The Armenian Genocide of 1915 remains a live issue

Sabrina Tavernise has in Monday's NYT a piece on the still continuing issue of the Armenian genocide of 1915 (and the Ottomans conducted several other mass ethnic cleansings of Armenians in the preceding decades as well). Although Turkey and Armenia in recent weeks claim to be making some major strides in making their relations closer, the issue of responsibiltiy for what was done to the Armenians in 1915 - and the numbers of those killed and "cleansed" - remains a hot potato.

And it continues to affect Turkey's relations with the US, with potentially very serious consequences. During the second Bush term, a bill was slated to come before the Senate in which the US would have gone on record (and many would say here, finally - and long overdue) as condemning the Armenian genocide. That bill was supported by thousands of Armenian-Americans (for whom the issue still burns; something I know from several personal encounters), who constitute a significant voting bloc in several parts of the country. But one of the last things the Bush administration - which was a major supporter of Turkey's candidacy for admission to the EU - wanted was to alienate Turkey, which the passage of this bill surely would have done. Appropriate talks were had and pressures exerted, and the bill eventually did not go forward.

But the issue is still out there, especially because Mr. Obama on several occasions during his campaign went on the record to condemn the events of 1915-1917 as genocide - not surprisingly, both because by most definitions it was indeed a genocide, and because one of his major campaign advisers (and now on his staff), Samantha Power of Harvard University, is an academic expert in the history of genocide and discussed the events of 1915-1917 at some length in her well-regarded book, "A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide. He now intends to visit Turkey, however, and as it turns out, Turkey has become quite the potential lynchpin for US goals in the Middle East: (1) as an interlocutor with Syria, with the goal of reaching a peace agreement with Israel; (2) as a conduit for US forces leaving Iraq as the troop drawdown gets underway; and (3) as an emerging regional power whose influence could be helpful in the US's ongoing efforts to get Iran to knock off its nuclear program.

But the Turks have now fired a shot across Mr. Obama's bow. Specifically, the Turkish foreign minister has warned Mr. Obama that any pronouncement on this issue by him would be very unwelcome. The statement seems to be confined to the genocide issue, but I think we can be sure that Mr. Obama and his advisors feel duly put on notice that other issues might be affected as well.

By the way, when the aforementioned bill was wending its way through the halls of Congress, the one country that, one would assume, would have been most sensitized to the issue of genocide for the most part kept mum. Turkey has been one of Israel's only pals in the Middle East. The two countries have agreements for both military and economic cooperation. Evidently the Olmert government felt it more prudent to not rock that boat. Ironic. It's been often noted that when Hitler was contemplating his "Final Solution" against the Jews of Europe, and was asked if he wasn't concerned about the world's reaction, his reply was "Who remembers the Armenians?"

The Dilemmas of US Forces on the Ground in Afghanistan

The WaPo's superb Pamela Constable has an excellent piece in Sunday's edition, reporting on US Army forces patrolling in an Afghan town and searching local homesteads in the company of local police. The conditions are difficult, and the local police are untrustworthy, at least from the perspective of the Americans as well as those locals who were interviewed. Some of the locals claim to be happy that US forces are there, and concerned that their departure would bring chaos and civil war.

Such comments sound so much like those from many Iraqis over the last several years. But some other comments from local people also make it clear that the Americans are facing something just as familiar from the Iraq experience: by and large, people resent immensely the presence of armed foreign soldiers on their streets, or in the very personal space (especially in a traditional, Muslim culture) of their own homes. Constable indicates that the Americans have been instructed to be polite and culturally sensitive, yet also reports how one "sensitized" GI screamed obscenities at a local truck driver who failed to pull off to the side of the road as the American convoy approached. He was probably worried about an attack or a suicide bomber. That's understandable. But neither of those was in the offing, and instead the sergeant's yelling probably resulted in one more local angered and offended by the unwanted foreign soldier's insulting behavior. That truck driver surely will tell many others of how the American abused him - and it's likely that other locals witnessed the whole scene go down.

