Mideast Media Sampler 06/20/2011

From DG:

1) Getting serious on Syria

The Washington Post has two related op-eds today.

One by former Obama administration State Department spokesman, P J Crowley, who famously tweeted last week a biting observation that the administration had used its resources to remove Anthony Weiner from office but not Bashar Assad. Crowley writes that Obama must tell Assad to go:

Our president, through various speeches, has outlined a bold yet simple approach to the Arab Spring rooted in our values and long-term interests. We need to apply it to Syria.

Having declared on March 3 that “Moammar Qaddafi has lost the legitimacy to lead,” it is time to say the same about Assad. With Libya, the president took the lead and the international community followed. The response to Syria will not be the same — there is no military option at this point — but such a statement, long overdue, will send a strong signal to Syrian elites who continue to support the Assad regime, further isolate the regime politically and create a catalyst for additional international sanctions. 

More important, by again taking the lead, the president will restore faith with those who continue to stand up to repressive regimes, not only in Syria but across the region. As he said on March 28, “Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities that occur in other countries. The United States of America is different.”

Curiously Crowley criticizes the administration for "leading from behind" but defends the administration's silence on Iran in 2009. I understand the former position but not the latter.

Jackson Diehl asks Why is Obama so tough on Israel and timid on Syria? (h/t Lenny ben David )

What’s extraordinary about Obama’s initiative is not its details, which don’t differ meaningfully from the ideas of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush or, for that matter, several of Netanyahu’s predecessors as prime minister. It is, rather, its superpower chutzpah — the brazen disregard for the views and political posture of this Israeli government, and the fecklessness and disarray of the current Palestinian leadership. Never mind, goes the implicit Euro-American line: We will make this happen.
What could account for such an attitude, given the timorous approach to the rest of the region? Part of it is understandable frustration with years of Israeli-Palestinian impasse, which is magnified by the conviction in much of official Washington that the terms for peace are well known and widely accepted, and need only be implemented. Part is legitimate worry that the Israeli-
Palestinian front, though quiet now, could explode later this year after a United Nations vote, helping extremists in places such as Egypt. Yet the damage to U.S. interests from a U.N. resolution on Palestine would pale compared to the consequences of an Iranian-backed victory by Assad in Syria or the failure of NATO in Libya. Those crises have not moved Obama to lead.

There is, in his diplomacy, an implicit conviction that the United States must first of all deal with the sins of its own client. “Here are the facts we must all confront,” Obama declared in his speech to the AIPAC conference last month, before proceeding to deliver a lecture about Palestinian demography, Arab politics and the United Nations. It wasn’t that he was entirely wrong. But it’s revealing of this president that he is determined to speak truth to Binyamin Netanyahu — and not to Bashar al-Assad.

I quoted the 1999 Krauthammer column for a different reason yesterday, but here's how it began:

Having failed to topple Saddam Hussein or Slobodan Milosevic, Bill Clinton had to settle for Benjamin Netanyahu. In a characteristic display of partisan glee, Clinton toasted political consultant Robert Shrum on Tuesday night (reports Lloyd Grove in The Washington Post) to congratulate him (and implicitly, the administration) for helping the Israeli opposition bring down the prime minister Washington loves to hate.

Some things unfortunately, don't change.

2) On again, off again unity

The New York Times reports Divided on Premier, Palestinians Cancel Meeting (more at memeorandum)

In a blow to Palestinian unity efforts, a meeting in Cairo planned for this week so that the leaders of the two main factions could announce a new government has been called off for lack of agreement on a prime minister, Palestinian officials said Sunday. 

The meeting had been set for Tuesday with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and Khaled Meshal of Hamas. Mr. Abbas’s Fatah faction announced the cancellation in the West Bank, and Hamas officials here confirmed it. Mr. Abbas had been hoping to forge an image of a united Palestinian front as he laid the groundwork to seek international recognition of statehood at the United Nations in September. 

Mr. Abbas has been pushing hard to keep in place Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who is widely admired in the United States and Europe, the sources of hundreds of millions of dollars in annual aid to the Palestinian Authority, and in Israel, whose security officials cooperate with those under him in the West Bank. 

Note how this is presented. It's a "blow to Palestinians unity," not a "boost for the peace process." I suspect that Netanyahu's election as Prime Minister was presented as a "blow to the peace process" or something similar, but bringing Hamas into the PA, is only a matter of "unity." Howver, if there's one thing that's good about the article, it shows the cynical calculations of Abbas. If the foreign aid dries up, the Fatah economic miracle will likely shrivel.

Abbas claims the meeting was canceled due to a "scheduling conflict." If his primary purpose is reconciliation, then Abbas wouldn't be busy with other things. This way he can have his cake and eat it too. To the West, he hasn't yet completed the merger with Hamas and to the Palestinians he's still working on reconciliation. If nothing else it's an impressive juggling act.

3) Christian more militant

Interesting report in the Telegraph Christians are more militant than Muslims, says Government's equalities boss (via memeorandum)

Trevor Phillips warned that "an old time religion incompatible with modern society" is driving the revival in the Anglican and Catholic Churches and clashing with mainstream views, especially on homosexuality. 

He accused Christians, particularly evangelicals, of being more militant than Muslims in complaining about discrimination, arguing that many of the claims are motivated by a desire for greater political influence. 

The next two paragraphs are bewildering and disturbing.

However the chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission expressed concern that people of faith are "under siege" from atheists whom he accused of attempting to "drive religion underground". 

In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph ahead of a landmark report on religious discrimination in Britain, he said the Commission wants to protect Christians and Muslims from discrimination, admitting his body had not been seen to stand up for the people discriminated against because of their faith in the past. 

Interesting that Jews don't rate protections according to Phillips.


4) Turnip truck Tom II

I'd like to continue critiquing Tom Friedman's latest column.

To recap, Friedman argued yesterday that the UN Security Council update1947's UN Security Council resolution 181 to meet the needs of both the Israeli and Palestinians. Aside from the arrogant and silly assumption that Friedman's say-so would just get the Arabs to make peace with Israel, there's a specific problem that bothers me.
Yesterday I wrote:

It's hard to see what Israel gets out of this. After all Israel has been demanding that the Palesitnians recognize Israel as a Jewish state; something the Palestinians still refuse to do. (Abbas likes to play word games.) Having the UN Security Council won't accomplish that.

That last sentence didn't make much sense. What I meant was "Having the UN Security Council declare that Israel is a Jewish state, won't accomplish that."

As part of the Oslo peace accords the Palestinians were supposed to rewrite their charter so that it would no longer advocate violence against Israel. And indeed in 1996 and again in 1998 the Palestinian Legislative Council held votes purportedly to do just that. Even if those votes were effective, as far as I know no knew charter has ever been written and ratified. But still we hear leaders of Fatah advocating "resistance" against Israel, so even if the charter's been changed its sentiments are still accepted.

While I don't believe this was one of the article that Palestinians were obligated to change, article 20 of the Palestinians National Covenant is the most important. 

The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood.

Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong. 

As long as the Palestinians deny Jewish historical ties to the land of Israel, there won't be peace. The Palestinians believe that they have no reason to compromise further. (Ironically people who deny 15 years of Jewish history are considered "Holocaust deniers" who are beyond the pale, but people who deny 2000 years of Jewish history are "peace partners.") Refusing to acknowledge the historical ties of the Jews is effectively the same thing as refusing to acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state. Only the Arab and the Palestinians can change that view. Having the Security Council do the "recognizing" is a short cut that will once again allow the Palestinians to avoid responsibility for changing their views on Israel.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Middle East.