Has Damascus Stopped Supporting Terrorists? Part II

 

by Ryan Mauro

2^nd  part of 2

Syria: Ally in the War against Terror?

Some diplomats and analysts argue that if Washington engages Damascus, Syria could become a responsible partner in the war on terror. The State Department praised Syria for its cooperation in 2003, but Cofer Black, the department's counterterrorism coordinator, said that public proclamations do not tell the whole story. In 2003, he told Newsweek, "We clearly don't have the full support of the Syrian government on the Al-Qaeda problem. They have allowed Al- Qaeda personnel to come in and virtually settle in Syria with their knowledge and support."[49] Still, the idea that engagement can flip Syria has resonance. After all, intelligence shared by Syria helped thwart a terrorist attack against the U.S. navy in Bahrain. Syrian cooperation, however, was less than complete. The Syrian government refused to give U.S. investigators direct access to Muhammad Zamar which, according to one expert, means it can be "safely assumed that the Syrians did not pass on information that reflected poorly on them in any way."[50] The high profile 2006 Iraq Study Group report, cochaired by former secretary of state James A. Baker III, and Lee H. Hamilton, the vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission, for example, recommended that the United States should "actively engage Iran and Syria in its diplomatic dialogue, without preconditions."[51]

The Assad regime has become more adept at public relations. In an attempt to portray itself as a natural ally in the war on terror, the Syrian government has framed itself as an enemy and target of Al-Qaeda. The examples given of Al-Qaeda targeting Syria, however, do not hold up. In April 2004, the Syrian regime accused Al-Qaeda of bombing a vacant U.N. building, an attack for which Al-Qaeda did not claim credit.[52] Timing, however, was suspect since the alleged Al-Qaeda operation occurred just as the U.S. Congress debated placing tougher sanctions on Syria. Syrian officials then refused to allow U.S. investigators to look into the incident. Nor is there any evidence that a September 12, 2006 attack on the U.S. embassy in Damascus was Al-Qaeda's handiwork.[53] Within ninety minutes of the attack, the crime scene was cleared of debris, including the destroyed vehicle, the bodies, and any forensic evidence. If the Syrians believed Al-Qaeda was behind the attack, they failed to allow the examination of any evidence.

Proponents of diplomacy base their recommendation on the assumption that the Syrian government has reformed. Practitioners, however, find evidence to support such conclusions lacking. In an October 2008 interview, U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. John Kelly, commander in Anbar province, said, "The Syrians clearly have harbored AQI [Al-Qaeda in Iraq], allowed them to live over there and go back and forth. It's a sanctuary." And "They have done cross-border raids and killed Iraqis. The biggest mistake they made was a cross-border raid on the second of May and murdered 11 Iraqi policemen. They cut their heads off, a sickening thing. It was a huge mistake. We know the guy who did it, AQI guy. Kind of a big dog who works with Syrian intelligence."[54]

 

Conclusion

The Assad regime sponsors terrorism because it is a regime based on terrorism. The advantages for the Assad regime to sponsor jihadists are many. They seek to use terrorists to defeat the United States in the region, thwart the development of democracies in Lebanon and Iraq, and to employ terror as a means of waging war against Israel. Outmatched by the weapons the West possesses, Syria repeatedly turns to unconventional means. Terror sponsorship also creates a dependency upon the Assad regime making it counterproductive for the forces of Islamic extremism to wage war against it. So long as Assad retains a tight grip on Syria, he need not fear these forces turning against him. Finally, the regime sponsors such forces as a tool of diplomacy. By supporting insurgents and terrorists and allowing radical Islam to show its head inside Syria, Assad makes clear that there is no viable alternative to him and that it is he who must be courted if the West is to be successful in the region.

Any strategy to tackle Assad's support for terrorism must rely on more than engagement and shuttle diplomacy. The Obama administration should develop ways to make Syrian support of terrorism counterproductive to its own objectives. Rather than allowing terrorism to be an effective tool of diplomacy, such actions must be met with economic sanctions and international pressure. Rather than handing Assad victory in the region, every move by Syria should be countered. The regime must see no gain and only loss from its support of terrorism. Finally, the West should find a third option beyond either reliance on Assad or removing him from power—which would allow the Muslim Brotherhood or other Islamists to take his place. The Obama administration should assist the development of the democratic opposition forces in Syria, however weak they may be. By promoting Syrian democratic forces, Washington will regain a strong hand at the negotiating table, simultaneously decreasing the power of Assad and the Muslim Brotherhood and, most importantly, ending the brutal terrorist regime that threatens innocents both in the Middle East and in the West.

Ryan Mauro is the founder of WorldThreats.com and the assistant director of intelligence of The Counter Terrorism Electronic Warfare and Intelligence Centre.

