Listen to David Parsons of the Christian Embassy in Jerusalem and I discuss the implications of events in Egypt on Christian radio, "FrontPage Jerusalem," broadcast throughout the US and online at:
http://www.frontpagejerusalem.com/site/index.php
February 14 (web broadcast date)
(Our discussion is five minutes into the program...)
The show is co-hosted in the US by one of Israel's most selfless friends, Earl Cox.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
My Recent Radio Appearance
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, February 14, 2011
Thankless Task at Turtle Bay
After more than six-months of squabbling, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud) and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Israel Beitenu) have, at last, agreed to dispatch veteran diplomat Ron Prosor as Israel's ambassador to the United Nations. Meron Reuben had been saddled with the unenviable task of holding down the fort while the politicians bickered.
But what, realistically, can any Israeli ambassador hope to achieve at the UN where over 118 members identify with the farcically labeled "non-aligned" bloc, an interlocking directorate that includes 57 Organization of the Islamic Conference countries, 22 members of the Arab League, and Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and North Korea, states that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel. As if this wasn't bad enough, the European Union nowadays rarely takes any initiative to defend Israel's right to self-defense. And even Washington has been known to express its diplomatic pique by occasionally throwing Jerusalem to the jackals.
From the beginning, Israel's first UN ambassador Abba Eban (1949-1959) essentially disregarded his immediate diplomatic audience to address his "language and emotion to the wider world beyond." Eban served concurrently as ambassador to Washington and to the UN. His successor Michael Comay (1960-1967) became one of Israel's leading representatives to American Jewry. In the lead up to the Six Day War, Gideon Rafael (1967-1968) transmitted diplomatic messages from US decision makers interpreted by the Israeli cabinet as providing a green light for a preemptive attack by the IDF against massed Arab forces.
Not much, however, could be done inside the UN. To PLO chief Yasir Arafat's gun-toting inaugural General Assembly speech in November 1974, Yosef Tekoa (1968-1975) could best direct his rebuttal to Israel's friends outside the auditorium. Similarly, Chaim Herzog (1975-1978) took to the General Assembly podium and demonstrably tore apart resolution 3379 which odiously equated Zionism as “a form of racism." But, he too, was speaking to the civilized world beyond.
Renowned jurist Yehuda Blum (1978-1984) bluntly declared that the UN had become an arena that "fanned the flames of Arab-Israel conflict." And while helping to fight off attempts to deny Israel's credentials at the General Assembly, Benjamin Netanyahu (1984-1988) focused his polemical talents at the American popular press. As chargé d’Affaires, Johanan Bein (1988-1990) could do nothing to stop the General Assembly from relocating to Geneva to again provide Arafat with a platform. "As I prepare to leave the post," he would later write in The New York Times, "I…ask myself … if my country's predicament at the U.N. is permanent."
Yoram Aridor (1990-1992) was fortunate to see the "Zionism is racism resolution" rescinded under US pressure, yet could then do nothing about, what the Times called "the harshest criticism of Israeli policies ever made at the Security Council" by the George H.W. Bush administration over Israel's deportation of 12 Palestinian terrorists to Lebanon during the first intifada. Gad Yaacobi (1992-1996) represented Israel during the Oslo-era but, he too, could not dissuade the US from joining the Security Council majority in a sweeping condemnation of Israel in the wake of Baruch Goldstein's massacre of Arab worshippers in Hebron.
The first US-born Israeli to be appointed ambassador to the UN, Dore Gold (1997-1999) was effective at public diplomacy, but could not sway the General Assembly against voting 131 to 3 to condemn Israel for housing construction in Jerusalem. During the barbaric Palestinian violence of the second intifada, Yehuda Lancry (1999-2002) endured shameless UN condemnations against "the excessive use of force" by Israel.
Dan Gillerman (2002-2008) was, arguably, the most thriving recent ambassador: Promulgating the first Israeli resolutions ever adopted by the United Nations; elected vice-president of the assembly one year, and impelling secretary-general Kofi Annan to speak out against the GA's ad nauseam attacks against Israel as counterproductive.
