by Marsha B. Cohen

Once again revelations concerning the genesis of Israel’s undeclared nuclear weapons program are attracting notice.

Two nuclear experts, Victor Gilinsky and Roger J. Mattson, have again raised questions as to how Israel might have acquired the nuclear materials needed to build its nuclear [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Marsha B. Cohen

Once again revelations concerning the genesis of Israel’s undeclared nuclear weapons program are attracting notice.

Two nuclear experts, Victor Gilinsky and Roger J. Mattson, have again raised questions as to how Israel might have acquired the nuclear materials needed to build its nuclear bombs in a provocatively titled article, “Did Israel steal bomb-grade uranium from the United States?”  

Why now? The Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP), the nation’s highest classification authority, has released a number of top-level government memoranda that may provide additional grounds for suspecting that during the 1960s, bomb-grade uranium from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) reprocessing plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania made its way into Israel’s nuclear weapons program. “The newly released documents also expose government efforts, notably during the Carter administration, to keep the NUMEC story under wraps, an ironic twist in view of Jimmy Carter’s identification with opposition to nuclear proliferation,” write Gilinsky and Mattson in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

Four years ago, in March 2010, the two researchers wrote “Revisiting the NUMEC Affair” for the Bulletin. They contended there was abundant evidence available from declassified documents to support suspicions that at least some of the 337 kg. of radioactive materials that had gone missing from NUMEC in the 1960s from the plant in Apollo had been stolen and taken to the nuclear research reactor in Dimona, Israel. The cited documents also reveal that the FBI, CIA, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and members of the top echelons of the U.S. national security establishment were aware that NUMEC’s founder and president, Zalman Shapiro, not only had ties to Israeli intelligence officers and operatives with science-related job descriptions, but had also allowed them into the NUMEC plant.

Among them was Rafael Eitan, a “chemist” for Israel’s Defense Ministry who also happened to be a former Mossad officer, as well as the handler of naval intelligence spy, Jonathan Pollard, who has been in the news recently. Just how much was already known about Eitan’s role in NUMAC’s “diversion” of nuclear materials to Israel, and the extent of Israeli espionage activities conducted in the U.S. — second only to that of the KGB according to one top-level source quoted by name — is evident from a 1986 article by Washington Post reporter Charles Babcock about the Pollard case.

Grant W. Smith, Director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) followed up Gilinsky and Matson’s 2011 disclosures with a report based on documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and other documentary evidence including corporate filings, office diaries and unguarded interviews. The report was published in January 2012 as a book titled, Divert! NUMEC, Zalman Shapiro and the diversion of US weapons grade uranium into the Israeli nuclear weapons Program. According to Smith, former CIA Tel Aviv station chief John Hadden claimed that NUMEC was “an Israeli operation from the beginning.”

Gilinksy and Mattson, initially more circumspect in drawing conclusions than Smith — in part because the released documents are highly redacted – credited Smith with having kept up the pressure for the release of more declassified documents. On March 18 the ISCAP released 84 additional pages (PDF) of previously classified documents related to concerns about the illegal diversion of weapons-grade nuclear material from NUMEC to Israel’s nuclear weapons program. The new documents include:

• A letter dated April 2, 1968 from CIA Director Richard Helms to Attorney General Ramsey Clark about a large loss of uranium from NUMEC. In 1965, the AEC had acknowledged the possibility of missing nuclear materials having been diverted, but had tried to play it down.
• An FBI memorandum (03/09/1972) discussing “the distinct possibility” that NUMEC’s director, Zalman Shapiro, had been responsible for the diversion of special nuclear materials.
• Notes from a briefing of President Jimmy Carter’s National Security (07/28/1977) by Theodore Shackley, the CIA’s Associate Deputy Director, revealing that then-CIA Director George W. Bush had briefed President-elect Jimmy Carter about “the NUMEC problem” in December 1976, even before Carter had taken office.
• A memorandum to Carter from National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski (08/02/1977) that expressed dismay not only about careless accounting practices used to keep track of uranium in NUMEC’s possession and lax AEC oversight, but even more at the considerable interest in NUMEC’s loss of nuclear materials among certain members of Congress, which Brzezinski considered  “dangerous.” Determined to broker a peace deal between Israel and Egypt, the last thing Carter wanted were revelations confirming Israel had nuclear weapons, particularly if they had been created with materials from the U.S., so Carter shut down the NUMEC investigation.
• Declassified wiretap transcripts of conversations between Shapiro and venture capitalist David Lowenthal that reveal illegal storage practices, which led to a dangerous nuclear spill.

In their most recent article for the Bulletin, Gilinsky and Mattson sum up what the various declassified documents, including those most recently released, confirm about NUMEC’s probable role in providing Israel with highly enriched uranium with which to produce nuclear weapons:

NUMEC’s unexplained losses were a significantly larger proportion of its output of highly enriched uranium than was the case for other firms that dealt with nuclear materials. Sloppy accounting and lax security made the plant easy to rob without detection. NUMEC had commercial relationships with Israel’s defense and nuclear establishments and regularly made sizeable nuclear shipments to Israel, which at that time were not checked by the AEC.  NUMEC’s owners and executives had extremely close ties to Israel, including to high Israeli intelligence and nuclear officials. Israel had strong motives to obtain the highly enriched uranium before it was producing enough plutonium for weapons. High-level Israeli intelligence operatives visited the NUMEC plant. Israeli intelligence organizations were used to running logistically complicated, risky operations to support nuclear weapons development, and it would have been very much out of character for them to pass up an opportunity like this.

