The Oslo Disaster 30 Years On

Thirty years after its euphoric launch, the “Oslo peace process” between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) stands as the worst calamity to have afflicted Israelis and Palestinians since the 1948 war, and the most catastrophic strategic blunder in Israel’s history. By replacing Israel’s control of the West Bank and Gaza Palestinians with corrupt and repressive terrorist entities that indoctrinated their subjects with burning hatred of Jews and Israelis, as well as murdered some 2,000 Israelis and rained thousands of rockets and missiles on their population centers, the Oslo process has made the prospects for peace and reconciliation ever more remote. By deflating the fighting spirit and combative ethos of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), it has weakened Israel’s national security and made the outbreak of a multi-front war—a scenario that effectively vanished after the 1973 war—a distinct possibility. By transforming the PLO (and, to a lesser extent, Hamas) into internationally accepted political actors without forcing them to shed their genocidal commitment to the Jewish state’s destruction, it weakened Israel’s international standing and subjected it to sustained de-legitimization campaigns. And by deepening Israel’s internal cleavages and destabilizing its sociopolitical system, it has created a clear and present danger to the Jewish State’s thriving democracy, indeed to its very existence.

Iran’s Lawfare in Europe Normalizes Its Geopolitical Strategy

Iran has shifted away from political assassinations of Ahwazi Arab and Kurdish opposition figures in Europe. It is now trying to normalize its ethnocentric, Khomeinist revolutionary agenda abroad by using lawfare and playing politics. This new approach is a more “diplomatic” and “acceptable” means of asserting hard and soft power, and poses a danger to the prospects for effective US sanctions enforcement.

Twitter Favors Dictator Khamenei over President Trump Against US Interests

Dr. Edy Cohen
June 2, 2020
Paper No. 1593

Twitter, which has spent most of Donald Trump’s presidency avoiding a public stand on his use of the medium, has slapped a “public interest notice” on his tweets about the rioting that is occurring in the US in the wake of the violent death in police custody of a black man, George Floyd. According to Twitter, Trump warranted this notice on the grounds that his tweets violate its rules regarding the glorifying of violence. Yet Twitter has nothing to say about the tweets of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, whose violent posts include hate speech and antisemitism and openly incite rioting and killing. Ted Cruz has called for the launch of a criminal investigation into Twitter’s violation of US sanctions against Iran.

The Ineffectiveness of the FATF

Noah Phillips
May 10, 2020
Paper No. 1557

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recently added Iran to its Black List as a means of increasing pressure on the regime to stop financing terror. While this belated decision was a good move, it is unlikely that it troubled Tehran particularly. Iran has been on the Black List before and been removed from it despite its persistent state sponsorship of terror, which goes back decades. The plenary continues to ignore the terror financing of numerous other states as well as Iran, including Qatar and the Palestinian Authority, rendering its effectiveness minimal.

Terrorism as Power over Death

Opposing terrorism, especially jihadist terror, has become a continuous security obligation of the US, Europe, and of course Israel. Still, too little serious analytic attention has been directed towards identifying remedies for such perils. These remedies should build upon an understanding of terrorism as a tool in the search for personal immortality.

A Corbyn Government Would Be a Terrorist Threat to the Western World

The intense public discussion on anti-Semitism in the UK Labour party has almost entirely overshadowed the problem of the huge risk a Corbyn-led government would represent to the Western world. Corbyn, a terrorist sympathizer, and various problematic associates of his would gain access to intelligence gathered by the British security services. How safe would it then be for other Western countries to continue to share high-level intelligence with their British colleagues?

The Price of Israeli Withdrawal: Lessons from the Past

Prominent politicians still advocate withdrawal from the West Bank. A simple analysis of pertinent basic data that appears in the Shin Bet’s terrorist summary for the year 2006 alone shows that the idea of withdrawal, which would imply the cessation of IDF activity in the area, could be misguided and dangerous.

The Limits of Technological Superiority

There is no technological solution to the problem of kite/balloon terrorism. However decisive it may be, technology in and of itself does not guarantee victory.

The Decreasing Effectiveness of Hamas Terrorism

The downturn in Hamas’s fortunes is not only political but also practical. From the 1990s through the “al-Aqsa intifada,” it made lethal use of suicide terrorism. Its substitutes since then – ballistic, tunnel, and now kite terrorism – are decreasingly effective.

International Law and WMD Attacks on Israel

In the years ahead, Israel could face the growing prospect of WMD terrorism – i.e., attacks involving chemical, biological, or even nuclear weapons. In this connection, it is vital that Israeli officials do their utmost to prevent perfidious enemy manipulations of humanitarian international law. This is especially urgent with regard to enemy use of "human shields," an illegal form of military deception that could be used to deter Israeli retaliation. Perfidy can originate with both state and sub-state foes, and could conceivably involve primitive nuclear devices such as "dirty bombs" (weapons that do not involve genuine chain reactions, but instead attach conventional explosives to fissile materials).