Syria
Report: U.S. confirms Syria gave Scuds to Hezbollah
By Haaretz Service

United States officials have confirmed Israeli allegations that Syria supplied Hezbollah with ballistic missiles capable of inflicting heavy damage on Israel’s cities, according to reports in the United States Wednesday.

U.S. officials briefed on the intelligence told the Wall Street Journal that they believe Syria transferred Scud missiles built with either North Korean or Russian technology to the Lebanese militant group.

The American confirmation comes after Israel on Tuesday publicly accused Syria over the missiles.

“Syria claims that it wants peace, while simultaneously delivering Scud missiles to Hezbollah, which is constantly threatening the security of the state of Israel,” President Shimon Peres told Israel Radio.

Later the same day, he said: “Syria is playing a double game. On the one hand it talks peace, yet at the same time it hands over accurate Scud missiles to Hezbollah so that it can threaten Israel.”

The allegations are already having repercussions on Washington’s efforts to restore full diplomatic ties with Damascus. According to the Journal report, senior Republican politicians will press the U.S. Congress to block plans to reappoint an ambassador to Syria. But allegations over the Scuds have led to calls for Obama to rethink his policy of conciliation.

“It’s increasingly hard to argue that the engagement track has worked,” the Journal quoted Andrew Tabler, a Syria analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as saying.

The House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday approved Ford’s nomination, but three Republican senators registered their objection.

The Washington Post quoted congressional aides as saying that a full floor vote may be delayed until the administration can provide answers to the Israeli allegations.

Government officials responded to speculation by saying that provocations such as the Scud transfer made a U.S. diplomatic presence in Syria all the more necessary.

“If anything, we need (an ambassador) in Damascus full time just to ensure that reality gets its day in court now and then,” the Wall Street Journal quoted a senior administration official as saying.

Wash Post:

….Asked whether U.S. intelligence agencies think Scud missiles have been moved into Lebanon, a U.S. official briefed on the matter said, “I don’t think we know whether they’ve gone over or not.” But he said that “there has been significant concern in the intelligence community” that Syria had provided missiles to Hezbollah or was poised to do so….

Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha denounced the reports as a “ridiculous story” created by Israel and its allies to spoil the possibility of a rapprochement with the United States. He said no U.S. official has raised the issue with him.

In WSJ

Israeli officials called Scud missiles “game-changing” armaments that mark a new escalation in the Mideast conflict. They alleged that Mr. Assad is increasingly linking Syria’s military command with those of Hezbollah and Iran…. A senior U.S. official involved in Mideast policy said… Syria’s arms transfer could have been meant as a form of deterrence.

Syria’s oil and gas sector is gearing up for a rejuvenation of sorts, with the minister of oil, Sufian Alao, announcing recently that the government expects oil production in the country to rise this year following 13 years of steady decline. The announcement came as the Syrian hydrocarbons sector prepared to welcome 265 companies from 41 countries to the Seventh Syrian International Oil and Gas Exhibition (SYROIL 2010), held in Damascus April 5-8.

Oil production in Syria currently stands at around 383,000 barrels per day (bpd), a decline of around 7000 bpd from last year’s average figure, and around 200,000 bpd below the all-time high of 583,000 bpd reached in 1993. While Syria’s 13-year decline would appear to place it firmly in the rank of nations experiencing the phenomenon of “peak oil”, the country nonetheless still has estimated reserved of some 2.5bn barrels and expects to produce 2bn barrels of oil by 2025. Alongside oil, Syria also currently produces 28m cu metres of gas a day, using around 20m cu metres for domestic electricity generation. Alao announced that he also expects gas production to rise this year…….

Investment in the energy sector currently accounts for around a quarter of total government investment – around $5.5bn. Meanwhile, a further $3bn of foreign investment has also been attracted. One area where the government is likely to prioritise new foreign investment is in expanding Syrian refinery capacity.

Alao announced on April 5 that a long-planned 140,000-bpd refinery deal with Kuwait’s Noor Financial, anticipated to involve investment of some $1.7bn, had been cancelled…..

Iraq: Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Syria are pressuring Iraqi leaders to include Sunnis in the next Iraqi government. They look favorably on Allawi, as does America. Maliki understands that they are trying to push him out.

The Iranian Embassy in Baghdad said Sunni participation was essential in the next government; that was interpreted as a subtle endorsement of Allawi. On a visit to Saudi Arabia, Talabani said Sunday that Iraq’s neighbors favored a unity government with all Iraqi components. Saudi Arabia has also welcomed Maliki’s main Shiite rivals in the last two weeks.

Representatives of Allawi’s coalition are expected to visit Iran this week. Parties have also made stops in Turkey, Qatar and Jordan.

Shiite supporters of Maliki have described Allawi as the choice of Sunni Arab states and Turkey. Some of Maliki’s allies have accused the CIA and State Department of trying to topple him.

Lebanon
13 Apr 10
Good days ahead for Hezbollah
By Sami Moubayed

DAMASCUS – The Arab World is going through tremendous and very unexpected – yet positive – upheaval. A few years ago, nobody would have imagined that a secular former Ba’athist such as Iyad Allawi could win elections in Iraq, while Iran-backed religious parties like the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council would be defeated within their strongholds.

Nobody would have imagined a Turkish prime minister, in this case Recep Tayyip Erdogan, championing the rights of Palestinians and standing at dagger’s end with both the United States and Israel.

In Lebanon – given all the tension that erupted between the ruling March 14 coalition, backed by the West, and the Hezbollah-ledhttp://asianmedia.com/GAAN/www/delivery/lg.php?bannerid=27&campaignid=23&zoneid=36&loc=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.atimes.com%2Fatimes%2FMiddle_East%2FLD13Ak01.html&cb=8df9640595
opposition, backed by Syria, after the 2005 assassination of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri – nobody would have imagined such an harmonious outcome.

This month, Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri gave verbal instructions to media officials at his Future TV that they should refrain from criticizing Syria in any of their broadcasts – a far cry from what was has been said on the television network over the past five years. He also stressed that Syria should receive the same respect accorded to his traditional patron, Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, youth elements in his Future Movement were instructed to refrain from criticizing Syria either in private or in public, in light of the prime minister’s December 2009 visit to Damascus, which by all accounts was a thundering success.

Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, a ranking member of March 14 who regularly fired insults against Syria in 2005-2008, has since repeatedly apologized to the Syrian leadership and people and he was this month allowed to visit Damascus for a high-profile meeting with the Syrian president.
Jumblatt was only pardoned after he patched up his relationship with Hezbollah, meeting with its chief Hassan Nasrallah last summer, and effectively revoking all earlier remarks that called for disarmament of the Lebanese party. He is now championing its arms, claiming that they should be protected and embraced by the Lebanese government.

Hezbollah, needless to say, is happy with the results, having orchestrated Jumblatt’s Damascus visit, where the Druze leader was told that any future contacts between him and Damascus would run through Nasrallah. Earlier, all of Hezbollah’s demands had been met by the March 14 coalition after the summer 2009 parliamentary elections in Lebanon.

Hezbollah got to name all of its ministers, received veto power in the Hariri cabinet and managed to empower its Christian ally, Michel Aoun, by securing key portfolios like that of telecommunications for his Free Patriotic Movement (FPM). Additionally, the Hariri cabinet promised to “protect and embrace” the arms of Hezbollah, this in a cabinet statement hammered out by the prime minister in late 2009. This week, Hariri is expected in Damascus for another high-profile visit.

The prime minister will discuss internal security with the Syrians, who want to see Hariri establish full control over the Palestinian camps in Lebanon, to make sure that lawlessness is eradicated so al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic groups like Fatah al-Islam, which surfaced in 2007 and carried out a terrorist attack within Syria in 2008, do not resurface in Lebanon. On security, they want to coordinate efforts to see that Hezbollah is sheltered from all talk about involvement in the murder of Rafik al-Hariri. Such talk has surfaced in the Western media, but remains unofficial since nothing has come out of the international tribunal investigating the Hariri case.

In an interview this month on al-Manar, a television station, Nasrallah made clear that no members of Hezbollah were suspected in the Hariri case, although several “members and friends” have been summoned as witnesses since 2008.
He added, “We will also cooperate and watch [the performance of the international tribunal]; we will refuse politicization and refuse accusations with no proof.” Any reference to Hezbollah’s involvement, he added, would trigger another confrontation in Beirut with those trying to blame the affair on Hezbollah – a clear reference to the men of Christian leader, Samir Geagea, who are the only ones still trumpeting such a line within March 14.

To avoid raising emotions too high, however, given that he is a charismatic and inflammatory spokesman, Nasrallah decided to speak calmly in the interview, rather than deliver a fiery speech. The Syrians made it clear that their number one request in Lebanon was the protection and empowerment of Hezbollah, and this was said very clearly to Jumblatt while he was in Damascus. In order to maintain the relationship with Damascus, Hariri has to see to it that Nasrallah remains happy with the operation of the cabinet.

Additionally, the Syrians want to coordinate efforts with Lebanon, which is now serving on a rotating seat at the United Nations Security Council, to see to it that that body’s resolution 1559, which calls for the disarmament of all non-governmental groups, be considered fulfilled. The argument, being marketed by Foreign Minister Ali al-Shami, is that 1559 calls for the disarmament of non-governmental militias, whereas Hezbollah is not a militia but a resistance organization.

Perhaps explaining how smooth the relationship is between Hezbollah and Hariri is the recent action of his trusted Interior Minister, Ziad Baroud. The latter was expected to send a group of Lebanese soldiers from Internal Security for United States military training in Jordan, aimed at counter-terrorism (as agreed on with the US in 2007).

Before accepting to sign off on the travel permits, Baroud requested that all clauses in the agreement that make derogatory statements vis-a-vis Hezbollah be removed from the original text of the Lebanese-US agreement. That text, it must be noted, had been signed by Hariri’s predecessor and protege, ex-premier Fouad al-Siniora.

Additionally, behind-the-scenes talks are currently underway to create a National Opposition Front to the cabinet of Saad al-Hariri, headed by ex-prime minister Omar Karameh, scion of a leading political family in Tripoli. Former president Emille Lahhoud, under whom Karameh had served in 2005, has already given his blessing for such a grouping, through his son, ex-member of parliament Emille Lahhoud Jr.

The new coalition will include important Sunni politicians like Abdul Rahim Murad and Usama Saad, another former member of parliament, and Abdul Rahman Bizri, the head of the municipality of Sidon. Albert Mansour, Elias Firizli, George Qorm and Elias Saba, and the Druze politician, Wiam Wahhab, will represent non-Sunni politicians. Karameh hopes to invite the Lebanese Communist Party and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) to join, in addition to the ex-Beirut member of parliament, Najah Wakim.

According to sources in Beirut, neither the Marada Movement of Suleiman Franjiyeh nor the Free Patriotic Movement of Michel Aoun has agreed to join the new group, which Karameh is now describing as “a shadow cabinet that will keep checks and balances on all ministers in the Hariri cabinet”. Pro-Hariri elements immediately fired back, saying that this front was an immediate response to the reconciliation talks that kicked off in early March at Baabda Palace, given that all of its members – with the exception of the SSNP – were not invited to the roundtable talks.

Reportedly, the front will be announced on April 18 at a luncheon held by ex-minister Wahab in honor of ex-prime minister Karameh. Murad hopes to send off a message to Syria by hosting a reception at his home also this April, honoring the Syrian ambassador to Beirut, Ali Abdul Karim. All of the front’s players are staunch allies of Syria.

Many are questioning the timing of such a front; and whether it will be able to challenge the policies of Hezbollah, which is a key player in the Hariri government, given that Karameh and Nasrallah are strong allies. A closer look, however, shows a behind-the-scenes role for Hezbollah in the formation of the front. Hezbollah wants to play the go-between, walking the tight rope between Hariri and other Sunni figures like Karameh, while maintaining excellent relations with both.

It needs to maintain a strong relationship with Hariri, and yet, keep its back-channels open with men who were very supportive of its policies during the difficult years in the Hariri-Nasrallah relationship, in 2005-2008. Ultimately, Hezbollah is interested in bolstering the policies of those “left out” of the current cabinet, men like Karameh who are more worthy of cabinet posts, they believe, than Samir Gagea’s Lebanese Forces (LF).

Hezbollah might be toying with the idea of an internal change within the Hariri cabinet – granting the prime minister enough ammunition to get rid of his two LF ministers and replace them with someone from the camp, formerly known as March 8, whose remains now coalesce into Karameh’s front. There is no reason for Hariri to remain allied to Gagea, they believe, given that the two men have nothing in common.

The only reason they were brought into one camp in the first place in 2005 was with the common objective of reaching power – back then – and getting the Syrians to leave Lebanon. Now that Hariri is firmly in power, he is more in need of Hezbollah support, and that of Damascus, than he is of LF support.

The Christian umbrella that Hariri needs has already been granted by Michel Aoun, meaning he can effectively rid himself of Gagea’s men, with minimal damage to his cabinet coalition and no damage to his credibility in the Christian street. Karameh, it must be noted, would never approve joining a cabinet that has Gagae’s men in it, given that the latter was convicted and jailed for the 1987 murder of his brother, ex-prime minister Rashid Karameh. For Karameh to jump onboard today, Gagea would need to leave the ship of Saad Hariri.

Deep inside, Hariri wants it as well, seeing the Gagea alliance as an embarrassment enforced on him when he first rose to the political stage of Beirut in 2005. Breaking with Gagea, therefore, would effectively be a blessing in disguise for the prime minister, and yet another thundering victory for Hezbollah.

Sami Moubayed is editor-in-chief of Forward Magazine in Syria.

Palestine:

Israel’s latest population transfer scheme
Posted By Amjad Atallah Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Foreign Policy

“A new military order aimed at preventing infiltration will come into force this week, enabling the deportation of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank or their indictment on charges carrying prison terms of up to seven years. When the order comes into effect, tens of thousands of Palestinians will automatically become criminal offenders liable to be severely punished.”

This concise summary by Israeli reporter Amira Hass describes the latest round in increasingly dangerous provocations by the Israeli government in its attempt to ensure Israeli control over the occupied Palestinian territory. And for the Palestinians, it clearly sets out the potentially fatal weakness of American government efforts to represent Palestinian interests in any meaningful way. (For an excellent fact sheet on the new regulation, also see Yousef Munayyer’s analysis today.)

First, what does the military order really mean? In effect, it confirms that all Jews who are in the Occupied Territory (but which is labeled as “Judea and Samaria” on Israeli government maps) are subject to Israeli domestic legal jurisdiction. For purposes of Israeli law, there is no difference between an Israeli settler living in the middle of Hebron and one who is living in Tel Aviv, just as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu keeps trying to remind President Barack Obama.

But this order takes this de facto annexation one step further. Now those who are not Jewish who reside in the West Bank are effectively there illegally according to Israeli military regulations. The rule requires Palestinians to hold a “valid permit”, but the rule does not define what these permits are, who would issue them, or where they would come from.

Israeli human rights groups have already filed complaints before the Israeli High Court to challenge the regulation. The New York Times cites Israeli human rights lawyer Elad Cahana as noting that “the concern was less of a mass expulsion than of the military deporting those officially registered as residents of Gaza, as well as Palestinians or their spouses who moved to the West Bank from abroad.”

Palestinians are rightly in a panic over the new regulation. Fatah and Hamas have been desperately trying to contain any new outbreak of violence against Israeli provocations, convinced that Israel may seek a new round of violence to deflect American pressure for a two-state solution. Hamas in the last week has detained members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Fatah in the Gaza Strip to force their compliance with the cease-fire. Today’s clashes between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza which have left two Palestinians dead are a reflection of just how difficult maintaining a cease-fire in these conditions will be.

Fatah has attempted to deflect Palestinian outrage into public campaigns to assert Palestinian sovereignty in the West Bank and boycotts of settler products. And yet, the only real strategy to confront this latest in a series of provocations is to rely on international support to pressure Israel to back off.

There are two trends of thought on why the Israeli government has accelerated its integration of the West Bank into Israel. The first is that the Likud government is attempting to “train” the American President in much the same way as it deals with Arab leaders. When asked to do something it doesn’t want to do, Israel will do the opposite of what it’s asked. Ultimately, it assumes that it will stop being asked to do things. As former US Secretary of State Jim Baker noted in 1991 when dealing with the Likud leadership in Israel at that time, “Every time I have gone to Israel in connection with the peace process…I have been met with an announcement of new settlement activities. It substantially weakens our hand in trying to bring about a peace process.”

In fact, a cursory look over the last year of President Obama’s administration shows the pattern has been accelerated with various types of provocations in response to several US visits or demands increasing qualitatively and quantitatively.

The following table links the Foundation for Middle East Peace’s Settlement Report and other news events with major US diplomatic visits with Israeli leaders. It reveals a clear pattern consistent with Baker’s observation almost twenty years ago.

