Kerry, Bibi, and the Settlements

Kerry, Bibi, and the Settlements
by Gerald A. Honigman

I had just come home from doing a presentation about the renewed round of Jew arm-twisting ("negotiations") for some influential, mostly non-Jewish business folks.

It was a typical hot and humid mid-August day in Florida, and I was anxious to get out of my suit. I made the mistake, however, of first checking the updates on my computer–so I got stuck over the next five hours composing what you're now reading.

Not that what hit me should have been a surprise. On the contrary, it was indeed what was to be expected, considering the sources of the problem. What was sickening, however, was the continuing subservience of the Israeli leader who got elected because his backbone was allegedly more intact. Okay, here are the details...

Jerusalemonline.com ran a story by Rina Feingold on August 14th which had as its title, "Open and honest with Netanyahu about the settlements."It reported on Secretary of State John Kerry's warnings to Prime Minister Netanyahu about Israel's future isolation if the "peace" talks collapse. In order for that not to happen, Jews allegedly must agree that they may not live in disputed territories where their ancestors have called home and owned land for millennia. One and a half million Arabs may live in Israel proper, but no Jews are to be allowed in Judea and Samaria–with the exception of some possible "swaps."

My first question is, why did Bibi agree to attend these talks in the first place?

Does a leopard change its spots?

Arabs have repeatedly declared that, in such "negotiations," their task will simply be to take what Jews will be forced to cede in the Arabs' openly-admitted, well-known destruction-in-stages policy.

With the exception of George Shultz, Israel has never been able to get a fair shake from any State Department chief–let alone most of the rest of the Foggy Folks. Recall that President Truman had to fight the latter over the very resurrection of the Jewish State in the first place. And State has only grudgingly accepted the results of May 1948 ever since.

Kerry, like his boss, is a firm believer that Jews must remain trapped in their nine to fifteen mile wide sardine can of a state befitting the people for whom the very word ghetto was created.

The same manure constantly comes up, so those who care have to constantly deal with it or cede the point. Readers, please forgive the repetition–but this must therefore become like a mantra for you...

Israel was promised after the June '67 war–started with an Arab blockade and other hostile acts (a casus belli)–that it would never have to return to the armistice lines imposed upon it in 1949. Armistice lines are not political borders–they just mark the spot where fighting stopped. In this case, they were formed after a nascent Israel turned back a half dozen Arab armies which invaded it upon its rebirth in May 1948.

As would become a very frequent habit, the United Nations watched and did nothing as its new baby was viciously attacked and only stepped in when the Jews halted the Arab onslaught and began to push back. To prevent further Arab losses, the U.N. imposed armistice lines which made Israel a mere nine to fifteen miles wide at its waist, where some 85% of its population lives. When Arabs attempted the annihilation of both Israel and its Jews again in '67, Israel was subsequently assured by the final draft of UNSC Resolution 242 that it would never have to live this way again.

While the other architects of 242 had similar positions (a rare moment for an increasingly anti-Israel UN), I repeatedly quote its chief architect, Great Britain's Lord Caradon, on the issue of the very settlements Israel would need in the disputed (not "purely Arab") territories. Such a compromise is an absolute must if Israel is to get the buffer 242 calls for in order to create more secure, defensible, and real borders to replace what have come to be known as the "Auschwitz Lines." Here's Lord Caradon:

"It would have been wrong to demand Israel return to positions of June 4, 1967 (the day before the start of the Six Day War)... those positions were ... artificial ... just places where soldiers of each side happened to be on the day fighting stopped in 1948 ... just armistice lines. That's why we didn't demand Israelis return to them..."

Now, both the American State Department and the Arabs fought against the rebirth of a nine to fifteen mile wide Israel–so don't expect them to agree to anything larger.

Israel does not need anyone's approval to exist on land where Jews have called home long before most other peoples ever made their historical debuts. And, as I also must repeatedly respond to folks demanding that the Jews be complicit to their own destruction ( in Kerry's case, like with too many others–including the current American President–he's just allegedly trying to save Israel from itself), if Russia can carve out a nation that occupies almost eleven million square miles of land; if America can claim territories over 6,000 miles away, like Samoa; if the Brits can go to war over 8,000 miles from home for the Falkland Islands off the Argentine coast; if Arabs can conquer and forcibly Arabize mostly non-Arab peoples' lands in their acquisition of over 6,000,000 square miles of territory creating almost two dozen "Arab" League states (including Jordan, created by the Brits in 1922 on almost 80% of the original 1920 Mandate of Palestine); etc., then by what stretch of justice is it written that Jews must live in a forever ultra-vulnerable state which one needs a magnifying glass to locate on a world globe?

Bibi knows only too well that Obama despises him and has chosen peas of his same pod as key foreign policy cabinet members and advisors.

So, given all of the above, why agree to come to "negotiations" when you know in advance that it's your private parts that will wind up in a vise and your nation's security will be assuredly sacrificed?

Take a good look at what Arabs do to themselves daily in nations all around Israel to get a hint at what they would do, if given half a chance, to Israel and its kilab yahud–"Jew dogs." Keep in mind that half of the latter were refugees from so-called "purely Arab" lands–the refugees no one talks about.

