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Paul Merrell

Senators: Palestinian Authority's Decision To Join International Criminal Court is Depl... - 0 views

www.lgraham.senate.gov/...index.cfm

war & peace Israel Palestine ICC senators Israel-firsters

shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey), Chuck Schumer (D-New York), and Mark Kirk (R-Illinois) today made this statement on the Palestinian Authority's (PA) decision to join the International Criminal Court (ICC). "The Palestinian Authority's (PA) decision to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) is deplorable, counterproductive, and will be met with a strong response by the United States Congress. "Israel, like the United States, is not a member of the ICC and therefore is not subject to its jurisdiction. Further, existing U.S. law makes clear that if the Palestinians initiate an ICC judicially authorized investigation, or actively support such an investigation, all economic assistance to the PA must end. In light of this legal requirement, Congress will reassess its support for assistance to the PA and seek additional ways to make clear to President Abbas that we strongly oppose his efforts to seek membership in the ICC. If the ICC makes the egregious mistake of accepting the Palestinian Authority as a member, given that it is not a state, Congress will seek ways to protect Israeli citizens from politically abusive ICC actions. "Palestinian leaders will no doubt try to do to the ICC what they have done to international organizations like the UN Human Rights Council - take an organization with laudable goals and undermine its credibility by turning it into a political battering ram against Israel. The ICC and its members would be making a terrible mistake if they allow their important global role to be compromised.
  • "Today there is no viable Palestinian state, and nothing will bring about that goal other than direct negotiations. Rather than committing to direct negotiations with Israel for a sustainable, realistic two-state compromise, President Abbas seeks to launch unilateral, politicized investigations of Israel citizens. He would do better to commit to the exacting, demanding work of diplomacy. As an immediate demonstration of his intentions, President Abbas should end Palestinian actions to join the ICC and pledge to re-enter negotiations with Israel for an enduring, realistic solution to this ongoing conflict. We renew our calls for the Palestinian Authority to end its pact with Hamas, a recognized terror organization that is committed to Israel's destruction and whose charter calls for the murder of Jews."
  • Paul Merrell on 19 Jan 15
     
    Yes, direct negotiations with Israel has worked so well for Palestinians since Israel ejected some 750,000 of them in 1948. Not. Note that the particular group of senators who signed onto this press statement are the leading attack dogs in the U.S. Senate for the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC). 
Paul Merrell

» Meretz Head: "Netanyahu's Theory Of Running The Conflict Has Collapsed"- IM... - 0 views

imemc.org/...ing-the-conflict-has-collapsed

war & peace Israel Palestine Meretz-party 2-state-solution

shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Jul 16 - No Cached
  • Meretz Party head, Israeli Member of Knesset (MK) Zehava Gal-On, stated Saturday that the theory of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of running the conflict has failed, and added that the only solution is ending this conflict through a political solution. “Israel cannot just ignore the Quartet Committee report,” Gal-On said, “Israel must understand that the only solution to stopping the attacks and the escalation is reaching a political soliton to the conflict, and ending this occupation.” “The conflict is running us; the recent attacks and threats have proven that the calm we’ve seen was temporary,” the Israeli official said, “Netanyahu’s theory of running the conflict has completely collapsed, and now this conflict is running us.” The Israeli MK also said that what several politicians are proposing is the use of more military force, and iron fist policies that only kill hope. “What they are suggesting is not different than witchcraft and deception,” she added, “It’s like placing a small bandage on a severed hand.”
  • In its July 1st report, the Quartet Committee (UN, Russia, EU and USA) reiterated the need for a negotiated two-state solution as the only way to reach a lasting peace agreement that ensures Israel’s security and the meets the Palestinian aspirations of independence and sovereignty, by ending the occupation that began in 1967, and resolving all permanent status issues. It also denounced the “ongoing construction and expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories”, and the Palestinian Authority’s “lack of control in Gaza, and called on both Israel and the Palestinian Authority to resume meaningful negotiations that resolve all final status issues.” The Quartet Committee also called on the Israelis and Palestinians to “independently demonstrate, through policies and actions, a genuine commitment to the two-state solution and refrain from unilateral steps that prejudge the outcome of final status negotiation.”
  • Paul Merrell on 03 Jul 16
     
    Bear in mind that the "two state solution" is *only* an excuse for postponing the day of reckoning on Palestinian rights. The "solution" in its variations involves swapping territory between Israel and the State of Palestine. However, it ignores the fact that all Palestinians driven from their homes by the Zionist Jewish invaders in the 1948 era, and all Palestinians driven from their homes subsequent to Israel's occupation of the remainder of Palestine (and part of Syria) in 1967, all have a personal right of return to their homes under international law, a right that according to the Fourth Geneva Convention is not subject to negotiation by the occupying power and any government of the occupied territory. There is no lawful government power to extinguish that right. So when the Quartet calls for the "two state solution," keep in mind that it is only an excuse for continuing the occupation and Israel's colonization of Palestine. The Meretz is a minor party in Israel, combining Green-socialist-progressive traits with a Zionist agenda. See WIkipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meretz
Paul Merrell

How Netanyahu provoked this war with Gaza | +972 Magazine - 0 views

972mag.com/...93200

war & peace Palestine Israel Hamas

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • On Monday of last week, June 30, Reuters ran a story that began:Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hamas on Monday of involvement, for the first time since a Gaza war in [November] 2012, in rocket attacks on Israel and threatened to step up military action to stop the strikes. So even by Israel’s own reckoning, Hamas had not fired any rockets in the year-and-a-half since “Operation Pillar of Defense” ended in a ceasefire. (Hamas denied firing even those mentioned by Netanyahu last week; it wasn’t until Monday of this week that it acknowledged launching any rockets at Israel since the 2012 ceasefire.) So how did we get from there to here, here being Operation Protective Edge, which officially began Tuesday with 20 Gazans dead, both militants and civilians, scores of others badly  wounded and much destruction, alongside about 150 rockets flying all over Israel (but no serious injuries or property damage by Wednesday afternoon)? We got here because Benjamin Netanyahu brought us here. He’s being credited in Israel for showing great restraint in the days leading up to the big op, answering Gaza’s rockets with nothing more than warning shots and offering “quiet for quiet.” But in fact it was his antagonism toward all Palestinians – toward Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority no less than toward Hamas – that started and steadily provoked the chain reaction that led to the current misery.
  • And nobody knows this, or should know it, better than the Obama administration, which is now standing up for Israel’s “right to defend itself.” It was Netanyahu and his government that killed the peace talks with Abbas that were shepherded by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry; the Americans won’t exactly spell this out on-the-record, but they will off-the record. So a week before those negotiations’ April 29 deadline, Abbas, seeing he wasn’t getting anywhere playing ball with Israel and the United States, decided to shore things up at home, to end the split between the West Bank and Gaza, and he signed the Fatah-Hamas unity deal – with himself as president and Fatah clearly the senior partner. The world – even Washington – welcomed the deal, if warily so, saying unity between the West Bank and Gaza was a good thing for the peace process, and holding out the hope that the deal would compel Hamas to moderate its political stance. Netanyahu, however, saw red. Warning that the unity government would “strengthen terror,” he broke off talks with Abbas and tried to convince the West to refuse to recognize the emerging new Palestinian government – but he failed. He didn’t stop trying, though. At a time when Hamas was seen to be weak, broke, throttled by the new-old Egyptian regime, unpopular with Gazans, and acting as Israel’s cop in the Strip by not only holding its own fire but curbing that of Islamic Jihad and others, Netanyahu became obsessed with Hamas – and obsessed with tying it around Abbas’ neck. Netanyahu’s purpose, clearly enough, was to shift the blame for the failure of the U.S.-sponsored peace talks from himself and his government to Abbas and the Palestinians.
  • But Netanyahu used the kidnappings to go after Hamas in the West Bank. The target, as one Israeli security official said, was “anything green.” The army raided, destroyed, confiscated and arrested anybody and anything having to do with Hamas, killed some Palestinian protesters and rearrested some 60 Hamasniks who had been freed in the Gilad Shalit deal, throwing them back in prison. Meanwhile, in Gaza, Israel had already escalated matters on June 11, the day before the kidnappings, by killing not only a wanted man riding on a bicycle, but a 10-year-old child riding with him. Between that, the kidnappings a day later and the crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank that immediately followed, Gaza and Israel started going at it pretty fierce – with all the casualties and destruction, once again, on Gaza’s side only.
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  • But it wasn’t working. Then on June 12 something fell into Netanyahu’s lap which he certainly would have prevented if he’d been able to, but which he also did not hesitate exploiting to the hilt politically: the kidnapping in the West Bank of Gilad Sha’ar and Naftali Fraenkel, both 16, and Eyal Yifrah, 19. Netanyahu blamed Hamas for the kidnapping. He said he had proof. To this day, neither he nor any other Israeli official has come forward with a shred of proof. Meanwhile, it is now widely assumed that the Hamas leadership did not give the order for the kidnapping, that it was instead carried out at the behest of a renegade, Hamas-linked, Hebron clan with a long history of blowing up Hamas’ ceasefires with Israel by killing Israelis. Besides, it made no sense for Hamas leaders to order up such a spectacular crime – not after signing an agreement with Abbas, and not when they were so badly on the ropes.
  • And that was basically it. Netanyahu had given orders to smash up the West Bank and Gaza over the kidnapping of three Israeli boys that, as monstrous as it was, apparently had nothing to do with the Hamas leadership. Thus, he opened an account with Israel’s enemies, who would wish for an opportunity to close it. On June 30, the bodies of the three kidnapped Israeli boys were found in the West Bank. “Hamas is responsible, Hamas will pay,” Netanayhu intoned. That payment was delayed by the burning alive of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, 15, which set off riots in East Jerusalem and Israel’s “Arab Triangle,” and which put Israel on the defensive. It probably encouraged the armed groups in Gaza to step up their rocketing of Israel, while Netanyahu kept Israel’s in check. Then on Sunday, as many as nine Hamas men were killed in a Gazan tunnel that Israel bombed, saying it was going to be used for a terror attack. The next day nearly 100 rockets were fired at Israel. This time Hamas took responsibility for launching some of the rockets – a week after Netanyahu, for the first time since November 2012, accused it of breaking the ceasefire. And the day after that, “Operation Protective Edge” officially began. By Wednesday afternoon, there were 35 dead and many maimed in Gaza, Israelis were ducking rockets, and no one can say when or how it will end, or what further horrors lie in store.
  • Netanyahu could have avoided the whole thing. He could have chosen not to shoot up the West Bank and Gaza and arrest dozens of previously freed Hamasniks (along with hundreds of other Palestinians) over what was very likely a rogue kidnapping. Before that, he could have chosen not to stonewall Abbas for nine months of peace negotiations, and then there wouldn’t have even been a unity government with Hamas that freaked him out so badly – a reaction that was, of course, Netanyahu’s choice as well. But Israel’s prime minister is and always has been at war with the Palestinians – diplomatically, militarily and every other way; against Abbas, Hamas and all the rest – and this is what has guided his actions, and this is what provoked Hamas into going to war against Israel.
Paul Merrell

