Peace talks, Bashar’s war by other means.

 

by Tony Badran

 

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is known to have a penchant for brinksmanship. Calculating that he has nothing to fear from a timid Obama administration, he is upping the ante in his direct military support to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The latest brazen act may involve the shipment of Syrian Scud D missiles to his Shia allies.

Assad's move appears to have followed his recent tripartite summit with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah. It also comes after numerous reports in recent months about a steady increase in the quantity and quality of Syrian-supplied weapons to Hezbollah – from anti-aircraft systems (outdated models, like the SA-2, but possibly also the man-portable SA-18 and SA-24 Igla) to longer-range, Syrian-made surface-to-surface missiles (the M-600/Fateh-110). It is unclear whether Israel views items on this list as strategic game changers.

This development has quietly set off a seemingly heated discussion in Washington. Capitol Hill is not amused, and according to two reports, the confirmation of Robert Ford as ambassador to Syria has been placed on hold. The incident reportedly has led to the State Department's summoning of Syria's ambassador, Imad Mustapha, to relay to him a message about the severity of the situation. Reportedly, the Israeli government warned the United States that the transfer of such weaponry could lead to conflict with Syria.

Through such behavior, Assad has confused those who had high hopes for "engagement" of Syria. The believers only have themselves to blame. Assad's determination to increase the weapons supply to Hezbollah is a strategic decision. As one Syrian official put it to the Qatari daily Al-Watan, "a strategic decision has been taken not to allow Israel to defeat the resistance movements." Assad himself affirmed this principle on Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV a few weeks ago.

Assad has been doubling down on "resistance" both in his rhetoric and in Syrian material support – exceedingly so ever since the US voiced its desire to improve relations with Syria in the hope of prying it away from Iran and ending Syrian backing for Hezbollah and Hamas.

The Syrian president made a telling remark at the last Arab League summit to the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas. He observed that "the price of resistance is not higher than the price of peace." And therein lays the problem. Assad has not been made to feel that the costs of continued destabilization can be prohibitive. Instead, all he gets from Washington are weak statements in response to his actions, and rarely from high-ranking administration officials.

The Israelis may currently be unwilling to divert attention from their primary concern, which is blocking the Iranian nuclear program. As a result they might be leaving Syria for the United States to handle directly. Depending on how the Obama administration deals with the situation, the risk is that Assad will draw the lesson that he enjoys impunity – especially if Washington's impulse is to address the problem by calling for resumed peace talks between Syria and Israel.
Furthermore, the Syrian president may calculate that, in the event of a conflict, the administration will ultimately prevent the Israelis from going all the way with Syria and, instead, pressure them into entering negotiations. If Assad senses that he is protected, expect him to push the envelope even further – at Lebanon's expense, of course.

Assad's mantra is that "peace and resistance are two sides of the same coin." As he sees things, it's not either peace or resistance. For him the two are simultaneous tools of attrition, with peace talks providing Syria with impunity as Assad pursues "resistance." In his conceptual framework, the peace process is just warfare by other means.

Some have tried to paint Assad as a victim of Iranian entrapment. But this is simply wrong. By making Hezbollah's arming a Syrian, as opposed to an Iranian, issue, Assad hopes to increase his leverage in Lebanon in order to bargain over Syrian control there with the US and Israel. Recalling the "red lines" agreement of 1976 and the April understanding of 1996, the Syrian president may be trying to gain US legitimization for a new such framework in Lebanon.

The Syrian wager always was that Israel would much prefer dealing with Syria than Hezbollah in Lebanon. Indeed, the whole logic of the so-called "strategic realignment" theory for Syria leads in that direction. Therefore, escalating and pushing toward conflict in Lebanon would serve to set in motion Assad's scheme.

However, this could end up being a bad miscalculation for Syria.

PLO official Bassam Abu Sharif once recounted how, in 1982, ahead of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, he traveled to Arab capitals in order to ask for long-range weapons to deter Israel. The response he received is instructive today: "Seek the approval of your Syrian brothers. Because this type of weaponry carries responsibility, and the repercussions would be against Syria, and not you."

When Assad's father, Hafez, crossed Israel's "red lines" back then, his army was battered in Lebanon. Bashar, perpetually seeking to deploy his army across the border, may also face Israeli military strikes against his smuggling convoys, or worse. Either way, Lebanon is likely to suffer massive Israeli devastation on the one hand, or a dangerous Syrian gambit to restore its military presence on the other. Keeping Lebanon was always Syria's aim when embarking in peace talks.

 

Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.      

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

 

 

How Has President Obama Been Weak and Lost Credibility Over Iran: Answering a Reader’s Question

by Barry Rubin

A reader asks [my summary]: Why do you and so many people in the Arabic-speaking world view President Barack Obama as weak regarding Iran. After all, he doesn't want to go to war with Iran or support an Israeli attack. And isn't the fault due mainly to the Europeans, Russia and China?

My response: There are a number of reasons for this but let me focus on three, which makes one think that the president is doing a Titanic job (not titanic, Titanic, see note below).

