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EVERY INSTITUTION IS UNDER ATTACK FROM PERSONAL IDENTIFICATION, TO EDUCATION, TO THE ROLE OF OUR MILITARY, EVEN TO OUR METHODS OF SELF-PROTECTION ETC.
Thus, I was not surprised to read this Op Ed by Seth Cropsey.
Democrats have always had a negative view of funding military preparedness. Submarines do not vote. Therefore, Democrats use welfare funds to buy votes and this puts the nation's military preparedness at risk.
When Republicans take control of Congress they always have to spend increased sums to repair the damage Democrats create by their niggardliness towards the military.
Obama was probably one of the worst presidents regarding his attitude towards the military.
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Delayed Repairs Shrink the U.S Navy Submarine Fleet
Amid China’s threats to Taiwan, maintenance woes hobble a key weapon in the Indo-Pacific.
By Seth Cropsey
The U.S. Navy’s submarine fleet, America’s essential war-fighting instrument in the Indo-Pacific, is about three-fifths the size it should be, chiefly because of maintenance and production delays. This comes amid stepped-up threats to Taiwan by China.
Contesting such an assault would require a submarine force at maximum strength. Congress and the White House should act swiftly to integrate private shipyards that repair submarines into the Navy’s maintenance plans.
American strategists rarely concern themselves with the material issues that determine victory or defeat. They tend to regard international strategy as a question of will, not means. This takes for granted the traditional and outsize U.S. economic-material advantage.
America’s objective in a struggle over Taiwan would be to deny China a rapid victory. The war must become a slog, one that China labors to sustain in a geographically limited form. Generating this situation requires contesting China’s ability to stage an amphibious assault on Taiwan. Submarines would be crucial in such a contest.
The U.S. military today lacks the air forces, air defenses, and surface combatants with sufficient range to contest Chinese air control over Taiwan indefinitely, absent an interdiction campaign against the Chinese mainland that the U.S. has signaled it doesn’t wish to wage. Chinese anti-ship and ground-attack missiles, moreover, would cause damage. Recent war games suggest that in defending Taiwan, the U.S. would lose half its active air force and at least one carrier strike group—a collection of warships defending the aircraft carrier and its air wing. In such a scenario, China would lose 150 to 200 warships and tens of thousands of men.
Given Chinese force structure and military objectives, U.S. submarines are the most effective tool to counter an assault on Taiwan. China lacks ground-based aviation with robust antisubmarine capabilities, leaving its military and civilian transports vulnerable to submarine attack. The U.S. has a world-leading attack submarine force of 49 nuclear-powered boats, along with four guided-missile submarines each packed with 154 cruise missiles. In theory, around 42 of these boats should be deployable at a given time, with some 25 to 30 in the Pacific and 10 to 15 in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Middle East. Normal schedules dictate that at any point 10% of the fleet is in dry dock, under repair or in overhaul.
A major submarine surge to the Indo-Pacific, keeping in mind the U.S. forward-support facilities in Guam, could number about 35 subs. A handful of Japanese and Australian subs could be added to the mix, and perhaps one from Taiwan. Taiwan currently has two aging operational submarines, but its Indigenous Defense Submarine program is promising. That means the PLA would face a 40-plus strong submarine force that can sink transports as they move men and materiel across the Taiwan Strait. That could erode a naval blockade enough to enable an American counterattack. China’s 53 attack submarines, roughly 40 to 45 of them deployable, may have numerical parity, but several are aging, and few have the advanced capabilities of U.S. subs. For China, that would make a Taiwan war a close-run thing.
Rear Adm. Jeffrey Jablon, the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s submarine commander, said at a conference this year that maintenance delays hamstring the submarine force. As of fiscal 2022, the U.S. submarine fleet spent about 1,500 days waiting for maintenance or repair. That is equivalent to losing four submarines in the fleet. In the past year, the Navy lost the equivalent of another 3.5 submarines to maintenance that took longer than expected. The Navy’s submarine force is eight boats under strength on average. Combined with standard maintenance expectations of one-tenth of the fleet, this brings the U.S. submarine force down to about 30 deployable attack boats.
