State of Terror.

 

by Yoram Ettinger

Why a Palestinian state would be a threat to American, Israeli and even Arab national security.

The idea that a Palestinian state can lead to enduring peace in the Middle East has become a diplomatic obsession for American policy makers. Bringing such a state into being has become the equivalent of finding the Holy Grail. In fact, however, a Palestinian state would not only fail to bring peace and stability to the region, but would make it an even more dangerous place than it already is. And ironically, given its adamant backing for a government that would have been led by Yasser Arafat and now would be headed by Abu Mazen, U.S. support for the creation of “Palestine,” which would immediately ally itself with and become a client of rivals and enemies of America such as Iran, would harm American, Israeli, and even Arab interests.

The history of the PLO's Abu Mazen – who is hailed by the US administration as a peaceful leader – tells us something important about the likely character of a Palestinian state. As a graduate of Moscow University (Ph.D. thesis: Holocaust Denial) and a beneficiary of KGB training, he managed the logistics of the Munich Massacre of eleven Israeli athletes in 1972. He was the architect of PLO ties with ruthless communist regimes until 1989 and, since 1993, a series of PLO accords with Hamas. In 1950, 1966 and 1970, he was forced to flee Egypt, Syria and Jordan, respectively, for subversive activities. During the 1970s and 1980s he participated in PLO attempts to topple the Christian regime in Beirut, which resulted in the 1976 Syrian invasion of Lebanon and a series of civil wars, causing close to 200,000 deaths and hundreds of thousands of refugees. As Yasser Arafat’s confidante and first deputy for over fifty years until Arafat's death, Abu Mazen is one of the engineers of contemporary Palestinian hate education, which has become a production line for terrorists. In 1990, he collaborated with Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, despite the Gulf country’s unique hospitality to 400,000 PLO-affiliated Palestinians.

This history is not that of a peace maker, and the PLO's track record of inter-Arab treachery, non-compliance, corruption, repression and terrorism does not give evidence of peaceful Palestinian state of the future. Since its makeover from a terrorist organization to a semi-independent entity in 1993, the Palestinian Authority, which has been led by PLO graduates of terrorist bases in Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria and Tunisia, has become an incubator for terrorist tactics, which have been exported to Iraq, Afghanistan, England, Spain and other countries.

The 1968-70 and 1970-1982 PLO autonomy in Jordan and in Lebanon respectively provided training and inspiration for scores of international terror organizations; introduced the first wave of commercial aircraft hijackings; and facilitated the murder of 300 US Marines in the 1983 attack on the US Embassy and Marine Headquarters in Beirut. The year 1993 – when the PLO catapulted to prominence – marked a wave of anti-US Islamic terrorism, starting with the first bombing of the World Trace Center in 1993 and ending with the September 11 attacks.

The proposed Palestinian State would inflict destruction upon America’s Arab allies and would enhance the fortunes of its rivals and enemies. Other states in the region know this. During the October 1994 signing of the Israel-Jordan peace treaty, top commanders of the Jordanian military urged their Israeli counterparts to stop short of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River, “lest it destroy the [pro-US] Hashemite regime east of the River.” Home to the largest Palestinian community in the world, Jordan is considered by the PLO to be Palestinian land. Why would the US support the Hashemite regime on one hand, but doom it to oblivion, by promoting a Palestinian State, on the other?

Even more worrisome are the ties between the PLO and Iran. The PLO was one of the earliest allies of the Ayatollah Khomeini when he toppled the Shah of Iran in 1979. After his 2005 election to the chairmanship of the Palestinian Authority, Abu Mazen’s first visits were to Teheran and Damascus. A Palestinian state would extend Iran's long terrorist arm, facilitating subversive operations against pro-Western Arab regimes. It would also enable Iran to enhance its intelligence and military operations in the region, including port facilities in Gaza.

A Palestinian State would be a tailwind to insurgent terrorists in Iraq. With its long record of connections to Soviet intelligence, it would provide Russia and possibly China and North Korea with a foothold in the eastern flank of the Mediterranean at the expense of vital US interests. The increasingly Islamist and anti-US direction of Abu Mazen's educational and media efforts indicates that a Palestinian state would export terrorism to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

The long and determined effort by American administrations to soften the Palestinian Authority’s harsh features cannot change the fact that a Palestinian State would add fuel to the fire of terrorism in the region. In tying its fortunes to the creation of such a state, the United States may be signing a suicide note for its Middle East policy.

 

Ambassador Yoram Ettinger served as Minister for Congressional Affairs at Israel’s Embassy in Washington and Director of Israel’s Government Press Office, in addition to other posts. He speaks frequently on U.S. college campuses about the conflict in the Middle East.

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

 

Palestinian Prime Minister: We'll Build State Institutions in Two Years.

by Barry Rubin

 

What Have You Been Doing for the last 15?

This will never lead anywhere, but that's the point isn't it?

Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has a new peace plan: he's just going to create a state without reaching a peace agreement with Israel. The goal, in his words, is "to establish a de facto state apparatus within the next two years."

Coverage of this just sort of took his word for it:

"We must confront the whole world with the reality that Palestinians are united and steadfast in their determination to remain on their homeland, end the occupation and achieve their freedom and independence," he said.

"The world should also know that we are not prepared to continue living under a brutal occupation and siege that flouts not only the law, but also the principles of natural justice and human decency."