Why does it matter now?

Despite its continuing denials, it is almost universally recognized that Israel possesses nuclear weapons, and there’s next to zero likelihood Israel will give them up. Does it matter how Israel got its nuclear materials half a century ago, and if so, why?

1.  The environmental disaster NUMEC left behind. NUMEC’s carelessness in handling its toxic nuclear waste left behind an environmental disaster that has barely been addressed. Cleaning up the Shallow Land Disposal Area in Parks Township, Pennsylvania, contaminated by radioactive leakage from drums of toxic chemical and radioactive waste dumped by NUMEC and its successors — the Atlantic Richfield Co. and BWX Technologies (also known as Babcock & Wilcox) – may cost as much as half a billion dollars, according to the Army Corps of Engineers and the Wall Street Journal. The cleanup began in 2011 but was halted soon afterwards, and it won’t resume until 2015. In the hands of a new contractor, the cleanup may last a decade, and even then the chances of success are uncertain. Declassification of more NUMEC-related documents could facilitate the cleanup and even reduce its cost by disclosing details about where and how the toxic nuclear materials were discarded.

2. The proposed release of Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard. A CIA damage assessment of the Pollard case was declassified in December 2013. Although Pollard himself was only a small cog in the Israeli espionage network, Smith points out that none of the files handed over by Pollard to his handler, Rafael Eitan, part of the Israeli team visiting NUMEC in 1968, have ever been returned. He recommends that “if President Obama releases Pollard, it should be preceded by the belated return of the massive trove of classified documents he stole for Israel as well as all purloined nuclear materials and technologies.”

3.  Undermining assertions of  U.S. commitment to transparency in governance. “Nearly 50 years have passed since the events in question,” Gilinsky and Mattson contend. “It is time to level with the public. At this point it is up to the president himself to decide whether to declassify completely the NUMEC documents, all of which are over 30 years old. He should do so. We know that is asking a lot given the president’s sensitivity about anything involving Israel, and especially anything relating to Israeli nuclear weapons. But none of his political concerns outweigh his responsibility to tell the US public the historical truth it deserves to know.”

4.  Undermining U.S. commitment to nuclear nonproliferation. “We’ve lost a great deal of respect around the world on the subject of nonproliferation,” Gilinsky told Global Security Newswire (GSN) in an e-mail interview. “The president doesn’t even acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weapons, which means no one in the government can…Leveling on [this] affair, painful as it might be in the short run, would be a step toward what you might call a reality-based policy in this area.”

5. Future relations with Iran and North Korea. Mattson opined to GSN that disclosure of whatever the U.S. knows about the disappearance and diversion of nuclear materials from NUMEC would be to Washington’s advantage in dealing with Iran and North Korea, irrespective of whether or not Israel was the perpetrator of nuclear theft. In negotiating with Iran and North Korea, “it is important for all sides to come to the table openly and honestly, as they declare their various interests in the deal they are trying to strike.” U.S. credibility would be enhanced by the full declassification of documents from the 1960s and 70s, especially if  these documents were to reveal that the U.S. has been frank and forthright about NUMEC. If the U.S. hasn’t been honest up until now, Mattson sees the NUMEC document declassification as an opportunity to “atone for past mistakes and go back to the negotiating table refreshed by the experience” thereby setting an example for states that it accuses of duplicity.

by Mitchell Plitnick

There are many false clichés about the Israel-Palestine conflict. There are also some very true ones, though these are heard less frequently. Perhaps the most profound of these was proven once again this week: the United States is incapable of playing a positive role in this arena.

There is [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Mitchell Plitnick

There are many false clichés about the Israel-Palestine conflict. There are also some very true ones, though these are heard less frequently. Perhaps the most profound of these was proven once again this week: the United States is incapable of playing a positive role in this arena.

There is nothing about that statement that should be controversial. A decades-long line of US politicians and diplomats have spoken of the need to resolve this conflict. In recent years, these statements have often been accompanied by an acknowledgment of the need for “Palestinian self-determination.” But Israel is the one country, among all of the world’s nations, of whom those very same leaders speak in terms of an “unbreakable bond,” a country between whose policies and ours there “is no daylight.”

Let’s say my brother gets in a dispute with someone else, perhaps even someone I am acquainted with. Would anyone think that I would be the appropriate person to mediate that conflict? If my brother also had a lot more money and influence in the conflict, and therefore a fair mediation required a broker who was willing to pressure my brother into compromise because, right or wrong, he does not have incentive to do so, am I the right person for that job?

Of course that would be absurd, yet that is exactly what has been expected of the United States. The comparison goes even deeper because the political forces in the United States, as my father would do in this scenario, exert personal pressure (familial and financial) favoring my brother. While being quite natural, this isn’t justice, and it’s a recipe for disaster, not resolution.

US Secretary of State John Kerry now says that the United States is going to “re-evaluate” its efforts for Israel-Palestine peace. But will that be an honest evaluation, one that asks the hard questions? Because after twenty years of failure, there is but one fundamental question: is the United States, given its self-imposed diplomatic parameters and its AIPAC-directed domestic political obstacles, capable of mediating this conflict?

