The Palestinians’ Window of Opportunity Is Closing
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/December 08/15
Now the Israelis are trying to circumvent us by means of agreements with the Arab countries. They may not have much to offer the Arabs, except for advances in technology, agriculture and medicine, but now they all have a common enemy: Iran.
Our demands are the result of the greed of our leaders, who do not want a Palestinian state alongside Israel, they want a Palestinian state instead of Israel. Recently we openly exposed our desire to destroy the Jewish state. That is why we demand Jerusalem for ourselves, insist on the right of Palestinians refugees to “return” and threaten the Jews.
Like Hezbollah, we interpret Israel’s political left as a sign of weakness and dissention. We all sense their hypocrisy, arrogance, disdain, and how they patronize us as if we were stupid. That is why the Palestinians have always respected the Israeli right: they always tell us the truth.
The Europeans attempt to weaken Israel with territorial concessions that would make it possible for the Palestinians to fire rockets at Israel’s main cities and airport from the West Bank.
After seeing the results of their withdrawal from Gaza, the Israelis doubtless think one would have to be crazy ever to give up control of the border with Jordan.
Before Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s trip to the United States to meet President Barack Obama, administration officials there said they had given up hope of establishing a Palestinian state during the president’s term of office. One could only think that if as the Palestinian project failed during the current administration, which supports the Palestinian cause, and with a secretary of state as highly motivated as John Kerry, the probability of its ever succeeding was fading away.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu meets with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington, on November 9, 2015. (Image source: White House video screenshot)
Just as boycotting and marking Israeli goods from the territories have led only to the mass layoff of thousands of Palestinian workers from dream jobs in the settlements, the fairy tales about a binational state will leave the Palestinians with nothing to show for our years of waiting.
Unfortunately, as time passes, Palestinian intransigence has led the Israelis to build a Zionist enterprise that cannot simply be dismissed.
In effect, regardless of what we say and think, apparently our agreement or disagreement is not a condition for the continued existence of the Jews on land they took from us. The danger is that at the rate Israel is growing, at some point there may not be that much territory left for a future Palestinian state.
The window of opportunity for change is rapidly closing. The sad truth is that the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas and the other suicidal organizations, and by the Palestinians who stab Israeli civilians to death on the streets, are nothing more than the manifestations of our hopelessness and weakness. Worse, they serve the interests of the Israelis by fortifying their refusal to accomplish anything with us. We do not have one single individual in our leadership who has proposed a pragmatic plan that can be implemented to halt the process that is inexorably distancing us from any possible political solution with the Israelis.
As the growing wave of useless terrorism beats impotently on Israel’s increasing hesitance to accommodate us, it becomes increasingly clear that our leaders will eventually come to the painful realization that the Palestinian cause is going nowhere. It is a pity that when the scales fall from our eyes, our eventual, commonsensical acceptance of the existence of the State of Israel as the homeland of the Jews will come at the expense of so much needless death and suffering.
All we have been offering the Israelis are our mistakes and our unrealistic demands. One of them consists of putting the capital of Palestine in the heart of the capital of the State of Israel. Another is the ridiculous demand for the “return” of millions of Palestinian refugees to the territory of the State of Israel — which the Jews know would be demographic suicide for their country, and which would only be physically possible if all the Israelis suddenly vanished.
For our unrealizable demands, we look to the Europeans for support, while all they are interested in is gaining time and paying lip service to the local Islamists menacing them, while in effect, nothing is done for our cause.
Recently, out of an unjustified sense of self-confidence, we openly exposed our desire to destroy the Jewish state. That is why we demand Jerusalem for ourselves, insist on the right of the Palestinians refugees to “return” and threaten the Jews that if they do not accept our conditions we will demand the establishment of a binational state in all of Palestine.
Our demands are the result of the greed of our leaders, who do not want a Palestinian state alongside Israel, they want a Palestinian state instead of Israel. They delude themselves into thinking the West genuinely supports the Palestinian cause, hoping that by marking products made in the settlements, Israel will collapse like South Africa.
In reality, while the West does in fact hate Jews, it does not like Arabs much better. The West only supports the Palestinian cause out of the fear of another Islamist Arab Spring, carried out in their own backyards, instead of far away in the Middle East. We are betting that the West will support us against the Zionists, but even the radical Islamists know that Western support will mean a reentry of the Crusaders into our lands.
Our leaders have yet to identify the true source of Israel’s strengths, and in that they have made a fatal mistake. Like Hezbollah, we interpret Israel’s political left as a sign of weakness and dissention, we regard Israeli society as one long internal disagreement, and we consider Israel a paper tiger. What we do not understand is that arguing with one another and the lack of blind agreement are the foundations of Israeli democratic unity, and not signs that Israel is falling apart as we so earnestly desire.
What we have in fact identified is the sycophantic Israeli leftists, who think they can fool and cheat us with toned-down versions of the Zionist goals or seduce us with economic promises to make us suspect them less. We all sense their hypocrisy, arrogance, disdain, and how they patronize us as if we were stupid. That is why the Palestinians have always respected the Israeli right: they always tell the truth, even if it is unpleasant for us to hear.
