One Way Out For The Palestinians

By George S. Hishmeh

This commentary was published in The Jordan Times on 17/12/2010 

President Barack Obama described the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in the mid-term elections last month as a “shellacking”; he was praised for his outright admission of his shocking defeat.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave him (and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) an unprecedented slap in the face by refusing to freeze his colonial expansion into occupied Palestinian territory, which now houses some 500,000 Israelis; the American head of state remained speechless, seemingly bowing his head down.

This second setback, which has denied the Obama administration a resounding achievement in the Middle East, prompted Clinton to take the lead in introducing an ill-defined counterplan to try to bring peace between the Palestinians and Israelis. She withdrew Obama’s hefty bribe to Israel - about $30 million a dayfor three months - that the administration had hoped would induce Israel to resume the moratorium on colonial building and pave the way for serious resumption of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.

All now concede that it was very doubtful that the negotiators would have reached, in this short period, any significant achievement that would have brought peace in the region once and for all.

Yet to her credit, the secretary did underline some noteworthy specifics that would make it, hopefully, difficult for the Israelis to beat around the bush as they have been doing so far. She repeated the administration’s position that Israeli settlement construction was a threat to the peace process.She declared: “It is time to grapple with the core issues of the conflict: on borders and security, settlements, water and refugees, and on Jerusalem itself.”

Clinton underlined, “the Palestinian leaders must be able to show their people that the occupation will be over”, explaining further that the hope for agreement would call for “a single line drawn on a map that divides Israel from Palestine”.

But regrettably she failed to insist on an immediate freeze on Israeli colonial expansion, as mandated by international law.This is an issue that the Palestinians feel strongly about, as US Mideast emissary George J. Mitchell found out during his visit to Ramallah last weekend. Her reluctance to delve into this thorny issue does not necessarily stem from Obama’s low popularity, as some may point out. According to the just-released Zogby Interactive poll, 63 per cent of potential voters see him as a weak leader, compared to 19 per cent who label him as strong. Much of the slippage, however, is from the ranks of Democrats and independents, and their views are mainly affected by domestic issues and not foreign affairs.

This is evident in the analyses in the media, which have been supportive of the Obama administration’s proceeding forward on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Martin Indyk, who served twice as US ambassador to Israel, wrote recently that since Israel’s “demographic clock has not stopped ticking, and continuing the occupation is eroding its international legitimacy”, the Obama administration’s “objective should be unchanged - a two-state solution”. He emphasised: “That cannot be achieved without defining the borders that separate the two states,” and proceeding with “a negotiation [that] will have to be predicated on the principle of UN Security Council Resolution 242, the original peace process resolution”.

Indyk added in the Financial Times article: “Focusing on the borders leads naturally back to the original idea in the 1947 UN General Assembly resolution that sought to deal with the conflict over Palestine - partition of the land into two states, one Jewish, the other Arab, with a special regime for Jerusalem, and equal rights and equal protection under the law for citizens of the two states.”

Robert Wright, a columnist for nytimes.com, pointed out that the current path the US president is taking, “involves Obama taking political heat every time he tried to move Netanyahu a few inches towards the goal line. And there are 97 yards to go”.

So, he argued, “if the United Nations does take the initiative [to find a solution], domestic resistance will be largely confined to the right wing of the American Jewish opinion. Vast numbers of American [and Israeli] Jews will rally to the [UN-sponsored] plan, because lasting peace will finally be within reach”.

Otherwise, as indicated last week, three South American countries proceeded on their own. Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay recognised the state of Palestine based on the 1967 borders - a path the Palestine Authority could pursue unhesitatingly. So far, more than 100 countries have done so, the Palestinian mission at the United Nations has revealed.

Kuwait: Crimes Our Democracy Has Visited On Gulf

By Ali Ahmad al-Baghli

This commentary was published in Arab Times (Kuwait) on 16/12/2010

For the past 10 years, democracy in Kuwait has not produced any fruitful dividends because of the practices of Members of Parliament. Apart from obstructing national development, these practices have also harmed our Gulf neighbors. Once our neighbors found a perfect political model in Kuwait which they aspired to emulate, but that picture has long vanished because of the foul plays acted out by the ‘aggressors’ inside the National Assembly.

Our lawmakers never stop causing crises. We go to bed with one crisis on our minds but wake up with a different type of conflict. This day the word joy is very scarce among citizens. The recent victory in the Gulf Cup competition should have had people basking in euphoria, but the seminar which was held at the Diwaniya of Ahmed Al-Saadoun negated all jubilation.

