Labels: anti-Semitism, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Jimmy Carter, Madeline Albright, Zbigniew Brzezinski
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:24 PM
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The United States has allowed the impression that it supports a version of Israel’s security that entails Israeli control of all of Palestine’s borders and part of its territory, including the Jordan Valley. Many former heads of Israel’s top intelligence agencies, surely among the best informed in the country about the country’s security needs, have rejected this version of Israel’s security. Meir Dagan, a former head of the Mossad, dismissed it as “nothing more than manipulation.”
Here's a very different perspective on Israel's national security.Israel’s confiscation of what international law has clearly established as others’ territory diminishes its security. Illegal West Bank land grabs only add to the Palestinian and the larger Arab sense of injustice that Israel’s half-century-long occupation has already generated, and fuels a revanchismthat sooner or later will trigger renewed violence. No Palestinian leader could or would ever agree to a peace accord that entails turning over the Jordan Valley to Israeli control, either permanently or for an extended period of time, thus precluding a peace accord that would end Israel’s occupation. The marginal improvement in Israel’s security provided by these expansive Israeli demands can hardly justify the permanent subjugation and disenfranchisement of a people to which Israel refuses to grant citizenship in the Jewish state.
Although Palestinians have conceded fully half of the territory assigned to them in the U.N.’s Partition Plan of 1947, a move Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, has hailed as unprecedented, they are not demanding a single square foot of Israeli territory beyond the June 6, 1967, line.
Labels: 1947 partition plan, Israel's critical security needs, Jordan Valley, Lee Hamilton, self-hating Jews, Zbigniew Brzezinski
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:39 PM
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Labels: Ali Abunimah, Barack Hussein Obama, Bill Ayers, Campaign 2012, Jeremiah Wright, Rashid Khalidi, Robert Malley, Samantha Power, Susan Rice, US-Israel relationship, Zbigniew Brzezinski
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:42 AM
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Remember when President Hussein Obama rated himself a 'solid B+'? Well, there's finally someone who agrees. Unfortunately, that someone is Zbigniew Brzezinski, possibly the worst failure ever as National Security Adviser (Hat Tip: Captain.H).Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter, graded Obama’s foreign policy performance “somewhere between B-plus and A-minus,” lauding his achievements with Chinese and Russian relations but criticizing his failure to move forward on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.Oy.... Is there a position awaiting Zbig in an Obama second term? What could go wrong?
“It would be higher if he had moved more decisively on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, because he had a chance to do so. But admittedly, he was overwhelmed by domestic problems,” he said on CBS’s Face the Nation.
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Brzezinski said Obama had achieved much with his foreign policy, including “a reconnection with Europe,” “a more stable relationship with Russia,” and the draw-down in Afghanistan.
He also said that he feels the Obama administration handled the situation with Chinese dissident Chen Guangchen well. Chen was recently granted permission by the U.S. and China to apply for a fellowship in America, after escaping house arrest and seeking asylum at the United States embassy. The incident threatened to cast a pall over the recent visit of high-ranking U.S. officials to Beijing for diplomatic talks, but both governments were able to ultimately come to an agreement on Chen.
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Brzezinski also cautioned that the most pressing national security issue is Iran, and how to prevent a conflict from breaking out in the Middle East.
“We have to do everything we can to avoid a war, and there are ways of avoiding that war that are intelligent and constructive. But a war sets in motion unpredictable consequences,” he said.
“A war with Iran will set ablaze a region of the world from which we're trying to disengage.”
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Jimmy Carter, Mitt Romney, US foreign policy, Zbigniew Brzezinski
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:49 PM
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Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Monday, January 23. 1) If they aren't a terrorist organization, what are they?
The conclusion of a New York Times op-ed, 3 weeks ago by Jean Herskovits, In Nigeria, Boko Haram Is Not the Problem:The United States should not allow itself to be drawn into this quicksand by focusing on Boko Haram alone. Washington is already seen by many northern Muslims — including a large number of longtime admirers of America — as biased toward a Christian president from the south. The United States must work to avoid a self-fulfilling prophecy that makes us into their enemy. Placing Boko Haram on the foreign terrorist list would cement such views and make more Nigerians fear and distrust America.This weekend's news Death toll in Nigeria terror onslaught tops 170
(via The Volokh Conspiracy) :The death toll from terror attacks on Friday in the Nigerian city of Kano has climbed to at least 150 as estimated by the Red Cross, amid conflicting reports on casualty figures. The victims died in bombings and shootings aimed at eight government buildings across the city.2) Praise for Israeli paramedic service. Where?!?!
"We have 178 people killed in the two main hospitals. There could be more, because some bodies have not yet come in and others were collected early," the senior doctor in Kano's Murtala Mohammed hospital told Reuters on Sunday, citing records from his own and the other main hospital of Nasarawa.
