Mideast Media Sampler 09/14/2011

From DG:

1) Letter challenge from the New York Times


Seymour Reich has written a letter to the New York Times, it begins:

As a longtime supporter of Israel and of Middle East peace efforts, I fear that Israel has never been so isolated, as your Sept. 11 front-page article “Beyond Cairo, Israel Sensing a Wider Siege” illustrates: “its Cairo embassy ransacked, its ambassador to Turkey expelled and the Palestinians seeking statehood recognition at the United Nations.” 
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gained nothing — except placating his right-wing coalition — by rebuffing President Obama’s proposal in May for negotiating Israeli-Palestinian borders based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, although some reports indicated that he may have later softened his stand. 
Mr. Netanyahu must step back from the brink. He should cast aside his far-right coalition members, form a government with moderate parties and add a freeze on settlement construction to an offer to negotiate without preconditions. This would demonstrate seriousness. 

The New York Times, perhaps in an effort to demonstrate a greater diversity of opinion on its letters page than on its op-ed page, has offered a challenge:

We invite readers to respond to this letter for our Sunday Dialogue. We plan to publish responses and Mr. Reich’s rejoinder in the Sunday Review. E-mail:letters@nytimes.com

It's remarkable that18 years after Israel recognized the PLO, effectively giving the terrorist organization, PLO, legitimacy, signed the Oslo Accords, and ceded territory to the Palestinians that Israel is still found wanting in its desire to make peace. This is even more incredible given that Israel has since been subjected to a rise in terrorist attacks, including the Fatah led "Aqsa intifada" beginning in 2000, Hezbollah rockets in 2006 and Hamas rockets in 2008, all leading to wars since making peace and withdrawing from territory. In the meantime the Palestinians have fulfilled not a single obligation they signed onto in 1993. Most recently, Arafat's successor made a very public reconciliation with Hamas - which has not even mad the pretense of renouncing terror. The reconciliation, practically, will mean nothing, but symbolically demonstrates a rejection of peaceful coexistence.

It's a shame that Dr. Reich won't refer to the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation as a "far-right coalition," because he would have been more accurate. Netanyahu's coalition initially included the Labor Party, which, at the time was a major, if shrinking left of center party. But given that his coalition is stable it's a sign that it reflects the views of a majority of Israelis. If that support would decrease, the coalition would destabilize and disintegrate. So "far-right" is useful as name calling, not as a description of the current ruling coalition.


Finally, wasn't Israel more isolated in 2002 as it sought to repel the "Aqsa initfada" or 2008-9 when it fought Cast Lead to defend its southern residents?


2) 18 years later


Has it really been 18 years? Yes it has.


In Babylon and Beyond, Maher Abukhater writes:

On Sept. 13, 1993, current Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and current Israeli President Shimon Peres signed at the While House the so-called Oslo Accords, ushering in a new era and hopes of peace in the decades-old Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
The agreement was signed in the presence of President Bill Clinton, former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

I had forgotten the date. Abukahter continues:

At a news conference in Ramallah in the West Bank on Tuesday to talk about the Palestinians' latest U.N. statehood bid, Palestinian Authority negotiator Muhammad Shtayeh made reference to that agreement.
“The Oslo Accords was an interim agreement that should have reached a conclusion on May 4, 1999,” he said. “It was supposed to bring results through bilateral Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.”
However, 18 years later, as the Israeli occupation that was supposed to end more than 10 years ago remains in place and an independent Palestinian state is far from being a reality, the Palestinian Authority decided to try another course of action, asking the United Nations' 193 member states to recognize “Palestine” as member No. 194, based on the 1967 borders.

The occupation such as it was no longer exists. The Palestinians have so far rejected two final status arrangements. The insistence that others - in this case the nations of the UN - make peace for them is not desperation; it's chutzpah. Elder of Ziyon has noted a number of times a speech given by PM Yitzchak Rabin shortly before he was assassinated. Here's a summary of some the requirement he envisioned as part of a peace deal:


And these are the main changes, not all of them, which we envision and want in the permanent solution:

A. First and foremost, united Jerusalem, which will include both Ma'ale Adumim and Givat Ze'ev -- as the capital of Israel, under Israeli sovereignty,while preserving the rights of the members of the other faiths, Christianity and Islam, to freedom of access and freedom of worship in their holy places, according to the customs of their faiths.

