Obama versus security for Israel?

A plan put forward by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, and seconded by President Barack Obama, for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, was described in a speech by Obama at the State Department. The basis of negotiations would be a return to "1967" (pre-war) lines -- that is, the 1949 Armistice Lines -- and then, after Israel accepts this disastrous situation as the basis, there could be negotiations. This plan would give Israel indefensible borders, and a territorial width of merely 8 miles. Also, the post-1967 settlement enterprise would be wiped out completely, the Jewish cities, towns, and villages in Judea and Samaria and even half of Jerusalem being turned into areas for the placement of rocket launchers and missile launchers as happened in the Gaza Strip, with the eviction of over 500,000 Jewish residents, about 2/3 of them children. In Obama's speech, he seems to have ruled out Israel's very important security requirement of having a long-term security envelope around the Palestinian entity, including a long-term military presence in the Jordan River Valley. Obama does this, as a lawyer might, by setting up a series of barriers to this. He proclaimed that security would be left in the hands of the Palestinians (so no Israeli security envelope), that the Palestinian entity would border Israel, Jordan and Egypt while Israel would border the Palestinian entity (so no border between Israel and Jordan and no security envelope), and that there would be a total withdrawal of Israeli military forces, to be carried out during a defined and agreed interval of time (so no long term military presence anywhere, including the Jordan River Valley). This was inserted to guide the Palestinians so that in the unlikely event that they might agree to Israel's security envelope needs, Obama overrules them and decrees that it cannot take place.

How this would work out can be seen by considering the effect on different types of warfare that would result. Rocket and missile attacks would be made relatively easy, since Israel's population centers would be in easy range of the rockets and missiles. So would airplanes landing or taking off from Israel's airport be in easy range.

The security envelope that Israel needs, and that Obama seems to have said "no" to, is needed to prevent the smuggling of weapons, including rockets and missiles, from outside into the Palestinian entity. It is also needed to prevent the infiltration of jihadis into the territory controlled by the Palestinian entity. Also, with events unpredictable in the Middle East in Arab countries, and revolution in the air, there is no way to predict what Islamist forces will gain power in revolutions there and what armies will try to conquer an Israel with a territorial width of merely 8 miles. An Israeli military presence in the Jordan River Valley would be able to resist and delay and armed invasion across the Jordan River, to gain time for Israel's reserve army to mobilize and fight against the armed invasion. Also, an Israeli military presence in the Jordan River Valley could prevent jihadis from crossing in the other direction, into Jordan, to destabilize that country and lead it to becoming a radically-controlled state, which would be a danger to Israel.

It is unthinkable for Israelis to have to consider what would happen in case of a nuclear attack, say an atomic bomb being dropped on Tel Aviv by Iran. But it would be irresponsible if there were not anyone at all in the government of Israel that is willing to consider what might happen. Think about it. If a nuclear bomb were dropped on Tel Aviv, the blast and fire and enormous radiation would kill large numbers of people outright. But further from ground zero of the bomb, there would be people who survive, but who would have to be brought away from the site to a safer place away from the radiation hazard. Where could they go? The Jewish communities in Samaria would eagerly welcome them. Also, it would provide a place that is highly unlikely to be hit by an Iranian nuclear weapons, because the Jewish communities are distributed over a broad region, and because they are close to Jerusalem which is unlikely to be a nuclear target by Islamic Iran since it is a holy site in the eyes of Muslims, and because there are large numbers of Palestinian residents in the area. In fact, it has already been reported that there was at least one drill in which communities in Samaria pretended to admit Jewish refugees from some unnamed calamity. Likewise, there is room in Judea for receiving Jewish refugees from the nuclear attack. Certainly Jerusalem itself would welcome Jewish refugees, including the half of Jerusalem that Abbas and Obama want to make Judenrein in their ill-conceived plan. This shows two problems of the Abbas-Obama Judenrein plan for half of Jerusalem and all of Judea and Samaria. One is that the more than 500,000 Jewish residents would be expelled from there, and many would wind up in the Tel Aviv area where they would have the threat of an Iranian nuclear bomb hanging over their heads. The other is that these regions, becoming Judenrein, would no more be amenable to accepting Jewish refugees than were many of the countries of the world during the Holocaust years -- and even worse, since the Palestinians have been at war with Israel and hate has been drummed into their heads for generations. The Abbas-Obama plan, then, is a plan for decreasing the number of survivors from a nuclear attack. Also, by making Israel a more tempting target, since an attack would do more damage, the Abbas-Obama plan also makes an attack more likely, since the mullahs and ayatollahs of Iran would see a greater "reward" in lives for their nuclear attack.

