UK Muslims systematically supporting anti-Israel candidates in British election campaign

Robin Shepherd
robinshepherdonline.com
27 April '10

With the British general elections less than 10 days away, a fascinating piece in today’s Guardian emphasises the growing importance of Muslim voters in shifting the terms of debate in Britain further against the State of Israel. The writer, Anas Altikriti — a prominent British Muslim academic — proudly talks of the “pivotal importance” of foreign policy for Muslim voters with Palestine (and Afghanistan) taking pride of place.

“On the basis of these concerns,” says Altikriti, “lists of recommended candidates include names from most parties, major and small (Lib Dems, Labour, Tory and Green candidates).”

One list drawn up by the British Muslim Initiative recommends and endorses candidates in 52 constituencies. Most are well known for their virulent hostility to Israel. Almost all are Labour or Liberal Democrat though there is a smattering of Conservatives as well as members of the Respect Party which is headed by the Israel-hating far-Left politician/activist George Galloway.

Altikriti is quite open in stressing the significance of the Palestinian issue in voter motivation among British Muslims:

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Call to Action

Women For Israel's Tomorrow
NashimBeYarok's Channel
27 April '10

A Call to Action by Women for Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green) to safeguard Israel's Biblical Homeland in the hands of the Jewish People

To join our effort, please contact:

Nadia Matar 972-50-550-0834, nmatar@netvision.net.il

Yehudit Katzover 972-50-716-1818, ihuditk@gmail.com

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General Jones Tells a Joke

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
27 April '10

Today’s public culture focuses a lot more on categorization than though processes. The immediate question that arises after various incidents is whether or not they meet the criterion of categorizing something as objectionable rather than considering what it actually tells us. So it is with the joke General Jones, national security advisor to President Barack Obama.

Should General Jones be fired or resign because of the joke? Of course not. He should be fired or resign because he hasn't been doing a very good job as national security advisor.

Actually, the speech itself was a good one. The goal was to mark the end of the U.S.-Israel rift after a secret understanding by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop construction in Jerusalem for a while. It is also meant to mark a need to shore up growing criticism about the administration's policy on Israel and ineptness at getting sanctions on Iran. The joke should not be allowed to block an understanding of the administration's regional policy and political maneuvers.

But it does show why the administration is in so much trouble at home and abroad in the first place and may soon be again.

Here is a brief summary of Jones's version of the joke. The scene: southern Afghanistan. Hungry Taliban militant, raving hatred against Israel, asks Jewish merchant for food. Jew counters on Israel and refuses to sell it to him. Tells him instead he will sell him a tie. Taliban guy confused. Eventually goes onward, then returns. Now I see why you wanted to sell me a tie. Your brother won’t let me into his restaurant without one.

Ha! Presumably the merchant sold him at a tie at an exorbitant price or, to use the old term for such things, the merchant “Jewed” him, a word in many dictionaries until recently.

It is no secret that Jones is one of the administration officials most hostile to Israel. Thus, the joke is put into the context: is it or is it not antisemitic? That is the least interesting issue. What is fascinating and more important points is what it reveals about Jones’s world view.

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“The Palestine Peace Distraction,” "The False Religion of Middle East Peace,” And Other Significant Recantations

Marty Peretz
The New Republic
27 April '10

Barack Obama came into office with one messianic mission. It was to bring statehood to the Palestinians. Of course, even he understood that he couldn’t quite put it that way. But statehood for the Palestinians necessarily also meant Palestinian peace with Israel, an aim worthy enough for any American administration. So that became his primary foreign policy mission. Still, the fact is that he saw the shadings of the conflict only through the eyes of the “disinherited.” And they really had nothing much to give in any transaction. Ipso facto, it was from the Jewish state that all the concessions were to be had.

However committed he was to this formula, the president required another rationale to make his pitch sound like a genuine argument. He found it in the security interests of the United States. As it happens, having put the Muslim world at the very center of the American universe through signs and secret signs, he was able to make Israel bear the burdens of our troubles or, rather, to make it responsible for our failures in diplomacy and our casualties on the battlefield. Indeed, Obama may actually believe that this Islamic atrocity or that (or, for that matter, all of them) can be attributable to Zionism, about which he has never, never said a good word.

