The perils of presidential failure.

 

by Caroline Glick

 

US President Barack Obama is feeling the heat. His response to the current crisis threatening to sink his one-year-old presidency is telling for what it says about the future of both his domestic and foreign policies. Israel should take heed of his responses.

 

Obama's Democratic Party, and indeed the US political establishment as a whole, received a jolt on Tuesday when Republican Scott Brown won the Massachusetts seat in the US Senate that had been held by the Democratic Kennedy dynasty since 1952. The question now on everyone's lips is whether Brown's stunning victory will cause Obama to change his course and moderate his policies.

 

The Massachusetts Senate race was a real world example of what opinion polling data has shown. Since last summer, a consistently growing number of US voters oppose Obama's policies.

 

Brown's victory was nationally significant because it removed the Democrats' filibuster proof, 60-man super-majority in the Senate. With Brown as the 41st Republican senator, the minority party can now muster the votes to block legislation from being called to a vote before the full Senate and so prevent laws from being passed.

 

In addition to its immediate legislative significance, the larger political importance of the Massachusetts election rests in what it signals for House and Senate Democrats who will face reelection in November. Dozens of Democratic lawmakers are reportedly now veering into full-blown panics about their prospects in those elections. As Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh put it, "If you lose Massachusetts and that's not a wake-up call, there's no hope of waking up."

 

Tellingly, Obama and his White House advisers are refusing to "wake up." Obama responded to Brown's win as he has to many of his setbacks since assuming office a year ago this week. He blamed his predecessor, George W. Bush.

 

In an interview on Wednesday with ABC News, Obama said, "People are angry, they are frustrated. Not just because of what's happened in the last year or two years, but what's happened over the last eight years." 

 

Obama argued that the growing unpopularity of his programs is due not to substance, but to style. As he put it, "We were so busy just getting stuff done... that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are and why we have to make sure those institutions are matching up with those values."

 

Even as Democratic lawmakers are openly expressing misgivings with moving forward in implementing Obama's radical plan to reform the US health care industry, Obama's senior adviser David Axelrod told the media that abandoning the initiative is "not an option."

 

Rather than accept that Massachusetts voters elected Brown because Brown repudiated Obama's agenda - on both domestic and foreign policy - the Obama White House has argued that Brown's victory was simply the consequence of poor electioneering by the Democratic candidate and poor planning by the national Democratic Party apparatus.

 

Obama's imperiousness is even more apparent when compared to the behavior of his predecessors in office. When in 2006 the Republicans lost control of Congress, George W. Bush responded by embracing the Democrats' policies on everything from Iran to mortgage banks. When the Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994, Bill Clinton adopted the Republicans' "Contract with America" as his own.

 

What Obama's refusal to hear Tuesday's "wake-up call" from Massachusetts shows is that his chief concern is not listening to what the public says. It is not even remaining in office. Rather, his behavior in the wake of the Brown victory shows that Obama's top concern is enacting his radical political agenda. He is an ideologue first and a party leader second.

 

While his fellow Democrats in Congress say that Brown's election means that Obama's plan to nationalize one-sixth of the US economy through his health care plan is dead in the water, Obama claims the time to move forward is now. As he sees things, he has 11 months left to effect the radical change he seeks for America. 

 

Obama believes that plowing ahead is the only thing that will save the Democrats. As he has put it, "I... know what happens once we get... [health care reform] done. The American people will suddenly learn that this bill does things they like."

 

Far from slowing down, he will redouble his efforts to ram his agenda down the throats of an unwilling populace.

 

ELECTIONS ARE blunt instruments, not precise readings. Voters cast their ballots for specific politicians and their political parties based on their wide perceptions of general trends rather than on specific policies related to specific issues. Candidates in turn emphasize specific issues because of what those issues symbolize about the general state of affairs.

 

In the US today, there is a widespread public perception that Obama and his party colleagues in the House and Senate have gone on a spending spree when what the deepening economic recession requires is frugality. Obama's plan to spend up to a trillion dollars on nationalized health care in this economic environment is emblematic of the public sense that the national leadership is behaving irresponsibly.

 

A similar view pervades with respect to Obama's foreign policy.

 

Speaking to National Review, Brown's chief political strategist Eric Fehrnstrom said that "terrorism and the treatment of enemy combatants" was a "more potent issue" for Massachusetts voters than health care. If health care is emblematic of the growing perception that Obama and his fellow Democrats are irresponsible on the domestic policy front, so "terrorism and the treatment of enemy combatants" are emblematic of the public perception that Obama's foreign policy is too weak.

 

The administration's failure to detect, prevent or adequately characterize the jihadist massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, like its failure to detect, prevent or adequately handle the aftermath of the attempted airline bombing on Christmas day by a Nigerian jihadist, are viewed by Americans as proof that Obama's foreign policy is weak and dangerous.

 

As with his domestic agenda, in foreign affairs as well, the clear antidote to Obama's political woes would be to change course and moderate his policies. Were Obama interested in ensuring that the public supported and trusted his handling of American foreign policy, he would repudiate his plan to transfer terrorists now jailed at Guantanamo Bay to Yemen and cancel his plan to try senior terrorists like September 11 architect Khaled Sheikh Muhammad in civilian trials.

 

But rather than do so, Obama has responded to the public's opposition to his foreign policies by doubling down. In the face of massive criticism over his administration's decision to try the September 11 mastermind in a civilian courtroom in New York, the administration opted to treat the Christmas bomber as a criminal defendant as well. Indeed, as its top counterterror officials made clear in Senate testimony on Wednesday, the administration never considered treating the terrorist as an illegal enemy combatant.

