The newly rebuilt Hurva Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of East Jerusalem

Yesterday, the newly rebuilt Hurva (which means ‘ruin’ in Hebrew) Synagogue, located in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, was rededicated.

The Hurva in 1920

Started in 1701, the Hurva was destroyed for the first time (by unpaid Arab creditors) in 1720. Rebuilt in 1864 by the Sultan’s architect with money from Montefiore, the Rothschilds and Jewish communities around the world, the synagogue was the tallest structure in the Jewish quarter — which is itself on a hill, making it reach higher than the al-Aqsa Mosque — it was a magnificent structure. Benjamin Balint writes,

It also was a forum for public assemblies. Here the city’s Jews held a memorial service for Queen Victoria; celebrated the coronation of King George V; thrilled to the orations of such Zionist leaders as Theodor Herzl and Zeev Jabotinsky; and, in 1942, conducted a mass prayer service for the victims of Hitler’s genocide.

The memorial arch

Naturally, the jealous and racist Muslim world found the existence of such a Jewish structure unacceptable. In 1948, Jordanian troops overran the Jewish Quarter, expelled the Jews and blew up the Hurva. After 1967 plans were made to rebuild it, but in a gesture of misplaced generosity to Muslim sensibilities, only a memorial arch was built. After all, how could anything Jewish be allowed to overshadow the Muslim holy places?

Now it has yet again been rebuilt, in a form similar to the 18th century version. And — guess what — the Arabs are furious!

Jews have lived in the Old City since long before Muhammad was a gleam in his father’s eye, but Palestinians insist that any part of the city that was conquered and ethnically cleansed by the Jordanians in 1948 is “Arab East Jerusalem,” so they declared a “day of rage” today, complete with the usual stone- and firebomb-throwing.

In the town of El-Bireh, just south of Ramallah, Fatah also held a dedication ceremony.

A public square was dedicated to the memory of Dalal Mughrabi, the woman leader of a group of terrorists who, in 1978, perpetrated the deadliest single terrorist attack in the history of the state. Here’s how I described it in a 2008 post:

Landing on the beach near Kibbutz Maagen Michael in rubber boats launched from Lebanon, the terrorists met an American nature photographer named Gail Rubin and executed her for taking pictures of ‘Palestine’ without permission. Then they hijacked a bus carrying Egged (the bus cooperative) employees and their families on an outing; there was a shootout with security forces, the terrorists shot many of the passengers and firebombed the bus. 38 Israelis, 13 of them children, were murdered before the terrorists were killed. The event is usually called the “Coastal Road Massacre”; Israelis also call it the “Bus of Blood”.

Mughrabi is a national hero to the Palestinians. They have named girls’ schools, camps, sporting events, etc. after Mughrabi. Here is a picture of the accomplishment of this Palestinian hero:

The charred remains of the Bus of Blood

Technorati Tags: Israel, Hurva Synagogue, Jerusalem, Dalal Mughrabi, Bus of Blood

Not only is it assumed that the Administration wants the Ramat Shlomo project canceled, but according to the Jerusalem Post today, the US is asking for further “confidence-building” concessions from Israel, like the release of more Palestinian prisoners.

I suspect that the Palestinians understand Obama’s people better than Netanyahu does. Israel has implemented a settlement freeze in Judea and Samaria (and taken harsh actions against violations), removed roadblocks and checkpoints, and said that it will talk to the Palestinians directly and without preconditions. The Palestinians, on the other hand, insist on preconditions even for indirect talks. And, importantly, they don’t budge.

Naturally the US approach is — since they can’t move the Palestinians — to try to move Israel. The issues on which Israel and the Palestinians are the farthest apart are refugees and Jerusalem; so perhaps the administration thinks that if it can break Israel on Jerusalem, the Palestinians will soften on refugees. Perhaps the Palestinians even led them to believe this.

The Palestinian strategy seems to be to keep telling the Americans that serious negotiations are just around the corner, if they will just force Israel to give up a little bit more. The Americans really, really want to believe them. This time the plan seems to have succeeded remarkably well, and they have gotten the administration to move its own position a notch closer to the Palestinian one.

Of course, this fell on fertile ground in the Obama White House. There’s no shortage of officials sympathetic to the Palestinian point of view.

As I wrote yesterday, this is a brand new policy. Although the US has never officially recognized Israel’s possession of Jerusalem — East or West — until now it has accepted Israel’s de facto sovereignty there and has not interfered with Israel’s activities. Now it is actively trying to force Israel to treat East Jerusalem — even a part that would absolutely be part of Israel in any reasonable division of Jerusalem — like ‘Palestinian land’.

But just in case you still think this is all about Biden being embarrassed, remember that last August Hillary Clinton anticipated this policy when she called the Supreme Court-approved eviction of Palestinian squatters from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood “deeply regrettable” and “provocative,”  giving US sanction to what has become yet another little intifadah of weekly demonstrations of Palestinians, Israeli extremists and international activists.

It’s been suggested that Israel needs to stay on the right side of the Obama Administration if it wants support in acting against the Iranian nuclear weapons project. This is nonsense: the US will do exactly what it thinks is in its interest with respect to Iran no matter what Israel does in Jerusalem.

