Thursday February 4, 2010

Column:

The Iranians took a rat, a turtle, a few worms and put them in a rocket ship and launched it into space. It sounds like the opening line of a good joke, but this is nothing to laugh about.

The Iranians really did put a rat, a turtle and worms into a rocket ship and sent it off into space. And with that launch the Iranians have catapulted not only a rocket into space, but Iran itself to almost the very head of the class of global space travel. The funny part was watching the launch and hearing the countdown and seeing nothing happen. The count down was begun again and this time the rocket took off - at the count of five.

The rocket is a Kovahshgar 3, also called an Explorer 3. It is Iran's third generation of space satellite rockets. What makes this rocket significantly different from other Iranian space ships is that the Kovahshgar 3 is a two-stage rocket system. This machine will travel 320 km into space.

Once a country achieves the ability to develop multi-stage rockets there is no limit to the distances their rockets will travel and the tasks their rockets will be able to perform. In a two-stage rocket the first, or spent, rocket detaches itself after lift off allowing the second, or next stage, rocket to launch again as a lighter space ship with more energy.

A long term objective of Iran's space program has been to move to any orbit that requires them to launch to 1000 km into space. Now that they have achieved the status of staged rockets, reaching their objective is only a matter of time. The satellites that Iran launches from here on will allow them the ability to monitor everything that happens in every corner of the entire globe. Everything.

Just prior to this launch Iran unveiled three new satellites called the Simorgh, or Phoenix. The unveiling and launch were televised on Iranian national TV and promoted as a part of Iran's anniversary celebration commemorating the Islamic Revolution. At the ceremony, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke at length about the importance of these launches and these satellites. The president spoke about study and technology and the information that will be gleaned from this experiment of sending living organisms into space. The rat, the turtle and the worms will, he said, provide important information for scientists to analyze.

More frightening than the two-stage rocket, more frightening than the launch, is the knowledge that this despotic, demonic, extremist regime is in possession of this technology. The technology that launched the Kovahshgar 3 is the same technology that will allow Iran to provide a delivery system for non-conventional weapons.

This public launching in Iran is a watershed. While the West and the IAEA were running around trying to determine Iran's nuclear capability, Iran was legally building satellite rockets that easily convert to ballistic delivery armaments.

This launch demonstrates how advanced science and technology are in Iran, how fast they have developed over the past few months. It shows how deaf and blind the world has been to the significance of Iranian threats, how laissez faire the West has been in monitoring the aerospace industry in Iran, one of the most important elements of a nuclear delivery system.

And it shows how proud the Iranians are of their accomplishments - so proud that the Iranian government itself released a video of the launch on You Tube. Iran knows how to play the West - literally and figuratively.

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Thursday January 28, 2010

Column:

There is no debate as to whether or not Iran is racing toward nuclear productivity. About that there is no question. There is, however, serious debate in the halls of world leadership over the question of Iran's motivation in their race to attain nuclear technology.

The debate is divided into three sides. There are those who say that Iran should be taken at their word and there is no reason to believe that their ultimate goal is a nuclear bomb. Those who say that Iran should be carefully watched because we have no way of knowing if they are telling the truth or saying only what is diplomatically expedient. And those who say that Iran's ultimate goal is a nuclear bomb.

The first group, those who say that Iran is not ultimately interested in the bomb, theorize that what Iran really wants is to be a leader in the new age of energy. For that, of course, they need nuclear technology. This group, led by the Chinese and the Russians, suggest that Iran has never shown any real desire for nuclear weapons and that there is a significant difference between attaining nuclear energy and transforming that technology into nuclear weapons.

The second group, those who say that Iran should be watched because of the obvious potential to transform nuclear technology believe that while the Iranians cannot be trusted, it is not yet too late in the game. This group, led by the United States, has determined that there is still significant time to monitor Iran's nuclear development and gauge whether the technology is being turned into the bomb. They believe that it is too late to stop Iran's nuclear technological development so their real energies should be devoted to monitoring Iran's nuclear program to make certain that what Iran creates is a safe program, not one that is transformed into a weapon's program.

The third group, those who say that there is no doubt that the objective of the Iranians is to create a nuclear bomb, is led by the Germans and the Israelis. They believe that Iran has one and only one objective in developing nuclear technology and that any movement Iran makes in a nuclear direction is a move toward attaining the nuclear bomb.

This week, theorists were given important new information regarding Iran's nuclear plans. Der Spiegel, Germany's premier news magazine and website, published a damning expose. They uncovered an intelligence dossier revealing exactly who was doing what in the world of Iranian nuclear development. Rather than publishing the file in its entirety, Der Spiegel delivered it to the International Atomic Energy Agency and to the governments of Germany the United States and Israel. What they did publish was a significant outline of the material.

According to the material released by Der Spiegel a new office has been created in Iran specifically to develop nuclear weapons. The office is headed by Kamran Daneshjoo, the new Iranian Minister of Science, Research and Technology, is known as the Department for Expanded High Technology. Also included in this project is an important player in Iran's push toward nuclear technology, a nuclear physicist named Moshen Fakhrizadeh, a senior scientist and officer in the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard. These two characters are said to head up the "secret heart" of Iran's nuclear weapons program.

Der Spiegel made specific note of the fact that the officials they spoke to confirmed that indeed this is proof positive that Iran has real nuclear weapons aspirations and not simply energy goals. The final piece of evidence revealed in the expose is that Iran already has the ability to produce a crude nuclear devise. According to the report this rudimentary devise is the size of a truck. The next objective of the Iranians is to shrink the size of the devise so they are able to mount it on a delivery system.

Regardless of the evidence, China and Russia will probably not be convinced of Iran's motives until it is too late.

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Wednesday January 20, 2010

Column:

When the chief of Israel's military intelligence agency speaks, we should pay careful attention.

Amos Yadlin briefed the Knesset's Committee on Defense. The general chose to brief his select audience on three areas - Turkey, Iran and the Palestinians.

According to Yadlin, the breakdown of the strategic relationship that Israel and Turkey had tried so hard to forge had nothing to do with Israel or even with anti-Israel sentiment - and a whole lot to do with Syria.

Turkey established a relationship with Israel because they had strategic interests. What the Turks really wanted was a closer trade relationship with Western European nations and with the United States. Israel was their way in. Israel was always Turkey's way to agitate and aggravate Syria for being such a bad neighbor.

The attempt to make inroads into Western business communities was a colossal failure. But Syria did come around and now Turkey no longer needs Israel. As a matter of fact, Israel is now a liability in Turkey's relationship with Syria. What's left for Turkey now is to find a way in to Iran and for that, Turkey certainly does not either need, or want, Israel hanging around.

Flip-flopping comes naturally to the Turks who live lives somewhere in between East and West. They geographically live on the border, part in Asia and part in Europe. For Turkey, it is all about expediency and strategic goals. They are easily swayed from one side to the other and right now Iran is the country offering Turkey the best incentives to deal.

On the subject of Iran, Yadlin recalled his earlier analysis. The head of Israel's intelligence community repeated that he does not see Iran either slowing down its pace or modifying its goal. Iran wants to become nuclear, wants to nuclear technology and Iran wants the bomb. And Iran is showing no signs of caving under pressure from the international community.

Perhaps more importantly, Yadlin does not believe that the international community nor pressure from more serious sanctions will change Iran.

As for the Palestinians, the head of Israeli intel had some encouraging news. According to Yadlin, Abbas and his Fatah party are beginning to crack down on Hamas in the West Bank - and not as a favor to Israel. Fatah is cracking down on Hamas for their own benefit. They do not want the West Bank to go the way of Gaza and to that end they are willing to go to great lengths.

Yadlin explained that the current stalemate between Israel and the Palestinians is crucial for Abbas. The Palestinian leader is intent on convincing the international community to pressure Israel to stop all building in Jerusalem and to ease restrictions throughout the West bank.

On this issue in particular I could not agree with Yadlin more. The Irony of it all is that the Western world will side with Abbas and will, economically and diplomatically, attack Israel. And the reason the West will feel comfortable attacking their long-standing friend is because Israel has been so successful in their own war against terror. For an entire year there has not been one successful suicide attack. Had Israel been less successful in their pre-attack capture of terrorists, the world would be less likely to swallow the lies that Abbas is circulating.

Would Israel prefer to be victim to terrorist attacks in order to gain short term international political benefits? The answer is obvious.

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Wednesday January 13, 2009

Column:

The recent assassination of a high level Iranian nuclear researcher should raise flags for everyone keeping watch on Iran.

To recap: Professor Massoud Mohammadi was blown to smithereens outside his Teheran home by an explosive device strapped to a motorcycle. Two cars and two motorcycles were destroyed and a whole slew of homes had their glass windows blown out. Massoud Mohammadi was a significant player in the development of the Iranian nuclear program.

Naturally, all fingers are pointing at Israel.

In the past Israel has utilized the same explosive devices against terrorist leaders all over the world. So to suspect Israel makes perfect sense.

But ... This was overkill in the most literal sense of the word.

This explosion was so powerful and out of control it was designed to kill, maim and damage in a wide circumference around the bomb. This was not the work of a Western intelligence force, it was not even the work of a Western assassin. Israel has perfected the art of destroying their target and their target only - a car and the people in the car, nothing else at all. Israel goes the extra mile to make sure the damage is restricted and does not injure people or property around the explosion site.

This explosion was the work of others, it was not the work of Israel and neither was it the work of the United States.

So whose work was it, whose signature is on this assassination?

There is a long list of people, parties and organizations that would benefit from the death of Mohammadi, a long list of people who could have planned or hired a team to blow up Massoud Mohammadi.

It is not beyond the realm of possibility that Israel, the United States or another Western agency hired locals to organize and perpetrate this attack - but it is not likely, Israel and the US have different types of assets in Iran and France and Germany have better contacts in Iran.

This kind of operation requires hands-off supervision. Whoever ordered the assassination of Mohammadi gave a carte blanche to the killer, granting permission to kill in as wide an arc as possible. That type of blessing does not come easily in the intelligence agency halls of Washington, DC, Jerusalem, Berlin, London or Paris. This type of operation does not smell like Moscow or Beijing. It smells much more like the operations ordered by Middle East agencies, like agencies that want to stop Iranian nuclear research cold in its tracks.

Attacks against very specific Iranian scientists can grind all of Iran's nuclear development to a halt. Even a single attack against one scientist can slow down the process. Frightening others in the scientific community, upsetting them and making them nervous, makes them less productive and slows down the pace of their work.

So who did it? If I were to venture a guess I would say that the countries with the most to gain from Mohammadi's death are Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and other, smaller, countries in the region. That these countries are angry about Iran's nuclear development is well known. A nuclear Iran makes them sit on edge, petrified that a nuclear Iran will cause the downfall of their personal regimes and destabilize the entire region.

Regional leaders have much more to lose if Iran becomes a nuclear power than anyone else in the world. Iran would have absolute reign over the region. The Persians, a non-Arab nation, Shiites a minority in the sea of Sunni Islam, would take charge. This explosion was probably a local operation, perhaps even an anti-government operation.

Massoud Mohammadi is dead. Iran's nuclear community will feel the loss. The rest of the world just bought a little bit of time.

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Thursday January 7, 2010

Column:

Terror is not our enemy. Terror is the strategy and acts of terror are the tool that our enemy uses against us.

Nine years after 9-11 and Western political and military leadership, specifically United States leadership, still treat terror as an enemy like all other enemies. Their problem is conceptual. They have not yet begun to understand the terrorist mindset. Until that synapse is bridged our protectors will never figure out how best to act and counteract, respond and counter respond, to terrorists.

Terror is not the goal of our enemies. The total capitulation of the Western world and all Western culture, the complete submission of the Western world to Islam is the goal of our enemies. Had they truly studied Islam our leaders would know that.

The meaning of the term Islam is total submission. Literally and figuratively, the agenda of our enemy has never been hidden from us, we are just too preoccupied with our own agenda, too narrow and too focused on Western thought and action to see the obvious.

We are defending ourselves against terrorists without really knowing what they want, who they are, why they make their decisions and how they intend to carry out their goal. The relative safety we have experienced until now has much more to do with lady luck and the ineptitude of terrorist operatives than it does with Western politics or Islamic regimes. The safeguards that were in place even before the acts of 9-11 that made it difficult for non-Western foreigners to negotiate easily and freely in potential target areas were an accidental stroke of genius.

Our counter-terror system relies on a good defense and that is its major flaw. We need a good offense, too.

A good offense means hitting people in their home countries.

A good offense means collateral damage.

A good offense means being immune to the names and curses and threats hurled at us by the countries that host and house terrorists.

At this stage in history the United States cannot have it both ways - the United States cannot both be loved and effectively protect American citizens from the terrorist threat. The changes in airport security policies that require added checks for people coming from and holding passports from fourteen additional countries is a good start. It is a late start, but it is a good start.

If you have to wait for the terrorist to infiltrate your airport before your can stop them, you are too late.

If TSA officials at local airports and their x-ray machines are the only barrier that separates American citizens from acts of terror, terrorists will succeed.

If there is only one security significant security fence, it will be breached.

The TSA is not there to stop terrorists from boarding planes. Their emphasis is on paperwork and luggage, not passengers. Bringing contraband, i.e. explosive materials and devices, into an airport is a simple matter of understanding the limits of the machinery. It is not rocket science. Almost everyone knows what an x-ray machine can and cannot see, more importantly, what it cannot distinguish. That is why travelers are asked to separate their toiletries into plastic bags, so that all liquids and vials that appear either full or empty can be checked.

And to think that airports are the greatest venue for terrorists to attack is, once again, to think like a Westerner, not like the enemy.

In the near future our enemy will not take us down. The goal of our enemy is too lofty to be successful. Our job is to prevent our enemy from causing too much damage. Our job is to prevent our enemy from taking too many of our lives.

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Thursday December 31, 2009

Column:

It's a simple fact: There are people who want to destroy us and there is nothing we can do to change their minds.

It's a disturbing fact, it's a scary fact, but it is a proven fact and the sooner we acknowledge it, the better off we will be.

All terror is not alike. Political terrorists can be swayed - Islamic terrorists cannot. Vengeful terrorists can be swayed - religious terrorists cannot.

Al Qaeda terror is Islamic terror - it is religious terror. We do not have the power or capability to stop al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorists from hating us and wanting to destroy us. We can stop their actions, we cannot change their minds.

And yet, there are people who refuse to see the fact. And some of those people are in positions of power, some of those people are our leaders. They are simply unable to wrap their minds around an idea that terrifies them. That, too, is scary.

Here's another simple fact: Fighting terror is an offensive, not just a defensive, mission.

Many of those people in power who refuse to accept that fact that we cannot change the minds of terrorists who want us destroyed have no problem sending out helicopter gun-ships to destroy known enemies, gun-ships that might accidentally kill civilians along with their intended targets. They have no problem dispatching soldiers to attack enemies who we know have concrete plots to attack us.

It is the abstract versus the concrete. Religion is abstract. Maps and plans are concrete. The terrorist who has not yet put pen to paper, hand to grenade, explosive to body, is as dangerous and intent upon killing us as the terrorist who has. In the world of terror, thought and action are synonymous.

Religious i.e. Islamic terrorists cannot be educated by us, neither can they be re-educated by us. They hate us because they hate us and there is nothing we can do to change their minds, nothing we can do to prove that we are not worthy of their hate. They cannot be convinced and they cannot be bribed. They want to cause us pain, they want to destroy us and they want to destroy the symbols that represent us.

It's nice to see that there are people who believe that there is good in everyone - but in a leader, it is dangerous. It is kind to give people the benefit of a doubt - but not when those people are mass murderers.

I understand the mind and the world of Islamic terror. Unfortunately, our president, the president of the United States of America does not.

These terrorists will never be moved by compassionate pleas or promises or acts of good will and kindness. These terrorists are not like Anarchists or Maoists, they are not the Weathermen or the Uni-bomber or Timothy McVeigh. The politics of Islamic terror dwarfs these anti-establishment sentiments in America.
They do not want to change America, they want to destroy America and destroy American values.

These terrorists dream of a world where everyone accepts their values and teachings - fundamental Islamic teachings. They will not compromise, they cannot. Until they have the world that they want, they will not rest.

Here's the final simple fact: The only way to fight terror is by guarding ourselves, by searching out the terrorists and by destroying them.

We, the United States and the Western world cannot do this alone. We must convince those who host terrorists to help us. Hosts of terror, as opposed to their guests, are open to argument and bribery. They can shut down the terrorists' bases of operation and force them out.

Not all of Islam teaches a hatred of non-believers. Believers who subscribe to those other, more peace loving, Islamic teachings will be the first step in bringing religious, Islamic terrorists towards embracing other forms of Islamic tradition. They can do it. We cannot.

Note: In deference to certain people in positions of power I have refrained from speaking about the War on Terror and chosen, instead, to use the term fighting terror.

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Wednesday December 23, 2009

Column:

Mainstream Western press has taken proper note of the death of the Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri. Even his funeral was covered in a significant and respectful way in major, national, newspapers in the United States.

This Iranian cleric deserved our notice. He deserved our praise.

The Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri had a clear and forward thinking vision for Iran. He helped shape Iran - not the tyranny that envelopes Iran today.

Montazeri functioned as the right hand of the original Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the Revolution. Montazeri was his protege and it was Montazeri who drafted the Iranian laws that empowered religious life in Iran. It was he who created the framework enabling parallel lines of leadership, one religious the other political. This Ayatollah's vision, however, took on a life of its own. Montazeri believed that religious leadership should serve on an advisory level for the political leadership and not be involved in the day to day happenings in the newly established Islamic Republic. The ultimate power of the clergy in Iran today is antithetical to all that he believed and gave root to.

Our press is correct in noting that Montazeri was the first person chosen to become successor to the first Supreme Leader. When that decision was made, he was, without a doubt, the most learned and most widely respected of all Shiite thinkers. But then the cleric overstepped his bounds as both adviser and protege to the Supreme Leader.

He dug his own premature grave when he went on record renouncing a spate of public executions. Later that same week Montazeri started hammering the nails into his own coffin when he went public again, this time rejecting the death sentence that had been issued against British author Salman Rushdie. In his own defense the cleric responded to the outrage over his pronouncements saying that he was fearful that the world would see Iran simply as a society that glorifies killing, nothing more.

Montazeri was immediately stripped of his position and of his future position. The Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri was demoted from Grand Ayatollah to a simple Ayatollah. He was placed under house arrest in the holy city of Qom.

After the death of the Ayatollah Khomeni and the subsequent appointment of his heir, the current Supreme Leader of Iran, the Ayatollah Khamenei, it became clear that a sub par leader had been placed in leadership and that there were far more superior Islamic thinkers than the Grand Ayatollah chosen to lead.

Montazeri had always asserted that the Supreme Leader must be accountable to an earthly body and not, exclusively, to heaven. In many ways this man was not only wise, he was prophetic.

Unlike Khatami and Mousavi, Montazeri had a real and fundamental respect for leadership and cultural for power bases. He spoke without fear of punishment from the establishment because he was indisputably the greater Islamic thinker of our time. Unlike Khatami and Moussavi, the relationship this Ayatollah had with the people of Iran rang genuine, he was their hero. He will be missed by his people. Montazeri's death, the mourning period and the mourning rituals surrounding his death will be significant and will allow us a window into the hearts of Iranians.

The Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri will be missed. And not only be the people of Iran.

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Wednesday December 16, 2009

Column:

No problem. It's an expression often heard in the Middle East, specifically within the Palestinian Authority. Since Arabic does not have a "p" sound, the words come out sounding more like "no broblem." To the untrained Western ear this response to a vast array of questions is amusing. Trained Western ears, however, know that whenever those words are uttered it signifies not just a problem, but a very big problem.

The Palestinian Authority has a broblem, a big broblem.

The most pressing of the myriad political issues confronting the PA right now is the looming election. In January, just a few short weeks away, the term will end for both the Palestinian president and the Palestinian Parliament. The Palestinian Liberation Organization's Central Council has just met to draft and lay out a direction that will begin addressing the challenge. The elections has been postponed.

President Mahmoud Abbas has declared that he will not run again, he reiterated his statement during the Council's meeting. The Council, for their part, has asked Abbas to stay on - at least until a new, new election can be called.
Abbas is their only hope.

If Abbas stays on, the question of the Palestinian presidency will be relieved, even if only for the short term. That still leaves the question of the Parliament. Hamas now controls the Palestinian Parliament and Hamas is hoping for a new election because, according to all polls, Hamas will rout out Fatah for both Parliament and the presidency. Will the Council ask all parliament members to remain on, as well?

The Palestinian Liberation Organization's Central Council, in their infinite wisdom - or perhaps out of sheer desperation, has come up with a different solution. The PLO Central Council has suggested replacing outgoing elected members of Parliament with an appointed committee somewhat representative of the demographic reality and accountable to the president.

This is not a very good idea. The Palestinian Authority purports to be. This is a common practice in thugocracies, whether controlled by benevolent dictators or monarchs, which is what the Palestinian Authority is on the verge of becoming.

Do not get me wrong, I am not in favor of Hamas taking power and Hamas will most certainly get a landslide victory whenever the elections take place. But neither can I support a suspension of democracy because one does not like the potential results.

The political failure of Fatah and the PLO can be traced to the fact that they have never successfully shed their mantle of corruption and a reputation as politicians who hold office in order to better serve themselves, not their public. They have failed in their mandate to provide the Palestinian people with a vision for the future and have provided no alternative to poverty and despair.

Hamas will win not because the Palestinian people favor their form of government. Hamas will win because they will receive the anti-vote. They will receive the anti-Fatah vote and they will receive the anti-US/Israel vote. They will get those votes because there are still a significant number of Palestinians who respect Hamas for rejecting US and Israeli influence.

The PLO still has a chance. There is still time to sway those anti voters who are more discouraged by the status quo than they are pro-Hamas and the way to do that is through social not political means. The PLO must start providing services for the Palestinian people. But I don't think that the PLO will seize the opportunity and run with it. The PLO Council continues to make poor choices.

For example, look at the demand the PLO Central Council has laid down regarding the peace process: that the world recognize the Palestinian state within pre 1967 borders. Abbas, in his statement outlining the demand, made it perfectly clear that there can be no compromise on this issue, that the state be entirely within the 1967 border - without exception. The announcement runs contrary to years of dialogue. The dominant theme has always been that the 1967 border would be the model, and that when it became unfeasible the alternative would a land swap for mutually agreed upon land of equal size and arid-ability. That announcement dramatically set back the negotiation process and any hope for a resolution in the near future.

The Palestinian state will wait. But what about the election? Fatah and their PLO Central Council have a history of raising expectations to the point of unreasonable and creating situations where compromise is nearly impossible. They do not have a history of learning from their mistakes.

It's almost January and the parliament will soon disolve. Hamas is waiting in the wings. It's a problem, a big, big problem.

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Tuesday December 1, 2009

Column:

Many myths pervade the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. None is more powerful and more convincing than the claim made by the first and still most effective leader of the Palestinian cause. Yasser Arafat used to boast that the secret weapon of the Palestinian people is the Palestinian womb.

The assumption is that over time the Arab birth rate will outstrip the Jewish birthrate. The inevitable will simply happen, there will be a Palestinian Arab state within Israel - and Israel will cease to exist.

This myth is the foundation for much of the Israeli nationalist propaganda that espouses the transfer of Arabs out of Israel. And it is this myth that fuels the canard that Israel is a racist state that promulgates racist policies to maintain a Jewish majority. But myth are myths and statistics are statistics and the two rarely coincide.

Population surveys over the past decade paint a very different, a seriously different, picture of Arab population growth in Israel.

Muslim growth in Israel since 2000 has dropped from 3.8% per year to 2.8% per year in 2008. In real numbers that means that there are only 34,000 more Arabs in Israel today than there were a year ago. In round numbers there has been no change, the Arab population in Israel stands still at 1,240,000 people.

Even the fertility rate of Arab women in Israel dropped significantly over the past eight years. Fertility rate is number of children a women is expected to have in her lifetime. In 2000 that number was 4.7, in 2008 it is 3.8. Not surprisingly, the Arab population in Israel is young. 41 % is under the age of 15 and only 3% is over the age of 65. This is a very significant statistic because 7% of Arab married couples living in Israel are childless.

What does this all mean? It means that the Arab womb is not the secret weapon. It means that Israel is not in danger of loosing its Jewish identity. It means that one long time problem facing Israel is gone, off the table - but Israel still has many real and serious threats with which to contend. In addition to the threats Hamas and Hezbollah pose to Israel's physical existence, Israel is contending with the threat posed by Iran's expanding nuclear frontier.

And Israel has many challenges ahead. Israel has not yet found a balance between traditional society and modern democratic issues. And Israel must push that envelope in the fields of business and technology in order to continue to be a player in world markets in the decades to come.

Israel will struggle to make the mission and vision of an independent Jewish state exciting and attractive to future generations of Israelis. And hopefully, all Israelis, Jewish and Arab, will reap the rewards of Israel's struggles and Israel's triumphs.

Yasser Arafat is probably turning over in his grave.

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Wednesday November 25, 2009

Column:

In the areas of foreign outreach and diplomacy, Iran is masterful.

The Iranians are on a mission to build bridges across the world. They are creating alliances in places most Americans would be too geographically challenged to find on a globe.

President Ahmadinejad of Iran recently paid a visit to Bolivia, a very poor country in the Andes. Ahmadinejad was there to show support. More importantly, he was there to invest. Lithium is a natural resource, it is a very light weight metal and Bolivia possesses more than one half of the world's lithium.

Lithium is an essential component in the manufacture of long lasting batteries. It is not just used in flashlights and ipods, lithium is the element used for alternative energy car batteries and electronic devices like the computers that have come to control our world.

Ahmadinejad forged an alliance with a country that has been neglected and ignored by most of the world. And to secure that alliance, Ahmadinejad opened a hospital that Iran will fund and inaugurated two milk processing plants. And Iran will invest in investigating how to best move the lithium from the mines to the industries.

It was a subtle diplomatic exchange. In return for the extravagance shown his country by President Ahmadinejad, Bolivian President Evo Morales issued an extravagant statement proclaiming that Iran has the right to develop its own nuclear program without the intruding intervention of Western nations. Let's examine the balance: facilities that provide health and nutrition on one side, nuclear facilities on the other side. And both sides are happy.

Iran is running circles around the United States. In truth, Iran does not have to run very fast - US foreign policy has not even stepped off the starting gate when it comes to reaching out to countries with untapped natural resources, countries in need of the financing to capitalize on the natural gifts they have been given, countries that can enhance our own natural resources with theirs.

I have learned not to be surprised by the inactions of our foreign policy decision makers. I am surprised, however, that America's private investors did not lunge for lithium, one of the greatest sources of alternate energy.

Granted, many countries - primarily poor and underdeveloped countries, have a natural predisposition towards Iran and against the United States. These countries see the United States as exploitive and condescending. And Iran plays that card very successfully. But isn't that what diplomacy is all about?

If the United States government or interested parties from the United States or US investors had knocked on Bolivia's door before Iran arrived, Bolivia would have welcomed them in and gladly joined forces. Bolivia and countries like Bolivia choose to side with Iran because the United States has not provided them with the other option. In truth, these countries would rather follow the US model and be transformed into a mini United States than into a mini Iran.

I know why Iran has plotted this foreign policy path. I know why Iran is building these bridges. I do not understand why the US is not doing the same. This is a race for world domination and a race to have unrestricted access to necessary natural resources. It is also a race for the hearts and minds of the nations of the world.

It is a race that Iran is winning.

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My Tunnel Vision for Gotham and Gaza

by Steven Sher

Tough times make for strange bedfellows. Take the MTA's latest gambit to raise the subway fares and President Obama's initial overtures toward peace in the Middle East. The timing of both may pose that rare conjunction of events needed to instill hope among fiscally-challenged New Yorkers and to restore America to respected mediator status throughout the Middle East while alleviating the bleak situation of the world's self-proclaimed most suffering people.

If there is one positive that we can take from the recent war in Gaza, then it is that the Palestinians have a particular skill that would be a boon to New York. They know how to build tunnels. A great maze of tunnels. In a few short years, they have built and maintained one thousand tunnels in an area that is less than half the size of all of Gotham.

What if the MTA could bring a cadre of these two-legged burrowers to the boroughs?
Here is the ready-made, skilled labor that we need to complete projects such as the long-delayed Second Avenue Subway within the current budget. Bring them in as guest workers. Offer everything from green cards (Hamas colors: a nice touch) to private jets. This would have the added benefit of curtailing their attempts to sneak into America-s porous borders.

Say this about Hamas: they are the world's poster child for underground survival. And no workers are more cost-effective.The MTA can forgo expensive equipment in favor of pick-axes, mules and crude blasting tools.

U.S. cash would trickle back to Gaza too, jumpstart an economy decimated by an unemployment rate seven times greater than New York's and a crumbling infrastructure.

Moreover, the Arab world would see that we are serious about talking with terrorists. Perhaps it could lead to our inviting the Iranians to beef up our hometown nuke, Indian Point, make it impervious to attack, or our hiring private contractors such as al Qaeda as Park Service guides (no one knows caves and mountainous terrain better than they do) and Homeland Security agents (greeting each ship that docks in our ports).

Further, the more jobs we offer Hamas, the more quickly Gaza will be rebuilt, giving Israeli jets welcome new targets during the next incursion, thereby lessening the possibility of a ground invasion. Many lives will be saved.

Even the EU and the Arab League would have to admit that the U.S. is anything but a passive peace broker. President Obama can score big foreign policy points early in his tenure. Combatants in conflicts around the globe will vie for American contracts.

Think of the photo ops too: the celebrities who will venture down into the subway tunnels to pose with Hamas workers. Great goodwill will be restored.

Maybe we can get the Egyptians, those ancient admirers of massive public works projects, whose firsthand views of Gaza's tunnels make them the natural choice, to host the negotiations.

Just to be on the safe side though, the MTA had better dust off station cameras. Get out the metal detectors. Call in the National Guard. Recording to passengers: If you see an unattended backpack--take a cab.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Column:

The decision has been made to seek the death penalty for Khalid Sheik Mohamed and his co-conspirators for the attacks known simply as 9-11.

The decision has also been made, by the Army, to seek the death penalty for Major Nidal Malik Hassan, aka the Fort Hood Terrorist.

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Mayor Mike Bloomberg. Attorney General Eric Holder and most of the media have weighed in with their opinions, advice and counsel. Most of the always heated discussions swirling around the 9-11 trial center on the decision to try the terrorists in the New York area, in the shadow of the downed World Trade Centers.

Those passionate discussions are certainly important, but there are other issues that concern me more than the venue of the trial.

I am concerned that these terrorists be afforded - even awarded, a civilian trial rather than a military tribunal. Civilian trials give defendants more power on issues of evidence, procedure and the all-important question of "beyond reasonable doubt" than do military trials. The threshold for conviction is much higher in a civilian trial than in a military trial. No matter how confident the Attorney General is about the case, every civilian trial is a crap shoot and this is one case neither he, nor we, can afford to lose.

And I am concerned about press coverage during the proceedings. The eyes of the world will be on this trial no matter where is it conducted, no matter if it is civilian or military, but the press will have a much more difficult time turning the trial into a media event if it is held in a military court than a civilian court.

In a military trial the defense does not subpoena witnesses, they must ask the prosecution to do so as a favor. In a military trial judge, jury and even the defense lawyers are part of the officer corps - they are people who are cogently aware of the significance of the trial and of the inherent dangers in confronting terror and the nuances of controlling terrorists and terrorist rhetoric. That, too, concerns me about a civilian trial.

But of all my concerns, what concerns me more than the venue, the latitude, the coverage and the guilt is the punishment.

These defendants want to die.

Last year Khalid Sheik Mohammed asked to stay his trial so that he could plead guilty and be executed. He wants to leave this world as a martyr, a shahid. And I have little doubt that the Fort Hood terrorist assumed he would be killed as he perpetrated his heinous acts of mass murder.

By seeking the death penalty we, the intended victims of their terror, are granting these terrorists their ultimate prize. We, the infidels, the non-believers, the targets and objects of their holy crusades, are granting them the ever after. We are elevating these men to great heights in their own eyes and in the eyes of their supporters around the world. We are accomplishing for them what they did not accomplish themselves.

Acts of terror warrant the most severe forms of punishment. But what happens when the punishment is the fulfillment of the original mission? Those terrorists who by surviving, failed in their mission, will be redeemed by their execution.

Of less concern to me but of import to the world of the terrorist is the stupendous cost of civilian trials. The al Qaeda web sites have underscored this time and again.

Try these terrorists. Convict them. Punish them. But do not try them in a civilian court. And do not reward them with death. And remember, a public trial provides a platform. And during the trial the methods we use to capture, monitor and bring terrorists to justice will be visible to all. We will be handing over our secrets to terrorist organizers who will monitor, learn and adjust their own training techniques. We will do it all in the name of truth, justice and the American way.

This time, in this case, that is not the right way to go.

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Tuesday November 10, 2009

Column:

The time has come to properly define the term terror.

The decision not to call the Fort Hood shooter a terrorist is self-delusional and self-deceptive. Nadil Malik Hassan is as much a terrorist as are those men and women who strap bombs on their bodies and enter crowded malls and restaurants. He is as much a terrorist as the people who drive explosive laden vehicles into marine barracks and through barricades. The only difference is the choice of weapon, the intent is the same.

Deliberately identifying murderous acts like the one perpetrated by Hassan as psychological breaks rather than calling them what they are - lone wolf terrorists, removes the threat from the sphere of security forces where it belongs and places it in the netherworld of law enforcement and forensics. Maintaining that self-delusion will, in the end, hurt the security of the United States and of United States citizens at home and abroad.

Here is the problem: The FBI defines a terrorist as a person who is part of a group or a participant in a conspiracy. That is a bias and the bias impedes investigations and precludes the need to understand individual terrorists who are influenced by the media or by their teachers and mentors.

The ostensible reason for not immediately classifying an act of terror as what it is - an act of terror, is to calm the masses. So, nine months after the El Al airlines terminal at LAX is shot up one July 4th by a lone Egyptian gunman with no links to any organization, the FBI finally classifies the shoot-out as an act of terror. Think about the uni-bomber, about Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, about the shooting at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC.

To require that a terrorist be a member of a group or a participant in a conspiracy eliminates the lone wolf terrorist. And the lone wolf is the hardest terrorists to stop.

