Fingers Crossed

First day, Hamas predictably tries to derail, but they haven't stopped the talks yet.

Gobama?

Blunder

As an American Jew who visited Israel in my youth and has fond memories of when it wasn't run by the rightwing Likud Party and its coalition of further-righters, I'm appalled and saddened by the loss of life as well as the worldwide diplomatic disaster that has resulted from the bungled flotilla raid. While is appears clear that the flotilla delivering aid to Gaza in defiance of the Israeli blockade was meant as a political trap and the bloody Israeli response was surely more than they'd ever dreamed possible to advance their cause, per George Friedman:

The bid to shape global perceptions by portraying the Palestinians as victims of Israel was the first prong of a longtime two-part campaign. The second part of this campaign involved armed resistance against the Israelis. The way this resistance was carried out, from airplane hijackings to stone-throwing children to suicide bombers, interfered with the first part of the campaign, however. The Israelis could point to suicide bombings or the use of children against soldiers as symbols of Palestinian inhumanity. This in turn was used to justify conditions in Gaza. While the Palestinians had made significant inroads in placing Israel on the defensive in global public opinion, they thus consistently gave the Israelis the opportunity to turn the tables. And this is where the flotilla comes in.

The Turkish flotilla aimed to replicate the Exodus story or, more precisely, to define the global image of Israel in the same way the Zionists defined the image that they wanted to project. As with the Zionist portrayal of the situation in 1947, the Gaza situation is far more complicated than as portrayed by the Palestinians. The moral question is also far more ambiguous. But as in 1947, when the Zionist portrayal was not intended to be a scholarly analysis of the situation but a political weapon designed to define perceptions, the Turkish flotilla was not designed to carry out a moral inquest.

Instead, the flotilla was designed to achieve two ends. The first is to divide Israel and Western governments by shifting public opinion against Israel. The second is to create a political crisis inside Israel between those who feel that Israel’s increasing isolation over the Gaza issue is dangerous versus those who think any weakening of resolve is dangerous.

What I'd like to point out is that there is significant opposition to the current Gaza blockage within Israel, and protest against the violence of the past day. There's this letter signed by a group of progressive rabbis calling for an end to the siege of Gaza. There was a leftwing protest in Tel Aviv today, that -- unfortunately, again -- led to a teargas canister causing the loss of an eye from an American Jew protesting the Israeli actions. There's the progressive U.S. Jewish PAC, J Street, calling on President Obama and the U.S. to provide stronger leadership to end the overall conflict now. And there's this opinion piece in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, linking the failure of the flotilla operation to that of "Operation Cast Lead," the three-week 2006 attack on Gaza which, no matter how well intentioned in response to Hamas bombs being lobbed in Israel, left over 1000 Palestinians (and 13 Israelis) dead, many of the Gaza casualties being civilians, with many homes destroyed by Israeli forces. Per Gideon Levy in Haaretz:

Again Israel will pay a heavy diplomatic price, once which had not been considered ahead of time. Again, the Israeli propaganda machine has managed to convince only brainwashed Israelis, and once more no one asked the question: What was it for? Why were our soldiers thrown into this trap of pipes and ball bearings? What did we get out of it?

If Cast Lead was a turning point in the attitude of the world toward us, this operation is the second horror film of the apparently ongoing series. Israel proved yesterday that it learned nothing from the first movie.

Yesterday's fiasco could and should have been prevented. This flotilla should have been allowed to pass and the blockade should be brought to an end.

This should have happened a long time ago. In four years Hamas has not weakened and Gilad Shalit was not released. There was not even a sign of a gain.

And what have we instead? A country that is quickly becoming completely isolated. This is a place that turns away intellectuals, shoots peace activists, cuts off Gaza and now finds itself in an international blockade. Once more yesterday it seemed, and not for the first time, that Israel is increasingly breaking away from the mother ship, and losing touch with the world - which does not accept its actions and does not understand its motives.

If the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again without any improvement in result, isn't it time for Israel to try another tack? I remain both hopeful and skeptical that there will be peace; hopeful due to my belief that most people just want to work hard and make a better life for themselves and their families, skeptical because of the lack of a contiguous Palestinian state boundary, lack of faith in the current Israeli government and rightward drift due to newer more fundamentalist Israelis, and trepidation that the brainwashing of Palestinian children, indeed Arab children throughout the Middle East, that Jews and Zionism are intrinsically evil -- teachings that will not go away quickly, no matter what benevolence Israel bestows.

That said, this is the kind of symbolic/real-life event that, like the ongoing ocean-killing in the Gulf of Mexico, that has the potential to turn public opinion in a positive way and lead to real statesmanship. Nothing one can bet on but, in the right hands, a teachable moment.

I'll pray for it.

