DUBYA'S REAL MIDEAST AGENDA.

 

CAN HE CONSOLIDATE HIS REVOLUTION?

 Amir Taheri

New York Post, January 8, 2008

 GEORGE W. Bush will set a new presidential record on his Middle East grand tour, visiting at least 10 countries in a short period. In some, he'll be the first US president to make a state visit. But what is the visit for?

Cynics would suggest that Bush is looking for photo opportunities that might add some spice to his future memoirs. More generous commentators might see the tour as the continuation of an American tradition: All US presidents since Woodrow Wilson have dreamed of themselves as peacemakers and tried to help others sort out ancient disputes.

Both assessments may be true. After all, why shouldn't Bush look for a photo opportunity, and why shouldn't he try his luck at peacemaking? But those explanations are inadequate.

First off, the greater Middle East is no longer a distant region whose importance to the United States stems from its oil reserves and strategic location in the context of big-power rivalries. Over the last three decades, US dependence on Middle East oil has dropped steadily, even as US imports of crude have almost doubled. As for geostrategic factors, the Cold War's end spelled the finish of the Middle East as a big prize in the race between the Free World and the Soviet bloc.

Instead, the Middle East has emerged as the chief source of threats to US national security in the context of a new global struggle between the established order and its challengers, who often act in the name of this or that version of Islam.

Successive US administrations failed to see this radical transformation when it began in the '70s. Even the storming of the US embassy in Tehran and the seizing of American diplomats as hostages failed to convince Washington that something important was going on in the Mideast. It took the 9/11 attacks to shake America out of its illusions about the region.

Since President Franklin Roosevelt, US Middle East policy had aimed at preserving the status quo. Each time America intervened in the region - from the Marines landing in Lebanon and Jordan in the '50s to the expulsion of Saddam Hussein's armies from occupied Kuwait - Washington sought to maintain as much of the status quo as possible.

That policy's failure - illustrated by the emergence of pro-Soviet Arab regimes in the '50s and the '60s, the Communist seizure of power in Afghanistan in 1977 and the Khomeinist revolution in Iran in 1979 - didn't persuade Washington that a different analysis might be required. But Bush realized post-9/11 that it was the very status quo that America had helped preserve that had produced its deadliest foes. He became the first US president to adopt an anti -status quo, not to say revolutionary, posture toward the Middle East.

Bush backed his words with deeds by taking military action to remove two of the region's most vicious regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. He also exerted pressure on other countries, including some allies, to change aspects of their domestic and/or foreign policies.

The upshot: The status quo has shattered. Yet (even leaving aside the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq, who've had a chance to taste freedom from tyranny) America hasn't been the sole beneficiary.

Indeed, the prime beneficiary has been the Islamic Republic in Iran. In 2001, it was in a pincer between the Taliban regime in Kabul and the Ba'athist regime in Baghdad. The Afghan mullahs challenged the Iranian mullahs on religious grounds; the Ba'athists tried to mobilize pan-Arab nationalism against Khomeinism. Those regimes' fall has enabled the Khomeinists to revive their ambitions of regional supremacy as never before.

Other beneficiaries include Russia, India, China and Uzbekistan - who were all mired in deadly struggles against armed Islamists. The Taliban's fall and the destruction of al Qaeda's Afghan network have led to the gradual demise of terrorist groups in Chechnya, Kashmir, Xingjian and the Ferghana Valley.

* Freed from the Chechnyan albatross, Vladimir Putin's Russia has revived its big-power ambitions in Central Asia and the Middle East.

* The end of the Muslim revolt in Xingjian has enabled China not only to develop that oil-rich region, but also to attract massive Arab investment.

* India has freed itself of the cross it had to bear in Kashmir, letting it cut defense spending for the first time in half a century and focus on economic development.

* With no more mujahedin coming from Afghanistan, Uzbek President Islam Karimov has been able to restore his control over the Ferghana for the first time since 1990.

Arab states from Algeria to Yemen to Egypt, have also benefited from the fact that Afghanistan and Iraq have become magnets for terrorists who'd otherwise have targeted them. Europe and Japan gained, too, if only from the receding of the Saddamite and al Qaeda threats to a region that provides 60 percent of their oil imports.

The problem is that, while the old status quo has fallen, a new one has yet to take shape. The struggle against the enemies of new Afghanistan and Iraq may continue for many more years. Under a new administration, America may balk at the effort required to shape a new status quo. A US withdrawal before a new balance of power is in place could leave Iran and Russia the arbiters of the region's future. Both have made no secret of their ambitions to build alliances to challenge what they see as US domination.

