OUR friends, the Saudis?
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
This is the Middle East, where my enemy's enemy is often my friend. But this would have been unthinkable in this region until quite recently. A high-level Saudi delegation visited Israel on Friday, and to make sure the protests from the Arab-Muslim world aren't too loud,
they said they were here to promote the Saudi peace initiative.
Former Saudi general Dr. Anwar Eshki and a group of Saudi businessmen
and academics meet Friday in Jerusalem with a delegation led by MKs
Ksenia Svetlova (Zionist Union), Omer Bar-Lev (Zionist Union), Esawi
Frej (Meretz) and Michal Rozin (Meretz).
Eshki met separately
with Foreign Ministry director-general Dore Gold and the Coordinator of
Government Activities in the Territories Maj.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai in an
effort to advance the Saudi Initiative, a diplomatic plan that calls for
Israel to return to pre-1967 borders in return for recognition from
Arab countries.
Svetlova said the meetings were important, because Eshki is close to Saudi King Salman and his son, Mohammad.
Eshki heads the independent think tank Middle East Institute,
which is working on plans for the bridge between Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
The delegation also visited Ramallah and met with Palestinian Authority
chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
That story makes it sound like the MK's the Saudis met were all opposition MK's (Zionist Union and Meretz both being opposition parties), but looking at this picture, I doubt that's true.
Eshki has
met Dore Gold before.
Meanwhile, the meeting was condemned by the Hadash party, a far Left mixed Jewish-Arab party. They didn't condemn the Israelis for taking the meeting:
They condemned the Saudis.
“The recent visit by Saudi personalities, including former general Anwar Eshki, and their meetings with representatives of the Netanyahu government, on the pretext of advancing a dialogue about the Arab peace initiative, were not designed to challenge Israel’s refusal strategy, but to legitimize it by giving Arab ‘sponsorship’ to voiding the initiative of any content and for eliminating the two-state solution and the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination," said a statement issued by Hadash, a faction with the Joint List of Arab parties.
"The visit is part of the normalization of cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Israel against Iran, Syria and resistance movements in the region,” the statement continued.
Two weeks ago Hadash also condemned Egypt’s foreign minister Sameh Shoukry’s visit to Jerusalem as well as his meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu. The condemnation of both visits was issued by the Hadash secretariat without the endorsement of other members of the Arab Joint List.
The thanks for these meetings go to Barack Obama. Obama has so bungled the Iranian nuclear threat as to leave 'moderate' Sunni countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt to feel that they have no choice but to join forces with Israel.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Dore Gold, Iranian nuclear threat, our friends the Saudis, Saudi plan
How to hold a 'peace conference' without either of the sides making 'peace'
With 500,000 Syrians dead and millions more homeless, the Obama administration and Europe turned to the real priority today: The 'Palestinians.' At a 'peace conference' whose outcome is predetermined (host France has already announced that if Israel does not agree to a 'Palestinian state,' France will), John Kerry, Federica Mog and friends urged Israel to 'accept' the division of the remaining 22% of the British Mandate that is currently called Israel. There are only two problems:
Israel didn't show up and neither did the 'Palestinians.'
Among the participants will be US Secretary of State John Kerry, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and EU Foreign policy chief Federica
Mogherini, and representatives from the Arab League. Although Russia,
Germany, Britain and Japan will be among the 26 representations at the
conference, they will not be represented by their foreign ministers.
Following an opening statement by Hollande, each representative
is expected to make a statement on the primacy of Middle East peace
and the importance of retaining the possibility of the two state
solution.
The conference is expected to conclude with a press
conference where conclusions – worked upon by the delegations on
Thursday night – will be presented. The summit will be the first
international gathering on the Middle East peace process since then US
President George Bush convened the Annapolis conference in 2007. Both
Israel and the Palestinians were invited to that parley.
The
meeting’s initial focus is to reaffirm existing international texts and
resolutions that are based on achieving a Palestinian State in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip co-existing with Israel, an outcome the French
said in a pre-summit document is increasingly coming under threat.
That
document blamed the threat to the two-state solution primarily on
settlement activity, without mentioning Palestinian violence, the
Hamas-Fatah split, or the consistent Palestinian refusal to recognize
Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people.
However, French
Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said in a Le Monde interview that
in order for there to be an agreement, the Palestinians needed
reconciliation between Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank, and
that Hamas needed to take the first step by recognizing Israel,
accepting previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements, and forswearing
violence.
The Paris meeting will try to establish working groups
comprising various countries that would meet in the coming months and
tackle all aspects of the peace process.
Some groups would strive to creating economic incentives and security
guarantees to convince both sides to return to talks. Others would
focus on trying to find ways to break deadlocks that scuttled previous
negotiations or look at whether other peace efforts such as a 2002 Arab
initiative remain viable.
"France isn't trying to reinvent
things that already are out there. The idea is to rebuild confidence and
convince everybody to work together to find a way to get to the next
conference," a senior french diplomat said. He said the objective was to
get Israelis and Palestinians back together after the U.S. elections.
What could go wrong?
Shabbat Shalom everyone.
Labels: Federica Mogherini, France, John Kerry, Middle East peace process, Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, Saudi plan
Finally! Obama has a diplomatic achievement
President Hussein Obama finally has a diplomatic achievement to which he can point. But it's not the one he was hoping for. The picture at the top is a photo of a handshake between incoming Director General of Israel's Foreign Ministry, Dore Gold (who has a kipa on his head and is at left) and Anwar Majed Eshki, a retired Saudi general and ex-adviser to Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to the U.S. And there's much more to it than a handshake, and it's been going on for a year and a half.
Eli Lake reports.
Since the beginning of 2014, representatives from Israel and Saudi
Arabia have had five secret meetings to discuss a common foe, Iran. On
Thursday, the two countries came out of the closet by revealing this
covert diplomacy at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.
...
It was not a typical Washington think-tank event. No questions were
taken from the audience. After an introduction, there was a speech in
Arabic from Anwar Majed Eshki, a retired Saudi general and ex-adviser to
Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Then
Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations who is
slotted to be the next director general of Israel's foreign ministry,
gave a speech in English.
While these men represent countries that have been historic enemies,
their message was identical: Iran is trying to take over the Middle East
and it must be stopped.
Eshki was particularly alarming. He laid out a brief history of Iran
since the 1979 revolution, highlighting the regime's acts of terrorism,
hostage-taking and aggression. He ended his remarks with a seven-point
plan for the Middle East. Atop the list was achieving peace between
Israel and the Arabs. Second came regime-change in Iran. Also on the
list were greater Arab unity, the establishment of an Arab regional
military force, and a call for an independent Kurdistan to be made up of
territory now belonging to Iraq, Turkey and Iran.
We only have five of the seven points here, but notice what's missing: 'Peace between Israel the Arabs' is not the same as 'Palestinian state.' Well, maybe not.
Eshki told me that no real cooperation would be possible until Israel's
prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, accepted what's known as the Arab
Peace Initiative to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The plan was
first shared with New York Times columnist Tom Friedman in 2002 by Saudi
Arabia's late King Abdullah, then the kingdom's crown prince.
In any event, these ties go back a long time - all the way to the beginning of the Obama administration.
These ties became more focused on Iran over the last decade, as shown by
documents released by WikiLeaks in 2010. A March 19, 2009, cable
quoted Israel's then-deputy director general of the foreign minister,
Yacov Hadas, saying one reason for the warming of relations was that
the Arabs felt Israel could advance their interests vis-a-vis Iran in
Washington. "Gulf Arabs believe in Israel's role because of their
perception of Israel's close relationship with the U.S. but also due to
their sense that they can count on Israel against Iran," the cable
said.
Note - that was two months after Obama was inaugurated, and Netanyahu had already been elected by then and was forming a government (he was
sworn in on March 31, 2009).
Obama finally has a diplomatic achievement: A burgeoning reconciliation between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
What could go wrong?
Labels: American diplomacy, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Dore Gold, Iranian nuclear threat, Palestinian state, Saudi Arabia, Saudi plan, smart diplomacy
Saudis happy Livni in charge of 'negotiations' because she'll keep Netanyahu from being 'difficult'
Israel's chief
negotiator bottle washer Tzipi Livni
met in Germany over the weekend with Saudi Prince and former ambassador to the United States Turki al-Faisal. Among other things, Turki told her that he's glad that she's 'in charge' of the 'negotiations' because she will prevent Prime Minister Netanyahu from
being difficult looking out for Israel's interests.
The Saudi prince, the former ambassador to Washington who also headed
his government’s intelligence apparatus, is thought to be a powerful
emissary in the eyes of Western diplomats given his intimate familiarity
with Riyadh’s foreign policymakers.
Turki and Livni discussed the Saudi peace initiative. Introduced in
2002 under the auspices of the Arab League, the proposal entails full
normalization between Israel and the surrounding Arab countries in
exchange for a withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines.
According to
Israel Radio, Turki told Livni that the House of Saud was pleased she
was named as head of the negotiating team in talks with the Palestinians
since it would “ensure that [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu would
not be so difficult.”
Livni responded that she viewed the Arab
initiative as “very positive,” adding that the Israeli leadership
“believes that the price of not reaching an agreement is steeper than
reaching an agreement.”
I wonder why Turki wasn't willing to meet with her openly.... /sarc
Labels: Middle East peace process, Saudi Arabia, Saudi plan, Turki al-Faisal, Tzipi Livni
What a relief....
What a relief... The United States says that US Secretary of State John FN Kerry is
NOT trying to convince the Arab League to endorse the idea of Israel as a Jewish state. I was SO worried about that possibility....
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki, at her daily press briefing
Wednesday afternoon in Washington, denied reports that Kerry was pressing the
kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia to alter the Arab League peace
initiative.
Kerry met the kings of both countries on Sunday, and is
scheduled to meet in Paris in the coming days with representatives of the Arab
League’s Arab Peace Initiative Follow-up Committee to update them on the
Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, as part of his continued efforts to drum up
wide Arab support for the negotiations.
“It would not be accurate to say
there was an attempt to change the Arab Peace Initiative,” Psaki
said.
Despite persistent questioning on the matter, Psaki would not say
whether the US would like to see a change on this matter in the Arab league
plan.
When asked whether the US wanted to see the Arab world recognize
Israel as a Jewish state, she replied, “We want to see them support, which
they’ve indicated they would, a final-status agreement between the parties. What
is included in there is not yet determined.”
Psaki would not address the
issues of whether the US was pressuring the Palestinians to recognize Israel as
a Jewish state.
Kerry might be back here next week. But if he does come back, you can bet that he won't be looking for any 'Palestinian' or other Arab concessions.
Labels: Arab League, Israel is a Jewish state, John Kerry, Saudi plan
Report: Kerry to announce resumption of 'peace process' on Friday
A report in the London-based pan-Arabic daily al-Hayat claims that on Friday, US Secretary of State John Kerry will announce the
resumption of the 'peace process.'
Citing sources at the Palestinian embassy in Amman, the report stated
that there has been significant process between Kerry and Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
On Wednesday evening, Kerry
urged Israel to carefully consider the 2002 Arab League peace
initiative, in a comment that could presage this initiative becoming
part of the terms of reference for restarting Israeli-Palestinian
negotiations.
"Israel needs to look hard at this initiative,
which promises Israel peace with 22 Arab nations and 35 Muslim nations -
a total of 57 nations that are standing and waiting for the possibility
of making peace with Israel," he said in Amman, where he met officials
from Arab League member countries and Abbas.
The plan, put
forward by Saudi Arabia at an Arab League summit in Beirut in 2002,
offered full recognition of Israel but only if it returned fully to the
June 4, 1967 lines, including on the Golan Heights and in east
Jerusalem, and to a "just solution" for Palestinian refugees. Softening
the plan three months ago, a top Qatari official raised the possibility
of land swaps in setting future Israeli-Palestinian borders.
...
The League officials expressed "appreciation to President Barack Obama
and Secretary of State John Kerry for their efforts and their commitment
to achieve peace" and also "their commitment to achieving a just and
comprehensive peace in the Middle East in cooperation with the United
States and with all relevant parties." Neither US nor Palestinian
officials have given details of the discussions between Abbas and Kerry,
who is making his sixth visit to the region since he took office in
February.
Israeli officials declined to comment on the matter until after the PLO leaders make their decision.
The 'good news' is that so long as Kerry doesn't come here, it's not likely that we're being asked for more 'concessions.' The bad news is that we have made far too many 'concessions' already.
What could go wrong?
Labels: 1949 armistice lines, Abu Mazen, Binyamin Netanyahu, John Kerry, Middle East peace process, Saudi plan, two-state solution
State Department urges 'take it or leave it' plan as MK's realize 'Palestinians' at fault
Senior officials at the US State Department are urging Secretary of State John Kerry to put a '
take it or leave it' plan on the table.
Some in the State Department are concerned that Kerry is
being dragged into blind alleys by the two sides, expending too much energy on
detailed questions about how many Palestinian prisoners Israel would release
before and during the talks, and exactly where a settlement freeze would be
imposed.
According to this school of thought, these arguments could go on
forever and simply wear Kerry down. Instead, Kerry should simply lay down a
formula that would indicate that the talks were to begin with the baseline being
the June 4, 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps, and a Palestinian
recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people.
This way,
both the Palestinians and Israel would have to give the other something, and
whatever side was not willing to do so would be pinned with the blame for the
talks’ failure.
I wonder which side would say 'no' faster....
In the meantime, at an event sponsored by the Leftist Geneva Initiative, Yesh Atid MK Yaakov Perry admitted that it's the
'Palestinians' fault there are no negotiations. Perry is a long-time supporter of the Saudi plan, which would have Arab states recognize Israel in return for its agreement to commit suicide.
“At the current time, we have to be honest and say that it seems the
obstacle to renewing talks is on the Palestinian side,” he declared. “I
have to say, I’m sorry about that.”
He explained, “At a time when the Prime Minister of Israel explicitly
declares that he is prepared to return to the negotiating table without
preconditions, and the American Foreign Minister invests all his energy
in attempts to restart the process, and the Quartet is sparing no
effort to build cooperation and an economic framework that will serve as
a basis and support for the diplomatic process, at a time when there is
majority support both in the Knesset and in the Israeli public for
moving the peace process forward – I can’t understand why the
Palestinian Authority continues to refuse to come back to the
negotiating table and give the process a real chance.”
Perry immediately balanced his criticism with an expression of
sympathy for PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. “I am not discounting the
difficulties and complications facing the Palestinian Authority Chairman
as he returns to the negotiating table, both politically, within the
PA, and against Hamas,” he said.
Abbas must also face “the Palestinian public’s deep fear and growing
doubt due to the many years in which [the process] has been frozen,” he
added. However, he said, “there is reason for serious concern that the
failure of the current attempt to restart negotiations could have
serious implications for both sides, in terms of security, politically,
and on the international stage.”
Despite his criticism of Abbas, Perry reiterated his support for the
Arab Peace Initiative, also known as the Saudi Initiative, which
promises that Arab states will normalize their ties with Israel if
Israel will withdraw from Judea, Samaria (Shomron), the Golan and
eastern Jerusalem, including the Old City and Temple Mount. The
initiative also demands an agreement regarding the “right of return” –
the Arab demand that millions of descendants of Arabs who fled pre-state
Israel be allowed to “return” to Israel.
“The Saudi Initiative is one of the currently existing paths the
state of Israel could take to solve the conflict, and it requires
serious thought,” he argued.
“Of course, we cannot accept the principles of the initiative exactly
as they are… But they could definitely be a basis and a starting point
for negotiations, and point out the direction we need to take,” he
continued.
Perry is a member of the coalition.... What could go wrong?
Labels: 1949 armistice lines, Abu Mazen, Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel is a Jewish state, John Kerry, right of return, Saudi plan, State Department obsession with Israel, US State Department
Dump on Tom Friedman Day!
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Sunday, March 17.
1) When elephants crash land
Recently, I brought up an example of how Professor Barry Rubin handled a
mistake. First he admitted it. Then he explained the forces involved.
His behavior showed a few things.
1) He is serious about what he has written.
2) He respects his audience's intelligence.
Neither of these qualities can be attributed to Thomas Friedman.
A few weeks ago, Friedman wrote a column in which he faulted the Muslim
Brotherhood for failing to govern Egypt effectively. Nowhere, in the
essay does Friedman acknowledge that he had misunderstood the revolution
in Egypt from the start.
For example, two years ago in Postcard From Cairo, Part 2 Friedman wrote:
Well, that’s what happened here. The ferocity and popularity of
Mubarak’s ouster should have told Israelis that they need to get to work
immediately on building a relationship with the dynamic new popular
trend here, not to be trying to cling to a dictator who was totally out
of touch with his people. And, as we sit here today, the popular trend
is not with the Muslim Brotherhood. Indeed, what makes the uprising here
so impressive – and in that sense so dangerous to other autocracies in
the region – is precisely the fact that it is not owned by, and was not
inspired by, the Muslim Brotherhood.
In contrast, two weeks later Barry Rubin wrote:
Finally, there is the issue of the Muslim Brotherhood itself. While the
likelihood of the Brotherhood taking power in the near future is very
low, the chance of it gaining power in the long run is now enhanced. At
any rate, the Brotherhood is going to be an important force in Egypt and
perhaps an influence on the government. As it spreads its message of
hate, this is not likely to lead to a love-fest for Israel.
...
But won’t the Egyptians just concentrate on raising living standards and
enjoying freedoms? Perhaps. Yet the problem is that there is no money
for improving the Egyptian economy and angry frustration is more likely
than prosperity. We have seen often in the Arab world how a government
that cannot deliver the goods provides foreign scapegoats instead.
Last year, when it became clear that the Muslim Brotherhood had emerged as the leading force of the revolution, Friedman wrote Watching Elephants Fly:
SOMEDAY I’d love to create a journalism course based on covering the
uprising in Egypt, now approaching its first anniversary. Lesson No. 1
would be the following: Whenever you see elephants flying, shut up and
take notes. The Egyptian uprising is the equivalent of elephants flying.
No one predicted it, and no one had seen this before. If you didn’t see
it coming, what makes you think you know where it’s going? That’s why
the smartest thing now is to just shut up and take notes.
If you do, the first thing you’ll write is that the Islamist parties —
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. But to assume that the Islamists will not be
impacted, or moderated, by the responsibilities of power, by the
contending new power centers here and by the priority of the public for
jobs and clean government is to miss the dynamism of Egyptian politics
today.
The Islamists were taking power and here's Friedman assuring us that
they will be moderated by the responsibilities of governance. Note too,
how he uses his authority as a journalist to assure us that he knows
more than the rest of us. (I guess this is an implicit acknowledgement
that he got the Egyptian revolution wrong at first. As an admission it's
a pretty weak one.)
In response to this column Barry Rubin wrote Friedman Cheers as Egyptians Are Enslaved:
But there’s even more irony here. These women are already living lives
governed by Sharia and, as traditionalists, are happy (and told to be
happy) with that situation. Thus, they have ample reason for supporting
Islamists. There is nothing surprising in their political behavior,
except to people like Friedman who predicted last year they would back
liberal, Westernized Facebook kids.
The recent Friedman column was called The Belly Dancing Barometer:
The Brotherhood, though, doesn’t just need a new governing strategy. It
needs to understand that its version of political Islam — which is
resistant to women’s empowerment and religious and political pluralism —
might be sustainable if you are Iran or Saudi Arabia, and you have huge
reserves of oil and gas to buy off all the contradictions between your
ideology and economic growth. But if you are Egypt and basically your
only natural resource is your people — men and women — you need to be as
open to the world and modernity as possible to unleash all of their
potential for growth.
Barry Rubin mocked this attitude:
On top of that, Friedman uses that “needs to understand” phrase, so
beloved by editorialists but totally absurd when dealing with dictators.
Well, what if they don’t understand, Mr. Friedman?
Friedman's latest does not acknowledge that he had been wrong for the
past two years about Egypt. In fact the tone of his article is more a
message to the Muslim Brotherhood, "Hey, guys, you're getting this
revolution thing wrong." Worse, his final paragraph reads:
It would not be healthy for us to re-create with the Muslim Brotherhood
the bargain we had with Mubarak. That is, just be nice to Israel and
nasty to the jihadists and you can do whatever you want to your own
people out back. It also won’t be possible. The Egyptian people
tolerated that under Mubarak for years. But now they are mobilized, and
they have lost their fear. Both we and Morsi need to understand that
this old bargain is not sustainable any longer.
To Friedman, the problem isn't even really with the Muslim Brotherhood
but with the United States. The United States was so concerned about
Israel it allowed Mubarak to oppress his own people for thirty years.
Israel isn't even a factor here. But Friedman brings it in because it
sounds good to him. In Friedman's world everyone is wrong but him.
That works for him. He has a great high profile job and lots of people
pay good money to hear him speak. However since he has no capacity for
self-criticism, it's unlikely that you'll learn anything of value from
him except for a few meaningless pithy phrases.
If you want to learn something, read Barry Rubin. Unfortunately too many
of our policy makers are drawn in by Thomas Friedman's clever sounding
but ultimately meaningless tropes.
2) The Friedman deficit
"What ails the Arab world is a deficit of freedom, a deficit of modern education and a deficit of women’s empowerment." Thomas Friedman, A Festival of Lies, March 24, 2012
A couple of weeks ago, Thomas Friedman wrote The Scary Hidden Stressor:
Ditto in Syria and Libya. In their essay, the study’s co-editors,
Francesco Femia and Caitlin Werrell, note that from 2006 to 2011, up to
60 percent of Syria’s land experienced the worst drought ever recorded
there — at a time when Syria’s population was exploding and its corrupt
and inefficient regime was proving incapable of managing the stress.
In 2009, they noted, the U.N. and other international agencies reported
that more than 800,000 Syrians lost their entire livelihoods as a result
of the great drought, which led to “a massive exodus of farmers,
herders, and agriculturally dependent rural families from the Syrian
countryside to the cities,” fueling unrest. The future does not look
much brighter. “On a scale of wetness conditions,” Femia and Werrell
note, “ ‘where a reading of -4 or below is considered extreme drought,’ a
2010 report by the National Center for Atmospheric Research shows that
Syria and its neighbors face projected readings of -8 to -15 as a result
of climatic changes in the next 25 years.” Similar trends, they note,
are true for Libya, whose “primary source of water is a finite cache of
fossilized groundwater, which already has been severely stressed while
coastal aquifers have been progressively invaded by seawater.”
Friedman sees the water crisis as a major problem going forward.
As Sarah Johnstone and Jeffrey Mazo of the International Institute for
Strategic Studies conclude in their essay, “fledgling democracies with
weak institutions might find it even harder to deal with the root
problems than the regimes they replace, and they may be more vulnerable
to further unrest as a result.” Yikes.
Friedman is great at quoting other experts. However, there's one story he missed, How Israel beat the drought:
Kushnir’s answers: Yes, Israelis must still be wise with their water
use. Yes, emphatically, this is a desert region, desperately short of
natural water. And yes, we have indeed been worried for years about the
possibility of water shortages provoking conflict.
But for Israel, for the foreseeable future, Kushnir says, the water
crisis is over. And not because this happens to have been one of the
wettest winters in years. Rather, he says, an insistent refusal to let
the country be constrained by insufficient natural water sources — a
refusal that dates back to David Ben-Gurion’s decision to build the
National Water Carrier in the 1950s, the most significant infrastructure
investment of Israel’s early years — led Israel first into large-scale
water recycling, and over the past decade into major desalination
projects. The result, as of early 2013, is that the Water Authority
feels it can say with confidence that Israel has beaten the drought.
It's true that Israel's area is much smaller than any of the countries,
so maybe solutions that work for Israel won't work for Syria, Libya or
Egypt. On the other hand Israel has the technology and know-how to
alleviate the effects of drought. Maybe Friedman didn't see the article
about Israel's success. But is it conceivable that he would have written
something like:
Ironically the struggling governments of the Middle East could benefit
by putting aside their irrational hatred of Israel and turning to the
Jewish state to learn about desalinization and water management.
Of course not.
In 2002, Friedman's most famous column was his "speech in the drawer" column
in which he announced that (then) Crown Prince Abdullah would propose
normalization with Israel at the upcoming Arab summit if Israel would
agree to end the occupation on the terms dictated by the Arab League.
What was astounding about the column is how overwhelmed Friedman was by
the proposal. Abudllah's offer was very specific about its demands on
Israel and very nebulous about what was promised to Israel in exchange.
There was no unequivocal statement to the effect of "In return for
complying with our conditions, the Arab League promises to treat Israel
as it does any other nation." Rather there were questions as to the
degree of normalization promised.
What mattered to Friedman, was not how poorly Mubarak, Assad or Qaddafi
were persecuting their own people at that time, but whether they were
willing to make the Palestinian cause their first priority. It didn't
make a difference that Israel was now fighting a terror war directed by
Arafat, Friedman promoted this proposal, which put pressure on Israel,
rather than suggesting any alternative that would have pressured the
Palestinians to stop their violence.
By promoting the Abdullah proposal, Friedman was normalizing the Arab
rejection of Israel. He effectively endorsed the idea that Arab concern
for the Palestinians was sufficient reason for them to treat Israel as a
pariah. Concern for Arabs in Egypt, Syria, Libya or Saudi Arabia was
absent from his writing back then.
Over the years Friedman would sometimes refer to the deficits of the
Arab world. To be sure he'd recommend some form of Westernization as a
cure for these deficits. Never, though, did Friedman suggest that
accepting Israel and eschewing antisemitism would be a necessary step
for these countries to take.
So when Thomas Friedman wrote about droughts in the Arab world it is
inconceivable that he'd have suggested that Egypt or Libya turn to
Israel for help. (Right now even water technology won't help Syria.) To
Friedman Israel is an inconvenience when it comes to the Middle East,
not a benefit.
Labels: Barry Rubin, Egyptian democracy, Egyptian Revolution, Hosni Mubarak, Middle East Media Sampler, Muslim Brotherhood, New York Times, Saudi plan, Soccer Dad, Syrian uprising, Tom Friedman, water, water shortage
Abu Mazen speaks out of both sides of his mouth
In an earlier post, I discussed '
moderate' '
Palestinian' President
Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen's interview with Channel 2, in which he supposedly '
gave up' the 'Palestinians' 'right of return.'
In this clip, you will see part of that interview followed by what he said the next day on Egyptian television. In Arafat's heyday, in the early and mid-90's this sort of double dealing would have lead to an uproar (following which the government would ignore the subsequent remarks and delude itself that all is well), but today, Israelis are so used to this kind of double talk that many are still discussing Abu Mazen's Channel 2 remarks as if they mean something.
Let's go to the videotape.
Labels: Abu Mazen, right of return, Saudi plan, UN General Assembly Resolution 194
'Palestinians' seethe over billionaire's meeting in Gush Etzion
Two weeks ago, 'Palestinian' billionaire Munib al-Masri wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times in which he claimed that Mitt Romney got it wrong. According to Masri,
it's the 'occupation' that's holding the 'Palestinians' back and not the culture that worships suicide bombers and has convinced the 'Palestinians' to say no to a state in 1947, 1979, 2000, 2008 and many other times over the last 65 years. Now, Masri has got his own people seething at him, and all because he has a clearer view of who wields power in Israel than they do.
Masri traveled to Gush Etzion, a bloc of Jewish towns in Judea, to meet with Rami Levy.
Rami Levy owns a chain of supermarkets throughout Israel, Judea and Samaria. In Levy's Judea and Samaria supermarkets,
employees and customers include both Arabs and Jews. Masri was trying to convince Levy, who is a supporter of the Israeli Right, to lobby in favor of the Saudi plan (now known as the 'Arab peace plan'). That plan is suicidal, and I cannot see any Israeli government agreeing to adopt it, but that's not the point. Masri is being slammed by his fellow 'Palestinians' for
meeting with Levy in the latter's Gush Etzion store.
Al-Musri’s talks with Levy over the Saudi Arabia 2002 Peace Plan infuriated the Boycott National Committee because of the location of the meeting. The Boycott movement calls for a total ban on products made in Judea and Samaria and on conducting meetings with Jews in the area.
Al-Masri met with Levy in order to drum up Israeli support for the Peace Initiative, which demands Israel’s forfeiting all land restored to the country in the Six-Day War in 1967 and calls for flooding the Jewish state with millions of foreign Arabs claiming Israel as home.
The PA businessman said he met with Levy rather than with Israeli leftists because the “peace camp” has little influence on the public.
The Boycott movement saw the location of the meeting as being anti-peace, calling it one of the “worst kinds of normalization” that “gives the occupation-state a fig leaf with which to cover its continued occupation, ethnic cleansing, and racism.”
The “peace process” is considered to be dead and buried by virtually all parties except Western leaders, particularly those in the European Union and the United States.
That bluntness is a breath of fresh air. On the other hand, it's Arutz Sheva and not one of our more mainstream outlets.
Labels: BDS, Judea and Samaria, Rami Levy, Saudi plan
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Tuesday, August 14.
1) Iran, Netanyahu and the New York Times
A new New York Times editorial Israel and Iran charges:
Israeli leaders are again talking about possible military action against Iran. This is, at best, mischievous and, at worst, irresponsible, especially when diplomacy has time to run.
Later on:
Even so, Mr. Netanyahu’s hard-line government has never liked the idea of negotiating with Iran on the nuclear issue, and, at times, seems in a rush to end them altogether. On Sunday, the deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, told Israel Radio that the United States and the other major powers should simply “declare today that the talks have failed.”
Towards the end the editorial allows:
Of course, it is disappointing that the negotiations have made so little progress. No one can be sure that any mix of diplomacy and sanctions will persuade Iran to give up its ambitions. But the talks have been under way only since April, and the toughest sanctions just took effect in July.
The lack of progress in negotiations over years is, of course, disappointing. But that's the problem, if Iran isn't willingly scaling back its nuclear ambitions, then it presents a threat to Israel and the world. On the other hand without a credible threat of force, what chance is there that negotiations will produce the desired result?
Consider the following statement from Walid Sakariya, a member of Hezbollah, Iran's proxy in Lebanon:
This nuclear weapon is meant to create a balance of terror with Israel, to finish off the Zionist enterprise, and to end all Israeli aggression against the Arab nation.
Perhaps it's bluster, but Sakariya believes that an Iranian nuclear weapon would be an existential threat to Israel.
Or consider the ongoing threats coming from Iran. Or the ongoing shadow war against Israel (and Jews worldwide)?
The editorial position of the New York Times is that the current Israeli government needs to wait until Iran's intentions are clear. Short of a nuclear attack on Israel, will the burden of proof ever be met?
Michael Ledeen provides an antidote to the hysterical speculation of the New York Times (h/t Instapundit):
Whatever the actual state of affairs, they’re not gonna tell us, and it’s quite farfetched to imagine that somebody’s gonna put the whole country at risk by leaking it. So a really smart pundit would just wait and see, because in order to know that a decision is near, or has actually been taken, he’d have to know what the Israelis think they know about the Iranian nuclear project.
Why is that? Because Israel is only going to do it if they think they know that time’s up. That the Iranians have everything they need to put a nuclear warhead on a serviceable missile that can hit Israel. Israel does not want to do it. For as long as I can remember, the Israelis have been trying to get U.S. to do it, because they have long believed that Iran was so big that only a big country could successfully take on the mullahs in a direct confrontation. So Israel’s Iran policy has been to convince us to do whatever the Israelis think is best. And while they’re willing to do their part, they are very reluctant to take on the entire burden.
...
But if you’re the prime minister, and your head of military intelligence comes to you and says “time’s up,” and you’ve failed to convince the Americans, then you’ve got to act.
He's right. The hysteria of Israel's critics (including the editors of the New York Times) is based on an assumption that they know what Netanyahu will do and that he will do it soon. It's possible that even Netanyahu doesn't know what he will do yet, but he'd be reckless if he weren't preparing for every eventuality.
If you're Netanyahu do you take a chance? Netanyahu's obligation is to protect the country he was elected to lead. I suspect he has much more information that I do about Iran and capabilities. I'd go far as to suggest he has a lot more information than the editors of the New York Times do. Netanyahu needs to weigh the risks of attacking against the risks of staying his hand. It is irresponsible to accuse Netanyahu and the Israeli government of recklessly rushing into war. War is a notoriously unpredictable enterprise and only a fool undertakes such a risk casually.
Israeli Matzav takes the editorial apart paragraph by paragraph. Daled Amos considers why an attack might be imminent and Seth Mandel writes about parallel threats that Israel must consider.
Related articles at memeorandum.
2) The culture strikes back
Last week Palestinian monopolist and businessman, Munib Masri penned an op-ed in the New York Times claiming that it was the Israeli occupation that was hindering Palestinian economic development, not Palestinian culture.
Now he's finding himself under fire for discussing peace with an Israeli. (h/t Elder of Ziyon) The Times of Israel reports Former PA minister and billionaire slammed by Palestinian boycott group for discussing peace with supermarket mogul:
Masri has been singled out by the Boycott National Committee (BNC) for discussing the Arab League’s 2002 Peace Initiative with Israeli businessman Rami Levy, at a meeting at one of Levy’s supermarkets in the West Bank, as part of an effort to persuade Israelis to take the initiative seriously.
Masri told the Palestinian Ma’an news agency on August 1 that a group of independent Palestinians has launched an effort to revive the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, a peace plan outline adopted by the Arab League but largely disregarded by Israeli decision makers. Masri said the Palestinians intended to reintroduce the plan to members of Israeli civil society “across the political spectrum.
...
“The warm relationship revealed recently between a segment of Palestinian capital and Israeli capital is among the worst kinds of normalization,” the BNC statement read. “It gives the occupation-state a fig leaf with which to cover its continued occupation, ethnic cleansing, and racism.”
I believe that the Arab Peace Initiative was never sincere and it's hard to imagine it being the basis of any sort of peace given that quite a few of the tyrants who supported it are no longer in power. Nor am I fan of Masri. However the idea that discussing peace with Israel is somehow a betrayal of Palestinian interests is a sentiment that is too accepted. And yes it is reflective of a culture that is more interested in preserving its own privileges than in making peace.
Labels: Hezbullah, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, Middle East Media Sampler, Saudi plan, Soccer Dad, two-state solution
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Monday, April 16.
1) The further adventures of Turnip Truck Tom
At the end of March, there was a briefing presented on the ten year old "Arab Peace Initiative." The briefing was sponsored by the Arab American Institute, J-Street and the Carnegie Endowment for Peace. (h/t Mark Finkelstein)
Unfortunately there is no transcript, but I was curious what Thomas Friedman had to say. If this is the way he usually talks, I have no idea why people listen to him. His delivery was poor and his ego shone through, with a pretty high ratio of name dropping to content. The main point was to provide some background for his An intriguing proposal from a Crown Prince and to reiterate that he thought it was still viable.
This is, of course, garbage. Before Abdullah presented the proposal to the Arab Summit that year, he got support from Syria:
Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah’s “ideas” about Arab-Israeli peace, which are to be the focus of next week’s Arab summit in Beirut, are “entirely consistent” with the principles which Damascus has long upheld as the guidelines for a future regional settlement, Syrian Information Minister Adnan Omran says.
But he takes issue with the use of the term “normalization” to refer to the peaceful relations that the Saudi initiative proposes that all the Arab states offer Israel, in exchange for its withdrawal from the Palestinian, Syrian and remaining Lebanese territory that it occupied during the 1967 war.
But two years earlier Israel had withdrawn from Lebanon and its withdrawal had been certified by the UN. Now any claim that Israel hadn't fully withdrawn from Lebanon was a subterfuge. Syria's claim was based on the Israeli presence in Shebaa farms which had been Syrian territory in 1967. This scheme was a way of changing the terms of the supposed "normalization" promised by Abdullah. Once it was established that the Arabs could change the terms at will, when would their demands end. While a subsequent column, Say that Again? questioned Abdullah's sincerity, it didn't point to this concrete example of his duplicity.
Nor did Friedman observe that the Saudis held telethons to support Palestinian martyrs (including suicide bombers,) without a word of protest from the Crown Prince.
And in the initial article when Abdullah said:
"But I tell you," the crown prince added, "if I were to pick up the phone now and ask someone to read you the speech, you will find it virtually identical to what you are talking about. I wanted to find a way to make clear to the Israeli people that the Arabs don't reject or despise them. But the Arab people do reject what their leadership is now doing to the Palestinians, which is inhumane and oppressive. And I thought of this as a possible signal to the Israeli people."
Friedman didn't have the guts to challenge him that the war Israel was fighting was not one that Israel wanted, but one that was force on it by Arafat's betrayal of the peace process.
This - creating a phony news story - was one of the highlights of Friedman's career, so I don't expect him to back away. When he said in the video that he just published the column and things progressed from there, he isn't entirely accurate. The Times followed with at least three news stories on the initiative plus a number of op-eds and an editorial capitalizing on and promoting Friedman's column in the next few weeks. He didn't need to follow up immediately because the paper was doing that.
Still there is no reason to believe the Arab Peace Initiative is any more sincere now than it was ten years ago. One decade has not diminished Friedman's cynicism.
2) Attack?
Over the weekend PM Netanyahu said in a talk with Sen. Joe Lieberman:
"My initial impression is that Iran has been given a 'freebie'," Netanyahu said during talks with visiting US Senator Joe Lieberman, the premier's office reported.
"It has got five weeks to continue enrichment without any limitation, any inhibition. I think Iran should take immediate steps to stop all enrichment, take out all enrichment material and dismantle the nuclear facility in Qom," he said.
"I believe that the world's greatest practitioner of terrorism must not have the opportunity to develop atomic bombs," he said.
This drew a retort from President Obama:
Obama said he refused to let the talks turn into a “stalling process,” but believed there was still time for diplomacy.
His assessment, delivered at the close of a Latin American summit in Colombia, came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday had said the U.S. and world powers gave Tehran a “freebie” by agreeing to hold more talks next month.
Obama shot back: “The notion that somehow we’ve given something away or a ‘freebie’ would indicate Iran has gotten something. In fact, they’ve got some of the toughest sanctions that they’re going to be facing coming up in just a few months if they don’t take advantage of these talks.”
Last week Michael Singh outlined concrete actions for the 5 + 1 group to demand of Iran:
Rather than maintaining a narrow focus on closure of the Fordo plant and suspension of Iran’s program of highly enriched uranium, the United States should insist that Iran suspend all of its uranium enrichment activities, take steps to address International Atomic Energy Agency concerns about its nuclear work, including coming clean about its weaponization research, and submit to intrusive monitoring and verification. Far from extreme, these points are what are required by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1929 and preceding resolutions, to which Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany (the P5+1) have previously agreed. The Obama administration should also insist that Iran roll back the work it has done since those resolutions passed — such as by transporting its enriched uranium stockpiles out of the country, dismantling the Fordo facility and stopping work on advanced centrifuges.
Only if Iran takes these steps can the United States and its allies be sure that it will not use negotiations to buy time or perfect its nuclear weapons capabilities. Washington must keep up the pressure until Iran does so. Doing any less would waste precious leverage that has taken years to build and would validate the Iranian regime’s strategy of defiance, provocation and delay.
Now on Memeorandum is an incredible story that Channel 10 in Israel has broadcast details of the preparations to attack Iran. From the Times of Israel:
The report, screened on the main evening news of Channel 10, was remarkable both in terms of the access granted to the reporter, who said he had spent weeks with the pilots and other personnel he interviewed, and in the fact that his assessments on a strike were cleared by the military censor.
No order to strike is likely to be given before the P5+1 talks with Iran resume in May, the reporter, Alon Ben-David, said. “But the coming summer will not only be hot but tense.”
In the event that negotiations fail and the order is given for Israel to carry out an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, “dozens if not more planes” will take part in the mission: attack and escort jets, tankers for mid-air refueling, electronic warfare planes and rescue helicopters, the report said.
(Also linked by Challah Hu Akbar.)
If Israel was about to attack, why would it publicize operational details of the attack? Is it as Israel Matzav surmises an attempt to prepare the Israeli public for an upcoming war? Is it a bluff to ensure that negotiators are tough with Iran or, perhaps, to rattle or misdirect Iran?
Furthermore it's odd that neither the Washington Post nor New York Times appear to have picked up this story. Channel 10 recently made the news in the United States over its financial difficulties and conflicts with the government. Would the same government that had an adversarial relationship with Channel 10 just a few months ago reward it with a major scoop?
3) Dear Bibi
It sounds like Mahmoud Abbas is writing a Dear John letter to Binyamin Netanyahu.
In a letter to be delivered to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in several days, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is demanding that Israel accept the establishment of a Palestinian state “on the 1967 borders” with possible minor adjustments, halt all building over the Green Line, and release all prisoners.
If Israel fails to do this, Abbas vows, the Palestinians will “seek the full and complete implementation of international law” to deal with Israel’s presence “as occupying power in all of the occupied Palestinian territory.” The situation as it stands, he states, “cannot continue.”
Of course talk of this letter goes back to that "Palestinian are ignored" article. But what is the raison d'etre of the Palestinian Authority? For Abbas to build his personal fortune? For Abbas to consolidate his power by locking up critics? It certainly wasn't to enhance the lives of Palestinians.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, Middle East Media Sampler, Saudi plan, Soccer Dad, Tom Friedman
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Wednesday, March 28.
1) I spoke too soon
Yesterday I wrote that both the New York Times and Washington Post had ignored this year's J-Street conference. Today the New York Times covers it with a press release news story, J Street, Pro-Israel but Opposed to Attacking Iran, Takes Its Message to Washington. The gist of the article is that AIPAC's recent convention was larger, but the folks at J-Street were more sensible because they are uniformly against attacking Iran.
Also today the New York Times has an editorial Israel’s Top Court vs. Outposts:
Israel’s Supreme Court made an important contribution to justice and kept alive hope for a two-state solution with the Palestinians, when it ruled this week that Migron, an illegal outpost built by Israeli settlers, must be dismantled by Aug. 1. Now it is up to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to comply promptly, while making clear to the settlers that violent resistance will not be tolerated.
During his first stint as Prime Minister, Netanyahu made an agreement with the Palestinian Authority to withdraw from most of Hebron and Netanyahu complied. I don't know why the editors of the New York Times need to exhort Israel on this. Why not use this as an occasion to treat this as a confidence building measure that Abbas should respond to by returning to negotiations?
Here's another question. Does the New York Times consider the decisions of Israeli courts sacrosanct?
Consider the case of the Museum of Tolerance. Israel Matzav and Elder of Ziyon have noted that those seeking to stop the building have lost in the courts at every turn and that they have no historical basis for their claims.
Here's how the New York Times reported on the controversy, Gravestone Removals Add Fuel to Jerusalem Museum Dispute:
The contours of the Mamilla cemetery are part of the dispute. Wiesenthal Center supporters say that there are no human remains left in the section where they plan to build, and that only part of it was ever a cemetery. They further contend that the effort to stop the project is the work of Muslim extremists seeking a foothold in West Jerusalem, and evidence of the need for such a center to spread more tolerance.
Critics of the project say it is unconscionable to build such a center on a piece of land where Muslims were once buried, even if it has not been an active cemetery for nearly a century. The museum project is going ahead after a 2008 Israeli Supreme Court decision noting that no Muslim objections had been filed when the original parking lot was built.
There remains a dispute among Muslim clerics as to whether a former graveyard can ever be built upon for other purposes.
To the best of my knowledge there have been no editorials demanding that Islamic institutions abide by the court's rulings. So the New York Times accepts the authority of Israel's High Court of Justice, when it agrees with it. This isn't a principled position; it is deeply cynical.
2) Zogby on the API
It's been ten years since the Arab Peace Initiative was presented to the international media. James Zogby writes about its implications for the Gulf Daily News:
For many Palestinians, Oslo was a difficult step but one they knew they needed to normalise their situation, secure the right to establish their state and rebuild their community. It was not a perfect outcome and would not, they understood, redress all of their grievances. But they believed the future they could create through the Oslo process would be better.
Ten years later, Israeli settlements in the occupied lands doubled, Jerusalem had been severed from the rest of the Palestinian lands by settlements and checkpoints, poverty and unemployment increased and it had become clear that Israel has no intention of allowing a viable Palestinian state to come into existence or engage in talks to resolve other issues - refugees, borders, etc.
The second Intifada erupted. Unlike the first, it was violent and met with oppression. Heads of state met in Beirut to issue API. They hoped that by offering the Israelis what they had claimed they wanted - peace, recognition and normalcy - API would provide incentives to restart talks for peace.
The second "intifada" didn't just "erupt." It was orchestrated by Arafat. Zogby's definition of self-defense as "oppression" is outrageous.
But let's consider some of the things that have happened since 2002.
1) Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000 and its withdrawal was deemed complete by the UN. Hezbollah, instead of laying down arms built up its armaments and attacked Israel sporadically until 2006, when the threat to northern Israel became so severe that Israel was force to respond.
2) Israel "disengaged" from Gaza. Like Hezbollah, Hamas used the opportunity to arm itself and attack Israel, forcing Israel into Operation Cast Lead.
3) Israel sought approval of the Magen David Adom's red star as a protected symbol by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The Arab League didn't even allow this humanitarian gesture as a humanitarian gesture.
4) During the past year we've seen the "Arab spring" in which a number of the despots, who promoted the "peace initiative," deposed and killed. Would their successors have abided by the terms of an agreement? In Egypt, where the newly dominant Muslim Brotherhood is threatening the Camp David Accords could be abrogated or changed to Israel's detriment suggests that the answer is "no."
5) It's also worth noting that between the time then Crown Prince Abdullah originally proposed the idea and the time the initiative was actually presented, he changed it, at the behest of Bashar Assad, to include a reference to Lebanon, even though Israel had withdrawn completely from southern Lebanon. If the terms of the initiative changed even before it was presented, to put a new (dishonest) demand upon Israel, how many more changes could we expect.
3) Running to asylum
This Is Just the Start by Thomas Friedman, March 1, 2011
Add it all up and what does it say? It says you have a very powerful convergence of forces driving a broad movement for change. It says we’re just at the start of something huge.
Asylum claims up from Arab nations , Al Jazeera, March 27, 2012 (h/t tweet from Daled Amos)
The number of people seeking asylum in developed countries has risen 20 per cent in 2011, with the Arab Spring movements fueling a sharp rise in arrivals from Libya, Syria and Tunisia, the UN refugee agency has said.
The number of asylum applications in 44 countries reached 441,300 during the year, up from 368,000 recorded in 2010, the agency said on Tuesday.
Labels: asylum, J Street, Middle East Media Sampler, Saudi plan, Soccer Dad, Supreme Court
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Tuesday, February 21.
A deceitful ploy by a columnist and a prince - ten years on
In early February, 2002, Thomas Friedman wrote a column, Dear Arab League, pretending to be a letter to the Arab League from then-President Bush. The key lines are:
You need to face up to something: Ehud Barak gave us an Israeli peace plan, however rough. Bill Clinton then followed up with an American peace plan. Now is the time for an Arab peace plan. No more you guys sitting back complaining about everyone else's peace plans. It's time for you to put on the table not only what you want from Israel -- an end to occupation -- but what you collectively are ready to give in return. Arafat can't do it alone.
You know what bugs me, guys? You want to pretend that Sharon just reappeared from outer space and that's when all the trouble started, and I'm just supporting him for no reason. That's not what happened. Sharon was unelectable in Israeli politics. What allowed him to re-emerge was Arafat's rejection of the Barak plan and the Clinton plan, and then his launching of an intifada with suicide bombings of Israeli pizza parlors.
The column would have been forgettable if not for Friedman's follow up column, on February 17, 2002, An intriguing signal from the Saudi Crown Prince:
Earlier this month, I wrote a column suggesting that the 22 members of the Arab League, at their summit in Beirut on March 27 and 28, make a simple, clear-cut proposal to Israel to break the Israeli-Palestinian impasse: In return for a total withdrawal by Israel to the June 4, 1967, lines, and the establishment of a Palestinian state, the 22 members of the Arab League would offer Israel full diplomatic relations, normalized trade and security guarantees. Full withdrawal, in accord with U.N. Resolution 242, for full peace between Israel and the entire Arab world. Why not?
I am currently in Saudi Arabia on a visit -- part of the Saudi opening to try to explain themselves better to the world in light of the fact that 15 Saudis were involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. So I took the opportunity of a dinner with Saudi Arabia's crown prince, and de facto ruler, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, to try out the idea of this Arab League proposal. I knew that Jordan, Morocco and some key Arab League officials had been talking about this idea in private but had not dared to broach it publicly until one of the ''big boys'' -- Saudi Arabia or Egypt -- took the lead.
After I laid out this idea, the crown prince looked at me with mock astonishment and said, ''Have you broken into my desk?''
The column was a news event. A columnist had proposed a peace plan that had been agreed to by the Saudi Crown Prince. Propelled by the self interested follow up "reporting" by the New York Times, the President found the idea to be interesting. The Israelis were skeptical. For the next few weeks Crown Prince Abdullah toured the Middle East to build support for his proposal ahead of the Arab League meeting. He received support though some of it was qualified.
Interestingly, the Security Council refused to endorse the proposal.
The Saudi plan for putting an end to conflict in the Middle East, based on Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories in return for normal relations with Arab nations, is not likely to be endorsed quickly by the Security Council, diplomats said here today.
Even leaving aside the contradictory reactions the proposal has elicited from the Israeli government and Palestinians, there may be obstacles created by the plan itself as backed by the summit-level meeting of Arab leaders in Beirut.
Some provisions in the plan run counter to existing Security Council resolutions, an official here said. Among these is the call by the Saudi plan for an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory. The Council does not consider Israel to be in control of any Lebanese land after the Israeli withdrawal from the border area two years ago. In Beirut this week, Lebanon revived its claim to a small part of the Israeli-held Golan Heights known as the Sheba Farms.
This was the real deal killer. According to the UN Israel had fully withdrawn from Lebanon two years earlier. However in order to get support from Bashar Assad, Abdullah agreed to include language calling on Israel to withdraw also from Lebanese territory. Shebaa Farms had been captured from Syria in 1967, so Syria was effectively ceding territory to Lebanon for no purpose other than to maintain Lebanon's grievance against Israel! In other words, the Arab League proposal effectively declared a concrete Israeli effort to make peace null and void, retroactively.
The general problem with the Arab League proposal was that it was always very specific and concrete in its demands of Israel but nebulous in terms of what the Arab League promised in return.Why, for example, didn't the initiative include an immediate commitment to allow the Mogen David Adom membership in the International Committee of the Red Cross? That could have been done as a "confidence building measure" on humanitarian grounds. If the peace initiative were sincere it would have shown some flexibility.
In 2005, Israel withdrew its citizens from Gaza. This was a step that was demanded by the Saudi "peace initiative." How did the Arab world react? Here's how the New York Times described the reaction:
Yet whatever brief elation was felt in the early days of the pullout was exceeded by fear that Israel's move might in fact hamper the longer term prospect for a Palestinian state to be created in Gaza and the West Bank. The pullout may have put pressure on Arab governments, which will find it hard to demand further concessions from the Israeli government soon.
''Sharon trumped them,'' said Mohammed al Ameer, political editor at the Saudi daily Al Riyadh. ''The Arabs are in a difficult position now because they have been presented with an olive branch and must do something in return.''
The pullout also hampers the propaganda war in the Arab world. Gaza, the site of some of the most violent clashes between Palestinians and Israelis, has become synonymous with the Israeli occupation, images of which have been beamed into Arab homes nightly. With ostensibly fewer confrontations and fewer images of violence in Gaza, the Palestinians' case against Israel becomes less telegenic, if not less immediate.
If the initiative had been sincere the Arabs shouldn't have felt "pressure" to do anything. They should have applauded unreservedly. Israel had just fulfilled one of the demands the Arab Leagues was making for peace and according to this, the Arab world was more concerned with its lessened ability to wage a propaganda war against Israel! Of course there was no reciprocal gesture to Israel to demonstrate the Arab League's approval of the withdrawal from Gaza.
The past year, however has demonstrated another problem with the initiative - many of the dictators who were offering the initiative, have been shown to be quite unpopular at home. What if Israel had agreed to terms with the Arabs and withdrawn from all territory captured in 1967, where would Israel be now if the new leaders said, "That's what Qaddafi/Mubarak/Saleh ... agreed to, we are no longer obligated by the terms of the treaty?"
Indeed, Friedman himself, in a column End of Mideast Wholesale, last year, wrote:
Let’s start with Israel. For the last 30 years, Israel enjoyed peace with Egypt wholesale — by having peace with just one man, Hosni Mubarak. That sale is over. Today, post-Mubarak, to sustain the peace treaty with Egypt in any kind of stable manner, Israel is going to have to pay retail. It is going to have to make peace with 85 million Egyptians. The days in which one phone call by Israel to Mubarak could shut down any crisis in relations are over.
In other words, if Egyptians don't like the Camp David Accords, it's up to Israel to make further concessions in order to mollify them.
This suggests a larger question that Friedman never addresses. He was promoting the Saudi Peace Initiative as recently as September, 2010. If Friedman, as his recent writings suggest, really believes that the unelected despots have no legitimacy, how would he view agreements that they made? His reaction to Egypt suggests that he believes that the Arab commitments to Israel to be reversible, opening Israel up to untold future demands in the name of "peace."
Ten years later, it is impossible to look back at the Arab Peace Initiative and conclude that it was anything other than a scarcely disguised public relations event designed to rehabilitate Saudi Arabia's image and put diplomatic pressure on Israel.
Since then Thomas Friedman won his third Pulitzer (probably in part due to this stunt) and Crown Prince Abdullah officially succeeded his half brother to the throne. It took until December 2005, for Israel to defeat the so-called "Aqsa intifada." In the meantime, Arafat's successor, Mahmoud Abbas had regularly turned down peace proposals offered by Israel.
In other words, the past ten years have exposed the Arab Peace Initiative as an empty fraud. It may have benefited the principles - Friedman and Abdullah - with at least some good press, but their own actions subsequently have demonstrated that even they never really ever believed in it.
Labels: Middle East Media Sampler, Saudi King Abdullah, Saudi plan, Soccer Dad, Tom Friedman
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Thursday, January 19.
1) Filling in details and making stuff up
When people don't know all the details of what happened, speculation becomes rampant to fill in the missing details.
For example we know that certain facilities in Iran have been targeted as well as nuclear scientists. The assumption is that Israel's behind these attacks because it is the country that most fears a nuclear Iran. Michael Ledeen writes that he doesn't believe that these attacks are the work of foreign governments:
Before getting into the details, let me caveat this whole thing: I don’t know who did it, and neither does anybody else writing about it. The Iranian regime, which usually claims to know everything about everything, has so far accused the Brits, the Americans, the MEK, and the Israelis.
However, I think that I do know this: If the Israelis (or the Americans, or the Brits) are actually capable of operating at will in the midst of the virtual military occupation in Tehran, we do not have to worry about the Iranian nukes, because if the Israelis, the Brits or the Americans can do that, they can do anything they want to.
While many people have no idea what Jundallah is, writer Mark Perry recent wrote in Foreign Policy that its members had been recruited by the Mossad posing as CIA officers. This wasn't a case of filling in details to explain something in the news. It was propaganda. Jonathan Neumann debunks the claim at Jewish Ideas Daily (h/t Hadassah Levy)
A reader might benefit from knowing who Mark Perry is. Perry has run an organization called the Conflicts Forum, which specializes in what it calls "dialogue with a wide range of leading Islamists," prominently including Hamas and Hezbollah. In 1989 he became "unofficial advisor" to Yasir Arafat, head of the terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization. Perry maintained his role until Arafat's death in 2004.
None of this background is disclosed by Foreign Policy.
Not accidentally, Perry's claims appear to be nonsense. The Israeli government, whose policy is not to confirm or deny involvement in intelligence operations, has broken its general silence to call his story "absolute nonsense." There is external corroboration of Israel's position. In recent years, three high-ranking Israeli intelligence and defense officials have been forced to resign their posts because of Israeli actions that U.S. officials deemed against American interests—actions far less damaging than the "false flag" operation Perry describes. Yet Meir Dagan, who was chief of Mossad at the time of the alleged operation, not only kept his job but remained a Washington favorite.
2) I'll trust the king, when he stands for re-election
King Abdullah bin Hussein has written an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, The Palestinians and the Arab Spring. He rehashes the Arab Peace Initiative, which will soon be ten years old.
The two-state solution is supported by the U.S. and the rest of the Quartet (the European Union, the United Nations and Russia), and it is at the core of the Arab Peace Initiative, adopted unanimously by the 2002 Arab Summit in Beirut. Ours was an unequivocal statement of the Arab world's commitment to a neighborhood of peace and acceptance, opening the way to a comprehensive settlement that would end the conflict, meet the Palestinians' right to freedom and statehood, and give Israel acceptance and security. This Initiative was endorsed by the entire Muslim world—57 countries—and remains a cornerstone for peacemaking in the Middle East.
The initiative was not unequivocal. It was an ultimatum, giving Israel no room for negotiation. When it was being formulated (then) Crown Prince Abdullah allowed Syria to prevail upon him to add language insisting that Israel withdraw from Lebanese territory. Since two years earlier the UN had certified Israel's complete withdrawal from Lebanon, this showed that the Arab League members saw no problem with changing their demands of Israel. It was actually quite equivocal.
As mentioned, in 2000 Israel completely withdrew from southern Lebanon and in 2005 from Gaza. Hezbollah and Hamas, respectively, used those withdrawals to build their arsenals and attack Israel leading to wars in 2006 and 2008. Did the Arab League praise the Israeli withdrawals and condemn the terrorist groups that continued to attack? Or did it condemn Israel for defending itself? If the Arab League had demonstrated good faith when Israel ceded territory, they could claim that its peace initiative is sincere. But the Arab League didn't. Clearly Israeli security is not a term the Arab League takes very seriously.
The whole idea that Palestinian statehood is somehow part of the Arab spring of freedom is ridiculous. Right now the Palestinians are ruled by a terror organization and a corrupt civil authority. Even if Abbas negotiates with Netanyahu to make peace, the Palestinians will still not be free. The only way a state of Palestine might have something in common with the Arab spring, would be if Hamas took over and the Palestinians became the next Arab polity to be ruled by Islamists.
King Abdullah ends with:
Across the entire Arab world, people are demanding freedom, dignity and hope. In Jordan we have charted our course through an irreversible, inclusive and evolutionary process of political, social and economic reform. Regional peace must be part of this future—for Palestinians, for Israelis, for all. There have been too many failed attempts. Can we all do it this time?
When King Abdullah stands for election I'll believe his claim to be supporting freedom.
3) The risk of withdrawal
To the peace processor, the Israeli refusal to give into every territorial demand of the Palestinians is the primary reason for the lack of a peace process.
As noted above, the withdrawals from southern Lebanon and Gaza have left Israel less, not more secure. Ehud Yaari (via Daily Alert) writes about how the Sinai has become A New Front (.pdf):
Yet the true surge in such activity came after Israel’s 2005 disengagement from Gaza and subsequent removal of troops from the Sinai-Gaza border—as Bedouin political activist Ashraf al-Anani put it, “a fireball started rolling into the peninsula.” Illegal trade and arms smuggling volumes rose to new records, and ever-larger sectors of the northern Sinai population became linked to Gaza and fell under the political and ideological influence of Hamas and its ilk. Sympathy and support for the Palestinian battle against Israel grew; according to al-Anani, the closer one got to the Gaza border, “the more people are inclined toward Hamas.” In short, despite then prime minister Ariel Sharon’s quiet hope that Cairo would assume unofficial responsibility for Gaza affairs, the Israeli withdrawal instead allowed Hamas to export its influence into Egyptian territory.
Facilitated by the dramatic increase in the number of tunnels—which numbered no less than 1,200 at their peak—the expansion of Hamas and other Palestinian activities in the Sinai was unprecedented. In fact, the arms flow was often reversed, with weapons going from Gaza to the Sinai. During the revolution, for example, observers noted a huge demand for firearms in the peninsula.14 And even in late 2010, well before Mubarak’s ouster, Hamas was already in the process of transferring heavy long-range missiles to secret storage places in the Sinai, including Grad rockets and extended-range Qassams. On October 6 of that year, the Israeli port of Eilat and its Jordanian sister town of Aqaba were hit by a salvo of missiles fired from the Sinai. The attacks took place despite stern Egyptian warnings to Hamas not to use the peninsula as a launchpad for strikes on Israel. In a response that has since become the norm, Hamas military commanders simply ignored the Egyptian request and later denied responsibility, although both Egyptian and Israeli intelligence had more than sufficient information to prove it.
Peace has its risks. The job of the peace processors ought to be assessing those risks instead of simply dismissing them. Elder of Ziyon notes one of the effects of this new front.
4) Reconsidering Israel in England
Jonathan Sacerdoti recently wrote Stop ignoring the facts about Cast Lead in the New Statesman (h/t Daled Amos)
In 2006, following the Israeli disengagement and pullout from the Gaza Strip, there was an increase of 436 per cent in the number of Palestinian rockets launched towards Israel from that very territory. For some time, Israel resisted a large-scale military response to such acts deliberately aimed at civilians. As a result, the attacks got worse, and every country, including Israel, has the moral responsibility to defend its people from such actions.
Increased Palestinian terror attacks from Gaza were the cause of Operation Cast Lead. Yet Israel's is a conscript army. Indeed Israel goes to extraordinary lengths to protect its young soldiers (witness the efforts make to secure the release of the kidnap victim Gilad Shalit), and does not send them to war easily.
In the three years since the operation, there has been an unprecedented 72 per cent decline in the number of rockets launched from Hamas-controlled Gaza. No surprise, then, that Israel's Defence Forces Chief of Staff should call the operation "an excellent operation that achieved deterrence for Israel vis-a-vis Hamas". (However, that deterrence is still not enough to have prevented Palestinians from launching 1,571 rockets since the operation, including one attack with an anti-tank missile on a clearly identifiable Israeli school bus.)
A Conservative MP, Andrew Percy has written Israel Misunderstood and Misrepresented (via Daily Alert):
My travels around Israel surprised me completely. The people were full of get up and go, eager to live peacefully in the region; the towns and cities were energetic and cosmopolitan; and the deliverance of democracy never failed to impress upon me. So why is there such a discrepancy between what I experienced and public perception back in the UK? When was the last time you heard a good news story emanating from Israel on your TV screens or in the newspapers? And why has Israel become defined simply by its inability to solve the conflict when it is so much more than that?
I raised these questions when I returned to Israel again last week with colleagues from the UK and Australia for a dialogue with Israeli and Palestinian politicians, journalists, academics and commentators. This serious problem is not being effectively addressed and Israel’s future is being undermined by its inability to promote itself both accurately and attractively. As an MP, I witness this difference between perception and reality, on a regular basis in the House of Commons. From Backbenchers through to Government Ministers and Shadow Ministers, colleagues suffer from a serial case of apathy where Israel is concerned. Seemingly no positive impression of the place has been determined in people’s minds.
Labels: Egyptian-Israeli border, Iranian nuclear program, Jordanian King Abdullah, Meir Dagan, Middle East Media Sampler, Mossad, Operation Cast Lead, sabotage, Saudi plan, Sinai, Soccer Dad
