Middle East and Terrorism

Friday, February 19, 2010

Were the Oslo Accords a state of mind?

by Dr. Alex Grobman

Finding a solution to the Arab/Israeli conflict has been a constant source of frustration for American administrations. Each new U.S. president assumes he can resolve this intractable dispute either through the sheer force of his personality or his unique understanding of the problems in the region.

The Oslo Peace Accords -- which were officially signed at a public ceremony in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 13, 1993, in the presence of PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and U.S. President Bill Clinton -- is among the most glaring example of how American presidents are naive about how to settle the conflict.

In "Doomed to Failure?: The Politics and Intelligence of the Oslo Peace Process," Ofira Seliktar, a professor of political science at Gratz College and adjunct professor at Temple University, analyzes the environment in which the Oslo Accords evolved, and the reasons why the agreement failed.

The downfall of the Soviet Union and the defeat of Iraq in the Gulf War in 1991 were viewed by the Israeli peace activists and their supporters in the West as a sure sign that the climate was ripe to start the Oslo negotiations that lead to the Declaration of Principles.

Shimon Peres, the most vigorous proponent of this view, believed that a new Middle East had emerged that would prevail over the "irrational" and "tribalist" attitudes like extreme nationalism and religious fundamentalism among the Arabs throughout the region.

Once peace was achieved, peace activists expected there would be an added bonus: Israel would probably abandon its own "tribal-particularistic culture shaped by the ultraorthodox and national religious Zionists in favor of a more universalistic-secular creed."

Seliktar describes how the negotiations began, the principles upon which they were based, and the Labor party's attempt to implement the accord even as Yasser Arafat's legitimacy continued to be repudiated. She explores how the Likud government attempted to effect a midcourse modification of the agreement, and Labor's efforts to circumvent and ignore PA blatant violations of the interim provisions of the Accord in order to achieve a final peace settlement.

Those who want to understand the way in which Israel predicts and manages political change will find this book of special interest. Seliktar shows us why the Oslo Accords were doomed from the start.

This is not an intellectual exercise. The reasons for the failure still exist: Israeli and Western academics and media continue to believe that if only Israel were to make more concessions, there will be peace. Overlooking Arab corruption and incitement to violence in the media, schools, mosques, and in the political arena to conclude a deal is a common ploy. Those who raised valid objections to the process, even in the security community, were vilified. IDF officers who questioned Oslo found their promotions blocked.

Seliktar also found that the appeal of "lucrative deals" with senior Palestinian "security bosses" was sufficient for some Israelis to embrace Oslo. Inexplicably, there was little interest among the Israeli public in "exposing Oslo for what it really was." As one analyst observed, "Oslo was not a political process, but a state of mind among dreamers of dreams and peddlers of illusion who misled an entire people."

It is too easy to place the blame on Israeli leaders alone. The Israeli public has to assume the greatest responsibility for going along with this farce. Israeli leaders succeeded in misleading the Israeli public because her citizens were unwilling to accept what should have been so obvious to everyone.

Nothing the Arabs said or did during the Oslo period, before or since, suggests anything other than their desire for the demise of the Jewish state. Oslo was a dangerous fantasy that continues to this day among segments of the Israeli and Jewish population throughout the world.

Israel can ill afford to live with such illusions and fantasy. Reading what the Arabs say, and how they act should be sufficient to appreciate their true intentions. This book provides additional insight into why the Oslo Accords failed and why we cannot assume our leaders know what is best.

Dr. Alex Grobman is a Hebrew University trained historian.

Israeli and Middle East Options.

by Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely, US Army (Ret)

On 9/11, Americans were attacked and the World Trade Center's destroyed along with the deaths of almost 3,000 innocents in New York, Washington D.C. and over the fields of Western Pennsylvania. It was pre-emptive attack and a horrific unthinkable act that arose from great and thorough planning of al Qaeda and its radical Islamists followers. At this point in history, Israel is facing such a dilemma as it seriously contemplates the consequences of a threatened nuclear/missile and ground attack from Iran and her proxies. Does Israel act preemptively to potentially protect its territory and six million citizens and potentially precipitate a full-on regional conflict or anxiously wait while Iran inches closer to nuclear launch capabilities and follows through with its threats of "Death to Israel?"

The media has been fraught with reports about Israel's action to this Iranian attack that appears more real each day in passing. Israel does not require a green light from the U.S. as a sovereign nation and "needs to do what it has to do." It is now a political decision for Benjamin Netanyahu and his government. With the recent successful medium-range ballistic missile test and claims of 5,000 uranium-enrichment centrifuges and additional facilities, Ahmadinejad has brought the situation to a critical tipping point as the rest of the world (to include the U.S.) sits, appeases and threatens more sanctions and provides almost no support to the Iranian Opposition. A Chamberlain-type approach historically spells disaster.

It is obvious that Iran is not open to negotiation or compromise. The risk appears to have elevated since Iran's recent missile tests and their build-up of Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon. Israel has been criticized for its failed efforts during Hezbollah's war against Israel in 2006 and the Gaza withdrawal. The fact is that Hezbollah now has three times the number of missiles it possessed during the 2006 war and now has over 60,000 trained ground combat foot soldiers capable of penetrating the northern border into Israel. Intelligence also is reporting that Iran's plan is to neutralize all Israel air bases by torrential missile attacks from Southern Lebanon. Syria has reportedly shipped Fateh-110 missiles to Hezbollah, able to destroy Israeli cities and the air fields. The secret transfer of the mobile surface-to-surface Syrian-made Fateh-110 (range 250km) missile to Hezbollah sparked the prediction Friday, February 5th, from an unnamed U.S. official that cross-border arms smuggling from Syria into Lebanon outside state control was occurring. Military sources report that Israel warned Syria through at least two diplomatic channels against Hezbollah of having and using these lethal weapons, which are capable of reaching almost every Israel city.