An Israeli takeover of the Palestine Authority…? - Alan Hart - 0 views

www.alanhart.net/ver-of-the-palestine-authority

war & peace Israel Palestine Egypt U.S.-foreign-policy Abbas Dahlan Palestinian-Authority

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • On the face of it that’s a silly question and the speculation it represents – that Palestinian “President” Abbas could replaced by an Israeli agent or asset – is not worthy of discussion. But before dismissing it readers might do what I did and consider two things. The first is that Mohammed Dahlan, formerly one of the most powerful Fatah leaders and almost certainly the one who administered for Israel the polonium that killed Arafat, is now putting a big effort into getting rid of Abbas by one means or another and replacing him with – guess who? – himself. In passing it is interesting to note that according to a recent report in the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv, Netanyahu’s special envoy, Yitzhak Molcho, is in a secret dialogue with Dahlan who spends his time shuttling between Cairo and the U.A.E. where he currently lives. One assumption has to be that Netanyahu is hoping that if Dahlan became “President” of the PA he would go much further than collaborator Abbas in delivering for Israel. (Also worth noting is that Dahlan speaks fluent Hebrew. He learned to do so during his 11 spells in Israeli jails between 1981 and 1986).
  • The second consideration is Israel’s track record in successfully placing its agents inside Arab institutions and organizations at very high levels.
  • My speculation (repeat speculation) is that if Mohammed Dahlan became the “President”, he would be prepared to use force as necessary to impose Israel’s terms for peace on the Palestinians. Dahlan demonstrated his enthusiasm for doing Israeli and American dirty work when, at the request of the Bush administration, he agreed to lead a military campaign to destroy Hamas after its election victory in 2006. The Bush administration provided Dahlan with money and arms and trained his Fatah fighters in a number of Arab countries. But it all went badly wrong for Dahlan and his sponsors. Hamas got wind of what Dahlan (fronting for the Bush administration and Israel) was intending and launched an Israeli-like pre-emptive strike. It destroyed Fatah’s security forces based in the Gaza Strip (which had been Dahlan’s base) and put Fatah politically out of business there. Commenting on what had happened in the Gaza Strip, Hani al-Hassan, for many years Arafat’s crisis manager and one of his two most trusted advisers, said it was “not a war between Fatah and Hamas but between Hamas and Fatah collaborators who served the Americans and the Israelis.”
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  • The Ma’ariv article I mentioned above said that Dahlan has claimed that he and not Abbas can be counted on to bring peace, and that in 2010 he reportedly sent a letter to the Obama administration in which he said, “There is no choice but to replace Abbas with someone who can deliver results.” Because Dahlan must know that Israel’s leaders are not remotely interested in peace on terms the Palestinians could accept, I think it is reasonable to assume that the result he has in mind is peace imposed on Israel’s terms – effectively a Palestinian surrender to Zionism’s will. Is a Dahlan/Israeli takeover of the PA really possible? An indication that Abbas seems to think it cannot be ruled out was his request to President Obama that he press Israel to include Marwan Barghouti in the fourth and final batch of Palestinian prisoners due to be released at the end of this month. (Prisoner release was one of the inducements to secure Abbas’s green light for Secretary of State Kerry to launch his “peace process”. But today Netanyahu is under mounting pressure from the neo-fascist tendency to the right of him to say “No” to any further prisoner releases).
  • Subsequently the Bush administration exerted heavy pressure on Abbas (which he resisted) to appoint Dahlan as his deputy. And some Palestinian officials said that the U.S. and a number of European countries had made it clear that they would like Dahlan to succeed Abbas as head of the P.A. They presumably believed then, as Netanyahu might well do today, that Dahlan as “President” would use whatever means were necessary to compel the Palestinians to make peace on Israel’s terms. Shortly after his forces were expelled from the Gaza Strip, Dahlan re-established himself in the West Bank. And thereafter tensions between his Fatah supporters and opponents grew and grew. In June 2011 he was expelled from Fatah because of the assumption that he had delivered for Israel whatever it was that poisoned Arafat. Three months later Abbas ordered a raid on Dahlan’s house and the arrest of his private armed guards. Today in exile, and consulting with his allies in Sisi’s Egypt and some Arab Gulf states as well as Israel and America, Dahlan is plotting his comeback to replace Abbas by one means or another.
  • Barghouti is by far the most popular Palestinian leader and would easily win an election to replace Abbas as “President”. And that, of course, is precisely why Israel won’t release him. So if Abbas can be bullied and bribed by Israel and the U.S. into lifting the ban on Dahlan’s return from exile to the occupied West Bank, he, Dahlan, could be in with a chance. In my view a victory for him would be the final betrayal of the Palestinian cause.
Paul Merrell

Recognizing Palestine, BDS and the survival of Israel | The Electronic Intifada - 0 views

