A Peaceful Solution

Apr 29 2007

Posted by: Jay

written by Willie & Amy Nelson on April 29th, 2007
at 3:03am on the bus in California, on the way to Coachella.

There is a peaceful solution. It’s called a peace revolution.
Now let’s take back America.
There’s a war and we’re in it, but I know we can win it.
So let’s take back America.

It’s a dream, so believe it.
Now get ready to receive it.
And let’s take back America.

And when the war is over and we’ve won it
let’s remember how we done it so we don’t have to do it again.

There is a peaceful solution. It’s called a peace revolution.
Now let’s take back America.
There’s a war and we’re in it, but I know we can win it.
Now let’s take back America.

There was a peace resolution
and a peaceful revolution
and the peaceful solution saved America

Hear Willie sing it A cappella.

Joan Baez Banned at Walter Reed Hospital

Joan Baez Unwelcome At Concert For Troops
Singer Was to Perform With Mellencamp at Walter Reed

By Teresa Wiltz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 2, 2007; C01

When rocker John Mellencamp performed for the recovering soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center on Friday night, a couple of things were missing. He squelched his typically blistering rhetoric against the war in Iraq. Also MIA, as it turned out, was folkie and antiwar activist Joan Baez, who says she was disinvited from the event by Army officials.

In a letter that appears today in The Washington Post, Baez says Mellencamp had wanted her to perform with him and that she had accepted his invitation.

"I have always been an advocate for nonviolence," she writes, "and I have stood as firmly against the Iraq war as I did the Vietnam War 40 years ago. . . . I realize now that I might have contributed to a better welcome home for those soldiers fresh from Vietnam. Maybe that's why I didn't hesitate to accept the invitation to sing for those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"In the end, four days before the concert, I was not 'approved' by the Army to take part. Strange irony."

Reached by telephone yesterday at her home in Menlo Park, Calif., Baez, 66, said she wasn't told why she was given the boot, but speculated, "There might have been one, there might have been 50 [soldiers] that thought I was a traitor."

Baez, who said Mellencamp had asked her to sing two songs with him, has been an avowed anti-violence activist ever since she refused to participate in an air raid drill at her Southern California high school. In the '60s, her name became synonymous with the antiwar movement, though many of the protest songs she was famous for performing, such as "Blowin' in the Wind," were covers of Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger songs. In 1964 she protested the Vietnam War by refusing to pay 60 percent of her income taxes. In 1968, she married activist David Harris -- the two met in jail following a protest -- and moved with him into his draft resistance commune.

Walter Reed officials did not respond to several requests for comment yesterday. But in an e-mailed statement published Monday on RollingStone.com, spokesman Steve Sanderson said the medical center received the requests for participation by Baez and broadcaster Dan Rather just two days before the concert. (Rather now works for HDNet, which broadcast the Mellencamp concert.)

"These additional requirements were not in the agreement/contract and would have required a modification," Sanderson told the magazine's Web site.

Not so, says Baez's manager, Mark Spector; Mellencamp's management invited Baez to perform in March with the understanding that things could take a while "because of the red tape of Army bureaucracy." Mellencamp's management handled all the arrangements, according to Spector. And up until April 23, when Baez was turned down, everything was "still inching forward," he said: "They'd booked her flight; they'd booked her hotel."

Mellencamp's manager, Randy Hoffman, did not return calls requesting comment, and Mellencamp was ill and unavailable yesterday, according to his publicist. But Mellencamp told RollingStone.com: "They didn't give me a reason why she couldn't come. We asked why and they said, 'She can't fit here, period.' "

"One of my more cynical friends said, 'They let the rats in, why not you?' " Baez said, laughing, referring to a recent exposé of living conditions at Walter Reed.

It wasn't the first time that a performer has been blocked from Walter Reed. In 2004, Oscar-winning actress Patty Duke was refused permission to tour the wards. She'd been scheduled to visit troops as part of an Arts Advocacy Day in Washington. USO officials later said they didn't have enough time to let the patients know that a celebrity would be visiting -- although Michael Jackson was spotted in the ward the same night that Duke would have popped in for a visit.

An HDNet spokeswoman said Rather had planned to interview Mellencamp at the hospital, but "schedule-wise we couldn't make it happen."

After the concert, Baez said, Mellencamp left her a message to say, "I hope you're not mad at me." Her response: " 'Of course not. It's an honor to be turned down by the Army.' . . . But I would have been happier getting in . . . I thought times had changed enough."

So what exactly happened?

The answer -- since Walter Reed's officials aren't talking -- is blowin' in the wind. (Sorry, we couldn't resist.)

Pro-peace lobby is needed

By Emad Omar

Jimmy Carter, the previous American president who received the Nobel Peace Prize and initiated putting human rights on the US agenda during his term, was the first to break the state of hostility between Israel and the Arabs with the first peace treaty in the history of this conflict. In 1978, the famous peace treaty between the Egyptians and the Israelis was a great opportunity for Israel to obtain recognition and end the state of war. Yet in spite of this, the pro-Israel lobby in US raised hell against Carter after publishing his latest book “Palestine: Peace not Apartheid.” In the book, he told of the successive Israeli governments that have routinely undermined the peace process through obstinate aggressive and illegal occupation of the territories seized in 1967. The lobby’s reaction confirmed what Carter mentioned in his book and in a number of his press interviews, that “the Jewish general public is more eager for peace than their political leaders.”

The former American Secretary of the State, James Baker, was the engineer of the second reduction in hostility between Israel and Arab states. Baker sponsored the direct negotiations between Israel and neighboring Arab countries in 1991, giving Israel an historic opportunity to be recognized and accepted in the region. Despite that, a considerable wing of the lobby, during that time, led a campaign against him. They accused him of vilifying the Jews in a private meeting when he claimed that they do not vote for the Republicans. Recently, Baker, with his colleague Lee Hamilton, in the Bi-partisan Iraq study group, found that “the United States will not be able to achieve its goals in the Middle East unless it deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict,” he was attacked by this wing that seems careless about American interests in the region and sees only the strategic bi-lateral relation between Israel and US as its only concern.

Carter and Baker are among the most respected American politicians when it comes to American foreign policy. Their careers in diplomacy are behind them now and they can afford to tell the truth and focus on the real and possible solutions.

George Soros, a rich American Jew, experienced suffering in eastern Europe during the fascist reign and the Holocaust, which gave him extreme sensitivity towards the oppressed. As such, he supported black students in South Africa against the Apartheid regime and the dissident movements in Eastern Europe against the communist tolatarian regimes. “I have a great deal of sympathy for my fellow Jews and deep concern for the survival of Israel,” Soros says. Lately, he criticized in an article published in the New York Review of Books, dated April 12, 2007, saying, “Recently, the pro-Israel lobby has gone on the offensive, accusing the so-called progressive critics of Israel’s policies of fomenting anti-Semitism and endangering the very existence of the Jewish state.” He warned that “There is the growing danger of a regional conflagration in which Israel and the US could well be on the losing side.” Supporters of the pro-Israel lobby attacked Soros by comparing his criticisms to the so-called blood libels directed against Jews in medieval Europe.

President of the esteemed Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haas recently noted, “Diplomacy also needs to be revived in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is still the issue that most shapes (and radicalizes) public opinion in the region…The United States should articulate those principles it believes ought to constitute the elements of a final settlement, including the creation of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines.” Pro-Israel lobby has publicly disagreed with Haas's conclusions.

One year ago, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, two prominent academics from Chicago and Harvard universities respectively, prepared a joint research paper about the lobby supporting Israel in America. In a documented and scientific way, they criticized the negative role played by the Israeli lobby today in American democratic life and in America’s foreign policy. In a joint essay published in the London Review of Books, they wrote that, “The Lobby’s influence has been bad for Israel. Its ability to persuade Washington to support an expansionist agenda has discouraged Israel from seizing opportunities – including a peace treaty with Syria and a prompt and full implementation of the Oslo Accords – that would have saved Israeli lives and shrunk the ranks of Palestinian extremists.”

As a result of this, they were targeted by a fierce campaign that made it almost impossible for both to publish their research in US.

The pro-Israel lobby in America that has attacked any sort of criticism of Israeli policies is like the father who exaggerates in protecting his children and spoils them, turning them into a troublemakers in the neighborhood and bringing their parents a bad reputation. This lobby’s policy contributes to maintaining the dangerous stagnation and status quo, the very problem King Abdullah II of Jordan warned of in his historical speech to the American Congress last March, when he said, “The status quo is pulling the region and the world towards greater danger... The cycle of crisis is spinning faster.”

The Arabs today are promoting their historic peace initiative, which is an historical opportunity, and the Israeli lobby in the US should push for a positive Israeli response in order to transform it into a regional peace plan instead of indulging in blindly defending the status quo and thus taking Israel, the region, and American interests into an endless hell that it may not recover from for many decades to come.