Nadil Malik Hassan did not crack under pressure, just ask one of his colleagues, ask any psychiatrist. His was a premeditated act. He bought his laser sited high tech weapon the first week he arrived at Fort Hood. He plotted and planned his attack. He scoped his target. He knew where to go to wound and to kill the largest amount of people. He prayed early that morning. He said goodbye to his friends, went to the terror site, and prayed again. Then he began his mission of terror.

The Fort Hood shooter did not see his mission as mass murder or as a sin. This was a man who dedicated his life to helping others. And this was a man who saw life through the eyes and mind of a terrorist. The terrorist in him won out. The terrorist in him perceived his action as the fulfillment of his religious duties. That is why prayed and that is why all terrorists pray. They are not praying for forgiveness for murdering innocents and then committing suicide.

They pray that their act will be seen and received as the greatest act of faith. They pray to be accepted as martyrs, to become shahid, martyrs who die while fighting to protect Islam. There can be no doubt that Major Nadil Malik Hassan expected to be killed during his attack. - he began his shooting rampage by shouting "Allah hu Akhbar," God is great. Not dying is the worst indignity of all.

The actions of Hassan come right out of the al Qaeda handbook. They are in the section that deals with what we call Lone Wolf terror attacks. Perhaps he owned a copy of the CD, perhaps he was told about it, perhaps these behaviors come intuitively to a person warped enough to consider and commit an act of terror. The al Qaeda CD goes down a check list that includes saying goodbye to friends and family especially those with whom you pray. It also instructs to make certain that you explain that you will be going away, traveling. And it instructs to be sure to pray before perpetrating the act.

Calling the shoot out perpetrated at Fort Hood an act of terror is not an indictment of Islam or Muslims. It is only an indictment of those who support the act. Calling it terror recognizes the act for what it is and the perpetrator of the act for the terrorist that he is. Those who are offended are those who would justify and explain away terror as an act of rage. Those who explain it away are apologizing for terror.

There is no apology for terror.

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Thursday November 5, 2009

Column:

Internal divisions within the Muslim world are as old as Islam itself. Disputes and conflict have resonated throughout history. This period is no different.

Mecca is the holy most site in Islam. In Mecca sits the Kabbah, the focus of prayer for all Islam and the site to which 1, 400,000,000 Muslims from around the world many of whom make a pilgrimage there. The city of Mecca is located in Saudi Arabia and for some Muslims that is a problem.

There is a movement underway to reorient Islam away from Mecca. The person at the forefront of this movement is a well respected Iranian Shiite cleric named Ahmad Alam al Hadi.

This Shiite cleric has his supporters. Al Hadi is trying to convince the greater world of Islam that Muslims should not pray towards, nor visit holy sites in, Saudi Arabia or Iraq because those countries are controlled by infidels. He asserts that the leadership of Saudi Arabia is empty of Islamic value and interested only in its own self preservation. He asserts that Iraq is run by the West. And al Hadi attacks the prevalent form of Islam in Saudi Arabia, Wahabism, as extremism and as not representative of true Islam.

Ahmad Alam al Hadi proposes an alternative site. He suggests replacing Mecca, the centerpiece of Islam, with Mashhad. Do not pray to Mecca, he says, pray toward Mashhad. Do not make pilgrimage to Mecca, make pilgrimage to Mashhad. Reorient yourselves, he says, towards Mashhad which has been a spiritual capital of Islam for hundreds of years. These are very powerful statements coming from a respected religious leader and they have sparked significant debate.

The truth is that Mashhad is and has been a Muslim holy site, primarily for Shiite Muslims, but it also holds importance for Sunni Muslims. Al Hadi claims that Mashhad already accomodates 20,000,000 Iranian pilgrims and 80,000 foreign pilgrims every year and can certainly accommodate the greater onslaught of pilgrims who would be making their way to Iran.

On paper, the plan works. But Islam is not about progress or about change. Islam is about tradition. Even the use of the verb "to orient" is based on tradition. The word "orient" means "to the east." Every Muslim place of prayer contains a mikhrab, a prayer niche, and that prayer niche points in the direction of Mecca. Moving away from Mecca, replacing Mecca, would be a revolutionary move in the world of Islam - and a move that would foment an Islamic revolution.

The irony behind the choice of Mashhad as the new holy site in Islam should not be lost. Imam Raza, the 8th Imam and one of the most influential leaders in the development of Sufi Islam, is buried there. After Imam Reza was murdered in the year 818, probably poisoned to death, there was massive conflict over who should take control his Abbasid Empire. The fight was between his two sons. One son was the son of his Arab wife, the other was the son of his Persian wife. The Shiite Persian son won.

Internal historical conflicts between Islamic groups have very deep roots. So do linguistic traditions. Saudi Arabia is called the land of "Hijaz," an expression which really means the lands of the Hajj, the religious pilgrimage to Mecca. Iran can try to unseat Mecca as the holiest of holy sites, but they will fail - there are too many direct links to the Koran and Mohammed. When the move to change is approached from the perspective of serious Muslim scholarship which begins every investigation by examining the written word of the Koran and the teachings of the prophet Mohammad the argument to replace Mecca with Mashhad appears very, very weak.

Iran wants to take over the world. But first, the Iranians will have to conquer the Islamic world. This is a good - even if unsuccessful, try. They will try and try again. Iran does not shy away from conflict and dispute.

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Friday October 30, 2009

Column:

Once upon a time, there were many super powers. There was China, Russia and the Untied States. There was Great Britain, France and Germany. Now there is one super power. Iran.

We are not quite there yet, but we are pretty close.

Iran has successfully blind sided, out maneuvered and trumped not only the permanent members of the Security Council but also the rest of the United Nations, most of the Western world and the International Atomic Energy Agency. And none of them saw it happening and most of them still don't realize it has happened.

Just look at Iran's response to the draft agreement proposed to them regarding nuclear development. The countries offering the proposal - the UN Security Council members, truly believed they were handing Iran a dream package. They took a proposal originally initiated by Iran, re-wrapped it and handed it back on a silver platter.

According to this new/old proposal, Iran would send 75% of its uranium to France and Russia to be enriched. The uranium would be returned and Iran would use it for the purposes of cancer research conducted at a nuclear facility originally built by the United States. That uranium would be enriched at the low levels of 5%-8%. This deal would, at the same time, insure that Iran retains the right to develop nuclear technology and prevent the Iranians from increasing enrichment to the higher levels required to create a nuclear weapon.

The ultimate objective of the proposal was to gain time. The West would continue negotiations with Iran and if lucky, keep the discussion on-going for a year. In that year, hopefully, Iran would be prevailed upon to keep their nuclear program in the experimental scientific stages and Israel would become convinced that Iran is not a threat. The clock would slow down, pressure would be relieved, Israel would take the option of a military strike off the table for a while and the world would be a safer place all around.

And Iran turned down the proposal.

Not only did Iran turn down the proposal, but Iran turned it down a week after deadline. Iran was instructed to respond to the proposal by last Friday. They responded the following Thursday, following their own timetable and asserting their independence.

The Iranians know that they are in control. They know that they will survive sanctions and they laugh in the face of censure. Iran considers itself to be not an equal among nations, but a superior nation - and that is exactly how they conduct the business of diplomacy and the art of negotiations.

Iran has a counter proposal to the draft agreement that was put before them, an opening salvo to what will inevitably be a long series of negotiations during which Iran will probably, ultimately, receive most of if not everything Iranian leadership wants.

Iran countered by suggesting that the 75% of the uranium they are to send to France and Russia come out in stages, that they retain the ability to enrich uranium and that they have the right to import enriched uranium as they see fit. It is certainly an interesting counter proposal and not only because it flies in the face of pre-existing UN resolutions which forbid the exportation of nuclear materials to Iran. But, then again, Iran always labeled those resolutions illegal.

A large part of the world holds the United Nations in high esteem. Iran does not. A large part of the world either fears or respects the United States. Iran does neither. Iran knows how important it is not to draw Israel into an air strike, but they will handle that. And Iran has already figured out the problem of sanctions against them by instating a new monthly limit of 50 liters of gasoline per driver and by lining up gas imports from Venezuela and China.

It is time for world leaders to take Iran seriously. Otherwise, this story will not have a happy ending.

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Friday, October 23, 2009

Column:

The Goldstone Report fails on moral and legal grounds. I'll explain.

The Report's conclusion can be summed up in a few short words: Israel and Hamas should both be censored for crimes against civilians. Eleven words. It took Goldstone and his cohorts 875 pages to get there. Most of those pages were filled with harsh, damning critique of Israel and a carefully crafted attempt to create a sense of fairness - equating Israeli actions with those of Hamas.

The actions taken by Israel and the actions of Hamas are not equal and the same. Hamas is a terrorist operation fighting a terrorist campaign. Hamas leaders might be politicians, but they are first and foremost terrorist guerillas. Israel is a democracy, a country that wages war in order to provide a safe home for Israeli citizens. The Israeli army conducts wartime campaigns in a manner that is consistent with accepted military doctrine, it is an army that values the lives of soldiers and citizens alike - including the lives of civilians living among the enemy.

There are always mistakes made during wars. There are always situations that could have been handled better, or differently. There are always people who violate moral precepts. It happens in every war. But in the Israeli military they are isolated incidents and isolated individuals. The Goldstone Report portrays the opposite.

For better and for worse, Israel has always been held to a higher standard than her neighbors and the region and even to other democratic nations. Israel holds herself to a high and strict moral standard with a code of engagement that is written down and taught. That standard has evolved as times have changed and is evolving now, accommodating for new tools of war and changing methods of war. It is precisely because the Goldstone Report also holds Israel to that higher standard.

Mistakes that happened during the course of Operation Cast Lead must be acknowledged and corrected. The people responsible for those mistakes must be held accountable and responsibility should flow along the chain of command. Punishments should be meted out where required and restitution provided where appropriate.

That is not where the Goldstone erred.

The Goldstone Report erred because, if accepted as the Golden Standard for the Proper Practice of Warfare, it will become nearly impossible for the democratic world to fight the world of terror. And terror is the new face of war. Terror tactics have been insinuated into the tactics of conventional warfare and terror has its own set of laws and by laws, rules and permissible acts. And that is why the Goldstone Report will not win the vote of the Security Council, why China and Russia will vote against the Goldstone Report and why, by default, the Goldstone Report will not become a tool to indict Israel for war crimes in The Hague.

Russia and China understand how wars are now being fought. So does Israel. Goldstone does not.

And the Goldstone Report erred because the document does not differentiate between a defensive military operation and an offensive military action. It glosses over this vital distinction in a few paragraphs and focuses on only one element of the internationally accepted norms of warfare. It focuses on the military imperative to prevent civilian populations from becoming victims. And then it chastises Israel repeatedly for not doing enough to prevent injuries and deaths in the civilian Palestinian population. But it does not place adequate responsibility with Hamas for using human shields in order to better fight Israel. It does not chastise Hamas for hiding among civilian populations and for not wearing uniforms. Instead, it blames Israeli troops for using human shields.

In this war, in this defensive war, Israel's obligations shifted. Israel's objective was to eliminate the threat to Israeli citizens. During Operation Cast Lead that meant finding Hamas fighters and caches of Hamas' weapons and neutralizing them - and they were found among civilian populations, Palestinian populations.

The problems of fighting in the densely populated urban environment in which Hamas was hiding, commanding and fighting from behind civilians, was not dealt with in the Goldstone Report. That a moral obligation shifts in a defensive war when one party is hiding unidentified and uniformed behind innocent civilians was not dealt with in the Goldstone Report. That the moral obligation falls on the fighters who are hiding, in this case Hamas, was not dealt with in the Goldstone Report. But it is in international law. According to international law Hamas - not Israel - is morally and legally responsible for the deaths of civilians as Israel went in pursuit of Hamas fighters.

International law and morality warrant that an army does its most to prevent injury to civilians. And international law and morality recognize that Israel met those obligations by sending text messages in Arabic to the cell phones of the Palestinians in the areas being targeted and dropping leaflets written in Arabic in those areas.

War is different today than it was in the 1864 when Henri Dumont initiated the Geneva Conventions. Hamas and other terrorist organizations are responsible for many of those differences.

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Thursday October 15, 2000

Column:

Western democracies were pleased.

Mainstream Muslim Arab countries, countries described as non anti-Western, were coalescing and creating a free flowing block against the extremists in their midst. The movement was gathering momentum and would have inevitably pushed to destroy the more radical groups and states in the region. Even Iran would have been pressured into toning down the Shiite radical views that define Iranian culture and impact upon weaker countries in the Arab world.

The result would be a defacto easing of tensions in the region, the long sought after recognition of Israel and a gracious acceptance of United States involvement in Arab and Muslim affairs in the region

It was happening, it was happening - and then it stopped. And Middle East analysts and Israeli security experts have no idea why.

In an unexpected turn of events, the less extreme states of the Middle East are creating obstacles that serve to further distance them - rather than bring them closer - from the West and from Israel. The newly created alliances between the states is taking once moderate Muslim Arab countries and bringing them in line with radical and extremist points of view.

External manifestations of this shift are obvious and alarming. Turkey, a long standing pro-Western country, has befriended Syria, a breeding ground for extremism and terror. Saudi Arabia, a significant voice in the moderate, pro-West camp has made diplomatic forays into Syria. And Egypt, the big brother of the Middle East has brokered an agreement to unite warring Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas.

Internally, the shift has far reaching ramifications. Efforts are being made to alienate anyone who may have been open to friendly relations with Israel. A respected Egyptian magazine editor, an academic and ground breaking thinker named Hala Mustafa, is being kicked out of the national journalist association of Egypt because she met with the Israeli ambassador to Egypt. Ironically, the ambassador's name is Silvan Shalom - a name easily understood by the Arab world, a name that the Arab world would spell sallam.

Diplomats in the United States sense that the tide is turning away from them. George Mitchell, President Obama's Special Envoy to the Middle East, made his dissatisfaction with the current tone in the Middle East known to his Egyptian counterparts. He told them in no uncertain terms that the United States never envisioned nor intended for there to be reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas. Hamas was to be brought under control and minimized - not embraced and incorporated into the Palestinian government.

And nuanced thinkers in Israel are uncertain as to the reasons for this shift. Some will blame the Goldstone Report for condemning Israeli actions and for tarnishing Israel's military and humanitarian image. Others will lay blame with Operation Cast Lead. But even those excuses are not enough to warrant a shift of this nature.

The reason behind this massive shift away from the West - and embracing radical extremism is as far away as is possible, is the disappointment and frustration and resentment that the Muslim world feels towards the new American president. The Muslim world feels jilted by Obama. When Barack Hussein Obama took office the Muslim world had high hopes and immediate expectations. Those hopes and expectations remain unfulfilled.

The fact that the president of the United States has not put Israel in its place and has provided only lip service in support of the Palestinian cause has led many in the Arab world who had once been eager to adopt Western ways to instead swallow the Iran/Hamas/Hezbollah mantra that the new president is the same as the old president, he just has a different name.

The mainstream Muslim Arab world was hoping for something new and better. The hope they had felt has turned to betrayal. The Western world had better prepare for turbulent times.

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Friday October 9, 2009

Column:

Iran, under the leadership of The Grand Ayatollah Khamenei and the administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has successfully managed to outwit, outsmart and outmaneuver the Western world in both the diplomatic and military arenas.

Western democracies have obsessed over Iran's embracing of nuclear technology and race towards nuclear capability. And yet, Iran has managed to progress towards their nuclear goal unencumbered by international dictates and convention. Iran has built nuclear facilities, purchased nuclear materials and fooled nuclear inspectors and will soon be capable of making a nuclear bomb.

Iran has done it all by flying under international radar.

But Iran is not only flying under the radar, Iran is also, and very successfully, flying above the radar.

Iran is doing much more than breaking into the nuclear club. This week Iran announced that they will launch another missile, a different type of missile - a missile designed for space. Iran is engaged in a race that is bigger and more significant than the nuclear race. Iran has been racing towards "the final frontier" and all the while, the Western world has remained ignorant of their very calculated moves and the long term implications.

If successful, Iran will be able to use their missiles launched in space, aka satellites, for military intelligence. They will be able to control their weapons systems from miles up above the earth. If successful, the Iranians will be major players in space and they will be totally unhindered in their quest for international control.

Iran is making plans to launch this missile and then another missile into space within the next six months. According to Mohammed Ibrahimi, the head of Iran's Department of Space Exploration, "The Kavoshgar-3 missile will be launched into space by the end of the Persian year (which ends on March 20th) for the purpose of research." The Kavoshgar-3 is the new version of the Kavoshgar-2, the space rocket that Iran launched in December of 2008 during their last effort to enter space.

It is neither coincidental nor serendipitous that Iran is racing towards supremacy in both the nuclear and space arenas at the same time. The overlap between the space and nuclear programs is fundamental.

There is one stumbling block that has encumbered Iran's nuclear program. Even more difficult than enriching uranium is the ability to successfully deliver nuclear warheads - and that is exactly where the space program and the nuclear program overlap. A successful space program will facilitate a successful delivery system.

The same long range missile technology that will send a rocket into space will be the technology that Iran uses to deliver a nuclear warhead to Israel or to any other Western target around the world.

The race began in 1998 when Iran began research into the Shabbab-4. Ostensibly, the rocket was to be used to attack Israel but over the past eleven years Shabbab-4 plans were scrapped and all energies were focused on the Shabbab-3, a better, faster, longer missile with much better controls. The Kavoshgar is an outgrowth of that program.

The Iranian race towards supremacy in space is as big a story as is their race towards nuclear capability - and just as scary and as foreboding. But no red flags have been waving, no statements of condemnation have been issued and no investigations have been conducted.

The Western world has fallen asleep, The Grand Ayatollah and the Iranian president are wide awake and racing ahead.

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Thursday October 1, 2009

Column:

Do you know what a quagmire is?

A quagmire is the Middle East right now, a quagmire is the situation the Israeli and Palestinians are stuck in right now. A quagmire is the situation that the Obama White House, however unwittingly and unintentionally, created in the name of peace.

President Barack Obama and his band of advisors embraced the Israeli/Palestinian peace process with gusto and zest, but with very little understanding of the players, the playing ground and the process. The White House does not yet comprehend the value of language and symbols as they apply to the Middle East. And that is a problem. And now Israelis and Palestinians are even further behind in the process of making peace than they were before the last US election. The White House doesn't even realize the mess they have caused.

It all began with lofty goals and good intentions.

The White House wanted to invigorate the peace process. Since the inauguration in January, the new administration repeated - and repeated and repeated, the need to freeze all construction in Israeli settlements. It was their mantra. The Arab world responded with a great hadad!, which means hurray! in Arabic. Finally, they thought, the United States gets it.

In fact, the United States did not get it at all. The United States President did not understand that he was repeating the Palestinian mantra. He did not understand that freezing all settlements is the Palestinian mantra. He did not understand that for the Palestinians settlements are not buildings and roads, schools and post offices, for the Arab world settlements are a symbol.

President Obama did not understand that, for years, settlement construction has been used as the most licentious and destructive obstacle to an agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Instead, the new administration embraced a vibrant chant and called for a settlement freeze, insisting that even one new nail would be a violation of the concept of settlement freeze.

The administration would soon discover that things in the Middle are seldom one dimensional. The US made it clear that past promises, even promises in writing to Israel regarding settlements, would not be honored - and they thought they were nearing a real breakthrough. But the reality was that now the sides were not talking to each other. President Obama had created a sin qua non for the start of dialogue. The attempt to pressure Israel to come to the table was failing.

In the period before the US election, when Ehud Olmert was prime minister of Israel, the parties were speaking and there were no preconditions. Now, The President of the United States said no to construction in the settlements, the Israeli said to no that decree and the Palestinians were saying that they had the blessings of the United States not to come to the peace table because the Israelis were not in compliance.

What was President Obama to do? He back peddled. He sent George Mitchell, his special envoy, to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, in London. Netanyahu explained that he could get his government to agree to a settlement freeze, but. The but was - Jerusalem is not a settlement. The but was that there were 2,500 apartments in Jerusalem that were already under construction.

Mitchell called Washington and it was agreed that a good compromise had been reached, not construction, except in Jerusalem. After all, an effective compromise is one in which both sides give a little, both sides feel that they have been gypped a little and both sides shake hands.

The Arab world was offended. Jerusalem is not only a settlement, it is a symbol. And there is no compromising on a symbol. Palestinians were up in arms, the Arab world felt betrayed.

And Obama back peddled some more. During the United Nations General Assembly in New York the US president scaled back his language. He did not insist on a total settlement freeze. Arabic papers saw it as a major retreat - and that retreat caused the Palestinians to increase their absoluteness and their insistence that no settlement means no settlement.

And that is where the situation remains today. Settlements might or might not be frozen, but the peace process certainly is. Now there must be a calming down period which must, by definition, delay any reconciliation. Not exactly what President Obama had in mind.

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Thursday September 17, 2009

Column:

Natan Sharansky, former Soviet dissident, former minister within several governments of Israel, present head of the Jewish Agency and acknowledged chess pro, once said to me, when referring to the conflict between Israel and her Arab neighbors "they are playing with us chess and we are playing with them checkers."

The long time politician, the man who once beat the famous Kasparov, was not paying Israel a compliment.

I was reminded of Sharansky's succinct summary of inept and ineffective foreign affairs and diplomatic maneuverings as I assessed the reaction of the United States of America to the proposal put forth by the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

At best, it's a joke.
In the end, the joke will be on us.

There is no logic in the decision by the United States to accept the proposal put forth by Iran as a foundation upon which to begin negotiations. No logic and no mental contortions will convince me that this is a sound, thought through decision by the greatest power in the Western world.

When the Iranians declared that they were preparing a proposal, I knew it would fall short of any serious dialogue on the issues. Unfortunately, I was not disappointed. I read all five pages, well, almost five pages. The document not only falls short in content and depth, it even falls short in length.

The Iranian proposal is well scripted, diplomatic spin.
Iran does not admit that there is a problem. Not once does Iran speak about itself or its nuclear technology. Instead, it spews forth on issues of justice and freedom. It condemns the empires that promote a double standard in the world. The Iranians even, unabashedly, go so far as to volunteer to be part of a dialogue to rectify these injustices.

Iran titled the document "Cooperation for Peace, Justice and Progress." It begins with the words "In the Name of the Almighty." By the second paragraph Iran comes straight to the point. It reads: "Resolution of these problems and creating a world filled with spirituality, friendship ... prosperity, wellness and security requires reorganization and creating an opportunity for broad and collective participation in the management of the world." From there the document cum proposal goes on and on about reorganizing the world - in other words, about ousting the United States and removing all traces of Western orientation.

There is not one word about Iranian nukes. There is not one word about the issue at hand. This proposal should have been publicly dismissed as a non-starter. It was not. On the contrary, it was embraced by the Obama Administration. The Iranians knew what was expected of them, made their own calculation and chose to solve the problem by saying that the problem is not with them but with United States domination of the world.

That the United States accepted this high falutin' gobbly gook at face value and will now use it as a foundation for serious dialogue to help bring the world back from the brink of a nuclear Iran - is simply ludicrous. Iran wants to focus on the sins of America. Iran wants to focus on the problems inflicted on the world because of America. Iran does not want to talk about what Iranian President Ahmadinejad calls Iran's "inalienable rights," Iran's inalienable rights to develop nuclear technology. Yes, the Iranian president had the gall to borrow a phrase from United States President Thomas Jefferson and turn it on the United States.

The situation goes from ludicrous to surreal.
In a recent Friday sermon the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei said that Iran would love to talk to the United States and other Western countries about issues related to nuclear development in the world. Do not make the mistake of thinking that the Ayatollah will ever allow any discussion about Iran's nuclear development. He will not.

Add to that the diplomatic coup pulled off by Iran at the 53rd annual meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. The function of the IAEA is to be the nuclear watch dog of the United Nations. Iran proposed and successfully passed a resolution that makes it illegal to attack a nuclear site. The resolution was so resoundingly approved that it received the equivalent of the IAEA stamp of official approval.

Secretary of State Clinton pointed out that during the October 1st meeting between Iranian and US officials the discussion will cover nuclear issues. Clinton said she expects serious responses to the tough questions that will be raised. Don't expect too much. Ali Akbar Javanfekr, media adviser for Ahmadinejad, said that Iran will not tolerate threats. He said that accepting Iran as a nuclear power was the "first step" toward normalizing relations with the US and with the West.

How quintessentially Iran.
How distressingly American.

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Wednesday September 9, 2009

Column:

One wears tailored suits, the other wears leisure suits. One wears silk ties, the other sports open colors. Despite their apparent differences, they are cut of the same cloth.

Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad despise everything Western. Most of their venom is aimed at anything emanating from the United States. Destroying the West and especially the United States is their individual and united goal. If these leaders of Venezuela and Iran cannot bring down the United States militarily, they will do everything in their collective power to do it diplomatically. It is the glue that holds this unlikely pair together. It is the reason that Chavez has just completed his eighth visit to Iran.

The war against terror is not over, it has taken another, expanded, form. Eight years after 9/11 the West still has enemies. The United States is still being plotted against. Our enemies are not sleeping, neither should we.

Hugo Chavez, the despotic leader of Venezuela, has just concluded a four day trip to Iran. Chavez and the tyrannical Ahmadinejad smiled and shook hands for the camera. And they initiated a new set of deals that will not only propel their relationship forward but that will also, and perhaps more importantly for them, fortify a new bulwark against the United States and the West.

As part of his eleven day trip abroad Chavez also visited Libya, Syria and several European nations including Spain, Russia and Belarus. But Iran was the most important stop of all, because it was in Iran that an outright plan to topple the West was meticulously planned and proudly, publicly, proclaimed.

It goes without saying that Venezuela is wholeheartedly in favor or a nuclear Iran and will do everything to support it and make it happen. Chavez publicly praised Iran for standing up the United States and not giving in to US "blackmail." That alone would be unsettling, not threatening. The plan, in their own translated words, has Chavez and Ahmadinejad creating a "multi polar world" to confront US influence. As Chavez so succinctly put it, we are "facing the same enemy, which is the U.S. empire and its lackeys. And we will defeat the empire and its lackeys."

Those are fighting words. This is not wishful thinking or even grandstanding. Chavez and Ahmadinejad have a plan and they are about to implement that plan. Three agreements, building blocks for the plan, emerged from this trip.

The first is the creation of a mutual Iranian-Venezuelan bank in Caracas with an already pledged $200 million dedicated to mutual investment.

The second is a promise by Chavez to export 20,000 barrels of refined oil to Iran every day. That agreement sidesteps the pressure that the United States was planning to bring upon all potential local oil suppliers to Iran.

The third is the decision to mutually dedicate $750 million towards sharing energy technology.

Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are serious. The objective is to unseat the United States as the most significant diplomatic and economic power in the world. During a press conference broadcast on Iranian TV Chavez, standing alongside Ahmadinejad, proclaimed that our "important mission is to help the oppressed and revolutionary nations and to expand the anti-imperialist front in the world." The oppressed and revolutionary nations are other, smaller nations united in their distrust of the United States, aka the imperialist front.

They will use existing organizations like the United Nations and the Nonaligned Pact, a group of 118 nations who are, by their very definition, at odds with the United States, to achieve their ends. The vast majority of UN members are against the US policy. During the upcoming General Assembly we will see will see Venezuela and Iran coddle up to those nations and convince them to support their plan.

No, the war on terror has not ended. It has just taken a deeply disturbing turn. Sticks and stones won't break the United States or the West, but these words are sending a loud and clear message.

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Wednesday September 2, 2009

Column:

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs is telling us that the United States has not yet heard back from Iran regarding the mid-September deadline to negotiate.

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, was quoted on Tuesday on Iran's Arabic TV network al Alam, saying that Iran now has a counter proposal and is ready to negotiate with the West.

I expect that an Iranian response will be forthcoming. I do not expect it to be a very mature or well delineated response.

The clock is ticking.

The Iranians are game players and they derive great pleasure from beating the West at its own games. There is a long history of gaming between the United States and Iran and just because Barack Obama is new to the game, the Iranians are not about to cut him any slack.

Iran plays to win. As the deadline crept closer and Western threats of more significant sanctions against Iran became more realistic, Iran opened its doors to the IAEA (the International Atomic Energy Agency). Feigning nuclear transparency, Iran allowed international nuclear inspectors from the United Nations to inspect their nuclear facilities. To the uninitiated game player, it appeared as if Iran was complying with international demands.

The report composed by the IAEA indicated that Iran was indeed becoming more transparent, more willing to divulge their nuclear plans and capabilities. According to the report Iran has slowed its uranium enrichment program, but that observation raises several red flags because there is also credible information indicating that Iran has investigated the technology necessary to produce nuclear weapons.

The end result is that, by allowing inspectors to enter Iran when the timing was right for Iran and not a minute before, Iran may successfully sway the majority of Western nations into believing that they are, indeed, playing by the rules of the nuclear game. And in the statement that Iran released in response to the IAEA report Iran maintains that now there is proof positive that Iranian intentions are peaceful - just as they have been claiming all along,

There are still two options open to Western nations, two means by which the West can force Iran to not only abandon the pretense of conformity but, and more importantly, to abandon the race to develop nuclear weapons. The first option involves the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. They are the only countries in a position to convincingly threaten Iran, the only countries with the muscle and the backing to carry through on their threats of sanctions. The problem with this otherwise august group is that they are united in indecision.

The unofficial spokesperson for those Security Council member countries most skeptical of US/Western policy regarding Iran is Russia. Sergey Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, made it very clear that the way to handle the Iranian nuclear issue is not through military strikes but through diplomatic means.

The problem with this option is that it plays right into Iran's hands. The Iranians have proven themselves extremely adroit at out-maneuvering the United States and the West in diplomatic games.

The best example of this is the way in which Iran has co-opted the IAEA by proposing that the next IAEA meeting they initiate legislation that would condemn any military strike against any nuclear facility in the world. The move is a perfect block against Israel and the United States. It is no secret that Israel feels most threatened by Iran's nuclear potential and has a defensive, pre-emptive strike plan in the works.
Legislation of this kind within the UN's atomic energy body will certainly pass.

In the end, Israel will be condemned for conducting a defensive raid and Iran will waltz away unscathed, uncensored and un-sanctioned for aggressively producing the nuclear material in the first place. And when it happens, the majority of UN member nations will side with Iran against Israel - especially because regardless of the veracity of their findings, Iran has opened its doors to nuclear inspection. Iran needs international support in order to stand up against the United States and in putting forth this legislation Iran has found the way to force the US to back down.

The second option involves taking advantage of one of Iran's few vulnerable points. Iran may be the fifth largest exporter of crude oil in the world, but yet, about half of Iran's gasoline must be imported.

Iran is heavily dependent on refined oil. They import from all over, but most of all, they import locally from Arab countries. And these Arab countries, like the West, view a nuclear Iran as a significant threat. Actually, almost every Arab country in the Middle East considers Iran to be the most significant internal and external threat that they regularly confront.

The Arab countries of the Middle East, Iran's neighbors, must be convinced to shut down the refined oil spigot and to turn off the energy switch. Then, and only then, will the West have any real leverage and any chance at influencing Iran and having the Iranians adjust their nuclear policy to one that the world can live with.

The game is not over and time is running out.

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August 26, 2009

Column:

Being nice is not always the best policy.

Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill was the driving force behind the decision to free Abdel Baset al Megrahi, the Lockerbie terrorist. The Libyans lobbied the Scotts long, hard and well. They charmed the Scotts and made them great promises. Libya said many things in order to secure the release of Megrahi. And then they played the trump card. Megrahi was old, he was sick, he was dying.

And once the mass murderer from Libya was free, Libya laughed in the face of the world. All bets were off. All promises were null and void. They had their man and that was all that ever mattered.

Right now the justice minister from Scotland is blistering. He feels, correctly enough, used by the Libyans. The Libyans did not live up to their bargain. But why would anyone ever expect them to? History and experience have proven over and over that Muammar Ghadaffi is not to be trusted. It was, after all, the Libyan government's intelligence branch that planned and executed the Lockerbie terror attack - Megrahi was merely the figurehead of the deadly operation.

On December 21, a Wednesday in 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 took off from Heathrow Airport in London bound for the US. The jet liner blown up just after it reached about 31,000 feet. All two hundred and seventy people aboard the plane were murdered, blown up by a bomb that had been planted on the Pan Am plane. What remained scattered over an, until then little known, city called Lockerbie, Scotland.

Many of the victims, one hundred and seventy of them, were Americans. Most of those were students from Syracuse University returning home after completing a semester abroad learning about different cultures and traditions, learning about people who are different from Americans. The bomb was brought onto the plane by Megrahi's girlfriend. She, too, was a passenger on the plane -carrying a parting gift given her by Megrahi, a tape recorder with a bomb planted inside. Abdel Baset al Megrahi thought nothing of using his girl friend as his mule, as a tool with which he could transport his murderous weapon. And he thought nothing of sending her to her death.

Libya just recently took responsibility for blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 and has made restitution to the families of the victims, the exact settlement sums are still undisclosed. Libya owned up to the terrorist attack because now the Libyans have decided to embark on another mission. Libya has tried and tried successfully to get out of the international doghouse in which they have been placed. Accepting responsibility for the event over Lockerbie went a long way towards proving their new intentions, especially in the view of the United States State Department.

On January 31, 2001 Megrahi was convicted in a Scottish court and sentenced to life in a Scottish prison. Nowadays, Scotland is trying to become independent of the United Kingdom. The Scots want to assert themselves and show that they will not genuflect to either 10 Downing Street or 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And so, when Libya approached the government of Scotland about freeing Megrahi it sounded like the perfect opportunity. It would be even better if Scotland secured trade deals with Libya along with the release, that would be sure proof that the Scots can be independent and effectually, stand on their own as a country.

Scotland agreed to release Megrahi on humanitarian grounds because he was dying of terminal prostate cancer. Libya promised to keep Megrahi's release quiet and not to turn the terrorist's return home into a media spectacle.

Libya lied. Megrahi came home to a hero's welcome. Parades, cheering crowds and the son of Muammar Ghadaffi were all there to greet the returning murderer. Libya reneged on the promise and Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill was shocked.

Perhaps the justice minister should have consulted with the health minister. Just because someone has a terminal illness and is "supposed" to die does not mean that that person is on a deathbed and dying. Sheik Ahmed Yassin comes immediately to mind.

