The Middle East/Iran Inside Line: Hezbollah In, Lieberman Out, France-Germany Making a Difference?

Iran’s Nuclear Programme: Talks, Threats, and Propaganda
Israel-Palestine: After Mitchell Meeting, Netanyahu Presses His Advantage

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Lebanon: Hezbollah in Government: Prime Minister-designate Sa'ad Hariri declared on Wednesday: "The national unity government will include the [ruling] March 14 alliance, and I also want to assure the Israeli enemy that Hezbollah will be in this government whether it likes it or not because Lebanon's interests require all parties be involved in this cabinet."

France and Germany Speak Out on Middle East, Iran: On Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then reiterated Germany’s call for two-state solution: "We shouldn't let the window of opportunity pass… The time is absolutely right. Let us do everything to use it."

Meanwhile, spokesmen for the Germany Government emphasised, "The German government advocates that no further settlements in the occupied territories be built. The federal government has emphasized repeatedly this position, and it has not changed." The spokesmem refused to give details on discussions over Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held in Gaza, "strongly appealed to his kidnappers to release him as fast as possible [as] his martyrdom has already lasted too long".

French President Nicholas Sarkozy, also on the scene, endorsed the German call for a halt to Israeli settlement expansion. He then switched to Iran, publicly warned that France would support further sanctions on Tehran if it did not stop uranium enrichment: "These are the same leaders, in Iran, who tell us that the nuclear program is peaceful and that the elections were honest. Frankly, who believes them?"

Sarkozy is due to meet with the leader of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, in Paris next week.

Israel: Foreign Minister in Trouble?: Haaretz’s Aluf Benn has pointed out the “damage” Foreign Ministry Avigdor Lieberman is causing to Israel's reputation and called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to replace him with a “real statesman”.

Benn argues that Lieberman’s has not furthered his country’s national interests in diplomatic exchanges with other countries and has, indeed, alienated them thanks to his “aggressive” statements. Lieberman has put his Prime Minister in a “foolish” position and endangering the peace process by calling it a “dangerous folly”.

Iran's Nuclear Programme: Talks, Threats, and Propaganda

The Latest from Iran (27 August): Catching Breath

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On the diplomatic calendar for Iran's nuclear programme, the date of 14 September has a big red circle around it. That's the day when 150 nations convene in the general convention of the International Atomic Energy Authority.

And that's why we are in the midst of manoeuvres and propaganda that put even the US-Iran contest of the Bush years to shame.

Two weeks ago, Iran proposed that the 14 September conference ban attacks on any nation's nuclear facilities. This was followed on 18 August by a declaration by Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, "Talks without preconditions is Iran's main stance in negotiations on the nuclear issue."

However, Tehran backed away from Soltanieh's statement and "Western and Israeli officials" struck back a day later: “The International Atomic Energy Agency under Director General Mohamed ElBaradei was refraining from publishing evidence obtained by its inspectors over the past few months that indicate Iran was pursuing information about weaponization efforts and a military nuclear program.”

What has followed has been a battle of spin, not between Iran and the US/Israel but amongst "Western officials". Those trying to keep talks with Iran on the rails let it be known that Iran had not expanded the number of centrifuges enriching uranium at its Natanz nuclear site since the end of May. Those opposed to engagement countered with the "news" that Iranian leaders had received and rejected in May a proposal calling for a halt to Iran's nuclear enrichment program in exchange for no new United Nations sanctions.

Beyond the propaganda, what is next? Tehran says it is ready for nuclear talks without preconditions but is decided not to stop its uranium enrichment facilities. Despite the Obama talk of engagement, others in Washington and European capitals are threatening to expand sanctions if Tehran does not shelve nuclear enrichment by the end of September. Israel continues its lobbying, moving between hints of military action and support for the toughest possible economic restrictions. Russia and China, sceptical of and often opposed to such sanctions, remain silent.

For now, just keep retracing that circle around 14 September.

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 and Sweden: When Democracies Fight

UPDATE 1300 GMT: The Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon, spreads his message by Twitter: "Calling on the Swedish government to strongly condemn these accusations"

Warning lights are blinking for the diplomatic relationship between Sweden and Israel. First, the "shocking" news came from a Swedish court in April that an Egyptian-born Palestinian found guilty of terror attacks against U.S. and Jewish targets in the 1980s could have his life sentence commuted to a 30-year prison term.

Then, on 4 August, Sweden criticized the State of Israel via the Swedish President of the European Union said, "The presidency of the European Union reiterates its serious concerns about the continued and unacceptable evictions in east Jerusalem, notably the evictions by Israeli authorities of two families….House demolitions, evictions and settlement activities in east Jerusalem are illegal under international law."

After the release of the report of the Jerusalem-based conservative NGO Monitor criticising “Swedish government funding for radical NGOs under the guise of human rights and humanitarian aid", eyes returned to Stockholm when the Swedish government declared on August 12 that 50 million Kronor ($6.9 million) would be given to the Palestinian Authority to help pay wages and pensions of local officials.

And that is not the end of the story. On Tuesday, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz printed Donald Boström’s claim, from his article in Sweden's largest daily newspaper, the left-leaning Aftonbladet, that Israeli soldiers are abducting Palestinians to steal their organs:

"Our sons are used as involuntary organ donors," relatives of Khaled from Nablus said to me, as did the mother of Raed from Jenin as well as the uncles of Machmod and Nafes from Gaza, who all had disappeared for a few days and returned by night, dead and autopsied.

Israeli diplomatic circles reacted with fury. Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Yigal Palmor called the newspaper's decision to publish "a mark of disgrace": "In a democratic country, there should be no place for dark blood libels out of the Middle Ages of this type….This is an article that shames Swedish democracy and the entire Swedish press."

There has been no reaction from the Swedish Government to the latest Israeli statements.

UPDATED Israel's War of Words: The Times of London, Iran's Bombs, and Hezbollah

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Co-written with Ali Yenidunya:

UPDATE 13 August, 0630 GMT: A good psychological warfare campaign can't go silent for long. Reuters reported on Wednesday: "Under a photograph of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sitting the previous day in the cockpit of an F-15I long-range fighter-bomber, mass-selling [Israeli newspaper] Ma'ariv quoted the official as saying Israel could carry out such a strike without U.S. approval but time was running out for it to be effective. The official said, ""The military option is real and at the disposal of Israel's leaders, but time is working against them."

You have to hand it to The Times of London: when it comes to propaganda, their reporters never run the risk of subtlety.

On 3 August, an article signed by no less than three intrepid reporters, including the Defence Correspondent, proclaimed, "Iran has perfected the technology to create and detonate a nuclear warhead and is merely awaiting the word from its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to produce its first bomb." A research programme to create weaponised uranium had been completed in the summer of 2003, and Iranian scientists "could feasibly make a bomb within a year of an order" from Khamenei.

Two days later, Foreign Editor Richard Beeston, one of the three authors of the Bomb Is Imminent piece, found another angle in a pair of articles, one co-written with Nicholas Blanford, "Tehran is investing...in its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah", which had "amassed tens of thousands of rockets and missiles capable of bombarding half [of Israel]".

The threat of an Iranian nuclear attack, coupled with its sponsorship of a regional war on Tel Aviv? Where could Beeston and his companions have discovered these master plans? According to one of the articles, "Western intelligence sources".

Which is absolutely right, if by "Western" you mean "Israeli".

We have written for months about how The Times is a leading channel for stories put out by Israel's military and intelligence services. This time, however, the paper went a step further. Rather than taking the information fed to the normal outlet, Tel Aviv correspondent Uzi Mahnaimi, it sent Beeston to Israel where he was given the material for the articles by Israeli officials. As Amos Harel subsequently reported in Ha'aretz, "At a Knesset [Israeli Parliament] Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee briefing on Tuesday [5 August], the head of the Military Intelligence Research Brigade, Brig. Gen. Yossi Baidatz, used almost identical terms to those of The Times" on the state of Iran's nuclear programme.

For the Hezbollah report, the Israeli military escorted Beeston to the Lebanese border where he met Brigadier-General Alon Friedman, the deputy head of the Israeli Northern Command, who laid out the line that the situation could “explode at any minute”. This followed an earlier Times claim of "surveillance footage" (source not identified) which "showed Hezbollah fighters trying to salvage rockets and munitions" from an ammunition bunker which exploded.

OK, it's far from rare for a newspaper to turn briefings by officials into an "exclusive" investigative report. It's not unusual to imply multiple sources to cover up the campaign of a single Government. What is distinctive about the reports in The Times is that Beeston and his colleagues cannot be bothered to cite information and analysis that cuts the other way. It is far from a deep secret that the December 2007 National Intelligence Estimate of US services had concluded that Iran had ended its nuclear arms research programme in 2003. In the same week of The Times' report, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research issued an assessment that Iran could not produce a nuclear bomb even if it wanted to do it right now:

While Iran has made significant progress in uranium enrichment technology, the State Department’s intelligence bureau (INR) continues to assess it is unlikely that Iran will have the technical capability to produce HEU [highly enriched uranium] before 2013.

Now perhaps the Israelis have some specific piece of intelligence that refutes the American assessment. Possibly there is some document somewhere that establishes that Iran is commanding a Hezbollah political and military forces with "40,000" rockets. Rest assured, however, that these articles are not based on such tangible evidence. They are press releases masquerading as investigative journalism.

To paraphrase one of the best guides to propaganda, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, "This is Israel and Iran, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."