Since Israel is going to be attacked no matter what it does, we might as well do things that advance our interests.
Our government is playing games with itself. And losing.
On Wednesday Chaim Levinson reported in Haaretz that for the first time in nearly two years, last week the Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria approved new building plans for a small number of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.
Levinson also reported that last month Jerusalem’s municipal planning and building commission gave final approval to plans to build nearly 900 housing units in the southern neighborhood of Gilo. Initial approval was granted back in 2012.
But in the intervening three years, the commission refused to allow them to go forward.
From the report, we learn that the government’s critics in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria who claimed that it was barring Jewish building were right all along. Despite the government’s denials, the fact is that for at least the last year and a half, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers maintained an undeclared freeze on construction for Israeli Jews in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.
During this period, Jews have only been permitted to build in these areas either on the basis of plans that had received final approval before the unofficial freeze took effect, or in cases where refusal to approve building would have involved admitting that a freeze was in effect. So, for instance, in areas where the rights of Jews to their property in Judea and Samaria have been challenged before the Supreme Court by EU-financed Israeli NGOs like Yesh Din, the government has defended those rights and so given permission for Jews to exercise their property rights.
The government opted to enact this unofficial building freeze, and so trample the civil rights of hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens, in the hopes of convincing the Obama administration to protect Israel from Palestinian efforts to pass anti-Israel resolutions at the UN Security Council.
It might have been possible to justify the government’s behavior – or at least to understand it – if it had brought about the hoped for benefits.
If President Barack Obama had responded to Netanyahu’s radical concession by burying the hatchet and supporting Israel at the UN and on the international stage more generally, then perhaps the move would have been worth it.
But that didn’t happen. Over the past 18 months, the administration – backed by much of the Israeli Left – has escalated its anti-Israel policies and rhetoric. Even as the government curtailed the property rights of Israeli Jews in the hopes of appeasing him, Obama along with Secretary of State John Kerry has led the charge in wrongly blaming Israel for the absence of peace with the Palestinians.
Obama and Kerry have engaged in acts of deliberate libel by falsely accusing Israel of institutional racism against the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria.
As for the UN, both Obama and Kerry – along with their advisers – have repeatedly threatened to allow anti-Israel resolutions to be passed in the Security Council.
The message the administration is sending through its continued aggression is plain to see. It has no interest in being appeased by Israel, and as a result, no concessions Israel makes will satisfy it or diminish its desire to downgrade the US-Israel alliance and weaken Israel diplomatically.
Obama’s beef is not with building for Jews beyond the 1949 armistice lines. Attacking Jewish building is merely a means for attacking Israel.
In the absence of such building, Obama and his advisers have been quick to make up new excuses for condemning Israel.
The undeclared and unrewarded building freeze isn’t the only policy the government has implemented to the detriment of Israel’s national interest in the unfounded hope of satisfying hostile foreign governments.
There is also its policy in regard to Israeli-registered NGOs that operate as agents of foreign governments in their efforts to subvert the government and harm the state.
According to a report published earlier this month by NGO Monitor, between 2012 and 2014, foreign governments transferred a whopping NIS 169,728,500 to 27 organizations registered as Israeli nonprofits. Foreign government funding comprised 65 percent of overall funding for these highly political, anti-Israel groups.
Twenty of the 27 groups in question receive the majority of their funding from foreign governments either directly or through third party organizations. Since these groups are registered as nonprofits, the funds they receive from foreign governments are tax exempt. In other words, Israeli taxpayers are subsidizing agents of foreign governments.
These groups, which include the likes of B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence, Yesh Din, Machsom Watch, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and Adalah, work together and separately in a bid to make it impossible as a practical matter for Israel to defend itself against terrorist groups or to respect the civil rights of its Jewish citizens, including their rights to property and self-defense. Moreover, they work to criminalize Israel’s leaders and soldiers internationally while promoting BDS.
Given their activities and goals, it is self-evident that these groups are a threat to the national interests of Israel. They cause it great harm both domestically and internationally.
As the public’s awareness of the threat posed by these foreign government-funded groups has grown in recent years, Knesset members have repeatedly introduced legislation geared toward curbing their activities.
