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The Fashla [great failure or mistake] of 1993

Some commentators have argued that the worst single policy mistake that Israel has made since the founding of the state was the 1993 decision to recognize Yasser Arafat’s PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and to bring Arafat back from Tunisian exile to head the newly formed Palestinian Authority.

The result was that any moderate forces that existed among the Palestinians were marginalized, driven out, or killed, and a system of indoctrination was developed including schools, mosques, media, children’s camps, etc. designed to do one thing: teach Palestinians — especially young ones — that the goal of destroying Israel and replacing it with an Arab state was achievable and worthy of the ultimate sacrifice.

Meanwhile, while Israel began a program of ‘educating for peace’ to try to get suspicious Israelis to accept the new ‘reality’ that the conflict with the Palestinians — and perhaps even the whole of the Arab world — was coming to an end, that a ‘new Middle East’ was in the offing, Arafat ramped up terrorism, using arms and money supplied by the West in order to ‘fight terrorism’ (as someone said, this was like paying Kellogg’s to fight cornflakes) to create a private army.

It all blew up (pun intended) in 2000, when Arafat rejected the Camp David/Taba offers of a state and chose war instead.

Caroline Glick has written an absolutely masterful paper (”Israel and the Palestinians: Ending the Stalemate“) in which she argues that what happened in 1993 was a “paradigm shift” in the understanding of the conflict by the US and Israel:

Prior to 1993, both Israeli and U.S. policies were based on the view that the root of the conflict was the Arab world’s rejection of Israel’s right to exist. That view was codified in United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, which asserted that two principles were to form the basis of any “just and lasting peace in the Middle East.” The first was an Israeli withdrawal from some of the territory taken over by the Israel Defense Forces during the June 1967 Six-Day War. The second was that the Arab states must accept Israel’s right to exist…

Since Israel has consistently demonstrated its readiness to make territorial compromises for a lasting peace with its neighbors, it was this second condition that formed the foundation of both U.S. and Israeli policies towards the Palestinians specifically, and the Arab world generally, from the end of the Six-Day War until the onset of Israel’s peace process with the PLO in 1993.

After 1993, however, both the US and Israel adopted the point of view common to the Arabs, the EU, the UN and Russia [Glick says “Soviet Union”, but of course after 1991 there was no USSR] that the root of the conflict was not Arab rejectionism but Israeli occupation of the territories captured in 1967:

…they argued that the Arab world generally, and the Palestinian Arabs specifically, could not be expected to accept Israel’s right to exist until the military outcome of the Six-Day War was entirely reversed. In this latter view, it was Israel, not the Arabs, which bore responsibility for the intractable nature of the conflict. And it was Israel, not the Arabs, which would have to amend its policies if peace were to be achieved.

By accepting the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian Arabs in 1993, both Israel and the U.S. essentially adopted this latter view of the nature of the conflict. A terrorist organization founded in 1964 with the goal of eliminating Israel altogether, the PLO represented the most extreme assertion of Israeli responsibility for the Arab world’s refusal to accept its existence. Indeed, eternalizing that refusal was its raison d’être.

Since then the US has moved farther and farther in this direction. Glick points out that the Bush Administration in 2002 was the first American administration to call for the creation of a Palestinian state as a goal of the ‘peace process’. At that time President Bush linked the creation of the state to an end to terrorism, and the road map of 2003 made this part of the first stage, before the establishment of a state. Glick writes,

In November 2007, however, the Bush administration broke with that view. Its new policy is founded on the belief that Israel and the Palestinian Authority must sign an agreement spelling out the borders and sovereign rights of the sought-for State of Palestine even before the Palestinian Authority fights—let alone defeats—the terror forces operating within its territory in Judea, Samaria and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made this point clearly in a press briefing on November 4, 2007. In her words: “The real breakthrough, it was actually a few months ago now, is that for a long time, if you remember, the argument was you couldn’t talk about the Palestinian state or core issues, which was in phase three [of the road map], until you had completed phase one [requiring the Palestinian Authority to fight terrorism], which got us into an extended kind of circular problem for a long time about phase one. Well… now we’ve broken through and they are, indeed, talking about… what’s in phase three, which is the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

In other words, “Damn the [terrorism], full speed ahead [to a state]”.

But, as Glick goes on to show, the Palestinians — of course Hamas, but also the ‘moderate’ Fatah — which is after all the Fatah of Yasser Arafat — have never wanted statehood alongside Israel. The goal has always been to “end the occupation” — the Jewish occupation of the land that began in 1948, and indeed, long before that:

This view was evident in Arafat’s rejection of Barak’s offer at Camp David in 2000. While Arafat never made a counteroffer, he gave three justifications for walking away from an offer that would enable the establishment of a Palestinian state. First, Arafat rejected Barak’s argument that the establishment of a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and Jerusalem would end the Palestinian conflict with Israel.

Second, Arafat rejected the Israeli position that the immigration to Israel of Palestinian Arabs who left Israel during the 1948-49 war and their descendants would be limited to family reunification. In Arafat’s words, “the right of return [of the former Arab residents and their descendants to Israel] is sacred and its sanctity is not less than that [assigned to] the holy places [in Jerusalem].”

By couching Palestinian rejection of the Israeli offer in such terms, Arafat made clear that the Palestinian demands on Israel are not limited, and so amenable to compromise and conciliation. Rather they are unlimited, and impossible to appease. Here it should be noted that there are no Palestinian leaders who are willing to compromise on the demand that millions of foreign-born Arabs be allowed unfettered immigration to Israel. Moreover, the Palestinians are fully cognizant of the fact that such a move will destroy Israel by overwhelming its Jewish majority. Indeed, Fatah is no different from Hamas or Islamic Jihad—or Iran, for that matter—in its refusal to accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

Finally, Arafat explained that he refused Israel’s offer of statehood because the Palestinian conflict with Israel is not simply a nationalist quest for Palestinian statehood, but an Islamic religious struggle…

This last was a new and somewhat hypocritical maneuver for Arafat, who had always been a secular communist-style radical. But ever skilled at determining wind direction, he realized that the growing power of Islamism (and the loss of a communist sponsor in the Soviet Union) would have to be taken into account. But one thing has never changed from the days of the Nazi Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini through Arafat and now Abbas:

Since the issuance of the Balfour Declaration in 1917, far clearer than the Palestinian Arab desire for statehood has been the Palestinian Arab rejection of Jewish statehood. Championing Palestinian Arab statehood has never been the explicit policy of either the Palestinians or the rest of the Arab world. Rather, rejecting the right of the Jewish nation to sovereignty in the land of Israel has been the consistent policy of the Palestinian Arab leadership as well as the general Arab leadership since 1917, and most pronouncedly since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

Glick thinks, as do I, that the US and Israel took a seriously wrong turn in 1993, a turn based on a misunderstanding of Palestinian goals and intentions, wishful thinking, and projection of Western ideas on Arab peoples who do not share them. And possibly there is more to it than just misunderstandings. In the US there is an alignment of pro-Arab forces in the State Department with oil interests and Saudi Arabia who would be happy to see Israel replaced with a Palestinian Arab state. And in Israel there are those whose ideology has driven them to take positions that are counter to their own continued existence.

