Iran Interview: Faezeh Hashemi "Every Iranian Seeking Rights is Green"

Faezeh Hashemi --- former member of Parliament, women's rights activists, and daughter of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani --- spoke with Omid Memarian for Foreign Policy magazine:

Foreign Policy: During the post-election protests last year, you were imprisoned for 24 hours and then released. Many believe that, if you were not the daughter of Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, you would still be in prison right now. How has it felt over the past year to see so many of your former colleagues remain in prison?

Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani: I, too, believe that I would not have been released had I not been Mr. Hashemi's daughter. It feels terrible to see individuals who have worked hard for this country for years put in prison without due legal process only for their attempts to stand up to injustice and for telling the truth. Likewise, [it feels terrible] to see those who are real criminals as rulers.

Presently, everything is upside down, wrong is right, the unjust pretend to be unjustly treated, those who aim to destroy the country and the religion call themselves servants of the nation. Imbeciles are at the top, and managers and the distinguished are in prison, or have been dismissed, or have had to flee the country. All of this would be painful for any Iranian who has a modicum of pride.

FP: Recently, Ahmadinejad has expressed interest in meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama. Considering his upcoming trip to the United States this month for the inaugural session of the U.N. General Assembly, do you think such a meeting might take place? And if so, how might this affect Iran's domestic politics?

FHR: Ahmadinejad should handle his own problems first. Even if his own fabricated statistics are reviewed, everyone can see that over the 30 years [since] the Iranian revolution, even during the Iran-Iraq War, Iran has never had such a sorry state of affairs. He destroys whatever he touches.

Whether the meeting takes place or not, I don't think anyone is waiting for any positive change in Iran's internal or foreign politics or putting too much hope on it.

FP: How do you think Iranian society has changed since the June 2009 presidential election?

FHR: The exuberance, hope, and excitement of the [post-election period] has given its place to depression and hopelessness. People see themselves face to face with lies, mismanagement, demagoguery, bullying, thuggery, injustice, destruction of national resources and wealth, loss of international opportunities, and further destruction of the country at the hands of the ruling group.

FHR: I think every Iranian who is in search of his or her rights, freedom, democracy, and the country's development belongs to this movement.

This is a peaceful civil movement. Respecting everyone's rights, even one's opponents'; avoiding tension and animosity through finding points of common interest; pursuing demands through consensus in whatever way everyone can --- these are some of the expectations of this movement....

Read full article....

Israel-Palestine: Time to Move Beyond a US-Centred Approach (Freeman)

On 1 September, Charles Freeman --- former State Department and Defense Department official, US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and nominee in 2009 to head the National Intelligence Council --- delivered this speech to the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

You have asked me to speak to current American policies in the Middle East, with an emphasis on the prospects for peace in the Holy Land.  You have further suggested that I touch on the relationship of the Gulf Arabs, especially Saudi Arabia, to this.  It is both an honor and a challenge to address this subject in this capital/at this ministry.

Video & Transcript: Hillary Clinton to Council on Foreign Relations “American Leadership for Decades to Come”
Israel-Palestine: Israel’s Security Summit, Abbas and Netanyahu Clash on Core Issues

The declaration of principles worked out in Oslo seventeen years ago was the last direct negotiation between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs to reach consequential, positive results.  The Oslo accords were a real step toward peace, not another deceptive pseudo-event in an endlessly unproductive, so-called “peace process.”  And if that one step forward in Oslo in 1993 was followed by several steps backwards, there is a great deal to be learned from how and why that happened.

There can be no doubt about the importance of today’s topic.  The ongoing conflict in the Holy Land increasingly disturbs the world’s conscience as well as its tranquility.  The Israel-Palestine issue began as a struggle in the context of European colonialism.  In the post-colonial era, tension between Israelis and the Palestinians they dispossessed became, by degrees, the principal source of radicalization and instability in the Arab East and then the Arab world as a whole.  It stimulated escalating terrorism against Israelis at home and their allies abroad.  Since the end of the Cold War, the interaction between Israel and its captive Palestinian population has emerged as the fountainhead of global strife.  It is increasingly difficult to distinguish this strife from a war of religions or a conflict of civilizations.

For better or ill, my own country, the United States has played and continues to play the key international part in this contest.  American policies, more than those of any other external actor, have the capacity to stoke or stifle the hatreds in the Middle East and to spread or reverse their infection of the wider world.  American policies and actions in the Middle East thus affect much more than that region.

Yet, as I will argue, the United States has been obsessed with process rather than substance.  It has failed to involve parties who are essential to peace.  It has acted on Israel’s behalf to preempt rather than enlist international and regional support for peace.  It has defined the issues in ways that preclude rather than promote progress.  Its concept of a “peace process” has therefore become the handmaiden of Israeli expansionism rather than a driver for peace.  There are alternatives to tomorrow’s diplomatic peace pageant on the Potomac.  And, as Norway has shown, there is a role for powers other than America in crafting peace in the Holy Land.

Over thirty years ago, at Camp David, Jimmy Carter pushed Israel through the door to peace that Egypt’s Anwar Sadat had opened.  Twenty years ago, the first Bush administration pressed Israel to the negotiating table with Palestinian leaders, setting the stage for their clandestine meetings in Oslo.  The capacity of the United States to rally other governments behind a cause that it espouses may have atrophied, but American power remains far greater than that of any other nation.  Nowhere is this more evident than in the Middle East.

For more than four decades, Israel has been able to rely on aid from the United States to dominate its region militarily and to sustain its economic prosperity.  It has counted on its leverage in American politics to block the application of international law and to protect itself from the political repercussions of its policies and actions.  Unquestioning American support has enabled Israel to put the seizure of ever more land ahead of the achievement of a modus vivendi with the Palestinians or other Arabs.  Neither violent resistance from the dispossessed nor objections from abroad have brought successive Israeli governments to question, let alone alter the priority they assign to land over peace.

Ironically, Palestinians too have developed a dependency relationship with America. This has locked them into a political framework over which Israel exercises decisive influence.  They have been powerless to end occupation, pogroms, ethnic cleansing, and other humiliations by Jewish soldiers and settlers.  Nor have they been able to prevent their progressive confinement in checkpoint-encircled ghettos on the West Bank and the great open-air prison of Gaza.

Despite this appalling record of failure, the American monopoly on the management of the search for peace in Palestine remains unchallenged.  Since the end of the Cold War, Russia – once a contender for countervailing influence in the region --- has lapsed into impotence.  The former colonial powers of the European Union, having earlier laid the basis for conflict in the region, have largely sat on their hands while ringing them, content to let America take the lead.  China, India, and other Asian powers have prudently kept their political and military distance.  In the region itself, Iran has postured and exploited the Palestinian cause without doing anything to advance it.  Until recently, Turkey remained aloof.

On rare occasions, as in the case of the 1973 Arab oil embargo, the Arabs have backed their verbal opposition to Israel with action.  Egypt and Jordan have settled into an unpopular coexistence with Israel that is now sustained only by U.S. subventions.  Saudi Arabia has twice taken the initiative to offer Israel diplomatic concessions if it were to conclude arrangements for peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians.  But, overall, Arab governments have earned the contempt of the Palestinians and their own people for their lack of serious engagement.  For the most part, Arab leaders have timorously demanded that America solve the Israel-Palestine problem for them, while obsequiously courting American protection against Israel, each other, Iran, and --- in some cases --- their own increasingly frustrated and angry subjects and citizens.

Islam charges rulers with the duty to defend the faithful and to uphold justice.  It demands that they embody righteousness.  The resentment of mostly Muslim Arabs at their governing elites’ failure to meet these standards generates sympathy for terrorism directed not just at Israel but at both the United States and Arab governments associated with it.

The perpetrators of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the United States saw it in part as reprisal for American complicity in Israeli cruelties to Palestinians and other Arabs.  They justified it as a strike against Washington’s protection of Arab governments willing to overlook American contributions to Muslim suffering.  Washington’s response to the attack included suspending its efforts to make peace in the Holy Land as well as invading and occupying Afghanistan and Iraq.  All three actions inadvertently strengthened the terrorist case for further attacks on America and its allies.  The armed struggle between Americans and Muslim radicals has already spilled over to Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and other countries.  Authoritative voices in Israel now call for adding Iran to the list of countries at war with America.  They are echoed by Zionist and neo-conservative spokesmen in the United States.

The widening involvement of Americans in combat in Muslim lands has inflamed anti-American passions and catalyzed a metastasis of terrorism.  It has caused a growing majority of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims to see the United States as a menace to their faith, their way of life, their homelands, and their personal security.  American populists and European xenophobes have meanwhile undercut liberal and centrist Muslim arguments against the intolerance that empowers terrorism by equating terrorism and its extremist advocates with Islam and its followers.  The current outburst of bigoted demagoguery over the construction of an Islamic cultural center and mosque in New York is merely the most recent illustration of this.  It suggests that the blatant racism and Islamophobia of contemporary Israeli politics is contagious.  It rules out the global alliances against religious extremists that are essential to encompass their political defeat.

President Obama’s inability to break this pattern must be an enormous personal disappointment to him.  He came into office committed to crafting a new relationship with the Arab and Muslim worlds.  His first interview with the international media was with Arab satellite television.  He reached out publicly and privately to Iran.  He addressed the Turkish parliament with persuasive empathy.  He traveled to a great center of Islamic learning in Cairo to deliver a remarkably eloquent message of conciliation to Muslims everywhere.  He made it clear that he understood the centrality of injustices in the Holy Land to Muslim estrangement from the West.  He promised a responsible withdrawal from Iraq and a judicious recrafting of strategy in Afghanistan.  Few doubt Mr. Obama’s sincerity.  Yet none of his initiatives has led to policy change anyone can detect, let alone believe in.

