Daily Archives: December 21, 2008

NEWS, VIEWS & EDITOR’S COMMENT: Treating the Hamas-denial complex

Livni: I will topple Hamas regime in Gaza if elected PM
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz, December 21, 2008

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni vowed on Sunday to end Hamas’s rule in the Gaza Strip if she is elected prime minister in a February election.

“The state of Israel, and a government under me, will make it a strategic objective to topple the Hamas regime in Gaza,” Livni told members of her centrist Kadima party. “The means for doing this should be military, economic and diplomatic.” [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — Did Tzipi Livni make this announcement in front of a crowd of 200,000 supporters (the size of the crowd in Gaza City that came to celebrate Hamas’ 21st anniversary)? Will her Kadima party even be around for 21 years?

The fact that Hamas is still in power is not due to a lack of effort on the part of Israel and its allies to apply a massive amount of pressure to bring the group down. Indeed, not only has Hamas demonstrated its resilience but it has also benefited politically from the pressure.

Having won parliamentary elections in 2006, had Hamas been allowed to govern, its merits and failings as a political organization and governing entity would subsequently have been judged by the Palestinian electorate. But neither Fatah, the Israelis or The Quartet were interested in finding out whether Hamas could pass this democratic test.

But let’s entertain some of Livni’s wishful thinking and suppose that a couple more years of siege and periodic bombardment might do the trick and lead to the collapse of the Hamas government. What then? Is liberal democracy going to rise from the ashes? Probably not. A much more probable course would be something parallel to what’s happened in Somalia. With the ousting of the Islamic Courts Union, taking its place as a political force has been the strengthening and expansion of the more radical Shabaab.

Those who dream of the end of Hamas should fear what the fulfillment of their dreams might bring.

Tony Blair, the dolt with a part-time job as envoy for The Quartet (a job to which he devotes just one week a month) told Haaretz: “I can’t see any basis for an agreement between the international community and Hamas. How do you negotiate the two-state solution with people if they don’t accept your right to exist? That’s the problem. Some people tell me, ‘You spoke with the IRA,’ and I tell them we only did that once they accepted that the solution will only be through peaceful means.”

Is Blair telling a pure, unadulterated lie, or has his political seasoning left incapable of discriminating between deceit and truthfulness?

The British government — as Blair surely knows — started talking to the IRA long before it renounced violence. The Good Friday Agreement enshrined that commitment. The end of violence, as everyone understood, would be among the fruits of successful negotiations — not a pre-condition for entering into talks.

If all sides were willing to simultaneously renounce violence, that would be a fine thing. Language after all is a far more constructive tool than explosives. But of course neither side believes it would benefit from unilateral disarmament. Instead, we can only have a much more ugly process that involves a mix of words and violence. The most practical and immediate goal should be for both sides to explore ways of adjusting the proportions of that mix. Right now, they’re both heading in the wrong direction.

Talk to Hamas
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz, December 21, 2008

Politicians, generals and the public all know that any substantial incursion into the Gaza Strip will be a catastrophe. Still, no one dares ask why, for heaven’s sake, not try to talk directly with Hamas?

Gaza has an established authority that seized power democratically and then forcibly, and proved it has the power to control the territory. That, in itself, isn’t bad news after a period of anarchy. But Israel and the world don’t like Hamas. They want to overthrow it, but their diabolical scheme isn’t working out. The two-year siege and boycott that included starvation, blackouts and bombardments have produced no sign that Hamas is weaker. On the contrary: The ceasefire was violated first by Israel with its unnecessary operation of blowing up a tunnel.

What everybody already knew to be false – that the political choice of a people could be changed through violence, that the Gazans could be made into Zionists by being abused – was tried anyway. Now we have to finally change direction, to do what nobody has tried before, if only because we have no other choice.

Any excuse against such an attempt does not hold water. Hamas doesn’t recognize Israel; what does it matter? Hamas is a fundamentalist movement? That’s irrelevant. Hamas will decline holding talks? Let’s challenge it. Direct talks with Hamas will weaken Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas? He’s weak anyway.

What does Israel have to lose besides its much-anticipated wide-scale operation that it can carry out anytime? Why not try the diplomatic option before the military one, and not the other way around like we’re used to? [continued…]

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NEWS ROUNDUP: December 21

Ambush raises unsettling questions in Afghanistan
By Kirk Semple, New York Times, December 21, 2008

It was one of the most humiliating attacks the Afghan security forces had ever suffered. On Nov. 27, Taliban insurgents ambushed a supply convoy in the northwest province of Badghis, killing nine Afghan soldiers and five police officers, wounding 27 men, capturing 20 others, destroying at least 19 vehicles and stealing five, Afghan officials said.

