[For ANALYSIS and CONTEXT click on > 2010 (1) on the right of the page - scroll to: 2. ANALYSIS - THE PLAN IN CONTEXT]
1. THE PLAN
2. ADVANTAGES OF THE PLAN
As the Palestine-Israel peace talks become mired in deadlock and President Obama and his advisers look for new options, the plan outlined below offers a constructive and pragmatic way forward founded upon positive incentives and hope for the future. If you approve of these proposals, please help us by forwarding this to others and to any internet sites you deem appropriate.
1. THE PLAN
1. A Financial Guarantors Coalition: core members - USA, E.U., Japan, Gulf Arab states, to guarantee financial support to Palestine for 20 years. Its remit to include:
a) compensating refugees
b) resettling refugees
c) building 4 new cities for the resettled
d) building bullet train for Hajj pilgrims from East Jerusalem to Medina that will be connected to an international airport on the Jordan-Palestine border
e) building broadband infrastructure on South Korean model
f) developing East Jerusalem to accommodate Muslim pilgrims
g) self-sustaining water, power, and transport infrastructure projects
And, if Hamas agrees to abide by the 3 Quartet principles[2]
h) a Gazan container port and an international airport on the Egypt-Gaza border as well as a connecting road and rail tunnel link to the West Bank
2. For Palestinians: freedom to work in, and travel to, the Gulf states, open borders with Jordan and Egypt, security guarantees from NATO, the U.N. and Russia, recognition of East Jerusalem as Palestine's capital.
3. For Israelis: freedom to work and reside in the E.U. on 4-year renewable work visas, preferential E.U. status, NATO membership or affiliation and security guarantees including unilateral measures in extremis, financial support for all additional security measures, and international recognition of West Jerusalem and the Kottel area of East Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
4. The freedom to coordinate unilateral acts of withdrawal between Israel and Palestine to be used at both nations' mutually agreed discretion.
5. For China, Russia, South Korea, and Turkey: involvement in building and infrastructure projects including engineering, manpower, organisation, energy supply, building materials.
An international conference in 2011 to declare, allocate, and establish these responsibilities.
2. THE ADVANTAGES OF THE PLAN
The advantage of such a plan is that each of the participants in the Financial Guarantor group would be supporting each other in implementing their individual and collective efforts. Were a party to withdraw it would not only be an international embarrassment but evidence of lack of support for a two state outcome. It would also anchor the Gulf states into the process, something that until now, for many reasons, they have been reluctant to do. Finally the plan would ensure that the West Bank had a realistic chance of becoming part of a stable, prosperous, and successful state, as opposed to yet another potential threat to Israel.
It offers incentives to both Israel and Palestine to overcome their genuine doubts about a two state solution, instead of being trapped in an endless cycle of either having pressure put upon them or endeavouring to create pressure on the other party. Direct exposure to the advantages of the plan to the respective populations would also undermine the propensity of the political leaderships to veto progress in talks. Two other potential benefits to Israel and Palestine would be product and technology transfer via Palestinian economic zones to the Gulf States, and a portion of the Muslim pilgrim tourism to East Jerusalem crossing into Israel.
China would play a vital part in creating the new cities required to absorb the new returnee and refugee populations. China's proven ability to build and complete large projects on time would add credibility to the project.
South Korean involvement in supplying broadband to the new cities would help ensure that they would not become instant backwater dumping grounds for their populations but had a modern urban infrastructure ready and fit for development. U.N. Secretary Ban Ki-moon's influence would be particularly productive in this effort.
Japan's proven success with its high speed rail networks will give credibility to the bullet train project from East Jerusalem to Medina and will be only the first stage in a regional effort to link Istanbul and Damascus in the north with Jordan in the east and Medina and the Gulf states to the south. At the centre of it all would be the international airport on the Jordan-Palestine border which would act as a hub for tourists and pilgrims to go directly by train to East Jerusalem, to Jordan's main tourist sites, to the Red Sea, and beyond. A major highway and rail network would also help integrate Palestine into the regional economy.
Turkey's vital contribution, beyond supplying materials and engineering and manpower skills, would be to extend the network north via Syria into Anatolia. Turkey, having built the original railway linking Damascus to Medina, would not only see the project as a matter of national pride but of economic self-interest, as the network will link Arabia to Turkey and on to Europe.
Russian engagement and involvement in the creation and construction of Palestine has self-evident advantages, and delegating to Russia construction projects, the supply of energy and materials, and security guarantees to Palestine will reinforce Russia's role, satisfy her aspiration to great power status, and undermine the rejectionist camp.
The plan can work with or without Syrian, Iranian, Hizb'allah and Hamas participation and/or veto but it can also be part of a wider comprehensive peace process. Successful investment in the West Bank by the Financial Guarantor powers will act as an incentive to Palestinians in Gaza to get involved and will undermine the rejectionist camp. The plan could also assuage Israel's concern that no progress can occur in relation to a two state outcome until the threat from Iran is dealt with.
If this or a similar plan is not enacted:
1. Unilateral moves by both Israel and Palestine will leave all the main issues unresolved: refugees, Jerusalem, borders, economic and political integration, security, and legitimacy.
2. Radical Islamic forces and the rejectionist camp led by Iran will be strengthened, undermining moderate Arab regimes, and would be further bolstered should there be a military strike against Iran's nuclear weapons facilities.
3. The losses that Israel expects to endure following a strike upon Iran will make her even less likely to compromise on security.
4. Palestine, as an independent, economically viable nation state, will be increasingly difficult to either create or sustain, and will certainly comprise far less than 22% of Mandate Palestine. Non-violent Palestinian resistance will slowly be replaced by more radical forces, particularly post President Abbas's tenure.
5. The region will remain a centre of political instability and violence for the foreseeable future.
The 5 points above describe, in any event, the most likely future based upon current trends.
[1] 22% of U.N. mandated Palestine constitutes the West Bank and Gaza territories based upon the disputed 1967 borders.
[2] 1) Unconditional recognition of Israel; 2) Abide by all previous Israel-PLO-P.A. agreements; 3) Renunciate violence.
Wednesday, 5 January 2011
Wednesday, 8 December 2010
NO PLAN NO PALESTINE
1. THE PLAN
2. ANALYSIS - THE PLAN IN CONTEXT
If Palestine is to be created on 22% of U.N. mandated territory[1] then the international community will have to enact a bold plan very soon, assuming it is genuinely interested in a “two state solution.” Future conflicts might destroy any hope of an independent Palestine. An international plan will require promptness, vision, and serious commitment and funding.
THE PLAN
Any plan would have to look similar to the one below. If it does not Israel and Palestine can be sure the international community is not serious:
1. A Financial Guarantors Coalition: core members - USA, E.U., Japan, Gulf Arab states, to guarantee financial support to Palestine for 20 years. Its remit to include:
a) compensating refugees
b) resettling refugees
c) building 4 new cities for the resettled
d) building bullet train for Hajj pilgrims from East Jerusalem to Medina that will be connected to an international airport on the Jordan-Palestine border
e) building broadband infrastructure on South Korean model
f) developing East Jerusalem to accommodate Muslim pilgrims
g) self-sustaining water, power, and transport infrastructure projects
And, if Hamas agrees to abide by the 3 Quartet principles[2]
h) a Gazan container port and an international airport on the Egypt-Gaza border as well as a connecting road and rail tunnel link to the West Bank
2. For Palestinians: freedom to work in, and travel to, the Gulf states, open borders with Jordan and Egypt, security guarantees from NATO, the U.N. and Russia, recognition of East Jerusalem as Palestine's capital.
3. For Israelis: freedom to work and reside in the E.U. on 4-year renewable work visas, preferential E.U. status, NATO membership or affiliation and security guarantees including unilateral measures in extremis, financial support for all additional security measures, and international recognition of West Jerusalem and the Kottel area of East Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
4. The freedom to coordinate unilateral acts of withdrawal between Israel and Palestine to be used at both nations' mutually agreed discretion.
5. For China, Russia, South Korea, and Turkey: involvement in building and infrastructure projects including engineering, manpower, organisation, energy supply, building materials.
An international conference in 2011 to declare, allocate, and establish these responsibilities.
ANALYSIS - THE PLAN IN CONTEXT
Inauspicious Background
The Obama Administration has so far done the peace process no favours. The reality speaks for itself: at no point since Oslo in 1993 has there been such a protracted break in talks and so little progress on any substantive issue. Obama's Cairo speech was only the first blunder.
By making settlements a central issue where they had never been before, by deliberately omitting Jewry's historic ties to the region, and, by emphasising the Holocaust as the main basis for Israel's existence, it played perfectly into the rejectionists' hands whilst simultaneously alienating Israel's political centre. Worse, it forced President Abbas into a corner, as Abbas could not appear more moderate than a U.S. President who insisted that all building beyond the disputed 1967 borders was illegal and unacceptable. Even Yasir Arafat had become resigned to at best getting East Jerusalem, and certainly not the residential suburbs built both north and south of the city beyond the disputed 1967 lines.
But, these mistakes did not change the insurmountable problems and irreconcilable differences that exist between the parties. Put baldly it is not in Israel's interest to have a two state 'solution' unless all her security needs are addressed in a systematic, detailed, and credible way, and nor is it in the Palestinian interest to have a two state outcome unless the most pressing and divisive issue of refugee resettlement is similarly addressed.
There has at no point been a realistic or credible case put by the international community for resolving either issue. One of the main reasons for this is the substantial financial cost of resettling refugees and meeting Israel's basic security needs. The other reason is political, no one is prepared to face up to the inevitable need of having to both bolster Israel's separation measures many times over as well as to divide East Jerusalem up into walled separate enclaves for Jew and Arab, a model of separation that would make Derry and Belfast look positively prosaic by comparison.
Whilst Palestinians despair of any resolution or genuine progress towards the creation of a state, Israelis have come to the conclusion that their neighbours only want one thing: their liquidation. This is not the result of a paranoiac mindset on behalf of the average Israeli, it is the only logical conclusion a rational person can come to in Israel's circumstances. The Israeli case is simple:
'We left Lebanon, there was war within six years, with the north living in bomb shelters, mass civilian evacuations, and missiles landing only miles from Tel Aviv; We left Gaza, and more missiles rained down on us than ever before. Gaza is now an Islamic dictatorship, a centre for terrorist activity with missiles capable of hitting Tel Aviv, and is a proxy of Iran whose Islamic regime has publicly stated its goal is to wipe us off the map. And, there is not a single classroom in any part of Palestine that has a map of Israel anywhere on its walls.'
Worse still, the West Bank, the only realistic location for Palestinian resettlement, is neither willing, nor prepared, either structurally or psychologically, to receive the immigrant Palestinians it would need to in any final settlement. Hard on the heels of national independence will be the need to radically rethink Palestinian identity, society, economy, relations with its neighbours, and status, as well as cope with the impact of absorbing large numbers of refugees and/or returnees.
Few Israelis believe that given these circumstances a Palestinian state would not, within months or a few years, be at war with Israel. How soon upon withdrawal would Abbas and Fayyad be replaced by a radical leadership bent on war? Why, when war with Iran is seemingly inevitable, should Israel withdraw from its eastern front that is currently quiet and peaceable as a result of IDF actions, and turn it into yet another hostile border from which Israel will have to defend itself? But worst of all, the West Bank is within a few miles, or in some cases a few metres, of almost all Israel's major conurbations, airports, and power generating facilities. No sane person would voluntarily withdraw from hilltops that overlook downtown Tel Aviv, Netanya, Herzliya, Ben Gurion airport and the rest.
The international community is simply not serious about a “two state solution”
Despite endless rhetoric about the Israel-Palestine conflict being a vital national interest to the U.S. and Europe, there is no evidence of any serious effort being made to address it. On the contrary, all the evidence points to the international community wanting to manage the issue at the least cost to itself, rather than resolve it.
What signs of serious intent are required?
First, there would have to be an acknowledgement of an independent Palestine's extraordinary challenges. These would include the ability to absorb large numbers of refugees and returnees, regional economic integration, modern means of transport and freedom of movement, large infrastructure projects, and a plan to make Palestine economically viable.
Second, there would have to be long term financial support for the fledgling state.
Third, there would have to be political agreements with the international community that would guarantee Palestine's political and economic independence and security.
Fourth, there would have to be a package of financial, security, and political incentives to both Israel and Palestine to help them overcome the total lack of belief that a two state outcome would not be a recipe for either chaos and/or war.
The Plan
Any plan would have to look similar to the one below. If it does not Israel and Palestine can be sure the international community is not serious:
1. A Financial Guarantors Coalition: core members - USA, E.U., Japan, Gulf Arab states, to guarantee financial support to Palestine for 20 years. Its remit to include:
a) compensating refugees
b) resettling refugees
c) building 4 new cities for the resettled
d) building bullet train for Hajj pilgrims from East Jerusalem to Medina that will be connected to an international airport on the Jordan-Palestine border
e) building broadband infrastructure on South Korean model
f) developing East Jerusalem to accommodate Muslim pilgrims
g) self-sustaining water, power, and transport infrastructure projects
And, if Hamas agrees to abide by the 3 Quartet principles[2]
h) a Gazan container port and an international airport on the Egypt-Gaza border as well as a connecting road and rail tunnel link to the West Bank
2. For Palestinians: freedom to work in, and travel to, the Gulf states, open borders with Jordan and Egypt, security guarantees from NATO, the U.N. and Russia, recognition of East Jerusalem as Palestine's capital.
3. For Israelis: freedom to work and reside in the E.U. on 4-year renewable work visas, preferential E.U. status, NATO membership or affiliation and security guarantees including unilateral measures in extremis, financial support for all additional security measures, and international recognition of West Jerusalem and the Kottel area of East Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
4. The freedom to coordinate unilateral acts of withdrawal between Israel and Palestine to be used at both nations' mutually agreed discretion.
5. For China, Russia, South Korea, and Turkey: involvement in building and infrastructure projects including engineering, manpower, organisation, energy supply, building materials.
An international conference in 2011 to declare, allocate, and establish these responsibilities.
The need for, and advantages of, such a plan
It is clear that the international community is not serious about a two state outcome otherwise a plan similar to the one above would have begun to be put into effect within months of Obama coming to power.
The advantage of such a plan is that each of the participants in the Financial Guarantor group would be supporting each other in implementing their individual and collective efforts. Were a party to withdraw it would not only be an international embarrassment but evidence of lack of support for a two state outcome. It would also anchor the Gulf states into the process, something that until now, for many reasons, they have been reluctant to do. Finally the plan would ensure that the West Bank had a realistic chance of becoming part of a stable, prosperous, and successful state, as opposed to yet another potential threat to Israel.
