by Mitchell Plitnick
Take a particularly provocative and grandstanding Israeli government and shift its focus from Hamas and Gaza to Jerusalem and you have a most explosive recipe. That potion is being stirred now, and the results could shake up the status quo in a way that we have only seen a few times in Israel’s history.
Much of the recent news narrative starts with the wounding of Yehuda Glick, a US expat who emigrated to Israel as child and became one of the leaders of the self-proclaimed “Temple Mount Movement.” In reality, this chapter of the endless and bloody saga of the Old City of Jerusalem began with the last Israeli election. That poll brought into power the most radically right-wing of Israeli governments, representing an odd mixture of zealous Zionism, modern Orthodoxy in Judaism and a curious impulse to completely disregard centuries of Jewish law regarding the Temple Mount. We’ll get back to that later, but first it’s important to recognize the potential fallout from further escalation.
The recall of Jordan’s ambassador to Israel is no small matter, and it reflects just how important this issue is to the Hashemite kingdom. Despite having lost the West Bank to Israel in 1967 and having relinquished its claim to it in 1988, Jordan is still the guardian of the Jerusalem holy sites for the Muslim world. This status is precious to the Hashemites, and the prestige it brings is a crucial element for their continued hold on power.
The Israeli threats have escalated steadily since the election and then ticked up sharply in the spring, when the Netanyahu government began its anti-Hamas crackdown throughout the West Bank, under the false cover of searching for kidnap victims the Israelis already knew had been brutally murdered. Tensions and demonstrations in Jerusalem were escalating throughout the summer, while everyone’s attention was, quite understandably, focused on Gaza.
This was the inevitable result of an intensely nationalistic government believing it had finally done away with the façade of negotiations in which Jerusalem was a central issue. Brazen statements, provocative visits, and then crackdowns and harsher limits on Palestinian worshippers at al-Aqsa Mosque were all to be expected.
One question that these events raise is whether this is the intention of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or the result of his unwillingness to challenge his coalition partners and members of his own party on a passionately populist issue. I tend to lean toward the latter belief, as Netanyahu has usually shown himself to be the sort of leader who does nothing unless he’s pressured by politics. In either case, the Israeli actions have raised concerns from Washington to Brussels to Cairo and, most resoundingly, to Amman.
Despite the peace treaty with Israel being massively unpopular in Jordan, where the majority of the citizens are Palestinian, it has not been a cause for major internal upheaval. For Jordan, peace has not only brought financial and diplomatic support from the United States, it has also opened up a new market with Israel, which exports goods to Jordan and thereby to the rest of the Arab world, despite the ongoing regional boycott against Israel.
Tinderbox
But now there is unrest and unease in Jordan. King Abdullah’s support of the United States’ efforts against the Islamic State (ISIS or IS) has helped rile some of the more radical elements in Jordan, adding to the tensions that already existed between the government and more mainstream Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood. The country is undergoing a severe economic crisis, with massive unemployment, even while it is also burdened with refugees from Syria and Iraq, many of whom have sharp complaints about their treatment.
These conditions make Jordan a tinderbox. And Jerusalem is just as sure a fuse for a Jordanian tinderbox as it is for an Israeli-Palestinian one. These are the factors that led King Abdullah to recall his ambassador from Israel. Only once before, when Israel attempted to assassinate Hamas leader Khaled Meshal in Jordan, has peace between Jordan and Israel been so threatened.
The Israelis have surely given this consideration, but they likely estimate that Jordan would not dare abrogate its treaty with Israel. Such a move would surely endanger Jordan’s support from the US, and that could be fatal if, indeed, internal conflict does break out in the Hashemite kingdom. Ultimately, Israel probably believes that unless it tries to threaten the authority of the Islamic Waqf, which is the body that administrates the Temple Mount, or otherwise officially changes the status quo of the area, Jordan will not withdraw from the treaty.
