Obama's Middle East missteps

The conservative columnist Georgie Ann Geyer in today's Washington Times takes on Obama's foreign-policy appointments - especially as they relate to the Middle East and the "peace process" - as the disappointments that they truly are. In Dennis Ross and Hillary Clinton, the "change" president is sticking with the "tried and [well, maybe not so] true." As I've noted before, Ross, though an "old hand," is stained in Arab eyes by his association with Bill Clinton's 2000 Camp David negotiations, during which he was seen as more of an agent for Israel's interests than as a fair broker. And as Geyer points out, his current association with WINEP (the Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy) stains him more deeply, given that WINEP is joined at the hip to the Israel lobby and is widely (and validly) recognized as providing think-tank "cover" for the promotion of Israeli policy in D.C. and beyond. Hillary Clinton, especially as a senator from New York, has consistently put herself firmly in Israel's camp (although the fact that she at least gave a nod toward the suffering in Gaza during her confirmation hearings was a welcome departure from the Bush administration's tone).

And as Geyer also points out, by so quickly and early choosing Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, Obama wrong-footed himself with Arab leaders - and an Arab public - who had embraced his candidacy with great hope, only to see him choose in Emanuel a man who had served with the Israeli army in Lebanon, and whose father had been a member of the Irgun, the Zionist terror organization responsible for (among other acts) blowing up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946. On the other hand, his father's past surely provides Emanuel a nice ice-breaker when he hooks up with Tzipi Livni, both of whose parents were with the Irgun as well - her father, in fact, as chief operations officer.

I suspect that the image of Livni and Emanuel sitting down and swapping tales of their parents' escapades "taking out" Arabs back in the day is not going to sit well with either Hamas or Fatah leaders with whom the US and Israel will need to engage. That Obama is either oblivious to this, or simply doesn't give a rip, does not bode well for the trust level with which he's about to join the fray of Arab-Israeli politics.

Hamas and the people of Gaza

The Washington Post publishes a report today on the situation in Gaza, with a telling comment from one citizen:

While some people expressed anger at Hamas for engaging Israeli soldiers in residential areas, others said the guerrillas had no choice.

"They were born among the people and came from the people," said Tamir Mansour, 35, a clerk at a Gaza City medical clinic. "Gaza is a very narrow, very congested place. We don't have separate camps for the fighters and separate camps for civilians."

Meanwhile, in the same issue, Sudarsan Raghavan reports from a hospital in Cairo where wounded Gazans are being taken for medical care. By and large, these civilians vow their continued support for Hamas, as do the Egyptians who come to visit them.

Again, Thomas Friedman bends the facts

The NYT's resident Middle East "expert" today tries to explain to us all ("Let me explain why.") what Israel is really up to in Gaza. And in his usual pithy style, he bends facts to suit his underlying agenda of simple dichotomies (= Israel good, Hamas terror) as well as set himself up as possessed of uncommon insight.

January 14, 2009

Op-Ed Columnist

Israel’s Goals in Gaza?

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

I have only one question about Israel’s military operation in Gaza: What is the goal? Is it the education of Hamas or the eradication of Hamas? I hope that it’s the education of Hamas. Let me explain why.

I was one of the few people who argued back in 2006 that Israel actually won the war in Lebanon started by Hezbollah. You need to study that war and its aftermath to understand Gaza and how it is part of a new strategic ballgame in the Arab-Israel arena, which will demand of the Obama team a new approach.

What Hezbollah did in 2006 — in launching an unprovoked war across the U.N.-recognized Israel-Lebanon border, after Israel had unilaterally withdrawn from Lebanon — was to both upend Israel’s longstanding peace strategy and to unveil a new phase in the Hezbollah-Iran war strategy against Israel.

OK, as Friedman himself suggests farther down in this piece, Hezbollah did not intend to "launch an unprovoked war" in the summer of 2006. At the time, the IDF was launching another of its "raids" into Gaza, killing a number of Palestinian civilians in the process. A small Hezbollah group raided across the border from Lebanon, and yes, they did kill (as I recall) a couple of IDF soldiers. Olmert responded with a massive retaliation that killed several hundred Lebanese, few of them Hezbollah.

There have always been two camps in Israel when it comes to the logic of peace, notes Gidi Grinstein, president of the Israeli think tank, the Reut Institute: One camp says that all the problems Israel faces from the Palestinians or Lebanese emanate from occupying their territories. “Therefore, the fundamental problem is staying — and the fundamental remedy is leaving,” says Grinstein.

Nice, simple, binary opposites here . . . Tom wants to keep it simple for us bozos . . . and from an Israeli think-tank, no less.

The other camp argues that Israel’s Arab foes are implacably hostile and leaving would only invite more hostility. Therefore, at least when it comes to the Palestinians, Israel needs to control their territories indefinitely. Since the mid-1990s, the first camp has dominated Israeli thinking. This led to the negotiated and unilateral withdrawals from the West Bank, Lebanon and Gaza.

