Is Israel Facing War with Hizbullah and Syria?

 

by David Schenker 
 

• Concerns about Israeli hostilities with Hizbullah are nothing new, but based on recent pronouncements from Syria, if the situation degenerates, fighting could take on a regional dimension not seen since 1973.

 

• On February 26, Syrian President Bashar Assad hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Damascus. Afterward, Hizbullah's online magazine Al Intiqad suggested that war with Israel was on the horizon.

 

• Raising tensions further are reports that Syria has provided Hizbullah with the advanced, Russian-made, shoulder-fired, Igla-S anti-aircraft missile, which could inhibit Israeli air operations over Lebanon in a future conflict. The transfer of this equipment had previously been defined by Israeli officials as a "red line."

 

• In the summer of 2006, Syria sat on the sidelines as Hizbullah fought Israel to a standstill. After the war, Assad, who during the fighting received public assurances from then-Prime Minister Olmert that Syria would not be targeted, took credit for the "divine victory."

 

• Damascus' support for "resistance" was on full display at the Arab Summit in Libya in late March 2010, where Assad urged Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to abandon U.S.-supported negotiations and "take up arms against Israel."

 

• After years of diplomatic isolation, Damascus has finally broken the code to Europe, and appears to be on the verge of doing so with the Obama administration as well. Currently, Syria appears to be in a position where it can cultivate its ties with the West without sacrificing its support for terrorism.

 

In February 2010, tensions spiked between Israel and its northern neighbors. First, Syrian and Israeli officials engaged in a war of words, complete with dueling threats of regime change and targeting civilian populations. Weeks later, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah pledged to go toe-to-toe with Israel in the next war.¹ Then, toward the end of the month, Israel began military maneuvers in the north. Finally, on February 26, Syrian President Bashar Assad hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah for an unprecedented dinner meeting in Damascus.  

Concerns about Israeli hostilities with Hizbullah are nothing new, but based on recent pronouncements from Damascus, if the situation degenerates, fighting could take on a regional dimension not seen since 1973. In January and February, Syrian officials indicated that, unlike during the 2006 fighting in Lebanon, Damascus would not "sit idly by" in the next war.² While these statements may be bravado, it's not difficult to imagine Syria being drawn into the conflict.  

The Israeli government has taken steps to alleviate tensions, including, most prominently, Prime Minister Netanyahu issuing a gag order forbidding his ministers to discuss Syria.³ Still, the situation in the north remains volatile. Within a three-day span in mid-March: the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) fired at Israeli jets violating Lebanese airspace;⁴ four Lebanese nationals were charged with spying for Israel against Hizbullah;⁵ and Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the Shiite militia was "building up its forces north of the Litani (river)." Currently, according to Ashkenazi, the border was calm, "but this can change."⁶ 

It's easy to see how the situation could deteriorate. Hizbullah retaliation against Israel for the 2008 assassination of its military leader Imad Mugniyyeh could spark a war. So could Hizbullah firing missiles in retribution for an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. The transfer of sensitive Syrian technology to the Shiite militia could also prompt an Israeli strike. Regrettably, even if Israel continues to try and diffuse tensions in the north, given the central role Tehran has in determining Hizbullah policy, a third Lebanon war may be inevitable.  
 

 

Martyrs Month Pronouncements 

In mid-February, Hizbullah held the annual commemoration for its pantheon of heroes, a week of celebrations marking the organization's top three martyrs - founding father Ragheb Harb, Secretary General Abbas Mussawi, and military leader Imad Mugniyyeh. On February 16 - Martyred Leaders Day - Nasrallah gave a speech where he defined a new, more aggressive posture toward Israel, upping the ante in the militia's longstanding "balance of terror" strategy. Promising parity with Israeli strikes on Lebanon, Nasrallah threatened: 

If you [Israel] bomb Rafik Hariri international airport in Beirut, we will bomb Ben-Gurion airport in Tel Aviv. If you bomb our docks, we will bomb your docks. If you bomb our oil refineries, we will bomb your oil refineries. If you bomb our factories, we will bomb your factories. And if you bomb our power plants, we will bomb your power plants.⁷

With current estimates suggesting that Hizbullah now possesses in excess of 40,000 missiles and rockets, Nasrallah's threats have some resonance. Raising tensions further are reports that Syria has provided Hizbullah with the advanced, Russian-made, shoulder-fired, Igla-S anti-aircraft missile, which could inhibit Israeli air operations over Lebanon in a future conflict.⁸ The transfer of this equipment had previously been defined by Israeli officials as a "red line."⁹ It is unclear whether such a transgression remains a casus belli.  

In addition to laying out Hizbullah's new targeting strategy, Nasrallah also discussed his yet unfulfilled pledge to retaliate against Israel for the 2008 killing of Mugniyyeh. Two years ago, immediately after the assassination, Nasrallah declared an "open war" against Israel, swearing vengeance for the group's martyred leader. However, to date, the militia's attempts to strike Israeli targets - in Azerbaijan and Turkey - have failed.¹⁰ During his speech, Nasrallah reiterated Hizbullah's commitment to retaliate. "Our options are open and we have all the time in the world," he said, adding, "What we want is a revenge that rises to the level of Imad Mugniyyeh."¹¹ 
 

The Damascus "Resistance" Summit 

In recent years, meetings between Assad and Ahmadinejad have been routine occurrences. It has also been customary for senior Syrian and Iranian officials to visit their respective capitals - and to sign defense or economic agreements - immediately following meetings between the Assad regime and U.S. officials. So it came as little surprise that Ahmadinejad arrived in Damascus just days after Undersecretary of State William Burns departed the Syrian capital. The surprising part about his visit was that Hassan Nasrallah joined the presidents for dinner. 

On the day before Nasrallah's visit, Assad and Ahmadinejad made great efforts to demonstrate that Washington's transparent efforts to drive a wedge between the thirty-year strategic allies had failed. In a press conference on February 25, Assad famously mocked U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and the administration's gambit to split Syria from Iran, announced the end of visa requirements for travel between the two states, and described "support for the resistance [a]s a moral and national duty in every nation, and also a [religious] legal duty."¹² He also said that he discussed with his Iranian counterpart "how to confront Israeli terrorism."  

While the Syria-Iran bilateral meeting and subsequent press conference was described in some detail by Assad regime insider Ibrahim Humaydi in the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat, far less is known about what Assad, Ahmadinejad, and Nasrallah discussed during their dinner meeting the next day. According to the account in Hizbullah's online magazine Al Intiqad, the meeting was about "the escalating strategic response of the axis of the confrontationist, rejectionist, and resistance states" to the U.S.-Israeli threat.¹³ Significantly, this article also suggested that war with Israel was on the horizon. 

