by Thomas W. Lippman
It was like a movie in which different characters see the same events in completely different ways.
At one of those Washington think-tank panel discussions the other day, senior U.S. national security and military officials insisted that the American commitment to security and stability in the [...]]]>
by Thomas W. Lippman
It was like a movie in which different characters see the same events in completely different ways.
At one of those Washington think-tank panel discussions the other day, senior U.S. national security and military officials insisted that the American commitment to security and stability in the Persian Gulf is iron-clad and will not change. The U.S Navy’s Fifth Fleet and the 35,000 soldiers and sailors in the region are staying, they said, and Iran will not acquire or develop nuclear weapons. They reminded the audience that President Barack Obama, his secretaries of state and defense, and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have told all this to Gulf Arab leaders over and over, most recently during the president’s visit to Saudi Arabia in March.
“We are present in a major and significant way,” one senior Pentagon official said at this gathering, organized by the Atlantic Council. “We are not leaving and we are not inattentive.”
The next morning, different panelists, assembled by the Middle East Policy Council, acknowledged that the message had been delivered unequivocally and often, and agreed that Obama and the others were no doubt sincere. Unfortunately, they said, Gulf Arab leaders don’t believe it.
“They think we don’t have the will to uphold our principles,” said Mark T. Kimmitt, a former senior official of both the State and Defense departments. “It’s not about our strength on the ground. It’s about our willingness to use it.” Given the record of the past few years, he said, “There’s not a lot of reason for the Gulf Arabs to be happy.”
“There are deep structural sources of anxiety” about the United States among leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, said Colin Kahl, a deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East in Obama’s first term. First among these, he said, is “the widespread perception that the United States is simply politically exhausted” after more than a decade of war and has no appetite for further involvement. Witnessing the U.S. troop drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said, “They wonder when the U.S. will begin to draw down in the Gulf.” The GCC leaders were taken aback, he said, by the strong popular opposition among Americans to military intervention in Syria, and drew their own conclusions.
Michael Gfoeller, former deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia, said the Saudis and others have been disconcerted by the way the United States and its partners have conducted nuclear negotiations with Iran without input from them. In their view, he said, Washington is proceeding “with almost no input from us and yet we are going to be the front line of what we think is going to be a nuclear armed Iran…They think that when we don’t consult with them it’s a sign that we don’t take their national security seriously.”
These panelists said it was useful that President Obama went to see King Abdullah and other senior princes in Riyadh, but not sufficient to overcome the doubts that have been built up about U.S. staying power. Ford Fraker, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said that a week ago he asked Prince Muqrin, now second in line to the Saudi throne, how he assessed the Obama-Abdullah meeting. Muqrin, who speaks fluent English, “looked at me and said, ‘We did have the opportunity to clarify a number of important issues,’ and that’s all he said,” Fraker reported.
The two forums amounted to a fascinating but also baffling conversation about a topic that has been a focus of analysis in Washington and the Gulf states for months. The United States and its allies in the region have compelling interests in common — combating al-Qaeda and its affiliates, seeking a solution in Syria, ensuring the free flow of oil through the Gulf, stabilizing Yemen and Iraq, and countering what they see as the malign activities of Iran in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and Bahrain. The Gulf states buy American weapons, depend on the United States for military training and assistance with cyber-security issues, and share intelligence about terrorist financing. And these relationships have been in place for many years. Why, then, have the Gulf leaders, and particularly the Saudis, been so vocally unhappy about U.S. policy?
The first answer participants gave was the nuclear negotiations with Iran, from which they are excluded. In the view especially of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, panelists said, these negotiations are dangerous either way: if they fail, nothing will prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, but if they succeed, sanctions will be lifted, Iranian oil exports will surge, and Iran will be free to pursue its quest for regional hegemony. Moreover, in the Gulf view, if the negotiations succeed, the United States will have another incentive to reduce its military commitments in the Gulf.
Gulf Arab leaders, panelists said, are well aware of the constraints that are curtailing Pentagon spending. Cuts will have to be made somewhere, and they see their region as a target, especially if the United States reaches some accommodation with Iran.
