The Hill reports that Arabs in Arab countries are 'warming' to President Obama.
Since 2011, opinions of Obama’s policies have grown exponentially in
Egypt (from 3 percent to 34 percent), in Jordan (from 3 percent to 25
percent) and in the UAE (from 8 percent to 38 percent).
Views of Obama in Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Lebanon have also increased between 7 and 24 percentage points.
Saudis,
Emiratis and Egyptians gave the administration the highest scores, but
ratings in each country remain well below 50 percent.
Those surveyed
said the Obama administration has been the most effective in ending the
U.S. presence in Iraq, after troops pulled out in 2011, and working to
end Iran’s nuclear program.
The administration has been the least
effective in improving relations with the Muslim world and handling the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Arab Spring, according to the poll.
Talk about framing the questions to get the results you want in a poll. Obama has been most effective in ending US presence in Iraq because he just ended it and let the consequences be damned. He's been totally ineffective at ending Iran's nuclear program (look at the news from Geneva), but is still 'effective' because US 'intelligence agencies' tied Bush's hands from trying in 2007. None of this actually makes Obama popular.
Strong majorities in each country support U.S. policies to spur a
negotiated solution to the civil war in Syria, and favor the U.S.
providing more assistance to its refugees. Majorities in all countries
oppose any form of U.S. military engagement in Syria.
Most of the
countries strongly support U.S.-led negotiations to curb Iran’s nuclear
program, but they have little confidence the talks will succeed.
On
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, strong majorities in every Arab
country surveyed said they aren’t confident the U.S. has been
even-handed in its approach to negotiating peace. More than half of
Palestinians, for instance, felt that way.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the ugliest of them all?
Writing in the Arab News, Abdulateef al-Muhlim argues that the Arab spring has revealed the true face of the Arabs, and it's an ugly sight (Hat Tip: Herb G).
Everyone knows the truth, but we won’t admit it. During the Arab Spring,
we saw our real faces in the mirrors. It showed that the Arabs were
never united and are now divided beyond anybody’s imagination. We hate
each other more than we hate the outside enemy. This is why no one in
the Arab world showed any sympathy to the Syrians when Israeli planes
attacked Syrian targets a few weeks ago. As a matter of fact, even
hardcore anti-Israelis wished the Israeli planes had continued eastward
and attacked the Syrian Presidential Palace and killed an Arab leader
named Bashar Assad. In other words, many in the Arab world sided with
Israel against an Arab country. After the attack, we saw many Syrians
approach the Israeli-fortified checkpoints in the Golan Heights, not to
attack Israeli soldiers, but to seek refuge and get medical attention. I
am not talking about simple medical care. I am talking about major
surgeries like the four-year-old Syrian girl who got a heart transplant
at Wolfson Hospital in Holon, Israel.
This is the real Arab Spring. Syrians are hurting Syrians and the
Israelis are the ones who treat the Syrian wounds. Yes, the Arab Spring
is a joke and I mean a very bad joke. The Arab Spring is not about
seeking democracy, it is about Arabs killing Arabs. And this is why
Israeli soldiers are busy on the Golan Heights. They are not busy with
loading ammunition; they are busy picking cherries and other fruits.
What is more, they are also busy giving guided tours to show the world
Syrian planes targeting civilians, Scud missiles destroying villages and
tanks attacking schools and mosques. What goes inside Syria is more
horrific. Syrian men humiliate Syrian women in front of their relatives,
rape and kill them. It is not only the killing that is ugly. We saw a
Syrian kill another Syrian and then open his chest with a knife and take
a bite of his heart. It can’t get any uglier.
Now, mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the ugliest of them all? Well,
they are all ugly. It has turned out that the Arab Spring is not about a
search for democracy, social justice and better standards of living.
The Arab Spring is all about hate and sectarian violence. The world
didn’t hear anything about rebuilding the countries or eradicating
poverty. The talk is all about fighting among the same people from the
same country.
#Tomorrow13 The World Order: Facing Tomorrow's Challenges
This is a liveblog of #Tomorrow13's The World Order: Facing Tomorrow's Challenges. I had to leave to go to a meeting for a couple of hours and now I'm back at the conference. Miri Eisen is moderating. The first speaker is Stuart Eizenstat. By the way, this is the only panel in which all the panelists have come here from abroad.
Eizenstat says that the world is now multi-polar. The old G-7 has been superseded by the G-20. Israel needs to adapt and is beginning to do so by deepening its relations with other countries. Israel has $10 billion in trade with China, a country that has no history of anti-Semitism. The US is no longer a rising power, but it will remain a power to be reckoned with for a long time. Only country that project air, sea and land power everywhere. Defense spending still more than the next 15 countries combined. Within five years - if not less - US will be largest producer of natural gas and by 2020 will produce more crude oil than Saudi Arabia, which will lower energy prices and make US more competitive.
China has its own problems.
Globalization is a major force, powered by the internet and the digital revolution. This is a net positive for Israel because Israel is adaptable.
How to manage the struggle for the hearts and minds of 1.6 billion Muslims. Eizenstat says that we shouldn't view this as a battle between the West and Muslims - rather it's a battle within the Muslim world itself. Arab revolution has aggravated this by bringing political Islam to power. Has had dramatic influences on alliances that US created over six decades. Those alliances are now shattered.
US and Israel have opportunities from this crisis, and need to grab them. Israel has important indirect role. Has to reach a rapprochement with Turkey. For sure Turkey started this in Davos when Erdogan walked out on Peres. The Mavi Marmara could have been resolved two years ago, and the agreement still has not been implemented because of a dispute over money.
If Israel can demonstrate that it can be proactive on 'peace process' it will help moderate Arab states. He admits that 'Palestinians' may not be able to make compromises now but should not stop Israel from demonstrating that it can make compromises. Advocates 2002 Saudi plan and says that we should dismantle outposts and allow only 'natural growth' in 'settlements.' (Sound familiar? See the previous post).
Eizenstat says that the delegitimization issue has added an economic element because Europe is our number one export market and what we're seeing is European multinationals refuse to invest anywhere in Israel because of Arab boycott. As we speak, 14 foreign ministers are calling on European Commission to impose labeling requirement on 'West Bank,' which is an incentive not to invest anywhere in Israel.
Cites Richard Falk saying HP, Elbit and others should be boycotted. (Does anyone listen to Falk?).
Because Israel is not alone, for almost all the issues he mentioned Israel has the same interests as other countries in the region.
Josef Joffe up next. Threats today not as bad in many ways as threats of previous generations. But Russia is back and that means that the 19th century is back. Russia gives great stuff to teach International Politics.
Other not good news from Obama's America - proposing to contain and neutralize itself. Leading from behind in Libya and not leading at all in Syria. No great power has ever done this to itself before, and what we may now be facing is creeping anarchy. For the first time since World War II, the US is involved in nation building at home. Putin and Khameni have reached the conclusion that opportunity beckons from Obama's America.
Antony Leong next. He's actually from Hong Kong. Chinese have great admiration for Jewish people. Why does China have so many fewer Nobel prize winners than Israel? Lots to learn.