* Emad Omar is a conflict resolution and media expert based in Amman, Jordan.

Peace is blocked by the Three Nos of Jerusalem

By Henry Siegman

Published: April 18 2007 18:11 | Last updated: April 18 2007 18:11

The Arab League meeting in Cairo yesterday was unprecedented in its overture to Israel, offering to meet Israeli representatives to clarify the peace initiative that the League re-endorsed at its meeting in Riyadh on March 28. The two events underscore the complete reversal of the paradigm that for so long has defined the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the effort by armies of several Arab countries to abort its birth, until well past the war of 1967 which left Israel in control of all of Palestine, Israel was seen by much of the world as both victim and peace- seeker. Arab countries were seen as warmongers and rejectionists. The paradigm was reinforced by the “Three Nos of Khartoum” when, in 1967, Arab countries pledged there would be no peace, no negotiations and no recog­nition of the Jewish state.

This image of the Arab worldâos total rejection of Israel persisted into the 1980s, even after it became clear that the prime minister, Golda Meir, had ignored peace initiatives by the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, for which Israel paid dearly in the October war of 1973. Nor did a change in Arab attitudes to the Jewish state implicit in the Saudi Fahd plan, adopted by the Arab League in 1981, prompt any rethinking of that image in Israel or in the west.

Since then, particularly in the aftermath of the Oslo accords in 1993 and the MENA Economic Summits hosted by various Arab countries, Arab rejection of Israel's legitimacy has largely dissipated. Well before the Saudi initiative of 2002 senior Arab officials sought to persuade Yasser Arafat, former Palestine Liberation Organisation leader, to accept peace terms offered by Ehud Barak, Israelâos former prime minister, at Camp David in 2000.

Then came the Saudi initiative, in which the most conservative of Arab countries and the most conservative of Saudi princes, Crown Prince Abdullah, declared that Saudi Arabia would fully normalise its relations with Israel and welcome its embassy and flag in its capital as soon as Israel ended its conflict with the Palestinians, an offer endorsed by every Arab country.

The Israeli response to this tectonic change in Arab psychology and politics was worse than rejection: it was complete indifference, as if this 180-degree turnround in Arab thinking had no meaning for Israel and its future in the region.

Ehud Olmert, prime minister, and his government have reflexively rejected every Arab peace offer, whether from Saudi Arabia, Syria, the Arab League or Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president. Ariel Sharonâos and Mr Olmertâos policies these past seven years have shaped a new paradigm in which Israel is the rejectionist party. The Three Nos of Khartoum have been replaced by the Three Nos of Jerusalem: no negotiations with Syria, no acceptance of the Arab initiative and, above all, no peace talks with the Palestinians.

Mr Olmert and his associates devote their diplomatic skills to finding ever more tortured pretexts for blocking every opportunity for peacemaking, while posturing as peace-lovers in search of âoreasonableâo Arabs who qualify as partners for peace. Their goal remains to prevent a peace process that would require them to halt Israel's expansion of its settlements and its effort to cut off East Jerusalem from its Palestinian hinterland.

This deception worked well for a while and perhaps still convinces president George W. Bush and those he relies on to understand the Middle East, the folks who gave us the Iraq war, but has worn thin with much of the rest of the world, including many Americans. Several US columnists who bought into the old paradigm, or avoided the subject for fear of be-ing labelled anti-Israel, now reject it.

Israel has lost the high moral ground. It will not regain it until its citizens elect a government that understands that the price of peace, whose outline was agreed to by both sides in the Taba talks after the failed Camp David negotiations, is far less than the cost of its current rejectionism.

To be sure, the moral high ground does not necessarily provide security. But for a western country, located in the heart of the Arab and Islamic world, that has been the beneficiary of vastly disproportionate US and western support because it has been seen as a moral avatar, the loss of that high ground could not be more devastating to its long-term security.

Henry Siegman is director of the US/Middle East Project and research professor at the Sir Joseph Hotung Middle East Program at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

‘Jewish Voice for Peace’ Holds First National Conference

Commentary

By Cecilie Surasky

On the eve of the 40th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, it’s important to reflect on where we as a Jewish community stand on this issue, especially here in the Bay Area.

This occupation, through a system of checkpoints, home and orchard demolitions, detentions, land and water confiscations, assassinations and more, makes normal life impossible for millions of Palestinians. It violates international law, which was created in no small part as a response to World War II, and is universally condemned by human rights groups and governments, including the United States.

Far from bringing Israelis safety, it endangers people in Israel as well as the 400,000 settlers who live on occupied land, at least 40 percent of which, according to Israeli records, is actually owned by Palestinian families.

Given the Bay Area’s extraordinary history in the forefront of major social justice movements, it should come as no surprise that the leadership of the country’s largest and fastest-growing Jewish peace groups hail from here.

There is Brit Tzedek, which does critical work within the affiliated Jewish world as a pro-Israel/pro-peace group; Tikkun, which as part of the Network of Spiritual Progressives reaches across religious lines to raise a voice of justice; and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), the only national Jewish peace group that views the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the lens of international human rights law.

All of us have experienced some form of censure from the institutional Jewish world for publicly challenging unquestioning support for Israeli policies.

On April 28-29 in Oakland, JVP will hold our first national conference, “Pursuing Justice in Israel/Palestine, Changing Minds, Challenging U.S. Policy.” (Go to www.JewishVoice forpeace.org for information.) The conference will offer attendees a way to learn more about the Middle East, get involved, or sharpen their strategy and skills.

Just 5 years ago, JVP was an all volunteer group based here in the Bay Area. Today, we have four program staff positions; a 24,000-person mailing list; chapters in cities like Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Seattle with more coming; and advisory board members including Howard Zinn, Deborah Chasnoff, Tony Kushner and Adrienne Rich.

We encourage all people, but Jews in particular, to attend the conference as a way learn about Arab-Jewish organizing, Christian fundamentalist anti-Semitism, life under occupation and more.

A Jewish movement for

peace and justice

It is challenging to be an “out” Jew on this issue. Many movements simplistically divide the world into us and them. But as Jews, many with close ties to Israel, we are both us AND them. We must constantly fight the temptation of others, and at times ourselves, to dehumanize the “bad guys.”

Many of us needed to break through the one-sided ideas about Israel we were taught from birth. We knew too well the Jewish stories of suffering and exile – we ourselves carry the wounds. And we understood the need to create a place where Jews could be safe.

But we realized we knew little about Palestinians, why they called the Israeli war of independence Al Nakba, the disaster. Or why many still carried keys to their old homes, or why children threw rocks at tanks, or why some became suicide bombers and sought to kill Israeli civilians on buses or in pizza shops.

Many of us decided to learn the whole history, and to go to the West Bank and Gaza ourselves to see exactly what occupation looks like.

It is a searing experience none shall ever forget.

There are no words to describe the anger the first time one sees a scared Israeli teenage soldier pointing a huge gun and callously barking orders at an elderly Palestinian at a checkpoint.

And there are no containers to hold the tears one sheds when one sees a Caterpillar bulldozer destroy a Palestinian family’s home because they lacked an impossible to obtain permit, while the mother watches restrained, screaming, her children’s clothes and toys strewn on the side of the road. As one rabbi who witnessed such destruction just a few miles outside of Jerusalem said, “This is the worst day of my life.”

We come back to the Bay Area, having experienced some of the worst days of our lives, and instead of being greeted with open arms by one of the most progressive Jewish communities in the world, ready to work with Israeli and Palestinian peace groups for justice, we find an increasingly polarized community.

On the one side we find Jewish leaders who, feeling under attack, circle the wagons and go into defense mode. Many repeat superficial and racist platitudes about Palestinians just hating Jews or not caring about their families, platitudes that insult the intelligence of most who know full well the complexity of the situation.

We find progressive Jewish groups who we look to for inspiration on every tough social issue, but who decide simply to not talk about Israel-Palestine, as though it weren’t there.

Finally, we find Jewish leaders wielding the powerful charge of anti-Semitism, at times, to silence legitimate albeit sometimes hyperbolic criticism of Israel. At the same time, we see them take no accountability for the widespread Islamophobia and toxic disregard for Arab lives that has become widespread in many Jewish communities.

We then do our part to add to the polarization.

Out of our collective frustration at being shut out, and our anger at the moral hypocrisy of our leaders, we speak in a way that makes other Jews feel we don’t care about Israeli life, no matter how untrue that may be.

We focus on the failings of the Israeli government, the powerful player, and gloss over the failings of Palestinian leadership, and fail to communicate our acknowledgment of the very real fear Diaspora Jews and Israelis feel about annihilation.

There must be a way to break out of this cycle.

It is a devastating lie that one must be either pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian.

