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The Tunisia – Mideast – Judea and Samaria Connection

The Tunisian turmoil – and its potential ripple effects – reaffirm the critical significance of the Judea and Samaria mountain ridges to the national security and survival of the Jewish State.

The Tunisian turmoil is a reminder of the nature of Israel’s neighborhood, the Middle East – the role model of domestic and global terrorism, volatility, instability, unpredictable violence, intra-Arab treachery, tenuous compliance with commitments, short-lived intra-Arab agreements, shifting alliances internally and externally, uncertainty, oppressive totalitarianism and divisiveness. Israel’s high security threshold, and extremely slim margin of error, are determined by such regional phenomena.

The more violent and the less predictable the region, the higher the security requirements. Moreover, the prime test of a Middle East peace accord is not its conclusion, but its capability to withstand the worst-case Middle East scenarios, such as an abrupt violation by a concerted unpredictable attack. For example, would the slim 9-15 miles waistline of pre-1967 Israel be able to fend off a 1973 Yom Kippur-like offensive?!

The Tunisian turmoil constitutes a prelude to potentially stormy 2011-12, fueled by a series of aging Arab rulers on their way out, a retreating US, increasingly assertive Russia, China and North Korea, bolder Muslim terrorist organizations and explosive disenchantment among oppressed Arab/Muslim masses.

Thus, the approaching departure of the aging/ailing President Mubarak could produce a pro-US regime, but it could also yield a radical Islamic takeover, followed by volcanic eruptions in the Middle East at-large, in the eastern Mediterranean, Horn of Africa, the Red Sea, Sudan, North Africa, devastating Western interests, providing a tailwind to terrorism and radical regimes and consuming the Israel-Egypt peace treaty.

The scheduled US retreat from Iraq, its expected evacuation of Afghanistan and the switch of US policy from confrontation to engagement with rogue regimes, are perceived by US rivals and enemies as an extension of the US retreats from Iran (1979), Lebanon (1983) and Somali (1993), adrenalyzing radical and subversive veins. The retreat from Iraq could trigger a lava-effect, threatening the survival of pro-Western regimes in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and the UAE, but benefitting Iran, Syria and regional terrorism.

Turkey’s about-face from a Western-oriented policy to Islam-driven policy has transformed the former leader of the Muslim World from a stability-generating ally to an unrest-perpetrating opponent of Western democracies. It has undermined regional stability, advancing Russian, Iranian and overall Islamic ambitions at the expense of vital US interests.

Middle East turbulence could force the Hashemite regime in Jordan to abandon its pro-Western policy and its peace treaty with Israel. For instance, regional constrains forced King Hussein to collaborate with Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Regional pressures led Jordan’s King Abdullah and King Hussein to join the wars on Israel in 1948/9 and in 1967 and 1973 respectively. During 1968-1970, King Hussein provided its arch-enemy, the PLO, with logistical and operational bases for anti-Israel terrorism. How would Israel’s border with Jordan be impacted by a radicalized Iraq and/or Egypt?! How would it be affected by the toppling of Jordan’s Hashemite regime?!

Mideast precedents – and sober assessments of Middle East reality – behoove the Jewish State to base its policy on realistic Mideast scenarios and not on lethal wishful thinking. The Mideast requires (especially) Israel to maintain a high security threshold, which secures its most vulnerable eastern border: the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria, which constitute the “Golan Heights” of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the most effective tank obstacle in the region (3,000ft steep slope dominating the Jordan Valley in the east), a dream platform for invading the 9-15 miles sliver along the Mediterranean Sea (2,000ft moderate slope over-towering 80% of Israel’s population and infrastructures in the west).




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US-sponsored anti-Israel UN Security Council statement – acumen

*The US’ co-sponsorship of an anti-Israel UN Security Council Statement reflects the return of the State Department’s worldview to the center stage of US foreign policy-making. This was the first time, in six years, that the US enabled the UN Security Council to act against Israel.

*This is not merely a worldview, which is highly critical of Israel, as has been the case since 1948, when Foggy Bottom led the charge against the re-establishment of the Jewish State.

This worldview has systematically undermined US interests, by subordinating the unilateral, independent US national security policy (on Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestinian issue, etc.) to a multilateral common denominator with the anti-US and anti-Israel UN and international organizations, as well as the vacillating and terrorists-appeasing Europe.

*It has sacrificed Middle East reality on the altar of wishful-thinking, assuming that the establishment of a Palestinian state would fulfill Palestinian aspirations, advance the cause of peace, reduce terrorism and regional instability; thus, enhancing US interests.

*However, the reality of the Middle East and Jordan and the rogue Palestinian track record lend credence to the assumption that a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River would doom the pro-US Hashemite regime east of the River, yielding traumatic ripple effects, regionally and globally:

^Replace the relatively-moderate Hashemite regime with either a rogue Palestinian regime, a Muslim Brotherhood regime, or other rogue regimes;
^Transform Jordan into a chaotic state, similar to Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, which would be leveraged by Iran’s Ayatollahs to intensify their encirclement of the pro-US Saudi regime;
^Convert Jordan into a major arena of regional and global Islamic terrorism;
^Trigger a domino scenario into the Arabian Peninsula, which could topple all pro-US, oil-producing Arab regimes;
^Imperil the supply of Persian Gulf oil, which would be held hostage by anti-US entities, catapulting the price at the pump;
^Jeopardize major naval routes of global trade between Asia and Europe through the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal;
^Intensify epicenters of regional and global terrorism and drug trafficking;
^Generate a robust tailwind to US’ adversaries (Russia and China) and enemies (Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS) and a powerful headwind to US economic and national security interests.

*The State Department assumes that Palestinian terrorism – just like Islamic terrorism – is driven by despair, ignoring the fact that Palestinian terrorism has been driven (for the last 100 years) by the vision to erase the “infidel” Jewish entity from “the abode of Islam,” as stated by the charters of Fatah (1959) and the PLO (1964), 8 and 3 years before the Jewish State reunited Jerusalem and reasserted itself in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).

*Aspiring for a Palestinian state, and viewing Israel’s control of Judea and Samaria as an obstacle to peace, ignores the Arab view of the Palestinians as a role model of intra-Arab subversion, terrorism, corruption and treachery. Moreover, the State Department has held the view that the Palestinian issue is the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict and a central to Arab interests, which has been refuted by the Abraham Accords. The latter ignored the State Department, sidestepped the Palestinian issue and therefore came to fruition.

*The State Department overlooks the centrality of the Palestinian Authority’s hate education, which has become the most effective production-line of terrorists, and the most authentic reflection of the Palestinian Authority’s worldview and vision.

*The State Department has also taken lightly the Palestinian Authority’s mosque incitement, public glorification of terrorists and monthly allowances to families of terrorists, which have documented its rogue and terroristic nature (walk), notwithstanding its peaceful diplomatic rhetoric (talk).

*The State Department’s eagerness to welcome the Palestinian issue in a “red carpet” manner – contrary to the “shabby doormat” extended to Palestinians by Arabs – and its determination to promote the establishment of a Palestinian state, along with its embrace of Iran’s Ayatollahs and the Muslim Brotherhood, have been interpreted by rogue regimes and organizations as weakness.

Experience suggests that weakness invites the wolves, including wolves which aim to bring “The Great Satan” to submission throughout the world as well as the US mainland.

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