Editor: The coming attack on Gaza
There was talk in the Israeli media on an attack planned for the spring for along time now, at least since the summer of 2009. The pundits seem to differ about its location, arguing the toss between Gaza and Lebanon, with some speaking of both. The events of the weekend in which the IOF lost two of its soldiers to Hamas, seem to be confirming such rumours; it was the IOF which moved across into Gaza on this occasion, seeking a conflict actively, and following it with tanks, artillery air-force and navy bombardments. Even the US in Vietnam has not used such force to crack a nut, and in pure military terms the whole episode is bizarre, and bears the signs of a trap set by Hamas into which the IOF was lured. While it is difficult to see what more can be achieved by another full scale attack on Gaza, this is not something which might hold Israel back from executing such a folly, with its cost to the Palestinian population being even more devastation than the 22 Day invasion last year. While Steinitz is on the extreme right of the Israeli Knesset, Like Lieberman, he is at the heart of Netanyahu’s government, and used as his speaker on many occasions.
Netanyahu: Israel will respond to any attack: Haaretz
Israel will retaliate against any attack on its citizens or soldiers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, adding that Hamas would be made to be held accountable for actions.
The PM’s comments come following the death of two soldiers in Gaza clashes on Friday, which increased concern in the Israel Defense Forces that Hamas is trying to alter the situation along the Gaza Strip border fence, which will result in their targeting of Israeli patrols.
“Israel’s policy of retaliation is forceful and decisive,” the PM said during the weekly government meeting in Jerusalem, asserting that Israel would “retaliate decisively against any attack on our citizens and soldiers.”
“This policy is well-known and will continue. Hamas and the other terror organizations need to know that they are the ones that are responsible for their own actions,” Netanyahu said.
A statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office on Sunday also referred to recent anonymous quotes reportedly originating from Netanyahu aides attacking U.S. President Barack Obama’s policy in the Middle East.
“The prime minister emphatically rejects the anonymous quotes about President Obama that a newspaper attributed to one of his confidants, and he condemns them,” the statement said.
Netanyahu was at pains to hammer home the message, telling reporters at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting: “I have heard over recent days anonymous and improper remarks in the media about the U.S. administration and American president.”
“I want to say clearly, these comments are unacceptable to me. They do not come from anyone representing me. The relations between Israel and the United States are those of allies and friends, and are based on tradition spanning many years.”
On the stalled peace talks with the Palestinian Authority the PM said that Israel continued to see a “Palestinian lack of flexibility. There are no signs of them becoming more moderate.”
“I don’t expect the discussions and declarations in the Arab League will make the process any easier,” Netanyahu added, saying that nonetheless Israel would “maintain a restrained framework for negotiations and continue our dealings with the American administration in an attempt to renew talks.”
Netanyahu’s statement came after Likud Minister Yuval Steinitz told Israel Radio earlier Sunday that Israel would reoccupy Gaza if it felt it had no other choice.
Finance Minister Steinitz said that Israel must deal with Hamas, and may have to reenter Gaza to destroy the regime.
“Israel won’t allow Hamas to arm with long-range missiles,” Steinitz said.
Major Eliraz Peretz and Staff Sergeant Ilan Sviatkovsky were killed Friday while pursuing a group of Palestinian militants trying to lay mines near the border fence. Two other soldiers were wounded in the incident, and two militants were killed.
Any change along the fence may present Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government with the first military challenge of its tenure. For the past year the situation has been calm, in great part as a result of the two wars conducted by the Olmert government: the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead.
Intelligence sources in Israel have recently raised the question whether Hamas was turning a blind eye to the rocket attacks, a possible change of tactics. Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Channel 2 on Saturday that Hamas is trying to change the “rules of the game” in Gaza, and will have to pay the price for this.
Spokesmen on behalf of Hamas claimed Friday evening that their gunmen acted defensively after an IDF force entered their area. In this they hinted that there was no change in policy from the point of view of Hamas. Responsibility for the incident was also claimed by three smaller factions in the Gaza Strip, including Islamic Jihad.
It is possible that Hamas was involved in the incident, in the mortar fire that was used to support the Palestinian gunmen during the exchanges of fire.
The incident comes at a convenient time for Hamas, on the eve of the Arab League summit, but for Netanyahu the timing is terrible, with pressure from the Americans and the international community on the need to alleviate the Israeli siege on the Strip.
In the interivew with Israel Radio, Steinitz also slammed the U.S. administration, saying the pressure it is putting on Israel is just worsening the situation.
“American pressure isn’t conductive and isn’t fair, because the Netanyahu government made two enormous gestures toward the Palestinians: The opportunity to improve the Palestinian economy, and the settlement freeze,” he said.
“The United States needs to understand that the atmosphere it created in the Middle East, that Washington is now less friendly to Israel, isn’t making the Palestinians more willing to compromise, it further adds to their rejection of the peace process.”
Stenitiz also stressed that it is necessary to make it clear to the Americans that they must focus on solutions to the Iranian nuclear threat.
Fear and foreboding in the Middle East: BBC
The future of Jerusalem is one of the most emotive issues in the Middle East
By Jeremy Bowen
The Middle East is full of talk of war. Not today, tomorrow or perhaps even next year but the horizon is dark, and people who have to live with the Middle East’s grim collection of smouldering problems are finding it hard to look ahead with anything other than foreboding.
By the end of this year, if sanctions have not persuaded Iran to stop what many countries insist is a nuclear weapons programme, the war party in Israel will be pushing for military action.
South Lebanon is once again looking like a tinderbox.
Insults and threats have been bandied back and forth between Syria, Israel and Hezbollah.
In Washington DC, where I have been this week, analysts say Syria has been shipping bigger and better weapons to Hezbollah, its Lebanese ally.
‘Disastrous visit’
Israel assumes that there will be another war in Lebanon, and has been training its army to win it, which it could not do last time in 2006.
TIMELINE: ISRAEL-US ROW
9 Mar: Israel announces the building of 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem during visit by US Vice-President Joe Biden.
Mr Biden condemns the move
11 Mar: Mr Biden says there must be no delay in resuming Mid-East peace talks, despite the row
12 Mar: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the Israeli move is “deeply negative” for relations
15 Mar: The US says it is waiting for a “formal response” from Israel to its proposals to show it is committed to Mid-East peace
16 Mar: The US envoy to the Mid-East postpones a visit to Israel
17 Mar: President Obama denies there is a crisis with Israel
22 Mar: Hillary Clinton tells pro-Israel lobby group Aipac Israel has to make “difficult but necessary choices” if it wants peace with Palestinians.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu tells Aipac Israel has a “right to build” in Jerusalem
23 Mar: Mr Obama and Mr Netanyahu meet behind closed doors with no media access
23 Mar: Jerusalem municipal government approves building of 20 new homes in East Jerusalem
24 Mar: Mr Netanyahu ends Washington trip talking of a “golden” solution amid US silence
And then there is the crisis between the United States, Israel and the Palestinians.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s disastrous visit to Washington DC has exposed just how bad this crisis and current US-Israeli relations are.