It is possible, in fact, necessary, to be integrated as a Jew who loves the Jewish people and traditions, and who fights for justice for all people—especially those who suffer at the hands of a Jewish state.

The future of Palestinians depends on it. The future of Israel depends on it. The very future of Judaism depends on it.

Go to www.JewishVoiceforPeace.org to find out more and to register for the conference.

Cecilie Surasky is director of communications for Jewish Voice for Peace.

Peace campaigner shot by Israelis: Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Corrigan

[Published: Sunday 22, April 2007 - 09:28]

By Ciaran McGuigan

Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Corrigan has been shot by Israeli troops during a protest on the West Bank, according to peace activists.

The Nobel laureate from Belfast was shot in the leg with a rubber bullet when a protest exploded into violence last Friday near Ramallah on the West Bank, said fellow protesters.

The veteran peace campaigner had been in the Palestinian village of Bil'in last week to speak at an international conference.

For the past two years the village has been the scene of weekly protests against security fences erected by Israel.

Speaking after the incident on Friday, Mrs Corrigan who was later treated in hospital, said she wanted to say that "this separation wall, contrary to what the Israelis say, will not prevent attacks and violence.

"What will prevent attacks and violence is a peace agreement between the two peoples, and I am sure the Israeli people, like the Palestinian people, want peace."

Campaigners said that 24 demonstrators, including Corrigan, were hurt when Israeli troops blocked the protest march last Friday afternoon.

One campaigner, from the International Women's Peace Service, who took part in the protest told how troops fired between 30 and 50 canisters of tear gas into the crowd before opening fire with rubber bullets.

Speaking from Haris, she told Sunday Life: "Mairead was able to walk after being hit by the rubber bullet, but she was clearly suffering badly from the effects of tear gas.

"(The disturbance happened) when soldiers prevented people getting to the wall. The soldiers then started throwing gas canisters into the crowd."

Corrigan shared the Noble Peace Prize in 1976 for her work with the Peace People.

US-Israel ties bad for peace: Soros

George Soros, the billionaire investor, has added his voice to the debate over the role of Israel's lobby in shaping US foreign policy.

In the current issue of the New York Review of Books, Soros takes issue with "the pervasive influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee [AIPAC]" in Washington and says the Bush administration's close ties with Israel are obstacles to a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

Soros, who is Jewish but not often engaged in Israeli affairs, echoed arguments that have fuelled debate in academia, foreign policy think tanks and parts of the US Jewish community.

"The pro-Israel lobby has been remarkably successful in suppressing criticism," wrote Soros. Politicians challenge it at their peril and dissenters risk personal vilification, he said.

AIPAC has consistently declined comment on such charges, but many of its supporters have been vocal in dismissing them.

Historian Michael Oren, speaking at AIPAC's 2007 conference in March, said the group was not merely a lobby for Israel. "It is the embodiment of a conviction as old as this (American) nation itself that belief in the Jewish state is tantamount to belief in these United States," he said in a keynote speech.

The long-simmering debate bubbled to the surface a year ago, when two prominent academics, Stephen Walt of Harvard and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, published a 12,500-word essay entitled "The Israel Lobby" and featuring the fiercest criticism of AIPAC since it was founded in 1953.

AIPAC now has more than 100,000 members and is rated one of the most influential special interest groups in the United States, its political clout comparable with such lobbies as the National Rifle Association.

The AIPAC members are all US citizens and the group receives no funding from the Israeli government.

Its annual conference in Washington attracts a Who's Who of American politics, both Republicans and Democrats.

Unwavering support

Mearsheimer and Walt said the lobby had persuaded successive administrations to align themselves too closely with Israel.

"The pro-Israel lobby has been remarkably successful in suppressing criticism"

George Soros, the billionaire investor

"The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread 'democracy' has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but much of the rest of the world," they wrote.

No other lobby group has managed to divert US foreign policy so far from the US national interest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of Israel are essentially identical, they wrote.

The two academics said that pressure from Israel and its lobby in Washington played an important role in President George Bush's decision to attack Iraq, an arch-enemy of Israel, in 2003.

Mearsheimer and Walt found no takers for their essay in the US publishing world. When it was eventually published in the London Review of Books, they noted it would be hard to imagine any mainstream media outlet in the United States publishing such a piece.

It has been drawing criticism that ranged from shoddy scholarship to anti-Semitism, chiefly from conservative fellow academics and political supporters of the present relationship between Washington and Israel.

In his contribution to the debate, Soros said: "A much-needed self-examination of American policy in the Middle East has started in this country; but it can't make much headway as long as AIPAC retains powerful influence in both the Democratic and Republican parties."

That influence is reflected by the fact that Israel is the largest recipient of US aid in the world.

Going mainstream

Mearsheimer and Walt are now working on expanding their article into a book - to be published in September by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The company has not commented on online reports that it paid the two authors a $750,000 advance and plans to print one million copies.

Another mainstream publisher, Simon and Schuster, already discovered that not only is it possible to publish criticism of Israel but it can also be good for the bottom line.

Former president Jimmy Carter's book "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid" shot up the bestseller lists after its publication last November; stayed there for more than three months and is still selling well.

It had an initial print run of 300,000 copies and there are now 485,000 copies in print, said Victoria Meyer, a spokeswoman for Simon and Schuster.

Carter's book and its reference to apartheid provoked angry reactions - more in the United States than in Israel, where leftists opposed to the occupation of the West Bank have been accusing the government of apartheid practices for years and where the word has lost its shock value.

In response to charges of bias and anti-Semitism, Carter said he wanted to provoke a discussion of issues debated routinely and freely in Israel but rarely in the United States.

"This reluctance to criticize any policies of the Israeli government is because of the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American Israel Political Action Committee and the absence of any significant contrary voices," he wrote in the Los Angeles Times during a tour to promote his book. "It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine."

According to Oren, the pro-AIPAC historian, the Carter book and the Mearsheimer-Walt paper had the same "insidious thesis" and suffered from the same flaw - ignoring oil as a driving element in US policies on the Middle East.

Peace Movement Must Take on AIPAC

AIPAC (the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee) is the driving force behind America's uber-aggressive foreign policy. Unless the pro-peace movement takes them and their rhetoric -- not to mention their outright disloyalty on -- then we will not get anywhere in our efforts to stop future wars against Iran, Syria, and the rest of the Middle East.

Posted by Paul Gessing on April 19, 2007 12:37 AM | Permalink

Truth or tricks?

According to Shin Bet, a Hamas-inspired suicide bombing in Tel Aviv was narrowly averted last month. But the details of the story scarcely stack up.

April 17, 2007 8:15 PM

Conal Urquhart

The message in last week's Israeli press was clear. Tel Aviv had just avoided a bloodbath and Hamas were back in the business of launching suicide attacks against Israel.

Anyone exposed to the Israeli media would have been left in no doubt that a tragedy had been averted and Hamas, after a three-year moratorium on suicide attacks against Israel, had reverted to type.

The problem is that the Shin Bet press release that led to blanket coverage raises far more questions than it answers - none of which were asked by the Israeli media, or passed onto the Israeli public.

According to a press release from the prime minister's office last week on behalf of Shin Bet, a Hamas terrorist drove a 100kg car bomb to Tel Aviv with the aim of blowing it up over the Passover holiday. The driver got past a large Israeli checkpoint and then drove through the towns of Kfar Sava and Herzliya before reaching Tel Aviv. For some reason, the "suicide-terrorist" had second thoughts and returned home to the West Bank town of Qalqiliya, where he parked the vehicle in a "backyard", according to Ha'aretz.

By this time, Shin Bet awoke to the threat and, with the help of the army, arrested 19 suspects in Qalqiliya. According to the press release: "During the aforesaid wave of arrests, the vehicle exploded in a 'work accident'."

The bomb would have had a devastating effect on Tel Aviv. According to Shin Bet, the vehicle was loaded with "powerful explosives" and "considerable shrapnel". It is fair to guess the effect on Qalqiliya, where it exploded on March 14 or 15 according to the prime minister's office which deals with the public affairs of Shin Bet, would have been equally damaging.

Qalqiliya is a small, densely-populated town of 33,000, which is almost completely surrounded by a 30-foot concrete wall. However, no one in Qalqiliya could recall any kind of explosion in the town in recent months.

Ahmed Abu Hazar, a resident of Qalqiliya and Fatah member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said he first heard of the arrests and the bomb plot from Israeli media. "Qalqiliya is a very small place and everyone know or hears what happens. I have asked my children, neighbours and friends, but they have heard nothing. When there was a small gas explosion a few months ago, everyone rushed to the scene, but about this we have heard nothing," he said.

Riad Amr, the Qalqiliya correspondent for the Bethlehem-based Maan News Agency, said that he had reported on the arrest of 19 men in Qalqiliya, but had not been able to substantiate rumours of an explosion.

