January 22, 2025: Since 2023 Israel has had one problem after another. For a long time problems never seemed to get solved. That has changed as Lebanon became less of a threat since Israel destroyed Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shia militia that controlled southern Lebanon for decades.

Lebanon and Syria were hostile towards Israel until 2024 when Syria had an unexpected change of government with HST, a former Islamic terrorist group, and its charismatic leader conquering Syria in a week. The Assads, which had been ruling Syria for over fifty years, fled to Russia, along with the remaining Russian troops in Syria. Iranian forces were also expelled.

Iran helped found and long supported Hezbollah. This group dominated southern Lebanon and parts of Syria for decades. In 2024 an Israeli effort to destroy Hezbollah succeeded. This victory took nearly a decade to plan but succeeded. It will take years, if not longer for Hezbollah to be reconstituted. That may not happen because the new HTS government in Syria wants peace with Israel and peace in Lebanon. Israel is still in southern Lebanon rooting out all the elements who want to attack Israel. There is an unusual complication

Lebanon is now a failed state with just a name but no government, or armed forces. The government went bankrupt and the army deserted for lack of pay. There isn’t even enough money for them to agree on a president. The army presently consists of paper soldiers and a few senior officers; the United States contributes money in an effort to pretend Lebanon has an army and government. This also enriches a few people and serves whatever other CIA purposes in need of covert cash.

Lebanese Christian and Sunni militias lack the money to mobilize for the extended effort required to eliminate Hezbollah’s militia forces which the Israelis have not destroyed. Hezbollah is still a problem because unless Israeli forces extend the Israeli border north, Hezbollah’s remnant militias are still there with some undiscovered rockets and missiles.

Another option, which Israel last used decades ago, is for Israel or the Americans to provide money and heavy weapons to Lebanon’s Sunni and Christian militias. These revitalized forces will happily drive Lebanon’s Shia somewhere else. But right now they can’t afford to mobilize for offensive operations and probably lack the heavy weapons. They didn’t have the money to pay those from the disbanding Lebanese army, so those went to Hezbollah. Money is so scarce in Lebanon and the Sunni and Christian leaders would have more rewarding uses for the cash we offer them to destroy Hezbollah.]

There’s no nearby refuge for Hezbollah remnants, which has also lost access to its longtime patron Iran. Often forgotten is the fact that Israel has made peace with some of its neighbors. Egypt and Jordan were the first in 1978 and 1994. Now there are negotiations for peace with a reconstituted Lebanon and Syria. Turkey has long provided sanctuary for Islamic terrorists and other outlawed groups that were driven out of nearby nations. As long as these exiles caused no problems inside Turkey, they were free to plot and scheme all they liked. Turkey also offered the exiles work as mercenaries to fight the Kurds in eastern Turkey plus the Russians and pro-Western factions in Libya.

For a long time Israel has had to deal with the troublesome Arab Fatah government in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza. Since late 2024 Hamas has been trapped in Gaza and the Israeli military is threatening the group with extinction. The only asset Hamas has is dozens of Western and Israeli hostages taken during a late 2023 Hamas offensive out of Gaza towards Israel. That attack failed and Hamas is negotiating a peace deal that will leave the Hamas remnants intact in return for the hostages. The problem with that is that most of the hostages appear to have been killed during the Gaza fighting or murdered by their Hamas captors.

Fatah and Hamas still agree that Israel must be destroyed and Jews expelled from the region before there can be peace. In the meantime, Hamas remnants and Fatah encourage violence against Israelis and Palestinian civilians. Outsiders like the Saudis, European Union and World Bank dismiss or trivialize the realities that Israel faces from Palestinian violence. They also assume that Hamas and Fatah can prevent their radical factions from violently disrupting any outside peace efforts. Some foreign donor nations, especially Moslem nations, are aware of the reality of the situation but keep silent. Contradicting the Saudis, EU and World Bank by pointing out the reality of the situation is ignored. What cannot be ignored by Israel is the growing Palestinian violence.

In 2023 there was more violence in the West Bank that required Israel forces to deal with. At first it was armed Palestinian groups fighting each other for dominance while organizing attacks on Israelis or in Israel itself. This led to a degree of fighting in the West Bank not seen since 2021 and it was feared it could lead to a new Palestinian offensive or intifada. This would be the third one. The first lasted from 1987 to 1993 while the second one was from 2000 to 2005.

Israel defeated all of them and the 2000 Intifada was crushed by 2005. As long as Palestinians had free access to Israel, the Fatah Palestinian government urged and encouraged Palestinians to attempt attacks inside Israel. The Israelis responded with tighter border controls which kept the terrorist threat low in Israel. Fatah insisted they had a right to keep trying to kill Israelis and, for over a decade, Arab and Western nations kept providing aid to the West Bank and Gaza despite the fact that more and more of it was used to support and encourage more terrorism against Israel. Some Palestinian leaders tried to describe the violence as an effort to defend Islam. The Palestinians were not very religious and their violence against Israelis was justified by their belief that Israel must be destroyed and Israelis driven from the region so that Palestinians could fight among themselves undisturbed.

