Disposal Day #166: Hakalah

(Hakalah is a Hebrew word meaning “relief,” used here because President Obama didn’t screw up his first presidential visit to Israel.)

STORY #1: Chaverim (friends)

If Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu truly dislike each other, as the media keeps insisting, they’ve done a pretty good job of not letting it show through. Obama even called Netanyahu “my friend Bibi,” which, after this, made my roll my eyes. As for the words that matter, Obama did a good job reiterating the existing U.S. perspective on a two-state solution, settlement construction and Iran, which was really all he had to do.

Surely to the delight of Rep. Peter King (R-NY), who would like to see him “play favorites” between Israel and Palestine, Obama reserved particular bile for Hamas, although not just because of how they affect the daily lives of Israelis – case in point, a pair of rocket attacks that injured nobody, but still damaged a home in the town of Sderot. Whatever you may think of their motivation, firing rockets into Israel does nothing to help Palestine. Obama may not have said anything to change that. But at least he set the limits for what he’d tolerate.

STORY #2: Chutzpah (boldness)

Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) – who is not Jewish; Gentile politicians who try to be more pro-Israel than thou piss me off – has put forward a bill that would require the U.S. to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. At the moment, the U.S. embassy, along with many other embassies, is located in Tel Aviv. This isn’t the first time Congress has attempted this; legislation passed in 1995 allows the president to delay this move indefinitely for security reasons, which each president since then has done. So Heller is on a schmendrick‘s errand.

Under the current border situation, it’s proper to have foreign embassies in the political capital of Israel and not the economic capital. Had Jerusalem been placed under international administration in 1947, to which Israel actually agreed, we might be calling Tel Aviv the political capital and Haifa the economic one. (Common saying: “Haifa works, Jerusalem prays, Tel Aviv plays.”) Until Palestine gives up on East Jerusalem as its capital, the status quo will remain.

STORY #3: Ta’im (tasty)

Official Israeli social media accounts have of course been atwitter (tee hee) with updates of Obama and Netanyahu’s palling around. They even shared the menu for the dinner at Netanyahu’s Jerusalem residence, prepared by famous chef Shalom Kodesh. Unfortunately, Palestinian chefs weren’t fond of it and decided to counter with a completely non-Israeli menu for Obama’s dinner with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. I’ve never heard of young wheat soup, so I can only assume they succeeded.

Netanyahu needs a team of (moderate) rivals

To represent the political center in Israel, it seems you have to do two things: 1. Support renewed peace talks with the Palestinians. 2. Talk about income inequality in Israel. Also, it helps if you support revoking the exemptions to mandatory military service enjoyed by thousands of ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Israeli Jews. Yair Lapid, head of the centrist Yesh Atid (“There is a Future”) party, did all three of those things and ended up surging in yesterday’s elections.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held on to his title, but his conservative Likud (“consolidation”) party, in coalition with the nationalist Yisrael Beitenu (“Israel, Our Home”) party weakened from 42 seats in the Knesset (the Israeli legislature) to 31. Yesh Atid, a party created just last year, scored an impressive 19 seats. The leftist Israeli Labor Party fell to third place, with 17 to 18 seats according to projections as of this writing. The ultra-nationalist Jewish Home Party, whose leader, Naftali Bennett, opposes a Palestinian state, racked up 12 seats.

Because there are so many parties in the Knesset – giving credence to the old saw that two Jews equals three opinions – parliamentary coalitions in Israel are de rigueur for the party with the highest number of seats. The choice for Netanyahu is with whom he should form a coalition: the center-left or the really, really, really right. With three other right-wing parties – the ultra-Orthodox Shas, United Torah Judaism (UTJ, an alliance of two other ultra-Orthodox parties) and Jewish Home – having been part of Netanyahu’s coalition in the previous Knesset, it’s easy to predict that he’ll pick them again.

But how would he benefit? Israel dealt with its own mass protests over economic inequality in 2011 – closer to Occupy than Arab Spring in tone – and resentment over Haredi exemptions from conscription, not to mention their influence in other facets of Israeli life (namely their treatment of non-Haredi women), has reached highs impossible to ignore, according to polls. And after this year’s eight-day war with Gaza, it seems Israeli voters have decided they want a new approach to Palestine.

One solution would be to remove the two smaller rightist parties from Netanyahu’s coalition and replace them with Yesh Atid. This would allow for the widest range of approaches to Palestine and the Haredi, plus a renewed focus on economics. Whether these parties would want to work together is a different story. But Yesh Atid offers more hope for a “team of rivals” than Labor, Shas or UTJ. Netanyahu has reached out to Lapid already; how far will he go to secure Yesh Atid in the coalition?

