Tensions with U.S. Don’t Preclude Israeli Strike on Iran

 

by Evelyn Gordon

In his post yesterday, Max posited that U.S-Israeli tensions make an Israeli strike on Iran unlikely. But in fact, such tensions may well make an Israeli strike more likely.

There are Israelis who believe that what currently looks like the only alternative — containing a nuclear Iran — is possible in principle. But for Israeli policymakers to conclude that containment is possible in practice, they must be convinced that if a nuclear Iran uses its enhanced power to attack Israel, whether directly or via its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza, the U.S. will either take appropriate countermeasures itself or support Israel in any countermeasures it deems necessary, including military ones.

If Israel's relationship with Washington were close enough to make this conviction plausible, one could imagine Jerusalem reluctantly acquiescing should Washington ultimately decide that containment was the way to go. But given President Barack Obama's track record, both of failing to take strong measures against thugs and of giving short shrift to Israeli concerns, virtually no one in Israel's government thinks he can be trusted either to contain Iran himself or to allow Israel to do so.

Thus, for Israel to refrain from bombing Iran under these circumstances, it would have to conclude that an uncontained Iran is worse than the risk of widening the rift with Washington. And there is no historical precedent for Israel putting its relationship with any foreign government above a security threat of that magnitude, however much it agonizes over the decision beforehand.

I'm sure the Wall Street Journal article Max cited was accurate in saying that some Israeli defense officials do oppose bombing Iran without Washington's consent (though based on experience, even their views could change as the threat of a nuclear Iran looms closer). But as the Journal itself acknowledged, even today, this opinion is far from unanimous. And if you want to gauge its relative strength within Israel's policymaking establishment, it's worth noting that the leading opponent of military action against Iran, IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, has just been handed his walking papers.

Ashkenazi is widely admired in Israel for both his success in rehabilitating the Israel Defense Forces after the Second Lebanon War in 2006 and his conduct of last year's war in Gaza. So there would be no good reason not to extend his term for a fifth year, which he reportedly wanted — except in order to keep the option of military action against Iran open. As Haaretz military correspondent Amos Harel noted in analyzing the implications of this decision, "An attack on Iran is impossible with a chief of staff who opposes it." And Ashkenazi did oppose it — so strongly that the Pentagon reportedly viewed him as its most reliably ally in preventing an Israeli strike.

There is no guarantee that Israel will bomb Iran. Much could happen before Ashkenazi's term ends in another 10 months, and his successor has not yet even been chosen. But to assert that U.S.-Israel tension takes the Israeli military option off the table is to misread both Israeli history and current events.

 

Evelyn Gordon

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

 

Mort Zuckerman: On Israel, Obama Playing the Mideast Game Wrong

 

by Mortimer B. Zuckerman

 

 The Middle East peace process is stalled thanks to a second deadlock engineered by the United States government. President Obama began the process with his call for a settlement freeze in 2009 and escalates it now with a major change of American policy on Jerusalem. 

 

The president seeks to prohibit Israel from any construction in its capital—in an exclusively Jewish suburb of East Jerusalem. This, despite the fact that all former administrations had unequivocally understood that the area in question would remain part of Israel in any final peace agreement. Objecting to this early phase of the planning process for housing in East Jerusalem is tantamount to getting the Israelis to agree to the division of Jerusalem in any settlement—even before the start of final status talks with the Palestinians. In 1995, it was by a substantial bipartisan majority that Congress adopted the Jerusalem Embassy Act calling for the movement of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem—and equally importantly, stating that Jerusalem must remain united under Israeli sovereignty.

 

But Obama has undermined the confidence of the Israelis in the United States from the start of his presidency. He uses the same term, "settlements," ambiguously for both massive neighborhoods that are the homes to tens of thousands of Jews and for illegal outposts, raising the question for the Israelis about whether the U.S. administration really understands the issue. The Palestinian Authority followed the president's lead and refused to proceed with planned proximity talks until Israel stops all settlement activities, including in East Jerusalem.

 

The president's attitude toward Jerusalem betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the history of the city. After Israel was recognized as a new state in 1948, it was immediately attacked by the combined armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. The attacks were repelled, but the Jordanians, who were asked not to join the Egyptian war effort, conquered East Jerusalem and separated it from its western half. In 1967, the Arab armies again sought to destroy Israel, but it prevailed in the famous Six-Day War and reconquered East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Gaza Strip.

 

East Jerusalem, a growing community, was expanded on rock-strewn land that had been in the public domain for the last 43 years. But Palestinian leaders lay claim to East Jerusalem, including the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall, the holiest sites in Judaism, and which the Arabs had failed to protect while in their control. When he gave his speech in Cairo, Obama looked to when "Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims." Did he not realize it is only under Israeli rule since 1967 that all adherents of all religions represented in Jerusalem have been able to worship freely and access their religious sites?

 

Under Jordanian rule, from 1948 to 1967, dozens of synagogues were destroyed or vandalized, and the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives was desecrated, its tombstones used for the construction of roads and Jordanian army latrines. The rights of Christians as well as Jews were abused, with some churches converted into mosques. In other cases, mosques were built next to churches and synagogues just so their minarets could rise above them.

 

When Israel captured the eastern part of Jerusalem in the Six-Day War of 1967, it kept building for its residents. So did the Palestinian Arabs who continue to build in Jerusalem (incidentally, there is more new Arab housing being built than Jewish housing), but they did it without any criticism from the Obama administration.

