Capturing the MidEast in short soundbites: poignant
reflections by people who understand the complexities of the Middle East. My philosophy is: "less is more."
You won't agree with everything that's here, but I'm confident you will find it interesting!
Excepting the titles, my own comments are minimal. Instead I rely on news sources to string together what I hope is an interesting, politically challenging, non-partisan, non-ideological narrative.
As new protests were planned in Tehran, unsuccessful presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi has asked backers to go to local mosques to pay tribute to those killed in the protests. Within a culture steeped in the Shiite Muslim mystique of martyrdom, each death may motivate rather than discourage activists.
Perhaps more perilous for the authorities is the possibility that some soldiers, security officials and Revolutionary Guardsmen might refuse orders to fire on protesters. "I would never do it," said Hossein, 23, a member of the security forces who said he and many of his friends at the military base where he serves support the marchers. (Los Angeles Times)
This time, analysts say, the government will have trouble bringing about a swift end to the demonstrations in the same way it had shut down previous eruptions.
First, there is the sheer size of these demonstrations, with protests that are not limited to students, but cut across generations and economic classes.
Finally, there has been a critical shift in alliances. In the earlier uprisings, it was basically the reformists calling for change, opposed by both the religious hard-liners and the more pragmatic conservatives. This time, the pragmatists and the reformists have joined forces against the hard-liners, analysts said. (New York Times) *
Iran's leaders failed to halt a second day of huge demonstrations against last week's election results. Reformist politicians said they would accept only a new election... (New York Times)
Mossad chief Meir Dagan told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the riots in Iran over the election results will die out in a few days rather than escalate into a revolution.
The Mossad believe[s] that Iran [will] have its first nuclear bomb ready for action in 2014, "if the project continues at the present rate and is not interrupted." (Ha'aretz)
[T]he elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has effected a silent coup d'etat. Iran has evolved from a theocratic state to a military dictatorship. (New York Times) *
Former President Jimmy Carter visited Gaza Tuesday, territory that the Palestinians had turned into a rocket-launching pad after the Israelis ceded it for self-rule.
He proclaimed that Palestinians there are being "treated more like animals than human beings."
There was a reason Israel staged strikes against Gaza last year. In fact, 7,000 reasons: missiles Hamas lobbed before Israel had to defend itself. And there's an excellent reason Israel imposes tight security on Gaza: suicide bombings sponsored by the Hamas terrorists who run the place. Carter didn't mention those. (New York Daily News)
Hundreds of thousands of opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defied an Interior Ministry ban and streamed into central Tehran to cheer their pro-reform leader [pictured above with grey shirt in crowd] in his first public appearance since elections that he alleges were marred by fraud. Gunfire from a compound used by pro-government militia killed one demonstrator.
The outpouring - swelling as more poured from buildings and side streets - followed a decision by Iran's most powerful figure for an investigation into the vote-rigging allegations.
[A]n Associated Press photographer saw one person shot and killed and several others who appeared to be seriously wounded in the square. The gunfire came from volunteer militia linked to Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard.
The chanting crowd - many wearing the trademark green color of Mousavi's campaign - was more than five miles long, was estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands. The prospect of spiraling protests and clashes is the ultimate nightmare for the Islamic establishment, [who] risks having dissidents directly target the ruling theocracy.
Overnight, police and militia stormed the campus at the city's biggest university, ransacking dormitories and arresting dozens of students. Tehran University was the site of serious clashes against student-led protests in 1999 and is one of the nerve centers of the pro-reform movement. [Jerusalem Post] *
Benjamin Netanyahu [pictured above] placed the spotlight squarely on [t]he root of the conflict: the Palestinians' refusal to recognize Jewish history, Jewish sovereignty and the Jewish people's right to a state in the Land of Israel. (Ha'aretz)
Prime Minister Netanyahu['s] address [to] the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University:
In order to bring an end to the conflict, we must give an honest answer to the question: What is the root of the conflict? And the simple truth is that the root of the conflict was, and remains, the refusal to recognize the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own, in their historic homeland. Palestinians must clearly and unambiguously recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people.
Many good people have told us that withdrawal from territories is the key to peace with the Palestinians. Well, we withdrew. But the fact is that every withdrawal was met with massive waves of terror, by suicide bombers and thousands of missiles. We evacuated every last inch of the Gaza Strip, we uprooted tens of settlements and evicted thousands of Israelis from their homes, and in response, we received a hail of missiles on our cities, towns and children. The claim that territorial withdrawals will bring peace with the Palestinians, or at least advance peace, has up until now not stood the test of reality.
The connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel has lasted for more than 3,500 years. The right of the Jewish people to a state in the Land of Israel does not derive from the catastrophes that have plagued our people.
