Is This The Third Intifada? - Part 2

In my last column I discussed the differences between the first two Palestinian "Intifadas" against Israel (in 1987 and 2000), in an attempt to define and frame the current wave of mainly "lone wolf" terrorist attacks being perpetrated by relatively young educated Palestinians, using primarily cars, knives and scissors as weapons.

I raised three questions:

1.     Is this really the Third Intifada, or just a long delayed continuation of the Second one?

2.     And is it even, by definition an 'Intifada"?

3.     And if it is the Third Intifada, isn't the fact that it's so very different from the first two (at the moment) in the absence of central leadership and large numbers of trained and armed fighters, make it more difficult to end - let alone contain?

Here are my answers:

1.     I think that many historians will probably label this the "Third Intifada". But the label doesn't really matter. In my opinion every armed conflict Israel has fought since November 29, 1947, whether against conventional armies, well-organized, trained and armed Palestinian militias or internet-incited lone-wolf terrorists with knives and scissors, is simply a continuation of Israel's 1948 War of Independence, which ended in temporary "Cease Fires", and will continue to flare up in various forms until Israel has signed peace treaties with all the Arab Countries in the Middle East...including Palestine. The armistice agreements were intended to serve only as interim agreements until replaced by permanent peace treaties. However, no peace treaties were actually signed until decades later, and to date - only with Egypt and Jordan.

2.     No. At least not yet. According to Merriam-Webster, "Intifada" is an: "uprising, rebellion; specifically: an armed uprising of Palestinians against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip". So far there have been far less demonstrations, mass-casualty violence (shootings, kidnappings, car and suicide vest bombings), or participation of organized, trained and armed forces than in the first two. The only noticeable organizational involvement so far, is the continuous incitement on official Palestinian Authority and Hamas media that includes glorified details of the recent "martyrs" as well as promises of big financial and personal rewards to those who join them.

3.     Difficult, yes...but not impossible. The tactics Israel used in the previous Intifada's won't work here. With no identifiable leader, no organization to pin the lone-wolf attacks on, relatively few victims and even fewer surviving young (and highly sympathetic) terrorists - targeted assassinations are out of the question. Destroying family homes is also a bad option because together with multi-angle viral pictures of dead or injured terrorists together made-up internet stories and photo shopped pictures of "Israeli soldiers" allegedly roughing up family members, just create more hatred and a desire to "avenge Palestinian honor", as one 14 year old justified attempting a knife attack after watching the Palestinian evening news on TV.

The only way, according to many Israeli analysts today, to at least try to stem the current "Internet Intifada", is for Israel to consider doing what Arik Sharon was planning before his fatal stroke...a unilateral partial withdrawal from most of the West Bank, with Israel remaining control of the "consensus" blocs (including the Jordan Valley), security assets (including airspace, strategic locations and air-waves), international crossing points (together with Jordan), etc.

We all know what the end result will look like - it's the same deal offered by Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert, Tzippi Livne, and more recently Bibi Netanyahu, to both Arafat and Abu Mazen. It's acceptable to most Israelis (as long as "Palestine" is fully demilitarized).         

And this should be started, with or without a negotiated agreement, sooner rather than later. With ISIS' footprint growing in the West Bank and Gaza...these attacks could get more deadly very quickly.

Also - with the leadership vacuum created in the Middle East by a clear weakening of US resolve, involvement and credibility, Russia and Iran have become the "go-to" default super-powers in the region.

Just look north to Syria, and imagine how a real Israeli-Palestinian conflict could hypothetically worsen, when regional and international players start getting involved.

Is This The Third Intifada? - Part 1

The current ongoing round of Palestinian terrorist attacks on Israelis. now in its fifth month, has been called various names.

Worldwide media has been using the terms: "Social Media Intifada", "Knife & Stone Uprising". Youth Rebellion" (because most of the terrorists are under the age of 20), etc.