First, Obama's total failure to implement increased sanctions on Iran--whether or not they were effective—after 15 months in office is a huge failure. If the media would be treating Obama as a normal president he would be criticized and ridiculed for this on a daily basis.

Remember, the president first said he would increase sanctions last September and failed to do so. He then set a December deadline and again did not act. Now in April 2010 the prospects for sanctions still seem poor.

Indeed, the administration has not even announced its plan. What we do know is that the administration has announced in advance that it will not propose sanctions that might hurt Iran's economy which means they—that is, targeted sanctions on a small number of rulers and regime institutions--will be a joke.

Aside from this, congressional proposals for reasonable sanctions on Iranian energy imports were ignored by the administration. The White House discouraged Congress from acting, too.

True, traditionally the Europeans have been very wimpy about such actions. But in this particular case, Britain, France, and Germany are ahead of the United States. Obama is holding them back rather than vice-versa. The EU as a whole is a problem since a country like Sweden can paralyze action. But it was Obama's choice to seek backing from the entire EU rather than take the lead along with the three main European allies.

This problem arises partly from Obama's philosophy of refusing to be a world leader but just "one of the guys" going along with a sanction. While the world doesn't want the United States to be too unilateral—their criticism of George W. Bush—Obama has gone too far in the opposite direction, which is equally bad.

As for Russia and China, Obama is responsible for misleading the country and making a serious error by continuing to insist that he will win them over when it was clear a year ago that they are never going to support serious sanctions. Having seen that, U.S. policy should have adjusted either to create a coalition of the willing or to ram through the UN a reasonable plan.

Another reader just send me two headlines, one of which says China won't support sanctions and the other saying it will. He asks: These articles can't both be right? Actually, the texts of the articles are both right. They simply say this: The Obama Administration has won a big victory because China now agrees to discuss sanctions. They just won't support or implement them. As of today, Russian leaders are still openly stating that they won't support sanctions.

Second, Obama has openly preferred engagement and concessions to America's enemies—notably Iran and Syria in this case—rather than to support its friends. The Middle East is often presented as if this only applies to Israel, but when Arabs complain about Obama's weakness and unreliability they are talking about a lack of backing for Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, the liberal forces in Lebanon, and others.

To cite only one example, when Iraq wanted U.S. help in pressing Syria to stop supporting terrorists who are killing hundreds of Iraqis, as well as U.S. troops, the Obama Administration refused. This is genuinely shocking. Many other cases could be cited.

Third, when the regime in Iran stole the election, the administration's refusal to speak out and support the opposition was disgraceful, particularly from a government, which describes itself as liberal and claims to support human rights.

No one serious is advocating that the United States go to war with Iran or attack Iran. As for Israel, there has never been any intention of attacking Iran in 2010 at all. Israeli policy has been to urge the world to try sanctions and to wait until Iran was on the verge of actually getting nuclear weapons to decide what to do.

Whether or not sanctions would work is another question but the failure to show leadership effectively and try has two implications. It is a test that the administration has failed, which indicates how it would probably perform in a future crisis. In addition, this failure has left the United States less well situated to manage this problem in the future.

Failing to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons through diplomatic means, and instead eroding U.S. credibility, actually makes a war more possible in future. And I'm not referring here to an Israeli attack but to a conflict arising from Iranian support for revolutionary Islamist subversion of Arabic-speaking countries. If Iran gets too confident and aggressive, it might miscalculate and set off a U.S.-Iran war over some incident in the Persian Gulf with U.S. ships or oil tankers; a terrorist incident in which Iran's regime was too obviously involved in killing Ameircans; or friction over unrest in an Arabic-speaking state.

When we look back at the present day from a decade or two hence, the issues pointed out in this article may be the most important and fateful events in contemporary history.

Note: If I had said titanic (with a small "t") that would have implied a really big job. In contrast, the Titanic was a luxury liner which hit an iceberg in 1912. To show how far back I go, my father introduced me to a friend of his when I was a boy who had survived the shipwreck. Incidentally, you will have to make up your own melting iceberg jokes since I am going to avoid getting involved in this issue.

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.

 

Bashar Assad Takes the Measure of Barack Obama.

 

by  Noah Pollak

There is an important story in today's Wall Street Journal that says a lot about how the Middle East is changing in the era of smart diplomacy:

Syrian President Bashar Assad's government has transferred long-range Scud missiles to the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah in a move that threatens to alter the Middle East's military balance, Israeli and U.S. officials alleged. …

Officials briefed on the intelligence said Israeli and American officials believe Lebanon transferred Scud D missiles to Hezbollah that were built with either North Korean or Russian technology.

The Scuds are believed to have a range of over 430 miles, placing Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Israel's nuclear installations at Dimona all within range of Hezbollah's military forces. …

Israeli officials said this week that Scud D missiles were "game-changing" armaments that marked a new escalation in the Mideast conflict. They charged Mr. Assad with further fusing Syria's military command with Hezbollah's and Iran's and breaking clearly defined red-lines established by Israel's defense forces.