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The radical Islamist terror group Boko Haram, believed to have carried out over 500 terror attacks last year, has already claimed responsibility for the violence in Kano. The group, whose name can be translated as “Western education is a sin,” said that the onslaught was a protest against the government’s refusal to release its members from prison.
Someone told me about this, but I had forgotten until I saw Elder of Ziyon. Algemeiner Journal has more background:Throughout this week, the Al Jazeera news network is running a short film about the Jewish Paramedic Service ‘United Hatzolah’. Entitled Jerusalem SOS, the film follows Jewish and Arab volunteer paramedics as they cross the “psychological divides” between their communities of East and West Jerusalem.3) Zbig does the full Tommy
Al Jazeera, though a secular news service, has become the mouthpiece for Islamic Fundamentalism in recent years, most noticeably in airing the video messages of Osama Bin Laden, and their usual scathing denigration of Israel. The coverage of this film and the positive light it lends the Jewish state is intriguingly out of character for the Al Jazeera network.
How the film will be received in the Arab world is yet to be seen, but Head of United Hatzolah, Eli Beer, signaled this as a “learning experience for the Al Jazeera network and the Arab world,” noting that they are beginning to understand “all blood is the same.”I sure hope that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.Thomas Friedman, Newt, Mitt, Bibi and Vladimir - The New York Times, December 13, 2011A longtime foe of Israel’s partisans in the United States, he says the Obama team “fumbled by getting outmaneuvered by the Israelis.” Then he gets blunter: “Domestic politics interceded: The Israelis have a lot of influence with Congress, and in some cases they are able to buy influence.”Zbigniew Brzezinski in Zbig: Israelis “bought influence” and outmaneuvered Obama - Salon, January 20, 2012 (via memeorandum)
No doubt, next week Brzezinski will tell Gary Rosenblatt that he meant to say "engineer influence," not "buy influence."
4) The Islamists won, but don't fear all will be well
The Guardian reports Egypt election results show firm win for Islamists (via memeorandum):The Muslim Brotherhood, which was banned under Mubarak's regime, won the biggest share of parliamentary seats (38%), according to the High Elections Committee. Its Freedom and Justice party (FJP) has named Saad al-Katatni, a leading Brotherhood official who sat in the old parliament as an independent, as speaker of the assembly.Ken Roth of Human Right Watch tells us not to worry. (h/t Israel Matzav)
The hardline Islamist Al-Nour party came second with 29% of the seats. The liberal New Wafd and Egyptian Bloc coalition came third and fourth respectively.
The result means that Islamists will wield major influence over a new constitution, which is set to be drafted by a the country's first freely elected parliament.HRW executive director Kenneth Roth said in the group's annual report that the past year's Arab Spring pro-democracy uprisings across the region have shown it is vital for the West to end its policy of backing "an array of Arab autocrats" in exchange for supporting Western interests.HRW doesn't applaud all elections in the Arab world, for example it has harsh words for Iraq.
The West should also be more consistent in supporting pro-democracy forces in the Arab world and elsewhere, he said in HRW's 690-page report on human rights abuses worldwide.
"The international community must ... come to terms with political Islam when it represents a majority preference," he said. "Islamist parties are genuinely popular in much of the Arab world, in part because many Arabs have come to see political Islam as the antithesis of autocratic rule."“Iraq is quickly slipping back into authoritarianism,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director for the New York-based group. “Despite U.S. government assurances that it helped create a stable democracy (in Iraq), the reality is that it left behind a budding police state.”
Iraqi officials could not be immediately reached for comment.
Protests against Iraq’s U.S.-backed and democratically elected government erupted around the country in February 2011, partly inspired by demonstrations elsewhere in the Arab world.
Clearly things are not proceeding as hoped in Iraq and the criticism is justified. But is there a reason to criticize Iraq but does that justify turning a blind eye to the Islamist victories across the Middle East? Or is this just another rebuke of the war to defeat Saddam?
5) A few more notes about CJR
On Friday I critiqued an article by Neil Lewis at the Columbia Journalism Review about the New York Times' coverage of Israel. Honest Reporting noted that the print edition had an offensive cartoon included. David Bernstein was less critical of the article than I was, but he observes that Lewis neglected to mention that Chris Hedges headed the New York Times Middle East Bureau at the time Deborah Sontag was reporting. Finally, CJR identified Lewis as being a 2010 Shorenstein fellow at Harvard. According to the Center's website Lewis was a fellow in the Spring of 2011. That's a nitpick, but a publication devoted to journalism ought to be able to get easily verifiable details correct.
