The Most Enduring Legacy Of Nazi Hate

April 23, 2010 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Book Review, History, Islam, Islam and the West, Israel and Palestinians, Middle East, Presidents, U.S. History, UK Politics, War on Terror | 6 Comments 

On February 1, 1944, two unlikely allies in the United States Senate—Robert Wagner (D-New York) and Robert Taft (R-Ohio)—introduced a resolution that caused shockwaves around the globe. Their initiative advocated American support for “free and unlimited entry of Jews into Palestine for the creation of a Jewish commonwealth.” This was a bold move and one that put the Roosevelt administration on the spot.

Nearly five years earlier, the British government had released a White Paper on the issue of Palestine—one that largely abandoned the Jewish people in that region. Since the 1917 Balfour Declaration and during the period of the British Mandate they had been largely supportive of Jewish migration to Palestine and the idea of a Jewish state there. In essence, the White Paper changed all of that. It advocated severe limitations on Jewish immigration to Palestine—this at a time when European anti-Semitism was reaching critical mass.

The gang in Berlin was pleased.

Interestingly, at the time of that 1939 White Paper, two men who would later strongly support the creation of the modern state of Israel saw things differently. Winston Churchill spoke to the House of Commons on May 22, 1939 “as one intimately and responsibly concerned in the earlier states of our Palestine policy,” and insisted that he would not “stand by and see the solemn engagements into which Britain has entered before the world set aside.”
And here at home, Senator Harry S. Truman from Missouri—who had no clue at the time that he’d be a major player on the world stage in a few years–also issued a forthright condemnation that was inserted into the Congressional Record:

Mr. President, the British Government has used its diplomatic umbrella again,(this being an unmistakable dig at Neville Chamberlain) …this time on Palestine. It has made a scrap of paper out of Lord Balfour’s promise to the Jews. It has just added another to the long list of surrenders to the Axis powers.

But instead of embracing the ideas put forth by Taft and Wagner in 1944, the White House, State Department, and other powerful entities in the government pulled out all the stops to make sure that the idea of proposing a homeland in Palestine for Jews went away. They did this even though they knew very well about the ongoing mass extermination of European Jews at the hands of the Nazis.

The standard answer to the obvious question as to why the Holocaust evoked little official response from our government until near the end of the war has been to cite “isolationism,” or “economic Depression,” or “xenophobia” in our nation. Presumably, the idea of doing anything overtly “pro-Jewish” was politically untenable—so goes the argument.

But a closer look reveals something else going on at the time—and ever since.

The most lasting legacy of the toxins that created an epochal global conflict is the fact that elements of Nazism in many ways survive to this day in Islamism. The short-sightedness of FDR’s cronies was corrected in part by his successor, a man of courage who chose to recognize the new State of Israel eleven minutes after its birth in May of 1948. But the question remains: Why did FDR and company not get on the bandwagon, even while millions of Jews were being slaughtered?

Sadly, the real reason has a lot to do with U.S. surrender to Nazi propaganda—its power and content.

Largely overlooked or dismissed in the years since is the fact that the Nazi propaganda machine, the distortion factory that shaped attitudes in Germany throughout the duration of the infamous Third Reich, had its most lasting impact far away from the boroughs and beer halls of Deutschland. In fact, Hitler’s nightmarish vision of ridding Europe of Jews was only the beginning of what he wanted to do—he wanted to extend The Final Solution to Palestine.

And he had been preparing the hearts and minds of the Muslim world for many years.

Jeffrey Herf, a professor of history at the University of Maryland, has written an eye-opening book about the effectiveness of Nazi ideas in the Middle East during the Second World War called, “Nazi Propaganda For The Arab World.” In it, he describes the Nazi campaign for the minds and hearts of the Arab world in great detail—particularly the Axis radio programs that ran in Arabic around the clock from late 1939 until March of 1945.

These broadcasts spewed venomous anti-Semitism and pushed every demagogic button imaginable. They were also highly effective. In fact, long after the last vestige of Nazi rhetoric faded from consciousness in Europe, the poisonous seeds planted back then are still bearing deadly fruit.
The mind-set that gave way to the Third Reich is very much alive and well in the Muslim world of the Middle East.

When those two senatorial strange-bedfellows offered their visionary resolution in 1944 about a Jewish homeland in Palestine, the “Axis Broadcasts in Arabic” were way ahead of the story. Mr. Herf has accessed a significant cache of transcripts and leaflets produced by the Nazis during the war—materials that have not been adequately examined—until now.

So back in 1944, any hopes a couple of well-intentioned voices in Washington might have had to garner widespread national support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine were dashed by forces largely influenced by the hate-speak of Nazi propagandists. Berlin, broadcasting in Arabic, referred to Taft and Wagner as “criminal American senators,” while announcing, “a great tragedy is about to be unfolded, a great massacre, another turbulent war is about to start in the Arab countries.”