The Abbas-Obama plan would result in indefensible boundaries for Israel with a territory merely 8 miles wide, without the essential security envelope including a long-term military presence in the Jordan River Valley, with Israel unable to stop the rocket and missile attacks and unable to control the flow of rockets and missiles to the launchers, the situation would be that of the "Auschwitz borders" that Abba Eban spoke about years ago, there would be instability caused by Israel's enemies being aware of the precariousness of Israel's situation, and there would be more fatalities and more casualties from an Iranian nuclear attack on Tel Aviv, bringing about a greater likelihood that such an attack would occur.

Hatch-Lieberman Senate Resolution Against 1967 Lines for Israel

President Obama has begun a campaign to push Israel to return to the indefensible 1967 lines. The first step has been Obama's pressure on Israel to agree to start negotiations based on the 1967 lines. These are indefensible lines giving Israel a width of only 9 miles. These lines imply that Israel gives up the Western Wall, gives up the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, gives up half of its capital Jerusalem, gives up all of the Jewish ancestral homeland of Judea and Samaria, and makes more than 500,000 Israelis subject to expulsion from their homes and communities.

The second step in Obama's campaign is to demand that Israel negotiate, after having been deprived of all its negotiating chips. For there to be any chance of peace, Israel needs to have the Arab refugee problem resolved outside of the borders of Israel. But President Obama has removed this topic from the table, while the land changes are discussed. So there is zero chance that this matter will be resolved, and the casus belli will remain, and there will not be any resolution of the conflict. Israel cannot trade territorial concessions for Palestinian concessions on the Arab refugee problem, because (1) Israel would have all its negotiating chips taken away, and (2) the vital topic of Arab refugees was taken off the table by Obama. So the agenda is not land for peace but land for war. Since Israel will have nothing to offer, and the Palestinian side will see no reason for concession or for any form of  compromise or reasonableness, there will not be any progress in negotiations, and a deadlock will occur -- at the beginning and throughout the negotiations.

The third step, once there is a deadlock, is for Obama to declare that Israel must retreat to the 1967 lines. After Israel has accepted the Obama demand for making the 1967 lines the starting point of negotiations, Israel will have legitimized this demand for a return to 1967, and it will be more difficult for Israel to refuse to do so. So Obama, with help from the international community, will press Israel to go back to 1967. He may say, for example: "The United States does not recognize the legitimacy of Israel's not going back to the 1967 lines."  He may also add the lie that UN Resolution 242 requires Israel to go back to those lines, when in actuality it affirms Israel's "right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." This maximum pressure by Obama against Israel, to force it to go back to 1967, will likely come during his second term. There will be nothing for Israel to gain by going back to 1967, and everything to lose.

But there has already started some pushback against this.

A bipartisan group of Senators has sponsored a resolution "Declaring that it is the policy of the United States to support and facilitate Israel in maintaining defensible borders and that it is contrary to United States policy and national security to have the borders of Israel return to the armistice lines that existed on June 4, 1967."


The cosponsors of this resolution includes Senators Orrin Hatch of Utah, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Marco Rubio of Florida, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mike Johanns of Nebraska, Ron Wyden of Oregon,
Jerry Moran of Kansas, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, John Barrasso of Wyoming, Mark Kirk of Illinois, Richard Burr of North Carolina, John Cornyn of Texas, Jon Kyl of Arizona, Mike Lee of Utah, John Thune of South Dakota, Rob Portman of Ohio, Dan Coats of Indiana, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, John Boozman of Arkansas, Roy Blunt of Missouri,
Scott Brown of Massachusetts, David Vitter of Louisiana, Pat Roberts of Kansas, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, Johnny Isakson of Oregon, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Richard Lugar of Indiana, and Saxby  Chambliss of Georgia.