Last October in a press conference in Spain, U.S.Secretary of State John Kerry called them: "Random acts of violence".  

Palestinian president Abu Mazen calls it the "Knife Intifada" while claiming that the murder of Jews is really "peaceful". . .

.

But after the February 3 brutal attack in Jerusalem, where Hadar Cohen, a brave 19 year old newly recruited Border Police officer gave her life to prevent what would have been a major, multi-casualty attack by three heavily armed Palestinians from the West Bank, and at least six attacks this past weekend involving knives and guns, there is growing consensus in Israel that we should call it what it is...The Third Intifada, despite the serious political and security consequences that this highly charged definition entails.

This raises three questions:

1. Is this really the "Third" Intifada or just a long delayed continuation of the Second (which never actually ended but continued on low flames after Arafat's death)?
2. And is it even, by definition an "Intifada"?
3. And if it is the Third Intifada, doesn't the fact that it's so very different from the first two (at the moment!) in the absence of general support, central leadership and large numbers of trained and armed fighters, make it far more difficult to end - or even contain? 

To answer these questions we first have to go back and understand what happened in 1987 and 2000.

The first Intifada, or "popular uprising" (1987-1993), was not planned, well organized or controlled...at lease not in the beginning.  It started in Gaza when an Israeli military truck accidentally collided with a civilian car, killing four Palestinians.

Unrest, frustration with Palestinian and Arab leadership, together with incitement against Israel was already brewing in the territories Israel had captured twenty years earlier. All it took was this accident to ignite a protest movement that caught on like wildfire and spread through Gaza and the West Bank.

The initially unorganized protests involved a local strategy of resistance and civil disobedience including: general strikes, blocking main roads both in Israel and the territories and widespread, deadly, rock and Molotov Cocktail attacks against police, IDF and civilian targets. It took a while for the various PLO factions to organize, arm and take control of the protesters.

Over the next six years an estimated 2,000 Palestinians were killed by the IDF (most of them armed insurgents), while 100 Israeli civilians and 60 soldiers died. 1,400 Israeli civilians and 1,700 soldiers were injured.

The Second Intifada (AKA the "al-Aqsa" Intifada) started in September 2,000. Palestinian and world news outlets claimed that it was triggered by a much publicized visit to the Temple Mount area by Arik Sharon on September 28. However Imad Faluji, the Palestinian Authority Communications Minister, admitted that the violence had been planned in July, far in advance of Sharon's "provocation", when Arafat returned from Camp David, having rejected the American proposals for a deal with Israel."

Mahmoud Zahar of Hamas said that Arafat instructed his organization to launch terror attacks against Israel after the failure of peace negotiations.

On September 29, the Voice of Palestine, the PA's official radio station called "to all Palestinians to come and defend the al-Aqsa mosque." The PA closed its schools and transported Palestinian students to the Temple Mount to participate in the organized riots. That day, following Friday prayers, large riots broke out around the Old City of Jerusalem. 

After Palestinians on the Temple Mount threw rocks over the Western Wall at Jewish worshipers, Israeli police fired back with tear gas and rubber bullets. 

When the commander of Jerusalem's police force was knocked unconscious by a rock, they switched to live ammunition, killing four Palestinians. Up to 200 Palestinians and police were injured. Another three rock-throwers were killed in the Old City and on the Mount of Olives. 

By the end of the day, 7 Palestinians had been killed and 300 injured. 70 Israeli policemen were injured...and the Second Intifada had started.  

Unlike the First Intifada, the Second one was prepared, organized, well-armed and well-commanded, with the deployment of highly trained terrorist units like Tanzim and al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade from Arafat's Fatah faction, and Izzadin al-Kassam Brigades from Hamas. It also saw the use of many "religiously inspired" male and female suicide bombers, wearing explosive vests or driving booby-trapped cars, that blew up on Israeli streets, in restaurants, cafes, buses, social and family events, etc.