Most of the “Israel lobby” in the West sounds exactly like Netanyahu when it comes to foreign policy. But don’t let that fool you. The spectrum of real Israeli politics is at least as wide as ours, if not wider, and they have more on their minds than war.

Did someone just negotiate with terrorists?

Anyone who was skeptical about the long-term geopolitical effects of the Arab Spring is probably smirking with validation right about now. Not a week after President Obama announced the U.S.’s recognition of the Syrian Opposition Coalition as “the legitimate representative of the Syrian people” did they illegitimize themselves by aligning with Jabhat al-Nusra (JAN), a recognized terror group suspected of being an affiliate of al-Qaeda. Here’s coalition official Mouaz Alkhatib on why the U.S. should remove JAN from its terror watch list:

The decision to consider a party that is fighting the regime as a terrorist party needs to be reviewed. We might disagree with some parties and their ideas and their political and ideological vision. But we affirm that all the guns of the rebels are aimed at overthrowing the tyrannical criminal regime.

That’s nice – for them, for now. But at whom will this faction of the rebels aim their guns if and when they succeed in overthrowing Syrian President Bashar Assad? Should the coalition be so willing to roll the dice on that?

Let’s review the reasons JAN is on the terror list to begin with. According to a BBC report, they have referred to both the U.S. and Israel as “enemies of Islam,” as well as the Alawite sect, of which Assad is a member. Their rhetoric is blatantly jihadist; when you read up on them, note how often they claim to be acting in the defense of Islam, compared to how often they speak of acting in defense of the Syrian people. There has been mention of serious divisions between them and the better-known, secular Free Syrian Army. They don’t sound like an ideal replacement for Assad over the long haul, especially if the coalition hopes to rely on Western support for a while – which some Westerners wish they could be reassured enough to deliver.

But keeping them on the terror list has its problems as well. The ability for the rebels to get U.S. arms – something you’d expect to happen once such a group has been deemed “legitimate” – could be compromised if they don’t get rid of JAN, or at least make sure they speak only when spoken to. There’s no way the U.S. want to risk giving arms to anyone connected to al-Qaeda again. Furthermore, their mere presence on the terror list could make Assad, who has accused the rebels of being terrorists in disguise, look a little bit justified.

One of two things happened: Either the coalition welcomed JAN with open arms, happy to have anyone fighting on their side at all, or they felt they had no choice. What might have happened to them if they’d told JAN to step off? In either case, they brought this problem upon themselves, and they would have done well to set some basic criteria for associates. Anyone who has the potential to make Syrians miss Assad would be out of contention.

At least something’s being settled

Every so often I’ll hear a complaint to the effect that the U.S. is close with Israel to an extent that undermines any hope for a viable two-state solution with Palestine. The current U.S. approach is so one-sided, they say, that it’s only natural for Palestinians to feel the deck is stacked against them and want to retaliate. Well, I hope they’re happy, now that the U.S. has condemned increased Israeli settlement and Canada has really not.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved three thousand new settlements, some in the E-1 area, which extends 12 square kilometers from East Jerusalem to the West Bank settlement of Maaleh Adumim. This move is widely considered revenge for the United Nations (UN) vote to provide Palestine with non-member observer status. U.S. officials condemned Israel for doing this unilaterally, the same reason they condemned Palestine for bidding for statehood at the UN.

Canada was a little less punchy in its condemnation; Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has only said “Unilateral actions on either side do not advance the peace process.” (They don’t? Shocking.) Contrast this with Baird’s response to the 138-9 UN vote in favor of Palestine’s “symbolic” statehood, which he called “utterly regrettable.” He’s also called Canadian officials based in Palestine back to Ottawa to “review” their existing diplomatic relations. And unlike that group of U.S. senators who wants to cut aid to Palestine, Baird has some decision-making authority. Not much, but more.

This Canadian government is usually unafraid to tell the world how solid its commitment to Israel is. It’s almost funny to see them run with that bland bit about unilateral actions, without naming the state making this one. How difficult is it to say that if Israel wants to maintain moral high ground, they should not respond to Palestine’s unilateral move with their own?