Some might say that Palestinians have an interest in covering up the handiwork of their compatriots, but the confusion in Qalqiliya was mirrored by the prime minister's office in Jerusalem. When first asked about the explosion, Miri Eisen, the spokeswoman, commented that the explosion of 100kg of TNT would be hard not to notice. After seeking clarification of the exact location of the explosion from Shin Bet, Ms Eisen could only reiterate that the explosion had occurred in Qalqiliya.

If it was difficult to find the site of the explosion in Qalqiliya, it was easy to find the identity of the "suicide-terrorist". Mr Abu Hazar said the suspect was a distant relative and organised a meeting with his father, Yusef Obeid. Mr Obeid said his son, who carried an Israeli identity card, was arrested by the army on March 28, but the family were given no reason for the arrest.

Shin Bet specified that the "suicide-terrorist" carried an Israeli identity card and drove an Israeli-licenced vehicle. Ms Eisen said she could not state the name of the suspect but confirmed that he was the only one of the 19 men detained who carried an Israeli identity card.

Ali Obeid's Israeli-registered vehicle is still parked outside his house. It looks freshly painted and completely intact. Shin Bet did not state directly that it was Ali Obeid's vehicle that carried the explosives to Tel Aviv and later exploded, but other Israeli media did. The statement says that Ali Obeid's vehicle's "temporary Israeli licence plates facilitated its use by the Hamas terrorists".

It is possible that Shin Bet have more information, which they are unwilling to share, and that there is a destroyed Israeli-registered commercial vehicle in a devastated area of Qalqiliya somewhere. But why were they so quick to implant a fear in the Israeli public without the details to back it up? Why did the Israeli media fail to demand those details?

Ms Eisen explained that the details of the attack were still vague. "We cannot be exact on these things as the investigation is still ongoing."

The investigation continues, and may or may not lead to a trial. The only certain effect of the story is that many Israelis will have their suspicion and fear of Palestinians revived and reinforced.

Cif editor note: the headline on this blog was changed at 10pm to better reflect the piece

Conal Urquhart is a correspondent for the Guardian based in Israel.

Why Rice will fail in the Middle East

UPDATE - April 15, 2007 - Editor's note: I am posting at the secondary blog(also see Friday's articles at the overflow blog).
---
Published: 09/04/2007 12:00 AM (UAE)

By Adel Safty, Special to Gulf News

By her own recent admission, the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East contains no grand ideas and is based on the step by step approach. The step by step strategy is the wrong approach to solving the Palestine conflict. It failed before and is bound to fail again.

Rice's approach is based on the theory that if you achieve enough trust between the belligerent parties you will facilitate substantive negotiations for a final resolution of the conflict.

But the Palestine conflict is no ordinary conflict. From the beginning of the Zionist enterprise to take over Palestine from its inhabitants and turn it into a Jewish country, the Palestine conflict has been an existential one. There was no room in the Zionist project for Palestinian people in the Jewish state.

In fact, the very existence of the Palestinian people was eliminated from Palestine in the imagination of the Zionist propagandists seeking to sell their colonial enterprise to the imperial powers. Their most potent and telling slogan said that the Jewish people wanted to colonise Palestine, "a land without a people for a people without land".

A measure of the audacity of the enterprise is evident when you consider that at the time of this slogan the Arab Palestinians (Muslims and Christians) constituted about 93 per cent of the population of Palestine.

How the Zionist Commission managed, with the help of the occupying British forces, the support of the Western imperial powers, to transform Palestine by force from an Arab country into a Jewish state, is one of the most remarkable stories of the 20th century.

In the process the Palestinian people have been expelled by the hundreds of thousands, dispersed, their homeland lost, their society shattered. Those Palestinians who live under the Israeli occupation are regularly subjected to violence, collective punishment, continued dispersion and dispossession.

The Palestinians have suffered gross injustice and Israel's responsibility for this has been admitted by David Ben Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, in 1956. Various Israeli historians documented it in the past 20 years or so. And yet it is the Palestinians who are being asked to make concessions.

In 1988 they abandoned their plan for a secular state in Palestine for Jews, Muslims and Christians and agreed to accept the establishment of a Palestinian state on roughly half of Palestine. Under the Oslo Agreement, in 1993, they agreed to accept the irreversible loss of 78 per cent of their country to the Israelis and establish a mini-Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, about 22 per cent of their former country.

In fact, under various "peace" plans, the Palestinians continued to lose land and hope while at the same time being subjected to the violence of occupation and pressured into making concessions to the occupier.

Asymmetry of power

And it is this asymmetry of power that is being used by American mediators including Rice, as the defining context for "solving" the conflict. In effect, the victim is being asked to stop resisting the occupation, to protect the symbols of dispossession - the Jewish colonies - to accept punishment if they democratically elect the wrong government, and to be grateful when the daily restrictions on their lives are somewhat eased.

The step by step strategy employed by Kissinger after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war produced the Sinai I and Sinai II disengagement agreements between Israelis and Egyptians. This was in the interest of both parties. The Egyptians wanted to reopen the Suez Canal as a reward for their honourable military performance in the war. The Israelis did not want to be over-stretched militarily after the sobering lesson they received at the hands of the Egyptians. They also received a commitment from Washington not to deal with the Palestine Liberation Organisation, in effect committing Washington to block any peace with the Palestinians.

The dramatic visit by Egyptian president Anwar Sadat to Israel in 1977 helped produce the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement known as the Camp David Agreement in 1978. The Egyptian regained their Sinai, the Israelis removed the most powerful Arab country from the Arab-Israeli conflict and prepared to liquidate Palestinian nationalism once and for all.

This became evident when shortly after the Israelis withdrew from the Sinai in 1982, The Menahem Begin-Ariel Sharon team sent their army into Lebanon in what they hoped would be the final coup to settle the Palestine question by force. They miscalculated - with tragic cost for the Palestinians and the Lebanese.

Clearly the balance of power calculations used by Kissinger in the step by step strategy is utterly unsuitable for the Palestine conflict because of the gross asymmetry of power between the parties, one of which is undeniably a victim the other incontrovertibly a wrongdoer.

What is needed is a clear break with the past; a recognition that the Palestinians have suffered gross injustice and are entitled to reparations and a measure of justice, not as an act of charity and generosity from the occupier but as of right.

And this is what is missing from Rice's small ideas: A vision of peace based on law and justice, not force.

Instead she is focusing on power politics and small steps worthy of her small ideas. Why should the Israelis settle for anything less than what they have achieved by force when Washington is allowing them to flout "peace" plans like the roadmap, build a separation wall, and continue dispossession of the Palestinians?

In his reaction to the renewed Arab League offer of peace on the basis of some justice and some rights for the Palestinians, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmet responded confidently that his government rejected the right of return of even one Palestinian.

Prof Adel Safty is Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Siberian Academy of Public Administration, Novosibirsk, Russia. He is author of "From Camp David to the Gulf".

Israeli policies contravene with peace, Palestine Permanent Observer at the UN Says

Wednesday April 11, 2007 14:26 by Rami Almeghari - IMEMC&Agencies rami at imemc dot org

Palestine permanent observer at the United Nations, Mansour Mansour, warned Tuesday of continued Israeli attacks on the Palestinian people, saying such actions contravene with peace and help further feul tension on the ground.

In a letter, Mansour handed over to the chief of the security council, Mansour said that in a time many parties involving the Arab states league and the Palestinian national unity government, are exerting serious peace efforts toward potential peace, Israel violates the international humanitarian law on daily basis.

Mansour pointed out that Israel has been committing a series of extrajudicial assassinations, the latest of which was the killing of a Palestinian resident in the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza, in addition to the killing of other Palestinians in the West Bank.

As for the West Bank, Mansour maintained, the Israeli forces have recently used Palestinians as human shields during house-to-house searches, reiterating underway suffering of the Palestinian people at the hands of Israeli armed settlers in the West Bank and east Jerusalem
.
The Palestinian diplomat affirmed that the continued Israeli construction of the illegal separation barrier, deep into the Palestinian territories, especially in Jerusalem, has blatantly defied the ruling of the International Court of Justice in the Hague, the relevant United Nations’ resolutions as well as the international humanitarian law.

The international court of justice issued in 2004 an advisory opinion calling for tearing down the fence-off wall and compensating those affected by its building.

The letter read that the Israeli army has been installing approximately 500 military checkpoints and roadblock across the West Bank, blocking movement of the Palestinian population and vehicles and causing ‘catastrophic economic consequences’.

Israel has been imposing a prolonged closure policy on the occupied Palestinian territories, such as the closure of Rafah crossing terminal in southern Gaza, creating a great deal of deterioration at the humanitarian level, Mansour’s letter hinted.