 

But Israel's claim for sovereignty over the whole, undivided city of Jerusalem does not spring from conquest in 1948 or 1967. Rather it signifies the revival of historic rights and claims that predate the arrival of any Arabs to the region, and stems from biblical times.

 

Jerusalem is not just another piece of territory on a political chessboard. It is integral to the identity and faith of Israel. The city was founded by King David some 3,500 years ago. Since then, Jews have lived there, worked there, and prayed there. It has been more than a political capital; it has been their spiritual beacon. During the First and Second Temple periods, Jews from across the Kingdom would travel to Jerusalem three times a year for the Jewish holy days of Sukkot, Passover , and Shavuot, until the Roman Empire destroyed the Second Temple in 70 A.D.

 

That ended Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem for the next 2,000 years. But the Jews never relinquished their bond. Jews in prayer always turned toward Jerusalem. The Arks, the sacred chests that hold the Torah's scrolls in synagogues throughout the world, face Jerusalem. Each year, the Jews in Passover say, "Next year, in Jerusalem." These same words are pronounced at the end of Yom Kippur. Jewish wedding ceremonies are marked by sorrow over the loss of Jerusalem. The groom cites a biblical verse, "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning."

 

Jerusalem is much less embedded in the Muslim culture. When Muslims pray, they face Mecca, not Jerusalem. The Old Testament mentions Jerusalem, or its alternative name Zion, a total of 457 times. The Koran does not mention Jerusalem once. Muhammad, who founded Islam in 622 A.D., was born and raised in what is now Saudi Arabia; he never set foot in Jerusalem. The religious connection to the city took root decades after his death—and after the Muslim conquest of the then largely Christian city—when the Dome of the Rock shrine and the Al Aqsa Mosque were built in 688 A.D. and 691 A.D. to proclaim Islam's supremacy over Christianity and its most important shrine, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Al Aqsa means "the farthest Mosque" in Arabic, the same phrase used in a key passage of the Koran called the "Night Journey," where Muhammad arrives at Al Aqsa on a winged steed, accompanied by the Archangel Gabriel. His ascent to heaven is what ties Jerusalem to divine revelation in Islamic belief. After the divine meeting with Allah, however, Muhammad returns to Mecca.

 

It is of note, too, that Muhammad died in 632 A.D., nearly 50 years before the first construction of the Al Aqsa Mosque was completed. This is why Jerusalem never replaced the importance of Mecca in the world of Islam. Indeed, in the 1,300 years that various Islamic dynasties ruled Jerusalem, not one Islamic dynasty ever made the city its capital.

 

Jerusalem's importance appears when non-Muslims, including the Crusaders, the British, and the Jews controlled or captured the city—and only then did Islamic leaders claim Jerusalem as their third most holy city after Mecca and Medina. However, the national covenant of the Palestine Liberation Organization, written in 1964, never mentions Jerusalem. It was added only after Israel regained control of the city in 1967.

 

Jerusalem has never been the capital of any political entity, except that of the Jewish State. Jews have been the majority in Jerusalem for the past 150 years. At the time of Israeli statehood in 1948, 100,000 Jews lived in the city, compared to 65,000 Arabs. Before 1865, the entire population lived behind the Old City walls that are today the eastern part of the city. When the city began to expand beyond the walls because of population growth, both Jews and Arabs began to build in these new areas.

 

Jerusalem lies at the heart of the Jewish nation. The Israelis have no intention of ever again being prevented from living throughout the city as they were between 1948 and 1967 when, under Jordanian control, Jewish communities were ruthlessly and violently driven out of areas where they had lived for centuries. Israel has a very different perspective. To Israelis, there is no Jewish Western Jerusalem and Eastern Arab Jerusalem but simply a mosaic of people who are mixed and cannot be separated or divided, according to the old 1949 Armistice Line.

 

Now in the area that is referred to as East Jerusalem, that is, an area north, south, and east of the city's 1967 borders, there are roughly a half a million Jews and Arabs living in intertwined neighborhoods. There are no entirely Palestinian areas that can be split off from the rest of Jerusalem. All neighborhoods are an integral and inextricable part of modern Jerusalem, so building in them in no way precludes the possibility of a two-state solution.

 

Ramat Shlomo, the area of the proposed new construction at the center of the most recent row with the United States is a thriving community of over 100,000 Jews located between two larger Jewish communities, Ramat and French Hill. Its growth would not interfere with the contiguity of new Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. In every peace treaty that has ever been discussed, these areas would remain a part of Israel. No wonder the Israelis reacted so strongly when Obama called Ramat "a settlement." This was a change in the policies pursued by many previous U.S. administrations. For over 43 years, there has been a tacit agreement about construction, never something that constituted a problem in negotiations. The new policy was therefore seen as an Obama administration effort to force Israel to accept the division of Jerusalem, even before the peace talks start, taking yet another negotiating card off the table for the Israelis.

 

But what the world never remembers is what the Israelis can never forget. When Jordan controlled the eastern part of the city, including the Walled City, the Temple, and the ancient Wailing Wall, it permitted reasonably free access to Christian holy places. But the Jews? They were denied any access to the Jewish holy places. This was a fundamental departure from the tradition of freedom of religious worship in the Holy Land, which had evolved over centuries—not to speak of a violation of the undertaking given by Jordan in the Armistice Agreement concluded with Israel in 1949. Nobody should expect the Jews to risk that again.