electronicintifada.net/...14123

war & peace Israel Palestine BDS EU-recognition

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • What is happening in European parliaments? In the last month and a half, the UK House of Commons, the Spanish, French, Portuguese and Irish parliaments have all recognized Israel’s eternal “right” to be a racist state via a much-touted recognition of an alleged Palestinian state within the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the areas of Palestine Israel occupied in 1967. These moves followed the lead of Sweden’s new center-left government which decided shortly after taking office to “recognize the State of Palestine” as part of the “two-state solution.” As there is no Palestinian state to recognize within the 1967, or any other, borders, these political moves are engineered to undo the death of the two-state solution, the illusion of which had guaranteed Israel’s survival as a Jewish racist state for decades. These parliamentary resolutions in fact aim to impose a de facto arrangement that prevents Israel’s collapse and replacement with a state that grants equal rights to all its citizens and is not based on colonial and racial privileges.
  • Unlike Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who believes he can force the world to recognize a greater racist Israel that annexes the territories Israel occupied in 1967 de jure, the European parliaments are insisting that they will only guarantee Israel’s survival as a racist state within Israel’s 1948 borders and on whatever extra lands within the 1967 territories the Palestinian Authority (PA) — collaborating with Israel — agrees to concede in the form of “land swaps.” Denmark’s parliament and the European Parliament itself are the latest bodies set to consider votes guaranteeing Israel’s survival in its present form within the 1948 boundaries only. Even neutral Switzerland agreed, upon a request from the PA, to host a meeting of signatories of the Fourth Geneva Convention to discuss the 1967 Israeli occupation only. Expectedly, in addition to the Jewish settler-colony, the world’s major settler colonies — the United States, Canada, and Australia — are opposed to the meeting and will not attend.
  • The context of these steps has to do with the recent conduct of the Netanyahu government whose impatience is exposing Israel’s liberal racist politicians — those who prefer a more patient approach to achieving the very same racist political goals — to embarrassment. The situation has become so untenable that ardent American liberal Zionists led by none other than Michael Walzer, emeritus professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, have felt compelled to act. Walzer, notorious for justifying all of Israel’s conquests as “just wars,” and a group of like-minded figures calling themselves “Scholars for Israel and Palestine,” recently called on the US government to impose a travel ban on right-wing Israeli politicians who support annexation of what remains of the West Bank. Whereas successive Israeli governments have shown an unyielding determination to strengthen Israel’s right to be a racist state over all of historic Palestine, they have done so through the ruse of the “peace process,” which they were committed to maintaining for decades to come without any resolution.
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  • This strategy has worked very well for the last two decades with hardly a peep from the Palestinian Authority, which owes its very existence to this unending “process.” More recently, Hamas’ political leadership, especially the branch in Qatar, where the group’s leader Khaled Meshal is based, has also been looking for the best way to join this project. But as the ongoing Netanyahu policies of visiting horrors on the Palestinian people across all of the territories Israel controls — policies that have exposed the “peace process” for the sham it always was as well as Israel’s claim to being “democratic” as a most fraudulent one — the international consensus that Israeli liberals have built over the decades to shield Israel’s ugly reality from the world has been weakened, if not threatened with collapse altogether. Israeli liberals realize that what Netanyahu is doing is threatening their entire project and the very survival of Israel as a racist Jewish state. It is in this context that European parliaments are rushing to rescue Israel’s liberals by guaranteeing for them Israel’s survival in its racist form through recognizing a nonexistent Palestinian state “within the 1967 borders.” It is also in this context that European governments in the last year or so have begun to speak of BDS as a possible weapon they could use to threaten the Netanyahu government if it continues in its refusal to “negotiate” with the Palestinians (the Europeans use of the threat of BDS is limited to a threat of boycotting only the products of Israeli colonial settlements in the occupied territories), that is, to maintain the illusion of an ongoing “peace process.” Herein lies the dilemma for those who support BDS.
Paul Merrell

Israel to ask U.S. congressmen to halt aid to Palestinians - Diplomacy and Defense Isra... - 0 views

www.haaretz.com/...1.635316

war & peace Israel Palestine ICC Palestinian-taxes

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • After freezing the transfer of tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority, Israel is taking additional steps to punish the PA’s for its request to join the International Criminal Court at The Hague. A senior Israeli official said on Sunday Jerusalem would be contacting pro-Israel members of the U.S. Congress to ensure the enforcement of legislation stipulating that if the Palestinians initiate any action against Israel at the ICC, the State Department would have to stop American aid to the PA, which comes to some $400 million annually. The stop-gap funding bill was passed in Congress last month. Both houses of the new Congress to be seated later this month will be controlled by the Republican Party, with many key positions filled by senators and representatives who are pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian. The law regarding the Palestinians initiating action at the ICC is strongly worded and states that President Barack Obama cannot waive a decision to halt aid to the PA.
  • The U.S. administration is concerned about the ramifications of halting the financial assistance, which is liable to make it impossible for the PA to pay the salaries of tens of thousands of employees. Although Arab states have promised to provide the PA with a financial security net, the Americans believe that, as in the past, the Arab states won’t cough up the money they promised and won’t work to keep the PA afloat. Earlier Sunday, Foreign Ministry Director-General Nissim Ben Sheetrit said that Israel’s response to the Palestinian bid at the ICC would be much harsher and more comprehensive than freezing the PA’s tax revenues. Ben Sheetrit made the remarks at a conference held in Jerusalem for Israel’s envoys to Europe. “Israel is about to switch from defense to attack mode,” he said. Sheetrit said, however, that unlike in the past, Israel will not launch a wave of settlement construction in response to the Palestinian moves. He also added Israel had no interest in undermining security cooperation with the PA or to cause its collapse.
  • The security cabinet is expected to meet later in the week to decide on the new measures.   Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday that “The Palestinian Authority has chosen to launch a confrontation with Israel,” adding that Israel would not sit idly by but would respond. “We won’t let them drag Israel Defense Forces soldiers and officers to The Hague,” said Netanyahu. “The ones who must give an accounting are the heads of the Palestinian Authority, who formed an alliance with the Hamas war criminals.”
Paul Merrell

Portuguese Parliament votes for Recognition of Palestine | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...nt-votes-recognition-palestine

war & peace Palestinian-State recognition Portugal

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • The Portuguese parliament, on Friday, voted in favor of a recognition of Palestine. The vote comes against the backdrop of the 2014 Israeli – Palestinian conflict, increased tensions and violence in Israel and Palestine, and similar votes by other European countries over the past months. “A” recognition of “a” Palestine is, however, even controversial among Palestinians.  The motion in the Portuguese parliament was filed jointly, by the governing center-right majority government and the opposition Socialist Party. Speakers for both fractions stated that the vote in favor of a recognition of the Palestinian State comes within the context of a coordinated policy within the European Union.
  • The Portuguese parliament’s vote followed similar votes in other European countries. Sweden officially recognized Palestine as sovereign and independent State, which prompted Israel to recall its ambassador from the Scandinavian country’s capital Stockholm. Legislators in both Spain and in the House of Commons in the UK passed similar resolutions. On Thursday, the Upper House of the French Parliament voted in favor of the recognition of Palestine by France. The ultimate decision, however, rests with the French government of France’s ruling Socialist Party led by President Francois Hollande. The wave of recognition of Palestine by European nations followed Israel’s unprecedented bombing of Palestine’s coastal region, the Gaza Strip.
  • The wave of recognition may also have been promoted by the fact that corporate and state-sponsored media bled viewers, listeners and readers to independent media and the fact that the marked increase in users of independent media forced mainstream media to adjust their, usually, pro-Israel biased coverage.
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  • Not all Palestinian factions agree with a two-State solution. A recognition of Palestine as it is currently envisioned by the Middle East Quartet, the EU, and the Palestinian Authority would also include controversial issues like land-swaps between Israel and Palestine, the loss of the internationally guaranteed right of return of the world’s largest refugee population against what is described as “economic compensation and special privileges in the country that grants them exile”, the usurpation of Palestinian water rights, the ongoing theft of Palestinian natural gas off the coast of the Gaza Strip, and a cohort of other controversial issues which raise skepticism about “a” recognition of Palestine without at least guaranties about tangible measures against Israel in the case of non-compliance with international law.
  • Landslide in Opinion and Recognition of Palestine by UK caused by Alternative Media?
  • Paul Merrell on 13 Dec 14
     
    Mixed feelings about this: It's a well-deserved slap in the face to Israel's apartheid government. But the two-state solution has not been viable for a long time because of the illegal Israeli settlements. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement is aimed at a single-state solution with a secular government. That would still leave the Palestinian right of return to their stolen homes and lands, which cannot lawfully be abrogated by treaty or taking; it is an individual's human right under international law. When you read talk of Irael-Palestine land swaps as part of a negotiated peace, keep that in mind. Governments may lawfully swap boundaries but cannot swap land ownership and have it stand up in a court of international law. 
Paul Merrell

'If UN Recognizes Palestine, Israel Must Annex' - Inside Israel - News - Arutz Sheva - 0 views

www.israelnationalnews.com/...189177

war & peace Israel Palestine Likud Danon U.N.