There is a long (pseudo)realist tradition in American foreign policy that puts the Jews at odds with our national interest. Eisenhower’s foreign policy tutor, John Foster Dulles, thought he could lure Gamal Abdel Nasser away from his Third World revolutionary fantasies if only Israel would not stand in the way. James Baker, who found ample common cause with Saddam Hussein, found the Israelis awfully incompatible. Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, about whom I’ve written several times, are the shoddy intellectual heirs to this morally corrupt tradition.

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Shut Up, Mr. Oren, J Street Explains

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
27 April '10

A reader alerts me to this item: it seems as though J Street’s president at Brandeis University doesn’t like upsetting students. (This would be news to the actual pro-Israel contingent there, who thought that J Street was all about provoking and challenging others.) Anyhow, his complaint: is “I’m not exactly thrilled that a representative of the current right-wing Israeli government will be delivering the keynote address at my commencement.” In case you thought it was directed at some party functionary, that is his way of referring to Ambassador Michael Oren, the representative of the elected government of Israel. The J Streeter thinks Oren is too “divisive.” He scrawls:

Despite its strong Jewish foundation, Brandeis has evolved into a university that prides itself on diversity, and its current student body reflects that pursuit. Even as a secular Jew of Israeli heritage, over the past four years I have often been agitated by the persistent questions, albeit half-serious, of my non-Brandeis peers: “Is there a Jewish studies requirement to graduate? I thought it was a rabbinical school.” If these queries bother me, I can only imagine what it must feel like for the half of Brandeis students who aren’t Jewish to answer these questions. Isn’t it possible that the selection of Oren is nothing but the icing on the cake, a silent confirmation that after four years of living and breathing Brandeis, these students really are outsiders in this community?

He seems to have confused “diversity” with “ridding the campus of pro-Israel voices.” He continues:

Oren is an undeniably controversial figure in a debate that is vibrant on our campus. Such speakers have a history of drawing protesters at Brandeis, something that now seems to be a likely feature of next month’s commencement.

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America’s “big game”

Tony Badran
NOW Lebanon
27 April '10

During last week’s stormy hearing on Syria in the US House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, the Obama administration for the first time laid out its Syria policy. Unfortunately, the policy is based on a flawed, old premise that brings Washington awfully close to accepting a line the Syrians perpetually seek to sell – the politics of grievance. Distressingly, the Americans are signaling that they're interested shoppers.

Although the basic components of US policy had been hinted at earlier, this was the first time that an official openly laid out what the administration’s end game is. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, who was the official testifying before the subcommittee, outlined the administration’s conceptual framework as follows: The US is working to mitigate Iran’s regional influence, which Syria facilitates. But Syria is not Iran, and there’s a basic policy difference between them: Unlike Iran, Syria has an interest in negotiating a peace agreement with Israel. Therefore, the peace process is, in Feltman’s words, the “big game”. The administration believes that a peace deal between Damascus and Jerusalem would cure the Syria problem.

If this sounds like a familiar tune from the 1990s, that’s because in the end it's nothing but a reprise of the view that holds the conflict with Israel as the engine driving all regional dynamics and regime behavior. It’s the politics of grievance.

This line of thinking plays right into the Syrians’ hands, affording them a pass for their actions and duplicity pending the conclusion of a peace deal that may not materialize for years, if ever.

Witness, for example, this statement by Feltman: “Syria's relationship with Hezbollah and the Palestinian terrorist groups is unlikely to change absent a Middle East peace agreement.” The logic of this statement is but one step removed from justifying the arming of Hezbollah. It’s the logic that holds Syrian policy to be reactive and grievance-based. But the Obama administration’s “big game” is nothing if not a cocktail of this grievance logic and the infamous concept of “linkage”.

This toxic viewpoint was echoed by National Security Advisor Jim Jones at a recent event at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy: “One of the ways that Iran exerts influence in the Middle East is by exploiting the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict… Advancing this peace would... help prevent Iran from cynically shifting attention away from its failures to meet its obligations.”