According to a Palestinian Authority’s report, the Israeli army has killed 6 Palestinians over the past week.

Security Council resolution on Iran a grave threat to international peace and security

"This resolution by establishing sanctions is punishing a country that according to the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] has never diverted its nuclear program ... with all its nuclear facilities under the monitoring of the IAEA's inspectors and their cameras," Mottaki said. He added that Iran has "fulfilled all its commitments to the IAEA and the NPT and demands nothing more than its inalienable rights under the NPT. Is there any better way to undermine an important multilateral instrument that deals directly with international peace and security? Isn't this action by the Security Council in and of itself a grave threat to international peace and security?"

Iran: A mountain that doesn't move
Despite another round of UN sanctions, Iran will not suspend its uranium-enrichment activities, a stance that is gaining support in the international community. Indeed, by seizing 15 British sailors, Tehran has shown that those who inflict pain will pay a price, even if it means a new spiral of proxy attacks and hostage-taking leading to bigger and deadlier showdowns. - Kaveh L Afrasiabi (Mar 26, 2007

Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear potential latent", Harvard International Review, and is author of Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.

Israel to brand Arabs as peace spoilers

---

Herb Keinon, THE JERUSALEM POST

Mar. 23, 2007

---

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.

Activists Assail AIPAC Agenda

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 2007, pages 46-47

Northern California Chronicle

Women in Black Spread Message of Peace, Opposition to War, Violence

By Elaine Pasquini

	Passing a San Francisco cable car and with a police motorcycle escort, Bay Area Women in Black march silently amid holiday shoppers the day after Thanksgiving (Staff photo P. Pasquini).

CONTINUING a six-year tradition, some 40 members of Bay Area Women in Black paraded silently through the heart of San Francisco’s shopping district the day after Thanksgiving to bring attention to their message of peace, and opposition to the Iraq war and to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land and killing of Palestinian civilians. Dressed in black, the women, and also several men, carried signs reading, “War is Terror,” “We Refuse to Be Enemies,” “Mothers Are Grieving in Israel and Palestine,” and “Support Our Peacemakers.” Motorcycle patrolmen accompanied the group as it was dogged by a noisy handful of pro-Israel hecklers.

Activists Assail AIPAC Agenda

Demonstrators outside an AIPAC fund-raising luncheon held at San Francisco’s Moscone Center (Staff photo S. Twair).

Californians opposed to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) influence on U.S. foreign policy and the $3 billion in annual U.S. aid to Israel protested at the pro-Israel lobby’s recent Northern California membership fund-raisers. Some 70 activists demonstrated outside Sacramento’s Radisson Hotel Dec. 3, while an equal number protested at Santa Clara’s Convention Center the same day. The following day, while AIPAC supporters dined inside San Francisco’s Moscone Center, demonstrators outside the tony fund-raiser venue held a large banner reading “AIPAC DOES NOT SPEAK FOR US.” Later that evening more than 75 activists rallied outside Oakland’s Marriott City Center. The two-day campaign against AIPAC was organized by StopAIPAC.org, a group of Bay Area peace and justice activists. Through the fiscal sponsorship of The Rebuilding Alliance, <www.rebuildingalliance.org/>, the group placed a full-page statement of conscience endorsed by 200 individuals in the Nov. 29 edition of the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Calling on congressional representatives to “reject the dangerous politics of militarism and confrontation promoted by AIPAC,” the group demands that their representatives “support a new foreign policy based on respect for human rights and international law.”

War Vets, Resisters Speak in San Francisco

	Darrell Anderson (r) with IVAW musicians atop their bus at a rally in San Francisco (Staff photo E. Pasquini).

“Action is the only thing that’s going to stop this war,” Iraq war veteran Darrell Anderson told some 75 supporters at San Francisco’s War Memorial Veterans Building Dec. 9. The Purple Heart recipient was discharged from the Army in October 2006 after he returned to the U.S. from Canada, where he fled the night before he was to return to Iraq for his second tour of duty in January 2005. The 24-year-old armored vehicle specialist is presently a member of the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) cross-country bus tour designed to raise awareness and support military resisters and their families.

Army Pfc. Kyle Snyder, 23, AWOL since April 2005, addressed the crowd by telephone. “I just couldn’t be a part of what I believe to be an illegal and immoral war,” he said of his decision not to fight in Iraq.

Standing in front of the IVAW bus parked on the street across from City Hall, Bob Watada and Rosa Sakanishi, father and stepmother of 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, the Army’s first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to Iraq, spoke to their supporters and the media. “Lack of courage is not Ehren’s reason for refusing to serve in Iraq,” Sakanishi said. “He should not be punished for raising his voice and taking a stand, but that’s what he’s facing.” The 28-year-old Hawaiian faces court martial for his decision to go absent without leave.

Courage to Resist and the Lt. Ehren Watada Support Committee (SF) co-hosted the event. For more information visit <www.couragetoresist.org/x/> and <www.thankyoult.org>.

Consular Corps Ladies Hold Holiday Bazaar

The Ladies of the San Francisco Consular Corps held their second annual holiday bazaar Dec. 2 at San Francisco’s City College. Susan Somaya, wife of Honorary Consul of Mauritius Jitu Somaya, chaired the bazaar, which featured crafts, gifts, and holiday traditions from San Francisco’s 76 international consulates. Proceeds from the event benefited local charities, including St. Anthony’s Foundation and the Tenderloin After School Project. The non-profit group also will fund a City College scholarship for foreign students.

Emphasizing that the group ignores political differences, Somaya explained, “We wish to give something back to the community we all live in.”

Among the items for sale were a specially designed Christmas tree ornament featuring a dove with the words “Peace on Earth,” and The Diplomatic Apron, a cookbook of recipes from the members’ various kitchens. The Egyptian and Indian consulates offered delicious native cuisine. Music and dancing completed the event along with a silent auction and raffle.

ACCC Celebrates Christmas, Eid al-Adha

	Sandra, one of the ACCC’s young Arabic-language students, makes holiday crafts at the Dec 16 bazaar (Staff photo E. Pasquini).

On Dec. 16 San Francisco’s Arab Cultural and Community Center (ACCC) hosted a holiday bazaar celebrating Christmas, the New Year, and Eid al-Adha, which occurred on Dec. 30. Beautiful handcrafted jewelry, crafts, purses, scarves and other items from the Arab world were offered for sale. Children from the ACCC’s weekly Saturday Arabic class enjoyed making holiday cards and decorations after their morning lesson. All the guests appreciated the holiday sweets and lively Arab music provided courtesy of ACCC youth program assistant director Ahmed Hashem, who acted as deejay for the afternoon celebration.

The Islamic holiday Eid al-Adha occurs on the 10th day of the Islamic month Dhul-Hijjah, the last month of the Islamic calendar. It commemorates the willingness of the Prophet Ibrahim to sacrifice his son Isma’il in response to a command from God, and God’s mercy in substituting a lamb for Isma’il. Occurring at the end of the hajj (the annual pilgrimage to Mecca), one of the five pillars of Islam required of all Muslims at least once in a lifetime if finances and health permit, this holiday is observed by sharing food with family and friends, and giving gifts to children.

The ACCC may be reached at (415) 664-2200; via e-mail at <info@arabculturalcenter.org>; or through its Web site, <www.arabculturalcenter.org>. The holiday bazaar was sponsored by the San Francisco Foundation. <http://www.sff.org>.

Elaine Pasquini is a free-lance journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Activists Assail AIPAC Agenda

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 2007, pages 46-47

Northern California Chronicle

Women in Black Spread Message of Peace, Opposition to War, Violence

By Elaine Pasquini

	Passing a San Francisco cable car and with a police motorcycle escort, Bay Area Women in Black march silently amid holiday shoppers the day after Thanksgiving (Staff photo P. Pasquini).

CONTINUING a six-year tradition, some 40 members of Bay Area Women in Black paraded silently through the heart of San Francisco’s shopping district the day after Thanksgiving to bring attention to their message of peace, and opposition to the Iraq war and to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land and killing of Palestinian civilians. Dressed in black, the women, and also several men, carried signs reading, “War is Terror,” “We Refuse to Be Enemies,” “Mothers Are Grieving in Israel and Palestine,” and “Support Our Peacemakers.” Motorcycle patrolmen accompanied the group as it was dogged by a noisy handful of pro-Israel hecklers.

Activists Assail AIPAC Agenda

Demonstrators outside an AIPAC fund-raising luncheon held at San Francisco’s Moscone Center (Staff photo S. Twair).

