By Steve Kramer
ALFE MENASHE, Israel — On July 7, UNESCO declared the old city in Hebron as a Palestinian world heritage site, outraging Israelis who say the move attempts to erase the deep Jewish ties to the biblical town and its ancient shrine. So, is Hebron no longer incredibly significant to the Jews because the UN says so? Of course not! Most people are not even aware of the ridiculous UNESCO decision. But this insult is but one more reason that Israel must change its public diplomacy (hasbara) from reactive to proactive, from conciliatory to aggressive. The Israel Victory Project intends to do just that.
Devised by the Middle East Forum, a venerable pro-Israel NGO founded by Dr. Daniel Pipes, the project includes the Congressional Israel Victory Caucus (CIVC), which the Forum helped launch in Washington, D.C. in April and the Knesset Israel Victory Caucus, inaugurated this July. Both caucuses will advocate a new strategy to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, centered on Israel’s defeat of enemies who seek its destruction and equally important, ending the emphasis by Israel on making ‘painful concessions.’ Instead, the onus will be placed on Palestinians to recognize Israel as the Jewish state.
Michal and I recently attended a conference in Jerusalem featuring speakers from the CIVC and several others. Below are the most memorable and pithy comments:
Daniel Pipes, the moderator, states that the Palestinians are deluded in thinking the war with Israel is still on. “The gig is up and they lost.” The stalemate between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs will continue until this realization sinks in and is acted upon, by both sides.
MK (Member Knesset) Yehudah Glick, the foremost Knesset advocate for allowing Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount (Jews are currently constrained by Israeli police from even looking like they are praying) emphasized that Israel should show zero tolerance for Arab terror, refusing to allow them any benefit from violence. However, the Palestinians could benefit from Jewish ascendence/victory. When the Arabs recognize and accept Jewish hegemony in Israel, true Shalom (peace and enlightenment) will result.
Colonel Richard Kemp CBE, former commander of British Forces in Afghanistan and a superb advocate for Israel, emphasized that the Palestinians are mounting an insurgency, not a war, against the Jews. Therefore, the peace process is a non-starter in the present circumstances. The Palestinians attack us at our center of gravity, the international community, which Israel longs to bring to its side. We (Kemp, not a Jew nor an Israeli, admits that he has trouble differentiating himself from us) must defeat the Palestinian will to fight, which is entirely possible, citing America during the Vietnamese War and the Irish in their fight against Northern Ireland (Britain).
Kemp advocates an unrelenting effort to persuade the West, and the US in particular, to fight against the Palestinian narrative, i.e. the Palestinian refugees situation. That narrative must be discredited, as should UNESCO’s anti-Zionist slant. The Israeli weakness of appeasing the Americans (and Europeans to a lesser extent) resulted in the Oslo Agreement (read, Debacle) with all its concessions. After more than two decades of failure, a new tactic is essential: Israel must push its agenda more aggressively. At the same time, we see the Europeans caving in to the Islamists. Europe faces the same problem with Muslims as Israel, though they stubbornly refuse to recognize it.
Guest speaker Melanie Phillips, the well known journalist and author, decried the West’s encouragement of the Palestinian Arabs to keep “claiming and fighting.” The West treats Palestinian leaders, whom Phillips identifies as the aggressors, as statesmen. The West no longer expects or demands victory in a conflict. For them it’s a matter of law, not war: equivalent claims against the Israelis, not a war of extermination. Thus, the West demands that a compromise be reached. Phillips insists that the conflict must be reframed from one that will end in compromise to one that will be a definite Israeli victory.
Daniel Pipes summed up that the Israeli government still believes in the Golden Rule; if Israel is nice to the Palestinians, world opinion will reward us. It isn’t happening. The Israeli policy to minimize making waves to preserve quiet has failed. Instead, Pipes harks back to Zev Jabotinsky’s (1923) Iron Wall: “That the Arabs of the Land of Israel should willingly come to an agreement with us is beyond all hopes and dreams at present, and in the foreseeable future…. They will not voluntarily allow, not only a new master, but even a new partner…. To think that the Arabs will voluntarily consent to the realization of Zionism in return for the cultural and economic benefits we can bestow on them is infantile…. All this does not mean that any kind of agreement is impossible, only a voluntary agreement [on the part of the Arabs] is impossible.”
