By Caroline Glick
Like his supporters, US Secretary of State John Kerry has apparently been asleep for the past 20 years.
Kerry has proffered us security arrangements, which he claims will protect Israel from aggression for the long haul. They will do this, he argues, despite the fact that his plan denies the Jewish state physically defensible borders in the framework of a peace deal with the PLO.
There are several serious problems with Kerry’s arrangements. But in the context of Kerry’s repeated claims that his commitment to Israel’s security is unqualified, their most glaring flaws are rooted in their disregard for all the lessons we have learned over the past two decades.
Kerry’s security arrangements rest on three assumptions. First, they assume that the main threats Israel will face in an era of “peace” with the Palestinians will emanate from east of the Jordan River. The main two scenarios that have been raised are the threat of terrorists and advanced weaponry being smuggled across the border; and a land invasion or other type of major aggression against Israel, perpetrated by Iraqis moving across Jordan.
It is to fend off these threats, Kerry argues, that he would agree to a temporary deployment of Israeli forces in the Jordan Valley even after Israel expels all or most of the 650,000 Israeli civilians who live in Judea, Samaria and eastern, northern and southern Jerusalem.
We will consider the strategic wisdom of his plans for defending Israel from threats east of the Jordan River presently. But first we need to ask whether a threat from across the border would really be the only significant threat that Israel would face after surrendering Judea, Samaria and much of Jerusalem to the PLO.
The answer to this question is obvious to every Israeli who has been awake for the past 20 years, since Israel started down the “land for peace” road with the PLO.
The greatest threat Israel will face in an era of “peace” with the Palestinians will not come from east of the Jordan. It will come from west of the Jordan — from the Jew-free Palestinian state.
The Palestinians don’t give us peace for land. They give us war for land. Whether they support the PLO, Hamas or anything in between, the Palestinians have used every centimeter of land that Israel has given them as launching bases for terrorist and political attacks against Israel.
There is no peace camp in Palestinian society. There are only terrorist organizations that compete for power and turf. And to the extent there are moderates in Palestinian society, they are empowered when Israel is in control, and weakened when Israel transfers power to the PLO.
Back in halcyon 1990s, Israeli supporters of “land for peace” told us, “It’s better to be smart than right.”
By this they meant that for peace, we should be willing to give up our historical homeland, and even our eternal capital, despite the fact that they are ours by legal and historic right. That peace, they promised, would protect us, neutralize the threat of terrorism and make the entire Arab world love us.
Over the past 20 years, we learned that all these wise men were fools. Even as the likes of Tom Friedman and Jeremy Ben Ami continue to tell us that the choice is between ideology — that is, Jewish rights and honor — and peace, today we know that they are full of it.
Our most peaceful periods have been those in which we have been fully deployed in Judea and Samaria. The more fully we deploy, the more we exercise our legal and national rights to sovereign power in those areas, the safer and more peaceful Israeli and Palestinian societies alike have been.
The only way to be smart, we have learned, is by being right. The only way to secure peace is by insisting that our rights be respected. We won’t get peace for land. We will get war — not from the Iraqis or anyone else to our east, but from the Palestinians. And since the Palestinians are the people Kerry is intending to empower with his peace plan and his security arrangements, both his peace plan and his security arrangements are deeply dangerous and hostile.
As for the threat from east of the Jordan, here too, Kerry’s security arrangements are absurd.
Kerry and his supporters claim that by enabling Israel to maintain a limited force along border with Jordan for a period of 5-15 years, he will build, in the words of Jeffrey Goldberg, his biggest fan, “an impregnable security system.”
But this is ridiculous. When Israel withdrew from the international border between Gaza and Egypt, it wrongly assumed two things — first, that the regime of Hosni Mubarak would always be in power, and second, that Mubarak’s regime wouldsecure the border.
In the event, Mubarak, Israel’s peace partner, did not secure the border. According to then Shin Bet director Yuval Diskin, in the three months after Israel withdrew from Gaza in August 2005, the Palestinians smuggled more weapons into the Gaza Strip from Egypt than they had in the previous 38 years, when Israel controlled the border.
And of course Mubarak did not remain in power. He was replaced by the Muslim Brotherhood.
