Tobin - Egypt’s Rulers Are Letting the Mob Rule

Jonathan S. Tobin
Commentary/Contentions
10 September '11



http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/09/09/egypt-israel-embassy/#more-767350

Last month, the men who scaled the building housing the Israeli embassy in Cairo become national heroes in Egypt for tearing down the blue and white flag that flew over the site. Today (Friday/Shabbat), another mob stormed the site, tearing down the security wall erected to protect the diplomatic enclave. These demonstrations are indications not only of the hatred for any symbol of Israel in Egypt but the way in which the military government is allowing them to grow in scale.

While this may be defended as the regime merely allowing the mobs to vent their spleens in a harmless manner, the escalation of the violence may not be so easy to control.

For decades, the Mubarak regime kept the peace with Israel but allowed the Egyptian media to broadcast blatantly anti-Semitic propaganda in order to give Islamists and other critics of the government an outlet to vent their frustration. That created an unhealthy disconnect between policy and public opinion that took a cold peace and transformed it into one verging on open hostility after the fall of the dictator.

Egypt’s military knows very well the price of abandoning the peace with Israel would be disastrous. It would not only put their untested forces in harm’s way, but also take away the government’s pipeline of U.S. aid that the military prizes. They may believe allowing Islamist and nationalist agitators to besiege Israel’s embassy gives these haters a meaningless victory without doing any real damage to the country’s strategic needs. But as Mubarak learned to his cost, Cairo mobs sometimes take on a life of their own. Fueled by the hate that is part of the country’s popular culture, the impulse to demonize Israel and Jews can’t be quarantined. If left unchallenged, it will only grow and lead to worse things than a torn flag or a demolished security wall.

Egypt’s leaders need to counteract this trend before it gets even further out of control. And they need to be told bluntly by Washington that if they don’t, the flow of baksheesh into their coffers will soon end.

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

Clueless in Washington

Caroline Glick
carolineglick.com
31 January '11

http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2011/01/clueless-in-washington.php

The Egyptian multitudes on the streets of Cairo are a stunning sight. With their banners calling for freedom and an end to the reign of President Hosni Mubarak the story these images tell is a simple one as old as time.

On the one hand we have the young, dispossessed and weak protesters. And on the other we have the old, corrupt and tyrannical Mubarak. Hans Christian Andersen taught us who to support when we were wee tots.

But does his wisdom apply in this case?

Certainly it is true that the regime is populated by old men. Mubarak is 82 years old. It is also true that his regime is corrupt and tyrannical. Since the Muslim Brotherhood spinoff Islamic Jihad terror group murdered Mubarak's predecessor president Anwar Sadat in 1981, Egypt has been governed by emergency laws that ban democratic freedoms. Mubarak has consistently rejected US pressure to ease regime repression and enact liberal reforms in governance.

This reality has led many American commentators across the political spectrum to side enthusiastically with the rioters. A prestigious working group on Egypt formed in recent months by Middle East experts from Left and Right issued a statement over the weekend calling for the Obama administration to dump Mubarak and withdraw its support for the Egyptian regime. It recommended further that the administration force Mubarak to abdicate and his regime to fall by suspending all economic and military assistance to Egypt for the duration.

The blue ribbon panel's recommendations were applauded by its members' many friends across the political spectrum. For instance, the conservative Weekly Standard's editor William Kristol praised the panel on Sunday and wrote, "It's time for the US government to take an active role... to bring about a South Korea/Philippines/Chile-like transition in Egypt, from an American-supported dictatorship to an American-supported and popularly legitimate liberal democracy."

The problem with this recommendation is that it is based entirely on the nature of Mubarak's regime. If the regime was the biggest problem, then certainly removing US support for it would make sense. However, the character of the protesters is not liberal.

Indeed, their character is a bigger problem than the character of the regime they seek to overthrow.

Targeting the Whole of the Lebanese State – Where Will the U.S. Stand in Next War Against Hezbollah?