 

Since Israel reunited Jerusalem in 1967, it has faithfully protected the rights and security of Christians, Arabs, and Jews. Muslims have enjoyed the very freedom the Jews were denied under Jordanian occupation. Christians now control the Ten Stages of the Cross; Muslims control the Dome of the Rock. Yet the Palestinians often stone Jewish civilians praying at the Western Wall below. Their leaders and imams repeatedly deny the Jewish connection to Jewish holy sites. Freedom of religion is an American value that should not be compromised.

 

That is not all. Dividing Jerusalem would put Palestinian forces and rockets a few miles from Israel's Knesset. Also, the Jewish neighborhoods bordering Arab neighborhoods would be within range of light weapon and machine-gun fire. This is exactly what happened after the Oslo Accords, when the Palestinians fired from Beit Jalla toward Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhoods, wounding scores of residents.

 

The vast majority of Israelis believe Jerusalem must be shared and not divided. Even the great Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin, who made the Oslo agreement, said, "There are not two Jerusalems; there is only one Jerusalem." The status of Jerusalem will be on the table if and when Palestinians and Israelis talk. But Obama's policy reversal has yet again given the Palestinians every reason not to negotiate. Now, the positions of both the Palestinians and the Israelis have hardened and the possibility of serious negotiations is again thrown into chaos.

 

Mortimer B. Zuckerman

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

 

Sage Advice for Obama: First Do No Harm on Middle East

 

by  Jennifer Rubin

 

From an unlikely publication (Huffington Post) and from unlikely sources (a Wharton professor and a negotiations "expert") comes some generally sound advice for Obama on the Palestinian conflict. The article recommends that Obama:

1. Avoid proposing simple solutions to complex problems. Look for causal linkages, not just proximity. Stopping movie downloads won't stop the rain, and stopping the construction of new settlements won't end centuries of misunderstanding and grievances.

2. Work with these linkages and with the situation as it is, not as he would want it to be. For example, if the Palestinians think they can get all of Palestine just by waiting, President Obama needs to create a better option, either by making it clear that they cannot just wait, or by offering them something they cannot get just by waiting.

3. Understand the complexity of the problem as it is. Making a problem undiscussable does not make the problem go away. President Obama seems to believe that use of phrases like "radical Islam" suggests Americans view Islamic states as terrorists and that the phrase should be banished; actually, this phrase suggests that the United States does make important distinctions between violent terrorists and others who disagree with us strongly but express this through different means. But denying the existence of radicals does not make them or their grievances go away. As long as the Islamic world feels it has real grievances, then palliatives, as expensive as they may be for the Israelis, are not a real solution. And as long as there are Islamic radicals there will be threats to the West, some of them quite severe. While some of these grievances and the problems they create may require real concessions from the West, others may require a truly forceful, even violent military response instead.

4. Above all, President Obama should do no harm. Although this is a Medical School takeaway, not a law school one, it is worth mentioning in conclusion. The law of unintended consequences suggests that any time anyone adjusts a complex system, the results may be surprising. In this instance, we suspect that President Obama and the rest of the world would find the results of this stare-down with Israel disappointing as well.

I'll take exception to the authors' objection to the use of the phrase "radical Islam" (although they aptly note that Obama's aversion to descriptions of our enemies amounts to foolish denial). However, they get to the root of Obama's error in dealing with the Palestinian problem: he's not operating in the real world. It's no accident his Cairo speech zipped past 60 years of Palestinian rejectionism or that he avoids talking about Israel's multiple offers of a Palestinian state — these are unpleasant facts at odds with his linkages and that suggest he is, at best, doing nothing productive and, at worst, making things worse.

It is ironic in the extreme that this is the "ideology is so yesterday" crowd. In fact, "ideology" in the worst sense of the word — and as the Obami intend it, as a dig at George W. Bush — is the insistence on seeing the world through dogmatic blinders, impervious to facts and reason. It is precisely what Obama is all about when it comes to the U.S.-Palestinian conflict and why he is dangerously not following the most important bit of advice — "do no harm."

 

Jennifer Rubin

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

 

It's Not Just the Usual Suspects Taking Potshots at Israel

 

by Clifford D. May

That’s no way to be treated by a Gray Lady.

It really is open season on Israel, isn’t it? While Iran’s jihadi rulers continue their drive for nuclear weapons, while Syria transfers thousands of missiles to Hezbollah, while leaders of the Palestinian Authority glorify Islamist terrorists, the New York Times finds President Obama’s “willingness to challenge Israel . . . refreshing.”

“The question,” Times editorial writers add, is whether Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is able or willing to lead his country to a peace deal.” That’s the question?

Meanwhile, the Simon Wiesenthal Center is building a “Museum of Tolerance” in Jerusalem. Who could criticize such a project — except perhaps on the grounds that most of those living in or passing through Jerusalem already value tolerance? By contrast, a Museum of Tolerance in, say, Riyadh (where churches and synagogues are outlawed), or Cairo (from which Egyptian Jews have fled and where the ancient Christian community is increasingly oppressed), or Tehran (where the Baha’i are among the religious minorities most brutally persecuted) might push the envelope.

Nonetheless, the fraudulently named U.N. Human Rights Council claims that the museum is being constructed on sacred Muslim soil. Never mind that the building site — in West Jerusalem, not “Arab” East Jerusalem — has been used for decades as a municipal parking lot by Jewish, Muslim, and Christian motorists alike, with Muslim religious authorities voicing no objections.