The US is, lately, a country that has lost a great deal of its clout in the world. Owned by China, bogged down in Afghanistan, soon to see Iraq lost, serially manipulated and made a fool of by Syria and Iran, with no leverage against Russia, losing the confidence of its allies, its officials seem to find solace in the fact that they can make Israeli leaders tremble.

Time for some self-respect in the Jewish state:

1. Israel should demand that the US and other foreign entities (for example, European governments) butt out of its internal affairs.
2. Israel should announce that it will make no more concessions to the Palestinian Authority until it agrees to recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people and ends antisemitic incitement.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Ramat Shlomo, East Jerusalem, Obama Administration

Let’s look at both the substance and the tone of these remarks.

The substance: as many commentators have pointed out, Israel has been building in East Jerusalem since 1967, and negotiated with the Palestinian Authority for 15 years while building there. When Israel agreed to the Obama Administration’s demand for a settlement freeze in Judea and Samaria, it pointedly did not agree to include Jerusalem, which Israel has never considered a ’settlement’. At that time, the US praised Israel for taking a positive step to resolve the conflict. Israel has indicated that it would cede some Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem as part of a peace agreement, but has never accepted any prior limitation of its sovereignty over all of Jerusalem.

Israel has credibly maintained that there was a verbal commitment by the Bush Administration that construction in areas beyond the 1949 lines which were expected to become part of Israel in a final agreement was not a problem for the US. The Obama Administration disavowed this understanding, with the cagey Hilary Clinton saying that there was no “enforceable” agreement.

The Ramat Shlomo neighborhood has about 20,000 Jewish residents today; it is close to the northern part of West Jerusalem and further construction there does not change the status quo or create ‘facts on the ground’ that would threaten a future settlement in which Arab areas become part of an Arab state.

As I wrote on Friday, the Palestinians are looking for excuses to not negotiate, because serious negotiations would expose the fact that it is their hardline positions — particularly on ‘refugees’ — that have prevented an agreement, not Israel.

Anger has been directed at Israel because it took a step that contradicted Palestinian demands that it never accepted as reasonable, and which the US suddenly appears to approve. Tomorrow Mahmoud Abbas might say that construction must stop in “Tel Arabiyya” (i.e., Tel Aviv, a city founded by Jews on sand dunes in 1909). Would that, too, need to be taken seriously?

The tone: it seems to that who has been ‘insulted’, ’slapped down’, ‘affronted’, etc. was not the US Vice President, but rather Israel. Israel is a sovereign state, not an American colony.  Can you imagine language like this being applied to another US ally, like the UK or Canada, for example? Can you imagine the US officially speaking like this to Saudi Arabia? I can’t.

Much as I admire PM Netanyahu, I felt that his apologetic response, to say that he was unaware of the decision (which I’m sure is true) and to appoint a committee to prevent such a thing from happening again, was inappropriate. By doing this, no matter how carefully his statement is worded, he is implying that the US is right to be upset that Israel exercised sovereignty in Jerusalem. This is absolutely the wrong message to send.

Here is how Mr. Netanyahu should have responded to Mr. Biden and Ms. Clinton (court Jew Axelrod can be ignored):

With all due respect, in keeping with accepted diplomatic principles, stay out of Israel’s internal affairs.

Update [1014 PST]: Here’s an great explanation of why the media are jumping on this story from the opposite angle.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Biden, Clinton, Ramat Shlomo, Jerusalem, Netanyahu

Look at what the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) is sending to its base as its “Ten Minutes of Torah” [!] offering today. It’s an article from a (where else?) San Francisco Jewish newsweekly called J. It begins with a false equivalence:

One would be hard pressed to find Jews who do not value the Torah and the Holy Land. Every square inch of biblical Israel is significant to the Jewish people. But many of those same biblical sites are just as important to Palestinians. And there’s the rub.

One could easily argue that in fact these sites are not as important to Islam as to Judaism, and that the Palestinians have just created another club to beat Israel with.  But why bother; making them “Jewish Heritage sites” does not assert that they are exclusively Jewish. Arab objections, on the other hand, imply — and in many cases explicitly assert — that they wholly belong to Islam.

The Palestinians have consistently denied Jewish claims to any holy sites, including and especially in Jerusalem. Yasser Arafat claimed — and today, Islamic Movement leader Raed Salah insists — that there never was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Backing down on this issue lends credence to these absurd and insulting claims, just like backing down on the issue of building in East Jerusalem buttresses the Arab and American claim that Israel is not sovereign in Jerusalem.

We understand why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently declared the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb as Jewish historical sites warranting new funding for upkeep. However, we question his timing. Because both sites are in the West Bank, the declaration deepened Palestinian suspicions that Israel is insincere about a peace deal that would transfer parts of the West Bank to a new Palestinian state.

Israel should be doing everything reasonable to bring the Palestinians to the table. This just gives them an easy excuse to say “no.”

They have no problem finding excuses to say “no.” They grabbed at the opportunity to say “no” after the Obama Administration raised the issue of the settlement freeze. They are saying “no” because they know that the Obama Administration has not yet gone far enough to agree with them that the Arab refugees may ‘return’ to Israel proper, and they are not prepared to compromise on this in negotiations.

The Palestinians are doing everything they can to do nothing while putting the blame on Israel, so that the US and the rest of the ‘international community’ will force more and more concessions out of Israel. Thus they jumped on the settlement  freeze, thus they jumped on construction of any kind in East Jerusalem, and thus they have chosen to make an issue of the holy places — what could be better, a religious issue, to inflame their constituency even more, and to score fervor-points against Hamas.