Should Israel be forced into war with forces to its north, where will Washington stand?

Jim Colbert
JINSA/The Sentry
06 January '11

The recent French decision to supply helicopter-borne anti-tank missiles to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) took on a level of importance far greater than it would have even just a year ago as an increasing number of Israeli military thinkers no longer see a meaningful distinction between it and Hezbollah.

Since the July-August 2006 war with Israel, Hezbollah’s military forces have operated with impunity in southern Lebanon, rebuilding their bunkers and fighting positions and replenishing their arsenal. The LAF’s unprovoked cross-border attack on an IDF patrol this past August confirmed for many Israelis that the line between the two largest militaries in Lebanon is blurred as well.

In turn, Israeli thinking about how to deal with Hezbollah, a full participant in the civilian Lebanese government, has evolved. As a result, it is likely that the next round of fighting between the two countries will see the Lebanon’s government and civilian infrastructure targeted by Jerusalem.

In the 2006 war, Israeli tanks were subjected to dozens of Hezbollah attacks with the latest Russian-made anti-armor missiles. How much more potent will the threat be when the French missiles and launchers are mounted on the LAF’s helicopter fleet?

(Read full "Targeting the Whole of the Lebanese State – Where Will the U.S. Stand in Next War Against Hezbollah?")

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

When Washington Has Amnesia, Israelis and Palestinians Pay the Price

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
17 November '10

My last two posts (here and here) discussed why no peace deal is likely to emerge from Barack Obama’s drive to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks. But if this drive merely proves futile, the entire region will breathe a sigh of relief. The fear among those outside the White House/State Department cocoon is that it will produce a bloodbath.

Two notable signs of this fear are the latest poll by the Ramallah-based Jerusalem Media and Communications Centre and Maplecroft’s new Terrorism Risk Index.

As I noted yesterday, a plurality of Palestinians, 22.4 percent, rated the economy as their top concern in the poll. But among Gazans — whose economy, we are relentlessly told, is being strangled by Israel — the economy actually ranked only fourth. Their top priority, by a 29.8 percent plurality, was Hamas-Fatah reconciliation.

In the much larger West Bank, however, 27.6 percent put the economy first. And that, at first glance, seems bizarre, because the West Bank economy is booming: it grew by 8.5 percent last year and 9 percent in the first half of 2010. International aid is also soaring: just last week, the U.S. announced another $150 million. Yet fully 49.2 percent of West Bankers expected the economy to deteriorate in the coming year, while only 38.5 percent foresaw improvement.

The poll didn’t give reasons for this gloomy forecast, but there’s one obvious explanation: Obama’s peace push. First, if he does force Israel to freeze settlement construction again, thousands of Palestinian construction workers will lose their jobs. This concern was evident in JMCC’s June poll, in which 60 percent of Palestinians opposed their own government’s proposed ban on working in settlements.

(Read full post)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

Turkey Co-opts NATO Missile-Defense System to Hurt Israel and Help Iran

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
26 October '10

That Turkey has grown unrelentingly hostile to Israel, and cozy with Iran, is no longer news. But it is news, of the most disturbing kind, that Washington has chosen to actively collaborate in both the hostility and the coziness. Yet that’s what emerges from today’s Haaretz report on NATO’s planned missile-defense system: the U.S., it says, has agreed to Turkey’s demand that no information gathered by the system — whose primary goal is countering threats from Iran — be shared with Israel.

President George W. Bush, who conceived the system, had planned to station it in Eastern Europe. But due to Russia’s vehement opposition, President Barack Obama decided to relocate it to Turkey.

Ankara, reluctant to damage its burgeoning romance with Tehran, said it would agree only if four conditions were met. One, Turkish sources told Haaretz, was that “information gathered by the system not be given to any non-NATO member, and especially not to Israel.”

