Avigdor Lieberman on The Huffington Post

Bradley Burston: Handicapping Mideast War and Peace 2010: Picking Your Dead Horse

2009-12-29T13:23:48Z

I have yet to meet the person here, Arab or Jew, who believes that 2010 will be a good year in the Middle East. This may be the only hope we have left. It has happened before. Everyone could be wrong.

There do not seem to be any politicians left -- on any side, Hamas and Kahane people included -- who truly believe that their own ideology would really, truly, unqualifiedly work here. You can see it deep in the burn-out in their eyes. They are flogging dead horses, and they know it.

Still, with murmurs of impending intifada from Iran to Silwan, it's only natural to rummage the entrails of the year just past, for the kinds of peace signs and war drums that could foretell the year just beginning. Particularly after a year which was mostly entrails. Herewith a number of signs on which Mideast war and/or peace may hinge in the new year:

1. Political and economic upheaval within Iran

In the end, internal turmoil in Iran may prove to have a more decisive impact on the course of the nation's nuclear program, than international sanctions or the threat of military intervention.

More immediately, from a security standpoint, domestic considerations in Iran may also influence the orders and aid sent to Hezbullah and Hamas.

Two scenarios:

Peace: If reform protests widen, Iran's rulers will come under pressure to concentrate on the troubled domestic economy and lessen international isolation. This could force a re-evaluation of the nuclear program, which burdens Iran with the enormous costs of building, maintaining, securing and operating nuclear facilities in at least 16 locations, some of which are among the world's deepest and most expensive bunkers. There could also be pressure to cut military and other financial aid to Hezbollah and Hamas, and to curtail attacks on Israel. By the same token, however ...

War: If deepening reform protests seriously threaten the rule of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Revolutionary Guard and the Basij militia, the government could order diversionary escalation by Hezbollah and/or Hamas against Israel. Whether the focus of hostilities was the north or the south, renewed conflagration would almost certainly lead to advanced Iran-supplied Katyusha rocket attacks specifically targeting the Tel Aviv region. Other primary targets could include Ben-Gurion airport and the Dimona nuclear reactor complex.

The expected indictment against Lieberman on a range of money laundering charges could be crucial to any resumption of the peace process. But it has been delayed for long months by a range of factors, including the complexity of the case (the evidence is said to involve investigating leads as many as seven countries), the prosecutorial and evidentiary demands of the many graft cases faced by Ehud Olmert as well as the rape trial of former president Moshe Katsav, and the appointment of a new attorney-general who will be called upon to decide when and if Lieberman is to be brought to trial.

Peace: If Lieberman leaves the government [thus effectively gutting his Yisrael Beiteinu party of its public following] the Israeli political map changes overnight. There would be a much greater chance that Tzipi Livni's Kadima party would agree to join the coalition. If Benjamin Netanyahu truly means to move toward a peace based on a two-state solution, Kadima's 28 Knesset seats, the largest of all current parliamentary blocs, and its moderate ideology could anchor passage of key peace moves.

War: Although Lieberman voted for the settlement freeze, such as it is, and has made statements in the past regarding possible partition of the West Bank and even Jerusalem, his presence in the government and the Foreign Minsitry remains one of the strongest bulwarks against a peace process and rapprochement with Israel's neighbors.

3. Obama, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

The conduct of the wars may well determine the nature and even the existence of a vigorous White House-driven peace bid for Israel and Palestine. A prompt resolution, as unlikely as that now seems, would free the administration to focus attention and resources on the two-state solution.

If, however, the U.S. public comes to view the wars as quagmires, traditional American isolationism may limit the administration's ability to propose and support compromise solutions, especially if aid is involved, whether military [e.g. peacekeeping] or economic [for settler resettlement]. Moreover, if the goals of nation-building and stability are unmet, the U.S. will be viewed in the Arab world as little more than an occupying power, and unfit as an honest broker. Finally, following a long string of missteps in addressing Israel, the president will at some point need to engage the Israeli public if he is to be seen in the Jewish state as an honest broker.

4. Gilad Shalit, and Hamas at a crossroads

A prisoner exchange involving Gilad Shalit and a total of 1,000 jailed Palestinians could spark a sea change in the Mideast diplomatic equation, especially if it included Marwan Barghouti, the only Fatah leader currently capable of uniting Palestinians and acting as an effective counterweight and partner to Hamas.

The prisoner issue is of paramount importance to the Palestinian public. Israel holds some 10,000 Palestinians in all, and there are few West Bank and Gaza families without family ties to the prisoners. But the prolonged negotiations over the exchange have shed light on the changing role of Hamas, and its difficulty in adjusting to it.

If Hamas does not agree to the exchange, many Palestinians will be bitterly disappointed. But if it does, it will have negotiated with an entity it has sworn to annihilate and never to recognize. What was once a precisely disciplined hierarchy is now an organization whose decision-making is split along various ideological [the issue of accommodation with Israel] and geographical [leadership in Gaza vs. leadership in Damascus] lines.

Then there are difficult domestic questions to address ... It is also lost on few Palestinians that the Israeli blockade of Gaza, which they properly view as collective punishment on a colossal scale, acts to enrich Hamas and enshrine its control through its overseeing and taxing the tunnel systems.

5. Israel's relations with Fatah

The recent IDF raid into Nablus illustrated all too well the fragility of the renewal of limited Palestinian Authority autonomy in the West Bank, the cornerstone of U.S. hopes to shore up Fatah in its rivalry with Hamas. The drive-by killing last week of a rabbi and father of seven, a member of a northern West Bank settlement, sparked an IDF decision to launch a raid into Area A, which is under PA civilian and security control. Three Palestinians suspected of the shooting were killed in the raid. Witnesses said they were unarmed when the IDF opened fire. What is clear is that the IDF has undermined PA efforts - largely successful of late - to curb attacks on Israelis. Stay tuned for loss of control.

6. Cast Lead II

No one wants it. The IDF doesn't want it. Hamas doesn't want it. Netanyahu doesn't want it. But everyone is preparing for it. And unfortunately, preparations can be more than just a sign. Preparations can have a terrible way of making the last thing you want come true.

For the full post, please click on Haaretz.com [http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1138329.html]

Bradley Burston: Trust the Settlers to Lose the West Bank

2009-12-07T16:20:04Z

Barack Obama cannot and will not compel Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and free up land for a Palestinian state. Neither will the international community as a whole, nor Hamas, and certainly not the Palestinian Authority, nor what remains of the Israeli left.

Trust the settlers, though. They alone will make it possible. Sooner or later, they'll lose the West Bank all by themselves.

There's no one else to do it. The president's sway over a client ally is limited by a host of constraints, not least, the contingencies of a congressional election less than 11 months from now. The world huffs, puffs, and blows nothing but smoke. Hamas has problems of its own, one of them being the bitter fact that the best way to boost its popularity among Palestinians is to negotiate a prisoner exchange with a Jewish state that, it asserts, does not, and should never, exist. For the Fatah PA and the Israeli left, existence itself has become the problem.

If past experience is any guide, only the settlers themselves are capable of doing what is needed to bring about a pullout. And if present indications hold, at some point, they will do just that.

Not on purpose, by any means. It is the settlers' worst nightmare. Still, the settlement enterprise has a fatal weakness for Greek tragedy - not unlike the Palestinian national movement - in which the main character alone has the power and the fiery, headstrong determination required to thwart its own most cherished goals.

As for how this could work, the most dramatic examples of withdrawal, the 2005 disengagement from Gaza and the early 1980s evacuation of the occupied Sinai Peninsula, may also prove to be the most relevant.

Fittingly, for a culture so steeped in loss - over the years, Israel has withdrawn from nearly 90 percent of the territory it captured in 1967, and a total of 43 settlements in Sinai, Gaza and the West Bank, expelling more than 10,000 settlers - the progression of the settlers' self-destructive behavior tends to follow this pattern:

1. DENIAL In case after case, settlers have refused to take seriously the signs that a pullout was impending, waiting much too long to launch their fight against withdrawal.

