Last update - 16:07 01/05/2007
By Shahar Ilan, Yuval Azoulay and Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondents
Showing posts with label Olmert. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Olmert. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
State comptroller's report: Olmert corrupt
Comptroller suggests probe against PM
State comptroller presents report on Olmert's time as industry, trade and labor minister, accuses PM of working to advance friend's interests. Prime Minister's Office says in response, 'Olmert has lost all faith in the comptroller' Aviram Zino
Latest Update: 04.25.07, 21:55 / Israel News
| "The conflict of interests which Olmert was caught up in should be viewed very severely," said State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss' harsh report on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's conduct during his time as industry, trade and labor minister. Lindenstrauss presented the report on Olmert's actions to the Knesset and prime minister on Wednesday.
The comptroller also presented the report to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, as a criminal act is suspected. Mazuz will now determine whether there is cause to order a criminal investigation against Olmert. The case in question refers to a project that attorney Uri Messer wished to receive funds for from the ministry which Olmert headed. Messer is a former partner and close friend of Olmert. Olmert is suspected of interfering with the process to promote his friend's interests. The report details how Olmert acted to change conditions set by the professional bodies in the investment office in order to grant Messer benefits.
Part of the report read, "This is a factory that received from the investment office the status of an authorized factory in 1992 and as a result, funds from the state. Five years later, in 1997, the authorization was retracted since the factory was not built and its plans, as were authorized, were not carried out…
"Then, in 2001, the factory filed another request for authorization status, a request which was not even heard until 2003, when the project's manager hired attorney Uri Messer, who also represents Olmert on personal matters and headed the group backing Olmert's 1998 campaign for Jerusalem mayor. He was also his partner at a law firm."
"Despite their past partnership, and despite their personal ties and present attorney-client relationship, Mr Olmert did not keep himself from participating, actively and intensively, in making decisions, after being told by his professional crew that there were many reservations regarding this factory," the report said.
Lindenstrass stated that in the situation that was created, Olmert should have completely withdrawn himself from dealing with the request.
The comptroller also accused the aides of acting inappropriately, saying that in reality, they were Olmert's "long arm."
"They did not operate from an independent source of authority, but only acted in the name of the minister," he said.
Olmert's response The Prime Minister's Office said in response to the report, "Olmert has lost all faith in the comptroller, therefore we had no expectations from him on this matter and were not surprised.
"The conduct of the comptroller in this matter, as it has been in other critical reports, has once again unfortunately broken all records of unprofessional behavior and bias.
"This conduct is leading to the downfall of the important and illustrious establishment he heads and this is the belief of many in the public service, his predecessors and high ranking officials in his own office, both former and current," said Olmert's office.
"It would seem that the comptroller has turned himself into an object of the ratings committee, and it is ratings and media deadlines alone that guide his actions. Whenever he fears that the public agenda is not giving him the attention he believes he deserves, he tries to fabricate drama in an attempt to seize headlines.
"This happened on the eve of the prime minister's testimony before the Winograd Committee when the comptroller urgently issued a draft of one of his reports, it happened when the comptroller believed that the Winograd report would be released in late March and hurried along to issue his own report on the conduct of the Home Front without seeking the responses of those he passed judgment on; failing to carry out the most basic of professional requirements.
"And so today, on the eve of the release of the Winograd Committee's findings, he issues this current report without having taken into account any of the various responses submitted to him on the matter, as per his request, on Memorial Day, three days ago."
Olmert's office also said that "with this sad knowledge" the prime minister's attorneys have already approached the attorney general prior to release of the comptroller's report and provided him with a detailed response to the accusations.
The response, said Olmert's office, includes documented proof that counters the charges made by the comptroller as well as proof that certain facts were maliciously twisted to fit with the comptroller's thesis.
'A Shameful report' Later Wednesday, Olmert's attorneys sent a scathing letter to Mazuz, calling the report "shameful."
"We are frustrated that the prime minister, as a politician, is always considered a member of the 'evil' group and often times its leader. We're frustrated that the state comptroller, as the former president of a district court, is always considered a member of the 'good' group, and in his own mind its leader," wrote Olmert's attorneys of Lindenstrauss.
The attorneys, Eli Zohar and Roi Bleher, claimed that Lindenstrauss marked Olmert as a target and refused to consider any of the prime minister's explanations. Zahar and Bleher said that the manner in which Olmert promoted Messer's project was exactly the same as the way he treated any number of similar projects.
"If this wasn't the prime minister of Israel, who every day fulfills one of the most complex roles in the world, and a state comptroller, who in his desire to go down in history as the man who cleaned Israel's stables is abusing much of the public resources available to him for his own personal gain – it might have been possible to laugh at Lindenstrauss' behavior. But given their status, it's only a sad affair. Very sad," they wrote.
The attorneys asked Mazuz to review the matter and rule as quickly as possible.
Amnon Meranda and Ronny Sofer contributed to this report
|
Monday, April 23, 2007
Levin gives Cheney reason to smirk
BY RAY McGOVERN
Never before have I felt such irk from a Cheney smirk -- the one with which he confidently assured CBS's Bob Schieffer on Sunday's "Face the Nation" that the Democrats will continue to vote to fund the war without including serious restrictions.
Cheney referred approvingly to the fact that "Carl Levin, who's chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has indicated that they definitely do want to pass funding for the troops."
Cheney expressed confidence that the Democrats will "not leave America's fighting forces in harm's way without the resources they need to defend themselves." And yes, the vice president went on to reassure viewers, against all evidence to the contrary: "We are making progress."
The administration's main objective could hardly be clearer, even to mainstream pundits allergic to spelling it out. By waving the flag of patriotism, the White House is confident it can continue to intimidate enough Democrats to get the only thing it really wants: enough money to stave off defeat in Iraq until President George W. Bush and Cheney are safely out of office. That, of course, also explains the foredoomed "surge" in troop strength.
But how is it that Cheney can enlist the likes of Carl Levin in a policy built on the backs of American troops? Based on recent casualty rates, some 1,500 American troops already "in harm's way" will die, and several times that number will be wounded before Cheney and Bush leave office -- not to mention the ever mounting casualties among Iraqis.
Is Cheney exaggerating the support he sees in Levin? Apparently not. The senior senator from Michigan seems ready to provide additional funding for the war, no matter what. On April 8, right after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced he would cosponsor legislation cutting off all funding for combat troops after March 31, 2008, Levin undercut him by telling ABC's "This Week": "We're not going to vote to cut the funding, period. ... We're not going to cut off funding for the troops. We shouldn't cut off funding for the troops. ... We're going to vote for a bill that funds the troops, period. We're going to fund the troops. We always have."
Got that?
What would prompt Levin to undermine his own majority leader? Levin was challenged on that point last Sunday at the University of Michigan. He replied that cutting funding for the war is what Rush Limbaugh wants and would play into Bush's hands. The Democrats would probably lose a battle over funding and end up looking "really bad," added Levin.
Not very persuasive, senator -- not when more and more are getting killed in Iraq every day.
Levin may be concerned about things other than looking bad. Those taking part in last month's meeting of the America Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington heard stern warnings from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni that America not show "weakness" on Iraq -- warnings that a U.S. troop withdrawal would make the neighborhood far more dangerous for Israel.
Federal Election Commission records show that Levin has received more money from pro-Israel political action committees than any other senator. But, given his distinguished record, it would seem appropriate to give him the benefit of the doubt. It seems less likely that he is influenced by the money than by his penchant to see little or no daylight between what he perceives to be Israel's interests and those of the United States.
This appears to be the kind of "passionate attachment" against which George Washington warned so strongly in his farewell address more than 200 years ago.
RAY McGOVERN was a CIA analyst for 27 years and is now on the steering group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). Write to him in care of the Free Press Editorial Page, 600 W. Fort St., Detroit 48226 or oped@freepress.com.
Copyright © 2007 Detroit Free Press Inc.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Dems Warn Olmert About Playing Politics
Despite Concilliatory Talk, Tension Remains Over Criticism of Pelosi
Nathan Guttman | Fri. Apr 20, 2007
Washington - Israeli officials and Democratic lawmakers are working to mend fences after the fallout between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi following Pelosi’s visit to Damascus. But Democrats are still angry about what they see as Olmert’s desperate attempts to align himself with President Bush even if it means wading into American political controversies.
The latest flap erupted two weeks ago, after Olmert’s office released a statement — based on partial reports from a press conference that Pelosi had held in Damascus — suggesting she had done a poor job of delivering an Israeli message to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Israeli criticism of the speaker came as Bush administration officials were blasting the Democratic leader for visiting Syria.
Since then, Olmert is said to have apologized to Pelosi, and Israel’s ambassador to Washington has praised the speaker. But some Democrats are still upset at Olmert’s actions and attribute them to his weakened political standing at home.
“It’s all politics,” said Rep. Gary Ackerman, a New York Democrat who chairs the House Subcommittee on the Middle East. When asked what led Olmert to criticize Pelosi’s trip to Damascus, Ackerman said that the Israeli premier had “kissed President Bush’s ass.”
“All the criticism of Pelosi is a stupid, idiotic political bube moyse that the Republicans made up here in Washington,” Ackerman said, stressing that the entire debate had nothing to do with Israel but rather with American partisan politics.
“Bush is the only friend Olmert has left,” said a Democratic staffer on Capitol Hill. “Our impression is that Olmert does want a good relationship with the Democrats, but he feels that he needs to support the administration.”
Despite his harsh comments, Ackerman, who just returned from a visit to the Middle East in which he met with Olmert, said he did not sense any tension in the relations between the Israeli leadership and the House Democrats.
In a speech Tuesday at the convention of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Pelosi insisted that her bipartisan delegation “delivered the message” — that Israel is ready for peace talks if Syria ceases its support for terrorism — “as we were requested.”
Pelosi, and other members of the delegation, said that in their meetings with leaders of the Syrian regime, they also stressed that Democrats join the Bush administration’s demand that Syria stop sponsoring terror and discontinue its meddling in the political life in Lebanon.
Rep. Tom Lantos, the California Democrat who chairs the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and joined Pelosi on the trip, called Olmert upon returning to the United States and told the Israeli leader that the delegation had conveyed to the Syrian leader the exact message that it was asked by Olmert himself to pass on. Pelosi telephoned Dalia Itzik, speaker of the Knesset, to make the same point.
Israeli officials have been working to clear the air after it became obvious that Olmert’s remarks were seen as a slap in the face to the Democratic leadership.
Olmert called Pelosi last week and thanked her for her efforts in Syria. According to sources who were briefed on the conversation, Olmert was apologetic and made clear that he did not mean to accuse Pelosi or other members of the delegation of mishandling the diplomatic mission.
Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Sallai Meridor, issued a statement thanking Pelosi for her support of Israel and for raising the issue of captured Israeli soldiers in her meetings in Damascus. He described Pelosi’s efforts as “a unique manifestation of the strong bipartisanship friendship and alliance between our two countries.”
Another California Democrat in the delegation, Rep. Henry Waxman, said he does not see any long-lasting damage to the relations that Democrats have with Olmert, now that the disagreement over the Damascus trip has been settled.
“In my opinion, there is no problem between the Democrats and the Israeli government,” Waxman, chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told the Forward. “There may be differences of opinion, but on the central issue of supporting Israel and its security, there is no difference.”
But some Democratic activists do not see the flap over Pelosi’s trip to Syria as an isolated incident.
A month before her trip, Olmert spoke at the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and warned against a hasty withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. Olmert’s direct call on pro-Israel activists to support Bush’s Iraq policy came only hours after Vice President Dick Cheney warned the same forum of the dangers that setting a deadline for withdrawal would pose to Israel.
The backdrop for both speeches was the beginning of Democratic efforts in Congress to set a timetable for pulling American forces out of Iraq.
Olmert also praised Bush’s policy in Iraq after the two leaders had a White House meeting last November, days after the midterm elections in which the Democrats won control of Congress.
A Democratic staffer speculated that Olmert’s criticism of Pelosi came after “he got a call from the White House.” Lantos, in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, also suggested that the White House was behind drawing Olmert’s attention to the activities of Pelosi’s delegation in Damascus.
Israeli sources, however, told the Forward that while Israel does not wish to enter the American political fray, it has genuine strategic concerns relating to a possible rushed withdrawal of American forces from Iraq and sees a need to express these concerns in a variety of forums.
Tense relations between Israeli leaders and American politicians from either side of the aisle are not new. During the Reagan administration, Israel worked with the Democratically controlled Congress against the White House in a failed attempt to stop a sale of surveillance aircrafts of the Airborne Warning and Control System to Saudi Arabia. When Bill Clinton was in the White House, then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu forged relations with Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich in what was seen as an attempt to counter the administration’s peace efforts in the region.
In contrast, Ariel Sharon, Olmert’s political predecessor and patron, maintained an excellent working relationship with President Bush but strictly refrained from taking any position that could be seen as explicitly siding with the Republicans, and he never made any public remarks about the conduct of the war in Iraq.
While the debate over Iraq has apparently created some discord between Jerusalem and Democratic leaders in Congress, on legislative issues there is no daylight. Democrats were responsible for curbing attempts by the Bush administration to provide support to the Palestinian Authority, and they have forced the State Department to cut back an aid package intended to bolster the forces of P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas. They have also insisted that the administration not establish ties with the new Palestinian government.