What is even more serious is that it is centred on the future of Jerusalem, which is about the single most emotive issue in the entire Middle East.
Mr Netanyahu returns home weakened, though his ministers are declaring their support. US President Barack Obama seems to see him as part of the problem.
The precise details of what happened in Washington between Mr Obama and Mr Netanyahu are emerging only slowly.
But it is clear that the Americans want Israel to freeze building for Jews in those parts of the holy city that Israel occupied and annexed in 1967.
The Obama administration has concluded that it will be impossible to negotiate peace while Israel continues to settle its people on occupied land.
Mr Netanyahu insists, long and loud, that he wants a peace deal if it guarantees Israeli security.
The Americans agree with that, but not with his insistence that Israel has the right to build whatever and wherever it wants in Jerusalem.
Israel’s claim that that the city is its sovereign capital is not accepted by its allies.
Political vacuum
The Americans want to start peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
Their plan was to wring concessions out of Mr Netanyahu while he was in Washington that they could take to the Palestinians to persuade them to take part.
The president of the Palestinian authority, Mahmoud Abbas, pulled out after the Israelis announced a big building project at the Ramat Shlomo settlement in occupied East Jerusalem.
The US Vice-President Joe Biden was in Jerusalem at the time to get the talks going. Embarrassed and angry, he condemned Israel’s plans.
Mr Netanyahu’s visit to Washington – far from ending the crisis between Israel and its most important ally – seems to have made things worse.
What is now forming around the row over Jerusalem is an old-fashioned Middle Eastern political vacuum.
When there is no political process to absorb some heat and give people even a glint of hope for the future, the result tends to be violent.
King Abdullah of Jordan, whose father made peace with Israel in 1994, has told newspapers in Amman that Israel needs to decide between war and peace.
American pressure
If it wants peace, he says it has to stop settling Jews on occupied land.
The US State Department and the White House employ many Middle East experts who know that even if they manage to start negotiations the chances of success are low.
They are trying anyway, because the alternatives seem much worse.
But the reality is that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians are in good shape to negotiate, even assuming that they want to try (in fact they have only dabbled with the idea because of American pressure).
Mr Netanyahu’s coalition government depends on the votes of nationalists who want no compromise with the Palestinians.
Mr Abbas is isolated and weak. It is hard to see how he could deliver any agreement he made when the Palestinian national movement is split down the middle between Fatah, his faction, and Hamas, which controls Gaza.
Mr Obama has declared that Middle East peace is a strategic priority for the United States.
But just glance across the region, from Jerusalem to Beirut, then on to Damascus, Baghdad, Tehran and further east to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Never mind making peace, just avoiding war in the places that are not already fighting is going to be hard enough, and perhaps impossible.
Binyamin Netanyahu suffers worst week of his second premiership: The Observer
Israel prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu ran into a storm of criticism over his dispute with the White House.
The last week must rank as the worst of Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu’s second term as Israeli prime minister. It produced headlines no leader would want to read, even allowing for the sometimes excitable tone of the Israeli press: “Ambush in the White House”, “A hazing in stages” and “With his back to the wall.”
Netanyahu flew to Washington a week ago hoping to mend fences after an extraordinary rupture in relations but found only a frosty reception. Then Britain expelled an Israeli diplomat from London in anger at the “intolerable” forging of British passports for the hit squad who assassinated a Hamas man in Dubai. Hours later Netanyahu had a low-key meeting with Barack Obama that ended in serious disagreement and without the usual courtesy of a photographed handshake.
Perhaps it was inevitable that an American president who gave such a firm commitment to tackling the Middle East conflict so early in his term would eventually run up against one of the most rightwing coalition governments in Israel’s history.
Some in Israel are encouraged by the Obama administration’s strong words and its continued pressure for a halt to Jewish settlement-building in East Jerusalem. In its weekly newspaper advert on Friday, the peace group Gush Shalom pleaded with Obama: “Now heal us please from the malignant occupation. Many in Israel will be grateful.”
But this is not a majority view. More common is the sense that the world does not understand or sympathise with Israel, a feeling summed up by one Israeli newspaper columnist who wrote: “The US is abandoning us and effectively turning into Europe. From now on, we are completely alone.” Two opinion polls suggest many Israelis want their government to continue building settlements in East Jerusalem, even if it brings a rift with the Americans.
For years US governments have called on Israel to stop expanding its Jewish settlements in occupied territory – a settlement freeze is even a key plank of the roadmap introduced during the Bush presidency. But it is the Obama administration that has pushed hardest on it, so far without success. Netanyahu has introduced a partial, temporary curb on building in the West Bank, but insists building will continue in Jerusalem. “Jerusalem is not a settlement. It’s our capital,” he said. It is not the view of the international community, which does not recognise Israel’s occupation and annexation of East Jerusalem in the wake of the 1967 war.
Netanyahu’s position, together with his heavily circumscribed vision of a future Palestine, has meant no return to peace talks. But the more settlements are built and serious negotiations avoided, the less possible any conflict-ending, two-state peace deal becomes. And the fate of Jerusalem in particular is crucial to a broader agreement.
For now Netanyahu’s coalition is in robust form, unusually so for an Israeli government, and is backing its prime minister. But soon, like others before him, he may find himself forced to choose between maintaining the relationship with Israel’s greatest ally, the Americans, or maintaining the loyalty of his coalition, without whom he would be lost.
Livni slams Netanyahu over US crisis, ER relocation: Y Net
Opposition chairwoman tours Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon, uses opportunity to slam PM on various issues. ‘We have a prime minister who succumbs to every political whim,’ she says
Kadima Chairwoman Tzipi Livni toured the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon Sunday along with other faction members, following the decision to relocate the hospital’s emergency room due to the discovery of ancient tombs in the site.
“My visit here is part of a battle for Judaism and not against it, as well as for the values of Israel as a Jewish and democratic country.”
Livni further added, “The story is not about the bones found here, but the decision-making process. We have a prime minister who succumbs to every whim of every political partner, and the entire public is paying the price for it.”
Livni also used the opportunity to slam Netanyahu for mounting tensions between Israel and the US and the government’s conduct in the international arena. “This Passover eve, every person should ask himself what has changed: The status of the State of Israel and Jerusalem, the status of women pushed to the back of the bus and the rights of patients, which have been pushed aside.
“We need different leadership and different policy as well as an organized point of view with which to go to the US – instead of pushing Israel into a corner and say that the whole world is against us.”
In the backdrop of calls to add Kadima to the government in order to help solve the crisis with Washington Livni said, “The prime minister has chosen his natural partners for survival. He has no vision and for this reason his government is not trusted by the public and by the world.” The Kadima chairwoman also stressed she has no intention of joining the government in order to stabilize it. “For that to happen one needs different leadership and different policy.”