The wishful-thinking watchword of the settlers' campaign against the Sinai withdrawal was the bumper sticker slogan "There will be no evacuation."

When five years ago then-prime minister Ariel Sharon declared his intention to oust all Israelis from the Gaza Strip, settlers, echoing the smirks and dismissal of the Israeli left, said in unison "No way, he's just saying that to be populist" and "It's a bluff, he doesn't mean a word of it, he's just diverting attention from graft probes."

The irony is that the settlers and their allies on the hard right may be the only Israelis who still listen to the Israeli left. When prominent doves in academia and the media now declare that it's now too late for a two-state solution, and that Benjamin Netanyahu is merely going through the motions of seeking a future peace, only the settlers breathe a true sigh of relief.

You can bank on their denial. You can bank on their failure to recognize that a majority of Israelis would agree to withdraw from the West Bank under a peace deal. Just as you could bank on their willingness to believe that a Likud leader would never agree to such a thing.

They believed it when they elected Menachem Begin, who ceded Sinai, and when they elected Yitzhak Shamir, who set the precedent for a total withdrawal when he returned Taba, and later, when in full confidence they elected Sharon. Now they have elected Netanyahu. The pillars of the right, Avigdor Lieberman, Benny Begin, and Moshe Yaalon, have all voted for the first settlement freeze since Oslo 1993. The result:

2. ANGER From the standpoint of achieving their aims, the settlers' vocal fury over the unfairness, the racism, the injury to human rights implicit in a settlement freeze - let alone a future expulsion - is programmed to boomerang.

For more than 40 years, Israelis have subsidized settlers, defended their enclaves with their life's blood, drove on disintegrating highways even as transportation budgets laid down dedicated settler roads to remote hills and preposterous trailer camps, all the while listening to West Bank rabbis issuing rulings justifying violence against Arabs, refusal to serve in the army, and opposition and resistance to Israeli soldiers, police, and government.

....

The anger, the settlers are always shocked to discover, cuts both ways.

3. BARGAINING Here is where the settlers' battle is typically lost. Activists actually believe that they can stop a withdrawal if only they are proactive enough: e.g., if they block major intersections, assault government officials, brand IDF soldiers and Israeli leaders Nazis. Again, the Israeli public's backlash proves as surprising as it is immediate.

And, in perhaps the surest sign of a movement in desperation, many young settlers have come to believe that if they are only more religious in outlook the Evil Decree will be lifted. So far, arming oneself with phylacteries and ram's horns while battling Israeli soldiers has, for some reason, not worked.

4. DEPRESSION The more messianic the faith, of course, the more cataclysmic the disappointment. Again, in this context, the settlement enterprise has begun to show the stresses and creaks of an aging, perhaps dying revolution. Not for nothing has a debate opened within the movement over whether the settlements - widely viewed by the right as the more viable heir to kibbutzim - might now face the kibbutz movement's fast-dimming fate.

5. ACCEPTANCE It may be argued that there are many in Israel who see a more urgent need for a Palestinian state at this point, than do many Palestinians. The jury is still out, but Netanyahu may well fit into that category. If he does, and he decides to drive for a dramatic peace with the Palestinians, it is more than likely that a majority in Israel will back him. The settlers will then once again be forced to accept a withdrawal, a prospect made perhaps more palatable under draft proposals under which Israel cedes pre-1967 land to the Palestinians, and annexes settlements comprising 80 percent of the settler population.

For the full post, please see haaretz.com .

Ali A. Rizvi: Can Arab/Muslim Countries Criticize Israel Under the UN Anti-Blasphemy Resolution?

2009-10-30T04:05:58Z

The turning point occurred on June 16, 2008 at 4:40 pm, when David Littman took the floor at a UN Human Rights Council meeting to speak on behalf of the Association for World Education (AWE) and the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU).

"Mr. President," he said, "In the context of integrating the human rights of women throughout the United Nations system, we wish to draw attention to four examples of widespread violence against women that we believe merits far greater attention from the Council.

"One, regarding FGM [female genital mutilation], we are making available our detailed written statement -- "

And that's as far as it went before the gavel sounded.

Doru Costea, the president of the UN Human Rights Council, noted a point of order, and gave the floor to Egyptian delegate Amr Roshdy Hassan, who raised an objection over the joint written statement that the AWE and IHEU had circulated.

"The first paragraph, you talk about Egypt and the Sharia law. In the second paragraph you talk about Sudan, Pakistan, and the Sharia law. The third and fourth paragraphs are on the Sharia law... If we have no time to come on something new, then we shouldn't speak."

Pakistani delegate Imran Ahmed Siddiqui was given the floor when Costea asked for other requests on the matter.

"Mr. President, the voices which we hear in this Council and the issues they raise are not unfamiliar. There is an agenda behind it... we have strong objections on any discussion, any direct or indirect discussion, any out of context, selective discussion on the Sharia law in this Council... we would again request you to please use your authority to bar any such discussion again, at the Council."

After some discussion, including protests against the censorship from Slovenia and Canada and a 40 minute break, Doru Costea returned with a ruling allowing Littman to continue, which he did briefly until interrupted again by the Egyptian delegate, who challenged the ruling.

As part of his objection to the continued discussion on human rights abuses like FGM, child marriages, and the stoning of women, Hassan declared: "I couldn't care less if I will win or lose this vote. My point is that Islam will not be crucified in this Council."

Following the meeting, the "Defamation of Religions" resolution was proposed by Pakistan on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), a body made up of 57 Muslim countries. It was passed by the UN Human Rights Council with 23 votes in favor, 11 against, and 13 abstentions. The complete text of the resolution can be read here.

Although it was triggered as an attempt to quell criticism of Islam, Muslims, and Sharia law, the resolution does call for "all possible measures to promote tolerance and respect for all religions and beliefs" -- which unquestionably also includes Judaism.

So, to what extent does this apply to the right of the Arab and Muslim countries in the OIC to criticize the Israeli occupation -- in particular the building and expansion of settlements in the West Bank?

The members of the OIC almost unanimously consider most aspects of the occupation of Palestinian territory a human rights issue, much like female genital mutilation, death by stoning, and child marriages are.

If discussion on Sharia-based abuses against women and children is now off limits at the Human Rights Council, wouldn't the same apply to the Israeli occupation? The right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel is clearly articulated in the Torah, the five books of which are also accepted by Christians as the Old Testament. Take the passages 23:31-2 from Shemot (Exodus):

"And I will set thy border from the Red Sea even unto the sea of the Philistines [Mediterranean], and from the wilderness unto the River; for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee. Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods."

Or 1:8 from Devarim (Deuteronomy):

"Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which the LORD swore unto your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give unto them and to their seed after them."

Or 15:18-21 from Breishit (Genesis):

In that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying: 'Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates...'"

Additional specific, detailed descriptions of the borders of the Land of Israel are given in passages such as 34:1-15 from Bamidbar (Numbers).

These passages are among many in the Jewish scripture that form the foundation for everything from Zionism to current Israeli policy, just as the Quran and Sunnah (Muhammad's tradition or hadith) form the foundation for Pakistan's Constitution. It is in accordance with them that Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has called for the expulsion of Arabs from Israel, and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party's charter states the following about the building of settlements and expansion:

"The Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria [ie West Bank], and Gaza are the realization of Zionist values. Settlement of the land is a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and constitutes an important asset in the defense of the vital interests of the State of Israel. The Likud will continue to strengthen and develop these communities and will prevent their uprooting."

As the debate to make the anti-defamation legislation a legally binding treaty gets underway this week, how do the Arab/Muslim countries of the Organization of the Islamic Conference plan to continue their criticism of the Israeli occupation and settlement expansion without, in a way, violating their own proposed resolution?

Are they open to the likelihood that their proposed assault on the freedom of speech of others also potentially curtails their own? Does victimhood take on a new definition when applied to the child brides of Saudi Arabia or the allegedly adulterous women stoned to death in Somalia compared to the victims of the bombings in Gaza last year?

