Netanyahu Takes Over

See too: http://www.fromil.com/tv/index.php?radio=4
(my interview is about half-way through)


Wed - And now, to work

Israel has a new government, the most bloated in its history, with 30 ministers and seven deputy ministers.

It's appalling. Selfish. And to be expected.

• Blame the political system, which makes it impossible to form a government without exchanging patronage for parliamentary support. No political party ever formed a government without horse-trading; and now the Likud has been forced to throw in paddocks, stables and hayricks to garner the support of roughly 70 of the 120 Knesset members.

Did anyone think Israel Beiteinu, Shas, Labor, United Torah Judaism and Habayit Hayehudi would come cheap? Or that the hurt egos of Likud MKs excluded from the most prestigious ministries wouldn't have to be soothed?

• Blame the voters, who should have thrown their support behind one of the three or four major parties for the Knesset, but instead sent 12 parties to the legislature - most of whom place their parochial needs above the collective good.

• Save some blame, too, for Kadima leader Tzipi Livni. Had she joined Binyamin Netanyahu's government together with Avigdor Lieberman, a relatively lean cabinet able to embark on urgently needed electoral reform could have emerged. Instead, Livni claimed - quite disingenuously - that "policy differences" with Netanyahu over how best to negotiate with the Palestinians would not allow her to join.

Yet what actually sent her to the opposition was his refusal to consent to a rotation government.

THE SIZE of the government may make it hard for Knesset committees to function, but it shouldn't have a deleterious impact on governmental decision-making. That's because the mega-cabinet, which will meet Sundays, is not where decisions will be made.

The premier must appoint a security cabinet, whose membership is determined by law. Netanyahu will also create an "inner cabinet" to debate a range of domestic and international issues. It will include Lieberman, Dan Meridor, Moshe Ya'alon, Bennie Begin, Silvan Shalom, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Eli Yishai. But the most sensitive decisions will be made by Netanyahu and Ehud Barak.

How efficiently the government works will depend not on the size of the cabinet, but on how well key staffers in the Prime Minister's Office coordinate the apparatus of power and manage the flow of decision-making up the chain of command.

ISRAEL now has a semblance of a "unity government" and can move forward. Indeed, there are several laudable cabinet appointments.

Though Netanyahu will head his own economic team, Yuval Steinitz will be his man at the Treasury. Steinitz has no particular expertise in economics, but sufficient brainpower to excel in a job where personal loyalty to the premier can help bring coherence to government policy.

The ministry has an image of being dominated by supercilious civil servants who think they should set the agenda. On the other hand, with tax revenues dramatically down, it may fall to Steinitz to tell the coalition partners that not all of his boss's promises can be kept. The presence of Shas's Yitzhak Cohen as deputy finance minister is, however, worrisome. His being there will cost taxpayers money.

At a time of unprecedented economic dislocation, Israelis are less interested in economic dogma than in job and wage security.

LET'S hope the brainpower of Meridor (security services), Ya'alon (strategic affairs), Yaakov Neeman (Justice) and Begin, among others, will fully be utilized.

With our new premier intent on reversing the downward spiral in our education system, Netanyahu loyalist Gideon Sa'ar takes the education portfolio. Consummate professional Matan Vilna'i will stay on as deputy defense minister, and that's comforting.

Yuli Edelstein can contribute as hasbara minister - not by seeking to create an empire, but by working with the premier's new communications director, Ron Dermer, to maximize existing public diplomacy resources while avoiding ruffling bureaucratic feathers.

Of course, the object of this exercise is not to form a government, but to govern. Together with Barak, whose presence bolsters Israel's case in the international arena, Netanyahu will grapple with a crisis-filled agenda that includes Iran's nuclear weapons program, Hamas's ascendency among the Palestinians, and a wobbly economy.

We can't promise Netanyahu a honeymoon. But we'd advise a good night's sleep - there's lots to be done.

LAND DAY & Israel's Arab Citizens

Tuesday - Land Day at 33


If only the Arab-Israel conflict was about land - and nothing else - it might have been solved by now. Still, there's no denying that land is part of what's at stake.

Yesterday Arab members of Knesset absented themselves from the swearing-in ceremony of new Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin, in order to attend demonstrations marking the 33rd anniversary of Land Day. This year's theme: promoting a global boycott of Israel.

Some Arab advocates assert that a Jewish state within any boundaries is "theft." The Alternative Information Center, bankrolled by Catholic leftists, Spain's Catalan regional government and Ireland, marked Land Day by asserting that Palestinians first "lost" most of their land with Israel's creation, and that "ethnic cleansing" has only proceeded apace.

