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Yoram Ettinger
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Yoram Ettinger
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No foreign aid to Palestinians – a US interest!

President Trump should cut/suspend/terminate foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA, since they have undermined US values and national security interests, by abusing US foreign aid to promote hate-education and terrorism.

President Trump should follow in the footsteps of effective and moral law-enforcement and homeland security authorities, who sustain and intensify their pursuit of criminals and terrorists, in defiance of the latter’s threats to escalate rogue operations. Western national leaders and police chiefs who succumb to – rather than defy and uproot – threats by rogue and criminal elements betray their constituents.

Suspending/ending foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA would reflect a decision to avoid – rather than repeat – failed policies by previous US Presidents, which provided a financial tailwind to Palestinian terrorism and hate-education, thus undermining US interests, including the pursuit of peace.

If implemented, President Trump’s policy may trigger short-term aggravation of violence, but would bolster the long-term US posture of deterrence and homeland security, by delivering a lucid message of determination to combat – rather than appease – terrorism. A realistic worldview should be aware that there is no free lunch….

If implemented, Trump’s policy may reflect the realization that funding and tolerating terror-oriented regimes (just like indulging crime-lords) does not transform them into democratic and law-abiding regimes, but adds fuel to the fire of hate-education, veneration of suicide-bombers, financial support of terrorists’ families and overall violence.

Sacrificing realism – as costly, challenging and complex as it may be – on the altar of simplistic and tempting wishful-thinking transmits a message of vacillation, which generates a tailwind to anti-US – and a headwind to pro-US – entities throughout the globe.

President Trump may become the first US President to realize that UNRWA has not solved – but exasperated, inflated and misrepresented – the Palestinian refugee reality at the expense of the US taxpayer and the war on terrorism.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has resolved and settled – since 1945 – the refugee status of almost 100MN refugees throughout the globe with 6,400 employees. In contrast, UNRWA – which was established in 1949 as a 2-3 year relief agency – has perpetuated and misrepresented the refugee status of the 320,000 1948 Palestinian refugees, employing 30,000 people.

While the UNHCR forbids the inheritance/perpetuation of refugee status, UNRWA applies the refugee status liberally and in perpetuity to future generations, including Arab foreign laborers who were in the country for only two years before the eruption of the 1948/49 War.

President Trump’s position is based on US national security interests, realizing that the Palestinians have systematically sided with anti-US regimes, beginning with Nazi Germany, through the Soviet Bloc, the Ayatollahs, Saddam Hussein, Bin-Laden, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba and China, training anti-US international terrorists from Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America, subverting and terrorizing Arab regimes. Therefore, Arabs have limited their support of the Palestinians to mostly talk, refraining from (any) military and (significant) financial walk.

Withholding financial support from the Palestinian Authority may reflect the growing awareness of the marginal role played by the Palestinian issue, compared to the prime challenges facing the US in the Middle East (none of which is related to the Palestinian issue, either directly or indirectly): the Ayatollahs’ conventional machete at the throat of the pro-US Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Oman; the Ayatollahs’ violent expansion – facilitated by US policy – through Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen; the Ayatollahs’ subversive and terror involvement in Africa and Latin America; the nuclearization of the Ayatollahs (through collaboration with North Korea); the inherent vulnerability of the pro-US regimes in Jordan and Egypt; and the burgeoning profile of Russia and China in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf.

The dramatic transformation of US policy toward foreign aid to the Palestinians, may express the realization that the Palestinian issue is not the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Furthermore, it may signal the awakening of US policy-makers to the fact that US interests, and the Arab-Israeli peace process, may be better served by the US refraining from the introduction of initiatives, which have never been successful. In fact, the only two successful peace initiatives were directly initiated between Israel-Egypt (1977-1979) and Israel-Jordan (1994), with the US playing a most critical role in the conclusion – not initiation – of the processes.

Learning from – rather than repeating – past mistakes should lead the US to cut/suspend/terminate its foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA.

Moreover, according to the 2017 annual poll by Gallup, it would be consistent with the state-of-mind of the American people: 71% favorability of Israel, compared with 24% of the Palestinian Authority.




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The proposed Palestinian state (Western conventional wisdom vs. Middle East reality)

Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, reiterates his commitment to the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River.

*According to Western conventional wisdom, the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River would promote the cause of peace, stabilize the Middle East and advance Western interests.

*However – just like its policy toward Iran’s Ayatollahs – Western conventional wisdom overlooks the rogue intra-Arab Palestinian track record in Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Kuwait, the despotic and corrupt nature of the Palestinian Authority and its abhorrent hate-education, and the impact of such a track record upon the rogue nature of the proposed Palestinian state.  The West takes lightly the adverse impact of such a rogue state upon the Middle East, the survival of pro-Western Arab regimes (e.g., Jordan and the Arabian Peninsula entities) and vital Western interests.