Glick provides a detailed prescription for the changes needed to undo the fashla [great failure or mistake] of 1993. I suggest that in the US, we can begin by understanding that the problem is not that there is no Palestinian state — but rather that the Arabs, including the Palestinians, do not want there to be a Jewish state.

Both American presidential candidates have pledged to work for a “two-state solution”. This is putting the cart several miles ahead of the horse. Our policy should make any Israeli withdrawals contingent — as UN resolution 242 states — on real recognition of Israel’s right to exist, expressed in part by an end to the support of terrorism by Arab nations, Iran and the Palestinian Authority alike.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians, Caroline Glick, Israeli-Arab conflict

Unlike most of the forty-seven gazillion people who write blogs on political subjects, I have not expressed an opinion on the US presidential race. This is partly because I wanted my blog to be different, partisan in its support for Israel while neutral about American politics. And it is partly because I haven’t completely made up my mind.

Unfortunately “a plague on both your houses” is not constructive when one lives in the country that the houses in question want to control, and when one cares strongly about another country whose fate is almost entirely dependent upon the actions of the first.

I am not going to endorse a candidate today (I can hear campaign managers sighing in relief), but I want to mention a couple of things that will weigh heavily on my decision.

The first is John McCain’s shockingly irresponsible decision to choose  Sarah Palin as his running mate. I understand the calculations that led to the choice, whether they were made by the candidate or by his advisors. But this is not a game that will be over on November 4. It is just not conscionable to choose as deputy someone so totally unqualified, someone so far from qualified that if she should become President the best that we could hope for would be that her actions would actually be determined by shadowy hands in the background, and that these hands would be competent and benign.

Now to Barack Obama. My main problem is his policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. When Obama visited Israel in July, he said that he would work hard to bring about a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians “starting from the minute I’m sworn into office”.

David Horovitz of the Jerusalem Post interviewed Obama at that time; you should read the whole ineterview, but here are a few things he said:

Horovitz: You’ve said on this trip that you want to work for an Israeli-Palestinian accommodation from the minute you’re sworn in, so let me ask you about the thesis that there is no prospect of Palestinian moderation prevailing and enabling a peace process to really move forward until Iran’s nuclear drive has been thwarted - that so long as the Teheran-backed extremists of Hamas and so on feel that they are in the ascendant, the moderates can’t prevail and that the whole region is now in this kind of holding mode.

Obama: I think there is no doubt that there is a connection between Iran’s strengthening over the last couple of years, partly because some strategic errors have been made on the part of the West. And [the same goes for] the increasing boldness of Hizbullah and Hamas. But I don’t think that’s the only factor and criterion in the lack of progress.

Hamas’s victory in the [Palestinian Authority] election can partly be traced to a sense of frustration among the Palestinian people over how Fatah, over a relatively lengthy period of time, had failed to deliver basic services. I get a strong impression that [PA President Mahmoud] Abbas and [Prime Minister Salaam] Fayad are doing everything they can to address some of those systemic failures by the Palestinian Authority. The failures of Hamas in Gaza to deliver an improved quality of life for their people give pause to the Palestinians to think that pursuing that approach automatically assures greater benefits.

Here Obama displays his complete failure to grasp who Fatah is and what its goals are — a group dedicated to violently replacing Israel with an Arab state. He shows that he does not understand the real motivators of Palestinian politics — clan loyalties, a tendency to choose whichever faction is most aggressive in the struggle against Israel, and gangs of young men with guns. And he takes Abbas and Fayad seriously as Palestinian leaders, when the only Palestinians who agree with him are those who are on the (US financed) payroll.

Horovitz: The current Israeli prime minister told me in an interview a few months ago that the great advantage of the Bush administration on that issue was that they looked at Israel on the basis of “67-plus” - that their starting point was that maybe Israel can expect or deserve support for a slightly larger sovereign presence than the pre-1967 Israel. Do you think of Israel in its final-status incarnation on the basis of “67-plus”?

Obama: Look, I think that both sides on this equation are going to have to make some calculations. Israel may seek “67-plus” and justify it in terms of the buffer that they need for security purposes. They’ve got to consider whether getting that buffer is worth the antagonism of the other party.

The Palestinians are going to have to make a calculation: Are we going to fight for every inch of that ‘67 border or, given the fact that 40 years have now passed, and new realities have taken place on the ground, do we take a deal that may not perfectly align with the ‘67 boundaries?

My sense is that both sides recognize that there’s going to have to be some give. The question from my perspective is can the parties move beyond a rigid, formulaic or ideological approach and take a practical approach that looks at the larger picture and says, “What’s going to be the best way for us to achieve security and peace?”

Let’s understand what this implies. Obama says that he will work very hard to force Israel — there is no other way that any rational Israeli government could be made to accept this after the lessons learned from the withdrawal from Gaza — to leave most of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Leave aside the fact that the Palestinian claims are complete nonsense: the pre-67 borders are simply the cease-fire lines of 1948, when Jordan illegally seized the eastern part of the Mandate and held it for 19 years — during which time nobody called it “occupied Palestinian territory”. Let’s ask, with Obama, how best to achieve security and peace.

Then consider that today only the presence of the IDF prevents Hamas from taking over the West Bank and turning it into a base of Iranian-sponsored terrorist activity against Israel — just as happened in Gaza. Does Obama think that Fatah could or would — regardless of the amount of American weapons it has — prevent this? Does Obama plan to send US soldiers to occupy the West Bank in place of the IDF?

It’s my opinion that the worst thing that the US can do for the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace is to promote an agreement between Israel and the PA — at least unless there were a popular Palestinian leadership that actually wants peace with a Jewish state. But this is certainly not the case today. Today the result would be Iranian proxy armies to the north, east, and southwest of Israel.

