The Redhunter: Middle East Archives

January 7, 2009

The Israeli War on Hamas and the Moral Bankruptcy of the "International Community"

Nothing so illustrates the moral bankruptcy of the so-called international community," and indeed of so many others both on the left and on the right, as does the Israel-Palestine issue.

Consider this letter to the editor published in today's Washington Times. A brief excerpt:

This is a call for women of the world to unite with peace-loving men to stop the terrorist tactics used by both parties in the Israel/Palestine confrontation. It is nonsense for one group to say they are fighting terrorism when they themselves are using terrorist tactics....
Is the main reason for using weaponry today so that those in positions of power can keep their power? Our present State Department can only mouth one-sided views having to do with "our allies."

This attitude tries to make us afraid and to urge us to fight "an enemy." The truth is that we are the people of one world, and when we harm others, we are harming ourselves and the whole earth.....

BETTY CYPSER

Katonah, N.Y.

If queried about her letter, my suggestion to Ms Cypser is for her to say that she was drunk at the time so didn't really mean what she wrote.

Unless Israel is perfect and kills absolutely no civilians it is condemned by folks like her and the "international community," while the actions of Hamas are ignored or excused. Don't believe me? Do as columnist Mona Charen did and google for "international condemnations of Hamas" She's right, no such condemnations come up, even if you fiddle with the wording. On the other hand, google for "international condemnations of Israel" and you get quite a bit.

Lest anyone think that I'm just reprinting a crazy letter to the Times and doing a google search to make the point, Charen points out that

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, "strongly condemned Israel's disproportionate use of force," as did Brazil. Indonesia called on all countries to "sever all forms of diplomatic and business ties with Israel." French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who currently holds the rotating chair of the European Union, did call upon Hamas to halt its rocket attacks but also censured Israel's "disproportionate response."

We've all seen the articles. There's no need to go on. We see this every time Israel responds to terrorism. After the failure of the 2000 peace talks at Camp David, Yassir Arafat launched an intifada against Israel, sending suicide bombers into Jewish cafes and pizza parlors. Israel responded with a security fence. Who did the international community condemn? Israel.

Israellycool get's it about right in what is unfortunately only a half-parody:

In other news, Hamas executed 6 suspected collaborators with Israel ~~(leading to widespread condemnation by "human rights" organizations and "peace activists")~~, France's Channel 2 have once again shown their true colors, and an ex-aide of Saddam Hussein has gotten all Baghdad Bob on us.

The "international community" has been intent on pushing for a cease-fire from the moment Israel launched what they call Operation Cast Lead. They apparently actually think that if such an agreement was hammered out Hamas will honor it's side of the deal, all past experiences to the contrary. Nowhere have I found any proposal from anyone to stop Hamas from launching it's terror rockets.

Even if such a promise was to be made, Israel would be justified in rejecting it based on history. In 2005 the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1559, which demanded the disarming of Hezbollah. To this date Hezbollah has not been disarmed because it refused to relinquish it's weapons and no one has the will to do it by force. Countries do not send troops on UN peacekeeping missions if they think there is a chance of serious fighting.

Even so, it is important to note that despite the chatter, many Muslims and Arabs are not taking Hamas' side. They make the standard denunciation of Israel, but one gets the impression it's just for show. They're angry at Hamas for interrupting what they saw as a "peace process" that might actually get somewhere (I don't think so, but that's for another day). They also realize that Hamas basically had it's own country, and did itself no good by provoking a powerful foe into attacking. This is good, and Israel senses it.

What's really disturbing is when the Bush Administration joins in the international chorus. To be sure, they've kept the UN Security Council from passing egregious resolutions (see eye on the UN website) but why do they have to join everyone else in calling for a cease fire? Why can't they just say one time it would be good if Israel destroyed Hamas? We expect others to back our attacks, but we can't back Israel?

I'm sure that privately we are telling Israel to "go for it" but I get tired of the two-facedness of it all. Condi Rice has proven to be a terrible Secretary of State, her 2007 peace conference in Annapolis being ill-planned and achieving nothing. The good news for the Obama Administration is that they can hardly do worse. Knock on wood.

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January 5, 2009

The Israeli War on Hamas and Personal Responsiblity

Once again, here goes another post on the Middle East in which I have to check the "Moral Clarity" category box as well.

Of all the issues around the world, the Israeli-Palestine one is the absolutely most frustrating from this standpoint. It generates more moral confusion than any other. And let me be clear on this; I'm not talking about whether it was wise for Israel to attack Hamas, or Hezbollah in 2006. One can be morally clear on the issues and simply believe that there was another way to deal with the problem.

Here is a typical news story, this one from the AP

Israel ignored mounting international calls for a cease-fire Monday and said it won't stop its crippling 10-day assault until "peace and tranquility" are achieved in southern Israeli towns in the line of Palestinian rocket fire.

They never call for a cease fire when it's only Israel getting hit. Nor do they call it a "crisis", a word you see all over the news now that Israel is shooting back.

I could pick any of a hundred anti-Israel posts, but Glenn Greenwald, writing at Salon, is typical when he goes after pro-Israel blogger Michael Goldfarb of The Weekly Standard:

One should be clear that this sociopathic indifference to (or even celebration over) the deaths of Palestinian civilians isn't representative of all supporters of the Israeli attack on Gaza. It's unfair to use the Goldfarb/Peretz pathology to impugn all supporters of the Israeli attack. It's certainly possible to support the Israeli offensive despite the deaths of these civilians, to truly lament the suffering of innocent Palestinians but still find the war, on balance, to be justifiable.
Those who favor the attack on Gaza due to that calculus are certainly misguided about the likely outcome. And many war supporters who fall into this more benign category are guilty of insufficiently weighing the deaths of Palestinian innocents and, relatedly, of such overwhelming emotional and cultural attachment to Israel and Israelis that they long ago ceased viewing this conflict with any remnant of objectivity.

Greenwald is nicer than most of his sort in saying that it is "certainly possible to support the Israeli offensive despite the deaths of these civilians," but there's one big problem with his thesis.

The Palestinians aren't as innocent as he says they are.

A Brief History

Fist we need to set the stage.

In January of 2006 the Palestinians voted Hamas into power in the elections for the Palestinian Parliament, Hamas winning 75 seats to Fatah's 45. The electoral system is a bit complicated (see here), as some of the seats are awarded by proportionality and some by district. While because of these peculiarities (follow the link) Hamas didn't have quite the level of support the results would indicate, in the end a significant amount of people voted for Hamas.

In June of 2007, Hamas took complete control of Gaza in a bloody coup, killing who knows how many Fatah members and civilians (websites vary). They created their own government in Gaza, basically splitting the Palestinian Authority in two, with Fatah (nominally) in control in Judea and Smaria (the "West Bank").

Caroline Glick describes the run-up to the war in an interview with K-Lo over at The Corner

The fighting in Gaza today started about three weeks ago when Hamas renewed its rocket, mortar, and missile assault against Israel. Last June, Israel foolishly agreed to a six-month ceasefire with Hamas. Hamas used the time to have Iran double the size of its missile arsenal and double the range of its missiles, and to build up its Iranian-trained, armed, and financed Hezbollah-style army of 20,000 men. Hamas called its renewed offensive "Operation Oil Stain." On December 17, Hamas attacked Israel with more than 80 missiles, rockets and mortars. It took Israel ten days to finally respond to Hamas's assault, which for the first time put Israeli major cities like Ashdod, Yavne, Beersheva, and Gedera under assault.

Who is Responsible?

To varying extents, a people bear responsibility for their government. If it is a dictatorship, the people are only responsible to the degree that they try and resist it. I realize it's all very easy to talk about resisting tyranny from the safety of one's keyboard and from the perspective of the United States in 2009, but it's true nonetheless.

Certainly, though, if you vote that government into place you bear responsibility. And the fact is that when given the chance, Palestinians voted for Hamas. They got what they wanted. And let's be clear, Fatah isn't that much better. Their Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades are their terrorist wing, as they have been designated by the U.S. Department of State since 2002.

Here's the point - If you vote for terrorists as your government, and then they terrorize your neighbor, you have no legitimate reason to cry foul if your neighbor strikes back.

At least the Germans and Japanese had the decency not to pretend that they were the victims when we bombed and occupied their homelands.

Strangest of all, it is in the best interests of the Gazans that Hamas be destroyed. Ever since Israel withdrew from Gaza in August of 2005, they have basically had their own country. Not much of one, to be sure, and one beset with huge social and economic problems, but a country or homeland of sorts. They had a golden opportunity to show everyone that they could be a responsible self-governing entity. And they blew it.

