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One lesson that we can learn from the nasty war in Georgia is that if you are a small nation, a big power can crush you like a gnat. And you can’t necessarily depend on promises from other big powers to help you.

This is the problem of small nations, especially if they happen to be strategically located or important in some other way. Georgia’s pipelines from oil-rich Azerbijan into Turkey and to Georgia’s Black Sea ports make it ‘important’.

Israel is strategic because it is an obstacle to the spread of Islamic fundamentalism in the Mideast, both the Iranian and al-Qaeda variety. But its primary importance may lie more in its ‘location’ in the world’s psychological space than geography. If the size of a nation was proportional to the amount of news coverage devoted to it, Israel would be right up there with Russia.

The Georgians probably wish they weren’t so important to Russia today. But Israel’s relationship to its big brother, the US, is different: it’s both positive and negative.

Israel receives large quantities of aid from the US, mostly in the form of  grants and loan guarantees which can be used to buy weapons in the US. It is often said that Israel is one of the largest recipients of US foreign aid in the world (although this is misleading –  the US provides military assistance to other countries (e.g., Pakistan) directly from its defense budget, and this isn’t counted as ‘foreign aid’).

Since 1973, this aid has bought the US almost complete control of Israeli policy. In the light of this, the assertions by Mearsheimer and Walt and others that Israeli influence affects US policies against its own interests are not only false, but laughable.

For example, the “Annapolis process” in which Israel is pressured to acquiesce and even assist in the arming of the Palestinian Authority (PA) while engaging in negotiations that — if they succeed — will result in Hamas control of the West Bank, is in no way in Israel’s interest. Nor are the restrictions placed on Israel’s possible responses  to Hamas terrorism from Gaza.

US interests include good relations with the Arab oil powers, and even — despite appearances — a relationship, albeit not an entirely happy one, with Iran. Iran could cause great mischief for the West quite easily, and nobody wants to provoke her.

For example, Aluf Benn in Ha’aretz reported today that Israel will not get certain unspecified military equipment from the US which could be used in an attack on Iranian nuclear installations:

The Americans viewed the request, which was transmitted (and rejected) at the highest level, as a sign that Israel is in the advanced stages of preparations to attack Iran. They therefore warned Israel against attacking, saying such a strike would undermine American interests. They also demanded that Israel give them prior notice if it nevertheless decided to strike Iran.

On the plus side, if the US were not Israel’s patron, then she might be at the mercy of the Europeans who are both more dependent on Middle Eastern sources of oil and more driven by domestic politics to be pro-Arab than the US.

One of the complicating factors in the Israel-US relationship is the competing elements in the American government. State Department Arabists opposed Truman’s recognition of Israel in 1948, opposed Nixon’s resupply of the IDF in 1973, and since 1967 have tried mightily to get Israel out of the territories regardless of the cost to Israeli security.

The White House, on the other hand has often been quite friendly to Israel. There was Truman, of course. And Bush’s letter of 2004 — in which he suggested that final borders between Israel and a Palestinian state need not be the 1949 armistice lines and that Palestinian ‘refugees’ could not expect to ‘return’ to Israel proper — undoubtedly caused teeth to gnash at Foggy Bottom.

Israel’s dependence on the US and its political obsequiousness is not healthy. How to reduce it is a difficult but critical question, especially now that US geopolitical and economic clout in the world is in an increasingly precipitous decline.

Technorati Tags: Israel

S.S. Liberty, with Useful Idiots on board

A pair of ships will leave Cyprus for Gaza tomorrow with the intention of  ‘breaking the blockade’.

Those on board will include three European parliamentarians, holocaust survivor Heddy Epstein, Jeff Halper, an Israeli and member of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Lauren Booth, the sister of Cherrie Blair, and a number of journalists and human rights activists.

