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Home Obama, Israel and the Settlements

Obama, Israel and the Settlements

Since Obama has made Settlements the central issue in his attack campaign against Israel, let us take a look at what they are, and what they are there for.

The Settlements occupy the high ground, creating defensible communities surrounding Israel's capital and moving outward. They vary from major cities such as Maaleh Adumim (Red Mountain) that hold populations as large as 50,000 people, to small outposts that are nothing more than a handful of families living in a handful of caravans, with only some firearms, a fence and a few dogs for protection.

The term settlement is used for any Jewish towns, villages or outposts in territory that Israel liberated during the 1967 war, even if those towns and villages had existed before 1948 and were captured by the Egyptians or Jordanians then.

That is the first part of the double standard. So for example, Jordan's armed capture of East Jerusalem in 1948, after a prolonged siege and expulsion of its Jewish residents, was recognized as legal. Israel's recapture of East Jerusalem and reunification of the city in 1967, is treated as illegitimate.

Then there is Kfar Darom (South Village) whose Jewish presence dated back nearly 2000 years. The residents of Kfar Darom lived on land they had bought and paid for, survived Arab attacks over the years, and finally during Israel's War of Independence in 1948, the village's militia managed to hold the Egyptian Army at bay for several months.

The Egyptian forces using armor, artillery and even air attacks were unable to break through a defensive line held by 30 young men and women. Similar defenses of other villages such as Nirim, Yad Mordechai and Negba managed to thwart the Egyptian advance further into Israel. When the residents of Kfar Darom, running out of food and water, were finally evacuated, they had demonstrated the powerful defensibility that individual communities contributed to the country as a whole.

And when the area was liberated from Egypt in 1967, Kfar Darom was once again rebuilt and turned into a thriving community that exported agricultural products around the world. Nevertheless despite the fact that it was actually a rebuilt community, international diplomats insisted on calling it an illegal settlement.

To demonstrate Israel's willingness to make peace, Israel forcibly expelled the residents of Kfar Darom, as part of the Disengagement Plan, which handed over all of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority. Gleeful mobs promptly torched the synagogue. Gaza was taken over by the Islamic terrorist group Hamas and the former Jewish towns of Gaza, built in strategic locations, became prime launching pads for rockets and missiles shot deep into Israeli territory, hitting as far as the city of Ashkelon.

Gaza served as the ultimate lab test for demonstrating why Israel could not afford to hand over any more territory to Islamic terrorists. The handover of Gaza led to Hamas gaining power and to the bombardment of towns and cities well within internationally recognized parts of Israel. Yet now Obama expects Israel to ethnically cleanse as many as 250,000 Jews in order to turn over vital territory to terrorists. There can be no real surprise that Israel isn't interested.

Furthermore Obama expects the Palestinian Authority to be given control over parts of Jerusalem. When Jordan seized East Jerusalem, snipers used it to take potshots into Israeli apartment buildings inside West Jerusalem. Prices for apartment buildings within range of Jordanian positions dropped sharply as a family might be sitting down to dinner, not knowing whether there was a sniper drawing a bead on them while they ate. That was the situation under the fairly stable and moderate Hashemite kingdom. The situation would be unimaginably worse with those Jordanian snipers replaced by Fatah and Hamas terrorists, and the rifles replaced by missile tubes.

What Obama really wants is for Israel to put its own center of government in shelling range from a terrorist group ensconced in its own capital. No rational person should need an explanation for why Netanyahu has said, no.

Obama has presented no serious plan to dismantle and disarm terrorist groups such as Hamas. Instead he is pressuring Israel to make unilateral concessions, to ethnically cleanse its own population and turn over the strategic high ground to the terrorists-- in exchange for nothing.

While Obama presses his demands, using a concentration camp that was part of the Nazi final solution, as part of his PR campaign against Israel, a new outpost has gone up named mockingly after Obama. Like the other "illegal" outposts, it is an attempt by patriotic Israelis to hold the high ground against the terrorists who would otherwise use it to wreak havoc even deeper inside Israel. Their message is that Obama may push for the destruction of their homes, but they intend to keep building long after he is gone.

Obama may have the power, but they are determined to hold the high ground. And the high ground they hold forms a chain, a chain of hilltops that protects the larger cities and towns, which in turn protect major cities such as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. After all it is only 37 kilometers/22 miles from Tel Aviv to one of the larger settlements. A drive of only 35 minutes is what separates Israel's second largest city from the imminent danger that the settlements are there to prevent. And like the handful of young men and women who daringly fought the Egyptian Army to a standstill, the hilltop youth are prepared to serve that function again, living on the front line in the war against terrorism.