Among other things the Gazans inherited in the wake of the Israeli withdrawal were more than 3,000 greenhouses, which could have been used to grow valuable flowers for export to Europe. American Jewish philanthropists even paid $14 million to save them from destruction by Jewish settlers so the Gazans could have them. And what happened? Many were damaged or destroyed by looters that the Palestinian authorities were helpless to stop, often because their security forces stood idly by.

They got their homeland, and they have made the worst of it.

Discrimination

This said, it is still incumbent upon nations to not directly target civilians. It is an integral part of Just War Theory. Now, I don't think that traditional JWT is completely applicable to our modern world. It needs updating. But the principal of discrimination, which basically says you cannot directly target civilians, is accepted by all civilized nations.

The whole issue gets complicated, and I urge readers to follow the links and read the whole thing themselves, but the salient point here is that Israel does not target civilians and Hamas does. Just because civilians are killed while attacking military targets does not mean that "Israel is killing civilians," because such a formulation implies that Israel is doing so deliberately.

In the end, the Gazans therefore bear some responsibility for what is happening to them. Critics need to stop pretending that they are totally innocent bystanders.

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January 3, 2009

Israel hits Hamas - The Ground War Begins

Updated with video at bottom - even if you don't read the whole post please watch it

A few hours ago at the gym I was treated to the usual "Crisis in the Middle East" headline from the media. In this case it was CNN, but they all do it.

Funny how it only becomes a "crisis" when Israel shoots back.

Moving on...

Earlier today Israel began phase two of Operation Cast Lead, it's operation to destroy Hamas and it's ability to launch terror rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel. A few hours ago Israeli Minister of Defense Ehud Barak released this statement:

"A few hours ago, Israeli ground forces entered the Gaza Strip as part of Operation Cast Lead against the Hamas terrorists, their affiliates, and their infrastructure in Gaza. So far, the Israel Defense Forces have dealt an unprecedented heavy blow to Hamas. In order to complete their mission, we have now launched the ground operation.
I have said all along that our military activities will widen and deepen as much as needed. Our aim is to force Hamas to stop its hostile activities against Israel and Israelis from Gaza, and to bring about a significant change in the situation in southern Israel.

We have carefully weighed all of our options. We are not war hungry but we shall not, I repeat - we shall not-- allow a situation where our towns, villages and civilians are constantly attacked by Hamas. It will not be easy or short, but we are determined.

..... While we are fighting in Gaza, we keep watch on the sensitive situation on our northern border. We have no aggressive intentions there. We hope the situation there will remain calm; nevertheless, we are ready to face any unwarranted development in that area.

We are peace seekers. We have restrained ourselves for a long time, but now is the time to do what needs to be done. We are determined to afford our citizens what any citizen anywhere in the world is entitled to - peace, tranquility and freedom from threats."

Let's hope they succeed. Although the Palestinian people were foolish enough give Hamas a victory in the 2006 legislative elections, it is they who will benefit most from an Israeli victory. Their only hope is to be governed by peaceful leaders who will turn from terror to looking after their economic interests and social well being. If Israel has nothing to fear from them, trade would or could flourish and there would be no reason to cut off supplies of anything.

Predictably, the UN, most countries around the world, and even our own state department have issued statements to the effect that they are "working for a ceasefire," but I don't think this is like the Aug/Sept 2006 war in Lebanon. My take is that privately most, especially some of the Arab governments, are hoping Israel deals a severe blow to Hamas.

Why wouldn't a cease-fire work? Martin Peretz, writing in The New Republic, says that "Hamas is a Taliban State" (h/t JCPA):

...it is clearer in my mind than ever why a cease-fire between Jerusalem and the regime in Gaza will never hold. Even the so-called cease-fire in place since the summer was not remotely close to a true pause in the fighting. That is, in the fighting from the other side of the frontier. Day-in and almost every day-out, rockets were launched from Hamas territory, and Israel did not fight back. Then, one day last week, Hamas aimed 60 missiles, some more rustic, some much less, into the Land, into eretz, as it is commonly called in Hebrew. This was one violation of the truce too many. How long was Israel to stand aside while its enemies, sworn by fanatic Islam to its destruction, rained death, injury, and terror on its population?

In other words, this is not a standard war in which one or both sides started shooting more or less at the same time, and gee can't they both back off? The events of the past few years have shown conclusively that Hamas fires at Israel whether the latter responds at all. Therefore, it is certain that if there was a cease-fire, and Israel upheld it's end of the bargain, Hamas would resume it's terror rocket attacks.

What is the Israeli Goal?

From the website of the Israel Defense Forces:

The IDF Spokesperson emphasizes that this stage of the operation will further the goals of Operation Cast Lead as communicated: To strike a direct and hard blow against Hamas while increasing the deterrent strength of the IDF, in order to bring about an improved and more stable security situation for residents of southern Israel in the long now term. "Stage two of Operation Cast Lead has been launched to support our central goals which are to deal a heavy blow to the Hamas terror organization, to strengthen Israel's deterrence, and to create a better security situation for those living around the Gaza Strip that will be maintained for the long term," states Brig. Gen. Avi Benayahu.

A CNN story quotes Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev as saying that "We haven't articulated regime change as the goal of this operation. Our goal is to protect our people."

The invaluable Steve Schippert, writing on NRO's The Tank military blog, says this about probable Israeli goals:

Israel is most likely setting the stage for a Fatah-Hamas showdown redux in Gaza. A couple of things have to happen to prepare for this eventuality first, however. Hamas has spent two years -- under Iranian strategic direction, guidance, assistance and supply -- duplicating Hizballah's offensive missile capabilities in order to lure the IDF into a Hizballah-modeled urban defense of tunnels, deception, firepower, and explosives. See here from earlier.
As such, Israel has to accomplish a few things under increased Gaza Hizballah-modeled defenses.

Destroy known large weapons caches -- for both immediate and down-the-road benefit.

Disable the tunnel systems into Egypt that are used to re-supply Hamas's increasingly lethal arsenal.

Seal sea-based approaches, as submersible containers are also used to ferry weapons ashore from cargo ships.

Liquidate as much of Hamas's key leadership as possible.

Liquidate Hamas terrorist ranks, especially rocket crews and builders, as much as possible.

Israel will stop the operations not when the rockets stop, but rather when Israel thinks it has crippled Hamas and hindered its regenerative ability to the point where the next incredibly challenging step can be taken: Assist and empower Fatah enough in Gaza that it can once again raise a significant challenge to Hamas's violent domination there. Fatah was decimated in Gaza by Hamas in '06 and '07. It must be rebuilt.

Follow the links to Schippert's posts; both of them.

Now to sit back and see whether Israel achieves it's objectives. I hope they do.

Sunday Evening Update

I don't think this needs any introduction:

link here.

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December 30, 2008

Israel Hits Hamas in Gaza: "Disproportionate Force?"

The Jerusalem Post reports that despite the usual nonsense the UN, it would seem that Israel is doing well in the international media, if not outright ahead. The main reason seems to be that having learned it's lesson from the 2006 Lebanon War, Israel is doing a better job of getting it's message out. The reason for this is that their various government agencies, from the IDF to the Prime Minister's office and more, are offering a coherent, unified message, and are coordinating efforts much better than in the past.

This said, the criticism that is still out there is that the Israeli response is "disproportionate." French President Nicholas Sarkozy, also the President of the European Union, said that he "firmly condemns the irresponsible provocations that have led to this situation, as well as the disproportionate use of force." We've all seen multiple statements of this sort so there's no point in my posting more here.

So is the Israeli attack a disproportionate to Hamas' rocket attacks?

Before we answer that question, we need to ask the critics to come clean.

What exacrtly is the Objection?

Those who say the Israeli attacks, officially Operation Cast Lead, are disproportionate, need to tell us what they would have Israel do. I've surveyed leftist sites, as well as news media reports, and for the life of me I cannot find any concrete proposals. The most I get is that Israel shouldn't have attacked at all.

Any commenters here who say the Israeli attacks are disproportionate are advised to make clear what they would have Israel do.

The Just War

Just War Theory (JWT) is a specific body of thought that has built up over the past few hundred years. Primarily Catholic in origin, it is used by many today, Christian and secular, as a model for determining whether a war is just or not. At it's most basic, it can be broken down into two parts; Recourse To War (jus ad bellum) and Conduct In War (jus in bello).

The entire body of thought is quite complex, and for our purposes we will only consider that part of it relevant to the current charge against Israel, that of using force disproportionally (See my entire series on JWT here).

