Arab News Blog

Former Sec. of State James Baker has been helping to roll out a new report, issued by the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston, Texas, that urges the Obama administration to put forward its own proposal for the final-status boundaries between Israel and Palestine.

The whole report is available in PDF form here. It is interesting because it is the result of a quiet, “Track 2″ diplomatic effort convened by the institute over the past year and a half, in which un-named Israeli and Palestinian participants worked together to present and discuss their own proposals for where the final boundary between the two states should lie, if indeed there are to be two states.

In Haaretz yesterday, Akiva Eldar referred to a recent interview with the National Journal in which Baker– who of course is most famous in the Middle East for the hard-nosed way he dealt with Likud PM Yitzhak Shamir over the settlements issue back in 1991-92– displayed that he is still prepared to play hardball with the present Likud PM.

Eldar quoted him as saying there:

“I would also stress that United States taxpayers are giving Israel roughly $3 billion each year, which amounts to something like $1,000 for every Israeli citizen, at a time when our own economy is in bad shape and a lot of Americans would appreciate that kind of helping hand from their own government. Given that fact, it is not unreasonable to ask the Israeli leadership to respect U.S. policy on settlements.”

Eldar also reported on a phone interview he conducted with Ed Djerejian, who’s the founding director of the Baker Institute and a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, Syria, and Russia.

Djerejian told Eldar,

“The Arab-Israeli conflict, and especially the Palestinian issue, remains one of the most contentious and sensitive issues in the entire Muslim world. Osama bin Laden exploits the plight of the Palestinians, as does [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad … This has a direct influence on the United States, which is expending its blood and treasure fighting insurgencies in overwhelmingly Muslim Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We would be naive to think that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will eliminate the problems of terrorism and radicalization in the Islamic world, but it will go a long way toward draining the swamp of issues that extremists exploit for their own ends.”

All excellent analysis. And a very important argument that we should all keep on making…

I was intrigued, however, to read as much as I could of the report itself in order to:

a) Figure out as well as I could at what “level” the Palestinian and Israeli participants were operating, and crucially, How close are they to actually being able to represent the positions of their respective national leaderships?

b) Learn the content of the “U.S. compromise proposal”– actually, three different options for a “compromise proposal– that the Baker Institute people were urging.

On the first of those points, there seemed to be no evidence in the report as to who these people. I believe, based on other evidence, that Yasser Abed Rabboo, who was Abu Mazen’s long-time designated lead person in the “Geneva Initiative” process was one of the participants on the Palestinian side, which would make that team fairly authoritative vis-a-vis the Ramallah leadership.

But who were the Israelis? I don’t know. But whoever they were, on p.5 it makes clear that they were operating on the basis of “reported positions put forward by then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert”– which indicates they were people far closer to Olmert’s Kadima Party than to Netanyahu’s Likud.

Which is interesting and very significant.

The initial map those Israelis put forward, which represents a swap of 7.03% of the West Bank’s land against an equal amount of land from inside post-1949 Israel, is on p. 63. On pp. 65 and 67 are maps that are described, on p. 5, as “reflecting reported positions put forward by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.” They represented a swap of 1.9% of the land of the West Bank for land inside post-1949 Israel, on the same 1:1 basis.

Interestingly, regarding the situation in occupied East Jerusalem, the “Palestinian map” presented in the report involved far fewer territorial concessions to Israel in Greater East Jerusalem than did the map that participants in the Geneva Initiative signed off on last September. (Which indicates that Abu Mazen’s position on East Jerusalem has hardened noticeably since then.)

And then, there are the three different options the Baker Institute itself proposes that the Obama administration should choose between if– as Baker and Djerejian urge– Obama moves rapidly to put forward, and hopefully also press very hard for, its own proposal for the final borders.

These three options are mapped out in full on pp. 101, 103, and 105. The first of those represents a 4.0% land swap, the second a 3.4% swap, and the third a 4.4% swap. (It is very common on U.S. diplomatic memorandums for the writer to end up presenting three options, with the hope that her or his boss will pick the “middle” one.)

Details of how these options differ in a number of sensitive areas are presented in the earlier pages.

I don’t have time to write much more about this report. I just want to close by noting three things:

1. The Baker Institute seems to have proceeded in the continuing spirit of the disastrous April 2004 letter in which Pres. Bush assured PM Sharon that the U.S. supported a territorial outcome that would take major account of the existing facts on the ground, i.e. Israel’s completely illegal settlements, and in particular the large settlement blocs. And indeed, the way the various details are portrayed in the maps seems extremely settler-centric– i.e. just about all the maps are described as addressing the issues around this or that settlement bloc, not around the concerns of this or that large Palestinian urban center. Instead of calling an area the “Gush Etzion area”, why not call it “Greater Bethlehem”, and start from the concerns of the Palestinian Bethlehemites who are considerably more numerous than the (illegal) residents of Gush Etzion and who have suffered already for 43 years from the illegal grabbing of their lands. Where is any ethic of care or of respect for human equality in the Baker Institute’s approach?

