The pro-Israel lobby may be headed toward obsolescence

The pro-Israel lobby may be headed toward obsolescence
By Michelle Goldberg, The American Prosepct, August , 2009

Given how influential the lobby is, it’s easy to forget that the airtight relationship between Israel and the United States, and between Zionism and American Jews, is a relatively recent phenomenon. Support for Israel, financial and political, is a crucial component of mainstream American Judaism. But that wasn’t always the case.

American Jewish donations to Israel actually fell throughout much of the 1960s. In 1961, when Commentary published a symposium of Jewish intellectuals contemplating Jewish identity, Israel often seemed like an afterthought, and many respondents professed a skepticism of Zionism that would be anathema to the magazine today. “The support of Israel by American Jews should … not be sentimental and uncritical support, but should be given only in a way that exerts a more liberal, internationalist, and humanitarian influence on Israeli politics,” wrote one New York University philosophy professor. “I believe Israel can effectively represent the historic mission of the Jewish people only when it sacrifices its national interests for the sake of world peace and social justice.” [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — Goldberg notes the growing divide between American Jews who, as Jeremy Ben-Ami, the executive director of J-Street, puts it have an “emotional understanding that there’s always got to be some place for the Jews to go” and those American Jews who purportedly lack such an “understanding”.

The article concludes in this way:

Ben-Ami, who loves Israel even if he abhors many of its policies, mourns this growing estrangement, and fears that liberal young people might drift away from the Jewish community altogether. “One of the motivations of J-Street is a deep worry not only about Israel but really about the American Jewish community and the extent to which the Israel issue becomes a reason why younger American Jews disconnect from the community,” he says. “The very same young Jews who don’t have that gut understanding that my grandparents may have had about why there’s a need for an Israel, they also can’t relate to values they’re being brought up with — either the way the situation is playing out on the ground in Israel or advancing within the Jewish community.”

Meanwhile, Orthodox Jews have grown progressively more hawkish on Israel over the years. Thus it’s possible that, should other Jews fall away, they could come to dominate the major American Jewish organizations — resulting in an even greater rift between the values most Jews hold and policies espoused by those who purport to speak for them. “I don’t know that there’s a clear generational happy ending to this story,” Ben-Ami says.

In 1948, the year of Israel’s birth, Hannah Arendt warned that a continuing conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine would result in a fundamental rift with the Diaspora. Under the pressure of constant conflict, Palestinian Jews would degenerate into a Spartan “warrior tribe,” she wrote. “Their relations with world Jewry would become problematical, since their defense interests might clash at any moment with those of other countries where large numbers of Jews lived. Palestinian Jewry would eventually separate itself from the larger body of world Jewry and in its isolation develop into an entirely new people.” This dire prediction hasn’t quite come true yet. But Jews in the United States and those in Israel are evolving in a wholly different direction, and Arendt’s analysis seems more relevant every day.

I hear the angst in a community that fears division, but if I was Jewish and not a Zionist, I would find it patronizing to be told that my lack of support for Israel was a result of my lack of understanding about why there’s “a need” for Israel.

Maybe I don’t understand the nature of this “need” but if it’s the need for a place to which Jews can flee in the event of a dangerous rise in global anti-Semitism, the image of Israel as safe haven seems utterly fanciful.

If on the other hand, the need for Israel is based on the need for the protection of Jewish heritage in a Jewish homeland, then the emerging divide among Jews appears to quite simply be a divide between Zionists and non-Zionists. This division is being obscured, however, by what I will dub the faux Zionists.

Faux Zionists have a passionate believe in the Jewish people’s need for Israel while demonstrating through their own choices that they feel no personal need to live there. Faux Zionists defend Israel in principle yet have turned away from it in practice and within that contradiction lies one of the most potent fuels for their passion.

But hey, I’m not a Jew, so what do I know?

Is the pro-Israel lobby panicking?
By Rami G Khouri, Daily Star, August 8, 2009

Is the Israeli lobby in the United States in panic mode? The Obama administration hit the ground running when it took office in January, quickly appointing George Mitchell as a special envoy to Arab-Israeli peacemaking, and making it clear that President Barack Obama himself would devote time and energy to the goal of a comprehensive peace.

Not surprisingly, an American-Israeli disagreement on Israel’s settlements in occupied Arab lands materialized quickly, and may well expand into a full blown showdown. The US says it is making equal demands of Arabs and Israelis, while Israel and its zealot-like allies and proxies in the US argue that Washington is putting undue pressure on Israel alone.

The unknown wild card in this is the pro-Israel lobby in the US, a combination of American formal organizations and individual politicians who argue Israel’s case so strongly that they are often seen as putting Israeli interests ahead of their own American interests. It remains unclear how the pro-Israel lobby will kick into action to shield Israel from the increasingly vocal demands in the US that Jewish settlements and the Zionist colonization enterprise in occupied Arab lands must stop in order to allow a peace negotiation to start. Continue reading →

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In the beloved Old Country, a Jew has visions of her homeland

In the beloved Old Country, a Jew has visions of her homeland
By Lizzy Ratner, Mondoweiss, August 8, 2009

Jews have a long history in the sprawling eastern European basin that is and has been Poland. Some say this history stretches back over 1000 years, and almost all agree that there have been bona fide Jewish settlements in Polish lands since at least the 11th Century. These Jews seem to have come, at least initially, from the wilds of Western Europe, driven by the rabid Jesus-freakery of the crusaders into the relatively tolerant arms of the emerging Polish kingdom (and the word “relative” really does need to be emphasized). It was hardly a picnic, but Poland’s comparative merits meant that Jews kept coming for decades and then centuries. By the mid-16th Century, as much as 75 percent of the world’s Jews on Polish soil, and by the eve of the Holocaust, Poland was home to the largest Jewish population in Europe. My own grandfather’s shtetl-town was a solid 70 percent Jewish in 1939; my grandmother’s town, Warsaw, was one-third Jewish. And as of 1998, it was estimated that more than three out of four American Jews could trace at least once grandparent to pre-Nazi Poland.