Proportionality comes up twice in JWT, once as part of Recourse To War, and again in Conduct In War.

Here are the essentials of what I wrote about Proportionality as part of Recourse to War

Proportionality in the decision to go to war means "...that the damage to be inflicted and the costs incurred by war must be proportionate to the good expected by taking up arms."
...we need to consider the cost of not resisting aggression.

...One must beware of a strict "cost-accounting" approach. Quality of life, or values, matters too. Who would accept life as a slave by any of the aforementioned tyrannies?

This is the type of stuff you can twist any way you like if you're not careful. Looking at all three criteria above:

The question in whether the cost of going to war is greater than the good expected depends on Israel's objective. If they just hit Hamas for a few days and then stop, Hamas retains it's strength and will continue it's rocket attacks. If they have a credible plan for ending Hamas' ability to launch attacks, then it seems more justified.

The cost of not resisting Hamas' aggression is not only more attacks with Qassam rockets, but an encouragement to Hamas to obtain larger, more powerful rockets. As we can see in the below chart (via Wikipedia), as it is the attacks have steadily escallated

Qassam Rocket attacks from Gaza

There have been reports for some time of Hamas attempting to obtain longer range rockets. From their standpoint, if Israel never responded, why not obtain and launch them?

One can say that the rocket attacks weren't killing very many Israelis, and it wasn't inconveniencing too very many of them. Quality of life is pretty subjective. One can also say that Hamas doesn't have the ability to destroy Israel, but that's only true if Israel sits back and lets them build up strength.

In the end, I say Israel is justified according to this criterion.

Turning to Conduct In War, here is what I wrote that is relevant to our discussion (quotation marks mean I am quoting Joseph Martino, see link above)

"The principle of proportionality with regards to conduct in war "deals not with a whole war but with a single military action in that war. The criterion requires that the good to be achieved by the action be proportionate to the damage done. Again, this means values preserved compared with values sacrificed, not a single cost-accounting of lives and dollars." ...
Giving our enemy a sanctuary is unacceptable. Yet we must not be callous and "hardcore" and simply state that any and all accidental civilian casualties are acceptable....

On the one hand, a "...we have to reject the view that simply concentrating the deaths in one location makes the total disproportionate when the same total would be proportionate if it were distributed widely." In other words, concentration or dispersal of civilian deaths is irrelevant.

On the other hand, "...the total values to be preserved by going to war, the values forming the basis for the jus ad bellum proportion, amount to a budget of values." This is not to imply a precision such as one has in financial accounting. Rather, we must keep in mind that there is a "total budget" available in a war, and we exceed it we risk making the entire war disproportionate.

In other words, "...we may not attack anything and everything of some military value in the enemy nation, simply 'because it's there'". Some people, of course, would have us do just that. We must reject that extreme view....

There's a lot to digest here. Despite a plethora of information from the media and other sources we see through a glass darkly, with the Nelsonian fog of war obscuring exactly what is going on. How precise are the Israeli strikes? How much care are they taking to avoid civilian casualties? The answer you get seems to depend on your source, and frankly I don't have the time to do a complete survey.

Hamas, like Hezbollah, deliberately locate their bases and stage their operations from civilian areas, knowing that no matter how precise the attack civilians will be killed. They do so for the most cynical of reasons; to get good propaganda. The world is catching on to these tactics, yet there are those who seem to think that they should be allowed what amounts to a sanctuary because any attack on them will result in civilian casualties. This view must be rejected.

In the end, I'll assume that Israel is taking reasonable care to only strike military targets. That civilians are killed is primarily the fault of Hamas.

An Israeli View

Dore Gold is a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations 1997-1999) who is now President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA). Two years ago I reviewed the book he wrote about his experiences at the UN, Tower of Babel: How the United Nations has Fueled Global Chaos. The title pretty much says it all.

Call it biased if you like, but the JCPA has published a useful primer by Dore Gold explaining why in his opinion Israel is not using disproportionate force. Following are a few key excerpts:

* Israeli population centers in southern Israel have been the target of over 4,000 rockets, as well as thousands of mortar shells, fired by Hamas and other organizations since 2001. Rocket attacks increased by 500 percent after Israel withdrew completely from the Gaza Strip in August 2005. During an informal six-month lull, some 215 rockets were launched at Israel.
* The charge that Israel uses disproportionate force keeps resurfacing whenever it has to defend its citizens from non-state terrorist organizations and the rocket attacks they perpetrate. From a purely legal perspective, Israel's current military actions in Gaza are on solid ground. According to international law, Israel is not required to calibrate its use of force precisely according to the size and range of the weaponry used against it.

* Ibrahim Barzak and Amy Teibel wrote for the Associated Press on December 28 that most of the 230 Palestinians who were reportedly killed were "security forces," and Palestinian officials said "at least 15 civilians were among the dead." The numbers reported indicate that there was no clear intent to inflict disproportionate collateral civilian casualties. What is critical from the standpoint of international law is that if the attempt has been made "to minimize civilian damage, then even a strike that causes large amounts of damage - but is directed at a target with very large military value - would be lawful."

Look at the second paragraph again. JWT does not require exact tit for tat. What it requires is that you size the bomb (missile, whatever) to the target so that collateral damage is limited. As civilian casualties have been very low, we may infer that Israel has been careful to do just this.

December 28, 2008

Israel Hits Hamas in Gaza

I thought about titling this "Israel Hits Hamas," but in our modern age of moral confusion that wouldn't do. Israel isn't "attacking Gaza" any more than they were "attacking Lebanon" two years ago. Apologists for whichever terrorist faction being hit like to make it appear that Israel is attacking the whole country, civilians and all. Unfortunately, too many seem to buy into this story line. As such, I find myself including "Moral Clarity" as a category for all of my posts on the Middle East.

Starting yesterday, Saturday Dec 27, Israeli jets have struck Hamas positions in Gaza in Operation Cast Lead. This in response to unrelenting Qassam rocket attacks by Hamas and it's associated factions/groups into Israel. One wonders what Hamas was thinking. Surely they knew that the Israeli strikes were bound to happen.

Most likely Hamas was looking for a replay of the July-Aug 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. It is thought by most that because Israel did not succeed in neutralizing Hezbollah or it's ability to launch rockets, the latter won. Hamas has been provoking Israel, hoping for a retaliation, and calculating that they will survive. The mindset of the terrorists is that if they survive somewhat intact they win, an in a way they're right. That hundreds or thousands of of their own fighters, never mind innocent civilians may die helps all the more, as photos of dead bodies shown on TV around the world make for good anti-Israel propaganda. A Reuters report has it that Hamas is not allowing the wounded to cross into Egypt for treatment.

Israeli motivations, of course, are different. Their stated intention, as taken from a story on the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) website:

"Our intention is not to arrive at a ceasefire; it is to destroy Hamas' motivation and intention to fight," explained IDF Spokesperson, Brig. Gen. Avi Beninyahu. "The IDF's goal is to create a different reality along the Gaza periphery; to create a safe and secure environment that will be long lasting." In addition, Brig. Gen. Beninyahu expressed complete confidence that IDF forces are acting with caution and intention: "We know exactly what we need to do and what needs to be done. We will continue to act in order to decrease the terror coming from the Gaza Strip."

Ok, but I'm not exactly sure what this means. On the one hand it's possible this is just a short-term attempt to quell the rocket attacks. The government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is not a strong one, and the PM himself caught up in many scandals and criticized for many things, including his handling of the 2006 war in Lebanon. His popularity is low. As such, it's hard to have much faith that this will be a better thought out war than the last one.

But people do learn, and anyway Gaza is not Lebanon. It and Hamas are smaller than Lebanon and Hezbollah. Olmert may be determined to carry through until Hamas cries uncle or has truely suffered to the point where they are not even much of a political entity anymore. Unlike in Lebanon, where Hezbollah had an open supply line from Syria, Hamas can be much more easily cut off.

Seen from it's most cynical perspective, it's possible that the Israeli government is doing this for purely political reasons. There will be a general election this Feb 10, and according to this scenario Olmert just doesn't want to look weak going into them.

The last possibility is that Olmert will follow air strikes with a ground assault and will not only reoccupy Gaza but will go all out to end Hamas' existence. This would take time and would be difficult, and so is not likely.

It's impossible to say how long Israel has been planning this. The reason is that they no doubt constantly monitor Gaza, Lebanon, etc, so keep their target lists updated daily. It's probably more a matter of arranging air schedules and flight paths than anything else. My guess is they can "pull the trigger' with very short notice.

Before we go farther, here's a useful timeline I found at Fox News

-- June 1967: Israel captures the Egyptian-controlled Gaza Strip during six-day Mideast war. An Israeli census put the population at 380,000, at least half of whom were refugees from Israel. Today the population stands at about 1.5 million. The U.N. lists just over 1 million as refugees and their descendants.
-- December 1987: A clash in the Jebaliya refugee camp sets off Palestinian uprising, which lasted until 1993 and claimed the lives of more than 2,000 Palestinians and 192 Israelis. The militant Islamic Hamas is formed early in the uprising.

-- September 2005: Israel withdraws its troops and all of its 8,500 Jewish settlers. It retains control of Gaza's airspace, coastal waters and border crossings.

-- June 2007: Hamas violently seizes control of Gaza after routing forces loyal to rival Fatah faction of President Mahmoud Abbas.

-- June 2008: Hamas and Israel reach truce to halt the cross-border rocket attacks and end Israeli offensives in Gaza.

-- November 2008: Palestinians resume rocket and mortar fire into Israel after Israeli incursion.

-- Dec. 19, 2008: Hamas formally declares the truce over, rocket fire on Israel intensifies.

-- Dec. 27, 2008: Israel launches a fierce air offensive, killing more than 200 Palestinians in the first day.

As of this writing, a story on the IDF website says they've hit some 210 target locations in Gaza. Hamas has fired some 110 rockets and mortar shells into Israel since Operation Cast Lead began.

Moral Clarity, Please

Whenever Israel strikes back at terrorists you can count on stories like these to appear:

The Telegraph: Israel launches more air strikes as UN calls for ceasefire
The United Nations Security Council called for an immediate ceasefire as there was growing evidence of Israeli plans to increase its military operations.

Jerusalem Post: Israel defends Gaza op to UN chief

President Nicholas Sarkozy of France, who holds the rotating European Union presidency, said he "firmly condemns the irresponsible provocations that have led to this situation, as well as the disproportionate use of force," according to an e-mailed statement.

The EU itself has also urged an immediate halt to Israeli air strikes and Palestinian attacks in and around Gaza and the lifting of Israeli blockades in the area, saying in a statement that the 27-nation bloc "condemns the disproportionate use of force" from both sides. "There is no military solution in Gaza," the EU statement said, urging a lasting truce.

The EU statement also urges the "reopening of all checkpoints and the immediate resumption of fuel and humanitarian aid deliveries."

Washington Post: Israeli Airstrikes on Gaza Strip Imperil Obama's Peace Chances

Israel's airstrikes on Gaza yesterday, in retaliation for a nonstop barrage of rocket attacks from Hamas fighters, raised the prospect of an escalation of violence that could scuttle any hopes the incoming Obama administration harbored of forging an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

Terrorist groups can fire rockets at Israel for years with no "international condemnation", yet everyone calls for an immediate cease fire when Israel responds.

Israeli response to terrorism must be "proportionate." Yet these same moral pontificators are quick to condemn "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" thinking.

And of course there is the "peace process" that must be preserved, even when it is obvious to anyone with eyes that it is all process and no peace. We could only make peace with these terrorists if only those dastardly Israelis would stop defending themselves.

Israel isn't perfect. I wish they'd stop growing the settlements in Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank"). Sometimes I wonder if bulldozing homes, even those of terrorists, is really the best response.

Of all the criticisms leveled at Israel, the one that their response is not "proportionate" is the most ridiculous. Don't get me wrong; I very much know that proportionality is part of Just War Theory. Follow the link and you'll see that I wrote quite a bit on the subject a few years ago.

Suffice it to say for now that the requirement for proportionality does not mean "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." After all, our own response to Japanese attacks on U.S. forces at Pearl Harbor, Wake Island, and the Philippines was hardly proportional as measured by this standard. We invaded and ended their government, while they never had plans to even attack the continental United States, much less march into Washington D.C.

So of course Israel's response is greater than Hamas' rocket attacks. If the schoolyard bully pushes you, you don't push him back, you knock his block off. The point is not to engage in tit for tat, but to end the rocket attacks. Just as the bully won't push you anymore if you show that you will go all-out to defend yourself, Hamas will stop if it becomes convinced that it's very existence is threatened. If not, then Israel ends it's existence.

More later. For now check out the live blogging of the war over at Israellycool.

Posted by Tom at 9:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 11, 2008

Missed Opportunities

In my last post I promised to review missed opportunities for peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Here it is, as promised.

One: The Arabs could have accepted the 1948 UN plan which would have divided the area and created two countries; Palestine and Israel. But instead they invaded with 8 armies.

Two: If it was so important for the Palestinians to have a homeland on what is termed the "West Bank", then Jordan could have given them this land at any time between 1948 and 1967, because they controlled it. But they didn't, and King Hussein's bad decisions during the Six Day War cost him this land.

Three: After the 1967 Six Day War Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan famously said that he was "expecting a phone call"; from the Arab governments. He expected them to agree to peace treaties in return for getting their land back. He never got any calls.

Four: The Arabs could have taken Anwar Sadat's lead and approached Israel to make similar deals. Instead, they threw Egypt out of the Arab League and made Sadat a pariah. When he was murdered they celebrated throughout the Arab world.

Five: Yassir Arafat could have agreed to the deal offered him at Camp David in 2000 by President Clinton and Israeli PM Ehud Barak. But instead of taking an offer that would have created a Palestinian state, he started an intifada that took hundreds if not thousands of lives.

Yes yes I know the objections; the 1948 plan was unfair to the Arabs and the Zionists would have chased them off the land anyway, that it was unrealistic to expect Jordan to give up part of their territory for the Palestinians, that the Arabs would have lost face had they called Moshe Dayan in 1967, that the situation with regard to Egypt and the Sinai was different, and that the 2000 deal would have left too many Israeli settlements.

But by rejecting every opportunity for peace, the Arabs miss something else too. If they had accepted the UN plan in 1948 and the Zionists had then chased them off the UN designated land, they'd have a case. If Jordan had given them land on the "West Bank" after 1948 and Israel had invaded without provocation, they'd have a case. If the Israeli's hadn't returned the land they won in the 1967 Six Day War after reasonable negotiations they'd have a case. If they'd tried to follow up on the Carter-Sadat-Begin settlement and been rebuffed they'd have a case. And if they'd accepted Clinton and Baruk's proposal at Camp David in 2000 and the Israelis reneged they'd have a case.

But in each case they didn't. They missed their opportunity and thus have no case, or at least have a weaker one.

And no I am not saying that the Israelis have been perfect. I wish they had not built so many settlements, and that they would stop building new ones.

For the sake of argumentation we'll take take every Arab objection at face value. But what have the Palestinians got now? Only a rump Palestinian Authority and no real nation. Isn't half a loaf better than none?

Further, as time goes on the land available to the Palestinians grows smaller and smaller. It's like a declining stock; if you sell you lose money, but the longer you wait the more money you lose. Eventually you figure out it's not going to go back up again and you cut your losses, sell, and move on.

As the Israeli diplomat and politician Abba Eban said, "the Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity"

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June 4, 2008

No, the Settlements are Not the Problem

Once again we have a news story that spectacularly misses the point. All the more disappointing since it's in The Washington Times:

Israeli settlements seen subverting peace talks
Top Palestinian negotiators complained Tuesday that continuing Israeli settlement construction on contested land was undermining chances of a peace deal this year, even as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Bush administration still hoped to nail down at least the outlines of a peace deal before Mr. Bush leaves office in January.

With embattled Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Washington for talks with President Bush on Wednesday, Maen Areikat, deputy general of the Palestine Liberation Organization's negotiating department, said Israel's continued settlement building since the U.S.-sponsored Annapolis conference in November had dimmed prospects of a breakthrough.

"Unfortunately, the situation on the ground has not changed significantly" since Annapolis, Mr. Areikat said on a Washington visit. "On the contrary, Israel is trying to change the facts on the ground to its advantage."

Another story in the Times earlier this week made essentially the same point about the Golan Heights

KATZRIN, Golan Heights | Life has suddenly become very uncertain for the residents of the 32 Israeli communities in these highlands captured from Syria in 1967.
Recent peace overtures with Syria have put their homes on the trading block, raising the prospect that they could be evicted in scenes reminiscent of the evacuation of the Gaza Strip in 2005.

But the Golan occupies a very different place in the Israeli national psyche from Gaza or the West Bank, where ideologically driven settlers live in tense proximity to a Palestinian majority....

