Israel Matzav

It's come to this: IDF 'strategy' paper calls for more use of 'soft power,' ignores Iranian nuke threat

I have to wonder whether the IDF understands that in less than 17 months Barack Hussein Obama will no longer be President of the United States, and that the next President could conceivably disavow his widely unpopular sellout to a nuclear Iran. The IDF published a 'strategy' paper that eschews military solutions, calls for more use of 'soft power,' worries about our relations with the United States (where our problems are not with the American people, but with Hussein Obama and the Left wing of the Democratic party), asserts that we face no existential threats, and ignores the possibility of a nuclear Iran that continues to threaten to destroy us.

The Iranian nuclear threat is not specifically mentioned in the IDF’s new strategy document, at least not in the unclassified version approved for public release.

While its hegemonic Islamic designs on the region and its support for extreme terrorist organizations is a central and recurring point of reference, the existential threat Tehran presumably poses through its nuclear program does not appear in the 33-page document signed by Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, IDF chief of staff.

Instead, Eisenkot warns against “exposing the state of Israel to risks that are not reasonable for its existence.”

Eisenkot repeatedly references the military’s total subordination to the political echelon and the need to fortify deterrence through a credible military threat. He also writes of the IDF’s obligation to achieve all objectives as defined by the government and to “defend and win” in any government-mandated use of force. But Eisenkot also states that use of military force should be aimed at achieving an improved strategic situation as a result of combat.

At a time of plummeting relations between the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the administration of US President Barack Obama over the Iranian nuclear deal, Israel’s top officer  prioritizes fortifying bilateral cooperation.

Similarly, he defines Israel’s international standing as a key tenet of national security strategy that must be strengthened through multidisciplinary action of which the IDF is only one part.

Israeli experts here welcomed Eisenkot’s publicly released document, yet decried the fact that the Netanyahu government has not come out with a strategy paper at the national level.

As you might imagine from my introduction, I disagree. The Iranian nuclear threat is real and cannot be ignored. We cannot afford to take the risk of going along with the Obama administration's assertions that the agreement will stop a nuclear-armed Iran. It is plain to see that it will not. This report was written for political correctness.

“Even when a conflict develops, as has happened four times over the past decade, the enemies cannot be defeated through exclusively military means, whether due to the minimalist definition of political aim, or as a result of constraints in using force by international law and the lack of international legitimacy for using military force in a civilian environment,” they write.

The INSS authors called for a revised national strategy for promoting Israel’s interests and political-security goals that must include public diplomacy, “instruments of soft power,” cooperation with actors whose interests overlap those of Israel; cyber operations, and the establishment “of a legal and public relations apparatus aimed at reducing Israel’s isolation in the international arena.”

The only time the World sympathizes with Jews is after we've - God Forbid - gone like sheep to the slaughter. This has been proven time and time again throughout Jewish history. We have only the Holy One Blessed Be He on whom we can rely. We cannot rely on the United States or anyone else. Any attempts to do so betray a weakness of spirit and could God Forbid lead to calamity.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, diplomatic isolation, Gadi Eisenkot, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, nuclear weapons

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:42 AM 2 comments

Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler

Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Sunday, July 15.

1) About that isolation

From Beyond Cairo Israelis sensing a wider siege by Ethan Bronner (New York Times, September 10, 2011):

With its Cairo embassy ransacked, its ambassador to Turkey expelled and the Palestinians seeking statehood recognition at the United Nations, Israel found itself on Saturday increasingly isolated and grappling with a radically transformed Middle East where it believes its options are limited and poor.

From Israel Isolates itself by Roger Cohen (New York Times, September 5, 2011)

“We need not apologize,” Netanyahu thundered Sunday — and repeated the phrase three times. He’s opted for a needless road to an isolation that weakens Israel and undermines the strategic interests of its closest ally, the United States. Not that I expect Obama to raise his voice about this any more than he has over Dogan.

From Israel adrift At Sea by Thomas Friedman (New York Times, September 17, 2011)

Unfortunately, Israel today does not have a leader or a cabinet for such subtle diplomacy. One can only hope that the Israeli people will recognize this before this government plunges Israel into deeper global isolation and drags America along with it.

