Here's an interesting and different take on why President Obama's 'engagement' policy in Iran will fail. Israel Matzav: Why Obama's Iran policy will failMr. Obama's problem is that Mr. Khamenei could only have chosen Ahmadinejad because he does not want friendly talks with the U.S. He evidently calculates that without the ideology of "anti-Americanism" the regime would collapse. He is right.
Read All at :
If one were to assume that the Arabs did not wish to destroy the Jewish state, the main stumbling block to solving the Israeli-Arab dispute would be the 'Palestinian refugees.' This article presents itself as a recipe for resolving the 'Palestinian refugee' problem, but what it is really doing is calling the 'Palestinians' bluff. But to understand the solution, one must understand the problem. So a bit of history is in order. Israel Matzav: Calling the 'Palestinians' bluffInitially, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which administers the refugee camps, defined Palestine refugees as persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict. The camps opened in 1950, in the wake of the first Arab war to destroy Israel. The precise number of Arab refugees as a result of that war is uncertain, the estimates ranging from 450,000 to 700,000. Even experts who lean toward the higher side believe that no more than 550,000 wound up in refugee camps, since some fled to families settled in other Arab countries and fleeing Bedouin resumed their nomadic life style in Jordan.
Read All at :
It looks like President Obama may have put his foot in his mouth again by making grandiose promises without thinking through how he will fulfill them. In July, Obama told the G-8 summit that we would convene a meeting in March to discuss nuclear security. The meeting ought to include all of he world's current and aspiring nuclear powers - some 25-30 nations. But whom will Obama invite? Is Israel on the list? Israel Matzav: Obama's nuclear summitThere’s no good choice.
Invite Israel, and open its leaders up to questions about the country’s widely reported nuclear weapons program — which the Israelis have long refused to discuss.
But leave out Israel, and the Middle Eastern nations who would seem to be a necessity at any summit discussing nuclear security would feel compelled to point to Israel’s reported efforts as a source of instability in the region.
“I see this as one giant root canal which is going to be really painful for everybody who shows up — and for everybody who doesn’t,” said Aaron David Miller, a former State Department official who worked on Arab-Israeli peace negotiations under four presidents.
“Even if you try to define the summit agenda to be nuclear terrorism and nuclear security, the people you do invite are going to bring Israel to the table, figuratively speaking, anyway,” Miller said. “They’re going to need to think this through extremely carefully.”
The summit, set for March 9 and 10, is aimed at combating nuclear terrorism, which Obama has called the “most immediate and extreme threat to global security.”Read All at :
Wednesday is the day that President Obama plans to bring disgrace upon the United States by presenting the medal of freedom to anti-Jewish, anti-Israel and anti-American 'human rights activist' Mary Robinson. Giving the medal to Robinson has aroused so much fury that the fact that the medal is also being presented to South African bishop Desmond Tutu - who would also fit each of the adjectives above - has gone almost unnoticed.Durban is not the only reason Ms. Robinson should not receive the Medal of Freedom. Over the years she has actively opposed “the security or national interests of the United States,” one of the categories of eligibility for the Medal. Those in the administration who recommended her either ignored her anti-Israel history, or missed it entirely, as they either ignored or overlooked her hostility toward America’s role in promoting international peace and security. Or perhaps they share Ms. Robinson’s views.
One example, particularly significant today given the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, is Ms. Robinson’s strong opinions about the use of force. During the Clinton administration’s (and NATO’s) air campaign against Serbia because of its assault on Kosovo, for instance, she opined that “civilian casualties are human rights victims.” But her real objection was not to civilian casualties but to the bombing itself, saying “NATO remains the sole judge of what is or is not acceptable to bomb,” which she did not mean as a compliment.
In fact, Ms. Robinson wanted U.N. control over NATO’s actions: “It surely must be right for the Security Council . . . to have a say in whether a prolonged bombing campaign in which the bombers choose their target at will is consistent with the principle of legality under the Charter of the United Nations.” One wonders if this is also Mr. Obama’s view, given the enormous consequences for U.S. national security.
This February, asked whether former President George W. Bush should be prosecuted for war crimes, Ms. Robinson answered that it was “premature,” until a “process” such as an “independent inquiry” was established: “[T]hen the decision can be taken as to whether anybody will be held accountable.” In particular, she objected to the Bush administration’s “war paradigm” for dealing with terrorism, saying we actually “need to reinforce the criminal justice system.” Asked about Mr. Obama’s statements on “moving forward,” Ms. Robinson responded that “one of the ways of looking forward is to have the courage to say we must inquire.”
Ms. Robinson’s award shows Mr. Obama’s detachment from longstanding, mainstream, American public opinion on foreign policy. The administration’s tin ear to the furor over Ms. Robinson underlines how deep that detachment really is.Read All at :
Jonathan Tobin nails the reasons why Israelis have not responded favorably to President Obumbler's initiatives, and why the use of his rhetorical skills is not going to change anything. Israel Matzav: The ugly AmericanTHE IDEA here seems to be that if the Israeli people are sufficiently exposed to the charms of the American president, they will force Netanyahu to do as he has been told by Washington. However, the administration misunderstands the nature of its problem. Contrary to its belief, the Israeli people already understand Obama very well. His problem is that they don't buy what he's selling. Indeed, this decision to launch a PR campaign reminds one of stereotypically "ugly American" tourists who believe the proper response to foreigners who don't understand English is to merely speak English louder. The administration needs to win the trust of Israelis through more realistic policies, not a bigger megaphone.
Read All at :
Two months ago, MK Aryeh Eldad, who is not a member of the government, introduced a resolution in the Knesset declaring a simple truth: That the solution to the 'Palestinian' problem lies in the only country in the world with a population that has a majority of 'Palestinians.'Rocket fire from Gaza has markedly declined. The Lebanese border is quiet. Terrorist attacks from the West Bank are rare. The national airport processed a
record number of travelers in the first week of August. The currency is so strong that the central bank has bought billions of dollars to keep the exchange rate down.
Israel is flourishing this summer, and one might imagine its people and leaders to be breathing a sigh of relief after nearly a decade of violence and unease. That, however, is far from the case. On every front, Israel is worried that it is living a false calm that could explode at any moment. Its airwaves and public discourse are filled with menace and concern.
Over the past two decades, the origins of the conflict were swept under the carpet, gradually repressed as the struggle assumed the narrower shape of the post-1967 territorial tug-of-war over the West Bank and Gaza. The two protagonists, each for its own reason, along with the international community, implicitly agreed to deal with the battle’s latest, most palpable expression. Palestinians saw an opportunity to finally exercise authority over a part of their patrimony; Israelis wanted to free themselves from the burdens of occupation; and foreign parties found that it was the easier, tidier thing to do. The hope was that, somehow, addressing the status of the West Bank and Gaza would dispense with the need to address the issues that predated the occupation and could outlast it.
That so many attempts to resolve the conflict have failed is reason to be wary. It is almost as if the parties, whenever they inch toward an artful compromise over the realities of the present, are inexorably drawn back to the ghosts of the past. It is hard today to imagine a resolution that does not entail two states. But two states may not be a true resolution if the roots of this clash are ignored. The ultimate territorial outcome almost certainly will be found within the borders of 1967. To be sustainable, it will need to grapple with matters left over since 1948. The first step will be to recognize that in the hearts and minds of Israelis and Palestinians, the fundamental question is not about the details of an apparently practical solution. It is an existential struggle between two worldviews.
For years, virtually all attention has been focused on the question of a future Palestinian state, its borders and powers. As Israelis make plain by talking about the
imperative of a Jewish state, and as Palestinians highlight when they evoke the
refugees’ rights, the heart of the matter is not necessarily how to define a state of Palestine. It is, as in a sense it always has been, how to define the state of Israel.
This reads to me like an unfortunate bit of pussy-footing. Events are moving
me into the camp of people who believe there isn't an actual solution to the
Arab-Israeli conflict, and it seems as if events are moving Agha and Malley
in this direction as well. But if they're arguing that the conflict will only
end when Israel ceases to define itself as a Jewish state, they should say it
outright. It's not an appealing notion -- that there is room in the Middle East
for twenty-three Muslim-majority states, but not room enough for one Jewish
state , but they should state it if they believe it.
Though many will dismiss this piece as extremist fare, Malley has a history of being the thin edge of the wedge when it comes to anti-Israel polemics. Though the authors couch their article in terms that allow them to pose as peace advocates, what Agha and Malley are attempting to do is legitimize the theme that peace depends on the end of the Jewish state even within the 1949 armistice lines.
Justice here - the implementation of instruments of international law and respect for UN institutions (to which Israel owes its 'existential' incarnation and survival) - is not an essentially contested concept relative to any particular world-view, but carries universal precepts grounding global peace and common jurisprudence since the world started putting itself back together in 1945. The frustration of the emergence of a Palestinian state is due almost entirely to the gross delinquency of successive Israel governments and the UN Security Council in honouring the obligations of the UN's founding principles. Defaulting to the failed and destabilising formulae of partition and recidivist nationalism would constitute acknowledgement that a member state has been rewarded for wrecking the post-1945 consensus ... and it is no surprise that Israel takes all the awards in public opinion polls concerning the biggest threat to global peace.