The Gulf leaders were shocked by the alacrity with which Washington turned its back on Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak after demonstrations against him broke out in 2011. They think “Maybe the United States won’t be a reliable ally for them,” Kahl said. These doubts have been stoked, he and other panelists said, by all the talk about growing U.S. oil output in the fracking boom, and the possibility that the United States will feel itself safely insulated from developments in the Gulf.
Despite assurances from Washington to the contrary, panelists said, the Saudis and Emiratis believe that the United States is focused exclusively on the nuclear issue in its negotiations with Iran, ignoring other troubling aspects of Iranian policy. Kahl said it’s actually a good idea to confine the current negotiations to the nuclear issue because Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani does not control the other Iranian activities that so trouble its neighbors. Those matters are under the jurisdiction of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Kahl said, and it would be counterproductive to bring the IRGC into the nuclear discussions.
In a separate commentary published during the same week as the panel discussions, Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote that, “One Saudi businessman complained to me recently that there was no discernible U.S. global strategy, and that its absence makes it impossible for Saudi Arabia to construct any strategy at all. The quandary is common among many U.S. allies, and it raises fundamental questions about U.S. commitments abroad. Is there anything for which U.S. allies can rely on the United States, and under what circumstances might it change? Equally confounding, how can America’s friends make themselves vital to the United States if the United States has no clear understanding and ordering of its own interests?”
In some ways, however, as several of the panelists noted, it is not just the United States that seems to be groping for an effective regional strategy. The six monarchies that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council have deep policy differences among themselves, about Iran, about Syria, and about the dangers of religious extremism. Oman, for example, hosted the secret diplomacy that led to the nuclear negotiations with Iran, and is reportedly planning a $1 billion natural gas pipeline link to the Islamic Republic. And on Saturday, the Washington Post reported that the United States has identified Kuwait as the major source of funding for jihadist groups fighting in Syria — groups that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are trying to defeat. If Alterman’s Saudi friend is having difficulty discerning a comprehensive U.S. strategy in the region, perhaps it’s not surprising.
Several of the panelists said that the key to assuaging the anxiety among GCC leaders is more and closer consultation, more often. It’s well and good for the president and cabinet members and officers from the U.S. Central Command to go to the region from time to time, they said, but the Gulf leaders want to see the deputy assistant secretaries and other policy worker bees out there more often. To some extent they made the Gulf leaders sound like spoiled children demanding mommy’s full attention right this minute.
Photo: President Barack Obama meets with King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia during a bilateral meeting at Rawdat Khuraim in Saudi Arabia, March 28, 2014. Credit: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
]]>by Charles Naas
Not even a month in office, Secretary of State John Kerry took his first official trip to the troubled Middle East and immediately felt first-hand the pressures and metamorphosing power relationships in the region. He began his visit with a meeting in Rome with countries that provide assistance to [...]]]>
by Charles Naas
Not even a month in office, Secretary of State John Kerry took his first official trip to the troubled Middle East and immediately felt first-hand the pressures and metamorphosing power relationships in the region. He began his visit with a meeting in Rome with countries that provide assistance to the various resistance forces in Syria. He pledged $60 million in aid for civilian purposes — to be administered by the United Nations — to help the millions of refugees who have been uprooted by the conflict. The Syrian tragedy hung like a pall over the session and Kerry was berated by representatives of the militias for the size of the offer and the continued policy of not sending modern arms. Nevertheless, the US has now taken one more small step toward greater participation with the anti-Assad groups, something the Administration has maneuvered to avoid.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a prickly fellow at any time, was openly rude about a few minute wait for Kerry and took the opportunity to lambaste Israel and Zionism while knowing full well how Kerry would react. He continued to pressure the US to become more involved in the Syrian situation and stressed that Turkey has accepted thousand of refugees and has been struck by errant munitions in the fighting near the border. Was Erdogan’s rudeness of great importance? Not really, but symbolically, yes. Meanwhile in Saudi Arabia, the assault on the Secretary regarding Syria was also in full force.
In Egypt, a number of the leaders of the democratic-secular opposition parties refused to meet with Kerry — or at least to meet him without publicity — and some got together privately. Of great importance? Again, no, but of symbolic significance, yes. Kerry released some aid for Egypt that had been held up but lectured President Mohamed Morsi on some matters. Auntie US can’t seem to refrain from telling others how to run their country.