From Israel is in Good Shape Because So Many Others Decided Not to Be by Barry Rubin (The Jersualem Post, July 13, 2012)

An extremely important point to note is how completely Arabs, and especially Palestinians, threw away the greatest opportunity they’ve ever had to gain more U.S. support and widen the cracks between Washington and Jerusalem into a chasm. If properly motivated, the Obama Administration was ready to become the most actively pro-Palestinian government in American history, to offer more concessions to the Palestinian Authority (PA), and to put more pressure on Israel than ever seen before.
Instead, they refused to cooperate with Obama and rejected his initiatives. The PA wasted Obama’s entire term in refusing even to negotiate with Israel. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, the PA repeatedly showed the U.S. government that it was the intransigent party. And even if American officials would never publicly admit this, they certainly had to give up as a result.
I provide this list not to rejoice at the misfortunes of others, even those who are hostile, because their people are the real victims. But these misfortunes are the result of decisions they made. This is the reality of the Middle East today.

In the cases of Cohen and Friedman note the contempt in which they held Israel. I don't expect either (Cohen is on a sabbatical right now) will revisit this issue and acknowledge that [Israel] has successfully waited out many of the reasons for its isolation.

2) Kicking the can

Jeffrey Goldberg weighs in on the JNF (an organization he previously expressed his contempt for):

But, as Andrew Sullivan suggests, rightly (when he's right, he's right), Palestinians aren't the only ones who publish maps that subvert the idea of a two-state solution. Click here to see the photograph of a Jewish National Fund pushke, a modern version of the age-old Jewish fund-raising device. The map on the JNF collection can depicts the West Bank as indivisibly part of Israel. A two-state solution, an idea to which the current, Likud Party prime minister says he is committed, would of course mean that most of the West Bank would be within the territory of Palestine. If I were a Palestinian looking at this collection can, I might ask myself if the Israelis are actually committed to the idea of territorial compromise.

First of all as Jonathan Schanzer tweeted, Goldberg (and Sullivan) were reading too much into a highly stylized picture.

Getting Talmudic here, Gaza is removed & button covers a chunk of WB. "Extremism" is everywhere, but a stretch in this case.

More generally, Israel over the past nineteen years has made significant concrete concessions giving land, money and even weapons to the Palestinian Authority and, for the most part, found peace further than before it started. And yes, Israel does promote peace even if it doesn't receive it in return. The maps on the Palestinian side are emblematic of the way the PA treats peace; they are not isolated exceptions.

Labels: diplomatic isolation, Jewish National Fund, maps, Middle East Media Sampler, Soccer Dad

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:20 PM 0 comments

London warns its diplomats not to meet Israelis in public

How's this for cowardice: Britain's Foreign Office has warned all its diplomats not to meet with Israelis in public for fear of being targeted by terrorists.

London's Foreign Office has cautioned its diplomats abroad not to travel in cars with Israelis, or meet with them in public for fear of being targeted by terrorists trying to attack Israelis abroad.

The warning came in wake of the recent terror attempts on Israeli envoys in New Delhi, Tbilisi and Bangkok, Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Thursday.

Israel's Foreign Ministry Director-General Rafi Barak called on all Israeli envoys abroad to take extra security precautions as fears increased that terrorists would attempt to attack Israeli targets abroad again.

...

Over the past few weeks, following the recent terror attacks on Israeli nationals, the Foreign Ministry has received a flow of terror warnings. The new security measures recently implemented have drastically affected the lives of Israeli diplomats serving overseas.

Diplomats were ordered not to travel to work in their private vehicles, and the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi has requested permission from Indian authorities to place civilian, rather than diplomatic plates on embassy vehicles, due to the fact that diplomatic plates in India include the flag of the state they represent.

When will the civilized world stand up and begin to fight for itself? Winston Churchill would never have allowed the British government to behave this way on his watch. Simply shameful!

Labels: diplomatic isolation, Islamic terrorism, United Kingdom

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:13 PM 4 comments

Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler

Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Sunday, October 16.

1) Closer to free

In 2003 Thomas Friedman wrote The Reality Principle which began:

Have you noticed how often Israel kills a Hamas activist and the victim is described by Israelis as ''a senior Hamas official'' or a ''key operative''? This has led me to wonder: How many senior Hamas officials could there be? We're not talking about I.B.M. here. We're talking about a ragtag terrorist group. By now Israel should have killed off the entire Hamas leadership twice. Unless what is happening is something else, something I call Palestinian math: Israel kills one Hamas operative and three others volunteer to take his place, in which case what Israel is doing is actually self-destructive.

Four years later Elder of Ziyon celebrated a great anniversary:

In the three years prior to Yassin's death, approximately 800 Israelis were killed in terror actions. In the three years since, that number has plummeted to about 110.