Finally, is criticism of Quranic passages and Sunnah equivalent to criticism of passages in the Torah in the eyes of the UN Human Rights Council? Both books are believed to be the word of God by their adherents, and both prescribe capital punishment for blasphemy by stoning (Vayikra/Leviticus, 24:16) or beheading (Quran, 8:12 and several hadith). Who decides where to draw the line?

The sadly elusive take-home message from all of this was perhaps best articulated by Canada's representative to the Council, who said: "It is individuals who have rights, not religions."

Amen.

Harut Sassounian: Turkey Exposed: Cannot Pretend to be Both Pro-Palestinian and Pro-Israeli

2009-10-20T17:12:30Z

Playing the skillful political games of their Ottoman predecessors, Turkey's current masters present their country under various guises -- as European and Middle Eastern, Islamic and secular, pro-Arab and pro-Israeli.

It now appears that the end is near for at least one of these Turkish charades. Israeli officials have finally awakened from their prolonged coma to discover that their erstwhile "strategic partner" is far more hostile than their Arab enemies.

For a long time, Turkish leaders have been calling the Israelis all sorts of unsavory names and accusing Israel of committing barbaric acts, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Strangely, Israel has shown little indignation, even in the face of persistent racist and anti-Semitic outbursts by large segments of the Turkish public.

The latest display of Turkish hostility was the exclusion of Israel from a multinational military exercise which was to start in Turkey on October 12. In protest, the United States, Italy and Holland pulled out of these maneuvers, causing their cancellation. In a move designed to further irritate the Israelis, Turkey announced that it would instead hold joint military exercises with Syria, Israel's main adversary.

Turkey's Prime Minster Rejeb Erdogan told the Anatolia Press Agency last week that he had banned Israel from the military drill in response to the wishes of the Turkish public. "Turkey does not take orders from anyone in regards to its internal affairs," Erdogan boasted. Some Turkish officials indicated that the ban was instituted because the Israeli jets assigned to the exercise had participated in the Gaza bombings earlier this year.

This episode marks a major escalation of the long-standing Turkish bitterness towards Israel. For the first time, the Turkish military joined the civilian government in adopting an anti-Israeli position. Furthermore, Turkey went beyond mere verbal condemnation to taking concrete action. For years, the Israeli government was willing to swallow insults from Turkish officials, as long as its Air Force was permitted to make practice runs in the vast Turkish airspace, shared intelligence, and sold military hardware to Turkey.

Making matters worse, Israelis were deeply offended by the broadcast of a Turkish show on state TV last week, depicting graphic scenes of Israeli soldiers killing Palestinian children and committing other atrocities.

Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman reacted by summoning the Turkish ambassador and accused Turkey of inciting hatred against Israelis. Lieberman stated that not even Israel's enemies would air such a hostile TV series. Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom urged Turkey "to come to its senses." Another Israeli official stated: "We need to stop accepting the Turkish dictates and humiliations. It is inconceivable that they should insult us at every opportunity, and we should continue to hold our tongues."

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu categorically rejected any future mediating role for Turkey in talks with Syria. An unnamed "senior Israeli official" was quoted by Haaretz as stating that the strategic ties with Turkey may "have simply ended." Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post quoted some Israeli defense officials as stating that "advanced weapons sales to Turkey would now be reviewed."

There were also widespread calls last week for the Israeli public to boycott Turkish resorts. National Public Radio (NPR) reported that Israel's largest labor union would no longer plan for thousands of its workers organized tours of Turkey, and would direct them to go instead to Greece and Bulgaria. Since January, there has been a 47% drop in the number of Israelis spending their vacations in Turkey, according to Time magazine. An Israeli coffee shop chain expressed its displeasure by announcing that it would no longer serve Turkish coffee to its customers. In an unprecedented move, several Israeli cabinet ministers declared that they would turn down the Turkish Embassy's invitation to attend Turkey's Independence Day celebrations later this month.

Many outraged Israelis advocated that, in retaliation, Israel acknowledge the Armenian Genocide. Dan Margalit of "Israel Hayom" newspaper accused the Turks of not only committing Genocide, but also the "ongoing crime, which is expressed in energetic Turkish activity to deny the atrocity and to incite against any country and government and artist who wish to express their horror."

Ephraim Inbar, head of the BESA Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, reminded the Turks that they are still in need of "Israeli influence in Washington to prevent the passage in Congress of a resolution declaring the killing of Armenians during World War I a genocide."

In an unprecedented action, the "Im Tirtzu" Israeli student movement held a protest last week in front of the Turkish Embassy in Tel Aviv. The students displayed bloody pictures of victims of the Armenian Genocide, handed out books on the Genocide to passersby, and carried signs calling on Turkey to formally recognize the Genocide.

To atone for its past sin of siding with Turkish denialists, Israel must officially affirm the Armenian Genocide as well as actively lobby for its recognition by other states. Israel should also permit the erection of a monument at a prominent location to commemorate the victims of the Armenian Genocide and reverse its long-standing ban on TV broadcast of documentaries on this subject. It is certainly in Israel's own interest to side with the victims of genocide rather than with its perpetrators!

Instead of maintaining at all cost its unholy alliance with Turkey, Israel should earnestly pursue a peace settlement with the Palestinians and live in peace with its Arab neighbors, thus obviating the need to curry favors with the Turkish denialist regime.

Turkey TV Drama Shows Israeli Soldiers Brutally Killing Children, Exacerbating Rift Between Nations (VIDEO)

2009-10-14T16:46:29Z

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Wednesday complained to Turkey over a new television drama airing there that depicts Israel Defense Forces soldiers as brutal murderers.

Lieberman instructed staff at the Foreign Ministry to protest in the face of their Turkish counterparts. He stressed that airing this type of show reflects a grave level of incitement against Israel - and with government approval.

The show, called Ayrilik, features a love story that develops between the lead characters during Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli media reports.

However, a partial episode available on YouTube depicts multiple images of the IDF brutalizing the Palestinian population by shooting children in the chest and kicking elderly people on the ground, among other things.

CAUTION: GRAPHIC VIDEO

...

Avigdor Lieberman: No Chance For Israeli-Palestinian Peace Deal

2009-10-08T08:11:54Z

JERUSALEM — President Barack Obama's Mideast envoy finds himself increasingly hamstrung, with Israel's foreign minister on Thursday all but ruling out a peace deal for years to come and the Palestinian leader weakened by his decision not to push for a Gaza war crimes tribunal against Israel.

Jordan's King Abdullah II added a gloomy warning that prospects for peace are "sliding into darkness."

Bradley Burston: Working for Peace is a Form of Prayer

2009-10-07T17:52:47Z

JERUSALEM -- It's been a decade and a half that fanatics on both sides have ruined our lives. But there's a change coming. Whether the extremists like it or not. The sign came on the eve of the Sukkot festival, when Israel freed a group of Palestinian women prisoners in exchange for a video of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, held by Hamas for well over three years.

The exchange was a quiet tectonic shift. The families of the Palestinian women told Israeli television that they hoped that the Shalit family would soon be as happy as they were. A natural response, to be sure, but shocking in contrast to the tone of years past.

The exchange came about not because Ismail Haniyeh and Benjamin Netanyahu wanted it, and certainly not Avigdor Lieberman and Mahmoud Zahar. It came about because Palestinians and Israelis wanted it. They want to see their loved ones come home. And the result may well be a tectonic shift in the peace process, deriving from an issue of crucial importance to huge numbers of Israelis and Palestinians, one overshadowed in most accounts of the Mideast impasse, which is often portrayed as confined largely to questions of borders, holy sites, refugee repatriation and settler repatriation.

A prisoner exchange, in the context of a wider deal encompassing the Israeli siege on Gaza, rocket fire against Israel, and accompanied by Fatah-Hamas rapprochement and close Quartet involvement, could spark powerful, publicly supported momentum toward the establishment of Palestinian statehood and an eventual solution of the conflict.