In Democratic circles, Olmert’s low approval ratings — down to 3%, according to one poll — have become a source of comic relief and in some cases have taken the edge off the anger at the Israeli leaders. “Olmert and Bush put together have less than 50% support,” Ackerman said.
Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, who is the first Muslim to be elected to Congress and is also a member of Pelosi’s delegation to the Middle East, was a bit more colorful in making the same point during his appearance at this week’s convention of Reform activists. “There are,” Ellison said, “more people who believe that Elvis is alive than those who support Olmert.”
Nathan Guttman | Fri. Apr 20, 2007
Washington - Israeli officials and Democratic lawmakers are working to mend fences after the fallout between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi following Pelosi’s visit to Damascus. But Democrats are still angry about what they see as Olmert’s desperate attempts to align himself with President Bush even if it means wading into American political controversies.
The latest flap erupted two weeks ago, after Olmert’s office released a statement — based on partial reports from a press conference that Pelosi had held in Damascus — suggesting she had done a poor job of delivering an Israeli message to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Israeli criticism of the speaker came as Bush administration officials were blasting the Democratic leader for visiting Syria.
Since then, Olmert is said to have apologized to Pelosi, and Israel’s ambassador to Washington has praised the speaker. But some Democrats are still upset at Olmert’s actions and attribute them to his weakened political standing at home.
“It’s all politics,” said Rep. Gary Ackerman, a New York Democrat who chairs the House Subcommittee on the Middle East. When asked what led Olmert to criticize Pelosi’s trip to Damascus, Ackerman said that the Israeli premier had “kissed President Bush’s ass.”
“All the criticism of Pelosi is a stupid, idiotic political bube moyse that the Republicans made up here in Washington,” Ackerman said, stressing that the entire debate had nothing to do with Israel but rather with American partisan politics.
“Bush is the only friend Olmert has left,” said a Democratic staffer on Capitol Hill. “Our impression is that Olmert does want a good relationship with the Democrats, but he feels that he needs to support the administration.”
Despite his harsh comments, Ackerman, who just returned from a visit to the Middle East in which he met with Olmert, said he did not sense any tension in the relations between the Israeli leadership and the House Democrats.
In a speech Tuesday at the convention of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Pelosi insisted that her bipartisan delegation “delivered the message” — that Israel is ready for peace talks if Syria ceases its support for terrorism — “as we were requested.”
Pelosi, and other members of the delegation, said that in their meetings with leaders of the Syrian regime, they also stressed that Democrats join the Bush administration’s demand that Syria stop sponsoring terror and discontinue its meddling in the political life in Lebanon.
Rep. Tom Lantos, the California Democrat who chairs the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and joined Pelosi on the trip, called Olmert upon returning to the United States and told the Israeli leader that the delegation had conveyed to the Syrian leader the exact message that it was asked by Olmert himself to pass on. Pelosi telephoned Dalia Itzik, speaker of the Knesset, to make the same point.
Israeli officials have been working to clear the air after it became obvious that Olmert’s remarks were seen as a slap in the face to the Democratic leadership.
Olmert called Pelosi last week and thanked her for her efforts in Syria. According to sources who were briefed on the conversation, Olmert was apologetic and made clear that he did not mean to accuse Pelosi or other members of the delegation of mishandling the diplomatic mission.
Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Sallai Meridor, issued a statement thanking Pelosi for her support of Israel and for raising the issue of captured Israeli soldiers in her meetings in Damascus. He described Pelosi’s efforts as “a unique manifestation of the strong bipartisanship friendship and alliance between our two countries.”
Another California Democrat in the delegation, Rep. Henry Waxman, said he does not see any long-lasting damage to the relations that Democrats have with Olmert, now that the disagreement over the Damascus trip has been settled.
“In my opinion, there is no problem between the Democrats and the Israeli government,” Waxman, chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told the Forward. “There may be differences of opinion, but on the central issue of supporting Israel and its security, there is no difference.”
But some Democratic activists do not see the flap over Pelosi’s trip to Syria as an isolated incident.
A month before her trip, Olmert spoke at the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and warned against a hasty withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. Olmert’s direct call on pro-Israel activists to support Bush’s Iraq policy came only hours after Vice President Dick Cheney warned the same forum of the dangers that setting a deadline for withdrawal would pose to Israel.
The backdrop for both speeches was the beginning of Democratic efforts in Congress to set a timetable for pulling American forces out of Iraq.
Olmert also praised Bush’s policy in Iraq after the two leaders had a White House meeting last November, days after the midterm elections in which the Democrats won control of Congress.
A Democratic staffer speculated that Olmert’s criticism of Pelosi came after “he got a call from the White House.” Lantos, in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, also suggested that the White House was behind drawing Olmert’s attention to the activities of Pelosi’s delegation in Damascus.
Israeli sources, however, told the Forward that while Israel does not wish to enter the American political fray, it has genuine strategic concerns relating to a possible rushed withdrawal of American forces from Iraq and sees a need to express these concerns in a variety of forums.
Tense relations between Israeli leaders and American politicians from either side of the aisle are not new. During the Reagan administration, Israel worked with the Democratically controlled Congress against the White House in a failed attempt to stop a sale of surveillance aircrafts of the Airborne Warning and Control System to Saudi Arabia. When Bill Clinton was in the White House, then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu forged relations with Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich in what was seen as an attempt to counter the administration’s peace efforts in the region.
In contrast, Ariel Sharon, Olmert’s political predecessor and patron, maintained an excellent working relationship with President Bush but strictly refrained from taking any position that could be seen as explicitly siding with the Republicans, and he never made any public remarks about the conduct of the war in Iraq.
While the debate over Iraq has apparently created some discord between Jerusalem and Democratic leaders in Congress, on legislative issues there is no daylight. Democrats were responsible for curbing attempts by the Bush administration to provide support to the Palestinian Authority, and they have forced the State Department to cut back an aid package intended to bolster the forces of P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas. They have also insisted that the administration not establish ties with the new Palestinian government.
In Democratic circles, Olmert’s low approval ratings — down to 3%, according to one poll — have become a source of comic relief and in some cases have taken the edge off the anger at the Israeli leaders. “Olmert and Bush put together have less than 50% support,” Ackerman said.
Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, who is the first Muslim to be elected to Congress and is also a member of Pelosi’s delegation to the Middle East, was a bit more colorful in making the same point during his appearance at this week’s convention of Reform activists. “There are,” Ellison said, “more people who believe that Elvis is alive than those who support Olmert.”
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Evidence Emerging Of Cheney-Led Smear Campaign Against Pelosi Over Syria Trip
Before Nancy Pelosi left Israel to travel to Syria earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s spokeswoman Miri Eisin said “Pelosi is conveying that Israel is willing to talk if they (Syria) would openly take steps to stop supporting terrorism.” Pelosi delivered as requested, and this week received a thank you call from Olmert. So why then did the Israeli Prime Minister originally issue a statement of “clarification” about Pelosi’s message which became the basis for right-wing attacks against her?
The evidence of White House involvement behind the Israeli Prime Minister’s statement has been growing this past week. Middle East analysts have suggested Bush deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abramsobvious the White House is desperate to find some phony criticism of the speaker’s trip, even though it was a bipartisan trip,’ said Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), a Holocaust survivor who is considered the Democrat closest to the pro-Israel lobby. ‘I have nothing but contempt and disdain for the attempt to undermine this trip.’” — a close ally of Dick Cheney — may have been coordinating the attempts to undermine Pelosi’s trip. “‘It’s
Rep. Henry Waxman suggested that the White House’s coordinated attempts to smear Pelosi were part of an effort to undermine her on Iraq:
Waxman said the administration is focused on building a case against the Democrats in preparation for a showdown over the Iraq War funding bill. The more they can paint Democrats as weak and irresponsible, the more likely the Democrats will knuckle under and let the president continue the war unchecked. It’s been known to happen.
So Cheney trashes the reputation of men like Lantos and Waxman (who, by the way, has doggedly pursued waste and mismanagement in Iraq by Halliburton, the company that made Cheney rich), and it’s politics as usual.
This is not unchartered territory for Cheney. He has become famous for kneecapping people with whom he disagrees, even individuals within the administration. Middle East experts recalled Cheney’s involvement in a similar situation last year:
Last year, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice talked Olmert into a 48-hour cease-fire during the war with Hezbollah to allow humanitarian relief, but within hours Israeli planes were bombing again, to Rice’s surprise and anger. Olmert had received a call, apparently from Cheney’s office, telling him to ignore Rice.
The Cheney campaign against Pelosi hasn’t let up. This week, the Washington Post editorial board — which has helped drive the Pelosi smear campaign from the beginning — published an attack piece from Liz Cheney, the daughter of the Vice President.
Filed under: Administration, International Relations
Thursday, April 12, 2007
The stale myth of battlefield bravado
Related
Israel doesn't want peace: Gideon Levy - Haaretz
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Last update - 11:22 12/04/2007
By Meron Benvenisti
Only the naive expected a positive government response to the Arab initiative offering normalized relations in return for a withdrawal and a resolution to the refugee problem. The knee-jerk skepticism to peace offers has characterized the response of nearly all Israeli governments since 1949, and not only during the years after 1967 and the occupation of the territories. When Ehud Olmert has reservations about the Arab peace initiative, he is following in the footsteps of Moshe Dayan who said half a century ago: "I am against concessions in any area, and if the Arabs will want war over this, I am not opposed."
The governments of Israel have always been quick to initiate military operations and slow to engage in restraint or seek compromise and settlement. After all, it is always possible to find justification for aggression, arguing that we were responding to their attack. The definition of provocation, compared to a response to it, is a matter of perspective. When there is an unending chain of violence and counter-violence, every cause in the eyes of one side is an effect for the other. Indeed, there are many instances in which one side initiated provocations that served as a pretext for a disproportionate response, which in turn fed the cycle.
Behind the slogans "war imposed on us" and "war of no choice" hides an old attitude that says the use of force serves strategic objectives, such as occupying territory and clutching territorial assets gained in previous wars.
There is also an ideological foundation to the aversion to peace initiatives. The governing ideology maintains that Arab hostility is a permanent situation, that the Arabs lack a basic willingness to relate to the Jewish state as a legitimate entity, and that the violent nature of the region does not allow for real peace but, in the best case scenario, a cease-fire that will be violated the very moment its enemies sense Israel's weakness.
This dismissive approach to any chance at peace stood out once again when the negative response to the Saudi peace initiative stirred nearly no protest, except among a small group of peace activists. There is even more evidence to the impact of this eternal war of the "no choice" approach: the public's anger at its leadership for failing in the supreme objective of military victory, which "will etch on the psyche of the enemy" Israel's superior deterrent power.
The urge to punish the leaders stems not only from the failures in the conduct of the war, but also from the fact that their conduct exposed the deep chasm between the fiery belligerence of arrogant generals and the lack of motivation and inability to carry out the mission, the erosion of the public's willingness to bear bereavement, and most of all, the unwillingness to give up the good life in favor of the demands of an eternal war of no choice.
The exposure of this gap is unforgiven. Because if this is the situation, how is it possible to persist with the pretense of "a war for the sake of our existence," which rejects any possibility of dialogue?
"The Lord Almighty blessed us with a miracle," the prime minister said in his apologetic speeches, "which created that which exposed the situation today and not, God forbid, in two to three years." Ehud Olmert was referring here to the growing strength of the enemy, but it would have been appropriate for him to relate to what was really exposed by the Second Lebanon War: The Israeli public has had enough of the stale myth of battlefield bravado and wishes to lead a normal life.
Something happened since the 1950s, and the public is not afraid of the privatization of defense and its transformation into an irreverent matter, empty of pathos. A daring leader will discover that it is not the conflict that is preventing normalization but the absence of normalization that is preventing an end to the conflict.
Israel doesn't want peace: Gideon Levy - Haaretz
---
Last update - 11:22 12/04/2007
By Meron Benvenisti
Only the naive expected a positive government response to the Arab initiative offering normalized relations in return for a withdrawal and a resolution to the refugee problem. The knee-jerk skepticism to peace offers has characterized the response of nearly all Israeli governments since 1949, and not only during the years after 1967 and the occupation of the territories. When Ehud Olmert has reservations about the Arab peace initiative, he is following in the footsteps of Moshe Dayan who said half a century ago: "I am against concessions in any area, and if the Arabs will want war over this, I am not opposed."
The governments of Israel have always been quick to initiate military operations and slow to engage in restraint or seek compromise and settlement. After all, it is always possible to find justification for aggression, arguing that we were responding to their attack. The definition of provocation, compared to a response to it, is a matter of perspective. When there is an unending chain of violence and counter-violence, every cause in the eyes of one side is an effect for the other. Indeed, there are many instances in which one side initiated provocations that served as a pretext for a disproportionate response, which in turn fed the cycle.
Behind the slogans "war imposed on us" and "war of no choice" hides an old attitude that says the use of force serves strategic objectives, such as occupying territory and clutching territorial assets gained in previous wars.
There is also an ideological foundation to the aversion to peace initiatives. The governing ideology maintains that Arab hostility is a permanent situation, that the Arabs lack a basic willingness to relate to the Jewish state as a legitimate entity, and that the violent nature of the region does not allow for real peace but, in the best case scenario, a cease-fire that will be violated the very moment its enemies sense Israel's weakness.
