My Barr Interview Essay. Despicable Democrats. Chervis Isom Essay. Elliott Essay. Hamas Rejects, 194th Day.

https://pjmedia.com/victoria-taft/2024/04/17/vip-pitch-n4928255

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Joe Biden's Chaotic Israel Position Isn't an Accident. It's Primed for Something Sinister. 

By Matt Vespa

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Here's What Happened When Google Employees Staged an Anti-Israel Protest in Their Boss' Office

By Matt Vespa

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Justice Gorsuch Takes a Blowtorch to the Biden DOJ's Case Concerning J6 Prison Sentences

By Matt Vespa

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The American People vs Judicial Corruption

The left’s vicious hostility is so public, the American people have increasingly felt called upon to defend President Trump.

 

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You Cannot Duck

This morning I listened to an interview of Trump's former head of the Justice Department - Bill Barr.

When  asked if he would vote for Trump, he acknowledged he would because to do so was the lesser of two evils. and, he volunteered, Trump's style was like putting a gun to your head but in the case of Biden a vote would result in certain murder..

I did not always agree with Barr but he is a straight shooter and speaks his mind, enforced the law.  Our republic was safer with Barr.

So, from my perspective, let's compare the accomplishments of both Trump and Biden.  

I will list Trump's major one's first:

Our adversaries never knew what Trump would do so we had no wars. Xi had dinner at Mar A Lago and during dinner Trump informed Xi he was attacking an enemy.

Trump did what other presidents skirted, ie. moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem, then he accomplished the Abraham Accords which has survived the Hamas 10/7 War. Trump was less a politician than a think outside the box business man which brought freshness to D.C. 

Trump berated NAO allies for failing to live up to their financial obligations and they began to respond to his threat.  He met with N Korea's insane leader Nothing came of it but N Korea ceased launching rockets and threatening war with S Korea.

He did not withdraw from Iraq but did send messages his intent was to eventually disengage but no Americans or Iraqis' were killed  or slaughtered.

He said his hardest job was to speak with families whose military sons and daughters had given their lives nor did he look at his watch.

He gave his salary to charity.  

Inflation was lower, energy production and exports were up,  employment was favorable, particularly for our black citizens, our borders were more secure and you know the rest.

And what did he receive from the Democrats and mass media?

I submit, constant attempts to destroy his administration, lies about many of his advisors, orchestrated series of events meant to cripple him and manipulate  his narcissistic personality, un-presidential bawdiness and crude language so as to turn the nation further against him by weaponizing the 'game" of politics as never before in the long history of our nation.

Why? Because D.C elites feared his ability to dilute their zeal for power and to restrain Obama's goal of "transforming"  America and filling selective areas. in our nation. with radical Middle Eastern Islamist terrorists immigrants who could be elected and we have evidence, as I write, of the consequences with their rioting and screaming death to Americans and anti-Semitic slogans etc,.  

Tragically, Trump was impacted by "China's" Covid, succumbed to the horrifical advice of shutting down a massive economy and added egregiously to our soaring debt.

As for Barr's view that electing Biden is the equivalent of "pulling the trigger" let's observe Biden's results to date.

Biden sought, and has been more or less effective, undoing what Trump accomplished.

And, once again, you know inflation is higher, our borders are flooded with illegals, drug deaths are soaring, gasoline and other essentials have crushed the financial wherewithal of the middle and lower class.  Meanwhile "oligarch's" net worth has exploded upwards, Americans are dispirited, our adversaries are united and more bellicose, several wars have been initiated, our relationship with Israel has become strained and  yes, once again, you know the rest.

To throw sand in the gears of our constitutional republic, subject Trump to a series of lawsuits orchestrated by Biden's White House to deprive him of his "rights and ability " to campaign for re-election, to smear him and  destroy his personal wealth and that of family members is not random.  It is purposeful and coordinated and wholly unconstitutional..

I believe any, if not all of these lawsuits, should reach The SCOTUS, they will be overturned because of their nature.

 Time will tell so stay tuned and give some serious thought to what Barr has said, ie. Trump is far less dangerous to our democracy than Biden. You must deal with the choices given and not duck your responsibility  as a citizen. 

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Democrats are despicable and must be slaughtered at the "polls"
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Senate Dismisses Impeachment Charges Against Alejandro Mayorkas

Democrats quickly swept aside the case, which had accused the homeland security secretary of refusing to enforce immigration laws and breaching the public trust.

Read more

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Chervis Isom was a beloved partner of my father and a dear friend of mine. He died from a tragic fall In Paris, on vacation, and was all too young.  His lovely wife, Martha, sent this essay of his to me.

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Today’s guest columnist is Chervis Isom.

Editor’s note: Chervis Isom passed away in 2023. He was raised  by an intolerant father, but he grew up to be a remarkable man with  a  remarkable life. He wrote the following piece. titled The Right Cross in 2016.

“Your mother is upset that you’re spending so much time with that Catholic girl. It’s good to have friends, but you shouldn’t get serious with her. She’s Catholic you know, and you can’t change them.”

Those were the words my father said to me that day, though I remember none of the circumstances that led up to our brief discussion.

Maybe he said something more, maybe he pushed me a little too hard, maybe I was feeling my independence at seventeen years of age, maybe one of those reasons, or all of them together, caused me to blow up.