There was something propitious about the timing of the release of the prisoners and of proof that Gilad Shalit was alive. Another sign may well come later this month. An unapologetically pro-peace and pro-Israel political convention may prove to be a landmark event in American Jewish history, and a turning point in the relationship between Israel and the largest Jewish community in the Diaspora. The national conference of J Street will see an unprecedented North American gathering of activists seeking a Mideast future anchored by the co-existence of a safely independent Israel and a justly independent Palestine.

Then there is the matter of Sukkot, a time of deep gladness and imminent judgment. It is a time for leaving the armor of the comfort zone, for going out and setting up a vulnerable shelter which allows neighbors to come not only as guests, but as equals.

May we take the opportunity to forget, for the moment, to hate. May we take our stomped expectations, our crumpled wish lists, our boiling blood and our lanced dreams, and still have the vision to seek a future in which two curiously similar, wholly incompatible peoples can be themselves, both secure, both self-governing, both truly independent. Two states.

Do people outside of the Holy Land have the right to push for changes in the Israeli-Palestinian equation? Absolutely. There are more Palestinians living outside of Palestine than within it, and more Jews living outside of the Jewish state than within it. For those who feel it, Palestine and Israel are certainly part of them, a core of their identity.

But in a region which needs healing much more than it needs hatred, it is more important than ever that activism be oriented toward a goal that can work. God knows, there are enough well-financed extremists working on both sides for a one-state solution that disenfranchises the other. As the real common enemy of both sides, fanatics don't need more help. They are more than capable of delaying peace on their own. They're praying as hard as they can that the two-state solution fails.

Yet prayer can also arouse new awareness, recover lost hope and broaden compassion, and that is what the two-state solution requires ...

It's only fitting. Working for peace is itself a form of prayer. Bearing the taunts, the frustration, the abuse from your own side and the distrust of the other, and yet retaining the faith and the power to keep on, is worship at its core. Working for peace is doing God's work.

Especially now. Now that extremism has corrupted two of the world's great religions. It has distorted them, taken them over, driven them as tools and engines of fanaticism. It has taken the two religions most zealous in their opposition to idolatry, and commanded them to hold certain collections of stones, certain parcels of soil, sacred beyond human life.

It has taken two peoples descended from one man, and turned them into mortal enemies. It has taken two peoples schooled and skilled as no others in the art of bargaining, negotiation, and reaching agreements, and has forbidden compromise, openness, creativity, compassion, accommodation, as forms of treason and mortal sin. It has taken one God, and taught Jews that Allah is not their Almighty, and Muslims that Elohim is not their All Merciful.

Working for peace is a form of reclaiming holiness lost. Like prayer, working for peace is a way of meeting, at long last, and often in surprise, our own hearts. The heart, that fist of muscle which appears from the outside to be in a continual fight with itself. Working for peace is a way to find out what that fight is really for.

...

For the full post, including the list of organizations, please click on Haaretz.com: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1118952.html

Israel Tells US, Time To Act On Iran

2009-09-26T18:19:00Z

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the U.S. to take action over a newly revealed Iranian nuclear facility in a phone conversation with American lawmakers, an official in his office said Saturday.

Netanyahu spoke with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a number of unidentified U.S. senators and told them that now is the time to act on Iran. Israel maintains the Islamic republic is seeking nuclear weapons.

Israel Summit A Victory For Settlement Stand, Says Avigdor Lieberman

2009-09-23T08:04:02Z

JERUSALEM — Israel's foreign minister said Wednesday that the summit of Israeli, U.S. and Palestinian leaders proved Israel could successfully fend off international pressure to freeze West Bank settlement construction.

Palestinian officials expressed disappointment with Tuesday's meeting in New York. The U.S. appeared to back down from a demand, expressed forcefully in recent months, that Israel cease all construction in West Bank settlements.

Bradley Burston: For Israel, a New Year, and a New Left

2009-09-20T07:23:10Z

Outside of outright wartime, seldom have the vital signs of Arab-Israeli diplomacy read more bleak. Israel's ruling coalition hinges on a foreign minister so incendiary that his recent prediction that Mideast peace is at least 16 years distant, is as close to moderation as he has yet managed. The Palestinians are rent, geographically, politically, governmentally and religiously, between the West Bank and Gaza. The Israelis are likewise torn, with a minority clinging to the settlement flag, and the majority having opted for an exhausted resignation.

Washington, meanwhile, has precious little to show for efforts to spur Arab diplomatic openness to Israel in return for self-imposed Israeli curbs on West Bank settlement expansion.

A decade of diplomatic paralysis and brutal military confrontations, coupled with a parallel degeneration of the structures and ideology of Israel's peace camp, have been accompanied by mounting calls by leftists abroad -- and to a lesser degree, by leftists in Israel -- to mount anti-Israel boycotts as a desperate resort amid stalled domestic Israeli efforts to combat occupation.

Is a permanently broken peace process, then, a foregone conclusion?

The fact is, at this, the confluence of major Islamic and Jewish holidays and a first joint meeting between Barack Obama, Mahmous Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu, there are signs that the Jewish New Year now dawning could signal the beginning of a new alignment of pro-peace forces, one that could spell fundamental progress toward an eventual two-state solution.

1. A new realism on the Israeli left

For the left in Israel to function as more than a bruised elite of the supremely self-admiring, it must take into account the realities of Israeli society, in particular those strengths which can translate into a consensus for a future peace deal. One of the more striking recent examples, one which prompted surprise and even consternation among many of Avneri's followers, is a response by veteran leftist activist Uri Avneri to Ben Gurion University Professor Neve Gordon's widely publicized call for a boycott against Israel.

While maintaining his strong opposition to occupation, Avneri takes issue with condemnations of Israel as an apartheid state, and with the anti-Israel boycotts as a political weapon.

2. Mounting restiveness in Labor and Meretz.

Another positive sign is an intensive search for new leadership to replace the bullying and the bipolar politics of Labor leader Ehud Barak, and to transfuse and transform the halting and marginal Meretz. Paradoxically, the dismal showing of the two parties in recent elections is likely to be the most effective leverage for new blood in key positions.

3. J Street and the political realignment of U.S. Jewry

For the first time in decades -- in sharp contrast to a reality in which many left-oriented Jewish groups were little more than vestigial burial societies or conduits for Israeli fund-raising -- a new coalition of groups which are both explicitly pro-peace and pro-Israel is beginning to coalesce, its current centerpiece the national conference of J Street in Washington DC in late October.

The gathering is being held jointly with an unprecedented number of like-minded groups, including Ameinu, Brit Tzedek V'Shalom, and the Israel Policy Forum.

J Street, which has both aided and ridden the Obama wave, is also taking steps to expand its reach and organizational clout.

Significantly, the nascent coalition also coincides with:

4. The graying of the Zionist Right

The settler revolution, and its client movements in world Orthodoxy and Israeli politics, has been falling victim to a loss of vigor at a critical time. The watershed 2005 disengagement from Gaza, which pro-settler forces point to as the best proof of their ideology, nonetheless did tremendous damage to the settlement movement's aura of invincibility. Despite the apparent one-off success of Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu [which, despite its anti-Arab rhetoric, has long flirted with out-of-the-box territorial compromise], pro-Greater Israel factions fared poorly in the 2009, with the Jewish Home winning only three votes, and the National Union only four.

Hamas' curtailing of rocket attacks [see 6., below] has, for the present at any rate, robbed the settlers of the most effective of their selling points in fending off calls for a future withdrawal in the West Bank.

One of the most telling indications of the declining vitality of the right are the shopworn, impotent mantras of the pro-settler right ["Settlements are not an obstacle to peace - there were no settlements before 1967 and there was no peace then, either"; "There is no Palestinian people"; "Jews should be able to settle anywhere in the Land of Israel (though Arabs should not)"].