But the cruelest cut in recent days was made by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who called on Israel to “continue building momentum toward a comprehensive peace by demonstrating respect for the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians, stopping settlement activity, and addressing the humanitarian needs in Gaza.” She implored Israeli leaders “to refrain from unilateral statements and actions that could undermine trust or risk prejudicing the outcome of talks.”

To reveal the razorblades embedded in this diplomatic apple, begin with this question: What “momentum toward a comprehensive peace” could Clinton possibly have in mind, considering that since President Obama came to office no senior Palestinian leaders have been willing to sit at the same table with Israeli leaders — as they had in the past?

As for Palestinians’ “legitimate aspirations,” in 2000 and again in 2008, Israeli leaders offered a grand bargain: an independent Palestinian state in all of Gaza, more than 95 percent of the West Bank, and a capital in East Jerusalem. In exchange, Israelis asked only for an end to the conflict and guarantees of future security. Palestinian leaders turned them down cold.

Then there’s Clinton’s reference to “humanitarian needs in Gaza,” a territory ruled by Hamas, designated a terrorist entity by the U.S. government and closely allied with the theocrats in Tehran. Hamas’s leaders have said — repeatedly and unambiguously — that they intend to use all and any means to exterminate Israelis. They believe this to be their religious obligation. Despite that, Israel supplies fuel, food, and medicine to Gazans. What other nation has ever done that for an entity waging a genocidal war against it?

Finally, Clinton talks about Israelis undermining trust. On what basis are Israelis supposed to trust people who say they want to slaughter them — and do so whenever they get the chance? As for Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestinian Authority, his “moderate” Fatah political faction continues to celebrate jihadi terrorists including, recently, Dalal Mughrabi, a bus hijacker who massacred 37 Israeli civilians — 13 of them children. Abbas’s government television station recently broadcast a sermon calling Jews “enemies of God and humanity.” The sermon continued: “The Prophet says: ‘You shall fight the Jews and kill them. . . . Thus, this land will be liberated only by means of Jihad.’”

When Clinton was a U.S. senator representing the state of New York, she seemed to appreciate the existential threat Israel faces day after day. When she was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, she seemed to grasp that, as a matter of both principle and policy, the United States needs to stand up to its enemies and stand up for its allies.

But as President Obama’s secretary of state, Clinton has conducted Middle East diplomacy in a way that can be described as, at best, lacking coherence. At worst — borrowing a phrase from scholar Bernard Lewis — she is helping make America appear “harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.” How can any good come of that?

Editorial writers at the Times may not understand. Often, they think they are taking positions when they are merely striking poses. The U.N. Human Rights Council has its own agenda — which is self-evidently anti-Israeli and anti-American. But a woman as smart and tough-minded as Hillary Clinton ought to know better.

Clifford D. May, a former New York Times foreign correspondent, is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism and Islamism.

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

 

Blindness to the Real Syrian Problem

by  Jennifer Rubin

Cliff May wonders whether Dianne Feinstein is dumb or just pretending to be. Feinstein on the shipment of missiles to Hezbollah and the potential for war, pronounces: "There's only one thing that's going to solve it, and that's a two-state solution." Thunk. As May observes, is it really possible that the "chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, believes that Hezbollah, Iran, and Syria would be satisfied with a two-state solution — assuming that one of those states is Israel"? Well, to be honest, that is not far removed from the claptrap we hear from the administration, which has reduced every issue to a pretext for "focusing" (haven't we focused for decades?) on the non-existent peace process.

For a saner take on what is really at issue in Syria, read Lee Smith's compelling piece on the SCUDs and what the administration is doing about that situation. The contrast to the prior administration is stark:

This past week was a bad one for those eager to reach out to Syria. It was reported that Damascus is believed to have transferred to Hezbollah Scud missiles that would be able to reach any part of Israel. "The threat that Syria might transfer more advanced weapons to Hezbollah has existed for a long time," says Elliott Abrams, who oversaw Middle East affairs in the George W. Bush White House and is now a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "With respect to Scuds, it has been understood the Israelis would interdict such a shipment. I do not recall the Bush Administration ever expressing disagreement with that view."

The Obama Administration seems to feel differently. Initial reports explained that the White House convinced the Israelis not to attack the arms shipment and promised that Kerry would deliver a strong message to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during his visit to Damascus early this month. U.S. officials confirmed Kerry did indeed convey the Americans' displeasure even as more recent reports suggest that the Obama Administration now believes that the actual transfer may not have occurred.

As Smith notes, the great danger here is that Syria and its senior partner Iran will once again perceive American weakness if we don't respond (with something more meaningful than a tongue-lashing for the Syrian minister) to this latest act of aggression. ("If we let Syria off the hook for its proven acts of terror against U.S. military and diplomatic personnel, as well as U.S. allies in Israel, Lebanon, and Iraq, we have all but announced that in the event of future attacks on the U.S. homeland we will never retaliate against the states without which so-called stateless terrorist organizations cannot exist. We will have effectively disabled any deterrence we have against our adversaries and made our cities vulnerable to anyone who can lie his way past the Transportation Security Administration.") But we should not be reassured that it is John Kerry delivering the message to Damascus, Smith says. He — and his wife, we learn — have a soft spot for Bashar al-Assad.

So Feinstein is not alone in her silliness. Unfortunately, the president and those carrying out his foreign policy are equally confused.

 

Jennifer Rubin

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

 

Their weapons are the lawsuit (900 and counting against the IDF alone)

 

 

by William Mehlman

 

Their weapons are the lawsuit (900 and counting

against the IDF alone): the "fact-finding" mission,

the international arrest warrant, the academic

boycott, the apartheid charge.