It is not for me to analyze or explain the wide gaps between rhetoric and achievement in the Obama Administration’s stewardship of so many aspects of my country’s affairs.  American voters will render their first formal verdict on this two months from tomorrow, on the 2^nd of November.  The situation in the Holy Land, Iraq, Afghanistan, and adjacent areas is only part of what they will consider as they do so.  But I do think it worthwhile briefly to examine some of the changes in the situation that ensure that many policies that once helped us to get by in the Middle East will no longer do this.

Let me begin with the “peace process”, a hardy perennial of America’s diplomatic repertoire that the Obama Administration will put back on public display tomorrow.  In the Cold War, the appearance of an earnest and “even-handed” American search for peace in the Holy Land was the price of U.S. access and influence in the Middle East.  It provided political cover for conservative Arab governments to set aside their anger at American backing of Israel so as to stand with America and the Western bloc against Soviet Communism.  It kept American relations with Israel and the Arabs from becoming a zero-sum game.  It mobilized domestic Jewish support for incumbent presidents.  Of course, there hasn’t been an American-led “peace process” in the Middle East for at least a decade.  Still the conceit of a “peace process” became an essential political convenience for all concerned.  No one could bear to admit that the “peace process” had expired.  It therefore lived on in phantom form.

Even when there was no “peace process,” the possibility of resurrecting one provided hope to the gullible, cover to the guileful, beguilement for the press, an excuse for doing nothing to those gaining from the status quo, and – last but far from least –  lifetime employment for career “peace processors.”  The perpetual processing of peace without the requirement to produce it has been especially appreciated by Israeli leaders.  It has enabled them to behave like magicians, riveting foreign attention on meaningless distractions as they systematically removed Palestinians from their homes, settled half a million or more Jews in newly vacated areas of the occupied territories, and annexed a widening swath of land to a Jerusalem they insist belongs only to Israel.

Palestinian leaders with legitimacy problems have also had reason to collaborate in the search for a “peace process”.  It’s not just that there has been no obviously better way to end their people’s suffering.  Playing “peace process” charades justifies the international patronage and Israeli backing these leaders need to retain their status in the occupied territories.  It ensures that they have media access and high-level visiting rights in Washington.  Meanwhile, for American leaders, engagement in some sort of Middle East “peace process” has been essential to credibility in the Arab and Islamic worlds, as well as with the ever-generous American Jewish community.  Polls show that most American Jews are impatient for peace.  Despite all the evidence to the contrary, they are eager to believe in the willingness of the government of Israel to trade land for it.

Previous “peace processes” have exploited all these impulses.  In practice, however, these diplomatic distractions have served to obscure Israeli actions and evasions that were more often prejudicial to peace than helpful in achieving it.  Behind all the blather, the rumble of bulldozers has never stopped.  Given this history, it has taken a year and a half of relentless effort by U.S. Special Envoy George Mitchell to persuade the parties even to meet directly to talk about talks as they first did here in Oslo, seventeen years ago.  When the curtain goes up on the diplomatic show in Washington tomorrow, will the players put on a different skit?  There are many reasons to doubt that they will.

One is that the Obama administration has engaged the same aging impresarios who staged all the previously failed “peace processes” to produce and direct this one with no agreed script.  The last time these guys staged such an ill-prepared meeting, at Camp David in 2000, it cost both heads of delegation, Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat, their political authority.  It led not to peace but to escalating violence.  The parties are showing up this time to minimize President Obama’s political embarrassment in advance of midterm elections in the United States, not to address his agenda --- still less to address each other’s agendas. These are indeed difficulties.  But the problems with this latest --- and possibly final --- iteration of the perpetually ineffectual “peace process” are more fundamental.

The Likud Party charter flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan River and stipulates that: “The Palestinians can run their lives freely in the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent and sovereign state.” This Israeli government is committed to that charter as well as to the Jewish holy war for land in Palestine.  It has no interest in trading land it covets for a peace that might thwart further territorial expansion.  It considers itself unbound by the applicable UN resolutions, agreements from past peace talks, the “Roadmap,” or the premise of the “two-state solution.”

The Palestinians are desperate for the dignity and security that only the end of the Israeli occupation can provide.  But the authority of Palestinian negotiators to negotiate rests on their recognition by Israel and the United States, not on their standing in the occupied territories, Gaza, or the Palestinian diaspora.  Fatah is the ruling faction in part of Palestine.  Its authority to govern was repudiated by voters in the last Palestinian elections.  The Mahmoud Abbas administration retains power by grace of the Israeli occupation authorities and the United States, which prefer it to the government empowered by the Palestinian people at the polls.  Mr. Abbas’s constitutional term of office has long since expired.  He presides over a parliament whose most influential members are locked up in Israeli jails.   It is not clear for whom he, his faction, or his administration can now speak.

So the talks that begin tomorrow promise to be a case of the disinterested going through the motions of negotiating with the mandate-less.  The parties to these talks seek to mollify an America that has severely lessened international credibility.  The United States government had to borrow the modest reputations for objectivity of others --- the EU, Russia, and the UN 000 to be able to convene this discussion.  It will be held under the auspices of an American president who was publicly humiliated by Israel’s prime minister on the issue that is at the center of the Israel-Palestine dispute ---Israel’s continuing seizure and colonization of Arab land.

Vague promises of a Palestinian state within a year now waft through the air.  But the “peace process” has always sneered at deadlines, even much, much firmer ones.  A more definitive promise of an independent Palestine within a year was made at Annapolis three years ago.  Analogous promises of Palestinian self-determination have preceded or resulted from previous meetings over the decades, beginning with the Camp David accords of 1979.  Many in this audience will recall the five-year deadline fixed at Oslo.  The talks about talks that begin tomorrow can yield concrete results only if the international community is prepared this time to insist on the one-year deadline put forward for recognizing a Palestinian state.  Even then there will be no peace unless long-neglected issues are addressed.

Peace is a pattern of stability acceptable to those with the capacity to disturb it by violence.  It is almost impossible to impose.  It cannot become a reality, still less be sustained, if those who must accept it are excluded from it.  This reality directs our attention to who is not at this gathering in Washington and what must be done to remedy the problems these absences create.

Obviously, the party that won the democratically expressed mandate of the Palestinian people to represent them --- Hamas --- is not there.  Yet there can be no peace without its buy-in.  Egypt and Jordan have been invited as observers.  Yet they have nothing to add to the separate peace agreements each long ago made with Israel.  (Both these agreements were explicitly premised on  grudging Israeli undertakings to accept Palestinian self-determination.  The Jewish state quickly finessed both.)   Activists from the Jewish diaspora disproportionately staff the American delegation.  A failure to reconcile either American Jews or the Palestine diaspora to peace would doom any accord.  But the Palestinian diaspora will be represented in Washington only in tenuous theory, not in fact.

Other Arabs, including the Arab League and the author of its peace initiative, Saudi Arabia, will not be at the talks tomorrow.  The reasons for this are both simple and complex.  At one level they reflect both a conviction that this latest installment of the “peace process” is just another in a long series of public entertainments for the American electorate and also a lack of confidence in the authenticity of the Palestinian delegation.  At another level, they result from the way the United States has defined the problems to be solved and the indifference to Arab interests and views this definition evidences.  Then too, they reflect disconnects in political culture and negotiating style between Israelis, Arabs, and Americans.

To begin with, neither Israel nor the conveners of this proposed new “peace process” have officially acknowledged or responded to the Arab peace initiative of 2002.  This offered normalization of relations with the Jewish state, should Israel make peace with the Palestinians.  Instead, the United States and the Quartet have seemed to pocket the Arab offer, ignore its  precondition that Israelis come to terms with Palestinians, and gone on to levy new demands.

In this connection, making Arab recognition of Israel’s “right to exist” the central purpose of the “peace process” offends Arabs on many levels.  In framing the issue this way, Israel and the United States appear to be asking for something well beyond pragmatic accommodation of the reality of a Jewish state in the Middle East.  To the Arabs, Americans now seem to be insisting on Arab endorsement of the idea of the state of Israel, the means by which that state was established, and the manner in which it has comported itself.  Must Arabs really embrace Zionism before Israel can cease expansion and accept peace?

Arabs and Muslims familiar with European history can accept that European anti-Semitism justified the establishment of a homeland for traumatized European Jews.  But asking them even implicitly to agree that the forcible eviction of Palestinian Arabs was a morally appropriate means to this end is both a nonstarter and seriously off-putting.  So is asking them to affirm that resistance to such displacement was and is sinful.  Similarly, the Arabs see the demand that they recognize a Jewish state with no fixed borders as a clever attempt to extract their endorsement of Israel’s unilateral expansion at Palestinian expense.

The lack of appeal in this approach has been compounded by a longstanding American habit of treating Arab concerns about Israel as a form of anti-Semitism and tuning them out.  Instead of hearing out and addressing Arab views, U.S. peace processors have repeatedly focused on soliciting Arab acts of kindness toward Israel.  They argue that gestures of acceptance can help Israelis overcome their Holocaust-inspired political neuroses and take risks for peace.

Each time this notion of Arab diplomacy as psychotherapy for Israelis has been trotted out, it has been met with incredulity.  To most in the region, it encapsulates the contrast between Washington’s sympathy and solicitude for Israelis and its condescendingly exploitative view of Arabs.  Some see it as a barely disguised appeal for a policy of appeasement of Israel.  Still others suspect an attempt to construct a “peace process” in which Arabs begin to supply Israel with gifts of carrots so that Americans can continue to avoid applying sticks to it.

