Israel's Increasingly Dangerous Neighborhood

I was invited to speak on 21st century missile threats and defenses at the recent 7th annual Jerusalem Conference, 2010, held at the Regency Hotel on Mt. Scopus, in the city of David, but I was pleased as well to hear a wide variety of experts (speeches are delivered in English and Hebrew with convenient wireless earphone translation headsets).

This gathering is rooted in historic Zionism, the meaning of the land of Israel, and the spiritual meaning of Jerusalem. Many Israeli statesman and American political leaders come to address current security crises, as well as existential questions ever-present for the Jewish state still facing war.

The Palestinian Front

On the Palestinian front, many now believe that the idea of a small PLO state within the 1967 borders, to include Gaza, major parts of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, has lost its appeal within Araby.

Radical Islamism, unrealistic expectations, and daily incitement against Israel in mosques, the media, and madrassas, have all added up to another era of Palestinian intransigence and irredentism.

Unfortunately, the drive for Palestinian independence has not been equated with responsible state building leading to the kind of sovereignty that would help the Palestinian people themselves.

Palestinians universally wish to cast Israel off their shoulders, but this does not mean they support a fair division of land, or a desire to live in peaceful coexistence with a Jewish state in the middle east.

Israeli journalist and commentator Ehud Ya’ari stated that the Palestinians have now fully collapsed into the unwilling arms of the Israelis, and that Israel must urgently solve the seemingly unsolvable.

Israel is today faced with a reverse annexation: It is the Palestinians who have decided to annex Israel, because Israel did not annex them first.

A notion: Palestinians have long been suicidal, both metaphorically, and in recent years, of course, practically. They simply never stepped up to accept the responsibility of accepting a 2 state solution. Not in 1947, when offered a state by the United Nations, and not since.

Israel’s real interest, of course is in a peaceful neighbor, responsible and productive, even a trading partner. But, can Israel force Palestinians into democratic sovereignty? In fact, is any permanent agreement now possible since Gaza has been lost to Hamas, radical Islamic fundamentalists whose charter calls for the genocide of the Jews?

Since the 1993 Oslo Accords and the signing in Washington, D.C. of commitments, Israelis have seen their nation shrink, and their hopes dashed, by the failure of Palestinian society to reciprocate their moves for peace. Israelis have marched and sang for peace, and unilaterally withdrawn from major portions of the West Bank, completely from Gaza, and from their security buffer in Southern Lebanon (and before that from the Sinai desert and other areas).

Israelis now do not even visit their holy Temple Mount, because Muslim rule denies Christian and Jewish access.

A better idea: pathways to parallel statehood on the same territory. Forget about drawing borders and solving for all time the land dispute. No complex borders and tricky transportation connection between a somehow artificially contiguous Gaza and the West Bank. Just citizens with different passports. Jews with Israeli, Palestinians with Jordanian. All living together in a shared economic region.

Would that this have been the path. Instead, since Israel told the world and the Arab community that it questions its own legal and moral rights to its land, it has suffered a dramatically declining strategic position.

The middle east is far worse off for Israeli territorial concessions, which only served to inflame radicals. Hezbollah and Hamas now run Lebanon and Gaza, respectively. Israelis are terribly disunited and a post-Zionism has captured much of its academic community. Israeli quantitative and qualitative military edges shrink over time due to Arab oil wealth and the relativization of power due to the spreading of technology.

Israeli peace moves were met with bloody intifada, and with Iran now funding and training the terror attacks against Israel.

The good news is that Israel’s security fence (opposed 14-1 by the International Court of Justice by the way — the U.S. was the sole supporter early in the decade), has dramatically reduced daily terror attacks and given breathing space to both Israeli economic growth, and any hope for Israeli – Palestinian dialogue.

The bad news is that Israel’s foes just send mortars, rockets and missiles over the fence.