Sheik Yassin was known as the blind Sheik. Confined to a wheelchair and imprisoned in Israel, he was the spiritual leader of Hamas. Yassin was released from prison, traded back to the Palestinians and returned to Gaza. Why? Because everyone was convinced that the blind Sheik was on his deathbed, they believed that he had only a few days left to live. Five years and many terrorist attacks later Israel targeted Yassin in a helicopter gunship raid that brought down the Sheik and the entire building he was in.

People who murder hundreds of other people should not get humanitarian reprieves. Terrorist are not entitled a break. Terrorist are not like other criminals.

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Wednesday August 19, 2009

Column:

All of us, regardless of our profession, have an obligation first and foremost to tell the truth. Journalists, columnists, professional observers and commentators bear that responsibility a bit more heavily than do people in other professions. As do politicians.

I am fond of saying that I am an equal opportunity critic. We all have a point of view and that point of view colors our approach to almost every issue we discuss and every action we take. One of the ways I carry out my obligation to tell the truth is by monitoring the actions and words, the deeds and decrees, of world leaders and when I find fault with them, I point that out to the public.

It seems appropriate now, as President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and President Barack Obama sit in Washington, DC rehashing the problems of the Middle East to take a long, hard look at why the constant pursuit of a resolution to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict flounders in a sea of perpetual failure.

There are many truths in the Middle East and each one is born out of bias - cultural bias, historical bias and religious bias. For almost everyone in the Middle East and involved with the Middle East that bias is more than a predilection for or against, it is a bias that colors their entire approach to events and distorts their ability to critically analyze those events. When it comes to the peace process especially, the distortion can be seen in the Arab and Muslim worlds, in the Israeli and Jewish worlds, and in the Western world.

Journalism, by its very nature, lends information and shapes opinions. A propagandist cannot be objective, a propagandist is blinded by bias. Most journalists in the Arab world, more than in Israel and more than in the West, are propagandists.

In the Arab world there is no real journalism because there cannot be real journalists. They may carry the title "journalist" but in order to survive, they must act like propagandists. In the Arab and Moslem worlds there are nearly no democracies and there is almost no such thing as a free press. It is dangerous to write about or report on certain events on Monday which could get you arrested on Tuesday for writing. In these dictatorships the press, which is government controlled and sponsored, is in many ways a vehicle to control the masses. There are very few exceptions.

The Arab and Moslem worlds feed on conspiracy theories about Jews and Israel. About how Jews murder and steal, about how they destroy and gobble up Arab land. The Jewish and Israeli worlds feed off of paranoia and conspiracy theories too, but to a lesser extent.

Israelis and Jews tend to find anti-Semites lurking about and poking their heads everywhere. Looking at the world through the perspective of anti-Semitism is not only disturbing, it drastically narrows your perspective and limits any real learning. As a result, Israelis become incapable of seeing that sometimes they are the unrealistic party in terms of demands and expectations. Thinking that every stand is a Masada, that every stand is the last stand, and that every decision is one of survival can significantly bring creative problem solving to a halt.

History and culture are hard to unlearn. They bear a large part of the responsibility for the conspiracy addicted Middle East and for the conspiracy lore that has invaded the thinking of Western democracies involved with the Middle East. It will take formal re-education programs to change the foundations upon which these biases are grounded, and that process takes time.

For the here and now, there is a way. To forge a resolution to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict it is only necessary to deal with a small handful of issues. Neither side must love the other - that will never happen. Both sides must agree only to abide by the other, to agree not to kill each other and to stop those others who want to kill them. It will not solve all the problems of the Middle East, but it will bring about peaceful coexistence.

The West has its own bias about the Middle East. Western leaders and by extension Western journalists believe that the panacea for the entire Middle East is the resolution of the conflict between the Israeli and the Palestinians. That is simply delusional. It is an erroneous conclusion based on exclusively Western thought, perception and deep misunderstanding. The problem is much larger than Israelis and Palestinians. The problems between Shiites and Sunnis will remain whether or not the Palestinians live in peace with Israel, but the West has yet to reflect on that truth. And yes, the US presidential election was also impacted by bias and conspiracy theory. The United States is not totally immune.

Without a thoughtful critical press, without insightful view without a truthful approach there can never really be progress. Like everyone else, I too have a bias, but I can say in all honesty that I try to see the varied truths and untruths of all sides.

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Wednesday August 12, 2009

Column:

The 6th Fatah Conference that took place in Bethlehem has come to its conclusion. Phew. There were fireworks, but thankfully, they were only metaphorical.

The Conference was fraught with back stabbing and internal bickering. The single most important objective for most participants was to create blocks of voters insuring that their chosen candidates would sit in one of the one hundred and twenty coveted seats on the Revolutionary Council or one of the twenty allotted seats on the Executive Council. It was all politics, back room deals and disappointments.

The last Fatah Conference was held twenty years ago. In principle, this Conference was all about new ideas, new steps to be taken to forward the Palestinian cause and new leadership. In reality, much of the Conference was a rehash of the old days and a throwback to the reign of Arafat.

Two major votes were taken in Bethlehem and they both went off smoothly and predictably. In a vote taken shortly after the proceeding began the entire plenary unanimously voted that Israel was responsible for the murder of Yasser Arafat.
After that there was a vote by acclamation to renew the positions held by Mahmoud Abbas as president of the Palestinian Authority and as leader of the Fatah movement. The vote was only in the affirmative and it was conducted by a show of hands. The intention was to make it impossible to gauge how many people neglected to raise their hands and who they are. The result is that Conference publicists are proudly claiming that Abbas has unanimous and undisputed support for his next term.

Elections for the twenty seat Executive Council were almost as unsurprising as the earlier votes. Before the Conference began, analysts predicted that if the old guard were to be replaced with a new guard, the 6th Fatah Conference would be a success. At its conclusion it became evident that the new guard is not that new and that its members, while not octogenarians like Abbas, are growing old.

Ten members of the old guard ran for positions on the Executive Council, five of them won. One big loser came as a surprise, he is Ahmed Qurei the former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat also known as Abu Ala. Queria's loss was an undoubted blow to the old guard. But many of the new people elected were recycled, ex-Arafat players and advisers.

Jibril Rajoub is fifty six years old and under Arafat he served as head of security for the PA. Rajoub was both feared and revered. Mohammed Dahlan is a tall, dashing, well dressed and impeccably groomed fifty four years old. He was the head of security in Gaza and is thought of as the arch enemy of Hamas and the symbol of Fatah in Gaza. He is also the person that many West Bankers blame for Fatah's sound defeat at the hands of Hamas in Gaza. The Gaza coup took place while Dahlan was out of Gaza on vacation and no security infrastructure was in place to stem the bloodshed and prevent the takeover.

Marwan Barghouti was elected to the Executive Council, but as of now, he is unable to serve. Barghouti, an "anti-intellectual intellectual" who often sported leather bomber jackets and work boots is a prisoner in Israel. Barghouti, former head of the Tanzim, the Fatah military wing in the West Bank, was tried and convicted for orchestrating five terrorist attacks. Even though he has been out of the political fray for several years, Barghouti is by far the most popular political personality in the West Bank.

Neither Jibril nor Dahlan nor Barghouti are to be considered politically liberal. They were the "iron fist" that enabled Arafat's rule. As leaders they believe in pursuing peace but not in achieving compromise. And yet, Israel is being asked to release Barghouti as a gesture of good faith that will also shore up the more liberal aspects of the Palestinian society.

Barghouti is in favor of living side by side with Israel but only within the '67 borders - without a single exception. Dahlan has said that he does not recognize Israel. Rajoub is the most practical of anyone in the new old guard. He wants a Palestinian state but is schooled enough to understand that he cannot force it.

Optimists were hoping that new blood would re-invigorate the Fatah organization making it more of a political organization and less of a military organization. That did not happen. Realists hope that Fatah does not implode and is strong enough to fend off internal threats from Hamas.

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Wednesday August 5, 2009

Column:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was officially appointed to his second term as president of the Islamic Republic of Iran in a nationally televised ceremony that came complete with pomp and circumstance. The Supreme Leader, the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, presided over the ceremony. After being graced by The Supreme Leader, the new second term president kissed the Ayatollah's robe and then kissed his shoulder.

This gesture by the president to The Supreme Leader displayed a very formal, very reserved, sense of respect.

Flashback four years.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was officially appointed as president of the Islamic Republic of Iran in a nationally televised ceremony that came complete with pomp and circumstance. The Supreme Leader, the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, presided over the ceremony. After being graced by The Supreme Leader the new president kissed the Ayatollah's hand and cheek.

In the Middle East, much more so than in the Western world, gestures make a difference. In the Middle East, gestures tell a story.

More than time separates these two ceremonial events. Four years ago Ahmadinejad was able to show respect to The Supreme Leader coupled with warmth and closeness. Four years later, he showed respect. The warmth is gone, the closeness is no longer there.

A kiss on the hand and a kiss on the cheek demonstrate closeness and warmth. A kiss to the shoulder and to the robes demonstrates distance. It shows fear. It shows hierarchy and deference.

During the first ceremony the president was saying through gesture and gesture alone that together we - The Supreme Leader and I - will rule. Days ago, as he was inaugurated for his second term, the president showed acceptance of the true reality of his position. The true ruler of Iran is the Ayatollah and the Ayatollah truly rules alone. He, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad retains his position purely through the graces of The Supreme Leader and for no other reason.

Communicating through gesture is not unique to the Middle East. The difference is that in the Middle East body language does not need interpretation, it is intentional and specific. Leaning forward during a conversation is as significant as leaning back - and it is intentional. Crossing one's legs and showing the sole of one's shoe during conversation is a sure and deliberate sign of disrespect - and when done it is done with intent and with malice. Crossing one's legs with the toe pointed down, however, is a relaxed expression that says lets continue talking, it is especially cordial if accompanied with the gesture of leaning forward and placing one's hands on knees.

Kissing on one cheek or on two cheeks or two kisses on the right hand is a shorthand form of conversation in the Middle East. They are ways in which Middle East Arabs and Persians convey both a sense of affection and an appreciation of status and stature.

A kiss on the cheek means that you are close to that person in soul, in blood and in stature. You kiss the hand of someone who is your superior and you kiss the cloak of someone who is your superior. The cloak is significant in the Middle East because it symbolizes the dust, sand and dirt that would be picked up on the hem of the desert ruler's robes. The hands of the leader are clean and should not be tarnished by a commoners' kiss.

Hand shaking is not a part of Middle East culture, it is a tradition that became incorporated into Western tradition because of Roman tradition. The Romans were all right handed and held their daggers in the left waist of their togas. Their right hand was their dagger hand and so extending it to shake meant that it was a greeting, it meant that the right hand was unarmed and there was no intention to do harm.

In the case of The Supreme Leader and Ahmadinejad we are seeing a president who is clearly contrite. Ahmadinejad was, through gesture and gesture alone, asking forgiveness. The Supreme Leader was creating significant distance. He was letting the entire population of Iran know that he was unhappy with Ahmadinejad's behavior. It was clear to all of Iran that Ahmadinnejad had disregarded a direct order from The Supreme Leader in regard to his vice president. And despite his support of Ahmadinejad in the elections, challenging The Supreme Leader at any time is unacceptable.

Their relationship will mend. Over the past four years Ahmadinejad has on several occasions attempted to wrestled decision making and other powers from The Supreme Leader. At times he succeeded, other times he failed, but in the end it was always success because he Supreme Leader, the Grand Ayatollah, permitted his president to succeed.

The Ayatollah is in charge and Ahmadinejad knows it. We should know it, too.

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Wednesday July 29, 2009

Column:

The young people of Gaza are no different than young people anywhere. They just live under a different set of rules.

Gaza has been under Hamas rule ever since June 2007, when Fatah, the Palestinian ruling party, was booted out in a brutal coup. In several subsequent massacres, Hamas has continued killing off Fatah members living in Gaza.

Summertime in Gaza presents it own unique form of torture. On a normal day the temperatures reach 105 - 110 degrees Fahrenheit. The only reprieve from the sweltering heat in dusty, over crowded Gaza is the beach and the water spouts. Everyone, religious Muslims and secular Muslims, flock to the Gaza beaches in the early evening searching for cool Mediterranean breezes and wet, refreshing waves.

That behavior is about to change. Hamas has begun a religious coercion ritual and initiated a "campaign of virtue." Hamas wants the people of Gaza to live Muslim style lives. One of the most obvious ways of judging that lifestyle is through outward dress and appearance and one of the most obvious places to determine whether or not that behavior is religiously observed is on the beach.

I travel often. I speak at colleges and universities around the country. I lecture to varied communities throughout North America. Periodically, self-described Hamas supporters attend my campus lectures.

The first time this happened I was thrown off balance - but just for a quick second. Then it became clear to me, it made sense. It was not that these students were actively pro-Hamas, they were vehemently anti-Israel.

Most of my potential hecklers have no idea what Hamas really stands for, no knowledge of Hamas' principles or ideology. All they know is that Hamas preaches the ruination and total destruction of Israel, and for them, that is enough. Once I figured it out, it became easy for me to talk to these students and to address them directly. I know what Hamas stands for. And I know that Hamas is very oppressive towards other Palestinians.

I also know that Hamas is first and foremost an extremist religious movement. Only after that is Hamas a terrorist movement. Internal Palestinian politics trump external issues every time. And this is the prefect case scenario.

Hamas wants people to dress modestly and will without hesitation arrest those who violate the law. Hamas' understanding of their position of political authority is directly linked to Iran. In this case, the fact that Iran's religious authority is Shiite and Hamas' religious authority is Sunni makes no difference. Hamas wants to exert that same power and control over their people as Iranian religious leadership exerts over theirs.

Iran has a set of modesty laws that also kick into high gear in the summer, the time when people shed their clothing and with them their political and religious inhibitions. In Iran people are arrested for violating the code and their families are hauled off to jail. In Gaza the virtue police have limited their actions to intimidation, public beatings and humiliations.

Hamas has already demanded that female lawyers wear scarves in court. They have demanded that female mannequins be totally covered. Now they demand that all women be covered up on the beach. Single men and women are forbidden to cohort on the beach.

For good measure Hamas is also demanding that on the beach, men wear shirts. A lifeguard was told by plainclothes security to dress more Islamic and instructed to wear a shirt and have knee length pants. A young man on the beach was emphatically told to remove his rings and his bracelet because they were Western and under Hamas, all Western styles and influences are shunned.

Gaza is gearing up for a culture clash. These are issues that arise annually, but much more so this year as Hamas police patrol the beaches and enforce the new, stricter rules. As the heat builds and the beach becomes more of a magnet, tensions and tempers overheat. Anyone who knows young people knows that today's youth march to a very different cadence than do adults and that rules are meant to be broken.

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Wednesday July 22, 2009

Column:

Americans tend to think of terror as a snake. Slithering, scaly, poisonous, deadly. The analogy works, but only if you think of terror not as a dangerous python or a venomous cobra, it works if you think of terror as the hydra - the many headed serpent from Greek mythology. The monster that was slain by the Greek god Hercules, the monster that grew back two heads each time one was chopped off.

When two luxurious hotels in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, were devastated by a suicide bombing, the CIA was caught off guard. The double bombing of the Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels that killed nine people and wounded over sixty was a clear attack on Western targets. The organizers were clearly members of Jama Islamiya, a splinter organization off al Qaeda. Even before JI publicly claimed responsibility for the attack it was easy to determine that they were the perpetrators, all the indications were there - and not just because this same Marriot hotel was hit in 2003 by this same group, killing twelve people.

Jama Islamiya functions as an off shoot of al Qaeda. Jama Islamiya operatives are trained by al Qaeda. Jama Islamiya members and supporters pledge allegiance to al Qaeda. And the CIA had assumed that JI was defunct.

The CIA assumed that this al Qaeda terrorist arm was no longer in operation. One CIA source even said that Jama Islamiya came out of the grave to hit these two hotels. In a classic mistake of Western allegiance, because the group had been silent, because the proverbial head of the snake had once been removed, the CIA thought the group to be dead. They thought cobra, they should always be thinking hydra.

Cutting off the head - in this case either arresting or killing many JI leaders, undoubtedly did slow down the organization, but it did not kill it. It allowed Jama Islamiya to morph and to grow and to evolve all while under the radar of Western intelligence. Western intelligence, in an act of benign neglect brought on by ignorance and self aggrandizement in essence helped Jama Islamiya carry out this devastating act of terror.

As vivid and romantic and compelling as visions of modern day security operative Sir Galahads killing the snake may be, only Hercules can slay the hydra. Killing and arresting terrorist leaders is the easy part, ridding Indonesia of terror is the difficult part, eradicating terror is a constant battle.

What is also so fascinating about the recent attack is that a significant dimension of the story and the motivation of the terrorists was not played out in American media.

Luxury hotels are obvious targets, Western travelers enjoy luxury hotels around the world. Indonesia is the most populated Muslim country in the world. Indonesia is therefore the perfect place for extremists to ply their trade. But we in the United States live in a bubble and see the world only through our own eyes.

This attack was intended to cause a bigger bang for the terrorist world than it actually did cause. What was missing from media coverage of the bombing was the information that the famed Manchester United team was scheduled to be staying at the Ritz Hotel, there to play against the national team of Indonesia. Manchester United is one of the greatest teams in the soccer world and soccer greatly eclipses all other team sports everywhere in the world outside the United States.

Hundreds of millions of people around the world follow soccer, hundreds of millions. There's more. Manchester United is owned by an American Jew, a businessman named Malcolm Glazer.

Terrorists attack symbols. These terrorists aimed at but missed out on striking two very recognizable symbols - Jewish business and beloved world sports. For the terrorists and terrorist supporters, it was dumb luck that they missed these targets. The rest of the world is grateful.

The world is becoming inured to acts of terror and that is very dangerous. First word of this attack came as reports on twitter. One tweet actually described how, after the attack, people continued to meet and eat in cafes near the site and that scares me.

This attack in Jakarta, perpetrated by Jama Islamiya is an important lesson in the study of terrorist activities. If the security apparatus pays attention it will learn a lot about the bio-rhythm of al Qaeda and al Qaeda splinter groups. The hydra rests, the hydra does not sleep.

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Wednesday July 15, 2009

Column:

The world has become so focused on Iran that we have neglected to pay attention to what is happening in Iraq. That was a mistake. Without our taking any notice, a religious expulsion has been taking place in Iraq. The Christians of Iraq are being murdered, displaced and disgraced.

Twelve years ago, under the reign of Saddam Hussein, about 1.4 million Christians lived in Iraq. Six years later, in 2003, the year the United States entered Iraq, that number dropped to 800,000. Today, another six years later, the German Catholic Relief Organization Kirche puts the number of Christians living in Iraq at 400,000 - 500,000.

Where have the Christians of Iraq gone? They have been decimated, fallen victim to a campaign that systematically intimidates, persecutes and even executes Christians. The plan, instituted by Islamic extremists, forces Iraq's Christian population out of certain neighborhoods, towns, cities and ultimately, out of Iraq.

In attacks against these non-Muslim residents of Iraq the Armenian Church was leveled and the home of the Chaldean Archbishop was bombed. After attacks on Christian-owned businesses the business owners were brutally killed and offered as examples to what can and will happen to other Christian practitioners.

This past week, several Christian churches came under attack. In one incident, a church in Baghdad was bombed moments after completing a religious rite. Several worshippers were killed as they were leaving Sunday Mass. On April 14th, in the town of Mosul, an ancient place once heavily populated by Christians and now almost completely vacated, a Christian father and his family were executed by Muslim extremists. Vehicles have been banned near all churches in the nearby towns of Tilkaif and Hamdaniyah in an attempt to prevent car bombings. These acts of intimidation are having the desired effect.

Christians in Iraq are fearful of retaliation and rightfully so -local Iraqi police are believed to be complicit in these acts. To be fair, the police have taken some actions and even issued precautions during large marches and Muslim memorials in order to protect the Christian minority, but, like in Tilkaif and Hamdaniyah, those moves are more cosmetic than convincing.

Iraq must learn to self-govern and we in the West have taken upon ourselves the responsibility of teaching Iraqis to govern. One lesson we have forgotten, however, is to teach Iraqis that the principle of protecting minority rights is not merely a lofty ideal, it is an obligation, it is one of the building blocks of a society.

The Christian community in Iraq has a long and wondrous history dating back centuries. So did the Jewish community. Once upon a time centuries ago Iraq had a culture that understood minorities and allowed them to flourish. Today, there are no Jews left in Iraq. We cannot let the Christians of Iraq suffer that same fate.

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Tuesday July 7, 2009

Column:

In 1979 a revolution took place in Iran. Thirty years later, in 2009, although many people expected and even hoped for a revolution, the movement never took off.

Let me explain why. The revolution that took place in Iran in 1979, the revolution that overthrew and ousted the Shah from power and placed the Ayatollah Khomeini in power, was religiously based. In 1979 a theocratic state was instituted in Iran and that state is called, to this day, the Islamic Republic.

Without the backing of the clergy, a revolution has no chance of even happening, let alone being successful, in Iran. And in the post-election frenzy that possessed Iran the clergy was conspicuously absent. The mosques were silent, religious leadership was mum.

Iran's clergy had no respect for the Shah of Iran. He disgusted them, he repulsed them. The Shah of Iran was the symbolic representation of everything that was wrong with Iran from the point of view of the religious leadership. Religious loyalty was with an Ayatollah, a dynamic personality and persuasive speaker who was living in Paris - the Ayatollah Khomeini. This Ayatollah was a religious leader who spoke directly to the masses and as a person, he was held in the highest regard by every single Shiite Muslim cleric.

The clergy in Iran today is pleased with their position and with their influence. Over time the Ayatollah Khomeini was replaced by the Ayatollah Khamenei. While the change may be significant for many segments of the population in Iran and worldwide this change is insignificant for Iran's clergy.

The mosques and the Imams were not fomenting a post-election revolt. Very few clergy took a stand in favor of revolt and those who did were seen as political figures rather than religious leaders. Even those clergy who opposed a revolt were seen as political but viewed kindly and as part of the establishment which carries very different currency in Iran.

No one in the religious sphere wanted to oust the religious leadership. No one set their cross hairs on the Grand Ayatollah.

Although he was a protege of the Ayatollah Khomeini, Mir Hussein Mousavi was not worthy of the fight. He may have charisma, but Mousavi does not have the following. He does not have the religious credentials, Mousavi is a former politician, he is a poet and an architect. The clergy of Iran are not about to jeopardize their future for the man who would replace not the Ayatollah, but merely Ahmadinejad, the president.

One of the truly greatest insights and quotes of the Shah of Iran, made famous by Salman Rushdie, was: My biggest mistake was that I stopped paying the clergy. When I paid them they did what I asked. As soon as I stopped they ran to the opposition.

Religion and business run hand in hand in Iran. Without one, the other's power is diminished. And just as Iran's religious leadership was prominently absent from the 2009 revolution that wasn't, so too were Iran's merchants absent. Pivotal to the success of the 1979 Khomeini revolt was the backing of the merchant class.

Iran is a merchant-run society and the merchant class is far more significant and carries much more clout than do students or doctors or lawyers. Professionals and intellectuals have their place in Iran, but the movers and shakers are the merchants.

By definition Iranian merchants tend to be conservative. They have strong values and are motivated by business and family. Although the reformers advocated for a leadership that was more economically responsible it was a message that did not resonate with the merchant class.

The merchants were not convinced. And without merchants you have a movement with no financial backing.

No religious backing, no support from the merchant class and a move to overthrow not the religious leader but merely his mouthpiece, the president. That is not a recipe for success. And the Ayatollah understood it from the outset.

That understanding underscores why The Supreme Leader deliberately ordered the police to be very precise and to exercise restraint. Had too much blood been spilled the ire of the masses, the concern of the clergy and the pockets of the merchants might have tipped the balance and turned passionate demonstrating into true revolution. The Ayatollah would have none of that.

And that explains why the Iranian revolution of 1979 did not repeat itself in 2009.

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Wednesday July 1, 2009

Column:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does not make empty threats.

Last week the president of Iran threatened the president of Azerbaijan. Using his foreign minister as a mouthpiece, Ahmadinejad threatened to severely punish Azerbaijan if the official visit of Israeli President Shimon Peres was not cancelled.

The official visit went on as planned. And this week the Iranian ambassador to Azerbaijan was called home.

Shimon Peres, undaunted by the diplomatic curve he had been thrown Azerbaijan, continued on to the Central Asian country of Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan is a burgeoning country. It has a blossoming economy and its influence in the Muslim world is substantial and growing more substantial. Kazakhstan is a country in the right place, with the right natural resources, at the right time in history.

Kazakhstan is the 2nd largest producer of uranium in the world and has, by far, the largest uranium reserves in Eurasia. The only country that has more uranium than Kazakhstan is Australia, but Australia can never wield the influence over the Muslim world that Kazakhstan can wield. Nuclear energy speaks volumes in today's world.

Shimon Peres had multiple agendas in going to Kazakhstan. One of those reasons was expanding relations between Israel and a significant Muslim country. Another reason had to do with nuclear energy. Peres wanted assurances that Kazakhstan would not be supplying nuclear fuel to Iran. The promises were received, but promises from Kazakhstan are not completely reliable.

Last year I wrote about a train that departed from Kyrgyzstan, crossed into Kazakhstan and then crossed the border into Uzbekistan where it was intercepted and stopped. The train was making its way to Iran. The train was filled with uranium. It had already traveled through and crossed over the entire Kazakh before it was stopped on the Uzebeki side of the border.

The Uzebeki border guards were shocked to find the uranium. They sent it back and alerted the Kazakh government. In retrospect, that was probably not the wisest move. According to most people in the know, including International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohammed el Baradei, Kazakhstan is one of the most nuclear-trafficked states in the world.

Uranium is for Kazakhstan what oil is for Saudi Arabia. Every country will want it, many countries will need it and Kazakhstan will be one of the only countries that has it. Estimates for the revenue Kazakhstan will reap exporting their natural resource are coming in high, as high as $15 - $20 billion a year for this sleepy little Asian Muslim country.

Central Asia is the future battlefield for the conflict between East and West. It is where Islam retains a strong moderate tradition, it is also where the Fundamentalist population is growing. Kazakhstan realizes that it is coming of age and that it will very soon be in control of the world's supply of nuclear fuel much the same way OPEC is in control of the world's oil production and supply.

We must keep a very close eye on Kazakhstan. We must nurture the Kazakhs and help them grow responsibly. We must cultivate a deep and trusting relationship with Kazakhstan. We must make every effort to lure Kazakhstan away from Iranian influences. If Kazakhstan falls under the influence of Iran the results will be cataclysmal for the Western world.

That is why Iran's president saw fit to make threats. It is why Israel's president thought it wise to pay a visit.

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Wednesday June 24, 2009

Column:

Think of a word that expresses the ideal for which the Western world strives.
That word would be "democracy."

Think of a concept that epitomizes a dream for all Westerners.
That concept would be "freedom."

Think of a game that emblemizes the way Westerners chase after that ideal and live out that dream.
That game is "follow the leader."

As independent as we think we are, we in the West look to leaders to rally us forward and define our purpose. For Westerners, especially in the United States, every movement needs a face.

Good movements or bad movements, ideological movements or religious movements, self help movements or mass demonstration movements - every movement needs a leader, every movement needs a face.

Americans join the army because Uncle Sam asks us to. Americans slim down because Tommy Lasorda, Valerie Bertinelli or Oprah ask us to. Our leaders shape our world by shaping our ideas.

We cannot understand Islamic terror, so we focus on Osama bin Laden. We cannot understand the complex tribal balance between Arab groups, so we focus on Saddam Hussein. We cannot understand Hezbollah, so we focus on Nasrallah. We cannot understand the thirst for freedom, so we focus on twenty-six year old Neda Agha-Soltan lying dead in the street. We cannot understand a government so willing to strip away the freedoms of its citizens, so we focus on Mir Hussein Mousavi.

We cannot understand, even our supreme leader, our president, does not completely understand, but we should try.

The power of the events now unfolding in Iran has revealed the true Iran. The curtain has been lifted and we must allow the reality of life and governance and religious control in Iran to take hold in our minds and in the minds of our leaders, our decision makers, the faces we look up to and follow.

The execution of Neda, shot through the heart by Iranian secret security sniper fire has outraged the world. Neda's death is proof positive that the leadership of Iran is not about to either reform or to liberalize. And as that reality sinks in we must also realize that no matter who the elected face of government in Iran belongs to, nothing will change.

Mir Hussein Mousavi's greatest contribution to the movement that we think he leads is that he is not Mohammad Ahmadinejad. The biggest difference between Mousavi and Ahmadinejad is that Mousavi wears nicely cut pinstripe suits and Ahmadinejad wears polyester leisure suits.

The people of Iran had their cause, they had their movement. They were not looking for a leader - they were looking to express themselves in a peaceful manner. They went out to vote, not riot. And then they went out to peacefully demonstrate, not violently revolt.

But the West could not understand what was happening. So the Western media chose a face for the people of Iran, and that faced belonged to Mousavi. The media chose Mousavi not for Iranians - they knew all along that all the candidates were one and the same, they chose him so that the West would have a face and therefore be able to understand the movement taking place in Iran.

Iranians are upset not because Ahmadinejad was declared winner in this election and Mousavi was not, they are upset because Ahmadinejad was proclaimed to have won a landslide victory. And that means that their votes were not even counted. Ahmadinejad might have honestly won the election, but not by that large a margin.

The Supreme Leader miscalculated, and he knows it. And that is why Iran has exhibited so much patience in dealing with this internal crisis. That is why so few protesters have died so far. Hundreds of graves, rectangles dug into the earth, have been prepared for the violence. The family of one victim was told that they
could not receive their loved one's body for burial unless they paid for the cost of the bullets used to kill him. The sum they were given was equivalent to $3000. Thankfully, most other graves remain open and unused.

Other countries in the region would not have behaved with such restraint. Egypt and Jordan, friends of the West, would never have permitted these protests to continue. By now, Syria would have massacred thousands of protesters making it clear from the outset that protests are not permitted.

And if Mousavi were in office, he would do the same. As prime minister of Iran Mousavi was responsible for 7,000 deaths by execution of Iranians who challenged the authority. Under Mousavi the fatwah, the religious edict calling for the death of Salman Rushdie was issued. Mousavi, the face the West has chosen to represent freedom from Iranian persecution, called upon all Iranians to kill the author on sight.

In the West we need leaders to propel our movements. In non-Western countries leaders inhibit movement.

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Wednesday June 17, 2009

Column:

The light has finally gone on in American foreign policy vis a vis Iran. The token has finally fallen into place. The president is finally speaking about Iran in terms that prove that he, Barack Obama, really, finally, understands Iran.

In remarks that were on target and accurate, soundbites that reflect good advice and sound judgment about the crisis in Iran. President Obama said: "It's important to understand that although there is amazing ferment taking place in Iran, the difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi, in terms of their actual policies, may not be as great as has been advertised..."

He said: "Either way we were going to be dealing with an Iranian regime that has historically been hostile to the United States, that has caused problems in the neighborhood and is pursuing nuclear weapons."

And in discussing the real differences between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir Hussein Mousavi he said that those differences: "[M]ay not be as great as has been advertised." That is an understatement of the highest order, but at least the truth has finally been spoken by the American president.

Obama is acknowledging, explaining to the people of the United States of America, that when it comes to the big issues, to the issues that mist directly affect the United States - to nuclear development and to religion, that there is little to no difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi. Both candidates are insiders. Both candidates were vetted by the religious council of Iran and chosen as four out of four hundred other wannabe candidates to be the mouthpiece of the real leader of Iran, The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. And why? Because both Ahmadinejad and Mousavi represent the mullahs of Iran and both Mousavi and Ahmadinejad respect the religious establishment that is Iran.

So, one might rightfully ask, if Ahmadinejad and Mousavi are so similar, why is there such a public row in the street of Teheran? If they are both the same, what difference does it make who wears the mantle?

The answer is actually very simple. The one great difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi is that Mousavi is not Ahmadinejad. Iranians are tired of Ahamdinejad. The sheer fact that Mousavi is not Ahmadinejad was enough to motivate Iranians to vote for the one and against the other. Anyone would have beat out Ahmadinejad if this were a real election. But a real election it was not.

The vote against Ahmadinejad was a rejection of the religious leadership of Iran. That holds true despite the fact the Mousavi represents the same religious leadership. The vote against Ahmadinejad was a rejection of the role played by the political leadership within Iran. That holds true despite the fact that Mousavi has also held political office, serving as prime minister under the founder of the Revolution, the Ayatollah Khomeini.

As they were casting their votes every Iranian knew that the only vote that would count would be the one cast by The Supreme Leader. They knew it as well as Mousavi knew it.
They knew that the only way Mousavi would win the election would be if The Supreme Leader was convinced that Mousavi would be an even more willing and convincing messenger than Ahmadinejad had been.

The people tried to convince The Supreme Leader. The Supreme Leader was not swayed. Their message was not convincing enough. The people tried hard and they have not given up trying. They are paying with their freedom and with their lives.

Here again, finally, President Obama is showing knowledge heretofore unseen. "I do believe that something has happened in Iran," he said. "There is a questioning of the kinds of antagonistic postures towards the international community that have taken place in the past and that there are people who want to see greater openness and greater debate and want to see greater democracy."

And Obama is beginning to understand The Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei and the real monopoly he holds over the lives of the Iranian people. He hinted that the Ayatollah might actually have insight and influence when he said that the Supreme Leader "indicates he understands the Iranian people have deep concerns about the election."

There are a few things I will never understand. Why the president chose a midday show on CNBC as the platform from which to broadcast the most important and profound statements he has made about Iran since the days leading up to and following the election, is beyond me. CNBC is watched, depending on the day of the week and the time of day, by between 20,000 and 300,000 people. More people watch the local evening news in Akron, Ohio than watch daytime CNBC.

And why it took until Tuesday, five days after the Iranian election, for the president to show us that he has finally been briefed by someone who really knows what is happening is another unsolvable.

As they say, better later than never.

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Wednesday June 10, 2009

Column:

Strategy. Tactics. Move and countermove. Sometimes it's called chess, sometimes it's called diplomacy.

Foreign policy and international relations aside, United States President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Bibi Netanyahu are now engaged in a game of chess. And no, the pawns in this game are not the Palestinian people or Palestinian nationhood. The pawn in this game is a relationship forged long ago between two countries with many significant shared values and principles.

