How We Got into Libya.

The Europeans wanted to get into Libya. To a certain extent, it's their backyard. I thought the Israelis too wanted us in, but now I'm not so sure. The impetus for Bernard-Henri Levy's Libya visit may have been more French than Jewish. Clinton and Rice wanted us in because of Rwanda. But the deciding factor may have been the unexpected votes by the AU and the UN. They called our bluff and said go ahead and support the rebels.

Israeli Arrow Missile

When I was working on missile proliferation at State under the George H. W. Bush administration, around 1990 the US began cooperating with Israel on the Arrow anti-missile missile. At that time the US was still a party to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which prevented the US from working on strategic ABMs. In theory the Arrow was exempted because it was intended for defense against smaller, shorter-range missiles. However, there was concern that the US was using the Israelis to do research on ABMs that would have been prohibited for the US to do under the ABM treaty. Now that George W. Bush has abrogated US adherence to the ABM treaty in 2001, the ABM treaty is no longer an issue. Hopefully the US gets something out of this cooperation with Israel and it is not just a one way street with all the technology flowing from the US to Israel. Israel is so advanced technologically they definitely could contribute, if they are willing to.

Financial Times Has It Right on Israel

A March 27 opinion piece by Max Hastings in the Financial Times has an excellent analysis of Israel's situation, entitled "A Deaf and Defiant Israel Is Gambling with Its Future." The picked out blurb says, "The claim upon East Jerusalem is rooted in a sense of moral entitlement, which the world increasingly rejects." He cites a book by Esther Barbarossa called "Suffering as Identity" that says Jews must cease to define their world view in terms of the Holocaust, ruthlessly politicised since the 1950s. Hastings says, "Some day Americans will awaken to the heavy strategic price their own nation pays for indulging Israeli excesses."

Iran's Nuclear Program Continued

Iran threatens to expand its nuclear program, with yet another reasonable justification, if we could believe them. We've found some significant discrepancies, but we haven't really found a smoking gun that would warrant military action. Economic sanctions are pretty ineffectual; so, it doesn't really matter whether we get some imposed despite China's resistance, or not.

Nobody is talking about the real problem, which is that Israel has many atomic bombs, and we have basically turned a blind eye to bombs developed by India and Pakistan. Arguably, the Pakistani bomb offsets the Israeli bomb, but Pakistan is fast becoming a failed state; so who know what will happen to the Pakistani bombs. They could fall to al-Qaeda, or the US military could take them over to prevent al-Qaeda from getting them. So, Iran is working working on a Muslim bomb that it can count on to counter to the Jewish bombs.

Unless the US does something about Israel, it's unlikely that it can do anything about the Iranian bomb. It's not clear that the Iranians really want to build a bomb; they may just want to be able to build a bomb if they feel the need for one. But they are a lot more likely to feel the need for one as long as Israel has many.

Israel Needs To Man-Up

Israel is pressing back against the UN Goldstone report finding Israel probably guilty of war crimes in its attack on Gaza. According to the AP, the report is having a number of perhaps unanticipated effects, including undermining Fatah leader Abbas, delaying Israel's participation in US peace plans, and putting Israel on the hotseat in the UN. Israel is outraged, but Goldstone, a Jew, has said that he calls them like he sees them and only wants the best for Israel.

The bottom line is that Israel needs to face the fact that morally it is falling short. It needs to man-up and behave in a manner acceptable to the world community of nations.

One of the main criticisms is Israel's use of white phosphorous artillery against people, including civilians. White phosphorous should not be fired on the ground; it should be used in air bursts as a marking round to see where artillery going. If it hits you, it burns until the phosphorous is consumed, because you can't put it out. But it makes a visible puff of white smoke during the day and a fireworks-light bright flash at night. It used to be fun to watch other artillery batteries shoot in delta tangos (defensive targets) for our fire base at night, so that they would know where high explosive rounds would land if they had to be called for during the night. They weren't intended to be used against enemy personnel in a fire fight.

