The real war in the Middle East
18 August 2023

The Australian government has demonstrated how far it is removed from reality by announcing a change in Australia’s policy towards Israel.
 
On Tuesday 8th August, Foreign Minister Penny Wong declared that Australia – which just months ago rescinded its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital – would henceforth be referring to “East Jerusalem” (ie. the Old City including the Western Wall, the Temple Mount and their environs), together with the “West Bank” (ie. Samaria and Judea) and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, as “Occupied Palestinian Territory” (OPT). According to Wong, all Jewish towns and neighbourhoods in Judea and Samaria, home to over half a million Jews, are “illegal settlements” under international law.
 
This is typical misuse of legal rhetoric by those in the West who consider Israel the cause of all conflict in the region, and either naively think that condemning and pressuring Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians will somehow bring an end to terror and hatred in the region, or wantonly offer Israel’s security as the price for appeasing those who hate them.
 
Australian Christian groups, including Christians for Israel, responded by issuing a strong statement condemning the new policy. The term Occupied Palestinian Territory, they wrote, “wrongfully implies that Israel has no legal title in Judea, Samaria or Jerusalem, and that Gaza is occupied by Israel. The term also “suggests that any Jewish presence in places where Jews have lived for thousands of years, the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem including [where] Judaism’s most sacred, ancient and holy site, the Kotel and Temple Mount [are situated] is ‘illegal,’ simply because Jordanian forces ethnically ‘cleansed’ it of Jews between 1948 and 1967.” The Christians detailed their understanding of “the basis for Israel’s claims” to parts of Samaria, Judea and eastern Jerusalem:

• the international legal mandates for the establishment of a Jewish homeland there, under the League of Nations in 1920 and renewed under the UN in 1945;
• the doctrine of succession of territorial title within the boundaries of the previous British government at the time of Israeli independence in 1949;
• the absence of a competing legal sovereignty in [Judaea and Samaria] at the time of Israeli occupation in 1967;
• the absence of any international rule at that time prohibiting acquisition of land taken in a war of self-defence;
• the Jewish right of self-determination in indigenous land in Judaea and Samaria; and
• the security imperatives of control on the hills overlooking Jewish population concentrations in the coastal centre of Israel.
• The absence of any legal commitment, legal document, treaty, agreement, contract or formal binding resolution that has determined that the territories belong to the Palestinians – or that they are under Palestinian sovereignty. (UNSC Chapter VI Resolutions are recommendations and not binding, as are UNGA Resolutions).

 
The authors argue that Judea and Samaria “can be described as disputed territory because Israel gained control of it in a defensive war and relinquishing all control would pose an existential threat [to Israel]. “For Australia to prejudice peace negotiations by unilaterally declaring borders in a disputed territory is absurd and will only entrench Arab intransigence,” they concluded.
 
Unilateral withdrawal from Judea and Samaria would, of course, be suicidal for Israel, which faces existential threats from Iran, whose proxy Hezbollah has over 150,000 rockets aimed at Israel in Lebanon and is threatening its destruction.
 
The idea that the mere existence of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria is the obstacle to peace in the region is of course absurd. Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians cannot be reduced to the simplistic narrative of a colonialist regime occupying land that belongs to another people. If that were the case, it would have been solved long ago.

To be sure, the Palestinians have a right to self-determination. And the Israeli military administration of the West Bank must somehow be brought to an end. But that is only part of the picture. The Palestinians do not have a right to statehood, nor is Israel's control over the West Bank illegal. The Palestinians do not only have rights, they also have obligations. Israel not only has obligations, it also has rights.

Israel can only be expected to give up control over the West Bank if and when the Palestinians leaders abandon their declared intention to destroy Israel, build a democratic government and prevent terror attacks against Israelis.

But there is something much more fundamental going on. Palestinian belligerency and Israeli intransigence are in turn evidence of a much more complex and difficult underlying problem: Israel is engaged in a real, existential war – with Islamist jihad forces generally, and in particular with the revolutionary Islamist regime in Iran and its proxies, that are committed not only to Israel’s destruction, but to the destruction of Western civilization.

The further development and outcome of that underlying conflict therefore has massive consequences for the Western world, including Australia. Their interests are better served by supporting Israel’s fight against hatred and terror, not undermining it.
 
For Israel, Australia’s latest statement is further evidence that the Jewish state cannot rely on other nations for its defense. Ultimately, only the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will defend the Jewish people from those who seek to destroy them. It is He who is bringing them home, and it is He who will protect them.
 

Australian Christians ‘dismayed’ at government’s reversal on Israel

Christian groups across Australia this week signed, and widely-circulated, a letter to their government, expressing consternation at a recent policy announcement that has aligned the country tightly with Israel’s avowed enemies.

Iran's Plan To Turn The West Bank Into A Terror Base

Bassam Tawil: Palestinian terrorists have already turned the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip into a base for firing tens of thousands of rockets towards Israel. Now, the terrorists, with the help of Iran, are trying to use the West Bank to launch rockets at Israeli civilian communities.

Iran, Russia Evade Sanctions; Biden Administration 'Funding Both Sides of Ukraine War

Majid Rafizadeh: One of the reasons that rogue states such as Iran and Russia have become so empowered is that, thanks to the Biden Administration's apparent decision not to enforce sanctions, both countries have been freely evading them. Instead of enforcing sanctions, the Biden Administration has actually been issuing waivers, making the sanctions appear to be simply cosmetic.

U.S.-Iran Deal Doesn't Mean Full Nuclear Pact Is Next – but It Shows Israel's Limits

Lazar Berman: Israeli officials did not sound thrilled in the wake of last week's deal between the US and Iran, which will see Tehran free five American detainees in exchange for the release of several billion dollars in frozen Iranian assets. "Arrangements that do not dismantle Iran's nuclear infrastructure will not stop its nuclear program, and will only provide it with funds that will go to terrorist elements sponsored by Iran," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. He was not the only Israeli voice tying the prisoner deal to Iran's nuclear program.

What Will Israel's Next War Look Like?

Dr. Mordechai Kedar: Israel has a history of multi-front assaults by its enemies, borne out during the 1948 Independence War, the Six-Day War in 1967, the War of Attrition in 1969-70, and the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Today, Iran's efforts to connect Lebanon and Hezbollah, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Hamas in Gaza in a multi-pronged attack on Israel constitute the first characteristic of a worst-case scenario: internal strife. Exacerbating the external threat is the possibility of a repeat of the riots that erupted within Israel in May 2021, when Arab Israelis, who comprise 20 percent of the population, killed some Jews and destroyed synagogues before the violent outbreak was contained.
 

The second likely characteristic of the next war will be Hezbollah's launching of up to 150,000 missiles against Israel's gas extraction and storage facilities, other infrastructure, air bases, ships at sea, and its cities. Such an attack would lead to the third characteristic of the next war, in which Hezbollah targets expand beyond military sites and public infrastructure. Thus, Hezbollah and IRGC militias in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Hamas will deliberately rain down missiles and drones on Israeli civilians and inflict as many casualties as possible to demoralize the population. Israel is psychologically preparing itself for the Arabic doctrine of "resistance," or the persistent state of jihad called muqawama. As non-state actors, these militias are not considered states and would therefore not hesitate to commit total war in violation of the Geneva Conventions, which requires states to act in accordance with international law.