 

Even were one to accept Prime Minister Netanyahu's "bottom-line" assurance that his shutdown of Jewish housing construction in Judea and Samaria is a "one-time step for a limited time period," or that now "hooked," the Israeli fish is ever going to be let off the hook by Obama & Global Associates, the bedrock damage done to the Jewish State's most fundamental legal cover by this act could well be irreparable.

 

The first and most immediate casualty of the "freeze" is the July 1950 "Law of Return," characterized by then- Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion as "the unchanging law of Jewish history, reflecting the principle whereby the State of Israel was established." At the heart of Israel's raison d'etre, it cast in concrete the universal Jewish right of citizenship and settlement in Israel. The language of the law, moreover, is quite specific. In prescient anticipation of changes in the contours of Israel, it deliberately does not confine the right of Jewish settlement to "Medinat Yisrael," the "State of Israel" as it existed in the summer of 1950, but. rather extends it to "Erez Yisrael," the "Land of Israel," wherever and however future events might define the parameters of the "National Jewish Home."

 

Given that the exercise of the right of settlement in "Eretz Yisrael" is contingent on the availability of places to live, the government's ban on housing construction (however "limited") in Judea and Samaria, the heartland of "Eretz Yisrael," renders that right and the law underlying it essentially meaningless. Beyond that, the government's action widens the shadow over the status of 120 Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, all of which draw their legitimacy from the same legal wellspring.

 

Even more ominous than its marginalization of the Law of Return is the can of worms the government may have opened in its outright snub of the 1948 "Area of Jurisdiction and Powers Ordinance." It would be a grave error to let its cumbersome title obscure the impact of this ruling on Israeli history, avers Howard Grief, attorney, constitutional scholar and legal adviser to the late Professor Yuval Ne'eman, Minister of Energy in the Shamir government. Embodied in the September, 1948, "Land of Israel Proclamation," the Jurisdiction and Powers Ordinance officially recognized all laws applicable to the State of Israel as applicable with equal force to "any area of Palestine" that came under the authority of the Israel Defense Forces. It was under that umbrella that Israel settled and populated major portions of the Negev and the Galilee-not allocated to the Jewish State in the 1947 UN Partition- that came into its possession in the 1948-49 War of Independence.

 

The Israeli Left needs occasional reminding that those lands are part and parcel of what it anctimoniously refers to as "Israel proper." It was also in part as a result of the Jurisdiction and Powers

 

Ordinance that Israel saw itself within legal bounds in creating 142 Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza and additional communities on the Golan Heights, territories that fell to the IDF in the Six-Day War. None of them, needless to say, were allocated to Israel under the Partition. Israel may consider itself fortunate if new challenges to its territorial status do not ensue from the fresh openings it has provided its worldwide legion of enemies and ill-wishers.

 

If amidst concerns over Ahmadinejad's centrifuges, Hezbollah's rockets and the mass murderers being set free in exchange for Gilad Schalit, Israel needs to worry about the deference it pays to 60 year old laws, it's because it is in the courts, the agencies of the UN and other international bodies and among a phalanx of well funded, intensely hostile NGOs that the battle for the survival of the Jewish State is being played out. The suicide bombers have been replaced by lawyers and lobbyists. Their weapons are the lawsuit (900 and counting against the IDF alone): the "fact-finding" mission (UN and ad hoc); the international arrest warrant and "universal jurisdiction statute" (arrests and trials of Israeli military and public figures anywhere, any time); the petition, the initiative, the academic boycott, the apartheid charge-all directed toward the single aim of delegitimizing the Jewish State. The targets are no longer buses and coffee shops, but the legality of Israel's presence on its land and its sovereign right to defend that land and its people.

 

On this battlefield, no mistake can prove more costly than ignoring the law of unintended consequences, as Netanyahu appears to be doing with this "freeze." Nothing more painfully illustrates that fact than Israel's 2000 middle of the night abandonment of its anti-terrorist stronghold in south Lebanon (along with its South Lebanese Army ally of 18 years) and its unilateral evacuation and destruction of 22 Jewish communities in Gaza. The first gave sinew to the then fledgling Iranian terrorist proxy Hezbollah, for which

the Jewish State was repaid six years later with 4,000 Katyusha rockets over Haifa and the Galilee.

 

Today, as a well equipped army with 15 times that number of rockets, it threatens a major retaliatory response to any Israeli strike at Iran's nuclear installations. The unintended consequences of Ariel Sharon's handover of Gaza to Hamas continue to wind themselves like a steel daisy-chain around Israel's throat. From this single most irrational act by any government in the state's 61-year history ensued a four year rocket bombardment of the western Negev, the termination of which required a full-scale IDF air and ground offensive into Gaza, causing minimal but inevitable casualties (lovingly documented by a hostile media) among the civilians behind whom the Hamas terrorists shielded their dirty work. This resulted in near universal condemnation of Israel as a heartless human rights violator, a charge underwritten and codified in the damning Goldstone Report, soon to be featured at the UN Security Council. The campaign to strip Israel of its right of self-defense against a terrorist organization pledged to its destruction has exceeded the wildest imaginings of its planners.