China will grow 7% per annum for the next decade if not longer. China has to increase domestic consumption. Urbanization will bring lots of room for growth. Urbanized consumers consumer more. Only 50% of Chinese urbanized - typical western country is 75-85% urbanized. Seek similarities to other countries, but allow differences to coexist. Whenever there's a problem, US thinks of law, logic and relationship. China is reversed.
Five factors young people are seeing in tomorrow: Globalization, new technology taking away jobs, huge debt burden in most western countries (especially where there's one person one vote), inflation, aging population. In the last ten years in the US, 1% of population has captured 40% of wealth created.
Leong says we have to think about what kind of education we provide our young people, what jobs we find for them, and changing from a wealth creation bias to a wealth distribution bias.
Professor Dominique Moisi is next. 21st century will not be Asian or Chinese century. This is the first time a company has come to prominence without a universal message, only concerned about itself. And China won't do it: If China doesn't fight corruption, it's doomed, but if it does defeat corruption, the party is doomed. But three key words give hope in the continuation of Chinese growth. Decadence, fear. (Sorry - I missed the first one).
No American century. Europe being fragmented. But too early to bury Europe.
(Sorry but I am really wiped out...).
Ambassador Terje Rød-Larsen is next. Population growth, technology and identity are mega trends that are changing the world. He believes that the Middle East will maintain its centrality in geopolitics but what defines everything has changed. Israeli-Arab conflict no longer defines every conflict in the region.
The key to Iran is not the nuclear issue but that Iran's aim is to dominate the region. Iran's nuclear program is just a tool. But if they get nuclear weapons, the NPT will collapse and everyone else will seek nuclear weapons. Note that no one really worries about Israel's nuclear weapons because everyone knows that Israel doesn't want to dominate the region (as you read that, keep in mind who this guy is).
Moderator asking questions. Larsen says that the UN is losing its legitimacy and that's unlikely to change because Security Council permanent members unlikely to give up their status. Eizenstat says we've created an interdependent world where the seven countries that make cell phones cannot go to war. There are two great threats to US leadership to which it must step up by the end of this year: The Iranian nuclear threat (cannot let negotiations drag out while centrifuges spin; military solution better than nuclear Iran) and Syria (where if Hezbullah and Iran are seen as victors, it will have drastic consequences for the rest of the world).
Report: Even Obama knows that 'Abbas' doesn't want peace
A senior Israeli diplomatic official has told Israel Hayom that even President Obama recognizes that 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen has no interest in peace.
Since Obama visited Israel in
March, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has been trying to find a way
to renew peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Kerry's
efforts have led nowhere because neither side believes talks would
continue after an opening summit.
At this point, the peace process is stalled
because of Palestinian demands for a complete settlement freeze. In
public statements that he made in Jerusalem and Ramallah, Obama rejected
preconditions for the renewal of peace talks. Yet the Palestinians
continue to insist on a number of preconditions, including, among
others, the release of more than 100 terrorists imprisoned in Israel for
attacks they committed before the signing of the Oslo Accords in the
early 1990s.
Abbas is also demanding that Netanyahu present
a map of the final borders of a Palestinian state. The Prime Minister's
Office strongly rejects this demand, saying borders should be the last
core issue discussed. Israeli officials believe Abbas is demanding a
border map to spark internal controversy in Israel over settlements that
would not remain inside the country.
The senior diplomatic official said that the
relationship between Netanyahu and Obama was "very good." The official
said Obama "opened a new page and during his recent trip to Israel
proved that he came as a friend."
Some Israeli officials point to the upcoming
2014 U.S. Congressional elections as a reason for Obama's embrace of
Israel. According to this line of thought, Obama wants to soften
Congress so that it will not thwart his plans.
But the more dominant assessment among Israeli
officials is that the Obama administration changed its tune toward
Israel due to the consequences of the Arab Spring.
2014 is a much more likely explanation than the Arab spring. The Arab spring was in 2011 and Obama kept pressuring Israel for as long as he thought he could get away with it without ruining his reelection chances. Obama is hoping to regain a House majority, and that won't happen if he has to answer everywhere for pressuring Israel.
But the senior Israeli diplomatic official has Abu Mazen right.
The official said he believed that Abbas' policy was to "stay in place."
"Abbas saw that after the disengagement
[Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip in 2005], despite the relative
strength he had there with 35,000 fighters against the 4,000 of Hamas,
Hamas expelled him," the official said. "In light of the events taking
place in Arab countries in the Middle East, he does not want the same
thing to happen in Judea and Samaria."
Abu Mazen is about keeping himself alive and staying in power. Always has been and always will be.
In a remarkable and enduring show of unity, non-Islamic
opposition parties under the banner of the National Salvation Front are
boycotting the regime until their demands – canceling the Islamic
constitution and setting up a consensus government until new elections
are held – are met.
The Muslim Brotherhood who had won a sweeping victory in the first free
parliamentary elections and got their candidate elected president have
bitterly disappointed the people who had put their faith in them.
Nothing has been done to improve their lot. Upon taking office Morsi had
promised – and failed – to take care of five burning issues within a
hundred days: growing insecurity, monster traffic jams in the capital,
lack of fuel and cooking gas, lack of subsidized bread, and the mounting
piles of refuse in the streets.
In The Pharoh weeps, Judith Miller cataloged some of the economic problems facing Egypt:
While Cairo may still be safer than Chicago, or even New
York, Egyptian women, for the first time in memory, fear shopping or
taking cabs at night. Cairo’s police, blamed for the deaths of
protestors and unhappy with their pay, working conditions, and lack of
respect, sit in their precinct houses, refusing to provide security that
Egyptians once took for granted. Tourists have vanished, depriving
Egypt of a vital source of jobs and hard currency. Unemployment has
risen from 9.8 percent in 2010 to 13 percent today. Inflation is
officially 8.7 percent, though more like 9.5 percent, or even higher,
for food and basic commodities, say economists. Even these figures are
misleading, since an estimated 40 percent of Egypt’s economy is “black”
or informal, unregulated by and unreported to the government, according
to Hazem el-Beblawi, an economist who served as deputy prime minister
under the army’s unpopular transition government in 2011. Beblawi, a
strong advocate of free-market liberalism who resigned his post that
year, accusing the army of taking Egypt in the “wrong direction,” says
youth unemployment probably tops 19 percent. Egypt, he estimates, has
less than its officially claimed $13.5 billion in hard-currency reserves
(versus $36 billion before the revolution). “Egypt imports roughly $60
billion worth of goods and services,” he says. “It exports under $25
billion.”
By summer, Beblawi predicts, the government will be unable to import the
wheat that sustains the poor—Egypt imports 10 million tons of wheat per
year, the most of any nation—or the diesel that fuels bread ovens and
transports 99 percent of everything that moves in this country of more
than 85 million. Egypt’s dilemma is this: it cannot politically afford
to stop providing the costly subsidies to the poor that distort its
economy. Poor Egyptians spend 70 percent of their income on food, versus
55 percent for Egyptians as a whole; Americans spend roughly 14
percent. But unless it reduces these subsidies and adopts a pro-growth
budget, Egypt cannot secure the $4.8 billion International Monetary Fund
loan it needs to unlock what Angus Blair, a Cairo-based former
investment banker and founder of Signet Institute, an economic think
tank, estimates could be $14 billion in aid and investment. Egypt spends
about 20 percent of its budget on fuel subsidies alone. In other words,
the government would be committing political suicide to do what
economists say must be done to sustain the country’s economic viability.
