Alternative Insight

International Bodies Fail to Understand the Middle East Crisis
Part I – Trajectory to Total War

International Bodies fail to recognize motives.
Ardent discussions and symbolic votes that demonstrate support for international law and the justified Palestinian cause are meritorious. However, Israel uses the symbolic methods to show their ineffectiveness and contemptuously challenges them by doing the opposite of what they intend to accomplish. Although United States President Donald Trump declared his nation’s recognition of Jerusalem (not West) as Israel’s capital and intention to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, the United Nations, European Union, and Arab League failed to digest the serious consequences of the intended move and responded with rhetoric rather than with a defined action plan that could definitely counter the egregious act. The U.S. president fulfilled a campaign pledge to his Religious Right constituency, which is determined to help move the huge granite stones that rest comfortably on the top of Midbar Sinai Street, in Givat Havatzim, Jerusalem\'s northernmost district, to the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount. Cut to specification, the imposing stones represent one of several preparations by the Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement to erect a Third Temple on the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount. Receiving approval that Jerusalem is its capital gives Israel an introduction to declare that to administer its capital it must have total legal control over all municipalities, including all neighborhoods of the Old City, which includes the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount.

International bodies fail to recognize why twisting reality poses risks.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complemented President Trump’s ego-tripping prevarications, his attitude of attacking all those who contradict him, and his doing it in a manner that is associated with mania. In a remark to official institutions that "Jerusalem had been the capital of Israel for 3000 years and the present state of Israel for 70 years," PM Netanyahu portrayed similar characteristics to those of President Trump.

Were Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arab Caliphates, Crusaders, Mamluks, and Ottomans aware of this "capital" during their combined rule of Jerusalem, which lasted almost three thousand years? More baffling is that the Prime Minister of a nation that calls itself the "Jewish State," does not know that Jerusalem lay in an area called Judah and not Israel. Should not Netanyahu forfeit leadership for his inept statement?

Combine the psychological difficulties of the President of the United States with those of the leader of a nation that is closely allied with the United States and we have nations that have been culpable in immense crimes and killings in the last decades working together and determining the destiny for many of us.

International Bodies fail to recognize the ominous trajectories

The Zionist proposal at the 1919 Paris peace Conference defined intentions. Although, the proposal mentioned that "Palestine is not large enough to contain more than a proportion of the Jews of the world" and "The greater part of the fourteen millions or more scattered throughout all countries must remain in their present localities," it has become obvious that the Zionists did not intend to follow their statements. Compound that deception with their description of the "General lines for the boundaries of Palestine," shown as dotted lines on the map. Note their Greater Israel extends close to Beirut in Lebanon, Damascus in Syria, and Amman in Jordan. The boundary captures all the aquifers and facilitates use of the Hedjaz railway.

Continue to the 1948 war, when, contrary to the over-expressed statement that the Egyptians, together with other Arab armies, intended to "throw the Israelis into the sea," the Arab forces did not have the military strength to accomplish the task. Egyptian troop movements indicate a defense of the new Palestinian state rather than intent to occupy the new Israeli state. The reality is that the Israelis figuratively threw the Palestinians "into the sea," or at least into refugee camps, by being complicit in the leaving and expulsion of 750,000 of the 900,000 Palestinians who inhabited the British Mandate, and by barring them a return to the lands and homes their families had possessed for centuries. Already, in 1948, it had become obvious that the Zionists intended to achieve their objectives, and that two states was not included in their agenda..

It is no coincidence that Israel invaded and occupied the Sinai in 1956 before French and British coordinated attacks against Nasser\'s Egypt. Rarely mentioned is a controversial meeting, known as the Protocol of Sèvres,1956, and reported in Anatomy of a War Plot, Avi Shlaim International Affairs, 73:3 (1997), pp.509-530, which describes Israel Prime Minister David ben Gurion\'s proposed plan to Great Britain and France, and executes the Zionist proposals. Although the meeting records are not available in French and British government archives, the meeting occurrence and parts of ben Gurion\'s plan are confirmed in Shimon Peres: the biography by Michael Bar-Zohar.

