Monday, March 08, 2010

Conundrums. Or is it conundra?‏

Another round of high level visits and photo opportunities. Defense Minister goes to Washington. Vice President comes to Jerusalem. Special envoy arrives as well, hopefully to declare the onset of negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. Not direct negotiations, in order to protect Mahmoud Abbas' reputation, but indirect via American mediators. Pressure on Israel to avoid something preemptive with respect to Iran? Or high level discussions of what it will take to keep Israel out of that fray?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that 9-11 was engineered by the United States to give it an excuse for invading Afghanistan.

The Chinese are saying that it is not appropriate to impose sanctions on Iran. Diplomacy is the answer. Russia opposes an embargo on (its) arms sales to Iran. Ranking Americans say that sanctions should not be so harsh as to harm Iranian civilians. The US and its western partners are bargaining about what Iranian banks--if any--should be on a black list.

Should Israel go ahead with an operation, likely to bring a rain of missiles on itself from Iran and Lebanon, produce an escalation that shuts down Lebanon and maybe Syria, brings in the United States and produces a grand regional something or other, maybe even let the N-thing out of somebody's bag? Or let the Holocaust denier, who declares Israel's imminent demise, and says what he does about 9-11 continue to develop his own weapons of mass destruction?

Somewhat lower on the scale of apocalypse is an upturn in Palestinian protest. For the first time in years Palestinians on the Temple Mount threw stones on Jews praying below at the Western Wall. So the police went onto the Mount to stop them. Then Palestinian religious and political figures accused the Jews of violating their sacred space. A mile or so away, thousands of Palestinians and their Israeli supporters protested court decisions allowing the expulsion of Palestinian squatters from residences owned by Jews.

Should there be no rule of law when Palestinians claim preference? Or is it simply unwise for Jews to provoke unrest by moving into areas heavily settled by Arabs? And unwise for Bibi to put Rachel's Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs on a list of national monuments? What about the Arab family living in our apartment house?

As long as the United States refrains from imposing serious sanctions on Iran--either unilaterally or as part of a coalition--one can expect that the same coalition partners that pressed Bibi to put Rachel's Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs on the list of national monuments will press him to refrain from any concessions to the Palestinians. With every stone thrown against Jews in East Jerusalem, that pressure will increase.

Things are connected.

You've heard of a conundrum?

There are several of them intertwined.

Suggestions welcome.


Ira Sharkansky (Emeritus)
Department of Political Science
Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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