 

What have the legal potholes Netanyahu has dug for himself with the freeze availed him? Precious little at this counting. They have no more taken Barack Obama "off his back" than has his embrace of the "two-state solution." "The Americans drove me nuts," he was quoted by Ynet to have confessed to a meeting of Likud branch members. "They wanted more, also in Jerusalem." In addition to concessions on Jerusalem, moreover, the White House, according to Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick, is demanding that Israel allow the Palestinian "Security Forces," equipped and trained by U.S. General Keith Dayton, to set up shop in Judean and Samarian areas currently under full IDF control and that Israel "surrender land to Fatah in the strategically crucial Jordan Valley."

 

The Hebrew daily Yediot Aharonot further reports that as a precondition to talks with the Palestinians, President Obama will be asking Israel to formally declare its acceptance of a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and eastern Jerusalem and agree to cleanse those areas of all Jews. "So far from winning American support, or at least causing the White House to ease its bullying," Glick concludes, Obama regards Netanyahu's "decision to implement a militarily irrational, bigoted policy of prohibiting Jews from building in Israel's heartland as a drop in the bucket."

 

From Mahmoud Abbas, the prime minister has gotten a complete brushoff. Yet, his flat rejection of "peace talks" unless the construction freeze is extended to include Jerusalem, is raising few eyebrows. The "President" of the Palestinian Authority can hardly be seen as less demanding than Israel's selfappointed masters in Washington. Former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy, for one, is not surprised. Like all of America's past promises of "reciprocity" from Abbas in return for Israeli concessions and "gestures," he asserts this one also runs aground on the thorny fact that Abbas is "incapable of being a partner to peace negotiations." The guy Obama really needs to accomplish that purpose, Halevy submits, is someone Mahmoud Abbas is not and will never be - "a Palestinian leader acceptable to all the Palestinians."

 

International applause for the moratorium has also been notably absent. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's hopes for a joint declaration of support from America's "Quartet" partners, Russia, the European Union and the UN, were dashed by Moscow's reservations to two items in the text proposed by Washington: an acknowledgement of the "Jewish identity" of the State of Israel and that the dividing line between Israel and a future Palestine would be determined by developments on the ground, including the anticipated Israeli annexation of major settlement blocs.

 

What the prime minister's accession to the freeze certainly did achieve was almost uniform settler denunciation and a deep but at present not unbridgeable rift within the Likud sector of the cabinet. Ministers Silvan Shalom, Gilad Erdan, Moshe Kahalon. Yuli Edelstein and Limor Livnat were unanimous in their condemnation of the decision, with Livnat declaring that "we have fallen into the hands of a horrible U.S. administration" and Erdan refusing to provide inspectors from his Environmental Protection

Ministry to help enforce the freeze. Shalom, a late convert to the "Land of Israel" movement, declared that if the Likud was now abandoning its championing of the settlement enterprise, such a turnabout would have to be deliberated by the party's institutions.

 

At least three of the "Security Cabinet" members who voted 11 to 1 to back Netanyahu on the freeze (Minister Uzi Landau of "Yisrael Beteinu" cast the lone dissenting vote) were experiencing varying degrees of buyer's remorse. Stung by an avalanche of "Stop Work" orders on the settlements, propelled by Defense Minister Ehud Barak within hours after the announcement of the moratorium, Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe Yaalon told the Hebrew weekly Makor Rishon that he was particularly disturbed by the blanket manner in which the decision was being implemented. "It was not intended to be an overall freeze of all construction," he said. "This is not what we meant. Whatever was already being built and approved should have continued to be built." He vowed to quit the government if the moratorium was not lifted after 10 months. Joining Yaalon in a request to Netanyahu that he rein in an overly zealous Barak, Minister Without Portfolio Benny Begin promised that the end of the moratorium would see a resumption of housing construction in Judea and Samaria "at a faster pace than before the freeze." Likud Central Committee Chairman and Communications Minister Moshe Kahalon caustically noted that "the U.S. did not send us flowers," while the Europeans were "unilaterally declaring east Jerusalem to be the Palestinian capital."

 

As for the settlers, a column in the Hebrew daily Ha'aretz by the paper's chief political correspondent Yossi Verder entitled "Worst of All Worlds," seemed to say it all: "If Tsipi Livni were in power today," Verder opined, "she would not have had the courage to freeze construction. And if she had, she would have been left without a government because Shas and Yisrael Beitenu (her prospective coalition partners) would have walked. Netanyahu, however, can do what he wants." Verder touches on a key point in that last sentence, because for all the grousing among the Likud cabinet members and the Likud Knesset caucus as a whole, not one of the senior members has risen to lead a revolt, nor have any of them attacked the prime minister directly. They are not ready to bring this government down-at least not yet.. Virtually all of their anger has been vented at Barak, the leader of a fractured, diminishing, unpopular Labor party. However emotionally satisfying, that expedient may have limited shelf-life. All of which raises an intriguing question: When push comes to shove, as it inevitably will when Obama demands that he acquiesce to the division of Jerusalem ("One Capital for Two Nations"), in order to lure or keep Mahmoud Abbas at the bargaining table, will Netanyahu, faced with a revolt that must bring his premiership crashing to earth, finally stand his ground, or might he do something else? The "something else" scenario initially posed by Verder and now gaining increasing traction, is that the Prime Minister, flushed with the momentum of a perceived  diplomatic "breakthrough" on the Palestinian or Syrian "track," might-a la Ariel Sharon in 2005-split the Likud, taking a required one-third (but probably more) of the faction with him, and join forces with

Barak and his nine "loyalists" (none of whom would presumably cavil at deserting a drowning Labor party $40 million in debt) and, with a bunch of Tsipi Livnihating Kadima defectors in tow, cobble together a new "centrist" Likud. Verder believes Barak has been banking on just such a turn of events "from the moment he entered the government. A government of 'B's'-Bibi and Barak-may be his last opportunity to succeed Netanyahu as prime minister," Verder argues. As for Netanyahu, Verder says nothing about the man would surprise him: "Since taking office less than a year ago, Netanyahu's principles and declarations of the past have been put to the test repeatedly and each time a new reality emerges victorious."

