A Third Intifada?

by Eric Trager

On Monday, Jordanian King Abdullah II referred to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as “the most serious threat to the stability of the region and the Mediterranean.” Middle East policy analysts should take his warning to heart. After all, in gauging the political trends of the Middle East, the Jordanian monarchy has been among the most reliable barometers historically.

 

This is partly due to Jordan’s uncomfortable geo-strategic position. Indeed, with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to its west and Iraq to its east, Jordan is uniquely susceptible to the ideological currents and strategic shifts affecting the region’s hottest battle zones. Moreover, Jordan’s imbalanced demography – in particular, the fact that a Hashemite king presides over a Palestinian majority – makes its monarchy particularly wary of any destabilizing signals. These sensitivities create a strong bias in favor of non-ideological, interest-based policy-making, with Jordan shifting its priorities – and, at times, its loyalties – in rapid response to the regional changes that it perceives.

 

In this vein, Abdullah’s sudden insistence that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is “the most serious threat to the stability of the region” represents a critical shift in judgment. Indeed, back in 2004, the Jordanian monarch warned that a looming “Shiite crescent” – a near-contiguous sphere of Iranian influence extending through Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories – was the foremost threat to regional stability. Abdullah was prescient: Iran’s interference in Iraq undermined the U.S. war effort, while Tehran’s increased support for Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria solidified an anti-western axis in the Middle East.

 

Of course, the challenges associated with Iranian ascendancy haven’t been resolved, and dealing with Iran’s ongoing pursuit of nuclear capabilities still tops the U.S.’s Middle East agenda. Still, Abdullah’s shift in priorities towards the Israeli-Palestinian sphere is worth noting, as it constitutes the best open-source indicator that recent Palestinian threats to resume suicide terrorism and launch a third Intifada are not idle chatter. Naturally, the prospect of renewed Israeli-Palestinian fighting – particularly within the West Bank – is far more threatening to Jordan than a nuclear Iran, and Abdullah’s diversion from his former fear of a “Shiite crescent” suggests that the next, bloody chapter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might be fast approaching.

 

 

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

 

The Big Freeze: U.S. Policy on Peace Process comes to Dead Halt and Likely to Remain that Way.

by Barry Rubin

If solving the Israel-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli conflict is the centerpiece of the Obama Administration's Middle East policy—at times it seems the keystone of the government's entire policy—there's an obvious problem derailing it.

Here it is. The president of the United States on several occasions and notably in his UN speech and high officials repeatedly have announced that they want and expect there to be quick, final status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) to resolve all issues and end the conflict.

This event isn't going to happen.

When the president of the United States announces there will be talks soon and has no reason to believe that's true he's making a fool of himself. It is one of the most basic rules of presidential behavior that you don't put the chief executive's prestige on the line, that you do not let him predict an imminent event, unless you know for darn sure it is going to happen.

Yet when President Barack H. Obama stood before the world's assembled leaders that's precisely what he did. For an administration approaching the end of its first year in office that's dangerous amateurism.

The fly in the ointment here is the PA and this is no minor detail. The PA says repeatedly that it will not even meet formally with Israel until all construction on all Jewish settlements on the West Bank plus east Jerusalem stop completely. Already, however, U.S.-Israel discussions have moved past that point. We don't know precisely where they stand but clearly the administration isn't pushing for a total halt and it isn't pushing all that urgently on the issue.

Therefore, while Israel has succeeded in conciliating the United States, the PA is going to defy the United States. We know that it is serious in doing so because of what has just happened with the Goldstone report in the UN. The administration asked the PA not to take a leading role in pushing the report; the PA complied for about 48 hours and then internal pressure forced it to go back on its word. Most of this pressure was not the spontaneous outrage of the masses but from the hardline elements which dominate the ruling Fatah group as well as in the PA itself.

In short, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas is not going to back down on his demand. He is more afraid of his own colleagues, Hamas's baiting him as a "moderate" (a compliment perhaps from the West but a deadly insult in Palestinian politics), and his own people than of Obama. Indeed, nobody is afraid of Obama which is one of the main problems with his foreign policy.

Disdaining the use of threats, leverage, and pressure, the Obama administration is not likely to push the PA very hard on this and even if it did Abbas would stand firm. Having extolled the Palestinians as peace-loving martyrs, courting Arab and Muslim opinion, treasuring popularity, the administration won't get tough. No amount of funding or other goodies is going to move the PA or Abbas either. For Abbas, it is something like the classical choice which can be paraphrased as: Your money or your life?

So there is, and will be, a deadlock, month after month through into 2010. Is there some clever way out? I don't see one and am willing to bet the administration doesn't either.

Remember this president said repeatedly--in his Cairo speech, at the UN, almost daily--that he is going to solve the issue; that his predecessor missed easy opportunities to do so; that this is the world's main issue. So what's he going to do other than spin about how hard he's working and how much progress he's making?

In contrast, Abbas has an attractive policy alternative: strike a militant pose, blame America, seek rapprochement with Hamas. In addition, what both the United States and Europe fails to see is that the Palestinians don't need or want rapid progress on negotiations or even a state except on what would be completely their own terms.