Ex-U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s Carter Center has backed the voyage as has former anti-Apartheid activist and Nobel Laureate winner, South African Bishop Desmond Tutu…

“We want to bring it to the world’s attention that Gaza is virtually an outdoor concentration camp,” Greta Berlin, a spokeswoman for the Free Gaza Movement, told AFP. — Middle East Times

And what a concentration camp! One supplied through literally hundreds of tunnels, some of which include fuel pipelines and have been used to smuggle everything from anti-aircraft missiles to zoo animals; one which fields an army of at more than 20,000 well-equipped and trained soldiers; and one which is developing its own weapons industry and fires its products into Israel on a regular basis.

Hamas receives funds directly from Iran, and the Palestinian Authority (i.e., the US and EU)  still pays its thousands of ’employees’ in Gaza although Hamas is in charge. There are also ‘refugee’ camps in Gaza — while Gaza is entirely governed by Palestinians, almost 500,000 ‘refugees’ are still in camps there — and these refugees receive money and services from the UNRWA, the UN organization which exists only to provide for Palestinian refugees. UNRWA too has thousands of employees in Gaza, but its charter is not to integrate refugees but rather to keep them separate until they can ‘return’ to Israel proper.

Many Gaza residents formerly worked in industrial zones near the border with Israel, or in Israel proper. Hamas has mortared and suicide-bombed the industrial zones and shells the crossings regularly, so this economic option is not open. And as I’ve mentioned before, even the infrastructure left behind by the evicted Israeli settlers was destroyed. So most Gaza residents either are employees of Hamas, the PA, or UNRWA, or they are refugees who receive UNRWA’s dole, or they ‘work’ in smuggling, or are members of criminal gangs or one of the smaller terrorist factions like the Islamic Jihad.

It’s easy to imagine what would happen if the crossings between Israel and Gaza were opened as the travelers on the Ship[s] of Fools would like. While there are undoubtedly Gazans who would welcome the opportunity to find work in Israel, Hamas would certainly take the opportunity to insert operatives, kidnap Israelis, etc. The Gaza crossings would indeed become the gates of hell.

What is interesting in an abnormal-psychology way is why people like Cherie Blair’s sister think that they are working for a worthy cause when Hamas has made it 100% clear by word and deed that they aim to kill Jews, eliminate the democratic nation of Israel and set up a fundamentalist Islamic state. Surely they can’t think that helping them in this enterprise will somehow improve the world.

The Israeli security establishment has had some time to think about this latest employment of the Useful Idiot brigade, so I hope they have a creative solution. Possibly just let them land in Gaza (one assumes that the women are prepared to don appropriate Islamic attire so they won’t get beaten up). They can make their statements about racist apartheid Israel and then get on their boats and go back to Cyprus.

Personally I’d say “sink the bastards”, but this is why I’m not in charge of anything more lethal than this blog.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Gaza, useful idiots

Today is Tisha b’Av, the ninth day of Av, the anniversary of the destruction of both the first and the second Temple, as well as various other disasters in Jewish history. Tisha b’Av, of course, is a fast day. Sometimes I barely notice it, but this time I find myself very uncomfortable although it’s still early.

The evacuation of Gaza’s Jewish residents in 2005 began on the tenth day of Av. It’s been said that it was originally scheduled for Tisha b’Av until someone noticed, but I’ve been unable to verify that. It is a fact that the original name of the operation to uproot the settlements – chosen by an IDF computer at random – was zohar ha’rakia [heavenly brightness], which is a phrase from the el ma’aleh rahamim prayer that is recited when praying for the  dead at funerals and on Yom Kippur.  When someone pointed this out, the name was changed to the less-upsetting avnei derech [milestones].

Last month the Knesset ordered an inquiry into the treatment of the evacuees, 28% of whom still had not found permanent housing three years after being removed from their homes. Many claim that they have not received the compensation promised by the government. And many of them are still unemployed — they were, after all, farmers in Gaza — and, ironically they are being sued by their former Palestinian employees for ‘wrongful dismissal and non-payment of workers benefits’!