 

In a related matter, on Wednesday the State Department announced that the US has dropped its opposition to permitting Islamist leader Tariq Ramadan from entering the US. Ramadan - whose grandfather founded the Muslim Brotherhood which spawned the likes of al-Qaida and Hamas - is a hero of the far Left in the US and Europe. He was barred from entering the US since 2004 due in part to his personal contributions to Hamas.

 

In short then, rather than respond to the public's rejection of his posture of weakness abroad by replacing that posture with one of strength, Obama has ratcheted up his policy of weakness. What this shows is that like his domestic agenda, Obama's foreign policy - including his national security policy - is the product of his firmly held beliefs and ideological commitments. Obama is weak on foreign affairs because he chooses to be weak. Through both his actions and his words he demonstrates his belief that the US must adopt a posture of contrition to make up for its past global leadership. His goal is to weaken America's position in the international arena, because he doesn't believe that America has a moral right to be stronger than anyone else.

 

Given the congressional backlash to the Massachusetts election, it is possible that Obama will be compelled to put aside his domestic initiatives, or at least to repackage them. US presidents have only a limited capacity to unilaterally implement massive changes on the domestic front. Congressional support is required for most major endeavors. Today, it seems likely that many Democratic lawmakers will refuse to fall on their swords for Obama. So his health care initiative, like his environmental and immigration agendas, may well be buried in committee.

 

On the other hand, the US Constitution gives the president a much freer hand in foreign affairs. And here we are likely to see a full-court presidential press to force through his radical agenda on everything from nuclear weapons to counterterrorism to appeasement of the Islamic world. Given the prominence Obama has already given to his anti-Israel posture, it can be assumed that Israel will be the focus of even more intense pressure from the White House in the months and years to come.

 

All of this should concentrate the minds of Israel's leaders. They should assume that Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell will intensify his pressure - and escalate his threats - on Israel to make massive concessions to the Palestinians. Indeed, given Mitchell's trip this week to Lebanon and Syria and Obama's refusal to end his appeasement overtures towards Iran, Israel should expect the US to expand its pressure on Israel to agree to imperil itself on all fronts.

 

SINCE TAKING office on March 31, the Netanyahu government has adopted two distinct policies for dealing with Obama. Until September, the government's policy was to politely delay as long as possible its ultimate polite refusal to accept US demands for more concessions to Palestinians.

 

After Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's meeting with Obama at the UN in September, however, he adopted a new policy of caving in to US pressure. First he announced his support for Palestinian statehood. Then he agreed to bar Jews from receiving construction permits in Judea and Samaria. Apparently, Netanyahu was led to believe that his concessions would cause Obama to ease his pressure on Israel.

 

But as the White House's escalating threats and demands for new Israeli concessions in the wake of Netanyahu's change of course demonstrates, Israel's policy shift was counterproductive. And given Obama's current political trajectory, Israel will be best served by a return to the government's initial policy. Rather than seeking to placate Obama, Israel should try to wait him out. And at the same time, the government should robustly advance Israel's national interests, both by unapologetically defending those interests in the diplomatic arena, and more importantly by adopting policies and taking action to secure and strengthen the country.

 

The political winds in America are blowing against Obama. Even with his relatively free hand in foreign affairs, the ill winds will necessarily slow him down. Israel should do nothing to smooth his path forward.

 

 

Caroline Glick

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

 

The Point of No Return: Clearly the Obama Administration Won't Ever Do Anything Serious Against Iran's Nuclear Program.

 

by Barry Rubin

We must now face an extremely unpleasant truth: even giving the Obama Administration every possible break regarding its Iran policy it is now clear that the U.S. government isn't going to take strong action on the nuclear weapons issue.

Note that I didn't even say "effective" action, that is, measures which would force Iran to back down. I'm neither advocating nor do I think there was ever any possibility that the United States, even under Obama's predecessor, might take military action.

 I'm saying that they aren't even going to make a good show of trying seriously to do anything at all.

Some say that the administration has secretly or implicitly accepted the idea that Iran will get nuclear weapons and is now seeking some longer-term containment policy. I doubt that has happened. They are just not even this close to reality.

From their behavior they still seem to expect, incredibly, that some kind of deal is possible with Tehran despite everything that has happened. Then, too, they may hope that the opposition—unaided by America--will overthrow the Iranian government and thus solve the problem for them. And they are too fixated on short-term games about seeking consensus among other powers two of which—China and Russia—are clearly not going to agree to do anything serious. This fact was clear many months ago but the administration still doesn't recognize it.

Not only is the Obama administration failing the test but it is doing so in a way that seems to maximize the loss of U.S. credibility in the region and the world. A lot of this comes from the administration's philosophy, almost unprecedented concepts of guilt, apology, defeatism, and refusal to take leadership never seen before among past liberal Democratic governments from Franklin Roosevelt through Bill Clinton.

Yet the British, French, and Germans are ready to get tough on Iran, yearning for leadership, and not getting it.

All of this is watered down in media coverage, focused on day-to-day developments; swallowing many of the administration's excuses plus its endlessly repeated rhetoric that action is on the way. When the history of this absurdly failed effort is written the story will be a shocking one, the absurdity of policy obvious.

It was totally predictable that the Iranian government would not make a deal. It was totally predictable that Russia and China weren't going to go along with higher sanctions. It was totally predictable that a failure by the United States to take leadership and instead depend on consensus would lead to paralysis. And it is totally predictable that a bungled diplomatic effort will produce an even more aggressive Iranian policy along with crisis and violence.

First, the administration set a September deadline for instituting higher sanctions and then, instead of following a two-track strategy of engagement plus pressure, postponed doing anything while engaged in talks with Iran.

Second, it refused to take advantage of the regime's international unpopularity and growing opposition demonstrations due to the stolen election. On the contrary, it assured the Iranian regime it would not do so.