One activist, Muhammad Al-Juwaihal, almost got murdered. This was followed by disobeying an Amiri decree by people who gathered outside the Diwaniya of MP Jamaan Al-Harbash which ended in a face-off with security forces and subsequent defamation of the nation on the enemy satellite station.

In order not to be accused of disgracing the Kuwaiti democracy because of the actions of a few, and not to indulge in random talk, here are some of the statements attributed to a Saudi comrade Salman Al-Dousari. I picked these from the opinion page of the London and Saudi-based Middle East Newspaper on Dec 13, 2010 with the article under the headline ‘The case of Kuwaiti democracy’. He wrote, ‘How unjustly you have been treated, oh democracy ... so many tragedies have happened in your name... how easy it is to whip you with a tormenting lash and prefabricated excuses... or even without excuses at all!

This is the democracy in Kuwait which is sliding from under our feet. It is close to half a century for the lifespan of the Kuwaiti Constitution which was once unrivalled in the Arab world. This same constitutional life is now scattered in all directions with the masses losing a great deal in the process. However, the greatest loser - undoubtedly — is democracy itself with all its components and details viewed with hatred and mere mention of it is now detested by the citizens of the Gulf region. If the losses of the Kuwaiti people from their democracy do not need additional elaboration, surely the popularity of reforms on the streets of the Gulf states has waned considerably and reached a dangerous level in recent years.

The people of this region consider talking about it as mere babble, and the cane of democracy in Kuwait is cruelly lashing at all Gulf nations! From Kuwait to the outskirts of Oman and from Jeddah on the Red Sea to the Qatari capital, Doha, Abu-Dhabi and Dubai, all tremble with the mere mention of democracy. What is happening in Kuwait, or precisely the practices of the National Assembly, has turned simple discussions on political reforms into a type of unending confrontation leading to a ‘dead end’. We dedicate this article to the pioneers and people who are experts at complicating issues in our Parliament — without naming anyone — because they and their supporters know the empty noises they create to hail and justify the actions of those lawmakers.

The crimes committed by these people have surpassed Kuwait. They have stolen the dreams of the citizens and the aspirations of our brothers in the Gulf in terms of a constitutional democratic system of government. Our lawmakers did not stop at slaughtering our democracy. Even when blood was dripping from their hands day and night they murdered the hopes of our brothers in the neighboring Gulf states.

Rafiq Hariri Tribunal: Why Many In Beirut Have Lost Their Thirst For Justice

Many Lebanese, including the current PM, may have come to regret, at least in private, that the tribunal exists

By Ian Black

This commentary was published in The Guardian on 16/12/2010

The threats of Hassan Nasrallah to 'cut off the hand' of anyone who touches Hezbollah are not being taken lightly in Beirut. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

 

Tony Blair Looks Ahead

The former British prime minister and Middle East envoy offers his thoughts on the Middle East peace process, austerity measures, and whether he could have prevented the financial crisis.

Interview by Elizabeth Dickinson

This interview was published in Foreign Policy on 16/12/2010

When outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair was named envoy to the Middle East in 2007 -- representing the "quartet" of the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations -- he knew what it meant: "huge intensity and work." Now three years later, after the breakdown of the most recent peace talks, the conflict seems as intractable as ever. In conversation with Foreign Policy's Elizabeth Dickinson, Blair discussed the most knotty problems in the region, from settlements to Iran to the movement to unilaterally recognize the state of Palestine. And with a new age of austerity dawning at Downing Street, Blair had a few key things to say about his legacy and the future of his famous Third Way politics.

 

Foreign Policy: I understand that you met with some Palestinian leaders yesterday evening; what are your thoughts on the direction the peace process has gone, particularly on the Obama administration's push on the settlements?

Tony Blair: We've hit an impasse here. The challenge is to get an effective negotiation going, [one] that is credible. And the question is how do you give credibility to that negotiation -- and the settlement freeze was one way of doing that. We can't proceed on that basis now, but we can look for other ways of giving credibility to the negotiation. The important thing is to get a negotiation underway, in a context in which both sides have the confidence that this is a real negotiation, with both parties actually wanting to narrow the differences and reach a deal. Obviously, it's a setback for the process, but it's not a setback that should mean that we give up on it -- on the contrary, we've got to redouble our efforts and find a way forward.

FP: What's your take on the movement to unilaterally recognize the independence of Palestine, as countries such as Brazil have done?