The State Department may have designed Bush's final tour of the region as a signal that America is satisfied with the half-built Mideast status quo. This is why the focus is put on the Israel-Palestine conflict - which, its intrinsic importance notwithstanding, is of little consequence in the broader struggle for a new Middle East.

The president's tour can acquire a positive meaning only if it is used to shape a new alliance for reform, progress and democratization as the chief guarantor of Middle East peace and security. Such an alliance would challenge the hegemonic ambitions of both the Islamic Republic and Russia.

Under Bush, America has helped change the Middle East. It would be odd, to say the least, if America's principal adversaries end up as the chief beneficiaries of that change.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

 

 

Lebanon in Limbo.

The political process comes to a halt.

by Lee Smith


Beirut-
THE IDEA THAT George Bush might be stopping in Lebanon during the course of his 9-day tour of the Middle East is one of the more far-fetched rumors I've ever heard in a land rife with speculation and hearsay. A Bush visit here is unlikely, for obvious reasons.

"Syria's allies threatened to block the airport road if Bush shows up in Beirut," says Eli Khoury, a Lebanese democracy activist and founder of New Opinion Workshop (NOW) Lebanon. And what about the rest of Lebanon? "Considering Syria's strong presence in Lebanon through these allies, and the security threat it poses, there is a big difference between what the democratic public in Lebanon would want to do to welcome Bush and what they would actually do. People might not mass up, out of fear for their lives or militant intimidation."

Certainly a meeting between Bush and the million plus who took to the streets March 14, 2005 to demand their freedom, independence, and sovereignty would cheer the leader of the free world at a time when his administration's Middle East policy has run off the tracks. If the invitation Secretary of State Rice extended Damascus for November's Annapolis meeting rattled the Sunni-Druze-Christian coalition that makes up Lebanon's March 14 movement, post-Annapolis events have concerned the rest of Washington's regional friends.

Insofar as Annapolis was supposed to gather U.S. allies to remind them of their common front against Teheran, the National Intelligence Estimate discounting the dangers of the Iranian nuclear program rendered the exercise meaningless. Why would the Saudis or Egyptians stick their necks out for the White House if the president can't even manage his own intelligence community? Now, the administration is stuck with what some pundits are unironically calling the "Annapolis process," which is supposed to lead to a Palestinian state and usher in a new Middle East.

But to welcome the President to what is still the old Middle East, Damascus and Tehran have heated things up a bit--largely here in Lebanon. First, a sectarian clash in a Beirut Sunni neighborhood bordering on a Shia section threatened to get out of hand until the army was deployed and tensions cooled. Monday, two rockets were fired into Northern Israel, and Tuesday afternoon a UN convoy was targeted, injuring three UNIFIL troops.

As Lebanon's Syrian and Iranian allies are willing to resort to such violence to send the message that the President of the United States cannot protect his allies in Lebanon, Israel, and Europe, what can the U.S. do to show its resolve?

Khoury believes a presidential trip would actually mean a lot. "It means that Lebanon has, for once, strong allies who are serious about supporting their cause," Khoury says. "And that, despite the deadly circumstances, the new Syria-free regime will overcome and flourish."

Right now, however, there is only political stasis. After March 14 cut a deal allowing army commander and presumed Syrian ally Michel Suleiman to become president, the Hezbollah-led opposition smelled blood in the water. What they wanted next was a re-jiggered cabinet that would give them veto power to quash the formation of the tribunal into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minster Rafiq al-Hariri. Thus, Lebanon has entered a stalemate that has no obvious resolution--except for March 14 to cave in to the demands of Hezbollah and its Syrian assets, or for the tribunal to take shape and start naming members of the Asad family.

It is very difficult for observers to understand how a country can function in such a vacuum, without a president and a sidelined parliament, but life goes on in Beirut. Bars and restaurants were filled this holiday season with Lebanese expats; as one reveler explained New Year's Eve, "the fun never stops"--even if the political process has.

And thus Lebanon has come down to a game of nerves, with regional and international actors waiting for the next move. Regardless of the president's travel plans, in the wake of Annapolis the White House has redoubled its efforts to show, as Bush said recently, "the United States is strongly committed to Lebanese democracy." And after France's brief flirtation with Damascus, president Nicolas Sarkozy has suspended talks.