The IDF, Police and Shin-Bet fought back by land, sea and air. The fighting lasted five years. The exact date of the end of the Second Intifada is disputed, though most agree on February 8, 2005  

Casualty totals were high:

Israelis: 1,053 killed (334 IDF soldiers)

Palestinians: 4789 killed (most of them combatants)

Foreigners: 55 killed

    

In "Is This The Third Intifada? Part 2" we'll answer the three questions above, as well as look at how the recent changes in the Middle East could directly influence the length, casualty levels and consequences of the "Third Intifada" including:

1. The unchecked growth and spread of ISIS (which is already recruiting and operating in Gaza and the West Bank): 
2. The recent empowerment of Iran's fanatic hardliners in the one-sided "nuke deal"
3. The evolving war in Syria.

And we'll discuss Israel's current, medium and long term strategies to deal with it.

I agree with those analysts who argue that unless Israel does something different, dramatic and unilateral, this could become the longest and most consequential conflict in the country's 68 years.

Is the World Safer Today?

There are politicians that argue that today the world is a safer place. Sorry – but I’m just not buying it.

The disastrous “Iran Nuke Deal”

January 16, 2016 will go down in infamy as the day that a humiliated United States lost any last vestige of respect and credibility in the Middle East. As Charles Krauthammer wrote in the Washington Post: “Iran shed almost four decades of rogue-state status and was declared a citizen of good standing of the international community, open to trade, investment and diplomacy…without giving up, or even promising to change, its policy of subversion and aggression… without having forfeited its status as the world's greatest purveyor of terrorism…Overnight, it went not just from pariah to player, but from pariah to dominant regional power, flush with $100 billion in unfrozen assets and virtually free of international sanctions…”

Not to mention the fact that Iran now has a clear pathway to developing and stockpiling nuclear weapons within a few short years...or much less if they cheat.  

Are Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran on the Brink of War?

The execution of Saudi Shi'ite cleric Nimr al-Baqer al-Nimr and the subsequent attacks of Iranian rioters on the Saudi embassy in Tehran, and consulate in Mashhad, caused unprecedented damage to the relations between the two countries.  Saudi Arabia cut off all diplomatic relations with Iran, together with other Arab-Muslim countries including Bahrain, Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti and the Comoro Islands. The UAE lowered the status of its diplomatic relations and the governments of Qatar and Kuwait recalled their ambassadors for consultation. Jordan joined the protest against Iran, but retained diplomatic relations.

Iran threatened revenge and warned that the end of the Saudi regime was close. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei threatened the Saudis with "divine retribution" against the heads of the regime.

But is war eminent? It’s possible though most analysts doubt it. One reason is that the Saudis and most Middle East countries believe that because of the watered down conditions of the “Nuke Deal”, Iran is still in the same the 2-6 week nuclear “breakout” stage it was this time last year. That’s why Saudi Foreign Minister Adel

Al-Jubeir flew to Pakistan last week not only to get assurances that the only Sunni Muslim nuclear country will provide assistance to repel Iranian aggression, but also possibly to get 2 or 3 off-the-shelf nukes.  

Israel: Knife, gun and car ramming terrorist attacks continue.

Despite the cold and wintry weather, in recent days there has been an uptick of terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens and security forces. Here are just a few:

•  Two terrorists stabbed two women on Monday (1/25) afternoon at a grocery store in the settlement of Beit Horon in the West Bank. A security guard shot and killed both of the attackers.
• Security forces found three home-made bombs in the vicinity of the store, apparently planted there by the terrorists, and a bomb squad was called to the scene to neutralize them.
• The Shin Bet, in cooperation with the IDF, recently arrested 18-year-old Palestinian twin sisters Diana and Nadia Hawilah, following a search of their house that revealed weapons including pipe bombs, fertilizers used for making explosives, as well as a knife and Hamas headbands.  According to the investigation, Diana bought the chemicals found in her home, watched online video tutorials to learn how to build explosive devices, and intended to use them against Israelis.
• A 13-year-old Palestinian girl tried to stab a civilian security guard at the entrance to the settlement of Anathoth in the West Bank's Binyamin region on Saturday morning. The security guard shot and killed her before she was able to hurt him. 

