Doc's Talk: How Can Obama's Ineptness on Middle East Issues Be Explained, Especially When It Makes Him Look Foolish?‏

Monday, October 04, 2010

How Can Obama's Ineptness on Middle East Issues Be Explained, Especially When It Makes Him Look Foolish?‏

RubinReports
Barry Rubin

A friend who follows these issues closely wrote:

"How could Obama, who screwed up so badly before on the settlement issue, have convened a high-profile summit at the beginning of September only to possibly have it blow up in his face just weeks later because he failed to secure a deal on the moratorium [on construction] matter? How could he, and his staff, be so inept?....

"It's just hard to imagine that Obama didn't understand Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's constraints or Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas's weakness (and need to find an excuse to get out of a negotiating process he can't compromise on).
"It's just hard to imagine that Obama didn't understand Netanyahu's constraints or Abbas's weakness (and need to find an excuse to get out of a negotiating process he can't compromise on)....This is simply incomprehensible, is it not?"

Well, it's comprehensible if one understands that it is largely stupid. Let me state the issue in one sentence:

Knowing that it was unlikely he would get a full continuation of the freeze and that the Palestinian Authority was eager to get out of negotiations, why did Obama put so much of his prestige on success; give himself unnecessary self-imposed impossible deadlines; make a breakthrough seem relatively likely and easy (despite giving lip service to the difficulties); and magnify the issue's importance so that a failure seemed all the worse?

Remember, this isn't the first time in the last month that Obama has set himself up for humiliation on the issue. He also made his big UN speech which presented the Israel-Palestinian conflict as the world's most important issue and made the potentially embarrassing prediction that he would resolve the conflict within one year.

Defenders of the Obama Administration would say that he had some secret plan that is too intelligent for us mortals to comprehend (critics have their own conspiracy theories). Not so in both cases. Or they would say that someone pointing to the emperor's lack of clothes is merely biased against Obama. OK, so if that's the reason you've got to be able to answer this question: Where are the clothes?

Or they would say that Netanyahu--they would never blame it on Abbas--had let him down. Yet Netanyahu didn't do anything that was unpredictable, or at least shouldn't have been. And the make-up of his coalition is well-known, as is the fact that a nine-month freeze was sold to Netanyahu as an experiment and it was one that clearly failed.

The answer that would make the administration look best is that it knows there's no hope of progress but just want to show that they are working hard on the issue (supposedly keeping Muslims and Arabs happy) and are trying to avoid a crisis (so they can focus on Afghanistan, Iraq,and Iran nuclear).

There must be some truth here but this doesn't explain why they look so foolish in dealing with the issue. For example, that strategy would encourage them to downplay the peace process and lower expectations, not make it seem like big meetings are about to happen and grand breakthroughs are at hand.

So this is an example of incompetence on the part of the Obama Administration, though I've also pointed out how part of it is due to an element of cynical domestic political calculation.

Now, let's go back one year to September 2009. What happened then? In front of the world's leaders gathered during the UN session, Obama proclaimed that within two months there would be direct, intense, high-level, Camp David-style talks that would quickly produce a peace settlement.

Thus, what happened this year is hardly new, and can be extended to other issues. Don't get me started on Iran, revolutionary Islamism, Syria, and a half-dozen other questions but you can provide the examples for yourselves, dear readers.

Back to Israel-Palestinian negotiations. For one thing, the Obama Administration is spoiled in the classical sense of that word. It knows the media won't ridicule it and thus it can get away with big mistakes. And that feeling of safety, in turn, encourages the kind of carelessness that leads to big mistakes.

Another factor is ideology. The administration's officials genuinely--and wrongly--seem to believe that this is the world's most important issue. Thus, the magnify it, an action that puts more pressure on them to solve it. Needing to solve it, they next think they can do so.

Connected with this is another misconception about the conflict, though on some levels they must know better. For example, they really seem to believe that the Palestinians are eager for a deal and Israel is recalcitrant. Almost all of their experience shows the contrary, yet that has no effect on their thinking. After all, it was the Palestinian leadership that killed Obama's September 2009 plan and stalled talks for a whole year.