Moreover, the sources said, Washington has agreed to this demand. In other words, Washington has agreed that potentially vital information about Israel’s greatest enemy, gathered by a NATO facility that America conceived and will doubtless largely finance, won’t be shared with Israel.

(Read full post)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

Israeli-Palestinian Direct Talks Will Lead Directly to Failure

David Solway
pajamasmedia.com
04 September '10

The “Israeli-Palestinian direct talks” are now underway in Washington in which, yet once again, the intractable dilemma that bedevils the region will be addressed and hopefully resolved, at least in part. All the parties have expressed a guarded optimism, to a greater or lesser degree, that this latest round of talks will bear some kind of fruit. Everything, apparently, is on the table — even, according to some reports, the division of Jerusalem. With clearly anti-Israeli figures like Barack Obama and Ban Ki-moon — let’s be honest about this — fanning the proceedings, it should be evident things will not go well for Israel, and that the country will be blamed for not offering sufficient giveback to the Palestinians and for the inevitable derelictions that will ensue.

Indeed, the UN secretary-general is on record urging that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas be “given full support” and international recognition. Nowhere does he extend the same counsel on behalf of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Nor does Ban acknowledge that Abbas has no legal authority to participate in the peace conference since his term as president expired in January 2009 and he has not called new elections.

Netanyahu is obviously keeping his gaze fixed on the big picture: the so-called “peace process” which to date has been all process and no peace, envisioning the chimera of two states living side by side in sandaled amity; intense American pressure; the discriminatory media ready to pounce upon Israel for every pretext they can manufacture; and the international trend toward delegitimation of the Jewish state. But sometimes the smaller portraits are just as important, and sometimes even more important, than the larger picture that monopolizes the attention of the usual suspects: diplomats, officials, negotiators, and, of course, the usual cohort of “liberal” agitators both in the West and among Israel’s arguably treasonable left-wing academics.

(Read full article)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

What Washington’s Lame Response to Terror Says About the Peace Talks

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
01 September '10

If more reasons were needed for concluding that the current Israeli-Palestinian talks won’t produce a deal, here’s another: the designated mediator — i.e., the Obama administration — has just proved itself incapable of providing what even Israeli leftists deem an essential condition for peace.

Tuesday night, Palestinian terrorists murdered four Israeli civilians — two men and two women — by shooting them at close range. Yet as even Haaretz, normally the administration’s reliable flack, noted, “State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley didn’t seem to be in a rush to condemn the attack.” In fact, he didn’t condemn it at all: he merely declared it “a tragedy.”

“Any time one human being takes out a weapon and fires and kills other human beings, it’s a tragedy,” Crowley said. “We just don’t know the circumstances under which this occurred. … We are cognizant that there could be external events that can have an impact on the environment.”

The White House finally issued an unequivocal condemnation only hours later, once “the circumstances” had become clear: namely, that it could condemn the attack safely, because the Palestinian Authority wasn’t involved. Until then, Crowley had hedged his bets, hinting at extenuating circumstances that “we just don’t know,” “external events” that could affect “the environment” — any straw he could grasp to excuse the PA if that proved necessary.

(Read full post)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

So what will PM Netanyahu actually say in Washington?

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
Weekly Commentary
26 August '10

It is difficult to predict what positions Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will actually take next week at President Obama's photo op.

On the one hand, Netanyahu knows only too well that all the journalists and others who are encouraging him to betray his constituents will also betray him at the very first opportunity.

Sure, they might praise him in the first report of the betrayal, but a day later some will already join in mocking him for his "flip-flop".

After all, there is pretty much nothing that Benyamin Netanyahu could do today that would serve as penitence for the assassination of Yitzchak Rabin. And as odd as this may sound to an outsider, this group genuinely sees Netanyahu as the man responsible for Rabin's death. And to make matters worse Netanyahu had the gall to defeat Shimon Peres at the polls after the murder. This when it was thought that in the aftermath of the assassination, the national camp would find itself exiled to the political wilderness for at least a generation.