The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy, which reflects such voices as Hanan Ashrawi and Rashid Khalidi and gets money from the British Council and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, claims that Land Day "commemorates the bloody killing of six Palestinians in the Galilee on March 30, 1976 by Israeli troops during peaceful protests over the confiscation of Palestinian lands."

Actually, the six were citizens of Israel; the "protests" were riots, and the land was not "Palestinian." Telling the truth about Land Day does not diminish the sorrow over what happened, but it does put the tragedy in perspective.

WHAT became Land Day was intended by the Communist Party - once a powerful force among local Arabs - and the Palestine Liberation Organization to be a general strike protesting "land confiscations." The mainstream Arab leadership, which in those days included Knesset members and village elders, opposed strikes as unnecessarily polarizing. Had secret balloting among the Arab local councils been permitted, they probably would have defeated the strike proposal.

The radicalization of Israel's Arab sector was an unintended consequence of the free flow of people and ideas between the West Bank and Israel proper after 1967. The strike was but a violent manifestation of this developing militancy, and Land Day a convenient excuse to protest.

For at stake was 20,000 dunams of Galilee land: 6,320 Arab and 13,780 either Jewish-owned or state property. Any land taken by the government would have been fairly compensated for with cash or alternative plots. Indeed, moderate Arab leaders had begun consultations about how the money would be spent.

The radicals chose March 30 because it coincided with a vote on a resolution in the UN Security Council by Libya and Pakistan, denouncing Israel. The PLO organized violence in the West Bank, arranged for the mayor of Hebron to "resign" in protest of Israel's presence there, and stage-managed a march from Amman to the Allenby Bridge in solidarity with the general strike.

On the eve of the strike, 400 Arab youths, ignoring pleas from their elders, blocked traffic at a key Galilee crossroads and attacked police who had arrived to restore order. Arab business owners, Christians especially, were browbeaten into striking.

Next day, predictably, fierce riots erupted. Police and soldiers found themselves facing thousands upon thousands of enraged Arabs armed with rocks and Molotov cocktails. In one incident, an army vehicle was firebombed and overturned and its occupants set upon by the mob. To save themselves from being lynched, the soldiers opened fire. It would later be portrayed as an "overreaction."

All told, six young rioters were killed and 70 injured in the widespread, coordinated civil insurrection. The police suffered 50 casualties.

SINCE THEN, lamentably, attitudes between Jewish and Muslim Arab citizens have only hardened. The Arabs claim, with justification, that they face prejudice in employment and in the allotment of land for construction. The Jews retort that this discrimination is partly a consequence of the Arab refusal to do national service; and of allowing their leaders to align the community with Israel's most implacable enemies. Jews pay attention when Arabs denounce the "judaization" of the Galilee, interpreting this as a rejection of Jewish rights on both sides of the Green Line.

With sovereignty comes responsibility for the state. With citizenship come responsibilities for the individual. Israel's Arabs need to accept more of the responsibilities of citizenship, and the state needs to deliver more of its benefits. The sooner it happens, the better - for all concerned.

Don't leave everything to America

Monday - Obama & Afghanistan


Thousands have been marching in London over the weekend for "jobs, justice and climate." The protests are aimed at the Group of 20 Summit which takes place April 2, bringing together countries that control 85 percent of the world's economy.

Equally fateful are two other gatherings on the continent this week. Tomorrow, a one-day UN-sponsored conference at The Hague grapples with the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and delegates from more than 80 countries - Iran included - will attend.

Then, on April 3-4, President Barack Obama travels from the G-20 to NATO meetings in France and Germany, where he will gently cajole the alliance into doing more in Afghanistan.

It's unlikely the Iranians will start behaving responsibly as an outcome of The Hague conference. They help arm and train the Taliban - not because the Shi'ite mullahs want to see Afghanistan solidify as a bastion of Sunni fanaticism, but because, as Robert D. Kaplan argues in the current Atlantic magazine, "they want to keep Afghanistan weak, and to bleed the Americans as much as they can."

Plainly, the West must not allow Iran to leverage its bad behavior in Afghanistan in order to gain concessions for even more troubling behavior on the nuclear weapons issue. But Iran's attendance is a sideshow.

The more urgent issue is whether NATO is prepared to devote the resources necessary to make Afghanistan inhospitable as a base for international terrorism, or whether it will continue to leave most of the fighting burden to an over-stretched Washington.

ON FRIDAY, the president unveiled a new, integrated strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan intended to address both counter-insurgency and societal development. "The situation is increasingly perilous," Obama told the American people. "It has been more than seven years since the Taliban was removed from power, yet war rages on, and insurgents control parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan."

He reminded Americans that "al-Qaida and its allies - the terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks - are in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al-Qaida is actively planning attacks on the US homeland from its safe haven in Pakistan." America's goal is "to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan..."