The U.S. officials can think that if only Israel did more everything would be fine, but they must be aware that Arab states have refused to be helpful and that Abbas has tried to do everything possible to get out of talking. Their shortcoming, however, is that they have not made the leap to comprehending that their paradigm is wrong: the Palestinian leadership neither wants nor can deliver a compromise peace.

As long as they fail to reach that conclusion they keep banging their heads against the wall.

I am not aware of a single mass media outlet that has asked the basic questions about why the Obama Administration keeps looking so stupid on this issue and repeats its miscalculations. Blaming Netanyahu is always an easy way out of actually thinking about what's going on, yet many don't even do that so much nowadays. They just seem puzzled about things like: If the Palestinians are so miserable and oppressed, why aren't they eager to negotiate .a compromise peace?

But let's stick to U.S. policy for right now. There is no mystery here. A combination of Incompetence (not implementing a desire plan well), ignorance (not understanding the region), ideology (systematically misunderstanding issues and rejecting corrective experience, and arrogance (assuming one is always right, ignoring experience and criticism) is the answer.

Obama is not doing a very good job on international affairs, as policymakers from countries all over the world know and say in private. Refusing to see that reality means finding it hopelessly impossible to understand what's happening in the world and especially in the Middle East nowadays.

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. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

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The IDF’s Minorities in Numbers and Pictures

In honor of IDF Diversity Week, we present diversity through numbers and pictures. Each year, more and more Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and immigrants from around the world take on the responsibility of defending Israel.

MUSLIMS:

Muslim Arab Israelis are not required to draft in the IDF, but there are many who volunteer. In 2013, there were over 200 Muslims serving in the IDF and over 300 in the reserves.

Bedouins:

Bedouins are nomadic Muslims who were in Israel when modern borders were set in place and are now considered Israeli citizens. They are not required to draft but a growing number choose to enlist. In 2012, there were over 1,400 Bedouin Muslim soldiers doing regular IDF service and almost 1,500 in the reserves.

Read more:http://www.idfblog.com/2014/02/27/truth-idf-numbers-pictures/#more-34027

Are you aware that in 2013, Middle class taxes go up-significantly?

In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent… This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent… When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

Why is HAMAS Inside Tampa Schools?

Clare Lopez

Kelly Miliziano, who teaches history classes at Steinbrenner High School in the Tampa, Florida area apparently thinks it’s perfectly OK to invite a senior official of a HAMAS-affiliated organization into her classroom to discuss Islam with her students. According to local media reports, not only has this been going on for years, but in spite of the civil and criminal proceedings that could result from such reckless negligence, the Hillsborough County school superintendent, Mary Ellen Elia, and the chairman of the school board, Candy Olson, also expressed approval for students under their responsibility to be exposed repeatedly to guest speaker, Hassan Shibly, who is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Tampa area.
More...

Did You Know... Ignoring the Call to Islam will Bring Jihad

‘Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing] that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa.’
-- Yousef al-Qaradawi , Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader The Arabic word ‘Da’wa’ means the “call to Islam.” But do not think that Da’wa is the same thing as an invitation to an optional holiday event. The classical Islamic doctrine of jihad mandates that enemies must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax before it is permissible to attack them.
Clare M. Lopez

Who is being discriminated-facts tell the truth

Religious bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,409 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-bias offenses showed:

65.4 percent were anti-Jewish.
13.2 percent were anti-Islamic.
9.5 percent were anti-other religion, i.e., those not specified.
4.3 percent were anti-Catholic.
3.8 percent were anti-multiple religions, group.
3.3 percent were anti-Protestant.
0.5 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2010/narratives/hate-crime-2010-incidents-and-offenses.

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview

with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive, said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

The Arab Apartheid

Ben-Dror Yemini
In 1948, the Arab countries refused to accept the UN partition proposal and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs fled because of the war and a larger number of 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (the "Jewish nakba").
Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time, occurring in dozens of other conflict points and affecting about 52 million people. In all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state.
Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. Instead of assimilating the refugees, they crushed them despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation - instituting a regime of apartheid. So the "nakba" was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The "nakba" is the story of the apartheid, oppression, abuse and denial of rights suffered by the Arab refugees at the hands of the Arab countries. (Maariv)

International Law and Military Operations in Practice - Col. Richard Kemp

"Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. "

Lost Historical Moments

What Rabin’s last Knesset speech really said:repudiation of a Palestinian state

Rabin ruled out a fully sovereign Palestinian state :

“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”

Rabin ruled out a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and thus a return to the pre-June 1967 borders :

“The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Rabin ruled out withdrawing form the Jordan Valley:

“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”

Rabin ruled out uprooting settlement blocs, like the Gush Katif bloc in Gaza (which was subsequently uprooted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon):

“The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

AND

Rabin ruled out removing any settlement before coming to a full peace agreement with the Palestinians:

“I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”

Rabin insisted on Israel retaining full security control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, contrary to Israel’s relinquishment of the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt:

“The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.”

Correcting Oslo Myths-Part 2

3) Kuttab laments that the post-1993 Oslo process resulted in a Palestinian Authority "whose ministers and legislators are not guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank ...."

Before free passage or other perquisites, PA leaders were obligated, among other things, to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end anti-Israeli, antisemitic incitement in schools, mosques, and communications media, and resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. They met none of these commitments, sometimes bolstering terrorism and greatly increasing incitement.

4) Kuttab complains that under Oslo the PA got "lightly armed police ---- but no real sovereignty over the land or contiguity between our communities in Gaza and the West Bank."

Oslo agreements repeatedly were revised, regardless of Palestinian non-compliance, until the authorized number of police grew from 8,000 to 40,000. Though they were to be the only armed forces in the territories, Israeli estimates early in the second intifada put the number of gunmen - police, "security services," terrorists, and armed gangs - at 85,000. Their armament reportedly included not only heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Sovereignty was to be negotiated in the envisioned 1998 "final status" talks - after a five-year period of confidence-building. Palestinian leadership chronically undermined the process. Palestinian terrorism made the 1993 - 1998 Oslo period more deadly for Israelis than the 15 years preceding it.

The United States doesn't have contiguity between the lower 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii; territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip - that is, through the 20 miles of Israeli territory between them - was never promised and would destroy Israeli contiguity.

5) "Palestinians have been made to endure hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, an eight-foot wall deep in our territories, and tight Israeli control over borders."

The security barrier is not "deep in Palestinian territories," but rather encompasses less than 8 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is mostly a fence, rarely a wall; the land in question is not "our [Palestinian] territories" but disputed territory to which, according to the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Jews as well as Arabs have claims; and there are no international borders, only the 1949 armistice lines with Jordan. Under 242, borders remain to be negotiated. As for checkpoints - like the security barrier and "tight Israeli control" - Palestinian Arabs precipitated these measures themselves. No terrorism and there would be no fence or tight Israeli control and few checkpoints - like before the first intifada.

Correcting Some Oslo Myths

1) In Oslo "Israeli, Palestinian and other world leaders promised that ... Palestinian sovereignty would be solidified."

No, they didn't. The 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo agreements outlined a process by which final status negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be reached. The process required an end to anti-Israel terrorism and incitement and a commitment to peaceful negotiations. The PA, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other terrorist groups, sabotaged the process from the start.

2) "The reality is that, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that it is inadmissible to occupy land by force, Palestinian territories are still under foreign military occupation."
Wrong again. Resolution 242 (1967) does note "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." It also affirms the right of every state in the area "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." There were no "Palestinian territories." Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not have "secure and recognized boundaries," so retention of some of those territories was possible under 242. Israel is not a "foreign" military occupier in the West Bank but, pending final negotiations, the lawful military administrator as a result of a successful war of self-defense.

Doc's Talk