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On Jerusalem, Wiesel: 1, DeKoven Ezrahi: 0

Tamar Sternthal
CAMERA Media Analysis
25 April '10

Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi of Jerusalem, an academic affiliated with the Hebrew University, penned a lengthy letter, published in the April 21 edition of the International Herald Tribune, indignantly condemning author and Nobel Prize Peace winner Elie Wiesel for his full-page ad "For Jerusalem" which appeared in that newspaper and elsewhere. In her letter, she poses a challenge to the celebrated author, and in doing so exposes herself as entirely ignorant of what she possessively calls "Jerusalem, my city," and its inhabitants.

Professing to speak for "real people who want to live together in peace," DeKoven Ezrahi disparages "Mr. Wiesel's sentimental claim over all of Jerusalem on behalf of some misty-eyed notion of three thousand years of Jewish 'belonging.'" Pointing out that Mr. Wiesel does not live in Jerusalem (and is thus presumably unqualified to comment on the capital), she rebukes him:

After representing to eloquently the victims of history's injustices in Nazi and then Soviet Europe, Mr. Wiesel would surely, we assumed, turn to the injustices perpetrated by his own people, and cry out against the tragic occupation and dispossession of the Palestinian people.

And then comes DeKoven Ezrahi's defiant challenge (which was proudly reproduced by her husband Bernard Avishai on his blog):

Instead, Mr. Wiesel tells us, with no evidence on the ground, that "Jews, Christians and Muslims are allowed to build their homes anywhere in the city." I defy Mr. Wiesel to find three Muslim families in all of West Jerusalem.

In fact, it doesn't take a Jerusalem scholar, or even a Jerusalem resident, to track down Muslims living in Jewish neighborhoods of western Jerusalem. It took this CAMERA researcher, who, unlike DeKoven Ezrahi, neither lives nor works in Jerusalem but lives some 30 kilometers away, only minutes to track down the names of multiple Muslim families living in neighborhoods like Talbieh, Arnona, Ein Kerem, Kiryat Yovel, Kiryat Moshe, Ramat Denia and Katamon. These names were passed along to Serge Schmemann, the editor of the editorial page of the International Herald Tribune, but will not be published here out of respect for the residents' privacy.

According to the Jerusalem Yearbook published by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Affairs, 3,576 Muslims were living in western Jerusalem as of 2007 (Table III/11).

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Bibi Freezes Construction?

Barry Rubin
pajamasmedia.com
27 April '10

(This is an interesting piece, but not necessarily so. A number of different personalities have weighed in, Barkat in particular, . The jury is clearly out on this one.Y.)

Here’s a mystery: Why has the recent crisis in U.S.-Israel relations suddenly seemed to clear up?

Here’s an answer: A secret understanding between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Obama to stop construction in Jerusalem outside its 1967 borders for a while.

There hasn’t been — and won’t be — any public confirmation of such an understanding, yet it seems quite likely that this has happened. In effect, Netanyahu is saying: We are cooperating in every way possible, so how can you complain about us?

Behind this argument is an Israeli belief that Obama will now be able to see the difference between a cooperative Israel and an intransigent Palestinian Authority, which will block any progress on peace. Indeed, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas has already provided an example of that paradigm — he publicly stated that he wants a solution imposed from outside, not one negotiated with Israel and requiring any compromises or concessions on his part.

Netanyahu has taken another step which was more public. At times in the past, he has defined the next stage of talks as being more limited — not including, for example, a discussion on the future status of Jerusalem in any comprehensive peace agreement. The Israeli prime minister now says he is willing to discuss all issues.

But any freeze on Jerusalem won’t be made too explicit for a number of reasons. First, when the Oslo agreement was originally made in 1993, and ever since then, Israeli leaders have maintained that they interpret it as permitting construction on existing settlements and Jerusalem. For 17 years, the PA accepted this position. It never refused to talk on the basis that such construction was happening. Only when President Barack Obama raised the issue in 2009, it became apparent that the PA couldn’t be less militant than the American president.

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Does Fayyad want a state?

Despite his declarations, Palestinian PM doesn’t want real independence


Avi Trengo
Israel Opinion/Ynet
26 April '10

Part II of article

(Click here for Part I, The Salam Fayyad show)

Had Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad possessed real plans for independence, he would already be starting to prepare an infrastructure for independent Palestinian currency. A state that wants to develop a private sector and the ability to reward exports cannot do it by a clinging to the shekel – the currency of a modern and highly developed economy like Israel’s.