As one of these three-out-of-four American Jews, I can attest to the enduring power of my Old Country roots. My childhood was Roman Vishniac photographs and The Fools of Chelm (along, oddly, with unhealthy doses of WASPy Victorianism courtesy of my all-girl private school). It was Yiddish-accented great-aunts and uncles who’d never managed to slough their Bialystoker ticks. It was an ethos of always needing to prepare for the worst – for famine, plague, or pogroms – despite obvious security and plenty. And it was stories, lots and lots of stories, of my grandpa Harry, né Osher, a small man who barely reached 5’ 4”,who had little more than an eighth grade education but amply made up for it with sechel and chutzpa, who was generous to a fault, and who believed, profoundly, that the fate suffered by Europe’s Jews meant that you did everything possible to prevent other people from suffering the same thing.

Or, put differently, if I have any cultural proclivities at all other than those of the deracinated modern-day American, they clearly belong to the Yiddishe world of Jewish Poland – not the aggressive, militarized one of modern Israel. [continued…]

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Taliban now winning

Taliban now winning
By Yochi J Dreazen and Peter Spiegel, Wall Street Journal, August 10, 2009

The Taliban have gained the upper hand in Afghanistan, the top American commander there said, forcing the U.S. to change its strategy in the eight-year-old conflict by increasing the number of troops in heavily populated areas like the volatile southern city of Kandahar, the insurgency’s spiritual home.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal warned that means U.S. casualties, already running at record levels, will remain high for months to come.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the commander offered a preview of the strategic assessment he is to deliver to Washington later this month, saying the troop shifts are designed to better protect Afghan civilians from rising levels of Taliban violence and intimidation. The coming redeployments are the clearest manifestation to date of Gen. McChrystal’s strategy for Afghanistan, which puts a premium on safeguarding the Afghan population rather than hunting down militants. [continued…]

U.S. to hunt down Afghan drug lords tied to Taliban
By James Risen, New York Times, August 10, 2009

Fifty Afghans believed to be drug traffickers with ties to the Taliban have been placed on a Pentagon target list to be captured or killed, reflecting a major shift in American counternarcotics strategy in Afghanistan, according to a Congressional study to be released this week.

United States military commanders have told Congress that they are convinced that the policy is legal under the military’s rules of engagement and international law. They also said the move is an essential part of their new plan to disrupt the flow of drug money that is helping finance the Taliban insurgency.

In interviews with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which is releasing the report, two American generals serving in Afghanistan said that major traffickers with proven links to the insurgency have been put on the “joint integrated prioritized target list.” That means they have been given the same target status as insurgent leaders, and can be captured or killed at any time. [continued…]

Claims differ on Pakistani Taliban struggle
By Sabrina Tavernise and Pir Zubair Shah, New York Times, August 10, 2009

Contested claims continued Sunday over a reported falling out among factions struggling for control of the Pakistani Taliban, a day after Pakistani officials said they had news that the No. 2 figure in the militant group had been shot to death.

Pakistani officials said Saturday that Hakimullah Mehsud, a young and aggressive commander, had been shot dead in a fight with another leader, Waliur Rehman, during a meeting in a remote area of South Waziristan. The officials said the men were fighting over who would take over the Pakistani Taliban after the apparent death of the group’s supreme leader, Baitullah Mehsud, in an American drone airstrike on Wednesday.

But on Sunday, Reuters reported that in a phone call, Mr. Rehman denied that any special meeting or fight had occurred, and insisted that Hakimullah Mehsud was still alive. [continued…]

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Kurdish faultline threatens to spark new war

Kurdish faultline threatens to spark new war
By Patrick Cockburn, The Independent, August 10, 2009

It is called the “trigger line”, a 300-mile long swathe of disputed territory in northern Iraq where Arab and Kurdish soldiers confront each other, and which risks turning into a battlefield. As the world has focused on the US troop withdrawal from Iraq, and the intensifying war in Afghanistan, Arabs and Kurds in Iraq have been getting closer to an all out war over control of the oil-rich lands stretching from the borders of Syria in the west to Iran in the east.

The risk of armed conflict is acute because the zone in dispute is a mosaic of well-armed communities backed by regular forces. Kurdish and Arab soldiers here watch each other’s movements with deepest suspicion in case the other side might attempt to establish new facts on the ground. It is to avert a new armed conflict breaking out between the powerful military forces on both sides that Iraq’s Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, travelled to Kurdistan for crisis talks last week with Kurdish leaders, Iraq’s (Kurdish) President, Jalal Talabani, and the President of the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Massoud Barzani. Mr Maliki and Mr Barzani had not met for a year during which their exchanges have been barbed and aggressive. [continued…]

Bombs targeting Shiites in Iraq kill at least 48
By Hamid Ahmed, AP, August 10, 2009

A double truck bombing tore through the village of a small Shiite ethnic minority near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, while nine blasts wracked Baghdad in a wave of violence Monday that killed at least 48 people and wounded more than 250, Iraqi officials said.

The attacks provided a grim example of U.S. military warnings that insurgents are targeting Shiites in an effort to re-ignite the kind of sectarian violence that nearly tore the country apart in 2006 and 2007.

The U.S. military has stressed that despite the rise in attacks, the Shiites are showing restraint and not retaliating as they did more than two years ago when a similar series of attacks and bombings provoked a Shiite backlash that degenerated into a sectarian slaughter claiming tens of thousands of lives. [continued…]

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Warehousing soldiers in the homeland

Warehousing soldiers in the homeland
By Dahr Jamail and Sarah Lazare, TomDispatch, August 9, 2009

Echo Platoon is part of the 82nd Replacement Detachment of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Soldiers in the platoon are relegated to living quarters in a set of dimly lit concrete rooms. Pipes peep out of missing ceiling tiles and a musty smell permeates beds placed on cracked linoleum floors.