The U.S. can’t build its way out. On average, it takes American shipyards two years to deliver three subs. Meanwhile, the Navy retires two older Los Angeles-class subs a year owing to wear and tear. The fleet will shrink on average by one submarine every two years until the 2040s, when new subs are delivered in greater numbers than retiring ones.
Even with faster delivery and better production capacity, combat damage must be considered. More construction won’t overcome the repair delays at shipyards. In wartime, when those yards are overworked—and possibly targeted—the U.S. submarine fleet likely will shrink even more, and faster, than anticipated. All the while, China will be relying on massive yards with civilian and military production capabilities. These large facilities can repair ships at a pace that gives China an advantage.
More resources are necessary for shipyards to bring the U.S. submarine force to the level of preparedness that China’s provocations in the Western Pacific demand. The U.S. should invest in maintenance, extend the life of older submarines, and regularize maintenance so shipyards are ready to work on many subs.
The Navy should integrate private shipyards into its repair and maintenance plans. It takes at least a year, more likely several, for a yard to prepare to overhaul several ships at the same time. It is more efficient, financially and temporally, to turn to shipyards that can expand maintenance today, rather than scaling up public yards exclusively.
A nation goes to war with the military it has, not the one it will have in five, 10, or 20 years. The executive and legislative branches face a choice between continued inaction and a conflict that calls on the military we wish we had.
Mr. Cropsey is founder and president of the Yorktown Institute. He served as a naval officer and as deputy undersecretary of the Navy and is author of “Mayday” and “Seablindness.”
And
Biden Administration Intentionally Weakening Military: Retired General
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This was sent to me by a dear liberal Jewish friend and I sent him back this response:
"Liberal Jews are totally emotional and their minds abort logic. With all the problems Biden has created focusing on abortion demonstrates how f----- up liberal Jews are when it comes to being rational.
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An "edited" fund solicitation for Trump from Newt:
Richard,
This cannot wait.
We are watching the Left methodically destroy the Constitution and the rule of law.
The Washington establishment is deeply hostile toward President Donald Trump. It has contempt for at least half of the American people. And it adamantly opposes the idea of reforming deep-state bureaucracies.
The arrogance, aggressiveness, and dishonesty of the FBI raiding President Trump's Mar-a-Lago home has turned it into the Left-wing secret police. It is far from the traditional American vision of law enforcement, truth-seeking, and equal justice.
And
Obviously this woman is not a liberal Jewess
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Morris Dees, a raving, gutsy, courageous liberal started "The Southern Poverty Law Center” after he raised tons of money for Jimmy Carter's successful campaign through direct mailings. Morris, along with his friend, who founded Habitat for Humanity, were friends of mine. The organization Morris founded drifted far left over the years and eventually threw him out on his ear.
It is only a matter of time before Newsom runs for president and stands a good chance of winning because he has access to tons of money due to his connections with the families who have controlled California for decades, ie. Pelosi, Brown, Getty and Soros etc..
In addition to his access to tons of money he certainly has proved his radical liberal Democrat "fides" consisting of being a terrible governor, a two faced hypocrite who instituted policies which caused California to lose a significant number of residents fed up with the cost of living, high personal taxes, crime and human feces and needles in the street. Can you blame them.
If Newsom is so bad how can I believe he will be elected president one day? There are several reasons.
First, California has 55 electoral votes and it takes270 to elect a president. Meanwhile, Illinois has 20 and New York 29. I cite the last two states because voters in them are Neanderthal like and zebras do not change their stripes. Add to this total a little corruption here and there and Newsom can win easily.
Second, Americans have become comfortable with mediocrity in their political leadership.
Third, since the mass media is in the pocket of "lefties" they must support Democrats in order for them to retain power.
Finally, our adversaries have become effective in manipulating our elections.
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California Conservatives, Beware: Newsom’s ‘Commission on the State of Hate’ Is More Nefarious Than It Seems
By Tyler O'Neil
Tyler O'Neil is managing editor of The Daily Signal and the author of "Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center."
Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., on Tuesday announced five appointments to his new Commission on the State of Hate, and they don’t bode well for conservatives in the Golden State.
According to Newsom’s office, the commission will “assess data on hate crimes in California, provide resources for victims, and make policy recommendations to better protect civil rights.”
The commission aims to help all Californians, but Newsom has nominated a slate of Democrats and activists—without including a single Republican—to serve on it. Worse, one of the top nominees has a history at the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Those four words should send a shiver down the spine of conservatives. While the Southern Poverty Law Center began as a public interest legal nonprofit representing poor people in the South, it has long since morphed into a far-left smear factory, branding mainstream conservative and Christian organizations “hate groups” and placing them on a map alongside the Ku Klux Klan. It brands socially conservative organizations “anti-LGBT hate groups” and national security nonprofits “anti-Muslim hate groups.”
My 2020 book “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center” explains why the SPLC should not be trusted when it comes to “hate” in America. I trace the history of the SPLC’s “hate” monitoring, which it initially employed against the Klan and other white supremacist groups, but which it has wielded as a cudgel against ideological opponents in recent decades. Most notoriously, this “hate group” accusation inspired one deranged terrorist to target the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C.
While the SPLC condemned that attack, it has kept the Family Research Council on its “hate map” ever since. The SPLC also fired its co-founder and had its president resign in 2019 amid claims of sexual harassment and racial discrimination.
Yet, Newsom enlisted a former SPLC staffer for his Commission on the State of Hate, and not just any former staffer. Newsom chose Brian Levin, who served as associate director of legal affairs at the Klanwatch/Militia Task Force at SPLC—the project that would later become Hatewatch and that manages the reporting on “hate groups” today.
Levin, currently the founding director at the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at the California State University at San Bernardino School of Criminology, has uncritically cited the SPLC’s “hate group” accusations and its “hate group” numbers for California, among other states.
Levin did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment asking whether he still supports the SPLC accusation.
The SPLC claims to have identified 65 “hate groups” in California, including seven chapters of the national security nonprofit ACT for America, which SPLC characterizes as an “anti-Muslim hate group.”
Brigitte Gabriel, founder and chairman of ACT for America, previously told PJ Media that the organization rejected its “chapter” model years ago. Not only does she dispute the “hate group” charge, she also claims the SPLC’s ACT for America chapter number is baseless.
“Conservative Californians should be extremely concerned about this commission and the way it will operate,” Gabriel told The Daily Signal on Thursday. “Government agencies and departments on all levels are now weaponized against good, patriotic Americans simply for their political views.”
“The SPLC, which once did good work to stamp out hate, is today a leftist activist organization, writing opinion reports against their political adversaries—which government agencies are using as a fact sheet to silence and intimidate patriotic Americans,” she warned.
Daniel Greenfield, Shillman Journalism fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center (which the SPLC brands an “anti-Muslim hate group”), told The Daily Signal that he “would strongly agree” with conservatives’ concerns about the California commission. He cited “California’s new law monitoring so-called hate speech” and the state’s “previous role in reporting social media so-called disinformation to social media companies for censorship.”
“Newsom and the California Democrat supermajority have cultivated a culture of censorship and political intimidation that is targeted at conservatives,” Greenfield added. “Every Californian and American who cares about the Constitution should be worried.”
A spokesperson for Newsom’s office did not address concerns about the bias of the commission or Levin’s history at the SPLC. The spokesperson did, however, express confidence that the commissioners would protect civil liberties.
“We are confident that the appointees will uphold the Commission’s mission and work to protect Californians’ civil liberties,” the spokesperson said.
Levin did not specify a political affiliation, but the press release identifies all of Newsom’s other appointees as Democrats. These appointees include Cynthia Choi, a co-director of Chinese for Affirmative Action and co-founder of Stop Asian-American Pacific Islander Hate; Bamby Salcedo, a transgender activist and president and CEO of the TransLatin@ Coalition; Shirin Sinnar, a professor at Stanford Law School; and Erroll G. Southers, associate senior vice president of safety and risk assurance at the University of Southern California, who also has law enforcement and private-sector security experience.