“By God, I’ll be friends with anybody I choose,” I said, or words to that effect. The only words I specifically recall uttering were “By God……. ”

We were standing outside the back door in the sparse grass and gravel, very close and face-to­ face. We were the same height, he and I, and we were eye to eye. My father’s eyes were large and round and a vivid blue, level and steady and unblinking in that instant, flashing with rage and certitude, even as he tensed all over, his muscles and ligaments and bone suddenly contracting as a preface to some violent release I could feel coming before it happened.

The thing that fascinated me in that moment so long ago was the red lightning bolts within those deep blue eyes that leaped from nowhere as I uttered those words. I say fascinated, but I think I mean terrified.

The instant I said what I said in all my independence, I knew I had overstepped my bounds. Lightning snapped in his eyes, his body tensed, and I flinched. My father was a man of action.

I was so focused on and paralyzed by his eyes in that moment that I never until the last instant saw it coming, the right cross that hammered the left side of my face. Then his eyes, his face, everything disappeared.

I came to myself a few seconds later, or many seconds later for all I know, on my knees in the gravel where I had sunk. He was standing before me, and all I could see were his legs as he shifted from foot to foot like a boxer, itching to hit me again. Yet I could somehow feel that he was fighting that larger battle within himself to hold back.

I struggled to my feet and stood there before him, my arms at my side, now declining to look into his eyes. This was no time to consider any further challenge to my father.

At last, he recovered control of himself and said, “Boy, don’t ever sass me again.” I heard myself say, “Yes sir.”

And that was the end of that conversation, but it was decidedly not the end of my relation with the good Italian Catholic girl, though it did mark the fact that my parents would not willingly approve my romantic relation with the girl from the Roman Catholic Church.

My parents, like so many Protestants from the fundamental wing of Protestantism in which I grew up, thought the Roman Catholic Church was not only some cult and not really Christian, but was also anti-American, and that Catholics would be loyal to the Vatican over our own country.

That strange attitude toward the Roman Catholic Church was virulent in our country from the early Twentieth Century when so many Catholics immigrated to our country from Southern and Eastern Europe, until John Kennedy, our first Catholic president, was assassinated on November 22, 1963.

After that, it seems to have gradually faded until it is now a non-issue politically, though it may continue to be a personal issue for some Protestants who fear a mixed marriage with a Catholic for their son or daughter.

This event with my father occurred in late 1956, when prejudice against Catholics was still high. Only a short time later, John Kennedy campaigned for the presidency against a wave of anti­ Catholic invective, which continued during his presidency.

Now, more than a half-century has passed. I think back to my days as a teenage boy when a single pretty Italian Catholic girl changed forever my view of Catholics and the Catholic religion.

I am reminded of an event a few years later in November 1963 when I read a letter to the editor of The Birmingham News from Abe Berkowitz, a brave Jewish lawyer in Birmingham who eloquently defended President Kennedy against the published invective of that time. For several years, the President had suffered vast abuse from letter writers whose published letters saw in his presidency the “end times,” often suggesting the our country was “going to hell in a handbasket,” and predicting that ultimately the Pope would rule our country.

Mr. Berkowitz’s letter was published on November 14, 1963, and I took great comfort in that letter, although for only a few days, for on November 22, 1963, only eight days later, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.

Mr. Berkowitz’s letter so inspired me that eighteen months later, in the spring of 1965, as a first year law student, I sat in Mr. Berkowitz’s law office in an interview for a job as a summer law clerk, a job I did not get, although ultimately two years later he hired me as a lawyer and became my mentor, and my life was changed forever.

I wrote about that interview in my memoir, The Newspaper Boy, but I failed in my memoir to write about this incident with my father. It is a painful memory and one that I wish I had written about in my book. I think that I simply chose not to place my father in a poor light. Loyalty.

It is a particularly strong bond between father and son regardless of the natural strains such a relation bears, for, after all, a young man must establish his own independence. Though I’m sure I received some spankings as a young boy, that singular event was the only time my father ever struck me.

We never spoke of that event again, my father and I. I never apologized for sassing my Dad and he never apologized for striking me with his fist. I wonder sometimes if that event played itself out before his eyes over the years as it played itself out before mine, and I wonder if an apology dropped between us somewhere down the line might have shaded the sharpness of the image.

While it was I who received the blow, my dad was a man of conscience and I wonder if his memory of the event did not cause him more pain and regret than did mine.

Isn’t it strange – and wonderful – that our lives can change and seek new directions because of an encounter with someone who at first seems so different from us.

In my own case, I was a kid whose parents came to Birmingham from Northwest Alabama bringing little more with them than their xenophobia, and I, their son, carried seeds of those same fears of people different than us.

And then an Italian Catholic girl opened a gate for me to a world of ethnicity, proving to me that those who may seem so different are not in fact that different at all-and to the extent they are different, those differences are interesting and charming and matters to be respected and honored.

That view into an ethnic world of my Catholic friend proved to me that the anti­ Catholic propaganda of the day was not only misplaced, it was ignorant and evil. And that experience with her opened for me a larger world and thus the opportunity and the way a few years later to seek a job with a Jewish lawyer whom I did not know but who, through that letter he bravely published, had become a hero to me.