The administration is sending 17,000 more troops to the Afghan theater, starting with 4,000 trainers. Thousands more US service personnel may follow. In addition, Congress is being asked to appropriate $1.5 billion per year for five years in development aid to Afghanistan-Pakistan.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan, a fractious polity if ever there was one, is integral to solving the Afghanistan conundrum. Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency helped establish the Taliban, and continues to abet them.

Pakistan's own Taliban are divided into three factions. Now, Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Afghan Taliban chief who first gave Osama bin Laden refuge prior to 9/11, has urged his ethnic Pashtun compatriots across the border to stop fighting each other, ease up on their battle against the nominally pro-Western central government in Islamabad, and focus instead on defeating America in Afghanistan.

For their part, the Americans want to drive a wedge, using jobs and other incentives, between the more implacable, fanatic Taliban and those whose goals are comparatively limited and whose grievances are addressable.

Most Taliban supporters, counter-insurgency experts surmise, are not Omar's natural allies. Politics aside, all factions, including those aligned with the pro-Western president, Hamid Karzai, live off the lucrative heroin and opium trade. Competing with the seductive allure of religious fanaticism, violence and drugs won't be easy.

THOUSANDS of soldiers from NATO and allied countries are now stationed in Afghanistan. But only a tiny fraction of them are in fighting units. Most operate under national guidelines which make it impossible for them to take the offensive (though, tragically, many have lost their lives to roadside bombs and ambushes). They are deployed mostly in training and support roles; some almost never leave their bases. Germany, for instance, has heavily invested in the - so far fruitless - training of Afghanistan's ineffectual police.

The time has come for the multinational, anti-Islamist alliance to carry a full share of the combat burden necessary to defeat - finally - Mullah Omar and Bin Laden. America shouldn't have to bear the brunt.

Fork in the road

Friday - The Wonks' way

If you follow the trail of arms from Iran - through Somalia, Sudan and Egypt to the Gaza Strip - you come to a fork in the road. One direction leads to the conclusion that Teheran's smuggling of weapons to Hamas for its fight against Israel is but a facet of the greater Islamist confrontation with Western civilization; the other to the determination that there is no war of civilizations, and that Iran and Hamas are ripe for inclusion in the international community.

YESTERDAY, CBS News reported that in January, Israeli aircraft bombed an Iranian arms convoy in Sudan bound for Hamas during Operation Cast Lead. The attack took place northwest of Port Sudan. All the casualties were Sudanese, Eritreans and Ethiopians and all the trucks were destroyed. They were presumably thought to be carrying rockets that would extend Hamas's range to Tel Aviv, making the mission worth the risk.

• The arms start off in Iran, which sees itself at war with Israel on every continent, using all available means and proxies. Teheran orchestrated the bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentina in 1992, and the Buenos Aires Jewish Community Center in 1994. Iranian instructors taught Hizbullah the art of truck-bombing, which claimed hundreds of Israeli lives in Lebanon.

The mullahs began courting Hamas in 1990, once they had determined that destroying Israel trumped any theological differences with the Sunni jihadists.

Today, Iran is heavily invested in Hamas - financially, diplomatically, militarily and politically.

• The weapons move to Somalia, a failed state and humanitarian basket case controlled by warlords who seek to surmount clan differences with radical Islam. Youthful Shabab extremists are their shock troops. The goal is a world caliphate, but for now they'd settle for Wahhabi control of Somalia. A moderate Islamist president sitting in Mogadishu is too weak to exert power; Muslim pirates rule the coastal waters.

• The next port of call: Sudan. Once Osama bin Laden's headquarters, Sudan is notorious for its genocide against non-Arabs in Darfur. The country has close ties with Iran, whose Revolutionary Guards are training its reconstituted army.

On March 4, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese leader Omar Hassan al-Bashir. Since then al-Bashir has been to Cairo - twice - to strategize with President Hosni Mubarak. And he means to attend next week's Arab League Summit in Qatar. Beyond the backing he has in the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the African Union, Bashir's support is being spearheaded by Iran, Hamas, Hizbullah, Syria and Islamic Jihad. Iran's parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, called the arrest warrant an "insult directed at Muslims."

• Next port of call - Egypt. Every bullet shipped to Gaza by Iran traverses Egypt, either overland or via the Port of Damietta in a journey coordinated by Hamas in Damascus and Iran's Revolutionary Guard. By the time the shipments arrive at the smugglers' tunnels connecting the Sinai to Gaza, innumerable hands have facilitated them, and innumerable eyes looked the other way.

AMERICAN policy wonks who argue that Iran and Hamas are ripe for inclusion in the international community see taking that direction as "pragmatic." They've unearthed Hamas's "moderate" wing - and it's "open to compromise."

