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Iranian anti-Israel agitation is heating up:

Millions of Iranians attended nationwide rallies Friday in support of the Palestinians, while the country’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Israel’s continued existence was an “insult to human dignity.”

“The creation, continued existence and unlimited (Western) support for this regime is an insult to human dignity,” Ahmadinejad said. “The occupation of Palestine is not limited to one land. The Zionist issue is now a global issue” …

In the capital Teheran, hundreds of thousands of people poured into the streets as they chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” Some protesters also burned American and Israeli flags. — Jerusalem Post

Why does he care, actually? Is his hatred of Israel a result of his love for the Palestinians? I doubt it, since Iranian-backed Shiites are busily torturing and killing Palestinians in Iraq. He could stop that in a minute if he wanted to.

Is he afraid that Israel will prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power? Israel does not, unfortunately, have the firepower to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations, and she is highly vulnerable to an Iranian counterattack. In this connection, he should be much more worried about the US, which has both the power and — because of the Iranian threat to Gulf oil producers — the motivation.

No, I think the reason is that Israel is a bone in Iran’s geopolitical throat. Iran envisions herself as the leader of a great Islamic caliphate, stretching all the way to the Mediterranean. Imagine Lebanon under the control of Hezbollah and Syria’s Alawite rulers (whom many do not even consider Muslim) replaced with a similar group. Israel, which would strongly and effectively oppose such changes, must be gotten out of the way before they can occur.

We also shouldn’t minimize the propaganda value of destroying Israel. I’m always amazed by the honest depth of hatred most Arabs and Muslims have for Israel. Older Americans may remember how ‘Communism’ was hated so passionately here in the 1950s. This possibly comes close to the feeling of the “Arab street”, although I think the combination of today’s powerful media and the lower educational levels in the Arab world compared to the West have made their feelings even stronger. Anyway, there’s no better way to win the hearts of this constituency than to credibly threaten Israel.

Iran’s main antagonists are the US and Saudi Arabia, and what they are struggling for is control of the oil resources of the Middle East, and the stranglehold on the world’s economy that this would provide. There is no more important prize in the world today.

Israel’s primary task at this moment is to oppose the Iranian proxies in the neighborhood — Hamas and Hezbollah, and Iran’s ally Syria. These represent the direct present threats to her security. It is to be hoped that the ‘big boys’ — the US, Saudi Arabia, the EU — will be worried enough about Iranian ambitions to take action.

Technorati Tags: Iran, Israel

The November Mideast Summit, if it takes place, will not produce an agreement on ‘core issues’ (borders, refugees, Jerusalem) between Israel and the Palestinians, but only a ’statement of principles’:

The US-sponsored Mideast conference scheduled to take place in Maryland in November will only be one step in the peace process, rather than its goal, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed on Wednesday afternoon.

The parties did not agree on the content of the joint statement they plan to present at the US summit, but did agree that the negotiations teams will hold intensive meetings starting next week in order to discuss the statement’s wording. — YNet

This isn’t surprising, since Abbas’ demands as he has so far enunciated them can’t possibly be acceptable to Israel. They include complete Israeli withdrawal to pre-1967 lines, the return of the descendants of the 1948 refugees to Israel, and the re-division of Jerusalem according to the lines established by the Jordanian occupation of 1948 — which would result in the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, and even the Hebrew University and the original Hadassah hospital becoming part of the Palestinian state.

A serious complicating factor is a recent report that Abbas is (or shortly will be) conducting secret negotiations with Hamas. Although one can say that the 40% of the Palestinian population in the Hamas-controlled area can’t be ignored, there’s another side to this argument: as long as so many Palestinians are ruled by the violent, rejectionist Hamas, there can’t be a meaningful peace agreement.

Nevertheless, Condoleeza Rice will be coming to the region next week. She will vist Israel and several Arab countries, and her goal will be to get as much ‘progress’ made toward an agreement as possible.

As usual, this will mean pressuring Israel for concessions in the negotiations, as well as “bolstering” for Abbas: prisoner releases, removal of checkpoints, etc. None of this will improve Israel’s security, and the prospects for the summit to produce a peace agreement are exactly zero.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians, Mideast summit

Here’s more about the great hope for Palestinian leadership, Marwan Barghouti, by Caroline Glick:

In the interests of “strengthening” Abbas and Fatah, last week Infrastructures Minister and former defense minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer recommended releasing Fatah terror chief and convicted mass murderer Marwan Barghouti from prison. Ben Eliezer and Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai defend their position by extolling Barghouti as “the new Yasser Arafat.” [! — ed.] It was during Ben Eliezer’s tenure as defense minister that the IDF arrested Barghouti in April 2002. Four months later, the State Prosecution submitted his indictment. Israel indicted Barghouti of 26 counts of premeditated murder, accessory to murder, solicitation of murder, attempted murder, criminal conspiracy, membership in a terrorist organization and terrorist activity…