And in phraseology that sounds eerily familiar to what we still regularly hear from Islamists, the Nazis described the stakes as kill or be killed:

Arabs and Moslems, sons of the East, this menace threatens your very lives, endangers your beliefs and aims at your wealth. No trace of you will remain. Your doom is sealed. It were better if the earth opened and engulfed everybody; it were better if the skies fell upon us, bringing havoc and destruction; all this, rather than the sun of Islam should set and the Koran perish…Stir up wars and revolutions, stand fast against the aggressors, let your hearts, afire with faith, burst asunder! Advance your armies and drive out the menace.

Bear in mind that this is a Nazi broadcast to the Arab/Muslims in Palestine. Of course, the relationship between Hitler and Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti in Jerusalem, is well known and documented (see my article: “Hitler’s Favorite Jihadist”), but the broadcasts from Berlin to Palestine are just now beginning to be examined. And what is being found is further evidence that to refer to Islamists as Nazi or Fascist-like is no smear—or stretch.

The rhetoric broadcast to the Middle East 70 years ago is still being noised about—and even more pervasively and effectively. Back then, the attitudes it reinforced, complete with distortion, hate, and prejudice, caused U.S. officials, from FDR on down, to “go wobbly”—as Margaret Thatcher would say.

It is sadly clear that the most lasting impact of the Nazi propaganda machine is that murderous ideas espoused back then are alive and well in our day and age and still being used to threaten and kill Jews—while nouveau wobblers turn away.

Ed Koch: RN A Friend To Israel

March 29, 2010 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Israel and Palestinians | 1 Comment 

Contrasting what he calls President Obama’s ‘abysmal’ treatment of Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former New York City Mayor Ed Koch praises RN’s support for the Jewish state during the Yom Kippur War:

it was Richard Nixon during the 1973 war, who resupplied Israel with arms, making it possible for it to snatch victory from a potentially devastating defeat at the hands of a coalition of Arab countries including Egypt and Syria.

10.6.73

October 6, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Israel and Palestinians, Richard Nixon | 1 Comment 

Original caption from 1968: “New York: President-elect Richard Nixon chats with Israeli Ambassador, Yitzhak Rabin, left, Israeli Defense Minister, Moshe Dayan, second from right, and Nixon’s National Security Advisor, Dr. Henry Kissinger, right, at Nixon’s headquarters. Afterward, Dayan said he was reassured the United States will not substantially change the Mideast policy under the new administration.”

Jason Maoz, editor at the Jewish Press, recently emailed me his very timely article on RN’s pivotal role in defending Israel in the Yom Kippur War, which started as a surprise attack on the Jewish state by Egypt and Syria in Fall of 1973.

Maoz first published his article in 2005, but  since today is October 6, the 36th anniversary of the war’s commencement, it is well worth re-posting and a fascinating read. Here is an excerpt:

Fortunately for Israel, Nixon crushed McGovern among non-Jewish voters and easily won a second term. Now, a year after the election, Israel’s fate was very much in Nixon’s hands.

Precise details of what transpired in Washington during the first week of the Yom Kippur War are hard to come by, due mainly to conflicting accounts given by Kissinger and Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger regarding their respective roles.

What is clear, from the preponderance of information provided by those who witnessed or were involved with the unfolding events, is that Nixon – overriding inter-administration objections and bureaucratic inertia – implemented a breathtaking transfer of arms. During a 32-day period beginning October 14, jumbo U.S. military aircraft touched down in Israel close to 600 times, delivering some 22,300 tons of material. This enabled Israel to reverse its earlier setbacks, surround the Egyptians in the Sinai, and advance deep into Syrian territory.

This was accomplished, as Walter J. Boyne noted in an article in the December 1998 issue of Air Force Magazine, while “Washington was in the throes of not only post-Vietnam moralizing on Capitol Hill but also the agony of Watergate, both of which impaired the leadership of Richard M. Nixon. Four days into the war, Washington was blindsided again by another political disaster – the forced resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew.”

According to those with firsthand knowledge, it was Nixon’s stubborn insistence that propelled the massive arms transfer, code-named Operation Nickel Grass.

“Both Kissinger and Nixon wanted to do [the airlift],” said former CIA deputy director Vernon Walters, “but Nixon gave it the greater sense of urgency. He said, ‘You get the stuff to Israel. Now. Now.’”

Read the rest here.

Be Tough, But Be Committed To Peace

August 31, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Israel and Palestinians, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

Former U.K. Prime Minister and current Middle East envoy Tony Blair says that Benjamin Netanyahu is just the type of strong leader Israel needs at the current juncture, but would be well served to follow up with an overture for a permanent Middle East peace, just as a certain American President did in East Asia in 1972:

He added that for this reason, it’s important that any peace deal be a final settlement of all the issues. He also said he believed the hard-line nature of the Netanyahu government could be an advantage, but that the prime minister must take the initiative. “The great example is the ‘Nixon goes to China’ one, although it is important that he goes,” he said.