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

 

 

[1] Associated Press, Mar. 4, 2009.
[2] Claudia Rosett, "Commerce Department Waives Syria Sanctions," Forbes, Feb. 12, 2009.
[3] Agence France-Presse, Jan. 20, 2008.
[4] "State Sponsors of Terrorism Overview," Country Reports on Terrorism 2007, U.S. Department of State, Apr. 30, 2008.
[5] The Guardian (London), Feb. 13, 2008.
[6] "President Barack Obama's Inaugural Address," The White House, Jan. 21, 2009.
[7] "Homeland Security," "Barack Obama and Joe Biden: The Change We Need," official campaign website, accessed Mar. 23, 2009.
[8] Emerson Vermaat, "Madrid Terrorists Possessed an Important Al-Qaeda Manual," Militant Islam Monitor, Feb. 20, 2007.
[9] Ibid.
[10] International Herald Tribune (Paris), May 19, 2005.
[11] The Daily Star (Beirut), Oct. 1, 2004.
[12] BBC News, Oct. 28, 2002.
[13] "Summary of Evidence for Combatant Status Review Tribunal—Al Libi, Abu Faraj," U.S. Department of Defense, Feb. 8, 2007.
[14] Author interview with Hamid Mir, May 24, 2006, via e-mail.
[15] "Profile: Afghanistan's 'Lion of Panjshir,'" Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Sept. 5, 2006.
[16] Jane's Security News (Surrey, U.K.), June 16, 2003.
[17] CNN.com, Apr. 26, 2004.
[18] The Jordan Times (Amman), Apr. 27, 2004.
[19] The New York Sun, Oct. 25, 2007; Ar-Ra'y (Amman), June 8, 2007.

[20] Ya Lubnan (Beirut), June 5, 2007; Michael Young, "Syria's Useful Idiots," The Wall Street Journal, June 3, 2007.
[21] CNN.com, May 24, 2007.
[22] The International Herald Tribune, Mar. 15, 2007.
[23] The New York Daily News, June 18, 2007.
[24] The Washington Post, June 8, 2005.
[25] The Washington Post, June 8, 2005.
[26] The Washington Post, June 8, 2005.
[27] The Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 23, 2004.
[28] The New York Sun, Sept. 14, 2007.
[29] Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco (New York: Penguin Press, 2006), p. 409.
[30] The New York Times, July 5, 2004.
[31] Gary Gambill, "How Significant Is Syria's Role in Iraq?" Terrorism Monitor (Jamestown Foundation, Washington, D.C.), Oct. 7, 2004.
[32] The Washington Post, Dec. 17, 2004.
[33] "Coalition Provisional Authority Briefing with General Richard Myers, chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander, Coalition Ground Forces," Baghdad, Iraq, Apr. 15, 2004.
[34] The Washington Post, Dec. 8, 2004.
[35] "180 Terrorists Escape to Syria at Start of Operation Steel Curtain," Kuwait News Agency, Nov. 5, 2005.
[36] "HP-759: Treasury Designates Individuals, Entity Fueling Iraqi Insurgency," U.S. Department of Treasury, Jan. 9, 2008.
[37] Ibid.
[38] Los Angeles Times, Apr. 27, 2003.
[39] Los Angeles Times, Apr. 17, 2003.
[40] The International Herald Tribune, May 19, 2005.
[41] BBC News, Feb. 23, 2005.
[42] Associated Press, Feb. 24, 2005; USA Today, Feb. 24, 2005.
[43] USA Today, Feb. 24, 2005.
[44] CNN.com, Apr. 12, 2005
[45] CNN.com, Feb. 4, 2007.
[46] Sen. Joseph Lieberman, "Al Qaeda's Travel Agent," The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 20, 2007.
[47] The Washington Post, Jan. 21, 2008.
[48] Mark Eichenlaub, "Hundreds of Loyalists and Benefactors of Saddam Hussein's Regime Have Been Found Working with or for Al-Qaeda in Iraq," RegimeofTerror.com, July 20, 2007.
[49] Newsweek, May 6, 2003.
[50] Matthew Levitt, "Iran and Syria: State Sponsorship in the Age of Terror Networks," lecture presentation, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Mar. 7, 2005.
[51] The Iraq Study Group Report (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2006), p. 36.
[52] BBC News, Apr. 29, 2004.
[53] BBC News, Sept. 13, 2006.
[54] U.S. News and World Report, Oct. 27, 2008.

 

                                                                     ../..

Anne Bayefsky: Obama's real agenda.

 

 

President Barack Obama last Monday met for the first time with leaders of selected Jewish organizations and leaks from the meeting now make one thing very clear. The only free country in the Middle East no longer has a friend in the leader of the free world. Obama is the most hostile sitting American president in the history of the state of Israel.

This was the very first meeting with Jewish community's leaders. Earlier requests for an audience with major Jewish organizations had reportedly been ignored. Six months after taking office the president finally got around to issuing an invitation to stop the bleeding. Increasing numbers of Jews even among the overwhelming number who voted for Obama ¬ have been voicing serious concern about his real agenda.

The meeting, however, did not showcase the president's trademark engagement and dialogue routine. Instead, he decided to cherry pick his Jewish audience to include pro-Obama newcomers with little support in the mainstream Jewish world, such as J Street, while blackballing the Zionist Organization of America. The oldest pro-Israel group in the United States, with a Washington office second in size only to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), was not a voice Obama wanted to hear. This leaves the president willing to engage Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but not ZOA President Mort Klein.