State responds to petition
Following attempts to change the government’s decision regarding the Barzilai hospital, the State Prosecutor’s Office filed its response with the High Court of Justice Sunday to a petition by the Movement for Quality Government in Israel.
The State rejected the claim suggesting biased conduct on the part of the examination team tasked with addressing the tombs affair.
“The factual infrastructure at the base of the petition is inaccurate. The movement did not exhaust all procedures before filing the motion and was quick in doing so before being given a response from the Prime Minister’s Office to a letter issued a day earlier,” the State’s response noted.
In West Bank Palestinian Childhood Is Cut Short – It’s the Law: The Only Democracy?
March 27th, 2010, by Carol Sanders
In the West Bank, there is a two-tiered system of justice, including for minors. For settler children, justice is administered according to Israeli domestic law, with all the due process protections that affords. They cannot be charged as adults until they reach 18, in accordance with the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Israel is a signatory. For Palestinian children, military law applies, and that pretty much means due process, and the tenderness of their years, is irrelevant. Their childhood itself is cut short, both by the circumstances of the Occupation and the letter of military law. Until recently, they could be charged as adults as young as 12 years of age. A recent military order “reformed” that anomaly by setting their age of majority at 16 –still two years earlier than their settler counterparts, and two years younger than required by the Convention on the Rights of the Child. But the reality is that children as young as 12 continue to be arrested and imprisoned in adult military jails. In the majority of cases the soldiers who arrest them say that the children were throwing stones, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.
Defence of Children International-Palestine reports that arrests of children have been increasing . Presently approximately 350 West Bank children under 17 are being held in Israeli prisons. Defence of Children provides testimonies of the children, detailing the brutal circumstances of their detention and interrogation, and their confinement with adult prisoners. Urgent appeals on behalf of the children are issued by Defence of Children, including in the case of masse arrests (17 children taken in a night raid from Al Jalazun Refugee Camp near Ramallah), and the transfer of children to prisons within Israel, where family members cannot visit because of restrictions on movement of people under Israel’s military Occupation.
Netanyahu endangering Israel’s security: Haaretz
by Zvi Bar’el
If there’s a photo the White House should issue after Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit, it’s a group portrait of the prime minister, his Iraqi counterpart and the president of Afghanistan embracing Barack Obama together.
They are all heads of governments attached to the U.S.’s umbilical cord. They all experience insecurity in the region, and the world is concerned about each of the three’s security. Washington manages domestic policy for each of them, since each poses a danger to American foreign policy. In Iraq, Washington is involved in disagreements among Sunnis, Shi’ites and Kurds. In Afghanistan, Washington dictates conditions to the president to help advance its war against Al-Qaida. And when it comes to Israel, the United States showed clearly last week that it will not allow domestic Israeli politics to interfere with American foreign policy.
The group photo is a fitting picture of how Israel’s situation has deteriorated during Netanyahu’s short term in office. We’re not talking about yet another clumsy Israeli foreign minister whom no one wants to meet, or irksome building permits. Netanyahu poses a threat to Israeli security because he tips the balance of U.S.-Israeli relations, which are essential for our survival. And not only these relations. If Washington gives Israel the cold shoulder, it will be showing the way for other important countries, from Britain to Egypt and Brazil to Turkey, to do the same. Israel is no longer an exotic citron, but has been exposed as just another lemon.
Advertisement
We may mock Netanyahu for the impolite reception he received in Washington; we can snipe about the late hour of his meeting with Obama, past Israeli television’s prime time, and ask why Obama abandoned the talk for dinner with his children. But then we remember that this isn’t some other country’s prime minister who is being kicked around; this danger on wheels is our own.
In a properly-run country, concerned about its own survival, thousands would have met the prime minister on his return, calling for his resignation. In such a country, gangs of squatters who steal land and buildings in Jerusalem would be considered organizations opposed to the nation’s security interests. They would be taken to court, at least. In Israel, they are a symbol of national pride.
This arrogant government is sure that ever since it annexed the occupied territory in Jerusalem, it granted Israel control for all eternity. Jordan’s King Abdullah can tell the lovers of eternity what happened to the so-called legal annexation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem to Jordan. This is the same Jordanian East Jerusalem that Washington will recognize as the capital of Palestine.
For generations the settlers have been blamed for posing an obstacle to peace, for acting against the policy of the government, which, poor soul, can’t stand up to these bullies. And so, while Washington believed that the Israeli government wanted to take action against such subversive organizations but had problems, it showed restraint, gave in a little about the construction freeze, patted Netanyahu on the shoulder and granted extensions to the government so it could manage its own affairs.
There is no longer any basis for this approach. The Israeli government, and the seven wonders in charge of it, are inseparable from the bullies. And so Washington had to conclude that the government and prime minister were simply lying.
Washington’s main interest is no longer whether the peace process will advance, because there are no guarantees that even direct talks with the Palestinians will end in an agreement. Washington’s interest is to preserve its standing in the world against a small state and its crafty government, which made it a laughing stock. This will be a true test of the United States’ ability to apply foreign policy. What is good for Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington figures, will also suit Israel now, because if Israel rebuffs Washington, Iraq and Afghanistan will, too.
And so the American formula is the same for all three. The United States will take care of the security of Israel/Iraq/Afghanistan, but security will not be measured only in the number of weapons sold to them, but also in the creation of conditions that will avoid the need to use them. To a certain extent, it will also be measured by these countries’ willingness to agree to U.S. policy. In this way, a new condition has been created that should have been applied a long time ago. According to it, any country that is willing to harm the international standing of the United States is gambling on its own security. This is not a threat, but a clarification.
Israel’s Netanyahu downplays tensions with US: BBC
Israel denies that the new homes are being built illegally
Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu has moved to ease tensions with the US, describing the two countries’ relations as those of “allies and friends”.
Mr Netanyahu also dismissed reports one of his confidants called US President Barack Obama a “disaster” for Israel.
The US has criticised the building of Jewish homes in East Jerusalem, which prompted the Palestinians to pull out of US-brokered indirect peace talks.
The row has caused one of the worst crises in US-Israeli ties for decades.
In the wake of a controversial visit to the US, Mr Netanyahu said on Friday that his policy on East Jerusalem would not change, despite US pressure on Israel to announce a freeze on building Jewish homes there.
A best-selling Israeli newspaper then quoted an unidentified aide as saying: “You could say that Obama is the greatest disaster for Israel – a strategic disaster.”
But the prime minister, speaking before he briefed the cabinet on his US trip, condemned these comments as “unacceptable”.
“They do not come from anyone representing me. The relations between Israel and the United States are those of allies and friends, and are based on tradition spanning many years.”
Re-occupy Gaza?
Tension has also been mounting in Gaza in recent days, with two Israeli soldiers and two Palestinian militants reportedly killed in the worst clashes for more than a year.
