Israel-Palestine Analysis: What is the Obama Administration Seeking?

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Middle East Inside Line: Israel-Palestine Moves in Cairo, Israel’s Conversion Bill, No Smoking Pipes for Gaza Women

Time is passing and the hopes of millions, encouraged by the November 2008 US elections, are melting away in the Middle East. The "extending a hand to unclenched fists" in President Obama's Inaugural speech, the declarations on democracy, freedom, humanity, and religion in the Cairo speech of June 2009, and dozens of proclamations on "Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security" have started to lose their aura.

Before the last meeting between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Palestinian Authority put another condition for the final status of a future Palestinian state: the deployment of international forces in the Palestinian territories as part of peace deal. However, instead of bringing pressure from the Obama Administration upon Israel --- for example, an extension of the settlement freeze in the West Bank if not necessarily a freeze on construction in East Jerusalem and lifting of the siege on Gaza, Washington merely polished up the grail of "Israel's security".

Having extended a carrot-filled unclenched fist to Netanyahu, President Obama had to put pressure on Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas to start direct talks as soon as possible. Of course, he knew that Palestinians would resist this since Israel had not responded to their requirements: the status of final borders, based on 1967, with agreed land swaps and the continuation of negotiations from December 2008. So, Obama allegedly promised Abbas that he would put his own map --- making concessions in favour of Palestinians, with East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state --- if Israel fails to bring its own proposals by next winter.

Meanwhile, the next target, both for Netanyahu and Obama's envoy George Mitchell, was Egypt. Both hope that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, with links across the Arab world, can put pressure on Ramallah. However, Cairo does not seem to want that leading role since there is nothing to offer. 

After this weekend's Netanyahu-Mubarak meeting, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said more work needs to be done to bridge the gap between Israel and the Palestinians before they can move to direct peace talks. Moreover, officials in Egypt were concerned over Israel's position towards Hamas in Gaza.

The mediator role (or "central mediator" as Netanyahu frames it) is quite attractive for Egypt but only as long as Israel does not pass responsibility for control of Gaza to Cairo, as Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman offered last week, and as long as Israel does not wage a war against Hamas. Cairo's own priority is gaining credibility through a reconciliation agreement --- either negotiated or imposed --- between Fatah and Hamas.

This weekend's moves also failed for Mitchell. On Saturday, he met with Abbas and he got nothing. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat avoided comment on the meeting but Abbas’ Fatah Central Committee member and strongman Mohammad Dahlan said that Fatah has rejected a call by Mitchell to start direct negotiations. “Going to direct negotiations requires that there should be progress and clear Israeli answers to the borders and security issues,” Dahlan said. “In light of the absences of Israeli responses to these two issues, Fatah has not changed its position regarding refusing to go to direct negotiations.”

So, what is left for the Obama Administration? At the meeting on Saturday, Mitchell said his mediation aims at realizing “the vision that President Obama had set for a comprehensive peace in the Middle East, which must begin with an agreement between Israel and Palestine that will provide for two states living side by side in peace and security and hopefully prosperity.” A day before, he was in Damascus and said: "If we are to succeed, we will need Arabs and Israelis alike to work with us to bring about comprehensive peace."

"Comprehensive peace"? Really? Does the Obama Administration still envisage resolution of the Israeli-Palestian conflict as an opening to further advances from Syria to Lebanon to Gaza? Or is it just offering the appearance of doing something --- anything --- until the end of US elections in November?

Middle East Inside Line: Lieberman-Netanyahu Tension, Syria's "Greatest Hope", Restrictions on Gaza, & Much More

Lieberman-Netanyahu Tension Rises Again: Another problem between Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has broken out. Lieberman has appointed Meiron Reuven, a relatively little-known diplomat, as Israel's Acting Ambassador to the United Nations without Netanyahu's consent.

Sources close to Netanyahu said deterioration has been perceptible for weeks and the Prime Minister intends to ask Lieberman to explain his actions.