Israelis feel more at home in the Golan than in the West Bank and even Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods. Now that the Golan is back on the bargaining table, Israeli residents there bristle at comparisons with the religious nationalist settlers of the West Bank and the former Jewish communities in the Gaza Strip....

Tourists, a rare sight in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, browse for upscale wine at a Golan Heights shop. Residents there do not consider themselves to be nationalist settlers.

Since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, the Golan Heights' border between Israel and Syria has been the calmest of any border zone. Despite the ubiquitous presence of military vehicles on the roads, residents ask rhetorically why a treaty with Syria is necessary when the Golan is more tranquil and more secure than Tel Aviv.

The message is clear: If it wasn't for those darn settlements there would be peace in between Israel and Palestine.

What rubbish.

Answer Me This

If the settlements are the problem today, what was the problem before 1967?

The "West Bank"

Suppose Israel removed every settlement from what we call the West Bank, and what they call Judea and Samaria. Fatah would be nominally in control, at least for a short period. However, Hamas would undoubtably make a play for total control, and would likely succeed just as they did in Gaza. What we would then have is a terrorist state that would spend it's time attacking Israel.

If Fatah retained control, however, the situation would not be much if any better. Fatah, as I have written, is basically a terrorist organization that has no intention of accepting the existence of Israel. As Andy McCarthy wrote last year

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades are Fatah's terrorist wing. They have been a specially designated Foreign Terrorist Organization under U.S. law since 2002, and, as I noted here, have now taken to directly threatening the United States. ("We won't remain idle in the face of the siege imposed on the Palestinian people by Israel, the U.S. and other countries[.]...We will strike at the economic and civilian interests of these countries, here and abroad.")
Fatah's Abbas, our "moderate" "peace partner," maintains close ties to the Brigades -- even if he didn't want to (which I doubt) he has no choice as they are very popular among Palestinians.

Even as the administration announced its strong support for Fatah in the wake of Fatah's ouster from Gaza by Hamas, Fatah's al Aqsa Brigades have continued to carry out attacks against Israel, in coordination with Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another designated terrorist organization with a long history of working with Fatah.

The reason for all this is simple; the Palestinians do not want a "two-state solution". They want to destroy Israel. Notably missing from most stories, including the ones in the Times above, is any mention of the Palestinian demand for a "right of return".

The "right of return" is what the Palestinians is their right to return to land "stolen" from them in the 1948 War of Independence. What they want to do is to be able to go into Israel proper, ie the pre-1967 borders, and take land that they claim is theirs. Four million or more Palestinians want to exercise this "right." Given that the population of Israel is currently only 7 million, with 1 million being Arabs, clearly this is a recipe for the end of Israel.

Some might propose a trade; the Palestinians give up their "right of return" and the Israelis the settlements, but one neither side will give in, and anyway it doesn't answer the question of Palestinian terrorism.

Lastly, I don't see any evidence that granting the Palestinians their own state would "pull the ideological rug out from under the terrorists", or "take away their issue", as we are commonly told. As it is, about 50% of Palestinians support "resistance operations" against Israel.

The Golan Heights

Readers will recall that in early May I visited Israel and as part of out tour went up on the Golan Heights. On the Golan plateau we went up on Mount Avital, at the top of which is an old Israeli fort since turned into a park. Here's the view from the top into Syria

As with Gaza, the West Bank, and the Sinai, Israel captured the Golan in the 1967 war. It's essentially a plateau to the northeast of Israel proper.

Some say that Israel should give it back in return for a peace treaty with Syria. As the Times story above implies, if only the settlements weren't in the way there'd be peace.

Again, what rubbish.

To this day Syria supplies and funnels arms from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Yet United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 demands the disarming of Hezbollah. There are UN peacekeeping troops in Lebanon who are charged with enforcing 1701. Yet they do not, and Hezbollah remains well armed.

So there is no reason to suppose that if Syria regained control of Golan they would not let in Hezbollah and continue to supply them with arms. Hezbollah would use Golan as they do Lebanon; as a base with which to attack Israel. The idea that peacekeepers from the UN or anywhere else would do anything about it is silly.

"Peace for Land"

Peace for land worked with Egypt because Anwar Sadat was a sane man with whom the Israelis could work. He was a dictator, to be sure, but rational and pragmatic. This cannot be said about Mahmud Abbas or Bashir Assad.

Once Israel gives up territory, it's gone for good. Taking it back would require a bloody war.

When Israel left Gaza, the Palestinians there a golden opportunity to show the world that they could govern themselves in peace. Instead they massacred each other and have turned it into a terrorist sanctuary.

Right now there's simply no good reason to believe that they do anything different anywhere else.

Missed Opportunities

The Arabs have had, by my count, at least five chances to make peace with Israel since 1948. In my next post I am going to go through them.

Whatever you think about the settlements, however, they are not the barrier to peace.

Update

Here it is: Missed Opportunities.

Posted by Tom at 9:27 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

May 16, 2008

Bush in Israel and the Democrat Melt Down

Well well, so Senator Obama and a whole slew of Democrats are all bent out of shape over what President Bush said in Israel. Here's the part of his speech before the Knesset yesterday that has them all in a tizzy:

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history. (Applause.)

Note, of course, that no Democrat is actually named. If the currently outraged Democrats had been thinking, they would have issued statements that went something like this:

"One thing all Americans agree on is that appeasement doesn't work. As president, I will engage in tough, principled, and direct diplomacy just like Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan before me. And of course, no American president will engage with terrorists, least of all those who seek to destroy our stalwart ally, Israel. I look forward to celebrating the 65th anniversary of Israel's independence."

But nooooo, they had to all go off and through a big hissy fit.

Senator Obama showed why he'll never be qualified to be president:

I'm a strong believer in civility and I'm a strong believer in a bipartisan foreign policy, but that cause is not served with dishonest, divisive attacks of the sort that we've seen out of George Bush and John McCain over the last couple days

and

That's exactly the kind of appalling attack that's divided our country and that alienates us from the world

"Divisive"? This from a senator who's party wants to force "gay marriage" on us through the courts; the most undemocratic branch of government? That is in bed with Movon.org, one of the most "divisive" groups out there? That panders to the nutroots crowd who regularly deride Bush and Cheney in the most vile terms?

Mark Salter nails Obama's M.O.

We have all become familiar with Senator Obama's new brand of politics. First, you demand civility from your opponent, then you attack him, distort his record and send out surrogates to question his integrity. It is called hypocrisy, and it is the oldest kind of politics there is.

Rich Lowry lists Obama's "rules", and what is "off limits"

He can't be called a "liberal" ("the same names and labels they pin on everyone," as Obama puts it); his toughness on the war on terror can't be questioned ("attempts to play on our fears"); his extreme positions on social issues can't be exposed ("the same efforts to distract us from the issues that affect our lives" and "turn us against each other"); and his Chicago background too is off-limits ("pouncing on every gaffe and association and fake controversy").

Should we on the right take Obama up on his stated desire to have an oh-so-clean campaign?

We could take Obama's rules in good faith if he never calls John McCain a "conservative" or labels him in any other way. If he never criticizes him for his association with George Bush. If he doesn't jump on his gaffes (like McCain's 100-years-in-Iraq comment that Obama distorted and harped on for weeks). And if he never says anything that would tend to make Americans fearful about the future or divide them (i.e., say things that some people agree with and others don't).

Oh, and he would have to stop lying about the meaning of Senator McCain's "100 years in Iraq" statement.

Obama's not alone, though, in his whining. Michael Goldfarb, blogging at The Weekly Standard, has usefully compiled a list of reactions. Here's one

(Senator Joe) Biden again did not mince words when discussing Bush's remarks, accusing the president of engaging in "long-distance swiftboating" with his speech in Israel. Biden also cited numerous examples of the Bush Administration reaching out to unfriendly regimes in Libya, North Korea and Iran, arguing that Bush's insinuation that the Democrats were soft on terrorism was "truly delusional ... and truly disgraceful."

The Democrats can sure dish it out but they can't take it.

So What of Appeasement?

The Democrats claim that they're not appeasers of dictators and terrorists. Are they?

Since Senator Obama is the one in the limelight, let's look briefly at his record:

Senator Obama: yesterday "George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists..."
Senator Obama November 1, 2007: "I would meet directly with Iranian leaders. I would meet directly with Syrian leaders. "

A quick look at the relevant website for the State Department confirms what we already know

Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism....
Since Syria's 1979 designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, it has continued to provide political support to Palestinian terrorist groups.....

What really is the difference between meeting with Hamas, Hezbollah, and the leaders of those who sponsor them? Neither group could survive were it not for their sponsors.