2. All the lines proposed on all the maps presented, by all three “parties” there, are extremely complex and sinuous… in many cases almost ridiculously so.

3. If it was close-to-Kadima people who participated on the Israeli side, then why would we have any reason to believe Netanyahu might be interested in any part of this approach? And/or, is this all part of some plan to needle Netanyahu by trying to deal with Kadima instead of him?

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WH/ here

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Today Iranians mark Now Ruz, their ancient New Year’s day, celebrated on the vernal equinox (which most often falls on March 21 but sometimes, as today, on the 20th). Now Ruz literally means “New Day.” Persian is an Indo-European language ultimately related to English, and “now” (pronounced “no”) and “new” are cognates.

As he did last year, President Barack Obama addressed Iran in a Now Ruz message. He renewed his offer of comprehensive diplomatic contacts with Tehran, decrying what he called the Iranian government’s determination to isolate itself.

Obama pledged to allow more Iranian students to study in the United States, and noted the recent decision to lift obstacles to US internet firms supplying the Iranian market, including Facebook.

Obama’s Iran outreach was stymied by the outbreak of massive protests in Iran after last June’s presidential elections, which the opposition maintains were stolen by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It also ran into difficulties when the apparent deal struck at Geneva on October 1, and tentatively agreed to by the representative of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, was rejected on his return to Iran by hardliners, presumably in the Revolutionary Guards.

Obama’s dogged determination to engage Iran and his decisions on exchange students and internet openness are far more likely to bear fruit than his predecessor’s dismissive and belligerent policies. The resistance of the White House to a campaign by the Israel lobbies for crippling sanctions and even military action against Iran is one element in the tense relations between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Iranian opposition leader Mir Hosain Mousavi praised the Green protest movement in the past year and pledged to continue to work for a more open press and the right to assemble and protest (pro forma already in the Iranian constitution).

Human rights and internet activists called upon the regime to release Iran’s “blogfather,” Hosain Derakhshan, from prison. Derakhshan, then living in Canada, pioneered techniques for blogging in Persian and sparked a communications revolution in Iran.

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My thanks to AP for having compiled and published these (most likely conservative) figures today:

U.S. TROOP LEVELS:

March 31, 2003: 90,000.

October 2007: 170,000 at peak of troop buildup.

March 1, 2010: Just over 96,000.

COALITION TROOP LEVELS:

Number of countries that participated in “Coalition for the Immediate Disarmament of Iraq” at the start of the war: 31, including the United States.

As of August 2009, all non-U.S. coalition members had withdrawn from Iraq.

PRIVATE CONTRACTORS:

Number of U.S. private contractors in Iraq as of August, 2008: 190,000.

CASUALTIES:

Confirmed U.S. military deaths as of March 19, 2010: at least 4,385.

States with the highest number of U.S. troop deaths as of March 19, 2010: California, 470; Texas, 411; Pennsylvania, 195; Florida, 193; New York, 188; Ohio, 183; Michigan, 159; Illinois, 156.

Deaths of civilian employees of U.S. government contractors in Iraq as of Dec. 31, 2009: 1,457.

Deaths of coalition troops (non-U.S.) as of March 19, 2010: at least 315.

Iraqi deaths since the 2003 invasion: more than 95,680, according to the Iraq Body Count database.

COST:

More than $712 billion, according to the National Priorities Project. To date, $747.3 billion has been allocated to the war in Iraq since 2003. In August 2008, the Congressional Budget Office projected that additional war costs for the next 10 years could range from $440 billion to $865 billion.

COST PER MONTH:

As of July 2008, the Department of Defense’s monthly obligations for contracts and pay averaged about $9.9 billion for Iraq.

As of July 2009, the Department of Defense’s monthly obligations for contracts and pay averaged about $7.3 billion for Iraq.

INDICTMENTS AND CONVICTIONS:

As of Jan. 30, 2010, the work of Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction investigators has resulted in 26 arrests, 33 indictments, 25 convictions, and more than $53 million in fines, forfeitures, recoveries and restitution.

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IN IRAQ:

January 2004: 30-45 percent.

January 2010: an estimated 15.5-30 percent.

COST OF A BARREL OF OIL:

March 28, 2003: $21.50.

March 12, 2010: $77.32.