The Palestinians can also afford the luxury of believing—and this is what Western policy has taught them—that Europe and America needs them more than they need the West. Moreover they believe, and again this is what they have been shown, that intransigence on their part actually brings more criticism on Israel. If you believe, rightly or wrongly, that the world is about to condemn Israel as a pariah, war criminal state why make compromises with it?

This is the corner into which the Obama Administration has painted itself. And all that it has left is what might be called the cat strategy. Have you ever seen a cat miss a leap or have an embarrassing fall? It merely licks itself and looks around with an expression saying: I meant to do that. Everything is going according to plan.
But it isn't.

The newest development is the idea, favored by many in the European Union, of endorsing PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's "plan" for there to be a Palestinian state within two years. Of course, this won't happen either.

The whole thing is taking on a comic opera air. It reminded me of something. And then I remembered: the classical description of the Arab defeat in the 1948 war and Israel's creation by Constantine Zurayk, vice-president of the American University of Beirut, in his book The Meaning of the Disaster. He wrote:

"Seven Arab states declare war on Zionism in Palestine, stop impotent before it and turn on their heels. The representatives of the Arabs deliver fiery speeches in the highest international forums, warning what the Arab state and peoples will do if this or that decision be enacted. Declarations fall like bombs from the mouths of officials at the meetings of the Arab League, but when action becomes necessary, the fire is still and quiet and steel and iron are rusted and twisted, quick to bend and disintegrate."

For the Arab states, the fiery speeches do have a value of their own, cowing rivals and mobilizing the masses to support their local dictator. But when the United States acts like a pitiful, helpless giant—even if it is a nice and friendly, apologetic one—the world shudders and shakes. The evil, with laughter; the good, with tears.

 

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

 

When it comes to the Middle East: The Brains in Spain (and elsewhere) Fall Mainly Down the Drain.

by Barry Rubin

You've all seen horror movies in which the stupid characters just don't look behind them at crucial moments.

And you want to yell: "Look out!" Or: "Can't you see that he's the murderer!" Or: "That innocent-looking green globule is actually a man-eating silicon-based creature from Andromeda!"

Welcome to my world, the world of analyzing the contemporary Middle East or, to put it a different way, yelling, "Look out!" to those who think the best way to handle a threatening regime or revolutionary foe is to take them out to dinner and a movie.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero and Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, who is widely considered in the European Union to be their big brain on the Middle East, visited Israel and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

According to reliable leaks, Moratinos told Netanyahu that Turkey will stop baiting Israel—excluding it at the last minute from long-planned joint military maneuvers, running antisemitic shows on state television, and a whole range of other insults—if Israel agrees to have it mediate between Israel and Syria.

One of the two Spaniards then remarked: "Assad is serious and more responsible….It is possible to reach an agreement with him."

Netanyahu politely, and no doubt firmly, demurred.

When last heard from before this, Moratinos, who seems to take his own middle name as meaning he is the Syrian dictatorship's guardian angel, was advocating signing a major economic cooperation agreement with Damascus without conditioning it on that regime behaving better on human rights.

Israeli leaders know, largely across the political spectrum, that Assad isn't interested in peace with Israel.

They also know:

--Iran is seeking nuclear weapons at all costs and will use them to further Tehran's ambitions, and that halfhearted sanctions and falling for more of the regime's stalling tactics won't help matters.

--The Palestinian Authority is incapable of making a comprehensive peace and not that interested in trying. That doesn't mean some cooperation can't be fruitful but not a full resolution ending the conflict. At the same time, it is clearly recognized that the Palestinian Authority—being too weak and too radical simultaneously—is the main barrier to peace, and that the true moderate transformation of Palestinians and acceptance of a two-state solution has barely begun. Indeed, one can argue that public opinion and politics are moving in an even more intransigent direction.

--Hizballah and Hamas are not interested in becoming moderate and that concessions both enable and encourage them to be more aggressive.

--If radical Islamist groups take over Arab countries they won't moderate, whatever their pretensions to fool the West, and this will be the source of massive war, terrorism, and suffering for the region.

--That all too few people in Western governments either understand the above-mentioned facts or for a variety of reasons (greed for trade, fear of conflict, seeking easy popularity, naiveté, ideology, ignorance, antisemitism, and you name it) won't face these facts.

At the beginning of this year, a new addition was made to this list:

--Turkey is governed by an Islamist party that has strong ant-Israel, anti-American, and anti-Western views no matter how much it pretends otherwise.

Now it can certainly be argued that Israeli analysts, journalists, and political figures have a vested interest in pushing these arguments. But that isn't exactly true. Many or most of them would be far happier celebrating the great chance for a breakthrough to peace and how apparent enemies just want to get along.

The same goes for ideology as an explanation. A variety of different viewpoints are represented, one can find people who have changed their minds due to experience and developments. And even if you think that someone is "right-wing" or any other category you dislike, it is still worthwhile examining the facts and arguments presented to judge whether they are correct.

So this analysis cannot just be disregarded by assumptions about what the sources of it think or want or need.

How does much of the world respond to the Israeli analysis? Parts do understand it or are learning it to be correct. But many or most simply ignore or demonize it. Once Israel is viewed as an illegitimate state, a war criminal genocidal monster—in short, as all Islamist and most Arab and Muslim-majority state propaganda puts it—the ears can close completely.