The growing alarm in the Jewish community was also something the White House was bent on covering up. They refused to put the meeting on the President's public schedule until it was outed. The White House demanded strict confidentiality and issued a terse couple of lines that it occurred when it was all over.

But there is no papering over the distressing reality that emerged. The president told his listeners that he preferred putting daylight between the United States and Israel. His reported justification: "there was no light between the US and Israeli positions for the last eight years, and no progress was made."

Evidently, unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip, 21 settlements and 9,000 residents counts for nothing. The Palestinian terrorist leadership and street have refused to accept a Jewish state for the past eight years (and the previous 53) because the United States did not add sufficiently to Israel's isolation.

The president apparently believes that the Palestinians are more likely to end terrorism, incitement to violence and rampant antisemitism if the United States applies more pressure on their victims. Even if Obama doesn't get it, Mahmoud Abbas does. He is now refusing to negotiate anything with the new Israeli government until Obama's settlement conditions are met.

During the meeting, the president repeatedly described his new policy in terms of one of Yasser Arafat's favorite mantras, "even-handedness." That's diplotalk for a moral equivalence between an Arab war against Jewish self-determination launched from the day of Israel's birth decades before any "occupation" and the conditions of third-generation Palestinian "refugees" kept in limbo pending Israel's destruction. But Obama's even-handedness was no slip of the tongue. In his Cairo speech, the president equated the Holocaust to Palestinian "dislocation."

The president promoted his strategy of putting hard public "pressure" on Israel as a means to build more credibility with Arab states. He must have meant the kind of credibility that comes from his policy of leaving an "open door" to Iran after its discredited election.

Obama then claimed that the widespread perception of an anti-Israel agenda was all the media's fault because the media is only interested in a "man-bites-dog" story. When an administration sends a US ambassador back to Syria though it is still listed as a key state sponsor of terrorism, hosts terrorist kingpins pursuing Israel's annihilation, and was caught trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction, the story is far-fetched alright, but true.

The president joked that Al-Jazeera often airs pictures of him wearing a yarmulke at the Western Wall. Except the photo-op during the election campaign had been intended to fool a Jewish audience that is no longer amused.

Reports also quote the president as claiming Israel has yet to "engage in serious self-reflection." Considering Israel is a democratic country forced to send its children into the armed forces for two to three years and its men into reserve duty for another twenty-five, that isn't the audacity of hope. It's just plain audacity.

There is no doubt that the pressure on Israel from the Obama administration is going to get a lot worse, as the President told the group "there is a narrow window of opportunity for advancing the peace process." Everyone understood the threat. The narrow window is Obama's self-defined political ambitions bearing no relationship to the realities of the Middle East ¬or the welfare of either Israel or the United States.

 

Anne Bayefsky is a professor at Touro College and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

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

 

Why Khaled Abu Toameh writes for a Jewish newspaper.

       by Robert Fulford  

The clouds that normally obscure events in the Middle East start to recede when Khaled Abu Toameh begins talking about the future of Palestinians and Israelis. This relationship, the key to his future life as an Israeli Arab, has been the subject of his journalism for more than two decades. What he's learned contradicts beliefs held by much of the world, and differs sharply from what we expect from someone with his background.

He was in Toronto this week, talking to a few journalists. He's a Muslim-Arab, son of an Israeli-Arab father and a Palestinian-Arab mother. When he was studying at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, he went to work for Al- Fajr ("The Dawn"), the Palestine Liberation Organization newspaper. He left when he realized it would never print anything but propaganda.

 

"I am an Arab Muslim and the only place I can write honestly is in a Jewish newspaper."

Hoping to be a real journalist, he began working with foreign reporters covering Israel. Eventually, he produced TV documentaries and wrote for Britain's Sunday Times and other papers. For the last eight years, he's been the Jerusalem Post's specialist in Arab affairs. "I am an Arab Muslim and the only place I can write honestly is in a Jewish newspaper," he says. Other Arab journalists envy his freedom.

He believes the so-called "peace process," begun with the Oslo Accords of 1993, has been a tragic failure and holds little promise of success. Over 16 years, the peace process has brought war -- and plenty of it. It has disillusioned both Arabs and Jews -- Arabs because they haven't acquired the independence and honest self-government they wanted, Jews because security has become more elusive than it was two decades ago. Even so, the United States and others believe the virtue of the peace process is self-evident.

The Palestinians are now divided between two bloodthirsty sects -- Fatah, which holds fragile power in the West Bank, and Hamas, which controls Gaza. Their conflict has cost nearly 2,000 Palestinian lives and shows no sign of abating. At the moment, Fatah has 900 alleged Hamas operatives imprisoned in the West Bank without charge. Some of them may well be Hamas sympathizers, Abu Toameh says, some not. In any case, Fatah has arrested them mainly to show foreign governments that it is "cracking down."

Fatah, of course, is considered the "moderate" Palestinian force, as opposed to radical Hamas. Abu Toameh thinks neither of them could be called moderate by any sensible Arabic speaker. Fatah makes moderate sounds in English but in Arabic sounds as anti-Semitic and anti-American as Hamas. Abu Toameh sees no moderates on either side. Both factions suppress moderate opinion wherever it raises its head, which is apparently not often.