How should Israel deter an Iran, both from launching direct missile attacks and from dispersing nuclear assets from the Iran homeland and its terrorist proxies? There are obvious and real "fingerprints" all over the wall that necessitates action. This is especially significant because Ahmadinejad states that soon there will be a world without the United States and Israel. Coupled with his regular pronouncements to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, this sends serious nuclear alarm signals that must be ignored.

A nuclear-armed Iran, whose president regularly calls for the annihilation of Israel, is an intolerable threat to the world and existence of the Jewish state. There is no quarter for acceptance of an Iranian bomb, which could set in motion regional proliferation to come as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Syria could potentially acquire nuclear capabilities. The geopolitical and economic consequences of an attack, although necessary for self-preservation, would be dire. Iran could retaliate by escalating attacks on U.S. military forces in Iraq and blocking the Strait of Hormuz and thus the flow of 25 percent of the world's oil. It could also decrease oil production and raise prices, ultimately leading to a limited global recession and unleash its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, in the U.S., Lebanon and Gaza. The result could be a large-scale regional conflict. However, a well-thought out strategy articulated and executed by the U.S. and Israel would serve a strong deterrence. To be sure, it is not a simple or reassuring world. Strategic doctrine is always a complex matter, and any improved U.S. plan will have to be creative as well as comprehensive. If, for any reason, Iran is permitted to "go nuclear," our re-fashioned doctrine will certainly have to identify viable options for coexistence with that unpredictable country. In turn, these options will require enemy perceptions of persuasive American power and of a corresponding American willingness to actually use this power.

According to some reports, the Israeli Air Force has conducted secret training missions to prepare for a future attack which will be aided by the X-band radar system, capable of intercepting Iran's newly tested medium-range ballistic missiles, recently installed by U.S. military personnel. If Israel perceives that time is running out on Iran, it may be forced to muster the political will to defend itself from a nuclear nightmare that Ahmadinejad has repeatedly promised. We believe Iran is now nuclear capable to some degree.

America's President seems to naïvely think that the way to a world without nuclear weapons is going to happen in our lifetime. Perhaps, in the best of all possible worlds, all countries could actually turn back the clock, and impose effective limits on the always-evolving technologies of destruction. But we do not yet live in such a world, and the obvious incapacity to implement any real denuclearization means that (however reluctantly) we shall still have to reconcile our own national security with expanding nuclear proliferation. What option will Israel choose and what will their strategy be? And for that matter, what will the United States and other responsible nations do?

Paul E. Vallely, Major General (USA/Ret.) is an author, military strategist and Chairman of Stand Up America and Save Our Democracy Projects.

Egyptian Journalists Under Attack.

by Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury

The editor-in-chief of the Egyptian state-run weekly magazine, Al-Demokratiya, Ms. Hala Mustafa and the editor of another Egyptian newspaper, October, Mr. Hussein Serag, are facing undue threats a ban and an actual ban from the Egyptian Journalists Union for advocating normalization of relations with Israel.

Mustafa had earlier created a media controversy in September 2009 after receiving Israeli envoy Shalom Cohen at her home. Ms Mustafa went on to further shock the Journalists Union by saying she does not believe a boycott of Israel helps the Palestinians - and that she does not think unions should impose Israel boycotts.

The Egyptian Journalists Union [EJU] had sent Mustafa a letter of protest for having invited the Israeli ambassador, although, earlier EJU had decided to expel her.

In a response to questions by a Western news agency on what action Mustafa would be taking against such actions by EJU, she said that she would go to court to defend her views and her right to speak to whomever she wished.

Ms. Mustafa is reported to have claimed that the union’s ruling undermines freedom of the press; she apparently told a news agency that she “totally” rejects the warning that a ban might be imposed on her work, as it has been with Mr. Serag, and may seek legal redress for what she said was a “moral injury.

“It goes against freedom of expression … which the union should protect,” she said.

Mustafa was accused of violating a 1985 journalists union resolution that effectively bans members from meeting with Israeli officials or taking any other steps towards normalizing relations. Mustafa has repeatedly urged that the 1985 resolution be revoked.

“This resolution was adopted almost 25 years ago. It is high time that it is annulled in favor of encouraging dialogue with the Israelis,” Ms Mustafa said.

Egypt became the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, but relations have remained mostly on a governmental level; cultural exchanges and travel to Israel are discouraged by the Egyptian government.

Mustafa is a senior member of President Hosni Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party and an expert on Islamic militancy, as well as being an advocate for reform. She has in the past called the ban "obsolete" and out of touch with political developments in the region. She told the news agency Associated Press that the reprimand reflected the heavy-handedness and meddling in politics of security agencies, as well as the country's "ambiguous" policy toward Israel.

Meanwhile Hussain Serag, the deputy editor of October magazine, an Arab political and cultural weekly, was suspended by the union’s disciplinary committee for three months.

Mr. Serag, the magazine’s expert on Jewish affairs, has translated books from Hebrew to Arabic, the latest being Between Tel Aviv and Cairo, a memoir by Israel’s former ambassador to Egypt, David Sultan. Serag said all his visits to Israel were approved by the October magazine and security officials.

