Will The US Hit Iran?

Iran's Return Handshake - Editorial
  
Iran has tested U.S. resolve with military escalation across the Middle East. Iranian involvement in attacks on Saudi oil production over the weekend marks a new phase.
     
President Trump is eager for direct talks with Iranian President Rouhani, and Secretary of State Pompeo floated a handshake meeting between the two at the coming UN General Assembly.
 
The weekend attack is Iran's return handshake.
(Wall Street Journal)


U.S.: Iran Fired Cruise Missiles in Attack - Martha Raddatz

Iran launched an attack from its territory on its neighbor, Saudi Arabia, using a dozen cruise missiles and over 20 drones to strike a key Saudi oil facility, a senior Trump administration official told ABC News. President Donald Trump warned the U.S. was "locked and loaded" to respond to the attack. A senior U.S. official told ABC News: "It was Iran. The Houthis are claiming credit for something they did not do." 
(ABC News)


Drone Strikes Knock Out Half of Saudi Oil Capacity
- John Defterios and Victoria Cavaliere
 
Drone strikes on key Saudi Arabian oil facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais have disrupted about half of the kingdom's oil capacity, or 5% of the daily global oil supply. While Yemen's Houthi rebels took responsibility for the attacks, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said: "Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply. There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen." [The distance from Yemen to Abqaiq is 1,158 km. (720 miles).]
     
The U.S. "stands ready" to tap the country's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to steady oil markets if necessary, an Energy Department spokesperson said.
(CNN)
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UPDATES: 


Tehran Raises the Stakes - Amos Harel

The Iranian attack on Saudi oil installations is the most dramatic development in the Persian Gulf since the U.S. withdrew from the nuclear agreement in May 2018. 

The Iranian attack testifies to the improved capabilities of Iran's cruise missiles. While Israel is out of this system's current range, these capabilities are indicative of what might end up in the hands of Hizbullah. This signals the need for a speedy upgrade of Israeli defense and interception systems, with an emphasis on protecting strategic sites.
(Ha'aretz)


The International Community Needs to Get Tougher on Iran - Editorial

By any measure this is a geopolitical enormity, a deliberate attempt to disrupt the world's oil supplies, followed up by threats from the Revolutionary Guard to fire on U.S. warships in the Gulf. Nothing justifies Iran's random arrest of foreign nationals and threats to undermine the global economy. The time has come for a unified response to the menace emanating from Tehran.
(Telegraph-UK)


A Credibility Test - Michael Knights 

• If significant portions of the intelligence community conclude that the world's most important energy site has been hit by unprecedentedly advanced weapons launched directly from Iran or by the regime's proxies, the finding would challenge not only Riyadh and Washington, but the entire global energy community, including China.
• Iran has deliberately gone much further than its previous provocations, and if it avoids consequences once again, it may decide it has a free pass to go even further, whether against Saudi Arabia, Israel, or other U.S. partners. And other known global provocateurs will be watching how Washington responds, including Russia, China, and North Korea. For the sake of reestablishing deterrence, the attack must not go unanswered.

(Washington Institute for Near East Policy)
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MORE UPDATES:

Iran Sees No Drawback to Bellicose Strategy - David D. Kirkpatrick

Iranian scholars said Tehran has concluded that its recent aggressions have effectively strengthened its leverage with the West. Ali Ansari, a professor of Iranian history at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, said that for Iranian hard-liners, "their policy of 'maximum resistance' is working."
   
Sanam Vakil, a scholar of Iran and the Persian Gulf at Chatham House policy institute in London, said the Iranians appear to have concluded from recent American actions that confrontation cannot lose, because even a potential American military action would almost certainly be a limited strike designed to avoid a prolonged ground war.
   
Domestically and in the region, surviving such a strike could strengthen the current Iranian government by rallying public opinion. "They are challenging American supremacy and forcing the international community to come to terms with a new relationship with the Islamic Republic," she said.
(New York Times)


Weighing U.S. Military Options in Iran - George Friedman

What will the U.S. do in response to Iran's drone and cruise missile attacks on Saudi Arabia's largest oil refinery? The attacks did not directly affect the U.S., save for the spike in oil prices, which actually helps the American oil industry.
   
There is a temptation to let the attacks slip into history. But the U.S. has formed an anti-Iran alliance in which Saudi Arabia is a key player. Doing nothing would call the U.S.-sponsored coalition into question. Failing to respond to an Iranian attack could help Iran increase its power throughout the region.
   
The Iranians know the dilemma they have posed for the U.S. They have bet that the risks are too high for the U.S. to respond.
(Geopolitical Futures)
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EVEN MORE UPDATES: 

Range of Options Presented to Trump - Eric Schmitt and Edward Wong

Senior U.S. national security officials met to refine a list of potential targets to strike in Iran, should President Trump order a military retaliation. 
    
