Foreign Affairs and Iran and Israel and Middle East and Palestine and peace process and US Foreign Policy
Bill Clinton, Chas Freeman, David Petraeus, Foreign Policy, G-20, Israel, Joe Lockhart, Middle East, Netanyahu, Netanyahu liar, Obama, peace process, sarkozy Sandboxer
10:50 pm
By Sharmine Narwani
For Middle East watchers, the revelation that a major head of state called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “liar” is, well, not exactly news. French president Nicholas Sarkozy needs to get in line behind the many other politicians who have thrown up their arms over Netanyahu’s unusual – even for politics – propensity for duplicity.
Former Clinton White House Spokesman Joe Lockhart, in his book “The Truth About Camp David” calls the Israeli prime minister, “one of the most obnoxious individuals you’re going to come into – just a liar and a cheat. He could open his mouth and you could have no confidence that anything that came out of it was the truth.”
The latest brouhaha over Netanyahu’s character emerged at the G-20 meeting in Cannes last week, when reporters unintentionally caught three minutes of candid conversation between Sarkozy and US President Barack Obama. Here is the conversation according to the New York Times:
“I cannot stand him,” Mr. Sarkozy was quoted as saying. “He is a liar.”
Mr. Obama is reported to have replied, “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day!”
My reaction was two-fold. Firstly, why does the president of the United States have to “deal” with Netanyahu “every day?” Israel’s strategic value to the United States has never been less apparent at a time when its pariah value is on the rise globally. In 2010, this thinking entered the political mainstream when CENTCOM’s then- commander General David Petraeus and US Vice President Joe Biden publicly suggested that the Jewish state may even be a liability in certain vital policy areas. (more…)
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Arab Awakening and Israel and Lebanon and Middle East and Syria
Annexation of Golan, Arab Awakening, assad, Geneva Conventions, Golan Heights, Hassan Hijazi, Israel, Lebanon, Majd al Shams, Maroun al Ras, Netanyahu, palestinians, Six Day War, syria, UNSC Resolution 497 Sandboxer
10:06 pm
By Sharmine Narwani
On Sunday, around 1,000 unarmed civilians marched to the ceasefire line between Syria and the Golan Heights to protest Israel’s occupation of Arab lands following the 1967 war. Hours later, in the worst bloodshed since the 1973 war between Israel and Syria, up to 23 civilians were dead and hundreds wounded after Israeli troops opened live fire on the protestors.
In the West Bank, fellow protestors were only injured, as Israeli troops used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse crowds that were only a few feet away from them.
In Majd al Shams on the occupied Golan Heights, however, the Palestinian and Syrian demonstrators were many yards away – behind barbed wire fences – never having crossed any ceasefire line.
As was the case with the 11 unarmed protestors in Lebanon killed by Israeli forces on May 15 in Maroun al Ras. Those civilians had not crossed any border either.
Israel’s fears are understandable. The notion that Palestinians and Syrians can “just walk home” to their occupied houses and villages could destroy the deterrence barriers that Israel has worked hard to erect since 1948 and 1967. Which is why it was important for the Jewish State to teach these populations a lesson, even if it meant killing a few dozen.
That makes Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu no different than Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Syria’s Bashar al Assad, Bahrain’s Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh – and other autocrats still waiting their turn.
All fired live rounds at unarmed civilian populations voicing their grievances and exercising their right to congregate in public.
Justifying Civilian Death
Just three weeks earlier, on May 15, Palestinian and Syrian protestors in the Golan Heights broke through the barbed wire fence, poured over the ceasefire line, met up with friends and relatives, and then went home. One particularly determined fellow – 28-year-old Hassan Hijazi who was galvanized by a Facebook group to join the protests – even decided to visit his parent’s old house in Jaffa and hitched a ride alongside some Israeli soldiers to get there. He later turned himself in to authorities and was duly escorted back to the ceasefire line by security agents.
That very recent incident contrasted sharply on Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s portrayal of the Golan demonstrators as “extremist elements” who “are trying to break through our borders and threaten our communities and our citizens.”
As the Israeli spin machine went into overdrive, we were subjected to the kinds of drivel we are by now used to hearing from regional dictators on their last legs:
The it-wasn’t-us argument: “A Syrian mine exploded, seemingly because Molotov cocktails thrown at (Israeli) forces started a bush fire which caused the explosion of the mine, a number of mines even,” an Israeli army spokeswoman said – ostensibly blaming the deaths on mines and not IDF bullets.