Other columns by Chervis Isom you might enjoy:

A Birmingham Barber Shop where men spew hate

Historic hatred of Birmingham Catholics ends in murder

Chervis Isom grew up in Birmingham and was a product of its public schools. He graduated from Birmingham-Southern College and Samford’s Cumberland School of Law. He had a long career practicing law. He was the author of The Newspaper Boy: Coming of Age in Birmingham, Alabama During the Civil Rights Era, in which he tells the story of his evolution from the Jim Crow culture.

David Sher is the founder and publisher of ComebackTown.  He’s past Chairman of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce (BBA), Operation New Birmingham (REV Birmingham), and the City Action Partnership (CAP).

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My fiend, Elliott Abrams, sent his recent essay to me:

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How Israel Can Win in Gaza—and Deter Iran

The Key to Both Goals Is Going After Hamas in Rafah

By Elliott Abrams

In the wake of Iran’s attack on Israel with hundreds of drones and missiles last weekend, Israel must decide how to calibrate its response. The spectrum of possible actions is wide and includes strikes on Iranian interests outside Iran and targets inside its borders.

Israeli leaders faced a similar decision after the Hamas attacks of October 7. Back then, the question was whether they should respond to the Hamas attack primarily by sending troops to Gaza with the goal of ending Hamas’s domination of that territory and its ability to threaten Israel militarily, or also (or instead) pursue Israel’s more powerful and dangerous adversary to the north, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah—even though it was not directly involved in the October 7 attacks. Israel chose the first option, a decision that has shaped the conflict to this point. 

The question for the Israeli leadership now is which steps against Iran would demonstrate resilience and maintain credibility without escalating the conflict into a full-scale war. One part of Israel’s response must be to stay the course in the Gaza Strip, despite tremendous pressure from the United States and others to retreat into what would amount to a strategic surrender. In practice, that means proceeding with plans for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to enter the southern Gaza city of Rafah, eliminate the Hamas brigades and leaders based there, and deepen planning for a “day after” in Gaza and a long-term resolution to the conflict with the Palestinians that is predicated on reality rather than on American fantasies about a “two-state solution” that represents no solution at all.

WHY RAFAH MATTERS

The argument for taking on Hezbollah after October 7 was that the Hamas attack had proved that Israel needed to defang its enemies rather than imagine it was deterring them or had achieved a permanent modus vivendi with them. Military leaders, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, reportedly favored that option. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister and IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz overruled Gallant, and the war cabinet decided that the immediate target must be Hamas and not Hezbollah.

An Israeli attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon would have brought immense destruction to both countries, and the pressures on the IDF to curtail its operations there would likely have been greater than those it has faced regarding Gaza. In 2006, Hezbollah attacked Israel, and the George W. Bush administration, in which I was serving at the time, gave the Israelis strong support—but only for a couple of weeks, after which Washington pressured Israel to end the war by extending assurances that have never been met and never seemed likely to be. The terms of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which was passed in August 2006, included an end to arms transfers by any state to Hezbollah and total Lebanese army control of Lebanon’s south. Neither stipulation has ever been enforced—a testament to the dangers of relying on a paper peace rather than conditions on the ground. Israel learned the lesson.

That is why it is resisting international pressure, especially from Washington, for a cease-fire that would leave Hamas in control of parts of Gaza, with its high command intact and able (with Iranian help that would surely be forthcoming) to regenerate a fighting force that could once again threaten Israel. Netanyahu has pledged to continue the attack on Hamas. Israel is pursuing a temporary cease-fire that would free some Israeli hostages in Gaza and Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails, but Netanyahu is intent on returning to the fight against Hamas after that. Israel believes that the Hamas military leadership and its remaining four battalions of organized troops are in or near Rafah and that the full defeat of Hamas requires attacking them there, even if the fighting and civilian casualties arouse harsh American and international criticism.

Despite that risk, Israelis across the ideological spectrum agree that Hamas must be crushed because they see the fight against the group as an existential conflict. Hamas can’t destroy Israel by itself, but all of Israel’s enemies are watching to see whether Israel can fully recover from the October 7 attack. If they conclude that it cannot, the Jewish state will find itself in mortal peril. Israelis saw the astonishingly brutal Hamas attack, reminiscent of anti-Semitic pogroms and the Holocaust in its treatment of Jewish men, women, and children, as a test of who will prove to be more resilient, the Jews or their murderers. 

Israel gained Arab partners in the region through demonstrations of strength, not acts of restraint. It has watched Iran work with proxies to build what Israeli officials call “a ring of fire” around Israel: the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and militants in Iraq and Syria. At the same time, Israel has seen a substantial increase in the volume of weapons being smuggled into the West Bank. 

All of Israel’s enemies are watching to see whether Israel can fully recover from the October 7 attack

Israelis are weary of being lectured about how war cannot destroy an idea—including by governments that joined together to crush the Islamic State terrorist group, also known as ISIS. That group also represented an idea, but without territory to govern and from which to launch attacks and build its empire safely, its power has nearly evaporated. ISIS isn’t gone, as its recent attack in Moscow showed, but the level of threat it represents is much lower. 

The same would apply to Hamas: as part of the Muslim Brotherhood movement and as a group determined to use the murder of Jewish Israelis as a political tool, it will no doubt survive and commit occasional acts of terrorism. But its ability to wound Israel as it did on October 7 depended on controlling space in which it could build its finances, train its forces, and organize attacks. If Israel’s war in Gaza succeeds, Hamas will never again have all of that.