Saudi Arabia is said to fear that any military response could lead to further attacks against its vulnerable oil facilities.
(New York Times)


Many Options Short of War with Iran - Jeff Mason and Stephen Kalin

President Trump said there were many options short of war with Iran after its attack on U.S. ally Saudi Arabia's oil sites. "There are many options. There's the ultimate option and there are options that are a lot less than that," Trump said. "I'm saying the ultimate option meaning go in - war."  
(Reuters)


Operating in the "Gray Zone" to Counter Iran - Michael Eisenstadt

The combined drone/cruise missile strike against key Saudi oil facilities on Sep. 14 marks the most audacious in a series of Iranian asymmetric "gray zone" operations since May, all intended to counter Washington's "maximum pressure" policy. If Washington does not impose a military cost on Tehran for such actions, the regime will continue to escalate, with negative repercussions for the U.S. economy, American credibility, and regional stability.
    
Pursuing a gray zone strategy of its own represents Washington's best chance of avoiding significant escalation while buying time for its pressure campaign to work. Plausible deniability works both ways. The U.S. should respond in-kind to Iranian actions, using nonlethal ripostes to impose material costs.
    
Just as the Abqaiq strike demonstrated the vulnerability of Saudi oil facilities, Iran's own oil industry is vulnerable to sabotage, cyberattacks, and precision strikes. 90% of its oil exports go through a single terminal, Kharg Island. The U.S. should ensure that Tehran gets worse than it gives in these exchanges.
    
An effective U.S. gray zone strategy could help blunt Iran's counter-pressure campaign, constrain its ability to engage in destabilizing regional activities, and dissuade it from eventually attempting a slow-motion nuclear breakout. 

Conversely, failure to pursue such a strategy could embolden Tehran on all of these fronts. More fundamentally, if the U.S. does not operate successfully in the gray zone against a third-tier power like Iran, this will raise questions about its ability to counter much more capable actors like Russia and China in the years to come.
The writer is director of the Military and Security Studies Program at The Washington Institute.
(Washington Institute for Near East Policy)


The West Cannot Ignore Iran's Attacks - Editorial

Iran is the greatest threat to the West. It has worked for decades to undermine moderate Arab regimes in the Middle East, to develop and acquire nuclear weapons, and to arm and support some of the worst terrorist organizations known to man: Hizbullah, Hamas, and the Houthis.
    
Israel has single-handedly been fighting Iran along its different borders for years. Israel's conflict with Hamas and Hizbullah is, in reality, against Iran. Both groups are Tehran's proxies. The world cannot let Iran continue to get away with its attacks. The time has long come for Tehran to pay a price for its violence, support of terrorism and nuclear violations.
    
If Iran can get away with attacking the U.S., attacking Saudi Arabia, and violating restrictions on its nuclear program, what will stop it from building a nuclear weapon one day and then using it against Israel or another Western country - especially when some of their leaders have made no secret of their intentions to do just so? If Iran's attacks go unanswered they will only intensify. 
(Jerusalem Post)
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Arabs Split with "Palestine"

Why Arabs Hate Palestinians - Khaled Abu Toameh

The Palestinians supported Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait - a Gulf state that, together with its neighbors, used to give the Palestinians tens of millions of dollars in aid each year. In recent months, Arab criticism of the Palestinians has further escalated, with some writers and journalists expressing outrage over the Palestinians' opposition to peace plans.
     
At the core of this increasing disillusionment in the Arab world with the Palestinians is the Arabs' belief that despite all they did to help their Palestinian brothers for the past seven decades, the Palestinians have proven to be constantly ungrateful. Denunciations are coming not only from Egyptians and Saudis, but also from a growing number of Arabs in other Arab and Muslim countries, particularly in the Gulf.
    
You simply cannot burn pictures of the Saudi crown prince one day and rush to Riyadh to seek money the next. You cannot shout slogans against the Egyptian president one day and go to Cairo to seek political backing the next. What the Arabs see is Palestinian stagnation, mainly thanks to the Palestinian Authority and Hamas leaders, who are too busy poisoning their peoples' minds and ripping each other to shreds to have time for anything positive. 
(Gatestone Institute)
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Getting Israel

What American Jews Just Don't Get about Israel - Daniel Gordis

The U.S. and Israel are very different projects. America was created to be a haven to "huddled masses yearning to breathe free," as Emma Lazarus' poem at the foot of the Statue of Liberty declares, while Israel's Declaration of Independence begins, "The land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people." America was meant to embrace all of humanity, while Israel was intended to save the Jewish people.
    
"End the occupation," [some misguided] American Jews chant. But Israelis are also exhausted by the occupation - they just have no idea how to end it without the West Bank becoming a breeding ground for terrorists, as happened with Gaza once Israel pulled out in 2005. That's a risk Israelis are not willing to take. To Israeli ears, "End the occupation" sounds like "Abolish taxes" - a great idea but entirely unrealistic. American Jews look at Israel's relationship with the Palestinians as a civil-rights issue. Israelis see it as a survival issue.
    
A country's foremost obligation is the protection of its citizens, and any government Israelis elect will understand that. Israel's policy towards the Palestinians is unlikely to change until the Palestinians declare that they have ended their drive to destroy Israel. That will not happen anytime soon, however. 
The writer is senior vice president and Koret distinguished fellow at Shalem College in Jerusalem. 
(New York Post)
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Dear Donald: "Leave With A Big Bang"

When You Leave the Middle East, Do It with a Big Bang - Efraim Inbar

President Donald Trump plans to withdraw the US military contingent stationed in northeast Syria. This may be implemented slowly, but the US troops eventually will be brought home.