Syria Criticised but Aligned with Turkey: On Friday, Human Rights Watch said that Syria's President Bashar Assad failed to bring reforms on behalf of democracy following the Damascus Spring, a short period during which Assad allowed political groups to have small gatherings when he came to power in 2000.

Gaza Latest: European Union Calls on Israel to Open Border Crossings
Israel: Government Budget Cuts Defense and Welfare

Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said:

Whether President Assad wanted to be a reformer but was hampered by an entrenched old guard or has been just another Arab ruler unwilling to listen to criticism, the outcome for Syria's people is the same: no freedom, no rights.

A day later, Assad told Turkish journalists that Ankara is most qualified to serve as mediator between Israel and Syria. Assad that Israel's raid on the Turkish-funded Freedom Flotilla was a “terrorist act” and called Turkey "Syria's greatest hope":

The position of mediator in the indirect talks belongs to Turkey. We are completely confident in Ankara’s ability to successfully carry out this duty.

Restrictions on Movement in Gaza: Following President  Obama's praise of Israel for easing restrictions on goods coming in and going out of Gaza, Israel's judiciary has rejected the application of lawyer Fatma Sharif to leave Gaza to undertake a masters programme on human rights at Birzeit University in the West Bank.

Justices Miriam Naor, Hanan Melce,r and Isaac Amit declared:

We are not convinced that under the present political and security situation, the personal circumstances [of the petitioner] justify intervention in the decision of the respondent [the Defense Minister].

More Flotillas and Land Convoys on the Way?: According to Israel's Channel 2, the organiser of the Flotilla Freedom, IHH, announced on Saturday that the group will not only continue efforts to bring supplies to Gaza but "land convoys will head for Gaza" as well.

Turkish Hackers on Mission: Haaretz reports that an Israeli blogger, Erez Wolf, has discovered from a Turkish online forum that tens of thousands of e-mail addresses, passwords, and personal details of Israeli web surfers are in the hands of Turkish hackers.

Afghanistan Shocker: Taliban Training Killer "Monkey Soldiers"

And now a tale of the challenge that the US and international forces face in Afghanistan....

Recently a "British-based media agency" --- one we are still trying to track down --- put out a press release that its reporters had spotted and photographed  "monkey soldiers" holding AK-47 rifles and Bren light machine guns in the Waziristan tribal region near the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. American experts were warning of the "monkey terrorists".

Chinese media were lured in by the press release and soon its reports of the new Killer Monkey phenomenon were racing across the Web. By 9 July, the story was in China's English-language People's Daily, complete with this military analysis:

The emergence of "monkey soldiers" is the result of asymmetrical warfare. The United States launched the war in Afghanistan using the world's most advanced weapons such as highly-intelligent robots to detect bombs on roadsides and unmanned aerial vehicles to attack major Taliban targets. In response, the Taliban forces have tried any possible means and figured out a method to train monkeys as "replacement killers" against American troops.

This claim was backed up by the revelation --- well, new to me at least --- that "between the 1960s and the 1970s, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) trained massive 'monkey soldiers' in the Vietnam War and dispatched armed monkeys to dangerous jungles to launch assaults on Vietnamese soldiers". The report added a bit of monkey- and other creature-related psychological warfare:

Analysts believe that apart from using "monkey killers" to attack the American troops, the Taliban also sought to arouse Western animal protectionists to pressure their governments to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.

And, at the end, there was even philosophical reflection: "When armed animals enter interpersonal wars, what kind of world will we face? This cannot but arouse our reflections and concerns."

All quite amusing --- or frightening? --- but surely that was the end of the Monkey Line.

No. Dallas Blog went beyond its normal Texas market to ponder, "If President Barack Obama withdraws from the war in Afghanistan, he would be the first commander-in-chief in American history to surrender to an army of monkeys; and we’re not talking about fighting the Planet of the Apes." The very-conservative "Gateway Pundit" blog (Where Hope Finally Made a Comeback") greeted the news with an "Allahu Akbar!".

Suddenly the New York Post was declaring "Jihad Monkey!" A NATO spokesman was having to say on the record, “We have absolutely nothing that leads us to believe that this tale could be even remotely based in reality,” while a specialist on primates was brought in for this wondrous pondering:

While you could train a monkey to shoot a gun, I certainly wouldn’t want to be anywhere in the neighborhood after that. I rather doubt you could trust its aim....

But in all cases, they are trained and reinforced by giving them food treats. So the Taliban would definitely have to bring along a large supply of bananas to keep up the morale of their monkey troops.

Readers were split between those with genuine warnings of the new monkey military threat, those were confused, and those who saw an opportunity for a laugh. But the end of this Monkey's Tale awaited the concise analysis of "Eliza"....

"It's gorilla warfare!"

US Politics: "Emergency Committee for Israel" is Launched

The birth of The Emergency Committee for Israel has been announced by a combination of Republican Party activists and Evangelical Christians. Its board includes Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, former Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer, and conservative writer and activist Rachel Abrams.

Kristol said, "We’re the pro-Israel wing of the pro-Israel community", while Bauer described the Obama presidency as “the most anti-Israel administration in the history of the United States".

Kristol explained why there was a need for a new pro-Israeli group:

There are some who say they’re pro-Israel but aren’t really [a reference to another activist group, Street]. Then there’s AIPAC [America Israel Public Affairs Committee], which is a wonderful organization, but one that’s very committed to working with the administration, so they pull some punches publicly.

While the question is debated of how many advocacy groups are needed to support Israel in the US, Haaretz's Akiva Eldar points out an important detail ignored during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's meetings with American Jews last week. Eldar writes:

"Everybody knows that there are Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem that, under any peace plan, will remain where they are," Netanyahu said in response to the question from Malcolm Honlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, on the fate of the eternal capital. Netanyahu did not say: "Israel's united capital forever and ever."

Is The Emergency Committee for Israel even more "committed" than Netanyahu, who is hinting a possible shift in Israeli state policy over the status of Jerusalem? Are they putting gentle pressure on him as well as sending a firmer message to US politicians?

Palestine Analysis: What is Ramallah's Strategy on Israel Talks? (Yenidunya)

Although some Palestinian Authority officials do not rule out the possibility of moving to direct talks as long as Israel give certain pledges regarding the agenda and the timetable, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat is not seeing eye-to-eye with them.

Speaking to the Turkish state television channel TRT on Tuesday, Erekat said:

Our option is a two-state solution. We have recognized the state of Israel and its right to exist on the 1967 borders. Now it's up to the international community to stand firm and recognize Palestine on the 1967 lines with Jerusalem as its capital.

Our position is that the key to direct negotiations is in the hand of Mr. Netanyahu. The minute he stops settlement activities including natural growth in Jerusalem, the minute he agrees to go to permanent status talks, where we left them in December 2008, we'll have direct talks.

The Israelis have a choice, settlements or peace. They can't have both.

Erekat also added that a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state is "not on the agenda".

In contrast, pointing to a possible consensus on the transfer of security in some West Bank cities to Palestinian forces as a confidence-building measure, Haaretz reports that Shin Bet security service head Yuval Diskin recently spent a day in the West Bank city of Jenin as a guest of Palestinian Authority counterparts.

Shin Bet chose not to respond to the report. Senior Palestinian officials, however, confirmed yesterday that Diskin had visited last week.

So, given that some Palestinian officials like Erekat are putting conditions on talks but others like Yasser Abed Rabbo are hinting at a possible deal to get to the negotiating table, what is Ramallah's strategy?

It had been reported, following President Obama's telephone call to the PA leader Mahmoud Abbas, that Abbas rejected direct talks before a settlement freeze in both the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. However, Haaretz adds this crucial paragraph:

According to knowledgeable sources in Ramallah, the day after meeting with Netanyahu, US President Barack Obama promised PA President Mahmoud Abbas that if, by this coming winter, [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu doesn't place a reasonable map on the negotiating table, which includes the division of Jerusalem, Obama will place his own map on the table.

Thus, the answer to the Palestinian riddle tseems to lie in Washington.