Finally, though she established rapport with a not unsympathetic UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Gabriela Shalev (2008-2010) was powerless as Judge Richard Goldstein led a lawfare campaign against Israel's right to defend its civilian population along the Gaza border.
Plainly, the labors of Israeli ambassadors take on a Sisyphean almost fatalistic character. So, why bother? Simply because the UN is where the family of nations, such as it is, comes together to make consequential collective decision.
In any event, Prosor's main role will be to represent Israel beyond the UN's corridors; most prominently to the global media and the U.S. Jewish community, a task he will partly share with Michael Oren, Jerusalem's ambassador in Washington (whose primary mission is focused on the US-Israel relationship).
Yet their public diplomacy roles have been made near-impossible because official Israel does not speak with one voice. Should Israeli ambassadors take Netanyahu's Bar-Ilan speech as their marching orders? Or the contradictory line articulated by Lieberman at his 2010 UN address? To further complicate matters, today's Internet offers a competing cacophony of dissenting voices all claiming to know what's best for Israel.
Prosor's advantage is that he is a compelling figure with superior communications skills and diplomatic heft to credibly present Israel's positions in both public and confidential settings. The rest depends on the two men who belatedly sent him. Not only must Prosor have unfettered access to the foreign minister and premier, he must be encouraged to provide them with unvarnished assessments of how their – sometimes incongruent – policies are affecting Israel's image in the media and support among American Jews.
###
But what, realistically, can any Israeli ambassador hope to achieve at the UN where over 118 members identify with the farcically labeled "non-aligned" bloc, an interlocking directorate that includes 57 Organization of the Islamic Conference countries, 22 members of the Arab League, and Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and North Korea, states that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel. As if this wasn't bad enough, the European Union nowadays rarely takes any initiative to defend Israel's right to self-defense. And even Washington has been known to express its diplomatic pique by occasionally throwing Jerusalem to the jackals.
From the beginning, Israel's first UN ambassador Abba Eban (1949-1959) essentially disregarded his immediate diplomatic audience to address his "language and emotion to the wider world beyond." Eban served concurrently as ambassador to Washington and to the UN. His successor Michael Comay (1960-1967) became one of Israel's leading representatives to American Jewry. In the lead up to the Six Day War, Gideon Rafael (1967-1968) transmitted diplomatic messages from US decision makers interpreted by the Israeli cabinet as providing a green light for a preemptive attack by the IDF against massed Arab forces.
Not much, however, could be done inside the UN. To PLO chief Yasir Arafat's gun-toting inaugural General Assembly speech in November 1974, Yosef Tekoa (1968-1975) could best direct his rebuttal to Israel's friends outside the auditorium. Similarly, Chaim Herzog (1975-1978) took to the General Assembly podium and demonstrably tore apart resolution 3379 which odiously equated Zionism as “a form of racism." But, he too, was speaking to the civilized world beyond.
Renowned jurist Yehuda Blum (1978-1984) bluntly declared that the UN had become an arena that "fanned the flames of Arab-Israel conflict." And while helping to fight off attempts to deny Israel's credentials at the General Assembly, Benjamin Netanyahu (1984-1988) focused his polemical talents at the American popular press. As chargé d’Affaires, Johanan Bein (1988-1990) could do nothing to stop the General Assembly from relocating to Geneva to again provide Arafat with a platform. "As I prepare to leave the post," he would later write in The New York Times, "I…ask myself … if my country's predicament at the U.N. is permanent."
Yoram Aridor (1990-1992) was fortunate to see the "Zionism is racism resolution" rescinded under US pressure, yet could then do nothing about, what the Times called "the harshest criticism of Israeli policies ever made at the Security Council" by the George H.W. Bush administration over Israel's deportation of 12 Palestinian terrorists to Lebanon during the first intifada. Gad Yaacobi (1992-1996) represented Israel during the Oslo-era but, he too, could not dissuade the US from joining the Security Council majority in a sweeping condemnation of Israel in the wake of Baruch Goldstein's massacre of Arab worshippers in Hebron.
