All Together Now--Cry For The Poor Palestinians

Way back in the dark ages otherwise known as the Forties, there was a series of affrays in a small portion of the Mideast then called on all the maps as "Palestine" or the "Palestinian Mandated Territory."  The interlocking series of nasty little wars called either the "War of Independence" or "The Catastrophe" was occasioned by a combination of factors.  Some of these factors were indigenous to the region.  Others, far larger in impact on both the people of the region and the world generally, were the result of a specific ideology applied ruthlessly by a particular regime and its allies in other countries.

One result of the affray was the generation of a generation of refugees.  It is critical to understand that the refugees were not simply a mass of ever-so-innocent civilian victims caught between the millstones of events and forces far outside their control.  Nor was there any thought at the time of the affrays and their concomitant refugee streams that the displaced individuals and their descendants would be the pawns of governments and ideological devotees for years, decades, and finally generations.

On occasions, social and political forces have a power which transcends the capacity of any government or group of governments to control.  The months and years immediately following the end of World War II in Europe and the revelations regarding the magnitude of the Nazi campaign of racial extermination now called the "Holocaust" was such an occasion.

The movement to create (or, perhaps more accurately, to recreate) the ancient Jewish homeland in the former territories of the Ottoman Empire known as Palestine had been underway in a series of fits and starts since the late Nineteenth Century.  The confusingly ambiguous bit of British political expediency executed during the worst days of World War I known as the Balfour Declaration provided some seeming basis for the creation of a "Jewish National Homeland" in the Ottoman occupied territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.  A brilliantly worded bit of diplomatic gibberish, the Balfour Declaration appeared to provide either (A) the foundation of a Jewish state or (B) a Jewish homeland inside an Arab state or (C) both.

The Arabs resident in the land more or less affected by the Declaration both cooperated with and bitterly opposed the transfer of land from Arab to Jewish ownership. Some Arabs, primarily absentee landowners, were quite willing to sell their land to Jews.  Other Arabs, primarily lesser landholders and ambitious Muslim clerics, frothed with opposition.  Several times the opposition turned violent particularly when the crowds were lashed by sermons preached by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a man who was so antisemitic as to make Adolph Hitler seem a Hebrewphile in comparison.

The British ran the place as they did the neighboring territory called back then "the Trans-Jordan."  The British government was at best given to vacillation regarding the settlement of Jews in the territory given to their mandate by the League of Nations.  Most of the time both the British Army and Foreign Ministry were dominated by Arabists given to a romantic view of the Arabs.  In practice this meant the relevant officials on the ground in the region as well as back in London tilted British policy to fit the desires, not to say demands, of the Arabs.  Even as the Nurenberg War Crimes Tribunal was hearing the evidence of the mass slaughter of the Jews of Europe as a state policy, the British government and its minions in Palestine consistently favored the Arab position of total opposition to the creation of even a minimalist form of Jewish National Homeland.

The revelations of the Nazi state policy of mass slaughter did have a profound impact on many people both in Europe and the US.  Americans were notably disturbed by the images and testimony of gas chambers and death transports.  While mild and "gentlemanly" antisemitism had been a common currency in the US prior to the end of the war, all such attitudes and behaviors were set aside with rapidity and vigor under the impact of the tales of savage, premeditated murder on a scale previously unthinkable.

The US became a supporter of the more expansive interpretation of the Balfour Declaration.  This support was not highly visible.  It was not one of loud voices in Congress or demonstrations in the street.  This was not the American way in those more innocent days.  Still, the mood of We the People was evident.  There was a sense of collective guilt within much of the American elite.  We had stood silent on the sidelines during the Thirties.  We had refused to believe the first horrifying stories of persecution as they oozed out of Germany and German occupied territory.  During the war, we had done nothing to impede the machinery of slaughter even as our government (like that of the UK) became increasingly aware of its existence.

Guilt required atonement.  The atonement took the form of supporting the creation of a Jewish state in the mandated territory of Palestine.  It can and has been argued that the American guilt feelings had the net result of transferring misery from the Jews of Europe to the Arabs of Palestine.  There may be a shred of truth to this.  But, if so, it is irrelevant.

The US did its dead level best to see the Jewish state brought into existence peacefully with the least possible ill-effects for the already resident Arab population.  We bent much diplomatic influence to this task.  The influence was backed with money.  We invoked the UN.  We tried negotiation.  We urged the Arab governments to step back, work with us in solving a problem which had an impact on the Jews of Europe, the Arab Muslims of the Mideast, and other people and religions far from both the Mideast and Europe.  To us, the problem of the Jewish state was an affair which had meaning and impact for humanity generally.

The crux of the problem, the single reason a diplomatic question became a shooting war rests not with the Jews of Europe seeking a permanent sanctuary nor with the ideology of Zionism.  The responsibility for the wars does not reside with the US or with the European states.  Most assuredly, it does not rest with the pro-Arab men of the British government and military.  No.  None of these can have the tail of fault pinned on their behinds.

All the responsibility for the war and the refugees rests solely with the Arab governments of the day.  Well. to err on the side of accuracy, some of the blame must rest with the Muslim clerics who preached not only holy war against the hated Jews and their infidel supporters but also called upon Arab Muslims to leave their homes, to flee to the protection of the armies of the faithful so as to return in victory behind the conquering tanks of the believers.

Arab tanks were rolling.  Arab artillery was firing.  Arab infantry were shooting.  All even before the new state of Israel proclaimed its existence.  The war was on, declared not by words but by shooting, shelling, and bombing long before any state could recognize the existence of the new state.

The Arab armies moved long before the UN could urge peace.  The Arab armies sought to extinguish the nascent Jewish state before any UN resolution seeking a peaceful ending could be introduced let alone passed and put into effect.  The so-called "Catastrophe" was made by Arabs. Period.  End of discussion.

The same applies in the main to the production of the pitiful columns of refugees and the long, bitter aftermath in the camps.  The important phrase here is, "in the main."  For the Jews do not have clean hands in the matter of forced evacuations.

It is important to remember that to the shame and discredit of Israel then and now, some Jewish militia units, particularly those of the Palmach, engaged in atrocities intended to force Arabs from their ancestral homes, to ethnically cleanse land which would be incorporated in the Jewish state.  Unarmed civilians including old men, women, and children were massacred on a scale not different from that practiced by Serbians against their Muslim fellow citizens.  To the further discredit of the government of Israel, it did its best to cover up the evidence of the atrocities for decades.  It has been only recently that the relevant documents have come to light--due to the efforts of Israeli historians whose dedication to their craft overpowered feelings of patriotism.

However, the primary responsibility resides with Arab governments and Muslim clerics who used all manner of persuasion to convince Arabs to pack up and leave in the full (and false) expectation of a speedy and victorious return.  In the wars of independence, as in the Six Day War nearly twenty years later, the Arab states and Muslim clerics were co-conspirators in crimes against the Arabs of the disputed lands.

However, the Arab states and Muslim cleric were not alone in the commission of the offense.  They were aided and abetted by the UN.  The UN formed an office tasked with the resettlement, relief, and care of the refugees.

Admittedly, the UN sincerely if misguidedly conceived of the operation as short-lived, a temporary humanitarian expedient which would end with the coming of peace.  Unfortunately, the oft-seen process of the temporary becoming permanent worked once again with the UN effort at relief, resettlement, and reintegration of the Palestinian displaced persons.  The ever expanding network of refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, Jordan, and elsewhere took on a life of its own.  A new, always growing bureaucracy of refugee relief workers became a permanent feature of the human terrain of the Mideast.

The reason for this resides not so much with the UN bureaucrats as it does with the Arab states.  To the various governments of the so-called "frontline" states, the refugees and their camps became welcome pawns and tools in the forever war being waged by these states against Israel.  There was no desire on the part of any of these governments to see the Palestinian refugees effectively integrated into their own populations.

At the same time, assorted ambitious political leaders within the refugee population saw their way to power, status, and (dare it be written) wealth rested with keeping the refugees in their degraded and alienated position.  And, in the shadow, there were more than a few clerics of the political Islam tendency who saw advantage in having the rootless refugees available as potential recruits in the overarching holy war against Jews and infidels alike.

An unintended combination of international aid workers, agenda driven clerics, and self-interested states assured the camps and their wretched inhabitants would stay as a major feature of the social and political landscape of the region.  And, so it is today.  And, so it will stay tomorrow absent a severe alteration of the stances of the frontline governments as well as the leadership of the new unity government of Hamas and the Fatah dominated Palestinian Authority.

Arguably, the UN office, now called UNRWA, is the single major player in altering the terrain of camps and refugees.  Considering the existence of the Palestinian Authority, it can be asserted fairly that the camps as well as the UN bureaucracy no longer needs to exist.  Further, it is not inaccurate to argue that the best thing that UNRWA can do on behalf of its wards is to go out of existence.

By ceasing to exist, UNRWA would compel the Palestinian Authority including its Hamas branch to take proper responsibility for the well being of its citizens.  The reality now is that Palestinians are not and should not be wards of a giant and hugely expensive but inefficient welfare bureaucracy.  Rather, they are citizens of a nascent state with a government which exists in all but name.