Another element in this deafness is the unique argument that various dilettantes, visitors, intellectuals, self-proclaimed peacemakers, people in the entertainment world, U.S. and European officials, etc., want to save Israel in spite of itself. This is a standpoint practically never heard regarding any other country in history, certainly not a democratic country whose voters disagree with the assessment.

It is furthered by the taking up of the idea by certain Jews—usually quite ignorant of conditions in Israel and often committed to movements with different interests—who insist they are the true guardians of a country they know little about and (in many cases) have done little to help in the past.

And so delegation after delegation arrives in Jerusalem to tour around, talk to the usual suspects, and bestow advice on its potential victims—I mean, fortunate interlocutors!

In all cases, politeness inhibits explaining to these people that they are meddling in things of which they understand little or nothing. When they are high-ranking officials of the United States or European countries, there are additional reasons for not doing so. They can choose to listen or not to the explanations as to why Israel does not believe what they believe or do what they want it to do.

Ultimately, anyone who believes too much in soft power is soft in the head. Or as the English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes put it: "Covenants, without the sword, are but words, and of no strength to secure a man at all."

As for the international affairs of the Middle East nowadays, however, one cannot do better than by paraphrasing the American political philospher Robert Zimmerman, also known as Bob Dylan: We're surrounded by people who don't want to "admit that the waters around you have grown" at the very same moment that "the pump don't work cause the vandals took the handles."

 

 

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

 

In the fight against nuclear proliferation, don't forget about Syria.

by Bennett Ramberg

Renewed international efforts to reign in Iran's atomic program have shrouded another unresolved Middle East nuclear challenger, Syria. The International Atomic Energy Agency's failure to get Damascus to reveal the history of its secret nuclear reactor and related elements raise troubling questions not simply about the Assad regime's nuclear intentions but, more fundamentally, about the ability of the IAEA to act as an effective watchdog. Unless Syria provides a full accounting, its successful stonewalling will only serve further to undermine international efforts to curb proliferation.

International awareness that Syria poses a nuclear threat emerged only in September 2007 when it is believed that Israeli aircraft destroyed the nuclear plant under construction in the country's remote northeast desert.

The attack generated a surprisingly muted response from Damascus and Jerusalem, but in Vienna, the IAEA condemned the strike arguing that Israel should have informed the agency about Syria's installation. Israel's unwillingness reflected a common and growing uneasiness that the IAEA has become a hollow instrument to ferret out nuclear cheaters or reverse them once revealed. The result - Jerusalem, unwilling to risk international dithering, allegedly took matters into its own hands.

THE SEPTEMBER 2009 meetings of the agency's 35 nation Board of Governors and the General Conference - the annual conclave of the IAEA's entire membership - sustained growing apprehensions about Middle East nuclear proliferation but focused on Israel to abandon its program. The General Conference only gently rapped the knuckles of Syria and Iran, calling on both "to cooperate fully with the IAEA within the framework of their respective obligations."

The statement reflected a "coaxing" strategy - repeated requests that nuclear transgressors provide transparency and eliminate contraband - that has become the agency's trademark to constrain violators. The approach builds on the hope that calibrated calls for openness can prompt transgressors to feel more comfortable with revelation. However, too often the response is otherwise. Violators throw a few bones followed by agency demands for more. The dance repeats but never comes to a satisfactory non-proliferation conclusion.

The Iran case illustrates. Coaxing discouraged the revolutionary regime from bolting the non-proliferation treaty while tethering it to safeguards on declared nuclear sites. Coaxing also generated IAEA inspector access to sites otherwise unavailable for review, but not "comprehensive" nuclear transparency. But the policy also allowed Teheran to buy time to build a nuclear weapons breakout capacity.

Evidently, Syria has learned much from the Iranian experience as it denies agency requests for a full explanation of its nuclear enterprise. The behavior reveals why coaxing that buys time wastes time to promote accountability.

Syria, which became an NPT party in 1968, applied safeguards to a small research reactor in Damascus in 1992. The agreement required Syria to inform the IAEA about any planned nuclear installations. The alleged Israeli strike clearly spoke to the Assad regime's failure to do so.

In a time line provided by Washington eight months later, officials traced the origins of the Dair Alzour reactor to a collaborative North Korean undertaking that broke ground in 2001. Israeli operatives confirmed the facility's weapons potential prior to the assault, although there remains the mystery of how Damascus intended to extract weapons usable plutonium absent a chemical extraction plant.

Following the attack, the IAEA attempted to get Syria to clarify the plant's purpose. Ten months would pass before Damascus allowed inspectors access to the site. Syria used the interim to demolish the installation's skeleton. It then buried its foundation, plowed over the ground and built a structure over the remains. It removed debris to an undisclosed location. Despite the cover-up, inspectors found uranium particles in soil samples. Syria unsatisfactorily explained that the residue came from Israeli munitions that destroyed the plant.

IN FOUR reports published by the agency since 2007, Director-General Mohammed ElBaradei repeatedly called upon an "uncooperative" Damascus to reveal the facility's function, the uranium residue and the location of debris carted away. He also requested access to three additional suspect sites. Syria stonewalled.