Israel:

“Israel’s Holy Warriors,” by Eyal Press, April 29, 2010, New York Review of Books

China and Iran:

Walt in Foreign Policy (Cable)

The New York Times and other news agencies are now reporting that China is preparing to get behind the U.S.-led effort to toughen economic sanctions on Iran. The Times’s headline (in the print version) reads “China Supports Iran Sanctions,” but the actual story tells a rather different tale. It says that President Hu Jintao agreed yesterday to “join negotiations” for a new sanctions package, but reminds readers that China has a well-established pattern of using negotiations to delay and deflect stiffer measures. In particular, the article reports that former President George W. Bush tried three times to “corral Chinese support ” for tougher penalties on Iran, only to have China use its participation to “water down” the resulting resolutions.

China has every reason to drag its feet on meaningful economic sanctions. To begin with, China wants to safeguard its access to Iranian oil and gas and protect its ability to invest in Iran. Iran is now China’s second largest source of oil and gas (providing about 15 percen of its consumption), and China is Iran’s second largest customer. China has also become a substantial investor in Iran’s economy. With demand for oil likely to grow in the future, this is not a relationship Beijing is likely to jeopardize.

Second, China is sanguine about the prospects of an Iranian bomb because it has a more realistic view of what that development would mean. China’s leaders know that they didn’t gain a lot of geopolitical clout when they tested their own nuclear weapon in 1964, and being a nuclear power didn’t enable them to dictate or blackmail Taiwan, Vietnam, the Koreas, or anyone else. China’s rise to great power status was driven by its economic development, not its modest nuclear arsenal, and Bejing knows that same would be true for a nuclear Iran. While China would probably prefer that Iran not develop nuclear weapons, it hasn’t succumbed to worst-case paranoia….

Report: U.S. confirms Syria gave Scuds to Hezbollah

By Haaretz Service

Tags: Israel news, Hezbollah, Syria

United States officials have confirmed Israeli allegations that Syria supplied Hezbollah with ballistic missiles capable of inflicting heavy damage on Israel’s cities, according to reports in the United States Wednesday. U.S. officials briefed on the intelligence told the Wall Street Journal that they believe Syria transferred Scud missiles built with either North Korean or Russian technology to the Lebanese militant group. The American confirmation comes after Israel on Tuesday publicly accused Syria over the missiles. Advertisement “Syria claims that it wants peace, while simultaneously delivering Scud missiles to Hezbollah, which is constantly threatening the security of the state of Israel,” President Shimon Peres told Israel Radio. Later the same day, he said: “Syria is playing a double game. On the one hand it talks peace, yet at the same time it hands over accurate Scud missiles to Hezbollah so that it can threaten Israel.” The allegations are already having repercussions on Washington’s efforts to restore full diplomatic ties with Damascus. According to the Journal report, senior Republican politicians will press the U.S. Congress to block plans to reappoint an ambassador to Syria. President Barack Obama in January decided to return a U.S. ambassador to Syria after a four-year absence, appointing Arabic-speaking diplomat Robert Ford to the task of wooing Damascus away from its closest ally, Iran. But allegations over the Scuds have led to calls for Obama to rethink his policy of conciliation. “It’s increasingly hard to argue that the engagement track has worked,” the Journal quoted Andrew Tabler, a Syria analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as saying. The House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday approved Ford’s nomination, but three Republican senators registered their objection. The Washington Post quoted congressional aides as saying that a full floor vote may be delayed until the administration can provide answers to the Israeli allegations. Government officials responded to speculation by saying that provocations such as the Scud transfer made a U.S. diplomatic presence in Syri all the more necessary. “If anything, we need (an ambassador) in Damascus full time just to ensure that reality gets its day in court now and then,” the Wall Street Journal quoted a senior administration official as saying

Addendum: See Laura Rozen’s take on this here. She interviews mainly WINEP people – Shenker and Tabler, who address the Israeli point of view that it is dangerous and destabilizing for Hizbullah to get better weapons. Of course from the Syrian point of view, it is essential that they get improved weapons. Any realist understands that the only way peace agreement is going to be signed between Syria and Israel is if Syria and its allies get stronger. Today, Israel can dismiss them. The US, if it is interested in a peace deal, will have to allow for a shift in the balance of power. The improvement in Hizbullah’s arms would have the effect of giving the US added negotiating leverage in the region. It is not a bad thing for the US. The only solution to Hizbullah is a political solution, which will happen only once an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict has been concluded.

Here is Marty Peretz of The New Republic, “When Will He Ever Lear”. “Assad is monstrous enough, running a minority personal polity that has nullified the diversity of Syrian society, smothering whatever chance Lebanon had to be Lebanon, and turning himself into an errand boy of the mullahs by spreading imported advanced weapons southward throughout the Levant and elsewhere as far as the Persian peacock aims to strut.”

U.S. delays Syria envoy over Hezbollah arms deal
By Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel

The American administration postponed “until further notice” the appointment of an ambassador to Damascus, Kuwaiti daily Al-Rai Al-Aam said over the weekend. Robert Ford was supposed to have been confirmed by the Senate for the post, making him the first American ambassador in Syria since 2005.

According to the daily, the decision to postpone the appointment was prompted by information about trucks bearing advance weaponry that passed from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon, with the Syrian regime’s blessing. The report is based on quotes from American sources who spoke with Al-Rai Al-Aam’s Washington reporter.

The report says that Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, passed the Syrian leadership a message from the U.S. administration when he visited Damascus earlier this month. Kerry asked for explanations about the relationship between Syria and Hezbollah, and voiced reservations over Syrian support for the Shi’ite organization.

The American source told the reporter the kind of weapons transported to Hezbollah could start a new war with Israel, but did not specify what kind of weapons were involved.

Tensions between Syria, Israel and Lebanon came to the fore most recently in late January, when Israel and Syria traded verbal blows and American and Israeli officials voiced concerns about Hezbollah rearming with the help of Syria and Iran. At the peak of the tension, the Israel Defense Forces held a prescheduled military drill.

However, Israel clarified to the Assad regime that it had no intention of attacking Syria, and even went as far as excluding reserves mobilization from the drill, so as not to alarm the Syrians even further. The steps appear to have had some effect, as tensions eased the following month and comments from all parties became more restrained.

Nevertheless, one of the central issues in the northern arena remains Hezbollah’s plans to avenge the 2008 assassination of its senior operative Imad Mughniyeh, which it blames on Israel. ….

Congress wants to know: Is Syria rearming Hezbollah?
Posted By Josh Rogin on the Cable, Friday, April 9, 2010 – 4:46 PM

Informed administration sources said they were well aware of the rumors that unspecified amounts of a new type of weaponry are making their way over the border and into Hezbollah hands. Sources close to the issue said that the weapons were of a characteristic and range that could pose a risk to large swaths of Israel, not just the communities in the north that already live every day under the threat of short-range rocket attacks…..

Ahmed Salkini, a spokesman for the Syrian Embassy in Washington, strongly denied the allegations.

“These reports are unequivocally false and are a product of the Israeli government that is trying to speciously create a raised level of tension in the region to justify a future conflagration of violence on their part, or simply to divert attention from the real issue at hand: Israeli settlements and expansionism,” he told The Cable.

The coupling of US policy toward Iran and Israel is assailed from a number of directions. The Leveretts argue that the US needs better relations with Iran in order to exert enough pressure on Israel. Ray Takeyh arrives at the the opposite conclusion. He argues that the US needs better relations with Israel in order to exert enough pressure on Iran.

Here are the Leveretts in Getting the Iran-Palestine Connection Wrong.

The prospective approach that David Ignatius reports is under serious consideration by President Obama draws the wrong relationship between Iran and Palestine. As we have pointed out, it is simply not possible any more—if it were ever possible at some point in the past—to achieve Israeli-Palestinian or Arab-Israeli peace in a manner that excludes and marginalizes the Islamic Republic and its regional allies. Rather, today, the link between Iran and Palestine runs in the opposite direction: the United States needs a better and more productive relationship with the Islamic Republic, in part, because it will be impossible to achieve Arab-Israeli peace absent U.S.-Iranian rapprochement.

Here is Ray Takeyh A link to break: Iran and Mideast Peace Talks in the Washington Post, April 11, 2010; A17

…Iranian leaders take Israeli threats seriously and are at pains to assert their retaliatory options. It is here that the shape and tone of the U.S.-Israeli alliance matters most. Should the clerical oligarchs sense divisions in that alliance, they can assure themselves that a beleaguered Israel cannot possibly strike Iran while at odds with its superpower patron. Such perceptions cheapen Israeli deterrence and diminish the potency of the West’s remaining sticks.

All this is not to suggest that Washington cannot criticize Israeli policies, even publicly and forcefully…. But as they plot their strategies for resuming dialogue between Israel and its neighbors, U.S. policymakers would be wise to vociferously insist that the dynamics of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations will not affect Washington’s cooperation with Israel on Iran. A concerted effort to decouple the peace process from Iran’s nuclear imbroglio is the best means of declawing the Islamic Republic.

Most analysts believe that Netanyahu will refuse to accept Obama’s peace plan, even with its lure of “doing something” about Iran if Israel moves toward a two state solution.

Here is Leverett:

–Netanyahu will say “no”.  Obama Administration officials can argue as much as they want that resolving the Palestinian conflict is essential to a viable regional strategy for containing Iran, but Netanyahu—and, it should be said, most Israeli political and policy elites—do not buy it.  Netanyahu will continue to insist that the Iranian challenge must take priority over the Palestinian issue and that Israel cannot deal with both at the same time…

Here is David Aron Miller who believes the “U.S. acts as though it seeks regime change in Israel”

There’s a widespread view — almost a conviction in Washington these days — that Netanyahu just isn’t capable of reaching a deal, and that the Palestinians and Arabs will never trust him. So why expend months of effort starting a process with Netanyahu that you can’t possibly conclude with him?

Mark Lynch in “Don’t waste the Obama peace plan card” warns against moving ahead with any Obama peace plan until the president knows what he will do when Netanyahu says no.

Netanyahu’s in his Speech at the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day Ceremony, 11/04/2010 explained why Israel cannot trust American presidents to deliver on protecting the Jews. Netanyahu does not hide his point, which is that no US president will deliver on Iran and Israel must not be pushed into giving land to its enemies (the Palestinians). Here is a quote:

….The historic failure of the free societies when faced with the Nazi animal was that they did not stand up against it in time, while there was still a chance to stop it.

And here we are today again witnesses to the fire of the new-old hatred, the hatred of the Jews, that is expressed by organizations and regimes associated with radical Islam, headed by Iran and its proxies.

Iran’s leaders race to develop nuclear weapons and they openly state their desire to destroy Israel. But in the face of these repeated statements to wipe the Jewish state off the face of the Earth, in the best case we hear a weak protest which is also fading away.

The required firm protest is not heard – not a sharp condemnation, not a cry of warning. The world continues on as usual and there are even those who direct their criticism at us, against Israel. Today, 65 years after the Holocaust, we must say in all honesty that what is so upsetting is the lack of any kind of opposition. …

Netanyahu hit on the same theme at the AIPAC meeting in Washington last month, when he argued against Israel putting too much trust in American presidents, or any western leaders.

“Great men” like Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill “saved the world,” Netanyahu said, but failed to prevent the murder of six million Jewish people in the Holocaust. “The future of the Jewish state can never depend on the goodwill of even the greatest of men,” Netanyahu said. “Israel must always reserve the right to defend itself.”

“The ultimate catalyst in all this is going to be Iran,” Rothkopf said. “This is the one issue, where the interests of the U.S. and of Israel are very closely aligned and in which both countries have to work together.” Jones also seemed to suggest as much in his comments on Air Force One on Friday. Iran and the Middle East peace process “are very closely linked,” he said, adding that the U.S.-Israeli relationships “are ongoing and fine and continuous.”

More than three decades ago, Israeli statesman Moshe Dayan, speaking about an Egyptian town that controlled Israel’s only outlet to the Red Sea, declared that he would rather have Sharm el-Sheikh without peace than peace without Sharm el-Sheikh. Had his views prevailed, Israel and Egypt would still be in a state of war. Today, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, with his pronouncements about the eternal and undivided capital of Israel, is conveying an updated version of Dayan’s credo — that he would rather have all of Jerusalem without peace than peace without all of Jerusalem.

This is unfortunate, because a comprehensive peace agreement is in the interest of all parties. It is in the U.S. national interest because the occupation of the West Bank and the enforced isolation of the Gaza Strip increases Muslim resentment toward the United States, making it harder for the Obama administration to pursue its diplomatic and military objectives in the region. Peace is in the interest of Israel; its own defense minister, Ehud Barak, recently said that the absence of a two-state solution is the greatest threat to Israel’s future, greater even than an Iranian bomb. And an agreement is in the interest of the Palestinians, who deserve to live in peace and with the dignity of statehood. …. President Obama should travel to the Knesset in Jerusalem and the Palestinian Legislative Council in Ramallah to call upon both sides to negotiate a final status agreement based on a specific framework for peace…..

Why Netanyahu Canceled His DC Visit, and Why the GOP Is Applauding
Daniel Levy

Netanyahu’s decision clearly has much more to do with the current status of U.S. efforts on Israeli-Palestinian peace and the posture that Israel’s PM is choosing to adopt in response to that, as Glenn Kessler hints in today’s Washington Post. …..

Netanyahu may be for a Greater Israel in which case he has to play for time; or he may not be for a Greater Israel but is unwilling to confront the settlers and their sympathizers and his own personal demons which that would entail, leading to the same conclusion. Play for time.

Playing for time though, is not pretty. In practice it entails entrenching an occupation/settlement reality which is unsustainable, just gets uglier, and has consequences. Those consequences include an increasingly undemocratic Israel, one that will have neither peace nor security, and an Israel that cannot work effectively with the region or even with its closest allies in facing the challenge of Iran. It also erodes Israel’s standing even in the U.S. and allows it to increasingly become a partisan political plaything.

What all this means for President Obama and his administration is that their best option is to pursue the ideas already under consideration, and leaked this week by David Ignatius in The Washington Post and Helene Cooper in NYT, to advance it’s own plan or terms of reference for a two-state deal and present these real and clear choices to the Israelis and Palestinians. If Netanyahu is able to do the right thing, it will only be under these circumstances, and if not Israelis have the chance to come to their own conclusion in their democracy. …

Steinitz Says Hard to Defend Israel Without Golan
By Alisa Odenheimer

April 8 (Bloomberg) — Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said the Golan Heights are an “integral” part of Israel and it would be difficult to defend the country without the strategic plateau.

Steinitz, who visited the Golan today, also said he plans to increase funding for development there, according to an e- mailed statement from his office.

“The Golan has always been an integral part of the country and of the history of the Land of Israel, and it is difficult to see how it would be possible to protect the State of Israel without it,” Steinitz said according to the statement….. “This is a country that encourages terror and develops non-conventional weapons, and Syria’s friendship with Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah endangers the whole world,” Steinitz said.

Terms of Endearment
The Obama administration’s Middle East diplomacy goes from bad to worse.
BY Elliott Abrams, April 7, 2010 1:05 PM

“Obama to Impose Terms on Israel” is the headline you didn’t read on David Ignatius’s column in the Washington Post today. The story ran under the title “Obama’s Mideast Plan,” which Ignatius describes as “proposing an American peace plan to resolve the Palestinian conflict.”

But the substance is clear: It is a threat against Israel by the Obama administration and particularly by National Security Advisor James Jones. (The give-away is this line: “The fact that Obama is weighing the peace plan marks his growing confidence in Jones.” Now who do you think was Ignatius’s source for that gem?) Apparently Obama and his team are frustrated by their inability to get Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate a deal, and have therefore decided we’ll just impose one.

The inability of Israelis and Palestinians to get to the negotiating table is, in this administration, an iatrogenic disease: Our diplomatic doctors have caused it. The astonishing incompetence of Obama and special envoy George Mitchell has now twice blown up talks—direct talks last year, and proximity talks more recently—by making Israeli construction plans a major world crisis, thereby forcing Palestinian leaders to back away from engagement with the Israelis. So the administration will, in the fall, just do it the simpler way. Why bother with Israelis and Palestinians, in whom the president apparently does not have “growing confidence,” when you can just have your own brilliant team draw up the terms? As Ignatius’s sources, “two top administration officials,” tell him, “everyone knows the basic outlines of a peace deal.”

A Crisis in U.S.-Israel Relations: Have We Been Here Before?
by Dore Gold

As a result of the June 1967 Six-Day War, Israel entered the eastern parts of Jerusalem and the West Bank in a war of self-defense. It is very important to recall that Israel entered these areas after it was attacked, and after it requested that the Jordanians not join the Egyptian war effort. There were Jordanian artillery attacks throughout Jerusalem and all of Israel, as well as movement of Jordanian ground forces into areas that were previously no-man’s land.
There is presently a marked shift underway in U.S. policy on Jerusalem. True, no U.S. administration accepted Israel’s annexation of Jerusalem in July 1967. Nonetheless, in the past we saw the U.S. and Israel coming to a modus vivendi with respect to Israeli policy in Jerusalem, when Israel built various neighborhoods in the eastern parts of the city, from Ramat Eshkol to Gilo to Ramot.
A neighborhood called Har Homa in southeastern Jerusalem was established in 1997 during the Clinton administration to ease the considerable shortage of housing in the Jewish sector. On two occasions, the Arab bloc initiated a draft resolution in the UN Security Council to condemn Israel for constructing Har Homa. On both occasions, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, Bill Richardson, vetoed those resolutions under instructions from the Clinton administration.
The Oslo Agreements in 1993 do not require a freeze on construction in the neighborhoods of Jerusalem. Furthermore, under the Oslo Agreements, Jerusalem was treated as having a completely different status than the West Bank and the city was kept under Israeli control, while seen as an issue for permanent status negotiations in the future.