The deflection argument: “We believe that the Syrian regime is focusing the world’s attention on the border with Israel instead of what is happening there,” said another military spokesperson.
The extremists-are-involved argument: Oops. Netanyahu did that one himself.
Military spokesman Yoav Mordechai called the killings “a measured, focused and proper response.” The only thing that apparently needs “measuring” is his sanity – the videos of the Golan clashes clearly show protestors behind a barbed wire fence being shot at by Israeli sharpshooters. Like target practice. (more…)
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Foreign Affairs and Israel and Middle East and Palestine and peace process and US Foreign Policy
annapolis agreement, Arab League, European union, Israel, lieberman, livni, madrid peace conference, Mahmoud Abbas, Netanyahu, occupation, Occupied Territories, oslo accord, palestine, Peace Game, peace process, quartet, settlements, UN Security Council, United Nations, West Bank Sandboxer
9:12 pm
The Palestine-Israel conflict is no pesky regional skirmish. This century-long battle over territory threatens to draw the entire global community into its bowels if it is not dealt with soon, and the only way out of the current paralysis is to kill the “peace process” once and for all.
There is no other way to end our dependence on the “process” – hoping that another tweak here or there might be the one to produce a breakthrough. No it won’t, and we need to destroy this addiction in order to think straight for a change.
Some realities to consider:
Nineteen years of a drawn out “peace process” has seen the establishment and institutionalization of a “peace industry” so gargantuan and far-reaching that it makes the United Nations look like a nimble start-up operation.
From Madrid to Oslo to Annapolis to the Quartet, we are hampered by agreements, roadmaps and conditions that create a thicket of red tape and limit our maneuverability. Layer upon layer of superficial “process” obscures the path forward. Which is why we are standing quite still.
Playing Games with Peace
Even the participants are fake. The Palestinian “Authority” – well – has none. We squeezed out the elected body and inserted our own players. When we throw eve-of-peace-talks ceremonies at the White House, we invite Egypt and Jordan, who have absolutely nothing of substance to contribute. And we studiously ignore all the parties that count – Hamas and Syria are fundamentally unavoidable in any settlement.
Welcome to the Middle East Peace Game – in which we get to choose the players, make up the rules and set the time table.
Excluded from The Game is anything remotely resembling an actual solution, or any meaningful negotiation around the contentious core issues. We don’t want this game to end. Like NATO and the other Cold War games we set up – we are not sure exactly how to dismantle them and have long since forgotten the end goal. The goal, it seems, is to simply stay in “play.”
So here we are at the start of 2011, entering the 20th year of the “Peace Process.” The reality of establishing two states died years before the idea did – just around the time we realized that Israel had used the peace process to sneak in half a million Jewish settlers into the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, thereby ending the land-for-peace basis of any lasting agreement.
Bad Assumptions = Bad Results
Established by the Oslo Agreement to allow Palestinians to begin a process of self-governance, the Palestinian Authority (PA) instead turned out to be a nifty way to remove Israeli troops from the daily grind of confrontation, whilst quite brilliantly allowing Palestinians to administer their own occupation.
And we threw money at our handpicked Palestinian leadership – creating graft, corruption and a sense of entitlement the likes of which has not been seen since the CEO of Halliburton became Vice President of the United States. In the process, we cordoned off the “opposition” into a hellhole called Gaza, and sought to destroy them by punishing an entire civilian population.
So focused were we on establishing players and rules, not for one honest second did we drill down on the core issues required to resolve this most divisive conflict. These were: 1) determining the borders of Palestine and Israel; 2) determining the status of East Jerusalem 3) determining the fate of millions of Palestinian refugees; 4) determination of sovereignty issues – water and air space rights; security…
The Peace Process Industry instead created a thousand other issues to be addressed first: who is in charge of guarding the grove of olive trees below that hill, around the corner from Abol Abed’s house? Who is going to ride in the second car when the PA president visits a town in Sector C? Who is going to collect taxes from the Palestinian worker building a gazebo for a Jewish settler family in illegally confiscated land? And other such numbing minutae. (more…)
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Foreign Affairs and Hamas and Israel and Middle East and Palestine and peace process and US Foreign Policy
gaza, Hamas, international affairs, interview, Iran, Islamist groups, Israel, Khaled Meshaal, Middle East, Netanyahu, palestine, Palestinian Authority, peace process, politics, Resistance Bloc, syria, World News Sandboxer
4:09 pm
This is the second installment of a two-part series. Read the first installment here.