*Contrary to Western conventional wisdom, Arabs are aware of the Palestinian track record – just as they are aware of the Ayatollahs’ track record – and are certain that the proposed Palestinian state would resemble the non-controllable, lawless and terroristic Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya much more than the moderate United Arab Emirates. Therefore, they have limited their support of Palestinians to a very positive talk, while conducting a lukewarm-to-negative walk.

*Contrary to Western conventional wisdom, Arabs have never flexed their military muscle (and hardly their financial and diplomatic muscle) on behalf of Palestinians. For example, no Arab-Israel war was ever launched on behalf of Palestinians, and no Palestinian war on Israel was ever assisted by Arab military.

*Contrary to Western conventional wisdom, Arabs have experienced the Palestinian trait of brutally-biting the (Arab) hand that feeds them: Egypt in the early 1950s, Syria in the 1960s, Jordan in 1968-1970, Lebanon in 1970-1982, Kuwait in 1990.

*Contrary to Western conventional wisdom, which considers the Palestinian issue as a primary/central concern in the Middle East, the Arab conduct reflects the conviction (notwithstanding the pro-Palestinian Arab rhetoric) that the Palestinian issue is not the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict, neither a crown-jewel of Arab policy-making, nor a core cause of Middle East turbulence.

*Contrary to Western conventional wisdom and expectations, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and the Sudan did not precondition their peace treaties with Israel upon the establishment of a Palestinian state.

*Contrary to Western conventional wisdom, which assumes that the Palestinian issue is central to Arab policy-making, Israel-Arab peace accords have been based on primary Arab interests – such as the lethal threats of Iran’s Ayatollahs and the Muslim Brotherhood terrorism, the need to diversify their economies and Israel’s effective posture of deterrence – which do not include the Palestinian issue.

*Contrary to all Western peace proposals (other than the Abraham Accords), which failed due to their preoccupation with the Palestinian issue, the six successful Israel-Arab peace treaties bypassed the Palestinian issue, denied the Palestinians a veto power, and were preoccupied with primary Arab national security interests, not with the Palestinian issue.

*While Western conventional wisdom assumes that the Palestinians – as well as Iran’s Ayatollahs – are amenable to peaceful-coexistence, democracy and good faith negotiation, Arabs recognize Palestinians as a role-model of intra-Arab subversion, terrorism, betrayal and ingratitude.

*Contrary to Western conventional wisdom, Arabs accord much prominence to Palestinian collaboration with rogue, despotic anti-Western entities, such as Nazi Germany, the USSR and the Soviet Bloc, Iran’s Ayatollahs, Saddam Hussein, Asian, African, European and Latin American terror organizations, the Muslim Brotherhood terrorists, Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea.

*Western conventional wisdom pressures Israel to sacrifice Middle East reality on the altar of wishful-thinking and oversimplification.

*Western conventional wisdom expects Israel to follow in the footsteps of the pro-Palestinian Arab talk, while taking lightly the Arab walk and Middle East reality.

*Western conventional wisdom urges Israel to ignore the 120-year-long anti-Jewish Palestinian terrorism, hate-education and mosque incitement, notwithstanding dramatic Israeli concessions (e.g., the 1993 Oslo Accord and the 2005 Gaza Disengagement, which were followed – as expected – by waves of terrorism and hate-education).  While the West assumes that Palestinians are preoccupied with the size of the Jewish State, the Palestinian track record has documented that they are preoccupied with the uprooting of the Jewish State from “the abode of Islam.”

*While Western governments accord Palestinian leaders Red Carpet receptions, Arabs welcome Palestinian leaders with Shabby Doormat receptions (if at all…).

*Western policy in the Middle East – as reflected by Western policy toward Iran’s Ayatollahs and the Palestinian issue – has been systematically wrong.  For example, providing a critical tailwind to the Ayatollahs’ rise to power in Iran; embracing Saddam Hussein until the 1990 invasion of Kuwait; heralding Arafat as a messenger of peace; toppling Gaddafi, which transformed Libya into a platform of anti-Western Islamic terrorism and civil wars; welcoming the volcanic eruption on the Arab Street as an “Arab Spring” and “Facebook Revolution,” etc..

*Will Western conventional wisdom adjust itself to the Middle East and Palestinian reality, or will it persist in its suspension of disbelief?  Sustaining the Western suspension of disbelief will add fuel to the Middle East fire, intensify threats to pro-Western Arab regimes, and further undermine commercial and national security Western interests.

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Videos

The post-1967 turning point of US-Israel cooperation

Israeli benefits to the US taxpayer exceed US foreign aid to Israel

Iran - A Clear And Present Danger To The USA

Exposing the myth of the Arab demographic time bomb