We need to understand, when evaluating the Obama administration’s performance here, that, reality aside, it is perceived as the toughest on Israel since George H.W. Bush. And, to be sure, it worked harder to get small concessions from Israel than its predecessor in the George W. Bush administration. But for those who still don’t understand the extent to which US policy prioritizes Israeli preferences over basic Palestinian needs, this past week’s events should have made it clear. Indeed, it is because of that potential clarity that Israel has moved immediately to replace the facts with its own, demonstrably false, narrative.

A Clear US Failure

Let’s review the collapse of the Kerry Talks. Eight months after scoring his victory in getting Israel and the Palestinians back to talks, Kerry had nothing but increased acrimony between the two parties to show for it. For many weeks, both Israel and the Palestinians had tacitly recognized the futility and had directed their efforts toward jockeying for a position to emerge from the inevitable collapse of talks as the more reasonable side. As the date that had been designated for the fourth and final release of 26 long-time Palestinian prisoners approached, Israel began to signal it would not follow through on its agreement to let them go. And Kerry’s frank incompetence started to become even more apparent.

Israel had been saying for weeks that the last batch of prisoners included Palestinian citizens of Israel whom they had not agreed to release. It is unclear exactly what happened here, but Kerry gave no indication that Israel was not being honest about that claim. The picture that emerged was that Israel agreed to the 104 prisoners being released but not necessarily to these specific ones, who, as citizens of Israel, do fall into a different category. Rather than clarify, it looks like Kerry simply assured Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that he’d convince the Israelis to get it done. If that is what happened, it indicates a serious lack of understanding on Kerry’s part of the difference the Israeli status of those prisoners made in Israel. It would mean that the US secretary of state was woefully ill-suited to this task.

Had Kerry bridged this gap, it might have been enough to move the prisoner release forward. This was the objection Israel started with. But by March 29, the date designated for the last prisoner release, Israel, certainly with US agreement, shifted gears and made the release contingent on the Palestinians committing to continuing the talks for another twenty months. This sat well with Kerry, since at this point, all he was really after was continuing the talks. Any goals of substance had long since evaporated.

Seeing that the Palestinians were not going to agree to this arrangement, Kerry tried to get Israel to sweeten the deal with a phony limitation on settlement construction that committed Israel to nothing at all and guaranteed accelerated settlement expansion in the Jerusalem area, and the freeing of 400 additional prisoners of Israel’s choosing which would have almost certainly meant freeing thieves and other common criminals whom the Palestinians would not necessarily even want to give back. In exchange for this Israeli “largesse” not only would the talks be extended, but the US would give Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu a massive political plum to please his right-wing: the freeing of convicted US spy Jonathan Pollard.

Kerry secured Netanyahu’s agreement then started to show the Palestinians this deal he had worked out with Israel and wanted them to accept. He never got that far, because that was when the Palestinians finally said “enough” and began applying for membership in numerous international bodies, as is their right.

When Kerry left the region in a huff, he blamed both sides for taking “unhelpful” and “unilateral” steps. That, in itself, is an inaccurate description of a collapse that was largely engineered by Israel. But it was clear that the Obama administration was planning to go further. The US Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, expressed the administration view clearly in her testimony before a House of Representatives subcommittee hearing on UN funding.

“On the Palestinian question, it just would underscore that we will oppose attempts at upgrades in status anywhere,” Power testified. “The [International Criminal Court] is, of course, something that we have been absolutely adamant about. Secretary Kerry has made it very, very clear to the Palestinians, as has the president, I mean, this [the Palestinians joining the ICC and bringing cases against Israel] is something that really poses a profound threat to Israel. It is not a unilateral action that will be anything other than devastating to the peace process…”

So it is either the Palestinians’ fault for threatening to hold Israel accountable for its actions in the international legal system or it’s both sides’ fault. No administration official has singled out Israel for its actions as they have the Palestinians, despite the fact that the Palestinians were acting on their rights which they had only agreed to hold off on as long as Israel lived up to its commitments and kept the talks going. It was Israel, not the Palestinians who reneged, and while the United States is well aware of this, they won’t say it.

Instead, US officials are helping clean Netanyahu’s image by shifting the blame for the announcement of new settlement units to Housing Minister Uri Ariel. Ariel, of the Jewish Home party, which is a right-wing rival of Likud, certainly seized an opportunity to torpedo any peace talks, in line with his views and his party’s policies. But the idea that this was done behind Netanyahu’s back is absurd. Netanyahu has offered no rebuke of Ariel, nor has he distanced himself at all from the announcement of the new settlement units or the timing of the announcement. Given that Kerry had made an emergency trip to the region just at that time, even most of the right-wing would not have had a problem with Netanyahu putting the new buildings on hold for a while. No, this was not Ariel’s initiative. It was Netanyahu’s.

Where to now: Israel

The Palestinians applied to fifteen international bodies. But the ones they chose to apply to pose no threat to Israel. Indeed, if anything, the choices they made, which largely consist of various human rights conventions, serve to make the Palestinian Authority (PA), not Israel, more accountable. The PA made a point of not applying to the International Criminal Court, which is Israel’s chief concern. The applications they made only moderately upgrade the Palestinians’ status, acquired over a year ago when they won admission to the UN General Assembly as a non-member observer state. The applications are, certainly, a threat that they will do more if things keep going as they have been.