The US has done great damage to Israel and the cause of peace by supporting the Oslo process, by forcing Israel to make concessions at Camp David and Taba which are now being treated as starting points, by pushing for Palestinian elections which Hamas won, by arming and funding Fatah, etc. Barack Obama promises to keep up the tradition.

Technorati Tags: Obama, McCain, Israel

Freedman is worried about Israel, and so am I. And I’m also worried about America — about the effect of the combination of an economic crunch with the highly polarized state of our society, as exemplified by the (so far) verbal extremism of some partisans of our presidential candidates. The anti-Semitism that has been reported is just a symptom that some of the rules, written and unwritten, that have kept our politics relatively civilized in recent years may be breaking down.

By Shalom Freedman

We have entered a period of financial and possibly political turbulence which presents great dangers for Israel and the Jewish people. The global financial bust has its center in the United States, and there there has been a collapse of the investment and credit system the like of which has not been seen before. But the decline in financial markets is global and has hit also the Islamic and Arab worlds. Their sovereign funds are heavily invested in the stock markets of the world. Along with this there has been a steep decline in the price of energy meaning the revenues of Iran and Russia are going to precipitously decline. This is potentially disastrous for  regimes which are likely dependent on the export of this one product for their political life.

Political instability often follows major economic crises. The dangers for Israel are manifold. On the one hand the one tool often used by non-democratic regimes is the shifting of focus from the internal to the external. As the Iranians already are committed to exporting their revolution, and as a catastrophic Messianic scenario guides the thought of their President Ahmadinejad, there is a great possibility they would turn to the distraction of violence. Their surrogates, certainly Hezbollah and also Hamas can open a war with Israel at any second. And their close ally Syria might be there in the bargain.

Another danger for Israel relates to the stability of the two regimes it has some kind of working relationship with, Jordan and especially Egypt. Here it should be noted that the world wide economic decline will hit the poorest societies the hardest.

The danger of war for Israel comes at an especially unfortunate time. Because of the economic crisis the US will be even more eager than it is now to pull its troops out of Iraq. It will be extremely reluctant to intervene anywhere.

Russia, which suffers from demographic and health problems of disastrous proportions, after its heady boon and great wealth spurt with the energy price spike, also faces a period of economic turbulence. However, it refuses to yield on its global and especially Middle East ambitions, has been supplying weaponry to Syria and would presumbably back it in any future confrontation.

Israel does not now have a strong and competent leader in place. Such a leader can only come with new elections which the Kadima party and Labor along with the always buyable Shas will probably prevent.  Tzipi Livni has no credentials or experience which suggest that she would wisely confront war or any other major crisis.

In the United States there has been — at the margins — an increase in anti-Semitism related to the financial collapse. It is doubtful that anti-Semitism will become an accepted political position in the United States. Should that happen that would mean the end of the American system as we have known it. But what is likely to come now is an American administration much more internally focused, much more concerned with trying to deal with the economic, health, and infrastructure problems which are so vast in America. There will be a shift away from military spending, and a weaker America globally.

No one can know for certain what will happen, and all that has written here may prove to be an illusion. But all the signs say that we are entering a period of very great danger for Israel and the Jewish people, and in the longer term for Democracy and human freedom, globally.

Shalom Freedman is a writer living in Jerusalem. He has published eight books on Jewish and philosophical subjects, and is the author of countless articles, book reviews, etc.

Technorati Tags: world financial crisis, Jews, Israel

Republicans tell us that we should vote for John McCain because Barack Obama doesn’t understand the realities of the Middle East. Could someone please tell me how he could understand them any less well than the present Republican administration?

From the Lebanese Daily Star:

On Monday Lebanon and the US signed three military contracts worth $63 million in US grants to the LAF. The grants are aimed at providing the Lebanese Army with secure communications, ammunition and infantry weapons.

Beirut and Washington also set up a joint military commission in charge of organizing their bilateral military relationship.

“We discussed with [President Michel Suleiman] military cooperation between Lebanon and the US in light of the recent meeting at the Defense Ministry in the presence of a joint military commission,” [US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David] Hale said, referring to the Monday meeting between Defense Minister Elias Murr and US Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Mary Beth Long.

Lebanon today is almost completely dominated by Hezbollah. Indeed,  the Lebanese government has issued ‘guidelines’ to permit Hezbollah to initiate military action against Israel, President Suleiman has supported Hezbollah’s pretext-for-war demands for the Shabaa Farms, and he even hugged terrorist child-murderer Samir Kuntar.

As Caroline Glick has pointed out, the Lebanese government and army cannot be depended on to oppose Hezbollah or Syria. The army, which is 1/3 Shia, will certainly not fight Hezbollah, and in fact — in 2006, before Hezbollah’s latest coup — assisted it in the war with Israel.

So, assuming that the administration correctly perceives the Iranian-controlled Hezbollah — an organization responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans since the early ’80’s — as our enemy, why are we arming forces in Lebanon that at best will not oppose it and at worst fight alongside it against our ally, Israel? Why are we in effect helping Hezbollah and Syria deny political rights to Christians and other non-Shiites in Lebanon?

Another example is the “Annapolis process”. Why is the US financing and arming the corrupt and unpopular Palestinian Fatah faction when it’s clear that it cannot — and wouldn’t if it could — oppose Hamas? Why is the US trying to force Israel to evacuate the West Bank, when that will guarantee, just as it did in Gaza, a Hamas takeover? Why is the US supplying Fatah with arms that will certainly fall into the hands of Hamas, as they did in Gaza?

In both cases, the Republican administration prefers to believe attractive fairy tales — that it has allies in the Arab world who will fight the Iranian terrorist proxies for it — to the truth, which is that the only Middle Eastern nation whose interests truly align with those of the US is Israel.

Is this any more realistic than the Democratic fairy tales about talking Iran into giving up its nuclear program?

Technorati Tags: Lebanon, Hezbollah, Fatah, Hamas, Republicans, Democrats, Israel

FBX-T X-band radar system. The antenna is on the truck near the bottom of the photo.

The US is in the process of installing an FBX-T (”Forward-Based X-Band Radar-Transportable“) system in Israel. The system is not being sold or even leased to Israel, and it will be operated by American personnel. In effect, it is an extension of the US missile defense system’s data acquisition capabilities to Israel.

The radar has a range of about 1200 miles (1900 km) — about twice that of the radar presently used by Israel’s Arrow anti-Missile system. That means that it could detect Iranian and Syrian missiles immediately after launch, improving the chances that they could be intercepted.