Californians opposed to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) influence on U.S. foreign policy and the $3 billion in annual U.S. aid to Israel protested at the pro-Israel lobby’s recent Northern California membership fund-raisers. Some 70 activists demonstrated outside Sacramento’s Radisson Hotel Dec. 3, while an equal number protested at Santa Clara’s Convention Center the same day. The following day, while AIPAC supporters dined inside San Francisco’s Moscone Center, demonstrators outside the tony fund-raiser venue held a large banner reading “AIPAC DOES NOT SPEAK FOR US.” Later that evening more than 75 activists rallied outside Oakland’s Marriott City Center. The two-day campaign against AIPAC was organized by StopAIPAC.org, a group of Bay Area peace and justice activists. Through the fiscal sponsorship of The Rebuilding Alliance, <www.rebuildingalliance.org/>, the group placed a full-page statement of conscience endorsed by 200 individuals in the Nov. 29 edition of the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Calling on congressional representatives to “reject the dangerous politics of militarism and confrontation promoted by AIPAC,” the group demands that their representatives “support a new foreign policy based on respect for human rights and international law.”

War Vets, Resisters Speak in San Francisco

	Darrell Anderson (r) with IVAW musicians atop their bus at a rally in San Francisco (Staff photo E. Pasquini).

“Action is the only thing that’s going to stop this war,” Iraq war veteran Darrell Anderson told some 75 supporters at San Francisco’s War Memorial Veterans Building Dec. 9. The Purple Heart recipient was discharged from the Army in October 2006 after he returned to the U.S. from Canada, where he fled the night before he was to return to Iraq for his second tour of duty in January 2005. The 24-year-old armored vehicle specialist is presently a member of the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) cross-country bus tour designed to raise awareness and support military resisters and their families.

Army Pfc. Kyle Snyder, 23, AWOL since April 2005, addressed the crowd by telephone. “I just couldn’t be a part of what I believe to be an illegal and immoral war,” he said of his decision not to fight in Iraq.

Standing in front of the IVAW bus parked on the street across from City Hall, Bob Watada and Rosa Sakanishi, father and stepmother of 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, the Army’s first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to Iraq, spoke to their supporters and the media. “Lack of courage is not Ehren’s reason for refusing to serve in Iraq,” Sakanishi said. “He should not be punished for raising his voice and taking a stand, but that’s what he’s facing.” The 28-year-old Hawaiian faces court martial for his decision to go absent without leave.

Courage to Resist and the Lt. Ehren Watada Support Committee (SF) co-hosted the event. For more information visit <www.couragetoresist.org/x/> and <www.thankyoult.org>.

Consular Corps Ladies Hold Holiday Bazaar

The Ladies of the San Francisco Consular Corps held their second annual holiday bazaar Dec. 2 at San Francisco’s City College. Susan Somaya, wife of Honorary Consul of Mauritius Jitu Somaya, chaired the bazaar, which featured crafts, gifts, and holiday traditions from San Francisco’s 76 international consulates. Proceeds from the event benefited local charities, including St. Anthony’s Foundation and the Tenderloin After School Project. The non-profit group also will fund a City College scholarship for foreign students.

Emphasizing that the group ignores political differences, Somaya explained, “We wish to give something back to the community we all live in.”

Among the items for sale were a specially designed Christmas tree ornament featuring a dove with the words “Peace on Earth,” and The Diplomatic Apron, a cookbook of recipes from the members’ various kitchens. The Egyptian and Indian consulates offered delicious native cuisine. Music and dancing completed the event along with a silent auction and raffle.

ACCC Celebrates Christmas, Eid al-Adha

	Sandra, one of the ACCC’s young Arabic-language students, makes holiday crafts at the Dec 16 bazaar (Staff photo E. Pasquini).

On Dec. 16 San Francisco’s Arab Cultural and Community Center (ACCC) hosted a holiday bazaar celebrating Christmas, the New Year, and Eid al-Adha, which occurred on Dec. 30. Beautiful handcrafted jewelry, crafts, purses, scarves and other items from the Arab world were offered for sale. Children from the ACCC’s weekly Saturday Arabic class enjoyed making holiday cards and decorations after their morning lesson. All the guests appreciated the holiday sweets and lively Arab music provided courtesy of ACCC youth program assistant director Ahmed Hashem, who acted as deejay for the afternoon celebration.

The Islamic holiday Eid al-Adha occurs on the 10th day of the Islamic month Dhul-Hijjah, the last month of the Islamic calendar. It commemorates the willingness of the Prophet Ibrahim to sacrifice his son Isma’il in response to a command from God, and God’s mercy in substituting a lamb for Isma’il. Occurring at the end of the hajj (the annual pilgrimage to Mecca), one of the five pillars of Islam required of all Muslims at least once in a lifetime if finances and health permit, this holiday is observed by sharing food with family and friends, and giving gifts to children.

The ACCC may be reached at (415) 664-2200; via e-mail at <info@arabculturalcenter.org>; or through its Web site, <www.arabculturalcenter.org>. The holiday bazaar was sponsored by the San Francisco Foundation. <http://www.sff.org>.

Elaine Pasquini is a free-lance journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Time for war or peace in the Middle East?

March 19, 2007

By Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar

“Approach each new problem not with a view of finding what you hope will be there, but to get the truth, the realities that must be grappled with. You may not like what you find. In that case you are entitled to try to change it. But do not deceive yourself as to what you do find to be the facts of the situation.” Bernard M. Baruch (1870 - 1965)

I believe that in every war, truth is the first casualty; and as such is usually reported long after the war is finished, and even then only as a foot note. Churchill once said that “men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.” Although others and I have repeatedly written about the reasons behind the Iraq invasion, people tend to forget. And people who forget tend to repeat the same mistake over and over again. The invasion of Iraq was not because of WMDs. It was about oil and Israel. Today the US is on the verge of starting another war again, this time with Iran, for exactly the same reasons.

But is it necessary? Can US have access to oil without dominating the region? Can Israel accept the fact that others also feel insecure and need guarantees for their security? US by trying to exert total control over the region has lost control and paradoxically made Israel less secure. Should US engage in a new war to reverse its setbacks and address Israel’s insecurity or should it try to accept the facts on the ground and work towards a new arrangement, where other countries interests are also taken into account. This is not easy, especially for the US who sees the Middle East through the Israeli eyes. Let us not forget how we ended-up in Iraq in the first place. It is a sin to say this, but at times, it appears that indeed the tail wags the dog. For example look at the Israel’s stated strategy for the 2000 and beyond with the events that have taken place.

Israel’s Strategy

In 1996 the newly elected prime minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu commissioned a study group called ”Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000" to craft a strategy for Israel in the coming decades. The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies’ which included Richard Perle, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser, created the Israel’s strategy paper titled: “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” . The paper contains six pages of recommendations for Benjamin Netanyahu and some of the more relevant suggestions were:[i]

• We have for four years pursued peace based on a New Middle East. We in Israel cannot play innocents abroad in a world that is not innocent. Peace depends on the character and behaviour of our foes. We live in a dangerous neighbourhood, with fragile states and bitter rivalries. Displaying moral ambivalence between the effort to build a Jewish state and the desire to annihilate it by trading "land for peace" will not secure "peace now." Our claim to the land —to which we have clung for hope for 2000 years--is legitimate and noble. It is not within our own power, no matter how much we concede, to make peace unilaterally. Only the unconditional acceptance by Arabs of our rights, especially in their territorial dimension, "peace for peace," is a solid basis for the future.
• Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil. An effective approach, and one with which American can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon, including by:
• striking Syria’s drug-money and counterfeiting infrastructure in Lebanon, all of which focuses on Razi Qanan.
• paralleling Syria’s behaviour by establishing the precedent that Syrian territory is not immune to attacks emanating from Lebanon by Israeli proxy forces.
• striking Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and should that prove insufficient, striking at select targets in Syria proper.
• Work closely with Turkey and Jordan to contain, destabilize, and roll-back some of its most dangerous threats. This implies clean break from the slogan, "comprehensive peace" to a traditional concept of strategy based on balance of power.
• Change the nature of its relations with the Palestinians, including upholding the right of hot pursuit for self defence into all Palestinian areas and nurturing alternatives to Arafat’s exclusive grip on Palestinian society.
• Given the nature of the regime in Damascus, it is both natural and moral that Israel abandon the slogan "comprehensive peace" and move to contain Syria, drawing attention to its weapons of mass destruction program, and rejecting "land for peace" deals on the Golan Heights.
• Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions. Jordan has challenged Syria's regional ambitions recently by suggesting the restoration of the Hashemites in Iraq. This has triggered a Jordanian-Syrian rivalry to which Assad has responded by stepping up efforts to destabilize the Hashemite Kingdom, including using infiltrations. Syria recently signalled that it and Iran might prefer a weak, but barely surviving Saddam, if only to undermine and humiliate Jordan in its efforts to remove Saddam.