The Scud-D has been around for decades; why is it being transferred to Hezbollah at this particular moment? There are two likely reasons: (1) the White House has become the most prominent Western critic of Israel, and Syria is confident that President Obama will not do much to either punish an Israeli enemy or speak clearly in Israel's defense. (2) Under the Obama Doctrine, many enemies of America are treated with kindness in order to prove that they should not fear us, under the theory that once the fear is gone, there will be very little to obstruct the progression of smooth relations. The engagement policy thus requires the overlooking of all kinds of bad behavior.

Syria, it appears, has made an accurate calculation on both of the above counts.

Remember how critics of the Bush administration always said that the neocon cowboys in the White House clung stubbornly to failed policies out of ideological conviction? Here's the final paragraph of the WSJ story:

U.S. officials stressed, however, that the White House wasn't second-guessing its engagement strategy and was pushing forward with Mr. Ford's nomination. "Sending an Ambassador to Syria who can press the Syrian government in a firm and coordinated fashion … is part of our strategy to achieve comprehensive peace in the region," the White House said in a statement.

I'm sure Mr. Ford is a talented diplomat, but is there any chance that his presence in Damascus would have stopped the transfer of long-range missiles to Hezbollah?

 

Noah Pollak

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

 

Obama’s Pie in the Sky.

 

by Ted Belman,

 There is no solution to the final status issues of Jerusalem, borders and refugees that both sides will agree to. Nevertheless President Obama is committed to forcing an agreement.

Recently two top administration officials advised David Ignatius, Washington Post, to the effect that Pres Obama is "seriously considering" proposing an American peace plan which would be based on "agreements nearly reached" in the past. This is outrageous, as I will explain and it has no chance of succeeding.

Of course they repeated the mantra that "[e]veryone knows the basic outlines of a peace deal" but they omitted to say, that neither of the parties agrees to it.

This is the first time an administration official acknowledged the linkage between solving this problem with solving the problem of Iran. "It's not either Iran or the Middle East peace process. You have to do both." He went so far as to say,"[w]e want to get the debate away from settlements and East Jerusalem and take it to a 30,000-feet level that can involve Jordan, Syria and other countries in the region,"

Apparently, after spending a year on making settlement construction and Jerusalem the key issues, the Obama administration is finally admitting defeat and are moving on. Undaunted with their failure so far even with Syria and Iran, they are going to focus on a regional solution. "Incrementalism hasn't worked" Effectively, the administration is opting for a grand design.

The administration believes that the formula for success requires them to "take on the absolute requirements of Israeli security and the requirements of Palestinian sovereignty in a way that makes sense." Sorry, but Israel isn't buying. Obama has been trying to frame the solution that way for a year but he ignores that Israel wants, and is entitled to, more than having its security needs met. She has very strong legal and historical claims to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. Obama has done his best to ignore them.

Israel will not accept a deal which forces her to give up on the settlement blocks including Ariel and Maaleh Adumin. Even if these blocks were offered to her, Israel would still have to uproot about 70,000 Jews at a cost of over $100 billion. Most, if not all of Jerusalem as annexed by Israel 40 years ago, would have to remain under Israel sovereignty. Israel would not agree to anything less. While Israel might accept a return of a token amount of refugees, Israel will be looking for redress for the Jewish refugees from Arab countries.

On the Palestinian side, Obama wants to satisfy the "requirements of Palestinian sovereignty in a way that makes sense". This tells us nothing about what he thinks the Palestinians should get.

But last year, after arduous shuttle diplomacy, the following "terms of reference" were agreed upon:

"Today's announcement [partial temporary freeze] by the government of Israel helps move forward toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements."

In order to reach agreement on these terms, the administration had to allow for considerable diplomatic ambiguity. So much so, that there was no agreement at all. The Arabs still resist recognizing Israel as a Jewish state and accepting an end of conflict agreement.

Even within the confines of these terms of reference, the difference between the parties' positions is enormous. How can borders based on the '67 lines, even with mutually agreed swaps, be reconciled with "borders that…meet Israeli security requirements." Besides, Israel is entitled to "secure" borders by virtue of UNSC Resolution 242. Such borders were always understood to mean defensible borders.

Look for a great deal of pressure on Bibi to capitulate.

Netanyahu has demanded that final status issues be negotiated without preconditions. When speaking to the UNGA last September, Obama said, "… the time has come to re-launch negotiations without preconditions that address the permanent status issues"

What Netanyahu meant was that he rejected starting with previous Israeli offers and Obama evidently agreed. Yet in the position presented in the Ignatius article, Obama intends to start with what the parties almost agreed to. Furthermore the most generous offers Israel made in the past were made by left of center governments headed by Labor or Kadimah. The Netanyahu government is right of center and will not match those offers, let alone better them.

Throughout the entire peace process Israel was assured that all final status issues would be negotiated between the parties. That gave Israel an out if she didn't like where negotiations were headed. It also enabled her to agree to parameters she was not comfortable with. No more.

Obama, for his part will not suggest that the Arabs compromise much because it would undermine his Muslim outreach and the Arabs would never do so. Therefore his plan will favor the Palestinians by a country mile. It will align with the Saudi Plan.