Resorting to the most extreme decision - that is, launching and setting a war on its path - will decide the final results. In any case, if reasonable calculations prevail, they will lead to producing comprehensive and specific [Israeli] compromises or it will lead to postponing the war which still waits for its most appropriate time for everyone.¹⁴ 

Based on its analysis of the trilateral summit in Damascus, this Hizbullah organ seems to be suggesting that a war, while not imminent, is inevitable.

  

The Weak Link

In the summer of 2006, Syria sat on the sidelines as Hizbullah fought Israel to a standstill. After the war, Assad, who during the fighting received public assurances from then-Prime Minister Olmert that Syria would not be targeted, took credit for the "divine victory."¹⁵ Since then, Syria has upgraded its rhetorical and materiel support for the Shiite militia.¹⁶ Damascus has helped Hizbullah to fully rearm, reportedly providing the militia with cutting-edge Russian weaponry from its own stocks. In this context, Syrian officials have been increasingly trumpeting their support for, and loyalty to, the resistance, so much so that the official government-controlled Syrian press now proclaims that "Syrian foreign policy depends on supporting the resistance."¹⁷ 

Damascus' support for "resistance" was on full display at the Arab Summit in Libya in late March 2010. According to reports, at the meeting Assad urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to abandon U.S.-supported negotiations and "take up arms against Israel," imparting his own experience that "the price of resistance is not higher than the price of peace."¹⁸ During his speech before his fellow Arab leaders, Assad was equally hard-line in his prescriptions. At a minimum, he said, Arab states should cut off their relations with Israel. The "maximum" - and presumably preferable - policy option, he said, would be to support the resistance.¹⁹ 

Despite the rhetoric, however, it's not clear that Syria is presently itching for a fight with Israel. After years of diplomatic isolation, Damascus has finally broken the code to Europe, and appears to be on the verge of doing so with the Obama administration, which recently announced the posting of a new ambassador and indicated a willingness to revise sanctions and modify U.S. economic pressures on Damascus.²⁰ Currently, Syria appears to be in a position where it can cultivate its ties with the West without sacrificing its support for terrorism. 

War would change this comfortable dynamic. In the event of an Israel-Hizbullah conflagration, pressures on Syria to participate would be intense. Furthermore, could Syria really watch an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities without responding? After so much crowing about its support for Hizbullah and its regional ilk, could Syria sit out yet another fight?  
 

Conclusion 

While it's too early to predict the timing or the trigger, on Israel's northern border there appears to be a growing sense that war is coming. Iran may have an interest in maintaining Hizbullah's arsenal until an Israeli strike. Likewise, for Hizbullah, which lately has been playing up its Lebanese identity in an effort to improve its image at home, waging war on Israel on behalf of Iran could be problematic. In any event, it is all but assured that a war on Israel's northern front will be determined, at least in part, by Tehran.  

In early February, Israeli Minister of Defense Ehud Barak told the IDF: "In the absence of an arrangement with Syria, we are liable to enter a belligerent clash with it that could reach the point of an all-out, regional war."²¹ Regrettably, regardless of what happens between Syria and Israel in the coming months, the decision of war or peace with Hizbullah may be out of Israel's hands. 

 

David Schenker 

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

 

Notes 

* The author would like to thank his research assistant Cole Bunzel for his excellent assistance in the preparation of this article.

1. "Full Text of H.E. Sayyed Nasrallah Speech on Day of Martyred Leaders," http://english.moqawama.org/essaydetails.php?eid=10225&cid=214.

2. "Syria Will Back Hizbullah Against IDF," Jerusalem Post, January 6, 2010. Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem echoed this threat in February 2010; see "Al-Mouallem at Press Conference with Moratinos," SANA, February 4, 2010. http://www.sana.sy/eng/21/2010/02/04/270781.htm.

3. Attila Somfalvi, "Bibi Tells Ministers to Keep Mum on Syria," Ynet, February 4, 2010, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3844619,00.html. Netanyahu also reassured Syria that Israel remained interested in peace.

4. "Lebanese Army Fires on Israeli Warplanes," AFP, March 21, 2010, http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/world/view/20100321-260030/Lebanese-army-fires-on-Israeli-warplanes.

5. "Lebanon Charges Four with Spying for Israel," Press TV, March 20, 2010, http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=121274§ionid=351020203.

6. Amnon Meranda, "Ashkenazi: Hamas Doesn't Want a Flareup," Ynet, March 23, 2010, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3866883,00.html.

7. "Nasrallah Speech on Day of Martyred Leaders."

8. See, for example, Barak Ravid, "Israel Warns Hizbullah: We Won't Tolerate Arms Smuggling," Ha'aretz, October 12, 2008, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1009384.html.

9. "Report: Hizbullah Trains on Missiles," UPI, January 17, 2010, http://www.upi.com/Top_News/International/2010/01/17/Report-Hezbollah-trains-on-missiles/UPI-51221263741141/.

10. See Yossi Melman, "Hizbullah, Iran Plotted Bombing of Israeli Embassy in Azerbaijan," Ha'aretz, May 31, 2009, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1089204.html. Also Avi Isaacharoff, "Turkish Forces Foil Attack on Israeli Target," Ha'aretz, December 9, 2009, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1133747.html.

11. "Nasrallah Speech on Day of Martyred Leaders."

12. Ibrahim Humaydi, "Al Asad: Ta'ziz al-'alaqat bayna duwal al-mintaqa tariq wahid li-l-qarar al mustaqill," Al Hayat, February 26, 2010, http://international.daralhayat.com/internationalarticle/112984.

13. "Qimmat Nejad-Al-Asad-Nasrallah: Ayy hisabat ba'daha?" http://www.alintiqad.com/essaydetails.php?eid=27878&cid=4.

14. Ibid.

15. "Speech of Bashar Asad at Journalist Union 4th Conference," August 15, 2006,

http://www.golan67.net/NEWS/president%20Assad%20Speech%2015-8-6.htm.

16. In addition to the Igla-S anti-aircraft missile, some unconfirmed reports indicate that Syria may have transferred some of its Scud-D missiles - capable of delivering chemical warheads - to Hizbullah.

17. "Junblatt wa-l-Tariq ila Dimashq," Al Watan, March 10, 2010, http://alwatan.sy/dindex.php?idn=75718. That support for resistance is central to Syrian foreign policy comes as little surprise: in 2009, Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem volunteered to join Hizbullah. See "Muallem Says He's Ready to Join Hizbullah," Gulf News, May 3, 2009, http://gulfnews.com/news/region/lebanon/muallem-says-ready-to-join-hezbollah-1.248887.

18. "Arab Leaders Support Peace Plan," AP, March 28, 2010, http://www.jpost.com/middleeast/article.aspx?id=171981.

