. No voluntary peace settlement will change that.
There was no American statement that the embassy move prevents some part of Jerusalem from being a Palestinian capital, too.
I don’t like hecklers’ vetoes on campus and I don’t like rioters’ vetoeselsewhere. That threat was used to try and block the move. It failed. Good.
The Palestinians have not exactly proven themselves partners for peace since Oslo.
Until now, the US had not made them pay any price for their truculence.
Now, it has.
The only way there will ever being peace, IMO, is if Israel thinks it is absolutely secure against Palestinian threats and has firm US backing against such threats.
Obama’s strategy made the opposite assumption. It made US support for Israel and other allies more problematic, more contingent on following US directions, and, of course, more hectoring. US friends in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and across the region understood and adjusted–against the US.
Trump has fundamentally reversed that policy, not only in Israel but in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and elsewhere.
The only way many other Arab states will back off their rejectionist, maximalist demands to eliminate Israel is for them to be utterly convinced it is impossible and costly to continue.
Fundamentally, only Israeli military strength can convince them Israel will not be eliminated.
US support, including the moving of the embassy, shows that Israel cannot be completely isolated diplomatically. (Again, Obama’s moves against Israel raised question marks about diplomatic isolation.)
What will change the cost of Arab/Muslim/European opposition to Israel? Two calculations:
Fear of Iran, for states in the Middle East. They will edge toward alliance with other anti-Iranian states, of which Israel is the most powerful, the most technically sophisticated, and the most capable in its intelligence services.
Desire for trade with a growing, sophisticated, and technologically-innovative economy. It is called “start-up nation” for a reason. (The GDP per capita of once-poor Israel is now equal to Italy and about 20-30% below the wealthier European states. It is about 3.5x higher than Turkey, 7x higher than Iran, 10x higher than Jordan on a per capita basis.)

This essay first appeared at Quadrant Online in January, 2017.
Today, as President Donald Trump makes it official
and recognises Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, it is well worth a reprise

The last time Arabs ruled eastern Jerusalem and the Old City all but one of the Jewish Quarter’s 35 synagogues was demolished. Trump’s pledge to recognise the city as the capital of Israel will go a long way towards preventing history from repeating itself.

As a candidate in the 2016 election season Donald Trump often talked of moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It was easy enough to dismiss. After all, both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush had made the same promise before winning the White House.

This time around might be different. For a start, David Friedman sounds like a very different kind of U.S. ambassador to Israel. Here’s Friedman responding to Trump endorsing him for the post: “I intend to work tirelessly to strengthen the unbreakable bond between our two countries and advance the cause of peace within the region, and look forward to doing this from the U.S. embassy in Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem.”

Should the United States relocate its embassy to Jerusalem? A lot of opinion in Australia is against it, although Tony Abbott saw merit in the idea. Australia joining a move by President Trump to shift its embassy to Jerusalem could “demonstrate its unswerving support for Israel, as the Middle East’s only liberal, pluralist democracy”. Members of the Turnbull government rebuffed “talkative” Abbott’s latest idea. Shifting the embassy would exacerbate an already problematic situation, especially with regards to the “two-state solution”. Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce referred to Abbott’s comments as “not helpful”, while Foreign Minister Julie Bishop gave her former leader short shrift: “The Australian government does not have any plans to move the Australian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.”

Greg Barton, professor in global Islamic studies at Deakin University, made this case for retaining the status quo:

“The future of Israel for Jewish Israelis and Palestinian Israelis and for people living on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank depends upon trust and negotiation…If we went ahead and moved our embassy, following suit after the Americans to Jerusalem, we would be closing off doors of opportunity to play that mediating role.”

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s, not surprisingly, took an even harder line, and warned that changing the US embassy would unleash a “crisis we will not be able to come out from” for “the peace process in the Middle East and even peace in the world”. Departing Secretary of State John Kerry appeared to be reading from the same script, characterising the planned embassy change as dangerous: “You’d have an explosion, an explosion in the region, not just in the West Bank, and perhaps in Israel itself, but throughout the region.”

But so many explosions are already taking place in the Middle East and none have anything to do with the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Syria’s civil war alone has resulted resulting in as many as 470,000 deaths. Perhaps this outgoing secretary of state might have found better things to do than trying to foist on Mahmoud Abbas a Palestinian mini-state (the West Bank and East Jerusalem) instead of his real goal, a fully-fledged Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.