Elliott Abrams Is Bank Again

Elliott Abrams has another op-ed, this time in the WSJ. It, of course, goes totally against Tony Judt's op-ed on Israeli settlements. He says the US agreed to the settlements that Obama's administration is now questioning. He's basically saying that George W. Bush was an unpatriotic, cowardly President who was afraid to stand up to the Israelis. Abrams says in effect, "I put words in Bush's mouth recognizing the settlement, and he said them." However, Abrams and Bush failed to bring anything to fruition as a result. Bush kissed Sharon's ass as instructed by Abrams, but no legal document was signed. They failed. The world has moved on. It's like Abrams is trying to enforce the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. It's dead. Get over it!

But all these articles about settlements show that the Israelis are genuinely worried. They have obviously told their Israeli agents to go all out to get the US off this settlements kick. They may succeed; Jews have lots of money and power in the US. But at least for a few shining moments the US seems to be pursuing a policy defined by US interests, rather than Israel's. Let Elliot Abrams, Bret Stevens, and the rest of the Likudniks on the WSJ editorial page stew for a little while longer.

Maybe Israeli Spies Aren't Harmless

This Sic Semper Tyrannis blog has an example of a new intelligence case, Klingberg, which Israel perpetrated against the US to gain military intelligence. It also mentions the Pollard case, but it doesn't mention the USS Liberty, which is a clear example of Israel being willing to damage the US in order to further Israeli interests.

More on Rahm Emanuel and Israel

The blog "Just World News" has more info on Rahm Emanuel's position on Israel. It says Emanuel has warned AIPAC that failure to make progress on the Palestinian issue will hurt Israel's chances for progress on restraining Iran's nuclear program, although it doesn't explain exactly why. It does say that most American Jews are Democrats who support Obama and thus would be loathe to buck him on this issue. In that case, who does AIPAC speak for? Presumably a lot of Jews with a lot of money, but maybe not George Soros or Rahm Emanuel. So, what are Bibi Netanyahu and Israel's other right wing leaders going to do? Like Nixon's opening to China, they could probably get away with a genuine opening to the Palestinians.

AIPAC Still a Problem

This posting from Sic Semper Tyrannis raises my hopes that this administration may not roll over and play dead in negotiating with Israel, like the last one did. Maybe they will consider Israel to be a separate country from the US and deny a visa to an Israeli who spied on America using the AIPAC employees against whom criminal charges were recently dropped, and who apparently "ran" Pentagon employee Franklin. If they deny the visa, they will get tremendous pressure from Jewish Americans like Senator Joe Lieberman and Congresswoman Jane Harmon, who consistently put Israel's interests ahead of America's. If push comes to shove, it will be interesting to see whose side Lieberman, Harmon and company come down on.

What about Rahm Emanuel as a Jewish-American; as Obama's chief of staff won't he look out Israel's interests? His family is very pro-Israel. It sounds like he actually served time in the Israeli Army, although not in uniform so as not to mess up his American citizenship. I don't know. Perhaps he is Israeli enough not to be subject to the wildly right-wing attitudes that characterize AIPAC and other American Jewish organizations, except perhaps J-Street. There is much healthier debate and much more difference of opinion in Israel than among American Jews. Or, perhaps because of the potential conflict of interest, Emanuel and Obama have an agreement that Emanuel will keep hands off Middle East policy. Obama has shown himself to be concerned about maintaining a high middle ground on most issues, and it's conceivable that he's done this or something like it with Emanuel.

Israel Objects to Truth about Its Nuclear Capacity

Israel is in a tizzy because the US has stated publicly that Israel has nuclear weapons and has called on Israel to join the NPT. This FT report is just factual, while this JTA report is more alarmist. The Israelis appear worried that the US will try to make Israel adhere to the same treaty requirements that it is trying to make Iran adhere to, in order to reign in Iran's nuclear program. Israel does not believe it should be subject to the same regime as most other nations in the world. There are only a few holdout who refuse to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty, including North Korea, Pakistan, and India, as well as Israel.

Maybe the US was preparing for this by releasing information earlier about Israel's nuclear capability.

