Author Archives: Paul Woodward

Why the US will not cut aid to Israel

Department of meaningless gestures
By Stephen Walt, Foreign Policy, November 10, 2009

Two eminent mainstream journalists — Tom Friedman and Joe Klein — recently called for United States to disengage from the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, on the grounds that Palestinians were too divided to make a deal and the Israelis were not interested in one. Friedman couldn’t bring himself to draw the logical conclusion — if the United States [is] truly going to “disengage,” that also means cutting off its economic and military assistance — but Klein did.

I have a certain sympathy for this position (and even wrote similar things myself before I wised up), but there are two problems with this specific idea. The first is that it is a meaningless prescription: There’s no way to cut the aid package (or even put a hold on it, which is what Klein recommends) so long as Congress is in hock to AIPAC and the other groups in the status quo lobby. And unless I’ve missed something, I doubt groups like J Street would support it either.

Friedman and Klein’s statements do convey how discourse in the United States is changing, but the specific recommendation they offer here is a non-starter. Remember: we are dealing with a Congress that just voted to condemn the Goldstone Report by a vote of 344-24. The aid package may be indirectly subsidizing the settlements and threatening Israel’s future as a Jewish majority state, but a supine House and Senate will still sign the annual check. [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — The perennial debate on whether the US will ever find the will to cut off aid to Israel invariably misses what is ultimately probably the most important sticking point: a lion’s share of the money that Congress allocates as foreign military aid ends up going back into the US economy. Members of Congress face pressure not only from the Israel lobby but also the defense industry lobby and in many cases their own constituents to keep on doling out the cash.

The Israeli government is currently in the process of negotiating its largest military purchase ever: 25 F-35 fighters at a cost of $3.25 billion, paid to Lockheed-Martin who will start delivery in 2014. Interestingly, Israel has the ability to allocate funds coming from US taxpayers that will appear in US budgets that have yet to be passed or even drafted by Congress!

So, if the White House is not about to call on Congress to cut back on aid to Israel, the one lever over which it retains absolute control is the way the US casts votes in the UN Security Council. I’m not holding my breath waiting for any surprises there.

Perhaps more significant than anything happening (or not happening) in Washington, is the process unfolding around the globe through which Israel is inexorably losing its legitimacy.

When Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the US, warns about the delegitimization of Israel he is giving voice to a real fear among Israelis. That fear is given form when people such as the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner says Israel does not want peace:

“What really hurts me, and this shocks us, is that before there used to be a great peace movement in Israel. There was a left that made itself heard and a real desire for peace,” Kouchner said on France Inter radio.

“It seems to me, and I hope that I am completely wrong, that this desire has completely vanished, as though people no longer believe in it,” he added.

Israel clings to a tenuous claim to being a peace-loving nation. Once the world completely loses faith in that notion, the path to pariah status will be hard to avoid.

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90,000 casualties, but who’s counting?

90,000 casualties, but who’s counting?
By Kelley B Vlahos, Antiwar.com, November 10, 2009

Veterans Day arrives tomorrow, and with it, the anticipated harvest of heartbreaking anecdotes driving the press coverage and our ever wandering attention back to less desirable realities: the disfigured but persevering hero, the homeless warrior, the unemployable sergeant, the father or son or daughter who came home a stranger and cannot be reached.

Usually, there is nothing more powerful than a personal story to pound home the cost of eight years of war overseas, but I think today there is something even more disturbing to bear.

It’s the number 89,457.

As of Nov. 9, that’s how many American casualties there were in Iraq and Afghanistan since Oct. 7, 2001, when the Afghan war officially began. That includes a tire-screeching 75,134 dead, wounded-in-action, and medically evacuated due to illness, disease, or injury in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), and 14,323 and counting in Afghanistan, or Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). [continued…]

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The Taliban solution

The Taliban solution
By Deepa Narayan, New York Times, November 10, 2009

A powerful grassroots movement has blossomed in Afghanistan, giving its people new hope, self-esteem and a sense of belonging. The problem is that this movement is the Taliban.

As President Obama and his advisers ponder a new Afghan strategy, the conventional wisdom is that this bottom-up insurgency must be attacked with top-down solutions: a stronger central government, a decline in regional warlordism, a more loyal national army.