Finally, there is the small matter of Gaza. The land for peace formula which was articulated by UNSC Res 242, was always intended to mean peace with Jordan, Egypt and Syria. Jordan transferred her rights to the Palestinians but they are divided between the West Bank and Gaza. There is no chance that Hamas who controls Gaza would go along, to say nothing of Syria and Iran. So, where's the peace? Although Obama wants a regional approach i.e. from 30,000 feet, these players won't play.

If Obama does in fact announce his Plan, he will be ending the peace process. The Oslo Interim Accords provided "Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent-status agreement." When Fayyad announced that he intended to unilaterally declare a state, Netanyahu said that if he did, Israel would be free to annex Judea and Samaria. The same logic would apply if Obama announced a Plan.

Were Obama to announce such a plan he would be plunging his administration into a battle royale with the American people just when the fall elections are underway. Even the Democratic candidates will be against it.

Announcing such a plan is one thing, enforcing it is another. No doubt the EU, the Arab League and the UN will sing its praises. The EU and the Arab League are already on record of threatening an imposed solution. Thus expect a UN Charter Chapter VI resolution to be passed by the UN imposing such a Plan. Next would come a Chapter VII resolution providing for sanctions and/or military intervention. Congress and Senate will not authorize either. Without their cooperation, there can be no effective enforcement.

Of course if the UN limited itself to the Chapter VI resolution, it could expel Israel from the UN for not complying.

The attempt to link Iran with a deal on this conflict will not succeed because Iran must be solved this year regardless of progress on solving this dispute.

Pie in the sky, if you ask me.

 

Ted Belman,

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

 

A link to break: Iran and Mideast peace talks.

 

by Ray Takeyh

 

In the midst of the recent U.S.-Israeli tumult, a curious conventional wisdom is starting to evolve. A Washington that cajoles Israel on its settlements and resumes the peace process in earnest may finally garner Arab support for dealing with Iran's nuclear menace. Although pressuring Israel to restrain its settlements may be a sensible means of gaining constructive Arab participation in the peace talks, it is unlikely to affect the region's passive approach to Iran. Indeed, should Tehran perceive fissures and divisions in U.S.-Israeli alliance, it is likely to further harden its nuclear stance.

 

The notion that the incumbent Arab regimes are reluctant to collaborate with the United States on Iran because of the prevailing impasse in the peace process is a misreading of regional realities. The Arab states, particularly the Persian Gulf sheikdoms, have an odd policy toward Iran. In private, as any visiting American dignitary can attest, they decry Iran's ambitions, fear its accelerating nuclear program and even hint at the advisability of using military force against its atomic installations. Yet they are loath to be part of an aggressive strategy, which they would see as unduly antagonizing the Islamic Republic. The Arab states will gladly purchase U.S. arms and enhance their defenses, but they would be reluctant to participate in coercing Iran. Arab leaders would prefer that someone else take care of the Iran problem without their active complicity. Absent such a solution, they are likely to coexist with the Iranian bomb. No degree of peacemaking between Israelis and Palestinians is likely to alter that calculus.

 

 

Meanwhile, the guardians of Iran's theocracy understand their neighborhood better than the succession of U.S. emissaries who journey to the Gulf in hope of Arab solidarity. Iran's leaders appreciate the limits of Arab belligerence and realize that a strong regime of economic sanctions and diplomatic confrontation will not emanate from the sheikdoms. U.S. allies will assess their own capabilities and vulnerabilities, shape alliances and pursue their interests understanding that they are susceptible to Iranian influence predicated on religious ties and political subversion. A policy of hedging their bets is more in line with the traditions of the emirates, with their penchant for caution and circumspection.

 

If Iran dismisses threats from the Gulf states, it similarly discounts the possibility of U.S. military retaliation. Since becoming Iran's president in 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his hard-line supporters have assured their compatriots that U.S. preoccupations with Iraq and Afghanistan provide Iran with a deterrent policy. No American administration, they insist, is likely to jeopardize the fragile stability of its war-torn charges by forcefully taking on Iran's nuclear portfolio. It is entirely possible that Iranians are once more misjudging America's predilections. The history of the Middle East, after all, is riddled with rulers who misapprehended Washington's intentions. However misguided they may be, Iran's leaders comfort themselves with thoughts that their nuclear provocations will not trigger American retribution.

 

Israel, then, looms large in Iran's strategic calculations. Unlike the Arab states, Israel approaches Iran with resolution. And unlike the United States, Israel is not entangled in conflicts that Iranian mischief can aggravate. Hamas and Hezbollah are not only unreliable proxies but ones that Israeli armor can handle. Fulminations aside, Iranian leaders take Israeli threats seriously and are at pains to assert their retaliatory options. It is here that the shape and tone of the U.S.-Israeli alliance matters most. Should the clerical oligarchs sense divisions in that alliance, they can assure themselves that a beleaguered Israel cannot possibly strike Iran while at odds with its superpower patron. Such perceptions cheapen Israeli deterrence and diminish the potency of the West's remaining sticks.