UNRWA must go.  That is it must go if the UN is serious about being concerned about the best interests of the refugees and their descendants.  The wars which produced the refugees ended more than forty years ago. The youngest of the authentic refugees are in their mid-sixties.  It is long overdue to blow the whistle on UNRWA and tell the refugees and their third generation descendants that they are not going home--that where they live right now is home.

Of course UNRWA will not do the right thing.  The bureaucrats, the international aid workers, are not about to give up their phony jobs.  The chiefs and their chief assistants are not about to say give us no more money, our work here is done.

That is evident in the latest sob story out of UNRWA.  The violins are weeping in the background as the high minded, lofty thinking folks at the agency dry their tears over the very high unemployment in Gaza.  There is no end of gnashing of teeth, beating of breasts, and pulling of hair over the human costs of the unemployment which (stand by to be shocked) is caused solely by the Israeli "blockade" of Gaza.

Of course this interpretation is a mass of pooh-pooh.  The real deal is that Gaza under Hamas has no economic reason to exist.  Beyond that, it has been the policies and actions of Hamas which have made the Israeli "blockade" necessary.  As long as UNRWA exists to take up the slack, to feed, to house, to educate, to medicate, to apologize for, and generally tend to the so-called refugees, there will be no effective pressure on either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority to act like a responsible government and create the conditions and context necessary to assure that Palestine has an economic reason to exist as well as the ability to attract investment capital and create employment.

Down in the religious and political mire of the Arab states, deep under the cover of the "Arab Spring," each and every government continues to cynically exploit the "refugees" as part of their forever war against the Jews and their infidel supporters.  Commensual with the cynics of mosque and chancery are the self-serving and self-preserving international bureaucrats and aid workers of UNRWA.  This unlikely but lethal troika keeps its collective boot firmly on the neck of the Palestinian "refugees."

Pity the poor Palestinians.  Not for their unemployment.  Not for their alleged poverty.  Not for their purported longing for long lost olive groves and stone huts.  Pity them for their delusions.  Pity them for having been manipulated, propagandized, used, and exploited by cynics in the mosque, cynics in the chanceries of all the Arab states, and cynics at Turtle Bay.  Pity the Palestinians most of all for having died in their spirit, for having thrown away their own autonomy in order to become an army of automatons ordered, directed, and controlled by people who have nothing but contempt for them.

Pity the Palestinians, hollow shells of one time humanity, sacrificed on the alters of ambition.  Look at them in their mobs, their multitudes of misery, and remind yourself that once they were human.

Co-opting To The Extreme

Crane Brinton in his classic study of offensive insurgencies Anatomy of Revolution focused on a critical dynamic found in most insurgencies which he called "co-option to the left."  By this he meant the process by which all offensive insurgencies (those which seek a total reconstruction of the political, social, and economic order of a state) move continuously to the Left, a trajectory to the ever more extreme.  The dynamic is reversed with the inevitable reaction.  The reaction sees a continuous move to an ever more extreme Rightest position.

It has been interesting to see a akin process at work in several Muslim venues.  The only difference between that which is seen currently in Muslim locations as diverse as the Gaza Strip and Chechnya and the one described by Brinton is the ideological basis.  In Muslim societies the predicate is religious while the examples employed by Brinton were secular in nature.

Let's take a quick dekko at Gaza.  Hamas shot its way to power as a nationalistic entity with the larger goal of ending Israel as a sovereign state.  The lads of Hamas had far more familiarity with crude rockets, AK-47s, and suicide vests than the Koran or Haddith.  In addition to their long standing and now defeated rival, the Fatah dominated Palestinian Authority, Hamas faced other rivals most notably Islamic Jihad.

Islamic Jihad and other, smaller groups were every bit as dedicated to the dubious proposition of wiping Israel off the map.  Beyond this the rival groups expounded an austere version of Islam based as was that of Taliban on the Wahhibist interpretation favored by Saudi Arabia.  Hamas found itself under challenge not for a deficiency of zeal in seeking to kill Israelis but in its dedication to the One True Faith.

To meet this threat Hamas has moved speedily to the extreme.  It has called and raised its rivals in religious enthusiasm and commitment to the strictures of Islam.  In quick order Hamas moved to force the citizens of Gaza to act like Muslims--or else.  In ways completely devoid of surprise, the weight of the new Hamas Live Up To Mohammad campaign fell on women.

Hamas shoved women back into garbage sacks from which they had long been liberated.

It moved on to suppress women so boldly un-Islamic as to puff water pipes in public.

Then coed beaches were banned.  As was swimming apparel more revealing than the landlocked garbage bags.

A man on a motorbike with a woman riding behind him?  No way!  Mixed sex groups at a cafe?  Forget it!  A public display of the mildest affection?  Call the cops!

If necessary Hamas will emulate Taliban in all respects.  School for girls?  Yer outta your mind.  Women working?  Against the will of Allah.

Badda-bing!  We, the Fearless Warriors of Hamas have proven ourselves far more truly Muslim than the wannabes of Islamic Jihad and the rest.  We can oppress women better!

Lest one think that only thuggish groups comprising pretend governments can enter the Live Pure Or Die! contest, Chechnya is a case study.  In that insurgency wracked backwater of Russia, the insurgency oriented adherents of violent political Islam are in the process of being religiously outpointed by the handpicked local chieftain put in place by Vladimir Putin with the demand that the situation "be clarified and put to order."

While there is a strong odor of violent political Islam in the air of Chechnya, the insurgents are primarily oriented toward gaining independence from Moscow.  The agenda is: Independence first, Shariah later.  For most Chechans, most of the time, the fashion statements and etiquette requirements of Islam are not of great moment.  The insurgent leadership has not wasted time, energy, or legitimacy on insisting that women show no more of themselves than one or two eyes or putting chastity barriers between the sexes.

The Moscow subservient government of Chechnya has taken up the cause of Islamic morality.  Thugs in the employ of the government both uniformed and not have been set out in pursuit of un-garbage bagged women, as well as women in the company of men other than their brothers, fathers, or husbands.  Condign and salutary beatings have been freely and publicly administered to women found not in compliance with the new government standards of appropriate Islamic apparel and conduct.

The government is saying to all Muslim Chechens, "See, we oppress women best.  We are the True Embodiment of the True Faith, you must rally to us--or be branded apostate."

There is a problem here, Moscow.  You see, your local heavyweights have misread the situation.  Chechnya is not Afghanistan of fifteen years ago.  It isn't even Gaza today.  It is not the right place for an imitation Taliban.

In Chechnya, a very traditional society, custom dictates that it is the father, or the husband, who has the sole responsibility and authority to determine what constitutes proper Islamic clothing or behavior for his daughters or wife.  Not the government.  Not even the nationalistic insurgents.  Islam in practice, Islam as it has an effect on daily life, is not even the province of the local cleric.  It is the sole prerogative of the man of the house, archaic as that term may be to Westerners.

Pakistan is balancing precariously on a tipping point between continuing as it has--an Islamic republic with notable secular features--or becoming a quasi-theocracy of the Taliban variety.  In the contest with the Taliban of Pakistan and related groups, the pressure on the government to get out in front of the anti-government forces in applying severe strictures is intense and may prove irresistible.

Much of the population of Pakistan is already far to the religious "right" of the government.  To keep its slim hold on power, the government may see the least-worst option is that of adopting a more-Muslim-than-thou approach.  Proving it can oppress women better may be the course of action most attractive to the men of the current elite and the government it controls.

A lurch to the religious extreme would have severe and immediate repercussions in the already tenuous relation between the US and Pakistan.  A government crackdown on immodest dress or "immoral" behavior on the part of women particularly if combined with a Taliban or al-Shabaab campaign against music, movies, dancing, or anything smacking of fun would not sit well with many in the US government to say nothing of many of We the People.

But, desperate governments undertake desperate actions.  Faced with an imminent loss of power, a seismic shift to Wahhibism on steroids is not only thinkable but the only thinkable proposition.  The potential of American opposition, of a weakening of US support, will be discounted on two predicates: The US needs Pakistan too much and, what the hey, the US can accept the Saudi oppression of women.

Both rationalizations may prove true.  But, before the government of Pakistan considers adopting the out-Taliban-Taliban approach it might recall the joy with which those Pakistanis who had at first welcomed Taliban came to despise and fear the Men of Turban and Koran.  Despise them so much that the incoming Pakistani forces were welcomed literally as liberators.

Having no fun in life wears thin.  Just ask an Iranian.

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A Modest Proposal For Hamas--And Mr Obama

On 20 June 2010 President Obama played the game of Let's Pretend again. This time the Nice Young Man From Chicago decided to pretend that Hamas is a real, honest-to-gosh, all get out, for real, bottle in bond, triple X super-refined, sure enough government.

That's right, bucko, the POTUS has determined from and for reasons explicable only to himself that Hamas is no longer a terrorist entity which shot its way into power in the Gaza Strip whereupon it launched a rocket rain of terror on portions of Israel while entrenching and enriching itself by the open exploitation of those people unfortunate enough to find themselves at the wrong ends of Hamas controlled guns. Having decided that the current situation in Gaza is completely "unsustainable" the president opined, "it demands fundamental change."