Israel has declared that it will punish the Palestinians, though so far, aside from officially cancelling the last prisoner release, the only specific measure they have announced is the withdrawal of a permit for a West Bank telecommunications company to start building its wireless infrastructure in Gaza. There will likely be more measures soon. But the telling point is the absolute absence in Israel of any criticism of Netanyahu for the collapse of the talks.

The parties in the governing coalition that were supposed to hold Netanyahu to the peace track, Yesh Atid and HaTnuah, have been unwavering in their support of Netanyahu since the talks collapsed. The major opposition parties, particularly Labor and Shas, have either been silent or offered measured support to Netanyahu. It is clear that Netanyahu faces no pressure to modify his position.

This tells us that Israel is going to continue on its present course. It leaves little doubt that Netanyahu is perfectly comfortable with Kerry simply giving up and turning his attention to other matters. And why shouldn’t he feel that way? Congress remains locked into mindless obedience to any and all Israeli actions, and the Obama administration has made it clear it is not going to expend the political capital necessary to bring about any changes.

Where to now: Palestine

Now that Abbas has finally reached the point where he could not accept another one-sided US proposal, he needs to consider his options. He has thrown down a gauntlet with his applications to the international bodies. The message: Palestine will take full advantage of its rights if Israel remains unwilling to negotiate in a spirit of compromise that acknowledges the legitimacy of Palestinian claims. Remember that the Palestinians have surrendered 78% of Palestine, accepted the principle that Jerusalem will be shared and acknowledged that the implementation of refugee rights would be negotiable and considerate of Israel’s demographic needs.

Abbas absolutely cannot be seen to be bluffing. If Israel does not change its stance, he must apply to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for recognition of Palestine and begin bringing war crimes cases there. There is a reason Ambassador Power considers this a real threat to Israel. The United States will indeed shield Israeli leaders from imprisonment if they are found guilty by the ICC, but Israeli leaders will find themselves unable to travel to Europe, which, despite US largesse, is by far Israel’s biggest trading partner. That matters, a lot.

Abbas must be willing to follow through, even if he is unlikely to be around for the endgame. Israel would certainly respond harshly to such actions, and the PA is not going to survive that kind of Israeli action. That’s why Abbas will be sorely tempted to find another way. But, as we’ve already seen, popular pressure is beginning to boil in the West Bank.

Where to now?

The breakdown of these talks is a turning point. Yes, there will be desperate cries for another “last chance” for the Oslo-based two-state solution, but there is a growing realization that this is now a pipe dream. The United States will likely continue for some time to play the same role it has for twenty years, but if this round generated miniscule hope, future attempts will be met with virtually absolute cynicism.

The politics of all of this is going to move farther away from Washington, although the pull from Congress will slow the process. But even the bought and paid for Congress won’t be able to stop it. Europe will be forced to take more actions, and Israel is going to be increasingly isolated. The parameters are becoming more fluid and, in a departure from the Oslo years, the new ones are going to be dictated by events in Israel and the Palestinian Territories more than in Washington.

The smart thing for Washington to do is to reset the process, bring together real experts — rather than AIPAC-endorsed lawyers for Israel like Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross and David Makovsky — with leaders from Israel, Palestine, Europe and the Arab world and start over. There may be a way to find a formulation, whether one state or two, that justly addresses Palestinian rights as well as Israeli ones, but it must start with admitting that the Oslo process is dead. Continuing self-deception, whether from right-wingers like Netanyahu who gamed the system, or well-meaning centrists like J Street who staked their existence on the vain hope that this process, ill-formed at birth, could ever succeed, must be treated now like the threat to any progress that it is.

Photo: US Secretary of State John Kerry leaves US Ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro behind as he ends his failed trip to Israel. Credit: State Department

by James A. Russell

News that the Obama administration is considering releasing the convicted spy Jonathan Pollard as part of an attempt to breath life into the Israel-Palestine peace talks is a sign of negotiations that have become a road to nowhere.

Secretary of State John Kerry and the Obama administration deserve [...]]]> via LobeLog

by James A. Russell

News that the Obama administration is considering releasing the convicted spy Jonathan Pollard as part of an attempt to breath life into the Israel-Palestine peace talks is a sign of negotiations that have become a road to nowhere.

Secretary of State John Kerry and the Obama administration deserve credit for attempting to convince both parties to take steps that serve their interests: to reach peaceful accommodation for an independent Palestinian state. The negotiations, however, recall an essential time honored truth of life and politics: you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.

The Obama administration may wish to release Pollard, but it should be under no illusions that his release will somehow increase Israel’s enthusiasm for peace talks with the Palestinians. Israel would enthusiastically welcome Pollard as a national hero, and then go back to its US-subsidized good life behind its walls that protect the beautiful beaches and café’s of Tel Aviv and elsewhere.

As the occupying military power, the Israelis hold most of the cards in the asymmetric bargaining framework. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Benajmin Netanyahu, the Israelis continually demonstrate their abiding disinterest in living peacefully with the Palestinians despite the obvious benefits that a settlement would offer.

The view from Israel

Israel regards its strategic problems in purely military terms and sees no benefits to a different set of political relationships that might make its neighbors less hostile. A deal with the Palestinians might unlock the door to these possibilities, but Israel would have to decide to insert the key into the lock to find out what’s on the other side. One can only conclude that Israel has no interest in altering political relations with its neighbors and creating a more cooperative regional political framework.  Life is good on their Mediterranean beaches.

