I have long said that foreign policy is generally a non-partisan issue. While domestic issues (i.e. taxes, education, healthcare etc) often are, foreign policy is not. That is no longer. Over the last 5 months the Biden administration has implemented a highly partisan global strategy that turned international sentiment toward the notion that the U.S. can no longer be counted on to support our allies.

At the Gold Institute, I have the opportunity to spend a great deal of time with law makers from across the globe. Recently one particular European lawmaker said to me “It is by far today more dangerous to be friend of the USA than foe. Although times in which friends of freedom automatically considered themselves friends of the USA may have passed. This administration is so alien to everything we cherished that many people around the world are wondering if it’s definitely gone, the Paradise Lost.” This view that the U.S. can no longer be counted on as the global defender of freedom and western values is growing stronger and faster abroad than possibly even at home.

The need for the Gold Institute for International Strategy is now ever more important. There are few institutes in Washington DC that work hand in hand with global leaders to not only provide solutions, but more importantly the strategic blueprint with which to implement those very policy prescriptions. Our global fellows, located throughout the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East, are the best of the best practitioners – people who have spent their time in the trenches and have reached the top in their respective fields.

The Biden administration’s Middle East policy is designed for destabilization; JCPOA 2.0, a stated timeline for removal of forces from Afghanistan, a leftist [anti-]Israel policy, hesitancy to support Egypt in negotiations regarding Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam project and a vague Iraq policy, just to name a few examples of the Biden destabilization plan. For this reason, I am thrilled to introduce our new Senior Fellow, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East Simone Ledeen. Her extensive experience in the Middle East, at DoD and the Treasury Department will provide the Institute and all those who engage with us an understanding and sustainable policy path forward.

Shortly before leaders from Israel, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain joined President Trump on the South Lawn of the White House to sign the Abraham Accords, an ambassador from an Arab country expressed to me his feeling that regional countries felt the imperative to sign the accords prior to the elections to hedge bets against a possible Biden administration pro-Iranian policy. It is now clear that the Abraham Accords are necessary to stability in the Gulf region as NATO is to Europe and North America. The Gold Institute fellows have been providing guidance to the senior policy makers across the globe on this since conception.

On the international stage our fellows are also deeply involved in matters concerning Turkey, Human Rights, Climate Change, global antisemitism, the resurgence of the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS as well a whole host of other concerns.

Other fellows have been diligently working on domestic matters to include human trafficking and a policy and proactive law enforcement response to the rise of anti-Semitism. For this reason, I am pleased to let you know that retired NYPD Detective Investigator Mark Black has joined the Institute as a senior fellow. His long-time focus in counterterrorism, intelligence division and computer crimes will undoubtedly add greatly to the Institute’s impressive roster of fellows as well as our work and influence globally.

The impact the Gold Institute for International Strategy has at home and abroad is far reaching. For this reason, I ask you to support the work of our fellows. We are a 501(c)3 tax exempt institute that truly is non-partisan and sole purpose is providing results-based education to those global leaders who impact the safety and stability of the West and its allies.

To support our work, visit www.goldiis.org/donate-to-foreign-policy-solutions-dc.

(This article originally appeared in the American Spectator at https://spectator.org/event-tectonics-2021/)
In a March 2020 article for The American Spectator, “Event Tectonics: Quake, Shake, Bake & Fake,” I assessed the prospective impact — large — of COVID-19 and compared it in salience to prior events. Those events I divided into four categories:

1. Quake: a monster event that fundamentally transforms bedrock perceptions;
2. Shake: a major event that alters perceptions somewhat, but not enough to change underlying views;
3. Bake: an event that generates lots of heat but little light, leaving perceptions and underlying views intact; and
4. Fake: an event widely perceived as important that ultimately proves largely or entirely illusory.

I then put COVID-19 in the “Quake” category, and observed, “Perhaps above all, the largely optimistic bipartisan view of China as moving towards a freer, and thus friendlier, society will fall into history’s ash-heap.”

Heading the “Shake” category were the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It seemed we had, at first, come together. But as the years dragged on without final victory, the country split asunder over detainee interrogation procedures, infiltration of Muslim terrorist groups, profiling at airports, and whether or not to try terror suspects in military or civilian tribunals.

For “Bake,” I flagged the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign. While Sanders was seemingly a juggernaut headed for inevitable victory in the nomination battle, the belated entry of Joe Biden, who campaigned from the basement and held not a single genuine press event, won the day. (To be fair, Biden’s pull to the far Left seems to have been part of a deal under which Sanders sacrificed a long-shot presidential run for policy primacy should Biden win.)

For “Fake,” naturally I selected the Russia-collusion hoax that consumed the first two years of the Trump presidency. The hoax did lead to the first impeachment of the president, then an assured acquittal in the Senate trial.

With the above in mind, we may ask, What are 2021’s potentially tectonic events to date?

There are a plethora of domestic candidates:

(a) the Capitol Hill riot cum pseudo-insurrection, with new evidence that the FBI had penetrated the groups at the Capitol and went inside with them, and with the government sitting on 14,000 hours of unreleased video footage;

(b) Nancy’s Pelosi’s 24-hour snap impeachment of former President Trump, which lays the foundation for possible future partisan snap presidential impeachments;

(c) the open-borders immigration implosion, with video evidence of how the migrants are controlled by the cartels even when inside the U.S., including child prostitution;

(d) the shocking, steep rise in violent felonies, a massive urban crime wave created in large measure by defunding police, stripping police of protections against legal harassment — which led the entire Portland rapid response force to resign in protest — no-bail policies even for violent felons with a felony rap sheet, and an epic shoplifting epidemic in San Francisco due to enforcement lassitude and lenient laws on the books;

(e) a turbocharged green energy policy that closes down not only coal plants but also carbon-free natural gas facilities and pipelines — a 180-degree shift from Trump’s super-successful energy independence policies;

(f) an epic federal spending spree that revives prospects for 1970s-like hyperinflation;

(g) the use of domestic terror laws to target “white supremacists”; dissenters criticizing Muslims risk being tagged with the invented crime of “Islamophobia” while Palestinians attack Jews in LA — call it “Judoephobia”; and

(h) a social media–driven cancel culture coupled with Marxist school indoctrination from kindergarten through college and graduate schools. One response to cancel culture and Big Tech censorship is new publishers who will air all points of view.

