Turning point for Iran?
His arm out-thrust, Ali Khamenei, Iran's paramount leader, told thousands of Friday worshipers at Teheran University that post-election unrest in his country was traceable to the machinations of the evil Zionist-owned media and the BBC Persian-language service.
Iran's June 12 elections, the ayatollah declared, were pure, honest - epic even. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's triumph was a political earthquake for Iran's enemies, but a celebration for its friends. As the multitude chanted, "Death to Israel," Khamenei indignantly declared that "the Islamic Republic would not cheat, and would not betray the vote of the people." How, he asked, could 11 million votes be stolen?
Clumsily, it would appear. State television has been airing confessions of plotters purportedly paid to destabilize the regime.
Apologists for the regime said Iran's elections were meaningful even if all the candidates had been handpicked. It turns out, however, that they were far more meaningful than the regime had intended.
Whatever his original intentions, Mir Hossein Mousavi now represents something bigger than a "soft" alternative to Ahmadinejad. His ascendency would most likely be a good thing for Iran and the world, even if no one really understands the intentions of the powerful counter-elite behind him. In challenging Khamenei after he sanctified the election results, these counter-elites are exposing a serious split in the political system, undermining its legitimacy. They might still want to reform, rather than overturn the system. But the people may have their own ideas.
No one knows if there is any turning back after Mousavi put out the word that his followers should hold a general strike in case of his arrest. Plainly, the regime hopes that tear gas and bullets will dampen down the protesters' fervor. We shall see.
TRYING TO understand what's really happening inside Iran's leadership elite recalls the difficulties encountered by Kremlinologists endeavoring to decipher the inner workings of the Soviet politburo. Can it be that Khamenei, having initially sanctioned his presidential challenge, took a second look at Mousavi and saw the image of Mikhail Gorbachev, someone who would "reform" the Islamic Revolution beyond recognition - and therefore chose the safer path of Ahmadinejad? Khamenei was said to fear that a Mousavi victory would mean loss of control over the nomenklatura - the most influential jobs in the country.
Even Israeli intelligence appears somewhat at a loss. Mossad chief Meir Dagan predicted that the anti-Ahmadinejad protests would fizzle out before the weekend. In fact, at least 13 protesters were killed in clashes on Saturday; demonstrations were continuing yesterday, and popular sentiment had escalated into blatant, opposition to the entire regime.
(Dagan also reportedly predicted that Iran would not have an atom bomb to hurl at Israel until 2014 - significantly later than other Israeli forecasts. What he didn't say is that Iran could achieve the very same, worrying capabilities as North Korea - detonating an underground nuclear device - far, far sooner.)
Given its geography, resources and culture, Iran will remain a regional player no matter what. But when all this is over, will it still be a patron of Hizbullah and Hamas; the state champion of Islamic extremism, and the prime demonizer of Israel?
PRESIDENT BARACK Obama came into office pledging to rectify the dysfunctional Iranian-US relationship. But Iran's post-election turmoil may have upended his plans to do business with Khamenei. He must now be wondering what good it would do to negotiate with a leadership so brazen as to steal an already rigged "election."
Over the weekend, Obama warned the regime that the world was watching, and urged it "to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people." But for all his declared commitment in Cairo to reform and democracy, Obama has refrained from overt support of the courageous Iranian citizenry protesting - and dying - for precisely these things.
If Iranians prove ready to persist, their terrible sacrifices notwithstanding, the US and EU will have little choice but to press for new, internationally monitored elections - and, if this demand goes unanswered, to hold out the possibility of "de-recognizing" the regime.
That would place Iran in the same position as Ukraine in 2004, during the Orange Revolution. That regime was isolated and, ultimately, forced from power.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Iran as seen from Jerusalem - Monday
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Gilad Shalit, the Red Cross and what we can expect from the international community
Litmus test
Hamas is practically throwing itself at Barack Obama, viewing him as more "sensitive" than his predecessors. Ahmed Yussef, the movement's coquettish liaison to the West, said this week the Islamists will "do anything" for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Well, not quite anything.
Unlike the PLO, Hamas will not support a two-state solution. Apart from that, its stance is indistinguishable from Mahmoud Abbas's. Hamas and the PLO agree that Israel must withdraw to the 1949 Armistice Lines; and that Israel must grant four million or so descendants of the 650,000 Palestinian Arab refugees from Israel's War of Independence the right to "return" to Israel proper.
Where they part company is over what to offer Israel. Abbas proposes accepting Israel's existence; Hamas offers a period of extended "quiet." Neither acknowledges any Jewish civilizational connection to this land, both seeing us as temporary interlopers.
Hamas is following in the footsteps of the Palestinian National Council, the PLO's ruling body, which on June 9, 1974 adopted a plank - known as the "phased plan" - which authorized Palestinian leaders to take custody of "any territory from which the occupation withdraws."
Like the PLO, when it was shedding its image of absolute rejectionism, Hamas is making inroads toward greater international acceptability.
On Monday, EU foreign ministers, led by France, steered clear of reiterating the Quartet's principles - that Hamas forswear violence, recognize Israel and accept previous PLO agreements with Israel.
And on Tuesday, former US president Jimmy Carter was in Gaza claiming to be carrying a message from Obama. Flanked by American and Palestinian flags, he held a news conference with Ismail Haniyeh during which the Hamas premier received Carter's backing for lifting the "siege" of Gaza. Israel was treating Gazans "more like animals than human beings," the ex-president lamented. Turning the Quartet's principles on their head, Carter told The New York Times that "first of all, Hamas has to be accepted by the international community as a legitimate player... and that is what I am trying to do today." Carter said he was shattered by what Israel had done to Gaza with warplanes "made in my country."
The Obama administration is, reportedly, also leaning hard on Israel to lift the blockade, which limits the type of supplies permitted into the Strip - cement and iron, for instance, which have civilian and military uses. The US and EU are confident of international monitors effectively guaranteeing that Hamas does not use these materials for its war machine; experience suggests the confidence is sadly misplaced.
Israel routinely channels in tons of food and commodities - even cash to keep the local economy afloat. Yesterday, it allowed in 115 truckloads of aid and commercial goods.
Clearly, this kind of "siege" won't break Hamas. So the Netanyahu government needs to rethink whether the security and deterrence benefits of our limp-wristed blockade are worth the diplomatic costs.
ISRAEL has demonstrated innumerable goodwill measures in the West Bank to "help Abu Mazen." But the claim that capitulating to Hamas in Gaza, out of exasperation over their intransigence, will facilitate the prospects of genuine peace is unconvincing.
Gaza is a test case for what Israelis can expect should Hamas win next January's tentatively scheduled Palestinian elections. The lesson so far is that the Islamists are apt to choose belligerency over coexistence, even if it causes their own people to suffer; and that the international community will side with the Palestinians on the grounds that the people should not be punished for the policies of its elected leaders.
Having been clobbered during Operation Cast Lead, Hamas has for now stopped firing rockets into Israel, though it seems curiously unable to prevent infiltration attempts by other groups. Meanwhile, it continues to rearm, even if fewer weapons may be making it through the Philadelphi Corridor tunnels, thanks to enhanced Egyptian vigilance.
On Thursday, the Red Cross asked to see IDF soldier Gilad Schalit, now three years in Hamas captivity.
If the international community cannot influence Hamas to comply with so basic a humanitarian request, how can it credibly guarantee Hamas's behavior once sanctions are lifted?
Hamas is practically throwing itself at Barack Obama, viewing him as more "sensitive" than his predecessors. Ahmed Yussef, the movement's coquettish liaison to the West, said this week the Islamists will "do anything" for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Well, not quite anything.
Unlike the PLO, Hamas will not support a two-state solution. Apart from that, its stance is indistinguishable from Mahmoud Abbas's. Hamas and the PLO agree that Israel must withdraw to the 1949 Armistice Lines; and that Israel must grant four million or so descendants of the 650,000 Palestinian Arab refugees from Israel's War of Independence the right to "return" to Israel proper.
Where they part company is over what to offer Israel. Abbas proposes accepting Israel's existence; Hamas offers a period of extended "quiet." Neither acknowledges any Jewish civilizational connection to this land, both seeing us as temporary interlopers.
Hamas is following in the footsteps of the Palestinian National Council, the PLO's ruling body, which on June 9, 1974 adopted a plank - known as the "phased plan" - which authorized Palestinian leaders to take custody of "any territory from which the occupation withdraws."
Like the PLO, when it was shedding its image of absolute rejectionism, Hamas is making inroads toward greater international acceptability.
On Monday, EU foreign ministers, led by France, steered clear of reiterating the Quartet's principles - that Hamas forswear violence, recognize Israel and accept previous PLO agreements with Israel.
And on Tuesday, former US president Jimmy Carter was in Gaza claiming to be carrying a message from Obama. Flanked by American and Palestinian flags, he held a news conference with Ismail Haniyeh during which the Hamas premier received Carter's backing for lifting the "siege" of Gaza. Israel was treating Gazans "more like animals than human beings," the ex-president lamented. Turning the Quartet's principles on their head, Carter told The New York Times that "first of all, Hamas has to be accepted by the international community as a legitimate player... and that is what I am trying to do today." Carter said he was shattered by what Israel had done to Gaza with warplanes "made in my country."
The Obama administration is, reportedly, also leaning hard on Israel to lift the blockade, which limits the type of supplies permitted into the Strip - cement and iron, for instance, which have civilian and military uses. The US and EU are confident of international monitors effectively guaranteeing that Hamas does not use these materials for its war machine; experience suggests the confidence is sadly misplaced.
Israel routinely channels in tons of food and commodities - even cash to keep the local economy afloat. Yesterday, it allowed in 115 truckloads of aid and commercial goods.
Clearly, this kind of "siege" won't break Hamas. So the Netanyahu government needs to rethink whether the security and deterrence benefits of our limp-wristed blockade are worth the diplomatic costs.
ISRAEL has demonstrated innumerable goodwill measures in the West Bank to "help Abu Mazen." But the claim that capitulating to Hamas in Gaza, out of exasperation over their intransigence, will facilitate the prospects of genuine peace is unconvincing.
Gaza is a test case for what Israelis can expect should Hamas win next January's tentatively scheduled Palestinian elections. The lesson so far is that the Islamists are apt to choose belligerency over coexistence, even if it causes their own people to suffer; and that the international community will side with the Palestinians on the grounds that the people should not be punished for the policies of its elected leaders.
Having been clobbered during Operation Cast Lead, Hamas has for now stopped firing rockets into Israel, though it seems curiously unable to prevent infiltration attempts by other groups. Meanwhile, it continues to rearm, even if fewer weapons may be making it through the Philadelphi Corridor tunnels, thanks to enhanced Egyptian vigilance.
On Thursday, the Red Cross asked to see IDF soldier Gilad Schalit, now three years in Hamas captivity.
If the international community cannot influence Hamas to comply with so basic a humanitarian request, how can it credibly guarantee Hamas's behavior once sanctions are lifted?
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Jerusalem car park riots
Shabbat shalom
Perhaps because Zion has been so central to Jewish civilization for thousands of years, Shabbat in Jerusalem is like Shabbat nowhere else.
From dusk on Friday until sunset Saturday, life's pace slows. Shops are mostly closed. Traffic lessens. Public transportation shuts down. The air begins to feel fresher.
Strangers greet each other with "Shabbat shalom" - a peaceful Sabbath. Songs welcoming the Sabbath bride echo from hassidic steibels to egalitarian havurot. Sounds of camaraderie around the Sabbath table, accompanied by Zemirot melodies, waft through open windows.
Imagine, then, Jerusalemites' revulsion two weeks ago, when their Sabbath tranquility was pierced by ultra-Orthodox rioting.
Why the cursing, the throwing of rocks, bottles and filthy diapers at police? Why, later, the torching of plastic garbage dumpsters? Because the rioters' "sensibilities" had been offended by the opening on Shabbat of the car park beneath Kikar Safra at City Hall.
In other words, these sanctimonious hypocrites - who won't so much as tear toilet tissue on Shabbat because it violates the sanctity of the day - felt no compunction about tearing the soul out of the Sabbath.
Jews of all persuasions, including a majority of the Orthodox, would agree that this Shabbat violence by those who profess to be "trembling before God" (haredim) brought Judaism into disrepute. It was a hillul Hashem, a desecration of God's name.
SEVEN MONTHS ago, police recommended that City Hall provide parking to accommodate visitors who want to spend the day enjoying Jerusalem's Old City. With municipal and commercial garages closed on the Sabbath and nearby streets inaccessible due to construction of the light rail, scores of cars are being parked helter-skelter in the street and on sidewalks. Ambulances find it difficult to navigate the area and police fear lives could be jeopardized.
The municipality had wanted to open a car park, free of charge and supervised by a non-Jew, below the Mamilla mall, close to the Jaffa Gate. (Halacha forbids Jews to engage in work on the Sabbath.) But ultra-Orthodox politicians on the municipal council said no, fearing that could somehow lead to the opening of the shopping mall above, upsetting the religious status quo.
That apprehension is completely unfounded as the primary owner of the mall is strenuously opposed to opening his property on Shabbat.
At any rate, Mayor Nir Barkat proposed using the garage below the nearby City Hall as an alternative.
The garage is located blocks from the nearest haredi neighborhood, and the number of cars to be accommodated is relatively modest. So those ultra-Orthodox politicians gave their tacit consent, and the municipality announced that Shabbat parking would now be available.
The mayor did not factor in the possibility that Shabbat parking would be seized upon by a group of virulently anti-Zionist haredim, the Eda Haredit, to settle scores with the more mainstream ultra-Orthodox, and as a way of telling Barkat that the City Hall vicinity was their turf and that he had cut a deal with the wrong haredim. Eda bosses mobilized their "street," meanwhile co-opting other haredim to march in their thousands on the garage to "protect the Sabbath."
In the wake of the ensuing violence, police recommended that the car park scheme be put off while Barkat tries to negotiate a resolution of the controversy.
The mayor needs to assure the haredi community that he is sensitive to their legitimate concerns. But he has, rightly, vowed that when all is said and done, the streets near the Old City will be unclogged on Saturday, and free parking for visitors will be available.
The original plan to provide free parking at Mamilla strikes us as the way to go.
If, however, extremists persist in their efforts to intimidate, a variety of steps are called for:
• challenging the not-for-profit status of the institutions behind the rioting (in coordination with foreign tax authorities);
• prosecuting rioters to the full extent of the law;
• deporting indicted foreigners;
• instructing police to treat further outbreaks of haredi lawlessness as if they came from any other sector.
Violent extremists must not be allowed to rob Jerusalem's majority, and those who come to visit, of the peace, tolerance and tranquility that epitomizes Shabbat.
Perhaps because Zion has been so central to Jewish civilization for thousands of years, Shabbat in Jerusalem is like Shabbat nowhere else.
From dusk on Friday until sunset Saturday, life's pace slows. Shops are mostly closed. Traffic lessens. Public transportation shuts down. The air begins to feel fresher.
Strangers greet each other with "Shabbat shalom" - a peaceful Sabbath. Songs welcoming the Sabbath bride echo from hassidic steibels to egalitarian havurot. Sounds of camaraderie around the Sabbath table, accompanied by Zemirot melodies, waft through open windows.
Imagine, then, Jerusalemites' revulsion two weeks ago, when their Sabbath tranquility was pierced by ultra-Orthodox rioting.
Why the cursing, the throwing of rocks, bottles and filthy diapers at police? Why, later, the torching of plastic garbage dumpsters? Because the rioters' "sensibilities" had been offended by the opening on Shabbat of the car park beneath Kikar Safra at City Hall.
In other words, these sanctimonious hypocrites - who won't so much as tear toilet tissue on Shabbat because it violates the sanctity of the day - felt no compunction about tearing the soul out of the Sabbath.
Jews of all persuasions, including a majority of the Orthodox, would agree that this Shabbat violence by those who profess to be "trembling before God" (haredim) brought Judaism into disrepute. It was a hillul Hashem, a desecration of God's name.
SEVEN MONTHS ago, police recommended that City Hall provide parking to accommodate visitors who want to spend the day enjoying Jerusalem's Old City. With municipal and commercial garages closed on the Sabbath and nearby streets inaccessible due to construction of the light rail, scores of cars are being parked helter-skelter in the street and on sidewalks. Ambulances find it difficult to navigate the area and police fear lives could be jeopardized.
The municipality had wanted to open a car park, free of charge and supervised by a non-Jew, below the Mamilla mall, close to the Jaffa Gate. (Halacha forbids Jews to engage in work on the Sabbath.) But ultra-Orthodox politicians on the municipal council said no, fearing that could somehow lead to the opening of the shopping mall above, upsetting the religious status quo.
That apprehension is completely unfounded as the primary owner of the mall is strenuously opposed to opening his property on Shabbat.
At any rate, Mayor Nir Barkat proposed using the garage below the nearby City Hall as an alternative.
The garage is located blocks from the nearest haredi neighborhood, and the number of cars to be accommodated is relatively modest. So those ultra-Orthodox politicians gave their tacit consent, and the municipality announced that Shabbat parking would now be available.
The mayor did not factor in the possibility that Shabbat parking would be seized upon by a group of virulently anti-Zionist haredim, the Eda Haredit, to settle scores with the more mainstream ultra-Orthodox, and as a way of telling Barkat that the City Hall vicinity was their turf and that he had cut a deal with the wrong haredim. Eda bosses mobilized their "street," meanwhile co-opting other haredim to march in their thousands on the garage to "protect the Sabbath."
In the wake of the ensuing violence, police recommended that the car park scheme be put off while Barkat tries to negotiate a resolution of the controversy.