The first US-born Israeli to be appointed ambassador to the UN, Dore Gold (1997-1999) was effective at public diplomacy, but could not sway the General Assembly against voting 131 to 3 to condemn Israel for housing construction in Jerusalem. During the barbaric Palestinian violence of the second intifada, Yehuda Lancry (1999-2002) endured shameless UN condemnations against "the excessive use of force" by Israel.
Dan Gillerman (2002-2008) was, arguably, the most thriving recent ambassador: Promulgating the first Israeli resolutions ever adopted by the United Nations; elected vice-president of the assembly one year, and impelling secretary-general Kofi Annan to speak out against the GA's ad nauseam attacks against Israel as counterproductive.
Finally, though she established rapport with a not unsympathetic UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Gabriela Shalev (2008-2010) was powerless as Judge Richard Goldstein led a lawfare campaign against Israel's right to defend its civilian population along the Gaza border.
Plainly, the labors of Israeli ambassadors take on a Sisyphean almost fatalistic character. So, why bother? Simply because the UN is where the family of nations, such as it is, comes together to make consequential collective decision.
In any event, Prosor's main role will be to represent Israel beyond the UN's corridors; most prominently to the global media and the U.S. Jewish community, a task he will partly share with Michael Oren, Jerusalem's ambassador in Washington (whose primary mission is focused on the US-Israel relationship).
Yet their public diplomacy roles have been made near-impossible because official Israel does not speak with one voice. Should Israeli ambassadors take Netanyahu's Bar-Ilan speech as their marching orders? Or the contradictory line articulated by Lieberman at his 2010 UN address? To further complicate matters, today's Internet offers a competing cacophony of dissenting voices all claiming to know what's best for Israel.
Prosor's advantage is that he is a compelling figure with superior communications skills and diplomatic heft to credibly present Israel's positions in both public and confidential settings. The rest depends on the two men who belatedly sent him. Not only must Prosor have unfettered access to the foreign minister and premier, he must be encouraged to provide them with unvarnished assessments of how their – sometimes incongruent – policies are affecting Israel's image in the media and support among American Jews.
###
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, February 07, 2011
What is Qatar's Game?
On the Middle East map, the peninsula state bordering Saudi Arabia, jutting into the Persian Gulf opposite Iran, is easy to overlook. Yet Qatar is one of the world's wealthiest countries, the dominant exporter of liquefied natural gas, and through its sponsorship of Al Jazeera, punches considerably above its weight.
On the face of it Qatar is not easy to pigeonhole. In 2022, it will host the World Cup football (soccer) games; it's already home to perhaps the first world class museum of modern art in the Arab world; and its national airline (besides inspiring some of the most creative commercials on television) has 180 planes on order including five superjumbo A380s.
Its attitude toward Jews in comparatively enlightened. In 1996, Qatar hosted the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and invited Israel to open a trade mission. In 2008, the sheikhdom allowed Israeli tennis star Shahar Pe'er to play in a WTA Tour tournament, and Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni to address its Doha “Democracy Forum." This barely raised eyebrows as Shimon Peres had made his second visit to Doha in 2007. Qatar is also considered an American ally and hosts (rent free) the US military's Central Command which oversees operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
All this development and cosmopolitanism – in a country where native Qataris, practicing "liberal" Wahhabi Islam and comprise 200,000 out of a total 1.4 million population – is attributable to Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and family. First lady Sheikha Mosah Bint Nasser al-Missned spearheads reform and is one of the most influential women in the world. Prime Minister (and businessman) Hamed bin Jaber al-Thani's recent corporate flirtation with Israeli entrepreneurs has been interpreted in some quarters as a political overture to the Jewish state.
There is, alas, also a darker side to the equation. During Israel's 2008-2009 military campaign to stop Hamas from firing rockets into its territory from Gaza, Qatar broke relations with Israel and moreover hosted extremist Arabs, plus Iran, to mobilize support for Hamas. (The Qataris subsequently offered to resume relations in return for being allowed to funnel reconstruction money directly to the Hamas authorities.) In addition to helping bankroll Hamas, the al-Thani's have played a key role in facilitating Hezbollah's suzerainty over Lebanon. And in December 2007, Qatar invited Mahmud Ahmadinejad to address the Gulf Cooperation Council in Doha, the first Iranian leader ever to do so.