Hezbollah’s unprovoked attack from Lebanon into Israel in 2006

well, actually, the IDF was slaughtering Gazans at that time. Unprovoked?

both undermined the argument that withdrawal led to security and presented Israel with a much more vexing military strategy aimed at neutralizing Israel’s military superiority. Hezbollah created a very “flat” military network, built on small teams of guerrillas and mobile missile-batteries, deeply embedded in the local towns and villages.

And this Hezbollah force, rather than confronting Israel’s Army head-on, focused on demoralizing Israeli civilians with rockets in their homes, challenging Israel to inflict massive civilian casualties in order to hit Hezbollah fighters and, when Israel did strike Hezbollah and also killed civilians, inflaming the Arab-Muslim street, making life very difficult for Arab or European leaders aligned with Israel.

Israel’s counterstrategy was to use its Air Force to pummel Hezbollah and, while not directly targeting the Lebanese civilians with whom Hezbollah was intertwined, to inflict substantial property damage and collateral casualties on Lebanon at large. It was not pretty, but it was logical. Israel basically said that when dealing with a nonstate actor, Hezbollah, nested among civilians, the only long-term source of deterrence was to exact enough pain on the civilians — the families and employers of the militants — to restrain Hezbollah in the future.

The families and employers of the militants?! Did that include the people killed when the IDF attacked the Beirut airport, or devastated much of Lebanon's infrastructure? Friedman writes that the IDF did not directly target the Lebanese civilians. He must have forgotten the refugee caravans whom the IDF strafed and bombed.

Israel’s military was not focused on the morning after the war in Lebanon — when Hezbollah declared victory and the Israeli press declared defeat. It was focused on the morning after the morning after, when all the real business happens in the Middle East. That’s when Lebanese civilians, in anguish, said to Hezbollah: “What were you thinking? Look what destruction you have visited on your own community! For what? For whom?”

Here’s what Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, said the morning after the morning after about his decision to start that war by abducting two Israeli soldiers on July 12, 2006: “We did not think, even 1 percent, that the capture would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude. You ask me, if I had known on July 11 ... that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not.”

Again, does this suggest that Hezbollah launched an unprovoked war?

That was the education of Hezbollah. Has Israel seen its last conflict with Hezbollah? I doubt it. But Hezbollah, which has done nothing for Hamas, will think three times next time. That is probably all Israel can achieve with a nonstate actor.

In Gaza, I still can’t tell if Israel is trying to eradicate Hamas or trying to “educate” Hamas, by inflicting a heavy death toll on Hamas militants and heavy pain on the Gaza population.

How neat and clean! How altruistic! It's all about educating Hamas . . . and the people of Gaza . . . with a show-and-tell consisting of more than 900 dead, thousands wounded or maimed, homes demolished. That's quite a diorama!

If it is out to destroy Hamas, casualties will be horrific and the aftermath could be Somalia-like chaos. If it is out to educate Hamas, Israel may have achieved its aims. Now its focus, and the Obama team’s focus, should be on creating a clear choice for Hamas for the world to see: Are you about destroying Israel or building Gaza?

Friedman might as justifiably posed the question to Israel: Are you about crushing Arabs, keeping them cowed before Israel's might, and ensuring more generations imbued with hatred for Zionism? Or are you about building a secure place for the people of Israel by treating your neighbors with justice?

But that requires diplomacy. Israel de facto recognizes Hamas’s right to rule Gaza and to provide for the well-being and security of the people of Gaza — which was actually Hamas’s original campaign message, not rocketing Israel. And, in return, Hamas has to signal a willingness to assume responsibility for a lasting cease-fire and to abandon efforts to change the strategic equation with Israel by deploying longer and longer range rockets. That’s the only deal. Let’s give it a try.

This, at least, is somewhat enlightened - a proposal that Israel recognize Hamas as a legitimate political actor in Gaza.

Still, I wish that Tom would stick more to "greening" the economy and counteracting global warning. Whatever learning he acquired back in the day as a Middle East history student at Oxford has become tired and outdated, or overtaken by the imperatives of his own agenda.

Tzipi Livni speaks for the Palestinians (?!)

Truly an incredible interview with Tzipi Livni, obviously fashioned around talking points designed to appeal to a US audience:

1. Iran is behind it all. (BTW, Karim Sadjadpour of the Council of Foreign Relations, whose expertise in this matter I would take much more seriously, says no.)

2. Israel's ongoing devastation of Gaza is all about "terror." I didn't take the time to count, but Livni must use the word "terror" at least 10 times in the interview.

3. Israel is fighting on behalf of the Palestinians, to remove the burden of Hamas from the Palestinian people.

She could not have chosen words more damaging to Mahmud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian authority. Tony Karon put it very well: the Israelis have turned Abbas into a Palestinian Petain. If Abbas truly wants to champion the cause of Palestinian unity and nationalism, he would declare Fatah's support for Hamas and the people of Gaza during this struggle, and resign.