The change envisioned by President Obama's "Announcement on Gaza," is not one which sees the overthrow of the Koran-waving, gun-toting, rocket-firing Mighty Warriors of Islam but its transformation via American declaratory policy into a legitimate government. Demonstrating that this "Announcement" was no mere exercise in patented Obama World Vision rhetoric, the Man in the Oval has put four hundred million of our (well, to err on the side of accuracy, borrowed or made-by-the-Feds-computers) dollars into the hands of Hamas and, to show proper balance, the Palestinian Authority.

The effect of the "Announcement" and the largess with other peoples' money serves to put the Palestinian Authority on an equal footing with Hamas. The logic of this defies rational explication considering that the PA at least makes some pretense of acting like a real, responsible government reluctant to fire rockets into Israel and, at least on occasion, showing some semblance of both democracy and a rule of law. The PA, in sharp distinction from Hamas, has even almost, sort-of, provisionally, allowed that Israel has a right to exist within secure borders.

Hamas has offered not even the slightest hint that it is prepared to (a) make peace with the PA, (b) submit its future to an open, transparent vote by the citizens of Gaza, (c) abandon its commitment to drive Israel into the sea, (d) drop its alliance with Iran, (e) stop its strident anti-Americanism, (f) observe even minimal human rights for its citizens, particularly women, (g) halt its antisemitic indoctrination of children, (h) cease all armed attacks on Israel by any person or group resident in the Gaza Strip and (i) commence an open, transparent, and effective program of economic development such as to benefit all residents of Gaza.

Considering that extensive but incomplete list of features, what is the goal of equating Hamas with the PA? What is the goal of the "Announcement?"

Mr Obama apparently believes that he can transform Hamas from its current nasty reality into a mature, responsible, legitimate government with the issuing of an "Announcement" and the provision of money. Of course, this hallucination is on a par with such previous triumphs of self-delusion as his belief that speaking nice, friendly, soft words to the mullahs of Iran would result in an instant abandonment of the quest for the Mahdi Bomb, a total rejection of supporting terrorist and insurgent groups, and the immediate ending of internal repression.

Perhaps Mr Obama would have done better had he thought in a manner less grand. Consider one less sweeping approach. A less grand move, to be sure, but one which would simultaneously test Hamas' will and ability to act the part of a genuine government and improve the lives and economic futures of the residents of Gaza. It would also directly address an ongoing point of friction between the folks of Gaza on the one hand and the PA on the other.

Electrical power is a point of ongoing distress for the people of Gaza. The operation of the one power plant in Gaza is also a subject of intense friction between Hamas and the PA. After the generating station shut down yesterday, Hamas immediately accused PA of causing the outage in order to "punish the people of Gaza." The PA replied that Hamas was seeking to "incite" the residents of the Strip against the PA.

Consider the following: Gaza receives a jilly-poo ergs per square meter from the sun. The number of cloudy days per year approaches zero. Solar panels, even the newer thin film sort, are no longer expensive to fabricate, although the process does include some very real environmental risks. The associated equipment, controllers, inverters, batteries, and so on are also relatively inexpensive to make and operate. The technology is reasonably mature, well understood, and not hard to master.

Solar based systems can be centralized which allows for the use not only of photovoltaic arrays but also solar heated steam turbines. Or the solar generation can be point-of-use based in the most decentralized way. This means the energy can be produced by either some central bureaucracy or by individuals. In short, this dual capacity obviates the he-who-controls-energy-controls-life tendency of Hamas.

On the human factors side of life, surely Hamas numbers among the creative engineering minds usually employed in designing and making rockets, IEDs, and explosives generally some men who can turn to the challenge of designing and fabricating point-of-use solar systems. Certainly, the large number of unemployed people can provide a labor force capable of making and installing solar systems.

All that is needed is (a) political will and (b) money. Mr Obama has made it obvious that money is available. In fact, the Europeans have been standing in line as well, all eager to toss money in the general direction of Hamas without any safeguards as to its usage beyond those of the pious hope variety. Only the political will on the part of Hamas has been lacking.

The will has been lacking because there has been no percentage for Hamas in doing so. Hamas gets money, lots of money, from various and sundry donors ranging from humanitarian NGOs to well-intentioned governments to governments whose intentions are not so benign. Hamas has been in the position of getting the wherewithal to do its terrorist thing and being freed of any responsibility to assure the citizens have more than the barest of bare essentials.

If Mr Obama entertained a serious desire to see Hamas change its nature from killer to governor, from bomb wielder to economic developer, he would have done something akin to linking American aid to a measurable, observable project such as the development, manufacture, and installation of low cost, point-of-use solar generation. This approach would have put a doable task before Hamas, a put-up or shut-up test as well.

If Hamas accepted the money, the conditions, and passed the it's-a-government-after-all test, the result would have been (a) green jobs, (b) ample electrical energy for residential, commercial, and limited industrial or agricultural use, (c) functional legitimacy with the citizens of Gaza and (d) a solid economic accomplishment of pervasive effect which would mean Hamas finally had something to risk if more rockets were fired with more IAF or IDF responses.

The "Sun Power For Gaza" concept is far from being the only option in the think-small-think-effectively category. It is an illustration of what should--and might--be employed if Mr Obama would only bring his ideas and ego down to mere human size. Grandiose pronouncements are fine, wonderful even--if substance and results are not considered.

Smaller ideas, lesser goals, do not sound nearly so magnificent. They do, however, have an advantage over their greater cousins. They lead somewhere. They accomplish something. The ancient Chinese put it succinctly and accurately, "The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step."

And, Mr Obama might be reminded, no journey can be completed with a single step.

Ready! Aim! Shoot Yourself In The Foot!

Sometimes the ability of the government of Israel (GOI) to blunder is nothing less than mind blowing. The deadly confrontation between "peace activists" and the commandos of the Israeli navy is one of those times. To put the matter short, sharp, and accurate, it was a needless, counterproductive blunder which a responsible government never would have contemplated, let alone authorized.

The drama unfolded almost as slowly and compelling in its foreboding as the long, slow, majestically threatening progress of the Royal Navy to the Falkland Islands almost thirty years ago. To a person of a classical bent, the coming of the clash between boatloads of pro-Palestinian propagandists, assorted I-hate-Israel-and-Jews types, and general malcontents and the naval forces of Israel unrolled with the inevitability of Nemesis confronting the hubris laden protagonist in an Athenian tragedy.

The Turkish sponsored maritime cavalcade of unneeded "relief" and "humanitarian" supplies accompanied by terrorists, terrorist apologists, and terror tourists was intended to put GOI on the spot. An uncomfortable, no-way-to-spell-winner sort of spot. The hugely publicized international flotilla departing from points as far removed as Ireland, Algeria, and Turkey was simply bait waved in a most attractive way before GOI. The hope and prayer of the organizers of this exercise in fraudulent humanitarianism was that GOI would take the bait--preferably in the most visible and bloody way possible.

Given the resources available to GOI, there can be no doubt but the information concerning the motives and goals of the flotilla folks was available. Given the vast experience GOI has collected regarding hostile provocations, there can be no doubt but GOI understood what was at stake if the navy was sent in to block the boats and their passengers from reaching Gaza.

There must have been both information and understanding within GOI and the IDF that among the passengers there would be individuals prepared for violence. Eager to go violent should the opportunity present itself.

GOI should have known that blood would flow if Israeli forces boarded any of the vessels, particularly either of the two largest, most passenger packed ones. If ordered in, the commandos would have been entering a red ant nest. At least some of the ants would bite.

The constant warnings issued multiple times per day the past week by GOI were seen by the oncoming "activists" not as a reason to be cowed, but as one of an emboldening nature. The warnings were correctly read as signifying the Israelis would enter one or more ships violently. Those who were primed to respond violently were fully prepared, stoked up, and good to go.

In the wake of the operation, GOI has protested that its troops were met with steel bars, knives, and, at least some firearms. The GOI and IDF spokesmen have stated that their threatened troops used "crowd dispersal methods, including live fire."

Duh!

How drearily predictable. Troops abseil from helicopters in hours of darkness. Troops are met with immediate low scale violence, clubs and knives rather than automatic weapons and RPGs. Troops respond in self-defense. "Activists" die. Outrage erupts from Tehran to Europe. Israel gets big, very black eye in global media and the hordes of politicians and opinion molders for whom Israel has become the blackest of black hats.

Hamas wins. Hezbollah wins. Even the hapless Palestinian Authority wins. On the margins, Iran wins; Syria wins: Islamists everywhere win.

Wow! GOI made one shrewd move here. Right on the heels of being branded by 188 countries as a sort of nuclear brigand, Israel now looks as if it has once more adopted the role of Goliath while the role of poor, little, ole David goes to the minions of Hamas and their external supporters.

Game, set, and match to the bad guys.

One has to wonder what sort of mental pathology infected the presumably mature, intelligent, and responsible members of GOI and the senior ranks of the IDF. Did they really, really believe that so much lethal hardware would be smuggled into Gaza among the air conditioners, aspirin, generators, and one-size-fits-all burkas as to present a threat to Israel?

Of course there were warlike stores on board the humanitarian fleet. Even if weapons were conspicuous in their absence, the cement and other building supplies would more likely go to the construction of bunkers for Hamas' security forces than for civilians displaced during Cast Lead.