Labels: Egyptian elections, Hatzolah, Human Rights Watch, Middle East Media Sampler, Muslim Brotherhood, New York Times, Nigeria, Soccer Dad, Zbigniew Brzezinski
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:30 PM
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If you thought Zbigniew Brzezinski was out of his mind, you ain't seen nothin' yet (Hat Tip: Mike P). Zbigniew Brzezinski’s new book, “Strategic Vision,” imagines a world without American power. He envisions profound instability, faltering international cooperation and weak states falling prey to their more dominant neighbors. Describing the dystopia that would emerge if America goes under is a trick British historian Niall Ferguson pioneered. Unlike the jingoistic Ferguson, however, Brzezinski is able to envision China replacing America as the stabilizing force in world affairs. “I don’t think liberal states are more restrained or stabilizing,” he says. “The United States’ actions in the last 20 years, especially with the war in Iraq, do not give reassurance on that score.”Just think: With Hillary Clinton already saying she won't serve a second term under Obama, if God forbid Obama wins, this nutcase could be Secretary of State.
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In a telephone interview from his office at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., Brzezinski has both praise and criticism for the president: “He was an improvement by a very large score over his predecessor, but he could have been better.” He thinks the Obama administration “should have stuck to its guns in promoting a fair settlement” in the Middle East. A longtime foe of Israel’s partisans in the United States, he says the Obama team “fumbled by getting outmaneuvered by the Israelis.” Then he gets blunter: “Domestic politics interceded: The Israelis have a lot of influence with Congress, and in some cases they are able to buy influence.”
Brzezinski is still a believer in the two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians, and is hopeful that Obama will again take up the cause if he gets a second term. “He would have time and the historical immunity to do so, because he wouldn’t be facing an election.” He also thinks space has opened up in the United States to be more critical of Israel. “The American public is becoming more discriminating, and the Jewish public in America is becoming more discriminating,” he says. “They realize that extremist sloganeering and warmongering are not the most helpful approaches.” Brzezinski is careful to note that he was never an official advisor to either candidate or President Obama but lets it be known they are still in touch: “I have a relationship where from time to time I am able to share my views with him,” he says.
Labels: American exceptionalism, Obama's obsession with Palestinians, Zbigniew Brzezinski
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:19 AM
2 comments
As many of you know, I am currently reading Yehuda Avner's The Prime Ministers. I'm now up to Menachem Begin, and just read Avner's description of the negotiations over the communique that was issued at the conclusion of Begin's first trip to the US to meet with Jimmy Carter in July 1977.Labels: Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter, Menachem Begin, The Prime Ministers, Yehuda Avner, Zbigniew Brzezinski
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:06 PM
2 comments
As I noted in my previous post, the Obama administration continues in a thus-far-fruitless exercise to implement Arab Islamic replacement theology in the Levant. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass) spoke to the same gathering to which Hillary Clinton spoke on Tuesday night, and had some candid admissions. Speaking to a gathering in Washington of leaders from the Muslim world, Kerry said the administration's effort to set the table for broader talks by resolving the impasse over Jewish settlements in the West Bank was futile. However, he suggested that Obama may move soon to get the peace process going in order to head off a possible showdown at the United Nations in September.The first half of that equation - that Obama wasted the first half of his term - seems like a consensus. It's the second half that's intriguing. Is Obama going to do it again? He might, but an awful lot of people don't believe anything will come of it if he does.
"I was opposed to the prolonged effort on the settlements in a public way because I never thought it would work and, in fact, we have wasted a year and a half on something that for a number of reasons was not achievable," Kerry told the U.S.-Islamic World Forum, organized by the Brookings Institution's Saban Center. "I think it sort of put the cart ahead of the horse in a way here. The key is to get to the security and borders definition and if you can get the borders definition you’ve solved the problem of the settlements. But we can’t get that discussion right now."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to visit Washington next month. Kerry said Netanyahu is likely to address the U.S. Congress and will have an opportunity to present a peace plan that could help defuse a confrontation at the United Nations in September over a proposed vote on the international organization formally recognizing Gaza and the West Bank as a Palestinian state.
"I suspect that it’s very possible that President Obama will even step out ahead of that and will possibly-- I say possibly--make his own contribution to where he thinks the process ought to go in the meantime. Conceivably, that can come together in a responsible effort that produces a transition here," Kerry said. "I think we can get to borders and the fundamental issues fairly quickly and its conceivable that between now and September we will do that."
CNN's Fareed Zakaria, who was moderating the panel discussion, responded with skepticism bordering on disbelief. "You’re predicting a burst of diplomatic activity and achievement in six months that has not happened in two years?” he asked.Former Carter Secretary of State Zbigniew Brezinski was there too and suggested that what we really need is for Obama to make Israel feel insecure. Right....
“I’m going way out on a limb and predicting the possibility of it,” said Kerry, while hinting that his speculation was informed by some concrete knowledge about a renewed U.S. effort.. “But I think I’m giving you some relatively good vision of what might unfold here."
A White House spokesman declined to comment on Kerry's criticism or his tentative prediction of a new U.S. initiative. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is schedule to address the same conference Tuesday evening.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Fareed Zakaria, John Kerry, Zbigniew Brzezinski
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:33 AM
2 comments
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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