Professor Walt�s Washington Post commentary on �Israel�s real friends� is delusional.
Today’s Washington Post has an op-ed by Harvard Professor Stephen M. Walt, “In the fight over settlements, who are Israel's real friends?" Walt, co-author with John J. Mearsheimer of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy was writing in a prelude to the AIPAC Washington Policy Conference which begins today. Secretary of State Clinton and Israeli PM Netanyahu will be meeting Monday prior to their respective presentations at the conference. The Obaam Administration may have committed a diplomatic gaffe by castigating Israel for the untimely announcement of approvals for 1600 new apartments in the existing Jewish development of Ramat Shlomo in northern Jerusalem. News reports indicate that the Obama White House may be "dialing back on criticism". Not so Professor Walt. In his Washington Post op ed Walt says:Whatever you think of its strategy or its tactics, the Obama administration is genuinely committed to achieving a two-state solution, which is hardly an act of hostility toward Israel. On the contrary, for Obama to keep this difficult and time-consuming issue on his already crowded agenda is an extraordinary act of friendship -- especially when friendship means speaking difficult truths.
It knows that the relentless expansion of Israel's settlements makes a two-state solution impossible and that an end to building is essential. That includes East Jerusalem, whose annexation by Israel is not recognized by the United States (or anyone else).
A two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in the United States' strategic interest as well. "The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel," Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week. "Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples . . . [and] al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support. The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world."
A two-state solution wouldn't solve all U.S. challenges in the region, but it would make it easier to address most of them. It is also the best guarantee of Israel's long-term future. By showing real backbone this time and explaining to the American people why his approach is the right one, Obama could advance U.S. interests and be a true friend to the Jewish state.
I posted on-line the following to the Walt Washington Post commentary:
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Professor Walt, Gen. Petraeus and many of the commenters miss a fundamental point that Hamas and many Fatah leaders recognize. Doctrinal Islam considers Israel a usurper of the Waqf ('the trust") conferred by Allah when the area was conquered in the great initial wave of Jihad nearly 1400 years ago. Thus, under Islamic Sharia there is no other solution than elimination of the usurper and retaking of Waqf lands including Israel. The areas of former Muslim Spain, al Andaluz, also fall into this category under Islamic Sharia. That Islamic doctrine may explain a great deal about the lack of any resolution of the long festering Israeli Arab conflict.
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Rabbi Jon Hausman and I made comments about this Islamic doctrine earlier in the week for a recorded radio interview on the south Florida radio program,“The Joe Citizen Show”. Further, similar comments were made in a PJTV interview with both Cliff May and Jonathan Schanzer of the Washington, DC Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) - watch here.
Subsequent to my post on the Walt article I received the following comments from Bat Ye’or:
Bravo. You can add that the whole world is a trust kept by Allah for his Muslim community, elected above all others to govern the world. This is the trigger and sacred duty of the Jihad. Muslims have the duty to take back from the infidels the lands that belong to them.
Cliff May, executive director of the FDD affirmed these arguments in his weekly column:
Members of Hamas object to Israel’s existence on theological grounds. According to their reading of the Koran, what we call Israel is an “endowment from Allah to the Muslims.” As such, it cannot be given away – not a square inch – to Jews or other infidels, no matter what concessions are offered in return.
More secular Palestinians may not view it in these terms. But they know that signing a peace treaty with Israel, as Egyptian President Anwar Sadat did, would invite the fate Sadat received: He was gunned down by members of an Egyptian jihadist group.
Willfully blind to all this, the peace processors insist that the obstacle to peace is Israel which persists in taking such provocative steps as planning to build homes for its citizens not in Gaza or the West Bank but within the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem, a city the United States years ago recognized, officially and under law, as the “undivided” capital of Israel.
Last May, Andrew Boston posted on his blog these Islamic doctrinal excerpts from his book, The Legacy of Jihad about the intractability of any Israeli peace accord with Hamas and Fatah:
Antoine Fattal (1958): “Connected with the notion of jihad is the distinction between dar al-harb (territory or “house” of war) and dar al-islam (house of Islam). The latter includes all territories subject to Moslem authority. It is in a state of perpetual war with the dar al-harb. The inhabitants of the dar al-harb are harbis, who are not answerable to the Islamic authority and whose persons and goods are mubah, that is, at the mercy of Believers. However, when Muslims are in a subordinate state, they can negotiate a truce with the Harbis lasting no more than ten years, which they are obliged to revoke unilaterally as soon as they regain the upper hand, following the example of the Prophet after Hudaibiyya.”
Bassam Tibi (1996): “Islamic wars are not hurub (the plural of harb) but rather futuhat, acts of “opening” the world to Islam and expressing Islamic jihad. Relations between dar al-Islam, the home of peace, and dar al-harb, the world of unbelievers, nevertheless take place in a state of war, according to the Qur’an and to the authoritative commentaries of Islamic jurists. Unbelievers who stand in the way, creating obstacles for the da’wa, are blamed for this state of war, for the da’wa can be pursued peacefully if others submit to it. In other words, those who resist Islam cause wars and are responsible for them. Only when Muslim power is weak is “temporary truce” (hudna) allowed.”
Sic transit Washington and academia endeavoring to resolve the Israeli Arab impasse in the face of this ancient Islamic Jihad war doctrine. Not understanding that doctrine makes the Obama Administration and General Petraeus delusional that any progress of lasting significance can be achieved.
Rabbi Hausman noted this in an email:
If a person doesn't understand this doctrinal principle, then he/she understands nothing of doctrinal Islam
Any such peace accords will be nothing more than Hudnas (truces) in the ultimate Jihad to vanquish Israel, the Jewish ancient homeland.
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