Thursday ~ TheFrontPageCover

The Front Page Cover
 2016             The truth will set you free 
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Featuring:
The Old Generals' Old Plan
by Caroline Glick
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 The Sovereign States 
When the Founders of our young nation realized that the original governing document, the Articles of Confederation, was insufficient, they began the task of creating a better one. Ultimately, during the process of drafting and ratifying the United States Constitution strong sentiment existed for specific rights to be guaranteed to Americans, and the Bill of Rights was created, consisting of the first 10 amendments to the Constitution.
          As time passed, the strength of most of those first 10 amendments has been weakened, and some — notably the Second — are under constant attack. As our once-limited national government has grown, the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights have diminished.
          The Bill of Rights guarantees such things as freedom of speech and religion, the keeping and bearing of arms, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, and other protections from the natural bent of government toward tyranny.
          The several states, which represented the interests and will of their citizens, created the national government, and the Tenth Amendment emphasized that the states had protection from the acquisition of powers by the national government outside the limits set forth in the Constitution.
          The Tenth Amendment reads, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
          To advocate the new Constitution and its structure known as "federalism," James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay pseudonymously penned a series of essays known as The Federalist Papers. They stressed that under the Constitution's governmental structure, the principle of popular sovereignty would continue, with constitutional protections against the national government trampling on the rights reserved for the states.
          As James Madison explained in Federalist No. 45, "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite."
          More than 230 years later, however, who can argue that the Tenth Amendment's proscription against a power grab by the federal government has actually been respected?
          Arguably, the Environmental Protection Agency is the greatest offender of Tenth Amendment protections, as it writes regulations and rules governing state actions with the force of law that have not been made into law by the Congress.
          Or maybe it is the grossly misnamed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — nObamaCare — that is a law made by Congress, but shoves Uncle Sam over the edge of the big government cliff. Imagine Washington, Jefferson, Madison and the rest of the Founders agreeing that the national government was allowed someday to impose a health care system on the people of the several states, even if it worked as advertised.
          The idea that the federal government has the authority to change the operations of hundreds or thousands of individual insurers and health care providers in 50 different states, each serving its own separate customer base, into a single system controlled by Washington is as anti-Constitution as it gets.
          Other areas of Tenth Amendment abuse are same-sex marriage and abortion, both of which originally were state issues, until the Supreme Court found some way to finagle a national interest in them. Until the Roe v. Wade case of 1973, abortion had been a state issue, but the judicial despots on the High Court ruled that bans on abortion were unconstitutional because they discovered a "right to privacy" in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
          The Constitution also protected state sovereignty by the way Congress was organized. The House of Representatives, frequently referred to as "the people's house," consisted of representatives directly elected by the citizens of the congressional districts. Members of the Senate, on the other hand, were to be elected by the state legislatures, and therefore senators' loyalty was to the government of the state more than to its citizens.
          This protection vanished, however, when the Seventeenth Amendment was ratified in 1913, and now the citizens of the states also elect senators, in addition to representatives. Members of the Senate no longer have any special reason to protect the interests of the sovereignty of the state they represent, and that shifts the governing balance between the states and the federal government toward the federal government.
          The result often is that federal mandates, about which the states themselves have little recourse, not only can and do intrude on state sovereignty, but force states to pay for their implementation, as well.
          Some people think these changes are just fine, such as those who have bought into the scare tactics of the climate change catastrophe gang, those who support abortion on demand and same-sex marriage, and those who generally like big government and have never stopped to think how miserable they may be in the future if this big-government mania isn't stopped.
          There is some good news: States are fighting back against federal overreach. Twenty-four states filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to strike down the EPA's new source performance standards that effectively prohibit the construction of new coal-fired power plants. And 11 states are fighting the nObama administration's transgender mandates.
          If the courts do not support restoration of state sovereignty in these and other issues, the states will have no other choice but to refuse to follow intrusive federal measures. Given the money at play, however, that's not likely to happen as often as it should.
          Thomas Jefferson once explained the critical importance of this issue: "I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, not longer susceptible of any definition." Unfortunately, his warning is now reality.  -The Patriot Post
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 OPINION IN BRIEF 
Thomas Sowell: "Before there can be a welfare state in a democratic country, there must first be a welfare state vision that becomes sufficiently pervasive to allow a welfare state to be created. That vision, in which people are 'entitled' to what others have produced, is at the heart of the social degeneration that can be traced back to the 1960s. Teenage pregnancies, venereal diseases, dependency on government and murder rates were all going down during the much disdained 1950s. All reversed and shot up as the welfare state, and the social vision behind the welfare state, took over in the 1960s. That vision featured non-judgmental rewards and non-judgmental leniency toward counterproductive behavior, whether crime or irresponsible sex and its consequences. But relieving people from the responsibilities and challenges of life is doing them no favor. Nor is it a favor to society at large. American society has become more polarized under the welfare state vision. Nor is it hard to see why. If we are all 'entitled' to benefits, just by being present, why are some entitled to so little while others have so much?"  -The Patriot Post