"This is not a power struggle between good guys and bad guys," he said in a recent speech. "It is a struggle between bad guys and bad guys." He wishes they were fighting over what would be best for Palestinians. "But they're only fighting over money and power."

The West spends a fortune propping up Fatah, in return for its relatively benign rhetoric. But Fatah remains unpopular. West Bank Arabs take its corruption for granted and now suspect that it's controlled as well as backed by the Americans. Anyone who listens to Abu Toameh has to consider that U. S. President Barack Obama is now part of the problem.

Great fortunes stolen by Fatah officials are only occasionally reported in the West. When Abu Toameh first suggested foreign journalists tell this story, he was asked by some of them if he was paid by the Jewish lobby. Other reporters explained that information on Palestinian corruption simply didn't fit into the stories their editors wanted, about Palestinians oppressed by Israelis.

 

"The real obstacle to peace is not a Jew building a settlement but the failure of the Palestinians to have a government."

Most of the world believes, often with passionate intensity, that Jewish settlements on land claimed by Arabs limits the chances for peace. Abu Toameh disagrees. "I wish the settlements were the problem," he says, because it can be solved by the Israelis. If settlements were the problem, he argues, then Gaza would now be at peace. After all, the Israelis pulled out in 2005. But the result has been war -- war among the Palestinians, war with Israel. "The real obstacle to peace is not a Jew building a settlement but the failure of the Palestinians to have a government. Is there a partner on the Palestinian side for peace talks? No."

What is to be done? He thinks Israel should simply wait until the Palestinians stop killing each other and create a credible political entity that can make a deal. Peace will then become possible.

 

Robert Fulford  

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

 

The case against Obama.

 

by Isi Leibler

Prior to the election, many traditional Jewish supporters of the Democratic Party were apprehensive of Barack Obama's initially negative attitude to Israel and his troubling association with people like PLO ideologue Rashid Khalidi and the anti-Semitic Rev. Jeremiah Wright. However after aggressively repudiating his earlier policies, Obama convinced most Jews that he would never abandon the Jewish state. Alas, recent developments suggest otherwise.

 President Obama is adept at warming the cockles of the hearts of his Jewish constituents, many of whom seem as mesmerized by him as their forebears were by Franklin D Roosevelt. He repeatedly articulates his commitment to the welfare of Israel and admiration for American Jewry.

Yet if one probes beneath the veneer of bonhomie and analyzes the substance of his policies, they reflect an unprecedented downturn in relations towards Israel with hints of worse to come. This was reaffirmed by Obama in the course of his recent meeting with Jewish leaders (which included representatives of extremist fringe groups like Peace Now and J Street but excluded those likely to be critical of his approach). In an extraordinary patronizing manner with his Jewish aides beaming at him he told Israelis to "engage in self reflection" and made it clear that he believed he had a better understanding of what is best for them than their democratically elected government. Alas, with the exception of Malcolm Hoenlein and Abe Foxman, it appears that the majority of the others endorsed his position or remained silent. Yet only a few days earlier even a passionate Democrat like Alan Dershowitz had expressed concern "that the coming changes in the Obama administration's policies could weaken the security of the Jewish state".

THIS COLUMN is a response to American Jews devoted to Israel who remain under the charismatic spell of their president and challenged me to demonstrate how his policies are harming Israel.

President Obama's keynote Cairo address included effusive praise for Islam, highlighted Western shortcomings but omitted mention of global jihad and Islamic fundamentalism. It also legitimized the Arab narrative including its malicious and false historical analogies. By alleging that the State of Israel was a by-product of the Holocaust, the president of the United States denied 3,500 years of Jewish history and the central role of Jerusalem in Judaism. He endorsed the Arafat mantra that Israel had been inflicted upon the Arabs by the Europeans to compensate for the Holocaust, even hinting at equivalence between Jewish and Arab suffering. Obama ignored the rejectionism, ongoing wars and waves of Arab terror directed against the Jewish state since the day of its creation. He also compared the Palestinians to the US civil rights movement. When the president of the world's greatest superpower provides an imprimatur for such a false narrative it represents a major breakthrough for those seeking to delegitimize Israel.

Obama's Cairo address should be viewed as an extension of a calculated policy designed to appease the Arab world by playing hardball with Israel. Obama's response to the brutal Iranian regime's thuggish clampdown on its own people was inordinately restrained. He bowed and scraped to the Saudis, unconditionally renewed diplomatic relations with the Syrians and failed to respond to the latest brazen North Korean missile launches. His "engagement" and benign relationship with corrupt and despotic Arab regimes contrast starkly with the tough diktats conveyed to Israel.

The confrontation with Israel goes far beyond the vexed settlement issue which was wrongly linked with curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions and has been exaggerated totally out of proportion.

Israel endorsed the road map and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu unequivocally undertook to freeze settlement expansion in areas other than within the settlement blocs which the Bush Administration had implicitly agreed should remain under Israeli sovereignty. Even in these areas Netanyahu undertook to limit growth to "enabling normal life." But either disregarding or cynically abrogating understandings by the former administration, Obama's demands exceeded even those of Arafat's when the 1993 Oslo Accords were negotiated.