It offers incentives to both Israel and Palestine to overcome their genuine doubts about a two state solution, instead of being trapped in an endless cycle of either having pressure put upon them or endeavouring to create pressure on the other party. Direct exposure to the advantages of the plan to the respective populations would also undermine the propensity of the political leaderships to veto progress in talks. Two other potential benefits to Israel and Palestine would be product and technology transfer via Palestinian economic zones to the Gulf States, and a portion of the Muslim pilgrim tourism to East Jerusalem crossing into Israel.
China would play a vital part in creating the new cities required to absorb the new returnee and refugee populations. China's proven ability to build and complete large projects on time would add credibility to the project.
South Korean involvement in supplying broadband to the new cities would help ensure that they would not become instant backwater dumping grounds for their populations but had a modern urban infrastructure ready and fit for development. U.N. Secretary Ban Ki-moon's influence would be particularly productive in this effort.
Japan's proven success with its high speed rail networks will give credibility to the bullet train project from East Jerusalem to Medina and will be only the first stage in a regional effort to link Istanbul and Damascus in the north with Jordan in the east and Medina and the Gulf states to the south. At the centre of it all would be the international airport on the Jordan-Palestine border which would act as a hub for tourists and pilgrims to go directly by train to East Jerusalem, to Jordan's main tourist sites, to the Red Sea, and beyond. A major highway and rail network would also help integrate Palestine into the regional economy.
Turkey's vital contribution, beyond supplying materials and engineering and manpower skills, would be to extend the network north via Syria into Anatolia. Turkey, having built the original railway linking Damascus to Medina, would not only see the project as a matter of national pride but of economic self-interest, as the network will link Arabia to Turkey and on to Europe.
Russian engagement and involvement in the creation and construction of Palestine has self-evident advantages, and delegating to Russia construction projects, the supply of energy and materials, and security guarantees to Palestine will reinforce Russia's role, satisfy her aspiration to great power status, and undermine the rejectionist camp.
The plan can work with or without Syrian, Iranian, Hizb'allah and Hamas participation and/or veto but it can also be part of a wider comprehensive peace process. Successful investment in the West Bank by the Financial Guarantor powers will act as an incentive to Palestinians in Gaza to get involved and will undermine the rejectionist camp. The plan could also assuage Israel's concern that no progress can occur in relation to a two state outcome until the threat from Iran is dealt with.
If this or a similar plan is not enacted:
1. Unilateral moves by both Israel and Palestine will leave all the main issues unresolved: refugees, Jerusalem, borders, economic and political integration, security, and legitimacy.
2. Radical Islamic forces and the rejectionist camp led by Iran will be strengthened, undermining moderate Arab regimes, and would be further bolstered should there be a military strike against Iran's nuclear weapons facilities.
3. The losses that Israel expects to endure following a strike upon Iran will make her even less likely to compromise on security.
4. Palestine, as an independent, economically viable nation state, will be increasingly difficult to either create or sustain, and will certainly comprise far less than 22% of Mandate Palestine. Non-violent Palestinian resistance will slowly be replaced by more radical forces, particularly post President Abbas's tenure.
5. The region will remain a centre of political instability and violence for the foreseeable future.
The 5 points above describe, in any event, the most likely future based upon current trends.
[1] 22% of U.N. mandated Palestine constitutes the West Bank and Gaza territories based upon the disputed 1967 borders.
[2] 1) Unconditional recognition of Israel; 2) Abide by all previous Israel-PLO-P.A. agreements; 3) Renunciate violence.
2. ANALYSIS - THE PLAN IN CONTEXT
If Palestine is to be created on 22% of U.N. mandated territory[1] then the international community will have to enact a bold plan very soon, assuming it is genuinely interested in a “two state solution.” Future conflicts might destroy any hope of an independent Palestine. An international plan will require promptness, vision, and serious commitment and funding.
THE PLAN
Any plan would have to look similar to the one below. If it does not Israel and Palestine can be sure the international community is not serious:
1. A Financial Guarantors Coalition: core members - USA, E.U., Japan, Gulf Arab states, to guarantee financial support to Palestine for 20 years. Its remit to include:
a) compensating refugees
b) resettling refugees
c) building 4 new cities for the resettled
d) building bullet train for Hajj pilgrims from East Jerusalem to Medina that will be connected to an international airport on the Jordan-Palestine border
e) building broadband infrastructure on South Korean model
f) developing East Jerusalem to accommodate Muslim pilgrims
g) self-sustaining water, power, and transport infrastructure projects
And, if Hamas agrees to abide by the 3 Quartet principles[2]
h) a Gazan container port and an international airport on the Egypt-Gaza border as well as a connecting road and rail tunnel link to the West Bank
2. For Palestinians: freedom to work in, and travel to, the Gulf states, open borders with Jordan and Egypt, security guarantees from NATO, the U.N. and Russia, recognition of East Jerusalem as Palestine's capital.
3. For Israelis: freedom to work and reside in the E.U. on 4-year renewable work visas, preferential E.U. status, NATO membership or affiliation and security guarantees including unilateral measures in extremis, financial support for all additional security measures, and international recognition of West Jerusalem and the Kottel area of East Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
4. The freedom to coordinate unilateral acts of withdrawal between Israel and Palestine to be used at both nations' mutually agreed discretion.
5. For China, Russia, South Korea, and Turkey: involvement in building and infrastructure projects including engineering, manpower, organisation, energy supply, building materials.
An international conference in 2011 to declare, allocate, and establish these responsibilities.
ANALYSIS - THE PLAN IN CONTEXT
Inauspicious Background
The Obama Administration has so far done the peace process no favours. The reality speaks for itself: at no point since Oslo in 1993 has there been such a protracted break in talks and so little progress on any substantive issue. Obama's Cairo speech was only the first blunder.
By making settlements a central issue where they had never been before, by deliberately omitting Jewry's historic ties to the region, and, by emphasising the Holocaust as the main basis for Israel's existence, it played perfectly into the rejectionists' hands whilst simultaneously alienating Israel's political centre. Worse, it forced President Abbas into a corner, as Abbas could not appear more moderate than a U.S. President who insisted that all building beyond the disputed 1967 borders was illegal and unacceptable. Even Yasir Arafat had become resigned to at best getting East Jerusalem, and certainly not the residential suburbs built both north and south of the city beyond the disputed 1967 lines.
But, these mistakes did not change the insurmountable problems and irreconcilable differences that exist between the parties. Put baldly it is not in Israel's interest to have a two state 'solution' unless all her security needs are addressed in a systematic, detailed, and credible way, and nor is it in the Palestinian interest to have a two state outcome unless the most pressing and divisive issue of refugee resettlement is similarly addressed.
There has at no point been a realistic or credible case put by the international community for resolving either issue. One of the main reasons for this is the substantial financial cost of resettling refugees and meeting Israel's basic security needs. The other reason is political, no one is prepared to face up to the inevitable need of having to both bolster Israel's separation measures many times over as well as to divide East Jerusalem up into walled separate enclaves for Jew and Arab, a model of separation that would make Derry and Belfast look positively prosaic by comparison.
Whilst Palestinians despair of any resolution or genuine progress towards the creation of a state, Israelis have come to the conclusion that their neighbours only want one thing: their liquidation. This is not the result of a paranoiac mindset on behalf of the average Israeli, it is the only logical conclusion a rational person can come to in Israel's circumstances. The Israeli case is simple:
'We left Lebanon, there was war within six years, with the north living in bomb shelters, mass civilian evacuations, and missiles landing only miles from Tel Aviv; We left Gaza, and more missiles rained down on us than ever before. Gaza is now an Islamic dictatorship, a centre for terrorist activity with missiles capable of hitting Tel Aviv, and is a proxy of Iran whose Islamic regime has publicly stated its goal is to wipe us off the map. And, there is not a single classroom in any part of Palestine that has a map of Israel anywhere on its walls.'
Worse still, the West Bank, the only realistic location for Palestinian resettlement, is neither willing, nor prepared, either structurally or psychologically, to receive the immigrant Palestinians it would need to in any final settlement. Hard on the heels of national independence will be the need to radically rethink Palestinian identity, society, economy, relations with its neighbours, and status, as well as cope with the impact of absorbing large numbers of refugees and/or returnees.
Few Israelis believe that given these circumstances a Palestinian state would not, within months or a few years, be at war with Israel. How soon upon withdrawal would Abbas and Fayyad be replaced by a radical leadership bent on war? Why, when war with Iran is seemingly inevitable, should Israel withdraw from its eastern front that is currently quiet and peaceable as a result of IDF actions, and turn it into yet another hostile border from which Israel will have to defend itself? But worst of all, the West Bank is within a few miles, or in some cases a few metres, of almost all Israel's major conurbations, airports, and power generating facilities. No sane person would voluntarily withdraw from hilltops that overlook downtown Tel Aviv, Netanya, Herzliya, Ben Gurion airport and the rest.
The international community is simply not serious about a “two state solution”
Despite endless rhetoric about the Israel-Palestine conflict being a vital national interest to the U.S. and Europe, there is no evidence of any serious effort being made to address it. On the contrary, all the evidence points to the international community wanting to manage the issue at the least cost to itself, rather than resolve it.
What signs of serious intent are required?
First, there would have to be an acknowledgement of an independent Palestine's extraordinary challenges. These would include the ability to absorb large numbers of refugees and returnees, regional economic integration, modern means of transport and freedom of movement, large infrastructure projects, and a plan to make Palestine economically viable.
Second, there would have to be long term financial support for the fledgling state.
Third, there would have to be political agreements with the international community that would guarantee Palestine's political and economic independence and security.
Fourth, there would have to be a package of financial, security, and political incentives to both Israel and Palestine to help them overcome the total lack of belief that a two state outcome would not be a recipe for either chaos and/or war.
The Plan
Any plan would have to look similar to the one below. If it does not Israel and Palestine can be sure the international community is not serious:
1. A Financial Guarantors Coalition: core members - USA, E.U., Japan, Gulf Arab states, to guarantee financial support to Palestine for 20 years. Its remit to include:
a) compensating refugees
b) resettling refugees
c) building 4 new cities for the resettled
d) building bullet train for Hajj pilgrims from East Jerusalem to Medina that will be connected to an international airport on the Jordan-Palestine border
e) building broadband infrastructure on South Korean model
f) developing East Jerusalem to accommodate Muslim pilgrims
g) self-sustaining water, power, and transport infrastructure projects
And, if Hamas agrees to abide by the 3 Quartet principles[2]
h) a Gazan container port and an international airport on the Egypt-Gaza border as well as a connecting road and rail tunnel link to the West Bank
2. For Palestinians: freedom to work in, and travel to, the Gulf states, open borders with Jordan and Egypt, security guarantees from NATO, the U.N. and Russia, recognition of East Jerusalem as Palestine's capital.
3. For Israelis: freedom to work and reside in the E.U. on 4-year renewable work visas, preferential E.U. status, NATO membership or affiliation and security guarantees including unilateral measures in extremis, financial support for all additional security measures, and international recognition of West Jerusalem and the Kottel area of East Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
4. The freedom to coordinate unilateral acts of withdrawal between Israel and Palestine to be used at both nations' mutually agreed discretion.
5. For China, Russia, South Korea, and Turkey: involvement in building and infrastructure projects including engineering, manpower, organisation, energy supply, building materials.
An international conference in 2011 to declare, allocate, and establish these responsibilities.
The need for, and advantages of, such a plan
It is clear that the international community is not serious about a two state outcome otherwise a plan similar to the one above would have begun to be put into effect within months of Obama coming to power.
The advantage of such a plan is that each of the participants in the Financial Guarantor group would be supporting each other in implementing their individual and collective efforts. Were a party to withdraw it would not only be an international embarrassment but evidence of lack of support for a two state outcome. It would also anchor the Gulf states into the process, something that until now, for many reasons, they have been reluctant to do. Finally the plan would ensure that the West Bank had a realistic chance of becoming part of a stable, prosperous, and successful state, as opposed to yet another potential threat to Israel.
It offers incentives to both Israel and Palestine to overcome their genuine doubts about a two state solution, instead of being trapped in an endless cycle of either having pressure put upon them or endeavouring to create pressure on the other party. Direct exposure to the advantages of the plan to the respective populations would also undermine the propensity of the political leaderships to veto progress in talks. Two other potential benefits to Israel and Palestine would be product and technology transfer via Palestinian economic zones to the Gulf States, and a portion of the Muslim pilgrim tourism to East Jerusalem crossing into Israel.
China would play a vital part in creating the new cities required to absorb the new returnee and refugee populations. China's proven ability to build and complete large projects on time would add credibility to the project.
South Korean involvement in supplying broadband to the new cities would help ensure that they would not become instant backwater dumping grounds for their populations but had a modern urban infrastructure ready and fit for development. U.N. Secretary Ban Ki-moon's influence would be particularly productive in this effort.
Japan's proven success with its high speed rail networks will give credibility to the bullet train project from East Jerusalem to Medina and will be only the first stage in a regional effort to link Istanbul and Damascus in the north with Jordan in the east and Medina and the Gulf states to the south. At the centre of it all would be the international airport on the Jordan-Palestine border which would act as a hub for tourists and pilgrims to go directly by train to East Jerusalem, to Jordan's main tourist sites, to the Red Sea, and beyond. A major highway and rail network would also help integrate Palestine into the regional economy.
Turkey's vital contribution, beyond supplying materials and engineering and manpower skills, would be to extend the network north via Syria into Anatolia. Turkey, having built the original railway linking Damascus to Medina, would not only see the project as a matter of national pride but of economic self-interest, as the network will link Arabia to Turkey and on to Europe.
Russian engagement and involvement in the creation and construction of Palestine has self-evident advantages, and delegating to Russia construction projects, the supply of energy and materials, and security guarantees to Palestine will reinforce Russia's role, satisfy her aspiration to great power status, and undermine the rejectionist camp.
The plan can work with or without Syrian, Iranian, Hizb'allah and Hamas participation and/or veto but it can also be part of a wider comprehensive peace process. Successful investment in the West Bank by the Financial Guarantor powers will act as an incentive to Palestinians in Gaza to get involved and will undermine the rejectionist camp. The plan could also assuage Israel's concern that no progress can occur in relation to a two state outcome until the threat from Iran is dealt with.
If this or a similar plan is not enacted:
1. Unilateral moves by both Israel and Palestine will leave all the main issues unresolved: refugees, Jerusalem, borders, economic and political integration, security, and legitimacy.
2. Radical Islamic forces and the rejectionist camp led by Iran will be strengthened, undermining moderate Arab regimes, and would be further bolstered should there be a military strike against Iran's nuclear weapons facilities.