This is truly an impossible situation, and there's not much reason to believe that the "surge" in troop numbers that Mr. Obama has authorized is going to be enough to change the situation on the ground.

IDF "mementos" left in Gazan's houses

Amira Hass reports on some of the mementos left in Gaza houses by members of the "most moral army in the world" . . .

w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m

Last update - 20:04 06/03/2009 Pots of urine, feces on the walls - how IDF troops vandalized Gaza homes By Amira Hass GAZA - We had already visited this house, belonging to the Abu Eida family. It is the only one of the family's nine large houses that remained standing at the eastern edge of the city of Jabalya following Operation Cast Lead. The demolition of the family's houses and its four cement factories spells the loss of 40 years of hard work. One Hebrew word scrawled on a wall tells the story of the 10 days when young Israeli soldiers became the ostensible prison wardens of five people. The youngest is Suheila Masalha, 55; the eldest is her mother Fatma, who is perhaps 85 or 90 or older. The only man is her brother Mohammed, 65, who is paralyzed and dependent on the women of his family. And there were two more women from the Abu Eida family - Rasmiya, 70, who owns the house, and her sister-in-law Na'ama, 56, who is blind. "Jail" ("mikhla'a" in Hebrew), wrote the soldiers on the wall of the room where they kept the man and the four women. They did not allow them to use the toilet, but forced them to use all kinds of plastic containers kept in the room, for nine of the days. From other graffiti you can conclude that it was the soldiers of the Golani Brigade - who were drafted in August 2007, and in January and March of 2008 - who sketched orientation maps on the walls of nearly every room. For example, "Position: entry. Direction: southeast," and a few squares that indicated the houses in the area. "Us," or "We are here," or just an X marked on square No. 5 - Rasmiya Abu Eida's house that became an Israel Defense Forces base. The soldiers kept kosher, judging by the words "meat" and "dairy" scrawled in red on the kitchen cabinets. Maybe someone was kidding around, or maybe someone thought this was going to be their base for several more months, because they also wrote "Kosher for Passover" on one of the cupboards. Also in red. White flags The Masalha family lived in a kind of tin shack and raised their sheep near the Abu Eida family (the shack and the sheep were destroyed). On the evening of Saturday, January 3, when the Israeli ground incursion began, they fled the shelling and sought refuge with the neighbors in concrete houses that seemed safer. But the shells and shooting from close range only increased and the children were scared; they cried and screamed and members of the extended family decided to head west, on foot, with white flags. The adults carried the children - without suitcases and clothing, and even without ID cards. There was no one to carry Fatma Masalha and her son Mohammed, who remained behind. Na'ama and her sister-in-law Rasmiya decided to stay with the guests who had sought shelter. That was on Sunday, January 4, at around 3 P.M. A spacious, well-kept, generously furnished home awaited the soldiers on the following morning, when they arrived. There are other houses like this in Gaza, especially on the agricultural lands in the outskirts, which over the years have become bourgeois areas. These are exactly the places where the signs of shelling and the fires caused by the phosphorous bombs made clear to the civilians that they should leave if they held their lives dear. On January 18, when the forces pulled out, similar sights awaited people whose homes had become military bases in their absence. There were bullet-pocked walls, ripped-up sofas and armchairs, smashed televisions and computers, shards of glass and porcelain dishes and broken wooden thresholds. Clothing was ripped up. And there were mountains of very Israeli garbage - empty tin cans, cardboard boxes, empty bags of potato chips and chocolate, and full bags of sugar and raspberry-flavored drinking powder. Everything was kosher for Passover under the supervision of the Chief Rabbinate. And there were Hebrew newspapers, including the January 9 issue of the army