The mayor needs to assure the haredi community that he is sensitive to their legitimate concerns. But he has, rightly, vowed that when all is said and done, the streets near the Old City will be unclogged on Saturday, and free parking for visitors will be available.
The original plan to provide free parking at Mamilla strikes us as the way to go.
If, however, extremists persist in their efforts to intimidate, a variety of steps are called for:
• challenging the not-for-profit status of the institutions behind the rioting (in coordination with foreign tax authorities);
• prosecuting rioters to the full extent of the law;
• deporting indicted foreigners;
• instructing police to treat further outbreaks of haredi lawlessness as if they came from any other sector.
Violent extremists must not be allowed to rob Jerusalem's majority, and those who come to visit, of the peace, tolerance and tranquility that epitomizes Shabbat.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Iran as seen from Jerusalem - Tuesday
A taste of freedom
The footage is surreptitious and lacks narration. Viewers see hundreds of protesters being chased by truncheon-wielding policemen on motorcycles; one motorbike on its side, is ablaze. The demonstrators, supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, are certain their man defeated President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Friday's Iranian presidential election, and that authorities manipulated the results.
Though Mousavi was pre-approved to compete in the election by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his candidacy unexpectedly became a rallying point for an urbane constituency that felt socially and economically stifled by Ahmadinejad's demagoguery.
The protests in Teheran and elsewhere are relatively small and sporadic. Mousavi has asked the Guardian Council, the mullahs charged with validating the election, not to. Meanwhile, Khamenei declared Ahmadinejad the winner and invited the nation to celebrate a miraculous turnout.
The regime has cut off social networking sites (Facebook and Twitter), making it hard for dissidents to organize. Cell phone service is sporadic. SMS is blocked. Foreign news broadcasts are being jammed. The government-subservient media are playing down, or not covering the opposition.
Mousavi was spotted yesterday addressing thousands from the roof of a car after loyalists fought off Ahmadinejad's thugs. Scores of other Mousavi supporters are in jail. Earlier, he urged followers to continue their protests "in a peaceful and legal way."
But authorities, perhaps hearing the chants of "Death to the dictator" - a common refrain against the shah - and "We want freedom," say the opposition has crossed the line into treason. While there were popular expressions of discontent in 1999 and 2003, the BBC is reporting that nothing like the current disturbances has been seen in Iran since the 1979 Revolution. Iran's masses have tasted "democracy," only to have it snatched away. Their rulers now expect them to return to a state of somnolence.
Out of guile - or perhaps trepidation - Khamenei has decided to complement the regime's big stick with a carrot: He ordered the Guardian Council to "precisely consider" allegations that the election was marred by fraud.
IF HE did have the election rigged, Khamenei may have decided that the regime did not need a less malevolent persona. After all, he's done pretty well with Ahmadinejad as his number one: Iran's program to build an atom bomb is on track. Trade with the EU, Russia and China is brisk. The EU's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, enthusiastically parlays with his Hizbullah proxies in Beirut, even as Western European diplomats flirt with Iranian-backed Palestinian extremists in Gaza. The Obama administration seems pleasantly quiescent. Bellicosity has produced dividends. Why change a winning strategy?
As The New York Times reported, "Ahmadinejad is the shrewd and ruthless front man for a clerical, military and political elite that is more unified and emboldened than at any time since the 1979 revolution."
Ahmadinejad himself is demanding obeisance: "We are now asking the positions of all countries regarding the elections, and assessing their attitude to our people."
Dutifully, the emir of Qatar, and the leaders of Syria, Iraq, Pakistan and Venezuela, along with the Arab League's Amr Moussa, Hamas and Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, all congratulated him on his marvelous victory.
It is true that the German and French foreign ministries expressed mild disappointment at the way the election played out. The US, which lauded the campaign, was circumspect, saying it hoped the elections reflected the will of the Iranian people.
US policy on Iran remains unsettled. Dennis Ross, appointed in February as the administration's point man, is being shifted to another job. Before that he was known to support a dialogue with Iran on the grounds that it would make tougher US policies more palatable. His reassignment could signal that the America is getting wobbly.
So it seems whimsical to imagine - when negotiations finally commence between the West and Teheran, with the Obama administration's active involvement - that Khamenei will allow himself to be talked into abandoning his ambitions to make Iran a nuclear power. Ditto that he will stop supporting Hizbullah and Hamas.
Elections notwithstanding, real power in Iran rests with the Supreme Leader. Still, America's president could take the brazen Khamenei down a peg or two by expressing solidarity with Iranians' clear desire for real freedom.
Will he?
The footage is surreptitious and lacks narration. Viewers see hundreds of protesters being chased by truncheon-wielding policemen on motorcycles; one motorbike on its side, is ablaze. The demonstrators, supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, are certain their man defeated President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Friday's Iranian presidential election, and that authorities manipulated the results.
Though Mousavi was pre-approved to compete in the election by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his candidacy unexpectedly became a rallying point for an urbane constituency that felt socially and economically stifled by Ahmadinejad's demagoguery.
The protests in Teheran and elsewhere are relatively small and sporadic. Mousavi has asked the Guardian Council, the mullahs charged with validating the election, not to. Meanwhile, Khamenei declared Ahmadinejad the winner and invited the nation to celebrate a miraculous turnout.
The regime has cut off social networking sites (Facebook and Twitter), making it hard for dissidents to organize. Cell phone service is sporadic. SMS is blocked. Foreign news broadcasts are being jammed. The government-subservient media are playing down, or not covering the opposition.
Mousavi was spotted yesterday addressing thousands from the roof of a car after loyalists fought off Ahmadinejad's thugs. Scores of other Mousavi supporters are in jail. Earlier, he urged followers to continue their protests "in a peaceful and legal way."
But authorities, perhaps hearing the chants of "Death to the dictator" - a common refrain against the shah - and "We want freedom," say the opposition has crossed the line into treason. While there were popular expressions of discontent in 1999 and 2003, the BBC is reporting that nothing like the current disturbances has been seen in Iran since the 1979 Revolution. Iran's masses have tasted "democracy," only to have it snatched away. Their rulers now expect them to return to a state of somnolence.
Out of guile - or perhaps trepidation - Khamenei has decided to complement the regime's big stick with a carrot: He ordered the Guardian Council to "precisely consider" allegations that the election was marred by fraud.
IF HE did have the election rigged, Khamenei may have decided that the regime did not need a less malevolent persona. After all, he's done pretty well with Ahmadinejad as his number one: Iran's program to build an atom bomb is on track. Trade with the EU, Russia and China is brisk. The EU's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, enthusiastically parlays with his Hizbullah proxies in Beirut, even as Western European diplomats flirt with Iranian-backed Palestinian extremists in Gaza. The Obama administration seems pleasantly quiescent. Bellicosity has produced dividends. Why change a winning strategy?
As The New York Times reported, "Ahmadinejad is the shrewd and ruthless front man for a clerical, military and political elite that is more unified and emboldened than at any time since the 1979 revolution."
Ahmadinejad himself is demanding obeisance: "We are now asking the positions of all countries regarding the elections, and assessing their attitude to our people."
Dutifully, the emir of Qatar, and the leaders of Syria, Iraq, Pakistan and Venezuela, along with the Arab League's Amr Moussa, Hamas and Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, all congratulated him on his marvelous victory.
It is true that the German and French foreign ministries expressed mild disappointment at the way the election played out. The US, which lauded the campaign, was circumspect, saying it hoped the elections reflected the will of the Iranian people.
US policy on Iran remains unsettled. Dennis Ross, appointed in February as the administration's point man, is being shifted to another job. Before that he was known to support a dialogue with Iran on the grounds that it would make tougher US policies more palatable. His reassignment could signal that the America is getting wobbly.
So it seems whimsical to imagine - when negotiations finally commence between the West and Teheran, with the Obama administration's active involvement - that Khamenei will allow himself to be talked into abandoning his ambitions to make Iran a nuclear power. Ditto that he will stop supporting Hizbullah and Hamas.
Elections notwithstanding, real power in Iran rests with the Supreme Leader. Still, America's president could take the brazen Khamenei down a peg or two by expressing solidarity with Iranians' clear desire for real freedom.
Will he?
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Netanyahu's Speech on the nature of a Palestinian state Israel can live with
Vision for Reconciliation
Forget President Barack Obama and the Arabs for a moment. Did Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's speech at Bar-Ilan University last night outlining his vision of Arab-Israel peace satisfy mainstream Israelis? Did it contribute to shaping an Israeli consensus?
The answer: Yes.
Since he took office in March, the premier has been promising to articulate an approach to negotiations with the Palestinians. He skipped the AIPAC policy conference in early May because he wanted Obama to be the first to hear his "policy reassessment."
Yet when he arrived at the White House on May 18, he seemingly forgot to pack a coherent proposal. Instead, Obama greeted him with a reiteration of George W. Bush's call for a Palestinian state, and with a vigorous advocacy of America's long-standing demand for a settlement freeze.
Most Americans favor a two-state solution and think it would be good for Israel. Most Israelis acknowledge that the creation of a Palestinian state is in their national interest. The concern has been: What kind of Palestinian state? They don't want the prototype to be Hamas's mini-state in the Gaza Strip.
It is the Palestinians who have opposed sharing this land, justifying our fears of their intentions. Since the days of the UN Partition Plan, through Ehud Barak's territorial offer in 2000 and Ehud Olmert's in 2008, it is the Palestinians who have been saying no. Lately, however, because Netanyahu hadn't explicitly endorsed the two-state solution, the perception was growing that Israel was the problem.
Last Monday, Netanyahu telephoned Obama to tell him of his plans to finally deliver that long-awaited policy reassessment.
The build-up was worth it. The Bar-Ilan speech was of historic importance.
LAST NIGHT, Netanyahu announced his support for a demilitarized Palestinian state.
The territorial details will need to be negotiated. And the Palestinian leadership will have to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and abandon the demand to resettle in it millions of descendants of the original 650,000 Arab refugees from the War of Independence.
This offer - coming from a Likud leader - is momentous.
Now the ball is in the Arab court. Will the Arab states accept the idea of a demilitarized Palestine living side by side with a Jewish Israel?
Will the international community - and particularly the Obama administration - embrace Netanyahu's vision? If they do not, it will shatter the hopes of mainstream Israelis and doom the prospects of peace.
Netanyahu's speech demonstrated that Israeli governments honor the commitments of their predecessors. It will be interesting now to see whether the White House, implicitly or explicitly, stands behind George W. Bush's April 2004 "1967-plus" letter. Though that commitment was also overwhelmingly endorsed by congressional resolutions (and supported by then senator Hillary Clinton), Obama has yet to back it. Fresh surveys show most Americans do.
Netanyahu was right to say that settlements are not the main obstacle to peace. While most Israelis do not support unauthorized outposts, they do want to find a reasonable compromise with the US over natural growth in settlements that Israel intends to retain under a permanent accord.
A NEW survey by The Israel Project shows that American popular support for Israel, while strong, is ebbing. Even among staunchly pro-Israel Republicans, support dropped from 72 percent to 65%; and 50% to 38% among Democrats in the past six months. Fewer Americans think Israel is committed to peace. Conversely, last year 61% of Americans thought the Palestinians were not committed to peace. Now, only 49% think they are the problem.
To state the obvious: Washington is Israel's only steadfast military and diplomatic ally; US military aid for 2009 is $2.55 billion (25% of which may be spent locally). But the alliance is vital for far more than financial reasons. We cannot take this relationship for granted. No doubt an appreciation of this reality informed Netanyahu's remarks.
The premier's speech was delivered the day after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad solidified his leadership in Iran, and as infiltration attempts and Kassam launchings from Gaza appear to be on the rise.
Now is the time for Israelis to pull together, for the national interest to take precedence over partisan preferences. Above all, now is the time for the US to persuade the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table and pursue Netanyahu's call for a viable reconciliation.
Forget President Barack Obama and the Arabs for a moment. Did Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's speech at Bar-Ilan University last night outlining his vision of Arab-Israel peace satisfy mainstream Israelis? Did it contribute to shaping an Israeli consensus?
The answer: Yes.
Since he took office in March, the premier has been promising to articulate an approach to negotiations with the Palestinians. He skipped the AIPAC policy conference in early May because he wanted Obama to be the first to hear his "policy reassessment."
Yet when he arrived at the White House on May 18, he seemingly forgot to pack a coherent proposal. Instead, Obama greeted him with a reiteration of George W. Bush's call for a Palestinian state, and with a vigorous advocacy of America's long-standing demand for a settlement freeze.
Most Americans favor a two-state solution and think it would be good for Israel. Most Israelis acknowledge that the creation of a Palestinian state is in their national interest. The concern has been: What kind of Palestinian state? They don't want the prototype to be Hamas's mini-state in the Gaza Strip.
It is the Palestinians who have opposed sharing this land, justifying our fears of their intentions. Since the days of the UN Partition Plan, through Ehud Barak's territorial offer in 2000 and Ehud Olmert's in 2008, it is the Palestinians who have been saying no. Lately, however, because Netanyahu hadn't explicitly endorsed the two-state solution, the perception was growing that Israel was the problem.
Last Monday, Netanyahu telephoned Obama to tell him of his plans to finally deliver that long-awaited policy reassessment.
The build-up was worth it. The Bar-Ilan speech was of historic importance.
LAST NIGHT, Netanyahu announced his support for a demilitarized Palestinian state.
The territorial details will need to be negotiated. And the Palestinian leadership will have to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and abandon the demand to resettle in it millions of descendants of the original 650,000 Arab refugees from the War of Independence.
This offer - coming from a Likud leader - is momentous.
Now the ball is in the Arab court. Will the Arab states accept the idea of a demilitarized Palestine living side by side with a Jewish Israel?
Will the international community - and particularly the Obama administration - embrace Netanyahu's vision? If they do not, it will shatter the hopes of mainstream Israelis and doom the prospects of peace.
Netanyahu's speech demonstrated that Israeli governments honor the commitments of their predecessors. It will be interesting now to see whether the White House, implicitly or explicitly, stands behind George W. Bush's April 2004 "1967-plus" letter. Though that commitment was also overwhelmingly endorsed by congressional resolutions (and supported by then senator Hillary Clinton), Obama has yet to back it. Fresh surveys show most Americans do.
Netanyahu was right to say that settlements are not the main obstacle to peace. While most Israelis do not support unauthorized outposts, they do want to find a reasonable compromise with the US over natural growth in settlements that Israel intends to retain under a permanent accord.
A NEW survey by The Israel Project shows that American popular support for Israel, while strong, is ebbing. Even among staunchly pro-Israel Republicans, support dropped from 72 percent to 65%; and 50% to 38% among Democrats in the past six months. Fewer Americans think Israel is committed to peace. Conversely, last year 61% of Americans thought the Palestinians were not committed to peace. Now, only 49% think they are the problem.
To state the obvious: Washington is Israel's only steadfast military and diplomatic ally; US military aid for 2009 is $2.55 billion (25% of which may be spent locally). But the alliance is vital for far more than financial reasons. We cannot take this relationship for granted. No doubt an appreciation of this reality informed Netanyahu's remarks.
The premier's speech was delivered the day after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad solidified his leadership in Iran, and as infiltration attempts and Kassam launchings from Gaza appear to be on the rise.
Now is the time for Israelis to pull together, for the national interest to take precedence over partisan preferences. Above all, now is the time for the US to persuade the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table and pursue Netanyahu's call for a viable reconciliation.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Friday, June 12, 2009
The Iranian vote as seen from Jerusalem
Does Iran's vote matter?
The United States stands ready to engage Iran in "serious dialogue," President Barack Obama reiterated in Dresden last Friday.
Formal talks - on bilateral relations and halting Teheran's quest for nuclear arms - await the outcome of today's Iranian presidential election. Obama indicated that there would be a "serious process of engagement, first through the P5-plus-one process" (meaning the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) and "potentially through additional direct talks between the United States and Iran."
If these talks prove unsatisfactory after six months or so, Washington could then, in conjunction with the P5-plus-one, seek to ratchet up economic sanctions against the Islamic republic. While this glacially-slow scenario stretches out, the centrifuges will spin and multiply. Iran's drive for atomic weapons and the means to deliver them will appear ever more inexorable.
But what if Obama's softer tone encourages Iranian voters to walk away from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on the grounds that his braying has become superfluous and the American "threat" has diminished? And wouldn't our region be a better place if the demagogic Ahmadinejad was replaced by the reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi?
Perhaps. But likely not.
First off, the real authority in Iran, the figure who sits above all levers of power, is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The president is subservient to him.
One sure sign that a US-Iranian dialogue was being taken seriously in Teheran would be the extent to which Khamenei himself was engaged.
All too helpfully for the mullahs, an Ahmadinejad defeat would distance the regime from the odious Holocaust-denier. A Mousavi victory would provide it with a human face, making it even less likely that the P5-plus-one would stop the mullahs from building a bomb.
All the candidates - Ahmadinejad, Mousavi, and dark-horse challengers Mahdi Karoubi and Mohsen Rezaei - concur that Iran's nuclear program, which they insist is for peaceful civilian purposes, must remain inviolate. All are willing to improve relations with the US in return for fundamental "changes" in American policy. None can be expected to downgrade Iran's proxy relationship with Hizbullah, or its support of Palestinian Islamists.
Domestically, Mousavi and Karoubi oppose the coercive approach Ahmadinejad's supporters take regarding Islamic dress and social behavior. The president's opponents also say that the economy should be doing a lot better considering that Iran has the world's second-biggest oil and gas reserves. Inflation is high, between 14 and 24 percent, depending on how the numbers are massaged. Unemployment stands at 17%, particularly significant in a country where half the population is 27 years old or younger.