Palestinian resistance group Hamas has beaten some unusual odds to survive today: Israel’s unlawful siege of Gaza has crippled the coastal strip’s economy and left Hamas scrambling to govern a restless population living under increasingly desperate conditions. Its officials and members are targeted by Israel and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA) for detention, torture and extrajudicial killings. Pro-US Arab leaders undermine it at every turn, partly to satisfy American demands, partly because they fear the widespread popularity of any moderate Islamist resistance group among their own populations.
Classified by the US as a “terrorist” organization, Hamas has spent the past year battling armed Salafist extremists who want to enforce Islamic law in the Gaza Strip and who view the Hamas leadership as too weak-willed to challenge Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
It is ironic that Hamas today is criticized for being hardline — and liberal too. Militant — and not militant enough. Islamist — and not Islamist enough. Iranian stooges — and US pawns, both.
I expected to see some of these contradictions in Khaled Meshaal, head of Hamas’ political bureau, when I interviewed him in Damascus recently. What I discovered instead is that, like a select crop of leaders we are seeing in the Middle East today, Meshaal refuses to be seen through one lens only. A real challenge for US policymakers with their unidimensional approach to regional politics.
The former high school physics teacher convincingly argues that the New Middle East is one where nations need to keep their “options open.” He rejects a regional status-quo where countries stay in “blocs” unthinkingly, and vehemently argues against the notion that Mideast democracy and reform cannot advance unless foreign intervention ends.
Meshaal may be more of a geopolitical strategist than suspected, but he also manages to stay infuriatingly “on message” most of the time — never a fun thing when you would love a stray impolitic anecdote. Toward the end of our discussion I asked him about his rumored stash of Dubya jokes, and received nothing but a twinkle in his eye in return, though I could swear he almost caved.
But Hamas’ goal to end Israel’s occupation of Palestine is no laughing matter, and Meshaal’s earnest focus reflects the gravity of events in the Mideast today. In Part 1 of the interview seen here, he addresses the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Hamas’ perspective on the recently launched peace talks. This time around, Khaled Meshaal talks about broader regional issues, including the emergence of the “Resistance Bloc,” the New Middle East, relations with Iran, the Ground Zero mosque…and on a more personal note, his relationship with his father: (more…)
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Hamas and Israel and Middle East and Palestine and peace process
fatah, Hamas, Hamas leader, Israel, israel egypt, israel palestine peace talks, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Khaled Meshaal, liberation, Mahmoud Abbas, Netanyahu, Occupied Territories, Palestinian Authority, palestinians, peace talks, politics, reconciliation talks, two-state solution, World News Sandboxer
4:03 pm
With pundits in most capitals already predicting failure for the US-brokered Palestinian-Israeli peace talks to begin on Thursday, it seems only natural to start asking the question: “What’s next?”
To get a jumpstart on what surely will be an onslaught of new, competing narratives vying for prominence in the post-peace process era, I headed to Damascus to talk to a man who has predicted the failure of this process from the start. And yet who — against all logic — has never been invited to sit at the negotiating table.
Khaled Meshaal, head of Hamas’ political bureau, is an unassuming man who sauntered into our interview room unattended and chatted with me in English while we awaited his staff.
The young father of seven — three daughters and four sons, in that order — is grounded, smart and energetic. We met at 1:00 a.m. when I was fading fast, and he was just getting started. There was a lot of ground to cover, but more than anything I wanted to leave the interview knowing what Hamas stood for. The resistance group, I felt, had left people confused in recent years. By moderating their stances and altering their language to accommodate changing realities in the Middle East, Hamas had become a bit blurry at the edges.
Do they recognize a two-state solution? Do they reject the peace process outright? What do they think about the role and imperatives of the international community in resolving the longstanding conflict between Palestinians and Israelis?
And most importantly for me — how does one today define an organization that has evolved so much since its inception?
- Firstly, Hamas is clearly a national liberation movement that has at it roots a “resistance” outlook. It’s focus is the liberation of Palestine from Israeli occupation, and the group’s Islamist character complements rather than competes with Hamas’ political objectives.
- Secondly, Hamas’ resistance of occupation is at the heart of its strategies — be they efforts to reach out and engage, or to take up arms. The strategy may change with evolving regional and global realities, but the group’s objectives stand firm.
In a nutshell: While the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority enables Israel to enjoy a pressure-free occupation, Hamas ensures that Israel’s occupation remains always under pressure.