Israel has long understood that the bumpy road to peace has required painful sacrifices. Giving up the Sinai and the Gaza Strip, not to mention the release of hundreds of jailed Palestinian terrorists over the years, attest to that.

Thus it makes little sense to make this declaration now. Not because we dispute the historical significance of the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb. That is beyond measure. But such a declaration has real consequences on the ground. Israel would certainly renovate the sites, spurring tourism and perhaps prompting more Jewish settlement. Despite a government spokesman saying the declaration does not change the status quo, in fact it does.

Palestinian protests quickly erupted in Hebron, and they may spread. In the near term, this could cause Israel security headaches. Or worse.

Yes, Israel has given up a lot in the past, and the results have been zero or negative. One would think that this would be an argument that Israel should not give up anything further until it begins to get something in return. The writer, though, draws the opposite conclusion. He or she thinks that Israel should make almost any concession — even if the significance of what is demanded is “beyond measure” — because it would be a pity if all the previous sacrifices were shown to be in vain.

A very poor argument, which implies that one should always throw good money after bad.

And what determines when Israel should fold? Clearly not the ‘historical’ significance — note that the writer studiously avoids the words ‘religious’ or ’spiritual’ — but only the reaction of the Palestinians! Although the significance of these places is “beyond measure,” the minute the rocks and firebombs start flying, we are expected to surrender.

Do we really want to enshrine as an axiom the principle that the Palestinians get to define what is important to us by their bad behavior?

In truth, this is the worst kind of issue to give in on. By doing so, Israel grants the Arabs possession of the historic and spiritual tradition of the land of Israel. It’s true that most Israelis are secular, and apparently it’s true that Reform Judaism — or at least the “Ten Minutes of Torah” editor — thinks that these sites are irrelevant to the claim of modern, high-tech Israel to exist. But then there’s no longer a reason for the Jewish state to be here, rather than, say, Uganda. And if the tomb of Rachel is really only the ‘Bilal Mosque’ then maybe there isn’t a Jewish people at all, and we can all go live in Los Angeles and Brooklyn.

What have we been fighting for for the past century?

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians, URJ, Rachel’s Tomb, Cave of the Patriarchs

US Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday the Palestinians deserve a “viable” independent state with contiguous territory, seeking to reassure them of US support after the Interior Ministry on Tuesday approved a plan to expand the Jewish Ramat Shlomo neighborhood in east Jerusalem…

“The United States pledges to play an active as well as a sustainable role in these talks,” Biden said. He stressed the Palestinians deserve an independent state that is “viable and contiguous,” meaning the territory should not be broken up by Israeli settlement enclaves.

Although this AP report doesn’t provide the complete quotation, I presume that Biden actually used the word ‘deserve’. Now, I will agree that all human beings, including Palestinian Arabs, deserve a secure existence and to live in an environment that’s not oppressive and where their political, economic and other aspirations can be realized. The question is, “does the Palestinian Authority or Hamas deserve the leadership role in the state that is to be created for them?” and the answer is “certainly not.” And that’s because both of these organizations have, as part of their fundamental self-definition, the violent negation of another state. Nobody ‘deserves’ a murderer-state. How could the logic be any simpler?

Let’s look at another word, ‘contiguous’. I think the AP’s interpretation of Biden’s statement, “the territory should not be broken up by Israeli settlement enclaves,” is misleading at best. In English, ‘contiguous’ means ‘touching’ or ‘connected to’. It means that you can get from any point in a contiguous area to any other point without leaving the area. It does not mean that there aren’t ‘enclaves’, it just means that they don’t break the territory into disconnected parts.

In fact, the use of the word ‘contiguous’ by the US has always referred to the Arab demand for a chunk of Israel to provide passage between Gaza and Judea/Samaria. Is Biden making a new demand, that there can’t be ‘enclaves’ or that the 1949 lines are sacrosanct? Something new that they ‘deserve’?

Biden said that the approval of a plan to build 1,600 new housing units in the east Jerusalem neighborhood “undermines peace efforts.”

Israel never agreed to a freeze on construction in East Jerusalem. Certainly there is no freeze on Palestinian construction there! So why does construction of apartments in an already existing Jewish neighborhood of 20,000 residents, a neighborhood which is located next to the northern boundary of West Jerusalem and other Jewish areas (not really an ‘enclave’), and which will have zero effect on ‘contiguity’, so unacceptable? Simply because the Palestinians say so.

But all this is beside the point. As I wrote yesterday, the bottom line for a Palestinian state which is other than a platform to threaten Israel is that its leadership commits to the basic principles that will distinguish it as a legitimate vehicle for Palestinian Arab sovereignty rather than a murderer-state:

• Recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people
• Agreement that there is no right of return to Israel for ‘refugees’
• Agreement to finally give up all claims against Israel and end the conflict

These principles cannot be byproducts to a negotiation about boundaries. They ought to be demanded by Israel as absolute preconditions to negotiation.

The Palestinian Arabs want a sovereign state; well, so do we. Let’s start from there.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians, Biden

The idea of a swap, promoted by Avigdor Lieberman’s Israel Beiteinu party, seems like a practical solution to a difficult problem.