Those foreign policy decisions seem to constitute a part of a larger trend to reduce US involvement in the Middle East, a trend that began during the tenure of president Barack Obama. 

The withdrawal of American forces may have strategic merits. 

The only way to prevent further decline in American capabilities, particularly in the Middle East, is to bolster deterrence. A withdrawal from the Middle East must be accompanied by steps that reduce the general impression of a weak US going home in defeat.

The place to make a stand is regarding Iran. Obama cut a deal with Iran that only encouraged its quest for hegemony and drive for nuclear weapons, while buying time in the hope that Iran will not harass the United States. In contrast, Trump understands that the Islamic Republic of Iran is an enemy of the US and that it is determined to acquire a nuclear weapon. But his hopes for forcing Iran to change its policies under diplomatic and economic pressure, while pursuing a policy of US disengagement from the Middle East, are unlikely to be realized.

The only way to leave the Middle East with as little as possible damage to US standing and security is to leave with a big bang. Washington must instill fear in the hearts of its enemies.

Despite the significant reduction in American military capabilities, the US still has enough punch to punish regional opponents and to generate fear. The US still possesses a strong enough air force to conduct a short campaign to destroy the critical Iranian nuclear installations.

Such military action would also delay nuclear proliferation, an important goal for the US, encourage US regional allies and discourage its opponents.

Indeed, action against a nuclear-aspiring Islamist Iran would reverberate beyond the Middle East and send a clear signal to anti-American forces all over the world.

Enhanced deterrence would prevent further Iranian provocations and would buy the US time to put its house in order and get serious about being a superpower.

Efraim Inbar is president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and a fellow at the Middle East Forum.

[The Middle East Forum & Jerusalem Post]

Shifting MidEast Sands

Emerging Gulf-Israel Alignment & the Palestinian Paradigm 
- R. David Harden 

• Trends are accelerating an emerging regional alignment between the Gulf States and Israel. First, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Israel collectively regard Iran as an existential threat to their states. The differences with Israel over the future of Palestine are less consequential than the perception of the Iranian threat and the need for a tacit collective counter-strategy.
• Second, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Israel are much more confident regional actors than they were in the mid-1990s. The UAE projects immense economic strength and Saudi Arabia has similar aspirations. Aside from its regional military strength, Israel has become a technology power that is attractive to global finance, investment, and talent.
• Lastly, the political and economic elites in the Gulf and Israel desire these deepening economic and technological ties and are creating conditions on the ground where their citizens are increasingly open to these opportunities.
• Israel's inability to resolve its conflict with the Palestinians and its drag of regular wars in Gaza undermines its ability to assert the nation's full potential. But this potential historic Gulf-Israel alignment fundamentally changes the geo-political paradigm for the Palestinians. The region is moving beyond a "post-1948" period where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict dominated nation-state relationships in the Middle East.
• The next generation of Palestinian leadership will have to adopt a new strategy - one which will be quite uncomfortable for the old PLO guard. Freed from the dogma of the last 70 years, the Palestinians could envision a very different role for themselves in the Middle East.
  
  The writer, managing director of the Georgetown Strategy Group, was former Assistant Administrator at USAID's Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, and led the USAID Mission to the West Bank and Gaza in 2014-2016.

(The Hill)
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Screwing Iran: Proposal For Arab-Israeli Economic Cooperation

Israel Floats Proposal for Regional Cooperation, Effectively Ending the Arab Israeli Conflict 

Israel [is] promoting their “Tracks for Regional Peace” initiative that is intended to create a trade route connecting Europe with the Persian Gulf and Israel...

“Tracks for Regional Peace” is based on the planned extension of railway tracks in northern Israel, which would link Haifa’s seaport to Jordan’s rail network, which in turn will be linked with that of Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab states.

The network is envisioned as creating a regional transportation system to enhance trade relations and promote peaceful coexistence.

[T]he initiative will also include a stop in Jenin, connecting the Palestinians to the broader plan.  

The initiative is said to also offer shorter, cheaper, and safer trade routes in light of regional instability threatening passageways through the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf and the Bab al-Mandab Strait at the southern end of the Red Sea.

[The Times of Israel] 

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Iran Reflections

An oil tanker is shown on fire in the Gulf of Oman on June 13, 2019. (AP Photo/ISNA)

Appeasing Iran Isn't an Option - Prof. Eyal Zisser

Surprisingly, Iran's recent belligerence in the Persian Gulf is being accepted by the international community with apathy. Voices in the West are expressing understanding and even empathy toward Iran, which is perceived as a victim fending off an aggressor - the U.S. In Europe and even certain circles in the U.S., it is largely accepted that the nuclear deal successfully secured peace and quiet.
    

