The newest round of war

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An atmosphere of fantasy pervaded US President Barack Obama’s Middle East peace processor George Mitchell’s meetings with Israeli leaders on Thursday. In separate photo opportunities, Mitchell stood next to President Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Ehud Barak and pledged to surmount all obstacles to achieve peace not only between Israel and the Palestinians but between Israel and Syria and Lebanon and with the whole Arab world.

 

 

Mitchell’s remarks were even more stunning than similar statements from him during previous visits, because this week the Palestinians launched their newest terror campaign against Israel. Like previous rounds of Palestinian terror against Jews beginning in 1929, the latest round has been precipitated by wholly fabricated claims by Muslim leaders that Israel is asserting Jewish rights to the Temple Mount – Judaism’s most sacred site – and so endangering the Muslim claim to the sole right to worship at the site that was never even mentioned in the Koran.

 

 

Beginning last week, convicted felon Raed Salah – who served a prison sentence for his Israeli Islamic Movement’s northern branch’s financial and other ties to Hamas – began inciting Israeli and Palestinian Muslim worshipers to make war against Israel. As he does every few months, Salah claimed falsely that Jews were committing the unforgivable “crime” of seeking to worship on the Temple Mount during Succot. Succot, which we observed this past week, is of course one of the three harvest festivals in which Jews are commanded to go up to the Temple Mount. This time, Salah’s lies were accompanied by similar ones from Hamas leaders and Fatah leaders alike.

 

 

As is their standard practice, Palestinian leaders used known euphemisms in their declarations of war. Rather than openly call for Jews to be slaughtered, they called on Muslims to defend the Temple Mount from fictional Jewish assault. Wheelbarrows of rocks were found stockpiled on the Temple Mount on Monday. The rocks made clear the intention of Muslim leaders to reenact the 1990 stoning of Jewish Succot worshipers at the Western Wall. That Muslim assault precipitated a steep increase in Palestinian terror during the months that followed.

 

 

This week’s riots similarly recall the 1996 Palestinian onslaught. That aggression was justified by the false Palestinian allegation that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s decision to open the Western Wall archeological tunnel was part of a secret plot to dislodge the Aksa Mosque. Yasser Arafat used his manufactured libel as an excuse to order his US-trained and Israeli-armed Palestinian security forces to open fire at IDF soldiers. In the violence that followed some 15 soldiers were killed.

 

 

The most violent exploitation of fabricated claims of Jewish aggression against Judaism’s most sacred site to date, of course, came in September 2000. Then Arafat and his deputies in Fatah supported by Hamas and the Israeli Islamic Movement claimed that then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon’s September 28, 2000, visit to the Temple Mount – a visit that had been coordinated in advance with the PA – was an act of war against the Palestinians and against Islam as a whole. More than 1,500 Israelis were killed in the seven years of terror war that followed.

 

 

Perhaps the most overt call for a renewal of jihad against Israel this week came from Fatah leader and titular PA President Mahmoud Abbas. In an interview on Yemenite television, Abbas said, “The second intifada erupted because of Sharon’s visit to [the Temple Mount] and… it lasted seven years. This time, therefore the matter of Jerusalem requires a much greater effort [by the Palestinians], something more practical. It’s not enough to talk about Jerusalem in books, or to give sermons in mosques. There is a need to work for it.”

 

 

THE NEWEST round of violence has been building up for the past month. According to data released by the IDF, over the past month, the volume of terror attacks nearly doubled, from 53 attacks in August to 95 in September. This week’s spike in violence caused IDF commanders to warn of the possibility that the violence will spread throughout Judea and Samaria. With the near seamless integration of Arab Israeli leaders in the incitement of violence, there is good reason for concern that Arab Israelis will play a prominent role in the newest round of jihad against Israel.

 

 

Abbas and his prime minister Salaam Fayad have augmented their violent attacks against Israel with a renewed diplomatic assault against the Jewish state. Fayad and Abbas have both called for the US and European governments to condemn Israel’s imaginary provocations and moves to “Judaize” the eternal capital of the Jewish people. Rather than condemn these Fatah leaders for their key roles in inciting violence, the Europeans have been embracing them. Led by Sweden, which holds the rotating EU presidency, European governments have demanded that Israel end its provocative behavior.

 

 

For its part, rather than dismissing these obviously false allegations out of hand, the Obama administration demanded that Israel give an accounting of its actions to prove that it is not provoking Palestinian violence.