Choi was unavailable for comment. Salcedo, Sinnar, and Southers did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment by publication time.
Without assurances from Newsom or the commission, conservatives have good reason to fear a biased investigation from this Democrat-majority body with a former SPLC staffer, who uncritically cites current SPLC reports.
Although the commission does not seem to have any law enforcement authority, its assessment and recommendations may tilt California in the direction of demonizing conservative beliefs on marriage, family, national security, and other issues, all in the name of fighting “hate.” +++++++++++++++++++++
I never knew "Nimby's" lived in Cape Cod/Martha's Vineyard..
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I Have A Few Questions About The Martha’s Vineyard Migrant Kerfuffle
BY: DAVID HARSANYI
A person can make a compelling case that dropping unsuspecting migrants off in places like Chicago or San Francisco is cruel, but Martha’s Vineyard? Isn’t it more humane to send migrants to well-heeled communities than to allow them to live in “squalor” in makeshift tent cities under highway overpasses? Because I rarely hear the left worry about the latter.
Then again, why has a story about 50 migrants spending a couple of days on Martha’s Vineyard garnered far more coverage and outrage from the media and left punditry than 51 migrants being cooked alive in a tractor-trailer only last month?
Why is it barely news that officials dumped 1,000 migrants into the streets of El Paso to fend for themselves the very same day those 50 people arrived in beautiful Martha’s Vineyard? Is it humane that some Texas cities see 200,000 newcomers every month or that places like Del Rio, Texas, with a population of nearly 35,000, are forced to house nearly 50,000 newcomers in “squalid conditions” when pristine sanctuary cities are asked to do nothing?
The White House says Ron DeSantis is using the “tactics we see from smugglers in places like Mexico and Guatemala.” If the governor of Florida is guilty of “human trafficking” for flying 50 migrants to one of the wealthiest communities in the United States what do we call the Biden administration’s policy of sending 70 secret chartered planes of migrants to Florida in the middle of the night?
Chuck Todd claims that sending migrants to Martha’s Vineyard is “inhumane” because it’s “a literal island that doesn’t have any infrastructure.” If the island can’t handle an influx of 50 migrants, a “humanitarian crisis” says the community, how on Earth is it able to host 150,000 tourists every summer? Scratch that, how is it able to host the thousands of tourists who continue to visit the island in the Fall? There are numerous rentals and hotels in operation right now that could easily house 50 people.
If wealthy cocooned left-wing voters support anarchy at the border, don’t they have a moral and societal obligation to also take on the burden of helping integrate, care and guide those newcomers? We’re in this together, after all. Shouldn’t municipalities that virtue signal with declarations of “sanctuary city” be prepared to live up to their designation?
And if the people of Martha’s Vineyard are welcoming generous salt-of-the-earth types, why is it “cruel” to send them immigrants? How many of these migrants are going to end up settling down on the island? If they, unlike nefarious Republicans, are the true Christians for hosting 50 people for nearly two days, what does that make the citizens of Texas border towns or the people of Arizona, New Mexico, or Florida, who house hundreds of thousands of amnesty seekers and illegal immigrants?
And, yes, I’m begging the questions.
David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of five books—the most recent, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent. His work has appeared in National Review, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reason, New York Post, and numerous other publications. Follow him on Twitter, @davidharsanyi.
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Is Congress going to be allowed to do their job? When it came to Iran, Obama decided to become a dictator.
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Will Congress Hold a Vote on Iran Deal Before Sanctions Relief?
The Biden administration is signaling it will continue to pursue a nuclear agreement with Iran. This endeavor faces bipartisan opposition while questions swirl over whether and how the president will comply with a federal law mandating the submission of any deal to Congress. The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA), which lawmakers passed near-unanimously in 2015, requires the president to seek congressional review of any agreement related to Tehran’s nuclear program before suspending sanctions on Iran.