3. The losses that Israel expects to endure following a strike upon Iran will make her even less likely to compromise on security.
4. Palestine, as an independent, economically viable nation state, will be increasingly difficult to either create or sustain, and will certainly comprise far less than 22% of Mandate Palestine. Non-violent Palestinian resistance will slowly be replaced by more radical forces, particularly post President Abbas's tenure.
5. The region will remain a centre of political instability and violence for the foreseeable future.
The 5 points above describe, in any event, the most likely future based upon current trends.
[1] 22% of U.N. mandated Palestine constitutes the West Bank and Gaza territories based upon the disputed 1967 borders.
[2] 1) Unconditional recognition of Israel; 2) Abide by all previous Israel-PLO-P.A. agreements; 3) Renunciate violence.
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
As Call My Bluff Takes Over The Middle East Unilateralism Remains Odds-On Favourite To Win
This site is unconnected to the award winning blog concerned with: "Reflections on human rights and peacemaking in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" for that site please click on:
http://guidetotheperplexed.blogspot.com/
· Main Points
1 Abbas’s climb-down over the Goldstone Report and his taking President Obama’s assertions over settlements at face-value have painted him into a corner. His declaration that he will not stand again for President of the P.A. is only part bluff. But Abbas’s bluff will also soon be called by all parties on the West Bank over his refusal to countenance violent resistance. This position is untenable and a campaign of occasionally violent civil disobedience is currently being both planned and put into action. Abbas may yet also call the West’s bluff, particularly if he cannot form a unity government on his terms with Hamas, and attempt to run the West Bank separately under Salam Fayyad as PM of a non-elected P.A. technocracy. Meanwhile Abbas will remain both P.A. President and the senior representative of the Palestinian people under the aegis of the PLO, of which he remains head.
2 President Obama’s bluff on a total settlement freeze has been successfully called by P.M. Netanyahu. But, Obama remains unconvinced the current Israeli government can deliver the concessions needed for peace. Only an agreed strategy by the President, the Senate, and Congress, to implement a, if necessary, unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank with the backing of 12,000 US and international forces, would alter the current stalemate. Trying to implement such a strategy after yet another intifada will be extremely problematic. The current relative calm needs to be taken advantage of. The troops will be needed to ensure a smooth transition and to maintain pressure on Israel to accomodate a Palestinian state presence in Jerusalem.
3 Israel and the US have called Russia’s bluff over its illegal arms supplies to Hizb’allah via Syria and Iran with their involvement in both the Arctic Sea ‘hijacking’ fiasco and the exposure of regular visits by a Russian specialist in nuclear warhead design to Tehran.
4 Iran’s bluff over its nuclear programme has been called with the revelation of its secret nuclear weapons reprocessing plant outside Qom. No serious observers believe Iran is not within a year of enriching enough uranium for a nuclear-armed warhead. Iran’s illegal arms supplies to Hizb’allah have also been exposed after the interception and opening of the ‘Francop’ cargo ship’s Iranian-owned containers that hid 550 tons of weaponry.
5 The West’s bluff has been called both over any long-term commitment to Afghanistan or to preventing Iran’s nuclear weapons programme from coming to fruition. President Obama will only reinforce US forces in Afghanistan because of the instability in nuclear-armed Pakistan, and, then, only temporarily. Nor is he prepared to use military force to stop Iran’s programme as long as US troops remain vulnerable to Iranian-backed attack in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
6 President Obama’s bluff over his commitment to non-proliferation has also been cruelly exposed. He will preside over the greatest proliferation of nuclear-armed states in history unless he permits Israel to severely damage Iran’s nuclear arms programme, which he is not remotely inclined or able to do at the moment. New detailed intelligence on Iran’s nuclear weapons capacity and a specific hostile intent is the only factor that may lead to a change in his current position.
7 A potentially complex legal game of bluff is being played over the Goldstone report. Israel is currently trying to call the west and international communities’ bluff over its claims that war crimes were committed by Israel fighting local terrorism, this, as the global communities’ efforts to fight local and global terrorism remain untouched by any similar such claims despite the total disregard for human rights exhibited by all parties involved in the global conflict. The West is particularly vulnerable to this charge as it is fighting an unpopular counter-terror war thousands of miles from its own territory without a single missile having breached its borders, whereas Israeli sovereignty and borders are breached on an almost daily basis.
8 Shaul Mofaz, Kadima’s deputy head, has called Tzipi Livni’s bluff over any ostensible leadership ambitions she has either for her party, or for the country. His plan to evacuate 60% of the West Bank is the only serious plan currently available to all parties involved in the peace process. It will now be up to Livni to produce a measure that has as much cogency or as realistic a chance of success.
9 Labour leader Ehud Barak is involved in a complex and risky game of bluff involving not only the Palestinians, but PM Netanyahu, and Barak’s own party. He has to prove to the Labour party and supporters that he is in the government in order to advance the peace process when in reality he is there to pursue his own personal ambitions and to oversee a vital two-year anti-missile system project to its conclusion. He can only theoretically square the circle by leaving the government within the next year or two, as there is absolutely no chance of any progress in the peace process being made under the premiership of Netanyahu.
10 Prime Minister Netanyahu is involved in a fruitless game of bluff with his own Likud party, his coalition partners, Iran, and the Palestinians. He has no mandate from his own Likud party, never mind any other coalition partner (the Labour party has in reality split in two), to reach any peace agreement worthy of the name. He has no desire to attack Iran without the express permission of the US. His only political option is to cling on to power having prevented any substantive progress over the Golan Heights or the West Bank and Jerusalem, whilst managing and strengthening Israel’s economy and infrastructure through the recession.
· ANALYSIS
· President Abbas’s strategy to wait for the Obama Administration to bludgeon PM Netanyahu’s coalition into surrender or dissolution within 2 years has failed spectacularly. This was compounded by his refusal to insist the Goldstone report was put to the UN General Assembly vote to be brought before the UN Security Council. Abbas’s reluctance to initiate support for Goldstone was predicated on the false assumption that the US would support his refusal to talk until all building, including in Jerusalem, was frozen.
Abbas subsequently felt totally betrayed not only by the US’s refusal to fully support his strategy on ‘settlements’, when Hillary Clinton praised Netanyahu’s concessions on building, but also by the impossible position they had put him in concerning Goldstone with their insistence he could not talk peace with Israel whilst simultaneously supporting the process of taking peace-committed politicians such as Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak before the International Criminal Court charged with ‘war crimes.’
· The total collapse of his strategy came very suddenly upon the heals of his triumph at the Fatah Conference where he was unanimously re-elected its head. Abbas had to quickly build a new strategy as he realised without US pressure on Netanyahu’s coalition he could not get the capitulation he needed in order to sell any deal to his constituency. He and Saeb Erekat decided to link P.A. PM Salam Fayyad’s idea of creating the infrastructure for a Palestinian state within 2 years in preparation for the implementation of a two-state solution, to a unilateral declaration of Palestine within 2 years. Unfortunately this idea collapsed almost as soon as it was announced as both the US and the EU refused to support it. Their reasoning was that it would undermine the legal agreements so far in place and the whole peace process could be put in jeopardy.
· Abbas was then forced to announce his resignation as he quite rightly saw there was no point in carrying on a process that would never lead to an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital. Not only was the current Israeli government set against the partition of Jerusalem the US Senate and Congress made it plain over the summer period they would not countenance the division of Jerusalem either, particularly in the current global climate of increasing Islamist radicalism and with such a weak Palestinian leadership that was not unambiguously committed to the western democratic cause, and that had so readily and recently capitulated to radical Islam in Gaza.
This has left Abbas with few choices. He could support a unification government under his terms with Hamas, or, he could resign from the P.A., as under the P.A. constitution elections were no longer feasible without Hamas’s consent. He could then leave Fayyad in charge of daily government, and continue to lead as head of the PLO, the sole internationally recognised representative organisation of the Palestinian people. His current position is to remain as nominal head of the P.A. until elections are called with Hamas's consent, and to use his leadership of the PLO as another powerbase from which he can bargain.
This then allows the PA to continue to receive international assistance whilst Abbas would be free to negotiate with Hamas from a position of strength as head of the PLO. Hamas have never had voting rights or seats within the PLO and have always sought them. The framework for a new Palestinian unity government could be forged under the auspices of the PLO, with Hamas even joining the organisation, thus automatically gaining the status that comes with its membership as it continues to be internationally recognised as 'the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.'
Even if Hamas PLO membership has no appeal to Abbas there still remains the possibility of a summer or autumn election with more hard-line Presidential candidates, and a greater likelihood of a national unity government within the P.A., with a previously agreed clear division of power between Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank. This of course would end any chance of negotiations with the Likud-led government, but as no meaningful progress was ever possible with it anyway, it makes no difference. The pattern for the future is clear: a new intifada led by more radical leaders ending in a series of unilateral decisions by all the parties.
· Abbas will do all in his power to prevent the intifada from descending into extreme violence, and at first it is unlikely that any targets within Israel’s 1967 borders will be attacked. But all attacks within Jerusalem’s north, east, and southern suburbs will be considered legitimate, as will all attacks on settlements and settlers within the West Bank. It will start by constant rock attacks on civilians and property, and increase in severity from then on.
· President Obama was easily outmanoeuvred by Bibi Netanyahu, partly because he was extremely badly advised by Rahm Emanuel his Jewish Chief of Staff who had appointed himself the task of bringing Bibi to heel. Unfortunately Emanuel knows little to nothing about Israeli and Jewish politics and has all the subtlety and sophistication of a bull in a china shop, as well as having a personal animus towards Bibi. Fortunately the veteran diplomat Dennis Ross has been brought back in to consult more closely on all major policy issues despite also being a special National Security Council adviser for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia including Iran.
Obama and Emanuel made a basic error in both underestimating Bibi’s political skills and the support of the Senate and Congress for most of his positions, as well as having no understanding of the impact the statements on settlements would have on the talks. However, Bibi’s position will become more difficult with each month and year due to the volatility of Israeli politics and the settlements issue will continue to be used to highlight the contradictory nature of the current Israeli government position: what is the point of building settlements if you really want a two state solution?
http://guidetotheperplexed.blogspot.com/
· Main Points
1 Abbas’s climb-down over the Goldstone Report and his taking President Obama’s assertions over settlements at face-value have painted him into a corner. His declaration that he will not stand again for President of the P.A. is only part bluff. But Abbas’s bluff will also soon be called by all parties on the West Bank over his refusal to countenance violent resistance. This position is untenable and a campaign of occasionally violent civil disobedience is currently being both planned and put into action. Abbas may yet also call the West’s bluff, particularly if he cannot form a unity government on his terms with Hamas, and attempt to run the West Bank separately under Salam Fayyad as PM of a non-elected P.A. technocracy. Meanwhile Abbas will remain both P.A. President and the senior representative of the Palestinian people under the aegis of the PLO, of which he remains head.
2 President Obama’s bluff on a total settlement freeze has been successfully called by P.M. Netanyahu. But, Obama remains unconvinced the current Israeli government can deliver the concessions needed for peace. Only an agreed strategy by the President, the Senate, and Congress, to implement a, if necessary, unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank with the backing of 12,000 US and international forces, would alter the current stalemate. Trying to implement such a strategy after yet another intifada will be extremely problematic. The current relative calm needs to be taken advantage of. The troops will be needed to ensure a smooth transition and to maintain pressure on Israel to accomodate a Palestinian state presence in Jerusalem.
3 Israel and the US have called Russia’s bluff over its illegal arms supplies to Hizb’allah via Syria and Iran with their involvement in both the Arctic Sea ‘hijacking’ fiasco and the exposure of regular visits by a Russian specialist in nuclear warhead design to Tehran.
4 Iran’s bluff over its nuclear programme has been called with the revelation of its secret nuclear weapons reprocessing plant outside Qom. No serious observers believe Iran is not within a year of enriching enough uranium for a nuclear-armed warhead. Iran’s illegal arms supplies to Hizb’allah have also been exposed after the interception and opening of the ‘Francop’ cargo ship’s Iranian-owned containers that hid 550 tons of weaponry.
5 The West’s bluff has been called both over any long-term commitment to Afghanistan or to preventing Iran’s nuclear weapons programme from coming to fruition. President Obama will only reinforce US forces in Afghanistan because of the instability in nuclear-armed Pakistan, and, then, only temporarily. Nor is he prepared to use military force to stop Iran’s programme as long as US troops remain vulnerable to Iranian-backed attack in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
6 President Obama’s bluff over his commitment to non-proliferation has also been cruelly exposed. He will preside over the greatest proliferation of nuclear-armed states in history unless he permits Israel to severely damage Iran’s nuclear arms programme, which he is not remotely inclined or able to do at the moment. New detailed intelligence on Iran’s nuclear weapons capacity and a specific hostile intent is the only factor that may lead to a change in his current position.
7 A potentially complex legal game of bluff is being played over the Goldstone report. Israel is currently trying to call the west and international communities’ bluff over its claims that war crimes were committed by Israel fighting local terrorism, this, as the global communities’ efforts to fight local and global terrorism remain untouched by any similar such claims despite the total disregard for human rights exhibited by all parties involved in the global conflict. The West is particularly vulnerable to this charge as it is fighting an unpopular counter-terror war thousands of miles from its own territory without a single missile having breached its borders, whereas Israeli sovereignty and borders are breached on an almost daily basis.
8 Shaul Mofaz, Kadima’s deputy head, has called Tzipi Livni’s bluff over any ostensible leadership ambitions she has either for her party, or for the country. His plan to evacuate 60% of the West Bank is the only serious plan currently available to all parties involved in the peace process. It will now be up to Livni to produce a measure that has as much cogency or as realistic a chance of success.
9 Labour leader Ehud Barak is involved in a complex and risky game of bluff involving not only the Palestinians, but PM Netanyahu, and Barak’s own party. He has to prove to the Labour party and supporters that he is in the government in order to advance the peace process when in reality he is there to pursue his own personal ambitions and to oversee a vital two-year anti-missile system project to its conclusion. He can only theoretically square the circle by leaving the government within the next year or two, as there is absolutely no chance of any progress in the peace process being made under the premiership of Netanyahu.
10 Prime Minister Netanyahu is involved in a fruitless game of bluff with his own Likud party, his coalition partners, Iran, and the Palestinians. He has no mandate from his own Likud party, never mind any other coalition partner (the Labour party has in reality split in two), to reach any peace agreement worthy of the name. He has no desire to attack Iran without the express permission of the US. His only political option is to cling on to power having prevented any substantive progress over the Golan Heights or the West Bank and Jerusalem, whilst managing and strengthening Israel’s economy and infrastructure through the recession.