It is possible to discern a growing view, which has been reported in the Washington Post, that the Obama administration intends to put on the table its own plan for Middle East peace, based on a nearly full Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines, that most Israeli planners view as militarily indefensible. As the Palestinians see this scenario unfold, their incentive to re-enter negotiations will decline as they look forward to the prospect that an American peace plan will be imposed. If indeed there is such a plan being prepared, then the recent U.S.-Israel tensions over construction in east Jerusalem may only be Act I in a much longer drama that the two countries are about to face.

Palestinian civil society urges the peoples and governments of OECD member states to defer Israel’s OECD accession until it respects international law and the human rights of the Palestinian people and shows commitment to the fundamental values shared by OECD members.

Turkey works to grow economic ties, influence in Middle East
(By Janine Zacharia, The Washington Post)

Since Turkey and Syria eliminated border restrictions several months ago, the crowds of Syrians at the glittering Sanko Park Mall in this southeastern Turkish city have grown tenfold. Exports from Gaziantep to Syria are booming, and rich Turkish businessmen are stepping up th…

Arabs and Turks: Mending a broken relationship
MUSTAFA AKYOL, Friday, April 9, 2010

Turkey launched the Arabic version of its official TV last Sunday. Called “TRT Arabic,” the channel is expected to reach 350 million people throughout the Arab world. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, who spoke at the opening ceremony, noted that it marked “a historic day for Turkish-Arab friendship,” initiating an era of “brotherhood, unity and solidarity” between the two peoples.

I share Erdo?an’s wishes on this. I also think that we Turks and Arabs need to do a little bit of historical revision to get rid of some of the artificial walls built between us in the past century.

On our side, these walls were built mainly by the nationalist ideology of the Turkish Republic. From the late 1920s on, the latter’s propaganda machine created two popular myths, by which many Turks were brainwashed.

Republican myth-making

The first of these was that the Arabs “stabbed us in the back” during World War I……

The second, and the more untrue, modern Turkish myth was that “Arabization” had been a historic misfortune for the nation. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the great patron of this thesis, asserted that Turks were “a great nation before Islam,” and now was the time to discover “the lost civilized traits of the Turk.” Hence came the extensive republican effort to revitalize (and actually invent) the glorious history of the ancient “Turkish stock.”

The historical truth, however, was the exact opposite. The pre-Islamic Turks of Central Asia were a warlike nomadic people with very little trace of cultural sophistication. But the Arabo-Islamic civilization of the medieval age was, in the words of Bernard Lewis, “the richest, most powerful, most creative, most enlightened [civilization] in the world.” That’s why the “Arabization” of the Turks, i.e., their gradual conversion to Islam from the mid ninth century onwards, was actually an enlightenment for them. It is no accident that all famed Turkish scholars, scientists, poets or thinkers are from the Islamic age, and not the pre-Islamic one.

In the WaPo thanks to FLC

“……………”Let me put it straightforward,” Medvedev said of his discussions with Obama at the meeting at Prague Castle. “I have outlined our limits for such sanctions.”
Officials from both countries said later that Medvedev privately offered a broad range of objections to sanctions, including actions that would create economic hardship for Iran, foment financial chaos or lead to regime change.
Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, told reporters in Prague that Medvedev and Obama discussed sanctions that would be “targeted, tailored.” Ryabkov said, for example, that a total embargo on deliveries of refined oil would “mean a slap, a blow, a huge shock for the whole society.”
Top White House officials who participated in the closed-door meeting said Medvedev described for Obama the “redlines” that Russia could not cross. They declined to elaborate on those objections, but said that sanctions on Iran’s energy sector are “not off the table.”…….”

Syria to increase industrial contribution to GDP by 20 percent
2010-04-08

DAMASCUS, April 8 (Xinhua) — Syrian top economic official Abdullah al-Dardari declared on Thursday that the Syrian government is to increase industrial investment with the aim of raising industry contribution to the Gross Domestic Production ( GDP) by 20 percent, the official ANA news agency reported.

Deputy Prime Minister Al-Dardari, who is the key member in the government to support market reform in Syrian government, made the remarks on Thursday during a meeting at the Directorate of the Industrial City of Adra, 30 kilometers from Damascus.

He highlighted the importance of industry in supporting national economy and creating job opportunities, pledging the government’s commitment to provide legal and financial assistance to make industrial cities into natural centers for inventors, entrepreneurs and investors, the report said.

He also stressed the need to promote national industrial strategy which guarantees the competitiveness of Syrian products to access foreign markets.

The Syrian government is to establish 20 new industrial city projects to meet the industrial requirements and to attract international investors.

Military trial of 79-year-old Syrian lawyer begins
Thu, Apr 8 2010By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

DAMASCUS (Reuters) – A 79-year-old Syrian lawyer went on trial in a military court Thursday charged with “weakening national morale,” despite international appeals to release him.

The authorities arrested Haitham al-Maleh in October after he criticized the ruling Baath Party and the state of emergency it imposed after taking power in a 1963 coup. He has also called for greater government efforts to curb corruption.

“He looked obviously ill and tired,” Maleh’s lawyer Khalil Maatouk told Reuters. Maleh declined to enter a plea, saying he was not allowed to meet privately with his lawyers, according to a transcript they provided of the session. The judge then ordered that a letter be sent by the court to Adra prison where Maleh is being held to allow him to see his lawyers without any security present, Maatouk said.

“The judge let Haitham see his wife afterwards. They both cried,” another human rights lawyer said. Corrado de Martini, president of the International Lawyers Union, last week told a conference in Damascus that holding Maleh showed disregard for his pursuit of justice and for his ailing health.

Maleh already spent six years as a political prisoner during the rule of late President Hafez al-Assad in the 1980s. Martini was also critical of the arrest and disbarment of Mohannad al-Hassani, another lawyer facing a similar charge to Maleh. The government usually lodges the “weakening national morale” charge against its opponents.

The United States and European Union have raised Maleh’s case with Damascus, although at the same time they are seeking closer ties with Syria and pushing for a resumption of peace talks between Syria and Israel. Human Rights Watch said this month the West’s rehabilitation of Syria had undermined prospects for political arrests to stop. Syrian authorities have stepped up arrests of politicians and independent figures calling for democracy.

A former judge, Maleh was awarded the Dutch Geuzen Medal in 2006 for his human rights work. Syrian officials say Maleh is being tried fairly according to the constitution and that the West, which supports Israel, has no right to criticize Syria’s human rights record. They say Western governments focus on cases such as that of Maleh but ignore Syria’s efforts to combat militant Islamists who could pose an international terrorism threat.

After Arrests, Syrian Jews Slowly Adopt Charitable Reforms
By Josh Nathan-Kazis

An effort by Brooklyn’s Sephardic community to reform its charities is making modest headway eight months after three prominent community rabbis were arrested on suspicion of money laundering via their personal charity funds.

Ports, new service from Venice to Syria and Egypt
2010-04-12

Ports, new service from Venice to Syria and Egypt Within the European project of the motorways of the sea, on May 20 the first maritime service will start that will connect Venice with Syria and Egypt, operated by Visemar Line. This is the first …

Syria System pushing other Arab countries for more control on media
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hussain-abdulhussain/china-syria-censorship_b_520580.html

The Obama Peace Plan trial balloon has set off an all points push bacj in Israel. (Many thanks to Didi Remez at Coteret blog for passing on helpful quotes – Mercitain.)

1. Op-ed by Netanyahu mouthpiece Ari Shavit telling Obama to layoff on Palestinians and refocus on Syria. (copied below)

2. English language news reports: Haaretz and JPost.

Netanyahu: “We will oppose an imposed solution”

Dennis Ross “believes the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians have a slim chance of succeeding and that the focus should be on building the PA’s institutions from the bottom up, the source said.” This is the same view as Elliott Abram

Golan, not Jerusalem, is key to Mideast peace
By Ari Shavit, Haaretz Correspondent

The solution to the Jerusalem problem is widely known: The Jewish neighborhoods stay in Israel, the Arab ones are given to Palestine and the Holy Basin becomes part of a special regime. The solution to the refugee problem is also commonly known: Palestinians’ right of return will apply to the territory of the Palestinian state, while such claims will not apply to the territory of the Jewish state. Just as well known is the solution to the settlement problem: Territory swaps and annexing large settlement blocs to Israel, and the eviction of isolated settlements.

All of these solutions easily ensure that a demilitarized Palestinian state will live peacefully next to the Jewish nation state. And will allow us to move, within a year or two, from an era of conflict to an era of peace.

But here’s the rub: None of these popular, simple solutions can be implemented in the foreseeable future. As of today, the Palestinians are not agreeing to a demilitarized Palestine or a Jewish Israel, nor are they willing to renounce their claim to return to sovereign Israel. Israel, for its part, does not have a state institution powerful enough to evict 100 settlements with their 100,000 residents. And neither Israel nor Palestine possess the maturity and responsibility necessary to run a delicate coexistence regime over Jerusalem, the world’s most dangerous city.

The conclusion is obvious. Although everyone apparently knows how the agreement to partition the country will look, there is little chance it will be signed or implemented in the coming years. It’s no surprise that Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni failed to accomplish much during their year of talks with Mahmoud Abbas and Ahmed Qureia. It’s also no surprise that the Palestinians are refusing to hold direct negotiations with Israel, and that Israel does nothing to evict illegal outposts.

The notion that peace is within reach is a falsehood, something both sides are simply telling the rest of the world in order to conceal their respective hidden agendas. The Palestinians feel history is working in their favor, and are not ready to compromise. The Israelis, meanwhile, are paralyzed. Both talk peace and play at peace, but neither are willing to pay the price of peace.

In the second half of 2010, the United States intends to pull half of its forces out of Iraq; it also seeks to end the war in Afghanistan some time in 2011. In between, it will have to deal with Iran. To succeed in these three gigantic missions, the United States is trying to appeal to the Arab Muslim world. It’s working to show that it is as attentive to 330 million Arabs as it is to 13 million Jews. As such, Washington is tempted to believe in the impossible: pleasing Islam by quickly closing the file on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This temptation is a lethal one. The United States can push Israel, but not the Palestinians. Trying to force the parties into a false, quick peace will end either in an explosion or in a dangerous, biased agreement. Either way, the result will be the opposite of that sought by the Americans. Breaking Israel’s back and instigating a series of ongoing crises in Jerusalem will destabilize the Middle East; sooner or later, it will bring about a renewal of violence. The war that will eventually erupt will not be a local one, but a regional war with a religious dimension.

The Obama administration has but one way out: Syria. Only an Israeli-Syrian peace agreement can balance out the Middle East. Only an Israeli-Syrian peace deal will help Iraq, isolate Iran and indirectly contribute to the cause in Afghanistan. Only such an agreement can create the time frame necessary to guarantee slow but certain progress on the Palestinian track.

So instead of demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers Jerusalem, Washington should demand that he delivers the Golan Heights. U.S. President Barack Obama must throw all his weight behind a peace agreement in the north. Israeli-Syrian reconciliation is the only realistic way to bring peace to the Middle East as early as this year, and to justify the Nobel Peace Prize presented to Obama in December.

Shlomo Cezana and Boaz Bismuth, Israel Hayom April 8 2010 [page 7]

Officials in Jerusalem rejected the possibility that the Obama administration might present an American peace plan and try to impose it on the parties, as the Washington Post reported. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said last night that he would oppose any attempt to impose a solution on Israel. “It won’t work,” Netanyahu said to his aides. “Thus far, the administration’s approach has been that he assists, and doesn’t impose, and that indeed is the correct approach.”

The Washington Post quoted senior US administration officials who said that President Obama was seriously considering announcing in the autumn a new American peace plan for the Middle East that would be based on the Clinton plan with certain changes. “Everyone knows the basic outlines of a peace deal,” one senior official was quoted as saying, while a second official said that “90 percent of the map would look the same.”

“The salient characteristic of this past year has been the rise of radical Islam and its armament,” said Netanyahu yesterday in response to accusations as if his policies were responsible for the diplomatic deadlock in the region. Netanyahu diligently refrained from casting blame either on Obama or on prominent European leaders, but that seemed to be his implied intention when he said: “The world has to decide whether it is fighting against the phenomenon of radical Islam or whether it is adapting to it. That has ramifications on the peace process.”

Netanyahu made his statements at a press conference he held in Jerusalem to sum up the first year of his term in office. “This march by radical Islam hasn’t been stopped until now. There are some people who cast responsibility for that on Israel, but anyone who examines the matter in depth knows that that is not the case. The Palestinians, with the support of others, have refused to engage in the peace process.”

Regarding construction in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said it was important to “keep perspective. This isn’t my policy but that of all Israeli governments.” He said that it wasn’t the policy that had changed but “the government in the United States has changed. I won’t say that there aren’t differences of opinion. There are some things that we agree about and some that we don’t.”

Netanyahu said he regretted the attacks that were made by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan against Israel, describing them as a “regrettable phenomenon that does not serve the stability of relations or their promotion in our region.”

Netanyahu said that the efforts to bring about the release of Gilad Shalit were still under way. “We brought in a new mediator who made an offer, and we were prepared to go a long way to bring Gilad back home. We requested that this not place Israelis’ lives at too much risk. We have yet to receive an answer from Hamas up until this very day.”

Netanyahu warned the terror organizations in the Gaza Strip that the force of Israeli retaliation would be commensurate “with our regular policy to respond forcefully to every attack on us.”

Maariv page 9 adds:

Israeli officials responded with surprise to the reports. “The American approach being led by Obama is a naïve approach that was tried in the past and which failed, and anyone who talks in terms of timetables or an imposed solution is displaying an absence good judgment and the loss of a level head,” said one high-ranking political official. He said, “anyone who tries to ride the Iranian excuse is going to fail. The coalition against Iran is a primary interest of all the Sunni countries in the region which want to stop Iran at any price, irrespective of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon criticized the initiative, and said: “We ought to underscore that it is utterly unreasonable that any international agent might try to impose a solution on the parties. There are no ready-made shelf peace plans, and every agreement needs to be based on direct negotiations between the parties. There is no ‘one fell swoop and we’re done’ when it comes to peace as well.”

Both David Ignatius of the Washington Post and Helene Cooper of the New York Times were briefed by the White House about the possibility that Obama will come up with his own peace plan that could be unveiled soon. (See articles copied below)

Laura Rozen remarks that,

“What’s interesting is if, per the Ignatius and Cooper pieces, someone high up at the White House wouldn’t mind Netanyahu thinking otherwise, to push him to avoid that fearsome outcome by getting as close as possible to U.S. requests for putting in writing there would be no more settlement surprises, among other confidence building steps.”

This interpretation makes sense in light of the rather canned quote from the briefer:

Mr. Obama gave very little away about his intentions, attendees said. “He asked a lot of questions,” said one official at the meeting. “He didn’t say ‘great idea, bad idea.’ But he listened.”

The obvious intent of this quote is to keep all options open for Obama. He can abandon his trial balloon should Netanyahu get with the program and embrace proximity talks. I should think that if Netanyahu were half as skillful as Prime Minister Barak was he could just engage in the proximity process, make the proper noises, act serious, and drag out the process until the election season had begun in earnest and then scuttle, blaming failure on the Palestinians and claiming that Israel had no partner and that the Palestinians’ true intention is to throw the Jews into the sea, blah, blah, blah.

All the advisers mentioned in the Cooper piece — Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft Samuel Berger, and Colin Powell — are hated by Netanyahu, particularly Zbig. This is designed to goose Israel’s leadership into stepping briskly toward engaging the Palestinians and putting a real freeze on building activity.

The problem, of course, is that the proximity talks will go nowhere, as Scowcroft says. The balance of power between Israel and Palestinians is too skewed to induce Israel to make substantial concessions. If Obama is serious about wanting a real result that will get America off the hook of supporting continued Israeli expansionism and apartheid, he will have to press his finger decisively on the Palestinian side of the power scale. This can only be done by unveiling a plan that provides a modicum of justice to Palestinians and outlines borders. Then he must cajole, berate, threaten, and bribe Israel to accept it and make the painful adjustments that will be necessary to carry out any such plan.

Syria would be included in the peace plan as it was outlined by those who were in the room. Ignatius writes:

The American peace plan would be linked with the issue of confronting Iran, which is Israel’s top priority, explained the second senior official. He described the issues as two halves of a single strategic problem: “We want to get the debate away from settlements and East Jerusalem and take it to a 30,000-feet level that can involve Jordan, Syria and other countries in the region,” as well as the Israelis and Palestinians.