And so we come to this last leg of the US-brokered peace process. Ostensibly, under the internationally-sanctioned land-for-peace formula, a major goal of negotiations is to end Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands. So why then would Hamas not stand fully behind a peace process that sought to accomplish some of its very own goals? And why too would US mediators not invite the participation of a group that won the Palestinian popular vote in their last elections?
Here is what Khaled Meshaal had to say about the prospects and challenges of peace, and where we find ourselves at this moment, on the eve of direct peace talks:
SN: The peace process has been going on for 19 years — what in your view has been the major reason for its failure thus far?
KM: Three reasons. First of all, Israel does not want peace. They talk about peace but they are not ready to pay the price of peace. The second reason is that the Palestinian negotiator does not have strong cards in his hand to push the peace process forward. The third reason is that the international community does not have the capability or the desire to push Israel towards peace.
(more…)
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Foreign Affairs and Middle East and peace process
2006 war, Abu Mazen, ahmadinejad, Amr Moussa, apartheid, Arab League, Bashar al-Assad, egypt, eu, fatah, gaza, Hamas, hariri, Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah, hosni mubarak, Iran, iraq, Israel, jordan, King Abdullah, land for peace, Lebanon, Middle East, Mideast negotiations, Mlita Museum, Netanyahu, Obama, one state solution, Palestinian Authority, palestinians, peace process, peace talks, politics, proximity talks, qatar, Saudi Arabia, settlements, Special Tribunal, syria, turkey, two-state solution, UN Security Council, West Bank, World News Sandboxer
3:53 pm
I met with Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa at his elegant quarters in the heart of Cairo last week — on the eve of the League’s crucial meeting with Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas to decide on direct talks with Israel.
Moussa’s career has gone from strength to strength since I first briefly met him as Egypt’s ambassador to the United Nations in the early 1990s. He was named Egypt’s foreign minister not too long after, and then moved on to head the Arab League. Some say he had become too popular on the Egyptian street, and this was President Hosni Mubarak’s way of sidelining a potential competitor.
There have been whispers about Moussa running for Egypt’s highest political office in elections next year, particularly as rumors swirl about Mubarak’s losing battle with cancer. But the Arab League chief is firmly focused on the most contentious issue in the Middle East right now – the troubled, never-ending “peace process” between Palestinians and Israelis.
In a candid conversation with Moussa just hours before the first Arab foreign minister arrived, he addressed a broad array of hot issues in the region – carefully, but passionately too. A decade in this prestigious – though some may argue, largely impotent – post, Moussa, still has fire in his belly and the determination to do something about it.
What was clear from our discussions was that the Arab “world” is reaching the end of its patience with the regional status quo and the 19-year-long US-sponsored peace process. If genuine and well-intentioned negotiations do not emerge in the very near future, the direction of the region is up for grabs. And Moussa has some ideas as to where it should go.
First though, some thoughts on the Arab League itself – its accomplishments, and even its relevance in the face of decades-long regional stagnation and the difficulties in gaining consensus among 22 different nations: (more…)
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Hamas and Hezbollah and Middle East and US Foreign Policy
2006 Lebanon war, afghanistan, centcome, freedom flotilla, gaza siege, general petraeus, Hamas, Hezbollah, Ibrahim Moussawi, iraq, Israel, Lebanon, michael oren, Netanyahu, palestinians, red team, US military Sandboxer
2:54 pm
Petraeus was CENTCOM chief when the report emerged
Hezbollah and Hamas just went mainstream. According to Foreign Policy magazine’s Mark Perry, in a recent US military report “senior CENTCOM intelligence officers question the current U.S. policy of isolating and marginalizing the two movements” and encourage a “mix of strategies that would integrate the two organizations into their respective political mainstreams.”
The groundbreaking report is a product of CENTCOM’s “Red Team,” a group formed in 2006 to “think outside of the box and offer contrarian thinking” on critical issues for the benefit of senior military officials. The whole point of the Red Team, according to CENTCOM spokesman Major John Redfield, is that “it is meant to sharpen the reasoning and force intellectual rigor on these issues so that we can ultimately produce more informed decision making.”
The extraordinary five-page report entitled “Managing Hezbollah and Hamas” produces some critical conclusions and recommendations — Perry highlights some of these key points in his article:
- The report recognizes Hezbollah and Hamas as “pragmatic and opportunistic,” a nuanced distinction that is a world away from the current one-dimensional U.S. position that simplistically characterizes these groups as “terrorists.”
- The report recommends the integration of Hezbollah and Hamas into their national security forces and governing entities, recognizing that the existing political bodies “represent only a part of the Lebanese and Palestinian populace respectively.”