 

All this is not to suggest that Washington cannot criticize Israeli policies, even publicly and forcefully. The ebbs and flows of the emerging peace process will cause disagreements and even tensions between the two allies. But as they plot their strategies for resuming dialogue between Israel and its neighbors, U.S. policymakers would be wise to vociferously insist that the dynamics of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations will not affect Washington's cooperation with Israel on Iran. A concerted effort to decouple the peace process from Iran's nuclear imbroglio is the best means of declawing the Islamic Republic.

 

Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

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

 

 

 

 

 

Abdullah in Wonderland.

 

by Victor Sharpe

 

When Alice fell down the rabbit hole, encountering situations that defied logic and characters who acted in bizarre ways, she was fortunate not to meet Jordan's kinglet, Abdullah II. Kinglet is an apt description for this monarch, first coined by columnist Ruth King.

Jordan's king, a member of the Hashemite tribe, is named after Emir Abdullah, who was assassinated on July 20, 1951 after leaving Friday evening prayers at Jerusalem's Al Aqsa mosque. Abdullah was in favor of making peace with Israel but, like Egypt's Anwar Sadat, he was murdered by Islamic extremists for his moderation. The assassinated emir was accompanied at the mosque by his grandson, King Hussein, also the present Jordanian monarch's father. In a recent interview in the Wall Street Journal, King Abdullah II announced that at his forthcoming meeting with America's president, Barack Hussein Obama, he will ask the president to pile on yet more pressure upon embattled Israel over Arab territorial demands on Israel's capital, Jerusalem.

 

The kinglet stated in his WSJ interview that "Jerusalem specifically engages Jordan because we are the custodians of the Muslim and Christian holy places and this is a flashpoint that goes beyond Jordanian-Israel relations."

 

And here we descend the rabbit hole. Abdullah II chose to hide the unpleasant facts that under his father, King Hussein, not only did Jordan refuse to allow Jews access to their holy sites during Jordan's illegal occupation of East Jerusalem from 1949 to 1967 (including the Old City, the Western Wall, and the Temple Mount), but it desecrated the ancient Jewish graves on the Mount of Olives, ran a road through the cemetery, used many of the gravestones as latrines for the Arab Legion, deliberately destroyed and desecrated scores of ancient synagogues throughout the Old City, and used the Tomb of Simon the Just as a stable. The Jewish inhabitants of the Old City and areas of east Jerusalem, meanwhile, had been driven from their homes and forced to flee to safety in West Jerusalem.

 

During the nineteen years of illegal Jordanian Arab occupation of the eastern neighborhoods of Jerusalem (an occupation recognized by only Pakistan and Britain), the United Nations not once protested against the rampant and systematic destruction of the ancient Jewish quarter. Only after the reunification of the city in 1967 and the removal by Israel of the Jordanian pillboxes, barbed wire, and sniper sites was the filth that had piled up over the years along the Via Delarosa (with Christian pilgrims being forced to wade through it) removed and the area cleansed. And only after reunification did the morally challenged United Nations begin its long and hypocritical series of anti-Israel resolutions over Jerusalem.

 

It is only since Israel was forced by Arab aggression to fight the June 1967 Six Day War and liberate Jerusalem from Jordanian occupation that all religions and faiths are treated with respect and provided free access to their holy places. On June 4, 1967, former Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol pleaded with the late King Hussein, via the United Nations, not to follow the genocidal boastings of Egypt's President Nasser and attack the Jewish state. Eshkol stated that "[w]e shall not initiate any action whatsoever against Jordan. However, should Jordan open hostilities, we shall react with all our might and he (the King) will have to bear the full responsibility for all the consequences."

 

The impressionable king, succumbing to Nasser's boast of Egyptian forces already inside Israel, ordered his artillery to open fire along the entire border between west and east Jerusalem. The Egyptians and elements of the Arab Legion had penetrated the southernmost Jewish suburb of Jerusalem, Ramat Rahel, founded in 1926 upon the same site of a Jewish village from biblical times.

 

It is instructive to note that King Hussein visited East Jerusalem only once during Jordan's occupation and chose to keep Amman the capital of Jordan. Indeed, no Muslim holy place is today the capital city of an Arab and Muslim state. In Iran, the capital is Teheran; it is not Qum or Meshed. In Saudi Arabia, neither Mecca nor Medina is the capital city; it is Riyadh.

 

Only the Jews regard Jerusalem as both their spiritual and temporal capital city, and they have done so for three thousand years. For Christians, Jerusalem is a spiritual, not a temporal, site. Muslims, even while praying in their mosque on the Temple Mount, face Mecca with their backs to Jerusalem.

 

The Two State Solution, 87 years old, is an ideal explanation of the history of betrayal by Great Britain toward its obligation to create a Jewish National Home in geographical Palestine and how the entire territory east of the River Jordan (present-day Jordan) was torn away, leaving only the narrow sliver of land west of the Jordan River for the reconstituted Jewish state. This tiny piece of land, which includes the very biblical and ancestral heartland of the Jews, is now threatened by yet another Two State Solution, reducing Israel to only nine miles wide at its most populous region. The present Kingdom of Jordan, over which Abdullah II reigns, is the much larger territory east of the River Jordan stretching east to Iraq, south to Saudi Arabia, and north to Syria.   