OIL PRODUCTION

Prewar: 2.58 million barrels per day.

March 17, 2010: 2.43 million barrels per day.

ELECTRICITY:

Prewar nationwide: 3,958 megawatts. Hours per day (estimated): 4-8.

March 3, 2010: Nationwide: 6,090 megawatts. Hours per day: 15.0.

Prewar Baghdad: 2,500 megawatts. Hours per day (estimated): 16-24.

March 3, 2010: Baghdad: Megawatts N/A. Hours per day: 15.5.

Note: Current Baghdad megawatt figures are no longer reported by the U.S. State Department’s Iraq Weekly Status Report.

TELEPHONES:

Prewar land lines: 833,000.

Jan. 2010: 1,300,000.

Prewar cell phones: 80,000.

Jan. 2010: An estimated 19.5 million.

WATER:

Prewar: 12.9 million people had potable water.

Jan. 30, 2010: More than 21.2 million people have potable water.

SEWERAGE:

Prewar: 6.2 million people served.

Jan. 30, 2010: 11.5 million people served.

INTERNET SUBSCRIBERS:

September 2003: 4,900.

Jan. 2010: 1,600,000.

INTERNAL REFUGEES:

Prewar: 1,021,962.

March 2010: At least 1.5 million people are currently displaced inside Iraq.

EMIGRANTS:

Prewar: 500,000 Iraqis living abroad.

March 2010: Approximately 2 million Iraqis, mainly in Syria and Jordan.

Jan. 2010: At least 216,430 refugees and internally displaced persons have returned to Iraq.

All figures are the most recent available.

Sources: The Associated Press, State Department, Defense Department, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, The Brookings Institution, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, National Priorities Project, Department of Labor, Congressional Budget Office, Iraq Body Count, Energy Information Administration.

Let us also remember that the ‘pre-war baseline’ presented itself represented a standard of life (and death) for the Iraqi people that had been massively depressed as a result of 13 years of very tight sanctions, whose tightness was maintained from about 1993– Clinton’s arrival in power– primarily by the insistence of the U.S. and its sidekick in the U.K. on maintaining them in a punitively tight way. Throughout that period, the U.N. estimated that around 500,000 Iraqis, mainly the very young and the very old, died deaths that would have been avoidable in the absence of sanctions.

In memoriam of all those who died and with solidarity and compassion for all who survived.

~HC

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Politico/ here

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Reuters – Israel tried to defuse a dispute with the United States on Friday over plans to expand settlements, saying it would propose “confidence-building” steps to the Palestinians to encourage a renewal of peace talks.
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 ? The U.S. quarrel with Israel – washingtonpost.com - WaPo editorial condemns Obama for having a fight with Israel, takes Israeli reports on administration demands at face value, uses stupid argument that US demands on Israel make Arabs ask for more. Basically, WaPo is simply not credible on Israel/Palestine: it asks that the Obama administration accept humiliation and step down from its goals, stated US policy for decades regarding settlements, and international law, and talks of “intransigence of Palestinian and Arab leaders.” You mean the intransigence that caused them to propose a comprehensive peace on the basis of international law since 2003, and which was ignored by both Israel and the US? What a bunch of sellouts.

? Informed Comment: Cpl. Jeffrey Goldberg, Guarding the Prison of the Nationalist Mind - Juan Cole really does a wonderful takedown of Jeffrey Goldberg.

? ‘Just World News’ with Helena Cobban: On the current tipping point | A bunch of good commentary from Cobban, esp. on the next steps the administration could take:

A. Announce the launching of an administration-wide review of all U.S. policies that have any relationship to the Israeli settlements including policies affecting economic links and trade preferences being extended to settlements as well as to Israel proper; the activities and tax status of U.S. entities, including non-profit entities, that have dealings with or in the settlements. The terms of reference of this review should explicitly spell out that its purview includes the settlements in Jerusalem as well as elsewhere (including Golan.)
B. Announcement of a similar review of policies and entities related in any way to Israel’s illegal Wall.
C. Commit to a series of steps aimed at speedily ending the illegal and anti-humane siege that Israel maintains against Gaza and restoring all the rights of Gaza’s 1.5 million people.
D. Sen. Mitchell should be empowered to talk to representatives of all those Palestinian parties that won seats in the 2006 PLC election which was, let us remember, certified by all international monitors as free and fair. Obama and Co. should also inform the Egyptians and all other parties that they want and expect them to be helpful rather than obstructive in the Palestinian parties’ efforts to reach internal reconciliation.E. Move speedily toward giving the other four permanent members of the Security Council more real role in Palestinian-Israeli peacemaking. They all have a lot to offer and can help the U.S. get out of the very tight spot it currently finds itself in, in the Greater Middle East region.

? Obama says no crisis in US-Israeli relations | He should have said no crisis, but big problem.

? Israel crisis: Taking cue from US anger, Mahmoud Abbas digs in heels | This is the big AIPAC narrative, that US is enabling the PA to harden its position. It’s bullshit, why would the PA take negotiations seriously while settlement expansion is ongoing? All Abbas is doing is sticking to international law, the Quartet guidelines and Obama’s demands from last year.

? US-Israel crisis reshapes Quartet meet agenda | The basic point: if the US shows leadership as it did after the Biden visit, the Europeans and others will speak their mind more freely about Israel’s sabotaging of peace.

? US may be seeking Israel ‘regime change’ This AFP story is mostly based on quotes from pro-Israel, Jewish Clinton administration sources — the very people who failed to act against settlement expansion back in the 1990s.

? Taking Sides « London Review Blog | John Mearsheimer: 

Siding with Israel against the United States was not a great problem a few years ago: one could pretend that the interests of the two countries were the same and there was little knowledge in the broader public about how the Israel lobby operated and how much it influenced the making of US Middle East policy. But those days are gone, probably for ever. It is now commonplace to talk about the lobby in the mainstream media and almost everyone who pays serious attention to American foreign policy understands – thanks mainly to the internet – that the lobby is an especially powerful interest group.

Therefore, it will be difficult to disguise the fact that most pro-Israel groups are siding with Israel against the US president, and defending policies that respected military leaders now openly question. This is an awful situation for the lobby to find itself in, because it raises legitimate questions about whether it has the best interests of the United States at heart or whether it cares more about Israel’s interests. Again, this matters more than ever, because key figures in the administration have let it be known that Israel is acting in ways that at best complicate US diplomacy, and at worst could get Americans killed.

He concludes with the $2.5 billion a year question:

There will be more crises ahead, because a two-state solution is probably impossible at this point and ‘greater Israel’ is going to end up an apartheid state. The United States cannot support that outcome, however, partly for the strategic reasons that have been exposed by the present crisis, but also because apartheid is a morally reprehensible system that no decent American could openly embrace. Given its core values, how could the United States sustain a special relationship with an apartheid state? In short, America’s remarkably close relationship with Israel is now in trouble and this situation will only get worse.

? The Boston Study Group on Middle East Peace: Two States for Two People: If Not Now, When? [PDF]

? This might be a good occasion to highlight MapLight.org’s work on making data on lobbying more accessible. They cover all lobbies, and have the goods on pro-Israel campaign financing (Joe Lieberman and John McCain are on the top of the list) and the legislation the lobby supported. They also have listing for pro-Arab campaign contribution: over the last two years, while pro-Israel lobbies gave $6,288,215 pro-Arab lobbies gave… $56,050. So much for the great Arab lobby that Israel apologists always talk about. 

Update: Talking to IDF radio, Elliott Abrams says Obama wants to bring down the Netanyahu government, and makes other noises that suggest he’d make a better Israeli government official than an American one. [Thanks, Mandy.]

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Reuters – President Barack Obama said on Wednesday Israeli plans to build more homes near East Jerusalem were not helpful for the Middle East peace process, but he said the issue had not led to a crisis with one of the United States’ closest allies.

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Just when I thought that all the angles for killing were covered, the New York Times exposes a type of killing force we haven’t seen or heard from before. We have seen there are CIA teams in Afghanistan and Pakistan; there are Afghan special forces operating outside Afghan military command; there are foreign special forces including German ones, Canadian ones and Australian ones; there are unofficial tribal militias; etc. etc. Now this.

It’s a bizarre and intriguing tale:

Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants
By Dexter Filkins and Mark Mazzetti

KABUL, Mar 15 (NYT) – Under the cover of a benign government information-gathering program, a Defense Department official set up a network of private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan to help track and kill suspected militants, according to military officials and businessmen in Afghanistan and the United States.

The official, Michael D. Furlong, hired contractors from private security companies that employed former C.I.A. and Special Forces operatives. The contractors, in turn, gathered intelligence on the whereabouts of suspected militants and the location of insurgent camps, and the information was then sent to military units and intelligence officials for possible lethal action in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the officials said…

[S]ome American officials say they became troubled that Mr. Furlong seemed to be running an off-the-books spy operation. The officials say they are not sure who condoned and supervised his work.

It is generally considered illegal for the military to hire contractors to act as covert spies. Officials said Mr. Furlong’s secret network might have been improperly financed by diverting money from a program designed to merely gather information about the region.

Moreover, in Pakistan, where Qaeda and Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding, the secret use of private contractors may be seen as an attempt to get around the Pakistani government’s prohibition of American military personnel’s operating in the country.

Officials say Mr. Furlong’s operation seems to have been shut down, and he now is the subject of a criminal investigation…

Robert Young Pelton, an author who writes extensively about war zones, said that the government hired him to gather information about Afghanistan and that Mr. Furlong improperly used his work. “We were providing information so they could better understand the situation in Afghanistan, and it was being used to kill people,” Mr. Pelton said…

Mr. Pelton said he had been told by Afghan colleagues that video images that he posted on the Web site had been used for an American strike in the South Waziristan region of Pakistan… (link)

Robert Young Pelton, mentioned in story, is co-author of alternative travel guide The World’s Most Dangerous Places. The website he set up for the contract was an open source project at www.afpax.com, and it is still online.

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Palestinian protesters in East Jerusalem were repressed by Israeli security forces on Tuesday, leaving over 100 persons wounded. Recent Israeli moves to claim sites in the Palestinian West Bank, holy to Christians and Muslims as well as Jews, as Israeli heritage sites– have alarmed Palestinians that the Likud government may have designs on the Aqsa Mosque, among the holier sites in Islamic lore.

Aljazeera is saying that the demonstrations and clashes spread from Jerusalem to Ramallah and Hebron (where the Israelis have inserted a synagogue into the mosque over the alleged tombs of Abraham and the patriarchs).

Aljazeera English has video:

Looks to me like peaceful protesters or stone-throwing youth facing 3000 heavily armored and armed Israeli security forces.

The USG Open Source Center translates an Arabic article about Palestine Liberation Organization leader Saeb Erekat’s denunciation of what he calls Israeli attacks on Palestinian holy sites. His warning that Israel and the US are playing with fire to inflame Muslim passions in this way should be heeded. The Israeli occupation of Jerusalem was one of the three reasons given by Usama Bin Laden for his creepy war on the United States. For a billion and a half Muslims, Jerusalem is their third holiest city, and when all Palestinians have been expelled from it, there will be a big bang.

“PA’s Erekat Decries ‘Attacks’ on Holy Sites, Says Israel ‘Playing with Fire’
“Erekat Calls on International Community To Rein in Israeli Futile Policy” — Ma’an headline
Ma’an News Agency
Tuesday, March 16, 2010 . . .
Document Type: OSC Translated Text . . .

Bethlehem, 16 March (Ma’an) — Dr Saeb Erekat, head of the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department, condemned the Israeli policies of dictating terms, settlement activity, provocations, and attacks on holy sites, similar to the ones that took place on 16 March. Erekat said: No sooner did the Arab world, the Palestinian leadership, and the international community announce to the US Administration their decision to launch proximity talks in a bid to end the conflict, than the Israeli Government disregarded this decision by issuing tenders for the construction of settlements, carrying out raids, dictating, assassinating, laying siege, imposing closures, and taking provocative steps of a religious nature.

Speaking to Ma’an Radio Network, Erekat said: “Not only do we denounce these Israeli acts, but we also hold the Israeli Government solely responsible for the repercussions of the futile and provocative policies of imposing facts on the ground, which seek to torpedo efforts to launch the peace process.”

Erekat also noted that he has been mandated by President Mahmud Abbas to travel to Moscow, carrying with him written messages, documents, and maps for Quartet members, which shed light on the inflammatory Israeli practices in Jerusalem. He further argued that the Israeli policies are playing with fire and adding fuel to it. Therefore, the written messages urge the international community to intervene immediately in order to curb the Israeli occupation and force it to halt its practices and unavailing policies.

Erekat went on to say that the Palestinian leadership is relying heavily on the international community and stated: “We are part of the international community and we resort to international law. Treating Israel as a country above the law destroys the international community’s peace efforts in the region and has proved that the Israeli Government disparages international law.” He also pointed out that the US Administration and the international community are capable of forcing Israel to stop these policies, which he decried as criminal and futile.

(Description of Source: Bethlehem Ma’an News Agency in Arabic — Website of independent, leading Palestinian news agency; funded by the Dutch and Danish Foreign Ministries; URL: http://www.maannews.net/)”

The violence in Jerusalem comes on the heels of a major spat between the United States and Israel over last week’s humiliation of Vice President Joe Biden by the announcement of 1600 new households to be built on a part of the Palestinian West Bank that Israel high-handedly annexed to its district of Jerusalem. Fear that the Israelis will attempt to push the Palestinians altogether out of East Jerusalem lay behind some of the anxieties that provoked Tuesday’s demonstrations.

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