RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://centerforsecuritypolicy.org/the-long-war-of-strategy-in-the-middle-east/

The United States and Israel disagree about who will rule Gaza in the “day after” scenario. The United States seeks to install a refurbished Palestinian Authority and proceed happily toward a two-state solution. Israel’s “day after” plan is unclear and may not yet even have crystallized. It is difficult, thus, to comment on Israel’s approach, but one thing is certain: the plan to rehabilitate the Palestinian Authority as a government will fail.  And neither for the commonly understood reasons of its unpopularity and incompetence born of corruption nor for its inability to rise above its terror pedigree. It is because the very idea of the Palestinian Authority as a solution to the Hamas challenge is based on concepts divorced from a Middle Eastern context.

To understand the problem with our approach, we must begin with our bafflement over why deterrence failed and Hamas even started this war.  Moreover, why does Hamas still think it is winning? Why did it invite its own destruction and why does it not see it as its own destruction?

One of the greatest barriers Westerners have in understanding the region is our deep appreciation for structures and words as institutions.  In the West, institutions have a life of their own, and the possessors of office – a tangible concept in the West – are merely trustees.  A leader or office-holder is only a steward of a trust whose job is to protect the interests of the trust. It is not about him; he will be judged entirely on whether he strengthened or damaged the stature and well-being of the institution during his stewardship. As Westerners we place great faith in the solidity of structures and words as institutions.

But such solidity does not exist in the Middle East. Institutions are extensions of personal relationships. They lack a life of their own. Even on issues of succession in government, arrangements perish with the ruler.  When the founding prophet of Islam, Muhammad, died, the tribes met in Mecca to name a replacement, whom they did – Abu Bakr in 632 AD.  And yet, despite the “office” of leader’s having passed to Abu Bakr, he was promptly confronted with challenges, even war, by many of those who ostensibly supported him. The pledged unity of the various factions and tribes to Muhammad and the community of Islam melted away.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20317/biden-administration-palestinian-terror-state

By continuing to obsessively stick to the creation of a Palestinian state, the Biden administration is actually sending a message to Iran and its terror proxies that terrorism pays – that if they inflict more pain and casualties on Israel, the Americans will reward them with a state of their own next to Israel to facilitate their mission of continuing their Jihadist murder spree against Jews and finally obliterate Israel.

The poll further showed that if presidential elections were held today, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh would receive 78% of the vote, as opposed to only 16% for Abbas.

The poll found that 64% of the Palestinians oppose the idea of a two-state solution, while 53% support a return to the “armed struggle” against Israel.

All polls conducted by the same center have consistently shown that a majority of the Palestinians believe that Hamas is more deserving of representing them than the PA. This means that if and when a Palestinian state is established, as the Biden administration is hoping, it will be ruled by Hamas and its masters in Iran… overlooking the few miles from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv and Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport.

The idea that creating another Arab state alongside Israel would “isolate” or “marginalize” Iran and its proxies is as wrong as it is dangerous. In reality, the establishment of a Palestinian state on any part of the West Bank or Gaza Strip would incentivize Iran and its clients to escalate their Jihad against Israel: it would send them the message that the more Jews you murder, the more land you get.

[T]his conflict is not about a settlement or a checkpoint or Jerusalem, but about Israel’s right to exist in any form in the Middle East. What Blinken and the Biden administration seem unable to grasp is that there are still too many people among the Palestinians, and many other Arabs and Muslims, who have yet to come to terms with the right of a nation that is not Islamic to remain in its home in the Middle East.

Blinken is suggesting not a pathway to peace, but a prize to Hamas and the Palestinians for committing genocide.

https://pjmedia.com/robert-spencer/2023/12/30/biden-panders-to-his-far-left-base-hangs-up-on-netanyahu-n4925110

As 2024 fast approaches, Old Joe Biden is facing some serious obstacles to keep on pretending to be president until he is older than nearly three-quarters of our presidents were when they died. One of the most serious of these is that his far-left base, having been thoroughly miseducated to hate America and all that it stands for, also hates one of its staunchest allies, Israel, and is outraged that the Biden regime appears to be standing by the Jewish state. But Rashida Tlaib and her pals need not be concerned: in a bid to keep these Marxists in line and pulling the Biden lever, Old Joe just made a big push to keep their support.

The Daily Caller reported Saturday that the addled and aging corruptocrat “reportedly hung up on Prime Minister Netanyahu after a heated phone call about the Palestinian tax revenue dispute.” News of this latest embarrassment comes from “two U.S. and Israeli officials and a source with knowledge of the issue.” No one seems to be saying that Old Joe, in the fog of his galloping dementia, mistook Netanyahu for an annoyingly persistent telemarketer, so apparently the hang-up was entirely intentional.