Besides that, Israeli settlement in this area benefits nobody. Netanyahu says it’s in Israel’s interests to authorize more residential development. Palestinians say that particular stretch of land will make a future state nonviable, since it would in effect prevent a future Palestinian state from having a contiguous border. Remember how we discussed earlier in President Obama’s term that borders according to the 1967 partition plan were indefensible? Same goes for this.

But here’s how to explain it in terms that hardcore Netanyahu backers will understand: The settlements are also indefensible. Why would any Israeli want to live so close to Palestinian territory when relations are still so shaky? Jerusalem, I can understand, but they’ve done without the E-1 area up until now. It’s in their interests, as well as anyone else’s, to establish a two-state solution first. They should demonstrate their desire for one by refusing to settle.

What is Hamas rebelling against?

It’s rare for us to address world affairs during services at my synagogue, but that’s what happened on Friday night, when we sang “Hatikvah” (the Israeli national anthem) in solidarity with Israel, which we don’t ordinarily do. A couple of the women cried afterward, citing relatives of theirs living in Israel, one of whom was joining up with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). But I think we all felt a little better. Our songs and prayers for peace may not have changed the reality on the ground, but even I have to admit there was an emotional upside.

Nobody else seems to know what else to offer. President Obama and other leaders, mostly of Western countries, have expressed various versions of this sentiment:

We support Israel’s right to defend itself against continued rocket fire from Gaza. We encourage both sides to lay down their arms and pursue peace, and hope that this conflict will not escalate. We also encourage efforts to minimize civilian casualties.

Meanwhile, leaders in Egypt, Iran, Turkey and elsewhere, mostly Arab countries, have expressed various versions of this sentiment:

We condemn Israel’s strikes on Gaza. We encourage both sides to lay down their arms and pursue peace, and hope that this conflict will not escalate. We also encourage efforts to minimize civilian casualties.

See a pattern?

Younger Jews in the West tend to forget this, but if Arabs in the West started being exterminated by their governments, they would have many safe havens elsewhere in the world; Jews only have one. We don’t like disproportionate responses from Israel. But a proportionate one could create an extended battle of one-upmanship that would benefit nobody. Destroying as many Hamas capabilities as possible – even with the possibility of civilian casualties, which could never be eliminated – is Israel’s intention.

The people of Israel, the people of Gaza and most of their supporters don’t want war. The only people who do are Hamas, who have consistently refused to recognize Israel’s statehood, and whose covenant calls for the “obliteration” of Israel. They’ll cite individual Israeli attacks as justification for escalations, but it all comes back to that goal. Meanwhile, the Israeli Declaration of Independence says:

WE EXTEND our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land.

Just think about motivations before you decide who to side with. Israel didn’t start ongoing tension with Hamas. But don’t tell them not to try to finish it. They will.

Don’t call it Stevens-gate

Thank God for Jan Stevens. The father of slain Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens doesn’t want President Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) to evoke his son’s name to excess on the campaign trail; he wants people with actual investigative authority to determine what could have been done to prevent the attack or its effects. Obama and Romney themselves will probably avoid it from now on, but don’t expect the same from their surrogates.

But an investigation itself is well-deserved. I can’t say I trust someone like Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who chairs the House Oversight Committee, to lead such an investigation; his office hasn’t outright refused to open an investigation into last month’s jobs numbers. There is more proof that “mistakes were made” when it comes to the consulate attack. Let’s condense the timeline helpfully provided by The Hill, focusing specifically on comments from the White House:

Sept. 12: Obama condemns the attack without blaming either the Innocence of Muslims video or terrorists. Reuters reports that some administration officials believe the attack was planned.

Sept. 13-16: White House Press Secretary Jay Carney and Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, blame the video and claims there was “no actionable intelligence about a pending attack.”

Sept. 19: National Counterterrorism Center director Matthew Olsen testifies that it was a “terrorist attack,” then an “opportunistic” attack that took advantage of protests.

Sept. 20-21: Eyewitnesses claim there were no protests at the consulate. Obama tells a town hall basically what Olsen said. Carney says terrorist involvement was “self-evident,” as does Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Sept. 25: Obama blames “extremist militias.”

Sept. 27: Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta blames “terrorists.”

Sept. 28-Oct. 6: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence blames itself for blaming the video; Rice agrees.

Oct. 9: The State Department admits there were no protests.

Oct. 10: Nordstrom claims his requests for additional security were denied.

Oct. 11-12: Vice President Biden blames the intelligence office for the video thing; the White House says he spoke for them.

So: What grounds did anyone have for blaming protesters? Were Nordstrom’s requests denied, ignored or just unseen? Why is the Office of the Director of National Intelligence so unintelligent? Political failure? Bureaucratic failure? Both?