The Arab League has backed the Suleiman presidency, which given the reality on the ground is a non-starter. According to Tony Badran, a fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, "It seems increasingly like the Syrians simply avoided criticism in Cairo by appearing to back the Arab consensus while at the same time winking to their Lebanese allies to create old-new hurdles. It afforded Syria, in their view, a measure of deniability."

Usually it is the Americans who are eager to wrap things up--to get some closure, as we like to say. But if Syria and Iran believe they are riding a wave with the NIE, the recent violence in Lebanon suggests that Damascus and Teheran are also capable of losing their cool.

First, the vacuum gives the tribunal more time to form. Second, in spite of all the vain talk about splitting Syria from Iran, there is only one obvious wedge issue between them. While Damascus will sacrifice any amount of Lebanese blood to protect the Syrian regime, Iran does not want a Sunni-Shia war in Lebanon that would affect its standing throughout the region. If Washington's Sunni allies read the NIE as an index of the Bush administration's weakness, sectarian conflict in Lebanon would remind them that cutting deals with the Islamic Republic of Iran is a very foolish idea.

Lee Smith is a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Humanitarian Aid to PA, Again

 

by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

Security agents of the Israel Airport Authority (IAA) discovered two tons of material used to manufacture explosives on a truck supposedly delivering humanitarian aid for residents of the Palestinian Authority. The discovery was made Monday afternoon at the IDF checkpoint at the KeremShalom Crossing into southern Gaza, a transit point for goods from Egypt destined for the PA.

The bomb-making ingredient was found by IAA officials during routine and random inspections of vehicles supposedly carrying humanitarian supplies into southern Gaza. According to security sources, the chemical compound, made from fertilizer, is used as fuel for PA rockets and in the manufacture of incendiary devices. The quantity of material discovered was sufficient for hundreds of rockets.

Security officials have yet to determine the source and destination of the explosives supplies. The investigation continues.

The smuggling incident was the second of its kind in less than a month. In late December, IDF soldiers discovered 6.5 tons of potassium nitrate hidden in sacks marked "sugar" and earmarked for needy Arabs in Gaza. Potassium nitrate is a banned substance in Gaza, Judea and Samaria due to its use by terrorists for the manufacturing of explosives and Kassam rockets. The bags were marked as humanitarian aid from the European Union, Gaza's biggest source of assistance.

While security officials investigating the December case do not assume that the potassium nitrate was sent by the European Union, they have noted that terrorist groups have learned to take advantage of such shipments. An IDF source said at the time, "This is another example of how the terror organizations exploit the humanitarian aid that is delivered to the Palestinian population in Gaza with Israel's approval."

PM Olmert Opposes Gaza Incursion
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Monday that Israel was at "war" with Arab terrorists in Gaza, but said he opposed a full-scale invasion of the area "right now."

The prime minister explained his position: "Hundreds of fatalities amongst terror organizations in Gaza in the last year are a heavy price for the terror groups to have paid. I highly recommend that we do not get involved in operations and costs out of all proportion to the issues we are dealing with."

At the same time, Olmert stressed that he did not underestimate the severity of Kassam attacks on Sderot and other Jewish communities located near Gaza.

Israel Lifting Fuel Sanctions
The random discovery of the bomb-making material last month and on Monday did not change Defense Minister Ehud Barak's decision to drop fuel sanctions imposed on Gaza by the government last month.

The cutbacks in fuel supplies were implemented as part of the effort to isolate and pressure the Hamas government in Gaza. The High Court of Justice heard several petitions against the move. On Thursday, the state submitted a motion in which it announced the suspension of the punitive measures.

Canada to Provide Aid
In addition to the assistance from the EU for the PA, Canadian Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier announced that his government would allocate $300 million for the PA over the course of the next five years. The money will be used to reform the PA and to fund its security forces, Bernier said.

The PA security forces have begun patrolling Shechem and Bethlehem in an effort to prove that the PA is able to fight terrorism and control crime. Terrorists who are caught by PA forces serve up to three months in prison and then become members of the force, provided with weapons and a salary from the PA.

Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

 

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

PA Chairman With PLO Flag That Erases Israel.

by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

 

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas was filmed this week at a PLO Central Committee meeting with an emblem that negates the existence of Israel as a backdrop. The PLO emblem includes the PA flag above a map which depcits Palestine replacing the entirety of the State of Israel.

The video from the PLO meeting, which took place in Ramallah, was broadcast on PA television on Sunday, January 13. The event took place just days after Abbas met with US President George W. Bush and reiterated his commitment to peaceful negotiations with Israel.