There were many more attacks, including a 14 year old boy who stabbed and killed a mother of 6 after seeing a program on Palestinian TV, inciting everyone to kill Jews.

There are politicians that argue that today the world is a safer place.  Like I said above…I’m just not buying it!

2015 Ended Bad - 2016 Started Worse!

At the end of 2015, the Middle East was in a relatively predictable, ongoing routine of high tension rhetoric with sporadic "low-flame" outbreaks of violence:

 

Syria - the Sunni - Shiite civil war (aka: "The Saudi-Iranian-Russian-American-Turkish proxy war") went on with no end in sight:  

• Assad's Alawite forces, as well as ISIS and Turkey, continued to intentionally bomb civilian targets, while ISIS accelerated its barbaric ethnic cleansing of Christian, Kurdish, Druze and Yazidi villages in areas under its control. All this caused the growing flow of Syrian refugees into Jordan, Turkey and Europe to continue unabated. 
• The shrinking American led coalition kept up somewhat effective air strikes on suspected ISIS targets, while the U.S. tried unsuccessfully to recruit, train and support "moderate" anti-Assad Sunni rebels.
• Pro-Assad Russia continued expanding its military presence in Syria, while launching effective missile strikes from the air, ground and sea against anti-Assad Sunni rebel forces (including ISIS and the groups the U.S. is supporting) that threaten Assad's Alawite regime and Russia's regional interests.
• Iranian ground forces were deployed in Syria to help Russia and Hezbollah defend Assad's regime, and to protect Iran's over 100,000 long and medium range missiles deployed in Syria and Lebanon, but most  were pulled out after suffering heavy casualties.
• Israel, in coordination with both the U.S. and Russia, from time to time bombed targets in Syria to prevent the transfer of missiles and heavy military weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon. One targeted attack killed several Hezbollah militants including convicted child-killer Samir Kuntar.

Egypt - continued its war against ISIS and al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist groups in Sinai, while relentlessly arresting and prosecuting Muslim Brotherhood leaders and organizations (including Hamas) throughout the country...ignoring U.S. requests to let them go.  

 

In the region, the centuries old bloody religious conflict between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran was, with the exception of the proxy wars in Syria and Yemen, more verbal than combative. This was mainly because last year the Saudis believed the "crystal clear" presidential promise that the U.S.will never let their mortal enemy, Iran, acquire nuclear weapons.

 

In Israel, 2015 ended with the almost daily tragic routine of "knife and car-ramming" terrorist attacks. Tragic because they usually ended with the victims being wounded or killed (22 killed, 283 wounded at the end of 2015) and the terrorists, most of them Palestinian teenagers, being killed, wounded or detained (142 killed, 90 of them attackers, 3000+ wounded and 2400+ detained).

 

So how did 2016 start worse than 2015 ended?

In just the first 7 days of 2016:

 

Syria: Hezbollah terrorists attacked IDF soldiers patrolling inside Israel on the foothills of Mt. Dov, on the Golan Heights. Israel fired rockets and artillery shells at nearby Hezbollah positions.

 

But even before this incident tension along the Northern border was rising. When military intelligence confirmed recently that Iran and Hezbollah are planning rocket and infiltration attacks against Northern Israel from Syrian controlled areas of the Golan Heights, the IDF and local authorities started preparing for another Lebanon War.   

 

The Region - as details of the watered down, unenforceable and as yet unsigned JCPOA, the so-called "Iran Nuclear Agreement", came out, the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the Sunni Arab Gulf States felt betrayed by the P5+1 negotiators...and especially the U.S.