Comments

  1. There is no concern for where Jews in Israel will go.
    First was the excitement to rid Europe of them.
    Then once there was the Israel of old reestablished, the British took land away and made up the nation of Jordan out of whole cloth.
    A huge make believe people living on Jewish land.
    Now, they will kick Jews out of so-called settlements ( You cant have settlements on your own land)
    and then bit by bit back everyone into a corner and attempt to kill everyone once again.

    This is another holocaust in the making by the non-American Mohammedan in the white house and his anti-Jewish buddies.

    Britain carved up Israel at the first. Now her sibling will carve up the rest to appease the oil nations they love so much.

    The end of all this will be devastating for America, only they don't know that yet.

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  2. President Obama has stated that he wants Israel to return the land they have been occupying and return to the pre - 1967 war borders. What does he mean by occupying? My Bible states that God gave all that land to Abraham 4,ooo years ago.

    What has happened to the America that believed God said … "I will bless those who bless Israel and curse those that curse Israel?"

    Is God going to keep His Word and fulfill this promise? Will America be cursed by the God of Israel?

    Has God already sent America delusion? With the election of this non American it sure looks like He has.

    I do hope I'm wrong. I hope America is not … an Obama-nation.

    I hope all this is just temporary and sanity will replace the insanity from having the inmates running the asylum.

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  3. The especially maddening part of it all is that you'd think people would have learned something after the destruction of Gush Katif and the last war, but they didn't. "Hey, our efforts for making peace didn't work last time... why don't we do the same thing all over again?"

    By the way I think rockets landed in Yavne too. Even Rehovot and Rishon-le-Tzion got rocket warnings. Next time they will reach Tel Aviv.

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  4. Some of us know this will be a disaster for America. Tel Aviv...a truly beautiful city. I landed there once when I was in the USN.

    I still can't get the words I am a Christian out of mind...his speech said otherwise. He certainly gave his personal assurances to the Muslims....they aren't my assurances. I abhor the rockets they hurl at Israel...more than that I am upset that he didn't insist the other middle eastern companies recognize Israel as the Jewish State...UGH!

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  5. I have been wondering about this "2 state solution" that seems so popular among American politicians. Why are our populations even discussing this with the Israelis at all?

    Why don't Carter (who has written an entire book on the subject), Obama and company go and talk to the Jordanians or Iran or Iraq? Why doesn't the world put the pressure on them to carve their countries in half? Hmmm. . . If 4 of the Arab countries each sacrificed a quarter of their land. . . Might work out well.

    - Beth (aka Tovah)

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  6. Great piece; very helpful in exposing the utter hypocrisy of the demands being made of Israel.

    Obama wants Israel to commit suicide. Simple as that. He might as well be a Muslim because he shares in the Islamic sentiments that Israel is an illegitimate entity that must be removed. He can claim he's a Christian all he likes - I don't know any Christians that refer to the Quran as 'holy'.

    I'm sure that you guys noticed Obama managed to ***avoid*** referring to the Torah as 'holy'...? He got round it by citing the Talmud.

    He referred to the Christian bible and Quran as 'holy' but he (or his advisors) clearly didn't want to show the Torah the same respect.

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  7. Anonymous9/6/09

    for ages Chritian and Moslem Crusaders fought each other in order to get their hand on Israel. Finally they have decided to work together and share it. this is the new Crusaders war againt Israel.Both theives are thinking about how to destroy the other after the goal is achieved!

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  8. the whole point of the entire palestinian state mythos is to use it as leverage to dismantle Israel

    an agenda Obama is pushing ahead full steam

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  9. Jew with a View--I caught that too. You're right. And it reminds me of the way the UN has a quote from Isaiah from the Tanach prominent in its building but doesn't cite the source--just the verse and the single word "Isaiah"

    It could be Isaiah anybody. But rather than cite a Jewish source for the verse they omit it.

    Obama didn't refer to the Torah or Talmud as a holy for the same reason he didn't put his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance in the US during his campaign.

    Same reason he flubbed during his oath of office.
    As much as he tries to hide his contempt for the US/Israel and Jews it comes up in these subtle ways that his adoring fans try to dimiss.


    ******

    Sultan--I keep reading the word "outposts" in blogs and news outlets. Is this the new euphamism for settlements which was a euphamism for Israeli towns and cities?

    Just when people like me get a grasp on the lexicon it changes.

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  10. outposts usually refers to government unsanctioned towns usually created by caravans

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  11. TY for explaning:) It's so easy to get tripped up by these new phrases that keep getting introduced about Israel.

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