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Tea-party turncoat turned out in primary
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Rep. Renee Ellmers
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{wnd.com} ~ One-time tea-party heroine Rep. Renee Ellmers, R-N.C., lost her bid for re-election Tuesday, becoming the first GOP congressional incumbent to lose a seat in 2016... Ellmers lost favor with her base after being elected in the 2010 Republican takeover of the U.S. House when she curried favor with the former Speaker John backstabber-Boehner’s leadership team. She lost Tuesday to challenger Rep. George Holding, who previously represented another district. With 64 percent of the precincts reporting, Ellmers was battling for second place with Greg Brannon. Holding held a commanding lead with 50 percent of the vote...Renee was liar-Trump first endorsement.  http://www.wnd.com/2016/06/tea-party-turncoat-turned-out-in-primary/
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Beijing Accuses U.S. of ‘Negative Publicity Campaign’ Over South China Sea Issues
by Sam LaGrone
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Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and General Staff Adm. Sun Jianguo
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{usni.org} ~ Chinese officials took aim at U.S. assertions freedom of navigation rights in the South China Sea were being restricted by Beijing in a terse Monday statement... The defensive statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused “certain countries” of fomenting discord in the region “driven by hidden motives.” “I am afraid the negative publicity campaign on freedom of navigation and over-flight in the South China Sea launched by certain countries is driven by hidden motives,” read the statement from ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying. “By sensationalizing the so-called tensions in the South China Sea, and driving wedges between countries in the region, they are trying to justify their political and military involvement in the South China Sea issue. That is what they really want.”...  https://news.usni.org/2016/06/07/beijing-accuses-u-s-negative-publicity-campaign-south-china-sea-issues?utm_source=USNI+News&utm_campaign=af4054b58f-USNI_NEWS_DAILY&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0dd4a1450b-af4054b58f-231491269&mc_cid=af4054b58f&mc_eid=3999f18767
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Senior State Dept. officer, now Iran deal coordinator, deposed about liar-Clinton email
by Spencer S. Hsu
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{washingtonpost.com} ~ A senior State Department official who oversaw executive operations during liar-Hilly Clinton’s tenure as secretary from 2009 to 2013 told lawyers in a civil lawsuit that he was aware of her private email server... but had no reason to think it was used for government business, according to a transcript released Monday. “Your question is based on the assumption that I knew that someone was conducting government business, and I -- I don’t have a basis to make such a judgment,” Stephen D. Mull, said in a sworn deposition. Mull was executive secretary of the department from June 2010 to 2012 and since September is its lead implementation coordinator for the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal. Mull also told lawyers for the conservative group Judicial Watch that he did not recall informing top liar-Clinton aides in August 2011 that emails sent from a department-issued Blackberry would be subject to public records requests...  https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/senior-state-dept-officer-now-iran-deal-coordinator-deposed-about-clinton-email/2016/06/06/d313e40c-2c19-11e6-b5db-e9bc84a2c8e4_story.html
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Homeland Security Whistleblower:
10 Jarring Revelations
by Ryan Mauro
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{clarionproject.org} A new book by Department of Homeland Security whistleblower Philip Haney, titled See Something Say Nothing, is filled with first-hand testimony that will make your mouth drop... If you read the Clarion Project, then you’re aware of how U.S. governments, Democrats and Republicans, have tried to accommodate Islamism and political correctness. This book shows that it’s even worse than we thought. Here are 10 jarring revelations from DHS whistleblower Philip Haney’s new book:  1. Investigations into Islamist movements like the Tablighi Jamaat and Muslim Brotherhood were stopped by the federal government in the name of religious liberties...
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An ambassador who’s blind to the threats
by ALEX VANNESS
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{familysecuritymatters.org} ~ Apparently, Amb. Stephen D. Mull has been living under a rock for the past decade. Mull is man the nObama administration appointed to implement its nuclear deal with Iran... Iran is a country that has consistently vowed to wipe America's ally Israel off the map.  In fact, Iran is considered, by many, to be the greatest existential threat to the State of Israel. For decades, Iran has threatened to destroy Israel. Just recently, Iran test-fired two ballistic missiles that were marked with the statement "Israel must be wiped off the Earth." Mull showed a stunning level of ignorance towards a threat to the State of Israel last month when, at a recent hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. While being questioned by Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) about letters from the State Department requesting that States revisit and lift laws that divest state funds from Iran, Mull was asked if the State Department would do the same for Israel and send a letter urging States against BDS. Mull then claimed that he was "not sure what that BDS is." How does he not know what BDS is?... http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/an-ambassador-whos-blind-to-the-threats?f=must_reads
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Pakistani liberal to American panel
"You are going to get me killed"
by ANDREW E. HARROD
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{familysecuritymatters.org} ~ "You are going to get me killed...I have got my flight back home," stated Pakistani religious freedom advocate Arafat Mazhar to an audience questioner at an April 20 Georgetown University conference recently made available online... His jarring response emphasized that the conference's examination of Islamic blasphemy norms in Pakistan and the world beyond was no mere academic matter but involves global, often lethal, threats to freedom of speech and religion. Mazhar's statement occurred during the conference's afternoon panel in an exchange with an audience member from Afghanistan studying in America. Mazhar emphasized that his organization Engage Pakistan currently only supports reforming the Islamic Republic of Pakistan's notorious blasphemy laws with theological arguments such that these laws would not have a divine status. Any abolition of these laws, a proposition that has had deadly consequences for Pakistan's Punjab provincial governor Salman Taseer and Federal Minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti, would be a much longer term goal. Just as illuminating and disturbing was Mazhar's Afghan interlocutor who cited a 2015 Afghan incident in which a mob brutally killed a woman accused of burning a Quran. "Had there been a good anti-blasphemy law" with codified standards, he suggested, "she would not have been killed that viciously." On the basis of such conjectured more humane executions he accordingly asked, "Is it a good idea to get rid of the anti-blasphemy law or is it good to have a good law?"... http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/pakistani-liberal-to-american-panel-you-are-going-to-get-me-killed?f=must_reads