And there are other domestic possibilities, lurking, so to speak, below the waterline, that could come to pass and would be tectonic:

(a) federal election “reform” that enshrines universal mail-in voting while eviscerating laws protecting ballot integrity and verifying voter identification — protection derided as “disinformation” by Attorney General Merrick Garland;

(b) legislating D.C. statehood despite its lack of constitutional warrant — the 23rd Amendment was adopted precisely because its supporters knew that statehood by statute was potentially reversible and thus settled for presentation in presidential elections, while sacrificing statehood;

(c) pushing Puerto Rico statehood after a rigged referendum event on the island produced a narrow margin in favor of statehood;

(d) a partisan commission designed to recommend legislation authorizing FDR-style Supreme Court packing; and

(e) abolishing the Electoral College.

The source of Garland’s derisory comment is the administration’s National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism (NSCDT), released June 15. The document is sprinkled with language declaring that civil liberties, privacy, and peaceful protest will be fully protected and malefactors who commit or induce violence will be prosecuted regardless of where they are on the spectrum from left to right. There is reason, however, to believe otherwise. The introduction identifies what it terms “violent ideological motivations.” It states “Among that wide range of animating ideologies, racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (principally those who promote the superiority of the white race) and militia violent extremists are assessed as presenting the most persistent and lethal threats.” The NSCDT’s scope includes what it terms ”anti-government” and “anti-authority” violent extremists, but includes any “individual or group who engages in violence — or incites imminent violence — in opposition to legislative, regulatory or other actions taken by the government.”

Yet a look at the March 2021 Threat Assessment, incorporated into the NSCDT, cites these recent examples of what might promote violence by extremists: “Newer sociopolitical developments — such as narratives of fraud in the recent general election, the emboldening impact of the violent breach of the U.S. Capitol, conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and conspiracy theories.”

The federal government will partner with public and private entities, at home and abroad. Specifically included are the technology sector and academia.

The NSCDT goes on: “It means ensuring that Americans receive the type of civics education that promotes tolerance and respect for all and investing in policies and programs that foster civic engagement and inspire a shared commitment to American democracy.”

At the end, the NSCDT drops this grenade: “These efforts lead to a broader priority: enhancing faith in government and addressing the extreme polarization, fueled by a crisis of disinformation and misinformation often channeled through social media platforms, which can tear Americans apart and lead some to violence.”

Much in these NSCDT excerpts is belied by the discussion preceding this section and has links to show a pronounced targeting of right-leaning advocacy, the metastasizing cancel culture that silences views disdained by the administration and its allies in mainstream media, and in the technology, corporate, entertainment, and academic sectors. But the icing on the cake is the NSCDT’s “broader priority” of “enhancing faith in government.”

“Enhancing faith in government?” What of the Declaration of Independence’s proclamation of “certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”? What of the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, which begins, “We the People of the United States?” What of Article IX — “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people” — and Article X — “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the People” — of the Bill of Rights?

Add to this two famous admonitions from Supreme Court Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis D. Brandeis.

Dissenting in a free speech case, Holmes wrote,

Every idea is an incitement. It offers itself for belief, and if believed it is acted on unless some other belief outweighs it or some failure of energy stifles the movement at its birth. The only difference between the expression of an opinion and an incitement is the speaker’s enthusiasm for the result.

Significantly, Holmes was defending the right of free speech in a case involving the 1919 conviction of a socialist and his co-conspirators for “criminal anarchy.” They had published a manifesto explicitly stating as their goal “to destroy the parliamentary state and construct a new state of the organized producers which will function as the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.” That final phrase was the precise formulation of Russia’s Marxist–Leninist 1917 revolutionaries.

In perhaps his most famous opinion during his 25 years on the Supreme Court, Brandeis, dissenting in a 1928 wiretapping case, wrote,

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but with little understanding.

Turning to overseas matters, there are immense military challenges:

(a) China may go to war to end Taiwan’s de facto independence;

(b) Russia may drive deeper into Ukraine and/or invade the provinces of the three Baltic members of NATO; and

(c) Israel may strike preemptively to kill Iran’s nuclear weapons program, if the Jewish state that Iran calls “Little Satan” concludes that America is empowering Iran’s march towards joining the nuclear club.

Nor can we ignore possible upcoming election time-bombs if between now and the 2022 campaign, post-election audits definitively show, in one or more of the contested states, that Donald Trump was victim of outcome-altering vote fraud. The Arizona audit in Maricopa County is being conducted under the most stringent recount procedures ever, following the methods adopted by gambling casinos to detect sophisticated cheaters. Georgia is investigating 2020 “election irregularities” — in part due to a November 2020 memo by a contractor documenting “massive election integrity failures and mismanagement” in Atlanta’s heavily Democratic Fulton County. While such findings could not reverse the results of 2020, they would cast a huge pall over the administration and its allies in Congress, the media, and their cultural allies elsewhere.

Finally, there is a 2022 event that could prove most tectonic of all: the November 2022 federal elections. Should Democrats keep the House and gain control of the Senate, the administration would claim virtual carte blanche to remake America. If a tectonic event favored the GOP, the result could trigger a massive GOP sweep of House and Senate races. The administration would effectively be restricted to rule by executive order, a course that is likely to encounter stiff judicial headwinds in the federal courts, where 234 Trump appointees can apply legislative laws and associated administrative rules to prevent rule by serial executive diktat.

Bottom Line. Perhaps the best analogy to what we face over the next 18 months resembles a clip from a 1950 all-time Hollywood classic, All About Eve: “Fasten your seat belts; it’s going to be a bumpy night.” Alas, in our case, we are talking about some 560 such nights — and days — 80 weeks until the Congress elected in 2022 convenes in early January 2023.

John C. Wohlstetter is author of Sleepwalking With the Bomb (Discovery Institute Press, Second Edition, 2014).

(This article was originally published in Newsmax.com: https://www.newsmax.com/adellenazarian/ukraine-nuclear-airline-justice/2021/06/11/id/1024766/ )

The Islamic Republic of Iran’s (IRI) gruesome and likely intentional shooting down of a Ukrainian airliner with Canadian passengers on board on January 8, 2020, was recently condemned by Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice as a “shameful” act of terrorism.

Now, it is time for the Biden administration to do the same.

Ukraine Airlines commercial airliner Flight PS752, a Boeing 737-800 headed for Kyiv, Ukraine, was eliminated with two surface-to-air M-1 missiles shortly after it took off from Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC). All 176 people on board the flight perished.

Despite the IRI’s attempts to falsely claim that flight PS2752 was shot down accidentally – going so far as blaming the incident on “human error” and saying the IRGC’s missile system was not fully recalibrated — it is widely believed that this heinous act of terror was carried out intentionally and that the IRI targeted this flight specifically because they believed Americans may have been on board.

The evening the flight was shot down, the IRI had been in the process of firing over a dozen missiles at two U.S. bases in Iraq in retaliation for the Trump administration’s assassination of IRGC-Quds Forces Major-General Qassem Soleimani.