“X-band” refers to the frequency of signals transmitted by the system, near 10 GHz. This corresponds to a wavelength of 3 cm; and the shorter the wavelength, the better the resolution of the radar. So it will be able to detect very small objects and more importantly to discriminate between different types of missiles — perhaps even to discriminate between missiles carrying warheads and dummies.

Yaakov Katz, in the Jerusalem Post, writes:

The radar’s arrival is not just meant to improve defense capabilities against Iran, defense officials noted this week. It is also America’s way of bolstering its presence in the region in the face of a growing Russian presence in Syria.

Moscow is renovating the Syrian port of Tartus, which will be used to house a permanent Russian naval presence in the Mediterranean. President Bashar Assad visited Moscow last month, and told the Russian daily Kommersant that Damascus was “ready to cooperate with Russia in any way,” including discussing deploying missile defense systems on Syrian territory.

“America has just as much interest in what is going on in the region as we do,” a senior Israeli defense official explained. “Keep in mind that while we will receive the radar data, the Americans will be controlling the system and using it for their purposes, as well.”

Israel did not even receive permission to have any personnel at the station. Although this will probably be explained by a desire to keep details of the system secret, probably the greatest concern is prevent Israel from using the data for its own initiatives — such as preemptive attacks on Iran or Syria.

The radar will also provide information on everything that flies — including small objects such as drones  — within its range. This will make it possible for the US to know immediately if, for example, Israel moves against Hamas in Gaza or Hezbollah in Lebanon. TIME Magazine quoted some Israeli officials as ‘wary’:

The radar will allow the U.S. to keep a close watch on anything moving in Israeli skies, “even a bee”, says one top Israeli official who asked not to be identified. The U.S. may be a close ally, but Israel nonetheless has aviation secrets it would rather not share. “Even a husband and wife have a few things they’d like to keep from each other,” explains this source. “Now we’re standing without our clothes on in front of America.”

Israel will have no direct access to the data collected by the radar, which looks like a giant taco. It will only be fed intelligence second hand, on a need-to-know basis, from the Americans — unless the radar picks up an immediate, direct attack on Israel, Israeli sources claim. And Israeli officials expressed concern that the radar’s installation may anger Moscow, since its range will enable the U.S. to monitor aircraft in the skies over southern Russia. When the U.S. stationed anti-missile radar and interceptor systems in Poland and the Czech Republic — ostensibly directed at a future Iranian threat, although the Russians believe their own missile capability is its real target — Moscow warned those countries that the move could result in their being added to the target list of Russia’s missiles.

If the US wishes to prevent Israel from taking some action it always has had the capability of doing so. But at least until now, there has been the possibility of Israel taking action before the US knows about it.

Soon this will not be the case. This radar system may be intended as much or more to control Israel as to defend her. Israelis should be more than just ‘wary’ of abdicating their responsibility to defend the nation and placing it in the hands of others, whose interests are, after all, their own.

Technorati Tags: Israel, radar, FBX-T, X-band, Iran

News item:

Kadima head Tzipi Livni has made progress in her attempts to form a majority coalition, her aides said Thursday. Livni is attempting to convince the hareidi-religious Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ) parties to join her in creating a Kadima-led government that would postpone general elections and allow her to serve as prime minister.

Representatives from UTJ demanded control of the Knesset’s Finance Committee in exchange for supporting Livni, aides said…Shas continues to demand an increase in child support payments for large families. — IsraelNN

Meanwhile, the disgraced Ehud Olmert remains acting PM while “stonewalling” police attempts to question him on corruption charges, and Syria may be constructing new nuclear plants.

Here in the US the financial crisis continues unabated, and of course people are blaming the Jews. And tonight we await a debate between vice-presidential candidates, one far beyond ‘unqualified’ and the other a world-class plagiarist.

What an incredible start to the new year!

Technorati Tags: New Year, Israel, Livni, Olmert, Palin, Biden

Recently I wrote about the Mennonite Central Committee [MCC] co-hosting a dinner for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the occasion of his recent vist to the UN. Several readers were kind enough to send links to the MCC’s press releases concerning their motivation, which is explained as being grounded only in a desire to promote peace, in accordance with Christian principles.

From my point of view, of course, having dinner today with Ahmadinejad is little different from doing it with Hitler in 1938, insofar as Ahmadinejad — in addition to developing atomic weapons — is presently working full-tilt to prepare his Syrian satellite and his proxy armies in Lebanon and the occupied territories to make war on Israel (the first round was fought with Hezbollah in 2006). And like Hitler, he is quite pleased to express his anti-Semitic reasons for doing so.

Therefore I see isolation of Iran along with sanctions strong enough to bring about regime change as the only peaceful way to prevent the massive conflict that will certainly be the outcome of his plans. And if there is no peaceful solution, then there must be a non-peaceful one, or there won’t be a Jewish state.

The MCC, for its part, also seems to be opposed to the Jewish state, although unlike Ahmadinejad they seem to think that it can be made to disappear quietly. The following quotations are from “Peacebuilding in Palestine/Israel: A Discussion Paper” attributed to “MCC staff working on Middle East issues”.

First, let’s see how the MCC views the 60 years of Israel’s independence, punctuated as it has been by wars — sometimes genocidal in intent — and murderous terrorism:

Since the Nakba, or catastrophe, of 1948 uprooted between 700,000 to 900,000 Palestinians from their homes, Palestinian history has been a story of dispossession. Refugees and internally displaced persons have been prevented from returning home. Tens of thousands more Palestinians became homeless again during the 1967 war. Since the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip (hereafter the Occupied Palestinian Territories, or OPT) in 1967, Palestinians have faced multiple types of dispossession, from house demolitions to the uprooting of trees, from confiscation of land for the construction of illegal Israeli settlements to the expropriation of water resources, from checkpoints and roadblocks to a permit system that places increasingly tight restrictions on Palestinian movement…

Neither Palestinians nor Israelis, meanwhile, have enjoyed physical security, as both peoples have turned toward violent means in the hopes that security might be obtained through violent force.

While the MCC wishes to appear neutral, desiring only peace, a more pro-Arab point of view could not be imagined. Let me rewrite the above a little more accurately:

Since the war of Independence — in which Israel was attacked by Palestinian Arabs and invaded by armies of five Arab nations — resulted in the displacement of about 650,000 Palestinian Arabs and 800,000 Jews from Arab countries, the Arab nations have created a dispossessed people. After the war they refused to talk to Israel or even acknowledge her existence, and they forced the Arab refugees into camps where they became wards of international charity (Jewish refugees were resettled, mostly in Israel).

