Syrian Lessons…What Was Netanyahu Thinking?
by Gerald A. Honigman
Republicans, Democrats…they’ve all had a hand in this dangerous manipulation. But I’m getting ahead of myself–so let’s hold off on that for a while.
Kenya is one of the latest fairly new places that the Jihadis have chosen to target–well over a hundred dead and wounded in a shopping mall. The day before it was the Philippines making news with its own Islamic insurgency…that same old Dar ul-Islam vs. the Dar al-Harb thing again and again and again. Around the same time there were hundreds dead and wounded blown up in a Pakistani Christian church. The list goes on, with new victims surely to come on the morrow. I think you get the picture.
Pick your conflict. Chances are Arabs or other Arabized Muslims are involved. And you’d make out good in Vegas with those odds.
Sounds a bit “racist” you say? Please check my facts then…
Show me a day, I dare you, when even the mostly politically correct mainstream media is not reporting some Jihadi claiming a ticket to Paradise by massacring masses of innocents–often at random. Whitewashing will only fool those who want to be fooled. And these folks are not dying because their heroes use them as human shields.
While it’s true that you can find mass murder occurring elsewhere (including right here in America), this is not (thank G_d) a daily event.
And, amid all of this nauseating barbarism which has become routine in the so-called “Arab”/Muslim world, with numerous thousands of innocents being wantonly slaughtered (millions if black Africans in the Sudan and elsewhere and the Anfal campaign and such against the Kurds are included from a bit earlier), there is a tiny oasis of relative peace and sanity. Guess where? Hint–it starts with “Isr” and ends with an “l.” You know, the nation which has been condemned by the United Nations more than any other.
“Relative” is the key word here. Israel has its problems too, and as various Jewish subgroups from all over the world have their own grievances with the government, so do Israeli Arabs. But there’s one thing for certain…the latter are the freest Arabs anywhere in the region–and they know it.
Too “free.” When one’s freedom impinges upon the freedom and security of others, then it must be restrained.
Israeli Arabs repeatedly attempt to murder Jews who enter their villages, and the moronic Hebrews give them a free pass. Check out what Iraqi or Syrian Arabs are doing to their own neighbors for far less. Just imagine if this was reversed and Arabs were being murdered in Jewish villages and towns–the news reports would be non-stop.
This situation must be put to an end by whatever means necessary. If examples must be made, then so be it. When expulsion orders are enforced for the perpetrators and they’re sent off to Gaza’s Hamastan or Fatahland; or murderers and wannabes are not taken alive to be fed, housed, educated, and so forth at the Jews’ expense, then maybe the message will sink in…Probably not.
Regardless, Jews did not wait for millennia for the resurrection of their sole, minuscule nation only to have to be afraid to travel within it. That’s what life was frequently like for the Jews outside of Israel. The rebirth of the Jewish State was supposed to change that. So, any Jewish leaders who allow this to occur are pathetic. In a democracy–a true democracy, not just a nation of majority rule–this becomes a bit more complicated, so the Jews will have to find legal ways to rid themselves of Lefty judges and others who blame the victims instead, enabling such Arab murderous and traitorous behavior.
Next…
Iraq, Libya, Egypt–flip a coin for the following chapter.
But, with all that’s been happening on the Syrian front (regardless of who did or did not use chemical WMD), there are some other very powerful lessons that the Jews better learn. That brings us back to the opening sentences of this analysis…
Back in the days when George H.W. Bush was President (1989-1993), one of his best buddies, James Baker III, was appointed Secretary of State. Along with such famous gems as calling Israel a turkey that needed to be carefully stalked, complaining about the Jews’ love of money (while himself milking the Arab petro-teet non-stop), and proclaiming, “F’ the Jews, they don’t vote for us anyway,” Baker also promised Syria the same deal that Egypt’s Anwar Sadat got in the Sinai–a full return of the lands lost in the 1967 Six Day War.
Keep in mind that Baker was making such deals with Assad the First without even consulting Israel.