If you actually examine what he says, however, all sorts of interesting things emerge:

Fayyad has been finance minister for about seven years and prime minister for two years. But the PA has been in business for 15 years. That's a long time. And what was the business of the PA?

The first task was to negotiate a peace agreement with Israel, which it has refused to do and Fayyad appears disinterested in even today, given this new program.

The second task was to—well, let's use Fayyad's own words here—"establish a de facto state apparatus." So what's it been doing all these years if the process of building that foundation hasn't even begun?

It's been very busy: mobilizing warfare against Israel periodically, focusing on an international public relations' campaign, stealing donor money (though Fayyad is competent and honest almost nobody else is), and raising a new generation to believe that the battle must continue until total victory.

But establishing a de facto state apparatus? No. And that can't be blamed on Israel. Well, they will blame Israel but there's no basis for it.

The next point, which is generally understood, is that the Palestinians are anything but united. Not only is there the battle of Hamas versus Fatah (with Gaza and the West Bank under separate regimes and no prospect of reunification) but also that of the establishment against the "Young Guard" (though I hate that term) opposition. Oh yes, and much of the establishment hates Fayyad and wants to get rid of him. A few months ago, they forced his temporary resignation.

Next, if Palestinians are so steadfast in getting a state, why don't they negotiate for one? If they are suffering under so much brutality doesn't this give them an additional incentive to make a deal?

But the suffering is just used as a public relations' gimmick. Weird as it might sound in the West, this is how Palestinian politics work. If you simultaneously suffer and bleed--through violence and intransigence you yourself induce—and reject a compromise peace, this will hopefully bring international intervention to hand you everything you want with no cost on your part.

If you truly understand the above paragraph you know everything you need to know about the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the failure to achieve peace.

Finally, whatever sins can be put on Israel's occupation, we should note that it is an involuntary and extremely partial one. There are no Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip and very few on the West Bank. The PA runs things there and if it prevented attacks on Israel there would be even less of a presence.

Yes, there are settlements and roadblocks and an Israeli Jewish presence in Hebron. But the idea of some omnipotent occupation—certainly compared to the period before 1995 (when Palestinian towns were turned over to the PA) is largely fictional.

And everyone likes to forget that the Israeli presence has been accepted by the PA itself in a number of agreements beginning with the Israel-PLO Oslo accord of 1993. Almost everything Israel does on the West Bank takes place in the context of things the PA has agreed to happen.

This may sound counterintuitive but it is quite true and it is a point that needs emphasizing. By its own free agreement the PLO and PA accepted the existence of settlements in the West Bank until a peace agreement was signed. It is thus hypocritical to argue that the settlements are there in some "illegal" manner or against the will of the Palestinians. Detailed maps were agreed to by none other than Yasir Arafat and his then advisor, now head of the PA and PLO, Mahmoud Abbas about precisely which sections of the territory Israel would govern during the interim period.

What's the catch? The agreements say this will continue until a peace agreement is made which results in a two-state solution. So who's responsible for the continuation of the "occupation"? Not Israel; the PA. And who can make all the settlements go away, at least within their own independent state? The PA.

But the PA is not going to get what it wants: dismantlement of settlements, an independent state, and financial reparations unless it recognizes Israel, agrees to resettle Palestinian refugees within its own country, ends the conflict and all further claims on Israel, and provides security guarantees.

That is what the Palestinian and "pro-Palestinian" campaign is about. To get a state without binding conditions that would truly end the conflict forever, leaving the PLO and PA free to continue the battle to destroy Israel completely.

These are the issues which as many people throughout the world must be made to understand.

 

 

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

 

There may be worse to come.

 

by Isi Leibler

President Obama's naive efforts to appease the Arabs by bullying and distancing the United States from Israel has backfired. However despite increasing unease extending to some of Obama's most fervent supporters, the administration has yet to signal any change in policy.

The futility of trying to appease tyrannies is evident everywhere; the thuggish behavior of the Iranian regime toward its own people makes a farce of Obama's efforts to reason with Ahmadinejad; in response to unilateral US overtures to the Syrians, President Assad visited the Iranian president, congratulated him on his bogus reelection and declared that their alliance had never been stronger; the North Koreans displayed utter contempt for Obama's friendly outreach; Arabs states all responded negatively to Obama's entreaties to provide a few crumbs of recognition in return for Israeli concessions; Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was publicly humiliated by the Saudi Foreign Minister, who insisted there was nothing to negotiate unless Israel accepted all Arab demands.

The Palestinian response was even more noxious. Clearly emboldened, the Fatah General Assembly displayed contempt for any initiative that could further the peace process. Their intransigence again demonstrated the absurdity of the notion that this corrupt and duplicitous leadership could be a genuine peace partner. There were even elements of surrealism when the Fatah Assembly unanimously accused Israel of having assassinated Arafat and provided standing applause for a mass murderer.

They decreed that unless Israel acceded to all their demands, no further negotiations would take place and they could renew the "armed struggle." Far from encouraging Arab moderation, Obama's tough approach to Israel simply bolstered the hardliners.

The facts on the ground today make prospects for peace more remote than ever. The only clear message emerging from the Fatah Congress is that, as with Hamas, elimination of Jewish sovereignty in the region remains its ultimate objective. Were that not so, Mahmoud Abbas would have accepted Ehud Olmert's offer, which virtually granted him all his territorial demands and even hinted at a compromise over the Arab right of return.