When the Neocons and their fellow travellers came to power, having drafted Israel’s strategy for the new century, were more than happy to include it as part of their new US doctrine. What was that doctrine? The new US doctrine was about pre-emption and keeping US, by force (if necessary), as the world’s sole superpower for ever.

“The Bush Doctrine proclaimed "the duty of the US to pursue unilateral military action when acceptable multilateral solutions cannot be found". It went further and declared it US policy that the "United States has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond challenge". The US would take whatever actions necessary to continue its status as the world's sole military superpower. This resembled British Empire policy before World War I, namely that the Royal Navy must be larger than the world's next two largest navies put together. [ii]

The rest is history. As soon as Neocons came to power, Israel scrapped the Oslo “land for Peace” agreement, declaring that it no longer had a peace partner. US invaded Iraq and occupied the country. Syria was exceedingly isolated and pushed out of Lebanon. The whole world protested United States’ naked aggression against a weak country without any results. It seemed that the hidden and subtle form of neo-colonialism that was exercised in the Middle East was about to become an overt and transparent one.

By 2003, everything was going according to the Neocons’ plan. Having occupied and destroyed Iraq, it was time to focus on the next target: Iran. The propaganda machine that was used to convince the people about the righteousness of the Iraq war, was now employed to prepare people for invasion of Iran. (I have explained this in “The Great Deception: The propaganda that we pay for”) [iii]

But things started to go wrong. Iraqi insurgents started to mount an increasingly effective challenge to US occupation. Russia and China began an ever closer military cooperation. Iranians having seen the US actions in Iraq kept their military on constant alert and increased their military training and rearmament programs. Syria and Iran feeling the heat from Israel and US signed several defence pacts and increased their aid to Hezbollah of Lebanon.

Russia especially saw itself as a target and therefore increased its military aid to both Syria and Iran. Russia saw the expansion of NATO as a clear sign of US aggression and began to re-arm itself. The other player China also felt threatened. According to the Bush doctrine and the pre-emption philosophy, US would never allow China to become a true superpower. The easiest way for the US to do this was to control the Chinese access to oil. China therefore backed the only power in the region that was willing to check the US hegemony in the region, Iran.

The Arabs

Meanwhile the Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan were caught between the proverbial rock and the hard place. Although they assisted the US in its invasion of Iraq, they never approved of it. They correctly foresaw the chaos that would follow. Never-the-less, having supported US invasion they had no choice but to continue their support, hoping that their support will be rewarded by some movement on the Palestinian issue. The Palestinian cause has been and is an open sore for the Arab and Muslim world and over-time it has become a major source of instability for the governments of the “moderate” Arab states. So any possibility of a resolution to this conflict is always welcomed by all Muslim states, especially the US allies in the region.

Of course, as usual they had miscalculated. Not only the US was not going to pressure Israel to change its policies, it was going to help Israel to weaken the Palestinians even further. The Israeli concept of “Peace for Peace” meant a unilateral acceptance by Arabs of the Israeli demands and conditions and nothing else. One must remember that the Israeli strategy document states clearly that “only the unconditional acceptance by Arabs of our rights, especially in their territorial dimension, "peace for peace," is a solid basis for the future”.

When Hamas won the Palestinian elections, the EU, US and Israel boycotted the Palestinian government. Hamas was not going to play according to the Israeli rules and as such was seen as an enemy. US had declared Hamas a terrorist organisation and was not going to deal with it. So from the very beginning Hamas government, although democratically elected, was shunned by all. For years Israel had said that it had no negotiating partner. Even Mahmoud Abbas was not accepted as a suitable partner. But suddenly, US and Israel demanded that Hamas be removed so that Israel could start negotiations with Mahmoud Abbas. No-one ever gave Hamas a chance to prove itself as a responsible government. From the very first day, Hamas was boycotted by Israel, US and EU.

Once again, the “moderate” Arab countries were told that if they helped in removing Hamas, Israel would be willing to negotiate. So these countries (Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan) obliged. They joined Israel and US to remove Hamas from power. They started financially strangulating the Palestinian population to force them to change their mind about Hamas, while at the same time helping Fatah to rearm and prepare it to seize power by force. I have explained this in details in two articles “Palestine: Civil War or Coup d’etat” [iv] and “The coup attempt that started a war” [v]

This of course did not succeed. Palestinian people, despite tremendous suffering, refused to bow to the pressure and stuck by their elected government. Israel realised that it needed to militarily go into Gaza and unseat Hamas by force. It started a campaign of terror to goad Hamas into giving Israel an excuse for an invasion in support of a coup by Fattah. Israel started shelling villages, arresting/kidnapping civilians, assassinating Hamas members etc. Hamas finally obliged by kidnapping an Israeli soldier. As soon as Israel started its incursion into Gaza, Hezbollah stepped in to help Hamas.

Hamas kidnapped two Israeli soldiers in order to exchange them for prisoners, some of which were assumed to be Hamas members in Israeli jails. Israel which had already plans for invading Lebanon, saw this as an opportunity that it could not miss. According to the recent reports Israel had planned to invade Lebanon 3 months before the kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers.

“Ehud Olmert's decision to go to war in response to abductions of soldiers was taken as early as March 2006, according to a leak of his evidence to the Commission investigating the war.

The report, which Israeli officials said was broadly in line with what the Prime Minister has already told the Cabinet, means that the military strategy was decided more than three months before it was triggered by Hizbollah's abductions of two soldiers on the northern border in July.” [vi]

So Israel invaded Lebanon with the aim of destroying Hezbollah. It assumed that once this was accomplished it could finish-off Hamas. But this also failed. Not only Israel did not manage to destroy Hezbollah, it made Hezbollah one of the most popular resistance groups in the Muslim world. It also shamed Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan; three Arab countries that were supporting Israel in its wars against fellow Arabs in both Palestine and Lebanon.

Arabs in every country poured into streets in support of Hezbollah and Hamas. There were large demonstrations in nearly all Muslim countries including Jordan, and Egypt (demonstrations in Saudi Arabia were forbidden by the government). In Egypt, the popular and respected Muslim Brotherhood announced that it had 10000 volunteers ready to go to Lebanon.

“Muhammad Mahdi Akif, the general guide of the outlawed "Muslim Brotherhood" (MB) in Egypt, has launched a violent attack on Arab leaders saying: "Had they not made the declaration of the faith, we would have fought them because they are more oppressive to us than the Zionists and Americans."

Akif reignited the argument that has not stopped since his announcement that there were 10,000 MB members ready to go to Lebanon to fight there "with Hezbollah." Speaking at a mass rally attended by around 2,000 MB members at the Egyptian Lawyers Association headquarters in central Cairo the night before yesterday to mark the night of Prophet Muhammad's ascension to the seven heavens: "The latest war in Lebanon exposed the falsity of the lies of the impossibility of confronting Israel and war with it." He added: "The resistance negated all these false claims forever." [vii]

The Arabs have sat helplessly and witnessed invasion of Iraq, the constant suffering and humiliation of the Palestinians, the death and destruction in Lebanon; while their leaders not only have not done anything to stop this, but also have at times approved of the actions. These events have only increased the anger of these people. The Arab people’s frustration has reached to such a level that it is now threatening the survival of these regimes. The popularity of Hezbollah and Iran as Islamic bulwark against the US and Israel is creating a situation where various groups are starting to exert pressure on their governments to follow suite and at the very least severe their ties to the West.

To redirect the pressure, Both US and the “moderate” Arab governments have tried to portray Iran as a Shi’ite country bent on dominating the Sunni states. In other words, they have tried to redirect the people’s attention from Israel and US to Iran as the main threat. This has not worked, simply because people know that sectarian division may lead to civil-wars in many countries, especially Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen, UAE, Pakistan and Lebanon.

Now the leader of the “moderate” Arab countries, Saudi Arabia, is trying to arrest the march towards chaos in the Middle East by trying to once again persuade the US to pressure Israel into accepting its peace plan. This plan is not a new one and is basically the same old “land for Peace” agreement that Israel had rejected before. But this time, the Saudis think that they have a stronger hand to play.

Cards on the table

The invasion of Iraq by US and unsuccessful invasion of Lebanon by Israel has changed the Middle East. The old players are dealt a new hand and everyone is trying to bluff as best is it can. However, by now all the cards are laid face-up on the table. It is now the time for action, win or lose. The players are US, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and China.