In its 2004 verdict, the Tel Aviv District Court found Barghouti guilty of five counts of murder. Regarding the other murders, the court felt he had “moral responsibility” but that he had no “legal responsibility,” for the carnage he directed, incited and financed…

In an interview with Army Radio last week, Ben Eliezer explained that freeing Barghouti is necessary to “strengthen Fatah” against Hamas. Rather than castigating Barghouti for his close ties to Hamas, Ben Eliezer presented them as an attribute. In his words, the arch-terrorist is “well-respected by Hamas.” He then said, “For us he might be a murderer, but I’d like to remind you that Arafat was no less of a murderer, and we approached him as well.”

Ben-Eliezer failed to note the irony of his statement. Yes, Israel “approached” Arafat and lo and behold, Arafat remained a murderer committed to Israel’s destruction. As a result of Israel’s decision to “approach” Arafat, some 1,500 Israelis are dead today and Palestinian society is the most jihadist society in the world.

It seems to me that part of the problem is that a large enough and violent enough segment of the Palestinian population is not prepared to accept a truly moderate leader, or even to allow one to surface. Being a murderer is almost a qualification for Palestinian leadership.

This will not be solved by helping the Palestinians annoint another bloody murderer whose life has been devoted to killing Jews.

Let the Palestinians figure out that they are not going to replace Israel with an Arab state. The sooner they understand this and come to terms with the existence of the Jewish state, the sooner they will be able to put their terrorist national character behind them, become a normal people and get their own state.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians, Barghouti

Former Time reporter in Iran Azadeh Moaveni was interviewed on NPR today, and she said that the Arab world is angry at the US because of its support for Israeli “mistreatment” of Palestinians. But how do the Arabs treat the Palestinians in their own countries?

Iraq

LONDON (AFP) - Thousands of Palestinian refugees in Iraq have been ill-treated, with many of them abducted, tortured and murdered by armed Shiite Muslim groups, Amnesty International said in a report published Monday.

“Palestinian refugees in Iraq have been subjected to gross human rights abuses including abduction, hostage-taking, unlawful killing, torture and other ill-treatment at the hands of armed militia groups,” it said.

Lebanon

Eli Bakhya, the cameraman who entered the [Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee] camp, said he was able to go only about a kilometre into the camp, and that the presence of snipers prevented him from going any farther and they were stuck in the middle.

He said buildings everywhere were destroyed.

Walid Abdullah, a nurse taking care of casualties in the camp, said the situation was disastrous.

He said the bombardment from the army was targeting civilians and that three mosques were hit.

“Many dead bodies are lying on the streets,” he said. “They are bloated and smelling and there is a threat of epidemics.” Al-Jazeera [May 22]

The Nahar al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp was wrecked, and Al-Jazeera reported today that “More than 400 people have died in the fighting between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam, including at least 222 fighters”.

Kuwait

At the end of the Gulf War Kuwait expelled some 400,000 Palestinians because the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had aligned the PLO with Saddam Hussein, who had invaded Kuwait. The exodus took place during one week in March 1991, after Kuwait was liberated from Iraqi occupation. Although many Palestinians had joined the Kuwaiti resistance to Iraq’s occupation, they were scapegoated and blamed for the the position adopted by the PLO leader…

Prior to the exodus, Palestinians made up about 30% of Kuwait’s population. By 2006 only a few had returned to Kuwait and today the number of Palestinians living in Kuwait is less than 40,000 (under 3% of the population). — Wikipedia

Syria

The Syrian government…has refused to allow the Palestinians [refugees from the fighting in Iraq] entry into the country, leaving the refugees stranded at the border. Hundreds more are expected to attempt to make the journey.

“It’s hard to understand why Syria has provided refuge to nearly a million Iraqi refugees but is shutting the door on hundreds of Palestinians also fleeing Iraq,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The Syrian government’s mistreatment of these Palestinian refugees contrasts sharply with its declarations of solidarity with the Palestinian people.” — Human Rights Watch

…and in general

Since 1948 the Arab nations (with the exception of Jordan) have never agreed to grant Palestinian refugees citizenship in their host countries, or allowed them freedom to work in occupations of their choice, or even freedom of movement. They have done their best to breed a mass of humanity kept miserable so that they will be a source of recruits for terrorist organizations and a weapon to use against Israel. Indeed, HRWs Whitson could have said with equal truth “The Arab nations’ mistreatment of these Palestinian refugees contrasts sharply with their declarations of solidarity with the Palestinian people”.