Damascus' repeated resistance to transparency naturally raises questions about what the Assad regime is hiding. But Syria's behavior also begs a response to an equally fundamental matter: How ought the international community deal with current and future violators? Evidently coaxing does not work. Transgressors see coaxing as IAEA impotence. Change requires the agency and the Security Council to replace the practice with meaningful "benchmarks" enforced by with "time certain" sanctions that nuclear violators cannot ignore.

In the months to come the IAEA will have an opportunity to strengthen its policing function, with a new director-general in December followed in May 2010 with the important NPT Review Conference that convenes every five years. The meeting offers an opportunity for attendees to press the Security Council to authorize the IAEA to be more assertive with nuclear violators. The practice is long overdue.

Bennett Ramberg  served as a State Department policy analyst during the George H.W. Bush administration and as a consultant to the US Senate, Rand, Nuclear Control Institute, Henry Stimson Center, Global Green and Committee to Bridge the Gap.

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

 

Why I'm Optimistic.

 

by Barry Rubin

Every day dreadful things happen in the Middle East and in the echoes of that region—diplomacy, news coverage—in the West. Yet things are by no means as bad as they seem. Precisely because a lot of what happens simply doesn’t reflect reality, ultimately the material effect is minimized.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing," warned Edmund Burke. But even when those who should be the defenders of liberty spend their time coddling and apologizing to evil, that still doesn’t mean it’s home free.

Let’s examine two aspects of the situation: Israel-Palestinian (and Arab-Israeli) along with the effort of Islamists to seize power in Muslim majority countries. By the way, it is the second—not the first—of those two topics is by far the most important in the Middle East, arguably the most important issue for our entire era. Then we'll say a few words about President Barack Obama's learning opportunity.

Israel-Palestinian

Despite all the sound and fury—note this well—absolutely nothing has changed on this issue since the end of the Gaza war in January. The Palestinian side is intransigent and has no interest in serious negotiations, therefore these go nowhere. Hamas has been intimidated into virtually stopping its attacks on Israel. (Note to Western leaders: force still works at achieving reasonable goals.) Israel’s morale and national unity is relatively high; the economy continues to do well, especially in light of the international recession.

A potential crisis in U.S.-Israel relations has been brilliantly defused by the Israeli government. The Obama Administration has still not taken—despite a lot of questionable verbiage—any material step against Israel. The West wants to pretend it is negotiating peace but won’t devote much real effort to doing so.

Therefore, all this talk of freezing construction, final status negotiations, Western pressure, Palestinian threats, and so on has amounted to absolutely nothing in practice.

What is the long-term prospect? On one hand, there will be decades more—an entire generation at least—without formal peace. Yet that doesn’t mean war either but rather a status quo punctuated by sporadic low- to medium-level violence. The biggest danger, a Hamas takeover of the West Bank, has been pushed back. Israel’s defensive capacity grows steadily stronger. Life will go on.

Again, please note that there is possibly no issue in the world which generates as much media coverage, academic publication and debate, peace plans and conferences, and Western officials’ speeches as the Israel-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli conflict. And yet nothing really changes. Keep that in mind every day.

Islamists Seizing Power

Islamist governments now rule in Iran, the Gaza Strip, and to some extent in Sudan. In every other country (including Israel) of the region (including Central Asia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan), radical Islamists pose the main real opposition to the status quo. They make propaganda, sometimes run in election, and carry out violence. With every ounce of energy and a great deal of innovation, they are trying to seize state power.

Will they succeed and if so where? Are they really the wave of the future?

While the Islamists have a lot going for them, they also face many problems. First, don’t underestimate the incumbent regimes. Arab nationalism still appeals to a majority of Arabic-speakers. The rulers have lots of resources at their command, including money and repressive power. The Islamists are not poised to take power in any country, while basically they have not—despite the spilling of so much blood--taken over any state since the Iranian revolution 30 years ago.

The Islamists are often divided. While they have definitely picked up ground, they are still saying and doing many things which most Muslims deem to contradict their normative, traditional Islam.

And the Islamists also make a lot of mistakes.

Within their own countries, confessional differences among Muslims often matter a great deal. In Lebanon, for example, Shia Islamists led by Hizballah have unnecessarily antagonized Sunni Muslims, while in Iraq the revolutionary Sunni Islamists are rejected by the majority Shia Muslim Arabs and ethnic Kurds. In North Africa, the large ethnic Berber minority opposes Islamism.

At home and internationally, the intransigence of radical regimes (Iran, Syria, and Hamas) and movements alienates potential allies. By making such huge demands and refusing to make small concessions to make big gains they throw away opportunities and virtually force the West to confront them despite the preference of many Western leaders for appeasement. Similarly, the constant aggression and insults pushes Western public opinion to reject concessions or surrenders.

Nor can the Middle Eastern dictatorships, whether Islamist or nationalist, defeat the West or Israel. Their treatment of women (there are variations) as second-class citizens deprives them of half their potential talent. They lose out on the advantages which democracy brings to development. The centralization used to preserve the dictators’ power inhibits prosperity. In the longer-term, the oil-producing countries will run out of petroleum and the rest of the world might even develop alternative and more efficient energy use.