The United Nations’ purposefully hostile Goldstone report on Israel’s 2008 Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, in defense against thousands of rocket attacks on civilians over years, received strong condemnation at the Jerusalem Conference for its lack of objectivity and methodology, as did international media and academic blood libels, attempts at de-judaizing Jerusalem’s history, and repeated calls to boycott, divest, and sanction Israel, including by leftist churches (World Council of Churches, Sabeel, and Presbyterian Church USA),

The diplomatic climate for Israel has darkened at the United Nations, and perhaps the worst recent offenses are the British arrest warrants issued for Israeli politicians.

A recent keynote speaker at NYU Law School’s Hausner dinner was none other than Richard Goldstone. One pauses to ponder: Were there any pro-Israel donors in the crowd, and if so, do they have any idea of Goldstone’s nefarious role in serving the anti-Israel cause?

The NGO Monitor organization documents the formal 2001 Durban Conference strategy to use “lawfare” to demonize Israel through well-funded non-governmental organizations, which claim to be human rights organizations but are instead highly politicized and controversial, selectively using the mantle of international law to single out Israel for condemnations, investigations, and trials.

Repeated rebuttals to unsubstantiated and ideological attacks on Israel, including false claims of Israeli violations of humanitarian laws of war in Jenin and Gaza, in recent years, do not seem to slow the crowd which does not focus on Hamas or Hezbollah terrorism, but instead wails about Israeli disproportionate response in defending its tiny population. Israel sent warnings to civilians before hitting terror targets in Gaza. But the world condemns not the violation of the laws of war by Hamas, and Hezbollah, which hide amongst civilians, but Israel, which roots out terror only after years of suffering from it.

Fortunately, most Americans, who would not stand for 5 minutes any mortars, rockets, and missiles raining down on them from across our Canadian or Mexican borders, still believe in notions of self rule and self government, and not transnational law with the disgraced United Nations and biased NGOs as arbiters of sovereignty, security, or sensible defensive operations in response to terror wars.

Post 1948, within Judea and Samaria, there were no Jews before 1967, but still no peace. So “settlements” cannot possibly be the reason for terrorism, economic warfare against Israel, and incessant rhetorical / ideological war against the existence of a Jewish state, no matter it’s (tiny) size and borders.

Has the Palestinian Authority removed illegal weapons, outlawed terror organizations, or stopped incitement and hate education in mosques and schools and websites and in the media?

Even the “moderate” Palestinian Authority leaders Mr. Fayyad, and Mr. Abu Mazen, defame and vilify Israel. Israel is trying to join the OECD, a major economic organization, and a non-political one. Why do these Palestinian leaders continue the war and incitement against Israel? Fatah’s latest conference concluded with a call for more Armed Struggle, emphasizing that the Fatah constitution still refers to the end of Israel.

The Iranian Front

But the major focus of the Jerusalem Conference 2010 was the arrival of Atomic Iran.

There is a long history of positive Jewish-Iranian relations, and the people of Iran are not the enemy.

But the Iranian regime’s repeated threats against both world Jewry and Israel are matched by now well publicized military oppression if its own citizens. Positively, european leaders such as President Sarcozy of France are aggressively confronting the tyranny, terrorism, and nuclear threat presented by the Iranian Revolutionary Republic and its Revolutionary Guard Council.

Noteworthy, Ayatollah Sistani, who supports democracy from his own base of Iraq, is opposed to the IRGC. Many Iranian Mullahs as well would prefer to remain outside of political rule. Unlike Sunni Islam, many Shiite clerics do not prefer to be involved in statecraft and politics.

Ambassador Dore Gold, President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, outlined how the entire middle east region is affected by Iranian pressure and proliferation. By crossing the nuclear threshold, Gold argues, Iran would provide an umbrella under which Islamist terrorism proceeds, less fearful or deterred by western response and defense.

Iran supports Hezbollah, which has perhaps more capability than al-Qaeda even to create mass casualty attacks on the United States and our allies. The marriage of terrorism and nuclear cover is today’s state of concern. For example, it confronts India, which faces Pakistani terror attacks under the protection of a Muslim bomb.