This dismissive approach to any chance at peace stood out once again when the negative response to the Saudi peace initiative stirred nearly no protest, except among a small group of peace activists. There is even more evidence to the impact of this eternal war of the "no choice" approach: the public's anger at its leadership for failing in the supreme objective of military victory, which "will etch on the psyche of the enemy" Israel's superior deterrent power.
The urge to punish the leaders stems not only from the failures in the conduct of the war, but also from the fact that their conduct exposed the deep chasm between the fiery belligerence of arrogant generals and the lack of motivation and inability to carry out the mission, the erosion of the public's willingness to bear bereavement, and most of all, the unwillingness to give up the good life in favor of the demands of an eternal war of no choice.
The exposure of this gap is unforgiven. Because if this is the situation, how is it possible to persist with the pretense of "a war for the sake of our existence," which rejects any possibility of dialogue?
"The Lord Almighty blessed us with a miracle," the prime minister said in his apologetic speeches, "which created that which exposed the situation today and not, God forbid, in two to three years." Ehud Olmert was referring here to the growing strength of the enemy, but it would have been appropriate for him to relate to what was really exposed by the Second Lebanon War: The Israeli public has had enough of the stale myth of battlefield bravado and wishes to lead a normal life.
Something happened since the 1950s, and the public is not afraid of the privatization of defense and its transformation into an irreverent matter, empty of pathos. A daring leader will discover that it is not the conflict that is preventing normalization but the absence of normalization that is preventing an end to the conflict.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Israeli PM testifies to police on Tax Authority corruption scandal
Last update - 14:51 10/04/2007
PM testifies to police on Tax Authority corruption scandal
By Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondent
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert testified before police investigators Tuesday regarding the alleged Tax Authority corruption scandal.
The questioning was conducted by a National Fraud Investigation Unit team headed by the unit's commander Shlomi Ayalon at the Prime Minister's Residence. The questioning lasted four hours.
Police suspect that Tax Authority Director Jacky Matza and his predecessor Eitan Rub appointed to key positions people who would be acceptable to businessmen Yoram Karashi and Kobi Ben-Gur.
The allegations are that the appointees then helped Karashi, Ben-Gur and their associates to obtain tax breaks.
Olmert was questioned regarding the alleged involvement of his bureau chief, Shula Zaken, who is suspected of acting to ensure the appointment of her associates to key Tax Authority positions in exchange for favors. He was also questioned about the Matza's appointment, which was made when Olmert was finance minister.
The prime minister himself is not suspected of any wrongdoing in the Tax Authority affair.
Related Articles:
Fraud squad expects more arrests in Tax Authority bribe probe
Arrest of Olmert's office manager sends his bureau into crisis mode
PM testifies to police on Tax Authority corruption scandal
By Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondent
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert testified before police investigators Tuesday regarding the alleged Tax Authority corruption scandal.
The questioning was conducted by a National Fraud Investigation Unit team headed by the unit's commander Shlomi Ayalon at the Prime Minister's Residence. The questioning lasted four hours.
Police suspect that Tax Authority Director Jacky Matza and his predecessor Eitan Rub appointed to key positions people who would be acceptable to businessmen Yoram Karashi and Kobi Ben-Gur.
The allegations are that the appointees then helped Karashi, Ben-Gur and their associates to obtain tax breaks.
Olmert was questioned regarding the alleged involvement of his bureau chief, Shula Zaken, who is suspected of acting to ensure the appointment of her associates to key Tax Authority positions in exchange for favors. He was also questioned about the Matza's appointment, which was made when Olmert was finance minister.
The prime minister himself is not suspected of any wrongdoing in the Tax Authority affair.
Related Articles:
Fraud squad expects more arrests in Tax Authority bribe probe
Arrest of Olmert's office manager sends his bureau into crisis mode
Friday, April 6, 2007
Tricky little Rice
By Salama A Salama
One's puzzlement over the Arab scene intensifies each time an Arab summit is held. Last week, everyone started talking about the Arab peace initiative. The five-year-old initiative was dusted off and presented as a miracle solution. Suddenly, we are being asked to believe that full normalisation will bring about a complete Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab land. And our leaders are solemnly calling on the Israelis to seize the opportunity. Yet there is only one thing Israel liked about the initiative: normalisation. But the Israelis played along. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, faking concern over tensions in the region, said he was willing to consider anything US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice brings to the table.
For her part, Rice got her moderate Arab friends to present the initiative in a vague manner. For example, they spoke of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem rather than the right of return of refugees. And even as Arab leaders assured us that there has been no change in the initiative, the Israelis were having second thoughts. Rice met twice with Olmert and twice with Abbas and still failed to bring Olmert to discuss the question of a final settlement. The only thing the US diplomat achieved was to get Abbas and Olmert to meet every two weeks. Palestinian officials were quick to point out that nothing was likely to come out of such meetings. Olmert is not even honouring earlier promises on political and security matters.
Rice wasn't straightforward with moderate Arabs. In Aswan, she asked Arab leaders to show some flexibility. She also proposed a meeting between the International Quartet, the Arab Quartet, Israel and Palestine. But Rice has not secured Israel's commitment to start final status negotiations. Rice hasn't even succeeded in getting Israel to implement confidence- building measures approved earlier, such as the release of Palestinian monetary assets and detainees in return for the release of one captured Israeli soldier.
Olmert is refusing to discuss final status issues because, he says, Hamas is refusing to recognise Israel. Despite that, the Arabs left the door open to compromise. They will form working groups to hold international consultations with the UN Security Council, the UN and the International Quartet about the Arab initiative. The Riyadh summit was optimistic that such action would jump- start peace talks.
In short, Rice is trying to get the Arabs to recognise Israel, through normalisation, without a quid pro quo. Rice wants the Arab Quartet to meet the Quartet, then with Israel and Palestine (Syria is not invited), which amounts to an implicit recognition of Israel. But the US diplomat is not asking Israel for anything in return. Israel can build more settlements. It can engage in brutal acts against the Palestinians. And it can voice its opposition to the Arab initiative.
Oddly enough, some Arab countries were optimistic about Rice's tour. Some believed that the US diplomat was trying to fulfil Bush's promise to implement a two-state solution. But all signs indicate that the sudden interest of the US and Israel in the Arab initiative is nothing but a gimmick.
The Arabs may believe that the Arab initiative is still good and alive. But it would be a grave mistake to depend on the International Quartet. The Arab initiative is not going to get us anywhere unless Arab countries provide support to the Palestinian national unity government and make sure that Palestinian factions are not going to turn one against another in the future. The International Quartet is fully under US control. It is nothing more than a warehouse in which the US stores peace initiatives and
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online
Thursday, April 5, 2007
PUSH ISRAEL? NOT DUBYA
By ROBERT D. NOVAK
April 5, 2007 -- JERUSALEM
AN overriding melancholy here this Holy Week follows Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's mission to Jerusalem the previous week. To Arabs and Jews seeking meaningful peace negotiations, it confirmed no progress toward a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians is likely for the remainder of George W. Bush's presidency.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rejected Rice's offer for her to participate in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations for a permanent peace treaty. The word in the Olmert government is that President Bush fully shares the prime minister's reluctance even to begin talks at this time.
The Riyadh Declaration indicated willingness of the Arab world to consider a peaceful solution. Now, belief here among peace-seekers is that nothing will happen until a new president enters the Oval Office in 2009.
That was the consensus Tuesday at a conference on Middle East policy held in Jerusalem by the Morley Institute of Washington:A diverse assemblage of Palestinians (Muslim and Christians), Israelis, Americans and other foreigners held little hope for a Bush initiative in the closing months of his regime.
The atmosphere has changed since I was here for Holy Week a year ago. Israeli self-confidence then was at a peak, with the newly installed Olmert avowing the unilateral solution to the Palestinian problem developed by his predecessor, Ariel Sharon.
Behind that posture was confidence in military superiority. Now the unhappy results of the Lebanon incursion have modified Israeli expectations. Olmert publicly indicates a willingness to talk, and the Haaretz newspaper quoted him as saying the Arabs' Riyadh summit "is evidence of a change."
But the moderates at Tuesday's conference viewed this as rhetoric. Olmert told Rice last week that any negotiations must be preceded by the release of the Israeli soldier seized by Hamas fighters last June 25.
The broader pre-conditions for talks are Olmert's refusals to include in negotiations any discussion of a return of Arab refugees to greater Palestine and a withdrawal of Israel to its 1967 borders. Negotiating those points does not mean that they will be conceded. But setting pre-conditions for talks is a classic mechanism for escaping talks altogether.
Indeed, Olmert continues to cite the presence of Hamas in the Palestinian government as justification for the absence of anybody from the negotiating table.
It surely is up to Bush. When Rice made her previous visit to Israel about six weeks ago, the Israeli government announced that Olmert had been on the phone with Bush a day earlier and that they "see eye-to-eye." That insured the three-cornered talks in Jerusalem between Rice, Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas would accomplish nothing substantial.
Haaretz political columnist Akiva Eldar, a speaker at Tuesday's conference, wrote in Monday's newspaper: "As a rare and historic opportunity appears on the horizon, a leadership of different dimensions is needed." He was talking about Olmert, but he could have referred to Bush as well.
Nothing could be accomplished now without Bush pressuring Olmert. Bush's original intentions to broker Israeli-Palestinian peace were sidetracked by the 9/11 attack and subsequent U.S. military operations. The question is whether Eldar's "historic opportunity" will be gone when a new American president takes office.
April 5, 2007 -- JERUSALEM
AN overriding melancholy here this Holy Week follows Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's mission to Jerusalem the previous week. To Arabs and Jews seeking meaningful peace negotiations, it confirmed no progress toward a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians is likely for the remainder of George W. Bush's presidency.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rejected Rice's offer for her to participate in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations for a permanent peace treaty. The word in the Olmert government is that President Bush fully shares the prime minister's reluctance even to begin talks at this time.
The Riyadh Declaration indicated willingness of the Arab world to consider a peaceful solution. Now, belief here among peace-seekers is that nothing will happen until a new president enters the Oval Office in 2009.
That was the consensus Tuesday at a conference on Middle East policy held in Jerusalem by the Morley Institute of Washington:A diverse assemblage of Palestinians (Muslim and Christians), Israelis, Americans and other foreigners held little hope for a Bush initiative in the closing months of his regime.
The atmosphere has changed since I was here for Holy Week a year ago. Israeli self-confidence then was at a peak, with the newly installed Olmert avowing the unilateral solution to the Palestinian problem developed by his predecessor, Ariel Sharon.
Behind that posture was confidence in military superiority. Now the unhappy results of the Lebanon incursion have modified Israeli expectations. Olmert publicly indicates a willingness to talk, and the Haaretz newspaper quoted him as saying the Arabs' Riyadh summit "is evidence of a change."
But the moderates at Tuesday's conference viewed this as rhetoric. Olmert told Rice last week that any negotiations must be preceded by the release of the Israeli soldier seized by Hamas fighters last June 25.
The broader pre-conditions for talks are Olmert's refusals to include in negotiations any discussion of a return of Arab refugees to greater Palestine and a withdrawal of Israel to its 1967 borders. Negotiating those points does not mean that they will be conceded. But setting pre-conditions for talks is a classic mechanism for escaping talks altogether.
Indeed, Olmert continues to cite the presence of Hamas in the Palestinian government as justification for the absence of anybody from the negotiating table.
It surely is up to Bush. When Rice made her previous visit to Israel about six weeks ago, the Israeli government announced that Olmert had been on the phone with Bush a day earlier and that they "see eye-to-eye." That insured the three-cornered talks in Jerusalem between Rice, Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas would accomplish nothing substantial.
Haaretz political columnist Akiva Eldar, a speaker at Tuesday's conference, wrote in Monday's newspaper: "As a rare and historic opportunity appears on the horizon, a leadership of different dimensions is needed." He was talking about Olmert, but he could have referred to Bush as well.
Nothing could be accomplished now without Bush pressuring Olmert. Bush's original intentions to broker Israeli-Palestinian peace were sidetracked by the 9/11 attack and subsequent U.S. military operations. The question is whether Eldar's "historic opportunity" will be gone when a new American president takes office.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Olmert not ready for 'serious' peace talks, Palestinian FM says
Note the following article is in Israel's most influential paper.
This is the Zell's, the new Chicago Trib owner's version,"Arabs snub Israeli invitation to meet. You don't suppose he's a Zionist do you? ;-)
---
Ynet
Ziad Abu Amr tells reporters in Austria, 'I believe that at this time we don't have an Israeli partner anymore'
Associated Press Published: 04.04.07, 14:59 / Israel News
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is not ready for "serious negotiations" with the Palestinians and other Arab leaders on efforts to forge peace in the Middle East, the Palestinian foreign minister said Wednesday.
"I believe that Mr. Prime Minister Olmert is not ready to enter into real negotiations, serious negotiations with the Arabs, with the Palestinian side," Ziad Abu Amr told reporters after meeting with Austrian counterpart Ursula Plassnik.
"And I also believe, I can say here, that at this time we don't have an Israeli partner anymore."
On Sunday, Olmert said Israel would show up for a peace summit with Arab leaders if invited.
During a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the prime minister said, "I want to take this opportunity of being here with the European Union president in order to invite all Arab leaders, including the Saudi king.
"I am telling the heads of Arab countries that if the Saudi king initiates a meeting of the moderate states' leaders and invites both me and the Palestinian Authority president, I would gladly come there and speak our mind."