This phenomenon is, in turn, a result in no small part of:

5. The new centrism in the Israeli consensus

Polls have shown that, with security guaranteed in a satisfactory manner, a majority of Israelis would accept, and in fact, support, a future two-state solution close to that proposed by the Clinton administration: A withdrawal from most of the West Bank, with exchanges of territory bringing the area of a future Palestine equal to that of the pre-1967 war West Bank and Gaza; a Palestinian capital in part of East Jerusalem; equitable administration of holy shrines; and return of refugees to Palestinian territory, with an Israeli declaration of an element of responsibility for the creation of the refugee problem.

6. A new realism among Palestinians

As Fatah has assumed greater independence and security responsibilities in the West Bank, with a commensurate resurgence of the economy in cities such as Ramallah and Jenin, it has recently signaled that some of the thorniest Israeli-Palestinian issues, including the right of return, could be worked out in the context of formulas like the Geneva Initiative.

Hamas, meanwhile, is under mounting pressure, with its polling numbers down and its problems of governance on the rise. While enforcing a near-complete and self-imposed ban on Qassam rocket attacks against Israel, with beleaguered Gazans loath to see a repeat of the war barely eight months past.

Hamas has had to contend with pressure from a new source: Islamic fundamentalists who view the Hamas government as selling out. Last month, Hamas forces attacked a mosque stronghold of the radical Warriors of God at the southern tip of Gaza, killing the group's leader and more than 20 of those inside.

...

7. The Lieberman window.

Prosecutors have said that an indictment against Lieberman on graft charges is now more a matter of when than if. But the "when" could be of paramount importance. If, as some sources suggest, the charges could be filed in a matter of six months, the result could be a major redraw of the Israeli political map. Lieberman's presence in the cabinet is the main stumbling block to a coalition between Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud and Tzipi Livni's even larger Kadima party, which is on record as pushing for a two-state solution.

Even if some Likud MKs made good on implied threats to bolt the coalition if territorial compromise were on the table, a Likud-Kadima-Labor alliance is Barack Obama's best hope for concrete progress toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace.

For the full post, please see Haaretz.

William Bradley: Obama's Cairo Address: Two Months On

2009-08-05T19:34:43Z

In a speech entitled "A New Beginning," President Barack Obama addressed the Muslim world two months ago at Cairo University in Egypt.

It's been two months since President Barack Obama delivered his heralded address to the Muslim world in Cairo, promising a new era of respect and engagement. How's his opening to the Muslim world going so far?

Well, it seems, but with a couple of big question mark items, both beginning with the letter "I," one of them highlighted by the inauguration today in Tehran of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a second four-year term in office.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was inaugurated for a second four-year term today in Tehran.

The controversy and furor over Ahmadinejad's re-election, especially the Iranian regime's violent response to protests following the election, has stymied a key element of Obama's strategy of engagement. Not that we've ended up with different people in power there than we should have expected, nor people acting any differently than we should have expected them to act. More about that in a moment.

Obama's Cairo speech may have helped a pro-Western government take power in Lebanon and has certainly helped spark an upswing in positive opinion about America pretty much everywhere around the world except Israel. Which is the other big question mark item beginning with the letter "I."

The Cairo address also proved to be very well-received here in America, including with the Jewish community. In fact, Obama gets higher marks for foreign policy than for domestic policy in looking at his job approval as president, currently at a very healthy 56% in the Gallup Poll.

Beyond the overall impression of the Cairo address two months on, which is quite positive, and also relatively easy, let's look at some specific areas that are a lot more challenging.

Iranian security forces cracked down on demonstrators after the disputed June 12th presidential election.

** Iran. In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sworn in for his second term as president today. The much hoped-for revolution against the radical conservative Islamist regime, touted in the wake of Ahmadinejad's disputed June 12th re-election landslide, has, not surprisingly, not materialized, as students and urban professionals make for a narrow political base.

But bitter infighting amongst the Islamic republic's ruling elite has materialized. It's not simply pragmatic conservatives against hardliners. It's also internecine fighting amongst the hardliners. Ahmaedinejad triggered some of it when he appointed his son's father-in-law as first vice president. Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei had declared that Iran is friend to all the world's peoples, including Americans and Israelis, a statement which, needless to say, did not go down well with some radical hardliners.

So Ahmadinejad moved him from the vice presidency and made him the presidential chief of staff. Which has not exactly ameliorated bad feelings, though it did enable the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to continue his backing of Ahmadinejad.

The Obama Administration is giving Iran till the end of September to show some progress on engagement, including progress on ramping down its nuclear weapons program, which Tehran says doesn't exist even as it crows about how many centrifuges it has.

Ahmadinejad's appointment of his in-law looks like a positive sign. But the infighting may be too debilitating and distracting for Iran to get a credible negotiating posture together. Or it may simply serve as an excuse for delay.

With far rightist Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman sidelined, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak (a former Labor prime minister) has taken the point position in dealing with the Obama Administration.

** Israel. Issues with Israel are also very much about Iran, so that part first. Israel doesn't want Iran to have nuclear weapons, not surprising in that Iranian leaders have threatened to wipe out the Jewish state. The US agrees with Israel. Israel, with perhaps the most right-wing government in its history, wants to continue settlements by fundamentalist religionists in the West Bank. The US is strongly opposed, as it wants to move forward with a peace settlement establishing a state of Palestine.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who's been cultivated by Obama, said today that his country should accept the US peace plan for Israel and Palestine.

A string of high-level American envoys descended on Israel late last month. First was Middle East special envoy George Mitchell, the former Senate majority leader. Then Defense Secretary Bob Gates, the former CIA director. Followed by National Security Advisor Jim Jones, the former Marine Corps commandant and NATO commander, and special advisor Dennis Ross, the former Mideast negotiator.

They dealt with the settlements issue and with continuing talk of a potential Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear program. All of it shrouded in some mystery.

The director of Mossad said last month that Iran can't have a nuclear bomb until 2014, making calls for a prompt military strike against Iran's nuclear program sound somewhat hysterical. But Israeli sources say that Iran may be able to master the technology to the extent it can test a nuclear device in the next year, still a far cry from producing a deployable nuclear weapon. Iran says it's not developing a nuclear weapon. In any event, it's a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

Israel's internal politics are also complicated. Defense Minister Barak, a former Labor prime minister who is perhaps the most decorated soldier in Israeli history, has taken the place of the foreign minister in Middle East peace talks involving the US. That's because Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, a far right figure in Israeli politics, took the remarkable step a month ago of removing himself from the talks. Why? Because Lieberman is himself a West Bank settler.

I predicted that it would be a long time before we saw Lieberman in Washington, if in fact he ever comes. Lieberman is the head of a very far right Israeli party whose support was necessary for Bibi Netanyahu -- himself the head of the very conservative Likud -- to become prime minister. Lieberman demanded and got the foreign minister post. But it's an odd portfolio for him, as he and his party are widely regarded as anti-Arab, making it difficult for him to be much of a diplomat with the rest of the world.

** Syria. Late last month, the US lifted its embargo on infotech and aerospace shipments to Syria. The move is designed to further the Mideast peace process and to further isolate Iran in the region. The Obama Administration has been working Syria hard, dispatching not one but two envoys. Progress is being made, and Obama's speech was helpful in laying the groundwork, giving America a friendlier face.

The Pakistani Army undertook a sweeping offensive against the Taliban.

** Pakistan. Obama's Cairo address was reportedly very well received in Pakistan. Which is fortunate, since Obama had prodded the government to push forward with a military offensive against the Pakistani Taliban.

The offensive caused between two and three million internal refugees. But many have returned home and schools are re-opening. We won't know for awhile just how effective the move against the Taliban has been. It doesn't look like the Pakistani Army took down all the jihadists whose activities are focused outside of Pakistan. But Taliban encroachment against the authority of the central government, which had become alarming, has been pushed back.

** Afghanistan. The new US policies of scaling back air strikes that have caused civilian deaths and promoting negotiation with the Taliban are probably more important than Obama's speech. But it certainly didn't hurt, and the August 20th elections are moving forward.

President Barack Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appeared together two weeks ago at the White House to say that the US withdrawal is on schedule.