Now the Israelis are trying to circumvent us by means of agreements with the Arab countries. They may not have much to offer the Arabs, except for advances in technology, agriculture and medicine, but now they all have a common enemy: Iran.
You can be sure that the Israelis do not delude themselves into thinking the Arabs will ever consider them as anything but a cancer in the heart of the Middle East. They rely only on their own strength and do not particularly care if we or the rest of the world agree. Paradoxically the more they strengthen and stop trying to negotiate with us, the more we shall expose our willingness to reach an agreement with them.
International oversight is out of the question. The Israelis are suspicious, and the Palestinians are greedy and respond only negatively.
Those who think Israel is immoral because it uses force do not understand that without the use of force Hamas, ISIS and Fatah would destroy it.
The European attempt to weaken Israel with territorial concessions that would make it possible for the Palestinians to fire rockets at Israel’s main cities and airport from the West Bank only increases the Palestinian appetite to eradicate Israel, and makes the Israelis more intransigent.
In view of the Palestinian determination not to reach a political solution, but rather bring about Israel’s demographic destruction as a binational apartheid state, it seems clear that the Israelis will continue with a reinforced reluctance to have anything to do with us. These actions on our part will simply lead Israel to make unilateral decisions, such as its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank. After seeing the results of their withdrawal from Gaza, the Israelis doubtless think they would have to be crazy ever to give up control of the border with Jordan, for fear of the massive infiltration of weapons and terrorist operatives. They may simply draw new borders around their settlement blocks, and leave the rest to the Palestinians.
Or they may simply cede, for instance, the city of Um el-Fahm, which for years has openly identified itself as Palestinian. If that happens, it is almost certain that Hamas will take over the territory. Hamas will then kill the Palestinian Authority activists or throw them off roofs, as they did in Gaza, thereby proving to the world that Israel was right to act as it did.
The suggestion that the Israelis would agree to a multinational force along its border with Jordan to prevent weapons, ISIS or other terrorists from crossing the border is a fantasy. What do international forces do when the first bullet is fired? They flee! They were incapable of preventing slaughter in Syria, in Iraq, and regrettably cannot even maintain security in their own countries.
In the end, we shall see an Israel that is stronger and even more reluctant than before to trust Palestinians, and we shall have lost our dream of a Palestinian state forever.
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6894/palestinians-window-of-opportunity
India’s War on Terror: Solution is Self-Defense, Not Consensus
Jagdish N. Singh/Gatestone Institute/December 08/15
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7019/india-terrorism
Instead of eliminating the invaders, Nehru made a deadly mistake: He took the matter for mediation to the United Nations.
UN member states have never even been able to agree on a definition of terrorism. Some of the states, such as Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia, overtly or covertly practice, promote or fund terrorism.
Emboldened by international and Indian inaction, Pakistan has continued masterminding terror strikes against India.
New Delhi might do well bear in mind a central message from the history of wars: The dialogue of peace and non-violence alone is futile with those who understand only the language of power and punishment.
India, like Israel, would do better to fight its own war on terror.
In the wake of the recent coordinated terror strikes in Paris on November 13, India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has made a fresh appeal for a concerted global strategy to fight terrorism. In his opening remarks at the ASEAN-India Summit in Kuala Lumpur on November 21, he said, “Terrorism has emerged as a major global challenge. … we should see how we can enhance our cooperation at the regional and international level, including through support for adoption of Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.”
The previous week, addressing the G20 leaders at Antalya on November 15, Modi had lamented, “We don’t have a comprehensive global strategy to combat terrorism… we tend to be selective in using the instruments that we have… We should strengthen efforts to prevent supply of arms to terrorists, disrupt terrorist movements and curb and criminalize terror financing.”
Sadly, there is nothing new in Modi’s appeal to combat terror. Such an appeal has also been made by India’s previous leaders. In 2005 then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said to the media on his arrival from the United Kingdom: “Terrorism is a global phenomenon. We have faced this scourge for the last 20-25 years. The incident (London transit bombings) calls for joint efforts to combat the scourge.”
While possibly sounding profound, such an appeal makes little practical sense. A United Nations consensus against terrorism looks far-fetched. In the immediate post-9/11 landscape, the UN passed various resolutions. They underlined moral and legal obligations on the part of all UN member-states to fight terror together. There is no evidence, however, that they ever coordinated intelligence or devised a concerted strategy to combat anything other than Israel — the only transparent, accountable and pluralistic democracy in the Middle East. UN member states have never even been able to agree on a definition of terrorism. Some of the states, such as Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia, overtly or covertly practice, to promote or fund terrorism.[1]
In the post-9/11 landscape, the world’s major powers have preferred to focus on strengthening their own homeland security, notwithstanding their fashionable diplomatic postures of consensus at major international forums.
Given this reality, India, with all its moral, legal, diplomatic and military strength, would do better to fight its own war on terror.