The PA's Fatah terrorist faction, under the direct command of Abbas, also continues to promote the elimination of Israel through its maps and symbols. A map on a poster printed in December in honor of the group's 43rd anniversary shows all of Israel as "Palestine" draped in a colorful keffiyeh scarf. A rifle is pictured alongside the map.

Fatah is generally treated by Western leaders as more moderate than rival terrorist groups, as it currently professes to support an Arab Muslim state in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and Jerusalem, but not within Israel's 1948-1967 borders. However, throughout decades of negotiations, the group never changed its maps or military symbols, and Fatah leaders refuse to recognize Israel as Jewish within any borders. In a 2001 press release in honor of the 37th anniversary of Fatah's first terrorist attack, the organization declared that "a legitimate Palestinian entity forms the most important weapon that Arabs have against Israel...."

On November 28, the day after the Annapolis Conference, official PA television broadcast a map of the region obliterating Israel completely and replacing it with a Palestinian flag.

 

Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

 

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

 

The Arab States encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes ...

 

by Hillel Fendel

The issue of "Arab refugees" has long been a matter of widespread consensus in Israel, with even left-wing parties declaring that allowing them into Israel would endanger its very existence as a Jewish state.  Nevertheless, the subject does not appear to be going away.  Reports are that Prime Minister Olmert has now agreed to allow 50,000 Arabs who left Israel in 1948 - or are descendants of those who did - to enter and live in Israel.

Channel Ten reported Thursday night that in a private meeting between Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Abu Mazen, the two agreed that in the final-status agreement, Israel would withdraw from 92% of Judea and Samaria, including all the non-Jewish neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem.  It was also agreed that 50,000 "refugees from 1948" would enter and live in the State of Israel. 

Staffers in Olmert's office did not deny the report, and even hinted that it was at least partially accurate.

Olmert Went Further than Bush
U.S. President George Bush summed up his three-day visit to Israel on Friday by saying that a new Palestinian state, together with financial compensation, would be the solution to the refugee problem.  The implication is that the refugees need not enter Israel. 

"There must be an end to Israel's occupation [sic] that began in 1967," Bush said.  "Palestine must serve as a national home for the Palestinians, and Israel - for the Jews."

Israel liberated Judea and Samaria during the Six Day War in 1967, capturing it, essentially, from no one. No country in the world, other than Great Britain and Pakistan, recognized Jordan's control over Judea and Samaria between 1948 and 1967.

Lebanon: Return, Not Money
Lebanon's Prime Minister Fuad Seniora does not accept Bush's position on the refugees. Seniora said that money alone is not enough, and that his country will continue to refuse to grant citizenship to the 400,000 refugees living within its borders.  The number of Arabs who left Israel in 1948 has been estimated to be roughly a half-million, but millions now claim the 'right to return.'

Hamas, too, refuses to accept any solution other than the "return" to Israel of the millions of Arabs who claim that they themselves, or their ancestors, were forced to leave Israel in 1948.  The Hamas prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, said that Bush will soon leave the political arena, while the Hamas demands will remain forever: "A Palestinian state in the pre-1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital, the destruction of all the settlements, the release of all the Palestinian prisoners, the 'right of return' of all the Palestinian refugees, and continued adherence to the strategy of not giving up on even one inch of all of Palestine."

Arabs Denied Refugee Problem
Oft-forgotten is the fact that the refugee problem was not caused by Israel, but by the Arab states.  "The Arab States encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies," according to the Jordanian newspaper Filastin (February 19, 1949). 

Joan Peters, in her classic work "From Time Immemorial," quotes (on page 13) an Arab-sponsored Institute for Palestine Studies finding that "the majority" of the Arab refugees in 1948 were not expelled, and that 68% left without seeing an Israeli soldier.

On April 27, 1950, the Arab National Committee of Haifa informed the Arab States: "The removal of the Arab inhabitants... was voluntary and was carried out at our request... The Arab delegation proudly asked for the evacuation of the Arabs and their removal to the neighboring Arab countries."

Zuheir Muhsein, the late Military Department head of the PLO and member of its Executive Council, told the Dutch daily Trouw, March 1977, "The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity... Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people... to oppose Zionism."

Hillel Fendel

 

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Iran Plans on Destroying Tomb of King Cyrus, Friend of the Jews.

 

by Ezra HaLevi

Iran is planning on submerging the tomb of King Cyrus (Coresh), the Persian King known for authorizing the Jewish exiles to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Holy Temple.