It’s hard, perhaps, for those of us who do not live in Israel or even for secular Israelis to understand the feeling of betrayal felt by the Religious Zionist component of Israeli society, who saw residents dragged from their homes by their own army and police, and watched Palestinians burn the synagogues and destroy the farms and hothouses that they had built over the past 30 years — which they were encouraged to do by successive Labor and Likud governments.

One can speculate that this violation of trust did as much or more damage to the fabric of Israeli society than the rockets which have fallen on southern Israel since then.

And Israel still has not paid the price of the coming confrontation with Hamas which the IDF’s abdication of control of the Egyptian border has guaranteed will be a high one. There’s no question that the ‘disengagement’ from Gaza — both in concept and execution — was a huge fashla [f—up], no less important than the Second Lebanon War in 2006 (which also spanned Tisha b’Av, by the way).

To absolutely put the icing on the cake, the Israeli government has just issued a postage stamp commemorating the settlements of Gush Katif, formerly located in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.  Here it is, with the names of the settlements at the bottom. Under the picture of children happily playing is a verse from the prophet Amos, which translates (I am not making this up, as Dave Barry would say) as follows:

And they shall never again be uprooted from their land

Technorati Tags: Tisha b’Av, Israel, Gush Katif, Gaza Strip, disengagement

The phenomenon of doing the same dumb thing over and over again, each time getting made a fool of and yet not learning from the experience — this characterizes Western relationships with Middle Eastern entities.

Unfortunately it is not caused by a rare form of brain pathology as Barry Rubin surmises, but springs from attempts to get a short-term appearance of gains at the expense of producing a long-term deterioration of the situation.   

Fifty First Negotiations
By Barry Rubin

For those who don’t know, “Fifty First Dates” is a comedy film undistinguished except by its brilliant premise. It describes the dilemma of a man in love with a woman who has short-term memory loss. Each day she forgets she has ever met him and he must start the relationship all over again from the beginning. No matter how kind, funny, or romantic he is it doesn’t really matter. Like Sisyphus in the legend, he has to roll the boulder up the mountain from the bottom and never — at least until the Hollywood-style happy ending — gets to the top.

Actually, I don’t know if he succeeds since I lost interest before the end. Even if I knew, why should I ruin the film for you?

But I realize this situation is a great parallel for the Middle East. People constantly urge negotiating with Syria or with Iran, as if this has never happened before, or it just wasn’t done right, or not enough concessions were offered. We are supposed to believe that success is just around the corner, and as people say before they gamble away their life savings: What can you lose by trying? But what about all the other times this has been tried and failed? Are these simply forgotten by people with systematic memory loss?

How about the numerous visits of U.S. secretaries of state to Syria which failed to get Damascus to stop cooperating with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein (before 2003) or stop helping terrorists murder American soldiers and Iraqis in Iraq (after 2003), or close the offices of terrorist groups in Damascus, or make peace with Israel .

What about the ten year (ten year!) effort in the 1990s, pursued mainly by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat (yeah!) not an “evil Republican”, to bring Syria into the peace process and to make peace between the Palestinians and Israel?

Remember how the Syrians made a fool out of Secretary of State Colin Powell who assured American journalists that Syria had already closed the terrorist offices in Damascus on one occasion and had already closed the oil pipeline to Iraq on another only to realize he had been conned?

I have actually heard Powell speak recently about what a success his diplomacy was. As if that weren’t enough, I also heard former Secretary of State James Baker in a radio interview speak of his attempt to get the terrorist offices closed as a success, even though they are still open 18 years later!

How about the bait and switch tricks President Bashar al-Asad pulled on French President Francois Sarkozy regarding negotiations over Lebanon?

Sarkozy sent high-ranking officials to Syria without preconditions; had officials falsely deny Syrian involvement in a 1983 terror attack against French peacekeeping soldiers in Lebanon; asked Bashar to mediate with Iran; dropped demands that Syria normalize relations with Lebanon; begged — rather than demanded — Asad show some sign of respecting human rights; and pushed forward a highly profitable EU association agreement with Syria despite that country’s failing to meet earlier demands for reform.