 

 

How long the newest Palestinian campaign lasts, and how many Israelis will be killed is still unknown. Due in large part to their military training provided by the US under Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton, Fatah forces in Judea and Samaria are today better trained and equipped than ever before. In Gaza, Hamas is preparing for a new round of war by housing poor Palestinians along the border with Israel to make it difficult for Israel to defend itself without killing Hamas’s civilian shields. At the same time, the IDF remains stronger than these Palestinian forces. So Israel’s eventual victory over this new terror campaign is a foregone conclusion, contingent only on the political courage of its leaders.

 

 

SINCE THE Palestinians must know that their new terror campaign will end in an Israeli victory, it is worth considering why they have anyway decided to launch it. Four explanations come to mind.

 

 

First, it is notable that the calls for jihad are being sounded three weeks before Hamas and Fatah leaders are scheduled to meet in Cairo to reinstate their unity government pending a new round of parliamentary and presidential elections next year. It is possible that in inciting a new terror war against Israel, Abbas and Fayad and their comrades in Fatah are signaling Hamas that they will be willing collaborators in a Hamas-dominated government.

 

 

Then, too, since Hamas is favored to win both of those elections, Fatah leaders may be using their calls for jihad to increase their popularity among Palestinians ahead of a possible bid to cancel the elections or in anticipation of the likely derailment of the negotiations toward a unity government. Whatever the case, the looming talks between Hamas and Fatah no doubt figure prominently in the new round of anti-Jewish violence.

 

 

The second reason for the renewal of Palestinian violence against Israel and the use of false allegations of Jewish provocations on the Temple Mount as a justification for that violence is that Fatah leaders believe that they can use their campaign to convince the Obama administration to redouble its pressure on Israel to make massive concessions to the Palestinians even before any “peace” negotiations begin. This was Arafat’s goal in inciting the 1996 violence. At that time, his gambit was wildly successful. Then-US president Bill Clinton responded to the Palestinian violence by blaming Netanyahu and forcing him to begin negotiating the IDF’s redeployment from parts of Hebron.

 

 

There is also the possibility that Raed Salah – the most visible force behind this week’s Temple Mount riots – is using them to jockey for a more powerful position in the Israeli Arab-Palestinian leadership hierarchy. Inspired by the Hamas takeover of Gaza and Hizbullah’s chokehold on the Lebanese government, Salah may have decided that the time is ripe for Israeli Arabs to raise th
eir profile in the jihadist pecking order.

 

 

The fourth possible explanation for the current round of violence is that it is being incited by the Syrian and Iranian governments who together control Hamas and are influential in Fatah and Israeli Arab circles. Iranian and Syrian interest in provoking such violence now is clear. If the Netanyahu government and the IDF are kept busy contending with Palestinian terrorism, it will be more difficult for them to address Iran’s nuclear weapons program either diplomatically or militarily.

 

 

All of these possible causes of the violence shed light on how events are likely to progress. Future events, after all, will in large part reflect the interests of the parties involved in inciting the current attacks against Israel.

 

 

BY THE same token, the European and American responses to Palestinian calls for violence against Israel and Jews show how the newest round of Palestinian aggression against Israel is likely to be greeted by the West. In its easy willingness to accept false Palestinian accusations about imaginary Israeli provocations, the EU is demonstrating that a transformation has taken place in its policy toward the Arab conflict with Israel. Whereas in the past the EU has been a more or less neutral actor in the region – officially refusing to support either side, while unofficially siding with the Palestinians against Israel – the European position on the Palestinian violence over the past week has been indistinguishable from the Arab League’s position. Europe’s newfound willingness to openly side with the Palestinians against Israel makes clear that the EU’s role in the violence to come will be qualitatively different from the role it has played in past Palestinian terror campaigns. Israel’s ability to launch a relevant and coherent diplomatic campaign to defend itself is contingent on the Foreign Ministry recognizing that a transformative shift has taken place in Europe’s treatment of Israel.

 

 

And this brings us back to George Mitchell in Jerusalem. What Mitchell’s absurd statements about peace breaking out in the region in the near future show is that the Obama administration is perfectly willing to pretend away the Arab violence against Israel. Whether motivated by naivete, an overarching desire for international peace conferences, a plan to align US foreign policy with that of Europe, or hostility toward Israel, the fact that Mitchell can talk about peace when the Palestinians have just declared war makes clear that the Obama administration is uninterested in playing a constructive role in quelling the violence. It certainly isn’t interested in helping Israel to secure the lives of its citizens.

 

 

Israeli officials have sought to play down the significance of the events this week in Jerusalem. This is a mistake. If the newest round of violence is to end quickly and at a minimal cost in lives, it is essential for Israel to stop defensively humoring Mitchell and move quickly to offense, both militarily and diplomatically.