According to a report by Omedia, an Iranian organization is demanding that the International Criminal Court take action against those responsible.

The Iranian ayatollahs are planning on destroying the tomb as part of a general campaign to sever the Persian people from their non-Islamic heritage; Cyrus was thought to be a Zoroastrian and was one of the first rulers to enforce a policy of religious tolerance on his huge kingdom. Journalist Ran Porat quoted a young Iranian who said that the measures being taken by the Islamic Republic's regime include the destruction of archaeological sites significant to this heritage.

"The government is in the final stages of constructing a dam in southern Iran that will submerge the archaeological sites of Pasargad and Persopolis – the ancient capital of the Persian Empire," the report states. "The site, which is considered exceptional in terms of its archaeological wealth and historical importance, houses the tomb of the Persian King Cyrus."

Cyrus, who lived from 576-530 BCE, liberated Babylonian Jewry from their exile in the famous Declaration of Cyrus (mentioned in the book of Ezra in both Hebrew and Aramaic).

A group of Iranian academics opposed to the regime's policies founded a group called the Pasargad Heritage Foundation with hopes of getting the United Nations involved in protecting the historical site. Most recently, the foundation filed a petition with the International Criminal Court against the Iranian official in charge of maintaining the sites, charging him and his bureau with "crimes against humanity, due to the systematic state-sanctioned destruction of the culture of the ancient Iranian world and its historical heritage."

Though the city of Pasargad is a ruin, Cyrus's Tomb has remained largely intact and it has been partially restored to counter its natural deterioration over the years.
 
Cyrus was praised in the Tanach (Isaiah 45:1-6), though he was also criticized for believing the false report of the Cuthites, who wanted to halt the building of the Second Temple. They accused the Jews of conspiring to rebel, so Cyrus in turn stopped the construction of the temple, which would not be completed until 516 BCE, during the reign of Darius the Great, the grandson of Queen Esther.

Ezra HaLevi

 

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

When nothing but bluntness will do.

by Isi Leibler

The Jerusalem Post, Jan. 9, 2008

Prime Minister Olmert has announced that in the course of his meetings with President George W. Bush, besides discussing Iran, he intends to reassure the president that Israel will remain highly flexible and make every effort to enhance the status of our "peace partner," Mahmoud Abbas.

Such a message would be utterly inappropriate. Now is the time for our prime minister to speak the truth to President Bush. He should alert him that under current circumstances, no meaningful outcome from our negotiations with the Palestinians is likely, and that raising false expectations could be highly counterproductive.
President Bush is a true friend of Israel. In contrast to his predecessors, once he recognized the evil and duplicitous nature of Yasser Arafat, he severed relations and effectively marginalized him. He also brought to an end the era of moral equivalency during which Palestinian murderers and Israeli victims were both regarded as equal components of a senseless cycle of violence. In addition, Bush endorsed Israel's right to defensible borders and became the first Western leader to state that when boundaries are finalized, demographic facts on the ground will need to be taken into account - a clear endorsement for Israeli retention of the major settlement blocs. And at Annapolis, despite all its ambivalences, the president unequivocally reiterated that Israel is a "Jewish state," bluntly contradicting the Palestinians, who vowed that they would never come to terms with a Jewish entity.
Indeed, unless the White House reverses these policies, history will judge President Bush as the most pro-Israeli president to date, a leader who resisted pressures from many of his allies to appease the Palestinians and courageously maintained a principled approach toward the Jewish state.

REGRETTABLY, over the past year there have been ominous indications that the State Department has begun tilting its policy against Israel and reverting to its former failed strategy of appeasement.

The offensive remarks recently expressed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, comparing Palestinian suffering with the discrimination she as an African-American underwent from white supremacists, exemplify a new confrontational stance. She has also been adopting language reminiscent of moral equivalency, implying that both parties to the conflict are equally culpable.

The atmosphere became further strained when, on the eve of the Presidential visit, Rice described Jewish suburbs of east Jerusalem - specifically mentioning Har Homa - as "settlements." With Olmert having impulsively ceded to the Americans the role of determining adherence to the road map, a real confrontation with the US is looming.

In a similar vein, the brutal pressures exerted over the past year by Rice against Israel have, for the first time, led to a questioning of her role as an honest broker. This followed a series of tough demands on Israel to "ease the suffering of the Palestinians" by making further unilateral concessions which impacted disastrously on Israel's security.

