If you want to get an idea of the kind of visceral hatred for Israel that exists in the American national security establishment, have a look at this piece in Politico from Zbigniew
Brzezinski, Frank Carlucci, Lee Hamilton, Carla A. Hills, Thomas Pickering and Henry
Siegman (Hat Tip: MFS - The Other News). With the exception of Siegman, who is just another self-hating Jew, and Hamilton, who is a former Congressman, the rest are all former Secretaries of State and/or National Security Advisers. The word 'terror' doesn't appear in this piece. To give you a flavor, this is how they dismiss Israel's security concerns:
The United States has allowed the impression that it
supports a version of Israel’s security that entails Israeli control of
all of Palestine’s borders and part of its territory, including the
Jordan Valley. Many former heads of Israel’s top intelligence agencies,
surely among the best informed in the country about the country’s
security needs, have rejected this version of Israel’s security. Meir
Dagan, a former head of the Mossad, dismissed it as “nothing more than
manipulation.”
Israel’s confiscation of what
international law has clearly established as others’ territory
diminishes its security. Illegal West Bank land grabs only add to the
Palestinian and the larger Arab sense of injustice that Israel’s
half-century-long occupation has already generated, and fuels a
revanchismthat sooner or later will trigger renewed violence. No
Palestinian leader could or would ever agree to a peace accord that
entails turning over the Jordan Valley to Israeli control, either
permanently or for an extended period of time, thus precluding a peace
accord that would end Israel’s occupation. The marginal improvement in
Israel’s security provided by these expansive Israeli demands can hardly
justify the permanent subjugation and disenfranchisement of a people to
which Israel refuses to grant citizenship in the Jewish state.
Here's a very different perspective on Israel's national security.
Although Palestinians have conceded fully half of the territory assigned
to them in the U.N.’s Partition Plan of 1947, a move Israel’s
president, Shimon Peres, has hailed as unprecedented, they are not
demanding a single square foot of Israeli territory beyond the June 6,
1967, line.
Remind me please which side rejected the 1947 partition plan? Why should they have any right to even mention it now? June 6 line? I thought the war broke out on June 5 and we usually talk about the June 4 line. And as to 'Palestinian' demands on that territory, you can bet they will come right after a 'treaty' is signed.
Do you still wonder why America's foreign policy establishment hates us even though the American people love us?
Israeli officials are calling US Secretary of State John FN Kerry's 'security plan' 'unsophisticated' and 'unusable' and are complaining that the man does not even know how to read a map.
The officials, quoted in Yisrael Hayom, said that Kerry had
been rushing hither and fro in and attempt to hammer out details of what
is expected to be the framework of what he would like to see
implemented in order to pave the way for a final-status agreement. The
framework is expected to lay out the final goals and eventual shape of a
final-status deal, with Israel committing to give up land in Judea and
Samaria, and the PA expected by Kerry to recognize Israel as a Jewish
state and to back off on some of its demands.
But based on Kerry's public statements and conversations with them,
the officials quoted said they don't expect anything useful to emerge
from the process. “Kerry is here in the region a lot, but he has almost
no understanding of how things work in the Middle East.
“As a result, the American plan is unsophisticated, and does not
answer the needs of both sides,” the officials said. “There is no
connection between the positive statements Kerry is making in public and
the details of the deal. He is, to put it mildly, very unfamiliar with
the roots of the conflict, and as a result is incapable of bringing true
solutions to the table. He can't even read maps of the region
properly,” the officials added.
Here are some sobering thoughts for 2012 from Yoram Ettinger's Friday column in Yisrael HaYom.
The 2012 Arab street could dwarf the seismic events of 2011, impacting national and regional security and the resulting security requirements. The lower the stability and life expectancy of Middle East regimes, the shiftier their ideologies, policies and commitments -- such as Egypt’s and Jordan’s peace accords with Israel -- become. The higher the volatility of the Arab street, the higher the security threshold and requirements in the face of that volatility. Moreover, as the U.S.’s strategic arm becomes shorter, its posture of deterrence becomes less effective, rogue regimes become more adrenalized, the threat of war becomes more acute and security requirements in the face of the stormy Arab street grow.
The threshold of Israel’s security requirements is rising as the threats mount.
According to U.S. Lt. Gen. (ret.) Tom Kelly, Chief of Operations in the 1991 Gulf War, "I cannot defend this land (Israel) without that terrain (West Bank) ... Without the West Bank, Israel is only 8 miles wide at its narrowest point. That makes it indefensible."
Former U.S. Marine Corps commander Gen. (ret.) Al Gray stated that “missiles fly over any terrain feature, but they don't negate the strategic significance of territorial depth ... To defeat Israel would require the Arabs to deploy armor, infantry and artillery into Israel ... It remains true in the era of modern missiles.”
The Judea and Samaria mountain ridges -- which hold the cradle of Jewish history and rise 2,000 to 3,000 ft. to tower over the Jordan Valley, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and 80 percent of Israel’s infrastructure -- constitute the most effective tank obstacle. They are a dream platform of invasion into the 8- to 15-mile wide pre-1967 Israel, in the most conflict-ridden, unpredictable and treacherous neighborhood in the world, where there has never been an intra-Arab comprehensive peace, or intra-Arab compliance with most intra-Arab agreements. The Judea and Samaria mountain ridges are indispensable to Israel’s survival in the raging Middle East.
An insecure Israel would be a liability, rather than an asset, to the U.S. An insecure Israel would not be able to deter an Arab invasion of Jordan -- which could spill over into Saudi Arabia -- as Israel conducted in September 1970, when the U.S. was bogged down in Vietnam. An insecure Israel would not be able to perform as the late U.S. Gen. Alexander Haig described: “The largest U.S. aircraft carrier which does not require a single U.S. soldier, saving the U.S. $20 billion annually.”
The next time someone tells you that we should give up Judea and Samaria for a 'Palestinian' reichlet, throw that at them.
Former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Dore Gold appeared on Fox & Friends on Tuesday to defend Israel against President Obama's 'peace plan.' While he was there, they also asked him about what's going on in Syria.
Let's go to the videotape.
In that video, you saw excerpts of a brief video called "Israel's critical security needs for a viable peace." I showed you that video once before here, but since it's been more than a year, I'm going to post it again.
Israel agrees to turn Jordan Valley over to combined Jordanian - PA force
The only hope that this report is not true is that it's an Arab source that may be doing some wishful thinking.
But according to the report, Israel has agreed to turn the Jordan Valley over to a combined Jordanian - 'Palestinian' force immediately upon the establishment (God forbid) of a 'Palestinian state.'
Israel has promised to entrust security in the Jordan Valley to Jordanian and Palestinian Authority (PA) forces after the establishment of a PA state, according to Jordanian sources cited Sunday by the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan. The sources said an agreement was reached between Jordan and the PA during a recent meeting in Amman that was also attended by a representative of Israel under the supervision of the United States.
The sources said that the idea is to prevent the smuggling of weapons into the area that might threaten the new Arab state. The sides will continue to meet on a regular basis to assess the situation as the PA receives security control on additional areas.
This is suicidal. Completely suicidal. To see why, please watch this video from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
Let's go to the videotape.
The picture at the top is a picture taken from the northern end of the Israeli side of the Jordan Valley, just south of the Sea of Galilee (Kineret) in 1965) The low-lying area is the Jordan Valley. The mountains across the way are Jordan, except the area starting from the southern tip of the Sea of Galilee (at the left of the photo) where the mountains are the Golan Heights. Until 1967, the Syrian border came right up to the Sea of Galilee, but now it's on the other side of the ridge on the left top corner.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