Obama, Nixon, And The Israelis

August 5, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Barack Obama, International Affairs, Israel and Palestinians, Nixon in the News, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

Then and now in the Oval Office: President Nixon pictured with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir on September 9, 1969 (left), and President Obama pictured with now Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on May 18, 2009 (right).

Over at The National Interest in their weekly news compilation, TNI editors are stressing the importance in talking to Israel rather than declare an all or nothing ultimatum on the end to settlements, even to those in close proximity to Israel proper.

According to Aluf Benn editor at the Ha’aretz newspaper writing in the July 27th edition of The New York Times, President Obama’s indifference towards Israel will make Prime Minister Netanyahu less cooperative since he can galvanize a base that views Obama as a “shaky ally” and one that one wouldn’t help in resolving security issues that would come with disbanding settlement construction:

So far, Israelis have embraced Mr. Netanyahu’s message. A Jerusalem Post poll of Israeli Jews last month indicated that only 6 percent of those surveyed considered the Obama administration to be pro-Israel, while 50 percent said that its policies are more pro-Palestinian than pro-Israeli. Less scientifically: Israeli rightists have — in columns, articles and public statements — taken to calling the president by his middle name, Hussein, as proof of his pro-Arab tendencies.

According to historian Alistair Horne in his new book Kissinger 1973, The Crucial Year, under President Nixon the Middle East gained a renewed presence in U.S. foreign policy, albeit in the primary Cold War context.

In 1971, Nixon Secretary of State William Rogers became the highest ranking American diplomat to visit the region since John Foster Dulles landed there in 1952.

For his part President Nixon was already furnishing talks with the Egyptians and Jordanians as early as April 1969 during his first year in office, meeting with Jordan’s King Hussein and President Nasser’s personal emissary Mahmoud Fawzi to discuss the diplomatic tracks for establishing closer ties with the Arab nations and achieving territorial integrity with the Israelis. The meetings with the two Arab leaders were followed by a White House visit from Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir that September. Nixon re-assured Meir that he would maintain commitments to supply the Israeli air force with twenty-five Phantom Jets and eighty Skyhawk fighters, as well as $200 million per year in low interest loans for a period up to five years.

President Nixon echoed Dr. Kissinger’s critical sentiments on Secretary Rogers’ plans for the Middle East, to whom the President designated the region to. The plan closely resembles President Obama’s position on the settlement freeze, a stance interpreted by Mr. Benn to “please the Arab streets at Israel’s expense.” Nixon and Kissinger believed that giving up land in return for Arab assurances for peace would only encourage the “extremist elements among the Arabs,” offend the Israelis, and play “naïvely” into Soviet hands.

Nixon knew that he needed Israeli cooperation for a peace framework, but he dually recognized that it was important to make overtures to the Arab states concerning the occupied territory and to stave off military imbalance and international incident with the Soviets.

The delicate balancing act ultimately paid off. When civil war broke out in Jordan (dubbed their “Black September”), between Palestinian forces and the Hashemite Kingdom, the President gained assurances from Prime Minister Meir that Israel would not “precipitately move” on Jordan. But when 300 Syrian tanks crossed the (Soviet allied) Syria border, he authorized Dr. Kissinger to inform Israeli Ambassador Yitzak Rabin that he would approve of an Israeli airstrike on the Syrian military. Luckily Palestinian forces were defeated by the King Hussein and the Syrian tanks disengaged and went back home.

At the conclusion of his op-ed, Aluf Benn ultimately asked that President Obama “speak to us (Israelis) directly,”  assuring him the peace that they “will surely listen.”

According to President Nixon, Prime Minister Meir was piqued when the United States wanted the Israelis to “scrupulously” observe a cease-fire that she believed the Egyptians were intent on breaking. Keeping all options open on the proverbial chessboard,  he remained amenable to Israeli concerns, a flexibility that proved crucial to the Jordanian forces that “Black September” that even Ambassador Rabin credited it to — among other things — “a tough American position.”

Two Quotes

June 5, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Israel and Palestinians, Middle East, Nixon in the News, Obama administration, Presidents, Richard Nixon, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

“Former President Lyndon B. Johnson acknowledges that Richard Nixon, as a Republican President, has been able to accomplish some things that a Democratic President could not have…

“‘Can’t you just see the uproar,’ he asked during a recent interview, ‘if I had been responsible for Taiwan getting kicked out of the United Nations? Or if I had imposed sweeping national controls on prices and wages?’

“‘Nixon has gotten by with it,’ he observed, an appreciative tone in his voice. ‘If I had tried to do it, or Truman, or Humphrey, or any Democrat, we would have been clobbered.’”

–from the Washington Star, Dec. 1, 1971.

“In some ways, [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] may have an opportunity that a Labour or more Left leader might not have. There’s the famous example of Richard Nixon going to China. A Democrat couldn’t have gone to China. A liberal couldn’t have gone to China. But a big anti-Communist like Richard Nixon could open that door. Now, it’s conceivable that Prime Minister Netanyahu can play that same role.”