Today, no city outside the Islamic world denies Jews the right of residence. Yet Obama is demanding that for the first time since 1967 Jews will no longer be entitled to build a single home beyond the old armistice lines, including Jewish sections of Jerusalem and adjacent areas like Ma'aleh Adumim. No Israeli government of any political composition could conceivably accept such a demand which even opposition Kadima spokesmen condemned as outright "extortion."

NOT SURPRISINGLY, the Palestinians and Arabs are delighted with Obama's humiliation of Israel. Saeb Erakat, the chief PA negotiator, proclaimed that the Palestinians need make no concessions because the longer the process extended, the more they would benefit from further unilateral Israeli concessions. Washington Post journalist Jackson Diehl, not renowned as a pro-Israel supporter, observed, "[Obama] revived a long-dormant Palestinian fantasy: that the United States will simply force Israel to make critical concessions whether or not its democratic government agrees, while Arabs passively watch and applaud."

The reality is that Arab concerns are not related to settlements or boundaries. Both Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas rejected offers to return virtually all territories Israel gained in the 1967 war - a war initiated by the Arabs to destroy the Jewish state. "The gaps were too wide" said Abbas, after Olmert offered him the equivalent of all territories beyond the Green Line, including joint control of the Temple Mount. They adamantly demand the right of return for Arab refugees, which would effectively bring an end to the Jewish state. Clearly, the overriding objective for the PA, no less than Hamas, remains, not two states but two stages leading to the demise of the Jewish state. In recent weeks there was a spate of Fatah statements on official PA-controlled media brazenly describing the negotiations as a vehicle to destroy Israel. "Peace is a means not a goal. Our goal is all Palestine," said Fatah activist Kifah Radaydeh on PA TV and also affirmed that "armed struggle" is still on the cards.

If Obama was genuinely even-handed, he would urge the "moderate" Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. He would make it clear that the US would never support the repatriation of the descendents of the Arab refugees to Israel. Obama would call on Abbas to stop sanctifying martyrs and naming streets, sports teams and other projects (some of which are sponsored by the US) after Palestinian suicide killers and murderers and would monitor anti-Semitic incitement in PA media, mosques, schools and kindergartens. And most importantly, before demanding that Israel remove barriers and downgrade security in Judea and Samaria, the US would insist that the PA curb its military wings and cease all acts of terror.

But as of now, Obama's policy can be summarized as "Israelis should give and Palestinians should take." It amounts to appeasing the Arabs, humiliating Israel and in the process, undermining the security of the Jewish state.

ISRAEL IS not a superpower and needs to retain the support of the United States, in the absence of which the United Nations, Europeans and the entire international community would gang up against the Jewish state. It is no coincidence that Javier Solana, the retiring EU foreign policy chief, has urged the UN to determine the final borders, the status of Jerusalem and resolution of the refugee problem and impose their solution. That the British government has just announced what amounts to a partial arms boycott against Israel is another example.

Netanyahu is doing his utmost to achieve a compromise and has already offered to totally freeze all settlement activity beyond Jerusalem and the major settlement blocs, which the vast majority of Israelis agree must be retained. But if the Americans remain bloody-minded and refuse to compromise, Netanyahu will stand firm on this issue and will be overwhelmingly supported by the people who are outraged by the double standards applied against them.

In the meanwhile, the public reprimands and humiliations already underway are eroding the US-Israel relationship and impacting on American public support for Israel, which polls indicate is plummeting.

American Jews who voted overwhelmingly to elect Obama should not remain silent. They are entitled to press him to adhere to his commitment and treat the Jewish state in an even-handed manner. Together with other friends of Israel they should discourage their president from offering Israel as a sacrificial lamb on the altar of Arab appeasement. In urging Obama not to abandon Israel, they would also be promoting the US national interest. History cannot point to a single instance in which appeasement of jihadists or tyrants has ever borne fruit.

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

 

Perilous Priorities.

 

by Arlene Kushner

President Obama has made his opposition to Israeli settlements the centerpiece of his efforts to promote negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and much is being written about the need for Israel to freeze all building in Jewish communities in Gaza and the West Bank. The settlement issue, however, is more complicated than the administration has made out, and its exclusive focus on settlements at the expense of more pressing issues may be more of an impediment to the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process” than a solution to it.

Start with Israel’s rights and obligations in regard to the settlements. The Mandate for Palestine, which endures as an article of international law, gives Jews sanction to settle in the dispute territories and allows for natural growth of the resident Jewish population. That right was honored by President Bush, who allowed Israel to engage in limited settlement building, but the Obama administration has refused to follow its predecessor.
 

Also significant to the settlement question is the Palestinians’ refusal to compromise on the issue. On Sunday, for instance, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu publicly invited Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to sit with him, any place, for negotiations. But Abbas has pointedly rebuffed Netanyahu, declaring that he will not sit at the negotiating table with him until Israel freezes all building in the settlements.
 

On examination, this is a strange demand. In the year and more following the November 2007 peace conference at Annapolis, Abbas sat with then-prime minister Ehud Olmert a number of times, even though building was going on in the settlements. So, why does he refuse to do so now? The impetus for this new, more stringent Palestinian pre-condition for talks is clear: The man in the White House has set a hard tone on settlements and in effect sanctioned Palestinian intransigence. 