19. Ziyad Haydar, "Qimmat sirte infaddat 'ala 'ajal...wa bila za'al," As Safir, March 29, 2010, http://www.assafir.com/Article.aspx?ArticleId=3020&EditionId=1496&ChannelId=34736. In an interview following the summit, Syrian advisor Buthaina Sha'ban declared victory for the Syrian position, saying that "an agreement took place among the Arab leaders in a closed session to support the resistance and reject normalization" with Israel.

20. Ibrahim Humaydi, "Washington tarfa' mu'aradataha 'udwiyat Suriya fi munazzimat al-tijara al-'alamiya," Al Hayat, February 24, 2010,. http://international.daralhayat.com/internationalarticle/112646.

21. Amos Harel, "Barak: Without Peace We Could Be Headed for All-Out War," Ha'aretz, February 2, 2010, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1146731.html.

The Missing Link.

 

Where is Hamas in the US peace strategy for the Middle East?

 

 by Neville Teller

 

A basic inconsistency at the heart of the current US-led peace effort in the Middle East has been starkly revealed by the events of the past few days.

 

Last week two Israeli soldiers were killed while pursuing a group of Hamas fighters trying to lay mines near the border fence between Gaza and Israel.  During the shoot-out two other Israeli soldiers were wounded, and two Hamas men killed.  This incident came against a background of increasing rocket attacks into Israel from within Gaza. 

 

Following a period of comparative calm after the end of Israel's Operation Cast Lead, March saw something like 20 rocket and mortar attacks.  A rocket fired from Gaza two weeks ago killed a Thai agricultural worker in a nearby Israeli town.   On Thursday another rocket was fired into Israel.

 

That seemed to be the last straw.  On Friday Israel struck back.  According to an Israeli military spokesman, aircraft blasted two weapons-making factories and two weapons-storage facilities. Reports speak of two caravans near the town of Khan Younis being blown up, together with a cheese factory in Gaza City and, in the central refugee camp of Nusseirat, a metal foundry. There were no fatal casualties from any of these attacks, though three children were reported to have been injured by flying debris.

 

So far, one might say, situation normal.  This wearisome pattern of incitement and retaliation consistently emerges when the first rays of a possible peace negotiation flicker above the horizon – and at this moment, despite the diplomatic furore of the past few weeks, a start to the US-inspired proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is far from impossible.  So an upsurge in extremist action on one side or the other was not unexpected. 

 

What is  less explicable is the reaction of Western governments, led by the United States.

For example, US State Department spokesman, Philip J Crowley, said on Friday that although Israel has a right to defend itself, "our message remains to the Israelis and Palestinians that we need to get the proximity talks going, focus on the substance, move to direct negotiations and ultimately arrive at a settlement that ends the conflict once and for all."

 

The UK echoed the message.  A Foreign Office official told the media that Britain encouraged "Israelis and Palestinians to focus efforts on negotiation and to engage urgently in US-backed proximity talks."

 

But statements like these, matched by those from the UN, the EU and elsewhere, simply do not reflect the realities of the situation.  The proximity talks, if or when they take place, will be between Israel and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority.  The military provocations and the indiscriminate firing of rockets onto the civilian population of Israel emanate from within Hamas-controlled Gaza.  Hamas – and even more so the Al-Qaeda inspired militant groups operating within Gaza – are opposed tooth and nail to the concept of negotiating with Israel, either directly or at one remove by way of the proposed proximity talks. 

 

So even if, by some heaven-sent miracle, the proposed round of indirect discussions hosted by George Mitchell, the US special envoy to the Middle East, do lead to face-to-face negotiations, and they in turn result in an agreement on substantive issues, what would have been achieved?  Hamas, which has dissociated itself from President Mahmoud Abbas's initiative, even though it has the backing of the Arab League, would not be party to the agreement.  It would continue to pursue the support of the Palestinian man-in the-street, in the hope of eventually overturning the Fatah-led government of the West Bank.

 

In this struggle for power, Hamas is actually fighting on two fronts.  For at its heels are the militant Islamist groups that refuse to abide by Hamas's virtual ceasefire, and indeed oppose the Hamas administration for failing to live up fully to extremist Muslim standards. A recent statement from the Jihadi Salafis ran: "We will not stop targeting the figures of this perverted, crooked government, breaking their bones and cleansing the pure land of the Gaza Strip of these abominations."  They and Jaljalat, Jund Ansar Allah, Army of the Nation, and the Salafi Army of Islam, to name some only, not only mount armed attacks on senior Hamas figures, but pursue their own agenda in attacking Israel.

 

This aspect of the Arab-Israeli dispute is the missing link in all the well-intentioned calls to Israel and "the Palestinians" to abandon recourse to arms and participate in the proposed proximity talks.  Hamas, and the extremist militant groups it is signally failing to control, are not, and would not wish to be, parties to the peace discussions.  But they are very much an element to be reckoned with before any final agreement can be achieved.

 

It would be best if, In their public statements, all those striving for a settlement in Israel-Palestine acknowledged this indisputable fact.

 

 

Neville Teller

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

 

American Jews, take a stand.

 

by Vic Rosenthal

 

It's time for Jewish Americans to stand up.

Does the state of Israel have special meaning for them, or is it just another foreign country? They should decide.

This is because the Jewish community in the US, for whatever reasons, has an influence that's much greater than numbers (about 6.5 million) would indicate. And it's become urgent to exert this influence in a positive direction and in a coordinated way.

It's beginning to be clear that the relatively pro-Israel policy that the US has followed since 1967 — I say this even though I know that there have been ups and downs in this period, that some influential institutions (the State Department) have always been less than friendly, etc. — is coming to an end.

This isn't surprising. Since before 1948, the proponents of a Jewish state have struggled against  opposition from the Arabs and from antisemites, and the founding of the state didn't make it go away — on the contrary. Israel's history for the  past 62 years can be seen as a series of attempts to eliminate it. Its enemies have tried various approaches, but in recent years have realized that a regional military confrontation alone won't achieve their goal.

Israel's enemies have come to understand that in order to win they must isolate Israel and remove the international support that has, over the years, allowed this small nation to prevail militarily over the much larger Arab armies. As everyone knows, the goal is to delegitimize Israel, to demonize her, and to split her supporters away from her. Their desired practical results are these:

• No nation will supply Israel with the weapons or the means to develop weapons whose qualitative superiority is needed to make up for the huge quantitative advantage of the Arabs and Iranians;
• International institutions will act to portray Israel's self-defense as aggression and her enemies'  aggression as defense, and impose sanctions and embargoes, or even intervene militarily against her;
• Great powers — the US, Russia, the EU — will impose diplomatic agreements on her which will weaken her strategically, strengthen her enemies, and make her more vulnerable to terrorism and asymmetric warfare;
• Her morale and her economy will be damaged.

At first, their attempts to do this were crude, and it was necessary to overcome the reservoir of sympathy for the Jewish refugees of WWII. But little by little they've learned which levers to pull — the ones connected to oil, the ones related to colonial guilt, the religious ones that animate the world's Muslims, even the subtle psychological ones which have given rise to the remarkable phenomenon of Jewish Israel-hatred, and the even more remarkable one of Israeli Israel-hatred.