Or, did the Deep Thinkers and Grand Strategists of GOI really, really convince themselves that Israel would suffer such a blow to its credibility should the "activists" make it to Gaza as to so embolden Hamas and other Islamist jihadist groups as to be the equivalent of a major defeat in the battle for public opinion throughout the world? Is the current situation somehow preferable? Is it more in keeping with the national and strategic interests of Israel that GOI and the IDF be portrayed as a collection of blood drenched thugs interchangeable in all respects with the Waffen SS?

An unfortunate ground truth is that public opinion in Europe and even the US has shifted slowly but with increasing speed away from Israel and to the Palestinians. The shift commenced during the First Intifada when TV cameras gave fine images of Palestinian kids confronting M-16 toting IDF personnel. The shots of the IDF shooting real bullets or Shin Bet operatives conducting beatings moved opinion to the side of the Palestinians.

There is an even more unfortunate ground truth acting in tandem with that of opinion shift. In recent decades the image and not the substance, the appearance rather than the reality is the critical factor in war and diplomacy as it is in domestic politics.

The realities of the First or Second Intifadas matter nothing as compared to the images conveyed, the perceptions manipulated by these images, and the actions forced on governments by the collective impact of the perceptions. GOI must be aware of this as its members must know perfectly well the imperatives contained in the twin ground truths mentioned.

Even if the collective memory of GOI is too short to recall the two Intifadas, it must comprehend the impact of Operation Cast Lead. The compelling justifications for this legitimate act of self-defense including the supine reaction of the UN to repeated GOI requests for action count as nothing against the images and perceptions captured, manipulated by forces quite hostile to Israel.

Regardless of its military or political successes, Operation Cast Lead was a disaster for Israel in the most critical venue, that of public perception and opinion. The same calculus applies to the IDF descent upon the "humanitarian flotilla."

The reality that those on board landed the first blow or fired the first shot does not matter in the slightest. Nor does it matter in the least that the commandos fired in self-defense or to rescue comrades captured by the "activists."

All that matters is the existence of ten, or fourteen, or sixteen corpses. The cadavers of those "activists" unfortunate enough to be in the impact zone are the symbols of victory. Victory for Hamas and its ideological ilk.

The sorrow and pity in this latest defeat for Israeli interests is found in its quite unnecessary nature. Unlike Operation Cast Lead, there is and can be no compelling justification (unless an atomic bomb, or, less impossible, a flask of anthrax is found on board one of the ships) for the assault and its predictable results.

As the sequelae of this defeat are played out in the weeks and months to come, GOI must keep in mind the reason for any and all negative effects. Any gangrene which sets in for the national and strategic interests of Israel will be the result of a self-inflicted wound.

Hey, Chief! What About Chavez The Terrorist?

President Obama and (as he loves to put it--repeatedly) "his team" had best take a second, longer, and much closer look at Hugo Chavez and his merry crew of friends and colleagues both inside and without the "Bolivarian Revolution." The president's previously expressed view that Hugo (The Mouth of the South) Chavez does not represent a threat to the US or its interests just does not square with reality.

The finding the other day by the Spanish judiciary holding a direct linkage existed between Chavez's regime, the narco/criminal/insurgent group FARC, and the Basque separatist insurgent entity ETA is but one more (almost superfluous) nail in the Obama version of the Rodney King Dictum: "Can't we just all get along together?" Mr King's plaintive cry was both touching and justifiable; for the president of the United States to echo it in practice is destructive of national interest and appropriate only to someone living in an alternative reality.

For reasons both personal and political Hugo Chavez must oppose the US, must be hostile to its interests, must operate in any and all ways possible to undermine American efforts and policies both in the region, and, if possible, elsewhere in the world. He is personally more hostile to the US than were such obvious American foes as Stalin and Hitler. For them the opposition was merely business, the requirement of policy per se. For Chavez the motivations come from some deep personal well of antipathy as well as the dictates of politics.

As the Spanish judge noted in his findings Chavez's regime engaged the services of both FARC and ETA in the task of pursuing targets marked for assassination. The assassinations were intended to terrorize opponents of Chavez both internal and foreign based--most notably the president of Columbia, Uribe. In short, Chavez is the sponsor of terrorism.

Chavez and his regime have cultivated close and growing ties with Hezbollah and Hamas as well as the chief sponsor of these groups, Iran. The "Bolivarian" government has provided facilities and support to representatives and agents of both Hezbollah and Hamas. This means he is just as much a sponsor of terrorism as Iran.

There is an increasing body of information showing that operatives of both jihadist groups are working closely with assorted narcotrafficker syndicates in Venezuela, which has become an increasingly critical shipment point for product destined to both Europe and North America. This development implies that Hamas and Hezbollah personnel as well as their Iranian or Syrian "advisors" will have increasing access to the sophisticated smuggling systems established to funnel contraband into the US.

The evidence was clear a year ago. It is far more so today. Venezuela is a state sponsor of terrorism. The only missing link when Mr Obama took office was a straightforward finding by a court of competence to the effect that Venezuela aided, abetted, or engaged in the use of terror as an instrument of state policy.

There is no missing link now thanks to the ability and courage of a single Spanish judge. And, make no mistake about it, the judge was correct. His correctness has been underscored by the howls and squeals of protest and denial originating in Caracas. The desperate wiggling of Chavez and Company is seen best with the recycling of the Interpol discredited Venezuelan assertion that evidence extracted from the laptop once belonging to FARC's number two honcho by the Columbian government more than a year ago was counterfeit.

Sorry, Hugo, that wingless airplane will not fly. Interpol is not, as you allege, a mere tool of the Yankee imperialists. Your position to the contrary is akin to the Iranian allegation that the IAEA has been taken over by the US.

The time has come for a change in American policy. It is time to add Venezuela to Iran, Cuba, Sudan, and Syria as a state which sponsors terrorism. It is time for the consequences of that designation to be applied to Caracas and environs. To put it bluntly, it is time for the Obama administration and the president to encounter one more unpleasant reality: Hugo Chavez and his regime are hostile to the US and a clear threat to its interests in the region as well as here at home.

A nice smile and a quick willingness to say, "I am not George W. Bush," does not win friends nor influence states. These politically valuable features do not make the US any less likely to be threatened or even attacked by those who wish us ill. That group includes not only Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, or Islamists only; it includes Venezuela's Maximum Leader as well.

Mr Obama, Hugo Chavez and his "Bolivarian Revolution" have met the test as a state sponsor of terrorism. Don't you have the intellectual and moral courage necessary to match that of a single Spanish judge and accept reality as it has been shown to be?

Talk About Bad Timing!

In the Great Game of Nations complexity is the rule. This being the ground truth, the main rule of the matter it ill behooves a country to make the game even more complex. However, this is what the Obama administration has managed to do in its so far bootless effort to constrain Iranian nuclear ambitions.

To be quite fair events outside the control of the administration have also served to render the Iranian nuclear question even more complex and resistant to solution. The specific event here is the killing of Hamas heavyweight Mahmoud al-Mabhou in Dubai.

The specific complication for which the Obama administration must take full responsibility is the sale of defensive weapon systems to Taiwan at almost the very moment that Secretary of State Clinton was making threats against Beijing in Paris. The administration acknowledged the obvious in advance: That the Chinese would go exoatmospheric over the sale.

Still, the sale and the threat of "diplomatic isolation" went on in apparent tandem. It is bizarre enough to utter dark predictions of evil consequences which would ensue upon the Trolls of Beijing continuing their opposition to another round of UN sanctions given that China is soon to be the second largest economy on the planet and holds oodles and oodles of Uncle Sam's IOUs with more on route. It is beyond the merely bizarre to assert such threats when the US needs the understanding cooperation of Beijing on many levels far more than the Chinese need Washington.

China may not veto any new round of Security Council sanctions, but it is not likely to abide by them. The same may be said of the Russians--and other countries. Even if Russia is on board with another sanction effort, it is less than probable that it would move to enforce them. Also questionable is the continued will and resolve of either Germany or France to take the economic hit of actually curtailing the thriving trade which businesses in both nations have carried on with the Iranians.

The cover for major sanction busting is already in place. It is provided by the internal opposition to the mullahocracy. An easy argument to the effect that any particular sanction requirement might hurt the Iranian people but not the government or Revolutionary Guard Corps exists.

Even if not true, even if the sanctions are narrowly directed against the Revolutionary Guard and other governmental entities, it may be said with a more-or-less straight face that the ultimate effect of any particular sanction (such as one hitting the gasoline deficiencies in the country) can be seen as weakening the opposition by hurting the person in the street. Thus, sanctions no matter how worded will be porous to the extreme.

The US has pinned too many hopes on the sanctions. So far none have worked. None are likely to given the resistance of the Trolls of Beijing and the ability of others to excuse sanction violations. As a result there exist two almost equally unpleasant alternatives: Accept Iran as a nuclear capable power and pray for sanity in Tehran or use the "military option."

In the interim the administration has to accept the probability that Iran will strike at Israel using proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah. That the administration is doing just this is seen in the recent comment by former Marine general and current National Security Advisor, James Jones, that such are both probable and near term.

The near term just became shorter with the killing of the Hamas commander in Dubai. No matter who precisely suffocated (or electrocuted following torture) the guy, Hamas has already (surprise here) pointed the finger at Mossad. While it is equally probable that al-Mabhouh was killed by individuals in no way connected with either Mossad or Israel, the "Zionist entity" will be held responsible not only by Hamas but Tehran.