As an economist who worked for the International Monetary Fund, Fayyad knows well that the ability to carry out currency depreciation is the most important capacity demanded by the IMF from any independent state, yet this is apparently unfit for “Palestine.”

This is clear proof that he does not intend to promote real independence. He wants to continue relying on us and remain in an undefined state of half-occupation and half “independence” until demography plays its part. What Hamas is trying to do militarily, and what Arafat attempted to do diplomatically, Fayyad seeks to do economically.

The Paris Accord, which is the economic cornerstone that serves as the basis of the Palestinian Authority’s very existence, allows each side to request new discussion on the deal’s details. The agreement was signed 16 years ago, yet despite all the political and economic changes that took place since then, Israel continues to adhere to it while making voluntary additions, hoping that these “bribes” will mitigate international pressures.

How should Israel respond?
However, Israel must make three demands of the PA that will expose the latter’s lack of economic independence and its dependence on Israel:

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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.

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Minority Report

Human Rights Watch fights a civil war over Israel.


Benjamin Birnbaum
The New Republic
27 April '10

(If you have been following Human Rights Watch over a period of time, this is a must read. Y.)

On October 19 of last year, the op-ed page of The New York Times contained a bombshell: a piece by Robert Bernstein, the founder and former chairman of Human Rights Watch (HRW), attacking his own organization. HRW, Bernstein wrote, was “helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.” The allegation was certainly not new: HRW had been under assault for years by American Jews and other supporters of Israel, who argued that it was biased against the Jewish state. And these attacks had intensified in recent months, with a number of unflattering revelations about the organization. In July, HRW found itself under fire when a Wall Street Journal op-ed noted that the organization had solicited donations in Saudi Arabia by trumpeting the criticism it faces from “pro-Israel pressure groups.” In August, the blogosphere leapt on one of the organization’s top Middle East officials for having once been part of a team that edited a radical anti-Israel journal. And, in September, HRW suspended one of the primary contributors to its reports on the wars in Gaza and Lebanon after his private hobby—collecting Nazi memorabilia—became public.

Still, to most readers of the Times last October, even those who closely followed debates over Israel, Bernstein’s piece would have seemed odd: It isn’t every day that the founder of a group turns so publicly on his own creation. What few people outside HRW knew, however, was that Bernstein’s op-ed was the culmination of a long struggle inside the organization that had turned increasingly acrimonious over the years. The debate revolved around a single question: Was the world’s most respected human rights group being fair to Israel? Bob Bernstein wasn’t the only person at Human Rights Watch who thought the answer was no.

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How Do Officials, Journalists, Academics, Analysts React to Critiques of Conventional Wisdom on the Middle East? Answer: They Don't!

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
26 April '10

A reader asks:
I have found your most recent articles hugely helpful in debunking so much of the international myth that the Israeli Palestinian conflict dominates and is the root cause of every problem facing the entire Middle East.

But then I largely agree with everything you and Jonathan Spyer have to say.

Apart from hate mail and frivolous objections from doubtful sources, which I am sure you get your fair share, do you ever get reasoned and logical analysis from other serious Middle Eastern experts or professors who find fault with your ideas or reject your premises entirely?

Response:
Thanks. You have asked a very good question. And the answer is simple: No, literally never. In fact, never. Why is this?

Rather than the historic ideas that governed serious analysis and scholarly work for centuries, there seems to be a pattern now that viewpoints other than the dominant one—U.S. and West largely at fault, Islamism is not the central problem, Arab-Israeli conflict at core of region, radical groups can be moderated, Syria can be won over, Palestinians eager for peace, etc.--need not be taken into account. The style seems to be that one begins with a thesis, gathers whatever talking points or documentation needed to promote or prove it, and then that is sufficient without dealing with the best arguments to the contrary.

What is missing is the need to engage and respond to other arguments. Many of my articles consist of taking up a text or speech or article by someone, honestly trying to understand fully the ideas presented, analyzing them, and then responding where I think they are wrong as well as right.