There are those who say that if the Holocaust had not occurred, the State of Israel would never have been established. But I say that if the State of Israel had been established earlier, the Holocaust would not have occurred.
[W]e have no intention of building new settlements. But there is a need to enable the residents to live normal lives. The settlers are not the enemies of peace. Rather, they are an integral part of our people, a principled, pioneering and Zionist public. (Prime Minister's Office)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel could accept a peace agreement with a "demilitarized Palestinian state" as its neighbor.
Netanyahu set conditions for moving forward: unequivocal Palestinian recognition of Israel as the Jewish national state with Jerusalem as its capital, and full demilitarization for a Palestinian state - no army, no rockets or missiles, no control of airspace. (CNN) *
According to the authorities, Ahmadinejad received 63 percent of the vote, Mir-Hossein Mousavi 35 percent...
Ahmadinejad symbolizes the rejection of Barack Obama's overtures to Iran and, as such, his selection represents a slap in the face of the American president's policies. Ahmadinejad also determines the social mores, which he has tightened to the point of rebellion, assuring that his subject population grows more alienated from the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Supporters of the opposition candidates have not accepted the results, leading to riots in Tehran. Yesterday's sham election may be a turning point, the moment when the much-suffering population found its collective voice against the regime. It bears noting in this regard that the Iranian population in 1978-79 mounted what was perhaps the largest-scale rebellion ever against a government. It could do so again. [DanielPipes.org]
Obama has said he will try to engage Iran, regardless of the election results. Now Obama will be making his outreach to a regime that a wide swath of Iranians believe stole the election. (Boston Globe)
By declaring incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei conveyed a clear message to the West: Iran is digging in on its nuclear program...
The U.S. should condemn the election and back the Iranian people's demand for a free and fair revote under the supervision of international observers. Iranian society is watching to see how the free world reacts. (Washington Post)
The Iranian state news agency announced that Ahmadinejad had won by a vast margin just two hours after the polls closed. The timing provoked deep suspicion because the authorities have never before announced election results until the following morning.
Ahmadinejad was said to have won by large margins even in his opponents' hometowns. (New York Times)
Scarcely had polling ended than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's cronies declared him the winner.
They gave him nearly two-thirds of the vote and claimed that the main challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, lost heavily even in his own village.
The crackdown began instantly. Mobile phone and text messaging systems were taken down so the opposition could not organize. Baton-wielding security forces flooded onto the streets as the regime showed how evil it is. All protests were ruthlessly suppressed.
On the surface everything will gradually revert to the status quo ante, but below the surface a lot will have changed. Millions more Iranians will now seriously question the legitimacy of the regime. (Times-UK) *
George Mitchell's marching orders from Obama [are] disturbing. Unlike previous presidential envoys who have come to Israel every few weeks and then disappeared when reality proved stronger than their peace fantasies, Obama has ordered Mitchell to cast reality to the seven winds and set up a permanent forward command post in Jerusalem directly subordinate to the White House.
In Obama's view, Israel's fears can be dealt with, and a Middle East peace wrought through a US takeover of Israel's security and its military and intelligence operations. To this end, according to last Friday's Yediot Aharonot, the [US] administration is building an apparatus designed to prevent Israel from exercising independent judgments about its tactical and strategic challenges and deny it the ability to secure its interests without US involvement and consent.
Mitchell has appointed four deputies - all known for their open sympathy for the Palestinians and their hostility to the Netanyahu government...[who] will be permanently stationed in Jerusalem in a large office suite that will house Mitchell's operation.
Each officer will be assigned to coordinate with Israeli counterparts in mirror organizations, including the IDF, the Shin Beit, the Mossad, the police and every other relevant Israeli body. Since there is no polite way for Israel to reject this effective US bid to subvert its capacity to make independent decisions, the most urgent dilemma the Netanyahu government must solve is how to handle Mitchell's new supreme headquarters in Jerusalem.
The [US] administration is building its supreme headquarters in Jerusalem to enable Mitchell to act like a colonial governor and confront the unruly Jewish natives - not to cut a deal with us.
On Tuesday [Netanyahu] devoted a full four hours of his schedule to talks with Mitchell and his aides. While understandable, Netanyahu's willingness to humor Mitchell is a recipe for disaster. Netanyahu cannot allow Mitchell to tie him or his ministers down for hours in fruitless discussions about Obama's peace fantasies. Bluntly stated, Israel's prime minister has better things to do with his time. Moreover, Netanyahu cannot debase his office by subordinating his schedule to the whims of a mere presidential envoy.
To this end, in his policy speech Sunday, Netanyahu should announce that in the interests of fostering cooperation with the US and advancing prospects for peace, he is appointing a special prime ministerial envoy to Obama's special presidential envoy Mitchell. This envoy should be charged with handling all contacts with Mitchell and his staff and reporting all of their suggestions to Netanyahu for his consideration.
