I’ve had plenty of criticisms of the Obama team’s tactical choices along the way — letting the settlements battle draw out, not acting to alleviate the Gaza disaster, unreasonably expecting Arab concessions in response to tepid Israeli statements, and do on. But they’ve made it clear that the time for games is coming to an end, and that their patience is wearing thin. To succeed, they are going to need to have some real sticks to wield — and I suspect that they will be better able to wield them after demonstrating such astonishing restraint in the face of Netanyahu’s repeated provocations.

Lord knows I’m not optimistic about final status negotiations– I’m never especially optimistic — but in this instance I think a lot of people are being blinded by shiny flashing lights and missing what’s really going on. (full article…)

“The Israelis and the United States are close to a deal and are agreed in principle on the broad strokes, but Israel’s piece is contingent on similar gestures from the Palestinians and the Arabs. And the Palestinians are refusing to deal,” is how one source characterized the current state of play.

The drive to blame the Palestinians is already underway, with some saying that the administration let them off the hook by not requiring any confidence-building measures up front. (full article…)

The United States is promoting a peace plan for the Middle East involving a “57-state solution” in which the entire Muslim world would recognize Israel, Monday’s Times of London quoted Jordan’s King Abdullah as saying. “We are offering a third of the world to meet them with open arms,” the king said. “The future is not the Jordan River or the Golan Heights or the Sinai, the future is Morocco in the Atlantic and Indonesia in the Pacific. That is the prize.” (more…)

So let me get this straight… Before Israel is required to abide by international law and end it’s oppression of the occupied Palestinian population, 57 “Muslim” states (mostly as unrelated to Israeli-Palestinian issues as Indonesia) must make a symbolic acknowledgment of Israel’s existence? This must be a new record for Israel’s record of avoidance and rejectionism.

In short, Obama’s forceful reiteration of Israel’s right to defend itself is another exercise of cynical deceit … The deceit is particularly striking in this case because the occasion was the appointment of Mitchell as special envoy. Mitchell’s primary achievement was his leading role in the peaceful settlement in northern Ireland. It called for an end to IRA terror and British violence. Implicit is the recognition that while Britain had the right to defend itself from terror, it had no right to do so by force, because there was a peaceful alternative: recognition of the legitimate grievances of the Irish Catholic community that were the roots of IRA terror. When Britain adopted that sensible course, the terror ended. The implications for Mitchell’s mission with regard to Israel-Palestine are so obvious that they need not be spelled out. And omission of them is, again, a striking indication of the commitment of the Obama administration to traditional US rejectionism and opposition to peace, except on its extremist terms. (more…)

I am beginning to think that it may be a breath of fresh air to have some straight-talking Israeli politicians for a change (repugnant as they may be). Rather than simply feigning diplomacy, on his very first day as Israeli Foreign Secretary Avigdor Lieberman just came right out and dismissed the 2007 Annapolis conference as having “no validity”.

“There is no alternative to a two-state solution, except the one-state solution. And if there is a one-state solution, there’s going to be a big fight,” Blair said after a meeting with European Union officials in Brussels. (more…)

Rather than ending the occupation, Netanyahu has proposed an “economic peace” that would seek to normalize and better manage it. Instead of a viable Palestinian state, his vision extends no further than a series of disconnected cantons with limited self-rule. (more…)

Two documents appeared side by side in Haaretz last week, on November 21: a giant advertisement from the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and the results of a public opinion poll.The proximity was accidental, but to the point. The PLO ad sets out the details of the 2002 Saudi peace offer, decorated with the colorful flags of the 22 Arab and the 35 other Muslim countries which have endorsed the offer.

The public opinion poll predicts a landslide victory for Likud, which opposes every single word of the Saudi proposal.

The PLO ad is a first of its kind. At long last, the PLO leaders have decided to address the Israeli people directly.

The ad discloses to the Israeli population the exact terms of the all-Arab peace offer: full recognition of the State of Israel by all Arab and Muslim countries, full normalization of relations – in return for Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders and the establishment of the Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital, in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The refugee problem would be solved by mutual agreement – meaning that Israel could veto any solution it considered unacceptable.
(more…)

Apparently, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has ordered a halt to Israeli attacks in Gaza and has instead entered into talks with Hamas via Egyptian mediators.

It should not be necessary to point out that Hamas has previously offered to talk with Israel on more than one occasion and that it was Israel, not Hamas, that finally broke the ceasefire in October 2006. Nevertheless, Olmert’s detractors cried for blood and he delivered. Over 125 Palestinians (half of whom were children) killed last week is enough to satiate the wolves for now, so this week why not put on the mask of peacemaker? Israel is no stranger to playing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in this way.

“We certainly appear to have entered a period of talking rather than fighting now,” Al Jazeera’s Jacky Rowland reported from Gaza.

“For more than three days now there have been virtually no rocket attacks into Israel … and also there have been no Israeli air strikes, no overflights of Gaza.”

(more…)

Reflecting on the massive Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip this past week, which left over 120 dead and scores wounded, I can only sit back in frustration at Israel’s sheer blindness and cruelty. Even as the U.S. House of Representatives arrogantly passes a resolution “strongly defending how Israel has repelled rocket attacks” and even as both Democratic contenders for the Presidential candidacy openly approve of Israel’s aggression by blaming Hamas, Human Rights groups including Amnesty International, Oxfam and Save the Children have issued a report highlighting the dire situation in Gaza—the “worst humanitarian crisis since the 1967 war”. (more…)

I am always interested to read the Gaza security briefings I receive daily. Today I read that the Erez checkpoint has been closed until at least January 21 for all but the most exceptional cases (and we all know that even then, it’s incredibly hard to get in or out of Gaza). Apparently the order came directly from Ehud Barak himself. But why should Erez be sealed? Certainly it is not off limits to the Israeli military; their unhinged presence in Gaza has become increasingly persistent and bloody.

In the wake of the horrific attacks now being prosecuted on a daily basis, it seems Israel is upping the ante further. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with modern history. After all, this is a tried and true method of avoiding peace and has almost become an Israeli tradition. The answer to peace talks? Bomb Gaza! (more…)

Today marks the beginning of formal peace talks between Israel and Palestine since the Annapolis summit last month. In observance of Israeli tradition, settlement construction has intensified and the IDF launched a massive invasion of the Gaza Strip yesterday killing several and arresting dozens in house-to-house raids. These are sure signs that peace is on the agenda!

According to Israeli government apologist, Mark Regev – a man I have come to know quite well from his briefings on the “humanity” of Israel’s crimes:

“We do believe that [with] these sort of surgical incursions where we go in, we deal with the infrastructure of the extremists, of the terrorists, we keep them on the run.” < << more

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I wanted to wait for a few days before jumping to conclusions about the Annapolis Summit (they seem to have finally stuck to a name). Now that I have had some time to sniff around (i.e. sit in front of the TV flipping between the news networks), I have reached two conclusions and some predictions about the future of this process.

First, I find it amusing that this-and-that pundit from such-and-such think tank hail the attendance of various Arab leaders as a success. This is not a success. The puppet tyrants of the Arab world live to serve their master: Bush (and Syria is no exception). When the White House whistles, the would-be lapdogs come running. This has been true since at least the end of the Cold War… and when it isn’t, the United States launches a war. (more…)

First it was called a “conference”, then a “summit” and the latest preferred terminology is “meeting”. But whatever you call it, the Annapolis Conference/Summit/Meeting planned for November 27 is not being taken seriously. Just over a week away and there have been no invitations sent out, no joint declaration – not even a consensus on which countries will actually participate.

The usual game is being played out, however.

[Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud] Olmert is expected to announce at the meeting in Annapolis that Israel will freeze settlement construction and dismantle the outposts. < << more

(more…)

Two major developments dominate the news in our region. George Bush has ratcheted up the hysterical anti-Iranian campaign – even going so far as to threaten the world with a  third world war. At the same time, the United States is convening an important “peace meeting” designed, ostensibly, to jump start the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The preparations themselves seem to be in need of some acceleration.

Ha’aretz diplomatic correspondent, Shmuel Rosner summed up Ms.  Rice’s most recent appearance before the House Foreign Affairs Committee (Ha’aretz, 25.10.07): No date for the meeting has been fixed. Invitations have not been sent out. Preliminary meetings are still going on. We learn that the meeting which was supposed to meet in the fall is now planned for “before the end of the year.” Fortunately for Rice, no one in the House was interested in the details of the substance of the proposed solutions to the conflict. (more…)

Another rejected op-ed. I sent it last week—before Israel cut power.

*   *   * 
In the tragically habitual nature of relations between Israel and the Gaza Strip, tensions have heightened once more, overshadowing U.S. plans for the Annapolis peace summit slated for next month. Several weeks ago, Israel labeled Gaza an “enemy entity”, causing businesses to cease operations in Gaza and (some believe) preparing the political climate for an all-out invasion of the Strip.

Everyone in Gaza is jittery, convinced that Israel is planning something bigger than the air strikes and shallow incursions, which already occur here on a daily basis. Restaurants have been closing early, teenagers stay at home instead of meeting friends—even the usually chaotic jumble of activity on Gaza’s Omar al-Mukhtar St. has calmed, the incessant honks of car horns diminished to a fraction of their former intensity. Indeed, severe retaliation for the fire of rockets by Palestinian militant groups seems imminent; the only question is what kind of retaliation does Israel have in store for the 1.4 million residents here? (more…)

Jennifer Loewenstein is a busy woman. On top of her work as associate director of the Middle Eastern studies program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Loewenstein is also a prolific freelance journalist and human rights activist. Over the years, she has spent a great deal of time in the Gaza Strip—including a period with the Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights—and has firmly established herself as a major voice in the Jewish-American peace camp.

With Gaza isolated from the West Bank and a half-hearted peace conference looming, this is a significant (albeit bleak) period in the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict. For advocates of Palestine, it is a discouraging period—especially with the humanitarian crisis in Gaza reaching unprecedented levels, shut behind walls, and totally cut off from the world.

Prior to the economic boycott, Gaza was already second only to some African countries in its dependence on international aid… One can only imagine how desperate things have become since the West, in a hypocritical campaign spearheaded by the United States, halted aid to Gaza. I discussed some of these issues with Professor Loewenstein a few days ago in the following short interview. (more…)

The Israeli-Palestinian peace process is not a zero-sum game, but it often seems that politicians treat it that way. Increasingly, the discourse in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has revolved around the demands Palestinians should accept to achieve peace and very rarely does Israel discuss concessions at all. Yet this has become entirely acceptable as framed by the efforts to jump-start the moribund peace process in recent years.

Apologists for Israeli policy often hail the Jewish state’s willingness to make this sacrifice and that sacrifice for peace… Recall the popular talking point that Israel made an amazing offer to Arafat during the Camp David talks. Yet presented with this rhetoric, it is seldom analyzed what Israel is actually entitled to concede under international law. The illegal settlements continuing to cantonize and divide the West Bank are just one example of this. Of course, part of the “deal” offered to Arafat indeed included the removal of some settlements, but not all. Given the context, a bank robber may as well offer to return some (but not all) stolen money to the banker. Yet, this scenario is simply absurd. Rather than praising the robber for making a difficult decision and overcoming his attachment to some of the stolen goods, we should (indeed, we are obliged!) to condemn the robber for failing to fully comply with the law. Yet it is precisely the opposite that has been occurring in Israel: limited compliance masquerading as significant sacrifice. (more…)