On every point, Bashar let Sarkozy down yet this did not lead to a learning of lessons. Indeed, Sarkozy had forgotten what experience had taught his predecessor Jacques Chirac by 2006, that “the regime of Bashar seems incompatible with security and peace.” It’s bad enough not to go forward, even worse to go backward.

And then there are those gullible American members of Congress, notably Senator Arlen Specter, who said Bashar promised them to free political prisoners only to discover he had arrested even more?

Regarding Iran the situation is even worse. For about five years European states — led by Britain, France, and Germany — have negotiated with Iran over the nuclear weapon program only to find Tehran:

• Lied to them.
• Broke commitments.
• Ignored deadlines.

Obviously, systematic memory loss is the only explanation.

I, however, have a solution. Every politician who wants to negotiate with Iran and Syria (or the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Hizballah, or Muslim Brotherhoods for that matter) must sign the following pledge:

I  ___________________
__  prime minister
__  president
__  foreign minister
__  secretary of state
__  member of parliament/congress

Of  ____________; (Fill in name of country)
Hereby promise that if I bargain with this
___  name of country or
___  name of terrorist group
And it
__  treats me like dirt
__  lies to me
__  breaks commitments
__  ignore deadlines
__  murders my friends or allies
__  all of the above

I solemnly pledge that if I try and fail in negotiations, and especially if I make concessions in exchange for promises not fulfilled, I will learn my lesson, understand that these forces are extremist enemies, honestly inform my people of this fact, and treat the said regime or terrorist group accordingly in future.

If I do not do so let my popularity fall below zero, my campaign treasury be empty, my secret diary fall into the hostile media’s hands,

Sincerely,

(Fill in Title and Name)

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: Syria, Iran, Middle East

The recent fighting between Hamas and a Fatah-linked clan in Gaza reminds us that Hamas is not sitting still, but rather is steadily pursuing its aims, rearming, training, consolidating. What does this mean for the “two-state” plan which is given at least lip service by the Israeli government, and which is an article of faith for most liberals and centrists in the US — including the two presidential candidates? What does it mean for those who think that “ending the occupation” is a prerequisite of peace?

Elder of Ziyon wrote,

What is striking is that of all the players in the Arab/Israeli conflict, Hamas and Hezbollah (as Iranian proxies) seem to be the only ones with real plans, strategies and the ability to follow through. The current Israeli government’s strategy is more based on wishful thinking plus some IDF contingency plans, and the Palestinian Authority [PA] has long ago become a joke.

Hamas, though, knows what it wants: it already replaced Gaza with an Islamic state, and it is mopping up any leftover opposition. It plans to take over the West Bank as well.

If, G-d forbid, Israel abandons large areas of the West Bank to Hamas, it really will become another Gaza. Anything Israel does to defend itself from the inevitable rockets will involve civilian deaths. Giving the Palestinian Arabs a state wouldn’t slow Hamas down – on the contrary, it would accelerate Hamas’ reaching its goals. Hamas’ prestige will grow and affect Jordan as well as Egypt, and Israel will literally be surrounded by Iranian proxies.

Liberals scoff that Israel doesn’t face a real existential threat from what are dismissively described as a few kids with stones, but the real threat is what I’ve described – at least two Iranian proxy armies on Israel’s doorstep from the south, east and north.

And the only thing that can stop this sequence of events is Israeli “occupation,” which, from decades of propaganda, is regarded as evil incarnate.

— Elder of Ziyon, “The Hamas threat to the West Bank – and Israel“

For those who want to help ‘solve the problem’ in the region today, here’s a quick primer on what the problem isn’t and is:

• It isn’t checkpoints or the security barrier.
• It isn’t Israel building houses inside existing settlements or Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem.
• It isn’t the closure of Gaza crossings (can you imagine the result if Israel allowed Hamas operatives to cross freely into Israel?).
• It especially isn’t ‘The Occupation’.
• Rather, it is Iran’s attempt to destroy Israel and kill its Jewish inhabitants by means of its Hamas and Hezbollah proxies.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Israeli-Palestinian conflict