The Iron Wall is the inspiration for the Israel Victory Project. The most recent polls report that most Israeli Jewish adults want Palestinian defeat and Israeli victory. We hope that a more proactive, aggressive, militant strategy will replace the losing proposition of always trying to compromise. After all, the Palestinian Arabs (and many other Muslims) want to replace the Jews, not “live side by side in peace” with us. Instead, they should notice that Israel is thriving while they stagnate and even regress. As Daniel Pipes said, our Arab neighbors have lost their battle against Israel and it’s past time for them to realize that fact.
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Kramer is a freelance writer based in Alfe Menashe. He may be contacted via steve.kramer@sdjewishworld.com
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is supporting the recently-established Israel Victory Caucus, a new Congressional caucus which aims to see the US and ultimately other countries lend support to Israel defeating the Palestinian Arabs so that the century-long war waged by Palestinian Arabs and other Arab neighbors upon Zionism and the Jewish state is brought to a close. The Caucus, an initiative of the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum and its president, Dr. Daniel Pipes, has also seen the recent formation of a counterpart within the Knesset in Jerusalem, which was inaugurated at the Knesset on July 11, co-chaired by Oded Forer (Yisrael Beytenu) and Yaakov Perry (Yesh Atid) and attended by Members of Knesset from across the political spectrum, senior military and diplomatic figures, students and academics.
The Israel Victory Caucus is predicated on the idea that wars end when one side administers either a clear military defeat on the other side or else compels the other side to desist from hostilities and abandon its war aims –– in this case the Palestinian Arab goal of eliminating Israel. The aim of the Israel Victory Caucus is to create a new focus of policy, one in which the concept of enabling Israel to defeat its enemies is given priority. Only by this means can the Arab war on Israel come to an end.
In an article in the December 2016 issue of Commentary, Dr. Pipes described the things Israel might do to “encourage Palestinians to accept Israel and discourage rejectionism.” They include charging the Palestinian Authority for material damage from terrorism; blocking its officials from returning to the West Bank if their colleagues incite violence; quiet, anonymous burials for Palestinians killed attacking Israelis, and shutting off water and electricity supplies to punish violence by Palestinians.
A poll commissioned last month by the Middle East Forum shows two-thirds of the Israeli public share the view of the Israel Victory Caucus, 67% agreeing with the statement “Israeli victory will only be achieved when the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish People” and that “The Palestinian Leadership’s refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish State” was rated the first among reasons that a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians have not yet been achieved.” A further 82% of Israelis do not believe the Palestinian Arab leadership will recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people under any conditions, a state of affairs which a plurality of Israelis regard as the biggest obstacle to peace. On the military front, 84% of Israelis agreed that, in its next conflict with Hamas or Hezbollah, Israel should “let the IDF win,” defined as continuing military operations until such a point when Israel’s enemies recognize their defeat (‘Knesset Israel Victory Caucus Kicks Off,’ Jewish Press (New York), July 11, 2017).
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “The ZOA supports the Middle East Forum’s initiative of the Israel Victory Caucus and the rationale underlying it.
“Until now, Israel has either relinquished the prospect of clearly defeating its enemies due to international pressures while the Palestinian Arabs and other Arab belligerents have been insulated from the consequences of their aggression by international support. In this way, the Palestinians have been able to wage terror wars against Israel while the international community has compelled Israel’s restraint. Thereby, Israel never quite wins and the Palestinian Arabs, or Hamas or Hezbollah prepare for yet another costly round of fighting.
“A clear-cut Israel victory that brings an end to the conflict is the greatest present the world could help bestow on Israel and Palestinian Arabs because the war would be at an end.
“It is a sign of the times when the call for decisive victory is received with suspicion or hostility. Yet victory is one of the few ways wars actually end.
“Nazi Germany was not persuaded to cease conquest. It did not agree to give up its conquests. It didn’t compromise how much of its conquests it would keep –– it was comprehensively militarily defeated. That was how it relinquished its war aims: through defeat.
“The American South was not argued or negotiated out of slavery –– it refused any such thing. Abolition of slavery was forced upon it by the North’s victory in the Civil War.
“Only with a decisive and conclusive Israeli victory, recognized as such by the Palestinian Arabs themselves, can the conflict draw to close. Anything less than this condemns Israel and the region to perpetual rounds of blood-letting.
“For all these reasons, the Israel Victory Caucus is a sound idea and the ZOA will be urging the adoption of its viewpoint upon members of Congress.”