magazine Bamahane. In one house they left behind lots of unopened canned goods. The local people assumed that commanding army officers had stationed themselves there, as well as in other houses where there was no racist graffiti and family belongings hadn't been vandalized. Remnants of ammunition and IDF equipment were also found in and around many houses, as well as books of Psalms, the "Wisdom of the Sages" and "Hafetz Chaim," which is about rabbinical laws concerning slander and gossip. Like ants In the midst of all of this were plastic bottles of urine and many closed bags - in some houses, olive-colored ones - of excrement. People assumed that the commanders stayed there. There are houses where excrement was smeared on the walls, or where dry piles of it were found in corners. In many cases, the smells indicated that soldiers had urinated on piles of clothing or inside a washing machine. In all the houses the toilets were overflowing and clogged, and there was filth all around. When the Abu Eidas returned to house No. 5 in Jabalya, they discovered pots of urine and excrement in the refrigerator. "Like ants, so many of them," says Na'ama, an Arabic teacher, of the soldiers who came into their home on January 5. She recalls that the soldiers had to be told that Mohammed could not put his hands up, and that they ordered the residents to strip. (Na'ama refused and one soldier made do with prodding and probing; they told Suheila to strip because they thought she was wearing an explosives belt.) The soldiers were amazed that the house was so large - "For just five people" - and kept saying that "this is Hamas money." They also asked, "Where are the tunnels, where is Hamas, if everyone left why didn't you leave?" The soldiers ordered the five people to go into one room and stay there. They let them take some food: bread, olives, oil, water. They confiscated the mobile phones when they saw Na'ama holding one: "You want to call your brother to come with Hamas, to shoot at us," said one of the soldiers. "Liar," they said a lot, as well as "shut up, you donkey," in broken Arabic. They imitated her mockingly when she said "Ya Rab" ("Oh God"). The five prisoners could not pray, as they were not allowed to clean themselves up before prayer and were forbidden to stand up. They were given two blankets, which were not enough, especially because the windows were smashed and the door was always open. A soldier always sat next to the door aiming his rifle at them. All five still have colds. "You'll come out when we leave," was the answer given to Na'ama after she asked them to contact the Red Cross. Apparently, one soldier spoke fluent Arabic, another could speak some and others knew a phrase or two. Was there anyone among the soldiers who was a little bit nice? "To my regret, no," Na'ama says. In a number of other houses or neighborhoods people who preferred not to flee encountered some soldiers who were somewhat courteous. In none of the other houses were people forbidden to use the toilet, but the men's hands were bound for two or three days. There are houses where the captives had no food for two or three days or no water for hours. "We don't have food either," said the soldiers in Izbet Abed Rabbo. Soldiers broke down doors of grocery stores and helped themselves to candy and snacks. There were some who handed out candy to children; sometimes soldiers asked a child whom they forced to accompany them, as a human shield, to hand it out. On the morning of January 14, the Red Cross came to pick up the five inhabitants of the "jail" in house No. 5. A short while beforehand, the soldiers had brought a portable gas burner in so Rasmiya could make hot tea, which they had not let her do before. "Maybe because the officer came," Na'ama says. The IDF Spokesman's Office said in response that soldiers in Gaza were instructed in advance not to harm personal property unless there was a need to do so for operational purposes. "Not only did the soldiers not prevent the Palestinians from eating," the office said, "but they shared their army rations with them. The IDF has not received any reports about breaking into grocery stores. Concerning the claims about graffiti, the IDF sees this as a very serious matter, which contradicts the values and norms in which the soldiers are educated."