For soldiers who have gone AWOL (Absent Without Leave) and then voluntarily turned themselves in or were forcibly returned, the detention conditions here in Echo Platoon only serve to reinforce the inescapability of their situation. They remain suspended in a legal limbo of forced uncertainty that can extend from several months to a year or more, while the military takes its time deciding their fate. Some of them, however, are offered a free pass out of this military half-life — but only if they agree to deploy to Afghanistan or Iraq.

Specialist Kevin McCormick, 21, who was held in Echo Platoon for more than seven months on AWOL and desertion charges, was typically offered release, subject to accepting deployment to Iraq, despite being suicidal. “Echo is like jail,” he says, “with some privileges. [You are] just stuck there with horrible living conditions. There’s black mold on the building [and] when I first got there, there were five or six people to a room, which is like a cell block with cement brick walls. The piping and electricals are above the tiles, so if anything leaks or bursts, it goes right down into the room. ” [continued…]

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Time to stop meddling in Somalia

Time to stop meddling in Somalia
By Natalie Parke, World Politics Review, August , 2009

Recently, U.S. policy in Somalia hit a new low, with the shipment of 40 tons of arms to a government on the verge of overthrow, if not nervous collapse. Worse still, last Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with the president of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG), Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, and promised to expand U.S. support. This perpetuates a long history of unsuccessful meddling in the affairs of Somalia, from Black Hawk Down to air strikes against al-Qaida suspects to support for the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in 2006. Somalia would be better off without our spasmodic interference.

That’s not to say the U.S. doesn’t have national interests at stake in the country and region. A humanitarian crisis demanded our attention in the early 1990s, a crisis that still persists. In addition, there are now al-Qaida connections in Somalia to worry about, as well as piracy in the Gulf of Aden. We’ve acknowledged that instability and anarchy in Somalia lie at the root of all of these issues. Yet we find ourselves in policy paralysis as the situation in the country exceeds even the worst-case scenarios.

The best we’ve come up with is to resolutely support Somalia’s internationally backed TFG, which has virtually no governance capacity. Clinton claims that this specter of a government is “the best hope we’ve had in quite some time for a return to stability and the possibility of progress in Somalia” — a tall order, given the state of things. Forty-three hundred African Union peacekeepers have the unenviable task of providing little more than guard duty for the TFG and the buildings that house it. Increasingly, the TFG is coming up short in its fight against al-Shabaab, the leading rebel movement that controls parts of Mogadishu and most of south and central Somalia. [continued…]

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The Pentagon’s nuclear posture landmine

The Pentagon’s nuclear posture landmine
By Joe Cirincione, Huffington Post, August 10, 2009

Defense officials are writing a new U.S. nuclear policy that could blow up President Obama’s declared agenda. The White House must reassert its control.

The Nuclear Posture Review, or NPR, will be issued at the end of the year, but Obama’s defense officials are briefing others in the administration this week, hoping to lock in their policies before the end of the month.

Why should you care? Joan Rohlfing, vice-president of the Nuclear Threat Initiative headed by Sam Nunn and Ted Turner, explained in a speech before the Arms Control Association May 20: [continued…]

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The Iranian revolution is eating its children

In Iran, a hostage-taker is now hostage
By Robin Wright, Washington Post, August 9, 2009

Last week Iran’s theocracy widened its crackdown from suppressing an opposition movement to putting on trial the very revolutionaries who launched the Islamic republic. This new purge may be more profound politically than the campaign against the followers of Mir Hossein Mousavi: The Iranian revolution is eating its children.

Mohsen Mirdamadi saw it all coming. He warned me about it five years ago. The only thing he didn’t foresee was his own role. Last week, he sat in a revolutionary court, dressed in gray prison pajamas, as one of its victims.

I’ve followed Mirdamadi since the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover. In 1981, I stood below the plane that brought 52 American diplomats to freedom in Algeria and wondered about the type of people who seized, interrogated and brutalized hostages for 444 days. Mirdamadi was one of three ringleaders. Former hostage John Limbert remembers him as “particularly nasty.” I met him a decade ago.

Like many early revolutionaries, Mirdamadi had evolved over the intervening two decades from a scruffy student radical into a balding, pinstripe-suited realist. In 2000, he ran for parliament as a reformer. [continued…]

Trial of protesters seems only to hurt Iran, analysts say
By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, August 9, 2009

he alleged French spy stood at the lectern Saturday in Tehran and described her dastardly act of collusion.

Clotilde Reiss, a pale, soft-spoken 24-year-old who had been teaching French in the central Iranian city of Esfahan when she was arrested, confessed to sending a single e-mail to a colleague in the capital.

In it, she described the unrest unfolding in Esfahan after taking part in a couple of peaceful protests against the disputed reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. [continued…]

Iranian official acknowledges torture of some protesters
By Robert F Worth and Nazila Fathi, New York Times, August 9, 2009

A top judiciary official acknowledged Saturday that some detainees arrested after post-election protests had been tortured in Iranian prisons, the first such acknowledgment by a senior Iranian official.[…]

Speaking to reporters at a news conference, Qorbanali Dori-Najafabadi, the prosecutor general, said “mistakes” had led to a few “painful accidents which cannot be defended, and those who were involved should be punished.”

