Love of the Land: Obama Talks, Syria Mocks

Obama Talks, Syria Mocks

Elliot Abrams
The Weekly Standard
06 March '10

The Obama administration has from the start seen Syria as a leading case for engagement. Barack Obama said so during his presidential campaign (announcing he would meet Bashar al Assad without preconditions) and repeated this policy view again last summer:

We’ve started to see some diplomatic contacts between the United States and Syria. There are aspects of Syrian behavior that trouble us, and we think that there is a way that Syria can be much more constructive on a whole host of these issues. But, as you know, I’m a believer in engagement and my hope is that we can continue to see progress on that front.

The engagement with Syria continues apace. Here are the key elements.

* High level envoys have been sent to Damascus: Under Secretary of State William Burns visited Syria in mid-February, the highest ranking U.S. official to set foot there in more than five years, and Middle East envoy George Mitchell has visited three times. High-ranking Central Command officers have been sent to Damascus to discuss cooperation against terrorism.

* President Obama has now nominated an ambassador to Damascus, the first since Margaret Scobey was withdrawn in 2005 after the murder of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri in Lebanon (which was widely blamed on the Assad regime).

* The president has also removed the American block to Syria’s attempt to join the World Trade Organization.

* The United States has eased some export licenses for Syria, mostly in the area of aircraft.

* Syria’s deputy foreign minister was invited to Washington in October, the first such visit in several years.

So there is certainly “progress on that front,” to use the president’s words. But when does “engagement” become “appeasement”? The case of U.S. policy toward Syria suggests that, here at least, the two approaches may not be far apart.

Love of the Land: Obama Talks, Syria Mocks

Love of the Land: Palestinians To Israel: Instead Of A Peace Summit, How About We "Escalate Our Struggle" Instead?

Palestinians To Israel: Instead Of A Peace Summit, How About We "Escalate Our Struggle" Instead?

Omri
Mere Rhetoric
03 January '10

The awesome thing is that the two statements came out on the exact same day, a nicelypointed illustration of the differences between Israel and its partner in peace. Netanyahu proposed a reinvigorated peace summit in Egypt, and promptly got his answer:

The secular Fatah movement led by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Thursday vowed to step up its struggle against the Israeli occupation with demonstrations and diplomacy. "Our programme emphasises the importance of a two-track approach, with the first being the escalation of the popular struggle to resist occupation," the movement said in a statement. The group said it would model the struggle on the weekly demonstrations in two West Bank towns, Bilin and Nilin, where residents hurl rocks and protest against the expansion of Israel's controversial separation barrier. Fatah, which marks the 45th anniversary of the start of its armed struggle on Friday, also vowed to "increase movement on the international level to pursue Israel, to isolate it and to force it to answer to international law."

The really elegant part is how they bundled together (a) threats of Palestinian violence and (b) international efforts to delegitimize Israeli self-defense in the face of Palestinian violence ("to isolate it and to force it to answer to international law"). Only Israel's Arab enemies could be soconfidently brazen about crowing that they'll attack Israeli civilians and then whine about Israeli retaliation.

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Love of the Land: Palestinians To Israel: Instead Of A Peace Summit, How About We "Escalate Our Struggle" Instead?

Love of the Land: How Israel Must Talk

How Israel Must Talk

FresnoZionism.org

02 October 09

I recently wrote two posts — part I and part II of “How Israel must fight” — discussing the special situation of Israel fighting asymmetric wars, in a hostile political and media environment, and with the ever-present threat of intervention by outside powers.

My conclusion was this:

The primary goal, therefore, in future wars must be as complete a victory as possible: the enemy’s army must be shattered, its leadership killed or captured, its arms and installations destroyed. Victory must obtained as quickly as possible, before outside powers intervene; and it must be achieved with overwhelming force, to multiply the psychological effect. Humanitarian concerns will necessarily take a back seat.

But this same philosophy should be applied to the less-violent arena of diplomacy. Sometimes it seems as though Israeli policy is driven by so many forces other than the national interest: the desire to prove to the world how civilized Israel is, the need to mollify the US administration, and of course domestic political considerations.

For example, take the outrageous prisoner exchange demanded by Hamas for Gilad Schalit — 1000 or more terrorists including multiple murderers. Israel seems to have chosen to negotiate about which and how many prisoners will be freed in exchange; but the negotiations should be based on which and how many Hamas leaders will be executed if Schalit is not released!

The futility of the current approach was demonstrated today by Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal:

Those who were able to capture Schalit and hold him safely for more than three years are capable of capturing “Schalit and Schalit and Schalit until there was not even one prisoner in the enemy’s jails,” Mashaal said.

Another example of self-defeating policy is the suggestion by some that Israel should launch an official investigation of the charges in the Goldstone report. Is it not a forgone conclusion that any exculpatory conclusions that such an investigation might produce will be either ignored by the anti-Israel media or be slammed as biased? So what advantage is to be gained by keeping the false accusations made in the report in the public eye?

Yet another is any tendency to take seriously the absurd demands of the PA. Israel should make crystal clear that negotiations will not progress until the PA unambiguously states — in Arabic and English — that it recognizes Israel as the state of the Jewish People, and that all demands for ‘right of return’ are forever off the table.

I think that the Netanyahu government has acted more or less correctly so far, although it may not be able to resist the demands to bring Schalit home at almost any cost.

I’m hopeful that it will be able to turn around the apologetic and defeatist attitude that has characterized Israel’s diplomacy in recent years, and present to the world a picture of a nation confident of its power and legitimacy.

Love of the Land: How Israel Must Talk

Love of the Land: One Cheer for Obama's Foreign Policy

One Cheer for Obama's Foreign Policy

by Daniel Pipes
danielpipes.org
September 16, 2009

The Obama administration has established an alarmingly naïve and dangerous record on Arab-Israeli issues, leading me to worry about spectacular policy failures ahead. But it has initiated one innovative and positive policy deserving high praise.

Instead of Israel making yet more unilateral concessions to the Palestinians, in late May Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu called to "bring Arab states into the circle of peace." U.S. special envoyGeorge Mitchell and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak picked up on this and developed plans to integrate those Arab states into the diplomatic process. In mid-July, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserted that "Arab states have a responsibility … to take steps to improve relations with Israel, and to prepare their publics to embrace peace and accept Israel's place in the region."

A month later, Barack Obama declared his hope that "we are going to see not just movement from the Israelis, but also from the Palestinians around issues of incitement and security, from Arab states that show their willingness to engage Israel." According to Foreign Policy blogger Laura Rozen – later confirmed by the White House – Obama "sent letters to at least seven Arab and Gulf states seeking confidence-building measures [CBMs] toward Israel." (Those states include Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.)

In one such letter, sent on July 7 to King Mohammed VI of Morocco, Obama expressed his hope that Arab states will take steps to end Israel's "isolation" in the Middle East and that "Morocco will be a leader in bridging gaps between Israel and the Arab world." Examples of CBMs include Arab states opening trade office in Israel, allowing Israeli planes to traverse its airspace, issuing tourist visas to Israelis, and Arab officials meeting with Israeli leaders.

This appeal found a mixed Arab reception. On the positive side, Bahrain's crown prince, Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, suggested that "All sides need to take simultaneous, good-faith action if peace is to have a chance" and Jordanian foreign minister Nasser Judeh committed his government "to creating the right atmosphere" and supporting the U.S. "vision." An unnamed Arab diplomat offered that "In return for a symbolic compromise on the settlements, some Arab states will be willing to pay with some symbolic gestures."

Diplomatic smiles waned when Saudi king Abdullah "launched a tirade" at Barack Obama.

In contrast, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia rejected Obama's appeal for CBMs vis-à-vis Israel during a presidential visit in early June. Rozenreports that the Saudi monarch "launched a tirade during Obama's long meeting in Riyadh." It went so badly that Saudi officials "later apologized to the U.S. president for the king's behavior." Likewise, Egypt's foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit asked rhetorically, "Is normalization possible as long as the building in settlements continues? The answer is no, of course." Arab League chief Amr Moussa deemed it "impossible to speak of normalization when Israel rejects any significant measure."

Negative responses notwithstanding, the involvement of the Arab states that can offer benefits to Israel should limit the harm inflicted by do-gooding diplomatic "peace processors."

Almost two decades ago, in a Wall Street Journal article of June 1990, I called for including the states. I noted there a remarkable symmetry in which "Palestinians want from Israel what Israel wants from the Arab states—recognition and legitimacy. Thus, Palestinians seek concessions from Israel and Israel seeks concessions from the Arab states."

I suggested yoking together the parallel frustrations that "Israel cannot get what it wants from the Arab states, and the Palestinians cannot get what they want from Israel." The U.S. government should, I proposed, "link concessions to Israel by the Arab states with Israeli concessions to the Palestinians." That is, when the Arab states give Israel something it wants, Israelis should then—and only then—be expected to give something in turn to the Palestinians."

As an example, I proposed that when the Saudis end their economic boycott of Israel, Israelis in return increase Palestinian access to underground water on the West Bank. This balanced approach, I suggested, "places the burden of the initiative squarely on the Arab states—where it should be."

After the long, sterile, and counterproductive detour of exclusively Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, it is gratifying to see an attempt finally to bring the Arab states into the negotiations. I still maintain that thePalestinians need be defeated before negotiations can usefully take place, but involving the Arab states improves the balance and reduces the potential for damage.

Love of the Land: One Cheer for Obama's Foreign Policy

Israel Matzav: The diplomacy of wishful thinking

The diplomacy of wishful thinking

Mona Charen has a great article in Friday's edition of the National Review Online:

President Obama presumably wants Israel to uproot the 300,000 Jewish settlers who live in the West Bank to make way for a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. This is the “solution” to the Palestinian question that has been endorsed, formally and informally, by the last three presidents and most of the foreign ministries in the world. It has even been endorsed by many Israelis, including former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, who offered 95 percent of the West Bank and all of Gaza to Yasser Arafat.

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Israel Matzav: The diplomacy of wishful thinking