That is why an assault on Rafah will eventually be necessary. If Hamas battalions and leaders based there survive, Israel will lose the war. And that is an outcome the United States should fear. After the chaotic 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and amid the slowing of American military aid to Ukraine, Washington cannot afford to further undermine any of its alliances—or raise doubt in the minds of U.S. adversaries in China, Iran, and Russia (and U.S. allies in Asia and Europe) about the strength of American commitments and the efficacy of U.S. support. The extensive and effective assistance that the United States provided to Israel in defeating Iran’s recent aerial attack does not change this fact because that assistance was purely defensive. If it is followed by American demands that Israel allow Hamas to survive in Gaza and that it not respond to the Iranian assault, the Israelis will understand that the U.S. policy objective is simply to avoid or quickly end any conflict. That won’t be reassuring to countries facing Chinese, Iranian, or Russian aggression.

It is also worth noting that publicly applied American pressure on Israel over Rafah is reducing the chances for a hostages-for-prisoners deal. Every time high officials in the United States government (including in Congress) and other Western governments demand an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and discourage an Israeli assault on Rafah, they raise the price that Hamas believes it can demand for the hostages. The group’s only true incentive for agreeing to release them is its hope to delay an Israeli attack on Rafah or avoid one altogether. For Hamas, survival is victory. And if there is no Israeli attack on Rafah, Hamas will survive. 

EVERYONE’S A CRITIC

Israel must destroy the Hamas military threat from Gaza and, to the extent possible, minimize collateral damage to Palestinian civilians. Whether it has done the latter is a fair question, but critics are not asking it fairly. “The extent possible” should suggest comparisons with other recent wars and especially other recent instances of urban combat. Instead, as usual, critics are holding Israel to standards that they impose on no other country. For example, the ratio of civilian-to-military casualties in Gaza seems better than what the United States achieved during the Iraq war. The notion that Israeli attacks deliberately target civilians, even aid workers, is belied by the fact that the IDF is a citizens’ army. With hundreds of thousands of civilian reservists serving in the army, it is simply not credible that orders to attack civilians and aid workers would be followed and would remain secret if they existed. 

The truth is that Hamas wants civilian casualties because it correctly judges that such suffering will quickly lead to pressure on Israel to stop fighting. Hamas’s astonishingly large and sophisticated tunnel system in Gaza was not built to save a single civilian life but only to help protect the group’s leaders and fighters and to aid its offensive capabilities. American, European, or other leaders who ignore all of this are turning “to the extent possible” into an impossible bar that would make defeating Hamas impossible.

This is not to say that Israel has done everything it can to protect and feed civilians in Gaza. The United States and many other countries have criticized Israeli conduct in this regard, and the Israelis have admitted some mistakes and have recently begun to facilitate more food going into Gaza. But it is worth noting that many of the countries denouncing Israel have themselves done precious little thus far on behalf of Palestinian civilians. For example, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) built a refugee camp for some 80,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan. Why not in Gaza? The same goes for the European Union, which could build tent cities for temporary refuge. 

Such activities cannot be undertaken in combat zones, but they can be planned and pledged now, and donors could already be working with Israel to identify locations in Gaza where combat has already ended or will end soon. Even taking all the obstacles into account, it is telling that neither the EU nor the UAE—nor other putative supporters of the Palestinians, such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia—has even floated these possibilities. Likewise, Egypt has provided safe haven to handfuls of Gazans instead of the tens of thousands it could absorb temporarily. 

And what about the United States? Its airdrops of aid appear to be little more than gestures of goodwill. The Biden administration’s plan to build a temporary port off the Gazan coast for ships ferrying food from Cyprus could be a useful contribution, but there has been little discussion of who will distribute that food once it arrives on land.

THE DAY AFTER

American critics have also complained about Israel’s lack of focus on “the day after” in Gaza. It’s debatable whether the U.S. failure to carry out postwar planning before invading Iraq in 2003 gives Washington more or less credibility on that issue. Equally debatable is whether Israel should be expected and relied on to develop and implement postwar plans or should give way to efforts by the United States and other potential donors. But it does seem reasonable to expect that some kind of plan would be in place by now. 

Earlier this year, I participated in a study group organized by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America and a network of foreign policy experts called the Vandenberg Coalition, which called for countries committed to a peaceful, demilitarized, deradicalized Gaza—including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the United States—to establish an international trust to reconstruct Gaza and provide relief. The trust would marshal funds going to Gaza; coordinate with Gazans in the diaspora and in Gaza to restore essential services and begin reconstruction; work with Israel on security, border control, and other matters; and cooperate with international organizations and nongovernmental organizations committed to the same goals.

There’s no easy answer to the question of who should provide security in a post-Hamas Gaza. It would most likely come from a combination of vetted non-Hamas police personnel in Gaza; new forces that the United States would train at its existing training center for Palestinian security forces, in Jordan; personnel from Arab countries that would be establishing refugee camps, tent cities, or other new residential areas in Gaza and might be willing to protect what they’re building; and private security companies that would protect food convoys, warehouses, residential areas, and other important locations. It would also be possible to give local civic and business groups or prominent Gazan clans some security responsibilities, if they have or can create the capacity to keep the peace locally.

