Middle East Inside Line: Israel Presses US on Syria, Dubai Killing, Palestine's "Quiet Revolution"

Israel Pressures US on Syria: After this week's meetings in Damascus between Syrian President Bashar Assad, Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has been pressing U.S. officials not to send Robert Ford, the recently nominated ambassador to Damascus.

Dubai Accuses Israel on Assassination: Dubai Police Chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim says he  has DNA evidence from one of the assassins and fingerprints from the crime scene. He urged Meir Dagan, the director of Israel's Mossad spy agency, to "be a man" and admit that Israel stands behind last month's killing of Hamas chief Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

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UN Repeats Call for Call War Inquiries: On Friday, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a new resolution, by 98-7 (including the US and Israel) with 31 abstentions and 50 absent, calling on both Israel and the Palestinian Authority to investigate the 2008/9 Gaza War with inquiries that are "independent, credible and in conformity with international standards".


PA Rules Out Violence over Israel's West Bank Sites: The Palestinian Authority's Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, referring to Israel's plan to include West Bank religious locations in a new list of national heritage sites, said Friday that Palestinians will protest peacefully:

We will not be dragged into violence by the terrorism of the settlers, and the terrorism of the settlement project.

Our people understand all the dimensions of this political decision but they are determined to respond by building a positive reality on the ground.

This is what we call a quiet revolution.

Middle East Inside Line: Row over Dubai Assassination, Palestine Authority to Re-Start Talks?

Pressing Israel on Dubai Assassination: Following the use of French, British, German and Irish passports by the suspected assassins of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai, European states demanded further clarifications from Israel. Israeli diplomatic opinion is split, with some worrying about the image of Israel whilst others think the crisis will vanish soon. "At this stage, there is no evidence linking Israel to the incident, and if that continues, the affair will subside quickly," one senior Israeli official predicted.

Interpol published wanted notices and images on Thursday of the 11 people in the suspected hit squad. Dubai Police Chief Lt.-Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim called on Interpol to seek the arrest of Meir Dagan, urging it to issue a “red notice against the head of Mossad.”

Hamas said the two Palestinians arrested in the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh are former members of the rival Fatah movement's security forces, with links to Fatah's senior security official Mohammed Dahlan. Haaretz also says that the two Palestinians were at one time members of the Palestinian Authority's security forces in Gaza, but only after Hamas took over the Strip in June 2007. Dahlan and Fatah deny the charges.



Palestinian Authority to Restart Talks? Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger, after a visit to Ramallah, told Israeli officials that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas would start indirect talks with Israel next week, according to a senior government source in West Jerusalem.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, speaking to a delegation of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jenin, complained about Israeli incursions. He said:

While there is interest on both sides in promoting Palestinian development and progressing toward statehood, Israel’s military operations in PA-controlled areas not only run operational risks, but they undermine our credibility and standing. We need actions taken by the Israelis to be consistent with the notion of a state in evolution.

Iran Nuke Shocker: Clinton/White House "Tehran Not Building Weapons"

Sharmine Narwani writes for The Huffington Post:

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs have been on a roll since Friday defending Iran's assertions that it is not pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

You heard right.

In response to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent claims that Iran had enriched uranium to the 20% level required for medical isotopes at the Natanz enrichment facility, Gibbs declared: "The Iranian nuclear program has undergone a series of problems throughout the year. We do not believe they have the capability to enrich to the degree to which they now say they are enriching."

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If that is the case, then how on God's earth can the Iranians enrich uranium to the 90% level required for a nuclear bomb?



Natanz, where the alleged enrichment took place --- or according to US officials, didn't --- is the site that Israel most threatens to bomb. The Jewish state claims that Iran is on the verge of producing a nuclear weapon. Or maybe not. Last June, Israel's Mossad Chief Meir Dagan extended the date for when Iran could produce weapons grade uranium or have "breakout capacity" to 2014.

While the US media rallied to cover Ahmadinejad's declaration on Thursday that Iran was now a "nuclear state", Gibbs dismissed those assertions, responding that "Iran has made a series of statements that are far more political than they are. They're based on politics, not on physics."

So which is it? Is Iran working on a nuclear bomb or not? Let's look at the evidence most recently cited by US officials. Speaking on Sunday at a US-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar where the US secretary of state is conducting a three-day tour --- in part to persuade Persian Gulf allies to support Obama's initiatives to contain a nuclear Iran --- Clinton said there was mounting evidence that the Islamic Republic was pursuing a nuclear weapon: "The evidence is accumulating that that's exactly what they are trying to do...Iran has consistently failed to live up to its responsibilities. It has refused to demonstrate to the international community that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful."

When asked to point to evidence of a nuclear program, US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley was quoted by Al Jazeera as saying: "Given the current trajectory that Iran is on - the fact that it still has centrifuges spinning, and the fact that it is unwilling to constructively engage the international community - we have to assume that Iran is pursuing a nuclear programme."

He continued: "Given all the steps that Iran has taken and all the actions that Iran refuses to take, we can only begin to draw the conclusion that Iran's intentions are less than peaceful."

If that is the basis on which the US is assembling a multi-national alliance to apply economic sanctions on the Iranian government, then it is deeply flawed premise. For one, it is virtually impossible to assess "intentions" when there is no real communication with the Islamic Republic, and therefore no way to anticipate or know its psyche.

A hostile stance toward US foreign policy is not a compelling barometer for assessing a country's preparedness to engage in risky belligerent actions --- neither is negative rhetoric or political posturing as Gibbs suggests. If that were the case, we would need to act on the perceived "intentions" of half the world's nations.

Secondly, for every one of the handful of allies who have bought in to our "intentions" theory, there are ten nations who do not see an Iran of harmful intentions. And it isn't just China and Russia that are hesitant. It is Brazil, Turkey, India, Qatar - important US allies - and the vast majority of the 118-nation Non-Aligned Movement.

A RAND report commissioned by the U.S. Air Force Directorate of Operational Plans and Joint Matters to take a fresh look at Iran's military, economic and religious strengths and limitations, last spring cautioned the administration to differentiate between Iran's rhetoric and its actions, an important factor in assessing intentions:

"Its revolutionary ideology has certainly featured prominently in the rhetoric of its officials," the report says. "However, the record of Iranian actions suggests that these views should be more accurately regarded as the vocabulary of Iranian foreign policy rather than its determinant."

The Report concludes that, in spite of its rhetoric and the concerns of neighboring states, Tehran does not seek territorial expansion or ideological exportation of its Islamic revolution. Instead, the report cautions that "the ideology and bravado of Iran's President Ahmadinejad and its religious leader Ayatollah Khamenei mask a preference for opportunism and realpolitik -- the qualities that define 'normal' state behavior."

The reading of events in the world is a major driver of US foreign policy formulation. Which is why these determinations should be taken out of the hands of elected officials and political appointees and placed squarely in the laps of area specialists of the non-ideological variety. There could be no better example of this than the Iraq WMD debacle, where American political ideologues pursued an agenda based on their "perceptions" and skewed world view rather than on reality and accumulated intelligence data.

And now we face more of the same erroneous logic regarding Iran's nuclear program, where "evidence" is based on perceived "intentions" rather than on indisputable fact. Which is why the number of nations willing to participate in rigorous sanctions against the Islamic Republic is miniscule compared to those against.

Worse yet, Gibbs' statement last Friday reveal that we know there is no real evidence of a growing Iranian nuclear capability. If they can't even enrich uranium to 20%, then they can't make a bomb --- period.

Israel: A Loose Cannon for a Middle East Conflict?

Sharmine Narwani writes in The Huffington Post:

Another war is looming in the Middle East, say the pundits. It is hard to ignore the whispers -- now louder -- when they are regularly punctuated by hostile statements from various officials in the region, leading further credence to a possible conflagration.

The likely site of the newest regional battle is the Levant. Funnily enough, nobody can pinpoint exactly where, although it is clear that Israel will be involved. Which should tell us something right there.

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Since the Jewish state's military attack on Lebanon in 2006, it has been itching for a "do-over." Why? Because for the first time in its history, Israel did not win a war. The month-long bombardment of Lebanon resulted in a stalemate -- an intolerable outcome by the standards of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

To add to the indignity, it was a mere few thousand men -- not even a national army -- that took the IDF by surprise.

The cornerstone of Israel's military strategy is deterrence -- whether though brandishing a nuclear arsenal to warn off threatening nation-states, or by Gaza-style intensive attacks that send a strong message to a weaker party. This is a highly militarized state that has lived under the legacy of conflict its entire existence. Loss -- or even perceived loss -- is not an option.


So instead of self-examination, Israel's conflicted, and increasingly right-wing political body unleashed a belligerent tone -- angry, defiant, threatening, unfocused like a petulant and wounded child. Diversionary tactics came into play to focus domestic and international attention elsewhere and fill the frustrating void -- Hamas in Gaza, the potential nuclear aspirations of Iran, Palestinian intransigence on peace talks, Hezbollah's weapons, Syria, Turkey, anti-Semitism, the Goldstone Report.

In recent weeks, Israeli officials have made inflammatory statements about conflicts on half a dozen fronts.

SYRIA:

"When there is another war, you will not just lose it, but you and your family will lose power," right-wing Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman challenged Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last Thursday, after Assad claimed that Israel is "driving the region towards war, not peace."

Lieberman went further and hit at the heart of any future Israeli-Syrian rapprochement: "We must bring Syria to realize that...it will have to give up on its ultimate demand for the Golan Heights." Israeli leaders have in the past accepted in principle that the Syrian Golan Heights, captured and occupied by Israel in 1967, would necessarily be part of any bilateral peace deal.

GAZA:

In January -- one year after Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza that lead to the deaths of 1,400 Palestinians -- Major General Yom Tov Samia, former head of the IDF's Southern Command, told the Jerusalem Post: "We are before another round in Gaza... another war with Hamas is inevitable." And Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned Gaza's leaders to "watch their step, and not to cry crocodile tears if they force [us] to take action."

The hue and cry about Hamas' rockets hitting Israeli towns was Tel Aviv and Washington's driving narrative in defense of Israel's military actions in Gaza. Still is. But just this week, the Jewish State announced that a new $200 million rocket defense system called the "Iron Dome" will not be deployed against Gaza as promised. Too expensive for Gaza, says the military, explaining that it will be deployed elsewhere where there is more of an "imminent" threat.

And this comes after months of Israeli insistence that Hamas has significantly boosted its military capabilities and has obtained long-range rockets, mostly from Iran. So which is it -- either they do or don't have weapons, either they do or don't pose a threat?

LEBANON:

No two other parties have been more relentlessly subjected to Israeli threats than Iran and Hezbollah. Last summer, after it was clear that the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah would likely participate at the cabinet level in any unity government formed following Lebanon's June elections, Israeli leaders fell over themselves in their rush to issue warnings. Netanyahu, Barak and Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon all threatened that any border attacks would be blamed on the Lebanese central government -- with repercussions.

Just last month, Israeli Minister Yossi Peled opined, "Without a doubt we are heading for another round (of battle) in the North. No one knows when, but it's clear that it will happen."

And so both Hezbollah and Israel have moved weapons systems closer to their mutual borders.

IRAN:

Iran, in turn, has been the recipient of non-stop bombing threats from Israel over its civilian nuclear program, which the Jewish State claims is really a clandestine plan to build nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Never mind that some two dozen International Atomic Energy Agency reports over six years show no diversion of materials to weaponization. Or that Israeli military intelligence has been extending the date for a finished Iranian nuclear warhead since the 1990s. Last June, Mossad Chief Meir Dagan declared the new date for the first Iranian nuke would be in 2014. But Israel's war drums have kept beating as though these weapons were already sitting on launch pads, ready to go.

TURKEY:

Relatively new on the scene in the game of belligerent words is Turkey. A rare Israeli ally in the Middle East both in political and military terms, Turkey has drawn away from the alliance since Israel's widely-criticized Gaza attacks last year, when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out at the particularly brutal IDF campaign.

Things have gone from bad to worse since, culminating a month ago in the now-infamous Ayalon row when the Israeli deputy foreign minister publicly and deliberately humiliated Turkey's ambassador in front of cameras. Israel has called Turkey anti-Semitic and very recently slammed the Turkish prime minister again when he drew attention to the continuing Israeli blockade of Gaza and its daily violations of Lebanese airspace.

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Some Israeli critics suggest that the destabilizing escalation in rhetoric may not just be as a result of Israel's psychological loss in 2006, but more recently, because of an increased paranoia about international isolation -- the result of war crimes allegations documented against Israel in the UN's Goldstone Report about the Gaza war, and the country's ongoing occupation of Palestinian lands.

In a stunning attack on his government two weeks ago, Israeli writer Gideon Levy wrote a commentary piece in Haaretz in which he takes to task their "cynical" use of Holocaust Remembrance Day to propagandize toward political ends:

"An Israeli public relations drive like this hasn't been seen for ages. The timing of the unusual effort - never have so many ministers deployed across the globe - is not coincidental: When the world is talking Goldstone, we talk Holocaust, as if out to blur the impression. When the world talks occupation, we'll talk Iran as if we wanted them to forget."

But the escalation of rhetoric from Israel's right-wing government is not being viewed as simple political posturing -- more, like a promise of battle. As concerned as the Jewish State may be about conflict on its borders, its neighbors -- having been on the receiving end of superior Israeli weapons, and having suffered far larger numbers of civilian casualties -- are taking these words very seriously.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, at a joint press conference with Spain's Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos on Thursday pointed to this verbal escalation of hostilities by calling on Israel to "desist from making threats against Gaza, southern Lebanon, Iran and now Syria."

Because rhetoric after all creates a perception. And perception is 100% of politics -- not to be played with when standing on a tinderbox. The Levant has always been rife with small-scale border skirmishes -- that is the way of an area re-mapped by foreigners, with unnatural, artificial borders. But it is only Israel that has, since 1973, launched full-on military battles from these skirmishes. And without a doubt it is gearing up for a fight. Where, is anyone's guess.