Dennis Ross rips Obama over abstention, says it's not likely to matter
Former peace processor par excellence Dennis Ross has
ripped President Obama for failing to veto Friday's UN Security Council resolution.
If there is one issue on which the President has been consistent
vis-à-vis Israel, it has been settlement construction in the territories
that Israel occupied after the 1967 war. From the outset of his
administration, he called for a freeze on the building of Israeli
settlements to include natural growth. Even when he vetoed a settlements
resolution in 2011, he had his then UN ambassador, Susan Rice, make a
tough statement about our opposition to settlements even as she
explained that the one-sided nature of the resolution left us little
choice but to veto.
Perhaps, President Obama felt this resolution was more balanced. Truth
be told, resolutions in international forum about Israel are rarely, if
ever, balanced.
This one creates the veneer of balance by referring to the need to stop
terror and incitement, but of course it never names the Palestinians so
this effectively refers to stopping all such actions by both sides.
Moreover, the resolution is criticizing only Israel and calling on it to
cease all its activity beyond the June 4, 1967, lines — which is
defined as a violation of international law. Nothing is asked of the
Palestinians.
Sounds just like Obama administration policy all along, doesn't it? Nothing asked of the 'Palestinians.' But Ross also has some good news for the Israelis.
While the Israelis clearly opposed the resolution and hoped it would be
vetoed by the U.S., one can ask: Does this resolution create a
precedent? It is hard to see how. President-elect Trump was clear about
his opposition to it and has already tweeted in response to the
resolution that things will be different in his administration.
Even in UN terms, the fact that the resolution was considered under
Title 6 and not Title 7 means it cannot serve as a predicate for
imposing sanctions later on — clearly a path the Palestinians would like
to go down.
If there is one area in the resolution that may be potentially
problematic for the future, it is the reference to the settlements being
illegal. That could create problems for the one possible formula for
resolving the border at some point: settlement blocs and territorial
swaps. One way to absorb a significant number of settlers is to permit
settlement blocs which are on a small part of the West Bank to become
part of Israel; in return the Israelis would swap territory as
compensation to the Palestinians. Will that not be more difficult if all
settlements are deemed illegal?
Killing what was left of the 'two-state solution' through his bumbling is clearly right up Obama's alley. The mamzer.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Dennis Ross, Middle East peace process, settlement blocs, settlements, two-state solution, United Nations Security Council
Washington think tank: 'Critical aspects of the JCPOA may fall short of the standards outlined in [our] June 24 statement'
It takes time for academics to take a position on most issues. But this
joint statement on behalf of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy - the United States' top pro-Israel think tank - doesn't look good for mainstream Jewish support of Barack Hussein Obama's Iranian nuclear sellout.
Most of the names on the statement will sound familiar to anyone who reads academic material on Israel. Robert Satloff, Dennis Ross, James Jeffrey, Patrick Clawson, David Makovsky, Michael Eisenstadt, and Simon Henderson. Ross, as you might recall, was
in charge of the Iran portfolio during the first term of the Obama administration. They haven't made up their minds yet, but they raise some pretty serious issues.
The June 24 statement outlined five technical parameters for the
agreement as well as additional points on deterrence and a “resolute
regional strategy”:
-
Monitoring and verification. The agreement meets the
study group’s parameters for access to all known sites in Iran,
including 24/7 access to declared sites such as Natanz and Fordow.
However, we are concerned about whether it provides adequately “timely
access” when it comes to undeclared sites. The 24 days allotted to
potential delaying tactics by Iran before the issue is transferred for
UN Security Council action would probably not permit Iran to hide or
scrub sites where nuclear material is being used in illicit fashion. But
it may very well make it possible to hide other types of violations,
including potential violations of Iran’s commitments in terms of weapons
design work, design and manufacture of nonnuclear components used in
nuclear weapons, etc. We urge the administration to clarify its plans to
address these important issues to ensure the integrity of the JCPOA’s
monitoring and verification provisions.
-
Possible military dimensions. Because the precise
terms of the IAEA “roadmap” agreement with Iran on this issue are so
vague, and because the agreement on access to the Parchin military site
has yet to be made public, it is difficult to know whether it meets the
terms specified in the study group statement: that IAEA inspectors have
the ability "to take samples, to interview scientists and government
officials, to inspect sites, and to review and copy documents as
required for their investigation.” Further clarification is needed.
-
Advanced centrifuges. In the June 24 statement, the
study group called for measures that "preclude the rapid technical
upgrade and expansion of Iran's enrichment capacity after the initial
10-year period.” On this issue, the agreement appears to meet our
standard insofar as it stipulates a cap of 300 kilograms on the
stockpile of low-enriched uranium that Iran can have for 15 years. At
year 10, however, limits on centrifuges begin to be removed, and at year
15, all limits are terminated. While Iran is obligated to share with
the IAEA its long-term plan for research and development on centrifuges,
that plan is neither public nor binding. Without knowing the content of
the plan, it is difficult to judge whether this parameter has been
fully met. Given that an essential element of the JCPOA is that Iran has
promised “transparency” in exchange for retaining its nuclear
infrastructure, we believe it is essential that Iran’s long-term R&D
plan be made public soon to allow considered judgment of whether the
limitations outlined in the text reflect the intent of the JCPOA.
-
Sanctions relief. The JCPOA does condition the most
substantial sanctions relief on Iran’s fulfillment of its core
requirements, as called for in our statement. Moreover, U.S. officials
have committed publicly that nonnuclear sanctions will remain fully in
force. In addition, U.S. officials have also clarified for members of
the study group what was not spelled out clearly in the deal:
-
that institutions and individuals on whom nuclear-related sanctions
will be lifted can subsequently be sanctioned for terrorism or other
reasons, should they merit such designations;
-
that because the secondary nonnuclear sanctions remain in place,
the United States will still not allow use of the U.S. dollar in trade
with Iranian individuals and institutions in any way associated with
Iran’s support for terrorism, meaning that Iran cannot use dollars in
its oil trade; and
-
that the United States will continue to designate for nonnuclear
sanctions individuals and institutions, even those on whom nuclear
sanctions are being lifted, if their conduct so merits.
These are important statements. Equally important is to make sure that
other members of the P5+1, especially our European allies, understand
the scope of continuing U.S. sanctions, so that tensions with our allies
do not substitute for pressure on Iran. The administration should
publicly clarify U.S. policy on this issue and ensure that our allies
have a common understanding.
-
Consequences of violations. The agreement includes a
creative mechanism to provide for the reimposition of UN sanctions in
the event of Iranian noncompliance, as called for in the study group's
June 24 statement. But this relates to significant violations of the
agreement. The snapback function may work for significant violations,
but there is concern whether it will work for lesser violations and
whether the United States and its partners will risk the whole agreement
in order to impose penalties for lesser violations, particularly given
Iran’s statement in the agreement that it reserves the right to “cease
performing its commitments . . . in whole or in part” in response to
reimposition of any sanctions.
And then there's part that includes Israel:
In addition to these technical issues within the text, the JCPOA does
not address two other essential elements of the June 24 statement:
To strengthen deterrence of Iran, it is also important for Israel to
have its own independent deterrent capacity. To that end, we urge the
Obama administration to commit to providing technology to Israel that
would secure this objective over time, starting with proposing to
transfer to Israel the Massive Ordinance Penetrator and the requisite
aircraft, which will ensure that Israel has the ability at a later date
to deter Iran from reaching a nuclear weapon.