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Hillary dissed by the mayor of Jerusalem (update)

As reported in Friday's WaPo. This, ladies and gents, is a test for the Obama State Department. How to respond when the mayor of Jerusalem refers to the comments of the US Secretary of State as "a lot of air." The mayor, by the way, is a former paratrooper in the IDF. The Sec of State, of course, is also the wife of a US president who was quite popular among both Israelis and Palestinians.

And Haaretz reports that Avigdor Lieberman is demanding "full autonomy" as the foreign minister in a new Netanyahu regime.

And John Kerry today gave a speech at the Brookings Institute in which he stated that the US needs to recognize that its foreign-policy interests are not the same as Israel's.

WOW.
Stay tuned . . .

Is Charles Schumer trying to get Chas Freeman Canned?

So reports Greg Sargent on his blog, The Plum Line. I do hope that this isn't accurate, but I do know that a lot of the Israel-firsters are mad as hell at Obama's choice on this one - and a lot of well-respected experts are extremely pleased with the selection. We'll see who prevails . . .

Schumer Privately Tells White House He’s Concerned About Freeman On Israel

Senator Charles Schumer has privately expressed concerns directly to White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel about Chas Freeman, the Obama administration’s pick to head the group that prepares some of the intel community’s most politically sensitive assessments, a person familiar with their conversation tells me.

Obama’s choice of Freeman as head of National Intelligence Council — which has aroused opposition because of his strong criticism of Israel and other things — signaled that the President isn’t afraid to buck the pro-Israel lobby and the neocon critics who aggressively opposed the Freeman pick.

But Schumer’s concerns could create serious problems for Freeman, since Schumer is a Democrat and a high-profile voice on Israel, and could give cover for other Democrats to come out and vocally raise questions about the appointment.

The source familiar with Schumer’s conversation with Rahm tells me the New York Senator was concerned about Freeman’s positions on Israel.

“It was in a phone call to Rahm,” the source says, adding that Chuck expressed reservations about Freeman’s positions on Israel. “It was about Freeman’s positions on the Middle East.”

The source added that Chuck isn’t “threatening to block him” yet, but wanted to weigh in to the White House about his concerns. Schumer spokesman Brian Fallon declined comment on the call. The Weekly Standard first reported, with no detail or sourcing, that a conversation had taken place.

This comes as the White House is signaling that they may not be willing to go to bat for Freeman. Eli Lake today reported that Freeman’s foreign ties are now being probed by an independent inspector general. Lake quoted a spokesperson for Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, who picked Freeman for the post, saying that he had done so without “White House approval.” Freeman will now undergo serious White House vetting.

This could get dicey. More soon.

US invites Iran to join Afghan talks

This is a major development indeed. Makes me wonder how much of it Hillary discussed with her Israeli interlocutors while she was there, and how they felt about it. It's a pretty good to invite to a conference the representatives of a country that your chief ally in the region sees as its most implacable existential threat.

US invites Iran to join Afghan talks

By James Blitz in Brussels and Daniel Dombey in Washington

Published: March 5 2009 17:21 | Last updated: March 5 2009 19:47

The Obama administration on Thursday made its sharpest break with the foreign policy of former president George W. Bush by inviting Iran to an international conference later this year on Afghanistan’s future.

Hillary Clinton, secretary of state, announced in Brussels that Iran was likely to be invited to a meeting that would bring together all “interested parties” on Afghanistan. Separately, administration officials confirmed that Tehran would be asked to attend.

The US says it remains determined to halt Iran’s uranium enrichment programme, which it alleges is intended to give Tehran nuclear weapons capability. However, western diplomats say discussions with Iran on Afghanistan would demonstrate that there are areas where Washington and Tehran have mutual interests.

If successful, the move would restore links between the US and Iran that came to an end after Mr Bush denounced the Islamic Republic in 2002 as part of an “axis of evil”.

“If you are going to have a regional conference on Afghanistan you have to include the country that is on their western border,” said one administration official. “Whether or not Iran is prepared to play a positive role is another question.”

However, the Iranian regime is a longstanding opponent of the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. Western officials add that as many as 1m Iranians are drug addicts, victims of poppy cultivation in Afghanistan. Iran has said that it has a “positive outlook” towards attending any conference to discuss the future of its neighbour.

The US move comes as Washington seeks to piece together a strategy on Afghanistan ahead of a Nato summit on April 3-4, and contrasts with Mr Bush’s successful efforts in 2006 to frustrate a French effort to establish a “contact group” including Iran on Afghanistan.

The latest move comes as the US and its allies seek to work out how to deal with Iran in the dispute over its nuclear programme.

Several US analysts argue that before addressing Iran over its nuclear programme, the US should first engage with the Islamic Republic over less contentious issues – such as Afghanistan, where the two sides’ interests may be more closely aligned.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

Hillary Clinton and Jerusalem house demolitions (again)

A bit more research this evening (specifically, a report by McClatchy's Dion Nissenbaum) has me reconsidering my earlier comments about the braveness of Hillary Clinton's stance on house demolitions by Israel. Nissenbaum reports that a day before her comments Hillary had an opportunity to raise the issue with the mayor of Jerusalem. If she mentioned it to him, his people aren't letting on.