But research we recently completed for the World Bank shows that what Afghanistan needs is not solutions from the top down but from the bottom up. It needs a good Taliban — a dispersed people’s movement, spanning thousands of villages, through which the Afghan people can regain a sense of control over their government.

Is this utopian fantasy, or is it possible in a country bloodied by its own past?

It may seem utopian under the myths that have become commonplace in the American understanding of Afghanistan. But our findings suggest that those myths need revision. [continued…]

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Gulf Al-Qaida chief: Shi’ites, like Iran, more dangerous than Jews

Gulf Al-Qaida chief: Shi’ites, like Iran, more dangerous than Jews
Haaretz, November 10, 2009

The leader of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Penninsula warned Tuesday that Shi’ite Muslims, particularly Iran, posed more danger to the world than either Jews or Christians.

“They [Shiites] are being driven by a greed to take over Muslim countries and they are full of a wish to annihilate Sunnis,” Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman al-Rashid said in an audio recording carried by the U.S. monitoring group SITE Intelligence.

“Their threat to Islam and its people is much bigger than that from Jews and Christians,” he added. The majority of the world’s Muslims are Sunni, but Iran and the Lebanon-based group Hezbollah are both Shi’ite. [continued…]

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Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower

Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower
By Terry Macalister, The Guardian, November 9, 2009

The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.

The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves.

The allegations raise serious questions about the accuracy of the organisation’s latest World Energy Outlook on oil demand and supply to be published tomorrow – which is used by the British and many other governments to help guide their wider energy and climate change policies. [continued…]

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Blackwater said to approve Iraqi payoffs after shootings

Blackwater said to approve Iraqi payoffs after shootings
By Mark Mazzetti and James Risen, New York Times, November 10, 2009

Top executives at Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, according to former company officials.

Blackwater approved the cash payments in December 2007, the officials said, as protests over the deadly shootings in Nisour Square stoked long-simmering anger inside Iraq about reckless practices by the security company’s employees. American and Iraqi investigators had already concluded that the shootings were unjustified, top Iraqi officials were calling for Blackwater’s ouster from the country, and company officials feared that Blackwater might be refused an operating license it would need to retain its contracts with the State Department and private clients, worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

Four former executives said in interviews that Gary Jackson, who was then Blackwater’s president, had approved the bribes and that the money was sent from Amman, Jordan, where the company maintains an operations hub, to a top manager in Iraq. The executives, though, said they did not know whether the cash was delivered to Iraqi officials or the identities of the potential recipients.

Blackwater’s strategy of buying off the government officials, which would have been illegal under American law, created a deep rift inside the company, according to the former executives. They said that Cofer Black, who was then the company’s vice chairman and a former top C.I.A. and State Department official, learned of the plan from another Blackwater manager while he was in Baghdad discussing compensation for families of the shooting victims with United States Embassy officials. [continued…]

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Israeli rabbi approves murder of non-Jews

Israeli rabbi approves murder of non-Jews
By Vita Bekker, The National, November 10, 2009

A book published this week by a radical Jewish rabbi from the Israeli-occupied West Bank and endorsed by prominent religious right-wing figures suggests killing any non-Jew, including children and babies, who pose a threat to Israel.

The book’s publication, just days after the arrest of Jewish settler Jack Teitel, who is charged with a string of killings, including two Palestinians, reflects a growing antipathy towards Palestinians among Jews living in the occupied territory.

Michael Warschawski, the founder of the Jerusalem-based Alternative Information Centre, said the book went public with a concept that was already being promoted in a quieter way by dozens of settler rabbis in internal community newspapers and speeches. [continued…]

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Ft. Hood and the Clash of Civilizations: Security vs political correctness revisited

Ft. Hood and the Clash of Civilizations: Security vs political correctness revisited
By Marc Lynch, Foreign Policy, November 9, 2009

Since the Ft Hood atrocity, I’ve seen a meme going around that it somehow exposed a contradiction between “political correctness” and “security.” The avoidance of Nidal Hassan’s religion out of fear of offending anyone, goes the argument, created the conditions which allowed him to go undetected and unsanctioned in the months and years leading up to his rampage. American security, therefore, demands dropping the “political correctness” of avoiding a confrontation with Islamist ideas and asking the “tough questions” about Islam as a religion and the loyalty of Muslim-Americans.