The Afghan authorities quickly learned that the man suspected of having orchestrated the attack, Maulavi Ghulam Dastagir, had only weeks before been in police custody on charges of aiding the Taliban.

Mr. Dastagir had been personally released by President Hamid Karzai after assurances from a delegation of tribal elders that he would live a peaceful life, officials said this month.

The ambush, and the presidential pardon that allowed the insurgent to go free, have become the subject of a governmental inquest and the source of profound embarrassment for the Afghan government.

The case has also underscored the vulnerabilities of the Afghan security forces as the Taliban have multiplied their presence around the country and, in only the past few years, have gained strength in regions that were once relatively peaceful, like the northwest. [continued…]

US opens fire on Brown’s ‘war fatigue’
By Sarah Baxter and Nicola Smith, The Sunday Times, December 21, 2008

As the United States prepares for a troop surge in Afghanistan in the new year, Robert Gates, the defence secretary, and senior commanders are concerned that the British government lacks the “political will” for the fight.

General John Craddock, the Nato commander, said last week that Britain must put more troops into Helmand province to defeat the Taliban insurgency.

In an interview with The Sunday Times at Nato’s supreme headquarters in Mons, Belgium, he said Gordon Brown’s announcement last Monday that more troops would bolster Britain’s 8,100-strong force in Afghanistan by March was not enough. Although planning is under way to send up to 3,000 extra troops to Afghanistan next summer if required, Brown committed only 300 in his Commons statement.

“I don’t think 300 more, if you are talking about Helmand province, will do the trick. We’ve got to hold down there until we’ve got some Afghan street forces who can take over,” Craddock said. [continued…]

‘Baghdad Clogger’ suffered brutal beating after arrest
By Afif Sarhan, The Observer, December 21, 2008

The Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at President George Bush was viciously beaten after being taken into custody, according to a police officer who accompanied him to prison.

Wrestled to the ground and then buried under a frantic mound of security officers, Muntazer al-Zaidi was last seen being dragged into detention. Controversy has since raged over what treatment was meted out to the man hailed a hero in many parts of the Arab and Muslim world for his protest against the invasion of Iraq. Yesterday there were further demonstrations in the Middle East calling for his immediate release.

Witnesses to his arrest and imprisonment have told the Observer Zaidi was badly beaten, during and after his arrest last Sunday, and that he risks losing the sight in one of his eyes as a result. [continued…]

Bush attacker ‘incensed by bullet-riddled Koran’
By Marie Colvin and Ali Rifat, The Sunday Times, December 21, 2008

The young Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at President George W Bush had been incensed by a story he covered about an American soldier who used a copy of the Koran for target practice, according to his family.

Muntathar al-Zaydi, 28, who became an overnight hero in the Arab world, worked as a reporter for the popular al-Baghdadiya satellite TV station.

In May he was sent to report on an incident in Radwaniyah, west of Baghdad, in which Islam’s holy book was found riddled with bullets from an American sniper.

“He talked incessantly about the subject,” recalled his elder brother Uday. It was one of a number of assignments that appear to have radicalised Zaydi during his brief journalistic career. [continued…]

Somalia crisis talks in Ethiopia
BBC News, December 21, 2008

Ethiopia is hosting a series of talks on the deepening crisis in its neighbour, Somalia.

Foreign ministers from east Africa are meeting in the capital, Addis Ababa, to be followed by talks by the African Union’s peace and security council.

The emergency meetings come after Ethiopia decided to withdraw its troops from Somalia by the end of December. [continued…]

White House philosophy stoked mortgage bonfire
By Jo Becker, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Stephen Labaton, New York Times, December 21, 2008

Eight years after arriving in Washington vowing to spread the dream of homeownership, Mr. Bush is leaving office, as he himself said recently, “faced with the prospect of a global meltdown” with roots in the housing sector he so ardently championed.

There are plenty of culprits, like lenders who peddled easy credit, consumers who took on mortgages they could not afford and Wall Street chieftains who loaded up on mortgage-backed securities without regard to the risk.

But the story of how we got here is partly one of Mr. Bush’s own making, according to a review of his tenure that included interviews with dozens of current and former administration officials.

From his earliest days in office, Mr. Bush paired his belief that Americans do best when they own their own home with his conviction that markets do best when let alone.

He pushed hard to expand homeownership, especially among minorities, an initiative that dovetailed with his ambition to expand the Republican tent — and with the business interests of some of his biggest donors. But his housing policies and hands-off approach to regulation encouraged lax lending standards. [continued…]

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