And in 2001 Daniel Pipes wrote Arafat's Suicide Factory:

Convincing healthy individuals to blow themselves up is obviously not easy, but requires ideas and institutions. The process begins with the Palestinian Authority (PA) inculcating two things into its population, starting with the children: a hatred of Jews and a love of death. School curricula, camp activities, TV programming and religious indoctrination all portray Israelis in a Nazi-style way, as sub-human being worthy of killing; and then deprecate the instinct for self-preservation, telling impressionable young people that sacrificing their lives is the most noble of all goals.

Putting the arguments of Pipes and EoZ together, we can conclude that certain individuals are skilled at organizing terror and recruiting terrorists. Not all "senior members" of Hamas have the same skills. Those like Yassin (or his short lived successor Rantisi) had charisma and excellent recruiting skills. Had Israel abided by Friedman's "reality" principle they would have left them alone. Experience shows that Israel acted properly in self defense. I believe that this is what Israel was referring to by "symbols." (h/t Meryl)

The main breakthrough came in July. After five years of negotiations, Hamas forwarded a letter to Israel in which, for the first time, it outlined its final terms for a prisoner swap for Gilad Schalit. Three months earlier, David Meidan, a former senior Mossad operative, had been appointed chief mediator to the Schalit talks by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Upon receiving the letter, he immediately got to work. The first indication that Hamas was willing to ease up its demands came fairly quickly. After studying the letter and seeing the names of Tanzim chief Marwan Barghouti, PFLP chief Ahmed Sadat and some top Hamas terrorists, Meidan immediately made clear that these people – the so-called “symbols” of Palestinian terror – would not be released. Surprisingly, Hamas did not say no.

This background is interesting also, because it appears that it was Hamas that wanted to deal. Why would that be? Last week the Christian Science Monitor reported Hamas popularity hits a new low after opposing UN statehood bid (h/t Honest Reporting)

Of the many complaints in Gaza, one has become a popular refrain: the increasing taxes levied by Hamas. Fathi Abu Gamar, a gas station owner in Jabaliya refugee camp, readily joins the chorus: The Islamist movement that rules this tiny coastal territory takes more than half his revenue from gas sales, he says, leaving him with a tiny profit. But he quickly becomes quiet when a man, whom neighbors identify as a Hamas informer, begins hovering nearby, listening intently. Above him, the green flags of Hamas flutter in the strong sea breeze. Like Hamas's popularity, they are faded and tattered. Hamas has been steadily losing support among Gaza's 1.6 million residents after winning elections in 2006 and violently ousting its secular rival, Fatah, the following year.

Already in July, when the contact about these negotiations was reportedly made, the PA efforts at getting their statehood bid at the UN was getting attention as a result Hamas was largely out of the news. With increasing friction with the population in Gaza as the CSM noted later:

A joke circulating the territory posits that the reason Hamas's armed wing, Al Qassam Brigades, has stopped firing rockets at Israel is that the fighters' jeeps lack air conditioning. Residents tell stories of Hamas officials who used to drive modest cars now sporting luxury vehicles, and Gazans like Mr. Gamar, the gas station owner, complain the government is reaching into their pockets in every way it can.

getting prisoners released, would make Hamas relevant, especially if Abbas's efforts were vetoed:

But the decision wasn't made only out of anger. Many Gazans see reconciliation as the real battleground and say Hamas made a tactical decision, calculating that if Abbas came back without UN recognition, Hamas's position in reconciliation negotiations would be stronger. That would give it more leverage on issues that are still to be decided, such as whether its armed wing would be forced to turn in its weapons.

It appears that Hamas settled for somewhat less than it might have otherwise demanded, for its own political calculations, which isn't making everyone happy. (h/t Meryl)

Palestinian sources told the newspaper Asharq al-Awsat that Hamas officials were shocked that senior operatives in the organization's military wing, including Hassan Salama, Abdullah Barghouti, Abbas a-Sayed and Ibrahim Hamed will not be among the released. The sources said that several senior operatives have cancelled their speeches on the matter, and a joint press conference that was supposed to be held by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades and the Popular Resistance Committee on Wednesday was called off.

2) Don't let her go

If planners and organizers of terror attacks - as opposed to the perpetrators - ought not to be released, the Roth family makes a convincing case that Sbarro planner, Ahlam Tamimi ought not to be included in the scheduled release.

After all, several months ago my husband and I sent him a letter detailing the crimes of which Tamimi was convicted and pleading with him to refuse to release her.

In that letter, we reminded him that she is generally described mistakenly as the “driver” or “helper”. We noted that she was actually the planner and engineer of the attack. She personally transported the 10 kg bomb concealed in a guitar case in a taxi from Ramallah to Jerusalem, met up with Al Masri, the suicide bomber, and handed him the case.