-
A call for the United States to affirm that it is U.S. policy to use
all means necessary to prevent Iran from producing sufficient fissile
material (highly enriched uranium) for a nuclear weapon – or otherwise
acquiring or building one – both during the agreement and after it
expires. This is a vital initiative because Iran will remain a nuclear
threshold state (and will clearly have retained the option of becoming a
nuclear weapon state) as restrictions on stockpiles of uranium and
centrifuge production lapse gradually after 10 years and, along with the
ban on reprocessing, end after 15 years, and the question is raised
about what would deter Iran from then developing a nuclear weapon. One
powerful element of deterrence would be for the United States to go on
record now that it is committed to using all means necessary, including
military force, to prevent this. While some senior administration
officials have made positive statements in this direction, such as the
statement made in recent Congressional testimony by energy Secretary
Moniz to the effect that development of HEU by Iran at any point in the
future would be a red line that the United States should not allow, we
urge the president now to formalize this as a declaration of a U.S.
policy and Congress should formally endorse it.
To strengthen deterrence of Iran, it is also important for Israel to
have its own independent deterrent capacity. To that end, we urge the
Obama administration to commit to providing technology to Israel that
would secure this objective over time, starting with proposing to
transfer to Israel the Massive Ordinance Penetrator and the requisite
aircraft, which will ensure that Israel has the ability at a later date
to deter Iran from reaching a nuclear weapon.
-
Separate from the agreement, the study group called on the president
to articulate a “resolute regional strategy” to counter Iranian negative
behavior throughout the Middle East. We believe the articulation and
implementation of this enhanced effort to counter Iranian negative
behavior—and to support allies and partners—in the region is both
important and urgent, given the substantial financial benefits Iran will
receive early in the implementation of this agreement and the
likelihood that considerable sums will be directed toward Iran’s
destabilizing regional activities. Working with our allies, we urge the
administration to build on the president’s GCC Summit and discussions of
Secretaries Carter and Kerry and adopt a number of tangible steps as
soon as possible.
I have to wonder about the usefulness of "a declaration of US policy" endorsed by Congress that says that the US will take military action against Iran to stop it from developing a nuclear weapon. We've
been down that road before.
All in all, however, the academics display a healthy skepticism over the Obama administration's nuclear sellout to Iran. Whether that translates into opposition remains to be seen, but the administration's touting the report as backing its position seems clearly premature.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, David Makovsky, Dennis Ross, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iranian nuclear threat, Robert Satloff
Who'd a thunk it? Dennis Ross backs Netanyahu
Dennis Ross, who was President Obama's representative to the Iran negotiations early in his term, has come out backing Prime Minister Netanyahu, urging President Obama
not to ignore the Prime Minister's concerns.
While the Obama administration is unlikely to accept his argument
that it should simply negotiate better and harder, it should not dismiss
the concerns Netanyahu raises about the emerging deal. Indeed, the administration's argument
that there is no better alternative than the deal it is negotiating
begs the question of whether the prospective agreement is acceptable.
And, here, the administration needs to explain why the deal it is trying to conclude actually will prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons for the lifetime of the agreement and afterwards. It needs to explain why the combination of
the number and quality of centrifuges, their output, and the ship-out
from Iran of enriched uranium will, in fact, ensure that the break-out
time for the Iranians will not be less than one year. Either this
combination adds up or it does not, but there should be an explicit
answer to Netanyahu's charge that Iran will be able to break out much more quickly.
Similarly, there should be an answer on how the verification regime
is going to work to ensure that we can detect, even in a larger nuclear
program, any Iranian violation of the agreement. The issue of
verification is critical not just because Iran's past clandestine nuclear efforts prove it cannot be trusted, but also because the administration has made a one-year break-out time the key measure of success
of the agreement. But we can be certain that Iran will be one year
away from being able to produce a bomb's supply of weapons-grade uranium
only if we can detect what they are doing when they do it.
Obviously,
detection is only part of the equation. We cannot wait to determine
what we will do about violations when they happen. Iran must know in
advance what the consequences are for violations, particularly if we
want to deter them in the first place. This clearly goes to the heart of
Netanyahu's concerns: If he had high confidence that we would impose harsh consequences
in response to Iranian violations, including the use of force if we
caught Iran dashing toward a weapon, he would be less fearful of the
agreement he believes is going to emerge.
But he does not see that, and he fears that, as with past arms control agreements,
we will seek to discuss violations and not respond to them until it is
too late. The administration should address this fear and prove it
means what it says by spelling out different categories of violations
and the consequences for each — and then seek congressional
authorization to empower this president and his successors to act on
these consequences.
If applied also to Iranian moves toward a
nuclear weapon after the expiration of the deal, the administration
would truly be answering the most significant of the concerns that Netanyahu raised.
Indeed.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Dennis Ross, Iranian nuclear threat, P 5+1
Dennis Ross starts to get it
Former peace processor Dennis Ross has finally started to get it. In an op-ed in Monday's New York Times, he seems to finally recognize that
the 'Palestinians' aren't willing to compromise... on anything.
Since
2000, there have been three serious negotiations that culminated in
offers to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Bill Clinton’s
parameters in 2000, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s offer in
2008, and Secretary of State John Kerry’s efforts last year. In each
case, a proposal on all the core issues was made to Palestinian leaders
and the answer was either “no” or no response. They determined that the
cost of saying “yes,” or even of making a counteroffer that required
concessions, was too high.
Palestinian
political culture is rooted in a narrative of injustice; its
anticolonialist bent and its deep sense of grievance treats concessions
to Israel as illegitimate. Compromise is portrayed as betrayal, and
negotiations — which are by definition about mutual concessions — will
inevitably force any Palestinian leader to challenge his people by
making a politically costly decision.
But going to the United Nations
does no such thing. It puts pressure on Israel and requires nothing of
the Palestinians. Resolutions are typically about what Israel must do
and what Palestinians should get. If saying yes is costly and doing
nothing isn’t, why should we expect the Palestinians to change course?
That’s
why European leaders who fervently support Palestinian statehood must
focus on how to raise the cost of saying no or not acting at all when
there is an offer on the table.
...
Why
not wait? If a new Israeli government after the elections is prepared
to take a peace initiative and build settlements only on land that is
likely to be part of Israel and not part of Palestine, there will be no
need for a United Nations resolution.
If
not, and the Europeans decide to pursue one, it must be balanced. It
cannot simply address Palestinian needs by offering borders based on the
1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps and a capital in Arab East
Jerusalem without offering something equally specific to Israel —
namely, security arrangements that leave Israel able to defend itself by
itself, phased withdrawal tied to the Palestinian Authority’s
performance on security and governance, and a resolution of the
Palestinian refugee issue that allows Israel to retain its Jewish
character.
In
all likelihood the Palestinians would reject such a resolution.
Accepting it would require compromises that they refused in 2000, 2008
and 2014. There is, of course, no guarantee that the next Israeli
government would accept such a resolution. But the Israelis are not the
ones pushing for United Nations involvement. The Palestinians are. And
if their approach is neither about two states nor peace, there ought to
be a price for that.
Peace
requires accountability on both sides. It’s fair to ask the Israelis to
accept the basic elements that make peace possible — 1967 lines as well
as land swaps and settlement building limited to the blocks. But isn’t
it time to demand the equivalent from the Palestinians on two states for
two peoples, and on Israeli security? Isn’t it time to ask the
Palestinians to respond to proposals and accept resolutions that address
Israeli needs and not just their own?