This framing of the issue is almost 100% wrong. There is a connection between what these critics are calling “political correctness” and national security, but it runs in the opposite direction. The real linkage is that there is a strong security imperative to prevent the consolidation of a narrative in which America is engaged in a clash of civilizations with Islam, and instead to nurture a narrative in which al-Qaeda and its affiliates represent a marginal fringe to be jointly combatted. Fortunately, American leaders — from the Obama administration through General George Casey and top counter-terrorism officials — understand this and have been acting appropriately. [continued…]

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Muslim US Army psychiatrist displayed suspicious interest in how Muslim soldiers might think and feel

Fort Hood suspect warned of threats within the ranks
By Dana Priest, Washington Post, November 10, 2009

The Army psychiatrist believed to have killed 13 people at Fort Hood warned a roomful of senior Army physicians a year and a half ago that to avoid “adverse events,” the military should allow Muslim soldiers to be released as conscientious objectors instead of fighting in wars against other Muslims.

As a senior-year psychiatric resident at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan was supposed to make a presentation on a medical topic of his choosing as a culminating exercise of the residency program.

Instead, in late June 2007, he stood before his supervisors and about 25 other mental health staff members and lectured on Islam, suicide bombers and threats the military could encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting in the Muslim countries of Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a copy of the presentation obtained by The Washington Post.

“It’s getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims,” he said in the presentation.

“It was really strange,” said one staff member who attended the presentation and spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the investigation of Hasan. “The senior doctors looked really upset” at the end. These medical presentations occurred each Wednesday afternoon, and other students had lectured on new medications and treatment of specific mental illnesses. [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — Repeat after me: “the struggle against Islam is the central feature of American foreign policy,” said David Brooks as he swung a pendulum before Dana Priest’s sleepy eyes, mesmerizing and helping her settle into the appropriate mindset before she sat down to write this report.

I jest, but truly this is a despicable piece of “reporting”.

Hasan was supposed to make a presentation on a medical topic of his choosing but instead he lectured on Islam, suicide bombers and threats the military could encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting in the Muslim countries of Iraq and Afghanistan.

What kind of audacity and burgeoning violent extremism would lead an American Muslim training as a military psychiatrist to talk about the moral and spiritual anguish that other American Muslim soldiers might face in wars where they would likely end up killing fellow Muslims or destroying their homes?

Surely the only concern of such a doctor must be that he be well-versed in the diagnostic criteria laid out in the DSM-IV — the bible of modern psychiatry — and that he knows how to prescribe drugs appropriately.

A young confused Muslim American soldier comes in for counseling, troubled about the prospect or reality of killing fellow Muslims.

What’s a well-trained psychiatrist going to say?

“Look son, you’re in an all-volunteer army. Next please.”

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Mofaz seeks meeting with senior Hamas officials

Mofaz seeks meeting with senior Hamas officials
By Mazal Mualem, Haaretz, November 10, 2009

Opposition MK Shaul Mofaz is planning to meet with senior Hamas officials, the Channel 10 website reported late Monday.

On Sunday, Mofaz presented his peace plan, which calls for the establishment within a year of a Palestinian state with provisional boundaries on 60 percent of the West Bank. He urged dialogue with Hamas as a means of achieving peace with the Palestinians.

Mofaz portrayed his proposal as a challenge not only to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but also to his own party’s leader, Tzipi Livni.

The plan sparked severe criticism, both from the Palestinians as well as within Israel. In response, Mofaz said Monday that “I will talk to the devil himself if that’s what will bring peace,” Israel Radio reported.

In recent years, Mofaz has vehemently rejected any contact with the Islamist Hamas, who violently seized control over the Gaza Strip in a bloody coup in 2007. In a complete turnaround, Mofaz told Israel Radio Monday that if Hamas is voted to power in the upcoming elections – scheduled for January – he is willing to negotiate with them. [continued…]

Hamas adopting more moderate stance?
By Fawaz A Gerges, CNN, November 4, 2009

Something is stirring within the Hamas body politic, a moderating trend that, if nourished and engaged, could transform Palestinian politics and the Arab-Israeli peace process. There are unmistakable signs that the religiously based radical movement has subtly changed its uncompromising posture on Israel.