The most glaring example was the insistence that Israel give up the Philadelphi Corridor, which enabled the flood of armaments into Gaza from Egypt. But even as the arms continued to pour in, Rice demanded that Israel reduce checkpoints, release terrorists and provide arms to PA security forces, arms that were subsequently employed against Israelis.

These actions have already resulted in the murder of innocent Israeli civilians, and will inevitably lead to more bloodshed.

SOME OF these disastrous changes may have been avoided had the Israeli government displayed a modicum of resistance to the initial American pressures. Regrettably, Israel frequently anticipated and even exceeded American demands.

For example, it was Prime Minister Olmert, not the Americans, who dispensed with the road map requirement that the terrorist militias be dissolved before the commencement of final status negotiations. It was Israel which requested that Congress waive conditions it intended imposing in relation to financial aid to the PA.

Public support for Israel may be at a peak in the US, but one cannot expect the US administration to be more supportive of Israel's security requirements than its own government.

Were it anyone other than Ehud Olmert, one would expect the prime minister of Israel to urge President Bush to uphold the fundamental principles relating to fighting terror and Islamic fundamentalism which he has promoted over the years. Instead of groveling to illusionary peace partners and automatically succumbing to every American demand, our prime minister should appeal to the president to frustrate State Department initiatives designed to make Israel a sacrificial lamb to compensate for the "bigger picture."

President Bush should be reminded that the Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria is not the by-product of an Israeli invasion but the response to an Arab invasion designed to wipe Israel off the map. Even so, the majority of Israelis would today support the creation of a Palestinian state; but certainly not an extended Hamastan.

OUR PRIME minister must surely urge President Bush to demand that the Palestinians now confront reality. In recent weeks, three young Israelis have been brutally murdered by members of the Fatah militia under the control of Abbas. Surely President Bush will appreciate that if, under such circumstances, Israel continues making unilateral concessions, all the wrong messages will be conveyed to the Palestinians. If there is to be a serious process, President Bush must demand that Abbas now substitute action for his duplicitous words and belatedly dismantle the terrorist militias under his jurisdiction.

The president should also be reminded that vicious incitement against Israel continues unabated at every level of Palestinian society. And that it is unconscionable to demand that Israel collaborate in creating a state under whose jurisdiction, shaheeds (suicide bombers) will continue to be sanctified and their families compensated with state pensions. Not to mention an educational system which encourages Palestinian children to accept martyrdom while killing Jews as a noble sacrifice.

 

Above all, our prime minister should impress upon President Bush that before Israel considers further concessions in the framework of a final status agreement, the Palestinians must come to terms with Israel as a Jewish state. Having recently proclaimed that he would not renege on this issue, it is surely outrageous for Prime Minister Olmert to now publicly proclaim that he is satisfied because he "thinks" that Abbas "accepts Israel in his soul." So long as the Palestinians persist with their so-called Arab right of return, they are effectively proclaiming that they will never reconcile themselves to coexisting with Jewish sovereignty. That remains the source of the conflict.

 

PRESIDENT BUSH must now take a public stand. He would demonstrate that he is no lame duck by bluntly telling Abbas the truth, insisting that if he remains either unwilling or unable to undertake steps to curb terrorism and incitement, he can no longer qualify as a peace partner.

Finally, President Bush should be reminded of his repeated declarations warning that the appeasement of jihadism has in every instance only served to embolden terrorists everywhere. Appeasement not only contradicts the president's own agenda and threatens to destroy his legacy, it also symbolizes a violation of all that our civilization represents.

 

Isi Leibler
The writer is a veteran international Jewish leader.

 

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

“WHAT MATTERS IS WHAT THE IRANIANS THINK... WE PLAY CHECKERS, THEY PLAY CHESS.”

 

Iran 1, USA 0

 

By Ralph Peters

New York Post

January 8, 2008

 

Early Sunday morning, the US Navy lost its nerve and guaranteed that American sailors will die at Iranian hands in the future.

 

As three of our warships passed through the Straits of Hormuz, five small Iranian patrol craft rushed them. As the Revolutionary Guard boats neared our vessels, an Iranian officer broadcast a threat to our ships, claiming they'd soon explode.

 

The Iranians tossed boxes into the water. Mines? Just in case, our ships took evasive action.

 

The Iranians kept on coming, closing to a distance of 200 meters – about two football fields. Supposedly, our Navy was ready to open fire but didn't shoot because the Iranians turned away at the moment the order was given.