· ANALYSIS
· President Abbas’s strategy to wait for the Obama Administration to bludgeon PM Netanyahu’s coalition into surrender or dissolution within 2 years has failed spectacularly. This was compounded by his refusal to insist the Goldstone report was put to the UN General Assembly vote to be brought before the UN Security Council. Abbas’s reluctance to initiate support for Goldstone was predicated on the false assumption that the US would support his refusal to talk until all building, including in Jerusalem, was frozen.
Abbas subsequently felt totally betrayed not only by the US’s refusal to fully support his strategy on ‘settlements’, when Hillary Clinton praised Netanyahu’s concessions on building, but also by the impossible position they had put him in concerning Goldstone with their insistence he could not talk peace with Israel whilst simultaneously supporting the process of taking peace-committed politicians such as Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak before the International Criminal Court charged with ‘war crimes.’
· The total collapse of his strategy came very suddenly upon the heals of his triumph at the Fatah Conference where he was unanimously re-elected its head. Abbas had to quickly build a new strategy as he realised without US pressure on Netanyahu’s coalition he could not get the capitulation he needed in order to sell any deal to his constituency. He and Saeb Erekat decided to link P.A. PM Salam Fayyad’s idea of creating the infrastructure for a Palestinian state within 2 years in preparation for the implementation of a two-state solution, to a unilateral declaration of Palestine within 2 years. Unfortunately this idea collapsed almost as soon as it was announced as both the US and the EU refused to support it. Their reasoning was that it would undermine the legal agreements so far in place and the whole peace process could be put in jeopardy.
· Abbas was then forced to announce his resignation as he quite rightly saw there was no point in carrying on a process that would never lead to an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital. Not only was the current Israeli government set against the partition of Jerusalem the US Senate and Congress made it plain over the summer period they would not countenance the division of Jerusalem either, particularly in the current global climate of increasing Islamist radicalism and with such a weak Palestinian leadership that was not unambiguously committed to the western democratic cause, and that had so readily and recently capitulated to radical Islam in Gaza.
This has left Abbas with few choices. He could support a unification government under his terms with Hamas, or, he could resign from the P.A., as under the P.A. constitution elections were no longer feasible without Hamas’s consent. He could then leave Fayyad in charge of daily government, and continue to lead as head of the PLO, the sole internationally recognised representative organisation of the Palestinian people. His current position is to remain as nominal head of the P.A. until elections are called with Hamas's consent, and to use his leadership of the PLO as another powerbase from which he can bargain.
This then allows the PA to continue to receive international assistance whilst Abbas would be free to negotiate with Hamas from a position of strength as head of the PLO. Hamas have never had voting rights or seats within the PLO and have always sought them. The framework for a new Palestinian unity government could be forged under the auspices of the PLO, with Hamas even joining the organisation, thus automatically gaining the status that comes with its membership as it continues to be internationally recognised as 'the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.'
Even if Hamas PLO membership has no appeal to Abbas there still remains the possibility of a summer or autumn election with more hard-line Presidential candidates, and a greater likelihood of a national unity government within the P.A., with a previously agreed clear division of power between Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank. This of course would end any chance of negotiations with the Likud-led government, but as no meaningful progress was ever possible with it anyway, it makes no difference. The pattern for the future is clear: a new intifada led by more radical leaders ending in a series of unilateral decisions by all the parties.
· Abbas will do all in his power to prevent the intifada from descending into extreme violence, and at first it is unlikely that any targets within Israel’s 1967 borders will be attacked. But all attacks within Jerusalem’s north, east, and southern suburbs will be considered legitimate, as will all attacks on settlements and settlers within the West Bank. It will start by constant rock attacks on civilians and property, and increase in severity from then on.
· President Obama was easily outmanoeuvred by Bibi Netanyahu, partly because he was extremely badly advised by Rahm Emanuel his Jewish Chief of Staff who had appointed himself the task of bringing Bibi to heel. Unfortunately Emanuel knows little to nothing about Israeli and Jewish politics and has all the subtlety and sophistication of a bull in a china shop, as well as having a personal animus towards Bibi. Fortunately the veteran diplomat Dennis Ross has been brought back in to consult more closely on all major policy issues despite also being a special National Security Council adviser for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia including Iran.
Obama and Emanuel made a basic error in both underestimating Bibi’s political skills and the support of the Senate and Congress for most of his positions, as well as having no understanding of the impact the statements on settlements would have on the talks. However, Bibi’s position will become more difficult with each month and year due to the volatility of Israeli politics and the settlements issue will continue to be used to highlight the contradictory nature of the current Israeli government position: what is the point of building settlements if you really want a two state solution?
· The reality is unless President Obama, the Senate and the Congress, agree to help implement the Mofaz plan to, unilaterally if necessary, withdraw from 60% of the West Bank and officially recognise it as Palestine within the next 18 months, no progress will be made. The intifada will increase in scope and Israel will be forced to unilaterally withdraw to borders of its own choosing and seal off Jerusalem. The US need to offer both the Palestinians and Israel a vision of a two-state solution and commit troops to its implementation, at the very least manning one of the border crossings with Jordan. A crossing into an Arab state without Israeli intervention would give hope that a free Palestine was both possible and imminent.
· Israel felt it necessary to risk upsetting Russia by highlighting both illegal arms shipments to the Middle East and the regular visits to Iran by a Russian specialist in nuclear warhead design. Israel and the US believe that Russia’s role in containing Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions is vital and some sort of counter pressure was needed to get them to focus more carefully on the issue. Concurrently Obama offered Russia the removal of prospective anti-missile systems from the Czech Republic and Poland, agreed not to push for Ukrainian accession to NATO and the EU, as well as to leave Georgia’s sovereignty issues to international forums to decide. This classic carrot and stick approach is working because all parties are benefitting at the moment.
The ‘Arctic Sea’ having been at sea for three and a half months was only allowed to dock at its port of registry Valletta (Malta) on 29 October 2009, having left Kaliningrad with its alleged illegal cargo on 17 July 2009. The remaining crew, including the captain, were only allowed home from Malta on 2 November. All the Russian crew are under a gag order not to speak and face 7 years in prison in Russia should they break it. The alleged hijackers are all facing lengthy prison sentences.
The most plausible explanation for the episode is that Mossad warned the Russian authorities of an illegal arms cargo, and the Russian secret service set up the hijack scenario. They allowed the ship to get out of the media spotlight before unloading the illegal cargo at Cape Verde an East Atlantic island off the western coast of central Africa. The cargo was most likely similar to that found on the ‘Francop’ but far smaller and Israel’s main concern would have been any handheld anti-aircraft missiles destined for Hizb’allah in Lebanon. Defence Minister Barak has repeatedly said should Hizb’allah gain access to certain types of technology he describes as “game changing” then the IDF’s relatively passive stance re Lebanon would change. These particular types of missiles would have merited such a high-risk high-profile intervention on Mossad’s part, and would also explain the reports of a Lebanese businessman with Syrian connections being behind the original arms request in the Kaliningrad enclave.
The reason the Russians used the hijack scenario was to not alert the smugglers they knew an illegal arms shipment was in progress, to not embarrass any senior government official involved in the shipment, to hide any evidence that arms were involved, and to ensure deniability. Had the arms been unloaded in Russia or Europe none of the above would have been guaranteed.
· Another example of Obama’s inclusive and multilateral approach is his handling of the secret nuclear arms facility at Qom. He ensured all the major EU leaders were involved in the announcement of its exposure at the 25 September G-20 Pittsburgh Summit. He has offered Iran high-level talks in order to expose their true position, or to see who in the regime actually has the authority to make any decisions.
The same applied to the joint US-NATO-Israeli interception of Iran’s illegal arms ‘Francop’ shipment to Syria and Lebanon. Once again Obama highlighted his preference for joint and multilateral action. The U.S. and NATO supplied supporting intelligence to the IDF and Israel’s Navy completed the operation. Israel is also involved in NATO exercises despite Turkey’s recent rebuff, and the joint US-Israel one month long Juniper-Cobra anti-missile operation across Israel was considered a success, as well as the most complex exercise of its type ever held anywhere.
Incessant meetings have taken place between Israel’s Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and many of the senior commanders of NATO over the last few months. The purpose of this cooperation and coordination was not only practical it was to send a clear message to Iran that any attack on Israel would result in some form of response from NATO, even, as with Iraq during the 1980-8 Gulf War, if it is only endless supplies and intelligence to Iran’s enemy. Another advantage to NATO was to tap into the IDF’s knowledge of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), which has been accumulated from IDF operations in Lebanon (1982-2000; 2006) and Gaza (2008-9), involving Iranian-made and designed devices, similar to those encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan.
· A clear insight into US Administration strategy towards Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and nuclear proliferation came from ex-CIA advisers Bruce Riedel and Kenneth Pollack at the INSS Tel Aviv University talks in conjunction with the Saban Forum. Riedel who advises Obama on Afghanistan said the US could not think about attacking Iran as long as she has troops committed to Afghanistan and Iraq both of which were disastrous expeditions. $30 billion per year more will be spent on additional troops to Afghanistan with no guarantee of success. The main reason for not pulling out of Afghanistan now was the danger of radicals taking over Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.
Pollack made it clear that containment of a nuclear armed Iran was the US’s only option. Soon, Saudi Arabia would acquire nuclear weapons, whatever happens. The world would just have to get used to a nuclear-armed Middle East, with the focus on containing radical regimes like Iran through military alliances, supporting dissident groups, and targeted sanctions that hit Iranian companies only, and not civilians.
This view will result in the largest proliferation of nuclear weapons in history. An interesting paradox, as Obama is one of the few Presidential candidates to ever explicitly state his commitment to non-proliferation and severely curbing the Great Powers' nuclear arsenals. What these advisers apparently forget is that President Chavez of Venezuela will soon be joining the nuclear-armed club, and the United States for the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis will have a nuclear-armed neighbour. As soon as this prospect becomes clear Obama’s chances of re-election will diminish substantially. Obama will be secretly hoping Israel will do his dirty work for him.
· The White House meeting between Bibi, Barak, Oren and Obama was a constructive one. Both Bibi and Barak seemed extremely pleased with the outcome expressing the view that Obama was sound on Iran. Given that Obama is pursuing a containment strategy against Iran, and hopes to leave both Iraq and Afghanistan as soon as possible the most likely conclusion is that the Israeli side asked him whether he would obstruct Israel from attacking Iran if Israel felt a nuclear strike was imminent or likely, and Obama reaffirmed his belief that all nations have the right to self-defence.
Increased intelligence and technical cooperation with Israel over the Arrow 3 project, Juniper-Cobra exercise, the recent NATO exercises and the inclusion of Israel’s larger Naval vessels in a major NATO exercise for the first time, allied to NATO help intercepting illegal arms shipments destined to Israel’s enemies, confirm reports that Obama has also pledged direct access to US Intelligence systems and live satellite feeds covering Iran. This will give Israel advance warning of terror and smuggling activities, any impending missile launches, a first strike advantage, and an opportunity to warn the Home Front. The quid pro quo is presumably that Obama will be warned in advance by Israel of any attack on Iran.
· Israel is currently prepared to force the western powers to show their hand on the ‘war crimes’ issue. Spain revoked her power to arrest individuals for war crimes unless they involved Spanish citizens as a result of Israel’s appeals. Britain cannot do the same as long as the current Labour party is in power. When Tony Blair was asked to revoke similar legislation he refused because the Left in the Labour party was too strong and it would cause a split in his party. Israel wants the West to provide a coherent legal framework that will stop prosecutions by nations, organisations, or individuals that are hostile to any state defending themselves from radical Islam.
If this policy fails then Israel will simply set up an independent judicial enquiry that will negate any legal right to take Israel or Israeli individuals to the International Criminal Court in the Hague. International law dictates that if there is an authoritative and independent legal Israeli enquiry it has precedence over any other.
· Shaul Mofaz’s plan to leave 60% of the West Bank, unilaterally if necessary, whilst recognising that it constitutes along with the Gaza Strip the nascent state of Palestine is a direct challenge to Tzipi Livni’s leadership. Livni has satisfied herself with sniping from the sidelines whilst offering little vision or alternatives on any substantive issue. Two opposing trends are apparent. Livni’s popularity has remained stable but only as a result of alienated Labour voters whose desertion to Livni-led Kadima has halved Labour’s support-base. A recent poll suggested that the centre-left has lost 7 seats to the right since February alone. The Mofaz plan appeals to the centre right, the current electoral centre, he hopes to place Kadima in a position to join the coalition by continuing to propose pragmatic centre-right policies.
If Livni does not shift to the right soon, or offer some imaginative alternatives, she will leave Kadima in the position of permanent official opposition, as Labour disappears altogether off the political map.
· Ehud Barak’s Houdini escape after the last election has failed to prevent his party losing 20 points in the polls. Only 5% of the electorate agree Barak would make a suitable Prime Minister. Labour would gain 6 seats if an election were held this month. This is not all due to Barak as the endless factionalism within Labour continues to alienate its supporters.
Labour has to hope that Livni is ousted from Kadima’s leadership and that an intifada accompanied by a violent settler response makes Netanyahu’s position untenable. The Israeli electorate are notoriously fickle and Ehud Olmert recovered from a 3% standing in the polls to roughly 33% within months, following good economic figures and the Winograd report exonerating him from the worst aspects of the IDF’s performance during the Second Lebanon War. Barak’s position is somewhat different, as he has no party to speak of, is an expert at alienating people, and has no economic success to his name. If, however, a war breaks out and Israel is noticeably successful all that could change. Ideally Barak needs to leave the coalition sometime in 2011 when it becomes clear that Bibi cannot offer any way forward in the peace process, and with Kadima losing support from both its centre right and centre left supporters. He has already gone down in history as Labour’s least popular and electorally least successful leader.
· Bibi Netanyahu’s position is a lot more fragile than the current polls suggest with his popularity at an all time high (43% approval rating). His economic reforms will meet with ingrained and protracted opposition; and he cannot make any progress with the Palestinians or Syrians because he has nothing to offer them. He does not have the nerve to initiate an attack on Iran, unless irrefutable intelligence forces his hand, and should he be forced to attack, having achieved nothing on the Palestine front, the combined deterioration in the economic, political, and military situation would be severe.
Nevertheless he could survive until 2012 if he manages to successfully contain the next intifada, and if Iran fails to succeed in building an effective nuclear weapon. However, at some stage he will have to decide where Israel’s borders lie as governing the West Bank will slowly become impossibly costly in terms of loss of resources and increasing divisions within and amongst the Israeli population (minor insurrections in the IDF are increasing as the prospect of evacuating settlers draws closer), alongside the radicalisation of Israeli Arabs. The neglect of the Negev and Galilee will be seen as a strategic mistake and the need to populate these areas with a settler-like population of highly motivated pioneer-minded citizens will increasingly be seen as a national priority.