Obama and Netanyahu each have their own philosophy of fair play. Right now, they are trying to psyche each other out. And as in any game of chess, sacrifices will be made. In this game, sacrifices are being made in order to gain better position and advantage and at times, even to give an impression of changing style and attitude and strategy.

The game is being played over the idea of a Two State Solution, an idea that Obama is pushing hard and Netanyahu cannot accept.

The Israeli prime minister has repeatedly rejected the term Two State Solution while the American president speaks of it as a sine qua non. So where do they go from here?

The president made an important speech on June 4th in Cairo. The prime minister will be making his own important speech, a counter speech,on Sunday at Bar Ilan University. In his speech, Netanyahu will speak about Palestinian self rule. He will stress the importance of Palestinian self rule. He will speak of the necessity of building an infrastructure for a state. He will say that it is a time to build, not to destroy. He will be playing tactical semantics.

For Netanyahu, Palestinian self rule is synonymous with Two State Solution. Palestinian self rule is a term he can live with, Two State solution is a term he cannot bring home to his ruling coalition.

Netanyahu has a difficult needle to thread. The Israeli leader knows how important the issue of Palestinian nationhood is for the United States and for the president of the United States. He also knows that he is the prime minister of a parliamentary government which is very different from the republic of the United States. And he knows full well that his coalition is in place in large part because he chose to include two parties who will not - under any circumstances, support a Two State Solution. These two parties represent only a sliver of Israeli society, but a very vocal and now important of Israeli society. The overwhelming majority of Israel, 78% of Israel, supports the Two State Solution.

But even that 78% has a caveat. Their support is conditional upon their own security and survival.

So Netanyahu will finesse the term. If he pushes his coalition too hard, he will fall and no longer be prime minister. If he does not pursue the matter he will fall from the good graces of the United States and jeopardize US support for Israel, especially US military support. The Obama Two State Solution plan has already been proposed and drafts have been given to Israel, Egypt and the Palestinians. The Egyptians have invited all Arab foreign ministers to a meeting on June 17th to discuss the plan and to make certain that they are all on board.

Here we have it. Netanyahu will be able to finesse his way through the Two State Solution and the Arab world will back the Two State Solution and the United States will be thrilled with the Two State Solution - so wherein lies the problem?

The biggest problem is that there is no real infrastructure within the Palestinian Authority and without infrastructure there is no way to create a state. The Palestinians do not have their bureaucracies in place not for justice, or police, or education, health or self governance. The Palestinians have not yet erected the building blocks of a state.

The next biggest problem is Hamas. If a Palestinian state were to be declared in the West Bank tomorrow or in two months or two years from tomorrow, there is little doubt that as Gaza went, so will the West Bank go. Within six months Hamas will take over, ousting Fatah in a coup and asserting their role as Muslim extremists and establishing a terror state.

The same 78 % of Israel that supports the idea of a Two State Solution knows full well that until the Palestinian Authority can control Hamas it will be impossible to avoid the Hamas state. And that they reject - and so to does the rest of the Arab world. Neither Arab leaders nor the Arab street want Hamas to take control. The only player unconcerned by the lack of Palestinian infrastructure and the rise of Hamas is the United States. It is a part of the greater game plan that the United States considers to be neither likely nor serious.

Netanyahu will do what it takes to protect his people and pacify his friends. But he will not allow his country to be checkmated.

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Wednesday June 3, 2009

Column:

Let it be known that, first and foremost, the Obama Doctrine for the Middle East is a doctrine for and about the United States. It is the personal wish list of this president of the United States.

President Barack Obama and his team of advisors, envoys and mediators are acting in the best interest of the United States and of the United States only. The people who conceived of and the people implementing the Obama Doctrine do not have a mutual interest - or even a partial interest - in what benefits Israel.

True, they would be saddened should something catastrophic happen to Israel but the ultimate security of Israel is not primary in their minds. Israel's safety and Israel's security is purely in the hands of Israel. Right now, the United States will not move a dingy, a toy soldier, or a paper airplane to assist an Israel in crisis.

The intent of this new doctrine is to resurrect the status of the United States, to reshape the power base of the United States and to reposition the influence of the United States in the Arab and Muslim worlds. The Obama Doctrine for the Middle East is a classic replay of geo-politics.

Barack Obama wants to even out the playing field. And in making things even the special relationship between Israel and the United States is automatically diminished. Significantly diminished. And the Obama Doctrine is already in play.

The historic foray into the Middle East embarked upon by the Obama entourage visits four Middle East countries - and Israel is not one of them. The trip to Israel would have been an easy sashay over the Egyptian border, the most significant stop on the trip. Instead, Israel is being snubbed, ignored, diplomatically reprimanded.

The rationale is that a broader US coalition in the Middle East will make for a safer Israel and that a safer region is a safer Israel. The logic is that if, in the long run, Israel will be safer, who can argue with the means through which this happens. Stating his thesis even more pointedly, Obama asserts that only good friends can be so brutally honest with one another. His objective is to apply pressure on the Israeli populace to force their prime minister to buckle under US pressure and to accommodate this new doctrine. Obama is dangling the special Israel/US relationship in the faces of Israelis assuming that they will care so passionately about the relationship that it will override the traditional skepticism that has been so ingrained in the Israeli psyche and that has kept their nation alive until now.

The fact is that there are more Muslims and more Arabs than there are Israelis and Jews in this world. In the end, the Obama camp will cast aside shared values, issues of mutual benefit and past special relationships for the sake of the massive numbers represented by the Muslim and Arab states. It is a quotient somewhat familiar to those students of history and diplomacy who watched the United States cast off a relationship with Hong Kong in favor of a new relationship with Mainland China.

When the inevitable danger befalls Israel in the near term, Israel will be prepared. But Israeli military superiority cannot last long because the qualitative edge that Israel holds is often due to the weapons received from the United States. Will it happen before or after the fall of the Obama Doctrine, I cannot say.

But the Obama Doctrine for the Middle East will, inevitable, fail.

It will fail because Hamas will overpower Fatah and take charge of both the West Bank and Gaza.

It will fail because Israelis will not support Obama over Bibi if only because of the Holocaust mentality and Masada complex which is part and parcel of the Israeli nation.

It will fail because, despite Obama, the Arab world will not trust the United States.

It will fail because Arab leaders cannot believe the naivete of Barack Obama regarding Iran and they cannot believe that the president of the United States will move ahead and try to befriend Iran over the Arabs.

No matter how charming and how powerful his speeches are, no matter how powerful or poetic his rhetoric, the Obama Doctrine in the Middle East will fail. I just hope it doesn't take too many casualties along the way.

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Tuesday May 26, 2009

Column:

President Barack Obama's desire for change is admirable, but it is also dangerous. It is especially dangerous when he reaches out and embraces other nations and cultures. Especially, in the Middle East.

The buzz has begun on the Obama Middle East doctrine. The speech is still in the formation stages, but it has already had a huge impact on events in the region.

The chosen date is June 4th. The chosen venue is Cairo. It began during the presidential campaign and has been repeated over the last 100+ days. Obama advisers have promised a broad, far reaching presentation aimed at putting into perspective the desires, intentions and ambitions of the United States for the Middle East. In short, this address will speak of the changes that President Barack Obama hopes to wrest from the Israel, the Palestinians, Iran and the nations, cultures and religions of the Middle East region.

The concept of such a speech is as grand as it is tactically well intentioned. Barack Hussein Obama has chosen an Arab center of power from which to reach out to the Muslim world and explain where the United States stands on important issues. In his own way, Obama is restoring to Egypt the grandeur of days long gone, re-asserting the power and presence of Egypt in today's historic and diplomatic context.

Obama will not lay out details of an Israeli/Palestinian peace, the White House made that clear last week. He will mention it and he will emphasize the US conception of a Two State Solution and he will stress the need for Palestinians to have their own, independent state, one that lies next door to Israel and lives there is peace.

He will talk about terror and about freedom and about Iran and about Iran’s race to acquire nuclear technology. He will speak of advancement and of culture, of sharing and learning and understanding. The speech will be very polished and very well delivered - that is the Obama way. And the president of the United States will probably include phrases in Arabic and perhaps even begin his address with an Arabic verse from the Koran. He will not speak in Pharsi, the language of Iran. And much of what he says will fall on deaf ears.

As smart a tactical move as making this speech is, as good as it will look and sound from the point of view of the United States and the West, the impact of this grand maneuvering, of this speech, will be, at best, negligible in the Muslim world. At worst, it will be dangerous.

The Muslim world is divided into three parts. Part one is looking for a ray of light, of hope, of change, from the United States. Part two can never see or hear or experience anything positive from the United States. Part three, the majority of the Muslim world, requires much more than a well spoken, well intentioned, grandstanding speech from the president of the United States of America to impact the way they view US/Muslim interaction.

Despite the good intentions and the positive aspects of the speech, it will bring about no serious change in US/Muslim interaction. By definition, it cannot.

Arab and Muslim cultures are deeply informed by myths and historical narratives. Those narratives take a long time to develop and to seep into the culture. They may be and often are based on half truths and incorrect, revisionist, history but they are a part of the collective memory of the region and of the entire culture.

And part of the currently held myth is that the United States and Israel are inextricably bound together. The myth propagates the idea that the US protects Israel and oppresses the Arab and the Muslim. Part of the myth is that Israel is grabbing Arab land and that Israel is intent on the destruction of the Arab people and Muslim/Arab culture.

Iran has already rejected everything Obama is about to propose, even before the words have been said. Iran has no desire to reach out and grab the Obama gesture. Rather, Iranians exploit Obama's gesture and use it as cover for their own duplicitous end in acquiring nuclear capabilities. Iran understands Obama, realizes how weighty his words will be to part of the Muslim world and knows that they can be the counter weight to this message.

As he ascends the literal platform to deliver his address in the heart of the Arab world, Obama is handing over a figurative platform to enemies of the West. And that is dangerous and damaging.

For Iran, the Obama message is a message of assimilation and a Western cultural attack against Islam. For Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah it is emboldening. The warming period that Obama has extended to these rogues has given them the opportunity, means and motives to act more boldly and become more powerful.

I admire Obama's desire for change, but the Arab world is not the United States.

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Wednesday May 20, 2009

Column:

It happened because it had to happen, because history dictated that it happen.

Barack Obama, the newly elected President of the United States of America and Benjamin Bibi Netanyahu, the newly resurrected Prime Minister of Israel, were fated to meet. The meeting had historical precedence. The meeting had diplomatic overtones. And like historical precedence and like diplomatic two steps, the meeting yielded nothing except for another page written into history and another diplomatic gesture politely completed.

Think tactics, not strategy. The changes in the administrations brought about under the leadership of both Obama and Netanyahu will be tactical changes, not strategic changes. To think otherwise is to be naïve and overly optimistic.

The changes we will see will be in the attainment of short term goals, not long term objectives. Both men acted maturely and stately. The tensions that were expected were present, but only minimally. They heard each other out. They shared and they discussed for one hundred and five minutes. And they both leaned a little.

They learned about each other and about each other's agenda. And because they were engaged in discussion and dialogue, not in debate, they actually heard what the other had to say. In the end, Netanyahu confirmed what he knew about Obama the man and came away reassured about Obama the leader vis a vis his take on Iran. Netanyahu came away so reassured on that one important issue that he was quoted as saying that "the US and Israel see eye to eye on Iran" and since the meeting, Obama has repeated more than once, that Iran must not be allowed to acquire military nuclear power.

The Palestinians are another matter. As part of their give and take, their point and counterpoint discussion, Obama made his case for a Palestinian state to be created now. And Netanyahu, the consummate orator, treated Obama to a brief course on Israel’s reservations about creating a Palestinian state at this juncture. There was nothing new in the material that either the American president or the Israeli prime minister delivered over, but the time, the place and mutual respect between these two Western leaders required that it be said and said in its entirety.

They spoke, they listened, they changed nothing. Not at the White House, that is. On Capitol Hill Netanyahu who had been courting the Hill was greeted with great fanfare - and with frankness. Much as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had done, John Kerry, Chairman of the Senatorial Committee on Foreign Relations made it very clear that the United States is in favor of creating a Palestinian state and that the United States wants Israel to cease settlement building.

America wants a two state solution and so do the vast majority, over seventy percent, of Israelis. That comes as no surprise, but it does come with a bit of a problem. The problem for Israeli leadership, aka Bibi Netanyahu, is that in order for Israel to sign off on a Palestinian state there must be real safeguards, not theoretical safeguards, within the Palestinian government. And right now, there are no safeguards of any kind.

Looking out on the Palestinian horizon there is no leader who can control the Palestinian factions. Looking past the horizon the only figure to emerge would be Marwan Barghouti, but he is serving a term in an Israeli prison for his role in terror attacks against Israelis. In the absence of a real leader it will be almost impossible to reign in the various Palestinian factions in. Without a real Palestinian leader it will be impossible to strike a blow against Hamas and return Hamas to its proper place in the Palestinian hierarchy. And without a real leader the Palestinians will never be able to invest in building the institutions that will help pull them out of the muck and mire and into the modern technological world.

Despite their desire for a Palestinian state to be established, US senators realize the dilemma of the situation. And that is why, in a letter addressed to the president they wrote that they hoped he would "promote far greater involvement and participation by the Arab states both in moving toward normal ties with Israel and in encouraging moderate Palestinian elements."

Creating a Palestinian state takes vision, not history. The meeting between Obama and Netanyahu was historic. The meeting between Obama and Netanyahu was not visionary.

The relationship between Israel and the US remains very strong.

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Wednesday May 13, 2009

Column:

The pressure is on for a Two State Solution. Almost everyone, from east to west, is hounding Israel's new prime minister, pushing and pushing hard.

The UN Security Council issued a statement advancing the idea.

Egypt clearly and directly stated their point of view in a face to face meeting with Netanyahu in Sharm el Sheik.

Jordan's King Abdullah is calling for it. The European Union. Spain. The Czech Republic. President of the United States Barack Obama and General James Jones, his National Security Adviser, are endorsing it.

The only voices not heard advocating for a Two State Solution are the voice of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and the voice of Hamas.

The question we need to ask is "why?" Why are so many countries and so many world leaders so very interested in a Two State Solution. There are as many answers as there are countries. Each country has its own agenda, its own special interests, its own selfish reasons for wanting the Israelis and Palestinians to live side-by-side, state-along-state, sharing and in harmony.

King Abdullah of Jordan has a one word reason for pushing towards a Two State Solution. War. For the past year the Jordanian monarch has been repeating the same refrain: it is essential that there be a resolution, a peaceful resolution, a Two State Resolution because the alternative is war. He has said that if there is no resolution within a year, the Palestinians and Israelis will be at war.

So far, the King's prediction has not panned out. In fact, as far as war goes, the Palestinians are closer to a civil war than an Israeli/Palestinian war. And as far as an Israeli/Palestinian war goes, there is less likelihood of that happening now than there was a year ago. In fact, the head of Israel's Military Intelligence, Amos Yadlin, just testified before his Knesset committee saying "the likelihood of war with the Palestinians within the next year is low."

The US National Security Adviser explained the American point of view while interviewed on a recent Sunday morning talk show. Jones explained that the United States supports the idea of two states and then took it a giant step forward. He said that solving the problem of Palestinian/Israeli tensions would help reduce the problem of Iranian nuclear tension. It's an interesting theory, but the NSA chief is way off the mark. His first error is in his analysis, his second error is in turning his analysis into political posturing. It's embarrassing.

There is absolutely no connection between Iran and the Palestinians and certainly, there is no connection at all with Iran's nuclear program. Iran pays tribute to the Palestinian issue but does nothing to advance the Palestinian cause. Iran offers words and words only to the Palestinians and when it comes to the Palestinians the word of the Iranian government is nothing more than hot air. And the Palestinians are happy that way.

Mainstream Palestinians reject Iran and reject Ahmadinejad. Only Hamas supports Iran. Mainstream Palestinians reject Iran's message and Iran's culture. The Palestinians view the Iranians as heretics. The Palestinians are not alone in their opinion of Iran.

The entire Arab world views Iranian support for the Palestinian cause as a façade. They view it as a tool used by Iran to advance its own objectives and primary among Iran's objectives is to be positioned as the leader of the Muslim world.

Sadly, President Obama's most important and influential adviser, James Jones, buys into Iran's rhetoric. And if Jones cannot realize that simple truth about Iran it calls into question some of the most critical decisions taken and to be taken by the United States regarding the Middle East region. The Saudis are livid. The Egyptians are fuming. The United States has shown itself to be ignorant of the machinations that run the Middle East.

The 50 state large United States has no idea of what a Two State Solution means.

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Tuesday May 5, 2009

Column:

The equation is simple: pirates capture, companies pay.

Millions and millions of dollars have been paid out as ransom to pirates who capture vessels on the high sea. The story has repeated itslef many times over the past few months. The glaring turth is that the modern world is extremely under-prepared to battle piracy.

The world has changed, but piracy hasn't.

Centuries ago civilized nations were held hostage by pirates, much as we are today. Centuries ago civilized nations were virtually powerless to act against piracy, much as we are today. Centuries ago it was fear that gripped the civilized world, today, that fear is mixed with law.

Historically piracy was never considered political. It was never seen as a form of terror. It was seen through the prism of thievery. Pirates were self motivated. They wanted money. They still want money. But in today's world, if pirates are helping a government and that government, in turn, helps them continue to kidnap ships the law says that the pirates are outside the boundary of the the international law of the high seas and of UNCLOS.

The UN Convention on the Law Of the Sea (UNCLOS) defines piracy as
"any illegal acts of violence or detention, committed for private ends by the crew or passengers of a private ship"
"on the high seas"
"outside the jurisdiction of any state"
This is the definition of piracy as laid down in international law. It is Article 101 a,b,c. It is simple, direct and woefully incomplete.

Imagine this situation: a NATO ship captures an entire pirate crew, captures them red handed, with their weapons, with the goods and even saves the day by freeing the hostages and returning the captured vessel to the crew. After a spectacular rescue the NATO team has the pirates and the pirate vessel. The crack NATO team confiscates the weapons, searches for more weapons, finds and takes those, too and then - then the NATO team releases the pirates. Why? Because according to the law NATO does not have jurisdiction. NATO cannot arrest pirates, NATO cannot bring pirates to trial and NATO cannot punish pirates.

The reality is that legally, not only NATO has no jurisdiction. Almost no country will arrest pirates, that is the unwritten rule of the sea and it is a rule that pirates know well. The exception to that rule is in those rare cases in which the rescue team is from the same country as the captured crew. In other words, the only way that pirates will be arrested is if, by chance, the host nation is around and sails to the rescue. Why? Because that way there is no jurisdictional challenge. And that almost never happens.

According to this inadequate definition of piracy, the Somalian pirates plying their trade within the territorial waters of Somalia, are not practising piracy. And according to this definition, pirates who pay tribute to local governments and leadership are not practising piracy either. The act of paying tribute transforms the illegal action from an international act to a local act. Jurisdiction is then covered locally because the pirates have linked themselves to a particular cause and political leader. In the eyes of the law they have been transformed from money and booty seekers to political or governmental activists.

These laws must be changed.

These antiquated perceptions of piracy help the pirate, defend the pirate and lend no incentive to stop the pirate.

When looking at the situation around Somalia it becomes clear that the Somalian government is powerless. The government of Somalia is too weak to stop the piracy and the government of Somalia does not want to stop the piracy because the government gains from the piracy. Rather than stop the pirates, local governments offer the pirates protection, safe haven and refuge.

During the 19th century Barbary Pirates ruled the seas. Civilized countries paid regular ransoms to insure that either their ships were protected in advance or that the vessels would return safely after being boarded and abducted. It was Teddy Roosevelt who said enough, and charged the United States Marine Corps with the responsibility of crushing piracy. Rooselvelt asserted that neither the free world nor the world economy should be brought to its knees by a handful of sea pirates.

The Marine Corps is still capable of handling the job. They just need international law behind them. The time has come to update the law and put down the piracy.

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Tuesday April 28, 2009

Column:

Change, the central theme of the Obama campaign, is now insinuating itself into Middle East policy.

The LA Times recently reported that the Obama administration has asked Capitol Hill to change the law on Hamas. If the president was asking for only slight alterations, even a few cosmetic modifications to the way the United States handles Hamas, Congress might let it slide. But no, this is true change, big change.

As it now stands, it is against the law in the United States to send money that in any way will benefit Hamas either directly or even indirectly. US funds may not support the terrorist organization Hamas or the terrorists of Hamas. Congress has been very clear on this matter. So clear on this matter that Congress came to their decision without the prodding of the "Israel Lobby" or any other "pro" Israel group.

The change President Barack Obama is requesting would alter bedrock assumptions about Hamas and terror. It would permit Hamas' people to be part of a Palestinian unity government if the individuals themselves were not terrorists, just leaders of a terrorist organization.

For the United States Congress, this distinction will not be about political expedience. It will not be about prevailing winds. For Congress it is not a test of friendship between the United States and Israel. Should the Obama change be implemented that friendship will change quickly and completely, perhaps irrevocably.

The men and women on The Hill view dealings with Hamas, the avowed and acknowledged terrorist organization, as an issue of right and wrong. Israel is right and Hamas is wrong. Congress was not planning on altering its stance vis a vis Hamas until Hamas altered its stances on what Congress considers four essential givens. Hamas must recognize Israel's right to exist, must renounce terror, must actively try to prevent terror, must agree to abide by and honor previous agreements. If change of any sort was expected, it was expected to come from Hamas, not from the United States.

Congress is not alone. These four stipulations were laid down by the Quartet the last time an opportunity arose for Hams to join a Palestinian Unity government. The Quartet, a group composed of Russia, the European Union, the United States and the United Nations, is not what anyone could call an overly demanding group when it comes to making demands on Hamas. But even then Hamas was unwilling to meet the demands.

So why does this administration want to bring about this change? The Obama administration likes to look at things, even tried and true, iron clad, basic rules of diplomacy, differently. The Obama administration wants to challenge "what has always been done" and transform it into "what we are now doing."

In some ways challenging basic issues and ideas is refreshing. But it can also be dangerous. And the people who will be paying the price for this particular change in policy towards Hamas don't live in Washington D.C. they live in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ashkelon and Sderot. It is Israelis who will be paying the price for Barack Obamas' creative zeal. The new kids on Pennsylvania Avenue will be sitting back, watching their experiment play out from a safe and comfortable distance.

The White House's argument is that they are doing this out of their love and commitment for Israel. They will say that this is not an anti Israel stance, that it is an incentive package for Hamas.

Hamas will not change because Hamas does not want to change. Hamas will neither stop terror nor renounce terror. Hamas may pretend to be a political organization, but terror is their trade. Hamas will not accept Israel. That is clear. And now, in the midst of this era of new ideas, it is becoming clearer and clearer that neither will the present day ruling faction within the Palestinian Authority.

Just a few weeks ago Mohamed Dahlan, probably the second most publicly recognized person in Fatah and second only to Mahmoud Abbas, clearly stated that just because the government had to accept Israel, it does not automatically follow that Fatah, the ruling party in the PA, must accept Israel. The government needs to recognize Israel because of world politics, but that fact does not reflect a change in the policy of Fatah.

And now Abbas is even challenging the principle of recognizing Israel as a Jewish state as a sine qua non for movement in the peace process. Abbas came out and said "no" it is not. He said "they can call themselves what they want but I do not have to accept it. I do not accept it and I say it publicly."

The White House, the Palestinian Authority and Israel are about to go head to head to head. It will all come to a head in May when Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu makes his first visit to Washington. The real battle will be waged on Capitol Hill. If the White House successfully convinces the Hill to adopt this new approach towards Hamas it will lead to a revolutionary period in United States diplomacy and the attitude of the United States toward Israel.

If Congress does not stand strong, Israel will truly be all alone. All those ideas of peace and two states will be gone, off the table until some day in the distant future. If Congress does not stand strong hope of containing Hamas inspired terror will be gone. Hamas will emerge stronger and empowered. But true to its mandate, the Obama administration will have brought about change.

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Tuesday April 21, 2009

Column:

On Sunday April 19th, on the day that was Adolf Hitler's birthday, Hans Rudolf-Merz, the president of Switzerland, met with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran.

On Monday, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an avowed Holocaust denier, addressed the forum at the UN sponsored Durban II conference held in Geneva.

On Monday members of Western delegations, in attendance at the conference, walked out of the hall as an unfazed, unflustered, uncaring Ahmadinejad spouted his rhetoric, lambasting Israel and the United States of America.

On Monday night, Jews world over began marking Holocaust Memorial Day.

What were they thinking? What were the planners of the conference and what were the handlers of the Swiss president thinking?

The Iranian leader was invited to give the keynote address at the conference and took every advantage of the opportunity to spew terrible hatred and bald faced lies - his mainstay rhetoric and public pronouncements. Representatives from 24 Western nations walked out on Ahmadinejad.

The European Union, in attendance only as observers, walked out.

Jordan, repulsed by what was being said, walked out.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, host of the event, stayed seated but released a statement. The secretary general condemned the Iranian leader's speech and pointed out that, in advance of the address, he had spoken to Ahmadinejad and made it clear that the United Nations has officially repealed the Zionism is racism pronouncement and has affirmed the historical reality of the Holocaust.

In the end, the keynote speaker was the only head of state remaining in the room. And you want to know what Ahmadinejad was thinking? He was pleased. He had made his point. And Ahmadinejad continued on, regurgitating the same hate filled lies.

The Western world and even some members of the Arab world, made a point of walking out on Ahmadinejad and the president of Switzerland made a point of welcoming him into his country.

Hans Rudolf-Merz justified his meeting with the Holocaust denier and rabid anti-Semite Ahmadinejad by repeating the by now overused and incorrect cliche that Switzerland is a neutral country, that as a neutral country Switzerland embraces the idea of maintaining open channels and talking to everyone in order to properly facilitate negotiations between battling parties.

It is the same empty cliche that the Swiss used during World War II to avoid saving Jews, the cliche they used to cover up collaboration with the Nazis.

Neutrality does not mean spineless. Neutrality does not mean an incapacity to differentiate between right and wrong. Neutrality does not mean the inability to condemn evil and wrongdoing.

Neutrality means taking no sides, but it also means adopting a set of values that embraces moral and ethical principles.

Switzerland should have joined countries of conscience and condemned Ahmadinejad, condemned the words he used and the ideas he espoused. Instead, by paying him a courtesy call, the Swiss leader showed that he is not at all repulsed by the ideas Ahmadinejad holds dear. The Swiss president followed the lead of his predecessors and remained silent in the face of evil.

Excuses aside, Switzerland did not host the event. Durban II was hosted by the United Nations and held on United Nations territory. Switzerland was as much the host of Ahmadinejad at Durban II as the United States was when he came to New York to address the UN General Assembly in September.

There was no diplomatic need, no protocol for the head of Switzerland to go out his way and have a special dinner with the head of Iran. And because of that meeting Israel has called its ambassador to Switzerland back to Jerusalem for consultation and has called the Swiss ambassador to Israel in for a serious tongue lashing and is demanding an explanation.

Israel is making symbolic gestures, the president of Switzerland was not acting symbolically. Israel was pointing out that Switzerland has not learned their lessons. Nothing has changed in Switzerland. The Swiss witnessed Jews being murdered and did worse than nothing, they sent them back to Germany.

And today, a man preaches the murder of Jews and the Swiss plead neutrality and dine with the preacher.

Shame on Switzerland. Shame on the United Nations. Shame, shame.

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Monday April 13, 2009

Column:

Israel and the United States are on a collision course.

The issue they are colliding over is world terror.

When it comes to terror, either you are against it, or you are a terrorist. The disagreement between Jerusalem and Washington is not over the definition of terror, it is over the parameters of terrorism.

Barack Obama and Benjamin Bibi Netanyahu, both newly elected, are out to strut their stuff - in front of their respective countrymen and in front of the world. This collision course is premeditated, it is about perspective. Given the personalities and public flair of these two men, the clash between their administrations was predictable.

Obama and Netanyahu need to collide in order to clearly define the red lines of each of their new administrations. The purpose of this deliberate sparring match is for each leader to discover how far the other will go in order to pursue his country's new Middle East policy.

Fear not, this collision will not shake the foundation of the strong, vibrant and important relationship between the two countries. That relationship is built on a mutuality of interests and in the end the friends will, as the children's song goes, shake hands and make amends. But it will be heated and it will impact on the relationship not of the countries, but personally, on the relationship of the two men.

The new Obama-led administration wants to insist on enforcing the principles laid down in Annapolis almost two years ago during the previous administration. The United States wants to make certain that the Palestinians uphold the stipulations of the Road Map developed by the Bush Administration.

That plan includes a two state solution.

The even newer Netanyahu-led administration refuses to embrace Annapolis. Israel has asked for new ideas to solve the current logger jam. Israel has carefully and delicately done a diplomatic tiptoe around the famed two state solution.

The collision is being played out in the press and on the Hill.

Obama's team has already begun to brief Congress about their new plan and the need to hold Israel to the Road Map. The Obama team is promising continued support for Israel and is emphasizing the need to continue to defend Israel. But they also want the Palestinian track to be put on high speed.

Netanyahu's team knows how to use Congress, as well. Their plan will be to set up numerous face-to-face meetings with Congressional leaders with the intention of sabotaging Obama's objectives.

Obama has tried to outsmart Netanyahu by being the first to approach Congress. Netanyahu will be making his first trip to Washington as new Israeli prime minister next month. Bibi will be forced to play catch up, but Bibi is no newcomer at this game. Unlike Obama, Netanyahu is on his second go round in office.

The Israelis will come calling on Capitol Hill with three cards in their pocket, three critical cards that will be difficult for the Obama people to refute.

Card #1 - The Palestinians have never been able to deliver on any significant agreement that included reigning in terror and confronting Hamas.

Card #2 - The plan that the Obama administration is presenting is a replica of the Bush plan with only a few minor revisions. It is a plan that has failed and will fail again.

Card #3 - Iran is spinning out of control. The Obama plan lacks real substance and is Pollyanna-ish at best and extremely dangerous at worse when it comes to Iran. It is one thing to play roulette with Israel's security vis a vis Iran, but the new president is also playing with the security of the United States.

Israel's messages will resonate loud and clear with the leaders on the Hill. Obama's bonafides are in serious question and Bibi Netanyahu can be very convincing and very compelling when he speaks about threats to Israel's very existence,

Even, especially, as the United States is stretching out both arms to Iran, Iran has become more and more involved in political acts that are destabilizing Arab world friends of the United States.

Egypt recently arrested almost one hundred terrorists connected to Hezbollah who, most importantly, are connected through Iran. The Egyptians have blamed Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah for the new terror infrastructure that they have uncovered.

A Kuwaiti newspaper called al Jarida recently wrote that the Egyptians have arrested Sami Shahib an Egyptian trained in Iran by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. From Iran he was sent to Egypt to organize a Shiite underground terrorist organization which would destabilize Egypt.

An Egyptian newspaper called al Ghoumhouria wrote the following about Nasrallah in an editorial: "We do not allow you, monkey sheikh, to mock our judiciary, for you are a bandit and veteran criminal who killed your countrymen, but we will not allow you to threaten the security and safety of Egypt ... and if you threaten its sovereignty, you will burn!"

Egypt is taking this very seriously.

Netanyahu will make certain that Congressional leaders on Capitol Hill take it seriously as well. He will let it be known full well that by supporting President Obama's new policy they are, albeit inadvertently but certainly definitely, destabilizing both United States interests and United States control in the world.

There will be a collision. Don't expect a big bang, but be ready for some fireworks.

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Thursday April 2, 2009

Column:

In the year 1532, when Niccolo Machiavelli wrote The Prince he could never have dreamed that his ideas would ring true even until today. He could never have dreamed that arch enemies, The United States and Iran, would bond over a relatively insignificant country called Afghanistan.

The United States is at diplomatic war with Afghanistan. Iran is at diplomatic war with Afghanistan. The United States and Iran are united in their different wars with Afghanistan. Confused? That's foreign policy for you.

A cardinal rule in foreign policy is that there are no best friends. There are best interests. And foreign affairs work best when there are mutual best interests between countries.

So, yes, diplomatically speaking, the enemy of my enemy is my friend - but my best interests come first. And that explains how the unlikeliest of buddies, the United States and Iran, sat down together to discuss the problem called Afghanistan.

The United States experiences no greater global tension than in its dealing with and about Iran. And yet, in a desire to control the threats emanating from a third country these two countries, diametrically opposed on every other issue, sat down together at a United Nations sponsored summit held this week in The Hague dedicated to discussing, dissecting and neutralizing Afghanistan.

The idea belonged to United State Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Iran jumped on board immediately. Iran had two reasons for agreeing to the secretary of state's suggestion. Firstly, Afghanistan is a true problem for the international community and Iran recognizes how important it is to solve the problem and solve it effectively. Secondly, Iran wants to show the Arab world that it can work side-by-side with the United States to solve some issues.

Don't get too carried away, now. The Summit pitted the United States and Iran against Afghanistan but that is where the mutuality ended. The summit also pitted the United States and Afghanistan against one another in terms of each country's style of operation, specific complaints and endgame solutions.

Iran wants no outside forces in Afghanistan. By outside forces Iran means no non-Muslim forces in Afghanistan. Right now, the United States is not only a force in Afghanistan, it is a significant force in Afghanistan and getting ready to increase their presence there. Looking at the situation from Iran's point of view, Iran borders Afghanistan and having US soldiers in Afghanistan makes it all the easier for those soldiers to saunter on over and enter Iran. Iran also borders Iraq. That puts Iran in the middle of two countries playing host, invited or uninvited it makes no difference, to US forces. In other words, Iran is surrounded on the north by way of Afghanistan and in the south by way of Iraq.

Despite Iran's desire to rid the region of the United States the deputy Foreign minister of Iran, Mehdi Akhundzadeh, agreed to an understated albeit significant meeting with Richard Holbrooke, President Obama's personal troubleshooter for Afghanistan. The meeting was brief. The outcome was a decision to keep in touch. This kind of discussion, on this diplomatic level, is less important for what happened at the moment than for what might happen in the future. A door has been opened and when and if the need arises, and we know it will, these two men can walk through that door again.