There were other problems, mainly involving corruption. This has led more donor states, Moslem and non-Moslem, to openly complain of Fatah misuse of aid money. Fatah denied it and continued their corrupt ways. The donors cut their aid, often to nothing. It was not just the Fatah support of terrorism but the growing Fatah corruption which meant a lot of the aid was stolen to enrich Fatah leaders. Palestinians also opposed the Fatah policy and Fatah was forced to tolerate more and more Palestinians renouncing terror to pass the background check and work in Israel. West Bank Palestinian jobs in Israel have become a crucial part of the West Bank economy, even more so than they were back in 2000. Palestinians were barred from those jobs for nearly a year after the Hamas October 2023 attacks. Over 100,000 Palestinians depend on those jobs because the 20,000 0r so working in Israel have dependents who are destitute without that income.

The post-2000 ban on Palestinian workers was unpopular with many Israeli employers, but the threat was so great that Israeli employers had to pay more to import and hire non-Moslem foreigners for as long as there was a threat that Palestinian workers were likely to try and kill Israelis. Both Israel and the former or potential Palestinian workers knew that a growing number of those Palestinian workers could be trusted to work in Israel. Those who violated that trust faced prison or worse if they played any part in an attack. Anyone associated with these untrustworthy Palestinians had a more difficult time getting permits to work in Israel. The growth in the number of trustworthy Palestinian workers was something neither Israel nor Fatah wanted to publicize lest the Islamic radicals declare war on Palestinians working or seeking to work in Israel. This might trigger a civil war in the West Bank, something Fatah did not want but the radicals were less opposed to.

There are Palestinian factions that believe chaos in the West Bank would spread to Israel and weaken Israeli power. This is a minority belief that ignores the Israeli ability to organize effective responses to Palestinian violence. Life inside Israel is peaceful. Most Palestinians wish they had a similar situation, and they would be correct if not for the endless supply of radical factions insisting violence is the solution.

West Bank violence between Palestinians and Israelis living in the many Jewish settlements has been on the increase for over a decade. The upsurge in violence is the result of the Palestinian leadership calling for another intifada uprising in 2013. This was a side-effect of the rebellion in Syria and the 2011 Arab Spring revolutions in general. While some Palestinian leaders called for another intifada uprising, most Palestinians, especially those over 30, fear the economic consequences of that and warn the pro-intifada radicals that there is not a lot of popular support for another round of violence. Israel has shown they know how to handle this at little cost to themselves and great cost to the Palestinians.

All this is complicated by persistent American efforts to achieve a negotiated peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The Palestinian peace talks never made much progress. The talks were held at the insistence of the U.S., which threatened to cut aid if the talks did not happen, but kept it going to Fatah regardless of what Fatah did or did not do. American leaders are aware of Palestinian attitudes on peace with Israel but the U.S. still assumes that a peace deal is possible if you keep trying. That’s one definition of insanity, continuing to try and make the same policies work and failing. For years Palestinian leaders have agreed to give peace talks a chance approach when speaking to Western leaders and reporters but they then turn around and tell their followers that, of course, Israel must be destroyed and that there is no other solution.

For most Western leaders the disunity, corruption and general chaos within the Palestinian community is seen as a larger problem than a peace deal. That may be true, but without a positive attitude towards a peace deal, there won’t be any peace. Despite all this, for over a decade many Palestinians have been talking about another Intifada as if more civil disorder will change anything. Peace is not on the agenda. Most Israelis and Americans agree. Even without a new intifada, casual violence in the West Bank kept increasing. This usually takes the form of young men throwing stones at Israeli soldiers or civilians. Israeli women and children are the preferred targets because they are the least likely to shoot back if the rocks begin to inflict injuries. Palestinian propaganda praises those who kill children just as much as those who killed soldiers or police. All are heroes of the Palestinian struggle to destroy Israel. This is becoming embarrassing for some Western nations when it was pointed out that their aid money was being used directly for some of this propaganda.

The disruptive impact of small groups of radicals is a long tradition in the Middle East, especially after Islam was introduced over a thousand years ago. Islam is the only major religion whose scripture mandates continuous violence against non-believers. The Islamic scriptures make it clear that the mere existence of infidels is a threat to Islam and these infidels must be attacked, no matter what the cost. Most Moslems ignore this aspect of their religion, at the risk of being declared a heretic if nearby conservative Moslems decide to get violent and make war on any Infidels within reach.

Many Moslems, including Gulf oil state Arab governments, are openly seeking a way to reform Islam and eliminate this flaw which has been crippling Islam and killing Moslems for over a thousand years. This is a serious effort and one reason for making peace with Israel. The Islamic militants in the regions oppose efforts to give peace a chance.