Want more? Here's Obama at one of the Democrat debates last year:

Asked if he would be willing to meet separately "without precondition" during the first year of his administration with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea, Obama said, "I would."

Here he is again:

"The notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them...is ridiculous," Sen. Obama said in a debate last year. "One of the first things that I would do in terms of moving a diplomatic effort in the region forward is to send a signal that we need to talk to Iran and Syria."

What's ridiculous is the notion that such a meeting will not be trumpeted as a victory by the Jihadists. What Obama does not seem to realize is that the United States is not just an average run-of-the-mill nation. The President, Democrat or Republican, is not called "the leader of the free world" for nothing. Simply meeting with the President will be interpreted as lending legitimacy to regimes that are illegitimate and worried about it. Dictators, by their very nature, have no real legitimacy. The pseudo-elections in Iran and Venezuela (they probably have them in Syria, Cuba, and North Korea too) change this not at all.

So even if nothing is decided at these "talks", they will be portrayed as a victory by the other side. We can say all we want that no, they're not a victory for Iran/Syria/Cuba/North Korea/Venezuela, but it won't matter. The propaganda organs of our opponents will be out in full force, and in one of Bush's biggest failings he hasn't beefed up ours, so there won't be much of a response.

Not Just Obama

It's not just Sen. Obama who is an appeaser. Kathryn Jean Lopez has helpfully compiled a list of other Democrats the President could have been talking about, such as

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, freelance diplomat, who in December 2007 said: "the road to Damascus is a road to peace."
Or, perhaps he meant Speaker Pelosi in April 2007: "I believe in dialogue. As my colleagues have said over and over again, unless you communicate, you cannot understand each other. You cannot reach agreement."

Or maybe he meant recent Obama endorser and former North Carolina senator John Edwards, who, according to his own press release in February of last year, believes "the U.S. should step up our diplomatic efforts by engaging in direct talks with all the nations in the region, including Iran and Syria."
...

Or former Democratic presidential candidates and senators Chris Dodd and John Kerry, who met with Syria's al-Assad and said: "As senior Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee, we felt it was important to make clear that while we believe in resuming dialogue, our message is no different: Syria can and should play a more constructive role in the region ...

Liberals typically bring up the fact that U.S. presidents from Roosevelt to Reagan met with Soviet leaders. This is true, but misleading. These were meetings well scripted out in advance, with little being left to chance. Reykjavik in 1986 was the exception, not the rule.

Further, Obama seems blissfully unaware that unscripted high-level meetings are highly risky. As often as not they backfire. Reykjavik backfired on Gorbachev. Khrushchev sized up Kennedy as a "weakling" in their initial meeting, prompting the former to believe he could get away with sneaking nuclear-armed missiles into Cuba. It's widely thought that Stalin snookered Roosevelt at Yalta. If nothing else, Obama should read Khrushchev's rants at Eisenhower or Nixon during some of their meetings. That alone would give him second thoughts.

So should we not "talk" with these regimes? I hate to sound Clintonian, but it depends on what you mean by "talk". A meeting with an Iranian representative in the back room of the Canadian embassy in Madrid? No problem. President-to-President talks surrounded by thousands of reporters? Hold your horses.

Lastly, in fairness I will say that President Bush's tough talk hasn't extended to the Saudis, who's export of Wahhabism is designed to destroy the West. Also, our dopey Secretary of State has been "pressuring Israel to meet with Hamas representatives". Side

On the upside, Senator John McCain tells it like it is

If Senator Obama wants to sit down across the table with the leader of a nation that calls Israel a stinking corpse--what is it that he wants to talk about with him?

Nothing.

Meaningful negotiations could take place if they stop sponsoring terrorist organizations...those are the preconditions for sitting down with the Iranians.

Exactly right.

Update

This is the guy who wants to negotiate with the dictators of Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba (h/t Dagney's Rant)

I'm sure they'll all take him very seriously after he destroys our ability to respond to anything militarily.

What we need to do is spend more money on weapons, not less.

Posted by Tom at 8:00 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

May 11, 2008

Israel Trip 2008

We visited the Mount of Beatitudes, watched Israeli F-15s and 16s fly in formation over Jerusalem, contemplated Jesus agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, saw one place where David hid from Saul, went to an Independence Day concert, spoke with Israeli soldiers, swam in the Dead Sea, peered into Syria from an old Israeli fort on the Golan, and stuffed ourselves with all manner of delicacies morning, noon, and night. Oh, and the weather was perfect.

It was a fantastic trip. Nothing I write here can do justice to all that we saw and experienced, and I can only post a few of the photos. Speaking of which I took 461 photos in 7 days of touring, more than on any other trip. Thank heavens for digital photography.

I've uploaded all of my photos to photobucket, but unfortunately they're out of chronological order, and I can't figure out why. They run from #IM000539 to IM001000, so that's your clue as you scroll through. I'll try and fix it when I get time. Even if I can't fix the order, I will go through and label as many as I can.

This was a trip set up by my church, and was mainly a tour of the holy land, to see where the various events occurred in both Old and New Testaments. My pastor, who went with us, said that once you've been to the holy land you'll never read the bible the same way again. I can already see that he was right. I can't say that it made me stronger in my faith, as I'm pretty strong now, but there's nothing quite like seeing the landscape where it all took place.

We landed in Tel Aviv on Thursday May 1 after what seemed two never-ending flights, and spent our first night there. The next day we boarded the tour bus and headed north to Tiberius by the Sea of Galilee, stopping at several placed along the way. We spent three days in Tiberius, and then headed south to Jersusalem, skirting the border with Jordan. We then spend the last three days in and around Jerusalem.

We'll start with this; for almost 2,000 years the doubters said that Pontius Pilate was a myth, a legend invented by Christians. There being no records in the Roman archive referring to him, Christians could only defend themselves by referring to scripture. Then, in 1961, a block of limestone was uncovered in Caesarea that referred to him, and was dated to the 1st century A.D. Once again, the scriptures were confirmed. Known as the "Pilate Stone", the original is in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Here's our Israeli tour guide, Ronnie Cohen, beside a facsimile of the stone at Caesarea, explaining its significance.

Here's Pastor Gary teaching from atop Mt Carmel

Our typical procedure when we arrived at a site was that Ronnie would first provide an overview, explaining the site's historical and religious significance and perhaps some geography. Then, Pastor Gary would lead us in a bible study. At Mt Carmel we studied 1 Kings 18, especially verses 16 - 45.

Long story short, Mt Carmel was where the prophet Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal, and challenged them to a contest, one that they failed miserably. The key is perhaps in verse 21

Elijah went before the people and said, "How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him." But the people said nothing

There's a point in life where you have to make a choice. You either follow the way of God or you choose the pleasures of the world. The prophets of Baal choose poorly.

Here's me in the small Catholic chapel built in 1939 atop the Mount of Beatitudes, the site of where Jesus gave his famous "Sermon on the Mount"

The event is recorded in Matthew 5-7, and probably in Luke 6:17-49 (there's some disagreement over whether they're the same or different sermons).

Either way, the basic message is that we as believers are commanded to live the uncommon life. We should live to a higher standard, to a higher degree.

At various times over the centuries, the Catholic Church has purchased the land in and around holy sites in Israel. The advantage is that this has prevented commercial developers from spoiling the sites. The downside is that the churches really have nothing per se to do with the significance of the site.

We stopped off at a spot alongside the Jordan River and Pastor Gary did a mass baptism. The river water was somewhat stagnant, I've been baptized as an adult already, and and all-in-all I'd rather not have done it, but I figured there was no point in going all that way to Israel and not participate in everything.

Baptism is not required for salvation, but, as with works, is evidence of faith.

North to the Golan Heights

The next day we headed north to the Golan Heights. We stopped at several places, but our ultimate destination was an Israeli fort that had been turned into a national park. The Golan is essentially a plateau that rises above Galilee to a maximum height of 1,700 feet. It is a strategic location that Israel captured in the 1967 Six Day War, and managed to retain during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In my opinion they've have to be nuts to give it back to the government of Bashir Assad in return for a piece of paper promising peace.

Along the way we passed several Israeli Army bases. Here is a photo of some Merkava tanks that I took from the bus (as always, click on the photo to enlarge).

The fort was atop Mt Avital, just a few miles from the Syrian border. Our guide, Ronnie, had been stationed here as part of his tour in the Israeli Army, Here's the fort

And here's a view eastward from the fort. The farmland in the foreground is Israeli, and the treeline and beyond is Syria. Syrian military positions are hidden in the trees.