“Commerce,” wrote Winston Churchill of the Sudan in 1898, doubting that country would ever be a success, “is a plant of slow growth even in the most generous soils. And it never grows more slowly than when the unwise husbandman has tried to fertilize with corpses.”

Then, too, there is the endless bickering and conflicts that sap their strength. Where Westerners see such unified categories as “Arab” or “Muslim” there are really many different communities, sects, ideologies, and factions competing for power. These include such deep-seated conflicts as Persian versus Arab, Sunni versus Shia, and the rival ambitions of the various dictators and states.

U.S. Policy

Something very big--but totally predictable--is starting to happen: the Palestinians and no doubt soon a lot of the Arab world is turning against Obama. He will find shortly that unless he gives everything and asks nothing they will soon be calling him another Bush.

Their grievances are: He hasn't (or hasn't gone far enough) in dumping Israel; he didn't threaten or punish Israel for not doing a complete freeze of construction on settlements, he forced Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to appear with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the UN photo opportunity he set up, he pressed the Palestinian Authority not to take the lead on pushing Goldstone.

The fact that Obama is perceived as weak doesn't help him any.

Cairo speech, UN speech, distancing from Israel, engaging radicals? All these things will get him nowhere. Help him on Iran? Well they weren't going to do that any way. The hostility is partly due, of course, to the interests of the Arab rulers, partly to the radicalism of the opinionmakers there; partly to the Islamists who always outbid their incumbent rivals and need anti-Americanism as one of their main tools to stir passions.

This is how the Middle East works. It is totally predictable. But in most of the mass media, academia, and in Western governments (especially the Obama Administration) they have absolutely no idea. They basically accept the concept that if you are nice enough, give enough, and bash Israel enough, the Arabic-speaking political forces--and maybe even Iran--will love you and be nice to you, or at least leave you alone.

When this proves wrong, as it does periodically (1990-1991, Iraqi invasion of Kuwait; 2000, failure of Camp David followed by September 11) there is a period of comprehension when policies get better. Might this be a stage coming next year?

All the silly articles in Western newspapers, wrong-headed speeches by Western leaders, threats of mass murder by Islamist clerics, and all the other things that could be added to this list changes the material realities of the Middle East. Or, to use a supposed Arab saying, the dogs bark but the caravan moves on.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).

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

 

TV Movie Jihad: Turkish Government Tries to Foment Islamist Hatred of Israel and Jews.

by Barry Rubin

You know that the Islamist-oriented Turkish government has cancelled a military exercise with Israel, made a military cooperation alignment with Syria, and aired an antisemitic film. Here's what you don't know about the film.

Entitled "Separation – Love and War in Palestine," the expensively made film was aired in prime time on a state-owned television network. Previews of it were shown in the Istanbul's small subway system.

The ultimate hypocrisy is that while the government excuses its anti-Israel policy by saying, in the prime minister's words, " We cannot be oblivious to the feelings of the Turkish public," it is doing everything possible to stir up passionate hatred on the part of that public which wasn't there beforehand. The film is, in a real sense, a hate crime, the kind of thing that goes on daily in the Arabic-speaking world and for which there is absolutely no equivalent in Israel or the West.

When the film opens there is a street battle between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen. A Palestinian boy is killed as the two sides fire at one another. So far, this is possible. But what happens next is that a beautiful young girl then is shown walking down an empty street and an Israeli soldier just shoots her for no reason at all. There is no evidence that any such event has taken place ever.

A group of elderly Muslims wanting to go on the pilgrimage to Mecca is shown being stopped at a checkpoint by Israeli soldiers and their papers are thrown in their faces. In fact, Israel has facilitated Palestinians going on the pilgrimage for many years.

So why didn't Gazans get to go in the real world? Because the Palestinian Authority didn't want to let Hamas, which rules Gaza, issue the papers and the Saudis refused to accept them. Israel had nothing to do with it. But for an audience of Turkish Muslims, such an act is a basic attack on Islam that would justify Jihad by themselves in response.

In another fictional event made to stir hatred—though Palestinians testifying at the Goldstone hearings made such claims without providing a single example—a husband and his pregnant wife are prevented at a checkpoint from going to a hospital. When she gives birth an Israeli soldier shoots dead the one-minute-old baby. Oh, and the wife dies from bleeding and the husband is killed by another soldier.

Interspersed with such scenes are those of Jews praying and an Israeli soldier is portrayed as saying this is a war of religion not one over territory.

So aside from their humanitarian impulses, Turks are being told by their government that Israelis are murdering and warring on Muslims. What should be their response? Why to hate Israel but also—at least this is how some Turks are likely to interpret it--to kill Jews.

In another scene, viewers are told that their Ottoman ancestors ruled this land for 400 years and there were no problems back then. In another country, this would be seen as a prelude to trying to seize control of that land once again but the Turkish government isn't interested in that, nor in the Palestinian Authority (PA) taking over, but only in an Islamist regime ruled by Hamas there. (The Turkish government never talks about events on the West Bank because it views Hamas and not the PA as its ally. By the same token, it shows that it doesn't care about the Palestinians but only Islamist-ruled ones.)