Expert Analysis
“The Biden administration fears a vote under INARA because they see the depth of bipartisan opposition to this fatally-flawed Iran deal, which gives the regime in Tehran patient pathways to nuclear weapons and ICBMs as well as one trillion dollars in sanctions relief to fund greater aggression and repression.” – Mark Dubowitz, FDD Chief Executive
“The Biden administration is already moving toward a deal that would illegitimately suspend terrorism-related sanctions on Iran prior to congressional review and without any halt to Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism. If Congress does not hold a recorded vote on a joint resolution of disapproval, the likelihood of a future Congress or president ripping up the deal will dramatically rise.” – Richard Goldberg, FDD Senior Advisor
The INARA Review Process
Under INARA, once the president submits a deal to Congress, lawmakers have 30 days to hold hearings and potentially vote on a resolution of disapproval. Passage of that resolution requires a simple majority in the House and is subject to the 60-vote cloture threshold in the Senate. During that process, “the President may not waive, suspend, reduce, provide relief from, or otherwise limit the application of statutory sanctions with respect to Iran under any provision of law or refrain from applying any such sanctions pursuant to” the nuclear agreement.
If a joint resolution is sent to the president, restrictions remain in place for an additional 12 days. If the president vetoes it, restrictions remain in place for an additional 10 days to allow for an attempt to override the veto.
Congress Could Evade an INARA Vote
INARA does not require House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer to schedule votes on a joint resolution of disapproval. Thus, the speaker and majority leader could block a vote from taking place, allowing the White House to claim that it obeyed the provisions of INARA simply by submitting the agreement to Congress.
The Biden administration could defend this approach by asserting that, from a legal perspective, the agreement is not new and therefore another vote is unnecessary. Pelosi may instruct the House parliamentarian to reach the same conclusion as a justification for not holding a vote. However, the deal under negotiation in Vienna is in fact substantially different — both shorter and weaker — from the JCPOA.
Biden May Lift Terrorism Sanctions Before INARA Vote
Alternatively, the Biden administration could evade INARA by offering terrorism sanctions relief to Iran prior to submitting the deal to Congress by claiming the relief is not tied to a nuclear agreement. In this scenario, the administration might issue a statutory waiver to allow for the release of $7 billion from terror-sanctioned Iranian bank accounts ostensibly in exchange for the release of American hostages. Even though the administration may negotiate this arrangement as part of the Vienna nuclear deal process, it could claim otherwise.
Growing Bipartisan Opposition to the New Deal
On September 1, a bipartisan group of 50 House members — 34 Democrats and 16 Republicans — sent a letter to President Biden expressing concern about the emerging agreement, particularly its $1 trillion in sanctions relief. In April 2022, 18 House Democrats held a press conference to express concern about the deal. These concerns suggest that a new deal would receive less Democratic support than the JCPOA did in 2015. To date, Speaker Pelosi has not committed to holding a vote on a resolution of disapproval on any new agreement.
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Twitter Whistleblower Leaves Big Tech SCRAMBLING
› No running from this...
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We need another FBI to protect us from the one we already have!
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Many, many years ago when I lived in Atlanta, I had a discussion with my Rabbi. I told him I thought Rabin was a dreamer and his Oslo meetings were the wrong way to go because The PLO, Arafat and the Palestinians could not be trusted to keep their word. and there would be serious consequences.
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For Israel to be safe it must bury the Oslo delusion.
The death of an IDF officer this week proves that reality is what matters, not the Israeli elite’s fantasies.
By Caroline Glick
The Deputy Commander of the IDF’s Nahal Reconnaissance Unit, Maj. Bar Falah, was killed Tuesday night when two Palestinian terrorists, one an officer in the U.S.-funded and trained Palestinian Authority security services, opened fire on Falah and his soldiers. Falah’s soldiers returned fire and killed the two men. Falah’s tragic death must precipitate a national reckoning with hard but obvious realities.
Major Falah and his soldiers were positioned by the Jalameh checkpoint in northern Samaria, close to the city of Jenin, which has been the hub of Palestinian terrorism, directed by Iran through its proxy Islamic Jihad for much of the past year. Jalameh is located adjacent to the checkpoint, which regulates traffic from northern Samaria crossing the 1949 armistice line.