[Copied Articles]

Obama weighs new peace plan for the Middle East

By David Ignatius
Wednesday, April 7, 2010; A17

Despite recent turbulence in U.S. relations with Israel, President Obama is “seriously considering” proposing an American peace plan to resolve the Palestinian conflict, according to two top administration officials.

“Everyone knows the basic outlines of a peace deal,” said one of the senior officials, citing the agreement that was nearly reached at Camp David in 2000 and in subsequent negotiations. He said that an American plan, if launched, would build upon past progress on such issues as borders, the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem. The second senior official said that “90 percent of the map would look the same” as what has been agreed in previous bargaining.

The American peace plan would be linked with the issue of confronting Iran, which is Israel’s top priority, explained the second senior official. He described the issues as two halves of a single strategic problem: “We want to get the debate away from settlements and East Jerusalem and take it to a 30,000-feet level that can involve Jordan, Syria and other countries in the region,” as well as the Israelis and Palestinians.

“Incrementalism hasn’t worked,” continued the second official, explaining that the United States cannot allow the Palestinian problem to keep festering — providing fodder for Iran and other extremists. “As a global power with global responsibilities, we have to do something.” He said the plan would “take on the absolute requirements of Israeli security and the requirements of Palestinian sovereignty in a way that makes sense.”

The White House is considering detailed interagency talks to frame the strategy and form a political consensus for it. The second official likened the process to the review that produced Obama’s strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He said the administration could formally launch the Middle East initiative by this fall.

White House interest in proposing a peace plan has been growing in recent months, but it accelerated after the blow-up that followed the March 9 Israeli announcement, during Vice President Biden’s visit, that Israel would build 1,600 housing units in East Jerusalem. U.S. officials began searching for bolder ways to address Israeli and Palestinian concerns, rather than continuing the same stale debates.

Obama’s attention was focused by a March 24 meeting at the White House with six former national security advisers. The group has been meeting privately every few months at the request of Gen. Jim Jones, who currently holds the job. In the session two weeks ago, the group had been talking about global issues for perhaps an hour when Obama walked in and asked what was on people’s minds.

Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security adviser for presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, spoke up first, according to a senior administration official. He urged Obama to launch a peace initiative based on past areas of agreement; he was followed by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser for Jimmy Carter, who described some of the strategic parameters of such a plan.

Support for a new approach was also said to have been expressed by Sandy Berger and Colin Powell, who served as national security advisers for presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, respectively. The consensus view was apparently shared by the other two attendees, Frank Carlucci and Robert C. McFarlane from the Reagan years.

Obama’s embrace of a peace plan would reverse the administration’s initial strategy, which was to try to coax concessions from the Israelis and Palestinians, with the United States offering “bridging proposals” later. This step-by-step process was favored by George Mitchell, the president’s special representative for the Middle East, who believed a similar approach had laid the groundwork for his breakthrough in Northern Ireland peace talks.

The fact that Obama is weighing the peace plan marks his growing confidence in Jones, who has been considering this approach for the past year. But the real strategist in chief is Obama himself. If he decides to launch a peace plan, it would mark a return to the ambitious themes the president sounded in his June 2009 speech in Cairo.

A political battle royal is likely to begin soon, with Israeli officials and their supporters in the United States protesting what they fear would be an American attempt to impose a settlement and arguing to focus instead on Iran. The White House rejoinder is expressed this way by one of the senior officials: “It’s not either Iran or the Middle East peace process. You have to do both.”

April 7, 2010
In Quest to Break Mideast Stalemate, a U.S. Option Emerges
By HELENE COOPER

WASHINGTON — Two weeks ago, Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser, was holding a meeting at the White House with a high-powered array of his predecessors when President Obama dropped in.

The men gathered in the Situation Room had trolled through a number of national security issues, from China to Afghanistan to Iran. But on that Wednesday, the morning after the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had failed to resolve a standoff over new construction in East Jerusalem with Mr. Obama in White House talks, the major discussion topic was the Middle East. And the question on the table after Mr. Obama joined in: had the time come for the president to put forward his own proposal outlining what a peace deal should look like?

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft and Samuel Berger, the national security advisers to Presidents Carter, Ford, the senior Bush and Clinton, advocated such a move, according to several current and former administration officials in the room. Mr. Scowcroft cast the issue in terms of United States national security and its relations with the Arab world. He argued that only American leadership would break the cycle of distrust, hostility and violence that has prevented Israel and its Arab neighbors from forging a lasting peace deal.

The fact that President Obama was willing to have such an impromptu discussion with former advisers illustrates his increasing frustration with the foot-dragging over Middle East peace talks, and a growing sense that he may have to present a specific plan, rather than wait for the two sides to come to any sort of agreement.

The White House is still pushing for Israelis and Palestinians to have the indirect talks both sides had agreed to before the construction announcement raised too much consternation to proceed. But several administration officials acknowledge that those talks, even if they ever start, may get mired pretty quickly.

In joining the discussion two weeks ago, Mr. Obama gave very little away about his intentions, attendees said. “He asked a lot of questions,” said one official at the meeting. “He didn’t say ‘great idea, bad idea.’ But he listened.”

For Mr. Obama, the issue of the status of East Jerusalem is central to his ambitions to forge a peace plan between Israelis and Palestinians during his presidency, a stated goal. But coming up with an American proposal has drawbacks of its own.

No one seated at the table disagreed with Mr. Scowcroft outright, the officials said — most of the men appeared to agree that Israelis and Palestinians, if left to their own devices, would not come up with anything. But a couple of the participants, including Gen. Colin L. Powell, who was national security adviser to Ronald W. Reagan, urged caution, arguing that the administration had to figure out what “Acts 2, 3, and 4” would be if one or both of the two sides balked at an American-designed peace deal.

So far, administration officials are still smarting from their first attempt at sticking their collective necks out, as they did last summer when they demanded a freeze of Jewish settlements, and then had to stand back with no contingency plan after Israel refused outright.

One Israeli worry is that once Mr. Obama puts American parameters on the table, the Palestinians will refuse to accept anything less. Meanwhile, Mr. Netanyahu, who heads the right-wing Likud party and whose governing coalition includes parties further to the right, might be unwilling or politically unable to make a deal, foreign policy experts said.

Still, for all of that, a consensus appears to be growing, both within the administration and among outside advisers to the White House, that Mr. Obama will have to consider suggesting a solution to get the two sides moving.

Such a move is “absolutely not on the table right now,” a senior administration official said, adding that the United States wanted to first see the start of the indirect, American-brokered peace negotiations, which diplomats refer to as “proximity talks.” But the official said those talks would “undoubtedly get mired down, and then you can expect that we would go in with something.”

What that would be remains up in the air, but most Middle East experts draw the same outline for an eventual peace deal. First, Palestinian officials would have to accept that there would be no right of return for refugees of the 1948 war that established the Israeli state, and for their millions of descendants. Rather, the Palestinians would have to accept some kind of compensation. Second, the two sides would have to share Jerusalem — Palestinians locating their capital in the east, Israelis in the west, and both signing on to some sort of international agreement on how to share the holy sites in the Old City.

Third, Israel would return to its 1967 borders — before it captured East Jerusalem and the West Bank in the Six-Day War — give or take a few negotiated settlements and territorial swaps. Fourth, the United States or NATO would have to give Israel security guarantees, probably including stationing troops along the Jordan River, to ease Israeli fears that hostile countries could use the Palestinian state as a springboard for attacks. And finally, Arab neighbors like Saudi Arabia would recognize Israel.

“It’s not rocket science,” said Robert Malley, director of the Middle East Program at the International Crisis Group, the Brussels-based organization that seeks to prevent and resolve deadly conflicts. “And a lot of people who have looked at this have reached the conclusion that the parties won’t reach there on their own. If the U.S. wants it done, it will have to do it.”

Still, Mr. Malley said, “it’s not simply a matter of ‘put a plan on the table and see what happens.’ ” He said the administration must work on getting both Mr. Netanyahu and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to believe that their best option would be to go along with an American peace proposal — a tall order.

April 7, 2010
West Bank Growth Seen as Imperiled
By ETHAN BRONNER

JERUSALEM — The International Monetary Fund is preparing a report on the Palestinian economy that praises the actions of the West Bank government and the large donations of Western countries, especially European ones, but argues that healthy recent growth rates are imperiled by the parties that claim to have the most at stake — Israel and the Arab states.

“There is a very high risk that the growth of the last year will not last,” Oussama Kanaan, head of the fund’s mission to the Palestinian territories, said in an interview ahead of a meeting in Madrid next week of donor countries where he will present the report. “There has been no additional significant easing of restrictions by Israel so far in 2010. And there is a lack of donor support, especially among the Arabs, who need to give in a more systematic and predictable way to build investor confidence.”

Following the violent uprising of late 2000 and fierce Israeli countermeasures, an economic crisis began that lasted until 2007 when mild growth began. For 2009, Mr. Kanaan said, the economic growth rate for the West Bank and Gaza was the highest in years, 6.8 percent, of which 8.5 percent was in the West Bank and 1 percent in Gaza.

He attributed the growth for the West Bank to improved security, institution building and transparency from the government of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, an Israeli easing of restrictions on movement and access and substantial donations from foreign governments. All three needed to continue in a predictable way in 2010, Mr. Kanaan said, but so far the Palestinian Authority was the only player clearly living up to its promises.

The challenge of economic growth for Gaza is of a different order of magnitude than for the West Bank. Gaza, ruled by Hamas and shunned by the international community, has been suffering under a blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt for several years. There is an underground economy dependent on smuggler tunnels as well as daily truckloads of donated goods permitted by Israel with the intention of staving off a humanitarian crisis.

But there is only a skeletal economy there now — unemployment, according to the fund’s report, stands at 39 percent — and the report is said to call for a complete lifting of the blockade. Israel’s war in Gaza 15 months ago destroyed some 4,000 homes and a number of factories and facilities that have not been rebuilt because the blockade bars most building materials.

Under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel has made clear that it wants to help create a big gap between the economies of Gaza and the West Bank, depriving Gaza of anything much above sustenance and helping the West Bank prosper. The goal is to drive home to Palestinians that they should favor the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority over Hamas in future elections.

But Mr. Netanyahu’s relations with the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah have grown strained as he has declined to freeze settlement growth in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the Palestinians have declined to join Israel in direct peace negotiations.

Further substantial easing in the West Bank, the report says, will come through direct negotiations.

“Obviously, many of the projects are not moving as they should because of the political atmosphere,” said Yigal Palmor, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry. “We have called on the Palestinian Authority time and again to renew direct peace talks. In the context of such direct talks many problems can naturally be solved more quickly and with improved efficiency.”

An Israeli official involved in reviving the Palestinian economy said roadblocks were still being removed, crossing points for goods and people continued to be upgraded and expanded industrial zones planned.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she was helping to prepare Israel’s report, said that further easing had been slowed by an increase in terrorist attacks in the West Bank in the last month.

Mr. Kanaan said that among outside donors the European Union had been the most generous in its aid to the Palestinian Authority, with $329 million earmarked for 2010. The United States has so far promised $75 million. But the Arab states have not clarified what they will give. The Palestinian Authority is expected to need $1.24 billion for its 2010 budget, and $700 million for public investment.

The Palestinian Authority needs to be able to export its goods for its economy to grow, and the Israeli restrictions make it difficult, the report said, especially because the West Bank has no seaport or airport. West Bank unemployment is at 18 percent.

Hasan Abu-Libdeh, the Palestinian national economy minister, said in a separate interview that exports were a serious problem.

“The cost of shipping goods from here to Tel Aviv is higher than to Brussels,” Mr. Abu-Libdeh said, because of Israeli security measures. He also accused Israel of failing to live up to promises to expedite industrial parks and large-scale projects, something the Israeli official denied.

Mr. Kanaan of the International Monetary Fund said his report would urge Israel to remove impediments to public and private Palestinian investment in the 60 percent of the West Bank currently under strict Israeli control.

He added that the 250,000 Palestinians of East Jerusalem needed far more assistance than the Arab world had provided, despite recent promises at the Arab League summit in Libya.

Can Academics Bring the US Closer to Syria?
by Rima Abdelkader
April 6, 2010

The great mending of fences continues as Syria and Egypt patch up their relations. It was announced today that Mubarak has ordered the official Egyptian press to stop its attacks on Syria in preparation of Assad’s visit to Cairo, planned for the middle of the next month. Neocons are trying to spin this improvement of inter-Arab relations as an Obama failure. Jonathan Spyer of the (GLORIA) Center, Herzliya, Israel, writes that Jumblatt’s and Saudi Arabia’s recent rapprochement with Assad is a sign of Obama’s failure in the Middle East. He argues that it is a product of “where the current Western policy of punishing allies and rewarding enemies is likely to lead.”

This analysis is nonsense, however, because Jumblatt and Saudi Arabia made their hard turn toward Syria when Bush was still president. Much like the economic crash, it began well before Obama took the reins. The Doha agreement of May 21, 2008 signaled the first major effort by Saad Hariri to patch up relations with Hizbullah. They agreed to form a government of national unity and put aside the sectarian bickering that had been encouraged by Bush in his winner-take-all fantasy. Also, it is not Syrian violence, as Spyer would have us believe, that is causing this rapprochement, but the natural state of affairs in the region. President Bush and Israel sewed extraordinary violence in order to upset this steady state in the region. The war on Iraq, the 2006 summer invasion of Lebanon, and the War against Hamas, all served to drive an unnatural wedge between the Arab states.  Sure the Arab states have their disagreements and policy differences. One cannot dispute that they are not united by great love. But they have not traditionally been at war. There is an understanding of sorts between them – an understanding that Bush and Israel tried to destroy, just a surely as they tried to pit “moderates” against “radicals” and Shiites against Sunnis.

Bushes violent attempt to polarize relations between Arabs had already proven a costly failure before he left office. To blame it on Obama just adds insult to injury. Obama is smart to recognize the good that can come from using a light touch in the region. The Arab leaders will find a modus vivendi that will protect their various interests even if it doesn’t mean that love breaks out all over. A lot fewer people will lose their lives or be displaced by war and insecurity.

New Round Up follows

An Israeli Arab is arrested was sentenced to prison Tuesday for giving Hezbollah information and suspected of helping to target Ashkenazi for assassination as revenge for Israel’s killing of Imad Muginyeh.

WSJ interview with King Abdullah of Jordan:
BY JAY SOLOMON

AMMAN, Jordan—Jordan’s King Abdullah II said he will push the Obama administration next week to impose on Israel the terms and time-line for new peace talks with the Palestinians, as concerns mount inside his government that the stalled dialogue could fuel a new round of violence in the Middle East that targets moderate Arab states.

Jordan’s leader also delivered in an interview Monday with The Wall Street Journal a rebuke of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, charging that his policy of building homes for Jewish families in East Jerusalem has pushed Jordanian-Israeli relations to their lowest point since a 1994 …

WSJ: One factor in all of this, and no one can really see where we are headed, is Syria…How is Jordan’s relationship with Syria and how do you see that?

HM: Jordan’s relationship with Syria is better than it has been in a long time; probably the best it’s ever been. … So the engagement now between the Syrian and Jordanian government on economic cooperation are at an all-time high. The Israeli-Syrian issue is obviously high on their priority list.

WSJ: The message you get from Syria is they’re ready to talk?

HM: Yes, they are ready to talk but again I think everyone is still trying to decide what this Israeli government is all about. The rhetoric is positive, but actions on the ground show us something completely different, so there is frustration from Syria towards Israel……

WSJ: How different does the language from the Obama administration look from here? Some Arab and Palestinian leaders I talked to are describing the conflict as a national security threat to the U.S., which seems to be a shift that is driving this tough love.

HM: It’s not a shift. If you look at military and intelligence positions from the 1950s, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has always been against American national interests. What has happened is that President Bush finally came out and said that the future has to be a two-state solution. And President Obama took it one step forward and said what has been known by all of us for decades: Unless you solve this problem, the continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian problem and therefore the Israeli-Arab Muslim problem affects the direct national interest of the United States. I don’t think that’s gone down to the think tanks and politicians; they don’t see it that way. But the generals and the intelligence officers and senior political leaders do realize that unless you solve this problem … I mean, you are involved in two wars in our region. The Israeli-Palestinian issue is the core issue and this is the problem we have with American decision-makers. It’s always been a challenge of connecting the dots. The Israeli Palestinian issue is used by everyone who has an axe to grind against the West. So resolving this problem does not mean that this evil will evaporate, but definitely, it will take a big chunk out of the challenges that we have in this region….

WSJ: When you talk about Jordanian-Israeli relations at a low, it’s just because there has not been that trust on this issue?

HM: The political trust is gone, there is no real economic relationship between Jordan and Israel, for Israeli businessmen to get into Jordan he takes a visa that day; it is almost impossible for a Jordanian businessmen to enter Israel. So economically we were better off in trade and in movement before my father signed the peace treaty. I mean, obviously there was the golden period of the wonderful relationship between my father and Prime Minister Rabin, and after the death of PM Rabin, again there was a resurgence with PM Barak, but it’s just been a decline since then.