 Indeed, there are those who believe that Abbas expects Obama to deliver Israel on a silver platter, ultimately forcing the Jewish state to accept refugees and move back to the Green Line. Thus, goes this argument, Abbas is in no rush to negotiate what he will be able to achieve largely without negotiations.

But another theory is more credible: Abbas, a weak leader, is in no position to negotiate a state. The disarray in the PA is actually so great that IDF intelligence currently predicts that Abbas is going to postpone elections scheduled for 2010 to 2012. Factor in the presence of Hamas, with whom the PA has not been able to come to terms in a unity government, and Abas’s position seems weaker still. Under these circumstances, delaying negotiations with Israel would suit Abbas just fine.
 

That seems to be true in the long term, as well. Had Palestinian leaders like Abbas and Arafat really wanted a state for their people, they could have had it in 2000, with Ehud Barak’s offer, and again last year with Ehud Olmert’s offer. Abbas is quite content playing the victim, accepting record-breaking sums of international largesse, and not having to wrestle with the need to compromise or to assume responsibility for a sovereign state.
 

What Obama has done is provide Abbas with the hook that allows him to back off from negotiations and to make it seem like Netanyahu’s fault, to boot. In a word, Obama has made it possible for Abbas to proceed without accountability. Ironically by insisting so adamantly that a settlement building freeze must be in place at the beginning of the peace process, Obama is making it less likely that this process will succeed – or even begin.
 

Yet there’s even more going on, and it is considerably more serious than all of Abbas’s stalling and machinations. Obama, by insisting that settlements constitute the major stumbling block to a peace agreement, has shifted international attention away from the emerging Islamic state in Gaza. The Arab Israeli journalist Khaled Abu Toameh recently observed that “Hamas is gradually turning the Gaza Strip into a Taliban-style Islamic entity that poses a threat not only to Israel, but also to the Americans, Europeans, and moderate Arabs and Muslims.” According to Toameh, “The high profile controversy over Israel's policy of building new homes in Jewish settlements has in fact facilitated Hamas's mission.”

Toameh quotes a Palestinian journalist in the Gaza Strip as saying, “The Americans and Europeans are fighting against Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan while Hamas is building a new fundamentalist entity here. The settlements may be an obstacle to peace but Hamastan will soon become a major threat to stability in the region.”
 

How to explain Obama’s confused priorities? One answer lies in his clear intent to demonstrate to the Muslim and Arab worlds that he is tough with Israel and capable of imposing his demands upon the Jewish state. With this ruthless power play, in which Israel serves as a reluctant pawn, Obama is able to score considerable points abroad. The problem is that, by turning his back on rising Islamic radicalism in Gaza, Obama is doing inestimable damage to the genuine interests of the United States.

 

Arlene Kushner, who lives and writes in Jerusalem, has just completed her latest documented report on Fatah for the Center for Near East Policy Research.  Her articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, Azure, The Jewish Exponent, YNet, and other venues.

 

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

 

The big truth.

 

by  David Frankfurter

 

Over the years we have seen Israel on the losing end of an ongoing propaganda war that has increasingly besmirched its image in the media and has increasingly affected the realpolitik of the world in which we live and operate.

 

The pattern is consistent.  The Palestinian lobby starts with a lie which is so unbelievable that we belittle it – or even ignore it.  The lie is repeated often enough until the world believes it – and even our natural supporters in the Jewish Diaspora begin to adopt it, repeat it and reinforce it.  It then becomes a reality we have to deal with.  Eventually even the Israeli government toes the line.  Frankly we are fools.  And if we ever thought “never again!”, why don’t we fight back?

 

Let’s understand how it works.  The “big lie” was most famously defined by Hitler – in fact in a “big lie” hidden within a “big lie” – he accused the Jews of using the tactic:

 

“…in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation… would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.” —Adolf Hitler , Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X

 

United States Office of Strategic Services wartime description of Hitler’s Psychological Profile showed how he used the tactic:

 

“His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.”

 

And the Palestinians adopted Hitler’s ways.  Amongst their own public and in the international arena.

 

Let’s take, as an example, the “illegal” settlements beyond the 1967 armistice line, in what is “rightful Palestinian territory”, that have become in the world’s mind the only “obstacle to peace”.  If Israel would only abandon the settlements, the world would support Israel, peace would miraculously descend from heaven resolving the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, magically diffuse over the entire Middle East, and the Messianic era would usher in world peace. Leaving aside whether one thinks that settlements are a good idea, a bad idea, should be dismantled or not, are a blessing or a curse – the fundamental assumptions are simply balderdash.

 

The Arab world rejected Israel and launched non-stop wars and terrorist campaigns against Israel’s citizens before a single settlement  existed beyond the 1967 armistice lines.  At least some “post-1967 Settlements” were re-established on Jewish owned lands, where the surrounding Arab neighbours had massacred the inhabitants during one or another of these violent attempts to purge the region of Jews.  There are many eminent international lawyers who would contend that the vast majority of the settlements in Judea and Samaria are perfectly acceptable under international law.