 

The US may be the last major battleground of this psycho-war, which seems to have

been more or less successful in Europe and especially in the UK. Today there is no other country but the US which could be counted on to supply Israel in time of war or to support her in the UN Security Council.

The battle is raging. Saudi Arabia, for example, has employed the best PR firms, a veritable army of former US officials, even an ex-president, and legions of academics and journalists — all in the service of chipping away at Israel's support in the US.

Every sector of American society is targeted. Muslim and pro-Palestinian organizations on campuses maintain a continuous stream of anti-Israel propaganda, films, events, etc. Left-wing, human rights, and peace groups have almost all adopted anti-Zionism as a foundational plank of their platforms. Jimmy Carter speaks to Evangelicals who have traditionally supported Israel, explaining that Christians in the Holy Land are suffering — because of Israel. And Jews have a smorgasbord of Jewish groups that will tell them why they should oppose Israel, including of course the slick, dishonest J Street.

The Obama Administration — the President, his staff and advisors — have not been immune to this campaign. Educated at Harvard, and with associates like Rashid Khalidi, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samantha Power, Robert Malley, etc. Barack Obama sees the Middle East through a pro-Arab lens. Obama's recent actions — his unprecedented demand on Israel to stop Jewish building in Jerusalem, his failure to pressure the Palestinians for any reciprocal concessions, his brutal humiliation of PM Netanyahu — make this clear.

 

American Jews:

If you consider yourself part of a people — if it means anything to you that your ancestors were Jews — remind yourself that they were blown all over the world by the whims of non-Jewish rulers who in many cases thought they were inherently evil or subhuman. Most of you do not remember when there was no state of Israel. Most of you do not remember the insecurity of living in a world where Jews — regardless of citizenship — were regarded as beings who did not belong anywhere. A world where a Jew was nobody.

If you study recent history, you'll learn that the reason for the persistence of the Israeli-Arab conflict is not that the Palestinian Arabs want a state, but that the Arabs do not accept the existence of a Jewish state of any size in the Middle East. You'll learn that Israel is fully legitimate in international law. You'll learn that the areas illegally occupied by Jordan in 1948 are not ipso facto 'Palestinian land'. You'll learn that Israel has given up territory and security, exposed its people to terrorism, in order to try to make peace with its neighbors — and gotten war in return.

If you are concerned about the treatment of Palestinians, remember that context is everything. Remember that every single day Israelis are shot at, stoned or are the target of firebombs thrown by Palestinian Arabs. Remember that almost every day the checkpoints that are emblematic of the 'oppression' of Palestinians result in the interception of a terrorist carrying explosives or weapons. Remember what happened before the hated security barrier was built: hundreds of Israelis were killed by suicide bombers in early 2002.

If you think the Israeli operation in Gaza was 'disproportionate', think about what it would be like to have hundreds of rockets falling on your town each week, even if they did kill 'only' 14 people. And also remember that almost everything in the US and international media about Palestinian casualties and Israeli actions in Gaza is a lie.

If you are concerned about justice, think about the way Israel has been slandered and falsely accused in the UN, with the incredible Goldstone Report as exhibit A.

If you consider yourself even a bit connected to Judaism, look at the Torah. More than anything else, it is about a three-sided relationship: one between God, the Jewish people, and the Land of Israel.

 

American Jews:

It's time to ask if you feel a connection to the Jewish state which has been in existence for just a few years, but which is the culmination of the yearnings of the Jewish people — your people — for two thousand years.

If you do, then it's time to stand up and tell J Street to take its Arab and Iranian funding and go to Hell. It's time to make it clear to Obama that he will not get Jewish votes, contributions and support if he tilts toward the Arabs and treats the leaders of the Jewish state — in a sense, the representatives of the Jewish people — like nobodies.

The Jews of America — the largest Jewish community in the world — need to do this not only because they are influential, but because if they don't support Israel, why should anybody else.

Here is the least that we, American Jews, Democrats and Republicans, should demand from any party in return for our support:

1. The US must take the position that negotiations for a Palestinian state cannot take place until the Palestinians agree that Israel belongs to the Jewish people and that a final agreement will end all Arab claims on Israel. In addition, Palestinians must stop anti-Israel incitement.
2. The US must reaffirm the commitments made by President Bush in 2004 that the pre-1967 lines are not sacrosanct and that refugees and their descendants should not expect to be settled in Israel.
3. The US must reaffirm the prior understanding that Israel can build in Jerusalem.
4. The US must refrain from trying to interfere in Israel's political system and must show appropriate respect for its representatives.

Vic Rosenthal

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

 

Iran And The Utter Futility Of Sanctions.

 

by Professor Louis Rene Beres

In the matter of Iranian nuclearization, U.S. President Barack Obama still doesn't get it. Economic sanctions will never work. In Tehran's national decision-making circles, absolutely nothing can compare to the immense power and status that would presumably come with membership in the Nuclear Club. Indeed, if President Ahmadinejad and his clerical masters truly believe in the Shiite apocalypse, an inevitable final battle against "unbelievers," they would likely be willing to accept even corollary military sanctions.

From the standpoint of the United States, a nuclear Iran would pose an unprecedented risk of mass-destruction terrorism. For much smaller Israel, of course, the security risk would be existential.

Legal issues are linked here to various strategic considerations. Supported by international law, specifically by the incontestable right of anticipatory self-defense, Prime Minister Netanyahu understands that any preemptive destruction of Iran's nuclear infrastructures would involve enormous operational and political difficulties. True, Israel has deployed elements of the "Arrow" system of ballistic missile defense, but even the Arrow could not achieve a sufficiently high probability of intercept to protect civilian populations. Further, now that Mr. Obama has backed away from America's previously-planned missile shield deployment in Poland and the Czech Republic, Israel has no good reason to place its security hopes in any combined systems of active defense.

Even a single incoming nuclear missile that would manage to penetrate Arrow defenses could kill very large numbers of Israelis. Iran, moreover, could decide to share its developing nuclear assets with assorted terror groups, sworn enemies of Israel that would launch using automobiles and ships rather than missiles. These very same groups might seek "soft" targets in selected American or European cities - schools; universities; hospitals; hotels; sports stadiums; subways; etc.

While Obama and the "international community" still fiddles, Iran is plainly augmenting its incendiary intent toward Israel with a corresponding military capacity. Left to violate non-proliferation treaty (NPT) rules with impunity, Iran's leaders might ultimately be undeterred by any threats of an Israeli and/or American retaliation. Such a possible failure of nuclear deterrence could be the result of a presumed lack of threat credibility, or even of a genuine Iranian disregard for expected harms. In the worst-case scenario, Iran, animated by certain Shiite visions of inevitable conflict, could become the individual suicide bomber writ large. Such a dire prospect is improbable, but it is not unimaginable.