Obama's advisers must have been bitterly disappointed when their diktats against Israel backfired. Indeed, their one-sided demands and bullying tactics can take credit for having created a rare consensus among the Israeli public, which today overwhelmingly supports Netanyahu.

To add to Obama's problems and despite predictions to the contrary, American Jewish leaders have begun to openly challenge some of his policies. There is a growing unease even among some Jewish Democrats that Obama is betraying the unequivocal undertakings he made during the elections to faithfully preserve the alliance with Israel.

This was exemplified in remarks made by Howard Berman, the influential Democratic chair of the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, who in a closed meeting with Jewish leaders explicitly criticized the Obama administration's pressure on Israel over settlements. Berman said Abbas was now "waiting for the US to present him Israel on a platter". Stanley Hoyer, the Democratic House majority leader visiting Israel, made similar comments at a Jerusalem news conference.

OBAMA MUST also have been stunned when his friend and loyal supporter Alan Solow, the Chairman of the Presidents Conference representing 52 major American Jewish organizations, condemned his demands to limit Jews settlements in Jerusalem and its suburbs.

In a full page New York Times advert Abe Foxman of the Anti Defamation League stated "The problem is not settlements, it's Arab rejection...Mr. President, it's time to stop pressuring our vital friend and ally". David Harris of the American Jewish Committee expressed similar feelings to a Congressional group. Whilst usually ritually reiterating their belief that Obama would not abandon Israel, Jewish leaders have begun openly criticizing the administration's behavior toward the Jewish state.

Obama's standing with American Jewish activists plummeted further when, contemptuously dismissing a rare virtually unanimous Jewish protest, he personally participated in the ceremony honoring former Irish president and 2001 UN Durban hate-fest convener Mary Robinson with the highest human rights award in the US. This was perceived as yet another manifestation of Obama's new love affair with the UN and its anti-Israel affiliates.

It must also have been disappointing for Obama's Jewish advisers promoting the J Street line when they became aware that despite expensive media promotions, opinion polls indicated that most Jewish activists remained contemptuous of the left-wing Jewish fringe groups urging Obama to force Israel to make further concessions.

However, as of now, while continuing to avoid any initiative which could irritate the Arabs, the US is maintaining its heavy-handed approach toward its erstwhile ally, Israel. While a face-saving compromise may soon eventuate, appreciating the unprecedented backing he currently enjoys from his constituency, Netanyahu would be unwise to capitulate to Obama's demands.

Alas, irrespective of the settlement issues, there may be worse to come from this administration. After Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's recent warm meeting with Obama in Washington, he effusively praised the policy changes introduced by the president and hinted of further impending "positive" US initiatives.

There are also chilling predictions that without prior consultations with Israel, Obama intends to unilaterally submit a US plan for a comprehensive settlement at the UN or elsewhere. It is rumored that this plan would use as a starting point the irresponsible offers made to Abbas by Olmert during the death throes of his tenure - offers which would unquestionably have been repudiated by the Knesset and people of Israel in a referendum. Such a move would be an unprecedented betrayal of a long-standing ally.

UNTIL SUCH time as a genuine Palestinian peace partner emerges, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu cannot be expected to create a miraculous magic plan which would bring about a comprehensive final settlement. But his task now must be to preempt a disastrous imposed settlement by the Americans.

In doing so he must he speedily identify the red lines which his government, backed by the vast majority of Israelis, would never contemplate crossing.

To this end he should also marshal the support of the mainstream American Jewish leadership and encourage them to convey to their president that they too have red lines. They have already begun to signal that they will not remain passive if their government attempts to unilaterally impose a solution which could endanger the Jewish state.

 

Isi Leibler

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

West Bank: slowly, determinedly, settlers bid to build new town.

 

by  Rory McCarthy

Nadia Matar, a leader of the settler group Women in Green, puts an Israeli flag on a hilltop near the former Israeli army post Shdema, where activists are claiming the land. Photograph: Gali Tibbon

Early in the morning, Nadia Matar drove to the hills south of Jerusalem, near the Palestinian town of Beit Sahour, and turned into a dusty, unmarked road. There she planted a sign which read "Welcome to Shdema". She drove on, stopping every few metres along the route to jam into the rocky ground a series of fluttering blue and white Israeli flags. Israeli soldiers let her pass unhindered as she drove up to the concrete ruins of what was until a few years ago the Israeli military base of Shdema.

Here, just a stone's throw from Palestinian homes and only a few minutes from the city of Bethlehem, Matar and her friends are intent on building a Jewish community, the next settlement outpost in the occupied West Bank.

It is a glaring challenge to the Obama administration, which is trying to halt all Israeli settlement growth as a precursor to renewed peace talks. But recent history suggests it is the highly-motivated settlers like Matar, 43, a mother of six born in Belgium and now living in the settlement of Efrat, who may in the end triumph on this particular dusty patch of land.

Tomorrow, the Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu arrives in London for a series of key meetings, including four hours of discussions on Wednesday with the White House's special envoy, George Mitchell, and talks with Gordon Brown tomorrow. The continued colonisation of the West Bank, an extraordinarily successful project over the past 40 years, will dominate the agenda. Settlement on occupied land is regarded as illegal by the rest of the international community, but nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers live in east Jerusalem and the West Bank. Shdema is even beyond Israel's West Bank barrier, which runs deep into Palestinian territory and which many believe will one day be the final border of Israel.