In Saudi Arabia's first comment to Olmert's call, an official sais Israel should withdraw from Arab territory and allow the creation of a Palestinian state before Arabs recognize it.
The Saudi official told The Associated Press that "before any meeting could be considered," Israel should accept the 2002 Arab peace initiative that would recognize Israel in exchange for withdrawal from captured territory and a just solution for the Palestinian refugees. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
At a summit in Saudi Arabia last week, the Arab League renewed its commitment to the peace initiative, which was initially proposed by Saudi Arabia. Olmert welcomed the decision but said Israel did not accept all parts of the plan.
This is the Zell's, the new Chicago Trib owner's version,"Arabs snub Israeli invitation to meet. You don't suppose he's a Zionist do you? ;-)
---
Ynet
Ziad Abu Amr tells reporters in Austria, 'I believe that at this time we don't have an Israeli partner anymore'
Associated Press Published: 04.04.07, 14:59 / Israel News
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is not ready for "serious negotiations" with the Palestinians and other Arab leaders on efforts to forge peace in the Middle East, the Palestinian foreign minister said Wednesday.
"I believe that Mr. Prime Minister Olmert is not ready to enter into real negotiations, serious negotiations with the Arabs, with the Palestinian side," Ziad Abu Amr told reporters after meeting with Austrian counterpart Ursula Plassnik.
"And I also believe, I can say here, that at this time we don't have an Israeli partner anymore."
On Sunday, Olmert said Israel would show up for a peace summit with Arab leaders if invited.
During a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the prime minister said, "I want to take this opportunity of being here with the European Union president in order to invite all Arab leaders, including the Saudi king.
"I am telling the heads of Arab countries that if the Saudi king initiates a meeting of the moderate states' leaders and invites both me and the Palestinian Authority president, I would gladly come there and speak our mind."
In Saudi Arabia's first comment to Olmert's call, an official sais Israel should withdraw from Arab territory and allow the creation of a Palestinian state before Arabs recognize it.
The Saudi official told The Associated Press that "before any meeting could be considered," Israel should accept the 2002 Arab peace initiative that would recognize Israel in exchange for withdrawal from captured territory and a just solution for the Palestinian refugees. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
At a summit in Saudi Arabia last week, the Arab League renewed its commitment to the peace initiative, which was initially proposed by Saudi Arabia. Olmert welcomed the decision but said Israel did not accept all parts of the plan.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Cops Grill Top Olmert Ally On Auschwitz ‘March’ Funds
Cops Grill Top Olmert Ally On Auschwitz ‘March’ Funds
Israel’s finance minister, Avraham Hirchson, was interrogated by police for eight hours straight this week about the apparent transfer of more than $1 million to his personal accounts from a labor union he once ran, and of another sum, which is undisclosed, from the March of the Living, the international Holocaust education program that he founded and heads. Read more
Israel’s finance minister, Avraham Hirchson, was interrogated by police for eight hours straight this week about the apparent transfer of more than $1 million to his personal accounts from a labor union he once ran, and of another sum, which is undisclosed, from the March of the Living, the international Holocaust education program that he founded and heads. Read more
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Here comes the flood: Tsunami in Gaza, Celebration of peace in Jerusalem
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
By Gilad Atzmon
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced yesterday the decision of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman, Mahmoud Abbas to meet bi-weekly with the US mediating. Indeed ‘great news for the Palestinians and the Israelis’.
More or less at the same time at least five Palestinians drowned in a “sewage Tsunami” when a water treatment reservoir burst, flooding Umm Naser, a village in the northern Gaza Strip.
While in a peaceful news conference in Jerusalem Rice once again said NO to the democratically elected Hamas referring to the PA chairman as a “partner for peace”, a Bedouin village in Gaza was submerged in sewage.
This devastating picture of total surreal detachment between the two events, between a meaningless political intercourse and a devastating destruction on the ground is the true reality of the Palestinian disaster. This reflects upon the zero Western political leadership’s commitment to humanist and ethical thinking, it reflects upon our abandonment of the Palestinian people, it is a reminder of our general negligence towards people who are mercilessly dispossessed for six decades, our blindness towards what seems to be a suffering with no end and no limit.
Rice called on regional Arab states to “participate actively in the peace process”. She welcomed as well the Saudi peace plan as “an example of such new thinking.” And I end up asking myself when was the last time Rice or the Saudi Crown family had been submerged in Sewage? Rice probably failed to realise that people, who happen to be flooded by ‘treated water’, want something slightly more significant than a mere ‘peace process’. Ms Rice, shouldn’t we better start with food? In case you didn’t realise, your embargo on the Hamas government has led to unprecedented starvation in Gaza. Some 80% of Gaza’s population relies upon WFP’s aid and on that from the UNRWA, the UN agency for refugees.
More or less by the time the US Secretary of State concluded that the two leaders would discuss a “political horizon,” it was clear that dozens of residents of Umm Naser were still unaccounted for.
By late afternoon, receding floodwaters had left a foul-smelling muck. Village children clung to wooden doors floating on the putrid waters. Rescuers were paddling through the village searching for victims. Frantic goats and cows were seen swimming in the mud searching for safe ground.
By the time Rice left the region it was revealed that the ‘negotiations’ between Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas will not include the three core issues - Jerusalem, refugees and borders. How surprising.
Instead of going from Jerusalem to Riyadh, Rice went back to Washington. She realised that she had nothing to offer the Arab leaders summit. She has nothing to offer almost as much as the people of Umm Naser have nothing to lose.
By Gilad Atzmon
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced yesterday the decision of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman, Mahmoud Abbas to meet bi-weekly with the US mediating. Indeed ‘great news for the Palestinians and the Israelis’.
More or less at the same time at least five Palestinians drowned in a “sewage Tsunami” when a water treatment reservoir burst, flooding Umm Naser, a village in the northern Gaza Strip.
While in a peaceful news conference in Jerusalem Rice once again said NO to the democratically elected Hamas referring to the PA chairman as a “partner for peace”, a Bedouin village in Gaza was submerged in sewage.
This devastating picture of total surreal detachment between the two events, between a meaningless political intercourse and a devastating destruction on the ground is the true reality of the Palestinian disaster. This reflects upon the zero Western political leadership’s commitment to humanist and ethical thinking, it reflects upon our abandonment of the Palestinian people, it is a reminder of our general negligence towards people who are mercilessly dispossessed for six decades, our blindness towards what seems to be a suffering with no end and no limit.
Rice called on regional Arab states to “participate actively in the peace process”. She welcomed as well the Saudi peace plan as “an example of such new thinking.” And I end up asking myself when was the last time Rice or the Saudi Crown family had been submerged in Sewage? Rice probably failed to realise that people, who happen to be flooded by ‘treated water’, want something slightly more significant than a mere ‘peace process’. Ms Rice, shouldn’t we better start with food? In case you didn’t realise, your embargo on the Hamas government has led to unprecedented starvation in Gaza. Some 80% of Gaza’s population relies upon WFP’s aid and on that from the UNRWA, the UN agency for refugees.
More or less by the time the US Secretary of State concluded that the two leaders would discuss a “political horizon,” it was clear that dozens of residents of Umm Naser were still unaccounted for.
By late afternoon, receding floodwaters had left a foul-smelling muck. Village children clung to wooden doors floating on the putrid waters. Rescuers were paddling through the village searching for victims. Frantic goats and cows were seen swimming in the mud searching for safe ground.
By the time Rice left the region it was revealed that the ‘negotiations’ between Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas will not include the three core issues - Jerusalem, refugees and borders. How surprising.
Instead of going from Jerusalem to Riyadh, Rice went back to Washington. She realised that she had nothing to offer the Arab leaders summit. She has nothing to offer almost as much as the people of Umm Naser have nothing to lose.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Israel to brand Arabs as peace spoilers
Israel is gearing up for a diplomatic campaign that will paint the Arab world as the recalcitrant party if it does not drop the article in the Arab peace initiative that calls for the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been saying for months that there were positive elements in the Saudi peace initiative, which preceded the Arab initiative by a month and did not include a clause calling for the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees. On Thursday, he reiterated that elements of the plan were acceptable to Israel. The proposal will be taken up at the Arab League summit scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday in Riyadh.
'US wants Saudi peace plan amended'"I am the one who said the Saudi initiative was interesting, and that there are elements that I would be willing to accept and that it could be a basis for contact between us and moderate Arab elements," Olmert said.
The Saudi initiative from February 2002 calls for a full Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines in exchange for normalization of relations. The Arab peace initiative, launched in Beirut a month later, added the clause regarding the refugees.
"This government will not miss out on an opportunity to engage in talks with our enemies," Olmert said. "This includes making concessions. We will maneuver responsibly and with care." Israel was willing to make "sweeping, painful and tough concessions," he added.
In the last few weeks - through comments such as those by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in the Palestinian press about the need to amend the initiative to make it palatable to Israel, and through quiet diplomacy involving the US - there have been attempts to get the Arab League members to drop the refugee clause.
One senior government official said if the League refused to amend the plan, reconfirming it with the knowledge that it is something Israel could not accept, then Israel would embark on a campaign to cast them in the role of naysayers who once again missed an opportunity.
Arab diplomats said the US has quietly joined Israel in urging Arab leaders to reformulate the plan, even as key Arab diplomats - including Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa - have publicly come out against the idea.
Three Arab diplomats in different Arab capitals said Washington has been pressing for changes to place the offer in line with the road map peace plan. The road map does not deal much with the refugee issue, beyond calling for an "agreed, just, fair and realistic solution to the refugee issue." The road map also does not specify the borders - as the Arab peace initiative does - of a future Palestinian state.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's comments Thursday night in a Channel 1 interview that the release of kidnapped Cpl. Gilad Schalit was near were dismissed as meaningless by senior Israeli officials.
Abbas said a "framework" was agreed upon with Olmert and the Egyptians, and the process was moving along "quickly."
"I hope his release will come quickly," he said. "I believe now it is accepted and everybody is working toward that."
But Israeli government officials were extremely skeptical, with one senior source saying Abbas has been saying this for six months, and in his last meeting with Olmert earlier this month he said Schalit would be released before the establishment of a Palestinian unity government.
"Do me a favor," the source said. "He has no power to do it. Who is he trying to impress?"
The official said the Channel 1 interview was part of a campaign Abbas is waging "to show that he is still the good guy, that despite the new government he is still moderate."
Also on Thursday, Olmert faced an angry protester at a speech he gave in Tel Aviv to youth who are volunteering on kibbutzim before going into the army.
During the questions and answers following the speech, Danny Valla, from Kibbutz Yotvata near Eilat, shouted at Olmert, "What is with the three kidnapped soldiers? My son was almost with them. My youngest son will go into the army next year. I was a fighter who was left behind enemy lines. If you were prime minister I would still be there. What are you doing to return Gilad Schalit, Eldad Regev and Udi Goldwasser before the Pessah Seder?"
Olmert kept his composure and responded: "We know who is holding them. They are not in a place where Israel just pushes a button, and - presto - they appear smiling and thankful for all our efforts."
"There is not a single day we are not dealing with the subject," Olmert said. "We will explore any avenue. It usually takes years and we pay a high price to release prisoners. I hope this time will be different. I cannot elaborate on the subject."
US President George W. Bush, meanwhile, emphatically backed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's peacemaking efforts, on the eve of her visit here. She is scheduled to arrive on Sunday.
Bush, noting Rice's planned departure Friday for the region, said, "Peace in the Middle East is a priority for this administration." He stressed his "strong approval" for Rice's work to "move the process forward."
Bush called heads of state in the Middle East to help pave the way for progress, but acknowledged: "It's not easy to get all parties headed in the right direction." Still, he said, all the stakeholders - Israelis, Palestinians and their Arab neighbors - need "to work for a solution that will lead to peace, and that is a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel in peace and security."
Bush made his remarks after a meeting he and Rice held with leaders of an American reconstruction team working in Iraq. His comments came at the end of a week in which differences emerged between the United States's and Israel's approach to dealing with the new Palestinian unity government.
Israel has said it will not hold "political horizon" talks with Abbas, while the US said it would continue to do so. Israel has also said it would have no contact with any of the ministers in the new PA government, while the US has expressed a willingness to meet with non-Hamas ministers.
Hilary Leila Krieger and AP contributed to this report.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Inshallah
March 18, 2007
By Uri Avnery
NOT ONLY the Palestinians must be breathing a deep sigh of relief after the swearing in of the Palestinian National Unity Government. We Israelis have good reason to do the same.
This event is a great blessing, not only for them, but also for us - if indeed we are interested in a peace that will put an end to the historic conflict.
FOR THE Palestinians, the immediate blessing is the elimination of the threat of civil war.
That was a nightmare. It was also absurd. Palestinian fighters were shooting at each other in the streets of Gaza, gladdening the hearts of the occupation authorities. As in the arena of ancient Rome, gladiators killed each other for the amusement of the spectators. People who had spent years together in Israeli prisons suddenly acted like mortal enemies.
That was not yet a civil war. But the bloody incidents could have led there. Many Palestinians were worried that if the clashes were not stopped immediately, a fully-fledged fratricidal war would indeed break out. That was, of course, also the great hope of the Israeli government - that Hamas and Fatah would annihilate each other without Israel having to lift a finger. The Israeli intelligence services did indeed predict this.
I was not worried on that account. In my view, a Palestinian civil war was never in the cards.
