Mr. Trump: Let's Start with Canceling the Personal Sanctions, and Continue From There

by Shai Alon, Beit El Mayor, translated by Hillel Fendel.

Donald Trump's historic victory in the US elections opens the door for immediate and welcome changes for the half-million-plus Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria (Yesha). Israel must utilize the circumstances and work for complete Israeli sovereignty in Yesha – and for the removal of the baseless personal sanctions the State Department has imposed upon individual Jews there.

Trump's win received two extra underscores with the Republican victory in the Senate, and what appears to be the same in the House of Representatives. For at least the next two years, therefore, until the mid-term House elections, the situation appears very promising.

In his first term, as is known, Trump displayed very strong support for Israel and its interests. He took a series of measures that greatly upgraded Israel's status in its own land and around the world. His recognition of Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and the transfer of the US Embassy to Jerusalem, changed the very ground rules. And the historic Abraham Accords between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain opened the gates for a promising and stable future in the Middle East.

These were not merely symbolic gestures, but full-throated shows of practical support for Israel, in deeds and not only words, that until then had been practically unthinkable.

Unfortunately, Trump was replaced by an outwardly friendly Biden Administration, but which continued, even after Oct. 7^th, to work tirelessly for a two-state solution with our neighbors, Hamas/Fatah, as if nothing had happened.

Now, with Trump's return to the White House for his last four years as President, it is incumbent upon us to know how to open this window of opportunity, for the benefit of the settlement enterprise in Yesha and to strengthen Israel's hold over the entire Land of Israel.

As mentioned, the recent months and years under Biden were not at all simple for Israel. His administration's approach was close to a direct continuation of the confrontational line taken by the Obama regime before Trump's first victory. It will be recalled that Biden was Obama's VP then, and it is a fairly open secret that Obama played a large, behind-the-scenes role in the Biden-Harris administration as well.

The now-outgoing US government's conception of what the Middle East must look like stood many times in stark contrast to Israel's view, interests, and core values – and even many times to the United States' core values. We found ourselves having to deal with foreign pressures not only preventing us from decisively defeating Hamas, but also forcing us to restrict Jewish construction – enacting almost a de facto freeze – in Judea and Samaria.

Sanctions
The Biden Administration even went so far as to impose personal sanctions against individuals and organizations active in Yesha on behalf of the Jewish People. This is a disrespectful and even dictatorial move that represents a blatantly brazen intervention in Israel's internal policies. The sanctions were not even only economic. Their objective was rather to restrict the growth of the Jewish communities and signal the essential American opposition to the existence of more than a half-million Jews in these areas.

The severity of these sanctions is such that the routine lives of the affected Jews became intolerable. The incoming Administration must nullify these sanctions on Day One, in order to assure Israel's sovereignty as an independent country, and to enable the residents of Yesha to continue to build their lives in freedom.

We recall Trump's “Middle East Peace Plan,” also known as the “peace plan of the century,” which was unveiled in early 2020 (just around when the Coronavirus was beginning to make its infamous mark around the world). Now, after what happened outside Gaza on Simchat Torah last year, its vision of a Palestinian state alongside Israel is no longer relevant. Between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea there must be only one sovereign state: the State of Israel!

What we must do now, therefore, is to push full steam ahead to promote and advance the establishment of Israel's sovereignty over every Jewish-populated area in Yesha. After 57 years of living here, it is inconceivable that the Jews are still subservient to military orders issued by the official governor, namely, the IDF Central Command. The IDF's civil administration over Yesha must be abolished, and the Jewish populace here must be a totally integral part of the State of Israel under the law.

With President Trump in office, the matter of security in Yesha can also face historical changes. We cannot overlook the fact of the PA military mechanisms that possess huge amounts of armored vehicles and weapons, which in an instant can turn into a threatening scenario against Israel, as happened in the second intifada - and as we are witnessing these very days in the shooting incidents by PA police officers.

The sense of security here, and the very lives of the residents of Yesha, are in constant danger, and this situation cannot continue. The military bodies of Fatah and of the other terrorist organizations must be disarmed, and the area must be completely cleansed of the many illegal weapons that abound. Only Israeli forces may possess weapons and have security authority in the area.

These are absolutely necessary moves that can only be implemented when President Trump assumes his old-new office. We wish him the best of success!

The Mission: To Avoid the Lebanese Swamp – and Bring Peace

by Maj. (res.) Gilad Ach, Chairman of "Reservists of the Victory Generation" and Director of the Ad Kan organization, translated by Hillel Fendel.

