Showing unacceptable bias against Israel, U.S. envoy Daniel Shapiro ripped Israel for vigilantism in the West Bank, claiming Israel has one justice system for Israelis and another for Palestinians. Shapiro’s apparently oblivious to the ongoing Palestinian war against Israel in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, all territories seized as spoils of the 1967 Six-Day-War. Shapiro forgets that Palestinians controlled not one inch of sovereign land in Egypt’s Gaza Strip, Jordan’s West Bank and East Jerusalem and Syria’s Golan Heights. Before the 1967 War, Palestinians occupied Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian territory. Only after the Six-Day-War, did the Palestinians claim Israeli spoils as their own sovereign land. Shapiro apparently thinks that Israel should stop building settlements on spoils of the 1967 War, only because the Arab narrative decreed the land to Palestinians.
Dealing with a new uprising since Sept. 12, 2015 when Palestinians rampaged at Temple Mount, home to al-Aqsa Mosque, Palestinians were given the green light by 80-year-old PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, convinced that what he can’t get at the peace table he can pressure Israel into concessions through violence. Stabbing a 39-year-old mother of six at her home in the West Bank, Shapiro apparently buys the Palestinian logic that anything goes when it comes to “resistance.” Whether rocket attacks into Israel from Gaza or Lebanon, shooting and knife attacks or ramming cars into crowded market places, Shapiro accuses Israel of a two type of justice. “There is a lack of thorough investigation. At times, it seems Israel has two standards of adherence to rule of law in the West Bank—one for Jews and one for Palestinians,” said Shapiro, ignoring Palestinians ongoing war.
No Arab leader recognizes Israel’s spoils of the 1967 War. Generations of U.N. Mideast diplomacy has been driven by Arabs insistence on getting the land back. But whether Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula in 1979 with former President Jimmy Carter’s Camp David Accords or the Gaza Strip with late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Sept. 12, 2005, Palestinians wage war with Israel. Whether in the Sinai, Gaza Strip or any other place, when Israel exists, terrorists enter. Since Israel’s exit, Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula has become one of the world’s worst terrorist breeding grounds. U.N. officials haven’t caught up with the inescapable reality that Israel can’t and won’t return to the pre-1967 War borders because of new terrorist realities in the Mideast. Expecting Israel to vacate the West Bank, East Jerusalem or Golan Heights is unrealistic, contrary to Israeli and U.S. national security.
Without Israel and all its current territories serving as a seamless security base for the U.S. in the Middle East, national security would be compromised. No U.S. official, let alone an Israeli ambassador, should be admonishing Israel publicly for enforcing its laws within its territories. As long as Palestinians rampage in any Israeli territories, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is within his rights to defend Israeli citizens by whatever means necessary. Since the “intifada” or uprising began Sept. 12, 2015, 26 Israelis have been killed, 289 more wounded in Palestinian attacks. Israeli defense forces have killed 101 attackers, and 59 others, injuring hundreds more. Divided between the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and PLO-controlled West Bank, all Palestinian factions are currently at war with Israel. No U.S. ambassador should criticize Israel for defending its citizens at a time of war.
Netanyahu has made it clear to U.S. officials or PLO’s Abbas that there can be no peace talks in a violent atmosphere. Gaza’s 52-year-old Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, has pledged himself to the destruction of Israel. Differing only in public rhetoric, Abbas is just as committed to destroying Israel as any other Palestinian faction. Pretending he wants a two-state solution, Abbas can’t speak for Hamas that every bit as committed to destroying Israel as ever. U.S. officials, especially President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State John Kerry, haven’t told Abbas that the U.S. won’t tolerate any terrorism against Israel, no matter how it’s framed as “resistance,” “freedom fighting” or anything else. Former President George W. Bush told the late PLO leader Yasser Arafat that the U.S. won’t engage with any terror organization, no matter what its political justifications.
Listening to U.S.-Israeli Amb. Daniel Shapiro criticize Israel’s criminal justice system shows just how bad relations have become under Obama. Shapiro should be warning Palestinians that terrorism on Israeli civilians won’t be tolerated under any circumstances. Whatever Netanyahu has to do to quell violence and restore order is entirely within a sovereign country’s rights. Whatever the Arab, European or U.S. position on Israeli territory, Israel makes no apologies for taking land as buffer zones during at least three wars of annihilation. There’s no rule in the Geneva Convention or any other body that allows the vanquished, who initiated a war, to reclaim spoils from the victor. U.S., EU and U.N. officials must accept Palestinians continue their war of liberation against Israel. Under those circumstances, Israel has only one obligation: To defend itself.