Iran's illegal nuclearization has already started a perilous domino effect, especially among certain Sunni Arab states in the region. Not long ago, both Saudi Arabia and Egypt revealed possible plans to develop their own respective nuclear capabilities. But strategic stability in a proliferating Middle East could never resemble US-USSR deterrence during the Cold War. Here, the critical assumption of rationality, which always makes national survival the very highest decisional preference, simply might not hold.

If, somehow, Iran does become fully nuclear, Israel will have to promptly reassess its core policy of nuclear ambiguity, and also certain related questions of targeting. These urgent issues were discussed candidly in my own "Project Daniel" final report, first delivered by hand to then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on January 16, 2003.

Israel's security from mass-destruction attacks will depend in part upon its intended targets in Iran, and on the precise extent to which these targets have been expressly identified. For Israel's survival, it is not enough to merely have The Bomb. Rather, the adequacy of Israel's nuclear deterrence and preemption policies will depend largely upon (1) the presumed destructiveness of these nuclear weapons; and, (2) on where these weapons are thought to be targeted.

Mr. Obama's "Road Map" notwithstanding, a nuclear war in the Middle East is not out of the question. Soon, Israel will need to choose prudently between "assured destruction" strategies, and "nuclear war-fighting" strategies. Assured destruction strategies are sometimes called "counter-value" strategies or "mutual assured destruction" (MAD). Drawn from the Cold War, these are strategies of deterrence in which a country primarily targets its strategic weapons on the other side's civilian populations, and/or on its supporting civilian infrastructures.

Nuclear war-fighting measures, on the other hand, are called "counterforce" strategies. These are systems of deterrence wherein a country primarily targets its strategic nuclear weapons on the other side's major weapon systems, and on that state's supporting military assets.

There are distinctly serious survival consequences for choosing one strategy over the other. Israel could also opt for some sort of "mixed" strategy. Still, for Israel, any policy that might encourage nuclear war fighting should be rejected. This advice was an integral part of the once-confidential Project Daniel final report.

In choosing between the two basic strategic alternatives, Israel should always opt for nuclear deterrence based upon assured destruction. This seemingly insensitive recommendation might elicit opposition amid certain publics, but it is, in fact, more humane. A counterforce targeting doctrine would be less persuasive as a nuclear deterrent, especially to states whose leaders could willingly sacrifice entire armies as "martyrs."

If Israel were to opt for nuclear deterrence based upon counterforce capabilities, its enemies could also feel especially threatened. This condition could then enlarge the prospect of a nuclear aggression against Israel, and of a follow-on nuclear exchange.

Israel's decisions on counter-value versus counterforce doctrines will depend, in part, on prior investigations of enemy country inclinations to strike first; and on enemy country inclinations to strike all-at-once, or in stages. Should Israeli strategic planners assume that an enemy state in process of "going nuclear" is apt to strike first, and to strike with all of its nuclear weapons right away, Israeli counterforce-targeted warheads - used in retaliation - would hit only empty launchers. In such circumstances, Israel's only plausible application of counterforce doctrine would be to strike first itself, an option that Israel clearly and completely rejects. From the standpoint of intra-war deterrence, a counter-value strategy would prove vastly more appropriate to a fast peace.

Should Israeli planners assume that an enemy country "going nuclear" is apt to strike first, and to strike in a limited fashion, holding some measure of nuclear firepower in reserve, Israeli counterforce-targeted warheads could have some damage-limiting benefits. Here, counterforce operations could appear to serve both an Israeli non-nuclear preemption, or, should Israel decide not to preempt, an Israeli retaliatory strike. Nonetheless, the benefits to Israel of maintaining any counterforce targeting options are generally outweighed by the reasonably expected costs.

To protect itself against a relentlessly nuclearizing Iran, Israel's best course may still be to seize the conventional preemption option as soon as possible. (After all, a fully nuclear Iran that would actually welcome apocalyptic endings could bring incomparably higher costs to Israel.) Together with such a permissible option, Israel would have to reject any hint of a counterforce targeting doctrine. But if, as now seems clear, Iran is allowed to continue with its illegal nuclear weapons development, Mr. Netanyahu's correct response should be to quickly end Israel's historic policy of nuclear ambiguity.

Such a doctrinal termination could permit Israel to enhance its nuclear deterrence posture, but only in regard to a fully rational Iranian adversary. If, after all, Iran's leaders were to resemble the suicide bomber in macrocosm, they might not be deterred by any expected level of Israeli retaliation.

No country can be required to participate in its own annihilation. Without a prompt and major change in President Obama's persistently naive attitude toward Iran, a law-enforcing expression of anticipatory self-defense may still offer Israel its only remaining survival option. This will sound unconvincing to many, but rational decision-making - in all fields of human endeavor - is based upon informed comparisons of expected costs and expected benefits.

Does President Obama really believe that both we and the Israelis can somehow live with a nuclear Iran? If he does, he should be reminded that a nuclear balance-of-terror in the Middle East could never replicate the earlier stability of U.S.-Soviet mutual deterrence.

This would not be your father's Cold War.

 

 

PROFESSOR LOUIS RENE BERES, Professor of Political Science at Purdue, was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971). Born in Zurich, Switzerland, at the end of World War II, he is the author of many major books, monographs and articles dealing with international law, strategic theory, Israeli nuclear policy, and regional nuclear war. In Israel, where he served as Chair of Project Daniel, his work is known to selected military and intelligence communities.

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

 

Back to an old game with Syria.

 

by Michael Young

 

By most accounts it was a confident Bashar al-Assad who received Walid Jumblatt in Damascus on Wednesday. When it comes to Damascus' regional position, the Syrian president sees the stars aligned in his favor. Which means that, at worst, he can afford to do nothing at all, and, at best, negotiate to arrive at nothing at all.
 
John Kerry, the chairman of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, returned to the Middle East this week, visiting both Lebanon and Syria, and it's not difficult to see what he had in mind. With the prospect that the Palestinian-Israeli track will remain stalled, ambitious foreign policy players in Washington are looking to the Syrian-Israeli track for a possible breakthrough. And these days when Americans propose openings toward Syria, they come to Beirut first, as did Kerry, to insist that "anything we do with respect to the peace process in this region will not come at the expense of Lebanon."
 
That's good to hear, but also irrelevant since the Syrians have already managed to largely reimpose their writ in Beirut. And this they've done because of many factors, Lebanese divisions chief among them, but also because people like John Kerry have spent years feeding Assad political oxygen by lauding the advantages of engaging Syria, even when Syria was destabilizing its neighbors.
 
Kerry's trip will likely yield few tangible results. But the senator already knows that. His primary aim is to register his political stake in a Syrian-Israeli negotiation process, if one eventually resumes.
 