I had the same feeling here as I did while standing on the beaches of Normandy some years ago. These are places that if you're like me you've read about dozens of times, and seen innumerable History Channel programs about. In Normandy I could almost see the American troops make their way through the villages, tossing a hand grenade over a wall before going around it. Here I could almost feel the victory of 1967 and the desperation of Yom Kippur some six years later.

South to Jerusalem

After three days at Tiberius we packed up and headed south. If you don't stop the trip from Tiberius to Jerusalem is only a few hours, but we took a whole day to do it since we made several stops along the way; Mount Arbel, of no biblical significance but a great view of Galilee, Beit Shean (or "Beth Shan"), where among other things Saul and his son's bodies were hung from the city walls1 Samuel 31, Gideon's Spring, where the Israelites won a victory over the Midianites because they obeyed God (Judges 7), and had dinner in a tent at Genesis Land hosted by none other than "Abraham" himself. It was kind of hokey but in the end pretty neat and well worth doing.

As we drove south the land went from green to arid. As mentioned earlier, we drove on route 90, which runs just parallel to the Jordan River, which is the border. As such, most of the Israeli "settlements" and Palestinian territory was well to the west of us. We did see a few settlements, however. What was striking was the Israeli ability to turn the desert into productive farmland, something that the Arabs never did when it was all theirs.

Jerusalem

We spent two of the next three days in Jerusalem itself, and one day went to the Dead Sea area. We did so much in the city it's hard to know what to exclude from this brief overview, but no account would be complete without the Garden of Gethsemane, which is at the bottom of the Mount of Olives, just outside the Old City (Matthew 26:36-46, Mark 14: 32-41, Luke 22:39-46 and John 17, although Gethsemane is not directly mentioned in the latter two.

And here it is, the "Western Wall", or "Wailing Wall"; all that stands of Herod the Great's expansion of the second temple in 19 B.C.

The photo above was taken the evening we arrived in the city. The soldiers in the foreground are there for a rehearsal of their Memorial Day observances (more about which later). You can't see it in this photo, but just to the right are a lot more soldiers milling about.

The photo below was taken on Thursday May 8, the last day we were in Israel. As you can see, there was a multitude of people up at the wall. Anyone could go up to it; they don't check your religion. The only requirements were that men and women were segregated (the women's section is to the right beyond a small wall in the photo) and all men had to have some sort of head covering.

Despite the history and religious significance, one of the most moving and important stops was at a small shop called Shorashim Biblical Shop, owned and operated by Moshe and Dov Kempinski.

As we sat in a semi-circle in their shop, Moshe explained the unique mission he and his brother have set forth on: It's all about "bridge building". The fall of the Iron Curtain led to a fall of another curtain between Judaism and Christianity. Though they set up their shop 25 years ago, it has only been in the past 16 the Christians became interested in their store. We need to listen to each other, he stressed, and learn each other's language. God brought you to Jerusalem, he said. Sure, everyone has their own excuse for coming; to see the sights, where Jesus walked, to learn the history... all tricks God used to get you here. The fact is that why you think you're here is a trick played by God to get you here so that he could spend some time with you in His house. Of course, in the end, it's all about more than "god talk"; if you can't walk the walk don't talk the talk.

Because of the upcoming Israeli Remembrance Day (May 7. It's similar to our Memorial Day, but they're actually solemn about it) and Independence Day (May 8) observances, security was very tight, and soldiers were posted everywhere. I saw throughout the Old City, but also at toll booths and shopping centers. Geek that I am, I noticed that most carried the American M-4 carbine, some had the M16A2, but a few the Vietnam-era M16A1.

Here's a representative photo of the Old City. If I have it right, the large Menorah at right is a recreation by The Temple Institute of the original one in Solomon's temple (the First Temple, which lasted from 1000 B.C. to 586B.C. when it was destroyed by the Babylonian King Nebuchadrezzar).

On May 8 we were just outside Jersusalem on a hill looking over into Bethlehem when what came flying overhead but several formations of F-16s, F-15s, old A-4s (!) and even a KC-135 tanker escorted by more F-16s. It was quite a thrill!

There are two places where Christians believe Jesus may have been crucified and buried. One is at Calvary (sometimes called "Golgotha"), and what is now the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The other is the Garden Tomb, the site of a tomb where he may have been buried (still having been crucified at Calvary). Of the two we only visited the latter.

Of course, no one really knows the location, so it may have been one of the above sites or neither. As our guide (an entertaining old gentleman) at the Garden Tomb stressed, it doesn't really matter.

The Dead Sea Area

While the Sea of Galilee is about 900ft below sea level, and Death Valley only 281ft below sea level, the Dead Sea is a whopping 1,378ft below sea level. At 30% salinity vs 3.5% for the ocean, it is the second saltiest body of water on earth, with only a lake a remote part of east Africa being saltier. The Dead Sea is also quite large, at 42mi x 11 mi, versus 13mi x 8mi for the Sea of Galilee. The Great Salt Lake in Utah is 75mi x 28mi, but has an average depth of only 14ft and maximum depth of 33ft, versus 394ft and 1,083ft respectively for the Dead Sea. In other words, it is darn huge and very salty. As its name implies, nothing can live in it.

Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of me or the other swimming in it, but it is incredibly bouyant. You can float no problem on either you back or your stomach without any effort. If you try and stand straight up (in deep water without your feet touching), your feet want to pop up as if they have floats on them. It was very weird and quite fun.

However, before going in there were a few soldiers stationed outside, and I overheard they both speaking fairly good English. I approached them, said I was a tourist from the U.S.A., said that I appreciated what they were doing, and that our fight in Iraq and Afghanistan against AQI and the Taliban was part of their fight against Hamas and Hezbollah; "they're all jihadists". They enthusiastically agreed and let me have my picture taken with them.

The mountaintop fort of Masada is not part of biblical history, but is such an important part of Jewish and Israelite history that no trip to Israel is complete without a visit. Overlooking the Dead Sea, it was the "last stand" of a Jewish group known as the Zealots after Rome destroyed the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. and ended the existence of Israel until modern times.

Long story short, the Zealots held out against a Roman seige for three years. Finally, when the Romans broke through and entered the fortress city, they found no one alive but two women and five children. Why were the rest all dead? The Roman seize machines hadn't killed that many.

The answer is that the Jews knew that rape, torture, and slavery awaited them if taken alive. But Jewish law forbade suicide.

They way they got around it was the each man killed his family, then the men killed each other, until they were down to twelve. These then drew lots, with the loser killing his fellows, and finally falling on his sword, so that only he violated the law.

The story of Masada is not part of the Talmud, and was largely forgotten by Jews until the 1920s. That we know of it at all is only due to the writings of Flavius Josephus, who accompanied the Romans during their seige.

Because of the situation of modern Israel, it is therefore natural that they look to Masada as Americans look at The Alamo; "never again". Indeed, all or some Israeli soldiers take their oath atop Masada and repeat the oath "Masada shall not fall again."

Masada today is a national park, with the easiest way to get up by cable car. Atop the mountain they've got all the usual markers just as you find at any park in the U.S. Our tour guide Ronnie did his excellent job. But then, during the tour, something different happened. Something special.

At exactly 11:00 a voice came through a speaker (in Hebrew, of course), followed by a one minute siren. This happened all throughout Israel, not just through loundspeakers, but on radio and television. The speaker asked for a minute of silence in observance of Israeli war dead.

It was their Memorial Day.

One of the places where David hid from King Saul was at the oasis of Ein Gedi (1 Samuel 23 - 24) Situated in a mountain crevice, it's just what you think of when you think of an "oasis"; a beautiful stream and waterfall surrounded by palm trees in the middle of the desert. The land surrounding the Dead Sea is a stark and harsh deseert; kind of like what you see in much the American southwest. Here's a representative scene

Then here's Ein Gedi

Pretty nice, huh? It doesn't take you long to figure out why David selected this place as a hideout.

We did much more in Israel than I can write about here. See the photobucket page for all photos, which I promise to label some day.

I've been fortunate to have been to a half a dozen or so European countries, and enjoyed every one. That said, most are only worth one visit. Before Israel, Greece is the only one I'd really like to go back to. Now Israel is on that list too.

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November 21, 2007

A Counterproductive Attempt at Legacy

I've wanted to write about this for a few weeks, not, but another story or issue always won out. This today from the AP in the Washington Times sent me over the top

The United States will try to close an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal before President Bush's term expires, giving the administration a little over a year to help the two sides craft a resolution to one of the world's longest and most intractable conflicts. ...
"The parties have said they are going to make efforts to conclude it in this president's term, and it's no secret that means about a year," Rice said. "That's what we'll try and do. Nobody can guarantee that - all you can do is make your best effort."

