Accusing the state of Israel of displacing and “killing a great many” number of people, the collective of hackers known as ‘Anonymous’ posted a characteristically ominous video message late Thursday evening, vowing to launch a crusade “against [Israel's] reign of terror.”  The threat comes in the wake of ongoing cyber warfare between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli hackers.

To the government of the state of Israel.  We are Anonymous.  For too long we have tolerated your crimes against humanity and allowed your sins to go unpunished.  Through the use of media deception and political bribery, you have amassed the sympathies of many.  You claim to be democratic, yet in reality, this is far from the truth.  In fact, your only goal is to better the lives of a select few while carelessly trampling the liberties of the masses.  We see through the propaganda that you circulate through the mainstream media and lobby through the political establishment.

Your Zionist bigotry has displaced and killed a great many. As the world weeps you laugh while planning your next attack.  All of this is done under the veil of peace, but so long as your regime exists, peace shall be hindered. You label all who refuse to comply with your superstitious demands as anti-Semitic and have taken steps to ensure a nuclear holocaust. You are unworthy to exist in your current form and will therefore face the wrath of Anonymous. Your empire lacks legitimacy and because of this, you must govern behind a curtain of deceit.  We will not allow you to attack a sovereign country based upon a campaign of lies. Your grip over humanity will weaken and man will be closer to freedom. But before this is accomplished, the people of this world will rise against you and renounce you and all your worth.

Our crusade against your reign of terror shall commence in three steps.

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Universally, democracy is being exalted.

Everywhere one turns, one hears of its virtues: how democracy ensures human rights, fosters prosperity and shepherds in modernity.

Yet democracy represents nothing more than the tyranny of the majority.  In other words, contrary to the ideals of western liberalism, democracy does not ensure that the smallest minority, the individual is protected.

In the vast majority of circumstances, people free to choose their government get the government they desire.  In Russia, the people have chosen again and again to elect KGB criminals.  In Gaza, the people have chosen to elect either Hamas or Fatah, terrorist parties in perpetual war.  Democracy does not a free society ensure.

Democracy is merely a system of election – it is not inherently good as its results are entirely predicated on the voters themselves.  Freedom-loving peoples will generally establish a political system to protect freedom.  Those who prefer strict rule will devise a political order that squelches it.

I would argue that any Islamic society will refuse to establish a system grounded in property rights, individual liberty and free market principles because it is completely anathema to Islamic culture, history and religious tenets.

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“Since you, Mr. President and you, the members of the American administration, believe in this (a two-state solution), it is your duty to call for the steps in order to reach the solution and impose the solution (emphasis added) — impose it!“ demanded Fatah and PA Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a speech to leaders of Fatah just last week. “But don’t tell me it’s a vital national strategic American interest … and then not do anything,” he continued.

And so there you have it. Washington’s tongue lashing of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Administration’s breath-taking statements that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is endangering the lives of American troops seems to represent a fundamental shift in America’s strategic thinking.  Abbas’s demand will undoubtedly be remembered as the first of what will most assuredly be a chorus of international support for President Obama’s newly emerging, Mideast policy…a conference at which the terms of peace will be crafted by the United States and imposed on Israel and a new state of Palestine. Over sixty years of Arab intransigence are finally paying off.

And so, we see another ill-fated peace conference on the horizon. Certainly, there have been many American-sponsored peace conferences (both direct and indirect) before.  There was the shuttle diplomacy of the Nixon Administration during which Secretary of State Henry Kissinger shuttled back and forth between Israeli leaders and Arab leaders.  The very dedicated and hard-working Dennis Ross found himself on the same merry-go-round during the Clinton years. Those were known as proximity talks (sound familiar?).  No Arab official or Palestinian leader would sit at the same table with an Israeli representative. The idea was to secure enough concessions from Israel to coax an actual face-to-face meeting into reality.

Then, of course, there was the first Camp David conference, which was made possible by Anwar Sadat’s readiness to permanently end Egypt’s long- standing, state-of-war with Israel in return for Israel returning to Egypt the Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had captured in the 1967 six-day war and retained following the so-called Yom Kippur War of 1973.  Sadat, a courageous and honorable soldier and statesman, was assassinated for his bravery …for his willingness to bring to an end the long-standing, state- of-war between Egypt and Israel.  No Arab or Palestinian leader has since been willing to enter into any agreement with Israel if such an agreement required a clear statement that the Israeli-Palestinian dispute would then be resolved and that no further demands were to be made by either party against the other. The Madrid conference brokered by President George H.W. Bush, the Wye River conferences brokered by President Clinton, the second Camp David conference and the failed Annapolis peace conference sponsored by President George W. Bush, all failures because peace, permanent peace, was never on the Arab agenda…not then, and not now.

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The first foreboding came during President Obama’s inaugural address when he announced to the Muslim world, “…we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect…we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”  Who can quarrel with such a goal? But with the benefit of 15 months of hindsight, those words were an early warning signal to Israel the sole steadfast American ally in the region surrounded by Muslim nations essentially sworn to its destruction.

There was also, of course, the much heralded Cairo speech which was loaded with good-sounding, even pseudo-historic, platitudinous remarks but which lacked the one statement that mattered…that both sides agree to enter peace talks, the publically avowed purpose of which would be to reach a settlement that would end the Israel-Palestinian dispute once and for all, a settlement that would mean no new demands directed by one party against the other.

Israel has been paraded, often reluctantly, to center stage by a succession of American Administrations to perform much like a dancing bear for a variety of Presidents who wanted to add “peacemaker” to their legacy and who demanded of Israel a succession of concessions each of which was called a “confidence building measure” to show the Arab nations Israel’s good faith intentions.

Since its inception as a Jewish state in 1948, the only one by the way, effectively created by the United Nations (many of the remainder of which being creations of British map drawing after World War I), Israel has been the only true democracy and a steadfast ally of the United States.  It has enjoyed the support, in varying degrees, of American governments from Truman through Bush, including even Jimmy Carter while he was president.

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I was invited to speak on 21st century missile threats and defenses at the recent 7th annual Jerusalem Conference, 2010, held at the Regency Hotel on Mt. Scopus, in the city of David, but I was pleased as well to hear a wide variety of experts (speeches are delivered in English and Hebrew with convenient wireless earphone translation headsets).

This gathering is rooted in historic Zionism, the meaning of the land of Israel, and the spiritual meaning of Jerusalem. Many Israeli statesman and American political leaders come to address current security crises, as well as existential questions ever-present for the Jewish state still facing war.

The Palestinian Front

On the Palestinian front, many now believe that the idea of a small PLO state within the 1967 borders, to include Gaza, major parts of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, has lost its appeal within Araby.

Radical Islamism, unrealistic expectations, and daily incitement against Israel in mosques, the media, and madrassas, have all added up to another era of Palestinian intransigence and irredentism.

Unfortunately, the drive for Palestinian independence has not been equated with responsible state building leading to the kind of sovereignty that would help the Palestinian people themselves.

Palestinians universally wish to cast Israel off their shoulders, but this does not mean they support a fair division of land, or a desire to live in peaceful coexistence with a Jewish state in the middle east.

Israeli journalist and commentator Ehud Ya’ari stated that the Palestinians have now fully collapsed into the unwilling arms of the Israelis, and that Israel must urgently solve the seemingly unsolvable.

Israel is today faced with a reverse annexation: It is the Palestinians who have decided to annex Israel, because Israel did not annex them first.

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