By acting to provoke such hatred and possibly even an anti-Jewish pogrom within Turkey—the first time a Turkish government has behaved this way since the republic began—the current regime has taken one more step to bash Israel while still seeking its tourists and trade, as well as a diplomatic role as diplomatic mediator between Israel and Syria .

Turkish Jews--who have always believed that keeping a low profile and waiting out any problems--are taking the hint. Some are leaving; most are thinking about it.

The policy toward Israel or this particular film are not isolated events. They are parts of the regime strategy to do three things:

--Impose the maximum possible Islamist program on Turkey (how far they will get is unclear).

--Create a political and institutional basis for never yielding power. This is being done by a takeover of media, transformation of large elements in the educational system, promoting pro-AKP businesses or intimidating those in the opposition in order to give the regime a powerful economic base, revising the constitution, and taking other such steps. It hopes to become an institutionalized government party like the Republican People's Party was during the first three decades of the republic. This doesn't mean that the AKP will declare an open dictatorship and cancel elections. Rather, the goal is to be sure it always wins the elections.

--Reorient Turkey's foreign policy toward the Muslim-majority world, and building an alignment with Iran and Syria, while minimizing any cost in terms of its relations with the West. If forced to choose, however, it will pick the Muslim orientation, especially since the government assumes (though it is still trying) that it won't get European Union membership any way while the Obama Administration smiles and nods at Turkish policy as more proof that the regime is a "model moderate Muslim democracy."

Onlookers should have no illusions about what is going on. Nor should any U.S. policymakers—for plenty of other reasons as well—still view Turkey's government as a reliable ally.

 

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

 

Hamas and Fatah: What Are They Really Fighting About?

by Khaled Abu Toameh

Hamas and Fatah have once again demonstrated that the power struggle that has been raging between the two parties for the past three years is not over who is going to bring democracy and prosperity to Palestine. Nor is it over who is going to build schools, universities and hospitals. They are not fighting over what is good for the Palestinians. They are fighting over money and power.

This power struggle is one of the main reasons why the Palestinians are still far from reaching their goals, first and foremost the establishment of an independent state.

The two sides despise one another so tremendously that some Palestinians have been arguing that Hamas and Fatah hate each other more than they hate Israel.

Had it not been for Israel's physical presence between the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and the Fatah-dominated West Bank, it is highly likely that these two entities would be dispatching rockets and suicide bombers against each other.

Ironically, it is Israel that is preventing Muslims from killing Muslims. In the summer of 2007, when Hamas launched its "military coup" in the Gaza Strip, it was Israel that saved the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of Fatah members and their families.

These Fatah operatives first tried to run away toward Egypt, but most were blocked by Egyptian security forces, which sent them to knock on Israel's door for help. Israel was the only country that sent ships, ambulances and helicopters to save Muslims from being slaughtered by their Muslim brethren, to save Fatah from being destroyed by Hamas.

Today, it is Israel's presence in the West Bank that is preventing the collapse of Fatah and a Hamas takeover. Ironically, if Israel carries out what Fatah is demanding in public - a withdrawal from the West Bank - Fatah will be the first to vanish.

Fatah is now demanding that the same IDF officers who are protecting it in the West Bank be put on trial for perpetrating "war crimes" during Operation Cast Lead. Fatah's hypocrisy and insolence evidently know no limits.

During the war, Fatah did everything it could to help Israel end the rule of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Fatah representatives provided Israel with vital intelligence about the location of Hamas figures and installations in the Gaza Strip. Moreover, they exerted pressure on Israel not to end the war without removing Hamas from power.

When Operation Cast Lead ended without achieving that goal, Fatah leaders privately expressed disappointment with Israel for failing to "finish the job."

Fatah's lies, corruption, incompetence, hypocrisy and failure to reform have severely undermined its standing among Palestinians. Yet this has not stopped Fatah from seeking new elections in the Palestinian territories.

Fatah will win the elections, when and if they are held, only if two things occur : if its leaders steal the vote, or if Hamas chooses to boycott the elections.

Although Hamas has also been a disaster for Palestinians, the Islamic movement is still regarded by many in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as an "honest" and "clean" movement.

Now that the latest Egyptian attempt to force Hamas and Fatah to reconcile has failed, there is no point in talking about resuming the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. Any agreement that Israel reaches with Fatah will be automatically rejected by Hamas and a large number of Palestinians.

Instead of focusing its attention and efforts on achieving peace between Jews and Arabs, the US Administration should first find a way to end the civil war that has been raging among Palestinians over the past three years. Peace between Palestinians and Palestinians could even pave the way for peace between Palestinians and Israel.

All Palestinians, particularly those living in the Gaza Strip, are continuing to pay a heavy price for the ongoing rift between Hamas and Fatah. Hundreds have been killed and injured in the fighting between the two groups over the past three years.

Khaled Abu Toameh, an Arab Muslim, is a veteran award-winning journalist who has been covering Palestinian affairs for nearly three decades.

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

 

Rights Watchdog, Lost in the Mideast.

by Robert L. Bernstein

AS the founder of Human Rights Watch, its active chairman for 20 years and now founding chairman emeritus, I must do something that I never anticipated: I must publicly join the group’s critics. Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.