Matar's goal is "redemption of the land". In her view, the land on which the Palestinian homes sit belongs by Biblical and historical right to the Jewish people and is, for now, "temporarily under Arab occupation". She is trying to build a "Jewish Shdema" and to prevent the land from remaining Palestinian. After the military evacuated the base there were plans, since shelved, to build a hospital for Palestinians. "They want more pieces of land that belong to the Jews. They want to take it away from us," Matar said.

"The Land of Israel was given by God to the people of Israel," she said. "Some will tell you God gave it to us, others will say Jewish history of 4,000 years is our historical right … You don't have to be a religious Englishman to see London belongs to the British."

This is a rare insight into how outposts get built: with determined settlers and eventually complicit Israeli authorities.

At first, after the army withdrew from the base three years ago, soldiers closed the area off and prevented all settlers from approaching. But the settlers sneaked in and kept coming. Eventually Matar, a leader of the group Women in Green, and her supporters convinced the military to allow them in just once a week, on a Friday. They cleaned the buildings up, painted over graffiti, tidied the rooms and held workshops and discussions. Sometimes they have stayed the night, sometimes they have been allowed to come twice a week and eventually, they believe, settlers will begin to live here.

Similar struggles take place every week on other hilltops across the West Bank. All this is happening even though the Israeli government says in public it will allow no new settlements.

"At the beginning we fought against the army to come up here," said Matar. "But when they saw we were adamant they let us come on a Friday … But it's not enough for us. We don't want to ask permission to be in our homeland."

Now every time they come the army far from preventing them in fact provides them with security, deploying several soldiers and armoured vehicles but not interfering with their activities. In April the military also halted the construction of a Palestinian park, part funded by the US government, because it was at the foot of the hill claimed by the settlers at Shdema.

Already the settlers have produced a glossy brochure with architectural plans of the Shdema they would like to see: it has grassy lawns, lines of trees, a cultural centre and a small but thriving Jewish community.

On this day around 30 settlers of different ages gathered, among them several children, a rabbi and at least two women carrying discreetly holstered pistols. They sat in one room on plastic chairs as Tomer Karazi, 34, a rabbi with five children, discussed a Biblical text and the importance of building a new village in this Biblical land.

Later Karazi said he and his wife Hannah were ready to move from their home in the settlement of Nokdim to Shdema as soon as possible. "It's our duty not to escort the process of redemption from the outside but to be involved and active from the inside," he said. "We don't need to wait for things like water and electricity. And we really love the place. It's beautiful."

Then out came large tubs of white emulsion paint and several brushes and the group began painting over the grey concrete walls, stopping occasionally for glasses of water and slices of watermelon.

Yosef Ziggerman, 18, a settler from Efrat had been involved in several other, often unsuccessful, attempts to establish new outposts on nearby hills. "I believe every single piece is ours and I don't see many pieces of land as beautiful as this," he said. "We aren't doing anything crazy or fanatic. We're painting and making it look nice."

Several spoke of their frustration with other Israelis who enjoy the more secular lifestyle of cities like Tel Aviv or Eilat but who seemed not to understand or endorse the settlers' millenarian ideology and their effort to claim the West Bank as their own. Since Israel withdrew its settlers from Gaza four years ago, many fear more compromises and would rather take a more radical and practical stand to expand Jewish settlement of the West Bank.

They described themselves as a frontline in a wider struggle against what they see as radical Islam, insisting that settler outposts protect the larger settlement blocs, which in turn protect Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and which in turn protect the Western world.

"People like to present us like crazy lunatics," said Matar. "But one day these people in the West will see. The Muslims are taking over there too. You better be on our side for your sake, but you guys in Europe are not. Those who curse Israel will be cursed, and those who bless Israel will be blessed.
.

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

 

When criticizing Israel becomes ritual.

   

by Robert Fulford

It begins, reasonably, as a response to apparently unnecessary violence by Israel. Then it moves on to accuse Israel of expanding on land the Arabs insist is theirs. Nothing wrong with criticizing that, surely. Israel, a state, deserves to be judged like any other.

Even those friendly toward Israel have often felt duty bound to point out its mistakes. In more innocent times, I imagined that intellectuals in the West paid careful attention to Israel's faults because they expected it to set a high standard. Who would worry about the moral status of, say, Bolivia? No one except Bolivians. Jews, however, live with the injunction to be (as Isaiah quotes God) "A light unto the nations."

But now everything has changed. Opposing Israel has become an institutionalized ritual. It's now a movement across Europe and North America. It has its traditions, like Israel Apartheid Week, celebrated every spring in universities, often the cause of riots and an occasion to intimidate Jewish students. Vehement opposition to Israel appears to be the major interest of thousands of people all over the world. Many are Muslims, sympathizing with the Palestinians, but many are not. This week, attacks on Israel once more appeared on the agenda of the general council meeting of the United Church of Canada, a critic of Israel for generations.

Netanyahu"s perilous statecraft.

 

by Caroline Glick

This week we discovered that we have been deceived. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's principled rejection of US President Barack Obama's bigoted demand that Israel bar Jews from building new homes and expanding existing ones in Judea and Samaria does not reflect his actual policy.

Construction and Housing Minister Ariel Attias let the cat out of the bag.

Attias said that the government has been barring Jews from building in the areas since it took office four months ago, in the hopes that by preemptively capitulating to US demands, the US will treat Israel better.

