Israel controls America’s Middle East policy

imaybewrongbutnz

Events in Washington over the past week show that Israel controls America’s Middle East policy. Some people may think me naive to have taken so long to realise that, but I’ve tried for many years to keep an open mind on the Israel-Palestine conflict. I can no longer.

I remember hearing the news of the quick 1967 war between the two states. I was in my early 20s, a new adult becoming more aware of affairs outside my own youthful adventures. From what I heard and read at the time, I was a little ambivalent in attitude but probably my impression was mainly that Israel did need to defend itself so it was sort of acceptable.

Over the past 20 years my opinion has developed and changed. I’ve read extensively from both sides of the argument; I’ve tried to place myself in the skin of both parties; I’ve paid attention to my gut feeling as to who was more in the right morally.

Now I am solidly behind the Palestinian cause. Not because they are the “goodies” – no more or less so than any other country – but because it is clear to me that Israel as a nation has gone way beyond what is reasonable and sensible and is now exercising power because it can, regardless of consequences which it thinks it can control. Furthermore, I think that its policy of maintaining and increasing suppression of Palestinians is, if nothing else, stupid as a medium to long term strategy and eventually will be self-defeating.

Watching Netanyahu lecture Obama on TV about what was and was not acceptable was an insight into the way in which a man who represents and serves an arrogant and aggressive electorate can control the foreign policy of a mighty country like USA. I felt deeply sorry for those Israeli citizens who genuinely want to make a reasonable and fair peace with Palestine, but who have a leader behaving thus.

Netanyahu’s main argument – that the borders that stood before 1967 are “indefensible” – is likely true. But this is not because of anything Palestine has done since 1967; it is only so because of Israel’s long-standing policy and practice of encouraging and militarily backing its extremist right-wing settlers to take whatever land they like within the West Bank, which is still officially Palestinian territory.

Israel’s leaders have made the old border indefensible, and they need to live with the long-term consequences of their provocative actions. They have also made sure that any new border, based on settlers staying put, makes an unviable Palestinian state. Palestine would become the tiny Gaza Strip plus fragments of lands to the west more fractured than swiss cheese. Its resident Palestinian communities would be confined to poor and unsupported land pockets and strips, cut off from each other and subject to the whims of a multitude of adjacent armed settler communities demanding easy access to “mainland” Israel.

This is simply nonsense, and attempts to justify it on security grounds are arrogant piffle, an insult to thinking people. Settlers must leave their isolated pockets and allow Palestine to develop into an integrated society. Anything else would constitute an unsustainable “peace” solution. On this point, Obama is precisely right.

In my mind, there are close parallels between the two simplest factors that are keeping this conflict alive year after year.

On one side, while probably the majority of moderate Palestinians would want the militants to stop sending provocative (and, it seems, pretty harmless) rockets into Israel, they cannot stop the militants who are spoiling it for all.

On the other side, while probably the majority of Israeli citizens would want militant settlers to stop moving provocatively into Palestinian land and claiming it as non-negotiably theirs when it comes to any two-state solution, that majority seemingly cannot stop the settlers who have an iron grip on their government. To me, Israeli settlers are like terrorists but with different attack weapons – one side does some random rocket firing and perhaps an occasional suicide bombing, the other just marches onto land they don’t own, refuses to move, and challenges the legitimate owners to do something about it.

Israel refuses to recognise Hamas because it is a terrorist group. Sure, some in Hamas do appear to sanction terrorist activities, but then so does the Israeli state. Sending bombers into the skies above Gaza and without warning bombing a few buildings, killing some civilians along the way, must be pretty terrifying.

In fact, Hamas is a terrorist group only because Israel defines it as such, and uses its influence over Western governments to get their endorsement of this definition. Unilaterally defining Hamas as terrorists, and then saying that is why you won’t recognise them, is weak logic.

Likewise with their argument that they will not recognise a group that does not recognise Israel’s right to exist. But Israel and its Western allies don’t recognise Hamas’s right to exist. What’s the difference? Oh, that’s right: Hamas is a terrorist group – we know that because we defined them as such.

Along with others, I’m sure, I wish Hamas would simply say it recognises Israel. That would take the wind out of the opposition, and Israel would have absolutely no reasonable basis for continuing oppression.

