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Obama’s self-defeating settlements policy

President Obama’s collaboration with the December 23, 2016 UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2334, which condemns Israel’s settlements policy, has defied history and reality, injuring the peace process and US national security.
While President Obama greets the Jewish people upon Chanukah, which commemorates the victory of the Maccabees in a series of heroic battles in the crux of the Land of Israel, the mountain ridges of Judea and Southern Samaria – Beth El, Beth Horon, Hadashah, Beth Zur, Ma’aleh Levona, Adora’yim, Elazar, Beit Zachariya and Ba’al Hatzor – he contends that these are “occupied lands.” When Shimon the Maccabee (who succeeded Judah and Jonathan) was confronted with such a contention, he responded: “We have not occupied a foreign land; we have not ruled a foreign land; we have liberated the land of our forefathers from foreign occupation.”
President Obama’s and the State Department’s support of UNSCR 2334 undermines the peace process and US national security interests in the following manner:
1. It provides a tailwind to the UN demand to halt Israeli construction in Judea and Samaria, while encouraging the thirty-time-larger Arab construction there; an attempt to prejudge and force – not negotiate – a solution.
2. It dis-incentivizes Arabs to negotiate, since they expect further global pressure on Israel. Thus it undermines direct negotiation, which is the most effective way to advance peace, as documented by the Israel-Egypt and Israel-Jordan peace accords.  On the other hand, the litany of US and international peace initiatives failed due to attempts to force a solution and by-pass direct negotiation.
3. Just like previous US and international initiatives, this too radicalizes the Arabs, forcing them to outflank the US and the globe from the maximalist side, escalating their expectations and demands; thus, further reducing prospects of resolving the highly-complicated peace process.
4. Experience proves that placating and appeasing the Palestinians – as highlighted by the 1993 Oslo Accord and the 2005 uprooting of all Jewish settlements from Gaza – has intensified terrorism, hate-education and violation of agreements, in addition to three wars erupting from Gaza.
5. Peaceful coexistence, on the one hand, and the uprooting of Jewish, or Arab, communities, on the other hand, constitute an oxymoron.  If 450,000 Jews, among 1.8MN Arabs in Judea and Samaria, constitute an obstacle to peace, are the 1.75MN Arabs, among 6.6MN Jews, within pre-1967 Israel, an insurmountable impediment to peace?!  The belligerent rejection of Jewish presence/settlements (since the 1920s!) reflects the chief Palestinian concern: the existence, not the size, of the Jewish State.
6. Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria are legal under International Law. UNSCR 2334 violates the 1993 Oslo Accord and the 1967 UNSCR 242, which do not prohibit Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria. In fact, 242 requires Israeli withdrawal “from territories,” not “from all the territories.” In 1979, Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula; 90% of “the territories.”  Moreover, in the 1948 and 1967 wars, Israel acted defensively in the face of Arab aggression, possessing a valid title over the land west of the Jordan River, which was allotted to the Jewish State by Article 80 of the UN Charter, incorporating the 1922 Mandate for Palestine into the UN Charter, and entrusting Britain to establish a Jewish state in the entire area west of the Jordan River: “[to] encourage… close settlement by Jewson the land….” According to Article 80 of the UN Charter – which supersedes the 1947 UN General Assembly recommended Partition Plan – the 1967 war of self-defense returned Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria to its legal owner, the Jewish state.  The 1949 Jordanian belligerent occupation of Judea and Samaria violated the Mandate for Palestine, and was recognized only by Britain and Pakistan.
7. Are the Jewish settlements an obstacle to peace? Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria were erected after the 1967, 1956 and 1948 wars, the 1964 establishment of the PLO, the 1929 decimation of Hebron’s Jewish community, and the uprooting of the Jewish communities of Gush Etzion, in Judea and Samaria, in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s.

8. UNSCR 2334 enhances the profile of the UN – which is inherently anti-US, irrespective of the $2.4BN annual US funding of 22% of the UN budget– thus undermining US national security. For example, 95% of the UN member states that receive US foreign aid, vote against the US most of the time.9. The 1967 UNSCR 242 – which was unanimously adopted in the aftermath of the Six Day War – does not refer to a “two state solution.”  Is it in the US interest to establish another Palestinian state (in addition to Gaza), against the backdrop of the performance of Gaza; the tectonic Arab Tsunami and the well-documented Palestinian track record from collaboration with Nazi Germany, the USSR, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, China and Russia; through the Palestinian subversion in Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon; the active collaboration with Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait; and the institutionalized K-12 hate education, incitement, terrorism, repression, corruption and the persecution of Christians (e.g., the 1950 86% Christian majority in Bethlehem has been transformed into a 12% minority in 2016!)?

10. Is it in the US interest to reduce Israel to a 9-15-mile-wide sliver along the Mediterranean – should Israel concede the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria – which would transform Israel from a national security producer, extending the strategic arm of the US, to a national security consumer; from a strategic asset to a strategic liability/burden; from the largest US aircraft carrier with no US boot on board to a light boat?
11. Are the national security of the US, and Middle East stability, well-served by focusing on Jewish settlements and the Palestinian issue – which is not the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Arab policy making and Middle East turbulence – while all pro-US Arab regimes are facing lethal threats (and benefiting from Israel’s posture of deterrence), and the Middle East is burning, featuring unprecedented number of fatalities and refugees, due to factors, which are totally unrelated to the Palestinian issue and settlements: the megalomaniacal Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Arab Tsunami, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Islamic terrorism, etc.?