Also keep in mind what this author, along with some others, repeatedly emphasizes–that the final draft of UNSC Resolution 242 (the one that was accepted, not the one that the Arabs, Russians, and the French wanted passed which involved a return to the status quo ante, as if there were no Arab aggression, casus belli blockade, etc.) did not call for Israel to return to what has been called the Auschwitz lines of 1949. Those armistice lines only marked the spots where the Jews stopped the invasion of their nascent country by a half dozen Arab states. They were not official boundaries, and the architects of 242 stated just that while calling for the creation of more defensible, secure, and real borders to take the place of the ’49 lines.
What Menachem Begin’s Israel could gamble to do with Egypt–when the latter’s leader flew to Jerusalem to make a real peace (which would have likely thawed even more over the years had Sadat not been assassinated by Muslim Brotherhood clones)–it could not do on other fronts unless the circumstances were similar. Later, some opportunities opened (some would say, re-opened) with Jordan too, an Arab state carved out in 1922 from almost 80% of the original 1920, post-World War I Mandate of Palestine.
While it’s true that immediately after the ’67 war, Israel offered most, if not all, the territories back in exchange for peace and was answered with the “3 Nos of Khartoum” instead, it soon became obvious that true peaceful coexistence with the state of the Jews was not what most Arabs had in mind. They openly adopted a destruction-in-phases policy instead, with a return of Israel to the ’49 lines as the first stage.
Syria had done much to instigate the ’67 hostilities–and yet, the Alawis, who came to rule Syria over the past four decades, have some interesting earlier “history” regarding Jews and the Jewish state http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/grandpa-assad-the-jews-brought-to-the-muslim-arabs-civilization-have-not-taken-anything-by-force-nevertheless-the-muslims-declared-holy-war-against-them/.
During the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Syria had plotted with Egypt, once again, for this attack. Recall Israel’s repeated offers of the return of at least most of the territories taken in its defensive war in ’67 for real peace. This was true on the Golan Heights as well (which had also been ruled by Jews in much earlier history, was part of the original 1920 Mandate of Palestine, etc.). But remember 242’s call for the creation of more defensible, secure borders.
The Sinai Peninsula, if demilitarized, could be a fairly large buffer zone–and it was, at least until recently. With the recent turmoil in Egypt, various Jihadi factions have moved in and so forth. Still, as long as no major tank and artillery battalions, missile and air bases were set up there as in pre-’67 war days, Israel could manage the problems.
Not so, however, on the Golan.
It’s all down hill into Israel proper from those heights. Israeli kibbutzim and fishermen in the Sea of Galilee were commonly attacked, with Syria also controlling some of the main sources of Israel’s fresh water supply.
Despite this, Israel offered the return of most of the Golan on several occassions. Arabs demanded it all. What else is new?
Imagine any other nation being repeatedly attacked from territory and fending off the attackers. How many times has geography exchanged hands this way–and often for far less than what Israel has been subjected to?
Yet, again, had the Assads just played ball with America over Iraq, Lebanon, and Iran a bit more, both Republican and Democrat White Houses were set to pressure the Jews over the Golan the same way Obama is now doing with Judea and Samaria–aka the “West Bank.”
As Obama now pretends that Israel did not have the final draft of 242’s promise of the creation of more defensible, secure, and real political borders to replace indefensible armistice lines; and, as he plays deaf, dumb, and blind to George W. Bush’s letter to Israel assuring it after its withdrawal from Gaza that it would not have to return to the ’49 lines and that any Arabs “returning” would have to return to the new (and 2nd) Arab state being formed in the original 1920 Mandate of Palestine; so too was Obama set to apply the same pressure when he sent Arafat’s good buddy, Robert Malley, to Syria back in 2008.