At Human Rights Watch, we always recognized that open, democratic societies have faults and commit abuses. But we saw that they have the ability to correct them — through vigorous public debate, an adversarial press and many other mechanisms that encourage reform.

That is why we sought to draw a sharp line between the democratic and nondemocratic worlds, in an effort to create clarity in human rights. We wanted to prevent the Soviet Union and its followers from playing a moral equivalence game with the West and to encourage liberalization by drawing attention to dissidents like Andrei Sakharov, Natan Sharansky and those in the Soviet gulag — and the millions in China’s laogai, or labor camps.

When I stepped aside in 1998, Human Rights Watch was active in 70 countries, most of them closed societies. Now the organization, with increasing frequency, casts aside its important distinction between open and closed societies.

Nowhere is this more evident than in its work in the Middle East. The region is populated by authoritarian regimes with appalling human rights records. Yet in recent years Human Rights Watch has written far more condemnations of Israel for violations of international law than of any other country in the region.

Israel, with a population of 7.4 million, is home to at least 80 human rights organizations, a vibrant free press, a democratically elected government, a judiciary that frequently rules against the government, a politically active academia, multiple political parties and, judging by the amount of news coverage, probably more journalists per capita than any other country in the world — many of whom are there expressly to cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Meanwhile, the Arab and Iranian regimes rule over some 350 million people, and most remain brutal, closed and autocratic, permitting little or no internal dissent. The plight of their citizens who would most benefit from the kind of attention a large and well-financed international human rights organization can provide is being ignored as Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division prepares report after report on Israel.

Human Rights Watch has lost critical perspective on a conflict in which Israel has been repeatedly attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations that go after Israeli citizens and use their own people as human shields. These groups are supported by the government of Iran, which has openly declared its intention not just to destroy Israel but to murder Jews everywhere. This incitement to genocide is a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Leaders of Human Rights Watch know that Hamas and Hezbollah chose to wage war from densely populated areas, deliberately transforming neighborhoods into battlefields. They know that more and better arms are flowing into both Gaza and Lebanon and are poised to strike again. And they know that this militancy continues to deprive Palestinians of any chance for the peaceful and productive life they deserve. Yet Israel, the repeated victim of aggression, faces the brunt of Human Rights Watch’s criticism.

The organization is expressly concerned mainly with how wars are fought, not with motivations. To be sure, even victims of aggression are bound by the laws of war and must do their utmost to minimize civilian casualties. Nevertheless, there is a difference between wrongs committed in self-defense and those perpetrated intentionally.

But how does Human Rights Watch know that these laws have been violated? In Gaza and elsewhere where there is no access to the battlefield or to the military and political leaders who make strategic decisions, it is extremely difficult to make definitive judgments about war crimes. Reporting often relies on witnesses whose stories cannot be verified and who may testify for political advantage or because they fear retaliation from their own rulers. Significantly, Col. Richard Kemp, the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan and an expert on warfare, has said that the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza “did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.”

Only by returning to its founding mission and the spirit of humility that animated it can Human Rights Watch resurrect itself as a moral force in the Middle East and throughout the world. If it fails to do that, its credibility will be seriously undermined and its important role in the world significantly diminished.

Robert L. Bernstein, the former president and chief executive of Random House, was the chairman of Human Rights Watch from 1978 to 1998.

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

 

President Obama: Do not forsake Israel.

 

by Isi Leibler

The disgusting behavior by the vast majority of members of the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) in relation to the Goldstone Report was no surprise. An international body with an automatic majority of Arab and rogue states was not expected to display even a modicum of balance in relation to Israel. It is obscene that an organization dominated by representatives of tyrannies is entitled to employ a title, including the term "human rights", which represents the absolute antithesis of the behavior of its constituents.

In this case, the Israel bashers did not even bother to go through the routine of mentioning Hamas, concentrating their bile exclusively on Israel.

What is far more shocking is that, despite their penchant for sanctimonious statements, most of the West Europeans lacked the courage to oppose the resolution. The British and French who claim to be friends of Israel behaved appallingly by failing to lodge any vote.

But the real issue is how will the United States respond?  In line with his re-engagement policy President Obama reversed the Bush administration boycott of the United Nations Human Rights Commission. He predicted that US involvement would positively influence the behavior of the Commission. Clearly that has failed and even proven to be counterproductive.

More worrying is the somewhat understated response of the US, not merely to the vote of the UNHRC but to the Goldstone report itself. The US efforts were primarily limited to preventing the Goldstone report being referred to the Security Council. The Americans appear to have been desperate to avoid using their veto power and being perceived as supporting Israel. In fact, some US spokespeople have been ambivalent as to whether the US would actually invoke its veto at the Security Council.

The muted response by the US to the effect that the Goldstone report was unbalanced and that a UNHRC vote endorsing the report would be counterproductive to the peace process is surely not enough. To date, there has been no forthright condemnation of the report by President Obama, his UN representative, or any member of his administration. One would expect a genuine friend of Israel in the White House to reiterate that the State of Israel should enjoy the same rights as any democracy in the conduct of war, no less than the rights afforded to NATO forces in the former Yugoslavia and US and British forces in Afghanistan. All the more so, in a war of self defense, following thousands of rocket attacks on its civilian population.

