ALL
Why Trump Should Disrupt the Scandalous US-Saudi Relationship
by Elan Journo | May 21, 2017
Trump Should Break the American Tradition of Ignoring Egypt’s Abuse of Its People
by Elan Journo | April 03, 2017
After This Jordanian Criticized ISIS He Was Thrown In Jail Then Murdered
by Elan Journo | November 17, 2016
Understanding the Jihadist Menace
by The Editors | June 16, 2016
We Can’t Beat Jihadists Unless We’re Real About Their Motivations
by Elan Journo | April 21, 2016
The Misunderstood Mullahs
by Elan Journo | March 31, 2016
Iran’s Faux Multiple Personality Disorder
by Elan Journo | August 10, 2015
Paving the Way for a Nuclear Iran
by Elan Journo | July 14, 2015
After 9/11, Lessons Unlearned
by Elan Journo | September 11, 2014
The Israel-Palestinian War
by Elan Journo | July 28, 2014
With or Without Nukes, Iran Is a Mortal Threat
by Elan Journo | November 21, 2013
Twenty Years after Oslo: Where Next for U.S. Policy?
by Elan Journo | September 10, 2013
Islamist Winter
by Elan Journo | Fall/Winter 2013
World Upside Down
by Elan Journo | November 27, 2012
The Islamist Threat: From AfPak to Jyllands-Posten and Times Square
by John David Lewis | September 08, 2011
Upheavals in the Middle East: Assessing the political landscape
by Yaron Brook | September 08, 2011
Iran, Israel and the West
by Elan Journo | September 08, 2011
Our Self-Crippled War
by Elan Journo | September 10, 2009
An Unwinnable War?
by Elan Journo | Fall 2009
Obama Whitewashes Iran
by Elan Journo | March 03, 2009
The Price of Bush’s Commitment to Palestinian Statehood
by Elan Journo | March 28, 2008
How to Stop Iran?
by Elan Journo | June 26, 2007
The “Forward Strategy” for Failure
by Yaron Brook | Spring 2007
Washington’s Make-Believe Policy on Iran
by Elan Journo | February 12, 2007
What Real War Looks Like
by Elan Journo | December 07, 2006
The Jihad on America
by Elan Journo | Fall 2006
Why We Are Losing Hearts and Minds
by Keith Lockitch | September 06, 2006
The Indispensable Condition of Peace
by Onkar Ghate | July 21, 2006
The U.S.-Israeli Suicide Pact
by Elan Journo | July 20, 2006
Washington’s Pro-Hamas Foreign Policy
by Elan Journo | May 17, 2006
Death to “Diplomacy” with Iran
by Elan Journo | October 27, 2005
The Advent of Freedom?
by Onkar Ghate | October 12, 2005
The Perversity of U.S. Backing for the Gaza Retreat
by Elan Journo | August 30, 2005
Bush’s Betrayal of America: The Iraqi Elections
by Elan Journo | February 01, 2005
Arafat’s Undeserved Honor: The West’s Shame
by Elan Journo | November 16, 2004
The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict . . . What Is the Solution?
by Yaron Brook | December 12, 2002
America Is Not Winning the War
by Onkar Ghate | August 29, 2002
Bush’s Vision for Peace: Prelude to War
by Onkar Ghate | July 01, 2002
Israel Has a Moral Right to Its Life
by Yaron Brook | June 24, 2002

MORE FROM THE BLOG:

Foreign Policy in Voice for Reason
Foreign PolicyMiddle East

The U.S.-Israeli Suicide Pact

by Elan Journo | July 20, 2006

The Iran-Hamas-Hezbollah axis is fully responsible for initiating the war on Israel, but the Islamists’ aggression is the logical product of U.S.-Israeli policy. The longstanding commitment of Israel and America to “diplomatic engagement” with Palestinians and Islamists — a euphemism for appeasement — is suicidal.