That’s a reasonable assessment, but it should not be banked on too strongly. Given the precarious situation in Jordan, its leadership’s main concern now is avoiding an outbreak of civil conflict altogether. Even though the Jordanian military is far superior to that of, say, Iraq, a popular uprising triggered by conflict over the Jerusalem holy sites could quickly spread to encompass the mass dissatisfaction with both the economic conditions and Hashemite rule in the country in general. Abdullah does not want to gamble on his ability to contain all of that anger. Though unlikely, that concern does give him a reason to potentially take the bold step of ending peace with Israel, and deal with the consequences of that step later.
For Israel, such an outcome would mean near-total isolation again. Even the Sisi government in Egypt would have a difficult time continuing to work with Israel all by itself. Egyptians remember well the isolation they experienced from the rest of the Arab world after their treaty with Israel was first struck. It took a very long time, even after they were re-admitted into the Arab League, for Egypt to regain a position of some stature in the Arab world.
New Path
The entire approach the international community has taken toward Jerusalem needs to re-evaluated, and quickly. For years, Israel has treated Jerusalem as a flashpoint it could manipulate for nationalistic reasons, and for a long time, young Palestinian Muslims (sometimes all of them under the age of 50, other times the cutoff age has been as low as 35) have been unable to go to pray at the al-Aqsa Mosque. To be sure, there have also been many incidents of Palestinians using Friday prayers as a launching pad for protests and stone-throwing, sometimes down the hill at Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall.
Israeli soldiers and police blocking Palestinians from one of the entrances to the old city in Jerusalem on March 14, 2010. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS
Now, Jerusalem is being used by different parts of Israel’s governing coalition. The further right elements are crystallizing nationalist fervor around it. Netanyahu, for his part, is using the violence that Israeli actions are stirring up to blame Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas as part of his campaign to convince people that all of Israel’s opponents—IS, Iran, Hamas, and the PA as led by Abbas—are essentially the same enemy of not only Israel, but the entire world. And, of course, Hamas, and Fatah as well, are using the Israeli actions as a rallying cry, spurring people to both organized and individual acts of resistance and/or terrorism.
But it’s high time reality set in and we understood this to be an issue of nationalism manipulating religion to its ends. Many of the Jewish Temple Mount activists claim that they are pursuing a civil rights issue. After all, they argue, if the Muslim right to pray at their third holiest site is sacrosanct, shouldn’t the Jewish right to pray at their holiest site be at least as high a priority?
Sorry, but that’s not what this is about. Religious Zionism has twisted many Jewish precepts over the years. But even Israel’s chief rabbis have reiterated continuously that Jews must not pray on the Temple Mount or even walk upon it for fear of treading upon the area of the Holiest of Holies, which was inside the Temple and where only the High Priest may enter.
Religious Zionists are split on this issue, as some religious leaders have, in a rather arbitrary fashion, decided that going up to the Temple Mount is acceptable. And, it must be noted, that this notion is an entirely modern phenomenon. It is only in recent years that even religious Zionists have tried to completely negate this particular tenet of Jewish tradition, which has been undisputed for most of our history.
As with so many issues regarding Israel, this is not about Judaism. In fact, it’s not about the terms of much of mainstream Zionism, either. It is a brazen effort by far-right nationalists, some because of a radicalized messianism, some with more secular motivations, to lay claim to Jewish rule over Jerusalem as a whole. It is of a piece with the escalating efforts by Jewish Israelis to spread the colonization of East Jerusalem in the hope of making a unified, Jewish Jerusalem a fait accompli.
Israel is playing with fire on a number of levels here, with the Palestinians and with the broader Arab and Muslim worlds. Thus far, the government has been justified in its belief that the United States and Europe would do nothing more than issue the usual condemnations, not recognizing that Israel’s actions could make compromise on Jerusalem a practical impossibility.
But at some point the US and EU must recognize that if Israel continues to increase its antagonism on the issue of Jerusalem, it’s going to radicalize a lot more than just the Palestinians in East Jerusalem, as well as complicate their efforts against IS and other concerns in the Arab World. If they don’t take some action to reign Israel in soon, they will also be paying the consequences.