 

Statements by Iranian leaders, including the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, made it clear that Iran would neither sign the agreement nor fulfill its obligations to it. The "robust and invasive anytime, anywhere" inspection regime of Iranian facilities by the IAEA, as promised by the U.S. last year, became a laughable self-inspection by the Iranians with no foreigners present.

 

In an obvious move to provoke Iran, the Saudi royal court ordered the execution of a convicted influential Shiite cleric, together with 46 mostly Sunni dissidents and terrorists.  

 

Iranian demonstrators, encouraged by their leaders, took to the streets, broke into the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and set fire to parts of it. The Saudis responded by cutting diplomatic relations with Iran, and ordering Iranian diplomats and citizens to leave the kingdom.

 

While full scale war is not foreseen at the moment, it's not beyond the realm of possibility. But with no movement yet on the JCPOA, nor any effective international inspection mechanism in place, Iran is still exactly as it was one year ago - having the ability and intent to "break out" with a nuclear warhead within 4-6 weeks, if it doesn't have one already.

 

Which is why on Sunday Pakistan, a Sunni Arab country with nuclear weapons, promised the Saudis "any assistance necessary" to repel or respond to an Iranian attack.

 

Israel - The year started with more knife and car terrorist attacks, but also with an alarming escalation:

On January 1, Nashat Melhem, a 29-year-old Israeli Arab, opened fire on a crowded bar in a lively area of Tel Aviv. A manager of the bar and a customer were killed. He then killed a taxi driver, also an Israeli Arab. After a week on the run, he was found by the Shin Bet and police in his home village in the North. When they tried to arrest him he fired at them and was killed.

 

And this was only the first week of 2016...!

 

Maybe we're seeing the last remnants of really bad policies from 2015.

 

Maybe world leaders have finally figured out what is going on, and what to do about it.

 

David Ben Gurion always said:"In Israel, in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles."   

 

With that thought, let's realistically hope that maybe 2016 will actually be better than 2015!

My Crystal Ball for 2016

During the days before the New Year, journalists and pundits have a tendency to languish nostalgically on summaries of events and trends of the outgoing year. Who did what, who said what, who married (or divorced), who was successful, who failed, who rose to stardom, who descended into oblivion, who's political fortunes shined this year, and whose were humiliatingly tarnished.

In world affairs, we're seeing "expert" end-of-year analysis about which of the four "super-powers": U.S., Russia, China or Iran has more worldwide respect, allies and influence.

Don't worry - I have no intention of boring you with a walk down memory lane and facts that you already know or can easily look up.

 

Besides, though some good things happened this year, I really don't feel like revisiting the international and political blunders (both Israeli and American!) of 2015.

 

There is good reason that on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, we say: "Tichleh shana vekileloteha, tachel shana uvirchoteha" ("May a year with its curses end, may a year with its blessings begin"). In Arabic they say: "Il faht maht" ("what is past is dead").

 

So, dusting off my usually reliable crystal ball, let's leave 2015 in the rear-view window, and see what twists and turns the beginning of 2016 may have in store for Israel and the region...          

 

The "Knife Intifada" will continue, despite Israel's ongoing upgrading of prevention, threat-neutralization and deterrence policies. 

Recent polls show a growing support for this "national resistance" among Palestinian youth and young adults, mainly in the West Bank, as the result of non-stop incitement and pseudo-religious "justification", together with daily media glorification of the so-called "martyrs" by prominent Arab and Palestinian leaders from President Abu Mazen and his ruling Fatah faction, through Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, ISIS and others.

 

The naive potential terrorists are not only promised all the benefits of "martyrdom", but also a glorified eternal place of honor in a pantheon of "national heroes" whose death brought about the "Liberation" of Palestine. Both are very persuasive motivators.

 

While this low-intensity war is not an existential threat to Israel, the "optics" and International public relations will continue to fuel anti-Israel and "one-state" movements worldwide.