 

 

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

 

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12 Comments

  • Marcel 10/10/2009 at 17:26

    Not even the Fatah tentacle of this hideous monster is capable of playing a convincing peace role in this US led bedtime fairy tale and yet we see smiles and hear ‘progress’ from the nuts at the helm of Israel’s ship of fools. This can only mean more suffering for the people of Israel.
    Israel has fallen for the same tall tale sixteen years in a row ,never learning, always falling for the latest dressed up pig to fly in from the big pig farm in the west.
    The small Israeli politicians have an addiction to fiction because they stand for nothing and always fall for the same lies as long as it comes by way of Washington. How mad Israel has become with the delusion of peace when reality loudly displays what the Molsem’s are working for daily. How else could Israel be rendered insane enough to allow the tale bearer of grand delusions to better equip and train the Palestinian tentacle to kill Jews under the greatest fiction this centruy and possibly in history,the Road Map .
    A fraud so easily foisted on Israel which never met a delusion it did not embrace as long as it came from the US. Talk about religious devotion,dancing around the golden calf,this generation of Israel has outdone that generation which had escaped slavery in Egypt in serving useless idols which never deliver anything but more delusion.
    What is it going ot take for Israel to dump their cherished author of fiction and return to their God of reality ? Reality is coming and it’s going to cure Israel of it’s addiction to lies. No peace is possible with the fiction Islam,it will hve to disappear first and only then will Arab and Jew live together in true peace ,not the pig manure the US has been selling
    Israel all these years. Only Israel’s God can accomplish this.Don’t settle for the fake peace the US pushes on you,accept only the real thing.

    Reply
  • Baruch:The Blessed One 10/10/2009 at 19:17

    Caroline, as usual, you are right on the mark on this item. The Netanyahu government should be out front on this issue and point out the hypocrisy of the PA, instead of waiting for a full blown riot and then react when fingers are pointed from the left-wing MSM and Scandinavian parliaments. Keep up your important work!

    Reply
  • Marc Handelsman, USA 10/10/2009 at 20:55

    The main reasons for the new intifada are that Arabs know Israel will not compromise its security, and there is no chance for a peace deal. As a result, the PLO is using Arafat’s playbook to cynically smear Israel and justify another round of jihad. For now, the PLO is winning the media war by deftly portraying Israel as the aggressor. Meanwhile, Nobel Peace Prize laureate President Obama will use his award-winning, legendary and diplomatic acumen to brilliantly resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, and help create a mythical “Shangri-La” called Palestine.

    Reply
  • Arius 10/10/2009 at 22:47

    “… the EU’s role in the violence to come will be qualitatively different from the role it has played in past”. The trends that we have been watching since the 1973 oil embargo and Europe’s capitulation and subservience (dhimmitude) to the EAD portend immense danger to both Israel and the US. Leaders and public in the US are ignorant of the danger. The US will play along with Europe until it is too late for it to extricate itself (if it ever realizes what it has walked into). What is the power behind the EU throne? It’s Germany.
    In two world wars Germany allied itself with and supported the Islamic jihad and mass murder.
    – In WW1 it encouraged its allies the Turks to mass murder the Armenian Christian people.
    – In WW2 it mass murdered Jews, supported fascist Croatia and fascist Albania and their mass murder of Jews, Serbs, and Roma, and allied with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
    – At the end of the twentieth century (with US backing) Germany actively supported and encouraged the Islamic jihad in Bosnia and Kosovo and its ethnic cleansing and mass murder of Serbs, Jews, and Roma, and it supported the reemergence of fascist Croatia and it’s cleansing of the Serb Krajina (the biggest ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia in the 1990’s).
    Why shouldn’t we expect more of the same from Germany in the twenty-first century and therefore from the EU with Germany at its core?

    Reply
  • BigB 10/11/2009 at 9:45

    It certainly isn’t interested in helping Israel to secure the lives of its citizens.
    In this case Obama administration and Netanyahu see eye to eye. Israelis (and many Jews) are not interested in securing their own sovereignty, because if they were, they would secure the heartland and expel the foreign Arab invader. Since the majority of Jews are willing to surrender the heartland and live with the consequences, and since it is official Netanyahu policy, (the so-called demilitarized Pal-state) this eventuallity is the only one that will lead to peace. Peace as was achieved in the Pacific conflict with Japan, following an epic round of blood-shed that will force Jews to take the heartland and expel the invader – or die. That is the official, if unsaid Netanyahu-Lieberman-Obama policy for the next 7 years.