Such mistakes, he said, included “the Kahrizak incident,” a reference to the deaths of several detainees at Kahrizak detention center in southwestern Tehran. [continued…]

With Iran blaming West, dual citizens are targets
By Tara Bahrampour, Washington Post, August 9, 2009

Among the more than 100 people on trial after Iran’s disputed presidential election are two dual citizens: Kian Tajbakhsh, 47, an American Iranian urban planner, and Maziar Bahari, 42, a Canadian Iranian filmmaker and Newsweek reporter.[…]

Their arrests follow a pattern during Ahmadinejad’s tenure of high-profile detentions of dual citizens. Since he took office in 2005, at least seven have been detained, including Woodrow Wilson Center scholar Haleh Esfandiari in 2007 and freelance journalist Roxana Saberi, who was convicted of espionage this year and later pardoned.

Tajbakhsh, who has lived in Iran since 1999 and has done some projects for its government, was held for four months in 2007, during which authorities accused him of trying to foment a “color” revolution. He stayed in Iran afterward and had plans to teach at Columbia University this fall.

Friends said he had purposely avoided the election-related turmoil, even abstaining from voting. “He felt confident there was no rationale for him to be imprisoned,” Sadjadpour said. Two days after the vote, Tajbakhsh wrote to him in an e-mail: “I’m keeping my head down. I have nothing journalistic to add to all the reports that are here.”

Bahari had been filing reports for Newsweek and for television stations in Britain; the Iranian government has accused him of sending reports to foreign news media in exchange for payment, said Nisid Hajari, Newsweek’s foreign editor.

“That’s exactly what he’s been doing for more than 10 years,” Hajari said, adding that the Iranian government had renewed Bahari’s press accreditation each year and had not complained about his work. “What they’ve accused him of doing is a job that they themselves had licensed and approved him to do.” [continued…]

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So time is ticking away on Iran? Let’s stop the clock

So time is ticking away on Iran? Let’s stop the clock
By Tony Karon, The National, August 9, 2009

The clock is ticking on Iran, or so we’re told. But whose clock, and what exactly is it timing? Obama administration officials say Iran has until September to respond to the US offer to negotiate over its nuclear programme or face what the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, calls “crippling sanctions”. But what exactly is being demanded of Iran, and what is being offered? And what if those sanctions don’t change its stance?

Iran insists that its programme is entirely for peaceful energy production, and that it is not pursuing nuclear weapons. But – and this is perhaps the crucial point in the conversation – it very much insists that as a signatory of the Non Proliferation Treaty, it does, in fact, have the right to enrich uranium, and has no intention of surrendering that right. That, moreover, is not only the position of the hardline Ahmadinejad government, but also of its pragmatic and reformist rivals who continue to challenge the legitimacy of the president’s reelection.

The US and its allies believe Iran is using the cover of a civilian nuclear energy programme to put in place many of the key elements of a bomb, particularly the ability to enrich uranium. The Non Proliferation Treaty allows its signatories (including Iran) to enrich uranium as reactor fuel, under monitoring by the International Atomic Energy to ensure that it is not enriched to weapons grade. According to the US Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, the US intelligence community believes Iran won’t have the technical capacity to produce weapons-grade material until 2013; that its leaders have not taken a political decision to create a bomb; and that they won’t do so as long as their programme remains under international scrutiny. [continued…]

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Jewish Fatah delegate nominated to Revolutionary Council

Jewish Fatah delegate nominated to Revolutionary Council
Ma’an, August 9, 2009

A Jewish member of Fatah was nominated for a spot on the movement’s Revolutionary Council on Saturday.

Vowing to step up lobbying efforts worldwide if elected, Dr Uri Davis told Ma’an one of Fatah’s weakest attributes has been its failure to establish ties with international parties, movements and human rights organizations.

In an interview, Davis played down the significance of his nomination to the Revolutionary Council, Fatah’s 120-member governing body. Each member of the movement has the right to run for office despite one’s religion, race or color, the Fatah delegate noted. [continued…]

Dahlan, Qureia vie to succeed Abbas as Fatah chief
By Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz, August 9, 2009

Elections for Fatah’s main governing bodies, the Central Committee and the Revolutionary Council, were expected to take place on Sunday, with two party strongmen, Mohammed Dahlan and Ahmed Qureia leading the nominee list for leadership posts.

On Saturday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was re-elected to chair the Central Committee at the party’s first convention in two decades, held in the West Bank city of Bethlehem since last Tuesday.

Sunday’s election was to name the 18 members of the Central Committee, who will be joined by four members to be named by the committee itself. In addition, elections for the 120-member Fatah Revolutionary Council were also scheduled for Sunday.

Qureia was the first Palestinian Prime Minister, and is currently heading the peace negotiations team for the Palestinian Authority. Dahlan, the former head of the Palestinian Authority Preventative Security Forces in Gaza, left the Strip in 2007 shortly before rival party Hamas violently seized control over Gaza.

The two have waged a tough political battle, as both are considered candidates to succeed Abbas. The two haven’t expressly announced any plans to succeed the Palestinian president, but they are considered to be the two strongest Fatah members after Abbas. Assuming that Marwan Barghouti, also considered a strong candidate to head the Palestinian Authority, remains in Israeli jail, one of the two will likely be named president once Abbas steps down for whatever reason.

On Saturday, Fatah adopted a position paper stating that the Palestinian national enterprise will not reach fruition until all of Jerusalem, including the outlying villages, come under Palestinian sovereignty.

Also Saturday, the Palestinian news agency Ma’an reported that for the first time, a Jewish candidate had been nominated for a post on the Revolutionary Council. According to Ma’an, Jerusalem-born Dr. Uri Davis explained that every Fatah member can run for a post on the party’s 120-member Revolutionary Council regardless of religion, race or color.

“Breaking the Silence” or silencing the critics?
By Louis Frankenthaler, Electronic Intifada, August 7, 2009

“Breaking the Silence” is a member of the Israeli human rights, peace and social justice community. The group’s only crime, so it seems, lies in its effort to offer an alternative ethical voice in a society that is arguably losing its way. Breaking the Silence provides a platform for soldiers to testify to acts of violence and other violations of Palestinian rights that they may have witnessed or taken part in during their service in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The group’s most recent report details soldier testimonies that raised serious concerns about Israeli military behavior during the war on Gaza, “Operation Cast Lead.” The publication is unique but it is only one example of many public statements, reports and legal advocacy in response to the prosecution of the war, which Israel consistently maintains was both moral and legal. Why then is the Israeli government waging a battle against this organization, trying to thwart its funding and, essentially, to shut it down?