Ahmadinejad is leading in the polls thanks to support from the downtrodden masses, whose lives he has dramatically improved by raising salaries and benefits. Mousavi's supporters are more urbane. They want to see investment that fosters long-term economic growth.
ALL THE trappings of democracy are on display: elections, candidate debates, mass rallies - even mudslinging. For the regime's Western apologists, this proves that while Iranian democracy may be "incomplete" (since only candidates vetted by Khamenei are eligible to run), the country is far from being the totalitarian ogre that Zionist "demonizers" claim.
Admittedly, we find it difficult to keep an open mind with the Supreme Leader constantly denouncing Israel as a "cancerous growth," as he did on the same day Obama spoke in Cairo. We've noted, too, that his Revolutionary Guard warned that once the election is decided - no more mass rallies… or else.
Speaking of mudslinging, Ali Akbar Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad have been doing lots of it. Rafsanjani, a former president, is one of the most well-connected and richest men in Iran. He sits on the Council of Experts, which has the theoretical power to remove Khamenei himself. Rafsanjani wrote the Supreme Leader to complain about Ahmadinejad saying Rafsanjani had enriched himself during his presidency. Ahmadinejad is angry because Rafsanjani's organization is backing Mousavi's campaign. Rafsanjani-commissioned polls show Mousavi with a 56-42 lead. To ensure the election isn't stolen, Rafsanjani's forces are fielding 50,000 poll-watchers. International monitors are barred.
The election results will be known tomorrow. But no matter the outcome, the international community needs a timely way to get the Supreme Leader's attention - or the big losers will continue to be the Iranian people and their neighbors in the region.
The United States stands ready to engage Iran in "serious dialogue," President Barack Obama reiterated in Dresden last Friday.
Formal talks - on bilateral relations and halting Teheran's quest for nuclear arms - await the outcome of today's Iranian presidential election. Obama indicated that there would be a "serious process of engagement, first through the P5-plus-one process" (meaning the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) and "potentially through additional direct talks between the United States and Iran."
If these talks prove unsatisfactory after six months or so, Washington could then, in conjunction with the P5-plus-one, seek to ratchet up economic sanctions against the Islamic republic. While this glacially-slow scenario stretches out, the centrifuges will spin and multiply. Iran's drive for atomic weapons and the means to deliver them will appear ever more inexorable.
But what if Obama's softer tone encourages Iranian voters to walk away from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on the grounds that his braying has become superfluous and the American "threat" has diminished? And wouldn't our region be a better place if the demagogic Ahmadinejad was replaced by the reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi?
Perhaps. But likely not.
First off, the real authority in Iran, the figure who sits above all levers of power, is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The president is subservient to him.
One sure sign that a US-Iranian dialogue was being taken seriously in Teheran would be the extent to which Khamenei himself was engaged.
All too helpfully for the mullahs, an Ahmadinejad defeat would distance the regime from the odious Holocaust-denier. A Mousavi victory would provide it with a human face, making it even less likely that the P5-plus-one would stop the mullahs from building a bomb.
All the candidates - Ahmadinejad, Mousavi, and dark-horse challengers Mahdi Karoubi and Mohsen Rezaei - concur that Iran's nuclear program, which they insist is for peaceful civilian purposes, must remain inviolate. All are willing to improve relations with the US in return for fundamental "changes" in American policy. None can be expected to downgrade Iran's proxy relationship with Hizbullah, or its support of Palestinian Islamists.
Domestically, Mousavi and Karoubi oppose the coercive approach Ahmadinejad's supporters take regarding Islamic dress and social behavior. The president's opponents also say that the economy should be doing a lot better considering that Iran has the world's second-biggest oil and gas reserves. Inflation is high, between 14 and 24 percent, depending on how the numbers are massaged. Unemployment stands at 17%, particularly significant in a country where half the population is 27 years old or younger.
Ahmadinejad is leading in the polls thanks to support from the downtrodden masses, whose lives he has dramatically improved by raising salaries and benefits. Mousavi's supporters are more urbane. They want to see investment that fosters long-term economic growth.
ALL THE trappings of democracy are on display: elections, candidate debates, mass rallies - even mudslinging. For the regime's Western apologists, this proves that while Iranian democracy may be "incomplete" (since only candidates vetted by Khamenei are eligible to run), the country is far from being the totalitarian ogre that Zionist "demonizers" claim.
Admittedly, we find it difficult to keep an open mind with the Supreme Leader constantly denouncing Israel as a "cancerous growth," as he did on the same day Obama spoke in Cairo. We've noted, too, that his Revolutionary Guard warned that once the election is decided - no more mass rallies… or else.
Speaking of mudslinging, Ali Akbar Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad have been doing lots of it. Rafsanjani, a former president, is one of the most well-connected and richest men in Iran. He sits on the Council of Experts, which has the theoretical power to remove Khamenei himself. Rafsanjani wrote the Supreme Leader to complain about Ahmadinejad saying Rafsanjani had enriched himself during his presidency. Ahmadinejad is angry because Rafsanjani's organization is backing Mousavi's campaign. Rafsanjani-commissioned polls show Mousavi with a 56-42 lead. To ensure the election isn't stolen, Rafsanjani's forces are fielding 50,000 poll-watchers. International monitors are barred.
The election results will be known tomorrow. But no matter the outcome, the international community needs a timely way to get the Supreme Leader's attention - or the big losers will continue to be the Iranian people and their neighbors in the region.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Here come the judge...here come the judge...
For consensual judges
Israelis, like most Americans and Brits, wouldn't recognize a Supreme Court justice or Law Lord if they tripped over him in the supermarket. Even Sonia Sotomayor, recently nominated by President Barack Obama to the US Supreme Court, is not a familiar face to Americans. With a few notable exceptions, the justices of our Supreme Court are equally anonymous.
How many of us can conjure up the images of justices Salim Joubran, Hanan Meltzer or Asher Dan Grunis? Yet these mostly faceless jurists have profound influence over our lives.
Israel's court has both appellate and original jurisdiction, depending on how the justices constitute themselves. To date, the body has been comprised of mostly (though not exclusively) like-minded types: liberal ex-judges who subscribe to a philosophy of judicial activism, and in all likelihood attended the same law school.
The justices have been more than just a homogeneous bunch; they've practically replicated themselves. That's why when the name of distinguished legal scholar Ruth Gavison was floated for a possible Supreme Court vacancy, it was immediately shot down on the grounds that she wouldn't fit in.
Israel's system for selecting judges is even more viscerally partisan than America's. Nominees do not go before a Knesset committee for vetting and confirmation. Instead, they are chosen by the Judges Selection Committee.
Now though, that committee's membership has been re-jigged to accommodate the wishes of the current government and Knesset; its traditionally liberal-leaning make-up has been dramatically diluted with the appointments of MK Uri Ariel (National Union), David Rotem (Israel Beiteinu) and Gilad Erdan (Likud). Also on the committee are: Chief Justice Dorit Beinisch and her two colleagues Ayala Procaccia and Edmond Levy. The chair is veteran legal powerhouse and Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman. Rounding out the membership are Pinhas Marinsky and Rachel Ben-Ari of the Israel Bar Association.
It may seem odd that the largest and most cohesive bloc on a committee to select judges is comprised of already sitting judges; but until now, these jurists have been in a position to veto some candidates and push through others they favored. It may be more difficult to do so now.
THIS DILUTION in the selection committee's ideological bent - Ariel, from the most narrow right-wing party in the Knesset, is a strident supporter of unauthorized settlement outposts - troubles centrist Zionists as well as liberals. He defeated Kadima's Ronnie Bar-On for the prestigious appointment. Liberals are chagrined that a member of the largest Knesset faction (Kadima) wasn't chosen in line with recent practice - though this happened in only three of our 18 Knessets.
In Israel's fractious polity, where the legislature commonly shirks its responsibilities in such areas as civil liberties and providing necessary legal protections for the Palestinian Arabs of Judea and Samaria, their enforcement has fallen to the Supreme Court - which has occasionally gone too far.
The court is now being asked to decide whether building may go ahead on 24 homes in the settlement of Halamish. Another panel will hear petitions against the Tal Law, which provides army and national service deferments for ultra-Orthodox youths. At stake is whether the law should be repealed on the grounds that it is ineffective since so few haredim serve.
Beyond the question of the ideological leanings of the new judges the selection committee will send to the court is their philosophy. Will they be interventionist? Will they narrowly apply Israel's constitution-in-the-making, or interpret it broadly by giving existing statutes creative interpretations that move society in a more progressive direction?
IT IS not unreasonable for the committee to better reflect the gamut of views in our hyper-pluralist society. Otherwise the legitimacy of the court's decisions will continue to be challenged by broad sectors of the population - something that undermines the stability of the political system.
Still, we strongly urge the newly composed selection committee to seek out consensual candidates on the basis not of ideology, but wisdom and judicial temperament. We need jurists who are not tied to a judicial philosophy - activism or restraint - or, myopically, to political dogma, but judges who will protect civil liberties and human rights while anchoring their decisions in reasoning that fair-minded citizens can subscribe to.
Israelis, like most Americans and Brits, wouldn't recognize a Supreme Court justice or Law Lord if they tripped over him in the supermarket. Even Sonia Sotomayor, recently nominated by President Barack Obama to the US Supreme Court, is not a familiar face to Americans. With a few notable exceptions, the justices of our Supreme Court are equally anonymous.
How many of us can conjure up the images of justices Salim Joubran, Hanan Meltzer or Asher Dan Grunis? Yet these mostly faceless jurists have profound influence over our lives.
Israel's court has both appellate and original jurisdiction, depending on how the justices constitute themselves. To date, the body has been comprised of mostly (though not exclusively) like-minded types: liberal ex-judges who subscribe to a philosophy of judicial activism, and in all likelihood attended the same law school.
The justices have been more than just a homogeneous bunch; they've practically replicated themselves. That's why when the name of distinguished legal scholar Ruth Gavison was floated for a possible Supreme Court vacancy, it was immediately shot down on the grounds that she wouldn't fit in.
Israel's system for selecting judges is even more viscerally partisan than America's. Nominees do not go before a Knesset committee for vetting and confirmation. Instead, they are chosen by the Judges Selection Committee.
Now though, that committee's membership has been re-jigged to accommodate the wishes of the current government and Knesset; its traditionally liberal-leaning make-up has been dramatically diluted with the appointments of MK Uri Ariel (National Union), David Rotem (Israel Beiteinu) and Gilad Erdan (Likud). Also on the committee are: Chief Justice Dorit Beinisch and her two colleagues Ayala Procaccia and Edmond Levy. The chair is veteran legal powerhouse and Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman. Rounding out the membership are Pinhas Marinsky and Rachel Ben-Ari of the Israel Bar Association.
It may seem odd that the largest and most cohesive bloc on a committee to select judges is comprised of already sitting judges; but until now, these jurists have been in a position to veto some candidates and push through others they favored. It may be more difficult to do so now.
THIS DILUTION in the selection committee's ideological bent - Ariel, from the most narrow right-wing party in the Knesset, is a strident supporter of unauthorized settlement outposts - troubles centrist Zionists as well as liberals. He defeated Kadima's Ronnie Bar-On for the prestigious appointment. Liberals are chagrined that a member of the largest Knesset faction (Kadima) wasn't chosen in line with recent practice - though this happened in only three of our 18 Knessets.
In Israel's fractious polity, where the legislature commonly shirks its responsibilities in such areas as civil liberties and providing necessary legal protections for the Palestinian Arabs of Judea and Samaria, their enforcement has fallen to the Supreme Court - which has occasionally gone too far.
The court is now being asked to decide whether building may go ahead on 24 homes in the settlement of Halamish. Another panel will hear petitions against the Tal Law, which provides army and national service deferments for ultra-Orthodox youths. At stake is whether the law should be repealed on the grounds that it is ineffective since so few haredim serve.
Beyond the question of the ideological leanings of the new judges the selection committee will send to the court is their philosophy. Will they be interventionist? Will they narrowly apply Israel's constitution-in-the-making, or interpret it broadly by giving existing statutes creative interpretations that move society in a more progressive direction?
IT IS not unreasonable for the committee to better reflect the gamut of views in our hyper-pluralist society. Otherwise the legitimacy of the court's decisions will continue to be challenged by broad sectors of the population - something that undermines the stability of the political system.
Still, we strongly urge the newly composed selection committee to seek out consensual candidates on the basis not of ideology, but wisdom and judicial temperament. We need jurists who are not tied to a judicial philosophy - activism or restraint - or, myopically, to political dogma, but judges who will protect civil liberties and human rights while anchoring their decisions in reasoning that fair-minded citizens can subscribe to.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Europeans elect a new parliament -- What it means for Israel
Europe votes
Israelis tend to look straight past nearby Europe as we cast our eyes pensively toward Washington. For obvious reasons, we're apt to worry more about whether Barack Obama loves us than whether European Commission President José Manuel Barroso does.
Yet, as Prof. Sharon Pardo of Ben-Gurion University reminds us, Israel is situated not along the Atlantic, but the Mediterranean coast, making Europe "our immediate and natural ally."
So when Europeans elect a new parliament, as they did on Sunday, it behooves Israelis to take notice, not because the new legislature will be more sympathetic toward us - it won't - but because our relations with Europe are supremely important: Most of what we import comes from Europe, and that's where most of what we export goes.
THE CONTINENT finds itself in a malaise. The worldwide economic downturn hit it even harder than America. National and ethnic chauvinism is on the rise. The hope that the 27 EU countries, combined population 491 million, would by now be a single supra-national entity has been bitterly dashed. Indeed, as The New York Times reported recently, many Europeans think that when it comes to the economy, the EU is part of the problem, not the solution.
Only 43 percent of 375 million eligible voters participated in the parliamentary elections, compared to 62% in 1979. Parties that say the EU is on the wrong path, or more trouble than it's worth, gained while those affiliated with Britain's beleaguered Labor Party, Germany's Social Democrats and France's Socialist Party did poorly.
The new EU parliament will have 736 members, the single largest bloc staying with the European People's Party (264). The EPP is center-right: pro-EU (unlike the Euro-skeptical British Tories) and pro-free market.
Lamentably, on Israel, the EPP holds to the dominant "pro-Israel" European line which, in practice, shows little empathy for this country's unique security predicament. While the EPP embraces the Quartet's position on negotiations with Hamas, it still wants Israel to lift an embargo which limits the type of goods that can enter the Strip.
The election also sent a number of far-Right and anti-immigrant parties to parliament, some of them anti-Jewish. The British National Party won two seats. Jobbik - the Movement for a Better Hungary, a self-described "radically patriotic Christian party," won one or two seats.
Not all the fringe parties are anti-Israel. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders, whose Freedom Party is stridently opposed to continued Muslim immigration, is actually staunchly pro-Israel.
ISRAEL'S critics in the EU are working diligently to torpedo trade relations with us. They are trying to engineer boycotts against Israeli fruit, vegetables and olive oil, on the dubious grounds that these goods are produced by settlers on "occupied Palestinian land." If successful, the critics will be pushing for broader economic, scientific and cultural sanctions to force Israel back to the hard-to-defend 1949 Armistice Lines. To be fair, some honestly believe that doing so will help Israel and bring peace.
Out of an annual EU Commission budget of 120 billion euros, hundreds of millions flow to Palestinian projects. Needless to say, no one contemplates using this leverage to encourage a less intransigent negotiating position on the part of Mahmoud Abbas. Yet significant monies are also directed to Israel-based advocacy groups working to make Israeli policies more compliant.
Israel's relationship with the EU is governed by an Association agreement, but progress on renewing and upgrading relations has come to a halt in order to pressure the Netanyahu government. The EU is also displeased with how Israel battled Hamas in Gaza. The EU supports Israel's right to protect its civilians - so long as this can be done without jeopardizing Palestinian civilians.
THIS WEEK'S EU elections portend no policy shifts on Israel, but they do remind us that as important as ties are, we no longer share the same values. The ethos of the EU is for solving conflicts through negotiations and for the free movement of persons. Though key EU officials are intimately familiar with our security situation, they profess not to be able to fathom why a template that works so well in Europe is unfeasible here - to put it mildly.
Israelis tend to look straight past nearby Europe as we cast our eyes pensively toward Washington. For obvious reasons, we're apt to worry more about whether Barack Obama loves us than whether European Commission President José Manuel Barroso does.
Yet, as Prof. Sharon Pardo of Ben-Gurion University reminds us, Israel is situated not along the Atlantic, but the Mediterranean coast, making Europe "our immediate and natural ally."
So when Europeans elect a new parliament, as they did on Sunday, it behooves Israelis to take notice, not because the new legislature will be more sympathetic toward us - it won't - but because our relations with Europe are supremely important: Most of what we import comes from Europe, and that's where most of what we export goes.
THE CONTINENT finds itself in a malaise. The worldwide economic downturn hit it even harder than America. National and ethnic chauvinism is on the rise. The hope that the 27 EU countries, combined population 491 million, would by now be a single supra-national entity has been bitterly dashed. Indeed, as The New York Times reported recently, many Europeans think that when it comes to the economy, the EU is part of the problem, not the solution.
Only 43 percent of 375 million eligible voters participated in the parliamentary elections, compared to 62% in 1979. Parties that say the EU is on the wrong path, or more trouble than it's worth, gained while those affiliated with Britain's beleaguered Labor Party, Germany's Social Democrats and France's Socialist Party did poorly.
