When Democracies Fight: Israel and Sweden, Round 2

Israel and Sweden: When Democracies Fight

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Last weekend, we wrote about an article in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet by Donald Bostrom, calling for an investigation into numerous claims in the 1990s that Israeli soldiers stole the organs of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and the furious response from Israeli diplomatic circles. Although the Swedish Embassy in Israel distanced itself from the report, the Swedish government. Stockholm refused to condemn the article, saying briefly that Sweden has a “free press".

Israel has maintained its criticism. Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz claimed:

This is an anti-Semitic blood libel against the Jewish people and the Jewish state. The Swedish government cannot remain apathetic… We know the origins of these claims. In medieval times, there were claims that the Jews use the blood of Christians to bake their Matzas for Passover. The modern version now is that the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldiers use organs of Palestinian to take money.

Then, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman compared today’s Sweden with the country of the 1940s, telling Sweden’s ambassador on Thursday evening:

It's a shame that the Swedish Foreign Ministry fails to intervene in a case of blood libels against Jews… This is reminiscent of Sweden's stand during World War II, when [it] had failed to intervene as well.

Predictably, politics is now on the streets, with thousands of Israelis signing an online petition to boycott the Swedish furniture retailer IKEA.

What should not be forgotten, as we noted in the earlier article, is that this dispute overlays diplomatic frictions over Israel's policy toward Palestine and possible political advantage in displacing that issue. So expect the rhetorical battle between neo-Holocaust scenarios, in which the Israeli military is victimised,  and the claims of freedom of the press to continue for some time.

Netanyahu in London: Will Israel Make Any Move on Settlements and Jerusalem?

Israel and Lebanon: Tensions at Boiling Point?
Saturday Debate: Prosperity or Invasion in the West Bank?
Boiling Point for US-Israeli Relations: The Warning to Israel from Within

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UPDATE 1730 GMT: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a press conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, has said today that Israel and the United States are nearing a compromise that would allow for the resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians and as well as "normal life" for Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

However, Netanyahu held firm on his stance that Israel will not limit Jewish construction in East Jerusalem. "The settlers need kindergartens and homes for their families," adding that this does not mean that this would necessitate expropriating more land in the West Bank.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in London, scheduled to meet his British counterpart Gordon Brown on Tuesday and President Obama's envoy George Mitchell on Wednesday before seeing German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday.

In Netanyahu’s meetings with Brown and Merkel, the top issue is expected to be Tel Aviv’s demands on the European Union to strengthen sanctions against Tehran. On Sunday, before Netanyahu left Israel, he phoned French President Nicholas Sarkozy with that message.

Undoubtedly, Netanyahu’s most challenging discussion will be held with Mitchell, notably on the current situation with regards to the settlement freeze in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Netanyahu Government has accepted a maximum six-month freeze in the West Bank, but the Obama Administration is insisting on a freeze for a year both in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The Jerusalem Post reports that a senior Israeli official said, before Netanyahu’s flight to London, that Israel would not accept any limitations on its sovereignty in “the capital". Netanyahu would insist on “the continuation of normal life in the settlements”, which has already replaced the rhetoric of “the natural growth in the settlements” used by Israeli officials.

It is still a mystery whether Tel Aviv will be willing to give more concessions on the timetable but, even if it does, Netanyahu has already established the ground of resistance in case of a demand to divide Jerusalem into two section as a precondition for a two-state solution. Netanyahu told his Cabinet on Sunday that "the discussions with Mitchell were just the beginning of a series of talks and exchanges that had been going on intensively recently, and in good spirits". He continued: “There is a wish to hold direct talks between us and the Palestinians, even though this depends on the understandings with the Americans and the Palestinians."

The US State Department said on Monday that Mitchell was getting closer to winning agreement from the Israelis and Palestinians to resume peace talks, but Ha'aretz reports, from a political source in Jerusalem, that a compromise of 9-12 months on construction in the West Bank would not include East Jerusalem or most of the 2,500 housing units whose construction had already commenced. On Sunday, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told reporters:

In the 16 years since the Oslo Accords, we haven't managed to bring peace to the region, and I'm willing to bet that there won't be peace in another 16 years, either. Certainly not on the basis of the two-state solution… The establishment of a Palestinian state within two years is an unrealistic goal… There are some who believe this is possible, and I do not want to interfere. I am ready to grant time so that there will be another effort to reach a Palestinian state, but I will not take on tasks that I do not believe in.

So, as Netanyahu prepares for his meeting tomorrow with Mitchell, there is the immediate question of whether Israel will offer a settlement freeze in the West Bank for 12 months to avoid the same demand on construction in East Jerusalem. But that in turn opens up the bigger question: is there any Israeli intent to pursue a resolution of Jerusalem's status as part of a two-state solution?

Israel: The Indictment of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman

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Last week, Israeli police recommended that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman be indicted on criminal charges. According to the police, there is sufficient evidence that Lieberman took bribes, fraudulently received goods, violated the duties of his public office, obstructed justice, harassed witnesses, and laundered millions of shekels using a host of shell companies and bank accounts. Furthermore, according to a police source, Lieberman contacted witnesses during the investigation despite being told not to do so.
The case was passed to state prosecutors and to Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz. On the same day, Lieberman issued a statement, claiming that the police's decision was without foundation and that he was the victim of political persecution:

For 13 years the police have conducted a campaign of persecution against me. There was not one real reason to open an investigation against me. I hope that, as opposed to the police, the other law enforcement bodies will act with reason, without political interests and without prejudice, and will not try to justify the longest political investigation in the history of the state.

One day later, Lieberman told a meeting of his party, Israel Beiteinu, that he would resign as Foreign Minister and party leader if Mazuz pressed charges. He added, “I'm happy that after great efforts and an appeal to the High Court of Justice, the investigation at least has reached its conclusion, and I hope the State Attorney's Office will supply a swift answer."

According to The Jerusalem Post, the Attorney General could take at least two months to issue an indictment. In the event of Lieberman's  resignation, the post of Foreign Minister will likely go to his deputy, Danny Ayalon, who is also a high-ranking official in Israel Beitenu.

Boiling Point for US-Israeli Relations: The Warning to Israel from Within

UPDATE (9 August, 1920 GMT): The Israeli Government is bringing the hammer down on Nadav Tamir after his criticism of the Netanyahu Government and its endangerment of US-Israeli relations. He has been summoned home and disciplined for his "very regrettable" memorandum.

You want to know how much trouble is Tamir in? Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon not only went public on Army Radio with criticism of the diplomat. He took the trouble to Twitter, "Nadav Tamir's document was not the work of a professional and contained more opinion than data."

How serious is the effect on US-Israeli relations of Israel’s uncompromising hard line on Palestine?

According to the Israeli daily newspaperHaaretz, Israel's consul general in Boston, Nadav Tamir, wrote a warning letter to the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Tamir accused the Netanyahu Government of endangering relations with Washington and risking the alienation of the Jewish lobby in the United States:

The manner in which we are conducting relations with the American administration is causing strategic damage to Israel. The distance between us and the US administration has clear consequences for Israeli deterrence.

There are American and Israeli political elements who oppose Obama on an ideological basis and who are ready to sacrifice the special relationship between the two countries for the sake of their own political agendas.

There has always been a discrepancy in the approaches of both states [on the issue of settlements], but there was always a level of coordination between the governments. Nowadays, there is a sense in the United States that Obama is forced to deal with the obduracy of the governments in Iran, North Korea, and Israel.

The administration is making an effort to lower the profile of the disagreements, and yet it is [Israel] that...is highlighting the differences.

The letter of Israel's Consul General is an explicit rejection of Israeli political language, which has been intensifying around the importance of Israeli ethnicity and Judaism, especially on the issue of settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Moreover, it underlines the effect on US perceptions. Israel’s image is shifting from a democratic and modern ally to “the source of obduracy” in the region as Israeli politicians dig in their heels on the issue of a freeze on settlements.

Indeed, the wider context bears out the pertinence of Tamir’s warning, with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s ultra-nationalism and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s selective reading of political history.

In an interview with The Times of London in June, Lieberman  applied the “clash of civilizations” theory to the Middle East. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was part of a broader "clash of values between civilizations" and was not the key for bringing peace to the region. He asserted, "With 9/11 and terrorist acts in London, Madrid, Bali, in Russia, I can't see any linkage with the Israeli-Palestinian problem."

In his major foreign policy speech in June, Netanyahu rejected an open approach to negotiations for a one-sided presentation of history:

Those who think that the continued enmity toward Israel is a product of our presence in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, is confusing cause and consequence… The attacks against us began in the 1920s, escalated into a comprehensive attack in 1948 with the declaration of Israel’s independence, continued with the fedayeen attacks in the 1950s, and climaxed in 1967, on the eve of the six-day war, in an attempt to tighten a noose around the neck of the State of Israel… All this occurred during the fifty years before a single Israeli soldier ever set foot in Judea and Samaria.

Palestine, for the Prime Minister, is always “the other” Israel's “universal, modern and right” values…

It is these statements that are the target of Tamir’s letter. Can Lieberman and Netanyahu sustain these statements when there are increasing doubts in Washington --- both because of the direct consequences for Palestine and the wider efects in the region --- over whether the political situation issustainable?