Before the war, when Hamas was in charge of Gaza, there was a civilian structure there performing many normal governmental activities such as providing electricity and water and carrying out nonpolitical police work, such as traffic control. The international trust would aim to rebuild that structure but without Hamas on top. The top two or three layers of officials in every ministry must go, but it is likely that underneath those layers are competent professionals without any deep allegiance to Hamas. The Palestinian Authority (PA), on the other hand, cannot govern Gaza, given its own weaknesses, ineffectiveness, inefficiency, corruption, and vast unpopularity among Palestinians. The international trust itself would probably have to function in many ways as the government of Gaza for years.

Whoever governs Gaza, deradicalization will be critical to future peace. Schools run by Hamas, the PA, and the UN aid agency UNRWA have idealized terrorism and taught hatred to a generation of Palestinians, as have religious leaders in mosques throughout Gaza. Several Arab countries—Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, for example—have led the way on deradicalization. International donors to postwar Gaza must insist on entirely new curricula in schools, the vetting of teachers, and preventing mosques from being used to preach violence, terror, and hatred.

THE JORDANIAN OPTION

Relief and reconstruction in Gaza will not settle the long-term problems that drive the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The conventional solution, of course, is the so-called two-state solution. But that is the wrong answer. First, polls make it clear that both Israelis and Palestinians are highly unenthusiastic about and wary of the idea. Gallup polls conducted since late last year found that 65 percent of Israeli respondents opposed the two-state solution and only 25 percent supported it. The gap is even larger among Palestinians; in polls that Gallup conducted last summer, before the October 7 attacks, 72 percent of Palestinian respondents opposed the two-state solution and only 24 percent supported it. Second, the PA lacks the ability to lead a Palestinian state that would be free and democratic, have a decent and effective government, and build a prosperous economy. In other words, a Palestinian state would end the Israeli occupation of parts of Palestinian territory but do little else for Palestinians—and they know it. Finally, Palestinian nationalism still seems to be more about destroying the Jewish state than about building a Palestinian one. That is why Palestinian leaders have said no to every partition effort and peace proposal. 

Moreover, at least until Iran has a government that seeks peace in the region rather than Israel’s destruction, a sovereign and independent Palestine would represent yet another route through which Iran would seek to attack Israel. The region has seen this movie before with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, and the only thing that has prevented the same disaster in the West Bank has been the constant intervention of Israeli forces. (Palestinian security forces have often worked with the Israelis against Hamas, which is the rival of the West Bank’s ruling Fatah party. But those forces are simply not strong enough to defeat Hamas alone, even if they wished to do so). Today’s Israeli police and military presence in the West Bank would be impossible in a newly sovereign Palestine, and Israeli interventions there to prevent Iranian or Hamas activities could be seen as acts of war that would violate Palestine’s internationally recognized borders. 

Polls make it clear that both Israelis and Palestinians are highly unenthusiastic about a two-state solution.

That leaves only one genuinely viable long-term arrangement that would allow Israel to safeguard its security and let Palestinians enjoy normal lives free from Israeli rule: confederation. The separation of Israelis and Palestinians into two entities was the right idea when the British first proposed it in the 1930s, when the UN called for it in the 1940s, and when the United States began to seek it in the 1970s. And it remains right. The question is the nature of the Palestinian entity. The most sensible idea would be to create a Palestinian government that would join a confederation with an existing state, one that already has a stable and effective security force, maintains law and order, and fights terrorism; a currency and a central bank; and a secure international airport and other aspects of sovereignty. There is one clear candidate: Jordan, which borders the West Bank and whose population is overwhelmingly Muslim, Arabic-speaking, and already half Palestinian. The model to think of is Iraqi Kurdistan: an entity within a state, with a good deal of authority over local affairs. The Reagan administration envisioned something like that in the peace plan it put forward in 1982, which called for “self-government by the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza in association with Jordan.” 

If the goal is normal lives for Palestinians and security for Israelis, a Palestinian-Jordanian confederation is preferable to the impossible dream of a well-governed, peaceful, democratic Palestine that poses no threat to any of its neighbors.

The scale and brutality of the October 7 Hamas attack shook Israel and raised questions about its military competence and ability to defend itself against implacable enemies. That attack has now been followed by last weekend’s mammoth Iranian aerial assault, in which the Islamic Republic deployed hundreds of drones and rockets against Israel. 

Israelis understand that their country’s long-term survival depends on reasserting deterrence by striking back: displaying resilience, determination, and military prowess. A decision about Iran lies before them, but the decision on Gaza was made last fall and looks even more correct today than it did at the time. Israel must end Hamas’s rule in Gaza and eliminate the group’s ability to attack Israel, both to protect the country and to put its other enemies on notice that killing Israelis will elicit a crushing response. Iran has sought to turn its “axis of resistance” into a ring of fire around Israel. Israel is rightly determined to put that fire out.