The IRI likely thought the flight would make a great target for retaliation. Their attempts to get away with this act of terroristic murder has failed in the court of public opinion.

Now, an actual court has stood up to create a ruling on the case. Late last month, Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba ruled that , “[t]he plaintiffs have established that the shooting down of Flight 752 by the defendants was an act of terrorism and constitutes ‘terrorist activity.” Belobaba added, “I find on a balance of probabilities that the missile attacks on Flight 752 were intentional and directly caused the deaths of all onboard.”

Iran Ministry Spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh said the Ontario Superior Court of Justice’s ruling that the IRI’s act constituted an act of terror was “shameful” and lacked evidence. “Everyone knows that the Canadian court is fundamentally not qualified to judge this aviation accident or potential negligence in an incident that is outside the territory and jurisdiction of Canada,” Khatibzadeh said. This response from the IRI is par for the course as any condemnation of the IRI or decision which does not advance their nefarious aims is condemned and dismissed as illegitimate or flawed.

The Iranian Americans for Liberty (IAL) — a U.S.-based advocacy group committed to strengthening and supporting “U.S. foreign policy and national security solutions that bring democracy, human rights accountability, and freedom of speech to Iranians living under the oppressive, totalitarian Islamic Republic Regime in Iran — issued a statement in support of the Canadian court’s decision and also called “on President Biden to publicly support Canada’s court decision and to cease and desist all discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran until they take responsibility for murdering 176 souls.”

Several human rights agencies also condemned the IRI for this blatant act of terror. Two independent experts appointed by the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council said on February 23, 2020 that Iran committed multiple human rights violations in shooting downing UIA Flight PS752.

However, and as expected, no formal action was taken against the IRI.

In fact, this April, the UN went so far as to appoint – through a secret ballot – the IRI to a four-year term on its Commission on the Status of Women, the “principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.” Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch, put it perfectly when he said “electing the Islamic Republic of Iran to protect women’s rights is like making an arsonist into the town fire chief.”

Similarly, allowing the IRI to get away with this heinous and intentional act of terrorism will only continue to enable the regime and its backers to undermine U.S. and international security. It is crucial that the Biden administration take swift action against the IRI for this crime against humanity and hold the IRI accountable for its malfeasance.

It’s important for President Biden to rethink the pending re-entry into the severely flawed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or Iran nuclear deal.

Rewarding the IRI for its endless acts of terror by rejoining this contract will only further embolden the mullahs in the country to continue their bad behavior.

Otherwise, the rumors that this is Barack Obama’s third term might actually stick.

Adelle Nazarian is a senior media fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy and a communications director for several non-government organizations.

PR Contact: Shana Forta
Email: Sforta@Goldiis.org

Washington, DC — June 16, 2021 — The Gold Institute for International Strategy is pleased to welcome Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East Simone Ledeen and retired NYPD Detective Investigator Mark Black as senior fellows. Ms. Ledeen’s extensive experience in the Middle East, at DoD and Treasury and Marc Black’s long-time focus in counter-terrorism, intelligence division and computer crimes will undoubtedly add greatly to the Institute’s impressive roster of fellows as well as our work and influence globally.

Simone Ledeen is a strategic influencer of complex, long-term initiatives and plans with global impact. Through her work, Ms. Ledeen has shaped the thinking of the nation’s senior-most leaders, including Members of Congress, other U.S. government officials, and partners abroad, on matters of defense, finance, telecom, and transportation. She is a trusted collaborator leveraging vast networks and superb communication skills to achieve multi-phased program development and implementation across industries.

Ms. Ledeen has served in various U.S. Government and business leadership positions, most recently as the presidentially-appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) for Middle East Policy where her leadership of U.S. defense policy spanned Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Her experience on multiple oversees deployments influenced key counterterrorism activities, intelligence collection and analysis, as well as military information support operations involving cyber and disinformation, irregular warfare, direct action, sensitive special operations, and personnel recovery/hostage issues.

Ms. Ledeen’s work has also been shaped by her 20 years of experience prior to appointment with the Department of Defense. She draws on her work as Executive Director at Standard Chartered Bank managing multi-national financial crime compliance; Senior U.S. Treasury Representative to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force; Advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Finance; and as a member of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

She is also a Visiting Fellow at the National Security Institute of George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia School of Law where she advocates to foster global security and facilitate international business. Ms. Ledeen has an MBA from the Bocconi University School of Management and a Bachelor of Arts degree with from Brandeis University. With a strong intercultural competency having lived several years abroad, she is fluent in Italian and conversational in French, Arabic, Polish, and Hebrew.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Marc Black served 20 years with the New York Police Department (NYPD), retiring June 2020 at the rank of Detective Investigator. His assignments included:

Counterterrorism Division

Responsible for conducting security and vulnerability assessments (SAVA) and threat assessments on critical infrastructure in New York City. Areas of concentration include houses of worship, utilities, and sports/entertainment venues. Liaison with the Fire Department of New York City Explosives Unit to establish secure logistic routes and venue security of locations which utilize energetic materials. Intermediary with Federal agencies which are working with foreign-friendly nations to establish counterterrorism programs for local law enforcement. Evaluator for the federal Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) in New York City.

Arson & Explosion Squad

Investigated major post blast and arson crimes associated with fire and blast fatalities in conjunction with the New York City Fire Department and federal and state law enforcement agencies to determine origin and cause. Examined post blast incidents caused by improvised explosive devices as well as explosive materials illegally obtained by individuals and criminal organizations. Investigated arsons and incendiary incidents to determine origin and cause.

Computer Crimes Squad

Investigated computer crimes and analyzed computer forensic information using accepted law enforcement techniques and technologies. Investigations: Computer intrusions/DOS/computer trespass, identity fraud, child exploitation, Internet scams, and financial crimes.

Intelligence Division

Synchronized communications of international terrorist incidents with New York City Police investigators Overseas Liaison Units. Coordinated crisis management programs through the Fusion Center with the New York City Police Department and federal law enforcement agencies, FEMA, U.S. Military, and Office of Emergency Management (New York City).

Education:

B.S. Business Management, Keene State College

Attended University of Haifa, Haifa Israel

M.S. Transportation Management, NY State University Maritime College

M.S. Security Protection, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

(This article first appeared in Brussels Morning: https://brusselsmorning.com/2021/06/14/time-to-examine-ursula-von-der-leyens-performance/)

Brussels (Brussels Morning) ‘Sofagate’ now seems a distant memory. A few weeks later, however, now that the dust has settled, it is very important to reflect long and hard on the issues raised and on the many lessons to be learned in parliament from this diplomatic spat.

Ms von der Leyen indicated that, during her visit to Ankara, she had felt ‘hurt’ and ‘abandoned’ and accused Turkish President Erdoğan of subjecting her to sexist treatment by failing to provide a chair for her as he had for Charles Michel.