First of all, because the basic conditions for a civil war are absent. The Palestinian people are unified in their ethnic, cultural and historical composition. Palestine does not resemble Iraq, with its three peoples who are distinct ethnically (Arabs and Kurds), religiously (Shiites and Sunnites) and geographically (North, Center and South). It does not resemble Ireland, where the Protestants, the descendents of settlers, were fighting the Catholic descendents of the indigenous population. It does not resemble African countries, whose borders were fixed by colonial masters without any consideration of tribal boundaries. It certainly had no revolutionary upheaval like those that brought on the civil wars in England, France and Russia, nor an issue that split the population like slavery in the USA.
The bloody incidents that broke out in the Gaza Strip were struggles between party militias, aggravated by feuds between Hamulahs (extended families). History has seen such struggles in almost all liberation movements. For example: after World War I, when the British were compelled to grant Home Rule to the Irish, a bloody struggle among the freedom fighters broke out at once. Irish Catholics killed Irish Catholics.
In the days of the struggle of the Jewish community in Palestine against the British colonial regime ("the Mandate"), a civil war was averted only thanks to one person: Menachem Begin, the commander of the Irgun. He was determined to prevent a fratricidal war at all costs. David Ben-Gurion wanted to eliminate the Irgun, which rejected his leadership and undermined his policies. In the so-called "season", he ordered his loyal Haganah organization to kidnap Irgun members and turn them over to the British police, which tortured them and put them in prison abroad. But Begin prohibited his men from using their weapons to defend themselves against Jews.
Such a struggle among the Palestinians will not turn into a civil war, because the entire Palestinian people oppose this strenuously. Everybody remembers that during the Arab Rebellion of 1936, the Palestinian leader at that time, the Grand Mufti Hadj Amin al-Husseini, butchered his Palestinian rivals. During the three years of the rebellion (called "the Events" in Zionist terminology) Palestinians killed more of each other than they killed of their British and Jewish opponents.
The result: when the Palestinian people came face to face with their supreme existential test, in the war of 1948, they were split and splintered, lacking unified leadership and dependent on the mercies of the bickering Arab governments, who were intriguing against each other. They were unable to stand up to the much smaller organized Jewish community, which rapidly set up a unified and efficient army. The result was the "Naqba", the terrible historic tragedy of the Palestinian people. What happened in 1936 still touches the life of every single Palestinian to this very day.
It is difficult to start a civil war if the people are against it. Even provocations from outside - and I assume that there has been no lack of these - cannot ignite it.
Therefore I did not doubt for a moment that in the end a Unity Government would indeed come about, and I am glad that this has now happened.
WHY IS this good for Israel? I am going to say something that will shock many Israelis and their friends in the world:
If Hamas did not exist, it would have to be invented.
If a Palestinian government had been set up without Hamas, we should have to boycott it until Hamas was included.
And if negotiations do lead to a historical settlement with the Palestinian leadership, we should make it a condition that Hamas, too, must sign it.
Sounds crazy? Of course. But that is the lesson history teaches us from the experience of other wars of liberation.
The Palestinian population in the occupied territories is almost evenly divided between Fatah and Hamas. It makes no sense at all to sign an agreement with half a people and continue the war against the other half. After all, we shall make serious concessions for peace - such as withdrawing to much narrower borders and giving East Jerusalem back to its owners. Shall we do so in return for an agreement that half the Palestinian people will not accept and will not be committed to? To me this sounds like the height of folly.
I shall go further: Hamas and Fatah together represent only the part of the Palestinian people that lives in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. But millions of Palestinian refugees (no one knows for sure how many) live outside of the territory of Palestine and Israel.
If we strive indeed for a complete end to the historic conflict, we must reach out for a solution that includes them, too. Therefore I strongly question the wisdom of TzipI Livni and her colleagues, who demand that the Saudis drop from their peace plan any mention of the refugee problem. Simply put: that is stupid.
Common sense would advise the exact opposite: to demand that the Saudi peace initiative, which has become an official pan-Arab peace plan, include the matter of the refugees, so that the final agreement will also constitute a solution of the refugee problem.
That will not be easy, for sure. The refugee problem has psychological roots that touch the very heart of the Palestinian-Zionist conflict, and it concerns the fate of millions of living human beings. But when the Arab peace plan says that there must be an "agreed upon" solution - meaning agreed upon with Israel - it transfers it from the realm of irreconcilable ideologies to the real world, the world of negotiations and compromise. I have discussed this many times with Arab personalities, and I am convinced that an agreement is possible.
THE NEW Palestinian government is based on the "Mecca agreement". It seems that it would not have been possible without the energetic intervention of King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia.
The international background has to be considered. The President of the United States is now busy with desperate efforts to bring his Iraqi adventure to a conclusion that will not go down in history as a total disaster. For this purpose he is trying to bring together a Sunni Front that would block Iran and help to put an end to the Sunni violence in Iraq.
That is, of course, a simplistic idea. It disregards the enormous complexity of the realities of our region. Bush has presided over the setting up in Iraq of a government dominated by the Shiites. He has tried to isolate Sunni Syria. And Hamas is, of course, a pious Sunni organization.
But the American ship of state is beginning to turn around. Being a giant ship, it can do this only very slowly. Under American pressure, the Saudi king has agreed (perhaps unwillingly) to take upon himself the leadership of the Arab world, after Egypt has failed in this task. The king has persuaded Bush that he has to speak with Syria. Now he is trying to persuade him to accept Hamas.
In this picture, Israel is a hindrance. A few days ago Ehud Olmert flew to America and told the conference of the Jewish lobby, AIPAC, that a withdrawal from Iraq would be a disaster (contrary, by the way, to the opinion of more than 80% of American Jews - who support early withdrawal.) This week, the US ambassador in Tel-Aviv hinted that from now on the Government of Israel is allowed to conduct negotiations with Syria - and it may be assumed that this hint will turn into an order before long. In the meantime, no change in the position of the Israeli government is noticeable.
UNFORTUNATELY, JUST at this moment, with a newly formed Palestinian government that has a good chance of being strong and stable, the government of Israel is becoming more and more destabilized.
Olmert's support rating in the polls is approaching zero. The percentage points can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Practically everybody speaks about his political demise within weeks, perhaps after the publication of the interim report of the Vinograd commission on the Second Lebanon War. But even if Olmert manages to survive, his will be a lame duck government, unable to start anything new, and certainly no bold initiative vis-Ã -vis the new Palestinian government.
But if Bush supports us on one side, and the Saudi king on the other, perhaps we shall after all take a few steps forward. As people in this region say: in sha Allah, if God wills.
An Israeli author and activist. He is the head of the Israeli peace movement, Gush Shalom.
By Uri Avnery
NOT ONLY the Palestinians must be breathing a deep sigh of relief after the swearing in of the Palestinian National Unity Government. We Israelis have good reason to do the same.
This event is a great blessing, not only for them, but also for us - if indeed we are interested in a peace that will put an end to the historic conflict.
FOR THE Palestinians, the immediate blessing is the elimination of the threat of civil war.
That was a nightmare. It was also absurd. Palestinian fighters were shooting at each other in the streets of Gaza, gladdening the hearts of the occupation authorities. As in the arena of ancient Rome, gladiators killed each other for the amusement of the spectators. People who had spent years together in Israeli prisons suddenly acted like mortal enemies.
That was not yet a civil war. But the bloody incidents could have led there. Many Palestinians were worried that if the clashes were not stopped immediately, a fully-fledged fratricidal war would indeed break out. That was, of course, also the great hope of the Israeli government - that Hamas and Fatah would annihilate each other without Israel having to lift a finger. The Israeli intelligence services did indeed predict this.
I was not worried on that account. In my view, a Palestinian civil war was never in the cards.
First of all, because the basic conditions for a civil war are absent. The Palestinian people are unified in their ethnic, cultural and historical composition. Palestine does not resemble Iraq, with its three peoples who are distinct ethnically (Arabs and Kurds), religiously (Shiites and Sunnites) and geographically (North, Center and South). It does not resemble Ireland, where the Protestants, the descendents of settlers, were fighting the Catholic descendents of the indigenous population. It does not resemble African countries, whose borders were fixed by colonial masters without any consideration of tribal boundaries. It certainly had no revolutionary upheaval like those that brought on the civil wars in England, France and Russia, nor an issue that split the population like slavery in the USA.
The bloody incidents that broke out in the Gaza Strip were struggles between party militias, aggravated by feuds between Hamulahs (extended families). History has seen such struggles in almost all liberation movements. For example: after World War I, when the British were compelled to grant Home Rule to the Irish, a bloody struggle among the freedom fighters broke out at once. Irish Catholics killed Irish Catholics.
In the days of the struggle of the Jewish community in Palestine against the British colonial regime ("the Mandate"), a civil war was averted only thanks to one person: Menachem Begin, the commander of the Irgun. He was determined to prevent a fratricidal war at all costs. David Ben-Gurion wanted to eliminate the Irgun, which rejected his leadership and undermined his policies. In the so-called "season", he ordered his loyal Haganah organization to kidnap Irgun members and turn them over to the British police, which tortured them and put them in prison abroad. But Begin prohibited his men from using their weapons to defend themselves against Jews.
Such a struggle among the Palestinians will not turn into a civil war, because the entire Palestinian people oppose this strenuously. Everybody remembers that during the Arab Rebellion of 1936, the Palestinian leader at that time, the Grand Mufti Hadj Amin al-Husseini, butchered his Palestinian rivals. During the three years of the rebellion (called "the Events" in Zionist terminology) Palestinians killed more of each other than they killed of their British and Jewish opponents.
The result: when the Palestinian people came face to face with their supreme existential test, in the war of 1948, they were split and splintered, lacking unified leadership and dependent on the mercies of the bickering Arab governments, who were intriguing against each other. They were unable to stand up to the much smaller organized Jewish community, which rapidly set up a unified and efficient army. The result was the "Naqba", the terrible historic tragedy of the Palestinian people. What happened in 1936 still touches the life of every single Palestinian to this very day.
It is difficult to start a civil war if the people are against it. Even provocations from outside - and I assume that there has been no lack of these - cannot ignite it.
Therefore I did not doubt for a moment that in the end a Unity Government would indeed come about, and I am glad that this has now happened.
WHY IS this good for Israel? I am going to say something that will shock many Israelis and their friends in the world:
If Hamas did not exist, it would have to be invented.
If a Palestinian government had been set up without Hamas, we should have to boycott it until Hamas was included.
And if negotiations do lead to a historical settlement with the Palestinian leadership, we should make it a condition that Hamas, too, must sign it.
Sounds crazy? Of course. But that is the lesson history teaches us from the experience of other wars of liberation.
The Palestinian population in the occupied territories is almost evenly divided between Fatah and Hamas. It makes no sense at all to sign an agreement with half a people and continue the war against the other half. After all, we shall make serious concessions for peace - such as withdrawing to much narrower borders and giving East Jerusalem back to its owners. Shall we do so in return for an agreement that half the Palestinian people will not accept and will not be committed to? To me this sounds like the height of folly.
I shall go further: Hamas and Fatah together represent only the part of the Palestinian people that lives in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. But millions of Palestinian refugees (no one knows for sure how many) live outside of the territory of Palestine and Israel.
If we strive indeed for a complete end to the historic conflict, we must reach out for a solution that includes them, too. Therefore I strongly question the wisdom of TzipI Livni and her colleagues, who demand that the Saudis drop from their peace plan any mention of the refugee problem. Simply put: that is stupid.
Common sense would advise the exact opposite: to demand that the Saudi peace initiative, which has become an official pan-Arab peace plan, include the matter of the refugees, so that the final agreement will also constitute a solution of the refugee problem.
That will not be easy, for sure. The refugee problem has psychological roots that touch the very heart of the Palestinian-Zionist conflict, and it concerns the fate of millions of living human beings. But when the Arab peace plan says that there must be an "agreed upon" solution - meaning agreed upon with Israel - it transfers it from the realm of irreconcilable ideologies to the real world, the world of negotiations and compromise. I have discussed this many times with Arab personalities, and I am convinced that an agreement is possible.
THE NEW Palestinian government is based on the "Mecca agreement". It seems that it would not have been possible without the energetic intervention of King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia.
The international background has to be considered. The President of the United States is now busy with desperate efforts to bring his Iraqi adventure to a conclusion that will not go down in history as a total disaster. For this purpose he is trying to bring together a Sunni Front that would block Iran and help to put an end to the Sunni violence in Iraq.
That is, of course, a simplistic idea. It disregards the enormous complexity of the realities of our region. Bush has presided over the setting up in Iraq of a government dominated by the Shiites. He has tried to isolate Sunni Syria. And Hamas is, of course, a pious Sunni organization.
But the American ship of state is beginning to turn around. Being a giant ship, it can do this only very slowly. Under American pressure, the Saudi king has agreed (perhaps unwillingly) to take upon himself the leadership of the Arab world, after Egypt has failed in this task. The king has persuaded Bush that he has to speak with Syria. Now he is trying to persuade him to accept Hamas.
In this picture, Israel is a hindrance. A few days ago Ehud Olmert flew to America and told the conference of the Jewish lobby, AIPAC, that a withdrawal from Iraq would be a disaster (contrary, by the way, to the opinion of more than 80% of American Jews - who support early withdrawal.) This week, the US ambassador in Tel-Aviv hinted that from now on the Government of Israel is allowed to conduct negotiations with Syria - and it may be assumed that this hint will turn into an order before long. In the meantime, no change in the position of the Israeli government is noticeable.