The session started at 4 p.m. on Monday, 22 October, in the conservatory of the villa and it was intended to enable the leaders of the two countries to get to know each other and to have a preliminary discussion. Ben-Gurion opened the discussion by listing his military, political and moral considerations against ‘the English plan’. His main objection was that Israel would be branded as the aggressor while Britain and France would pose as peace-makers but he was also exceedingly apprehensive about exposing Israeli cities to attack by the Egyptian Air Force. Instead he presented a comprehensive plan, which he himself called ‘fantastic’, for the reorganization of the Middle East. Jordan, he observed, was not viable as an independent state and should therefore be divided. Iraq would get the East Bank in return for a promise to settle the Palestinian refugees there and to make peace with Israel while the West Bank would be attached to Israel as a semi-autonomous region. Lebanon suffered from having a large Muslim population which was concentrated in the south. The problem could be solved by Israel’s expansion up to the Litani River, thereby helping to turn Lebanon into a more compact Christian state. The Suez Canal area should be given an international status while the Straits of Tiran in the Gulf of Aqaba should come under Israeli control to ensure freedom of navigation. A prior condition for realizing this plan was the elimination of Nasser and the replacement of his regime with a pro-Western government which would also be prepared to make peace with Israel.

At the start of the 1967 war, Israel claimed that Arab armies had prepared an attack, which forced the nation to initiate the offensive. After the war, Moishe Dayan has been quoted as saying, "at least 80 percent of two decades of border clashes were initiated by Israel. We would send a tractor to plow some (disputed) area...and we knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn\'t shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that\'s how it was." Other disguised offensive actions.

• As early as 1964, Israel diverted the headwaiters of the Jordan River from the Sea of Galilee to Israel\'s South. Syria responded by building its own diversions in the Golan. The Israel forces attacked these facilities on several occasions.
• On April 26, 1967, two months before the start of the 6-day war, Israeli jets shot down 6 Syrian planes over Syrian territory in the Golan Heights. Later that day Israeli jets flew over Damascus.
• Israel bombed all Egyptian airfields and destroyed the Egyptian air force before any declaration of war.
• Although Israel accused Egypt of preparing for an immediate attack, no Egyptian soldier set foot on Israeli territory.
• Israel captured and occupied the entire Sinai.
• Israel continued attacks in the Golan after a preliminary truce had been declared and did not stop the attacks until the entire Golan had been captured.

As in previous engagements, Israel fought a defensive war in an offensive manner and seized large amounts of territory. The war created another flood of Palestinian refugees, a total of 300,000 fled the West Bank and Gaza, of which 180,000 were first time refugees; the others were from previous actions. One clue to the reason for the war - Illegal settlements under direction of the Labor government quickly followed the occupation of the West Bank.

Several wars later, Israel occupies and has virtual control of much of British Mandate Palestine, including Jerusalem. Gaza remains a Palestinian territory but under constant surveillance, restriction in actions and movement, and subjected to intermittent attacks by Israel. Most of Israel’s adversaries have been subdued by war, internal strife, or agreements. Despite the violence, and after all the mayhem, Israel is not a defined state — no fully defined borders, no constitution, no Israeli nationality (based on ethnicity), sketchy laws, an unrecognized capital city (except for U.S.), failure to respect UN resolutions, severe human rights violations, chaotic political system, biased immigration policy, committing a great number of extra-judicial killings that violate sovereignty of other nations, and a large number of citizens living outside the country — and evidently, Israeli officials prefer the nation to remain that way.