Photo: View of the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque on Temple Mount in the ancient city of Jerusalem. Credit: Sarah Ferguson
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
It is a nightmare day for the Khdeir family, in East Jerusalem and in Tampa, Florida. It’s worth taking a close look at the conditions they are facing in light of crimes committed against some of their youngest members that most of us will, thankfully, never have to come [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
It is a nightmare day for the Khdeir family, in East Jerusalem and in Tampa, Florida. It’s worth taking a close look at the conditions they are facing in light of crimes committed against some of their youngest members that most of us will, thankfully, never have to come close to experiencing.
On Friday, it was revealed that Muhammad Abu Khdeir, the 16-year old boy from the Shu’afat refugee camp in East Jerusalem died not from the blows to the head he received, but was burned alive. The revelation comes from a Palestinian Authority autopsy, and Israel, which initially had control of the body, has not issued a denial, so that seems as conclusive as anything gets in this arena.
On the same day, amid protests in East Jerusalem which saw a number of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces, several masked Israeli police officers were caught on videotape viciously beating 15-year old Tariq Khdeir during a protest in East Jerusalem. The video clearly shows a number of savage blows being delivered to Tariq while he was helpless on the ground. And then it shows him being dragged away to jail where his family could not contact him and he did not receive medical treatment for hours.
It is inconceivable that anyone would cast these two boys as anything but victims of the most sympathetic kind. But that has not been how they have been treated in the media or the public.
Tariq Khdeir before and after the beating
Understandably, Palestinians living both under the occupation regime in the West Bank and as second-class citizens in Israel have taken to the streets, protesting and burning tires, despite the words of Muhammad’s father calling “…on both sides to stop the bloodshed.” But in Israel, despite significant public demonstrations condemning acts of vengeance, calls of “Death to Arabs” continue to proliferate on social media and in the atmosphere in the country. Rumors at this writing are circulating that there will soon be a series of pogroms against Arabs in Israel, while rioting in Arab towns, rockets from Gaza and massive Israeli retaliation in the Strip continue.
But who is hiding? Well, according to reports, it is the Khdeir family who is hiding. Tariq’s aunt spoke to Tampa’s Bay News 9 about her reaction to the beating. “It’s so hard just thinking about this; I’m dried out of tears i can’t even cry anymore,” she said. “He’s got a broken jaw. He’s only 15. … He has a broken nose, swollen-shut eyes, two black eyes and a swollen head.”
But it was the next sentence that caught my attention: “The aunt, whose identity Bay News 9 is withholding for her safety, said she is trying to contain her anger and frustration.”
Wait, her safety? Indeed, yes. This poor woman lives in Florida, where there is no shortage of self-styled “Defenders of Israel,” who care nothing about Israel’s future or the lives of Israelis (and place no value at all on the lives of Palestinians) but are, in reality, nothing more than fanatical Jewish and Christian zealots who would not balk for a second at attacking this family, accusing them of somehow fabricating this unconscionable assault and even threatening the Khdeir family’s safety.
Similar reports have reflected some anonymity for some of the Abu Khdeir family in Shuafat, although this is likely a futile gesture; the family can easily be found if someone wants to. But the fact that the families of the victims are so scared speaks volumes about the situation for Palestinians, in the Territories and abroad. Imagine for a moment if you had heard that Rodney King’s family was keeping their anonymity for fear of reprisals. What would you think?
But the families’ desire for some opacity served one purpose: it gave the State Department the excuse, however flimsy, that it used to delay making any kind of statement about an American citizen being beaten by Israeli police and held without charge. Eventually, however, it was impossible to remain silent, and State did finally issue a statement on Saturday afternoon. It was not a very good one.
The statement they issued a few days earlier in response to the death of Muhammad Abu Khdeir was unusually strong. The U.S. does not have a good track record of strong statements when the victims are Palestinian. But in this case, the condemnation matched the crime.