Not surprisingly, given the fact that foreign governments – principally from the EU and its member states – are funding and so directing the actions of these groups, each time the Knesset tried to rein them in, those efforts have been immediately and viciously attacked by the governments of Europe, the EU, the Obama administration, the groups themselves, the international media and the Israeli Left.
Each time, the attacks have been the same. The foreign governments and their allies in the media and the Israeli Left, including their employees, have insisted that any move by the Knesset to restrain, regulate or otherwise expose their hostile activities constitutes nothing less than a deadly assault on Israeli democracy.
The criticism is absurd on its face, and represents pure projection. After all, it is hard to imagine a more direct assault against a nation’s democratic system than foreign governmental funding of domestic groups whose goal is to delegitimize and vilify their government and country.
These ridiculous attacks on government attempts to regulate the actions of foreign-funded anti-Israel groups beg for an unapologetic counter assault from the government. Distressingly, rather than strike the necessarily blow, time after time the government has crumpled.
One after another, NGO bills have been abandoned or watered down to the point of fecklessness.
Today Israel is being subjected yet again to the coordinated assault of the phony “champions of democracy.” As in the past, the Obama administration has joined forces with the EU, the Israeli Left and the Western media to attack the government for its support for Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked’s NGO Transparency Bill.
Given the unhinged nature of the attacks, one could reasonably assume that this time, the government is serious. But alas, as in the past, one would be wrong.
There is nothing in Shaked’s bill that will do significant damage to either the Israeli groups or their foreign governmental funders. For instance, Shaked’s bill does not remove these groups’ nonprofit status. Under the Shaked bill, foreign government- funded groups that vilify the IDF and its soldiers like Breaking the Silence will continue to enjoy the same tax exemptions as real nonprofits like the IDF’s widows and orphans fund.
Shaked’s bill only treats as foreign agents organizations that receive the majority of their funding from foreign governments. But the distinction between Yesh Din, which receives 93% of its funding from foreign governments, and Machsom Watch (of which Yesh Din is a spinoff), which receives 47% of its funding from foreign governments, is entirely arbitrary. Both groups are beholden to foreign governments. Both are foreign agents.
Like its decision to freeze Jewish building projects, the government’s decision to water down the NGO Transparency Bill was clearly motivated by its hope of winning points with hostile governments. It is hard not to sympathize with this hope. But the fact that it comes from an understandable impulse doesn’t make the government’s behavior rational. As the unhinged criticisms directed at the bill from the US and EU make clear, they are not impressed, indeed they couldn’t care less about the government’s attempt to mollify them by advancing a bill devoid of substance.
The lesson from these miserable experiences is clear enough. Since Israel is going to be attacked no matter what it does, we might as well do things that advance our interests.
Since we will be vilified for building “settlements” even when the government freezes construction, we might as well build settlements.
Since the price for expanding existing buildings is the same as the price for building new neighborhoods and communities, there is no reason to pay full price for a fraction of the benefit. Indeed, since the Obama administration and the EU plan to attack us no matter what we do, we might as well go ahead and apply Israeli law to the Jordan Valley and Gush Etzion.
Likewise, since the same forces will viciously condemn us for advancing legislation that will do nothing to curb their funding for Israeli agents or curtail the hostile actions of those agents, we might as well get viciously attacked for doing something to curb their funding and curtail their actions. Given the ferocity of the criticism Israel is enduring over the Shaked bill, it makes sense to redraft the bill and turn it into something useful.
We get it. The Obama administration and the EU aren’t attacking Israel because we did something wrong. They’re attacking us because they want to hurt us. That is their goal. Recognizing this sorry truth, the public elected the Likud and its coalition partners to defend our interests and our rights. Hope is not a strategy. Building new communities and neighborhoods, expanding the writ of Israeli law and curtailing the activities of subversive foreign agents is a strategy. And a good one.
@ Paddy: The number of Christains in Israel is actually growing (only place in the middle east). Though numbers are small. Some Christians in Israel have started to volunteer for the IDF.
In the PA areas the numbers have shrunk as the Christians flee because of serious harassment from the Muslims.
It remains a poor strategy to allow the percentage of Christians in Israel to decline, even if it’s by mistake. Nice exchange, Bear. Keep the Faith!