Ignoring the requests of their benefactor and most important political supporter, Israel continues to build new settlements in illegally occupied lands and continues to squeeze the Palestinian population on the West Bank into constricted cantonment areas surrounded by troops and roadblocks that make the concept of an independent state simply impossible.

Some reports suggest that Israel is even insisting on what would amount to a permanent Israeli military presence in the Jordan River valley as part of a settlement. What country in the modern world could agree to such a situation and still be regarded as a country?

For their part, the Palestinians have little leverage in the negotiations since they are under military occupation and are being actively denied the ability to function as a coherent state. They have already acceded to Israeli demands to set up their own security force, but are left without the accompanying political institutions to provide governance and public services. So the Palestinians are left in a perennial catch-22 situation in which the Israelis demand that they act like a state while Israel simultaneously denies them the ability to function as one.

This returns us to the issue of the Jonathan Pollard. Americans forget that the Israelis rented out an apartment on Connecticut Avenue in Washington DC filled with copying machines to deal with the volume of top secret classified material that Pollard passed to his Israeli handlers. Israel allegedly passed some of that information to the Soviet Union in exchange for an increase in the numbers of Soviet Jews allowed to emigrate to Israel.  Pollard is said to have provided thousands of sensitive classified documents to Israel that were never returned to the United States. The Reagan-era Cold Warrior Caspar Weinberger would no doubt turn over in his grave if he knew what was afoot with Pollard today.

Cold War remnants

In some ways, the focus on Pollard is emblematic of an issue and an epoch in US international relations that has disappeared into the rearview mirror — at least for the United States. Today, the United States talks of the pivot to Asia and is left with a series of politico-military relationships throughout the Middle East formed during the heat of the Cold War that have lost much of their strategic impetus. Israel is no exception to this phenomenon.

The main US Cold War allies of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel — all joined by a congruence of interests — are slowly but surely becoming unglued in the 21^st century as the winds of change blow across the region. Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt are now the forces of counter-revolution simultaneously seeking to preserve monarchy, a military dictatorship, and a permanent occupation — all of which places these countries on the wrong side of history.

For the United States, these relationships made sense in the Cold War as it sought to hold the line against Soviet influence and, in the case of Saudi Arabia, as it helped build the epicenter of the global oil industry that exists to this day in the Persian Gulf.

The US-Israeli relationship was cemented in this period, and Israel today stands as the unrivaled regional military superpower courtesy of the United States.  The US-Saudi relationship was similarly constructed, with the United States helping the House of Saud construct a security apparatus second to none in the region.  The story of the US-Egyptian relationship is similar — with the Egyptian security apparatus built and funded with US money and military equipment.

New interests

At one time, the Arab-Israeli dispute was seen as a lynchpin to regional stability and critical to US interests. Today, however, that calculus has changed. The conflict has devolved into a persistent irritant for the United States but has lost its importance in the global scheme of things as a strategic imperative.

Today, the stakes in the Iran nuclear program are far more significant for American interests and are justifiably receiving the attention of senior decision-makers in the Obama administration. Moreover, the US ability to influence the direction of the region’s political evolution in places like Syria, Tunisia, Bahrain and Egypt are limited. The United States cannot manage these regional problems all by itself.  Similarly, it cannot manage the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, particularly when America’s main ally actively refuses to take steps for peace that are in its own interests. If Israel wants to live in a permanent state of hostility with its neighbors, then so be it.

Secretary of State John Kerry is actively seeking solutions to the many problems facing the United States around the world. The Arab-Israeli dispute keeps getting lower on America’s list of global and strategic priorities; it has turned into a road to nowhere. Keep Pollard in jail or give him up, but, more importantly, the United States must move on from the Cold War era and leave these antagonists to their own devices and fate.

Photo: Israelis protest for the release of Jonathan Pollard. Credit: Reuters/Ammar Awad

Over at The New Republic, Marc Tracy asks the question “Is it possible to write critically about Sheldon Adelson without being anti-Semitic?” He answers in the affirmative, noting that Adelson’s enormous financial influence on this year’s presidential election cycle — combined with various credible allegations of misconduct, most notably [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Over at The New Republic, Marc Tracy asks the question “Is it possible to write critically about Sheldon Adelson without being anti-Semitic?” He answers in the affirmative, noting that Adelson’s enormous financial influence on this year’s presidential election cycle — combined with various credible allegations of misconduct, most notably relating to his business dealings in China — make him a legitimate target of scrutiny. Others, like Commentary‘s Jonathan Tobin, predictably argue that criticism of Adelson’s role is inherently anti-Semitic. Tracy notes, aptly, that “in mainstream discourse, Adelson is spoken of as an anti-Semitic caricature less frequently by his critics than by his defenders, who use the stereotype as a shield to protect him from legitimate inquiries.”