At the cabinet meeting, Mr Netanyahu stressed that Israel would provide a “firm and decisive” response to any attack from the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Israel pulled out in 2009 after a which left hundreds of people dead.
Israel insists that Jerusalem will remain its undivided capital.
Nearly half a million Jews live in more than 100 settlements built since Israel’s 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
They are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.
The Middle East quartet – the US, EU, UN and Russia – has called for final status negotiations to reach a comprehensive peace deal within two years.
Editor: Wishful thinking?
While Gideon Levy is, as usual, totally accurate about the Israeli lie-machinery and obfuscation tactics, he is rather wishful about Obama, I feel. He writes as if he wished Obama to take his advice, but how likely is that? To see the Obama move in the the terms describd here, is to give him credit he has not earned, and is unikely to justify.
Israel should thank Obama for acting like a friend: Haaretz
By Gideon Levy
If Israel had a real peace camp, if the silent majority had broken its sickly silence, if more Israelis approached the situation as a collective rather than individuals yearning for the next holiday or car, if more Israelis refused to accept blindly the deceptions of Israeli diplomacy and propaganda, Rabin Square would have been filled with demonstrators yesterday. Among the banners and flags, one sign would have stood out in this hour of risks and fateful decisions: “Thank you, friend.” Thank you, Barack Obama, friend of Israel.
The tidal wave of slurs and slanders, the unitary portrayal of Obama as someone trying to subjugate and humiliate Israel should have been answered with a dissenting voice saying that Obama was doing exactly what a true friend would do. Yes, it’s unpleasant, but after 43 years there’s just no other way. After a regrettable one-year delay and despite constant doubts and question marks, there now seems to be a chance that the 44th president of the United States will prevail where all his predecessors failed. There’s a chance Obama will pull Israel out of the crisis it created and work to achieve a better future, a future where it will claim what’s its own, but only what’s really its own.
The first step is encouraging and hope-inspiring. Among Obama’s modest demands – a construction freeze in Jerusalem and extending the freeze in the settlements, two basic conditions for “negotiations without preconditions” and for anyone who really wants a two-state solution – there’s a demand that the Israelis themselves should have made long ago.
Obama is asking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and through him every Israeli, to finally speak the truth. He’s asking Netanyahu and the rest of us: What on earth do you actually want? Enough with the misleading answers; the moment of truth is here. Enough with the tricks – a neighborhood here, a settlement expansion there. Just tell us: Where are you heading? Do you want to go on receiving unprecedented aid from the United States, do you want to become part of the Middle East, do you want to achieve peace?
If you do, please start behaving accordingly, including halting all construction in all settlements, everywhere, for all time, and begin evacuating them instead. Any action by Israel would be reminiscent of the three no’s of Khartoum: No to ending the occupation, no to peace, no to friendship with America.
Obama’s demands are minimal. Not just continuing the construction freeze, but dealing with the core issues, a two-year deadline to reach a solution and the demand that Israel speak the truth to others and itself. All these things should have been obvious if Israel were really aiming for a solution. Earlier presidents let Israel off and did not press for answers. Obama, faithful for the time being to the great promise he made when he was elected, is no longer willing to put up with the deceit. We now need to see if he’ll withstand the pressure and keep up his pressure on Israel.
The Israelis should be thankful to Obama for holding a mirror in front of them and saying that this is how your continuous deception looks. The Israelis should be just as thankful to Obama for being the first president ready to make Israel pay for its responsibility in maintaining the status quo. This is an American innovation supported by a shifting mood in world politics.
Take heed: The world is beginning to demand that Israel take responsibility for its actions in Dubai and Sheikh Jarrah, in Operation Cast Lead and Ramat Shlomo. From America and Europe, the time of responsibility and payback has arrived.
After 43 years of a vicious occupation, these, too, are minimal demands. Obama didn’t humiliate Israel. Israel humiliated itself for a generation, thinking it could do whatever it wanted – talk peace and build settlements, entrench an occupation and still be considered a democracy, while living on American support and rejecting its requests. Since all of Obama’s demands should have come from Israel itself, Obama is merely acting the way a friend should act. And for that he deserves those three words, from the bottom of our hearts: Thank you, friend.
Report: West suspects Iran planning new nuclear sites: Haaretz
International agencies, inspectors and western intelligence officials believe Tehran is planning to build more nuclear enrichment sites in defiance of international demands, The New York Times reported on Saturday.
Quoting anonymous sources from several governments and international agencies, the Times reported that United Nations inspectors were looking for evidence of two such sites.
The Times reported that inspectors were tipped off by an interview given by Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, who told the Iranian Student News Agency in recent weeks that construction could start on two new enrichment sites after Iranian New Year on March 21.
“God willing,” Mr. Salehi was quoted as saying, “we may start the construction of two new enrichment sites” in the Iranian new year, the Times reported.
U.S. President Barack Obama in September revealed evidence of a hidden enrichment site at Qum.
The Times went on to report that American officials had disclosed that Israel has pressed the case in talks with the U.S., saying that evidence points to what one senior official called “Qum look-alikes.”
The U.S., France and Britain are pushing Russia and China to back a new round of United Nations sanctions against Iran, which they suspect is developing nuclear weapons. The issue will be at the top of the agenda of foreign ministers from the G8 countries – U.S., Canada, Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Germany and Russia – in Ottawa Monday and Tuesday.
Mr. Obama and Israel: N Y Times Editorial
Published: March 26, 2010
After taking office last year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel privately told many Americans and Europeans that he was committed to and capable of peacemaking, despite the hard-line positions that he had used to get elected for a second time. Trust me, he told them. We were skeptical when we first heard that, and we’re even more skeptical now.
All this week, the Obama administration had hoped Mr. Netanyahu would give it something to work with, a way to resolve the poisonous contretemps over Jerusalem and to finally restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. It would have been a relief if they had succeeded. Serious negotiations on a two-state solution are in all their interests. And the challenges the United States and Israel face — especially Iran’s nuclear program — are too great for the leaders not to have a close working relationship.
But after a cabinet meeting on Friday, Mr. Netanyahu and his right-wing government still insisted that they would not change their policy of building homes in the city, including East Jerusalem, which Palestinians hope to make the capital of an independent state.
President Obama made pursuing a peace deal a priority and has been understandably furious at Israel’s response. He correctly sees the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a factor in wider regional instability.
Mr. Netanyahu’s government provoked the controversy two weeks ago when it disclosed plans for 1,600 new housing units in an ultra-orthodox neighborhood in East Jerusalem just as Vice President Joseph Biden Jr. was on a fence-mending visit and Israeli-Palestinian “proximity talks” were to begin.
Last year, Mr. Netanyahu rejected Mr. Obama’s call for a freeze on all settlement building. On Tuesday — just before Mr. Obama hosted Mr. Netanyahu at the White House — Israeli officials revealed plans to build 20 units in the Shepherd Hotel compound of East Jerusalem.