And it's annoying that his English is so good.

Netanyahu knows this.

On the other hand, what with the hard line positions of the Palestinians, there is a great temptation to try to "have one's cake and eat it too" by offering concessions that are welcomed by Washington but rejected by the Palestinians.

But even if we are absolutely certain that the Palestinians will reject the concessions, we could readily find ourselves being pushed to make the concessions as an "open deposit" independent of its intended context.

After all, that's pretty much what happened with Netanyahu's settlement construction freeze concession.

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

Face-to-Face Negotiations in September 2010: What Will They Talk About?

JINSA
Report #: 1,016
20 August '10

The announcement has been made that Prime Minister Netanyahu and Abu Mazen will come to Washington for "face to face negotiations." It is worth remembering that precisely 10 years ago President Clinton invited then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat to a summit at Camp David. Mr. Barak was bringing a very far-reaching proposal - so much so that in fact that he wasn't sure he could sell to the Israeli public if Arafat accepted it. But after what appeared to be an ill-planned and hasty IDF departure from the Lebanese "Security Zone," he hoped to bring home an agreement with the Palestinians.

In a moment of wisdom, or at least of extreme practicality, Yasser Arafat tried mightily to get out of attending. It wasn't the right time, he said. He objected to holding a meeting of the principals (Clinton, Barak and himself) when there was no guarantee of success. The time to hold a summit, he opined, was when everything had already been done, and it hadn't been done. And he was, for once, right.

The crucial issues in 2000 were:

Jerusalem;

The Palestinian demand for a "right of return" for refugees and their descendants to places in Israel from which the original refugees claim to have come;

Territorial compromise, and;

Agreement on the legitimacy of Israel's sovereignty in the region, which was also called an "end to the war" and termination of future claims.

(Read full report)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

Rapid Unraveling in the Middle East

JINSA
Report #: 1,010
27 July '10

1) The PLO flag is flying in Washington. The administration downplayed the change - it is a "delegation" office not an Embassy. The change implies "no enhancement in diplomatic status," and does not provide "any diplomatic privileges or immunities," said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. It is about the same as the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) that represents 27 million democratic Taiwanese. That is, by its nature, an enhancement for a terrorist organization.

White House spokesman Thomas Vietor added, "This decision reflects our confidence that through direct negotiations, we can help achieve a two-state solution with an independent and viable Palestine living side by side with Israel. We should begin preparing for that outcome now, as we continue to work with the Palestinian people on behalf of a better future."

The best way to give the Palestinians a better future would be to liberate 1.2 million of them from Hamas in Gaza. Hamas is NOT a member of the PLO - the flag of which is flying in Washington - and it ousted Fatah from Gaza in a bloody and ongoing civil war. This appears to be why we are building Fatah an army. The State Department is busy executing its two-state vision while the Palestinians are busy executing one another.

(Read full report)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

About that PLO flag in Washington

Elder of Ziyon
26 July '10

Over the past few days, we have found out that the White House has decided to give the PLO mission in Washington a symbolic upgrade of status:

The Obama administration will allow the PLO office in Washington to fly the Palestinian flag and assume the title of "delegation."

The change in status comes with no enhancement in diplomatic status, U.S. officials said.

The new privileges for the Palestine Liberation Organization office do not mean the representation has "any diplomatic privileges or immunities," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said last Friday.

"At the request of the PLO representative, which we have granted given the improvement in the relations between the United States and Palestinians, they have requested permission to fly the Palestinian flag," he said. "And they have requested permission to call themselves the General Delegation of the PLO, which is a name that conforms to how they describe their missions in Europe, Canada, and several Latin American countries."

Crowley said the steps have symbolic value and reflect improved relations between the United States and Palestinians, but they have no meaning under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

A White House spokesman suggested the changes would help spur the Palestinians toward direct peace talks with Israel, a key demand of the Israeli and U.S. governments.