While I agree with Tracy’s general point, the way he argues for it is somewhat more problematic. His first line of defense seems to be that critics of Adelson are on safe ground as long as (perhaps only as long as?) they refrain from mentioning his pro-Israel advocacy:

I pointedly did not mention Adelson’s Israel beliefs—not to avoid offending, but because it is plain that a President Romney would not pardon Jonathan Pollard, not completely abandon the peace process, and—I will bet you any sum—not move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. The [New York] Times, too, specifically opted not to go there…

The reference is to a Daily Beast piece from earlier this month reporting that Mitt Romney had so far rebuffed Adelson’s request to publicly call for the release of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard. As far as justifications for neglecting Adelson’s influence on the Israel issue go, this is pretty weak. The fact that Romney is willing to rebuff Adelson’s most extreme requests on Israel — and a pardon for Pollard is such an extreme measure that even some neocons oppose it, since it would be likely to trigger widespread outrage in the US military and intelligence communities — hardly shows that Adelson is failing to pull Romney to the right on Israel-related issues in more mundane and pervasive ways.

More broadly, Adelson has made it clear that Israel is by far his most important preoccupation. The New York Times, asking “what Sheldon Adelson wants,” rightly suggested that the primary driving him to open his checkbook “is clearly his disgust for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” After expressing regret for having served in the US rather than Israeli military, Adelson publicly wished that his young son would grow up to be an IDF sniper because “all we care about is being good Zionists, being good citizens of Israel.”

The reason mentioning all this makes people leery is obvious, since Adelson’s words and actions do indeed bring to mind a host of traditionally anti-Semitic allegations. But is the solution that we must simply refuse to talk about the issue that Adelson has made clear is the primary one driving him? That we can call attention to Adelson’s pernicious influence on the Republican party regarding human rights in China but not human rights in Palestine? Adelson’s critics should certainly make sure to avoid lapsing into traditional slurs and innuendos. But if Adelson’s positions on Israel make most Americans deeply uncomfortable, that’s first and foremost his problem.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is probably the most notorious work of anti-Semitic propaganda ever written. First surfacing publicly in 1905 after several years in private circulation, the work was a fabricated transcript of a secret meeting of rabbis plotting to control the world, as Gary Saul [...]]]> via Lobe Log

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is probably the most notorious work of anti-Semitic propaganda ever written. First surfacing publicly in 1905 after several years in private circulation, the work was a fabricated transcript of a secret meeting of rabbis plotting to control the world, as Gary Saul Morson explains. Its initial purpose appears to have been to blame the Jews of Russia for the radical activity that was beginning to shake the foundations of the Tsarist Russian Empire. Translated into English, French, German, Polish, Spanish and Arabic, its unfounded claim that a global Jewish conspiracy seeks to rule the world has shaped and seeped into anti-Semitic propaganda for over a century.

The Protocols of the Elder of Las Vegas, on the other hand, is a 21st century work in progress, and it is no hoax. It’s about a casino magnate with an estimated net worth of just under $25 billion (the seventh richest man in the United States) who decides to devote a small portion of his vast wealth to a neoconservative agenda determined to thwart negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinians; prevent the reelection of an incumbent U.S. president; engineer the destruction of political liberalism; and reshape the political environments of the U.S. and Israel by funding the election of politicians who serve his own corporate and ideological interests. Following is a rough draft of the plot line so far.

Chapter One: The Neoconservative

In April 2007, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson’s newly-established Adelson Family Foundation gives a $4.5 million three year grant to the Shalem Center in Jerusalem to establish the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies to “explore topics ranging from democracy and security, to nationalism, terror and identity.” Heading the Adelson Institute is former Soviet dissident Natan (Anatoly) Sharansky, who, after arriving in Israel, became a nationalist hardliner. Named as Adelson Institute fellows are former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon (currently Israel’s Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Strategic Affairs); Yossi Klein Halevi (a contributing editor of The New Republic since 2008); Martin Kramer, an Middle East Studies professor and Washington Institute (WINEP) Fellow; and historian Michael Oren who became Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S. in 2008.

The Adelson Institute’s first project is a June 2007 conference on “Democracy & Security” in Prague. Its agenda is a melange of neoconservative talking points: support for the U.S. war in Iraq; demanding human rights for freedom fighters (as long as they are not Palestinian); celebrating Eastern European resistance to Soviet domination and Communism, which had culminated in the integration of most former Warsaw Pact countries into NATO and the EU; and defending Israel’s right to absolute sovereignty. As Jim Lobe astutely noted at the time, the conference constitutes “a kind of ‘Neo-Conservative International’ designed to rally support for ‘dissidents,’ primarily from the Islamic world, and give them hope that ‘regime change’ in their countries is possible much as it was in the former Soviet bloc almost 20 years ago.

Within this “Middle East as Eastern Europe” neoconservative paradigm, Iran is accorded the role of “evil empire” once reserved for the Soviet Union. Two months later, in August, Sheldon Adelson is among the major donors who establish Freedom’s Watch, an advocacy group whose supporters overlapped with or were closely tied to the Republican Jewish Coalition. Freedom’s Watch immediately launches a 5 week, $15 million media blitz supporting President George W. Bush’s “surge” strategy in Iraq. In October, Freedom’s Watch sponsors a private forum of 20 “experts” on radical Islam and Iran.

Chapter 2: Ready for Prime (Minister) Time Player

In August 2007, after a failed attempt to purchase the Israeli evening newspaper Maariv, Adelson launches an Israeli newspaper of his own, Israel Hayom (Israel Today) with a reported $180 million investment. Israel Hayom soon achieves wide circulation. Not only is it free, it also offers home delivery at no charge. For Adelson, Israel Hayom would be a tool with which to remove Prime Minister Ehud Olmert from office, and replace him with Benjamin Netanyahu.