A similar argument was made 80 years ago, whereby U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt forced the leaders of Japan to attack Pearl Harbor by imposing painful sanctions on the country. But Iran of today, similar to Japan in 1941, isn't a peace-seeking country but a belligerent regional power that doesn't hide its expansionist ambitions.
    

History teaches us that an aggressor can't be placated with concessions. It wasn't Trump who forced Iran to take the path of violence and terror, and he isn't the reason it is trying to conquer the Middle East. Iran's essence - anchored in the ayatollahs' fundamentalist and apocalyptic worldview - was established well before Trump entered office.
    

Iran doesn't need to be appeased; it has to be curbed and subdued. 

The writer is a lecturer in the Middle East History Department at Tel Aviv University. 

(Israel Hayom)

Time to Intensify Pressure on Iran - Jacob Nagel & Tzvi Kahn

As Iran's economic plight grows increasingly dire, the regime may have concluded that it cannot risk waiting another year and a half to outlast President Trump. Consequently, the regime adopted a new strategy of nuclear and military brinksmanship aimed at testing U.S. resolve, strengthening Iranian deterrence, and blackmailing the U.S. and Europe to gain sanctions relief.
    

America must not be intimidated. Instead, it should intensify its maximum pressure campaign and increase sanctions on Iran even further. In so doing, Washington can present Ayatollah Khamenei with a choice: Either renegotiate the nuclear deal, on our terms, or risk the collapse of Iran's economy and possibly your regime.
    

America should urge the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN body tasked with monitoring Iran's nuclear program, to strengthen its inspections of suspicious sites where Iran previously engaged in illicit nuclear activity, and to publish its findings. The Iran nuclear archive obtained by Israel identifies additional nuclear facilities, equipment, and activities previously unknown to the IAEA. The archive suggests that covert nuclear activity, especially in the weaponization arena, may continue today.

Brig.-Gen. Jacob Nagel, a visiting fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, headed Israel's National Security Council. Tzvi Kahn is a senior Iran analyst at FDD. 

(The Hill)

Yemenites Return to Yemenite Village Synagogue in Jerusalem

Israelis Return to the Heart of Kfar Hashiloach in Jerusalem

Some 200 Israelis of Yemenite origins arrived to pray at the Old Yemenite Synagogue, situated in the heart of Kfar Hashiloach (Silwan) and just below the Old City in Jerusalem.

The community came to Jerusalem from Yemen in 1881, and at its height, ran five synagogues and numbered some 160 families.  Encountering Arab violence and attacks for several years, the community was forced to abandon the area in 1938, and the synagogues were desecrated by Muslim attackers.

Israel reunited its capital in 1967, and the Jews began to return to the area some 20 years ago, reacquiring one property after another. 

Eighty-one years after the synagogue was ransacked, decedents of the old Yemenite community returned to pray in the refurbished synagogue.
[Jewish Press]
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UPDATE: 

New York Times ignores Silwan's Jewish Origins

One would think a story about the US ambassador to Israel celebrating the opening of a new archeology exhibit might include a bit of history. Perhaps it would mention that Silwan’s first inhabitants were Yemeni Jews who in 1881 spent six months traveling to Jerusalem. They arrived broke and were greeted with suspicion by the local Jewish community living in Jerusalem. Settling on the eastern slopes of the Kidron Valley, this group of Yemeni Jews built a thriving community and established a synagogue, the same synagogue that the “right-wing Jewish settler group” is rebuilding and living in.

Perhaps an article that mentions the five thousand Palestinian inhabitants might mention how Silwan became a Palestinian village when it started as a Yemeni Jewish village. [D]uring the 1936–39 Arab Revolt, the village of Silwan was ethnically cleansed of all Jews, and Arab families moved into the homes of Yemeni Jews. One might wonder if the descendants of those Yemeni Jews still have the key to their homes.
[Providence Magazine]
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Does Trump's MidEast Peace Push Make Any Sense?

Jared Kushner, Trump's MidEast Architect.

Trump's Middle East Initiative - Jonathan Tobin

[I]t is almost certain the president will be denied the satisfaction of brokering a deal that eluded his predecessors. Under the current circumstances, Palestinian leadership and the political culture that sustains them simply won’t allow it. But that is not the only way to look at the Trump/Kushner plan.

[B]y sticking to a plan that puts economics first and refusing to prioritize pandering to Palestinian intransigence, as all his successors have done, Trump is creating a template for peace that makes sense. Even more to the point, it is being welcomed by most of the Arab world.

That means that even after they torpedo progress toward peace next month, as they have done every other time an effort has been made to end the conflict, it will be the Palestinians who will be more isolated than ever, not the United States. To the contrary, by convening an economic summit in which Israelis and representatives from Arab states will openly work toward creating greater cooperation, Trump will have enhanced America’s standing in the region.

[B]y shifting the discussion away from Palestinians’ inability to break free from their century-old war on Zionism toward achievable economic objectives, Trump will have still accomplished something important. It will also be more than Barack Obama did during the eight long years of bashing Israel and appeasing the Palestinians.

As futile as their quest seems, Kushner’s plan is also a breath of fresh air after decades of American efforts to accommodate the Palestinians’ unwillingness to admit that they’ve lost their long war against Zionism.
 