Why does the PLO have a mission in Washington, and not the pseudo-democratic Palestinian Authority?

The answer to that question is terrifically important.

(Read full post)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

WSJ Relocates Israel's Capital

Tamar Sternthal
CAMERA/Snapshots
11 May '10

In honor of Yom Yerushalayim, a very special video - Jerusalem Day: Reflections by Rabbi Yisrael Ariel

Gerald Seib, Washington bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, has relocated Israel's capital to Tel Aviv. In a May 4 column, he writes:

None of this means there aren't real strains between Washington and Tel Aviv over settlements in the West Bank, or over the value of a robust Arab-Israeli peace process to the broad American effort to knit Arab states into a coalition opposing Iran.

In fact, the strain between Israel and the United States over settlements in the West Bank has taken place between Washington and Jerusalem, where the Prime Minister's office is located, not to mention the Knesset, the Supreme Court, and the Foreign Ministry.

The Boston Globe has in the past corrected this very same error (see below), and so should the Wall Street Journal.

Error (Boston Globe, 7/14/03): The refugees and many other Palestinians publicly say there can be no peace with Israel until Tel Aviv recognizes the refugees’ right to return.

Correction (7/17/03): Because of an editing error, a story on a Palestinian protest in Monday’s World pages incorrectly suggested that Tel Aviv is the capital of Israel. The capital is Jerusalem.

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

Linkage Threat: Will Israel Pay the Price for Obama’s Nuclear Delusions?

Jonathan Tobin
Contentions/Commentary
07 May '10

While the world watches and waits to see what, if anything, Washington will do to stop Iran’s nuclear program, the greatest obstacle to action may not be just the president’s indifference to the existential threat to Israel or the possibility such a development would pose to regional stability. Instead, as it is rapidly becoming evident, one of the fundamental problems here may be something else: the Obama administration’s obsession with pursuing the left’s Cold War agenda against nuclear arms.

As the New York Times’s report (mentioned earlier today by Jennifer) shows, President Obama plans to revive a civilian nuclear agreement with Russia, one that had been spiked by the Bush administration after Moscow’s invasion of Georgia in 2008. When it comes to nuclear issues, the administration’s priority remains the futile pursuit of agreements that will diminish America’s nuclear edge rather than an all-out effort to stop the spread of such weapons. As was the case with last year’s decision to betray past promises to the Czech Republic and Poland on missile defense to appease Russia, Obama’s main concern seems to be conciliating America’s antagonists rather than solidarity with allies. Rather than wait to see if Russia will make good on the vague pledges it has made about supporting the United States on Iran, Obama has gone ahead and handed the Medvedev/Putin regime a major victory in exchange for nothing.

Yet as troubling as this foolish determination to please Russia’s new autocrats may be, it is merely part of a larger agenda in which the administration’s interest in nuclear issues has created a situation that, rather than isolating the rogue regime in Tehran, may serve to harm Israel. As the United Nations’s month-long nuclear nonproliferation conference that began last week has shown, Washington’s push on the issue has been derailed. The president’s much-heralded deference to international opinion and his clear interest in appeasing Russia and China have contributed to a situation where the main topic of conversation is becoming not how to stop Iran but rather how to disarm its intended victim Israel. The fact that Israel’s possession of nukes is purely defensive — after all, it is the only nation marked for extinction by many of its neighbors as well as by the Iranian regime — is more easily forgotten amid the new emphasis given to banning nukes started by Obama. This is reinforced by a statement earlier this week from the head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, who is asking for international input on an Arab-led push to have Israel join the Nonproliferation Treaty, in a move that increases pressure on Jerusalem to disclose more information about its own nuclear weapons.

(Read full post)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

What the Scud crisis revealed

Hussain Abdul-Hussain
NOW Lebanon
06 May '10
Posted before Shabbat

The question as to whether Hezbollah has received Scud missiles from Syria remains unanswered. What is clear is that the crisis reinforced the fact that Hezbollah remains the sovereign power in Lebanon, a situation that Syria is keen to exploit, while the Lebanese state has gone on a walkabout.