And that's not all. Today Netanyahu is reportedly working in earnest to reach a deal with the Obama administration that would formalize the government's effective construction ban through 2010. Netanyahu is set to finalize such a deal at his meeting with Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell in London on Wednesday.

Unfortunately, far from treating Israel better as a result of Netanyahu's willingness to capitulate on the fundamental right of Jews to live and build homes in the land of Israel, the Obama administration is planning to pocket Israel's concession and then up the ante. Administration officials have stated that their next move will be to set a date for a new international Middle East peace conference that Obama will chair. There, Israel will be isolated and relentlessly attacked as the US, the Arabs, the Europeans, the UN and the Russians all gang up on our representatives and demand that Israel accept the so-called "Arab peace plan."

That deceptively named plan, which Obama has all but adopted as his own, involves Israel committing national suicide in exchange for nothing. The Arab plan - formerly the "Saudi Plan," and before that, the Tom Friedman "stick it to Israel 'peace' plan" - calls for Israel to retreat to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines and expel hundreds of thousands of Jews from their homes in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. It also involves Israel agreeing to cease being a Jewish state by accepting millions of foreign, hostile Arabs as citizens within its truncated borders.

The day an Israeli government accepts the plan - which again will form the basis of the Obama "peace conference" - is the day that the State of Israel signs its own death warrant.

Then there is the other Obama plan in the works. Obama also intends to host an international summit on nuclear security in March 2010. Arab states are already pushing for Israel's nuclear program to be placed on the agenda.

Together with Obama administration officials' calls for Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - which would compel Israel to relinquish its purported nuclear arsenal - and their stated interest in having Israel sign the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty - which would arguably force Israel to allow international inspections of its nuclear facility in Dimona - Obama's planned nuclear conclave will place Israel in an untenable position.

Recognizing the Obama administration's inherent and unprecedented hostility to Israel, Netanyahu sought to deflect its pressure by giving his speech at Bar-Ilan University in June. There he gave his conditional acceptance of Obama's most cherished foreign policy goal - the establishment of a Palestinian state in Israel's heartland.

Netanyahu's conditions - that the Arabs generally and the Palestinians specifically recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state; that they relinquish their demand that Israel accept millions of hostile Arabs as citizens under the so-called "right of return"; that the Palestinian state be a "demilitarized" state; and that Arab states normalize their relations with Israel were supposed to put a monkey wrench in Obama's policy of pressuring Israel.

Since it is obvious that the Arabs do not accept these eminently reasonable conditions, Netanyahu presumed that Obama would be forced to stand down.

What the prime minister failed to take into consideration was the notion that Obama and the Arabs would not act in good faith - that they would pretend to accept at least some of his demands in order to force him to accept all of their's, and so keep US pressure relentlessly focused on Israel.

Unfortunately, this is precisely what has happened.

Ahead of Obama's meeting on Tuesday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Al-Quds al-Arabi reported that Obama has accepted Netanyahu's call for a demilitarized Palestinian state. Although Netanyahu is touting Obama's new position as evidence of his own diplomatic prowess, the fact is that Obama's new position is both disingenuous and meaningless.

Obama's supposed support for a demilitarized Palestinian state is mendacious on two counts. First, Palestinian society is already one of the most militarized societies in the world. According to the World Bank, 43 percent of wages paid by the Palestinian Authority go to Palestinian militias. Since Obama has never called for any fundamental reordering of Palestinian society or for a reform of the PA's budgetary priorities, it is obvious that he doesn't have a problem with a militarized Palestinian state.

The second reason his statements in support of a demilitarized Palestinian state are not credible is because one of the central pillars of the Obama administration's Palestinian policy is its involvement in training of the Fatah-led Palestinian army. US Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton is overseeing the training of this army in Jordan and pressuring Israel to expand its deployment in Judea and Samaria.

The US claims that the forces it is training will be responsible for counterterror operations and regular police work, and therefore, it is wrong to say that Dayton is raising a Palestinian army. But even if this is true today, there is no reason not to assume that these forces will form the backbone of a future Palestinian army. After all, the Palestinian militias trained by the CIA in the 1990s were trained in counterterror tactics. This then enabled them to serve as the commanders of the Palestinian terror apparatus from 2000 until 2004, when Israel finally defeated them. It is the uncertainty about these forces that renders Obama's statement meaningless.

And that gets to the heart of the problem with Netanyahu's conditional support for Palestinian statehood. Far from deflecting pressure on Israel to make further concessions, it trapped Israel into a position that serves none of its vital interests.

For Israel to secure its long-term vital national interests vis-a-vis the Palestinians, it doesn't need for the US and the Palestinians to declare they agree to a demilitarized state or for a Palestinian leader to announce that he recognizes Israel's right to exist or even agrees that Israel doesn't have to commit national suicide by accepting millions of Arab immigrants. For Israel to secure its national interests, Palestinian society needs to be fundamentally reorganized.

As we saw at the Fatah conclave in Bethlehem last week, even if Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas were to accept Netanyahu's conditions, he wouldn't be speaking for anyone but himself. Fatah's conclave - like Hamas's terror state in Gaza - gave Israel every reason to believe that the Palestinians will continue their war against Israel after pocketing their state in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. There is no Palestinian leader with any following that accepts Israel. Consequently, negotiating the establishment of a Palestinian state before Palestinian society is fundamentally changed is a recipe for disaster.