"My field of specialty is Israel and Hebrew. If I do not visit Israel, how can I understand these people?" Serag said. "This is hypocrisy, pure and simple."

Under Egyptian law Mr. Serag cannot work as a journalist while he is suspended from membership of his union.

The Egyptian Actors’ Union [EAU], like the Egyptian Journalists’ Union, has a long-standing ban on members having anything to do with their Israeli counterparts. Soon after the Journalists’ Union attacked Mustafa for her meeting with an Israeli diplomat, another prominent female union member - and superstar -- Ms. Hend Sabry, came under attack.

Sabry, a Tunesian who has starred in many of the most beloved Arab films of the past decade, lives in Egypt, and is a Goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, is not the first actor to come under threats by the Egyptian actor’s guild. Two years ago,

Amr Waked - a prominent international Egyptian actor who came to fame after his role alongside George Clooney in “Syriana” - also came under attack for his role in the BBC miniseries, “The House of Saddam.” Amr Waked acted alongside an Israeli actor in the film. Ironically, the Israeli actor, of Iraqi origins, was playing the role of the late dictator.

The outgoing Israeli Ambassador to Egypt, Shalom Cohen, told Galei Tzahal [Army Radio] that despite the treaties that exist between Israel and Egypt, there were numerous threats against his life during his tenure.

He added that despite diplomatic relations, the Egyptian media remains hostile to the Israeli diplomatic entourage, and that officials in Israel must act to compel a change.

I failed to find the exact words of outrage on EUJ and Egyptian Actors Union on their attitude towards these members of press and entertainment world. Hussein Serag and Hala Mustafa deserve the fullest international admiration and support for their bold stand in favor of global peace and for their courage in rejecting the threats of radicals.

Being an editor of a newspaper facing sedition, treason and blasphemy charges for confronting militant Islam in a Muslim nation, and for advocating relations between Bangladesh and Israel, I fully understand the gravity of a threat any individual would encounter when he or she speak in favor of the Jewish state.

Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury

A Usurpation of National Sovereignty.

by Peter Berkowitz

The controversy sparked by the Sept. 15, 2009, publication of the Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, otherwise known as the Goldstone Report, may appear to exclusively concern the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In fact, it involves a usurpation of national sovereignty by international law that has implications well beyond Israelis, Palestinians, and their neighborhood.

The latest round in this controversy got underway on January 29, when Israel delivered "Gaza Operation Investigations: An Update" to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The carefully crafted 46-page document affirmed Israel's unequivocal commitment to the law of armed conflict, and it reported substantial progress in investigating allegations of unlawful conduct against Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers and commanders arising from Operation Cast Lead.

Operation Cast Lead took place from Dec. 28, 2008, to Jan. 18, 2009. Israel carried out the operation because Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups had launched approximately 12,000 rocket and mortar attacks from the Gaza Strip since 2000 against civilian populations in southern Israel. Paradoxically, given that Hamas's deliberate and premeditated attacks on Israeli civilian populations and its use of fellow Palestinians as human shields were flagrant war crimes, international ire has from the outset swirled around the alleged criminality of Israel's operation.

It would be a mistake to think that Israel's lawyerly self-defense is of purely legal interest. This battle reflects a continuation of war and politics by other means. Indeed, the battle is fraught with weighty implications for all liberal democracies struggling against transnational terrorists.

Israel's update focuses on refuting one particular charge leveled by the Goldstone Report: that Israel's system for investigating allegations of wrongdoing in military operations "does not comply" with the requirements of international law. Israel also argues that the Goldstone Report's gravest accusations — that Israel systematically and deliberately targeted Palestinian civilians and civilian infrastructure — rest on unsubstantiated or demonstrably false claims.

In fact, over the course of 62 years of confronting asymmetric warfare, Israel has developed an exemplary system, combining military justice and civilian oversight, for enforcing the law of armed conflict. In July 2009, in "The Operation in Gaza: Factual and Legal Aspects," a 156-page paper published in anticipation of the Goldstone Report, Israel explained the system in detail. It also provided a provisional account of the IDF's investigations of approximately 100 complaints, including 13 that had led to criminal investigations. Yet the publication did nothing to deter Team Goldstone from usurping Israel's rights and responsibilities by producing and publishing at breakneck speed — it completed its mammoth 545-page report in five months — its own factual and legal findings.

Israel's update underscores that its system for handling misconduct allegations is substantially similar to those in United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and Australia. It also notes that to date the IDF has launched 150 investigations concerning the Gaza Operation, 36 of which have been referred for criminal investigation in which "criminal investigators have taken evidence from almost 100 Palestinian complainants and witnesses, along with approximately 500 IDF soldiers and commanders." For every one of the 34 allegations of harm to civilians or damage to civilian property discussed at length in the Goldstone Report, the IDF has initiated an investigation — 22 of which the IDF pursued before the Goldstone Report's publication, and 12 of which it promptly pursued after the report aired them.

The charge against Israel's investigation system is an astonishing attempt to shift power from sovereign states to international institutions. Based on it, the Goldstone Report recommends that courts in countries around the world claim authority under "universal jurisdiction" to try Israeli soldiers, commanders, and civilian leadership, and that the International Criminal Court proceed with investigations and prosecutions.