Olmert resigns as Prime Minister on July 29, 2008 after being accused of corruption during his previous posts as cabinet minister and Jerusalem’s mayor. The charges included taking $150,000 in bribes from a U.S. businessman and defrauding Israeli charities by double-billing them for overseas fundraising trips. Israel Today regales its readers with sensationalist headlines and accounts of Olmert pocketing cash-stuffed envelopes and enjoying a lavish lifestyle in luxury hotels. Olmert insists he is innocent and will ultimately be vindicated.

In a CNN interview this past May, Olmert explains to Christiane Amanpour that he had been the victim of a right-wing conspiracy involving American millionaires determined to thwart his peacemaking efforts and destroy his political career:

“[Trying to make peace] was a killer for me,” he said. “I had to fight against superior powers, including millions and millions of dollars that were transferred from this country by figures in the extreme right-wing who tried to topple me. There is no question about it. I know the names of people who spent millions of dollars who tried to stop me. They wanted to prevent a government led by me from achieving peace.”

In July 2012, Olmert is acquitted of major corruption charges, but found guilty of a lesser charge of breaching the public trust. Olmert calls for an investigation of “right wing American Jews” who had used their money and influence to topple him from power. Former government Minister Haim Ramon tells Israel Radio:

American right-wing Jews who filed countless complaints against Olmert have to be investigated. They saw Olmert as the man who could deliver an agreement with the Palestinians. Consider what Olmert could have done had he remained prime minister for two more years instead of Netanyahu.

Adelson’s intransigence on the Palestinian issue also brings him into conflict with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Adelson has been underwriting the cost of trips to Israel for members of Congress — although only for Republicans sponsored by an AIPAC-affiliate — and contributed toward a luxurious new office building for AIPAC in Washington DC, according to  Connie Bruck in the New Yorker. Adelson is infuriated when he discovers that AIPAC is supporting a letter signed by 130 members of the House of Representatives that asks the Bush  administration to increase economic aid to the Palestinians, a measure also supported by the Israeli government.

Chapter 3: All the President’s Money?

In 2011, Adelson forges an alliance with Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. Adelson and his wife contribute $10 million to Gingrich‘s Winning Our Future political action committee. Adelson’s cash enables Gingrich’s campaign to run ads vilifying rival Mitt Romney‘s record at Bain Capital. When Gingrich drops out of the GOP primary race, Adelson begins negotiations with Romney. In June, “a well-placed source in the Adelson camp with direct knowledge of the casino billionaire’s thinking” hints to Forbes‘  Steve Bertoni that Adelson might even be willing to make “limitless” donations to Romney’s campaign in order to prevent Barack Obama’s re-election.

“What scares me is the continuation of the socialist-style economy we’ve been experiencing for almost four years,” Adelson tells Bertoni in an interview. The man who amassed more wealth than anyone in the U.S. during the three and a half years Obama has been in office — $21.6 billion, which is about 90% of his current fortune — declares, “I believe that people will come to their senses and not extend the current Administration’s quest to socialize this country.”

Adelson has other items on his agenda besides putting the lid on creeping “socialism” in the U.S. During Romney’s Israel visit, Netanyahu gave Romney a letter signed by the heads of all non-Arab political parties in Israel requesting clemency for Jonathan Pollard, an American convicted of spying for Israel while employed by U.S. naval intelligence. Pollard was  sentenced to life in prison 27 years ago. All U.S. presidents including Obama have declined to free Pollard, who supporters say has served more time in prison than any other spy in U.S. history. An associate of Adelson’s, identified as a major Republican donor, tells the Daily Beast’s Eli Lake and Dan Ephron that Adelson is putting pressure on Romney to commit to freeing Pollard if he is elected. Romney’s response has been that he’ll have to wait until he is president and has access to top level national security files to make a decision about Pollard. That’s not the sort of answer Adelson likes to hear, so it’s being touted as evidence that Romney is a principled and independent thinker, not Adelson’s yes-man, despite the lure of massive cash infusions. According to Jonathan S. Tobin: ”The Romney campaign isn’t shy about making it clear that even the most beneficent contributor to the candidate’s coffers can expect nothing more than a civil hearing.”

“When Adelson was merely rich, he wrote checks for causes that he favored and for politicians whom he supported,” writes Connie Bruck. “Occasionally, he demanded to be heard. But he did not expect to play a significant role in U.S. foreign policy, or in Israel’s strategic decisions, or in the fate of a sitting Israeli Prime Minister. That was before he acquired many billions of dollars.”

Chapter 4: The Tycoon

Sheldon Adelson’s empire of shifting Sands was on the brink of bankruptcy in 2008. Now he is the 14th richest man in the world. ProPublica and Frontline have been co-publishing some in-depth reporting about Adelson’s business methods that may be under investigation, including “Inside the Investigation of Leading Republican Money Man Sheldon Adelson” and “New Questions about Sheldon Adelson’s Casino Operations in Macao.” Thomas B. Edsall also provides a detailed discussion of the business aspects behind Adelson’s success and questionable practices by which he may have attained it in the New York Times.