The honest truth is that there has been no serious change in United States policy toward Iran. In diplomacy you need backdoors in order to deal with substantive issues on the ground. And there has been no serious change in Iranian policy toward the United States. The final outcome aside, Iran had its own objective in agreeing to this meeting.

Iran was poking fun at the United States in front of other Muslim countries and the almost one hundred countries in attendance at the summit. Iran was using this opportunity to show the rest of the Muslim world how they can and will boldly make their Muslim agendas known to the United States. Iran was standing up for Muslim hegemony. Iran was saying that the major obstacle to real solutions in the region is the aggressive meddling of the United States and Iran was saying it to their face. Iran is making a regional play, hoping that resentment toward US interventionism will sway countries back in their direction.

Iran and the United States have had a modicum of success in the past when they joined forces in collaboration in the war against drugs. And at this summit the United States and Iran again agreed to start working together to curb the drug trade that empowers many of the Afghani warlords.

Two steps backward, one step forward. At least there’s a step in the right direction.

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Tuesday March 24, 2009

Column:

Makara. It means deceit. It is part of an ancient Arabic custom, still practiced today.

Kyhr. It means subterfuge. In Arabic the word kyhr shares a root with the word makara. Makara and Kyhr its root are mentioned 43 times in the Koran.

Certain concepts, inconceivable to the Western mind, are commonplace and easily comprehendible to the Arabic mind. In order to understand the Arabic mind, in order to anticipate the decision making process that goes on in the Arab world, the West must suspend its own system of beliefs and open its collective mind to allow for contradictions in words and actions.

Mohammed Dahlan is one of the most significant leaders the Palestinian people have who is neither in hiding nor imprisoned in Israel. Tall, broad shouldered, well dressed and smooth talking, Dahlan is known as the strong arm man of Fatah. It was Dahlan who was responsible for security in Gaza and the West Bank. It was Dahlan who was at the helm when Hamas ousted Fatah from Gaza, essentially ousting him as security chief. Mohammed Dahlan has a vendetta to settle with Hamas. Not only was he publicly embarrassed, but the armed forces under his control were horribly treated and brutally killed.

And still, Dalhlan, the face of Fatah, and Hamas are joined at the hip when it comes to Israel.

In a recent interview on PA TV (Palestinian Television) Mohammed Dahlan said, simply and matter-of-factly, that the Palestinian Authority recognizes Israel, but that Fatah does not. A shocking contradiction? Yes, if you are a Westerner. Not at all if you are a Palestinian.

Dahlan said that Fatah was not asking Hamas to recognize Israel. He explained that the only reason the Palestinian Authority recognized Israel was to get the money that the Western world was doling out to the Palestinians because they had made that concession and publicly claimed to accept Israel. He said the PA would never get the money if they did not recognize Israel. But that was the PA, not Fatah. A distinction with a difference.

In the minds of most Westerners, Fatah and the Palestinian Authority are one and the same, it is Hamas that is on the outside. In the mind of Mohammed Dahlan and his compatriots, things look different. Dahlan is adept at double speak, and double speak has a long history in the Arab world.

Double speak is one of the many facets of makara and in the Arab world, makara has both positive and negative attributes.

In the Koran, in both Sura 3:54 and in Sura 30:8 Allah is referred to as Makara. It therefore stands to reason that if Allah is deceitful, and deceit can be good. If Allah can practice kyhr, subterfuge, which has a similar word in Farsi (Persian, the language of Iran), practicing subterfuge can be good.

The Koran tells a glorious story which teaches that Allah will plot against those people who plot against him and Allah will win out in the end. Dahlan has a modern day take on the story.

Quoting from his interview with Palestinian TV, Dahlan said: "I want to say for the thousandth time, in my own name and in the name of all of my fellow members of the Fatah movement: We do not demand that the Hamas movement recognize Israel. On the contrary, we demand of the Hamas movement not to recognize Israel, because the Fatah movement does not recognize Israel even today."

And he is not alone. Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah chair and the president of the Palestinian Authority gave voice to almost the exact same sentiment in 2006 when he said: "Hamas is not required to recognize Israel ... It is not required of Hamas, or of Fatah, or of the Popular Front [to liberate Palestine] to recognize Israel."

And he gave voice to it on PA TV when he said: "The PLO, in 1993, recognized Israel. As Israel recognized the PLO. Every person has the right to say "I do not recognize," okay? It's your right. It is the right of every organization. But the government which will be formed, and which will function opposite the Israelis on a daily basis ... every hour and perhaps every second, there will be contact between Palestinian ministers and Israeli ministers. And I ask - how can this government, or these ministers, not recognize their counterparts, and then solve people's problems?"

It's a good question. The simple answer is, they can't. Israel and the West must try not to let deceit and subterfuge and double speak get in the way.

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Monday March 9, 2009

Column:

Lieutenant General Omar al Bashir is a ruthless thug.

The despotic president of Sudan has spurned the world's condemnations of the mass murders perpetrated under his rule and following his direction in Darfur. The delusional al Bashir has gone so far as to, on the one hand, say that the mass murders never happened and on the other hand, to claim that he is doing everything in his power to prevent further killings.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has just drawn up papers ordering the arrest and prosecution of Omar al Bashir. The court is charging him with direct and indirect responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in Darfur. Modest estimates put the death toll at 300,000 and the number of people forced from their homes at 2.7 million.

The ICC is the court of justice. The Hague is charged by the United Nations with the task of defending the oppressed and with prosecuting tyrants who persecute, terrorize and murder masses of people. Practically, the Court is problematic and it has a very uneven track record. But the principle under which it was created - that the free world should have access to an international court of justice that takes on issues of human rights, is an important one.

In the case of the people of Darfur the process has been extended, but finally, justice will be served. In corridors of power throughout the world the decision to act against al Bashir was met with great enthusiasm and expelled sighs of it's about time. In two corridors, however, news of the decision has been met with anger laced with fear.

Neither the leadership of Iran nor the leadership of Hamas is pleased to know that the leader of Sudan is to be prosecuted by The Hague.

Rather than acknowledging that justice is to be served, the Iranians publicly condemned the world court calling the action a corruption of justice and wondered how it was possible for the world court to act against Sudanese President al Bashir before it had acted against the Zionists. Similarly, Hamas announced that it was acting in solidarity with the Sudanese leader and issued a call for other true Arabs to do the same.

To prove their points, on Friday Hamas and Iranian delegations flew to Khartoum, Sudan to show their support for al Bashir.

Upon touching down at the Khartoum airport Ali Larjani, speaker of the Iranian parliament, made a strident and aggressive announcement. He termed the decision of the international court to prosecute al Bashir "an insult." In the eyes of Larijani and all of Iranian leadership, the act truly is an insult not just to al Bashir, but to all Muslims. The Hamas spokesman, Tahir Nunu, called the indictment a political ploy.

In choosing to prosecute Omar al Bashir the International Criminal Court in The Hague has violated a fundamental principle in the Muslim world. According to that principle non Muslim-authority and non-Muslim forces may not impose their standards and their values on Muslims, especially in Muslim controlled lands.

Iran and Hamas are not just being good friends and good Muslims. Iran and Hamas have their own axe to grind. Certainly, both constituencies long to see Israel in the docket, but right now, that is not their biggest worry. They fear that they will be next in line for prosecution by The Hague.

For Iran and for Hamas, this is personal. If the Sudanese leader can be arrested and brought to The Hague for trial so can they. And that is not a precedent they want to see set.

Iran is responsible for numerous terror attacks around the world. Iran sponsors terror organizations including Hezbollah and including Hamas. Hamas, obviously, is a terror organization that has perpetrated hundreds of terror attacks. They are speaking out and politicking in support of al Bashir out of pure, selfish, self interest.

What neither Iranian nor Hamas leadership realizes is how ridiculous their actions. What neither Iranian nor Hamas leadership realizes is how slowly the wheels of justice at The Hague turn. Look at the enormity of the crime perpetrated by the tyrant Omar al Bashir and then look at how long it took to draw up a warrant against him for that crime. The likelihood that they will be the next targets of ICC justice is truly, quite small.

But let that be the little secret of the freedom loving world. Let Iran and Hamas sweat a little or even a lot. It's OK, let them sweat.

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Tuesday March 3, 2009

Column:

The official announcement was made on Monday, at the Donors' Conference held in Egypt, but the story was not news to any of the participants.

The news was leaked days before the event took place. The story splashed across newspapers throughout the country and in many parts of the Western world. The United States of America was pledging $900 million to the Palestinians.

Wow! That was the response of most of the people when they learned of the pledge. Didn't matter what side of the aisle they sat on, Republican of Democrat, pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli, Muslim, Christian or Jew. $900 million is a lot of money.

The idea of the Donors' Conference, according to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whose idea it was, was to create a forum through which money would be raised to rebuild Gaza. As a result of Israel's twenty-two day operation against Hamas in Gaza, which was a response to the terror strikes and constant barrage of rockets fired into Israel by Hamas, Gaza, which was never a luxurious spot under the care of the Palestinians, is pretty much a wreck.

Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Authority Prime Minister appointed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, raised an ambitious nearly $5 billion at the Conference.

Pledges came in. The United States put Fayyad at nearly one-third on the way towards his goal. Israel has already given $100 million, a modest but still significant donation. The Quartet and other European countries came out saying that they were willing to give, as well.

Now comes the first AHA moment.

Salam Fayyad is the PA prime minister of the West Bank, not of Gaza. He, along with Abbas and the rest of the PA were kicked out of Gaza, ousted in a coup, by Hamas, a year ago last summer. They may care about the plight of the Palestinians of Gaza but they have no purview over Gaza. Now, Fayyad has a wonderful personal record. It was he who revolutionized the Palestinian Authority coffers. It was he who convinced Yasser Arafat to direct deposit government salaries thereby removing the temptation from Arafat to dip his fingers into everyone else's tills as he stuffed their envelopes with cash which was his favorite way of doing business.

Fayyad cares about the people of Gaza, but he has no way of controlling, overseeing or even monitoring the flow of money. That responsibility belongs fully and solely to Hamas because Hamas is the only address in Gaza.

Here's the second AHHAA moment.

It is against United States law to give money to Hamas. It is against United States law to transfer money to support terror. The US State Department considers Hamas to be a terrorist organization.

Congress, the governing body that set up these laws, will not be happy if money finds its way into the hands of terrorists. But how can it not? Nothing comes into or goes out of Gaza without some of it accidentally falling off a truck and going directly into the hands of Hamas. Nothing. Hamas totally controls Gaza. The Palestinian Authority has no police, no soldiers, no authority and no clout in Gaza. Unless Congress finds a way around Hamas, that $900 million will be going to Hamas. By dividing the allocation and announcing that they are giving $300 million to humanitarian relief in Gaza and the other $600 million to the PA for reconstruction Congress thinks they have found the way.

And now, the third AHHHAAA moment.

The Arab League, which also pledged money to Gaza at the Donors' Conference, has not yet fulfilled an earlier pledge to help out the people of Gaza. In January the Arab League obligated itself to a donation of $1 billion. That pledge, that obligation, has not yet been met.

As recently as last week, the Arab League explained that they could not deliver on the money while stability and unity between the Palestinians was unclear. In other words, the Arab League is uncertain. The Arab League is afraid that their money will fall into the wrong hands. And who understands the dynamics of Hamas leadership if not the Arab League?

Here comes the fourth AHHHHAAAA moment.

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Column:

Thursday February 26, 2009

Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth his silver lining on the night?

Those words were written in 1634 by John Milton. While very few of us can quote the poem verbatim, almost all of us have expressed the sentiment inherent in these words and said: every cloud has a silver lining.

The economic downturn we are now experiencing has rippled throughout the world. The news is not good and yet, every cloud, even this cloud, does have a silver lining. And while they are few in number, there are a few positive changes that have occurred specifically because of this colossal calamity. The number one change is worth discussing.

The most important change to have been brought about by the economic condition is the drop in oil prices.

Oil prices are down from the record high summer price of nearly $150 a barrel. The prices will remain down, hovering in the $30-$40 range, and may even drop a little lower before they go up again. Funny, isn't it, how what was such an all consuming worry and topic of conversation has been pushed to the sidelines and almost ignored. Sad, that very few of us have been able to enjoy the upside of the oil conundrum because of the downturn in the economy.

OPEC wants to drop production in order to increase prices. But to their chagrin, the general demand for oil has dropped. So even if OPEC drops the price their short term benefit will be minimal. In an ideal world, OPEC would have the price of oil even out at between $75-$85 per barrel.

And who is the most hurt by these low prices? Iran. Iran is hurting bad.

In truth, it's not just Iran. Venezuela and Russia are also suffering seriously because of the great drop in oil prices. But it is Iran that is most affected and interesting to us.

Iran is the third largest producer of oil in the world and yet, Iran must resort to importing its own gasoline. Iran has antiquated refineries and has not built any new refineries since they threw BP out a half a century ago. There's more. Iran not only imports gasoline, the Iranians have no real natural gas and must import that also.

It gets worse for Iran. Add to that an inflation rate that the present regime admits to be at 26% and the country is ripe for an economic implosion. Others, including Khatami who will be opposing Ahmadinejad in Iran's upcoming election on June 12th, put the inflation rate as high up as 65%.

The Iranians need the price of oil to be close to $80 a barrel so that they can break even. They are inefficient. They need subsidies. They need to import. They have almost no cash reverse from their product and they are hemorrhaging money. Iran also made the mistake of dropping the dollar as the official currency exchange link and adopting the Euro, a move that has not proved beneficial.

The picture for Iran is very bleak indeed. No amount of nuclear energy will be able to pull Iran out of this very deep hole.

During the "seven good years of plenty" Iran should have been investing, saving and improving their systems. That, they did not do. That's what Qatar did. Qatar improved its oil infrastructure and is reaping the profits of their investment. The break even point to produce a barrel of oil for Qatar is about $10, substantially lower than what Iran needs. Iran was expecting to earn well over $100 billion in oil revenues this year. With the slashed prices, that number will probably be way down at $20 billion.

So what does this mean? While it is tempting, there is no great pleasure to be had in wallowing in the misfortune of Iran. But what we can do is point a finger, and that finger is pointed at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the man responsible for the dramatic economic failure of Iran. Ahmadinejad ran for office on a platform that promised to improve and resuscitate Iran's ailing oil industry. And oil is the only real industry Iran has to export.

If the Supreme Leader, The Ayatollah Khamenei, would lift his head from the clouds and see Iran the way it really is right now, he would oust Ahmadinejad as President of Iran. The people might vote, but it is The Supreme Leader who determines the winner.

If Khatami, the former president and present political rival, wins the election that would be good for Iran. Khatami is less abusive. He is less of a bulldog when dealing with the West. He is more pragmatic and less prone to rhetoric. He understands the need to deal with oil. He understands the need to deal with economics.

OK, so maybe the cloud's lining isn't really silver. But neither is it completely black.

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Tuesday February 17, 2009

Column:

Tennis is a sport, it is not a political movement. Tennis tournaments are supported by sponsors and should not sponsor terror, terrorists or terrorist activities. Playing tennis is about competition, not boycotts.

The Dubai Tennis Championships ranks among the most prestigious tournaments in the world of professional tennis. Coverage of the Dubai receives international attention. This year, the coverage began even before the first match was played. The United Arab Emirates has denied an entrance visa to the person ranked 48th in the world in women's tennis.

Who has the distinction of being denied entry into the UAE? Her name is Shahar Peer. Why has Shahar Peer been singled out? Because Shahar Peer is an Israeli.

The decision sent shock waves throughout the international tennis community. Peer herself received word while participating in a match in Thailand. The shock was dramatic. The response of tennis players has been a unified clamor of dismay.

The players have all sided with Peer. Their support is as admirable as it is ineffective.

International sports at the level of the Dubai Tennis Championships should stand above politics. The reason the Olympics was re-established was specifically to highlight the credo that great sports and great athletics transcend the boundaries of politics and even of war.

The Women's Tennis Association should have cancelled the tournament. The WTA knew that there was a possibility that one of their players would be denied entry into the host country. They warned the hosts not to be discriminatory, not to deny a participant the chance to compete because she came from a country not on their politically approved list.

Larry Scott, director of the Women's Tennis Association, explained the situation by saying the WTA "knew it was an issue, but we made it clear that she was going to be in the draw and we wanted to be optimistic that she would get the visa." But, he said, "they (the UAE) waited until the 11th hour to deny it (the entry visa )."

The WTA director continued by saying: "I made it clear to them that if Shahar were not allowed to play, they would run the risk of losing their tournament. It would be a big blow to lose one of this prestige and money, but if it comes to the principles of fairness and openness, there can be no compromise."

Scott said all the right things. The problem is that he did nothing.

Larry Scott and the WTA have already compromised. They permitted the tournament to play despite their own warning and without the participation of one of their own member players. Larry Scott and the WTA did nothing to insure or to insist that the boycott against Israel declared by the Dubai Tennis Championships be rescinded.

Larry Scott and the Women's Tennis Association spoke up, but they took no action. They let the ball fall where it may. Canceling the Dubai Tennis Championships would have hurt the rankings of all the women scheduled to participate. Now, the only woman to be hurt is Shahar Peer, she has been cancelled, not the tournament.

This boycott is not personal it is political. Shahar Peer is a symbol, not a person for the Dubai organizers and decision makers. Her fellow players understood the situation and that is why they were in favor of supporting Peer and exerting more pressure on the hosts. The players were less afraid than the Association.

Shame on the Women's Tennis Association. The world has come to expect little of the United Arab Emirates, the decision to block Peer was true to form.

Boycotting Israel is wrong - regardless of the justification. There are organizations that boycott Israeli scholars and academics even translators and organizations that are attempting to divest from Israeli technology. Not agreeing with Israel is not the same as fostering hatred of Israel. These boycotts are enforced not to cause financial harm, these are boycotts for the sole purpose of fostering hatred.

The Israeli operation in Gaza was an act of defense. Even if one disagreed with the operation, one must accept the principle that Israelis eventually have the right to defend themselves against terrorists who want to see them and Israel wiped off the map.

By permitting the Dubai Tennis Championships to play on without the player ranked 48th in world women's tennis, the Women's Tennis Association has allowed itself to be co-opted by the wrong kind of sponsor. The United Arab Emirates does not sponsor athletic shoes, the UAE does not sponsor artificial turf or watches or soft drinks. The UAE has the full support of the Women's Tennis Association and they boycott Israel.

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Wednesday February 11, 2009

Column:

Monday morning football is always rough, even when it happens on a Wednesday. Players nurse their wounds and elevate their swollen joints. Bruised egos need massaging and swollen egos need time to relax.

The elections in Israel are over. The race was tight, but the winner won by a large margin. The winner, you see, is not a party. The clear cut winner in this Israeli election is the Israeli people, the masses were the winner.

Sure, some commentators will say I told you so and others will justify their projections. In the coverage leading up to this election most commentators fell into the trap of predicting what they, personally, wanted to happen rather than what the Israeli public was saying they wanted to have happen.

The masses in Israel are in the middle and that is how exactly they voted.

That is how the voters voted in the last election and in the elections before that. Israelis are not extremists. Despite stories that pepper media around the world, Israelis are not on the lunatic fringe. Israelis are moderates.

In every election since Yitzhak Rabin was voted into office the masses have voted for the middle. The same people sway slightly to the right on one election and then slightly to the left on the next election. The same people who ousted Peres when he took over the position of prime minister following the Rabin assassination voted for Netanyahu. And the same people who voted Netanyahu in ousted him and voted for Barak. And those are the same people who then ousted Barak and voted for Ariel Sharon.

Sharon was the first prime minister and party leader to figure it out. And that is why he moved away from Likud - toward the center, and created the Kadima party, a party that could swing a little bit right and a little bit left. That is why Kadima party leader Tzipi Livni will be called upon to form a government. She did not tinker with success.

And that is why Bibi Netanyahu and his Likud Party was successful and garnered so many seats. The vast majority of Israelis voting for Likud are only slightly right of center, they are not extremists. And the vast majority of Israelis voting for Kadima are only slightly left of center and some are actually right of center.

That is how the center took the plurality.

So why were so many people, pundits and pontificators fooled? There are several reasons.

The foreign press stationed in Israel, and it is one of the largest postings for foreign journalists in the world, find it entertaining to cover the characters who occupy the fringes. It's good reading. It's sexy. The people on the fringes are interesting, even if they are not representative of mainstream Israel.

The local press, for the most part, is revolted by the right wing. And they feel the need to transmit that revulsion to the masses. They see the right, even the slightly right of center party supporters, as Neanderthals, as people who have only one response to every situation - violence. Don't get enough health and welfare services - violence. Not enough money for education - violence. The Palestinians - violence. Of course, the local press knows how to temper their portrayals of the right wing. But when local stories are picked up by international media the nuance is lost, the coverage is warped, the story is out of perspective. For their part, the average Israeli feels battered by the press. The lives they lead and the lives portrayed on media screens and in newspapers collide and clash.

And that explains why everyone was so far off in predicting the end result of the election in Israel and in predicting the continued stability of Kadima and Livni. No one paid attention to the masses in the middle. The coverage focused on the extremes.

The race was close and Livni squeaked by Netanyahu. They may have to share power, they may even have to negotiate a rotation of power. Right now the process of coalition building, the true art of compromise, begins. There too the center will emerge - just watch.

Instead of reading their own columns, the commentators should have been reading the writing on the wall.

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Thursday February 5, 2009

Column:

If life was a school playground the revered and feared principal would say "OK boys, shake hands and be friends" and voila, the boys would do just that.

But life is not a school playground. And there is no revered and feared principal. And Hamas and Fatah are not about to shake hands and be friends just because the United States, with the backing of many other Western nations, wants them to.

It's not what they want to do. And who's gonna make them?

Since the conclusion of the Israeli operation against Hamas by way of a grudgingly agreed upon if not entirely adhered to unilateral cease fire, the Western world has been calling for an end to hostilities not between the avowed enemies, but between the two parties who are in reality the one enemy. In other words, forget about Israel for now, let's get Hamas and Fatah together. And then we can call it a Palestinian nation and turn our attention to a peace treaty between Israel and the now unified Palestinian nation.

The idea is to co-opt Hamas and make them a part of the greater Palestinian cause. And it is a very bad idea.

Forget about whether Israel thinks that this is a good idea, which they do not. Forget about whether Egypt and Jordan think this is a good idea, what do they know and why should they count, they are the bordering countries who understand the customs, cultures and citizens of the not-yet-formed Palestinian state. Why take into consideration the concerns of those people who are most affected by any decisions taken by the various strata of Palestinian leadership.
And why take into consideration the lessons that should have been learned from not-so-distant experience.

Just ask Hamas. They've been there and done that. Hamas wants nothing to do with this idea now just like they wanted nothing to do with it after receiving a majority in the Palestinian Parliamentary election.

Doesn't anyone in the Western world of diplomacy and decision foisting remember what happened last time there was a power sharing situation between Abbas and his Fatah party and Hamas? Come on, it wasn't that long ago. It was such a resounding success that the United States and most other Western countries cut off all aid and relations with the Palestinian Authority. And that happened why? That happened because Hamas refused to accept the three principles of the Quartet. Hamas refused to accept Israel's right to exist, Hamas refused to uphold previously entered into peace agreements with Israel and Hamas refused to denounce terror and work towards combating terror.

When asked just recently whether they would join Fatah and Abbas, Hamas said "no." Hamas did not even blink. For Hamas it is a no brainer. Hamas does not like to share, does not want to share and will not share. Once again, think schoolyard. Hamas likes to bully. Once again, think back just a little. Hamas ousted Fatah from Gaza only a year ago last summer. They won an election and received a majority of seats in the Palestinian Parliament. Hamas has no need for Fatah.

Hamas not only has no need for Fatah in Gaza, Hamas actually wants to oust Fatah from power in the West Bank. In the eyes of Hamas, Hamas deserves total control.

The Western sponsored proposal for Palestinian power sharing would have Fatah's Abbas as the number one man and Hamas coming up second. And now the West is surprised that Hamas finds the proposal, how shall I say it, unacceptable. Fatah and Hamas are sworn enemies. And as far as Hamas is concerned, Abbas is a traitor.

Hamas believes that Abbas and, by extension, Fatah were in favor of the Israeli operation into Gaza. Hamas believes that Fatah collaborated with Israel. And in the world governed by Hamas calling someone a collaborator is akin to an Imam calling someone an infidel. Hamas believes that Israel would never have been so successful had they not had the assistance of Fatah members on the ground. And that is why the human shields that Hamas used in Gaza against the Israelis were families of Fatah affiliates.

Ismail Haniyah, the Hamas leader from Gaza who was elected Palestinian Prime Minister, has vividly depicted Abbas as a man who would "ride into Gaza on an Israeli tank." The imagery is powerful. The imagery resonates with Hamas advocates and Hamas supporters. It is a symbol that will be repeated in the Arabic press and on the Arab street. It means that Abbas permitted Israel to do what it did all in order to reap the benefits of an Israeli operation that would crush Hamas and neuter it militarily. This is a blood feud as much as it is a religious conflict.

The battle between Hamas and Fatah is the central story in the Palestinian world today. Neither side is shaking hands. Hamas and Fatah are not about to become friends.

They've learned their lesson. We should learn it, too.

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Monday January 26, 2009

Column:

Israel is proposing an eighteen month truce with Hamas. Hamas is asking for a twelve month period of quiet with Israel. So what's it gonna be?

It's gonna be a serious problem. As the prison guard in the movie Cool Hand Luke so eloquently put it: "What we have here is a failure to communicate." What we have in this particular case is failure to communicate on two levels.

Level one deals exclusively with Hamas. Truce, cease fire, deal - these notions are all anathema in Hamas' understanding of Islam.

Level two deals with the Western world's understanding, or better yet, lack of understanding, of Hamas. Without understanding the Hamas approach to decision making, decision makers, diplomats and politicians from countries around the Western world will try to force Israel into a situation that is hardly optimal. It will be a colossal mistake. It will be a mistake made in the name of peace, laced with all best intentions, predicated upon a total lack of understanding of Hamas' motives and Iran's intentions. It will be a tragic mistake.

In Arabic culture conflict can be resolved in only two ways. One way is Hudna. Hudna has a deep historical and theological history. The second way is Tahadiyah. In contrast, Tahadiyah has no theology and absolutely no history outside of modern, contemporary events.

Both terms have been bantered about, both have been mistranslated. Neither Hudna nor Tahadiyah means what politicians in Washington DC, the United Nations and European capitals think they mean.

Hudna is a concept best described as a tactical response to being out numbered and out armed. As opposed to admitting to losing in conflict, Hudna is a move that permits the fighting to be halted in order to be continued on another day. One strikes a Hudna in order to regroup, rearm and then, most importantly, to attack and vanquish the party that you struck a treaty with. Hudna has a built in time limit of 10 years, but it may be renewed. It is far from anything we would consider to be a truce.

As a classic form of Islamic diplomacy Hudna was first introduced by the prophet Mohammed when, according to the Koran in the 48th Sura known as "The Victory," Mohammed engages in an agreement with the tribe of Quraysh.

The story begins in Medina. Mohammed takes 1500 men and marches on Mecca, his native city. He is confronted by an army that is far superior to his own from the tribe of Quraysh at a place called Hudaiybiyah. It is at Hudaibiyah that the two parties agree on a ten year pact. But two years later, after building a bigger and better army Mohammed breaks the treaty, attacks and enters Mecca victorious.

As the ten year pact or treaty was being negotiated, Mohammed's advisers, principally his general Umar ibn al Khatib, rejected the idea. The advisers called entering into a pact with the knowing intention of reneging on your word dishonorable. But the Prophet made it very clear that this was the way to proceed and so it was done.

As an interesting aside, the Sura aka "The Victory" in Arabic is called Al Fath. It was no accident that the first Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, chose to name his organization Al Fatah after that very same Sura in the Koran.

Tahadiyah has much less history. It is not a theological term, it is not in the Koran and there is no link to any decision or stratagem of Mohammed.

As a modern Arabic term Tahadiyah simply means calm or lull. It is a very problematic term and it is the term that Hamas is using now in talking about the cessation of hostilities with Israel. Tahadiyah does not mean cease fire. A lull implies a reduction, not a stoppage, of aggression. The concept of Tahadiyah implies that there is plenty of wiggle room. Tahadiyah is not quiet nor is it a commitment to enforce a quiet. Quite to the contrary a Tahadiyah actually allows for attacks and a gradual increase of pressure and a change in the status quo over time. It is a very ambiguous and amorphous term that translates into a very ambiguous and amorphous status on the ground.

Tahadiyah is a diplomatic Pandora's Box. Hudna is diplomatic double talk. It really makes no difference if the world-at-large believes that Israel and Hamas have a year long truce or an eighteen month long truce. In the end, the hostilities will resume when Hamas is ready for the hostilities to resume. And then, Israel had better be ready.

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Tuesday January 13, 2009

Column:

Iran and Syria see the world through their own prism. They keep each other's company, they enjoy each other's company, they support each other's diplomatic machinations, they don't trust each other one little bit and they certainly don't trust anyone else.

For Iran and Syria, that's normal. Iran and Syria need to feel in charge. Ask Hamas and Hezbollah leaders and they will answer that they are independent entities, but observe Hamas and Hezbollah and you will know that they are ruled by the whim, whimsy and wealth of Iran. Ask the rulers of Lebanon and they will claim to be an independent country, watch what happens in Lebanon and you will see the guiding hand of Syria. It's a mutual admiration society - Iran applauds Syria, Syria applauds Iran and they both applaud Hamas and Hezbollah.

Ali Larijani, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, just came back from a multi day trip to Syria and Lebanon. This was not a routine trip. This trip had a definite, specific purpose. Larijani went to gather information about Gaza, he wanted details on the Israeli operation against Hamas.

Larijani is not your typical guest. He was Iran's chief nuclear negotiator. He is a master strategist. He and Iranian leader Ahmadinejad are a team, they might disagree on economic issues and Ahmadinejad may take issue with some minor tactics within the larger strategic plan that Larijani composed, but that has not compromised their alliance.

If the Western world had been paying attention, if the Western world had bothered to monitor Larijani's comments during this trip, the Western world would have a better understanding of the rudder that guides Hamas. Instead, the Western world has averted its collective eyes, clogged its collective ears and turned oblivious to one of the most significant visits to take place in the Middle East in a long time. That's how we missed out on reacting to one of the most poetic descriptions delivered on the Egyptian/French cease fire proposal in Gaza.

While in Lebanon, after meeting with Hezbollah, Larijani summed the initiative up by calling it "honey injected with poison." While in the Syrian capital Damascus Larijani met with Khalad Mashaal, the head of Hamas. Yes, the actual head of Hamas is not in Gaza, he is in Syria, living under the protection and sponsorship of the Syrian government.

The Iranian/Hamas meeting lasted hours, it ran deep into the morning and when it was over, there were no official reports, no statements, no press conferences. Iran wanted details. Iran wanted specifics about Gaza - how much damage has been done, how strong is Hamas, how capable is Israel. Larijani was not interested in the mainstays of Arab conversation, rhetoric and hyperbole, he wanted cold, hard, facts, he wanted what the business world calls a real time assessment. For Larijani the situation in Gaza is a business deal turning sour.

Mashaal was not interested in giving over information, Mashaal wanted Iranian support, even Iranian intervention. If he could not persuade the Iranians to enter the fray against Israel he was at least hoping for them to sanction and enable international terror strikes, if not that then to at lest unleash Hezbollah rockets upon Israel from the North forcing Israel into a two-front war. He got none of that.

In return for information Iran promised to give money and to help rearm, retrain and rebuild their proxies - but they will not act. Iran will not jeopardize assets and push to the margins their larger objectives to help Hamas in a losing battle. Iran will serve as cheerleaders galvanizing Muslim support for Hamas and rally against Arab leaders, against Israel and against the West, against anyone helping Israel even by fiat or through acquiescence. Nothing more.

Iran is taking the Israeli invasion of Gaza very seriously. So seriously that Larijani is not the only high ranking Iranian official to visit Syria and meet with Hamas and Hezbollah. Saeed Jalili, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, also traveled to Syria and met with Syrian leader Bashar Assad. More importantly he met with Halad Mashaal and Ramadan Salah, the head of Islamic Jihad, the other terrorist group in Gaza. Jalili, not quite as poetic as Larijani, echoed a common Iranian theme, saying that "the Zionists are one step away from collapse."

Syria and Iran are trying to spin the situation in Gaza, they are trying to figure out how to best manipulate world opinion against Israel. That's why Mashaal rejected all the cease fire proposals but demanded that Israel live up to the UN and Egyptian/French proposal. Is that seems like a contradiction it's only because you are analyzing the situation from a Western perspective. From the Iran/Syria/Hamas perspective the UN and Egyptian/French proposals are ammunition with which Israel can be attacked in the international arena.

Gaza is not going away. Syria and Iran are not going to change. Hamas and Hezbollah are not going to give up. If we want to keep up with the situation, we had better start looking at it through the Iranian/Syrian prism.

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Tuesday December 30, 2008

Column:

Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, is a terrorist organization that trains cohorts from that other terrorist organization, Hamas. Hezbollah also sponsors Hamas through donations of weapons and donations of money. The nation of Iran is another large supporter and sponsor of Hamas. Iran also lends Hamas moral support, offers advice and serves as a general cheering squad.

It comes as no surprise that Hezbollah and Iran have been loud and public in denouncing Israel's retaliatory strike on Hamas security strongholds in Gaza.

The surprise comes in the form of the almost inaudible voices of protest emanating from the rest of the Muslim world. Protests against Israel have been minimal. Disapproval of Hamas, now and in the period leading up to the Hamas decision to discontinue the "lull" with Israel has been vocal.

Major players in the Arab world urged Hamas to continue with the "lull" but Hamas turned a deaf ear, Hamas would not heed their urgings. In a break with tradition, rather than showing a united Arab/Muslim front against enemy Israel, Arab leaders have come out in censure against Hamas.

On Sunday, the second day of Israel's operation, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas held a joint press conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abu Gheit. Abbas minced no words, he laid all the blame on Hamas. "I say in all honesty, we made direct contact with the leaders of the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip. We spoke with them in all honesty and directly and after that we spoke with them indirectly, through more than one Arab and non Arab side ... We spoke with them on the telephone and we said to them: We ask of you, don't stop the lull. The lull must continue and not stop, in order to avoid what has happened and if only we had avoided it."

