Category Archives: foreign policy

UN Involvement in the Israeli/Palestinian Authority War

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The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, a UN organization “providing humanitarian relief” in Gaza, said they found rockets hidden by PA terrorists inside a “vacant” school earlier in the week. This is the second time the UNRWA has been found to have PA’s rockets stored in UNRWA facilities.

This time the rockets were found in an “unused” UNRWA building situated

between two other UNRWA schools that are being used to host 1,500 displaced people.

Also this time, instead of returning the rockets to the PA, as the UNRWA did with that prior cache,

UNRWA staff withdrew from the area.

And abandoned those 1,500 refugees the UN was pretending to shelter.

More Moral Equivalence Nonsense

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President Obama and John Kerry have adopted this ostensibly even-handed trope [that both Israel and the Palestinian Authority must agree to a cease fire], and on Tuesday the European Union went further and deplored Israel and Hamas as if they were equal perpetrators. Hamas should stop its “criminal and unjustifiable acts,” the EU said, but it added that it was “particularly appalled” at the human cost of the Israel ground offensive.

No. There is no equivalence between a nation that is protecting its citizens from terrorist assault and an entity that only rains rockets on that nation for the purpose of killing as many civilians, including children, as it can; there is no equivalence between a nation that is protecting its citizens and an entity that shoots rockets at a nuclear power plant in that nation for the purpose of destroying the plant and scattering as much radioactivity as widely as possible; there is no equivalence between a nation that is protecting its citizens and an entity that uses its own civilians, including its own children, as shields for the purpose of running up the Palestinian body count for PR purposes.

The US and the EU each must put aside this despicable assumption of an equivalence of morality between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (“particularly appalled!?” Maybe the EU isn’t assuming so much equivalence…) and exert such pressure as they have left on the PA to stop its assault and to forswear terrorism.

If there is to be a legitimate cease fire, it can come about in one of only two ways. The PA must stop its attacks on Israel and allow verification of that cessation. Alternatively, Israel must continue in Gaza until the PA’s ability to continue its attacks is destroyed completely and the PA terrorists are dead or captured. Given the integrity of the PA, though, the former alternative is likely only to provide a brief respite before the PA resumes its terrorism.

The Kerfuffle in the Middle East

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Regarding the current Israeli/Palestinian Authority war over the latter’s terrorist attacks on Israeli cities and nuclear facilities, Secretary of State John Kerry is in Cairo to work with his Egyptian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri, to try to bring about an end to the war, or at least a lull in the current outbreak of the larger, on-going war.

To Kerry’s credit, he also says he wants to find “a way to deal with the underlying issues.” Success here would, indeed, go a long way toward reducing the likelihood of further hostilities.

Unfortunately, he continues to lack any understanding of the situation. He also thinks the underlying issues are “very complicated.”

No, they’re really quite simple. Israel wants the terrorist attacks to stop; the PA refuses. Israel wants its right to exist explicitly recognized and that recognition acted on; the PA refuses on both counts. Israel wants a peaceful relationship within a two-state outcome that contains Israel and a Palestinian state; the PA refuses.

Another Failure in Foreign Policy

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The United Nations Security Council called for an immediate halt to fighting in the Gaza Strip at an emergency session Sunday evening….

And

A press statement issued by the Security Council expressed “serious concern at the escalation of violence,” called for the protection of civilians under international humanitarian law, and said it was troubled by the growing number of casualties.

This is disgusting, and it’s…sad…that the Obama administration approved this—recall that the US could have vetoed this travesty.

There can be no useful cease fire with terrorists—the PA will simply use the time to regroup, rearm, and resume raining rockets on Israeli civilians and children. The PA will simply use the time to replace its combat casualties, retrain them, and do a better job of tunneling and then infiltrating under the Israeli border to wreck mayhem in Israeli kibbutzim and towns and cities. The PA will simply use the time to better target their rockets to resume their efforts at nuclear terrorism.

Furthermore, the crocodile tears over the Gazan civilian casualties wholly ignore the fact that the Israelis are at pains to avoid civilian casualties, using a three-step process to attack a target where civilians may be at risk. First, the IDF makes phone calls to the civilians in the target building, and it drops leaflets in the area, warning of the impending attack. The second step is to fire a small explosive onto the roof of the target building—a roof knock—to warn that the attack has become imminent. Only then is the building targeted with operational rounds. Further, the IDF waves off missiles in flight when civilians are discovered to be in the area after launch.

All of this, of course, allows terrorists to escape among those civilians in order to try again. Those crocodile tears also ignore the fact that the PA actively use their Gazan civilians as shields to protect their terrorists and their weaponry, concealing rockets in homes and mosques, preventing the civilians from leaving the area when warned, and so on.

The UN resolution also ignores UN complicity in the PA’s terrorism: 20 PA rockets were found secreted in an “unused” UNRWA school.

But President Barack Obama approved that UN resolution.

As Predicted

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I predicted this at the end of last week.

Iran agreed to new steps to contain its nuclear work in exchange for additional sanctions relief from the US as the two sides extended negotiations for four more months to reach a comprehensive deal.

Under Friday’s deal, the US will give Tehran access over the next four months to an additional $2.8 billion in oil export revenues frozen abroad by American sanctions, Secretary of State John Kerry said.

In return for this additional money, this speaking fee for the Iranian negotiators,

Iran agreed Friday to take further measures to curtail the most advanced parts of its nuclear program.

Iran also agreed to dilute its stock of up to 2% enriched uranium into natural uranium, Western officials said, which could slightly lengthen the time it would take to spin that into highly enriched fuel for a nuclear weapon.

And we believe them. Certainly the guy who currently sits in the Secretary of State’s chair believes them. John Kerry said, in announcing this latest American concession,

Let me be clear, Iran will not get any more money during these four months than it did during the last six months.

In other words and as noted above, Iran is going to get more money: the $8 billion to which it got access “the last six months” is only an upper bound to that additional money; the released $2.8 billion may not be the last of it.

One last thing: here’s what President Barack Obama said last January in his State of the Union address when he described the just-expired 6 months of talks that were, then, just getting started:

If Iran’s leaders do not seize this opportunity, then I will be the first to call for more sanctions, and stand ready to exercise all options to make sure Iran does not build a nuclear weapon.

The opportunity is passed. It expired Friday. But, then, that was just a deadline.