UNFORTUNATELY, JUST at this moment, with a newly formed Palestinian government that has a good chance of being strong and stable, the government of Israel is becoming more and more destabilized.
Olmert's support rating in the polls is approaching zero. The percentage points can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Practically everybody speaks about his political demise within weeks, perhaps after the publication of the interim report of the Vinograd commission on the Second Lebanon War. But even if Olmert manages to survive, his will be a lame duck government, unable to start anything new, and certainly no bold initiative vis-Ã -vis the new Palestinian government.
But if Bush supports us on one side, and the Saudi king on the other, perhaps we shall after all take a few steps forward. As people in this region say: in sha Allah, if God wills.
An Israeli author and activist. He is the head of the Israeli peace movement, Gush Shalom.
The US Weakens - The Danger of Adventurism and the Chance for Peace on the Incre
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Many of us were pleased to see Mustafa Bargouti among the ministers in the new Palestinian government. Mustafa Bargouti is well known to the peace camp in Israel and to the friends of peace in the international community. He appears regularly in the international media as an effective and articulate spokesperson for the Palestinian cause. As a rule, Bargouti supports serious dialog between Palestinians and Israeli groups fighting for a just peace. His frequent appearances in important meetings of the protest movement bear witness to his humanist principles. He was absolutely right when he declared on television this week that if Israel really wants peace, all the issues can be solved peacefully within the framework of the two-state solution. If the people of Israel will find a way to overcome the obstacles raised by the Olmert government, peace can be achieved ushering in a period of prosperity and security.
It has been long clear that the Palestinians and the Arab countries are ready for a far-reaching compromise for peace. If there is a chance at this point for serious negotiations, it stems from the crisis of Bush's policies. The area is in turmoil, and US control of the Middle East is on the downgrade. The entire world keeps telling the US government that the tension surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the US blanket support for Israel is destroying the last vestiges of US prestige in the region. As a result of the US ensnarement in Iraq, the so-called "moderate" Arab countries are demanding some sort of revision in US policy. Rice is trying to pass off a new round of blather and chatter as the restart of the ‘peace process', but more and more nations and countries are losing their patience. Everybody has had enough of the bluff.
Voice out of Zion
The newspaper photo of Tsipi Livni speaking at the recent AIPAC conference was terrible. In the photo you see Livni, as if she were in some sort of virtual cockpit hovering above the audience. Sadly enough, Livni's message was even worse. She personally informed the AIPAC delegates of the call of the Israeli government to the Jews of the US to do everything in their power in order to strengthen the hand of George W. Bush and his dwindling band of followers so they can remain firm and resolute and fight on in Iraq until victory.
It seems, for a change, that in this matter, there is no difference of opinion between the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Prime Minister. Olmert explained (by video) to the same conference that the US must not show any weakness because this would impair stability in the region. Olmert really outdid himself when he attempted to convince a delegation from the Reform movement to support Bush and the continuation of the war. Olmert doesn't know or he just does not care that the Reform movement was the first major religious denomination in the US to come out (by an overwhelming majority at its democratically elected conference) against the war. It is hard to decide if Olmert is that much of a fool, or if he is simply fulfilling a request (more like an order) from the leader of the free world who is competing with him in a tight race to the lowest rungs of unpopularity.
By: Reuven Kaminer [ ::: The Region ::: ]
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New Palestinian government marks collapse of Israel's Middle East positions
From Debka, the unofficial voice of Mossad.
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New Palestinian government marks collapse of Israel's Middle East positions
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New Palestinian government marks collapse of Israel's Middle East positions
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis
March 18, 2007, 10:10 AM (GMT+02:00)
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The Hamas-Fatah government taking office Sunday, March 18, is more than a policy failure by prime minister Ehud Olmert and foreign minister Tzipi Livni; it is another milestone on the road to the collapse of Israel’s Middle East positions at large, on a scale comparable to the setback to its deterrence from the mismanaged war against Hizballah last summer.
This fiasco is reflected in the horrified outcry across the board, from members of the Olmert government coalition and the opposition alike, as Israelis woke up Sunday, March 18, to face a hostile Palestinian government led by a terrorist organization, godfathered by Saudi Arabia, armed by Iran, and blessed by Western powers.
Exactly a week ago, on March 11, the Israeli prime minister said he was positively reviewing sections of the Saudi Arabian 2002 “peace plan.” He did not waver when Riyadh declared the hard-line text would not be modified when it is re-launched at the Arab summit in ten days’ time.
That afternoon, Olmert had his second interview with Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestinian Authority and leader of Fatah. He stressed the importance of “staying in touch with positive Palestinian elements.” This was also Livni’s mantra during her recent travels to the US and European capitals.
They both fell into the Palestinian trap, effectively sanctioning the seal of moderation with which Abbas and Fatah stamped a Palestinian government dominated by the Hamas terrorists.
Even more dangerously, the two Israeli leaders failed to question the covert Yalta-type understanding reached by Riyadh and Tehran. They ought to have grasped that when the Saudis and Iranians stuck their deal to preserve the Siniora government in Lebanon, as DEBKAfile revealed in late February, they must also have come to terms on the Palestinian issue.
And so they did. It was a package: Tehran called off the campaign led by its patsy Hizballah against the anti-Syrian Lebanese government, gaining stronger representation – at Syria’s expense, while the rival Palestinian factions were told in Mecca to share power – at Israel’s expense.
Olmert and Livni forgot a permanent Middle East axiom: Israel’s neighbors can always set aside their differences for common action against the Jewish state. Therefore, Sunni princes and Shiite clerics easily agreed on a Palestinian formula that would imperil Israel’s most vital interests.
They figured that, just as Syrian president Bashar Assad is too isolated to challenge his dependence on Tehran, so too Israel is too dependent on Washington to complain about Saudi under-the-table transactions with Iran for the sake of a deal on Iraq.
In the past year, Olmert-Livni policies have been so closely synchronized with Washington’s, that many of Israel’s vital interests have gone by the board.
It was their vain hope that Arab governments in fear of Iran’s ambitions would come to terms with Israel and move the Middle East closer to peace. This misreading was shared by opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu. What happened instead was that the so-called moderate Arab camp stood aside when Tehran focused its attention on building up the menace to Israel on the backs of the now-kosher Palestinian radicals.
Iran not only gave them arms, ordnance, cash and training, but also strategic depth. Its Revolutionary Guards have spread their wings into Gaza through Sinai up to the Suez and Mediterranean, and built up a war menace to Israel from the south, as well as the north. The realistic prospect is therefore closer to war rather than peace, the culmination of a process which the prime minister, his foreign minister and their advisers consistently missed or misread.
Addressing the Washington pro-Israel lobby AIPAC’s annual conference last week, Olmert and Livni both came out in support of the Bush administration’s military strategy in Iraq. Since that strategy hinges largely on covert Saudi-Iranian diplomacy in Washington’s name, Israeli government spokesmen implicitly gave America a blank check to pay for an Iraq accommodation at Israel’s expense.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Israel's Last Chance
March 17, 2007
By Gabriel Kolko
The United States has given Israel $51.3 billion in military grants since 1949, most of it after 1974 – more than any other country in the post-1945 era. Israel has also received $11.2 billion in loans for military equipment, plus $31 billion in economic grants, not to mention loan guarantees or joint military projects. But major conditions on these military grants have meant that 74 percent of it has remained in the U.S. to purchase American arms. Since it creates jobs and profits in many districts, Congress is more than ready to respond to the cajoling of the Israel lobby. This vast sum has both enabled and forced Israel to prepare to fight an American-style war. But the US since 1950 has failed to win any of its big wars.
In early 2005 the new chief of staff of the Israel Defense Force, Dan Halutz, embarked on the most extensive reorganization in the history of IDF. Halutz is an Air Force general and enamored with the doctrines that justify the ultra-modern equipment the Americans showered upon the Israelis. Attack helicopters, unmanned aircraft, advanced long-range intelligence and communications, and the like were at the top of his agenda. His was merely a variation of Donald Rumsfeld’s "shock and awe" concepts.
The 34-day war in Lebanon, starting July 12 last year, was a disastrous turning point for Israel. Until the Eliyahu Winograd Commission, which Olmert set up in September 2006, delivers its interim report in late April – which will cover the first five days of the war only – and resolves these matters, we will not know precisely the orders sent to specific units or the timing of all of the actors, but there is already a consensus on far more important fundamentals. But the Israelis did not lose the war because of orders given or not given to various officers. It was a war of choice, and it was planned as an air war with very limited ground incursions in the expectation that Israeli casualties would be very low. Major General Herzl Sapir at the end of February said that "the war began at our initiative and we did not take advantage of the benefits granted to the initiator." Planning for the war began November 2005 but reached high gear by the following March before the expected kidnapping of two IDF soldiers – the nominal excuse for the war. There is no controversy over the fact that it was a digitized, networked war, the first in Israel’s experience, and conformed to Halutz’ – and American – theories of how war is fought in this high-tech era. The US fought identical wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – and is in the process of losing both.
What were the Israeli objectives? – war aims, if you will. While the Winograd Commission report may clarify this question, at the very least a number of goals are known already. Halutz wanted to "shock and awe" the Hezbollah and their allies with Israeli power – all within a few days. There were lesser aims, such as moving the Hezbollah rockets well away from the borders or even getting its two kidnapped soldiers returned, but at the very least Halutz wanted to make a critical point.
Instead, he revealed Israel’s vulnerability based, in large part, on the fact the enemy was far better prepared, motivated, and equipped. It was the end of a crucial myth, the harbinger of yet more bloody, but equal, armed conflicts or a balance of power conducive to negotiations. Olmert and his generals very likely expected to have a great victory within five days, thereby increasing his popularity with the hawkish Jewish population that is a growing majority of the voters, to reverse his abysmally low poll ratings, thereby saving his political career – he received three percent popularity in a TV poll in early March.
There are many reasons the Israelis lost the war in Lebanon, but there is general agreement within Israel that the war ended in disaster and the deterrent value of the once unbeatable, super-armed IDF gravely diminished in the entire Arab world for the first time since 1947. But the Israelis were defeated for many of the same reasons that have caused the Americans to lose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – and in Vietnam as well. Both their doctrine and equipment were ill suited for the realities they confronted. There was no centralized command structure to destroy but small groups, lightly armed, mobile, and decentralized, able to harass and ultimately prevail. The Hezbollah also had highly effective Russian anti-tank missiles, and the IDF admits that "several dozen" tanks were put out of commission, if not destroyed, including the Merkava Mark IV, which Israel claims in the best protected tank in the world – and which it seeks to export. They also fired around 4,000 rockets at Israeli population centers and the IDF could not stop this demoralizing harassment. Hezbollah bunkers and arsenals were largely immune to air attacks, which caused the Israelis to "stretch the target envelope" to attack densely populated areas, with over 1,000 civilian dead. "Israel lost the war in the first three days," an American military expert concluded, expressing a consensus shared by many US Air Force analysts. "If you have that kind of surprise and you have that kind of firepower you had better win. Otherwise, you’re in for the long haul."
The problem, though, was not merely a new Arab prowess, though changes in their morale and fighting organizations should not be minimized. Halutz’ drastic reorganization of the IDF since early 2005, one that was supposed to attain the promises of all its American-supplied equipment, "caused," in General Sapir’s words, "a terrible distortion." The IDF was an organizational mess, demoralized as never before, and on January 17, 2007 Halutz resigned, the first head of the IDF to voluntarily step down because of his leadership in war. Had he not resigned he would have been fired. His successor quickly annulled his reorganization of the IDF, which is now sorely disorganized. The American way of warfare had failed.
The Next War
The Lebanon War is only a harbinger of Israeli defeats to come. For the first time there is a rough equivalence in military power.
Technology everywhere is now moving far faster than the diplomatic and political resources or will to control its inevitable consequences. Hezbollah has far better and more rockets – over 10,000 short-range rockets is one figure given – than it had a few years ago, and Israel’s military intelligence believes it has more firepower than it had last spring, before it was attacked. Israel has failed to convince Russia not to sell or give their highly effective anti-tank missiles to nations or movements in the region. They fear that even Hamas will acquire them. Syria is procuring "thousands" of advanced anti-tank missiles from Russia, which can be fired from five kilometers away, as well as far better rockets that can hit Israeli cities.
If the challenges of producing a realistic concept of the world that confronts the mounting dangers and limits of military technology seriously are not resolved soon there is nothing more than wars to look forward to. The IDF intelligence branch does not think a war with Syria is likely in 2007; other Israeli military commentators think that any war with Syria would produce, at best, a bloody standoff – just like the war in Lebanon last summer. Israel has about 3,700 tanks and they are all now highly vulnerable. Its ultra-modern air arm, most of which the US has provided, only kills people but it cannot attain victory.
The New Israel – A 'Normal' Nation
In the past, wars produced victories and more territory for the Jews; now they will only produce disasters for everybody. The Lebanon War proved that.
Zionism was a concoction of Viennese coffee houses, Tolstoy’s idealization of labor, early ecological sentiment in the form of the wanderfogel that influenced Zionism but various fascistic movements as well, militarism, and varieties of socialism for parts of it, including bolshevism. Jews sought to go to Palestine not only because of the Holocaust but also the changes in American immigration laws in the first half of the 1920s. Without the vast sums the Diaspora provided, Zionism would never have come to fruition. Every nation has its distinctive personality reflecting its traditions, pretensions, and history’s caprices, and in this regard Israel is no different. It exists but it is becoming increasingly dangerous to world peace – and to itself.
