Israel-Palestine: Fayyad Puts Invitation to Israel within a "Palestinian State"

Israel and Mitchell-Netanyahu: No Agreement Yet "Good"

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After Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that there would be no Palestinian state in the next 16 years, Palestinian (West Bank) Prime Minister Salam Fayyad talked to the Times on Tuesday and declared that the Palestinian Authority intends to establish a de-facto state within two years:

We have decided to be proactive, to expedite the end of the occupation by working very hard to build positive facts on the ground, consistent with having our state emerge as a fact that cannot be ignored. This is our agenda, and we want to pursue it doggedly.

Fayyad added that if a functioning de facto state existed — with or without Israeli co-operation — including competent security forces, functioning public services and a thriving economy, it would force Israel to put its cards on the table as to whether it was serious about ending the 42-year occupation of the West Bank.

Yet this is far from a declaration of resistance to the current Israeli line. Fayyad's reference to "security forces" indicates he is ready for a de-militarized West Bank, and “a thriving economy” implies a blank cheque for Israeli investment and a welcome for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s economic improvement plan.

Fayyad also said that the days of mutual recriminations were over and that both sides must commit to the 2003 “road map” whereby Israel would implement a comprehensive settlement freeze and the Palestinians would curb the activities of militant groups. In effect, this was a guarantee that there will be no terrorist action by Fatah.

The touchstone issue of division is Israel's continuing construction of 2,500 housing units in the West Bank, which Fayyad said it was vital to stop. Given the Palestinian Prime Minister's willingness to give ground in other areas, will Tel Aviv finally give a concession on settlements so talks can resume?

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."

Iraq and Beyond: Oh, Blackwater, Keep on Killing?

The 2003 Iraq War may be yesterday's headline news, but the repercussions continue.
On Monday, the trial of Erik Prince,the former boss of Blackwater, the private security company that left its mark on Iraq with allegations of corruption, violence, and murder,
finallly began.

Accusations against Prince, made by two former employees, include manslaughter; the murder of employees co-operating with federal authorities; destruction and hiding of incriminating videos, e-mails, and documents from officials; authorisation of the use of mind-altering drugs and steroids; authorisation to use child prostitutes; smuggling of illegal weapons into Iraq on his private aircraft; permission to use illegal exploding bullets “to inflict maximum damage on Iraqis"; racketeering and tax evasion.

All these acts, according to the former employees, were underpinned Prince's imposition of a "crusade mentality" in which he encouraged Blackwater personnel to wipe out Muslims in Iraq, One of the affidavits states:

Prince views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe. Mr. Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. Mr. Prince operated his companies in a manner that encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life. For example, Mr. Prince’s executives would openly speak about going over to Iraq to “lay Hajiis out on cardboard”. Going to Iraq to shoot and kill Iraqis was viewed as a sport or game.

The former employee continued, “It appears that Mr. Prince and his employees murdered or had murdered one or more persons who have provided information, or who were planning to provide information, to the federal authorities about the ongoing criminal conduct”.

The affidavits of two former employees are a part of an action started by lawyers representing 60 Iraqi civilians who are suing Blackwater for alleged crimes. Farid Walid, who was shot in Nisour Square two years ago during a massacre that killed 17 Iraqis in September 2007, told The Times of London: “Everybody here knows of cases where Blackwater guards shot innocent people without a second thought... They are a symbol of the occupation. Nobody will forget but Iraqis might think at least a little differently of America if the killers are put in prison.”

A statement from Blackwater responded: “It is obvious that plaintiffs have chosen to slander Mr. Prince rather than raise legal arguments or actual facts that will be considered by a court of law. We are happy to engage them there. We question the judgment of anyone who relies upon and [reiterates] anonymous declarations.”

The affidavits and motion can be found on the website of the Center for Constitutional Rights.