Of course, Muhammad was probably killed by Jewish extremists, not the Israeli government. However much one might argue that the current right-wing government has incited such terrible acts, no one seriously believes that official Israeli forces were involved in that horror. Such, however, is not the case with Tariq.
No, Tariq was beaten by the Israeli police in a manner consistent with reports of many other assaults by Israeli security forces against Palestinian civilians. Condemning that opens up a can of worms with Israel and, more importantly, with Israel’s supporters in the United States. So, this time, all State would say is this:
“We can confirm that Tariq Khdeir, an American citizen, is being held by Israeli authorities in Jerusalem. He was visited by an official from the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem today.
“We are profoundly troubled by reports that he was severely beaten while in police custody and strongly condemn any excessive use of force. We are calling for a speedy, transparent and credible investigation and full accountability for any excessive use of force.
“We reiterate our grave concern about the increasing violent incidents, and call on all sides to take steps to restore calm and prevent harm to innocents.”
There is, as always, no hint that there is any difference between the two sides, that one is an occupying power with enormous military and political resources and the other is a dispossessed and disenfranchised people whose “government” controls virtually nothing. And there is certainly no hint that Israel must be held accountable for the beating its police gave a helpless American citizen which the entire world can see on video.
That is the very definition of fecklessness. That is why the United States can never be anything but an obstacle to peace.
Photo: Israeli soldiers and police blocking Palestinians from one of the entrances to the old city in Jerusalem on March 14, 2014. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS
]]>WASHINGTON, Dec 6 2012 (IPS) - Increasingly distressed over the possible consequences of Israel’s recent steps to punish the Palestinian Authority (PA) and consolidate its hold on the West Bank, a number of prominent voices here are urging President Barack Obama to exert real pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu [...]]]>
WASHINGTON, Dec 6 2012 (IPS) - Increasingly distressed over the possible consequences of Israel’s recent steps to punish the Palestinian Authority (PA) and consolidate its hold on the West Bank, a number of prominent voices here are urging President Barack Obama to exert real pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reverse course.
His government’s announcement that it will build 3,000 new housing units in East Jerusalem and the West Bank and expedite planning for the development of the area known as E-1, the last undeveloped area that links the northern and southern parts of the West Bank, is seen here as a particularly damaging provocation both for Palestinians and the administration itself.
“Construction in E-1 would make it almost impossible to provide a future Palestinian state the contiguity it needs to be viable and cut it off from East Jerusalem,” warned Debra DeLee, president of Americans for Peace Now (APN), a Jewish peace group.
“Without a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Israel is doomed to become a bi-national state, which means an end to the Zionist vision of an Israel that is both Jewish and democratic,” she added in an appeal to Obama to “personally intervene with …Netanyahu and demand that his government reverse its decision.”
Hers was one of a number of voices urging the president to take much stronger action against the Israeli leader, who is also withholding from the PA more than 100 million dollars in desperately needed tax receipts in retaliation for its successful bid at the U.N. General Assembly late last month to gain “non-observer state status”.
Unlike several European countries, notably Britain, France, Spain, Denmark, and Sweden, the U.S., one of only nine countries – out of 188 – that voted against the PA’s diplomatic upgrade, has not yet formally protested Israel’s actions.
Indeed, its initial reaction to Israel’s announcements was relatively muted. Calling the moves “counter-productive” to the goal of resuming peace talks, the White House simply “urge(d) Israeli leaders to reconsider these unilateral decisions…” After three days, the State Department released a statement noting that construction in the E-1 area would be “especially damaging to efforts to achieve a two-state solution.” Obama himself has been mum on the issue.
The relative mildness of the U.S. response to date has suggested to many here that the president has no intention of taking on the Israeli leader in a renewed effort to get a peace accord, a goal he pursued with considerable earnestness in the first 18 months of his administration before essentially giving up pending the outcome of this year’s election.