 

In 1994, Yasser Arafat's PLO demanded East Jerusalem as the capital city of a new Arab state. All Jews living in such a capital, it declared, will be driven out -- or worse. Sound familiar? This demand was first articulated only after the 1967 War and Jerusalem's reunification. Since then, it has become a staple of Palestinian Arab and all other Arab and Muslim rhetoric.

 

Now Abdullah II impudently claims that the Israeli Prime Minister's actions have brought their two nation's relations to a new low. Again the Alice in Wonderland syndrome is clear for all to see. For Netanyahu has made yet more concessions to bring about peace in the region by agreeing to a freeze on housing for Jews throughout Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). No concessions have been demanded of the Palestinian Arabs, who continue terrorism against Israeli civilians and indoctrinate their children with vile anti-Jewish hatred -- all banned under the Oslo Peace Accords. The Jordanian king even stretches credulity by claiming that Jordanian officials call their relations with Israel a cold peace. He went on to say, "People to people exchanges between our two countries are virtually non-existent and cross border business has largely dried up."

 

Though Jordan has resisted the Palestinians' attempt to undermine the peace treaty obligations made earlier between Jordan and Israel in 1994, it has nevertheless been Jordan that is the cause of the cold peace with the Jewish state. Animosity toward Israel and the lack of peaceful interchange between the two peoples has been led by Jordan's professional and intellectual organizations. These have included journalists, doctors, dentists, business leaders, artists, and musicians. These groups have opposed all and every form of normalization with Israel.

 

Any Jordanian Arab who reaches out to Israelis is immediately threatened and blacklisted. It is ironic that Jordan's kinglet allows such a situation to exist while choosing to falsely blame Israel. Could it be that he is afraid of alienating these organizations for fear that the Hashemite control over his kingdom would falter? After all, Jordan's population is three-fourths Palestinian, and the kinglet's greatest fear is a Palestinian Arab coup.

 

In September 1970, the kinglet's father, King Hussein, fought off a PLO coup d'état led by the arch terrorist, Yasser Arafat, who had created a state within a state inside Jordan. Hussein's Arab Legion killed thousands of PLO terrorists, along with their families, and many fled to Israel for safety -- the very same terrorists who had been conducting grisly cross-border raids into Israel. Since then, Israel has several times warned Jordan of attempts to destroy it from the neighboring Syrian regime in Damascus, which considers Jordan as part of southern Syria. Indeed, Israel even intervened once to forestall an imminent Syrian invasion. 

 

In his meeting with President Barack Hussein Obama, the kinglet will take the predictable anti-Israeli line in order to keep his Arab credentials intact and his Hashemite minority from being overthrown. The kinglet's throne is an uneasy one at best. But what better way to deflect his subjects' growing Islamic radicalization than to heap blame upon Israel for every problem in the Middle East? And this while secretly relying upon Israel to protect his throne.

 

According to an earlier Pew Global Attitude Project finding,

A majority of Jordanians now say suicide bombings and other violent actions are justifiable in defense of Islam. According to the JORDAN TIMES' correspondent, Omar Karmi, because of close geopolitical and familial ties, Hamas has a close relationship with Jordan's Islamists, and the Jordanian Islamists' increasing popularity has been given a big boost by Hamas' victory. Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood is and always has been implacably opposed to the 1994 [Jordan-Israel] peace treaty. Despite the remarkable durability of the Hashemite Kingdom, Jordan's strategic position and its vulnerability remain a given that cannot be ignored in any Israeli security assessment.

 

Jordan's King Abdullah II dares not buck the growing Arab, Muslim, and worldwide pressure piling on Israel, vastly encouraged as it is by the mendacious and unprincipled anti-Israel bias emanating from the White House and State Department. He will no doubt echo the tired old mantra that solving the Israel-Palestinian conflict will miraculously solve all world problems and usher in "peace in our time."

 

It is no surprise, therefore, that the kinglet and the American president will have a great time together at their upcoming Mad Hatter's Tea Party. And no doubt U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell, and American General James Jones will all join together in the "let's bash Israel" festivity while the malevolent Cheshire cat, Ahmadinejad, looks on with an ever-widening grin.

 

 

Victor Sharpe is the author of Volumes One and Two of Politicide: The attempted murder of the Jewish state.

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

 

Down from the fence.

 

by Isi Leibler

World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder should be applauded for calling on the Obama administration to end the antagonism and one-sided pressure it has been applying against Israel.

The call was in an open letter to President Barack Obama published today as a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The Jerusalem Post. By this act, Lauder broke the curtain of silence, self-imposed by most of the American Jewish establishment since Obama's exploitation of an untimely announcement by a mid-level municipal Israeli authority about construction in an exclusively Jewish east Jerusalem neighborhood as a pretext to launch ferocious attacks on Israel.

The notable exception was ADL head Abe Foxman, a Holocaust child survivor, who from the outset emerged as a lone mainstream Jewish voice remonstrating against the bias and harsh treatment. Recently, he even proposed a protest march on Washington.

The overall response from other Jewish agencies was disappointingly muted, and seemed to have been based on the delusion that US-Israel relations would somehow improve of their own accord.

