Why Marwan Barghouti Should Not Be Freed: The Binding Obligations Of International Law

Posted on: August 19th, 2009

Back in October 2006, then-US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had urged Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to free imprisoned terrorist Marwan Barghouti. Her obviously naïve argument was that the Tanzim leader remained very popular among Palestinians, and that he was likely the only Fatah representative who could successfully advance the U.S.-led "Middle East Peace Process." Today, not without irony, similar arguments are being raised in Israel itself, even in the Knesset. Following the election of Barghouti to Fatah's powerful Central Committee on August 11, Minority Affairs Minister Avishay Braverman (Labor) said: "In light of the election results, we must consider releasing him in order to create a moderate and strong political leadership among the Palestinians."

Deceptions Of A “Nuclear Weapons-Free World”: Why President Obama’s Good Intentions Could Bring Genocidal War To Israel (Part IV)

Posted on: August 12th, 2009

We have seen that Israel could conceivably need nuclear weapons, among several other essential purposes, for nuclear war fighting. Should nuclear deterrence options and/or preemption options fail altogether, Israel's "hard target" capabilities could be critical to national survival. These capabilities could depend, in part, upon nuclear weapons.

Deceptions Of A “Nuclear Weapons-Free World” : Why President Obama’s Good Intentions Could Bring Genocidal War To Israel (Part III)

Posted on: August 5th, 2009

Preemption Options We have seen that, among other purposes, Israel needs nuclear weapons to undertake and/or to support various forms of conventional preemption. In making its preemption decisions, Israel must determine whether such essential defensive strikes, known jurisprudentially as expressions of anticipatory self-defense, would be cost-effective. This would depend upon a number of critical variables, including: (a) expected probability of enemy first-strikes; (b) expected cost of enemy first-strikes; (c) expected schedule of enemy unconventional weapons deployment; (d) expected efficiency of enemy active defenses over time; (e) expected efficiency of Israeli active defenses over time; (f) expected efficiency of Israeli hard-target counterforce operations over time; (g) expected reactions of unaffected regional enemies; and (h) expected U.S. and world community reactions to Israeli preemptions.

Deceptions Of A “Nuclear Weapons Free World”: Why President Obama’s Good Intentions Could Bring Genocidal War To Israel (Part II)

Posted on: July 29th, 2009

As we asked last week, why then must Israel remain a nuclear power? We continue with the detailed and complete answer that Prime Minister Netanyahu should prepare to transmit to President Obama.

Deceptions Of A “Nuclear Weapons Free World” Why President Obama’s Good Intentions Could Bring Genocidal War To Israel (Part I)

Posted on: July 22nd, 2009

In his clearly expressed preference for a world without nuclear weapons, U.S. President Obama means well. Viscerally, at least, his idealized vision of a non-nuclear world certainly seems desirable. But the deeper intellectual and policy issue is not just the enduring and possibly irremediable security problem of strategic uncertainty and verification (why, for example, would any existing nuclear power disarm without being sure of reciprocal nuclear disarmament by all the other nuclear states?), but also that nuclear weapons are not inherently evil or even per se destabilizing. In many critical circumstances, as we should already have learned from basic Soviet-American peace dynamics during the Cold War, nuclear weapons can even be indispensable to the avoidance of catastrophic war.

Vice President Biden On Israel And Iran U.S. Finally Acknowledging The Limits Of Diplomacy And Missile Defense

Posted on: July 15th, 2009

Finally, Vice President Biden has acknowledged what has been argued in this column and elsewhere for several years. Speaking for the president, to be sure, Biden asserted that Israel, as a "sovereign nation," has every right to protect itself against a nuclearizing Iran. Understood in terms of international law, the precise preemptive action that Mr. Biden has in mind is called "anticipatory self-defense." Today, however, the real problem is less a matter of law than of operational cost and complexity. Although the vice president is correct about Israel's legal right to stay alive, it is already very late in the game to make preemption work.

Looking Back At The Trial Of Saddam Hussein: Implications Of Indifference To Israel’s Earlier Rights Under International Law

Posted on: July 8th, 2009

At a moment when Israel is under new jurisprudential assaults from those world leaders who would pay no attention to pertinent international law (most conspicuously, President Obama's commitment to a still one-sided "Road Map"), it may be a good time to recall previous episodes of more-or-less similar disregard.

History And Strategy Israel, “Palestine,” And The Samson Option

Posted on: July 1st, 2009

In 1882, Leo Pinsker, a Jewish physician of Odessa, horrified by the pogroms of 1881, concluded (quite reasonably, to be sure) that anti-Semitism is an incurable psychosis. The remedy, he then adduced, must be for all Jews to accept the imperatives of self-help and self-liberation. Later, Theodore Herzl, having witnessed the spectacle of Alfred Dreyfus in France, wrote The Jewish State.