The new EU parliament will have 736 members, the single largest bloc staying with the European People's Party (264). The EPP is center-right: pro-EU (unlike the Euro-skeptical British Tories) and pro-free market.
Lamentably, on Israel, the EPP holds to the dominant "pro-Israel" European line which, in practice, shows little empathy for this country's unique security predicament. While the EPP embraces the Quartet's position on negotiations with Hamas, it still wants Israel to lift an embargo which limits the type of goods that can enter the Strip.
The election also sent a number of far-Right and anti-immigrant parties to parliament, some of them anti-Jewish. The British National Party won two seats. Jobbik - the Movement for a Better Hungary, a self-described "radically patriotic Christian party," won one or two seats.
Not all the fringe parties are anti-Israel. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders, whose Freedom Party is stridently opposed to continued Muslim immigration, is actually staunchly pro-Israel.
ISRAEL'S critics in the EU are working diligently to torpedo trade relations with us. They are trying to engineer boycotts against Israeli fruit, vegetables and olive oil, on the dubious grounds that these goods are produced by settlers on "occupied Palestinian land." If successful, the critics will be pushing for broader economic, scientific and cultural sanctions to force Israel back to the hard-to-defend 1949 Armistice Lines. To be fair, some honestly believe that doing so will help Israel and bring peace.
Out of an annual EU Commission budget of 120 billion euros, hundreds of millions flow to Palestinian projects. Needless to say, no one contemplates using this leverage to encourage a less intransigent negotiating position on the part of Mahmoud Abbas. Yet significant monies are also directed to Israel-based advocacy groups working to make Israeli policies more compliant.
Israel's relationship with the EU is governed by an Association agreement, but progress on renewing and upgrading relations has come to a halt in order to pressure the Netanyahu government. The EU is also displeased with how Israel battled Hamas in Gaza. The EU supports Israel's right to protect its civilians - so long as this can be done without jeopardizing Palestinian civilians.
THIS WEEK'S EU elections portend no policy shifts on Israel, but they do remind us that as important as ties are, we no longer share the same values. The ethos of the EU is for solving conflicts through negotiations and for the free movement of persons. Though key EU officials are intimately familiar with our security situation, they profess not to be able to fathom why a template that works so well in Europe is unfeasible here - to put it mildly.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Lebanon's election results as seen from Jerusalem
No joy for Lebanon
Dancing in the streets, chanting "ya'ala Hariri" and discharging weapons into Beirut's night sky, the Sunni-led (nominally) pro-Western "March 14 Coalition" celebrated its victory Sunday over the pro-Hizbullah, pro-Syria and pro-Iran "March 8 Coalition."
Sa'ad Hariri's Sunni-led alliance captured 71 of parliament's 128 seats, versus 57 for the Hizbullah-led grouping. Voter participation was high at 55 percent. Both sides spent huge sums to purchase support and fly in expatriates to bolster their numbers.
It is good that Hizbullah did not achieve a better outcome. Yet Israelis would be deluding themselves if they viewed the results as a substantive defeat for the Islamists.
The harsh reality, the latest election results notwithstanding, is that Lebanon's radicalized Shi'ites are growing stronger and will need to be accommodated by the "victorious" forces of relative moderation.
No official census has been taken in Lebanon for decades. But the working assumption is that Shi'ites comprises 50% of the population; Sunnis 18%; Christians 15%; and Druse 17%. Nevertheless, elections in Lebanon are a set piece - a guaranteed 50:50 split between Christians and Muslims. This adheres to the 1943 National Pact, modified by the 1989 Taif Accord. Christians and Muslims then further divide the electoral results along confessional sub-groupings.
Election districts are gerrymandered. A given ward might be authorized to send, say, two Druse and one Sunni representative to the legislature. Everyone, regardless of religious affiliation, has the right to select from among the competing Druse and Sunni candidates. In other words, a Sunni running for a "Sunni seat" could still be aligned with Hizbullah.
Both sides understand that regardless of the results, Lebanon is in for more of the same. After his electoral achievement became clear, Hariri declared: "There are no winners or losers in these elections; the only winner is democracy in Lebanon."
Hizbullah's Hassan Fadlallah readily agreed about no winners or losers, saying: "Whoever wants political stability, the preservation of national unity and the resurrection of Lebanon will find no choice but to accept the principle of consensus." He meant: Hizbullah's consent.
Walid Jumblatt, the Druse leader ostensibly aligned with Hariri, said Hizbullah should be included in the next government. Before the results were in, he told a meeting of Druse elders: "The Shi'ite reality has imposed itself" via demography, money, ties with Iran, and the support of the wealthy Lebanese Shi'ite diaspora in Africa. Lebanon's future, Jumblatt was saying, is Shi'ite; the Druse struggling to survive will have to adjust accordingly.
That said, the Hariri forces will still have the most influence over the composition of the next government. Prior to the election, Hariri said he was not disposed to form a government with Hizbullah. Whatever the case, as a price for its support, Hizbullah will demand that Lebanon stop cooperating with the international tribunal investigating (already fingering, some reports say) Hizbullah's role in the assassination of Hariri's father, Rafik.
For this reason, Sa'ad Hariri may opt not to become premier, citing "national unity."
IT GOES without saying that Shi'ite leaders will not honor their pledge to view the election as a referendum on continued "resistance" against Israel.
Indeed, one may deduce that Hassan Nasrallah's fingerprints are all over yesterday's infiltration attempt from the northern Gaza Strip into Israel. The Hizbullah chief instigates attacks that are not easily traceable back to him, so as not to complicate the delicate political situation inside Lebanon.
On the other hand, in the unlikely event that Nasrallah should lash out openly against Israel out of frustration over his electoral setback, Lebanese factions should know that the Land of the Cedars will be held responsible for any aggression emanating from its territory.
So long as the West continues to kowtow to Iran, its Hizbullah proxy will continue to hold sway over events in Lebanon. Hizbullah will continue to field the country's strongest army and smuggle in weapons from Iran and Syria. It will bide its time; buy up more land; engage in more narco-terrorism; counterfeit more currency, and wait for demographics to determine Lebanon's fate.
Can Lebanon's fate yet be salvaged? Only if the West is prepared to do the heavy lifting required to block Teheran's drive for regional hegemony, and enforce UN Security Council resolutions 1559 and 1701 to stem weapons smuggling into Lebanon.
Dancing in the streets, chanting "ya'ala Hariri" and discharging weapons into Beirut's night sky, the Sunni-led (nominally) pro-Western "March 14 Coalition" celebrated its victory Sunday over the pro-Hizbullah, pro-Syria and pro-Iran "March 8 Coalition."
Sa'ad Hariri's Sunni-led alliance captured 71 of parliament's 128 seats, versus 57 for the Hizbullah-led grouping. Voter participation was high at 55 percent. Both sides spent huge sums to purchase support and fly in expatriates to bolster their numbers.
It is good that Hizbullah did not achieve a better outcome. Yet Israelis would be deluding themselves if they viewed the results as a substantive defeat for the Islamists.
The harsh reality, the latest election results notwithstanding, is that Lebanon's radicalized Shi'ites are growing stronger and will need to be accommodated by the "victorious" forces of relative moderation.
No official census has been taken in Lebanon for decades. But the working assumption is that Shi'ites comprises 50% of the population; Sunnis 18%; Christians 15%; and Druse 17%. Nevertheless, elections in Lebanon are a set piece - a guaranteed 50:50 split between Christians and Muslims. This adheres to the 1943 National Pact, modified by the 1989 Taif Accord. Christians and Muslims then further divide the electoral results along confessional sub-groupings.
Election districts are gerrymandered. A given ward might be authorized to send, say, two Druse and one Sunni representative to the legislature. Everyone, regardless of religious affiliation, has the right to select from among the competing Druse and Sunni candidates. In other words, a Sunni running for a "Sunni seat" could still be aligned with Hizbullah.
Both sides understand that regardless of the results, Lebanon is in for more of the same. After his electoral achievement became clear, Hariri declared: "There are no winners or losers in these elections; the only winner is democracy in Lebanon."
Hizbullah's Hassan Fadlallah readily agreed about no winners or losers, saying: "Whoever wants political stability, the preservation of national unity and the resurrection of Lebanon will find no choice but to accept the principle of consensus." He meant: Hizbullah's consent.
Walid Jumblatt, the Druse leader ostensibly aligned with Hariri, said Hizbullah should be included in the next government. Before the results were in, he told a meeting of Druse elders: "The Shi'ite reality has imposed itself" via demography, money, ties with Iran, and the support of the wealthy Lebanese Shi'ite diaspora in Africa. Lebanon's future, Jumblatt was saying, is Shi'ite; the Druse struggling to survive will have to adjust accordingly.
That said, the Hariri forces will still have the most influence over the composition of the next government. Prior to the election, Hariri said he was not disposed to form a government with Hizbullah. Whatever the case, as a price for its support, Hizbullah will demand that Lebanon stop cooperating with the international tribunal investigating (already fingering, some reports say) Hizbullah's role in the assassination of Hariri's father, Rafik.
For this reason, Sa'ad Hariri may opt not to become premier, citing "national unity."
IT GOES without saying that Shi'ite leaders will not honor their pledge to view the election as a referendum on continued "resistance" against Israel.
Indeed, one may deduce that Hassan Nasrallah's fingerprints are all over yesterday's infiltration attempt from the northern Gaza Strip into Israel. The Hizbullah chief instigates attacks that are not easily traceable back to him, so as not to complicate the delicate political situation inside Lebanon.
On the other hand, in the unlikely event that Nasrallah should lash out openly against Israel out of frustration over his electoral setback, Lebanese factions should know that the Land of the Cedars will be held responsible for any aggression emanating from its territory.
So long as the West continues to kowtow to Iran, its Hizbullah proxy will continue to hold sway over events in Lebanon. Hizbullah will continue to field the country's strongest army and smuggle in weapons from Iran and Syria. It will bide its time; buy up more land; engage in more narco-terrorism; counterfeit more currency, and wait for demographics to determine Lebanon's fate.
Can Lebanon's fate yet be salvaged? Only if the West is prepared to do the heavy lifting required to block Teheran's drive for regional hegemony, and enforce UN Security Council resolutions 1559 and 1701 to stem weapons smuggling into Lebanon.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Monday, June 08, 2009
Don't know much about history...
Why Obama is wrong on Israel & the Shoah
On Friday, President Barack Obama placed a single white flower at the Buchenwald memorial for the estimated 43,000 people - among them 11,000 Jews - murdered at the concentration camp. In subdued tones, he said that the passage of time had not made the crematoria lose their horror. He spoke of his great uncle, who under Gen. Dwight Eisenhower had been among the camp's liberators. He recounted how Eisenhower had toured the camp so he could personally challenge anyone who might claim that the Allies had exaggerated the Nazi horrors for propaganda purposes.
This gave Obama another opportunity to declare that Holocaust denial is "baseless," "ignorant" and "hateful."
In his Cairo address the day before to the Muslim and Arab worlds, the president had justified Israel's right to exist on the basis of the Holocaust: "The aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted," he said, "in a tragic history" that culminated in the Shoah.
At Buchenwald, he said: "The nation of Israel [arose] out of the destruction of the Holocaust."
That rationale, standing alone, set the stage for Obama to assert: "On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinians… have suffered in pursuit of a homeland."
BARACK OBAMA has been terribly misinformed if he thinks Israel's legitimacy hinges on the Shoah. Of course, had the Jews achieved a national homeland in Palestine before the outbreak of WWII - as Britain promised in the 1917 Balfour Declaration and as the League of Nations affirmed in 1920 - the doors to this country would not have been barred to Jewish refugees seeking to escape from the Nazi killing machine. History would have turned out very differently indeed.
What the Holocaust proved is that the world is too dangerous a place for Jews to be stateless and defenseless. But we Zionists were making that argument long before Hitler came to power.
Granted, modern political Zionism developed in the late 1800s and early 1900s. But the president needs to better appreciate that Israel's legitimacy is not dependent on the consequences of the war waged against the Jews between 1933 and 1945. It is, first and foremost, rooted in the historic connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel.
The Zionist movement rejected Uganda as a safe haven in 1903, the need to save Jews from violent anti-Semitism notwithstanding, because Uganda did not belong to the Jews.
However one chooses to understand Jewish civilization - as sacred history, or through the modern lenses of secular history and archeology - the ancient bond between the Jews and their land is indisputable.
By 1000 BCE, the Twelve Tribes had formed a united monarchy. Then, when in 586 BCE the Jews were defeated and exiled, "By the rivers of Babylon... we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion." We returned and rebuilt our commonwealth - only to be defeated and exiled again, in 70 CE. As early as the 9th century, Jews had reestablished communities in Tiberias; and, in the 11th century, in Gaza.
SO YOU see, Mr. President, long before Christianity and Islam appeared on the world stage, the covenant between the people of Israel and the Land of Israel was entrenched and unwavering. Every day we prayed in our ancient tongue for our return to Zion. Every day, Mr. President. For 2,000 years.
At every Jewish wedding down through the centuries, the bridegroom has crushed a glass beneath his foot while declaring: "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem…"
Perhaps it's because Palestine was never sovereign under the Arabs that even moderate Palestinians cannot find it in their hearts to acknowledge the depth of the Jews' connection to Zion. Instead, they insist we are interlopers.
When Obama implies that Jewish rights are essentially predicated on the Holocaust - not once asserting they are far, far deeper and more ancient - he is dooming the prospects for peace.
For why should the Arabs reconcile themselves to the presence of a Jewish state, organic to the region, when the US president keeps insinuating that Israel was established to atone for Europe's crimes?
On Friday, President Barack Obama placed a single white flower at the Buchenwald memorial for the estimated 43,000 people - among them 11,000 Jews - murdered at the concentration camp. In subdued tones, he said that the passage of time had not made the crematoria lose their horror. He spoke of his great uncle, who under Gen. Dwight Eisenhower had been among the camp's liberators. He recounted how Eisenhower had toured the camp so he could personally challenge anyone who might claim that the Allies had exaggerated the Nazi horrors for propaganda purposes.
This gave Obama another opportunity to declare that Holocaust denial is "baseless," "ignorant" and "hateful."
In his Cairo address the day before to the Muslim and Arab worlds, the president had justified Israel's right to exist on the basis of the Holocaust: "The aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted," he said, "in a tragic history" that culminated in the Shoah.
At Buchenwald, he said: "The nation of Israel [arose] out of the destruction of the Holocaust."
That rationale, standing alone, set the stage for Obama to assert: "On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinians… have suffered in pursuit of a homeland."
BARACK OBAMA has been terribly misinformed if he thinks Israel's legitimacy hinges on the Shoah. Of course, had the Jews achieved a national homeland in Palestine before the outbreak of WWII - as Britain promised in the 1917 Balfour Declaration and as the League of Nations affirmed in 1920 - the doors to this country would not have been barred to Jewish refugees seeking to escape from the Nazi killing machine. History would have turned out very differently indeed.
What the Holocaust proved is that the world is too dangerous a place for Jews to be stateless and defenseless. But we Zionists were making that argument long before Hitler came to power.
Granted, modern political Zionism developed in the late 1800s and early 1900s. But the president needs to better appreciate that Israel's legitimacy is not dependent on the consequences of the war waged against the Jews between 1933 and 1945. It is, first and foremost, rooted in the historic connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel.
The Zionist movement rejected Uganda as a safe haven in 1903, the need to save Jews from violent anti-Semitism notwithstanding, because Uganda did not belong to the Jews.
However one chooses to understand Jewish civilization - as sacred history, or through the modern lenses of secular history and archeology - the ancient bond between the Jews and their land is indisputable.
By 1000 BCE, the Twelve Tribes had formed a united monarchy. Then, when in 586 BCE the Jews were defeated and exiled, "By the rivers of Babylon... we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion." We returned and rebuilt our commonwealth - only to be defeated and exiled again, in 70 CE. As early as the 9th century, Jews had reestablished communities in Tiberias; and, in the 11th century, in Gaza.
SO YOU see, Mr. President, long before Christianity and Islam appeared on the world stage, the covenant between the people of Israel and the Land of Israel was entrenched and unwavering. Every day we prayed in our ancient tongue for our return to Zion. Every day, Mr. President. For 2,000 years.
At every Jewish wedding down through the centuries, the bridegroom has crushed a glass beneath his foot while declaring: "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem…"
Perhaps it's because Palestine was never sovereign under the Arabs that even moderate Palestinians cannot find it in their hearts to acknowledge the depth of the Jews' connection to Zion. Instead, they insist we are interlopers.
When Obama implies that Jewish rights are essentially predicated on the Holocaust - not once asserting they are far, far deeper and more ancient - he is dooming the prospects for peace.
For why should the Arabs reconcile themselves to the presence of a Jewish state, organic to the region, when the US president keeps insinuating that Israel was established to atone for Europe's crimes?
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Friday, June 05, 2009
Obama's Cairo Speech as Seen from Jerusalem
Great expectations
It was with mixed feelings that we watched President Barack Obama deliver his extraordinary speech to the Muslim and Arab worlds in Cairo yesterday.
Critics will see the speech as incredibly naive. Yet it was also the most meaningful and coherent attempt by an American leader since 9/11 to dissociate the world's 1.5 billion Muslims from demagogic elites preaching worldwide jihad and hatred of non-believers.
It is not insignificant that Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden took the president's power to persuade seriously enough to try to preempt him by issuing fresh rants. It must have galled them to see hard-line imams and Muslim Brothers listening attentively in the audience. A Gallup Poll, taken before the speech, showed 25 percent of Egyptians approving of the US under Obama, compared to 6% under George W. Bush.