The two then walked together, disguised as tourists, to the center of the city. They stopped at the target Tamimi had selected. She instructed Al Masri to wait fifteen minutes before detonating the explosives. She wanted him to give her enough time to escape the scene safely, she explained later.

3) What was he thinking?

The other day PM Netanyahu said the following, regarding the deal with Hamas to release Gilad Shalit:

Mr. Netanyahu, whose cabinet voted 26 to 3 in favor of the prisoner swap, said he felt it important to move on the deal now, given what he called the “storms” in the Middle East. “With everything that is happening in Egypt and the region, I don’t know if the future would have allowed us to get a better deal — or any deal at all for that matter,” he said. “This is a window of opportunity that might have been missed.”

In truth we won't know all of Netanyahu's calculations. As noted above it appears that Hamas had a reason for making the deal. Netanyahu likely benefits politically. The Jerusalem Post report cited above makes another observation:

The same week that the letter was sent by Hamas, the Egyptian mediator – a deputy of Intelligence Minister Murad Muwafi – renewed his activity. In Israel, Cairo’s renewed interest in the Schalit issue was understood as a result of a number of elements. First, the interim military-run government in Egypt wanted to show the world that while the country appears to be in disarray and on the verge of governmental collapse, this is not the case. Instead, by mediating the Schalit deal, Egypt was able to show that it still is a player with major regional influence. The second reason is more internal and has to do with Egypt’s concern with Hamas, but even more so with its founding father – the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood is expected to gain significant political power in the upcoming elections. By striking a deal with Hamas, Egypt gains some political influence over what happens in the Gaza Strip.

I wonder if there's another side to this. Might Netanyahu have thought that an opportunity to let Egypt's interim government show that it is not powerless help him dealing with a country that is likely to be more outwardly hostile to Israel in the near future? Note the following story from today. (h/t The Israel Project)

Egypt intercepted Libyan surface-to-air missiles bound for Gaza, according to media reports over the weekend. Cairo arrested five smuggling cells over the last few months as they were ferrying the weapons towards Gaza. The reports suggested Gaza-based terrorists struck a deal for the weapons with Libyan contacts.

Like I wrote, we won't know all the considerations that went into this decision. Some aspects are troubling: the freeing of terrorists and strengthening Hamas. Others such as keeping a working relationship with Egypt seem to work towards Israel's benefit.

4) The advantage of having a historian as an ambassador

There's a brilliant op-ed by Ambassador Michael Oren in the Washington Post, Israel does not stand alone

Isolation, of course, is not automatically symptomatic of bad policies. Britain was isolated fighting the Nazis at the start of World War II. Union forces were isolated early in the Civil War, as was the Continental Army at Valley Forge. “It is better to be alone than in bad company,” wrote the young George Washington. That maxim is especially apt for the Middle East today, where one of the least-isolated states, backed by both Iran and Iraq and effectively immune to United Nations sanctions, is Syria.

Israel, in fact, is significantly less isolated than at many times in its history. Before the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel faced a belligerent Egypt and Jordan and a hostile Soviet bloc, Greece, India and China — all without strategic ties with the United States. Today, Israel has peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan; excellent relations with the nations of Eastern Europe as well as Greece, India and China; and an unbreakable alliance with America. Many democracies, including Canada, Italy and the Czech Republic, stand staunchly with us. Israel has more legations abroad than ever before and recently joined the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which comprises the most globally integrated countries. Indeed, Egypt and Germany mediated the upcoming release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who had been held hostage by Hamas for five years. Israel is not responsible for the upheavals in the Arab world or for the lack of freedom that triggered them. Israelis did not elect Turkey’s Islamic-minded government or urge Syria’s army to fire on its citizens. Conversely, no change in Israeli policies can alter the historic processes transforming the region. Still, some commentators claim that, by refusing to freeze settlement construction on the West Bank and insisting on defensible borders and security guarantees, Israel isolates itself.

This goes against the vast majority of New York Times op-eds and editorials over the past few weeks, which portrays Israeli isolation as a fault of Israel. Ambassador Oren then lays blame at the feet of PA President Abbas (and implicitly at the New York Times for publishing him):

As Abbas wrote in the New York Times in May, the Palestinian attempt to declare a state without making peace with Israel was about “internationalization of the conflict . . . to pursue claims against Israel” in the United Nations, not about settlements.

Related thoughts from Israel Matzav.