Until Israel respects itself, don't expect anyone else to. More about that at the end of this analysis, however.

The Arabs always talk about their demands and put forth their threats about not coming to "negotiations." Here's a recent quote from the Jerusalemonline.com piece:

"Kerry warned the Prime Minister that without significant progress in the negotiations with the Palestinians, Israel will face a worldwide boycott. Kerry said that he believes that Abu Mazen is committed to the continuation of the talks with Israel, despite some of the Palestinians calling for him to boycott the peace talks that are set to resume today."

This begs the question–or at least should:

Where are Israel's demands–absolutes, without which it stays home? What does it gain by trying to show how "open minded" it is? The Arabs have sworn that they will never recognize Israel as a state of the Jews–no matter what and how much Bibi gives up.

The proper response to this gang up on the Jews, sham "peace" process is to stay home and prepare to fight without one hand tied behind your back–the way Israel usually has to in order to appease world opinion. It gets condemned anyway.

Indeed, while driving home from today's presentation, I was listening to a discussion on NPR (National Palestinian Radio?) between two Egyptians about the recent bloodshed in Cairo. I almost choked when one responded about the deaths of women and children by saying something like "what else could one expect when the Muslim Brotherhood deliberately uses such folks as human shields."

He was right, of course. But I wonder what the same gent says when the Ikhwan's little brothers in Hamas et al habitually do the same–attacking Jews from behind the skirts of their women and carriages of their babies.

Like Obama, State's current hitman, Kerry, had lots of warnings for Jews who expect the justice 242 promised, Presidents like Reagan and Johnson assured them, and President George W. Bush officially gave them in a letter the Obama Administration now says does not exist.

Israel must make a tough decision now. It's hard to go against the wishes of one of the few friends you have–especially a very powerful one.

But, again, to repeat the obvious to those with an interest in history, the Czechs and Slovaks had friends too in 1938–ones which also demanded that they sacrifice themselves for "peace for our time." Whether a victim of careful deliberation or naiveté, dead is dead.

Jews did not wait for thousands of years, pray every day, and be demonized, dehumanized, expelled, inquistioned, slaughtered, and so forth only to see the resurrected phoenix of the Hebrew Prophet, Ezekiel's, Valley of the Dry Bones disappear yet again because of the timidity of their leaders.

Islam's most famous scholar commented on this very subject himself.

Some six centuries ago, Ibn Khaldun had much to say about Jews and their connection to the land of Israel in his most famous work.

The Muqaddimah emphasizes that the Jews were forced to wander in the desert for forty years due to their "meekness." Ibn Khaldun stressed that this was necessary so that a new generation would arise with a new, more powerful "˜asabiyah–group feeling.

Israel's leaders would be wise to heed this great Muslim scholar's advice.

Kerry, on behalf of his boss and a heavily, perpetually Arabist State Department, has most probably threatened Netanyahu with such things like Obama's America–with Samantha Power now Ambassador to the U.N.(the same gal who earlier called on America to attack Israel on behalf of the Arabs)–not opposing the Arabs' renewed attempt to create their 22nd state in the U.N. unless Bibi caves into all that Arabs and their modern-day Chamberlains demand.

Nonetheless, Israel's Prime Minister must insist on getting the fair territorial compromise that 242 promised.

Jews are not strangers to Judea. The Gospel of Matthew records Christianity's Savior as being born in Bethlehem of Judea–not Bethlehem of the West Bank. David, son of Jesse, was born there too and was crowned King of Israel in Hebron–where Jews owned land clear into the 20th century before Arabs slaughtered them. Etc., etc., etc.

Now, of all times, with the barbarism of the so-called "Arab" world unfolding more and more each day, there is record high popularity for the sole, minuscule Jewish State among the American population–the only one that really matters besides the Jews themselves.

If Team Obama forces Israel into a one-sided, extremely dangerous "deal," there will be hell to pay. Obama may not be worried–he can't run for president again–but other Democrats will be left having to explain the abandonment of Israel to their constituents.

Netanyahu took his case before the American people before–with great success. Even Senator Harry Reid, one of The One's staunchest supporters, backed Bibi over Obama in that instance.

Overwhelmingly, Americans realize that justice ( http://q4j-middle-east.com ) does not demand that the sole, resurrected nation of the Jews sacrifice itself on the petroleum-greased altar of international hypocrisy so that Arabs may obtain their 22nd state–and second, not first, in "Palestine," the name ancient Rome gave to Judaea after the Judaeans'–Jews'–second costly revolt for freedom and independence against the imperial conqueror of much of the known world.

A great spiritual leader and contemporary of Jesus, Rabbi Hillel, said "If I am not for myself, then who will be? And, if I am only for myself, then what am I?"

Jews, collectively, have been among the most of those who have shown compassion and concern for "the other" over the millennia. It's no accident that the great social movements for the betterment of the human condition have a disproportionate amount of Jews in leadership and membership roles. Look to the Hebrew Bible itself for the roots of this.

But, it's now time that they start taking the first part of Hillel's teaching more seriously.

When Israel's leaders do, the American people will understand and support the nation which is their only true friend and real Western-style democracy in that entire, volatile region.

www.geraldahonigman.com