In 1967 Israel again repelled a genocidal threat by the Arab nations, and occupied the West Bank and the Gaza strip, which had been illegally held by Jordan and Egypt since 1948. Although Israel wished to exchange the territories for peace agreements with the Arab nations, the Arabs refused and tried to retake them in yet another major war in 1973.

Finally, Israel agreed to negotiate a two-state solution with archenemy Yasser Arafat. But Arafat preferred  continued ‘armed struggle’ to a final agreement which would give up  the Palestinian claim on all of the land from the Jordan to the Mediterranean. Since 1948 and especially since 2000 Israel has been subject to multiple forms of terrorism, which has made roadblocks, checkpoints and  the security barrier necessary.

Now let’s look at the MCC’s solution to the conflict:

1. A complete end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, based on a full withdrawal to the June 4, 1967 lines, and the evacuation of all Israeli settlements, save for equitable arrangements mutually agreed upon by the negotiating parties.
2. A just solution for the Palestinian refugee problem, in accordance with international legality, the relevant UN resolutions, and the basic principle of refuge choice.
3. A shared Jerusalem open to all faiths.

I’ll discuss these points one at a time.

1. Remember, these territories were not ‘Palestinian’ before 1967 — they were occupied by Jordan and Egypt, and before that the British, and before that the Ottoman Turks. The pre-1967 boundaries are no more than cease-fire lines established at the end of the 1948 war. A rational two-state solution — if such a thing were even possible — would allow Israel to keep areas of Jewish population, while Palestine would include areas with Arab majorities, even some which are inside present-day Israel. The Palestinians reject any ’swaps’, however, because Israeli Arabs are happy with the economic benefits of living in Israel and because it suits them to have a politically active minority in Israel.

Even if Israel did withdraw fully to the 1967 lines, displacing more than 200,000 Jews — most of whom live in settlements close to the 1967 border or in Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem — does anyone think that Arab demands on Israel would end?

2. The relevant UN resolutions — at least 194 and 242 –  have always been interpreted by the Arabs as calling for the ‘return’ of any of the nearly five million descendants of the original refugees who wish to do so to Israel. In my view and that of many experts in international law, this interpretation is not correct. But reference to “UN resolutions” in this context has become ‘code’ for ‘right of return’, and the MCC must be understood to be advocating this.

No Israeli government has ever considered this acceptable as part of a peace agreement, and for good reason. For one thing, it would immediately make Israel an Arab majority state. There are no Arab states which treat Jews decently, and some — including ‘Palestine’ — do not permit Jews to live in them at all. For another, a large number of the ‘refugees’ are members of one of the terrorist militias that adhere to genocidal anti-Semitic principles, such as Hamas. There is no doubt that if such a ‘return’ were implemented, it would be the beginning of a violent civil war. It’s hard to see how the MCC can say that this ’solution’ will “ensure that both Palestinians and Israelis might live securely under vine and fig tree”.

3. Jerusalem today is open to all faiths, as opposed to the period between 1948 and 1967 when Jews did not have access to their holy places.

The MCC displays its bias in other ways. Just using the phrase “Occupied Palestinian Territories” for all areas outside the 1967 boundary implies that these areas were originally ‘Palestinian’. But in fact they were part of the British Mandate no more or less than the part inside the lines, and were illegally occupied in 1948 by Arab states. In fact, some places — like parts of East Jerusalem and Gush Etzion — had Jewish populations before 1948, populations which were eliminated by force and murder by the Jordanians.

The MCC website contains numerous articles and papers about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The overall position is that the founding of Israel represented a ‘taking’ of the land from the ‘indigenous’ Palestinians — something which is historically false — and that since then Israeli policy has been designed to obtain and keep the maximum amount of land possible without granting political rights to the Arabs. Even an article about MCC-supported irrigation projects contains accusations of Israeli ‘expropriation’ and other oppressive policies.

The continuous violent Arab struggle against any Jewish presence in the land, which has been going on for at least 100 years is ignored or minimized, as are the various failed attempts at partition, coexistence, and peace  — failed because the Arabs have never agreed to accept less than all of the land.

The MCC presents Israel as massively powerful, oppressing the weak Palestinians, while ignoring the coordinated assault by the Arab nations and Iran, with their petrodollar resources, to put an end to the Jewish state.

The MCC even tries to whitewash the genocidal Ahmadinejad:

…we believe that the president’s public comments have moderated somewhat over the past two years. When challenged regarding his comments about “wiping Israel off the map,” Ahmadinejad has said to us in previous meetings and, at last, in interviews with both CNN and the Los Angeles Times in late September, that he is not talking about a military solution. Rather, he supports the “one-state” solution, a political resolution in which Israelis and Palestinians elect a single government to represent both peoples.

As I said above, it’s simply impossible to believe that there could be such a ’single [Arab] government’ that would permit the Jews to live in peace. But we must also ask, if this is what Ahmadinejad wants, why has he introduced literally thousands of missiles into Lebanon and Syria, some with chemical and biological warheads, all aimed at Israel? Why has he financed and trained Hezbollah’s massive militia? Why is he creating an army for the murderous Hamas?

Technorati Tags: Mennonite Central Committee, MCC, Ahmadinejad, Israel, Palestinians

Time is running out on a peace deal, says Olmert:

Israel will have to give up virtually all of the West Bank and east Jerusalem if it wants peace with the Palestinians, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in a farewell interview published Monday, saying Israel faced a stark choice and needed to make a decision soon…

Olmert said time was “so short that it is terribly distressing.” In its attempts to make peace with the Palestinians and Syria, he said the decision Israelis now had to make “was a decision that we have been refusing to look at open-eyed for 40 years.” — Jerusalem Post

Unless it’s not.

“Time is on my side, Yes it is!”
By Barry Rubin

September 28, 2008

So sang the Rolling Stones. But which side has time working in its favor? That’s one of the Middle East’s most intriguing and controversial questions.

Recently, Israeli leaders and well-wishers — sincere and hypocritical alike — have spoken in panicky terms that time isn’t on Israel side and it’s either peace in a few months or the Biblical flood.

Even U.S. government policy claims that agreement can and must be reached right away or else. Presidential candidate Barrack Obama has stated that Israel desperately needs peace and must make lots of concessions to get it real fast.

Well, it’s nonsense. But first let’s ask why has this idea become so big?

First, peace is good. Second, on the left, peace is considered both good and reachable if Israel gives up enough.

Somehow, no serious analysis is ever made on what the other side, the Palestinians and Syria, are, want, think, or do.