The answer, perhaps, lies in the genealogy of the occupation. For 42 years Israel has argued its one acceptable and official truth: “Israel is not an occupier and it is not violating international law.” The problem is that this narrative has been accepted only by Israel, tolerated by the United States, and perpetuated by a broad spectrum of Israel’s “supporters,” largely in North America and Western Europe. In the aftermath of the war the Netanyahu government feels threatened by US President Barack Obama’s demands to halt one of Israel’s most visible violations of international law, settlement building. Part of the Israeli reaction is to try to manipulate discourse and impugn those who have exposed Israeli infractions over the years, choosing to begin with an organization that provides the public with direct insight into the behavior of soldiers. Ironically in its actions the government actually corroborates the group’s work and that of other organizations who report and represent the voices of the Palestinian abject Other, the torture victims, those evicted from their homes, denied access to their fields and those beaten by settlers with impunity. [continued…]

Freezing for failure
By Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz, August 9, 2009

It should be said from the onset: Do not freeze settlement construction, do not stop it in part or periodically, not for six months, not for a single day. As long as the U.S. administration does not present a comprehensive plan that explains its endgame – what the end will look like and what the shape and character of the Palestinian state will look like – the demand for a cessation of construction is pointless. It is a pathetic return to the doctrine of “confidence-building measures,” which led nowhere. The demand to freeze settlement construction is like the demand to remove roadblocks or cease razing homes; all these demands and similar ones mean only one thing: making the continuation of the occupation a little more pleasant.

The demand for a cessation of settlement construction will have no impact on the political process as long as they are not telling the Israeli and Palestinian public what will happen with the half-million Israelis who already live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. How many of them will have to be evacuated? How much money will this cost and who will pay for it? Evacuating 7,000 Jews from the Gaza Strip cost more than NIS 10 billion.

Even if only 100,000 Jews are evacuated from the West Bank the move will cost, on the basis of this estimate, some NIS 150 billion – about 50 percent of the national budget for an entire year. It is true that it amounts to “only” about 8 percent of the cost of the American war in Iraq to date, and maybe for the sake of peace in the Middle East the U.S. administration would be willing to invest another 8 percent in the area, but someone in Washington must articulate this clearly. That would be much more convincing than halting the work of a crane.

American pressure yielded an impressive achievement when they twisted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s arm and got him to say that he wants “two states for two peoples.” But what comes next? Are Netanyahu’s two states the same two as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ and the same two as Washington’s? Where will the border be demarcated? After all, if it is agreed that the end of the process will leave the settlement blocs in Israel’s hands, and if indeed the Palestinians accept this in return for an exchange of territory, why is it necessary to cease construction in those blocs?

Logic dictates that construction should continue in the blocs and if possible at a faster pace, so that it will be possible to absorb those evacuated from other settlements. But when there is no plan or agreement on the border, not to mention that negotiations are not even taking place, the demand for ceasing construction appears to be some sort of independent aim – isolated from its political context and whose sole intention is to display America’s ability to impose “something” on Israel. Meanwhile, the removal of illegal outposts is not something Washington has proved it is able to impose on Israel, despite Israel’s promises to the Americans and despite all the brouhaha caused by Defense Minister Ehud Barak on the matter last month.

The attempt to understand the American move as an action from the periphery inward – a tactical move meant to lead to further moves, one slice at a time – is leading toward a dead end and might even be dangerous as well. Assuming Israel freezes construction and negotiations resume, and that (although there is no evidence to support it) some Arab states agree to grant Israel grace in the form of normalization, the desired result is that such confidence-building measures will encourage the government to convince the Israeli public to support the process and agree to a withdrawal. But it is not the public that needs to be encouraged; it is the right-wing government for whom the remnants of the Labor Party are serving as apologists. What is worse is that this government may agree to a gradual and temporary cessation of settlement construction, and at the same time will make every effort to prove that there is no worthwhile partner for this “sacrifice” on the other side. At the end of the settlement construction freeze, the government will be able to celebrate the failure of the negotiations and prove to the Americans that the pressure had been put on the wrong side. The chance of restarting the process from there will then be nil.

An honest government would not have to rely on the Arab safety belt in order to shake off the process. It would have taken advantage of the long period of calm in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the efficiency the Palestinian security forces have exhibited in the West Bank in combating terrorism, and the willingness of Abbas to negotiate seriously in order to tell the public that the quota of confidence-building measures has been fulfilled and the time has come for withdrawing and reaching an agreement. But this is not the sort of government that is running Israel. Washington knows this, as every Israeli citizen does. Hence the need for a comprehensive plan that will be managed with precision and determination. Freezing the settlements is not a plan and is not a prescription.

Lieberman summons envoy in U.S. over leaked rebuke of government
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz, August 9, 2009

The Foreign Ministry on Saturday summoned for consultation a senior Israeli diplomat who in a confidential memo criticized the government for harming ties with the U.S. last week.

A ministry statement said that Israel’s consul-general in Boston, Nadav Tamir, would arrive in Jerusalem next week to give a clarification to the ministry’s director-general.

The memo, which was addressed to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, stressed that the public spat with the U.S. over the issue of a settlements freeze has alienated a significant number of American Jewish supporters.

Tamir, a veteran well respected diplomat, wrote the memo under the heading “melancholy thoughts on Israel-U.S. relations.”

Tamir’s missive is considered unusual given the blunt, pointed nature of the criticism against the premier’s policies.