Third, the administration set a December deadline if engagement failed, then refused to recognize it had failed and did nothing. It is the failure even to try to meet this time limit by implementing some credible action that has crossed the line, triggered the point of no return.

Fourth, the U.S. government kept pretending that it was somehow convincing the Chinese and Russians to participate while there was never any chance of this happening. Indeed, this was clear from statements repeatedly made by leaders of both countries. Now, this duo has sabotaged the process without any cost inflicted by the United States while making clear they will continue doing so.

Here is something tremendously ironical: The British, French, and Germans want to act. Obama has the consensus among allies that he says is required. But he's letting himself be held back by China and Russia. The three European allies now have the opposite problem they felt with Bush. They wanted to pull back the previous American president. Now with Obama, they can't drag this guy forward!

Fifth, high-ranking U.S. officials continually speak of their unending eagerness to engage Iran, begging it to fool them with more delays. But Tehran doesn't have to do so since the same officials speak of at least six months more discussion before anything is done about sanctions.

Sixth, the administration now defines sanctions as overwhelmingly focused on the Revolutionary Guards, which it cannot hurt economically, thus signaling the Iranian regime it will do nothing effective to damage the country's economy. This means that even if sanctions are increased they will be toothless. The White House ignored the face-saving way out given it by Congress, where the vast majority of Democrats supported an embargo on refined fuel supplies and other doable measures.

All of these steps tell Iran's regime: full speed ahead on building nuclear weapons; repress your opponents brutally and the United States will do nothing. It isn't a good thing when the world's most dangerous dictator is laughing at you and your friends in the region are trembling because they have been let down.

After these six failures, the United States is now—in effect—resting. And that is the seventh failure. There are no signs that anything is changing in Washington. To believe that the administration has learned anything from experience, we would have to see the following:

An angry U.S. government which feels that Iran's regime made it seem a sucker. A calculating administration that believes the American people wants it to get tough and thus it would gain politically from being seen as decisive. A great power strategy that it would make an example of Iran to show what happens to repressive dictators who defy the United States and spit on its friends and interests. And a diplomatically astute leadership which understands how threats and pressure must be used even by those who want to force an opponent into a compromise deal.

There is not the slightest indication that the Obama administration holds any of these views. On the contrary, without any apparent realization of the absurdity of the situation, high-ranking officials keep repeating in January 2010 as in January 2009 that some day the United States might do something to put pressure on Iran. Perhaps those in the administration who do understand what's wrong don't have the influence to affect the policy being set in the White House.

At a minimum, the administration should implement the tough sanctions envisioned by Congress and supported by its European allies, an attempt to cut off the maximum amount of fuel supplies, loans, and trade from Iran. If this hurts average Iranians it also sends the signal that the current regime is unacceptable and aids the opposition. In diplomatic history, this is how sanctions have always been viewed.

Instead, while the United States does nothing, Russia is completing Iran's Bushire nuclear reactor and China is finishing up a massive oil refinery in Iran. While Obama fiddles, the regime is getting stronger, not more isolated.

This sad debacle is going to be a case study of how failing to deal with a problem sooner, even if that requires some diplomatic confrontations, will lead to a much bigger and costlier conflict later involving military confrontations.

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.

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

 

Another Tack: Masters and donkeys.

 

by Sarah Honig

Consciously or otherwise, the carrot-or-stick motif conjures images of masters and the dumb donkeys they try to prod and move along. Those lucky enough to be in position to choose between inducing or punishing are obviously the power-wielding honchos.

Those to be tempted or whacked into submission are clearly the brutish troublesome beasts which must be disciplined - one way or another.

Therefore, when US President Barack Obama's special Mideast envoy fails to object to carrot-and-stick speak - and even bothers to specify one stick's characteristics - he implies that he's in charge, while we, threatened with a severe whack on the rump, are his asses.

So forget the nitty-gritty of George Mitchell's January 7 gibber-jabber in the PBS interview with Charlie Rose about withdrawing loan guarantees if we Israelis don't obey pronto. Plenty of ink has been spilled on whether this constituted a serious signal. The point has been honed that we don't desperately depend on said guarantees, that Israel repays all its debts dutifully and that it can get along just fine, thank you, without Washington's grudging favor.

That's almost the lesser issue.

What ought to get our goat is Mitchell's attitude - and by extension that of the White House resident who appointed him. It wasn't the reference to a possible anti-Israel stick which made Rose's interview with Mitchell outrageous. It was the hubris and presumptuousness it exuded. Both interviewer and interviewee radiated supercilious smugness and ostensible omniscience. Both the professed honest broker and the opinionated talking head haughtily, almost frivolously, reduced us to the lowly status of obdurate pack animals.

To be sure, it was Rose, patronizingly sounding the voice of impatient reason - intermittently even chiding Mitchell for not getting the pesky chore of contracting a Mideast peace out of the way quickly and imperiously enough - who first mentioned carrots and sticks. But Mitchell could have refused to resort to the offensive terminology. The fact that he didn't - and that he went so far as to hypothesize about the likely stick with which he might smack Israel, but conspicuously noting nothing with which the Palestinians might be thumped - speaks volumes in itself.

SO DID the air of lighthearted camaraderie and lightweight banter throughout the one-on-one. At some points it became surreal. Clued-in viewers had to wonder whether the mutually ego-massaging chums actually believed what escaped their lips or whether they merely pretended to.

Take Mitchell's portrayal of the PA's PM: "an impressive person, Salam Fayyad, who is trying to build, from the ground up, the institutions of governance that will be able to govern effectively on day-one of the Palestinian state." Rose cheerfully chimed in: "They also call that bottom up." On cue, an agreeable Mitchell contentedly poured on more syrup: "Bottom up, top down." Yep, we get it, the Ramallah bunch is on the side of the angels.