Just what I suspected; Bush wants to go out a "peacemaker". This might be bearable, but for this, reported by Agence France Presse

US President George W. Bush made more calls to Middle East leaders Tuesday as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pinned the success of next week's Annapolis conference on simply opening negotiations for a Palestinian state, even without a work plan.
"The success of this meeting is really in the launch of negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians for the establishment of a Palestinian state and therefore a two-state solution," Rice said about the conference planned for Annapolis, Maryland, near Washington.

As with so many others, the President and his Secretary of State have it exactly wrong. The problem is not the lack of a "two state solution." The problem is that the Palestinians are ruled by terrorists who want to destroy it. Specifically, neither Fatah nor Hamas have given up their "right of return"

The "Right of return" is one in which the Palestinians insist that the refugees, and their descendants, allegedly displaced during the 1948 war of independence, have the right to return to Israel proper and claim the land that they say they owned. Depending on which website you believe, this would mean anywhere from 3.5 to 6 million Arabs moving into Israel, a country of 6 million Jews and 1 million Arabs. The clear purpose of the "right of return" is to destroy Israel.

Fatah (or "Fateh"), is supposedly the "good" organization with whom we can make peace. Yet on their website they insist on this "Right of return"

The inalienable rights of the Palestinian people include the right to self-determination, the right of return, the establishment of a sovereign state with Jerusalem as its capital.

Also, as part of their constitution (somehow now missing from their website) is this

Obstacles to Peace

The first obstacle to a settlement, then is the Palestinian insistence on a "right of return"

The second obstacle, though, is the Israeli fear that if they give the Palestinians a state terrorist and rocket attacks will continue as before.

The settlements are not an obstacle. If you want to know why, read what I wrote here. The short version, however is this: If the settlements are the problem today, what was the problem before 1967?

But perhaps the bigglest obstacle to peace is that the Palestians are in a state of near chaos. As it is, the Palestinian territories are split; Fatah rules the West Bank and Hamas Gaza.

If Mahmud Abbas ("Abu Mazen", or whatever name he goes by these days) reaches a settlement, will the rest of Fatah go along? What about the other political parties that make up the Palestinian Authority? Will Hamas agree to any settlement?

Of course, it's unlikely in the extreme that anyone except Abbas and his closest associates will agree to anything. The rest of them will reject the settlement, and will continue with their terrorism and Qassam rockets.

Just consider this: Ismail Haniyeh is a senior Hamas official. On March 29, 2006 he was sworn in as Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority. Abbas dismissed him on June 14 2007, but Haneyeh refuses to accept Abbas' authority and says that he is still PM, governing what he can from Gaza. There is a big dispute over the legality of Abbas' dismissal of him but the point is that they can't govern themselves. Haniyeh is part of the rejectionist camp, having declared in December of 2006 that "we will never recognize the usurper Zionist government and will continue our jihad-like movement until the liberation of Jerusalem."

Some say that if we give them (or allow them to have) a country the infighting will cease and they'll behave. I consider this argument unpersuasive.

I used to think that the Palestinians (as they are called, a whole debate unto itself) should have their own country. No more. Until they can behave with a minimum of decency they should not be allowed to rule anything.

As such, any meeting in Annapolis will be counterproductive. The Palestinians will be promised a country before having had to make any concessions. They will then refuse to give up their "right of return" or make any meaningful concessions of their own. Because of this refusal they will not be given a state, just promised one at some indefinate time in the future. Abbas and his cronies will get mad, and this will be a signal to the terror masters that it is time to unleash their minions and start another Intifada. Israel will retaliate, and the world will condem Israel.

Andrew McCarthy, writing in National Review this past June, summed up his analysis if Fatah and the prospects for a peace agreement with them by saying that

The Palestinians are a backward people, indoctrinated toward brutality. They don’t rate a sovereign state or anyone’s help until they civilize themselves. Sovereignty is a privilege that implies acceptance of civilized norms — that is why we speak of states like Iran and North Korea as “rogues.” Regardless of whether there really are scattered Palestinian moderates, it is a dangerous fantasy to assume the Palestinian people, as a whole, are ready to be anyone’s peace partner.
We are enabling their hatred when we provide support without insisting that the Palestinian people — not just Abbas and Fatah, but the people — convincingly foreswear revolution, terrorism, violence, ethnic-cleansing, and the goal of eliminating Israel. We are a generation or more, at least, from any hope of such developments. In the meantime, as long as we subsidize the hatred, we shall be buying more of it, while giving the Palestinians no incentive to reform.

My thoughts exactly.

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September 1, 2007

MEMRI TV

Let's take a minute to recognize an organization that is absolutely invaluable for anyone who wishes to understand the Middle East.

MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, is or should be a national treasure. From their mission statement

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) explores the Middle East through the region's media. MEMRI bridges the language gap which exists between the West and the Middle East, providing timely translations of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish media, as well as original analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious trends in the Middle East.

What you have are translators who sift through all manner of newspapers, magazines, blog sites, radio broadcasts and television shows that originate out of the Middle East. Material deemed important is posted in English on their website. You can also sign up for their email newsletter, which I have done.

Translated are the good, the bad, and the ugly. Contrary to what detractors no doubt say, any fair survey of MEMRI translations shows that they are not simply trying to make Arabs or Persions look bad. But there will be no pleasing some people.

Recently launched isMEMRI TV, which is fast becoming an indespensible resource. . Middle Eastern television shows are monitored and posted with English subtitles. Transcripts for each show are also available.

Unfortunately they don't allow you to post clips on other sites, like what you can do with YouTube or other videosites. Hopefully this will change, but until then head over and check out what they've got.

Posted by Tom at 8:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 1, 2007

What A Waste

Today's news tells us that in it's infinite wisdom the Bush Administration is going to send millions in aid to the Palestinian authority

The U.S. is beginning work on tens of millions of dollars worth of aid projects aimed at boosting the Palestinian economy and President Mahmoud Abbas at the expense of Hamas. ...
The $2.5 million project, commissioned by the U.S. Agency for International Development, had been suspended after the January 2006 victory by the militant movement Hamas in Palestinian elections. The project got the green light after Mr. Abbas dismissed the Hamas government because of its violent takeover of the Gaza Strip.

What a waste of money.

Sarcasm aside, the reality is that there isn't much to choose from between Abbas' Fatah and Hamas.

Fatah is only "better" than Hamas in that at the moment they're shooting fewer people. Abbas, like Yassir Arafat, has learned to play the PR game. He's now considered the "moderate".

Fatah is a terrorist organization. It's charter calls for the destruction of Israel, and it's leaders still insist on the "right of return". Mahmud Abbas, Abu Mazen, or whatever name he goes by these days, is a holocaust denier who in his 1983 Ph.D disseration says that the "Zionists" were involved in a scheme with the Nazis to steal Arab land.

It is foolish of us to try and play Fatah off against Hamas. Ever since at least the 1993 Oslo Accords the United States and Israel have been trying to "strengthen" the "moderate" fatah against those we perceived were more radical. This strategy has resulted in neither a peace settlement nor a reduction in the strength of the radicals.

Despite what I just said I do not blame President Clinton for our current situation. While I think his strategy flawed, he did do the right thing in 2000 by inviting Yassir Arafat and Israeli PM Ehud Barak to Camp David in an attempt to hammer out an agreement. That it failed was soley the fault of Arafat.

I do blame the Bush Administration for continuing this flawed strategy. Not only does it not work for reasons discussed above, it puts a lie to the "with us or against us" regarding terrorism. Apparently only al Qaeda, and maybe Hezbollah, count as terrorist groups.

No Aid and No State

Not only do the Palestianians not deserve our aid, they do not deserve their own country. I used to buy into the "two state solution", but not anymore. It's not simply that they squander our aid, they vote terrorist organizations like Hamas into power. Those who say that we must "respect" the vote because it was (allegedly) "free and fair" are at best making a fake argument, at worst are moral idiots.

If the Palestinians vote for Hamas or Fatah they need to bear the consequences. And part of those consequences is that we stop sending them aid and refuse to meet with their leaders.

What I Would Do

My strategy would revolve around the recommendations made by Natan Sharansky in his 2004 book The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror. The idea would be to set up a series of preconditions that the Palestinian Authority would have to meet before they got any aid. More importantly, they would have to meet these requirements before we would resume peace talks.

Until then, let the Israelis finish their wall and have nothing more to do with them.

Posted by Tom at 8:18 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack