Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Islamic terrorism, Tom Friedman
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:51 PM
3 comments
But u're not Israeli u don't speak 4 us & u won't hv 2 live w/ the consequences Get off ur high horse u arrogant SOB https://t.co/ANP2XqnPxW
— IsraelMatzav (@IsraelMatzav) August 12, 2015
David Jablinowitz took Friedman's piece to a Jerusalem grocer, who did a much more thorough take-down than anyone could have done in 140 characters. Here it is (Hat Tip: Mrs. Carl).The grocer said the following: "You tell Friedman that this grocer was a military officer, who knows how to fight a war, and that I fought with my head and not my gut. You tell Friedman that as a 'makolet' owner, I know that I will give credit to a customer who pays his bills, but will demand money up front from someone who has a record of cheating. And you tell Friedman that as a kind person, I will give charity to a person who is economically suffering, but if it's obvious that the poor person will spend the money on drugs, I'd prefer to bring him into my grocery and give him some basic foods for free, but I would not just give him money to spend as he wishes on dangerous things. You tell Friedman that I think these negotiators could have used some Israeli grocers at the negotiating table with Iran."Yes, they could have... if they had any interest in stopping Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, nuclear weapons, Tom Friedman
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:15 PM
2 comments
Palestinian leader Hanan Ashrawi is attacking a recent statement by US President Barack Obama to the New York Times as "dangerous" because in it According to Ashrawi, "speaking about the Jews' return to their land" is "extremist Zionist ideology."Let's go to the videotape.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Hanan Ashrawi, Tom Friedman, Zionism
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:25 PM
1 comments
And now Iran has an ally: Sheldon Adelson — the foolhardy Las Vegas casino magnate and crude right-wing, pro-Israel extremist. Adelson gave away some $100 million in the last presidential campaign to fund Republican candidates, with several priorities in mind: that they delegitimize the Palestinians and that they avoid any reference to the West Bank as “occupied territories” and any notion that the U.S. should pressure Israel to trade land for peace there. Both Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney took the money and played by Sheldon’s rules.
In case you missed it, the R.J.C., the Republican Jewish Coalition, held a retreat last weekend at an Adelson casino in Las Vegas. It was dubbed “the Sheldon Primary.” Republicans lined up to compete for Adelson’s blessing and money, or as Politico put it: “Adelson summoned [Jeb] Bush and Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey, John Kasich of Ohio and Scott Walker of Wisconsin to Las Vegas. ... The new big-money political landscape — in which a handful of donors can dramatically alter a campaign with just a check or two — explains both the eagerness of busy governors to make pilgrimages to Las Vegas, and the obsession with divining Adelson’s 2016 leanings.
Adelson personifies everything that is poisoning our democracy and Israel’s today — swaggering oligarchs, using huge sums of money to try to bend each system to their will.Christie, in his speech, referred to the West Bank as “occupied territories” — as any knowledgeable American leader would. This, Politico said, “set off murmurs in the crowd.”
Some Republican Jews explained to Christie after he finished that he had made a terrible faux pas. (He called something by its true name and in the way the U.S. government always has!) The West Bank should be called “disputed territories” or “Judea and Samaria,” the way hard-line Jews prefer. So, Politico reported, Christie hastily arranged a meeting with Adelson to explain that he misspoke and that he was a true friend of Israel. “The New Jersey governor apologized in a private meeting in the casino mogul’s Venetian office shortly afterward,” Politico reported. It said Adelson “accepted” Christie’s “explanation” and “quick apology.”Read that sentence over and contemplate it.
How many things does Tom have wrong here? The 'Palestinians' aren't going to vote Israel out of existence any time soon - even if they are given the 'right' to do so - so long as we don't flood the country with 'Palestinian refugees' as Tom would like us to do.I don’t know if Israel has a Palestinian partner for a secure withdrawal from the West Bank, or ever will. But I know this: If Israel wants to remain a Jewish, democratic state, it should be doing everything it can to nurture such a partner or acting unilaterally to get out. Because, I’m certain that when reports about the “Adelson primary” reached the desk of Supreme Leader Khamenei in Tehran, a big smile crossed his face and he said to his aides: “May Allah grant Sheldon a long life. Everything is going according to plan.”
Labels: Chris Christie, demography, Jewish anti-Semitism, New York Times, occupation, Sheldon Adelson, Tom Friedman
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:32 PM
3 comments
The “Kerry Plan,” likely to be unveiled soon, is expected to call for an end to the conflict and all claims, following a phased Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank (based on the 1967 lines), with unprecedented security arrangements in the strategic Jordan Valley. The Israeli withdrawal will not include certain settlement blocs, but Israel will compensate the Palestinians for them with Israeli territory. It will call for the Palestinians to have a capital in Arab East Jerusalem and for Palestinians to recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. It will not include any right of return for Palestinian refugees into Israel proper.
For this we're negotiating? This sounds remarkably like 'what everyone knows' the solution is supposed to be, and if we've proven nothing else going back to the Clinton parameters from the end of 2000, it's that everyone doesn't know.Kerry expects and hopes that both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will declare that despite their reservations about one or another element in the U.S. framework, they will use it as the basis of further negotiations.
This is where things will get interesting. U.S. and Israeli officials in close contact with Netanyahu describe him as torn, clearly understanding that some kind of two-state solution is necessary for Israel’s integrity as a Jewish democratic state, with the healthy ties to Europe and the West that are vital for Israel’s economy. But he remains deeply skeptical about Palestinian intentions — or as Netanyahu said here Tuesday: “I do not want a binational state. But we also don’t want another state that will start attacking us.” His political base, though, which he nurtured, does not want Netanyahu making a U-turn.
Well, yeah, the coalition would fall apart. But Netanyahu is not going to make that U-turn, because at this point, if he does, he will have no base in the Likud. And while Netanyahu saying no (which he will at least hopefully be smart enough to hold off doing until the 'Palestinians' inevitably say no - something that Friedman ignores) may precipitate Yesh Atid leaving the coalition, Netanyahu's alternative is to run behind Yair Lapid as Yesh Atid's number 2... and that's not going to happen.Which is why — although Netanyahu has started to prepare the ground here for the U.S. plan — if he proceeds on its basis, even with reservations, his coalition will likely collapse. He will lose a major part of his own Likud Party and all his other right-wing allies. In short, for Netanyahu to move forward, he will have to build a new political base around centrist parties. To do that, Netanyahu would have to become, to some degree, a new leader — overcoming his own innate ambivalence about any deal with the Palestinians to become Israel’s most vocal and enthusiastic salesman for a two-state deal, otherwise it would never pass.
In essence what Kerry is daring to test is a question everyone has wanted to avoid: Is the situation between Israelis and Palestinians at five minutes to midnight or five minutes after midnight, or even 1 a.m. (beyond diplomacy)?
Yes, Tom, read the polls here. Most Israelis believe it's beyond diplomacy. Some of us have believed that for the last 20 years (at least).That is, has Israel become so much more powerful than its neighbors that a symmetrical negotiation is impossible, especially when the Palestinians do not seem willing or able to mount another intifada that might force Israel to withdraw? Has the neighborhood around Israel become so much more unstable that any Israeli withdrawal from anywhere is unthinkable? Has the number of Israeli Jews now living in East Jerusalem and the West Bank become so much larger — more than 540,000 — that they are immovable? And has the Palestinian rhetoric on the right of return become so deeply embedded in Palestinian politics? So when you add them all up, it becomes a fantasy to expect any Israeli or Palestinian leader to have the strength to make the huge concessions needed for a two-state solution?
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, coalition government, Israeli polls, John Kerry, Judea and Samaria, Likud party, Middle East peace process, Tom Friedman, two-state solution, unilateral withdrawal
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:38 PM
1 comments
Never have I seen Israel and America’s core Arab allies working more in concert to stymie a major foreign policy initiative of a sitting U.S. president, and never have I seen more lawmakers — Democrats and Republicans — more willing to take Israel’s side against their own president’s.Hey Tom - maybe when everyone else is saying one thing and you and your friends are saying another, you're wrong. Isn't that possible? But no - Tom claims it's just that all-powerful Jewish lobby again.
I’m certain this comes less from any careful consideration of the facts and more from a growing tendency by many American lawmakers to do whatever the Israel lobby asks them to do in order to garner Jewish votes and campaign donations.Is Stephen Walt now editing Tom's columns?
No, I don’t begrudge Israel and the Arabs their skepticism, but we still should not let them stop a deal. If you’re not skeptical about Iran, you’re not paying attention. Iran has lied and cheated its way to the precipice of building a bomb, and without tough economic sanctions — sanctions that President Obama engineered but which Netanyahu and the Arab states played a key role in driving — Iran would not be at the negotiating table.Maybe Tom needs to have a conversation with Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) about how Obama opposed the sanctions until the Senate voted 100-0 in favor of the Kirk-Menendez amendment implementing them. Obama did everything he could to stop the sanctions. Just like he's doing now.
In the long run, the deal Kerry is trying to forge with Iran is good for us and our allies for four reasons: 1) In return for very limited sanctions relief, the deal is expected to freeze all of Iran’s nuclear bomb-making technologies, roll back some of them and put in place an unprecedented, intrusive inspection regime, while maintaining all the key oil sanctions so Iran will still be hurting aplenty.$40 billion in relief is very limited? Hey Tom, all Iran has offered to do is... none of the things you list there (and if any of them are eventually achieved it will be because of France and not because of Obama). Iran would be delayed by a grand total of 24 days (!) if this deal goes through.
This way Iran can’t “build a bomb and talk” at the same time (the way Israel builds more settlements while it negotiates with Palestinians).Cheap shot Tom. How about, "This way, Iran can't "build a bomb and talk" at the same time (the way the 'Palestinians' engage in terror and incitement while they 'negotiate' with Israel)."
2) While, Netanyahu believes more sanctions will get Iran to surrender every piece of its nuclear technology, Iran experts say that is highly unlikely.And that makes this a 'good deal' precisely how?
3) Iran has already mastered the technology to make a bomb (and polls show that this is very popular with Iranians). There is no way to completely eliminate every piece of Iran’s nuclear technology unless you wipe every brain clean there.And that makes this a 'good deal' precisely how?
4) The only lasting security lies in an internal transformation in Iran, which can only come with more openness.You mean the one Obama killed in 2009?
If Israel kills this U.S.-led deal, then the only option is military. How many Americans or NATO allies will go for bombing Iran after Netanyahu has blocked the best effort to explore a credible diplomatic alternative? Not many. That means only Israel will have a military option. If Israel uses it, it may set Iran back, but it will also set Iran free to rush to a bomb. Is Israel ready to bomb Iran every six months?Hey Tom - our military says we can do much more than that. And we don't depend on Obama to protect us or to make our decisions.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, Tom Friedman
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:19 PM
1 comments
1) How can you tell the difference between a terrorist organization and a liberal democracy?
The title is a trick question. In international fora, the terrorist organization gets a lot more respect. Last week the Ireland led the way to prevent the European Union from designating Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
Ireland is reportedly blocking efforts inside the European Union to formally blacklist Hezbollah as a terror organization. Britain recently initiated procedures to add the Iran-backed terror group to the E.U. blacklist, after Bulgarian officials linked Hezbollah to the July 2012 Burgas bombing that killed six civilians and a Cypriot court convicted a confessed Hezbollah member on terrorism-related charges. The U.S. has repeatedly called upon the E.U. to follow its example and ban the group, which has established deep roots on the Continent.Even as Hezbollah's reach is seen in South America and Syria the European Union refuses to sanction the terror group operating within its borders.
But when it comes to Israel, the world is more intent on preparring a final solution. In the farcically named UN Human Rights Council, 67 nations and organizations heartily approved the report of asylum escapee, Richard Falk, condemning Israel. In a just world someone like Falk would issue his statements from behind the walls of an institution, but in the topsy-turvey world of the UN he is a respected "Special Rapporteur." Naturally, in this venue he received support from even the world's worst rights abusers. Look at how they piled on.
During the interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur, speakers condemned Israel’s persistent refusal to cooperate with the Special Rapporteur and expressed concerns at the persistence of settlement activities and human rights violations, including restrictions on movement, arrests and harassment of Palestinians, and the particular effects on children. They highlighted the need to put an end to impunity for human rights violations. Speakers regretted the deterioration of the situation in Gaza due to the ongoing blockade and the loss of civilian lives. Some delegations echoed the proposal of the Special Rapporteur to investigate the activities of businesses connected with Israeli settlement activity. Others complained about the unbalanced mandate of the Special Rapporteur and the presence of political considerations in his report. Mr. Falk was accused of being anti-Semitic.No, you didn't misread. Syria - whose government has killed more than 80,000 over the past two years - and its patron, Iran (of the laughably named "non-aligned movement) sit in judgment of Israel in this venue. In the asylum that is the UN, this is hardly remarkable.
Speaking in the discussion were Pakistan on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the European Union, Mauritania, Egypt, South Africa, Algeria on behalf of the Arab Group, Indonesia, Iceland, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, Iran on behalf of the Non Aligned Movement, Iraq, Qatar, Cuba, Ecuador, Angola, Venezuela, Kuwait, Chile, Morocco, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Syria, Algeria, Turkey, Iran, Maldives, Zimbabwe, the United Nations Children’s Fund and Malaysia.
There were, however two speeches that weren't anti-Israel and were, instead, indictments of the "human rights" establishment.
.@aliabunimah Thank you for condemning the antisemitism endorsed by #RichardFalk. We quoted you again @un today: blog.unwatch.org/index.php/One was by Anne Bayefsky; the other by Hillel Neuer.2013…
— UN Watch (@UNWatch) June 10, 2013
Mr. Falk, in the first page of your report, you attack my NGO and ask this Council to launch an investigation in order to shut us down.2) Smacking Friedman down, again
Does your report allege a crime? No, you simply object to our words. We are the only watchdog at the UN, and we report what you say. In reprisal, you now seek to muzzle our voice, to avoid being held accountable.
The real issue is whether your work, conducted under the banner of human rights, actually exonerates and exculpates the perpetrators of terrorism.
Last week I took issue with Thomas Friedman's Israel lives the Joseph Story.
.@tomfriedman Earlier, Joseph was falsely accused; as Israel is now. Funny that you left that part out.But I missed a major goof.
— David Gerstman (@soccerdhg) June 5, 2013
And the world for the most part would not begrudge Israel keeping its forces on the Jordan River — as will be necessary given the instability beyond — if it ceded most of the West Bank and Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem.Elder of Ziyon:
Oh, and don't forget Friedman's other "if-then" fallacy here - that the world would allow Israel to keep the Jordan Valley as a buffer if only it would offer the Palestinian Arabs a state. Wasn't that already offered and rejected?Meryl Yourish:
The bolded phrase contradicts all of the Palestinian statements made about Israel keeping any soldiers in the West Bank. In point of fact, the Palestinians absolutely begrudge Israel a force on the Jordan.My Right Word:
Well, I do not know about the "world" but the Pals. would certainly not agree.Friedman loves to pose as someone who understands simple truths that those in power (especially in Israel) fail to appreciate. But here he shows that he hasn't been paying attention to the past twenty years of the peace process. Maybe in 1993 an Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley was an accommodation would have made. It is no longer.
3) Soccer news
Despite efforts of anti-Israel activists to prevent it, Israel hosted this year's UEFA (European soccer's governing body) under 21 championship. Israel did not advance in the tournament. However, the Israeli team did win its final match in Jerusalem against England. Ofir Krieff, of the Israeli team, scored the game winning goal.
To score in the capital city, in my home town, in front of my home fans, is a fantastic feeling. We did a really good job. The credit goes to the team and not to me even though I scored. It's all thanks to the great work of the staff and the players.One of Israel's top players was Taleb Twatha:
I think that we had a really good tournament overall. To win four points against these kind of teams is a big achievement. We had some criticism and it wasn't always right. This team has a lot of potential and we proved it today against England which is nothing to take for granted.
When I scored I just thought that we had finally got the win after this hard work. The credit goes to Guy [Luzon]. It was highly important to finish with a good taste because of him and I'm happy that we gave him this goodbye present. "I wanted to run over to him but afterwards I saw nothing because everybody was all over me".
This is a 20-year-old, after all, from a world far removed from the one he now inhabits as a professional footballer. Defender Twatha is from a Bedouin family, born and brought up in Jisr az-Zarqa, a coastal town in the north of Israel which did not even have a football pitch when he was growing up.4) Erekat's Latrun gambit
"We have only 13,000 people in Jisr," the left-back explained to UEFA.com. "Jisr is a very poor town and when I was young there was no football there – not even a football field. I'm the youngest in my family. My eldest brother studies medicine in Italy. My other brother does the same but in Germany. My sister finished nursing school in Jordan. My father is the school principal and my mum is also a teacher. I'm the only one to have gone into professional sport."
That he ended up playing UEFA Champions League football for Maccabi Haifa FC aged just 17 was the result, he says, of a serendipitous moment seven years earlier – namely, a random phone call from a family friend. "I tried gymnastics, tennis, karate, but only in the fifth grade did I start playing football. I had some luck because I was in the car with my dad one day when a friend of his saw a newspaper ad about a football school and phoned him about it. I interrupted the call and told him I wanted to go. Just a year later I moved to Maccabi Haifa."
In commemoration of the 46th anniversary of the start of the Six Day War, the New York Times published a press release for the Palestinian Authority, On Anniversary of Arab-Israeli War, a Palestinian Plea:
It was here on the wooded slopes of Latrun on Tuesday that Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, chose to mark the anniversary of the outbreak of the 1967 war and to call for an end of Israeli occupation.Control of Latrun was critical for control of the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and at the time, Arab forces had been poised to to attack Irael's narrow coastal corridor. Much as Erekat obfuscates the issue, control of Latrun was essential for Israel's survival.
“I am sure many of you are asking why is Saeb Erekat bringing you to this point,” Mr. Erekat said to a group of diplomats and reporters as he stood against a backdrop of green fields, a reservoir and an Israeli settlement of red-roofed houses in the valley below.
“It is not because I want to demarcate the maps or finalize the negotiations,” he said, referring to the intensive efforts of Secretary of State John Kerry to get the Israelis and Palestinians to return to peace talks. “I just want to stand here and say, ‘It is 46 years later.’ ”
The New York Times continues.
If nothing else, Mr. Erekat’s selection of Latrun spoke to the great distance between Palestinians and Israelis. Many Israelis consider Latrun to be an integral part of Israel. Drivers heading to either Tel Aviv or Jerusalem speed across the unmarked armistice lines along the main highway, slicing through several miles of West Bank territory and designated stretches of buffer zone, oblivious to the area’s fraught history.The reporter tells us the obvious, but leaves out something else that is obvious. The Palestinians once again are seeking to "move the goalposts." Erekat's press conference was apparently the first move in a new campaign.
Israel Matzav writes:
The 'Palestinians' have responded to US Secretary of State John FN Kerry's pressure on Israel for concessions... by seeking even more concessions. The 'Palestinians' are now seeking two of Israel's biggest tourist attractions: Mini Israel and the Latrun tank museum. In fact, they're seeking the whole area around Latrun...A favored Palestinian official gives a press conference and a reporter for the New York Times dutifully records his statements without explaining what he is doing. She simply writes, "here's one more Palestinian that needs to be addressed by Israel," and not "the Palestinians keep changing their demands." Jonathan Tobin comments:
Erekat’s candor is in a sense quite commendable. Latrun is a potent symbol of the nature of the Israel that existed in those halcyon days before the obstacle to peace was the presence of Jews in the West Bank and in which a small state with indefensible borders and a capital that could be isolated with ease stood on the precipice of destruction as Arab armies began to mass on its borders. Erekat was sending a clear message to Israelis that if they thought the PA would ever accept the fact that the world had irrevocably changed in those 46 years they could just keep dreaming.Israel begged Jordan not to join the war. King Hussein convinced of Egypt's early success against Israel joined in seeking to cut Israel in half. western Jerusalem was bombarded. Israel did not decide "we will dispossess the Palestinians" and seek war. War was forced on them and they fought to survive. Erekat wishes for the world to forget that.
As Erekat well knows there now exists a broad consensus within Israel about the desirable nature of a two-state solution. That consensus includes Prime Minister Netanyahu and most of the members of his government. Indeed, even the Israeli right knows that if the Palestinians ever offered a complete end to the conflict and recognized the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders were drawn they would find the majority ready to make painful territorial sacrifices. But by laying down a marker on Latrun—a place that no Israeli in his right mind would ever consider leaving—Erekat was making it clear their real priority was not peace but an effort to merely continue the conflict on more advantageous terms.
Indeed, reminding Israelis of the Israel that existed from 1949 to 1967 is not exactly the way to reassure his ostensible peace partners of the PA’s good intentions. But of course what else can you expect of a peace negotiator that has boycotted peace talks for the past four and a half years?
Elder of Ziyon asks a very important (rhetorical) question:
If the Six Day War hadn't happened... Would there be a Palestinian Arab state today on the West Bank and Gaza?Perhaps that's something that Erekat ought to consider. If Jordan hadn't attacked Israel in 1967, would he now be an international celebrity for promoting Palestinian nationhood?
The rest of the New York Times article is a lament about how both sides are being unreasonable and how this mutual stubbornness will sink Jonh Kerry's peace plan. When it's one side that refused to negotiate and then changes the parameters of negotiations isn't that the side that is uninterested in peace?
Labels: Anne Bayefsky, BDS, designated terror organization, Hezbullah, Hillel Neuer, Latrun, Middle East Media Sampler, Saeb Erekat, Six Day War, Soccer Dad, Tom Friedman, UEFA
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:53 PM
0 comments
1) Friedman resurrects "Fayyadism"
Some time ago, Thomas Friedman coined the term "Fayyadism," a concept that, according to Nathan Brown, never had a chance.
Why Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad never had a chance to meet the high expectations placed on him atfp.co/10hH6rY(No I don't agree with everything Brown argues, but the fourth and fifth paragraphs are good observations.)
— Foreign Policy (@ForeignPolicy) April 18, 2013
In his most recent column, Goodbye to Fayyad Thomas Friedman boasts about his neologism:
Who is Salam Fayyad? A former economist at the International Monetary Fund, he first came to prominence when he was named finance minister of the Palestinian Authority in 2002, after donors got fed up seeing their contributions diverted for corruption. Shortly after he became prime minister in 2007, I coined the term “Fayyadism” — the all-too-rare notion that an Arab leader’s legitimacy should be based not on slogans or resistance to Israel and the West or on personality cults or security services, but on delivering decent, transparent, accountable governance.Whether he used the term "Fayyadism" in other fora, I don't know, but the earliest mention of it in a column was in a 2009 column, Greet Shoots in Palestine.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to the wider Middle East what off-Broadway is to Broadway. It is where all good and bad ideas get tested out first. Well, the Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, a former I.M.F. economist, is testing out the most exciting new idea in Arab governance ever. I call it “Fayyadism.”While it's possible that Friedman came up with "Fayyadism" in 2007, the context of the 2009 mention suggests that the term was based on the results of Fayyad's governance, so I believe that Friedman is mistaken about his own record.
Fayyadism is based on the simple but all-too-rare notion that an Arab leader’s legitimacy should be based not on slogans or rejectionism or personality cults or security services, but on delivering transparent, accountable administration and services.
... Things are truly getting better in the West Bank, thanks to a combination of Fayyadism, improved Palestinian security and a lifting of checkpoints by Israel. In all of 2008, about 1,200 new companies registered for licenses here. In the first six months of this year, almost 900 have registered. According to the I.M.F., the West Bank economy should grow by 7 percent this year.
But what's worse than this possible lapse is that Friedman demonstrated his absolute ignorance of Palestinian politics. Over the time that he sporadically advertised "Fayyadism" as the path to peace, Freidman wrote in a 2011 column, Bibi and Barack:
And it is equally silly for the Palestinians to be going to the United Nations for a state when they need to be persuading Israelis why a Hamas-Fatah rapprochement is in their security interest.Hamas made it absolutely clear that it wanted Fayyad sidelined and yet Friedman told us that a Fatah-Hamas agreement would be to Israel's benefit. This suggests that "Fayyadism" is one more empty Friedman phrase. "Fayyadism" was a handy rhetorical stick with which to beat Israel. Sure Fayyad is more honest and transparent that any other Palestinian leader, but he is also a leader without an internal constituency.
If Friedman could tout a peace killing alliance between Fatah and Hamas the same time he promoted "Fayyadism" as the only way to peace, it demonstrates that he is disingenuous, if not illogical and ignorant.
In today's column, Friedman also asserts:
Fayyad also played the leading role in rebuilding the Palestinian security services in the West Bank, which even the Israeli military grew to respect, and in trying to build Palestinian institutions, on the argument that the more Palestinians built their institutions — finance, police, social services — the more Israel’s denial of them of a state will be unsustainable.Lately there's been a rise in attempts to kidnap Israeli soldiers and rock attacks against Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria, suggesting that the Palestinian security forces are helpful, when they want to be, but can hardly be relied upon. Furthermore, even with the built up institutions, the PA is still way too dependent on foreign aid. (This is something that Friedman implicitly acknowledges later in the column, but he, of course, blames the shortfall on Israel for holding back tax monies, ignoring the ineffectiveness of Palestinian governance.)
Hamas hated Fayyad, and many Palestinian Authority officials were jealous of him, but success protected him until 2011. President Mahmoud Abbas, frustrated by the right-wing Israeli government’s refusal to strike a land-for-peace deal, decided to seek recognition of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations. The United States retaliated by cutting off aid, and Israel did so by withholding Palestinian tax receipts. I thought it foolish for Abbas to go to the U.N., but I thought it irresponsible for America’s Congress to cut off aid to the Palestinians for doing so — when we’ve never retaliated for the even more obstructionist building of settlements by Israel."Hamas hated Fayyad," and yet Friedman wanted Fatah to join with Hamas for Israel's "security!" Going to the UN wasn't foolish, it was a violation of the premises of the peace process Friedman claims to support. Friedman and the PA may not like settlements but they were allowed by the Oslo Accords, even if Israel has largely restricted any building in them to existing communities. (Though Israel gets precious little credit for this.)
At the end of his column, Friedman presents 4 "takeways." The second and third are ludicrous, but the first one makes a lot of sense:
For Palestinians, particularly Abbas and Fatah, who so easily turned their most effective executive into a scapegoat, if there is no place for a Salam Fayyad-type in your leadership, an independent state will forever elude you.Fayyad's failure isn't a failure of Israel or of Israel's settlers. It is a failure of Palestinian culture. (Though he'd be loath to admit it, Friedman's making a similar argument to the one Mitt Romney made last year!)
The problem is that most of the rest of the column is at odds with this observation as Friedman blamed everyone else but the Palesitnians for Fayyad's failure!
Friedman's fourth "takeaway" is:
“There is nothing inevitable about a liberal order emerging from any of these Arab awakenings,” argues the pollster Craig Charney. Indeed, to produce that outcome takes someone like a Fayyad with the consistent help of external parties as well as a loyal base at home ready to see it through. In the end, Fayyad had neither. Add another nail in the coffin of the two-state solution.Note that first Friedman suggested that the Palestinians bear the blame for their failure to achieve statehood, then he writes that he despairs of a two state solution. The evidence is before him but he is blind to what it means. The occupation (his obsession) is mostly over. What is left is for the Palestinians to achieve independence. That's not something that is dependent on Israel, but on the Palestinians changing their political culture. Had Fayyad managed to win political support - either in the Palestinian leadership or in the street - maybe he'd be more than a footnote right now.
Jonathan Schanzer laments some in Congress are seeking to pressure Abbas to draft a new succession law.
Hamas’ anticipated rise to power in the PA could lead to a cut off in critical U.S. aid dollars and foster an even more fraught relationship with Israel and America, according to the Rep. Peter Roskam (R., Ill.), the House’s chief deputy whip.The failure of Friedman's fabled "Fayyadism" is unconnected to Israel. Until the Palestinian culture is about openness and opportunity rather than despotism and grievance, reform and self-governance will elude the Palestinians. As long as Thomas Friedman continues blaming his ill-informed and mendacious arguments he is covering for, not fighting Palestinian malfeasance and misrule.
“It’s one of the things Congress will have to monitor closely,” Roskam said in an interview.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, he said, are poised to “encourage the PA to deal with their succession plan. The notion of a default position of a Hamas official being the head of the PA is complete unacceptable and if the PA were to make that decision to have that leadership, the consequences are quite significant.”
2) Getting around with Hezbollah
Last month the National Post reported Hezbollah deliberately seeks Canadians because of internationally accepted passports: senior CSIS official:
The terrorist group Hezbollah has been seeking operatives with Canadian passports, a senior intelligence official told MPs reviewing a bill Thursday that could strip terrorists of their citizenship.Now it's been reported that Iran agent monitoring Chabad arrested in Bulgaria:
Appearing before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service official said Canadian passport holders were being actively sought by terrorist groups.
...
The RCMP is also investigating allegations a Lebanese-Canadian Hezbollah member was behind last July’s bombing of a bus full of Israeli tourists at Sarafovo airport on the Black Sea coast. The suspect, who now lives in Lebanon, had used his Canadian passport to travel to Bulgaria.
Bulgarian police officers last summer arrested a Canadian citizen linked to the Iranian government who engaged in surveillance of the local Chabad center in the capital of Sofia, a well-placed and reliable local source told The Jerusalem Post last week, on condition of anonymity due to security reasons.While it isn't certain that this agent was working for Hezbollah, the possibility certainly can't be ruled out since Hezbollah is a proxy of Iran and Syria.
An Iranian-sponsored female agent in her 50s, holding a Canadian passport, traveled from Istanbul to Sofia several weeks after the bombing of the Israeli tour bus in the Black Sea resort town of Burgas in July 2012. She was arrested on her first day in Sofia after the Bulgarian police, on high alert, noticed she was monitoring the Chabad center.
And how is Hezbollah funding its international operations? The Jerusalem Post reports:
Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, says exchange houses have been used more frequently in recent years by the Islamic Republic in Iran to fund its nuclear program, as sanctions have increasingly restricted its access to resources.With Iran and Syria limited in the resources it can provide Hezbollah, the terrorist organization is turning to drugs and money laundering to finance its operations.
“It’s not insignificant that Europe is identified as a place where Hezbollah is apparently selling drugs,” Schanzer said.
...
Experts say that Hezbollah’s asymmetric fund-raising campaign has kicked in to high gear as the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria has lost ground in its war against his fellow countrymen. The Assad regime, and the Ayatollah regime in Iran, are Hezbollah’s primary patrons.
Labels: Bulgaria, Canada, Hezbullah, Iran, Middle East Media Sampler, Salam Fayyad, Soccer Dad, Tom Friedman
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:39 PM
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1) Bursting the balloon
When I saw the following headline at the Baltimore Jewish Times I was worried, " J Street Carved Out A Place In The U.S.-Israel Advocacy." The article, written by managing editor, Maayan Jaffe starts by faithfully recounting all of J-Streets claims. But, there's more to the title, that suggests that this isn't going to be another J-Street whitewash: "Israelis say Policies Don’t Jibe."
Jaffe first looks at J-Street's math and observes:
Purely looking at the numbers, for all the hype, J Street really isn’t much but a stitch in the side of most larger pro-Israel organizations. This reporter, for example, obtained the 990 c3 financial statements of both the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and J Street from the last several years. Between July 1, 2008 and June 30, 2009, J Street’s total revenue reached $1,641,153. In a similar tax period (Oct. 1, 2008 and Sept. 30, 2009), AIPAC’s total revenue was $60,749,036. In a similar tax year (circa 2010): $2,189,038 for J Street and $66,176,210 for AIPAC. In circa 2011: $2,972,591 for J Street, $66,862,011 for AIPAC. Of course, by percentage (10 percent for AIPAC and 81 percent for J Street over a three-year period), J Street’s growth is markedly higher, but the numbers are so distinct that one recognizes one is not comparing apples to apples, but rather apples to grapes.The smaller the number the easier it is to boast of a high rate of growth. While Jaffe interviews many J-Street members and officials she also quotes critics and outside observers. But the most devastating two paragraphs in the article are these: “The No. 1 reason Americans support Israel is shared values,” said Lerner of J Street. “I have a fear that if Israel is not a democracy, then American support for Israel will wane. That will put Israel in a difficult situation.” But yet they are calling on America to help form a Palestinian state in which Abbas has repeatedly declared not a single Jew would be allowed to live.J-Street claims to be fighting for Israeli democracy but its belief in democracy is severely limited. For more on the founding of J-Street read A Kinder, Gentler Alternative To AIPAC? by Daled Amos from 2006. Daled Amos describes one of the legislative victories that spurred the formation of J-Street.
Apparently, part of the impetus for the project is the result of the success of three of the above groups--IPF, APN and Brit Tzedek--in killing the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act, which would have cut off US aid to the Palestinian Authority until it renounced terrorism and recognizes Israel.Note that those who were inspired to form J-Street were inspired by an effort to reduce pressure on the Palestinian Authority to abide by its commitments. Jaffe's article points J-Street's latest "pro-Israel" fighting for the confirmation of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of State. Clearly, just was when it started, J-Street has a very warped view of the term "pro-Israel."
2) That 70's diplomatic show
WikiLeaks has now published millions of pieces of diplomatic correspondence from the 1970's. Some of these cables relate to Israel. The Jerusalem Post reports (h/t Israel Matzav):
The Jerusalem Post has uncovered a cable sent from the US Embassy in Saudi Arabia on January 9, 1975, which analyzed the Israeli-Arab conflict. It was concluded that it was Israel's stubborn position that was holding back peace.At one point the cable stated, "Nevertheless, viewed from here, the Israeli pessimism seems largely if not entirely unwarranted. It seems based on an extraordinary lack of understanding of what happened in the Arab world in the last year and a half. Rather than girding their loins for the fifth, sixth, seventh Israeli-Arab wars. The Israelis might examine more carefully than they seem to have done so far the alternative of a peaceful accommodation with the Arabs."For those who are nostalgic for the pre-Likud years, when Israel was ruled by the much more reasonable Labor Party, this might come as something of a surprise. Then again such people are simply repeating prejudices rather than applying any sort of rational analysis to the politics of the Middle East.
At Tablet, Lee Smith emphasizes another disturbing trend in American diplomacy during this time:
During the Kissinger years, Arafat was important to the United States for a number of reasons. As the cables show, Washington thought he could help stabilize Lebanon. Another cable, in which Salameh describes a rival Palestinian group’s attempt on the life of Jordan’s King Hussein, shows that Arafat’s cadre could offer a window onto the world of international terrorism largely financed and supported by their Cold War rival the Soviet Union. But most importantly, the United States wanted to put an end to the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict that they feared was damaging their regional prestige, as well as that of their allies who might eventually be forced to flip sides and sign on with Moscow. Kissinger and his State Department believed that solving this conflict would win the good will of the Arabs and hurt the Soviets—and they saw Arafat as their ace in the hole.This is despite the fact that among these cables is one that shows that the State Department knew that there was no difference between Fatah and Black September and that it thus also knew that Arafat was responsible for the murder of American diplomats, Ambassador Cleo Noel and U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission George Curtis Moore.
The most extensive article documenting Arafat's involvement in this crime was How Arafat Got Away with Murder, by Scott W. Johnson.
The Black September operatives issued several demands: the release of Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Robert Kennedy; the release of a Black September leader held in Jordan; and the release of several members of the terrorist Baader-Meinhof gang held in Germany. On March 2, President Nixon and representatives of the other two governments announced that they would not negotiate with terrorists for the release of the diplomats.If nothing else these cables explain the misguided reasoning that led to this great Arafat whitewash.
Using coded instructions, Arafat's closest Fatah associate in Beirut, Salah Khalaf, directed the murder of Noel, Moore, and Eid. Arafat himself separately confirmed the instructions. At 9:00 P.M. that very night, the Black September operatives marched Noel, Moore, and Eid to the embassy basement and murdered them with forty rounds from Kalashnikov weapons fired from the feet to the head in order to inflict maximum suffering on the victims.
Arafat ordered his operatives to surrender to Sudanese authorities. "Your mission has ended," he told them, in an intercepted communication. "Explain your just cause to [the] great Sudanese masses and international opinion. We are with you on the same road."
3) The value of Thomas Friedman's predictions
Barry Rubin recently took aim at Thomas Friedman's prognostication ability:
In June 2010–almost three years ago–Tom Friedman wrote a column called “The Real Palestinian Revolution in which he said: “It is a revolution based on building Palestinian capacity and institutions not just resisting Israeli occupation, on the theory that if the Palestinians can build a real economy, a professional security force and an effective, transparent government bureaucracy it will eventually become impossible for Israel to deny the Palestinians a state in the West Bank and Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem….It is the only hope left, though, for a two-state solution, so it needs to be quietly supported.”There's a point here that could be added. In late 2010, Israel announced that it had rounded up most of the terror suspects it had known about in Judea and Samaria. Last week it was reported Attempts to abduct Israeli soldiers in West Bank on the rise:
Well, almost three years later, there is no real Palestinian economy but only one still dependent on foreign aid. There has been no progress toward a professional security force or an effective government bureaucracy. The only thing that’s happened is that without doing any of these things and without making any deals or compromises with Israel, and without reducing the incitement to terrorism and hatred toward Israel, and without recapturing the Gaza Strip or even making a deal with Hamas, the Palestinian Authority received what is called non-member state status from the UN General Assembly.
Senior officials in the Israel Defense Forces told Yediot Ahronoth that Hamas operatives been encouraged by the Gilad Shalit exchange in 2011 and are increasing their efforts to kidnap Israeli soldiers and use them as bargaining chips for the release of Palestinians in Israeli jails. According to one IDF officer, while Israeli authorities "have been able to thwart the kidnapping attempts ... the scope is extraordinary, and it is clear we will not be able to foil these attempts forever."It's true that the release of terrorists for Gilad Shalit led to an increase in the terror threats from the West Bank. However, part of the narrative of Israel's critics is that the Palestinian security forces have proven themselves and therefore Israel should be able to trust them in control of even more territory. The recent increase in terror suggests otherwise.
The IDF has recently taken a number of steps, such as dissuading soldiers from hitchhiking, in order to decrease the chances of a successful abduction.
In recent months, Israeli authorities have exposed a number of Hamas terror cells in the West Bank. On March 13, the Shin Bet revealed that Hamas' Interior Minister Fathi Hammad has been at the forefront of the terror group's efforts to carry out terror attacks in the West Bank, including kidnappings, suicide bombings, and rocket attacks.
In short, there's a small mammal in Pennsylvania who is a better forecaster than Thomas Friedman.
(I'd add that his record on the Arab spring is abysmal too. First he assured us that the revolution was being led by democrats with the Muslim Brotherhood in the background proving to be no threat. A year later he insisted that the Muslim Brotherhood was providing Egyptians with what they wanted. Now he's lamenting that the Muslim Brotherhood doesn't know how to govern by his principles. If he expected a Western style democracy he was fooling himself, but he doesn't possess the intellectual honesty to admit it.)
Labels: AIPAC, Henry Kissinger, J Street, Judea and Samaria, Middle East Media Sampler, Palestinian terrorism, Soccer Dad, Tom Friedman, Yasser Arafat
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:33 PM
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1) Egyptian plagues
Last week Zvi Mazel wrote in the Jerusalem Post (h/t Leslie Eastman)
In a remarkable and enduring show of unity, non-Islamic opposition parties under the banner of the National Salvation Front are boycotting the regime until their demands – canceling the Islamic constitution and setting up a consensus government until new elections are held – are met.In The Pharoh weeps, Judith Miller cataloged some of the economic problems facing Egypt:
The Muslim Brotherhood who had won a sweeping victory in the first free parliamentary elections and got their candidate elected president have bitterly disappointed the people who had put their faith in them.
Nothing has been done to improve their lot. Upon taking office Morsi had promised – and failed – to take care of five burning issues within a hundred days: growing insecurity, monster traffic jams in the capital, lack of fuel and cooking gas, lack of subsidized bread, and the mounting piles of refuse in the streets.
While Cairo may still be safer than Chicago, or even New York, Egyptian women, for the first time in memory, fear shopping or taking cabs at night. Cairo’s police, blamed for the deaths of protestors and unhappy with their pay, working conditions, and lack of respect, sit in their precinct houses, refusing to provide security that Egyptians once took for granted. Tourists have vanished, depriving Egypt of a vital source of jobs and hard currency. Unemployment has risen from 9.8 percent in 2010 to 13 percent today. Inflation is officially 8.7 percent, though more like 9.5 percent, or even higher, for food and basic commodities, say economists. Even these figures are misleading, since an estimated 40 percent of Egypt’s economy is “black” or informal, unregulated by and unreported to the government, according to Hazem el-Beblawi, an economist who served as deputy prime minister under the army’s unpopular transition government in 2011. Beblawi, a strong advocate of free-market liberalism who resigned his post that year, accusing the army of taking Egypt in the “wrong direction,” says youth unemployment probably tops 19 percent. Egypt, he estimates, has less than its officially claimed $13.5 billion in hard-currency reserves (versus $36 billion before the revolution). “Egypt imports roughly $60 billion worth of goods and services,” he says. “It exports under $25 billion.”Add to Morsi's power grab and economic failures, the increasing violence against Copts. The New York Times reports Attack on Christians in Egypt Comes After a Pledge:
By summer, Beblawi predicts, the government will be unable to import the wheat that sustains the poor—Egypt imports 10 million tons of wheat per year, the most of any nation—or the diesel that fuels bread ovens and transports 99 percent of everything that moves in this country of more than 85 million. Egypt’s dilemma is this: it cannot politically afford to stop providing the costly subsidies to the poor that distort its economy. Poor Egyptians spend 70 percent of their income on food, versus 55 percent for Egyptians as a whole; Americans spend roughly 14 percent. But unless it reduces these subsidies and adopts a pro-growth budget, Egypt cannot secure the $4.8 billion International Monetary Fund loan it needs to unlock what Angus Blair, a Cairo-based former investment banker and founder of Signet Institute, an economic think tank, estimates could be $14 billion in aid and investment. Egypt spends about 20 percent of its budget on fuel subsidies alone. In other words, the government would be committing political suicide to do what economists say must be done to sustain the country’s economic viability. Only a government that enjoys public confidence can risk taking such steps. “Egypt’s economic crisis has political roots,” Beblawi says. “And a political solution is needed.” So far, he adds, none is in sight.
With their legendary “sabr,” or patience, nearly exhausted, Egyptians blame the lack of growth, jobs, fuel, services, security, and stability on what many call the “incompetence” of President Mohammed Morsi and his ruling Muslim Brotherhood. And they blame the United States, too, for supporting Morsi, who eked out an election victory last year and took power last July thanks only to low voter turnout and a fractious, divided secular opposition. “People no longer trust Morsi,” Beblawi said, speaking for many among Cairo’s professional elite and middle classes.
Clashes erupted immediately after the service between the emerging mourners and a crowd outside the cathedral. It was unclear who started the violence. But later dozens of riot police with armored vehicles and tear-gas canons appeared to enter the fray on the side of crowds of young Muslim men who were throwing rocks and fire bombs at the mourners.Jonathan Tobin concludes in The U.S. and the Murders at the Cathedral:
In what seemed like a siege of the cathedral, tear-gas canisters fell inside the walls of its compound, sending gas into the sanctuary and two nuns running for shelter in a nearby loading dock.
...
“The police are not trying to protect us or do anything to stop the violence,” said Wael Eskandar, a Coptic Christian activist. “On the contrary, they are actively aiding the people in civilian clothes” attacking the Christians, he said.
It does no good to pretend, as some claim, that Morsi can’t stop the attacks on Christians or that the forces pushing the country to the brink of religious war are unrelated to the Brotherhood and its supporters. While attacks on Christians were hardly unknown during the long reign of deposed dictator Hosni Mubarak, it isn’t possible to separate the heightened tension from the expectations of Islamists that they have the Christian minority on the run. The brazen manner with which these mobs have attacked a symbol of Christianity like the Cathedral with the assistance of the police is a signal that things are heading in the wrong direction. The spectacle of security forces with armored personnel carriers and tear gas canons joining the violence on the side of thugs throwing rocks and firebombs at Christian mourners leaving the cathedral makes it hard to argue that this is the work of extremists unconnected with the ruling party.Yet in The Arab Quarter Century, Thomas Friedman insists that he was right all along:
That Muslims who are prepared to riot and murder at the merest hint of insult aimed at Islam taunted the Christians with what the Times called “lewd gestures involving the cross” in the presence of the police is itself appalling. But it is also indicative of a shift in the mood of the Middle East, in which it is clear that anything goes when it comes to religious conflict. Though the Brotherhood has promised gullible Westerners that it won’t impose its beliefs on non-Muslims or turn the country into a theocratic state, evidence is mounting that the Kulturkampf in Egypt is in full swing.
If President Obama is serious about standing up for human rights, it is necessary for him to speak out publicly against what is going on in Egypt and to start using some of the leverage over its government that he was quick to employ when showing Mubarak the door or threatening the military to allow the Brotherhood to take office. If he fails to do so, the Muslim and Arab world won’t be slow to draw the same conclusions that Egyptians in the street are drawing from the role of the police in the assault on the cathedral. They will think that Obama is indifferent to the fate of the Copts or, even worse, that he has no problems with the Brotherhood’s push for power.
Still, two things surprise me. The first is how incompetent the Muslim Brotherhood has been. In Egypt, the Brotherhood has presided over an economic death spiral and a judiciary caught up in idiocies like investigating the comedian Bassem Youssef, Egypt’s Jon Stewart, for allegedly insulting President Mohamed Morsi. (See Stewart’s perfect takedown of Morsi.) Every time the Brotherhood had a choice of acting in an inclusive way or seizing more power, it seized more power, depriving it now of the broad base needed to make necessary but painful economic reforms.And how would the Muslim Brotherhood have proven its "competence?" Surely there's been incompetence in the way Morsi and company have ruled, but to attribute their governing failure to "incompetence," ignores the nature of the Muslim Brotherhood. What Friedman attributes to incompetence masks his own ignorance. He assumed that the Muslim Brotherhood was interested in governing, not in accruing power to itself. In his analyses of Egypt over the past two years Friedman ignored the totalitarian nature of Islamists. Sure, Friedman is correct now to argue that the United States needs to use its leverage to effect change in Egypt (or at least attempt to) but he's been a cheerleader for the Muslim Brotherhood until recently. That is not due to his expertise, but to his ignorance, something he refuses to own up to.
The second surprise? How weak the democratic opposition has been. The tragedy of the Arab center-left is a complicated story, notes Marc Lynch, a Middle East expert at George Washington University and the author of “The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East.” Many of the more secular, more pro-Western Egyptian political elites who could lead new center-left parties, he said, had been “co-opted by the old regime” for its own semiofficial parties and therefore “were widely discredited in the eyes of the public.” That left youngsters who had never organized a party, or a grab bag of expatriates, former regime officials, Nasserites and liberal Islamists, whose only shared idea was that the old regime must go.MT "@shadihamid: New #Egypt poll: 37% of Egyptians would vote for Morsi again; Sabahi 3%; Baradei 1%; Amr Moussa 1% bit.ly/Z3qmBg"
— Ikhwanweb (@Ikhwanweb) April 8, 2013Endowments Ministry bans political sermons, suspends popular sheikh Mazhar Shaheen - egyptindependent.com/news/endowment… #Egypt
— Bassem Sabry باسم (@Bassem_Sabry) April 10, 2013Brave, astonishing ToI op-ed on why Arab Spring failed, by ex-Iranian foreign ministry employee toi.sr/17qi8GW via @timesofisrael2)The Syria Debacle
— David Horovitz (@davidhorovitz) April 10, 2013
Once upon a time, President Obama's top policy advisers recommended that he aid the Syria rebels. That time has long passed. While the Obama administration initially saw the Muslim Brotherhood as a bulwark against Al Qaeda, but that strategy hasn't been working out very well.In an audio statement released online yesterday, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), announced that his organization shall henceforth be known as the “Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.” The new name reflects AQI’s unchecked growth, primarily into neighboring Syria, since the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.Michael Rubin adds:
Since late 2011, the Al Nusrah Front has greatly expanded its operations. The organization has become one of the most effective fighting forces in the war against Bashar al Assad’s crumbling regime.
Al Nusrah is better known in the West by its true name: al Qaeda.
That should put Washington in a diplomatic quandary. Qatari and Turkish support for the Nusra Front is now effectively aiding an al-Qaeda affiliate sworn not only to kill Bashar al-Assad but also Americans. If Gulf analysts in Bahrain and Kuwait are to be believed, Qatar is mucking about with such groups not simply out of religious solidarity, but also because the emir of Qatar is high on the notion that tiny Qatar can afford to muck about and be a player on the international stage. Turkey would rather pump money to an al-Qaeda affiliate than recognize the rights of Syrian Kurds who will not pay fealty to Turkey’s leader, like the Democratic Union Party (PYD) which now controls most Kurdish areas in Syria.And Barry Rubin reminds what weapons these rebels may well get access to. (To be clear, Salafist and Muslim Brotherhood affiliated rebels have these weapons; Al Qaeda affiliated groups don't appear to have them, yet.)
A no-fly zone, such as that Max Boot advocates, would have once helped ordinary Syrians protect themselves against the excesses of Bashar al-Assad’s rule. And it still may not be such a bad idea, so long as it simply does not do the Nusra Front’s work for it. Nor is simply funding the Syrian opposition wise since neither the State Department nor Central Intelligence Agency is skilled at separating the wheat from the chaff among Syrian opposition groups. Liberals will not rise to the top in any safe-haven when faced with a group bent on their repression at any cost. Whether we like it or not, any strategy for Syria must now prioritize crushing the Nusra Front. Defeating Assad and hoping for the best is not a strategy that will bolster U.S. interests.
Briefly, the story is this: The weapons are generically known as MANPAD for Man Portable Air Defense Missile. The equipment captured in Libya and from the Syrian army in Syria or obtained by other means consists of four types. The SA16 is a short-range version which has been captured by the rebels, specifically when they took the giant Syrian army base in Aleppo.For all the hope the Arab Spring originally engendered, it is increasingly looking like a disaster for American interests.
The only weapon from Libya is the older SA7, since the Libyans didn’t have more advanced versions. It has been reported –though all such figures are not necessarily reliable — that about 5000 SA7 missiles were destroyed by the U.S. and other forces but that about 15,000 remained missing. The missiles are not usable forever, and some of those in the Libyan arsenal were very old, but apparently many of them would still work. Here’s an example of a reasonably reliable report saying that a large number of SA7s were delivered to Syrian rebels through Turkey last September.
Then there’s the Chinese FN-6 , standard for the Chinese air force, which was used to shoot down a Syrian transport helicopter at Menagh Air Base near Aleppo. How did that one get there, through the U.S.-Turkish-Saudi-Qatari arms supply program or another way? It is claimed that Syrian rebels shot down two military helicopters with this weapon.
And this brings us to the best of all, the SA24. While some have been misidentified, they were obtained from the 46th Syrian regiment base west of Aleppo.
Labels: Arab spring, Christian Copts, Egypt, Egyptian economy, Free Syrian Army, Middle East Media Sampler, Mohammed Morsy, Muslim Brotherhood, Soccer Dad, Syria, Syrian uprising, Tom Friedman
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:47 PM
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1) The apology
The Washington Post reported Obama ends Israel visit by brokering end to dispute with Turkey:
Prodded by President Obama, Israel and Turkey agreed Friday to end a three-year rift caused by a deadly Israeli commando raid on a Turkish ship bound for Gaza, a rapprochement urgently sought by the United States to help contain spillover from the worsening fighting in Syria.A flattering news analysis in the New York Times Obama Shows Talent for Arm-Twisting, and Raises Hopes on Peace Effort reads in part:
During an airport meeting with Obama at the end of his two-day visit to Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu phoned Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Israeli and U.S. officials said.
Bowing to a long-standing Turkish demand, Netanyahu apologized for the deaths of nine activists aboard the Turkish ship and promised to reach an agreement on compensation to their families, according to a statement from his spokesman.
Mr. Obama’s success in persuading Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to apologize to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, healing a rift between the countries, is the kind of person-to-person deal-making that has eluded him with Republicans in Congress.Of course the New York Times sees President Obama's success as a first possible step in a peace process with the Palestinians.
But Mr. Obama kept prodding Mr. Netanyahu, senior advisers said, raising the importance of a makeup phone call every day he was in Jerusalem. He also worked on Mr. Erdogan, a prickly politician with whom Mr. Obama has cultivated a relationship since entering office.
By the time they agreed to talk, Mr. Obama had fully embraced the role of Middle East mediator, warming up Mr. Erdogan before handing the phone to Mr. Netanyahu, who expressed regret for the deadly actions by Israeli commandos during a 2010 raid on a Turkish ship that was trying to breach a blockade of Gaza.
The Times of Israel reported that some of the commando on the raid had mixed feelings about the apology.
“I don’t feel we did anything wrong,” one of the commandos, who for security reasons requested to identify only by the initial “N”, told the Hebrew daily Maariv on Sunday. “We did the right thing, I’m not ashamed of it, and we have nothing to apologize for.”
Nine Turkish citizens were killed after they attacked the commandos, who sought to commandeer the vessel that was attempting to bypass Israel’s maritime blockade of Gaza. The incident led to a freezing of ties between the two former allies, a relationship which was said to be on the path to normalization following a phone call between Netanyahu and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Despite N’s firm belief that his actions were justified, he was reluctant to criticize Netanyahu directly, stating that, from a diplomatic standpoint, reconciliation may actually make sense. “Although on the personal level there is no need to apologize, on a national scale it might have been a good idea,” he said.
There's much more about the apology at memeorandum. Prime Minister Netanyahu's statement is here.
Most of the reporting on the apology focused on the deteriorating relations between Israel and Turkey over the Mavi Marmara incident and fail to acknowledge that Turkey under Erdogan had been increasingly hostile to Israel. The Mavi Marmara was the pretext Erdogan had for breaking off relations with Israel but it should also have been portrayed as a hostile act against Israel. Most news reports underplayed Erdogan's extremism - note that the New York Times called him "prickly" as if he were easily annoyed.
Barry Rubin argues that this wasn't much of a surrender for Israel.
Now, a compromise has been reached, apparently with some help from President Barack Obama. The agreement, which includes restoring normal bilateral relations, has been portrayed as some sort of Israeli surrender.A year and a half ago, the New York Times reported Israel Says It Won’t Apologize to Turkey for Deadly Flotilla Raid.
That is simply not true. The agreement is much closer to Israel’s position. There is no change on Israel’s strategic policy toward the Gaza Strip at all. While the word “apology” appears in Netanyahu’s statement, it is notably directed at the Turkish people, not the government and is of the sorry-if-your feelings-were-hurt variety.
Moreover, Israel denied that it killed the Turkish citizens intentionally, a situation quite different from what Erdogan wanted, and offered to pay only humanitarian assistance to families.
Should Israel have expressed regret when it should instead receive an apology from the Turkish government for helping to send terrorists to create a confrontation? On purely moral grounds, no. Yet as I pointed out Israel did not abandon its long-standing position on the issue. It does not want an antagonism with the Turkish people nor one that will continue long after Erdogan and his regime are long out of office. Perhaps this was undertaken to make Obama happy and in exchange for U.S. benefits. But what has happened is far more complex than onlookers seem to be realizing.
A diplomatic source, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the subject, said the American request for such an apology was reiterated on Tuesday in a phone call between Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.(Emphasis mine.) This was less than what Turkey had been demanding at the time:
The Israeli official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Turks kept adding conditions for a reconciliation, raising uncertainty in Mr. Netanyahu’s government over whether they were sincere and whether they would consider the case closed even if a deal were reached.
As a result, Israel’s security cabinet refused on Wednesday to endorse a package of understandings with Turkey that would have included an Israeli apology for any operational errors during the commando raid and agreement to pay into a compensation fund for the victims in return for a Turkish commitment not to pursue legal action against Israeli soldiers.
Turkey has demanded an official apology, compensation to victims’ relatives and a lifting of the blockade on Gaza as conditions for normalizing its heavily strained relations with Israel, formerly an important ally.(An "apology for operational errors," is not the same thing as an "official apology.")
It's worth noting that for all President Obama's much lauded newfound skill in deal making, Erdogan backtracks on understandings with Netanyahu:
Erdogan said Saturday it was too early to cancel legal steps against Israeli soldiers who took part in the raid on the Mavi Mamara.So exactly how will Erdogan's latest be reported? Or will it be reported? Others writing about the apology include CAMERA, Elder of Ziyon, Israel Matzav, Fresno Zionism, Legal Insurrection, Meryl Yourish, and Daniel Pipes.
According to the Hurriyet daily, Erdogan also said the exchange of ambassadors between Israel and Turkey would not take place immediately.
“We will see what will be put into practice during the process. If [the Israelis] move forward in a promising way, we will make our contribution. Then, there would be an exchange of ambassadors,” Erdogan was quoted as saying, in remarks at an opening ceremony for a high-speed railway line in the central Turkish province of Eskişehir.
2) Not as bad as the usual Thomas Friedman column
When I saw the title - Israel - Bits, bytes and bombs - of the latest Thomas Friedman column, I cringed. In the end about half of it was quite good and the other half was typical Friedman.
It’s impressive and necessary because Israel is the only country in the world today that has nonstate actors, armed with missiles, nested among civilians on four out of five of its borders: the Sinai, Gaza, southern Lebanon and Syria. Beyond them lies a hinterland of states consumed by internal turmoil, and Iran. Yet Israel has managed to juggle bits, bytes and bombs — with high walls that neutralize its enemies and high-tech that nourishes its economy.Of course Friedman, trying to sound reasonable asks that Abbas get back to negotiating without preconditions - something Abbas pointedly refused to consider in his joint press conference with President Obama. (Will that defiance earn Abbas a "Driving drunk in Ramallah" column?) Friedman can cite all the doomsday quotes he wants, but the occupation mostly ended in 1995. Furthermore he ignores, what Barry Rubin terms "the day after issues," such as:
But there is a fine line between keeping danger out and locking fantasy in, between keeping your people alive and keeping crazy dreams alive. Israel is close to crossing that line.
...
Indeed, the crazy dream Israel is keeping alive is that it can permanently occupy the West Bank, with its 2.5 million Palestinians, to satisfy biblically inspired settlers, who now hold major cabinet positions, like the housing portfolio, in Israel’s new government. With nearly 600,000 Israelis now living in Arab East Jerusalem and the West Bank, the window for a two-state solution “is slowly vanishing from the earth,” notes the Hebrew University philosopher Moshe Halbertal. Amazingly, polls still show a majority on both sides for a two-state deal, “but there is a deep trust problem” that has to be overcome — fast.
Furthermore Friedman asserts Israel needs to test Abbas. Is Abbas really the moderate Friedman seems to believe?
- What is a deal with the PA worth when it won’t include the Gaza Strip, where Hamas would redouble its efforts to attack Israel and work hard to undermine any such agreement? – What reason is there to believe there won’t be cross-border terrorism across the new international frontier, and that the government of Palestine will do anything about this terrorism?
- What about the likelihood of the Palestine government inviting in the armies of other countries, or at least getting advanced weapons from them?
- How is Israel going to deal with the PA’s passionately held demand that millions of Palestinians be allowed to come and live in Israel?
- Why should Israel believe in any guarantees and assurances from the United States and Europe when such promises have been repeatedly broken — including ones made by Obama himself?
Obama: Israelis have true peace partner in Abbas. Abbas: We have the same policies as Hamas. Hamas: Killing Je... bit.ly/11xnIXwFor the first part of the op-ed, Friedman seems to give serious consideration to the fact that Israel is an island of normalcy in a sea of turmoil. Unfortunately, in the second half he reverts to his "Israel is in mortal danger" trope. I guess I could say that this column isn't half bad. But I wouldn't mean it as a compliment.
— BadBlue News (@BadBlueNews) March 23, 2013
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Mavi Marmara, Middle East Media Sampler, New York Times, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Soccer Dad, Tom Friedman
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:41 AM
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I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
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