The effort to encourage Arab generosity as an offset to American political pusillanimity vis-à-vis Israel is ludicrously unpersuasive.  It has failed so many times that it should be obvious that it will not work.  Yet it was a central element of George Mitchell’s mandate for “peace process” diplomacy.  And it appears to have resurfaced as part of the proposed follow-up to tomorrow’s meeting between the parties in Washington.  It should be no puzzle why the Saudis and other Arabs could not be persuaded to join this gathering.

As a last thought before turning to what must be done, let me make a quick comment on a relevant cultural factor.  Arabic has two quite different words that are both translated as “negotiation,” making a distinction that doesn’t exist in either English or Hebrew.  One word, “musaawama,” refers to the no-holds-barred bargaining process that takes place in bazaars between strangers who may never see each other again and who therefore feel no obligation not to scam each other.  Another, “mufaawadhat,” describes the dignified formal discussions about matters of honor and high principle that take place on a basis of mutual respect and equality between statesmen who seek a continuing relationship.

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s travel to Jerusalem was a grand act of statesmanship to initiate a process of mufaawadhat – relationship-building between leaders and their polities.  So was the Arab peace initiative of 2002.  It called for a response in kind.  The West muttered approvingly but did not act.   After a while, Israel responded with intermittent, somewhat oblique suggestions of willingness to haggle over terms.  But an offer to bicker over the terms on which a grand gesture has been granted is, not surprisingly, seen as insultingly unresponsive.

I cite this not to suggest that non-Arabs should adopt Arabic canons of thought, but to make a point about diplomatic effectiveness.  To move a negotiating partner in a desired direction, one must understand how that partner understands things and help him to see a way forward that will bring him to an end he has been persuaded to want.  One of the reasons we can't seem to move things as we desire in the Middle East is that we don’t make much effort to understand how others reason and how they rank their interests.  In the case of the Israel-Palestine conundrum, we Americans are long on empathy and expertise about Israel and very, very short on these for the various Arab parties.  The essential militarism of U.S. policies in the Middle East adds to our difficulties.  We have become skilled at killing Arabs.  We have forgotten how to listen to them or persuade them.

I am not myself an “Arabist,” but I am old enough to remember when there were more than a few such people in the American diplomatic service.  These were officers who had devoted themselves to the cultivation of understanding and empathy with Arab leaders so as to be able to convince these leaders that it was in their own interest to do things we saw as in our interest.  If we still have such people, we are hiding them well; we are certainly not applying their skills in our Middle East diplomacy.

This brings me to a few thoughts about the Western and Arab interests at stake in the Holy Land and their implications for what must be done.

In foreign affairs, interests are the measure of all things.  My assumption is that Americans and Norwegians, indeed Europeans in general, share common interests that require peace in the Holy Land.  To my mind, these interests include --- but are, of course, not limited to --- gaining security and acceptance for a democratic state of Israel; eliminating the gross injustices and daily humiliations that foster Arab terrorism against Israel and its foreign allies and supporters, as well as friendly Arab regimes; and reversing the global spread of religious strife and prejudice, including, very likely, a revival of anti-Semitism in the West if current trends are not arrested. None of these aspirations can be fulfilled without an end to the Israeli occupation and freedom  for Palestinians.

Arab states, like Saudi Arabia, also have compelling reasons to want relief from occupation as well as self-determination for Palestinians.  They may not be concerned to preserve Israel’s democracy, as we are, but they share an urgent interest in ending the radicalization of their own populations, curbing the spread of Islamist terrorism, and eliminating the tensions with the West that the conflict in the Holy Land fuels.  These are the concerns that have driven them to propose peace, as they very clearly did eight years ago.   For related reasons, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has made inter-faith dialogue and the promotion of religious tolerance a main focus of his domestic and international policy.

As the custodian of two of Islam’s three sacred places of pilgrimage --- Mecca and Medina --- Saudi Arabia has long transcended its own notorious religious narrow-mindedness to hold the holy places in its charge open to Muslims of all sects and persuasions.  This experience, joined with Islamic piety, reinforces a Saudi insistence on the exemption of religious pilgrimage to Jerusalem from political interference or manipulation.  The Ottoman Turks were careful to ensure freedom of access for worship to adherents of the three Abrahamic faiths when they administered the city.  It is an interest that Jews, Christians, and Muslims share.

There is, in short, far greater congruity between Western and Arab interests affecting the Israel-Palestine dispute than is generally recognized.  This can be the basis for creative diplomacy.  The fact that this has not occurred reflects pathologies of political life in the United States that paralyze the American diplomatic imagination.  Tomorrow’s meeting may well demonstrate that, the election of Barack Obama notwithstanding, the United States is still unfit to manage the achievement of peace between Israel and the Arabs.  If so, it is in the American interest as well as everyone else’s that others become the path-breakers, enlisting the United States as best they can in support of what they achieve, but not expecting America to overcome its incapacity to lead.

Here, I think, there is a lesson to be drawn from the Norwegian experience in the 1990s.  The Clinton Administration was happy to organize the public relations for the Oslo accords but did not take ownership of them.  It did little to protect them from subversion and overthrow, and nothing to insist on their implementation.   Only a peace process that is protected from Israel’s ability to manipulate American politics can succeed.

This brings me to how Europeans and Arabs might work together to realize the objectives both share with most Americans: establishing internationally recognized borders for Israel, securing freedom for the Palestinians, and ending the stimulus to terrorism in the region and beyond it that strife in the Holy Land entails.  I have only four suggestions to present today.  I expect that more ideas will emerge from the discussion period.  A serious effort to cooperate with the Arabs of the sort that Norway is uniquely capable of contriving could lead to the development of still more options for joint or parallel action on behalf of peace.

Now to my suggestions, presented in ascending order of difficulty, from the least to the most controversial.

First, get behind the Arab peace initiative.  Saudi Arab culture frowns on self-promotion and the Kingdom is less gifted than most at public diplomacy.  Political factors inhibit official Arab access to the Israeli press.  The Israeli media have published some – mostly dismissive – commentary on the Arab peace initiative but left most Israelis ignorant of its contents and unfamiliar with its text.  Why not buy space in the Israeli media to give Israelis a chance to read the Arab League declaration and consider the opportunities it presents?  I suspect the Saudis, as well as other members of the Arab League, would consider it constructive for an outside party to do this.  It might facilitate other sorts of cooperation with them in which European capabilities can also compensate for Arab reticence.  The Turks and other non-Arab Muslims should be brought in as full participants in any such efforts.  This wouldn’t be bad for Europe’s relations with both.  By the way, given the U.S. media’s notorious one-sidedness and American ignorance about the Arab peace plan, a well-targeted advertising campaign in the United States might not be a bad idea either.

Second, help create a Palestinian partner for peace. There can be no peace with Israel unless there are officials who are empowered by the Palestinian people to negotiate and ratify it.  Israel has worked hard to divide the Palestinians so as to consolidate its conquest of their homeland.  Saudi Arabia has several times sought to create a Palestinian peace partner for Israel by bringing Fatah, Hamas, and other factions together.  On each occasion, Israel, with U.S. support, has acted to preclude this.  Active organization of non-American Western support for diplomacy aimed at restoring a unity government to the Palestinian Authority could make a big difference.  The Obama Administration would be under strong domestic political pressure to join Israel in blocking a joint European-Arab effort to accomplish this.  Under some circumstances, however, it might welcome being put to this test.

Third, reaffirm and enforce international law. The UN Security Council is charged with enforcing the rule of law internationally.  In the case of the Middle East, however, the Council’s position at the apex of the international system has served to erode and subvert the ideal of a rule-bound international order.  Almost forty American vetoes have prevented the application to the Israeli occupying authorities of the Geneva Conventions, the Nuremberg precedents, human rights conventions, and relevant Security Council directives.  American diplomacy on behalf of the Jewish state has silenced the collective voice of the international community as Israel has illegally colonized and annexed broad swaths of occupied territory, administered collective punishment to a captive people, assassinated their political leaders, massacred civilians, barred UN investigators, defied mandatory Security Council resolutions, and otherwise engaged in scofflaw behavior, usually with only the flimsiest of legally irrelevant excuses.

If ethnic cleansing, settlement activity, and the like are not just “unhelpful” but illegal, the international community should find a way to say so, even if the UN Security Council cannot.  Otherwise, the most valuable legacy of Atlantic civilization --- its vision of the rule of law --- will be lost.  When one side to a dispute is routinely exempted  from principles, all exempt themselves, and the law of the jungle prevails.  The international community needs collectively to affirm that Israel, both as occupier and as regional military hegemon, is legally accountable internationally for its actions.  If the UN General Assembly cannot “unite for peace” to do what an incapacitated Security Council cannot, member states should not shrink from working in conference outside the UN framework.  All sides in the murder and mayhem in the Holy Land and beyond need to understand that they are not above the law.  If this message is firmly delivered and enforced, there will be a better chance for peace.

Fourth, set a deadline linked to an ultimatum. Accept that the United States will frustrate any attempt by the UN Security Council to address the continuing impasse between Israel and the Palestinians.  Organize a global conference outside the UN system to coordinate a decision to inform the parties to the dispute that if they cannot reach agreement in a year, one of two solutions will be imposed.  Schedule a follow-up conference for  a year later.  The second conference would consider whether to recommend universal recognition of a Palestinian state in the area beyond Israel’s 1967 borders or recognition of Israel’s achievement of de jure as well as de facto sovereignty throughout Palestine (requiring Israel to grant all governed by it citizenship and equal rights at pain of international sanctions, boycott, and disinvestment).  Either formula would force the parties to make a serious effort to strike a deal or to face the consequences of their recalcitrance.  Either formula could be implemented directly by the states members of the international community.   Admittedly, any serious deadline would provoke a political crisis in Israel and lead to diplomatic confrontation with the United States as well as Israel, despite the Obama Administration itself having proclaimed a one-year deadline in order to entice the Palestinians to tomorrow’s talks.  Yet both Israel and the United States would benefit immensely from peace with the Palestinians.

Time is running out.  The two-state solution may already have been overtaken by Israeli land grabs and settlement activity.  Another cycle of violence is likely in the offing.  If so, it will not be local or regional, but global in its reach.  Israel’s actions are delegitimizing and isolating it even as they multiply the numbers of those in the region and beyond who are determined to destroy it.  Palestinian suffering is a reproach to all humanity that posturing alone cannot begin to alleviate.  It has become a cancer on the Islamic body politic.  It is infecting every extremity of the globe with the rage against injustice that incites terrorism.

It is time to try new approaches.  That is why the question of whether there is a basis for expanded diplomatic cooperation between Europeans and Arabs is such a timely one.  And it is why I was pleased as well as honored to have been asked to set the stage for a discussion of this issue.

Video & Transcript: Hillary Clinton to Council on Foreign Relations "American Leadership for Decades to Come"

Hillary Clinton's speech to the Council on Foreign Relations on Wednesday:



Although many in Washington and around the country are just coming off their summer vacations, events of the past few weeks have kept us busy.  We are working to support direct talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, and next week I will travel to Egypt and Jerusalem for the second round of negotiations.  In Iraq, where our combat mission has ended, we are transitioning to a civilian-led partnership.  We are stepping up international pressure on Iran to negotiate seriously on its nuclear program.  We are working with Pakistan as it recovers from devastating floods and combats violent extremism.  And of course the war in Afghanistan is always at the top of the agenda.

None of these challenges exist in isolation.  Consider the Middle East peace talks.  At one level, they are bilateral negotiations involving two peoples and a relatively small strip of land.  But step back and it becomes clear how important the regional dimensions of the peace process are, what a significant role institutions like the Quartet and the Arab League are playing, and how vital American participation really is.

Solving foreign policy problems today requires us to think regionally and globally, to see the intersections and connections linking nations and regions and interests, and to bring people together as only America can.

The world is counting on us.  When old adversaries need an honest broker or fundamental freedoms need a champion, people turn to us.  When the earth shakes or rivers overflow their banks, when pandemics rage or simmering tensions burst into violence, the world looks to us.   I see it on the faces of the people I meet as I travel... not just the young people who dream about America's promise of opportunity and equality, but also seasoned diplomats and political leaders.  They see the principled commitment and can-do spirit that comes with American engagement.  And they look to America not just to engage, but to lead.

Nothing makes me prouder than to represent this great nation in the far corners of the world.  I am the daughter of a man who grew up in the Depression and trained young sailors to fight in the Pacific.  I am the mother of a young woman who is part of a generation of Americans who are engaging the world in new and exciting ways.  I have seen the promise and progress of America with my own eyes, and today my faith in our people has never been stronger.

I know these are difficult days for many Americans, but difficulty and adversity have never defeated or deflated our country.  Throughout our history, Americans have always risen to the challenges we have faced.  That's who we are. It's what we do.

Now, after years of war and uncertainty, people are wondering what the future holds, at home and abroad.

So let me say it clearly: The United States can, must, and will lead in this new century.

Indeed, the complexities and connections of today's world have yielded a new American Moment.  A moment when our global leadership is essential, even if we must often lead in new ways.  A moment when those things that make us who we are as a nation - our openness and innovation, our determination, and devotion to core values - have never been needed more.

This is a moment that must be seized --- through hard work and bold decisions --- to lay the foundations for lasting American leadership for decades to come.

Now, this is no argument for America to go it alone.  Far from it.  The world looks to us because America has the reach and resolve to mobilize the shared effort needed to solve problems on a global scale - in defense of our own interests, but also as a force for progress.  In this we have no rival.

For the United States, global leadership is both a responsibility and an unparalleled opportunity.

A New Global Architecture

When I came to the Council on Foreign Relations a little over a year ago to discuss the Obama Administration's vision of American leadership in a changing world, I called for a new global architecture that could help nations come together as partners to solve shared problems.  Today I'd like to expand on this idea, but especially to explain how we are putting it into practice.

Architecture is the art and science of designing structures that serve our common purposes, built to last and withstand stress.  That's what we seek to build - a network of alliances and partnerships, regional organizations and global institutions, that is durable and dynamic enough to help us meet today's challenges and adapt to threats that we cannot even conceive of, just as our parents never dreamt of melting glaciers or dirty bombs.

We know this can be done, because President Obama's predecessors in the White House and mine in the State Department did it before.  After the Second World War, the nation that had built the transcontinental railroad, the assembly line and the skyscraper turned its attention to constructing the pillars of global cooperation.  The third World War that so many feared never came.  And many millions of people were lifted out of poverty and exercised their human rights for the first time.  Those were the benefits of a global architecture forged over many years by American leaders from both political parties.

But this architecture served a different time and a different world.  As President Obama has said, today it "is buckling under the weight of new threats".  The major powers are at peace, but new actors - good and bad -- are increasingly shaping international affairs.  The challenges we face are more complex than ever, and so are the responses needed to meet them.

That is why we are building a global architecture that reflects --- and harnesses --- the realities of the 21st century.

We know that alliances, partnerships and institutions cannot solve problems by themselves.  People and nations solve problems.  But an architecture can make it easier to act effectively by supporting the coalition-forging and compromise-building that is the daily fare of diplomacy.  It can make it easier to identify common interests and convert them to common action.  And it can help integrate emerging powers into an international community with clear obligations and expectations.

We have no illusions that our goals can be achieved overnight, or that countries will suddenly cease to have divergent interests.  We know that the test of our leadership is how we manage those differences - and how we galvanize nations and peoples around their commonalities even when they have diverse histories, unequal resources, and competing world-views.  And we know that our approach to solving problems must vary from issue to issue and partner to partner.  American leadership must be as dynamic as the challenges we face.

But there are two constants of our leadership, which lie at the heart of the President's National Security Strategy released in May, and run through everything we do:

First, national renewal aimed at strengthening the sources of American power, especially our economic might and moral authority.  This is about more than ensuring we have the resources we need to conduct foreign policy, although that is important.  When I was a young girl, I was stirred by President Eisenhower's assertion that education would help us win the Cold War.  That we needed to invest in our people and their talents.  He was right.  America's greatness has always flowed in large part from the dynamism of our economy and the creativity of our country.  Today, more than ever, our ability to exercise global leadership depends on building a strong foundation at home.  That's why rising debt and crumbling infrastructure pose very real long-term national security threats.  President Obama understands this --- you can see it in the new economic initiatives he announced this week and in his relentless focus on turning our economy around.

The second constant is international diplomacy aimed at rallying nations to solve common problems and achieve shared aspirations.  As Dean Acheson put it in 1951, "the ability to evoke support from others" is "quite as important as the capacity to compel".  To this end we have repaired old alliances and forged new partnerships.  We have strengthened institutions that provide incentives for cooperation, disincentives for sitting on the sidelines, and defenses against those who would undermine global progress.  And we have championed the values that are at the core of the American character.

Now there should be no mistake: this Administration is also committed to maintaining the greatest military in the history of the world and, if needed, to vigorously defending our friends and ourselves.

After more than a year and a half, we have begun to see the dividends of our strategy.  We are advancing America's interests and making progress on some of our most pressing challenges.  Today we can say with confidence that this model of American leadership works, and that it offers our best hope in a dangerous world.

I'd like to outline several steps we are taking to implement this strategy.

Our Closest Allies

First, we have turned to our closest allies, the nations that share our most fundamental values and interests --- and our commitment to solving common problems.  From Europe and North America to East Asia and the Pacific, we are renewing and deepening the alliances that are the cornerstone of global security and prosperity.

Let me say a few words about Europe in particular.  In November, I was privileged to help mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which closed the door on Europe's broken past. And this summer in Poland, we marked the 10th anniversary of the Community of Democracies, which looked ahead to a bright future.  At both events, I was reminded how far we have come together.  What strength we draw from the common wellspring of our values and aspirations.  The bonds between Europe and America were forged through war and watchful peace, but they are rooted in our shared commitment to freedom, democracy and human dignity.

Today we are working with our allies there on nearly every global challenge.  President Obama and I have reached out to strengthen both our bilateral and multilateral ties in Europe.

The post-Lisbon EU [European Union] is developing an expanded global role, and our relationship is growing and changing as a result.  There will be complications as we adjust to influential new players such as the EU Parliament, but these are debates among friends that will always be secondary to the fundamental interests and values we share.  And there is no doubt that a stronger EU is good for America and good for the world.

NATO remains the world's most successful alliance.  And together with our allies, including new NATO members in Central and Eastern Europe, we are crafting a new Strategic Concept that will help it meet not only traditional threats but also emerging challenges such as cyber security and nuclear proliferation.  Just yesterday, President Obama and I discussed these issues with NATO Secretary General Rasmussen.  After the United States was attacked on 9/11, our allies invoked Article V of the NATO charter for the first time.  They joined us in the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban.  And after President Obama refocused the mission in Afghanistan, they contributed thousands of new troops and significant technical assistance.  We honor the sacrifices our allies continue to make, and recognize that we are always strongest when we work together.

A core principle of all our alliances is shared responsibility --- each nation stepping up to do its part.  American leadership does not mean we do everything ourselves.  We contribute our share, often the largest share, but we also have high expectations of the governments and peoples we work with.

Investing in Developing Partners

Helping other nations develop the capacity to solve their own problems --- and participate in solving shared problems - has long been a hallmark of American leadership.  Our contributions to the reconstruction of Europe, to the transformation of Japan and Germany from aggressors into allies, to the growth of South Korea into a vibrant democracy contributing to global progress, these are some of our proudest achievements.

In this interconnected age, America's security and prosperity depends more than ever on the ability of others around the world to take responsibility for defusing threats and meeting challenges within their own countries and regions.

That is why the second step in our strategy for global leadership is to help build the capacity of developing partners.  To help countries obtain the tools and support they need to solve their own problems and help solve our common problems.  To help people lift themselves, their families, and their societies out of poverty, away from extremism, and toward sustainable progress.  The Obama Administration views development as a strategic, economic, and moral imperative - as central to advancing American interests as diplomacy and defense.

Our approach is not development for development's sake; it is an integrated strategy for solving problems.  Look at the work to build institutions and spur economic development in the Palestinian territories.  The United States invests hundreds of millions of dollars to build Palestinian capacity because we know that progress on the ground will improve security, help lay the foundation for a future Palestinian state, and create more favorable conditions for negotiations.  Think about our efforts to empower women and girls around the world.  This is the right thing to do, of course, but it is also rooted in the understanding that when women are accorded rights and afforded opportunities, they drive social and economic progress that benefits us all.  Similarly, our investments in places such as Bangladesh and Ghana are bets on a future where more and more countries will be capable of contributing to solving problems in their regions and beyond.

Engaging Emerging Centers of Influence

We must also take into account those countries that are growing rapidly and already playing more influential roles in their regions and in global affairs, such as China and India, Turkey, Mexico and Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa, as well as Russia, as it redefines its own role in the world.

Our third major step has been to deepen engagement with these emerging centers of influence.  We and our allies --- indeed people everywhere --- have a stake in their playing constructive regional and global roles.  Being a 21st century power means accepting a share of the burden of solving common problems.  It also means abiding by a set of rules of the road, everything from intellectual property rights to fundamental freedoms.  So through expanded bilateral consultation and within the context of regional and global institutions, we look to these nations to assume greater responsibility.

The emerging powers represent a spectrum of interests and values.  India, for instance, is the world's largest democracy, a country with which the United States shares fundamental values and a broad range of national interests.  That convergence of values and interests has helped us to lay the foundation of an indispensable partnership.  President Obama will use his visit in November to take our relationship to the next level.

With Russia, we took office amid talk of cooling relations and a return to Cold War suspicion.  This invigorated spy novelists and arm chair strategists.  But anyone serious about solving global problems such as nuclear proliferation knew that without Russia and the United States working together, little would be achieved.  So we refocused the relationship on mutual respect, interest and responsibility.  The results speak for themselves: a historic new arms reduction treaty, which the Senate must pass this fall; cooperation along with China in the UN Security Council on tough new sanctions against Iran and North Korea; a transit agreement to support our effort in Afghanistan; a new Bilateral Presidential Commission and civil society exchange that are forging closer people-to-people ties.  And, as we were reminded this summer, the spy novelists still have plenty to write about.

Working with these emerging powers is not always smooth or easy.  Disagreements over policies and priorities are inevitable.  On certain issues, such as human rights with China or Russian occupation of Georgia, we simply do not see eye to eye --- and the United States will not hesitate to speak out and stand our ground.  When these nations do not accept the responsibility that accrues with their expanding influence, we will use all the tools at our disposal to encourage them to change course while we will press ahead with other partners.

But we know that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to solve many of the world's biggest problems without the cooperation of these nations.  So our goal is to establish long-lasting positive and productive relationships that can survive the times when we do not agree and enable us to continue working together on shared challenges.

A central element of our approach is to engage directly with the people of these nations --- and indeed with foreign publics around the world.  Technology and the spread of democracy have empowered people around the world to speak up and demand a say in their own future.  Public opinions and passions matter, even in authoritarian states.  So in nearly every country I visit, I don't just meet with government officials.  In Russia, I did an interview on one of the few independent radio stations.  In Saudi Arabia, I held a town hall at a women's college.  And in Pakistan, I answered questions from every journalist, student and business leader we could find.

Strengthening Regional Architecture

While we expand our relations with emerging centers of influence and developing nations, we are also working to engage them in effective regional frameworks and global institutions that encourage constructive contributions.

Few, if any, of today's challenges can be understood or solved without working through a regional context.  Think about the complex regional dynamics surrounding the fight against violent extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan or the process of reintegrating Iraq into its neighborhood.

Nor can we expect regional dynamics to remain static.  Countries like China and Brazil have their own notions about what regional institutions should look like, and they are busy pursuing those ideas.  Our friends and allies depend on us to remain robustly engaged and to help chart the way forward.

So the fourth key step in our strategy has been to reinvigorate America's commitment to be an active transatlantic, Pacific and hemispheric leader.  In a series of speeches and through ongoing consultations and discussions with partners from Europe to the Americas to the Asia-Pacific, we have laid out core principles for regional cooperation and worked to strengthen institutions that can adapt to new circumstances.

Let's examine the Asia-Pacific region. When we took office, there was a perception --- fair or not --- that America was absent.  So the Obama Administration made it clear from the beginning that the United States was back.  We reaffirmed our bonds with close allies like South Korea, Japan and Australia.  We also deepened our regional engagement with China, and with India, which we see as a vital Asian democracy.

The Asia-Pacific has few robust institutions to foster effective cooperation, build trust, and reduce the friction of competition.  So with our partners, we began working to build a more coherent regional architecture that will strengthen both economic and political ties.

On the economic front, we have expanded our relationship with APEC, which includes four of America's top trading partners and receives 60 percent of our exports.  As President Obama has said, to realize the benefits from greater economic integration, we must implement policies that promote balanced and sustainable growth.  To this end, we are working to ratify a free trade agreement with South Korea and pursuing a regional agreement with the nations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, efforts that will create new opportunities for American companies and support new jobs at home.

On the political front, we are engaging with the East Asia Summit, encouraging its development into a foundational security and political institution for the region, capable of resolving disputes and preventing them before they arise.  I will be representing the United States at this year's EAS in Hanoi, leading up to presidential participation in 2011.

In Southeast Asia, ASEAN is home to nearly 600 million people and more U.S. business investment than China.  We have bolstered our relationship by signing the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, announcing our intention to open a mission and name an ambassador to ASEAN in Jakarta, and holding annual U.S.-ASEAN Summits.

As the Asia-Pacific region continues to grow in importance and influence, developing these regional institutions and establishing new habits of cooperation will be vital to stability and prosperity.

Global Institutions for the 21st Century

Effective institutions are just as crucial at a global level, where the challenges are even more complex and the partners even more diverse.

So our fifth step has been to reengage with global institutions and begin modernizing them to meet the evolving challenges of the 21st century.  We need institutions that are flexible, inclusive, and complementary, instead of competing with one another for jurisdiction.  Institutions that encourage nations to play productive roles, that marshal common efforts, and enforce the system of rights and responsibilities that binds us all.

The United Nations remains the single most important global institution and we are constantly reminded of its value: The Security Council enacting sanctions against Iran and North Korea.  Peacekeepers patrolling the streets of Monrovia and Port-au-Prince.  Aid workers assisting flood victims in Pakistan and displaced people in Darfur.  And, most recently, the UN General Assembly establishing a new entity --- UN Women --- which will promote gender equality, expand opportunity for women and girls, and tackle the violence and discrimination they face.

But we are also constantly reminded of its limitations.  It is difficult for the UN's 192 Member States, with their diverse perspectives and interests, to achieve consensus on institutional reform, especially reforming the Security Council itself.  The United States believes that the Council must be able to react to and reflect today's world.  We favor Security Council reform that enhances the UN's overall performance, effectiveness and efficiency to meet the challenges of the new century.  We equally and strongly support operational reforms that enable UN field missions to deploy more rapidly, with adequate numbers of well-equipped and well-trained troops and police they often lack, and with the quality of leadership and civilian expertise they require.  And we will continue to embrace and advocate management reforms that lead to efficiencies and savings and that prevent waste, fraud, and abuse.

The UN was never intended to tackle every challenge, nor should it.  So when appropriate, we are working with our partners to establish new venues and organizations to focus on specific problems.  To respond to the global financial crisis, we elevated the G-20.  We also convened the first-ever Nuclear Security Summit.  New or old, the effectiveness of institutions depends on the commitment of their members.  President Obama has reaffirmed our commitment and we have encouraged other nations to do the same.

Our efforts on climate change offer a good example of how we are working through multiple venues and mechanisms to advance our goals.  The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process allows all of us - developed and developing, north and south, east and west - to work within a single venue to meet this shared challenge.  But we also launched the Major Economies Forum to focus on the biggest emitters.  And when negotiations in Copenhagen reached an impasse, President Obama led our team into a meeting of key leaders that included China, India, South Africa, and Brazil - working with them and our colleagues from Europe and elsewhere to fashion a deal that, while far from perfect, saved the summit from failure and represents progress we can build on in the future.  For the first time, all major economies made national commitments to curb carbon emissions and report with transparency on their mitigation efforts.

An Architecture of Values

As we strengthen and modernize regional and global institutions, the United States is also working to cement democracy, human rights, and the rule of law into their foundations.  To construct an architecture of values that spans the globe and includes every man, woman and child.  An architecture that can not only counter repression and resist pressure on human rights, but also extend those fundamental freedoms to places where they have been too long denied.

This is our sixth major step.  We are upholding and defending the universal values that are enshrined in the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Today these principles are under threat.  In too many places, new democracies are struggling to grow strong roots.  Authoritarian regimes are cracking down on civil society and pluralism.  Some leaders see democracy as an inconvenience that gets in the way of the efficient exercise of national power.

This world-view must be confronted and challenged.  Democracy needs defending.  The struggle to make human rights a human reality needs champions.

This work starts at home, where we have rejected the false choice between our security and our ideals.  It continues around the world, where human rights are always on our diplomatic and development agendas, even with nations on whose cooperation we depend for a wide range of issues, such as Egypt, China and Russia.  We are also committed to defending these values on the digital frontiers of the 21st century.  And in Krakow this summer, I announced the creation of a new fund to support civil society and embattled NGOs around the world.  This will continue to be a focus of U.S. foreign policy going forward.

Iran Sanctions: Our Strategy in Action

Now, how do all of these steps --- deepening relations with allies and emerging powers, strengthening institutions and shared values --- how do they work together to advance our interests?  One need only look at our diplomatic effort to stop Iran's provocative nuclear activities and its serial non-compliance with all of its international obligations.  There is a still a lot of work to be done, but how we are approaching the Iranian challenge is an example of American leadership in action.

First, we began by making the United States a full partner and active participant in international diplomatic efforts regarding Iran.  Through our continued willingness to engage Iran directly, we have re-energized the conversation with our allies and are removing easy excuses for lack of progress.

Second, we have sought to frame this issue within the global non-proliferation regime in which the rules of the road are clearly defined for all parties.  To lead by example, we have renewed our own disarmament efforts.  Our deepened support for global institutions such as the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] underscores the authority of the international system of rights and responsibilities.  Iran, on the other hand, continues to single itself out through its own actions.  Its intransigence represents a challenge to the rules to which all countries must adhere.

Third, we continue to strengthen relationships with those countries whose help we need if diplomacy is to be successful.  Through classic shoe-leather diplomacy, we have built a broad consensus that will welcome Iran back into the community of nations if it meets its obligations and likewise will hold Iran accountable to its obligations if it continues its defiance.

This spring, the UN Security Council passed the strongest and most comprehensive set of sanctions ever on Iran.  The European Union has followed up with robust implementation of that resolution.  Many other nations are implementing their own additional measures, including Australia, Canada, Norway and most recently Japan.  We believe Iran is only just beginning to feel the full impact of sanctions.  Beyond what governments are doing, the international financial and commercial sectors are also starting to recognize the risks of doing business with Iran.

Sanctions and pressure are not ends in themselves.  They are the building blocks of leverage for a negotiated solution, to which we and our partners remain committed.  The choice for Iran's leaders is clear, even if they attempt to obfuscate and avoid it: Meet the responsibilities incumbent upon all nations and enjoy the benefits of integration into the international community, or continue to flout your obligations and accept increasing isolation and costs.  Iran now must decide for itself.

Conclusion

Our task going forward is to take all that I have discussed today and make it lasting.

To help achieve this goal, America needs the tools and capacity to do the work I've described.  So we are strengthening every aspect of our civilian power.  Congress already has appropriated funds for more than 1,100 new Foreign and Civil service officers.  USAID has begun a series of reforms that will reestablish it as the world's premier development agency.  Across the board, we need to rethink, reform, and recalibrate.  And in a time of tight budgets, we must ensure our resources are spent wisely.  That is why I launched the first Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, or QDDR, a wholesale review of State and USAID to recommend how we can better equip, fund, and organize ourselves to meet the world's challenges in the years ahead.  I will be talking much more about this in the coming weeks and months as this review is completed.

We recognize the scope of the efforts we have undertaken.  And looking at our agenda, reasonable observers may question how we can handle so many problems at once.  The first answer is that, as I've described today, we are not trying to do it alone.  One of the central purposes of the strategy we're pursuing is to build relationships and institutions that encourage others to step up.

But I would also ask: Which of our great challenges today can be placed on the back burner?  Are we going to tell our grandchildren that we failed to stop climate change because our plate was just too full?  Or nuclear proliferation?  That we gave up on democracy and human rights?  That is not what Americans do.

Now, all of this requires what we call strategic patience.  Long after our troops come home from Iraq and Afghanistan, our diplomatic and development assistance and support for the Afghan security forces will continue.  Ridding the world of nuclear dangers, turning back climate change, ending poverty, hunger and disease - this is the work not of a year, or a presidency, or even a lifetime.  This is the work of generations.

America is up to the job.  We will seize this new moment of opportunity - this new American Moment.  We are a nation that has always believed we have the power to shape our own destiny, to cut a new and better path.  This administration will do everything we can to exercise the best traditions of American leadership at home and abroad to build a more peaceful and prosperous future for our children and children everywhere.

Thank you.

(Applause.)

MR. HAASS: Well, thank you. And I will ask a slightly longer first question than I normally would while you fumble with that.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very much. (Laughter.) Very kind of you.

MR. HAASS: The old stall tactic, filibuster, and you may recall that from a previous life.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Yes, I do, but I never knew it would be so common. (Laughter.)

MR. HAASS: Yes, it’s – Council on Foreign Relations, we’re trying to keep up. We’re trying to keep up. Touché.

Let me start where – you okay?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Yeah.

MR. HAASS: Let me start where you began --- where you ended rather --- which was with all these things we want to do, and you called for strategic patience in Afghanistan and so forth. Yet the United States is soon approaching a point where the scale or size of our debt will exceed our GDP. It’s a question of when more than if. Where does national security contribute to the solution to running deficits of $1.5 trillion a year, or do we continue to carry out a foreign and defense policy as if we were not seriously resource constrained?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, Richard, first, as I said, I think that our rising debt levels poses a national security threat, and it poses a national security threat in two ways. It undermines our capacity to act in our own interests and it does constrain us where constraint may be undesirable. And it also sends a message of weakness internationally. I mean, it is very troubling to me that we are losing the ability not only to chart our own destiny, but to have the leverage that comes from this enormously effective economic engine that has powered American values and interests over so many years.

So I don’t think we have a choice. It’s a question of how we decide to deal with this debt and deficit. I mean, it is – we don’t need to go back and sort of re-litigate how we got to where we are. But it is fair to say that we fought two wars without paying for them and we had tax cuts that were not paid for either, and that has been a very deadly combination to fiscal sanity and responsibility.

So the challenge is how we get out of it by making the right decisions, not the wrong decisions. There’s a lot of wrong things we could do that would further undermine our strength. I mean, it is going to be very difficult for those decisions. And I know there’s an election going on and I know that I am, by law, out of politics, but I will say that this is not just a decision for the Congress; it’s a decision for the country. And it’s not a Republican or a Democratic decision. And there are a lot of people who know more about what needs to be done and who, frankly, have a responsible view, whose voices are not being heard right now, and I think that is a great disservice to our nation. Whether one is a Republican or a Democrat, a conservative, a progressive, whatever you call yourself, there is no free lunch and we cannot pretend that there is without doing grave harm to our country and our future generations.

So when you specifically say, well, what about diplomacy, development and defense, we will have to take our share of the burden of meeting the fiscal targets that can drag us out of this deep hole we’re in, but we’ve got to be smart about it. And I think from both my perspective and [Secretary of Defense] Bob Gates’s perspective, and we talked about this a lot, Bob has made some very important recommendations that are not politically popular, but which come with a very well thought out policy. And what I’ve tried to do is to say, “Look, we’re going to try to be smarter, more effective.” In our QDDR [Quadrennial Defense and Development Review], we’re recommending changes in personnel policies, in all kinds of approaches that will better utilize what we have. But we needed to get a little more robust in order to catch up to our responsibilities.

A quick final point on that. When our combat troops move out of Iraq, as they’ve been, that will save about $15 billion. That’s a net win for our Treasury, and it’s the policy that we have committed to along with the Iraqis. The Congress cuts my budget of the State Department and USAID for trying to pick up the pieces that we’re left with. We now have the responsibility for the police training mission, for opening up consulates that have to be secure. So even though our troops are coming down and we’re saving money, and what we’re asking for is considerably less than the $15 billion that we are saving by having the troops leave, the Congress cuts us.

And so we have to get a more sensible, comprehensive approach. And Bob and I have talked about trying to figure out how to present a national security budget. It’s a mistake to look at all of these items – foreign aid, diplomatic operations, defense – as stovepipes. Because what we know, especially from the threats that we have faced in Iraq and now in Afghanistan, is you have to be more integrated. So let’s start thinking from a budget perspective about how to be more integrated.

So there’s a lot that we can do on our side to help. But the bottom line is that the public and the Congress and the Administration have to make some very tough decisions, and I hope we make the right decisions.

MR. HAASS: Let me just follow up on that because you broached the political issue, and let me do it in the following way. I don’t have a crystal ball any better than anyone else’s, but let’s assume some of the pundits are essentially right and Republicans pick up quite a few seats in the House – whether they have control or not, who knows, they pick up a few seats in the Senate – so government is more divided come the new Congress when it takes office early next year. What does that mean for you? What are the opportunities? What are the problems in that for being Secretary of State?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I won’t answer that as a political question because I don’t want to cross my line here. But I will say that I have found a lot of support for what we’re trying to do on both sides of the aisle in both houses, and I think we will continue to have that. And I’m hoping that we can maybe reestablish something of a détente when it comes to foreign policy that cuts across any partisan divide.

Like, take the START [Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia] treaty; we have unanimous support for that. Our two chief negotiators, Rose Gottemoeller, our Assistant Secretary, and Ellen Tauscher, our Under Secretary, are here and they did a terrific job. And we’ve had a very positive endorsement of it by former secretaries of State and Defense, of both parties, the Joint Chiefs have come out, everybody’s come out for it. And it’s a political issue. I wish it weren’t because most of these treaties pass 95 to nothing, 90 to 3. They have huge overwhelming majorities in the Senate.

But we know that we have political issues that we have to address, which we are, and talking to those who have some questions. But I hope at the end of the day, the Senate will say, “Something should just be beyond any kind of election or partisan calculation,” and that everybody will pull together and will get that START treaty done, which I know, from my own conversations with Eastern and Central Europeans and others, is seen as a really important symbol of our commitment to continue working with the Russians.

MR. HAASS: Let’s ask one last question, then I’ll open it up to our members. You’re about, as you said, to head back to the Middle East for the resumption of the Israeli-Palestinian talks. The op-ed pages have been filled. I would say a majority of the pieces have been quite pessimistic. Why are the pessimists wrong? (Laughter.)

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think they’re wrong because I think that both sides and both leaders recognize that there may not ever be another chance. I think for most Israeli leaders that I have known and worked with and especially those coming from sort of the right of Israeli politics, which the prime minister does, it’s like Mario Cuomo’s famous line: “They campaign in poetry and they govern in prose.” And the prose is really challenging.

You look at where Israel is and the threats it faces demographically, technologically, ideologically, and the idea of striking a peace deal with a secular Palestinian Authority that is committed to its own people’s economic future makes a lot of sense if it can be worked out. From [Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud] Abbas, he was probably the earliest and at times the only Palestinian leader who called for a two-state solution going back probably 20, 30 years, and for him, this is the culmination of a life’s commitment.

And I think that the Arab League Initiative, the peace initiative, put the Arab – most Arab and Muslim countries on record as saying that they could live with and welcome a two-state solution. Fifty-seven countries, including some we know didn’t mean it, but most have followed through in commitments to it, has changed the atmosphere. So I know how difficult it is, and I know the internal domestic political considerations that each leader has to contend with, but I think there is a certain momentum. We have some challenges in the early going that we have to get over, but I think that we have a real shot here.

MR. HAASS: So I’ll open it up and what I’ll ask is people to identify themselves, wait for a microphone, and please limit yourself to one question and be as short as you can. Sir, I don’t know your name, but just – pick up.

QUESTION: How are you, Secretary Clinton? My name is Travis Atkins. I’m an International Affairs Fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations focusing on Sudan this year. And my question is if – you mentioned Darfur once in your talk – if you could elaborate a little bit on our ramped up efforts in Sudan as we head towards the referendum there in January.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, thank you. Thanks for asking and thanks for your work on Sudan. We have a very difficult set of challenges in Sudan. Some of you in this audience, those of you who were in government before like John Negroponte and others, you know this firsthand – the situation in Darfur is dangerous, difficult, not stable.

But the situation North-South is a ticking time bomb of enormous consequence. So we are ramping up our efforts to bring the parties together, North and South, the African Union, others to focus on this referendum which has not been given the attention it needs, both because the South is not quite capable of summoning the resources to do it, and the North has been preoccupied and is not inclined to do it because it’s pretty clear what the outcome will be. The African Union committee under Thabo Mbeki has been working on it.

So we are upping our diplomatic and development efforts. We have increased our presence in Juba, we have sent a – we’ve opened a – kind of a consulate and sent a consul general there, we are – Princeton Lyman, whom some of you know, is – sort of signed on to help as well with Scott Gration and his team.

MR. HAASS: Until last week, a senior fellow here.

SECRETARY CLINTON: That’s right, and Assistant Secretary Johnnie Carson. It’s really all hands on deck, so that we’re trying to convince the North and South and all the other interested parties who care about the Comprehensive Peace Agreement to weighing in to getting this done. The timeframe is very short. Pulling together this referendum is going to be difficult. We’re going to need a lot of help from NGOs, the Carter Center, and others who are willing to help implement the referendum.

But the real problem is what happens when the inevitable happens and the referendum is passed and the South declares independence. So simultaneously, we’re trying to begin negotiations to work out some of those intractable problems. What happens to the oil revenues? And if you’re in the North and all of a sudden, you think a line’s going to be drawn and you’re going to lose 80 percent of the oil revenues, you’re not a very enthusiastic participant, what are the deals that can possibly be made that will limit the potential of violence? And even if we did everything perfectly and everyone else – the Norwegians, the Brits, everybody who is weighing in on this – did all that they could, the reality is that this is going to be a very hard decision for the North to accept.

And so we’ve got to figure out some ways to make it worth their while to peacefully accept an independent South and for the South to recognize that unless they want more years of warfare and no chance to build their own new state, they’ve got to make some accommodations with the North as well. So that’s what we’re looking for. If you have any ideas from your study, let us know. (Laughter.)

MR. HAASS: We’ll turn to Carla Hills.

QUESTION: Secretary Clinton, first of all, thank you for a really far-ranging, extraordinarily interesting talk. You mentioned strategies that are regional, and I’d like you to just say a word more about this hemisphere. You gave a wonderful speech at the border of Mexico where you asserted that we had responsibility for the drugs coming north and the guns going south. Talk a little bit about how we are implementing strategies to turn that around and also to gain friendships that would be helpful throughout Latin America.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, first, Carla, thank you for asking about this hemisphere, because it is very much on our minds and we face an increasing threat from a well-organized network drug trafficking threat that is, in some cases, morphing into or making common cause with what we would consider an insurgency in Mexico and in Central America.

And we are working very hard to assist the Mexicans in improving their law enforcement and their intelligence, their capacity to detain and prosecute those whom they arrest. I give President Calderon very high marks for his courage and his commitment. This is a really tough challenge. And these drug cartels are now showing more and more indices of insurgency; all of a sudden, car bombs show up which weren’t there before.

So it’s becoming – it’s looking more and more like Colombia looked 20 years ago, where the narco-traffickers control certain parts of the country, not significant parts. And Colombia – it got to the point where more than a third of the country, nearly 40 percent of the country at one time or another was controlled by the insurgents, by FARC. But it’s going to take a combination of improved institutional capacity and better law enforcement and, where appropriate, military support for that law enforcement married to political will to be able to prevent this from spreading and to try to beat it back.

Mexico has capacity and they’re using that capacity, and they’ve been very willing to take advice. They’re wanting to do as much of it on their own as possible, but we stand ready to help them. But the small countries in Central America do not have that capacity, and the newly inaugurated president of Costa Rica, President Chinchilla, said, “We need help and we need a much more vigorous U.S. presence.”

So we are working to try to enhance what we have in Central America. We hear the same thing from our Caribbean friends, so we have an initiative, the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative. And our relationship is not all about drugs and violence and crime, but unfortunately, that often gets the headlines. We are also working on more economic programs, we’re working on Millennium Challenge grants, we’re working on a lot of other ways of bolstering economies and governments to improve rule of law. But this is on the top of everyone’s minds when they come to speak with us.

And I know that Plan Colombia was controversial. I was just in Colombia and there were problems and there were mistakes, but it worked. And it was bipartisan, started in the Clinton Administration, continued in the Bush Administration, and I think President Santos will try to do everything he can to remedy the problems of the past while continuing to make progress against the insurgency. And we need to figure out what are the equivalents for Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean.

And that’s not easy because these – you put your finger on it. Those drugs come up through Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, through Central America, Southern Mexico to the border, and we consume them. And those guns, legal and illegal, keep flooding along with all of the mayhem. It’s not only guns; it’s weapons, it’s arsenals of all kinds that come south. So I feel a real sense of responsibility to do everything we can, and again, we’re working hard to come up with approaches that will actually deliver.

MR. HAASS: Speaking of guns, I’m going to be shot if I don’t ask a question that comes from one of our national members, and thanks to the iPad I have on my lap, I can ask it. Several have written in about the impact of the mosque debate in New York, about the threat to burn Qu’rans. How do – what’s your view on all this from the Department of State? How does this complicate your life? (Laughter.)

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I mean, we’re a country of what, 310 million-plus right now and – I mean, it’s regrettable that a pastor in Gainesville, Florida with a church of no more than 50 people can make this outrageous and distressful, disgraceful plan and get the world’s attention, but that’s the world we live in right now. I mean, it doesn’t, in any way, represent America or Americans or American Government or American religious or political leadership. And we are, as you’ve seen in the last few days, speaking out. General Petraeus made the very powerful point that as seemingly small a group of people doing this, the fact is that it will have potentially great harm for our troops. So we are hoping that the pastor decides not to do this. We’re hoping against hope that if he does, it won’t be covered -- (laughter) --

MR. HAASS: Bonne chance.

SECRETARY CLINTON: -- as an act of patriotism. But I think that it’s unfortunate. I mean, it’s not who we are, and we just have to constantly be demonstrating by our words and actions. And as I remind my friends around the world, in the environment in which we all now operate, anybody with an iPhone, anybody with a blog, can put something out there which is outrageous. I mean, we went through the cartoon controversy. We went through the Facebook controversy in Pakistan. Judith McHale, who is our Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy, is on the front lines of pushing back on all of this all the time. And so we want to be judged by who we are as a nation, not by something that is so aberrational. And we’ll make that case as strongly as possible.

MR. HAASS: Time for one more?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Sure.

MR. HAASS: Okay, let me first of all apologize for the 283 of you whose questions will not – (laughter) – get answered. And let me also say that after the Secretary completes her next answer, if people would just remain seated while we get you out quickly and safely.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Safely? Do you think they’re going to storm the stage? (Laughter.)

MR. HAASS: This is the –

SECRETARY CLINTON: I don’t know. I’m looking at this audience. There’s a – (laughter) – a few people I think that might. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: Thanks, Richard. Barbara Slavin, an independent journalist. Madam Secretary, it’s a pleasure and I appreciate the responsibility on my shoulders. I have two very quick ones.

MR. HAASS: (Off mike.)

QUESTION: Very easy ones.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Go ahead.

QUESTION: Is it the role of the United States to support the Green Movement, the opposition in Iran? And if so, how should we be doing that?

And secondly, you’ve hardly mentioned North Korea. Is U.S. policy now just to let North Korea stew in its own juices until the next Kim takes over? Thank you.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, with respect to the first question, it is definitely our policy to support freedom and human rights inside Iran, and we have done so by speaking out. We have done so by trying to equip Iranians with the tools, particularly the technology tools that they need, to be able to communicate with each other to make their views known. We have strongly condemned the actions of the Iranian Government and continue to do so.

I don’t think there’s any doubt that Iran is morphing into a military dictatorship with a sort of religious, ideological veneer. It is becoming the province of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and in concert with some of the clerical and political leadership. And I don’t think that’s what the Iranian Revolution for a Republic of Iran, an Islamic Republic of Iran was ever meant to become.

So I know there’s a great deal of ferment and activities inside Iran that we do try to support. At the same time, we don’t want to either endanger or undermine those very same people so that it becomes, once again, the U.S. doing something instead of the U.S. being supportive of what indigenous efforts are taking place.

We know that Iran is under tremendous pressure. Early returns from implementation of the sanctions are that they’re feeling the economic effects. We would hope that that would lead them to reconsider their positions, not only with respect to nuclear weapons, but, frankly, the export of terrorism. And it’s not only in the obvious places with Hezbollah and Hamas, but in trying to destabilize many countries in the region and beyond, where they have provided support and funding for terrorist activities as far away as Argentina.

So I think there is a very, very sad confluence of events occurring inside Iran that I think eventually – but I can’t put a time frame on it – the Iranian people themselves will respond to. And we want to be helpful, but we don’t want to get in the way of it. So that’s the balance that we try to strike.

Now, with respect to North Korea, we are continuing to send a very clear message to North Korea about what we expect and what the Six-Party process could offer if they are willing to return and discuss seriously denuclearization that is irreversible. We are in intense discussions about this with all the other Six-Party members and we’re watching the leadership process and don’t have any idea yet how it’s going to turn out. But the most important issue for us is trying to get our Six-Party friends, led by China, to work with us to try to convince whosever in leadership in North Korea that their future would be far better served by denuclearizing. And that remains our goal.

MR. HAASS: As always, thank you so much for coming here, first of all, but also giving such a thorough and complete and serious and comprehensive talk about American foreign policy. And I know I speak for everyone that we wish you Godspeed and more in your work next week and beyond. Thank you so much.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thanks, Richard.

(Applause.)

Iraq: After the US "Withdrawal" (Rosen)

UPDATE 0840 GMT: Two US troops were killed and nine others wounded when a Kurdish Iraqi soldier sprayed them with gunfire at an Iraqi army commando base north of Baghdad on Tuesday afternoon. Juan Cole offers a comment.

---

Nir Rosen writes in Foreign Policy:

Hundreds of cars waiting in the heat to slowly pass through one of the dozens of checkpoints and searches they must endure every day. The constant roar of generators. The smell of fuel, of sewage, of kabobs. Automatic weapons pointed at your head out of military vehicles, out of SUVs with tinted windows. Mountains of garbage. Rumors of the latest assassination or explosion. Welcome to the new Iraq, same as the old Iraq --- even if Barack Obama has declared George W. Bush's Operation Iraqi Freedom over and announced the beginning of his own Operation New Dawn, and Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has declared Iraq sovereign and independent.

US Politics: How Can Obama Deal with a World after Iraq? (Cohen)

Iraq has had several declarations of sovereignty since the first one in June 2004. As with earlier milestones, it's not clear what exactly this one means. Since the Americans have declared the end of combat operations, U.S. Stryker and MRAP vehicles can be seen conducting patrols without Iraqi escorts in parts of the country and the Americans continue to conduct unilateral military operations in Mosul and elsewhere, even if under the guise of "force protection" or "countering improvised explosive devices." American military officers in Iraq told me they were irate with the politically driven announcement from the White House that combat troops had withdrawn. Those remaining still consider themselves combat troops, and commanders say there is little change in their rules of engagement -- they will still respond to threats pre-emptively.

Iraq is still being held back from full independence -- and not merely by the presence of 50,000 U.S. soldiers. The Status of Forces Agreement, which stipulates that U.S. forces will be totally out by 2011, deprives Iraq of full sovereignty. The U.N.'s Chapter 7 sanctions force Iraq to pay 5 percent of its oil revenues in reparations, mostly to the Kuwaitis, denying Iraqis full sovereignty and isolating them from the international financial community. Saudi and Iranian interference, both political and financial, has also limited Iraq's scope for democracy and sovereignty. Throughout the occupation, major decisions concerning the shape of Iraq have been made by the Americans with no input or say by the Iraqis: the economic system, the political regime, the army and its loyalties, the control over airspace, and the formation of all kinds of militias and tribal military groups. The effects will linger for decades, regardless of any future milestones the United States might want to announce.

The Americans, meanwhile, worry about losing their leverage at a time when concerns still run high about a renewed insurgency, Shiite militias, and the explosion of the Arab-Kurdish powder keg everybody's been talking about for the last seven years. Many in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad wonder what Obama's vision for Iraq is. By the summer of 2006, Bush woke up every day and wanted to know what was happening in Iraq. Obama is much more detached.

American diplomats also worry that they will soon lose their ability to understand and influence the country. In addition to Baghdad, there will soon be only four other posts. Much of the south will be without any U.S. presence: There will be no Americans between Basra and Baghdad, no Americans in Anbar or Salahuddin provinces. Some in the embassy fear they are abandoning the "Shiite heartland." The diplomats still in the country will have less mobility and access, even if they are nominally taking the lead over the military, because it will be harder to find military escorts when they want to travel. "You can't commute to a relationship," I was told....

Read full article....

Israel-Palestine: Israel's Security Summit, Abbas and Netanyahu Clash on Core Issues

Israel's Security Summit: On Monday, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with members of the Israel Security Council led by Maj.-Gen. (ret.) Uzi Dayan. In the meeting, four strategic measures were discussed in detail: "Maintaining a solid Jewish majority in the State of Israel, preventing the creation of a hostile Palestinian entity that could threaten Israel from Judea and Samaria as is the case today in Gaza, the Iranian threat, and the de-legitimization assault against Israel."

The Israel Security Council also stated that there must be clear red lines during negotiations with Palestinians, especially in maintaining the Jordan Valley as Israel's eastern security border. The need to to strengthen Jewish-democratic identity in Israel and to prevent Iran from arming itself with nuclear weapons were also conveyed to PM Netanyahu.

Video and Transcript: Obama’s New Year Message to Israelis
Israel-Palestine Analysis: Can Ramallah’s “Security” Card Advance the Talks? (Yenidunya)

No Israeli Presence in the West Bank: Talking to al-Ayyam on Monday morning,  Palestine Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas said: “We clarified that [the Palestinian Authority] would not agree to continued Israeli presence, military or civil, within a future Palestinian state.”

Abbas-Netanyahu Challenge on Core Issues: According to Al Quds, Abbas has said that if he is pressured on key issues at the direct talks, such as borders and refugees, he "will take his bags and leave". Abbas stated that the issue of the pre-1967 borders are as important as Israel's emphasis on its security.

Abbas said late Monday that he has asked the U.S. "to intervene in the settlement issue", with the freeze ending in less than three weeks. It appears that Israeli "gestures" instead of an extension of the freeze did not work in Ramallah. Abbas does not see these gestures --- such as transferring an important piece of land from Israeli to Palestinian control, releasing hundreds of prisoners, and removing dozens of checkpoints --- as a substitute of a concession on settlements.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat denied on Monday that there will be a meeting between President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem in mid-September. "What has been agreed upon is a meeting between President Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in Sharm el-Sheikh on Sept. 14 only," Erekat told Xinhua.

On Tuesday, in a Rosh Hashanah greeting, Netanyahu told the nation that there was no guarantee that negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians would succeed, but he vowed to aim for a peace agreement by the end of the year. (Interpretation: Our red lines are crystal-clear, sothere can be no improvement if Palestinians do not come to terms.) He said:

We are trying in good faith, but not naivety, to reach a peace agreement. Any arrangement between us and the Palestinians will be based on two criteria: security and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.

Security, because no peace will last without a strong anchor of actual security on the ground, not on paper and not as a hazy international commitment. The second thing is the recognition that Israel is the national state of the Jewish people.

If we are asked to recognize a Palestinian state, it is both natural and appropriate that the Palestinians recognize the state of the Israeli people as a Jewish state.