Glick is 100% correct when she says:
@ Paddy:
Paddy, When I first arrived in Israel I went to what was called a kibbutz ulpan. Work half day and study Hebrew half day.
Israel allows volunteer’s to a kibbutz for example to come on a six month visa. We even had a few Christians in the Ulpan (this was very common). The kibbutz I was on had several girls who came this to Israel and then converted to Judaism because they had met an Israeli boy they wanted to marry.
So Israel is not a Christian exclusion zone if you have ever traveled to Israel you already know that.
@ Paddy:
@ Paddy:
You misunderstand me Paddy I respect Israels Christian Friends.
If fact I have collaborated on some things with a couple of churches in the past.
I appreciate you are trying to be creative. What I was trying to explain to you is Israel looks for Jewish immigration that is the core of Zionism. Read Herzel’s Alteneuland.
I could have ignored your post but wanted you to try and understand Israel better.
Avoid thinking outside the box and keep losing. No one is suggesting a Christian State, only a worthwhile Christian presence supportive of the State of Israel. Marxist Jews do more damage to Israel than Christians could ever remotely contemplate, you know. We’re on your side, Bear.
When one is not in Israel people generally focus on the political and the conflict. Life in Israel is so much more than that naturally. The parts of the article below quoted are part of a success story.
@ Paddy:Israel is the ONE and ONLY Jewish democratic state and automatic right of immigration (aliyah)goes only to Jews.
Why would any Zionist government do what you are proposing?
Caroline makes good points. Wisdom on Israel’s part would be to move CHRISTIANS into the West Bank. They aren’t “enemies” of Judaism and can’t be attacked the way Jews are. Make them citizens, required to serve in the military and start thinking outside the box! 10,000 Maronites, Greek Orthodox etc would be an interesting mix on the West Bank. It would be a PR coup, too. This Manichean Strategy of either-or, Jew vs. Terrorist, ain’t working.
Bear Klein Said:
so many good ideas, but who do you think would do that for you……..BB?
@ Bear Klein:
If I were a Jewish resident of The Shomron, I would demand that either Israel fulfill it’s obligation to provide for the security of The Communities or an alternative, being replaced by an independent government which will get the job done, because at present, that is no life with the uncertainty of adequate protection at any given moment.
Bear, am sure you are correct, but to just sit back and wait for another atrocity is not like us.
I would put the government on notice that plans were being drawn up to take over security of the place, including areas of vital interest to Israel. It is time to require secular educations to provide job skills to these folks and start to wean themselves off of The Welfare.
The GOI may take the security of the communities more seriously if it thinks it may have something significant to lose.
Ted Belman Said:
we cannot know becuase BB spends all his time nuetralizing dissent of natinalists and settlers… he sees them as troublemakers obstructing his reign. He is daily facilitating euro illegal building while obstructing jews in YS, he neutralized Jews at the Mount, he neutralized Jews in YS outside of blocks, he neutralized feiglin, bennet and shaked because they are his only competition on the right.
Why would a man who daily facilitates hostile foreign govs to build illegally in his sovereign nation do any of the things you hope he will do…. your hopes are illogical. I find it incredible that no one is going nuts over his seven years of facilitating the euros to build illegally in YS. Do you buy into the idea that he was ignorant of that fact during the 7 years? Sorry, with Israels intelligence capabilities it is absurd to believe he was ignorant in which case he must be complicit because no one knew until he was exposed, along with yaalon. But oddly, their exposure in this crime makes no waves with his “supporters”. No one asks the relevant questions:
WHY DID BB HIDE THE EURO BUILDING IN YS FOR 7 YEARS UNTIL IT WAS EXPOSED BY OTHERS????
@ babushka:
You may have a point if you are getting hit over the head as a pariah anyway you have nothing to lose by hitting back with all your might.
Israel should respond to anything done in the security council by annexing Area C. France should be told if they this action their advice will be of no further use as it is viewed as coercive and unrealistic.
@ Bear Klein:
what about removing the muslim abuse of Jews… which appears to be more than france?