 

A new Lebanon war?  After the targeted extermination last week of convicted murderer and terrorist, Samir Kuntar, together with other senior Hezbollah militants, Hassan Nasrallah, the organization's leader, threatened Israel with a painful retaliation, both "in and out of the country".

 

In response, the head of the IDF, Lt. Gen Gadi Eisenkot stated unequivocally that Nasrallah and Hezbollah would be making a big mistake if they perpetrated a lethal terror attack, either in Israel or anywhere in the world, to avenge Kuntar's elimination.

 

Will a Hezbollah response to Kuntar's death trigger another Israel-Lebanon war within the next few months? That's certainly possible and the IDF is more than prepared.

 

However Western sources claim that several Lebanese political factions are pressuring Nasrallah not to launch a revenge attack, since Israel will retaliate with devastating force against Lebanon.

 

Even Iran, Hezbollah's patron, is telling Nasrallah to avoid a conflict with Israel right now, since it would cause huge damage to the current efforts to preserve Bashar Assad's Alawite/Shiite government in Syria, and to Hezbollah and Iran's influence and infrastructure in Lebanon.

 

Will Hezbollah do something really stupid? The next few days, or weeks will tell.

 

War with ISIS? Last On Saturday ISIS released a recorded message, supposedly by its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. In it he said: "We are getting closer to you day by day, do not think that we have forgotten about you...God caused the Jews of the world to gather in Israel, and the war against them has become easy...It is the obligation of every Muslim to carry out Jihad. Jews, you will not enjoy in (sic) Palestine. God has gathered you in Palestine so that the Mujaheddin (militants that engage in Jihad) can reach you soon and you will hide by the rock and the tree. Palestine will be your graveyard".

According to Israeli sources, ISIS has been planning attacks against Israel for some time. Covert and overt IDF, GSS (Shin Bet) and Mossad operations, both alone and/or in cooperation with the US, Russia, Egypt, Jordan, other Arab countries and Turkey, have so far effectively thwarted those plans. As result the one country al-Baghdadi fears is Israel.

 

In a taunt to the US and Russia, Baghdadi added: "Be confident that God will grant victory to those who worship him, and hear the good news that our state is doing well. The more intense the war against it, the purer it becomes and the tougher it gets."

 

Based on the methodology of the recent ISIS attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, it would be prudent to assume that al-Baghdadi's words were not just intended to threaten Israel, but very possibly also to "activate" already embedded, trained and equipped sleeper cells or "lone wolf" terrorists in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. 

 

I'm confident that Israel's highly experienced defense and security services are on top of this. However, we should always remember that in security, there is never "100%". 

 

There is more in my crystal ball regarding Israel, America and the Middle East in the first half of 2016...but I have to recharge it now.

 

As for the second half of 2016 - I agree with the wise Jedi Master Yoda who once observed: "Always in motion the future is...difficult to see."

 

Happy New Year, and may "The Force" be with us all in 2016...we're going to need it!

John Kerry Agrees With Arik Sharon Regarding Israel's Survival

The existential problem that almost every Israeli prime minister, from Levi Eshkol in 1967 to Bibi Netanyahu today, understood and tried, each in their way to remedy, is rapidly reaching a critical stage. The problem - holding on to most of the West Bank will inevitably lead to a "one-state" result.  

 

At the recent prestigious 2015 Saban Forum US Secretary of State John Kerry said that a one-state solution would endanger Israel's security

 

Lamenting that "the level of distrust between them has never been more profound", Kerry urged leaders on both sides to return to the negotiating table.

 

And while he demanded that the Palestinian leadership must do more to prevent and combat anti-Israel violence, he was also careful to warn Israeli leaders not to advocate or allow the Palestinian Authority to disintegrate. If that were to happen, Kerry said, Israel would be forced to assume all governance in the West Bank and potentially accept a one-state solution that would compromise Israel's future as a democratic, Jewish state.