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Likud Central Committee chairman Danny Danon, who is challenging Binyamin Netanyahu for leadership of the party, on Saturday night called on Israel to respond to an expected UN recognition of the Palestinian Authority (PA) as the "state of Palestine" by declaring sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. "We must clarify in the clearest terms to the world that every unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state will bring Israeli sovereignty," declared Danon in a meeting with Likud activists in Judea's Gush Etzion region.
  • Erekat announced last Friday that the UN will likely vote on Monday on a unilateral PA resolution, which demands recognition, Israeli withdrawals from eastern Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria by 2017, and prior to that a 12-month deadline for wrapping up negotiations on a final settlement. "If on this coming Monday the UN recognizes a Palestinian state, the state of Israel must respond with unilateral steps (as well), including implementing sovereignty," declared Danon.
  • Two weeks ago the European Parliament voted to recognize "Palestine," following a string of European nations voting to recognize the PA as a state - the parliamentary vote came the same day Hamas was removed from the European Union's (EU) official terrorist organization list on an alleged "technicality."
  • Paul Merrell on 28 Dec 14
     
    Benjamin Netanyahu is facing difficulties in the new Israeli election because of single-digit popularity ratings. But his Likud Party is still expected to be tapped post-election to form a new ruling coalition. Thus the world needs to worry about who is running against Netanyahu and the positions that person, Danny Danon, takes.  Here, Danon paints himself into the corner of annexing the entire West Bank as Israeli territory if the U.N. Security Council recognizes the Palestinian Authority as the "state of Palestine" in a vote expected on Monday. But he may find himself in a position where he has to face the impact of this statement.  The U.S. has been unusually elusive on whether it will exercise its veto power on the proposed Resolution, saying only that it "does not support" the Resolution, which is diplomaticspeak for "we may abstain from voting."   The Resolution, although presented by the PA, was actually drafted by the French. The EU Parliament just went on record as supporting Palestinian statehood. And there seems to be growing recognition among Israel's friends in the U.S. that the nation needs to be rescued from itself, before the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions Movement does away with the Israeli state as part of its advocated single-state solution. BDS is approaching the strength of its predecessor organization that broke the back of the apartheid state of South Africa. I would not be surprised if the resolution passes with a U.S. abstention.  If that happens, watch for extreme fireworks in Israel and Palestine. The Israeli settlers in Palestine are violent, radical, and their interests in retaining their settlements rule Israeli politics. The last published draft of the resolution sets a 2017 deadline for conclusion of peace negotiations, borders along the pre-1967 borderline, a freeze on further Israeli colonization of the West Bank, retuirn of water rights, and recognition of an independent Palestine state government.   What Israel wants,
Paul Merrell

Trump retaliates against Abbas - Middle East Monitor - 0 views

www.middleeastmonitor.com/trump-retaliates-against-abbas

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Palestinian-Authority funding negotiations UNRWA

shared by Paul Merrell on 31 Dec 17 - No Cached
  • Debkafile, an Israeli website close to the military intelligence, has reported that the Trump administration has decided to take a series of punitive measures against the Palestinian Authority (PA) after its successful campaign on Jerusalem in the UN General Assembly. In a report issued on 23 December, the Israeli website cited its sources in Washington as stating that President Trump had decided to sever contacts and relations with the PA and President Mahmoud Abbas. According to Debkafile, the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan under preparation in Washington will not be submitted to Ramallah but only to Israel and the relevant Arab governments. These steps were taken after the PA had been warned more than once, and told to drop its campaign against the Trump pronouncement on Jerusalem because of its negative impact on the region, according to the Israeli website. It added that the White House move was communicated to the PA through a third Arab party. The Israeli website further reported that the US will not publicly announce its freeze of aid to the PA. However, the administration will stop support and delay the resumption of economic projects backed by US institutions and re-examine them. President Trump also decided not to invite Palestinian officials to the White House, State Department and US Treasury, and not to receive Palestinians at the US National Security Council where they used to participate in meetings aimed at shaping US strategy in the Middle East. According to the Israeli website: “The US will halt its contributions to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA), an estimated one billion dollars per annum” and will order Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar to reduce the amount of aid provided to the Authority. While no official statements were made by the US administration or the PA, the Israeli website confirmed that US officials have informed Saeb Erekat, the PA’s chief negotiator, that there is nothing to discuss with him anymore.
  • Paul Merrell on 31 Dec 17
     
    More likely that this is actually in response to the PA's announcement that it will no longer participate in negotiations with Israel if the U.S. participates. Defunding the PA could actually advance Palestinian interests mightily since the PA has served the role as lapdog for Israel and the U.S., bringing Hamas into the role of Palestinian political leadership
Paul Merrell

Palestinian Red Crescent Society declares state of emergency in the West Bank - Mondoweiss - 0 views

mondoweiss.net/...palestinian-declares-emergency

war & peace Israel Palestine Red-Crescent emergency

shared by Paul Merrell on 08 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has declared a level 3 state of emergency in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, following the serious escalation of attacks by Israeli forces and violent settlers against Palestinians, which has included assaults and serious violations against PCRS staff and ambulances.
  • Over the weekend PRCS crews found themselves under attack from Israeli forces and violent settlers. PRCS: On Sunday the 4th of October, Israeli occupation soldiers attacked a PRCS’ ambulance in the line of duty in front of Al Quds University in Abou Diss, firing rubber bullets and tear gas grenades at it. On the 2nd of October, occupation soldiers attacked an ambulance in Al Eissawiyeh to the North of Jerusalem. They then proceeded to arrest an injured Palestinian from inside the ambulance. In Boureen (Nablus Governorate), settlers prevented a PRCS’ ambulance from discharging its humanitarian duty and smashed its windshield. The next day, five PRCS’ paramedics were beaten up by soldiers in Jerusalem. That same day, another group of soldiers attacked with their batons another PRCS’ ambulance in the Old City of Jerusalem Also on the same day, occupation soldiers severely beat another ambulance crew in Jabal Al Taweel (Al-Bireh), wounding two paramedics. They then kidnapped an injured Palestinian from inside the ambulance, firing tear gas grenades and rubber bullets at it. According to the New York Times, PRCS has reported “some 500 injuries in recent days”. This was published before “at least four Palestinians were shot by Israeli army live fire” last night, according to the International Middle East Media Center and countless more people will no doubt be injured in the coming days.
  • PRCS was officially recognized as part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement in 2006 making these assaults on their staff and crews a blatant violation of international humanitarian law as specified in the Geneva Convention. So where’s the international community in all this? PRCS rightly points out: PRCS urges the International Community, represented by the UN General Assembly and Security Council, to shoulder their responsibilities by taking the necessary steps to make Israeli occupation authorities comply with IHL provisions, and to put an end to the targeting of civilians and their properties. It calls on these parties to compel Israel to respect IHL provisions regarding the respect of medical and PRCS’ emblems, and recalls that the occupying power is obliged to protect emergency, medical and relief personnel and to facilitate their safe access to the sick and wounded. How long are they going sit there and do nothing year after year as Palestine burns? With Jerusalem at a breaking point; incitement and provocations from all quarters, fanatical civilians, extremist elected officials and an army run amok, who is going to stop them? Unfortunately is it probably not going to be the beseeching words of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society that will thrust this crisis front and center. But it’s worth asking over and over, what’s it going to take for some outside party, like the international community, to put their collective foot down? Or are we going wait until after some random fanatic or a fanatical government has destroyed Al Aqsa?
  • Paul Merrell on 08 Oct 15
     
    Getting very ugly very fast in Palestine.
Paul Merrell

Abbas signs Application for Palestinian ICC Membership - Between a Rock and a Hard Plac... - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...etween-a-rock-and-a-hard-place

war & peace Israel Palestine ICC UNSC

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • PA President Mahmoud Abbas signed the application for Palestine’s accession to the Rome Statute and the International Criminal Court (ICC). Abbas signed the application on Wednesday, in response to the UN Security Council’s rejection of a Jordanian sponsored draft resolution on Tuesday. The resolution called for a fixed timeline for the end of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
  • The rejected resolution called for a 12-months timeline for a final peace accord between Israel and Palestine and the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Palestinian territories by the end of 2017.
  • The rejected draft resolution was harshly criticized by imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, other progressive Fatah members as well as by the PFLP and others. One of the major points of contention was that the proposed draft resolution, according to its Palestinian opponents, risked waving the right of return of displaced Palestinians.
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  • Russia, China and France voted in favor of the proposed resolution while the U.S. and Australia voted against. The UK, Rwanda, Nigeria and South Korea abstained, thus preventing the necessary majority. The U.S., however, noted that it would have used its veto right as permanent Security Council member, had the draft resolution received the votes necessary for its adoption. The Palestinian Authority led by PA President Mahmoud Abbas noted that the PA would sign an application to accede to the International Criminal Court in the Rome Statute. Arguably, a Palestinian accession to the ICC would endow it with the right to lodge charges for war crimes at the ICC. Signing the Rome Statute, however, is a two-edged sword as it also makes Palestine subject to the ICC.
  • The ICC has been widely criticized for being used to enforce western geopolitical interests as well as of selective prosecution. Whether a Palestinian ICC membership would ever result in the prosecution of Israeli war crimes is highly questionable. Arguably, it more likely that the ICC would be used by non-ICC member USA to demand the prosecution of Palestinians.
Paul Merrell