For people who are interested in Aliyah from North America & UK
you can contact: http://www.nbn.org.il/
Bear Klein Said:
I have always advised a massive affirmative action settlement program of Jewish settlement in YS in order to mitigate the damage caused by the obstruction to Jewish settlement rights by the UK, Jordan and the GOI. I suggested a homestead act like the US whereby free land grants be given in YS to diaspora Jews to settle in YS in order to settle massively and quickly to make up for past crimes of obstruction. Non Israeli diaspora Jews would circumvent any criticism based on Geneva convention which refers to the Occupation force citizens. It would of course be a trick with a narrative that would take place quickly while arguments fly. Once Jews are there nothing can stop annexation or a separate state. But such a thing is impossible while BB keeps Jews in the euro designated Jewish ghetto boundaries.
Bear Klein Said:
I have said the same for years… you appear to again be avoiding the substance of my posts…. wrt BB netanyahu. It is only by holding his feet to the fire constantly that he can possibly be coerced into even one right wing action. Protecting and defending his MO encourages him to continue…. thus encouraging you to keep hoping and dreaming in futility that he might one day give you your desire for annexation. Had those who panicked to BB instead have voted Benett then your chances would have had more possibilities… but when BB successfully panicked Benetts voters he immediately followed up by sending Benett to siberia to a eunuch ministry having nothing to do with settlers or YS…DUH???? Ad feiglin and Bb’s obstruction of supreme court reform to get the real picture of who he is.
Bingo!
There are benefits to being a pariah, the foremost of which is being liberated from the concern that others will take offense.
@ bernard ross:
Bernard Ross so you are behind a mass relocation of diaspora Jews to the Holy Land. Great! That is positive news.
Bear Klein Said:
the aha moment 🙂
Perhaps BB as PM can do something to get the Israelis behind bldg in YS, like a public information campaign on the legality and legitimacy of Jewish settlement………..
oh, my bad, he is the one preventing it.
Bear Klein Said:
the reason is that Israeli Jews who believe in YS can only elect less than 8% of the knesset. Only BY has declared a platform to annex area C which is only part of YS. This means that over 90% of Israeli voters dont care about any part of YS beyond the existing major blocks….. and this includes the religious sector whom we never hear from except for avoiding the army and getting perks… satmar is sending money to help their members in Israel fight the draft. If more than 90% of Israelis dont care then talking about annexation and foreigners is futile. The least that bennett as education minister can do is to wage a public media campaign to inform Israelis that Jewish settlement in YS is legal and legitimate…… but somehow I think that BB would find a way to sabotage it.
If BB is under pressure why does he never declare it to his public and thus get Israelis unified against the foreign aggression? IN the same way he never says that “Jewish settlement in YS is legal and legitimate” so he also never says that the foreginers are backing the Jews into a suicidal wall. Why does he facilitate the illegal EU bldg for years????? Even under pressure no one would expect a soveriegn nation to allow illegal bldg by foreign govs on its soil. That is the main proof that BB’s narrative is rubbish and that he facilitates the foreign aggression willingly.
woolymammoth Said:
I agree… but I beleive tha prime action should be a massive program to settle Jews, even Jews from the diaspora who are not yet Israeli citizens. Settling Jews is far less controversial than annexation. There is treaty and law supporting Jewish settlement on state lands regardless of who is sovereign. I say that settling Jews should be the focus…. of course during BB’s term all discussion of settling Jews outside existing ghetto boundaries of the major blocks is VERBOTENNNNN!!!!
Ted Belman Said:
I agree, it looks like Israels Jews have been browbeaten into submission and must observe the eu designated ghetto boundaries. Has any PM done a plan b on what would happen when Israel cannot continue to accept the foreign dictates? All of the current sanctions have been in the work for all BB’s PM years but he never appears to have a plan for when they finally implement it.
Ted Belman Said:
Notice that caroline admits that BB and his gov lied to the public about the freeze, and continues to lie. However, like you she accepts at face value the narrative that what BB does is the result of the pressure. She finds it difficult to understand why BB NEVER does anything rational to advance right wing agenda. Everything he does becomes rational once a different model is used whereby BB is judged by his facts and his rhetoric ignored. Using that model, I am always able to predict what BB will do repeatedly….. in all cases BB talks the talk of a right wing leader but in all cases his action are the opposite.
Now Caroline has accepted that BB and his gov have lied… all that remains is to see why he really lied. the answer does NOT lie in the anonymous un-evidenced leaks which always ascribe his behavior to outside pressure…. which enables him to keep pretending.