· It is clear Bibi has nothing to offer the Palestinians and they have nothing to offer in return. A staged unilateral withdrawal over several years is the most likely outcome to the current impasse. The probability remains strong that Israel will have withdrawn from most of the West Bank by 2016-17, sooner if a major war with Iran, Lebanon, and Syria breaks out, and a major peace conference follows. A national unity government will have had to be formed to cope with a war with Iran, and the Mofaz plan, or an almost total withdrawal, will have to be considered in its aftermath.
· The issue of Jerusalem will remain irresolvable. The most likely outcome is that Israel will seal the capital off from the West Bank. The following few years (2010-12) will be seen as the last period of time Israel and the Palestinians will have had to create a peaceful Palestine on the West Bank with an undivided and open Jerusalem. But, there is not sufficient leadership or vision on either side to achieve this. Only the highly active participation of the international community in the development of the West Bank will prevent it descending into chaos, which will in turn lead to a series of operations similar to Operation Cast Lead over the coming decade. Once Jerusalem is sealed off from Palestine a series of security sweeps will be regularly used to suppress insurrections in the Old City, and a series of separation walls and fences will be built to separate Jewish and Arab youths from incessant confrontations in the suburbs.
Links:
Kenneth Pollack analysis (Iran and proliferation):
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=2&cid=1258624595999&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Bruce Riedel analysis (Afghanistan):
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1258489190793&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Haaretz Poll:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1127911.html
For the best English language news site on Israel:
http://www.jpost.com/
For a vigorous Liberal-Left position of the Israeli daily paper:
http://www.haaretz.com/
For a Centre-Left view on Israel, in occasionally appalling English:
http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0,7340,L-3083,00.html
¨For an insight into Arab and Muslim media coverage of the Israel-Palestinian issue, anti-Semitism, and other Middle East issues see:
http://www.memri.org/
For an overview of the media coverage of Israel see the BICOM (Britain Israel Research and Communications Centre) site. Below are the sites for -
News headlines with links to each site:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/headlines
¨A written summary of the news:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news
The main issues behind the news:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/briefings/behind_the_news/
Extracts from editorial and article Opinion:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/comment-and-opinion
A small selection of Quotes:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/quotes
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Saturday, 20 June 2009
Israel’s Main Parties Wobble, Iran’s Sham, and Palestine Presses the Hold Button
This site is unconnected to the award winning blog concerned with: "Reflections on human rights and peacemaking in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" for that site please click on:
http://guidetotheperplexed.blogspot.com/
1 All of Israel’s main parties have shown signs of splitting after PM Netanyahu’s recent “two states” speech and Ehud Barak’s insistence upon changes to Labour’s rules.
2 Iran’s election has exposed systematic large-scale vote rigging that originated with Ahmadinejad’s first election victory in June 2005: “We did not have a revolution in order to have democracy” (Ahmadinejad; 18 May 2005).
3 President Abbas and Hamas both reveal their master plan: do nothing, or, failing that, as little as possible. Both hint, should that fail, there’s always another intifada and more rockets.
4 Some of Lebanon’s Christians have second thoughts and vote for Hariri’s coalition. Hizb’allah declare their strategy: no change.
5 President Obama’s strategy is also revealed in his Cairo speech: play it smart, cool, and straight, and do not let anyone off the hook.
6 Netanyahu has been forced to turn down the volume on the hysteria button (marked ‘Iranian threat’) by Kadima’s leader Tzipi Livni, and the head of the CIA Leon Panetta, as Israel readies itself for a regional war on all fronts. However, events may have conspired to postpone an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities until 2012-13.
· ANALYSIS
· P.M. Netanyahu’s speech won overwhelming support from 71% of Israelis as it spelt out some important truths:
1. After the Gaza experience Israel cannot risk a rocket-propelling entity a few miles from all its major urban centres, its main airport, and its main energy producing sites.
There is no guarantee Hamas will not take over the West Bank at any time in the future, so it must be demilitarised and any breaking of this agreement will be a casus belli.
2. Israel was not created as a result of the Holocaust. Israel is the Jewish people’s homeland, and has been connected to the Jewish people for over 3,500 years. To not acknowledge that is proof that the Arabs do not accept the legitimacy of “the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own, in their historic homeland.” This is evidence of a denial by the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular of Jewish history, culture, religion, and civilisation, that form the very foundation of an independent Jewish entity, and therefore at any point they can use their denial of the legitimacy of the Jewish connection to the land as a basis for another conflict. It follows that if they are serious about peace they will publicly recognise “this is the homeland of the Jewish people, this is where our identity was forged.” With official recognition of the Jewish state a demilitarised Palestinian state will be able to live side-by-side in peace and prosperity with Israel.
3. There is no equation between Palestinian suffering and the Holocaust. To equate or conflate the two in any way is to distort and deny both reality and the truth and is a deliberate assault on the memory of the lost six million and upon the survivors’ sensibilities towards that loss. This is not the mark of someone who wants peace.
4. If the United States is serious in believing that this conflict can be resolved quickly because to do so would suit American interests, namely their total dependence on Arab oil, they had better find the solutions to these Arab prejudices otherwise there can be no peace within their preferred timeframe. The ball is in the Arab and American court and that includes getting recognition of Israel and its right to exist, and the issue of settling the “refugees” in Arab lands. Israeli Prime Ministers have always been prepared to meet their enemies’ leaders, not the other way around. Israelis want peace, the Arab states want only to perpetuate the conflict. If it were otherwise they would simply repeat Sadat’s visit to Israel, or, for once, take up Israel's leaders’ endless offers to meet.
· Netanyahu’s baptysmal recognition of the possibility of two states opened up potential rifts within both the Kadima and Likud parties. 20 out of 27 Likud members insisted recognition of a two state solution was never part of the Likud’s election platform, the opposite in fact, and they would not vote for the creation of a Palestinian state. 3 Kadima members claimed that since Netanyahu had recognised the principle of the two state solution there was no longer any reason not to join the government of national unity. However none of the individuals who made these claims has as yet forced a split within the party or posed a threat to the leadership despite the fact that Kadima’s no.2 Shaul Mofaz was one of the 3 MKs who were prepared to go public on the pointlessness of Kadima remaining in opposition. Likud are framing legislation that will allow Kadima to split more easily, so that only 7 MKs, or, alternatively, a third of any party, would be required to form another party.
· Labour party rebels are 1 MK short of splitting the party. Knesset rules state a third of a party’s MKs are needed before a split can occur. 4 MKs want to leave Labour because they detest Barak, and do not want to be a part of a Likud-led national unity government. They are also unhappy at proposed new Labour committee rule changes including the neutering of the role of the secretary-general and at Ehud Barak’s removal of Eitan Cabel from that post. Should they finally split, Labour will be left with 8 MKs either in, or in support of, the government. The 5 potential rebels, including Cabel, intend to form part of the opposition under a social democrat party banner, although one may even go over to Kadima.
· Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has made his first major strategic blunder by ordering the selection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for President by blatant vote rigging. His decision has exposed the fact that Ahmedinejad did not in fact win the 2005 Presidential elections as he did not come second in the first round of those 2005 elections and so should never have been in the run-off with Ayatollah Rafsanjani.
· Ayatollahs Khamenei and Rafsanjani are long time associates and rivals who have diametrically opposed views of the future of the revolution. Both have no compunction about assassinating their opponents (Rafsanjani is wanted by Interpol for his part in the bombing of the Buenos Aires Jewish Community Centre in which 87 died), and both are totally committed to the revolution, but Khamenei is obsessively concerned with both anti-Americanism and Iranian self-sufficiency. He believes confronting both the US and the current structure of international institutions like the UN, as well as clamping down on any manifestation of pro-western dress or culture, strengthens the regime and revolution.
Rafsanjani believes the regime is more likely to survive if it allows freedoms to both youth culture and women, and should compromise where necessary with the US. This he believes also strengthens his own agenda, increasing his political and financial base within the Islamic regime. Khamenei has a more austere view of revolutionary Islam and is not interested in accumulating wealth, in contrast to Rafsanjani, who is on the Forbes list as one of the richest men in the world.
Finally, and most importantly, Khamenei is determined to acquire nuclear weapons technology as soon as possible to safeguard the revolution whilst simultaneously confronting the US. Rafsanjani believes nuclear weapons can be acquired over a longer time span and to confront the US is counterproductive particularly for the economy.
· After Rafsanjani’s 2005 defeat as a result of Khamenei’s orders, Rafsanjani
committed himself to removing Ahmadinejad and if possible weakening Khamenei. Rafsanjani backed Ahmadinejad’s opponents who won a series of local elections in Tehran beating Ahmadinejad’s supporters by a margin of 2:1 (2006). Rafsanjani had also got himself elected to the Assembly of Experts and then to its Chair (2006-7), a body that in theory can deselect the Supreme Leader. Khamenei was determined to stop this threat to his position and arranged for what he believed to be the weakest team to face Ahmadinejad in the 2009 Presidential elections whilst Rafsanjani supported both of the main opposition figures Mousavi and Karrubi.
· In the 2005 first round of the Presidential race Ahmadinejad could only have come in second place by having votes taken from the other 6 candidates. The three candidates they took most votes from were Rafsanjani, who the Interior Ministry still allowed to win the first round on 21%, Mehdi Karrubi, on 17%, a moderate cleric and politician who supported dialogue with the United States and increased freedoms and protection for individuals, women, and minorities, and Dr Mostafa Moeen, on 14%, a popular reformist associate of Mousavi, who that year had been coerced into not running. Ahmadinejad was most likely between third and fifth position on 12% of the vote but because he was fighting 6 other candidates only a small percentage manipulation of the vote won him second place on 19%. Thereafter in the second round the vote was rigged even further to give Ahmadinejad a 2:1 win against Rafsanjani.
We can be almost certain of this because the other reformist candidates made up at least 56% of the first round vote, which in any case had been rigged to ensure Ahmadinejad came second. This meant that the Interior Ministry had to hand over roughly 33% of the total vote to Ahmadinejad in the second round run-off.
· Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei felt so threatened by the opposition “reformists” in 2009 that he ordered the Interior Ministry declare an outright decisive win in the first round for Ahmadinejad having picked fewer, and he assumed weaker, opposition candidates. Unfortunately for Khamenei, unlike the first round in 2005, this required a massive manipulation of the national vote and it is this blatant manipulation that not only exposed the 2009 election for a sham but also exposed how they manipulated the 2005 election as well. As Ahmadinejad put it during the 2005 campaign: “We did not have a revolution in order to have democracy (17-18 May 2005).” Ahmadinejad even won Tehran in 2009 despite his allies having lost by a 2:1 margin almost all elections there since 2006.
The 2009 fraud followed the same pattern of 2005. If a leaked Interior Ministry document is to believed, the largest percentage of the vote was once again deducted from Karrubi who instead of winning 34% of the vote won 2%, losing his own Lorestan region where in previous elections he had comfortably received 50% of the vote. This time he received 5% and Ahmadinejad 71%.
Mousavi, as the strongest candidate, had only 15% of his vote deducted, echoing what happened to Rafsanjani in the first round of 2005. This meant a total deduction of 47-48% of the national vote from the opposition to Ahmadinajad. The result: a 63% “victory” to Ahmadinejad over Mousavi’s 34%, a mirror image of the rigged 2005 second round win over Rafsanjani. The crudity of the vote manipulation was made far worse by the unexpected turnout of 80-85% and the massive vote for both Mousavi and Karrubi, requiring a crude and alarming last minute large-scale ballot stuffing process that could not escape notice. For example in Mazandarin province the number of votes cast exceeded eligible voters by 4,500.
The fraud was further confirmed by Khamenei breaking electoral rules and refusing to wait the three days necessary should any queries arise before announcing any result. He simply announced Ahmadinejad’s victory very soon after the Interior Ministry, which had announced the result 2 hours after the polls closed. The only poll that stated Ahmadinejad was leading the election by a 2:1 margin was of 1,001 people by telephone taken between 11-20 May, before the campaign got going, before the opposition were allowed access to state media, and with 27% expressing no preference. As one Iranian young woman put it: “In Iran there is an expression that the walls have mice and the mice have ears.” To express a dissenting view in a police state to a pollster on an open telephone line is a hazardous business.
· The regime has lost all legitimacy in the eyes of the vast majority of Iranians because its embodiment, The Supreme Leader Khamenei, has effectively declared ordinary Iranians’ wishes are irrelevant to the regime. And although the constitution allows the Supreme Leader to cancel “un-Islamic” election results the strategic blunder lies with the popular focus being moved from an unpopular personality to an unpopular regime. Nevertheless, despite this major blunder the regime has enormous resources at its disposal, including the Basij paramilitaries, the Revolutionary Guards, the moral police (whose Chief was arrested last year in a brothel with 6 prostitutes attending to him), the vast security apparatus, and below that elements of the army and police who would not hesitate to suppress any insurgency.
Nevertheless, the regime’s standing in the eyes of much of the free world will be diminished as the realisation dawns that this regime has no popular mandate whatsoever.
· President Abbas told the Washington Post that he would wait until PM Netanyahu and Hamas came round to his way of thinking: "I will wait ("It will take a couple of years") for Hamas to accept international commitments. I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements….Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life." Abbas’s response to why he refused Olmert’s concessions over Jerusalem, refugee resettlement, 97% of the land, and the removal of settlements was: "The gaps were wide." In the meantime other Fatah officials hinted that perhaps an intifada might move things along to their advantage.
Abbas, even by his own calculations, is up for re-election in January 2010. The assumption must be that he will stand unopposed, or will stand down. If Abbas allows Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh to stand against him he might have to rig the ballot to win.
If Fatah choose another intifada the Israelis will say Abbas has no control over the West Bank and Israel cannot make any concessions during an insurgency. Abbas’s calculation is that Obama will pressure Netanyahu’s government to give him more than Olmert offered: "They can use their weight with anyone around the world. Two years ago they used their weight on us. Now they should tell the Israelis, 'You have to comply with the conditions.' " Abbas's assumption is Israel will not be able to do so thus his calculation that within 2 years the Likud-dominated government will be replaced by Tzipi Livni. Somehow, according to his plan, she will manage to offer even more than Olmert did. This, needless to say, is pure delusion.
Even if Livni replaces Bibi, which is far from certain, she will not be able to form a government that would accept such concessions. Another opportunity will be lost, and the Palestinians will simply retort that Obama was a great disappointment or was always in the pocket of the Jews. Abbas has concocted a recipe for stalemate, and future conflict.