[T]he economic incentives on the table may, especially if they are backed by the Arab states that are sick of Abbas’s slippery refusal to negotiate, have a long-term impact on the conflict. That doesn’t mean that Saudi Arabia or any other of those other nations that will go to Bahrain will endorse Trump’s plan. But it does mean they are on board with changing the way peace is discussed in a way that will further isolate Fatah and Hamas after they refuse to negotiate.

The Sunni Arab states look to both the United States and Israel as allies in their struggle against Iran’s quest for regional hegemony. The notion that they will blame Trump for trying to make a peace that Palestinians will only again reject is absurd. When the dust settles from the rollout of the American plan, the Arab states will be firmly in America’s corner no matter what the Palestinians do.
(The Federalist)
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The Bahrain Economic Confab Is a Big Step Forward - Raphael Ahren

It's true that the U.S.-Bahraini economic "workshop" on June 25-26, billed as the first step in rolling out the U.S. peace plan, is unlikely to lead to a breakthrough in the long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process. But the mere fact that the peace proposal's rollout will take place in an Arab capital is nothing less than a sensation. 

Moreover, it is worth highlighting that this first major parley on the planned U.S. path to Israeli-Palestinian peace is to be focused solely on the interests of one side. The meeting is devoted to the Palestinians' economic well-being. 

Kushner and Greenblatt promised to publish a blueprint for what they think is a fair and feasible solution to the problem. It's quite likely that they themselves have never believed that ending a century-old conflict in an instant is possible. 
Regardless of how the Palestinians will react to the peace plan (they will reject it), Bahrain's willingness to host the "Peace to Prosperity" summit strongly indicates that the Arab world is more inclined to normalize ties with Israel than some may think.
(Times of Israel)
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Transforming The Saudis Can Reshape MidEast

Saudi Arabia Undergoing Fundamental Transformation 
- Dennis Ross

Saudi Arabia is in the midst of a fundamental transformation of its society. True, the monarchy retains all political power, but nationalism and modernization are replacing Wahhabism, a rigid, intolerant interpretation of Islam that fueled al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman is conducting a revolution from above that is discrediting radical Islamist ideology, including the removal of several thousand clerics and dozens of judges deemed to be sympathetic to al-Qaeda.
   
The social changes emerging in Saudi Arabia are visible to any visitor. Go into any restaurant and see men and women mixing; visit businesses or governmental offices and women are prominent; cinemas are opening; music, forbidden in the strict Wahhabi code, is now played in concerts drawing thousands. None of this was thinkable in the past.
   
Having just returned from Saudi Arabia, I am struck by the enthusiasm for the crown prince, especially among young people who now can talk openly about their ability to shape their destinies and the destiny of the country. Like it or not, the policies of the Saudis will have a huge effect on what takes shape in the Middle East. America can't write them off. 
The writer, counselor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, served in senior national security positions during the Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Obama administrations. 
(Bloomberg)
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UPDATE:

On the Way to Open Normalization - Yoni Ben Menachem

Despite resolutions of the Arab Summit and the Arab League that ban open normalization with Israel, as well as Palestinian opposition, the United Arab Emirates has agreed to host Israel at the Expo 2020 exhibition in October. At the exhibition, Israel will present its achievements in the fields of water, medicine, technology, and information, highlighting the spirit of Israeli innovation.
    
Over the past two months, the covert normalization process between Israel and the Gulf states has begun to emerge in tandem with the process of crafting President Trump's "Deal of the Century." Open normalization is supposed to be an integral part of that deal.
    
Arab rulers respect power. They see how Israel has been attacking the Iranian military entrenchment in Syria with full U.S. backing and even a certain coordination with Russia. They also see Mahmoud Abbas' rejectionist policy toward any compromise with Israel, while Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been turning Gaza into an Iranian stronghold.
    
Open normalization with Israel is an important process that can help the Palestinians understand that Israel is a fact of life and that even the Arab states have come to terms with Israel's presence in the Middle East.
The writer, a veteran Arab affairs and diplomatic commentator for Israel Radio and Television, is a senior Middle East analyst for the Jerusalem Center.
(Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)
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Deal of the Century: Impact Analysis

The Impact of the Deal of the Century - Prof. Eyal Zisser

This June the U.S. will supposedly unveil details of its "deal of the century" to bring an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Many of the relevant parties have openly declared they will refuse to accept it. The Palestinians are looking on forlornly as their dream of having all their demands of Israel delivered on a silver platter by the international community rises in smoke. While it might seek to meet the Palestinians' desires, the deal of the century is light years from the concessions that previous administrations, from Clinton to Obama, were willing to grant.

Arab countries will follow in the wake of the Palestinian rejection. Arab rulers would be happy to bring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to an end, but from there to a willingness to lie on the fence for Israel and Trump, the distance is great. But it would be a mistake to think the deal of the century will be completely inconsequential.

First, the details of the plan will become the starting point for any future discussions about the conflict, instead of or in conjunction with the Clinton outline or former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's offer to Abbas. The plan will also be evoked and used to significantly improve Israel's bargaining position opposite future American administrations and the international community.