• ELLIOTT ABRAMS is Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served in senior National Security Council and State Department positions in the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations and as Special Representative for Iran and Venezuela in the Trump administration.
• MORE BY ELLIOTT ABRAMS
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An attack on Iran is believed to be imminent and there are fears that the war in Gaza could spread. Is Israel fully prepared to defend itself? Click here to Learn more… ++++ Hamas Rejects Biden’s Hostage Deal—Again The more the U.S. presses Israel, the less the terror group needs a deal. The Editorial Board As State Department spokesman Matthew Miller explained, “Israel moved a significant way in submitting that proposal,” but Hamas rejected it. “It is Hamas right now that is the barrier and the obstacle to a cease-fire in Gaza.” The Times of Israel reports that Hamas rejected every clause of the proposal brokered by the U.S., Egypt and Qatar. Hamas now demands a six-week truce in which it releases no hostages while Israel stops fighting, withdraws from Gaza’s cities, and commits to a permanent cease-fire, a withdrawal from Gaza, and the return of all Palestinians (including Hamas) to northern Gaza. In other words, an Israeli surrender. Only in the second phase, over another six weeks while Israel executes that surrender, would Hamas release some hostages in exchange for terrorist prisoners. After months of negotiations over the release of 40 hostages among the women, older men and the sick, Hamas now says it can produce only 20, and it wants far more Palestinian terrorists in return. It demands 30 for each civilian hostage and 50 for each captive female Israeli soldier, including 30 terrorists who are serving life sentences. As usual, the needs of Palestinian civilians mean nothing to Hamas, but how about the needs of the U.S. President? Mr. Biden staked his Gaza strategy on coercing Israel to make the concessions to get a deal and cease-fire. But the holdup wasn’t on the Israeli side. The more desperate the President appeared for a cease-fire, the more distant it became. When he blamed Israel for all civilian suffering and demanded new Israeli concessions, Hamas raised its demands. “Thank you to the Americans,” as the Israeli commentator Amit Segal put it on Tuesday, “for your deep understanding of the principles of the Middle Eastern bazaar.” He didn’t mean that as a compliment. Hamas scorns a deal because the President has given it reason to expect to get the cease-fire it wants without releasing any hostages. Mr. Biden had been slowly delinking the two while creating a public breach with Israel. Doubtless he thought about the signal these steps would send to Dearborn, Mich. Did he think about the signal he is sending Hamas about the five American hostages who may still be alive? Hamas is unlikely to cut a deal until it feels the knife on its neck, as it did when Israel stormed Gaza City. That yielded the release of 105 hostages. But since Mr. Biden declared himself Protector of Rafah, Hamas’s final stronghold, and Israel withdrew most of its troops, the odds of a deal have declined. The best hope on the horizon is from Iran’s miscalculation in striking Israel directly. This gives Mr. Biden an opportunity to reset his policy and exert real pressure. When Rafah is on the table, and the terrorists in fancy suits are threatened with expulsion from Qatar, there will again be a reason to talk. ++++  How do you take a win when you have been prevented from wining.  Most rational military higher ups would consider Biden's view of a win a loss. +++ Israel Has No Choice but to Strike Back Against Iran Those urging restraint after Tehran’s attack are following the same failed strategy that produced catastrophe on Oct. 7. What if the Oct. 7 invasion had been “intercepted”? Imagine the same Hamas attack but better Israeli defense, with more than 90% of the terrorists stopped before the border or shortly thereafter, and only minor Israeli casualties. President Biden would probably have done then what he is doing now, in the aftermath of Iran’s intercepted attack: urge Israel not to respond in any serious way. Let Hamas live to try it again. It was no harm, no foul. Israel agreed to “take the win” against Hamas—as Mr. Biden now advises with regard to Iran—all the way to catastrophe. Rocket fire from an Iranian proxy became normal, not worth a response in most cases, until it was too late. It’s the same story with Hezbollah, whose expanding arsenal and occasional rocket fire became facts of life in northern Israel. Another war would have been costly, and what damage were the rockets really doing in the meantime? As the smart set says about Iran today, Hezbollah’s attacks were merely “symbolic.” Israel never stopped the trickle, so it became a flood. Hezbollah has fired on Israel more than 3,000 times since Oct. 7, depopulating the country’s north. Yet this, too, has become normal. “Man is a creature who can get used to anything,” writes Dostoevsky, and all the more so if it’s the other guy who has to live with the consequences. Biden administration officials now regularly implore Israel not to “escalate” with Hezbollah—that, they say, would cause a war. The miracle of Iron Dome air defenses for years led Israel to tolerate what no other nation would. Worse, other nations demanded that Israel tolerate it, because Israel suffered little damage. When Hamas crossed a line and Israel responded, as in 2008 and 2014, the world quickly came to demand a cease-fire, no matter how strong and unbowed Hamas remained. Better to restore calm. Better to have peace and quiet. Amid unprecedented economic growth, Israelis themselves came to worship calm. Politicians and generals rationalized allowing Qatar to send aid money to Gaza, knowing that much of it was being diverted to Hamas. Why? To maintain stability. The Biden administration does much the same with Iran by issuing $10 billion sanctions waivers and not enforcing oil sanctions. This is money to grease the peace, even though everyone knows Iran uses it to spread war. For Israel, it all worked until it didn’t. Hezbollah now diverts Israeli troops from Gaza, holds a region of the country hostage and is strong enough to deter a substantial reply. The Houthis in Yemen, another Iranian proxy, have shut down the Red Sea and barely paid a price. You think this will be the last time they do it? The war in Gaza is now fought on Hamas’s terms, following Hamas’s greatest success, waged in the tunnels Hamas has spent 16 years preparing. It should have been fought after the very first rocket. Easy for me to say now, but that’s the point. After Oct. 7, Israelis vowed never again to fall victim to such a conceptzia. Israel, and America, has a chance to learn from experience. Today many restrainers assure us that Iran’s attack on Israel