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The US-Iraq, Judea and Samaria Linkage

In 1967, Israel demolished the military forces of Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Consequently, Israel developed the “Low Probability Arab Offensive” concept. The 1973 War – along with Mideast unpredictability and objective intelligence constraints – devastated that concept, threatening the Jewish State with oblivion.

 

In 2003, following the US occupation of Iraq, Israel recycled the “Low Probability” concept. Israel assumed that the US military in Iraq precluded the possibility of a conventional Arab offensive on Israel’s eastern front – a lethal threat to Israel’s “soft belly” (Jerusalem and greater Tel Aviv). However, in 2009, that concept has been rendered obsolete by the gradual US evacuation of Iraq and by the lowered US military profile in the Mideast, which have energized Mideast radicals. The gradual US withdrawal from Iraq should free Israel from the “Low Probability” delusion, thus preventing a 1973 War-like disaster. It should put to rest the illusion that the US military presence in Iraq is a fixture, thus supposedly permitting dramatic cuts in Israel’s defense budget, while lowering the critical significance of the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria to Israel’s survival.

 

The potential implications of the drastic change in US policy – from an offensive and defiant posture to one of retreat and engagement – highlight the unpredictable, treacherous and brutal nature of the Mideast. It mandates a very high security threshold, especially for the besieged Jewish State. For instance in 1969, Libya was transformed abruptly from a US – to a Soviet – ally. The largest US (overseas) air force base, Wheelus, became, overnight, a Soviet base. In 1979, Iran was switched violently from the “US Policeman” in the Gulf to a chief “Anti-US Gangster.” In 1980, Iraq invaded Iran in violation of their peace treaty, while avoiding US surveillance facilities in the region. In 1989, the Communist USSR collapsed and policy-makers deluded themselves about peace dividends and the end of the war era. However, the globe and particularly the Mideast, have become less-certain, less-predictable, less-stable, less-familiar and therefore much more threatening. In 1990, Iraq violated its peace treaty with Kuwait, plundering and raping the sheikhdom. In 1993, the Israel-PLO Oslo Accord was concluded and Shimon Peres authored “The New Middle East,” claiming that borders and territory lost their significance. But, instead of peace, the Oslo Process ushered in an unprecedented wave of hate-education, non-compliance and terrorism. The IDF and Israel’s Secret Service had to reenter Judea and Samaria, in order to defend Israel’s “soft belly” in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the 9-15 miles coastal plain (pre-1967 Israel).

 

In 1948/9, Jordan’s King Abdullah broke his commitment, to Golda Meir, to refrain from fighting the Jewish State. In 1966, King Hussein breached his commitment – to the US – to prohibit US-made tanks from crossing the Jordan River. In 1967 and in 1973, King Hussein was forced by Egypt and Syria to join the wars against Israel. During 1968-1970, King Hussein provided the PLO with logistical and operational bases for anti-Israel terrorism. In 1990, King Hussein collaborated with Saddam Hussein. How would the toppling of Jordan’s Hashemite regime (by pro-Iran, pro-Syria, or pro-Hamas/PLO terrorists) impact the Israel-Jordan peace treaty and the potency of the Eastern Arab Front threat on the Jewish State?!

 

The expected completion of the US retreat from Iraq and the minimization of the US as a global policeman would exacerbate local, regional and global conflicts in the Mideast, would intensify pro-Arab Russian, Chinese and North Korean involvement, would escalate Iranian and Syrian belligerence and would fuel Islamic terrorist subversion against Arab regimes in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Sheikhdoms.

 

The progressive US withdrawal from Iraq sheds light on the potential of uncertainty, instability, treachery, non-compliance and violence in the Mideast, irrespective of Israel’s policy or existence. Mideast precedents behoove the Jewish State to base its policy on realistic Mideast scenarios and not on lethal wishful thinking, such as the “Low Probability Concept.” The Mideast requires (especially) Israel to maintain a high security threshold, which protects its most vulnerable eastern flank: 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 of flat land along the Mediterranean Sea (2,000ft moderate slope in the western mountain ridge).




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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.

Support Appreciated

 




Videos

The post-1967 turning point of US-Israel cooperation

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

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Exposing the myth of the Arab demographic time bomb