"Boogie" Yaalon
On Sunday evening I hired a bus and took 50 people from Netanya to a meeting of Likud Anglos in Ra'anana to hear Lieut. Gen Moshe "Boogie" Yaalon speak. He was a former Chief of Staff of the IDF and was fired/quit over a difference with PM Olmert regarding the "disengagement" from Gaza. He wrote an article at the time and predicted correctly that Hamas would take over Gaza and would use the territory withdrawn from to attack Israel with rockets. Having been a Head of Intelligence and being well informed he knew what would happen, and yet the political establishment, notably the Kadima leadership, refused to listen to him. So he left as a matter of principle, and then spent a year in the US studying.
On returning to Israel he decided to get involved in politics himself and joined the Likud party. He stood in the Likud Primary and was voted 7th on the Likud list. He is very well respected not only as a military expert, but as a man of integrity and steadfastness. It is possible that if Likud wins the election, as is expected, Netanyahu will appoint him Minister of Defense. The room was crowded and he was an articulate speaker.
He started out by saying that during the Olso period and subsequently he saw, from his vantage point in intelligence, that there were many examples of self-deception. For example, the idea that first Yasir Arafat and then Mahmud Abbas, were/are "partners for peace." This became, clear in the case of Arafat when he rejected the Camp David negotiations. Yaalon credited Ehud Barak for "smoking out" Arafat when he was PM by offering him all the possible concessions that Israel could make, but which Arafat rejected. It was known to those in intelligence that Arafat would never make peace with any "Jewish state," that was anathema to him. And even recently at the Annapolis conference Pres. Abbas stated categorically that he would never recognize Israel as a "Jewish State." This is something that is unacceptable to all Arabs/Muslims, it is something that is deeply ingrained in Islamic culture.
Those such as former PM Tony Blair, Pres. Obama and many others who believe that the answer to the situation is a "two-state-solution" are fooling themselves. And this is without considering the Islamists who are even more extreme, and will never recognize the existence of Israel. In fact, what we have now in former Palestine is 4 states, Israel, Jordan, Fatahstan on the West Bank and Hamastan in Gaza.
The old idea of giving "land for peace" is now fully discredited, after Israel withdrew from areas of the West Bank to form the Palestine Authority, from southern Lebanon and from Gaza, and in each case all we got was violence and destruction. The success of Operation Defensive Shield in 2001 resulted from the fact that the IDF not only entered the West Bank in force, but remained in control of most of the territory outside the PA cities. This enables the IDF to monitor what is going on and arrest and/or kill terrorists, so that the number of terrorist incidents have fallen by ca. 90%.
Another deception is that the Palestine dispute is central to all other conflicts in the region. How is it that the conflict in Iraq or the Shiite revolution in Iran is related to Palestine. Or the conflict in Algeria, between religious and nationalist forces that caused the deaths of 200,000, is related to the Palestine issue? Even in Egypt, the conflict between the nationalist forces represented by Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak and the Islamist forces of the Muslim Brotherhood (founded in 1929) long preceded the foundation of Israel. And the Sunni, Shia split, that is 1,300 yearsw old is looming again as a result of the emergence of Iranian aggressiveness, and is nothing to do with Israel. As a basis for international policy this concept is nonsense.
Yaalon foresees four challenges to the State of Israel: 1. Security vis-a-vis the Palestinians. He advocates a completely different approach, instead of the top down decisions by international conferences (opportunities for photo-ops), what is needed is a bottom up approach, whereby re-education of the Palestinians away from violence and hatred and economic development comes first, not last. The Palestinians have not founded the bases for a state, so how can they organize one? 2. Zionist education. In the army he saw many examples of lack of understanding of why the IDF needs to fight and what is the history of the State and of Zionism. He was shocked to find that some Druse and Muslims who volunteered for the IDF were more patriotic than many Jewish Israelis. 3. Economic security. Bibi Netanyahu did a great job as Finance Minister under PM Sharon, and can be expected to deal with the present economic crisis. 4. Internal Security. Israel is beset by problems with the Israeli Arabs who have been radicalized and support the Palestinians rather than showing loyalty to the State of which they are citizens, while they enjoy all the rights of citizenship, including voting, welfare, pensions, etc. For example, Amzi Bishara was an MK, but gave Hizbollah information on sites in Israel to target with rockets and then fled the country before being arrested, Sheikh Salah, Head of the Northern Islamic League, who regularly flies the Hizbollah flag at his meetings, and MK Ahmed Tibi who advises Pres. Abbas, an enemy leader. This must be stopped by applying some form of oath of loyalty to the State as is done in the USA.