Second, the proposal could essentially remove several central issues from the agenda, chief among them the issue of Palestinian refugees. The American plan calls for refusing these refugees the right of return and settling them in their current countries.

Finally, the plan could give the Israeli government an opportunity to apply Israeli law over the large settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria that are supported by a wall-to-wall consensus in Israel. 
The writer is a lecturer in the Middle East History Department at Tel Aviv University.
(Israel Hayom)


The West Bank: Israel's Eastern Line of Defense
- Maj.-Gen. Gershon Hacohen

This study explores the strategic-military implications of the establishment of a Palestinian state along the pre-June 1967 lines. Its central thesis is that the creation of such a state, on the heels of the IDF's total withdrawal from the West Bank, will not only deprive Israel of defensible borders but will almost certainly lead to the advent of a terrorist entity like the one created in Gaza.
     
Since 1996, 90% of the Palestinians in the territories have not lived under Israeli occupation but rather under the Palestinian Authority's rule (in Gaza, since 2007, under Hamas rule). In other words, the current dispute between Israel and the Palestinians is not about ending the "occupation."
    
The demilitarization of a future Palestinian state is a pipedream, as evidenced by the resounding failure to demilitarize Gaza despite the PLO's commitment to this step in a number of signed agreements.
The writer served in the IDF for 42 years, commanding troops in battle on the Egyptian and Syrian fronts.
(Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies-Bar-Ilan University)
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New Map of Israel Features Golan!

U.S. Publishes Map Showing Golan as Part of Israel

The U.S. has published a map showing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, three weeks after President Donald Trump recognized Israeli sovereignty over the strategic plateau. U.S. Mideast envoy Jason Greenblatt tweeted a picture of the map. 
(Times of Israel)

The Incalcitrant Palestinian Movement

Definition: 1. Stubbornly resistant to or defiant of guidance. 2. Difficult to manage or deal with.  Synonym: obstinate.

Cultural Barriers to Israeli-Palestinian Peace - Lawrence J. Haas

Cultural obstacles prevent progress toward peace. When activists in Gaza protested rising prices, high unemployment, and new taxes imposed by Hamas in March, Hamas cracked down harshly. The Palestinian Authority rules the West Bank in similar dictatorial fashion, brooking no opposition. Palestinian leaders will need to respect the rights of their own people before we can hope that, at some point, they'll respect the rights of Israelis to live in peace.
    
As Hamas and Fatah fight one another, the weapon at their disposal to assure their popularity among Palestinians is their continuing efforts to kill Jews. Palestinian factions that compete over who's more committed to killing Israelis won't be making peace with Israel any time soon.
    
The Palestinian Authority continues to pay prisoners and the families of "martyrs" who tried to kill Israelis. A Palestinian leadership that turns killers into martyrs won't be making peace with the country of those they want to kill. 
The writer is a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council.
(The Hill)
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Foreign Policy For Sale?

 

Is US foreign policy for sale?  If so, who is buying?  And what are the consequences?

This intriguing 20 minute documentary is well worth the time.

Much Ado About Golan

The short video gives a straightforward look at why the Golan Heights are so important

The Golan Isn't Very High on the Arab or Muslim Agenda 

- Zvi Bar'el

Arab countries are expected to condemn President Trump's recognition of Israeli sovereignty on the Golan Heights, but - unlike the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital - the Golan isn't a holy site. It isn't very high on the Arab or Muslim agenda.
    

At the end of the month, the leaders of the Arab countries will gather for their annual summit in Tunisia and will harshly condemn the American decision.
    

But as far as they're concerned, the American declaration is a bit of revenge against Assad for massacring his own people.

(Ha'aretz)

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Trump's Golan Strategy - Elliot Kaufman

President Trump's decision to recognize Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights puts the Palestinians on notice. The fear is that if a U.S. president can tell Syria to forget returning to the pre-1967 borders, he can tell the Palestinians the same thing: Shape up and cease your intransigence, or America could let Israel annex parts of the West Bank, too.
     
The pre-1967 lines are no longer sacrosanct, and they never should have been. They merely reflect where armies stopped in 1949, when the Arab states failed to smother Israel in its infancy. The armistice established the borders "without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines."
    
The Trump strategy has been to back Israel and pressure the Palestinians into moderating their maximalist objectives. Palestinian leaders have long assumed time was on their side. The longer they held out and refused to make peace, the more the international community marginalized Israel and pressured it for further concessions. But if the Palestinians don't face reality, their own dreams of a state could be swept away. 
(Wall Street Journal)


Israel's Sovereignty over Heights: Legal & Justified - Vivian Bercovici

An Israeli declaration of sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and American recognition of it, is not contrary to international law. Since World War II, the accepted understanding of international law that involves territorial loss during conflict is quite straightforward: the attacking nation may not retain permanently land acquired as a result of armed conflict.
    