5) Two about Israel and Shalit

Ethan Bronner has two articles about how Israel relates to the hopefully impending release of Gilad Shalit. One is a general article A Yearning for Solidarity Complicates Public Life, Israelis Say:

In trying to understand why Israel is scheduled to start trading more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners on Tuesday for the return of just one Israeli soldier held by Hamas for the past five years, it is worth recalling that within Israel, certainly within its Jewish majority, the notion of a stranger is remote. When Israelis say they view the seized soldier, Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit, as their own son, they mean it. It is the melding of private and public spheres, the unwillingness to distinguish between what is good for the state and what is good for the individual that is seen by many here as Israel’s greatest strength — but by others as its greatest weakness.

While the first part of the article is a pretty fair assessment of Israeli society, I was less pleased by the second part, which associated the protests for Sgt. Shalit's release with the tent protests of this past summer. (The tent protests largely propelled by the left-wing NIF, seem closer to the current union supported "Occupy Wall Street" protests in the U.S.) Bronner, interestingly quotes Israeli columnist, Nahum Barnea as approving the deal. Yedioth Ahronot has not (yet) published that column on the Ynet website. While searching for the article I found a two year old article by Barnea that seemed to go in the other direction.

The unwritten contract between a State and its troops says that the soldier pledges to risk his life for it, and that the State pledges not to risk his life in vain and do everything possible to free him from captivity. The contract does not say this should be done “at all costs.” And it also doesn’t say something else: That a soldier is a child, a helpless creature, and that safeguarding his life is the essence and is more important than the military mission and the lives of the civilians the soldier is supposed to defend. The State is always bad. The soldier is always a victim. These are new insights that stem from unhealthy processes Israeli society has undergone in recent years. They constitute the crossing of a red line.

The other article, was much better, focused mainly on two families, the Roths and the Waxmans, In Israel, Swap Touches Old Wounds (h/t Lynn):

“This deal is a disaster,” he said of the exchange for the Israeli soldier, Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit, as he sat with his wife, Frimet, on the balcony of their Jerusalem apartment. “Some of these people will go back to murdering. They pose an existential threat to all of us.” Blocks away, Esther and Yehuda Wachsman were absorbing similar news — that a man who took part in murdering their son, Nachshon, in 1994 was to be freed for Sergeant Shalit. By cruel coincidence, it was the anniversary of the killing — Oct. 14. But Mrs. Wachsman had a different response. “I’m willing to pay the price for another woman’s son to come home and end the agony,” Mrs. Wachsman said, sitting near a corner of her living room devoted to Nachshon’s memory. “Our hurt will never go away, but I just hope and pray with all my heart that Gilad comes home healthy in body and soul.”

I don't think I need to tell you all again how I feel about this deal. But I will tell you that I took the family for a day trip today (which is why there have been no posts for the last seven hours - in fact, everything you saw until now was posted last night) to an amusement and water park that was specially set aside for religious people (think Great Adventure on a much smaller scale for those within a 3-hour drive of there). There was a concert and the artist kept talking about how Gilad is coming home. We were far enough away that this was just background noise or my blood might have started to boil. It's not just how much my heart goes out to Arnold and Frimet Roth and people like them who have lost children, G-d forbid. It's how scared I am of the prospect that these terrorists could renew the terror war within our cities that has largely been dormant for the last seven years. All those things that Soccer Dad writes about people like Ahmed Yassin being charismatic have been said not only about Marwan Barghouti and Ahmed Saadat, but also about Ahlam Tamimi - the planner of the Sbarro massacre - and Amna Mona (who lured a 16-year old Israeli to his death - she's in some of the videos I showed on Saturday night) and many of the others being released.

But 69% of Israelis favor this deal, despite the fact that 62% believe it will worsen our security.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Ahlam Tamimi, Binyamin Netanyahu, diplomatic isolation, Ethan Bronner, Fatah, Gilad Shalit, Hamas, Malki Roth, Michael Oren, Middle East Media Sampler, Nahum Barnea, Sbarro terror attack, Soccer Dad

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:39 PM 0 comments

Panetta spins for Obama

On his way to Israel on behalf of President Obama, US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta issues a 'blunt assessment' that Israel must do something to break out of its 'isolation' in the Middle East (Hat Tip: Sparky the Wonder Dog in comments).

In a blunt assessment made as he was traveling to Israel, Panetta said the ongoing upheaval in the Middle East makes it critical for the Israelis to find ways to communicate with other nations in the region in order to have stability.

"There's not much question in my mind that they maintain that (military) edge," Panetta told reporters traveling with him. "But the question you have to ask: Is it enough to maintain a military edge if you're isolating yourself in the diplomatic arena? Real security can only be achieved by both a strong diplomatic effort as well as a strong effort to project your military strength."