That may sound familiar. The Syrian regime spent the decade of the '90s receiving buoyant Americans in Damascus wanting to talk about peace with Israel. And while it's true that the Syrians were prepared at one stage to conclude a final settlement, which was rejected by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, it was always essential to their approach that peace should not undermine the Assad regime. Peace had to be on Syrian terms and defined in such a way that it would preserve Syria's complex security scaffolding propping up the regime.
 
Little has changed. For Bashar al-Assad, finalizing a negotiation process with Israel is far less important than using negotiations to advance other Syrian priorities. The first (not in any special order) is the consolidation of Syria's hegemony over Lebanon, which is moving forward at a brisk speed. This means weakening all independent, potentially refractory Lebanese figures, above all Saad al-Hariri.
 
A second priority is positioning Syria advantageously regionally at a time when the Middle East is going through major transformations. Assad has maneuvered well. The Saudi and Egyptian regimes are getting old and Syria is, for now, on good terms with two of the more powerful states of the Arab periphery, Turkey and Iran. But the latter relationship only makes Assad more reluctant to engage in serious negotiations with Israel, unless it first accepts his minimal condition: a full withdrawal to the June 4, 1967 lines in the Golan Heights.
 
A third priority for Assad is to bolster his regime internally. The president is running Syria in a more centralized, hands-on fashion than his father. The notion that he was controlled by an "old guard" was untrue five years ago, and is utterly ridiculous today. Those from his family or community who had any leeway to threaten his position have either been eliminated or pushed to the sidelines. Under these circumstances, Assad will think long before embarking in resolute talks with Israel. He is more likely to prefer talking just for the sake of talking, which little threatens Syria's domestic equilibrium.
 
Finally, there is the United States. With the Americans ensnared in Afghanistan and heading toward the exits in Iraq, Assad has nothing to worry about. Time is on his side, even as American envoys knock at his door in the name of engagement, but without any clear idea of how this is supposed to benefit the United States. Assad has already made clear that he has no intention of breaking with Iran or changing his policy toward Hezbollah. Yet the Americans just keep coming. 
 
The natural reflex in a positivist place like Washington is to generate optimism in one direction when pessimism characterizes another. You know that soon the Syrian-Israeli track will again excite foreign policy actors, wonks and pundits in the American capital, because the Palestinian track might remain closed. We'll be back to the old game the Syrians played so well in the past. That means don't expect much from Bashar al-Assad. He's perfectly at ease where he is.

 

Michael Young is opinion editor of the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut.

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

 

Obama’s Two-State Delusion.

 

by Moshe Dann

Let there be no mistake: President Obama's attack on Israel's right to govern in eastern Jerusalem has nothing to do with American national interests, and nothing to do with a "peace process." Other American leaders may have disagreed with Israeli policy, but none of them made it a casus belli.

No other prominent politician sought to impose the "two-state solution," based on 60-year-old cease-fire lines with Jordan, instead of a negotiated agreement. Obama's move leaps beyond all previous "accords," plans and "road maps." Never before has the United States sought to dictate the terms of Israeli surrender, thereby undermining its only reliable ally in the region.

Obama's obsession with the establishment of a second Arab Palestinian state might be understandable if it were based on a realistic appraisal of conditions as they are, instead of what they might be. The warning signals are there.      

Two dramatic shifts have made the "two-state solution" irrelevant: the stand-off victory of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the hegemony of Hamas in Gaza and many areas of the West Bank, nominally under the Palestinian Authority, controlled by Fatah. One has to be ignorant, and/or blind not to appreciate what these situations mean – especially given the threats from Iran.

The developments have led to the widespread recognition, especially among Israelis, that the so-called "Oslo process" ("land for peace") has failed, that Israel has no "peace partner," and, therefore, that a second Arab Palestinian state is no longer relevant.

Today, unilateral withdrawal from Yehuda and Shomron ("the West Bank") and the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state is a "clear and present danger," not only to Israel, but to the entire region.

Refusing to consider any alternatives to the "two-state" model, however, the United States and EU countries focus on an "end to the conflict," without necessary pre-requisites.

During the last 40 years, Israeli leaders conveyed the message that "the Palestinian problem" is ours and we can fix it. This was the motivation behind various proposals: Labor's offers to exchange "land for peace," Likud's autonomy plan, confederation with Jordan, the First Lebanese War against the PLO, Rabin's recognition of the PLO and the establishment of a Palestinian state, Barak's offers at Camp David, Sharon's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and Northern Shomron, and the current government's failures in Lebanon and Gaza.

All of these policies failed because they were not reality-based, but clung to a desperate Israeli desire for an end to the conflict. Each time Israel paid the price and made concessions, however, the price rose, and the conflict continued.

The "two-state" proposal based on Israel's 1949 borders is also doomed to fail for several reasons:

(1) Palestinians' opposition to any solution; their refusal to recognize authentic Jewish rights and claims and their refusal to accept Israel's existence.

(2) A negotiating process confounded by terrorism. Israel demands an end to terrorism before making broader concessions; the Palestinians demand concessions first and reducing terrorism later – perhaps, if that is at all possible or their plan (which all evidence suggests it isn't).

(3) Political/demographic reality is that Israel cannot return to the 1949 Armistice lines.

(4) UNRWA continues to support the "Palestinian right-of-return;" it is part of the problem, not a solution.

(5) Even if all of the above could be resolved, a stable Palestinian state is unlikely.

Rather than abandon vital national interests, the only practical and rational policy for America, the region, and Israel, is one based on security and reality: Islamic terrorism, Jihad, is and will be a persistent threat. That should be Pres. Obama's main concern.

In comparison, issues such as definitions of Israel's borders and demographic predictions are irrelevant. "Political horizons" can only have meaning when there is a stable government that is accountable and responsible. Otherwise, such proposals are recipes for disaster.

At the least, the Obama administration must present not only a realistic, coherent policy, but an explanation of how and why it will work. Slamming Israel is not a substitute for reason.

 

Moshe Dann

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

 

How the Western Pursuit of Muslim Moderates Actually Promotes Extremism.

 

by  Daniel Greenfield

 

The term Moderate Muslim is a misnomer, because it is the equivalent of describing him as a Secular Catholic or a Liberal Conservative. Muslims who pride themselves on sticking to the Koran view extremism as a virtue, not a fault. Islam's reform movements that succeeded were not movements that made Islam more liberal, but that made it stricter, harsher and more unfeeling.

 

Aside from the original Sunni-Shiite schism, which has its basis more in power politics than in theology, the spectrum within Islam itself always runs to the more extreme. A new alternative mosque that succeeds is likely to be a place more conservative and more hostile to the outside world. A new Islamic movement is usually one that calls for more blood and guts, and a lot less women walking around on the street. A movement that fails to do that rarely survives or essentially is forced outside of Islam if it does.