It has long been known that Hezbollah was replenishing most of its depleted weapons stock after the 2006 July War. One UN report after another has highlighted the Syrian-Hezbollah breach of Security Council resolutions 1559 and 1701.

In September 2009, the intelligence community in Washington was circulating substantiated reports about Syrian training of Hezbollah fighters on launching anti-aircraft missiles. In mid-January 2010, I published a story about this activity and reported that intelligence had proof that trucks of missiles were stationed on the Syrian side of the Lebanese border, with Damascus reluctant to order the trucks in after receiving indirect threats from Tel Aviv that such a step would put Syria at risk of Israeli retribution. The story received little reaction but also no denial at the time.

By mid-February 2010, the missiles had literally disappeared off the radar, which meant that they had either found their way to Hezbollah, or had been sent back to Syrian army depots. The State Department officially warned the Syrians against potentially shipping the missiles to Hezbollah on February 26.

On April 10, I reported the US warning to Syria, and retold the training story as the background. I also wrote that the prevailing thinking was that the missiles were Scud-D, and had most probably been shipped into Lebanon.

This time, all hell broke loose.

Newer reports have now surfaced that the missiles are actually M-600s, the Syrian version of the Iranian Fateh-110, rather than Scud-Ds. Whether the rockets actually made it into the hands of Hezbollah’s fighters could not be verified.

(Read full article)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

A Dilemma in June?

Tariq Alhomayed
Asharq Al-Awsat
28 April '10

(While requiring some work, there is definitely what to find between the lines. Asharq Al-Awsat is owned by and reflects the position of the Saudi Royal family. Y.)

The Lebanese are concerned because Washington wants to put forward a new Security Council resolution for sanctions against Iran as soon as possible. Just by putting forward sanctions in May will mean that Lebanon, which will assume presidency of the Security Council, must make a big decision; either it will surrender Tehran to the noose of sanctions or it will abstain from voting. Tehran, Damascus and Hezbollah would not accept this and would not be satisfied with anything less than rejecting the resolution.

Washington’s declared position is one of calm. The Americans are ruling out the possibility that Lebanon will obstruct the sanctions resolution; however I received information stating the contrary to the effect that there is serious consideration in Washington to get through May and put forward the sanctions [resolution] in June when presidency of the Security Council will be passed on to Mexico in order to avoid embarrassing Lebanon. An intelligent person advised some people in Lebanon to follow Turkey’s lead; if Turkey abstains from voting then Lebanon should too, if Turkey votes then Lebanon should vote too, but some people in Beirut are saying that the pressure coming from Iran is immense, not to mention Hezbollah and Damascus.

Nevertheless, whoever looks back at recent history will find that Lebanon has no reason to be embarrassed, especially if the Lebanese act in the same way as Syria did in 2002 when it voted for the “final opportunity” project, i.e. Resolution 1441 that was presented to the Security Council by Washington and was supported by Britain. This is the resolution that offered Iraq the final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations in accordance with [previous] Security Council resolutions. Why did Syria at the time vote for the resolution that gained unanimous consensus against Iraq, and yet today it rejects voting on the sanction resolution against Iran and in fact considers this treason? Iran is not an Arab country and is not one of Lebanon’s neighbors and it does not have the rights that Iraq has.

(Read full article)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

The Palestinians: The Result of No Demands

Khaled Abu Toameh
Hudson New York
27 April '10

United States-led sanctions on the Gaza Strip have thus far played into the hands of Hamas, earning it more sympathy among radicalized and disillusioned Palestinians.