- The report downplays the view relentlessly promoted by Israel that Hezbollah is merely a proxy for Iran, instead claiming that the Lebanese resistance group’s “activities increasingly reflect the movement’s needs and aspirations in Lebanon.” Tellingly, Foreign Policy magazine also published an interview this week with Israeli Ambassador to Washington Michael Oren, in which he warns that Iran may use Hezbollah and Hamas to start a new Middle East war.
- The report draws parallels between the IRA’s gradual participation in peace talks and the possibility of taking a similar tack to integrate Hezbollah into the Lebanese Armed Forces. Citing a meeting between British Ambassador to Lebanon Frances Guy and Hezbollah in 2009, the report urges the British to pursue further talks with “vigor.”
In a twist I couldn’t possibly make up, an hour before reading Perry’s article, I was meeting with the very same Ambassador Guy, a universally-respected senior diplomat who speaks fluent Arabic and knows her terrain well. In a conversation about the peace process deadlock, I asked about her views on engaging Hamas, which is currently excluded from the talks.
Pointing to Russia’s recent statements advocating for Hamas’ inclusion in direct talks, Ambassador Guy volunteered an increasingly familiar refrain heard in Western policy circles: “You are not going to have peace without Hamas, obviously. They are going to have to be involved eventually.” (more…)
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Middle East and US Foreign Policy and US Politics
aipac, American Jews, clinton, Hadar Susskind, Iran, Israel, J street, Jewish Americans, Jim Gerstein, midterm elections, Netanyahu, politics, polls, world Sandboxer
1:10 pm
Ninety-eight percent of American Jews do not rank Iran as a major factor influencing their vote in the 2010 midterm elections, according to a poll sponsored by the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” J-Street group.
The J-Street poll, announced on Monday, comes on the back of the highly publicized AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) conference this week, where speakers ranging from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to congressmen and other dignitaries, spent three days loudly warning about an Iranian nuclear threat.
But only two percent of American Jews said Iran actually figured into their votes.
This is the first time that a J-Street poll has included “Iran” as an option in this capacity. Most polls ask Jewish Americans how they “feel” about aspects of Iran, as opposed to whether it enters into their voting deliberations.
Jim Gerstein, the public opinion research specialist who conducted the poll on behalf of J-Street, agreed that this result was unexpected: “It caught my attention as well – I didn’t expect it to be that low.”
Gerstein points out that Jewish Americans consistently prioritize US domestic issues over a foreign policy focus – something not reflected in the rhetoric of many major national groups representing this constituency.
The J-Street poll results reflect his claim to a large extent. The top priorities of respondents were the economy, healthcare, the deficit/government spending and social security/ Medicare. Immediately following were three foreign policy hot buttons issues – terrorism/national security, Israel and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – trailed by a range of other domestic concerns.
Iran was at the very bottom of the list, and ranked even lower on the radar of Jewish-Americans than the issue of separation between religion and state. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percent.
J-Steet’s Director of Policy and Strategy Hadar Susskind also found the poll’s result on Iran to be noteworthy. “It’s not what you heard at the AIPAC conference,” he says. His guess is that Iran won’t play a role in the Midterm elections for a variety of reasons, one being that both Republicans and Democrats agree on a tough sanctions regime – if that comes to pass.
J-Street does not support either US or Israeli military intervention in Iran as a policy option.
Susskind also explains that AIPAC – and the deafening anti-Iran rhetoric that was voiced at its recent conference – only represents a “subset” of the American Jewish community. He adds:
“Broadly, they (American Jews) do think there is a threat from Iran. There is a large number, however, who don’t think that the apocalyptic political rhetoric serves us well.”
Gerstein, who has conducted extensive public opinion research within the American Jewish community and in Israel, says of the J-Street poll’s result: “There’s definitely a gap between the priorities of American Jews and the priorities of some of the organizations lobbying in the name of American Jews.”
First published on the Huffington Post, March 23, 2010
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Israel and Middle East and peace process and Politics and US Foreign Policy
gaza, George MItchell, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, iraq, Israel, Mahmoud Abbas, Middle East, Mideast Peace Process, Netanyahu, Obama, palestine, peace talks, proximity talks, Saudi Arabia Sandboxer
9:14 pm
by Sharmine Narwani
Nothing to say - Netanyahu, Obama, Abbas
After a year of grandiose declarations on Mideast peace prospects and a gazillion trips to the region by US Envoy George Mitchell, the Obama administration has come up with this?