We have heard a lot about how the Russian occupation of Crimea is indistinct from Israel's hold over the Golan. But Russia invaded Crimea; Crimea did not invade Russia. Syria attacked Israel in 1967; Israel did not attack Syria. International law only addresses the situation where the attacker, not the defender, conquers. Syria violated international law in 1967 and 1973 by attacking Israel without provocation.
The writer served as Canada's ambassador to Israel from 2014 to 2016.
(Commentary)


U.S. Announcement Frees Israel from "Land for Peace" Formula
- Shmuel Rosner

President Trump announced that "it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights." Across the Israeli political spectrum, politicians are supportive of America recognizing Israel's control of the Golan Heights. It is the final nail in the coffin of the 1967 line - the armistice line that separated Israel from its neighbors before the Six-Day War.
     
The "land for peace" formulation has been a basis of all peace processes between Israel and Egypt, Syria and the Palestinians for the past five decades. Withdrawal worked for Israel once, in 1979, when it signed a peace agreement with Egypt and left the Sinai Peninsula. But Israel's adversaries, in future negotiations, would demand the same kind of compensation. It became a sacred formula, worshiped by the international community.
    
The American president is setting the clock back to before the peace deal with Egypt, to a time when Israel could argue that the reward for peace is peace - not land. Israelis agree on much more than many outside observers imagine. And one of the things they largely agree on is that the 1967 line is no longer relevant.
The writer is a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute.
(New York Times)
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UPDATE:

Aggression Shouldn't Be Cost-Free - Evelyn Gordon

The principle that territory can't be acquired through force, far from deterring aggression, actually rewards it. For an aggressor, starting a war becomes almost cost-free. If he wins, he achieves whatever goal he sought to achieve. And if he loses, the international community will pressure his victim to return any captured lands, thereby ensuring that he pays no territorial price.
   
After World War II, the Allies had no qualms about forcing Germany, the aggressor, to cede territory to its victims.
   
Claiming that Trump has just legitimized acts of aggression like Russia's seizure of Crimea is possible only under the warped interpretation of international law that makes no distinction between offensive and defensive wars. The Golan and Crimea are completely different cases because the former was acquired in a defensive war and the latter in an offensive one.
   
The claim that the decision undermines prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace is also wrong. Until now, every time the Palestinians rejected an Israeli peace offer, the international community rewarded them by demanding additional Israeli concessions. But now, Trump has shown that rejectionism carries a price. Trump is restoring the distinction that used to exist between offensive and defensive wars, thereby restoring international law to sanity.
(JNS)
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Poking Fun at Radical Jewish Group IfNotNow [VideoBite]

  Radical Jewish Group IfNotNow is criticized in this short, well edited video

 

As Caliphate Crumbles, Reflection on How ISIS Grew [VideoBite]

 

Tania Joya, featured in Clarion’s upcoming film, is a former extremist now working in deradicalization. Her ex-husband was radicalized as a teenager in Texas and was ISIS’ main propagandist in Syria. Tania explains why she married a jihadi and gives insights into her husband's life as a terrorist and ISIS spokesman.  

 

The Intersectional Embrace: Omar Wins

Ilhan Omar Knows Exactly What She Is Doing - Bret Stephens

Rep. Ilhan Omar does not like Israel. That's a shame, not least because Israel is the only country in its region that embraces the sorts of values the Democratic Party claims to champion. When was the last time there was a gay-pride parade in Ramallah, a women's rights march in Gaza, or an opposition press in Tehran?
   

America is a free country, and Omar is within her rights to think what she will about Israel or any other state. There's rarely a social or reputational penalty for publicly criticizing Israeli policies today. It's ubiquitous on college campuses and commonplace in editorial pages. Omar, however, isn't just a critic of Israel.
   

For those who don't get it, claims that Israel "hypnotizes" the world, or that it uses money to bend others to its will, or that its American supporters "push for allegiance to a foreign country," repackage falsehoods commonly used against Jews for centuries. Those who support Israel should not have to face allegations that their sympathies have been purchased, or their brains hijacked, or their loyalties divided.
   

As the criticism of Omar mounts, it becomes that much easier for her to seem like the victim of a smear campaign, rather than the instigator of a smear. The secret of anti-Semitism has always rested, in part, on creating the perception that the anti-Semite is, in fact, the victim of the Jews and their allies.

(New York Times)

 

 

Ilhan Omar Is Getting Off the Hook - Max Boot

No one ever accuses supporters of the U.S.-Britain "special relationship" of owing allegiance to a foreign country. Nor do supporters of the U.S. alliances with Canada, Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Poland or any other country face such accusations. Only supporters of Israel. This is an old and ugly anti-Semitic canard. It should be a no-brainer for Democrats to condemn what Omar said.
   

Omar's defenders suggest that to criticize her is to "stifle" debate and to equate any criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. Wrong. It's perfectly legitimate to criticize Israel. I do it myself: But Omar wasn't criticizing Israeli policies. She was criticizing Israel's supporters by suggesting that they are not loyal Americans. That's textbook anti-Semitism.

(Washington Post)

 

 

Making Jews Choose: Our Progressive Values or Ourselves -
Batya Ungar-Sargon

Are Jews supposed to stay in a progressive movement that resents us for standing up for ourselves? That has leaders who are "hurt" when they see Congress defend us? A movement that is lionizing a woman for the fact that she has offended us?
   