I have to admit that, when I rose to speak during the European Parliament debate on this matter, I did not actually concern myself with the reasons for which no chair had been provided for the President of the Commission, or why her staff had failed to anticipate such a situation. I have to say that the obsession with such an issue appeared inappropriate, to say the least, at a time when our citizens were in the throes of the COVID-19 crisis that has been driving so many small businesses to the edge of bankruptcy and creating widespread mental anguish, especially among the young. I did, however, take advantage of her presence to raise the question of her failure to ensure the purchase of vaccines, as a result of which the COVID pandemic has lasted far longer in the EU than in the United Kingdom, Israel or the United States.

To my astonishment, I found myself practically alone, since my fellow MEPs were too busy falling over themselves to excoriate President Michel and President Erdoğan for their treatment of the Commission President in Turkey. They failed to utter a single word about her mistakes in handling the COVID crisis or to take advantage of this ideal opportunity to address the vaccine purchase fiasco while she was actually in the room. Instead, Parliament simply handed her a free pass. She left the Chamber as she entered it, unbloodied and unbowed. ‘Mission accomplished’, she must have thought to herself. Turkish musical chairs had carried the day and obsession with EU prestige had outweighed any concerns about the well-being of millions of European citizens. The failures of Ms von der Leyen were matched by the failure of many of my colleagues to rise to the occasion that day.

It speaks volumes that she has presented herself as a victim at a time when so many EU citizens are beset by the fallout from the COVID-19 crisis. Only weak leaders have recourse to such tactics.

Frankly, the reasons for which Ms von der Leyen was appointed to the top post in the EU executive have always been something of a mystery to me. There is no doubt that Germany, was happy enough to be rid of her, in view of her record as German Defence Minister and the shambles she left behind her in the Bundeswehr. Firstly, it found itself short of the necessary manpower and equipment to perform its tasks properly. Secondly, her term of office was dogged by constant issues of probity, culminating in a bill presented to the German taxpayer for repairs to the ‘Gorch Fock’ German Navy tall ship, the original estimate of just EUR 10 million having swelled to EUR 135 million. Only in politics is such failure rewarded by promotion to a top job.

On 31 August 2020, she announced the Commission’s intention of launching a vaccine procurement programme. That was her chance to show that a European approach to complex issues has only advantages. As things turned out, however, we now find ourselves shouldering the consequences of failure to roll out a rapid European vaccination campaign. What is more, the buck does not stop with Ms von der Leyen. It is the pharmaceutical companies that are taking the blame. Playing the Sofagate victim card was therefore just one more example of her distorted view of what leadership actually entails.

My fellow members are also to blame for letting slip the opportunity that presented itself on 26 April to call her to account for the vaccine chaos. I am frankly disappointed in them. I could not care less about the reasons for which no chair was provided for Ms von der Leyen and am not losing a single night’s sleep about the impact this is having on the EU’s international prestige. I just hope that her attitude since the incident in question will have opened a few more eyes to the fact that she is the wrong woman in the wrong place. If so, at least the Sofagate affair will have served some purpose after all.

By: Adelle Nazarian, Media Fellow and Dr. Seyed Hossein Lotfizadeh

An impressive array of congressional letters have been pulling the Biden administration in opposite directions regarding the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (“Iran deal” for short) negotiated under former President Barack Obama over a span of days. While the heated atmosphere is a clear indication of the perils of whatever path the Biden administration opts to pursue, one would hope that cooler heads prevail at end of the day given the stakes.

This won’t be possible, however, without a closer look at the fine print of the deal which includes important but often overlooked provisions of the accord that are expected to make the world a far less safe place based on the bad actors it helps.

Case in point: in February 2021, the death (from SARS-CoV-2) of an obscure yet shady and sinister character became a reminder of the dangers that a point-by-point implementation of the accords would entail. It is no exaggeration to point out that such unforeseen risks could overshadow concerns about nuclear proliferation.

We are talking about a convicted terrorist that, despite committing double murder on allied European soil, served but a few years, and thanks to the nuclear deal, could have had the chance to carry out his crimes again. The issue is, a re-entry into this deal will provide the opportunity for others like him to assassinate targets of the Iranian regime.

A 2015 piece in the Wall Street Journal bemoaned the fact that, under the deal, there would be “nefarious characters whose names would be removed under the deal from Western sanctions lists.”

The person referred to here was a Lebanese national named Anis Naccache (alternatively al-Naqqash). A moment of reflection over the life “achievements” of Naccache suffices to show how dangerous this would be.

A eulogy of Naccache published in Iran’s state-run outlet Tehran Times is illuminating: Allegedly, before Iran’s 1979 Islamization, Naccache “was a fighter in the front ranks of the Palestinian resistance in Lebanon and one of the most prominent security and military figures in it,” and “he participated in military operations outside Lebanon for the sake of the Palestinian cause.”

Reality is not so romantic.

In December 1975, a team of six assailants raided the meeting of OPEC oil ministers in Vienna, Austria. A massive hostage crisis followed, which resulted in several deaths and over 60 captives. The “glorious” operation was led by one of most notorious terrorists of the day, the Venezuelan Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, aka “Carlos the Jackal” (who, not incidentally, bore the name of the leader of Russia’s 1917 Bolshevik revolution). Naccache was one of the participants.

Raised as a Sunni Muslim, Naccache converted to Shia Islam later in life, and became a fan of Iran’s version of Shia Islamism. Given his impressive resume as a terrorist, his attraction to the newly founded Islamic Republic in Iran would come as no surprise. Once on board, however, he went out of his way to please his new masters.

In 1980, Naccache was captured after he tried to assassinate Shapur Bakhtiar; Iran’s secular leader toppled by Islamists. During the attempt, he killed two French citizens and permanently disabled a third, a police officer.

It’s worthy to note that a large number of dissidents against the regime of Iran, with a broad range of ideologies and political affiliations, were assassinated in Europe in the 1980s and 1990s, and this played no small part in browbeating many millions of Iranian expats into silence. The regime, however, never took responsibility for the killings, always blaming them on “infighting” among dissident groups.

One might wonder why such “infighting” among Iranians would be of interest to a Lebanese with a long history of involvement in terrorism.

In Naccache’s case, the motives were quite clear, as was the fact that the regime came out fully in his defense. While demands for his release would likely not get very far on their own, the kidnapping of several French citizens in the Middle East by pro-Iran groups and the desire to secure their freedom would be a different matter.

Hostage taking has become a standard practice for the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). Naccache was pardoned by France’s socialist leader François Mitterrand in 1990 and immediately took a flight to Iran.