Only by neutralizing Mitchell will Netanyahu [be] free to contend with Iran [and] Israel's national interests… [Jerusalem Post] *
International Atomic Energy Agency documents revealed that Iran decided in 1987 to purchase the centrifuges it is using to enrich uranium during the tenure of Mir Hossein Mousavi [pictured above], the opposition leader running against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (Ha'aretz)
Senior Israeli defense officials stress that the outcome of the Iranian elections on Friday is unlikely to have any impact on Tehran's continued race toward nuclear power. If elected, Mir Hossein Mousavi, may succeed in "laundering" the program in a dialogue with the U.S. Some officials are concerned that Iran will be allowed to build and operate nuclear reactors. This would put the Islamic republic a turn of the dial on the centrifuges, and mere months away from an atomic bomb. (Jerusalem Post)
Is the Iranian presidential election today a festival of freedom or a cover for theocracy?
Iran's election presents the voters with candidates [that] have been carefully screened to exclude anyone opposed to the ruling clerical establishment; each is part of the Islamic Revolution's old guard.
Voting in Iran is a contrivance for settling certain policy disputes and personal rivalries within the ruling elite.
A victory by Ahmadinejad's main challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, is more likely to change Western policy toward Iran than to change Iran's own conduct. (New York Times) *
Whatever the outcome of Iran's presidential election tomorrow, negotiations will not soon -- if ever -- put an end to its nuclear threat.
Many argue that Israeli military action will cause Iranians to rally in support of the mullahs' regime and plunge the region into political chaos. To the contrary, a strike accompanied by effective public diplomacy could well turn Iran's diverse population against an oppressive regime. Most of the Arab world's leaders would welcome Israel solving the Iran nuclear problem, although they certainly won't say so publicly and will rhetorically embrace Iran if Israel strikes.
Although there is no profit now in complaining that Israel should have struck during the Bush years, the missed opportunity is palpable. For the remainder of Mr. Obama's term, uncertainty about his administration's support for Israel will continue to dog Israeli governments and complicate their calculations. Iran will see that as well, and play it for all it's worth.
Mr. Bolton is the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad" (Simon & Schuster, 2007). [The Wall Street Journal] *
I came to Lebanon on Sunday to watch the Lebanese hold their national election. It was indeed free and fair — not like the pretend election you are about to see in Iran, where only candidates approved by the Supreme Leader can run.
No, in Lebanon it was the real deal, and the results were fascinating: President Barack Obama defeated President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. O.K., I know. Neither man was on the ballot, but there’s no question whose vision won here.
I watched the voting at a school. People came by car, by wheelchair, by foot — young, old and sick. One very elderly lady walked in, hooked up to a small oxygen tank. By God, she was going to vote.
[A] solid majority of Lebanese — Muslims, Christians and Druse — voted for the coalition led bySaad Hariri[pictured above], the son of the slain Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri. [Hariri] sees Lebanon’s future as a state independent of Syrian and Iranian influence and committed to pluralism, modern education, a modern economy and a progressive outlook. Saad Hariri, with 71 out of 128 seats in Parliament, is likely to be the next prime minister.
While the Lebanese deserve 95 percent of the credit for this election, 5 percent goes to two U.S. presidents. As more than one Lebanese whispered to me: Without George Bush standing up to the Syrians in 2005 — and forcing them to get out of Lebanon after the Hariri killing — this free election would not have happened. Mr. Bush helped create the space. Power matters. Mr. Obama helped stir the hope. Words also matter.
Alas, Lebanon is still far from having a stable government; his cabinet will have to include Hezbollah [which] remains a powerful, armed force. [New York Times] [Note: Rafik Hariri, Saad's father, was assasinated, probably by Syrian and/or Hezbollah operatives] *
A six-foot long robotsnake with a camera and microphone in its head is the IDF's latest battlefield weapon. [M]ilitary researchers studied real snakes to copy their movements.
[C]hannel 2 TV [in Israel] showed video of the snake twisting into caves, tunnels, cracks and buildings, broadcasting pictures and sound back to a soldier controlling it with a laptop computer. (AP/Jerusalem Post) *
"Ahmed and Salim", a provocative animated web series that uses very dark humor to describe the life of the two sons of an Arab arch-terrorist, is becoming increasingly popular with surfers, while at same time stirring much controversy.
The series was created by two Israelis, Or Paz and Tom Trager, who define it as "a sitcom about terrorists." Six four-minute episodes of "Ahmed and Salim" have already been uploaded to the internet.
In an episode, which was taken off YouTube following complaints by shocked surfers, the father dreams he has become a "stinking Jewish rabbi," and his sons do what they were taught to do when encountering a Jew and shoot him in the testicles.