Mitchell then proceeded to lay it on even thicker: "Now, obviously, we have great respect for President [Mahmoud] Abbas. We think he and Prime Minister Fayyad represent strong and effective leadership for the Palestinian people and are the ones that we think are going to produce a Palestinian state."

Who is Mitchell kidding? If he doesn't understand that Abbas is a virtual leader and that both he and his clique are neither respected nor trusted by anyone in the Middle East, then we are dealing with willful delusion.

Mitchell gets lots more cloyingly sweet: The Palestinian "security forces are outstanding by any measure... Palestinians have taken very significant steps. Until the last couple of years, the principle problem from their side was the absence of security... that was the Israelis' angle: 'We don't have a partner; they're not doing anything about the terrorists and the violence.' Now you have a government that is doing something, very actively, aggressively, successfully, as even the Israelis acknowledge."

That upbeat assessment doubtlessly impresses Avshalom Meir Chai's bereaved widow and seven children. He was shot in the head on Route 57 near Shavei Shomron, after Israel obligingly removed a checkpoint close to Tulkarm as a "goodwill gesture" to appease Mitchell. Later IDF troops clashed with and killed three of the murderers during an attempt to detain them. Abbas's "outstanding" forces never tried to apprehend these snipers. Moreover, Abbas soon shamelessly glorified them on PATV as "martyrs executed cold-bloodedly by Israeli forces in Nablus." So much for promoting the spirit of peace and coexistence.

By ignoring this, Mitchell doesn't just innocuously look on the bright side. He masks reality and abets falsehood. Mitchell boosts an inciter who exalts drive-by shooters. They hailed from Abbas's Fatah faction. If Abbas can't even control his own splinter, what can rationally be expected of him? To distort the truth that Judea and Samaria's relative calm is the IDF's handiwork is to disseminate lies. To demand the removal of roadblocks and checkpoints which curtail attacks is to undermine security, not enhance it.

GET A load of the following exchange. It begins with Mitchell waxing ecstatic over Obama's alacrity to rid mankind of our conflict once and for all: "This president began 48 hours after taking office. He appointed me to this position two days after he was sworn in as president. You know what he said to me? He said, I want you to go over there tonight. I said, Mr. President, I've got a wife and kids, I don't have any clothes with me. I have to go home and tell them I'm going to leave. I had to go home for a day just to get ready to go. He was anxious from the first to get into it."

Rose: Okay, but tell me, do you think things - since the moment he said that to you and the moment that you prepare next week to be back there - things are better or worse?

Mitchell: Oh, they're much better.

Well, you could have fooled us. Mitchell's assertion, though, fits snugly into the interview's clipped judgmentalisms, worthy of a righteous 1930s Hollywood cops-and-robbers flick. Mitchell, for instance, noted that Israel annexed east Jerusalem and treats it as an integral part of the state. To this Rose retorted: "So you're going to let them go ahead even though no one recognized the annexation."

Our complex context, the genocide plotted against us for over a century, are all simplistically condensed and superficially redefined as an irksome kink that requires a quick-fix. At best equal blame is artificially apportioned to both sides. Our tribulations are boiled down to tiresome bellyaching that must with great urgency be overcome.

Israel's very inability to risk the Jewish state's continued existence for the sake of facile cliches paradoxically facilitates its demonization. When our struggle for survival ends up trivialized and kitschified, the remedy is clear: Get the darned donkey under control with one stick or another.

 

Sarah Honig

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

 

Analysis: Did the Long Arm of Iran Reach the Dead Sea Highway?

 

by Jonathan Spyer

The revelations of possible Iranian involvement in the attack on Israeli diplomats earlier this month in Jordan appear to offer the latest evidence of direct engagement by Teheran in subversion and paramilitary activity across national borders.

The Jordanian investigation is still in its early stages. But the suggestion by sources close to the well-respected Jordanian General Intelligence Department that the explosives used for the attack may have been brought into the kingdom by Iranian diplomats is certainly plausible. It would conform to similar incidents on which the fingerprints of Iran were later unmistakably identified. It would also fit the current pattern of Iranian support for destabilizing its regional enemies.

The Quds Force - the wing of the Revolutionary Guard which deals with activities outside of Iran - is known to maintain a presence in all Iranian delegations abroad. Representatives of this force have been identified with a number of high-profile attacks on Israeli, Jewish and US targets.

Most famously, the 1994 attack on the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires was found by Argentinean investigators to have been carried out under the direction of then-commander of the Quds Force's Special Operations unit Ahmed Vahidi, and with the knowledge of then-Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

The attack killed 85 people and wounded 151.

On October 25, 2006, Argentina's state prosecutor issued arrest warrants for Rafsanjani, Vahidi, Revolutionary Guards commander Mohsen Rezai and a number of other officials in connection with the bombing.

The issuing of the warrants has done little to harm the careers of those concerned. In a testimony to the growing strength of the Revolutionary Guards within the regime, Ahmed Vahidi, director of the AMIA attack, is now the Iranian Defense Minister.

The 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia offers further proof of the Iranian track record in this area. The bombing, in which 19 American servicemen were killed, was "sanctioned, funded and directed" by the Revolutionary Guards and the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence, according to then-FBI director Louis Freeh.

The discovery last year of a large Hizbullah-led and Revolutionary Guard-directed network planning acts of terror in Egypt indicates that this Iranian pattern of behavior has not changed. It is noteworthy that the latest revelations regarding the attack in Jordan suggest that the operatives on the ground were Sunni Arabs, supporters of al-Qaida type ideology. In Egypt, too, the 100-person network led by Revolutionary Guard-trained Hizbullah official Muhammad Mansour consisted of Sunni Arabs - Palestinians and Egyptian Beduin. It has even been suggested that the men in question initially believed they were working for a Palestinian organization.