** Iraq. The new face Obama has placed on America, symbolized by the Cairo address, has improved relations with Iraq.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited Obama in the White House last month, embracing the American president in a way he never could have done with George W. Bush. American combat troops have been pulled back from the cities to bases, as scheduled.

In all, Obama's Cairo address looks, two months on, like a significant success. Of course, it's only a speech, and words can only do so much. But it looks like a strong beginning.

You can check things during the day on my site, New West Notes ... www.newwestnotes.com.

Ahmed Shihab-Eldin: Does "Urging Israel" Amount to "Change We Can Believe In"?

2009-08-05T18:48:51Z

Israel forcibly removed Palestinian families from homes that its government declared to be under Jewish ownership last weekend.

Never mind that the Palestinians had been living on the land in Sheikh Jarrah for decades. But within hours, Jewish families settled into the evacuated homes.

In a statement on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton responded by calling the expulsion "deeply regrettable" and said that "the eviction of families and demolition of homes in East Jerusalem is not in keeping with Israeli obligations." She then urged the government of Israel to refrain from such provocative actions.

But Clinton's condemnations are as fruitless as they are correct, as unnecessary as they are obvious.

U.S. Policy Change

Expressing disappointment and calling on Israel not to repeat its "deeply regrettable" actions is ineffective, so when will America's policy change from a slap on the wrist to a handcuff to international law?

So long as Israel refuses to stop the construction of Jewish settlements and building the separation wall in the occupied Palestinian territories, the so called peace initiative will remain a political liability, rather than opportunity for progress for a just peace.

But perhaps the most promising development to emerge within Israel of late is the Israeli police's recommendation that Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's right-wing foreign minister -- whose racist sentiments and policies towards his country's own Arab minority have invited international condemnation -- be indicted on a series of corruption charges including bribery, money-laundering and embezzlement.

The decision, whether to press charges, ultimately lay in the hands of Menahem Mazuz, Israel's attorney general.

Lieberman's Corruption

If the criminal investigation, underway for over a decade now, materializes into formal charges, he will be forced to step down from his role as foreign minister.

Israeli television has already reported that a money trail has been found that tracks illegal donations through bank accounts opened in Cyprus. The reports are said to reveal enough evidence to formally charge Lieberman.

Whether Lieberman is forced to resign or not, it is clear that his political survival has depended on his ability to play to the fears of Israeli citizens and racist sentiments of much of Israel's ultra-nationalist minorities.

When mock elections were held in Israeli schools, reports flooded the media of high school students that had voted for Lieberman chanting "Death to the Arabs" (a toxic phrase that did not even distinguish between Israeli Arabs and Palestinians).

If the United States is serious about changing the deadlock surrounding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, they would benefit from treating extremism and intolerance within Israel with the same approach they use in Palestine, Lebanon and across the region -- isolation, condemnation and most importantly, consequences.

In the lead up to Lebanon's most recent parliamentary elections, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden announced in Beirut that aid to Lebanon would be reviewed according to which party won the elections -- the Western-backed March 14 coalition or the Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance.

Parity in Punishment

Without this parity in "isolation and punishment", the U.S. will struggle to be taken seriously -- if not among Arab leaders, then on the Arab street -- in spite of Obama's uplifting address to the Muslim world in Egypt on June 4.

Earlier this year Obama went so far as to demand that Israel stop settlement activity on the West Bank as part of a peace deal leading to the creation of a new Palestinian state, but stopped short of an ultimatum.

But in the same speech and consistently over the past several months, Obama (who has delivered key speeches on the issue of race and racism inside America) has said that in order to advance the peace process Palestinians must reduce "anti-Israel sentiments" expressed in schools and mosques but made no mention of the controversy brewing in many of Israel's schools.

For Palestinians, the U.S. policy is that of condemnation and consequence. But for Israel it has consistently been one of subtle criticism and unwavering support.

Again, a parity in the political approach is lacking.

If nothing else, the shift in the tone of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas should be taken as a telling sign of the paramount importance for Israel to finally be coerced into a more pragmatic and principled approach to peace.

Fatah's Right to Resist

Abbas, the leader of Fatah, the more moderate of Palestine's two major political parties, has reformed his rhetoric and potentially his party's policies in recent weeks.

Abbas told a packed room of thousands of delegates at a conference on Tuesday -- the first in over two decades -- in Bethlehem, "Although peace is our choice, we reserve the right to resistance, legitimate under international law."

"We will not stand helpless in the face of Israeli incursions."

Abbas' mention of "the right to resistance" and "international law" echoes the talking points of Hamas and, more importantly, solidified Fatah as a resistance movement first, albeit one that is willing to move towards peace.

Al Jazeera English's Web site reported this week that a draft of Fatah's new program calls for new forms of resistance such as civil disobedience against Jewish settlement expansion and the separation wall.

The US government has supported Fatah over Hamas due to its willingness to negotiate with Israel and make necessary concessions, but Abbas' speech on Tuesday suggests that time for either of those possibilities may no longer be running out, but instead may have reached its expiry date.

In Arabic, the juxtaposition commonly used to ask whether someone is a Fatah or Hamas supporter is whether one is with the "Muqawamah" or "resistance" - referring to Hamas.

Fatah has repositioned its own approach to peace with Israel, it is time that the US does the same.

Avigdor Lieberman To Resign If Charged

2009-08-03T08:34:45Z

JERUSALEM — Israel's ultranationalist foreign minister promised Monday to step down if he is charged after police recommended that he be indicted for a string of alleged corruption offenses.

Police say they have enough evidence to charge Avigdor Lieberman with accepting bribes, fraud, money laundering and other offenses. The country's attorney general must now decide whether to indict him, and that could take months.

Israeli Police Recommend Indictment Of Foreign Minister

2009-08-02T17:44:01Z

Israeli police Sunday recommended that the state indict Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on charges of bribery, fraud, money laundering, witness harassment and obstruction of justice.

Hitler, Palestinian Mufti Photo Circulated By Lieberman To Justify East Jerusalem Construction

2009-07-22T17:03:26Z

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has ordered diplomats to use an old photograph of a former Palestinian religious leader meeting Adolf Hitler to counter world criticism of a Jewish building plan for East Jerusalem.

Israel: Brazil Can Help Stop Iran's Nuclear Program

2009-07-22T16:38:38Z

BRASILIA, Brazil — Israel's foreign minister met with Brazil's president Wednesday and asked Latin America's biggest nation to use its influence to help halt Iran's nuclear program.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's 10-day trip to four South American nations is aimed at staunching Iran's growing influence in the region, and perhaps beyond.

Avigdor Lieberman To Miss Mitchell, Gates Israel Visit

2009-07-21T09:39:40Z

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman will be out of the country for most of next week when two major US policy makers, Middle East envoy George Mitchell and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, arrive for key talks, a sign he only has a supporting role right now in Jerusalem's ties with the US.

Bradley Burston: The Painful Cost to Israel of Its Settler Adventure

2009-07-20T13:10:45Z

As friction between the Obama administration and Israel mounts over Washington's repeated calls for a freeze on settlement construction, anxious supporters of Israel's West Bank settlement enterprise ask one question with ever greater urgency and frequency:

Why should settlers have to pay the price for peace between Israel and the Palestinians?

The question is intended to be rhetorical, meant to dismiss and deflect pressure to curb expansion of West Bank enclaves.

But in a real sense, it is precisely the question of the moment. Why, in fact, should settlers be made to pay the price for peace?

The answer, in short: Because of what the settlement movement has cost us, cost Israel. And because of what it is costing Israel now.

1. The cost in dollars

The settlement movement has cost Israel some $100 billion over the past 40 years.

Setting aside the considerable waste and graft in building projects in the West Bank and Gaza, the cost to Israel's development has been incalculable. Settlement in remote areas has siphoned off critically needed funds for investment in employment, infrastructure, housing and social welfare in central Israel, the Galillee and the Negev.

Huge expenditures on West Bank road construction, including parallel highways intended only for use by Israelis, and roads built at great expense to remote and often illegal settlements, have taken a human toll as well. They have put off the upgrading of dangerous roads (designated "red highways") within Israel, adding materially to one of the country's most lethal problems. Last year more than 440 people died on Israel's highways, more than 12 times the number of Israelis killed in terror attacks.