In Almaty, Kazakhstan last week the nuclear talks with Iran continued after a nine month recess. The P5+1 nations (the US, England, France, Russia, China and Germany) for the first time eased ever so slightly their previous proposal. It was relatively “well received” by Iran. Tehran is torn internally about its relationship — or the absence of one — with the US but has persevered undeterred by the threats of bombing and the economic sanctions. It’s likely that Iran is following the old Russian KGB tactic of good guy versus bad guy by having mid-level officials speak openly about the desire for an improvement of ties with the US, followed by intransigence in the talks, refusing to meet directly with the head of our delegation and speeches by conservative religious leaders filled with condemnation for the West. Thus, the importance of the “well received” aspect of all this will not be known until the next full meeting in April. The key question is: will Iran reply with some movement of its own, particularly about the buried uranium enrichment plant in Fordow, or “pocket” the proposal and remain obdurate. The Iranian decision could determine whether future talks continue.
Just how or why has this willingness to defy the US come about? Not long ago in the twilight of the Cold War the United States’ position in the Middle East seemed unassailable. We had “lost” Iran but the Soviets had been unable to bring peace and control to Afghanistan . For a couple of decades Musharraf in Pakistan, the Shah in Iran, Sadat and Mubarak in Egypt and various conservative monarchies in Jordan and Saudi Arabia as well as in neighbouring countries in the Persian Gulf stood with us in the struggle to dominate an area with much of the world’s petroleum,vast wealth potential and strategic positioning location wise. There were of course disputes among these nations over clear differences in perceived national interest, but we were able to adjust to such matters.
The changes we are witnessing now have thus been percolating for more than a decade.The end of the Cold War finally permitted the Middle East to reassess what was important to it. The Arabs, Persians and many ethnic and sectarian groups within these populaces have lived through the Ottoman, French and British Empires, as well as through the clash of the Soviet and American pseudo empires.
A number of powerful indigenous forces have accordingly had the opportunity to express themselves. First, there has been nationalism, historical pride and an insistence on mutual respect, which has been inextricably interwoven with religion. Over a billion people from Indonesia to Morocco are involved in one way or another in the search for what Islam means to them and the glory of its past. Who would have thought the Muslim Brotherhood would be governing Egypt prior to the Arab Spring, which sent shockwaves through the world? Pakistan is being destroyed by the fight over Islam’s true meaning. Second, there’s sheer exuberance over the fact that at last the populaces of these countries can govern themselves and make their own mistakes. Finally, a bi-product of all this has been the freedom to attend to old divisive factors such as religious schisms of Sunni versus Shi’a and ethnic differences.
President Obama seems to have recognized that old truisms that previously worked in the US’ favor no longer apply to America’s future relations with the Middle East. Early on he pledged to implement US withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. His deep reluctance to get heavily involved in Libya and now in Syria also reflects his understanding of the complexity of these matters and his recognition of the weakness of our economy, the weariness of our military and his desire to pivot to the competition with China. Republican party leaders meanwhile object to any shift in US priorities and any hint that the golden days of American hegemony are over.
But in the Middle East and South Asia, political leaders are largely dedicated to their own problems and finding ways to resolve the serious issues that divide their populace and make governing onerous. They are sensitive to nagging and direction from outsiders. It is within this greatly changed political atmosphere that US diplomacy must operate. It will not be easy, particularly by a nation as seriously divided as our own — not to mention our unflinching support for Israel. But if ever there was a time for Obama to take on this daunting task, it’s during his final term as President.
Photo: Demonstrators in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on the morning of 27 November 2012. Credit: Lilian Wagdy.