Panetta is scheduled to meet this week with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, and then travel to a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels. His visit comes as Mideast negotiators push for a peace deal by the end of next year, amping up pressure for the resumption of long-stalled talks.

The Pentagon chief said Israel risks eroding its own security if it does not reach out to its neighbors.

"It's pretty clear that at this dramatic time in the Middle East, when there have been so many changes, that it is not a good situation for Israel to become increasingly isolated. And that's what's happening," he said.

Panetta said the most important thing now is for Israel and its neighbors "to try to develop better relationships so in the very least they can communicate with each other rather than taking these issues to the streets."

Funny - we don't seem to be so isolated.

There's a famous Jewish parable about a fish and a fox that is told by Rabbi Akiva. A fox stands on the shoreline and tries to convince a fish to come out of the water and be friends with him 'as our forefathers were.' The fish tells the fox that without water, the fish will die, and besides, the fish doesn't trust the fox anyway. Rabbi Akiva says that the water is Torah and the fox is the non-Jews who are constantly attempting to get us to abandon the Torah. But could it also be that the fox is the Arab and Muslim countries and the fish in the water are the countries with whom the Netanyahu government has formed alliances? Aren't we better off in the water (in both the traditional sense of the parable and the one that I just proposed)? Why should we listen to the Obama administration and come out when every time we come out, those on the outside seek to swallow us?

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, diplomatic isolation, Egypt, Leon Panetta, Turkey

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:33 AM 0 comments

Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler

Here is Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Tuesday, September 6.

1) The Peter Principle in Palestine

Last week Khaled Abu Toameh wrote Failed Leaders Do Not Deserve to Become "Presidents" in which he lambastes Mahmoud Abbas for pursuing the unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) at the UN later this month. (There's a similarly themed article at Comment is Free by Mehdi Hasan. h/t Lynn)

The 76-year-old Abbas, however, is evidently not concerned about the consequences of his UN gamble.
So what if the Americans cut off more than $500 million in annual aid to the Palestinians?
Who cares if many of the Palestinians' friends in Europe are advising Abbas that his initiative would damage the peace process and further complicate the situation in the Middle East?
And who cares if even some Arab countries are opposed to the statehood plan? Just this week it was reported that Jordan's King Abdullah II had advised Abbas to reconsider the statehood bid out of fear that it would result in the loss of the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees.
Like the rest of the Arab regimes, the Jordanians are afraid that a Palestinian state would mean that millions of refugees living in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon would stay in these countries.The refugees do not want to go to a Palestinian state in the 1967 territories.They want to go back to Israel, and this is what the Palestinian Liberation Organization has been demanding. So if the PLO is gone, the refugees will not have anyone to represent their case.

That last paragraph makes me a little uncomfortable as is it sounds much like an argument that Hamas would make. Abu Toameh has followed up that article with another, Why Palestine Will Not Have Peaceful Relations with Israel

How can the Palestinians have diplomatic and peaceful relations with Israel when many are calling on Jordan and Egypt to close down the Israeli embassies in Amman and Cairo and expel the ambassadors?
The Palestinian Authority is now saying that after the UN vote on the proposed Palestinian state, it will start talking with Hamas and other groups about the need to hold presidential and parliamentary elections in the Palestinian territories.
But can anyone provide guarantees that Hamas, or a more radical group, would not win the vote? In January 2006, many Palestinian Authority officials and Western "experts" assured the Americans and Europeans that Hamas would never win the parliamentary election.
Abbas is well aware of the fact that the state that he is seeking from the UN will have jurisdiction only over those areas in the West Bank that are under his control today.

Both articles present the Palestinian diplomatic efforts in a much different light from the way they are portrayed in the mainstream media.

Jennifer Rubin makes an interesting observation at the end of a column yesterday regarding the Palmer report (h/t Love of the Land):

Not only is this an implicit repudiation of the premises of the Goldstone Report (which, in Operation Cast Lead, portrayed the Israelis as aggressors and Gazans as victims), but it is a powerful argument against granting the Palestinians their request for a declaration of statehood. The government of that new state is co-run by the very terrorists described in the flotilla report as waging war on Israel.
The United Nations is now going to reward Hamas with a declaration (albeit symbolic) that its unity government joins the “international community” of civilized nations? It’s of course preposterous. Neither the United Nations nor anyone else knows how, or even if, the unity government will function. What we do know is that Israel is involved (still) in an ongoing war against terrorists who target Israeli civilians in contravention of international law. Perhaps when it is Israelis’ turn to speak on the resolution, its representatives should hand the microphone over to Sir Geoffrey Palmer and Álvaro Uribe, who can read their informative report to the General Assembly.