Technorati Tags: Palestinians

Everybody wants to know if Ahmadinejad is only posturing or if he is really dangerous. Barry Rubin argues that he is indeed a threat to Western civilization and that ‘engagement’ is not the way to deal with him.

In Search of Ahmadinejad

By Barry Rubin

A massive controversy has erupted in the United States, and across the world, around Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York, where he spoke at the United Nations and Columbia University.

Who is this man and what does he want? Is he a new Hitler or a leader with understandable grievances who should be engaged in dialogue? Apart from the passion provoked and naïveté too often shown toward this leader, how can we accurately assess him?

Ahmadinejad is a demagogue on a lot of issues for three distinct reasons:

First, he is trying to use his radical stance—extremist even on the already extreme Iranian political spectrum—to gain control of the country. As head of a faction and due to personal ambition he is trying to displace other groups. Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei remains the single most powerful person in Iran and Ahmadinejad’s real rival within the country.

Second, Ahmadinejad is pursuing the Iranian Islamist revolution’s long-term goal—but one not always given top priority by the regime—of spreading Islamist revolution throughout the region and emerging as the most powerful force in the Middle East. In terms of promoting Iran’s primacy, there is an inherent nationalist as well as Islamist element in his policy.

Third, Ahmadinejad seems to be a true believer in the Iranian Islamist ideology which sees international politics as a struggle between the true followers of the deity and the allies of Satan.

Ahmadinejad’s goals, then, are his control over Iran, Iran’s control over the Persian Gulf area (especially Iraq), Israel’s destruction, Iranian leadership over the Middle East, the expulsion of Western (and especially American) influence from the region, and even world domination, in roughly that order.

Basically, Ahmadinejad is not a unique phenomenon in modern Middle East history. The role to be filled is that of the leader of the Arabs and Muslims as well as prime enemy of America, Israel, and the West. In this respect, he is comparable to Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1950s and 1960s; Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the 1970s and 1980s; Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in the 1980s and 1990s; and Usama bin Ladin during the period before and especially after September 11, 2001. Yet Ahmadinejad has also become a symbol for the radical Islamist challenge to everyone else in the world

What makes Ahmadinejad different? The key element here, and one due to his own words and behavior, is that he seems not to be held back by caution, a rational calculation of the balance of forces, even if judged by the standard of his predecessors aside from bin Ladin of course. In other words, Ahmadinejad seems capable of anything and consequently far more dangerous. This conclusion is not just a matter of Western projection. I’ll bet that at times he scares even Khamenei.

Here are some elements in that set of problems:

• Ahmadinejad makes statements implying his belief that the end of the world is at hand and the Shia messiah is on the way. Thus, provoking war with Israel or the United States is not so much to be seen as risking the destruction of Iran’s Islamist regime as fulfilling its divine mission.

• For a number of reasons, Ahmadinejad thinks that his side is winning and the West is weak and in retreat. That could provoke him to even more extreme adventurism.

• While other Iranian leaders have spoken about Israel’s destruction, he is putting it higher on his agenda and is more likely to do something to try to implement this objective.

• The way things are going he will one day have nuclear weapons to play with in fulfilling his goals. Two important points should be noted here. First, the bombs and missiles would be held by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, his close ally and the main liaison between Iran and terrorist groups, itself raising the prospect of their being used. Second, even if Iran never used nuclear weapons the effect on the region would be devastating. Arab governments would rush to appease Iran; large numbers of Arabs would rush to join radical Islamist groups believing that this movement is the wave of the future.

• In Iraq, Iran has gone into a virtual state of war against the United States trying to project Tehran’s influence and killing American soldiers.

• Ahmadinejad has also become, for all practical purposes, the leader in promoting hatred of the United States and not only of Israel but of Jews in general.

What undercuts the dangers posed by Ahmadinejad? He still does not have full control over Iran and may never achieve this goal. Since he is a Shia Muslim and is not an Arab it is more difficult for him to play a leadership role over the largely Sunni Muslim Arabic-speaking world. Not impossible, as these barriers have been partly overcome, but harder nonetheless.

Thus, Ahmadinejad has not yet achieved the status of being equivalent to Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin as the world’s leading threat to peace and freedom but he is certainly trying to rise to this level.

It should be rather obvious that this is not a problem caused by lack of communication and that engagement with him will not have any moderating effect. He must be opposed and his regime pressured. Aside from the problems posed by the Iranian government in general, taking a tough stand against Ahmadinejad is necessary to convince his colleague-rivals that they must get rid of this guy and tone down their country’s behavior in order to ensure their own survival and that of their regime.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA). His latest books are The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan) and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).

Technorati Tags: Ahmadinejad, Iran