    Reply
  • beniyyar 10/11/2009 at 14:39

    All I can say is “been there, done that.” How many times has a new administration taken over in America with the same grandiose and utterly impossible objectives? And how many times have the Palestinians made it absolutely clear that they will reject, attack, or simply ignore any and every initiative that even implies the chance of a peaceful settlement with Israel. Thus we can again watch the Obama administration go into the same learning mode that the Bush government did, as did the Clinton’s.
    They too will reach the conclusion that most of the rest of us have, ie, the Palestinians will never abandon their genocidal war against Israel and they will never even make a simple gesture which could indicate any peaceful intention whatsoever.
    To paraphase the poet, those whom the Gods would destroy, they first convince they can settle the Palestinian Israeli peace process.

    Reply
  • Ron Grandinetti 10/11/2009 at 19:06

    Caroline time has come for Israel to get tough. Like hornets swarming around causing Israelis a lot of discomfort and pain, enough is enough. Take out the hornets nest.
    The Palestinians, Fatah and Hamas are attempting to provoke Israel and whatever measures Israel undertakes they will cry foul and their buddies will condemn Israel.
    If most Americans can see through this, what doesn’t the Obama administration and European so called allies, don’t they get? I guess if you are looking through ant-Semitic eyes you only see the allegations and lies.
    Israel needs to make a surgical air strike in the heart of Hamas, put the fear of G-d in them. An air strike now and then will keep them on the move and too busy to bother Israel. This will give them something worthwhile to complain about.
    As far as George Mitchell is concerned, he should not be allowed in the country. He is as worthless as those who sent him.
    Time for the IDF to start rounding up the Palestinian agitators and remove them from Israel or better still how about stripped uniforms and chains and put them to work on the roads.
    Israel has to also take charge of Jerusalem and that is all of Jerusalem, the Israeli Capital.

    Reply
  • Bill K. 10/13/2009 at 7:15

    In the Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens wrote a very revealing article on “How Israel Was Disarmed”. It included this grotesque example of moral equivocation by the Obama administration:
    “The Iranians have a point,” said one senior administration official. “The U.S. can’t forever be the enforcer of a double standard where Israel gets a nuclear free ride but Iran has to abide by every letter in the NPT. President Obama has put the issue of nuclear disarmament at the center of his foreign policy agenda. His credibility is at stake and so is U.S. credibility in the Muslim world. How can we tell Tehran that they’re better off without nukes if we won’t make the same point to our Israeli friends?”
    Also factoring into the administration’s thinking are reports that the Israelis are in the final stages of planning an attack on Iran’s nuclear installations. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who met with his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak in Paris last week, has been outspoken in his opposition to such a strike. The Jerusalem Post has reported that Mr. Gates warned Mr. Barak that the U.S. would “actively stand in the way” of any Israeli strike.
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB40001424052748703298004574454782341597654.html
    The United States is now officially taking the side of the murderous mullahs against the free state of Israel. Nowhere in the Obama administration’s thinking is there room for the possibility that Israel’s nuclear weapons ensure its protection against the initiation of force by its many irrational enemies. Since the only purpose of a state is to protect its citizens from force from within and without it would be immoral of Israel to give up the great deterrent of nuclear weapons. The only proper riposte to this outrageous demand by Obama that Israel give up its nukes is: “After you.”
    It is not a double standard to demand that Iran give up its efforts to create a nuclear weapon. Iran is a rogue state that has no legal validity to exist whatsoever. Instead of a protector of the rights of its citizens, it is a violator of those rights. Consequently it has no respect for the rights of any other country, and as usually the case, it engages in overt and covert warfare against them. Any free state has the right to end this threat against them. Obviously Israel has the right to act against any state that threatens its security.
    Again there is the not so veiled threat by Gates, et al to use force against Israel if it should decide to attack Iran. I believe this is a hollow threat. Obama would squander the last vestige of his moral authority if he ordered such an attack. Even today, the outrage in the Congress and the Senate would effectively end his administration. At the operational level of the American military, especially in Iraq, there would be no desire at all to engage in combat with their Israeli colleagues. There have been many quiet requests from American military commanders that they be allowed to respond to the many transgressions by Iran that have cost thousands of American lives. Neither the Bush or the Obama administrations would allow this.
    In the unlikely event that an order was transmitted to the U.S. Air Force in Iraq to stop an Israeli attack on Iran, a sudden rash of equipment “failures” would likely ensue that would allow the IAF to continue its valiant mission unhindered.