Only a government that enjoys public confidence can risk taking such
steps. “Egypt’s economic crisis has political roots,” Beblawi says. “And
a political solution is needed.” So far, he adds, none is in sight.
With their legendary “sabr,” or patience, nearly exhausted, Egyptians
blame the lack of growth, jobs, fuel, services, security, and stability
on what many call the “incompetence” of President Mohammed Morsi and his
ruling Muslim Brotherhood. And they blame the United States, too, for
supporting Morsi, who eked out an election victory last year and took
power last July thanks only to low voter turnout and a fractious,
divided secular opposition. “People no longer trust Morsi,” Beblawi
said, speaking for many among Cairo’s professional elite and middle
classes.
Clashes erupted immediately after the service between the
emerging mourners and a crowd outside the cathedral. It was unclear who
started the violence. But later dozens of riot police with armored
vehicles and tear-gas canons appeared to enter the fray on the side of
crowds of young Muslim men who were throwing rocks and fire bombs at the
mourners.
In what seemed like a siege of the cathedral, tear-gas canisters fell
inside the walls of its compound, sending gas into the sanctuary and two
nuns running for shelter in a nearby loading dock.
...
“The police are not trying to protect us or do anything to stop the
violence,” said Wael Eskandar, a Coptic Christian activist. “On the
contrary, they are actively aiding the people in civilian clothes”
attacking the Christians, he said.
It does no good to pretend, as some claim, that Morsi can’t
stop the attacks on Christians or that the forces pushing the country to
the brink of religious war are unrelated to the Brotherhood and its
supporters. While attacks on Christians were hardly unknown during the
long reign of deposed dictator Hosni Mubarak, it isn’t possible to
separate the heightened tension from the expectations of Islamists that
they have the Christian minority on the run. The brazen manner with
which these mobs have attacked a symbol of Christianity like the
Cathedral with the assistance of the police is a signal that things are
heading in the wrong direction. The spectacle of security forces with
armored personnel carriers and tear gas canons joining the violence on
the side of thugs throwing rocks and firebombs at Christian mourners
leaving the cathedral makes it hard to argue that this is the work of
extremists unconnected with the ruling party.
That Muslims who are prepared to riot and murder at the merest hint of
insult aimed at Islam taunted the Christians with what the Times called
“lewd gestures involving the cross” in the presence of the police is
itself appalling. But it is also indicative of a shift in the mood of
the Middle East, in which it is clear that anything goes when it comes
to religious conflict. Though the Brotherhood has promised gullible
Westerners that it won’t impose its beliefs on non-Muslims or turn the
country into a theocratic state, evidence is mounting that the
Kulturkampf in Egypt is in full swing.
If President Obama is serious about standing up for human rights, it is
necessary for him to speak out publicly against what is going on in
Egypt and to start using some of the leverage over its government that
he was quick to employ when showing Mubarak the door or threatening the
military to allow the Brotherhood to take office. If he fails to do so,
the Muslim and Arab world won’t be slow to draw the same conclusions
that Egyptians in the street are drawing from the role of the police in
the assault on the cathedral. They will think that Obama is indifferent
to the fate of the Copts or, even worse, that he has no problems with
the Brotherhood’s push for power.
Still, two things surprise me. The first is how incompetent
the Muslim Brotherhood has been. In Egypt, the Brotherhood has presided
over an economic death spiral and a judiciary caught up in idiocies like
investigating the comedian Bassem Youssef, Egypt’s Jon Stewart, for
allegedly insulting President Mohamed Morsi. (See Stewart’s perfect
takedown of Morsi.) Every time the Brotherhood had a choice of acting in
an inclusive way or seizing more power, it seized more power, depriving
it now of the broad base needed to make necessary but painful economic
reforms.
The second surprise? How weak the democratic opposition has been. The
tragedy of the Arab center-left is a complicated story, notes Marc
Lynch, a Middle East expert at George Washington University and the
author of “The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions of the New
Middle East.” Many of the more secular, more pro-Western Egyptian
political elites who could lead new center-left parties, he said, had
been “co-opted by the old regime” for its own semiofficial parties and
therefore “were widely discredited in the eyes of the public.” That left
youngsters who had never organized a party, or a grab bag of
expatriates, former regime officials, Nasserites and liberal Islamists,
whose only shared idea was that the old regime must go.
And how would the Muslim Brotherhood have proven its "competence?"
Surely there's been incompetence in the way Morsi and company have
ruled, but to attribute their governing failure to "incompetence,"
ignores the nature of the Muslim Brotherhood. What Friedman attributes
to incompetence masks his own ignorance. He assumed that the Muslim
Brotherhood was interested in governing, not in accruing power to
itself. In his analyses of Egypt over the past two years Friedman
ignored the totalitarian nature of Islamists. Sure, Friedman is correct
now to argue that the United States needs to use its leverage to effect
change in Egypt (or at least attempt to) but he's been a cheerleader for
the Muslim Brotherhood until recently. That is not due to his
expertise, but to his ignorance, something he refuses to own up to.
MT "@shadihamid: New #Egypt poll: 37% of Egyptians would vote for Morsi again; Sabahi 3%; Baradei 1%; Amr Moussa 1% bit.ly/Z3qmBg"
— Ikhwanweb (@Ikhwanweb) April 8, 2013
Brave, astonishing ToI op-ed on why Arab Spring failed, by ex-Iranian foreign ministry employee toi.sr/17qi8GW via @timesofisrael
— David Horovitz (@davidhorovitz) April 10, 2013
2)The Syria Debacle
Once upon a time, President Obama's top policy advisers recommended that he aid the Syria rebels. That time has long passed. While the Obama administration initially saw the Muslim Brotherhood as a bulwark against Al Qaeda, but that strategy hasn't been working out very well.
In an audio statement released online yesterday, Abu Bakr al
Baghdadi, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), announced that his
organization shall henceforth be known as the “Islamic State in Iraq and
the Levant.” The new name reflects AQI’s unchecked growth, primarily
into neighboring Syria, since the withdrawal of American troops from
Iraq.
Since late 2011, the Al Nusrah Front has greatly expanded its
operations. The organization has become one of the most effective
fighting forces in the war against Bashar al Assad’s crumbling regime.
Al Nusrah is better known in the West by its true name: al Qaeda.
That should put Washington in a diplomatic quandary. Qatari
and Turkish support for the Nusra Front is now effectively aiding an
al-Qaeda affiliate sworn not only to kill Bashar al-Assad but also
Americans. If Gulf analysts in Bahrain and Kuwait are to be believed,
Qatar is mucking about with such groups not simply out of religious
solidarity, but also because the emir of Qatar is high on the notion
that tiny Qatar can afford to muck about and be a player on the
international stage. Turkey would rather pump money to an al-Qaeda
affiliate than recognize the rights of Syrian Kurds who will not pay
fealty to Turkey’s leader, like the Democratic Union Party (PYD) which
now controls most Kurdish areas in Syria.