The Iranians are the largest supporter of Hamas as they are Hezbollah. Unlike Hezbollah which is subject to a fair amount of Syrian influence if not control, Hamas is answerable only to Tehran. The consequence is simply that if the interests of both are served, the resulting unity will assure Hamas takes its best shot at Israel (including Israel's external interests.)

The consequence of the new Dubai complication does reinforce the message of SecState Clinton to Beijing: That Iran is key to (in)stability in the region and this will redound to either the advantage or disadvantage of China.

The only bright ray of hope in the current set of reinforcing complexities is to be found in the inherent Chinese distaste for instability. More than most Western governments and societies turbulence of a social and political sort is anathema to the Chinese. If their Mideast/Persian Gulf regional experts are on the ball, the possibilities for burgeoning instability resident not only in the Iranian bomb dream but in the Iranian use of proxies against Israel and others will be properly highlighted for their bosses' attention and action.

Of course, the promptings of regional experts will be drowned out at least in the near future by the sense of outrage resounding around the Forbidden City in the wake of the US selling gigabucks of hardware to a recipient considered by the Trolls to be a province in rebellion. The rights and wrongs of this position are manifold but the consequences are not. China is not likely to heed either the threats of Secretary Clinton or the advice of their in-house experts.

So what?

So, the Obama administration can set yet one more deadline for Tehran's compliance. Or not. The end is the same. Iran will continue to pursue the bomb. The Israelis will have a very difficult decision to make. Hamas will seek to kill more.

Like some Frenchman once wrote, "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

Obama And Mubarak Bet On The Wrong Horse

While the reports on the meeting between Hosni Mubarak and President Obama are skimpy in the details department, one thing (other than the hyperbolic mutual congratulations) is apparent. Both men are wedded to the notion that a joint Hamas-Fatah run Palestinian Authority will be dominated by the older, larger group, Fatah. In this they are as wrong as a soup sandwich.

As laid out in a previous post, the most Islamist jihadist elements of both groups, particularly Hamas, are driving the political direction of the Palestinian movement generally and the PA in particular. The dynamic is well understood historically, and if not inevitable in the current situation, it is the next thing to that.

Further, there can be no doubt that Hamas, like Hezbollah, is a subsidiary of Iran. Neither the Iranians nor Hezbollah have made any bones about this. Nor, have either said that Hamas in independent of Tehran. Quite the contrary, Tehran has taken some credit for the success of Hamas. Thus the inference that Hamas is a tail being wagged by the Iranian dog is not the creation of Israeli paranoia or self-serving.

Egypt has much riding on the accomplishment of a Hamas-PA rapprochement, considering the time and political capital the Mubarak government has expended on the effort. While Egypt may benefit in some way by bringing the shotgun marriage of two unequal, unsuited for each other parties into existence, this does not mean the search for a comprehensive Mideast peace will benefit as well.

Even without the odious influence of the mullahocracy, the climate of loathing and religious justification for both the feeling and violent expressions based upon it do not bode well for any sort of peace. In a real sense too much blood has flowed over the dam during the past half century and more for hatred and the desire for revenge to be put on some faraway shelf in a back closet.

The Islamist jihadists within the Palestinian population as well as their similarly minded supporters elsewhere in the Mideast have shown the capacity to pile demand on top of demand until the Israelis have no choice beyond the stark one of rejection or accepting an existential risk. No government willingly has or will place its population at risk of attack, fear, and death (with the exception of Hamas which has a splendid record of doing just this.)

The road to peace, if there is any, does not run through Cairo. Nor does it run through Gaza. It doesn't even travel through the territories currently governed by the PA.

The route toward peace requires removing the outside support currently backing the Islamist jihadists of both Gaza and the West Bank. The Islamist jihadists must be isolated, marginalised, made trivial. This means their outside supporters--headed by Syria--have to be brought to the table.

As has been written here numerous times, Syria has the most to gain by making peace with Israel. Syria wants the Golan Heights. Period.

The US, the Obama administration, should immediately proceed to offer a deal to Syria: Drop your connections to Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, and we will put the Godzilla on Israel to hand back the Golan.

Then the Obama-ites have to do just that. Sure, the Israelis will scream like bloody murder as they want to keep the water and other resources of the Golan Heights. But, they have a lot to gain by giving up this particular segment of the Great Land Grab War of 1967--severing Syria from both Hezbollah and Hamas.

Without Syria the aid given by Iran to both terrorist groups will be rendered unimportant. The situation on the Lebanon front would be stabilized. (And, would be even more stable if US objections to Syrian "meddling" in Lebanon would be lowered.)

Without Syria the task of supplying and guiding Hamas would be made much more difficult for the mullahs of Iran. If Egypt were to get really, really serious about policing their side of the border with Hamastan, the flow of weapons and other deadly materials as well as much of Hamas' economic base would be reduced--greatly.

A further benefit could accrue to the US by brokering a deal with Syria and normalizing our relations with the country. Syria would respond by upping their efforts to control their side of the Syria-Iraq border which would put something of a crimp in the recent wave of (probable) Sunni executed bombing attacks in Baghdad and elsewhere.

Not bad, eh, bucko?

The fundamental problem of President Obama's current tactics in the Mideast is his propensity for putting pressure on Israel over the wrong "settlements"--and his willingness to back the wrong main man in the Arab states.

Hosni Mubarak is not the correct man right now. In a real sense his day is past.

Bashir al-Assad is the right man, right now. His day is on us. We need only to realize and act upon this fact. His role in the securing of Mideast peace is critical.

Of course, it is legitimate to wonder if the Obama administration has the wit to recognize this.

Hamas Goes Islamist

Hamas has always been rhetorically inclined toward the Islamist and Islamist jihadist line. But, until quite recently the Islamism of Hamas has been far more oratorical than practical. That has changed.

Hamas has always been seen (and seen itself) as a primarily nationalistic entity oriented toward seizing power in all the territory currently under Arab control as a preliminary to the destruction of Israel. The violent takeover of the Gaza Strip was merely stage one in the process.

It was not long after the Hamas triumph in Gaza that the organization came under increasing pressure from the more totalistic Islamists in their midst. Over the past eighteen months the challenge from the "left," that is the Salifist rooted, al-Qaeda leaning Islamist jihadists, has grown more rapidly than even the extensive instruments of repression at Hamas' disposal could counter.

Belatedly Hamas attempted to get ahead of the Islamist jihadist curve by moving to impose a more austere Shariah predicated view on the population of Gaza. The first sign of this co-option was the requirement for "modest" dress at the beaches of Gaza. This put-the-women-back-in-garbage-sacks effort was quickly followed by other gambits ranging from the banning of mixed gender social events to the closing of coffee houses and Internet cafes and a prohibition against chewing gum.

The efforts failed. Spectacularly.

The extent of the failure was shown dramatically by the Great Mosque Shoot-Out a few days ago. Abdel-Latif Moussa, the jefe grande of the Salifist based group, Jund Ansar Allah (Warriors of God), preached a sermon of direct defiance to the Hamas regime. Hamas responded literally within minutes with an armed attack on the mosque.

The consequent firefight lasted several hours. More than a few of Allah's Warriors and some Hamas gun slingers were sent to Paradise (or its antipodes.) Abdel-Latif reportedly blew himself up as Hamas' gunsels closed in on his house.

End of firefight. But not end of story.

The Jund Ansar Allah drew its membership from the younger components of the Gaza population. These men are and have been bitterly frustrated by the failure of Hamas to establish a properly Islamist polity and society as well as its apparent lack of a will-to-combat against Israel.

The tipping point came with Operation Cast Lead. The ease with which the IDF penetrated the Hamas "defenses" as well as the utter lack of any response by Hamas in the weeks following the IDF withdrawal moved more and more young (and youngish) men into the ranks of JAA and other, smaller, but no less Islamist jihadist groups in the Strip.

Hamas has no choice now but to move further and faster along the road to the most extreme form of Islamist jihadism. In this, their sponsor, Iran, will no doubt be both supportive and gratified.

The continued refocusing by Hamas on Islamist jihadism has a number of implications. None of them are positive from the perspective of forming a Mideast peace deal.

As Hamas goes so also must Fatah and its larger cousin, the Palestinian Authority. While the West Bank areas under the control of the PA are both tranquil and prosperous in comparison to "Hamastan," the PA must contend with its own growing body of Islamist jihadist leaning young men. As the recently concluded Fatah party congress demonstrated, there is an appreciable generation gap in its ranks. At the moment the old men of Fatah hold power but they have been forced to admit representatives of the younger, more militant, far more Islamist jihadist oriented men into the leadership circle.

As in many, if not most, "revolutionary" dynamics there has been, is, and will be a thrust to the "left," the more extreme, more passionate, more simplistic, more totalistic position. While much of Crane Britton's model of revolution has been disproved, this steady move to the extreme remains unchallenged.

The Islamist jihadist worldview is simple, easy to understand. Its goals are firm, well-defined, utterly totalistic in nature. Its dynamic takes advantage not only of a firm base well established in the Muslim faith and its practice over centuries, it also fully taps into the passions driven by frustration, fear, and bitterness. It, like other ideologies including Marxism-Leninism and National Socialism, promises victory. Unlike these other, purely secular faiths, Islamist jihadism promises a win-win: Victory in death by instant passage to Paradise.