The recipe to do so is straightforward, but requires courage.

After more than a month since the beginning of the IDF's campaign against Hizbullah in Lebanon, anyone who took part in the ground offensive can agree on the following facts:

1.    The enemy was significantly weaker than what we expected. In fact, in most of the villages there was hardly any resistance, and whatever military opposition we encountered was overcome fairly quickly.

2.     Our offensive was east-to-west, not deep into more northern Lebanese territory. We sought to "visit" all the villages that are relatively close to Israel, without going to the second-tier villages.

3.     Actually, these weren't exactly villages. The amount of weapons, tunnels, and anti-tank missiles that we found in every house in the Shiite towns and villages, as well as rocket launching pads directed at Israel from every corner, giving them total control over our northern communities, rendered these "villages" genuine military camps, camouflaged by a "combat supporting" civilian populace.

If the Hizbullah leaders – especially the now-deceased Sheikh Nasrallah – had had the time or the notion to order this tremendous military array to attack Israel, the amount of dead and kidnapped Israelis we could have suffered would likely have been much greater than the numbers we experienced on Simchat Torah a year ago.

4.    Lebanon is, indeed, a poor country – but the plethora of large houses, luxury cars, and private swimming pools that we saw, as well as other indications, attest to the unusual wealth of the Shiite population in southern Lebanon.

5.    The UNIFIL peace-keeping forces and the Lebanese Army are an intrinsic part of the game being played there by Iran. They most certainly saw with their own eyes, or otherwise knew of, the tunnel openings, the tunnel excavations, the launch pads, the mining of the roads, the trucks carrying long-range rockets, the explosive drones, and more and more. They saw and were silent. They saw and cooperated with our enemy.

6.    What Israel owes its Mossad and intelligence community people cannot be expressed in words. The reason why Hizbullah is suffering such great losses now is because of the total state of bedlam and confusion it entered as a result of our ingenious beeper-and-pager attacks, as well as the liquidation of Nasrallah shortly afterwards. Basically, the once-arrogant Hizbullah has turned into a mouse running for its life ever since. It is not even able to arm the charges it itself hid in the fields because it is so busy retreating.

All of these facts lead us to the following simple conclusions:

We must not allow a recurrence of that which we experienced with Hizbullah in the past! We have neither the privilege nor the right to enable Hizbullah to rebuild itself and its monstrous array of threats to northern Israel right over our border!

Yes, there is a national fear of sinking into the "Lebanese swamp." Much of the country is still traumatized by the frequent losses we suffered in the years after the Second Lebanese War.

But in order that we not betray the trust that history has granted us, it is my understanding that we actually have no choice but to quickly execute the following four operations:

1.    We must deepen our ground offensive and take it further north, all the way up to the Litani River. Though it flows mostly north to south, its east-west section flows 10 kilometers north of Tyre, about 30 kilometers north of the border with Israel. We must define the entire area of southern Lebanon from Israel to this section of the Litani as a closed military zone, and as a buffer zone with no residents. It will be enclosed by a fence, which already exists on the existing Israeli-Lebanese border, and IDF outposts will populate the area. This will prevent a ground invasion from Lebanon into Israel, of the catastrophic type we experienced last October 7^th, for many years to come.

2.    We can reach a ceasefire agreement with Lebanon – in exchange for the exile of the entire political echelon of Hizbullah, as well as whatever is left of its military leadership. In addition, all still-living terrorists who engaged in firing long-range rockets at us must be extradited to Israel.

3.    The Christian and Druze leaders in Lebanon must be invited and brought to Israel to speak in the Knesset, and we must help bolster their standing in Lebanon.

4.    With American backing, and as part of the ceasefire agreement, the Lebanese unwritten National Pact that mandates the selection of national leaders according to ethnicity must be abolished. There must also be democratic elections for the Parliament, which will release Lebanon from its Shi'ite-Iranian bear hug. For decades, this system has made Lebanon into a country lacking basic governmental stability. [The present situation is that the president must be a Maronite Christian, the speaker of the Parliament - a Shi'ite Muslim, and the prime minister must be a Sunni Muslim. According to Wikipedia, efforts to alter or abolish this system have been at the center of Lebanese politics for decades. - HF]

These actions are the only ones that can save us from the mistakes we made after the First and Second Lebanese Wars. They can also help save Lebanon from its Iranian captors, and bring quiet to our northern border for many years forward.

We can only hope for, and demand, the necessary courage and maneuverings in the political sphere of the type that have served us so well on the battlefield.