But could his obsession with politics be setting up Adelson for another downfall? Howard Stutz suggests in the Casino City Times that Adelson’s investors have reason to be concerned about the declining profitability and downgraded value of  shares in Adelson’s casino empire, while he lavishes his largesse on philanthropy and politicians:

A few days after Las Vegas Sands Corp. disappointed investors with quarterly earnings declines that sent the company’s share price tumbling and had analysts breaking out in a cold sweat, Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson jetted to Israel to watch presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney deliver a speech in Jerusalem. “It was a great speech. Loved it,” Adelson told Bloomberg News.

In Israel, he was treated like a rock star. Adelson, 78, was swarmed by Israeli citizens, Romney donors, and the press as he slowly made his way to his wheelchair after the speech. Back in the U.S., Argus Research downgraded its view of Las Vegas Sands stock. The firm placed a Hold recommendation on the shares, a change from its previous Buy rating. The weaker outlook reflected Argus’ concerns that revenues and profits from Las Vegas Sands’ four Macau casino developments were in trouble. During the quarter, net income from Macau declined 40 percent. Argus said the Chinese economy seems to be slowing.

Analysts openly wonder if Adelson, Las Vegas Sands’ controlling stockholder with 57 percent of the outstanding shares, is being distracted from the casino operations by his bi-continental political endeavors. “With shares falling will Sheldon open his wallet for [Las Vegas Sands] or the GOP?” Stifel Nicolaus Capital Markets gaming analyst Steve Wieczynski asked at the top of a critical July 26 research report discussing the company’s quarterly results.

Chapter 5:  The Outcome

A New York Times editorial views Adelson as “the perfect illustration of the squalid state of political money, spending sums greater than any political donation in history to advance his personal, ideological and financial agenda, which is wildly at odds with the nation’s needs.”

The Protocols of this Elder of Las Vegas is no conspiratorial fabrication. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the last chapter has yet to be written. Will money ultimately decide the 2012 U.S. election? And if it does, will it be Sheldon Adelson’s?

The article is a look into the possible reasons that Israel has pushed back the nuclear timeline for Iran. I quote Tony Karon at length (which appears at TB) and list my own thoughts (some via Jim):

That notion — [...]]]> I have a new piece up at Tehran Bureau, the PBS/Frontline project on Iran.

The article is a look into the possible reasons that Israel has pushed back the nuclear timeline for Iran. I quote Tony Karon at length (which appears at TB) and list my own thoughts (some via Jim):

That notion — that you can’t whip up your own population into a fearful frenzy, then not do anything — tracks with comments made in the past by top Israeli officials casting aside the “existential threat” meme. Along with Barak, former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy sounded a confident note in late 2009: “It is not within the power of Iran to destroy the state of Israel — at best it can cause Israel grievous damage. Israel is indestructible.”

But there are other possibilities to consider, most of them speculative. Perhaps Israel was merely gloating about its covert actions against Iran. Many mainstream commentators suggest Israel is behind the Stuxnet computer worm that damaged Iranian centrifuges as well as a campaign of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. Maybe, as Jim Lobe suggested to me in a conversation, there was some kind of quid pro quo between the U.S. and Israel over the public extension of Israel’s nuclear clock.

There are certainly many pawns on the board to trade between Israel and the U.S. at the moment: an Israeli settlement freeze (whether including East Jerusalem or not), the fate of imprisoned Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, a U.S. offer of an Israeli wish list of military hardware (as discussed in earlier failed talks on a freeze), or maybe even some sort of agreement for Israel to drop mounting preconditions for yet another round of direct talks. All are possibilities, though some quite unlikely.

It’s worth noting, that as a source close to high-ranking Israelis put it to LobeLog, Israel has shifted its focus from the threat of Iran to the threat of “delegitimizers.” The latter is an amorphous and misleading catchall phrase that the Israeli right and their Stateside defenders use to indict the motives of anyone who even comes near the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

I also add that Paul Pillar, writing on the website of the National Interest, has an interesting post listing some possibilities:

One is that they are more or less straightforward reflections of careful, straightforward analysis by Israeli experts of the actual state of the Iranian program. Not every statement by a public official needs to be a disingenuous manipulation of the facts in pursuit of a policy objective. Sometimes we need to resist the tendency to overanalyze someone else’s motives.

Given Israel’s track record, I’m skeptical of this lack of skepticism. But some of Pillar’s other possibilities track with the ones I enumerated, and all are well worth reading.

Matt Duss at The Wonk Room, meanwhile, picks up on an interesting Der Spiegel interview with new IAEA chief Yukiya Amano. Duss notes that Amano told the German daily, “Despite all unanswered questions, we cannot say that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program.”

You’ll recall, of course, that Amano told U.S. officials that “he was solidly in the U.S. court on every key strategic decision” — including Iran — according to U.S. diplomatic cables. As Duss points out, this aligns perfectly with the view Amano espoused in his Der Spiegel interview — because the “U.S. court” on this particular “key strategic issue” corresponds with a public acknowledgment by the CIA (PDF) that the U.S. does “not know whether Tehran will eventually decide to produce nuclear weapons.”

On the other hand, the Wall Street Journal‘s neoconservative editorial board recently declared (falsely) that Iran had already “announced its intention to build a nuclear bomb.”

As I wrote on Tehran Bureau, none of the recent developments seem to have had much impact on U.S.-based Iran hawks, who are perfectly content to keep beating the war drums. No matter what Iran does or how its nuclear program advances (if at all), the hawks want to attack it. No matter how effective sanctions are, they will never be enough.