Of course, I’m presenting a perspective but I have to prove it, with evidence and persuasive logic. I probably spend almost as much time quoting people I disagree with--and linking to what they've said--as I do saying what I think. You can see both sides and judge for yourself.

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Ambassador to Syria?

Michael Rubin
National Review Online
26 April '10

Increasingly, it seems the State Department is grasping at straws as it tries to explain why it needs to send ambassador to Damascus. (I took some of these on a bit earlier.) The latest is that the Syrian ambassador to Washington isn't passing accurate messages back to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, something the Washington Post hints at.

It's absolute nonsense — as other Arab diplomats based in Washington will acknowledge — that the Syrian ambassador isn't relaying messages. Ambassadors for authoritarian dictatorships relay information frequently and accurately. When the authoritarian dictators do not respect the seriousness of the administration nor do they believe that the White House will take any serious coercive action, they sometimes choose not to listen. Bashar al-Assad was convinced he could get away with murder (literally) as Congressional Democrats (and, at the time, Arlen Specter) tossed aside the multilateral isolation imposed in the wake of Rafik Hariri's murder. We increased our groveling for relations after Syria's secret nuclear plant was exposed and destroyed. We sent senior State Department and NSC officials to Damascus after it was already apparent that Syria had rearmed Hezbollah with tens of thousands of rockets.

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RE: J Street Comes Clean

Noah Pollak
Contentions/Commentary
26 April "10

J Street’s position on Jerusalem, detailed by Jen Rubin, is a perfect example of why the proper way to understand the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” organization is as an export-import business. Bear with me for a moment.

There was a set of ideas about the Arab-Israeli conflict to which many people subscribed in the 80s and 90s. These ideas became the Oslo Accords. The Oslo Accords became an immense, catastrophic failure. Many people who were Oslo advocates, thus confronted with reality, changed their minds about the conflict (an obvious example is Benny Morris). Some Oslo advocates, however, did not, and adopted various theories to justify their continued membership in the peace-process-can-do-no-harm camp: the Israeli offers were never good enough, Sharon started the intifada, territorial withdrawal must come first, a conspiracy of neocons and AIPAC has always worked against peace, and so on. In 2000 in Lebanon and in 2005 in Gaza, territorial withdrawal was tried, and the results detonated a belief even deeper than Oslo, this one going all the way back to 1967 and perhaps even to 1948: the hope that land could be traded for peace and that the conflict is about borders, not Israel’s very existence.

These accumulated facts changed the attitude of Israelis in a dramatic way. The Oslo consensus disintegrated not only as an understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but as a political platform. In the early 90s, Labor and Meretz held a combined 56 Knesset seats. Today they have 16. Yet despite this political collapse in Israel, a few true believers still cling to the Oslo fantasy. How can these ideas survive their failure in the very place they’re supposed to be applied?

J Street, working with various Meretz has-beens in Israel, imports the ideas to America and tries to revive them here, where Jews are far less aware of their abysmal record of failure. J Street pushes them to the Obama administration, which is favorably disposed to them anyway. Here is where the exporting happens: Obama now seeks to impose them on an unreceptive Israel.

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What Obama did not say about Iran and Israel

Ami Isseroff
Israel News
25 April '10

An article by Judea Pearl cites the following imaginary quote of Barack Obama:

I am prepared to live with a nuclear Iran, but, to contain it, I need the cooperation of the Arab rulers. As you know, cooperation in this part of the world sways with street tantrums and news broadcasts — this is the reality on the ground. We lost the war of ideas to Al Jazeera rhetoric, and we must pursue an appearance of an ongoing peace process.

"I said 'appearance' because I am not naive, and I know that the Arabs are not prepared to accept the idea of a permanent Israel; perhaps they never will -- it goes against everything they have been taught.

Still, I now need their support and your cooperation.

"You see, the only thing that will tame anti-American sentiments in this part of the world, at least partially, is the prospect that American pressure will bring about a Palestinian state and the delusion that such a state will become a sheltered launching pad for a renewed armed struggle against Israel, for the 'liberation of all of Palestine.' I read what they are saying, and I will not let this happen, but, in the meantime, we need to act as though a peace process has a chance to succeed."