In 1977, Prime Minister Begin replied to a request by President Carter to freeze Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria: “Why is it permitted for a Jew to settle in Bethel or Shiloh in the USA, towns named after places in Judea and Samaria, but forbidden to build in the original Shiloh or Beth El?”

US national security and the peace process will be well-served by avoiding gross misperceptions and misrepresentations, as reflected by the current US policy and the State Department bureaucracy, which enabled UN Security Council Resolution 2334.




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Open letter to Prime Minister Bennett ahead of visit to USA

(Hebrew edition in “Israel Hayom,” Israel’s largest circulation daily)

During your first official visit to Washington, DC, you’ll have to choose between two options:

*Blurring your deeply-rooted, assertive Israeli positions on the future of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), which would be welcome by the Biden Administration, yielding to short-term political convenience and popularity inside the beltway;

or

*Tenaciously advocating your deeply-rooted, principle-driven positions, which would underscore a profound disagreement with the Biden Administration and the “elite” US media, while granting you and Israel long-term strategic respect, as demonstrated by some of your predecessors.

For example, the late Prime Minister Shamir honed the second option, bluntly introduced his assertive Israeli positions on Judea and Samaria, rebuffed heavy US pressure – including a mudslinging campaign by President Bush and Secretary of State Baker – suffered a popularity setback, but produced unprecedented expansion of US-Israel strategic cooperation. When it comes to facing the intensified threats of rogue regimes and Islamic terrorism, the US prefers principle-driven, reliable, patriotic, pressure-defying partners, irrespective of disagreements on the Palestinian issue.

Assuming that you shall not budge on the historical and national security centrality of Judea and Samaria, it behooves you to highlight the following matters during your meetings with President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, National Security Advisor Sullivan, Secretary of Defense Austin and Congressional leaders (especially the members of the Appropriations Committees):

  1. The 1,400-year-old track record of the stormy, unpredictable, violent and anti-“infidel” Middle East, which has yet to experience intra-Arab peaceful-coexistence, along with the 100-year-old Palestinian track record (including the systematic collaboration with anti-US entities, hate-education and anti-Arab and anti-Jewish terrorism) demonstrates that the proposed Palestinian state would be a Mini-Afghanistan or a Mega-Gaza on the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria.

It would dominate 80% of Israel’s population and infrastructures in the 9-15-mile sliver between Judea and Samaria and the Mediterranean, which is shorter than the distance between RFK Stadium and the Kennedy Center.

Thus, a Palestinian state would pose a clear and present existential threat to Israel; and therefore, Israel’s control of the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria is a prerequisite for its survival.

  1. The proposed Palestinian state would undermine US interests, as concluded from the Palestinian intra-Arab track record, which has transformed the Palestinians into a role-model of intra-Arab subversion, terrorism and ingratitude. Arabs are aware that a Palestinian state would add fuel to the Middle East fire, teaming up with their enemies (e.g., Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood and Turkey’s Erdogan) and providing a strategic foothold to Russia and China. Consequently, Arabs shower Palestinians with favorable talk, but with cold and negative walk.

Hence, during the October, 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty ceremony, Jordan’s military leaders asserted to their Israeli colleagues that a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River would doom the pro-US Hashemite regime east of the River, and lead, subsequently, to the toppling of all pro-US Arab Peninsula regimes.

  1. There is no foundation for the contention that Israel’s retreat from the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria – which are the cradle of Jewish history, religion and culture – is required in order to sustain Israel’s Jewish majority. In reality, there is unprecedented Jewish demographic momentum, while Arab demography – throughout the Middle East – has Westernized dramatically. The Jewish majority in the combined area of Judea, Samaria and pre-1967 Israel benefits from a robust tailwind of fertility and migration.
  2. Israel’s control of the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria and the Golan Heights, bolsters its posture of deterrence, which has daunted rogue regimes, reduced regional instability, enhanced the national security of all pro-US Arab regimes, and has advanced Israel’s role as a unique force-multiplier for the US. An Israeli retreat from Judea and Samaria would transform Israel from a strategic asset – to a strategic liability – for the US.
  3. As the US reduces its military presence in the Middle East – which is a global epicenter of oil production, global trade (Asia-Africa), international Islamic terrorism and proliferation of non-conventional military technologies – Israel’s posture of deterrence becomes increasingly critical for the pro-US Arab countries (e.g., Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan), who consider Israel to be the most reliable “life insurance agent” in the region.

Contrary to NATO, South Korea and Japan, Israel’s defense does not require the presence of US troops on its soil.

  1. Sustaining Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge is a mutual interest for the US and Israel, which serves as the most cost-effective battle-tested laboratory for the US defense industries and armed forces. Thus, Israel’s use of hundreds of US military systems has yielded thousands of lessons (operation, maintenance and repairs), which have been integrated, by the US manufacturers, into the next generation of the military systems, saving the US many years of research and development, increasing US exports and expanding the US employment base – a mega billion dollar bonanza for the US. At the same time, the US armed forces have benefitted from Israel’s military intelligence and battle experience, as well as joint training maneuvers with Israel’s defense forces, which has improved the US formulation of battle tactics.

Prime Minister Bennett, your visit to Washington, is an opportunity to demonstrate your adherence to your deeply-rooted strong Israeli positions, rejecting the ill-advised appeals and temptations to sacrifice Israel’s national security on the altar of convenience and popularity.

Yours truly,

Yoram Ettinger, expert on US-Israel relations and Middle East affairs

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