Iranian influence in the western hemisphere received special attention. In Central and South America, from the bombing of the Jewish center in Argentina in 1994 to today’s flights from Tehran to Chavez’ Venezuela, financial and ideological enemies of the United States are collaborating.

Raids on Caracas’ hebraic jewish club, day school, and synagogue, Chavez’ rhetorical assault on the Jewish community after the Gaza war, and his intimidation campaign against Jews, has caused many to leave.

The Response to Iran

Will Sanctions work ? Iran has exploited the process, with the EU 3 having failed to deter or slow Iranian proliferation. President Obama’s commitment to multilateralism, using the UN, gives veto power to China, dependent on Iranian oil.

Will Deterrence work ? The Policy of the United States has been: Iran must not get nuclear weapons. But if they do, of what value are western threats and complaint going forward in the nuclear age ?

Iran’s regime is ambitious, seeking regional hegemony, restoration of the caliphate, return of the 12th Imam, and pre-eminence of Shia Islam over Sunni. No amount of rhetoric or hand wringing by western diplomacy seems to slow them down.

The Iranian revolutionary regime lied all along about their nuclear program, including the recently revealed Qom facility, and now boasts a new generation of centrifuges, with enrichment of uranium to 20 % purity, followed by taunts about the price the west would pay for any effective sanctions.

The Jerusalem Conference is non-partisan within Israel, (and vis a vis U.S. politics as well), but President Obama, while rarely mentioned by name, aroused deep skepticism and concern.

His appointments of Chas Freeman (rejected Arabist U.S. diplomat and Saudi client) and Hannah Rosenfeld, (the anti-Semitism Czar who blasted Israel’s Ambassador to the United States), and his advisors on Muslim affairs, and to the Organization of Islamic Conference, and even to counter-terrorism positions within the administration, are all troubling left-wing ideologues. They are apologists for radical Islamism and far out of the mainstream.

Obama’s infamous Cairo speech, his deep bow to the Saudi King, the engagement with Iran and weak response to the stolen June 12th election, the beating up of Israel over 2nd story apartments, and the administration’s friendly approach to the United Nations and its Durban II planning conference and (anti) Human Rights Council are just a few of the wild and weak Obama approaches to U.S. middle east policy.

When Obama told the 2008 AIPAC conference that he support a unified Jerusalem, and then recanted the very next day, bells should have gone off. The President who was mentored by radicals in academe, who opposed Israel’s security fence and who disdainfully stated “you don’t have to be pro Likud to be pro Israel” has clearly picked a fight with the people and government of the Jewish state.

The Islamic War on the West

When Israeli officers enter battle, they pronounce: After me. Israel itself faces battles that eventually come to all who share its values of democracy, pluralism, women’s rights, and Judeo-Christian civilization. The Jihad rejects western ideas not only in its midst, the middle east, but the caliphate is meant to spread globally, and to conquer.

Many western policy makers mis-understand Islam, and Islamic self identity, and assume Islamic beliefs, traditions, processes, and motivations are the same as ours.

Legendary scholar of Islam Bernard Lewis explained that some thousand years ago, Arab theory stated that the essence of magnanimity is to spare your enemy when you have him completely vulnerable, but don’t try to befriend him now. He wants to battle those who do not submit. Islam means submission, and all must convert to Allah, submit to Islamic rule, or die. Temporary truces and practical accommodations are possible, but the world of Islam, Dar al Islam, must be brought to the world of war, Dar al Harb, meant for conquer and conversion.

The Arabic Salaam is close to Hebrew Shalom. But the greetings of Salaam are meant for peace to be upon those who are not infidels, kaffirs, non-believers. When President Obama used the explicitly Muslim greeting, in Cairo, to a large Muslim audience of believers, many within the Islamic world took that to indicate his choice to join them in their religion. This is a betrayal of the west’s belief in itself, its own identity, values, and beliefs, and only encourages the Jihad to sense more western weakness and incomplete dedication to its own tradition and meaning.