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It’s the Server, Stupid
by Shannen W. Coffin
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{weeklystandard.com} ~ The State Department inspector general’s conclusion that liar-Hilly Clinton violated federal records law should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the controversy... The IG report, released in late May, is devastating to liar-Clinton's constantly shifting defenses of her misconduct. And while the inspector general does not opine on the legality of her home-brewed email server under federal criminal law, the report outlines the factual predicate for criminal prosecution. liar-Clinton's defense had long been that her email set-up was "allowed by the State Department." But the inspector general "found no evidence that the Secretary requested or obtained guidance or approval to conduct official business via a personal email account on her private server." And had she sought that approval, it would have been denied. The department's diplomatic security and information resource management offices "did not—and would not—approve her exclusive reliance on a personal email account to conduct Department business, because of the restrictions in the department's policy manual and the security risks in doing so." liar-Clinton's interpretation of governing law and regulations was wrong from the beginning, and the State Department inspector general flatly rejected it. "The requirement to manage and preserve emails containing Federal records has remained consistent since at least 1995," concludes the report. Despite the liar-Clinton camp's insistence that records preservation rules were clarified only after she left office, the IG concludes that "records management requirements have always applied to emails exchanged on personal email accounts," provided those emails reflect the official business of the government...  http://www.weeklystandard.com/its-the-server-stupid/article/2002671?utm_source=newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=JVL+06_07_16
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liar-Hillary’s Russian Reset,
Terrorism, and the Threat to Israel
by Cliff Kincaid
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{aim.org} ~ In her recent foreign policy speech, hailed by the media, former Secretary of State liar-Hilly Clinton said, “If Donald liar-Trump gets his way, they’ll be celebrating in the Kremlin. We cannot let that happen.”... But as veteran correspondent David Satter points out, the celebrations began when Mrs. liar-Clinton launched a “reset” in Russian relations in 2009 that ignored the criminal nature of the regime in Moscow and led to the invasion of Ukraine. “It began as we know with a mistranslation of the word ‘reset’ and I think went downhill from there,” Satter said, referring to her photo-op with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Satter’s new book, The Less You Know, the Better You Sleep, is the result of years of research that has uncovered some of the most closely-held state secrets of the Vladimir Putin regime. Putin came to power “as the result of an act of terror carried out against his own people,” he explained...  http://www.aim.org/aim-column/hillarys-russian-reset-terrorism-and-the-threat-to-israel/
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liar-Hilly is running, but she is also hiding
by Washington Examiner
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{washingtonexaminer.com} ~ The International Business Times requested copies last year of all correspondence between former Secretary of State liar-Hilly Clinton and her aides about the Trans-Pacific Partnership... a controversial trade agreement that she once wholeheartedly supported but has since, for political reasons, disowned. As the Times describes it, the request "was designed to provide a comprehensive view of how involved liar-Clinton and her top aides were in shaping the trade agreement, and whether her agency had a hand in crafting any particular provisions." President nObama's officials originally promised to produce these documents by April this year. But not very surprisingly, it has suddenly decided to keep them under wraps until late November, 489 days after the newspaper's request and a couple of weeks after the general election...  http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/hillary-is-running-but-she-is-also-hiding/article/2593273?utm_campaign=Washington%20Examiner:%20Opinion%20Digest%20PMI&utm_source=Washington%20Examiner:%20Opinion%20Digest%20PMI%20-%2006/08/16&utm_medium=email
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liar-Trump vs. liar-Clinton: America's dreadful choice
by Philip Klein
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{washingtonexaminer.com} ~ There's no avoiding it: Donald liar-Trump and liar-Hilly Clinton are going to be the Republican and Democratic nominees for president, foisting upon Americans the most dreadful choice for the nation's highest office in modern history... liar-Trump and liar-Clinton enter their general election faceoff as the two most unpopular major party nominees in decades of available polling. liar-Clinton, specifically, is viewed unfavorably by about 56 percent of Americans, according to an average of polls compiled by RealClearPolitics, compared with just 37 percent who view her favorably — for a net negative rating of 18 points. In a typical election year, those numbers would be a political death sentence. But this isn't a typical year, and liar-Trump is staring at an even worse net negative rating of 24 points. These numbers imply that come November, millions of people will be casting votes for a candidate they actively despise...  http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-vs.-clinton-americas-dreadful-choice/article/2593304?utm_campaign=Washington%20Examiner:%20Opinion%20Digest%20PMI&utm_source=Washington%20Examiner:%20Opinion%20Digest%20PMI%20-%2006/08/16&utm_medium=email
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The Old Generals' Old Plan
by Caroline Glick
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{truthrevolt.org) ~ The Israeli left is a one-trick pony. As it sees things, all of Israel’s problems – with the Palestinians, with the Arab world, with Europe and with the American Left – can be solved by giving up Judea and Samaria and half of Jerusalem along with Gaza which we gave up already.