]]>by Robert E. Hunter
The stakes in President Barak Obama’s impending visit to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan have risen steadily in recent days. It is taking take place, after all, almost immediately following Secretary of State John Kerry’s trip around the region — but not to the same stops [...]]]>
by Robert E. Hunter
The stakes in President Barak Obama’s impending visit to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan have risen steadily in recent days. It is taking take place, after all, almost immediately following Secretary of State John Kerry’s trip around the region — but not to the same stops on the President’s tour — which, coming so soon after Kerry assumed office, almost inevitably can do little to advance America’s regional agenda. This agenda includes fostering regime change in Syria and ending its civil war; promoting political stability in Egypt and reinforcing its relationship with Israel; gaining Iran’s compliance on the nuclear issue; and setting the stage for a more salubrious course for the so-called Arab spring than has been seen so far, at least in the Near East. On top of that, Kerry had to deal with a complicating comment by the Turkish prime minister: “It is necessary that we must consider — just like Zionism, or anti-Semitism, or fascism — Islamophobia as a crime against humanity.” That slur did nothing to increase Israel’s confidence regarding its neighborhood.
Also inevitably, an unavoidable linkage between President Obama’s trip and the issue of the Iranian nuclear program was reinforced by the administration’s obligatory recitation of its policies before the annual meeting in Washington of AIPAC, “America’s pro-Israel lobby.” Vice President Biden was most dramatic: “President Barack Obama is not bluffing. He is not bluffing. We are not looking for war. We are looking to and ready to negotiate peacefully, but all options, including military force, are on the table.” That is nothing more than Obama has already said, in one way or another. But it comes immediately after the resumption of talks in Kazakhstan between Iran and the so-called “P5+1” countries — the permanent members of the UN Security Council and the European Union. These talks, containing at most a sliver of hope of future progress, were probably just a “time buyer” in any event — especially to get both sides past the Iranian presidential elections in June. But, now, “confidence-building,” assuming that it’s possible, will have to wait for another day.
President Obama’s trip thus does not begin on an upbeat note for America’s overall ambitions in the region. But on one level, that is almost beside the point. This is, after all, the first time he has been to Israel, more than four years into his presidency. The very fact of his going is thus important. A neat parallel was President Anwar Sadat’s almost-hectoring speech to the Israeli Knesset in 1978. At the time, I asked a leading Israeli whether Sadat’s words undercut his message of peace. “The fact that he was standing there in the Knesset,” my interlocutor said, “spoke so loudly I couldn’t hear what he was saying.”
So Obama will be there, underscoring by his presence not just that the US “has Israel’s back,” but also, made necessary by the fact of his trip, that Israel-Palestine negotiations are on his agenda. But what else?
Certainly, given the administration’s declared objective of restarting the moribund Israeli-Palestinian “peace process” — where Kerry has characterized failure as a “catastrophe” — Obama has to address the subject, and do so in more than pro forma terms. Most important is providing a sense of his own personal commitment, assuming that that is his intent, to seeing the process move forward, a highly-elastic term. One observer with about as much experience as anyone, Ambassador Dennis Ross, laid out his own 14 steps for confidence-building in last Sunday’s New York Times. While quite possibly realistic in terms of confidence-building, they are far from confidence-inspiring and are devoid of significant concrete goals, much less an end point, the so-called “final status.” Notably, Ross did not mention the so-called “Clinton Parameters,” of December 2000, which can be viewed here, and which are widely understood to be the only realistic basis for peace and the “two-state solution.”
While nothing is easy in Arab-Israeli peacemaking, the Clinton Parameters compete for the prize: land-swaps would incorporate most West Bank Jewish settlements into Israel; Jerusalem would be the capital of both Israel and a Palestinian state; Palestine would be essentially demilitarized, with Israel retaining some residual rights of defense; outside peacekeepers (probably NATO) would be introduced; and arrangements would be made for Palestinian refugees, certainly better than their current circumstances. But 12 years after these sensible ideas were put forward — and 33 years since negotiations began — success is not now even remotely in sight.
Obama’s peace mission — if that is how he sees his Near East trip — will be complicated by Israel’s deep security concerns, most immediately the civil war in Syria. Jerusalem and Damascus have had a tacit agreement since the mid-1970s to prevent a breakdown in their uneasy truce, but that is now in jeopardy. And although Egypt’s continuing commitment to its treaty with Israel, the latter’s geopolitical linchpin, will probably hold, this is not something on which Israel can bet the farm.