This flies in the face of the standard presumption. As Israel observes, "Under international law, the responsibility to investigate and prosecute alleged violations of the Law of Armed Conflict by a state's military forces falls first and foremost to that state." Such investigations are inevitably difficult and time-consuming: They involve not tightly controlled crime scenes, well-preserved evidence, and eyewitness testimony delivered close in time to the alleged crime, but ever-changing battlefields, constantly deteriorating evidence, and witnesses whose testimony can only be obtained weeks or months after the event.

By arrogating to itself, under the cover of international law, lead responsibility for investigating alleged Israeli unlawful conduct, the Goldstone Report set an ominous precedent that jeopardizes the rights and responsibilities of national self-government. By the same token, the Bush-administration officials who established the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, and the Obama-administration officials who chose to maintain it, could be exposed to the judgments of foreign courts and international tribunals.

The Goldstone Report's specific accusations of wrongdoing are also problematic. Much attention last week focused on the update's disclosure that the IDF had disciplined a brigadier general and a colonel for the unauthorized firing of explosive shells that landed in a populated area. Generally neglected, however, has been the update's evidence and analysis directly contradicting several more-dramatic Goldstone Report allegations of IDF criminal conduct.

For example, the Goldstone Report found that, in the absence of legitimate military objectives, Israel intentionally destroyed the Namar water-wells complex — including pumping machines, pipes, and civil-administration buildings — by air strikes to deprive Gaza's civilian population of clean drinking water. Israel's update, however, provides photographic evidence demonstrating that the Namar water wells were located inside the walls of a Hamas military compound.

The Goldstone Report found that Israel undertook a "deliberate and premeditated strike" to damage a vacated Gaza wastewater-treatment plant in the al-Sheikh Ejlin neighborhood to cause raw sewage to flow into and destroy farmland. Israel's update, however, reports that the damage to the plant did not stem from a deliberate IDF attack. The IDF may have damaged the plant inadvertently during a battle with Hamas fighters, or Hamas fighters themselves may have attacked the plant to set loose sewage to hamper the movements of Israeli tanks operating in the area. Whichever turns out to be the case, Israel's update stresses, "there was no physical evidence or eyewitness testimony to support the conclusion of the Human Rights Council Fact-Finding Report."

The Goldstone Report found that Israel conducted an aerial strike on the el-Bader flour mill to deny Gaza's civilian population the means of providing for their own sustenance and to render them more dependent on Israel. Israel's update, however, points out that the Goldstone Report contains no evidence that the flour mill was struck from the air, that "photographs of the mill following the incident do not show structural damage consistent with an air attack," and that the available evidence indicates the flour mill was struck by tank shells during combat operations.

And the Goldstone Report found that Israel destroyed the Abu-Askar family home despite its "unmistakably civilian nature." Israel's update, however, maintains that "due to its use as a large storage facility for weapons and ammunition, including Grad missiles, the house of Muhammad Abu-Askar was a legitimate military target." It also emphasizes that because the IDF issued warnings to the family to evacuate and delayed the attack until the night, when fewer civilians were present, no civilian casualties ensued.

At the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, former head of the National Security Council Gen. (Res.) Giora Eiland told me bluntly that the Goldstone Report is a thoroughly and dangerously political document. "Its aim," he said, "is to undermine Israel's right to self-defense, to create a situation in which it is helpless and has no alternative other than to rely on the goodwill of the international community."

But concerning the most fundamental matters of self-government and self-defense, Israel and other liberal democracies struggling against transnational terror should not rely on the goodwill of the international community. The Goldstone Report's severe flaws provide powerful evidence of that.

Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, where he chairs the Koret-Taube Task Force on National Security and Law.

The Obama Administration's Three Gambles on Iran Which It's Sure to Lose.

by Barry Rubin

Two articles today are especially worthy of attention. The Washington Post has a piece about how Iran has been running into technical troubles in building nuclear weapons. This is the kind of thing Israeli analysts have known about for years. Since it is out in public now, please note that the idea that Iran is about to get weapons in the next few months has been often exaggerated. But we are talking about, say, two years roughly, and some more time before they could deliver them by missiles.

More immediately, following up on its editorial, the New York Times has an article, “Obama Takes Several Gambles in Bid to Defuse Nuclear Standoff With Iran,” which is not bad as such but somewhat detached from reality. Indeed, it could have been written six months ago in many respects. It is also interesting to note how on each point the article partly misses the point. Always keep in mind that they way things are worded, defined, and argued reflects the thinking of the foreign policy elite including the government itself.

Basically, the article says that the Obama administration is taking three gambles.

First, the belief that it can get through stronger sanctions, “that are strong enough to convince Iran’s divided leadership that its nuclear ambitions are not worth the price.”

The article doesn’t mention that the administration’s own starting point—even before having to water down sanctions with concessions to get support from others!—is too weak to convince Iran’s leadership to back down. That’s pretty significant.

[Yes, the administration has just put on some new sanctions. If you are a high-ranking official of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps--which is seeking to spread terrorism and Islamist revolution and shouts "Death to America" every day--it will be harder to do business in the United States. That's going to scare them?]

The article continues: “for Mr. Obama, that effort is complicated by the fear that sanctions could crush a resilient antigovernment movement that appears on the verge of taking to the streets again.”

There are circumstances where such concerns would be valid but this isn’t one of them.