IN A city where Holocaust denial is part of the popular culture, it was good to hear Obama telling Muslims: "Six million Jews were killed," and saying otherwise is "ignorant, and hateful."
To no applause, he proclaimed: America's ties with Israel are "unbreakable."
However, elsewhere, Obama's moral equivalency was disconcerting. Undeniably, Palestinians have endured dislocation - but it would have been courageous of the president to say that much of this pain has been self-inflicted, thanks to 60 years of intransigence.
He was right to remind the Arab states that their peace initiative was only "an important beginning." And we were gratified when he insisted Hamas end its violence, recognize past agreements, and accept Israel's right to exist.
But we cringed when he associated the Palestinian struggle with the US civil rights movement and with the campaign for majority rule in South Africa - even if the punch-line of this false analogy was: Terrorism is always unjustifiable.
We were braced for his reiteration of long-standing US policy against the settlement enterprise. But he missed a crucial opportunity to prepare the Arabs for territorial compromise. No Israeli government is going to pull back to the hard-to-defend 1949 Armistice Lines.
Obama didn't really need to tell Israelis to acknowledge "Palestine's" right to exist since every government since Yitzhak Rabin's has been explicit that the Jewish state does not want to rule over another people. The real question is whether a violently fragmented Palestinian polity is capable of making the necessary compromises required to close a deal.
BUT THIS speech was not largely about the Arab-Israel conflict. It was an effort to pursue public diplomacy and suasion - trying to decouple the susceptible Muslim masses from the demagogic extremists who now hold such sway. That is why the president was wise to travel first to Saudi Arabia, "where Islam began," and, just before his speech, to be seen deferentially touring a mosque in Cairo - the city from where the theology of worldwide jihad first spread its vicious tentacles.
The speech was brilliantly proleptic: first acknowledging Muslim grievances, then stating the American case. To the Israeli ear, the president sounded fawning, prefacing each mention of the Koran with "holy." But it was just the right tack given the task at hand. Similarly, as the president highlighted the epochs during which Islam was a force for enlightenment, we could not help but recall that even in that "Golden Age," Jews were still treated as a dhimmi people.
And yet, the president's harking back to periods of relative tolerance bolstered his call on today's Muslims to behave temperately. We also appreciated his defense of the region's Christian minority.
We swallowed hard as the president intoned that "Islam is not part of the problem" of worldwide terrorism. At the same time, we reminded ourselves that his goal was to convince ordinary Muslims to make this dubious statement reality.
On democracy, employing a lighter touch than his predecessor, Obama advocated for the right of all citizens everywhere to express themselves freely and to live under regimes that respect the rule of law.
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei didn't wait long to digest the Obama speech before proclaiming that America remained "deeply hated" in the region, something that wasn't going to change because of "beautiful and sweet" words.
Who will be the first Muslim leader to tell the ayatollah he is wrong?
-------------------------
Shabbat shalom to all.
It was with mixed feelings that we watched President Barack Obama deliver his extraordinary speech to the Muslim and Arab worlds in Cairo yesterday.
Critics will see the speech as incredibly naive. Yet it was also the most meaningful and coherent attempt by an American leader since 9/11 to dissociate the world's 1.5 billion Muslims from demagogic elites preaching worldwide jihad and hatred of non-believers.
It is not insignificant that Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden took the president's power to persuade seriously enough to try to preempt him by issuing fresh rants. It must have galled them to see hard-line imams and Muslim Brothers listening attentively in the audience. A Gallup Poll, taken before the speech, showed 25 percent of Egyptians approving of the US under Obama, compared to 6% under George W. Bush.
IN A city where Holocaust denial is part of the popular culture, it was good to hear Obama telling Muslims: "Six million Jews were killed," and saying otherwise is "ignorant, and hateful."
To no applause, he proclaimed: America's ties with Israel are "unbreakable."
However, elsewhere, Obama's moral equivalency was disconcerting. Undeniably, Palestinians have endured dislocation - but it would have been courageous of the president to say that much of this pain has been self-inflicted, thanks to 60 years of intransigence.
He was right to remind the Arab states that their peace initiative was only "an important beginning." And we were gratified when he insisted Hamas end its violence, recognize past agreements, and accept Israel's right to exist.
But we cringed when he associated the Palestinian struggle with the US civil rights movement and with the campaign for majority rule in South Africa - even if the punch-line of this false analogy was: Terrorism is always unjustifiable.
We were braced for his reiteration of long-standing US policy against the settlement enterprise. But he missed a crucial opportunity to prepare the Arabs for territorial compromise. No Israeli government is going to pull back to the hard-to-defend 1949 Armistice Lines.
Obama didn't really need to tell Israelis to acknowledge "Palestine's" right to exist since every government since Yitzhak Rabin's has been explicit that the Jewish state does not want to rule over another people. The real question is whether a violently fragmented Palestinian polity is capable of making the necessary compromises required to close a deal.
BUT THIS speech was not largely about the Arab-Israel conflict. It was an effort to pursue public diplomacy and suasion - trying to decouple the susceptible Muslim masses from the demagogic extremists who now hold such sway. That is why the president was wise to travel first to Saudi Arabia, "where Islam began," and, just before his speech, to be seen deferentially touring a mosque in Cairo - the city from where the theology of worldwide jihad first spread its vicious tentacles.
The speech was brilliantly proleptic: first acknowledging Muslim grievances, then stating the American case. To the Israeli ear, the president sounded fawning, prefacing each mention of the Koran with "holy." But it was just the right tack given the task at hand. Similarly, as the president highlighted the epochs during which Islam was a force for enlightenment, we could not help but recall that even in that "Golden Age," Jews were still treated as a dhimmi people.
And yet, the president's harking back to periods of relative tolerance bolstered his call on today's Muslims to behave temperately. We also appreciated his defense of the region's Christian minority.
We swallowed hard as the president intoned that "Islam is not part of the problem" of worldwide terrorism. At the same time, we reminded ourselves that his goal was to convince ordinary Muslims to make this dubious statement reality.
On democracy, employing a lighter touch than his predecessor, Obama advocated for the right of all citizens everywhere to express themselves freely and to live under regimes that respect the rule of law.
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei didn't wait long to digest the Obama speech before proclaiming that America remained "deeply hated" in the region, something that wasn't going to change because of "beautiful and sweet" words.
Who will be the first Muslim leader to tell the ayatollah he is wrong?
-------------------------
Shabbat shalom to all.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Obama & Israel .....
Cool it!
To illustrate the nadir to which America-Israel relations have sunk, one Hebrew-language tabloid revealed that when IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi travelled to Washington several weeks back to meet with US decision-makers about the worrisome speed with which Iran is moving toward a nuclear bomb, neither Secretary of Defense Robert Gates nor Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would make time to see him.
The trip, said the paper, ended in failure.
Shocking story - but not true. Ashkenazi's visit didn't take place weeks ago, but months ago. The general chose to cut his visit short to participate in urgent cabinet deliberations about Gilad Schalit. And he wasn't in the US on official business, but to attend a Friends of the IDF fund-raiser.
Then there was The New York Times report about Washington toying with letting Israel fend for itself against the UN's built-in Muslim and Arab majority, to pressure for a settlement freeze. On Tuesday, administration sources denied the story.
There are those in America and Israel who, albeit for differing reasons, think talking-up tension in the US-Israel relationship is a good idea.
For those who want to create a political environment conducive to forcing Israeli concessions, it makes sense to spotlight differences over settlements; which is also a convenient way to dissociate the pro-Israel community in America from Israeli government policies, since support for the settlement enterprise is hardly widespread.
That's why Monday's loutish behavior by the "hilltop youth" in Samaria who attacked Palestinians, torched fields and burned tires was a godsend to proponents of a settlement freeze. Such images strengthen the myth that all settlers are wild-eyed religious fanatics to whom violence is second nature.
Meanwhile, dovish American Jews, hankering for Obama to impose "peace," are promoting a story that has White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel purportedly telling an unnamed Jewish leader that no matter what, a Palestinian state will emerge in the next four years; and that if Israel wants action on Iran, it will have to withdraw from West Bank territory.
This account portrays the savvy Emanuel as not only petulant, but naive - as if the Palestinians have no role to play, and Israel alone will bear the consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran.
Playing up tensions with the Obama administration also serves the interests of Netanyahu's domestic opponents. One pundit wrote Tuesday that the US and Israel aren't heading for a collision - they've already crashed. Implication: All would be well if Tzipi Livni was premier.
Paradoxically, commentators on the Right are saying exactly the same thing: that Washington has launched an all-out diplomatic and media assault against Israel that's "worse than a crisis."
We ask them: What useful purpose does it serve to demonize so popular a president, or claim his policies are motivated by animus, when it's hard to discern where they differ substantively from those of his predecessors?
GOING into his Thursday reconciliation speech in Cairo addressed to the Arab and Muslim world, Obama has been signaling that he expects gestures from them to encourage Israeli reciprocity. To interviewers reveling in the perceived chasm between Israel and Washington, the president is saying that unlike the 24/7 news cycle, which feeds on crises, diplomacy requires patience. And as The New York Times reported yesterday, he wants to play down differences over settlements.
Obama is reportedly planning a major Washington policy address next month detailing his approach to Arab-Israel peacemaking. Those who want to manipulate the environment to Israel's detriment will continue to foster an ambiance of crisis. But those who want what's best for Israel should be working in the opposite direction.
Our government can create a better atmosphere by permanently dismantling unauthorized outposts; reiterating Israel's "no new settlements" policy, and rethinking the wisdom of refusing to endorse previous Israeli governments' policy on the two-state solution.
Can we ask Obama to honor understandings about settlement blocs reached by Israel with his predecessor when we are not honoring agreements his predecessor reached with us?
Once we have taken these steps, we can feel more comfortable about disagreeing with other Obama policies without seeming to be disagreeable.
To illustrate the nadir to which America-Israel relations have sunk, one Hebrew-language tabloid revealed that when IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi travelled to Washington several weeks back to meet with US decision-makers about the worrisome speed with which Iran is moving toward a nuclear bomb, neither Secretary of Defense Robert Gates nor Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would make time to see him.
The trip, said the paper, ended in failure.
Shocking story - but not true. Ashkenazi's visit didn't take place weeks ago, but months ago. The general chose to cut his visit short to participate in urgent cabinet deliberations about Gilad Schalit. And he wasn't in the US on official business, but to attend a Friends of the IDF fund-raiser.
Then there was The New York Times report about Washington toying with letting Israel fend for itself against the UN's built-in Muslim and Arab majority, to pressure for a settlement freeze. On Tuesday, administration sources denied the story.
There are those in America and Israel who, albeit for differing reasons, think talking-up tension in the US-Israel relationship is a good idea.
For those who want to create a political environment conducive to forcing Israeli concessions, it makes sense to spotlight differences over settlements; which is also a convenient way to dissociate the pro-Israel community in America from Israeli government policies, since support for the settlement enterprise is hardly widespread.
That's why Monday's loutish behavior by the "hilltop youth" in Samaria who attacked Palestinians, torched fields and burned tires was a godsend to proponents of a settlement freeze. Such images strengthen the myth that all settlers are wild-eyed religious fanatics to whom violence is second nature.
Meanwhile, dovish American Jews, hankering for Obama to impose "peace," are promoting a story that has White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel purportedly telling an unnamed Jewish leader that no matter what, a Palestinian state will emerge in the next four years; and that if Israel wants action on Iran, it will have to withdraw from West Bank territory.
This account portrays the savvy Emanuel as not only petulant, but naive - as if the Palestinians have no role to play, and Israel alone will bear the consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran.
Playing up tensions with the Obama administration also serves the interests of Netanyahu's domestic opponents. One pundit wrote Tuesday that the US and Israel aren't heading for a collision - they've already crashed. Implication: All would be well if Tzipi Livni was premier.
Paradoxically, commentators on the Right are saying exactly the same thing: that Washington has launched an all-out diplomatic and media assault against Israel that's "worse than a crisis."
We ask them: What useful purpose does it serve to demonize so popular a president, or claim his policies are motivated by animus, when it's hard to discern where they differ substantively from those of his predecessors?
GOING into his Thursday reconciliation speech in Cairo addressed to the Arab and Muslim world, Obama has been signaling that he expects gestures from them to encourage Israeli reciprocity. To interviewers reveling in the perceived chasm between Israel and Washington, the president is saying that unlike the 24/7 news cycle, which feeds on crises, diplomacy requires patience. And as The New York Times reported yesterday, he wants to play down differences over settlements.
Obama is reportedly planning a major Washington policy address next month detailing his approach to Arab-Israel peacemaking. Those who want to manipulate the environment to Israel's detriment will continue to foster an ambiance of crisis. But those who want what's best for Israel should be working in the opposite direction.
Our government can create a better atmosphere by permanently dismantling unauthorized outposts; reiterating Israel's "no new settlements" policy, and rethinking the wisdom of refusing to endorse previous Israeli governments' policy on the two-state solution.
Can we ask Obama to honor understandings about settlement blocs reached by Israel with his predecessor when we are not honoring agreements his predecessor reached with us?
Once we have taken these steps, we can feel more comfortable about disagreeing with other Obama policies without seeming to be disagreeable.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
War Siren at 11 a.m.
Welcome to our reality
Say you live in any one of these cities: Oslo, Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, London, Stockholm or Washington, and at 11 a.m. today the war siren goes off. You've been told it's just a drill - your city isn't being attacked by ballistic missiles or long-range rockets. Your country neither plans to attack anyone, nor is there intelligence indicating it is the target of imminent attack.
Still, the wailing siren - a curiously anachronistic instrument for the 21st century - is upsetting. You do as you're told and seek out a nearby bomb shelter, or enter the reinforced-concrete room common in homes built since the 1990s.
At work, there is some gallows humor as colleagues file into the bomb shelter. At school, your children will head into the shelters with their teachers. It may strike you that the authorities were imprudent in collecting for refurbishment those cardboard boxes with their plastic shoulder-straps containing gas masks and a chemical-warfare antidote.
Of course, if you do live in any of the above-mentioned capitals, this scenario is beyond far-fetched. There are no shelters. No safe rooms. No gas masks.
No one is threatening to wipe Sweden, Germany or Scotland - or any of the others - off the map. There are no Sajil II ballistic missiles aimed your way. Your country didn't absorb 5,000 rocket hits in the course of a single summer. It doesn't share a border with a country that deploys Scud D missiles. And the notion that missiles laden with WMDs could explode over your head is simply beyond imagination.
Though Muslim extremists struck in Spain, Britain and the United States, the sense that any further danger looms is not widespread. That's why no one undergoes a security check to enter a supermarket, department store or cinema. And why armed guards are not posted outside schools.
WE ISRAELIS live in a very different reality.
That truth was brought home in remarks Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made at Sunday's cabinet meeting regarding Turning Point 3 - the week-long nationwide emergency drill.
The exercise is "routine," something the country does annually, he said, adding that it "reflects the special way in which we lead our lives - which, upon reflection, is not all that routine."
Want to understand the Israeli psyche? Consider that when our country was born, those with whom we sought to share this land rejected our right to exist. Though we have created a technologically advanced, Western-oriented country, and made peace with Egypt and Jordan, our "normality" still demands that a high-school graduate head not to university or for a gap year, but to basic training.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s (when there were no settlements and no "occupation") our homeland was under attack anyway. A single example: On March 17, 1954, gunmen ambushed an Eilat-Tel Aviv commuter bus. First they murdered the driver, then they proceeded to shoot the passengers, one by one.
In the 1970s, we fought off a surprise attack on our most solemn holy day - after having withstood a war of attrition. In the 1980s, we fought bitter wars in Lebanon to fend off attacks against our northern border.
In the 1990s, we signed the Oslo Accords with the Palestinian leadership. And since then? More Israelis have been murdered by terrorists than ever before.
Efforts to reach an accommodation with a violently fragmented Palestinian polity have thus far proven fruitless. The "moderates" appear no less unyielding than the fanatics.
We caught the Syrians, to our north, building a clandestine nuclear facility under North Korean tutelage. They make no secret about hosting Hamas's politburo, pressuring it to resist even a tactical timeout in its anti-Israel belligerency.
Hizbullah dominates Lebanese affairs and provides Iran with shock-troops along our border.
Then there is Iran, which may have enriched enough uranium to manufacture a nuclear bomb by year's end. Even as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatens our obliteration, he insists that the Nazis did not systematically destroy European Jewry. Yet he is feted at UN forums, while Europeans shamelessly subsidize trade with his country.
That is our reality. It's the one many of us will be contemplating at 11 a.m. today, when the siren sounds.
Say you live in any one of these cities: Oslo, Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, London, Stockholm or Washington, and at 11 a.m. today the war siren goes off. You've been told it's just a drill - your city isn't being attacked by ballistic missiles or long-range rockets. Your country neither plans to attack anyone, nor is there intelligence indicating it is the target of imminent attack.
Still, the wailing siren - a curiously anachronistic instrument for the 21st century - is upsetting. You do as you're told and seek out a nearby bomb shelter, or enter the reinforced-concrete room common in homes built since the 1990s.
At work, there is some gallows humor as colleagues file into the bomb shelter. At school, your children will head into the shelters with their teachers. It may strike you that the authorities were imprudent in collecting for refurbishment those cardboard boxes with their plastic shoulder-straps containing gas masks and a chemical-warfare antidote.
Of course, if you do live in any of the above-mentioned capitals, this scenario is beyond far-fetched. There are no shelters. No safe rooms. No gas masks.