Furthermore, even if Netanyahu is right to seek an agreement with Mitchell next week, he showed poor negotiating skill by preemptively freezing Jewish construction. Domestically, Netanyahu has lost credibility now that the public knows that he misled it. And by preemptively capitulating, the prime minister showed Obama that he is not a serious opponent. Why should Obama take Netanyahu's positions seriously if Netanyahu abandons before them before Obama even begins to seriously challenge him?

Beyond the damage Netanyahu's actions have inflicted on his domestic and international credibility is the damage they have caused to Netanyahu's ability to refocus US attention and resolve where it belongs.

As the prime minister has repeatedly stated, the Palestinian issue is a side issue.

The greatest impediment to Middle East peace and the greatest threat to international security today is Iran's nuclear weapons program. A nuclear-armed Iran will all but guarantee that the region will at best be plagued by continuous war, and at worst be destroyed in a nuclear conflagration.

Netanyahu had hoped that his conditional support for Palestinian statehood, and his current willingness to bar Jews from building homes in Judea and Samaria would neutralize US pressure on Israel and facilitate his efforts to convince Obama to recognize and deal rationally with the issue of Iran's nuclear weapons program. But as Ambassador Michael Oren made clear on Sunday, the opposite has occurred.

In an interview with CNN, Oren said that Israel is "far from even contemplating" a military strike against the Islamic republic's nuclear installations. He also said, "The government of Israel has supported President Obama in his approach to Iran, initially the engagement, the outreach to Iran."

From this it appears that Israel has not only made no headway in convincing the administration to take Iran seriously. It appears that Jerusalem has joined the administration in accepting a nuclear-armed Iran.

It is possible that Oren purposely misrepresented Israel's position. But this too would be a disturbing turn of events. Israel gains nothing from lying. Oren's statement neutralizes domestic pressure on the administration to get serious about Iran. And if Israel attacks Iran's nuclear installations in the coming months, Oren's statement will undoubtedly be used by Israel's detractors to attack the government.

Some critics of Netanyahu from the Right like Ariel Mayor Ron Nachman claim that it may well be time to begin bringing down Netanyahu's government. They are wrong. We have been down this road before. In 1992, the Right brought down Yitzhak Shamir's government and brought the Rabin-Peres government to power and Yassir Arafat to the gates of Jerusalem. In 1999, the Right brought down the first Netanyahu government and gave Israel Camp David and the Palestinian terror war.

There is another way. It is being forged by the likes of Vice Premier Moshe Ya'alon on the one hand and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee on the other.

Ya'alon argues that not capitulating to American pressure is a viable policy option for Israel. There is no reason to reach an agreement with Mitchell on the administration's bigoted demand that Jews not build in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. If the US wants to have a fight with Israel, a fight against American anti-Jewish discrimination is not a bad one for Israel to have.

Ya'alon's argument was borne out by Huckabee's visit this week to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. Huckabee's trip showed that the administration is not operating in a policy vacuum. There is plenty of strong American support for an Israeli government that would stand up to the administration on the Palestinian issue and Iran alike.

Netanyahu's policies have taken a wrong turn. But Netanyahu is not Tzipi Livni or Ehud Olmert. He is neither an ideologue nor an opportunist. He understands why what he is doing is wrong. He just needs to be convinced that he has another option.

 

 

Caroline Glick

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

 

Demolition Derby.

 

by Tuvia Tenenbom

JERUSALEM -- "I was sitting at home," tells me a young German lady in her mid-twenties, "and I read what the Jews were doing to the poor Palestinians. I knew that I must stop this. They are Nazis!" It is why, she says to me, she left Germany and came here: Al-Bustan, Silwan, East Jerusalem. The Palestinians, she explains to me, built their homes in Silwan 200 years ago and now the Jews are destroying them. Out of curiosity, I ask her if she also feels sympathy for the Chechen or the Tibetans, and could she share with me her thoughts about Rwanda or Darfur. "I don't know much about foreign affairs," comes her reply.

I meet her at a press conference held by the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, popularly known as OCHA, and by Save The Children UK, a British NGO. The press conference takes place under hole-ridden dirty sheets, which the locals call "The Tent." Why in such an eyesore of a place? I'm not sure, but perhaps the organizers here thought that this would be the best way to convey an image of Palestinians living in utter misery. The fact that this tent stands on the roof of a one-family house seems to bother none of these organizers, mostly blond European NGO folks. What bothers them, it soon becomes evident, is the lack of Suffering Palestinians in the audience.

The press conference is slightly delayed until hot Turkish coffee and tastiest of Rugelach are brought in. Miraculously, before you realize what's happening, a line of women in shiny Hijabs forms next to the Free Rugelach. Authentic look in order, the press conference starts. "300,000 Palestinians are in danger of losing their homes in the West Bank," we're informed by the UK folks. A saddened Philippe Lazzarini, who's Head of OCHA, offers his deep regrets about this "misery and denied dignity" and decries the "3,000 demolition orders in the West Bank." How did the figure drop so fast from 300,000 to 3,000 is anybody's guess, but at least the digit "3" exists in both versions.

Philippe, who hails from Switzerland, passionately promises that the UN will do all it can to help. A Rugelach-eating local has a question. Why is it that the people who've lost their homes don't get help? The NGOs have so much money, says the Rugelach-eater, why not share it with needy families and their little kids? Isn't this, after all, the stated purpose of the NGOs and the UN? The Rugelach-eater is immediately shushed. "The issue here is politics, not individuals," comes a stern reply. "Individuals will get nothing! Questions from the media only, please!"