For example, in the last few months top Hamas officials have publicly stressed that they want to be part of the solution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, not part of the problem. What is happening inside Hamas’ mosques and social base shows a concerted effort on the part of its leadership to re-educate its rank and file about co-existence with the Jewish state and in so doing mentally prepare them for a permanent settlement in the future.

In Gazan mosques, pro-Hamas clerics have begun to cite the example of Salah al-Din al-Ayubi, a famed Muslim military commander and statesman, who, after liberating Jerusalem from the Western Crusaders, allowed them to retain a coastal state of their own. The moral lesson of the story is that if the famed leader could tolerate the warring, bloodthirsty Crusaders, then today’s Palestinians should be willing to live peacefully with a Jewish state in their midst. [continued…]

Collapse feared for Palestinian Authority if Abbas resigns
By Ethan Bronner, New York Times, November 10, 2009

The possible collapse of the Palestinian Authority, Israel’s negotiating partner, loomed Monday, as several aides to its president, Mahmoud Abbas, said that he intended to resign and forecast that others would follow.

“I think he is realizing that he came all this way with the peace process in order to create a Palestinian state, but he sees no state coming,” Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian peace negotiator, said in an interview. “So he really doesn’t think there is a need to be president or to have an Authority. This is not about who is going to replace him. This is about our leaving our posts. You think anybody will stay after he leaves?”

Mr. Abbas warned last week that he would not participate in Palestinian elections he called for, to take place in January. But he has threatened several times before to resign, and many viewed this latest step as a ploy by a Hamlet-like leader upset over Israeli and American policy. Many also noted that the vote might not actually be held, given the Palestinian political fracture and the unwillingness of Hamas, which controls Gaza, to participate.

In the days since, however, his colleagues have come to believe that he is not bluffing. If that is the case, they say, the Palestinian Authority could be endangered. [continued…]

Vast majority of Gaza children suffer PTSD symptoms
By Aditya Ganapathiraju, Electronic Intifada, November 9, 2009

More than 40 years of Israeli military occupation have had a devastating impact on Palestinians in Gaza. Air strikes, artillery shelling, ground invasions, jet flybys and other acts of violence have all led to an epidemic of suffering among Gaza’s most vulnerable inhabitants. The most recent studies indicate that the vast majority of Gaza’s children exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Soon after the Israeli winter assault, a group of scholars at the University of Washington discussed different aspects of the situation in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Dr. Evan Kanter, a UW School of Medicine professor and the current president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, delivered a somber talk describing the mental health situation among Gaza’s population. The numbers he cited described a staggering level of psychological trauma.

Dr. Kanter described studies that revealed 62 percent of Gaza’s inhabitants reported having a family member injured or killed, 67 percent saw injured or dead strangers and 83 percent had witnessed shootings. [continued…]

Mr Netanyahu, tear down this wall
By Robert Naiman, Huffington Post, November 9, 2009

In the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Western leaders are full of self-congratulation. But their paeans to universal freedom ring hollow, when they bear large responsibility for another wall constricting human freedom: the apartheid wall dividing the Palestinian West Bank.

Israeli authorities refer to it as a “separation barrier,” but that’s misleading. The wall doesn’t separate pre-1967 Israel from the West Bank. If that’s all it did, it would be an entirely different political object. Instead, the wall cuts deep into the Palestinian West Bank, separating Palestinians from each other and from their land, and signaling to the Palestinians that Israel intends to annex territory that Palestinians want for an independent Palestinian state. The fact that Western countries that support the Israeli government – above all the United States – say nothing about the West Bank wall signals to Palestinians that Western support for Palestinian statehood is merely rhetorical.

Today, AFP reports, Palestinians tore down a chunk of the wall near Ramallah. [continued…]

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West Bank rabbi: Jews can kill Gentiles who threaten Israel

West Bank rabbi: Jews can kill Gentiles who threaten Israel
Haaretz, November 9, 2009

Just weeks after the arrest of alleged Jewish terrorist, Yaakov Teitel, a West Bank rabbi on Monday released a book giving Jews permission to kill Gentiles who threaten Israel.

Rabbi Yitzhak Shapiro, who heads the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva in the Yitzhar settlement, wrote in his book “The King’s Torah” that even babies and children can be killed if they pose a threat to the nation.