· The Christians, in opposition Christian leader Michel Aoun’s sector of central Lebanon, who were expected to vote for him, voted for the government’s "14 March Alliance" instead. This allowed the pro-Western coalition government of Christian and Sunni groups to retain its majority (71 of 128 seats) despite advantageous constituency changes made at the Doha Peace Conference (Qatar) to aid the opposition "8 March Alliance" comprising the Shia Hizb’allah and Amal parties and Aoun's Christian "Free Patriotic Movement" .
The election result on balance favours short-term stability in Lebanon as long as the Shia Hizb’allah party do not have to give up the independence of their militia and are allowed to continue to build their state within a state. This will change if Iran demands an attack on Israel. Israel has stated that if Hizb’allah remains part of the government, and cannot be controlled, any subsequent attack will be considered as a declaration of war by Lebanon against Israel, in which case all Lebanon’s infrastructure will be at risk from any counter-attack.
· Despite the mildly hysterical reaction in Israel to President Obama’s speech in Cairo (4 June 2009) and his demand to halt all settlement activity, his position towards violence and the Arab players was crystal clear:
1. “Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, and recognize Israel's right to exist.”
2. “The Arab States must recognize that the Arab Peace Initiative was an important beginning, but not the end of their responsibilities. The Arab-Israeli conflict should no longer be used to distract the people of Arab nations from other problems. Instead, it must be a cause for action to help the Palestinian people develop the institutions that will sustain their state; to recognize Israel's legitimacy; and to choose progress over a self-defeating focus on the past.”
3. “Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed…violence is a dead end. It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered…Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build. The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern, with institutions that serve the needs of its people.”
Strikingly, the Israelis took the President’s comments on settlements and the two-state solution to heart. The Palestinians and Arab states have failed to even recognise his expectations of them, precisely the opposite in fact, they have cravenly ignored them.
Obama must know that only sustained pressure on all the parties will move the process forward. He will not tolerate Israeli procrastination but nor will he ignore a Palestinian return to violence, or President Abbas’s desire to do nothing for the next 2 years. Other than moral and public pressure there is little Obama can do to move the peace process forward when both parties, the Palestinians in particular, are so resolutely unwilling to accept their responsibilities.
If Obama shows leadership over the nuclear crisis in North Korea, and manages to get open or tacit Chinese and Russian support to impose and apply sanctions, and U.N. resolutions against both North Korean exports of arms, and the proliferation of nuclear related materials, progress on peace could also be made. Should China and Russia be successfully brought in to deal with N. Korea then they will have less restraint on bringing their influnce to bear on Iran, Syria, and the Palestinians. Otherwise we can expect stalemate and a countdown to another conflict whether local or regional. Russia, Ehud Barak, and the Arab states have all been advocating a regional peace conference as the next step.
· The head of the CIA visited Israel secretly (late April, early May) to discuss Israel's attitude to bombing Iran and argue for proper consultation on the issue. He advised the consequences would be so grave that Israel would need the support of its allies. He also said that the constant declarations concerning Iran’s metaphysical threat to Israel were counterproductive to US efforts to engage Iran in dialogue and was creating unnecessary tension throughout the region.
Tzipi Livni also criticised Netanyahu for creating an unnecessary sense of alarm amongst the Israeli public over the threat posed by Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. If there really was a threat he should act, and if otherwise, keep his peace.
These two interventions are symptomatic of a reassessment of Israel’s position in relation to Iran’s nuclear weapons programme. Mossad head Meir Dagan has said (16 June) Iran will not be able to launch a nuclear missile until 2014, despite having sufficient enriched uranium for several nuclear devices by 2010. Other senior intelligence chiefs and advisers have stated the case for not attacking Iran until a discernible threat appears and the United States approve an attack. It has also become clear that President Obama is prepared to give Iran several months of face-to-face engagement before calling for very severe sanctions should the talks fail, and that he believes those sanctions will need to be applied for years before they have any effect.
This means that unless there is a substantial change in the balance of power, such as delivery of Russia’s S-300 anti-aircraft system, Israel could postpone a pre-emptive strike until 2012-2013.
· If Obama can push the peace process forward, and the Iranian regime continues to implode and/or agrees to develop only civil nuclear power, the prognosis is good. If, however, things continue as they are, with Iran becoming more paranoid and belligerent, and the Palestinians and Arabs offering no serious compromises, then a regional conflict is inevitable. Israel is preparing itself for a war on all fronts but will not be truly ready for such a conflict for another year or two, and Israel's anti-missile systems will not be fully operational for at least another 2 to 3 years. This means that Israel's optimum time for a pre-emptive strike will be sometime in 2012 but pretty much any scenario can present itself between now and then, as Israel is not only more than capable of fighting a war on all fronts, but Iran, Syria, and the Palestinians, are more than capable of provoking one.
Links:
Articles on Iran:
2005 election - http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/2005/Aug/gasiorowskiAug05.asp
2009 election -
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/16/iran.election.questions/index.html
Khamenei profile -
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/sadjadpour_iran_final2.pdf
Washington Post Abbas interview:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/28/AR2009052803614.html
For the best English language news site on Israel:
http://www.jpost.com/
For a vigorous Liberal-Left position of the Israeli daily paper: http://www.haaretz.com/
For a Centre-Left view on Israel, in occasionally appalling English:
http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0,7340,L-3083,00.html
For an insight into Arab and Muslim media coverage of the Israel-Palestinian issue, anti-Semitism, and other Middle East issues see:
http://www.memri.org/
For an overview of the media coverage of Israel see the BICOM (Britain Israel Research and Communications Centre) site. Below are the sites for -News headlines with links to each site:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/headlines
A written summary of the news:
news:http://www.bicom.org.uk/news
The main issues behind the news:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/briefings/behind_the_news/
Extracts from editorial and article Opinion:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/comment-and-opinion
A small selection of Quotes:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/quotes
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http://guidetotheperplexed.blogspot.com/
1 All of Israel’s main parties have shown signs of splitting after PM Netanyahu’s recent “two states” speech and Ehud Barak’s insistence upon changes to Labour’s rules.
2 Iran’s election has exposed systematic large-scale vote rigging that originated with Ahmadinejad’s first election victory in June 2005: “We did not have a revolution in order to have democracy” (Ahmadinejad; 18 May 2005).
3 President Abbas and Hamas both reveal their master plan: do nothing, or, failing that, as little as possible. Both hint, should that fail, there’s always another intifada and more rockets.
4 Some of Lebanon’s Christians have second thoughts and vote for Hariri’s coalition. Hizb’allah declare their strategy: no change.
5 President Obama’s strategy is also revealed in his Cairo speech: play it smart, cool, and straight, and do not let anyone off the hook.
6 Netanyahu has been forced to turn down the volume on the hysteria button (marked ‘Iranian threat’) by Kadima’s leader Tzipi Livni, and the head of the CIA Leon Panetta, as Israel readies itself for a regional war on all fronts. However, events may have conspired to postpone an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities until 2012-13.
· ANALYSIS
· P.M. Netanyahu’s speech won overwhelming support from 71% of Israelis as it spelt out some important truths:
1. After the Gaza experience Israel cannot risk a rocket-propelling entity a few miles from all its major urban centres, its main airport, and its main energy producing sites.
There is no guarantee Hamas will not take over the West Bank at any time in the future, so it must be demilitarised and any breaking of this agreement will be a casus belli.
2. Israel was not created as a result of the Holocaust. Israel is the Jewish people’s homeland, and has been connected to the Jewish people for over 3,500 years. To not acknowledge that is proof that the Arabs do not accept the legitimacy of “the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own, in their historic homeland.” This is evidence of a denial by the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular of Jewish history, culture, religion, and civilisation, that form the very foundation of an independent Jewish entity, and therefore at any point they can use their denial of the legitimacy of the Jewish connection to the land as a basis for another conflict. It follows that if they are serious about peace they will publicly recognise “this is the homeland of the Jewish people, this is where our identity was forged.” With official recognition of the Jewish state a demilitarised Palestinian state will be able to live side-by-side in peace and prosperity with Israel.
3. There is no equation between Palestinian suffering and the Holocaust. To equate or conflate the two in any way is to distort and deny both reality and the truth and is a deliberate assault on the memory of the lost six million and upon the survivors’ sensibilities towards that loss. This is not the mark of someone who wants peace.
4. If the United States is serious in believing that this conflict can be resolved quickly because to do so would suit American interests, namely their total dependence on Arab oil, they had better find the solutions to these Arab prejudices otherwise there can be no peace within their preferred timeframe. The ball is in the Arab and American court and that includes getting recognition of Israel and its right to exist, and the issue of settling the “refugees” in Arab lands. Israeli Prime Ministers have always been prepared to meet their enemies’ leaders, not the other way around. Israelis want peace, the Arab states want only to perpetuate the conflict. If it were otherwise they would simply repeat Sadat’s visit to Israel, or, for once, take up Israel's leaders’ endless offers to meet.
· Netanyahu’s baptysmal recognition of the possibility of two states opened up potential rifts within both the Kadima and Likud parties. 20 out of 27 Likud members insisted recognition of a two state solution was never part of the Likud’s election platform, the opposite in fact, and they would not vote for the creation of a Palestinian state. 3 Kadima members claimed that since Netanyahu had recognised the principle of the two state solution there was no longer any reason not to join the government of national unity. However none of the individuals who made these claims has as yet forced a split within the party or posed a threat to the leadership despite the fact that Kadima’s no.2 Shaul Mofaz was one of the 3 MKs who were prepared to go public on the pointlessness of Kadima remaining in opposition. Likud are framing legislation that will allow Kadima to split more easily, so that only 7 MKs, or, alternatively, a third of any party, would be required to form another party.
· Labour party rebels are 1 MK short of splitting the party. Knesset rules state a third of a party’s MKs are needed before a split can occur. 4 MKs want to leave Labour because they detest Barak, and do not want to be a part of a Likud-led national unity government. They are also unhappy at proposed new Labour committee rule changes including the neutering of the role of the secretary-general and at Ehud Barak’s removal of Eitan Cabel from that post. Should they finally split, Labour will be left with 8 MKs either in, or in support of, the government. The 5 potential rebels, including Cabel, intend to form part of the opposition under a social democrat party banner, although one may even go over to Kadima.
· Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has made his first major strategic blunder by ordering the selection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for President by blatant vote rigging. His decision has exposed the fact that Ahmedinejad did not in fact win the 2005 Presidential elections as he did not come second in the first round of those 2005 elections and so should never have been in the run-off with Ayatollah Rafsanjani.
· Ayatollahs Khamenei and Rafsanjani are long time associates and rivals who have diametrically opposed views of the future of the revolution. Both have no compunction about assassinating their opponents (Rafsanjani is wanted by Interpol for his part in the bombing of the Buenos Aires Jewish Community Centre in which 87 died), and both are totally committed to the revolution, but Khamenei is obsessively concerned with both anti-Americanism and Iranian self-sufficiency. He believes confronting both the US and the current structure of international institutions like the UN, as well as clamping down on any manifestation of pro-western dress or culture, strengthens the regime and revolution.
Rafsanjani believes the regime is more likely to survive if it allows freedoms to both youth culture and women, and should compromise where necessary with the US. This he believes also strengthens his own agenda, increasing his political and financial base within the Islamic regime. Khamenei has a more austere view of revolutionary Islam and is not interested in accumulating wealth, in contrast to Rafsanjani, who is on the Forbes list as one of the richest men in the world.
Finally, and most importantly, Khamenei is determined to acquire nuclear weapons technology as soon as possible to safeguard the revolution whilst simultaneously confronting the US. Rafsanjani believes nuclear weapons can be acquired over a longer time span and to confront the US is counterproductive particularly for the economy.
· After Rafsanjani’s 2005 defeat as a result of Khamenei’s orders, Rafsanjani
committed himself to removing Ahmadinejad and if possible weakening Khamenei. Rafsanjani backed Ahmadinejad’s opponents who won a series of local elections in Tehran beating Ahmadinejad’s supporters by a margin of 2:1 (2006). Rafsanjani had also got himself elected to the Assembly of Experts and then to its Chair (2006-7), a body that in theory can deselect the Supreme Leader. Khamenei was determined to stop this threat to his position and arranged for what he believed to be the weakest team to face Ahmadinejad in the 2009 Presidential elections whilst Rafsanjani supported both of the main opposition figures Mousavi and Karrubi.
· In the 2005 first round of the Presidential race Ahmadinejad could only have come in second place by having votes taken from the other 6 candidates. The three candidates they took most votes from were Rafsanjani, who the Interior Ministry still allowed to win the first round on 21%, Mehdi Karrubi, on 17%, a moderate cleric and politician who supported dialogue with the United States and increased freedoms and protection for individuals, women, and minorities, and Dr Mostafa Moeen, on 14%, a popular reformist associate of Mousavi, who that year had been coerced into not running. Ahmadinejad was most likely between third and fifth position on 12% of the vote but because he was fighting 6 other candidates only a small percentage manipulation of the vote won him second place on 19%. Thereafter in the second round the vote was rigged even further to give Ahmadinejad a 2:1 win against Rafsanjani.
We can be almost certain of this because the other reformist candidates made up at least 56% of the first round vote, which in any case had been rigged to ensure Ahmadinejad came second. This meant that the Interior Ministry had to hand over roughly 33% of the total vote to Ahmadinejad in the second round run-off.
· Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei felt so threatened by the opposition “reformists” in 2009 that he ordered the Interior Ministry declare an outright decisive win in the first round for Ahmadinejad having picked fewer, and he assumed weaker, opposition candidates. Unfortunately for Khamenei, unlike the first round in 2005, this required a massive manipulation of the national vote and it is this blatant manipulation that not only exposed the 2009 election for a sham but also exposed how they manipulated the 2005 election as well. As Ahmadinejad put it during the 2005 campaign: “We did not have a revolution in order to have democracy (17-18 May 2005).” Ahmadinejad even won Tehran in 2009 despite his allies having lost by a 2:1 margin almost all elections there since 2006.
The 2009 fraud followed the same pattern of 2005. If a leaked Interior Ministry document is to believed, the largest percentage of the vote was once again deducted from Karrubi who instead of winning 34% of the vote won 2%, losing his own Lorestan region where in previous elections he had comfortably received 50% of the vote. This time he received 5% and Ahmadinejad 71%.