Obama's failure to stand by Israel is all the more damning in light of the submission to the UNHRC by the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Kemp, who unequivocally stated that "the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare".

Instead of outrightly repudiating the Goldstone report, the US administration has in fact given the report credibility by publicly urging Israel to hold "independent" investigations of alleged war crimes. And just in case the US vote against the UNHRC resolution could be interpreted as being too slanted towards Israel, US National Security Adviser, General James Jones, has now reiterated the demand that Israel end the blockade of Gaza, even prior to Gilad Shalit being released.

There have even been vague hints that instead of vetoing the resolution at the UN Security Council, the US may merely seek to amend and moderate it. Or just as shocking, the US could use its veto power as leverage to force more unilateral concessions from Israel.

Should that happen, Israelis would rightly feel that they had been betrayed and effectively thrown to the dogs by a President who had repeatedly guaranteed he would stand by the Jewish State.

The Goldstone report is not merely a vehicle by which those who defend mass murder in Darfur seek to delegitimize the Jewish state and transform it into the world's foremost pariah. It is far more dangerous. It is the vehicle by which the UNHRC is unashamedly and cynically seeking to embolden and empower terrorists attacking Israel and its civilians by denying Israel's legitimate right to self-defense.

President Obama. In relation to all the assurances and undertakings you made prior to your election, do not forsake Israel. Now is a time for you to stand up and be counted.

 

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

 

Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President.

 

by Dennis Prager

 

According to the Jerusalem Post, as recently as six weeks ago, just 4 percent of the Jews of Israel regarded President Obama as pro-Israel. Even if exaggerated, it is likely the most negative Israeli view of an American president since Israel's creation.

If you think Israelis are irrational in this matter, perhaps Tibet will help persuade you otherwise.

Yes, Tibet.

Whereas every Democratic and Republican president since 1991 has met with exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama, when he visited the United States, President Obama has decided that he will not do so during the Tibetan leader's visit to the United States. The president does not wish to annoy China's dictators prior to his upcoming visit to Beijing. As US News & World Report reported, "The U.S. decision to postpone the meeting appears to be part of a strategy to improve ties with China that also includes soft-pedaling criticism of China's human rights ..."

This is particularly troubling to Israelis because it means that an American president is placing appeasement of strong dictators above America's traditional defense of embattled small countries. (One assumes that the Taiwanese are equally worried; and the Iranian fighters for liberty have come close to giving up on Obama's America.)

The line between selling out Tibetans and selling out Israelis is a direct one. Even liberal New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd was disturbed by the president's snubbing of the Dalai Lama:

"Dissing the Dalai was part of a broader new Obama policy called 'strategic reassurance' — softening criticism of China's human rights record and financial policies to calm its fears that America is trying to contain it ... the tyro American president got the Nobel for the mere anticipation that he would provide bold moral leadership for the world at the very moment he was caving to Chinese dictators. Awkward."

The world is quite aware of the importance of Mr. Obama's snubbing the Dalai Lama. Dowd noted that:

"In an interview with Alison Smale in The Times last week, Vaclav Havel � pricked Barack Obama's conscience. Havel (who led) the Czechs and Slovaks from communism to democracy, turned the tables and asked Smale a question about Obama � Was it true that the president had refused to meet the Dalai Lama on his visit to Washington?"

Those who worry about good and evil know that if America decides that the world's approval is important, evil will increase exponentially. Only an America willing to be disliked, even hated, will consistently support the smaller good guys against the bigger bad guys.

If America starts shaping its foreign policy based upon getting along well with everybody, it will become less tenable to support Israel. The number of people and countries that want Israel destroyed are far more numerous than tiny Israel and its people. The price of supporting free, democratic, tolerant Israel against its death-loving, totalitarian and authoritarian enemies is reduced popularity of America in those countries. And if America now values getting along well with everyone above moral considerations, the days of strong American support for Israel are numbered.

They may indeed be numbered for additional reasons. Having been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, President Obama may be even less inclined to consider an American attack, or in any way countenance an Israeli attack, on Iran's nuclear weapons facilities. A Nobel Peace Prize laureate isn't supposed to support, much less initiate, first strikes.

Additionally, the president, given his yearning for a nuclear weapons-free world, may support an Iranian offer to disband its nuclear weapons program if Israel is forced to abandon its nuclear arsenal.

All this combined with the economically weakest America in memory — increasingly dependent on other countries to help prevent the dollar from becoming more like Monopoly money — means that the 96 percent of Israelis who do feel they cannot rely on this president of the United States as they have on prior presidents is, unfortunately, not irrational.

This president characterizes his presidency as essentially the opposite of that of his predecessor, George W. Bush. He may be right, as reflected by this note from the Washington Post: "The last time he (the Dalai Lama) was here, in 2007, George W. Bush became the first sitting president to meet with him publicly, at a ceremony at the Capitol in which he awarded the Dalai Lama the Congressional Gold Medal, Congress's highest civilian award."

If you were Israeli, which American president would you feel more secure with — the first one in 18 years who refused to meet with the Dalai Lama or the first one ever to meet with him publicly and give him a public honor?

 

Dennis Prager hosts a national daily radio show based in Los Angeles.