Shapiro based the majority of his teachings on passages quoted from the Bible, to which he adds his opinions and beliefs. “It is permissable to kill the Righteous among Nations even if they are not responsible for the threatening situation,” he wrote, adding: “If we kill a Gentile who has sinned or has violated one of the seven commandments – because we care about the commandments – there is nothing wrong with the murder.” [continued…]

Israel spy agency tried to recruit alleged killer
AFP, November 7, 2009

A Jewish settler who was arrested for allegedly having murdered two Palestinians was approached by Israel’s internal security agency to be an informer after the attacks, the agency said Friday.

Jack Teitel, a 37-year-old immigrant from the United States, was arrested in October on suspicions of murdering the men in 1997 while visiting Israel as a tourist, the police announced on Sunday. He is also suspected of being behind a string of bomb attacks since 2006.

When Teitel returned to Israel in 2000, three years after the murders, he was questioned by the Shin Bet internal security service and the police over the killings, but no charges were filed. [continued…]

In the garden of bigotry and extremism
By Larry Derfner, Jerusalem Post, November 4, 2009

Another right-wing Orthodox Jewish killer has come out of the woodwork, which means, again, that the right-wing Orthodox Jewish camp’s stock is going up while that of its opposite number, the secular left, is going down.

This is the way it works now: An “ideological” settler goes on a bombing, shooting and stabbing spree against Palestinians, gays, a left-wing professor, a Christian missionary, maybe a couple of policemen and who knows who else. Immediately, the Orthodox Jewish right professes shock and starts praising itself to the skies, condemning the media and the country’s half-dozen or so leftists for incitement, while intimidating everybody else into nodding their heads.

The people in Shvut Rahel, home of confessed murderer Ya’acov Teitel, suspected accomplice Yosef Shpinoza, former Kach activist Avraham Richland and the late Asher Weisgan (who killed four Palestinian laborers in 2005) are absolutely stunned.

How could it happen – here, of all places? Ya’acov was such a nice, unassuming, quiet guy. He was always helping people. Of course we condemn the murders, what a question! And all these “attempts by the Left to take advantage of the situation for incitement against all of the settlers are ugly and pathetic.” [continued…]

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Who is a Jew? Court ruling in Britain raises question

Who is a Jew? Court ruling in Britain raises question
By Sarah Lyall, New York Times, November 8, 2009

The questions before the judges in Courtroom No. 1 of Britain’s Supreme Court were as ancient and as complex as Judaism itself.

Who is a Jew? And who gets to decide?

On the surface, the court was considering a straightforward challenge to the admissions policy of a Jewish high school in London. But the case, in which arguments concluded Oct. 30, has potential repercussions for thousands of other parochial schools across Britain. And in addressing issues at the heart of Jewish identity, it has exposed bitter divisions in Britain’s community of 300,000 or so Jews, pitting members of various Jewish denominations against one another.

“This is potentially the biggest case in the British Jewish community’s modern history,” said Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle newspaper here. “It speaks directly to the right of the state to intervene in how a religion operates.” [continued…]

The double lives of Jewish converts in Israel
By Ed Rettig and Seth Farber, Jerusalem Post, November 7, 2009

Ilana has been living a double life in Israel. Though her first visit was as a Catholic, she ultimately decided to convert to Judaism, and following her conversion in Italy in 2006, she moved to Israel. Incredibly, despite the fact that the (Orthodox) Chief Rabbinate certifies her conversion, the civil organs of the State of Israel continue to deny her basic rights as a citizen.

Scandalously, Ilana lives without medical insurance, is unable to work, and has been waiting for more than two years for her case for citizenship to make it to the Supreme Court. In every other Jewish community in the world, Ilana is Jewish. Not here. This is because the Interior Ministry has taken it upon itself to review conversions that were performed worldwide in terms of its own bureaucratic criteria. [continued…]

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Afghanistan: Time to leave

Afghanistan: Time to leave
By Patrick Cockburn, The Independent, November 8, 2009

Britain should start withdrawing, not reinforcing, its troops in Afghanistan. Sending extra troops is unnecessary and will prove counter-effective. The additional number of British troops is small, but the US is poised to send tens of thousands more soldiers to the country. The nature of the conflict is changing. What should be a war in which the Afghan government
fights the Taliban has become one which is being fought primarily by the American and British armies. To more and more Afghans, this looks like imperial occupation.