Over half a million surfers have already watched the first episode. The other episodes boast lower, yet also impressive figures.
Paz and Trager hope to eventually be able to turn the series into a television production, but admit that so far no one has made them an offer to this effect.
"We don't really care… if people get hurt. Frankly it even makes us happy, because it means we did a good job," they concluded. [YnetNews] *
Netanyahu's confidants have said that the prime minister believes that Obama wants a confrontation with Israel, based on Obama's speech in Cairo last week.
In Netanyahu's opinion, the Americans believe an open controversy with Israel would serve the Obama administration's main objective of improving U.S. relations with the Arab world, the aides say.
In his speech, Obama called for a "new beginning" in relations between America and Islam, and spoke at length about the Israeli-Arab conflict. [Haaretz]
As one looks out from Rimonim [see above photo], a Jewish settlement in the heart of the West Bank, the most telling fact is what one does not see.
Over the miles of rolling hills, there is not an Arab village, building, home or even a herd of sheep to be seen. The scene is the same at other Jewish settlements as well. Palestinian propaganda has for years purveyed the myth of Israeli settlements choking Palestinian communities the way residential developments have encroached upon rural America. Yet, in reality, nothing like this exists in the largely unsettled expanses of the West Bank.
Israeli settlements - mostly bedroom communities of Jerusalem or Tel Aviv - occupy less than 3% of the West Bank. More than 98% of Palestinians already live under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, and there is no shortage of land there for Palestinian expansion. (Baltimore Sun) *
Obama and his advisers seem to think there will be no political price to pay for [confronting Israel].
Obama's decision to personally confront Netanyahu on settlements, his decision to avoid Israel during his tour of the Middle East, and a National Public Radio interview in which he described his policy as merely being "honest" which invoked the specter of an "even-handed" approach to the conflict, all ought to worry friends of Israel.
Obama's camp believes the loyalty of Jews to the Democratic Party and its very popular leader may outweigh affection for the Jewish state.
[But] there is another factor that could focus [American Jews] on opposing Obama's stand: Iran's drive for nuclear weapons and the existential threat such weapons would pose to Israel.
Obama's insistence on picking a fight with Israel over settlements rather than prioritizing the menace from Iran, is puzzling. [M]ore concessions on settlements are unlikely to advance the peace process with a toothless Palestinian Authority or its Hamas rivals. It is as if Obama has decided that pressure aimed at ousting Netanyahu, who was elected in February, is more important than confronting the ayatollahs in Teheran, even if it means the latter will almost certainly be granted the time to advance their nuclear ambitions.
Can such a policy be what the majority of American Jews who voted for Obama were expecting? Will they reward an administration that pursues such a reckless policy with continued high levels of support? [Jersualem Post] *
Just after US President Barack Obama's landmark address in Cairo, the dispute between Washington and Jerusalem over settlement construction ratcheted up a notch.
Israeli officials rejected a statement by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dismissing Israeli assertions that the Bush administration had agreed to allow construction in the settlements to allow for natural growth.
"If they did occur, which, of course, people say they did, they did not become part of the official position of the United States government," Clinton told reporters.
Israeli officials are contending that the US is backtracking on previous understandings which were vital to Israel supporting both the Gaza disengagement, and the road map. [Jerusalem Post] *
President Obama's choice of Egypt as the site of his address to the Muslim world endeared him to Egyptians, who are always proud to host a foreigner and show off their history. When he sprinkled his speech with words from the Koran and balanced support for Israel with a strong call for a Palestinian state, the deal was closed. The appreciation for the new approach from a U.S. president seemed widespread among Middle Eastern Muslims after the speech. (Washington Post)
For many Muslims, the medium was the message: that a president would come to a major Muslim capital to address Muslims directly and that this president, with his compelling personal biography, would make a special effort to talk to Muslim youth - these are likely to be the most lasting impressions.
The speech was notable for its often manufactured parallelism between blemishes in Muslim societies and blemishes in America and the West. This parallelism was perhaps most artificial in the president's discussion of the contours of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
While no impartial observer can dispute the hardship of Palestinian life, it runs counter to history to suggest that Palestinians have "suffered in pursuit of a homeland," when, since 1937, Palestinian leaders have rejected no fewer than six proposals to achieve just that goal.
America can now rightfully expect to hear and see what Muslims leaders and peoples say and do in response. (Washington Institute for Near East Policy)
It is not undeniable that the Palestinians "have suffered in pursuit of a homeland" because it is untrue.
The Palestinians have been offered a homeland repeatedly – in 1936, 1947, 2000 and last year. They have repeatedly turned it down. The Arabs could have created it between 1948 and 1967, when the West Bank and Gaza were occupied by Jordan and Egypt. They chose not to do so. They could have created it after 1967, when Israel offered the land to them in return for peace with Israel. They refused the offer. The Palestinians have suffered because they have tried for six decades to destroy the Jews’ homeland.