Amb. Chas Freeman Attacked for Not Being Jewish

An op-ed in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal criticizes Obama's choice of Amb. Chas Freeman to head the National Intelligence Council because Freeman has "distincitive political views and affiliations, some of which are more than eyebrow-raising." One of these is his presidency of the Middle East Policy Council, which the op-ed calls "an influential Washington mouthpiece for Saudi Arabia," were Freeman was ambassador. One of MPEC's most egregious faults was to publish "an 'unabridged' version of 'The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy' by professors John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt." Of course the article by these well-respected professors has been published by others, such as the New York Review of Books, and expanded into a critically acclaimed book. The op-ed continues, emphasizing its core point, "Mr. Freeman has views about Middle East policy that differ rather sharply from those held by supporters of the state of Israel."

Amb. Freeman was DCM (#2) at the Embassy in Bangkok while I was there. He had zero interest in my job as embassy systems manager (head of IT), but he was completely professional and certainly not a bigot. His main qualification for the NIC job is no doubt his service as Ambassador to China, which is developing into our most important bilateral relationship. His service as Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, one of our most important oil suppliers, is also a good reason to name him. I have no doubt that he will be even handed and fair in all of his dealings with Israel, which may be the reason for the WSJ attack on him. The article by Mearsheimer and Walt points out how Israel is accustomed to preferential, not even-handed, treatment.

Hooray for Obama for pursuing honesty and integrity in intelligence analysis. Maybe if we had had more of that under Bush, we wouldn't have gotten all the hyped-up intelligence claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It was certainly in Israel's interest to have us invade Iraq, at least that's what Israel thought then. In fact, the US invasion of Iraq has probably unexpectedly strengthened Iran to Israel's detriment.

New Jewish Lobby

The Washington Post reports that liberal Jews have created a new lobby, J Street, to compete with AIPAC. This sounds great; we'll see how it works in practice. It seems true that there is much more political debate about Israel's future in Israel than there is in the US, where AIPAC is the only Jewish lobby, and AIPAC means Zionism supported 100% by the US.

Here's Mother Jones report of the new lobby.

Unoptimistic about Middle East

Condi Rice is doing her thing, supposedly bringing peace the Middle East, but I don't believe it. She's not a terrible Secretary of State, but she is not a good one either. She parades around and says the right things, but she doesn't back them up. She doesn't fight for anything. Christopher Hill got the North Korean nuclear agreement. She did support him, which is more than Colin Powell did on the issue. She was probably able to support him only because she got rid of John Bolton at State, and Don Rumsfeld and his allies were gone from Defense. Nick Burns negotiated the Indian nuclear deal, but that was much less successful than the North Korean one. The Indian deal is more likely to undermine US security than to improve it, because it undermines the whole nuclear non-proliferation regime by rewarding one of the holdouts of the regime.

While her subordinates have been out doing things, Condi has been giving interviews and making appearances around the world. But she is not going to make any tough decisions. Any progress in the Middle East will require getting Israel to make some sacrifices, and she won't do that because she and Bush won't, or don't want to, stand up to the Israel lobby, AIPAC and company. Thus, her initiative is doomed from the start.

The idea of shoring up Abbas and Fatah is unlikely to lead anywhere. Fatah meant something when Arafat headed it. The Israelis assassinated Arafat, and I think they will live to regret it. The Israelis may not have assassinated Arafat by actually killing him, although they may have. The reasons for his death given by the French hospital where he was treated were never very clear; he could have died from some virus or poison wafted into his ramshackle headquarters by Israel. Or he may have died simply because of the squalid conditions that Israel forced him to live in. In any case, he was a leader of the Palestinians who could actually follow through on promises he made. Abbas does not have they power. He is a puppet of Israel and the US and is perceived as such by the Palestinians and other Arab and Muslim states. The US money and weapons given to Fatah may help him stay in power, but it won't help him bring peace to the region. It would take a leader with more power than Abbas to do that.