    Reply
  • kotzabasis 10/13/2009 at 8:02

    Under the politically naive and fantasy laden presidency of Obama, who is transforming swords into ploughshares to cultivate olive groves in a cooperative effort with jihadists who have passed their verdict of death sentence to all infidels, Israel and Western civilization is facing its greatest test.

    Reply
  • Marcel 10/15/2009 at 15:42

    It’s not all bad.
    Moslem Turkey which had a good strong,and military relationship with Israel has turned against Israel
    It all looks bad,Turkey and the biased Goldstone Report but it’s really a good thing.
    Israel has worked so hard to please her fake ‘allies’ even fighting with gloves on
    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/133860
    and still they go after the Jews and give the Islamic terrorists,Palestinian’s,Iran,Syria,Lebanon a free pass as with their latest kick in Israel’s groin,the Hamas terrorist/ Gaza sham report.
    Israel has played hard by their rules and now sees they are rigged for Israel to lose no matter what they do and for the Islamic jihadists to win no matter what crimes against humanity and atrocities and war crimes they commit against Israeli civilian populations. they are guilty of.
    The US,UN,EU bias against Jews and for Islamic terrorists is now unquestionable
    This is going to wake up many of the coma Jews who trusted in the west to do what was ‘fair’
    Israel now awakens to the reality that they are boxed into a corner by fake friends who have sold them out to their enemies for gain.
    ISRAEL will will now wake up and get tough, fierce knowing the US,EU,UN,Quartet Road Map game is rigged against them to lose and for theirHamas,Hezbollah,Palestinian,Syrian,Iranian enemies to defeat them.
    The naive of Israel begin to awaken and see that Never Again has come knocking on their door again under the illusion of peace process.
    It’s always good to get backed into a corner,that’s how God gets our attention and He is getting Israel’s attention like never before.

    Reply
  • Marcel 10/15/2009 at 16:35

    Awake, awake!
    Stand up, O Jerusalem,
    You who have drunk at the hand of the LORD
    The cup of His fury;
    You have drunk the dregs of the cup of trembling,
    And drained it out.
    There is no one to guide her
    Among all the sons she has brought forth;
    Nor is there any who takes her by the hand
    Among all the sons she has brought up.
    These two things have come to you;
    Who will be sorry for you?—
    Desolation and destruction, famine and sword—
    By whom will I comfort you?
    Your sons have fainted,
    They lie at the head of all the streets,
    Like an antelope in a net;
    They are full of the fury of the LORD,
    The rebuke of your God.
    Therefore please hear this, you afflicted,
    And drunk but not with wine.
    Thus says your Lord,
    The LORD and your God,
    Who pleads the cause of His people:
    “ See, I have taken out of your hand
    The cup of trembling,
    The dregs of the cup of My fury;
    You shall no longer drink it.
    But I will put it into the hand of those who afflict you,
    Who have said to you,
    ‘ Lie down, that we may walk over you.’
    And you have laid your body like the ground,
    And as the street, for those who walk over.”
    Isaiah 51

    Reply
  • jake 10/16/2009 at 14:11

    IT’S ALL ABOUT ISLAM STUPID KAFIR
    Osama Bin Laden and his killer jihadists are following directly the teachings of the Koran and the divine example set by prophet Muhammad in the Massacre of Banu Quraiza, were Muhammad personally assisted in the beheading of 600 to 900 Jewish men and in order to distinguish young Jewish boys from young Jewish men ordered their pants pulled down and groin area inspected for pubic hairs by his SS known as – the Companions. Those boys with the slightest growth of hair were dragged away and beheaded.
    I have written a book (498 pages) ISLAM: EVIL IN THE NAME OF GOD for your consideration exposing the truth and very grave danger posed to all freedom loving peoples by Islam.
    Go to : http://www.godofmoralperfection.net
    Contact me at [email protected]
    My mother -in-law’s best friend’s son (25 years) who worked at the Twin Towers had a day off from work scheduled for 9/11. Late at night 9/10, he received a call from an associate who had taken ill and asked if he wouldn’t mind covering the next day and in return he would trade his day off the following week. He left for work at 6:00 am on September 11 and was dead by 9:30 am. There must be dozens of stories just like this one.
    This young man and the 2,972 were murdered so their 19 Muslim killers who “fight in the way of Allah and shall slay and be slain” could ascend to Paradise. Indeed, the only way Muslim men can be guaranteed accession to Paradise is to slay or be slain in the service of God.
    Read the book for the brutal reality of this very evil ideology.
    Sincerely,
    Jake

    Reply

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