B. The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.

C. Changes which will include the addition of Gush Etzion, Efrat, Beitar and other communities, most of which are in the area east of what was the "Green Line," prior to the Six Day War.

D. The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

It's a reminder of how far Israel has come in 18 years. Even now, the Palestinians haven't desisted from incitement! But somehow the lack of peace is Israel's fault.


As a reminder of what people thought back in 1993, here's an op-ed from then opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu Peace in our Time?

But the greatest danger of the Rabin-Arafat plan is not terrorism but a full-fledged war that could be launched against Israel from the P.L.O. domain once it is formally recognized as a new Arab state. Indeed, the foundations of such a state are laid by Israel's consent to cede the land and all legislative authority within it to the P.L.O. As Yasir Arafat said on Thursday, "The Palestinian state is at hand and the Palestinian flag will soon fly over Jerusalem."
This is a mortal threat to Israel. A P.L.O. state on the West Bank will strip the Jewish state of the defensive wall of the Judean and Samarian mountains won in the Six-Day War, re-creating a country 10 miles wide, open to invading armies from the east. This has been the P.L.O.'s goal since June 1974, when it adopted the notorious "Phased Plan" to eliminate Israel in two stages: Article 2 calls for first creating a Palestinian state on any territory vacated by Israel; Article 8 calls for then using that state to foment an allied Arab assault against a truncated Jewish state.
For two decades Yasir Arafat has championed this plan. Just last Wednesday he told Arab critics of his deal with Yitzhak Rabin: "This is the Phased Plan we all adopted in 1974. Why should you oppose it now?"

At that time Thomas Friedman wasn't yet paid for his opinion and offered this analysis, The Brave New Middle East:

For Mr. Arafat's letter to Mr. Rabin is not simply a statement of recognition. It is a letter of surrender, a typewritten white flag, in which the P.L.O. chairman renounces every political position on Israel that he held since the P.L.O.'s foundation in 1964.
The P.L.O. covenant's demands for the destruction of Israel -- gone. The P.L.O.'s rejection of United Nations resolutions 242 and 338, which implicitly recognized Israel but treated the Palestinians as refugees -- gone. The armed struggle with Israel -- gone. The Palestinian uprising -- gone.
In return, Mr. Arafat got a one-paragraph letter from Mr. Rabin recognizing the P.L.O. "as the representative of the Palestinian people" and promising to "commence negotiations" with it.

Arafat committed to all those things, but fulfilled none. Who seems more prescient now, Netanyahu (though his predictions were not all correct) or Friedman?


3) That uppity Jew


Last week Jeffrey Goldberg reported that former Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates called Israel an "ungrateful ally." The context of the report suggested that current PM Netanyahu was the subject of Gates's ire. (Elliott Abrams argues that it wasn't just Netanyahu.) Now David Ignatius apparently relying on sources within the administration does his best Thomas Friedman imitation inIsrael's new problem with the Arab Street:

A deal seemed tantalizingly close after many Clinton calls to Netanyahu. President Obama leaned on Erdogan, with whom he had developed some trust after a heated meeting in June 2010 in Toronto. Preserving the Turkish-Israeli relationship was so important strategically, argued U.S. officials, that Netanyahu should eat a little crow.

But Netanyahu decided no. He is said to have countered that if Israel started apologizing to Turkey, it would be pushed “to apologize everywhere for everything.” Better just to refuse. A furious Erdogan responded with the promised reprisals — including expelling the Israeli ambassador. And he set off this week on a campaign-style tour of the Arab world; Monday in Cairo, he denounced Israel as “the West’s spoiled child.”

So Israel was supposed to put American interests first and apologize. But Netanyahu's objection was legitimate, even if Ignatius dismisses it. Michael Rubin writes:

Israel has done a service to the West by finally standing up to the Turkish government’s ideologically-driven bullying. Secretary of State Clinton should be ashamed for trying to force an Israeli apology to appease Turkey.

I don't buy the "excessive force" claim against Israel. After all if the blockade was legal, a point Ignatius avoids, then an attempt to break the blockade is an act of war - and the Palmer report implicated the Turkish government in supporting the attempt. It wasn't Israel that should be apologizing.

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