Implementing a partition of the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean — the so-called two-state solution –  by simply returning to the 1949 cease-fire lines would not be acceptable to Israel, and indeed very unfair. Since the Palestinians are not prepared to permit Jews to live in ‘Palestine’, all 300,000 Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria (for the purposes of this article, I’m ignoring the very difficult issue of Jerusalem) would have to be moved. Considering the difficulty and expense of evacuating 8,000 people from Gaza, this kind of population movement is unimaginable.

I am not going to belabor the irony that the Palestinians, who insist that Israel’s policy in the territories constitutes ‘racist apartheid’ find no difficulty themselves in proposing a racist apartheid state!

In any event, UN Security Council resolution 242, generally considered the legal foundation for the two-state solution, does not call for a reversion to the pre-1967 status quo. Rather, it says that in the framework of a peace agreement, Israel will return territories (but not all the territories — see here for interpretations by the original drafters of the resolution) to Arab control in return for an end of the conflict and “secure and recognized boundaries.” Since then many observers have pointed out that the 1949 lines are not at all secure.

Most of the two-state proposals, such as those made at Camp David and by former Israeli PM Olmert in 2007, envision  an agreement based on the 1949 lines, with adjustments for security reasons and to incorporate into Israel large Jewish settlements near the line. In return, Israel has offered to compensate the Palestinians with land west of the boundary. The official Palestinian position has always been that only a strict return to the 1949 lines, along with a complete evacuation of ’settlers’ would be acceptable, but it’s said that they have indicated a willingness to consider such adjustments in private.

Note that adjustments proposed in the past refer to swaps of land occupied by Jewish settlements for land that’s sparsely populated, from the Negev for example.

The kind of swap proposed by Israel Beiteinu is different: they propose that Israel compensate the Palestinians with land occupied by ‘Israeli Arabs’:

“Israeli Arabs will not lose anything by joining the Palestinian state. Instead of giving the Palestinians empty land in the Negev, we are offering them land full of residents, who will not have to leave their homes,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon in an interview to London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper published [in early February]…

When asked if he was referring to the concentration of Arab towns and villages known as the Triangle region, he said: “Yes. Why not? If the Arabs in Israel say they are proud of being Palestinian, why shouldn’t they be proud of being part of the Palestinian state?

“They will lose nothing by joining it, and in addition, this will be in the interest of the Palestinian state, since they are economically and socially developed and will be able to use their experience to help build the state…”

“…The important thing is to accept the idea that the majority of Jews live in Israel and the majority of Arabs live in Palestine.”  — YNet

The reaction from Arab Knesset members was swift and furious:

MK Ahmad Tibi dismissed Ayalon’s remarks, saying that the deputy FM and his boss, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, “have a basic flaw in understanding the fundamental values of democracy and civil rights.”

“We are not chess pawns. We did not arrive in the country on planes and we did not immigrate here,” Tibi said. “We do not wish to expel anyone…but if someone wishes to expel us, I’ll say this: Whoever got here last will be leaving first. That way, there will be fewer fascists in Israel…”

Hadash’s Chairman, MK Mohammad Barakeh, also slammed Ayalon’s remarks, suggesting that both him and Lieberman move to France and replace ultranationalist leader Jean-Marie Le Pen…

Barakeh added that Israel’s Arabs are residing on their land legally.  “We did not immigrate from anywhere. This land is ours,” he said. “To my regret, most of this land had been robbed over the course of dozens of years. We are no settlers and there is no room for comparison between us and the thieving settlers in the West Bank, including in Jerusalem.”

“Ayalon’s words are yet another chapter in Liebermanism’s new book of racism,” he concluded. — YNet

Keep in mind that Israeli Arabs would not leave their homes under Ayalon’s proposal. The only ‘transfer’ involved would be a transfer of sovereignty over Arab-populated areas from Israel to ‘Palestine’. The Arab MK’s are generating indignation by deliberately misunderstanding, it seems. Why?

After all, if the goal is to end the conflict, one way to do so is to separate the two peoples. That’s been the idea of every partition proposal since the Peel commission of 1937, including the original 1947 UN resolution and the Oslo accord. If it can be accomplished without making anybody leave their homes, isn’t that a win-win solution?

Not from an Arab point of view it isn’t.

There is, of course, the fact that Israeli Arabs prefer the Israeli economy, government benefits, education, health care, etc. to the corrupt, kleptocratic and gangster-ridden Palestinian Authority (PA), but that’s not the main reason for their opposition to swaps.

The real issue is that Arab and Israeli or Western goals for the process are not the same. While the object of Israeli policy has been and continues to be to live at peace with its neighbors — and with its Arab citizens — the Palestinian Arabs have not given up the idea that a sovereign Jewish state anywhere in historic Palestine represents a theft of their property and a blemish on their honor which must be redressed. There is a fundamental asymmetry here which many in the West don’t recognize, tending to see the conflict as amenable to compromise.

From the Arab point of view, the more Arabs who are Israeli citizens, the more effective they can be in the process of changing Israel from a Jewish state into … something else. The Arab goal is not to end the conflict, at least not at this stage and not on the terms offered — an independent Palestine alongside a Jewish Israel. Rather, the idea is that internal pressure, couched in terms of civil rights, democracy and anti-racism, concepts that are very popular in the West, will work together with external forces to bring about the end of the Jewish state and its replacement with an Arab state.