“The manner in which we are conducting relations with the American administration is causing strategic damage to Israel,” Tamir wrote. “The distance between us and the U.S. administration has clear consequences for Israeli deterrence.”

“There are American and Israeli political elements who oppose [U.S. President Barack] Obama on an ideological basis and who are ready to sacrifice the special relationship between the two countries for the sake of their own political agendas,” the consul general in Boston wrote.

“There has always been a discrepancy in the approaches of both states [on the issue of settlements], but there was always a level of coordination between the governments,” Tamir wrote. “Nowadays, there is a sense in the United States that Obama is forced to deal with the obduracy of the governments in Iran, North Korea, and Israel.”

“The administration is making an effort to lower the profile of the disagreements, and yet it is [Israel] that is the source which is highlighting the differences,” Tamir wrote.

Tamir accused Netanyahu of endangering American Jewish backing for Israel by publicly sparring with the Obama administration over construction of Jewish housing in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

A spokesperson for Netanyahu issued a statement to Channel 10 which accused Tamir of violating protocol by expressing “political views” against the premier.

Tamir refused a Haaretz request for comment. The Israeli consulate in Boston said the memorandum is an internal Foreign Ministry document that was not for the media’s consumption.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told the Associated Press late Thursday, “We don’t comment on leaked reports.”

In a bid to jumpstart the moribund Middle East peace process, the Obama administration has repeated its demand that Israel cease construction in West Bank settlements. The policy is a sharp departure from the tone and substance of Israel-U.S. relations during the presidency of George W. Bush.

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Criminal investigation into CIA treatment of detainees expected

Criminal investigation into CIA treatment of detainees expected
By Greg Miller and Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times, August 9, 2009

US Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. is poised to appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate alleged CIA abuses committed during the interrogation of terrorism suspects, current and former U.S. government officials said.

A senior Justice Department official said that Holder envisioned an inquiry that would be narrow in scope, focusing on “whether people went beyond the techniques that were authorized” in Bush administration memos that liberally interpreted anti-torture laws.

Current and former CIA and Justice Department officials who have firsthand knowledge of the interrogation files contend that criminal convictions will be difficult to obtain because the quality of evidence is poor and the legal underpinnings have never been tested.

Some cases have not previously been disclosed, including an instance in which a CIA operative brought a gun into an interrogation booth to force a detainee to talk, officials said.[continued…]

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The case for leaving Iraq – now

The case for leaving Iraq – now
By Tim McGirk, Time, August 8, 2009

Although every day in Iraq repeats the endless spiral of bombs in crowded bazaars and mosques — each fueling demands for retribution — things are slowly getting better. Last month, the number of violent deaths in Iraq fell to 275, down from 437 in June. And that’s a good sign for the security prospects following the redeployment of U.S. forces out of Iraq’s urban areas. In Baghdad, the violence has ebbed to the point that the Iraqi government, whose forces are now responsible for security, this week announced that over the next 40 days, it will tear down the razor-wire-topped blast walls that had for years divided the capital into a collection of fortified, warring Sunni and Shi’ite fiefdoms.

With the level of violence having been tamped down to a degree manageable by Iraqi forces, and with Iraq’s sectarian and ethnic political divisions having become an apparently intractable feature of post-Saddam political life that no amount of U.S. cajoling appears likely to resolve, this may be as good as it gets in Iraq. And if so, why should American soldiers hang around until 2011 in a war costing America in the region of $12 billion a month, and whose U.S. casualty count is nearing 4,500 dead and 30,000 wounded? [continued…]

Ex-employees claim Blackwater pimped out young Iraqi girls
By David Edwards and Muriel Kane, Raw Story, August 7, 2009

Since the revelation earlier this week of allegations by two former employees of security firm Blackwater that its owner was complicit in murder in order to cover up the deliberate killing of Iraqi civilians, explosive charges have continued to emerge.

Perhaps the most shocking of those charges — quoted by MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on Thursday from the employees’ sworn declarations — is that Blackwater was guilty of using child prostitutes at its compound in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone and that owner Erik Prince knew of this activity and did nothing to stop it. [continued…]

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Pakistan says feud kills a top militant

Pakistan says feud kills a top militant
By Ismail Khan and Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, August 9, 2009

Pakistani officials said they had received information on Saturday that a ranking militant commander had been killed in a power struggle over who would take control of the Pakistani Taliban.

A Pakistani government official and an intelligence official said Hakimullah Mehsud, a young and aggressive aide to the former Taliban leader, had been shot dead in a fight with Waliur Rehman, another commander who was seeking to become the leader, during a meeting in a remote mountain region near the Afghan border.

Reports of Hakimullah Mehsud’s death could not be independently verified Saturday. If they are true, it would be the second major loss for the Pakistani Taliban in just a week, after reports that its supreme leader, Baitullah Mehsud, had been killed in an American airstrike on Wednesday. The killing would also solidify the belief among American and Pakistani intelligence officials that a power struggle has been brewing within the Pakistani Taliban, which is made up of many different tribes and factions that had been brought together under Baitullah Mehsud’s leadership. [continued…]

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Fatah: We’ll sacrifice victims until Jerusalem is ours

Fatah: We’ll sacrifice victims until Jerusalem is ours
Haaretz, August 8, 2009

The status of Jerusalem as the future capital of a Palestinian state is a red line that no Palestinian leader is permitted to cross, President Mahmoud Abbas’ ruling Fatah faction declared in the West Bank on Saturday.

According to Israel Radio, the Fatah general conference, which convened in Bethlehem for a three-day gathering, adopted a position paper which also states that the Palestinian national enterprise will not reach fruition until all of Jerusalem, including the outlying villages, come under Palestinian sovereignty.

Fatah, which rules the West Bank but was ousted from power in Gaza by the Islamist Hamas movement, also ruled out any interim agreements with Israel.