The Shi'ite-Sunni divide has never prevented Iran from making use of Sunni proxies against the common enemy.

But while the latest evidence from Jordan contains few surprises, it nevertheless carries serious implications from the Jordanian point of view. Jordan is particularly vulnerable to Iranian subversion.

The small and fragile kingdom is separated from Iran only by Iraq - a particular focus of interest for the Revolutionary Guard.

According to Iranian opposition sources, the staff at the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad includes at least five senior Revolutionary Guard officers. The embassy is considered to constitute an important center for coordinating intelligence and military activity against coalition forces in Iraq.

The US will, of course, soon be withdrawing from Iraq. A weak, chaotic, Shi'ite-dominated Iraq, heavily penetrated by the Revolutionary Guard, would be a nightmare scenario for Jordan. It would bring Iran, its influence, its ambitions and its methods right up to the borders of the kingdom.

The means used for last week's attack - a roadside bomb - carried disturbing echoes of Iraq.

Against this background, King Abdullah has been among the regional leaders most vociferously seeking to warn the world of the dangers of Iran's drive for regional hegemony.

The king has spoken of the possibility of a "terrible conflict" within Islam - between a "Shi'ite crescent" and the Sunni Arab states. He identified Iran, an Iran-influenced Iraq, Syria and Hizbullah as the core components of a future "political-strategic alliance," which may foment a larger confrontation in the Middle East.

The signs of an Iranian hand behind the bombing last week suggest that the scenario envisaged by the king is already coming to pass.

A cold war is on in the region - pitting Islamist Iran and its allies against pro-Western states. Like other such phenomena in the past, this cold war has a number of fronts, and a number of faces.

There is an overt military aspect, visible for example in Israel's fight against Hamas and Hizbullah, and in the recent clashes between Saudi forces and Shi'ite rebels in north Yemen.

There is a political-diplomatic and propaganda front. Iran and its allies invest vast resources and efforts in disseminating their message, and seeking to ignite regional and world public opinion against their enemies.

There is also a clandestine-warfare aspect, in which the Revolutionary Guard and its many regional clients seek to destabilize and subvert rival states and regimes. This is a side of the conflict which only occasionally and fleetingly reveals itself to the public eye.

The latest revelations suggest that the roadside bombing on January 14 on the Dead Sea Highway from Amman may well have formed an engagement on this front of the ongoing regional contest.

 

 Dr. Jonathan Spyer is a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Herzliya, Israel

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

 

Cast Lead Conclusions.

 

by Jeremy Sharon

 

One of the most significant consequences of Operation Cast Lead, Israel's three-week military offensive in Gaza which concluded January 18 of last year, is the huge campaign waged by Israel's enemies to isolate and demonize the country. In the wake of her efforts to defend its citizens, Israel has been attacked on multiple fronts by determined foes intent on hobbling the country's military while at the same time backing her into a diplomatic corner.

Following the end of the operation in Gaza, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), human rights groups, and international NGOs, along with U.N. organs subordinated by the former, stepped up an already intensive campaign whose broad purpose is to force Israel into accepting the maximalist positions demanded by the Palestinians for their future state.

 

The strategy has two central tactics, both of which have utilized Israel's operation in Gaza last year as a springboard to achieving a broader aim. The first tactic is to handicap the Israeli military from effectively dealing with the guerrilla and terrorist threats it faces on both its northern border with Lebanon and its southern border with Gaza. The main weapon in this particular battle is the tendentious investigations carried out by human rights groups (Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International in particular), as well as the deeply flawed Goldstone report, which was actually instigated by the OIC.

 

This campaign has enjoyed some success. Israeli officials are now being harassed abroad by the threat of lawsuits for war crimes, while the IDF Chief of Staff recently issued an order requiring senior officers to consult with legal advisers not only in the planning stage of operations, but also while they are underway. This policy was adopted despite the opposition of a number of commanders, including those in the general staff.

 

The second tactic is to isolate Israel diplomatically in order to frighten her into a level of suitable malleability. Heavy lobbying by Palestinian sympathizers, NGOs, and human rights groups has scored some considerable successes. The U.K. revoked a number of export licenses for Israeli warships because the Israeli navy had the temerity to use its gunboats during Cast Lead. And trade union boycott campaigns have gathered strength in certain countries, as have academic ones.

 

This unrelenting pressure has certainly borne fruit. The Obama administration, along with the EU, seems increasingly willing to adopt Palestinian positions on the most crucial issues relating to the conflict. The opposition of the U.S. and the EU to Israeli construction in eastern Jerusalem is a particularly egregious example of how the Palestinian narrative has been completely accepted by major international players without any consideration for the Israeli perspective -- or indeed, historical facts.

 

But on another level, these tactics have worked against those who strive so hard to advance the Palestinian cause. In trying to hamper Israel's efforts to defend its citizenry and working so tirelessly to isolate the Jewish state, the advocates for a Palestinian state have harmed their own cause by forcing Israelis to the right.

 

It has largely been forgotten in the stormy few years which have since passed, but in 2006, the Kadima party won a general election on the back of a campaign in which they promised to conduct a unilateral operation from the West Bank. The Israeli left was riding high on a wave of confidence in the simple purity of its new unilateralist strategy, which had been so successful in Gaza, and was seeking to repeat that success and wrap up the whole bloody sixty-year saga.

 

But that election was fought before the abduction of Shalit and the militarization of the Gaza Strip following the 2005 disengagement. The 2006 election took place before Hezbollah initiated the Second Lebanon War and bombarded northern Israel with four thousand rockets. And Kadima won that election before Hamas shelled southern Israel with seven thousand rockets and mortars. These events ensured that the prospect of further unilateral Israeli withdrawals became untenable, even for the Kadima-led government.