So the PA continues to insist on strict 1949 lines in order to maximize the disruption of Jewish Israel that would be caused by the expulsion of massive numbers of Jews from Judea and Samaria, and of course they refuse to give up the vision of a ‘right of return’ to Israel for millions of Arabs. Meanwhile the various Israeli Arab organizations push for ‘de-Judaization’ of Israel.

Nothing illustrates the Palestinian mindset better than the fact that they will not countenance Jewish ’settlers’, while they insist on right of return for ‘refugees’. These are not contradictory positions for one who thinks that all the land belongs to Arabs.

Interestingly, ‘progressive’ thought, in the US at least, seems to support the Palestinian project. Recently Rabbi David Saperstein of the Union for Reform Judaism spoke here. He said that two out of the three issues that should be Israel’s top priority were 1) the need to make a deal with the Palestinians while a two-state solution is still possible, and 2) the need to grant ‘civil rights’ to the Israeli Arabs (the third issue was the religious monopoly held by the Orthodox establishment).

My response to the first was was that the worst thing Israel could do would be to make a deal with the Palestinians without a commitment to recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, to give up the idea of a ‘right of return’, and to end the conflict.  With regard to the second, I have no problem with civil rights for everyone; but ‘civil rights’ do not include the conversion of Israel into a binational state.

Some analysts think that  everything else is just a sideshow and the real issue is the military threat from Iran and its proxies. Without minimizing the external danger, issues surrounding Palestinian Arabs in the territories and inside Israel — especially if their objectives are misunderstood and in effect supported by the US and other external forces — are becoming more and more significant.

Update [10 Mar 1034 PST]: Corrected the number of Judea / Samaria residents to 300,000.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Sunday continued his verbal assault on Israel, according to Saudi paper Al Wattan, which quoted him as saying that that al Aksa Mosque, the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb “were not and never will be Jewish sites, but Islamic sites…”

Speaking to Palestinian journalists, Erdoğan reportedly said, “Palestine [was] always at the top of Turkey’s priorities.” He expressed his support for the renewal of indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Donning a cloak of pan-Islamic identity, Erdoğan told Al Wattan that he “loves my brothers in Fatah and my brothers in Hamas to the same degree, because they are my Muslim brothers and I cannot distinguish between them.”

Israel in the past enjoyed a close collaboration with Turkey in military matters, but this has been reduced recently. It’s likely that if the AKP continues with its efforts to reduce the influence of the army (by arresting and prosecuting officers for treason), that this trend will continue.

Relations between Turkey and the US have cooled since the Iraq war (which Turkey opposed because it strengthened the Kurdish PKK forces in the north in their desire to establish an independent state partly on Turkish territory) and more recently because of the genocide resolution.

At the same time, Turkey is collaborating more closely with Iran and Syria. Two weeks ago, Iran’s President Ahmadinejad visited Damascus. Barry Rubin noted an editorial in the state newspaper, al-Baath:

The editorial speaks of people in the Middle East who are coming together in an alliance rejecting Westernization, artificial borders, America, Israel, and various conspiracies. What countries are in this new alliance?

“Syria, Iran and Turkey, with their great peoples and their lively peoples and their rejectionist [the Syrian term for radical and anti-Israel, anti-American] policies are moving toward brotherhood….Welcome, President Ahmadinejad, in Syria.”

The Syrian regime is thus publicly trumpeting an Iran-Syria-Turkey alliance. The Turkish government’s policy, in theory, is one of getting along with everyone. But while one should not exaggerate how far this has gone—and, of course, this is a Syrian, not a Turkish statement—the fact is that Ankara is now politically as well as geographically much closer to Damascus and Tehran than to Washington DC.

If this is correct, then Turkey’s traditional Western-looking stance may be coming to an end, because it is not possible to align with the US and Iran at the same time.

My thinking is that Erdoğan has simply asked himself where the regional power is going to reside in the future and made his choice.

This is really a historic moment for the Middle East. After WWII the US took up the mantle of former colonial power Britain, and faced off for control of the region with the Soviet Union. The Soviets lost, and the turning point was when Anwar Sadat expelled Russian military advisers in 1973, later moving Egypt into the US orbit.

Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia were the pillars of US strategy from then on, although American support for Israel was by no means as one-sided as the Arabs suggest. The US neutralized hostile Iran during the 1980’s by supporting Iraq — until Saddam overreached himself by invading Kuwait. But even after that, the US allowed him to remain in power as a counterbalance to Iran.

When Saddam was removed in 2003, Iran and Syria seized the opportunity to foment Sunni-Shiite violence; at the same time, the US had no coherent plan to create a stable government in a country without a democratic tradition, where elections were understood as a sectarian popularity contest, and where bombings are an accepted form of electioneering. It’s hard to see any outcome after the US leaves other than Iraq sliding into Iranian orbit.

At the same time, Iran is moving forward on several other fronts. Israel has been unable to prevent arms transfer to Hizballah in Lebanon via Syria, and the US has failed in getting diplomatic support for sanctions that might prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons (if indeed any form of sanctions could accomplish this). Iran has even bought itself influence on the Sunni Palestinian Hamas movement.

Meanwhile, the US is seriously strapped economically, partly because of the expensive wars it is fighting against radical islamists (although it will not name the enemy). Iran, on the other hand, is moving toward finally fully developing its massive oil reserves with Chinese help.