Palestinians hint at end to security pact with Israel unless settlement construction st... - 0 views

www.independent.co.uk/...onstruction-stops-9352991.html

Israel Palestine security-pact

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 May 14 - No Cached
  • With Israeli-Palestinian relations deteriorating, a senior Palestinian official is warning that its security forces will stop helping the Israeli army to thwart attacks unless settlement construction in the occupied West Bank is halted. “The Israelis are undermining all agreements and keeping only the security co-ordination to the maximum,” said Yasser Abed Rabbo, an adviser to President Mahmoud Abbas and secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation executive committee.“If they pursue the same policy through continuous settlement activity, and lately though destroying the peace process they are paving the way for the destruction of what remains of our relationship – the security co-ordination.”
  • Paul Merrell on 13 May 14
     
    Palestinian President Abbas has made it clear during the last couple of months that one option being seriously considered is dissolving the State of Palestine and the Palestine Authority, forcing Israel to acknowledge its rule over Palestine. That would be the end of the so-called 2-state solution of the Palestinian Question. 
Paul Merrell

ICC launches initial inquiry into potential war crimes in Palestinian territ... - Israe... - 0 views

www.ynetnews.com/...0,7340,L-4615851,00.html

war & peace Israel Palestine Gaza ICC war-crimes-investigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court says she has opened a preliminary probe into possible war crimes in Palestinian territories. Fatou Bensouda said in a statement Friday she will conduct the preliminary examination in "full independence and impartiality."
  • Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Friday the ICC's scandalous decision intended to hurt Israel's right to defend itself from terror. "The same court which – with more than 200,000 dead in Syria – has not found cause to intervene there, or in Libya, or in other places, finds it appropriate to 'examine' the most moral military in the world, in a decision based entirely on anti-Israeli political considerations."
  • On January 1, a day before requesting ICC membership, the Palestinian government asked the prosecutors to investigate alleged crimes committed on its territory since June 13, 2014, the day three Israeli teens were kidnapped and murdered in the West Bank, leading Israel to launch a military operation in Palestinian territories.   "The office will conduct its analysis in full independence and impartiality," said the prosecution office in a statement, adding that it was a matter of "policy and practice" to open a preliminary examination after receiving such a referral.   "The case is now in the hands of the court," said Nabil Abuznaid, head of the Palestinian delegation in The Hague. "It is a legal matter now and we have faith in the court system."
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  • Official sources in Jerusalem said "Israel categorically denies the announcement by the prosecutor on the opening of a preliminary examination based on the scandalous request by the Palestinian Authority."   "The PA is not a country and thus there is no cause for the court, even accords to its rules, to undertake such an inquiry. The decision is absurd, even more so given that the PA cooperates with terror organization Hamas, which commits war crimes against Israel – who is fighting terror," added the sources.   Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki welcomed the move and said the Palestinian Authority would cooperate.
Paul Merrell

Trump Walks Back Promise To Move Israeli Embassy To Jerusalem - 0 views

www.mintpressnews.com/...224835

war & peace Trump U.S.-foreign-policy Israel Palestine U.S.-embassy Jerusalem

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • Following a flurry of regional concern about the possibility, and the direct intervention of the King Abdullah of Jordan, the Trump Administration has sent a message to the Palestinian Authority to assure them that they will not be moving the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The Trump campaign made much of its intention to move the US Embassy in the lead-up to the election, though official comments have not been nearly so cut and dry since the vote, with officials saying they were very early in the decision making process. Top Trump Administration officials also reportedly spoke with Palestinian leadership in recent days on issues beyond the embassy, assuring them of the American position on Israel’s settlement expansion. Administration officials have criticized the settlement growth, though Israeli officials have so far spun this as a “green light” to keep building. Even beyond this, officials say that President Trump is expected to personally brief Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas following his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, another attempt that seems designed to assure the Palestinians that the US is trying to get the peace process going.
  • Paul Merrell on 13 Feb 17
     
    A sign of intelligence taking hold in The White House. The Mideast would have erupted had the embassy been moved to Jerusalem
Paul Merrell

Israel: No proof to try 'terrorists' for arson attack - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...on-attack-151215135601525.html

war & peace Israel Palestine arson-attack litigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • srael's defence minister said on Tuesday there was not enough evidence to prosecute the suspects in a deadly arson attack on a Palestinian home in the occupied West Bank in July. Moshe Yaalon told army radio he considered the firebomb attack in the village of Duma - which killed a toddler and his parents and left another child severely burned - a "Jewish terrorist act".
  • He added, however, evidence was still lacking nearly five months after the July 31 firebombing, despite the recent arrests of suspects in the case.
  • "We know who is responsible for this terrorist act, but do not have enough proof yet to try them," Yaalon said. Israel has come under heavy pressure to try those responsible for the deadly firebombing, with rights groups questioning the slow pace of investigations and contrasting it to the swift reaction often following alleged Palestinian attacks. On December 3, Israeli authorities said they had arrested a number of Jewish suspects over the attack. They have not been publicly identified and there has been no indication they have been charged. "Indictments are a rarity when Israeli soldiers or settlers resort to violence against Palestinians and investigations can last for years before being closed, absolving perpetrators of any wrongdoing," Brad Parker, attorney and international advocacy officer at Defence for Children International - Palestine, told Al Jazeera after the arrests.
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  • Eighteen-month-old Ali Saad Dawabsheh and his parents were killed in the attacks. The couple's four-year-old son was the sole survivor. A Star of David and the words "revenge" and "long live the Messiah" in Hebrew were spray-painted on a wall near the family's small house. The attack drew renewed attention to Jewish extremism and accusations that Israel had not done enough to prevent such violence.
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Dec 15
     
    Of course had it been an arson attack on a Jewish family by Palestinians, the Palestinians would have been summarily executed and their families punished by bulldozing their homes.
Paul Merrell

176 nations at UN call for Palestinian statehood - Arab-Israeli Conflict - Jerusalem Post - 0 views

www.jpost.com/...r-Palestinian-statehood-518535

war & peace Palestine Israel Occupation natural-resources

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Dec 17 - No Cached
  • he General Assembly voted 176-7 on Tuesday to affirm the Palestinian right to self-determination, one day after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas pledged to renew his quest for state membership in the international body.The vote is nonbinding and has no impact beyond underscoring international support for Palestinian statehood among most of the UN’s 193 members.
  • The United States, Canada and Israel were among the seven that opposed the text; four states abstained.While the General Assembly approves a similar text each year, PLO Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said this year’s vote had to be seen within the context of international opposition to US President Donald Trump’s declaration that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
  • It is one of a number of moves the Palestinians are taking at the UN this week to underscore their claim that Israel and the US are isolated on the world stage when it comes to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.On Wednesday, the General Assembly will vote on a resolution stipulating the right of the Palestinian people to their natural resources in “occupied territory,” Mansour added. This includes the West Bank and east Jerusalem.But the PLO needs Security Council approval to become a UN member state, which means that the US can block its momentum.The PLO is seeking a way to circumvent the US; to date there are few UN organs that provide an alternative to a Security Council vote.The primary organ for neutralizing the Security Council is the General Assembly’s Uniting for Peace Resolution 377A, approved in 1950 to neutralize the Soviet Union’s power at the Security Council, which at the time was blocking action on Korea.Since then, the General Assembly has held 10 emergency session under Resolution 377A, half of which have been about Israel.The last one was opened in 1997 over Israeli construction in Jerusalem’s Har Homa neighborhood, located over the Green Line. Eighteen General Assembly meetings have been held under that session’s title.The last such emergency session was in 2009, regarding the IDF’s Operation Cast Lead against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Paul Merrell