Neither French nor Iranian officials ever admitted this was a “prisoner exchange”; quite similar to America’s refusal to admit that the “pallets of cash” it sent to Iran in 2016 as Americans were set free in what was clearly seen as a quid pro quo exchange.

Yet the temporal coincidence between the release of Naccache and the French hostages is an undeniable reality. And even in France, it is not so common for convicted murderers to be release after in a mere 10 years.

Shortly thereafter, Naccache’s would be victim, Shapur Bakhtiar, was “successfully” assassinated. The assassins were surely aware that even if caught, their punishment would barely be more than a mere slap on the wrist, and in fact, they were freed after less than 20 years behind bars in another prisoner swap.

Upon his release, Naccache became a “business man,” but never gave up his involvement with terrorism. While the Sunni al-Qaeda and Shia Islamic Republic of Iran may seem like strange bedfellows, they have been alleged to join forces and cooperate covertly — often by proxy — on certain projects against their common enemy: America and the West.

As the 2015 Wall Street Journal piece pointed out, “[I]n 2008 the European Union determined that Mr. Naccache was linked to Iran’s nuclear-proliferation activities…Brussels added him to a sanctions list due to his alleged role in Iran’s nuclear program, not his terrorist past.”

And yet, he would “be removed from the EU sanctions list under the nuclear deal,” as would “numerous other Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders responsible for the deaths of many Iranian dissidents, U.S. servicemen in Iraq and civilians in Syria and elsewhere.”

Upon Naccache’s death – by none other than the coronavirus –, Syria’s genocidal dictator Bashar al-Assad sent the following message: “We offer…all…freedom-fighters the sincerest condolence.” Some “freedom-fighting the attempt on Bakhtiar’s life was.

Eulogies for Naccache also identified him as a “comrade” of Imad Mughniyeh, another shadowy figure linked to the attack on the US embassy in Beirut in 1983 that left 67 dead, the truck bombings against French paratroopers and US Marine barracks resulting in deaths of 60 French and 240 American service personnel, and numerous other acts of murder, torture, hijacking and kidnapping.

It would be tempting to have a “let bygones be bygones” attitude and not allow incidents from the 1980s and 1990s get in the way of 2021’s priorities, particularly as it pertains to an issue as important as the nuclear deal.

Unfortunately, while we may be willing to assign extraterritorial acts of terrorism by the regime of Iran to the history books, the IRI itself has no such intention.

As recent as February 2021, a court in Belgium found a Vienna based agent for the Iranian regime guilty of trying to bomb a meeting of an Iranian opposition group in France in 2018. That the mentioned agent was using his diplomatic status as cover only further demonstrates that such brazen acts of murder and intimidation are not just a matter of the past, but very much in the present.

Rejoining the deal as it was first negotiated would make the world a less safe place. Such security concerns are among the reasons European nations, having in the past criticized the US for withdrawing unilaterally from the deal, are now cognizant that negotiations to revive the deal need to extend to hitherto untouched subjects and simple readhesion would be unwise.

After all, such acts by the IRI pose a greater threat to French, British and German citizens than they do to their American counterparts.

Dr. Seyed Hossein Lotfizadeh, (Hos Loftus, MD), is an Iranian-born American physician trained in the field of neurology at Boston University, followed by several extra subspecialty years of training at various institutions in different states.

Adelle Nazarian is a senior media fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy and a communications director for several non-government organizations.

A D-Day remembrance by Senior Fellow John C. Wohlstetter as told to him by his ancestor, William Friedman, plus his own pilgrimage to the beaches of Normandy. (This article first appeared in the American Spectator magazine May 28, 2018)

The week of May 8 to 15 closed a chapter in my life whose first pages were written in France before I made my 1947 debut, in New York City. My father’s first cousin, William Friedman, authored those pages by deed. Bill enlisted in the Army in 1938 and made the first of his three first-day World War II landings Nov. 8, 1942, in Oran, Algeria, with the First Division, whose storied nickname was the Big Red One. The North African campaign cost Bill the top joint on the middle finger of his right hand. On July 1, 1943 Bill and his comrades landed in Sicily. Bill was transferred to the Tenth Mountain Division for the winter of 1944, and then returned to the Big Red One, to prepare for the invasion of Normandy.

Like most veterans Bill rarely spoke of his war days. He opened up to me a few times, once showing me letters he had written from France in 1944; then 27, he wrote that he did not expect to see 28. Bill first told his D-Day story to me around the time he attended the 40thanniversary commemoration at which President Reagan gave his legendary speech (14:25) about the men of Pointe du Hoc, the 225 Army Rangers who scaled the 300-foot high sheer cliff overlooking Omaha Beach in search of German artillery pieces. Starting with 250 in the boats, the Rangers ended the ferocious battle with 90 able to fight. But they did get the guns — not on the cliff summit, where none but dummy guns stood, but half a mile inland; the Rangers used thermite grenades to melt the barrel interiors and then smashed the gun-sights with the butt of their rifles. Mission accomplished.

But it was ten years later, when Bill co-represented the Big Red One at the 50thanniversary celebration, and greeted President Clinton, that he told more of his story. Bill recalled the interminable voyage across the stormy English Channel; he stood in the third row of his landing craft. As they approached the drop-off point in heavy seas the soldiers could hear the clatter of machine-gun bullets slamming into the prow of the ship. His regiment (the 16th) landed at Easy Red sector, the most heavily defended area, along with the neighboring Dog Green sector, of the beach that was to become known as “Bloody Omaha.” The First was chosen for this location because it was America’s most battle-hardened division.

Bill was interviewed for several TV specials. And then he sat down for interviews with soldier-author Tim Kilvert-Jones, writing the foreword for TK-J’s 1999 book, Omaha Beach: V Corps’ Battle for the Normandy Beachhead.

I am standing on Omaha Beach, May 14, 2018, holding open the Kilvert-Jones book, showing Bill’s Foreword to my fellow tourists. The photo at left is of Captain Friedman, 1943. The photo at right shows Colonel Friedman (USA, ret.) greeting President Clinton at 1994’s 50thanniversary D-Day celebration. Bill is second from right.

And the Biden administration and much of the West seems all too willing to play along.

This article first appeared in the American Spectator https://spectator.org/gaza-hamas-terrorism/

For decades, terrorists have relied on three weapons to fight the West: our technology, our media, and our laws and associated values.

First, they turned our technology against us: on September 11, 2001, they converted civilian jetliners into flying bombs; then and thereafter they used global media access to transmit their messages to the world while denigrating their adversaries; and, finally, they used access to our law courts and the constitutional privileges intended for America’s citizenry to wage total war against our civilization. In essence, our struggle is a Manichean one between imperfect civilization (us) and perfect barbarism (them). And, arguably, we are losing.