Palestinians are justifiably worried that these projects nibble away at the land available for their future state. The disputes with Israel have made Mr. Obama look weak and have given Palestinians and Arab leaders an excuse to walk away from the proximity talks (in which Mr. Obama’s Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, would shuttle between Jerusalem and Ramallah) that Washington nurtured.
Mr. Obama was right to demand that Mr. Netanyahu repair the damage. Details of their deliberately low-key White House meeting (no photos, no press, not even a joint statement afterward) have not been revealed. We hope Israel is being pressed to at least temporarily halt building in East Jerusalem as a sign of good faith. Jerusalem’s future must be decided in negotiations.
The administration should also insist that proximity talks, once begun, grapple immediately with core issues like borders and security, not incidentals. And it must ensure that the talks evolve quickly to direct negotiations — the only realistic format for an enduring agreement.
Many Israelis find Mr. Obama’s willingness to challenge Israel unsettling. We find it refreshing that he has forced public debate on issues that must be debated publicly for a peace deal to happen. He must also press Palestinians and Arab leaders just as forcefully.
Questions from Israeli hard-liners and others about his commitment to Israel’s security are misplaced. The question is whether Mr. Netanyahu is able or willing to lead his country to a peace deal. He grudgingly endorsed the two-state solution. Does he intend to get there?
Netanyahu’s outright deceit: Al Ahram Weekly
For Israel’s hawkish premier, the issue is not halting illegal settlement expansion, but increasing it less conspicuously, writes Khaled Amayreh in Ramallah
Netanyahu addressed the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference in Washington this week
While claiming to have a genuine desire for the resumption of “peace talks” with the Palestinian Authority (PA), Israel has been murdering Palestinian civilians in the streets of the West Bank in a clear overreaction to recent Palestinian protests against Israeli transgressions against Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem.
Eyewitnesses reported that trigger-happy Israeli troops shot had killed two young Palestinians who were trying to access their land near the northern West Bank town of Nablus. Initially, the Israeli army claimed the two tried to attack heavily armed soldiers with pitchforks, a claim rejected by the Ramallah- based Palestinian government that described the killings as “cold-blooded murder”. An Israeli army spokesman later said the circumstances surrounding the two deaths were vague and that an investigation into “the incident” would be carried out.
Ghassan Al-Khatib, head of the Palestinian Government Press Office, accused the Israeli occupation army of murdering Palestinians in order to provoke a new uprising — or Intifada — that would divert the world’s attention from the belligerent discourse adopted by the Netanyahu government. “We look at this as part of the Israeli escalation. It could have been treated in a completely different way. But the Israelis have been escalating, and this is something the prime minister [Netanyahu] has been warning.”
More ominous remarks came from Mahmoud Al-Alul, a senior Fatah leader based in Nablus. He told some 2,000 mourners that, “nobody can imagine that we can stand with our hands tied vis-à-vis what is happening.” A day earlier, two more Palestinians were killed and others injured when Israeli troops opened fired on Palestinian youths protesting against Israeli provocations at Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam’s holiest shrines. The Israeli army claimed it used rubber bullets, though they can also prove fatal.
The latest killings in the West Bank coincided with visits to the region by EU Foreign Policy Director Catherine Ashton and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- Moon. Both visited Israel and the occupied territories, including the blockaded Gaza Strip, voicing their solidarity and sympathy with tormented Gazans, many of whom are homeless having had their houses destroyed during Israel’s brutal onslaught against the coastal enclave last year.
Hoping that the two important visitors would not submit a “negative” report when they return to their respective bases in Brussels and New York, the Israeli government decided to allow them to travel to Gaza via the Beit Hanoun border terminal, also known as the Erez Crossing. Israel previously blocked repeatedly foreign officials from travelling to Gaza via Erez.
In the West Bank, Ban, escorted by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, saw firsthand how the proliferation of Jewish colonies is seriously inhibiting prospects for the creation of a viable Palestinian state. He called for a total freeze on Jewish settlement expansion, a call ignored by the Israeli government notorious for its disregard of and contempt for the UN.
In Gaza, Ban inspected destruction caused by massive Israeli bombing. He called on Israel to allow building materials to get through to Gaza, acknowledging the fallacy of the Israeli argument that Hamas could use building materials for illegitimate purposes. Ban had earlier met with the family of an Israeli prisoner, captured by Palestinian fighters near Gaza. The UN secretary-general made no mention of the thousands of Palestinians languishing in Israeli prisons and detention camps.
Both Ban and Ashton left Israel-Palestine with a negative impression about the extent to which the Netanyahu government is willing to engage in a genuine peace process that would end the military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Prior to his departure for the US in order to address a major conference of the Jewish lobby and to attempt to mend fences with the Obama administration, Netanyahu told his cabinet and party caucus that settlement expansion would continue unabated. He added that Israel would have to carry out its settlement schemes “quietly, stealthily, and without making a big noise”.
As to recently declared plans to build 1,600 additional settler units in Arab East Jerusalem, Netanyahu vowed to keep building, regardless of what Washington says or does. “Our policy on Jerusalem is the same policy followed by all Israeli governments for the past 42 years. Building in Jerusalem is the same as building in Tel Aviv.”
Netanyahu’s remarks on Jerusalem were rejected by European foreign ministers meeting in Brussels this week. Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn was quoted as saying that the EU was very disappointed by the position of the Israeli government. “I think I can say very clearly that Jerusalem is not Tel Aviv,” he said.
Faced with an uncharacteristically determined American stance on the issue of settlement building, and dismayed by a growing negative impression in Europe — including with close allies such as Germany — about his government’s true intentions, Netanyahu is expected to undertake a number of “goodwill gestures” towards the PA in order to enhance his government’s image in Washington and Europe.
According to Israeli media, Netanyahu might agree to “discuss” all outstanding issues with the Palestinians, release a few hundred Fatah-affiliated prisoners, and allow the entry into Gaza of a limited shipment of building materials as demanded by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Nonetheless, the Israeli premier has refused to revoke plans to build 1,600 settler units in the Ramat Sholomo colony in East Jerusalem. To avoid the kind of embarrassment accompanying the recent visit to Israel by US Vice- President Joe Biden, when Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yeshai announced the new settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian town, Netanyahu promised a better “oversight system” for the future.
Netanyahu’s tactics suggest he is convinced that the recent tension with Washington is over the timing, not the content, of the settlement expansion announcement. In addition, Netanyahu is trying to achieve two tactical goals. First, return the proverbial ball to the Palestinian court; second, replacing the “Iranian subject” on the top of US agenda while relegating the “Palestinian subject” to a secondary status. Netanyahu may even be harbouring further ambitions, including the acquisition of laser-guided bunker-busters from the US, which Israel could use in an attack on Iranian nuclear installations.