Once Israel does this, the Left insists, then the Palestinians, the Arab world, Europe and Bernie Sanders voters will love us as they’ve never loved us before.

The events of the past quarter century have shown the Left’s position to be entirely wrong. Every time Israel has given the Palestinians land, it has become less secure. The Arabs have become more hostile.

The West has become more hostile. The Palestinians have expanded their demands.

Because of their negative experience with the Left’s policy, most Israelis reject it. This is why the Right keeps winning elections.

Given the failure of its plan, the Left could have been expected to abandon it and strike out on a different course. But it didn’t. Instead it has tried to hide its continued allegiance to its failed withdrawal strategy by pretending it is something else.

A central component of the Left’s concealment strategy is its use of former generals.

Over the past quarter century, and particularly since the Palestinians began demonstrating in 2000 that they have no interest in a state living side by side with Israel, the Left has carted out retired generals at regular intervals to proclaim that continued allegiance to the Left’s failed policy of withdrawal is not irrational.

Every couple of years, a new initiative of former generals – often funded by the EU – is published.

Each in turn uses whatever the popular memes of the day may be to repackage their call for withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and the partition of Jerusalem.

The media, itself dominated by the Left, backs these initiatives. The retired war heroes are paraded before the cameras and presented to the public as responsible adults who have grudgingly entered the political fray, despite their aversion to it, because of their patriotism. Just as they heeded the call of duty and led forces in wars of earlier generations, so today, we are told, they heed the call again, in yet another last-ditch effort to save the country.

Just in time for Avigdor Liberman’s swearing in as defense minister, a new group of old generals released a new version of their old, discredited plan.

A group calling itself “Commanders for Israeli Security” has mobilized an impressive roster of 214 generals that have signed on to a new position paper called “Security First: Changing the rules of the game, a plan to improve Israel’s security-diplomatic position.”