In response, Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, called Jordan and Egypt collaborators and an arm of the Zionists and the Americans in the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.

Mainstream Arab leaders think that Hamas brought this situation upon themselves and believe that now Hamas must suffer the consequences of their own actions. They hope that the operation ends quickly and they hope that the innocent people living in Gaza are spared from too much suffering and horror. President Bush, who made contact with many Arab leaders in the region expressed that same concern for the people of Gaza. So, too, did Israeli leadership who allowed one hundred supply trucks to enter Gaza from Israel on Monday. The trucks contained medicines, blood, cooking fuel and even ambulances.

Even Palestinians living in Gaza, victims of the destruction brought on by this retaliatory effort by Israel, blame Hamas and not Israel for the death and destruction. Even a seven year old girl who woke up to find bricks on her head and her younger sister lying dead beside her after an Israeli air raid was quoted in an interview on Al Aksa Hamas TV saying that she blamed Hamas for the death. In Gaza, Hamas is far from loved, in Gaza Hamas is feared.

Hamas has embraced death as a virtue.

Palestinian Authority legislator Fathi Hamad, interviewed on Hamas TV on Monday explained it this way: "For the Palestinian people death became an industry, at which women excel and so do all people on this land: the elderly excel, the Jihad fighters excel, and the children excel. Accordingly [Palestinians] created a human shield of women, children, the elderly and the Jihad fighters against the Zionist bombing machine, as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: We desire death as you desire life."

This sentiment, this revelation that Hamas respects death and uses innocent people as human shields, is not new. It is not merely a response to Israel's retaliatory raid. In the weeks before this raid, in the weeks of the "lull," Hamas began the process of instituting a series of punishments, their own revision of Koranic law that was meted out during the medieval period. The Hamas penal regressions were broadcast across the Arab world, to the horror of Arab leaders from other countries who themselves have archaic judicial and penal systems, but nothing as severe as those Hamas intends to impose.

Some of the laws are literally directed at the Palestinian Authority and at Palestinian leadership. It seems clear that according to the new/old Hamas laws all Palestinian leadership is guilty of capital crimes. The language of the law proposes "primary and secondary" laws.

Primary laws include: "Koranic laws, blood revenge, lashes, crucifixion, and execution." The new law establishes that the "punishment of death will be enacted on any Palestinian who intentionally does one of the following: raised a weapon against Palestine on behalf of the enemy during war, was appointed to negotiate with a foreign government on a Palestinian issue and negotiated against Palestinians' interest, performed a hostile action against a foreign country in a way that endangers Palestine in war or in harming political relations, served a foreign army in time of war, advised or helped soldiers to enlist in this army, weakened the spirit or the force of resistance of the people, or spied against Palestine especially during war."

Hamas is not the victim. Hamas is an oppressive, terrorist regime. The rest of the Arab world sees this very clearly. And for the first time, the rest of the Arab world is not afraid to speak out against Hamas. That's how bad the situation in Israel has gotten. Even the Arab world is sympathetic to the plight of Israel.

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Tuesday December 23, 2008

Column:

His stage name is Massive. He is a rapper. And he is a singing sensation in certain parts of the Middle East. Courtesy of the Goethe Institut, a German based cultural agency, Massive just concluded a tour of the West Bank. His Palestinian audiences were enthralled.

I, on the contrary, am appalled.

This is a verse from one of Massive's most popular numbers: "I'm planning a terrible suicide attack. I'll storm you with a 100 year old beard and we'll blow you up like the Twin Towers." Other lyrics speak of terrorists as freedom fighters and glorify "their fight against the Israelis the Americans and the West."

Massive's parents call him Wassim Taha. He is the son of Lebanese parents who arrived in Germany by way of a United Nations refugee camp set up for Palestinians. Wassim Taha was born in Germany, but his heart and soul and music are pure Palestinian.

The Goethe people claim that they were duped. They say they had no idea of the message Massive spreads through his music. They say that they relied on the good judgment of their satellite office in Ramallah. Truth is, you do not have to go far to uncover the imagery invoked by the Palestinian rapper. Massive is not into subtlety. His songs, his posters, his album covers, all scream hatred.

Middle East diplomacy and culture are rife with complexities that Westerners cannot understand. What Middle Easterners interpret as nuance, Westerners call duplicity and lies. The basic rule of thumb for dealing with Arab Middle East entities is to verify, to check and to confirm through outside sources. Never believe what was promised. That truth holds for politics, for aid packages and for business. It holds for cultural exchanges even for concerts.

The Goethe Institut did not do their due diligence. When the agency discovered that their money was sponsoring an individual who fomented hatred and embraced suicide attacks they expressed embarrassment. German politicians and German newspapers raised serious questions about how this debacle happened.

Politics is not a part of the Goethe Institut. They are a state sponsored educational center that brings German culture and language to the world. Their mandate is to highlight the beauty of Germany. The budget comes directly from the German foreign ministry and the government press office.

The head of The Goethe Institute in Germany issued an important, albeit weak, statement. Klaus-Dieter Lehmann said: "Some of Massive's texts are not free of violence. In the future we should be more careful with whom we invite."

I say, in the future you should be more careful about whom you hire.

The local Ramallah Goethe people should be fired. They knew what they were doing and why they had to hide it. It was no accident that they invited Massive with his lyrics to tour the Palestinian Authority. They sold the home office a carefully crafted lie. And those in charge in Germany simply believed what they were told.

Saying I'm sorry is not enough. The damage has been done.

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Tuesday December 9, 2008

Column:

Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Polish born National Security Adviser under President Jimmy Carter who became an early adviser to the Obama campaign, is still dispensing foreign policy advise.

At eighty something years old Brzezinski, aka Ziggy, is probably too old to want to get his hands dirty with the nitty gritty of daily crisis management that a close national security advisor to the president of the United States must be involved in. I do not expect to see Ziggy playing a formal or significant role in the White House of Barack Obama. But I do expect that we will be hearing from him.

Right now, Brzezinski seems to feel more comfortable as an arm chair advisor than as a paid or appointed advisor. And right now he has decided to make the State of Israel the recipient of his hard earned experience and erudite advise.

In an interview with the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz, Brzezinski leveled some harsh and disturbing criticism, in the guise of advise, upon Israel's military and political leadership. Brzezinski's remarks were made in the context of following up on comments made by the president-elect. Specifically, Obama saying that he would meet with Iranians without preconditions and his recent Meet the Press interview during which he described the carrot and stick incentives he intends to propose to Iran enabling them to put aside their nuclear aspirations.

Brzezinski had four main points to make:

# 1: He advised the Israeli government "not to engage in this campaign for an American attack on Iran, because I don't think America is going to attack Iran, and if it did, [and] the consequences would be disastrous."

# 2: He warned Israel saying "I don't know if Iran believes the military option is real, but I think it's not a real option for the U.S., and it is not a real option for Israel, because Israel doesn't have a capability to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities."

# 3: He predicted that "It can damage them, so it can only delay the process, while intensifying Iranian extremism and wielding together Iranian nationalism and Iranian fundamentalism, which I don't think is in anyone's interest.

# 4: He heckled. "Last, but not least, Israel really cannot execute effective strike without our permission. Because if you look at the map, you can see the reason why it is so."

Brzezinski is taking Israel to task. The former national security adviser under one of the most unfriendly former presidents of the United States towards Israel, is publicly asserting that Israel is behind the move to stop Iran's race to become a nuclear power. He is asserting that Israel is exerting serious force on the United States to intercede and prevent Iran from becoming an atomic nation and a nuclear leader in the Middle East.

While there is little doubt that Israel sees a nuclear Iran as a significant threat, there is also little doubt that the United States has arrived at the same conclusion totally on its own. And so has the United Nations. And that is where and why Brzezinski's analysis falters. Any student of the global political map knows with clarity and certainty that while Israel may hold some sway over United States policy, Israel holds nothing over the United Nations.

Even the conspiratorialists who actually believe that Israel has a lot to say and considerable pull in determining US policy could never convince any level headed person that Israel pulled the strings and exerted influence to convince the United Nations to exert their power and efforts to prevent Iran from becoming nuclear. The UN Security Council has been the most significant force attempting to persuade Iran from becoming nuclear. And seated on the UN Security Council have traditionally been some of Israel's most vocal and forceful opponents.

While Ziggy is no longer an Obama adviser, his ideas area shared by many of the people who are current Obama advisers. But not by all. There are others who think as I think. Who think that while Brzezinski was a brilliant advisor years ago, now he should remain in his arm chair and keep his thoughts to himself.

If the United States wants Iran to take their demands seriously, the United States must make level demands upon Iran. One of those demands must specifically call for Iran to behave within nuclear norms that are internationally acceptable. Another equally important demand must be for Iran to tone down the rhetoric and stop threatening to wipe Israel off the map. America must demand that Iranians proves that they are a country of builders and not destroyers before they are allowed to have such dangerous technology.

I believe that the new administration will pursue the right path when it comes to Iran, not the Brzezinski path. They will do so because when you analyze the situation today, now, not with hindsight but with foresight, they will discover that there is no other realistic option.

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Tuesday December 2, 2008

Column:

We have come face to face with the terror of the future and it is ugly, heinous, barbaric, very well planned and executed with verve and precision.

The enormity of the terror attacks perpetrated by relatively unknown but flawlessly trained terrorists upon the city of Mumbai has left the world shaken and speechless. The legacy of the perpetrators of this terror speaks volumes.

Shariyah, Muslim tradition, clearly commands that all Muslims receive a proper Muslim burial regardless of whether they lived as "drunkard, rapist or criminal." The obligation to bury the nine men who shattered the social, cultural and economic bubble of India fell to the Jama Masjid Trust, the group responsible for the Muslim cemetery in Mumbai. They declined. The Jama Masjid Trust refused to bury the dead Muslim terrorists.

It is an act unprecedented in the modern world. Muslims refusing to bury Muslims. The highly respected and accepted Muslim leaders of the Trust would not accept these men in their cemetery. Why? "[T]he people who committed this heinous crime cannot be called Muslims" they said, "Islam does not permit this sort of barbaric crime."

The elders of the Jama Masjid Trust understand what happened in Mumbai during those three days of terror. They understand what the terrorists were doing and why they did it. They understand the implications of their own decision. Just as the terrorists were sending a message, they are sending a message.

The message sent out by the terrorists was not at first understood by the world. The people covering the attack and the people deciding how the story line should unfold had no clear idea of the mission of the terrorists. Maybe because the messengers transmitting the message - the media - were too busy with thanksgiving stories to pay attention to what was really happening in the city known as the Silicon Capitol of India. They were too busy focusing in on the American and British passport holder angle of the story to understand that "American" and "British" were just shorthand for "Western."

They were too busy recounting the story of the one person who said he was Italian and was told by the terrorist that he could go to focus on the story of the little boy who miraculously escaped in the arms of his baby sitter, the little boy whose parents were mercilessly massacred.

The story behind the terrorist attack on Mumbai is the story of terrorist targets. No location was arbitrarily chosen. No terrorist entered a site by chance. The locations and the people inside those locations were carefully chosen.

The terrorists chose to attack Western hotels, Western hang outs and the Central Train Station populated by Western nationals. They entered those locations in order to cripple India economically. They entered in order to make India pay for the crime of fraternizing with Westerners, for the crime of falling under the influence of Western mores and norms. They were there in order to show the West and the world that ultimately India was weak and incapable of caring for their Western investments, their Western concerns, their Western guests.

The terrorists chose to attack a Jewish Israeli center because Jews and Israelis do not belong in India. Locating the Jewish site was no accident. It required a great deal of research and knowledge. The terrorists were asserting the very nature of India by attacking the Chabad center. India is a Muslim country, Muslims host neither Jews nor Israelis.

These Muslim terrorists were in India to teach the Indians a lesson. Their lesson should not be lost on us. A large part of the world despises, truly despises, the West. The principled Muslims of the Jama Masjid Trust are few and far between. The majority of Muslims will not turn into terrorists. But others will. And they will be well armed, well trained and well organized. We have been warned. We have seen the future of terror.

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Tuesday November 25, 2008

Column:

In the past year the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, ruled by King Abdullah son of Hussein, signed nuclear agreements with the United States, with Russia, with Great Britain, with France and with South Korea. They also initialed a set of understandings with China.

That set of understanding has now turned into a treaty. China and Jordan have just signed a nuclear treaty. Of all the treaties entered into by Jordan, the one that most interests me, the one that most reverberates throughout the Middle East, the one that most impacts the world, is the treaty with China.

Predicting what will happen next in the Middle East is one of the trickiest games ever played in the foreign policy arena. But careful observation of Jordan, monitoring what Abdullah considers to be important and what he considers inconsequential, tracking those colleagues with whom he has conversations and those whom he snubs, is one of the most precise ways to determine the future of the Middle East region and one of the best guides to be used in shaping Middle East policy.

Under Hussein, Jordan was a significant player in the Middle East. Always hosting, always promoting. The former leader of the Hashemite Kingdom took some bold steps and brought his country into the big leagues, into league with Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The apple has not fallen far from the tree. Abdullah has continued to maintain the stature of Jordan in the Arab and Muslim world, maintaining order even while he brings about change in Jordan. With this latest move the Jordanian monarch and benevolent despot is planning for the future.

King Abdullah has seen the path toward nuclear capability burgeon in the Middle East and he has decided not to let his own influential, but small, country linger on the sidelines. That is why Jordan signed on with China. According to the treaty these two unlikely partners have signed, China will train the Jordanians in nuclear technology, China will help Jordan build an experimental nuclear reactor and finally, China will teach Jordanians how to mine for the Uranium that already exists in at least two spots in Jordan.

In other words, China will prepare Jordan for what King Abdullah perceives to be the inevitable future - a nuclear, trigger happy, Iran.

Jordan may not border Iran, but Jordan is still threatened by Iran. Iran threatens every nation in the Middle East. Iran threatens even non-democratic, non-Western nations. The Middle East is no longer about a conflict between Israelis and Muslims. The Middle East is a bigger conflict, it is about Muslims and Muslims, it is about Shiites and Sunnis.

Iran is struggling to get nuclear technology and so the rest of the Middle East must struggle to keep up with Iran, knowing that they can never get ahead of Iran. It is a case of keeping up with the Jones', Middle East style. When it comes to nuclear affairs, Iran has set the agenda for the Middle East and hence, for the world.

The big powers in the Arab world need to respond to Iran's nuclear acquisition now. Saudi Arabia and Egypt and now Jordan need to be prepared. Following the lead of the major players are some smaller countries, like Yemen, which has also begun the process of developing nuclear technology. Other countries are sure to follow and that is not mere prediction, it is a reality. Iranian expectations have caused a spiral effect in the Middle East region. The balance of power will be shifted and then re-shifted and re-shifted again after Iran attains nuclear superiority in the region.

Sunni Jordan realizes that there will be a time when they will have to shoot out of the blocks to maintain a sense of parity against Shiite Iran. Egypt will do the same. So will Saudi Arabia. Ironically, the big winners in this Middle East race towards nuclear technology and capability will not come from the Middle East region. The big winners will be China and Russia. It is China and Russia who are supplying the countries of the Middle East with the technology and information they need and lack. And in the end both China and Russia will be uniquely qualified to determine the assets of each of the player countries. China and Russia will know which buttons to push, literally and figuratively, because they are the countries to have installed them.

The world is changing. Allegiances are changing. Change is not always for the best.

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Wednesday November 19, 2008

Column:

The United Nations is scheduled to release a report on nuclear activity in Syria. Specifically, the report will present data on whether or not traces of uranium were discernible at the Syrian site attacked by Israel on September 6, 2007. In plain terms, the UN is asking whether or not Israel was justified in attacking Syria.

The answer is obvious - to everyone except the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nation's watch dog agency. The United States knows that Israel was justified, Israel knows that Israel was justified, Syria knows that Israel was justified, but the United Nations is still unsure.

Initially, the UN reported that the evidence was inconclusive. Soon afterwards the UN reported that traces of highly enriched uranium were, indeed, found at the site. And now Muhammad El Baradei, head of the IAEA, is scheduled to release the formal, long awaited, report on the matter.

In a more informal setting El Baradei gave out a hint of what will be found in this report. Speaking at a Cooperation Conference held in Dubai El Baradei said that the soon to be released report will be "inconclusive." First the findings were designated inconclusive, now the report will be inconclusive. The word "inconclusive" I now conclusively declare is a code word in UN speak. It really means "we do not want to condemn Syria."

The UN and El Baradei put it more delicately. They have said that they had wished that Syria "would have been more transparent." They said they had hoped to get more help form Syria. I ask: Why would Syria help?

Immediately after the predawn air strike by Israel on the building that abuts the Turkish border the Syrians came out with bulldozers and plowed under the entire site. Anyone who watches CSI knows that they not only tampered with the evidence, they not only contaminated the site, they destroyed it, they decimated it, they wiped it clean. The Syrians wanted nothing to remain, they wanted nothing standing and nothing on the ground, they wanted nothing that they knew would be part of the inevitable investigation.

Syria does not want to cooperate, Syria wants to complain.

Initially, Syria said that the building was an agricultural laboratory. Now, more than a year later, an adviser to Syria's President Bashar Assad asserted on CNN that the site was a military building. Which was it? It cannot be both. And we know that it was neither.

When trace elements of uranium were found at the site, the Syrians began shouting out explanations. First, they claimed that the trace was from the Israeli bombs. Second, they said the world is conspiring against Syria and their proof is that word of the uranium story was leaked by diplomats even before Syrian authorities had a chance to hear the accusations.

First things first. The Israelis did not use nuclear warheads in their attack, so there goes that theory. Second, the world is conspiring, but not against Syria. The world, using the United Nations as the largest representative of the world, is conspiring to whitewash Syria, to benefit Syria, to bend over backwards and give Syria more than the benefit of doubt.

When the IAEA report is released it will say that the presence of highly enriched uranium is not evidence of a nuclear reactor. That is true, but it misses the point.

The inspectors, the International Atomic Energy Agency and even the Syrians are missing the point of the Israeli strike. The point was to hit the reactor before it was on line. The point was to set Syria back on their timeline for nuclear purposes. The point was to stop Syria before it was too late.

If the structure truly had been an agricultural laboratory, or if it had even been a military building there should not have been fission material on site. And if the material was found at the site it should only have been in minute amounts. But the material was found and it was found in larger than minute amounts.

Israel knew what it was doing and we should say thank you. We all know what the United Nations is doing and we should be afraid.

When you hear hoof beats, don't start looking for zebras.

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Tuesday November 11, 2008

Column:

We may all live in the same universe, but we also live in very different worlds.

The Arab world, with the exception of al Qaeda, is pleased as punch, tickled pink, just plain thrilled that Barack Obama has been elected to the high post of president of the United States. The Arab press has not stopped singing the praises of the man now known as 44.

The choice of Barack Hussein Obama as president of the United States of America is seen as a victory for the Arab and Muslim world by the Arab and Muslim world. The vast majority of that world has been frustrated, annoyed and angered by United States foreign policy for many years, never more so than under the helm of President George Bush. When Obama first entered the presidential race he was heralded as a hero. Almost every statement released by the Arab world prior to the election endorsed Obama. Now that he has won he is just short of a messiah. They are convinced that now everything will be different. They are convinced that Obama is one of their own, they are convinced that foreign policy under Barack Obama will smile upon them.

What has become evident from the coverage, editorials, statements and comments by leaders of the Arab world in praise of Obama is just how little these societies understand about the United States and about democracy. They think, they truly believe, that US foreign policy will change on a dime. The Arab world thinks that this new administration will come to its senses about Israel. They think that the United States and Iran are about to begin a friendship.

Certainly it is customary to congratulate a winner in any election, but the congratulatory messages from the Arab world were anything but standard protocol.
Here is a sampling of their comments:
Iranian President Ahmadinejad: "Obama's victory proves Bush failed."
The Iranian president even wrote a letter to Obama saying that the time has come for Americans to stop butting into the affairs of other countries and focus on internal affairs.

Hamas: "Obama should learn from Bush's mistakes."

Syrian Minister of Information: "hopes that Obama will herald a change in United States policy" and that the US will be constructive instead of destructive.

President Mubarak of Egypt: "expects a constructive approach to the Middle East."

President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas: "Obama is serious about the Middle East."
He "hopes that Obama will make headway in the Middle East Peace process."

The president of Iraq: "eager to cooperate with Obama."

A large and influential newspaper in Saudi Arabia wrote: "the election of Obama is the end of the era of white men in the White House." "We want to be able to admire the US once again."

Al Qaeda did not share in these sentiments. Al Qaeda is disappointed in the election of Barack Obama. Al Qaeda was hoping that John McCain would be elected the next president of the United States so that, to paraphrase them,
the United States would continue the failed policies of George Bush which would serve to motivate more fighters to join al Qaeda in the Jihad against the US.

The Arab and Muslim world will be disappointed.

United States foreign policy under Barack Obama will differ very slightly from United States foreign policy under George Bush when it comes to the Middle East and to terror. It makes no difference who the president is, facts are facts and security briefings are security briefings and Barack Obama has already begun to get his daily briefings. The strength and direction of US policy will continue because there is no other alternative if we are to remain safe and win the war against terror.

Fundamentally, neither priorities nor policy can change. If there is anything that can humble the most powerful man in the world it is his daily security briefings.

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Tuesday November 4, 2008

Column:

Agreed: Hamas has never foresworn terror.

Agreed: Hamas refuses to recognize Israel.

Agreed: Hamas refuses to adhere to previously signed peace treaties.

Agreed: Hamas is and should be labeled as a terrorist organization by the United States and across Europe.

These are facts. They are not in dispute by any Western country. Neither are they in dispute by non-Western countries. With Hamas, what you see is what you get. Hamas pulls no punches. Hamas puts up no facade.

Why then, how then, could the European Union Parliamentary Delegation officially invite Hamas legislators to come and visit in the Spring of 2009?

This isn't some surreal novel or a Hollywood action flick, this is for real. This is happening, now, in 2008.

The invitation to Hamas was issued by the head of the EU Parliamentary Delegation, Kyriacost Trianphyllides. When the Reuters news agency challenged the delegation head as to the appropriateness of the invitation given the status of Hamas in the eyes and on the State Department list of the United States and of EU countries, Trianphyllides was ready with a response.

He said: "We don't care who they are as long as they are members of the Legislative Council."

He said: "We don't ask if they are members of Hamas or members of Fatah."

He said: "The PLC was elected in 2006 and it was democratically elected."

Well, he should care. And he should ask. And he should be reprimanded. And the European Union should be challenged for allowing this invitation to be extended to a sworn enemy of freedom and democracy.

Freedom is not to be taken lightly. Is the European Union Parliamentary Delegation intentionally making a mockery of that which we hold dear?

Agreed: Hamas should not be given a forum anywhere in the free world for any reason until they have sworn off terror.

Agreed: Hell will freeze over before that happens.

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Tuesday October 28, 2008

Column:

For the third time in only six years, Israelis will be heading to the polls in search of a prime minister.

I must confess, I did not see this one coming. Seldom have I been as off base as I was in thinking that the leader of the Kadima party, Tzipi Livni, would be unable to form a government. My predictions concerning the Middle East are usually on target and ahead of the curve - this time, however, it came at me like a curve ball.

Livni was in position to inherit a government from her predecessor. Ehud Olmert had left everything in place. All the former foreign minister and current head of the Kadima party had to do was make the same promises to the same people and parties that Olmert had made. The same promises that Ariel Sharon made before Olmert inherited his government.

Of course there are slight changes, variations on a few themes, but the principles are all the same. In the end, Livni was only able to cobble together 60 out of 120 Israeli Knesset members, exactly one half of the Parliamentary body. And that just wasn't enough. She needed one more vote.

Sixty is not a majority government in the Knesset, it is a narrow government. Other governments have been formed with only sixty members, but it has never been a prudent move. In a country in which a "vote of no confidence" is never farther than a breath away, it is a dangerous political move. And it was a move Livni was not prepared to make.

So now the country waits for another national election.

The part of the political equation that I got so wrong was the Shas party part. Shas has 12 seats in today's Knesset. With Shas in her government Tzipi Livni would have had a comfortable majority of 72. But Shas would not join.

My assumption was that Shas would do everything to avoid elections because elections themselves are so risky, because it is never clear whether a party will go up or down, will gain or lose seats and stature and power. Polls taken now in Israel have Shas losing seats in an upcoming election. A basic and sensible rule of Israeli politics is avoid elections if you think you are going to lose seats. But Shas doesn't play by the rules and my mistake was in underestimating just how far afield they would go this time around. Shas is not a regular political party. It is often referred to as an ultra religious party. It is not. It is a party run by religious leaders.

The masses of the Shas party are traditional, rather than religious themselves, but they feel very positively toward religion and toward their religious leaders. The members are the immigrant children and grandchildren of Jews who came to Israel from Arab countries. They are called "Aidot Hamizrach" which translates to mean "Eastern communities" and they are sometimes referred to as Sepharadim. In the 60 year context since Israel's establishment this group has felt they have not had opportunities for growth and true assimilation into the higher echelons of Israeli society. So Shas was created and continues to function as the political arm that fights for the social, political and religious needs of immigrant Jews from Arab lands.

The masses of Shas voters serve in the army. But the decisions in Shas are made by their great rabbinic leader, by Rabbi Ovadiah Yossef. Shas political leadership advises the Rabbi, but make no mistake about it, the decisions themselves are made by the Rabbi.

And Rav Ovadiah ruled that Shas was not to join in the Livni government. The conflict was over three items: Jerusalem; money to schools; money for families with large children. Most of the issues were resolved. But most is not good enough for Rav Ovadiah.

Shas will probably be a member in the next government go round, but after that election, they may have fewer seats which translates into a lot less power. And to their chagrin, that government may again be headed by Livni.

According to two polls out right now, Kadima headed by Tzipi Livni will keep the same number of seats or gain a couple more, which puts them at 29 - 31 Knesset member seats. Likud, the party that thinks it can steal the crown, will increase their seats to 26 - 29 which is not enough to edge out Kadima. According to the polls Labor is on the way out. Labor will not be a contender and Israel has probably come to the end of an era of Labor national leadership.

Mainstream Israelis responded well to Livni and to the fact that the almost-but-not-quite prime minister said "no" to Shas and would not buckle. Shas, on the other hand, is counting on luring back voters because the party stood on principle and did not capitulate on the issues so dear to their constituents.

What do I think? I think I'll think about it a little longer.

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October 6, 2008

Column:

When Ephraim Halevy has something to say, most people listen. And Halevy, former chief of the Israeli Mossad, does not believe that Israelis should be involved in American politics. The Obama camp, apparently, thinks otherwise.

In a new Obama ad, an ad that will begin running on You Tube, on television and on radio this week, prominent Israeli heroes are seen and heard endorsing Obama Barack for president. According to the ad, the suggestion is that Obama is best for Israel and for the region and a vote for McCain is a vote for the continuation of George Bush's "failed" Middle East doctrine. Only problem with the ad, say some of the Israelis, is that when they were interviewed, they were never told that it was for a campaign ad and certainly not for an Obama ad campaign.

The stretch-the-truth ritual has been celebrated by candidates ever since the advent of political advertisements. This year, however, the candidates aren't just stretching or bending the truth, they are twisting and turning the truth, sometimes even going so far as to make up or fabricate what they then call truths.

The former head of the Mossad actually likes Obama. "I think that Obama is a breath of fresh air," he said during the interview. But he is not about to let the Barack Obama campaign twist either his words or his implication. Halevy is livid, to quote him directly: I told them I thought it was inappropriate for an Israeli to express an opinion on who should be president of the U.S. ... it angers me. I think it was an improper use of the interview with me and I will demand that they correct it ..."

The back story about this ad is becoming big news in Israel. In a piece that ran in the largest Hebrew daily newspaper, Yediot Ahronot and on YNET, the papers popular web site, Halevy denied ever having expressly supported Obama. He said: "I said he's a fresh, interesting personality and so forth, but I also said positive things about McCain."

The group responsible for - and under fire for - putting this ad together is called The Jewish Council for Education and Research. This same group is responsible for two other Jewish voting initiatives for Obama, they are the sponsors of jewsvote.com and The Great Schlep. Jews Vote is a program that tries to register as many democratic voters as possible. The Great Schlep has gained fame and notoriety for developing the Sarah Silverman ad, a campaign directed at younger, Jewish voters urging them to schlep to Florida in order to convince their bubbes, and I presume their zaydees as well, their grandparents, to vote Barack Obama for president. Silverman is so impassioned in her plea that she says: "if Obama loses this election I'm going to blame the Jews."

General Uzi Dayan, a nephew of Moshe Dayan arguably one of Israel's most famous war heroes turned politician, is another of the heroes featured in the ad campaign. In the ad Dayan says: "I would say that an American president, in my personal opinion, needs actually to be engaged with Iran ... you can't not talk to the Iranians and then one day attack them ... I'm not saying give in to them, because ultimately, you need to stop Iran from reaching nuclear capability."

After discovering that he was featured in the ad Dayan said: "I never said I support Obama or his opinions ... they interviewed me in early July and said the interview would be devoted to questions of Middle East policy that would be on the new president's desk ... I don't know what I'm doing in a campaign video." Like Halevy, Dayan has asked for a correction and asked the Obama people at The Council for Jewish Education and Research to remove him from the ad.

Other voices, like those of Reserve Brigadier General Shaul Arieli and ex-Mossad agent Yossi Alpher, are heard on this ad criticizing the Bush administration for Middle East failures and asserting that McCain seems close to the Bush doctrine so with McCain there will be more of the same.

The issue here is not as simple as a manipulation of quotes and out of context interviews. The issue is intention and the intention of this ad, and other ads like it on both sides of the aisle, is to change reality. The intention of this ad specifically is to exploit American viewers by having first exploited Israeli war heroes. That is wrong. That is immoral.

Are there no ex-generals or intelligence people who actually do subscribe to the Obama thesis? Are there no military types who would willingly and knowingly praise Barack Obama? If there were, why would the Obama campaign have resorted to trickery and chicanery and why go all the way to Israel? It makes me wonder.

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Wednesday September 24, 2008

Column:

Ahmadinejad is many things but he is far from crazy.

The present and future ruler of Iran is totally in control of his faculties. Thinking of him a raging lunatic is a serious mistake. Thinking of him as an out of control maniac is a serious miscalculation.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is dangerous, very dangerous. He is not dangerous because he is deranged, he is dangerous because he has a brilliant grasp of the way the world works. And the way the world works is not the way Ahmadinejad wants it to work. So Ahmadinejad wants to change the world.

It's that simple.

To discount Ahmadinejad because he rants and raves and makes statements that are so outside the realm of believable that he sounds crazy only puts us, his non-believers, at risk. To minimize his power and his importance as the conveyer of ideas to his many followers is to misunderstand the power that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad truly wields.

There are people who trust his word and believe his rhetoric. There are people who have fallen under the mystique he has created about himself. But there aren't enough people like that. Ahmadinejad is trying to drum up more followers, more believers, and to achieve that aim, he ratchets up his rhetoric.

Ahmadinejad is an anti-intellectual intellectual. He deliberately presents himself as an anti-intellectual, as someone against the intelligentsia and the wealthy elite of Iran. In reality the leader of Iran is a true intellectual, schooled deeply in history and literature.

So when Ahmadinejad makes his statements about Israel or when he denies the Holocaust he is not speaking out of ignorance. He is using buzz words. He know that the words "Israel" and "Holocaust" elicit a visceral, a palpable, reaction in the Arab Muslim world. Ahmadinejad has a reason for what sounds like madness.

His objective is to lead a united Islam under his control.

Ahmadinejad does what he must do to attain the status he seeks. Certainly Ahmadinejad knows that there was a Holocaust in Europe, he knows that the Holocaust resulted in the murder and destruction of the Jewish community of Europe. He also knows that the way to achieve his objective is to feed off of the conspiracy theories that thrive in the Muslim world. And he knows that in order to obtain standing in the greater Muslim Arab world he must pay lip service to the Palestinian cause.

Ahmadinejad does what he believes because he himself is a believer. He rejects the premise that a non-Muslim body can control Muslim land. And there is no more Muslim land than Jerusalem. He rejects Israel's very presence because Israel has shattered Islamic hegemony over the land. And he cannot tolerate or condone a situation that allows Zionists to exist on holy land and a situation that even allows the Zionists to control the holy sites in the Holy Land.

Ahmadinejad acts the way he does because in his own world, he is politically savvy. He will never speak the word "Israel" or use the term "Jewish State" because, surprisingly, the Koran does not always view the Jew negatively. In fact, in the Koran there is at times an intimation that the Jew is valuable and important. Instead, Ahmadinejad uses the term "Zionist entity." That is why he so carefully differentiates between "Jews" and "Zionists."

If there was no Holocaust there is no justification for creating the Jewish State. By rejecting the Holocaust Ahmadinejad takes away the moral, ethical and historical grounds upon which Israel was created. The truth has nothing to do with the reality when you are a motivational Muslim extremist. Theories are built upon emotion and emotion, in Ahmadinejad's case, is used to stoke the passions that will enable him to rise as a leader.

Ahmadinejad is not crazy. He is ruthless.

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Wednesday September 17, 2008

Column:

Mickey Mouse is getting mauled in the Muslim world.

It all began when Hamas children's television transformed the lovable Disney character into a Palestinian character, renamed him Farfu and had him beaten up and pummeled within inches of his life by Israeli soldiers. It was in very poor taste. It was immoral. Co-opting one of the most universally recognized and loved Disney characters and turning him into a creature that preaches rage and teaches hatred, murder and revenge was unconscionable.

The world cried out, the Magic Kingdom threatened lawsuits but the Palestinians persisted. Mickey Mouse recently re-appeared in a program produced by Palestinian television and geared for children. In this go round Mickey and his friends remain in the background as the child host of the program educates his audience on the subject of the borders of Palestine, omitting any mention of Israel.

Now the situation has taken a more adult and more sensational turn.

A leading Sunni cleric has come out with a Fatwa, a religious edict, declaring that all mice, including and especially Mickey Mouse, are repulsive and are to be destroyed. The cleric behind this religious pronouncement is named Mohammad al Munajid. The Fatwa was made public during an interview on Al Majd TV.

Al Munajid was not just grabbing headlines, there is reason to his madness.

This sheik is no stranger to the West, on the contrary, he is conversant in and very aware of Western culture and Western television programming. Al Munajid was stationed in Washington, DC as a diplomat in the Saudi Embassy.