 

We should've sunk every one of them. Not because we're warmongers. But because the Iranians had made threats, verbal and physical, that amounted to acts of war. When will we learn that resolute action taken early saves vast amounts of blood and treasure later?

 

Oh, from Washington's perspective we did the right thing by "exercising restraint." But Washington's perspective doesn't amount to a gum wrapper in a gutter. What matters is what the Iranians think.

 

They now believe that the Bush administration, our military and the entire United States are afraid of them.

 

It goes back to the politicized and irresponsible recent National Intelligence Estimate that insisted the Iranians had abandoned their nuclear-weapons program years ago.

 

They didn't. They're pursuing enriched uranium as fast as they can. That's what you need for bombs. At most, Tehran ordered its weaponeering efforts to parade rest – until it has the ingredients it needs, after which building bombs won't take long at all.

Forget Washington's trust-fund-twit view of all this: Here's how the train of thought rolled down the tracks in Tehran:

 

"The Americans have told the world we don't want nuclear weapons, even though they know we do want them. That can only mean that America is afraid to confront us, that their weak, defeated president needs an excuse to back down.

 

"We can push these cowardly Americans now. They've had enough in Iraq. Their spirits are broken. Their next president will run away like a gazelle pursued by a lion.

 

"Even their military is frightened of us. On Sunday, America's might bowed down to us. They are frightened and godless, and the time has come to push them."

 

Sunday's incident wasn't a one-off event improvised by the local yokels after a long Saturday night at the hookah bar. It was blessed and carefully planned in Tehran and had practical as well as political goals.

 

At the tactical level, the Revolutionary Guards' naval arm was testing our responses: How soon do the American weapons radars activate? At what range do the lasers begin to track targets? How close can a small vessel get to a major American warship? How do the Americans respond to possible mines? Can we use phony mines to steer them into real ones? How long does it take an American commander to make a decision?

 

Above all: Does an American commander have the courage to make a decision on his own? When he doesn't have time to deflect responsibility onto his superiors?

 

And it wasn't just some madrassa dropout with salt spray on his glasses scribbling notes on the lead Iranian boat. On shore, the Iranians would've had all their intelligence facilities tuned in to map our electronic profile as our ships prepared to defend themselves. Rent-a-Russian military experts would've been onhand to assist with the newest gear purchased from Moscow.

 

The Iranians may even have had an escalation plan, in case we opened fire. President Ahmadinejad and his posse may seem contemptible to Washington, but the Iranians think several moves ahead of us: We play checkers, they play chess.

 

On Sunday, the Iranians tested us. We failed. They'll probe us again. And every time we fail to react decisively, we raise the number of future US casualties.

 

Remember the USS Cole? You bet the Iranians do. They plan to better that attack by an order of magnitude.

 

For almost 70 years, we've deployed the finest navy in the history of the world. But it looks increasingly as if we've gone from "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" to "Will this interfere with my next promotion?"

 

Ralph Peters

 

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

THE ILLUSION OF SUCCESSFUL PEACE TALKS

 

Operetta in Two Acts

By Hillel Halkin

New York Sun

January 8, 2008

 

President Bush's brief visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories tomorrow and Thursday will be staged as an operetta in two acts.

 

In Act One, the president will meet with Prime Minister Olmert in Jerusalem, where he will be told of Israel's determination to conduct successful peace talks with the Palestinians, to remove illegal outposts, and to ease up on military checkpoints, and where he will in turn assure the prime minister that America is behind him.

 

In Act Two, Mr. Bush will meet with President Abbas of Palestine in Ramallah, where he will be told of the Palestinian Authority's determination to conduct successful peace talks with Israel, to crack down on terror, and to put European and American foreign aid to productive use, and where he will in turn assure Mr. Abbas that America is behind him.

 

Then Mr. Bush will reboard Air Force One and fly on to the next stop of his Middle East tour while most illegal outposts and Israeli military checkpoints stay where they are, no real crackdown on terror takes place, foreign aid to the Palestinians is frittered away by a corrupt bureaucracy, and Israeli-Palestinian peace talks go nowhere in the course of the next year.

 

The next year, indeed, is about as far ahead as Messrs. Olmert, Abbas, and Bush are thinking. All each of them wants to do is get quietly through it.

 

Mr. Olmert knows that peace talks with the Palestinians cannot succeed. Even if he were personally willing to make the far-reaching concessions necessary for their success on such matters as borders, Jerusalem, and the refugees, there is no way for him politically to do so without losing his governing coalition in the Knesset.