With regard to disputes in Washington and London about sending more troops, it is seldom mentioned that Afghans are against the deployment. Contrary to Western plans, just 18 per cent of Afghans want more US and Nato/Isaf forces in Afghanistan, according to an opinion poll carried out earlier this year by the BBC, ABC News and ARD of Germany. A much greater number of Afghans – 44 per cent – want a decrease in foreign forces.

It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the Taliban have been able to win some support. The cruelty of their rule before 2001 is becoming a distant memory and they are successfully portraying themselves as the defender of the country against foreign occupation. Matthew P Hoh, the senior American civilian representative in Zabul Province east of Kandahar, resigned last week convinced that the US military should not be in Afghanistan. As a former US marine officer who served in Iraq, he says in his resignation letter that the US has joined in on one side in a 35-year-old civil war between the traditional Pashtun community and its enemies. “The US military presence in Afghanistan greatly contributes to the legitimacy and strategic message of the Pashtun insurgency,” he says. “Our backing of the Afghan government in its current form continues to distance the government from the people.” [continued…]

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Defying supreme leader, reformist Khatami continues to question election

Defying supreme leader, reformist Khatami continues to question election
By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, November 7, 2009

Iran’s moderate former President Mohammad Khatami continued to question the results of the June 12 presidential election, defying the nation’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said flatly last week that publicly voicing such doubts was illegal.

“We should not decide for people,” Khatami said in an a lengthy interview (in Persian) published today by Jamaran, a news website operated by the family of the Islamic Republic’s revolutionary founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

“Nor should we restrict our people’s choice and vote,” he said. “Those who do not believe in the people’s vote and even allow themselves to tamper with their votes or ignore them are unfamiliar with the Islamic Republic and revolution.” [continued…]

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Iraq passes crucial election law

Iraq passes crucial election law
By Timothy Williams and Sa’ad Izzi, New York Times, November 9, 2009

After weeks of political stalemate, Iraq approved a law on Sunday to administer a critical national election in January, a significant milestone for its fragile democracy and a step that will allow the rapid withdrawal of American combat forces early next year.

The election, only the second national vote since the fall of Saddam Hussein, will be a crucial step toward popular sovereignty and stability in Iraq. But the election law had been stymied by a political battle over the northern province of Kirkuk, claimed by Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens, each of whom hoped electoral power would give them control of the region’s oil wealth.

The compromise reached Sunday, which satisfied all three groups, was hailed by Iraqi and American leaders as a triumph for Iraq’s emerging democracy and a demonstration of Parliament’s ability to resolve sticky sectarian disputes for the national benefit. [continued…]

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Obama hosts Netanyahu

Obama hosts Netanyahu
By Charles Levinson and Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal, November 9, 2009

The prime minister’s visit comes as fears grow inside the Obama administration that its aggressive plans for promoting Mideast peace could be unraveling. Mr. Netanyahu hasn’t agreed to a complete freeze of settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem as a precursor to talks, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced last week that he wouldn’t seek re-election in protest over the U.S. failure to deliver such a commitment.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton fueled outrage in the Arab world when she visited Mr. Netanyahu just over a week ago in Jerusalem and praised the Israeli leader for his agreement to a partial freeze, rather than pushing him publicly for more.

Mrs. Clinton’s comments drew criticism in Arab capitals that Washington was tilting toward the Jewish state. U.S. officials briefed on the secretary’s visit said there also were tensions between Mrs. Clinton and her Israeli counterparts over the Israelis’ hard line. Mrs. Clinton, who is traveling in Germany, won’t be part of the White House meeting.

The brinksmanship over a one-on-one meeting between the two leaders represents a rare display of pique by the White House toward Israel. Mr. Netanyahu had long been scheduled to visit Washington to speak at the assembly of Jewish groups. While he had no confirmed plans to meet Mr. Obama, it would be rare, but not unprecedented, for an Israeli prime minister to visit Washington without meeting the U.S. president. [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — A few days ago, the Yedioth Ahronoth columnist Nahum Barnea wrote: “For days the White House has refused to set a date for a meeting. It was embarrassing and humiliating. Netanyahu was angry. Not mildly angry. He was incensed.”