There's another side to this observation too. A few months after the Goldstone report, Judge Goldstone himself, said that his investigation wasn't necessary. The Palmer report confirmed that Israel's blockade, despite the chorus of critics, is legal under international law. And now following those two, the Palestinians wish to use international law to achieve their goals. To anyone who is paying attention, Goldstone and Palmer point out the current corruption of the state of international law (at least as practiced by the UN), which should make the UDI even more suspect.

2) Critiquing the critics

David Bernstein of the Volokh conspiracy takes on two of Israel's critics regarding the Palmer report. In the first case he rejects Kevin Jon Heller's assertion that the blockade is illegal.

Because the Report concluded that the Hamas-Israel conflict was an IAC, it didn’t contradict Heller’s argument that if it’s not an IAC, the blockade is illegal under international law. But Heller also, as he acknowledges, “questioned the legality of the blockade” and said that it was not just wrong but that Israel’s claim to be in an IAC with Hamas is wholly implausible. While one Report cannot establish in everyone’s mind the lawfulness of the blockade, surely if an unsympathetic (or at the very least, non-sympathetic) forum like a U.N. commission adopts the Israeli position on IAC, that position cannot be deemed beyond the realm of even plausible argument, and Heller’s analysis is indeed “contradicted.”

In the latter case he reminds us the Juan Cole claimed that the Mavi Marmara was populated by peaceful volunteers. The Palmer report though writes:

Palmer Report: Israeli forces “faced significant, organized and violent resistance from a group of passengers when they boarded the Mavi Marmara requiring them to use force for their own protection. Three soldiers were captured, mistreated, and placed at risk by those passengers. Several others were wounded.”
As I pointed out at the time, Israel relied on faulty intelligence, and should have recalled its forces and started from square one when it became clear that they weren’t facing peaceful “aid volunteers,” but organized, violent fanatics itching for a fight.

Many of Israel's critics were refuted by the Palmer report, yet that aspect of the report seems to have been largely ignored.

3) Burning documents

Anti-Israel blogger and publicity hound, Richard Silverstein must be thrilled that he is once again a principal in a New York Times story, Leak Offers Look at Efforts by U.S. to Spy on Israel (via memeorandum)

I really don't want to give the limelight seeker more attention, but Israel Matzav noted

And by the way, someone in the US Attorney's office in Seattle ought to be looking into prosecuting Silverstein for destroying evidence.

He said he had burned the secret documents in his Seattle backyard after Mr. Leibowitz came under investigation in mid-2009, but he recalled that there were about 200 pages of verbatim records of telephone calls and what seemed to be embassy conversations. He said that in one transcript, Israeli officials discussed their worry that their exchanges might be monitored.

Sounds like destruction of evidence to me.

The guy is an unprincipled egotistical scoundrel; if he gets prosecuted because he boasted of a crime to the New York Times that would be satisfying.

4) Cohen-head

It's hard to come up with new insults for Roger Cohen, though calling him a Zionist agent is pretty clever. his latest Israel Isolates Itself is typical of his work. It's filled with half-truths and distortions. My Right Word and Elder of Ziyon have already fisked it. One point here, Cohen writes:

The Palmer report, leaked to The New York Times last week, is a split-the-difference document, with the Israeli and Turkish members of the panel including notes of dissent. My rough translation of its conclusion would be this message to Israel: You had the right to do it but what you did was way over the top and just plain dumb.

Except this is from a previous Cohen article:

The logic of the Israeli offensive, if there is one, must surely be that Hamas can be so weakened as ultimately to crumble. That is also the logic of the relentless blockade that persisted during the six-month cease-fire despite Israel’s earlier commitment, as part of the deal, to opening border crossings.

In other words he believes the blockade to keep weapons out of Gaza to be wrong. The Palmer report showed that he was wrong. That's more than a split decision; Cohen's premise was knocked out. He possesses neither the good sense nor the humility to acknowledge that he is mistaken.

Labels: diplomatic isolation, Middle East Media Sampler, Palmer Commission, Richard Silverstein, Roger Cohen, Soccer Dad, spying, Unilateral declaration of independence (UDI)

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:44 PM 0 comments

Time is on our side

If it weren't the Three Weeks, I would have opened this post with a video of the Rolling Stones singing Time is on My Side. Because that's the theme of this post. David Goldman, who is best known for his posts as Spengler at Asia Times, cuts through the nonsense and points out that time is on Israel's side, despite what many of our politicians tell us (Hat Tip: Manhattan Dan).