Think about it. If Iran does get nuclear weapons it will greatly strengthen the regime at home for several reasons: hysterical enthusiasm at Iran becoming a great power; a show that the regime can easily defy the world (so how can any opposition challenge such a powerful and confident state?); and international gains that will produce material benefits at home. Therefore, if sanctions are too weak it will ensure that the antigovernment movement will be crushed in the not-distant future.

Moreover, those who hate the regime already hate it. They aren’t going to change their mind because America is “bullying” the mullahs. True, in the Arabic-speaking world the idea of rallying around the dictator in the face of foreign pressure is a real possibility. But Iranian history is different. It has never had a strong coherent nationalism and this regime has not ruled on a nationalist basis (though it has used such appeals at times, as in Iran's war against Iraq).

To be frank, Iran has more of a tradition of deserting to make a deal with powerful foreigners. Nobody knew that better, incidentally, than the leader of the Islamist revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and he talked about it a lot. Before the seizure of the U.S. embassy in 1979, Iranians were lining up there to ask for visas and to seek support in overthrowing the regime. That’s one of the main reasons the government backed the takeover.

Clearly, Iranians don’t want the United States to invade their country or even attack it militarily (though more than you might think wouldn’t mind so much). But put pressure on that weakens the regime? That’s a different matter.

The second gamble is that he will win over China, which even the Times sees as unlikely. For some peculiar reason they don’t mention Russia which is also a problem. By the way, note that through its friends in Hizballah who are part of Lebanon’s government, Iran now has a foothold in the UN Security Council since Beirut is a member there.

The third gamble is to stop Israel from attacking. This is silly since Israel won’t attack unless Iran is on the verge of getting deliverable nuclear weapons by which time it would be clear that the Obama administration had failed. Moreover, Israel is going to give every chance for sanctions and diplomacy to succeed, both because it would prefer not to attack and to “subvert” these efforts would sabotage Israel’s support in the West, especially the United States.

It is amazing how hard it is for Western elites to understand Israeli interests and policies, perhaps because the mythology is piled higher than a February snowstorm in Washington.

So here we have a trio of straw men. Here’s the real gamble: expecting to achieve anything without strong sanctions (why doesn’t the Times ever mention Congress’s proposal of a refined oil products cut-off which would be far more effective?), building a strong international coalition against the ambitions of the Iran-led Islamist alliance, making a credible threat of toughness, and doing a lot more to support Iran’s opposition.

Here's an idea: since it is obvious that the administration policy is going to fail, why wait for a year to find that out?

There are two ways to look at it this administration strategy as a gamble: Either this is a gamble that cannot win or the Obama administration is gambling with the future of the Middle East and the survival of some very basic U.S. interests.

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.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

New York Times Says: Time’s Up for Sanctions with Iran. But the Obama Administration isn’t Ready.

by Barry Rubin

The New York Times has a new editorial on Iran, February 9, and it is probably the best one yet. Naturally, it is phrased in ways friendly toward the Obama administration, though a note of impatience appears. Nevertheless, there's an explosive device contained within it that the writers probably didn't even notice. Don't stop reading until you get to it.

In this case, the title tells all: "Time's Up." Paragraph 1:

"Over the last four years, the United Nations Security Council has repeatedly demanded that Iran stop producing nuclear fuel. Iran is still churning out enriched uranium and has now told United Nations inspectors that it is raising the level of enrichment — moving slightly closer to bomb-grade quality."

This is fine as far as it goes, but notice it puts the onus on the UN Security Council. The Obama Administration has only had one of those years but it has not led in taking any real action--last September in his big speech there he didn't ask the Security Council to do anything--so this paragraph could just as easily have been directed at the president. No, that's not the bomb.

Then, the second paragraph tells us what a great job the president has been doing:

" President Obama was right to offer to negotiate with Tehran. Washington and its allies were right to look for possible compromises even after Tehran was caught—again—hiding an enrichment plant."

OK, so he tried and it didn't work (though this has been clear now for five months). Then the Times gives the conclusion: "Enough is enough. Iran needs to understand that its nuclear ambition comes with a very high cost."

Here's the bomb:

"President Obama said on Tuesday that the United States and its allies are `moving along fairly quickly' on a new sanctions resolution. He also said it would take several weeks to draft a proposal. That is not reassuring. Once a resolution is written, the negotiating process typically drags on for weeks, if not months."

Right. After dealing with this issue for a year, as of mid-February the Obama administration has not yet started drafting a proposal for the UN, despite his own September deadline, despite his own December deadline, no one has had time to plan the next step? Why wasn't a draft resolution set in early January when it was clear that it would be needed? In other words, with luck there won't be a resolution before the middle of the year.

Part of the answer is that the Obama administration is all carrots, no sticks. A different president would have said while engaging Iran: and by the way if you don't make a deal here's specifically what we are going to do to you. But Obama and his colleagues didn't do it that way, not even preparing to get tough behind the scenes.

There are also two serious weaknesses in the Times editorial that point to flaws in administration policy. Here's the first:

"American officials say they are eager to impose sanctions that would inflict maximum damage on the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which runs the nuclear program and a large chunk of the Iranian economy. The plan, as we understand it, is to block their banking, their shipping, their insurance. American officials also say they want to minimize the additional suffering of the Iranian people. That makes sense to us, although squaring the circle won't be easy."

Well, it makes no sense to me, and won't scare Tehran. Think about it a moment. Does the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps do much business in America or Europe? Can't they create dummy companies and easily move things around? Isn't this a small part of the overall Iranian internationally connected economy? In short, this plan is toothless and worthless.