“Fatah will continue to sacrifice victims until Jerusalem will be returned [to the Palestinians], clean of settlements and settlers,” the paper states.

According to Israel Radio, the paper does not make a distinction between the eastern and western halves of the capital, nor does it distinguish between the territories within the Israeli side of the Green Line and the areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Abbas relected to lead Fatah
Mahmoud Abbas was re-elected on Saturday to lead Fatah by consensus at the party conference.

There was no vote taken because no other Fatah member challenged Abbas’ five-year rule of the party. Hundreds of delegates cheered and clapped as Fatah leader Tayib Abdul Rahim announced that Abbas was chosen to lead the party.

Technically Abbas can only lead the party for five years, until a new conference is announced, but this is the first time Fatah members have met in 20 years, so it isn’t clear how long his mandate will last.

Also Saturday, Ahmed Qureia, also known as Abu Alla, told reporters that delegates meeting in Bethlehem would elect a new Central Committee and a Revolutionary Council on Sunday or Monday.

Qureia said the convention would hold the elections for both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank at the same time, adding that “some Gaza members will contest the elections.”

He said the modalities of the election were still under discussion. Changes to Fatah’s platform were being discussed during Saturday’s sessions, he said.

Abbas Zaki, a Fatah representative from Lebanon said “100 candidates are running for membership of the Central Committee and 646 for the Revolutionary Council.

Voting by the some 2,500 delegates for the 18-member Central Committee, and 120-member Revolutionary Council had originally been expected to start on Saturday morning.

The convention is meeting for the first time in 20 years to elect a new leadership for the organization founded by Yasser Arafat.

However, Fatah rival Hamas, which has ruled the Gaza Strip since June 2007, banned scores of Fatah members there from traveling to the West Bank to attend the gathering.

On Friday, Central Committee member Nabil Shaath announced an agreement reached with the convention’s leadership that would allow Gaza delegates to vote by telephone.

Fatah said in a statement that Hamas security forces had placed several Gaza convention delegates under house arrest and prevented them from leaving their homes.

It said that on Friday and Saturday, Hamas security personnel detained several Fatah leaders for questioning before releasing them. Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman Ihab al-Ghussein denied there were any detentions.

U.S. to demand Israel, Palestinian deal with borders
The U.S. administration will demand that Israel and the Palestinians address the issue of borders as the first step in the Middle East peace plan, senior Palestinian officials said Thursday.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Wednesday that Washington will present its new plan for a comprehensive Middle East peace soon.

The Americans will also outline proposals for an Israeli peace with Syria and Lebanon, the Palestinian officials said Thursday.

The American plan will not specify step-by-step actions for an Israeli-Palestinian solution, but will address final status issues – borders, Jerusalem and refugees.

The Americans will set a timetable of about a year and a half for the negotiations and demand the sides first solve the border issue, under the belief that this will lead to solutions for other issues, such as the settlements and water. After that the sides will discuss the other fundamental issues – Jerusalem and the refugees.

The negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians probably will be conducted in the presence of American officials, the sources said. The American administration is likely to present its plan before or during the UN General Assembly set for September.

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Afghanistan will take 40 years

General Sir David Richards: Afghanistan will take 40 years
By Michael Evans, The Times, August 8, 2009

Britain’s mission in Afghanistan could last for up to 40 years, the next head of the Army warns today in an exclusive interview with The Times.

General Sir David Richards, who becomes Chief of the General Staff on August 28, said: “The Army’s role will evolve, but the whole process might take as long as 30 to 40 years.”

He emphasised that British troop involvement, currently 9,000-strong, should only be needed for the medium term, but insisted that there was “absolutely no chance” of Nato pulling out. “I believe that the UK will be committed to Afghanistan in some manner — development, governance, security sector reform — for the next 30 to 40 years,” he said. [continued…]

The Taliban will survive Baitullah Mehsud
By Jason Burke, The Guardian, August 7, 2009

Behind the rise of Baitullah Mehsud in Pakistan lie factors that are not going to be resolved by a missile fired from a drone.

Firstly, there is the fusion of Pashtun tribal identity with a radical Islamic identity. The latter has only ever really thrived when grafted onto a sense of local belonging. Hamas in the Gaza Strip represent radical Islam and Palestinians. Al-Qaida in the Maghreb, about the only off-shoot of the terror group that is thriving at the moment, are, as their name suggests, firmly fixed on a real location. Al-Qaida in Iraq failed through being insufficiently Iraqi, reduced at the end to pretending leaders were from Baghdad when they were Egyptian. But the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) knew who they were and where they were from. They were Pashtuns from the Pakistani side of the frontier that has split their tribal lands for over a century.

In 1998 and 1999, I travelled widely in FATA (the Federally Administered Tribal Agencies or Areas) where the TTP and Mehsud were strongest. At the time, I met no hostility. In 2001, as bombs rained on Afghanistan, I travelled up into the Khyber Agency and was warned by Pashtun contacts that the Taliban’s war was their war. So, they added, was that waged by al-Qaida. This remains the case today. This intertwining of ethnic identity, religion and politics will take decades to undo. [continued…]

Reports: Deputy says Pakistan’s Mehsud is alive
By Nahal Toosi, AP, August 8, 2009

A deputy to Baitullah Mehsud claimed Saturday that the Pakistani Taliban chief was not killed by a CIA missile strike, contradicting another aide who confirmed Mehsud’s death a day earlier.

His claim, reported widely by Pakistani media, flies in the face of growing confidence among U.S. and Pakistani officials that Mehsud died, and it could be a tactical maneuver aimed at delaying a decision on who will succeed Mehsud.