'Israel Is Not Going to Show Restraint'

Lally Weymouth
Saturday, January 10, 2009; A13

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told Newsweek-The Post's Lally Weymouth that the conflict in Gaza is not a fight of Israelis against Palestinians but a case in which Israel represents moderates in the region, including the Palestinian Authority. Excerpts:

Q. How do you respond to the pressure for a cease-fire from the international community?

A. I don't like the term cease-fire since it looks like an agreement between two legitimate sides. At the end of the day, this is not a conflict between two states but a fight against terror. . . . We need to fight in Gaza because they [Hamas] have targeted Israel for eight years. We are fighting in order to weaken them and to affect their ability to target Israel in the future.

To do that, don't you need the Egyptians to exert tighter control over the border crossing?

Yes, there are three parameters. One is missiles coming from Iran. The other is Egypt itself, and the third is the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.

Is the idea that Egypt will now take a more active role in stopping the smuggling?

This must be stopped by Israel or someone else. In six months, Hamas has changed the range of the missiles from 20 kilometers to 50 kilometers. This now threatens 1 million Israelis. We used to say it was just the southern part of Israel but . . . now parts in the center of Israel are under threat. We needed to give an answer to their rearmament. . . .

We need to know that at the end of this military operation, we will not face the rearmament of Hamas.

Is Iran behind it all?

Oh, yes, clearly. We know that. When they started, the missiles were homemade -- made in the Gaza Strip. But not anymore. Now they are professional, coming from Iran.

How long do you think this operation is going to take?

It depends. First we need to find out whether they understand that Israel is no longer a state which they can target while hoping for restraint. Israel is going to defend itself.

Have you achieved your objectives?

I think that some of these goals were achieved. . . . At first they were shocked by the air raids. Then they thought Israel would never enter the Gaza Strip in a ground operation. So I think this is the point in which they understand the equation has changed and we have gained deterrence.

Will Israel reoccupy Gaza?

The idea is not to reoccupy the Gaza Strip. When we left the Gaza Strip, Hamas used to write on billboards that terror won and Israel left Gaza because of terror. So today the message for the Palestinians is that we left the Gaza Strip in order to create hopes for peace. But now we are coming back because of terror.

It must have been a difficult decision to send Israeli troops into Gaza by land?

Yes, it was a very difficult decision, but right now it looks good.

Are you worried that Hamas will claim victory as [Hezbollah leader] Hassan Nasrallah did in Lebanon?

Even Nasrallah said after the war in Lebanon that if he had known that this was what we were going to do. . . . I think that most of them have the same feeling after a few days of war.

Are you thinking about stopping?

On a daily basis. We are not looking to reoccupy the Gaza Strip. But we need to see that we achieved our goals.

Do you think the fighting will be over by the time that President-elect Obama is inaugurated?

The shortest period of fighting is better for us. But at the end of the day, it is an ongoing war against terror. We don't ask the international community to fight with us. We ask the international community to give us some understanding and time.

Does the pressure put on Israel by the international community to reach a cease-fire strengthen the hand of Hamas?

Hamas's strategy is resistance and survival. As long as they survive, this is a victory. When they know the international community is putting pressure on Israel, they can hold out and take some oxygen, waiting for Israel to be stopped by the international community. It is a pity.

Are you still in favor of an international monitoring group to help control the borders of Gaza -- especially its border with Egypt?

I am not against the participation of the international community, but it doesn't replace our need to fight terrorism. And sometimes, when you have monitoring forces within a place, it makes it more difficult for us to defend ourselves, because the last thing we want is to kill people by mistake. . . .

Israel is not going to show restraint anymore. . . . it is not a missile against a missile. We are going to attack strongly if they continue.

Do you believe the Obama administration will support Israel the way Bush did?

I do believe that the United States and Israel share not only the same values and interests and the same understanding.

People in Washington are interested in how long the operation will last and what Israel's aim is.

The Annapolis process is based on the understanding that we are working with a pragmatic leadership in the Palestinian Authority while fighting terror. It is a zero-sum game when Hamas is getting stronger while Abu Mazen is getting weaker. The Palestinians need to understand that Israel can share and implement and translate the vision of two states for two peoples with those that accept this vision, who accept Israel's existence and renounce violence and terrorism. Hamas does not. Hamas does not represent the national aspirations of the Palestinians. It represents extreme Islamic ideas, which they share with Iran, Hezbollah and Syria.

Your goal is to continue the dialogue with the Palestinian Authority but also weaken the extremists?

Yes. . . . We are willing to . . . try and find a peace treaty with the moderates as long [as] at the end of the day, we don't fight a terror state on the other side of the border.

Would you say [Hamas] needs to be removed?

I would say that the Gaza Strip controlled by Hamas is a burden not only to Israel but to the Palestinians themselves.

Do you feel [you] have the backing of the Arab moderates?

I don't want to embarrass anybody, but I know I represent their interests as well. It is no longer the Israeli-Palestinian or the Jewish-Arab conflict, but it is a conflict between moderates and extremists. This is the way this region is now divided.