President Obama and Secretary Kerry intend to advance recognition of an independent Palestinian state by January 20, 2017, the end of Obama’s second term, irrespective of its adverse impact upon the national security and homeland security of the US. Therefore, the President turned down a request by the Senate Democratic Leader, Harry Reid, to make a commitment to veto any UN Security Council resolution, which calls for an independent Palestinian state. According to the President, and the US foreign policy establishment, a Palestinian state would enhance stability, moderation, peace, and democracy.
How credible and reality- based is this assessment/expectation?
In 1993, Senator John Kerry and the US foreign policy establishment were convinced that Arafat – a role model for international terrorism – would respond to Israel’s unprecedented Oslo Accords concessions by ”transforming himself from lawlessness to statesmanship.” However, their assessment was discredited by an unprecedented wave of Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas-engineered hate-education, incitement and (the resulting) terrorism, which still persists today.
In 2011, President Obama, Secretary Clinton and Senator Kerry believed that the eruption of turbulence on the Arab Street was an Arab Spring, youth revolution, Facebook revolution, transitioning the Arab World to democracy: “Through the moral force of nonviolence, the people of the [Middle East] have achieved more change in six months than terrorists have accomplished in decades….” However, their assessment has been disproved by the reality of an anti-US, anti-human rights, terror-driven and Islamic supremacy-inspired Arab Tsunami, led by ruthless minority regimes, followed/cheered by obedient and politically insignificant Muslim majority.
On May 19, 2011, President Obama stated:”When Qaddafi leaves…the transition to a democratic Libya can proceed.” On September 21, 2011 Obama celebrated the toppling/lynching of Gaddafi by anti-US Islamic terror gangs: “from Tripoli to Benghazi Libya is free…The idea that change could only come through violence has been buried with [Gaddafi]….” However, Obama’s assessment was repudiated on September 11, 2012 with the murder of four Americans by a massive terrorist assault on the US Consulate and compound in Benghazi, and the transformation of post-Gaddafi Libya into the largest platform of well-armed, anti-US Islamic terror organizations, feeding Islamic terrorism in Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
In June 2012, after pressuring Egyptian President Mubarak to resign, President Obama and the US foreign policy establishment congratulated the Muslim Brotherhood on its victory in Egypt’s presidential election. They heralded it as a milestone in Egypt’s transition to democracy. However, this assessment was proven false in July 2013 when the Muslim Brotherhood – the largest transnational Islamic terror organization, which haunts pro-US Arab regimes – was ousted, by a rare coalition of liberal Egyptians and the military, opposing a Muslim Brotherhood Islamic dictatorship and its support of terrorism in the Sinai Peninsula and on the mainland.
What would be the reality-based nature of a Palestinian state, and its impact on US national security and homeland security?
The nature of the proposed Palestinian state, and its impact on vital US interests, can be gleaned through the anti-US hate-education and terror track record of the Palestinian Authority and the PLO, the quintessential terror organization which (according to the Oslo Accords) oversees the Palestinian Authority, both headed by Mahmoud Abbas. Whether led by the PLO, or Hamas (and its heinous performance in Gaza), a Palestinian state would usher the Arab Tsunami to the Palestinian Street.
Moreover, the Palestinian Authority sustained the close PLO ties with anti-US regimes such as the Ayatollahs in Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Osama Bin-Laden, Saddam Hussein, Sudan, Russia and China. A Palestinian state would provide Iran, Russia, China and possibly North Korea naval and land access to the eastern flank of the Mediterranean, at the expense of the US power projection.
A Palestinian state would add one more anti-US vote at the UN.
Moreover, Palestinian leaders collaborated with Nazi Germany and the Communist Bloc, were trained by the KGB and other ruthless Communist secret services. Mahmoud Abbas received his Ph.D. (Holocaust Denial) from Moscow University, was trained by the KGB and managed the finances and logistics of the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre of eleven Israeli athletes.
The PLO, led by Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, was a role-model and incubator of skyjacking, suicide bombing, car-bombing and inter-Arab treachery, exporting terrorism to India, China, Russia, Afghanistan, Europe, Africa and the USA. PLO autonomy in Jordan (1968-1970) and in Lebanon (1970-1982) provided manpower, training and inspiration to a multitude of terror organizations in the Mideast, Far East, Western Europe, Central and Latin America. Mahmoud Abbas’ PLO murdered the US Ambassador to Sudan in 1973 and assisted the Islamic Jihad in the 1983 murder of 300 US Marines in Beirut. Palestinian terrorists fought US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The dramatic 1993 and 2005 Israeli concessions (retreating from 40% of Judea & Samaria; offering to retreat to the pre-1967 lines; uprooting all Jews from Gaza) facilitated the establishment of the Palestinian Authority by PLO terrorists from Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Tunisia. As expected – due to Mideast reality – this has intensified Palestinian terrorism and adrenalized international terrorism.
Since 1993, the Palestinian Authority has been characterized by hate-education, glorification of homicide bombers, the systematic violation of commitments, corruption, the oppression of Palestinians and forcing a wave of Christian emigration, which transformed Bethlehem, Beit Jallah and Ramallah from Christian majorities to Christian minorities.
Jordanian military commanders caution their Israeli counterparts that “Palestinians violate in the evening that which they sign in the morning,” and that “a Palestinian state would be a death sentence to the pro-US Hashemite regime, transforming Jordan into a platform of terror, haunting the shaky pro-US regimes in the Persian Gulf.”
In 1950, 1966 and 1970 Mahmoud Abbas (who speaks softly) and Arafat fled Egypt and Syria due to subversion and terrorism, and were expelled from Jordan following their attempted coup against King Hussein. In 1975, they tried to topple Lebanon’s central government, triggering a multi-year civil war and Syrian occupation. In 1990 they participated in Saddam Hussein’s rape of Kuwait.
Regaining control of the mountain ridges of Judea & Samaria in 1967, Israel has dramatically upgraded its posture of deterrence, transformed from a national security consumer to producer. Against the backdrop of the rising conventional and non-conventional Islamic threats to the USA, Israel resembles, increasingly, the largest and most critical US aircraft carrier, which does not require a single US boot on board, deployed in a most vital area for US military and economic interests. The establishment of a Palestinian state on the mountain ridges of Judea & Samaria would dramatically erode Israel’s posture of deterrence, which currently extends the strategic hand of the USA, sparing the need to deploy additional US troops to the Middle East, enhancing the national security of pro-US Arab regimes – especially Jordan – which consider Israel an effective life insurance policy.
Could the proposed Palestinian state advance US interests and values, enhancing stability, moderation, peace, and democracy?
Bearing in mind that leopards don’t change spots, only tactics, the proposed Palestinian state, on the one hand, and US values and national security interests, on the other hand, constitutes a classic oxymoron!