As Netanyahu headed for Washington, US Envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell — who returned to the region this week — urged “both sides to show restraint”. Mitchell was evasive and noncommittal about the issue of settlements, stressing that the important thing was to resume peace talks, even without clear guidelines. Recently, General David Petraeus, head of US Central Command in the Middle East, was quoted as criticising Mitchell’s mission in the region, suggesting that the American diplomat was “too old, two slow and too late”.
The Jerusalem “Compromise”: Counterpunch
Obama Still Doesn’t Have the Stomach to Confront Israel
By JONATHAN COOK, Counterpunch, March 25, 2010
Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in the United States this week armed with a mandate from the Israeli parliament. A large majority of legislators from all of Israel’s main parties had supported a petition urging him to stand firm on the building of Jewish settlements in occupied East Jerusalem — the very issue that got him into hot water days earlier with the White House.
Given the Israeli consensus on Jerusalem, there was no way Mr Netanyahu could have avoided rubbing that wound again in his speech on Monday to the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the powerful pro-Israel lobby group.
He told the thousands of delegates: “The Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000 years ago and the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today. Jerusalem is not a settlement. It is our capital.”
Citing his own policy as inseparable from all previous Israeli governments, he added: “Everyone knows that these neighbourhoods will be part of Israel in any peace settlement. Therefore, building them in no way precludes the possibility of a two-state solution.”
Mr Netanyahu’s speech appeared consistent with the new approach agreed byboth sides to end this particular debacle. According to the US media, a policy of “Don’t ask and don’t tell” has been adopted to avoid making East Jerusalem an insurmountable obstacle to negotiations.
It will be telling how the US administration responds to the latest approval by Israeli planning authorities of a housing project at the Shepherd’s Hotel in East Jerusalem – this time in the even more controversial area of Sheikh Jarrah, a Palestinian community slowly being taken over by Jewish settlers backed by the Israeli courts.
The White House has eased its stance chiefly because Mr Netanyahu has climbed down on two issues of even greater importance to the administration.
First, he has agreed to make a “significant gesture” to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, probably in the form of a prisoner release. That is the carrot needed to bring Mr Abbas to the peace talks overseen by George Mitchell, the US special peace envoy.
And second, Mr Netanyahu has conceded that Israel will discuss the “core issues” of the conflict – borders, Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees – ensuring that the negotiations are substantive rather than formal, as he had intended.
Those concessions – if Mr Netanyahu delivers on them – should be enough to break up his far-right coalition, a prospect the White House craves. The US administration wants Tzipi Livni, the leader of the centrist opposition, to join Mr Netanyahu in a new, “peacemaking coalition”.
If Mr Netanyahu could wriggle out of this bind, he would do so. But his ace in the hole – harnessing the might of AIPAC and its legions in Congress to back him against the White House – looks to have been disarmed.
Comments last week by Gen David Petraeus, the head of the US Central Command, linked Israel’s intransigence towards the Palestinians to the spread of a hatred that endangers US troops in the Middle East. That left the AIPAC hordes with little option but to swallow their and Mr Netanyahu’s pride, lest they be accused of dual loyalties.
In the words of Uri Avnery, a former Israeli legislator: “This is only a shot across the bow, a warning shot fired by a warship in order to induce another vessel to follow its instructions. The warning is clear.”
And the warning is that Mr Netanyahu must come to the negotiating table to help to establish a Palestinian state whatever the consequences for his coalition.
But it would be unwise to assume that the crisis over settlement building in East Jerusalem indicates that the Obama administration plans to get any tougher with Israel on the form of such statehood than its predecessors.
Ms Livni, unlike Mr Netanyahu, may wish to find a solution to the conflict – or impose one – but her terms would be far from generous. The White House knows that she, too, is an ardent advocate of settlements in East Jerusalem. When she broke her silence on the crisis last week, it was to emphasise that, by “acting stupidly” in stoking a row with the US, Mr Netanyahu had risked “weakening” Israel’s hold on Jerusalem
Instead, the signs are that Barack Obama could be just as ready to accommodate the Israeli consensus on East Jerusalem as the previous Bush administration was in backing Israel’s position on keeping the overwhelming majority of West Bank settlers in their homes on occupied Palestinian land.
Shimon Peres, the Israeli president who is much favoured in Washington, has outlined a “compromise” to placate the Americans. It would involve a peace deal in which Israel keeps the large swaths of East Jerusalem already settled by Jews, while the Palestinians would be entitled to the ghettos left behind after four decades of illegal Israeli building.
In her own AIPAC speech, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, hinted that such a solution might yet be acceptable to the administration. The recent US condemnation of settlement building, she said, was not “a judgment on the final status of Jerusalem, which is an issue to be settled at the negotiating table. This is about getting to the table, creating and protecting an atmosphere of trust around it — and staying there until the job is finally done.”
Having lost patience with Mr Netanyahu’s lip service to Palestinian statehood, the White House appears finally to have decided its credibility in the Middle East depends on dragging Israel — kicking and screaming, if needs be — to the negotiating table.
Mr Obama may hope that the outcome of such a process will make US troops safer in Iraq and strengthen his hand in the stand-off with Iran. But it remains doubtful that the US actually has the stomach to extract from Israel the concessions needed to create that elusive entity referred to as a viable Palestinian state.
Israel condemned at Arab summit: Al Jazeera TV
Regional leaders meeting in Libya have been united in their condemnation of Israel’s settlement activity in occupied Palestinian land.
The Arab League summit began on Saturday in the Libyan city of Sirte, with Amr Moussa, the Arab League chief, warning that continued Israeli settlement building would end efforts to revive the Middle East peace process.
“We have to study the possibility that the peace process will be a complete failure,” Moussa said in his opening speech to the two-day annual summit.
“It’s time to face Israel … We have accepted an open-ended peace process but that resulted in a loss of time and we did not achieve anything and allowed Israel to practise its policy for 20 years.”
Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as a joint capital for a future state, has been a particular point of focus for delegates.
Jerusalem’s significance
Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, reiterated that Israel’s settlements were illegal under international law, and called for Jerusalem to be part of peace negotiations.
“Jerusalem’s significance to all must be respected, and it should emerge from negotiations as the capital of two states,” he said at the meeting’s opening session.
Ban also called for Arab leaders to support US-led efforts to facilitate indirect “proximity” talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
The Palestinians pulled out of the talks in reaction to Israel’s announcement it would build 1,600 settlements on occupied land.
The Israeli move has also caused a rift between Israel and Washington as it came during a visit to Israel by Joe Biden, the US vice-president.
“I urge you to support efforts to start proximity talks and direct negotiations. Our common goal should be to resolve all final status issues within 24 months,” Ban said.
But Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, ruled out taking part in the talks unless Israel stops building settlements.
“We cannot resume indirect negotiations as long as Israel maintains its settlement policy and the status quo,” he said in his speech.
The warnings over Jerusalem were echoed by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, who called Israel’s policy of considering Jerusalem as its united capital “madness”.
“Jerusalem is the apple of the eye of each and every Muslim … and we cannot at all accept any Israeli violation in Jerusalem or in Muslim sites,” he said.