No one is threatening to wipe Sweden, Germany or Scotland - or any of the others - off the map. There are no Sajil II ballistic missiles aimed your way. Your country didn't absorb 5,000 rocket hits in the course of a single summer. It doesn't share a border with a country that deploys Scud D missiles. And the notion that missiles laden with WMDs could explode over your head is simply beyond imagination.
Though Muslim extremists struck in Spain, Britain and the United States, the sense that any further danger looms is not widespread. That's why no one undergoes a security check to enter a supermarket, department store or cinema. And why armed guards are not posted outside schools.
WE ISRAELIS live in a very different reality.
That truth was brought home in remarks Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made at Sunday's cabinet meeting regarding Turning Point 3 - the week-long nationwide emergency drill.
The exercise is "routine," something the country does annually, he said, adding that it "reflects the special way in which we lead our lives - which, upon reflection, is not all that routine."
Want to understand the Israeli psyche? Consider that when our country was born, those with whom we sought to share this land rejected our right to exist. Though we have created a technologically advanced, Western-oriented country, and made peace with Egypt and Jordan, our "normality" still demands that a high-school graduate head not to university or for a gap year, but to basic training.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s (when there were no settlements and no "occupation") our homeland was under attack anyway. A single example: On March 17, 1954, gunmen ambushed an Eilat-Tel Aviv commuter bus. First they murdered the driver, then they proceeded to shoot the passengers, one by one.
In the 1970s, we fought off a surprise attack on our most solemn holy day - after having withstood a war of attrition. In the 1980s, we fought bitter wars in Lebanon to fend off attacks against our northern border.
In the 1990s, we signed the Oslo Accords with the Palestinian leadership. And since then? More Israelis have been murdered by terrorists than ever before.
Efforts to reach an accommodation with a violently fragmented Palestinian polity have thus far proven fruitless. The "moderates" appear no less unyielding than the fanatics.
We caught the Syrians, to our north, building a clandestine nuclear facility under North Korean tutelage. They make no secret about hosting Hamas's politburo, pressuring it to resist even a tactical timeout in its anti-Israel belligerency.
Hizbullah dominates Lebanese affairs and provides Iran with shock-troops along our border.
Then there is Iran, which may have enriched enough uranium to manufacture a nuclear bomb by year's end. Even as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatens our obliteration, he insists that the Nazis did not systematically destroy European Jewry. Yet he is feted at UN forums, while Europeans shamelessly subsidize trade with his country.
That is our reality. It's the one many of us will be contemplating at 11 a.m. today, when the siren sounds.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Monday, June 01, 2009
Obama & Israel. The president takes the wrong approach
Paradigm shift
President Barack Obama says he doesn't have time to watch cable television news. We sure hope he hasn't given up reading The Washington Post, and that he made time for Jackson Diehl's remarkably illuminating column, "Abbas's Waiting Game" (May 29).
Diehl interviewed the Palestinian leader prior to his White House meeting with Obama on Thursday. The columnist, not a known Zionist apologist, labeled Mahmoud Abbas's thinking "hardline."
If the president wants to know why leaning on Israel while basically giving so-called moderate Palestinians a free ride won't advance peace, he'll find the answers in Diehl's column outlining Abbas's Five Noes: Would he negotiate with Binyamin Netanyahu without preconditions? No. Would he recognize Israel as a Jewish state? No. Would he consider territorial compromise? No. Would he compromise on refugees? No. Would he modify the Arab Peace Initiative to make it a more viable negotiating tool? Absolutely not.
Sitting next to Obama in the Oval Office, "Abu Mazen" sounded like a different man, telling reporters: "I believe that time is of the essence," and that talks with Israel needed to resume "right now."
But just the day before, Abbas told Diehl he had all the time in the world. He'll wait out Hamas (though his US-trained elite forces killed several of their gunmen in Kalkilya on Monday). He'll wait "for Israel to freeze settlements."
"Until then," Abbas candidly admitted, "in the West Bank we have a good reality... the people are living a normal life."
This from a man who claims that "time is of the essence."
Palestinian negotiators say there's no point in talking to Netanyahu because he does not want to discuss final status issues. Conveniently forgotten is the fact that when Abbas was negotiating precisely those issues with Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni in 2008, he refused to take yes for an answer and close a deal with them.
PALESTINIAN "moderates" say they'll wait patiently for Obama to force a collapse of the Netanyahu government allowing the supposedly more pliable Livni to become premier.
That's curious.
The Kadima government offered Abbas 97 percent of the West Bank (plus land swaps in Israel proper to make up the difference). Olmert was willing to concede on territory, refugees, even on Jerusalem.
Diehl: "[Abbas] confirmed that Olmert 'accepted the principle' of the 'right of return' of Palestinian refugees - something no previous Israeli prime minister had done - and offered to resettle thousands in Israel. In all, Olmert's peace offer was more generous to the Palestinians than either that of [George W.] Bush or Bill Clinton..."
Not good enough, said Abbas.
Yet now he is pushing the idea - on a willing administration - that it is Netanyahu and the settlements that are the stumbling blocks to an agreement.
US policymakers have always opposed Israel's presence beyond the Green Line. Condoleezza Rice was here only last June complaining about settlements. Still, there's no denying the disturbing change in tone emanating from Washington, which is elevating the settlements issue to an importance which is disproportionate. It's being accompanied by a paradigm shift: pressing Israel while coddling the Palestinians.
This approach is destined to leave both Israelis and Palestinians embittered and no closer to resolving the conflict.
Final borders need to be negotiated. And when they are, all settlements on the "wrong" side of the line will be dismantled - just as they were when Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. It would therefore be reasonable, in the interim, for Washington not to make an issue of modest levels of natural growth in these communities.
At the same time, a freeze within the strategic settlement blocs, including Jerusalem, that Israel intends to retain in any agreement is simply not on the agenda.
That said, the Israeli government needs to better articulate the fact that no new settlements are being authorized beyond the security barrier. And it needs to move with all deliberate speed to dismantle illegal outposts permanently.
When American decision-makers denigrate painful Israeli sacrifices - including disengagement; 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.
President Barack Obama says he doesn't have time to watch cable television news. We sure hope he hasn't given up reading The Washington Post, and that he made time for Jackson Diehl's remarkably illuminating column, "Abbas's Waiting Game" (May 29).
Diehl interviewed the Palestinian leader prior to his White House meeting with Obama on Thursday. The columnist, not a known Zionist apologist, labeled Mahmoud Abbas's thinking "hardline."
If the president wants to know why leaning on Israel while basically giving so-called moderate Palestinians a free ride won't advance peace, he'll find the answers in Diehl's column outlining Abbas's Five Noes: Would he negotiate with Binyamin Netanyahu without preconditions? No. Would he recognize Israel as a Jewish state? No. Would he consider territorial compromise? No. Would he compromise on refugees? No. Would he modify the Arab Peace Initiative to make it a more viable negotiating tool? Absolutely not.
Sitting next to Obama in the Oval Office, "Abu Mazen" sounded like a different man, telling reporters: "I believe that time is of the essence," and that talks with Israel needed to resume "right now."
But just the day before, Abbas told Diehl he had all the time in the world. He'll wait out Hamas (though his US-trained elite forces killed several of their gunmen in Kalkilya on Monday). He'll wait "for Israel to freeze settlements."
"Until then," Abbas candidly admitted, "in the West Bank we have a good reality... the people are living a normal life."
This from a man who claims that "time is of the essence."
Palestinian negotiators say there's no point in talking to Netanyahu because he does not want to discuss final status issues. Conveniently forgotten is the fact that when Abbas was negotiating precisely those issues with Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni in 2008, he refused to take yes for an answer and close a deal with them.
PALESTINIAN "moderates" say they'll wait patiently for Obama to force a collapse of the Netanyahu government allowing the supposedly more pliable Livni to become premier.
That's curious.
The Kadima government offered Abbas 97 percent of the West Bank (plus land swaps in Israel proper to make up the difference). Olmert was willing to concede on territory, refugees, even on Jerusalem.
Diehl: "[Abbas] confirmed that Olmert 'accepted the principle' of the 'right of return' of Palestinian refugees - something no previous Israeli prime minister had done - and offered to resettle thousands in Israel. In all, Olmert's peace offer was more generous to the Palestinians than either that of [George W.] Bush or Bill Clinton..."
Not good enough, said Abbas.
Yet now he is pushing the idea - on a willing administration - that it is Netanyahu and the settlements that are the stumbling blocks to an agreement.
US policymakers have always opposed Israel's presence beyond the Green Line. Condoleezza Rice was here only last June complaining about settlements. Still, there's no denying the disturbing change in tone emanating from Washington, which is elevating the settlements issue to an importance which is disproportionate. It's being accompanied by a paradigm shift: pressing Israel while coddling the Palestinians.
This approach is destined to leave both Israelis and Palestinians embittered and no closer to resolving the conflict.
Final borders need to be negotiated. And when they are, all settlements on the "wrong" side of the line will be dismantled - just as they were when Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. It would therefore be reasonable, in the interim, for Washington not to make an issue of modest levels of natural growth in these communities.
At the same time, a freeze within the strategic settlement blocs, including Jerusalem, that Israel intends to retain in any agreement is simply not on the agenda.
That said, the Israeli government needs to better articulate the fact that no new settlements are being authorized beyond the security barrier. And it needs to move with all deliberate speed to dismantle illegal outposts permanently.
When American decision-makers denigrate painful Israeli sacrifices - including disengagement; 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.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Psychopathology -- on the individual & international level
Erev shavuot- happy holiday to all. Back with a new positing on Monday
-- elliot
A moral vacuum
We now know that around midnight on August 1, 2003, Adwan Yihya Farhan murdered Dana Bennet outside Tiberias. The Chicago-born 18-year-old was "killed for the sake of killing," said Dep.-Cmdr. Avi Elgrissi.
Farhan's criminal history, which dates back to 1994 when he was 18, includes the murders of Sylvia Molorova, a traveler from the Czech Republic, Aharon Simahov, with whom he shared a Tiberias lock-up, and a nameless man in his 40s. He committed other violent crimes including kidnapping and rape. When he was arrested, the one-time police informer was being held in a Beersheba-area jail for raping an Australian tourist.
Writing in Wednesday's Jerusalem Post, eminent sociologist Shlomo Giora Shoham noted that Adwan "displays the behavior of a typical psychopath. He doesn't have a conscience, he doesn't have empathy. He kills without reason." Triggered by a combination of nature and nurture, the psychopath's compulsion to kill is sexually-driven, Shoham wrote.
NEWS OF Farhan's capture competed for attention Wednesday with North Korea's announcement that it has abandoned the 1953 truce ending the Korean War.
On Monday, the Pyongyang regime illegally detonated a huge underground nuclear explosion - eliciting worldwide condemnation and the relaunching of the US-led multinational Proliferation Security Initiative aimed at uncovering the transfer of weapons of mass destruction to state and non-state actors.
The North Koreans' response: yet more saber-rattling. They test-fired more missiles, revved up their weapons-grade Yongbyon reactor and rallied the country's hapless masses. They then proclaimed that any stopping and searching of North Korean shipping would be viewed as "a declaration of war." They were particularly incensed at South Korea's joining the multinational initiative, launched originally by president George W. Bush on May 31, 2003. At the time, China, which along with South Korea is the only country with leverage over the North, refused to cooperate. With Washington focused on Iraq, the initiative was quietly shelved.
Analysts have been debating Pyongyang's motivation for Monday's blast. Some argue it was to solidify support for the ruling clique at a time when Kim Jong-Il, who is both dictator and deity, is fading. Others speculate that the detonation followed a pattern in which the North behaves outrageously to garner attention, and is paid off in return for better behavior.
But the explanation we prefer suggests that as a proliferator of nuclear technology to countries such as Syria and Iran, the North Koreans need to show their customers that what they're selling really works.
Though they also make ends meet by trafficking in heroin and methamphetamines, and by exporting citizens for forced labor and sexual exploitation, nuclear proliferation is the country's most lucrative export.
THESE TWO stories, breaking within a single week, show very clearly how psychopathology can exist on both the individual and the international level.
Both the serial killer and the malevolent leadership in Pyongyang are guilty of extreme immoral and antisocial behavior, the one compelled by bloodlust, the other by calculated depravity.
There are no angelic nation-states, including ours. All countries are adept at rationalizing behavior that is patently morally wrong. Ask certain European nations, for example, why they conduct billions of Euros worth of trade with a fanatical regime that threatens to wipe Israel off the map, and the reply will likely be that they are actually bolstering international tranquility.
Nations, like individuals, sometimes lie to themselves.
Not North Korea, apparently. It is unapologetic about its illegal nuclear testing and proliferation activities. It doesn't feel compelled to lie to itself about why it engages in commerce with Iran or Syria. Like the lone psychopath, its leaders are narcissists who show a reckless disregard for others, a lack of empathy and an inability to tell right from wrong.
AS WE ponder what happens when law and morality vanish, the Jewish world prepares to celebrate Shavuot tonight and Friday. By tradition, the holiday marks the giving of the Torah - the basis of law and morality in Judaism - at Mt. Sinai.
Heaven knows, we too often fall short of what is demanded of us.
Yet, as we saw again this week, when the shackles of a higher moral code are absent, the world becomes even more dissolute, brutish and riddled with delusions of grandeu
-- elliot
A moral vacuum
We now know that around midnight on August 1, 2003, Adwan Yihya Farhan murdered Dana Bennet outside Tiberias. The Chicago-born 18-year-old was "killed for the sake of killing," said Dep.-Cmdr. Avi Elgrissi.
Farhan's criminal history, which dates back to 1994 when he was 18, includes the murders of Sylvia Molorova, a traveler from the Czech Republic, Aharon Simahov, with whom he shared a Tiberias lock-up, and a nameless man in his 40s. He committed other violent crimes including kidnapping and rape. When he was arrested, the one-time police informer was being held in a Beersheba-area jail for raping an Australian tourist.
Writing in Wednesday's Jerusalem Post, eminent sociologist Shlomo Giora Shoham noted that Adwan "displays the behavior of a typical psychopath. He doesn't have a conscience, he doesn't have empathy. He kills without reason." Triggered by a combination of nature and nurture, the psychopath's compulsion to kill is sexually-driven, Shoham wrote.
NEWS OF Farhan's capture competed for attention Wednesday with North Korea's announcement that it has abandoned the 1953 truce ending the Korean War.
On Monday, the Pyongyang regime illegally detonated a huge underground nuclear explosion - eliciting worldwide condemnation and the relaunching of the US-led multinational Proliferation Security Initiative aimed at uncovering the transfer of weapons of mass destruction to state and non-state actors.
The North Koreans' response: yet more saber-rattling. They test-fired more missiles, revved up their weapons-grade Yongbyon reactor and rallied the country's hapless masses. They then proclaimed that any stopping and searching of North Korean shipping would be viewed as "a declaration of war." They were particularly incensed at South Korea's joining the multinational initiative, launched originally by president George W. Bush on May 31, 2003. At the time, China, which along with South Korea is the only country with leverage over the North, refused to cooperate. With Washington focused on Iraq, the initiative was quietly shelved.
Analysts have been debating Pyongyang's motivation for Monday's blast. Some argue it was to solidify support for the ruling clique at a time when Kim Jong-Il, who is both dictator and deity, is fading. Others speculate that the detonation followed a pattern in which the North behaves outrageously to garner attention, and is paid off in return for better behavior.
But the explanation we prefer suggests that as a proliferator of nuclear technology to countries such as Syria and Iran, the North Koreans need to show their customers that what they're selling really works.
Though they also make ends meet by trafficking in heroin and methamphetamines, and by exporting citizens for forced labor and sexual exploitation, nuclear proliferation is the country's most lucrative export.
THESE TWO stories, breaking within a single week, show very clearly how psychopathology can exist on both the individual and the international level.
Both the serial killer and the malevolent leadership in Pyongyang are guilty of extreme immoral and antisocial behavior, the one compelled by bloodlust, the other by calculated depravity.
There are no angelic nation-states, including ours. All countries are adept at rationalizing behavior that is patently morally wrong. Ask certain European nations, for example, why they conduct billions of Euros worth of trade with a fanatical regime that threatens to wipe Israel off the map, and the reply will likely be that they are actually bolstering international tranquility.
Nations, like individuals, sometimes lie to themselves.
Not North Korea, apparently. It is unapologetic about its illegal nuclear testing and proliferation activities. It doesn't feel compelled to lie to itself about why it engages in commerce with Iran or Syria. Like the lone psychopath, its leaders are narcissists who show a reckless disregard for others, a lack of empathy and an inability to tell right from wrong.
AS WE ponder what happens when law and morality vanish, the Jewish world prepares to celebrate Shavuot tonight and Friday. By tradition, the holiday marks the giving of the Torah - the basis of law and morality in Judaism - at Mt. Sinai.
Heaven knows, we too often fall short of what is demanded of us.
Yet, as we saw again this week, when the shackles of a higher moral code are absent, the world becomes even more dissolute, brutish and riddled with delusions of grandeu
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Tzipi Livni & Bibi Netanyahu ...the saga continues
The loyal opposition
For the first three decades of the state, Menachem Begin was Israel's sole leader of the Knesset opposition. Since 2000, however, Israel has had nine opposition heads. Today's politics may be more volatile, but it's less ideologically coherent. Political campaigns increasingly center on the leader's personality and character.
It is amid this ambiance that the four-year-old Kadima Party has been either governing, under Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert, or leading the opposition, under Tzipi Livni.