While some American leaders–like Bush the First, Carter, and Clinton–may have been close to Obama’s thinking on such issues, others were not. Here’s President Johnson on the subject of Israel returning to the ’49 lines on June 19, 1967, soon after the war ended…
A return to the situation on June 4 (the day before hostilities) was not a prescription for peace but for renewed hostilities…Johnson then called for “new recognized boundaries that would provide security against terror, destruction, and war.”
Here’s Reagan on the same subject on Sept. 1, 1982…
In the pre-1967 borders (sic), Israel was barely 10-miles wide… the bulk of Israel’s population within artillery range of hostile armies. I’m not about to ask Israel to live that way again.
And here’s Lord Caradon, the chief architect of the final, passed version of 242…
It would have been wrong to demand Israel return to positions of June 4, 1967 … those positions were … artificial … just places where soldiers of each side happened to be on the day fighting stopped in 1948 … just armistice lines. That’s why we didn’t demand Israelis return to them.
Given the nightmarish bloody mess surrounding it on all sides, just imagine what Israel would be facing right now if it had caved earlier. Does any sane person really believe that Fatah, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas are any better than those eating others’ livers in Syria or decapitating Copts in Egypt?
At least in Syria the Assad butchers have had self-preservation in mind for almost the past half century–so the Israeli front kept fairly quiet.
The various Sunni Jihadi butchers, however, have Paradise in mind–so there will be no limits here. Imagine them in control of all of the Golan.
The earlier return of Gaza immediately became a nightmare, and the Sinai may yet become that as well. So, forget about a return to the status quo ante on either the Golan or in Judea or Samaria. Israel faces the same human organ-eating and infant throat-slitting scenarios on both fronts. The unilateral withdrawal from Gaza was bad enough–a test Arabs flunked horrendously regarding future peaceful “good intentions.”
No more.
242’s promise of a fair territorial compromise must not be abandoned, regardless of who is doing the squeezing.
Now, to end this, I must leave you, dear readers, with this troubling question…
Why would Prime Minister Netanyahu–who supposedly understands all of the above–allow Justice Minister, Tzipi Livni, to be Israel’s chief negotiator at the renewed round of Jew arm-twisting (“negotiations”) currently underway?
Despite Livni’s family’s strong nationalist credentials, for quite some time she has sided more with Obama’s positions and Arab one-sided demands than with the fair, effective compromise built into 242 which also addresses Israel’s basic (not “maximalist”) security needs. What was Netanyahu thinking?
Unfortunately, the only answer that makes any sense is not very pleasant to those of us who were expecting to see something beyond Israel once again being forced into participating in the Arabs’ post-’67 destruction-in-phases plan that they openy admit to and the non-peace that they will offer–regardless of how much Israel gives away:
Livni will be Netanyahu’s excuse for the Munich-style “peace for our time” agreement that America’s Chamberlain will pressure Israel to accept.
History tells us how that first version turned out in 1938. Shame on Israel if it does not learn from that tragedy.
Netanyahu must act like the leader he claims to be–and some of us have (at least earlier) seen him as. He has the support of most Americans and Congress–which makes this behavior even more puzzling. And please don’t tell me about wanting to trade Judea and Samaria for Iran.
If it does not get full and open recognition itself as the State of the Jews in return for the creation of the Arabs’ 22nd state (created mostly on non-Arab peoples lands) and second, not first, in “Palestine;” and if does not get the effective territorial compromise envisoned in the final draft of UNSC Resoluition 242, Israel must pack its bags and extricate itself from the dangerous vise both its current “friends” and enemies alike have it trapped in.
Obama’s failures elsewhere must not be compensated for by the gross endangerment of the Jewish State. Yet that’s exactly what he has in mind…sort of like a disgraced Clinton hoping for a Nobel Peace Prize via having Israel cave in to almost all of Arafat’s demands at Camp David over a decade earlier.
Despite its own flaws, any objective study would show that Israel still shines brightly when compared to anything around it. If you doubt this, just ask Hamas family members, Syrian, and other Arabs who are being treated in Israeli hospitals while their brothers are busy murdering or trying to murder Jews.