Ya’alon: Israel will defeat wave of terrorism/Saudis and Iran vie in cash tug-‘o-war behind Palestinian terror. US sidelined/Why there is still hope for Israeli-Palestinian peace

Ya’alon to visiting US military chief: Israel will defeat wave of terrorism
YAAKOV LAPPIN/J.Post/10/19/2015
Israel will defeat the latest wave of Palestinian terrorism, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon told the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, on Sunday, adding that Iran is financing terrorist activities in the West Bank in order to ignite the area. Dunford arrived in Israel on Saturday for a visit, which is his first official trip outside of the US since taking up his position on October 1. He met with Ya’alon at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, and discussed strengthening bilateral defense ties, as well as going over strategic regional issues. IDF Chief of Staff Maj.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, who is officially hosting Dunford, also attended the meeting. “We very much value your commitment to Israeli security. The US and Israel share many common values and interests. We view our relationship as strategic, and I would say, as a cornerstone of our national security,” Ya’alon said. Ya’alon praised the close cooperation between Israel’s Defense Ministry and the Pentagon, the two militaries, and ties between the intelligence agencies of both countries.”We believe we must be on the same page regarding all developments in the Middle East,” he said. “The only set thing in the current situation of the Middle East is change, and the only thing that is stable is instability,” the defense minister stated.
As nation states in the region collapse, Israel is witnessing a range of threats linked to the global jihad, like ISIS and Jabhat Al-Nusra, washing up on its doorstep. Organizations supported by Iran are also nearby, he warned. “Iran, unfortunately, is the instigator and contributor of instability in the Middle East. We do not have a border or a territorial dispute with Iran, but the Iranian regime subverts us and does not intend to change its spots. It will continue being the chief instigator of terrorism in the region.” Iran is seeking to set up terrorist bases against Israel from the Syrian Golan, and one can find Iranian fighter prints in every place where there is terrorism in the Middle East. They are striving for regional hegemony and exporting their revolution, Ya’alon said. Israel has in recent weeks faced a new wave of terrorism perpetrated by Palestinian youths who are under the influence of incitement, and go out stabbing Israelis, Ya’alon said. Israel is combating this threat with all of its capabilities in order to defeat it, “as we have done in the past… I believe that we will win,” he added. Ya’alon rejected criticism that the government is merely safeguarding the status quo in the conflict with the Palestinians, adding that Israel seeks progress in a multiple areas. General Dunford said that it was his first visit outside of the US in his current role. He acknowledged the diplomatic ups and downs in “the family” between Washington and Jerusalem.
But military ties remain strong, he asserted, and will continue to be close. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff echoed Ya’alon’s statement that the US and Israel will overcome security challenges. He added that Ya’alon’s familiarity with regional challenges were better than his own, which is one of the reasons he came to Israel, “to listen to the [IDF] chief of staff, to you, and to the IDF commanders, because I know that you have the perspective that is very important to us. It will help us ensure that we are acting in the most effective manner.” Meanwhile, Israel’s Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer said on Sunday that Israel and the United States have resumed talks on future defense aid that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suspended in protest of the Iran nuclear deal. He added that Yaalon, visiting Washington later this month, would pursue those talks, as would Netanyahu when he meets US President Barack Obama in the White House on November 9.
“Israel hopes that the discussions we are now engaged in will culminate in a long-term agreement that will dramatically upgrade Israel’s ability to defend itself by itself against any threat and enable Israel to address the enormous challenges we now face in the region,” Dermer said in a Facebook post.
The allies had been looking to agree on a 10-year aid package to extend the current US grants to Israel worth $3 billion annually, which are due to expire in 2017. But Netanyahu froze negotiations ahead of the July deal reached between Iran and world powers, which Israel deems insufficiently stringent.