 

Because of the failure of unilateralism, Ehud Olmert was forced to return to traditional diplomacy. He tried to reinvigorate the peace through the Annapolis track, and ultimately an offer to Mahmoud Abbas consisting of concessions never before proffered by an Israeli prime minister. But throughout the tenure of probably the most dovish Israeli government ever, Israel's international antagonists merely piled on the pressure; the investigations, condemnations, and UNHRC resolutions were ceaseless. Instead of applying pressure on the Palestinians, and particularly Hamas in Gaza, to make the 2005 disengagement work, these hostile entities subjected Israel to interminable diplomatic assault while she faced constant bombardment in the south.

 

Given the level of violence directed towards Israel in the three years of Olmert's time in office combined with the failure of the international community to stand up for Israel's right to self-defense, the shift of the Israeli electorate to the right was inevitable. During the period of the Kadima-led government, the international community needed to vigorously denounce Hamas's militarization of Gaza and its persistent shelling of Israeli civilians. The U.S., EU, and U.N. should have acted strenuously to halt the smuggling of huge quantities of arms into Gaza, just as they should have acted with more resolve to prevent the massive rearmament of Hezbollah following the Second Lebanon War. In short, the international community needed to inspire some level of confidence that should further Israeli territorial concessions result in new waves of artillery bombardment, Israel would be supported in its efforts to defend its citizens.

 

Had any of this been done, then Israelis may have felt slightly less inclined to boot out the most conciliatory government in its history. Unfortunately for the Palestinians, the sentiment that brought Ehud Olmert to power and allowed him to make the concessions he did no longer exists. The Israeli public, cognizant of growing security dangers and extremely hostile sentiment abroad, moved to the right, as it always does when it the possibility of violence against it increases.

 

If advocates of a Palestinian state sincerely wish to advance their goals, isolating Israel is possibly the worst strategy to adopt. Nothing will ever change if Israelis feel that by making more concessions, they will endanger the security of their state.

 

During Operation Cast Lead, antiwar demonstrators in London cried, "We are all Hamas now!" If those who so strongly support the Palestinians' cause continue to identify with the nihilists of Gaza who, as was reiterated last month by Ismail Haniyeh, do not seek accommodation with the Jewish state, but rather its destruction, then Israel will never feel secure enough to give up more territory. If, on the other hand, the fervent champions of a Palestinian state realize that they too must insist on and fight for Israeli security and its right to defend its citizens, then diplomatic progress might be much quicker than it has been of late. 

 

Jeremy Sharon

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

 

Unilateralism is our only option.

 

by Ted Belman

 

Last August, PM Salam Fayyad released a Plan to "establish Palestine as an independent, democratic, progressive, and modern Arab state, with full sovereignty over its territory in the West Bank and Gaza, on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital." within two years. Israel took little notice of it.

In early November Haaretz reported it included a secret provision which stipulated a "unilateral declaration of independence". Then Israel took notice and said 'If PA Declares State, Israel Will Annex Settlements'.[1]

"If the Palestinians take such a unilateral line, Israel should also consider ... passing a law to annex some of the settlements," Environment Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud) said.

MK Danon says that Israel must not settle for annexing settlement blocs, but must rather annex Judea and Samaria in their entirety, except for Arab cities.

Minister Erdan also said Israel has the option of tightening up travel restrictions for Arabs and stopping the transmission of tax money that the Israeli government currently transfers to the Palestinian Authority - money that is collected by Israel for the PA.

Meanwhile, Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud) and Minister Landau have taken action to introduce bills for annexing Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

The PA also threatening to seek the formal endorsement of the UN but the E.U. and the U.S.A. have turned thumbs down on the issue. Even if the U.N. recognizes a Palestinian state, it would make little difference to the reality. In 1988 the Palestinians also declared independence and many states recognized it, but nothing came of it. So long as Israel controls the land, it controls what happens there.
 

SO FAR ISRAEL HAS BEEN ADAMANTLY AGAINST ABROGATING THE OSLO ACCORDS no matter what the provocation. After 15 years of trying to negotiate a deal, perhaps its time for Israel to do so and the PA unilateral declaration, should it happen, could be just the pretext, if pretext is needed.

Everyone knows that there is no diplomatic solutions. Neither party is willing to make the necessary compromises. That's why the PA talks about a unilateral declaration and the EU and some in the US talk about an imposed solution. Israel also is contemplating a unilateral solution. What might that be?

According to the remarks above, it would involve annexing parts, if not all Judea and Samaria. No land would have to be conquered. Israel has already annexed Jerusalem and the Golan and could do the same for other settlements such as Ariel and Maaleh Adumin and perhaps the Jordan Valley. At a minimum it would signal that these settlements, like Jerusalem, are non-negotiable.

This would be an incremental approach to gauge the reaction of the international community. It wouldn't be pretty. The next step would be to annex all of Areas "B" and "C" with its Arab population of about 340,000. Area "A" with its 1.2 million Arabs would be dealt with thereafter assuming that it is not decided to do it all at once.  

Mike Wise published "Mandate for Israel," the Jewish One State Plan,[2] hereinafter referred to as the "Plan" a number of years ago. I first endorsed it in 2005 in my article "Israel From the Mediterranean to the Jordan"[3] and have written much since.

In Caroline Glick's article,"Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity"[4] she introduces this Plan.