A prefatory note: This war did not make for a “clash of civilizations.” Israel’s adversaries do not even engage in the pretense of being civilized. Launching rockets from sites in close proximity to civilians is a war crime, as is targeting Israeli civilians with such weaponry. Deliberately seeking to maximize Palestinian deaths (knowing that the great majority of the global media players predictably will attribute such deaths to Israeli retaliation) is surely another war crime. Even worse, this war crime often takes the form of moving their own civilian population — including children — into places they have been warned that Israel intends to target in short order.

This particular form of atrocity is one perhaps without precedent in human history. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, to take history’s most notorious genocidal trio, actively liquidated those they especially despised and were morally indifferent to countless millions killed in their wars. But they never thought of moving civilians into harm’s way to increase the number of innocent people killed as a means of gaining worldwide support. Their attitude towards such mass casualties was best summed up by Stalin’s infamous formulation: “One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.”

Had these murderers seen advantage in using the Hamas tactic, they’d likely have done it. But the reaction overwhelmingly would have been vociferous condemnation, by opinion leaders and the general public alike. Today, many opinion leaders and their publics have maintained a discreet silence in the face of open Nazi-like assaults against Jews, both in Israel and in major American cities, including Los Angeles and New York.

Alas, the only difference now from earlier episodes is vastly increased intensity of Palestinian aggression. In the 2014 Gaza War, Hamas fired 450 rockets in nine days; this latest round saw Hamas fire over 4,000 in 11 days. Israeli intelligence estimates that Hamas has 15,000 rockets, mostly assembled in Gaza with Iranian supervision. Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s estimated 15,000-rocket arsenal in 2006 has grown to some 130,000. And the new terrorist rockets are much more accurate and longer-range. Hamas rained rockets on Tel Aviv for the first time, with Ben-Gurion International Airport also in range.

Hamas publicly thanked Iran for sending money and weapons. And Hamas also thanked its friends in the West for their “enormous support.” (Casualty claims aired by Hamas do not factor in those caused by hundreds of its rockets landing inside Gaza.) In all, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacked some 1,000 targets, and even the numbers offered by Hamas show fewer than 300 civilians killed. Had Israel intended to kill civilians, it could easily have killed tens — even hundreds — of thousands; it could have simply flattened Gaza City.

In my 2018 American Spectator article “Palestinian Swastikas: Where’s the Outrage?” I presented numerous examples of Palestinian neo-Nazism, war-crime tactics, and global media complicity. Our current administration publicly equivocating by issuing conflicting statements, while frustrating to the Israelis, is less bad than the openly pro-Palestinian Obama administration (see my late 2016 article, “Obama’s Palestine Punchout”).

This latest conflict was triggered mainly by the success of the Abraham Accords — and the appalling indifference of Team Biden towards them. Those pacts proved that peace with the Palestinians is not a central predicate for Israel to make peace with Arab countries. Round Four truly is Biden’s War, as he waited four weeks to place a call to Israel’s prime minister, before which he had unfrozen Palestinian assets, ditched the Trump approach that had prevented any major conflict in the region, and re-engaged with Iran and the anti-Israel elements at the UN, all without asking for a single concession in return. Instead, Team Biden has opened a concession stand and is serving terrorist customers whatever it can get away with giving them. Tops is Press Secretary Jen Psaki calling the Abraham Accords DOA and not being fired for saying this about the first-ever genuinely amicable peace made between Israel and its territorial neighbors, in 3.75 millennia of Jewish history.

In my 2015 American Spectator article “Will Our Values Make Us Seek Peace With Genocide?” I cited figures from an Israeli scholar’s compilation of 330 Palestinian public opinion polls:

While 93 percent think use of chemical weapons by Israel would be a crime, only 25 percent think that in the converse case of Palestinian use against Israel. He notes that various polls over the past decade show solid Palestinian majorities favoring naming streets after terrorists (61 percent), stab or run over Israelis (78 percent), supporting terrorism inside Israel proper (by a 6 to 1 margin), opposing a two-state solution (over 80 percent v. 12 percent for), and holding an unfavorable opinion of Jews (94 percent). A majority sees no Jewish state in 30 to 40 years.

At some point, perhaps a similar survey now of hundreds of polls will yield useful data. Piecemeal reporting of small numbers of individual polls cannot yield comparably reliable data.

A better clue to Palestinian intentions comes from a major UN speech laying out the Palestinian case. In another 2015 piece of mine, “Rocks on Rosh Hashanah: Golda Was Right,” I noted that Palestine Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas proclaimed in his 2015 address to the UN General Assembly fall session that the “Palestine revolution” — PA-speak for the origin of modern Palestinian nationalism — dates to early 1965. That’s NOT a misprint: 1965. On New Year’s Day 1965, the PLO launched its first terrorist attack on Israel, targeting the National Water Carrier. This came when the entire state of Israel was within the 1949 Green Line — there were zero Israeli settlements then, as these all came after the 1967 Six-Day War. Thus the territory the Palestinians seek to “liberate” is inside Israel proper and would thereby extinguish the Jewish state.

Which brings us to the loopiest argument of all regarding the present conflict: The Palestinians should be supported out of sympathy for the underdog because they are vastly less powerful than the Israelis. Really? By this insane illogic, after Pearl Harbor the world should have been sympathetic to Japan, clearly the underdog in a war that they started with the United States.

Our ancestors were not foolish enough to make such an absurd argument. Nor did our sins — real and imagined — during World War II make Americans of that era think they were not entitled to prevail against monstrous totalitarian enemies. For our time, alas, the jury is still out.

Bottom Line. Who won what and for how long? It is unclear at this writing how the latest conflict actually turned out. Likely it will be weeks, perhaps months, before the open issues below can be fully answered.

(1) Was strong pressure put on Israel by the U.S. in the closing hours of the war to force the Friday 2 a.m. ceasefire?

(2) Were clandestine commitments made by the U.S. to Hamas/PA?

(3) Did one or more Abraham Accord signatories tell Israel that further fighting would stall implementation of the Accords?

(4) How many casualties did Hamas really suffer (it had to be more than the publicly reported numbers)?

(5) Did Israeli public attitudes decisively influence the Benjamin Netanyahu/IDF decision to avoid major ground operations?

(It should be noted that to its credit the administration says it will go through with the $735 million in military aid it has proposed to send Israel. If they mean this and fully follow through, this will prove a major plus.)

One major question appears to have been answered. How far short did Israel fall from its goal of destroying the entire Hamas war/terror infrastructure? Figures just released by the IDF command strongly suggest that Israel did not get anywhere near reaching its primary strategic goal:

Israel estimates that it destroyed 15 to 20 percent of Hamas’s rocket arsenal and some weapons production facilities. It claims to have killed about 200 Hamas operatives and eliminated 30 percent of the tunnels under Gaza used for sheltering militants, housing command systems and moving weaponry around.