“With the nuclear deal now moving ahead, Israel is also moving ahead, hoping to forge a common policy with the United States to address the continuing dangers posed by Iran,” Dermer said. “Discussions over a new Memorandum of Understanding between Israel and the United States, which had been on hold for some time, resumed this past week in Washington,” he said, using a term for the defense-aid agreement. Before the suspension, the two sides were close to a new package of grants worth $3.6 billion to $3.7 billion a year, US and Israeli officials have said. They have predicted that the amount could rise further as Israel argues that it needs more aid to off-set a likely windfall for Iran in sanctions relief which might be used to finance anti-Israel guerrillas.
*Reuters contributed to this report.

Saudis and Iran vie in cash tug-‘o-war behind Palestinian terror. US sidelined
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report October 19/15
The wave of Palestinian terror plaguing Israel in the last two weeks is in fact being quietly tossed back and forth by two opposing external forces, debkafile’s intelligence sources reveal: Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are laying out large wads of cash to various Palestinian groups, especially the Fatah’s Tanzim militia, to stay out of the terror offensive. The money is channeled through Israel and Jordan, which also provide intelligence on which groups are worth financing to counter the efforts of Tehran and Beirut to keep the violent flames high. Israeli and Jordanian government and security officialdom at the highest levels are working hard to remove bureaucratic obstacles and keep the money flowing in the right direction. Along with aid, Iran and Hizballah are sending directives to the Palestinian recipients on how and when to jump the terror offensive from one stage to the next. For instance, Saturday morning, Oct. 17, following Israel’s partial success in slowing the flood of Palestinian knife attacks, Hamas media instructed terror activists to switch from stabbing attacks to running people down with vehicles, as a more effective way of killing larger numbers. The backstage cash contest between the Saudi-UAE partners and the Iranian-Hizballah duo is strongly determining the course of the Palestinian terror offensive, with the effect of sidelining Washington and further disempowering Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
The Obama administration had in any case given up on leverage to sway these events by declining to ask Tehran to restrain extremist Palestinian violence. That was part of the price exacted from Israel for its failed fight to stop Obama obtaining a nuclear accord with Iran. Hence, Washington’s even-handed comments which so incensed Jerusalem this week, when Secretary John Kerry linked the outbreak of violence to “massive settlement building” and the State Department referred to Israel’s resort to “excessive force.”Still, President Obama and Kerry Friday, Oct. 16 backtracked up to a point after being taxed with unprecedented heat by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and charged with utterances that could be construed as support for terrorism. Obama and Kerry then turned around and leaked to mainstream media negative innuendo about over-the-top Israeli actions for reining in terror. One report, for instance, noted that “both sides have traded blame about who is responsible for the spate of violence;” others highlighted the deaths of Palestinian terrorists and vindicated their violence.
Israel’s international reputation undoubtedly suffers from this stratagem, while at the same time, it contributes nothing construcive toward solving the crisis.
Mahmoud Abbas, even if he for once dispensed with prior conditions for a meeting with Netanyahu, has even less to contribute. His influence on the Palestinian street is at rock bottom, even after his stuttering support for the ongoing Palestinian “Al Aqsa struggle.” His presence in Ramallah is ignored by the two Arab governments working to stifle Palestinian terror. They prefer to go directly to Jordan’s King Abdullah and Netanyahu and leave him in the cold. The stakes of the contest between Saudi Arabia Jordan and the UAE, on the one hand, and Iran and Hizballah, on the other, are high indeed – not just for the security of Israel but also of Jordan as well as its stability, if radicalized Palestinians are not subdued quickly. The Obama administration’s policy of disengagement from the burning conflicts of the region and its lost points in Jerusalem have left the US empty-handed for taking any hand in the current Israel-Palestinian crisis of terror. It’s just as well that the government in Jerusalem entertains no illusions about anything useful coming out of from Netanyahu’s encounter with Kerry in Berlin next Wednesday, Oct. 21.

Breaking the mold: Why there is still hope for Israeli-Palestinian peace
Ben-Dror Yemini/Ynetnews/October 19/15
Op-ed: The fact that there is currently no partner on the other side does not mean we should lose hope. Anyone who belittles the role or the importance of the international community does not understand the world we currently live in, and that they themselves are in fact helping the anti-Israel campaign.