2. The cost to Israel's security

For decades, the enormous burdens of guarding settlements, policing roadblocks and maintaining the far-reaching bureaucracy of occupation have robbed the IDF of vitally needed resources of time and funding for military training.

In recent months, as Haaretz military commentator Amir Oren has reported, Prime Minister Netanyahu's wrangling with President Obama over settlement construction has been doing damage to the IDF's capability to face the threat posed by Iran.

3. The cost to Israeli democracy and the rule of law

The unwillingness of the settlement movement to brook compromise, even when in direct defiance of national consensus, and its explicit threats to exploit Israel's precarious political system to topple any democratically elected government which makes significant progress in negotiations with the Palestinians, places the very nature of Israeli democracy in doubt.

The double standard which for decades has favored settlers with inexpensive housing, heavily subsidized social services, and blind-eye building permits has long been accompanied by a kid-gloves approach regarding settler violence against Palestinians and their property.

4. The cost to Israel's diplomatic credibility

Both in established settlements and in outposts acknowledged by Israel as illegal, settlers and settlement planners have covertly bent and distorted zoning procedures, military directives, and government decrees in order to boost settlement, block Palestinian construction, agriculture, and access to employment, and effectively neutralize measures intended to foster Israeli-Palestinian peace progress.

Measures aimed at driving a secure wedge between settlers and Palestinians have had the effect of tarnishing Israel's international image, and have kept many nations from normalizing and strengthening diplomatic ties with Israel.

The settlers' rejection of all territorial compromise renders moot all proposals similar to the Arab League peace initiative.

5. The cost to Israel's relationship with the U.S.

With every move of ostentatious defiance mounted by the Netanyahu government, the Obama administration finds the Palestinian Authority a more reliant, cooperative, and businesslike partner for diplomacy and West Bank security.

The gratuitous machismo characterizing many of the declarations of right-wing parties, in particular the shrill back-benchers of Netanyahu's Likud and members of Avigdor Lieberman's indictment-shadowed Yisrael Beiteinu, has done little to win domestic backing in Israel, but has landed with dramatic and destructive effect in Washington.

For the full post, see haaretz.com.

Bradley Burston: Will Israel Grant Asylum to Fascism?

2009-07-14T14:32:09Z

One of the great strengths of fascism is its ability to persuade a society to simply invite it in.

So what sound does fascism make when it tries to get you to open the door?

Sometimes it sounds like a headline. A drumbeat of shrewd fear-mongering, a little something to set the stage.

"Thousands of African immigrants illegally entering Israel," a banner topping the Jerusalem Post's front page announced last week. "Our neighborhoods have been conquered by infiltrators," the subtitle quoted Eilat's mayor as saying.

The piece went on to warn of unspecified crime, violence and alcohol use among Africans who fled Sudan, Somalia and other nations, risking their lives in crossing the Sinai desert and stealing into Israel.

What the article did not mention, was that the blast at African refugees coincided not only with the launch of a mass round-up campaign against asylum seekers lacking permits to stay in Israel, but also with the re-emergence of one of the most monstrously worded of bills ever submitted to the Knesset.

The Prevention of Infiltration Bill is proof that fascism can be made to sound every bit as dull and dusty and proper and necessary as the law of the land. Fascism can be as quiet, ordinary, and cosmetically democratic as the sound of 59 hands being raised at once.

Last month the bill, with its Orwell-worthy name, sailed through its first Knesset plenum reading by an astounding 59-1 vote. The legislation ran to 24 pages of microbial font print -- verbose enough to persuade overwhelmed legislators to vote for it rather than read it.

Many of the 59 discovered only afterward, to their horror, what the bill actually says:

Refugees, among them families which fled genocide in the Sudan and murderous border police in Egypt en route to Israel, may be sentenced to up to seven years in prison for crossing the border illegally. And if the Bedouin coyote who led the refugee through the Sinai happened to be carrying a knife, the refugee's sentence could be 20 years.

....

This would certainly seem injustice enough. But the moral red line that borders fascism is crossed later on, in a short clause marked "Assistance to Infiltration."

"The punishment of one who aids the person who commits a crime according to this law, in order to ease his infiltration or his illegal stay in Israel, will be as the punishment designated for the principal commission of the crime."

In other words, if doctors or nurses abide by their professional oaths and administer medical treatment to a refugee lacking permits to stay in Israel, their prison sentence could be the same as that of the refugee -- five, seven, even 20 years.

This is the way fascism begins, not with a bang, but with a Knesset vote.

Like policemen or prison guards who come to resemble the criminals they are meant to battle, the bill, ostensibly aimed at preserving the integrity of Israeli society, has for 15 months been quietly infiltrating its way toward passage, and, in the process, threatening to undo the most basic of the moral underpinnings of the Jewish state.

Fascism takes root where decent people have given up. Fascism gains a foothold when moral, caring people have fought far too many necessary battles in their lives, and, facing the crossing of a crucial red line, have no more fight left in them.

The greatest danger of fascism goes far beyond the obvious threats posed by Avigdor Lieberman. Fascism thrives on legality, it lawyers up every chance it gets, the better to use any institution of democracy to quietly and methodically corrupt and demolish every institution of democracy.

At root, fascism feeds on apathy and despair, the sense that a society so fundamentally dysfunctional, so paralytically broken, cannot be set right.

Can anything be done now? In fact, now is precisely the time to act. At present, the bill is in committee, awaiting revisions ahead of the next plenum vote, which will decide on final passage.

Now is the time to write to the two men who, more than any other, will determine the fate of the bill, Ehud Barak (ehudb@knesset.gov.il), whose Defense Ministry has overseen the measure from its introduction in April, 2008, and Benjamin Netanyahu, whose coalition must approve it before it becomes law.

The issue is one which extends far beyond our borders. The responsibility to respond should as well.

For the full post, see haaretz.com

Lieberman: As Settler, Will Stay Out Of West Bank Negotiations

2009-07-06T09:18:10Z

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Monday that he had deliberately chosen to avoid taking part in the debate over West Bank settlement, as his own residence in a settlement would pose a conflict of interest.

Sarkozy To Netanyahu: Fire Avigdor Lieberman

2009-06-30T11:38:20Z

JERUSALEM — French president Nicolas Sarkozy urged the Israeli prime minister to fire his foreign minister _ a hard-liner whose party tried to force Israelis to take a loyalty oath, two senior Israeli officials said Tuesday.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's appointment has been ill-received internationally because of his hard-line positions on peace and Israel's Arab population, among other issues. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, addressing EU ambassadors on Tuesday, expressed "full confidence" in the country's chief diplomat.

Avigdor Lieberman Blasts The West For Not Helping Iranian Protesters

2009-06-25T13:14:31Z

For a man who has a reputation for being blunt and confrontational, Avigdor Lieberman has kept uncharacteristically silent since taking over in March as Israel's Foreign Minister. His boss, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had reportedly asked him to muzzle his hawkish views for fear of riling the Obama Administration. But in his first major interview, which he gave to TIME, the burly Foreign Minister, who says he shrugs off "political correctness," came out swinging. He lambasted the West for not giving more support to Iranian reformists. "This really fanatic extremist regime is still in power, and the young people who are ready to fight and die for change are not getting any real support from the West," he said. "The fact that this regime continues to be an acceptable partner for dialogue is really a bad message. It shows the bad guys are winners."

Bradley Burston: Outpost Watch: Obama's Future Minefield -- and Netanyahu's

2009-06-22T09:56:46Z

The following is the first phase of a project aimed at helping monitor outposts and clarify the potential difficulty in countering them for the sake of peace. The data is based in large part on extensive research conducted over years by the Peace Now organization, augmented with and cross-referenced by information from settlers and Haaretz correspondents.

An accompanying map of outposts can be found at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1094773.html. It is, as is the lists of outposts below -- and the outposts themselves -- a work in progress.

