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Video #24: The misperceived Jewish settlements

 Video#24: http://bit.ly/2fBPI6G; entire video-seminar: http://bit.ly/1ze66dS
1. Jewish settlements have existed since Biblical time in the mountain ridges of Judea & Samaria, the cradle of Jewish history, religion, culture, holidays, ethos, language and yearnings.Judea (Yehudah in Hebrew) is the origin of the term “Jew” (Yehudi in Hebrew). From time immemorial, the real name of the region has been Judea & Samaria, renamed “the West Bank” following its illegal April 1950 annexation by Jordan.
2. The term “Jewish settlements” was coined in the Bible, the Book of Numbers , Chapter 34, verse 4, commanding Jews to inherit and settle the Land of Israel. In fact, the preamble and articles 6 and 11 of the 1920 British Mandate for Palestine stipulated: “….In favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people….The Administration of Palestine [on both sides of the Jordan River] shall facilitate Jewish immigration… and shall encourage close settlement by Jews on the land…. The desirability of promoting the close settlement and intensive cultivation of the land….”
3.Following the 1967 War – triggered by a mobilized intra-Arab military force, threatening Israel with destruction – modern day Jewish settlements were established on the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria, which over-tower Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Israel’s only international airport and 80% of Israel’s population and infrastructure in the 9-15-mile-wide sliver along the Mediterranean, which was the bulk of pre-1967 Israel.
4. The post-1967 settlements reestablished Jewish communities which were eradicated by Arabs during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.  For instance, the Gush Etzion Bloc and Hebron, the 2nd holiest Jewish city – mentioned 62 times in the Bible – was King David’s capital city, the home of Caleb, and the burial site of the Jewish Patriarchs and Matriarchs, including Jacob, whose second name was Israel.
5.  Are the Jewish settlements an obstacle to peace? Jewish communities in Judea & Samaria were erected after the 1967, 1956 and 1948 wars, the 1964 establishment of the PLO, the August 24, 1929 decimation of Hebron’s Jewish community, and the uprooting of the Jewish communities of Gush Etzion in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s.
6. The Palestinians are not concerned with the size – but with the existence – of the Jewish state. It is reflected in their education system, which defines the “infidel” Jewish presence in pre-1967 Israel as an “illegal settlement” to be uprooted, as specified in the 1964 Covenant of Mahmoud Abbas’ PLO and the August, 2009 6th Convention of Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah urging “to eradicate the Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence.”
7. Would the uprooting of Jewish settlements in Judea & Samaria moderate the Arab-Israeli conflict? In September 2005, Israel uprooted 25 Jewish communities from Gaza and Samaria. Gaza became Judenrein (“clean of Jews” in Nazi terminology), in order to, ostensibly, promote peace and security. However, the dismantling of the Jewish communities was perceived by Arabs as an erosion of Jewish tenacity, escalating Palestinian hate-education, terrorism, the shelling of Jewish communities all the way to Tel Aviv, paving the road to the 2009, 2012 and 2014 Israel-Hamas wars, and the rise of Hamas’ intra-Muslim stature.
8. Every square inch of land ceded by Israel has been transformed into a platform of hate-education and terrorism.

9.  The 2000-2002 unprecedented Palestinian terrorism (Intifada’) was ignited by Prime Minister Barak’s hasty withdrawal from Lebanon, and his unprecedented proposal of full withdrawal to the 1967 lines, including the re-division of Jerusalem. It was perceived as submission to pressure, especially in the inherently intolerant, violent Arab Middle East, which respects posture-of-deterrence, but not concession-driven entities and initiatives, and certainly not an “infidel” Jewish State in the supposedly abode-of-Islam.

10.  Peaceful coexistence on the one hand and the uprooting of Jewish, or Arab, communities on the other hand constitute an oxymoron.  If 400,000 Jews, among 1.75MN 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 boulder to peace?!  The 1.75MN Israeli Arabs among 6.5MN Jews have reflected peaceful coexistence, as should be considered the 400,000 Jews among 1.75MN Arabs in Judea & Samaria. The rejection of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria reflects the Palestinian/Arab counter-peaceful strategic goal.  Opposition to the presence of 1.75mn Arabs in pre-1967 Israel must not be tolerated, but the opposition to the presence of 400,000 Jews in Judea and Samaria should be? Israel’s legal system prohibits the expulsion of Arabs or the expropriation of private Arab land.

11.  The 1993 Israel-Palestinian Oslo Accord does not prohibit Jewish or Arab settlements in Judea & Samaria. Singling out Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria – while ignoring the much more extensive Palestinian construction – emboldens Arab terrorism, prejudges the outcome of negotiations and forces Arabs to be more radical than the West.  It is perceived, by Arabs, as an appease – not a peace – process.
12. The next video will highlight international legal aspects of Jewish settlements.
For more data on Jewish settlements:



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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

Israel in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) advances US interest

The US position on the future of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) should be based on US interests in the context of a violent, volcanic, uncontrollable and unpredictable Middle East, where agreements are as tenuous as are the regimes which conclude them.