Zionism always had a military ethos, imposed only in part by Arab hostility, and from the inception of Zionism’s history its political and military leaders were one and the same. Generals were heroes and they did well in politics. The logic of force merged with an essentially Western, colonialist bias. Its founders were Europeans, and it was an outpost of European culture until the globalization of values and products made these cultural distinctions increasingly irrelevant. It always has been a militarist society, proud of its fighters. And notwithstanding the Cold War and the increasing flow of arms from the US, which, merged with its élan, meant it won all its post-1947 wars until last summer, it still retains a strong element of hysteria about the world it faced. And it is often messianic – especially its politicians – because messianism is very much influential among a growing portion of the religious and traditional population.
Israel has ceased being "Zionist" in the original sense of that ideology. For the sake of ceremony it retains Zionism as a label, just as many actual or aspiring nations have various myths which justify their claims to a national identity. But it is a long way from the original premises, in large part because its war with its neighbors – especially the Arabs who live in its midst or nearby – made its military ethos dominant over everything else.
Israel today is well on its way to becoming a failed state. Were it not for the fact that this outpost of fewer than five million Jews is a critical factor of war and peace in a much larger and vital region it would not be important or at all unusual. But it is terribly confused and has a very mixed identity; the US has since the late 1960s protected it. World peace now depends on this place, its idiosyncrasies, personality, and growing contradictions.
Israel is a profoundly divided society and its politicians are venal cynics. Many nations – and surely the Palestinian leaders until Hamas, by default, took over – are no different. As Shlomo Ben-Ami, the former foreign minister, describes it, on one side there are economically disadvantaged Oriental Jews, Russian nationalists who were motivated above all by a desire to leave the USSR (an appreciable minority is not Jewish), and Orthodox Jews of every sort united only by their intense dislike of "assimilationists"; on the other hand we have secular Jews, some leftists and modernizers, more skilled and of East European parentage who were once crucial in the formation of Zionism. There are an increasing number of "Jerusalem-Jews," as Ben-Ami calls them, motivated to come primarily by economic incentives, and they are bringing the Right to power more and more often. They fear the Arabs who live in Israel. "Tel Aviv" Jews are assimilating to a global, modernizing culture, more akin to the "normal" existence the early Zionists preached, and they are also the emigrants out because they have high skills. Israel now has as many people leaving as immigrate to it, and North America alone is home to up to a million of them.
Some indications of these trends range from the banal to the tragic. There are all varieties of punks, gays, everything. As for the ultra-Orthodox, some have placed "curses" on those who advocate disengaging from any settlements in the West Bank or Gaza; they will be punished by heaven. One of four ultra-Orthodox Jews believes this is precisely why Sharon was struck with a coma. Martin van Creveld, professor of military history at the Hebrew University and friend of many IDF leaders, whose fame was made studying the role of morale in armies, thinks the morale of the conscripts in the IDF is "almost to the vanishing point; in some cases crybabies have taken the place of soldiers." "Feminism" in the armed forces has intensified the rot, but "social developments" have destroyed much of the army – as have officers "who stayed behind their computers" last summer.
Never before has Israel been wracked by so many demoralizing scandals. The president of Israel just resigned because of rape charges against him, Prime Minister Olmert is being investigated by the comptroller’s office on four charges of corruption, the new chief of police was once accused of accepting bribes and fraud and his appointment has created an uproar, and other sordid cases too numerous to cite. Israel is "stewing in its own rot," a Haaretz writer concluded; the police, retired judge Vardi Zeiler commented after heading a committee to investigate the state’s operation, were like Sicily and the state was on its way to becoming a mafia-style regime.
In this anarchy wars are motivated for political reasons but now they are lost because the society is disintegrating and – again to quote a Haaretz writer – the government "lacks both direction and a conscience." Worse yet, its leaders are incredibly stupid and Olmert can only be compared to Bush in political intelligence. There is a consensus among Israeli strategists that the Iraq War was a disaster for Israel, a geopolitical gift to Iran that will leave Israel in ever-greater danger long after the Americans go home. "Israel has nothing to gain from a continued American presence in Iraq," the director of the Institute for National Security Studies of Tel Aviv University stated last January. The US ousted the Taliban from Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein from Iraq and created an overwhelming Iranian strategic domination. Its campaign for democracy has brought Hamas to power in Palestine. "It's a total misreading of reality," one Israeli expert is quoted when discussing America's role in the region. American policies have failed and Israel has given a carte blanche to a strategy that leaves it more isolated than ever.
Notwithstanding this consensus, on March 12th Olmert told the American Israel Public Affairs annual conference by video link "Those who are concerned for Israel’s security…should recognize the need for American success in Iraq and responsible exit." "Any outcome that will not help America’s strength…would…undercut America’s ability to deal effectively with the threat posed by the Iranian regime…." His foreign minister was even stronger. "Stay the hell out of it," a Haaretz writer concluded. No group is more antiwar than American Jews, Congress – in its own inept way – is trying to bring the war to an end, his own strategists think the Iraq War was a disaster – and Olmert endorses Bush’s folly.
The Syrian Option
It is in this context that the peace of the region will or will not evolve. Olmert will do what is best for his political position domestically, and retaining power will be his priority – no less than his predecessors and most politicians everywhere. It is not at all promising. But for technical, social, and morale reasons Israel will not win another war. At every level, it has become far weaker. It can inflict frightful damage on its enemies but it cannot change the fundamental balance of all forces that lead to victory.
Making peace with Syria would be a crucial first step for Israel, and although the Palestinian problem would remain it would nonetheless vastly improve Israel’s security – and disprove the Bush’s Administration’s contention until very recently that negotiations with Syria or Iran on any Middle East question involves conceding to evil. The Israeli press reported in great detail the secret 2004-05 Israel-Syria negotiations, which were very advanced and involved major Syrian concessions – especially on water and Syrian neutrality in a host of political controversies with the Palestinians and Iranians. It also reported that Washington followed these talks closely and that it – especially Cheney’s office – opposed bringing them to a successful conclusion. At the end of January many important members of Israel’s foreign policy establishment publicly urged reopening these talks.
Olmert dismissed Syria’s gestures categorically after they became public. "Don’t even think about it" was Secretary of State Rice’s view of a treaty when she saw Israeli officials in mid-February. But though Mossad supports the obdurate Rice-Olmert view, military intelligence argues that Syria’s offers are sincere and serious. Moreover, intelligence’s head warned that Syria is growing stronger and peace was very much to Israel’s interest. He was supported by most of the Foreign and Defense ministries, including Minister of Defense Amir Peretz. Olmert demanded, and got, their acquiescence.
A treaty could be finalized with Syria within four to six months, Alon Liel, former director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry who negotiated with the Syrians, reported the Washington Times on March 7. Liel was asked to come to the US embassy in Tel Aviv about this time and tell the entire political staff of his talks. The reports in Haaretz, which included the draft treaty, were by then quite definitive. Then the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, invited Ibrahim Suleiman, Syria’s representative to the talks, to speak to the foreign affairs and defense committees. Such invitations are very rare, not least because Syria and Israel are legally in a state of war. But if the Syrians and Israelis go to war again, the normally hawkish Martin van Creveld concluded at this time, Israel "could wreak much destruction, but it could not force a decision." In three or four years the Syrians would be ready for a protracted war that would prove too much for Israel. After running through his bizarre alternatives, and the state of the IDF’s morale, van Creveld concluded that reaching a peace with Syria was very much to Israel’s interests – and that even the Americans were coming to the position that talking to Syria and Iran (as the Baker-Hamilton panel had recommended last December) was rational.
Syria has been attempting desperately to improve its relations with Washington, if only to forestall some mad act on the US’ part. When Israel attacked Lebanon last July, Elliott Abrams, in charge of the Middle East at the National Security Council, along with other neocons in Washington, urged it to expand the war to Syria. At the end of February Syria renewed its appeal to the US to discuss any and all Middle East issues with it in "a serious and profound dialogue." For over two years it has made similar attempts; Baker knew all about these. Talking to alleged adversaries is perhaps the most fundamental point of difference between Cheney, his neocon alliance, and Rice, and it covers North Korea, Iran, and many other places. The debate is less the nature and goals of American foreign policy but how to conduct it – by the application of material power and even the threat of war versus more traditional means, such as diplomacy.
In the past several weeks, taking her cue from the Republican Establishment in the Iraq Study Group last December, Rice has been winning points in this debate but her successes are fragile. Cheney is a powerful, determined and cunning man who knows how to succeed all too well with the president.
America’s overwhelming problem is Iraq and, above all, Iran, and apparently the Bush Administration has now decided that Syria can help it in the region. Ellen Sauerbrey, an Assistant Secretary of State, was in Damascus on March 12, nominally to discuss refugees but she heard from the Syrians "that all the questions are linked in the Arab region and that a comprehensive dialogue is needed on all these questions." Syria has also mobilized the European Union, which now favors a return of the Golan Heights to it. On March 13 the US ambassador to Israel publicly stated a bald lie that the Americans had never "expressed an opinion on what Israel should or should not do with regard to Syria."
It is now entirely in the hands of the Olmert government whether to negotiate with Syria.
Israel has ignored Washington on at least four very important issues, starting with the Sinai campaign in 1956, and acted in its own self-interest. The Americans were Olmert’s alibi but he can use them no more. There are other crucial issues, such as the Saudi plan for the resolution of the Palestine question, and never has Israel had a greater need for peace than at the present. Instead, like the US, its head of state may be the worst in its history, motivated by short-term political advantage and a consummate desire to retain power.
But the Syrian option is there for the taking. If there is war then the brain drain out will accelerate and migration in will fall; demography will take over. Israel will then become the only place in the world a Jew is in danger precisely because he or she is a Jew. If this opportunity is lost there will eventually be a mutually destructive war that no one will win – the Lebanon War proved that Israel must now confront the fact that its neighbors are becoming its military equals and US aid cannot save it.
Indeed, America’s free gifts enabled Israel to begin a war last July with illusions identical to those that also caused the Bush Administration to embark on its Iraq folly.
By Gabriel Kolko
The United States has given Israel $51.3 billion in military grants since 1949, most of it after 1974 – more than any other country in the post-1945 era. Israel has also received $11.2 billion in loans for military equipment, plus $31 billion in economic grants, not to mention loan guarantees or joint military projects. But major conditions on these military grants have meant that 74 percent of it has remained in the U.S. to purchase American arms. Since it creates jobs and profits in many districts, Congress is more than ready to respond to the cajoling of the Israel lobby. This vast sum has both enabled and forced Israel to prepare to fight an American-style war. But the US since 1950 has failed to win any of its big wars.
In early 2005 the new chief of staff of the Israel Defense Force, Dan Halutz, embarked on the most extensive reorganization in the history of IDF. Halutz is an Air Force general and enamored with the doctrines that justify the ultra-modern equipment the Americans showered upon the Israelis. Attack helicopters, unmanned aircraft, advanced long-range intelligence and communications, and the like were at the top of his agenda. His was merely a variation of Donald Rumsfeld’s "shock and awe" concepts.
The 34-day war in Lebanon, starting July 12 last year, was a disastrous turning point for Israel. Until the Eliyahu Winograd Commission, which Olmert set up in September 2006, delivers its interim report in late April – which will cover the first five days of the war only – and resolves these matters, we will not know precisely the orders sent to specific units or the timing of all of the actors, but there is already a consensus on far more important fundamentals. But the Israelis did not lose the war because of orders given or not given to various officers. It was a war of choice, and it was planned as an air war with very limited ground incursions in the expectation that Israeli casualties would be very low. Major General Herzl Sapir at the end of February said that "the war began at our initiative and we did not take advantage of the benefits granted to the initiator." Planning for the war began November 2005 but reached high gear by the following March before the expected kidnapping of two IDF soldiers – the nominal excuse for the war. There is no controversy over the fact that it was a digitized, networked war, the first in Israel’s experience, and conformed to Halutz’ – and American – theories of how war is fought in this high-tech era. The US fought identical wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – and is in the process of losing both.
What were the Israeli objectives? – war aims, if you will. While the Winograd Commission report may clarify this question, at the very least a number of goals are known already. Halutz wanted to "shock and awe" the Hezbollah and their allies with Israeli power – all within a few days. There were lesser aims, such as moving the Hezbollah rockets well away from the borders or even getting its two kidnapped soldiers returned, but at the very least Halutz wanted to make a critical point.
Instead, he revealed Israel’s vulnerability based, in large part, on the fact the enemy was far better prepared, motivated, and equipped. It was the end of a crucial myth, the harbinger of yet more bloody, but equal, armed conflicts or a balance of power conducive to negotiations. Olmert and his generals very likely expected to have a great victory within five days, thereby increasing his popularity with the hawkish Jewish population that is a growing majority of the voters, to reverse his abysmally low poll ratings, thereby saving his political career – he received three percent popularity in a TV poll in early March.