Israel should strike out on a new course and work toward the integration of Judea and Samaria, including its Palestinian population, into Israeli society. In the first instance, this will require the implementation of Israeli law in the Jordan Valley and the large settlement blocs.

but she doesn't fully, at least in this article, endorse the Plan. The Plan proposes that Israeli law be extended to all of Judea and Samaria as follows,

Annexation will provide a clear and well-defined status for West Bank Arabs. At the time of Annexation, the PA will no longer have a reason to exist and it and all terrorist infrastructures will be outlawed and dismantled. The PA and other terrorist organizations will be subject to Israel law and be dealt with in the same manner that all countries deal with internal subversive, treasonous and criminal organizations. Israel would no longer police the West Bank as an "occupation force". It is important to understand that after Annexation, Israel will have significantly greater flexibility in dealing with issues and problems on the West Bank. Those problems will all be viewed as internal problems of the State of Israel and not problems subject to constant international scrutiny by those who view the West Bank as "occupied" territory.

Although Glick wants to integrate all of Judea and Samaria, she only wants to extend Israeli law to the "Jordan Valley and the Settlement Blocks". The Plan further provides,

It is essential that the process and strategy of offering Israeli citizenship to West Bank Arabs must be very carefully planned, including its timing, demographic, geographic, historical and social factors. Citizenship will include all the benefits currently available to the citizens of Israel including: health care, education, welfare, economic incentives, employment, social safety nets, voting rights and others. The responsibilities of citizenship will include a public oath of loyalty to the State of Israel. The procedures and the details of the citizenship offer will be determined as an internal matter by the State of Israel. Each country determines its own citizenship rules and there are many models ranging from extremes like Switzerland where citizenship is often not granted for several generations, and the extremely restrictive standards set by Islamic States to the more liberal standards applied by other countries. Since the process will be phased in over time, the possibility to adjust the procedures appropriately will be available as circumstances require.

The reason Glick excludes Area "A" is because of the 1.2 million Arabs living there. She and most Israelis don't want to extend Israeli citizenship to them no matter on what terms. The Plan doesn't see this as a problem that can't be dealt with. There are about 200,000 Arabs in Jerusalem who have been given blue cards which entitled them to work and vote in municipal elections. Some suggest that such cards, rather than citizenship, should ultimately be given to the Arabs in the annexed territories .

Jerusalem Summit, a Christian/Jewish think tank, in 2005 published Prof Martin Sherman's article, "Redefining the Palestinian Problem"[5] which proposed an humanitarian solution rather than a political one. This proposal involves resettling the refugees elsewhere and offering compensation to Arabs living in Judea and Samaria to leave. Nothing unusual about that.

Apparently, Denmark to pay immigrants $20,000 to go home if they "can't or won't" assimilate[6]

Denmark is boosting cash incentives to entice immigrants to return to their homelands if they 'can't or won't assimilate into society.

The offer now on the table is close to €12,000 for every person who takes up the offer to leave.

Critics of the measure say it sends the wrong message to foreigners but the centre-right government in Copenhagen is forging ahead with the plan.

The financial carrot is ten times more than that previously offered under a scheme which as been law since 1997.

Sarkozy has also floated such a plan. So why can't Israel do likewise.

Paul Eidelberg is totally against relying on Netanyahu's "economic peace" which Glick supports. He says they "succumb to the wishful thinking of crypto-Marxists and capitalists who think there is an economic solution to human conflict, including religious conflicts."

One consequence of bettering their economic lot would be that Arabs would immigrate to this area rather than emigrate from it. The reverse of what we want. But that is not what he is concerned with. He wants to deal with reality and not fantasy. Therefore the problem must be solved in a different way.

One suggestion that he makes in The Eidelberg Plan[7] is for Israel to become more Jewish. He believes that this would cause Arab Israeli emigration. But aside from not saying what to do with Judea and Samaria, he agrees that "Palestine" won't come into existence because neither side will make the necessary compromises.

Currently PM Netanyahu, supported by Barak and Peres, is banging the peace drum for all he is worth. He is begging for negotiations to begin and hinting he will be generous but has not yet backed away from his demands of recognition, an undivided Jerusalem and demilitarization. The Obama administration has supported him in accepting that negotiations should be without pre-conditions. The PA wants to have negotiations begin where Olmert left off and to have an end result of the creation of Palestine with '67 borders.

I wouldn't worry too much about it. Netanyahu is not about to give away the farm.

What negotiator starts negotiations by showing how much he wants them. The reverse is always the case. Therefore, I believe that Netanyahu is talking the talk knowing he won't have to walk the walk. Many in the know, that I have talked with, agree.

Today, the focus of the Middle East players is Iran. The creation of Palestine is of little concern.

Assuming no diplomatic solution will be forthcoming for the creation of Palestine, Israel will begin to make moves, probably after Iran is dealt with, to incorporate Judea and Samaria unilaterally. The key questions in so doing will involve whether to extend Israel law to Area "C" only or to all of Judea and Samaria and whether to give blue cards or Citizenship based on significant requirements.

The peace process has brought death and destruction and not brought us closer to peace. Time for new approach. Thomas Friedman, writing in the New York Times[8] a week ago, agrees.

"It is time for a radically new approach. And I mean radical. I mean something no U.S. administration has ever dared to do: Take down our "Peace-Processing-Is-Us" sign and just go home."

This would enable Israel to do its thing as suggested above.

So long as Israel controls the land, it controls what happens there.
 

Footnotes

[1] http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/134443

[2] http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=2&DBID =1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=443&PID=0&IID=3185&TTL= A_Paradox_of_Peacemaking:_How_Fayyad%27s_Unilateral_Statehood_Plan_ Undermines_the_Legal_Foundations_of_Israeli-Palestinian_Diplomacy

[3] http://www.israpundit.com/2007/?p=3759

[4] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1258027277862& pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[5] http://www.jerusalemsummit.org/eng/news.php?news=113
See also "Israel's Geographic Imperative -- Pictures worth a 1000 words"
( http://www.jerusalemsummit.org/eng/pictures_worth_1000_words.php);
"There Is A Solution To The Conflict"
(http://www.think-israel.org/sherman.solution.html);
and especially, "A New Paradigm For The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: From The Political To The Humanitarian"
(http://www.think-israel.org/sherman.newparadigm.html).