No mistake must be made about it: Islamist jihadism has an appeal and a power almost impossible to underestimate. This is equally true whether one accepts the sociological/economic explanation of jihadism or one which focuses on the linkage between personal identity and personal religious belief.

As Islamist jihadism becomes an every increasing driver of the agendas and actions of Hamas and, inevitably, the PA, the quest for the ever elusive goal of a comprehensive peace in the Mideast will become ever more difficult. Not simply because both Hamas and the PA will be more resistant to any form of compromise. Nor because Arab states generally will back the fulminating irredentism in order to protect themselves from Islamist jihadist attack.

While these two factors in and of themselves would be sufficient to put a speed bump of Mount Everest proportions on the road to peace, they will be joined by a third. Israel will match the Arabs intransigence for intransigence.

This tit-for-tat dynamic will ensue not because the current Israeli government is more obstinate than most (although it sure can seem that way) but because any violent action taken by the Arabs must result eventually in an even more violent Israeli response. The Israeli government is not any more loath to defend its people, territory, and interests than is the government of the US or any other country.

As was demonstrated in the long months of constant Hamas attacks, the government of Israel can be very, very patient. It matters not that the patience is required by purely tactical considerations such as assuring minimal world and, more importantly, US disapproval of the IDF counter blow. The critical fact is that all patience comes to an end. The record shows convincingly that when it does, it is the Arabs who suffer the most death, the greater destruction.

The historical record also demonstrates that every time the Arab "tit" is followed by the Israeli "TAT," peace hopes and plans vanish like a desert mirage. This brutal reality is, of course, central to the Islamist jihadist agenda.

The prohibition of chewing gum may seem humorous. The stick-women-back-in-garbage-sacks regulations may be disgusting. In and of themselves these things don't matter--except to those directly involved. Even though the more revolting (to most Westerners at least) aspects of Shariah may violate human rights, the moves by Hamas are no more repugnant than practices already long established in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan.

What is most important, what must be firmly gripped by policy makers in the US, is that the imposition of Shariah is not the end of the Islamist jihadist agenda. No. It is merely the beginning. The next stage is the ramping up of violence, of terror, of attacks on Israeli (and other) civilians. The real deal, the nitty-gritty of the Islamist jihadist game plan, is the total blockage of any Mideast peace.

The initiative rests not with the diplomats or the Deep Thinkers of the Obama administration. The power of decision and action does not reside with genuflections before the totems of Islam. Nor does it lie with those who posit a sociological or economic or educational response to the power of Islamist jihadism.

No. The initiative, the capacity to control the nature and direction of affairs in the Arab-Israeli conflict rests solely with those willing to kill and die in keeping with their True Belief. It rests with the trigger pullers and suicide bombers. More, it lives with those ambitious, driven men who control the pullers of triggers and pushers of clickers.

Whether anyone likes the idea or not, the ground truth is that the game is being run as it has been for some years now by the Islamists, the jihadists, the men of evil. Get a grip on it.

Immovable Object Meets Immovable Object

As predicted the Fatah convention, the first in twenty years, saw the oldest and at one time largest of the Palestinian "resistance" groups trying to outdo Hamas in the militant irredentist category. All that was missing was the physical presence of Arafat complete with checked table cloth on his head and pistol on his hip. His spirit hung heavy in the air of Bethlehem as delegates, old and young, militant and more so, haggled, bargained, and spouted expletives against the Zionist entity.

As the votes were counted in the uncontested re-election of Mahmoud Abbas, the fire breathing folks declared that Fatah would continue resistance to Israel unless its conditions for peace were fully met. The major requirement for Palestinian peace in our time was the full evacuation of the 300,000 or so Israelis from the "settlements" built on land taken from Jordan in the Six Day War including East Jerusalem.

As a conference paper put it with typical Palestinian delicacy, "Fatah will continue to sacrifice victims until Jerusalem is returned clean of settlements and settlers." That seems rather definite, doesn't it?

The Israeli government response was not long in coming. Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu was blunt. His government would not repeat the "mistake" of "evacuating" settlers from the disputed territories of the West Bank. He would not do what former prime minister Sharon did in the Gaza Strip--remove Jewish settlers at bayonet point.

PM Netanyahu pointedly noted that the Israeli withdrawal did not bring peace and security for either the Israelis or the Arabs of the Gaza. No one oriented as to time and place could argue with him on that point. Even before Hamas seized power in the Gaza Strip, Islamist jihadists used the place as a launching point for attacks of all sorts. Since Hamas took over, life has been nasty, brutish, and often short for the citizens of Gaza as Israel was compelled to defend its people and territory against indiscriminate rocket and mortar fire.

The majority of the Israeli public supports Netanyahu's defiant stand. This is particularly true with respect to the "settlements" in and around East Jerusalem. There is no conceivable way that the Israelis will continence a retreat from East Jerusalem. Period.

Israel long ago annexed the entirety of Jerusalem. While the US and other countries do not recognise the annexation, this is quite irrelevant. Even if some miracle provided for the Israelis to agree to move out of the other "settlements" and retreat back across the fossil of the 1949 armistice, the Green Line, there is no possibility that East Jerusalem and its environs would be abandoned to the Arabs.

The Palestinians (along with the Arabs generally) will never accept a peace agreement which leaves East Jerusalem in Jewish hands. The Israelis will never accept a peace treaty which surrenders the Old City and new "settlements" to the Arabs.

Immovable object meets immovable object. There is not any wiggle room for diplomacy to work. For each side, peace without Jerusalem is not worth the price. There is no coinciding interest or set of interests which diplomats can use to lever either party into a less intransigent posture.

The lads of Fatah recognise this. That is why the group with a more than a half century of terrorism behind it is quite willing to grease the skids to compromise (read Israeli surrender) with the blood of "victims."

Fatah has long been indifferent to killing and being killed. As long as the leadership can exhibit the bravery of being out of range, Fatah is quite willing to dispatch suicide bombers, gun-toting commandos, and others filled with murderous rage in the hope that sufficient killing will either undercut Israeli political will or force the tender hearted of the "international community" to pressure Israel into surrender.

Fatah has been every bit as willing as Hamas to use murder and the bodies of its own people as weapons in the never ending war against Israel. Whether called "intafada" or something else, the brutal truth remains that Fatah is ready, willing, able, and eager to use the lives of civilians as its preferred tool of war.

The Fatah tiger has been willing to cover its stripes in recent years with the whitewash of the Palestinian Authority. The stripes have come back during the convention in Bethlehem. The essential difference between Fatah and Hamas is that the latter is much more honest, open, and transparent about its nature, character, and goals than the former.

There is a bit of delightful irony in that Hamas has been undertaking a tendentious charm and smile offensive directed at the Obama administration at the same time as Fatah has been showing its true colors. Of course, the Hamas public relations campaign is undermined by its continued hate Israel rhetoric and actions aimed at the population under its control, which are easily accessed by outsiders on the Internet.

Presumably, the Obama administration has the capacity to understand what is at work with both Fatah and Hamas. Presumably, it is aware that both Hamas and Fatah share the goals of removing Israel from the map. Presumably it is aware that the immovable object dilemma posed by East Jerusalem, the nature of borders, and the Palestinian "right of return," all stand as obstacles to a comprehensive peace treaty which are not reducible by either pressure on Israel or the normal tools of diplomacy.

If President Obama and his plethora of foreign policy "experts" can get a grip on reality, the administration will back off from pressuring Israel. It will re-focus its efforts on Syria, which has the advantage of being a rational actor with one firm requirement for peace with Israel--return of the Golan Heights.

Levering Israel and Syria to the bargaining table and shepherding a treaty between the two will further isolate the Palestinians. It will put another potential wedge in the Arab bloc. It will deprive Hamas of the necessary intermediary between itself and its prime sponsor, Iran.

None of these are inconsiderable goals. Their achievement will not be easy, but the rewards would be worth the effort. The Syrian gambit has a greater probability of success than continuing the present course of attempting to pretend that either Fatah or Hamas contains a single rational brain cell in their collective skulls.

Or, as a second, and viable alternative, the Obama administration can just walk away from the mess. There is little to win and much to lose in continuing the game when the sheer intransigence of all parties is considered.

Yeah, presidents hate to admit they are not all-powerful, but sometimes the truth, painful as it is, hurts less than keeping up the pretense of being able to do the impossible.

Fatah Tries For A Comeback

Nearly a generation has passed since the once dread Fatah had its last plenary conference. The divided, demoralised, and (at least in Gaza) defenestrated group, once headed by Big Time Terrorist and Wannabe Statesman, Yasser Arafat, has fallen on hard times. The conference is scheduled to start shortly in Bethlehem. It looks to be another roadblock to peace.

The draft outline platform calls for such peaceful features as "limited" violence directed against Israeli towns on the wrong side of that ancient artifact from the 1949 truce, the "Green Line," as well as the so-called "wall." The wording of the platform rules out any compromise, or even recognition of Israel--at least as a Jewish state.