Just months into this role, Livni has formed a "shadow team," not quite akin to the British concept of the "shadow cabinet" - yet complete with shadow ministers and area experts to basically parallel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's cabinet.
Since Kadima is a relatively new party, the idea is intended to help it develop positions on a range of issues. With any luck, novice "shadows" will become sufficiently proficient in their areas of responsibility to produce informed critiques. From a morale point of view, the idea is to diminish opposition MKs' feeling that they are wasting away in the political wilderness.
The scheme, for example, calls for Shaul Mofaz to shadow Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Ronnie Bar-On shadows Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz. Meir Sheetrit shadows Interior Minister Eli Yishai. Avi Dichter shadows Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch… and so on down the line.
Area experts include Otniel Schneller on how to bridge Judaism and democracy. Yohanan Plessner will examine the Tal Law and national service. The party has also designated liaisons for Gush Katif evacuees, Diaspora affairs, Negev and Galilee development and Beduin concerns.
It's an altogether splendid idea that could generate a level of reasoned criticism and hone policy expertise. So we'd like to believe it's more than a gimmick developed by Livni's political consultants. The credibility of the plan, a revolutionary rethinking of how opposition politics should work, would have been enhanced had it not been disseminated via a Monday night press release issued by the party's spokesman. Nevertheless, we credit Livni with the approach and encourage her to actualize it.
IN HER new role, Livni is to be commended for generally recognizing that politics stops at the water's edge - meaning criticism of government policies should be tempered while abroad, or addressing foreign audiences. She acquitted herself well in telling a recent AIPAC audience that in regard to Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, there are no policy differences between the government and the opposition. She also appears to be in synch with Netanyahu on how to handle Hamas in Gaza.
On the Palestinian track, however, in a recent Newsweek interview, Livni labeled the Netanyahu government "very right-wing." Asked how an international audience should understand the categorization, she replied that "just saying no" doesn't take into account a new camp of Arab moderates.
Speaking on Army Radio Monday she was understandably more explicit: "This government doesn't want to talk. It is dragging its feet in an attempt to refrain from renewing contacts with the Palestinians," and concluded that Netanyahu's policies are already leading toward a "diplomatic collapse."
We don't begrudge Livni the need to differentiate Kadima from Likud. But she'd be both more credible, and more effective in the international arena, if she noted that she herself engaged these same Arab moderates with not much to show for it, and that at the end of the day, her policy differences with Netanyahu are not all that substantive.
Like Netanyahu, she would wait until after an agreement on final borders before dismantling any settlements. Livni, no less than Netanyahu, opposes unfettered Palestinian sovereignty - and if we've got that wrong, Ms. Livni, do enlighten us.
While saying he does not want to rule over the Palestinians, Netanyahu won't commit to the "two-state solution" until he knows what that entails for Israel's ability to defend itself.
Here Livni's public diplomacy style is wiser. By forthrightly espousing the two-state solution, she places the onus for opposing an end to the conflict where it belongs - on the Palestinians. After all, it's their intransigence - on borders, refugees and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state - that's prevented a deal.
She can enhance her stature as leader of the loyal opposition by making that clear, at every opportunity.
For the first three decades of the state, Menachem Begin was Israel's sole leader of the Knesset opposition. Since 2000, however, Israel has had nine opposition heads. Today's politics may be more volatile, but it's less ideologically coherent. Political campaigns increasingly center on the leader's personality and character.
It is amid this ambiance that the four-year-old Kadima Party has been either governing, under Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert, or leading the opposition, under Tzipi Livni.
Just months into this role, Livni has formed a "shadow team," not quite akin to the British concept of the "shadow cabinet" - yet complete with shadow ministers and area experts to basically parallel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's cabinet.
Since Kadima is a relatively new party, the idea is intended to help it develop positions on a range of issues. With any luck, novice "shadows" will become sufficiently proficient in their areas of responsibility to produce informed critiques. From a morale point of view, the idea is to diminish opposition MKs' feeling that they are wasting away in the political wilderness.
The scheme, for example, calls for Shaul Mofaz to shadow Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Ronnie Bar-On shadows Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz. Meir Sheetrit shadows Interior Minister Eli Yishai. Avi Dichter shadows Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch… and so on down the line.
Area experts include Otniel Schneller on how to bridge Judaism and democracy. Yohanan Plessner will examine the Tal Law and national service. The party has also designated liaisons for Gush Katif evacuees, Diaspora affairs, Negev and Galilee development and Beduin concerns.
It's an altogether splendid idea that could generate a level of reasoned criticism and hone policy expertise. So we'd like to believe it's more than a gimmick developed by Livni's political consultants. The credibility of the plan, a revolutionary rethinking of how opposition politics should work, would have been enhanced had it not been disseminated via a Monday night press release issued by the party's spokesman. Nevertheless, we credit Livni with the approach and encourage her to actualize it.
IN HER new role, Livni is to be commended for generally recognizing that politics stops at the water's edge - meaning criticism of government policies should be tempered while abroad, or addressing foreign audiences. She acquitted herself well in telling a recent AIPAC audience that in regard to Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, there are no policy differences between the government and the opposition. She also appears to be in synch with Netanyahu on how to handle Hamas in Gaza.
On the Palestinian track, however, in a recent Newsweek interview, Livni labeled the Netanyahu government "very right-wing." Asked how an international audience should understand the categorization, she replied that "just saying no" doesn't take into account a new camp of Arab moderates.
Speaking on Army Radio Monday she was understandably more explicit: "This government doesn't want to talk. It is dragging its feet in an attempt to refrain from renewing contacts with the Palestinians," and concluded that Netanyahu's policies are already leading toward a "diplomatic collapse."
We don't begrudge Livni the need to differentiate Kadima from Likud. But she'd be both more credible, and more effective in the international arena, if she noted that she herself engaged these same Arab moderates with not much to show for it, and that at the end of the day, her policy differences with Netanyahu are not all that substantive.
Like Netanyahu, she would wait until after an agreement on final borders before dismantling any settlements. Livni, no less than Netanyahu, opposes unfettered Palestinian sovereignty - and if we've got that wrong, Ms. Livni, do enlighten us.
While saying he does not want to rule over the Palestinians, Netanyahu won't commit to the "two-state solution" until he knows what that entails for Israel's ability to defend itself.
Here Livni's public diplomacy style is wiser. By forthrightly espousing the two-state solution, she places the onus for opposing an end to the conflict where it belongs - on the Palestinians. After all, it's their intransigence - on borders, refugees and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state - that's prevented a deal.
She can enhance her stature as leader of the loyal opposition by making that clear, at every opportunity.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
He ain't mad...
Got busy Tuesday & didn't get around to posting this...
Pyongyang lesson
Say that in response to North Korea's detonation on Monday of a Nagasaki-like nuclear blast, the world declares: "Enough is enough."
China, the North's only ally, cuts off fuel and seals its border. South Korea halts humanitarian aid. NATO warships, backed by Russia's Pacific fleet, enforce a total blockade.
How might North Korea react? Perhaps by invading the South; perhaps by exploding a nuke over Seoul. Or perhaps the regime would begin to gasp its last, as millions of starving northerners stormed the Chinese and South Korean borders.
The sudden, forced reunification of the peninsula would saddle the modern, affluent South with incredible logistical problems - foremost among them how to feed a backward, impoverished population and integrate it into their hyper-modern society.
In other words: At this late stage, decision-makers are likely to find meaningful action totally unpalatable.
IT HAS no doubt been instructive for Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to observe the civilized world's reaction, over the years, to North Korean provocations.
After revving up their nuclear program around the time of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the North Koreans conducted an underground nuclear test on October 9, 2006. Following an outcry, they pretended to abandon their program and duly obtained a range of economic and diplomatic payoffs. In October 2008, the Bush administration removed North Korea from the State Department's list of countries which sponsor terrorism.
Western intelligence analysts think the 2006 test, which registered with the magnitude of a 4.2 earthquake, may have been a dud. As David E. Sanger of The New York Times writes in The Inheritance, "The yield was below a kiloton, far less than a tenth of the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima."
Not so yesterday's blast, estimated at 4.5 to 5.3 magnitude.
North Korea is a hereditary dictatorship led by Kim Jong-Il, who followed his father, Kim Il-Sung. He will likely be replaced by his son Kim Jong-Un.
The masses suffer unspeakable deprivation - during the 1990s hundreds of thousands died of famine and disease - while resources are directed to the military-industrial complex and propaganda. A cloying personality cult has transformed the leader into a deity, while xenophobia and racial supremacy lead people to fear change.
North Korea purchased centrifuges and, possibly, uranium from Pakistan. It raises money by selling what it knows about building missiles and atom bombs. For 10 years - under the nose of American intelligence - it built Syria's al-Kimbar nuclear facility in the Euphrates Valley, a mirror image, writes the Times' Sanger, of the North's own Yongbyon reactor.
As the Bush administration was obsessing over Saddam Hussein's non-existent nuclear weapons, North Korea was preparing to transform next-door Syria into a nuclear power. Mercifully, on September 6, 2007, the nearly completed reactor was smashed by the Israel Air Force before it could be fueled.
Pyongyang and Teheran share their nuclear know-how. Iranian scientists were reportedly present at the October 2006 detonation and, we assume, observed Monday's blast too. By learning from the North Koreans, the mullahs may be laying the groundwork - literally - for an underground nuclear explosion of their own.
KHAMENEI knows that while the West spins its wheels, Iran's quest for nuclear arms proceeds apace. "Fate changes no man, unless he changes fate," he's fond of telling acolytes. And yet, he can't afford to be sanguine.
True, Iran's nuclear sites are scattered throughout his vast territory, providing redundancy and concealment from attack. True, too, complex problems such as fuel-making, bomb-building and weapons delivery are being successfully addressed.
Still, the ayatollah worries. It's not inconceivable - even at this late stage - that he could be forced to freeze Iran's program. What if the new American president runs out of patience, sooner rather than later? What if Barack Obama convinces Europe, Russia and China that the world can't afford another North Korea on top of an unraveling nuclear Pakistan? Certainly not one whose imperial ambitions are fueled by high-octane religious extremism.
Realistically, Khamenei reassures himself that the prospects of crippling sanctions don't figure even remotely on the international agenda. Still, he will sleep a lot more soundly once stopping Iran becomes as unthinkable as trying to roll back nuclear-armed North Korea.
Pyongyang lesson
Say that in response to North Korea's detonation on Monday of a Nagasaki-like nuclear blast, the world declares: "Enough is enough."
China, the North's only ally, cuts off fuel and seals its border. South Korea halts humanitarian aid. NATO warships, backed by Russia's Pacific fleet, enforce a total blockade.
How might North Korea react? Perhaps by invading the South; perhaps by exploding a nuke over Seoul. Or perhaps the regime would begin to gasp its last, as millions of starving northerners stormed the Chinese and South Korean borders.
The sudden, forced reunification of the peninsula would saddle the modern, affluent South with incredible logistical problems - foremost among them how to feed a backward, impoverished population and integrate it into their hyper-modern society.
In other words: At this late stage, decision-makers are likely to find meaningful action totally unpalatable.
IT HAS no doubt been instructive for Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to observe the civilized world's reaction, over the years, to North Korean provocations.
After revving up their nuclear program around the time of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the North Koreans conducted an underground nuclear test on October 9, 2006. Following an outcry, they pretended to abandon their program and duly obtained a range of economic and diplomatic payoffs. In October 2008, the Bush administration removed North Korea from the State Department's list of countries which sponsor terrorism.
Western intelligence analysts think the 2006 test, which registered with the magnitude of a 4.2 earthquake, may have been a dud. As David E. Sanger of The New York Times writes in The Inheritance, "The yield was below a kiloton, far less than a tenth of the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima."
Not so yesterday's blast, estimated at 4.5 to 5.3 magnitude.
North Korea is a hereditary dictatorship led by Kim Jong-Il, who followed his father, Kim Il-Sung. He will likely be replaced by his son Kim Jong-Un.
The masses suffer unspeakable deprivation - during the 1990s hundreds of thousands died of famine and disease - while resources are directed to the military-industrial complex and propaganda. A cloying personality cult has transformed the leader into a deity, while xenophobia and racial supremacy lead people to fear change.
North Korea purchased centrifuges and, possibly, uranium from Pakistan. It raises money by selling what it knows about building missiles and atom bombs. For 10 years - under the nose of American intelligence - it built Syria's al-Kimbar nuclear facility in the Euphrates Valley, a mirror image, writes the Times' Sanger, of the North's own Yongbyon reactor.
As the Bush administration was obsessing over Saddam Hussein's non-existent nuclear weapons, North Korea was preparing to transform next-door Syria into a nuclear power. Mercifully, on September 6, 2007, the nearly completed reactor was smashed by the Israel Air Force before it could be fueled.
Pyongyang and Teheran share their nuclear know-how. Iranian scientists were reportedly present at the October 2006 detonation and, we assume, observed Monday's blast too. By learning from the North Koreans, the mullahs may be laying the groundwork - literally - for an underground nuclear explosion of their own.
KHAMENEI knows that while the West spins its wheels, Iran's quest for nuclear arms proceeds apace. "Fate changes no man, unless he changes fate," he's fond of telling acolytes. And yet, he can't afford to be sanguine.
True, Iran's nuclear sites are scattered throughout his vast territory, providing redundancy and concealment from attack. True, too, complex problems such as fuel-making, bomb-building and weapons delivery are being successfully addressed.
Still, the ayatollah worries. It's not inconceivable - even at this late stage - that he could be forced to freeze Iran's program. What if the new American president runs out of patience, sooner rather than later? What if Barack Obama convinces Europe, Russia and China that the world can't afford another North Korea on top of an unraveling nuclear Pakistan? Certainly not one whose imperial ambitions are fueled by high-octane religious extremism.
Realistically, Khamenei reassures himself that the prospects of crippling sanctions don't figure even remotely on the international agenda. Still, he will sleep a lot more soundly once stopping Iran becomes as unthinkable as trying to roll back nuclear-armed North Korea.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Monday, May 25, 2009
We have a suspect
A patient enemy
One solitary Arab country has never been under absolute Muslim hegemony: multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and religiously heterogeneous Lebanon. For this, it has paid a price - even before Persian Shi'ite radicals took power in Teheran in 1979 and set up Hizbullah in 1982.
In 1958, for instance, Sunni nationalists tried to force the country into the pan-Arab orbit under Egypt's Abdul Gamal Nasser. The Christians, then less fragmented, more numerous and wielding clout, said no and were backed by president Dwight Eisenhower.
By 1975, civil war had pitted Muslims against Christians, drawing in the PLO, Syria and Israel; it lasted into the 1990s.
Only two months ago, Damascus opened an embassy in Beirut, which suggests it may have abandoned the claim that Lebanon is part of Greater Syria.
Israel, needing to defend its northern border - first against Palestinian incursions, more recently against Hizbullah - has repeatedly been drawn into the quagmire.
This is the context for Lebanon's election campaign, which culminates on June 7. It is being waged in 26 districts for 128 parliamentary seats. Iran's proxies are led by Hizbullah (fielding only 11 candidates) and include Nabih Berri's (Shi'ite) Amal and Michel Aoun's (Christian Maronite) Free Patriotic Movement. They're competing against the Sunni-led "March 14 coalition" backed by Saudi Arabia and headed by Sa'ad Hariri. Other members include the mercurial Druse leader Walid Jumblatt and former Phalangist chieftain Samir Geagea.
The election is "free," but not cheap. One voter told The New York Times: "Whoever pays the most will get my vote. I won't accept less than $800."
It costs money to pay your opponent to drop out, to purchase positive news coverage, and to fly in expatriates. To help citizens remember to whom they owe allegiance, the parties helpfully provide them with prepared ballot slips.
TWO BIG news stories frame the lead-up to the voting. Hizbullah and its allies say they've uncovered a spy ring working for Israel (21 local suspects arrested, several others reportedly having fled to Israel). The disclosures, Hassan Nasrallah declared in a campaign message, prove that his movement can best face down "the Zionist enemy."
The other big story, revealed over the weekend in Germany's Der Spiegel, is the surprise revelation that an independent (partly UN-funded) tribunal investigating the February 14, 2005, assassination of Rafik Hariri will lay the blame at Hizbullah's - not Syria's - doorstep. German investigators will reportedly name as the mastermind Hajj Salim, Imad Mughniyeh's replacement, who reports directly to Nasrallah and Gen. Kassim Sulaimani in Iran. Hariri was murdered, Der Spiegel speculates, because Nasrallah felt threatened by the Sunni billionaire's broad-based popularity. Hizbullah claimed the story was intended to divert attention from the Israeli "spy networks."
Even the rosiest election result scenario - a slight gain for the anti-Iranian bloc - would not fundamentally shift Lebanon's alignment of forces. The prime minister, as always, will be a Sunni, the president a Christian and the parliament speaker a Shi'ite. Sorry to say, Hizbullah will remain the dominant social, political and economic movement - regardless of how many seats its partisans capture. It has the guns, the cash and the backing of a ruthless regional power. It seeks to change the constitution and ultimately capture de-jure control of the country.
It's hard to see how US Vice President Joe Biden's Friday visit to Beirut, coming on the heels of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's trip last month and aimed at tacitly bolstering the relative moderates, did much good. The last thing the "moderates" need is to be publicly embraced by Washington. They know that the West has been loath to confront Hizbullah or its patron, and that's what matters.
In February 2005, in the wake of the Hariri murder, tens of thousands of Lebanese demonstrated in the streets, eventually forcing Syria to withdraw its troops from the country. There was a fleeting sense that, just maybe, the forces of extremism had been routed. But the following month, Hizbullah massed far greater numbers, dashing hopes that popular sentiment alone could overcome the Iran-Hizbullah behemoth.