America - and its progressive wing - will surely be worse off if Jews can no longer find a political home there, and it's for the soul of this country that we are fighting as much as for ourselves.

(Forward)

 

 

Ilhan Omar Is Hurting the Palestinian Cause - Hussein Ibish

Palestinians will not benefit from the controversy resulting from Rep. Ilhan Omar's repeated use of familiar anti-Semitic themes. If Ms. Omar wants to support Palestinians, there's no end to the urgent tasks she could champion as Palestinians are enduring a crisis in relations with the U.S.
   

Omar's rhetoric is a disaster that reinforces divisive stereotypes about supposed Muslim hostility to Jews. As someone who has spent more than 20 years in Washington working on Arab and Muslim-American problems and championing the Palestinian cause, I implore Omar to learn more about the issues at stake. In the meantime, I have one thing to say to her: Please, just stop it! 

The writer is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. 

(Bloomberg)

 

 

The Democrats and Anti-Semitism - John Podhoretz

 

People can play whataboutism games all they like, but not with me, people. I’ve attacked Donald Trump over Charlottesville. I’ve attacked Steve King for his racism. Ilhan Omar is a despicable anti-Semite and rather than trying to find a way to separate themselves from her, the grandees of the Democratic Party are actually, or effectively, or implicitly embracing her.

 

This could be an inflection point in American political history—the moment at which the Democratic Party decided that it had to choose between Jews and intersectionality and chose the latter.

 

The question is what American Jews are going to do about it.

[Commentary]

 

 

Anti-Semitism Is the Religion of People Too Lazy to Accept the Complexity of Reality

- Eliot A. Cohen

In 2017, the FBI recorded more than three times as many anti-Jewish as anti-Muslim religious hate incidents, or almost 60% of the total. What is particularly scary now is that Jew-hatred seems to bring with it no real penalties.

The writer is Professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

(Atlantic)

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UPDATES:

What about "the Benjamins" from Gulf States? - Barbara Boland

Do foreign nations and their money influence U.S. policy? Pro-Israel groups spent roughly $5 million on lobbying in 2018. That might sound like a lot of money, until you realize that in 2013, Norway spent $5 million to push U.S. officials to double spending on foreign aid.
    
If Rep. Ilhan Omar wants to deal with the "problematic role" of "Benjamins" in our foreign policy, she should take a hard look at contributions from the Gulf states. The United Arab Emirates secretly contributed $20 million to the Middle East Institute, a leading Washington think tank, between 2016 and 2017. In 2014, the UAE's rival, Qatar, gave a $14.8 million four-year donation to the Brookings Institution. From 2015 to 2017, Saudi Arabia multiplied its number of foreign agents from 25 to 145, and poured $18 million into D.C.-based lobbying. 
(Spectator)
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The Democratic Party's New Math - Lee Smith

Palestinians are replacing Israelis in the hearts of the party’s base.

The inability of senior U.S. Democrats, including senior Jewish members of Congress, to muster a counteroffensive, or even much of a defense, shows that a pillar of the increasingly disoriented liberal political establishment is being pulled down by institutionalized identity politics. As it turned out, they couldn’t even get a pro forma denunciation of anti-Semitism.  Liberal Jews are being replaced...

Maybe the Democratic Party’s new math is why no one is making too much of the African-American kids beating up Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn. Because the former sit at the top of the hierarchy of grievance, it’s OK for them to work through their pain by punching down at the latter. Condemning them, or Omar, would only cause more pain.

It’s Obama’s agenda, and that’s why liberal Jews are effectively scapegoating Omar. It is too painful to identify the real source of the problem: An American president that the Jewish community not only overwhelmingly supported but also defended even as his language and his policies clearly spelled danger for them. They believed his validators because they wanted to—the Jewish journalists, diplomats, policymakers, Obama’s envoys to the Jewish community who all vouched for him, how he felt love for Israel and the Jews in his “kishkes.”

Where Obama and his surrogates always claimed that re-aligning the U.S. with Iran, or tilting towards the Palestinians, or condemning Israel at the U.N., were measures being taken for Israel’s own good, and therefore in fact proved how much they cared about Israel, progressives like Omar feel no compunction to engage in such rhetorical flimflam, to palliate “donors” or anyone else. Their pitch is simple: Israel is evil and should be eradicated. What Obama and his surrogates whispered and implied, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and their fellow progressives now feel confident enough to say openly.

[Obama] went after AIPAC not because he personally dislikes Jews or Israel, but because he promised to radically transform America. So he had to start with the one institution he had absolute control over: the Democratic Party. He hacked away at the Jewish community because American Jewry is the pillar of the liberal political establishment.

By targeting AIPAC, and rejecting the foundational nature of the U.S.-Israel relationship, Obama crippled the party’s then-dominant liberal wing and empowered the progressives, whose ranks the Jews are more than welcome to join—but on new terms. On Rep. Ilhan Omar’s terms.
[Tablet Magazine]
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