______________________________

Of the long list of hackneyed pro-Israel arguments which persuade no one except previously and permanently persuaded fellow-Israelis, none tops the tired clunker trotted out by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in his U.S. visit to Washington this month.

Settlements in the West Bank, he told reporters after talks with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, are "not an obstacle to achieve peace."

Permit me at this point to save some time, and to speak candidly. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, whether they are willing to publicly acknowledge this or not, knows that obstacles are precisely what West Bank settlements were put there to be.

Settlements, whether considered legal or illegal, whether granted overt or blind-eye Israeli government sanction, or placed there by unruly-eyed fanatics who hate the Israeli government almost as much as they hate Arabs, have a common goal.

They were built to be explicit, intentional, physical, literal obstacles to any peace process that would include ceding West Bank land to Palestinians. And that, everyone knows, describes any conceivable future peace process.

Yes, they are also a place to live. And yes, the land they occupy may well be mentioned in the bible, even scores of times. And yes, generations of Jews have now been born and raised there. But this last only underscores the reason they are there.

It should be noted that at this point, there are in fact three distinct classes of West Bank settlements. The first are the government-approved enclaves on the "Israel side" of the West Bank barrier. Under a future peace deal, these are expected to be annexed to Israel, with an acreage-equivalent swath of the western Negev appended to an independent Palestine.

The second class, in every sense, are government-authorized settlements scattered across the West Bank, on the "Palestinian-side" of the fence/wall.

Finally, there are the outpost settlements, which Israel and even elements of the settler movement concede are illegal.

If the settlements are obstacles, the outposts are designed to be landmines. They are volatile, potentially explosive, often vaguely marked and defined.

They defend established settlements by creating a protective outer ring of obstructions to be cleared prior to any move to raze the older, larger, more solidly built enclaves.

And if Barack Obama and, for that matter, Benjamin Netanyahu, make any substantive moves toward Mideast peace, the number of these minefields is certain to mushroom.

The current list:

1. ADEI AD
2. AHAVAT HAIM
3. AHIYA
4. ALONEI SHILO, OR NOF KANEH FARM
5. ALTITUDE 468, or, NOFEI PRAT WEST.
6. AMONA
7. ANCIENT SYNAGOGUE OF SUSYA
8. ASA'EL
9. AVIGAIL
10. BAT AYIN EAST
11. BAT AYIN WEST
12. BEIT EL EAST
13. BNEI ADAM, OR ADAM EAST
14. BRACHA A
15. BRUCHIN
16. DERECH HA'AVOT
17. EIN PRAT
18. ELISHA, OR TZOFIT [PRE-IDF SERVICE ACADEMY]
19. ELMATAN
20. ESH KODESH
21. GILAD FARM
22. GIVAT ASSAF
23. GIVAT HADAGAN
24. GIVAT HAHISH
25. GIVAT HAREL
26. GIVAT HATAMAR
27. GIVAT SALIT
28. GVA'OT OLAM
29. HABAYIT HA'ADOM, OR HADA'AT FARM
30. HAHAR
31. HAKARON
32. HANEKUDA
33. HAR HEMED
34. HARESHA
35. HARO'EH - ELI 762
36. HAYOVEL
37. HERUTI

For the entire list and the Outpost watch map, see the full article on haaretz.com:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1094773.html

Haaretz Launches Project To Monitor Outposts, Obama's "Future Minefield"

2009-06-22T09:30:23Z

Patricia DeGennaro: Israstine or Israel and Palestine: Tweeters Want to Know!

2009-06-19T17:25:50Z

The Iranian challenge to the elections is capturing the media waves. All eyes are watching to see if the Ayatollah will be patient with the protesters or squash them like bugs. It is pretty apparent by the way the media prefers to cover the Twitter tweet rooms that no one is really interested in the substance of the issue. They just want to see the drama of social networking sites unfold.

Unfortunately, while all this coverage of tweets goes on, the entire nation, and it seems the world has missed the meeting between Secretary of State Clinton and her Israeli counterpart Avigdor Lieberman. Despite the fact that Israel makes US headlines daily, one was hard-pressed to find a newspaper that covered it. Perhaps if they were tweeting instead of meeting it would have beat Iran as the main story.

CNN did cover it briefly reminding us that Lieberman, a hardliner who immigrated to Israel from Russia, said and I quote, "no" to freezing settlements. Of course he and his boss Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continually forget to mention that the US and the world deems these settlements illegal.

US presidents from before Carter to Obama have stated that the Israeli act of continuing to populate the West Bank and confiscate Palestinian land is against US policy. The truth is that this is probably the first US president that is actively implementing that policy instead of just stating it through unintended rhetoric.

In response, the American Congress, yes, the American Congress has been told by the pro-Israel lobby to "back off" and Israelis themselves are enthusiastically stirring up public sentiment against the Obama Administration. Newspapers are publishing stories and surveys that are denouncing American policy in the strongest terms. The Jerusalem Post printed a recent and unscientific poll stating that 69% of Israelis do not agree with freezing West Bank settlements. Definitely not a surprising outcome. No one likes being told what to do, especially Israelis.

To make matters worse, Israelis are directly taking on Obama himself. His picture is carpeting billboards depicting him with an Arafat-like khafia and countless articles and blogs are calling him - oh yes - pro-Palestinian and you guessed it, anti-semitic.

This is a disrespectful and absurd. I wonder what would happen if Americans started posting pictures of Bibi with devil ears and a Saddam-like mustache saying he was anti-American because he is against freezing settlements, which are unlawful in the first place. It is not going to happen here and should not be happening there.

Nonetheless the propaganda ensues. Forget the fact that it is in the US and Israel's interest to engage the Arab world. I guess they forgot the US is still at war there and prefers to draw down its forces not build them up further.

The bottom line here is that all the Israeli government was asked to do was freeze settlements. This is not an end to the Jewish state by any means and its reaction is also extremely unfair, not to mention unjustified.

The United States has supported Israel since its declaration. The US has provided it with economic, military and various other types of monetary aid. From housing starts to $4 billion dollars in outright aid per year, Israel gets more than most ailing American communities. It is almost shocking that one Israeli in their right mind would think that any American president is pro-Palestinian or anti-semitic.

This is especially true when one realizes that the US provides approximately $500 per Israeli citizen despite the fact that Israel is one of the fifty richest countries, has a per capita income of about $28,000 and has the third largest military in the world. And when Israel can't pay its loans to the US, thanks to the Cranston Amendment, the US does it for them.

Obama is not asking for any of this to support to stop. Considering all of these facts, the very least the Israeli government can do is stop the settlements. Peace is not to be feared, it is to be embraced.

Rest assured the US has no intention in letting Israel go it alone. As Obama said, "America's strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable." It is however in both countries interest to move toward a peaceful solution with the Palestinians.

Their situation must be recognized and addressed. The acknowledgment of "Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own" is way overdue. Moreover, the US has every right to want a better situation in the Middle East since it is also a major target of extremists throughout the region and the time is now.

Although Clinton and Lieberman's meeting was swept under the rug, The New York Times did cover President Carter's trip to Gaza. Carter too realizes time is short and progress must be made and to do that one must talk to all parties not some. Thus, he visited Ismail Haniyah, who became Prime Minister after Hamas was elected freely and fairly as the leadership party for the Palestinians. In their meeting Haniyah stated that he would accept a Palestinian State in 1967 borders, which has been supported by countless United Nations resolutions and is a logical start.

It is time for the Israeli leadership to grasp this opportunity. The parties can continue to argue over who is worse than whom or they can start moving one step at a time toward a greater Middle East peace.

A peace that will give Israel security, relationships and legitimacy with Muslim nations everywhere, a Jewish state and countless other economic and political benefits. It will also finally give the Palestinians a state of their own. The alternative is the Israeli absorption of about 4 million Palestinians who in a democracy like Israel will deserve nothing less than equal treatment and rights.

Well Misters Lieberman and Netanyahu, which do you prefer? We can tweet or meet, it is all up to you.