As a Zionist

As a Jewish American who supports the State of Israel, I've always been against Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu and his Likud Party, especially now that it is in coalition with the Far Far Right Shas Party. It is repeatedly annoying that the U.S. appears powerless to stop Israeli settlement expansion into lands seized during wars, no matter our rhetoric and attempts to portray America as an honest broker between Israelis and Palestinians.

But maybe something is about to change.

Bibi stepped in it when his government humiliated Vice President on a peacemaking trip last week to Israel, just as some sort of "proximity negotiations" were established. Netanyahu claims he didn't know that the Shas minister(s) had approved even more new settlements in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians hope will be their future capital, but whether he did or not, he actually pissed off Biden, one of Israel's staunchest supporters for decades.

Biden responded by showing up ninety minutes late for a state dinner and twice upbraiding the Israeli government in public, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took it a step further by chewing out Bibi in a 45 minute phone call. Nice.

The upshot seems to be that this type of behavior on the part of Israel actually endangers American troops -- American lives -- overseas. This isn't just a haphazard opinion, but that of esteemed Gen. David Petraeus, per his briefing to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No joke.

Per Jeffrey Goldberg, here's President Obama's strategy for Israel in the Administration's response to this affront:

The goal is force a rupture in the governing coalition that will make it necessary for Netanyahu to take into his government Livni's centrist Kadima Party (he has already tried to do this, but too much on his terms) and form a broad, 68-seat majority in Knesset that does not have to rely on gangsters, messianists and medievalists for votes.

Here here. There is opportunity in this fight. Yes, various Palestinian factions including Hamas have been bad actors in the past. Yes, the Palestinians are often their own worst enemies. But how long can the status quo go on? Can the Far Right in Israel really colonize their way out of this historical problem?

Of course, the flip side is true: can a contiguous Palestinian state be created and eventually live side-by-side in peace with Israel?

On Foreign Soil

Who leads U.S. foreign policy? According to the Constitution, it's the Executive Branch. But if you're John McCain and Joe Lieberman, maybe you think you're in charge of it:

Government sources said the threat of the US using economic leverage - such as withholding loan guarantees - to place pressure on Israel was not raised in the one-hour conversation. US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, when asked last Wednesday in a television interview what "sticks" the US had in its arsenal against Israel, raised the notion of withholding loan guarantees, although he quickly said this was not the direction the US wanted to go in.

Lieberman, after saying that an administration official had already disavowed Mitchell's statement, said that in his opinion "any attempt to pressure Israel, to force Israel to the negotiating table by denying Israel support, will not pass the Congress of the United States. In fact, the Congress will stop any attempt to do that. I don't think we will come to that point."

McCain was equally unequivocal, saying that this type of pressure would not be helpful "and I don't agree with it."

McCain added that he was sure that the administration would make it clear in the future that this was not its policy.

I support Israel the way the progressives in Israel support their own country, in that there has to be some kind of change in entrenched approach, otherwise it will not go well for Israel in the long run. Yes, there has to be strong defense against the forces that would like to wipe it off the map, and yes, there has to be some give on the Palestinian side, but if there is only the fist (think the atrocities coming to light from the most recent Gaza invasion), there will never be peace.

Is there anyone out there on the Likud side or to the right of it that has a real concept for a future that isn't just continued threat of aggression and extinction?

If so, I'd love to hear it. Status quo for the next millennium is a pipe dream.

Extraordinary Week...Again

Maybe more than usual:



Bottom lines. Calls to action:

Obama's speech was not a collection of empty rhetoric. Before the entire world, he put his signature to a bunch of checks that have deadlines for being cashed. In his talks with his aides in recent weeks, a consensus has emerged that November 2010 - the date of the next congressional elections - should be the target date for realizing the two-state solution. By then, we will know how much of an impression Obama's speech made on Iran's president. Who knows: Perhaps Iranian voters will be convinced that they have before them a U.S. president who is genuinely interested in reconciliation with Islam, and will use their upcoming election to replace their current president with a more conciliatory one. By then, we will also know whom Benjamin Netanyahu is more afraid of - the U.S. president or the chairman of the Yesha Council of settlements, Benny Begin or Tzipi Livni.

Checks to be cashed.

Third Rail, Middle East

I know that not all of my fellow Jews are going to agree, but I'm impressed so far with the Obama Administration line on halting Israeli settlements in the West Bank. I've been against them ever since 1970's Prime Minister Menachem Begin started them up.

I understand that my Jewish homeland is small and needs all the land it can get to help grow its population by immigration, but I also feel that those settlers are the most intractable Israelis, the ones most likely to stand in the way of a peace settlement and, yes, I blame that movement for producing the assassin who killed courageous Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, snuffing out hopes for peace in 1995. And that this assassin is considered a hero by so many of these settlers is...unsettling.