The Zionists have temporarily compromised their original territorial demands but still remain in the position of wherever they go they will encounter a potential enemy, even at the Jordan River. Looking back in history at similar situations, more pronounced than Israel’s situation but still comparable, we find the following:

The United States could not expand without encountering antagonistic Native American tribes, Mexican landholders and Canadian nationalists. The former was virtually eliminated and the others subdued until the only contestants were the two oceans. No problem.
France, under Napoleon, met enemies at every doorstep until it ran out of soldiers and ammunition in Russia. Major problem.
Nazi Germany succeeded in vanquishing possible enemies in Germany’s northern and southern frontiers, succeeded in pushing France into the Atlantic Ocean, but still faced another enemy on the eastern front. As Napoleon, Hitler lost that war.

Similar to Napoleonic France and Nazi Germany, Israel has and will always face enemies, and the last to stand — Iran, Shia militias in a revitalized Iraq, Turkey, and Hezbollah — seem willing to fight aggressively, unlike those who previously contested Israel. These foes might be temporarily contained, but Israel cannot subdue them forever. Imagine all of these nations, together with the militias that emerged during the latest Iraq and Syrian conflicts, confronting Israel. Will the major powers enter the conflict in a manner that occurred in World War I? When faced with defeat, will Israel exercise the Sampson option? Assuredly, without any doubt, it will, and a nuclear holocaust will destroy the Middle East.

Unrestrained warfare is one of the ominous trajectories that International Bodies fail to recognize. There are others.

With continued seizure of Palestinian lands, expanded settlement activity, and purposed denial of the Palestinians to agriculture, water rights, fishing rights, livelihood, and employment, Israel’s actions forecast the destruction of the Palestinian people. Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and planned interference debilitates Palestinian communication, transportation, assembly and governance. Its willingness to intensify Palestinian pain and suffering, especially in Gaza, provides only one direction - more of the same - more generations who are denied basic rights, more generations who are subjected to subsistence living, and more generations who endure intense suffering. Israel has shown no sympathy with the Palestinian plight, and the international community has done nothing to reverse the negative trend. The severe Israeli repression assures that the Palestinians lack what they most need - ontological security - a stable mental state derived from a sense of continuity in regard to the events in one\'s life. Because the absence of ontological security accelerates deterioration of the Palestinian community, the trajectory points to Israel propelling the destruction of Palestinian life to an eventual outcome, a genocide that few will notice; it is not a genocide until the vicious act is completed.

The ISIS Caliphate has been defeated and reduced, but what is not reduced are two causes of international terrorism — support for Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people and Israel’s conflict with the Muslim world in Jerusalem. Osama bin-Laden clarified those positions in an interview with CBS reporter Joel Arak, October 30, 2004, who related that bin-Laden said he was first inspired to attack the United States by the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon in which towers and buildings in Beirut were destroyed in the siege of the capital. "While I was looking at these destroyed towers in Lebanon, it sparked in my mind that the tyrant should be punished with the same and that we should destroy towers in America, so that it tastes what we taste and would be deterred from killing our children and women." Actions that provoke extremists increase their motives for international terrorism, and more terrorism follows. Until these situations are satisfactorily resolved, one driver of international terrorism will remain and create innocent victims for decades.

The trajectories to war, community destruction, terrorism, and devastation are clearly marked. Nevertheless, the world and regional institutions that have the power to prevent the gloom and doom react with a combination of confusion and complacency, which hastens the ultimate to occur. Time has become essential; ponderous steps by the world community to redo fall behind Israel\'s rapid measures of doing. Much can be done but not without consideration to the mechanisms that prevent complete understanding of the crisis, which is sadly lacking, and how these mechanisms thwart capable minds from engineering capable solutions. Israel’s deceptive practices that confuse the issues, dupe the public, and muzzle attempts to resolve the Middle East crisis are the principal ingredients that give it clout and voice much above its fighting weight. Never in history have so many been fooled by an extensive, calculated, and ingenious plan to subvert minds and rearrange positions. Exposing the deceptions, delivering the antidotes to render them harmless, and stifling them are the first and necessary steps before turning an impending catastrophe into a manageable situation. Part II of this article will present a strategy to combat Israel\'s propaganda offensive.

alternative insight
december 20, 2017

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