For decades America has urged Israel to placate and surrender to our common enemy. The U.S.-endorsed “Road Map to Peace,” like the “Peace Process” and sundry initiatives before it, rationalized Palestinian terrorism as the result of a legitimate grievance. If only the Palestinians’ wish for a civilized, peaceful state were fulfilled — Washington deluded itself into believing — terrorism would end. And fulfilling this wish requires not smashing their terrorist infrastructure, but showering them with land and loot.

But the majority of Palestinians actually seek the destruction of Israel, and the slaughter of its people. Because they embrace this vicious goal, hordes of Palestinians idolized arch terrorist Yasser Arafat for waging a terrorist war to wipe out Israel and establish a nationalist dictatorship. They abetted Arafat’s terrorism and celebrated his atrocities. They served as cheerleaders or recruits for terrorist groups — and when they had the chance, they embraced the even more militant religious zealots of Hamas. It is no surprise that, according to a recent poll, 77 percent of Palestinians support their government’s kidnapping of an Israeli soldier and that 60 percent support the continued rocket fire from Gaza into Israel.

But even as Palestinians mounted more attacks, Washington pressed Israel for more concessions — and bolstered the terrorist-sponsoring Palestinian Authority with millions of dollars in aid. The U.S. forbade Israel from laying a finger on Arafat, and extended this tender solicitude to Hamas leaders. Washington actually whitewashed the blood-stained Arafat and his crony Abbas as peace-loving statesmen and invited them to the White House. And when Hezbollah now fires rockets at major cities in northern Israel, President Bush demands that Israel show “restraint.”

Depressingly, Israel has continually relented to American pressure to appease our common enemy. It has prostrated itself before the Palestinians, with flamboyantly self-sacrificial offers of land-for-peace; it has withdrawn from southern Lebanon, ceding ground necessary to its self-defense; it has withdrawn from Gaza, leaving its southern cities at the mercy of rocket fire from the Hamas-run territory.

Such U.S.-endorsed appeasement by Israel, across decades, has enabled Hezbollah and Hamas to mount their current attacks. Yet America remains undeterred in its commitment to appeasement.

The U.S. is now trying to woo Iran with endless offers of economic “incentives,” if only Iran promises to stop chasing nuclear weapons. Evading Iran’s lust to “wipe Israel off the map,” evading its funding of Hezbollah and Hamas, evading its avowed enmity to America, evading its decades of fomenting and orchestrating a proxy terror war against American civilians — evading all of this, Washington deludes itself into believing that paying Iran off will, somehow, wipe out its hostility.

Inevitably, this encourages Iran to continue its aggressive support for terrorists and its fervent quest for nuclear weapons. Merely by prolonging the negotiations endlessly, Iran gains time to acquire a weapon to wield against its neighbors, to provide to Hamas and Hezbollah or to other proxies to use against the United States. And were Iran eventually to accept some deal, American aid would merely be sustaining Iran’s regime — and, inexorably, a covert nuclear program.

We are teaching the Islamic totalitarians in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran that their goal of destroying us is legitimate; that aggression is practical; that the more aggressive they are, the more we will surrender. U.S.-Israeli policy has demonstrated that we lack the intellectual self-confidence to name, let alone condemn, our enemies — and that we lack the will to deal with threats mercilessly. It vindicates the Islamists’ premise that their religious worldview can bring a scientific, technologically advanced West to its knees.

To protect the lives of our citizens, America and Israel must stop evading the nature of the enemy’s cause: our complete destruction. We must stop appeasing our common enemy — and embrace self-defense as a matter of intransigent principle. To put an end to the current rocket attacks from Lebanon and Gaza, America should urge Israel to annihilate the annihilators: Hamas and Hezbollah. And to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambition, America must use as much military force as is necessary to dispose of that catastrophic threat and the regime responsible for it.

About The Author

Elan Journo

Senior Fellow and Vice President of Content Products, Ayn Rand Institute