The secret plan to fight Iran

The last we heard about the rate of Iran’s currency, the rial, its plunge was slowing down after a 40 percent decline in its value last week. That was on Monday. Yesterday, the rate was blacked out. Naturally, everyone suspects sanctions that have been imposed on Iran by the U.S. and the European Union (EU) are to blame for this. Or credit for this, if the ensuing unrest builds up to a certain point, which could benefit others.

Over the last year, the rial has lost 80 percent of its value against the U.S. greenback. The regime blames foreign governments, naturally, but the above Los Angeles Times article suggests Iranian citizens are smart enough to blame the regime for isolating the country, and aren’t particularly impressed with promises of uranium enrichment. Tensions are especially high in the Grand Bazaar in Tehran, where some vendors have refused to sell at all until the rial stabilizes. Clashes between them and Iranian riot police were quick to happen.

If you’ve read my Iran columns before, you know I’m not fond of sanctions as a deterrent from further nuclear development. Comments from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei show they’re not about to give up, despite the economic effects of isolationism on their citizens, and the security risk to the entire country from giving Israel reasons to consider a pre-emptive strike. (I still think such a strike would be confined to nuclear facilities; however, it’s still a risk.)

Sanctions themselves won’t get the Iranian regime to stop believing in their current path. But they could spark enough of an uprising to distract them from it. It could be that this is what the West has been counting on, without saying so. We saw in 2009 that Iran isn’t the kind of country that respects popular dissent. Only unlike Syria, given Iran’s geographic distance from Israel, nobody would be afraid to intervene – except for their own economic reasons at home.

If this goes according to plan, it could be a boon to President Obama’s foreign policy record, especially if the U.S. picks some trustworthy rebels to support, with the hope that they’d be the face of regime change. In fact, I’ve always harbored a belief that he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been agreeing on something like this all along and have pretended to be dismissive of each other to keep up appearances. But that might be reading too deeply into things.

So, here’s what’s left to do: 1. Elevate sanction pressure by blocking exports to Russia and China, if that’s possible. 2. Wage a propaganda campaign reminding Iranians who’s really at fault, just in case. 3. Identify the aforementioned “trustworthy rebels.” And by “trustworthy,” I mean pro-Western, pro-engagement and pro-democracy.

The “red line” isn’t as thin as it looks

Last night, I noticed a Twitter followee, who shall remain nameless and is generally very sharp, comment that Israel and Iran were “two sides of the same coin”; he’d been watching Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s interview with Piers Morgan at the time. (He later said the interview was too soft, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who still wonders why Morgan is at CNN.) I have no doubt that others feel that way, and in light of President Obama’s comments on Iran at the UN General Assembly (UNGA), I’d like to address it.

Obama’s comments were as safe and predictable as possible: He’s willing to set a limit on attempting diplomacy with Iran (he didn’t) and is tired of their failure to prove that their nuclear program is peaceful. Had he used his speech as an opportunity to appease American defense hawks, he would have said what I’m about to say about the differences between Israel and Iran. But I have to give him credit for not using the UNGA as a rally.

Iran outright denies having nuclear weapons, although their clarity on whether or not they’re trying to get them is less than stellar. Israel is “widely believed” to have nukes, but refuses to fess up. I personally believe there would be no better way to intimidate Iran than to be honest about whatever they’ve got. “Yeah? We’ve had these for years. Bring it, beyotch.”

But it would be incorrect to say that the fact of their nuclear possession (if it is a fact) makes Israel a different side of a coin otherwise occupied by Iran. Consider intent to nuke. Bordering nations fire rockets into Israel on a regular basis; if they wanted to, they might have obliterated any one of those countries by now. More conventional weapons and sabotage technology have made that unnecessary. For Israel, the rumor of their nuke possession is enough to intimidate their enemies into keeping it (by regional standards) light. In short, they have them (maybe) so they need never use them.

As crazy as Ahmadinejad is, when the leader of a country with an uncertain nuclear status threatens to “eliminate” a country he just doesn’t like, it’s best to pay attention. Israeli leaders simply do not start international rows with words like that. Netanyahu has said a lot of things vis-à-vis Iran to which you might object, but that isn’t one of them – eliminate the regime, maybe; eliminate the nuclear capabilities definitely; but not the country, and not the people.