‘Lebanon syndrome’ afflicts Iraq
Winnipeg Free Press
By: Samuel Segev

In a speech in Saudi Arabia, former Soviet prime minister and former KGB chief Yevgeny Primakov said that “it is the U.S. that transformed Iran into a regional power.” He added that the U.S. is now being challenged “everywhere — in Europe, Asia and Latin America.”

He said that the American intervention in Iraq “shook the regional balance, strengthened al-Qaida in Iraq and shook the balance between Sunnis and Shiites in Baghdad.” This new regional reality became evident last week during U.S. Senator John Kerry’s visit to Damascus.

Kerry, a Democrat and chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, is a supporter of U.S. President Barack Obama’s policy of “engagement” with the Arab and Muslim world.

After long talks with President Bashar Assad, Kerry said that “the U.S. and Syria share a mutual interest in having a very frank exchange on any differences that may exist.”

Kerry added that the U.S. and its Arab allies are hopeful that “re-engagement with Syria may encourage its leaders to distance themselves from Iran and from the strategic and economic alliance with Iran that Syria has fostered for decades.”

This did not happen and it is not difficult to guess why — Syria’s oil wells are running dry, its growing youth population needs jobs and Iran has been the only country to help Assad.

Even more important: Iran recognized Syria’s “special interest” in Lebanon. Despite the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon five years ago, Syria’s dominance in Beirut has never been greater. Even the pro-Western government of Rafiq Hariri was sworn in “with the Grace of Assad.”

This new reality was demonstrated again last Thursday by the fence-mending mission to Damascus of Lebanese Druze leader, Walid Jumblat, who had been among the fiercest critics of Syria’s 29-year presence in Beirut….

Jumblat paid a heavy national price for his reconciliation with Assad. He not only accepted the renewed Syrian influence in his country, but also agreed that Hezbollah should not be disarmed. This enabled Assad to define publicly his strategy in Lebanon.

“In defining Syrian-Lebanese relations, it should be clear that Syria cannot remain neutral in the event of an armed coalition against Hezbollah,” Assad said.

This statement was read very carefully in Israel. It confirmed an earlier Israeli evaluation that, in case of a third Lebanon war, Syria, with the backing of Iran, would come to Hezbollah’s rescue.

Who’s Afraid of a One-State Solution? in FP
As Israeli-Palestian peace talks remain at an impasse, a radical solution gains steam.

Saadé Holdings Launches First Syrian Wine: “Domaine de Bargylus” Syria Report

Customs Revenues Grew 31 pct Year-on-Year in Q1, 2010: Syria Report
The revenues of the Syrian customs grew by 31.2 percent in the first quarter of this year, according to the Ministry of Finance. Read

Twelve Syrians List Among 100 Most Influential Arabs: Syria Report
A recent survey on the 100 most influential Arabs lists 12 Syrians among its members.

India rebuffs US calls to shun Iran gas talks
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Press TV

India has rejected a call from the US to shun participation in gas talks with Iran, saying “energy security” is a priority for New Delhi.

Iran and Pakistan signed a deal in March to construct a multi-billion dollar natural gas pipeline connecting the two neighboring countries — a project that was strongly opposed by the US. The deal is part of the long-delayed 7.5-billion-dollar Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project.

“We have no comments to make on what the US official has said. But energy security is of prime concern to the government, and the India-Pakistan-Iran pipeline has to be seen in this context,” The Hindustan Times quoted an official with India’s foreign ministry as saying.

Syria and Other Countries Removed from Terror Watch List
2010-04-05

Apr 05, 2010 — The United States will implement new airline security measures this month to replace mandatory screening of air travellers from 14 countries, a step that had angered some allies, including Nigeria, when it was imposed after a failed bombing by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Christmas Day.

For many Iraqis, Syria is a secular haven
Tuesday, April 6, 2010; A12 Letter to the Editor in Washington Post

The March 30 editorial “What the Iraqis are building ” praised Iraq’s recent election and favorably compared Iraq’s political system with that of its neighbors.

The editorial maligned Syria as an alleged hereditary fiefdom, but Syria was more of a haven for the dispossessed of Iraq than Iraq’s so-called democracy.

I’ll buy into the new Iraqi system of democracy when the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis living in Syria vote with their feet and return to Iraq. Until then we should remember that Syria is more secular than Iraq.

In Iraq, democracy is being used as an instrument of majority rule without minority protection. Unchecked, this is a form of systemic injustice that is worse than despotism.

Ayman Hakki, Washington

Behind the Settlements
Daniel Kurtzer
March/April issue of The American Interest

….Settlers and their supporters now control much of the bureaucracy and the process involved in the settlements enterprise—many civil servants, employees of the Civil Administration and soldiers in the IDF itself see themselves as protectors of settlements rather than upholders of state laws and interests. In recent months, the IDF has confronted growing protests from soldiers against being asked to evacuate settlements and signs of protest on army bases themselves. In short, the prolonged erosion of the rule of law as it applies to settlements has diminished the state’s authority and the nonpartisan character of military jurisdiction. The government appears not only unwilling to enforce the law with respect to those who break it in support of settlements, but also afraid to confront the settler movement and its various layers of support in the population. In the meantime, the corrosion of civil and military ethics continues, as the authorities continue to turn a blind eye to illegal settlement activity and the IDF continues to invest heavily in the daily tasks of protecting settlements and settlers. The rationale of settlements as helping the security of the state has been turned on its head; the settlements are now undermining Israeli security by eroding the state’s ability to enforce its own laws.

Ariel Sharon should have been immensely proud to read Talya Sasson’s concluding words in her report to him. Sharon had told me repeatedly that Israel was a “democracy among democracies”, a nation that observes the fundamental tenets of democracy even while in a perpetual state of war since its independence. Thus, Sasson’s words would have resonated with Sharon:

The State of Israel is a democratic state. This is what the Declaration of Independence and the Basic Laws teach us. This is the glue that sticks all its citizens together, allows them to live together in one political entity. Democracy and the rule of law are two inseparables. One cannot exist without the other.15

Some claim that after all these years, and with so many tens of thousands of settlers throughout the West Bank, ultimately many settlements cannot be evacuated in order to implement a peace treaty with the Palestinians. But they can be, and I believe they must be if a peace settlement is to be reached with the Palestinians. That perspective is gaining ground in Israel. It is exemplified by Israeli writer Gershom Gorenberg, whose recent analysis of the settlement issue has drawn a fair bit of attention. Gorenberg has noted the vital role that settlers and settlements played in the pre-state period, concluding that the success of this Zionist enterprise was the declaration of Israel’s independence in 1948. At that moment, however, the national mission changed—from building the infrastructure of a state-in-the-making to the protection of that state and the achievement of its recognition and legitimacy.16 He argues that, by pursuing an unbridled settlement push in 2009, Prime Minister Netanyahu was deconstructing the very state he has sworn to protect, confusing the issue of what Israel is and isn’t. Many Israelis agree with him, and Netanyahu’s own apparent change of course late last year suggests that the matter is newly open for debate in a way it hasn’t been since at least May 1977.

In that light, it was not wrong for President Obama to raise a demand for a settlements freeze, even if the tactics employed to do so did not prove optimal. The issue will not go away, because Israelis themselves increasingly won’t let it. The challenge for the United States is how to pursue the issue in a persistent and intelligent manner. It should do so with the confidence that, ultimately, it will end up aligned not only on the right side of history generally, but even on the right side of the history of Zionism.

RABBIS TO U.S. AMBASSADOR: TIME TO ‘GO BIBLICAL’ WITH ARABS
By Gil Ronen
Israel National News (INN)
Arutz Sheva (‘Channel Seven’), an Israeli media network that runs Israel National News (INN), reported that on Dec. 30, 2009, a rabbinical “congress for peace” proposed to U.S. Ambassador to Israel James Cunningham genocidal ethnic cleansing of Palestinians as “the Biblical approach to the dispute over the Land of Israel,” in the name of “the Divine will”

Left to right: Rabbi Sholom Gold, Mr. Marc Sievers of the US Embassy, Rabbi Dov Lior, Rabbi Joseph Gerlitzky, Ambassador James Cunningham, Rabbi Moshe Havlin, Rabbi Avrohom S. Lewin. The Rabbis handed the ambassador a Halachic Ruling signed by over 350 rabbis in Israel that forbids giving up land controlled by Israel today.

A delegation of the Rabbinical Congress for Peace (RCP) met with U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mr. James Cunningham, today and called for a reassessment of the entire U.S. policy vis-à-vis the Israelis and Palestinians. The rabbis told Ambassador Cunningham that it was time to try the Biblical approach to the dispute over the Land of Israel.

“The past 17 years have proven without a shadow of a doubt that every square inch ceded by Israel to the Palestinians was transformed into a platform of hatred and terrorism,” RCP Director Rabbi Avrohom Shmuel Lewin told the ambassador. “In other words, the ‘land for peace’ formula in the Israel-Palestinian context, besides being a formula that goes against the Divine will, is ineffective, obsolete, and an exercise in futility. Most of all it is a dangerous policy that only leads to bloodshed and instability in the region and harms vital American interests in the region as well,” Lewin said.

‘LAND FOR PEACE DOESN’T WORK’

The delegation was headed by Rabbi Joseph Gerlitzky, Chairman of the RCP, who is also the Rabbi of Central Tel Aviv where the U.S. embassy is located. Rabbi Gerlitzky presented the ambassador with the Halachic (Jewish legal) ruling signed by over 350 prominent rabbis in Israel that it is forbidden to give up even one inch of territory controlled by Israel today because it will bring bloodshed and instability to the region.

“In the name of the overwhelming majority of rabbis in Israel,” he said, “we request of you, Mr. Ambassador, to convey our Halachic message to President Barack Obama that it is time for a complete reversal and reassessment of U.S. policy in the Middle East. The ‘land for peace’ policy never worked and harms U.S. interests in the region and the world at large.”

The ambassador was visibly moved by Rabbi Sholom Gold, a leading rabbi in Jerusalem, who described the suffering that the Jewish People have endured ever since the implementation of the Oslo Accords and the agreements that followed. “It’s all a play of words, there is no peace process,” he said. “From the day that we started conceding and withdrawing we did not have one day of rest and peace. Why should our enemies want to make peace with us when they see that with terrorism they get what they want? Even the U.S., Israel’s supposedly best friend, sides with them in demanding a freeze and evacuation of settlements. Is the triumph of Arab terror one of American interests?” Gold asked.

GOING BIBLICAL

Rabbi Dov Lior, the Rabbi of Kiryat Arba-Hevron, said: “G-d gave the U.S. the power and influence to affect the rest of the world and supporting Israel is the key to America’s success.”

Ambassador Cunningham told the rabbis that he does not see how the problem can be solved “without taking into consideration the Palestinians,” to which Rabbi Gold remarked: “Ever since we started taking the Palestinians into consideration the situation only worsened.”

The ambassador asked the rabbis, “So what is your solution to the problem?”

Rabbi Gerlitzky replied: “You must switch the entire approach to the situation. We all believe in the Holy Bible and up until now we tried every formula except for that which is delineated in the Bible. Let’s try it and who knows, Mr. Ambassador, maybe this is your defining moment, that G-d Almighty has placed you in this capacity in order to precipitate a new course which will bring a true peace to the entire region.”

Economist Tallies Rising Cost of Israel on US Taxpayers
By David R. Francis
Christian Science Monitor

Since 1973, Israel has cost the United States about $1.6 trillion. If divided by today’s population, that is more than $5,700 per person.

This is an estimate by Thomas Stauffer, a consulting economist in Washington. For decades, his analyses of the Middle East scene have made him a frequent thorn in the side of the Israel lobby.

For the first time in many years, Mr. Stauffer has tallied the total cost to the US of its backing of Israel in its drawn-out, violent dispute with the Palestinians. So far, he figures, the bill adds up to more than twice the cost of the Vietnam War.

And now Israel wants more. In a meeting at the White House late last month, Israeli officials made a pitch for $4 billion in additional military aid to defray the rising costs of dealing with the intifada and suicide bombings. They also asked for more than $8 billion in loan guarantees to help the country’s recession-bound economy.

Considering Israel’s deep economic troubles, Stauffer doubts the Israel bonds covered by the loan guarantees will ever be repaid. The bonds are likely to be structured so they don’t pay interest until they reach maturity. If Stauffer is right, the US would end up paying both principal and interest, perhaps 10 years out.

Israel’s request could be part of a supplemental spending bill that’s likely to be passed early next year, perhaps wrapped in with the cost of a war with Iraq.

Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid. It is already due to get $2.04 billion in military assistance and $720 million in economic aid in fiscal 2003. It has been getting $3 billion a year for years.

Adjusting the official aid to 2001 dollars in purchasing power, Israel has been given $240 billion since 1973, Stauffer reckons. In addition, the US has given Egypt $117 billion and Jordan $22 billion in foreign aid in return for signing peace treaties with Israel.

“Consequently, politically, if not administratively, those outlays are part of the total package of support for Israel,” argues Stauffer in a lecture on the total costs of US Middle East policy, commissioned by the US Army War College, for a recent conference at the University of Maine………..

Ford Prefect writes: I sent this joke to Shai and it became an instant hit in Israel:

A Jewish man was sitting at Starbucks reading an Arab newspaper. A friend of his, who happened to come in the same store, noticed this strange phenomenon. Very upset, he approached him and said:

“Moshe, have you lost your mind? Why are you reading an Arab newspaper?”

Moshe replied, “I used to read the Jewish newspapers, but what did I find? Jews being persecuted, Israel being attacked, Jews disappearing through assimilation and intermarriage, Jews living in poverty.

So I switched to the Arab newspaper. Now what do I find? Jews own all the banks, Jews control the media, Jews are all rich and powerful, Jews rule the world.

The news is so much better!

Palestinian aspirations are clear, but what does Israel want? Via WarinContext
Posted: 03 Apr 2010 08:14 PM PDT

Gideon Levy writes: Does anybody know what Benjamin Netanyahu wants? Has anybody ever understood what his predecessors wanted? Where are they headed? And where are they leading us? One after another, Israeli politicians have been asked these questions, only to reply with the standard rejoinders: “You don’t expect me to answer this question” or “Let’s leave […]

In Syria, a Prologue for Cities
2010-04-05
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

(New York Times) — Archaeologists have embarked on excavations in northern Syria expected to widen and deepen understanding of a prehistoric culture in Mesopotamia that set the stage for the rise of the world’s first cities and states and the invention of writing.

In two seasons of preliminary surveying and digging at the site known as Tell Zeidan, American and Syrian investigators have already uncovered a tantalizing sampling of artifacts from what had been a robust pre-urban settlement on the upper Euphrates River. People occupied the site for two millenniums, until 4000
B.C. — a little-known but fateful period of human cultural evolution…….

One of the most telling finds was a stone seal depicting a deer, presumably used to stamp a mark on goods to identify ownership in a time before writing. About 2-by 2- 1/2 inches, the seal is unusually large and carved from a red stone not native to the area. In fact, archaeologists said, it was similar in design to a seal found 185 miles to the east, at Tepe Gawra, near Mosul.

To archaeologists, a seal is not just a seal. Dr. Zettler said it signifies that “somebody has the authority to restrict access to things — to close and seal jars, bags, doors — and so once you have these seals you must have had social stratification.”

The existence of elaborate seals with near-identical motifs at such widely distant sites, Dr. Stein said, “suggests that in this period, high-ranking elites were assuming leadership positions across a very broad region, and those dispersed elites shared a common set of symbols and perhaps even a common ideology of superior social status.”

Other artifacts attest to the culture’s shift from self-sufficient village life to specialized craft production dependent on trade and capable of acquiring luxury goods, the archaeologists reported. Such a transition is assumed to have required some administrative structure and produced a wealthy class. The expedition will be searching for remains of temples and imposing public buildings as confirmation of these political and social changes.

In what appears to be the site’s industrial area, archaeologists uncovered eight large kilns for firing pottery, one of the most ubiquitous Ubaid commodities over wide trading areas. They found blades made from the high-quality volcanic glass obsidian. An abundance of obsidian chips showed that the blades were produced at the site, and the material’s color and chemical composition indicated that it came from mines in what is now Turkey.

“We found flint sickle blades everywhere,” Dr. Stein said, noting that they had a glossy sheen “where they had been polished by the silica in the stems of wheat that they were used to harvest.”

Zeidan also had a smelting industry for making copper tools, the most advanced technology of the fifth millennium B.C. The people presumably reached as far as 250 miles away to trade for the nearest copper ore, at sources around modern-day Diyarbakir, Turkey. Getting the ore home was no easy task. In a time before the wheel or domesticated donkeys, people had to bear the heavy burden on their backs.