Given the Israel lobby’s strength with both sides of the aisle in Congress, Obama may want to avoid more bruising battles in his second term with Netanyahu, whose right-wing coalition is considered likely to win next month’s parliamentary elections, and his powerful supporters here.
He may wish instead to focus on domestic priorities, further reducing the U.S. “footprint” in the Greater Middle East, and consolidating his “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific.
Nonetheless, there is little love lost between Obama and the Israeli leader, who all but publicly endorsed Obama’s Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, during the election campaign.
An hint of that bad blood surfaced this week amidst reports that, in a high-powered, off-the-record meeting with prominent Israelis and their U.S. supporters at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center last weekend, former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who remains close to Obama, accused Netanyahu of having “repeatedly betrayed” the president.
Emanuel, currently the mayor of Chicago, singled out Israel’s latest moves against the PA, which he reportedly described as particularly galling, given Washington’s support for Israel during its brief war last month against Hamas in Gaza and its lonely opposition to the PA’s diplomatic upgrade at the U.N.
Some believe the president may be waiting to take action until he resolves more-urgent business, notably averting the so-called “fiscal cliff” at the end of this month, then negotiating a bigger deficit deal early next year, and getting a new foreign-team up and running.
Others, including former President George W. Bush’s top Middle East aide and a staunch defender of Netanyahu, Elliott Abrams, believe Obama may be playing a double game by, on the one hand, muting U.S. displeasure with Israel while, on the other, encouraging Washington’s European allies to distance themselves from Israel – as they did during last week’s U.N. vote.
The decision by Germany, which has long defended the Jewish state’s actions in world forums, to abstain on the Palestinian vote, reportedly came as a particular shock. Indeed, the only European nation joining the U.S. in the lonely “no” column was the Czech Republic.
“The sense that the Netanyahu coalition can’t get along with Europe or the United States may hurt Netanyahu with Israeli voters – which is perhaps the precise objective of this entire effort,” Abrams wrote in National Review Online.
While such a strategy may indeed bear fruit, others insist that the stakes for the U.S. are too high to forgo more-assertive tactics toward Israel’s leadership, particularly as it has itself moved increasingly rightward. This is particularly true in light of the Arab Awakening and the rise of political Islam throughout the Middle East.
“The clear trend is toward both greater religiosity and greater identification with the Palestinian cause,” noted Amb. Chas Freeman (ret.), a top U.S. Middle East specialist, in a recent lecture in which he also argued that Israel’s “mid-November assault on Gaza has simply re-inforced the regional view that Israel is an enemy with which it is impossible to peacefully co-exist” and that Israel’s land grabs were making a two-state solution increasingly improbable.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as national security adviser to former President Jimmy Carter, argued that Obama should seize back the initiative from the influence of the Israel lobby in Congress, stressing that he can overcome opposition there “if he stands firm for ‘the national interest’.”
Last week’s U.N. vote, he noted, “marks the nadir of the dramatically declined global respect for U.S. capability to cope with an issue that is morally troubling today and, in the long run, explosive.” The greatest opportunity for taking action, he added, would be in the first year of his second term.
Similarly, Paul Pillar, a career CIA analyst who also served as National Intelligence Officer for the Near East from 2000 to 2005, called this week on his nationalinterest.org blog for Obama to treat Netanyahu much the same way as he is dealing with Republicans in Congress over the budget: “by taking his message campaign-style to the country.”
“His appeal over the heads of members of Congress is a recognition that the opposition party understands only the language of political force. But Mr. Obama also has had enough bitter and frustrating experience with Netanyahu to warrant reaching similar conclusions regarding dealing with Israel,” he wrote, noting that policy toward Israel has become “just as much a domestic issue as the budget,” particularly in light of the Israeli prime minister’s own interference in the U.S. elections.
Moreover, he noted, a very recent survey conducted by the Saban Center’s Shibley Telhami found that 62 percent of the Israeli Jewish electorate hold favourable opinions of Obama, suggesting that a “charm offensive” there by the U.S. president could yield dividends.