Clearing my throat, I ask the esteemed Europeans for exact date of most recent demolition in the area. In reply, I get four different dates: "March 10, 2009." "June 10, 2009." "November, 2008." "January 28, 2009." Ms. Elin Asgeirsdottir, a blond from Iceland who fears that I might get a bad impression, quickly slips in a note to me that she's available to supply required info. She has the stats; she's a Humanitarian Affairs Officer at OCHA.

I ask if it's possible to meet a family whose home was recently destroyed. I'd really appreciate if I could interview people who lost their 200-year-old home to Israeli bulldozers. No problem. I'm introduced to Mr. Fakhri, a man who holds the title Head of The Silwan Committee. "He'll take you to the people," I'm told. But Mr. Fakhri, an al-Bustan resident who himself faces a demolition order, is not exactly in the mood. He looks at me, then at the German girl next to me, and decides to go for the girl. "I'll get you a nice German man to show you around," he says. I make it abundantly clear to Mr. Fakhri that he can't separate between the German girl and me. We're together today. Having no choice, Mr. Fakhri takes both of us on a tour of al-Bustan, an amazingly beautiful neighborhood with colorful alleys and picturesque backyards. How old is his house, I ask him? "I built it in 1992," he says. Did he get a permit to build it? "No, no permits. You come to my home, I give you cold drinks."

We finally return to The Tent without meeting any displaced person whatsoever. I take a last look at my surrounding: "End the Demolition," says a sign in English. "No to Judaization," says the sign in Arabic. Both signs paid for by, thank you, the Europeans. I ask Mr. Fakhri if I could take his picture. He offers me a great smile. The German girl admonishes him: "You're not supposed to laugh. You're suffering!"

Truth be said, it's Mr. Fakhri who got it right. He simply can't stop laughing when he hears foreign officials, including members of the Obama Administration, utter lines that were concocted at The Tent. Why is it that the Americans buy everything the European NGOs and the UN are selling them? Maybe Kafka would be able to explain this; I don't. Long live Europe. It's good to be blond. Hillary Clinton is too.

 

Tuvia Tenenbom

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

Report from Washington: U.S. Middle East's Policy's Next Step.

by Barry Rubin

It's always a pleasure to arrive in a place, scrutinize the situation carefully, and conclude that your analysis has been right. And it's also a good time to be taking a close-up look at U.S. Middle East policy.

Before talking about the next stage, let's briefly review our story to date, since Barack Obama became U.S. president on January 20.

our story to date

Step 1: Obama and his administration think that his charm and the fact that he isn't George W. Bush will help quickly change the Middle East. He is planning to appeal to the people over the heads of government, show his sympathy with Islam and Palestinian aspirations, show his willingness to engage foes and make them friends, and generally get things moving quickly.

Result: Failure.

Step 2: Order Israel to stop building apartments on existing settlements, with quick compliance to follow. This would in turn lead to gratitude on the part of the Arabs (Hey, this guy really means business!) and thus a breakthrough in the peace process. This breakthrough would, in turn, lead to Arab support for U.S. efforts on Iran.

Result: Failure

Step 3: Faced with Israeli resistance, Obama then tried to get both sides to do something along the lines of giving Israel some confidence-building measures. Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia not only refused, they publicly refused, and not just that but publicly refused while standing in Washington next to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Sum total of successes: one weasel-worded op-ed in the Washington Post by a UAE royal; possible promises by Oman and Qatar to let Israeli commercial offices to reopen (but not Omani and Qatari offices in Israel).

Result: Failure

And now for something partly, but not completely, different

There is a dawning realization that things are not quite happening as many of Obama's advisors have prophesized. To some extent this means the need to listen to other advisors.

We are now entering a new phase, which will also fail but is better than its predecessors, the optimism offensive. Obama will proclaim—he's already started doing so—that his strategy has succeeded and that both Israel and the Arabs have pledged to do some things to advance the peace process.

There is, however, now a slight tilt toward Israel. Partial as it is, a limited freeze did give the Obama administration something, while the Palestinians gave nothing and the Arab regimes close to nothing. What Obama is likely to propose is not a detailed peace plan but a feel-good sense that we are now on the road forward. A good amount of the credit will be given by him to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In Washington, it is thought that this optimism will in itself generate progress. The American people will see that Obama was "right" and that in comparison to his predecessor the president's personal attention has moved things forward. They also think this will appeal to Arabs and Israelis alike, who will see hope. And hope, as you know, is the thing this administration believes leads to change you can believe in.

I am more skeptical that this phase will have much impact. It is based on too little and comes at a time when cynicism is at a peak, even by the Middle East's usual standards. Arabs and Palestinians will grumble as Israel completes already started apartments, insisting that Israel has given nothing and that America once again proves it is pro-Israel.

The administration and many in Washington simply don't understand the depth of radicalism, ideology, how extremism serves regime and opposition interests, and other such factors in the Arabic-speaking world.

As I write this, a translation from MEMRI arrives on my computer, an Egyptian cleric speaking on al-Jazira about Obama's Cairo speech:

"All the people in the front row applauded him….don't know what for….He is killing your sons in Iraq, he is killing your Muslim mothers and sisters in Afghanistan, and he sent a ship loaded with weapons to the Jews, in order to replace the three million kg of weapons that they used against your brothers in Gaza for 23 days.