Please notice that in each case the rights and interests of the public and Jews are lessened or there is a continuance of a status quo which deprives the rights. Thats a fact, anyone can spin it differently, but that spin is futile. As it stands, BB’s gov is a caretaker gov holding the fort for when the leftists can win an election. I welcome any rebuttal which does not base itself on the narrative that the “devil made him do it”
@ Ted Belman:So if you are right and the people are not behind building which outside of the blocks is probably a minority would you not agree (about 40 to 47% of the electorate)might be for for annexing C and building beyond the blocks) we have a problem?
If the USA backs Israel up (need a real pro Israel president) that is I why I was hoping for Rubio the equation could change both to annexation and building. I do not trust Trump and he is looking most likely.
@ Bear Klein:
Whether we annex or build the reaction will be the same. If Bibi did either of these things and the diplomatic hammer came down on us, would Bibi lose the next election?
@ woolymammoth:With all due respect this breakaway state concept of Jews in Judah/Samaria is a non starter.
Israel will not agree and no else in the world will either and there are no meaningful number of Jews to do this second Jewish State. My guess no more than 1% of the Jews in Israel would be interested in such a concept (which will never be a reality). Foreign Jews migrate to Israel and their is no movement in the diaspora to build another Jewish State. In fact more diaspora Jews could care less about Judah/Samaria if they even what it is or where it is.
@ Ted Belman:
Ted, The issue some people do not understand is that the left and center in Israel (including the media) hammer the Likud as the ones isolating Israel from the world. Israelis worry about this!!
Bibi then plays the middle card (incremental building in Judah/Samaria) and giving lip service to a potential deal with the Palestinians we all know is not possible unless they become Canadians.
So Bibi plods along to the frustration of many and gradually makes
changes such as Dep. Foreign Minister Hotovely (Bibi is the Foreign Minister) declaring the rights of Israeli settlement building. In addition build some more and annex some land.
Timing is everything in these international political games. So will Bibi make bolder moves regarding Area C right before or after the USA election. Will he wait until hopefully a friendly GOP President be elected. If Trump is elected will Israel be able to count on him as a real ally or another American telling Israel what is best for it.
All that said I agree with you Ted and Glick to go for it and build, build, build, build! Leave annexation for the right timing. Internationally (the building and creating facts on the ground) is the most important thing anyway. No one will recognize now what we annex anyway. Prepared should be annexation of the Blocks as the first step at a minimum unless the heat would be same as if Israel just annexed all of the Jewish Towns at the same time in Area C. In the same legislation Israel could offer to negotiate demilitarized Autonomy in Area A with the Palestinians. They will refuse and Israel can leave all options on the table when they refuse.
At some point Israel will have to take the heat. With a coalition of one to the majority and weak my guess is that Bibi is not feeling strong enough to take risks. The latest polls are not helping any either.
In relation to Hezbollah’s new positions 30 km from Golan to The East, this issue seems trivial.
There does appear to be horse trading behind closed doors. These issues, such as The Shaked NGO Bill which is a step in the right direction, despite the fact that it has no teeth to ban the NGOs, are rhetorical. We KNOW these NGOs are supported from outside, by whom and what their agenda is. More important right now, in my view is surviving OBAMA’S threatened passive action in The UN Security Council. My guess is Netanyahu is using these myriad of issues as bargaining chips with the goal of preventing late term actions concocted by The EU in cooperation with Obama.
As long as there is no practical way to implement a TTS, Israel is safe. Once it declares Oslo DEAD and annexes territory, you can expect resistance. No one is going to recognize the annexation, no matter how “nice” Israel offers Israeli citizenship to it’s sworn enemies.
I believe there as of yet, other ways Israel could go short of annexation. One, as I have brought up a dozen times, is the creation of a new breakaway Jewish State in Judea and Samaria. Are you going to tell me The UN , EU, USA are going to put into practice a double standard for both Jewish States? That would be rather obvious, I think.
I agree with everything she recommends. It really pisses me off that Netanyahu keeps succumbing to the pressure.
But if Netanyahu accepted her advice and as a result the diplomatic hammer came down or Israel, he would lose the next election. I think Israelis would prefer consolidating what we got and not alienating the EU and the US.
What do you think.