The group has a great website replete with a highend web commercial that has been flooding social media feeds for the past several days. The ad shows a person ripping up a “Peace Now” bumper sticker and replacing it with a call for “Security now, peace later.”

Their plan, the ad proclaims, will improve Israel’s security, strengthen its international position, repair the cleavages in Israeli society and set the conditions for future negotiations with the Palestinians.

Unfortunately, like every leftist plan to date, if the generals get their way and the government takes their advice, the results will be precisely the opposite of what they promise. As has been the case with every other well-packaged withdrawal plan, Israel’s security will be harmed. Our international position will be wrecked. Bernie Sanders voters along with the Europeans will expand their devotion to bashing Israel. And the Sunni Arab states that now flock to us will again abandon us.

The generals’ new package involves opening their plan with a hawkish call for continued Israeli security control over Judea and Samaria, until the Palestinians decide to make peace with us.

But as we soon see, that was just throat clearing.

Having established their sober-mindedness, the generals turn to the Left’s unchanging fantasy.

They call for the government to formally relinquish Israel’s sovereign rights over the vast majority of Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem.

They call for the government to permanently stop respecting the property rights of Jews in the areas of Judea and Samaria outside of the security perimeter.

The more than one hundred thousand Jews who live in those areas, they insist, must be denied all right to property, save the right to sell whatever they now own.

They must not be allowed to build anything – no new houses; no new communities; no new infrastructure.

As for the communities inside the perimeter, the generals insist that those should be permitted to continue respecting Jewish property rights, within limits, albeit. For instance, those communities must not be permitted to expand beyond their current construction boundaries. In other words, Jews can build up, but not out.

Jerusalem, which they believe should never have been unified in 1967, should be effectively partitioned.

The generals call for the municipal government to stop administering the city as a unified mixed Jewish and Arab city. Instead, they say, the city should set up a separate governing authority for Arab neighborhoods in eastern, northern and southern Jerusalem. That separate authority should be responsible for all planning and zoning activities in Arab neighborhoods as well as the education system and every other aspect of the daily lives of the Arabs of the city.

Gaza, which has been operating as a Hamas state since 2007, is also brought in from the cold. The generals call for the government to continue to supply Gaza with everything that Hamas demands – water, electricity, employment in Israel, a Hamas-controlled port. They even call for Israel to allow Europe to pay the salaries of Hamas terrorists.

Moreover, the generals recommend that the government announce that Gaza, Judea and Samaria and partitioned Jerusalem are one political entity, despite the fact that they aren’t.

The generals insist that by taking these steps, Israel will prove its devotion to peace and keep the dream of a Palestinian state alive. As a consequence, they say, the Palestinians will be happy and stop trying to murder Israelis. The Arab world will line up to sign peace treaties with Israel. Europe along with Bernie Sanders’ voters will bury the hatchet and embrace Israel.

The problem with the generals’ newest plan and the ones its replaces is that they all ignore basic facts.

There is no Palestinian constituency for peace with Israel. The more Israel offers the Palestinians, the less interested they are in settling.

By announcing that Israel renounces its claims to Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, and treating the Jews east of the 1949 cease-fire lines as second class citizens, the generals will not only widen Israel’s social cleavages. They will tell the Palestinians that they are right to feel contempt for us. The worse they behave, the more we will offer them. The more Jews they murder, the more the Jews will turn against one another.

As for improving Israel’s international position, it is hard to understand why the generals refuse to learn the lessons of the Gaza withdrawal. Despite the fact that Israel uprooted 24 Jewish communities in Gaza and northern Samaria, and removed its military forces from the area, without exception, the international community insists that Israel still “occupies” Gaza. How can the generals expect the world to act more fairly towards a more limited withdrawal plan from Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem? As for Gaza, Operation Protective Edge brought out into the open the fact that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other Arab states support Israel in its war against Hamas. They do so because they fear Islamic State and Iran more than they hate Israel, whose power they trust.

If Israel announces its intention of leaving Judea and Samaria, which the Arabs know will become a Hamas enclave faster than Gaza did, the Arab faith in Israel’s power will diminish. As a consequence, if Israel follows the generals’ advice our relations with the Sunnis will worsen, not improve.

It is a tragedy for Israel that the generals have allowed the Left to use them in this way. Their role in perpetuating Israel’s destructive adherence to the devastating two-state policy model diminishes their past contributions and endangers Israel’s future.
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