Here's the truth: anything that hurts Iran's economy will hurt Iran's people. The Obama administration assumes that this would make them blame America and support the regime, rather than blame the regime and want to get rid of it. One can debate that issue but once you've decided to minimize damage that means the regime can ignore the pinpricks. The administration thinks it is smart and has a policy that is perfect. In fact, it is a policy that will inevitably fail in every respect.

Note the Times doesn't even mention the congressional plan for sanctions which is much better: block gasoline and other fuels. How can it discuss the issue without considering the only plan actually on the table right now, and endorsed by both houses of Congress for that matter?

Second, the editorial remarks that there are big problems with Russia and China supporting sanctions without mentioning that for a year the Obama administration—and on several occasions the Times itself—has been assuring us that this won't be a problem. I remember back in September that the Times editorial praised as a great achievement the fact that Obama persuaded the Russians to think about sanctions. They thought about it and are against them.

Now China is building a huge refinery in Iran, just announced a new offshore oil-drilling project there, and has moved up to the top of those trading with Iran. Yet the Obama administration acts as if it is possible to overcome Chinese and Russian opposition with any serious sanctions. It isn't. And what possible leverage has the administration built up to pressure these two countries? None at all.

So, to summarize, we know the following:

--The Obama administration has been slow in dealing with an urgent issue, one in which every day counts, using all possible excuses for delay.

--It has pretended that Russia and China will be won over and now it is clear that this won't work.

--The U.S. government's specific sanctions' plan is bad to start with.

--The UN process will whittle it down further.

--Many months will be required to get it through and when it does the sanctions will be too minimal to have any effect.

--A lot of the problem is that this U.S. government has rejected leadership in favor of consensus and renounced taking action on its own in favor of multilateralism.

--It intends to ignore a good plan which has massive support in Congress.

--The U.S. government hasn't prepared its resolution yet and (as we will see in a moment) does not have a back-up plan in place. If it fails at the UN, it will then have to start from near-beginning to get the entire EU (including countries like Sweden and Spain) to support some form of sanctions, which will also be delayed and whittled down.

The editorial concludes:

"The more the Security Council temporizes, compromises and weakens these resolutions, the more defiant and ambitious Iran becomes. If the Security Council can't act swiftly, or decisively, the United States and its allies will have to come up with their own tough sanctions. They should be making a backup plan right now."

Make a backup plan right now? What have they been doing for the past year? Can you imagine how this failure would be presented with any other president in office?

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.

Why Israel is Losing the Military and Media Wars.

by Daniel Greenfield

Every now and then bewildered Israeli politicians and outreach professionals call conferences to wonder why the Hasbara is failing and why Israel can't get its story across. They are given the usual advice of hiring more PR firms, finding innovative ways to get the message through, using the internet in smarter ways and of course that all time favorite, rebranding Israel. Naturally they follow this advice, only to call another conference a year later wondering why nothing has changed.

The answer is simple enough. Defensive PR, like defensive warfare, never works. And Israeli PR and Israeli warfare has been on the defensive for decades now. If you break down Israel's message to a single sentence, it's "We didn't do any of the things we're accused of." That is the kind of message you expect to hear from criminal defendants, and it's a message that impresses no one. The only thing it does is produce a debate about the validity of the accusations themselves, which is to PR what Stalingrad was to the Russian front.

The recent Aftonbladet case represents a classic scenario that demonstrates why Israel's defensive PR is doomed to fail over and over again. The Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet published an article claiming that Israeli soldiers were killing Palestinian Arabs in order to harvest their organs. The Israeli government pointed out that the article presented no evidence whatsoever, that no such thing had ever happened and demanded a retraction from the newspaper and condemnation of it by the Swedish government. The only thing Israel accomplished was to popularize the false allegation thus creating a debate over whether or not Israeli soldiers kill Palestinian Arabs to harvest their organs. Pleased by his newfound fame, the author of the article has only escalated his allegations and gone on to do a tour of the Arab world. Leftist propagandists can only watch the fallout and chuckle, because once again Israel has been suckered into playing the mug's game of defensive PR.

Defensive warfare of any kind is reactive. For the last few decades Israel has run itself ragged because it has been reactive. And by reactive I mean that Israel keeps responding to attacks against it, rather than taking the offensive. In the Six Day War, Israel responded to Nasser's planned assault, by preempting him and taking the offensive. The result was Israel's finest hour. In the Yom Kippur War, Israel waited and watched, and was nearly destroyed.

Few nations can afford to be purely reactive and play defense alone, Israel least of all because it is outnumbered by larger and more numerous enemies who can wear it down through sheer brute force. And that is exactly what has been happening on both the media and the military front. The terrorist campaign, planned, financed and executed first by the USSR, and then by the Arab and Muslim world, has worn out Israel both militarily and politically.

Israel's greatest asset was its innovation, its mobility and brilliance. Qualities that are best employed on the offensive. Instead Israel has been restricted to the defensive, constantly retreating, giving up both physical and ideological territory to its enemies, while wondering how much to give up in order to stem the bleeding. Which is the one reaction certain to put it even further on the defensive.

Israel wants a solution to the conflict. So do its enemies in both Islam and on the left and far right. A final solution. Each attempt by Israel to offer a solution has only brought Israel closer to that final solution. The more Israel has tried to show its goodwill, the more it has gotten stuck on the defensive. The goal of successive Israeli governments is no longer to be a great nation or a strong nation, but to be a nation that everyone likes.