[6] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article- 1226698/Denmark-pay-immigrants-12-000-home-wont-assimilate.html

[7] November 16, 2009, transcript of EIdelberg Report, Israel National Radio
http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=18374.
An early version of his plan was proposed in 2004
(http://www.think-israel.org/eidelberg.systemreform.html) and elaborated in 2005
(http://www.think-israel.org/eidelberg.demographics.html).
Additional features of the plan can be found by typing Eidelberg plan in the google box in the http://www.think-israel.org banner.

[8] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/opinion/08friedman.html?_r=2
 

Ted Belman is a Canadian lawyer and editor of the IsraPundit.com website, an activist pro-Israel website. He now lives in Jerusalem.

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

 

 

It's Annexation Time.

 

by Michael Freund

  

Flu season may be upon us, but it appears that Mahmoud Abbas has come down with a far more serious ailment. Based on his peculiar behavior of late, the Palestinian leader is clearly suffering from political schizophrenia.

Just a few weeks after threatening to resign from his post as chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Abbas has now indicated that he intends to pursue a unilateral declaration of statehood.

"The Palestinian leadership calls on the world to support this step," said chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat on Monday, as Abbas left for Egypt before heading off on a tour of South America to drum up international backing for the move.

And so, the man who barely a month ago was ready to throw in the towel has now decided to throw down the gauntlet. First he vows to sail off into retirement, and then he tries to crown himself president of an independent state, in the process tossing aside any chance of a negotiated peace.

Abbas's volatile and unstable behavior should put to rest once and for all the notion that he is a viable partner with whom Israel can reach a lasting agreement. Despite being 74 years old, he still hasn't decided what he wants to be when he grows up, let alone figured out where he is going.

But the chairman's volatility is more than just a quirky personality issue or an unruly psychological phenomenon. It is a potent and dangerous reminder of the ease with which the Palestinians can generate international pressure on Israel in an attempt to squeeze out further concessions.

Indeed, the Palestinian leader's zigzag has had the effect of casting the spotlight sharply on the contentious issue of the fate of Judea and Samaria. If Abbas succeeds in winning United Nations recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, it will further upgrade the perceived illegality of the settlements to an entirely new level in the eyes of the world.

Furthermore, it will mark the end of the peace process as we know it, which has been predicated on the basic assumption that the two sides would negotiate the final outcome with each other rather than predetermine it.

Abbas's attempt to vault towards statehood on his own, with utter disregard for Israel and its position, is a sure enough sign that he wishes to bury any chance of returning to talks.

For far too long, Israel has been overly vulnerable to such machinations and games. By leaving the status of Judea and Samaria open for discussion, the Jewish state has given the Palestinians too much leeway for mischief-making and malice, which they have only been more than happy to exploit.

In light of Abbas's latest charade, it is clear that Israel needs to put an end to this farce, once and for all.

We need to send a clear message to our foes, one that will put them on the defensive and strengthen Israel's hand. And there is no better place to start than with our own unilateral measures, chief among them the annexation of all the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.
 

OVER THE past 16 years, nothing has been gained by keeping the settlements issue on the table. Nor has dangling the possibility of expelling masses of Jews from their homes along the lines of Gush Katif brought the Palestinians any closer to making a deal.

Instead, it has only served to whet the Palestinian appetite for more land, and subjected hundreds of thousands of Israelis to intolerable uncertainty regarding their future.

Hence, Israel should move ahead with steps to formally and legally incorporate all of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria into the Jewish state. This will serve as a tangible and reasonable response to the Palestinian attempts to circumvent the bilateral negotiating process.

More importantly, it will at last delineate the Israeli stance on the final disposition of these communities. This will effectively close off the troublesome debate within Israeli society over the future of the settlements, which has bred so much division and disunity, and ultimately enable us to present a more unified stance vis-à-vis the rest of the world.

In recent days, a number of leading Israeli politicians have thankfully begun to voice such proposals. The talented and articulate environment minister, Gilad Erdan of the Likud, told Israel Radio on Tuesday that if the Palestinians adopt a unilateral stance, then Israel should also consider "passing a law to annex some of the settlements."

Likewise, Likud MK Danny Danon called for annexing all of Judea and Samaria with the exception of the Arab-inhabited cities.

Of course, annexation should not merely be viewed as a tit-for-tat response to unilateral Palestinian moves, for that casts it in a negative light, presenting it as merely a punitive or retaliatory measure.

In reality, annexation is justified for the simple reason that this land belongs to us, and to nobody else. The act of asserting Israeli sovereignty over the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria would mark the closing of a historic circle, reviving our formal dominion over these areas after an interlude of nearly 2,000 years.

These areas are ours by Divine right, and we should not shy away from asserting as much. The Palestinians do not hesitate to invoke their beliefs, so why on earth should we? Just think how refreshing it would be to hear an Israeli leader stand up and declare this most elementary of truths to the world: that the Land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel because the God of Israel said so.

Who knows - maybe if we finally stand on principle and start affirming our faith, then perhaps we will at last begin to earn the respect and support that we so rightly deserve.

 

 

Michael Freund writes the Fundamentally Freund column for the Jerusalem Post. He served as deputy director of communications & policy planning in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office under Benjamin Netanyahu from 1996 to 1999. He is founder and chairman of Shavei Israel (www.shavei.org), which reaches out and assists "lost Jews" seeking to return to the Jewish people.

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