And if the 'Palestinians' won't compromise, Dennis, what should happen? Do we sit frozen in time? Much more from my friend David Gerstman
here.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Dennis Ross, Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, Palestinians, United Nations Security Council
'Secret back channel' doomed 'peace talks'?
The New Republic reports that the failure of last summer's 'peace talks' was brought about by the use of a
secret back channel between Prime Minister Netanyahu's personal attorney, Yitzchak Molho, and an unnamed and apparently unauthorized confidante of 'm
oderate' '
Palestinian' President
Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen. This is from the first link.
The secret channel—reported here for the first time—created
substantial progress toward an agreement. But it also had one
fundamental flaw, which contributed to the collapse of Kerry's entire
process. Abbas’s supposed representative was in fact holding these talks
without a real mandate from the Palestinian President; the concessions
he discussed with Molho didn't represent the President's views. Parts of
this story remain unsolved—most importantly,
why this lack of a mandate was missed or ignored in real time. But what
can be told is enough to raise some hard questions about Kerry's effort,
and offer important lessons for future attempts at reaching an
agreement.
...
The extent of Abbas's detachment from the secret-channel's product
became clear in early 2014, when Kerry decided to merge the two
negotiation tracks. The understanding that had developed through the
secret channel was spilled into the discussions that Indyk's team was
holding with both sides over a "framework document.” Netanyahu was
willing to work with the fruits of the secret channel (although he
insisted on airing his reservations, and the negotiations his advisers
held with Indyk over the exact wording were endless). But Abbas
completely rejected what had already, supposedly, been accepted by his
own negotiator. He wasn't willing to show any flexibility on the Jewish
state issue, and the idea of excluding any clear reference to a
Palestinian capital in Jerusalem seemed like political suicide.
The anger Abbas expressed at the American framework caught Kerry by
surprise: After all, these were all ideas his supposed negotiator was
discussing with Molho. Realizing he had a problem with Abbas, Kerry
tried to convince Netanyahu to tilt some of the provisions in Abbas's
direction. But the Israeli Prime Minister was not having it. "We already
agreed on these issues in the secret channel," he told the Secretary,
according to a former senior U.S. official.
"Bibi is angry at Kerry for
opening up understandings that everybody considered a done deal, just
because Abbas had changed his mind,” an Israeli Minister told me in
February. But a Palestinian official rebuffed this criticism, saying
that Abbas never changed his mind on anything: "He was presented with
positions that no Palestinian leader could ever accept, and that he
personally had spoken out against many times."
For some, it was
always clear that the positions presented by the supposed "Palestinian
negotiator" in this secret channel were totally unacceptable for Abbas.
Officials involved in the process admit in retrospect that there was too
much wishful thinking regarding the backchannel.
A major reason
for the skepticism of some people involved in the negotiations toward
this backchannel, had to do with Abbas's ostensible confidante. A number
of Israeli, American, and Palestinian officials claimed that it was a
miscalculation to assume this person would have authority to make
concessions on delicate issues. One senior Palestinian official told me
that those in the American and Israeli camps who thought otherwise were
"fools."
A possibility that's not really considered here is that this was all an effort by the 'Palestinians' to see if Israel was bluffing. They never intended to make any concessions but they wanted to see if Israel would. Now, they will pocket the concessions made in the 'back channel' and insist that the 'negotiations' start from there the next time.
Sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Binyamin Netanyahu, Dennis Ross, John Kerry, Martin Indyk, Middle East peace process, Yitzchak Molho
'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
Iran demands justice while Kerry ignores history
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Monday, July 22. I have a comment at the end.
1) The Executioners Demand Justice
Perhaps one of the oddest stories appearing yesterday was Iran's Mullahs Demand Justice for Trayvon.
According to the semi-official Iranian website Press TV:
“The acquittal of the murderer of the teenage African
American once again clearly demonstrated the unwritten, but systematic
racial discrimination against racial, religious and ethnic minorities in
the US society,” Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Abbas Araqchi
said.
He noted that the court ruling has also seriously put under question the
fairness of the judicial process in the United States.
“Several months on since a probe was launched (into the murder), the
public opinion in the US and across the world expect transparency, an
accurate and fair judicial investigation into the case, with due regard
to human rights principles for American citizens and a ban on
discrimination against minorities in the country,” Araqchi added.
(Araqchi, by the way, was appointed just two months ago and has been quite vocal and aggressive since his appointment.)
As Adam Kredo writes, though, it's more than a little ironic that Iran is pronouncing judgment on the American justice system.
Iran’s calls for justice came as a surprise to U.S.
observers, who pointed out that the Iranian regime is notorious for
beating opposition members, arresting journalists, stoning women to
death, and publicly executing homosexual teenagers.
Theater of the Absurd: Iran’s Mullahs Demand Justice for Trayvon, slam USA. http://t.co/TYhMhZ1PMr via @sharethis
— Ron M. (@Jewtastic) July 20, 2013
According to a group called Iran Human Rights, executions in Iran have been spiking since the June 14 presidential election. The group bases its count on the regimes' announced executions and observes:
One possibility might be that during elections the
authorities have to give more space to the public in order to encourage
people’s participation in the elections. Additionally, during elections
international journalists visit Iran one week before and after
elections. However, in the weeks prior to and after the elections the
number of executions reaches a peak.
A few years ago it was reported that the regime would ensure that young women were "married" before they were executed. Of course, Iran is also known to have targeted civilians in other countries
without the benefit of any minimal amount of due process. The idea of
the Iranians passing judgment on the American system is perverse.
2) "You used to ride on your chrome horse with your diplomat"
The New York Times has been tracking John Kerry's efforts to restart
Palestinian/Israeli negotiation. First the paper reported in Kerry Achieves Deal to Revive Mideast Talks:
“The representatives of two proud peoples today have decided
that the difficult road ahead is worth traveling and that the daunting
challenges that we face are worth tackling,” Mr. Kerry said in Amman,
the Jordanian capital, on Friday night before flying back to Washington.
“They have courageously recognized that in order for Israelis and
Palestinians to live together side by side in peace and security, they
must begin by sitting at the table together in direct talks.” There was
no indication that either the Israelis or the Palestinians had
compromised on core issues — such as ending Israeli settlement activity
in the West Bank or conceding the right of return of Palestinian
refugees — that have sunk previous negotiations. Rather, this round of
diplomacy was focused on getting distrusting adversaries to sit in the
same room. But after years of stalemate in which the prospects of
creating side-by-side Israeli and Palestinian states seemed to fade,
even as a goal of American and regional diplomacy, the resumption of a
process of talks counts as progress, some analysts said.
Whether or not this is how Secretary of State Kerry framed the issue,
the New York Times picks two issues that would put the onus on Israel.
Other issues such as Hamas ruled Gaza, the refusal of Abbas to negotiate and the ongoing Palestinian incitement against Israel are all non-factors in this reporting.
Netanyahu pledges referendum following Kerry breakthrough on talks: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Net... http://t.co/2cpHlZkNMq BICOM
— Jewish Community (@JComm_NewsFeeds) July 22, 2013
The next day the New York Times reported Palestinian Prisoner Release Is Critical Hurdle in Resuming Peace Talks:
One of three main Palestinian demands for resuming talks has
been the release of about a hundred Palestinians who have been jailed
since before the signing of the Oslo peace accords in 1993. The other
demands are using the 1967 prewar borders as the basis for negotiations,
and freezing Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank.
