Israel: Can Netanyahu Really Escape US Pressure?

Israel-Palestine: UN Council Endorses Goldstone Report — What Now?
Video: Protests over former Israel PM Olmert in Chicago

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On Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized the endorsement by the United Nations Human Rights Council of the Goldstone Report, which claimed both Israel and Hamas had committed war crimes during the Gaza War in December-January. Netanyahu warned the Israeli nation to be prepared for a protracted struggle. Declaring "the delegitimization [of Israel] must be delegitimized", he added, "The UN has returned to the dark days during which it equated Zionism with racism."

Netanyahu's statement is in line with his Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's leaked memorandum calling for a “zero-tolerance” policy for anti-Semitic expression around the world. But does the Prime Minister also back Lieberman's strategy of a move from “lone dependence” on Washington to the "neglected" parts of the world?

The was the only Security Council member that voted against the Goldstone resolution in the UNHRC. Yet Ha'aretz correspondent Aluf Benn believes the Obama Administration will use the diplomatic arena to get more Israeli concessions on the expansion of settlements:

Operation Cast Lead in Gaza was perceived in Israel as a shining victory. Rocket fire from Gaza was brought to a halt almost completely. The Israel Defense Forces emerged from its failure during the Second Lebanon War and deployed ground forces with few casualties. "The world" let the operation continue and did not impose a cease-fire. A wonderful war.

Ten months later, it seems the victory was a Pyrrhic one. Israel did not realize that the rules have changed with Barack Obama's election as U.S. president. Prime minister Ehud Olmert timed Cast Lead to take place during the twilight period between the outgoing and incoming U.S. administrations, and rightly assumed that the incumbent, George W. Bush, would fully back Israel. However, in contrast to the Lebanon war of 2006, which ended with a cease-fire, the Gaza campaign continues being fought - in the diplomatic arena and in public opinion - and Israel must cope with its consequences in a less-friendly Obama era.

During the first, military round, Israel benefited from the decisive superiority of its firepower. However the Palestinians moved the war's current round to an arena more comfortable for them, and are benefiting from their advantage in UN institutions and in public opinion. The calls to boycott Israel are getting louder. Turkey is shirking off its strategic alliance with Israel and is presenting IDF soldiers as horrible murderers of children. Hamas is gradually winning recognition as a legitimate player, as it continues to amass a stock of rockets without hindrance. Meanwhile Israel's leaders are busy defending the country against the United Nations' Goldstone report (that accuses Israel and Hamas of perpetrating war crimes), and some even have to worry now about being the object of arrest warrants in Europe.

Even if the legal process that Goldstone initiated ends up being halted, and Israel is not put in the dock in The Hague, its hands have been tied. The world, led by Obama, will not let it initiate a Cast Lead II operation. Certainly not when a right-wing government is in power in Jerusalem led by Benjamin Netanyahu, whom the world loves to hate. Netanyahu's clumsy attempt, in his Knesset speech this week, to link the war in Gaza to opposition leader Tzipi Livni did not really succeed. He is in power and the world considers him responsible. The Americans and the Europeans are using the Goldstone report to punish Netanyahu for his refusal to freeze the settlements.

The same thing happened to the Palestinians between the two intifadas. When they hurled stones during the first intifada (1987-1993) and the confrontation was in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, the world cheered them on and forced Israel to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization and to let its leader Yasser Arafat establish his autonomy in the territories. The Palestinian violence at that time was perceived as appropriate resistance to occupation. During the second intifada, the Palestinians resorted to suicide attacks in Israeli cities. They succeeded in killing many more Israelis, but they lost in the diplomatic arena, especially after the September 11 attacks in the United States, when the rules changed. The world was fed up with terror attacks and it allowed then-prime minister Ariel Sharon to reoccupy the West Bank, lock Arafat in a cage (his headquarters in Ramallah) and eventually unload Gaza without a peace arrangement.

Operation Cast Lead was the most planned operation in the annals of Israel's wars. Its organizers filled out all the forms and checked off on all the procedural changes that had been recommended by the Winograd Committee after its investigation of the shortcomings of the Second Lebanon War. The campaign's goals were reasonable. The scenarios were rehearsed. The reservists were trained. Jurists anticipated the legality of every target and operational plan. The soldiers were properly outfitted with food, water and protective equipment. The local authorities in the Israeli rear functioned as they should have. The media obeyed. In short, the government and the IDF prepared exceptionally well for a Third Lebanon War. They only forgot that the conditions on the Palestinian front are different than in Lebanon.

Not everybody shared the euphoria. The defense minister, Ehud Barak, wanted to halt Cast Lead after two or three days, but was overruled by Olmert who wanted to keep the campaign going, and then going further. Columnists and commentators warned of Gaza becoming a quagmire.

And most interesting: The Winograd Committee anticipated the lurking legal danger to Israel, and in its final report had warned of "far-reaching consequences" resulting from the widening gap between the rules of warfare and the reality of fighting terror launched from civilian surroundings. The committee recommended pulling the legal experts out of the operation rooms, increasing and highlighting investigation of irregular activities, and working with friendly countries to amend the rules of warfare, a recommendation that is easy to make but difficult to implement. The Winograd report did not warn against going into the next war before the rules of warfare are changed. The legal recommendations, drafted with restraint out of fear they would be used for anti-Israeli propaganda, were lost in the sea of piquant items in the report.

Upon returning to power, Netanyahu hoped to leave the Palestinian issue on the side and focus on the Iranian threat and on economic reforms. Now his government will have to cope with the consequences of Cast Lead and do so under less than ideal conditions, heavy international pressure and fear of arrest warrants and charge sheets.

Israel-Palestine: No UN Progress on Goldstone Report on Gaza

Transcript: The Palestinian Authority Draft to UN Human Rights Council (15 October)

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On Wednesday, the United Nations Security Council discussed the Goldstone Report. Any movement, however, was limited by the United States, Britain, and France, who all tried to return the matter of illegal military activity in Gaza to the Israelis.

Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Alejandro Wolff underlined Washington's concern over "the unbalanced focus on Israel". He declared, "We take the allegations in the report seriously", but added, "Israel has the institutions and the ability to carry out serious investigations of these allegations and we encourage it to do so." British Ambassador John Sawers supported the American lead, "We urge the Israeli government to carry out full, credible and impartial investigations into the allegations," while French Ambassador Gerard Araud urged both Israel and Hamas to initiate "independent inquiries in line with international standards".

Meanwhile, Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Gabriela Shalev criticized the Security Council for even considering the matter, "Instead of discussing the real and worrying questions facing the Middle East, the UN is focusing on the Goldstone report, which Israel believes legitimizes terror organizations."
She returned fire on Libya, which brought the issue to the Security Council:

An ordinary person would think that an emergency UN session would be called when Gazan and Lebanese terrorists fire missiles into Israeli territory, or because of the Iranian nuclear threat.

The pretense of urgency in this session is an attempt to "hijack" the council's agenda to promote the report, a move supported by none other than Libya - a country that has only recently celebrated the return of the Lockerbie bomber.

Palestine: Abbas Goes on Offense, Criticises Hamas, Israel, and the US

US to Egypt: Stop the Fatah-Hamas Reconciliation Talks

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Facing increasing internal pressure and Washington's intervention in Fatah-Hamas talks, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has tried to take the political offensive. On Tuesday, he implicitly threatened that he could not control the masses if a "Third Intifada" arose in response to Israeli restrictions in East Jerusalem, announcing the re-submission of a motion to the UN condemning Israel's offensive during the Gaza War, and accused Hamas of unwillingness to reach a reconciliation agreement.

The UN Human Rights Council announced that the Goldstone Report on Gaza will be discussed on Thursday, and the UN Security Council will discuss the matter today. Ibrahim Khraishi, the Palestinian Authority's UN ambassador in Geneva, said the two-day debate would also examine recent incidents of violence in Jerusalem.

However, Abbas is trying to secure his position by moving attention to his negotiations with Hamas and Israel. He said that Hamas was using the Goldstone report as an "excuse to run away from reconciliation and, for the first time, criticized Washington clearly and harshly. According to the Associated Press, an internal Palestine Authority memo says:

All hopes placed in the new U.S. administration and President Obama have evaporated... Obama couldn't withstand the pressure of the Zionist lobby, which led to a retreat from his previous positions on halting settlement construction and defining an agenda for the negotiations and peace.

Facing elections and amidst the reconciliation talks, Abbas's challenge to Washington is a risky game. At the end of the day, it is not clear how the Obama Administration will react to a man "shouldering all the troubles of the West Bank".

Arms and the Middle East: Was Halted German Ship Carrying Ammunition from Iran to Syria?

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Der Spiegel claims that US forces deployed in the Gulf of Suez discovered containers of ammunition carried from Iran to Syria by a Hamburg-based shipping company, Leonhardt & Blumberg. American officials said the arms shipment is a violation of UN Security Resolution 1747, which forbids all weapons shipments into and out of Iran.

The newspaper quoted a German diplomat that the incident was "an embarrassing affair" the consequences of which could bring trouble to Germany's trans-Atlantic relations.

The newspaper reports that the Americans allowed the ship to dock at Malta, where the ammunition was secured.

The Israel-Turkey Split: Washington Intervenes

Middle East: Israel’s Troubles with a Turkish Ally

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UPDATE 0730 GMT: No sooner had we posted this than this report came in from Israel's YNet, "Syria said on Tuesday it would hold military exercises with Turkey, shortly after Turkey canceled maneuvers with Israel. 'We held our first joint land military exercise [with Turkey] last spring. And today we have agreed to do a more comprehensive, a bigger one,' said Syrian Defense Minister Ali Habib."

Latest signals over the feud between Turkey and Israel, marked by Ankara's cancellation of Israeli participation in military exercises, are mixed. While the Turkish Foreign Ministry had stated that the decision to abandon the "international dimension" of the drill was not against a third nation [Israel], both Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's speech to CNN and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's statement on Monday targeted Israel and the international community: "When phosphorus bombs were rained on innocent children in Gaza, the whole world, all of humanity, watched from their comfortable chairs and their safe havens."

On Tuesday, after Erdogan's harsh" words, Washington finally broke its silence and criticised Ankara's last-minute manoeuvre. US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said, "As to the question of whether there was a government that was invited to participate and then removed at the last minute, we think it's inappropriate for any nation to be removed from an exercise like this at the last minute." Asked if Israel was removed from the military operation, Crowley confirmed the report.

Meanwhile, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem and a senior Hamas official in Lebanon, Ali Baraka, praised Turkey's decision. Moallem said, "We encourage such cancellations as long as Israel is continuing its aggression and occupation." Baraka stated that Turkey's actions underlined its responsibility toward the Palestinians.