The platform--and at least some Fatah leaders such as the worthy in East Jerusalem, Hatem 'Abd Al-Qadar-- demands a "strategic alliance" with Iran. Yep, that would sure be a giant step toward a peace between Arabs and Israel.

While the Likud firebrand and current Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz is over the edge calling the outline draft platform "a declaration of war," the document is neither a roadmap to peace nor a open hand for President Obama. The Men of Fatah seem bound and determined to at least equal the Saudi ForMin in sheer cussedness.

Only by outdoing the Islamist jihadists of Hamas do the Fatahites believe they can overcome both the generation gap and the odor of graft, corruption, impurity, and impiety which clog the noses of so many Palestinans. Only by outdoing the Islamist jihadists of Hamas will it be possible to reclaim the premier status Fatah enjoyed way back when ole Yasser stood at the podium at the UN General Assembly with a pistol on his hip.

Only by outdoing the Islamist jihadists of Hamas will Fatah emerge from the shadows and dominate the lackluster Palestinian Authority and successfully challenge Hamas for the status of capo. Perhaps this is why Mohammed Ghneim has returned after forty years in exile. His return is intended to have two results.

His lesser intention is to boost Mohammed Abbas who has been attacked by another alte kampfer, Farouk Kaddoumi, who accused Abbas of having poisoned Arafat. Sure is a whole lot of brotherly love and good vibes in Fatah, isn't there?

Ghneim's second goal is getting himself elected jefe grande. He sees himself as the anointed, pure successor of Arafat.

Ghneim is an intransigent. That is why he stayed in exile for nearly twenty years after Arafat returned to the West Bank. He had vowed to return only to a "Palestinian state." Now he intends to take the reins of a newly revitalised, again quite militant Fatah and outpoint Hamas so that unity again exists. This, plus a harder hard-line against Israel will make Fatah the single player bringing an (expanded) Palestinian Authority into existence.

None of these developments any more than Hamas' continued bitter opposition to Fatah can give any encouragement to any diplomatic types who vest hope for peace in the upcoming conflab. Nor can a certain Nice Young Man From Chicago currently occupying the Oval Office take any comfort in the launching of Fatah 3.0.

The aging Ghneim is a revolutionary. He still is what Arafat once was many, many years ago, a committed revolutionary coveting a totalistic goal. He is not a statesman in the making. No. The old man of Fatah knows this is his last grasp at the big gold ring. With the help of younger, more radical members of Fatah as well as those whose grudge load against the current PA and Hamas is heavy, he may claim the top job. Then the Mideast will be in for a load more of bloodshed.

After a brief flirtation with a sort of Thermidor, Fatah and the PA is poised for another round of co-option to the left, to the extreme, to more blood and gore. This is a very unpleasant prospect to contemplate. But, it is one on which a grip must be taken.

One might ask if the Obama administration, particularly the President and SecState are up to getting a firm hold on a prickly potential. One might be forgiven for dreading the response.

The Israeli Brief--It's Quite Convincing

There has been any amount of hand-wringing and tooth gnashing over the IDF's Operation Cast Lead. To all too many in the human rights community, the progressive wing of politics, and the entire cast of those impatient with Israel, the general view has been that the IDF went after civilians in an almost barbaric way.

There have been allegations almost without end that the IDF violated the Laws of Land Warfare. That the IDF used indiscriminate means, targeted civilians, used "illegal" weapons such as white phosphorus, shot women and children while grinning, and similar acts of a wanton and abandoned nature. At the same time, the responsibility of Hamas for intentional attacks on civilian targets using weapons of inherently low accuracy was overlooked or downplayed. Similarly, the responsibility of Hamas as the de facto government of the Gaza Strip to take all appropriate measures to remove civilians under their control from areas of impending or actual military operations was pooh-poohed.

Finally the Israelis have released their brief for the defense. It is 164 pages of densely argued, intensively documented evidence and argument countering all the myriad accusations made by Hamas, its Arab supporters, and apologists worldwide. Proceeding from the Doctrine of Inherent Military Probability as the Geek often does, the brief for the defense is sufficient to mark Operation Cast Lead as "Case Closed."

There can be no doubt in the mind of any reader who is not possessed of an anti-Israel predilection that the government of Israel (GOI) and IDF made every effort possible to conduct military operations so as to both follow the assorted international conventions and customs of land warfare and minimise civilian death and destruction. In parallel, the brief gives no room to doubt the contention that Hamas intentionally and repeatedly violated the same laws and customs on a level which boggles the mind.

The Geek, as has been demonstrated in numerous posts, is not a reflexive supporter of GOI and the IDF. Quite the contrary, he has levelled historically valid criticisms at both. Repeatedly.

This time Israel was and is in the right. Period. Balancing this, Hamas was and is in the wrong. Absolutely and completely.

The IDF fought a war within the boundaries of both custom and convention. Yes, civilians were killed and injured. Their property was destroyed and damaged. That is the way war goes. All the relevant international conventions recognise this brutal ground truth concerning war. The mere fact that civilians died, were injured, or became terrified is too bad, but it does not and never has constituted a war crime or a crime against humanity.

The Geek must applaud the IDF and the government which controls it for the restraint shown, care taken, means used to limit and lower the inevitable harm which befell civilians in the Strip. At the same time he must condemn Hamas for its intentional, wanton, and cynically self-serving placement of the civilians under their control at risk, great risk, deadly risk.

Hamas, in common with other Islamist jihadist entities, is a criminal conspiracy which dons the colors of religiously inspired, ethnically based identity politics. There is nothing political in the intentional, repeated placing in hazard of the civilians unfortunate enough to exist under Hamas' sway. Nor is this conduct sanctioned by the Quran except by the most tortured, artificial, tendentious interpretations of clerics who are actually ideologues.

It is time for the tender hearted, the human rights activists, the progressives to get a grip on reality. It is time for these folks and all others who have an interest in both truth and the reduction of the unnecessary civilian butcher's bill in the Mideast to tell it like it is. Hamas is a collection of war criminals, violators of the basic laws seeking to make war something other than the mere slaughter of any and all.

It is time to put the real offender in the dock. The name of that perpetrator is Hamas.

Palestinian Bargaining--An Insider's View

As the Palestinian Authority sees matters, the Israeli's are steadily weakening over time, so there is no reason for the PA to move quickly. Time, as the Arabs see it, is on their side.

In an interview from three weeks ago recently made available to English readers, Saeb Ereqat, the head of the PA's Negotiations Department, projected a confident attitude. Reflecting over the last offer made by the former Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, the Palestinian opined that Israel's political will was eroding to the extent that there would be no need for any Arab concessions on territory, the right of Arab return, or monetary compensation to fugitives and their descendants.

Saeb Ereqat made his assessment without any reference to the pressure being placed upon the government of Israel (GOI) by the Obama administration. Had he done so his confidence might have been greater. Adding in the recent Solana Ultimatum and today's partial embargo by the UK on weapons sales to Israel would have boosted the confidence index to stratospheric levels.

Among the critical points made by Ereqat was the continuation of the Palestinian demand that Israel recognise the PA's sovereignty over all of the West Bank territories seized by the IDF from Jordan during the Six Day War. He contended that this recognition must precede any talks of land swaps such as that proposed by the fading Olmert ministry at the end of nearly two hundred meetings under the provisions of the Annapolis agreements.

The land exchange proposed by Olmert would have seen the small land areas currently housing the overwhelming majority of Israeli citizens in the new West Bank "settlements" for an equal number of square kilometers of unused land as well as a passage zone thirty klicks long and 150 meters wide linking the Gaza Strip with the PA's West Bank territory. Ereqat did not make any objection to this proposal in principle but stated categorically that it could come only after the Israeli recognition of complete PA sovereignty over all the land in question.

What the PA negotiations chief left unmentioned was one simple, small but critical fact. In the event that Israel recognised PA sovereignty over all the territories in question there would be no impetus for the PA to undertake the land exchange. The PA would have all the land including that occupied by Israeli citizens under their full, absolute, and legal control. They could have their cake and eat it too as the old cliche runs.

GOI would be out of its collective mind were it to grant the demanded recognition on nothing more than a PA promise that the land swap would be worked out later. Nothing in the history of Israel indicates that any government no matter what the external pressures might be and regardless of the desire for peace would surrender the fate of nearly 200,000 Israelis to the mercies of the new Arab state.

This would remain the case in the unlikely event that the Palestinian entity swore mighty oaths that Israeli Jews would enjoy all the rights, privileges, and immunities of their Arab colleagues and could continue the quiet enjoyment of their residences and businesses in the "settlements." The first duty of GOI is the protection of Israelis. So the Palestinian demand is both a non-starter and a deal killer.

Even the hyper-confident Ereqat must know this. He has to be hoping that the combination of external pressure by the US and EU coupled with the continued annoyances from his Hamas counterparts in Gaza will continue the slow, steady enervation of Israeli political will which he so obviously believes to be a continuing process.

Another point which Ereqat makes repeatedly is the requirement for both some sort of Arab "right of return" for those displaced from what is now indisputably Israeli territory during the 1948 and 1967 wars. He also asserts that financial compensation for those who do not wish to exercise their "right" must be forthcoming. Importantly, both the "right of return" and the compensation are not limited to those directly affected, but includes descendants without limit so the forty-six great-grand children of an Arab who heeded the call of his brothers to flee so that he could return with the victorious Arab armies would be entitled to full compensation or the right to move back to the old family house (which is now a multi-story apartment block or a shopping center.)