And then there is Iran and the nuclear conundrum. Of necessity, Obama will have to repeat, and perhaps even reinforce, what Vice President Biden said to AIPAC. He can express hopes for a peaceful outcome, but he will have to underline, and underline again, the military consequences if Iran does not respond in terms that the US, with Israel at its elbow, has set. This will not be the time or place for the US president to lay out a comprehensive strategy for dealing with Iran, including one essential element that has so far been missing: that the security needs not just of the US and Israel, but also of Iran, must all be on the table. Instead, Obama’s trip will be a time primarily to provide, and provide again, reassurances to Israel, the sine qua non for everything else.
This, of course, will do little to move forward efforts to defuse the time-bomb with Iran. But with those efforts necessarily being on hold until after its June elections, nothing should be expected from the US president, other than some reference to giving diplomacy a chance. But what of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process?
An old rule of thumb, based on both the facts and appearance of power, is that US presidents don’t do “fact-finding” or go on “listening tours.” They have mid-level officials to do that. What American presidents are expected to do by both friend (with hope) and foe (with fear), is to lead. Words will not suffice: Obama has already done that in Cairo, Ankara, and Accra with three essays in eloquence that advanced the proposition that hope buttressed by hard work can triumph over experience. Now the world waits to see his Act Two.
There is one thing to do: be bold. Not baby-steps, like those suggested by Dennis Ross — as well as by others over the years — and which have yielded so little for so long. The place to start consists of two steps that go directly to “final status.” First, to endorse in clear-cut terms the Clinton Parameters as the United States’ bottom-line, a formal commitment to a two-state solution — full stop; and second, to promise the diplomatic and other efforts needed to see them through to completion, whatever it takes. I have already argued for the appointment of Bill Clinton as Special Negotiator. Or perhaps the Secretary of State would want to do it, though that would necessarily take him away from the rest of his global duties. But the principle is clear: if the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians is ever to succeed — a huge “if” — the US president has to enunciate a concrete, simple, and unambiguous plan, set his seal to it, and be a bull terrier in carrying it through.
Be bold, Mr. President, or it would be better that you stay home.
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
]]>Abedin writes:
]]>A top priority for the IRGC high command is to respond so harshly and decisively so as to deter the Americans from a second set of strikes at a future point. The idea here is to avoid what happened to Iraq in the period , when the former Baathist regime was so weakened by sanctions and repeated small-scale military attacks that it quickly collapsed in the face of American and British invading armies.
The range of predictable responses available to the IRGC high command include dramatic hit ad run attacks against military and commercial shipping in the Persian Gulf, the use of mid-range ballistic missiles against American bases in the region and Israel and a direct assault on American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. All these options are likely to be used within 48 hours of the start of hostilities.
What is less predictable is the response of the IRGC Qods Force, which is likely to be at the forefront of the Pasdaran’s counter-attack. One possible response by the Qods force is spectacular terrorist-style attacks against American intelligence bases and assets throughout the region. The IRGC Qods Force is believed to have identified every key component of the American intelligence apparatus in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. They are likely to put this information to good use, especially since the Qods Force suspects that the CIA had a hand in last October’s Jundullah-organised suicide bombing targeting IRGC commanders in Iran’s volatile Sistan va Baluchistan province.
The IRGC navy will also play a key asymmetrical role in the conflict by organising maritime suicide bombings on an industrial scale. By manning its fleet of speedboats with suicide bombers and ramming them into American warships and even neutral commercial shipping, the Pasdaran will hope to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly 40 percent of world crude oil supplies pass.
The combination of these asymmetrical forms of warfare with more conventional style missile and even ground force attacks on American bases in the region will likely result in thousands of American military casualties in the space of a few weeks. The IRGC has both the will and wherewithal to inflict a level of casualties on American armed forces not seen since the Second World War.
Even if the United States manages to destroy Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and much of the country’s military assets, the IRGC can still claim victory by claiming to have given the Americans a bloody nose and producing an outcome not dissimilar from the Israeli-Hezbollah military engagement in the summer of 2006.
The political effect of this will likely be even more explosive than the actual fighting. Not only will it awaken the sleeping giant of Iranian nationalism, thus aligning the broad mass of the people with the regime, it will also shore up Iran’s image in the region and prove once and for all that the Islamic Republic is prepared to fight to the death to uphold its principles. Suddenly Iran’s allies in the region – particularly non-state actors like Hezbollah and Hamas – would stand ten feet tall.