@ yamit82:
Good,fnnally.bout time
Kerry ‘Deceived Israel’ on Terrorist Release, Says Official
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has clarified to the Americans that no Israeli Arab terrorists will be released as a “gesture” to the PA.
mar55 Said:
Horse feather!!!!!!!!!!!!
bernard ross Said:
You go Yankee boy!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bill Narvey Said:
Your posts are strikingly devoid of facts and chock full of useless opinions. Your “reasoning” is ridiculous and irrelevant. It is irrelevant because it bears no relation to realty as EVIDENCED BY FACTS. You base your entire argument on an unknown amount of pressure and do not address facts submitted in rebuttal It is ridiculous because it seeks to substitute a concept of “fair and balanced” views in the place of actual facts. Your blurbs resemble a high school textbook and typifies the gereric superficial prognostications of those typically ignorant of actual facts in the Mideast.
If you were not obsessed with the sound of the hot air passing from your windbag you would notice that Yamit has submitted a number of, wait for it, ACTUAL FACTS in this thread and in fact has submitted many facts and citations in prior threads on the same subject. Your blurb could be submitted for any number of conflicts anywhere in the world by changing the names of the protagonists. Please submit FACTS with your hot air to make it more palatable.
Bill Narvey Said:
this comment of yours best illustrates your statements.
yamit82 Said:
I love when you get the bit in your teeth and run. Cut him out the herd!
Bill Narvey Said:
You are correct my opinions and views are not fair and balanced. Why should they be? If as I believe I stated the truth, why should I distort that truth in the name of fair and balanced. Fox News touts the mantra of “fair and balanced”, never mind that they are neither but should journalists and journalism be fair and balanced as opposed to informing their constituent public the facts of any matter even when they are neither fair or balanced?
Do we as consumers of news want the truth or in the name of being “fair and balanced” something less than the truth?
With Israels past leaders we have empirical data and the results of their decision making to judge them. BB till now has a long record to judge him by the results of his decisions.
Facts: Carter was and is today considered one of the weakest and least popular of Presidents in modern times yet he forced Begin to agree to the most disastrous for Israel decisions ever made by an Israeli PM. Today Obama is entering his 6th year and is considered a very weak president whose popularity is tanking daily. If the Republicans lose the Senate in 2014 not only will he be a lame duck he will become insofar as power goes a dead duck.
Israel can count to some extent congress to blunt any radical moves by Obama against Israel maybe not completely but I believe enough especially if his popularity continues it’s downward spiral. In three years there will be a change of administrations. In January Israel will have received full amt of aid up front some 3.5 billion dollars for fiscal year 2014, Obama will do nothing to prevent Iran from getting their Nukes and any promises or agreements he makes or offers are worth Bupkis. Obama could administratively hold up and delay military deliveries in the pipeline but would he from a political POV? Maybe but so what?
I still ask and ask you to explain what Obama could do to hurt Israel in the year 2014 that would force any leader worthy of the description to concede vital national interests that once made and enacted upon may prove to be irrevocable? Israel is not exactly a beggared country though we seem to act like one, we can handle a short fall of a few billion dollars.
My long standing conclusions are that Israeli leaders and BB in particular do not do anything they do not wish to do and more than not use the perception of American pressure to justify both policy mistakes and to embed in the minds of the Israeli public that in making unpopular and even ill advised moves he had no choice but to conform and obey the will of the Great Uncle Sam. It’s always succeeded in the past and up to now an effective political ploy in avoiding taking responsibility.
Few people know that Israel purchased our peace treaty with King Hussein of Jordan by giving them free water with rights to our water reserves and the rights over the temple mount. Denying it to Arafat was another reason for giving control and rights to Jordan. I ask what rational patriotic Jewish leader would cede the rights to the Holiest site in Judaism? You can guess my ans. BB gave to our most implacable enemy the rights and sovereignty of Hebron Judaisms 2nd holiest site.
Can you name any antisemetic acts more vile than what Rabin and BB have done. Or anti Israel acts like giving up the Sinai and destroying permanent Jewish settlements essentially ethnic cleansing of Jews by Jews? (Begin and Rabin). How about Golda willing to sacrifice tens of thousands of Jewish soldiers mostly reservists rather than nuking the Egyptians and ending the conflict with a min. of Israeli casualties.