Mousavi, as the strongest candidate, had only 15% of his vote deducted, echoing what happened to Rafsanjani in the first round of 2005. This meant a total deduction of 47-48% of the national vote from the opposition to Ahmadinajad. The result: a 63% “victory” to Ahmadinejad over Mousavi’s 34%, a mirror image of the rigged 2005 second round win over Rafsanjani. The crudity of the vote manipulation was made far worse by the unexpected turnout of 80-85% and the massive vote for both Mousavi and Karrubi, requiring a crude and alarming last minute large-scale ballot stuffing process that could not escape notice. For example in Mazandarin province the number of votes cast exceeded eligible voters by 4,500.
The fraud was further confirmed by Khamenei breaking electoral rules and refusing to wait the three days necessary should any queries arise before announcing any result. He simply announced Ahmadinejad’s victory very soon after the Interior Ministry, which had announced the result 2 hours after the polls closed. The only poll that stated Ahmadinejad was leading the election by a 2:1 margin was of 1,001 people by telephone taken between 11-20 May, before the campaign got going, before the opposition were allowed access to state media, and with 27% expressing no preference. As one Iranian young woman put it: “In Iran there is an expression that the walls have mice and the mice have ears.” To express a dissenting view in a police state to a pollster on an open telephone line is a hazardous business.
· The regime has lost all legitimacy in the eyes of the vast majority of Iranians because its embodiment, The Supreme Leader Khamenei, has effectively declared ordinary Iranians’ wishes are irrelevant to the regime. And although the constitution allows the Supreme Leader to cancel “un-Islamic” election results the strategic blunder lies with the popular focus being moved from an unpopular personality to an unpopular regime. Nevertheless, despite this major blunder the regime has enormous resources at its disposal, including the Basij paramilitaries, the Revolutionary Guards, the moral police (whose Chief was arrested last year in a brothel with 6 prostitutes attending to him), the vast security apparatus, and below that elements of the army and police who would not hesitate to suppress any insurgency.
Nevertheless, the regime’s standing in the eyes of much of the free world will be diminished as the realisation dawns that this regime has no popular mandate whatsoever.
· President Abbas told the Washington Post that he would wait until PM Netanyahu and Hamas came round to his way of thinking: "I will wait ("It will take a couple of years") for Hamas to accept international commitments. I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements….Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life." Abbas’s response to why he refused Olmert’s concessions over Jerusalem, refugee resettlement, 97% of the land, and the removal of settlements was: "The gaps were wide." In the meantime other Fatah officials hinted that perhaps an intifada might move things along to their advantage.
Abbas, even by his own calculations, is up for re-election in January 2010. The assumption must be that he will stand unopposed, or will stand down. If Abbas allows Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh to stand against him he might have to rig the ballot to win.
If Fatah choose another intifada the Israelis will say Abbas has no control over the West Bank and Israel cannot make any concessions during an insurgency. Abbas’s calculation is that Obama will pressure Netanyahu’s government to give him more than Olmert offered: "They can use their weight with anyone around the world. Two years ago they used their weight on us. Now they should tell the Israelis, 'You have to comply with the conditions.' " Abbas's assumption is Israel will not be able to do so thus his calculation that within 2 years the Likud-dominated government will be replaced by Tzipi Livni. Somehow, according to his plan, she will manage to offer even more than Olmert did. This, needless to say, is pure delusion.
Even if Livni replaces Bibi, which is far from certain, she will not be able to form a government that would accept such concessions. Another opportunity will be lost, and the Palestinians will simply retort that Obama was a great disappointment or was always in the pocket of the Jews. Abbas has concocted a recipe for stalemate, and future conflict.
· The Christians, in opposition Christian leader Michel Aoun’s sector of central Lebanon, who were expected to vote for him, voted for the government’s "14 March Alliance" instead. This allowed the pro-Western coalition government of Christian and Sunni groups to retain its majority (71 of 128 seats) despite advantageous constituency changes made at the Doha Peace Conference (Qatar) to aid the opposition "8 March Alliance" comprising the Shia Hizb’allah and Amal parties and Aoun's Christian "Free Patriotic Movement" .
The election result on balance favours short-term stability in Lebanon as long as the Shia Hizb’allah party do not have to give up the independence of their militia and are allowed to continue to build their state within a state. This will change if Iran demands an attack on Israel. Israel has stated that if Hizb’allah remains part of the government, and cannot be controlled, any subsequent attack will be considered as a declaration of war by Lebanon against Israel, in which case all Lebanon’s infrastructure will be at risk from any counter-attack.
· Despite the mildly hysterical reaction in Israel to President Obama’s speech in Cairo (4 June 2009) and his demand to halt all settlement activity, his position towards violence and the Arab players was crystal clear:
1. “Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, and recognize Israel's right to exist.”
2. “The Arab States must recognize that the Arab Peace Initiative was an important beginning, but not the end of their responsibilities. The Arab-Israeli conflict should no longer be used to distract the people of Arab nations from other problems. Instead, it must be a cause for action to help the Palestinian people develop the institutions that will sustain their state; to recognize Israel's legitimacy; and to choose progress over a self-defeating focus on the past.”
3. “Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed…violence is a dead end. It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered…Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build. The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern, with institutions that serve the needs of its people.”
Strikingly, the Israelis took the President’s comments on settlements and the two-state solution to heart. The Palestinians and Arab states have failed to even recognise his expectations of them, precisely the opposite in fact, they have cravenly ignored them.
Obama must know that only sustained pressure on all the parties will move the process forward. He will not tolerate Israeli procrastination but nor will he ignore a Palestinian return to violence, or President Abbas’s desire to do nothing for the next 2 years. Other than moral and public pressure there is little Obama can do to move the peace process forward when both parties, the Palestinians in particular, are so resolutely unwilling to accept their responsibilities.
If Obama shows leadership over the nuclear crisis in North Korea, and manages to get open or tacit Chinese and Russian support to impose and apply sanctions, and U.N. resolutions against both North Korean exports of arms, and the proliferation of nuclear related materials, progress on peace could also be made. Should China and Russia be successfully brought in to deal with N. Korea then they will have less restraint on bringing their influnce to bear on Iran, Syria, and the Palestinians. Otherwise we can expect stalemate and a countdown to another conflict whether local or regional. Russia, Ehud Barak, and the Arab states have all been advocating a regional peace conference as the next step.
· The head of the CIA visited Israel secretly (late April, early May) to discuss Israel's attitude to bombing Iran and argue for proper consultation on the issue. He advised the consequences would be so grave that Israel would need the support of its allies. He also said that the constant declarations concerning Iran’s metaphysical threat to Israel were counterproductive to US efforts to engage Iran in dialogue and was creating unnecessary tension throughout the region.
Tzipi Livni also criticised Netanyahu for creating an unnecessary sense of alarm amongst the Israeli public over the threat posed by Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. If there really was a threat he should act, and if otherwise, keep his peace.
These two interventions are symptomatic of a reassessment of Israel’s position in relation to Iran’s nuclear weapons programme. Mossad head Meir Dagan has said (16 June) Iran will not be able to launch a nuclear missile until 2014, despite having sufficient enriched uranium for several nuclear devices by 2010. Other senior intelligence chiefs and advisers have stated the case for not attacking Iran until a discernible threat appears and the United States approve an attack. It has also become clear that President Obama is prepared to give Iran several months of face-to-face engagement before calling for very severe sanctions should the talks fail, and that he believes those sanctions will need to be applied for years before they have any effect.
This means that unless there is a substantial change in the balance of power, such as delivery of Russia’s S-300 anti-aircraft system, Israel could postpone a pre-emptive strike until 2012-2013.
· If Obama can push the peace process forward, and the Iranian regime continues to implode and/or agrees to develop only civil nuclear power, the prognosis is good. If, however, things continue as they are, with Iran becoming more paranoid and belligerent, and the Palestinians and Arabs offering no serious compromises, then a regional conflict is inevitable. Israel is preparing itself for a war on all fronts but will not be truly ready for such a conflict for another year or two, and Israel's anti-missile systems will not be fully operational for at least another 2 to 3 years. This means that Israel's optimum time for a pre-emptive strike will be sometime in 2012 but pretty much any scenario can present itself between now and then, as Israel is not only more than capable of fighting a war on all fronts, but Iran, Syria, and the Palestinians, are more than capable of provoking one.
Links:
Articles on Iran:
2005 election - http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/2005/Aug/gasiorowskiAug05.asp
2009 election -
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/16/iran.election.questions/index.html
Khamenei profile -
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/sadjadpour_iran_final2.pdf
Washington Post Abbas interview:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/28/AR2009052803614.html
For the best English language news site on Israel:
http://www.jpost.com/
For a vigorous Liberal-Left position of the Israeli daily paper: http://www.haaretz.com/
For a Centre-Left view on Israel, in occasionally appalling English:
http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0,7340,L-3083,00.html
For an insight into Arab and Muslim media coverage of the Israel-Palestinian issue, anti-Semitism, and other Middle East issues see:
http://www.memri.org/
For an overview of the media coverage of Israel see the BICOM (Britain Israel Research and Communications Centre) site. Below are the sites for -News headlines with links to each site:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/headlines
A written summary of the news:
news:http://www.bicom.org.uk/news
The main issues behind the news:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/briefings/behind_the_news/
Extracts from editorial and article Opinion:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/comment-and-opinion
A small selection of Quotes:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/quotes
_____________________________________________
_____________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________
__________________________
Sunday, 5 April 2009
Lieberman is the weakest link – Barak triumphant until his next act of sabotage
This site is unconnected to the award winning blog concerned with: "Reflections on human rights and peacemaking in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" for that site please click on:
http://guidetotheperplexed.blogspot.com/
· MAIN POINTS
1 Lieberman holds the key to the current government’s duration. He may be indicted within months. If his party loses the Foreign Ministry he will withdraw it from the government forcing new elections, or, more likely, new government alignments.
2 Barak will betray Netanyahu at the first opportunity but his aim is to stay as Minister of Defence for at least the next 2 years. Attempts will be made to oust him by the Labour Left within 14 months but he will almost certainly successfully rebuff them.
3 Livni’s political future will depend upon how long Netanyahu can stay in power, as her party may begin to split within the first year or two of opposition.
4 Israel will attempt to neutralise Iran’s nuclear weapons programme within 2 years. There will be no attempt to neutralise Iran’s nuclear weapons programme in 2009 unless Russia expedites the sale of the S-300 missile defence system.
5 President Ahmadinejad and Hizb’allah will doubtless be triumphant in the upcoming summer elections in Iran and Lebanon respectively, further increasing the probability of an Israeli effort to neutralise Iran’s nuclear weapons project.
· ANALYSIS
· Lieberman has promised to keep his government in the coalition even if he is indicted on money laundering, fraud, and bribery charges, which should be within the next 2-3 months according to National Fraud Unit officials’ estimates. However, Likud have threatened to give his Foreign Ministry post to Silvan Shalom, Bibi Netanyahu’s biggest Likud rival, in order to placate him and his supporters who feel they were treated disrespectfully by PM Netanyahu. The likeliest outcome is that another Israel Beitenu MK will replace Lieberman, possibly ex Foreign Ministry advisor and official, Danny Ayalon, the current Deputy Foreign Minister.
Were Bibi to be foolish enough to try and give the Foreign Ministry to a non-Israel Beitenu MK, then Lieberman would enforce his threat to withdraw his party from the coalition, which would lead to elections.
· Defence Minister and Labour Party leader Ehud Barak has only one year, according to Labour Party rules, before he has to face a leadership campaign because he lost the general election. Although there is a theoretical possibility he could be ousted, the Left in the Labour Party have shown themselves impotent against Barak’s supreme ability to manipulate the Labour Party central committee vote. Barak should have been dead and buried politically after his party’s dreadful showing in the election, the worst in Labour’s history. Yet, he outwitted Tzipi Livni, Bibi Netanyahu, and the Left of the Labour Party and gained the Defence Ministry for himself, and the Industry, Welfare, Agriculture, and Minorities, Ministries for Labour.
This is an unquestionable triumph under the circumstances but the subsequent price to be paid may be very high as a third of all Labour voters now say they will not support Labour as long as Barak remains its leader. However, this only matters if a new election is called soon as the Israeli electorate are notoriously volatile in their attitudes towards senior politicians. Ehud Olmert, for example, went from 3% to 33% approval ratings within several months (2006-7).
· The Barak-Bibi relationship is based upon shared experience within the elite commando unit Sayeret Matkal, as well as political necessity. Bibi needs Barak as a counter weight to both his own right wing within the Likud as well as the government coalition, and to any pressure from the United States. They also both need to gain votes from the centre Kadima party that attracted, and is mostly based upon, traditional Labour and Likud voters. If Barak and Bibi can squeeze Kadima then both of their parties will gain.
They are also both in broad agreement about the threat from Iran. Both believe that action against Iran may be necessary at any time, but also agree that they should give the United States some time to get an agreement from Iran not to pursue its nuclear weapons programme any further, if necessary through the implementation of sanctions.
They also believe that there is not likely to be any progress on peace talks, on either the Syrian or Palestinian front, as long as Iran remains an active and effective participant or player. Neither believe that a comprehensive peace is likely within the next few years. They do, however, disagree vehemently over the sacrifices needed for peace. Barak would give up the Golan Heights and the West Bank, and even parts of East Jerusalem, whereas Bibi believes the most the Palestinians can in practice be offered is a form of limited autonomy that would enable them to create a prosperous and stable society and economy, and that the Golan Heights could only be given back to Syria in certain extreme circumstances such as a total rejection of violence by Syria and a token Syrian civilian presence. Fortunately for their alliance there is no prospect either the Syrians or the Palestinians are prepared to make the concessions necessary for either Bibi or Barak to believe it politically expedient to abandon the other.
· However, Barak is by nature conspiratorial and controlling, and if he sees any advantage to be gained by sabotaging the coalition he will do so just as he did with Ehud Olmert. This can arise if he sees splits in Kadima, or the right wing coalition, and, of course, he will do all in his power to provoke such splits. In the meantime, if necessary for the next four years, he will do everything he can to bolster Labour’s narrow interests. His main priority as Defence Minister is to implement the ‘Iron Dome’ and ‘David’s Sling’ anti-missile systems that are, in theory, capable of intercepting Qassam, Katyusha, Grad, and Fajr, short and medium range incoming missiles. Parts of the defence shield will be deployed by 2010, but the system should be in place nationwide sometime in 2011 or early 2012. In the meantime his other priority is to sabotage Iran’s nuclear weapons programme.
· It is clear that Tzipi Livni is now in the most vulnerable position. She has been out-thought, out-manoeuvred, and out-witted by Ehud Barak, who should have been forced into political retirement by now but instead is currently in charge of all the key Ministries Labour has traditionally been associated with (Welfare, Agriculture, Minorities, and Industry). Livni has once again shown she has no strategic political vision, and believes principles lie at the heart of politics rather than the ability to gain and wield power, which in turn allows you the possibility to implement the policies that your principles dictate. Livni has not only put the cart before the horse she has also managed to bolt the proverbial gate locking herself and her party outside.