A site like Tell Zeidan, Dr. Zettler said, is “telling us that the Uruk cities didn’t come out of nowhere, they evolved from foundations laid in the Ubaid period.” …

Uzi Arad

Haaretz: Sarkozy’s advisers: Renewed talks between Israel and Syria unlikely
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz, 2010-04-03

A report submitted a few weeks ago to French President Nicolas Sarkozy by two of his top diplomats concludes that there is no chance to renew substantial negotiations between Israel and Syria in the near future, Haaretz has learned. The officials had visited the Middle East recently to investigate the possibility of French mediation between the two countries.

Israeli diplomats and senior Jerusalem officials told Haaretz that the authors of the report were Patrice Paoli, director of the North Africa and Middle East desk at the French Foreign Ministry, and Nicolas Gallas, a special adviser to Sarkozy on Middle East affairs.

The two senior French diplomats visited Israel during the second week of March, which coincided with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s visit. They met with Intelligence and Atomic Energy Minister Dan Meridor, National Security Adviser Uzi Arad, and individuals who had been involved in the indirect negotiations with Syria conducted by the Olmert government through Turkish mediation.

In their report, the French diplomats told Sarkozy that they believe meaningful negotiations between Israel and Syria are not possible in the near future due to the two country’s considerable mutual suspicion and lack of readiness to make any kind of compromise. In their opinion, Israel is not ready to fully withdraw from the Golan Heights, while Syria is not prepared to cut ties with Iran and Hezbollah.

The meeting held with Arad, who holds the Syrian portfolio in the Prime Minister’s Office, seemed to have the strongest impact on the diplomats. A senior Israeli official told Haaretz that Arad stressed to them that Israel will not fully withdraw from the Golan, and even discussed ideas for land exchanges between Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel – at the conclusion of which Israel would retain the Golan.

“After listening to Arad, they realized they were wasting their time and there was no genuine desire in Israel at that stage to progress on the Syrian track,” the official said.

The diplomats, however, do not put all of the blame on Israel. They also met with Syrian President Bashar Assad and other Syrian officials, who made it clear to them that Syria had no intention of cutting off its close relationship with Iran. They also denied that Syria was delivering munitions to Hezbollah. The Syrians implied that they would prefer Turkey, rather than France, to mediate.

In FP:  Obama’s list for Netanyahu open to negotiation

Now, more than a week after Netanyahu’s return to Israel and with still no apparent break in the impasse between the two close allies, one administration official tells The Cable that the U.S. side is open to Netanyahu coming back to the administration with his own alternative ideas about how to satisfy U.S. concerns about Israel’s commitment to the peace process. ……The official was quick to point out that the U.S. is still putting pressure on Netanyahu to take specific actions to “improve the atmosphere” and demonstrate Israel’s willingness to repair what is perceived in Washington as a breach of trust.

Regardless, the Obama team is now in waiting mode. “The ball is more or less in their court at the moment,” the official said of the Israelis.

Syria Welcomes Progress, Highlights Necessity of Structural Reforms – IMF Article IV
By Alyssa Rallis
2 April 2010, IHS Global Insight Daily Analysis

Significance
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) found that Syria’s economy made it through the worst of the global economic slowdown with only minor reverberations transmitted through its ample trade ties with Europe and Gulf economies with growth estimated at around 4% in 2009.

Implications
While the global economic slowdown only had a limited impact on Syria’s economy, authorities there will face significant challenges over the medium term in enacting economic reforms and attracting investment to boost economic growth and diversify the economy in light of dwindling oil reserves and revenue.

Outlook
Syrian authorities are expected to take advantage of the opportunity afforded by rebounding growth this year to renew economic reform initiatives—IHS Global Insight expects growth to rebound to near 6% this year.

Syria Survives the Worst
The IMF estimates that Syria’s economy held up relatively well during the global economic slowdown, with growth estimated to have decelerated just one percentage point last year to around 4%. Mainly through its trade relationships with Europe and the Gulf, the global financial crisis did result in a slowdown of manufacturing, construction, and service-sector activity. All three sectors avoided a contraction of economic activity, however. While tourism receipts remained buoyant, the IMF estimates that Syria’s current-account deficit widened to around 4.5% of GDP. The fiscal deficit also widened to about 2.5% of GDP as the government increased investment and public sector wages to combat the downturn. Nonetheless, non-oil revenue managed a slight increase last year on the back of one-off tax evasion repayment incentives.

Furthermore, the authorities took a number of direct steps to limit the impact of the global financial crisis and a severe regional drought on Syria’s economy. In addition to tax incentives for companies who invest in remote or underdeveloped regions in Syria, authorities gave the newly created Agricultural Support Fund an initial budget of S£10 billion (US$212.8 million) in 2009 to support farmers. The support fund initiative aims to replace some input subsidies with direct cash transfers. On the monetary policy side, the Central Bank of Syria lowered reserve requirements for banks that boosted investment project lending in key areas and required public-sector banks to cancel penalties on overdue loans and reschedule amortizations. In addition, the bank lowered the indicative deposit interest rate to an average 7% from 8%.

IMF Staff Make Key Recommendations to Improve Macroeconomic Outlook
While authorities took prudent counter-cyclical measures to mute the impact of the global financial crisis, the IMF recommends quickly consolidating expenditures to bring down the fiscal deficit. To that end IMF staff are encouraging the Syrian authorities to continue replacing its diesel coupons with direct cash transfers to the poor and continue to move forward with administrative changes necessary to implement VAT by the end of 2011. Although implementation of the VAT has been delayed from its planned start-up in 2008, authorities have modernized customs regulations and drafted the VAT procedures code. Furthermore, the IMF urges authorities to align increases in state-sector wages to performance and public-sector reform.

In the financial sector, central bank authorities continue to move forward with plans to issue treasury bills as an alternative monetary policy tool, but in the IMF’s view broader monetary policy independence will remain limited in the near term. The IMF also noted concern that differentiated reserve requirements implemented in response to the global financial crisis could encourage banks financing less profitable projects and increase banking-sector vulnerabilities, and recommended phasing out preferential lending schemes. With credit growth averaging above 20% through the middle of 2009, the IMF encourages the central bank to further improve bank supervision. While public banks have begun to regularly report key financial-sector indicators to the central bank, the IMF notes that these data may not reflect their true condition since they employ outdated accounting practices in many cases. The sector’s limited global exposure helped limit the impact of the global financial crisis, but the IMF noted that the non-performing loan ratio of state-owned banks is likely to be significantly higher than the 6% reported, since many loans in arrears are not classified by the banks as bad loans since they are implicitly guaranteed by the government. The IMF recommends that Syrian authorities continue to modernize the financial sector and encouraged authorities to fully liberalize lending rates.

The Syrian pound is currently pegged to a basket of currencies contained in the IMF’s special drawing rights (SDR). However, the IMF feels that the pound’s peg to the SDR is currently done with a U.S. dollar weighting that is higher than its weight in the SDR. IMF staff recommended aligning the pound to the SDR by reducing the dollar’s weight in its currency basket in order to more adequately reflect Syria’s direction of trade. The IMF also recommends allowing greater exchange-rate flexibility over the medium term to ensure external stability.

Syrian authorities have made notable progress pushing through economic reforms to accelerate growth and boost employment. Authorities have broadly reduced import tariffs, reformed fuel and agricultural subsidies, and minimised the time necessary to approve foreign investment. While these achievements are notable the IMF also highlighted some backpedalling witnessed during the global economic slowdown. Authorities enacted variable customs duties in order to protect domestic manufacturing, a move which the IMF recommends be swiftly reversed. In order to enhance domestic competitiveness the IMF also suggested further reducing the number of goods subject to administrative pricing and enhancing the regulatory environment to boost foreign investment.

Outlook and Implications
Fiscal Policy: Gradually resume fiscal consolidation and restrain current expenditures.Tax Policy: Complete preparations necessary to fully implement a value-added tax (VAT) by 2011.Financial-Sector Reform: Reform public-sector financial institutions and eliminate differentiated reserve requirements.Exchange Rate: Allow for greater exchange-rate flexibility over the medium term.Reforms: Accelerate structural reforms including modernizing regulations, streamlining extensive subsidies, and further liberalising trade.Syria’s economy faces a number of challenges as President Bashar al-Asad pushes forward with his promise to transform the Syrian economy into a socialist market economy. Faced with limited opportunity to expand oil production significantly over the medium term, Syrian authorities have enacted a number of fiscal austerity measures over the last several years, including lowering fuel subsidies to bring expenditures down, liberalising exchange-rate controls, and opening the country’s financial sector to international investment and private-sector participation. While reforms have moved forward at a measured pace, authorities remain committed to improving the domestic regulatory environment to invite foreign investment and foster non-hydrocarbon economic growth. In this respect, Syria looks to attract significant investment to develop and promote high-growth industries, such as tourism, finance and insurance, and retail. Structural rigidities remain, though, and after decades of paternalistic fiscal and monetary policies that cushioned domestic industry with generous subsidies and trade barriers, traditionally strong industries such as textiles have so far found it difficult to compete as Syria has moved to eliminate trade barriers. While the investment climate remains hindered by the government’s overriding control of the economy, partially instituted reforms, and corruption, Syria’s warming diplomatic relations with the West should foster further reform and international investment over the medium term. With the economy surviving the global economic slowdown relatively unscathed Syria is well positioned to boost exports and attract greater investment inflows as regional economies recover this year. IHS Global Insight expects growth to rebound to near 6% this year.
[end]

Commentary: Iraq a catalyst for U.S.-Syria rapprochement?
Thursday, April 1, 2010
By Marwan Kabalan | Common Ground News Service

DAMASCUS, Syria — Following five years of tense relations between the United States and Syria, the Obama administration has appointed a new ambassador to Damascus — the current deputy ambassador to Iraq, Robert Ford. The nomination shows the central importance of Iraq to U.S.-Syrian relations. The U.S. war in Iraq drove a deep wedge between the two, but common interests over Iraq now seem to have become the latent force behind rapprochement.

When the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq in 2003, Syria openly opposed the plan. Syria felt that the United States was targeting it as well, as Washington’s political conservatives advocated regime change in Damascus, and so it supported the resistance to the U.S. occupation. The United States also accused Syria of allowing foreign fighters to cross the borders into Iraq and hosting senior members of the former Iraqi regime.

In the summer of 2004, however, Syria started to reconsider its policy. Increasing violence in Iraq and the growing influence of extremist groups, such as al-Qaeda, led Syria to place greater emphasis on stabilizing Iraq in order to reduce its effect on Syria…..

….Ahead of the latest general elections, Syria and the United States seemed to have been endorsing more or less the same policies on Iraq: encouraging the inclusion of all political parties in the electoral process, working to provide a reasonable level of stability and security and preventing sectarian violence or partition along ethnic lines. Syria also hopes to see the smooth withdrawal of all American troops according to the timetable set out in the U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement.

Indeed, there are a number of differences between the United States and Syria, such as disagreements over the pace of U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and Syria’s strong ties with elements of the former Iraqi regime. Yet, these differences could be overcome, particularly after the positive developments resulting from the March 7 general elections in Iraq, including strong performances by secular and nationalist forces.

Indeed, the two countries will have to agree on an overall strategy to cooperate to stabilize Iraq, an opportunity for the new U.S. ambassador to Damascus to bring five years of cold relations to an end.

U.S. Ex-Officials Engage With Hamas
By CHARLES LEVINSON
WSJ

Several high-profile former U.S. officials, some with close ties to the Obama administration, met with Hamas in recent months, raising hope inside the group that its views are being heard at the White House.

White House officials and participants in the talks emphasize the meetings weren’t sanctioned by Washington. U.S. officials say there has been no change to Washington’s insistence that Hamas take a number of steps before official dialogue can begin.

Still, the talks have been interpreted by some officials inside Hamas, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which is run by the Palestinian

…Ms. Schneller said she alerted the State Department to the invitation, and Washington approved it. “They gave me permission to go, which I found interesting,” she said. After the debate, she met one-on-one with Mr. Hamdan over tea, Ms. Schneller said.

“He was really genuinely interested in how to make a breakthrough in negotiations and how to engage constructively with the United States,” she said.

and in FP Thanks to FLC

“… These contacts, which included the State Department’s approval of a debate between a senior U.S. diplomat and a Hamas representative, have been interpreted by Hamas — and Fatah, its rival — as a softening of the U.S. stance against the party.
Among those leading the charge is Rob Malley, who, along with other former U.S. officials, met with Hamas Foreign Minister Mahmud Zahar in Zurich last summer. A little history: Malley, Middle East and North Africa program director for the International Crisis Group, was forced to abandon his advisory role to the Obama campaign in summer 2008, due to his contacts with Hamas….”

JERUSALEM—Several high-profile former U.S. officials, some with close ties to the Obama administration, met with leaders of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in recent months, raising hope inside the group that its views are being heard at the White House.

White House officials and participants in the talks emphasize the meetings weren’t sanctioned by Washington. U.S. officials say there
has been no change to Washington’s insistence that Hamas take a number of steps before official dialogue can begin………

What has Gaza gained since Hamas won four years ago?
Michael Young, March 11. 2010 in the National

Handing Hamas a lifeline now is a terrible idea. It would only increase Syrian and Iranian control over the Palestinians at a time when Mr Fayyad is strengthening autonomous state institutions. It would also indicate that Hamas has succeeded, when the movement has, in fact, systematically undercut Palestinian interests. Hamas may eventually have to be brought into peace talks, assuming that Israel ever makes serious territorial concessions. But that should happen only when the movement’s power is greatly diminished, not a moment sooner…..

Hamas, the argument goes, is capable of obstructing progress in negotiations, so that only by engaging the group can the United States and the international community avoid such an outcome. The rationale is naive.

It is naive, above all, because it overlooks the extent to which Hamas has undermined the core principle guiding the regional strategy of the Palestinians until the death of Yasser Arafat. Under its late leader, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation defended what was known as the “independent Palestinian decision”, which meant ensuring the Palestinian cause would not fall under the control of individual Arab regimes. Among Mr Arafat’s bitterest rivals was Syria’s President Hafez al Assad, who repeatedly sought, and failed, to bring the PLO under Syrian authority.

Hamas has been far less successful than Mr Arafat in exploiting Arab contradictions….. Hamas reinforced its ties with Syria and Iran, …

Today the movement is highly dependent on Syria and Iran, whose calculations (along with Israeli intransigence) can only inhibit the emergence of an independent Palestinian state; …

Today the movement is highly dependent on Syria and Iran, whose calculations (along with Israeli intransigence) can only inhibit the emergence of an independent Palestinian state; ….

Islamist parties have lost momentum throughout the Middle East in recent years. Despite their many differences, all have one problem in common: they offer no persuasive vision for nation-building. In Iraq’s elections last weekend, religious parties lost ground to broad-based “nationalist” lists. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood is divided over how to deal with the state. Hamas has failed in its bid at governing, and its crushing of Fatah in Gaza in 2007 created many enemies. Even Hizbollah, arguably the most successful of the Islamist groups, has dangerously antagonised Lebanon’s Sunnis in recent years, while all it offers to the Lebanese is a prospect of incessant conflict with Israel.

Michael Young in “Hizbollah, Hamas and the false promise of resistance,”  notices that Arabs are failures at resistance and have been on a losing streak for …. well, a long time. Worse than being simple failures, he proposes, Hamas and Hizbullah are, in effect, traitors. They fight not so much against Israel but against their own “national authorities,” undermining their own cause and people. He concludes, “nothing has damaged the Arabs more than resorting to wanton violence that leads nowhere. Such behaviour betrays only vanity, with little chance of reversing injustices.”  (The National, 2010-04-0)

The Turkish Judicial System: Guardians of the Ancient Regime
By Firat Demir
For Syria Comment – April 2, 2010

A test of true democracy in any country is whether it has a constitution that protects the rights of its people. Turkey, as with most Middle Eastern countries, has failed this test in the past. Military dictators have written Turkey’s constitutions, and democratic rights were not among their topmost concerns.

The 26 constitutional amendments proposed by the Erdogan government are particularly important in this context because they have the potential to bring Turkey closer to real democracy. By limiting the powers of the country’s judicial oligarchy, they help democratize Turkey’s Kemalist state, which has traditionally been run by a narrow elite. These are significant developments which may point the way out of the Middle East’s democracy deficit.

It is little wonder that the Supreme Court, Supreme Court of Appeals, Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK), as well as additional judicial bodies have launched a desperate attempt to stop the amendments. One of the articles in the reform package, foreseeing a change to the structure of the HSYK, received the sharpest objections from the Supreme Court of Appeals. Under the current system, HSYK appoints the members of the Supreme Court of Appeals, who in turn appoint the members of HSYK. Presently, the Supreme court has almost unlimited powers to declare new laws unconstitutional, including new amendments by the parliament. Opposition to the 26 amendments by the Judiciary, Kemalist parties, and ultra nationalist parties reached such ferocity that most ended up defending as sacrosanct the 1982 constitution, which was written under a military dictatorship and enshrines a very limited conception of democracy.