In fact, says Nissenbaum, the impression among many Palestinians is that Obama-Clinton is delivering more or less the same non-results with regard to West Bank settlements that they saw with Bush-Rice - so much so, in fact, that some Palestinians are calling her "Condi Clinton."

Time will tell. And perhaps Hillary is holding back a bit until she's sure of the composition of the new Israel government. It's extremely unlikely that Tzipi Livni and Kadima will join Netanyahu's government; and while there's been some negotiating between Netanyahu and Ehud Barak (the former supposed moderate from the Labor party who was prime minister in the last years of Bill Clinton's presidency), it's not likely that Barak will join either. Still, that's not been finalized, and Obama and Clinton might be entertaining faint hopes that Livni and/or Barak will throw in with Netanyahu, which might permit him to form a more centrist government, perhaps even without the racist Avigdor Lieberman, who supposedly emerged from the recent elections as the "kingmaker."

Helen Cobban in the West Bank

Esteemed journalist Helena Cobban is in the West Bank now, and has been both interviewing people and blogging her experiences for a few days. I post a recent entry below, and highly recommend you read it to get some feel for the kinds of humiliations that Palestinians endure often daily, and have been enduring for decades.

Bantustan Days, Part 2

Posted by Helena Cobban
March 3, 2009 4:06 PM EST | Link
Filed in Palestine 2009

Saturday morning I went to Bethlehem. Took the mini-bus from just outside the Old City of Jerusalem. It trundles you south along a route which slowly gives you broad vistas of hilltop after hilltop covered with some of the newer Israeli settlements like Gilo, which is vast, and Har Homa. Then the bus deposits you unceremoniously outside a very forbidding section of the Wall, which really is 30 feet tall, forbidding, and brutal. brutal, even if the Israelis, in an excess of irony, have decided to paint a vast feel-good mural on the Wall right there near the entrance to Bethlehem emblazoned with the words "Peace and Love."

No kidding.

I think I'll have to write a special essay sometime about the sick esthetics of the entire people-control system the Israelis run in the OPTs.

So the bus drops you, and you have to wind your way through the cattle-shed "terminus" they have here for foot traffic. No vehicles are allowed through anywhere near here, I think. The three Palestinian guys in front of me, who had the special "magnetic cards" that graciously allow them to visit Jerusalem from Bethlehem, all took quite some time to go through as they had to fit their whole hands into a new-- to me-- kind of scanner machine, which didn't seem to work very well. The bored-looking Israeli teenage border-guard girls gave peremptory instructions to the men from inside their booth. Me, with my US passport, they waved right through. (Remember that the Palestinians are the indigenous people of this country. I am a visitor; and the Israeli girls may well be recent immigrants.)

Once on the other side I called my friend Zoughbi Zoughbi, a veteran nonviolence activist, son of Bethlehem, and current member of the elected city council, and then started walking along to where he said he'd pick me up. The wall loops in and out in a complicated way here, as everywhere. It comes very close to many houses, and in one portion it goes right down the middle of a street. It is always 30 feet high; dark grey in color; and punctuated very frequently by looming, cylindrical watch-towers.

Hullo? Israelis? Do these towers not remind you of something in the Jewish people's recent past??

Zoughbi drove me up to Manger Square and we then spent a fascinating 90 minutes or so sitting in the office of Bethlehem mayor Victor Batarseh. Three or four other city council members came by and participated for longer or shorter periods of time in the general political discussion. Two were from Hamas. There was a lot of good-natured political discussion and joshing amongst all those present. Neither Zoghbi nor Victor are members of Hamas. But least among these city council members, everyone seemed to get along fine. They also expressed the deep wish that the ongoing national reconciliation effort in Cairo should succeed as fast and durably as possible.