I don’t know if the US will be able to reverse the trend and reassert its power in the Mideast, or if, like Britain, be pushed aside, this time by Iran. This will be determined by the actions of the present and perhaps the next administration. This administration hasn’t yet shown the ability, will, or even much desire to maintain the US position.

But it looks like Erdoğan thinks he knows the outcome, and has lined himself up with what he sees as the “strong horse” in the race.

Technorati Tags: Turkey, Israel, Iran, Mideast conflict

Jewish lobbyists contrived a U.S. congressional vote that labeled the World War One-era massacre of Armenians by Turkish forces as genocide, a London-based Arabic-language newspaper claimed on Saturday.

Pro-Israel lobbyists had previously backed Turkey on the issue but changed tack in retaliation for Turkish condemnation of Israel’s policies in the Gaza Strip, the Al-Quds Al-Arabi daily said in an editorial, according to Israel Radio reports…

In his leading article, Al-Quds Al-Arabi editor Abd al-Bari Atwan urged Erdogan not to give in to the Jewish lobby’s “extortion” tactics.

You may remember that back in 2007 a similar resolution escaped the Foreign Relations Committee, although it did not survive to become law due to pressure from the Bush Administration. At that time, Turkey threatened to cool relations with Israel, and even hinted that it might not be able to protect Turkish Jews against antisemitic reactions if the resolution passed.

In what can only be called an antisemitic failure to understand the relationship between Israel, American Jews and the US government, the Turks seemed to think that Israel could order American Jews and Jewish organizations to apply irresistible pressure against the resolution — because, as everyone knows, US Jews take orders from Jerusalem and control their government!

When the ADL, which had originally opposed the resolution, more or less reversed its position as a result of an outcry that it was unthinkable for a Jewish group to be on the wrong side of this kind of issue, the outraged Turkish government complained to Israel.

Now the Armenian Genocide resolution has reared its head yet again, but diplomatic sources in Israel claim that this time the Turks have not turned to Israel for help. It’s not surprising; the ’special relationship’ between Israel and Turkey is badly strained these days.

Turkish PM Erdoğan seems to have decided that Turkey’s future lies elsewhere than the Western bloc. His Islamist AKP party has pushed it closer to Iran and Syria and away from the US and Israel. He’s bashed Israel unmercifully over alleged ‘crimes’ in Gaza, and even walked out of a panel with Israeli President Shimon Peres in Davos, Switzerland, in simulated dudgeon.

In 2007, Israel  and its supporters were sharply attacked by Armenian and liberal groups for their coolness to the genocide resolution. Then, Israel was threatened by Turkey when Jewish groups didn’t ‘follow orders’ to oppose it. Finally, in 2010 when Israel stayed out of the fray — after taking massive abuse from the Turkish PM — it’s criticized for conspiring to ‘contrive’ the issue!

It would probably be best for Israel and Jews to simply take the moral point of view and go on record as recognizing the genocide. Probably neither the Turkish nor the Armenian side — not to mention Al-Quds Al-Arabi — can be expected to join the pro-Israel camp no matter what Israel does.

I’ve written quite a number of posts on this subject over the years, which you can find here.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Turkey, Armenian genocide

But according to Singal, its position meshes closely with that of many students. Here’s one horrifying example:

…when asked about the prospect of Iran destroying Israel, Harvard Divinity School student Kenan Jaffe, 26, said he thought it was “unlikely.’’

“I also don’t think it’s directly related to the Palestinian question,’’ he said, “and it is only to the extent that if Israel comes to a final status solution with the Palestinians, Iran will have nothing to say about Israel and no reason to make threats against it.’’

Whether or not the Iranian regime will succeed in its oft-stated goal of bringing about an end to the Jewish state by means of its Lebanese and Palestinian proxies or even directly is certainly moot — it won’t happen if Israel has anything to say about it — but the idea that a ’solution’ of the argument with the Palestinian Arabs, if such were possible, would end the Iranian threat is ludicrous. Iran’s quarrel with Israel has to do with its desire to push out Western influence from the region, its desire to dominate the conservative Sunni states (and their oil), and to unify the Mideast under a Shiite caliphate. There’s clearly no room for a Jewish political entity in this picture.

The students are “less likely to see Israel as threatened by its neighbors, and therefore less worried about Israel’s security”, says Singal, and quotes the glib Ben-Ami:

If you’ve had personal experience – if not you [then] at least your parents – with the destruction of your people, you’re more likely to take it as a possibility that it could happen again,’’ he said. “If you have grown up here in complete comfort and safety and no one you know in an immediate sense has been through that, I do think [you’re] going to have a very fundamental[ly] different view, a different take, on how you view the Iran threat.

Ben-Ami seems to be saying that it’s all about the Holocaust, and that older Jews are psychologically scarred by either remembering the time or by hearing firsthand accounts. So they react in a way which is understandable, but according to Ben-Ami, inappropriate. But this is very misleading (and insulting).

What is different about the young Jews, as Ami Isseroff recently said,  is that they have grown up without ever knowing a world without a Jewish state. There has always been an Israel for them; the idea that it could disappear is unthinkable. After all, hasn’t Israel won all of its wars? 62 years is longer than the parents of today’s college students have been around, although in geopolitical terms it’s not very long. Israel and its partisans quite naturally try to present an image of success and permanence, so it’s not surprising that it’s hard for young people to see its very real vulnerability.