"You come and tell me we should recognize Israel? If you love them so much…give them half a state of the United States….But no, they planted [Israel] in our midst."

Now this is not the way President Husni Mubarak or Jordanian King Abdallah speaks to Obama, but it is apparently not too different in tone from what the president heard when he visited the Saudi king. That meeting was—according to sources I believe—a real shock for him, the equivalent of when Dorothy said to Toto, "We're not in Kansas any more."

At any rate, it is closer to the mainstream narrative in the Middle East—to use the current post-rational jargon—than people in Washington think of as the norm.

So the Arabs, no matter how polite the rulers are to the administration, or Palestinians won't buy the official optimism. Indeed, the Palestinians are moving in a more radical direction as the Fatah congress showed. (Incidentally, no one seemed to notice that there was no gratitude or praise for Obama at that meeting.)

As for Israelis, they follow events too closely and are too familiar with how things work in the region to buy the U.S. claim that everything is going well on the peace train. Polls showing that the great majority of Israelis don't even believe they have a Palestinian peace partner indicate this is a matter of national consensus not some right-wing viewpoint. I have to keep reminding people here that this is not a Netanyahu government but a Netanyahu-Barak government. Israelis are not going to be deluded into believing that peace is at hand.

What about domestically? Will the American people buy it? To some extent they will but I can foresee, for example, that in early 2010 the New York Times will be writing articles about Obama's brilliant success in the Middle East while the Washington Post is saying that he hasn't achieved anything.

Moreover, it is important to factor in the growing criticism of Obama within the United States, where his popularity is falling steadily. The health plan mess has hurt him. Congress is no longer as tame as it was before and is returning to an independent voice on Middle East issues. At the same time, the loony left is starting to be dismayed that Obama is not in their camp, even if only from a sense of personal self-preservation rather than any conviction that they are wrong.

An element of good news is that the Obama-is-out-to-destroy-Israel talk will die down. We should remember, however, that if Israel didn't have a government willing to stand up for national interests things could have gone much worse.

Finally, and very importantly, little progress on Arab-Israeli issues will be accompanied by even less on Iran. Tehran is likely to give him nothing, perhaps unwilling to meet for negotiations, certainly unwilling to make real concessions.

There is an important distinction between the Arab-Israel issue and the Iran-Syria issue, and not just its nuclear weapons' element. At this point, wishful thinking on the former will do little or no harm; wishful thinking on the latter is incredibly dangerous. The problem is not just the Iranian regime getting nuclear weapons but its spreading influence and power which could transform the regional power balance.

The writer F. Scott Fitzgerald once said that there were no second acts in American lives. The Obama Administration is going to need an act two in its term or it may not have a term two.

 

 

Barry Rubin

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

 

A warning from history.

 

by Vic Rosenthal

The Nazis: A Warning from History

My wife is away for a week and I've been taking the opportunity to watch videos that she wouldn't enjoy. No, not what you are thinking! Rather, historical documentaries, war movies, Clint Eastwood films, etc.

Now I'm watching a BBC documentary called "The Nazis: A Warning from History". It's quite interesting, loaded with period footage that I'd never seen and including many interviews with former Nazis (they always are listed as becoming 'former' in 1945).

An early episode describes the persecution of the German Jews before the war, of which Kristallnacht was the culmination (and the beginning of the Final Solution). What is interesting — not that there is anything new in this — was the way in which the antisemitic predilections of ordinary Germans were nurtured for years, while at the same time the Jews were gradually excluded from every aspect of German society: the professions, the arts, political life, education, business, even the right to marry non-Jews (by the 1935 Nuremberg laws).

With every succeeding year, new indignities were heaped on the Jews which would have been unthinkable the year before. But like the proverbial frog placed in water which is slowly raised to the boiling point, the German people (even many Jews) didn't perceive the horror of the situation until it was too late. The combination of the continuous antisemitic input from the German media and political establishment, the step by step promulgation of exclusionary laws and the gradually increasing paramilitary violence against individual Jews made the later recruitment of soldiers and police for einsatzgruppen [extermination squads] possible.

One of the former Nazis said something like this: "In 1933, who could have imagined what would be in 1945?  Only 12 years — but it was unimaginable beforehand."

So why do I mention this?

Because a precisely parallel process is underway today. It is not aimed at individual Jews, but at the Jewish state. It is not limited to a single country, but is taking place worldwide. The anti-Israel rhetoric continues to reach new heights and every day things are said which would never have been said before. What was unimaginable last year — like the Aftonbladet accusations — becomes standard fare this year. Just like Nazi propagandists, there are writers and media that specialize in Israel-hatred. I can imagine Max Blumenthal  looking in the mirror every morning and asking himself "how can I stick it to them today?"

The parallel is not exact, because unlike most German Jews the state of Israel is capable of defending herself. But the process of isolation — the product boycotts and divestments, the UN resolutions, the attempts to restrict Israeli participation in international sporting events, the academic boycotts, the anti-Israel conferences, and the escalating vilification in the media — are all intended to disconnect Israel from the world, to ensure that she will have no friends to stand by her when her enemies feel ready to challenge her directly.

The response has to be to not allow the temperature to be raised imperceptibly, to not get used to the anti-Israel rhetoric as, for example, "just what one expects from NPR, the Guardian, the LA Times, etc.," but to push back vigorously against each attack, each lie, each fake 'investigation' and every 'pro-Israel' group that is actually the opposite.

 

 

Vic Rosenthal

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