Zoughbi then took me to the neighboring town of Beit Jala. That's the one that's lost most of its arable and grazing lands to Gilo. Up on a hilltop near there there's a small settlement called Har Gilo, and just beneath it is a resort-style hotel called the Everest Hotel, where by chance we found another fascinating set of people meeting. Probably shouldn't tell you more about it without getting permission. Anyway, Zoughbi knows about half the population of the West Bank, it seems, so the organizers of this peace-oriented gathering invited us to join them for lunch. The lunch was good and warm, and the discussion very interesting. However, with bitter winds whipping around outside the hotel was, um, certainly living up to its name.

After that, Zoughbi dropped me back at the center of Beit Jala, where there's a mini-bus service that takes you directly from there back to downtown Jerusalem. But the catch is the bus has to pass through a big vehicle terminus somewhere south of town that controls access to the "settler road" that snakes almost directly to Jerusalem from the Hebron/Kiryat Arba area in the south of the West Bank.

So going through this terminus, all the passengers have to disbark and wait until the border guards have given the vehicle and all the bags in it a very thorough check. It was now colder than ever, with a horrendous, biting wind. Old people, kids, and everyone were left to stand at the side of the road for a good 15 minutes while the border guards took their time getting around to doing what turned out to be about three minutes' worth of checking on the bus. Then they checked all our IDs and our hand baggage as we got back on the bus. Most of my fellow-passengers seemed to be East Jerusalem residents-- that is, they carried the little blue-jacketed ID cards given only to EJ people, as opposed to the "magnetic cards" that are given to a very small proportion of West Bank residents, that allow them to enter East Jerusalem.

(Yesterday I spent the day in Hebron, the nearby village of Doura, and the Israeli town of Sderot... Last Friday I had an intriguing visit to a portion of northern Jerusalem called Dahiyet al-Barid. Today I did an interview with Um Kamel, my neighbor here in Sheikh Jarrah who's been living in a tent all winter after the Israeli police threw her and her husband out of her house last November, so a group of settlers could take it over... Her husband died of heart failure soon after. Um Kamel is not, it turns out, from the same family I briefly visited when I was here in 2002. But the problem of settler and takeovers, the demolition of Palestinian houses, and the eviction of Palestinians from their homes is one that is certainly gathering some speed right here in East Jerusalem these days, and needs to be written about a lot more.... Anyway, more of my travelogue accounts will come when I have time... tomorrow, I leave Jerusalem and continue my travels... Better get to bed...)

Hillary Clinton speaks out about Israel's demolition of Arab houses

The Guardian tends to employ stronger verbs (like "condemns") than do the US mainstream media when it comes to criticizing Israel,

Hillary Clinton condemns Israel's demolition of Arab East Jerusalem homes | World news | guardian.co.uk

but Hillary Clinton's statements about Israel's barbarous practice of demolishing Palestinian Arabs' houses on flimsy legal pretexts are indeed stronger than anything we've heard over the past 8 years from any State Department official - including either Condi Rice or Colin Powell - and they are likely to draw some fire from the AIPAC crowd, the Israel-firsters in Congress, Rush Limbaugh, and dozens of literalist-fundamentalist rabbis and Sunday preachers all over the US.

Bear in mind, by the way, that we are at about the sixth anniversary of the killing of Rachel Corrie, the young American who was run over and killed by an IDF bulldozer in Rafah while she tried to stand in the way to prevent the demolition of a house. The entire act was recorded on camera, but the operator incurred no serious prosecution; our brave leaders in Congress refused to criticize the action or censure Israel in any fashion; and in the years to follow, attempts to dramatize and remember her life in theatrical productions in New York city were vilified and closed down. Her parents have worked tirelessly to keep her case in the public eye and to have our government pursue some appropriate legal or diplomatic action, but have for all intents and purposes been cold-shouldered.

Back to Hillary. She's set a very different tone in US-Israel relations from that of her predecessor, in some ways, and it's also encouraging that she's reaching out to Syria. But the Obama people continue to waste valuable time by (1) refusing to deal with Hamas as a legitimate political representative of the Palestinians, and (2) continuing to try to bolster PA president Mahmoud Abbas. The Guardian runs a warm and fuzzy photo of him with Hillary today. For the last two and a half years, the US tried to inflate some credibility into him (like a patched-up bicycle tire) by having him appear in countless photo opps with Ehud Olmert, Condi Rice and even W himself. Yet all the picture-taking, phony shmoozing, and pointless talking got Mr. Abbas absolutely zilch in terms of justice for his people from the Israeli government. And the Palestinian people know that, and see him for the laughing stock he's become.