Rather than going for an overt power grab, Hizbullah is slowly metastasizing deep inside Lebanon's body politic. The process offers a sobering glimpse into Iran's regional modus operandi and its patient imperial designs.
One solitary Arab country has never been under absolute Muslim hegemony: multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and religiously heterogeneous Lebanon. For this, it has paid a price - even before Persian Shi'ite radicals took power in Teheran in 1979 and set up Hizbullah in 1982.
In 1958, for instance, Sunni nationalists tried to force the country into the pan-Arab orbit under Egypt's Abdul Gamal Nasser. The Christians, then less fragmented, more numerous and wielding clout, said no and were backed by president Dwight Eisenhower.
By 1975, civil war had pitted Muslims against Christians, drawing in the PLO, Syria and Israel; it lasted into the 1990s.
Only two months ago, Damascus opened an embassy in Beirut, which suggests it may have abandoned the claim that Lebanon is part of Greater Syria.
Israel, needing to defend its northern border - first against Palestinian incursions, more recently against Hizbullah - has repeatedly been drawn into the quagmire.
This is the context for Lebanon's election campaign, which culminates on June 7. It is being waged in 26 districts for 128 parliamentary seats. Iran's proxies are led by Hizbullah (fielding only 11 candidates) and include Nabih Berri's (Shi'ite) Amal and Michel Aoun's (Christian Maronite) Free Patriotic Movement. They're competing against the Sunni-led "March 14 coalition" backed by Saudi Arabia and headed by Sa'ad Hariri. Other members include the mercurial Druse leader Walid Jumblatt and former Phalangist chieftain Samir Geagea.
The election is "free," but not cheap. One voter told The New York Times: "Whoever pays the most will get my vote. I won't accept less than $800."
It costs money to pay your opponent to drop out, to purchase positive news coverage, and to fly in expatriates. To help citizens remember to whom they owe allegiance, the parties helpfully provide them with prepared ballot slips.
TWO BIG news stories frame the lead-up to the voting. Hizbullah and its allies say they've uncovered a spy ring working for Israel (21 local suspects arrested, several others reportedly having fled to Israel). The disclosures, Hassan Nasrallah declared in a campaign message, prove that his movement can best face down "the Zionist enemy."
The other big story, revealed over the weekend in Germany's Der Spiegel, is the surprise revelation that an independent (partly UN-funded) tribunal investigating the February 14, 2005, assassination of Rafik Hariri will lay the blame at Hizbullah's - not Syria's - doorstep. German investigators will reportedly name as the mastermind Hajj Salim, Imad Mughniyeh's replacement, who reports directly to Nasrallah and Gen. Kassim Sulaimani in Iran. Hariri was murdered, Der Spiegel speculates, because Nasrallah felt threatened by the Sunni billionaire's broad-based popularity. Hizbullah claimed the story was intended to divert attention from the Israeli "spy networks."
Even the rosiest election result scenario - a slight gain for the anti-Iranian bloc - would not fundamentally shift Lebanon's alignment of forces. The prime minister, as always, will be a Sunni, the president a Christian and the parliament speaker a Shi'ite. Sorry to say, Hizbullah will remain the dominant social, political and economic movement - regardless of how many seats its partisans capture. It has the guns, the cash and the backing of a ruthless regional power. It seeks to change the constitution and ultimately capture de-jure control of the country.
It's hard to see how US Vice President Joe Biden's Friday visit to Beirut, coming on the heels of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's trip last month and aimed at tacitly bolstering the relative moderates, did much good. The last thing the "moderates" need is to be publicly embraced by Washington. They know that the West has been loath to confront Hizbullah or its patron, and that's what matters.
In February 2005, in the wake of the Hariri murder, tens of thousands of Lebanese demonstrated in the streets, eventually forcing Syria to withdraw its troops from the country. There was a fleeting sense that, just maybe, the forces of extremism had been routed. But the following month, Hizbullah massed far greater numbers, dashing hopes that popular sentiment alone could overcome the Iran-Hizbullah behemoth.
Rather than going for an overt power grab, Hizbullah is slowly metastasizing deep inside Lebanon's body politic. The process offers a sobering glimpse into Iran's regional modus operandi and its patient imperial designs.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Thank God it's Friday
The week that was
An FBI sting operation led to Wednesday's arrest of four Muslims in New York City charged with plotting to blow up the (Orthodox) Riverdale Jewish Center and the (Reform) Riverdale Temple in the Bronx. Lev Dassin, acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York, said the men had "selected targets and sought the weapons necessary to carry out their plans."
Besides the uncovering of the Riverdale plot, this week brought some other good tidings for which we are grateful: The Obama administration decided to fund the entire Arrow-3 anti-missile program now in development; US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Al Jazeera that there would be no European-like flirtation with Hamas by Washington, saying: "Hamas has to comply with not only the Quartet principles but the underlying principles of the Arab Peace Initiative." Finally, the president made it clear that his efforts to dissuade Iran from building nuclear weapons would not carry on beyond the year; and that - as he told Newsweek - all options were on the table.
YET there's no papering over the differences that emerged this week in the wake of Binyamin Netanyahu's meeting with Barack Obama.
The president supposes Israeli concessions on the Palestinian track can help stop the Iranian bomb. The reality: With the mullahs' power ascendant, Hamas and radical Fatah factions have no reason to moderate their line. Obama wants a complete settlement freeze, West Bank checkpoints lifted, outposts removed, and the criteria regarding what passes into Gaza loosened.
Yesterday's dismantling of Maoz Esther, near Kochav Hashahar -- a non-authorized outpost reportedly built on private land -- belatedly begins to addresses the outpost issue. And Netanyahu is committed to not creating new settlements. But mainstream Israel will not tolerate a "settlement freeze" in metropolitan Jerusalem.
Personally speaking, I don't want to see a freeze in the settlement blocs either. In fact, so long as the state invites people to live over the Green Line, I don't know how we can expect them -- no matter which community they live in -- to freeze their lives. What if there is a need to expand an apartment or home because of a new baby?
The elimination of more checkpoints - a life-and-death decision - needs cautious handling, as does the question of what passes into Gaza.
It was no secret that the administration was working on a peace plan. But it is unsettling that more of it was leaked to the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi than, apparently, was revealed to Netanyahu.
And yet the details, if accurate, break little new ground. Obama reportedly wants a Palestinian state alongside Israel and stresses it must be demilitarized - something George W. Bush failed to emphasize. He tells the Palestinians to abandon demands for the "right of return." The fate of Jerusalem, he says, must be decided by the parties (though the holy basin should be placed under UN stewardship). He reportedly calls for land swaps to compensate the Palestinians for settlement blocs, thus implicitly embracing the "1967-plus" letter Bush gave Ariel Sharon in 2004. He's also pressing moderate Arabs to push the Palestinians to be more compromising.
In that Al Jazeera interview, Clinton was asked whether the settlement freeze meant Obama wanted to roll Israel back to the 1949 Armistice lines. Her answer: "First, we want to see a stop to settlement construction, additions, natural growth - any kind of settlement activity. That is what the president has called for. We also are going to be pushing for a two-state solution which, by its very name, implies borders that have to be agreed to…"
We read that as a "no."
It is unlikely in the extreme that the PLO will accept Obama's blueprint, despite the moderate-sounding tone lately adopted by Nabil Abu Rudaineh, Mahmoud Abbas's spokesman. Fatah is horribly fragmented: The old guard doesn't want to loosen its grip on power. Its pragmatists and hard-liners are arguing over how to negotiate with Israel. And the younger generation wants to officially reverse Fatah's commitment to end terror if Israel doesn't capitulate to its demands.
Meanwhile Hamas, ever more popular, bides its time, waiting for the West to reconstruct Gaza for it.
RATHER than get into a huff over Obama's demands, which are basically in harmony with the policies of his predecessors, Israel needs to ensure that it does not allow itself to be depicted as the obstacle to peace.
The good news is that Netanyahu is making a beginning at stressing what we are for - letting the Palestinians rule themselves. And by trying to get the Palestinians to acknowledge Israel's legitimacy as a Jewish state, he is correctly addressing the root cause of the conflict.
An FBI sting operation led to Wednesday's arrest of four Muslims in New York City charged with plotting to blow up the (Orthodox) Riverdale Jewish Center and the (Reform) Riverdale Temple in the Bronx. Lev Dassin, acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York, said the men had "selected targets and sought the weapons necessary to carry out their plans."
Besides the uncovering of the Riverdale plot, this week brought some other good tidings for which we are grateful: The Obama administration decided to fund the entire Arrow-3 anti-missile program now in development; US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Al Jazeera that there would be no European-like flirtation with Hamas by Washington, saying: "Hamas has to comply with not only the Quartet principles but the underlying principles of the Arab Peace Initiative." Finally, the president made it clear that his efforts to dissuade Iran from building nuclear weapons would not carry on beyond the year; and that - as he told Newsweek - all options were on the table.
YET there's no papering over the differences that emerged this week in the wake of Binyamin Netanyahu's meeting with Barack Obama.
The president supposes Israeli concessions on the Palestinian track can help stop the Iranian bomb. The reality: With the mullahs' power ascendant, Hamas and radical Fatah factions have no reason to moderate their line. Obama wants a complete settlement freeze, West Bank checkpoints lifted, outposts removed, and the criteria regarding what passes into Gaza loosened.
Yesterday's dismantling of Maoz Esther, near Kochav Hashahar -- a non-authorized outpost reportedly built on private land -- belatedly begins to addresses the outpost issue. And Netanyahu is committed to not creating new settlements. But mainstream Israel will not tolerate a "settlement freeze" in metropolitan Jerusalem.
Personally speaking, I don't want to see a freeze in the settlement blocs either. In fact, so long as the state invites people to live over the Green Line, I don't know how we can expect them -- no matter which community they live in -- to freeze their lives. What if there is a need to expand an apartment or home because of a new baby?
The elimination of more checkpoints - a life-and-death decision - needs cautious handling, as does the question of what passes into Gaza.
It was no secret that the administration was working on a peace plan. But it is unsettling that more of it was leaked to the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi than, apparently, was revealed to Netanyahu.
And yet the details, if accurate, break little new ground. Obama reportedly wants a Palestinian state alongside Israel and stresses it must be demilitarized - something George W. Bush failed to emphasize. He tells the Palestinians to abandon demands for the "right of return." The fate of Jerusalem, he says, must be decided by the parties (though the holy basin should be placed under UN stewardship). He reportedly calls for land swaps to compensate the Palestinians for settlement blocs, thus implicitly embracing the "1967-plus" letter Bush gave Ariel Sharon in 2004. He's also pressing moderate Arabs to push the Palestinians to be more compromising.
In that Al Jazeera interview, Clinton was asked whether the settlement freeze meant Obama wanted to roll Israel back to the 1949 Armistice lines. Her answer: "First, we want to see a stop to settlement construction, additions, natural growth - any kind of settlement activity. That is what the president has called for. We also are going to be pushing for a two-state solution which, by its very name, implies borders that have to be agreed to…"
We read that as a "no."
It is unlikely in the extreme that the PLO will accept Obama's blueprint, despite the moderate-sounding tone lately adopted by Nabil Abu Rudaineh, Mahmoud Abbas's spokesman. Fatah is horribly fragmented: The old guard doesn't want to loosen its grip on power. Its pragmatists and hard-liners are arguing over how to negotiate with Israel. And the younger generation wants to officially reverse Fatah's commitment to end terror if Israel doesn't capitulate to its demands.
Meanwhile Hamas, ever more popular, bides its time, waiting for the West to reconstruct Gaza for it.
RATHER than get into a huff over Obama's demands, which are basically in harmony with the policies of his predecessors, Israel needs to ensure that it does not allow itself to be depicted as the obstacle to peace.
The good news is that Netanyahu is making a beginning at stressing what we are for - letting the Palestinians rule themselves. And by trying to get the Palestinians to acknowledge Israel's legitimacy as a Jewish state, he is correctly addressing the root cause of the conflict.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Two short comments
Jerusalem Day
Friday marks 42 years on the Hebrew calendar since Jerusalem was reunified; Jews never abandoned the hope of returning following their expulsion in 70 AD. Between 1948 and 1967, Jordanian snipers transformed the streets near the Old City into a no-man's land. Jews were barred from reaching such iconic sites as the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.
It's simplistic to talk about Jerusalem in catch-phrases. The city is neither as "united" as Zionists would want, or as "de-facto divided" as Arab propagandists claim. It's also a misnomer to talk about "east" and "west" in describing a city whose neighborhoods intersect around hills and over valleys.
Walk Jerusalem's streets and you'll quickly understand why the city can never again be physically divided - though it can, potentially, be peacefully shared.
Metropolitan Jerusalem - population 760,800 - is 65 percent Jewish and 35% Arab. Sadly, most Arab families, and a good many Jewish ones, live in poverty. Only 45% of Jerusalemites are in the labor force (Arab women and haredi men tend not to work). Most Jewish pupils attend haredi schools. There's a classroom shortage in Arab neighborhoods.
The population is, socially and religiously, old school; at the same time, the city brims with spiritual pluralism, culture, art, even fine dinning.
Mayor Nir Barkat promises better services for the Arab sector (which boycotts the municipal council and is thus voiceless regarding how tax money is spent). He has also undertaken to make the city more inviting for non-haredi Jews.
In short, living here is intense… it's not easy, but it is a privilege.
==========================================
Funding conversion
Israel is a Jewish state. Yet, paradoxically, all too many of its native-born Jewish citizens are alienated from their heritage.
The state's founders were mostly irreligious - though Jewishly literate, capable of navigating their way through the liturgy and expounding the Torah. Oddly enough, they took it for granted that subsequent generations would be equally learned, adhering to a secular worldview while grounded in the Jewish canon.
So they relegated Judaism to an Orthodox rabbinate, which became the "established church." Sadly, however, in the minds of countless Jewish Israelis, honoring their tradition become entangled with Orthodox nitpicking and coercion.
Add to this mix the arrival of 300,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union who are not halachically Jewish.
Among them are those who wish to affiliate with the Jewish mainstream, but do not want to commit to the Orthodox way of life. Citizens in the formal sense, the rabbinate has left them in communal limbo - socially and culturally marginalized.
Israel's self-funded Reform and Masorti (Conservative) movements have been preparing some of these immigrants for conversion to Judaism. While the Orthodox state authorities won't accept these converts as "authentic" Jews, they are otherwise absorbed, spiritually and culturally, into Israel's mainstream. Many join synagogues and take succor in a tradition the Soviets had sought to rob them of.
We are delighted, therefore, that the High Court of Justice has ordered the state to start covering the expenses of non-Orthodox conversion institutes.
The beginning of the end of the Orthodox funding monopoly? Let's hope so.
Friday marks 42 years on the Hebrew calendar since Jerusalem was reunified; Jews never abandoned the hope of returning following their expulsion in 70 AD. Between 1948 and 1967, Jordanian snipers transformed the streets near the Old City into a no-man's land. Jews were barred from reaching such iconic sites as the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.
It's simplistic to talk about Jerusalem in catch-phrases. The city is neither as "united" as Zionists would want, or as "de-facto divided" as Arab propagandists claim. It's also a misnomer to talk about "east" and "west" in describing a city whose neighborhoods intersect around hills and over valleys.
Walk Jerusalem's streets and you'll quickly understand why the city can never again be physically divided - though it can, potentially, be peacefully shared.
Metropolitan Jerusalem - population 760,800 - is 65 percent Jewish and 35% Arab. Sadly, most Arab families, and a good many Jewish ones, live in poverty. Only 45% of Jerusalemites are in the labor force (Arab women and haredi men tend not to work). Most Jewish pupils attend haredi schools. There's a classroom shortage in Arab neighborhoods.
The population is, socially and religiously, old school; at the same time, the city brims with spiritual pluralism, culture, art, even fine dinning.
Mayor Nir Barkat promises better services for the Arab sector (which boycotts the municipal council and is thus voiceless regarding how tax money is spent). He has also undertaken to make the city more inviting for non-haredi Jews.
In short, living here is intense… it's not easy, but it is a privilege.
==========================================
Funding conversion
Israel is a Jewish state. Yet, paradoxically, all too many of its native-born Jewish citizens are alienated from their heritage.
The state's founders were mostly irreligious - though Jewishly literate, capable of navigating their way through the liturgy and expounding the Torah. Oddly enough, they took it for granted that subsequent generations would be equally learned, adhering to a secular worldview while grounded in the Jewish canon.
So they relegated Judaism to an Orthodox rabbinate, which became the "established church." Sadly, however, in the minds of countless Jewish Israelis, honoring their tradition become entangled with Orthodox nitpicking and coercion.
Add to this mix the arrival of 300,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union who are not halachically Jewish.
Among them are those who wish to affiliate with the Jewish mainstream, but do not want to commit to the Orthodox way of life. Citizens in the formal sense, the rabbinate has left them in communal limbo - socially and culturally marginalized.
Israel's self-funded Reform and Masorti (Conservative) movements have been preparing some of these immigrants for conversion to Judaism. While the Orthodox state authorities won't accept these converts as "authentic" Jews, they are otherwise absorbed, spiritually and culturally, into Israel's mainstream. Many join synagogues and take succor in a tradition the Soviets had sought to rob them of.
We are delighted, therefore, that the High Court of Justice has ordered the state to start covering the expenses of non-Orthodox conversion institutes.
The beginning of the end of the Orthodox funding monopoly? Let's hope so.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
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