Not, granted, on the core issues of terrorism, honoring previous Palestinian commitments and Israel's right to exist. But Hamas would agree to a lengthy cease-fire. And it might allow Mahmoud Abbas to front for them. Further, say the wonks, with Hamas standing over his shoulder - who knows, Abbas might negotiate a peace deal! It would be brought to a Palestinian referendum, and Hamas would abide by the results.

But none of this will happen, the wonks warn, if the West remains hung up on what Hamas says it will do to Israel.

Similarly, when the US sits down Tuesday at The Hague, with Iran, to discuss Afghanistan, the wonks will likely argue that Teheran's attendance signals its underlying pragmatism - and that this pragmatism could be torpedoed by obsessing over Iranian threats to destroy Israel.

If the new Obama administration takes the easy road counseled by these wonks, willfully ignoring the implacable nature of Islamist extremism, it will have embarked on a journey of disastrous self-delusion.

Israel has a government, finally

Thursday - Thank you, Ehud Barak


If Israel's 2008 campaign had been waged on the basis of whose slogan was closest to the truth, Labor's Ehud Barak would easily have captured a plurality of the Knesset - and not a miserable 13 seats. For his campaign accurately presented him as not "nice" or "likable" or "trendy," but the leader you turn to "at the moment of truth."

On Tuesday, Barak delivered. He persuaded party activists - 680 to 507 - to endorse the deal he had initialed earlier with Prime Minister-designate Binyamin Netanyahu to bring Labor into the government.

Now, with parliamentary backing from Israel Beiteinu (15 seats), Shas (11) and Labor (13), and the likelihood that United Torah Judaism (5) will eventually shore up the government, Netanyahu has more than enough support in the 120-member Knesset to present his government next week.

FOLLOWING Labor's dismal performance in the February 10 elections, party leaders, with Barak in the forefront, argued that Labor needed to stay out of the new government and focus on rehabilitating itself in opposition - though who's to say the party would not have dissolved there, its members melting into Kadima or Meretz?

Partly for demographic and sociological reasons, Labor, once the country's vanguard party, has steadily lost its identity, and its constituency. Repeatedly serving as a junior partner in someone else's government, its mission became blurred.

Barak may indeed have a Napoleon complex. And it is easy for a jaded public to be cynical about the zigzagging leader's motivations. What matters at this stage, however, is that his joining the government is good for Israel.

At home, thanks to the strong support of Histadrut Labor Federation Chairman Ofer Eini, Labor's participation gives voice, at least nominally, to working people at a time of unprecedented economic dislocation. Abroad, it dramatically improves how the country is perceived in Washington and Europe, and partially ameliorates Netanyahu's injudicious, if unavoidable, appointment of Avigdor Lieberman as foreign minister.

When Kadima rejected joining forces with Likud because Netanyahu would not agree to a power-sharing rotation government, he was forced to cobble together a parliamentary coalition that was unpalatable, both in terms of internal cohesion and external appearance. It would have consisted of Shas, Israel Beiteinu, Habayit Hayehudi (which garnered less than three percent of the popular vote), the National Union (just over three percent) and United Torah Judaism (four percent).

Clearly, such a government could neither have represented the will of Israel's body politic within government nor, beyond our shores, the country's true ethos.

Barak is picking up Livni's slack. Whatever his impetus, he is right that Israelis have no "spare" country to play politics with while economic, diplomatic and security crises of immense proportions loom.

For all his quirks, Barak is known abroad as a tough man who knows how to compromise. When he says he won't be a "fig-leaf" for Israeli foot-dragging if the Palestinians start singing a different tune, world leaders will be inclined to believe him.

WE WERE struck by a particularly tendentious "question" posed to President Barack Obama in his Tuesday primetime news conference, primarily devoted to domestic issues. It offers insight into what Israel is up against.

Stefan Collison of Agence France-Presse: "Mr. President, you came to office pledging to work for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. How realistic do you think those hopes are now, given the likelihood of a prime minister who is not fully signed up to a two-state solution and a foreign minister who has been accused of insulting Arabs?"

Obama answered, reasonably, that "We don't yet know what the Israeli government is going to look like, and we don't yet know what the future shape of Palestinian leadership is going to be comprised of." But he would keep trying to bring the sides closer, he said.

Israel's adversaries want the focus to be on the "occupation" and, now, the new government's supposed rejection of a two-state solution.

It would have been far better to have Livni in the government telling the world about everything she and Ehud Olmert offered the Palestinians, that they rejected. But Barak's joining is the next best thing.

Now, maybe, some of the spotlight will shift to where it belongs - on Palestinian intransigence.