The Americans had been working on ways to resolve the border and
settlement issues with a formula in which they would make a declaration
about the 1967 border and about Israel being a Jewish state. A Western
official said Saturday, “There are no terms of reference or any other
agreements that the ’67 lines will be the basis for negotiation.”
Frustrated by the lack of a guarantee regarding the 1967 borders, the
Palestinians on Friday pushed further on prisoners, an issue with
profound emotional resonance on both sides. Palestinians consider the
men in Israel’s jails, particularly those serving since before Oslo,
prisoners of war. Israelis call them terrorists. Some have been
convicted of multiple murders, and the families of their victims have
already made passionate public appeals against the release.
Again, even though it is Abbas who refuses to negotiate, the reporting
blames Israel for its hesitance to make concessions ahead of
negotiations. Of course releasing convicted terrorists is a risky move,
often leading to more terror. The release of a thousand terrorists to
secure the freedom of Gilad Shalit nearly two years ago was no exception.
The risk of releasing prisoners with "blood on their hands," is
compounded by the fact that the Palestinian Authority, rather than
criticizing the terrorists, praises them instead and absolves them of
any wrongdoing.
Why should the Palestinians be "frustrated" by not knowing the outcome
of negotiations? Isn't that what the point of negotiations is? The
Palestinians don't want negotiations, they want guarantees delivered by
the international community. But if Mahmoud Abbas can't even keep a Prime Minister to govern by his side, how can he be expected to rule an entire country? How can be expected to keep his commitments?
The main ambition of Martin Indyk in life is to prove that Dennis Ross has been always wrong.
— Aharon Meytahl (@ameytahl) July 22, 2013
So Kerry did it. By George he did it! Negotiations will
resume forthwith. Now watch the naysayers declare there'll never be an
agreement.
— Martin Indyk (@Martin_Indyk) July 19, 2013
The latest, that the New York Times reports, is Seasoned Hand in Mideast May Shepherd Peace Talks:
But with the negotiations due to start in the next week or
so, and Mr. Kerry intent on assuming his broader responsibilities as
secretary of state, he has begun to assemble a team that would manage
what one senior State Department official said is expected to be “a
rocky and up-and-down process.”
Channel 2 News in Israel reported that Mr. Kerry had told the Israeli
prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the president of the Palestinian
Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, that Mr. Indyk was his choice; the channel
said both leaders expressed approval. ...
Mr. Indyk was sent again to Israel as ambassador in 2000, to work with
Ehud Barak, the Israeli prime minister, on an ambitious bid for a peace
deal, but that effort failed, and the second Palestinian intifada
erupted.
With a recalcitrant Palestinian President being dragged into peace talks with Israel, whose experience does Kerry seek? The same person who helped "shepherd" the parties to the 2000 Camp David summit.
Kerry has apparently not learned from history.
He isn't really where it's at.
Given that the US allows its justice system to be judged by Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Venezuela, and a host of other human rights violators as part of the Universal Periodic Review process at the United Nations 'human rights council,' is it really in a position to complain when Iran judges its record solo? It's the US subjecting itself to the UPR that gives Iran the credibility to make any comments.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Barack Hussein Obama, Dennis Ross, Iran, John Kerry, Martin Indyk, Middle East Media Sampler, Middle East peace process, Soccer Dad, United Nations Human Rights Council, universal periodic review
Ross, Abrams: Military force will be needed to stop Iran
Both Elliott Abrams, and surprisingly, Dennis Ross, implied to the AIPAC conference on Sunday that
military force will be necessary to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
Diplomats Dennis Ross and Elliot Abrams agreed on a Sunday panel at the AIPAC conference that Iran is successfully deceiving the P5+1 countries in the negotiations over Tehran's nuclear weapon program....
Dennis Ross termed Iran's approach as a "rope-a-dope" strategy. Iran, he said, is playing for time vis-à-vis the P5+1. He suggested that the P5+1 countries "go for an endgame strategy." The idea, he said, is to present Iran with a model for a civilian nuclear program, and ask – do you accept it or not?
At some point, he explained, negotiations have got to clarify whether Iran intends to comply with the P5+1 demands – or the P5+1 might have to adopt a more aggressive approach.
Elliot Abrams said that Iran continues to build up not just its nuke program but also Hizbullah and Assad's army in Syria. Russia and China are playing a game, he said – and these two countries are also a part of the P5+1.
As far as nuclear strategy is concerned, he said, "Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei is doing great. We are not." It is true, he said, that the sanctions program is damaging Iranian economy, "but the goal is to prevent them from achieving a nuclear weapon, and if you fail to do that you have failed."
Denniss Ross said that Binyamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama "will try to define prevention" when they meet in April. "They want to have a better understanding," he added, "of when does prevention as objective fail, and force become inevitable."
Not to say 'I told you so' but this should have been resolved years ago....
Labels: AIPAC, Dennis Ross, Elliott Abrams, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, P 5+1
Dennis Ross leaving politics just when Obama needs him most
This story by Eli Lake seems a little ominous for the Obama campaign:
Dennis Ross is bowing out of politics rather than defend Obama's record. Dennis Ross, a longtime diplomat and a key architect of the Oslo peace process under President Clinton—a man who worked for the Obama campaign during the 2008 Democratic primaries despite his previous loyalty to the Clintons—won’t be campaigning for Obama this time, Ross confirmed to The Daily Beast.
“I am the Counselor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy,” Ross said in an email on Friday. “The Washington Institute is a non-profit organization and I cannot do political work from here. When I acted for the campaign in 2008, I had to take a leave of absence to do so. Having only recently returned to the Institute, I cannot now again take a leave of absence.”
...
“Ambassador Ross was obviously the No. 1 pro-Israel surrogate for the Obama campaign in 2008,” said Josh Block, a former press aide for the Clinton administration and former top spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “The fact that after three years of working on Mideast policy side-by-side with the president, Ambassador Ross has decided to sit out this campaign, unlike other former top officials now at nonpartisan think tanks, will certainly be understood as a message of its own, intentionally or unintentionally.”
Ross himself said, “I can give substantive advice to the administration, the president’s campaign, or any campaign that would ask for it. And, of course, when I speak I can talk about my views on policy and I have been supportive of the president’s policy on leading foreign-policy issues.”
That’s a departure from Ross’s hands-on work with the Obama administration over the past four years.
Read the whole thing. I'm sure Ross knew when he took this position that he would have to sit out the campaign. Are the rats leaving the sinking ship?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Campaign 2012, Dennis Ross
What a SHMUCK! Dennis Ross urged Clinton to keep Pollard in jail as 'barter'
Dennis Ross, former President Bill Clinton's top adviser on the Oslo Accords, admits in his book that he urged Clinton to double cross Prime Minister Netanyahu at Wye River in 1998, and
keep Jonathan Pollard in jail as political barter. This despite the fact that Ross did not actually believe that Pollard was a spy.
Excerpts from the book “The Missing Peace,” cited by the Justice for Jonathan Pollard organization, include Ross’ relating conversations he had with Clinton, who told him that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu wanated Pollard's release in return for concessions in the Wye Agreeement with Yasser Arafat.
Ross wrote, “Pollard, while working as a civilian intelligence analyst for the U.S. Navy, had spied for Israel, sharing highly classified materials.”
Several pages later, Ross unapologetically admitted his role in keeping Pollard in prison.
He wrote that after Clinton approached at Wye for a private conversation, “I assumed that he wanted to talk about where my private discussions stood with Bibi and [Palestinian Authority official Mahmoud] Dahlan…. He wanted to talk about releasing Jonathan Pollard."
"’Is it a big political issue in Israel? Will it help Bibi?’
"’Yes,’ I replied, because he is considered a soldier for Israel and ‘there is an ethos in Israel that you never leave a soldier behind in the field.’ But if you want my advice, I continued, I would not release him now.
"’It would be a huge payoff for Bibi; you don't have many like this in your pocket. I would save it for permanent status. You will need it later, don't use it now.’”
Ross also wrote that he was in favor of freeing Pollard because “he had received a harsher sentence than others who had committed comparable crimes“ and that he “preferred not tying his release to any agreement.”
However, politics overcame humanitarian concerns. “If that was what we were going to do," he added, "then I favored saving it for permanent status.”
Clinton told Ross he was pessimistic about solving the stalemate in the “peace process” and that, according to Ross, “I don't think we can afford to wait, and if Pollard is the key to getting it done now, we should do it."
An agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority never was achieved. The Oslo Accords literally blew up two years later with the beginning of the Second Intifada, also known as the Oslo War. Pollard remains in prison.
Ross’ book also substantiates statements by Netanyahu that he did everything possible to release Pollard at the Wye talks. The book also reveals the American government's disregard of Netanyahu.
Clinton “told me Bibi wasn't going to sign the deal unless he released Pollard,” Ross wrote. “He said he'd made concessions on the prisoners based on the assumption that he would have Pollard and on that basis could sell prisoners, indeed, could sell the whole deal…"
“The President then asked what he should do. I asked him. ‘Did you make a commitment to release Pollard? If you did, you have to release him.’ The President swore he had made no promises…. I then said, if you did not make a promise to him, you should not give in to this.
"’This is Bibi's problem and it is not tenable. Is he going to forgo a deal that enhances Israel's security, breaks the stalemate on peace, and gives the process a major push so he can have Pollard? That is not sustainable in Israel. He can't do it, and you can't give in to this…"
"Look, I know Bibi wants this and probably believes he needs this, but he can't forgo the deal over Pollard. This is a bluff and you have to call it."
Netanyahu finally relented, accepting a promise from Clinton that he would “review” the Pollard case.
How much longer does Jonathan Pollard have to sit in jail as 'political barter' for a deal that will never happen?
May the name of the wicked Dennis Ross rot... along with that gigolo Clinton....
P.S. to Justice4Jonathan Pollard: Why did you guys wait so long to release this? Surely you didn't think people like me were going to spend the money to read Ross' book, did you?
David K - what happened?
Labels: Bill Clinton, Binyamin Netanyahu, Dennis Ross, Jonathan Pollard
Bet on an Israeli attack on Iran
The New York Times has a
'pessimistic' assessment of the likely outcome of Monday's meeting between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama.
Sallai Meridor, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington, reflected a widespread Israeli view that the world has done little to block unstable countries from obtaining nuclear weapons.
“Look at the record,” he said. “Pakistan was allowed to go nuclear. I don’t think anyone thought that was a good idea. One can assume that if Israel didn’t do what it did in 1981, Iraq would have been allowed to go nuclear. Then imagine the 1990 gulf crisis.”
Even some Israeli officials who believe that Mr. Obama would use force say they cannot wait until an attack is beyond their abilities. If Israel, in a nod to allowing sanctions and diplomacy to work, allows Iran to get past the point where it can effectively strike, it will have handed over its fate to the United States. While it would like Washington to strike, it does not want to wait past its own abilities, because even an ironclad promise of action could prove fickle.
When Mr. Netanyahu spoke to Aipac two years ago, he invoked World War II and two of the past century’s greatest statesmen to make a point about self-reliance, a point that his staff applies to Mr. Obama.
“Seventy-five years ago, the leading powers in the world put their heads in the sand,” Mr. Netanyahu said then. “Untold millions died in the war that followed. Ultimately, two of history’s greatest leaders helped turn the tide. Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill helped save the world. But they were too late to save six million of my own people. The future of the Jewish state can never depend on the good will of even the greatest of men.”
Meanwhile, the JPost draws on extensive interviews with former Obama's former point man on Iran,
Dennis Ross.
"The more explicit commitments you seek from one side, the more you’re going to be asked to make commitments of your own,” said Dennis Ross, until recently the top White House adviser on Iran, warning of demands the US would make of Israel should it go down that path.
“The notion of great specificity on either end is something that is overstated,” he said.
Ross also said all the Israeli prime ministers he had known during his 30-year career “want Israel in the end to take the steps it needs to take to deal with its national security as it defines it.”
...
Ross cautioned, however, that the US would want to be told ahead of time of any military action Israel took and that taking that decision too soon would be a mistake.
“We do have lots of assets in the area, and I think every administration that I’ve been a part of would want to know what they can know as soon as they can know it,” said Ross, who has worked under Republicans and Democrats, though he now serves in a private capacity as counselor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
...
Ross said that if a strike on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities took place after crippling sanctions and diplomacy had failed, there could be enough international support for such action that the global effort to keep sanctions and isolation in place could hold, which would constrain Iran’s efforts to rebuild its program.
He predicted that timelines for how long to give sanctions to work and what would constitute substantial achievement in diplomacy would be a major focus of Netanyahu’s discussions with Obama.
He said that negotiations with Tehran were almost certain to go ahead, and that recent declarations by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that nuclear weapons were a “great sin” could be a sign that he was trying to prepare the Iranian public and save face if a deal were reached.
But Ross also hardened the rhetoric over why acceptance of Iranian nuclear weapons was not an option.
My guess is that they reach an agreement that Netanyahu retains freedom to act but gives Obama very short notice provided that Obama does not pass that on to the Iranians or anyone else.
And that moron Leon Panetta gets his mouth taped shut.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Dennis Ross, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran
Dennis Ross: Now is not the time for a deal
Long-time peace processor Dennis Ross spoke at the Aspen Institute on Monday and said that the time is not ripe to make a peace deal. No kidding.
Let's go to the videotape. There's more after the videotape (which is quite long).
JPost has a summary of Ross' speech.
Here's part of it.
He warned Israel that in any [Palestinian] elections it has “an enormous stake in ensuring that those Palestinians who believe in nonviolence, who believe in coexistence are the ones who are validated.
“I want to see steps that show that the occupation is actually shrinking.”
And Ross said that though he doesn’t foresee a terminal peace deal in the near future, he stressed that the sides shouldn’t “give up on trying” in case such a deal was possible, and also as a means of widening the range of options at each side’s disposal.
He described a “major psychological gap” between the two parties as a key obstacle to peacemaking.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas “believes that with this Israeli government there is no deal and therefore why try to even get into a negotiation with them,” he said, while Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu complains of Abbas that “it looks like you’re constantly trying to discredit me and delegitimize us.”
Ross makes this sound like a lot of it is a personality conflict. It's not. Abu Mazen couldn't reach a deal with Olmert and Arafat couldn't make a deal with Barak.
The truth is that the 'Palestinians' don't want peace, aren't ready for peace and have never taken even the first step to prepare their people for peace. The 'peace process' has been a complete and utter failure because all it has done is to sell Israelis on an illusion of peace, while failing to even start to suggest to the 'Palestinians' that peace requires compromises on their part as well. The 'Palestinians' - both Fatah and Hamas - remain determined to extirpate the Jewish state, and Israel would be foolish to make any moves that assume otherwise.
But for Ross to admit that would be to admit that his life's work is a failure, and I don't think we can expect that to happen.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Binyamin Netanyahu, Dennis Ross, Hamas, Middle East peace process
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Shavua tov - a good week to everyone.
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Friday, January 13.
1) Is Arthur Brisbane the Bernard Goetz of newspaper editors?
Arthur Brisbane is the public editor of the New York Times and his latest column, Should the Times be a truth vigilante, is causing quite a stir. Brisbane writes:
This message was typical of mail from some readers who, fed up with the distortions and evasions that are common in public life, look to The Times to set the record straight. They worry less about reporters imposing their judgment on what is false and what is true.
Is that the prevailing view? And if so, how can The Times do this in a way that is objective and fair? Is it possible to be objective and fair when the reporter is choosing to correct one fact over another? Are there other problems that The Times would face that I haven’t mentioned here?
Throughout the 2012 presidential campaign debates, The Times has employed a separate fact-check sidebar to assess the validity of the candidates’ statements. Do you like this feature, or would you rather it be incorporated into regular reporting? How should The Times continue a function like this when we move to the general campaign and there’s less time spent in debates and more time on the road?
Unsurprisingly the two targets of Brisbane's column are Republicans, whom the readers felt should have been fact checked on the spot. But my issue here is a different bias. A year ago, I wrote an e-mail to Brisbane's office about factual errors included in its Middle East reporting.
I made three main points.
- My first point was that the New York Times did not report that the IDF had exonerated its troops in the death of Jawaher Abu Rahma, who supposedly had been killed by tear gas. I pointed out that though both the paper's regular reporter Isabel Kershner and blogger Robert Mackey had reported on this story it was their duty to report the result of the investigation. Further, I pointed out that since there were no documented cases of anyone dying of tear gas inhalation in an open space, the charge should have been treated skeptically from the start and not accepted without questions.
- My next question had to do with the results of Israel's inquiry into the Mavi Marmara raid. I noted that though the report was generally solid, it played up the international outrage over the raid and ignored until the very end, that video from the raid showed that the sailors boarding were indeed attacked, effectively confirming Israel's account regardless of outrage.
- Finally, I asked why when reporting about the Palestine Papers that the reporter, Ethan Bronner wrote about the flexibility of Palestinian negotiators when their own public statements showed otherwise?
(I asked a fourth question, but it was about International Herald Tribune, which was outside of the purview of the public editor's office.)
I got an e-mail back that said, in part, "[w]ith regards to points 1 -3 , Mr. Brisbane plans on writing a column at some point in the future over The Times coverage of the middle east."
Indeed, Brisbane addressed the New York Times coverage of the Middle East a few months later. It was full of platitudes, such as reporting on the Middle East is the "third rail" of journalism and that since both sides criticized the Times, they must be doing something right.
I'm not disagreeing that reporters should seek to tell the truth, but given that Brisbane wasn't willing to address my points (and do his job), I can't believe that the truth is his or his paper's objective. If this vigilantism is adopted, the New York Times bias will become even worse.
2) Security concerns is a euphemism for anti-Israel sentiment
The Washington Post reports, Egypt cancels Jewish festival amid security concerns:
Foreign Ministry spokesman Amr Roshdi said the decision to cancel Saturday’s event at the tomb of Jewish holy man Rabbi Yaakov Abu Hatzira had been relayed to Israeli officials and reflected a wish not to “provoke public discussion on the relationship with Israel.”
The festival, which draws hundreds of Israeli pilgrims annually, has often sparked angry reactions from local villagers objecting to the intensive security arrangements.
“The situation is not suitable to have it this year with all that’s going on in Egypt: the elections, the police trying to reassert control and the protests,” Roshdi said.
But then the article continues:
The government’s move underscores the changing relationship between Israel and post-Hosni Mubarak Egypt. The former president maintained relations with Israel, as laid out in the 1979 Camp David peace treaty, in part by curbing civil liberties with his expansive police force. Since his ouster last winter, anti-Israeli sentiment driven by Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians has risen to the surface, and Israeli-Egyptian tensions have grown.
This isn't a quote from an Egyptian activist, but stated as fact by two reporters that Mubarak maintained the peace treaty by "curbing civil liberties." This is outrageous. The peace treaty governed relations between Egypt and Israel; whatever Mubarak did to his own people is outside the scope of the treaty.
While the report mentions local villagers who were angry with the celebration, there is more to the story. Elder of Ziyon notes that there is more to the objections than security arrangements.
3) The Palestinians and the irony of the Arab spring
A reporter for the Independent went to interview Ismail Haniyeh. (via Daily Alert Blog)
But what I found was not a man seeking to reach out the olive branch. It was a man who had seen how the Middle East had been reshaped and who now believed – or so he said – that his version of the Palestinians' destiny might now be on the point of being realised.
"The Palestinian cause is winning," he told me. "With the Muslim Brotherhood part of the government [in Egypt], they [the Egyptians] will not besiege Gaza. They will not arrest Palestinians. They will not give cover to Israel to launch a war. Gaza was a main reason for the Arab Spring. It was people's anger at the regimes that co-operated with Israel and did not recognise the government here.
"Israel is disturbed by this. It knows the strategic environment is changing. Iran is an enemy. Relations are deteriorating with Turkey. With Egypt, they are really cold. Israel is in a security situation they have never been in before. The Palestinians are winning more than anybody else due to what's happening in the Arab countries. That will come out clearly in the future."
Haniyeh definitely has a point; empowering the "Arab street" has had the effect of radicalizing the Middle East and making the Arab world even less sympathetic towards Israel. But as Hillel Frish points out (.pdf via Daily Alert blog):
Both Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority and the Hamas government in Gaza are cut from the same cloth as the regimes of the old Arab order. They are one-party police-states whose main line of business is suppressing the opposition, incarcerating political prisoners, and denying media freedoms to the opposition. The rump parliaments in both the West Bank and Gaza have been moribund since the outbreak of Palestinian civil war in 2006.
The PLO itself is the ultimate example of the old Arab order. The dozen or more factions that constitute the PLO are over forty years old; yet in none of them has leadership change taken place except through the natural or unnatural death of the leader. The same can be said of the relatively younger Islamist Jihad al-Islami and Hamas movements. There is no internal democracy in these groups.
Remember: More than anything, the Arab upheavals of the past year are about instituting a change of leadership in the Arab world. The Palestinians are having none of that.
There are those who view Israeli/Palestinian peacemaking through the lens of the Arab spring. From that perspective Israel is not cooperating with the message of the Arab spring as it is denying the Palestinians their freedom. This is ridiculous. The only reason the Palestinians don't have greater independence now is because their leadership refuses to negotiate (in good faith) with Israel.
If there's any similarity between the Arab spring and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, it could be the ongoing unity negotiations between Fatah and Hamas, which seem to be popular among Palestinians. However, as Dr. Frish points out, if one looks at the accountability aspect of the Arab spring, it has passed the Palestinians by, as their entrenched leadership is as entrenched as ever.
4) Ross's agenda
I wrote previously about Dennis Ross's recent op-ed in the Washington Post. I had only seen it as advocating a new "confidence building measure." Israel Matzav, however, believes that Ross's agenda has a different unsettling angle to it. Previously Israel Matzav had observed that the EU is trying to make Area C under the Oslo Accords, Palestinian territory.
The Europeans have decided that they are not going to let signed agreements between the parties get in the way of attempting to force Israel back to the indefensible 1967 borders 1949 armistice lines that resulted from British efforts to quash the nascent Jewish state. The Europeans are going to attempt to undermine Jewish sovereignty over Area C - which as noted was agreed to by the 'Palestinians' themselves as part of the Oslo accords - by undertaking 'Palestinian' projects in that area without Israeli cooperation or approval.
This effort, Israel Matzav, is very similar to the scheme mapped out by Ross, making him wonder if it was Ross who initiated this effort.
Reading over the earlier Israel Matzav post, a few things come to mind.
- Even at the end of his life, Yitzchak Rabin never envisioned a Palestinian state. Now Binyamin Netanyahu has stated that he understands the necessity of one. For one thing, those who claim that Israel's government is extremely right wing, fail to acknowledge how far Israel has come politically in the past 18+ years. The position now held by Likud, was roughly the position of Peace Now in 1993.
- A related points is that the Palestinian leadership has not changed significantly in the same time. The pretext for decriminalizing the PLO was that it had abandoned terror. Yet for at least a decade after signing Oslo, Yasser Arafat either turned a blind eye to terror or actively encouraged it. Even now "moderate" Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas seems more interested in reaching an accommodation with the unrepentant Hamas than with Israel. Furthermore, if reports are to be believed, the most popular Palestinian politician now is Marwan Barghouti currently in jail for his role in multiple fatal terror attacks. The same people who despair that Israel must make peace lest it have to choose between being a Jewish state and a democratic state, and possibly lose its legitimacy are not so concerned that the Palestinian continued embrace of terror somehow endangers the legitimacy of a prospective Palestinian state.
- Finally, it's worth noting that over the years Israel has been pressured to engage in "confidence building measures." These measures have usually involved giving the Palestinians greater freedom of movement, freeing prisoners or freezing the building of "settlements." Rather than building confidence, these actions have hardened the Palestinian position. Usually there was no reciprocal demand made on the Palestinians and the Palestinians made the Israeli measures the new baseline for negotiations.
Labels: Arab spring, borders and security, Dennis Ross, Egyptian Revolution, Ismail Haniyeh, Middle East Media Sampler, New York Times, PLO, Soccer Dad
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Thursday, January 12.
1) Who is killing the nuclear scientists in Iran?
The New York Times reported, Iran Reports Killing of Nuclear Scientist in ‘Terrorist’ Blast (via memeorandum):
The semiofficial Fars news agency, which has close links to the powerful Revolutionary Guards Corps, said the Wednesday bombing resembled the methods used in attacks in November 2010 against two other nuclear specialists — Majid Shahriari, who was killed, and Fereydoon Abbasi, who survived and is now in charge of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization.
Almost exactly two years ago in January 2010, a physics professor, Massoud Ali Mohammadi, was also assassinated in Tehran.
Iran blamed Israel and the United States for the attacks in 2010, and the latest killing is bound to deepen an embattled mood in Tehran as the country’s divided leaders approach parliamentary elections in March. News of the blast emerged quickly on Iran’s state-run media.
The Times has followed up with Adversaries of Iran Said to Be Stepping Up Covert Actions:
Neither Israeli nor American officials will discuss the covert campaign in any detail, leaving some uncertainty about the perpetrators and their purpose. For instance, Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said he believed that at least some of the murdered scientists might have been killed by the Iranian government. Some of them had shown sympathy for the Iranian opposition, he said, and not all appeared to have been high-ranking experts.
“I think there is reason to doubt the idea that all the hits have been carried out by Israel,” Mr. Sadjadpour said. “It’s very puzzling that Iranian nuclear scientists, whose movements are likely carefully monitored by the state, can be executed in broad daylight, sometimes in rush-hour traffic, and their culprits never found.”
However:
A more common view, however, is expressed by Patrick Clawson, director of the Iran Security Initiative at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “I often get asked when Israel might attack Iran,” Mr. Clawson said. “I say, ‘Two years ago.’ ”
Mr. Clawson said the covert campaign was far preferable to overt airstrikes by Israel or the United States on suspected Iranian nuclear sites. “Sabotage and assassination is the way to go, if you can do it,” he said. “It doesn’t provoke a nationalist reaction in Iran, which could strengthen the regime. And it allows Iran to climb down if it decides the cost of pursuing a nuclear weapon is too high.”
Clawson is a sober analyst, however he doesn't address Sadjapour's doubts. There doesn't appear to be any evidence that Israel has been behind these attacks and reporting such is reporting speculation. Unless you're Richard Silverstein. Silverstein's latest conspiracy was unsurprisingly picked up by Iran's Fars news agency. Michael Rubin, for his part, citing internal Iranian sources, contradicts Silverstein's assertion that the assassinations are having no effect.
Going back a few weeks, analysts Michael Ledeen and J.E. Dyer have expressed doubts that a foreign government was behind the attacks. Here's Ledeen:
Before we get to the whys and wherefores, a bit of detail: the huge detonation at Karaj, which, as I have explained, surprised the attackers and distorted our understanding. The operation was aimed at the Revolutionary Guards Corps, specifically at General Hassan Tehrani Moghadam, who was both the architect of the national missile program and one of the nastiest officials in that legendarily nasty organization. The attackers did not know that there was a large quantity of rocket fuel on the base that day (which was the reason Moghadam was there). The special fuel came from North Korea, and it was supposed to double tne range of Iran’s missiles. The explosion that killed Moghadam and scores of his comrades ignited the rocket fuel, with dramatic results. To date, 377 dead have been reported to the supreme leader’s office. Among the dead are the attackers–they couldn’t escape the big explosion–and at least four North Korean officials, who were there for the celebration.
The attackers came from the internal opposition, and so far as I know they had no ties to any foreign anything, not a foreign intelligence service, not a foreign military organization, not a foreign government.
Of course, as always with things Iranians, you’ve got to caveat what you think you know. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been misinformed. But, on the other hand, I’ve been a lonely voice for quite a while, saying that the opposition (call it the Green Movement, for lack of an updated logo) would become more violent, that the movement was, if anything, more powerful than it was at the time of the big demonstrations a year and two years ago, and that the regime was full of opposition sympathizers and collaborators.
Dyer wrote:
I would not, however, conclude that it was done by a Western government agency. There are two reasons for this, both of which I mentioned on Monday. First, the UCF at Esfahan is simply not a priority target in the nuclear network. It is important, yes, but not worth hitting before anything else – and not worth sending Iranian internal security to high warble over. Hitting this target , by itself, just doesn’t justify the blowback. Western governments make their targeting decisions based on criteria that would put the Esfahan UCF several notches down the list of things that need to be struck in November 2011. It’s a workhorse facility in the fissile-material production network, and it’s already done what needs to be done to assemble an arsenal of multiple weapons. Uranium conversion is also “mastered technology”; Iran can reconstitute it relatively quickly.
(Notably, the series of explosion at IRGC/government facilities to date has not systematically targeted the critical nodes of the nuclear network. From a step back, it doesn’t look like an organized campaign to take the network down.)
Ledeen relies on inside sources (though he acknowledges that they may not be reliable) and Dyer observed the pattern of the attacks. Both are speculating but appear to be better informed than the sources used in the New York Times.
2) The accurate part of Tom's statement is bad enough
The other day, I quoted an Egyptian source about a speech Thomas Friedman gave at the American University in Cairo. Yisrael Medad did too at the Jerusalem Post. Now Friedman has written to say that he was misquoted.
The original quotes include:
Friedman said that the Islamist sweeping the vote in the latest parliamentary elections was normal and expected. "For decades, Egyptians were missing the Arab nationalist, and most importantly, an authentic political alternative during Mubarak's rule, now they finally found it represented in the 83-year-old Islamist group of the Muslim Brotherhood," Friedman said. "The Muslim Brotherhood is legitimate, authentic, progressive alternative. Only faced by the four-month old liberals, they had to win," he added...
..."We now have a Congress that’s trying to find a legal framework for bribery, this tells you how money ruined our politics," Friedman explained.
Friedman explains:
The quote attributed to me by the Egyptian daily is completely mangled. I was asked by an audience member to give my assessment of the liberal's performance in the Egyptian election. What I actually said, which the reporter, clearly not an English speaker, did not get, was that it was no surprise that the Muslim Brotherhood did so well in this first election because for the last 30 years Mubarak had cleared out all the political space between himself and the Brotherhood so that he was able to come to Washington and say to successive U.S. Presidents that "It is either me or them.'' I said that what the Egyptian elections produced, for the first time, were legitimate, authentic, liberal, secular, nationalist, progressive alternatives to the Muslim Brotherhood and now the Brotherhood would have to compete with such alternatives -- for the first time. I then said, given the fact that the liberals had only four months to organize their parties and that the Brotherhood had been in politics for 83 years, that I thought the liberals had done amazingly well. By the way, there were many cameras filming all of this, so it is easy enough to verify.
I would also note that this is a point I have made many times before in my writings -- in precisely those words -- that what was missing in Arab politics was a legitimate, progressive alternative to both the official parties and the Islamists. I would also note that in my previous NYT column from I Cairo, I wrote: "...the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist Al Nour Party — just crushed the secular liberals, who actually sparked the rebellion here, in the free Egyptian parliamentary elections, winning some 65 percent of the seats. To not be worried about the theocratic, antipluralistic, anti-women’s-rights, xenophobic strands in these Islamist parties is to be recklessly naïve.''
I will grant Friedman that the syntax in the Egyptian report is muddled supporting his claim that he was misquoted. I find the last sentence quoted here ("To not be worried ...") unconvincing, as Friedman himself wrote a column yesterday telling us not to be worried about the Islamists.
Friedman concludes:
Mr. Medad, you asked aloud whether I could have said what I was quoted saying? I am glad you asked it aloud. I just wish you had asked me first before publishing this blog on your site. I am in the phone book.
(The original source has now been corrected)
Friedman's hurt tone ("I just wish you had asked me first") is phony. He regularly misconstrues arguments of people he disagrees with. At least Medad had a source that he quoted accurately. Still Friedman acknowledges his obnoxious comment about the corrupt American political system. Elsewhere he's quoted as calling Rick Santorum and extremist. These are extremely problematic. Barry Rubin explains:
The second thing that disgusts me is Friedman’s attempts to win applause by sucking up to his Egyptian audience. He tells them that the U.S. Congress is profoundly corrupt. Aside from demeaning his own country and civilization, the signal that statement sends is: Hey, democracy doesn’t really work!
And what does an Egyptian audience think of when it hears this line about money ruling? Not insider stock-trading but rather the old Arab assertion that the Zionist lobby directs U.S. policy, that’s what.
If Friedman actually was knowledgeable on the Middle East he would have understood the message he is conveying and have avoided such statements. Oh, wait, Friedman himself has made such a charge, saying that the Jewish lobby bought Congress’s enthusiastic reception of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, being saved from accusations of antisemitism only because he is the son of Jewish parents.
“Money will kill your democracy like it did ours,” said Friedman. So Egypt is now a democracy but America isn’t? And, again, who do Arab ideologues identify with using “money” to control politics? Answer: Not Tony Rezko.
Friedman calls Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum an example of an American extremist. This tells Egyptians: We have no right to criticize you! You now have leaders who openly call for genocide against Jews. Well, we have people who don’t favor gay marriage!
Friedman's idea that money has somehow fatally corrupted the American system, is beyond absurd. The idea that people with interests should be able to lobby the government is part of the process. What Friedman doesn't like is that his ideas and interests are being ignored. As someone recently observed what really upsets Friedman is that people don't heed his brilliant ideas.
Maybe Tom was misquoted about the Muslim Brotherhood being "progressive," but what he did say and did own up to, is pretty bad.
3) Getting back on the bicycle
In his op-ed, How to unfreeze a Mideast stalemate, Dennis Ross quotes Dan Merridor comparing negotiations to riding a bicycle. Part of Ross's argument is:
What could demonstrate to the Palestinians that the occupation is receding? Examples are not hard to come by. Since the interim agreement of the Oslo process was finalized in 1995, the West Bank has been divided into non-contiguous areas known as A, B and C — with the Palestinians having putative control in Area A and Israel retaining overall responsibility in the two other areas. From the fall of 1995 to the spring of 2002, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) largely stayed out of Area A, which constitutes about 18 percent of the territory and includes all the major cities in the West Bank. According to the Oslo agreements, the Palestinians are to have civil and security responsibility in this area.
But in 2002, at the height of the second intifada and the horrendous suicide bombings that Palestinians were executing in Israel, the IDF began operating in Area A again to try to stop the attacks. Though the intifada ended in 2005 and Palestinian security forces have been generally effective in preventing terror attacks, the IDF still carries out periodic incursions into Palestinian cities to reinforce local security efforts. This grates on Palestinians, reminding them who remains in control.
So, one meaningful step would be either to stop all such incursions in Area A or, if there are continuing security concerns, to phase them out based on the security situation. Gabi Ashkenazi, former chief of staff of the IDF, has consistently said that “as the Palestinians do more on security, we will do less.” A gradual ending of incursions in Area A would certainly be consistent with that axiom.
Ross acknowledges that Operation Defensive Shield was necessary to stop the "Aqsa intifada," so why does he assume that current incursions into Area A are not warranted? Ross writes that Israel needs "...to validate those Palestinian leaders, such as Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who believe in nonviolence and coexistence." But as Lenny Ben David writes in a letter to the Washington Post:
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas recently embraced a terrorist who, using the Internet, enticed a 16-year-old Israeli boy to the West Bank city of Ramallah, where he was tortured and killed. Palestinian camps, squares and schools are still being named for terrorists who killed Israeli civilians. What message does the Israeli public take from that?
I could add that despite his commitment to nonviolence, Abbas is still seeking a unity agreement with Hamas, which remains committed to Israel's destruction.
If Ross doesn't see all this, it's because as he writes early on, "... I know that Abbas and Netanyahu carry the weight of their peoples’ history and mythology, and face enormous political constraints." This is the arrogance of a peace processor talking. He knows how to make peace; it's the people who actually have to make peace who are hostage to their "mythologies;" if only they saw things as clearly as he does!
Every since Barack Obama became President, Mahmoud Abbas has been waiting for Obama to pressure Netanyahu into stopping building in all settlements. Over this time as Jackson Diehl has documented, Netanyahu has taken steps to mollify the administration. What makes Ross think that his suggestions will do any more to get Abbas back to the table? Surely Ross who was in the administration until the end of last year has seen the same things Diehl has, why do his ways to unfreeze negotiations only require that Israel offer "validation" to the Palestinians and not the other way around?
Labels: Abu Mazen, Dennis Ross, Iranian nuclear program, Middle East Media Sampler, sabotage, Soccer Dad, Tom Friedman, two-state solution