What other aggressors in the world are described as suffering “the pain of dislocation” caused by their own aggression -- which has continued for sixty years without remission and shows no sign of ending?
[H]e repeated that the settlements undermine peace and so had to stop. But they don’t undermine peace. It is Arab rejectionism that prevents peace in the Middle East, and the settlements are a palpable excuse. Yet Obama delivered no ultimatum of any kind to Iran, the real threat to peace in the region and the world; indeed, he repeated that Iran “should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” an alarming indication that he might view as acceptable a formulation which might enable Iran to continue to make nuclear weapons under some kind of verbal and political camouflage.
[I]n conclusion, yes, there was some positive stuff in this speech – but it was outweighed by the President's disturbing sanitising of Islamist supremacism.
Should Obama have summarized the real - as opposed to the air-brushed - history? Probably not. His point wasn't to settle historical accounts but to put the best face forward to the Muslim world.
I thought he did an effective job of making America's case to the Muslim world. No question: He is a more effective salesman than his predecessor was.
Which doesn't mean that his audience will buy the message. (Commentary) *
Astutely invoking his own personal Muslim background, and wrapping his challenge in words of appreciation for Islam as a potential force for tolerance, President Barack Obama nonetheless spoke harsh truths to the Muslim world in Cairo on Thursday. And he was applauded.
Offering, and demanding, a new beginning in relations between Islam and the West, he appealed to a respect for human life, which he said was common to all faiths but which he stressed Muslim radicals have come to disregard. "We will... relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security. Because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject: the killing of innocent men, women and children," he said. And he was applauded.
[O]ne way to measure the achievement this speech constituted is to ask whether his predecessor could have conceived it, delivered it and been cheered for it. The answer, three times, is no.
It was good to hear him make clear that the Arab League peace initiative was "an important beginning but not the end of [Arab states'] responsibilities," and to urge the Arab world "to recognize Israel's legitimacy" and stop using the Arab-Israeli conflict as a pretext "to distract the people of Arab nations from other problems."
Less encouraging was the strikingly brief portion of his speech devoted to Iran. "When it comes to nuclear weapons, we have reached a decisive point," he said, promisingly. But in choosing to continue by asserting Iran's right to "access peaceful nuclear power," he offered no reassurance to Arab regimes panicked by Teheran's drive to the bomb, and absolutely no reassurance to Israel.
Obama used his platform, too, to insist that "Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed." And, seconds later, he repeated and elaborated: "It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered."
He said this without including a parallel criticism of Israel's military response to such killing. He said this to a Muslim audience in Cairo.
Where he, terribly, missed a vital opportunity from Israel's point of view, however, was in legitimizing our Jewish nation-state solely on the basis of our people's persecution through the centuries, which "culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust."
Yes, of course, denying the Holocaust is "baseless, ignorant and hateful." And yes, "threatening Israel with destruction" does indeed serve "to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve."
But our rights in this land are not predicated solely, or even primarily, on the tragedies that have befallen us during our history in exile. Those rights relate, rather, to the fact that we were in exile - from this land, this historic Jewish homeland. This is the only place on earth where the Jews have ever been sovereign, the place we never willingly left, the place to which we always prayed to return.
The culminating tragedy of the Holocaust occurred only because we had been denied that rightful homeland. Six million Jewish lives were lost because that legitimacy was not internationally internalized in time. This president, in that place, should have emphasized the point - stressed the physical root of our legitimacy to a Muslim world, and especially a Palestinian populace, that overwhelmingly refuses to acknowledge it. [Jerusalem Post] *
President Obama called for a "new beginning" between the West and the Muslim world Thursday in Cairo, saying there is more to unite than divide two civilizations that have been in fierce conflict for decades.
Highlighting his own Muslim roots and embracing Islamic culture, President Obama defined himself as the linchpin between the West and Islamic world. (FOX News) [Full text of speech]
[S]ome analysts question whether Abbas has the clout to cut a deal that will be accepted by most Palestinians. They reckon Obama is betting on the wrong horse.
Some argue that Obama is making a huge blunder in trying to construct an ambitious new Middle Eastern peace edifice with a Palestinian partner who cannot deliver... [JTA]
The notion that Israeli steps stopping natural growth in the settlement blocs will turn the Muslim world around is an illusion. Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to dismantle 80% of the settlements, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dismantled all the settlements in Gaza. Yet none of these significant steps regarding settlements produced any moderation or concessions on the Arab or Palestinian side. The writer is national director of the Anti-Defamation League. (CBS News)
A Netanyahu-Barak government sends a message to the world, and to Washington above all. It says: Don’t imagine you can push Israel into dangerous concessions by driving a wedge between Israel’s right and left.