According to this cleric Islamic law is unambiguous about mice. Mice are repulsive, corruptive, creatures. Al Munajid maintains that Disney purposefully transformed these vile rodents into lovable characters instead of portraying them as the awful creatures that they truly are. Al Munajid quotes the Shaariya. He says that mice are linked with Satan. He says that mice set fire to the house, that mice are the soldiers of Satan.

These are pretty harsh attack against a defenseless cartoon character.

It's easy to simply respond by saying that Munajid is corrupting the essence of Disney. Right now, however, a little perspective is essential in order to truly understand what is behind these controversial, confrontational comments.

Sunni cleric Mohammad al Munajid is a radical. He is radically anti-Western, radically anti-American and radically anti everything that is not Muslim. He is an extremist. He lives off anger. He is the Sunni sheik who gained notoriety during the Beijing Olympics by calling the games satanic and by calling them the Bikini Olympics. Yes, he is that Muslim, he is that character.

When Walt Disney first conceived of a mouse named Mickey there was some fear on the past of the company about how the world would connect with a mouse. Screaming and running away is exactly the opposite of the desired effect. Those fears proved unfounded. Mickey Mouse entered the homes and the hearts of children and their parents all across America and around the world.

And some of the homes that allowed Mickey to enter are located in the Muslim Arab part of the world. And that frightens Sheikh Mohammad al Munajid. And that is why it was not only permitted to corrupt the image of Mickey Mouse in the Muslim world, that is why it was encouraged. And that is why Mickey Mouse has now been banned.

Mickey Mouse deserves better. So do the children of Islam.

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Thursday September 11, 2008

Column:

One of the best ways to evaluate a society is by examining the humor of that society.

Freud asserted that in every joke there is a kernel of truth. I would assert that there is much, much more than simply a kernel. There is profound expression in humor. Societies use humor as a way of calling out, of crying for help, of pleading for law and order, a way to save their victims from untenable situations. The twist is that the call, the cry and the plea are accompanied not by tears, but by laughter.

In many circumstances the joke, humor, is the only way to actually raise essential societal questions while also allowing people to live through a situation that should be viewed as crazy and out of the ordinary, but that has become their everyday norm.

Jewish jokes have set the standard for gentle but honest self-deprecation. Jewish jokes were also the first to tackle indelicate situations in a digestible way. The jokes, written by Jews and about Jews are a window into the pain and pathos of the Jewish people during specific times in history. Originally intended for Jewish audiences, the genre has now become familiar to all ethnic groups and is a staple of many comedic performances.

It's okay to laugh at a Jewish joke, even if you're not Jewish. It's acceptable. In many cases, it's expected. That is not the case in all societies.

The Jewish people have a heightened sense of humor. Jews have taken to expressing themselves through humor even in the most horrific of situations. Sometimes, that humor is used as a defense mechanism. Sometimes it is a release from the tensions of life, or of death, surrounding them.

This poignant and powerful tool called humor was even used to help navigate through the horrors of the Holocaust. In Nazi Germany the Jews were being murdered. There was no escape from the German death machine. And yet the period is replete with jokes about Hitler and his allies, about Poles, about Lithuanians and Germans and everyone else. There were jokes about the murderers, about the allies, about the collaborators and even about fellow Jews.

Even the movie Cabaret, a story about the sidebar atrocities perpetrated by German Nazis during the Holocaust, makes its point through humor. The cabaret inside the movie Cabaret is the vehicle for humor, the cabaret is the release valve, it is the time and place where one is not only permitted, but encouraged, to laugh.

Humor provides people a tool and the ability to critique even in the most oppressive societies, even in the Muslim world.

In most of the Muslim world there is no free press, there is no freedom of expression and there is no permission to offer critique. Muslims living in Muslim countries do not have the right to freely assemble or to publicly redress grievances. Freedoms considered essential by Americans and by most of the Western world do not exist in the Muslim world.

But humor does exist. Humor in the Muslim world is an underground movement. Jokes never have authors, they just have a life. It's safer that way, so when a joke really takes off no one knows where it came from and when it will stop. Internet joke listings and SMS cell phone messaging have propelled Muslim humor. There is even an Iranian joke that ends with Ahmadinejad receiving a joke about himself on his own cell phone and getting so angry that he purges the cell phone company's entire SMS bureau. That's funny. That's a joke that was written by and for Iranians, but made its way to the Western world.

Most of the Iranian jokes that have made their way through Iran portray Ahmadinejad as a buffoon. They are mostly about the Iranian leader and his interaction with Western society. There are, of course, a good number of Iranian jokes about George Bush.

Many of the jokes that pervade the Arab world in general deal with Ahmadinejad. They also deal with the previous henchmen and thugs aka former leaders of Arab Muslim countries, leaders who can no longer retaliate against the humor. By and large Arab leaders found jokes to be offensive and called them criminal acts against the state. They said jokes foment anti-state feelings. Saddam Hussein and Yasser Arafat fell into that category. So does Muammar Qadaffi, despite the new relationship between the United States and Libya. So do most of the monarchs and dictators still ruling the Middle East.

Humor is not just political commentary. It is a panacea that allows people in oppressed and in free societies to wake up in the morning and go to sleep at night. It allows us to laugh until we cry.

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Wednesday September 3, 2008

Column:

There are countries that practice diplomacy as a form of fine art and there are countries that practice diplomacy as an "in your face" martial art. And there are countries that practice a mix of the two arts.

Western countries usually, successfully, practice the fine art form. The Palestinians usually end up in the "in your face" martial art category. The first phase of Palestinian diplomacy, the obligatory polite, fine art, phase, almost immediately gives way to the we-will-do-it-our-way-but-make-believe-we-are-still-being-polite phase which then turns into their we will do what we want, when we want, whichever way we want "in your face" final stage of diplomacy.

And when that happens, which is almost always, only another Arab country can get the Palestinians to change policy or principle. No Western power, not the United States, not Israel, not any other Western democracy has any power, or recourse, or redress when the Palestinians have made up their minds and decided diplomacy be damned.

Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinians Authority, leader of Fatah and successor to Arafat just demonstrated the type of diplomacy he practices. It was "in your face" of the highest rank. Mahmoud Abbas traveled to Lebanon for a special meeting with one of the most notorious, most vile, most celebrated, freed from prison in a prisoner exchange, terrorist alive today.

Abbas met with Samir Kuntar. Kuntar is the terrorist recently released by Israel along with four other terrorists held in Israeli prisons in exchange for the mutilated, desecrated and obviously tortured remains of Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev who had been kidnapped by Hezbollah and taken into Lebanon in the summer of 2006.

Kuntar was captured by Israel only after he had brutally and publicly murdered a four year old girl, bashing her skull with the butt of his machine gun until blood oozed out of her ears and her head was so crushed it looked to those who found the dead body like a raw egg. And he killed her father. And he killed a policeman. And in the throes of the terrorist attack he perpetrated her younger sister died, too.

Why? Why would the leader of the Palestinian people, the man lobbying for his own country by promising peace with Israel, even go to a meeting with Samir Kuntar let alone ask for the meeting as Kuntar proudly boasted.

The King of Saudi Arabia did not call for a meeting, or even call, Samir Kuntar. Neither did the president of Egypt or the Emir of Dubai or the Emir of Qatar. Abbas paid double respect to the released murderer, he called him upon his release and has now met with him.

Why? Because politically Abbas gains much more from the meeting than he loses. The hits or losses that Abbas takes from this meeting are obvious - Israel is very, very upset, the United States is very upset, Germany is upset. But those countries will move on and as they say in diplomatic circles, they'll get over it. It will take Israel the longest to get over it and it may come back to haunt Abbas, but there will be no immediate reaction. The response at home is immediate.

Abbas calculates that the benefits from the meeting will win him points at home. He does not hope to convince fence sitters because there are no fence sitters in the Palestinian Authority. There are supporters of Hamas and there are supporters of Fatah. And they are killing one another.

The President of the Palestinian Authority met with Samir Kuntar to prove that he is not a Jew lover, that he is not an Israeli lover. Diplomacy be damned. He wants to prove that Mahmoud Abbas and notorious killer of Israelis Samir Kuntar are cut of the same cloth. Abbas went to Lebanon to put on a show for Palestinians and Arabs world over. He went to prove that Abbas embraces murderers of little Israeli Jewish children.

The actions of Mahmoud Abbas, the intentions of Mahmoud Abbas, should inspire fear in every person who fights terror and favors democracy. The heart of Mahmoud Abbas is stone cold. He places politics above humanity. He embraces terror. That has just been proven with one significant visit to Lebanon.

The reality of Palestinian politics is that, at this point, Fatah has a plurality over Hamas and that advantage will for the near future. Sometimes, some people get frustrated with the corruption of Fatah and the extremism of Hamas but few will ever bolt to the other party. In the Palestinian Authority most party lines divide by families and loyalties to family members in various positions of power.

Most recent polls show that Abbas beats Hanyiah of Hamas 53%-39% and Fatah beats Hamas 43%-29% in party polling. The numbers are virtually unchanged since the last serious poll.

You see, Abbas really did not have to prove anything. He's made it. Abbas met with Samir Kuntar because he wanted to meet with Samir Kuntar, because in his heart, he probably respects Samir Kuntar. The intense emotional pull Mahmoud Abbas felt for terrorist Samir Kuntar overrode diplomacy. And it overrode decency.

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Thursday August 28, 2008

Column:

A recent poll shows that 63 percent of Americans favor a military strike against Iran should diplomacy fail.

Sixty three percent, that's a whopping big number. It's an important number. It's a number that speaks not of an America that is fed up, tired or weary. It speaks of a spirited and vibrant America. And it's a number that shows that Americans are not gun shy, that Americans have not become weakened by the experience of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Americans do not like injustice, Americans do not like evil and Americans are not afraid of bullies. And for Americans, Iran is all of those.

But there's a problem with the results of this poll. The problem is that the people of America are not the government of America. Americans are not afraid, but the government of America is afraid, or at least, wary. The results of this survey come at a very important time, they come only days after the conclusion of the conflict between Russia and Georgia, a conflict during which the United States of America chose to stand on the sidelines rather than stand up for freedom and democracy.

Interestingly, this poll was commissioned by the Israel Project, an unabashedly pro Israel advocacy program in Washington DC - and proud of it.

To give this study credibility, and to guarantee objectivity, the Israel Project went to both Democratic and Republican pollsters and jointly they produced the study. On the Republican side the poll was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies. On the Democratic side it was conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. They also took the poll to Germany and Great Britain.

85 percent of Democrats and 97 percent of Republicans see Iran as a serious threat to the United States. That is about as close as one can get to a bi-partisan agreement on anything, let alone a call to war. These conclusions are enormously important for the presidential candidates. They are also important for those countries around the world who hoping to continue to receive infusions of support for their burgeoning democracies from the United States.

Right now, right when the results of this poll are being released countries like Israel and Georgia are trying to integrate the lessons learned during the conflict between Russia and Georgia. They are trying to understand the how could they and the why did they not of the American response. Now they have an answer, the American people will support them, even if the American government does not. They know it because 55 percent of the Americans polled said that they viewed positively a strike against the Iranian nuclear facilities.

They know it because they know that 57 percent of Americans actually understand Iran better than most American politicians do. 57 percent of those Americans polled responded that they believe that the reason the Iranians want to attain nuclear power and nuclear weapons is to maximize their own, personal, regional authority and world power.

Americans attribute an actual motive to Iran's nuclear pursuits. And they are not afraid to admit it.

Take heed, that is the American way.

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Thursday August 21, 2008

Column:

The Zionist dream is alive and well.

Refugees are once again abandoning their place of birth, enduring great physical hardship and risking their lives to enter the Land of Israel. These are not the Jews of Europe, fleeing anti-Semitism, yearning for their ancestral home. They are not the Jews of Iraq, expelled from their homes and hiking across borders to take refuge in the land of their biblical forefathers. They are not the Jews of Ethiopia who walked for hundreds of miles and hundreds of days to escape persecution before they were, finally, airlifted to safety in Israel.

They are Muslims.

They are survivors from Darfur.

And only the lucky ones make it. Since January of this year nineteen people have been shot to death at the border between Egypt and Israel. Hundreds of others have illegally but safely and successfully crossed the border into Israel.
The Jewish government of Israel allows these non-Jewish escapees who have made their way across the fertile plain to enter their country unharmed. The Egyptian Arab government shoots to kill as fellow Muslims attempt to leave their country. How ironic. How very sad.

Egyptian policy is to use lethal force, that's the way they do things. Israeli policy is to offer medical plans.

Despite all the horrific anti-Israel vitriol than pervades the Muslim world, despite the lessons of hate that children are taught from their earliest years in schools and in places of worship, these people fleeing for their lives know that escape to Israel is one of their only chances of survival. They risk danger in order to enter the Land of Zion, in order to achieve their own dreams of coming to Israel.

Persecuted Jews came to Israel in order to transform their Jewish experience from one of being the victim to one of being the defender. They came to be a part of a society that is new, vibrant and free of oppression. So, too, with today's refugees entering Israel. What makes Israel so exciting to the people of Darfur and other parts of Africa, what makes Israel so enticing, so worth the risk of getting there is the life they will lead once there. Freedom is a hard commodity to come by in most of the world, even today.

The story of the miracle of Israel has taken hold in the hearts and minds of oppressed people - even oppressed Muslims in far away Africa. In Israel, the Jews made the desert bloom. And in Israel they provide health care and offer education to everyone regardless of religion or color or citizenship.

The Darfur Muslims now entering Israel are given a home and a haven. When Jews were in trouble the gates of the world were shut to them. Israel will never shut the gates - not to Jews and not to any peoples in need. Just like the stranded Boat People of Viet Nam who entered Israel in 1978 when the world was willing to let them die and few other countries were granting refuge, most of the Darfur refugees who made it to Israel will find their place in Israeli culture and society.

It is still unclear how Israel will process the new population illegally entering the country. Some have been arrested and some have been granted refugee status, some have been granted citizenship and some are living in tent camps. But a solution will be found, the process has begun and the refugees are still attempting to make their way to freedom in the State of Israel.

One thing is for sure, they are not being shot at at the border - not as they enter and not if they choose to one day leave.

So how do these Muslims fit into the Zionist dream?

They don't. But Israel will see to it that they will.

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Wednesday August 13, 2008

Column:

The biggest military threat Israel faces is not Iran, the biggest threat is a combined attack against Israel involving Iran, Syria and Hezbollah. What we call in sports a pile on. I have been analyzing this potential threat for many months now. That specific attack is a worst case scenario - a coordinated effort during which Iranian, Syrian and Hezbollah missiles and rockets come pummeling into Israel all at the same time. The result would be more devastating than any war Israel has been involved in since the creation of the state.

On Tuesday August 5, 2008 the Strategic Air Command in Israel conducted an exercise that precisely simulated my worst predictions and fears. The exercise was not intended to be kept a secret. It was made public and was filmed by Israel's Channel 10 News and reported on by the popular Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1008808.html
It was intended as a warning.

The exercise was an overwhelming success. Of course, certain elements will require tweaking but should Israel become the target of a three pronged attack by Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, Israel will mount a successful defense. Yes, the Israeli military will be able to defend the citizens of Israel in a worst case scenario attack.

The further Israel gets from the worst case scenario, the fewer enemy players involved in the attack, the better the odds are for Israel. Fewer enemy nations translates into higher odds. How does Israel stay out of the worst case scenario? By managing their own three pronged, non-military, attack - threats, disincentives and classic cold war tactics.

The ultimate objective is to frighten Israel's enemies and aggressors. Those countries intent on destroying Israel must know that if they were ever to attack Israel or join forces with Iran, Syria or Hezbollah in order to destroy Israel, their own potential for loss would be significantly greater than the internal, Muslim and Arab world glory they would gain for attacking the Zionist infidel state.

The Arab world is struggling under the weight of a double message about Israel. Message one perpetuates the conspiracy theory of the greatness of Israel and Israel's military might. Message two speaks to a growing sense that Israel's army has faltered and its former glory is fast fading. Israel's military prowess and capability as proved by this latest exercise, combined with Israel's non-military actions, should set the record straight.

Over the past year defense and strategy groups in Israel, Washington and London have spent a great deal of time debating Iran's potential for attacks and the West's ability to counter attacks. Some DC policy planners are of the opinion that Iran's capability is really irrelevant, that Iran will not take the initiative and initiate an attack. The thinking is that Iran has a thousand year history of non-aggression and that history is not about to be altered now. These same people assert that while the real fear is not an Iranian initiated attack, the real fear is an Iranian counter-attack. They are of the belief that if Iran is pushed, if Iran interprets Western actions as insults, that may well trigger what the Iranians will view as a counter attack. Is it a game of semantics? It is. Is it a game of perceptions? It is. Either way, it is a dangerous situation.

Israel does not have the luxury of banking on a historical precedent. Semantics and perceptions are no longer relevant when an attack is launched. Israel must prepare for the worst possible scenario if only to repel the bluster that Iran is perpetually spouting. Iran is trying desperately to become the epicenter of the world. Iran wants all eyes on Iran. And that explains why, for example, in response to an ultimatum and deadline calling for Iran to cease and desist in the development of uranium the Iranians arrogantly, conceitedly and openly proclaimed that they had no plans of the sort.

The Iranians were playing to the Muslim world. They were hoping to galvanize the Muslim world against the West under the leadership of Teheran. The head of the Iranian Revolutionary Mohammad Ali Jafari, held a press conference and announced that Iran had just tested a new anti-ship missile that could sink "enemy ships" at a range of more than 200 miles. http://www.nysun.com/foreign/iran-threatens-to-shut-strait-of-hormuz/83142
He asserted that Iran could shut down the Strait of Hormuz with ease, he said: "Enemies know that we are easily able to block the Strait of Hormuz for an unlimited period."
Everyday about 35% of the world's oil travels through the Straits of Hormuz on its way to Africa and Asia. It does not matter whether Iran is capable of closing the Straits either for the long or short term. The threat alone will have a cataclysmic effect on markets and world economies.
Iran's threats need to be taken seriously by the West because they are being taken seriously by the Muslim world. And one day another Muslim country just might decide to take up the cause and join Iran in an attack against the West. And if that happens a very bad scenario becomes worse.

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Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Column

Ehud Barak, Israel's Defense Minister, returned to Israel from a visit to Washington, D.C. In an almost revolving door scenario, Barak arrived on the coattails of Gabi Ashkenazi, Israel's Chief of Staff.

They were there to talk about Iran.

Iran has been the most important topic in every conversation between Israel and the United States for the past eighteen months. Iran is the most critical challenge to Israel and the most significant factor impacting the region. Iran is the most problematic force in the world today according to the thinking of the most powerful country in the world today, the United States of America.

And then they discussed terror.

They discussed Hamas and Hezbollah generated terror. They discussed the role of Iran in sponsoring the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations. Towards the end of that agenda item the United States and Israel probably shared insight and information on the status of world terror.

Finally, they discussed the Palestinians and the inability of the Palestinians to reign in terror even in the West Bank, let alone in Gaza.

Those were the discussions. Then came the crux of the visits. Then came the request.

Ashkenazi and Barak came to ask the United States for help in putting a stop to the acts of almost daily terror Israel is subjected to by Hamas. They came to brainstorm and to investigate. Israel is thinking of either borrowing or purchasing an American made weapon called the Phalanx CIWS Cannon. CIWS stands for Close-in Weapons System.

Both Barak and Ashkenazi are experienced in the military needs and demands of Israel. Like Ashkenazi, Barak once held the position of Israel's Chief of Staff. During his tenure as Israel's senior military official he was often touted as the most highly decorated officer in Israel's history. He was a prime minister once before and hopes to become his country's prime minister once again.

In Israel right now defense officials are frowning on buying the Phalanx or any new military equipment, for that matter. They want to concentrate all their investment energy and resources in one direction. They want to complete development on their own, new, weapon - a weapon that will protect Israel and be available for export around the world. It is called the Iron Dome.

The Iron Dome will probably meet all of Israel's expectations. The only thing the Iron Dome cannot meet is Israel's needs now. The Iron Dome system is not scheduled for completion until 2011. Israel needs help now.

Actually, the city of Sderot, the city most in need of protection from the daily onslaught of missiles, needed protection yesterday and the day before that and the months and months before that.

There is no doubt that the Phalanx will improve the defense of Sderot and of other communities that abut Gaza. But the Phalanx alone will not work. The Phalanx is nicknamed R-2 D-2 because it looks like the droid from Star Wars. This cannon system works like a hi-tech gatling gun. It shoots 3,000 to 4,500 twenty millimeter rounds a minute. It is designed to hit missiles and rockets and mortars that fly in low. Every United States Navy fighting ship is equipped with this system. The Phalanx uses two sets of radar, the first set tracks and the second, much more powerful and precise, guides the shot. There is also a Phalanx designed for the ground.

If the Phalanx was used together with an advanced radar system the people of Sderot would be able to sleep quietly at night - in their own beds, not in shelters. If the Phalanx was in Israel today the entire country would be safer. If the Phalanx was in Israel today Hamas would be one large step further away from destroying the lives and weakening the morale of Israel's citizens.

Buy it or borrow it. Go back to Washington. Israel needs protection now. And now, only the United States has the equipment capable of providing that protection. Some things are not worth waiting for.

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Wednesday July 30, 2008

Column:

There are murders, mass arrests and a leading newspaper has been shut down. Tensions that had been simmering below the surface are now out in the open and they are boiling over. Hamas and Fatah are not only out for blood, they are out for power and control.

Gaza and tension go together like America and apple pie. They are inseparable. Even when the tension was not obviously manifest, even when it was not visible to the naked, untrained, non-Palestinian eye, it was palpable, it could be felt by the locals. An outsider's first peek at the rising tensions came when five Hamas military members were killed in a parking lot explosion in Gaza - and Hamas immediately pointed the finger of blame at Fatah.

And where Gaza goes, the West Bank is sure to follow. Here too, tensions, violence, acts of intimidation and menacing threats are emerging and hitting the streets and byways. Hamas began by arresting members of Fatah in Gaza. Fatah followed by arresting Hamas members in the West Bank. Now it is a game of Tit for Tat, Palestinian style. And for the players in the West Bank and Gaza Tit for Tat is a war game.

The game has just been taken up a notch. Murders, arrests, finger pointing, newspaper closings - those are the old components of the game. A new component has just been unleashed, it is the Palestinian propaganda machine. When it comes to Palestinian propaganda, Fatah is at a distinct disadvantage, Hamas is master.

It was one year ago that Hamas ousted Fatah from Gaza. Seven months earlier Hamas defeated Fatah in a parliamentary election. Hamas is using that imagery to convince the Palestinians of their superiority and right to rule. Hamas is using that imagery to instill fear in the hearts of Fatah and all other Palestinians. It is the imagery of victory and defeat.

Hamas has released some very powerful statements that cut to the core of every Palestinian citizen and taunts present-day, mainstream Fatah leadership. "Now the Zionists are protecting you," says Hamas. "You know that once the protection of the Zionists is over, people will enter your headquarters and kick you out."

These statements evoke memories of the coup in Gaza, pictures that every Palestinian has etched in their memories as clear as the photos that were taken and proudly flaunted at the time. Hamas gunmen taking over Fatah headquarters in Gaza. Hamas gunmen kicking up their feet with a massive portrait of Yasser Arafat on the wall behind them. Fatah, forced out and on the run.

"You must know," continues Hamas "we are not acting against you now in the West Bank because ... we know the Zionists will immediately back you."

Believe me, the average Palestinian is thinking those exact thoughts. And judging by recent polls it looks as if Hamas is gaining popularity - not in overwhelming numbers, but certainly gaining.

Palestinians leadership, that is Fatah leadership, is caught in a real sticky situation. Fatah needs Israel to prop them up, but Fatah cannot be seen as collaborating with Israel. The average Palestinian wants an end to the conflict, but the average Palestinian does not want to live in a West Bank ghetto. Palestinians prefer economic opportunity, Palestinians want freedom of movement. Palestinians want to be able to go into Israel and find work. Israel is a tool that is and will continue to be used by both sides in this war of words and actions.

The intimidation continues. So do the arrests and so does the bloodshed. Reuters reported that human rights groups are charging both Fatah and Hamas with the use of torture. The situation is out in the open, once again. The situation will continue to escalate.

The war between Hamas and Fatah never ended, it just went underground for a while.

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Wednesday July 23, 2008

Column:

The Muslim world often sends out mixed messages, one message for the outside world, another for inner consumption. It's not ineptitude or poor translating capabilities, it is pure, simple, intentional manipulation.

The Iranians have mastered the art of international diplomacy. The Iranians have also bested their Muslim brethren in the art of mixed political messaging and media manipulation.

The Iranian missile tests, intended to showcase military prowess as well as nuclear capability, was quickly and artfully re-shaped into a showcase of creative, media manipulation. Not only did the Iranians photo-shop the pictures - for external consumption, they photo-shopped the facts - for internal consumption.

IRNA, one of the official Iranian government media outlets, ran a news scoop after the missiles were released. According to the report, Israelis were fleeing for their lives in fear. Why? Because now the world had proof of Iran's great missile system and now it was clear to every country that Iran is the most powerful of all.

"Following the successful maneuver executed by Iran last week, which included the firing of new missiles, Zionist residents living in occupied Palestine have begun to flee from there."

"The residents told their illegitimate government that this was the reason they refused to go on living there."

The report actually says that there has been a "massive emigration from Tel Aviv following the military maneuver."

Iran wants their internal world to believe that they are a great and undefeatable society. Iranian leadership wants to assume the mantle of Cyrus the Great and lead the people of Persia to world dominance. But this is far from the truth.

And what Iran refuses to acknowledge is that an accurate assessment of military abilities is as essential in foreign diplomacy as it is in war. That is why Iranian leaders not only photo-shopped the missile launch transforming a mid-range dud into a long range threat, but they also created a fiction in which their every movement evinces fear and quaking from the citizens of Israel.

Iranian political and military leadership has made it almost impossible to ferret out the truth from the bluster when it comes to Iranian nuclear development and capability. Propaganda and nuclear preparation go hand-in-hand. Diplomacy and deceit are interwoven and at times, both are very convincing.

In the midst of their race for nuclear technology, Iran is taking the time to attempt to open diplomatic channels with the United States. Several times in the past week Ahmadinejad has said that he would not be averse to the opening of a US diplomatic office in Teheran. In one instance he said it was a good idea and that it would improve relations between the countries especially after the November presidential elections.

Iran is courting the United States at this historical juncture because Iran understands that most of the Western world is soft when it comes to military strikes and that the only two powers that really count in that arena are Israel and the United States.

They know that the vast majority of the world will condemn a strike against Iran. They know that most countries will deceive themselves to avoid a military strike. And they know that letting in inspectors, negotiating with the inspectors, stopping the inspectors from doing their job and then starting all over again is a diplomatic game that allows European nations to cling to a glimmer of hope that Iran might be on the verge of acquiescing to world demands and actually cooperating. And where there is hope there will be no strike. It costs the Iranians absolutely nothing and it buys the Iranians good will and more time.

By making overtures to the United States in an effort to open a diplomatic office, especially a trade office, Iran is achieving a double goal. They are deflecting attention away from their nuclear mission and adopting the role of peace maker. It is Iran playing the role of peace loving nation by holding out the olive branch to the largest country in the Western world. It is the United States and by extension Israel that are now forced into playing the role of nay sayer and war monger. Iran is all good, Israel and the West are all evil.

The West cannot allow Iran to re-write history or photo-shop reality. It is our job to understand all the messages emanating from Iran, those for internal consumption and those for diplomatic convention. It is our job to weed out truth from rhetoric, to predict and to be prepared.

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Tuesday July 15, 2008

Column:

For years, Israel was considered to be the superior force in the Middle East. That fact alone kept Israel safe from many of her enemies, most of the time. It was the deterrence factor, and historically, the deterrence factor has played an important role in keeping countries - and the world, safe.

Mutual deterrence was the pinnacle of the Cold War, it was the reason why there was a stalemate between the US and USSR. Deterrence is what kept Israel safe in the midst of the Middle East. Until now.

It is not that Israel has changed, it is the world that has changed. Major players in the world are no longer nations - strong, powerful, autocratic or democratic nations, some players are now organizations -terrorist organizations.

For years Israel and her friends have touted the concept of the qualitative edge as a significant tool in the arsenal of military deterrence. The United States was a strong proponent of the concept and, within the Arab world, encouraged the image of Israel's superior military status which in turn kept Israel's enemies at bay.

Israel always had better fighters, better training, better tanks, better planes and better intelligence. Israel was wealthier, more motivated, more successful, more worldly, Israel was more Western. Israel was more free and Israel was more democratic. Still is. But all that no longer matters. The overwhelming intimidation, the powerful facts on the ground and the fear factor that kept Israel safe for years no longer works against this new breed of idealistic, terrorist, enemy.

Hezbollah, Hamas and al Qaeda as well as the lone country Iran are neither stunned nor smitten by the Israel's great military prowess. Israel neither petrifies nor paralyzes them. They are fearless. And the rules of the game they play are solely theirs.

With most countries, the qualitative edge still works. It was deterrence that brought about peace between Israel and Egypt and Israel and Jordan, it is that qualitative edge that keeps the peace alive. Other, more established Arab and Muslim countries, have realized that Israel is here to stay and have begun dealing with the Jewish state even if only behind closed diplomatic doors. Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Qatar have begun interacting with Israel. Even Syria is now in the throes of third party negotiations with Israel precisely because of this very intimidating qualitative edge.

These are countries that are still informed by the same basic concept that informed them twenty years ago. It is called self-preservation and it still works. It is the same motivation that kept the world safe during the years of Cold War.

Islamic extremists like al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas and the powers leading Iran are wired differently. Self preservation holds no interest for them. They cannot be intimidated and they do not have conventional thresholds of fear. They exist in perpetuation of a principle, they care only about total compliance to a religious idea and they cannot be deterred. Anyone who rejects the foundation of their extremism, even another Muslim, becomes a blatant target of the movement's ire. According to their new dogma, it is religiously permitted to attack non-believers.

The warriors in the armies of al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran are not afraid of dying. Their leaders think nothing of sacrificing the masses to achieve the organization's greater goal. The goal is to attack - at all costs, regardless of impact or effect.

According to the rules of play of extremist, terrorist, religious, organizations, every attack, even a minor attack, is major victory. The obsession is the attack, not the result of the attack. Precisely because of Israel's great military superiority any small irritation by Hezbollah or Hamas is interpreted by group supporters as a death blow to Israel. Any counter attack by Israel or strike against the terrorists is considered a victory for the terrorists. Theirs is an all-or-nothing game. If they are not wiped out totally, they are victorious. If even a single Hamas or Hezbollah believer remains standing, it is considered to be a win against Israel. Israel was unable to defeat them. The same rule extends to al Qaeda and to Iran and their wars with Israel and with the world.

The challenge is ours, the Western world. We must develop a new model to confront this new form of enemy. We must prepare ourselves to confront this new threat to our war plans and strategy, to our way of life and to our existence. The Western world must find a new deterrent, appropriate in the fight against extremism. We need to develop a new qualitative edge.

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Tuesday July 8, 2008

Column:

The deal is done. Israel has agreed to exchange live Arab prisoners for dead Israeli soldiers. Walking, talking, alive and breathing, tried and convicted terrorists and 190 dead terrorists for the corpses of kidnapped Israeli soldiers.

In politics, much like in big business, decisions do not always follow the classic game theory model. Win-win, win-lose and even lose-lose do not always apply. Sometimes, decisions are made only in order to cut future losses and move on. Israel is cutting losses, Israel is moving on. Israel has nothing more to gain in this go-round with Hezbollah and nothing more to lose.

Bad decisions were made from the beginning and those bad decisions will live on, setting a bad precedent. When the War with Lebanon began two summers ago, the intention was to find Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev and bring them home - dead or alive, to return Israeli soldiers to Israeli soil. Along the way Israel lost sight of the original goal. Instead of fighting to find the boys, Israel fought to debilitate Hezbollah. By the time a cease fire was called, neither goal had been achieved.

There have been other deals between Israel and Hezbollah and none of them have been good - but neither have they significantly hurt Israel. This deal, which includes exchanging notorious terrorist Samir Kuntar, will number among one of the worst deals the State of Israel has ever cut with the enemy.

The reasoning for accepting the deal goes like this. The parents of Goldwasser and Regev, their immediate family, need closure. Their extended family, which has grown to include the entire country of Israel, needs closure. The Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem has said that Hezbollah has no more information to give about Israeli navigator Ron Arad who was shot down, taken hostage and abandoned on enemy soil twent-two years ago. If Hezbollah has no more information to give, then Kuntar has little currency. Politically Kuntar is now dead weight.

The best use of Kuntar right now is to sacrifice him for the remains of the Israelis, to stave off the possibility of Goldwasser and Regev turning into Arad - disappeared into a black enemy hole with no one claiming knowledge or possession. By retrieving the bodies Israel will be denying her enemies the pleasure of gloating over a prized possession - the bodies of two Israeli soldiers.

Kidnappings take a tremendous toll on a tiny, tightly knit, nation like Israel, a place where there are very few degrees of separation between families and the masses. In Israel almost everyone serves and that means that almost everyone's child is put at risk.

Israelis loan their children to the army, defending Israel against enemies is an unfortunate but totally understood reality. Israel receives those children with a special promise - to protect them, to make certain they do not die in vain. And if a parent is called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice for home and country, if an Israeli soldier is killed, Israel has always promised to bring back the body and erect a proper grave.

The Israeli army mantra, the Israeli army code, of "no body left behind in the battlefield" is not only meant to soothe soldiers and their families. It is also meant to tell the enemies of Israel that they will be denied the perverse thrill of publicly mutilating the bodies and then exchanging the corpses for live terrorists.

The ramifications of this deal are significant. The bodies will be returned, graves will be erected, but a gaping hole will have been placed in the Israeli justice system because of this prisoner exchange. The Arab terrorists in this exchange were tried and convicted by the Israeli court. Kuntar was sentenced to four life sentences without the possibility of parole for his brutal acts. Israel does not have capital punishment, this judgment was the toughest sentence the court could give.

Now the message is being transmitted to all terrorists - those already convicted and those still planning their acts - that there is always a way to get out, there is always the possibility of exchange. The message to the terrorists is that there is always a way to get out. Just kidnap Israelis and hold them for ransom.

