AARON DAVID MILLER | FORIEGN POLICY -MAY/JUNE 2010
Mon May 2 2010
www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/04/19/the_false_religion_of_mideast_peace?print=yes&hidecomments=yes&page=full
On October 18, 1991, against long odds and in front of an incredulous press corps, U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Soviet Foreign Minister Boris Pankin announced that Arabs and Israelis were being invited to attend a peace conference in Madrid. Standing in the back of the hall at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem that day, I marveled at what America had accomplished. In 18 months, roughly the time it took Henry Kissinger to negotiate three Arab-Israeli disengagement agreements and Jimmy Carter to broker an Egypt-Israel peace treaty, the United States had fought a short, successful war - the best kind - and pushed Iraq's Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. And America was now well-positioned to bring Arabs and Israelis across the diplomatic finish line.
Or so I thought.
Baker, who lowballed everything, was characteristically cautious. "Boys," he told a few of us aides in his suite after the news conference, "if you want to get off the train, now might be a good time because it could all be downhill from here." But I wasn't listening. America had used its power to make war, and now, perhaps, it could use that power to make peace. I'd become a believer.
I'm not anymore.
Etymologists tell us that the word "religion" may come from the Latin root religare, meaning to adhere or bind. It's a wonderful derivation. In both its secular and religious manifestations, faith is alluring and seductive precisely because it's driven by propositions that bind or adhere the believer to a compelling set of ideas that satisfy rationally or spiritually, but always obligate.
So Why Have We Failed?
Americans, Israelis, and Palestinians who've tried and failed to make peace answer three crucial questions.
And so it has been and remains with America's commitment to Arab-Israeli peacemaking over the past 40 years, and certainly since the October 1973 war gave birth to serious U.S. diplomacy and the phrase "peace process" (the honor of authorship likely goes to a brilliant veteran State Department Middle East hand, Harold Saunders, who saw the term appropriated by Kissinger early in his shuttles). Since then, the U.S. approach has come to rest on an almost unbreakable triangle of assumptions -- articles of faith, really.
By the 1990s, these tenets made up a sort of peace-process religion, a reverential logic chain that compelled most U.S. presidents to involve themselves seriously in the Arab-Israeli issue. Barack Obama is the latest convert, and by all accounts he too became a zealous believer, vowing within days of his inauguration "to actively and aggressively seek a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as Israel and its Arab neighbors."
Like all religions, the peace process has developed a dogmatic creed, with immutable first principles. Over the last two decades, I wrote them hundreds of times to my bosses in the upper echelons of the State Department and the White House; they were a catechism we all could recite by heart. First, pursuit of a comprehensive peace was a core, if not the core, U.S. interest in the region, and achieving it offered the only sure way to protect U.S. interests; second, peace could be achieved, but only through a serious negotiating process based on trading land for peace; and third, only America could help the Arabs and Israelis bring that peace to fruition.
As befitting a religious doctrine, there was little nuance. And while not everyone became a convert (Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush willfully pursued other Middle East priorities, though each would succumb at one point, if only with initiatives that reflected, to their critics, varying degrees of too little, too late), the exceptions have mostly proved the rule. The iron triangle that drove Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and now Barack Obama to accord the Arab-Israeli issue such high priority has turned out to be both durable and bipartisan. Embraced by the high priests of the national security temple, including State Department veterans like myself, intelligence analysts, and most U.S. foreign-policy mandarins outside government, these tenets endured and prospered even while the realities on which they were based had begun to change. If this wasn't the definition of real faith, one wonders what was.
That Obama, burdened by two wars elsewhere and the most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression, came out louder, harder, and faster on the Arab-Israeli issue than any of his predecessors was a remarkable testament to just how enduring that faith had become - a faith he very publicly proclaimed while personally presiding over the announcement of George Mitchell as his Middle East envoy in an orchestrated ceremony at the State Department two days after his swearing-in.
At first, it seemed that Obama, the poster president for America's engagement with the world, had found a cause uniquely suited to his view of diplomacy, one whose importance had been heightened by his predecessor's neglect of the issue and the Arab and Muslim attachment to it. Even before the Gaza war exploded three weeks prior to his inauguration, Obama had been bombarded by experts sagely urging a renewed focus on Middle East peace as a way to regain American prestige and credibility after the trauma of the Bush years. The new president soon hit the Arab media running as a kind of empathizer-in-chief, ratcheting up expectations even as Israelis increasingly found him tone-deaf to their needs.
Obama surrounded himself with key figures, such as chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who believed deeply in the peace religion. He named as his chief peacemaker Mitchell, a man with real stature and negotiating experience; and his national security advisor is James L. Jones, himself a former Middle East envoy who made the stunning pronouncement last year: "If there was one problem that I would recommend to the president" to solve, "this would be it."
All these veteran leaders were not only believers, but had extra reason to encourage a tougher line toward Israel; they had seen the Benjamin Netanyahu movie before and were determined not to let their chance at Middle East peace end the same way. In his first turn as prime minister in the 1990s, the brash hard-liner Netanyahu had driven Bill Clinton crazy. (I remember being briefed on their first meeting in 1996, after which the president growled: "Who's the fucking superpower here?")
Confronted with Netanyahu again, Obama and his team needed no encouragement to talk tough on the growing Israeli settlements in the West Bank, an issue that experts inside and outside government were clamoring for Obama to raise as the first step in his renewed push for peace.
At the time, it looked to be a magical convergence of leader and moment: The Arab-Israeli issue seemed perfectly suited to Obama's transformational objectives and his transactional style. If Obama wanted to begin "remaking America," why not try to remake the troubled politics of peace, too? After all, this was the engagement president, who believed deeply in the power of negotiations.
Obama was not alone in his belief, of course. The peace-process creed has endured so long because to a large degree it has made sense and accorded with U.S. interests. The question is, does it still? Does the old thinking about peacemaking apply to new realities? Is the Arab-Israeli conflict still the core issue? And after two decades of inflated hopes followed by violence and terror, and now by directionless stagnation, can we still believe that negotiations will deliver?
Sadly, the answers to these questions seem to be all too obvious these days. And Obama's first 15 months as a disciple of the old creed tells you why. In 2009, the president pushed the Israelis, the Arabs, and the Palestinians to get negotiations going and was rebuffed by all three. He later told Time magazine ruefully that "we overestimated our ability to persuade." In March of this year, provoked by the Netanyahu government's incomprehensible announcement of new housing units in East Jerusalem smack in the middle of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel, Obama pushed the Israelis again, harder this time, though it seems without much of a strategy to put the crisis to good use.
Obama is clearly determined not to take no for an answer. Fresh from his victory on health care, he's King of the World again and in no mood to let the King of Israel frustrate his plans. This willfulness is impressive, and it makes it even more imperative now that he's engaged in the faith to give that old-time religion a fresh look, based not just on what's possible but on what's probable. We don't have the right to abandon hope, but we do have the responsibility to let go of, or at least temper, our illusions.
I can't tell you how many times in the past 20 years, as an intelligence analyst, policy planner, and negotiator, I wrote memos to Very Important People arguing the centrality of the Arab-Israeli issue and why the United States needed to fix it. Long before I arrived at the State Department in 1978, my predecessors had made all the same arguments. An unresolved Arab-Israeli conflict would trigger ruinous war, increase Soviet influence, weaken Arab moderates, strengthen Arab radicals, jeopardize access to Middle East oil, and generally undermine U.S. influence from Rabat to Karachi. From the 1940s through the 1980s, the power with which the Palestinian issue resonated in the Arab world did take a toll on American prestige and influence.
Still, even back then the hand-wringing and dire predictions in my Cassandra-like memos were overstated. I once warned ominously - and incorrectly - that we'd have nonstop Palestinian terrorist attacks in the United States if we didn't move on the issue. During those same years, the United States managed to advance all of its core interests in the Middle East: It contained the Soviets; strengthened ties to Israel and such key Arab states as Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia; maintained access to Arab oil; and yes, even emerged in the years after the October 1973 war as the key broker in Arab-Israeli peacemaking.
Today, I couldn't write those same memos or anything like them with a clear conscience or a straight face. Although many experts' beliefs haven't changed, the region has, and dramatically, becoming nastier and more complex. U.S. priorities and interests, too, have changed. The notion that there's a single or simple fix to protecting those interests, let alone that Arab-Israeli peace would, like some magic potion, bullet, or elixir, make it all better, is just flat wrong. In a broken, angry region with so many problems - from stagnant, inequitable economies to extractive and authoritarian governments that abuse human rights and deny rule of law, to a popular culture mired in conspiracy and denial - it stretches the bounds of credulity to the breaking point to argue that settling the Arab-Israeli conflict is the most critical issue, or that its resolution would somehow guarantee Middle East stability.
The unresolved Arab-Israeli conflict is still a big problem for America and its friends: It stokes a white-hot anger toward the United States, has already demonstrated the danger of confrontation and war (see Lebanon, 2006; Gaza, 2008), and confronts Israel with a demographic nightmare. But three other issues, at least, have emerged to compete for center stage, and they might prove far more telling about the fate of U.S. influence, power, and security than the ongoing story of what I've come to call the much-too-promised land.
First, there are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where tens of thousands of Americans are in harm's way and are likely to be for some time to come. Add to the mix the dangerous situation in Pakistan, and you see volatility, threat, and consequences that go well beyond Palestine. Second, though U.S. foreign policy can't be held hostage to the war on terror (or whatever it's now called), the 9/11 attacks were a fundamental turning point for an America that had always felt secure within its borders. And finally there's Iran, whose nuclear aspirations are clearly a more urgent U.S. priority than Palestine. Should sanctions and/or diplomacy fail, the default position - military action by Israel or even the United States - can't be ruled out, with galactic consequences for the region and the world. In any event, it's hard to imagine Netanyahu making any big decisions on the peace process until there's much more clarity on what he and most Israelis regard as the existential threat of an Iran with a bomb.
As Obama surely reckoned, moving fast on Arab-Israeli peacemaking would help the United States deal with these issues. But that linkage wasn't compelling when Bush used it to suggest that victory in Iraq would make the Arab-Israeli conflict easier to resolve; it's not compelling now as an exit strategy from Iraq either, as if engaging in Arab-Israeli diplomacy will make the potential mess we could leave behind in Iraq easier for the Arabs to swallow.
Nor can the Arab-Israeli issue be used effectively to mobilize Arabs against Iran, because the United States could never do enough diplomatically (or soon enough) to have it make much of a difference. Finally, linking the United States' willingness to help the Israelis with Iran to their willingness to make concessions on Jerusalem and borders isn't much of a policy either. If anything, it risks the United States losing its leverage with Israel on the Iranian issue and raising the odds that Israel would act alone.
Surely the United States can do more than one thing at once, the foreign-policy equivalent of walking and chewing gum at the same time. But America must also do multiple things well. Obama can't have an inch-deep and mile-wide approach in which he commits to everything without a cruel and unforgiving assessment of what's really possible and what's not. Nor can the United States afford another high-profile failure based on what a brilliant and committed Clinton told us shortly before we went to Camp David: "Guys, trying and failing is a lot better than not trying at all." This is an appropriate slogan for a high school football team; it's not a substitute for a well-thought-out strategy for the world's greatest power. Obama already has made a commitment to the American people to end two wars, keep them safe from attack at home, and stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, not to mention tackling the challenges of a severe recession and growing deficit.
Governing is about choosing; it's about setting priorities, managing your politics, thinking strategically, picking your spots, and looking for genuine opportunities that can be exploited --not tilting at windmills. And these days, Arab-Israeli peacemaking is a pretty big windmill. Even if you could make the case for the centrality of the Arab-Israeli conflict, could you make peace?
Americans are optimists. Our idealism, pragmatism, and belief in the primacy of the individual convince us that the world can be made a better place. Unlike many countries that grapple with existential questions of political identity and physical survival, Americans today don't live on the knife's edge or hold (whatever our Puritan or Calvinist beginnings) a dark deterministic view of human nature.
All this drives our conviction that talking is better than shooting. Rodney King-like, we believe that if people would only sit down and discuss their differences rationally and compromise, a way might be found to accommodate conflicting views. After all, America is the big tent under which so many religious, political, and ethnic groups have managed to coexist, remarkably amicably. Perhaps this spirit is best embodied by Obama's Mideast envoy George Mitchell, who once told me that any conflict created by human beings could be resolved by them. Mitchell is truly convinced that solutions can be found and that serious diplomacy is what you do until that time comes. But he ended his first foray into Arab-Israeli diplomacy with three emphatic no's: from Israel on a comprehensive settlement freeze, from Saudi Arabia on partial normalization, and from the Palestinians on returning to negotiations.
Much of our earlier experience in the tough world of Arab-Israeli peacemaking seemed to bear out Mitchell's initial conviction . In the time from the 1973 war to 1991, two Republican secretaries of state (Kissinger and Baker) and one Democratic president (Carter) succeeded in hammering out a series of Arab-Israeli agreements that established America's reputation as an effective, even honest, broker - seeming to validate the simple proposition that negotiations can work.
If there was anyone who represented the faith in that proposition, it was me. I recall giving a talk in Jerusalem in the fall of 1998, after Clinton had brokered the Wye River accords (never implemented), in which I argued that Arab-Israeli negotiations and the move toward peace were now irreversible. That remark, one of the great howlers of the decade, prompted a note from Efraim Halevy, then Israel's deputy Mossad chief, rightly questioning my logic, and though Halevy was too polite to say it in his note, my judgment as well. Still I believed.
And I continued to do so, all the way through the 1990s, the only decade in the last half of the 20th century in which there was no major Arab-Israeli war. Instead, this was the decade of the Madrid conference, the Oslo accords, the Israel-Jordan peace treaty, regional accords on economic issues, and a historic bid in the final year of the Clinton administration to negotiate peace agreements between Israel, Syria, and the Palestinians. But for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the Arab, Palestinian, Israeli (and American) unwillingness to recognize what price each side would have to pay to achieve those agreements, the decade ended badly, leaving the pursuit of peace bloody, battered, and broken. Perhaps the most serious casualty was the loss of hope that negotiations could actually get the Arabs and Israelis what they wanted.
And that has been the story line ever since: more process than peace. Looking ahead, that process looks much, much tougher - and peace more and more elusive - for three reasons.
First, Arab-Israeli peacemaking is politically risky and life-threatening. Consider the murders of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. At Camp David, I heard Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat say at least three times, "You Americans will not walk behind my coffin." Leaders take risks only when prospects of pain and gain compel them to do so. Today's Middle East leaders - Israel's Netanyahu, Syria's Bashar al-Assad, and Palestine's Mahmoud Abbas - aren't suicidal . It was Netanyahu, after all, who once told me: "You live in Chevy Chase. Don't play with our future."
Second, big decisions require strong leaders - think Jordan's King Hussein or Israel's Menachem Begin - because the issues on the table cut to the core of their political and religious identity and physical survival. This requires leaders with the legitimacy, authority, and command of their politics to make a deal stick. But the current crop are more prisoners of their constituencies than masters of them: Netanyahu presides over a divided coalition and a country without consensus on what price Israel will pay for agreements with Palestinians and Syria; Abbas is part of a broken Palestinian national movement and shares control over Palestine's guns, authority, and legitimacy with Hamas. It's hard to see how either can marshal the will and authority to make big decisions.
Third, even with strong leaders, you still need a project that doesn't exceed the carrying capacity of either side. In the past, U.S. diplomacy succeeded because the post-1973-war disengagement agreements, a separate Egypt-Israel accord, and a three-day peace conference at Madrid aligned with each side's capabilities. Today, issues such as Jerusalem (as a capital of two states), borders (based on June 1967 lines), and refugees (rights, return, and compensation) present gigantic political and security challenges for Arabs and Israelis. One accord will be hard enough. The prospect of negotiating a comprehensive peace; concluding three agreements between Israel and the Palestinians, between Israel and Syria, and between Israel and Lebanon; dismantling settlements in the Golan Heights and West Bank; and withdrawing to borders based on June 1967 lines seems even more fantastical. Bottom line: Negotiations can work, but both Arabs and Israelis (and American leaders) need to be willing and able to pay the price. And they are not.
Under these circumstances, the refrain from many quarters is that America must save the day . If the Arabs and Israelis are too weak or recalcitrant, then the United States must support and/or push them to make the deal. Such forceful U.S. diplomacy succeeded in the past. Indeed, it's a stunning paradox that with the exception of the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty, every other successful accord came not out of direct negotiations, but as a result of U.S. mediation. The Oslo accords, often touted as the miracle produced by direct talks between Israelis and Palestinians, proved to be a spectacular failure. All that's missing now, the argument goes, is the absence of American will.
I understand the logic of this view, and having spent more than 20 years in frustrating talks with the Arabs and Israelis, I can also see how it can be emotionally satisfying. But because I know a thing or two about failure and don't want to see the United States fail (yet again), I simply don't buy the argument. If I genuinely believed America could impose and deliver a solution through tough forceful diplomacy, I'd be more sympathetic --but I don't. And here's why:
Ownership: Larry Summers, Obama's chief economic advisor, said it best: In the history of the world, no one ever washed a rental car. We care only about what we own. Unless the Arabs and Israelis want political agreements and peace and can invest enough in them to give them a chance to succeed, we certainly can't. The broader Middle East is littered with the remains of great powers that wrongly believed they could impose their will on small tribes. Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran... need I continue? Small tribes will always be meaner, tougher, and longer-winded than U.S. diplomats because it's their neighborhood and their survival; they will always have a greater stake in the outcome of their struggle than the great power thousands of miles away with many other things to do. You want to see failure? Take a whack at trying to force Israelis and Palestinians to accept an American solution on Jerusalem.
The negotiator's mystique: It's gone, at least for now. When Americans succeeded in Arab-Israeli diplomacy, it was because they were respected, admired, even feared. U.S. power and influence were taken seriously. Today, much of the magic is gone: We are overextended, diminished, bogged down. Again Summers: Can the world's biggest borrower continue to be the world's greatest power? Our friends worry about our reliability; our adversaries, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, believe they can outwait and outmaneuver us. Nor does there appear much cost or consequence to saying no to the superpower. After Obama and Mitchell's fruitless first year, I worry that the mediator's mystique of a Kissinger or a Baker, or the willfulness and driving force of a Carter, won't return easily.
Domestic politics: The pro-Israel community in the United States has a powerful voice, primarily in influencing congressional sentiment and initiatives (assistance to Israel in particular), but it does not have a veto over U.S. foreign policy.
Lobbies lobby; that's the American way, for better or worse.
Presidents are supposed to lead. And when they do, with a real strategy that's in America's national interests, they trump domestic politics. Still, domestic politics constrain, particularly when a president is perceived to be weak or otherwise occupied. This president has been battered of late, and his party is likely to face significant losses in the 2010 midterm elections. Should there be a serious chance for a breakthrough in the peace process, he'll go for it. But is it smart to risk trying to manufacture one? The last thing Obama needs now is an ongoing fight with the Israelis and their supporters, or worse, a major foreign-policy failure. U.S.-Israeli relations: America is Israel's best friend and must continue to be.
Shared values are at the core of the relationship, and our intimacy with Israel gives us leverage and credibility in peacemaking when we use it correctly. But this special relationship with the Israelis, which can serve U.S. interests, has become an exclusive one that does not. We've lost the capacity to be independent of Israel, to be honest with it when it does things we don't like, to impose accountability, and to adopt positions in a negotiation that might depart from Israel's. It's tough to be a credible mediator with such handicaps.
Fighting with Israel is an occupational reality. It's part of the mediator's job description. Every U.S. president or secretary of state who succeeded (and some who didn't) had dust-ups, some serious, with Israel. (Remember how Bush 41 and Baker used housing loan guarantees?)
In 1991, the United States denied Israel billions in credit to borrow at reduced interest rates because of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's determination to build settlements.) But the fight must produce something of value - like the Madrid conference - that not only makes the United States look good but significantly advances the negotiations. In short, we need a strategy that stands a chance of working. Otherwise, why would any U.S. president want to hammer a close ally with a strong domestic constituency?
And this was the problem with Obama's tough talk to Israel on settlements. Not only was the goal he laid out - a settlements freeze including natural growth - unattainable, but it wasn't part of a broader strategy whose dividends would have made the fight worthwhile. Going after the Israelis piecemeal on settlements to please the Arabs or to make ourselves feel better won't work unless we have a way of achieving a breakthrough. That a tough-talking Obama ended up backing down last year when Netanyahu said no to a comprehensive freeze tells you why.
And that remains the president's challenge after the Biden brouhaha over housing units in East Jerusalem. In the spring of 2010 we're nowhere near a breakthrough, and yet we're in the middle of a major rift with the Israelis. Unless we achieve a big concession, we will be perceived to have backed down again. And even if the president manages to extract something on Jerusalem, the chances that Netanyahu will be able to make a far greater move on a core issue, such as borders, will be much reduced. Unless the president is trying to get rid of Netanyahu (and produce a new coalition), he'll have no choice but to find a way to cooperate with him.
Now Obama faces a conundrum. A brilliant, empathetic president, with a Nobel Peace Prize to boot, has embraced the iron triangle and made America the focal point of action and responsibility for the Arab-Israeli issue at a time when the country may be least able to do much about it.
Trying to compensate for the absence of urgency, will, and leadership among Arabs and Israelis by inserting your own has always been a tough assignment. The painful truth is that faith in America's capacity to fix the Arab-Israeli issue has always been overrated. It's certainly no coincidence that every breakthrough from the Egypt-Israel treaty to the Oslo accords to the Israel-Jordan peace agreement came initially as a consequence of secret meetings about which the United States was the last to know. Only then, once there was local ownership or some regional crisis that the United States could exploit, were we able to move things forward.
Right now, America has neither the opportunity nor frankly the balls to do truly big things on Arab-Israeli peacemaking. Fortuna might still rescue the president. The mullahcracy in Tehran might implode. The Syrians and Israelis might reach out to one another secretly, or perhaps a violent confrontation will flare up to break the impasse.
But without a tectonic plate shifting somewhere, it's going to be tough to re-create the good old days when bold and heroic Arab and Israeli leaders strode the stage of history, together with Americans, willing and able to do serious peacemaking.
I remember attending Rabin's funeral in 1995 in Jerusalem and trying to convince myself that America must and could save the peace process that had been so badly undermined by his assassination. I'm not a declinist. I still believe in the power of American diplomacy when it's tough, smart, and fair. But the enthusiasm, fervor, and passion have given way to a much more sober view of what's possible . Failure can do that.
The believers need to re-examine their faith, especially at a moment when America is so stretched and overextended. The United States needs to do what it can, including working with Israelis and Palestinians on negotiating core final-status issues (particularly on borders, where the gaps are narrowest), helping Palestinians develop their institutions, getting the Israelis to assist by allowing Palestinians to breathe economically and expand their authority, and keeping Gaza calm, even as it tries to relieve the desperation and sense of siege through economic assistance.
But America should also be aware of what it cannot do, as much as what it can.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who probably didn't know much about the Middle East, said it best: "There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, then in half the creeds."
And maybe, if that leads to more realistic thinking when it comes to America's view of Arab-Israeli peacemaking, that's not such a bad thing.
Aaron David Miller served as an advisor on the Middle East to Republican and Democratic secretaries of state. He is currently a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the author of The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace.
Monday, May 03, 2010
Sunday, May 02, 2010
State brings $80,000 Suit against Hebron
The Jewish Community of Hebron
May 02, 2010
The state of Israel has filed a damage suit against the Jewish community of Hebron for the sum of over 300,000 NIS (approximately $80,000) to cover the costs of explusion of Jewish families from Beit HaShalom a year and a half ago. (See also ynetnews article: http://goo.gl/P2cD) Beit HaShalom was purchased a numnber of years ago by a family from New York for over one million dollars. (A video of the seller counting the money can be viewed on youtube: http://goo.gl/j0EU). Jewish families moved into the building and resided there for almost two years prior to being forcibly expelled by police and riot squad officers. The expulsion orders were issued by Defense Minister Ehud Barak. At the time of the expulsion members of Hebron’s leadership were involved in serious talks with high-ranking members of the defense ministry in an attempt to bring a peaceful end to the crisis. However, despite these negotiations, Barak decided to violently expel the building’s Jewish residents.
It should also be noted, despite media report to the contrary, that the Israeli Supreme Court did not order that the building be vacated. Rather, they upheld the defense ministry’s right to vacate the building, should they choose to. However the decision to expel the Jewish residents was taken by the Defense Minister, not by the Supreme Court.
Hebron’s reaction to this suit:
This claim constitutes a gross violation of the principle of equality before the law, which is one of the basic principles in a democratic country. As long as similar lawsuits are not filed against criminals such as thieves, robbers, traffic criminals etc., and as long as the state does not require all citizens to pay the cost of enforcing the law against them, it cannot take such a drastic step towards those who are fulfilling the right to protest, which is the is the very soul of democracy.Certainly such measures cannot be used against right-wing demonstrators only.
This suit is contrary to the decision of the Knesset Constitutional Law and Justice Committee, which made a unanimous decision (February 2004) that "with regard to payments for operations involving eviction, the government will utilize the same principles by which it operates in response to protest actions of every citizen or group of citizens protesting government policy. "
Moreover, the Court did not order the government to vacate Beit HaShalom, rather permitted it to do so. Over several weeks, the Defense Ministry carried out an ongoing dialogue with representatives of the residents together to explore various options following the ruling. Barak’s settlement advisor Eitan Broshi, and a representative from the attorney general's office, Attorney Ben-Ari, participated in these discussions. The expulsion was implemented during the negotiations, by means of deception, when, concurrent to the actual expulsion, working papers were exchanged between the parties dealing with compromise proposals.
In light of these circumstances, the state can only sue itself for the costs of this unnecessary expulsion!
Beware: It should be noted that the state's position is not limited only to Hebron. The government declares: "The State Attorney's Office intends to submit such claims wherever necessary. These claims, as well as others, promoted by the prosecution, are part of its strategy, whereby the state intends to use civilian tools for preservation of the rule of law and public expenditures."
In conclusion, this suit can only be defined as unfair, ugly, political, discriminatory and lopsided, which, in other words, perfectly describes the state’s conduct concerning Beit HaShalom all along.
May 02, 2010
The state of Israel has filed a damage suit against the Jewish community of Hebron for the sum of over 300,000 NIS (approximately $80,000) to cover the costs of explusion of Jewish families from Beit HaShalom a year and a half ago. (See also ynetnews article: http://goo.gl/P2cD) Beit HaShalom was purchased a numnber of years ago by a family from New York for over one million dollars. (A video of the seller counting the money can be viewed on youtube: http://goo.gl/j0EU). Jewish families moved into the building and resided there for almost two years prior to being forcibly expelled by police and riot squad officers. The expulsion orders were issued by Defense Minister Ehud Barak. At the time of the expulsion members of Hebron’s leadership were involved in serious talks with high-ranking members of the defense ministry in an attempt to bring a peaceful end to the crisis. However, despite these negotiations, Barak decided to violently expel the building’s Jewish residents.
It should also be noted, despite media report to the contrary, that the Israeli Supreme Court did not order that the building be vacated. Rather, they upheld the defense ministry’s right to vacate the building, should they choose to. However the decision to expel the Jewish residents was taken by the Defense Minister, not by the Supreme Court.
Hebron’s reaction to this suit:
This claim constitutes a gross violation of the principle of equality before the law, which is one of the basic principles in a democratic country. As long as similar lawsuits are not filed against criminals such as thieves, robbers, traffic criminals etc., and as long as the state does not require all citizens to pay the cost of enforcing the law against them, it cannot take such a drastic step towards those who are fulfilling the right to protest, which is the is the very soul of democracy.Certainly such measures cannot be used against right-wing demonstrators only.
This suit is contrary to the decision of the Knesset Constitutional Law and Justice Committee, which made a unanimous decision (February 2004) that "with regard to payments for operations involving eviction, the government will utilize the same principles by which it operates in response to protest actions of every citizen or group of citizens protesting government policy. "
Moreover, the Court did not order the government to vacate Beit HaShalom, rather permitted it to do so. Over several weeks, the Defense Ministry carried out an ongoing dialogue with representatives of the residents together to explore various options following the ruling. Barak’s settlement advisor Eitan Broshi, and a representative from the attorney general's office, Attorney Ben-Ari, participated in these discussions. The expulsion was implemented during the negotiations, by means of deception, when, concurrent to the actual expulsion, working papers were exchanged between the parties dealing with compromise proposals.
In light of these circumstances, the state can only sue itself for the costs of this unnecessary expulsion!
Beware: It should be noted that the state's position is not limited only to Hebron. The government declares: "The State Attorney's Office intends to submit such claims wherever necessary. These claims, as well as others, promoted by the prosecution, are part of its strategy, whereby the state intends to use civilian tools for preservation of the rule of law and public expenditures."
In conclusion, this suit can only be defined as unfair, ugly, political, discriminatory and lopsided, which, in other words, perfectly describes the state’s conduct concerning Beit HaShalom all along.
Middle East: Much Worse Off Than a Year Ago
RubinReports
Barry Rubin
Let’s take a deep breath, clear our heads of any ideological or partisan preconceptions, and then ask a simple question: How has the Middle East changed in the last year?
If one approaches this in a fair-minded, calm, and honest manner, the answers are quite shocking.
Let’s start with Iran. While some companies and banks have been discouraged from doing business with Iran, the sanctions or barriers to Tehran are almost the same as they were a year ago. That means that Iran has moved one year closer to obtaining nuclear weapons without serious hindrance. This is not good. No blather about conferences, plans, meetings, speeches, and efforts should conceal this fact. The Obama Administration's effort to engage Iran failed. Then it missed repeated self-set deadlines for imposing sanctions. The engagement strategy was supposed to produce strong international support for sanctions--including from Russia and China--but that plan also failed. Now, at best, some kind of sanctions cannot be expected until the second half of the year.
What about the keystone of Iranian strategy, its alliance with Syria? Despite much Western talk about pulling Syria away from Iran—which isn’t going to happen—the relationship is closer than ever. This is not good. No blather about conferences, plans, meetings, speeches, and efforts should conceal this fact.
Lebanon? It is more in the grip of Iran, Syria, and Hizballah than a year ago. The Lebanese moderates have retreated and some have changed to a neutral position, because they know that the West will not back them up. Lebanon’s president is ready to align with the Iran-Syria access. Walid Jumblatt, the lion of the opposition, has made his peace with the Syrians, as has Said Hariri, despite the fact that Damascus was responsible for killing both their fathers. Hizballah, says the U.S. secretary of defense, has more missiles than most industrialized country though the UN promised to block these supplies back in 2006. This is not good either. No blather….
Turkey? Both the Iranian and Syrian governments have bragged that Turkey is now their ally. The Turkish regime does military maneuvers with Syria and not Israel. Turkey’s government opposes any sanctions or pressure on Iran regarding nuclear weapons. Today, Turkey is no longer a reliable ally of the United States. This is not good either. No blather….
U.S.-Israel relations? For the moment, they are on a better footing but they have gone through several crises since the Obama Administration took office for no gain whatsoever. On at least two occasions—settlement blocs and also the freeze on West Bank construction only—the administration broke previously made promises to Israel by itself or its predecessor. Moreover, a tone of distrust and hostility has set in on Washington’s side that has hardly ever existed in the entire history of Israel.
Palestinian Authority (PA): Despite extensive American efforts to prove how pro-Palestinian it is, the PA has yet to do anything for the United States, including breaking its promise not to take the lead in pushing the Goldstone Report or to hold direct negotiations with Israel. With U.S. policy unwilling to press the PA on concessions, the Obama Administration has given the PA a lot of support but obtained nothing in return. This is not good.
What about the Israel-Palestinian peace process? Well, the best hope at present is that it might return to indirect negotiations, which puts it roughly at the level of contacts prevailing back in 1991. Indeed, getting the two sides to talk—however distantly, however slowly—is going to be regarded by the Obama Administration as a huge victory meriting the opening of champagne. This is pretty pitiful.
How about U.S. relations with the relatively moderate Arab states, moderate compared to Syria that is? Despite the Cairo and Istanbul speeches of Obama, the outreach to Muslims, the hint that Islamists would be welcome to dialogue, the distancing from Israel, there is not one iota of improvement. Arab regimes will literally not do anything the United States wants. And rather than cheering Obama as a pro-Arab president they are frightened that he is a pro-radical forces or pro-Shia president, that is he favors their enemies and is weak in protecting them. This is also not good.
This brings us to the one great achievement claimed by the current U.S. government—high popularity in the Arabic-speaking world. Whatever numbers can be pulled out of polls, and they aren’t as good as many people think, any popularity Obama has is totally useless from the standpoint of U.S. interests.
Iraq? It is a relative bright spot, with the U.S. withdrawal under way. There are terrible problems with infighting in Iraq’s government, which might turn quite unstable. This is not the Obama government’s fault so much but what is worthy of blame is its cowardly refusal to back up Iraqi protests against Syria’s sponsorship of terrorism. At any rate, the calm that does exist is due in no small part to Tehran’s wanting to keep things quiet until the United States pulls out, then try to increase its own influence in the country. Not great.
Pakistan should be a big disappointment. True, the government is holding together. But despite the massive tidal wave of American aid the regime is only willing to defend itself, not exert a real effort to wipe out the Taliban and al-Qaida on the border. And of course Pakistan is shielding its own terrorist assets that have been used to commit horrendous murders in India. Not good.
Finally, Afghanistan where the president has made a public relations’-oriented decision: send in the troops in a pseudo-surge to show his apparent toughness, then pull them out to show his apparent dovishness. And with all good intentions the military and political leadership has set an impossible program of stabilizing Afghanistan and providing it with a good government. Meanwhile, bilateral relations have hit an all-time low. Not good.
Have I missed some bright spot or great achievement? I don’t think so. It’s a pitiful situation. What is the point of making this list? Not, despite what you might think, to bash Obama. The real problem is the refusal of policymakers to recognize just how bad things are and how negative has been the impact of their policy.
It is not too late to change course. But how can opinionmakers explain this to the administration when most of them don’t see how much has gone wrong? Waking up is the first step.
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). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; and The Muslim Brotherhood.
Barry Rubin
Let’s take a deep breath, clear our heads of any ideological or partisan preconceptions, and then ask a simple question: How has the Middle East changed in the last year?
If one approaches this in a fair-minded, calm, and honest manner, the answers are quite shocking.
Let’s start with Iran. While some companies and banks have been discouraged from doing business with Iran, the sanctions or barriers to Tehran are almost the same as they were a year ago. That means that Iran has moved one year closer to obtaining nuclear weapons without serious hindrance. This is not good. No blather about conferences, plans, meetings, speeches, and efforts should conceal this fact. The Obama Administration's effort to engage Iran failed. Then it missed repeated self-set deadlines for imposing sanctions. The engagement strategy was supposed to produce strong international support for sanctions--including from Russia and China--but that plan also failed. Now, at best, some kind of sanctions cannot be expected until the second half of the year.
What about the keystone of Iranian strategy, its alliance with Syria? Despite much Western talk about pulling Syria away from Iran—which isn’t going to happen—the relationship is closer than ever. This is not good. No blather about conferences, plans, meetings, speeches, and efforts should conceal this fact.
Lebanon? It is more in the grip of Iran, Syria, and Hizballah than a year ago. The Lebanese moderates have retreated and some have changed to a neutral position, because they know that the West will not back them up. Lebanon’s president is ready to align with the Iran-Syria access. Walid Jumblatt, the lion of the opposition, has made his peace with the Syrians, as has Said Hariri, despite the fact that Damascus was responsible for killing both their fathers. Hizballah, says the U.S. secretary of defense, has more missiles than most industrialized country though the UN promised to block these supplies back in 2006. This is not good either. No blather….
Turkey? Both the Iranian and Syrian governments have bragged that Turkey is now their ally. The Turkish regime does military maneuvers with Syria and not Israel. Turkey’s government opposes any sanctions or pressure on Iran regarding nuclear weapons. Today, Turkey is no longer a reliable ally of the United States. This is not good either. No blather….
U.S.-Israel relations? For the moment, they are on a better footing but they have gone through several crises since the Obama Administration took office for no gain whatsoever. On at least two occasions—settlement blocs and also the freeze on West Bank construction only—the administration broke previously made promises to Israel by itself or its predecessor. Moreover, a tone of distrust and hostility has set in on Washington’s side that has hardly ever existed in the entire history of Israel.
Palestinian Authority (PA): Despite extensive American efforts to prove how pro-Palestinian it is, the PA has yet to do anything for the United States, including breaking its promise not to take the lead in pushing the Goldstone Report or to hold direct negotiations with Israel. With U.S. policy unwilling to press the PA on concessions, the Obama Administration has given the PA a lot of support but obtained nothing in return. This is not good.
What about the Israel-Palestinian peace process? Well, the best hope at present is that it might return to indirect negotiations, which puts it roughly at the level of contacts prevailing back in 1991. Indeed, getting the two sides to talk—however distantly, however slowly—is going to be regarded by the Obama Administration as a huge victory meriting the opening of champagne. This is pretty pitiful.
How about U.S. relations with the relatively moderate Arab states, moderate compared to Syria that is? Despite the Cairo and Istanbul speeches of Obama, the outreach to Muslims, the hint that Islamists would be welcome to dialogue, the distancing from Israel, there is not one iota of improvement. Arab regimes will literally not do anything the United States wants. And rather than cheering Obama as a pro-Arab president they are frightened that he is a pro-radical forces or pro-Shia president, that is he favors their enemies and is weak in protecting them. This is also not good.
This brings us to the one great achievement claimed by the current U.S. government—high popularity in the Arabic-speaking world. Whatever numbers can be pulled out of polls, and they aren’t as good as many people think, any popularity Obama has is totally useless from the standpoint of U.S. interests.
Iraq? It is a relative bright spot, with the U.S. withdrawal under way. There are terrible problems with infighting in Iraq’s government, which might turn quite unstable. This is not the Obama government’s fault so much but what is worthy of blame is its cowardly refusal to back up Iraqi protests against Syria’s sponsorship of terrorism. At any rate, the calm that does exist is due in no small part to Tehran’s wanting to keep things quiet until the United States pulls out, then try to increase its own influence in the country. Not great.
Pakistan should be a big disappointment. True, the government is holding together. But despite the massive tidal wave of American aid the regime is only willing to defend itself, not exert a real effort to wipe out the Taliban and al-Qaida on the border. And of course Pakistan is shielding its own terrorist assets that have been used to commit horrendous murders in India. Not good.
Finally, Afghanistan where the president has made a public relations’-oriented decision: send in the troops in a pseudo-surge to show his apparent toughness, then pull them out to show his apparent dovishness. And with all good intentions the military and political leadership has set an impossible program of stabilizing Afghanistan and providing it with a good government. Meanwhile, bilateral relations have hit an all-time low. Not good.
Have I missed some bright spot or great achievement? I don’t think so. It’s a pitiful situation. What is the point of making this list? Not, despite what you might think, to bash Obama. The real problem is the refusal of policymakers to recognize just how bad things are and how negative has been the impact of their policy.
It is not too late to change course. But how can opinionmakers explain this to the administration when most of them don’t see how much has gone wrong? Waking up is the first step.
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). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; and The Muslim Brotherhood.
"Nothing Good to Speak Of"
Arlene Kushner
So much is opaque these day -- with diverse news reports often contradicting each other, and a great deal that remains hidden under the surface.
PA president Abbas stated in an interview last week that there are no plans to declare Palestinian statehood unilaterally. His statement was seen as countering an interview given to Haaretz by Fayyad earlier in April in which he hinted at the possibility of a unilateral declaration.
But other reports indicate that Israel is worried that Abbas indeed might move unilaterally. A lead article on Friday in the JPost written jointly by David Horovitz, editor, and Khaled Abu Toameh declared that "concern is growing among some in the Israeli government that the PA is planning to marginalize the diplomatic process...
"There is a rising conviction among some in the Netanyahu government...that the PA is aiming to secure a new UN Security Council Resolution, updating 1967's Resolution 242, providing for the establishment of Palestine and fudging the refugee issue." This Palestinian state, some believe, would not be established to make peace with Israel, but, rather, to continue the conflict from a place of greater strength.
~~~~~~~~~~
But wait! What is clear to most top level decision-makers in our government is that Abbas is not prepared to negotiate "viable" terms for peace with Israel.
It is what makes the very notion of "peace negotiations" a joke. Thus, embracing Abbas's willingness to negotiate -- which is supposed to be a "relief" for us -- at one level constitutes a farce, no more than a game that the world is willing to go along with.
If, indeed, Abbas is planning on a unilateral declaration, he would do it in any event after these negotiations "failed," with a preface about how he tried, but how Israeli intransigence requires him to resort to other means.
I will return to this in a bit.
~~~~~~~~~~
The statement by Abbas contradicting the Fayyad position on a unilateral declaration is just one indication that tensions between Abbas -- along with his Fatah party -- and Fayyad have increased. Fayyad is the independent, the darling of the West, who holds the position he does not because of a solid political base, but because Western funds would dry up if he were not in that position.
But Fatah -- which has been glad for the funding and the favor that Fayyad has accrued in the West for the PA -- has begun to become restive about this situation: Fayyad is now seen as a threat to Fatah control of the PA. And so reports surfaced recently of a demand by the Fatah Revolutionary Council that the portfolios for interior, finance and foreign affairs, currently held by Fayyad loyalists, be turned over to Fatah members.
Additionally there is unease within Fatah because of indications that Abbas is suffering health problems; the party is demanding that Abbas appoint a deputy president to prevent a power vacuum should he be unable to carry out his duties.
According to Abu Toameh, "Many Fatah officials see Fayyad as a major threat to their faction's status, and some are convinced that he has his eyes set on the presidency.
"'Only Fatah will decide who the next president is,' a member of the Revolutionary Council said, 'We won't allow the Americans or the Europeans or the Israelis to choose our president.'"
~~~~~~~~~~
Abbas, for his part, has now secured the approval of the Arab League to begin those "proximity talks," and Mitchell will be coming to the area very soon to do the shuttling back and forth.
Perhaps I didn't lead off with this news because I am decidedly unenthusiastic about it. I see no good coming of this in any event.
In his Friday column, David Horovitz outlined the issues that were holding up these talks. There was more at stake than the hullabaloo about the Ramat Shlomo housing start, even though the impression was commonly given that this was at the heart of the matter. Reports have surfaced regarding a dispute between Israel and the PA regarding the nature of these talks -- with Israel having assumed that they would be brief and lead quickly to face-to-face talks, and the PA expecting them to continue in this mode for some months. (Undoubtedly the working assumption of the PA is that the longer the US mediates, the more they can rely on the Americans to pressure Israel.)
Additionally there was the question of core issues and whether they would be discussed in indirect talks, with Israel maintaining these difficult issues could only be dealt with face-to-face.
~~~~~~~~~~
OK, so now Abbas, having relinquished his right and responsibility as "leader" of the PA to make independent decisions regarding negotiations, has gotten the go-ahead for indirect talks from the obstructionist Arab League. (One commentator noted that it was the League that originally founded the PLO back in 1964, so that this represents a step backward.)
What are we going to see happen as talks are set to begin? Indications are that there have been concessions on the part of our government.
One Israeli official was quoted as saying, "We are willing to discuss the core issues in the framework of the proximity talks, but it has to be only a preliminary discussion of the core issues."
Oh, I see...
The "core issues" routinely alluded to are Jerusalem, refugees and borders. This official added a demilitarized state and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.
As to timing, Israel expresses hope that the movement to direct talks can take place fairly quickly, but it is being acknowledged that this process may proceed for some months.
~~~~~~~~~~
And what of the issue: the demand that we do no building in eastern Jerusalem?
Our government is still saying that we will be building. And it has been announced that the Jerusalem District Planning and Construction Committee will be convening this week to discuss a "limited number of housing starts" in eastern Jerusalem, although details on where and for whom these houses would be has not been announced.
So, perhaps it indeed is true that we have not frozen all construction for Jewish housing in eastern Jerusalem. Indeed, Horovitz, in his column, acknowledges -- as have other analysts -- that the US may have accepted the fact that this is Netanyahu's red line and persuaded the PA to enter the talks anyway. (A possibility I advanced recently.)
However, there is a great deal that is still very obscure.
A letter of some sort was sent by Obama to Abbas providing, it is said, certain assurances that made it possible for Abbas to move ahead. The US government will not discuss the contents of this letter. What the PA claims it addresses, including assurances on a construction freeze, is meaningless -- in the absence of an American statement they can say what they wish to cover themselves.
Left hanging in the air is the Abbas insistence, even now, that these talks will proceed only if there is no building in eastern Jerusalem.
Stay tuned.
~~~~~~~~~~
A few observations with regard to this "peace process" and our prime minister's role in it:
He professes pleasure in the fact that it's "moving ahead" and expresses an eagerness to be part of it, all of which is heartburn-inducing.
But what's crystal clear is that he knows that no "two state solution" is going to result, with peace breaking out. My perception is that all of this is part of his diplomatic style of playing the game, on the precipice of that slippery slope. He wants to be able to say, "See, we did our part, to the utmost, and failure to reach peaceful resolutions must be laid at the door of the PA leaders." He's watching over his shoulder -- watching Obama and the Quartet, the UN and the EU.
In particular, I would say, he wants this as a foil against possible PA plans for a unilateral announcement. He is attempting to garner sufficient US approval so that it would veto a Palestinian state in the Security Council.
In addition to this, there is the hope that, even if nothing ultimately results, the negotiations will force the PA leaders to focus their energies on this rather than the UN -- in essence taking the wind out of their sails.
I -- going way out on a limb -- cannot help but ponder what would happen if we played it the other way. If we refused to negotiate because the PA is blatantly inciteful, still supports terrorists, etc. etc. And then, if the PA unilaterally declared a state and used it as a base to attack us, we informed the world of the fact that this was illegal according to the Oslo agreement that created the PA, and then went to war and finished it clean.
This, however, will never be Netanyahu's style.
~~~~~~~~~~
Here I refer to a recent piece by Daniel Pipes. He has a peace plan, he says. "It's simple: Israel defeats its enemies.
"Victory uniquely creates circumstances conducive to peace. Wars end, the historical record confirms, when one side concedes defeat and the other wins."
It should only be!
http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/04/29/daniel-pipes-towards-an-israeli-victory.aspx
~~~~~~~~~~
I call your attention, as well, to an opinion piece by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, "Real peace cannot be imposed," which appeared in the JPost on Friday.
Is he a loose canon, as some suggest? Or, as seems to me more likely, does he speak with sanction from the prime minister?
States Lieberman, "The Great British statesman Edmund Burke once said, 'Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.' The Palestinians and Syrians are being taught by the international community that their hypocrisy and inflexibility is costing them absolutely nothing. They reject every gesture and demand ever more concessions."
After cataloguing failings of the PA that I addressed above, in terms of continued PA glorification of terrorism, he moves to a history lesson on the sacrifice of Czechoslovakia:
"ISRAEL WILL not become another Czechoslovakia and will not succumb to international pressure to compromise its vital interests."
Ariel Sharon said something similar. Let this government mean it.
http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=174339
~~~~~~~~~~
The Obama administration this past week has been courting the Jewish community with all sorts of declarations of respect for and devotion to Israel's wellbeing. There are those, of course, who see in this good things and evidence of a genuine shift in the president's approach. Our defense minister, just returning from Washington, is one of them.
But I don't trust Obama even as far as I could throw him. As far as I am concerned, he is responding disingenuously to pressure put upon him, notably by AJC's Ron Lauder and ADL's Abe Foxman. The lesson for the American Jewish community is that political pressure works on the president and should be increased.
~~~~~~~~~~
Here, at last, I provide the link to the Horovitz piece that I've referred to in the course of this posting. For he addresses this issue as well, and lays out the continuing failure of the Netanyahu and Obama administrations to see eye-to-eye on important matters regarding "peace":
"..the plain, unfortunate fact remains that not only are Israel and the Palestinians deeply and predictably at odds, so are Israel and the Obama administration.
"...The most profound difference...relates to the gauging of Abbas's peacemaking intentions.
"Although it concedes the possibility that Abbas is only entering the proximity talks in order to create a sense of momentum and then blame Israel for an inevitable breakdown, Washington believes Abbas is prepared to endorse viable terms for peace. (Huh?) Jerusalem does not."
http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=174339
~~~~~~~~~~
The New York Times reported recently that Obama had suggested the US, if displeased with us, might no longer exercise its veto in the Security Council against anti-Israel resolutions.
However, a senior administration official who spoke to the pan-Arab paper Al-Sharq il-Awsat has denied this. He says the US will continue to defend Israel's right to self-defense and will continue to stand against selective criticism targeting Israel. While good to learn, this, of course, tells us nothing about a veto of a resolution for a Palestinian state.
With this I end a lengthy posting, mindful that there is a great deal more to explore, and that tomorrow is another day.
~~~~~~~~~~
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
So much is opaque these day -- with diverse news reports often contradicting each other, and a great deal that remains hidden under the surface.
PA president Abbas stated in an interview last week that there are no plans to declare Palestinian statehood unilaterally. His statement was seen as countering an interview given to Haaretz by Fayyad earlier in April in which he hinted at the possibility of a unilateral declaration.
But other reports indicate that Israel is worried that Abbas indeed might move unilaterally. A lead article on Friday in the JPost written jointly by David Horovitz, editor, and Khaled Abu Toameh declared that "concern is growing among some in the Israeli government that the PA is planning to marginalize the diplomatic process...
"There is a rising conviction among some in the Netanyahu government...that the PA is aiming to secure a new UN Security Council Resolution, updating 1967's Resolution 242, providing for the establishment of Palestine and fudging the refugee issue." This Palestinian state, some believe, would not be established to make peace with Israel, but, rather, to continue the conflict from a place of greater strength.
~~~~~~~~~~
But wait! What is clear to most top level decision-makers in our government is that Abbas is not prepared to negotiate "viable" terms for peace with Israel.
It is what makes the very notion of "peace negotiations" a joke. Thus, embracing Abbas's willingness to negotiate -- which is supposed to be a "relief" for us -- at one level constitutes a farce, no more than a game that the world is willing to go along with.
If, indeed, Abbas is planning on a unilateral declaration, he would do it in any event after these negotiations "failed," with a preface about how he tried, but how Israeli intransigence requires him to resort to other means.
I will return to this in a bit.
~~~~~~~~~~
The statement by Abbas contradicting the Fayyad position on a unilateral declaration is just one indication that tensions between Abbas -- along with his Fatah party -- and Fayyad have increased. Fayyad is the independent, the darling of the West, who holds the position he does not because of a solid political base, but because Western funds would dry up if he were not in that position.
But Fatah -- which has been glad for the funding and the favor that Fayyad has accrued in the West for the PA -- has begun to become restive about this situation: Fayyad is now seen as a threat to Fatah control of the PA. And so reports surfaced recently of a demand by the Fatah Revolutionary Council that the portfolios for interior, finance and foreign affairs, currently held by Fayyad loyalists, be turned over to Fatah members.
Additionally there is unease within Fatah because of indications that Abbas is suffering health problems; the party is demanding that Abbas appoint a deputy president to prevent a power vacuum should he be unable to carry out his duties.
According to Abu Toameh, "Many Fatah officials see Fayyad as a major threat to their faction's status, and some are convinced that he has his eyes set on the presidency.
"'Only Fatah will decide who the next president is,' a member of the Revolutionary Council said, 'We won't allow the Americans or the Europeans or the Israelis to choose our president.'"
~~~~~~~~~~
Abbas, for his part, has now secured the approval of the Arab League to begin those "proximity talks," and Mitchell will be coming to the area very soon to do the shuttling back and forth.
Perhaps I didn't lead off with this news because I am decidedly unenthusiastic about it. I see no good coming of this in any event.
In his Friday column, David Horovitz outlined the issues that were holding up these talks. There was more at stake than the hullabaloo about the Ramat Shlomo housing start, even though the impression was commonly given that this was at the heart of the matter. Reports have surfaced regarding a dispute between Israel and the PA regarding the nature of these talks -- with Israel having assumed that they would be brief and lead quickly to face-to-face talks, and the PA expecting them to continue in this mode for some months. (Undoubtedly the working assumption of the PA is that the longer the US mediates, the more they can rely on the Americans to pressure Israel.)
Additionally there was the question of core issues and whether they would be discussed in indirect talks, with Israel maintaining these difficult issues could only be dealt with face-to-face.
~~~~~~~~~~
OK, so now Abbas, having relinquished his right and responsibility as "leader" of the PA to make independent decisions regarding negotiations, has gotten the go-ahead for indirect talks from the obstructionist Arab League. (One commentator noted that it was the League that originally founded the PLO back in 1964, so that this represents a step backward.)
What are we going to see happen as talks are set to begin? Indications are that there have been concessions on the part of our government.
One Israeli official was quoted as saying, "We are willing to discuss the core issues in the framework of the proximity talks, but it has to be only a preliminary discussion of the core issues."
Oh, I see...
The "core issues" routinely alluded to are Jerusalem, refugees and borders. This official added a demilitarized state and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.
As to timing, Israel expresses hope that the movement to direct talks can take place fairly quickly, but it is being acknowledged that this process may proceed for some months.
~~~~~~~~~~
And what of the issue: the demand that we do no building in eastern Jerusalem?
Our government is still saying that we will be building. And it has been announced that the Jerusalem District Planning and Construction Committee will be convening this week to discuss a "limited number of housing starts" in eastern Jerusalem, although details on where and for whom these houses would be has not been announced.
So, perhaps it indeed is true that we have not frozen all construction for Jewish housing in eastern Jerusalem. Indeed, Horovitz, in his column, acknowledges -- as have other analysts -- that the US may have accepted the fact that this is Netanyahu's red line and persuaded the PA to enter the talks anyway. (A possibility I advanced recently.)
However, there is a great deal that is still very obscure.
A letter of some sort was sent by Obama to Abbas providing, it is said, certain assurances that made it possible for Abbas to move ahead. The US government will not discuss the contents of this letter. What the PA claims it addresses, including assurances on a construction freeze, is meaningless -- in the absence of an American statement they can say what they wish to cover themselves.
Left hanging in the air is the Abbas insistence, even now, that these talks will proceed only if there is no building in eastern Jerusalem.
Stay tuned.
~~~~~~~~~~
A few observations with regard to this "peace process" and our prime minister's role in it:
He professes pleasure in the fact that it's "moving ahead" and expresses an eagerness to be part of it, all of which is heartburn-inducing.
But what's crystal clear is that he knows that no "two state solution" is going to result, with peace breaking out. My perception is that all of this is part of his diplomatic style of playing the game, on the precipice of that slippery slope. He wants to be able to say, "See, we did our part, to the utmost, and failure to reach peaceful resolutions must be laid at the door of the PA leaders." He's watching over his shoulder -- watching Obama and the Quartet, the UN and the EU.
In particular, I would say, he wants this as a foil against possible PA plans for a unilateral announcement. He is attempting to garner sufficient US approval so that it would veto a Palestinian state in the Security Council.
In addition to this, there is the hope that, even if nothing ultimately results, the negotiations will force the PA leaders to focus their energies on this rather than the UN -- in essence taking the wind out of their sails.
I -- going way out on a limb -- cannot help but ponder what would happen if we played it the other way. If we refused to negotiate because the PA is blatantly inciteful, still supports terrorists, etc. etc. And then, if the PA unilaterally declared a state and used it as a base to attack us, we informed the world of the fact that this was illegal according to the Oslo agreement that created the PA, and then went to war and finished it clean.
This, however, will never be Netanyahu's style.
~~~~~~~~~~
Here I refer to a recent piece by Daniel Pipes. He has a peace plan, he says. "It's simple: Israel defeats its enemies.
"Victory uniquely creates circumstances conducive to peace. Wars end, the historical record confirms, when one side concedes defeat and the other wins."
It should only be!
http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/04/29/daniel-pipes-towards-an-israeli-victory.aspx
~~~~~~~~~~
I call your attention, as well, to an opinion piece by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, "Real peace cannot be imposed," which appeared in the JPost on Friday.
Is he a loose canon, as some suggest? Or, as seems to me more likely, does he speak with sanction from the prime minister?
States Lieberman, "The Great British statesman Edmund Burke once said, 'Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.' The Palestinians and Syrians are being taught by the international community that their hypocrisy and inflexibility is costing them absolutely nothing. They reject every gesture and demand ever more concessions."
After cataloguing failings of the PA that I addressed above, in terms of continued PA glorification of terrorism, he moves to a history lesson on the sacrifice of Czechoslovakia:
"ISRAEL WILL not become another Czechoslovakia and will not succumb to international pressure to compromise its vital interests."
Ariel Sharon said something similar. Let this government mean it.
http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=174339
~~~~~~~~~~
The Obama administration this past week has been courting the Jewish community with all sorts of declarations of respect for and devotion to Israel's wellbeing. There are those, of course, who see in this good things and evidence of a genuine shift in the president's approach. Our defense minister, just returning from Washington, is one of them.
But I don't trust Obama even as far as I could throw him. As far as I am concerned, he is responding disingenuously to pressure put upon him, notably by AJC's Ron Lauder and ADL's Abe Foxman. The lesson for the American Jewish community is that political pressure works on the president and should be increased.
~~~~~~~~~~
Here, at last, I provide the link to the Horovitz piece that I've referred to in the course of this posting. For he addresses this issue as well, and lays out the continuing failure of the Netanyahu and Obama administrations to see eye-to-eye on important matters regarding "peace":
"..the plain, unfortunate fact remains that not only are Israel and the Palestinians deeply and predictably at odds, so are Israel and the Obama administration.
"...The most profound difference...relates to the gauging of Abbas's peacemaking intentions.
"Although it concedes the possibility that Abbas is only entering the proximity talks in order to create a sense of momentum and then blame Israel for an inevitable breakdown, Washington believes Abbas is prepared to endorse viable terms for peace. (Huh?) Jerusalem does not."
http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=174339
~~~~~~~~~~
The New York Times reported recently that Obama had suggested the US, if displeased with us, might no longer exercise its veto in the Security Council against anti-Israel resolutions.
However, a senior administration official who spoke to the pan-Arab paper Al-Sharq il-Awsat has denied this. He says the US will continue to defend Israel's right to self-defense and will continue to stand against selective criticism targeting Israel. While good to learn, this, of course, tells us nothing about a veto of a resolution for a Palestinian state.
With this I end a lengthy posting, mindful that there is a great deal more to explore, and that tomorrow is another day.
~~~~~~~~~~
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info
On the Verge of Israel-Palestinian Authority Talks and What Comes After?
RubinReports
Barry Rubin
Gradually, the U.S. government is constructing the basis for indirect Israel-Palestinian talks which will be simultaneously meaningless and hailed--at least by the U.S. government--as a great achievement. The latest two developments are the Arab states' approval of the talks and a U.S. pledge to the Palestinian Authority (PA) that there will be no Israeli construction in the West Bank or Jerusalem outside the 1967 line.
All of these details are interesting. It is a sign of the weakness of the PA and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, that it needs the cover of Arab regimes. Incidentally, an amazing thing happened when the PA last did this a few months ago. The Syrian government opposed giving approval and the New York Times simply edited this material out of the Syrian statement it quoted. It was a graphic example of how slanted the media is today, in that case trying to show that Syria was moderate when that was most untrue. As for the construction freeze, the U.S. government neither tried nor delivered to Israel any comparable concession on the PA's part. Anti-Israel incitement on the media and elsewhere will continue as will, no doubt, the PA's official honoring of terrorists who killed Israeli civilians. This imbalance will also not be reported generally.
The Obama Administration has basically signalled to the PA that it is in the driver's seat. The more it sabotages talks, Abbas and his colleagues have been shown, the more pressure might be put on Israel. But no real pressure will be put on the PA. Thus, U.S. policy has given the PA every incentive to be intransigent.
How long will these talks go on? Israel's commitment to a freeze has a time limit until around July. The PA thus has good reason to stall so that the talks will still be going on when the deadline comes. Then the U.S. government will press Israel to renew the freeze--even though it has received nothing material in return--lest it "wreck" the talks.
What will the Obama Administration do if the talks are deemed to have "failed." Well, first and foremost, it has an incentive not to say that the talks haven't worked out since the mere holding of indirect conversations may be its sole foreign policy success. So unless there is a really obvious collapse, it presumably will go on pretending for months--and one would think through the November U.S. congressional elections--that progress is being made.
There are many rumors of some dramatic action--an imposed solution? an international conference? U.S. backing for a PA declaration of independence?--if the talks break down as the next step. Much of the analysis of this issue, especially on the right, is based on a series of false premises. Obama is seen as a semi-demonic force who can do anything he wants and will sacrifice everything in order to damage Israel. This perspective is not borne out by the administration's behavior so far.
The main goal of the Obama Administration is to look good, implying that it is succeeding in the "peace process," and to avoid trouble on the Israel-Palestinian front so it can get on with Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Iran nuclear issue. Clearly, this is the least friendly administration to Israel in history, yet it is also a government which has taken no material step to pressure or punish Israel despite a fair amount of growling.
It is also a White House aware that this is the last popular policy in its entire foreign policy repertoire. Congressional Democrats have criticized the president's strategy--albeit politely--to a considerable extent. Public opinion polls show that the American people don't like it. The White House is certainly not blind to the consequences of these problems.
If, however, the Obama Administration invests too much prestige and political capital on Israel-PA issues, it is going to be the big loser. An international summit would end in humiliating disputes, for example. The same applies to other extreme measures. The PA is simply not going to cooperate even with a pro-Palestinian White House; the Arab states are not going to give U.S. policy any real help on this or other issues.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains quite strong. He has won a strong victory in his own party for his policy and the harder-line right has remained pretty quiescent. The country does not blame Netanyahu for the problems in U.S.-Israel relations because they have been so obviously due to Obama, his behavior, and to his lack of sympathy for Israeli needs.
In addition, Israelis are quite skeptical about any likelihood for peace, progress in negotiations, and the reliability of the PA as a negotiating partner. They are also quite aware that the U.S. government has let them down so far over Iran.
And so, as in 1991-1992 and after 16 more recent years of direct talks, there will probably once again only be indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians. One can't take even this for granted until they actually happen. But one can take for granted that these negotiations and any U.S. efforts to broker instant peace will fail completely.
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). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; and The Muslim Brotherhood. To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books
Barry Rubin
Gradually, the U.S. government is constructing the basis for indirect Israel-Palestinian talks which will be simultaneously meaningless and hailed--at least by the U.S. government--as a great achievement. The latest two developments are the Arab states' approval of the talks and a U.S. pledge to the Palestinian Authority (PA) that there will be no Israeli construction in the West Bank or Jerusalem outside the 1967 line.
All of these details are interesting. It is a sign of the weakness of the PA and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, that it needs the cover of Arab regimes. Incidentally, an amazing thing happened when the PA last did this a few months ago. The Syrian government opposed giving approval and the New York Times simply edited this material out of the Syrian statement it quoted. It was a graphic example of how slanted the media is today, in that case trying to show that Syria was moderate when that was most untrue. As for the construction freeze, the U.S. government neither tried nor delivered to Israel any comparable concession on the PA's part. Anti-Israel incitement on the media and elsewhere will continue as will, no doubt, the PA's official honoring of terrorists who killed Israeli civilians. This imbalance will also not be reported generally.
The Obama Administration has basically signalled to the PA that it is in the driver's seat. The more it sabotages talks, Abbas and his colleagues have been shown, the more pressure might be put on Israel. But no real pressure will be put on the PA. Thus, U.S. policy has given the PA every incentive to be intransigent.
How long will these talks go on? Israel's commitment to a freeze has a time limit until around July. The PA thus has good reason to stall so that the talks will still be going on when the deadline comes. Then the U.S. government will press Israel to renew the freeze--even though it has received nothing material in return--lest it "wreck" the talks.
What will the Obama Administration do if the talks are deemed to have "failed." Well, first and foremost, it has an incentive not to say that the talks haven't worked out since the mere holding of indirect conversations may be its sole foreign policy success. So unless there is a really obvious collapse, it presumably will go on pretending for months--and one would think through the November U.S. congressional elections--that progress is being made.
There are many rumors of some dramatic action--an imposed solution? an international conference? U.S. backing for a PA declaration of independence?--if the talks break down as the next step. Much of the analysis of this issue, especially on the right, is based on a series of false premises. Obama is seen as a semi-demonic force who can do anything he wants and will sacrifice everything in order to damage Israel. This perspective is not borne out by the administration's behavior so far.
The main goal of the Obama Administration is to look good, implying that it is succeeding in the "peace process," and to avoid trouble on the Israel-Palestinian front so it can get on with Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Iran nuclear issue. Clearly, this is the least friendly administration to Israel in history, yet it is also a government which has taken no material step to pressure or punish Israel despite a fair amount of growling.
It is also a White House aware that this is the last popular policy in its entire foreign policy repertoire. Congressional Democrats have criticized the president's strategy--albeit politely--to a considerable extent. Public opinion polls show that the American people don't like it. The White House is certainly not blind to the consequences of these problems.
If, however, the Obama Administration invests too much prestige and political capital on Israel-PA issues, it is going to be the big loser. An international summit would end in humiliating disputes, for example. The same applies to other extreme measures. The PA is simply not going to cooperate even with a pro-Palestinian White House; the Arab states are not going to give U.S. policy any real help on this or other issues.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains quite strong. He has won a strong victory in his own party for his policy and the harder-line right has remained pretty quiescent. The country does not blame Netanyahu for the problems in U.S.-Israel relations because they have been so obviously due to Obama, his behavior, and to his lack of sympathy for Israeli needs.
In addition, Israelis are quite skeptical about any likelihood for peace, progress in negotiations, and the reliability of the PA as a negotiating partner. They are also quite aware that the U.S. government has let them down so far over Iran.
And so, as in 1991-1992 and after 16 more recent years of direct talks, there will probably once again only be indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians. One can't take even this for granted until they actually happen. But one can take for granted that these negotiations and any U.S. efforts to broker instant peace will fail completely.
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). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; and The Muslim Brotherhood. To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books
Israeli officials: Obama to call world summit if Mideast peace talks fail
Barak Ravid Haaretz Last update - 12:20 30/04/2010
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1166413.html
U.S. President Barack Obama has told several European leaders that if
Israeli-Palestinian talks remain stalemated into September or October, he
will convene an international summit on achieving Mideast peace, senior
Israeli officials told Haaretz on Thursday. The officials said the conference would be run by the Quartet of Middle East
peacemakers - the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia - in a bid to forge a united global front for creating a Palestinian state.
The summit, they said, would address such core issues as borders, security
arrangements, Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem.
Obama is determined to exert his influence to establish a Palestinian state, the officials said, and several European leaders have vowed that the EU would support any peace plan proposed by Washington. Therefore, though so-called proximity talks are set to start in the coming weeks, Obama is already readying for the possibility that the indirect Israeli-Palestinian
talks might reach a dead end.
The U.S. proposal would likely be presented by the end of this year, the
officials said.
On Saturday night, Arab League foreign ministers will convene to reiterate
their support for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to begin the
U.S.-mediated talks. The Arab bloc is expected to demand that the
negotiations show progress within four months. September and October will
thus be critical months in determining whether the talks have borne fruit.
The UN General Assembly will reconvene in late September, and that month
will also mark one year since Obama hosted a largely unproductive trilateral
summit with Abbas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In addition,
September 26 marks the end of the 10-month period Israel allocated for a
freeze on West Bank settlement construction, and Netanyahu will have to
decide whether to allow such building to be resumed.
Israeli officials said they believe Obama could postpone the international
summit, or the unveiling of his own peace plan, until after the midterm
Congressional elections in November, in which his Democratic Party is widely expected to suffer heavy losses.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu has a full diplomatic schedule next week. On Monday, he will travel to Sharm al-Sheikh for talks with Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak on restarting the peace process. Mubarak will likely ask Netanyahu
to make goodwill gestures toward the Palestinians to demonstrate the
seriousness of his intentions to advance negotiations.
U.S. special envoy George Mitchell will return to the region later in the
week to meet with Netanyahu and Abbas for discussions that may serve as the first round of proximity talks.
In advance of these talks, Interior Minister Eli Yishai instructed the
Jerusalem Planning and Building Committee to inform him of any plan to
authorize construction that the U.S. administration might deem
diplomatically sensitive.
Abbas, for his part, will visit China on Friday, and in advance of this
visit, he told the state-run news agency Xinhua that the Obama
administration had promised him it would work to prevent any provocative
Israeli moves during the negotiations.
"We want our state to be declared under an international agreement," Abbas
told the agency while visiting the Jordanian capital of Amman Thursday. "If
this could not happen, the Arabs will go to the UN Security Council to get recognition of Palestinian statehood."
--------------------------------------------
IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
Website: www.imra.org.il
Comment: there is no possibility these talks will succeed. Abbas et al have said so and why should they do anything other than complain? Obama and his group are in their corner, note the threat of a world conference if the talks do not work-who do you think benefits most for failure? Still do not know?
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1166413.html
U.S. President Barack Obama has told several European leaders that if
Israeli-Palestinian talks remain stalemated into September or October, he
will convene an international summit on achieving Mideast peace, senior
Israeli officials told Haaretz on Thursday. The officials said the conference would be run by the Quartet of Middle East
peacemakers - the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia - in a bid to forge a united global front for creating a Palestinian state.
The summit, they said, would address such core issues as borders, security
arrangements, Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem.
Obama is determined to exert his influence to establish a Palestinian state, the officials said, and several European leaders have vowed that the EU would support any peace plan proposed by Washington. Therefore, though so-called proximity talks are set to start in the coming weeks, Obama is already readying for the possibility that the indirect Israeli-Palestinian
talks might reach a dead end.
The U.S. proposal would likely be presented by the end of this year, the
officials said.
On Saturday night, Arab League foreign ministers will convene to reiterate
their support for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to begin the
U.S.-mediated talks. The Arab bloc is expected to demand that the
negotiations show progress within four months. September and October will
thus be critical months in determining whether the talks have borne fruit.
The UN General Assembly will reconvene in late September, and that month
will also mark one year since Obama hosted a largely unproductive trilateral
summit with Abbas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In addition,
September 26 marks the end of the 10-month period Israel allocated for a
freeze on West Bank settlement construction, and Netanyahu will have to
decide whether to allow such building to be resumed.
Israeli officials said they believe Obama could postpone the international
summit, or the unveiling of his own peace plan, until after the midterm
Congressional elections in November, in which his Democratic Party is widely expected to suffer heavy losses.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu has a full diplomatic schedule next week. On Monday, he will travel to Sharm al-Sheikh for talks with Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak on restarting the peace process. Mubarak will likely ask Netanyahu
to make goodwill gestures toward the Palestinians to demonstrate the
seriousness of his intentions to advance negotiations.
U.S. special envoy George Mitchell will return to the region later in the
week to meet with Netanyahu and Abbas for discussions that may serve as the first round of proximity talks.
In advance of these talks, Interior Minister Eli Yishai instructed the
Jerusalem Planning and Building Committee to inform him of any plan to
authorize construction that the U.S. administration might deem
diplomatically sensitive.
Abbas, for his part, will visit China on Friday, and in advance of this
visit, he told the state-run news agency Xinhua that the Obama
administration had promised him it would work to prevent any provocative
Israeli moves during the negotiations.
"We want our state to be declared under an international agreement," Abbas
told the agency while visiting the Jordanian capital of Amman Thursday. "If
this could not happen, the Arabs will go to the UN Security Council to get recognition of Palestinian statehood."
--------------------------------------------
IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
Website: www.imra.org.il
Comment: there is no possibility these talks will succeed. Abbas et al have said so and why should they do anything other than complain? Obama and his group are in their corner, note the threat of a world conference if the talks do not work-who do you think benefits most for failure? Still do not know?
Day of Jerusalem
Daniel Greenfield
On May 12th of this calendar year, Jews will celebrate Yom Yerushalayim, the day of the liberation of all of Jerusalem from Arab Muslim rule. Yet today on May 2nd of this calendar year, millions of Jews also, many unaware, will celebrate a far older Yom Yerushalayim that took place when the Jewish revolt against Roman rule retook Jerusalem. It is a day little remembered today for its actual origins, its celebration in Roman times cloaked in coded language about a plague that struck the students of Rabbi Akiva for their inability to get along (a reference to the civil strife that enabled Roman dominion over Israel) that ended only when Jerusalem fell and a seemingly new era in Jewish history had begun. The bonfires that had once been lit to celebrate the liberation of the city and the bows and arrows that had been fired into the air in celebration remain parts of the commemoration of Lag BaOmer.
But what Lag BaOmer really is, is a warning to us about the fragility of history, about how easily celebration can turn to mourning and national aspirations to ashes. The revolt against Roman rule was spectacular for what it achieved, the decimation of entire Roman legions and the temporary rebirth of Israel, as for what came after it, the destruction of Israel and its transformation into a larger region named Palestine.
10 days after it, we will celebrate the modern day Yom Yerushalayim, the climax to the victories of the Six Day War, which were even more incredible and miraculous than those of the Roman era. But today the fruits of those victories have been mostly abandoned, with Jerusalem itself now on the line. We do not know exactly where the failure in the Roman revolt lay, but now where it lies today. What Israel won on the battlefield, it lost at the bargaining table.
There is unfortunately a good deal of precedent for this even as far back as Roman times. The Macabees, that handful of brave brothers and those who joined them, drove out a Syrian-Greek tyrant and his armies, but though they won impossible battles, they allowed themselves to be manipulated and betrayed into signing phony alliances, into making diplomatic gestures that ultimately cost them their lives. Because for all that their bravery won for us on the field of battle, they allowed themselves to be betrayed and undone by trying to play fair with enemies who had no intention of playing fair with them.
One by one the brothers fell. And Rome completed what the Syrian-Greeks had begun. An Idumean (Edomite) agent of Rome undermined and assassinated what remained of the Maccabean dynasty. Exploiting domestic religious and political tensions, he touched off a civil war that allowed a Roman intervention to take hold. And in the place of the Maccabean kings, he elevated his own son. Herod. And thus an independent Israel fell once again.
The Macabees had not lacked for military virtues. But their ability to see treachery from without and within was tragically lacking. Their state was replaced by Rome's Herodian proxies at the point of the spears and swords of Roman legions and Arab mercenaries. And by the time Bar Kochba and his men tried to rise and undo this tragic state of affairs, Roman power over the region was too fixed to break even after devastating losses. Had the Romans done what the British did after the battles of Saratoga and Yorktown and decided to cut their losses, fighting over what in the broader was an insignificant piece of land, history might have turned out quite differently. But they did not. And it would be centuries before another Jewish revolt would try and fail again.
But this is not simply history. The modern day State of Israel too has not lacked the military virtues. What it lacks is the ability to stand its ground diplomatically and counter the nest of serpents that instigate and execute their treacherous schemes against it, from without and within. Israel's diplomatic failures are legion. So many that they are not even worth counting. In truth its only success came briefly at the UN in the 1940's. Since then there have been numberless diplomatic defeats that most Israelis have ignored because they knew that while much of the world was against them, their lives depended on being able to fight, not on being able to sit around a conference table.
But once Israel's enemies realized that no amount of Soviet arms in the hands of Arab armies would break the tiny state. After the USSR itself contemplated and rejected an invasion by its own forces, a plan that actually came close to fruition with ships already on the way and orders being issued-- history repeated itself as diplomatic warfare replaced military force. Instead Moscow rebranded Arab Muslim terrorists as Palestinian freedom fighters, created an entire fictional Palestinian nationality and used its network of left wing groups to isolate and terrorize Israel. And even after the USSR fell, liberals in the US and EU picked up where the KGB had left off. Meanwhile the Saudis money had made its own deep inroads leading to the paleoconservative adoption of the KGB's own manufactured propaganda.
And so history repeats itself. Israel has given up several times its own total land area to maintain the existing cold peace with Egypt and Jordan. It has allowed Islamic terrorists to create two mini-states on its own soil. Within its borders, Islamic preachers and terrorist leaders scream for its annihilation, take hostages and call on the sympathy of the world for their plight. Their plight, not Israel's plight.
The international left wing network of groups funds seditious organizations inside of Israel, which work to undermine and betray Israel's defenses. To expose and distribute classified information in their newspapers. To encourage, train and pay left wing activists and reporters inside Israel to pursue their agenda. That is to say nothing of the boycotts. The diplomatic corps which openly works for Israel's downfall. The British and American consulates in Jerusalem that act as if they are the representatives of Rome, not of fellow free and allied nations. Millions of dollars flows to "peace organizations" within Israel through grants and fellowships. Movies are funded that portray Israel in the worst light and accuse its soldiers of war crimes. And all of it exits for one purpose alone. To aid the Islamic terrorists overrunning Israel.
Now Israel is being told to give up Jerusalem itself by a man steeped from his early days in the hatred of Jews. Whose Church was a redressed Black Muslim temple preaching rabid hate for Israel. A man who has assumed the mantle of world power and is determined to dictate to Israel's Jews where they may live and what they must give up, so that his Muslims friends in Ramallah may stop bombing their schools and homes for a day or two. If even that long.
And so we come back to it all again. The sieges and the armies. The forked tongues and the knife in the back. As we celebrate the lost Yom Yerushalayim, the remembrance of the day when Jerusalem was won and lost some 1800 years ago, let us remember how precarious history can really be. And how easily the Yom Yerushalayim that we will celebrate 10 days from now can be reduced to no more than another obscure footnote in our history. Another in a series of failed quests to rebuild and maintain the State of Israel.
It has never been the battlefield that we should fear, for history has shown that we do not lack the courage to stand and fight. It is the knife in the back. The treacherous word. The enemy masquerading as a friend. Those are the real threats binding the arms of its soldiers, subverting its politicians and cultivating traitors from within to agitate for its destruction. History has a way of repeating itself. Awareness can help break the cycle. And change history. Before it is once again too late.
Indirect talks will cover core issues
TOVAH LAZAROFF, HILARY LEILA KRIEGER AND KHALED
02/05/2010 02:49
Arab League endorses process; Mitchell returns early this week.
Israel has agreed to discuss all core issues, including Jerusalem and refugees, when the proximity talks begin this week, a government official told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday night.
As he spoke, the Arab League met in Cairo and endorsed the talks.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu welcomed the Arab League’s support.
Already on Friday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the launch of the indirect talks. She expressed the hope that this would soon lead to direct negotiations, where the final-status issues dividing the two sides would be worked out.
US special envoy George Mitchell is expected to return to Israel early this week, possibly on Monday, so that he can mediate the indirect talks.
An Israeli official said, “We are willing to discuss the core issues in the framework of the proximity talks, but it has to be only a preliminary discussion of the core issues.”
These issues, which also include borders, a demilitarized Palestinian state and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, can only be resolved through direct talks, the official added.
The Palestinian Authority on Saturday briefed Arab League foreign ministers on the outcome of US efforts to relaunch peace talks with Israel.
PA President Mahmoud Abbas said last week he wanted to engage in indirect talks but needed the Arab League to support the process.
The meeting was chaired by Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jasem al-Thani and Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa.
It was attended by representatives of Jordan, Bahrain, Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Sudan, in addition to the PA and Qatar.
A PA official in Ramallah said that PA negotiator Saeb Erekat presented the Arab representatives with a detailed report on the results of Mitchell’s trip to the region last weekend.
The official told the Post that the PA was satisfied with “assurances” it received from the US administration regarding construction of new homes in Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem.
“I think we should give the US another chance to resume the peace process,” the official said, adding that Washington has adopted a “positive” approach toward Palestinian demands. He said that there was no reason now why the Arab League should not back the PA’s decision to resume the peace talks with Israel.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told reporters Saturday in Shanghai, China, that the Palestinians' executive committee will meet soon to make a final decision on resuming talks.
He also confirmed reports that he will visit Washington later this month for talks with U.S. officials "to push the peace process forward."
The PA halted direct talks with Israel in December 2008, to protest the IDF’s Operation Cast Lead offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
After Netanyahu took office in March 2009, the PA said it wouldn’t resume the negotiations until Israel halted all Jewish construction in West Bank settlements and east Jerusalem.
Israel has said it plans to continue building in east Jerusalem. It did, however, declare a 10-month moratorium in late November on new housing starts in the West Bank settlements.
To break the impasse, the PA in March agreed to indirect talks, but called them off almost immediately when – during a visit by US Vice President Joe Biden – the Interior Ministry advanced a plan to build 1,600 homes in the east Jerusalem Jewish neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo.
The PA has since insisted that Israel must halt construction in east Jerusalem as a precondition for such talks and the West Bank.
On Saturday night Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters that Israel must halt settlement activity if it wants the talks to proceed.
“If Israel builds one house in the West Bank, Palestinians will immediately stop the negotiations,” he said.
Netanyahu’s spokesman Nir Hefetz said that the prime minister has said many times that he wants to renew peaces talks with the Palestinians “any time, any place.”
He added, “that this must be done without any pre-conditions as it has for the last 16 years.”
The prime minister’s position has not changed in this regard, said Hefetz.
The start of proximity talks this week would mark the first time, since late 2008 that any movement has been made in the peace process.
An Israeli government official told the Post that the US was committed to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through negotiations between the parties, and not through an international summit or by asking the UN Security Council to set the borders of a Palestinian state.
“The only way to achieve peace is through direct negotiations between the two parties, everything else is an illusion,” the official said. “The goal is preliminary talks that will lead to direct talks.”
It is hoped that once the proximity talks are underway, the Palestinians will focus their energies on a negotiated solution.
“We have seen in the last few months a Palestinian strategy to avoid negotiations and to to go places like the UN where they have an automatic majority and can force concession from Israel without having to make any of their own, the official said.
“Now that the diplomatic process is starting, we hope we will see an end to that,” the official continued.
In Washington on Friday, Clinton declined to comment on reports that US President Barack Obama had sent Abbas a letter extending guarantees on American positions or on assistance in achieving a Palestinian state within two years.
In advance of the proximity talks, Netanyahu plans to head to Sharm e-Sheikh on Monday to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
It is Netanyahu’s fourth visit to Egypt since taking office.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu has great respect for President Mubarak and his political experience. Now that we are restarting the [peace] process, he wanted to consult with the Egyptian leader as to how we can move this process forward in a successful way,” an Israeli government official said.
On Thursday, in an appearance before the American Jewish Committee in Washington, Clinton urged Arab states to do more to help the parties move toward negotiations and peace.
“We will continue to emphasize the responsibilities of Israelis and Palestinians, who must ultimately themselves negotiate a two-state solution. But there are also clear expectations of the Arab states,” she said on Thursday night.
She called on the Arab countries to support Abbas in negotiating with Israel, in providing assistance with the two-year development plans the PA is pursuing, and to make gestures of normalization toward Israel. The latter demand was emphasized last year but in recent months dropped out of focus until Clinton’s speech last week.
She also stressed the importance of Arab states stopping weapons from getting into the hands of terrorist groups such as Hizbullah and Hamas.
“Every rocket smuggled into southern Lebanon or Gaza sets back the cause of peace,” she declared.
Clinton noted that the terrorist organizations are growing in capability, saying, “They have stockpiled tens of thousands of increasingly sophisticated rockets in Gaza and southern Lebanon – rockets they aim at Israeli homes and civilians.”
And she noted Syria’s role in supplying these arms, something she strenuously condemned.
“[Syrian] President [Bashar] Assad is making decisions that could mean war or peace for the region,” she warned, before arguing that the dangers in the region added to the need for a US ambassador in Damascus.
Many critics argue that sending an ambassador would reward Syria and are calling for the Senate to hold up the confirmation of the administration’s nominee.
But Clinton countered, “We know he’s [Assad’s] hearing from Iran, Hizbullah and Hamas. It is crucial that he also hear directly from us, so that the potential consequences of his actions are clear. That’s why we are sending an ambassador back to Syria.”
AP contributed to this report.
Muhammed's Treaty of Hudaibia
http://www.ismaili.net/histoire/history03/history325.html
Muhammed's Treaty of Hudaibia
In 6/628, Muhammad marched from Medina with 1400 Muslims for the purpose of performing pilgrimage in Mecca. They went unarmed, clad in the ritual dresses. When this peaceful caravan approached its destination, tidings came that the Meccans were bent on mischief, and might stop their entry into the town by force. So, Muhammad halted his followers at a place, called Hudaibia, and his men encamped round a well. From here he sent a message to the Qoraish of Mecca, saying that, "We have come on a peaceful and religious mission. We have come only to perform the sacred pilgrimage. We desire neither bloodshed nor war, and we shall be glad if the Meccans agree to a truce for a limited period." When the Muslim messenger was sent to Qoraish, he failed to return, so another was dispatched. The enemies killed his mount and he did not return either. Finally, Muhammad sent one of his companions, Uthman to negotiate with the Qoraish. He too was detained and to provoke the Muslims, the Qoraish engineered a rumour that he had been slain.
So Muhammad collected all his followers and asked them to swear that if God demanded of them the supreme sacrifice they would lay down their lives without demur. One by one they came and touched his hand and swore, to die willingly, if such was the will of God. This oath or pledge became famous in the annals of Islam as the Bai'at-ur- Ridwan (the pledge of God's pleasure). The Meccans heard of this and were afraid . Instead of directly attacking the pilgrim party as they originally intended, they now sent a messenger, a man named Suhail, to negotiate with Muhammad. He presented him with four demands on behalf of the Qoraish, as follows:- (a) The Muslims should return to Medina without performing pilgrimage. (b) They would be permitted to perform pilgrimage in the following year, but would not be allowed to stay in Mecca beyond three days with their traveler-arms, namely, their swords in sheathes. (c) They would not take any Muslim resident of Mecca with them to Medina nor forbid any Muslim from taking up his residence in Mecca, if he so desired. (d) If any Meccan went to Medina, then Muslims would return him to Mecca, but if any Muslim went to Mecca, he would not be returned to Medina.
The Meccans deliberately made their terms as rigorous and provocative as they could, but Muhammad refused to be provoked. As always he wanted peace not bloodshed, therefore he accepted all the terms with all the hardships and all the humiliation they implied. This treaty is known as the Treaty of Hudaibia. It was one of the most outstanding events in the life of Muhammad. According to R.V.C. Bodley in "The Messenger" (London, 1946, p. 257), "In point of fact, that the treaty was Mohammad's masterpiece of diplomacy. It was a triumph." Tor Andrae writes in "Mohammed the Man and his Faith" (London, 1936, p. 229) that, "The self-control which Mohammed revealed at Hodaibiya, his ability to bear occasional humiliation in unimportant issues, in order to achieve an exalted goal, shows that he was a person of unique ability."
This pact was the product of profound political wisdom and farsightedness. It was the first time after several wars that the Meccans acknowledged that Muhammad was an equal rather than a mere rebel or a runaway tribsman. It was the first time that Mecca recognised the Islamic state that was rising in Arabia. With it was terminated the struggle between the Muslims of Medina and the Qoraish of Mecca, which had extended over nineteen years, and had, after the migration, assumed the character of an armed conflict. By virtue of the truce, peace had at last been established, and the major difficulty in the way of peaceful propagation of Islam had been removed. Henceforward, Islam began to spread rapidly in the greater part of Arabia. Some estimate of the rate of this progress might be made on the basis of the number of Muslims who were present with Muhammad at Hudaibia, which was just short of 1400, and the number that accompanied him two years later during the conquest of Mecca, which was 10,000. This is eloquent testimony that the attraction of Islam lie in its spiritual power and not in armed conflict.
As soon as this pact was solemnly concluded by the two parties, the tribe of Khazao entered an alliance with Medina and that of Banu Bakr with the Meccans.
Muhammed's Treaty of Hudaibia
In 6/628, Muhammad marched from Medina with 1400 Muslims for the purpose of performing pilgrimage in Mecca. They went unarmed, clad in the ritual dresses. When this peaceful caravan approached its destination, tidings came that the Meccans were bent on mischief, and might stop their entry into the town by force. So, Muhammad halted his followers at a place, called Hudaibia, and his men encamped round a well. From here he sent a message to the Qoraish of Mecca, saying that, "We have come on a peaceful and religious mission. We have come only to perform the sacred pilgrimage. We desire neither bloodshed nor war, and we shall be glad if the Meccans agree to a truce for a limited period." When the Muslim messenger was sent to Qoraish, he failed to return, so another was dispatched. The enemies killed his mount and he did not return either. Finally, Muhammad sent one of his companions, Uthman to negotiate with the Qoraish. He too was detained and to provoke the Muslims, the Qoraish engineered a rumour that he had been slain.
So Muhammad collected all his followers and asked them to swear that if God demanded of them the supreme sacrifice they would lay down their lives without demur. One by one they came and touched his hand and swore, to die willingly, if such was the will of God. This oath or pledge became famous in the annals of Islam as the Bai'at-ur- Ridwan (the pledge of God's pleasure). The Meccans heard of this and were afraid . Instead of directly attacking the pilgrim party as they originally intended, they now sent a messenger, a man named Suhail, to negotiate with Muhammad. He presented him with four demands on behalf of the Qoraish, as follows:- (a) The Muslims should return to Medina without performing pilgrimage. (b) They would be permitted to perform pilgrimage in the following year, but would not be allowed to stay in Mecca beyond three days with their traveler-arms, namely, their swords in sheathes. (c) They would not take any Muslim resident of Mecca with them to Medina nor forbid any Muslim from taking up his residence in Mecca, if he so desired. (d) If any Meccan went to Medina, then Muslims would return him to Mecca, but if any Muslim went to Mecca, he would not be returned to Medina.
The Meccans deliberately made their terms as rigorous and provocative as they could, but Muhammad refused to be provoked. As always he wanted peace not bloodshed, therefore he accepted all the terms with all the hardships and all the humiliation they implied. This treaty is known as the Treaty of Hudaibia. It was one of the most outstanding events in the life of Muhammad. According to R.V.C. Bodley in "The Messenger" (London, 1946, p. 257), "In point of fact, that the treaty was Mohammad's masterpiece of diplomacy. It was a triumph." Tor Andrae writes in "Mohammed the Man and his Faith" (London, 1936, p. 229) that, "The self-control which Mohammed revealed at Hodaibiya, his ability to bear occasional humiliation in unimportant issues, in order to achieve an exalted goal, shows that he was a person of unique ability."
This pact was the product of profound political wisdom and farsightedness. It was the first time after several wars that the Meccans acknowledged that Muhammad was an equal rather than a mere rebel or a runaway tribsman. It was the first time that Mecca recognised the Islamic state that was rising in Arabia. With it was terminated the struggle between the Muslims of Medina and the Qoraish of Mecca, which had extended over nineteen years, and had, after the migration, assumed the character of an armed conflict. By virtue of the truce, peace had at last been established, and the major difficulty in the way of peaceful propagation of Islam had been removed. Henceforward, Islam began to spread rapidly in the greater part of Arabia. Some estimate of the rate of this progress might be made on the basis of the number of Muslims who were present with Muhammad at Hudaibia, which was just short of 1400, and the number that accompanied him two years later during the conquest of Mecca, which was 10,000. This is eloquent testimony that the attraction of Islam lie in its spiritual power and not in armed conflict.
As soon as this pact was solemnly concluded by the two parties, the tribe of Khazao entered an alliance with Medina and that of Banu Bakr with the Meccans.
New York City Police Close Times Square Over Car Bomb
Associated Press
Bomb investigators found propane tanks, powder and an apparent timing device inside.
NEW YORK -- New York mayor Michael Bloomberg says a suspicious vehicle in Times Square "did indeed contain an explosive device." Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly says the car contained three propane tanks, consumer-grade fireworks, two filled 5-gallon gasoline containers, and two clocks with batteries, electrical wire and other components. He says a black metal box resembling a gun locker was also recovered.
Police found the device in the smoking sport utility vehicle Saturday evening. They then cleared the streets of thousands of tourists milling through the landmark district so they could dismantle the device.
A white robotic police arm broke windows of the black Nissan Pathfinder to remove any explosive materials while heavily armed police and emergency vehicles shut down the city's busiest streets, teeming with taxis and theatergoers on one of the first summer-like days of the year.
Investigators removed bomb-making materials, including propane tanks, explosive powders and a crude timing device, top police spokesman Paul Browne said.
New York City police close down parts of Times Square after a 'failed incendiary device' was found in car.
"There were explosive elements, including powder, gasoline, propane and some kind of electrical wires attached to a clock," Browne said early Sunday. "No motive has been identified."
An officer noticed smoke coming from the sport utility vehicle around 6:30 p.m. and cleared the streets. The area remained closed more than seven hours later.
Police are investigating a report that someone was seen running from the vehicle at some point and are reviewing security videotapes, Browne said. The Nissan Pathfinder's license plates do not match the car's registration, he said.
Police evacuated several residential and commercial buildings and cleared the streets of people. Police were deployed around the area with heavy weapons on empty streets in the heart of busy midtown Manhattan.
Some tourists reported hearing a small explosion hours after the car was first located.
Shelly Carlisle, of Portland, Oregon, said police crowded into her Broadway theater after the curtain closed on "Next to Normal," a show on the same block where the sport utility vehicle was found.
"At the end of the show, the police came in. We were told we had to leave," Carlisle said. "They said there was a bomb scare."
The car was parked on 45th Street, and the block was closed between Seventh and Eighth avenues as a precaution, police said. Times Square lies about four traffic-choked miles north of where terrorists bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, then laid waste to it on Sept. 11, 2001.
FBI agents are on the scene with the New York Police Department, and the matter is being taken seriously, said Paul Bresson, head of the FBI's public affairs office at bureau headquarters in Washington.
The Homeland Security Department is aware of the situation, but the NYPD has it under control and is investigating, said a Homeland Security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is in progress.
The block that was closed is one of the prime blocks for Broadway shows, with seven theaters housing such big shows as "Billy Elliot" and "Lend Me a Tenor."
The curtain at "God of Carnage" and "Red" opened a half-hour later than usual, but the shows were not canceled, said spokesman Adrian Bryan-Brown.
Katy Neubauer, 46, and Becca Saunders, 39, of Milwaukee, were shopping for souvenirs two blocks south of the SUV when they saw panicked crowds.
"It was a mass of people running away from the scene," Neubauer said.
Said Saunders: "There were too many people, too many police officers. I've never seen anything like it."
Mayor Michael Bloomberg left early from the White House correspondent's dinner Saturday night. A news conference was planned in New York for early Sunday.
President Barack Obama, who attended the annual gala, praised the quick response by the New York Police Department, White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said. He has also directed his homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, to advise New York officials that the federal government is prepared to provide support.
Brennan and others will keep Obama up to date on the investigation, Shapiro said.
In December, a van without license plates parked in Times Square led police to block off part of the area for about two hours. A police robot examined the vehicle, and clothes, racks and scarves were found inside.
In March 2008, a hooded bicyclist hurled an explosive device at a military recruiting center in the heart of Times Square, producing a flash, smoke and full-scale emergency response. No suspect was ever identified.
In December, police evacuated thousands of holiday tourists from Times Square after finding a white van that had been parked there for days without license plates and blacked-out windows. No bombs were found, and police later said they overlooked the van because it contained a parking placard for a nonprofit police group.
Police have spent years trying to crack down on street hustlers and peddlers preying on tourists. But there have been two major instances of gunfire in recent months. A street hustler armed with a machine pistol exchanged shots in December, shattering a Broadway theater ticket window, before police fatally shot the man.
Four separate shooting incidents and more than 50 arrests on a mile-long stretch of Manhattan last month around Times Square prompted the mayor to call the mayhem "wilding."
Bomb investigators found propane tanks, powder and an apparent timing device inside.
NEW YORK -- New York mayor Michael Bloomberg says a suspicious vehicle in Times Square "did indeed contain an explosive device." Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly says the car contained three propane tanks, consumer-grade fireworks, two filled 5-gallon gasoline containers, and two clocks with batteries, electrical wire and other components. He says a black metal box resembling a gun locker was also recovered.
Police found the device in the smoking sport utility vehicle Saturday evening. They then cleared the streets of thousands of tourists milling through the landmark district so they could dismantle the device.
A white robotic police arm broke windows of the black Nissan Pathfinder to remove any explosive materials while heavily armed police and emergency vehicles shut down the city's busiest streets, teeming with taxis and theatergoers on one of the first summer-like days of the year.
Investigators removed bomb-making materials, including propane tanks, explosive powders and a crude timing device, top police spokesman Paul Browne said.
New York City police close down parts of Times Square after a 'failed incendiary device' was found in car.
"There were explosive elements, including powder, gasoline, propane and some kind of electrical wires attached to a clock," Browne said early Sunday. "No motive has been identified."
An officer noticed smoke coming from the sport utility vehicle around 6:30 p.m. and cleared the streets. The area remained closed more than seven hours later.
Police are investigating a report that someone was seen running from the vehicle at some point and are reviewing security videotapes, Browne said. The Nissan Pathfinder's license plates do not match the car's registration, he said.
Police evacuated several residential and commercial buildings and cleared the streets of people. Police were deployed around the area with heavy weapons on empty streets in the heart of busy midtown Manhattan.
Some tourists reported hearing a small explosion hours after the car was first located.
Shelly Carlisle, of Portland, Oregon, said police crowded into her Broadway theater after the curtain closed on "Next to Normal," a show on the same block where the sport utility vehicle was found.
"At the end of the show, the police came in. We were told we had to leave," Carlisle said. "They said there was a bomb scare."
The car was parked on 45th Street, and the block was closed between Seventh and Eighth avenues as a precaution, police said. Times Square lies about four traffic-choked miles north of where terrorists bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, then laid waste to it on Sept. 11, 2001.
FBI agents are on the scene with the New York Police Department, and the matter is being taken seriously, said Paul Bresson, head of the FBI's public affairs office at bureau headquarters in Washington.
The Homeland Security Department is aware of the situation, but the NYPD has it under control and is investigating, said a Homeland Security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is in progress.
The block that was closed is one of the prime blocks for Broadway shows, with seven theaters housing such big shows as "Billy Elliot" and "Lend Me a Tenor."
The curtain at "God of Carnage" and "Red" opened a half-hour later than usual, but the shows were not canceled, said spokesman Adrian Bryan-Brown.
Katy Neubauer, 46, and Becca Saunders, 39, of Milwaukee, were shopping for souvenirs two blocks south of the SUV when they saw panicked crowds.
"It was a mass of people running away from the scene," Neubauer said.
Said Saunders: "There were too many people, too many police officers. I've never seen anything like it."
Mayor Michael Bloomberg left early from the White House correspondent's dinner Saturday night. A news conference was planned in New York for early Sunday.
President Barack Obama, who attended the annual gala, praised the quick response by the New York Police Department, White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said. He has also directed his homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, to advise New York officials that the federal government is prepared to provide support.
Brennan and others will keep Obama up to date on the investigation, Shapiro said.
In December, a van without license plates parked in Times Square led police to block off part of the area for about two hours. A police robot examined the vehicle, and clothes, racks and scarves were found inside.
In March 2008, a hooded bicyclist hurled an explosive device at a military recruiting center in the heart of Times Square, producing a flash, smoke and full-scale emergency response. No suspect was ever identified.
In December, police evacuated thousands of holiday tourists from Times Square after finding a white van that had been parked there for days without license plates and blacked-out windows. No bombs were found, and police later said they overlooked the van because it contained a parking placard for a nonprofit police group.
Police have spent years trying to crack down on street hustlers and peddlers preying on tourists. But there have been two major instances of gunfire in recent months. A street hustler armed with a machine pistol exchanged shots in December, shattering a Broadway theater ticket window, before police fatally shot the man.
Four separate shooting incidents and more than 50 arrests on a mile-long stretch of Manhattan last month around Times Square prompted the mayor to call the mayhem "wilding."
Killing The Magic Kingdom
Nurit Greenger
Imagine that the United States is one large Disney Land Park.
When you want to enter any Disney Land Park, you purchase a ticket or a pass; you walk to the entrance gate and you hand out your ticket to the personnel at the gate. The person then checks your ticket and with a smile from ear to ear tells you: 'have a wonderful day in our magic park.' Now you entered the magic kingdom where you are free to roam as you wish; take any ride you chooses, eat whatever your stomach desires, rest when you want, shop to your content or see any show that appeals to you. No one will bother you during your stay at the park. The United States is just the same only it is a large park where one also lives. To enter the country all you need is the ticket which is a visa, or permit that will allow you to remain in the country legally. Having an entry visa will allow you to roam around the country and take advantage of every opportunity offered to make a great life, a magical life. However, without paying the entry fee, without entering into this country legally, you simply broke the law; you illegally snuck into Disney Land Park.
To enter the USA is just like entering Disney Land; to enter either you need to have an entry ticket or an entry visa. As a rule, you should not be able to illegally step foot inside the magic land, either Disney or the USA; you cannot find ways to sneak in illegally and then expect to stay indefinitely and receive all the rights, benefit and services an American citizen receives. It is not fair and it is not legal.
The United States federal government's job is to protect the country's borders. Among many other failures, it also failed miserably in protecting the nation's border.
Arizona had no option but to take the law into its own hand. It had to take legal measures against the overwhelming g numbers of illegal immigration roaming around the state causing havoc.
I hope other states follow in Arizona's footstep and begin curtailing the illegal immigration problem...state by state the law will be finally enforced.
No nation in the world should live with porous border, immigrations laws that are not applied or ignored and share its land with people who are not citizens and do not belong. This is a recipe for a disaster soon to come.
Nowadays too many elements want to harm America. Islamic terrorists whose goal, they declare openly, is the harm the US know all well the weakness of our country and will take full advantage of the country's unprotected borders to bring with them terror that will kill many Americans.
A nation cannot live on moral relativism. It must abide by its law and order and this is what the protestors object to; they object to law and order and support anarchy.
People protesting against the Arizona's Immigration Bill are telling the public that crime in the United States is allowed. Law and order has no meaning and must not be applied.
The issue is not about race, it is about law and order; it is about having the magical life with all the opportunities every United States citizen deserves.
To solve the problem the Federal Government must do one thing, and one thing only, which is to secure the borders.
The United States Federal Government is destroying the magic kingdom!
Imagine that the United States is one large Disney Land Park.
When you want to enter any Disney Land Park, you purchase a ticket or a pass; you walk to the entrance gate and you hand out your ticket to the personnel at the gate. The person then checks your ticket and with a smile from ear to ear tells you: 'have a wonderful day in our magic park.' Now you entered the magic kingdom where you are free to roam as you wish; take any ride you chooses, eat whatever your stomach desires, rest when you want, shop to your content or see any show that appeals to you. No one will bother you during your stay at the park. The United States is just the same only it is a large park where one also lives. To enter the country all you need is the ticket which is a visa, or permit that will allow you to remain in the country legally. Having an entry visa will allow you to roam around the country and take advantage of every opportunity offered to make a great life, a magical life. However, without paying the entry fee, without entering into this country legally, you simply broke the law; you illegally snuck into Disney Land Park.
To enter the USA is just like entering Disney Land; to enter either you need to have an entry ticket or an entry visa. As a rule, you should not be able to illegally step foot inside the magic land, either Disney or the USA; you cannot find ways to sneak in illegally and then expect to stay indefinitely and receive all the rights, benefit and services an American citizen receives. It is not fair and it is not legal.
The United States federal government's job is to protect the country's borders. Among many other failures, it also failed miserably in protecting the nation's border.
Arizona had no option but to take the law into its own hand. It had to take legal measures against the overwhelming g numbers of illegal immigration roaming around the state causing havoc.
I hope other states follow in Arizona's footstep and begin curtailing the illegal immigration problem...state by state the law will be finally enforced.
No nation in the world should live with porous border, immigrations laws that are not applied or ignored and share its land with people who are not citizens and do not belong. This is a recipe for a disaster soon to come.
Nowadays too many elements want to harm America. Islamic terrorists whose goal, they declare openly, is the harm the US know all well the weakness of our country and will take full advantage of the country's unprotected borders to bring with them terror that will kill many Americans.
A nation cannot live on moral relativism. It must abide by its law and order and this is what the protestors object to; they object to law and order and support anarchy.
People protesting against the Arizona's Immigration Bill are telling the public that crime in the United States is allowed. Law and order has no meaning and must not be applied.
The issue is not about race, it is about law and order; it is about having the magical life with all the opportunities every United States citizen deserves.
To solve the problem the Federal Government must do one thing, and one thing only, which is to secure the borders.
The United States Federal Government is destroying the magic kingdom!
Saturday, May 01, 2010
PA Prime Minister Sets Forward Palestinian Strategy: Independence, Not Peace
RubinReports
Barry Rubin
A new interview with Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is especially significant because at this precise moment the key question is: Will the PA renew negotiations with Israel either directly or indirectly? Israel has already agreed to talk and made two major concessions at the request of the United States: suspending construction in Jerusalem outside the 1967 borders and agreeing to discuss all issues. So it is nominally up to Fayyad whether things will move forward or not. President Barack Obama just said that he will come down hard on Israel or the PA if they sabotage talks. Obviously, it is only the PA that is now doing so. Equally obviously, Obama isn't going to criticize or press the PA too hard. So what's going to happen next?
There should be a clear understanding that Fayyad—who was recently named as one of Time Magazine’s most powerful leaders in the world—has no real power. He has no political base, is not a member of the dominant Fatah organization, and has no personal loyalty from the security services.
He’s only in office for one reason: the Western financial donors demand it and the money on which the PA depends wouldn’t come in otherwise. That’s why the Fatah bosses keep him on and for no other reason. Even having the post of prime minister at all was something the donors forced on the PA.
Nice guy? Yes. Relatively moderate? Yes. Powerful? No.
What is Fayyad’s program: that he is just going to announce that Palestine is an independent country in about one year. And what does this mean? A total violation of every agreement made by the PA and its PLO parent in the last 17 years. Instead of independence being the product of a comprehensive peace agreement with Israel, which requires compromises, he wants simply to declare it and then have the world impose that decision on Israel. Fayyad’s euphemism for this was “a healthy unilateralism.”
In general, the Western media never point out this point.
Fayyad's plan isn’t going to happen but it is an understandably attractive strategy for him and the PA. The strategy is to make no concessions; make no commitments; just do it. If Palestine were to become an independent state then it could, for example, allow cross-border attacks on Israel and then demand Arab military and UN diplomatic support if Israel retaliated.
Not to mention the fact that Fayyad and the PA has no control in the Gaza Strip. Fayyad insists that once a state is achieved this problem will magically disappear. He can't or won't even acknowledge that Hamas was the aggressor in seizing the Gaza Strip because he and his colleagues want to make a deal with Hamas. That will never happen either.
Incidentally, I was in the room the last time the Palestinians, in the form of the Palestine National Council, declared independence. It was at their Algiers meeting in 1988 and the goal then was also to get a state without having to negotiate a deal with Israel. It didn’t work that time either.
So what is most important here is that Fayyad cannot actually do very much. For example, he can say, “The absence of security has been our undoing” and he wants to end the "security pluralism” that produced a “state of chaos and militias.”
And what is he going to do about it? Merge the multiple security forces into one or two well-defined agencies? Replace the current leaders? None of this is going to happen because the generals and Fatah bosses won’t let it happen. A year from now the same problem will continue to exist.
So it is with all the basic PA difficulties. Don’t get me wrong. The PA does have some achievements to its credit. It has kept the level of violence low and achieved the minimal cooperation with Israel necessary. The economy has improved, though this is largely due to massive foreign aid. Hamas has been kept at bay. In short, the PA is doing enough to maintain the status quo peacefully and bring some improvements in living standards.
This could break down over night, however, if the PA decides out of alleged “frustration” to relaunch war on Israel. And that decision will not be Fayyad’s to make.
Fayyad says he will build institutions that include better schools, infrastructure, and a court system. Yes, this is what needs to be done. But this is what Yasir Arafat was supposed to start doing in 1994. The Palestinians on the West Bank who were entering school then are now having children and this promise hasn’t been fulfilled.
Setting deadlines in this context is a joke. Here’s an example. In 2000 we were told that a negotiated solution was needed as soon as possible because Arafat could not hold back the alleged tidal wave of pressure demanding a state immediately. So the United States and Israel supported the Camp David summit. It failed because Arafat rejected peace. We were then told the exact opposite by some of the people demanding speed: that having this meeting was a big mistake because Arafat was being rushed and pressured.
Fayyad said in the interview: “Every day we do work consistent with that to create the sense of a state growing. Bad things happen every day but you’re bound to have a lucky bounce and we have to be ready for it.”
What might “a lucky bounce” be? President Barack Obama supporting such a unilateral action? One that would take place without security guarantees for Israel, without bans on inviting in foreign armies, with no limits on armaments, with no agreement on resettling refugees in Palestine. And equally a new state of Palestine which would either allow or not try too hard to stop cross-border raids, and whose official media, schools, and mosques with state-appointed imams would carry out endless incitement for wiping Israel off the map in future?
Fayyad is the best the PA could do in terms of having a prime minister at present. A stable two-state solution would be a good thing but it is not something on which the world’s future depends. And a two-state outcome would only be a step forward if it did create a more stable region and a lasting solution rather than one that would quickly break down in renewed conflict.
In practice, Fayyad might be the man who could help produce a stable status quo as a longer-term transition to a two-state peace, but he cannot deliver some near-instant solution. An “unconditional” declaration of independence is a prelude to disaster. Precisely because Fayyad knows this he won’t launch such a thing, without that “lucky bounce” of misguided Western support.
Pretending otherwise is not going to help anyone, most of all the Palestinians and certainly not U.S. interests.
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). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; and The Muslim Brotherhood.
Barry Rubin
A new interview with Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is especially significant because at this precise moment the key question is: Will the PA renew negotiations with Israel either directly or indirectly? Israel has already agreed to talk and made two major concessions at the request of the United States: suspending construction in Jerusalem outside the 1967 borders and agreeing to discuss all issues. So it is nominally up to Fayyad whether things will move forward or not. President Barack Obama just said that he will come down hard on Israel or the PA if they sabotage talks. Obviously, it is only the PA that is now doing so. Equally obviously, Obama isn't going to criticize or press the PA too hard. So what's going to happen next?
There should be a clear understanding that Fayyad—who was recently named as one of Time Magazine’s most powerful leaders in the world—has no real power. He has no political base, is not a member of the dominant Fatah organization, and has no personal loyalty from the security services.
He’s only in office for one reason: the Western financial donors demand it and the money on which the PA depends wouldn’t come in otherwise. That’s why the Fatah bosses keep him on and for no other reason. Even having the post of prime minister at all was something the donors forced on the PA.
Nice guy? Yes. Relatively moderate? Yes. Powerful? No.
What is Fayyad’s program: that he is just going to announce that Palestine is an independent country in about one year. And what does this mean? A total violation of every agreement made by the PA and its PLO parent in the last 17 years. Instead of independence being the product of a comprehensive peace agreement with Israel, which requires compromises, he wants simply to declare it and then have the world impose that decision on Israel. Fayyad’s euphemism for this was “a healthy unilateralism.”
In general, the Western media never point out this point.
Fayyad's plan isn’t going to happen but it is an understandably attractive strategy for him and the PA. The strategy is to make no concessions; make no commitments; just do it. If Palestine were to become an independent state then it could, for example, allow cross-border attacks on Israel and then demand Arab military and UN diplomatic support if Israel retaliated.
Not to mention the fact that Fayyad and the PA has no control in the Gaza Strip. Fayyad insists that once a state is achieved this problem will magically disappear. He can't or won't even acknowledge that Hamas was the aggressor in seizing the Gaza Strip because he and his colleagues want to make a deal with Hamas. That will never happen either.
Incidentally, I was in the room the last time the Palestinians, in the form of the Palestine National Council, declared independence. It was at their Algiers meeting in 1988 and the goal then was also to get a state without having to negotiate a deal with Israel. It didn’t work that time either.
So what is most important here is that Fayyad cannot actually do very much. For example, he can say, “The absence of security has been our undoing” and he wants to end the "security pluralism” that produced a “state of chaos and militias.”
And what is he going to do about it? Merge the multiple security forces into one or two well-defined agencies? Replace the current leaders? None of this is going to happen because the generals and Fatah bosses won’t let it happen. A year from now the same problem will continue to exist.
So it is with all the basic PA difficulties. Don’t get me wrong. The PA does have some achievements to its credit. It has kept the level of violence low and achieved the minimal cooperation with Israel necessary. The economy has improved, though this is largely due to massive foreign aid. Hamas has been kept at bay. In short, the PA is doing enough to maintain the status quo peacefully and bring some improvements in living standards.
This could break down over night, however, if the PA decides out of alleged “frustration” to relaunch war on Israel. And that decision will not be Fayyad’s to make.
Fayyad says he will build institutions that include better schools, infrastructure, and a court system. Yes, this is what needs to be done. But this is what Yasir Arafat was supposed to start doing in 1994. The Palestinians on the West Bank who were entering school then are now having children and this promise hasn’t been fulfilled.
Setting deadlines in this context is a joke. Here’s an example. In 2000 we were told that a negotiated solution was needed as soon as possible because Arafat could not hold back the alleged tidal wave of pressure demanding a state immediately. So the United States and Israel supported the Camp David summit. It failed because Arafat rejected peace. We were then told the exact opposite by some of the people demanding speed: that having this meeting was a big mistake because Arafat was being rushed and pressured.
Fayyad said in the interview: “Every day we do work consistent with that to create the sense of a state growing. Bad things happen every day but you’re bound to have a lucky bounce and we have to be ready for it.”
What might “a lucky bounce” be? President Barack Obama supporting such a unilateral action? One that would take place without security guarantees for Israel, without bans on inviting in foreign armies, with no limits on armaments, with no agreement on resettling refugees in Palestine. And equally a new state of Palestine which would either allow or not try too hard to stop cross-border raids, and whose official media, schools, and mosques with state-appointed imams would carry out endless incitement for wiping Israel off the map in future?
Fayyad is the best the PA could do in terms of having a prime minister at present. A stable two-state solution would be a good thing but it is not something on which the world’s future depends. And a two-state outcome would only be a step forward if it did create a more stable region and a lasting solution rather than one that would quickly break down in renewed conflict.
In practice, Fayyad might be the man who could help produce a stable status quo as a longer-term transition to a two-state peace, but he cannot deliver some near-instant solution. An “unconditional” declaration of independence is a prelude to disaster. Precisely because Fayyad knows this he won’t launch such a thing, without that “lucky bounce” of misguided Western support.
Pretending otherwise is not going to help anyone, most of all the Palestinians and certainly not U.S. interests.
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). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; and The Muslim Brotherhood.
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