Local intelligence officials acknowledged Saturday that the missile strike said to have killed the Taliban chief was carried out with Islamabad’s help, indicating growing coordination between the two countries despite Pakistan’s official disapproval of the strikes. [continued…]

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UN Special Rapporteur calls on APA, US to remove psychologists from torture sites

UN Special Rapporteur calls on APA, US to remove psychologists from torture sites
By Jeff Kaye, FDL, August 7, 2009

In a major development on the issue of maltreatment at Guantanamo, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak has written today to James Bray, President of the American Psychological Association, indicating that he has determined that Guantanamo prison is “outside, or in violation of, international law.” Nowak cites ongoing arbitrary detention, forced feeding of hunger strikers, use of isolation, rough physical treatment, and past practice of torture as reasons for his decision. He concludes:

Given the now public record of psychologists’ involvement in the design, supervision, implementation, and legitimization of a regime of physical and psychological torture at US military and intelligence facilities, including Guantánamo, it is incumbent upon the APA to ensure that its standards comport with international law as well as the UN Principles of Medical Ethics Relevant to the Role of Health Personnel. These instruments require an absolute ethical prohibition of psychologists’ presence or involvement in these operations. [continued…].

Obama administration asks Supreme Court to block detainee photos
By Josh Gerstein, Politico, August 7, 2009

The Obama Administration is asking the Supreme Court to block the public release of detainee abuse photos that were the subject of a high-profile reversal by President Barack Obama earlier this year.

On Friday afternoon, the Justice Department filed a petition with the Supreme Court asking it to overturn an appeals court decision requiring the Pentagon to disclose the photos, which depict alleged abuse of prisoners in U.S. military custody in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The President of the United States and the Nation’s highest-ranking military officers responsible for ongoing combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have determined that disclosure by the government of the photographs at issue in this case would pose a significant risk to the lives and physical safety of American military and civilian personnel by inciting violence targeting those personnel,” Solicitor General Elena Kagan wrote. [continued…]

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Iran portrays election protesters as pawns of the West

Iran portrays election protesters as pawns of the West
By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, August 8, 2009

Twitter, Facebook and Google’s newly introduced Persian-to-English translation software were part of a vast foreign conspiracy against Iran sketched out by a prosecutor at the second session of an extraordinary trial against alleged ringleaders of weeks of unrest unfolding in Iran.

Government critics and international observers have slammed the proceedings as grotesque “show trials” meant to silence the opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose disputed reelection triggered weeks of popular protests partially quelled in a violent official crackdown. [continued…]

Iran conservatives demand role in Cabinet’s vetting
By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, August 8, 2009

A hard-line group demanded Friday that Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad obey the country’s supreme leader or risk losing the confidence of lawmakers from his own conservative political camp.

The Front Loyal to Imam and Leadership, a group of 14 conservative political parties and organizations led by prominent hard-liner Habibollah Asgaroladi, demanded that Ahmadinejad consult with his supporters before making appointments to his Cabinet, which he must submit for approval within 12 days.

“If, God forbid, you pursue an approach different from the one elucidated by the supreme leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] because of your refusal to consult the honest friends of the revolution, or you lose public faith out of obstinacy, we fear that the regime would suffer irreparable damage,” said the statement, according to the semiofficial Iranian Students News Agency. [continued…]

Iran trial hears ‘apology’ from UK embassy worker
The Guardian, August 8, 2009

A British embassy worker put on trial by the Iranian authorities was today reported to have admitted that information collected by the embassy on the unrest after the disputed presidential election was sent to Washington.

The Foreign Office expressed its “outrage” as Hossein Rassam, the embassy’s chief political analyst, appeared in court alongside Iranian moderates and a French citizen.

The official Iranian news agency IRNA quoted Rassam, who is charged with espionage, as saying that information was handed over to the Americans. “Because the American government lacks facilities to survey Iran events and because of the close relations between Washington and London, the British embassy in Tehran sent its collected vote unrest details to Washington,” the Reuters news agency reported Rassam as telling the court. [continued…]

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Iran years from fuel for bomb, report says

Iran years from fuel for bomb, report says
By Walter Pincus, Washington Post, August 7, 2009

Despite Iran’s progress since 2007 toward producing enriched uranium, the State Department’s intelligence analysts continue to think that Tehran will not be able to produce weapons-grade material before 2013, according to a newly disclosed congressional document.

The updated assessment, by the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, emphasizes that the analysis is based on Iran’s technical capability and is not a judgment about “when Iran might make any political decision” to produce highly enriched uranium.

The intelligence community agrees that a political decision has not yet been made. According to the assessment, State Department analysts think such a decision is unlikely to be made “for at least as long as international scrutiny and pressure persist.” [continued…]

When all you have is a hammer, every Iran problem looks like a nail
By Patrick Disney, niacINisight, August 6, 2009

For most of the month of August, Congress will be on recess. Consider this the calm before the storm.

Most in Washington are aware that September will bring with it the biggest push for Iran sanctions in years. AIPAC has been lobbying for months on the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act (IRPSA), and on September 10 the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations will kick off a massive nationwide lobbying effort, which they compare to the “Save Darfur” movement. All of this will culminate at the end of the month when, conveniently enough, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrives in New York for the UN General Assembly.

Yes, right around the time Ahmadinejad is at the podium in the UN, Congress is expected to impose what it calls “crippling sanctions” on Iran’s economy. The plan is to blockade Iran’s foreign supplies of gasoline, hoping that an increase in the price per gallon at the pump will cause the Iranian people to rise up and demand a halt to Iran’s nuclear program.

But this plan has number of obvious flaws.

First, the Iranian people have already risen up against the government’s hardline leadership. What we have witnessed in Iran for the last two months is unprecedented. To think that marginally higher gas prices will mean anything to a population willing to risk their lives for freedom and democracy is at once naïve and hubristic. According to Juan Cole, imposing broad sanctions on Iran will likely only destroy Iranian civil society and bolster the state’s repressive apparatus–as it did in Iraq. [continued…]

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