TB: Essentially, when you're in a process where the ultimate agreement requires both sides to agree, unilateral moves are usually an expression of frustration, and in a sense that's what this is. There's nothing that can substitute or be better for the two sides [than] coming to [an] agreement, together. Because even if you go down this unilateral path, you can't bring the other party with you; you go back to the same issue, which is, how do you get an agreement?

FP: You touch on this a little bit in your autobiography, but I wonder what has changed about the way you see this conflict now that you're out of office and in the envoy position as opposed to when you were the head of government.

TB: There's one big and profound change, which is I now believe [in] this state-building exercise that the Palestinians are engaged in -- which is really about ground-up, you know, how do you build effective institutions, security, rule of law, an economy on the Palestinian side. I now think that is absolutely essential to the politics of this, because I think the basic problem is that we think that we can go back to the year 2000 and begin where President Clinton left off. But what has happened in the meantime [are] issues that are of profound significance to the credibility and trust that people have in this process. Each side has its narrative about this crisis, so the breakdown of the peace negotiations, the 2000 Intifada, the disengagement from Gaza, the takeover by Hamas -- each side will have its own narrative about why those things happened. But the cumulative effect is that you have got to rebuild trust in the reality on the ground -- security on the Israeli side, lifting the occupation on the Palestinian side -- in order then to get the politics moving again.

FP: A bit of a metaphysical question, but if you had to make a choice between dealing with the Middle East peace process or the issue of Iranian nuclear proliferation, where would you direct your attention?

TB: At both.

FP: Wrong answer. You only get one.

TB: The truth is, they are both very very important -- linked actually, because the acquisition by Iran of nuclear capability goes alongside their attempts to disrupt the peace process. Likewise, if you are pushing forward and making progress on the Israel-Palestine question, it enormously empowers those moderate, modernizing forces in the region. So, the two are actually linked, really, and we should be dealing with both.

FP: I want to turn now to the financial crisis and to Britain in particular, with the new government. Do you believe that their austerity program is the correct medicine for what ails?

TB: I don't really want to comment on the British political scene. All countries have deficit reduction plans at the moment, and that's not a debate I want to get into, really.

FP: Maybe to frame it in the context of your own government then, do you believe that there are things you would have done differently economically, signs you could have seen for the financial crisis?

TB: I think it's more -- the problem with the financial crisis is that people didn't spot what was happening within that part of the financial sector. But I actually think the reform program, both within Britain that I was implementing and the challenge to the European social model -- I think the need to address those challenges [that our reform programs were addressing, such as health care and public services] have been accelerated by the financial crisis. But I don't think they've been created by [the financial crisis]; they were there in any event.

FP: I'm very curious to hear your thoughts on the Third Way, whether there is still a role for that in modern politics.

TB: I still think the Third Way is basically where politics is, because this is all about a 21st century in which people have learned that government is necessary, but government can also be bureaucratic and a vested interest. It's all about a strategic enabling and empowering government, not one that's sitting on people, and that means you need a dynamic private sector, and you need welfare systems that are getting people off welfare and into work. You need public services that are far more responsive to the needs of the ordinary consumer of those services. All of that Third Way stuff you need. I think today's social paradigm is far more to do with being progressive and liberal on issues to do things like gay rights, and so on, but it is also very tough on issues like law and order and personal safety, so I think that set of Third Way positions is still absolutely where we should be.

The Split In Pakistani And American Interests

By David Ignatius
This commentary was published in The Washington Post on 16/12/2010

ISLAMABAD -  A military official in the U.S. Embassy here points to a map of Pakistan. "This is the problem we should be dealing with," he says, drawing a big circle around the entire country. Instead, he continues, now drawing a little circle around the frontier area known as North Waziristan, "we're in danger of focusing on this."

The military official says he worries that the Washington debate about Pakistan is becoming "hyper-focused" on a demand that the Pakistani army attack North Waziristan to stop Taliban insurgents from crossing into Afghanistan - a request he says the Pakistanis are incapable of meeting because their forces are "stretched too thin."

Almost the same words are used by an official of the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, Pakistan's spy agency, as he tells me why a new offensive isn't going to happen soon, no matter what Washington wants. The Pakistani army has been fighting hard in the tribal areas for nearly two years, he says, and "we are battle weary."

"North Waziristan doesn't present that much of a threat to us," the ISI official explained Tuesday. "If we were to attack it now, it would increase the threat to the rest of the country. The tribal areas would be inflamed, and the situation would become untenable."

The harder Washington pushes for a crackdown, the more Islamabad seems to resist. And the explanation is simple. The two countries' interests differ on this one: America, with its forces exposed in Afghanistan, wants action now. Pakistan, facing a nationwide campaign of terrorism, wants to concentrate on its internal threat. Politicians in each country accuse the other nation of being duplicitous and untrustworthy, which only makes the situation worse.