Some of the proposed changes to the constitution include (for a full list, click here):

• allowing civilian trials of military officials on charges of crimes they commit against security of the state and the constitutional order.
• allowing the parliament (rather than the judicial system alone) to decide on political party closures.
• establishing an ombudsman system for resolving disputes between citizens and the state.
• increasing the number of members of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors, and bringing arrangements to allow the parliament to elect members to the court.
• allowing appeals to the decisions of the Supreme Military Council (YAS) at courts, which are currently outside of judiciary supervision.
• affirmative action for women.
• removing the legal immunity for the organizers of the September 12, 1980 military coup.
• allowing civil servants and public workers to form unions and have collective bargaining rights.

The European Parliament’s Turkey Rapporteur Ria Oomen-Ruijten welcomed the constitutional amendments. Are the amendments sufficient? Certainly not. Among the proposed changes, for example, there is no mention of:

• increasing voter participation in the parliament through reducing national election ceiling,
• removing MP and civil servant legal immunities,
• Kurdish (and other ethnic groups’) cultural and political rights, including the right to education in native languages,
• eliminating the dual judicial system (one for the military and one for civilians),
• subordinating the military Chief of Staff to the minister of defense instead of the prime minister,
• limiting the powers of the President
• allowing universities and other higher education institutions to have autonomy in their academic, and non-academic affairs.
• limiting the powers of Higher Education Council (YOK).

Despite these limitations, it is a step forward, and this itself is a sufficient reason to support the proposed changes, especially given the shamelessly archaic nature of the status quo in the country.

PM Erdogan is fast approaching a watershed moment for his government. He will have to decide whether he wants to drive home change and thus join the ranks of great leaders who have been able to transform their societies. For the moment his direction is ambiguous. He dances between embracing nationalism with racist overtones and Islamism. It is not clear whether he is aware of the challenges he faces. One moment he is the defender of Palestinian civilians and another the murderers in Darfur. One moment he decides to heal the wounds between Turks, Armenians, and Kurds and in the next he threatens them with deportation. One moment he asks German Chancellor Merkel, on behalf of 3 million Turkish residents in Germany, for permission to open Turkish elementary and secondary schools in Germany, arguing that people should first have a good command of their natives languages, but in the next he dismisses any proposal to open Kurdish schools in Turkey. Just this week a Kurdish singer, Rojda, was given a prison sentence of 18 months for singing a Kurdish song in a festival in Turkey. In another recent incidence, former chairpersons of  the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, Ahmet Türk and Aysel Tu?luk “face imprisonment of 45 and 70 years respectively under charges of “spreading PKK propaganda””.

In Turkey, Proposed Changes Aim at Old Guard

New York Times, April 2, 2010. By SABRINA TAVERNISE and SEBNEM ARSU

Turkey’s governing party moved this week to further reduce the power of the country’s staunchly secular old guard, submitting a series of amendments to Turkey’s military coup-era 1982 constitution, but passage is far from assured.

Turkish constitutional reform plans anger judges

Guardian, Monday 22 March 2010 20.13 GMT, Robert Tait

“We sense that the constitutional package is aimed at decreasing the power of the judiciary. We are definitely objecting to this,” Judge Hasan Gerceker, chief of the supreme court, told the Turkish television channel NTV.

Supreme Court of Appeals seeks to maintain status quo

Today’s Zaman, 26 March 2010, Friday, ERCAN YAVUZ

According to a report prepared by the Supreme Court of Appeals, which is waging a war against the government’s recently announced constitutional reform package and has directed fierce criticism at Parliament, the amendments in the package are in contravention of the first three unchangeable articles of the Constitution.

The court even finds the planned changes to the party closure system, which have been applauded by both the European Union and the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission, unacceptable on the grounds that it challenges the principle of separation of powers. While objecting to the change that would make it possible for members of the military to be tried in civilian courts, the court approves of the amendment to prevent civilians from being tried in military courts. While the court says the fact that the ombudsman institution will have to answer to Parliament could cast a shadow on its impartiality, it says opening it up to judicial oversight is a positive change.

Can the AK Party Change the Constitution?

Ihsan Dagi, March 22, 2010

Amending some articles of the Constitution may be a fresh beginning for a new round of democratic reforms, which is desperately needed to speed up the European Union accession process on the one hand and to consolidate democratization on the other.

When debating the content and methodology of constitutional change, we should keep in mind that however limited the amendment package may be, it will be a good thing in terms of Turkey’s democratization. Political reform cannot be thought of without it including a constitutional dimension.

The reason for this is obvious: The Constitution of 1982, introduced by the military administration of the time, is the basis of undemocratic institutions, mechanisms and principles at play in Turkey today. The Constitution has an authoritarian spirit designed to protect the state vis-a-vis individuals. It did not set limits to the power of the state, but to the liberties of individuals — which goes against the very essence of constitutional movements worldwide. The bureaucracy and the judiciary are appointed as vanguard institutions over the elected representatives of the people. Individual rights are stated but often weakened by phrases of “but” and exceptions. Kemalism is protected as the official ideology of the state. It is a constitution that hijacks sovereignty from the people and entrusts it to the bureaucracy and the judiciary. In short, the very logic and starting point of the 1982 Constitution contradict the principles and institutions of a contemporary liberal democracy.

Kerry’s visit to Damascus has inspired Syria to put its best foot forward. Ahmed Salkini’s OpEd (copied below) expresses Syria’s eagerness to meet the US half way. “When peace is achieved,” he writes, “the cause for resistance vanishes.”

Bashar al-Assad is also working on a rapprochement with Egypt in order to forge greater agreement on the Palestinian issue. He will travel to Cairo soon, according to the Egyptian paper Al-Masriyun.

John Kerry is playing a key role in keeping engagement with Syria on track. He reiterated in Damascus that “engagement with Syria is a priority at the highest levels of our government.” Syria’s importance has been underscored by its improving relations with Iraq and Lebanon. Junblatt’s visit to Damascus is only one manifestation of the growing consensus in Beirut that good relations with Damascus will be crucial factor in to Lebanon’s future.

Iraqi politicians have also been canvasing Damascus for support and improved relations as we saw with the visit of senior Sadrists to Syria.  President Assad is keen on cultivating good relations with the next government in Baghdad with an eye to pushing forward with economic planning between the two countries, particularly in breaking ground for the new oil pipeline. If Maliki is able to keep his seat at the helm of the Daawa Party and form the next Iraqi government, Damascus will have been dealt a blow. Maliki does not like Syria and relations with Iraq have only deteriorated over the last year of his government. The Syrian government has long supported Iyad Allawi who is pro-Baathist, secular and stands for strong central government in Iraq. The chances of Allawi being able to form a government seem slim indeed. Finding partners to form a solid coalition will be very difficult for Allawi, whose support for Sunni Baathists annoys many Shiites. He was also a close collaborator with the CIA during his years in exile.

As always, the key story in Syria is the economy. Syria is undergoing an intense period of reform. Never has it been more open to new ideas. Dardari is pushing briskly ahead with economic legal reform. He plans $130 billion in investment over the next five years, most coming from the private sector. The aim is to promote %8 growth. The government will have to lower interest rates and allow the currency to drop in value before it reaches growth figures close to %8.  The Ministry of Finance will also have to create a bond market, which it is resisting.

Salkini

“Facts are stubborn things”
By Ahmed Salkini, March 31, 2010
OPED News

As the confirmation of Robert Ford for the post of Ambassador to Syria goes through its due process, it is a propitious moment to examine the premises of the Syrian-US dialogue. While we have certain undeniable differences, we share common visions and common opinions – the simplest of which that neither side is under any unrealistic illusions. The road ahead will inevitably prove challenging. Yet, it is through a continuous and honest dialogue that we can overcome these challenges, because no matter our preference, we have inescapably common interests.

Certain skeptics have raised their voices in dissension regarding the emerging Syrian-US rapprochement. They typically ground their argument on a claim of the futility of cooperation, while evoking recent memory of tumultuous times. Yet historical and current facts stand in opposition to these skeptics’ claim. And as John Adams once said, “facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”

History has proven that through cooperation, much can be achieved to further both countries’ national interests. With our troops fighting and spilling blood side-by-side, we managed to liberate Kuwait in 1990. The following year, and through close coordination, we contrived the Madrid Peace Conference; although it did not bring about the much-anticipated just peace, its accords set the framework and contours for any future comprehensive peace agreement. In both occasions, it took intensive American diplomacy by an illustrious Secretary of State, James Baker, and in both cases cooperation yielded positive results. In the 1980’s through close coordination between the American, Syrian, and other Arab sides, we managed to bring an end to the bloody Lebanese civil war after years of ostensible endless fighting. Most importantly, after the heinous events of 9/11, Syria reached out to the US in its warring efforts against Al-Qaeda with “actionable information” that “helped save American lives,” according to then-Secretary of State, Colin Powell.

On the other hand, what did non-engagement of recent years achieve? Its proponents in Washington have, for the most part, left their offices as they watched their goal of isolating Syria dissipate. At the time, two esteemed American statesmen who opposed that policy, Senators John Kerry (Democrat) and Chuck Hagel (Republican), put it best: “our policy of non-engagement has isolated us more than the Syrians.” This was recently echoed by a former Bush-official and current Obama-appointee, Assistant Secretary of State Jeffery Feltman: “consequently, the United States, not Syria, seems to be isolated.” On the Syrian side, we have made it abundantly clear that although we emerged unscathed from attempts to isolate us and proved that we can withstand the most prodigious pressure, unfavorable relations with the world’s superpower are not conductive to peace.

Admittedly, there are inexorable and philosophical differences; namely, disagreement over what constitutes a terrorist and a freedom fighter in regards to occupied Arab territories. What we see as an Arab (Christian and Muslim) fighting to liberate his occupied land, US administrations labels as a terrorist. What we see as Israeli crimes against humanity, the US sees as not. However, drowning in a vicious cycle of dogmatic arguments over definitions diverts our attention to the root cause of the problem: illegal Israeli occupation and a lack of peace. When peace is achieved, and Israeli occupation of Arab land ends, the cause for resistance vanishes. This goal of just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East is a cardinal national interest for Syria and the US -and one that is inconceivable without our cooperation.

We also share prime national interests in Iraq. We agree on the end goal: a unified, stable, and secure Iraq; we agree on the process: foreign troop withdrawal and a firm buttressing of Iraq’s unity and sovereignty. The ground, and frame, work are laid for trilateral cooperation on different matters, including borders. Such cooperation can facilitate US troop withdrawal and expedite Iraq’s progress.

Prudence and realism dictate the imperative of setting-aside our specific differences and setting our eyes on the larger picture. No one party can address the myriad issues facing our region, from achieving peace to bringing full security and stability to Iraq. It is only through a concerted and inclusive effort that we can further our mutual goals. This process should be grounded in mutual respect and understanding, as has been stressed by Presidents Assad and Obama. Syria’s position is unequivocal in rejecting a language of dictation. Those who came to Damascus with a list of demands and no reciprocity, returned empty-handed. Those who come with a vision for peace, stability, and cooperation will find a warm, embracing, welcome.

Our road ahead will not be paved solely by success. Doubters and parasites will persist in their efforts to undermine ours. But we must always remember, pursuing our respective interest dictates that we persevere. We have no choice -facts are simply “stubborn things.”

Author’s Bio: Ahmed Salkini is the Spokesperson of the Syrian Embassy in Washington and a political adviser to the Ambassador.

Kerry: Syria is committed to Mideast peace
By Middle East Online
01/04/2010 17:15

Kerry: Obama wants to engage Syria as key peace player
US senator says Syria is essential player in bringing peace, stability to Mideast region.

DAMASCUS – President Barack Obama’s administration considers Syria a key player in Washington’s efforts to revive the stalled Middle East peace process, US Senator John Kerry said in Damascus on Thursday.

“Syria is an essential player in bringing peace and stability to the region,” Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a speech after meeting President Bashar al-Assad. “Both the United States and Syria have a very deep interest… in having a very frank exchange on any differences (and) agreements that we have about the possibilities of peace in this region,” he said in the statement.

A summit of Arab leaders last weekend ruled out renewed Palestinian-Israeli peace talks unless the Jewish state halts all settlement building, particularly in annexed Arab east Jerusalem.

“There are things that the United States can do, there are things that Syria can do, there are things that Israel can do, Turkey can do, some are unilateral, some are multilateral,” Kerry said. “But all of us have to work together in order to seize real opportunities.” Obama’s administration has pursued a year-long campaign to engage Syria, a former US foe, and energise its thwarted push for a broad Arab-Israeli peace, particularly between Israel and the Palestinians.

Its decision in February to appoint the first US ambassador to Damascus in five years was “evidence that engagement with Syria is a priority at the highest levels of our government,” said the former US presidential candidate. Envoy Robert Ford is still awaiting US confirmation of his new post, but “he will be an excellent representative of the president’s policies and an outstanding envoy to the Syrian government,” Kerry said.

He also called on Syria to play a role to halt the supply of weapons to Lebanon’s Shiite militant group Hezbollah. “We also remain deeply concerned about the flow of weapons in this area, through this area, to Hezbollah. That is something that must stop in order to promote regional stability and security,” Kerry said.

Contacts between Cairo and Damascus to secure Assad visit to Egypt…”
Al-Mesryoon (Thanks to MidEastwire.com)
by Omar al-Qalyubi

Al-Mesryoon has learned there were contacts at a high level currently ongoing between Cairo and Damascus in preparation for the first visit in over four years of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to Egypt to wish President Hosni Mubarak well following his gallbladder surgery and to turn the page of tensions which affected the relations between the two commands due to the disputes over the Lebanese dossier. Diplomatic sources thus mentioned that President Al-Assad’s visit was expected next week in case the arrangements for it are completed and in case an agreement is reached over the dossiers which will be addressed during the anticipated meeting.

“They also added that there were preparations underway for a visit which will be conducted by President Mubarak to Damascus in the next few coming months, considering that this visit will constitute an announcement of the resumption of the relations between the two countries and the end of the stalemate which had so far affected them. The sources considered that the visit [of Al-Assad] will have a positive impact on several important dossiers, especially the ones related to the peace process and the Palestinian reconciliation, since Damascus’ influence over the Palestinian factions could be used to ensure the signing of the reconciliation which was massively obstructed after Fatah and Hamas had almost signed it at the end of last year.

Syria Plans $130 Billion in Investment by 2015, Syria News Says
By Nayla Razzouk (Bloomberg) 2010-04-01

Syria plans $130 billion in investment from 2011 to 2015 to raise the country’s annual economic growth rate to 8 percent from 5.5 percent last year, Syria News reported. The private sector will contribute $77 billion to the program and the government will provide the rest, the news service said on its Web site.

The plan is based on a budget deficit of less than 3 percent of gross domestic product, a balance of payment deficit of less than 3 percent, an inflation rate of less than 3 percent and a rising economic growth rate, the news service said, citing Deputy Prime Minister Abdallah al-Dardari.

Paper hails purchase of two French planes by Syria
2010-04-01 translation by BBC MidEast
Al-Thawrah website on 29 March
by Ali Mahmud Jadid

Despite Unjust Sanctions Commercial Bank Breaks Price of International Banks’ Deals in London Market, Renews High Skills by Financing Syrian Planes] The Syrian Commercial Bank’s financing of Syrian Airways purchase of two planes carries many meanings of defiance. It also points to the correct visions of the bank, and the courage that it is able to achieve the impossible, or something similar…..

Druze leader takes road to Damascus
By Meris Lutz (Los Angeles Times) 2010-04-01

It may have been fashionable in 2007 to call the president of Syria “a snake, a butcher, a liar … and a criminal,” but it could make things awkward when you’re sitting across from him three years later.

Then again, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt’s meeting with Bashar al Assad on Wednesday – the first in six years – was really more of a reunion. The notoriously mercurial Jumblatt was a staunch ally of Syria before he rode the wave of anti-Syrian sentiment to the forefront of Lebanese politics, and then switched sides again when he felt the wind shift.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if privately Bashar was like ‘well played’ to Jumblatt,” said Harvard researcher and Lebanon expert Elias Muhanna. Jumblatt “always gets out ahead of everyone else, and I think [Assad] understands that, so it could very well be a frank and candid conversation.”

The meeting was the culmination of a two-year campaign by Jumblatt to get back in Assad’s good graces with the help of Syria’s ally in Lebanon, the militant Shiite group Hezbollah.

Earlier this month, Jumblatt, a former darling of neoconservatives in Washington, publicly apologized for his incendiary comments about the Syrian president, claiming he got swept up in the passion of the so-called Cedar Revolution that followed the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.

The meeting produced the compulsory sound bites about Lebanon and Syria’s “historical” and “brotherly” relations, but analysts say it shows more about the cyclical nature of dynastic politics in this corner of the world.

After 2005, Jumblatt accused Syrian intelligence of being behind his father’s 1977 assassination. Now that he is preparing his son, Taymour, to take over, he may be returning to Damascus to smooth things over.

“Jumblatt wants to make sure that his son is received in Damascus and receives the benefits of that relationship,” Muhanna said.

From Syria’s perspective, Jumblatt’s visit is an affirmation of Assad’s power, as well as an opportunity to shore up support for Hezbollah in case members of the group are implicated in the investigation into Hariri’s killing, said Muhanna.

