Leaders of the so-called Middle East Quartet of the UN, US, European Union and Russia are meeting in Moscow Friday for talks on the way forward in the impasse on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
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Following up on my previous post on the “Biden Humiliation,” or whatever you want to call this Israeli-US spat, I just came across at this post by Mark Perry at FP’s Middle East Channel — it’s a must read:
On January 16, two days after a killer earthquake hit Haiti, a team of senior military officers from the U.S. Central Command (responsible for overseeing American security interests in the Middle East), arrived at the Pentagon to brief JCS Chairman Michael Mullen on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The team had been dispatched by CENTCOM commander David Petraeus to underline his growing worries at the lack of progress in resolving the issue. The 33-slide 45-minute PowerPoint briefing stunned Mullen. The briefers reported that there was a growing perception among Arab leaders that the U.S. was incapable of standing up to Israel, that CENTCOM’s mostly Arab constituency was losing faith in American promises, that Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region, and that Mitchell himself was (as a senior Pentagon officer later bluntly described it) “too old, too slow…and too late.”
The January Mullen briefing was unprecedented. No previous CENTCOM commander had ever expressed himself on what is essentially a political issue; which is why the briefers were careful to tell Mullen that their conclusions followed from a December 2009 tour of the region where, on Petraeus’s instructions, they spoke to senior Arab leaders. “Everywhere they went, the message was pretty humbling,” a Pentagon officer familiar with the briefing says. “America was not only viewed as weak, but its military posture in the region was eroding.” But Petraeus wasn’t finished: two days after the Mullen briefing, Petraeus sent a paper to the White House requesting that the West Bank and Gaza (which, with Israel, is a part of the European Command – or EUCOM), be made a part of his area of operations. Petraeus’s reason was straightforward: with U.S. troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military had to be perceived by Arab leaders as engaged in the region’s most troublesome conflict.
Read the rest.
Jonathan Cook writes about the NYT’s Ethan Bronner and other bureau chiefs for Western papers covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
Consider this: The NYT has a regular response when it comes to turning a blind eye to reporters with conflicts of interest in Israel – aside, I mean, from the issue of the reporters’ ethnic identification or nationality. For example, I am reminded of a recent predecessor of Bronner’s at the Jerusalem bureau – an Israeli Jew – who managed to do regular service in the Israeli army reserves even while he was covering the Second Intifada. I am pretty sure his bosses knew of this, but, as with Bronner, did not think there were grounds for taking action.
Father Abraham, Avraham Avinu, Ibrahim Khalil Allah, the kids are fighting over the will again.
There is probably no place in the highly explosive Israeli-Palestinian theater, other than the Haram al-Sharif/Har ha-Bayit (Noble Sanctuary/Temple Mount) in Jerusalem itself, more potentially explosive than the massive Herodian tomb-structure (left) rising over Hebron known to Israelis as the Tombs of the Patriarchs (or, Biblically, as the Cave of Machphelah, Me’arat Machpelah) and to Muslims as the Haram al-Khalil or al-Haram al-Ibrahimi. (Khalil, meaning “friend” as in the Friend of God, is a Muslim sobriquet for Abraham, and also the name for the city of Hebron.) It is surely one of the few places on earth (the only one I can think of just now, but I may be forgetting something) where a synagogue and a mosque exist and function within the same very ancient site. In 1994 it was the site where Jewish terrorist Baruch Goldstein took an automatic weapon and killed 29 Muslims at prayer in the mosque. It’s an enormous, amazing place, and perhaps even more than Jerusalem itself, a symbol of the fratricidal nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, since Abraham is the founder of both peoples by their own testimony. But it, and another holy site in Bethlehem, Rachel’s tomb, though both beyond the Green Line, have now been named Israeli Heritage Sites, at this difficult moment in the peace process, and the results are predictable.
Since both Judaism and Islam claim Abraham as their founder, in today’s context conflict is inevitable. Since ancient tradition insists this is the site of the burial places of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah, buried in the Cave of Machphelah (and indeed, there are caves beneath the monuments), this is a holy place to all three Abrahamic religions, though relatively few Christian pilgrims visit it. (Some Muslims say Joseph is buried here too, though Jewish tradition venerates his tomb near Nablus.) In other words, patriarchically speaking, pretty much a straight flush. The big six.