]]>- The Washington Post: Jennifer Rubin blogs, after the conclusion of the P5+1 talks in Istanbul, that “Instead of talking to an Iranian regime that has shown no interest in negotiations — and, at the same time, derives legitimacy from the negotiations — maybe there are more fruitful actions that we and our allies could be taking.” Such actions include “stressing that the military option remains on the table; making regime change the official policy of the U.S.; working to isolate Iran from international bodies and heightening the focus on Iran’s human rights abuses.” She concludes that the administration “has to stop trying to engage a regime that refuses to be engaged.”
- The Wall Street Journal: Amir Taheri opines that sanctions are squeezing the Iranian economy — “much of Iran’s industry depends on imported parts, many of which are now on the U.N.’s forbidden list because of suspected dual use” — and sanctions are slowing the nuclear program. Taheri argues that sanctions are far more effective than typically thought and “the evidence is that [sanctions are] hurting the economy and could weaken a regime that is also facing a tenacious internal opposition for the first time since 1981.”
- The Jerusalem Post: Tovah Lazaroff excerpts former British prime minister Tony Blair’s comments before the British investigative panel on the Iraq War. Blair said, “The West has to get out of this – what I think is a wretched policy, or posture of apology, for believing that we are causing what the Iranians are doing, or what these extremists are doing. We are not [causing this].” Lazaroff looks for Israeli responses to Blair’s remarks and reports, “an Israeli official noted that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had said on a number of occasions that a military option with respect to Iran should be on the table.” Lazaroff continued, “Netanyahu is of the opinion that for Iran’s nuclear program to be halted, Teheran must believe there is a credible military option, the official told The Jerusalem Post.”
Jim Lobe wrote the poll up yesterday. He said:
Much of the disillusionment with Obama appears related to his failure to make progress in achieving a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, according to Telhami, who has conducted eight previous surveys of Arab opinion since 2000.
Asked what policies pursued by the Obama administration they were most disappointed with, 61 percent of respondents in the new poll identified the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. That was more than twice the percentage of the next-most-cited example, Washington’s Iraq policy (27 percent).
“This is the prism through which Arabs view the Untied States,” Telhami said, referring to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Iran appears to have benefited, at least indirectly, from Arab disillusionment with Obama, the poll results suggested.
While a majority of respondents (55 percent) said they believe Tehran’s nuclear programme is aimed at developing weapons – a charge denied by Iran – nearly four out of five respondents (77 percent) said the country has the right to pursue the programme – a whopping increase of 24 percent since last year.
Of course none of this should come as any great surprise, and linkage has become an increasingly accepted way to view U.S.-policy in the Middle East after Gen. David Petraeus’s Senate testimony in March in which he stated that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, “…foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel,” and, “[t]he conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world through its clients, Lebanese Hizballah and Hamas.”
Numerous pundits, academics and politicians have tried to deny that this linkage exists but, try as they might, facts on the ground make it very difficult to close the box which Petraeus, very publicly, opened this spring.
Eighty-six-percent of the poll’s respondents were “prepared for peace if Israel is willing to return all 1967 territories including East Jerusalem,” 39 percent held the belief that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be resolved through negotiations, and only 16 percent believed it will end through war.
One has to wonder how U.S. interests are served by continuing to ratchet up tensions with Iran via “Sanctions Plus,” “Economic Warfare,” or chest-pounding threats of military strikes. As U.S.-Iran relations deteriorate and Iran, via its allies, exacerbates tensions between Israel and its neighbors, Arab public opinion will, if the trends in the poll have any predictive power, swing in Iran’s favor and make the Obama administration even less popular in the region. That isn’t good for Israel which, if Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren’s dire warnings are to be believed, might find itself in another war before the end of the summer, and it isn’t good for a U.S. administration which is trying to figure out a way to extract the country from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Of course all of this requires that you believe that there is a linkage between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S. strategic interests in the Middle East. If you suspend your belief in that linkage, then anything goes.
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