During Benjamin Netanyahu’s first prime ministership, from 1996 to 1998, the Clinton administration treated Netanyahu as an irritating and temporary obstacle to its peacemaking plans. He was to be bullied as long as he held office—and pushed aside for a more amenable replacement as soon as possible.
The Clinton administration got its wish. Netanyahu was replaced by Ehud Barak, who showed himself to be the most ambitious peacemaker in Israel’s history. Barak offered up the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, even an acknowledgement of a Palestinian “right of return.”
For a brief, dizzy moment, it seemed the deal would happen: the Palestinians would get their state, Arafat his tomb in Jerusalem, Bill Clinton his Nobel Peace Prize and Israel…well, it was never certain what Israel would get. Peace? No, not very likely. But maybe a respite before the next round of demands.
Of course, it all went wrong. Arafat declined to sign, the Palestinians launched a second intifada, Israel invaded the West Bank, the separation fence was erected, Gaza was evacuated then invaded again, and here we all are. A small cottage industry has emerged in the West to argue that the Palestinians did not really walk away in 2000. Or that if they did walk away, they were entitled to walk away. Or even if they were not entitled, they should nonetheless get yet another chance.
Some people will believe this. Some people will believe anything. But comparatively few people in Israel believe it. As Israelis of almost all ideological points of view agree, the most arresting change in their country’s politics since 2001 has been the disappearance of what used to be called “the peace camp.” [Moment Magazine] *
Cling to one thought as you work on your greatly anticipated speech to the Muslim world Thursday in Cairo, Mr. President:
There is no American solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict that you can heroically deliver from on high. It would be pleasing to your hosts to suggest a made-in-the-USA plan for the Middle East. Some of your aides believe this is a special moment that can end the region's Sixty Years' War if you intervene forcefully enough. But that neglects history and the internal logic of the conflict.
Your own face-off with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu two weeks ago suggested that you hoped to bring a West Bank settlement freeze to the Cairo masses and a global Muslim audience this week.
Netanyahu pushed back by ruling out unilateral gestures, insisting that Israel, the Palestinians and moderate Arab states move simultaneously. The settlements cannot be treated in isolation or used as trophies with which to win Arab favor. (Washington Post)
In an interview President Obama said: "I think that we have to retain a constant belief in the possibilities of negotiations that will lead to peace." (National Public Radio)
When American decision-makers denigrate [previous] painful Israeli sacrifices, when they disregard the commitments of their predecessors, they are not fostering peace. Rather, they're giving mainstream Israelis cause to fear making further sacrifices. (Jerusalem Post) *
The annual Salute to Israel Parade attracted a huge crowd this weekend. The parade also attracted a handful of pro-Palestinian extremists. One sign reads "May God send the mushroom cloud from the sky." Another reads "Close Guantanamo Bay. Reopen Auschwitz" [Hat tip: IsraellyCool.com]
Mithal al-Alusi [pictured above], a Sunni Arab, has become the country's chief advocate for liberal values including a free market, free press, religious pluralism, cooperation among democracies in fighting terror, and human—including women's—rights.
Trouble started for Alusi in September 2004 when he traveled to Israel to attend a counterterrorism conference at the Institute for the Study of Counterterrorism (ICT) in Herzliya. Alusi explain[ed] that normalized relations between Iraq and Israel are in the self-interest of Iraqis. "Israel," he said, "is a modern state and an important part of the Middle East."
Upon his return, the Iraqi Interim Government stripped him of both his government position and security protection... Then, on February 8, 2005, terrorists murdered his two sons, Ayman, 30, and Gamal, 22...
Minutes after the attack, he told reporters, "Even if these terrorists try to kill me again, peace is the only solution. Peace with Israel is the only solution for Iraq. Peace with everybody, but no peace for the terrorists."
In the spring of 2006, as militiamen targeted progressives across the country, he attended women's rights rallies in Baghdad. "They are brave women," he said at the time. "To meet a few hundred Iraqi women these days who will stand [up] for their rights...it is very difficult. [H]ow long can they face the extremists without support?"
Alusi's boldness has paid off. On November 24, 2008, Iraq's Federal Supreme Court, the highest court in the nation, ruled in his favor, maintaining it was no longer a crime for Iraqis to travel, including to Israel.
After he returned to his Baghdad headquarters, hundreds of supporters greeted him openly, a scene that would never have occurred under Saddam. Alusi cites many Iraqis' increased willingness to openly express their support for him as a hopeful sign.
"The Iraqi street is free," he says. [Middle East Quarterly] *
As President Obama prepares to head to the Middle East this week, administration officials are debating how to toughen their stance against any expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
The measures under discussion include stepping back from America’s near-uniform support for Israel in the United Nations if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel does not agree to a settlement freeze, administration officials said.