George Soros on AIPAC

George Soros has written an excellent article in the New York Review of Books, "On Israel, America and AIPAC." He calls on Israel and the US to deal with Hamas. He says:

AIPAC's mission is to ensure American support for Israel but in recent years it has overreached itself. It became closely allied with the neocons and was an enthusiastic supporter of the invasion of Iraq. It actively lobbied for the confirmation of John Bolton as US ambassador to the United Nations. It continues to oppose any dialogue with a Palestinian government that includes Hamas. More recently, it was among the pressure groups that prevailed upon the Democratic House leadership to drop the requirement that the President obtain congressional approval before taking military action against Iran. AIPAC under its current leadership has clearly exceeded its mission, and far from guaranteeing Israel's existence, has endangered it.

He takes on the American Jewish Committee's attacks on critics of Israel, which were praised by Bill Clinton, as I noted earlier. On behalf of the AJC, Alvin Rosenfeld attacks as anti-Semites Jews such as Tony Judt and Richard Cohen, and gentiles as well. Soros says:

Whether the Democratic Party can liberate itself from AIPAC's influence is highly doubtful. Any politician who dares to expose AIPAC's influence would incur its wrath; so very few can be expected to do so. It is up to the American Jewish community itself to rein in the organization that claims to represent it. But this is not possible without first disposing of the most insidious argument put forward by the defenders of the current policies: that the critics of Israel's policies of occupation, control, and repression on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem and Gaza engender anti-Semitism.

The opposite is the case. One of the myths propagated by the enemies of Israel is that there is an all-powerful Zionist conspiracy. That is a false accusation. Nevertheless, that AIPAC has been so successful in suppressing criticism has lent some credence to such false beliefs. Demolishing the wall of silence that has protected AIPAC would help lay them to rest. A debate within the Jewish community, instead of fomenting anti-Semitism, would only help diminish it.

Hooray for Soros! I don't know that it will have much effect. It's interesting that Bill Clinton is already undermining Soros, who has been one of the main benefactors of the Democratic Party through Move-On.org and other contributions. So, Soros' concern about whether the Democratic Party can liberate itself from AIPAC is well founded.

AIPAC supporters are already returning fire, see for example this article in Forward.

Bill Clinton Attacks Jimmy Carter for Jew Money

The following is from an email from the AJC:

President Clinton Thanks AJC for Efforts on New Carter Book

Former President Bill Clinton, in a handwritten letter to AJC Executive Director David Harris, voiced appreciation for his efforts to expose the inaccuracies in President Jimmy Carter’s book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Thanks so much for your articles about President Carter’s book. I don’t know where his information (or conclusions) came from …” said Clinton. “I’m grateful.”

Normally, one ex-President does not attack another, but apparently Bill and Hillary need money, and Jews have a lot of it. Bill is a smart guy, but he has the morals of a snake. His successor is stupid and has no morals at all. Poor America!

Jimmy Carter was intelligent and had morals. He would not negotiate for hostages. His undoing was that Ronald Reagan, unlike Carter, was willing to deal with Iran to get the hostages back and win the election. (Remember Iran-Contra?) Carter chose principle over being re-elected. And although he negotiated the Camp David accords, the Jews hate him because he is even-handed. Just like they hate Franklin Roosevelt, who liberated the surviving Jews from the concentration camps, because he was not willing to kill more Christians to save the Jews earlier. No one is likely to call Clinton or Bush even-handed in dealing with Israel and the Jews. Elliot Abrams, who was convicted of a felony for Iran-Contra, is one of Bush's senior national security advisers on the NSC.

Israel's Answer to Kristof

The Jerusalem Post has an op-ed replying to Nicholas Kristof's column on Israel. The bottom line is that Israel wants peace, but nobody else does. Sure, Israel wants peace if you call "peace" unconditional surrender by everybody else in the region. Israel wants peace about as much as Osama bin Laden does. Call a spade a spade! Israel hates all of its neighbors. It's not interested in peace.