Finally Israel must go from being on the defensive all the time to being on the offense. The situation in Gaza is an example, the IDF used less than 10% of its capability, and left the situation with rockets still falling on southern Israel. Many Israelis think that this Government did only half of the job instead of finishing it off. Israel cannot tolerate an enemy on its border that is dictated to by Iran and is a constant source of violence, destruction and death. If Likud is elected he will see to it that this situation is resolved successfully.
On returning to Israel he decided to get involved in politics himself and joined the Likud party. He stood in the Likud Primary and was voted 7th on the Likud list. He is very well respected not only as a military expert, but as a man of integrity and steadfastness. It is possible that if Likud wins the election, as is expected, Netanyahu will appoint him Minister of Defense. The room was crowded and he was an articulate speaker.
He started out by saying that during the Olso period and subsequently he saw, from his vantage point in intelligence, that there were many examples of self-deception. For example, the idea that first Yasir Arafat and then Mahmud Abbas, were/are "partners for peace." This became, clear in the case of Arafat when he rejected the Camp David negotiations. Yaalon credited Ehud Barak for "smoking out" Arafat when he was PM by offering him all the possible concessions that Israel could make, but which Arafat rejected. It was known to those in intelligence that Arafat would never make peace with any "Jewish state," that was anathema to him. And even recently at the Annapolis conference Pres. Abbas stated categorically that he would never recognize Israel as a "Jewish State." This is something that is unacceptable to all Arabs/Muslims, it is something that is deeply ingrained in Islamic culture.
Those such as former PM Tony Blair, Pres. Obama and many others who believe that the answer to the situation is a "two-state-solution" are fooling themselves. And this is without considering the Islamists who are even more extreme, and will never recognize the existence of Israel. In fact, what we have now in former Palestine is 4 states, Israel, Jordan, Fatahstan on the West Bank and Hamastan in Gaza.
The old idea of giving "land for peace" is now fully discredited, after Israel withdrew from areas of the West Bank to form the Palestine Authority, from southern Lebanon and from Gaza, and in each case all we got was violence and destruction. The success of Operation Defensive Shield in 2001 resulted from the fact that the IDF not only entered the West Bank in force, but remained in control of most of the territory outside the PA cities. This enables the IDF to monitor what is going on and arrest and/or kill terrorists, so that the number of terrorist incidents have fallen by ca. 90%.
Another deception is that the Palestine dispute is central to all other conflicts in the region. How is it that the conflict in Iraq or the Shiite revolution in Iran is related to Palestine. Or the conflict in Algeria, between religious and nationalist forces that caused the deaths of 200,000, is related to the Palestine issue? Even in Egypt, the conflict between the nationalist forces represented by Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak and the Islamist forces of the Muslim Brotherhood (founded in 1929) long preceded the foundation of Israel. And the Sunni, Shia split, that is 1,300 yearsw old is looming again as a result of the emergence of Iranian aggressiveness, and is nothing to do with Israel. As a basis for international policy this concept is nonsense.
Yaalon foresees four challenges to the State of Israel: 1. Security vis-a-vis the Palestinians. He advocates a completely different approach, instead of the top down decisions by international conferences (opportunities for photo-ops), what is needed is a bottom up approach, whereby re-education of the Palestinians away from violence and hatred and economic development comes first, not last. The Palestinians have not founded the bases for a state, so how can they organize one? 2. Zionist education. In the army he saw many examples of lack of understanding of why the IDF needs to fight and what is the history of the State and of Zionism. He was shocked to find that some Druse and Muslims who volunteered for the IDF were more patriotic than many Jewish Israelis. 3. Economic security. Bibi Netanyahu did a great job as Finance Minister under PM Sharon, and can be expected to deal with the present economic crisis. 4. Internal Security. Israel is beset by problems with the Israeli Arabs who have been radicalized and support the Palestinians rather than showing loyalty to the State of which they are citizens, while they enjoy all the rights of citizenship, including voting, welfare, pensions, etc. For example, Amzi Bishara was an MK, but gave Hizbollah information on sites in Israel to target with rockets and then fled the country before being arrested, Sheikh Salah, Head of the Northern Islamic League, who regularly flies the Hizbollah flag at his meetings, and MK Ahmed Tibi who advises Pres. Abbas, an enemy leader. This must be stopped by applying some form of oath of loyalty to the State as is done in the USA.
Finally Israel must go from being on the defensive all the time to being on the offense. The situation in Gaza is an example, the IDF used less than 10% of its capability, and left the situation with rockets still falling on southern Israel. Many Israelis think that this Government did only half of the job instead of finishing it off. Israel cannot tolerate an enemy on its border that is dictated to by Iran and is a constant source of violence, destruction and death. If Likud is elected he will see to it that this situation is resolved successfully.
posted by Jack Cohen at 8:55 AM
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