Al Jazeera, based in Doha and created by Sheikh Hamad in 1996, is a tool of Qatar's foreign policy. In an Arab world where, until recently, dissent was forbidden, the channel's readiness to criticize Arab autocrats (excluding, naturally, the ruler of Qatar) has been exhilarating. Al Jazeera has also played a critical role in setting or codifying the pan-Arab agenda. But by notoriously, over and over again, disseminating the fulminations of al-Qaida's Osama bin Laden, the station concurrently promoted violent pan-Islam. Unlike the BBC's World Service shortwave broadcasts or even of Radio Free Europe of yesteryear, Qatar's soft power exercised through Al Jazeera has too often been in the service of tyranny.
While Al-Jazeera's English-language website and television mirror the BBC's professionalism (and frostiness toward the Zionist enterprise), the Arabic service often serves as a demagogic platform for spreading the radical views of the Moslem Brotherhood. Al Jazeera has provided a bully pulpit for extremist preacher Yussuf al-Qaradawi, promoted the Hamas-Iran-Syria-Hizbullah agenda, and glorified as shahids those killed "resisting" Israel. (To be fair, Al Jazeera allows the occasional Israeli spokesperson to appear in this sea of enmity.) Al-Jazeera's championing of Hamas over Fatah led it to broadcast The Palestine Papers, purporting to expose Mahmoud Abbas's peace negotiators as Zionist collaborators. When Qatar's rulers don't know what to make of a crisis, the network can vacillate. For instance, at their outset, Al Jazeera downplayed the disturbances in Egypt, only to become the nexus of anti-Mubarak agitation.
To a Western observer, Qatar's foreign policy can seem incoherent, even duplicitous. On the one hand the ruling family professes to promote reform and democratization, yet it is also a friend of medievalism and rejectionism. It is as if Qatar wants to be an unscrupulous Switzerland of the Middle East. In return for not being targeted, Qatar has come to an arrangement with terrorist groups and has for years provided safe haven to Muslim Brothers. Since 2003, Qatar has reportedly been paying al-Qaeda to spare it from terrorist attack; members of the royal family are said to have provided safe haven for 9/11 terrorists.
The al-Thani clan's continual playing off the forces of enlightenment and darkness against each other might be, somehow, excusable were its ultimate goal bringing the values of modernity to the Arab world. Regrettably, there is slim evidence they have any purpose beyond self-preservation and the consequences be damned.
###
Feb. 7, 2011
On the face of it Qatar is not easy to pigeonhole. In 2022, it will host the World Cup football (soccer) games; it's already home to perhaps the first world class museum of modern art in the Arab world; and its national airline (besides inspiring some of the most creative commercials on television) has 180 planes on order including five superjumbo A380s.
Its attitude toward Jews in comparatively enlightened. In 1996, Qatar hosted the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and invited Israel to open a trade mission. In 2008, the sheikhdom allowed Israeli tennis star Shahar Pe'er to play in a WTA Tour tournament, and Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni to address its Doha “Democracy Forum." This barely raised eyebrows as Shimon Peres had made his second visit to Doha in 2007. Qatar is also considered an American ally and hosts (rent free) the US military's Central Command which oversees operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
All this development and cosmopolitanism – in a country where native Qataris, practicing "liberal" Wahhabi Islam and comprise 200,000 out of a total 1.4 million population – is attributable to Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and family. First lady Sheikha Mosah Bint Nasser al-Missned spearheads reform and is one of the most influential women in the world. Prime Minister (and businessman) Hamed bin Jaber al-Thani's recent corporate flirtation with Israeli entrepreneurs has been interpreted in some quarters as a political overture to the Jewish state.
There is, alas, also a darker side to the equation. During Israel's 2008-2009 military campaign to stop Hamas from firing rockets into its territory from Gaza, Qatar broke relations with Israel and moreover hosted extremist Arabs, plus Iran, to mobilize support for Hamas. (The Qataris subsequently offered to resume relations in return for being allowed to funnel reconstruction money directly to the Hamas authorities.) In addition to helping bankroll Hamas, the al-Thani's have played a key role in facilitating Hezbollah's suzerainty over Lebanon. And in December 2007, Qatar invited Mahmud Ahmadinejad to address the Gulf Cooperation Council in Doha, the first Iranian leader ever to do so.