Other measures include refraining from the instant Security Council veto of United Nations resolutions that Israel opposes and making use of Mr. Obama’s bully pulpit to criticize the settlements, officials said.
Mr. Obama is to give a much-anticipated speech to the Muslim world from Egypt on Thursday. “There are things that could get the attention of the Israeli public,” a senior administration official said, touching on the widespread belief within the administration that any Israeli prime minister risks political peril if the Israeli electorate views him as endangering the country’s relationship with the United States. [New York Times]
The idea of stopping all construction in all settlements means that once again the Israelis will be ceding something in advance and for nothing in return.
This is a destructive negotiating tactic and will encourage the same kind of intransigence - you give me, I take - that has marked the Palestinians in all of the talks.
Telling the Israelis that they can't build another house in all of the settlements means that no one can marry and no one can have children and no one can add a room to the house. This is not diplomacy; it is the smothering of ordinary life. (New Republic) *
Senior Israeli officials were dismissive and defiant, following Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's visit to Washington, highlighted by a report in which PA officials said the leadership is waiting for US pressure to bring down the Netanyahu government.
The report in [the] Washington Post, came a day after Abbas's White House meeting with US President Barack Obama. "It will take a couple of years" for this American pressure to force Netanyahu from office, the Washington Post quoted one of Abbas's officials as saying...
Setting out what the newspaper called "a hardline position," the Palestinian leader conditioned a resumption of talks with Israel on Netanyahu's agreement to a halt in all settlement building and formal Israeli government acceptance of Palestinian statehood. Abbas was quoted as saying. "Until then, we can't talk to anyone."
Abbas "rejects the notion that he should make any comparable concession - such as recognizing Israel as a Jewish state...
"What's interesting about Abbas's hardline position," wrote the Washington Post's Jackson Diehl, "is what it says about the message that Obama's first Middle East steps have sent to Palestinians and Arab governments."
While the Bush administration placed the onus for change in the Middle East on the Palestinians, Diehl wrote, the Obama administration had shifted the focus to Israel. The upshot is that "in the Obama administration, so far, it's easy being Palestinian," Diehl wrote. [Jerusalem Post] *
Elite anti-terror police commandos killed Abd el-Majid Dudin, police announced. Dudin was a Hamas armed wing leader in the West Bank and was the brain behind a series of deadly terror attacks in Israel.
Dudin was a fugitive for 14 years. He masterminded, among other attacks, an attack on a public bus in Jerusalem and a similar attack in Ramat Gan.
The police commandos, acting in cooperation with the IDF's Yehuda Brigade, arrived in the village of Dura. When they reached the house where Dudin was hiding, he opened fire at the forces. During the fire exchange Dudin suffered a gun wound and was killed. None of the Israeli troops were hurt in the gun battle. [Jerusalem Post] *
The Palestinians teach their people that no Jewish kingdom ever existed in the land they call Palestine, and that there was never a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
For most Palestinians, these are "facts" learned in school and taken for granted. This is not merely an "alternative narrative." This false story helps explain the Palestinian refusal to make peace, because so long as Palestinians think the Jews were never here before, they will see Jews as a foreign colonial implant with no claim to the land. Modern Israel's claim depends on the Jews' historic connection to the territory. Without this history, the Jews would indeed be foreign invaders, not a people returning home.
Denial of the Jews' connection to the land is much more important than Holocaust denial. Israel's claim to the land has nothing to do with the Holocaust. The international decision that Palestine should be a Jewish homeland was made by the League of Nations a generation before the Holocaust.
Israeli diplomats should call on the U.S. to end the Palestinians' denial of history. There are plenty of Muslim sources that can be used to teach the facts. (Jerusalem Post) *
Loudly castigating and threatening North Korea and then failing to implement sanctions is worse than doing nothing at all. It will only embolden Pyongyang and send a dangerous message to others - Iran is surely watching - about the fecklessness of the major powers. (New York Times) *
North Korea's second bomb test last week might also have been Iran's first. [T]he only thing between Iran and a bomb is a long-range cargo plane. (Wall Street Journal) *
Benny Morris's new book, One State, Two States, says that Arab rejectionism is so profound a force that only the terminally obtuse could believe that Palestinians will ever acquiesce to a state comprised solely of the West Bank and Gaza.
Morris sees the culprit as the implacable fanaticism of Arab Islamists, who are unwilling to accept a Jewish national presence in what is thought of as Arab land, a position that hasn't changed since 1920. Subsequent events that seemingly contradict this - most notably the PLO's ostensible recognition of Israel in 1988 - have been staged for the benefit of gullible Westerners, Morris writes. (New York Times)
The Palestinians are surely entitled to govern themselves. However, if the West Bank is not to be turned into one giant terrorist base, part of the solution will have to be a credible way to ensure that the two states will live in "security and peace" with each other. (TPM Cafe) *
Assumption: "Egypt and Jordan want to see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolved."