You might dismiss all of that as just rhetoric. But when you’re talking about weapons of mass destruction, and leaders with opposing interests and concern for their own, words mean things. Obama will have to strengthen his own words if he wants to prove to the world whose interests America would benefit from helping secure.

Ask questions first, send more aid later

Robert Beecroft, President Obama’s nominee to the position of U.S. ambassador to Iraq, seems a wise choice. According to his State Department biography, he is serving as ambassador to Jordan and has held a series of diplomatic positions based in the Middle East. Let’s hope he can at least keep it in his pants, unlike the last guy. But one thing that came out of Beecroft’s confirmation hearings makes him especially appealing.

Rumor has it that Iraq has been allowing Iranian planes to use its airspace to transport goods to Syria. The Iranian government says those goods are humanitarian in nature. The U.S., along with anyone who knows how Iran neglects its own people, doesn’t buy that. Iraq does, and they’re insisting that the burden of proof be on the U.S.

I would actually prefer to agree with Iraq on that last point. Were U.S. officials to be the ones to inspect the planes, there would be less chance of the inspections going like this:

IRAQ: So can we check the plane for, like, five seconds? That oughta hold ‘em.

IRAN: Sure.

IRAQ: (checks) Dude, there are AKs in here. Nothing humanitarian about that.

IRAN: So? Tell them it’s bottled water. You want us to use these on you?

IRAQ: Well . . . no.

But perhaps I’m just letting my imagination get away from me.

In any event, it’s still Iraq’s airspace we’re talking about, thus they are the ones with the legal authority to inspect these planes. Beecroft comes in by agreeing with Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) that their refusal to take advantage of that authority ought to be contingent on U.S. aid and cooperation in the foreseeable future. $1 billion has been budgeted for “economic growth activities in Iraq.” I’d hate to see them miss out on that because they won’t put up on this one.

Interestingly, this story comes at the same time as one of the U.S. rolling back sanctions against the president of Myanmar. This only happened after the release of democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi and hundreds of other dissidents. An end to sanctions against one man won’t accomplish much – but the release of these dissidents when hundreds of others are still detained won’t make the entire country worthy of more.

Apparently that country was able to drop its political vanity for the sake of engagement with the U.S. and, consequently, engagement with the global economy. Iraq, it seems, hasn’t gotten to that point just yet. An extra reminder is in order, and if Beecroft can see that, he’s all right with me.

Disposal Day #140: It is a period of unrest . . .

STORY #1: September Surprise II

We retire the term “October surprise”; it happened in September 2008 (Lehman Brothers) and it’s happening again this year, with the killing of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens (on September 11) in Libya. Don’t believe me? The Christian Science Monitor seems to feel that way as well. They’re wondering if the prospects of both President Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) will be determined by this.

Of course they will! These events have shifted the entire election discussion from jobs to foreign policy. The two have spent more time sniping at each other over their respective responses than they have doing anything meaningful. It has all the characteristics of a surprise. The trouble is that neither one is proving that they can handle it. Now would be a good time for someone else to speak up.

STORY #2: Who shot Innocence?

While U.S. politicians struggle to figure out what they’re supposed to be saying in response to anti-U.S. protests erupting at embassies across the Middle East and North Africa (wow, that was a hell of a run-on sentence), everyone else is wondering this: Who is John Galt Sam Bacile? (Apologies to Objectivists if you think I’m comparing the two; I just couldn’t resist the joke.) There are too many rumors about his name, age, location, religion and occupation even to list here. Conspiratorial talk, much directed at Coptic Christians, is well-advanced.

A likely theory is that Sam Bacile is an alias for Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, an L.A.-based Copt, who admitted to being the film’s production manager and has a history of fraud. Theory of why he did it: to turn the U.S. government, or at least average Americans, against the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi was once a member. It seems to be working, a bit. But if Nakoula wants more rights for Copts, this couldn’t be worse way to get it. (I don’t discount al-Qaeda’s role here, but both their plans and the film could contribute to general unrest.)

STORY #3: Here’s why

If the above theory is true, either Nakoula has absolutely no knowledge of precedent when it comes to agitprop like his, or his plan all along was to inflame violent protests, pitting Muslim-run countries against the U.S. The Arab Spring spread from Tunisia outward, and the same is true for whatever we’re calling this. The latest protest, as of the time of this writing, is taking place in Yemen. President Abd-Raddu Mansour Hadi seems to agree with me, having blamed “‘mob-like groups’ bent on harming Yemeni-U.S. relations” for the protests. He’s definitely the most perceptive head of state involved.