The opening presentation at the AIPAC conference by the new president, Lee Rosenberg, did convey concern and urged that differences not be aired publicly. But there was a reluctance to openly confront the Obama administration's discriminatory behavior.

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, specifically created to act as the voice of American Jews in relation to Israel, was extraordinarily passive despite the fact that its executive vice president, Malcolm Hoenlein, is certainly no dove.

As for nonestablishment leaders, there were indeed loud rumblings from independent Jewish personalities, including prominent supporters of the Democratic Party who had voted for Obama in the mistaken belief that he would adhere to his electoral undertakings. Thus, Alan Dershowitz wrote an explicit warning of the dangers of the US following the path of the disastrous appeasement blunders of Munich; Marty Peretz, editor of The New Republic, fiercely castigated Obama.

Leading Democrat and former New York mayor Ed Koch did not mince words. He accused Obama of demeaning and slandering Israel and being willing to throw the Jewish state under a bus in order to pursue his pro-Arab agenda. He confessed that he rued the day he voted for a president who was willing to betray and abandon Israel.

And needless to say, there were protests from the political Right - the Zionist Organization of America and the Jewish Republican Coalition. There were also anguished calls from many Jews at the grassroots level.

It has always been committed Jews who have stood at the forefront of political action in such situations.

IN THIS context, though perhaps belated, Lauder's public criticism is important. It will undoubtedly unleash a storm of castigation, but will hopefully draw attention to the gravity of the situation, which many supporters of Israel were hitherto unwilling to confront, and oblige Jewish organizations and agencies sitting on the sidelines to take a stand.

If the recent American Jewish Committee poll is an indicator, many American Jews are confused by repeated affirmations of the "unshakeable alliance," and simply unaware of the extent of the growing rift between Israel and the Obama administration. This is exemplified by the contradiction that 75 percent of those polled affirm that the primary goal of the Arabs is the destruction of Israel rather than the return of territories, yet many continue supporting the Obama administration.

Lauder's call will thus hopefully enable a growing proportion of the 78% of Jews who voted for Obama to appreciate the extent to which he has betrayed his electoral undertakings and is apparently willing to sacrifice Israel's security to appease the Arabs.

Lauder was previously closely associated with Binyamin Netanyahu, and his critics undoubtedly will accuse him of acting as his instrument. I know for a fact that this is untrue. He acted as a proud American and leader of world Jewry.

Lauder is a formidable global businessman with considerable investments in Israel and a major philanthropist. He was appointed ambassador to Austria by president Ronald Reagan, and is renowned for establishing the Ronald Lauder Foundation, which funds the revival of Judaism and Jewish culture in Central and Eastern Europe after the Cold War. Prior to being elected president of the WJC, Lauder also served as chairman of the Presidents Conference. 

The WJC under Lauder's helm has hitherto been largely dormant. But by taking this new initiative he is thrusting the global Jewish body into the limelight and taking a position that may in the long term prove to be of importance, not only to the American-Israel relationship but also for the American Jewish community's image of itself.

It will balance the policy failures of some of his predecessors, one of whom, Rabbi Stephen Wise, headed the WJC during World War ll and compromised an otherwise impressive leadership record by being cowed by president Franklin Roosevelt into remaining silent over the failure of the Allies to take action to try to stop the Holocaust.

Edgar Bronfman, Lauder's predecessor, despite major contributions to the welfare of the Jewish people, made the crucial error of claiming to know better than the Israelis what was good for them. In August 2003 he precipitated a major storm, in which I personally intervened, by calling on president George W. Bush to pressure prime minister Ariel Sharon. In doing so, Bronfman anticipated the emergence of J Street.

IF LAUDER sticks to his guns, he will emerge as a Jewish leader who was prepared to stand up and be counted in the face of his president's wretched behavior towards the Jewish state. There will be shrieks from some of Obama's supporters and intensified efforts to intimidate American Jews. The Israel bashers will accuse Lauder of harboring dual loyalties and placing the interests of Israel ahead of those of the US. The despicable distorted spins insinuating that Israel is endangering American troops will be reiterated. The Arabs, enemies of Israel and all anti-Semites will combine efforts to undermine and slander all Americans who support the Jewish state.

However, Lauder can take heart from the considerable support for Israel which prevails among the American people, as exemplified in the bipartisan resolution favoring Israel carried by more than three quarters of the House and only a few days ago by a similar majority in the Senate.

This is an historic time. There are real dangers threatening the Jewish state, and the role of the US will be crucial for our welfare.

An open letter in itself is no substitute for people power to counter the Obama administration's present course of appeasement. But it may provide a rallying cry to rouse American Jews and friends of Israel to speak up and remind their president that breaching his electoral undertakings concerning Israel is not only shamefully immoral, but also undermines US global interests in this volatile region, where Israel stands alone in the name of democratic freedom.

 

 

Isi Leibler
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Obama’s Hopes for Israeli ‘Regime Change’ Will Backfire.

 

by Jonathan Tobin   

 

Veteran peace processor Aaron David Miller gets it half right in today's Los Angeles Times when he dissects the apparent desire of the Obama administration to drive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from office.