Earlier that day, Palestinian terrorists had opened fire on IDF engineers carrying out work on the separation barrier, which blocks Palestinian terrorists from infiltrating Israeli population centers. That shooting was part of a steep rise in Palestinian terror attacks over the past several months. On Monday, Itamar Cohen, an Israeli shepherd, was attacked by a lynch mob of Palestinians and critically injured by a scythe near the Maon Farm in the South Hebron Hills.
Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar said this week that terror attacks have risen 30% over the past year. In the past month alone, Palestinians carried out 70 shooting attacks and hundreds of firebomb and rock assaults against Israelis in Judea and Samaria. Terror has also risen in Jerusalem and throughout the rest of the country.
In other words, when Falah and his soldiers identified two suspicious men crouching near their position, they had every reason to assume that they were terrorists planning to attack them. And they did. But the IDF’s high command reportedly rejected their assessment.
Speaking to Channel 14’s military correspondent, one of Falah’s soldiers said they had identified the two men two hours before the exchange of fire. First, they asked to launch an armed drone against the two, but the regional brigade commander rejected their request, arguing that it wasn’t clear they were armed. According to Falah’s soldier, Falah later requested permission to deploy an armored car towards the two suspects to ascertain if they were armed. The brigade commander rejected this request as well. Instead, he ordered Falah and his soldiers to engage the two suspects as if they were unarmed and arrest them. When Falah and his soldiers approached the two and initiated arrest procedures, they opened fire and killed Falah.
It isn’t hard to understand why the brigade commander was unwilling to approve Falah’s request and instead surrendered the initiative to the terrorists, with devastating results. Reality on the ground is not the primary determinant of IDF operations.
This point was driven home earlier Tuesday during a lecture by the Commander of IDF Military Intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva. Speaking at a counter-terror conference at Reichman University, Haliva made two statements—one in relation to Lebanon, and the other in relation to the Palestinians—which revealed the conceptual framework that guides General Staff and senior officer corps decision-making.
Regarding Lebanon, Haliva said, “I’m convinced that Lebanon would be part of the Abraham Accords, were it not for Hezbollah.” Unfortunately, Haliva’s claim is wrong. Indeed, it is preposterous. Hatred of Israel is often the only thing that unites the Lebanese as a people. No one in power in Lebanon has the slightest interest in good relations with Israel. More importantly, if there were someone like that, he would never say a kind word about Israel publicly, because it would get him killed.
To be clear, with all due sympathy to the Lebanese, they lost their country 17 years ago, when Hezbollah killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, got away with it, and then swallowed the government and the military over the next three years. Lebanon hasn’t existed as an independent or in any way coherent state since 2008, at the latest.
Yet the notion that there is a real country called Lebanon, and that it can serve as a counterweight against Hezbollah, is the animating concept of the Lapid-Gantz government, in part because the Americans demand that Israel live by this utter lie. In service of this lie, Israel is currently engaged in U.S.-mediated negotiations with “Lebanon,” regarding the surrender of a significant portion of Israel’s economic waters to that fictional country.
If the deal is finalized, thanks to Israel’s belief in the fairytale of “Lebanon,” Hezbollah/Iran will become an actor in the Eastern Mediterranean and be positioned to gain billions in revenues from the Qana gas field, over which Israel is effectively surrendering its ownership in favor of Hezbollah/Iran.
This brings us to Haliva’s statement regarding the Palestinians, and the escalating terror attacks now being carried out from Judea and Samaria. Haliva’s remarks focused on the power struggle now unfolding as anticipation rises that ailing 87-year-old P.A. chief Mahmoud Abbas will soon be dead.
Haliva contended that, as the power struggle to succeed Abbas develops, “It is a Palestinian interest to diminish the terror and to stabilize the situation in the P.A., and that is also an Israeli interest.”
Here too, the “Palestinians” Haliva is referring to are impossible to find. There is not one Palestinian leadership faction that advocates against terrorism. Abbas certainly doesn’t. Every single Palestinian faction and entity from the P.A. to Hamas to Islamic Jihad and Fatah is actively engaged in terrorism against Israel. Abbas has lately intensified his open support for terrorism and his refusal to cooperate with Israel to quell terrorism.