 

Without a two-state solution, Kerry said "Israel would be forced into an unsustainable position of perpetual occupation that would be rejected not least by the Palestinian but by most, if not all, of the international community. The one-state solution is no solution at all for a secure, Jewish, democratic Israel...it is simply not a viable option".

 

Put simply, a one-state-for-two-people means giving the Palestinians citizenship and equal rights. Within one or two election cycles they will have a majority in the Knesset and could democratically vote to change the country's name to "Palestine", change the national anthem to "Biladi, Biladi" and switch flags.

 

Since 1967, despite the initial emotional giddiness evoked by the capture from Jordan of the traditional Jewish heritage locations of Hebron, Bethlehem, Shechem, Samaria, Jericho, Shiloh, etc. during the Six Day War, every Israeli government understood this danger to the Jewish status of Israel and tried to give them back to Jordan, in exchange for peace, according to UN Security Council resolution 242. Jordan made peace with Israel but refused to take back the West Bank.

 

Successive Israeli governments have also restricted the establishment of Jewish communities to "consensus" areas totaling about 7% of the territory, which will permanently remain in Israel as part of any future arrangement. Since the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO, no new government- authorized Israeli communities ("settlements") have been built in the West Bank. All new construction has been limited to Oslo compliant expansion within the established parameters of pre-Oslo communities.

 

I don't always agree with the Secretary of State, but this time John Kerry got it right. He understands what then Prime Minister Arik Sharon did In September 2001, when he stated for the first time that Palestinians should have the right to establish their own land west of the Jordan River.

 

In 2003, Sharon endorsed the US, EU and Russia sponsored "Road Map for Peace", and announced his commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state in the future.

 

In 2005 he unilaterally and controversially withdrew from the Gaza Strip, while maintaining control of its coastline and airspace. He also started to plan a similar withdrawal with land swaps, from the West Bank.

 

While his plan was welcomed by more than 80% of Israeli voters as a solution to the "demographic bomb" of a one-state solution, it was greeted with strong opposition from within his own Likud party and other right wing Israelis, based on national security, military, and religious grounds.

 

On November 21, 2005, Sharon resigned as head of Likud, and formed a new centrist party called Kadima ("Forward"), with essentially one main policy plank: unilateral withdrawal from about 93% of the West Bank - with or without an agreement. This way Israel defines the borders and the security arrangements. He had already evacuated two West Bank settlements during the Gaza withdrawal.

 

Top politicians from both the left and the right supported Sharon's policy and joined Kadima, including Shimon Peres, Ehud Olmert, Tzippi Livne, Shaul Mofaz and others.

 

Sharon's stroke in December 2005 changed everything, and though Kadima, led by Ehud Olmert, won a plurality of seats and formed the government after the following elections, the withdrawal never happened.

 

Numerous negotiations have been held, under American leadership between Israeli prime ministers and both Yasser Arafat and Abu Mazen, but both Palestinian leaders absolutely refused to accept even Israel's most generous offers. They, like John Kerry and Bibi Netanyahu, know that there will never be a "negotiated" two-state resolution as long as:

1. The Palestinians continue to garner international sympathy and money via the "knife and car Intifada"
2. Their corrupt and ineffective money stealing leadership continues to take no responsibility because "Israel is 'occupying' the West Bank".
3. Their leadership incites them to "liberate" Palestine with knives and axes.

There is a growing consensus among Middle East experts and pundits that the only way to force them to finalize a negotiated two-state agreement is for Bibi to fulfill the promise of a permanent, democratic, powerful, Jewish-majority homeland in Israel.

 

He can do it by unilaterally, and on Israel's terms, withdrawing from most of the West Bank, with the IDF, and only the IDF, in charge of security...forever!

 

It will be gut-wrenching and painful, with a scar that will last for generations. But I prefer the pain, the scar and probably the occasional terrorism and war, if it avoids the one-state democratic destruction of Israel.