Repeat after the Geek, please, "Non-starter and deal killer."

Turning to political matters, Ereqat spins a fine piece of sophistry regarding Hamas. In his view there is no requirement that Hamas change one single syllable of its charter (which calls for the destruction of Israel) even though it won election in the Gaza Strip and, after expelling the PA by force of arms, has acted as sovereign in the district. No, opines Ereqat, all that is required by the assorted UN Resolutions as well as the agreements undertaken in Madrid, Oslo, Annapolis, and sundry other points is that the PA acknowledge Israel's right to exist with defined borders in peace with its neighbors.

Well, golly, perhaps Mr Ereqat believes that bit of tendentious reasoning, but it is more than simply difficult for a less biased and involved person to accept it. Practically speaking, Hamas is commensual with the Fatah originated PA.

The blood-and-guts view of life espoused by Hamas is at least as popular on the Arab street as the give-the-appearance-of-peace-a-chance stance tactically adopted by the PA. The same might be said of the Islamist purist approach of Hamas, but the jury is out on that one. In any event, by isolating Hamas in the way Ereqat does, the PA can take the ostensible high road while winking at Hamas conducted or inspired terror attacks on Israel.

Saeb Ereqat indicates that the PA is just as ready, willing, and able to fight as is Hamas. He allowed that following the establishment of Palestine there would be no reason why the PA could not fight alongside Hamas and others to establish a unified Arab state, a new caliphate. This posture is difficult to reconcile with a man or an organisation dedicated to the peaceful ending of a long standing conflict. Neither does it indicate any basic predisposition to live in harmony with a Jewish state.

Only once, at the very end of the interview does Mr Ereqat show any slackening of ebullient confidence. That is on the subject of Iran. Clearly, the PA sees Iran as a major, perhaps the single most important, supporter of the PA. But, he fears the US effort to positively engage the Iranians in conversation might fail. He sought to reassure any American who might read his analysis by quoting the former head of the IAEA, Mohammad ElBaradei, as telling him that it would take Iran "fourteen to sixteen years" to acquire an atomic bomb. So, he advises, "We must change this worn out record."

Right, dude. For sure. And, the Netanyahu ministry is all ready to toss in the towel and turn over a whole bunch of Israelis to your violence prone, quite anti-Semitic excuse for a government.

First There Have To Be Two States

President Obama has stated that the position of the US is the settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict on the basis of what is called "the two state solution." According to the herd called the "media" this is also the position of that mythical beast, "The International Community."

The idea is commendable. It is also one of long historical standing. All the way back to the earliest UN resolutions on the matter issued before the dust of World War II had begun to settle. The notion of two states, one Jewish and the other Arab/Muslim emerged in the distant mist of the past, way back before World War II and the Holocaust.

In those far away and ancient days when British statesmen and Royal Commissions still meant something, a body officially called the Palestine Royal Commission but generally known after its chairman as the Peel Commission offered the prototype two state solution complete with humane ethnic cleansing. (The 300,000 Arab/Muslims living within the borders of the proposed Jewish state would be removed voluntarily or otherwise to either the Arab portion or out of the region altogether.)

The original "Two State Solutions" in both the Peel Commission and UN versions were torpedoed by the Arabs who would be the chief beneficiaries of the concept. Unable or unwilling to accept a guaranteed sixty percent of the loaf, the Arabs of the disputed area with the support of their ethnic and religious confreres throughout the Mideast flipped a collective and self-destructive bird at the proffered solution.

Had the Arab Muslims of what is now Israel and coterminous territory possessed the slightest degree of diplomatic or political acumen there never would have been a conflict with the Jews of the emergent state. Whether 1937 or 1948 the Arabs would have been happy to have received the larger chunk of the disputed pie and gotten on with their lives.

Instead, demonstrating what seems to be a constitutional characteristic of the people and the region, the leaders of the Muslim Arab population in the old British Mandate of Palestine chose rejection, defiance and violence in the hope that some Higher Power would reward their effort with the exclusion of Jews and the Zionist vision of a state from the region. Demonstrations, assassinations and finally conventional war conducted by an Arab coalition failed in the object of rendering the two state solutions nugatory by force of arms.

That the Arabs were wrong is to belabor the self-evident.

Now, President Obama and a myriad of others have dragged the two state solution back from the grave to which the Arabs consigned it not once but twice. Such faith in the power of the presidency or the international community to revive the dead is touching but scarcely realistic.

Events of recent years have demonstrated that the Arab Muslim population and its leadership have in no way abandoned their faith in the efficacy of intransigence, defiance, rejection, and the power of violence and terror. Events have also shown the existence of a new, quite fatal impediment to the viability of the two state solution.

The new, fatal impediment?

Simple, bucko, there is only one state involved. The name of the state is Israel.

In 1937 and again a decade or so later, the assumption was that the artificial state then called Trans-Jordan, which had been created by the machinations of British and French bureaucrats during World War I and validated by the Versailles Peace Treaty, would be the basis of the Arab state in Palestine. This assumption was continued during the first couple of decades of the Arab-Israeli conflict but was finally unilaterally abandoned by Jordan.

The cause of Jordan's withdrawal from the role of core of Arab Palestine was (get ready for the big shock) the actions and words of Yassir Arafat and his terrorist group, Fatah. Arafat and Fatah's outgrowth, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, had ambitions. Among these until September 1970 was the takeover of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

The Palestinian bed was simply not big enough for both Arafat and King Hussein. Had Arafat had the good taste to have been blown up by one of his own bombs or shot by one of his own trigger pullers, the two state solution might have had a continued viability since Jordan was and is a genuine, legitimate state with a responsible government which by and large plays by the rules.

Thanks to Arafat's presumptuous ego and lack of any perceptible capacity for statesmanship, the situation today is characterised by the Arabs of "Palestine" having neither an authentic state nor a responsible, rule-following government. And, not to be too simple minded about it, without a second state, there can be no two state solution.

Instead of a single Arab Muslim state with a government which follows at least most of the norms of civilized behavior such as preventing armed attacks against a neighbor being launched from territory under its authority, there are two geographic expressions. One is headed by a semi-government, which at least makes the occasional pretense of following acting like a government is supposed to. The other, the Gaza Strip, is run by a criminal terrorist syndicate possessing the additional liability of being the servant of a foreign power, Iran, which is implacably hostile to Israel and rather incapable of abiding by many, if not most, forms of international good citizenship.

The two so-called governments are hostile each to the other. Using methods of dispute settlement and creative power sharing more suited to the Chicago underworld of Al Capone than normal political processes, Hamas and the PLO derived Palestinian Authority are putatively seeking the formation of a government of national unity. Unless and until Hamas and the PA bury the hatchet (and not in each other's back) there is not even the remote possibility of the two state solution becoming viable.

It is to be hoped that President Obama, SecState Clinton and special envoy George Mitchell have been exposed to both the past history of the assorted two state solutions as well as the present realities regarding the absence of the necessary Second State. Their public remarks, however, give no hint that such might have been the case.

The President and his people need to take a firm grip on a couple of realities. The first is that the US lacks the leverage necessary to push Hamas into some pretense of agreement with the PA. The second is that pressuring Israel to make significant (and politically risky) concessions in return for a desert mirage will not prestidigitate a Second State into existence.

Hamas is the rabid eight hundred pound gorilla at the dinner party. Period. Behind Hamas are the masters of intransigence, defiance, rejection and faith in terror and violence--the mullahs of Iran. And, short of complete compliance with the policy requirements of the perpetual Bad Boy of the Mideast including its nuclear ambitions and desire for acceptance as regional hegemon, the US has no leverage with the turban-wearing, Koran-thumpers of Qom.

That's a fact, Jack (and Barack, Hillary and George.)

There can be no two state solution without a Second State, the Arab/Muslim one. There will be no Second State without Hamas either surrendering its vaulting ambitions for total authority over the Arabs of "Palestine" and an end to Israel as a state or its ceasing to exist as an actor in the region.

Even without the Hamas barrier, there can be no two state solution unless the governments and peoples of the Arab states can bring themselves to accept Israel as a reality. The historical record gives no real reason for optimism on this. Even if the Arab Muslims most directly involved, the people of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, have reached a condition of war-weariness sufficient to accept a peace of exhaustion, this is no guarantee that the people and governments of other Arab states will go along with the idea.

The potential of the Arab states singing "give peace a chance" remains slim to none as long as the mullahs running Iran remain intransigent, defiant and rejectionist on the subject of Israel's right to exist without remaining forever as a garrison under siege. No bookie will give odds on that happening regardless of how much pressure is put on Israel or smiles bestowed on Tehran.

Whether President Obama and the "International Community" like the idea or not, the two state solution remains today what it was back in 1937 or 1947--a non-starter. The two state approach is no more viable now than seventy-two years ago for the same reason.

To have a two state solution there must be two states, two governments ready, willing and able to enter into meaningful negotiations and keep meaningful agreements. Today there is just one state. And, no real probability of a second one emerging from the wreckage of past Arab intransigence, defiance and rejection.

That's a fact, Jack (and Barack, Hillary and George.)