The US cards are the following: its armada in Persian Gulf, 140000 troops in Iraq, its forces in Afghanistan and its enormous economic muscle. US has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran if Iran does not suspend its uranium enrichment activities. However, the halt to Uranium enrichment is just a first step in a long list of demands by the US. Stopping Uranium enrichment is just the start. Once Iranians agree to this, others will follow: such as the demand for a halt to all nuclear R&D, long-range missiles development, space activities, support for Hezbollah and then considerable concessions in Iraq. In other words, if Iran succumbs to the pressure, they are not sure where it will end. Iraq is a good example of this. UN was allowed to inspect even Saddam Hussein’s palaces, yet it did not satisfy the US. Anyway, as far as the Iranians are concerned the US has made-up its mind in destroying Iran and has already started the war. I have described the US economic warfare against Iran in “The Plan for Economic Strangulation of Iran” [viii]

The Russian cards include its close military relationship with China, Iran and Syria. Russia is building Iran’s first Nuclear power plant in Bushehr. Russia is also present in Syria, having leased a port from Syria for its Mediterranean fleet. Russia also provides Europe with gas and is a major oil producer. It has tried aggressively to use its energy resources for political ends and the Europeans are keenly aware of the power that Russia is wielding over them. They are not pleased with how things are developing with regard to the new assertive Russia. I have explained US-EU relationship with Russia in “Cold War II” [ix]

Iranian cards include its major influence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Syria as well as its minor influences in Pakistan, Bahrain, Yemen and UAE. In addition they have been preparing themselves for a possible military confrontation with the US for quite some time and are fully mobilised for a long and bloody conflict (explained in detail in “US vs Iran: The Hybrid War”) [x] Their main card however is the threat of blocking the Strait of Hormuz. Another card is the possibility of attacking the oil tankers in the Persian Gulf or their loading terminals in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and elsewhere in the Gulf. The American bases in Bahrain and Qatar, not to mention the 140000 US troops in Iraq are also seen as targets should hostilities break-out. Iran can also directly attack Israel with its long-range missiles from Iran or shorter-range missiles from Lebanon. It can also leave NPT and follow the North Korean example.

Saudi Arabia and the “moderate” Arab states have very few cards to play with. They can support US (as usual) and risk a major upheaval in their region and countries, or they can support Iran and risk the wreath of US and its support for their governments. They have so far tried unsuccessfully to play the American card without any results. However, now they have finally got an Ace to play with, and that is Iran. They can use the Iranian card to force the US to pressure Israel into making the necessary concessions. They can demand that should their latest peace initiative be ignored by Israel, they would support Iran. This seems plausible, since after King Abdullah’s discussion with Iran’s Ahmadinejad, both countries stated that they would try to stop the sectarian rift within the Muslim world, and more importantly, Iran quietly backed the King’s proposed peace plan. At the same time the Lebanese crisis seems to have quieted down and a Palestinian unity government has been created. All these indicate that Saudis and Iranians are trying to reduce tension and concentrate on getting the Palestinian peace plan started. However the tension over Iraq remains.

Should the Saudi peace plan be rejected, the Arab trio, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan will lose any credibility that they have left in the region and with their own populations. They will then have no choice but to take a very hard stance against the US and Israel or risk losing power.

Israel, despite its recent reversals of fortunes in Palestine and Lebanon, still has a very strong hand, namely its supporters in US (AIPAC and others). To understand the situation one simply has to look at AIPAC. The US presidential hopefuls (Republicans and Democrats) have to appear before AIPAC and declare their undying loyalty to Israel’s security and interest before they can even hope to be nominated by their respective parties. So if the Iranians or Arabs think that somehow, they can pressure Israelis through US to withdraw to 1967 borders, they are sadly mistaken. History has shown that only an Israeli government that wants peace above a greater Israel or a beaten Israel will be willing to withdraw from the occupied territories.

Anyway, the rulers of Jordan and Egypt are more sensitive than Israel to pressures from US. They also lack credibility. Currently 4000 Hezbollah fighters have more credibility than half of the Egyptian army.

What now?

One can say with certainty that no single group in US has ever damaged US interests as badly and as seriously as the Neocons have. What started as a grand plan for securing Israel and oil reserves has turned into a bottomless basket for the US treasury and prestige. By destroying Iraq, US destroyed the existing balance of power in the Middle Eat and now by being stuck in the Iraqi quagmire, it has given countries such as Russia and China the opportunity to spread their influence and power beyond what was feasible only 5 years ago. It has also destroyed the myth of invulnerability and military superiority of both US and Israel. Iraqi insurgents and Hezbollah fighters have shown that the brute force is not the answer and no amount of fire-power can secure an occupied territory without the cooperation of the local population. Afghanistan, Lebanon and Iraq are good example of this.

By now all the players have laid their cards face upward. The US has displayed its armada in the Persian Gulf and gotten its UN sanctions approved. Iran has displayed its military preparedness by conducting dozens of military manoeuvres and has shown its influence in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Russia by using Iran and its gas and oil supplies has shown itself as a major player in international arena and hence has forced others to once again take it seriously. India made deals with US and got itself accepted as a Nuclear power. Pakistan using its position in the war on terror also got-off scot-free and joined the nuclear club. China has shown that as long as others do not interfere with its commercial interests, it is willing for the time-being, to stay semi-neutral. The “moderate” Arabs, so far, have played the follow the leader strategy. In the process they have lost both influence and prestige. The only cards left to them is to play US against Iran (or vice versa) and Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative. Israel has played its hand in both Lebanon and Palestine and lost. The only card left to it is US.

By now all players know what they can and can not do. US knows that it can not control Iraq and has to withdraw. Iran knows that it can not replace US in Iraq and needs the support of either US or Saudi Arabia. Israel knows that its security depends on coming to terms with Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Hammas. All these point only to one direction: negotiations between US, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

There are already rumours of secret negotiations. It makes sense for US, Iran and Saudi Arabia to come to some kind of agreement. This agreement will most likely require Israel to vacate Golan Heights, Shabba Farms, and major parts of the West-Bank. In return Hezbollah will become a purely political party, Palestinians get their state and thereby ending their hostility towards Israel; all Arab states will recognise Israel (including Iran and Syria and Hammas), Iraq will stay united with more money going to the Sunnis; US will be able to leave Iraq without losing face; Iranians will be allowed to have a monitored nuclear fuel cycle and finally Saudis can claim the credit for arranging all this.

The major loser in all this will be the Russians. With Iran brought in from the cold, the Europeans will get access to an alternative gas supplier. They no longer have to worry about Russian supplies. Countries such as Georgia and Azerbaijan and others bordering southern Russia will have another rout for their imports and exports. Iranians will no longer have to rely solely on Russia for some of their armament, aircrafts or nuclear reactors. In other words Russia will lose most of its strategic weight in the Middle East.

The Russians must be very nervous about this. For them having Iran and Syria as friendly, dependent and anti-Western is both profitable and necessary. It should not therefore be surprising to see the Russians trying their best to stop any warming of relations between Iran-Syria and US.

China’s position will also weaken. Iran is now allowing Chinese unlimited access to its market and is agreeing to sign long-term contract for the supply of oil and gas to China. These could be diverted to Europe or US. American and European companies could also replace Chinese and Russian companies.

There are already many in Iran talking loudly about advantages of an agreement with the US. But this can only come about if all sides are willing to sit, negotiate and compromise. Today the best way out for the Middle East is a negotiated settlement between US and Iran. If that doesn’t take place, then war is inevitable.

Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar lives in Norway. He is a management consultant and a contributing writer for many online journals. He's a former associate professor of Nordland University, Norway.

Bakhtiarspace-articles@yahoo.no

NOTES:

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[i] Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies ^ | 8 July 1996 | Richard Perle et al

[ii] F William Engdahl, “The US's geopolitical nightmare”, 9 May 2006

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HE09Ad01.html

[iii] Abbas Bakhtiar, “The Great Deception: The propaganda that we pay for”, Scoop, 6 August 2006

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0608/S00082.htm

[iv] Abbas Bakhtiar, “Palestine: Civil War or Coup d’etat”, Payvand, 1 May 2006

http://www.payvand.com/news/06/jun/1005.html

[v] Abbas Bakhtiar, “The coup attempt that started a war”, Scoop, 18 July 2006

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0607/S00256.htm

[vi] The Newzealand Herald, “Olmert 'planned Lebanon war last March'”, 9 March 2007

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10427902

[vii] Asharq Al-Awsat, “Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood Guide Slams Arab Leaders, Calls for Israel's Expulsion”, 21 August 2006

http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=1&id=6084

[viii] Abbas Bakhtiar, “The Plan for Economic Strangulation of Iran”, Scoop, 11 January 2007

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0701/S00112.htm

[ix] Abbas Bakhtiar, “Cold War II”, Scoop, 30 June 2006

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0606/S00348.htm

[x] Abbas Bakhtiar, “US vs Iran: The Hybrid War”, Scoop, 13 September 2006

http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/0609/ScenariosofWar.pdf

Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar lives in Norway. He is a consultant and a contributing writer for many online journals. He's a former associate professor of Nordland University, Norway.

Bakhtiarspace-articles@yahoo.no

Copyright Abbas Bakhtiar, all rights reserved.