Indeed, pro-Arab propaganda always emphasizes the underdog status of the Palestinians, always opposing them to the relatively mighty Israel, while leaving out the relative size of Israel vs. the Arab nations and Iran, and ignoring the military capabilities of all of Israel’s enemies.

While Ben-Ami attributes the difference in attitude to a psychologically damaged older generation, it’s more correct to say that it is caused by a perceptual inadequacy in the younger one.  It’s not that Age is paranoid; rather, Youth is blind. So whose impressions are closer to the truth?

Singal goes on to distill the students’ position, with which he clearly agrees, as follows:

…they were worried about the grim prospects that face Israel if it can’t make peace with the Palestinians. Given the region’s demographic patterns, absent a two-state solution, Israel will soon have to choose between being a Jewish state and a democratic one.

This presupposes that an additional partition of Israel would actually end the conflict, rather than simply provide a platform for more effective attacks against Israel. But there are plenty of indications that this is false. The refusal of Fatah to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and its demand for a right of return for Arab ‘refugees’ is one; the continued incitement to hate Israel and Jews coming from the Palestinian Authority despite its alleged participation in a ‘peace process’ is another; the preeminence of hardliners in Fatah is another; and the fact that at its convention last summer,  rather than moderating its charter which calls for the violent destruction of the Jewish state, Fatah chose to reaffirm it, is yet another. And I haven’t even mentioned Hamas yet!

Saying that the creation of a Palestinian state under the control of Fatah (at best) would provide a solution to the conflict is like saying that a fleet of flying pigs carrying mail would fix the postal service. Perhaps in theory — an entirely uninformed and highly imaginative theory — it would.

The reality is much more difficult, and therefore unpalatable. It’s necessary for Israel to keep doing what it has been doing since 1948, fighting for its existence while trying to maintain its democracy and Jewish character. It wasn’t easy and it doesn’t promise to be easy in the future. But wishing can’t make things so.

The message of J Street is highly dangerous: don’t worry, Israel isn’t in danger (or if there are dangers, Israel shouldn’t defend herself against them in any real way), go to almost any length (i.e., make all the concessions the Arabs demand) to ‘make peace’ (i.e., to weaken Israel and strengthen its enemies).

Both the message and the messenger are suspect.

Technorati Tags: J Street, Israeli-Arab conflict, Jesse Singal

Existence of Zionist regime an insult to humanity, president

Tehran, Feb 28, IRNA — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday that existence of the Zionist regime is an insult to the entire humanity.

Addressing International Conference on ‘National and Islamic Solidarity for Future of Palestine’, he said that it is well-known for all that the Zionist regime’s mission is threat, violence and beating drums of war.

Supporters of the Zionist regime who are shouting slogans of human rights and anti-terrorism, support systematic crimes of the occupying regime, the president said.

He said that everybody knows that the regime is seeking hegemony over the world.

He said that the Zionist regime is the origin of all the wars, genocide, terrors and crimes against humanity and that they are the racist group not respecting the human principles.

President: Iranian foreign policy focuses on divine values, justice

Tehran, March 3, IRNA — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that Iran’s foreign policy is based on divine values.

Addressing foreign-based Iranian diplomats and heads of Iranian missions abroad, he said that without establishment of a global ruling system on the basis of justice and monotheism, peace and security will not be materialized.

“Iran’s diplomacy seeks such an international government,” he said…

Ahmadinejad referred to sincerity and spirituality as the other focus of Iranian foreign policy and said that an Iranian envoy should advocate spirituality, sincerity and justice.

“Iran favors forging ties with all the countries except for the Zionist regime, which is illegitimate,” he said.

Issuing 29,000 billion counterfeit dollars by US is biggest theft

Tehran, March 3, IRNA, — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said issuance of 29,000 billion counterfeit dollars by US Federal Reserve is the biggest theft in the history of human kind…

He added the fact that US has 14,000 billion dollars budget deficit and has issued over 29,000 billion counterfeit dollars during the past 30 years and has bought goods with it, is the biggest theft in the history of human kind.

He was probably out taking hostages on the day they studied treasury securities in Economics class.

Remind yourself that this man heads a nation of about 74,000,000 people, in area the second largest state in the Middle East (after Saudi Arabia), and with a GNP of $820 billion, second only to Turkey. The powerful nations of the world have pretty much agreed that it’s OK for him to have nuclear weapons.

Why do you think he’s so afraid of the tiny country of the “Zionist regime”?

Technorati Tags: Ahmadinejad, Iran

[Louis] Farrakhan, speaking to a crowd of 20,000 followers at Chicago’s United Center on Sunday, said that Obama’s political problems began when he, according to the Chicago Sun Times report, stood up to the Jewish lobby during a White House meeting. When they left the White House, his problems began,” Farrakhan said, adding that “the Zionists are in control of the Congress.”

Minister Farrakhan also referred to the U.S. president’s chief economical advisors, Timothy Geithner, Henry Paulson and Larry Summers, asking “Who does he have around him? The people from Goldman Sachs.” [Geithner and Paulson are not Jewish -- ed.] The leader of the Nation of Islam added that “bloodsuckers of the poor” were rewarded with a bailout…

Further on in his address, Farrakhan also reiterated his claims that the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 was “an inside thing…”

At one point during his address, Farrakhan implied that the validity of Holocaust records should be open to debate. “[You] can’t even engage in constructive argument over the veracity of the figures of the Holocaust. We know something happened, sure, but you can’t talk about [it]. In certain cities in Europe they arrest you and put you in prison for denying such.”