ICC Threats: Worst-Case Scenario for Israel and PA - Global Agenda - News - Arutz Sheva - 0 views

www.israelnationalnews.com/...189378

war & peace Israel Palestine ICC Shurat-HaDin lawfare

shared by Paul Merrell on 07 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Abbas pledged to join the ICC and lodge charges against Israel there. On Wednesday evening he took the first step, signing the request along with applications to join 20 other international conventions during a meeting broadcast live on PA television, despite US criticism. Speaking to Arutz Sheva, Shurat Hadin legal center's director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner said that if Abbas follows through on his threats, the PA's case would likely center around alleged war crimes committed by the IDF during the past summer's war with Gazan terrorists, as well as "settlement-building" - a euphemism for any Jewish communities built in Judea, Samaria, and large parts of Jerusalem. The veteran attorney and legal campaigner warns that if such a case is launched the prospects for Israel are bleak. "Israel will of course try to defend itself, but chances are they will lose. And if they lose and they're convicted for war crimes, it would be a game-changer. It would drop Israel to the bottom tier internationally," she said.
  • The ICC has faced serious criticism over the years for only focusing on "third-world" countries, and particularly the African continent, (since its founding in 1998 all eight cases handled by the ICC have been in African states,) and there is heavy pressure for the court to also try a "western" or allied country as well to dispel those allegations. "They need to take a different type of case, and they would gladly take upon themselves the Arab-Israeli conflict... it's a more interesting and sexier issue to be involved with, and there is tremendous pressure from countries all over the world for the court to get involved." Despite that pressure, until now the ICC has been unable to get involved due to a lack of jurisdiction.
  • But could the move be a blessing in disguise, providing Israel with an opportunity to decisively knock down the many allegations against it in the international arena - including both the legality of "settlements" and alleged war crimes - once and for all? "No, this is a biased court," Darshan-Leitner answers bluntly. "Of course Israel will bring international legal experts and explain why the territories (Judea-Samaria) are only disputed, not occupied, and how Jordan never had a right to them in the first place, for example - but Europe, and many other countries, have a different perspective," and it's from that political perspective that the ICC will analyse the case. "Once Israel is charged with war crimes it's the 'end of the game' - that's why Israel should do whatever it can not to be charged." If found guilty, "Israel would have to extradite to the court those individuals or officials, IDF commanders, etc, who will be individually charged for war crimes. Israel will obviously refuse to do so - Israel is not insane, so it's not going to extradite its own people to be blamed for war crimes - and then as a result Israel will be sanctioned... then there will be a real boycott against Israel from the court's member states.
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  • Speaking to Arutz Sheva, Shurat Hadin legal center's director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner said that if Abbas follows through on his threats, the PA's case would likely center around alleged war crimes committed by the IDF during the past summer's war with Gazan terrorists, as well as "settlement-building" - a euphemism for any Jewish communities built in Judea, Samaria, and large parts of Jerusalem. The veteran attorney and legal campaigner warns that if such a case is launched the prospects for Israel are bleak. "Israel will of course try to defend itself, but chances are they will lose. And if they lose and they're convicted for war crimes, it would be a game-changer. It would drop Israel to the bottom tier internationally," she said. Darshan-Leitner emphasizes that her pessimistic prediction is not borne out of a lack of confidence in Israel's legal position. On the contrary, she believes Israel can - and would - make a very strong defense case on either issue were it forced to do so. The problem, she says, is a political one.
  • "In addition, the court will issue arrest warrants against those individuals; Interpol will make it international and those people won't be able to leave the country - it will snowball." There is hope, however. If the ICC is Abbas's "doomsday weapon", Israel's hope lies in deterrence. "That's what were working on."
  • Indeed, Shurat HaDin has already threatened a "tsunami" of prosecutions if the PA chooses to file charges against Israel at the ICC. The NGO has already made good on its threats following unilateral actions by the PA in recent months, launching charges against Mahmoud Abbas himself as well as Hamas's Qatar-based terror chief Khaled Meshaal - both of whom are Jordanian citizens and thus already covered by the ICC's jurisdiction. Should the PA succeed in joining the Court, Shurat HaDin is already preparing a long list of other Palestinian leaders to target with a wide range of charges. "It could be crimes committed during the Intifada against Israelis - all the suicide bombings, all the drive-by shooting attacks. All the heads of the different armed factions have superior liability over what was done by their forces," Darshan-Leitner explains. "And there are also crimes committed against the Palestinian people themselves," from torture to public executions and the use of human shields, she adds. But won't the ICC just dismiss such cases for the same political reasons she cited?
  • "Nobody knows for sure - and that's why it's a deterrent for the Palestinians, because they don't know how the court will take these cases. I find it hard to believe though that the court would agree to prosecute Israel and not the Palestinians." But she cautions that, even though Palestinian leaders will also likely end up in the dock, it wouldn't undo the damage done to Israel. Short of coaxing the Palestinian Authority back to the negotiating table, the only way to stave off an ICC prosecution would be via a combination of threats of counter-prosecution, and concerted political pressure. "The US has threatened to cut all funding to the PA and even UNRWA if they go through with such a move, and obviously Israel will cut off all funding as well," she notes. "And the Palestinian Authority relies almost entirely on American and Israeli funding." The many vocal backers of the PA such as Arab states and the European Union have a poor track record of coughing up the goods, "so if that happens it will essentially collapse." With those considerations in mind, an ICC prosecution is Abbas's "weapon of last resort." And it appears the only real deterrent Israel currently holds in the threat of mutually-assured destruction.
  • Paul Merrell on 07 Jan 15
     
    Note that according to a leaked U.S. State Dept. cable on Wikileaks, Ms. Darshan-Leitner confessed to officials of the U.S. Embassy that Shurat HaDin has "accepted direction" from the Israeli government and works closely with Mossad. https://cablegatesearch.wikileaks.org/cable.php?id=07TELAVIV2636
Paul Merrell

Responding to Failure: Reorganizing U.S. Policies in the Middle East | Middle East Poli... - 0 views

mepc.org/...nizing-us-policies-middle-east

war & peace Mideast Israel Arabs Shia-nations U.S.-foreign-policy recommendations

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • I want to speak with you today about the Middle East. This is the region where Africa, Asia, and Europe come together. It is also the part of the world where we have been most compellingly reminded that some struggles cannot be won, but there are no struggles that cannot be lost. It is often said that human beings learn little useful from success but can learn a great deal from defeat. If so, the Middle East now offers a remarkably rich menu of foreign-policy failures for Americans to study. • Our four-decade-long diplomatic effort to bring peace to the Holy Land sputtered to an ignominious conclusion a year ago. • Our unconditional political, economic, and military backing of Israel has earned us the enmity of Israel’s enemies even as it has enabled egregiously contemptuous expressions of ingratitude and disrespect for us from Israel itself.
  • • Our attempts to contain the Iranian revolution have instead empowered it. • Our military campaigns to pacify the region have destabilized it, dismantled its states, and ignited ferocious wars of religion among its peoples. • Our efforts to democratize Arab societies have helped to produce anarchy, terrorism, dictatorship, or an indecisive juxtaposition of all three. • In Iraq, Libya, and Syria we have shown that war does not decide who’s right so much as determine who’s left. • Our campaign against terrorism with global reach has multiplied our enemies and continuously expanded their areas of operation. • Our opposition to nuclear proliferation did not prevent Israel from clandestinely developing nuclear weapons and related delivery systems and may not preclude Iran and others from following suit.
  • • At the global level, our policies in the Middle East have damaged our prestige, weakened our alliances, and gained us a reputation for militaristic fecklessness in the conduct of our foreign affairs. They have also distracted us from challenges elsewhere of equal or greater importance to our national interests. That’s quite a record.
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  • One can only measure success or failure by reference to what one is trying achieve. So, in practice, what have U.S. objectives been? Are these objectives still valid? If we’ve failed to advance them, what went wrong? What must we do now to have a better chance of success? Our objectives in the Middle East have not changed much over the course of the past half century or more. We have sought to 1. Gain acceptance and security for a Jewish homeland from the other states and peoples of the region; 2. Ensure the uninterrupted availability of the region’s energy supplies to sustain global and U.S. security and prosperity; 3. Preserve our ability to transit the region so as to be able to project power around the world; 4. Prevent the rise of a regional hegemon or the deployment of weapons of mass destruction that might threaten any or all of these first three objectives; 5. Maximize profitable commerce; and 6. Promote stability while enhancing respect for human rights and progress toward constitutional democracy. Let’s briefly review what’s happened with respect to each of these objectives. I will not mince words.
  • Israel has come to enjoy military supremacy but it remains excluded from most participation in its region’s political, economic, and cultural life. In the 67 years since the Jewish state was proclaimed, Israel has not made a single friend in the Middle East, where it continues to be regarded as an illegitimate legacy of Western imperialism engaged in racist removal of the indigenous population. International support for Israel is down to the United States and a few of the former colonial powers that originally imposed the Zionist project on the Arabs under Sykes-Picot and the related Balfour Declaration. The two-state solution has expired as a physical or political possibility. There is no longer any peace process to distract global attention from Israel’s maltreatment of its captive Arab populations. After years of deference to American diplomacy, the Palestinians are about to challenge the legality of Israel’s cruelties to them in the International Criminal Court and other venues in which Americans have no veto, are not present, or cannot protect the Jewish state from the consequences of its own behavior as we have always been able to do in the past. Israel’s ongoing occupation of the West Bank and siege of Gaza are fueling a drive to boycott its products, disinvest in its companies, and sanction its political and cultural elite. These trends are the very opposite of what the United States has attempted to achieve for Israel.
  • In a stunning demonstration of his country’s most famous renewable resource — chutzpah — Israel’s Prime Minister chose this very moment to make America the main issue in his reelection campaign while simultaneously transforming Israel into a partisan issue in the United States. This is the very opposite of a sound survival strategy for Israel. Uncertainties about their country’s future are leading many Israelis to emigrate, not just to America but to Europe. This should disturb not just Israelis but Americans, if only because of the enormous investment we have made in attempts to gain a secure place for Israel in its region and the world. The Palestinians have been silent about Mr. Netanyahu’s recent political maneuvers. Evidently, they recall Napoleon’s adage that one should never interrupt an enemy when he is making a mistake. This brings me to an awkward but transcendently important issue. Israel was established as a haven from anti-Semitism — Jew hatred — in Europe, a disease of nationalism and Christian culture that culminated in the Holocaust. Israel’s creation was a relief for European Jews but a disaster for the Arabs of Palestine, who were either ethnically cleansed by European Jewish settlers or subjugated, or both.  But the birth of Israel also proved tragic for Jews throughout the Middle East — the Mizrahim. In a nasty irony, the implementation of Zionism in the Holy Land led to the introduction of European-style anti-Semitism — including its classic Christian libels on Jews — to the region, dividing Arab Jews from their Muslim neighbors as never before and compelling them to join European Jews in taking refuge in Israel amidst outrage over the dispossession of Palestinians from their homeland. Now, in a further irony, Israel’s pogroms and other injustices to the Muslim and Christian Arabs over whom it rules are leading not just to a rebirth of anti-Semitism in Europe but to its globalization.
  • The late King `Abdullah of Saudi Arabia engineered a reversal of decades of Arab rejectionism at Beirut in 2002. He brought all Arab countries and later all 57 Muslim countries to agree to normalize relations with Israel if it did a deal — any deal — with the Palestinians that the latter could accept. Israel spurned the offer. Its working assumption seems to be that it does not need peace with its neighbors as long as it can bomb and strafe them. Proceeding on this basis is not just a bad bet, it is one that is dividing Israel from the world, including Jews outside Israel. This does not look like a story with a happy ending. It’s hard to avoid the thought that Zionism is turning out to be bad for the Jews. If so, given the American investment in it, it will also have turned out to be bad for America. The political costs to America of support for Israel are steadily rising. We must find a way to divert Israel from the largely self-engineered isolation into which it is driving itself, while repairing our own increasing international ostracism on issues related to Israel.  
  • Despite Mr. Netanyahu’s recent public hysteria about Iran and his efforts to demonize it, Israel has traditionally seen Iran’s rivalry with the Arabs as a strategic asset. It had a very cooperative relationship with the Shah. Neither Israelis nor Arabs have forgotten the strategic logic that produced Israel's entente with Iran. Israel is very much on Daesh’s list of targets, as is Iran. For now, however, Israel’s main concern is the possible loss of its nuclear monopoly in the Middle East. Many years ago, Israel actually did what it now accuses Iran of planning to do. It clandestinely developed nuclear weapons while denying to us and others that it was doing so. Unlike Iran, Israel has not adhered to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or subjected its nuclear facilities to international inspection. It has expressed no interest in proposals for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East. It sees its ability to bring on nuclear Armageddon as the ultimate guarantee of its existence.
  • To many, Israel now seems to have acquired the obnoxious habit of biting the American hand that has fed it for so long. The Palestinians have despaired of American support for their self-determination. They are reaching out to the international community in ways that deliberately bypass the United States. Random acts of violence herald mayhem in the Holy Land. Daesh has proclaimed the objective of erasing the Sykes-Picot borders and the states within them. It has already expunged the border between Iraq and Syria. It is at work in Lebanon and has set its sights on Jordan, Palestine, and Israel. Lebanon, under Saudi influence, has turned to France rather than America for support. Hezbollah has intervened militarily in Iraq and Syria, both of whose governments are close to Iran. Egypt and Turkey have distanced themselves from the United States as well as from each other. Russia is back as a regional actor and arms supplier. The Gulf Arabs, Egypt, and Turkey now separately intervene in Libya, Syria, and Iraq without reference to American policy or views. Iran is the dominant influence in Iraq, Syria, parts of Lebanon, and now Yemen. It has boots on the ground in Iraq. And now Saudi Arabia seems to be organizing a coalition that will manage its own nuclear deterrence and military balancing of Ir
  • To describe this as out of control is hardly adequate. What are we to do about it? Perhaps we should start by recalling the first law of holes — “when stuck in one, stop digging.” It appears that “don’t just sit there, bomb something” isn’t much of a strategy. When he was asked last summer what our strategy for dealing with Daesh was, President Obama replied, “We don’t yet have one.” He was widely derided for that. He should have been praised for making the novel suggestion that before Washington acts, it should first think through what it hopes to accomplish and how best to do it. Sunzi once observed that “tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." America’s noisy but strategy-free approach to the Middle East has proven him right. Again the starting point must be what we are trying to accomplish. Strategy is "the discipline of achieving desired ends through the most efficient use of available means" [John Lewis Gaddis].Our desired ends with respect to the Middle East are not in doubt. They have been and remain to gain an accepted and therefore secure place for Israel there; to keep the region's oil and gas coming at reasonable prices; to be able to pass through the area at will; to head off challenges to these interests; to do profitable business in the markets of the Middle East; and to promote stability amidst the expansion of liberty in its countries. Judging by results, we have been doing a lot wrong. Two related problems in our overall approach need correction. They are “enablement” and the creation of “moral hazard.” Both are fall-out from  relationships of codependency.
  • Enablement occurs when one party to a relationship indulges or supports and thereby enables another party’s dysfunctional behavior. A familiar example from ordinary life is giving money to a drunk or a drug addict or ignoring, explaining away, or defending their subsequent self-destructive behavior.  Moral hazard is the condition that obtains when one party is emboldened to take risks it would not otherwise take because it knows another party will shoulder the consequences and bear the costs of failure. The U.S.-Israel relationship has evolved to exemplify codependency. It now embodies both enablement and moral hazard. U.S. support for Israel is unconditional.  Israel has therefore had no need to cultivate relations with others in the Middle East, to declare its borders, or to choose peace over continued expansion into formerly Arab lands. Confidence in U.S. backing enables Israel to do whatever it likes to the Palestinians and its neighbors without having to worry about the consequences. Israel is now a rich country, but the United States continues to subsidize it with cash transfers and other fiscal privileges. The Jewish state is the most powerful country in the Middle East. It can launch attacks on its neighbors, confident that it will be resupplied by the United States. Its use of U.S. weapons in ways that violate both U.S. and international law goes unrebuked. 41 American vetoes in the United Nations Security Council have exempted Israel from censure and international law. We enable it to defy the expressed will of the international community, including, ironically, our own.
  • We Americans are facilitating Israel's indulgence in denial and avoidance of the choices it must make if it is not to jeopardize its long-term existence as a state in the Middle East. The biggest contribution we could now make to Israel's longevity would be to ration our support for it, so as to cause it to rethink and reform its often self-destructive behavior. Such peace as Israel now enjoys with Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinians is the direct result of tough love of this kind by earlier American administrations. We Americans cannot save Israel from itself, but we can avoid killing it with uncritical kindness. We should support Israel when it makes sense to do so and it needs our support on specific issues, but not otherwise. Israel is placing itself and American interests in jeopardy. We need to discuss how to reverse this dynamic.
  • Moral hazard has also been a major problem in our relationship with our Arab partners. Why should they play an active role in countering the threat to them they perceive from Iran, if they can get America to do this for them? Similarly, why should any Muslim country rearrange its priorities to deal with Muslim renegades like Daesh when it can count on America to act for it? If America thinks it must lead, why not let it do so? But responsible foreign and defense policies begin with self-help, not outsourcing of military risks. The United States has the power-projection and war-fighting capabilities to back a Saudi-led coalition effort against Daesh. The Saudis have the religious and political credibility, leadership credentials, and diplomatic connections to organize such an effort. We do not. Since this century began, America has administered multiple disappointments to its allies and friends in the Middle East, while empowering their and our adversaries. Unlike the Gulf Arabs, Egypt, and Turkey, Washington does not have diplomatic relations with Tehran. Given our non-Muslim identity, solidarity with Israel, and recent history in the Fertile Crescent, the United States cannot hope to unite the region’s Muslims against Daesh.  Daesh is an insurgency that claims to exemplify Islam as well as a governing structure and an armed force. A coalition led by inhibited foreign forces, built on papered-over differences, and embodying hedged commitments will not defeat such an insurgency with or without boots on the ground.
  • When elections have yielded governments whose policies we oppose, we have not hesitated to conspire with their opponents to overthrow them. But the results of our efforts to coerce political change in the Middle East are not just failures but catastrophic failures. Our policies have nowhere produced democracy. They have instead contrived the destabilization of societies, the kindling of religious warfare, and the installation of dictatorships contemptuous of the rights of religious and ethnic minorities. Frankly, we have done a lot better at selling things, including armaments, to the region than we have at transplanting the ideals of the Atlantic Enlightenment there. The region’s autocrats cooperate with us to secure our protection, and they get it. When they are nonetheless overthrown, the result is not democracy or the rule of law but socio-political collapse and the emergence of  a Hobbesian state of nature in which religious and ethnic communities, families, and individuals are able to feel safe only when they are armed and have the drop on each other. Where we have engineered or attempted to engineer regime change, violent politics, partition, and ethno-religious cleansing have everywhere succeeded unjust but tranquil order. One result of our bungled interventions in Iraq and Syria is the rise of Daesh. This is yet another illustration that, in our efforts to do good in the Middle East, we have violated the principle that one should first do no harm.
  • Americans used to believe that we could best lead by example. We and those in the Middle East seeking nonviolent change would all be better off if America returned to that tradition and forswore ideologically motivated hectoring and intervention. No one willingly follows a wagging finger. Despite our unparalleled ability to use force against foreigners, the best way to inspire them to emulate us remains showing them that we have our act together. At the moment, we do not. In the end, to cure the dysfunction in our policies toward the Middle East, it comes down to this. We must cure the dysfunction and venality of our politics. If we cannot, we have no business trying to use an 8,000-mile-long screwdriver to fix things one-third of the way around the world. That doesn’t work well under the best of circumstances. But when the country wielding the screwdriver has very little idea what it’s doing, it really screws things up.
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Mar 15
     
    Chas Freeman served as US ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the war to liberate Kuwait and as Assistant Secretary of Defense from 1993-94. He was the editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on "diplomacy" and is the author of five books, including "America's Misadventures in the Middle East" and "Interesting Times: China, America, and the Shifting Balance of Prestige."  I have largely omitted highlighting portions of the speech dealing with Muslim nations because Freeman has apparently lost touch with the actual U.S., Saudi, UAE, Kuwait, and Turish roles in creating and expanding ISIL. But his analysis of Israel's situation and recommendations for curing it seem quite valid, as well as his overall Mideast recommendation to heed the First Law of Holes: "when stuck in one, stop digging."   I recommend reading the entire speech notwithstanding his misunderstanding of ISIL. There is a lot of very important history there ably summarized.
Paul Merrell

Israel election: Binyamin Netanyahu rules out Palestinian state if he wins | World news... - 1 views

www.theguardian.com/...opinion-polls-as-voting-begins

war & peace Palestine Israel Netanyahu 2-state-solution

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Israel’s prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has unequivocally ruled out the establishment of a Palestinian state as he vowed to strengthen construction of settlements in occupied east Jerusalem should he be re-elected on Tuesday. Netanyahu’s comments reinforced his hardening message of recent days and confirmed his final abandonment of his at best tepid commitment to a two-state solution designed to see the creation of an independent Palestinian state. His remarks were made in an interview with a website owned by US casino magnate Sheldon Adelson - Netanyahu’s biggest backer - and were being viewed by his political opponents as a last-ditch effort to sway voters away from the rival far-right Jewish Home party of Naftali Bennett.
  • “I think that anyone who moves to establish a Palestinian state and evacuate territory gives territory away to radical Islamist attacks against Israel,” Netanyahu said. “The left has buried its head in the sand time and after time and ignores this, but we are realistic and understand.” When asked if that meant a Palestinian state would not be established if he is elected, Netanyahu replied: “Indeed.” While his remarks will be seen in large part as election rhetoric designed to cement his standing with his country’s hard right at a time when Netanyahu has been struggling in his campaign, they will further strain relations with the US and other key allies should he win a third consecutive term.
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Mar 15
     
    We probably won't know for a few days because the vote is so close in early returns, but there's broad agreement nonetheless that Netanyahu's Likud Party is in the best position to form the new ruling coalition. So most likely, Netanyahu continues as Israel's PM. If he remains as PM, I see no way that Obama and the U.N. Security Council can duck making a response that is more than a wrist slap and fairly swiftly. This will set the Muslim world afire and ramp up the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment movement enormously both in the E.U. and the U.S. I'd guess that unless Obama decides to get out ahead of the global reaction, the first action will be taken by individual European nations imposing labeling on all imports originating from Israeli settlements and very conceivably economic sanctions againt Israeli imports. That's likely to mushroom fairly quickly to E.U. action. Netanyahu's statements also robs the Israel Lobby in the U.S. of its "negotiated solution" script that has been their bedrock sound-bite since the 1970s. I've linked The Guardian article because it includes the most outrageous quotes, but this has broken into mainsream U.S. media. You can watch the video (with English subtitles) at The New York Times. . I'll add some more in a comment.   I've b  Barring a blunt repudiation of his promise that there would be no two-state solution (which Netanyahu will not do without a gun aimed at his head) neither Israel nor the U.S. will be able to maintain the fig leaf of a negotiated agreement between Israel and the Palestine LIberation Authority establishing a Palestinian state. 
Paul Merrell

A perfect storm brews in the Middle East - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...storm-brews-in-the-middle-east

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Iranian-nukes-myth Israel leaks

shared by Paul Merrell on 18 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • Mistrust between the Obama administration and Benjamin Netanyahu has widened even further in recent days because of U.S. suspicion that the Israeli prime minister has authorized leaks of details about the U.S. nuclear talks with Iran.
  • The decision to reduce the exchange of sensitive information about the Iran talks was prompted by concerns that Netanyahu’s office had given Israeli journalists sensitive details of the U.S. position, including a U.S. offer to allow Iran to enrich uranium with 6,500 or more centrifuges as part of a final deal. Obama administration officials believed these reports were misleading because the centrifuge numbers are part of a package that includes the size of the Iranian nuclear stockpile and the type of centrifuges that are allowed to operate. A deal that allowed 500 advanced centrifuges and a large stockpile of enriched uranium might put Iran closer to making a bomb than one that permitted 10,000 older machines and a small stockpile, the administration argues.
  • An initial report Sunday by Israel’s Channel 2 news that the administration had cut all communications with Israel about the Iran talks was denied by White House spokesman Alistair Baskey. Sources here said that Philip Gordon, the Middle East director for President Obama’s National Security Council, would see Israeli national security adviser Yossi Cohen and other senior officials on Monday. The discussion would include Iran policy, but U.S. officials aren’t likely to share the latest information about U.S. strategy in the talks.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Then came the alleged leaks about the nuclear talks. On Jan. 31, the Times of Israel reported that an unnamed senior Israeli official had told Channel 10 TV news that the United States was ready to allow more than 7,000 centrifuges and had “agreed to 80 percent of Iran’s demands.” Channel 2 reported that the U.S. offer was 6,500 centrifuges. U.S. officials believed that Netanyahu’s office was the source of these reports and concluded that they couldn’t be as transparent as before with the Israel leader about the secret talks. Asked for comment, an official in Netanyahu’s office said: “The details of the last round of negotiations are known in Washington, Paris, London, Moscow, Beijing, Berlin and Tehran. It is perplexing that a decision would be made to try to keep those details a secret from Jerusalem when Israel is threatened by Iran with annihilation and its very survival could be threatened by a bad deal.”
  • Iran policy isn’t the only short-circuit between Washington and Jerusalem. The administration also fears that Netanyahu is ignoring a potential new blowup with the Palestinians. U.S. intelligence reports indicate that the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank and has nominal authority now in Gaza, could run out of money as early as next month. If that happened, the United States fears that the civil service and security force in the West Bank could collapse, creating a new crisis for Israel and the region. “This is a dangerous issue,” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas warned Friday. “Israel is withholding our money and this means that the ‘State of Palestine’ will face a crisis.” The United States believes Abbas may simply dissolve his government if the money isn’t released.
  • The money crunch stems from Israel’s decision to withhold tax revenue it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. This move was retaliation for the Palestinian decision last fall to pursue legal action against Israel in the International Criminal Court.
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