The Economist on AIPAC

The Economist magazine reports on the recent AIPAC meeting. AIPAC got every politician who counts to come kiss its feet. Cheney was particularly prominent in paying obeisance. Its violently right wing attitudes opposing Middle East peace on any basis expect complete surrender to Israel are its most identifiable characteristic, but The Economist points out that many American Jews are considerably less hawkish. And as I've mentioned earlier, many Israelis are less hawkish. Nevertheless, it says this is the best of times and the worst of times for AIPAC. Because of AIPAC's predominant position in Washington, it appears to be the spokesman for all American Jews. The article says that George Soros is considering starting up a liberal counterpoint organization to AIPAC, but so far he hasn't done so. He has written an excellent article in the Financial Times calling on the US and Israel to deal with Hamas. The Economist says:

The lobbyists had every reason to feel proud of their work. Congress has more Jewish members than ever before: 30 in the House and a remarkable 13 in the Senate. (There are now more Jews in Congress than Episcopalians.) Both parties are competing with each other to be the “soundest” on Israel. About two-thirds of Americans hold a favourable view of the place.

Yet they have reason to feel a bit nervous, too. The Iraq debacle has produced a fierce backlash against pro-war hawks, of which AIPAC was certainly one. It has also encouraged serious people to ask awkward questions about America's alliance with Israel. And a growing number of people want to push against AIPAC. One pressure group, the Council for the National Interest—run by two retired congressmen, Paul Findley, a Republican, and James Abourezk, a Democrat—even bills itself as the anti-AIPAC. The Leviathan may be mightier than ever, but there are more and more Captain Ahabs trying to get their harpoons in....

But the growing activism of liberal Jewish groups underlines a worrying fact for AIPAC: most Jews are fairly left-wing. Fully 77% of them think that the Iraq war was a mistake compared with 52% of all Americans. Eighty-seven per cent of Jews voted for the Democrats in 2006, and all but four of the Jews in Congress are Democrats.

An even bigger threat to AIPAC comes from the general climate of opinion. It is suddenly becoming possible for serious people—politicians and policymakers as well as academics—to ask hard questions about America's relationship with Israel. Is America pursuing its own interests in the Middle East, or Israel's? Should America tie itself so closely to the Israeli government's policies or should it forge other alliances?

Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former national security adviser, worries that America is seen in the Middle East as “acting increasingly on behalf of Israel”. Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, has compared the situation in Palestine to segregation, and argued that there could “be no greater legacy for America than to help bring into being a Palestinian state”. Philip Zelikow, her former counsellor, argues, in diplomatic language, that the only way to create a viable coalition against terrorists that includes Europeans, moderate Arabs and Israelis, is a “sense that Arab-Israeli issues are being addressed”.

Cowardice on Israel

Nicholas Kristof's column in yesterday's NYT was right. American politicians avoid criticism of Israel, no matter what Israel does. He correctly touts Jordanian King Abdullah's speech to the US Congress. And he correctly points out that there is much more criticism of Israeli policies in Israel than there is in the US. Kristof said:

One reason for the void is that American politicians have learned to muzzle themselves. In the run-up to the 2004 Democratic primaries, Howard Dean said he favored an “even-handed role” for the U.S. — and was blasted for being hostile to Israel. Likewise, Barack Obama has been scolded for daring to say: “Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people.” In contrast, Hillary Rodham Clinton has safely refused to show an inch of daylight between herself and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

A second reason may be that American politicians just don’t get it. King Abdullah of Jordan spoke to Congress this month and observed: “The wellspring of regional division, the source of resentment and frustration far beyond, is the denial of justice and peace in Palestine.” Though widely criticized, King Abdullah was exactly right: from Morocco to Yemen to Sudan, the Palestinian cause arouses ordinary people in coffee shops more than almost anything else.

He points out that last year while Palestinians killed 17 Israelis, of whom one was a child, the Israelis killed 660 Palestinians, of whom 141 were children.

It's ironic that Americans, especially American politicians who fear AIPAC, are so much more conservative in their support for oppresive Israeli policies than Israelis are themselves.

Listen to King Abdullah

King Abdullah of Jordan addressed a joint session of Congress and appeared on the PBS Newshour. He made an eloquent plea for peace in the Middle East, which he said should start with the Israel-Palestine issue. Here's the comment by James Zogby on the Huffington Post; not surprisingly Zogby liked the speech.

Review of Jimmy Carter Book on Israel

See this review of Jimmy Carter's book on Israel from the New York Review of Books.