Thank God President Obama has come to his senses and is ready to do whatever it takes to please America’s most important ally.

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Admiral Mullen: Nuclear Iran is existential threat to Israel

Admiral Mullen: Nuclear Iran is existential threat to Israel
By Amir Oren, Haaretz, November 8, 2009

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, said last week in Washington that a nuclear Iran would pose an existential threat to Israel.

Mullen said he would prefer that the U.S. work diplomatically to keep the country from acquiring nuclear weapons, but hinted that should such efforts fail, the U.S. air force and navy could be put into action as well.

Ahead of Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s visit to the Pentagon this week, Israeli military sources said they were satisfied with the progress in talks with their American counterparts over acquiring F-35 fighter jets. Israel will pay $135 million per jet if it buys 25, and $100 million if it buys 75.

Meanwhile, Washington has retracted its opposition to installing Israeli-made systems on the jets. However, a disagreement over Israel’s request for complete access to the planes’ computer systems is yet to be resolved.

At a conference at the National Press Club, Mullen said he has spent a significant amount of time with his Israeli counterpart, IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, and that “it’s very clear to me that a nuclear weapon in Iran is an existential threat to Israel,” according to a transcript released by his office. [continued…]

Iran said to ignore effort to salvage nuclear deal
By David E Sanger, New York Times, November 9, 2009

…members of the Obama administration, in interviews over the weekend, said that they had now all but lost hope that Iran would follow through with an agreement reached in Geneva on Oct. 1 to send its fuel out of the country temporarily — buying some time for negotiations over its nuclear program.

“If you listen to what the Iranians have said publicly and privately over the past week,” one senior administration official said Sunday, “it’s evident that they simply cannot bring themselves to do the deal.” The administration officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were speaking about delicate diplomatic exchanges.

Iranian officials told the energy agency on Oct. 29 that they could not agree to the deal that their own negotiators had reached, but they never explained why. Iran has never publicly rejected the deal, but its official reaction has been ambiguous at best.

Dr. ElBaradei insisted he still had hope, but he conceded that the chances were receding.

“I have been saying to the Iranian leadership, privately and publicly, ‘Make use of that opportunity. Reciprocate,’ ” Dr. ElBaradei said last week. But he said that it now appeared that “the foreign policy apparatus in Iran has frozen,” partly because of the country’s own domestic turmoil.

So far, President Obama has said nothing about the stalemate threatening his first, and potentially most important, effort at diplomatic engagement with a hostile foreign government. When the first meeting in Geneva ended Oct. 1, Iranian and American officials said they would meet again later in the month to discuss the nuclear program and the potential for a broader relationship. That meeting never occurred, and none is scheduled. [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — It’s hard to push the narrative that Israel faces an existential threat and that it provides a safe haven for Jews. The “existential threat” argument would simply seem to reinforce what has for decades seemed to be objectively true: America and Europe and much of the rest of the world provide a much safer haven for Jews than does Israel.

In light of this we are likely to hear another argument presented with increasing force: that Israel’s necessity rests in its providing the only base in the world for a Jewish army.

Israel’s ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, in an address to the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America on Sunday noted that the creation of Israel provided the opportunity for the creation of “the first Jewish defense force in 2,000 years” as, in the wake of the Goldstone report, the issue of Israel’s right to exist in now being made subordinate to its right to defend itself.

Haaretz reported:

[Oren] said Israel was now facing questions about its legitimacy, not only from its traditional enemies but also from young people in the U.S., both Jews and non-Jews.

He told the conference that Israel’s ability to withstand the “onslaught of delegitimization” depends on the unity of the Jewish people, not just in Israel, but in communities all over the world.

“Our strength derives from the belief that we have a right to independence in our tribal land, the land of Israel, and that Jews have a right to defend themselves, there and everywhere. That Jews have a right to survive as Jews and as a legitimate nation.”

He seems to be claiming that the ability of Jews to survive anywhere hinges on the ability of Israel to defend itself.

If a Qassam rocket gets fired at Sderot, subtly — perhaps almost imperceptibly — it gets a little more dangerous to be living in Brooklyn.

Really?

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