The claim that Israel is fighting the clock has two components: diplomacy and demographics. Israel’s diplomatic isolation will corner the Jewish state while fast-breeding Arabs will overwhelm the population balance between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, goes the argument. On both counts, though, the facts speak against the notion that time is running out for Israel. Time, on the contrary, seems to be on Israel’s side.

The Palestinian Authority’s much-feared march toward a United Nations vote for statehood has become something of an embarrassment. A vote for statehood in the General Assembly has no legal implications, and the United States will always veto the measure in the Security Council. Some Palestinian leaders think that token support in the General Assembly will do more harm than good; Palestine Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki last week offered to withdraw the U.N. vote if negotiations with Israel restarted before September. And even the Kingdom of Jordan might vote against Palestinian statehood, according to the Middle East Research Center’s Alexander Bligh.

Arab rhetoric in support of Palestinian statehood, moreover, isn’t matched by real support. Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Authority’s prime minister, complained last week that Arab donors have paid out only a third of their pledges to his government, leaving the Palestinian Authority without enough cash to pay public employees’ salaries. “The Palestinians cannot count on the friends cheering them on rhetorically to step up financially if the going gets rough post-September,” warned Michael Singh, an associate fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, in a blog post on Foreign Policy’s website.

Israel hardly seems as isolated as it did before Greece blocked another Gaza flotilla earlier this month, and the IHH—the Hamas-linked Turkish “charity” that sponsored the Mavi Marmara flotilla last year—dropped out of the exercise. Israeli diplomacy seemed quite effective.

...

Whether the proportion of Arabs in Judea and Samaria as well as in Israel itself is growing may be the most politicized demographic question in the world. Yet the Israeli Jewish fertility rate has risen to three children per female while the Arab fertility rate has fallen to the point where the two trend lines have converged and perhaps even crossed. A 2006 study by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies claims that the West Bank and Gaza population in 2004 was only 2.5 million, rather than the 3.8 million claimed by the Palestinian authorities. Presumably the numbers were inflated to increase foreign aid and exaggerate the importance of the Palestinian population.

Most of the phantom population, the report argues, comes from births that never occurred:

...

Palestinian fertility on the West Bank has already fallen to the Israeli fertility rate of three children per woman, if we believe the Palestine Ministry of Health numbers rather than the highly suspect Central Bureau of Statistics data. The Begin-Sadat estimates were disputed by other Israeli demographers, notably Sergio DellaPergola of the Jewish People Policy Institute. Yet the idea that economic and cultural modernization leads to falling birthrates is a commonplace among demographers who study the developing world. In 1963, Israeli Arab women had eight or nine children; today they have three, about the same as Israeli Jews. Education explains most of the fertility decline among Arabs, and it is likely that Arab fertility behind the Green Line as well as in Judea and Samaria will continue to fall.

More recent data also show that the Israeli Jewish birth rate has risen faster than predicted. Jewish births rose from 96,000 in the year 2000 to 125,000 in 2010, while Arab births fell slightly over the same period—from about 40,781 to 40,750, according to a new study by Yaakov Faitelson at the Institute for Zionist Strategies. The proportion of Jewish pupils in Israel’s elementary schools is increasing,

...

If Israel’s total fertility rate holds at three, its population will reach 24 million by the end of this century, the United Nations’ population model predicts. And if the low fertility rates prevailing elsewhere hold steady, Israel will have more people under the age of 25 than Turkey, Iran, or even Germany. It will be able to field the largest army in the Middle East. And it will have a thriving high-tech economy, enormous energy resources, and a reliable supply of desalinated water. Israel has a near-optimal mix of economics and demographics, while time is running out for Arab countries that have failed over and over again to rise to the demands of the modern world.

There is just one remaining argument that the clock is ticking against Israel, namely “linkage” between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iran’s strategic threat to Israel.

...

Iran’s nuclear program and its support for Hezbollah and Hamas are significant threats to the Jewish state. Yet it is hard to find a policy analyst of any stripe today who will defend the idea that an Israeli-Palestine agreement, even if such a thing were possible in the present environment, might meaningfully reduce the Iranian threat.

Read the whole thing.

I don't believe that Turkey really wants to reconcile with us as he claims. I believe that they decided to skip the flotilla because they decided they have more important goals. But other than that, he is dead on.

And he's making arguments I've made on this blog before about the demography boogeyman being just that and about Israel being better off living with the status quo and waiting to see whether there is anyone - eventually - with whom we can make peace.

Labels: demography, diplomatic isolation, linkage

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:42 PM 2 comments