There are many reasons the Israelis lost the war in Lebanon, but there is general agreement within Israel that the war ended in disaster and the deterrent value of the once unbeatable, super-armed IDF gravely diminished in the entire Arab world for the first time since 1947. But the Israelis were defeated for many of the same reasons that have caused the Americans to lose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – and in Vietnam as well. Both their doctrine and equipment were ill suited for the realities they confronted. There was no centralized command structure to destroy but small groups, lightly armed, mobile, and decentralized, able to harass and ultimately prevail. The Hezbollah also had highly effective Russian anti-tank missiles, and the IDF admits that "several dozen" tanks were put out of commission, if not destroyed, including the Merkava Mark IV, which Israel claims in the best protected tank in the world – and which it seeks to export. They also fired around 4,000 rockets at Israeli population centers and the IDF could not stop this demoralizing harassment. Hezbollah bunkers and arsenals were largely immune to air attacks, which caused the Israelis to "stretch the target envelope" to attack densely populated areas, with over 1,000 civilian dead. "Israel lost the war in the first three days," an American military expert concluded, expressing a consensus shared by many US Air Force analysts. "If you have that kind of surprise and you have that kind of firepower you had better win. Otherwise, you’re in for the long haul."
The problem, though, was not merely a new Arab prowess, though changes in their morale and fighting organizations should not be minimized. Halutz’ drastic reorganization of the IDF since early 2005, one that was supposed to attain the promises of all its American-supplied equipment, "caused," in General Sapir’s words, "a terrible distortion." The IDF was an organizational mess, demoralized as never before, and on January 17, 2007 Halutz resigned, the first head of the IDF to voluntarily step down because of his leadership in war. Had he not resigned he would have been fired. His successor quickly annulled his reorganization of the IDF, which is now sorely disorganized. The American way of warfare had failed.
The Next War
The Lebanon War is only a harbinger of Israeli defeats to come. For the first time there is a rough equivalence in military power.
Technology everywhere is now moving far faster than the diplomatic and political resources or will to control its inevitable consequences. Hezbollah has far better and more rockets – over 10,000 short-range rockets is one figure given – than it had a few years ago, and Israel’s military intelligence believes it has more firepower than it had last spring, before it was attacked. Israel has failed to convince Russia not to sell or give their highly effective anti-tank missiles to nations or movements in the region. They fear that even Hamas will acquire them. Syria is procuring "thousands" of advanced anti-tank missiles from Russia, which can be fired from five kilometers away, as well as far better rockets that can hit Israeli cities.
If the challenges of producing a realistic concept of the world that confronts the mounting dangers and limits of military technology seriously are not resolved soon there is nothing more than wars to look forward to. The IDF intelligence branch does not think a war with Syria is likely in 2007; other Israeli military commentators think that any war with Syria would produce, at best, a bloody standoff – just like the war in Lebanon last summer. Israel has about 3,700 tanks and they are all now highly vulnerable. Its ultra-modern air arm, most of which the US has provided, only kills people but it cannot attain victory.
The New Israel – A 'Normal' Nation
In the past, wars produced victories and more territory for the Jews; now they will only produce disasters for everybody. The Lebanon War proved that.
Zionism was a concoction of Viennese coffee houses, Tolstoy’s idealization of labor, early ecological sentiment in the form of the wanderfogel that influenced Zionism but various fascistic movements as well, militarism, and varieties of socialism for parts of it, including bolshevism. Jews sought to go to Palestine not only because of the Holocaust but also the changes in American immigration laws in the first half of the 1920s. Without the vast sums the Diaspora provided, Zionism would never have come to fruition. Every nation has its distinctive personality reflecting its traditions, pretensions, and history’s caprices, and in this regard Israel is no different. It exists but it is becoming increasingly dangerous to world peace – and to itself.
Zionism always had a military ethos, imposed only in part by Arab hostility, and from the inception of Zionism’s history its political and military leaders were one and the same. Generals were heroes and they did well in politics. The logic of force merged with an essentially Western, colonialist bias. Its founders were Europeans, and it was an outpost of European culture until the globalization of values and products made these cultural distinctions increasingly irrelevant. It always has been a militarist society, proud of its fighters. And notwithstanding the Cold War and the increasing flow of arms from the US, which, merged with its élan, meant it won all its post-1947 wars until last summer, it still retains a strong element of hysteria about the world it faced. And it is often messianic – especially its politicians – because messianism is very much influential among a growing portion of the religious and traditional population.
Israel has ceased being "Zionist" in the original sense of that ideology. For the sake of ceremony it retains Zionism as a label, just as many actual or aspiring nations have various myths which justify their claims to a national identity. But it is a long way from the original premises, in large part because its war with its neighbors – especially the Arabs who live in its midst or nearby – made its military ethos dominant over everything else.
Israel today is well on its way to becoming a failed state. Were it not for the fact that this outpost of fewer than five million Jews is a critical factor of war and peace in a much larger and vital region it would not be important or at all unusual. But it is terribly confused and has a very mixed identity; the US has since the late 1960s protected it. World peace now depends on this place, its idiosyncrasies, personality, and growing contradictions.
Israel is a profoundly divided society and its politicians are venal cynics. Many nations – and surely the Palestinian leaders until Hamas, by default, took over – are no different. As Shlomo Ben-Ami, the former foreign minister, describes it, on one side there are economically disadvantaged Oriental Jews, Russian nationalists who were motivated above all by a desire to leave the USSR (an appreciable minority is not Jewish), and Orthodox Jews of every sort united only by their intense dislike of "assimilationists"; on the other hand we have secular Jews, some leftists and modernizers, more skilled and of East European parentage who were once crucial in the formation of Zionism. There are an increasing number of "Jerusalem-Jews," as Ben-Ami calls them, motivated to come primarily by economic incentives, and they are bringing the Right to power more and more often. They fear the Arabs who live in Israel. "Tel Aviv" Jews are assimilating to a global, modernizing culture, more akin to the "normal" existence the early Zionists preached, and they are also the emigrants out because they have high skills. Israel now has as many people leaving as immigrate to it, and North America alone is home to up to a million of them.
Some indications of these trends range from the banal to the tragic. There are all varieties of punks, gays, everything. As for the ultra-Orthodox, some have placed "curses" on those who advocate disengaging from any settlements in the West Bank or Gaza; they will be punished by heaven. One of four ultra-Orthodox Jews believes this is precisely why Sharon was struck with a coma. Martin van Creveld, professor of military history at the Hebrew University and friend of many IDF leaders, whose fame was made studying the role of morale in armies, thinks the morale of the conscripts in the IDF is "almost to the vanishing point; in some cases crybabies have taken the place of soldiers." "Feminism" in the armed forces has intensified the rot, but "social developments" have destroyed much of the army – as have officers "who stayed behind their computers" last summer.
Never before has Israel been wracked by so many demoralizing scandals. The president of Israel just resigned because of rape charges against him, Prime Minister Olmert is being investigated by the comptroller’s office on four charges of corruption, the new chief of police was once accused of accepting bribes and fraud and his appointment has created an uproar, and other sordid cases too numerous to cite. Israel is "stewing in its own rot," a Haaretz writer concluded; the police, retired judge Vardi Zeiler commented after heading a committee to investigate the state’s operation, were like Sicily and the state was on its way to becoming a mafia-style regime.
In this anarchy wars are motivated for political reasons but now they are lost because the society is disintegrating and – again to quote a Haaretz writer – the government "lacks both direction and a conscience." Worse yet, its leaders are incredibly stupid and Olmert can only be compared to Bush in political intelligence. There is a consensus among Israeli strategists that the Iraq War was a disaster for Israel, a geopolitical gift to Iran that will leave Israel in ever-greater danger long after the Americans go home. "Israel has nothing to gain from a continued American presence in Iraq," the director of the Institute for National Security Studies of Tel Aviv University stated last January. The US ousted the Taliban from Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein from Iraq and created an overwhelming Iranian strategic domination. Its campaign for democracy has brought Hamas to power in Palestine. "It's a total misreading of reality," one Israeli expert is quoted when discussing America's role in the region. American policies have failed and Israel has given a carte blanche to a strategy that leaves it more isolated than ever.
Notwithstanding this consensus, on March 12th Olmert told the American Israel Public Affairs annual conference by video link "Those who are concerned for Israel’s security…should recognize the need for American success in Iraq and responsible exit." "Any outcome that will not help America’s strength…would…undercut America’s ability to deal effectively with the threat posed by the Iranian regime…." His foreign minister was even stronger. "Stay the hell out of it," a Haaretz writer concluded. No group is more antiwar than American Jews, Congress – in its own inept way – is trying to bring the war to an end, his own strategists think the Iraq War was a disaster – and Olmert endorses Bush’s folly.
The Syrian Option
It is in this context that the peace of the region will or will not evolve. Olmert will do what is best for his political position domestically, and retaining power will be his priority – no less than his predecessors and most politicians everywhere. It is not at all promising. But for technical, social, and morale reasons Israel will not win another war. At every level, it has become far weaker. It can inflict frightful damage on its enemies but it cannot change the fundamental balance of all forces that lead to victory.
Making peace with Syria would be a crucial first step for Israel, and although the Palestinian problem would remain it would nonetheless vastly improve Israel’s security – and disprove the Bush’s Administration’s contention until very recently that negotiations with Syria or Iran on any Middle East question involves conceding to evil. The Israeli press reported in great detail the secret 2004-05 Israel-Syria negotiations, which were very advanced and involved major Syrian concessions – especially on water and Syrian neutrality in a host of political controversies with the Palestinians and Iranians. It also reported that Washington followed these talks closely and that it – especially Cheney’s office – opposed bringing them to a successful conclusion. At the end of January many important members of Israel’s foreign policy establishment publicly urged reopening these talks.
Olmert dismissed Syria’s gestures categorically after they became public. "Don’t even think about it" was Secretary of State Rice’s view of a treaty when she saw Israeli officials in mid-February. But though Mossad supports the obdurate Rice-Olmert view, military intelligence argues that Syria’s offers are sincere and serious. Moreover, intelligence’s head warned that Syria is growing stronger and peace was very much to Israel’s interest. He was supported by most of the Foreign and Defense ministries, including Minister of Defense Amir Peretz. Olmert demanded, and got, their acquiescence.
A treaty could be finalized with Syria within four to six months, Alon Liel, former director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry who negotiated with the Syrians, reported the Washington Times on March 7. Liel was asked to come to the US embassy in Tel Aviv about this time and tell the entire political staff of his talks. The reports in Haaretz, which included the draft treaty, were by then quite definitive. Then the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, invited Ibrahim Suleiman, Syria’s representative to the talks, to speak to the foreign affairs and defense committees. Such invitations are very rare, not least because Syria and Israel are legally in a state of war. But if the Syrians and Israelis go to war again, the normally hawkish Martin van Creveld concluded at this time, Israel "could wreak much destruction, but it could not force a decision." In three or four years the Syrians would be ready for a protracted war that would prove too much for Israel. After running through his bizarre alternatives, and the state of the IDF’s morale, van Creveld concluded that reaching a peace with Syria was very much to Israel’s interests – and that even the Americans were coming to the position that talking to Syria and Iran (as the Baker-Hamilton panel had recommended last December) was rational.
Syria has been attempting desperately to improve its relations with Washington, if only to forestall some mad act on the US’ part. When Israel attacked Lebanon last July, Elliott Abrams, in charge of the Middle East at the National Security Council, along with other neocons in Washington, urged it to expand the war to Syria. At the end of February Syria renewed its appeal to the US to discuss any and all Middle East issues with it in "a serious and profound dialogue." For over two years it has made similar attempts; Baker knew all about these. Talking to alleged adversaries is perhaps the most fundamental point of difference between Cheney, his neocon alliance, and Rice, and it covers North Korea, Iran, and many other places. The debate is less the nature and goals of American foreign policy but how to conduct it – by the application of material power and even the threat of war versus more traditional means, such as diplomacy.
In the past several weeks, taking her cue from the Republican Establishment in the Iraq Study Group last December, Rice has been winning points in this debate but her successes are fragile. Cheney is a powerful, determined and cunning man who knows how to succeed all too well with the president.
America’s overwhelming problem is Iraq and, above all, Iran, and apparently the Bush Administration has now decided that Syria can help it in the region. Ellen Sauerbrey, an Assistant Secretary of State, was in Damascus on March 12, nominally to discuss refugees but she heard from the Syrians "that all the questions are linked in the Arab region and that a comprehensive dialogue is needed on all these questions." Syria has also mobilized the European Union, which now favors a return of the Golan Heights to it. On March 13 the US ambassador to Israel publicly stated a bald lie that the Americans had never "expressed an opinion on what Israel should or should not do with regard to Syria."
It is now entirely in the hands of the Olmert government whether to negotiate with Syria.
Israel has ignored Washington on at least four very important issues, starting with the Sinai campaign in 1956, and acted in its own self-interest. The Americans were Olmert’s alibi but he can use them no more. There are other crucial issues, such as the Saudi plan for the resolution of the Palestine question, and never has Israel had a greater need for peace than at the present. Instead, like the US, its head of state may be the worst in its history, motivated by short-term political advantage and a consummate desire to retain power.
But the Syrian option is there for the taking. If there is war then the brain drain out will accelerate and migration in will fall; demography will take over. Israel will then become the only place in the world a Jew is in danger precisely because he or she is a Jew. If this opportunity is lost there will eventually be a mutually destructive war that no one will win – the Lebanon War proved that Israel must now confront the fact that its neighbors are becoming its military equals and US aid cannot save it.
Indeed, America’s free gifts enabled Israel to begin a war last July with illusions identical to those that also caused the Bush Administration to embark on its Iraq folly.
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