However, the home page is not where the AIPAC’s heart is. A behind-the-scenes statement being circulated by AIPAC publicist Josh Block, places all blame for the disdain shown for US peace efforts in general, and the contemptuous affront to Biden during his Israel visit last week in particular, exclusively on the Obama administration:
The Obama Administration’s recent statements regarding the U.S. relationship with Israel are a matter of serious concern. AIPAC calls on the Administration to take immediate steps to defuse the tension with the Jewish State.
Israel is America’s closest ally in the Middle East. The foundation of the U.S-Israel relationship is rooted in America’s fundamental strategic interest, shared democratic values, and a long-time commitment to peace in the region. Those strategic interests, which we share with Israel, extend to every facet of American life and our relationship with the Jewish State, which enjoys vast bipartisan support in Congress and among the American people.
The Administration should make a conscious effort to move away from public demands and unilateral deadlines directed at Israel, with whom the United States shares basic, fundamental, and strategic interests.
The escalated rhetoric of recent days only serves as a distraction from the substantive work that needs to be done with regard to the urgent issue of Iran’s rapid pursuit of nuclear weapons, and the pursuit of peace between Israel and all her Arab neighbors.
We strongly urge the Administration to work closely and privately with our partner Israel, in a manner befitting strategic allies, to address any issues between the two governments.
As Vice President Biden said last week in Israel, “The cornerstone of the relationship is our absolute, total, unvarnished commitment to Israel’s security. Bibi, you heard me say before, progress occurs in the Middle East when everyone knows there is simply no space between the United States and Israel. There is no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel’s security.”
In other words, according to AIPAC, all responsibility for the disharmony between Israel and the US lies with the misguided American administration, and none with any of the politicians on the Israeli side.
Ironically, as is so often the case, many Israeli journalists are much less reluctant than AIPAC to fault their own politicians for malfeasance and outright stupidity in their handling of Biden’s visit.
Here’s a fact check of AIPAC’s slam from various Israeli perspectives.
An analysis on March 11 by Jerusalem Post correspondent Hillary Leila Krieger (“Construction Freeze Fiasco a Test for Jerusalem, US“) pulled no punches, attributing what Ambassador Michael Oren claims is Israel’s worst crisis with the US since 1975,* to Israel’s own leadership:
To those who have doubted the sincerity of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s embrace of peace talks since his first visit to the Obama White House last May, the premier has said, “Test me.”
This week, before his American examiners, he failed his practical exam in spectacular fashion.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday evening said that the approval of 1,600 new housing”the approval of 1,600 new housing units in east Jerusalem during US Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel was “not intentional,” but stressed that it was an “undoubtedly superfluous and dangerous” move, and that it was now necessary to work to decrease the tension with the White House.
Today’s editorial on the English language site of Israeli news daily Haaretz, Netanyahu’s Rhetoric over Policy is Jeopardizing Israel, dares to bluntly state the obvious in a way that no American politician seeking AIPAC support could ever dare: “Israel is not America’s strategic asset, but America is the source of Israel’s strength, and it is essential to rein in the lunacy that threatens to shatter the link between the two countries. “ Calling the Israeli government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu a “strategic threat,” the editorial offers implicit dig not only at Netanyahu and his ministers, but, deliberate or not, at exactly the sort of “marketing” of the Israeli-American relationship in which AIPAC takes such pride:
… giving polished rhetoric precedence over policy and making winking a strategy are endangering the existence of the State of Israel, as is the collision course with Washington on which Netanyahu has put the country. It’s impossible to break American support for Israel down into sub-clauses such as mobilization against the Iranian threat, economic and military assistance, or cooperation in all spheres of life. Each of these is essential for the state’s survival; they are secondary to the foundation on which the culture of American support for Israel and the Jewish people relies – support from both the administration and the people.