Kadima is a coalition of centre-left and centre-right personalities and policies, that was created and designed by ex-PM Ariel Sharon to hold the centre ground in any conceivable combination of government coalition. Its members joined precisely because they believed they were guaranteed, as the centre political party in a highly representative system of proportional representation, to be permanently in power. It is Livni’s genius that she has managed for the first time in Israel’s history to deny the political centre any representation in government. She has also rendered to Barak’s Labour Party the position of indispensable party of the centre. Her greatest task therefore will be to hold her party together. The longer the government coalition lasts the more difficult this will be. The government and Kadima are now in a race as to who will fragment first.
· Any imminent attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities and programme will depend on whether Russia decides it is in her interests to supply Iran with the S-300 anti-air missile defence system. Russia sees herself in a win-win situation. If Israel attacks Iran then the price for Russian oil and gas and the demand for Russian military and nuclear technologies will increase along with Russia’s revenues. At the same time the United States as an ally of Israel will be harmed diplomatically and economically further undermining her position as a superpower. It will also bolster Russia’s argument that an anti missile system is not needed in the Czech Republic or Poland. If it was so easy to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons programmes and systems how could Iran pose a serious threat to the United States or Western Europe?
If Israel does not attack then both her and the United States’ bluff will have been called and Russia can continue to supply nuclear technology and arms to whomsoever she chooses. This also undermines the US position as superpower, and allows Russia to compete on the world stage. Russia can then control Iran’s desire to gain nuclear weapons in her own inimitable style by threatening to withdraw all technological and military aid leaving Iran exposed to all comers.
· Ehud Barak and Bibi Netanyahu remain confident that they can control all threats, whether an intifada on the West Bank, missiles from Gaza, or terror attacks from Lebanon, on a case-by-case basis. Iran may feel the need to attack Israeli and Jewish interests through acts of global terror in order to bring pressure to bear and to make Israel overreact, thus putting Israel on the defensive again, and allowing Iran to get on with her nuclear programme unhindered. But it is clear Barak and Bibi are content to slowly build up Israel’s defences until such time they feel the need to destroy Iran’s facilities. Unless, that is, the global community decides to take the Iranian threat seriously.
President Barack Obama has just stated that he is “determined to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.” This comes in the context of North Korea firing a ballistic rocket over Japan, Iran’s recent firing of an inter-continental rocket into space, and Pakistan, the only Muslim nuclear power, imploding into civil war. No sane senior western politician wants to repeat this scenario with Iran, particularly as President Ahmadinejad’s victory in June’s general election is all but guaranteed by Ayatollah Khamenei’s support. The ball is now in the international community’s court but based on past behaviour nothing will happen. So we can expect a strike by Israel within two to three years, less if the S-300 is delivered.
· As for progress with the Palestinians, unless Hamas and Fatah can reconcile, Hamas recognises Israel, a courageous Palestinian leader arises who is prepared to compromise over Jerusalem and refugees, and renounce all violence and can deliver his people to that commitment, there can and will be no substantial progress. Israel has had enough of European cowardice, United States inactivity, Palestinian intransigence, Syrian Orwellian double-speak, and Iranian calls for her liquidation. Most of Israel’s current political elite understands that Iran holds the key to progress and that only her effective removal from the political process will result in any substantive development.
The Palestinians will not accept this situation and will increase their resistance accordingly as existing settlements expand and with little to nothing being done about any illegal ones. All offers by Netanyahu to help develop the West Bank’s economy without political concessions will be rejected. Stalemate amidst increasing and continued unrest will characterise the next year or two on the West Bank. This, in turn, will probably result in President Abbas’ resignation by the end of the year leaving the field free for a more radical Fatah Presidential candidate in January 2010.
Links:
For the best English language news site on Israel:
http://www.jpost.com/
For a vigorous Liberal-Left position of the Israeli daily paper:
http://www.haaretz.com/
For a Centre-Left view on Israel, in occasionally appalling English:
http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0,7340,L-3083,00.html
For an insight into Arab and Muslim media coverage of the Israel-Palestinian issue, anti-Semitism, and other Middle East issues see:
http://www.memri.org/
For an overview of the media coverage of Israel see the BICOM (Britain Israel Research and Communications Centre) site. Below are the sites for -News headlines with links to each site:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/headlines
A written summary of the news:
news:http://www.bicom.org.uk/news
The main issues behind the news:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/briefings/behind_the_news/
Extracts from editorial and article Opinion:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/comment-and-opinion
A small selection of Quotes:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/quotes
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
____________________________________
__________________________
http://guidetotheperplexed.blogspot.com/
· MAIN POINTS
1 Lieberman holds the key to the current government’s duration. He may be indicted within months. If his party loses the Foreign Ministry he will withdraw it from the government forcing new elections, or, more likely, new government alignments.
2 Barak will betray Netanyahu at the first opportunity but his aim is to stay as Minister of Defence for at least the next 2 years. Attempts will be made to oust him by the Labour Left within 14 months but he will almost certainly successfully rebuff them.
3 Livni’s political future will depend upon how long Netanyahu can stay in power, as her party may begin to split within the first year or two of opposition.
4 Israel will attempt to neutralise Iran’s nuclear weapons programme within 2 years. There will be no attempt to neutralise Iran’s nuclear weapons programme in 2009 unless Russia expedites the sale of the S-300 missile defence system.
5 President Ahmadinejad and Hizb’allah will doubtless be triumphant in the upcoming summer elections in Iran and Lebanon respectively, further increasing the probability of an Israeli effort to neutralise Iran’s nuclear weapons project.
· ANALYSIS
· Lieberman has promised to keep his government in the coalition even if he is indicted on money laundering, fraud, and bribery charges, which should be within the next 2-3 months according to National Fraud Unit officials’ estimates. However, Likud have threatened to give his Foreign Ministry post to Silvan Shalom, Bibi Netanyahu’s biggest Likud rival, in order to placate him and his supporters who feel they were treated disrespectfully by PM Netanyahu. The likeliest outcome is that another Israel Beitenu MK will replace Lieberman, possibly ex Foreign Ministry advisor and official, Danny Ayalon, the current Deputy Foreign Minister.
Were Bibi to be foolish enough to try and give the Foreign Ministry to a non-Israel Beitenu MK, then Lieberman would enforce his threat to withdraw his party from the coalition, which would lead to elections.
· Defence Minister and Labour Party leader Ehud Barak has only one year, according to Labour Party rules, before he has to face a leadership campaign because he lost the general election. Although there is a theoretical possibility he could be ousted, the Left in the Labour Party have shown themselves impotent against Barak’s supreme ability to manipulate the Labour Party central committee vote. Barak should have been dead and buried politically after his party’s dreadful showing in the election, the worst in Labour’s history. Yet, he outwitted Tzipi Livni, Bibi Netanyahu, and the Left of the Labour Party and gained the Defence Ministry for himself, and the Industry, Welfare, Agriculture, and Minorities, Ministries for Labour.
This is an unquestionable triumph under the circumstances but the subsequent price to be paid may be very high as a third of all Labour voters now say they will not support Labour as long as Barak remains its leader. However, this only matters if a new election is called soon as the Israeli electorate are notoriously volatile in their attitudes towards senior politicians. Ehud Olmert, for example, went from 3% to 33% approval ratings within several months (2006-7).
· The Barak-Bibi relationship is based upon shared experience within the elite commando unit Sayeret Matkal, as well as political necessity. Bibi needs Barak as a counter weight to both his own right wing within the Likud as well as the government coalition, and to any pressure from the United States. They also both need to gain votes from the centre Kadima party that attracted, and is mostly based upon, traditional Labour and Likud voters. If Barak and Bibi can squeeze Kadima then both of their parties will gain.
They are also both in broad agreement about the threat from Iran. Both believe that action against Iran may be necessary at any time, but also agree that they should give the United States some time to get an agreement from Iran not to pursue its nuclear weapons programme any further, if necessary through the implementation of sanctions.
They also believe that there is not likely to be any progress on peace talks, on either the Syrian or Palestinian front, as long as Iran remains an active and effective participant or player. Neither believe that a comprehensive peace is likely within the next few years. They do, however, disagree vehemently over the sacrifices needed for peace. Barak would give up the Golan Heights and the West Bank, and even parts of East Jerusalem, whereas Bibi believes the most the Palestinians can in practice be offered is a form of limited autonomy that would enable them to create a prosperous and stable society and economy, and that the Golan Heights could only be given back to Syria in certain extreme circumstances such as a total rejection of violence by Syria and a token Syrian civilian presence. Fortunately for their alliance there is no prospect either the Syrians or the Palestinians are prepared to make the concessions necessary for either Bibi or Barak to believe it politically expedient to abandon the other.
· However, Barak is by nature conspiratorial and controlling, and if he sees any advantage to be gained by sabotaging the coalition he will do so just as he did with Ehud Olmert. This can arise if he sees splits in Kadima, or the right wing coalition, and, of course, he will do all in his power to provoke such splits. In the meantime, if necessary for the next four years, he will do everything he can to bolster Labour’s narrow interests. His main priority as Defence Minister is to implement the ‘Iron Dome’ and ‘David’s Sling’ anti-missile systems that are, in theory, capable of intercepting Qassam, Katyusha, Grad, and Fajr, short and medium range incoming missiles. Parts of the defence shield will be deployed by 2010, but the system should be in place nationwide sometime in 2011 or early 2012. In the meantime his other priority is to sabotage Iran’s nuclear weapons programme.
· It is clear that Tzipi Livni is now in the most vulnerable position. She has been out-thought, out-manoeuvred, and out-witted by Ehud Barak, who should have been forced into political retirement by now but instead is currently in charge of all the key Ministries Labour has traditionally been associated with (Welfare, Agriculture, Minorities, and Industry). Livni has once again shown she has no strategic political vision, and believes principles lie at the heart of politics rather than the ability to gain and wield power, which in turn allows you the possibility to implement the policies that your principles dictate. Livni has not only put the cart before the horse she has also managed to bolt the proverbial gate locking herself and her party outside.
Kadima is a coalition of centre-left and centre-right personalities and policies, that was created and designed by ex-PM Ariel Sharon to hold the centre ground in any conceivable combination of government coalition. Its members joined precisely because they believed they were guaranteed, as the centre political party in a highly representative system of proportional representation, to be permanently in power. It is Livni’s genius that she has managed for the first time in Israel’s history to deny the political centre any representation in government. She has also rendered to Barak’s Labour Party the position of indispensable party of the centre. Her greatest task therefore will be to hold her party together. The longer the government coalition lasts the more difficult this will be. The government and Kadima are now in a race as to who will fragment first.
· Any imminent attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities and programme will depend on whether Russia decides it is in her interests to supply Iran with the S-300 anti-air missile defence system. Russia sees herself in a win-win situation. If Israel attacks Iran then the price for Russian oil and gas and the demand for Russian military and nuclear technologies will increase along with Russia’s revenues. At the same time the United States as an ally of Israel will be harmed diplomatically and economically further undermining her position as a superpower. It will also bolster Russia’s argument that an anti missile system is not needed in the Czech Republic or Poland. If it was so easy to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons programmes and systems how could Iran pose a serious threat to the United States or Western Europe?
If Israel does not attack then both her and the United States’ bluff will have been called and Russia can continue to supply nuclear technology and arms to whomsoever she chooses. This also undermines the US position as superpower, and allows Russia to compete on the world stage. Russia can then control Iran’s desire to gain nuclear weapons in her own inimitable style by threatening to withdraw all technological and military aid leaving Iran exposed to all comers.
· Ehud Barak and Bibi Netanyahu remain confident that they can control all threats, whether an intifada on the West Bank, missiles from Gaza, or terror attacks from Lebanon, on a case-by-case basis. Iran may feel the need to attack Israeli and Jewish interests through acts of global terror in order to bring pressure to bear and to make Israel overreact, thus putting Israel on the defensive again, and allowing Iran to get on with her nuclear programme unhindered. But it is clear Barak and Bibi are content to slowly build up Israel’s defences until such time they feel the need to destroy Iran’s facilities. Unless, that is, the global community decides to take the Iranian threat seriously.
President Barack Obama has just stated that he is “determined to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.” This comes in the context of North Korea firing a ballistic rocket over Japan, Iran’s recent firing of an inter-continental rocket into space, and Pakistan, the only Muslim nuclear power, imploding into civil war. No sane senior western politician wants to repeat this scenario with Iran, particularly as President Ahmadinejad’s victory in June’s general election is all but guaranteed by Ayatollah Khamenei’s support. The ball is now in the international community’s court but based on past behaviour nothing will happen. So we can expect a strike by Israel within two to three years, less if the S-300 is delivered.
· As for progress with the Palestinians, unless Hamas and Fatah can reconcile, Hamas recognises Israel, a courageous Palestinian leader arises who is prepared to compromise over Jerusalem and refugees, and renounce all violence and can deliver his people to that commitment, there can and will be no substantial progress. Israel has had enough of European cowardice, United States inactivity, Palestinian intransigence, Syrian Orwellian double-speak, and Iranian calls for her liquidation. Most of Israel’s current political elite understands that Iran holds the key to progress and that only her effective removal from the political process will result in any substantive development.
The Palestinians will not accept this situation and will increase their resistance accordingly as existing settlements expand and with little to nothing being done about any illegal ones. All offers by Netanyahu to help develop the West Bank’s economy without political concessions will be rejected. Stalemate amidst increasing and continued unrest will characterise the next year or two on the West Bank. This, in turn, will probably result in President Abbas’ resignation by the end of the year leaving the field free for a more radical Fatah Presidential candidate in January 2010.
Links:
For the best English language news site on Israel:
http://www.jpost.com/
For a vigorous Liberal-Left position of the Israeli daily paper:
http://www.haaretz.com/
For a Centre-Left view on Israel, in occasionally appalling English:
http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0,7340,L-3083,00.html
For an insight into Arab and Muslim media coverage of the Israel-Palestinian issue, anti-Semitism, and other Middle East issues see:
http://www.memri.org/
For an overview of the media coverage of Israel see the BICOM (Britain Israel Research and Communications Centre) site. Below are the sites for -News headlines with links to each site:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/headlines
A written summary of the news:
news:http://www.bicom.org.uk/news
The main issues behind the news:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/briefings/behind_the_news/
Extracts from editorial and article Opinion:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/comment-and-opinion
A small selection of Quotes:
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/quotes
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