The author confirmed that the somewhat appealing quote is imaginary. It is a touching testimonial to the faith of the author, and of other American Jews, in the good intentions and benign nature of the American government, and of the Democratic party. Obama's policies are portrayed as a test of faith, like Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. Be prepared to sacrifice Jerusalem, which is dearest to thee, but have no fear, for God is with thee, and thou shalt gain the kingdom of heaven by thy show of faith in the Lord. None of it is true. Obama never said it, it doesn't represent US policy and doesn't represent a reasobable view of the Middle East. It serves nobody's interest and there is nothing to be gained and a great deal to be lost by believing it.

It is interesting not as a "quote" of Obama but as a projection on Obama that encapsulates several dangerous delusions entertained by many American Jews about Iran, the "peace process" and Israeli-Arab relations.

The first delusion is that it is OK if Obama is "prepared to live with a nuclear Iran" and to "contain" it. Nobody knows for certain what Obama is thinking about Iran. The best guess is that at present the Americans have no strategy at all, as was pointed out by Secretary of Defense Gates. Obama might really think he is prepared to live with a nuclear Iran. Israelis can only be prepared to die with a nuclear Iran. The decision will be made in Tehran, not in Washington or Jerusalem (or by the "Tel Aviv government").

By "nuclear Iran," I mean an Iran that at least makes a convincing case that it has or could have nuclear weapons - that it has completed the fuel cycle. They needn't test an actual bomb.

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Barreling on, regardless

Caroline Glick
carolineglick.com
26 April '10

If safeguarding international security is the chief aim of US President Barack Obama's foreign policy, then at some point he can be expected to change course in the Middle East. For today, Obama faces the wreckage of every aspect of his Middle East policies. And largely as a consequence of his policies, the region moves ever closer to war.

In Iraq, Obama's pledge to withdraw all combat forces from the country by the summer has emboldened the various forces vying for control of the country to set it ablaze once more.

In Afghanistan, Obama's surge and leave policy has left would-be US allies hedging their bets, at best. And it has caused the US's NATO partners to question the purpose of their deployment in that country.

Then there is Iran. Last week's report by The New York Times that this January Defense Secretary Robert Gates penned a memo to National Security Advisor James Jones warning that the Obama administration has no effective policy for dealing with Iran's nuclear weapons program exposed the bitter truth that in the face of the most acute foreign policy problem they face, Obama and his crew are out to lunch.

Gates's attempt to mitigate the story's impact by claiming that actually, the White House is weighing all its option only made things worse. Even before the ink on his correction note was dry, his Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy was telling reporters in Singapore that the military option, "is not on the table in the near term."

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How About a Proximity Speech?

Rick Richman
Contentions/Commentary
25 April '10

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas — currently in the 64th month of his 48-month term; unable since 2007 to set foot in half his putative state; rejecting in 2008 an offer of a state from the most pliant prime minister in Israeli history; unwilling throughout 2009 to consider negotiations without a pre-negotiation concession he knew no Israeli government could accept; currently considering a proposal for “proximity talks” (better described as nearby non-talks) to obviate the need to talk to Israelis — will be coming to the White House. He will probably get a better reception than Gordon Brown, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Dalai Lama.

Yesterday Abbas gave a speech that undoubtedly previews the message he will bring:

“Mr. President (Barack Obama) and members of the American administration, since you believe in this (an independent Palestinian state), it is your duty to take steps toward a solution and to impose this solution,” Abbas said in a speech. …

“We’ve asked them (the Obama administration) more than once: ‘Impose a solution’,” Abbas said.

Jerusalem Post editor in chief David Horovitz has a more modest suggestion, writing that Abbas should give a speech comparable to the “two-state” address Netanyahu made last year — one that would indicate a Palestinian acceptance of a Jewish state:

Let Abbas speak in Arabic, to his own people — with his leadership colleagues on hand to publicly support and applaud him — and let him tell them that the Jews, too, have historic rights to Palestine. …

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J Street Comes Clean: It Wants to Divide the Old City

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
26 April '10

The J Street Education Fund has taken out an ad that takes issue with Elie Wiesel’s criticism of Obama on building in Jerusalem. But J Street doesn’t merely call for a housing freeze or for outlying Arab neighborhoods to be ceded to a Palestinian state. Using the mouthpiece of former Knesset member Yossi Sarid, the J Streeters want to divide the Old City. Oh, yes:

Barack Obama appears well aware of his obligations to try to resolve the world’s ills, particularly ours here. Why then undercut him and tie his hands? On the contrary, let’s allow him to use his clout to save us from ourselves, to help both bruised and battered nations and free them from their prison. Then he can push both sides to divide the city into two capitals — to give Jewish areas to the Jews and Arab areas to the Arabs – and assign the Holy Basin to an agreed on international authority.

