Guess when the last new "settlement" was built

From John Kerry’s speech and similar remarks made by other Obama administration officials in recent years, you would think Israel has been building new settlements day and night.
Yet the fact is that no Israeli government has established a single new settlement in more than twenty years.

When Labor opposition leader Yitzhak Rabin was campaigning for prime minister in 1992, he strongly criticized the Likud government for establishing new Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. Rabin argued that if Israel would stop creating settlements, the Palestinians would make peace and the world would stop being so hostile toward the Jewish state.

Rabin’s thesis was based on hope and speculation, not historical experience. But he won that election, so he had the opportunity to test his thesis. And he did. Reviewing Rabin’s first several years in power, The New York Times noted on January 20, 1995 that Rabin entered office “promising to rein in the aggressive settlement-building of his predecessor” and he proceeded to implement a policy in which “no new settlements are authorized.”

When Benjamin Netanyahu was elected prime minister for the first time, in 1996, he continued that policy: no new settlements were established. Of course, construction within existing settlements continued. As Yitzhak Rabin had said in his famous last speech to the Knesset, on October 5, 1995: “We committed ourselves…not to hinder building for natural growth.”

How could Rabin have done otherwise? People had children, children needed schools, and when they grew up into young adults, they needed apartments. That’s called life. Nobody could expect the Israeli government – whether Likud or Labor – to choke off people’s lives.

Both Likud and Labor did, of course, continue to develop new neighborhoods in Jerusalem. The notion that parts of Israel’s capital are “settlements” is an absurdity that is rejected among Israelis from right to left.

There are some scattered little “outposts” in Judea-Samaria, but the government has not sanctioned them. Some of those outposts, in fact, have been torn down by the government. A few that were built on the land of existing settlements have been permitted to remain. Others are in legal limbo. But only a tiny number of Israelis reside in the outposts; the idea that they constitute obstacles to peace is laughable.

Not only has the government not authorized any new settlements since 1992, but Prime Minister Netanyahu, whom Kerry smeared as an “extremist,” even froze all construction in existing settlements for 10 months, because the Obama administration insisted that would bring the Palestinian Authority back to the negotiating table. The Obama theory was quickly exposed as a fantasy.

That’s not all. Israel has already torn down existing authorized settlements. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dismantled 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza region and expelled their thousands of residents. Israel was hit by tens of thousands of rockets in return.

So there you have it. No new settlements in 24 years. An unprecedented 10-month freeze on construction in existing settlements. Twenty-one settlements torn down. Only a tiny handful of Israelis living in shacks in some inconsequential hilltop outposts.

According to the anti-settlement crowd, Israel by now should have peace with the Palestinians and should be loved by the world.

Instead, we see exactly the opposite.

The Palestinians are even more violent today. The world hates Israel even more. And the Obama administration is obsessed with picking fights with Israel – over, of all things, the settlements.
How can this paradox be explained?

The answer may have more to do with psychology than anything else. The psychology of bullies, to be precise.

We live in a world full of countries that are bullies. They occupy other people’s land (see: Russia). They sponsor terrorism against people of other faiths (see: Iran). They explode if an American president-elect takes a phone call from a rival (see: China). They swallow each other alive (see: countless warring African countries).

They respect countries that are strong and self-confident. They despise and take advantage of countries that seem timid or hesitant. When they see weakness, they smell blood. Israel’s constant concessions – from halting new settlements to releasing imprisoned terrorists to stopping wars in Lebanon and Gaza short of victory – have been seen as signs of weakness. Israel is seen as stumbling, ineffectual, unworthy of respect, perhaps on the verge of collapse. Israel is seen as a country that everyone naturally gangs up on, because everyone assumes the Israelis will make yet more concessions.

That’s what brings us to today’s peculiar reality, in which Israel makes repeated concessions on settlements, and Obama, Kerry, and the UN become even more obsessed with settlements. Fortunately, there appears to be light at the end of this miserable tunnel, as Israel’s leaders join hands with America’s new leadership to forge a better future for both countries.

This post first appeared in the Jewish Press and may be read and commented on here.

Goodbye John Kerry, we won't miss you

John Kerry just couldn't resist.

Even though his pubic career is about to end--even though the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" is long dead--even though he has absolutely nothing to gain from it--the 73 year-old Kerry just could not resist unleashing one final blast at Israel.

Kerry's disingenuous and mean-spirited attack on Israel at the Saban Forum on Sunday served as a powerful reminder of how good it is that he is about to leave office--and how dangerous for Israel it would have been if he had remained as secretary of state.

Kerry said he finds it "profoundly disturbing" that many members of the Israel cabinet think a Palestinian state isn't such a great idea. Kerry acts as if Palestinian statehood has been an enshrined part of U.S. policy since time immemorial. In fact, only two presidents have endorsed Palestinian statehood; it has been part of U.S. foreign policy for only a very brief time. Future presidents have every right to disagree with the wisdom of that proposal. And certainly Israeli cabinet members have even more of a right to question its wisdom.

  

Israelis are sick and tired of Kerry's hypocritical lecturing. He never says a word about the massive illegal Palestinian construction in the territories.