–President Obama on the prospects for a two-state solution for Mideast peace, as reported in the Daily Telegraph today.

Obama’s Israel Gamble

June 5, 2009 by Dimitri Simes | Filed Under International Affairs, Israel and Palestinians, Middle East | 1 Comment 

President Barack Obama’s speech on U.S. relations with the Muslim world in Cairo has already been labeled “historic” by MSNBC, though with no justification other than the fact that it was an hour long. Indeed, while Obama said a lot of the right things in the right style in the right place, he announced no major new initiatives or significant substantive departures from previous U.S. foreign-policy positions. Every American president, including even George W. Bush, publicly challenged the legality of Israeli settlements in occupied territories and described them as an obstacle to peace. Yet every Israeli government disregarded these declarations without encountering serious consequences. So it is not what President Obama says, but what he does on the Arab-Israeli dispute, and particularly on the settlements, that will shape how Muslims around the globe view the United States. In an NPR interview just before his departure for the Middle East, addressing the demand to freeze the settlements, Mr. Obama stated that “the United States has to follow through on what it says.” If he truly means that, then a dramatic change in American policy is coming.

Hopefully President Obama will deliver, because he is playing with fire. He is creating great expectations and, without action to satisfy these expectations, will produce great disillusionment in the Muslim world. That would be another blow to U.S. credibility and a gift to terrorists and extremists. A new beginning with the Muslim world will require President Obama not only to talk the talk, but to walk the walk.

One major hurdle for Mr. Obama is that many in Congress, like Florida Representative Robert Wexler, portray a settlement freeze as an Israeli concession that “. . . we cannot ask one party to unilaterally perform if the other parties are not fully willing.” This is a peculiar and dangerous logic. It is peculiar because it implies that Israel should be compensated for freezing the settlements, which were against international law in the first place. This is not to mention that they were contrary to the stated American policy of the past several decades, as well as morally wrong because of their impact on innocent Palestinians. Comments like those of Rep. Wexler are dangerous because they create the false impression that being more even handed would serve America well only if it leads to an agreement, rather than simply for the sake of doing the right thing and getting credit for it.

A peace agreement, should one be achieved, would very much be in the U.S. interest and would be a personal triumph for President Obama. However, while the United States may be indispensable in getting an agreement, it cannot force one; peace will require cooperation and, indeed, sacrifice by both sides, something we know from experience can only come through their willing participation. What is no less important, and what the United States can entirely control, is its own policy in the region. Moreover, it is not the lack of a peace agreement per se, but rather a widespread perception that the United States enables Israeli policies and actions that fuels hostility toward the United States among Muslims.

There are many longstanding conflicts in the world that the United States would prefer to settle but is not blamed for failing to solve. The India-Pakistan dispute over Kashmir is a perfect example. With this in mind, anything the United States can do to demonstrate to the world’s Muslims that it is not blindly in Israel’s corner would greatly help the American image. Israel is a democracy and an ally of the United States, but America knows how to distance itself from actions considered to be against U.S. interests and principles, even actions by its closest allies. President Dwight Eisenhower sided with Egypt in 1956 against Britain, France and Israel during the Suez Crisis, when Britain was America’s closest ally.

In the past there was a reason for the United States to make clear that it would always support Israel, no matter what. Faced with Soviet support for key Arab states, America could not afford the perception that allies of another superpower could defeat its closest friend in the region. Also, since Israel’s military superiority over its neighbors was not as overwhelming as it is today, there was a legitimate concern that by distancing itself from Israel, America could encourage an Arab attack. These factors are no longer present and, as a result, America can afford to treat Israel like any other friendly state, supporting Israel when it is in U.S. interests to do so and letting Israel accept responsibility for its actions and their consequences when Israeli conduct does not correspond with U.S. interests.

This is exactly how Israel treats the United States. Just the other day in Moscow, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman publicly described Israel’s friendly gestures toward Russia, which included refusing to recognize the independence of Kosovo and ceasing to sell weapons to Georgia beyond servicing those provided in the past. Mr. Lieberman also accused President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton of using double standards in the Middle East, meaning applying double standards against the Jewish state. When the Israeli foreign minister is prepared to talk like that in Moscow, Washington has every reason to move from the cold war-era blanket endorsements of Israel to the more selective support typical among sovereign states. So if Israel chooses to continue with its settlement expansion, the United States can and should make sure that the cost of settlements is deducted from any aid it provides to Israel—and that America abstains if the UN Security Council wants to censure Israel on the issue.

A more even-handed U.S. position on the Arab-Israeli dispute is justified on its own merits, but if Mr. Obama will put his money—or rather the denial of it—where his mouth is, chances are that the Netanyahu government would retreat on the settlements. While the United States has been unable to bring about comprehensive peace so far, the Israelis have always complied when America shows it means business on specific issues. In 1956, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion reversed his refusal to withdraw Israeli forces from the Sinai Peninsula within hours after President Eisenhower informed him that “it would be a matter of the greatest regret to all my countrymen if Israeli policy on a matter of such grave concern to the world should in any way impair the friendly cooperation between our two countries.” In October 1973, the Israelis stopped their assault on the encircled Egyptian Third Army after Henry Kissinger emphatically told Israeli Ambassador Simcha Dinitz that its destruction “is an option that does not exist.” And in 1982, President Ronald Reagan forced Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to abandon an attack on Beirut by threatening sanctions.