Danny Ayalon, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, called the declarations coming out of the summit “aggressive”, saying that the arguments put forward were based on “very selective opinions”.
“We say strongly and firmly that we have a legal right to build in Jerusalem and those that seek to enshrine the 1949 Armistice Lines, the so-called ‘Green Line’ as a border have not understood history nor legal precedence,” he said.
“We call on the Palestinian Authority to cease living in delusions of forcing Israel to the pre-1967 lines and to come and join us at the negotiation table without preconditions.”
‘Playing with fire’
Many Arab leaders have been angered by the opening of a restored 17th century synagogue near the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, home to Islam’s third holiest site.
They see such acts as a clear intention by Israel to “Judaise” Jerusalem and undermine chances for a peace agreement with the Palestinians who consider East Jerusalem the capital of their future state.
Holy Land Grab
Jordan’s King Abdullah warned that Israel was “playing with fire” and trying to alter the identity of Jerusalem.
Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria, described tensions with Israel as a “state of no-war, no-peace”, and said his country was ready if “war is imposed” by Israel.
Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, opened the summit with an unusually short speech in which he said that Arabs were “waiting for actions, not words and speeches”.
The Libyan leader, whose country is hosting this year’s summit, has said he wants the meeting to be one of unity and the issue of Jerusalem has proved a unifying factor.
“The whole issue of Israeli actions has been under intense discussions, particularly in light of what has happened in that region in recent days,” Mike Hanna, Al Jazeera’s correspondent reporting from Sirte, said.
“Very clearly the issue of Jerusalem has been brought up and focused on because it is the one issue that would be very difficult for the international community as a whole to ignore.
“If, for example, resolutions would go to the UN General Assembly or the Security Council … on the question of East Jerusalem and Israeli occupation, it is very difficult for international bodies – or countries such as the US – to veto or abstain over something they’ve already condemned.”
Arab leaders are expected to ratify an agreement drafted by their foreign ministers to raise $500m in aid to improve the living conditions for Palestinians in Jerusalem as part of a “rescue” plan for the city.
A senior Palestinian official said the money would go towards improving infrastructure, building hospitals, schools, water wells and providing financial support to those whose houses have been demolished by Israeli authorities.
The leaders are also due to discuss a number of strategies, including keeping a record of what they consider to be Israeli “violations” in Jerusalem to refer them to higher bodies such as the International Criminal Court, based in the Hague in the Netherlands.
The last Arab League summit, held two years ago, was hosted by Qatar.
Israel remains defiant amid allies’ growing anger: BBC
Tim Franks
As relations between Britain and Israel continue to unravel, in Jerusalem many Israelis feel that the outside world still fails to understand the problems – and threats – their country is facing.
Uzi Arad is a very important man. He’s now the director of Israel’s National Security Council, and National Security Adviser to the prime minister – a position he’s held since Benjamin Netanyahu took office.
Uzi Arad has a reputation for fighting fiercely and territorially among the sharp edges that exist at the height of the Israeli power pyramid.
He was always hospitable whenever I, on occasion, used to visit him at home – before he took up his current job.
He’d spent more than 20 years in Mossad – Israel’s secret intelligence service, and before he was appointed one of its directors, he was stationed for a time in London.
Once, at his house, he took me into his expansive library. He reached onto a shelf and extracted a book called Mandarin – the memoirs of the British diplomat Sir Nicholas Henderson.
Uzi Arad opened the inside front cover. There, in green ink, was an inscription: “To Uzi, with the thanks and appreciation of your British friends for your co-operation and help and best wishes for the future.”
The message was signed C – the initial that has always denoted the head of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service.
‘Doesn’t look good’
Such cordiality evaporated this week with the expulsion of a senior Israeli London-based diplomat who, by common consent, appears to have been the Mossad London station chief.
The Government’s anger was stoked by the apparent use of fake British passports in the assassination of the top Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in January.
In the careful language of the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, the Serious Organised Crime Agency “was drawn to the conclusion that the passports used were copied from genuine British passports when handed over for inspection to individuals linked to Israel, either in Israel or in other countries”.
It doesn’t take much for the gales of public opinion to blow in Israel – and barely had David Miliband finished his statement in Westminster than the gusts a continent away began whipping.
A right-wing Israeli Member of Parliament reached into strangely Maoist terminology, and called the British “dogs”.
A commentator in a right-of-centre newspaper argued that “millions of Muslims live in Britain, and Gordon Brown needs their votes in the upcoming elections”.
At the other end of Israel’s brightly coloured political spectrum, a resident of one of the country’s most stalwartly socialist kibbutzim, or rural collectives, e-mailed me to say that “if Israel was directly or indirectly involved in the Dubai incident then there’s no limit, apparently, to the arrogance and stupidity of this regime/administration”.
But between the howls and harrumphs there were quieter noises. Some dwindled quickly into silence, and I found the voices I normally turn to in the Israeli intelligence community politely declining to speak or hanging up after the briefest of “it doesn’t look good” comments.
One diplomat with a close connection to London did allow himself to be slightly more phlegmatic. “This is a standard dance the British have to go through,” he told me.
“Of course, they won’t admit it. They’ll sell it hard. But I see no reason for them or for us to shift gears over bilateral co-operation.”
Fundamental point
What is clear is that few Israelis are shedding tears for Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.
On a street-corner in Jerusalem, half-way between the prime minister’s residence and the official home of the president, Eitan was drawing heavily on a cigarette, outside his shop.
“Personally, I don’t like violence,” Eitan told me. “But the thing is, Hamas doesn’t want to talk. And if someone is going to hit you, then sometimes you have to hit them first.”
Behind Eitan’s shrug is a wide belief in Israel that the rest of the world doesn’t quite get it – that Israel is the only homeland the Jews have, that it’s small and that it’s trying to survive in a hostile neighbourhood.
It’s that feeling which fuels the declamation “Jerusalem is not a settlement”, repeated this week in Washington by Benjamin Netanyahu – and that the Israeli government will carry on building in the city wherever it chooses, even if that means the occupied territory of East Jerusalem, amid growing American displeasure.
And that is the much more fundamental point here.
There may be a moment of iciness between Britain and Israel over the forged passports.
Mossad London station chiefs may not, in the near future, receive cosy book inscriptions from the boss of MI6.
But Israel’s belief in its exceptionalism, and the impatience currently shown by two of its closest allies, may point to a deeper rupture.
Editor: Achitofel’s advice – The voice of unreason
Somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun, stands proud Alan Dersowitz, untouchable by events, rising among the hard liners of AIPAC, forever ready to have a fight with anyone around, supporting Israel to the bitter end of Palestine. His advice is sure to get the whole world intoa quagmire which only he knows how to get out of… this is the true voice of Israeli politics of confrontation, and he is a better Amabassador than the official one.It is interesting that even Dersowitz is against the settlements, according to himself… so who in his right mind supports the ocupation and settlements in the US, you wonder?