 

Is such a scenario within the realm of possibility? If we are to credit MK Ophir Pines-Paz, one of the four Labor "rebels" who have fought the party's entry into the Likud coalition from the outset, a variation of it could be in the making. Pines-Paz related to Verder the details of a meeting he recently had with an unidentified Likud cabinet minister. In the course of the conversation, Pines-Paz says, he was "suddenly asked" what he thought about Likud and Labor running on a joint list in the next election, but with each party retaining an autonomous existence. Queried as to the genesis of the idea, the Likud minister said it was put to him by Netanyahu. He said he told Netanyahu he could live with it. Knowing Netanyahu, he added, he didn't think the prime minister would have broached the subject "if something wasn't cooking." Pines-Paz tossed the idea around with several of his colleagues and "not one of them fell off his chair."

 

Be that as it may, it could be a signal for the rest of the country to fasten its seat belt.

 

William Mehlman is AFSI's representative in Israel..

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

 

The U.S.-Israel Crisis May Be Over and We Can "Celebrate" the Achievement of Nothing?

by Barry Rubin

Something very interesting is happening very quietly. The Obama Administration appears to have forgotten about its quarrel with Israel, even though it is being reported with increasing reliability that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to suspend all construction in eastern or northern Jerusalem outside the 1967 lines. Maybe he has given an assurance to slow things down and avoid anything the U.S. government considers provocative.

Yet the fact is that Netanyahu has not bowed to U.S. pressure in a meaningful way, and the Obama Administration has decided to ignore it and pretend it now has a formula for getting talks going again. Yes, folks, they're coming any moment now. One day.

Goodness, gracious! This administration's great achievement isn't going to be making peace in the Middle East but succeeding in achieving Israel-PA negotiations! I can practically hear the 2012 presidential election ads now: President Obama Got the Israelis and Palestinians Talking!

Sometimes this administration's foreign policy seems like a man who wants a glass of water, exits the building instead of going to the water cooler, gets lost, falls into several holes, narrowly escapes being hit by some cars, and finally arrives home after a very long time. He takes a look at the empty glass in his hand, looks into the camera, and then confidentally announces to the audience: "Now, I am going to get a glass of water!"

A large, albeit diminishing, portion of the audience cheers, while pundits announce that he is really working hard on getting that glass of water, has a terrific strategy, doubt he will soon be sipping away, and everyone sure likes him!

I'm not in the audience booing. I'm shouting: Please, for goodness sakes, pull yourself together and do better!

But I digress. Clearly, for the moment, the White House has realized that it has gone too far. Three different polls show large numbers of Jewish voters saying they are very unhappy with Obama and that Americans as a whole regard the bash-Israel behavior as the most negative aspect of the president's foreign policy. Members of his own party in Congress are revolting against it, as well as against his strategies on Iran and Syria.

Obama no longer "owns" the Democratic party and November elections are looming up to reinforce that lesson by showing Democrats the cost of his mistakes for themselves personally.

And, of course, once again the administration has painted itself into a corner on the "peace process" issue and has nothing to gain.

So now there is talk about all sorts of gimmicks to get negotiations going between Israel and the Paleestinian Authority (PA). I won't go into these since none matter unless actually offered formally. What is important, however, is going to be whether the PA wants to talk, directly or indirectly, as well as whether the administration is going to do anything to push them. Israel has been, and for the last year made it clear, ready and eager to talk.

Perhaps you've heard the expression, "We can do this the hard way or the easy way." The implication is that if the person spoken to decides to cooperate all will be fine but if they don't things can get unpleasant. Despite very occasional exceptions--which usually seem directed at Israel--the Obama Administration does this to itself, chooses the hard way, and still doesn't get anywhere.

Things could have been quite different. A year ago, the White House could have played it smart and been playing host and facilitator for Israel-PA negotiations all this time. Sure they wouldn't produce a lot but would gain a little, kept things peaceful, and make the White House look good. Instead, there's been one mess after another.

For the moment, the government seems to want to move out of Mess Mode. It has Iran to deal with, growing domestic discontent, and an economy that is responding far worse than the media cheerleaders claim. So it needs to back off confrontation with Israel.

Here's what I think, is an extraordinarily important point. The Obama Administration is neither radical satanic nor moderately pragmatic in doing foreign policy. It is rather fettered by a set of ideas, lack of skills, and close-mindedness to criticism that make for an inept approach which is not meeting the needs of U.S. interests. Through action, the Obama administration has not done one big bad thing internationally. The problem stems from its frustrating inactions, misleading words, and dangerous ideas.

What might be called the administration's glamor masks the fact that Obama is in the Gerald Ford-Jimmy Carter-George W. Bush class of president regarding competence. He is not in the Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, etc., category.

Adherents can boast that Obama kept us out of war and unpopularity, though perhaps he is laying the basis for such things in future, as tends to happen when international affairs are not well conducted.

So the great Jerusalem construction affair seems to be over. But where does that leave us? After a lot of shouting and wandering around, right back at the beginning.