Seems even when we are powerful our leaders with their ghetto mentality are more worried about what the goyim will think rather than what we think. how many more Jews will need to be sacrificed because our leaders fear to protect them rather than be scolded by non-Jewish world leaders who would shed not a tear if we disappeared.
Fair and balanced is an intellectually dishonest precept. I like never complain and never explain just do what’s right and always seek truth.
Yamit, your reasoning is fallacious. While you realistically recognize Israel has always been under pressure from the U.S. and the international community, you unrealistically hold fast to the notion that Israeli leaders present and past have the ability to resist any pressure, where that pressure is intended to force Israel to compromise her rights and national best interests, not the least of which is her security.
When an Israeli leader bends to the will of such U.S. and international pressure, your said notion demands that the only explanations for such leader bending to such pressure are that such leader is too weak and cowardly to withstand the pressure, too fearful that to resist that pressure will jeopardize their political interests at home or on the world stage, that overtly or covertly their views align with the objectives the U.S. and international community seek to pressure Israel into going along with or any one or more of the foregoing.
That notion is ingrained in you like an article of faith. With that, it is your one and only “go to” notion, to the exclusion of all other explanations, to castigate Israeli leaders, be it BB or his predecessors like Barak Sharon, Olmert, Begin and Rabin/Peres (of Oslo fame) and Golda for their failing to resist all outside pressures Israel has been under since her re-birth as being due to their character flaws and their being less that 100% aligned with Israel’s rights and best interests.
As amongst these leaders you identify as having been bad, your saying BB is the worst of the lot, is at best your own comparative judgment call. That however, is just your opinion. Undertaking a fact based comparative analysis of all these leaders, including evidence as to their natures and views as well as the geopolitical realities they face at any particular time, would no doubt lead others to single out some other leader as the worst, the best or the best of a bad lot.
No doubt sometimes the reasons for BB and past Israeli leaders’ succumbing to outside pressures, do as you claim, lie with their assorted personal failings, their own ideological views, their own perceptions as to what is and is not in their own political interests domestically and on the world stage or with their faulty political calculus that bending to pressure will amount to giving a little to get a lot more.
Not always however. Sometimes the pressures on Israel from the U.S., the international community or both, would be too much for any Israeli leader to bear.
What I therefore take issue with you on is your insistent “go to” notional explanation for Israeli leaders bending to the will of U.S. and international pressure as being only and all about such leaders’ weakness, cowardice or even being quislings or traitors to Israel’s rights and best interests.
The fallaciousness and misguided simplicity of your notional “go to” premise should be apparent to you as you seem to otherwise be fairly objective. On the issue of Israeli leaders’ responses you disagree with to outside pressures however, you are neither realistic nor balanced in your views.
I thus do not understand how you can concede the reality of U.S. and international pressures on Israel, which are at times enormous, but unrealistically refuse to accept that Israel is dependent on U.S. support and that the U.S., the powerhouse that it is, has and will continue to try to extract a price for that support. That price is usually revealed by what pressure Israel is put under. What is usually not seen however, are the threats covertly made by the U.S., the international community or both, to get Israel to bend to that pressure.
To conclude Yamit, yours is not a fair and balanced view. Your failure, I figure is not due to any lack of ability to be fair and balanced, but rather an unwillingness to be so.
Bill Narvey Said:
Only a coward and appeaser and a shitty Jew would defend BB according to your position. There is no objective justification for any PM of Isreal to bend to any pressure from anyone even the USA. Capitulating to such assumed pressure only invites more. Ask Prof Yisrael Aumann Nobel price winner and mathematician for Game Theory.
He says essentially what Bernard and I have been saying. BB is at times an adept political manipulator within the internal Israeli political context but has proven to be equally inept when dealing with foreign governments and has hurt Israel more than any other PM and that includes some very bad ones like Barak Sharon, Olmert, Begin and Rabin/Peres (of Oslo fame) and Golda. Each in their own way brought Israel disaster but none was willing to virtually reverse all of our territorial the gains of 67′ and recognize a Palis terrorist State in Israel’s Jewish heartland.