And so what the West's pursuit of moderate Muslims really does is push them toward more extreme views. A Muslim ruler who develops closer ties with the West is forced to compensate for it by moving further to the extreme in order to avoid being vulnerable to domestic charges that he is a bad Muslim. It is no surprise then that Saudi Arabia, America's closest ally in the Muslim world, is also the most extremist Muslim country on the planet, that is behind the growing push to the extreme around the world.

The Saudi Royal Family's balancing act trades American support for them and their oil off by supporting the expansion and spread of increasingly radicalized mosques and imams. This is supposed to hold future Bin Ladens at bay. Meanwhile American politicians praise the country where women aren't allowed to drive and non-Muslims can't even set foot in Mecca for its commitment to moderate Islam.

The Western pursuit of moderate Muslims alone helps create more enthusiasm for pushing Islam further to the extreme. Once Western leaders define a Muslim group as moderate, new more extreme groups are quickly spawned in order to set a new bar for "True Islam", as opposed to the compromise variety that the infidels praise. For example when Israel and the US announced that they had successfully made a deal with Arafat, the rise of Hamas was all but assured. When the UK or the US tries to treat Islamists as mainstream, not only do the Islamists become more extreme, but they develop new and more extreme rival groups.

So the pursuit of Muslim moderates not only pushes them into even greater extremes, but it spawns a host of new more extreme groups looking to capitalize on setting an even more extreme standard that will be praised for its faithfulness to the Koran. While the West tries to pretend it is bringing Muslims in from the cold, in fact it is turning up the heat.

While the term "Islamic Extremism" is commonly bandied about, the fact of the matter is that Islam possess an endless reservoir of "extremism", simply because it's always possible for a cleric to dig up more stringencies, and denounce those who don't keep them as heretics. Somalia and Afghanistan, where Islamists beheaded Muslims for watching soccer games, teaching girls to cut hair, men for not having beards or for playing music-- demonstrate just how boundless the reserve of extremism is. With historical bans on everything from playing chess to owning a dog to playing a musical instrument-- there is always a new extreme to push toward.

 

Islam is legitimized not through faith, but through violence, the "martyrdom" and "resistance" of Islamic terrorists and guerrilla groups fighting to enforce not only Islam, but their most radical interpretation of it on everyone. Thus the Saudi royal family and its various front groups that covertly conduct a political, immigration and armed Jihad are called "moderate", but only by way of comparison to those like Bin Laden who want a completely armed Jihad. While by our standards the Saudis are heavily complicit in terrorism and Islamism, by Islamist standards, they're weak and compromised. Because the standard set by Mohammed may allow for warfare by deception and falsehood, but it only truly glorifies war.

The tragic case of Israel's attempts to make peace with its Muslim neighbors should have served as the "canary in the cage" for Western leaders. Because each time Israel has tried to make peace with neighbouring countries, it has actually driven them further away. Sadat's cleverness at putting the cold peace that existed between Israel and Egypt on paper in exchange for land several times the current size of Israel, masked by friendly rhetoric, cost him his life. Mubarak, like virtually every Arab Muslim leader who maintains relations with Israel, must do so heavily disguised, and in between blasts of hateful rhetoric you might expect from Der Sturmer. The alternative would be to follow Sadat to the grave, or risk a Muslim Brotherhood takeover of the country.

Since the peace treaties were signed with their respective countries, the populations of Egypt and Jordan now hate Israel and Jews more than ever because they feel "humiliated" that their countries maintain any relations whatsoever with Israel, instead of constantly trying to destroy them. This is not the view of some tiny minority of extremists, or even huge majority of extremists. It is the virtually universal view in both countries, cutting across all political boundaries, from left to right. It represents an absolute consensus. Because the only thing Muslims, both devout and secular, can agree on, is the destruction of the infidel.

In the 90's, Israel attempted to resolve the terrorist campaign and the Palestinian Arab issue by signing a peace accord with Arafat. Not only did Arafat not keep the accord, but he actually dramatically ramped up the violence against Israel, once he was in power. Not only that he introduced a radical curriculum which helped create an entire generation of suicide bombers and terrorists who were taught and raised by the Palestinian Authority to hate and kill Jews. But for the mere fact that Arafat negotiated with Israel, even though he never kept his agreements and continued to engage in terrorism-- Hamas became popular as the true voice of Islam, for its refusal to even negotiate with Israel. Once Israel withdrew from Gaza, Hamas took over and said that it was willing to have a temporary truce with Israel, after which it would once again resume trying to destroy Israel and drive the Jews into the sea. At which point, Al Queda opened a local office and denounced Hamas for selling out to the Jews, and promised to represent the true voice of the Islamic resistance.

There could be no better illustration of the self-destructiveness of trying to negotiate not only with terrorists, but with Islamic ones in particular. Even the process of trying to negotiate with them, increases both the violence and the extremism on their side.

While liberal commentators and pundits writing about the War on Terror frequently claim that fighting terrorists creates more terrorists, killing terrorists actually reduces the overall number of terrorists. By contrast trying to negotiate with terrorists, actually creates large numbers of them, and promotes the spread of terrorism in far more devastating ways, because it promotes increased extremism, gives rise to new terrorist groups and does nothing to actually thin out their ranks.

Islam cannot be mainstreamed, because it does not accommodate itself, it expects to be accommodated. To the true believer, Islam exists as a force over the lives of men, or it is nothing at all. For the Muslim, living in a country without Islam law means living in a country with injustice. And living in a country with Islamic law, means that the injustice that does exist must be blamed on a watered down version of Islam, to which  the solution as always is the sword, the cane and the rule of the Religious Police. There is no moderating such a mindset. Not when religion is indivisible from seizing power to enforce the most rigid version of the Islamic code available at a given moment.

But any attempt to mainstream Islam makes it appear compromised. A Muslim leader who is willing to shake hands with an infidel is already suspect in the eyes of many, for he appears to be accommodating an infidel, and thereby humiliating Islam. So a Muslim leader who does shake hands with an infidel, must be careful to denounce infidels loudly and thereby prove that he is more extreme than the extremists. This creates two-faced "moderates"  who say one thing in English and another thing in Arabic, trying to play both sides at the same time. And the result leaves many Western leaders baffled, or incapable of believing that the same charming fellow they had tea with last week, just endorsed the Taliban and suggested that it's time to bring back stoning for adultery in the UK. In the liberal model the two seem to be worlds apart. But in the Muslim model, they're just realpolitik.

Western pundits and politicians who insist on applying their model of extremism and moderation to Islam are as foolish as an explorer trying to find a straight line route through a cave system. Western countries have socially and politically enacted a thermometer style model of beliefs that are lukewarm, not too hot and not too cold, which are mainstream and accepted. Within Islam the socially accepted part of the thermometer is as hot as you can get. But even more perversely, "hot" is defined relative to any attempt at moderation. So every time, Western countries attempt to cool down Islam to a more moderate temperature, they only succeed in making it hotter.