The West Bank outposts/settlements - how about colonies?

This Slate piece really nails some major obstacles to the two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians - and it's not just a matter of party politics and such.

Why Jewish settlers in the West Bank are looking forward to Benjamin Netanyahu's premiership. - By Linda Gradstein - Slate Magazine


The woman who's highlighted here is a native Californian who decided to "live her faith" by moving to the West Bank and settling in one of the "outposts" that are at the heart of the problem. There can be no viable Palestinian state in the West Bank unless these outposts are completely eliminated, yet the people who founded them and have come to them to live are the worst kind of zealots - aware only of what the Bible tells them is "Truth," and completely oblivious to the possibility that other people might have an equally strong and legitimate attachment to the land.

When asked about the prospect of being removed from this outpost, this woman said:
"When I think about being uprooted, I have real physical pain. I would never harm a Jewish soldier, but it won't be easy to get me out of here."

And as these outposts continue to sprout, the Israeli government intends to move ahead with expanding some of the much larger settlements (colonies, really), and the incoming Netanyahu government will do all it can to maintain the thousands of Jewish settlers already there and to encourage more to follow.

Let's face it. The two-state settlement is dead. And if the Israeli government persists on its current course, Israel itself - whatever the original Zionist dream of a Jewish homeland that might be nestled within the Biblical terrain and bring the benefits of its own prosperity to the region - will become more and more an embattled and loathed Crusader-kingdom kind of state. And sooner or later, it will share their fate.

What Israel is keeping out of Gaza. Would you believe . . .?

Pasta, paper and hearing aids - and chick peas (oh no, not the dreaded hummus bomb!)

Unbelievable! Truly, unbelievable!

Some sane comment about Iran

Roger Cohen's piece in the IHT today is welcome indeed, especially when on the same day the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff hit the morning news shows (Fox News among them) to stir up more fear of evil Iran, its "mad mullahs," and the likely holocaust that they will inflict on the world. As Cohen notes up front, he has been well and duly raked over the coals for his recent reports from Iran, especially his reports that Iran's Jews have prospered there, by and large, over the centuries, and have not been persecuted since the time of the 1979 revolution. And note well: his assertions are remarkable, in that they're being made by a prominent mainstream journalist in a major paper co-owned by the New York Times, the US's "paper of record," which has itself been a regular fount of demonizing reportage and commentary on the Islamic regime and its supposed existential threat against Israel (including the constant reference to Iran president Ahmadinejad's supposed threat to "wipe Israel off the map" - which he never said, but has nonetheless become the go-to quote if someone wants to sum up what he and his country supposedly are all about.) Cohen puts it succinctly and well: 2009 Tehran is not late 1930s Berlin, Ahmadinejad is not Hitler, and Iran is not a totalitarian state.

I think we can trust that the new National Intel Director, Chas Freeman, is on the same page with Mr. Cohen, and I want to believe that President Obama and Sec of State Hillary Clinton are as well, although they will not be as direct in saying so. I also want to believe that Dennis Ross, who's now Ms. Clinton's chief advisor on Iran, has not swallowed the Iran=Satan nonsense hook-line-and-sinker - he's reputed to brighter than that - but in keeping his options open in terms of working witha a variety of actors on this issue, he surely will need to act at times as if he's willing to nibble at the bait.

Roger Cohen: Iran, the Jews and Germany

By ROGER COHEN

Sunday, March 1, 2009

NEW YORK: So the Jerusalem Post thinks I'm "hardly the first American to be misled by the existence of synagogues in totalitarian countries."

The Atlantic Monthly's Jeffrey Goldberg finds me "particularly credulous," taken in by the Iranian hospitality and friendliness that "are the hallmarks of most Muslim societies." (Thanks for that info, Jeffrey.)