A no-fly zone, such as that Max Boot advocates,
would have once helped ordinary Syrians protect themselves against the
excesses of Bashar al-Assad’s rule. And it still may not be such a bad
idea, so long as it simply does not do the Nusra Front’s work for it.
Nor is simply funding the Syrian opposition wise since neither the State
Department nor Central Intelligence Agency is skilled at separating the
wheat from the chaff among Syrian opposition groups. Liberals will not
rise to the top in any safe-haven when faced with a group bent on their
repression at any cost. Whether we like it or not, any strategy for
Syria must now prioritize crushing the Nusra Front. Defeating Assad and
hoping for the best is not a strategy that will bolster U.S. interests.
And Barry Rubin reminds what weapons these rebels may well get access
to. (To be clear, Salafist and Muslim Brotherhood affiliated rebels
have these weapons; Al Qaeda affiliated groups don't appear to have
them, yet.)
Briefly, the story is this: The weapons are generically
known as MANPAD for Man Portable Air Defense Missile. The equipment
captured in Libya and from the Syrian army in Syria or obtained by other
means consists of four types.
The SA16 is a short-range version which has been captured by the rebels,
specifically when they took the giant Syrian army base in Aleppo.
The only weapon from Libya is the older SA7, since the Libyans didn’t
have more advanced versions. It has been reported –though all such
figures are not necessarily reliable — that about 5000 SA7 missiles were
destroyed by the U.S. and other forces but that about 15,000 remained
missing. The missiles are not usable forever, and some of those in the
Libyan arsenal were very old, but apparently many of them would still
work. Here’s an example of a reasonably reliable report saying that a
large number of SA7s were delivered to Syrian rebels through Turkey last
September.
Then there’s the Chinese FN-6 , standard for the Chinese air force,
which was used to shoot down a Syrian transport helicopter at Menagh Air
Base near Aleppo. How did that one get there, through the
U.S.-Turkish-Saudi-Qatari arms supply program or another way? It is
claimed that Syrian rebels shot down two military helicopters with this
weapon.
And this brings us to the best of all, the SA24. While some have been
misidentified, they were obtained from the 46th Syrian regiment base
west of Aleppo.
For all the hope the Arab Spring originally engendered, it is increasingly looking like a disaster for American interests.
The new defense minister provided the public with a glimpse of his
priorities on Sunday, when he used a Facebook post to list the defense
issues he will soon be tackling.
First on the list was,
naturally, the Iranian nuclear program, which threatens Israel, the
Middle East, and global security as a whole. According to unconfirmed
yet widespread reports, Ya'alon has, until now, been in the camp of
those opposed to a military strike against Iran's nuclear program,
preferring to let the US take the lead.
However, even if the reports are true, Ya'alon's stance could change in light of new intelligence or new developments.
Secondly,
Ya'alon made reference to the Middle East instability that is washing
over nearly all of Israel's neighbors. Under Ehud Barak's watch, the IDF
has made good progress in shifting its focus towards emerging terror
threats from Syria - home to an arsenal of chemical weapons - and the
Sinai Peninsula, and Ya'alon will be seeking to continue the
preparations.
Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza are
threats that cannot be separated from the regional instability.
Hezbollah, armed with over 60,000 rockets and well trained guerrillas,
remains the most formidable enemy in Israel's immediate area. The IDF
has spent recent years intensively training itself for the next
encounter with the Shi'ite terror group, which is currently attempting
to target Israeli civilians overseas. Ya'alon will be briefed in full on
these preparations.
The last defense issue mentioned by Ya'alon
is the "Israeli - Palestinian issue," - a reference to the stalled
diplomatic process vis-a-vis the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
Ya'alon's position on this issue is well known - he holds that the
Palestinian leadership in Ramallah is not a viable peace partner at this
time.
That sounds to me like the right set of priorities for a Defense Minister.
Like the sequester molesters, “Arab Spring” devotees have their own
fantasy vocabulary. The whoppers are “freedom” and “democracy,” the
ideals, we’re told, that have swept the Middle East, even as it sinks
into repression, social unrest, and the persecution of religious
minorities.
Islam and the West use the same words, but we are not
conveying the same concepts — just as a “cut” in your budget means
something very different from a “cut” in Washington’s.
Freedom? “Let it be known to you that the real meaning of
freedom lies in the perfection of slavery,” explained al-Qushayri, a
celebrated eleventh-century scholar of Islam.
I offer this bit of Islamist wisdom as an explanation, not a put-down. Not that the distinction matters much. As Spring Fever
makes clear, the culture of Middle Eastern Islam is convinced of
nothing so much as its own superiority. It does not judge itself by
non-Islamic standards, particularly the standards of Western
civilization, with which it sees itself in a conflict that will end only
when one side prevails.
The dynamic, classical, supremacist Islam of the Middle East teaches
that Allah has given mankind, His creation, the gift of sharia: the
“path,” the all-purpose societal framework — covering all aspects of
life, not just spirituality — for living in dignity through obedience.
“Freedom,” in this context, is to make the “free” choice to surrender
oneself entirely to this path.
That is the antithesis of a freedom to chart one’s own course, the
freedom of the West. Here, Allah is not the sovereign. Our faiths may
guide us, but the people are sovereign, with a right to govern civil
society as they see fit — including in contradiction of sharia’s
provisions, which deny what the West sees as basic civil rights.
Please forgive me for being a day late! Shirazani Phil saw his shadow on Saturday. (Hat Tip: Jack W).
Today Shirazani Phil, the lesser known Misloom version of the American
Punxutawney Phil, emerged from his home in the basement of a mosque in
Shiraz, Iran, and - in seeing the shadow of the smoke from a stack of
burning tires in the street - declared that the Arab Spring currently
under way across the Middle East will continue.
Perhaps as important, he also avoided antagonizing the right, having
not emphasized traditional issues of the left, like the peace process.
Like a large majority of the Israeli public, he supports a two-state
solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but is skeptical of the
Palestinian leadership’s willingness to negotiate seriously; he has
called for a return to peace talks but has not made it a priority.
How does this description of "centrist" Lapid differ from Prime Minister
Netanyahu who's described as "conservative" and "right-wing?"
(As an aside, here's how the New York Times described President Obama's
victory in November, in Divided U.S. Gives Obama More Time:
Mr. Obama’s re-election extended his place in history, carrying the
tenure of the nation’s first black president into a second term. His
path followed a pattern that has been an arc to his political career:
faltering when he seemed to be at his strongest — the period before his
first debate with Mr. Romney — before he redoubled his efforts to lift
himself and his supporters to victory.
President Obama won by a narrower margin than he did his first time. Yet
there's no language about him having been "weakened" or "chastened," as
in the article about the Israeli election.)
The Washington Post carries an AP analysis of the election results that includes this nugget of wisdom:
HOW WILL THIS AFFECT PEACE EFFORTS WITH THE PALESTINIANS?
In trying to piece together a majority coalition government, a weakened
Netanyahu might be forced to offer concessions to the Palestinians to
restart peace negotiations, namely, a freeze in settlement construction
in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
At least the New York Times correctly identified Lapid's views as being
skeptical of the Palestinians. This assumes that Lapid is something that
he's not.
2) They said it
The Israeli election in January will bring to power Israeli rightists who never spoke at your local Israel Bonds dinner. Thomas Friedman - Give Chuck a Chance - December 26, 2012
Netanyahu may be returned to power in elections this month at the head of an even more right-wing coalition. Roger Cohen - The Blight of Return - January 17, 2012
Two opinion pieces the other day make similar mistakes about Israel's
political landscape. The editors of the Washington Post write in Following the elections in Israel, a reset:
Evidently, Mr. Netanyahu calculates that being seen to stand up to
this U.S. president is good politics in Israel — and he may be right. A
recent poll showed that half of Israelis believes the prime minister
should pursue his policies even if they lead to conflict with the United
States. The big story of the campaign has been the surge of far-right
parties that reject not only Mr. Obama’s view of Israel but also the
two-state solution that has been U.S. policy for more than a decade. This disturbing trend is partly the result of Mr. Obama’s poor
handling of Israel, which he has not visited and where he is widely
regarded as supportive of the nation’s defense but unsympathetic to its
psyche. If the White House were trying to undercut Mr. Netanyahu, it
would be guilty of the same poor judgment the Israeli leader showed in
tilting toward Mitt Romney in the U.S. presidential race. No scenario
contemplated by political analysts foresees anyone other than Mr.
Netanyahu emerging as prime minister from the bargaining that will
follow Tuesday’s election. The question is whether the incumbent will choose, or perhaps be
obliged by the electoral math, to include parties from the center and
left in his coalition. If he does not, Mr. Netanyahu could find himself
isolated both within his own government and internationally: He is one
of only two of the top 30 candidates from his own Likud Party to endorse
Palestinian statehood.
That last sentence seems dubious. If the Post's editors are looking for
explicit declarations, why? In practice even Avigdor Lieberman (the
currently deposed head of the Yisrael Beiteinu, the party sharing the
list with the Likud) advocates territorial compromise. Palestinian
statehood is really up to the Palestinians, not Israel.
Regardless it's typical to express concern for what Israel's political
leaders may or may not have said and ignore the fact that the
reciprocal declaration (that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish
state) is something not demanded of even the most moderate Palestinian
leader.
Regardless of what the "far right" parties advocate, they are careful
not to campaign on them. The reason for Naftali Bennett's appeal is not
his views on the peace process.
Second, the status quo is not a path to a one-state solution, but to
Bosnian-style ethnic cleansing, which could erupt as quickly as the Gaza
fighting did last year and spread to Israeli Arab cities. Right-wing
Israelis and Hamas leaders alike are pushing for a cataclysmic fight.
Mr. Abbas, whose Fatah party controls the West Bank, has renounced
violence, but without signs of a viable diplomatic path he cannot unify
his people to support new talks. If his government falls apart, or if
the more Palestinian territory is annexed (as right-wing Israeli want),
or if the standoff in Gaza leads to an Israeli ground invasion,
bloodshed and protests across the Arab world will be inevitable. Such
chaos might also provoke missiles from Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed
Shiite militant group based in Lebanon.
This is hysterical. It might well be that Hamas takes over the West
Bank, though I would certainly hope not. It's hard to see why that would
be the goal or of benefit to "right-wing" Israelis. The ease with which
some tar "right-wing" Israelis with Hamas is appalling and underscores
how ridiculous this argument is.
For a better understanding of the Israeli election read David Weinberg's, Slick and Threatening.
Israelis don’t see themselves as standing at a historic juncture.
They don’t believe that Middle East circumstances are ripe for peace,
and they don’t expect their prime minister to be making any dramatic
diplomatic moves. That is why Tzipi Livni’s “I can bring the peace”
messaging never took hold during the current campaign. As a
result, Israelis are not looking for revolutionary change. They are
waiting-out the ‘Arab Spring’ and other storms, taking no irresponsible
risks, and voting for steady hands at the helm of state. Whether they
vote for Netanyahu or not, they don’t feel that Netanyahu is going
destroy Israel. They don’t buy the doomsday scenarios drawn by Reminick
or Shavit (or by some Diaspora Jewish leaders like Eric Yoffie of the
Reform movement or Daniel Sokatch of the New Israel Fund) about Israel
being taken over by right-wing religious fanatics, forfeiting its
democracy, and losing its global friends. In fact, what Israelis
expect is more of the same, and what they want to see is Netanyahu in
government with parties of both the Zionist right and left. They expect
another complicated coalition government, with built-in checks and
balances.
This brings us into the popular international theme about the alleged
meaning of the election: Israel is moving to the right and rejecting a
two-state solution. A lot of this is motivated by the agenda of making
Israel look as if it is against peace, despite the fact that it is the
Palestinian side that makes such a solution impossible. Yet
Netanyahu’s impending victory has nothing to do with any shift on that
issue. Rather, it is due to the fact that the prime minister has done a
reasonably good job, the economy is okay, terrorism is low, he’s kept
out of trouble, and he has shown he can be trusted to preserve security.
6) Good Predictions
A couple of writers made reasonably accurate predictions of the outcome
of yesterday's election. One was Gil Hoffman. Last week in The Rightward Shift that never Happened, Hoffman wrote:
So the way the foreign media should be summing up the election so far
is that Israel has apparently not gone Right, against all odds.
But the true test of which direction Israel will take is the coalition
that Netanyahu is expected to form. Unlike last time when he formed a
coalition with one Center-Left party and four parties on the Right,
Netanyahu is expected to form a government with two Center-Left parties
this time: most likely Yesh Atid and Kadima.
But in 2013, the balance has steadily shifted against Netanyahu and
the right. In the final two days of polling (with the exception of one
outlying pollster), the right dropped to the mid-sixties, with two polls
giving it 63 seats, just two more than the 61 Knesset members needed to
form a government. Making matters worse for Netanyahu, in most of the
polls that total includes two or three seats from the surging Otzma
L’Yisrael (“Strong Israel”), a pro-settler party with views so extreme
that Netanyahu could not plausibly include them in his coalition. Likud
Beiteinu has suffered the bulk of the losses (the alliance, which
Netanyahu's political adviser predicted would win 47 seats, is polling
as low as 32, ten less than the two parties have in the outgoing
Knesset).
It’s not clear why this has happened. It could be that Netanyahu has
hemorrhaged votes in the center as he’s tried to woo back right-wing
votes lost to HaBayit HaYehudi under the leadership of
staffer-turned-rival Naftali Bennett. It could be that some of Avigdor
Lieberman's supporters have begun exploring centrist alternatives now
that his legal troubles have sidelined him. It could also be that the
rhetorical campaign against Netanyahu – joined in recent weeks by his
predecessor, his former intelligence chief, President Obama, and the
country's president – is finally making a dent.
And it may not matter. If the polls are accurate, Netanyahu will still
enjoy the same right-wing "blocking majority" he has had for the past
four years and will enter coalition negotiations from a position of
strength. The conventional wisdom is that he will secure his right-wing
base and then try to lure one or two center-left parties as a moderate
fig leaf to appease the Israeli public and the international community.
I would hardly characterize bringing in center-left parties as a "fig leaf."
Also for an amazingly accurate (though not perfect) prediction of the breakdown of seats see Jameel @ the Muquata's prediction.
More importantly he explains how he arrived at his numbers, "My
prediction based on everything running around the web." In other words
the information was out there. But one had to look for it. For too many
it was a lot easier simply to bemoan Israel's rightward turn.
Coming just four months after an American ambassador was killed by
jihadists in Libya, those assaults have contributed to a sense that
North Africa — long a dormant backwater for Al Qaeda — is turning into
another zone of dangerous instability, much like Syria, site of an
increasingly bloody civil war. The mayhem in this vast desert region has
many roots, but it is also a sobering reminder that the euphoric
toppling of dictators in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt has come at a price.
“It’s one of the darker sides of the Arab uprisings,” said Robert
Malley, the Middle East and North Africa director at the International
Crisis Group. “Their peaceful nature may have damaged Al Qaeda and its
allies ideologically, but logistically, in terms of the new porousness
of borders, the expansion of ungoverned areas, the proliferation of
weapons, the disorganization of police and security services in all
these countries — it’s been a real boon to jihadists.”
Malley's characterization of the increasing Islamist violence as a
negative side effect of the "Arab spring" rather than part of the same
phenomenon, understates the problem.
How, then, are we to understand al-Qaida’s survival and that fact’s
relationship to U.S. policy? There are two key points to be made.
First, al-Qaida was not designed to take over state power in countries.
It is the Islamist equivalent of an anarchist group, that is, one
focused more on destroying existing institutions than on staging a
revolution, becoming the government, and fundamentally transforming
states. That is, of course, the function of the Muslim Brotherhood, the
contemporary equivalent of the Russian Bolsheviks who took over Russia
in 1917.
There is nothing surprising in al-Qaida popping up, staging some
attacks, and then becoming less visible or being repressed. That is the
nature of such groups and their strategies. It is thus easy to claim
victory over them. The historic role of al-Qaida and the September 11
attacks on America helped set the stage for the domination of Middle
East politics by Islamists today. That’s pretty significant. Moreover,
al-Qaida operates more by inspiring others to launch attacks rather than
directly organizing them, which also makes wiping out the group a
rather difficult thing to do.
It's not just logistical help that the Arab spring provides, it's inspirational too.
Another point that the New York Times article makes is:
Although there have been hints of cross-border alliances among the
militants, such links appear to be fleeting. And their targets are often
those of opportunity, as they appear to have been in Benghazi and at
the gas facility in Algeria.
I agree with the characterization that the relationship between AQIM
and AQSL is murky; but when it is translated into popular discourse,
murkiness is often inaccurately understood as “we don’t know if there
are ties between the two.” For example, Max Fisher writes at the
Washington Post, “It’s tough to know the exact connection between
leaders in the Algeria-based AQIM and those in far-away Afghanistan and
Pakistan…. It’s entirely possible that AQIM’s links to al-Qaeda already
are, are becoming, or will become closer to al-Qaeda than we think.” The
clear implication is that there may be some connections between AQIM
and AQSL, but that it is impossible to know whether they exist, and if
so, to what extent. Likewise, Jason Burke writes in The Guardian, “The
ties binding AQIM to the leadership of al-Qaida far away in south-west
Asia have always been tenuous. The difficulties in communication, let
alone travel, precluded any tight co-operation.”
But the documents captured from Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad
do reveal communications between AQIM and AQSL that extend over the
span of four years, and include discussion of strategic and operational
issues. While it is possible that after bin Laden’s death, when Ayman al
Zawahiri became AQSL’s emir, these communications were crippled or
otherwise ceased, there’s no reason that this should be our a priori
assumption. This entry is designed to add granularity to the discussion
of AQIM and AQSL through a look at the Abbottabad documents. It
concludes by agreeing that the AQIM/AQSL relationship is murky, but
explaining that commentators can do a better job of representing the
ambiguities.
But the documents captured from Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad
do reveal communications between AQIM and AQSL that extend over the
span of four years, and include discussion of strategic and operational
issues. While it is possible that after bin Laden’s death, when Ayman al
Zawahiri became AQSL’s emir, these communications were crippled or
otherwise ceased, there’s no reason that this should be our a priori
assumption. This entry is designed to add granularity to the discussion
of AQIM and AQSL through a look at the Abbottabad documents. It
concludes by agreeing that the AQIM/AQSL relationship is murky, but
explaining that commentators can do a better job of representing the
ambiguities.
Gartenstein-Ross agrees that the connections are not clear and possibly
not current. But that doesn't mean that they don't exist. Rather than
assuming that there is no connection between groups called Al Qaeda,
there is a need to determine exactly what those connections are.
Finally the New York Times noted:
In Mali, for instance, there are the Tuaregs, a nomadic people
ethnically distinct both from Arabs, who make up the nations to the
north, and the Africans who inhabit southern Mali and control the
national government. They fought for Colonel Qaddafi in Libya, then
streamed back across the border after his fall, banding together with
Islamist groups to form a far more formidable fighting force. They
brought with them heavy weapons and a new determination to overthrow the
Malian government, which they had battled off and on for decades in a
largely secular struggle for greater autonomy.
Since Obama took office the US spent almost $600 million to combat
Islamic militancy across North Africa. In countries like Mali and Niger
US forces trained local soldiers in counterterrorism skills. Arms and
equipment were bought so local governments could protect their
territories. This strategy, in theory, would protect North Africa from
falling into the hands of Islamist militants—who would impose strict
Sharia rule on unwilling locals and use lawless territory to launch
attacks on Western targets—without involving a heavy deployment of
American troops like in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That was the theory. But as heavily armed Islamist militants battle
French forces in the Battle for Mali, it’s clear Obama’s strategy to
help weak North African states protect themselves from terrorists has
failed catastrophically.
Whether it is the more overtly violent Al Qaeda groups or the more
moderate appearing Muslim Brotherhood groups, they have the same goals.
It would be good to recognize and realize who the enemy instead of
arming them and hoping to bring them to our side. It's an especially
good lesson for Syria, where making the right choices still could make a difference.
On Israel-Palestine, the secretary of state should publicly offer
President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority the following: the
U.S. would recognize the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank as the
independent State of Palestine on the provisional basis of the June 4,
1967, lines, support its full U.N. membership and send an ambassador to
Ramallah, on the condition that Palestinians accept the principle of
“two states for two peoples” — an Arab state and a Jewish state in line
with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181 — and agree that permanent
borders, security and land swaps would be negotiated directly with
Israel. The status of the refugees would be negotiated between Israel
and the Palestine Liberation Organization, which represents all
Palestinians inside and outside of Palestine. Gaza, now a de facto
statelet, would be recognized as part of Palestine only when its
government recognizes Israel, renounces violence and rejoins the West
Bank.
Why do this? Because there will be no Israeli-Palestinian breakthrough
unless the silent majorities on both sides know they have a partner —
that Palestinians have embraced two states for two peoples and that
Israelis have embraced Palestinian statehood. Neither Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu nor President Abbas have shown a real commitment to
nurture these preconditions for peace, and our secret diplomacy with
both only plays into their hands. We need to blow this charade wide open
by trying to publicly show Iranians, Israelis and Palestinians that
they really do have options that their leaders don’t want them to see.
(Israel’s election on Tuesday showed that the peace camp in Israel is
still alive and significant.) It may not work. The leaders may still
block it or the people may not be interested. But we need to start
behaving like a superpower and forcing a moment of truth. Our hands are
full now, and we can’t waste four more years with allies (or enemies)
who may be fooling us.
First of all this shows Friedman's hypocrisy. As a proponent of the
"everyone knows" school of peacemaking, the idea that provisional
borders on the June 4, 1967 lines would exclude places such as the
Etzion Bloc and Maaleh Adumim. However these are areas which "everyone
knows" will be part of Israel in a final settlement. Giving the PLO the
right to negotiate refugees when Abbas has made it clear that his only goal is for the right of return to be implemented fully is ridiculous.
Generally, even as he acknowledges Abbas's refusal to make peace
(falsely equating his obstinance with Netanyahu) Friedman is advocating
giving Abbas every single precondition he wants. How will that bring an
agreement if Abbas knows that if he refuses to negotiate long enough, he
will get everything he wants?
Assuming that any peace can be achieved while Hamas still has control of
Gaza would be absurd, if it wasn't for the fact that Friedman truly
believes this. Finally, by implicitly acknowledging that his earlier
prediction about Israel's election was wrong, he shows how poorly he
understands Israel's politics. Yair Lapid is no more likely to pursue
peace or compromise on Jerusalem with a recalcitrant Mahmoud Abbas than Binyamin Netanyahu.
Here's a raw video of protesters in support of the
Arab Spring-inspired reform movement near the Jordanian
capital's Husseini mosque on Friday to commemorate the second
anniversary of the organization. Protesters chanted slogans requesting
true reforms from the government and asking for the end of corruption in
the country. These latest protests come in the run up to the first
parliamentary elections to take place in the country since the Arab
Spring began almost two years ago. The Muslim Brotherhood has announced
that its political party, the Islamic Action Front, will boycott the
elections which are scheduled for January 23. A second protest took
place in front of the Syrian embassy in support of the Syrian people and
the "Syrian revolution." Protesters, who were part of the Freedom
Party, chanted slogans that name the Syrian revolution an Islamic
revolution.
Will Jordan be the next site for the Arab spring?It looks like there are an awful lot of people there.
As I noted in a previous post, just one day after winning lavish praise from President Obama for his role in negotiating a truce between Israel and Hamas, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy declared himself a dictator.
That led to strong reactions on Friday from, among others, former IAEA chief Mohammed El-Baradei, and riots across Egypt.
[A]nti-Morsi
demonstrators set fire to Muslim Brotherhood offices in cities across
Egypt on Friday. As enraged demonstrators torched Muslim Brotherhood
offices in several Egyptian cities, a defiant Egyptian President Mohamed
Morsi defended his recent decree granting himself sweeping powers
before a crowd of supporters outside the presidential palace in Cairo
Friday. …
Reacting to the decree, thousands of
demonstrators gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday, responding to
calls by Egyptian opposition leaders for a “million-man march” to
protest against what they called a “coup” by the Islamist president.
You can see Tahrir Square in the picture above. The 'democratically elected' Morsy had his troops respond to the demonstrators with teargas, just like the 'dictator' Hosni Mubarak did a year and nine months ago. You all remember Mubarak, right? Mubarak was the guy who was forced out due to the Obama administration's 'smart diplomacy.' John Hinderaker has some more delicious irony in this situation that's really got him confused (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
But never mind that–I am still really, really
confused! Mubarak was our friend, but a bad guy. So he had to go, and
Obama denounced him and helped force him out. Morsi is our enemy, and
also is a bad guy. So Obama thinks he’s A-OK, and helped Morsi take
power. That’s called “smart diplomacy.” You probably wouldn’t
understand.
Other things are confusing, too. Did Obama know
that Morsi was about to claim dictatorial powers when he made Morsi the
“hero” of the Israel-Gaza cease fire? If so, did he mind? If Obama
didn’t know–which seems more likely–does he now think that Morsi
double-crossed him by capitalizing on his faux
diplomatic mission to proclaim himself a dictator? Or is that one more
thing that is A-OK with Obama? If Obama doesn’t like the fact that Morsi
has cut “Arab Spring” democracy off at the knees, does he intend to do
anything about it? Or, when bad things happen, is it “smart diplomacy”
to do nothing and pretend you don’t mind?
So,
those of us who said Morsi was an Islamist extremist who would quickly
reestablish authoritarianism in Egypt – with a sharia flavor – were
right. Those who said Morsi was a moderate were wrong.
And his Napoleonic self-crowning event changes the calculus for Gaza and Hamas, among other things. The universal interpretation of the ceasefire brokered by Egypt
this week puts the responsibility for preventing attacks by Hamas
against Israel squarely on the Morsi government. (Not all analyses
refer to “frantic” diplomacy on the part of the United States.) Far
from making Egypt anyone’s partner in repressing Hamas, this move effectively hands Hamas over to Morsi – and with Hamas, the Gaza Strip.
Hamas
is a terrorist group whose independence of him is an inconvenience for
Morsi. Hamas is the finger of Iran in the Levantine “pie” situated on
Morsi’s northeastern border. Hamas lies between Morsi and Jerusalem.
Morsi is not going to “work with” Hamas; he is going to give Hamas the
choice to work with him, or be rendered insignificant.
Hamas
can be useful to Morsi, if that’s what its leaders choose to do. There
may or may not be a “break” with Iran; it would probably be better from
Morsi’s perspective to keep Iran on a string with Hamas, and prevent a
divergence of objectives – i.e., between Egypt and Iran – for as long as
possible.
But
do not be deceived. Iran has just taken a big strategic hit from the
terms of the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire. Iran may still have Qods
Force operatives in the area, but Morsi has established a veto over
Iran’s activities there. There may be a few more attempts by Hamas at
independence from Morsi – although frankly, I doubt it – but the die is
cast: what happens from now on will happen on Morsi’s timeline and his
say-so.
That, at least, is what he intends. He has been rather transparent in the last few days. Immediately
upon getting the ceasefire on terms advantageous for his intentions, he
declared himself all-powerful in Egypt. This was not a coincidence.
His pursuit of the ceasefire was part and parcel of his overall
planning. He was happy to accept the vaguest of commitments on Israel’s
side, as long as the understanding was that Egypt would guarantee
Hamas’s behavior. That was the prize Morsi sought.
Dyer goes on to argue that botched US diplomacy has brought all this about, and that Egypt has turned itself into a player as important as Iran and Turkey over the last week. Read the whole thing.
So why did Netanyahu sign onto this situation? Here are his calculations as I see them.
1. Egypt has an interest in controlling Hamas, because as noted above, controlling Hamas makes it a player in the Middle East. Netanyahu has just purchased quiet on the Gaza border which he could not have purchased in any other way short of a Dresden-like bombing.
2. Egypt will never be able to become a nuclear power anyway. Its economy is a bigger basket case than Iran's or Turkey's, and besides, Iran financed most of its nuclear development while selling oil at high prices while the world looked the other way. Egypt has almost no oil to sell and nothing else of value. No one else is going to give it money to finance a nuclear program.
3. Egypt will not abrogate its treaty with Israel. It cannot take the risk that the US will respond by cutting off aid. So between those three items, Netanyahu is free to attack Iran without worrying about Egypt or Gaza.
Of course, there's one small catch. Morsy could lose power as quickly as he gained it - we are seeing rumblings in that direction already - and Israel could find itself with an Islamist anarchy on our southeastern border.
Better neutralize Hezbullah soon and then go after Iran before Syria can get its act together.
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Monday, November 12.
1) Those who judge Israel
The Obama administration decided Tuesday to seek a seat on the U.N.
Human Rights Council, reversing a decision by the Bush administration to
shun the United Nations' premier rights body to protest the influence
of repressive states.
"Human rights are an essential element of American global foreign
policy," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement.
"With others, we will engage in the work of improving the U.N. human
rights system. . . . We believe every nation must live by and help shape
global rules that ensure people enjoy the right to live freely and
participate fully in their societies."
The United States announced it would participate in elections in May for
one of three seats on the 47-member council, joining a slate that
includes Belgium and Norway.
Last week the genocidal regime of Sudan was accepted to the U.N.'s
Economic and Social Council. This was a consolation prize after
activists managed to derail Sudan's acceptance onto the U.N.'s Human
Rights Council. In U.N. Watch's press release, its director Hillel Neuer explained the travesty:
"This is an outrage," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN
Watch. "On the same day we hear that Sudan is killing babies and burning
homes in Darfur -- precisely the kind of dire situation ECOSOC should
be urgently addressing -- the U.N. has now made vital human rights
protection less likely than ever."
"It's inexplicable that 176 of 193 U.N. member states voted to support
the blood-soaked regime of Omar Al-Bashir, failing to recognize that
electing genocidal Sudan to a global human rights body is like choosing
Jack the Ripper to guard a women’s shelter," said Neuer.
In choosing members, according to the founding resolution for the
council, the General Assembly is supposed to “take into account the
contribution of candidates to the promotion and protection of human
rights and their voluntary pledges and commitments” to do so. Moreover,
the “members elected to the council shall uphold the highest standards
in the promotion and protection of human rights.”
Venezuela under Mr. Chávez has no place at this table. According to
Human Rights Watch, the judiciary has largely ceased to function as an
independent branch of government. A human rights travesty has been
evident in the case of Judge Maria Lourdes Afiuni. In 2009, she angered
Mr. Chávez with a ruling that gave conditional release to a businessman
who was a prominent critic of the president. The businessman had been
awaiting trial for almost three years. Soon after her ruling, the judge
was arrested, and Mr. Chávez denounced her as a “bandit” on national
television. She was held for more than a year in a two-by-four-meter
cell in a Caracas prison that included 20 women she had sentenced as a
judge. They confronted her with death threats. After she underwent
surgery for cancer in 2011, she was released to house arrest but under
onerous terms, including that she not be allowed to step outside for
exposure to the sun.
Mr. Chávez has an equally poor record on freedom of expression. He has
bullied and punished the news media for critical reporting on the
government’s handling of such things as water pollution, violent crime, a
prison riot and an earthquake.
At the end of the editorial, the Post observes, "In 2009 the Obama administration announced plans to join the Human
Rights Council and engage from the inside rather than criticize from
without." Quite clearly that hasn't worked.
2) The second term agenda
The editors of the New York Times, put forward The Foreign Policy Agenda for President Obama's second term. There are two items I'd like to focus on.
As for the Arab Spring countries, Mr. Obama has been wise to
recognize that Washington cannot dictate their democratic evolutions.
But he should be more engaged, offering more assistance to Islamic
leaders who need to build their economies quickly while reminding them
that American support will be calibrated based on their commitment to
human rights and the rule of law.
President Obama didn't even try to influence the outcomes of these revolutions, having cut funding
to programs designed to aid the democratic opposition. Instead he chose
to believe that the Muslim Brotherhood is a moderate organization; in
agreement with the premises of the reporters and editors of the New
York Times. This is a huge mistake. But given the views of the Times,
it's not surprising that the editors praised the President's ignorance.
Many are pessimistic that anything can be done about an
Israeli-Palestinian peace deal as long as Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu is in office and Palestinians are divided between Fatah and
Hamas. It would be a mistake for Mr. Obama to cross this challenge off
his list. He needs to keep seeking openings to promote the two-state
solution.
Note what's missing from here. There's no mention of Mahmoud Abbas (or
Salam Fayyad). Also there's no mention of the latest terrorist
escalations of Hamas from Gaza.
In an opinion article on The New York Times’s Op-Ed page last year,
the Palestinian Authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, wrote:
“Palestine’s admission to the United Nations would pave the way for the
internationalization of the conflict as a legal matter, not only a
political one. It would also pave the way for us to pursue claims
against Israel at the United Nations, human rights treaty bodies and the
International Court of Justice.”
This time the Palestinians have been more circumspect, stating more
vaguely in a recent official document that enhanced status will “enable
Palestine to better use the U.N. and other international forums to
advance its just cause for freedom and independence” and help the
Palestinians “to reinforce the international position that does not
recognize Israel’s occupation and practices of colonization and
annexation as legitimate.”
Whether or not the Palestinians are more circumspect now, the Abbas
op-ed was a declaration that he had no intention of negotiating in good
faith, yet the editors of the New York Times couldn't bring themselves
to criticize him for carrying out a threat he made in the paper's own
opinion pages.
Furthermore the Times laments the lack of unity between Fatah and Hamas rather than decrying Hamas's ongoing escalation of its war
against Israel. If the editors really want peace why not at least some
words, however insincere, demanding a halt to Hamas's rockets? It is not
possible to view the New York Times charitably. It is demonstrably
anti-Israel.
Four more years of Obama makes another Middle East war more likely
What are the likely consequences of four more years of Hussein Obama? Here's a Fox News analysis that looks dismal.
- The big loser is Israel. It now has to make a choice – does
it accept a practically nuclear Iran and keep President Obama’s support,
or does it try to stop Iran unilaterally and risk Obama’s abandonment?
Israel itself goes to the polls in a few months and this will surely be a
critical issue.
- The big winner is Iran. Obama will likely make a deal with the
Iranian regime. In exchange for Iran stopping just short of nuclear
weapons – just one screw’s turn away – the president will drop sanctions
and restore relations. It will look like a diplomatic victory for Obama
personally, but what it means is in essence a nuclear Iran becomes a
nuclear weapons state and can dominate the oil-rich Persian Gulf. The
world’s energy security will to a great extent be in Iran’s hands.
- The big question mark is the Middle East. Do Iran’s neighbors
go nuclear themselves, creating a nuclear arms race in one of the most
dangerous and economically important parts of the world? Or do they
accommodate Iran, and let Iran dominate the region from Iraq to Egypt?
The Arab spring nations will move into increasingly towards chaos and
Islamism. They will blame Israel and the US for their economic woes. As
America retreats from the region, Israel will be isolated. Another Arab
Israeli war is likely.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