Mr. Obama has already discovered before seriously trying that applying meaningful pressure on Israel will create a powerful backlash from Israel’s most ardent supporters in the United States. But the president is at the peak of his popularity and the very beginning of his term; as long as he stands tall, while making clear as he did in Cairo that the United States’ basic bond with Israel “is unbreakable,” he can weather the storm. And Mr. Netanyahu knows from his previous term as prime minister of Israel that being on the wrong end of U.S. animosity is not a prescription for political longevity in Israel. Even with his fragile coalition, he may be able to find a way to accommodate the United States on the settlements. It would not bring instant Arab-Israeli peace or, for that matter, restore American credibility in the Muslim world, but it would surely be a good start.

Barack’s Narrow End Game?

June 1, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Barack Obama, International Affairs, Israel and Palestinians | Leave a Comment 

Akiva Eldar from Ha’aretz discusses what might happen to the U.S. should the Obama administration let American-Israeli relations deteriorate:

Instead of dismantling settlements, he would do better to dismantle the Iranian nuclear program. Otherwise Jerusalem will reassess its special relationship with Washington, and will reconsider its commitment to ensuring the qualitative advantage of the United States. If this situation continues, we may even stop vetoing anti-American decisions in the United Nations Security Council.

Let’s assume that there is some point to the criticism of the U.S. president’s determined insistence on petty details when it comes to Jewish construction in the territories. Let’s agree that Obama in his naivete really has become preoccupied with inconsequential matters, such as a handful of pathetic outposts. Should the State of Israel risk a crisis with the most important power in the world because of what it considers “inconsequential matters”? Does Israel have a greater existential strategic asset than its relations with the U.S. and its neighbors’ understanding that these intimate relations are unshakable?
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Is this the way to keep “all options open,” including receiving American approval to fly over the skies of Iraq, on the way to attacking Iran’s nuclear installations? And what will we do when the Iranians launch missiles at Tel Aviv? Will we send the new Abba Eban, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, to Washington to ask Obama to declare war on Tehran? At the same time, the settler from Nokdim can reprimand the president for refusing to take his “natural growth” into account.

Does Israel really have an interest in winning the battle over the settlements? What will happen if we destroy the prestige of the strongest man in the world and portray him as an empty vessel, incapable of halting the settlement program of a U.S. protege? Will an Israeli “victory” strengthen the status of the U.S. in the international campaign against Iran?

Bibi’s Narrow End Game?

June 1, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Israel and Palestinians | Leave a Comment 

The New York Times’ Helene Cooper writes that Benjamin Netanyahu’s obstinacy to President Obama’s position on ’settlement’ expansion could leave him unpopular at home for fear that the American-Israeli bond might deteriorate:

The measures under discussion — all largely symbolic — include stepping back from America’s near-uniform support for Israel in the United Nations if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel does not agree to a settlement freeze, administration officials said.

Other measures include refraining from the instant Security Council veto of United Nations resolutions that Israel opposes and making use of Mr. Obama’s bully pulpit to criticize the settlements, officials said. Placing conditions on loan guarantees to Israel, as the first President Bush did nearly 20 years ago, is not under discussion, officials said.

Still, talk of even symbolic actions that would publicly show the United States’ ire with Israel, its longtime ally, would be a sharp departure from the previous administration, which limited its distaste with Israel’s settlement expansions to carefully worded diplomatic statements that called them “unhelpful.”

Mr. Obama is to give a much-anticipated speech to the Muslim world from Egypt on Thursday. “There are things that could get the attention of the Israeli public,” a senior administration official said, touching on the widespread belief within the administration that any Israeli prime minister risks political peril if the Israeli electorate views him as endangering the country’s relationship with the United States.

If Mr. Netanyahu decides to attack Iran despite Mr. Obama’s overtures to the revolutionary regime, what then are the prospects for American-Israeli relations? It appears that Bibi needs to change the diplomatic equation — and fast — before he becomes isolated from abroad, and consequentially loses his support at home. The result might be ominous in the face of a nuclear-armed Iran: more concilliatory gestures that will expose Israel to threats that would jeopardize its very existence.

No Congruence On Iran/Palestine Tracks

May 19, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Iran, Israel and Palestinians | Leave a Comment 

Emanuelle Ottolenghi of Commentary’s Contentions says that a peace deal with the Palestinians won’t do anything to deter — or create unification against — the Iranian threat:

Clearly, the answer is Iran. One cannot blame Netanyahu for failing to impress on President Obama that this linkage is silly. But the bottom line is that anyone who believes that Israel will gain regional support against Iran only once it concedes on the Palestinian issue is a fool. Gulf states are not going to line up behind Israel against Iran as a favor to the Jewish state once Palestinians have their own. Since when have Arab regimes been so altruistic? History points in a different direction. Both in 1991 and in 2003 Arab countries endorsed, actively participated in, or acquiesced to a U.S. war against an aggressive Arab neighbor. Both times, peace processors in the West and radicals in the East suggested a similar linkage — first solve Palestine, then we can all unite against the common enemy. And both times — niceties such as the Madrid conference and the Roadmap aside — those Arab governments who felt threatened enough let the war-dance begin without waiting for deliverance for the Palestinians.

A Timely Gift

May 18, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Israel and Palestinians | Leave a Comment 

It is reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave — as a gift to President Obama — Mark Twain’s “Pleasure Excursion to the Holy Land.” Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary’s Contentions blog explains its significance:

Twain’s recollections of his post Civil War tour of the Mediterranean are an apt subject of reflection for Obama as he attempts to force Netanyahu to accept a Palestinian state. The Palestine Twain visited was a backwater of the Ottoman Empire whose inhabitants had no sense of a separate national identity.  Though Palestinian nationalism is a reality that Israel must contend with today, it originated and gained traction solely as a reaction to the return of large numbers of Jews to the country. And this is the problem with making a peace deal with the Palestinians and the reason they have turned down every chance for peace so far. Since their national identity is wholly bound up with negating Zionism, the two-state solution everybody in Europe and Washington believes will bring peace doesn’t appeal that much to them.

Oren: On Israel’s Abstract Threats

May 8, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Israel and Palestinians | Leave a Comment 

Michael Oren — soldier, scholar, and author — is the new Israeli Ambassador to Washington. Interestingly enough at Commentary Magazine he wrote this very lucid piece on the threats and choices — internally and externally — his country faces. He starts with the potential loss of Jerusalem, contending that the country’s political will depends most on its Zionist — rather than solely Jewish — identity:

The preservation of Jerusalem as the political and spiritual capital of the Jewish state is vital to Israel’s existence. This fact was well understood by David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, at the time of the state’s creation in 1948. Though Israel was attacked simultaneously on all fronts by six Arab armies, with large sections of the Galilee and the Negev already lost, Ben-Gurion devoted the bulk of Israel’s forces to breaking the siege of Jerusalem. The city, he knew, represented the raison d’être of the Jewish state, and without it Israel would be merely another miniature Mediterranean enclave not worth living in, much less defending.

Ben-Gurion’s axiom proved correct: For more than 60 years, Jerusalem has formed the nucleus of Israel’s national identity and cohesion. But now, for the first time since 1948, Israel is in danger of losing Jerusalem—not to Arab forces but to a combination of negligence and lack of interest.

Jerusalem no longer boasts a Zionist majority. Out of a total population of 800,000, there are 272,000 Arabs and 200,000 Haredim–ultra-Orthodox Jews who do not generally identify with the Zionist state. Recent years have seen the flight of thousands of secular Jews from the city, especially professionals and young couples. This exodus has severely eroded the city’s tax base, making Jerusalem Israel’s poorest city. Add this to the lack of industry and the prevalence of terrorist attacks and it is easy to see why Jerusalem is hardly a magnet for young Israelis. Indeed, virtually half of all Israelis under 18 have never even visited Jerusalem.

If this trend continues, Ben-Gurion’s nightmare will materialize and Israel will be rendered soulless, a country in which a great many Jews may not want to live or for which they may not be willing to give their lives.

Bibi’s Foreign Enforcer

March 16, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Israel and Palestinians | Leave a Comment 

Benjamin Netanyahu’s offer to make Avigdor Lieberman Foreign Minister could put Israel on a collision course with the Obama administration:

The agreement with Yisrael Beitenu is the first Netanyahu has initialed on his way toward setting up a coalition. The government taking shape would include nationalist and Orthodox Jewish parties that take a harder line on Palestinian and Arab issues than the outgoing administration of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Netanyahu has criticized last year’s U.S.-sponsored peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, aimed at partitioning the land and establishing a Palestinian state. The talks made little progress.

Netanyahu favors focusing on efforts to bolster the Palestinian economy, leaving issues like borders, sovereignty and Israeli settlements for a later stage.

In defiance of Israeli commitments to international plans, Netanyahu also favors expanding Israel’s West Bank Jewish settlements.

That could put Israel on a collision course with the Palestinians and the new Obama administration. In a recent visit, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the goal of negotiations must be the creation of a Palestinian state living next to Israel in peace.

Blake Hounshell from Foreign Policy’s Passport blog says you can kiss the peace process goodbye:

If so, you can kiss the peace process goodbye for a while, if it is not gone for good. Israel’s international standing is going to take a major nosedive.

Already, EU foreign affairs chief Javier Solana has warned that the way “the European Union will relate to an (Israeli) government that is not committed to a two-state solution will be very, very different.”

Lieberman’s party, Yisrael Beitenu, is getting five additional cabinet slots, including internal security.

But Charles Levinson from the Wall Street Journal says not so fast:

The 50-year-old immigrant from Moldova, however, also embodies many of the contradictions in Israeli politics. He has advocated a more moderate approach toward the peace process than most on the right, including Mr. Netanyahu. As a minister in outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government, he supported the establishment of a Palestinian state and is widely reported to have agreed to Mr. Olmert’s plans to divide Jerusalem as part of a final peace deal.

Can He Stay On?

March 9, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Israel and Palestinians | Leave a Comment 

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas hasn’t vacated his position despite his term expiring. But if elections were held today, public opinion suggests that he would lose to Hamas leader Ismael Haniyeh, a turn that could set peace prospects back for ages to come.

The Freeman Fracas

March 7, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Annals of the Obama Administration, China, International Affairs, Israel and Palestinians, Middle East, National Security, Nixon Administration figures, Obama administration, Political Philosophy, U.S. History | Leave a Comment 

When President Obama, during his period of transition, announced that he was appointing onetime Nixon White House aide Leon Panetta to head the CIA, the former Clinton chief of staff’s appointment, after a few initial stirrings of dissatisfaction, sailed through the Senate with no problems to speak of.  But the Obama White House’s latest choice from that era – Charles W. “Chas” Freeman Jr., who, as a young State Department official, acted as RN’s chief interpreter during the historic 1972 trip to China – has met with far greater trepidation all round.

Freeman, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the 1990-91 Gulf War and later spent a number of years heading the Saudi-sponsored Middle East Policy Council, is Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair’s choice to head the National Intelligence Council.   But Freeman’s expression over the years of foreign-policy views so thoroughly in the “realist” camp that they make Brent Scowcroft sound like Paul Wolfowitz has stirred passionate disagreement in recent days, especially from supporters of Israel.  Fox News has a helpful article on the controversy, though it could use a little more background detail.

For example, Harvard University’s Stephen Walt is quoted as comparing Freeman’s critics to Sen. Joe McCarthy, but the article fails to mention that the MEPC, when Freeman was in charge of it, was responsible for the first American publication of Walt and John Mearshimer’s incendiary essay “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.”   But the Freeman issue is shaping up as a major battlefield for Obama’s foreign policy aims, and this article, such faults aside, is a useful introduction to it.

Seeing All Sides In The Middle East

March 7, 2009 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Cold War, Israel and Palestinians, Nixon Administration figures, Richard Nixon | 2 Comments 

Why the debate over Chas Freeman’s appointment to a top intelligence position is like Cold War attacks on Richard Nixon for being soft on the Soviets.

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A colleague suggests that I shouldn’t neglect charges against Ambassador Freeman that he has financial conflicts of interest that preclude his serving. Andrew Sullivan analyzes the trajectory of the Freeman controversy and shows that it began with outrage over his views. I’m with Sullivan. If there’s a compelling financial question, then it should be judged strictly on its demerits.

Kadima And Labor Out

February 25, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Israel and Palestinians | Leave a Comment 

Avigdor Lieberman is in, and possibly promintently. Does this set Netanyahu on a collision course with Washington concerning Iran, Palestine, and greater Middeast Policy?

Mitchell Pushing Israel?

February 19, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Israel and Palestinians | Leave a Comment 

Ben Smith reports that special Mid-East envoy George Mitchell is denying reports that he pushing Israel into a moderate coalition.

A Step Closer For Bibi

February 19, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs, Israel and Palestinians | Leave a Comment 

Netanyahu’s coronation is all but complete with the help of kingmaker Avigdor Lieberman:

The divisive Mr. Lieberman has emerged as the kingmaker of Israeli politics after the Feb. 10 election produced a deadlock between its two largest parties, and his backing of Mr. Netanyahu could be basis for a hard-line government.

Mr. Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu Party finished third, essentially allowing him to determine whether Mr. Netanyahu or his chief rival, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, would be able to form a parliamentary majority.

Mr. Lieberman has raised eyebrows around the world with his calls to make Israel’s Arab minority swear loyalty to the state or lose their citizenship.

He announced his decision in a meeting with President Shimon Peres, who is holding consultations with political parties this week before choosing a candidate to form a government. Mr. Lieberman told Mr. Peres that Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud Party should head the new government, but that he supports a broad coalition that includes Ms. Livni’s centrist Kadima Party as well.

“We need a wide government with the three big parties, Likud, Kadima and Yisrael Beiteinu,” Mr. Lieberman said. “Netanyahu will lead the government but it will be a government of Netanyahu and Livni together.”

Kadima edged out Likud in the election, capturing 28 seats compared to 27 for Likud. But in the 120-seat parliament, Likud is in a better position to put together a coalition because of gains by Mr. Lieberman and other hard-line parties. It could be several weeks before a coalition is finally formed.

Mr. Netanyahu, a critic of peace talks with the Palestinians, has said he would turn to his “natural” allies among the religious and nationalist parties in parliament. But he has said he also hopes to bring in more centrist parties to create a wide coalition with broad national consensus.

Israel’s Elections, Past, Present And Future

February 17, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Barack Obama, History, International Affairs, Iran, Israel and Palestinians, Middle East, Political Philosophy | Leave a Comment 

In his most recent column – which was published at Newsweek’s site on the 60th anniversary of the convening of Israel’s first parliament, or Knesset — Fareed Zakaria discusses the steady increase in the number of Arab citizens in the Jewish state (pointing out that demographers predict they will comprise 25% of the nation’s population in about fifteen years) and the impact it has had on the nation’s electorate.

As Zakaria points out, the elections this month marked the sharpest downturn in support for the Labor Party in its history; the voters are clearly disillusioned with its recent pattern of offering increasingly accomodating settlements to a Palestinian National Authority that is inclined to dismiss them as insufficient.

Faced with repeated rocket attacks from Hamas that wreaked death and destruction along Israel’s border with Gaza, the electorate mostly opted for one of three choices. One was the Kadima party founded by Ariel Sharon and now led by Tzipi Livni, which favors keeping Israel a predominantly Jewish state even if it means giving up half of the nation’s territory post-1973 (not only the West Bank and Gaza, but perhaps even portions of the pre-1967 land).

Another choice was Likud, led by the irrepressible former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who, with his customary skill for outsmarting his opponents and producing the unexpected, ran a campaign which made considerable use of the Internet-based techniques pioneered by Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008. Likud, however, used this approach to promote a platform which espoused determined opposition to Hamas and the need to confront Iran on the nuclear issue — a platform considerably at odds from President Obama’s approach to the Mideast situation so far.

The third party supported by the voters was Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu, which takes a much harsher view toward Israel’s Arab citizens than Kadima or Likud, arguing that they should take a loyalty oath to remain citizens. Lieberman, who emigrated from the then-USSR in the 1970s, enjoys considerable support from Russian emigrants.

Although Likud is ideologically closer to Lieberman’s party than Kadima is, at the moment it is still uncertain that Yisrael Beiteinu will join forces with Netanyahu. The possibility remains that Lieberman will reach an accomodation with Kadima, which won a one-seat plurality in the Knesset. This is quite in the tradition of Israeli politics.

Since the founding of the Jewish state in 1948, its electoral system has been based on proportional representation. At the start of Israel’s existence, there were already several dozen political parties of varying size, most of which had been in operation for years; the two-party system that took root in the United States in the early 1800s never had its counterpart in Israel, whose system bears a closer resemblance to France in the Fourth Republic or to Italy, though never quite as chaotic as France was in the 1950s or Italy in the 1970s.

Under Israel’s constitution, the Knesset is assembled for a term of four years after an election, although just as often — frequently following a no-confidence vote — elections have been called early, usually after three years. Cabinets are put together by several parties that form a governing coalition. Quite often parties quit a coalition for one or a number of reasons, in which case the cabinet must be reassembled by the Prime Minister even if this does not result in another election.

In the early days of Israel its dominant political organization was Mapai, an acronym for Land Of Israel Workers’ Party. For most of its existence (it was founded in 1930 in what was then Palestine) Mapai was led by David Ben-Gurion, the nation’s dominant political figure in its first fifteen years. Following a dispute with his colleagues, Ben-Gurion left Mapai in 1965 after leading it for over 30 years and set up a smaller party, Rafi. Three years later, when Rafi’s leadership voted to join with Mapai to form the Labor party, Ben-Gurion quit it and started yet another party, the National List. In the 1970s, a few years after Ben-Gurion permanently retired from politics, the National List joined forces with Likud, and it was partly thanks to this support that Likud leader Menachem Begin, Ben-Gurion’s perennial arch-foe in Israel’s early decades, finally succeeded in becoming Prime Minister in 1977. Of such paradoxes are the electoral history of the nation made.

(It’s worth mentioning that early in 1969 the Labor party joined with Mapam to form the Alignment party which briefly held a narrow majority of seats in the Knesset — the only time in Israel’s sixty years of existence that one party did so.)

Though Mapai was always a thoroughly secular-minded party, to maintain its leadership it usually had to count on the support of at least one religious party and two or three small parties representing minorities such as the Arabs or immigrants from Morocco or Yemen. This remained the case when it became part of the Labor party, and Likud in turn, when it gained power, had to accomodate smaller parties, frequently ones leaning toward ultra-Orthodox voters.

Although Lieberman’s party gained seats in this election it is still not large enough to form a majority with any other individual party in the Knesset. It is probable that three or four more parties will figure into the equation needed to assemble a Cabinet and to get legislation passed in the Knesset. Israel has long prided itself on being the only true democracy in the Middle East (until Iraq became the second in recent years) and, though the results are sometimes remarkably unpredictable and disorganized, the recent elections show that the Jewish state will always find a way to move into the future.

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