 

Most telling, however, is the experiment which thoroughly tested and disproved the idea that removing settlements or Jews from “Palestine” will somehow magically lead to peace.  In September 2005, all the settlements in the Gaza strip were voluntarily abandoned. The Gaza strip was made completely “Judenrein” or Jew-free.  

 

We all know the results.  The world “rewarded” Israel by allowing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon address a near-empty plenum of the UN, and then promptly placed all blame for Palestinian failures on Israeli shoulders.  Instead of an opportunity for state-building, the Palestinians chose a path of self-destruction and terrorist war against Israel.  Rocket attacks, suicide bombings, and internal violence and corruption didn’t let up for a moment.  And the infant Gaza economy was deliberately destroyed from the inside. 

 

But, we are told, Hamas did all of this, and that the Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) led Palestinian Authority is “different”, “moderate” and “responsible”.  

 

Another big lie. 

 

The very same Abbas led Palestinian Authority was in power in Gaza when Israel left.  Hamas didn’t come to power until June 2007 – some twenty months later!  And Abbas’ Fatah political party, which also controls the Al Aqsa terrorists, has (in Arabic only, of course) consistently agreed with Hamas.  Just last week, a Fatah activist once again declared on PA Television that they don’t want peace.  As Fatah strong man Mahmoud Dahlan explained on PA Television in March, the Palestinians will not recognise Israel; any contrary statements are purely designed to obtain international funds and support.  Is it any wonder that Abbas refuses Benjamin Netanyahu’s unconditional invitation to meet to discuss peace?

 

Don’t misunderstand me.  I am in favour of anything that has a reasonable chance of bringing peace to our region.  But Israel is being pushed to make huge one-sided high-risk concessions, for which it gets little or nothing in return; all on the basis of a web of lies that have been thoroughly disproved, but repeated often enough, loudly enough and from high enough places that the world either pretends to or really does believe.

 

And this is just one the most recent example of the way the Palestinians and the world have adopted Adolf Hitler’s “big lie” principle to outflank the Jews.

 

But how to fight back?  The only way I can think of is to tell “the big truth”.  Start calling out the truth loudly enough, clearly enough, often enough that it begins to stick.  Call every bluff in no uncertain terms. Don’t defend.  Fight back.  But it takes each and every one of us to do it.  Loudly.  Publicly.  Every time.

 

 

David Frankfurter

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

 

Rubin: New US Mideast Policy Great in Theory, Bound to Fail

 

by  Barry Rubin

 

A clear, consistent, and carefully formulated U.S. strategy is emerging in the Middle East. Unfortunately, it’s a badly flawed one that won’t work. Probably, the Obama administration will spend the next six months finding out what I’ve just told you. Hopefully, it will learn and change as a result.

Let’s consider the interrelated U.S. policy regarding Iran and the Arab-Israeli conflict. On Iran, the U.S. plans to build sanctions against Iran, going slowly to keep Europeans on board and to win assent from Moscow.

The other arm of this policy has been a careful effort to avoid friction with Tehran. Some in the administration think that engagement might work but probably more and more view it simply as a way to show the world that America has tried and that Iran is intransigent (something the world should already know).

At any rate, starting in September the administration intends to spring its trap! Everything will be ready: allies coordinated, rationale laid. Tougher sanctions will be raised against Iran; stronger warnings will be made.

Yet if one puts aside all the atmospherics and personalities, doesn't this put the Obama administration in October 2009 about where the Bush administration was regarding Iran in October 2008? In other words, U.S. policy will not be noticeably more likely to affect Iranian behavior now than it was then.

The big difference is supposedly that Obama's popularity and the fact that he tried engagement with Iran will translate into strong European support for sanctions.

But even with their liking Obama, how much more will Europeans do? Moreover, Obama is neither wildly popular nor has he made progress with the two biggest barriers to strong sanctions: Russia and China.

Foreign support for getting tough with Iran is not just a function of disliking former President George Bush or thinking Iran hasn’t been given enough chance to repent. Europeans have spent years at engaging Iran.

No, their motive is:

--Economic self-interest. There are big profits to be made from trade and investment.

--Desire to avoid confrontations with Iran, a country that has a lot of money and which kills people who oppose it.

--Belief that a nuclear-armed Iran can be managed.

As for Russia, it views Iran as an asset. Tehran buys its nuclear equipment, weapons, and helps subvert U.S. policies. In China’s case, aside from the profit motive, is fear of setting a precedent with sanctions which some day might be used against itself over human rights, or Taiwan, or Tibet.

True, Obama has a plan for winning over Russia. It just isn’t a good one. His advisor on nuclear issues, an able, decent expert (but not on international politics) named Gary Samore says, "I think the effort to reset the relationship with Russia... can have the effect of making it more likely that Russia will cooperate with us in dealing with Iran."

More likely, "very slightly less likely" rather than "more likely," but it still won't happen in any meaningful way.

Samore continues:

"That strategy of working on a new START treaty in parallel with efforts to improve our coordination on Iran seems to be working and we'll find out later this year whether that ends up being successful."

But is Russia going to trade, as the Obama team hints, a nuclear treaty in exchange for serious cooperation over Iran? No. Reducing America's nuclear arsenal, which is not a desperate need for Russia any way, would already be paid for by Russia's reducing its own arsenal!