The American administration has been paying for this colonial effort, indirectly, giving Israel over 3 Billion dollars in ‘civilian aid’ every year. That’s who.
Dershowitz: Obama needs hard line on Iran to win Israeli support: Haaretz
By Akiva Eldar
Law professor Alan Dershowitz, a well-known attorney in the American legal world, has made a name for himself representing celebrity clients such as O.J. Simpson, Jonathan Pollard and Mike Tyson. His lectures are seen as some of the most fervent speeches made in Israel’s defense, while his books, including “The Case for Israel,” have become bestsellers – particularly among Israel’s supporters. He also played a pivotal role in attacking Justice Richard Goldstone’s report on last year’s Israeli offensive into Gaza.
Dershowitz traveled last week from Harvard University to Washington to participate in the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He also followed the clash unfolding between Barack Obama, his president, and Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of his favorite client, with concern.
How do you interpret the cool to frosty reception Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received at the White House?
It’s clearly part of the Obama administration’s strategy to increase pressure on Israel. After all, they praised Netanyahu’s offer to end building in the West Bank, without him committing to ending building in parts of Jerusalem certain to remain an integral part of Israel under any agreement. In the White House they think they can have more influence on Israel than on the Palestinians. But this seems to be backfiring, because the Palestinians now believe they can demand more and more pre-conditions for starting talks. What Obama has to realize is that he is dealing with Israel, a democracy to which you can not always dictate specific terms. Israel can’t make peace without the clear support of the United States. The Israeli voters supported Ehud Barak’s very generous offers in 2000/2001 largely because they trusted Bill Clinton. Mistrust of Barack Obama will make it more difficult to persuade Israelis to take risks for peace.
Obama is surrounded by Jewish advisors who understand how Israel works, and even has a senior advisor with an Israeli background.
The fact that Obama has advisors who are Jewish simply gives him a better cover to be tough on Israel. On the other hand, he doesn’t have close Palestinian advisors who are familiar with the other side. I’m afraid this is bringing the parties further apart rather than closer together.
Could the rift between the administration in Washington and the Israeli government cause a split in the Jewish community, between Obama’s supporters and supporters of Israel?
No – the Jewish community is solidly behind Israel on security issues and largely behind Israel on building in Jewish neighborhoods in North Jerusalem that will remain part of Israel in any agreement. On the other hand, the issue is lessening support for Obama among Jewish supporters of Israel.
If you were Netanyahu’s attorney, how would you advise him to end this crisis?
I would suggest that he make the following announcement: “We do not believe that new building in Jewish sections of Jerusalem is a barrier to peace. We believe that the Palestinian’s unwillingness to engage in unconditional direct talks, coupled with their unwillingness to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, is the primary barrier to peace. To prove our point, and without waving any rights in Jerusalem, we will announce a three-month suspension of all building permits in all disputed areas of Jerusalem in order to see whether that brings the Palestinians to the peace table and whether they are prepared to engage in good faith direct negotiations. If the Palestinians will then be prepared to engage in good faith direct negotiations, the suspensions will continue until the negotiations are complete. If not, we will return to the status quo.”
That would be a test of the Palestinians’ good will – a test I hope they will pass, but believe they will fail.
How would you advise Obama?
I would tell him that the process cannot be unilateral and that there must be mutual concessions. For example, the Obama administration has falsely blamed the naming of a Ramallah square after a terrorist who murdered Jews on Hamas, rather than on the Palestinian Authority. The Obama administration has to make as substantial demands of the Palestinians as it does of the Israelis. If you think this crisis is severe, you should know it is nothing compared to what could happen with regard to the Iranian issue at some future date. I’m afraid [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad is one of the happiest men these days thanks to the many incidents between the United States and Israel. [PA Authority President] Mahmoud Abbas, by the way, is also pretty happy.
Would you disagree that this crisis – along with earlier ones and ones that will likely follow – stems from the Israeli settlement policy?
I believe that if Israel were to put an end to the settlements in the West Bank tomorrow, as it did in Gaza, there would still be reluctance on the part of the Palestinian Authority to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish secular democracy. Accordingly, the settlements should not be a major cause of disagreement between Israel and the United States, despite their differences over this issue. Nonetheless, I hope Israel will stop building in the West Bank and in those sections of Jerusalem which are likely to become part of a Palestinian state.
I am deeply concerned that, without peace and a two-state solution, the Jewish and democratic nature of Israel is in danger. That’s why I have opposed Israel’s settlement policy since 1973, and that’s why I have favored a two-state solution since 1967.
Do you believe that Obama is a friend of Israel and is truly committed to his promise not to allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons?
I believe Barack Obama is committed to Israel’s security. He is also committed to the two-state solution and the peace process.
I hope he understands that unless Israelis – and the rest of the world – believe that he will do whatever it takes to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, many Israelis will be unwilling to take significant risks for peace. I will remain committed to Obama so long as he continues to support Israeli security unequivocally. Obama’s historic legacy will be based on whether he succeeds in preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. If such weapons are obtained on his watch, history will remember him as it remembers Neville Chamberlain, despite anything else he might achieve in terms of domestic American policy.
You’ve made no secret about your criticism of the left-wing Jewish organization J Street. Why are you so disturbed by Jews who support peace?
I am a peace supporting Jew. I think J Street performs an important function, as it represents many left-leaning young Jews. My criticism is that it would be better if they work within the context of AIPAC. The pro-Israel lobby could then speak with one voice, especially during a time of conflict between the United States and Israel, and especially on undisputed issues – like Iran, responding to rocket attacks, anti-terrorism measures, etc. I myself have had significant disagreements with the Israeli government on a number of issues, such as the settlements. At the same time, I emphasize the 80 percent of Israeli policies that have widespread support across the political spectrum. When I wrote “The Case For Peace,” my book received endorsements from prime minister Ariel Sharon and [writer] Amos Oz, because I dealt with the agreed 80 percent. J Street, on other hand, tends to focus on the 20 percent, where there is significant disagreement. That is perfectly okay for an Israeli newspaper, like Haaretz, or for Israeli domestic organizations. But it weakens pro-Israel advocacy considerably, particularly at a time when the pro-Israel community in the United States must continue to pressure the Obama administration to de-escalate this conflict.
Can you describe what happened when you debated the representative from J Street at the AIPAC conference?
Here is what happened: I was standing with professor Irwin Cotler, the former attorney general of Canada, having a conversation. A gentleman asked me if I would like to be interviewed by the correspondent from Haaretz. I said yes. He then went over to the correspondent and asked her whether she wanted to interview professor Dershowitz. She said yes, asked me several questions, and wrote down the answers on her notepad. She then turned to the J Street representative and asked him whether he had any response, which he then provided. Following that, a polite debate ensued, I did not break into a conversation. The entire episode was videotaped and witnessed by over 100 people.