Miller, a functionary who helped carry out the State Department's failed Middle East policy during the administrations of both the first president Bush and Clinton, is correct when he points out that American attempts to treat Israel as a banana republic don't always work out as Washington intends. While the elder George Bush may have successfully undermined Yitzhak Shamir's re-election in 1992, Bill Clinton's all-out effort to help Shimon Peres beat Netanyahu in 1996 was a failure that helped sour relations between the two countries. For all of the fact that the United States is Israel's only ally, not surprisingly Israelis don't enjoy being dictated to, especially when the issues at stake are their own rights and security. Obama's transparent attempt to overturn the outcome of an election that was held only a few weeks after his own inauguration doesn't sit well with the Israeli public and has increased Netanyahu's popularity. That Jerusalem is the issue over which Obama has sought to ditch Netanyahu is as wrongheaded as it is foolish. No Israeli prime minister is likely to accept Obama's demand that Jews not be allowed to build in existing Jewish neighborhoods in their own capital.

Miller is also correct when he points out that if Obama were really interested in making progress toward Middle East peace, he'd be far better off cozying up to Netanyahu than attempting to somehow impose a left-wing government on Israel. Only right-wingers or former military leaders have the standing to persuade Israelis to take risks for peace. Obama's notion that Israel's opposition leader Tzipi Livni would be more susceptible to American pressure might be true. But there's little chance that she could rally the country behind the disastrous peace plan that the administration is reportedly planning to try to impose on Israel at some point. Miller's also right when he points out, albeit reluctantly, that Bibi has in fact been far from intransigent. He has signed several peace accords, including the Hebron agreement and the Wye Plantation deal during his first term in office, and in the last year he has formally agreed to a two-state solution and a building freeze in Jewish communities in the West Bank.

But what Miller leaves out of his piece is a basic fact about Middle East peacemaking: not even the most accommodating Israeli government can make peace if the Palestinians won't take yes for an answer. Left-wing Israeli governments in the 1990s that gave all that Bill Clinton asked them to give to the Palestinians were still unable to persuade the Arabs to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state within any borders. Nor was the Left-leaning government in which Livni served as foreign minister just two years ago able to persuade the supposedly moderate Palestinian Authority leadership to accept a Palestinian state in Gaza, virtually all of the West Bank and half of Jerusalem.

Miller wisely counsels that where Obama is headed in the Middle East will lead only to more failure: "A no-win fight over settlements, the threat of pushing its own peace plan — or worse: too-clever-by-half meddling in Israeli politics. Such an approach will only waste time and energy the United States doesn't have, and risk failure at a time when America is trying to protect its own interests in an angry, complex and turbulent region." But what Miller leaves out of this sage lecture is that the basic premise of Obama's policies — that Israeli intransigence is the primary obstacle to peace — is itself the great myth of current American foreign policy that needs to be debunked.

 

 

Jonathan Tobin   

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What are nations really for, then?

 

by  Hazem Saghiyeh

MP Nawwaf Moussawi deserves nothing but respect for telling Kuwaiti daily Al-Rai, "If things comes down to a choice between the Resistance and any kind of unity, then the Resistance would take precedence." Moussawi said: "When it comes to its sustainability, survival, strength and progress, the Resistance's history proves that it holds these elements above all other considerations."

The Hezbollah MP deserves respect for being honest and describing things as they really are, as seen and applied by Hezbollah. Indeed, he did not say that the Lebanese unanimously agree on the Resistance, nor did he say that the Resistance is ready to dismantle its structure in order to preserve national unity. In so doing, he is departing from the deceit and lies that have become customary in this country.

Truly, the Resistance exists and shall endure, regardless of what the Lebanese think of the matter and regardless of how they may perceive their interests and the interests of their country. This is precisely the reaction of conquerors, which has but one logical completion: It is only by having recourse to force that you will do away with the Resistance. As for democracy, spare us this distasteful farce which is used only to serve the Resistance's purposes, and if it contradicts them, then let us bid democracy farewell.

Moussawi's statement is likened to two partners telling one another: I shall take my interest alone into consideration. As for our common interest, it concerns me only insofar as it serves my own.

This statement calls for an equally frank response, whereby no one is strong enough to do away with the Resistance. And I doubt that anyone would seek to acquire such strength since things would lead – at best – to destruction and pain for everyone involved, and bring down the roof on everyone's heads.

Yet one still has to say, in response to the theory of "giving the Resistance precedence over national unity," that a large portion of the Lebanese people believes in giving freedom precedence over national unity. If a partnership is synonymous with submission in total disregard of the second partner, then it becomes necessary to sit down to discuss that partnership and think of better alternatives.

If Moussawi is free to express his disregard for national unity with remarkable frankness and boldness, then others – too – should be entitled to express the same disregard in unity when defined in such terms. Neither Moussawi nor his foes are fond of nations as such. Indeed, he openly stated that nations were created not for their intrinsic value, but rather for the sake of resistance. As such, let the others say with equal frankness and boldness: Nations were created not for their intrinsic value, but rather for the sake of freedom. Only then can those who so choose resist or stay alive.

 

Hazem Saghiyeh

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