There are no magic solutions. No easy fixes. We are talking about a chronic condition that involves periodic outbreaks. There is no need to panic – Israel is the strong side, and usually the right side as well. Every wave of violence hurts the Palestinians much more than it hurts Israelis.
They could have thrived. They could have chosen a path of reconciliation. But their history is full of mistakes that have taken them from catastrophe to catastrophe. They insist on not learning the lessons of the past. Once it was the Nazi Mufti, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, who led them to the Nakba. Today, it is Hamas and Raed Salah who are leading them down a similar path. A path that includes more incitement, more hate, and more bloodshed. Thousands of Jews paid with their lives so that Israel could overcome difficulties and become a strong, successful, and thriving state. But at the end of every wave of violence, Israel somehow becomes even stronger. The Israel that emerged from the first intifada was much stronger than the country that entered the conflict.The Israel of 2005, after the intifada, became stronger than that of 1995. And the Israel of 2015 is stronger than it was in 2005. And what happened to the Palestinians? They have become weaker. During the two decades that followed the War of Independence in 1948, Arab regimes ruled in Gaza and the West Bank. They didn’t establish a state, and did nothing for themselves.
They never held Al-Aqsa as their primary source of joy and pride. The mosque was of marginal importance and physical disrepair, like it had been during most of the Islamic history. But then Israel came into the picture, and Al-Aqsa blossomed under occupation. It’s true; it’s not nice to say it, because its “colonialist,” but the occupation has mostly done the Palestinians good. Without it, they would have remained under oppressive Egyptian and Jordanian regimes. This doesn’t mean the occupation is good. At the moment it is bad for Israel. It serves as a weapon against Israel. But what about the Palestinians? The day Israel ends its occupation, there will be a greater chance that the Palestinians will become “Southern Syria,” as they once requested, and a site of bloody conflict between rival faction, rather than a center of growth and success. There is no point in being addicted to fantasies; peace is not on the horizon. The Palestinians are unable to find peace in and among themselves, and are divided between two entities, and further divided into factions that typically communicate through the use of weapons. So how can we possibly make peace with them? Let’s assume that Netanyahu offers up the Clinton plan, the Geneva outlines, or the Olmert plan – and I can only hope he would – but the reply is known in advance. We have seen signs of change here and there, with Palestinians who agreed to fair solutions, without a mass-scale right of return, but they have always recanted in the end.
But does that mean we should lose hope? Does that mean that there is no way out? Far from it.
The fact that the left is wrong does not make the right wing correct. Smart and serious people such as Amos Yadlin, Prof. Shlomo Avinri, Giora Island and others have brought forward new proposals that are not buried in the left’s fantasies or the right wing’s hallucinations. The proposals involved an Israeli willingness to compromise, and steps that would lead to division, and reduced points of friction, without giving up security control. All in order to prevent the West Bank from turning into the Gaza Strip. The fact that there is currently no partner on the other side does not mean we should lose hope. Ben-Gurion’s wisdom was that he always, always extended his hand in peace. Israel must prove to the world that it wants peace. Anyone who belittles the role or the importance of the international community does not understand the world we currently live in, and that they themselves are in fact helping the anti-Israel campaign.
The moment Israel claims that EU funding is paying for the Palestinian Authority’s incitement to terror, people listen, but when it authorizes four illegal outposts to house hooligans and troublemakers at the same time, no one takes its claim’s seriously. It’s true that the Palestinians have rejected “two states for two peoples.” It’s also true that incitement has engulfed Palestinian society, and that at the end of the day they want one big state. But does this mean that Israel needs to fall into their trap? The right is correct in its assumption that a Palestinian state may soon thereafter turn into a jihadist Hamas state. But a Palestinian state is a distant vision. The fact that Israel has to offer it doesn’t mean that they want it. In any case, Israel will demand, and rightfully so, security measures and international support, to prevent the establishment of a terror state