Likewise, flush with a half-billion dollars, courtesy of the Biden administration, Abbas is intensifying his diplomatic war against Israel. He is expected to throw out the Oslo peace agreements when he speaks before the U.N. General Assembly later this month and request that the anti-Israel body accept “Palestine” as a full member state.
So, the first half of Haliva’s statement was totally wrong—the Palestinians do not think that their interest is served by diminishing terrorism—and the second half was also completely wrong. Israel has no interest at all in strengthening or stabilizing the P.A. To the contrary. It is to Hamas and Islamic Jihad what the Taliban is to Al Qaeda. It is Israel’s enemy, not its partner—as the Palestinian security officer who killed Falah ably demonstrated. By legitimizing the P.A., Israel legitimizes the P.A.’s war against it.
Haliva is not alone in his delusions. They are shared by the IDF General Staff. And just as importantly, they are shared by the Lapid-Gantz government, which never saw a Biden administration demand it didn’t bow before. And since the administration compelled the government to compel the IDF to take responsibility last week for Shireen Abu Akleh’s death in May during a gun battle between the IDF and Islamic Jihad terrorists, Biden’s team in Washington and the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem have escalated their pressure.
Last week the State Department and the White House demanded that Israel change its rules of engagement to give terrorists more leeway to attack in Judea and Samaria. According to Haaretz, the embassy is going a step further. It is carrying out “investigations” of specific IDF battalions it believes are too “aggressive” in fighting Palestinian terrorists.
In a maddening bit of historical irony, Falah was killed and Haliva gave his reality-defying, Biden administration-friendly speech on September 13, 2022—the 29th anniversary of the official launch of what became known as the Oslo Accords. Israel’s official embrace of fantasy over reality began that day in the White House Rose Garden, when then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin locked hands with the architect of modern terrorism, PLO chief Yasser Arafat, with a beaming President Bill Clinton standing behind them, pushing them together for a photograph.
The Oslo peace process was based on the idea that, despite all evidence to the contrary, Arafat and his PLO had abandoned terrorism and were willing to live in peace with Israel. Israel agreed to import Arafat, his deputies and his terror armies to Gaza and parts of Judea and Samaria, and give them autonomous rule over the Palestinians. The idea, which had no basis in reality whatsoever, was that the PLO would fight terrorists on behalf of Israel. And if they failed to do so, it wouldn’t be because they were still the terrorists they had always been. It would be because Israel wasn’t giving them enough power.
None of this made a bit of sense at the time. And at no point in the intervening 29 years were these absurd notions borne out by events—quite the contrary. Reality has always reigned supreme. And due to reality, some 1,700 Israelis have been killed since 1993 by Palestinian terrorists. Moreover, 29 years after Israel first legitimized the PLO, Israel’s diplomatic standing is hanging by a thread. Not only did Arafat and Abbas never go to war against Hamas, from the outset Fatah and Hamas have cooperated in their joint war against the Jews, even as they compete for public support.
Palestinian terror groups like Hamas have been transformed from tactical challenges into strategic threats. Their missiles are capable of reaching nearly every point in Israel. And their influence over Israel’s Arab citizens has made the prospect of a fifth column in war a distinct threat that Israel is ill-prepared to contend with. In the countries most obsessed with preserving Oslo—including the U.S.—Jews are attacked in the streets for daring to support Israel.
But for 29 years and counting, Israel’s elites have refused to hear about it. As far as the political left, the IDF generals and their friends in the media are concerned, the problem was and remains the enemy within. Not Arab Israelis who support the annihilation of Israel, but Israelis who insist that reality is what matters, and that enemies have to be defeated, not stabilized and empowered, legitimized and enriched.
Today, 29 years after the Oslo delusion became the official policy of Israel’s elites, and as we bury its latest victim, we must bury the delusion with him. Israel will only begin the journey back to safety and strategic sanity after Oslo is abandoned.
Caroline Glick is an award-winning columnist and author of The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East.
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