He established the principle and gave away for nothing our legal right to the land of Israel. He gave up the second holiest site in Judaism for nothing as well. He is the first PM to authorize release of Murderers of Jews for nothing. He is the first PM to freeze for two years construction in Jerusalem and Y&S causing to a large extent and exacerbating severe housing shortages and creating a housing bubble, pricing houses all over the country beyond the capacity over large segments of Israelis to acquire affordable housing. He is the only PM where speaking the truth is a foreign concept. His ability to lie bold face is pathological.
I don’t hate BB but I do despise him for who he is and what harm he has brought to Israel and is bringing to our very door step. He may or may not pay a political price but we Israelis will pay dearly for his treachery, cowardice and moral perfidy while acting as PM.
You always have excused and justified his weakness and obvious weak character due to American threats and pressure without any direct knowledge that it’s so and if so what those threats and pressure contain to justify his actions and your understanding if not agreement with his apparent weaknesses.
I have asked you many times to specify what Pressures and threats could make the PM of a sovereign nation however tiny to accede to suicidal demands of another even by a superpower like the USA. I ask again what threats and consequences might they entail???
@ Bill Narvey: what has BB done as the leader of the right wing coalition upon which he was elected?
Bill Narvey Said:
You have no evidence for your opinion. You assume BB is under pressure rather than a willing participant because you accept innuendo rather than facts. If BB was under the pressure he would not announce E1 and then abandon it; he would not release the terrorists and then fig leaf it with the next bogus building announcements; he would not appoint Livni to Justice and negotiations which are the main ministries related to YS. Why did he announce E1 before the election; why does he announce BS building each time he releases terrorists; why appoint Livni? facts are not your strong point.
Bill Narvey Said:
this statement is a bit of narvey arrogant rubbish! You are totally clueless as to what pressure BB is or is not under; you make assumptions based on what you hope is going on. There is no actual factual evidence for this statement. For all you know BB coud have agreed everything with the US prior and just putting on a show for you.
Bill Narvey Said:
What an idiotic statement! I was for BB but when I see his behavior consistently contradicts the expected performance I begin to question. questioning is something that a robot parrot clone like you is incapable of.
Bill Narvey Said:
show me the “OBJECTIVE ANALYSIS” to which you refer: so far I only see the hot air of an arrogant windbag!
Let me add another of his accomplishments was to commission the Levy report for political gain and then abandon it.
Bernard, don’t blame Obama-Kerry, but Netanyahu? The only thing to commend of your argument that follows your nonsensical opening statement is that you do manage to string sentences together that allude to some facts and factors, but you completely ignore the power of U.S, persuasion on Israel.
It never ceases to amaze me that when Netanyahu bends to the U.S. will, that there are those who have a particular hate on for Netanyahu who accuse him of not bending at all, but rather going along with the U.S. because the U.S. position and demands on Israel are exactly what Netanyahu welcomes.
Objective analysis on these issues, demands common sense, which too often, as evident in Bernard’s comment, appears to be missing.
Caroline shuld stop blaming Kerry and the US. Kerry echos BB’s own security narrative,
BB holds back E1 and Levy report. There is no legitimate reason that the pals should be the recipients of large amounts of unpopulated land west of the river. even if the Jews had no historical or legal claim and it was a dispute of equal standing, there is no reason that pals should get land they do not reside upon. This is 100% the fault of BB, GOI and former GOI’s for abandoning the jewish claims. The lie is blowing back in the face of Israel and those Israelis who want to hand YS and the MOunt to the pals should realize that they do not have any more justification to be in Tel aviv other than the war that won it. There is no reason to support Jews in Tel Aviv that does not support Jews in YS. If Israelis do not want to exercise sovereignty over YS themselves they should still encourage Jewish settlement as per legal obligation of any occupier west of the Jordan river. If Israel wants to leave they should first guarantee that whoever takes over will encourage Jewish settlement in YS. The situation has progressed to the point that instead of being a neutral party Israel has damaged the Jewish rights to the land west of the Jordan River. How is Israel different from the British or Jordanian former occupiers? they seek to give to the arabs what they do not own.
Always good to hear reports about Israel from Caroline Glick.