One Begin-Sadat Center postwar assessment named Israel the tactical, quantitative winner, but Hamas the strategic, qualitative winner. In this reading, Israel followed the “economic-pragmatic … minds” school of strategy, while Hamas followed the “resistance camp … hearts” school. Due to the change of U.S. administrations, Israeli domestic political paralysis and the overall post-COVID weakness in the West, Hamas prevailed. It re-established the Palestinian Arab relevance in the region and increased the support it got from abroad.

But a second assessment concluded that Hamas lost because it alienated Gaza’s population by using them as human shields. The analysis notes that when called out to celebrate a Hamas victory, not one single member of the general public joined in the post-conflict celebration. To wit:

There are two basic reasons why Hamas is in total disconnect with its Gaza constituency (excepting the 50,000 families who form the hard core of Hamas and are in its employ as a result of Qatari largesse).

First, Gaza’s residents know that Hamas deliberately operates from within the dense neighborhoods in which they live. Though the civilian population is rarely directly hit by the Israeli army, which does everything possible to prevent collateral civilian damage, the psychological toll of being used as a human shield is nevertheless considerable. Israel’s 6,500 strikes mostly involved missiles with a 500 to 750 kilo payload. Israelis now know that Hamas missiles with a payload one-twentieth of that have a nerve-racking impact that can be heard and felt over an area of four to five kilometers (16 to 24 square kilometers). A rocket strike from an Israeli plane with a payload 20 times that amount has a much greater impact, which means half of Gaza’s residents are affected by every strike. Those residents endured that effect 300 times over 12 days, 25 times a day — a level of punishment perhaps only fully understood by Israelis in the “Gaza envelope.”

Even worse is the feeling that for the past 17 years, Gaza’s residents have borne the brunt of repeated rounds of fighting alone. Whereas in the rounds of massive violence that occurred in 1987 and 2000, the burden was equally shared with Palestinians in Jenin, Nablus, Jerusalem, and Hebron, in the past 17 years (during which time terrorism in those places sharply declined) the residents of Gaza suffered over 95% of the psychological and material burden and loss of life of “liberating” Palestine. [Emphasis mine.]

Which of these contrasting assessments proves true may not become clear for some time. And future events could reverse one or more of the above perceived consequences.

But above all, one thing already seems crystal clear: Terrorists have succeeded anew in hijacking our technology, media, and laws and values for hostile use against the nation that is by far America’s — and the free world’s — best ally in the Mideast.

Our ancestors would never have stood for this. They were made of far sterner stuff. We may be able to win while tying one hand behind our back. But can we do so if we tie up both hands, and mute ourselves to boot? We seem determined to test that proposition.

John Wohlstetter is author of Sleepwalking With the Bomb (Discovery Institute Press, Second edition 2014).

This article first appeared in New Direction The European Journal: https://newdirection.online/the-european-journal/article/gaza_crisis_2021

By: Geoffrey Van Orden

Since 1948, Israel has had to fight for its existence in at least four major conventional wars, defending its small and vulnerable territory, half the size of Denmark, while surrounded by hostile neighbours. In living memory of the horrors of the Holocaust, suffering years of terrorism, Israelis have every right to feel under threat and defend themselves. Above all, Israel seeks recognition by Palestinians of its right to exist as an essentially Jewish state if progress is to be made in the creation of a viable and internationally acceptable Palestinian state. The Hamas leaders that in June 2007 seized from the Palestine Authority de facto control of Gaza, vacated by Israel in 2005, fundamentally oppose this.

Ordinary Palestinians feel aggrieved that, from the start, they have had a raw deal, particularly over land. They want peace, security and prosperity for their children but have been ill-served by their political leaders who have been weak or oppressive and more interested in power, money and their purist political legacy, than in their people’s future. For years, Israel has sought a reliable and effective Palestinian leader they could talk to and who had authority throughout the Palestinian areas. As one member of the Knesset put it to me, “the Palestinian leadership never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity”. This failure costs lives, always disproportionately more by the Palestinians. Years ago it was put to me that everyone knows the shape of a future peace settlement. It is just a question of how many tragic body bags between now and then.

All the time that Palestinian extremists and terrorists were tolerated, often supported, by Arab governments, they felt legitimised and able to blame the people’s plight on Israel.  Their target is public opinion, in the West, in Israel itself, and in the wider Muslim world. Gradually there has been a shift in attitude by arab governments, conscious that their own people also want a more prosperous future and that Israel was not the threat and could even be a key to that better future. In quick succession, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Morocco, and Bahrain  all recognised Israel in 2020, following the example of Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.  This has been a massive strategic gain for Israel, potentially at risk if civilian casualties of the current counter-attack against Hamas and its close relative, the even more murderous Islamic jihad, were to grow and provoke an international reaction. Nevertheless, these same countries share Israel’s concerns about Iran. They also have worries over the influence within their own populations of the Moslem Brotherhood, to which both Hamas and Islamic Jihad have foundational affiliation, and which supports terrorism and subordination of the state to its own extreme interpretation of the doctrines of Islam.

No one doubts the ability of Israel to win a war with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but it has been less successful at winning the propaganda battle. In any case it will see diminishing returns from its military interventions. Its objectives need to look beyond the destruction of terrorist offensive capabilities and the previous festering status quo, and move towards a better future.

The unstable domestic political situation in both Israel and the Palestinian areas have contributed to the current crisis. The elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council, originally scheduled for 22 May, followed by a Presidential election in July, provided inspiration for Hamas to stir trouble. I observed the last elections to the PLC in January 2006, which saw a victory for Hamas  (winning 74 seats to 45 for the ruling Fatah party) which apparently surprised some but not those of us on the ground. Faced with a similar outcome in 2021, and in the midst of another crisis, the hapless Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, has again postponed elections, but he can’t put them off for ever. The fact is, his authority does not extend to Gaza, that half of his domain where Hamas has imposed its rule.

Following an inconclusive General Election in March, the fourth in two years, Israel’s government is in limbo. Yair Lapid has been given until early June to cobble together a coalition for government otherwise there will be another General Election. Benjamin Netanyahu, still on trial on corruption charges, remains as interim Prime Minister. The latest Gaza crisis throws all this up in the air. Netanyahu’s tough stance will strengthen his hand in an election. And that election becomes more likely as Lapid may now face difficulties securing a key potential coalition partner, Mansour Abbas’s United Arab List.