Because of these mistakes, the Gaza Strip is now swarming with scores of Islamic fundamentalist groups who are leading the Palestinians toward the abyss. If Israel repeats the same mistake and withdraws from any territory unilaterally, Hamas, the Iranians and Al-Qaeda-inspired groups will be sitting also in the suburbs of Jerusalem and on hilltops overlooking Tel Aviv beaches. The last time Abbas received control of an area, in 2005, he ran away, handing it over to Hamas and its allies.

Hamas's rise to power may be attributed to a series of mistakes that were committed by the former US Administration, which insisted on holding a free and democratic election for the Palestinians, ignoring warnings that the Islamist movement could win. Even worse, the former US Administration allowed Hamas to participate in the election unconditionally. Washington should at least have demanded that Hamas recognize the Oslo Accords and the two-state solution, given the fact that the vote was being held under the umbrella of the peace process.

The US finally did demand something from Hamas, but only after the movement had won the election. Yet the biggest mistake Washington made was after the election, when it supported the guys who lost the election in their attempts to bring down the Hamas government.

When Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2005, there was a lot of talk about turning the area into the Middle East's Hong Kong or Singapore. But five years later, the Gaza Strip has been transformed into a center for radical Islamic groups that are funded by Iran and backed by Syria, Sudan, Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad, Muslim Brotherhood and probably Al-Qaeda-linked terror cells.

(Read full article)

Please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

The peace process is about to continue ... no it isn't ... arrgh!

Soccer Dad
25 April '10

What's the current state of Middle East negotiations?

According to the New York Times ... they're back on track ... maybe

The American envoy to the Middle East, George J. Mitchell, planned to meet on Friday with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, a sign that indirect Israeli-Palestinian peace talks may be getting back on track, officials from all three parties said.
In advance of encounters with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and, separately, with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, Mr. Mitchell met on Friday with the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, Reuters reported, but no details of the discussions were made public.

The talks with the two leaders had been expected to begin last month but were delayed after Israel announced plans to build 1,600 housing units in East Jerusalem, where the Palestinians hope to build their capital. The Palestinians and President Obama were furious at the announcement, made during a visit to Israel by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and the Americans made a number of demands of Israel aimed at restoring the negotiations.

According to the Washington Post, still no signs of life.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called Saturday for a resumption of peace negotiations with Israel and said he had asked the United States more than once to unilaterally "impose" a solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"I call upon the American administration, especially President Obama, to resume peaceful negotiations and to stop the settlements and to launch serious negotiations for establishing the Palestinian state," Abbas told leaders of his Fatah party in a speech.

"We asked them more than one time to impose the solution," Abbas said of U.S. officials, voicing frustration over the absence of progress toward a peace settlement.

What's interesting is that the Post acknowledges that Abbas is asking the United States to impose a settlement.

(Read full post)

Please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

When Will He Ever Learn

Marty Peretz
The New Republic
13 April '10

I don’t know whether I should have ended the headline above with a question mark or an exclamation point. The first of my options would suggest that the president might actually learn from his palpable mistakes. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. But, to tell you the truth, I felt that would be playing with my readers. My alternative would hint—more than hint, I suppose—at my utter exasperation with Obama’s foreign policy. I don’t really want to go there. Still, are you not really exasperated with him and with it? Or are you one of those who care only about domestic affairs? And where, in any case, are those idealistic young liberals who wanted American to have no truck with monstrous tyrants?

Now, to be sure, the extent of Bashar Assad’s monstrousness doesn’t exceed that of Dr. Ahmadinejad, what with his clerical tyranny that has all but demolished Iran’s civil society, his nuclear designs, and his open genocidal threats to the state of the Jewish people. Still, Assad is monstrous enough, running a minority personal polity that has nullified the diversity of Syrian society, smothering whatever chance Lebanon had to be Lebanon, and turning himself into an errand boy of the mullahs by spreading imported advanced weapons southward throughout the Levant and elsewhere as far as the Persian peacock aims to strut.

