Israeli Leftists Plead for U.S. Pressure on Their Government
David Landau, editor of Ha'aretz newspaper, said something to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that is raising eyebrows. After a dinner at the American ambassador's residence on Sep. 10, but only reported today, Landau his thoughts on the current situation. According to Gary Rosenblatt in New York's Jewish Week,
Landau, who was seated next to Rice, was said to have referred to Israel as a "failed state" politically, one in need of a U.S.-imposed settlement. He was said to have implored Rice to intervene, asserting that the Israeli government wanted "to be raped" and that it would be like a "wet dream" for him to see this happen.
Asked to confirm this acount, Landau called it "inaccurate" and "a perversion of what I said" because his views had been delivered with "much more sophistication." But he did in fact acknowledge it to be accurate:
I did say that in general, Israel wants to be raped — I did use that word — by the U.S., and I myself have long felt Israel needed more vigorous U.S. intervention in the affairs of the Middle East.
Landau told Rosenblatt that he was pleased with his own statement, adding that he was later congratulated by several professors present who felt he "articulated what many Israelis feel."
Landau's plea for Washington to pressure Jerusalem was course and memorable, but it fit into a pattern going back at least a quarter century. Here is a brief account of comparable leftist efforts, culled from my co-authored
piece with Mitchell Bard, " How Special is the U.S.-Israel Relationship?"
In 1982, Prime Minister Begin's critics appealed to the U.S. government for cuts in American aid as a means to change his policies on the West Bank. In 1988, four of Israel's best-known writers (Yehuda Amichai, Amos Elon, Amos Oz, and A. B. Yehoshua) published a statement calling on American Jews and "on all friends of Israel in the United States to speak up" about Israeli policies on the West Bank. More remarkably, they argued that "By their very silence, [American Jews] are massively intervening in Israeli politics." A leading Israeli newspaper published an opinion piece in 1992 that called continued pressure on Israel "the most important condition for advancing the entire [peace] process."
Comment: (1) This appeal to an outside agency to pressure their own government is profoundly
undemocratic. (2) It is hard to imagine the intellectuals of any other state acting in like fashion. (December 26, 2007)
Mike Huckabee's Unique Foreign Policy
- "Much like a top high school student, if [the United States] is modest about its abilities and achievements, if it is generous in helping others, it is loved. But if it attempts to dominate others, it is despised."
- "We must first destroy existing terrorist groups and then attack the underlying conditions that breed them: the lack of basic sanitation, health care, education, jobs, a free press, fair courts -- which all translates into a lack of opportunity and hope."
James D. Besser, who conducted this interview, added that "Huckabee declined to offer suggestions about where that [real estate] might be." Uganda or Birobidjan, perhaps? (December 24, 2007)
U.S.-Israel Tensions, Post-Annapolis
Before the Annapolis meeting took place in late November, I warned of the danger that a joint
U.S.-Palestinian position might emerge that the Israelis would resist, thereby leading to "a possible crisis in U.S.-Israel relations of unprecedented proportions." Here is the first installment to follow up on that worry, to be updated as needed.
A senior adviser to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel may come into conflict with the United States over increased pressure by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to advance talks with the Palestinian Authority. …
The U.S. might want to up the pressure on Israel to fulfil its obligations in the first stage of the road map, the adviser said in private conversations, particularly removing illegal outposts and freezing construction in the territories. "Their demands from Israel will only increase and it is not certain that
we can meet them under the circumstances," he added. The adviser said that in Vice Premier Haim Ramon's talks with American officials, he had gone "too far in promising them things to please them."
Another senior government official involved in the talks also warned of expected crises with the Palestinians and the Americans. "Israel has created a series of far-reaching expectations in the international arena," this official said, referring to the implementation of the first part of the road map, "but this is not going to happen." "There is no political capability either to evacuate settlements or freeze construction in the settlements," the second official added. According to this official, the problem will be even greater when negotiations begin on the core issues. "There are detailed files that include Israel's position on the day negotiations came to a halt in 2001," he said. "What will happen when they open the Jerusalem file, for example? They'll find that
Israel's final position at Taba is light-years away from Israel's opening position today."