Given these beliefs, they sincerely believe that Israel should be scared, pushed, and subverted — for “its own good” — to give. In this context, no serious reevaluation is made of the well-intended but arguably disastrous peace process of the 1990s. Many of those on the moderate left and center have drawn proper conclusions from this experience.

Others in the center or even moderate right, however, who don’t accept the further left’s arguments, have come up with one of their own. They already accept, of course, that peace is good but how does one justify a high level of concessions? The answer is that those thinking this way must conclude that peace is both possible and urgently necessary.

And this brings us to former (oh, it feels so good to use that word) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and apparently, though possibly not, for acting Prime Minister Tzipi Livni.

For them, the argument that time is against Israel is the critical argument.

The response should be: on what is this claim based? After all, not only is it not true but progress toward peace — as welcome as that would be — can worsen many of the factors they consider. Moreover, if too many concessions are made or a bad agreement is concluded than time really would be against Israel.

Perhaps the only specific point raised to show time is running out is the demographic one. Yet this is absurd. Egypt’s birthrate, following a common pattern seen throughout the world, has fallen. The outflow of Palestinians to Jordan and other places is obvious. Palestinian population has been overestimated.

Beyond this, however, it makes no difference how many Palestinians there are in the West Bank or Gaza Strip. Israel is not going to annex the land and make the Palestinians there voters. Numbers alone — as the conflict’s history shows — don’t count that much.

Whatever supposed factor pitting time against Israel — Europe’s Islamicization, declining Western support, radical Islamist takeovers of Arab states or the Palestinian movement — will not be neutralized by Israeli concessions or a Palestinian state’s creation. After all, once the situation changed against Israel, the issue would merely be reopened no matter what diplomatic agreement might have been reached earlier. The concept that immediate giveaways buy long-term immunity is absurd on its face.

Equally, underlying all this irrational analysis is a dogma beloved by foreign observers and journalists that quickly collapses on examination: Israel cannot continue with the status quo.

Why not? Israel faces far less pressure than in prior years. Security is far better than in the 1948-1990 period when Israel potentially faced full-scale war with the armies of surrounding Arab states every day. In the 1990s’ peace process period, when at times terrorism reached far higher levels than today.

As for rocket attacks time is on Israel’s side since it will have a defensive system within a few years. Completing the security fence will also enhance protection. Regarding Iranian nuclear weapons, an agreement with Fatah won’t deter Tehran’s — or Hizballah’s and Hamas’s — determination to sabotage it and passion for destroying Israel.

These radical forces would try to take over a Palestinian state and attack Israel from Gaza, Lebanon, and (West Bank) Palestine. Would the Palestinian government be able or even try to stop them? Might this bring Israeli military action and a new war? Once a Palestinian state was created would Israel’s Arab minority be happy or inspired to escalate demands?

What about the cost to Israel of occupation? Well, before 1994 Israel paid the entire budget for the territories and was 100 percent responsible for security control. Today, its involvement in the Gaza Strip is zero and in the West Bank perhaps one-fifth what is was. Olmert’s personal sleaziness takes a higher toll on Israeli morale than the remnants of occupation. Most Israelis don’t want more than a tiny portion of the West Bank and know any presence there is due to security needs, not Greater Israel ambitions.

Meanwhile, Israel prospers and progresses. This year saw record tourism, near record-low unemployment, and fast economic growth. Israel’s real problems are internal — improving education and social welfare — having nothing to do with the Palestinians.

Equally, Israel is doing well internationally. While a leftist and academic fringe has become completely hostile and popularity in public opinion polls has fallen in Europe (often not far below levels of anti-Americanism), the diplomatic picture is good. With friendly British, French, German, and Italian governments, the most hostile states in Europe are probably Belgium, Spain, and Sweden. Aside from the United States, Australia and Canada are extremely friendly; Israel has good relations with India and China, and okay relations with Russia.

Sadly, too, while it’s always been argued that pushing for peace, withdrawing troops, and making big concessions promotes the love of Israel, unquestionably the opposite happens.

While Israel progresses on hi-tech, medicine, and science, the Arab world lags behind. Palestinians pay a high price for stagnation but choose intransigence any way. In fact, time is on Israel’s side; it grows in strength while the other side has become more divided and, in most cases, increasingly unwilling to wage the conflict.

Some of the attitude of time-as-enemy arises from a general Western malaise of self-hatred and defeatism. In addition, Israel kept winning wars without gaining strategic serenity, neither total victory nor total peace. Yet a combination of military triumphs, diplomatic efforts, and redeployment from the territories has brought Israel’s security to what is, in relative terms, a near all-time high. It may be far below what other nations are used to having, yet it is Israeli standards that count here.

The reality is that the Palestinians — albeit living off large-scale, though poorly spent, global subsidies — for whom time is an enemy. They face bad conditions; Fatah’s decline continues; the chance to have their own state slips away because their leadership pushes it away. Arab regimes face Islamist challenges that may be defeated but waste resources and stunt their progress. The chance for democracy, moderation, and stability has been lost for another generation.

Peace is preferable but much of what makes it so is that it must be a good peace, one that makes things better and is sustainable. Peace is possible only when the other side wants it. Today’s peace process mania is like a cartoon character whose legs windmill in a blur but which never advances.

But Israel is in the stronger position and can, like the Rolling Stones, say to Palestinians and others that if they want to make things better for themselves:

“You’re searching for good times, wait and see,
“You’ll come running back to me.”

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). To read and subscribe to MERIA and other GLORIA Center publications or to order books, visit http://www.gloriacenter.org.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians, peace process

Recently someone placed a small pipe bomb outside the home of Ze’ev Sternhell, a professor of Political Science at the Hebrew University. He was slightly injured when it exploded. The police think that the perpetrators were right-wing extremists, angry at Sternhell for his widely-quoted remarks, as follows:

In the end we will have to use force against the settlers in Ofra or Elon Moreh. Only he who is willing to storm Ofra with tanks will be able to block the fascist danger threatening to drown Israeli democracy. — 1998

There is no doubt about the legitimacy of [Palestinian] armed resistance in the territories themselves. If the Palestinians had a little sense, they would concentrate their struggle against the settlements… and refrain from planting bombs west of the Green Line. — 2001

This small bomb’s echo was heard across the country, Yariv Oppenheimer of Peace Now said:

On Thursday night, my feelings of personal safety — as well as those of my friends — were shattered the moment we received news that an explosive device had detonated outside Prof. Ze’ev Sternhell’s home.