As an alarmed reader e-mails: “They specifically want to remove Israeli sovereignty over the Old City. I mean, they want the Western Wall NOT to be in Israeli hands. Wow.”

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Muddling the Iran Issue

Jonathan Schachter, Emily B Landau
and Ephraim Asculai
INSS
Insight No. 177
26 April '10

On April 17 the New York Times revealed that in January US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wrote a memo to National Security Adviser James Jones on the need to develop policy options regarding Iran’s drive to develop nuclear weapons. One senior White House official is quoted as describing the memo, which came after President Obama’s end of 2009 diplomatic deadline had come and gone, as “a wake-up call” testifying to the US's lack of a workable long term policy for confronting the Iranian nuclear challenge. The day after the Times’s publication, Gates acknowledged that he had indeed written the memo, but disputed the characterization of its content and intent, saying that his goal was “to contribute to an orderly and timely decision-making process.”

The absence of a clear American strategy to deal with an aggressively nuclearizing Iran has been apparent for some time, and thus this revelation comes as no surprise. In addition, Gates’s own description of the memo strongly suggests that “an orderly and timely decision-making process” was eminently lacking. The only real surprise, it seems, is the blunt assessment coming from within the administration.

It is possible that the memo was leaked in order to document Gates’s concerns about the increasing likelihood that Iran would achieve nuclear weapons capability before long and on his watch. It is also possible that as an appointee of President George W. Bush, Gates might be setting the stage for his own resignation. Alternatively, the memo might reflect simple disagreement or for that matter much more heated battles between the Pentagon’s civilian and military leadership. Whatever the true reason or reasons, the leak of the memo and the multiplicity of plausible interpretations and explanations are indicative of the real problem with US policy on Iran: mixed and confused messages.

(Read full report)

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As if they’d never left

NOW Lebanon
New Opinion
26 April '10

(Another insightful article from NOW Lebanon.)

Five years ago today, after a brief ceremony in the border town of Aanjar that tried to paint a patina of respect on a total of 29 years of military and security “presence”, the last Syrian soldier left Lebanese soil. Until that moment, and for more than a decade after the Lebanese civil war ended, it was hard for first-time visitors to Lebanon to determine who actually ran the country.

From the moment they landed at Beirut Airport to when they reached their hotels, tourists would see that the walls and roads of Beirut were dotted with portraits of former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, sometimes alongside those of his then-Lebanese counterpart, Elias Hrawi, but in many instances alone.

Even more mystifying to the neophyte would have been the three days of mourning for Assad’s son and heir, Basil, who was killed in a car accident in Damascus in January 1994. Soon after, a statue of Basil in uniform on one of his beloved horses was erected at the entrance to the Bekaa town of Chtoura.

And all the while the Syrian army lived in abandoned buildings and controlled the strategic intersections around Beirut and the rest of Lebanon. There was very little respect or courtesy from the occupying army. Shopkeepers would be careful not to fall foul of their neighbors, while at the checkpoints, petty extortion was practiced on commercial vehicles. Elsewhere anxiety was added to humiliation as drivers would be “asked” to give lifts to Syrian soldiers. Then there were the summons for those who dared speak out against the presence. They could range from a verbal reprimand to abuse and intimidation that could last for days.

The events leading up to the withdrawal have been well documented. Rafik Hariri, the man who had come to represent post-war Lebanon, had been murdered in an outrageous assassination that took the lives of 21 others, and this time the Lebanese were not going to take it like they had with previous killings. They took to the streets, blaming Syria for the murder. This time, with the US army camped in Iraq and a US administration that would not brook any insolence from the region’s despots, there was no crackdown on the huge and unprecedented demonstration of people power, arguably the biggest in modern Arab history.

(Read full article)

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