A conservative Web site called "American Thinker," which tries to prove its name is an oxymoron, believes I would have been fooled by the Nazis' sham at the Theresienstadt camp.

The indignation stems from my recent column on Iranian Jews which said that the 25,000-strong community worships in relative tranquility; that Persian Jews have fared better than Arab Jews; that hostility toward Jews in Iran has on occasion led to trumped-up charges against them; and that those enamored of the "mad mullah" caricature of Iran regard any compromise with it as a re-run of Munich 1938.

This last point found confirmation in outraged correspondence from several American Jews unable to resist some analogy between Iran and Nazi Germany. I was based in Berlin for three years; Germany's confrontation with the Holocaust inhabited me. Let's be clear: Iran's Islamic Republic is no Third Reich redux. Nor is it a totalitarian state.

Munich allowed Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland. Iran has not waged an expansionary war in more than two centuries.

Totalitarian regimes require the complete subservience of the individual to the state and tolerate only one party to which all institutions are subordinated. Iran is an un-free society with a keen, intermittently brutal apparatus of repression, but it's far from meeting these criteria. Significant margins of liberty, even democracy, exist. Anything but mad, the mullahs have proved malleable.

Most of Iran's population is under 30; it's an Internet-connected generation. Access to satellite television is widespread. The BBC's new Farsi service is all the rage.

Abdullah Momeni, a student opponent of the regime, told me, "The Internet is very important to us, in fact it is of infinite importance." Iranians are not cut off, like Cubans or North Koreans.

The June presidential election pitting the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, against Mohammad Khatami (a former president who once spoke in a synagogue) will be a genuine contest as compared to the charades that pass for elections in many Arab states. No fire has burned down the Majlis, or parliament.

If you're thinking trains-on-time Fascist efficiency, think again. Tehran's new telecommunications tower took 20 years to build. I was told its restaurant would open "soon." So, it is said, will the Bushehr nuclear power plant, a project in the works for a mere 30 years. A Persian Chernobyl is far more likely than some Middle Eastern nuclear Armageddon, if that's any comfort.

For all the morality police inspecting whether women are wearing boots outside their pants (the latest no-no on the dress front) and the regime zealots of the Basiji militia, the air you breathe in Iran is not suffocating. Its streets at dusk hum with life - not a monochrome male-only form of it, or one inhabited by fear - but the vibrancy of a changing, highly-educated society.

This is the Iran of subtle shades that the country's Jews inhabit. Life is more difficult for them than for Muslims, but to suggest they inhabit a totalitarian hell is self-serving nonsense.

One Iranian exile, no lover of the Islamic Republic, wrote to me saying that my account of Iran's Jews had brought "tears to my eyes" because "you are saying what many of us would like to hear."

Far from the cradle of Middle Eastern Islamist zealotry, she suggested, "Iran - the supposed enemy - is the one society that has gone through its extremist fervor and is coming out the other end. It is relatively stable and socially dynamic. As my father, who continues to live there, says, 'It is the least undemocratic country in the region outside Israel."'

This notion of a "post-fervor" Iran is significant. The compromises being painfully fought out between Islam and democracy in Tehran are of seminal importance. They belie the notion of a fanatical power; they explain Jewish life.

That does not mean fanaticism does not exist or that terrible crimes have not been committed, like the bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires 15 years ago, for which Argentina and Israel have accused Iran.

But the equating of Iran with terror today is simplistic. Hamas and Hezbollah have evolved into broad political movements widely seen as resisting an Israel over-ready to use crushing force. It is essential to think again about them, just as it is essential to toss out Iran caricatures.

I return to this subject because behind the Jewish issue in Iran lies a critical one - the U.S. propensity to fixate on and demonize a country through a one-dimensional lens, with a sometimes disastrous chain of results.

It's worth recalling that hateful, ultra-nationalist rhetoric is no Iranian preserve. Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's race-baiting anti-Arab firebrand, may find a place in a government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. He should not.

Nor should racist demagoguery - wherever - prompt facile allusions to the murderous Nazi master of it.