And then there is the blow to the victims, the people injured by the terrorists now being released, the families of the people whom they killed and the people injured and killed in the capture of these terrorists. All Israelis understand the risk of living in Israel. All Israelis understand the dangers of terror and the reality of army service. These citizens of Israel relied on the State for justice. Now the brutal murderers will be set free because the State is cutting political and military losses.

There are some in Israel who think that this exchange does more than cut losses, they think that it hurts Israel militarily. They think that it signals a death sentence for Gilad Shalit, another hostage, another kidnapped Israeli soldier who is being held in Gaza by a Hamas-related group. They think that the enemy will now believe that if you can get so much for a dead soldier, why go through the trouble of keeping Shalit alive? The answer to that is, strange as it sounds, Hamas is not Hezbollah. Each enemy group, each terrorist organization, each country at war with Israel plays by their own set of rules much as Israel deals differently and independently with each of them.

There are those in the intelligence and the defense world who say never exchange live prisoners for dead soldiers. Live for live, dead for dead, no exceptions or you lose the advantage in negotiations. That thinking has merit. But today's politicians have acted differently and right now, in this exchange, it is too late to implement that policy.

This will not be the last negotiation because this will not be the last kidnapping. Terrorists are rehearsing. They have training films and propaganda reels. Recruits are learning how to grab the Israelis and how to carry them away.

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Wednesday July 2, 2008

Column:

Ever since the Friday June 20th piece in The New York Times describing an Israeli air force training exercise into Iran analysts and prognosticators have been busy commenting, speculating and, in many cases, downright fantasizing.

The front page piece detailed an exercise involving hundreds of Israeli fighter jets flying over nine hundred miles and refueling mid-air on a practice run into Iran in order to destroy Iran's nuclear capability. Now everyone is busy speculating on if and when Israel will invade and attack Iran for real, not merely as exercise.

Truth is Israel might invade Iran, but only when there is no other alternative, only if the international community falls down on its job and allows Iran to achieve independent nuclear capability. And that time is not now. And should that time come, Israel will not announce it anywhere, not in the Israeli press, not in the international press and certainly not on the front page of The New York Times.

The story was released not by Israel, the story was released by the United States. Publicly announcing Israel's ability to target Iran is not in Israel's best interests - it is in the interest of the United States. This story was pitched not by Israel in an attempt to place pressure on Iran, it was pitched by the United States, a public relations ploy, a way for the Washington to apply pressure on Iran. True, Israeli defense and diplomatic channels have neither denied nor confirmed the activity and they have probably collectively chuckled over the speculative effect this story is having, but it was not their leak.

Washington is telling Teheran that there is a third party out there and that party is acting independently. Washington is telling other European capitals to look out for Israel, because Israel can do it on its own - and Israel will destroy Iran's nuclear capability on its own if they do not hurry up and act to get Iran under control.

The training exercise that took place a few weeks ago, in early June, was not the first such exercise by the Israeli air force. It will not be the last. Israel needs to plan. Israel needs to be prepared for a worst case scenario. Israel needs to be ready to thwart an imminent attack.

At the point of no return, if it seems certain that Iran has gone beyond the threshold and is on the verge of having everything necessary to create their nuclear bomb, at that last possible moment, that's when Israel will attack. And according to all Israeli estimates - if Iran cannot be derailed by the international community, that time will not come for at least another eighteen months.

An Israeli attack will be a specifically targeted attack. Israel will not set out to destroy everything Iran has, that takes too much effort and the risks are too high. All Israel needs to do is derail Iranian nuclear productivity, to set back the clock, to delay the process. A successful Israeli attack against Iran will be an attack that buys the time to bring down the weight of the world upon Iran and ultimately destroy Iran's dreams of successful nuclear development.

When Israel hit the Syrian agricultural laboratory on September 6th of last year the air force knew how to negotiate the mountain ranges of Turkey. They knew because they had practiced and practiced and practiced and they had permission from Turkey to fly over Turkish air space. Specifically, they had permission from Turkey to fly over their air space in order to enter and exit not Syria - but Iran. The Turkish government was not pleased, to say the least, that Israel chose to use their air space to bomb Syria without asking, but Turkey got over it, because Turkey realizes the need to keep Iran in check and Turkey knows that should all else fail, Israel will be forced into action.

Should international sanctions of Iran prove effective, Israel is less likely to attack Iran. Should the international community successfully limit Iranian nuclear development an Israeli attack will be less likely regardless of the vitriol and intensity of Ahmadinejad's verbal attacks against Israel and the West. Should Iranian Supreme Leader The Ayatollah Khamenei lose confidence in Ahmadinejad and trust that Israel and the international community are capable of striking Iran and should he consequently decide to soften Iran's nuclear stance, even for the short term, the possibility of an Israeli attack is reduced.

Inner Iran and the international community factor into the Israeli decision making process. But probably the most significant factor of all is the next president of the United States of America. Israel will not and cannot go into Iran without the permission of the United States and that permission is handed down directly from the Oval Office. Israel will petition for carte blanche permission. They will probably get a conditional yes depending on the intelligence reports and urgency. That's the way it played out on September 6, 2007. Plans were in place and Israel wanted to hit the Syrian site during the summer. The United States said no, the United States wanted more intelligence, proof that more and more materials were arriving from North Korea. And then, when the United States was satisfied of the need and the urgency, Israel attacked.

Iran has said publicly that "the Zionists do not have the capacity to threaten the Islamic Republic." But Iranian leaders know Israel's potential and they are willing to walk the tight rope, to balance the odds. Iran wants to be in control. Right now, Iran has the most to gain from this conflict. The Iranians are getting tremendous pan-Muslim support by simply standing up to the United States and drawing Israel into the conflict.

Israel realizes how dangerous Iran is. Israel knows how costly an air attack will be. If the time is right, if Israel does attack Iran, know that, without a doubt, we will have reached the point of no return.

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Friday June 27, 2008

Column:

There have been two assassination attempts on the life of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the past several weeks. The first attempt was made while the Iranian leader was on an official visit to Iraq, the second attempt was planned for last week, in Italy.

In making these threats public the government of Iran has added the name Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a long and dubiously distinguished list of world leaders who have been openly targeted for assassination.

Today, every world leader no matter how popular or how reviled must consider every threat a serious threat. Assassinations and terrorist attacks are a part of today's political culture. A leader represents a political party, a social agenda and a country. Today's leaders wander through many sets of cross hairs by virtue of position - personality hardly enters into the assassin/terrorist agenda and master plan.

There have been seventeen known attempts to kill a sitting United States president. Four, Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy, Jr. succeeded. Presidents Zachary Taylor and Warren Harding died while in office and rumors and several books suggest that both presidents were poisoned. Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, by an Israeli citizen, in Israel. Mohandas Ghandi, Father of the Nation of India as he was affectionately called by most of his country, was killed on January 30, 1948. Assassinations and attempted assassinations are not relegated to the domain of autocratic, dictatorial governments. Democracies are by no means immune from assassination attempts.

Assassinations have altered history. The successful attack on the life of Ferdinand, Archduke of the Austria, sparked World War I. And the assassination of Lebanese President Rafik Hariri is still setting off sparks in the Middle East.

There are many attempts that never make it to the history books. In the United States there are numerous threats that never make it outside the offices of the Secret Service. There are plots that are just that plots and hundreds of those are investigated each year. All it takes is one successful attempt - and when it comes to the assassination of a world leader, one is too many.

If the Secret Service is kept busy thwarting attempted attacks on the life of the president, imagine how busy the army and secret police are in a religious police state like Iran. In Iran, thousands of people are arrested for the crime of having ideas contrary to the ruling religious leadership. In Iran today, there are numerous groups and countless individuals who want to do away with Ahmadinejad.

The Iranians blame the United States for the two plots on the life of Ahmadinejad. Specifically, the Iranian government blames President George Bush. They rationalize the accusation by pointing out that on several occasions the US president has said that the conflict the United States has with Iran is not with the people of Iran, it is with the leadership of Iran. In Iran-think, the leap is obvious. Iranian leadership interprets this diplomatic statement as a direct threat and credits the US president with sponsoring coups as well as assassinations.

The Iranians would do better analyzing the data rather than fabricating an unreal scenario if they truly wish to protect their leader. Both plots would have Ahmadinejad assassinated outside his own country, in Iraq and Italy, respectively. That is important. It is not to say that the assassins, or intended assassins, were not Iranians - it is to say that if caught, the assassins would be outside the jurisdiction and control of the brutal Iranian police force. The plotters were looking for more freedom and more safety. Local governments are less concerned about the plot against foreign, visiting dignitaries and have less intelligence about the plotters.

The odds are there really are people out there trying to assassinate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But those people are not the CIA or any United Sates agency. There is a significant Iranian expatriate community who see Ahmadinejad as a tyrant. There are a significant number of Middle East Arabs who see him as one the most explosive and problematic leaders in the region. These groups fly way under the radar in Italy and especially in Iraq, but they are on Iran's radar. They are probably the same groups trying to sponsor political opposition to Ahmadinejad, at home, in Iran.

Ahmadinejad, like almost every other world leader today, is on someone's hit list. A news flash, planning an assassination is a lot easier than executing the plan.

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Friday June 20, 2008

Column:

Peace is an elusive term in the Middle East, especially if you are Israel. Peace is the dream, never the reality. While Peace In The Middle East is not quite the oxymoron many people believe it to be, it is a concept that goes by many names.

Despite it all, despite a long history of missed opportunities and wasted efforts, despite the many intentional misrepresentations and outright lies, if Israel had a wish list, Peace With Neighbors - or some variation on the theme - would top the list. Right now, at a dizzying speed, in both much heralded and grossly overlooked negotiations, Israel is pursuing peace with all those neighboring nations with which there is no signed document diplomatically termed a peace treaty.

In the end, as history is our teacher, Israel will be lucky if even one opportunity turns into a reality - even a short term reality. There will be disappointments, but that is all part of the process, it's what happens when a Middle East country, especially Israel, pursues peace.

Hamas and Israel
Word of the ceasefire, truce, lull, between Israel and Hamas has been front page and lead story news. At best, the situation as it now stands is tenuous. It was a long, complicated process and even eleven hours before the cessation of attack and retaliation was actualized the office of Israeli Prime Minister Olmert predicted that the truce will be fragile and short lived.

But that's okay. The day before the ceasefire 50 rockets and mortars were shot from Gaza into Israel. The day before the ceasefire Israel shot back hitting two launch sites in Gaza. The day after, there were none - no rockets, no mortars, no retaliation. Just as there is no doubt that a ceasefire is critical for the well being of those Israelis within firing range of Gaza there is no doubt that an open border is good for the Palestinians living in Gaza.

The biggest problem right now is that the terms of this variation-on-the-theme - of - peace are not clear. In an off the record interview one Israeli official made it perfectly clear that this is not to be construed as peace. Call it a truce, call it a lull but do not for a minute call it or think of it as peace. And it doesn't even matter if each side calls it a different name. This arrangement is not a written agreement, it is an agreement brokered by third party Egypt. All Israel and Hamas have is the information given them by Egypt. Neither Israel nor Hamas have any idea what was said by Egypt to the other side.

It is a game of perception.

Israel and Syria
Most people would be surprised to read Israel, Syria and peace linked in the same sentence. But right now, Syria is out to surprise.

Surprising at it may appear on the surface, the Syrians are looking at the Egyptian brokered deal between Israel and Hamas with optimism. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem said that Israel's lifting of the blockade against Gaza will help the Palestinians - which is as close as Syria has come to complimenting Israel in pasta memory. He was, not surprisingly, quick to add that he also expects that the Israelis will soon violate the agreement.

Even more surprising is that in another press statement the Syrians said that a peace deal with Israel will "produce a harmonious Middle East." Even the Syrians are putting Israel, Syria and peace in the same sentence.

And even much more surprising is an item spilled by Claude Gueunt, Chief of Staff to French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Gueunt suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert may sit down face to face with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Paris on July 13th of this year, of 2008. The occasion will be a summit of European and Mediterranean countries hosted in Paris by Sarkozy who thinks that he can get the two men, these two nemeses, in the same room.

Even if they don't shake hands, that photo will be worth many words.

Israel and Egypt
Israel and Egypt have a "cold peace." They are not at war, neither are they friends. It is a situation that works for both sides of the border. The key word here is border. What is good for one side of the border is good for the other and Egypt's border with Gaza is no exception. By brokering this deal Egypt was also doing itself a favor. And just as neither Israel nor Hamas know what Egypt told the other, no one knows what the other told or promised Egypt.

Egypt worked hard making this agreement happen. The deal with Hamas is not just with Hamas. Egypt had to get the agreement of 12 different organizations in Gaza, each individual organization had to agree to stop firing at Israel. Then Egypt had to convince Hamas to absorb most of the responsibility for compliance and insure that the other 12 groups would not violate the agreement. At least, not violate the agreement in the short term.

Hamas has to stop the attacks. Hamas has to stop smuggling weapons and building tunnels and producing rockets and explosives. Only then will there be an opening of the border to allow in food and other supplies for Gazans. And after that, if it works, there is to be accelerated talk about exchanging 350 Palestinian prisoners for one Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held in Gaza.

The role of Egypt was applauded by certain other members of the Middle East Arab community, especially by Egypt's comrade-in-arms, Jordan.

Israel and Jordan
Israel and Jordan, too, have a "cold peace" arrangement. Warmer than Israel and Egypt but still diplomatically chilly.

At a conference that he was hosting for Nobel Prize winners in Jordan, the King took the opportunity to speak about the lull between Israel and Hamas. King Abdullah of Jordan said that it would indeed be a great tragedy if this opportunity was lost to create a Palestinian state.

Israel and Hezbollah
While most of the headlines are going to the lull between Hamas and Israel, there is another story going on between Hezbollah and Israel. In this noted but much less heralded story, Germany is to Hezbollah and Israel what Egypt is to Hamas and Israel.

In this story, Germany is the middle man, the broker, the deal maker. In this story Germany has been working to create a situation that would allow for the return of the two Israeli MIA's, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, captured by Hezbollah in the summer of 2006 and taken to Lebanon.

Israel and Lebanon
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Olmert announced on Wednesday June 18, 2008 that Israel wants to embark on direct bilateral relations with Lebanon. Now that is a curveball that barely made any news at all. It should have.

What makes this an even more interesting and compelling and historically newsworthy story is that Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora has made statements in the past proudly proclaiming that Lebanon would be the last Arab country to make peace with Israel. Is the fat lady about to sing? Olmert's statements were on the record, even if they were not widely recorded.

It all seems like just too much for one country to handle. The past week has seen a flurry of diplomatic tap dancing in pursuit of promises, pledges and peace. What will next week bring?

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Friday June 13, 2008

Column:

In the end, it will all come down to a simple, strategic, calculus. The "X" Factor. How many lives versus how many lives. How many Israeli civilian lives have already been lost and how many Israeli military lives will be lost in an operation fighting Hamas and Islamic Jihad forces in Gaza versus how many civilian and military lives will be lost if the situation remains status quo.

Heartless? Humane? Those are the issues that Israel's political and military leaders have been struggling over.

For months there has been talk of an Israeli invasion into Gaza. The objective is obvious - to silence, even if only for the short term, the relentless barrage of rockets and mortars that rains down on Israeli communities bordering Gaza.

The mission would be justified morally and legally, about that there is no question. Even die hard Israel bashers Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu have condemned the Palestinian launched rocket fire on these defenseless, civilian Israeli townspeople. Even the United States, in a high level meeting held several weeks ago, asked Israel if they had a response to the Qassam crisis, a response other than sitting still and allowing the rockets to fall where they will. Even the venerable United Nations has made it clear and public that, although restraint is advised, Israel, one of the unacknowledged least favored nations, has the right to act in order to protect Israeli citizens and protect Israeli borders.

Internationally, of course, there would be a backlash from the typical far flung corners of the world. The Muslim world, the Arab countries, Venezuela, and one or two European countries will cry out for the pain of the Palestinian people denied their favorite sport - injure the Israeli.

An Israeli military response to the untenable situation called Gaza has been in formulation for long months. And during those months many Israelis have been injured, some physically, some financially, almost all psychologically. An Israeli does not have to share a border with Gaza to feel national pain. The reason the response plan has not yet been activated is because the political side has not yet been reconciled with the military side. Political Israel is less comfortable with the calculus than is military Israel.

How fast and furious are these rockets and mortars coming? On Thursday June 12th, 40 mortars and 24 Qassam and I GRAD rocket fell on Israel. What has been the damage in terms of lives? 8 Israelis and I Ecuadorian farm worker have been killed by Qassam rockets in 2008.

The decision to invade Gaza will be made easier if the death toll goes higher. If more than 2 Israelis are killed by mortar or rockets in a single week Israel will be forced into it and the response will commence.

Israel needs to have fresh victims in order to respond. Israel needs to appear to be responding to a fresh act of aggression. Israel needs this to happen because Israel is unlike many other nations, because Israel does not arbitrarily, indiscriminately, unjustifiably invade another entity. For the sake of Israel it must appear that Israelis are responding to a specific act of aggression, even if most of the free and democratic world is convinced that Israel would be justified if the response attack came now - right now.

The X Factor calculus weighs most strongly, but there are other issues that go into the decision making process of whether or not to launch an invasion into Gaza to ferret out and destroy the Hamas and Islamic Jihad rocket launchers. One of those issues putting the brakes on a military response is that military intelligence is saying that Hamas is preparing for an Israeli land assault.

The way in which Hamas prepares is to physically, bodily, lay in wait and create booby traps for the invading Israelis troops. If that happens, casualty numbers will be great and that troubles decision makers. Then again, the situation in border towns like Sderot, particularly in Sderot, is unacceptable and intolerable. And that troubles decision makers.

It took Hercules to cut off heads of the many-headed serpent. It took super human (Herculean) strength to defeat the Hydra from the Lake of Lerna. And Israeli defense planners are saying that they have a series of plans to invade and cut the off the many heads of their own Gazan serpent.

The ancient Greek myth has taught an important lesson to Israel's leaders. Over the past 8 weeks 81 Hamas leaders have been killed by Israeli soldiers using In and Out operations and air force helicopter and unmanned drone attacks. More than 300 Hamas leaders have been killed over the past 6 months. It also has become apparent that Egypt has begun an attempt at foiling acts of aggression within Gaza by protecting their own border and by searching for underground tunnels with the help of the US Army Corps of Engineers.

Hamas might be on the ropes. There is talk of internal conflict. There was an assassination attempt by Iranian backed Hamas fighters against the current leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh.

It might soon be time to formulate another calculus: How strong is Hamas - will an Israeli invasion into Gaza unify Hamas or topple Hamas.

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Thursday June 5, 2008

Column:

If Tzipi Livni is elected the next prime minister of Israel, she should say a big "thank you" to The Sunday Times of London.

And The Sunday Times of London will probably respond by saying "oops."

This is a story of a smear campaign gone awry. It is the story of misplaced values and misunderstood priorities. It is shoddy journalism from one of the most respected newspapers in the democratic world. The Sunday Times of London recently devoted space to a large and probably exaggerated piece on Israel's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. The newspaper had an agenda - to marginalize a serious contender for the position of prime minister. Instead, they elevated her status. If I didn't know better, I would say that Livni planted the story herself - but she would have been more accurate.

The Sunday Times of London may understand their British public, but they are clueless about the Israeli public. They reported that during the 1980's Livni, then a first year law student, took leave to become a Mossad agent attached to Israel's Western European operation. The Sunday Times claims that young Livni was attached to an assassination team charged with hunting down Palestinian terrorists in Europe. The story they tell runs similar to the story told in Munich, the 2005 Steven Spielberg movie, depicting an Israeli assassination team sent out to find and kill the terrorists involved in the 1972 Munich massacre of the Israeli Olympic team.

Tzipi Livni's connection to the Mossad is not a secret. Tzipi Livni's specific role in the Mossad has been and will probably always be cloaked in secrecy. But portraying her as an assassin is almost definitely a stretch. It has always been assumed that her role in Europe was that of analyst and gatherer of intelligence. An attractive woman who frequents coffee houses, chats up the clientele and pieces together and passes on the information she receives.

According to the piece in The Sunday Times Livni was part of a team specifically charged with gathering information needed to search out terrorists and then assassinate those terrorists. The Times does not place her as an assassin, but definitely as part of that team. The objective was to smear Tzipi Livni. The objective was to point out that Israel's foreign minister has a dark past, to point out that she acted to seek out and perpetrate assassinations. The objective was to point out that, as a law student on leave, she knew the difference between revenge and justice, she knew that justice is cold and revenge is hot. The Sunday Times of London had an obvious political agenda in writing this piece.

The next Israeli election might take place six months from now, it might take place a year from now. The timing of the election is unclear, the knowledge that Tzipi Livni will be on the short list as a candidate for Israel's top position is perfectly clear. The Sunday Times wants to influence the political field. The Sunday Times wants international leaders to begin exerting pressure and playing behind-the scenes games now.

But the plan is backfiring.

In Israel, the only place where it really counts, the political stock of Tzipi Livni has skyrocketed. What the Sunday Times failed to understand is that by circulating a rumor that Livni was willing and able to defend her country in a way few people can, that she was a part of the dangerous and secret world that defends Israel internationally, they showed that this woman, Tzipi Livni, has what it takes to lead the country.

Israelis like female leaders. They like them on the right of the political spectrum and on the left. They particularly like them if they have the strength to act to defend their country. In Israel this is not an inter-party argument, it is the sine qua non of every Jewish, Israeli party.

Israelis have a long history of senior leaders, prime ministers, having been in involved in dangerous and desperate acts in defense of their country. Benjamin Netanyahu, like his brother Yoni, was a member of the IDF anti-terror team and was one of those responsible for rescuing a hijacked plane. Ehud Barak was a member of a secret team and even disguised himself as a woman and entered Lebanon in order to assassinate terrorists. Yitzhak Shamir was Mossad station chief in Egypt and was also stationed in France after WWII, which would account for the superb French accent of this tightly wound little man who broke his teeth over English. Menachem Begin fought in pre-state Israel against the Arab terrorists and was responsible for blowing up the wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem where the British were headquartered.

She is a woman. She is a defender of her country. She has political savvy. She has a track record. The Sunday Times of London has helped to strengthen Tzipi Livni's bona fides far more than it has damaged her.

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Thursday May 29, 2008

Column:

In a mathematical equation, 1+1 always = 2.

In an ideological equation, 1+1 can sometimes = 6+10

When it comes to the lives of their soldiers, Israel does not think mathematically, Israel thinks ideologically. And that makes the equation much more difficult to analyze, much more difficult to work out and much more emotionally laden. Ideological equations are not computed in our brains, they are wrenched from our hearts.

And that is the how and the why explaining Israel's decision to engage in talks with Hezbollah over the exchange of one famous Hezbollah terrorist, four live Lebanese prisoners, one Israeli Druze who spied for Hezbollah and ten dead Lebanese for two Israeli soldiers taken captive over the Lebanese border by Hezbollah in the summer of 2006. For Israel, it's 16 for 2 when the two are Ehud Goldwasser, affectionately known by the entire country as Udi, and Eldad Regev.

The faces of Udi and Eldad, along with the face of a third Israeli soldier taken captive by Hamas, Gilad Shalit, are known to every Israeli and almost every Jew worldwide. Their birthdays are noted. Their family members are recognized on streets and in airports. Their capture is mourned, but they have not been turned into martyrs. That is not the Israeli way.

That is the Hezbollah way. And that is why it is so important for Hezbollah to include the famous Hezbollah terrorist Samir Kuntar in this prisoner exchange.
Samir Kuntar is a symbol more than a man for Hezbollah, he is a part of Hezbollah lore.

Samir Kuntar represents the ideal terrorist, he is the man every Hezbollah member hopes their child will become. On April 22, 1979 Kuntar arrived on Israeli shores in a rubber speedboat and terrorized the Haran family in their home in the port city of Nahariya, Israel's northernmost city. Within one hour he had shot and then drowned Danny the father in front of his four year old daughter and then turned around and bludgeoned and bashed four year old Anat. He bashed, he brutalized, he butted. He shot, he drowned, he bludgeoned.

Fearing for their lives, twenty four month old Yael was hiding in a crawl space with her mother Smadar and a neighbor. Cradled in the loving embrace of her mother, fearing Yael's cries would alert the murderers, the helpless baby was smothered.

In every negotiation between Israel and Hezbollah, Samir Kuntar is on the table. He has been Hezbollah's most often repeated request from the time of his capture, conviction and sentencing. Hezbollah has not yet secured his release and Kuntar is in an Israeli prison, sentenced to four life terms. This time, only thirty years into his sentence, Hezbollah might just get their man.

These deals are never simple. This one is even more complex. When the sides refuse to negotiate directly, when they will not talk to each other, when conversations are conducted through third parties, the risk of miscommunication is obvious. In this type of sensitive negotiation the possibility for misunderstanding and the probability of misinterpretation is great.

Israel and the Arab world have engaged in, negotiated and successfully arranged several swaps over the past several years. Many more have fallen apart. For the most part Israel has received dead Israeli soldiers and returned live prisoners - and that was OK, because every Israeli is deserving of burial at home. One notable exception is the recent swap Israel conducted with Lebanon which resulted in the return of Elhanan Tannenbaum, an Israeli criminal/businessman and former IDF colonel was captured by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The question is not whether Israel should do everything to free Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. According to a poll published by the Israeli daily Haaretz, 63% of Israelis think that releasing Kuntar for Goldwasser and Regev is a good idea. 21% do not agree and the remaining 16% are unsure.

The question is what happens when Israel exchanges live terrorist symbols for Udi and Eldad. Does a bargain of this magnitude increase the possibility of more captured soldiers? Hezbollah has already proclaimed that capturing Israelis is one of their most sought after goals. And one of the reasons capturing Israeli soldiers is so enticing to Hezbollah is, without doubt, because it is an effective way to bring Israel down on her knees.

The question is what is the obligation of a country to the families of the victims? What is the obligation of a country to the justice system that tries and sentences terrorists? When the exchange centers on the dead bodies of terrorists, decisions are easier. When the exchange centers live terrorists, the decision is more complex.

The question is - is Israel like every country?

When Samir Kuntar entered Israel, he came with three other terrorists. Two of the four were killed. Ahmad Al Abrass, the fourth member of Kuntar's terror unit, was freed from Israeli prison in May of 1985 as part of a prisoner exchange of 1150 Lebanese prisoners for three Israelis POW's held by Lebanon. Because of the success of that exchange the terrorists were emboldened to act again. Within months the same Palestinian group from Lebanon hijacked the Achille Lauro. They killed a disabled American Jew named Leon Klinghoffer, a passenger on the ship. And then they pushed his dead, drooping body, still in his wheelchair, overboard. They did it because they were emboldened, they did it also because they were angry, they did it because Kuntar had not been included in the original prisoner exchange. And then, once again, they demanded the release of Samir Kuntar, their star terrorist.

It is essential to recall these events and their brutality. It is essential because it provides perspective. Israel must do whatever Israel can do to negotiate the release of prisoners held by the enemy. But at what price? What about the victims of terror, what about those families? It's a very hard call. It's a question of justice.

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Monday May 19, 2008

Column:

George Bush participated in the festivities and was himself feted on his trip to the Middle East in honor of Israel's anniversary. And while that component of his visit was important, it was not the focal point of the trip.

The most important discussion George Bush made on this diplomatic mission to the Middle East was with Saudi Arabia. And it was also the most demeaning.

The president of the United States, the most powerful country in the world, attempted to persuade the King of Saudi Arabia, the most oil rich country in the world, to increase oil production for US consumption. And the king turned the president down. And this wasn't the first time it happened. Only eight months ago the president made the same visit to the king with the same request and received the same negative response. O.K, so this time it was not an outright "no." This time a promise was made to increase oil production for the United States by 300,000 barrels a day - but in diplomatic-speak, that is worse than a "no," that is a "dis." It means "I can do it if I want do, but I don't, so I won't."

Why did Saudi Arabia turn down this request by the United States?

Because they could. And because it makes the Saudis feel very good and very powerful to turn down the United States. And because Saudi Arabia knows that they will suffer no repercussions for having turned down a heartfelt plea from the most powerful country in the free world.

In diplomatic terms, this was a botched job. It proved, once again, just how little the policy wonks of the United States understand the Middle East. The United States, in the person of President George Bush, threw diplomacy aside and begged. And when he was laughed at for begging, he scuttled out leaving gifts behind. Good gifts. Great gifts. Valuable gifts. Gifts that will elevate the status of Saudi Arabia in Middle East circles. Gifts that will change the status of the Region.

The United States approached Saudi Arabia from a position of weakness, it was, in the eyes of the Arab Middle East, an act of humiliation and degradation. By repeating his request to the Saudi king, Bush telegraphed to the Arab world just how needy the strongest country in the world is.

The entire situation could, and should, have been conducted differently. As opposed to putting forth his request while in the Region, the United States could have continued the discussion from home field. It is an ages old rule in the history of diplomacy in the Middle East - power sits with the host. And as opposed to rewarding the Saudi Kingdom with gifts following the refusal of the Saudi Kingdom to aid the United States, those gifts should have been held back either as rewards for complying with the request and significantly expanding oil production for the United States, or held back and denied entirely.

And what are those gifts:
Gift # 1: On the Friday following the turn down the White House announced that the United States will help Saudi Arabia develop atomic energy.

Gift # 2: The United States has signed a very expansive military arms deal with Saudi Arabia. The US will be selling some of the most sophisticated and most advanced weapons in the US arsenal to the Saudis - this deal includes new planes and technology.

Israel, not surprisingly, has issued a formal request to torpedo the deal because these new weapons would significantly threaten Israel's qualitative advantage in the region. This time it was the United States who said "no" and the US will go through with the deal.

What could have been important fulcrums for leveraging power have turned into fool's gifts. What incentive do other countries have for assisting the United States when gifts are lavishly dispensed anyway? All countries create foreign policy and act in their own best interest. Saudi Arabia is no exception, neither is the United States. The point is that until now the United States had tremendous leverage when urging other countries to help out. Bribes worked, arm twisting worked. Dangling enticing carrots from the Oval Office packs far more power than standing hat in hand in another country's front yard.

So what if the world accused the United States of offering bribes? The United States can handle that. In many parts of the world, that ability inspires respect and commands fear. That is how successful US foreign policy has often been determined. In the words of Machiavelli, "It is better to be feared than loved."

And in the words of Alexander Pope,"... fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

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Wednesday May 14, 2008

Column:

President George Bush is singing his swan song.

There are several verses to that song. One verse has decidedly Middle Eastern overtones. And that explains this American president's trip to the Middle East occasioned by Israel's 60th anniversary.

This trip was motivated by several objectives. One objective is, truly, to celebrate Israel's 60th. There is no doubt that the United States and Israel have a special relationship and special friends share special occasions. There can also be no doubt about the impact that President George Bush has had on that relationship - he has strengthened and deepened and made that relationship more significant and more unabashedly public.

At the same time, another objective of this trip is to apply pressure on Israel to make concession to the Palestinians in the name of advancing the peace process. For the president, that would be the perfect closing stanza of his song.

George Bush wants to create a lasting legacy and he does not want it to involve Iraq or Afghanistan. Condi Rice wants to create a position for herself as the next vice president of the United States. But Israel should not be forced into being the spring board for either of those noble aspirations.

Israel has sacrificed enough in the name of friendship. Asking Israel to totally abandon borders that keep Israeli citizens safe, asking Israel to take down roadblocks that prevent terrorists and tools of terror from entering their country, asking Israel to stop arresting terrorists is asking too much. Asking Israel to abandon the methods that have proven effective in safeguarding the lives and property of Israeli citizens is taking too much advantage of friendship.

The verses missing in this stanza of Bush's song are the lines asking the Palestinians to stop the flow of terror and to, of their own volition, arrest the terrorists. Missing is the US demand to Palestinian leadership to clamp down on Hamas and to issue a cease and desist order on the activities emanating from Gaza. Missing is a plea from the president of the United States to the Palestinian people to place their values and their future on the line by challenging Hamas, the real threat to Palestinian dreams.

If President George Bush succeeds in making the Palestinians realize that the real enemy rises from within and that Israel and the United States are there to help them achieve the lofty goals of statehood he will have succeeded in the Middle East. He will have sown the seeds of peace. But if the Palestinians cannot be made to see what is obvious to the rest of free and democratic world, there can never be peace with Israel.

We don't yet know the words to the Bush Swan Song, they are still to be composed. So let's just sing the song we do know. Happy anniversary to Israel, happy anniversary to you. And many more!

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Wednesday May 7, 2008

Column:

The prophet wrote "and they shall turn their swords into plowshares." And when will that happen? When there is peace among neighbors.

Israel is trying to bring peace to the neighborhood called the Middle East. First there were overtures towards the Palestinians, now those overtures are being reformatted and put forth to the Syrians. What is Israel really up to? Is it the Palestinians or is it the Syrians? And is any of this realistic? Or is Israel making a public, ceremonial, wish before blowing out the candles on her 60th birthday cake?

Peace in the Middle East is certainly in the best long term interest of Israel and of the Palestinians and of the Syrians and of the entire region - it's in the best interest of the entire world, but the truth is that true peace is not exactly what Israel is pursuing right now.

Let's analyze the situation.

Israel is in a no win situation with the Palestinians. The two are at loggerheads. The Israelis are frustrated and discouraged. The more successful Israel is at fighting terror, the more successful Israel is at keeping the borders safe, the farther Israel is from peace with the Palestinians. It sounds counterintuitive and that's because it is a matter of Palestinian pride.

Israel, you see, has figured out how to keep terror down without the help of the Palestinians. This newfound security solution is in direct conflict with the accords signed in Annapolis and the testosterone levels of Palestinian leadership. The Israelis do not see the Palestinians as seriously combating terror. Israel wants Palestinian leadership to take charge and bring stability and a sense of normalcy to the Palestinian people and that, the Israelis feel, is best accomplished by providing a safe haven, literally and figuratively a safe home, for the Palestinians.

Clearly the Americans want peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. And to that elusive end the United States is investing huge amounts of time, energy and money. The United States wants the conflict resolved and the United States wants it resolved by the end of 2008. Just as clearly, Israel does not want to disappoint the United States, their sponsor and friend. But progress on the Palestinian peace front is v-e-r-y slow and not even arm twist