was a mere demonstration, nothing demanding a reply. Never mind that it was the largest drone attack in history, plus 150 or so ballistic and cruise missiles. When it wanted to put on a show in January, after Israel had killed a different Iranian terror kingpin, Iran fired 11 missiles at an Iraqi businessman’s family home and called it a Mossad base. This wasn’t that. The Biden view of the attack is convoluted: “Iran’s intent was clearly to cause significant destruction and casualties,” spokesman John Kirby says, but no need for an Israeli reply. Claim victory to mask fear. Telegraphing its intentions but firing a massive barrage suggests Tehran wanted to do as much damage as it could get away with. Bizarre public negotiations, conducted through leaks to third parties in the lead-up to the strike, helped Iran calibrate what it could shoot while securing Mr. Biden’s pressure on Israel not to respond. The administration is proud of its back-channel work, but it shouldn’t be. Instead of reassuring Iran that it could attack Israel within parameters, Mr. Biden should have left Ayatollah Ali Khamenei fearing how the U.S. would reply. In telling Israel to move on, Mr. Biden is asking it to recognize Iran’s right to respond to pinpoint strikes in Syria with war on the Israeli homeland. As the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Sunday: “From now on, if the Zionist regime anywhere attacks our interests, assets, figures and citizens, we will reciprocally attack it from Iran.” If those are allowed to become the rules of the game, would Israel be deterred from disrupting Iran’s command and supply hub in Syria, from which it arms Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the West Bank? A small Israeli surrender in Syria, coerced by a Biden administration desperate for calm, could seed the next war. Israel is being told again to let the problem fester and accept a tit-for-tat equation, but on worse terms than ever. “It’s only 100 ballistic missiles” is only the latest gruel to swallow, while Mr. Khamenei releases ravings, such as on April 10, about Israeli normalization with Muslim states: “The Zionists suck the blood of a country for their own benefit when they gain a foothold.” The world brushes off the antisemitism. The media doesn’t even report his statements. Mr. Biden asks Israel to put its faith in deterrence while its enemies become stronger and Israel is the one deterred. When the president threatens that Israel will be isolated, on its own if it defends itself properly, he is asking it to stick to the strategy that left it fatally exposed on Oct. 7 and that it swore off the same day. Mr. Kaufman is the Journal’s letters editor.   ++++ The 194th Day of War in Israel By Sherwin Pomerantz The European Union agreed today to increase sanctions on Iran as a result of the attack on Israel earlier this week and in order to halt their continued supplying of attack drones to Russia which are being used in the Ukraine war.  They also intend for this to hamper deliveries of drones to Iran’s proxies in the region.  Reports are that the US will follow suit, ramping up sanctions on Iran in a dramatic fashion.   The EU and the US have expectations that other allies around the world will do so as well.   US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to American Jewish leaders on Tuesday and advised them that further escalation with Iran is not in the best interest of the U.S. or Israel, Axios reported.  According to three people who attended the meeting, the Biden administration and other Western allies are strongly urging Israel to not jump too hastily into a retaliation against Iran that could lead to a larger regional war. "We think it will be very hard to replicate the huge success we had on Saturday with defeating the attack if Iran launches hundreds of missiles and drones again — and the Israelis know it," a U.S. official told Axios.  While the US is urging restraint, Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, that an Israeli response is inevitable. Speaking on Sunday, Gallant reportedly told Austin that permitting a large-scale attack to go unanswered would signal to Iran that it can attack Israel whenever it hits targets in Syria.  The IDF has decided how it will counter-strike Iran and its proxies but has not yet settled on the timing; multiple sources told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. Because the timing is still variable and because of all the necessary complex preparations, the current decision could change.  However, the very development of a decision shows the severity and determination of Israel’s leadership to strike back, though all indications are that Jerusalem still seeks to tamp down the attack to avoid spiraling into a regional war. IDF Chief of Staff Halevi hinted that the timing of the attack was not very imminent during a visit to the Arrow air defense battery of Battalion 136.  He said, “We are enabling a home front policy to at least give citizens this Passover week to live almost like normal because we completely trust you and your readiness.”  It is also possible that Halevi, Home Front command policies, and other officials keeping their regular schedules are part of a clever fake-out to get Iran and its proxies to lower their guard.  But at least the plain reading of the relevant signals suggests that a major attack is not imminent in the coming days and could even be postponed for longer. In Gaza, the IDF continues to be active in central Gaza having disabled some rocket launchers as they were preparing to release the missiles against Israel. In the north of Israel, sirens sounded again last night as rocket barrages continued to be fired by Hezbollah.  Israel responded by taking out two senior Hezbollah commanders and destroying the headquarters of some regional command centers in Lebanon Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Wednesday urged the international community to confront Iran, as Jerusalem prepares a response to the Islamic Republic’s massive drone and missile attack over the weekend.   “The whole world must work decisively and defiantly against the threat posed by the Iranian regime, which is seeking to undermine the stability of the entire region,” Herzog said after meeting the foreign ministers of Britain and Germany in Jerusalem. Herzog reiterated the Jewish state’s “unequivocal” commitment to defending its people, including by working for “the immediate return home of all the hostages held in captivity by Hamas in Gaza.” A British official told local media on Tuesday night that London’s top diplomat was expected to sit down with Prime Minister Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Israel Katz, and possibly also with minister-without-portfolio and War Cabinet member Benny Gantz.  