Bibi’s First Big Mistake: Why A Palestinian State Can Never Be Made Contingent On Palestinian “Demilitarization”

Posted on: June 24th, 2009

Everyone who reads The Jewish Press fully understands that Judea and Samaria are the very heartland of the Jewish People. We also know that no Israeli government has the right to surrender this sacred land to any other sovereign body, least of all to an Arab/Islamic authority that openly seeks Israel's total destruction. Significantly, as I have indicated many times in previous columns in The Jewish Press, Israel's biblical claims to Judea/Samaria are fully and unambiguously supported by pertinent international law.

After The Failure To Preempt Israel, Iran And Nuclear War

Posted on: June 17th, 2009

Some things never change. Even (or especially) more-or-less apocalyptic threats recur. "It is in the thick of a calamity," says Albert Camus in The Plague, "that one gets hardened to the truth, in other words, to silence." As my faithful readers here in The Jewish Press already know, "silence" is what we shall soon become hardened to in Iran.

Religious Bases Of Jihadist Terror Points Of Importance

Posted on: June 10th, 2009

Faced with staggering and largely unprecedented geopolitical threats, President Obama already understands the limits of military action against terrorism. At the same time, it is unlikely that he also fully appreciates the stark and absolutely determinative role of religion and ritual in shaping America's principal terrorist adversaries. It is imperative, therefore, that the president begin to understand that all Arab/Islamic terrorism, including Palestinian terrorism, is authentically driven by deeply theological notions of sacrifice.

Life Or Death For Israel In The Time Of “Apocalypse”

Posted on: June 3rd, 2009

How desperately I would like to be more "positive" in these columns. Like my ever-faithful readers here at The Jewish Press, I would dearly welcome an opportunity - any opportunity - to discover some real evidence of genuine progress toward peace in the Middle East. But, as always, we Jews are especially obligated to look squarely at things the way they are. Recalling our history as a people, we simply should not expect that our most optimistic inclinations will somehow be wished into truth.

Israel On Trial – Wrongfully

Posted on: May 27th, 2009

Not surprisingly, with regard to Israel, The New York Times continues to publish essentially only the Arab side of the story. In this connection, an especially egregious April 4 article by Professor George Bisharat ("Israel On Trial") was decidedly more of a visceral attack upon Israel's recent Gaza operation than it was a sober jurisprudential assessment.

The Problem Of Palestinian ‘Demilitarization’ An International Law Perspective

Posted on: May 20th, 2009

When I first wrote in The Jewish Press about the problems of Palestinian demilitarization in February 1998, Benjamin Netanyahu was Israel's prime minister. Today, he has again assumed the same position, and is still on record against full statehood for "Palestine." He continues to speak more or less obliquely of Palestinian "self-rule," "autonomy," or "attributes of restricted sovereignty."

Justice And Jewish Slavery: Daimler-Chrysler’s Final And Inevitable Collapse

Posted on: May 13th, 2009

On its face, it would surely be foolish to blame Daimler-Chrysler's extraordinary woes on the very dark history of Daimler-Benz. On its face, the combined company's deep decline is manifestly a function of bad economic judgments. After all, from the very start, the 1998 decision by Germany's Daimler-Benz to merge with Chrysler simply made no financial sense.

To Learn From The Jews: President Barack Obama and The Lamed-Vav

Posted on: May 6th, 2009

Human interdependence and generalized compassion, integral to a universalized Judaism, are indispensable to species survival. In this respect, President Barack Obama seemingly understands something very Jewish: The state of our now-tormented American union is intimately intertwined with the state of our whole world.

Israel’s Still Blighted Cartography: Searching for New Directions in Jerusalem and Washington

Posted on: April 29th, 2009

From an existential standpoint, Israel must quickly change its strategic and diplomatic course, or prepare to disappear in increments. More specifically, with a new prime minister in place, Israel will soon need to reassess its presumed faith in the so-called Road Map to Peace in the Middle East.

Clocks Redux: True Meanings Of Time For The Imperiled Jewish State

Posted on: April 22nd, 2009

Over these many years, as my faithful readers will recall, I have occasionally referenced the idea and concept of time in my Jewish Press columns. For the most part, these column references to chronology have pertained very precisely to very particular Israeli issues. This week, however, expanding my ambit of concern, I would like to center an entire argument concerning Israel's survival on time.

Bibi And The Iranian Bomb: Reconsidering Israel’s Policy Of Nuclear Ambiguity

Posted on: April 17th, 2009

Until now, the strategic issue of Israel's nuclear ambiguity - the so-called "bomb in the basement" - has been kept squarely on the back burner. Today, however, time is quickly running out for the Jewish State, and Israel's new/old prime minister absolutely must reconsider this burning issue. From the standpoint of urgency, of course, the immediate problem is Iran.

‘Are You Meshuga?’: Jewish Survival In A Crazy World (Part II)

Posted on: April 7th, 2009

Credo quia absurdum. "I believe because it is absurd." How, then, shall we Jews survive in such a distorted and meshugana world, both as individuals, and as the always-fragile Jewish State? In our collective form, shall we truly "Seek peace, and pursue it," when our enemies' brand of "sanity" lies relentlessly in genocide and war? Or should we just reluctantly resign ourselves to ceaseless conflict as the unavoidable expression of sanity in an undeniably insane world?