Al Jazeera, based in Doha and created by Sheikh Hamad in 1996, is a tool of Qatar's foreign policy. In an Arab world where, until recently, dissent was forbidden, the channel's readiness to criticize Arab autocrats (excluding, naturally, the ruler of Qatar) has been exhilarating. Al Jazeera has also played a critical role in setting or codifying the pan-Arab agenda. But by notoriously, over and over again, disseminating the fulminations of al-Qaida's Osama bin Laden, the station concurrently promoted violent pan-Islam. Unlike the BBC's World Service shortwave broadcasts or even of Radio Free Europe of yesteryear, Qatar's soft power exercised through Al Jazeera has too often been in the service of tyranny.
While Al-Jazeera's English-language website and television mirror the BBC's professionalism (and frostiness toward the Zionist enterprise), the Arabic service often serves as a demagogic platform for spreading the radical views of the Moslem Brotherhood. Al Jazeera has provided a bully pulpit for extremist preacher Yussuf al-Qaradawi, promoted the Hamas-Iran-Syria-Hizbullah agenda, and glorified as shahids those killed "resisting" Israel. (To be fair, Al Jazeera allows the occasional Israeli spokesperson to appear in this sea of enmity.) Al-Jazeera's championing of Hamas over Fatah led it to broadcast The Palestine Papers, purporting to expose Mahmoud Abbas's peace negotiators as Zionist collaborators. When Qatar's rulers don't know what to make of a crisis, the network can vacillate. For instance, at their outset, Al Jazeera downplayed the disturbances in Egypt, only to become the nexus of anti-Mubarak agitation.
To a Western observer, Qatar's foreign policy can seem incoherent, even duplicitous. On the one hand the ruling family professes to promote reform and democratization, yet it is also a friend of medievalism and rejectionism. It is as if Qatar wants to be an unscrupulous Switzerland of the Middle East. In return for not being targeted, Qatar has come to an arrangement with terrorist groups and has for years provided safe haven to Muslim Brothers. Since 2003, Qatar has reportedly been paying al-Qaeda to spare it from terrorist attack; members of the royal family are said to have provided safe haven for 9/11 terrorists.
The al-Thani clan's continual playing off the forces of enlightenment and darkness against each other might be, somehow, excusable were its ultimate goal bringing the values of modernity to the Arab world. Regrettably, there is slim evidence they have any purpose beyond self-preservation and the consequences be damned.
###
Feb. 7, 2011
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, February 03, 2011
What Gives גלי צה"ל Galei Tzahal? Why the Friedman Infatuation?
Am I the only one in Israel who wonders who at Israel's Army Radio is so infatuated with Tom Friedman of the NYTimes that they keep referencing his op-eds as if... they were something significant that we should all care about.
It seems that Old Tom has compared PM Netanyahu to Hosni Mubarak calling Netanyahu the "Mubarak of the peace process."
Standard Tom. Yawn.
Old Tom has been wrong about Israel more times than I'd care to count in this quickie posting.
He started being wrong from his college days when he was active with Breira. Sadly, from Beirut to Jerusalem (which, I'll admit is a good book with lots of bad ideas) has influenced thousands of young people to mis-perceive the Arab-Israel conflict.
So what gives Galei Tzahal?
Who is the Friedman-groupie in your news department?
It seems that Old Tom has compared PM Netanyahu to Hosni Mubarak calling Netanyahu the "Mubarak of the peace process."
Standard Tom. Yawn.
Old Tom has been wrong about Israel more times than I'd care to count in this quickie posting.
He started being wrong from his college days when he was active with Breira. Sadly, from Beirut to Jerusalem (which, I'll admit is a good book with lots of bad ideas) has influenced thousands of young people to mis-perceive the Arab-Israel conflict.
So what gives Galei Tzahal?
Who is the Friedman-groupie in your news department?
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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