The fallacy there is that "everyone" consists of a billion Muslims and a sizable number of leftists who view Israel's very existence as an insult to their deeply held beliefs. And then there are the Western business interests who think Ahmed would be much friendlier to them if Israel weren't in the way. And Russia which cultivates wars in the Middle East the way gardeners cultivate flowers. Finally there's the rest of the world which isn't too keen on embracing losers who keep apologizing for their existence and cutting their own country to pieces in order to win the favor of the terrorists trying to wipe them off the face of the earth.

To boil down the problem simply enough, the more Israel goes on the defensive, the weaker it becomes, not just militarily, but politically as well. Reactive conflicts are hugely draining. They require endlessly watching for an attack and then trying to counter it. The advantage in such a scenario is always to the attacker who has more lead time to plan an attack, and room to retreat if the attack fails.

Strike and vanish into the desert, and then strike again, was the classic raiding strategy of the Arab bandit, including a charming head chopping fellow named Mohammed. The British General Orde Wingate, who helped pioneer much of the doctrine of the future IDF, responded to such attacks in the mandate era, by taking the battle to the enemy with small, fast moving and mobile units. To go on the offensive.

The following section from the official Wingate site says it best;

While impressed with the devotion & willingness to sacrifice in the Haganah, Wingate was exasperated by the defensive nature of the Jewish forces. He realized that they could not halt the violence with their defensive tactics of fortified settlements. The policy of restraint meant the Haganah was ceding the initiative and mobility to the Arab guerillas.

The British were trying to balance an active defense with mobile sweeps & strikes, with holding important static positions in order to maintain effective government control. Mobile columns & patrols were sent out to deny the rebels any sanctuary and to hunt them down. They became consistent and routine in their movements and their actions. With the enemy often indistinguishable from their civilian base and troops often quartered near Arab civilian areas, "it was very difficult to keep operations conducted in a largely hostile civilian milieu secret, and so the element of surprise was lost; at the same time, reliable information about the enemy was hard to come by."

Commented one Jewish official on a big sweep by British forces, "They marched over hills and valleys, and in the end emerged with some rusty Turkish pistols and a few empty rounds of ammunition...The Arab gangsters just hid their arms and mingled with the population of the villages. Not only did the huge British army find absolutely nothing, it discredited and ridiculed itself in the eyes of the whole population." In 1938 General Archibald Wavell, the temporary acting commander of British military forces in Palestine, was forced to admit these and other actions such as aerial bombing had only "a temporary effect."

Wingate envisioned carefully selected, small and mobile units of volunteers to fight aggressively and unconventionally...

"There is only one way to deal with the situation, to persuade the gangs that, in their predatory raids, there is every chance of their running into a government gang which is determined to destroy them, not by exchange of shots at a distance, but by bodily assault with bayonet and bomb." This new unit was to carry the war to the enemy, taking away his initiative and keeping him off-balance. And so it was, "to produce in their minds the belief government forces will move at night and can and will surprise them either in villages or across country." The force would be a mixed British-Jewish one operating under his command, moving primarily at night in areas of guerilla activity with the allies of the night: deception, surprise, shock.

Since then Israel has forgotten Wingate's lessons that helped make the IDF into the fearsome force that it was. Instead Israel has reverted to the fortified settlements and cities, the home guards maintaining watch... as well as the British assault teams thundering across the desert in a spectacular show of force that accomplishes absolutely nothing. And this applies not only to Israel, but to the United States post-2004 as well.

You cannot win through defensive tactics. You can only bleed. And Israel is bleeding badly. The nation that once executed Entebbe, rescuing hostages on another continent, can no longer even rescue one of its soldiers held captive within its own borders. The country that was once hailed as a symbol of rebirth has been internationally demonized. And the worst part of it all is that Israel sat back and let it happen.

Israel is too small to be able to keep on bleeding indefinitely. Its soldiers and citizens have tired of always being on watch, and always waiting for an attack. Its citizens and its defenders around the world are tired of being expected to answer increasingly outlandish charges. This cannot go on forever. Israeli leaders understood this, but they drew the wrong lesson, determining to go even further on the defensive by cutting deals with the enemy. They were wrong. Disastrously wrong.

To survive against larger enemies, a small country must be quick, it must be feared, it must use surprise and cultivate an aura of inhuman abilities. Israel used to be all of these things. Now it is none of these things. But if it is to survive, it must become those things again.

Israel does not have a terrorism problem, it has a defensiveness problem. Israel has the capability to destroy every terrorist group within its borders in a matter of a month. Israel does not have a PR problem. Its PR problem is created by an ongoing conflict with terrorist groups, who have extensive sympathizers abroad. Destroy the terrorist groups, regain control over the disputed areas, and the PR problem shrinks to a fraction of its former size. More importantly it ceases to have any useful meaning.

The media war against Israel, the lawfare and the other various non-military tactics require an investment of resources. For those resources to be worth investing, there must be a visible payoff. The more Israel stays on the defensive, and its enemies make territorial and political gains, the more those tactics seem to be paying off. Reverse that scenario, and the resources will be reinvested somewhere else because they are not achieving tangible results.

It has been demonstrated that the demonization of Israel is not significantly altered by the nature of Israeli tactics against terrorism. Whether Israeli tanks smash through Arafat's compound, or Israel builds a non-violent defensive border wall-- the demonization of Israel remains constant. That is because the demonization is not a moral response to specific policies, but an ongoing state of hostility directed against Israel in support of Muslim and Marxist terrorists. The only way to stop the demonization is to remove the incentive for it, by removing the terrorists.