Terrorism in India, in its current form, dates back to 1947. It on October 26, 1947 that Pakistan came up with the ideology of Islamist terrorism and dispatched its warriors — Pakistani soldiers in guise of Pakhtoon raiders — into India’s Kashmir to capture it. The Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, could have crushed the invaders then and there.[2]
Instead of eliminating the invaders, however, Nehru made a deadly mistake: He took the matter for mediation to the United Nations. India has paid heavy price for this ever since. The Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir has remained deprived of two fifths of its territory — Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The United Nations passed a ceasefire resolution on December 31, 1948 that merely divided the state. A 1951 UN resolution provided for a referendum under the UN supervision after Pakistan withdrew its troops from the part of Kashmir (PoK) that Pakistan captured in 1947. But the United Nations never pressured Pakistan to honor the resolution and vacate the PoK.
Thereafter, emboldened by international and Indian inaction, Pakistan has continued masterminding terror strikes against India from time to time. According to an August 11, 2008 report in the magazine India Today, between 1980 to 2008, terrorism claimed around 150,000 lives in India.[3] The former Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, Shanta Kumar, wrote on August 23, 2011 in the New Delhi newspaper Punjab Kesari that in 1989, the Kashmir Valley had a population of over half a million Pandits, the only Hindu natives of Kashmir. Their number stands reduced to about four thousand today. By 2000, terrorists had killed over 34,252 citizens and wounded another 17,484. They set fire to over 10,000 houses and destroyed huge amounts of individual and public property in the state. This has left the minorities in the Kashmir Valley with no choice but to flee their homes.
American Congressman Frank Pallone’s letter of August 23, 2004 to India’s Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh at that time reads:
“The Pandits [Hindus of Kashmir] have suffered more than any group as a result of the conflict in Kashmir, and violence continues to threaten their existence. This group is under constant threat of attack from Islamic terrorists, and many have fled the region as a result of these threats. For the last 15 years, Kashmiri Pandits have been refugees in their own country. What was once a population of nearly 350,000 in the Kashmir valley has now been reduced to a paltry 8,000-person populace. The ethnic cleansing of Pandits from Kashmir started as a result of targeted assassinations leading to forced exile of the entire minority community in the early stages of insurgency. Such horrible events were then repeated in the last few years when Islamic insurgents committed mass massacres of Pandits in villages and hamlets throughout Kashmir.”
Left: Indian soldiers carry the coffin of Indian Army Colonel M N Rai, who was killed in January 2015 by terrorists in Kashmir. Right: Masked Islamist radicals in Kashmir display a version of the black flag of jihad.
Such harsh realities demand that India’s leaders cease looking for any imagined, miasmic global ” consensus” — which never appears — and develop a more workable, realistic policy to combat terror.
India could learn from other democracies, such as Israel, which has also suffered many years of terrorism, and has resorted, for its national security, to a policy of self-defense.
At bottom, modern-day terrorism seems to be a new tool of certain self-styled Islamists to invoke a violent interpretation of their widely practiced religion. They appear to use it to try to capture power and establish an absolutist, theocratic regime.
Needless to say, the patriotism of Muslim community, or that of any other religious community in India is beyond doubt. In an interview with CNN, Prime Minister Modi rightly said, “Indian Muslims will live for India. They will die for India.”
New Delhi could use such a welcome social asset to focus on boosting its own defense and security capabilities to crush terrorism. New Delhi might do well bear in mind a central message from the history of wars: The dialogue of peace and non-violence alone is futile with those who understand only the language of power and punishment.
India might consider a “frank talk” with the forces of terrorism both within and outside the Pakistani establishment. Fortunately, India has remained blessed with an apolitical military. There is also no dearth of highly professional elements in its security and intelligence agencies. India also possesses a broad tradition of different cultural and religious streams, both foreign and domestic, and relative communal harmony[4], including in its Muslim community. It is with assets such as these, as well as an increasing military prowess, that New Delhi should be fighting terror.
**Jagdish N. Singh is a senior Indian journalist based in New Delhi.
[1] for instance, Pakistan’s attacks on Mumbai in 2008; the listing of Iran on the U.S. Department of State’s 2014 State Sponsors of Terrorism; and, for Saudi Arabia, support for terror. According to Clinton’s leaked memo, Saudi donors constituted “the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide”.
[2] The state of Jammu and Kashmir had become an integral part of India after its Maharaja at the time, Hari Singh, signed the Instruments of Accession to India (October 27, 1947). The Indian Army was capable of eliminating the problem from India’s territory. Mahatma Gandhi also apparently foresaw the consequence of the invasion and advised Prime Minister Nehru to drive the raiders out. (Durga Das, India from Curzon to Nehru and After, New Delhi: Rupa& Co, 1977), p.270; Also, V Ramamurthy, Mahatma Gandhi:The Last 200 Days, Chennai: Kasturi & Sons, 2004, p.289.
[3] Between 2000 and 2008, 69 terrorist attacks caused 1,120 deaths. During the period from January 2004 to March 2007, it claimed 3,674 lives.
[4] Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India, Oxford University Press, 1961.
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