It's not going to be easy. Netanyahu thinks he can manipulate the process and the U.S. to keep peace from happening, and possibly attack Iran in the process. This is dangerous stuff, dangerous to Israel itself, per Roger Cohen in The New York Times:

Netanyahu talks a lot about the “existential threat” from Iran. The United States faces a prosaic daily threat: Many more young American men and women will die in Iraq and Afghanistan over the next several years if no Iranian breakthrough is achieved.

Obama must remind Israel of that. He should also tell Bibi that the real existential threat to Israel is not Amalek but hubris: An attack on Iran that would put the Jewish state at war with Persians as well as Arabs, undermine its core U.S. alliance, and set Tehran on a full-throttle course to a nuclear bomb with the support of some 1.2 billion Muslims.

As everyone knows, the problem is complex, and there are a huge number of factors for Obama, Israel, whatever passes for the Palestinian leadership and the Arab powers in the region to consider. But if Israel can make a three decade-long peace with its once fiercest enemy, Egypt, can't more pieces of the problem be solved?

War

Israel has sent ground troops into Gaza. Two good pieces trying to explain what the hell is really going on in The New York Times and The Washington Post.

What it looks like.

Peace Talk

So Egypt has brokered a tentative truce between Israel and Hamas regarding Gaza. Who knows if it will hold but it is, as always, long overdue. The skinny:

• The truce takes effect at 6 a.m. Thursday (11 p.m. EDT Wednesday).

• All Gaza-Israel violence stops. After three days, Israel eases its blockade on Gaza, allowing more vital supplies in.

• A week later, Israel further eases restrictions at cargo crossings.

• In the final stage, talks are conducted about opening the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt and a prisoner exchange to free Cpl. Gilad Schalit, held by Hamas-affiliated groups for two years.

Freeing the 21-year old Schalit is a very big deal, captured at 19 and held since then. Jimmy Carter, among others, helped mediate. This has been an open wound for the Israeli people for two years, the first Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian militants since 1994.

Meanwhile, the worst negotiator in America accuses a British journalist of slandering America when he brings up Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and illegal rendition in an interview.

Wait, is that guy still President?

Secret Mission?

The rock & roll Primary has taken over the front page of every newspaper and the top of all cable news shows this past week, while the Cheney/Bush Administration has either stumbled into or attempted to fabricate a "provocation" from Iran in the very waters we are jamming with battleships right next to their country.

It turns out the sparking radio threat was likely not made by Iranian gunships. It appears no confrontation actually happened.

At the same time, El Presidente Bush is over in Israel, engaged in the kind of "shoot the moon" Mideast peace strategy his team actually belittled his predecessor, President Bill Clinton, for attempting in his last year of office. Credit where credit is due, El Presidente is actually somewhat bold in what he's saying he wants to see happen, I believe the first U.S. President to use the term "occupation" for Israel's control of the West Bank.

On the other hand, I don't believe for a second that Cheney et al don't want to bomb the hell out of Iran and leave the next President dug in with whatever they've wrought.

So with that in mind, is there maybe the possibility that Bush is in Israel not only for his peace plan, but to coordinate at the highest levels for an attack on Iran to follow...maybe under cover of the February 5th "Super Tuesday" Primary hoopla?

It'll shame me to say it if I have to, but you'll have read it here first.

Rice Party

I'll laud any U.S. Presidential efforts towards peace between Israeli and Palestinian factions in the Middle East, even Mister Bush's. And it's certainly better than nothing that he's got the Israeli Prime Minister and the head of the once vilified PLO agreeing to negotiate. However, like most sentient followers of Bushie behavior, I'll believe it when I see it that he's going to "devote himself to ending the six-decade conflict in the 14 months he has left in office."

Sure, he could use a Hail Mary Pass on his legacy. But he's going to have to do more than, as Keith Olbermann explained tonight, show up for a couple of hours for a photo op, mispronounce the names of the two men leading their peoples in negotiations, and not be able to say what his actual involvement is in "devoting himself" thus far.

President Bill Clinton, as some may remember, actually led the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations during the twilight of his term. This time it's really Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's show, and one imagines she's hoping to make this her place in the history books, rather than failing to prevent the 9/11 attacks as National Security Advisor even though the memo was staring her in the face, lying to Congress, and enabling the Presidents Cheney and Bush to misdirect our war against al-Qaeda by invading Iraq and allowing the destruction of that country from the inside.

There is, of course, the question of a negotiation without including Hamas, which actually won the last democratic election in the Palestinian territories. 49 countries involved but no seat for them -- undoubtedly the Administration is hoping to marginalize them enough that they don't win any more elections over there.

All that being said, I can only hope that some sort of effective peace comes out of this. With various parts of the globe regionalizing economic power, it will hopefully be in the best interest of the regional Mideast countries to come together, somehow, someday.

With or without Mister Bush's direct help.