Comment: With a secretary of state who thinks that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is "at the core of a lot of problems in the region," one can only expect more tensions to appear. (December 23, 2007)
The Latest about Mosul Dam
A truck bomb has blown up about 1 kilometer away from the Mosul Dam, killing one policeman, injuring a second, and damaging a section of the main access bridge connecting the dam's two shores, announced
Brigadier-General Abdul-Kareem al-Jubouri, the commander of police operations in northern Nineveh province. According to Reuters, "Jubouri said the bomber parked his truck near the bridge, telling police that it had broken down and that he need to fetch a tow truck. Shortly after he left the scene it detonated." Security officials say scores of armed men have entered the Province of Nineveh with orders to detonate Mosul Dam. … "Some 250 armed men have entered Nineveh Province with the aim of detonating the Mosul Dam," one source said. Another source said information was based on intelligence tips passed to provincial authorities recently. "The men were
trained in Pakistan," the source added. … The government is reported to have sent more reinforcements to the area.
Comments: (1) What was the purpose of this exercise? A shot across the bow, an announcement of intentions? But why give a warning?
(2) Given the parlous state of the Mosul Dam, as I detailed in a recent column this news is particularly menacing. At a time when the the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers finds the current probability of failure to be "exceptionally high," the U.S. government is setting itself up for a massive coup of bad publicity by closely associating with a potential disaster waiting to happen. (3) If it's high time to make it clear to all concerned that the Mosul Dam is an Iraqi problem, not an American one, that is not at all the trend. On Nov. 29, the U.S.
Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment announced it had contracted Versar Inc. to repair Mosul Dam for $320,000 by engaging in an "enhanced grouting" program with geotechnical support. This political mistake could do immense and lasting damage to the American reputation worldwide. (December 17, 2007) Dec. 18, 2007 update: Some additional details on the bombing, from a Los Angeles Times report:
Syrian trucks coming from the northern Iraqi border use the bridge to transport gasoline and other goods, locals said. U.S. forces and Iraqi security forces also use the bridge. Witnesses said the bomber left the truck on the bridge, pretending it broke down. Police at a checkpoint were
suspicious and went to check his documents. As the man proceeded to another checkpoint the bomb went off. Police arrested him, according to reports from the scene.
Recognizing Israel as the Jewish State: Updates
As Arab-Israeli diplomacy revives, it becomes increasingly clear that diplomatic relations with Jerusalem is not the same as accepting Zionism, as I note today in a column, " Accept Israel as the Jewish State?" This weblog entry pursues that theme, starting with mention of a telephone poll of a representative sample of adult Israeli Jews in April 2007 asked this
question:
Recently a law was proposed according to which every candidate for the Knesset must commit that he recognizes the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish State. Are you for or against the proposed law?
In reply, 72 percent favored the law, and 18 percent were against it. The poll has a statistical error of +/- 4.4, was carried out by Teleseker, and published in Ma‘ariv on April 13, 2007. (November 28, 2007)
Dec. 1, 2007 update: Mahmoud Abbas added his voice today to those who reject Israel as a Jewish state.
From a historical perspective, there are two states: Israel and Palestine. In Israel, there are Jews and others living there. This we are willing to recognize, nothing else.
Comment: Abbas appears willing to
recognize that there is a state called Israel that includes Jews in its population, but insists that its nature is undefined.
Among the differences between the two parties was this: "a disagreement among the Palestinians with regard to formal recognition of the State of Israel as a Jewish state."
Dec. 13, 2007 update: Kenneth W. Stein of Emory University provides some context for the current debate at "Annapolis: Precedents and
Transactions, But No Transformations":
For years it was widely held that Sadat's November 1977 visit to Jerusalem broke the psychological barrier between the Arab and Israeli peoples. Having the leader of the most populous Arab state stand before the Israeli parliament in front of a picture of Theodore Herzl and proclaim that "the October War will be the last war" was indeed unprecedented. But neither Sadat, nor American diplomats and Arab leaders undertook to alter basic Arab attitudes toward Israel. In the peace treaties which Israel signed with both Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994), there is no mention of recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.
At Annapolis, by contrast, US President George W. Bush publicly emphasized that the "US would maintain its commitment to the security of Israel as a Jewish state,…[and] to Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people." Similarly Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared that the negotiations
should conclude with " two states for two peoples, a peace-seeking Palestinian state, a viable, strong, democratic and terror-free state for the Palestinian people; and the state of Israel, Jewish and democratic, living in security and free from the threat of terrorism, the national home of the Jewish people. "
By contrast, at both Annapolis and the subsequent donor's conference, Chairman of the PLO and President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmud Abbas shied away from making a similar statement. Instead, he focused on the Palestinian core demands, achieving " freedom, independence, getting rid of the occupation, establishing the state of independent Palestine within the 1967 borders and guaranteeing the rights of our people's refugees in accordance with resolution 194." To be sure, he categorized Annapolis as " a turning point in a very dangerous and old conflict." However, saying that Annapolis was a
turning point and making it so are light years apart.
On November 29, 2007, exactly sixty years after the UN voted to partition Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, the Saudi Arabian paper al-Watan noted that the "Jewishness of the state of Israel will in fact provide the fuel for an eternal conflict between the Arabs and Moslems on the one hand, and the state of Israel on the other."
For many in the Arab and Moslem world and elsewhere, when Israel is recognized as a Jewish state, then Palestinians will no longer sustain the dream of living in portions of what was Israel prior to the 1967 June war. Recognizing Israel as a Jewish state would mean surrendering a core element in Palestinian national identity; it would mean essentially ending the Arab-Israeli conflict without a complete victory by the Arab side. It would mark an underlying and fundamental transformation, one that has obviously not yet occurred. Hamas refuses unequivocally to
abandon that core element. Similarly, Abbas endorses the core. Unlike Hamas but like Sadat, at least thus far, Abbas believes that he can recognize Israel's legitimacy without accepting its Jewish essence.
Will the Nation of Islam Disappear?
The historic role of the Nation of Islam was to introduce African-Americans to Islam; that role accomplished, I already predicted in 2000, in " How Elijah Muhammad Won," that it will go out of business before long in favor of normative Islam (the sort that comes out of Arabia).
As long ago as 1962, the author of a book-length study of the NoI noted that few who joined the
Nation remained in it for very long. If that was true almost 40 years ago, it is even more true today. As blacks discover when they join and inevitably come into closer contact with the real thing, the NoI, whatever its claims to legitimacy, purveys a jumble of primitive and unsustainable myths with no connection to standard Islam. A folk religion founded in Detroit in the 1930's can hardly stand up to a religion with nearly fourteen centuries of history, nearly a billion adherents, 50 national governments to its name, and one of the world's great civilizations.
A number of other factors tend toward the NoI's eventual demise as well. Each of its many splinter groups, including Farrakhan's, is centered around a dominant figure and amounts to "little more," as [Elijah Muhammad biographer Karl] Evanzz says, "than a cult of personality." When these aging leaders are gone, he continues, "all that will remain is a storefront temple here and there." Also relevant is the NoI's emphasis on hard work, thrift, and the family: this emphasis inculcates exactly the sort of habits that permit NoI members to escape poverty, but as they rise economically, they often seek a less sectarian faith. Some return to Christianity; more move on to standard Islam.
The son of Elijah Muhammad, W. Deen Mohammed, who has been a
normative Muslim for many decades and explicitly so since 1975, appears to have come to a similar conclusion, judging by his remarks after speaking at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, Arkansas. Referring to the NOI under Louis Farrakhan, Mohammed said the NOI
is starting to shed its intolerance and align with orthodox Muslims. "The time for those leaders who had that hate rhetoric has come and passed and they know it," Mohammed told reporters after a question-and-answer session with the audience. … "I think there's a merger coming," Mohammed said, noting that student ministers in the Nation of Islam have been studying with orthodox Muslims. "A quiet merging of leaders of the Nation of Islam and leaders in my community."
Comment: This trend has major importance for American Islam, implying that black converts are likely to leave behind their historic divisions and eventually form a nearly single mass
of believers. (August 10, 2007)
More on the "Nile-to-Euphrates" Calumny
The Arab enemies of Israel have been repeating for decades that Zionists wish to conquer the central Middle East, more specifically from the Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates River in Iraq. I reviewed this subject in depth in 1994 in " Imperial Israel: The Nile-to-Euphrates Calumny" and will note here when it this conspiracy theory notably reappears.
The Catholic Church Demands Reciprocity from Muslims
Already in late 2003, the Vatican equivalent of foreign minister, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, demanded reciprocity: "Just as Muslims can build their houses of prayer anywhere in the world, the faithful of other religions should be able to do so as well." Especially since the accession of Pope Benedict XVI, I noted a year ago (in " The Vatican Confronts Islam") Catholic demands for reciprocity have grown. Today, we learn at " Kardinal möchte in Saudi-Arabien Messe lessen," they took a new and specific form, as Cardinal Karl Lehmann, head of the German bishops' conference, has demanded that if Muslims can built mosques in Europe, he should be able to hold a mass in Saudi Arabia. (June 9, 2007)
New Frontiers in Counterterrorism Incompetence
Some examples, in reverse chronological order, of spectacular incidents of bungling.
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" Terrorists Claim to Seize CIA Files": In its takeover of Gaza, Hamas have seized Central Intelligence Agency files stored with Fatah. "The CIA files we seized, which include documents, CD's, taped conversations, and videos, are more important that all the American weapons we obtained the last two days as we took over the traitor Fatah's positions," said Muhammad Abdel-El, spokesperson for the Hamas-allied Popular Resistance Committees.
Abu Abdullah, a member of Hamas' so-called military wing, said, "Now our job is to study these files, which are already showing that they are crucial for our fight against the Zionists and anyone who collaborates with them, including the Americans." Mr. Abdullah said the CIA documents they browsed so far contain "information about the collaboration between Fatah and the Israeli and American security organizations; CIA methods on how to prevent attacks, chase and follow after cells of Hamas and the Committees; plans about Fatah assassinations of members of Hamas and other organizations; and American studies on the security situation in Gaza." Mr. Abdullah claimed the documents also detailed CIA networks in other Arab countries, and "how to help beat Islamic allies of Hamas in other Arab countries, including Egypt and Jordan."
"We will use these documents and make portions public to prove the collaboration between America and traitor Arab
countries," Mr. Abdullah said. Committees Spokesman Abdel El told the Sun he was sitting in a Gaza mosque today pouring through some of the files on the Committees when he found his name mentioned in the documents four times. "I am amazed by the material and the context of the documents," he said.
(June 14, 2007)
A designated terrorist with ties to Oregon was invited to sit down with U.S. government officials and their guests at an embassy event Saturday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Soliman al-Buthi, 45, is well known to the Treasury and Justice departments and the National Security Council. In 2004, he was designated a terrorist under an alternate spelling of his name for his role in operating the Al-Haramain
Islamic Foundation in Ashland. The first entry of a Google search using his name as spelled in the invitation says he "has been linked to al-Qaida funding." …
An embassy political officer in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, invited al-Buthi to a restaurant dinner honoring the chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. … [Al-Buthi's Portland attorney, Tom] Nelson said al-Buthi intended to attend the dinner but the lawyer advised him not to step onto embassy grounds, which would make him subject to arrest. Otherwise, he was safe from capture because the U.S. has no extradition treaty with Saudi Arabia. In an e-mail to The Oregonian, al-Buthi said "I was surprised, particularly because I am supposed to be a fugitive from the U.S. government!" Al-Buthi said the U.S. embassy called Tuesday to confirm he was coming.
(May 31, 2007)
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