“There’s not a vote that the pro-Israeli lobby wants that doesn’t get bipartisan support,” Farrakhan said. “Why? Because the Israeli lobby controls the government of the United States of America.” — Ha’aretz

There’s more, but you get the idea. He hits all the buttons. Abe Foxman of the ADL criticized Farrakhan harshly, saying

Louis Farrakhan is at it again … After his near-silence on Jews over the last several years, we thought Minister Farrakhan had put his long history of anti-Semitism and racism behind him, or at least had held his views in check. Apparently, that was wishful thinking. Once again he is clearly comfortable with putting his bigotry on display, unfettered and unhidden for his supporters and the world to see.

Farrakhan isn’t the only one who finds himself “comfortable” expressing antisemitic views today:

Israel lodged a formal complaint with Spain on Sunday, charging certain individuals in Spanish schools of promoting anti-Semitic and anti-Israel ideas among young children. The letter comes after Israel’s ambassador to Spain, Rafi Shotz, recently received dozens of anti-Semitic postcards from Spanish elementary school students.

The postcards bore statements including “Jews kill for money,” “Leave the country to the Palestinians” and “Go somewhere where they will accept you.” A Foreign Ministry official said the handwriting appears typical of children six to nine years old. — Ha’aretz

How adorable. “Now children, today we are going to do a special project and write to those bloodthirsty Zionist pigs and tell them to go to Hell.”

Keeping to the program of mixing anti-Zionist sentiments with antisemitic imagery, here’s a picture displayed this week in an anti-Israel exhibition in Cologne, Germany:

Antisemitic imagery in Cologne, Germany

There really does seem to be an increase in antisemitic expression lately. Antisemitic websites are flush with visitors. Here are a pair of examples:

Alexa statistics for stormfront.org

Alexa statistics for rense.com

What’s going on? It’s clear that the economic meltdown and the Gaza war have been seized upon by antisemites as proof of Jewish turpitude, but the sudden jump in the middle of 2009 is strange. Operation Cast Lead seems to have no immediate effect; compare, for example, Al Jazeera:

Alexa statistics for aljazeera.net

The huge peak around January, of course, was the war.  Now look at some anti-Zionist sites:

Alexa statistics for electronicintifada.net

Here we see the same peak at the time of the war; but look also at the strong growth starting around the middle of the year.

“Mondoweiss” is one of my ‘favorite’ sites because it lives on the interface between anti-Zionism and antisemitism (and, of course, its owners are of Jewish extraction):

Alexa statistics for mondoweiss.net

Wow! he didn’t even move the needle until June. What happened?

So what do I conclude from this highly non-rigorous ‘research’? Not a lot:

• There is an increase in antisemitic expression recently, and it is closely associated with anti-Zionism.
• Something seems to have energized the antisemites (yes, I include “mondoweiss” in that category) around June 2008. Suggestions?
• Anti-Zionist sites are becoming more popular.
• If you write a good blog that nobody reads, don’t look at Alexa.

Technorati Tags: antisemitism, anti-Zionism

The U.S. administration has asked Syrian President Bashar Assad to immediately stop transferring arms to Hezbollah. American officials made the request during a meeting Friday with the Syrian ambassador to Washington…

The move was described as an opportunity to discuss the next steps following the visit to Damascus by Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns on February 17. The administration also said the meeting was part of its efforts to achieve a direct dialogue with Syria on issues of interest to both sides.

Haaretz has learned that Burns’ visit to Damascus ended unsatisfactorily for the U.S. administration. During Burns’ meeting with Assad, the Syrian leader denied all American claims that his regime was providing military aid to terrorists in Iraq, or to Hezbollah and Palestinian terror groups.

Assad essentially told Burns that he had no idea what the American was talking about. — Ha’aretz

The US recently presented a gift to Bashar Assad, by nominating Robert Ford as the first US ambassador to Syria since the recall of our ambassador following the Syrian-perpetrated murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005. Barry Rubin notes that to add insult to to injury to pro-Western circles in Lebanon, this was done on the 5th anniversary of the murder!

In keeping with the strategy of ‘engagement’, the Obama Administration preferred to literally let Assad get away with murder in order to promote US strategic interests.

Important interests indeed: nothing is more likely to bring about a regional war in the Middle East than a massive rocket attack on Israel by Hizballah. Once the rockets start flying, Israel will not feel constrained to spare Iranian nuclear facilities; and then Iran will retaliate in various ways which may include harming US troops in the Mideast and will certainly affect the oil supply. No matter how they feel about Israel, the administration and State Department are very serious about oil. The US might even get dragged into conflict with Iran as a result.

And by the way, wouldn’t it be helpful if Assad would make it easier for Obama to get out of Iraq without too much trouble from the insurgents that Syria presently arms and supports?

We were just asking for a quid pro quo. Well, we gave them the quo and what did we get for a quid? Assad doesn’t know what we’re talking about!

Update [1 Mar 0920 PST]: Read Barry Rubin’s latest comment on this subject here.

Technorati Tags: Syria, Assad, Rafik Hariri, engagement