Thanks for reading this far. Since this is a long article, you can stop now or continue on to:

Optional satirical section with clever ending:

Or, in the words best sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford (albeit slightly altered here) in that great coal-mining song, "Sixteen Tons":

You wait sixteen months
an' what do you get?
Another month wasted, enemies stronger yet.
Ahmadinejad don't you get nukes cause I can't do,
Anything effective to prevent you!

There is another verse which, left in the original words of the song, give some good advice about an important part of conducting foreign policy. Some have depended too much on this approach but the Obama Administration would be well-advised to add it to its repetoire (and also thing of using it against enemies rather than friends):

"Well, if you see me comin',
better step aside.
A lotta men didn't, an' a lotta men died.
One fist of iron, the other of steel.
If the right one don't get you,
then the left one will."

Yes, the "left" fist of America, that is liberal Democrats historically, knew how to be tough on enemies and stand up for U.S. interests, too. What's really important in this regard is not that the president of the United States be a white man or a black man, a glib man or an inarticulate man, or even a man at all (in gender terms). What's necessary in a time like this is that the chief executive be a Truman.

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.

 

A Tale of Two Palestinian Authorities

 

by Jonathan Spyer

 

Four years after the Hamas victory in elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council, and three years since the movement's successful coup in Gaza, the split in the Palestinian national movement has an increasing look of permanence about it. This has major implications for the currently frozen diplomatic process.

This week, Dr. Salah al-Bardawil, a leading Hamas official, said that efforts toward Palestinian reconciliation are "frozen." In an interview with Quds press, Bardawil stated that communication between Hamas authorities in Gaza and the government of Egypt on the issue of reconciliation had ceased. Talks were now restricted to "matters such as permission for patients to leave Gaza for treatment or the return of deceased Palestinians across the Rafah crossing."

Bardawil's message was confirmed on Monday by Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in a speech in Damascus. Mashaal said Hamas had been urged by Arab officials to accept Quartet conditions, including recognition of Israel, in return for changes to an Egyptian-brokered reconciliation agreement. He said that Hamas had reiterated its refusal. Addressing "the Americans, the Zionists, and everyone," he asserted that Hamas would not "succumb to your terms. We won't pay a political price no matter how long the blockade lasts. God is with us and he will grant us victory."

These statements indicate that there is now no process under way toward ending the Palestinian political divide. On the ground, meanwhile, the rival Ramallah and Gaza Palestinian authorities are entrenching themselves.

PARALLEL TO the rise of Hamas in Gaza, and its ongoing popularity in the West Bank, Fatah is currently in a process of severe decline. The movement failed to embark on a major project of reform following its election defeat in 2006. As a result, it remains riven by factionalism and corruption. It is also, increasingly, irrelevant.

The key Palestinian leader in the West Bank today is Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. Fayyad is not a Fatah member, and his government holds power not as a result of that movement's authority. Rather, Fayyad is in effect an appointee of the West. The security forces led by Gen. Keith Dayton, which keep him in place, are Western organized and financed, and not beholden to any political faction. His gradualist approach is quite alien to Palestinian political culture, and despite the undoubted improvements this approach has brought to daily life in the West Bank, the level of his support is uncertain.

It remains widely believed that without the presence of the "Dayton" forces and more importantly without the continued activities of the IDF in the West Bank, the area would fall to Hamas in a similar process to that which took place in Gaza.

Veteran Palestinian political analyst Yezid Sayigh recently noted that both the Gaza and Ramallah governments are dependent for their economic survival on foreign assistance. The Fayyad government has an annual $2.8 billion budget, of which one half consists of direct foreign aid. The Hamas authorities, meanwhile, announced a budget of $540 million, of which $480 million is to come from outside (Iran). The dependence on foreign capital reflects perhaps the salient element shared by both Palestinian governments - they are both able to continue to exist because of the interests of rival outside powers that they do so.

The split in the Palestinian national movement is ultimately a function of the broader strategic situation of regional cold war. It is thus likely to continue for as long as this regional reality pertains.

The Middle East is currently divided between a loose alliance of states aligned with the US and the West, and an Iran-led "resistance bloc" of states and movements. Hamas is able to maintain its sovereign enclave in Gaza as a result of the willingness of Iran to arm and finance it. The Gaza enclave serves Iran's purposes well. It gives Teheran an effective veto over any attempt to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. It also gives non-Arab Iran a direct point of entry into the single most important regional conflict in the eyes of the masses of the Arab world.

The West, which also attaches massive importance to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has itself in turn been prepared to create, finance and underwrite a version of Palestinian politics and governance - that of Fayyad - which is to its liking, once it became clear that the Palestinians themselves were not going to do this.

The result is that Palestinian politics has been thoroughly penetrated by the larger regional standoff. Each of the regional blocs has its own Palestinian authority, which acts as a laboratory and advertisement for its preferred methods. The Gaza version favors strict Islamic governance and armed struggle to the end against Israel. The Ramallah government - according to Sayigh the less representative of the two - stands for alignment with the West and proclaimed acceptance of a negotiated solution.

The proudest achievement of PLO and Fatah leader Yasser Arafat was the establishment of a single, authoritative Palestinian national movement not beholden to or dependent on any outside power. Such a movement no longer exists. The split represents a profound change in Palestinian politics, which calls into question many of the basic assumptions regarding the conflict which have become received wisdom in Israel and the West over the last couple of decades.

 

 

 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.