Before There Can be Peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the U.S. Needs to Defeat Radical Islam

If the U.S. really wishes to bring about peace between Israel and the Palestinians, argues Mario Loyola, it should begin by working to establish a situation in which Jerusalem can realistically consider ceding territory without risking national “suicide.” Doing so would involve a focus on containing Iran, defeating Islamic State and other Islamist groups, and forcing Palestinians leaders to end their incitement of terror. And that’s only the beginning:

There is only one reason the two-state solution is “in jeopardy” [to use John Kerry’s phrase], or more accurately dead, and that is Muslim terrorism against innocent Jews. There is only one reason for the harsh security measures imposed in the occupied territories, and that is Muslim terrorism against innocent Jews. There is only one reason for the continuing conflict between Israel and its neighbors, and that is Muslim terrorism against innocent Jews. A century of terrorism by Muslims against the Jews of Palestine—at first organic, then incited by the Soviets, and now propelled by political Islam—is the essence of this conflict and the only reason that it persists. Muslim extremism has now become a worldwide problem, claiming victims and threatening liberty on every continent except Antarctica. It is time to reshape U.S. policy on the whole Middle East . . . on the basis of a new principle, namely the decisive defeat of Muslim extremism. . . .

The world’s acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state, Palestinians’ demonstration that they can actually run a state, and the waning of extremism across the region are all things that have to happen before a two-state solution is even remotely feasible. End Israel’s isolation, and secure universal recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. . . . The U.S. should punish countries and organizations that boycott Israel, including those that boycott products produced in Israeli settlements. Beyond that, normalized relations with Israel should become a condition for fully normal ties with the United States.

[The U.S. should also] drop official opposition to Israeli settlements until the Arabs agree to a realistic transition plan. . . . Israel’s legal claim [to the West Bank] is for the moment better than anyone else’s. Meantime, since the Ottomans’ centuries-long rule over the entire territory ended at the close of World War I, the question of just whom the West Bank does or should belong to has never been settled. The claim of Palestinian Arabs to the land is no better than that of Palestinian Jews, i.e., Israelis. The competing claims can be settled only through negotiations, negotiations that the Palestinian Arabs have refused for years to engage in, despite multiple decisions by the Israelis to freeze their settlement activity.

Read more at National Review

More about: Iran, Israel & Zionism, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, John Kerry, Terrorism, U.S. Foreign policy

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF