2045 GMT: Sunday Absurdity. A slow day, which leading to a perusing of opinion in the newspapers. Unfortunately, that turns up a piece of anti-Muslim diatribe posing as analysis by Ephraim Karsh in The New York Times: “Muslims Won’t Play Together”. The slurs have to be read to be believed, but here is the policy recommendation: “A military strike must remain a serious option: there is no peaceful way to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions, stemming as they do from its imperialist brand of national-Islamism.”
1700 GMT: Where’s Mahmoud? President Ahmadinejad has been at a conference in Tehran attended by Palestinian leaders such as Hamas’ Khaled Meshaal, Islamic Jihad’s Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, and the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (General Command), Ahmed Jibril. Ahmadinejad offered this commentary:
Sarkozy Steps Back from Palestinian State: On Monday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the leader of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas discussed the future of negotiations and a Palestinian state. Sarkozy made two points: there should be no unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state before borders are defined with Israel, and there was no time to be waste in starting negotiations since “if there are no talks….we take the risk, the international community, of a third intifada”.
Abbas supported Sarkozy’s line, “Negotiations first, proclamation of a state later.”
Israel Pushes Washington for Harsher Sanctions on Iran: Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak left for the US on Tuesday, for five days of talks with senior American officials, including US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, that will focus on Iran.
PA Security Prevents Attacks into Israel: According to Haaretz, the Palestinian Authority prevented a suicide attack about six weeks ago that a young woman (from Islamic Jihad) from Nablus had planned to carry out in Israel. Palestinian security sources said that it was not the first success to thwart such terrorist activities. Read the rest of this entry »
President Obama has introduced his $85 billion Supplemental Budget for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tucked away in those billions, however, is $815 million for the Palestinian Authority. How is this money being spent?
Once it was Reds under the Bed. Now it’s the Mullahs Hiding behind the Curtains.
Human Events sounds the warning, exposing all the pseudo-Americans who are actually working for Tehran. Our only qualm with this article is that — as it outed Trita Parsi, Juan Cole, and Gary Sick, all of whom we have featured on this website — somehow it forgot to mention Enduring America amongst the threats to Mr and Mrs USA.
I do not know of a single Israeli politician from any party who I would expect to offer a reasonable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. All of them want a partial solution, or they aim to improve the face and the conditions of the occupation while the settlements continue.
Actually Abbas, with Israel holding Palestinian Authority aid and payments to Gaza hostage, is sounding desperate as well:
6:30 p.m. It Had to Happen. Egypt is alleging that the $11 million confiscated from Hamas delegates, seized as they returned to Gaza from the Cairo talks, was provided by Tehran. It is “only a small portion of the large amounts of money Iran has funneled to Hamas over the last week”.
Late evening update (2 a.m. Israel/Gaza time): Relatively quiet on all fronts the last few hours. A hectic diplomatic day but a comparatively quiet military day, as Israeli troops battled with “at least 20 armed gunmen” Friday and five civilians were wounded when 15 rockets were fired into southern Israel.
Everyone is drawing breath, but it will pick up in several hours. Saturday is the day that Israel makes its move and puts all other actors on the spot, as the Cabinet declares a unilateral ceasefire. It is a giant snub to “world opinion”, saying that Tel Aviv doesn’t need an international agreement to get its political and military objectives. Gaza will still be blockaded, Israel will remain freedom of action to send military forces in whenever it wants, and Hamas will go unrecognised.
The responses of other countries and groups to this move will be critical. Is Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak really prepared to be tied at the hip to Israel, in pursuit of the overthrow of Hamas, even though it may damage Cairo’s position in the Arab world and even threaten internal instability? Will Saudi Arabia continue to stall on meaningful cease-fire efforts or, in light of growing internal concern with the Government position, will it shift towards other Gulf States who are demanding support of Hamas and unequivocal condemnation of Israel? Can Syria and Iran press their diplomatic initiative in forging a new bloc, and can Khaled Meshaall benefit?
And what in the world is Barack Obama doing? Did his people know of the Israeli plans, given Tzipi Livni’s presence in Washington today, and tacitly approve them? Or have they sat so far back that they are trailing behind these developments?
No answers, just a lot of questions. But my speculation is that tomorrow will send a re-alignment of loyalties and objectives that ensures the political battle over Gaza enters a new phase.
Last week, we noted — via the wisdom of William Kristol — the litany of comment setting out the fight in Gaza as a de facto fight against Iran. Israel had to triumph over Hamas, the argument runs, or Hamas’ sponsors in Iran would win a big victory in their drive for regional supremacy.
Israel, Gaza and Iran: Trapping Obama in Imagined Fault Lines
In talking about the assault on Gaza, neo-conservative pundits and Israeli hardliners have relied on a familiar frame. The fighting in Gaza, they say, is a struggle between Israel and so-called “moderate” Arab states (namely, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia) on the one hand, and Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas on the other. In reality, Israel is fighting Iran in Gaza, the argument reads.
These imagined Manichean fault lines defy logic and reality. This conflict is the last thing Tehran would have wished for in the last few weeks of the Bush administration. It increases the risk of a US-Iran confrontation now, and reduces the prospects for US-Iran diplomacy once President elect Obama takes over – neither of which is in Iran’s national interest. Rather than benefiting from the instability following the slaughter in Gaza, Iran stands to lose much from the rise in tensions. And so does Obama.
This morning the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 had an interesting contrast in perspectives on the current crisis. First came former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, appearing in his capacity as a Middle Eastern envoy, to criticize Hamas. Then came Blair’s former ambassador to the United Nations and Iraq, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who began by criticizing Blair and then went after Israel over the current crisis. In the course of his interview he said that:
that Israel had broken the ceasefire by not opening the border crossings;
that Hamas is not a proxy of Iran;
that Hamas is not trying to set up a Taliban-style government in Gaza;
that Hamas’ unwillingness to accept the existence of Israel was about rhetoric and not about reality;
that Israel continues to inflame the situation in the region by constructing illegal settlements;
that Israeli domestic politics were also driving the crisis;
that Fatah and Islamic Jihad have also been firing rockets;
Greenstock, who has had contacts with Hamas through a charity called Forward Thinking, referred to the precedent of Northern Ireland, noting that Blair had already followed the path of talking with interests that engaged in terrorism.
2045 GMT: Sunday Absurdity. A slow day, which leading to a perusing of opinion in the newspapers. Unfortunately, that turns up a piece of anti-Muslim diatribe posing as analysis by Ephraim Karsh in The New York Times: “Muslims Won’t Play Together”. The slurs have to be read to be believed, but here is the policy recommendation: “A military strike must remain a serious option: there is no peaceful way to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions, stemming as they do from its imperialist brand of national-Islamism.”
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