On the other hand, it’s Leah who’s buried with Jacob in Hebron, and generally speaking Rachel is considered the matriarch of record for Jacob, who had two wives, since she’s the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, and thus of the main line of Jewish tradition (though Leah bore the patriarchs of the other ten tribes). Biblical tradition placed her tomb a couple of places, but one of the most visited and revered was on the northwestern edge of Bethlehem. Bethlehem, like Hebron, 
is of course in the West Bank, in territory Israel only occupied in 1967. And Bethlehem and its neighboring towns and the big refugee camp nearby make that area one of the more populous in the West Bank. Rachel’s Tomb (pictured) was originally on the Palestinian side of the Separation Wall, but lately an adjacent house has been annexed and walled off and the separation wall has been extended to include the tomb.
Beyond the fact that the Separation Wall itself raises a great many issues, I think it worth just looking at this GoogleEarth picture
on the right (copyright by Google fully acknowledged please don’t come after me) and noting that the wall actually goes down either side of a road to enclose the tomb in a sort of enclave (below left center of the picture) that really makes its artificiality obvious. You used to go right by it driving into Bethlehem.
And since these patriarchs play a major role in Islam as well — Ibrahim (Abraham), Ishaq (Isaac), and Ya‘qub (Jacob) are common Muslim names still — the tombs of the patriarchs/Haram al-Khalil and the Tomb of Rachel in Bethlehem are two flashpoints which have troubled Jewish/Muslim and Israeli/Palestinian relations since 1967. (But of course all these names belong to all three monotheistic traditions. My mother and my daughter were both named Sarah.)
So why, nearly 43 years after the 1967 war, did Israel wait until this past Sunday to declare these two explosive holy places Israeli National Heritage Sites? Netanyahu said he did it at the persuasion of the religious party Shas. Not surprisingly, Palestinians are protesting and throwing stones in Hebron and elsewhere; the UN’s against it, and there’s talk of a new restoration plan for the sites. PA officials are protesting, Jordan is protesting — but this happens whenever there is a change in the status quo of religious sites. The question is why was this done now?
Given recent actions by the Netanyahu government it really is getting hard to assume that this is all just poor judgment or ideological purity (why not sooner?), and to assume that there is actually an intention to provoke. I’m trying to find an explanation in my own mind for why this was done now. It seems to have set off a Palestinian reaction — both officially and in the streets where stones are being thrown again — and almost makes me wonder, does Netanyahu want a third intifada? Netanyahu could have done this years ago if it was purely a commitment to ideology: everyone understands the sanctity of these two sites to both Muslims and Jews, and for that reason efforts to change the status quo have been few since the creation of the synagogue inside the mosque.
I fully recognize the veneration both Jews and Muslims have for these sites (especially Hebron), but doing this right now, more than 40 years after the six day war, has a feel of provocation rather than affirmation.
Abraham, that wandering Aramaean as the Bible itself calls him, would, I trust, prefer not to be fought over quite in this way. But this particular time I have to say the Israelis seem to be the provocateurs. And I’m not sure why at this time. They control the sites, and long have. Why change the status now?
“Smile you’re on candid camera.”
Having started watching the remarkable film released by the Dubai police showing the comings and goings of Mohamed Mabhouh and his assassins on CCTVs, I quickly became bored. The problem: no sound from all these cameras. If I’m going to sit down and watch 27 minutes of surveillance footage, I need a soundtrack. But what to choose?
“Soldier of love”Let’s face it, the Mabhouh assassination was almost certainly carried out by our cousins the Israelis. And what are they known for, apart from assassinations, the Dahiyeh Doctrine and its mass targeting of civilians, and of course their traditional foods like hummus and falafel?
The answer: execrable, schmaltzy pop music (remember Dana International?)
So I grabbed the Mabhouh footage and added as a soundtrack the well-known (well, in Israel) singer Eyal Golan’s 1999 album, Soldier of Love. Watch the results below — it grows on you.
Click here to view or right-click to download
I think beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and spy scandals, this video really shows to what extent to which all of our comings and goings are increasingly monitored. It’s a little bit creepy — not just because this may be the world’s first extensively taped assassination operation, but also because it leaves you with the sense that you are always being watched.
It’s interesting that this assassination has gotten so much attention. Some of it, notably over the forgery of passports and identity theft, is entirely warranted. I hope the countries concerned will act strongly. But over the larger question of its impact on the conflict, we’re still not sure what Mahbouh’s death means. Was he an indispensable contact with the Iranians? What secrets died with him? What does it mean for Hamas, especially if reports that it was infiltrated are true? And what does it mean for its relations with Fatah if reports that former Fatah security men were involved are true? Beyond the pseudo-glamour of all this cloak-and-dagger stuff (and if you watch the tape, in fact it’s hardly glamorous and the hit team looks like they’re on a corporate team-building exercise), there are a lot of unanswered questions here. Not to mention, of course, what mega hit job is being planned to avenge both Mabhouh’s and (for Hizbullah) Imad Mughnieyh’s death…
Now for some Mabhouh-related links:
Politico & doubts … The Israelis are all about disinformation & lies … LR, here Obama to visit Israel by mid-2010? So Israeli daily Yediot reports White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel recently told the Israeli consul general in Los Angeles, via Coteret: During a meeting with Israel’s consul general in Los Angeles, Yaki Dayan, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said that US President Barack Obama intends to visit Israel during the first half of 2010. The meeting took place on the fringes of an event that was held several weeks ago in Los Angeles in honor of Congressman Howard Berman (D). …. During the conversation, Emanuel, who is very close to President Obama, expressed the despair of the American administration over the endless dealings with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
….
UPDATE: “This whole thing is kind of silly,” an official responds to a query about the item. “Why would Rahm give a serious policy statement, pro or con, during a chance encounter with the Israeli consul general in LA? When we have something to say to them, we have channels to say it. This is not it.”
Activists who rally each Friday in front of the federal courthouse in Louisville in favor of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict say their New Year's Day demonstration had extra s…
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The war in Iraq and the push for democratisation in the Arab world (both of which were precipitated by the September 11, 2001 attacks) intimately tied the Bush administration’s foreign policy legacy to the Middle East. In its later years, there was never any question where the administration’s priorities lay. The Obama administration has not sought to link judgment of its political and policy success to the Middle East – at least not to the same degree — but will find itself tied to the region in this respect in 2010.
[OXFAN: Excerpts:]
“… Strategic summary
Policy preoccupations. Most frustrating for the White House is that dramatic regional policy reversals have not led to dramatically improved results, in terms of achieving US objectives:
1. Israel-Palestinians. Obama sought to signal early that the Bush approach of polite disengagement, combined with being tough on Palestinians and understanding toward Israelis, was over. In his first week in office, Obama called the major leaders in the region, pledged his involvement, and named former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell as his special envoy. However, Israeli elections in February, followed by month-long negotiations over forming a government, stalled the new White House initiative:
2. Iraq. Whereas Bush seemed to think about Iraq constantly, the issue appears to figure little on the agendas of most of the Obama administration’s senior national security officials. With great uncertainty surrounding the elections scheduled for January, it is possible that a collapse in conditions in Iraq would prompt the United States to slow its troop withdrawal timetable. Yet, it seems unthinkable that the US military would contemplate a long-term presence in Iraq, and US goals for the country have been dramatically scaled back from the enthusiasms of the Bush era.
Many US government officials currently working on Iraq foresee a future not much different from the present, with a weak Shia-led government that incorporates some Sunnis but is wary of them, a Kurdish region that is ambivalent about its role in the future of the country, and outside powers supporting proxies there in an effort to advance their own interests. The oil industry is likely to expand, but such expansion will be hampered by sustained political uncertainty.
3. Iranian imponderables. The administration has made good on its pledge to engage the Iranian leadership. Working closely with the IAEA and European partners, it has sought actively to strike agreements with Iran on nuclear issues, most notably on the proposal to reprocess Iranian low-enriched uranium. However, the shift in US strategy has not been met with a shift in Iranian strategy:
Coordination problems. Unlike its predecessors, the Obama administration has no grand theory of how the Middle East works, but this has made prioritising among its various challenges more difficult. In addition, lines of authority seem muddled:
…. The Bush-era US approach to the region has clearly ended, as the Obama administration has departed significantly from many of its policy approaches and assumptions — but this has not yet produced better results from Washington’s perspective. Momentum from events unleashed under Bush will continue to restrict the Obama administration’s choices, and its possibilities, in 2010. “
AP – Jordan’s king said in comments published Monday that the U.S. administration seems to be focusing more of its attention on Iran and less on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying time was running out to make peace.
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Time.com – Both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict see provocations, and some observers believe it’s only a matter of time before the fragile peace breaks down again
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Learn To Read And Write Arabic
Find out all about the revolutionary secret technique for learning to read and write Arabic. Read the article here.
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