On September 18, 1970, the pro-USSR Syrian military invaded Jordan in an attempt to topple the pro-US Hashemite regime, which would destabilize the regional balance. The invasion was rolled back on September 23, largely, due to Israel’s deployment of its military, and Israel’s deterring posture on the Golan Heights and the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria. Thus, Israel’s posture of deterrence spared the US the need to deploy its own troops (while it was bogged down in the Vietnam quagmire), in order to secure its Jordanian ally, and prevent a devastating ripple effect into Saudi Arabia and all other pro-US Arab Gulf States (at a time when the US was heavily dependent upon Persian Gulf oil).

Israel’s control of the mountains of Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley – as well as the Golan Heights – dramatically catapulted its regional position from violence-inducing weakness to violence-deterring strength, reducing regional violence and threats to all pro-US Arab regimes.

Israel’s control of the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria – the cradle of Jewish history – has transformed the Jewish State from a supplicant and national security consumer to a strategic ally of the US and national security producer.  In the words of the late General Alexander Haig (former Supreme Commander of NATO and US Secretary of State), Israel has become the largest US aircraft carrier with no US boots on board, yielding the US a few hundred percent rate of return on its annual investment in Israel.

Israel’s control of the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria (3,000 ft. above the Jordan Valley and 2,000 ft. above the coastal plain) has considerably bolstered the national security of the pro-US and highly vulnerable Hashemite regime in Jordan. It has transformed Israel into Jordan’s most security-generating neighbor. Israel systematically combats anti-Israel and anti-Hashemite Palestinian terrorists west of the Jordan River, sharing with Jordan vital intelligence on Palestinian and Islamic terrorists in Jordan, and deterring potential assaults on Jordan by rogue organizations and regimes in the north (Syria) and east (Iraq/Iran).  Moreover, Saudi Arabia and all other pro-US Arab Gulf States have unprecedentedly expanded their military, intelligence, counter-terrorism and commercial cooperation with Israel, realizing the added-value of Israel’s deterrence in face of the real and clear lethal threats posed by Iran’s Ayatollahs, Islamic Sunni terrorism (e.g., the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS) and Turkey’s Erdogan.

On the other hand, an Israeli retreat from the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria, would transform Jordan’s western border (the proposed Palestinian state) into a deadly threat to the Hashemite regime.  It would be the straw that would break the back of the Hashemite regime, transforming pro-US Jordan into a Libya/Yemen/Iraq/Syria-like platform of anti-US Islamic terrorism, according Iran’s Ayatollahs an opportunity to extend their reach toward the Mediterranean.

The toppling of the Hashemite regime – and its substitution by a Palestinian, “Muslim Brotherhood” or any other rogue regime – would intensify Islamic terrorism in Iraq and Syria, and would generate tailwind to the systematic attempts to topple the pro-US Arab regimes in Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni Arab oil states, as well as Egypt, with their dramatically adverse impact on the state of Western national security and economy (e.g., disruption of the supply – and a surge in the price – of oil).

Thus, in October 1994, during the Israel-Jordan peace treaty ceremony, top Jordanian military officers shared a crucial message with their Israeli counterparts: “In view of the subversive, terroristic and treacherous Palestinian track record in their relations with Arab states, a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River would doom the Hashemite regime east of the River, boding disaster for Saudi Arabia and all other Arab states south of Jordan and possibly Egypt.” This assessment was a derivative of Jordan’s inherently fragile domestic scene, exacerbated by intensifying external Islamic/Arab threats:

*70% of Jordan’s population are Palestinians.  Most Palestinian leaders (e.g., the PLO, Palestinian Authority and Hamas) consider Jordan an artificial entity, claiming title to the whole of British Mandate Palestine, from the Mediterranean to the Iraqi border, of which Jordan is 78%.  Hence, the ongoing battle of the Jordanian secret service against Palestinian terrorism and subversion.

*A well-entrenched presence of the Muslim Brotherhood (the largest Islamic Sunni terrorist organization with “human rights” subsidiaries such as CAIR) aims to replace the Hashemite regime, violently, with a Muslim Caliphate.

*Some ISIS veterans of the Syria and Iraq civil wars consider Jordan their home.

*Jordan’s Bedouins (who control the military and homeland security establishments) are deeply fragmented, geographically, tribally and ideologically. Southern (indigenous) Bedouin tribes have displayed tenuous loyalty to the throne, considering the Hashemites “carpetbaggers” from the Arabian Peninsula.

Based on the Palestinian intra-Arab and global rogue track record and the Palestinian Authority hate-education, Israel’s retreat from the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria would yield another anti-US rogue regime. It would further destabilize the inherently violent, intolerant, unpredictable, unstable and despotic Middle East, providing Russia and possibly Iran naval, air and land rights, and accelerating the flight of Christians from the Bethlehem area.

Ignoring the volcanic Middle East reality, the unique benefits derived from Israel’s control of the Judea and Samaria mountain ridges, and the significant damage which would be caused by the proposed Palestinian state, would resemble a person cutting off his/her nose to spite his/her face.

Israel’s control of the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria highlights the synergy between the national security of the US and Israel, emphasizing Israel’s military and commercial contribution as the most effective US force-multiplier in the Middle East and beyond.

 

 




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