The paradox of violent crisis situations is that the people want peace but put their trust in those they think most robustly defend them. They buy the propaganda of their own side. We saw this in Northern Ireland where the softer Unionist politicians were squeezed out and a harder-line loyalist DUP found itself coming to power with the terrorist political front that is Sinn Fein. Fatah is entrenched in corruption and ineptitude and is kept in power by the generosity of Western and Arab governments, mainly because it is not Iranian-backed Hamas. Palestinian voters often remarked to me that they had no idea where all that foreign money went because they never saw any benefit from it, “Fatah were those people in big black cars and fancy villas”. Meanwhile, Hamas, in familiar Moslem Brotherhood fashion, were showing their welfare side, providing medical and schooling for the people and their own harsh brand of law and order, while keeping up the war against what they portrayed as the “little Satan”, Israel.

Israel prospers as a nation, with world-leading research capabilities and inventiveness, not least in provision of water desalination and irrigation that could be of enormous value in lifting the prospects of the poverty stricken Palestinian areas. There is hope for the future if certain steps are taken.

Without external political, financial and humanitarian support, neither Fatah nor Hamas can sustain their positions. The Hamas terror campaign relies on Iran for finance, training and weapons and on the international media and extremists within the Muslim diaspora for propaganda. These links need to be broken. Neither the US nor the Europeans should weaken sanctions on Iran until it ends support for terrorism. Substitute sponsors must be discouraged. And greater effort needs to be made to communicate to the arab street – through broadcasts and social media – to explain the realities behind the continuous turmoil and poverty in the Palestinian areas.

Israel needs to act with generosity in relation to its borders and the definition of the Palestinian areas without compromising its security. It should support a novel status for East Jerusalem. It would also participate in an international programme for reconstruction – that elusive “Marshall Plan” for the region  – to which the Arab nations and the democracies would contribute.

The sclerotic Fatah will need to find a new leader, willing to enter into negotiations, eager to reach agreement, and credible in both the West Bank and Gaza. He will need to renounce violence and the promotion of hatred, and, above all, recognise the state of Israel (more or less the conditions for international recognition of a Palestinian government set by the Quartet of US, UN, EU and Russia).

Distasteful as it may be, this search for a new leader may include the likes of 61-year-old Marwan Barghouti, who has spent the last 17 years in Israeli prisons following conviction for murder. Rejected by the Fatah old-guard, he retains popularity across all the Palestinian areas. He is no Mandela. International comparisons are never wholly accurate and outcomes from talking to terrorists are mixed. Turkey was prepared to negotiate with PKK terrorist leader Ocalan while he was imprisoned. The Colombian government came to terms with the FARC guerrilla movement in 2016.  Britain accepted former Irish Republican terrorist leaders into government in Northern Ireland.

An end to violence and rapid movement towards a sustainable peace settlement would obviously be good for Israel, the Palestinians and the wider Middle East. It is also in all our interests as the situation there becomes steadily more dangerous and as we confront so many other major threats to the security of the democracies.

Geoffrey Van Orden is a distinguished Fellow of the Gold Institute for International Strategy,  former British Conservative leader in the European Parliament and founder of New Direction. He has been visiting Israel and the Palestinian areas for over 40 years.

By: Matthew R.J. Brodsky, Senior Fellow

Originally appeared in the NYPost: https://nypost.com/2021/05/18/no-the-gaza-flare-up-didnt-kill-trumps-wildly-successful-abraham-accords/

America’s foreign-policy establishment and peace-process industry are having a field day: The latest round of fighting between Israel and the terror group Hamas, they insist, has sounded the death knell for the Abraham Accords, the Trump-brokered peace treaties between the Jewish state and several Muslim nations.

Leading the Schadenfreude Brigade was White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, who on Tuesday declared from her podium: “We don’t think [the accords] did anything constructive, really, to bring an end to the longstanding conflict in the Middle East.” The peace-processors failed for decades to make Mideast progress, and the Gaza flare-up gives them and their DC mouthpieces (like Psaki) a cheap chance to crow, “I told you so.”

Reality disagrees, however.

The monumental agreements signed last year will continue to flourish, because their foundations remain solid — whereas doing things the peace-processors’ way will return America to the failures of the past.

The peace-process industry (or syndicate) represents the elite’s thinking on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the wider Middle East. It is composed of former diplomats, left-leaning think tanks, nearly all of corporate media and academia and the wealthy donor class that underwrites their work.

The maverick Trump administration’s Mideast breakthroughs in the final months of 2020 gravely threatened the interests of this group. After all, the Abraham Accords challenged several key assumptions of the peace-processors: above all, the notion that Arab reconciliation with Israel could only be achieved after resolving the Palestinian question.

This belief springs from the false notion that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the central drama of the region, linking it to all other problems, which will finally find their panacea only in a “two-state” solution.

Equally destructive is the peace-processors’ belief that a solution can be found by leveling the playing field between America’s regional allies and bad actors like the Palestinians. Put simply, they believe that for negotiations to succeed, Israel must be weakened, while Palestinian leaders must be empowered. There is no evidence for why this should be the case, but that hasn’t stopped peace-processors from summiting the commanding heights of American foreign policy for decades.

It’s easy to see how President Donald Trump and his advisers wounded the egos of these processors with the Abraham Accords. The accords started from diametrically opposed assumptions: that the Palestinian drama isn’t central to the region and that diplomacy requires bolstering, rather than weakening, allies. And they succeeded brilliantly.

The accords won’t soon die, because all of the structural reasons that made them possible remain intact. For starters, the Iranian threat that impelled Arab leaders to embrace their former archenemy, Israel, is still there.

Plus, the economic benefits of the rapprochement are too tangible to ignore, including opportunities in tourism, civil aviation, science, technology and innovation, energy, water, environment and agriculture, food security and more.

Then, too, the Arab elite increasingly views Jews as indigenous to the region. Both the UAE and Bahrain correctly pride themselves as nations of tolerance, and they take pride in extending that tolerance to the region’s Jews. Communications technology is also fostering more dialogue and relationships beyond the control of diplomats or the state.

While Arab leaders sympathize with the Palestinian people, the accords showed that Mideast states have wearied of a corrupt and intransigent Palestinian leadership. For four years leading up to the accords, the unmistakable message to Palestinians and their leaders was that the proverbial train was leaving the station, and it was in their interest to get on board, rather than cling to the slogans of the past; the Palestinians didn’t get the message.

These fundamental dynamics remain beyond the grasp of the dangerously deluded peace-process industry, which remains bent on pulling the region backward, all to fit its disproved theories. There is plenty of more work to be done to expand the peace and normalization framework. This work will continue, regardless of predictable regional forces that periodically lash out and in spite of those who gleefully mistake this beginning for the end.

Matthew RJ Brodsky, a former adviser to the Trump administration’s Middle East peace team, is a senior fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy.