'Anyone but Bibi'?
For the
second time this week, former peace processor Aaron David Miller has gone on record urging President Obama
not to try to influence the upcoming Israeli elections. This was written by Miller himself.
In Washington, whether it’s an R or D administration, in fact, we
want Israeli leaders like Rabin, Peres, and Barak who see the world more
or less the way we do when it comes to the two-state peace process. We
have a much harder time with those Israeli leaders—Begin, Shamir,
Netanyahu—whose views on what to do about the Palestinians don’t
naturally accord with ours. (Sharon was a special case. He and George W.
Bush got along reasonably well because neither really cared about the
peace process and both were governing in an age of terror.)
But sometimes those initial judgments about who’s naughty or nice end up confounding.
Because U.S. administrations tend to divide the Israeli political
spectrum into two parts—the good Israelis who share our views and the
not so good ones who don’t—they’re not entirely sure what to do with the
fact that Israeli prime ministers of all political stripes have
continued Israeli settlement building on the West Bank and construction
in parts of east Jerusalem that we’d like to see become the capital of a
Palestinian state.
It’s an inconvenient but important reality to acknowledge that of the
three U.S.-orchestrated breakthroughs in the Middle East peace process,
two of them—the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty and the Madrid peace
conference—came from hardline Likud prime ministers. The third—the three
disengagement agreements following the 1973 war —came courtesy of a
very tough Labor prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin.
But secretly rooting for the good Israelis and wishing them success
is one thing. What about actually doing things that help the good ones
succeed or alternatively weakening the Israelis we don’t want to see in
power?
I can recall at least three occasions when Republican and
Democratic administrations willfully picked Israeli favorites and tried
to shape election outcomes.
...
Now, as the clock ticks down on Israeli elections scheduled for March
2015, will the Obama administration play internal Israeli politics to
try to tip the election against Netanyahu?
Obama’s relationship with Bibi is perhaps the most dysfunctional of
any president-prime minister pair in the history of the U.S.-Israeli
relationship. Doubtless John Kerry, too, would like to see another
Israeli leader with whom he could dance a real peace process.
Yet constraints against U.S. meddling abound. First, there’s the
Republican-controlled Congress, which will be watching hawk-like for any
such funny business. Second, there’s the absence of a clear and
credible alternative to Bibi with whom the administration is close; and
then there’s the matter of the lack of a big issue for such lobbying.
The peace process is in a coma; and ISIS, Hamas, Assad, Hezbollah, and
the Iranian mullahs make Israel look like the good guys. Finally,
there’s Obama himself. He’s not Clinton. Does he really care? Do most
Israelis trust him? Could he get away with a campaign that makes clear
Bibi isn’t the right guy and candidate, but X is? I am betting on “no”
to all three questions. Don’t even think about it, Mr. President.
The last constraint is the most important one. Many Israelis saw Bush I as neutral at best and hostile at worst. But that didn't compare with what Israelis think of Obama. While we may differ on why, most Israelis agree that Obama is viscerally hostile to Israel. There is little that can be done to convince us otherwise (and with good reason).
If Obama tries to interfere (and with his arrogance I would say that there's a fair chance of that happening). it would likely backfire. That's what Miller is trying to prevent.
Keep writing Aaron. But don't expect Obama to listen.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Aaron David Miller, Barack Hussein Obama, Bill Clinton, Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, George H. W. Bush, Israeli elections, John Kerry, Knesset elections 2015, Shimon Peres, Yitzchak Rabin, Yitzchak Shamir
Aaron David Miller: 'We always tried to influence the Israeli elections, but we never succeeded; Obama shouldn't even try'
Aaron David Miller, who was Dennis Ross' top assistant, has told YNet that the United States
'always' tried to interfere in Israeli elections, but never succeeded (Hat Tip:
Red Tulips) (link in Hebrew).
According to Miller, the US gathered a lot of information about Prime Minister Netanyahu - including his activities while a student in the United States - but no one would listen.
Miller admits that the George HW Bush administration influenced the outcome of the 1992 election to bring Yitzchak Rabin to power over Yitzchak Shamir, but he claims that's because the US set up the environment for that election through the Bush-Baker controversies with Shamir. He admits that the Clinton administration also tried - unsuccessfully - to ensure Shimon Peres' election as Prime Minister in 1996. But Peres lost to Netanyahu.
Miller says that the Clinton administration gathered information on Netanyahu and leaked it to the Israeli media. The information included Netanyahu's activities as a student in Boston and Philadelphia, his name change to Nitai, his forfeiting of his American passport, and the failure of Netanyahu's first marriage. Miller claims that it caused a scandal but had no influence.
Miller advises President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry not to even try to influence March's elections. Clinton was a President who was beloved in Israel, says Miller, while Obama is extremely unpopular (you don't say...) and any attempt to influence the March elections would backfire.
Obama and Kerry are declining to comment on the upcoming elections, although Kerry has said that he hopes that a new government will be able to conduct a 'peace process.'
Funny how he doesn't mention the Americans' greatest success - the 1999 replacement of Netanyahu with Ehud Barak courtesy of Clinton.
Labels: Aaron David Miller, Barack Hussein Obama, Bill Clinton, Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, George H. W. Bush, Israeli elections, John Kerry, Knesset elections 2015, Shimon Peres, Yitzchak Rabin, Yitzchak Shamir
'Kerry has to own his failure'
Sources close to US Secretary of State John FN Kerry say that Kerry has to '
own his failure soon' or risk appearing desperate (as if he doesn't already).
Kerry risks being seen as trying too hard at the expense of a range
of other pressing international issues, and perhaps even his reputation,
according to several senior administration officials who spoke on the
condition of anonymity about sensitive internal and diplomatic matters.
“A
point will come where he has to go out and own the failure,” an
official said. For now, the official said, Kerry needs to “lower the
volume and see how things unfold.”
But not everyone agrees.
Amid the fast-moving events, all of them apparently downhill, some experts said it was not the time to walk away.
“First
of all, you still have a clock that runs to the end of the month,” the
original negotiating deadline set by Kerry, said Dennis Ross, who served
as a senior Middle East expert in three U.S. administrations. “We’ve
had a pretty significant investment in this, and to walk away from it
before you determine for sure there is nothing else to be done, I’m not
sure that’s what you want to do at this moment.”
“I have not been
one of the skeptics” who have increasingly questioned the utility of the
effort, Ross said. Although negotiations under previous administrations
rarely approached the core controversies dividing Israel and the
Palestinians, “I know from conversations with both sides that the kinds
of things they’ve been talking about are the real issues,” including
Israeli security, Jerusalem and the final borders between two states.
“In
his defense, Kerry’s task is a thousand times greater than probably any
previous negotiator,” said Aaron David Miller, a vice president at the
Wilson Center who helped formulate U.S. policy in the Middle East for
two decades before leaving the State Department in 2003.
“He’s not dealing with interim issues,” Miller said, but with the “crown jewels of the peace process.”
A
U.S. official close to Kerry said the possible gains are worth any risk
of failure or of looking overeager. Asked whether Kerry’s White House
bosses might think he is obsessively chasing a lost cause, the official
answered quickly: “That’s not what the president sees it as, and he’s
the one who decides these things.”
Deputy national security
adviser Benjamin J. Rhodes said, “The president was fully aware of
Kerry’s interest and energy about the subject when he was chosen as
secretary of state.” When President Obama went to Israel last spring,
Rhodes said, “he went out of his way to both re-energize his own
commitment to this at the beginning of his second term and also to very,
very demonstrably empower Kerry.”
“Frankly,” Rhodes said, “having a secretary of state who plays such an active role . . . has, to some extent, taken the burden off of us.”
Read the whole thing.
This was another attempt by the Obama administration to push an agenda for which conditions were not ripe. It was a mistake - a bad and foreseeable mistake.
What's left unsaid here is how the Obama administration will look if this inevitable failure explodes into a cacophony of violence. You can bet that they will do all they can to avoid the responsibility and the blame.
Labels: Aaron David Miller, Barack Hussein Obama, Dennis Ross, John Kerry, Middle East peace process
Israel a winner, US a loser in Egypt?
Aaron David Miller has a list of
winners and losers in the Egyptian coup. Among the winners, he lists Israel. And among the losers, he lists the United States.
Israel: For
the Israelis, the only thing worse than the Morsy government was an Egypt with
no government. Throughout it all, the Israelis have maintained their close ties
to the Egyptian military. So for now, I'd put the Israelis in the "win" column.
Maybe the Egyptian military will be induced to pay greater attention to lawless
Sinai; and certainly Israel won't object to a less friendly approach to Hamas
in Gaza. Still, whatever the future brings -- military government or democratic
polity -- the Egyptian-Israeli relationship will remain a cold one, pending
some resolution of the Palestinian issue.
Actually, the Egyptian-Israeli relationship is likely to remain cold (at least on the surface) so long as both countries exist. The coldness is most definitely not about the 'Palestinians.' It's about the fact that the average Egyptian has never really accepted Israel, although its secular leadership - including the military - has accepted that it cannot destroy Israel. I'd put Israel in the win column and keep us there so long as what comes next is not an Islamist government seeking an apocalypse.
The
United States: I really struggled with where to put the Obama administration:
Did it win or lose when Mubarak fell? And is it winning or losing now, after
the SCAF coup? The Suez Canal is open; the U.S.-Egyptian military and
intelligence relationship is intact; the peace treaty with Israel survives.
And,
yet, there's something not right about U.S. policy toward Egypt. We are
disliked by just about everyone. Maybe we were too weak the first time around
in telling the military that it needed to do a better job of managing the
transition democratically. We were definitely too slow in making our views
known about Morsy's ham-handed governance.
And,
now, as we wrestle with how to react to the SCAF's coup, we still can't find
the balance between protecting our interests and speaking up for our values.
Perhaps they will always remain at war with one another, particularly in a
situation where stability, however superficial, plays such an important role in
our thinking. We may have learned something from our years of dancing with
Egypt's military. And perhaps we'll be tougher with our partner this time
around. But we will keep dancing -- and probably cheek-to-cheek.
It's not just a question of finding a balance between interests and values. The United States has effectively espoused neither. Its interest ought to be in an Egypt that contributes to stability in the Middle East and in the Arab and Muslim worlds by maintaining the peace, while recognizing the rights of minorities. The Muslim Brotherhood was none of the above. The SCAF is far more likely to bring stability although it may be at the cost of repression of the Islamists. So yes, the SCAF would raise the balance question. But the Brotherhood was bad on both accounts.
Labels: Aaron David Miller, Barack Hussein Obama, Egyptian Revolution, Mohammed Morsy, Muslim Brotherhood
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
I will be traveling much of the day today but will try to check in again before the Sabbath starts (I am heading back to Boston). If things go well, I might actually be there mid-day.
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Friday, August 24.
1) Room for Debate -Supporting Israel
In its ongoing feature, Room for Debate, The New York Times now asks Has Support for Israel Hurt U.S. Credibility?
The contributors are Aaron David Miller, Rashid Khalidi, Michell Dunn, Daoud Kuttab, Daniel Gordis, and Dylan Williams. For the full answers and association of the authors check out the links.
The U.S. Can Still Pursue Peace by Aaron David Miller
Both are wrong. The reality is that the pro-Israeli community in America does have a powerful voice but not a veto. And a strong American president with a smart strategy and buy-in from the Arabs and Israelis can trump domestic politics every time.
Miller argues that American support for Israel does not diminish America's influence in the Middle East.
America Has Shown Which Side It’s On by Rashid Khalidi
Israelis know it. Palestinians know it. The whole world knows it. The absence of any American sense of fair play where Palestinian-Israeli issues are concerned is no secret. In fact, it will keep the U.S. from ever being a disinterested intermediary in the Middle East.
Well I wouldn't have expected anything else.
Israel and the U.S. Are Natural Allies by Daniel Gordis
In Palestinian discourse, even the Temple is “alleged.” Compare that stance to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s politically risky acknowledgement of Palestinian rights to a sovereign national homeland. The peace process is utterly dead not because of America’s values, but because of the Palestinians’. Only when American presidents of both parties insist that the Palestinians take responsibility for their future will we know that America has gotten serious about playing a constructive role in the Middle East.
This is the best answer. It turns the question around. The problem isn't American ties with Israel as assumed by the questioner, but the failure of the United States to live up to its principles.
Obama’s Fumble Cost the U.S. Its Standing by Michelle Dunne
Thus an ill-considered effort to gain greater influence in the Middle East by distancing the United States from Israel left the president in a position in which Israelis neither love nor fear him. Arabs, to boot, are extremely disappointed in Obama and inclined not to take him seriously. If Obama wins a second term, he will have to try to rebuild his credibility in the Middle East. Meanwhile, whether or not to strike Iran, or to support Israel in doing so, is not a decision that the United States should back into simply because the Obama administration has mishandled Israel.
Dunne got the sequence of events wrong in the previous paragraph, but insists that it's the daylight the Obama administration put between it and Israel that hurt America's influence.
Obama’s Promise, Broken Time and Again by Daoud Kuttab
Obama’s backsliding began three months after the Cairo speech. After having demanded a total Israeli settlement freeze, the U.S. president buckled under pressure from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and left the Palestinian leader hanging.
Kuttab defends Abbas's instransigence and of course blames the Israel lobby. Obama eventually got a more extensive freeze than any previous president had gotten and Abbas still refused to negotiate until the freeze was nearly over. This is cynical and misleading.
An Ally to Israel, but Not Unquestioning by Richard Land
America can exert significant influence in the Middle East and may be the only “honest broker” with sufficient trust from both sides and the power to make any agreements reached enforceable.
However, the Islamists who want to erase Israel’s existence will forever find America unalterably opposed to their goal.
Land's arguing that the United States needs to be an honest broker and seems to be saying that it is and has been.
Pro-Israel Groups Limit the President’s Options by Dylan Williams
Some U.S. pro-Israel advocacy groups whose policy positions are now markedly to the right of most American Jews are leveraging decades of political relationships to convince policy-makers that no progress can be made on the Israeli-Palestinian front until all concerns over Iran’s nuclear program are fully resolved. The result is to tie the president’s hands, taking powerful diplomatic options off the table that could significantly enhance multilateral pressure on Iran.
This is kind of interesting. Does the title suggest that J-Street (Williams' organization) is not pro-Israel? Williams' argument is a straw man. As former General Yaalon tweeted yesterday, "Anyone who thinks there's a connection between the Iranian issue and the Palestinian issue is mistaken and misleading."
Of seven essays, only two argued America's alliance with Israel hurt American interests. It's actually a better result than I would have expected from the New York Times. Only one participant though argued that the Times was asking the wrong question. Maybe I should just be happy that a clear majority argued "no."
2) The secular settlers
Last week, Jodi Rudoren of the New York Times wrote a flattering portrait of Dani Dayan, A Settler Leader, Worldly and Pragmatic.
TOURING the settlements with Mr. Dayan is like attending a family reunion with a proud patriarch. At a plastics factory where Jewish and Arab workers take occasional field trips together, he said, “We are much less prejudiced toward Palestinians than Israeli society as a whole.” Leaving the college in Ariel, Mr. Dayan declared, “This is exactly what I want for Judea and Samaria: it’s a university that has some ideological tone, but it’s 21st-century, and it’s integral to the fabric of Israeli society.” Sampling robust reds at the Psagot winery, he mused, “This is my dream: to make a combination of mission, ideology, good life — that’s what makes life here permanent.”
Standing on a lookout point in Elie, Mr. Dayan surveyed his empire, the red-roof settlements that dot the hills in every direction.
“When I hear Israeli politicians say there are isolated settlements that should be removed, I know they have never visited here,” he said. “I got to fulfill the dream of 100 generations. Today, it’s a day-to-day fact.”
Dayan sees his residence in the Shomron as a factor in protecting his secular and cultured way of life.
I don't know if it's a coincidence but this week The Algemeiner interviewed Ayelet Shaked, who is secular but is running for a position in the Ha-bayit Ha-Yehudi primaries. (h/t Jewtastic) Ha-bayit Ha-Yehudi is the newest iteration of what used to be the National Religious Party. When asked how she would react to someone who objected to a secular Israeli's presence in the leadership of a religious party, this is how she responded.
YM: If one of them were to contact you, what would you say to him?
AS: First of all it’s his right and I respect that. Even though we may have different views we need to respect each other. Nevertheless I would tell him that if we want to have a large party to the right of Netanyahu, one that is based on the Bible and Jewish values, then the party needs to be opened to secular and traditional Jews that identify with the values of the religious Zionist community.
I truly believe that if they open their heart and open their mind to cooperate with other people that share the same values, then we can have a big party. Otherwise the party will continue with three mandates.
3) Questions of Iran
A week and a half ago Shmuel Rosner published The analytical approach to deciding if you support an Israeli attack on Iran. Though I guess that Rosner is a skeptic about attacking Iran he seemed to have covered most bases.
Charles Krauthammer uses the Cordesman criteria to address some of the questions. Krauthammer begins his column with:
Either Israel is engaged in the most elaborate ruse since the Trojan horse or it is on the cusp of a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Given that an essential aspect of a strike on Iran is surprise, I've wondered the same thing. If Israel attacks Iran no one will be surprised (except in the context of the paradox of the unexpected hanging) and if the planes are detected while on their way, the attack would have to be aborted. However unlikely it is, it makes me wonder if Israel has a plan to disable or destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities without a direct military attack.
Krauthammer summarizes Cordesman's approach:
1. “Clear U.S. red lines.”
It’s time to end the ambiguity about American intentions. Establish real limits on negotiations — to convince Iran that the only alternative to a deal is preemptive strikes and to persuade Israel to stay its hand.
2. “Make it clear to Iran that it has no successful options.”
Either its program must be abandoned in a negotiated deal (see No. 1 above) on generous terms from the West (see No. 3 below), or its facilities will be physically destroyed. Ostentatiously let Iran know about the range and power of our capacities — how deep and extensive a campaign we could conduct, extending beyond just nuclear facilities to military-industrial targets, refineries, power grids and other concentrations of regime power.
3. Give Iran a face-saving way out.
Offer Iran the most generous possible terms — economic, diplomatic and political. End of sanctions, assistance in economic and energy development, trade incentives and a regional security architecture. Even Russian nuclear fuel.
Former head of Israel's military intelligence, Amos Yadlin (who also was one of the pilots who destroyed the Iraqi reactor in 1981) offers different criteria.
Only by framing a nuclear-armed Iran as an impermissible threat to the national interests of the United States and its allies in the Persian Gulf can President Obama bridge this gap between Israeli creed and need. He must convince Israel, Iran, Russia and even Saudi Arabia that the U.S. military option is credible and effective.
A gesture directly from Obama could do it. The U.S. president should visit Israel and tell its leadership -- and, more important, its people -- that preventing a nuclear Iran is a U.S. interest, and if we have to resort to military action, we will.
This message, delivered by the president of the United States to the Israeli Knesset, would be far more effective than U.S. officials' attempts to convey the same sentiment behind closed doors. The administration should also take five immediate steps to convince allies and adversaries alike that military action is real, imminent and doable - which are key to making it less likely.
Yadlin offers a total of five actions for the United States to take, but only agrees with Cordesman on the first about establishing a nuclear Iran as an American red line. That might be because Yadlin's focus is more about reassuring Israel than in challenging Iran.
Labels: Aaron David Miller, Barack Hussein Obama, Daniel Gordis, Iranian nuclear threat, J Street, Middle East Media Sampler, New York Times, Rashid Khalidi, revenants, Soccer Dad, US support for Israel
Aaron David Miller admits: Status quo is good for (Israel's) Jews
Former peace processor Aaron David Miller - who seems to 'get it' much better than his former colleagues these days - writes in the New York Times that
Israel's status quo is good for Israel's Jews, and therefore is unlikely to be changed significantly in the foreseeable future.
What drives many Israelis and the government that represents them is not a Scrooge-like Christmas Eve glimpse of a terrifying future, but a strange mix of accomplishment, comfort and anxiety that reinforces the desire to maintain the status quo, particularly on the Palestinian issue. And that attitude is not going to change anytime soon.
Mitt Romney’s stumble on the Palestinian question highlighted just how comfortable many Israelis are, and the sheer magnitude of what they have accomplished. Romney mistakenly low-balled Israel’s per capita G.D.P. (about $31,000 in 2011, according to the World Bank, rather than his misstated $21,000).
...
Indeed, along with all the forecasting of gloom and doom there’s this: Per capita Israel gives rise to more startups than any other country in the world. On the U.N.’s 2011 Human Development Index, Israel — a country of seven-and-a-half million people — stands 17th out of 187 nations. The discoveries of natural gas in the Mediterranean will not only take care of Israel’s needs but by 2017 make it a significant exporter.
As for the Palestinian issue that threatens to undermine Israel’s future as a Jewish, democratic state, there too the dangers seem mitigated by the current situation. The Palestinian Authority’s state-building enterprise and the security cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian services have generated more than a manageable status quo and all but eliminated terrorism.
The Arab Spring has left the Hamas leadership with few options and no real desire to wrangle with the Israelis militarily. And the approaching demise of the Assad regime in Syria will weaken Hezbollah.
If economic prosperity and a tolerable Palestinian problem seem to reinforce the status quo, the disquiet caused by instability elsewhere in the region validates Israel’s caution in not wanting to change it. Israel seems bookended by two major worries that have all but subordinated the Palestinian issue to the back burner: Egypt’s future and Iran’s centrifuges.
...
One of the biggest losers from the Iranian nuclear program may well be the Palestinians. The Israelis never bought the argument that solving the Palestinian issue would weaken Iranian influence in the region.
For this Israeli government, Iran is a much bigger priority. And if there is an Iranian-Israeli conflict or one involving the United States, the resulting turmoil would make Israeli-Palestinian negotiations almost impossible.
Given the uncertainties in the region, the odds of resolving its most complex problems — Palestine, the Iranian nuclear issue, the Arab quest for representative government — seem very long indeed. Even under more enlightened governments than the current one, the issue has never been about comprehensive solutions. Instead, Israel traditionally looks to buy time, pre-empt and prevent on the military side when necessary, and take calculated risks in pursuit of peace when possible.
It’s not an ideal strategy — and one not always well-suited to the Silicon Valley of the Middle East and to a country that wants a more peaceful and prosperous future. But it’s kept a small country living on knife’s edge alive and in remarkably good shape. And that’s got to count for something.
Read it all. What's missing is something I have discussed many times: The demographic predictions that would force us to choose between being Jewish and democratic are bogus.
Labels: Aaron David Miller, Iranian nuclear threat, Middle East peace process, Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, two-state solution
'Obama's no Israel lover and if he wins, expect a major clash with Netanyahu in second term'
Former peace processor Aaron David Miller warns that Barack Obama is 'no Israel lover' and that we can expect a
major clash between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama in a second Obama term.
What's happening here? I've got a pretty simple diagnosis: Netanyahu's policies and suspicions about American intentions have combined with Obama's seemingly emotionless view of Israel to spell trouble. The absence of a common enterprise makes matters worse.
The Iranian challenge might still provide a grand reunion between the two parties. But if history is any guide, serious clashes between Israeli prime ministers and American presidents are not resolved by reconciliation but by the departure of one or the other. That may mean we're in for an extended period of turbulence: I'm betting that in this case, both Bibi and Barack may be around for the long haul.
...
If Bibi seems weak, Obama has left no doubt that he has strong views when it comes to the U.S.-Israeli relationship. And he hasn't changed his views of Israel or Netanyahu, even if his first failed run at the peace process and the impending presidential election have caused him to back off.
I've watched a few presidents come and go on this issue, and Obama really is different. Unlike Clinton and George W. Bush, Obama isn't in love with the idea of Israel. As a result, he has a harder time making allowances for Israeli behavior he doesn't like. Obama relates to the Jewish state not on a values continuum but through a national security and interest filter.
It's true that the president doesn't emote on many policy issues, with the possible exception of health care. But on Israel, he just doesn't buy the "tiny state living on the knife's edge with the dark past" argument -- or at least it doesn't come through in emotionally resonant terms. As the Washington Post's Scott Wilson reported, Obama doesn't believe the "no daylight" argument -- that is, to get Israel to move, you need to make the Israelis feel that America will stand by it no matter what. Quite the opposite: Obama appears to believe that Israel needs to understand that if it doesn't move, the United States will be hard pressed to continue to give it complete support.
In this respect, when it comes to Israel, Obama is more like Jimmy Carter minus the biblical interest or attachment, or like Bush 41 minus a strategy. My sense is that, if he could get away with it, the president would like to see a U.S.-Israeli relationship that is not just less exclusive, but somewhat less special as well.
...
It's fascinating to consider that in the two most recent cases where American presidents clashed with Israeli prime ministers -- Carter and Bush 41-- both were defeated. Shamir also lost to Rabin in 1992, after clashing with Bush the elder. History could repeat itself in the case of both Obama and Netanyahu -- but what will be more intriguing and entertaining, however, is what happens if they both survive to go another round. Buckle your seat belts. It may be a wild ride.
Read the whole thing. When you consider who Miller is, how many Presidents he's worked for and the role he has played in the 'peace process,' this is really scary stuff. It makes me want to go out and work for Romney even more.
Labels: Aaron David Miller, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Middle East peace process, two-state solution
The dumb idea hall of fame
Dumb Hakim did not make Aaron David Miller's dumb idea hall of fame. But Mahmoud Abbas did, and so did
Barack Hussein Obama.
Dumb Idea No. 1: Palestinian statehood at the U.N.
The most woolly-headed and inconsequential idea goes to the Palestinians for pretending (they actually may not really believe it themselves) that action at the United Nations might help their cause for statehood. Having tried this idea once last September with predictable results -- a big, fat nothingburger -- the PLO may be gearing up again for another run.
One can only wonder why. The Palestinians are desperate, to be sure, and the U.N. statehood gambit (like faux unity talks with Hamas) plays well on the street. But their lack of strategy and penchant for bad timing are breathtaking. So far, the U.N. initiative has produced implacable American opposition, U.S. congressional constraints on funding for the Palestinians, and America's withdrawal from UNESCO.
The last thing a U.S. president is going to do in an election year is support such an initiative. And it gives the Israeli government, already uninterested in real negotiations, just another reason to blame the impasse on the Palestinians. But hey, the Palestinians are going to do what they're going to do whether it makes sense or not. The best thing that can be said about the U.N. gambit is that it really doesn't matter.
...
Dumb Idea No. 4: Obama's push for a settlement freeze
Rarely has any U.S. president committed more of a stumble during his first year than when Barack Obama decided to make Israeli settlements the focus of his approach to Arab-Israeli peacemaking.
In one fell swoop, the president set himself up for failure, turned his relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into a macho contest of who had bigger cojones (Obama lost), and alienated the Palestinians and the Arabs because he backed down. And for all this, the United States succeeded in getting no real freeze, no deal, and no negotiations. The president's tough rhetoric on settlements only made the problem worse as the gap between words and deeds swallowed his credibility whole.
Fighting with the Israelis is an occupational reality for any president or secretary of state who wants to do serious peacemaking. The fight, however, needs to be at the right time and on the right issue. If done correctly (i.e., with a strategy), it can actually be productive and benefit not only the United States, but the Israelis and Palestinians too.
The fight worth having, with both sides, is over the actual substance of an agreement. But given the gaps that separate the two sides and Obama's own indecision about what he wants, that fight isn't worth having. Yet.
I wonder if Miller aspires to return to peacemaking.
Labels: Aaron David Miller, Barack Hussein Obama, Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, settlement freeze
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Shavua tov v'chodesh tov, a good week and a good month to everyone.
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Friday, March 23.
1) Ready? Yes. Credible? Not so much.
In his defense of the New York Times's treatment of Israel, Neil Lewis lists a number of factors that led to changes in the way the paper covered Israel. One factor was:
The development of non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) within Israel as advocates for the Palestinians which gave Western journalists a ready and credible source which could be used to criticize the Israeli government.
Anyone familiar with the behavior of human rights NGO's in the Middle East recently would question the modifier, "credible." As Avi Bell wrote earlier this week:
NGO Monitor, which contacted UC-Davis to protest Whitson's invitation to the school, has catalogued the most egregious instances of her selective advocacy.
Whitson's actions in Libya are particularly revealing. Only a year and a half before the International Criminal Court indicted Saif al Islam Gaddafi for crimes against humanity for his role in the torture and massacre of Libyan civilians, Whitson hailed him for helping to create a supposed "Tripoli Spring." Though Saif al Islam is the son of Moammar Gaddafi and was one of the tyrannical regime's top officials, Whitson focused on his leadership of a quasi-governmental charity foundation and his establishment of two semi-private newspapers. Committed to marketing "a shift in the Libyan winds," Whitson did not mention that the Libyan regime had already closed the papers and was censoring the internet. Eight months later, Whitson called Saif al Islam one of Libya's "forces of reform" and praised a "hard-hitting" human rights report released by his foundation.
While lauding tyrants, Whitson was measured in her advocacy on behalf of Fathi al-Jahmi, Libya's foremost dissident. Al-Jahmi died in 2009 after years of torture and solitary confinement. His family continued to suffer persecution from the Libyan regime following his death, with his brother singling out Whitson, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International as illustrations of the corrupted human rights complex in Libya.
Now it's true that this is only one NGO, but Gerald Steinberg writes about how widespread dishonesty is among NGO's is and how it has impacted Israel.
From the apparently staged death of Mohammed al Dura in 2000, filmed dying in his father’s arms, through the inventions of the 2009 Goldstone Report and the recent responses to missile attacks from Gaza, Israel has been repeated and falsely accused of deliberately killing Palestinian children. As Joe Hyams wrote, this is the modern version of the blood libel. As often happens in this crude propaganda war, the terrorist targeting of Israeli and Jewish children is flipped into an accusation against the defenders. Even the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Catherine Ashton, echoed the ignominious comparison in a public statement.
In this long campaign, many of the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that claim to promote human rights and humanitarian assistance have become accomplices, both willingly and unwillingly. The leaders of international organizations such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International propagated the al Dura accusations based entirely on the claims of a single Palestinian cameraman working for French television, without any independent corroboration. In the notorious 2001 UN Durban conference in which 1500 NGOs, including HRW and Amnesty, launched a deadly political war to isolate Israel as a “racist” and “apartheid” state, the image of al Dura was dominant.
As part of the Durban plan of action, a 2009 HRW “report” on Israeli drone strikes in Gaza had an emotionally laden cover picture with photos of two children – alleged victims of these attacks. The graphic and HRW’s entire report were based on a combination of unverifiable Palestinian “eyewitness” testimony and pseudo-technical claims that were contradicted by military experts. The lead author this report, Marc Garlasco, was forced to leave HRW after his obsessive collection of Nazi memorabilia was revealed, but no independent review of the accuracy of his reports was undertaken. This report reinforced the propaganda campaign that seeks to label Israelis as child murderers and war criminals.
Still many NGO's in Israel find themselves increasingly marginalized, so they look for friendly media outlets where they can lament over the supposed threats to democracy in Israel so they can drum up some more donations.
If Peace Now, for example, were honest, it would be celebrating the fact that Israel now looks a lot different than it did 18 years ago instead of assailing the Israeli government for not sweetening a deal to a man who has already rejected a peace deal once.
If B'Tselem were honest it would stop claiming that Israel has failed to investigate alleged abuses that occurred during Cast Lead adequately. Given that hundreds of thousands of Israelis are living under a threat of rocket attacks, makes their complaint tasteless.
The out of touch attitude displayed by these organizations is the reason they have little real influence within Israel. If must be nice for them to have an outlet willing to accept their self-interested press releases uncritically.
2) Do the Jews wag the dog?
Aaron David Miller has a long article up at Foreign Policy, Six Big Lies About How Jerusalem Runs Washington. It does not start out promisingly:
Several years after leaving government, I wrote a piece in the Washington Post titled "Israel's Lawyer." The article was an honest effort to explain how several senior officials in U.S. President Bill Clinton's administration (myself included) had a strong inclination to see the Arab-Israeli negotiations through a pro-Israel lens. That filter played a role -- though hardly the primary one -- in the failure of endgame diplomacy, particularly at the ill-fated Camp David summit in July 2000.
Unsurprisingly, the piece was hijacked in the service of any number of agendas, especially by critics of Israel only too eager to use my narrow point about the Clinton years to make their broader one: America had long compromised its own values and interests in the Middle East by its blind and sordid obeisance to the Jewish state and its pro-Israeli supporters in the United States.
I still don't see a huge difference between Miller's op-ed and what critics of Israel allege. Miller was saying that America was too pro-Israel to be effective and that's what Israel's critics saw his op-ed as proving. The only difference might be is that Miller doesn't see being "Israel's lawyer" as being a matter of bad faith.
Does Miller really believe eleven and a half years later that if the Clinton administration had been a bit more solicitous of Arafat there would have been agreement at Camp David? If so he has learned nothings since he left government.
Still overall, he does make one useful point.
The idea that American Jews in collusion with the Israeli government (and, for some time now, evangelical Christians) hold U.S. foreign policy hostage is not only wrong and misleading but a dangerous, dark trope. It coexists with other hateful -- and, yes, anti-Semitic -- canards about how Jews control the media and the banks, and the world as well. It's reality distortion in the extreme, with little basis in fact. The historical record just doesn't support it. Strong, willful presidents who have real opportunities (and smart strategies to exploit them) to promote U.S. interests almost always win out and trump domestic lobbies.
A number of people have quoted this article favorably for one point or another. This article is limited by Miller's myopia and his unwavering faith in the peace process.
For a point of reference, consider Dennis Ross's recounting of Clinton's first meeting with PM Netanyahu in 1996:
Bill Clinton also had his run-ins. One such incident was described by Dennis Ross in his memoir about his work as the top US Mideast negotiator.
Ross described a meeting in Washington with Netanyahu shortly after he became prime minister the first time in 1996. "In the meeting with President Clinton, Netanyahu was nearly insufferable, lecturing and telling us how to deal with the Arabs." Ross recounts that afterwards a frustrated President Clinton remarked, "He thinks he is the superpower and we are here to do whatever he requires." Ross added, "No one on our side disagreed with that assessment."
"[O]ur side" in this case, I would assume, included Miller.
Three years later, after Clinton's repeated run-ins with Netanyahu led to the latter's electoral defeat, Charles Krauthammer noted:
Having failed to topple Saddam Hussein or Slobodan Milosevic, Bill Clinton had to settle for Benjamin Netanyahu. In a characteristic display of partisan glee, Clinton toasted political consultant Robert Shrum on Tuesday night (reports Lloyd Grove in The Washington Post) to congratulate him (and implicitly, the administration) for helping the Israeli opposition bring down the prime minister Washington loves to hate.
But, Krauthammer warned:
Yet for all the gloating at the White House, there is deep trouble ahead in the peace process. A momentous shift has occurred that has almost completely eluded the radar screen of the Western media and the attention of this administration. While Palestinians, Americans, Egyptians, other Arabs and many Israelis assiduously assailed Netanyahu for this or that alleged violation of the spirit of the Oslo peace accords, Yasser Arafat went on a 60-nation diplomatic tour--hardly a stealth campaign--to kill the accords.
The Clinton administration outmaneuvered Netanyahu and got the Prime Minister it wanted, Ehud Barak. Fifteen months later, in the wake of the failed Camp David summit, Arafat started a new terror against Israel. If Miller learned anything from these episodes, it is not apparent from this article. While I welcome his fight against the Israel lobby canard, I wish he would take the time to address some his remaining blind spots.
Labels: Aaron David Miller, human rights NGO's, Middle East Media Sampler, New York Times, Soccer Dad
Why Obama's problems with Israel are different
Former peace processor Aaron David Miller tries to explain why
President Obama's problems with Israel are more complicated than his predecessors' dealings:
But President Obama's Bibi problem is different in several respects from his predecessors -- a fact that all but guarantees that tensions with the Israelis on this issue are not going to subside anytime soon. The 2012 election has kept them in a box. Indeed, the president's speech at the U.N. General Assembly last month notwithstanding -- more a campaign speech than one that addressed the Israeli-Palestinian issue -- if Obama is re-elected, buckle your seat belts. It's going to be a wild ride with the Israelis.
First, the others -- Kissinger, Carter, Bush 41, and Baker, unlike Obama (so far) -- all succeeded. Their fights with their Israeli counterparts were productive; indeed they all had a strategy -- and sufficient will and commitment on the part of Israelis and Arabs to do serious diplomacy. At the end of the day, despite the tensions, everybody went home a winner. Even Bill Clinton managed to hammer out two agreements with Netanyahu, though neither was completely implemented.
Second, part of the reason these three succeeded was that despite the toughness and the tension, there was a third "T" -- a modicum of trust that allowed each side to work with the other in something other than a zero-sum game environment. They built a mutual stake in the other's success. Former Secretary of State Baker will tell you that he had plenty of struggles with Shamir, but the two worked out a good personal relationship -- no leaks, respecting mutual red lines and so on.
President Obama has yet to do that, and neither has Netanyahu. On the Arab-Israel issue, the president believes Bibi is a con man, and Netanyahu thinks the president wants somebody else as prime minister. The president is almost certainly persuaded that Netanyahu is buying time, playing American politics and hoping that the next president is a Republican who won't be so focused on pressing Israel on the peace process. If the administration could find a way to engineer regime change in Israel, it would.
Indeed, the key folks that deal with the peace process at State and at the White House are veterans of dealing with Netanyahu (Hillary Clinton and Dennis Ross). They have seen the movie before, and they had hoped not to be in the sequel.
Finally, there's the president himself, who clearly believes he knows best how to run the peace process. Obama doesn't just have a Bibi problem, he's got an Israel problem. Obama is not anti-Israel, but unlike his two predecessors -- Bill Clinton and George W. Bush -- he's not in love with the idea of Israel.
He falls somewhere north of Jimmy Carter on the pro-Israel spectrum and south of George H.W. Bush. Here the president's coolness and detachment works against him. His early tough rhetoric against settlements and his commitment to fix the peace process whether or not Israel agreed created a pretty rocky foundation for gaining the trust and confidence so critical on the Israeli side, if a president wants them to do politically tough things later.
Yes, Mr. President, Israelis can be frustrating. Just ask Kissinger, Carter and Baker. And this Israeli prime minister may simply not be willing or able to do the deal you want him to do. But if there's any chance of it, you're going to have to find a better way to deal with him, figure out how to stabilize the relationship and find a better balance than pandering to Netanyahu on one hand or trying to punish him on the other.
Miller's missing three points. One is factual: Obama's relations with Israel are well south of Jimmy Carter's relations with Israel
while Carter was President. As President, Carter never drew anything near as low as a 4% approval rating among Israeli Jews. Yes, as an ex-President, Carter's antipathy toward Israel is well-known. But Carter kept his true feelings at least somewhat in check until he was no longer President. Obama has not succeeded in doing so. As bad as last week was in Cannes, it could have been a lot worse.
Second, Miller writes that Obama is not anti-Israel, but that he doesn't have the warm feelings for Israel that Bill Clinton and George W. Bush had. That's not how most Israelis see it. Here, Obama is viewed as indifferent to us at best and as downright hateful at worst. It's not just his approach to the 'peace process.' It's the 'engagement' with Iran and Syria, the fact that he opposed sanctions on Iran (a fact that's largely forgotten today - but for Howard Berman pushing the sanctions they might never have passed), the fact that Obama hasn't even visited Israel as President, the fact that he's cozied up more and more to Turkey's Erdogan as Erdogan has become more and more hostile to Israel.... I could go on and on, but you can get the picture and it takes in a lot more than Obama's fumbling the 'peace process.'
Finally, Miller totally ignores the fact that Obama's sympathies lie with Islam and that many of his mentors are Islamists and anti-Semites. No, he's not a Muslim. But as Barry Rubin has explained (both in articles and in private emails between us), Obama has warm feelings for Islam generally as a result of his childhood in Indonesia. But Islam in Indonesia is not the same as Islam in the Arab world. And Islam in the 2010's is much more expansionist and - if it's possible - more hostile to Israel and Jews than it was in the 1960's (yes, it was anti-Israel in the 1960's, but they did not have quite the same confident swagger to attack Israel on so many fronts).
Obama's close mentors include former 'Palestinian' terrorist Rashid Khalidi, Khalidi's mentor Edward Said, and Obama's anti-Semitic preacher Jeremiah Wright. Obama sat in Wright's church for more than 20 years absorbing Sunday after Sunday of anti-Semitic diatribes. There is no way that none of it rubbed off.
There is no way that Obama will bring peace to this region. No one here trusts him and no one here is going to trust him regardless of how much he claims that he's pushing military cooperation and no matter what he does on Iran.
But Miller is correct about one thing: If God forbid Obama is reelected, it's going to be a wild ride.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Aaron David Miller, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Middle East peace process
Room for debate?
A reminder that - assuming that I find time to post - this should not be the last post of the day. I am in Boston for the Sabbath and will stop posting when the Sabbath starts here and not when it starts in Jerusalem.
The New York Times has a feature called
Room for Debate, and Thursday's asked the question "
Can Israel survive without a 'Palestinian state'?" Of the people quoted, I found myself agreeing only with Daniel Gordis. Ronen Bregman, who is usually good on this stuff, disappoints. I thought Aaron David Miller (surprisingly) got more right than Bregman did. The rest of them aren't worth mentioning.
Yes, Israel can survive without a 'Palestinian state.' We may have to hunker down, but come January 2013, there's a good chance it will get easier.
Labels: Aaron David Miller, Daniel Gordis, Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, Ronen Bregman, Unilateral declaration of independence (UDI)
Return to realism
Jennifer Rubin reports that former peace processor Aaron David Miller has
returned to realism.
Now, thankfully, Miller is back to his earlier brand of realism, stating that "it should be clear to all but the interminably obtuse" (and the intentionally obtuse, I would add) that a breakthrough in peace talks isn't possible in the forseeable future. He asserts that "the cooler heads in the Obama administration know this. Particularly the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and the new national security adviser, Tom Donilon." Now they just need to convince the president.
Miller urges Obama to focus on attainable items, not a Middle East peace breakthrough. So Miller advises: First, stay out of the United Nations. Don't encourage the Palestinians to believe that the United States will vote for, or even abstain on, resolutions that criticize the Israelis on settlements. Or support efforts to recognize Palestinian statehood. It's a key to an empty room. That will come only through negotiations and U.S. mediation in the region -- not in New York.
Second, support Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's institution building on the West Bank, especially in the economic and security areas;
Third, use the absence of direct talks -- which have rarely produced sustained breakthroughs in any case -- to press both sides separately, at a high level, on where they are on the core issues. Do this for three months -- and see where the gaps are and what the chances are for bridging them;
Fourth, probe for signs of life on the Israeli-Syrian talks.
I'd stop at No. 2. On the list of farcical exercises, the search for an Israeli-Syrian breakthrough ranks high. But Miller's return to realism should be applauded. We can only hope that the "interminably obtuse" don't include the president.
Indeed.
Labels: Aaron David Miller, Barack Obama, Jennifer Rubin, Mahmoud Abbas