Elsewhere on the Haaretz site, Niva Lanir (“Sinking to the Depths“) writes, “No tongue-lashing from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right or Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s left can overshadow the government’s flagrant abuse of diplomatic protocol and law enforcement.” While recognizing the constraining role of US politics in an election year to the prevailing AIPAC-driven narrative, Akiva Eldar pleads with President Obama not to muffle his demand that Israel suspend further construction, such as the recently trumpeted plans for the settlement of Ramat Shlomo in once-Arab Jerusalem, whose announcement just happened to coincide with Biden’s visit. On the contrary, Eldar urges the US president to save Jerusalem from disaster by moving forward with a two-state solution:
Based on experience, Netanyahu can expect the issue of construction at Ramat Shlomo to die down, just as the issue of deadly car crashes dwindles with time. A day or two will pass and life (or death) goes back to normal. Washington’s politicians are concerned about the congressional elections that will take place in less than eight months. The election year is an open season for the pro-Israel lobby, whose influence on both parties, including Obama’s, is great. “United Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish people” was always the Judgment Day weapon of the Israeli and Jewish right during its assaults on Capitol Hill.
The story of Ramat Shlomo reminds all those who truly love Jerusalem that this tough city is the cornerstone of peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and between the city and the three monotheistic religions who believe that it is holy. The current crisis over the violation of the status quo in East Jerusalem underlines the risk inherent in the proposal to postpone a solution on sovereignty over this tinderbox until the end of final-status talks. As long as this powder keg remains open, some extremist and/or fool, Mayor Nir Barkat and/or the Islamic Movement’s Sheikh Raed Salah will light a match.
Jerusalem will burn. If it doesn’t happen tomorrow, then the day after. The crisis over the construction freeze is a last-minute cry of distress. There is no more room for proximity talks and more trips by presidential envoys, whatever their rank. This is the time for the leader of the greatest superpower to pull out the Obama plan for two states with Jerusalem as their capital.
Haaretz is frequently and loudly derided as “leftist” by Jewish neoconservatives and right-wing Israelis (and even by American media pundits who ought to know better), because it occasionally offers opinion pieces and analyses from both ends of the Israeli political spectrum, and not just the Israeli right. Nevertheless, Barak Ravid almost always provides the official hasbara (Israel government’s spin–hat tip to my Lobelog colleagues Ali Gharib for suggesting a link to Yonatan Mendel’s article Hasbara in the London Review of Books) of news events concerning US-Israeli relations. Ravid spoke with four consuls who were among the diplomats who participated in a conference call with Ambassador Oren on Saturday night:
Oren sounded extremely tense and pessimistic. Oren was quoted as saying that “the crisis was very serious and we are facing a very difficult period in relations [between the two countries].”
Oren told the consuls to lobby congressmen, Jewish community leaders and the media to convey Israel’s position. He said the message to be relayed was that Israel had no intention to cause offense to Vice President Biden and that the matter had stemmed from actions by junior bureaucrats in the Interior Ministry and was caused by a lack of coordination between government offices. “It should be stressed that [our] relations with the United States are very important to us,” Oren reportedly said.
Several of the consuls suggested waiting, but Oren hinted that his approach reflected Netanyahu’s wishes. “These instructions come from the highest level in Jerusalem,” he was quoted as saying, adding that the utmost must be done to calm matters.
At Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Ravid writes, Netanyahu said the matter had been blown out of proportion by the media, adding that “There was an unfortunate incident here that was innocently committed and was hurtful, and certainly should not have occurred.”
Nevertheless, when Block crafted and disseminated AIPAC’s release to the media, there was no mention of any error, innocent or intentional, hurtful or harmful, on the part of any Israeli, nor to any miscommunication or lack of coordination between Israeli government ministries and junior bureaucrats.
Instead, AIPAC;s accusing finger points solely at the White House, accusing the Obama administration for “escalated rhetoric,” even as AIPAC ducks for cover behind Biden’s own words. AIPAC’s release doesn’t pass the smell test, even–perhaps especially– for Israelis.
Haaretz‘s Washington correspondent, Natasha Mozgovaya, noted that both the Obama administration and the Israeli government had carefully avoided using the “c word”–crisis. Nonetheless,
The same settlements that grabbed attention when both the Obama administration and the Israeli government made their first steps, and later were swept under the rug, came back to haunt their relationship and the phantom peace process. Those in Washington dealing with the Middle East every now and then have a strong sense of dejavu, but the claim attributed to Netanyahu’s aides that the U.S. “initiated” this crisis will for sure drop some jaws in utter disbelief. Attack might be the best defense, but the way this incident develops will block any potential for meaningful negotiations – direct or mediated talks – for a long time.