Though the one-day visit is to focus on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, Cameron will also bring up Tehran’s attack and tensions with Iran-backed terror groups in Lebanon. As a side note, before President Herzog met with the two foreign ministers, he joined us in our synagogue in Jerusalem this morning, as today is the date in the Hebrew calendar on which his father, Chaim Herzog, passed away in 1997. Our synagogue shares a wall with the official residence of the President of Israel and the President joined us for our 0615 service so that he could recite the traditional praises to God on the memorial day for his late father, who was also a former President of Israel.   What a great country eh? Meanwhile: Keeping U.S. Power Behind Israel Will Keep Iran at Bay By Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh Mr. Gerecht is a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Until Iran’s barrage of missiles and drones against Israel, the two countries had avoided open military intrusions into each other’s territory. Tehran most often acted through proxies, and Jerusalem via bombing runs and unacknowledged assassinations in the region. Iran’s unprecedented attack this weekend, which failed to kill a single Israeli, has perhaps now opened the clerical regime to a major reprisal. The White House clearly does not want Jerusalem to undertake such a response, fearing escalation that could bring the United States into a regional war. But the chances are good that Israel will strike back to deter future direct attacks. And the best way for Washington to limit the expansion of this conflict is to signal clearly its intention to support an Israeli counterattack. It’s the recurring military paradox: To contain a war, a belligerent sometimes needs to threaten its expansion. Iran’s internal situation, its memory about past U.S. military action and a conspiratorial worldview all support this strategy. An Iranian regime well aware of its weaknesses knows how convulsive a war with Israel and America would be and how unwelcome it would be received by a restive populace already protesting a dysfunctional economy and increasing oppression. Many within the elite are surely angry at having fallen from the inner circles of power and wealth as the 84-year-old supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, engineers his succession. A powerful Israeli response could include a preventive strike against Iran’s nuclear sites. In what may prove a miscalculation, Ayatollah Khamenei is not known to have given the green light to assemble a nuclear weapon. Why strike Iran hard and leave its atomic ambitions undamaged? Washington will surely want to reduce the consequences in the region from such an attack. To do that, the White House will need to make Tehran understand that U.S. forces will immediately intercede if Iran then tries to escalate. To be sure, Israel and America may both be at fault for giving Ayatollah Khamenei the impression that they had no appetite for escalation. Tehran has abetted Islamic militants who have killed a lot of Israelis and Americans while seeming to be immune from a direct attack. The occasional Israeli and American assassination of Iranian military men on foreign soil, or in Iran without fanfare, actually highlighted a reluctance to confront Iran more directly. And yet the Islamic Republic remains careful not to get into direct conflict with America. Senior clergy members and the commanders in the Revolutionary Guards are all old enough to remember that the U.S. Navy inflicted severe damage on the Iranian Navy in 1988 in retaliation for the mining of an American warship. It was one of the biggest U.S. naval operations since World War II. The United States said the downing in 1988 of Iran Air flight 655 by the Navy warship Vincennes was an accident, but Tehran believed it was deliberate and an indication that Washington was ready to intervene in the war with Iraq. It was thought to be a factor in helping to convince Iran to end the conflict. Senior Revolutionary Guardsmen, angry at Israel for the killing of senior commanders on April 1 in a strike in Syria, may doubt Washington’s volition, but they have no doubts about American military hardware. Sometimes conspiracy-mindedness, instead of interfering with clear thinking, can be useful to an adversary. It is a conceit of the Iranian Islamist elite that Jews manipulate Americans into wars not of their choosing. Ayatollah Khamenei has articulated this idea: “The Western powers are a mafia,” he said in 2022. “At the top of this mafia stand the prominent Zionist merchants, and the politicians obey them. The U.S. is their showcase, and they’re spread out everywhere.” It is time for Washington to feed this conspiratorial thinking. The United States should augment its presence in the Gulf, dispatch admirals and spy chiefs to Israel and undertake joint Israeli-U.S. military exercises that highlight long-range bombing runs. With its darkest conspiracies reconfirmed, Iran’s elite will search for a way out — even if Israel decides on a frontal assault. The United States has often favored containment and de-escalation with Iran. When Iran’s proxies killed three American service members in Jordan on Jan. 28, Washington didn’t hold Tehran directly responsible. While attacking the proxies, the White House conveyed to Tehran its non-escalatory intentions. It had even renewed a sanctions waiver granting Iran access to $10 billion held in escrow by Oman for Iraqi electricity purchases. The strategy has worked. Ayatollah Khamenei clamped down on his surrogates, who desisted from further attack on Americans. But the supreme leader can turn that spigot back on at any time. Today, the problem with Washington distancing itself from Jerusalem, as it has over the large-scale civilian deaths and humanitarian suffering in the Gaza war, is that it will not defuse a crisis that puts Iran and Israel in direct confrontation. And Ayatollah Khamenei will not allow himself to be seen as backing down to Jews — particularly if they are unmoored from superior American power. For the United States, standing by Israel would allow Ayatollah Khamenei another path, a way to back down without losing face. There is a precedent for such a retreat. Again, the Iran-Iraq war is instructive. The founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ruhollah Khomeini, opted for an armistice with Iraq, a country he had long denigrated, because of the sheer exhaustion of his nation and the fear that the war could simply not be won. The implicit threat of American involvement was a big factor in this decision. Now only the United States can again prompt similar foreboding in Tehran about the intercession of an indomitable force. For years Washington has been doing, more or less, just the opposite. Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former Iranian targets officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, is a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.  ++++