Reality is different. As long as the conflict exists, Egypt has the ultimate excuse for all domestic troubles. For the Jordanians, a neighboring Palestinian state - likely under Hamas' rule - would mark the end of the Hashemite Kingdom.
Assumption: "A final-status agreement would bring stability and security to the region."
The exact opposite is true. There is no chance that the small and divided Palestinian state would be viable. The frustration created by such a situation, and with Israel being stripped of "defensible borders," is an obvious foundation for instability.
Assumption: "Progress on the Palestinian front is vital in order to enlist the support of Arab states against Iran."
Arab states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia have a supreme interest in curbing Iran, irrespective of the Palestinian issue. (Ynet News) *
The Palestinian Authority is once again using Western aid money to proclaim that killing Israeli woman and children is heroic.
The PA chose to name its latest computer center "after the martyr Dalal Mughrabi," who led the 1978 bus hijacking that killed 37 civilians, 12 of them children, including American photographer Gail Rubin.
The new center is funded by Mahmoud Abbas' office, Al-Ayyam newspaper reported. U.S. law prohibits the funding of Palestinian structures that use any portion of their budget to promote terror or honor terrorists.
Last summer the PA sponsored "the Dalal Mughrabi football championship" for kids, and a "summer camp named for martyr Dalal Mughrabi," Al-Hayat al-Jadida reported. (Jerusalem Post) *
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejected a Western proposal for it to "freeze" its nuclear work in return for no new sanctions and ruled out any talks with major powers on the issue. His comments are likely to further disappoint the U.S. administration which is seeking to engage Iran diplomatically.
Ahmadinejad proposed a debate with Obama at the UN "regarding the roots of world problems," but he made clear that "Our talks will only be in the framework of cooperation for managing global issues and nothing else....The nuclear issue is a finished issue for us." (Reuters-Washington Post)
Iran has sent six warships into international waters and the Gulf of Aden in a move security experts are calling a "muscle flexing" show of defiance following missile tests last week.
Foreign policy experts are calling it an aggressive move targeted at a Western audience and regional powers like rival Saudi Arabia. Jim Phillips, senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Heritage Institute, said Ahmadinejad was using the opportunity to thumb his nose at the U.S. and UN to advance his own popularity in Iran ahead of the country's June 12 election. (FOX News) *
The Obama administration is pressing the Israeli government to halt the expansion of Jewish settlements, seeking a visible symbol that might inspire Arab states to consider normalizing relations with Jerusalem. But the administration's effort has been complicated by an unwritten agreement on the issue between Israel and the U.S. reached during the Bush administration.
While in Washington, Prime Minister Netanyahu argued that Israel already dismantled settlements in the Gaza Strip, going beyond the Roadmap, and was rewarded with the takeover of Gaza by Hamas and hundreds of rockets raining on Israeli towns, Israeli sources said.
Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev said there are no plans for a full settlement freeze. "The issue of settlements is a final status issue, and until there are final status arrangements, it would not be fair to kill normal life inside existing communities," he said.
Regev said the Israeli government is relying on "understandings" between former president George W. Bush and former prime minister Ariel Sharon that some of the larger settlements in the West Bank would ultimately become part of Israel, codified in a letter that Bush gave to Sharon in 2004.
In an interview with the Washington Post last year, Sharon aide Dov Weissglas said that in 2005 the Bush administration arrived at a secret agreement that Israel could add homes in settlements it expected to keep, as long as the construction was dictated by market demand, not subsidies. Elliott Abrams, a former deputy national security adviser who negotiated the arrangement with Weissglas, confirmed the deal in an interview last week. (Washington Post)
Defense Minister Ehud Barak [pictured above], chairman of the [dovish] Labor party, told the cabinet:
"There cannot be a situation whereby a father of two who bought a 54-square-meter home and then decides to expand his family will be forbidden from adding two rooms due to an injunction relayed by the U.S. This makes no sense." (Ynet News)
[A]fter meeting Obama, Netanyahu said it was particularly ingenuous for the world to demand that Israel freeze settlements, while giving the Palestinians a pass on their major obligation to uproot the terrorist infrastructure.
If the world expected Israeli concessions on settlements, it would have to ensure that the Palestinians fulfilled their part of the Roadmap, including uprooting the terrorist infrastructure - something that right now seems impossible, considering Hamas' control of Gaza.
Fix that, Netanyahu is saying, and then talk to Jerusalem about a settlement freeze. Indeed, Uzi Arad, a top Netanyahu aide intimated as much when he responded to a question about what confidence-building measures Israel would make toward the Palestinians. His reply: "What confidence-building measures are they willing to undertake?" (Jerusalem Post) *