One would expect that his ‘feelings of personal safety” would have been far more affected by Hezbollah’s and Syria’s thousands of missiles aimed at Israel or by Iranian threats, but never mind.

It is wrong to blow up left-wing Jews who say stupid things. Do I need to repeat that? It is no better than the actions of Hamas (who blow up both left and right-wing Jews).

Having said that, let’s follow the lead of those who try to understand the forces that have produced Arab and Muslim terrorism. Not approve of, just understand, mind you. Let’s try to understand the frustration that gives rise to right-wing rage.

Here’s a quick summary of some of the political causes for frustration, from an article by Evelyn Gordon:

In 1993, the Knesset approved the Oslo Accords, even though Yitzhak Rabin won election promising no negotiations with the PLO. But the ensuing surge in terror disillusioned many Oslo supporters, thus rightists saw a real chance of defeating Oslo 2 in 1995. So they did exactly what good democrats are supposed to do: They lobbied Shas and Labor MKs, and succeeded in garnering enough votes for victory - until Rabin, thumbing his nose at the rules, openly bought two MKs elected on a far-right slate, thereby securing a 61-59 majority…

Fast forward to the 2003 election, when Labor championed a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and the Likud’s Ariel Sharon campaigned against this idea. Again, rightists did what good democrats are supposed to do: They threw themselves into electing Sharon. And they succeeded: The Likud won by a landslide. Yet 11 months later, Sharon U-turned and adopted Labor’s platform.

Nevertheless, he offered a democratic escape route: an internal party referendum. So rightists again did what good democrats are supposed to do: They canvassed door-to-door among Likud members. And they won again: Though polls predicted an easy victory for Sharon, his plan lost by a 60-40 margin.

But Sharon ignored his party’s verdict, despite having pledged to honor it. He also refused to submit his plan to any broader democratic test — new elections or a national referendum…

And then Sharon had his stroke, and Olmert continued his program with disastrous results. Now the desire of the present coalition partners to retain their comfortable chairs in the Knesset has almost guaranteed that the present policy of withdrawal and concessions will continue at least until 2010, when general elections are scheduled.

But if the extreme Right is a minority in Israel, so is the extreme Left of the Sternhells and Oppenheimers. So why is Israel following this policy, so thoroughly discredited by the failure of Oslo, the second intifada, and the establishment of Hamastan in Gaza?

The reason is that the policy is not made in Israel, but rather in Washington and Brussels. It is a policy based on the demonstrably false view that Arabs and Muslims will be nicer to the US and Europe — perhaps they will pump more and drive the price of oil down (or they will not pump less and drive it up) — if the West will weaken and shrink Israel.

Some of the promoters of this policy think that Israel has a right to exist, that a peace-loving Palestinian state is a possibility, and that forcing Israel to pre-1967 borders would end Arab demands. Others realize that this is too much to hope for, but believe that a shrunken Israel could still maintain military superiority over the terrorist proxies surrounding it. Finally, some understand that the demands will never stop until Israel is no longer viable, but either don’t care or will be pleased to see the end of the “shitty little country“.

Now nothing frustrates and enrages someone as much as the feeling that he is powerless and not in control.  In particular, many feel that their democratic government is a sham, and someone else is calling the shots, forcing their country to follow a policy that will end in destruction. And there’s nothing they can do about it.

But apparently it feels good to scare fools like Sternhell and Oppenheimer.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Sternhell

Recently I wrote about the contradiction between the peaceful ideals of Mennonite (and some other) Christians, and their hosting a dinner for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he visited the UN this week.

Apparently I missed one of the other guests at the dinner. Also breaking bread with the man who has called Israel a”stinking, rotten corpse” and predicted that it would be “wiped off the face of the earth” — and who is well on the way, with the acquiesence of the West, to obtaining nuclear bombs — was Rabbi Lynn Gottleib, who also spoke at the dinner.

Rabbi Gottleib was in the news this May when — shocked by Sen. Hillary Clinton’s remark that if Iran were to attack Israel, the US would retaliate against Iran and could “totally obliterate them” — decided to travel to Iran as co-leader of an ‘interfaith peace delegation’, where she wrote a poem, ending thus:

O Iran
Revelation bursts forth from your soil
draped in ten thousand shades
of  illumination.
You returned my people to Jerusalem
restored the Temple
provided my relatives with a Persian home for thirty centuries
and I did not know.
Now I jump over fires on Norouz
go to the garden of roses
the first Sabbath after Passover
recite poetry
at Hafez’s tomb
touch my forehead to the clay earth of Jamkaran
where the Mahdi is hidden
but everywhere present.

Lovely, isn’t it?  I thought it would be instructive to contrast it with some prose by the honored guest at the dinner, spoken earlier that day at the UN General Assembly:

The dignity, integrity and rights of the American and European people are being played with by a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists. Although they are a miniscule [sic] minority, they have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers as well as the political decision-making centers of some European countries and the US in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner. It is deeply disastrous to witness that some presidential or premiere [sic] nominees in some big countries have to visit these people, take part in their gatherings, swear their allegiance and commitment to their interests in order to attain financial or media support.

Gottleib’s explanation, when asked why she attended a dinner honoring such a man, said “peace is better than war”.

Um, OK.

Technorati Tags: Lynn Gottleib, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran, UN, Jews

On dark days I ask myself whether the Jewish people and its state — which sustains and protects it — will survive.

On really dark days I ask whether we are the primary agents of our own destruction. Here are just a few random examples that I’ve  come across recently.

Example no. 1: From the Website of J Street, an organization that wishes to replace AIPAC as the political voice of American Jewry:

We Won! Palin Not Speaking at Iran Rally

We collected over 20,000 signatures in 24 hours asking Iran Unity rally organizer Malcolm Hoenlein to take Sarah Palin off the schedule for Monday’s rally, and he caved to our pressure on Thursday afternoon citing the fact that the rally had become too partisan.

I am not a Sarah Palin fan, but she is the biggest show on the current political scene. And she wanted to make a speech (you can read it here) in which she said in part,

This is an issue that should unite all Americans. Iran should not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. Period. And in a single voice, we must be loud enough for the whole world to hear: Stop Iran!

Why did some American Jews prefer that this message not be heard?

Example no. 2: Some Orthodox Jews believe that only God may create a Jewish State. Most of them, however, do not embrace Israel’s enemies. But Neturei Karta does.