[Update: I was right! Russia rejects this deal completely:

In other words, no matter how charming Obama is, no matter how many concessions he makes to the Europeans and Russia, no matter how much he proves himself willing to be friends with Tehran, it won’t change that much.

Furthermore, just how tough will be the sanctions Obama will request, much less get? They are not likely to be "killers" to start with and then will get watered down further to win broad support. And then after being announced they will be watered down even more in order to ensure adaption. And then after being agreed to they might well not be completely enforced.

In short, Tehran isn't trembling.

But let’s take the best-case outcome. Suppose everyone is ready to agree to tougher sanctions. These would still be far too low to force Iran to give in. Moreover, the new Iranian government is tougher than ever and less inclined not only to compromising away the nuclear weapons’ drive but even to slowing it down. Having crushed demonstrations in Tehran these aren’t leaders to be cowed by finger-wagging from diplomats in suits more expensive than the average Iranian makes in a year.

Meanwhile, Obama’s general rhetoric and overall approach to international affairs convinces Tehran that the West is weak. Ignore it, say the mullahs. Full speed ahead! Then when we have nukes, who cares what the West says, If it even dares complain.

So this Iran policy, though it seems brilliant to its creators, is hopeless.

THE ARAB-ISRAELI COMPONENT

Now, let’s turn to Arab-Israeli conflict policy. Alexander Pope wrote: "A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."

In other words, the Obama administration has learned part of the truth but this has made things worse.

What it understands correctly is that most Arab regimes (excluding Iran’s little buddy, Syria) are more worried about Iran and radical Islamist groups than about Israel.

In light of this correct insight, the administration has devised a brilliant—in its own mind—plan.

This policy is not a repeat of the old panacea--bash Israel and get peace—is a mistake. It is a more updated, softer (but not necessarily more sophisticated) strategy which can be summarized as: get Israel to make one concession and everything will fall into place.

Here's the grand plan: The United States will force Israel to freeze construction on Jewish settlements on the West Bank, then using this proof of evenhandedness, will go to Arab regimes and say: You see we’re ready to push Israel, now your job is to push the Palestinians toward compromise, convince Israel of your own readiness for peace, and stand with us more vigorously in containing Iran.

Arab rulers will reply—indeed, the Saudis, Egyptians, and Jordanians have already done so—“not by the hairs on your chinny-chin-chin,” as the three pink mammals, whose species cannot be mentioned in these Politically Correct times, put it in the nursery rhyme. Or in more scientific language, “You get bupkis!”

They'd probably say this any way but can do so more easily knowing that Obama is not going to huff, and puff, and blow their houses down. At the same time, they know that the Iranian regime and their own people are far scarier than Barack Obama.

And so this strategy, too, will fail.

I certainly agree that forming an alliance of the West, Israel, and most Arab states is the central task in the Middle East today, but Obama and his colleagues hugely underestimates the difficulty in doing so.

It wasn’t just mean old George Bush that prevented the Arab-Israeli conflict from being solved but Palestinian and Syrian intransigence plus Arab state passivity.

It wasn’t just mean old unpopular George Bush that prevented Arab states from doing more to help U.S. policy to stabilize Iraq and contain Iran. It was the self-interest of those regimes that did so.

At best, while most Arab regimes agree that the main danger is Iran and radical Islamism, they aren't going to stick their necks out, especially now that the United States seems weak and uncertain about providing real leadership. And they are still content to let America do all the work.

If this analysis were a cartoon, then, the caption would be: "Smithers, it is a carefully composed, comprehensive, detailed, and internally logical plan. Congratulations. Unfortunately, it is a very bad plan and it won't work."

Think of how an alternative might look. Last May 27 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said:

"With respect to settlements, the President was very clear....He wants to see a stop to settlements – not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions....That is our position. That is what we have communicated very clearly...And we intend to press that point."

What would this approach would sound like if applied to Iran’s regime:

"With respect to nuclear weapons and sponsorship of terrorism, the President was very clear....He wants to see a stop to nuclear weapons--not some nuclear weapons, not just the warheads, not just the missiles....That is our position. That is what we have communicated very clearly....And we intend to press that point."

Or how about Syria’s regime?

"With respect to Syrian sponsorship of terrorism, the President was very clear....He wants to see a stop to Syrian sponsorship of terrorism–not just training terrorists, not just financing terrorists, not just ordering them to attack, not just giving them safe passage across the border, not just against Lebanon, not just against Syria, not just against Israel....That is our position. That is what we have communicated very clearly....And we intend to press that point."

But of course such a policy would require some real toughness against enemies on real big issues, not just gigantic posturing against an ally on a really small issue. U.S. policy neither intends nor in the end will sell out Israel. The problem is much worse from an American standpoint: it is dangerously subverting its own interests.

There's a problem when any serious and well-informed observer should be able to see six months ahead of time that U.S. policy isn't going to work.

There’s an even bigger problem when administration officials and the media are so busy congratulating the genius of the current administration that no one notices the train is speeding toward a chasm without a bridge.

So, Mr. President, save this column and read it again in six months. It will make more sense to you.





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.