Anyway, Obama saw in Assad an ally of sorts, imagining that he would shed his alliance with Iran, an alliance which made him the lynchpin of Shi’a Tehran’s ambitions among the Sunni Arabs. Obama even had the audacity to think he could lure Assad away from Shi’a designs where his patron and sponsor, the monarch of Saudi Arabia and Custodian of the Holy Mosques, had failed utterly. It’s instructive to remember that the ophthalmologist’s clan and the minority sect to which he belongs, the Alawites, are Shi’a of sorts. This is his lifeline of legitimacy as a Muslim.

(Read full article)

Please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the Subscribe box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

A Tale of Two Cities

In New York, Islamic states try to carve out an exception for killing Israeli and American civilians. In DC, they smile.


Anne Bayefsky
The Weekly Standard
13 April '10

At exactly the same time that President Obama’s anti-terrorism theatrics are going on in Washington at the nuclear security summit, a pro-terrorism party is going on in New York at UN Headquarters. The trouble is that the states play-acting in D.C. are swinging in New York in the opposite direction.

In Washington, the summit advertisement reads as follows: “Dedicated to nuclear security and the threat of nuclear terrorism.” In New York, the UN’s “ad-hoc committee on measures to eliminate international terrorism” is gathered to talk about drafting the world’s first comprehensive convention against terrorism. For the fourteenth time in ten years.

In Washington, the image is of President Obama sitting on a chair beaming like a Cheshire cat, opposite some lucky head of state. The two are surrounded by smiling Obama appointees and everyone agrees that terrorism is bad. In New York, the very same states agree terrorism is naughty. It’s just that “resistance,” “armed struggle,” and “liberation” are not terrorism.

The major stumbling-block to the conclusion of a draft comprehensive convention against terrorism at the UN has been a concerted effort by Islamic states to carve out an exception for murdering civilians of their choosing. Israelis top the list, but Americans are not far behind.

The terrorism convention of the Organization of the Islamic States accordingly creates an exception to its phony denunciation of terrorism. Exempt from “terrorist crimes” are “peoples' struggle including armed struggle against foreign occupation, aggression, colonialism, and hegemony, aimed at liberation and self-determination.”

So let’s compare the simultaneous Washington and New York performances. In Washington, the president invited many “anti-terrorism” invitees from the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) – Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Presumably, he decided to showcase his close ties with Muslim nations. In New York, OIC members chose Syria, nuclear arms wannabe and state sponsor of terrorism, to do their talking. Speaking on behalf of the OIC, therefore, Syria declared yesterday: “The group reiterates once again the need to make a distinction…between terrorism and the struggle for the right of self-determination by people under foreign occupation, and colonial or alien domination.”

(Read full article)
.

US blinkered by a simplistic view of Middle East peace

Michael Young
The National (Dubai)
07 April '10

Michael Young is opinion editor of the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut. He has a number of interesting points to make on perceptions of the current situation amongst our neighbors.

An interesting logic is taking hold in Washington, but where it will lead no one knows. The idea is that in order for the United States to contain Iran in the Middle East, it must impose a Palestinian-Israeli peace settlement, in that way denying Tehran the ability to mobilise regional animosities against Washington’s interests.

In a Washington Post column on Wednesday, David Ignatius quoted an American official in support of this rationale. “The American peace plan [to propose the outlines of a final settlement] would be linked with the issue of confronting Iran, which is Israel’s top priority,” the official said. “We 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.”

There is some merit to the argument. To limit Iranian influence throughout the region, the Obama administration will need to multitask, gradually taking away from Tehran the many cards it has accumulated and played effectively in recent years.

One of these has been the “resistance” card – the notion that because Israel does not want peace, the best option for Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular is to pursue armed struggle. This has undergirded Iran’s military support for Hamas and Hizbollah, who have enjoyed some popularity in the Arab world, despite the fact that in Gaza and southern Lebanon their actions in recent years have been disastrous. But that matters little to Iran’s regime, since both organisations have given Iran the means to thwart Arab-Israeli talks.

(Read full article)
.