The dispute revolves around the fact that “amid the Israel-Hamas war, the Israeli government has refused to release some tax revenues it collects for the Palestinian Authority that it says would go to the terrorist group Hamas.”

It’s understandable that such hesitation would anger Old Joe. After all, the Biden regime has never hesitated to shovel money to the Palestinians, without any regard for the possibility that it could end up in the hands of Hamas. The alleged president demonstrated, for anyone who was paying attention, which side he is really on when he went over to Israel in late October and met with Netanyahu. He took the opportunity to announce that he was giving $100 million to Gaza, which meant, regardless of his warnings that Hamas better not grab the money, that it would end up in Hamas’ coffers. There was no entity in Gaza that was not controlled by Hamas and that could both receive this money and keep it out of the hands of the terror group.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20244/biden-israel-lose-war

Have any demands been made on Hamas’s patrons, Iran and Qatar, to tell their Hamas beneficiaries to stop? Have any demands been made on them to do anything? Why is only the victim of the October 7 invasion being asked to make concessions, and not the aggressor?

“I will not replace Hamastan with Fatahstan…. According to a poll that was carried out a few days ago, 82% of the Palestinian population in Judea and Samaria justifies the horrific massacre of Oct. 7.” — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Unfortunately, the October 7 massacre proved beyond a doubt that both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority actually mean it when they say that they want to annihilate Israel. According to a November 14 poll by the Arab World for Research and Development, 75% of the Palestinians polled support the October 7 massacre and 74.7% support the creation of a single Palestinian state “from the river to the sea”… This is what the Biden administration wants to reward with a Palestinian state?

Trade tangible land in Israel for intangible promises from Lebanon — protected by a military that might wilt at the first shot?

Perhaps Biden could please reconsider?US President Joe Biden has gone out of his way — and it is enormously appreciated! — to stand by America’s ally Israel, defending itself from being further attacked by Hamas and other Iranian proxy groups in the region. The Biden administration has sent warships to the region, materiel to counter the more than 9,500 rockets and missiles fired at Israel since October 7, aimed at the cities of a country roughly the size of New Jersey. It is bewildering that he has come under so much unjust criticism for supporting a country that is basically also fighting for the US and the Free World against a terrorist group, Hamas, that apparently sees nothing wrong with burning babies alive, beheading them, raping and torturing men, women and children and then murdering them.

Sadly however, by reportedly demanding that Israel reduce its efforts to confront the Iran-backed terrorist group by January 1, Biden, presumably to help his reelection campaign, is seriously undermining Israel’s efforts.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20240/palestinians-inconvenient-truths

The results of the poll also showed that, unlike the Biden administration, most Palestinians do not trust the Palestinian Authority and prefer Hamas’s terrorism to a peaceful settlement with Israel.

The PA might say that it is ready to change, but this will be in order to deceive the Biden administration and the rest of the international community into continuing to pour billions of dollars on Abbas and his cohorts…

Despite whatever commitments might be signed in blood, in the eyes of Palestinian leaders, they are just Western fantasies. After the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 and 1995 , then PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat assured his people — in Arabic — that Oslo was no more binding than the Treaty of Al-Hudaibiyya, when the Islamic prophet Mohammad agreed not to attack for ten years, then, with his opponents safely neutralized, he assembled an army and attacked after two years.

[S]upport for Abbas and his ruling Fatah faction has dropped significantly. The same is true for trust in the Palestinian Authority as a whole, as demand for its dissolution has risen to nearly 60%, the highest percentage ever recorded in PSR polls. Demand for Abbas’s resignation has increased to around 90%… 63% are now in favor of “armed struggle”.

According to the poll, most Palestinians justify Hamas’s October 7 massacre, including murder, decapitation, rape and burning people alive. These are the same people that the Biden administration wants to give a state next to Israel.

If new presidential elections were held today with only two candidates, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh would receive 78% of the vote as opposed to 16% for Abbas. The poll also showed that 54% of Palestinians think that Hamas is the most deserving of representing and leading the Palestinian people today….

It is enough for Biden administration officials to look at the results of the poll of PSR and talk to ordinary Palestinians to understand that the White House’s policies, such as promoting the creation of an Iran-sponsored Palestinian terror state, are not wanted by anyone but Iran and them.

As US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was in the Middle East last week trying to restrain Israel in its war against the Iran-backed Hamas terrorist group and to “revamp” the Palestinian Authority (PA), a public opinion poll again illustrated how the Biden administration continues to intentionally ignore the reality of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The results of the poll also showed that, unlike the Biden administration, most Palestinians do not trust the PA and prefer Hamas’s terrorism to a peaceful settlement with Israel.

Sullivan was reportedly in the Middle East for two reasons: to pressure Israel to scale down its military operations against Hamas, and to discuss the possibility of having the Palestinian Authority govern the Gaza Strip the day after the current war ends.