"We have a nasty tendency of assuming that what we care about is what the Pakistanis care about," says the U.S. military official. He argues that the problem in Pakistan isn't that it has a secret agenda; it's that it has a "bloodied army."

The ISI official raises the touchy issue of national pride. "By appearing as America's mercenaries, our army's acceptance level goes down."

The tug of war over the havens is at center stage this week. President Obama's latest review of the Afghan war concludes that "some important progress" has been made, but that there is an "ongoing challenge and threat of safe havens in Pakistan," according to White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

A new pair of national intelligence estimates take a bleaker view, arguing that the war has "a limited chance of success unless Pakistan hunts down insurgents operating from havens on its Afghan border," the New York Times reported.

Despite the growing Pakistanophobia in Washington, senior U.S. officials here say the Pakistanis are moving in the right direction, though maddeningly slowly. One notes that the Pakistanis, despite their perennial jitters about India, now have 140,000 troops in the northwest border area, more than the United States has in Afghanistan. "They are extended at this point as far as they can be," he says.

The U.S. military official, standing at his map, says Washington should realize that the Pakistanis "are unable to conduct significant new operations without additional troops. That's not a criticism, it's a reality." This official notes that the Pakistani military has lost 1,500 to 2,000 soldiers fighting the extremists, with three to four times that many wounded. Civilian casualties are in the tens of thousands. If America experienced this level of casualties, he says, "we would probably call it a second American Civil War."

Concern about the havens is stronger in Washington these days than among U.S. commanders in Afghanistan. Maj. Gen. John Campbell, who leads NATO forces in eastern Afghanistan, said Wednesday at Bagram air base that closing the border "may not matter" as much as many fear because coalition forces are "pushing out" toward Pakistan. "Even if the Pakistanis were to do a huge operation, they'll never shut this off," he cautioned.

The United States has a tough-enough fight in Afghanistan as it is. One sure way to make it worse would be to escalate the quarrel with Pakistan to the crisis level, or, out of frustration, to send U.S. troops into the tribal areas. Better in this case to be patient, and to use Predator drones and other intelligence assets to attack the insurgents' sanctuaries. If Washington officials aren't careful, they're going to shoot themselves in the foot in their indignation about Pakistan.

The Illusion Of Peace

By Hassan Haidar

This commentary was published in al-Hayat on 16/12/2010

Ever since Obama arrived at the White House, Israel has exerted every effort possible to convince him that the priority of his foreign policy should be the Iranian issue and preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons, either through intensified sanctions or through military action, and that he would easily find solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if the nuclear threat from Iran were to cease and Tehran’s influence in Gaza, Lebanon and other places were to be reduced.

However, the US President, who started his presidency by addressing the Muslim World differently, considered that the issue of Palestine was the core of the problem in the Middle East, and that finding a solution for it or placing it on the track towards a solution would make it easier for him to deal with the other issues in the region, among them Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Islamic extremism.

This is why he immediately started engaging directly in seeking a settlement on the basis of the two-state solution, appointed envoys and mediators to sponsor the negotiations, which alternated between direct and indirect talks, and exerted pressures on Israel to put a stop to its excessive settlement- building assault, which is obstructing peace efforts and preventing the discussion from reaching permanent situation issues.

This approach upset Israel, embarrassed it and raised the level of political tension within and around it, but it did not deprive it of the ability to resist and create problems. And the past two years of Obama’s presidency have shown that the Hebrew state knew how to procrastinate, how to be uncompromising, how to keep its “moderates” away from the forefront, and how to play its winning cards on the US domestic scene with the help of powerful right-wing pressure groups, until the midterm elections of the two houses of Congress led to a crushing defeat that made the President rein in his enthusiasm, reconsider his priorities, at both the domestic and foreign levels equally, and gradually abandon putting pressure on Israel – especially as the next presidential electoral race has in effect started, and he needs the Jewish voters who voted for him in large numbers two years ago.

And although the US Administration exerted tremendous pressures on Tehran, in the shape of harsh UN sanctions as well as of its own unilateral sanctions, which it and other Western countries threaten to strengthen further, especially after the failure of the recent Geneva negotiations to achieve any breakthrough, and as Iran maintaining its refusal to discuss what it considers to be its absolute right to obtain nuclear capabilities, its dealing with the Iranian crisis is not likely to lead to military action similar to what the former George Bush Administration did when it found invading Iraq to be the perfect escape from “getting implicated” in resolving the Palestinian issue, because the repercussions would be extreme for both sides.

What choice does the Obama Administration then have, to emerge from what is clearly a predicament in the Middle East? And what are the alternatives it could adopt? The start does not bode much good, as Mitchell has come to Ramallah to convey yet another retraction, in the shape of his ignoring to mention the 1967 borders, which are considered the basis of the two-state solution. This means that the talks which Washington will resume with both sides, Palestinian and Israeli, over the stances of each of them on the issues of the borders, security, Jerusalem and the refugees could take many long years without leading to any practical results, and they may witness additional retractions from the US on past pledges, that is if they are not preceded by changes in Washington itself.

Obama has discovered through experience that he could not overcome the organic relationship that exists between the United States and Israel, and that he could not disentangle Washington’s policy in the Middle East from the domestic electoral formula, as anything that happens here has an impact there and vice versa. But the matter might take a tremendous amount of time, as the Palestinians and the Arabs are now convinced that the peace they seek after under their present circumstances is nothing but a mirage.

Hezbollah And The "Sisterly" And "Friendly" Countries

By Tariq Alhomayed
This commentary was published in Asharq al-Awsat on 16/12/2010


My God…Hezbollah today believes that it has "sisterly" and "friendly" countries, when previously these same countries were viewed as nothing more than traitors and agents [of foreign powers]! In 2006, during an interview with the Al-Jazeera channel, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah addressed the Arab leaders saying that "I do not expect anything from certain Arab rulers…I am certain that some sons, daughters, and wives of some Arab rulers are with us. But I tell the Arab rulers, I do not want your swords and I do not even want your hearts. To say it in Lebanese slang, the only thing I want from you is to leave us alone. Sit on the fence and have nothing to do with us!" However Hezbollah MP Nawaf al-Musawi has today come out to appeal to "all sisterly and friendly countries to work to abolish the tribunal, because it will bring nothing to Lebanon except foreign control, aggression and instability!"
 
The question is, why has Hezbollah remembered its "sisterly" and "friendly" countries today? The answer is simple, and that is that Hezbollah is in real trouble; this is due to the group's own actions and has nothing to do with a conspiracy, as Hezbollah has continually asserted. This is a problem that arose after Nasrallah came out last July and said that the international tribunal would absolve Syria and accuse Hezbollah [of Hariri's assassination]. This represented the official declaration that Hezbollah was in trouble, and rather than resorting to wisdom, Hezbollah continued its policy of escalation, as the group and others played the so-called "Saudi –Syrian initiative" card. This was a gambit that Hezbollah continued to pursue day after day, even after informed Saudi Arabian and Syrian officials were asked about this [initiative] and answered that "there is no initiative."
 
However Hezbollah – whether it truly believes such an initiative exists or not – continues to talk about this initiative, particularly since there are those [in the group] that want to buy time. Even Nasrallah himself said that he "supports for the Saudi – Syrian initiative" and invited others "whether they are Iranians, Turks, Qataris, or others, to support it." This is not to mention what has been published by some Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese newspapers about this initiative, and the members of Hezbollah highlighting this [initiative] and rejecting what was put forward by Saudi Arabia [about there not being any initiative]. This fantasy even reached the Syrian President in Paris who [also] said that there is no Syrian – Saudi initiative, and that the solution to this problem would have to come from Lebanon. This is when Hezbollah woke up and remembers the "friendly" and "sisterly" countries.
 
What is certain is that Hezbollah has not learned from its mistakes, or even from its allies, for when Damascus was believed to be behind Hariri's assassination, the Syrians did not shriek or shout, and they did not threaten [anybody], rather they said that in the event of any Syrian national being implicated in this crime, he would be prosecuted in Syria. This is how, in a very simple manner, Damascus managed to leave the door open, whilst Hezbollah has escalated the situation and threatened to "cut off the hands" of anyone who tries to arrest any of its members, and today it is asking the aid of the countries that it previously insulted, and their Arab leaders.
 
Hezbollah's greatest mistake was to ignore a very important fact, and that is that it is a party [and not a country]; therefore it is asking the help of counties, however countries are held to different standards and accountability than [political] parties. Hezbollah, or indeed any party, has a narrow vision, whilst countries have to take far more into account, meaning that they must be flexible and prudent, however under pressure they are
 
Will Hezbollah realize this before it is too late, or will it continue its policy of escalation? Here's some advice to Hezbollah, as the saying goes "when you are in a hole, stop digging!"