Neturei Karta member in friendly discussion with Hitler successor in New York

Neturei Karta is a highly visible presence at anti-Israel demonstrations, and even sent a delegation to Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial conference.  They have received funding from Iran and, in 2002, from Yasser Arafat.

Example no. 3: From Ha’aretz:

It appears that the Jewish left is bolstering its position in the U.S. - after the introduction of the new J Street lobby, aimed at countering the powerful Jewish lobby AIPAC, B’Tselem, a left-wing human rights organization based in Israel, has sent two official staffers to Washington and New York for the first time…

The B’Tselem staffers intend to inform the policy makers, American public and the American Jewish community about human rights conditions in the Palestinian territories.

B’Tselem is a ‘human rights’ organization that is interested only in the human rights of Palestinians, not Israelis. Even given this, its reports are highly distorted and biased against Israel (read CAMERA’s report on B’Tselem here). B’Tselem’s funding comes from various sources — mostly European, but including the New Israel Fund, which I have previously discussed (see: A Jewish Charity that Helps Delegitimize Israel).

What makes these groups particularly effective of course is that they are comprised of Jews. Neturei Karta’s condemnations of Zionism as a form of anti-Semitism appear alongside quotations from Hitler on neo-Nazi websites, while Palestinians point to B’Tselem — after all, an Israeli organization — as proof of their brutal treatment at the hands of the Zionists.

These Jewish groups — and all the others, like Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, Jewish Voice for Peace, etc. — have different points of view. But although they will talk for as long as you will listen about their ideologies, and although we can speculate forever about their psychological motivations, the fact is that their actions abet those, like Ahmadinejad and Hamas, who simply want to murder Jews.

They are Jews against the Jewish people.

Technorati Tags: Jewish anti-Zionism, Palin, Neturei Karta, J Street, B’Tselem

You may be wondering, as I am, how are we to meet the challenge of expansionist radical Islam, particularly in the form of soon-to-be-nuclear Iran?

You may feel uneasy that Iran has extended its influence all the way to Lebanon and will almost certainly  absorb Iraq into its sphere of influence as we withdraw — which we are certainly going to do.

It may bother you to think that Iran, where political rallies invariably include shouts of “death to America” and “death to Israel”, will shortly control — either directly or by nuclear blackmail — approximately 56% of world oil reserves.

If you care about Israel, you are probably very worried about Ahmadinejad’s threats to ‘wipe Israel off the face of the earth’, threats that he is in the early stages of carrying out by means of his proxies Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah — even without using the nukes he is building.

Well, you can stop worrying.

34 former US officials and ‘civic leaders’ have the solution:  Don’t fight ‘em, join ‘em!

WASHINGTON - The next U.S. president should speak out for better relations with the Muslim world in his inaugural address and pursue an accord between Israel and the Palestinians within three months of taking office, a diverse coalition of 34 former U.S. officials and civic leaders said in a report being issued Wednesday.

Step 1 is giving the Arabs and Iranians what they want more than anything else: Israel. You can bet that the ‘accord’ that they envision includes getting the IDF out of the West Bank and turning it over to the forces of Mahmoud Abbas, who will ‘fight terrorism’ for about 10 minutes before rolling over for Hamas. Then Israel will be almost entirely surrounded by Iran’s proxy armies, with missiles falling on Tel Aviv daily. I don’t even want to think about the rest of the deal, which will involve giving up parts of Jerusalem and even the admission of some number of ‘refugees’ (read: guerrillas) into Israel.

The proposals, which include diplomatic engagement with Iran, are designed to reverse Muslim extremism and enhance U.S. international security. They are based on the conclusion that improving U.S. relations with Muslim countries and communities is critical, the report said…

Do the dignitaries and civic leaders explain precisely how giving in to the demands of Muslim extremism will tend to reverse it? I would expect just the opposite, given the results of Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza — and from simply paying attention to what the extremists say.

On promoting democracy among the Arabs, a hallmark of President George W. Bush’s foreign policy, the report envisioned a cautious role for the United States: improving governance and civic participation without imposing a particular set of institutions, parties or leaders.

Bush’s war on terror, the report said, has been inadequate and sometimes counterproductive. It recommends “partnership” with Muslims committed to nonviolent political and economic development to reverse extremism and promote reform within authoritarian governments.

The jails in Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt are full of reform-minded Muslims (in the Palestinian Authority they don’t live long enough to be jailed). Bashar Assad, for example, does not want ‘economic development’ and certainly not any kind of ‘reform’. He is quite happy with funneling the fruits of the Syrian economy into the pockets of his friends and relatives, and his relationship with Iran — which provides an unlimited supply of weapons — is far more important to him than anything we can provide. With whom should we ‘partner’ in Syria?

Palestinian political culture is such that respect and support goes to the faction that has the most credibility in armed struggle with the Zionists. With whom are we to ‘partner’ among the Palestinians?

“Bush’s war on terror” as I recall, began with the overthrow of the Taliban who sheltered and supported Osama Bin Laden. Should we not have tried to impose a non-Taliban government? With whom should we have ‘partnered’ in Afghanistan?

Among the recommendations were expanding people-to-people exchanges and staging a business-government conference on economic reform, growth and job creation in the Middle East within the first six months of the new administration.

This is so wrong-headed that it’s breathtaking.

First, it ignores ideology as a motivator. Do you think that the average Hamas or Hezbollah fanatic will stop wanting to rip the throats out of Jews if he’s offered a better job? Was Osama bin Laden motivated by a desire for economic reform?

Second, it ignores that fact that the export of violent extremism is the deliberate policy of some Muslim nations (e.g., Iran and Syria). Iran’s support for Hezbollah — which has been called the “foreign legion of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard” — as well as Hamas, has institutionalized extremism and terrorism.

And third, it ignores reality. Will Ahmadinejad agree to stop building the weapons with which he plans to become a regional superpower as a result of promises to build maquiladoras in his country? Can we afford to bribe Bashar al-Assad better than Ahmadinejad can?

The full report can be found here; it is being released today before the foreign policy debate between John McCain and Barack Obama to beheld Friday and includes a “Call to Action” for the next President.

The 34 signatories include 11 Muslim-Americans including Ingrid Mattson, President of the Islamic Society of North America [ISNA], as well as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, President/CEO of the American Petroleum Institute Red Caveney, and Stephen Heintz, President of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, one of the major funders of the project.

This document is 170 pages of nonsense masquerading as serious policy analysis, whose goal is to replace opposition to Iranian and Palestinian goals with appeasement and bribes (which will be accepted and ineffectual, as always).

Technorati Tags: US-Muslim Engagement Project