 

We can see the results all around us. In such a hothouse atmosphere, negotiation quickly becomes appeasement. The old extremism becomes the new moderation, and the old moderation becomes the new heresy. Peace yields violence. Attempts at finding common ground give birth to terror. The entire thing is irrational and downright crazy from the Western perspective, which has failed to understand that its attempt at reason and tolerance are not making things better-- they are only feeding the flames and making the entire situation much worse. Western liberals accuse everyone else of condescending and imposing their own worldview on Islam, but in fact it is they who are doing so, by failing to understand that their clumsy attempt to find common ground is actually escalating the situation.

Moderation in Islam has never come from without, but from within, from Muslim rulers who were worried about the destabilizing effects of Islamism on their power. But such a state of affairs has never lasted, because sooner or later, Islam returns to its roots, and channels anger, dissatisfaction, greed and power into a weapon. Because those are the roots of Islam, to serve as the private army of Mohammed, to make war on the world in the name of imposing its will on it. There can be no peace with Islam. Only temporary truces. Ages of weakness. But in the end the tide goes out again. And the storm comes. And with it war.

 

Daniel Greenfield

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

 

Obami Pushing Israel to Act Unilaterally?

 

by Jennifer Rubin

The Obami are promising another round of sanctions aimed at Iran. This will be the fourth round, and we should not, judging from press reports, expect them to be "crippling." As Bill Kristol noted on Fox News Sunday:

The only things that can stop the Iranian nuclear program are — would be the success of the green movement in Iran, which the Obama administration has done nothing to help and remains incredibly indifferent to and standoffish to on the one hand, or military action on the other, which the Obama administration seems uninterested in doing and I'm afraid is setting up a situation where Israel will feel it has to act.

The abject lack of seriousness from the Obama administration — its disinclination to even suggest the use of force or to aid the Green Movement in any meaningful way — has not gone unnoticed either here or in Israel. At the AIPAC conference, the contrast between Hillary Clinton's platitudinous "unacceptable" formulation and Tony Blair's "whatever it takes" phraseology was hard to ignore. And, as Kristol points out, even doves in Israel like Ephraim Sneh, a former deputy defense minister, are talking about the need for an Israeli strike on Iran this year, absent the implementation of "crippling sanctions." ("An Israeli military campaign against Iran's nuclear installations is likely to cripple that country's nuclear project for a number of years. The retaliation against Israel would be painful, but bearable.")

We can speculate as to whether the Obami's assault on Netanyahu over the Jerusalem housing permit was meant to stymie Israel's plans for such action. If so, this is yet another gross error in judgment by the Obami, who have an exaggerated sense of their own ability to bully those who interfere with their plans. As fraught with peril as an Israeli military operation might be and as unseemly as it might be for the U.S. to stand idly by – ignoring its role as leader of the West and shrinking from its international responsibilities – Israel, if faced with the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran and a recalcitrant U.S. administration, will have no choice but to act in its own defense. Netanyahu said it clearly last month, no doubt to put the administration as well as the mullahs on notice. ("The future of the Jewish state can never depend on the goodwill of even the greatest of men. Israel must always reserve the right to defend itself.")

By publicly savaging the Israeli government and making apparent just how not solid is the current relationship between the U.S. and Israel, the Obami are encouraging, not dissuading, the Israeli government to take matters into its own hands. Given the treatment by the Obama administration, what Israeli government could place its trust and the fate of the Jewish state in the Obami's hands? It would be foolish and irresponsible — and the Israelis are neither. And once again we see that the folly-ridden Obama Middle East policy — engagement with Iran, renunciation of force, clubbing its closest ally — is creating a more dangerous and volatile world for the U.S. and its allies.

 

Jennifer Rubin

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

If There's No Project to Engage Hizballah Why Do People Keep Telling Me They Were Contacted About It?

by Barry Rubin

Recently, I wrote an article about receiving a letter saying the Center for American Progress is running a project to advocate U.S. engagement with Hizballah and that high-ranking officials in the Obama administration were encouraging this as part of their own campaign to start talking with the Lebanese terrorist group that is a client for Iran and Syria in trying to take over Lebanon and destroy Israel.

The head of the project, Cambanis,  a strong supporter of Hizballah, has denied it. Yes, he admitted. That's what my assistant wrote but he lied. The letter began, however, with the assistant saying the director asked him to write me. So one would think the director approved the letter.

Cambanis wrote last year

"The Islamist axis commands real power and is a force to be reckoned with. Israel has never stopped negotiating with Hamas and Hezbollah. European diplomats are quietly talking to Hezbollah officials, and looking for ways to initiate contacts with Hamas without violating European law. American intelligence services and diplomats find they have less and less leverage and understanding from their increasingly isolated stations and embassies; they'll need to craft new channels through which to speak to groups in the Islamist axis."

For more on his strongly pro-Hizballah views, see here.

That sounds to me like advocating contacts with Hizballah as well as Hamas. The statement about Israel, by the way, isn't true at all, with the very limited exception of freeing Israelis held prisoner, which is not exactly the kind of political talks in which the United States would engage.

The Cable, a publication of Foreign Policy magazine, speaks dismissively of a "conspiracy" proving to be non-existent. In one-sentence, it said the Center for American Progress denied the story: "In a separate interview with The Cable, CAP's Katulis confirmed Cambanis's account and added that he's a `deep skeptic' of the prospects of engaging terrorists...."

Glad to hear it. I wrote in some detail, however, about why this response in the Cable wasn't satisfactory. But why have three different sources told me that they were explicitly contacted, invited to participate, and told that the Center for American Progress was doing this study by different people?

Incidentally, aside from Obama's "counter-"terrorism advisor John Brennan, who favors engaging Hizballah, the other most militant such official in the Obama administration on these issues is Mara Rudman, on the staff of Middle East negotiator George Mitchell. She is a former leading figure at the Center for American Progress.

She is also the most likely candidate as the source for a particularly nasty slur leaked on National Security Council official Dennis Ross, who was said to be more loyal to Israel than to the United States because he didn't think the administration's current confrontation with Israel was a good idea. Ross, by the way, may be the only foreign policy expert so respected that he was appointed to a high position under Presidents Bush, Clinton, and now Obama, that is three of the last four chief executives.

It's peculiar. If someone was running around falsely claiming he was doing a project for your think tank wouldn't you expect that institution to loudly proclaim it isn't true and to be real angry with Cambanis for saying otherwise? Has the Center for American Progress sent an angry note to Cambanis asking him to stop using their name? Has Cambanis fired his assistant for a great (alleged) ethical abuse?

So I'm getting even more suspicious that the story is true and they are undertaking such a project, albeit somehow making a denial on some technical grounds.

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.