“Proximity Talks.” Look it up in the Dictionary of Realpolitik and you will find the following: “Negotiations going nowhere fast. Wear seatbelts lest the speed of self-destruction spins you off the earth’s axis.”
Palestinians and Israelis are not even going to be at the table together. Mitchell could not even make that happen. This isn’t phase one of a longstanding conflict. These are adversaries who have sat across many tables and struck many agreements over the past 19 years.
And so this is where we are in the gruelingly endless Middle East peace process. About a dozen steps back from where we started.
False Starts
Here’s the down-low. After an upbeat set of promises to bring old foes to the Mideast negotiating table, Obama realized that Israel would not move so much as an inch on freezing illegal settlement-building activity — a fundamental necessity since there can be no land-for-peace agreement without land to cede.
The Obama presidency began just days after Israel’s three-week military devastation of Gaza concluded, putting not even the most sycophantic of Palestinian leaders in a position to be generous without a significant Israeli goodwill gesture. Then Benjamin Netanyahu emerged victorious from Israeli national elections and the die was cast.
Netanyahu’s Likud Party has never accepted a Two-State Solution, and Obama wasted much time wresting a luke-warm endorsement of this plan from the new Israeli prime minister. But while Netanyahu’s “compromise” was lauded by US officials and media pundits, the fact is that Mideast observers knew there was nothing new in his for-the-cameras acceptance of a Palestinian state minus sovereignty.
On the other side of the fence, the increasingly unpopular Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA) government — as corrupt and ineffectual as our Arab allies come — desperately needed an active peace process to give it a veneer of respectability. Fatah’s credibility is in serious jeopardy — it pushed for participation in peace talks with Israel almost two decades ago at the Madrid Peace Conference — and has virtually nothing to show for it.
Well, except for the fact that Jewish settlers in the West Bank have quintupled in number and that Israel has managed to divide up the West Bank to its advantage, with Jewish-only roads and checkpoints cutting off Palestinian movement and freedoms further.
But PA leader Mahmoud Abbas was unable to participate in post-Gaza peace talks without a settlement halt — he had drawn that line in the sand after Obama offered up a settlement freeze as part of his fantasy-based approach to peacemaking. Read full article
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Hamas and Israel and Lebanon and Middle East
Bashar al-Assad, Danny Ayalon, ehud barak, gaza, Gaza War, goldstone, Hamas, Hezbollah, idf, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Lebanon War, levant, Middle East, Netanyahu, politics, recep tayyip erdogan, syria, turkey, Walid Muallem Sandboxer
8:16 pm
by Sharmine Narwani
Israel's controversial, right-wing Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman
Another war is looming in the Middle East, say the pundits. It is hard to ignore the whispers — now louder — when they are regularly punctuated by hostile statements from various officials in the region, leading further credence to a possible conflagration.
The likely site of the newest regional battle is the Levant. Funnily enough, nobody can pinpoint exactly where, although it is clear that Israel will be involved. Which should tell us something right there.
Since the Jewish state’s military attack on Lebanon in 2006, it has been itching for a “do-over.” Why? Because for the first time in its history, Israel did not win a war. The month-long bombardment of Lebanon resulted in a stalemate — an intolerable outcome by the standards of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
To add to the indignity, it was a mere few thousand men — not even a national army — that took the IDF by surprise.
The cornerstone of Israel’s military strategy is deterrence — whether though brandishing a nuclear arsenal to warn off threatening nation-states, or by Gaza-style intensive attacks that send a strong message to a weaker party. This is a highly militarized state that has lived under the legacy of conflict its entire existence. Loss — or even perceived loss — is not an option.
So instead of self-examination, Israel’s conflicted, and increasingly right-wing political body unleashed a belligerent tone — angry, defiant, threatening, unfocused like a petulant and wounded child. Diversionary tactics came into play to focus domestic and international attention elsewhere and fill the frustrating void — Hamas in Gaza, the potential nuclear aspirations of Iran, Palestinian intransigence on peace talks, Hezbollah’s weapons, Syria, Turkey, anti-Semitism, the Goldstone Report.
In recent weeks, Israeli officials have made inflammatory statements about conflicts on half a dozen fronts. Read full article
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For Middle East watchers, the revelation that a major head of state called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “liar” is, well, not exactly news. French president Nicholas Sarkozy needs to get in line behind the many other politicians who have thrown up their arms over Netanyahu’s unusual – even for politics – propensity for duplicity.