Writing in Y-Net, the online English version of the popular Israeli daily Yediot Acharonot, Nahum Barnea faults Netanyahu for exuding the smell of fear:
For months now, Netanyahu’s representative attorney Yitzhak Molcho, has been engaged in quiet negotiations on the Jerusalem issue with Senator George Mitchell, President Obama’s envoy. Netanyahu was scared to anger the Right. Hence, Molcho told Mitchell that the PM would not be able to declare a construction freeze in east Jerusalem.
However, Netanyahu was also scared of angering the Americans. Hence, Molcho promised Mitchell there will be no announcements of new construction in east Jerusalem. The result exploded in the face of Vice President Joe Biden last week.
As result of his struggle not to quarrel with or anger others, Netanyahu angers everyone: The Americans, the Right, the Left, and eventually the haredim too. Everyone smells his fear. There is nothing more dangerous for a prime minister than this smell; the smell of fear.
An increasing number of Americans, particularly Jews, have been challenging the assertion that AIPAC speaks for them. The number of Israeli voices challenging the AIPAC narrative, including those not particularly “left wing” or “progressive,” is also growing–and becoming more audible. The notion that Israel’s leadership can do no wrong–especially in Israeli eyes–is coming under closer scrutiny just as AIPAC loyalists pack for next week’s annual orgy of what, from an Israeli perspective, are paeans to their own irrelevance.
UPDATES March 16:
Yoel Marcus writes in Haaretz Row with US Questions Netanyahu’s Fitness to Lead:
When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declares at a cabinet meeting that the media exaggerated in describing the grave crisis with the United States and throws in a few more phrases from the “it’ll all be fine” department, it is clear that he has neither learned nor forgotten anything. You didn’t have to read Thomas Friedman’s devastating column in The New York Times to know that there is a limit to the Americans’ patience and their willingness to let us pour mud on their heads and call it rain.
If Bibi genuinely did not know, as he foolishly claims, that 1,600 more homes were being planned for East Jerusalem, he does not deserve to be prime minister. If he did know, and permitted Interior Minister Eli Yishai to announce the plan exactly during the visit of Joe Biden, who is both U.S. vice president and a friend to Israel, then there are two possibilities, each worse than the other: either stupidity or fear of the extremists in his cabinet. Either way, he is playing with fire…
Today’s Briefing on AIPAC’s home page now features Josh Block’s March 14 release under the headline AIPAC Calls Recent Statements by the U.S. Government “A Matter of Serious Concern“.
Mozgovaya’s Haaretz piece, quoted from above, has been reheadlined U.S. finally calls Mideast diplomacy by name – Crisis, and her observation that no one is using the “c-word” has been deleted. (Haaretz not only “updates” numerous news articles to bring them into greater harmony with the hasbara narrative of the moment, but, more unfortunately for diligent researchers, has adopted a policy of removing dates from all articles. It is not at all unusual to pull up an article from the Haaretz website and find it impossible to determine either its original date of publication or the date of its most recent rewrite. Past articles are very difficult to locate through the Haaretz website’s archive, and sometimes vanish without a trace, unless they’ve been reproduced in their entirety somewhere in the blogosphere. Sometimes cached versions can be located by Googling, but not always.)
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*Note: In 1975, when Israel refused to sign a treaty with Egypt that required the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Sinai peninsula Israel had occupied since the October 1973 “Yom Kippur” war, US President Gerald Ford expressed his “profound disappointment” with the Israeli stance toward Egypt . According the Guardian Middle East editor Ian Black, “For six months the US refused to conclude new arms agreements with Israel. Rabin called it ‘one of the worst periods in American-Israeli relations’. Ford came under pressure from Jewish and pro-Israel groups at home and Israel eventually relented, allowing the pullback to take place. That paved the way for Anwar Sadat’s initiative in 1977, which culminated in the Camp David accords brokered by President Jimmy Carter, and the 1979 peace treaty.” Carter continues to be reviled as the most hostile US president toward Israel, and Obama is frequently and unflatteringly compared to Carter by Israeli opponents of negotiations with Palestinians and a “two state” solution.
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