"There will be no advance and no separate peace with the Arab world without the Palestinian process and Palestinian peace," Kerry absurdly declared. Apparently he has forgotten that Israel already has separate peace treaties with two of the four neighboring Arab states, Egypt and Jordan. Israel does not need a peace treaty with Lebanon, and Israel has nothing to gain from a peace treaty with Syria, since Syria is no longer a functioning state. So what "peace with the Arab world" is Kerry blabbering about? Does Israel really need the recognition of Morocco or Qatar?

. . . .

Kerry will be remembered as a secretary of state who appeased Palestinian terrorists and tyrants, while lecturing and pressuring America's democratic ally. Goodbye, John Kerry. We won't miss you.

Read the full posting at Israel National News

Terror in France, appeasement does not pay

France has gone out of its way to come to terms with its rising Muslim population.  It has advanced an active foreign policy fighting ISIS in Syria as well as supported Palestinian UN-based attempts to circumvent negotiations with Israel.
At the same time, as a free democracy, France recognizes that free speech, even in the form of cartoons some find insulting, is one of the most valuable rights that a free society has.
Then comes the terror attack in Paris.  This is my latest column.  It can be viewed on-line here.

Paris attack shows France’s appeasement of Palestinians and Islamists failed

By Stephen M. Flatow/JNS.org

Less than three months ago, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry claimed that there was a link between Islamist terrorism and frustration over the Palestinian issue. Yet despite vigorous recent attempts by the French to champion the Palestinian cause, Islamist terrorists have just struck in Paris, killing 12 people at the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. Where did Kerry’s theory go wrong?

At an Oct. 18, 2014 State Department event celebrating the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, Kerry presented his linkage theory. Discussing the phenomenon of young Muslims flocking to the ranks of Islamist terror groups such as the Islamic State, Kerry said that the issue of “Israel and the Palestinians” is “a cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation” among Muslims worldwide.

If Kerry were correct, then one would expect the Islamist extremist groups to refrain from harming those who embrace the Palestinian cause. And France certainly has been at the forefront of pro-Palestinian activism, especially in recent weeks.

On Dec. 2, the French parliament voted overwhelmingly to demand that the French government immediately recognize the “State of Palestine.” Not after negotiations. Not with Israel’s agreement. Just do it right away, whether the Israelis like it or not. And the vote wasn’t even close—339 in favor, 151 against.

Four weeks later, the Palestinian Authority presented a resolution to the United Nations Security Council, setting a timetable for Israel to unilaterally withdraw from all of Judea, Samaria, and most of Jerusalem. That is, back to the pre-1967 armistice lines that Abba Eban said would make Israel so vulnerable that it would set the stage for another Holocaust.

That position is so extreme that even the Obama administration, which has not exactly been Israel’s warmest friend, opposed the resolution. Yet France joined with those stalwarts of reason and democracy, China and Russia, to support the resolution. France’s ambassador to the United Nations, explaining his country’s vote in favor of the resolution, said there was “an urgent need to act.”

One would think—if one subscribed to the Kerry Linkage Theory—that Islamist extremists would have appreciated France’s sense of “urgency” regarding the Palestinian issue. But evidently not.

In the meantime, there was more pro-Palestinian news from France. The city council of Aubervilliers, which is a suburb of Paris, voted to grant honorary citizenship to Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian terrorist leader who is currently service five consecutive sentences of life imprisonment for carrying out a series of terrorist attacks in Israel.

Not many Americans have heard of Aubervilliers, but those who are familiar with the history of World War II may know the name of the city's most famous and longest-serving mayor: Pierre Laval. His 19 years as the leader of Aubervilliers was interrupted when he was called to national service—as the head of Vichy France and chief collaborator with Adolf Hitler. It was under Laval that more than 77,000 Jews were deported from France to Auschwitz and other death camps.

But why dredge up old history, when there are fresh victims to memorialize? One of the attacks that Barghouti masterminded consisted of gunning down a Greek Orthodox monk. Another was a shooting and stabbing attack on a Tel Aviv restaurant, in which three Israelis were murdered and 31 wounded.

France’s national government was not responsible for the decision of Aubervilliers to honor a mass murderer. But when combined with the French parliament’s vote on Palestinian statehood, and the French government’s vote at the U.N., one would think that this French bear-hug of the Palestinians would impress the Islamists. The massacre of journalists in Paris by killers shouting the jihadist call of “Allahu Akhbar” indicates that perhaps the linkage that Kerry imagines is nothing more than that—imaginary.

Appeasement of terrorists never works. Endorsing terrorists’ political demands—such as Palestinian statehood—never satisfies them. And blaming Israel for the rise of terrorist groups is an outrageous theory that has been repeatedly discredited by real-world events.

Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney in New Jersey, is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in a Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is a candidate on the Religious Zionist slate (www.VoteTorah.org) in the World Zionist Congress elections.

Libya and the US Embassy

US closes embassy in Libya

Thanks for the sage advice John Kerry

American policy towards Libya has led to the closing of the US embassy in that tattered country.
The most recent article from The New York Times can be found here. 

Secretary of State as Liberty from Dry Bones