Mr. Obama further humiliated himself and the United States with his wrong and bizarre interpretation of President Jefferson’s having a Koran. Jefferson studied the ways of his enemy, the barbary pirates. He was an opponent of Islamic war against the infidel, not a fan.

The Christian notion of church-state separation has no similar parallel in Islam. The mosque is a mere building for worship and study. The mosque is not a complete institution like the church is.

Islam and the state itself are not separated. The entire state is Islamic, only and solely.

Moses never made it to Israel. Christ died on the cross and his followers were scattered. They are profoundly inspiring, of course, to Jews and Christians around the world.

But Mohammed founded a state that became an empire in his own lifetime. A glorified prophet who inspires as if he were here today. The 7th century is very much alive and motivating for Islamic Jihad.

The Final Threat

There were no Palestinians before 1948 (except as the term did refer to the resident Jews). Arabs rejected Palestine as a British creation, as artificial and cut off from Araby. The creation of a Palestinian people and conscience has been a political pursuit. Judea became Palestina, under Roman rule, but it was not an Arab entity. Greater Syria, Iran, Egypt are all much more important historical homes for Muslims. Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Koran.

But the goal of Islamism is to reject the Jewish Abraham and his covenant, and the promise of God to his people and their land. And to reverse Christ’s eternal theology of love and oneness, and promise of salvation. Prophet Muhammed’s truth is the final one. Therefore, to resist the infidel is to exist as a Muslim.

Jihad uses guerilla, asymmetric, and unconventional warfare, by both state and non state actors, and it is networked, lethal, alert, and mobile. IEDs, the use of civilians as human shields, and homicide/suicide terror all are means for Jihad.

Defending against modern terror requires new tactics of intelligence and renewed commitment. But modern western populations are distracted, tired of war, and unsure what constitutes winning. The war of ideas starts with understanding why we believe in our lives, our security, and our liberty.

Israel’s enemies have decided they cannot defeat her with tanks, planes, and masses of soldiers. So they have adopted the technology of missiles, which fly 24/7, are launched with the push of a button, are all weather, and can disrupt an economy, or the rallying of reservists. They are potentially anonymous.

And even when the source of launch is identified, through heat signature or satellite reading, for example, responding to first strike leaves the defender liable to complaint that he is using disproportionate response when the attacker hides amongst civilians, in schools and hospitals.

And, in an age of missiles, everything is faster. Israel’s margin for error is now measured in mere minutes and seconds.

The middle east is a region that favors power, strong horses and winners. But the western mind rejects the idea that others think, plan, and act based on ancient battle plans and a different tradition’s notion of humanity.

Israeli missile defense, against short, medium, and longer range missiles, with interceptors and lasers, layered and eventually meant to strike in the boost phase, over enemy territory, is the correct response to enemy proliferation.

But, in the final analysis, even hitting the enemy’s missiles over his own territory may not deter through fear of mutually assured destruction. Martyrdom and the purposeful coming of the final conflagration excite the true believers. Getting the warhead launched against Jerusalem is worth any risk of pre-emptive attack or second strike Israeli or American retaliation.

Without a liberation of Araby and the Muslim world from their political tyrants, and then the joining of the religious Muslim world with modernity, there is no settlement of claims, no final peace accord, no comprehensive agreement to be made. Diplomats think they can negotiate the solution to a clash of civilizations with the right code, compromise, or cajoling. But the Arab-Israeli conflict is not a rubics cube with a solution. Only fools who think they are wiser than history assert they know the secret.

The Jewish state of Israel is a small country with big dreams and accomplishments, but it faces a big threat. Both ancient and cutting edge, modern Israel is still spiritual but bloodied.

May the stones of Jerusalem remain a strong foundation for the deeper wisdom required by its leaders, citizens, allies, and supporters.