 

The two right-of-center parties in this coalition have made it clear that they will desert him if he tries, and without them he would have to agree to new elections that he cannot win and might not even get his own party's nomination to run in. His inability so far to shut down even the outposts, which would be the merest foreplay compared to the mass evacuation of settlers that a peace agreement would entail, illustrates how little room for maneuver he has.

 

Yet Mr. Olmert also knows that it is only the illusion of successful peace talks that can continue to keep him in the prime minister's office at all. He is unpopular in the polls, he is still facing several corruption charges even after being cleared of others, and he stands to be badly hurt by the findings, due to be released at the end of this month, of the Winograd Commission's investigation of the botched 2005 war against Hizbullah that took place on his watch.

 

The one thing Mr. Olmert has going for him is his coalition partners' fear of new elections, which could well bring back Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud party – and this fear needs the window dressing of the peace process to be marketable as concern for the nation. One can count on Mr. Olmert to do all he can in the months ahead to make this process look as promising as possible. Mr. Abbas is in the same boat. He too cannot make the minimal concessions to Israel that might enable negotiations to succeed. He has lost the Gaza Strip to Hamas and his control over his own Fatah is shaky; were he to give in on the refugee or borders, his days would be numbered.

 

His main selling point to the Palestinian public is his ability to bring in large contributions of money that can partly be pumped into a destitute Palestinian economy and partly divided up among the factions that support him – and to do that he must, just like Mr. Olmert, keep sounding as if peace were around the corner.

 

As for Mr. Bush, it is reasonable to assume that he knows the score. Unlike the Israeli prime minister and the Palestinian president, he does not have to worry about how long he will stay in office; the number of days, hours, and minutes is already spelled out. Nor will history judge him by what he did or didn't do about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He will be judged on the basis of Iraq and it may be years after he leaves the presidency before that judgment is in.

 

Until then Mr. Bush has nothing to lose by acting as though he were pushing the Palestinians and Israelis forward. When, a year from now, he retires with their problems still unsolved, no one will blame him for it, while if by some miracle progress is made, a good part of the credit will go to him.

 

In the meantime, he might as well humor Condoleezza Rice and whoever else thinks that a tad more diplomacy, a bit more rationality, and a touch of good is all that is needed for the two sides to arrive at an agreement that has eluded them for the last 70 years, ever since the Arab world turned down the first two-state proposal for Palestine, made by the British-appointed Peel Commission in 1937.

 

From Israel's point of view the second term of the Bush administration, none friendlier than which is ever likely to come again in Washington, has been largely squandered.

 

Instead of trying to negotiate an impossible agreement about the Israel of the future with the Palestinians, Mr. Olmert should have tried harder to negotiate a possible one with Mr. Bush. Now, though, that's all spilled milk. For 2008, the show can go on.

 

Hillel Halkin

 

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Why does the U.S. promote this one-sided surrender by Israel?

 

If the Annapolis Summit and Roadmap become

reality…

 

 

Israel is expected to surrender:

• A vital part of Jerusalem

• The Western Wall

• The Temple Mount

• Christian and Jewish Holy Sites

• 95% of Judea & Samaria

• Homes and businesses of 100,000 residents

• Construction in Jerusalem (Har Homa & Atarot)

• Billions of $ to establish a terrorist Palestinian State

• Security – by releasing Arab terrorists from prison

• Potentially the Golan Heights

• Any Jewish presence in the new Palestinian state

• Opposition to "the right of return" and they must absorb

millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants

who chose to leave Israel - while disregarding rights of a

comparable number of Jews expelled from Arab countries.

 

Palestinians are expected to offer:

• Another promise for future "peace" – however,

Palestinians insist that even after all negotiations, they will

never recognize Israel as "a Jewish state."

 

The Palestinian Strategy:

Divide and Conquer

Creating a contiguous terrorist state in Israel's Heartland will

divide Israel into two parts and make the miniscule state of

Israel indefensible against Arab aggression.

Becoming militarily vulnerable, Israel could eventually fall

prey to the radical Islamic Jihadists who are determined to

wipe the Jewish state off the map.

 

Who We Are: Unity Coalition for Israel

Founded in 1991, we are the largest worldwide coalition

of Jewish and Christian organizations, with more than 200

groups representing millions of people dedicated to Israel.

Israel is not just a Jewish issue. Millions of Christians

resolutely endorse the principle of peace with security

for the state of Israel. Though we have many different

backgrounds, we have one common goal……

A Safe and Secure Israel.