“Jumblatt knows that the image of him going back to Damascus is something Syria wants, for Bashar to show his own people that even his most virulent critics have come back and paid homage,” Muhanna said.

Jumblatt began realigning himself after the events of May 7, 2008, when Hezbollah fighters took over most of Beirut and the Druze stronghold of Aley. Soon after, he effectively withdrew from the anti-Syrian March 14 coalition. Since then, even Prime Minister Saad Hariri, the son of the slain prime minister and leader of the March 14 movement, have paid their respects in Damascus.

Jumblatt’s meeting with Assad coincided with another meeting in Lebanon between Saad Hariri and U.S. Sen. John Kerry. The former presidential candidate and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee emphasized U.S. support for a “free and independent” Lebanon before heading to Damascus late Wednesday to hold talks with Assad in an effort to secure Syria’s cooperation in peace talks.

Syria after the Iraqi elections: Now comes Lebanon’s turn
On April 1, (thanks to mideastwire.com)
Al-Akhbar

Around one month ago, the Damascus visitors were coming back with stories and analyses that stirred the sarcasm of those waiting for them in the capital’s cafés or in the offices of its MPs. They were speaking about the primary features of Syrian ideas that would start with a sudden Lebanese development (the accusation of Lebanese officials of being Israeli agents is not far from that) and would end with a governmental change represented by replacing the two Lebanese Forces ministers with others from the previous opposition…

“The expectations that used to stir a laugh, quickly proved to be true. Indeed, clear Syrian messages started to arrive one after another to the two Presidents Michel Suleiman and Sa’ad al-Hariri along with Walid Junblatt. Damascus communicated with Al-Hariri via the regular channels, especially KSA. Al-Hariri started to understand. He understood how serious the Syrian-Saudi position is about taking one of their kind, practical steps – including governmental, political, media, and partisan steps – in order to improve his relation with the Syrian system.

“At the same time, Maj. Gen. Rustom Ghazali reconnected [the relation] that was severed between him and the General Director of the Internal Security Forces Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi on the one hand, and between himself and the Head of the information department Colonel Wissam al-Hassan on the other hand with all that these two men represent within the Sa’ad al-Hariri structure. Here, it can be stressed that the Syrian-Hariri relation has evolved in the last week of the Al-Hariri cabinet’s time in a way that is more extensive than the 90 days of this cabinet’s lifespan.

“As for president Michel Suleiman who did not want, ever since he became president, to open up a military line for his political relation with the Syrian command, he was hit by the clear messages carried by the former Minister Wiam Wahhab during his extensive media appearance. Suleiman quickly understood, especially after the visit of the Syrian ambassador in Lebanon Ali Abdel-Karim to Baabda palace, the seriousness of Wahhab’s talk…

“Thus, tells a Syrian source, Syria overcame the need for a governmental change by making a serious grab for keys that it was supposed to grab a while ago…And after empowering the official relations between the two States and blocking the road to the Suleiman-Hariri hesitations in regard to the relation with Syria, and regardless of the two presidents position ofn some internal matters, the turn of the Syrian-Junblatt relation came and a clear message was delivered to the Mukhtara leader [saying that] his relation with Damascus goes exclusively through Haret Hreik [Hezbollah’s strong hold]…

“The Syrian maestro did not stop there. Harmony prevailed again in the relation of Omar Karami and former Minister Abdel-Rahim Murad… At the same time, Al-Marada Movement’s leader MP Suleiman Franjieh started to fix the problems that affected his relationship with General Michel Aoun lately… But why did Syria wake up now to the re-arrangement of its relations with the Lebanese…? No matter what the reasons are, Syria seems to be today more relaxed then ever in regards to the Lebanese context.” – Al-Akhbar Lebanon, Lebanon

Kerry’s trip to Syria and Lebanon is a wise move by Obama. It will keep the peace process from caving in altogether. It will also help to defuse some of the anxiety in Lebanon that is being produced by the investigation of Hizbullah people by the Hariri Assassination investigation. I urge everyone to read Qifa Nabki’s coverage of Nasrallah’s long speech about this. A deal on the Golan is the key to prosperity in the region, defusing hostilities, and resolving much of the outside interference in Lebanon. No one believes it will happen, however, because of the many past failures, which is a very large obstacle to overcome.

Kerry departs for Syria, Lebanon
March 30, 2010
By Farah Stockman

Massachusetts Senator John Kerry — who is juggling climate change, aid to Pakistan and Congressional oversight of the war in Afghanistan — plunges this week into yet another major international conundrum: Middle East peace.

Kerry departs today to the region “to investigate the political situation in Syria and Lebanon and the prospects for progress in the Arab-Israeli Peace Process,” according to a schedule provided by his office.

He arrives in Beirut on Wednesday to meet Prime Minister Saad Hariri, President Michel Suleiman and Nabih Berri, Speaker of Parliament. Then he will move on to Syria — a country the Bush administration treated like a rogue regime, but which the Obama administration has sought to engage.

On Thursday, Kerry will meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem.

Syria is a key to the Middle East conflict because Damascus hosts the leaders of Hamas and supports Hezbollah, an anti-Israeli Shi’ite group. Also, Syria and Israel have been embroiled in a dispute over Shebaa Farms, a tiny, well-watered slice of land that Syria and Lebanon say is Lebanese territory which is occupied by Israel.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad raised hopes of a peace deal with Israel last month, when he told the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet that a deal could be signed “within six months.” But as he courts Israel and the United States – welcoming Senator Kerry – he is also making plans to strengthen ties with Turkey and Iran to form an Islamic bloc that can counter Israeli and US influence.

VIA FLC
Israel lobby presses Congress to soften Obama’s tough stance on Netanyahu
American Israel Public Affairs Committee circulates letter urging White House to ‘reinforce’ relationship with Israel
Chris McGreal in Washington
30 March 2010

America’s main pro-Israel lobby group is mobilising members of Congress to pressure the White House over its bitter public confrontation with Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister.

The move, by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), appears aimed at exploiting differences in the Obama administration …..

Signatories to Aipac’s letter include Steny Hoyer, the Democrat majority leader, and Eric Cantor, the Republican whip. The wording is similar to an email Aipac sent out during Netanyahu’s visit, describing Obama’s criticisms of the Israeli government as “a matter of serious concern” and calling on the US administration “to take immediate steps to defuse the tension with the Jewish state”.

But while Aipac has for years influenced US policy on Israel, by targeting members of Congress who criticise the Jewish state, it may no longer have the same impact.
Robert Malley, a former special assistant to President Bill Clinton for Arab-Israeli affairs, said the administration’s decision to take a once routine disagreement over settlement construction in East Jerusalem and turn it in to a confrontation is a reflection of the determination in the White House.

“This episode tells us more about the past and the future than the present. It’s a reflection of the accumulated frustration and mistrust of the Netanyahu government by the White House. For the future, they’re headed for a collision on the pace and nature of peace negotiations,” he said. “We’re seeing determination.”

A source, who is consulted by administration officials on Israel policy but did not wish to be named, said that having chosen to take Netanyahu on, Obama cannot afford to back away. “The administration’s credibility is at stake – in Israel and the Arab world. Netanyahu thought he had the better of it last year after he humiliated the president by rejecting his demand for a settlement freeze. If the administration does not follow through on this, or reaches some compromise that takes the heat off the Israelis, I suspect it will be almost impossible for us to get anything off the ground,” he said.

Netanyahu appears to have been caught off guard by Obama’s stand, perhaps because he was overconfident of being able to bypass the administration by relying on strong support for Israel in Congress. But while Aipac has been able to mobilise support for its letter, Congressional leaders have remained largely silent on the substance of the dispute.

That is, in part, because there is little enthusiasm for Jewish settlements. In addition, the White House has played an unusual card in suggesting that Netanyahu’s intransigence is endangering US interests in the Middle East, and the lives of US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan…”

However, there are reports of divisions within the administration on how to proceed. The US special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, and the national security adviser, James Jones, believe Israeli governments respond to pressure. Last year an Israeli diplomatic memorandum described Jones as having told European officials that the US administration would take a hard line with the government in Jerusalem. Some officials favour mapping out a blueprint for peace and pressing both sides to adopt it….

The Hariri Tribunal Goes Hunting for Hizballah
David Schenker
March 30, 2010

Last week in Beirut, the United Nations Special Tribunal charged with investigating and prosecuting the killers of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri brought six members of Hizballah in for questioning. The tribunal’s decision to interview Hizballah in connection with the 2005 murder appears to confirm a 2009 report in Der Speigel — corroborated more recently by Le Monde — implicating the Shiite militia in the conspiracy. A shift in the short-term focus of the investigation from Syria to Hizballah will have a profound impact on domestic politics in Lebanon, and potentially on U.S.-Lebanese relations.

Background
Since the February 2005 assassination of Hariri and the establishment of the UN-mandated inquiry into the killing, the primary public focus of the investigation has been on Damascus. Indeed, the first report of the International Independent Investigation Commission (IIIC) in October 2005 “conclud[ed] that … many leads point directly towards the involvement of Syrian security officials with the assassination.” Although no mention was made of Hizballah in the commission’s quarterly reports through 2009, the organization — allied historically with Damascus — expressed strong opposition to the formation of the IIIC and bolted from the cabinet in protest of the government’s decision to support its establishment.

Then, in May 2009 Der Spiegel published an article that reported in great detail on how Hizballah operatives participated in the murder, and how the IIIC had discovered the connection. Apparently, one of the militia’s operatives “committed the unbelievable indiscretion” of calling his girlfriend from a mobile phone used in the operation, enabling the investigators to identify the man. The revelations contained in the Der Spiegel article sent shock waves through Beirut….

For the pro-West March 14 coalition in Lebanon, the allegations of Hizballah involvement in the murder should come as little surprise. Not only would the militia have had the capacity to carry out the operation, its close allies in Damascus had the motive. Members of the coalition had also been at odds with Hizballah for years, and particularly so since the Hariri assassination and the subsequent Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. At the same time, a Hizballah connection to the crime would not in any sense absolve Syria — which then occupied and controlled Lebanon — of culpability. …

Syrians break electronic barriers and government unable to keep up (translation thanks to Mideastwire.com)

On March 31, the Palestinian-owned Al-Quds al-Arabi daily carried the following report by Kamel Sakr: “As the blocking of websites in Syria is escalating, the Syrians are seeking ways that would allow them to overcome this blocking and enter websites which are placed by the Communications Ministry on its “black list” as it is referred to by the Syrian youth. This list includes dozens of electronic addresses for different websites addressing political, media, social, religious and cultural issues. Therefore, the Syrian arena is currently witnessing a heated race between the Syrian government represented by the Communications Ministry and the Syrian surfers who are managing to reach surfers which are beyond the Syrian borders and are allowing them to access all these blocked websites…

“For their part, Internet experts in Syria differentiated between the security facet which they said was a concern for all the states and was handled by specific sides protecting the important data and information, and between the blocking of websites for reasons which are not linked to security motives. However, far from that, the inability of the Syrian Communications Ministry to control the blocking of the websites and prevent the Syrians from surfing the ones which were blocked is clearly revealed by the traffic seen in Internet cafes all around the Syrian capital Damascus. Indeed, an employee at the Ministry did not deny the inability of the government to keep up with the Syrian surfers who are using proxies that are easily overcoming the blocking operations.

“For his part, the owner of an Internet café in the Baramka region in the center of Damascus, said that hundreds of people, most of them from the youth, visited his shop on a daily basis and surfed websites which were blocked in Syria, namely the social Facebook website and Youtube which carries video clips from all around the world. He added that they also surfed other blocked websites such as the Syrian news services among others, assuring to Al-Quds al-Arabi under condition of anonymity: “What the Communications Ministry is doing is not serving anything at all. The Syrians are able to access blocked websites through non-Syrian proxies, such as the Saudi, Turkish and French ones. The Syrians have mastered that and the Syrian Communications Ministry cannot stop these proxies that are emerging every day.”

“The owner of the shop which is always filled with visitors stated that “whenever the Communications Ministry discovers a proxy used by the Syrians, it immediately blocks it since most Internet connections are exclusively secured through the servers of the Ministry. However, within a few hours, the Syrian start using alternative ones.” He added: “A while ago, we used an American proxy. Now we are using a French one and before that we used a Turkish one and a Mexican one. Nonetheless, the most popular proxy in Syria is the Saudi one…”” – Al-Quds al-Arabi, United Kingdom

A Sadr movement delegation in Damascus
By Ibrahim Hamidi
March 31, Al-Hayat

“Deputy Qusay Abdul Wahhab al-Suheil, a member of the Sadrist bloc delegation visiting Syria, told Al-Hayat that they considered Damascus to be a major strategic ally to Baghdad. The deputy was quoted in this respect as saying: “The two neighbors should have the best possible relations. We are visiting Syria with an important delegation from the Sadr Movement in order to affirm our commitment to stable and strong relations with our Syrians brothers. Preparations are also being made for us to visit Saudi Arabia in the near future.”

“The Sadr Movement delegation that visited Damascus was headed by Karar al-Khafaji and it conducted a series of meetings with a number of highly-placed Syrian officials. It is important to note that Moqtada al-Sadr visited Syria twice in the last few years. For his part, deputy Mohammad al-Daraji who is also part of the delegation, was quoted by Al-Hayat as saying: “The discussions that we have conducted in Damascus were very positive. We informed our Syrian brothers about the latest developments taking place on the Iraqi scene, especially in the aftermath of the parliamentary elections. We also informed the Syrians about our vision for the future of Iraq and how we perceived our new alliances. We renewed our well known position regarding the fact that all parties should be included in the new government and that no party or movement should be excluded from it…”

“As for Deputy Qusay Abdul Wahhab al-Suheil, he stressed that the Sadr Movement wanted strategic relations with Syria based on trust and friendship, adding that it was in Iraq’s best interest to have the best possible relations with Syria since they were neighbors and linked by strong historic ties…” – Al-Hayat, United Kingdom

Influence of Islam grows in Syria
Syrian Government is worried about ‘fanaticism’, but analysts blame officials for emboldening clerics.
By an IWPR-trained reporter – DAMASCUS
Mid East on Line, 2010-03-31

International bank appetite for Syria rises
Mar 30, 2010
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

DAMASCUS, March 30 (Reuters) – Three major Gulf banks plan to enter the liberalised Syrian market and interest from Western banks is rising despite U.S. sanctions, central bank governor Adib Mayaleh said on Tuesday.

Abu Dhabi National bank, Samba and the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia, have contacted the authorities to apply for licences this year, which could raise the number of private banks in Syria to 16, Mayaleh told Reuters before flying to Paris for meetings with French bankers.

Syria has been under U.S. sanctions since 2004 for its support of militant groups. But relations between Damascus and Washington improved last year, following better ties with former colonial power France, which occupied Syria from 1920 to 1946.

The Syrian state relinquished its monopoly on the banking sector seven years ago as part of economic openness following failed Soviet-style policies and bans on private enterprise under the Baath Party, which has ruled Syria since 1963.

“International banks have become convinced that Syria is a promising market. Diplomatic ties with France are clearer and there is a desire to cooperate with Syrian banks,” Mayaleh said.

Asked if Western banks could open in Syria, Mayaleh said: “This could be difficult initially but it does not prevent them from thinking about it.”

The Syrian delegation will meet representatives from five French banks that include BNP Paribas, which Mayaleh said had reversed a policy of not dealing with Syria that was influenced by the American sanctions.

“They are now interested in Syria. This is something new on the table,” Mayaleh said in an interview.

The French-educated governor said decisions by the monetary authorities in January that allowed foreign shareholders to own a majority stake in local banks were a main factor behind the rising interest. Capital requirements were also raised sharply.

Another important reform, he said, allowed Syrian to borrow in foreign currency from banks abroad and repay from their Syrian bank accounts.

“This is a major step toward freeing up capital accounts,” Mayaleh said.

Lebanese and Jordanian banks were the first to establish in Syria after private banks were allowed in. Gulf investors followed and licences were issued to Qatar National Bank, Bahrain-based Dallah Albaraka, and the National Bank of Kuwait.

Among Western bankers who came to explore opportunities in Syria was Morgan Stanley’s chairman John Mack, who met Mayaleh in Damascus earlier this month.

“Mack saw the horizons of investing in Syria,” Mayaleh said.

The government, Mayaleh said, has started to encourage banks based in Syria to finance service and infrastructure needs, pointing to an auction several days ago to finance a $45 million purchase of two French ATR turboprop planes on behalf of state owned Syrianair.

The auction was won by the Syrian Commercial Bank, which is under specific U.S. sanctions.

“We are also looking at a total of $150 million in borrowing to rehabilitate and buy other aircraft,” Mayaleh said.

He said the aircraft include spare parts for two grounded Syrianair Boeing 747s whose overhaul has become possible with U.S. cooperation.

The sanctions do not specifically prohibit U.S. investment in Syria, but they include export licence requirements and bans on dealing with certain Syrian individuals and entities.