The Oslo Accords did not lessen the global demonization of Israel. Instead after a brief honeymoon, it significantly worsened it. That is because the propaganda war was closer to achieving its purpose. The more Israel has compromised, the worse its international status has become. That is because by compromising, Israel demonstrated its weakness to both its enemies and allies, emboldening its enemies and making its allies reevaluate its ability to survive. The more Israel has gone on the defensive, the worse the terrorism and the demonization has become. That is only natural. If you retreat, the enemy's fire will increase in severity.

To many Jews and Israelis, and sympathizers with Israel as a nation battling Marxist and Islamist terror, the problem seems impossible. The political and military situation is a Gordian Knot of tangled complexities. Which is why it takes an Alexander or a Wingate to cut the knot. Israel's media and military problems are born of a defensive strategy that have allowed the country to be tied into a Gordian Knot. To survive Israel must go on the offensive to cut the knot and save itself, or be choked to death by the rope its enemies have tied around its neck.

Daniel Greenfield

Palestinians: The New Peace Talks, What Fatah Can Deliver.

by Khaled Abu Toameh

Although the Palestinian Authority appears to have softened its position regarding the resumption of peace talks with Israel, it is wrong to assume that it has also changed its stance on major issues such as Jerusalem, refugees, borders and settlements.

Thanks to the ongoing incitement and indoctrination in the Palestinian and Arab media, the Palestinians have been radicalized to a point where any talk about making concessions to Israel is automatically associated with "high treason." Sadly, we have reached a point where many Palestinians and other Arabs are convinced that the only language that Israel understands is force, and that this is the only way to extract concessions from the Jewish state.

Fatah today is weaker than it it was a few years ago, largely thanks to Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's refusal to allow the party free and unlimited access to the Palestinian Authority coffers. Fayyad, in a move that has enraged many senior Fatah leaders, has also kept Fatah members away from high positions in the Palestinian cabinet in the West Bank. Some Fatah officials have even accused Fayyad of being part of a US-Israeli-European conspiracy to eliminate Fatah for once and for all so that he could have exclusive control over the affairs of the Palestinians.

Even if Mahmoud Abbas were to sign a peace agreement with Israel tomorrow, his chances of implementing it, or even marketing it, are almost non-existent. He has lost control over the Gaza Strip, and cannot even visit his home or office there. In the West Bank, he has limited control and a serious credibility problem. Add to this the fact that many Palestinians view him as a puppet in the hands of the US and Israel.

Moreover, Abbas himself knows that a majority of Palestinians would not accept, at least for now, anything less than 100% of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and eastern Jerusalem. Abbas's status today does not allow him it sign any agreement with Israel that would include any concessions. Abbas would not be able to accept anything less than what his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, rejected at the botched Camp David summit in the summer of 2000. If, back then, Arafat was offered, say, 95% of the territories and turned it down, who is Abbas to agree to anything less than that? In fact, no Palestinian leader would be able, at least not in the foreseeable future, to accept anything less than 100%.

Abbas had an opportunity to prove to everyone that he is a serious leader but he missed it: it was after he came to power in January 2005. Before the election, he promised that if he won, he would wage an all-out war on rampant corruption in the Palestinian Authority and that all those who had stolen public funds would be punished. But instead of fulfilling his pre-election platform, Abbas "surrounded himself with many of the same corrupt figures who had served under Arafat," according to Fahmi Shabaneh, a senior intelligence official who had been appointed by the Palestinian leader as head of the anti-corruption unit in the Palestinian security services.

Abbas and Fatah are responsible for Hamas's victory in the 2006 election: the movement ran under the banner of Change and Reform, promising voters to end to end financial and administrative corruption and establish good government. They had a chance to turn the Gaza Strip into the Hong Kong of the Middle East after the Israeli pullout in 2005, but did nothing substantial in this regard, driving frustrated and disenchanted Palestinians into the open arms of Hamas. After Fatah lost the parliamentary election in 2006, it tried, with the help of the Americans and Europeans, to topple the Hamas government - an attempt that backfired and even increased Hamas's popularity.

On the other hand, many Palestinians seem to have internalized the fact that no Israeli government would ever withdraw to the pre-1967 boundaries or allow Fatah or Hamas to control half of Jerusalem.

So why does Abbas appear inclined to return to the negotiating table? Because of the heavy pressure the Americans and the Europeans have been exerting on him in recent weeks, the Palestinian leader's aides in Ramallah have explained.

Abbas is a weak leader who, as some of his aides have admitted, "lacks charisma and is not liked by his own people." The question that many Palestinians are asking is not whether Mahmoud Abbas will return to the negotiating table, but if the talks will lead anywhere. And most are convinced that Abbas and Israel are simply wasting their time.

For all these reasons, those who are betting on Abbas and Fatah will sooner or later discover that they had made the wrong calculation.

This is not to say that Hamas is in any way a better alternative to Abbas, but those who think that Abbas and his Fatah party are reliable partners who can deliver something are living under an illusion. Fatah cannot deliver anything: The party does not have the power and credibility that would enable it to sell a peace agreement with Israel to a majority of Palestinians.

Fatah lost the January 2006 parliamentary election to Hamas, and has since failed to reform -- or even to draw the appropriate conclusions from its humiliating defeat.

Khaled Abu Toameh