I also wish that the US would stop funding Israel’s actions in support of its militant settler aggression. However, Israel’s influence through the Jewish lobby in the US means Obama cannot do this unless he wants to commit electoral suicide.

I applaud Obama’s attempt to stand up to Netanyahu and the illegal Jewish settlers. What hope has Obama of making headway on this? Very little for now, I suspect; but I hope he can promote some rational thinking about what is actually going on over there.

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My apologies to those who would like to add genuine comments to my blog articles, but I have had to disable comments because I was being flooded with spam messages from people posting non-specific, automated comments aiming to get links to their dodgy sites included in commentary (doubtless to boost their Google ranking). If and when it ever stops, I will renew the comments feature.

T-minus 5 months ’til UN recognizes Palestine?

by MATTHEW TAYLOR

Ethan Bronner’s got an analysis of the diplomatic corner Israel has painted itself into in the NYT. Of course Bronner’s piece is filled with the usual elisions and distortions, which I’m sure readers of this site will spot left and right, so I’ll spare you my usual slice and dice. Here’s the money shot:

…come September the Palestinian Authority seems set to go ahead with plans to ask the General Assembly to accept it as a member. Diplomats involved in the issue say most countries – more than 100 – are expected to vote yes, meaning it will pass. (There are no vetoes in the General Assembly so the United States cannot save Israel as it often has in the Security Council.)

Really, the US can’t stop this one from moving forward? Nice. More Bronner:

[Haaretz columnist Ari Savit] wrote that “2011 is going to be a diplomatic 1973,” because a Palestinian state will be recognized internationally. “Every military base in the West Bank will be contravening the sovereignty of an independent U.N. member state.” He added, “A diplomatic siege from without and a civil uprising from within will grip Israel in a stranglehold.”

What’s the catch? How are Israel’s propagandists going to head this one off at the pass?

Inshallah, I can’t wait for the day that the occupied West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem are recognized as Palestine! This level of diplomatic pressure will be quite helpful in moving toward freedom, equality, and justice.

Israel’s secret hotline to the man tipped to replace Mubarak

By Tim Ross, Christopher Hope, Steven Swinford and Adrian Blomfield

Omar Suleiman, left, was Israel’s preferred candidate to replace President Mubarak according to secret cables released to The Daily Telegraph by WikiLeaks

The new vice-president of Egypt, Omar Suleiman, is a long-standing favourite of Israel’s who spoke daily to the Tel Aviv government via a secret “hotline” to Cairo, leaked documents disclose.

Mr Suleiman, who is widely tipped to take over from Hosni Mubarak as president, was named as Israel’s preferred candidate for the job after discussions with American officials in 2008.

As a key figure working for Middle East peace, he once suggested that Israeli troops would be “welcome” to invade Egypt to stop weapons being smuggled to Hamas terrorists in neighbouring Gaza.

The details, which emerged in secret files obtained by WikiLeaks and passed to The Daily Telegraph, come after Mr Suleiman began talks with opposition groups on the future for Egypt’s government.

On Saturday, Mr Suleiman won the backing of Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, to lead the “transition” to democracy after two weeks of demonstrations calling for President Mubarak to resign.

David Cameron, the Prime Minister, spoke to Mr Suleiman yesterday and urged him to take “bold and credible steps” to show the world that Egypt is embarking on an “irreversible, urgent and real” transition.

Leaked cables from American embassies in Cairo and Tel Aviv disclose the close co-operation between Mr Suleiman and the US and Israeli governments as well as diplomats’ intense interest in likely successors to the ageing President Mubarak, 83.

The documents highlight the delicate position which the Egyptian government seeks to maintain in Middle East politics, as a leading Arab nation with a strong relationship with the US and Israel. By 2008, Mr Suleiman, who was head of the foreign intelligence service, had become Israel’s main point of contact in the Egyptian government.

David Hacham, a senior adviser from the Israeli Ministry of Defence, told the American embassy in Tel Aviv that a delegation led by Israel’s defence minister, Ehud Barak had been impressed by Mr Suleiman, whose name is spelled “Soliman” in some cables.

But Mr Hacham was “shocked” by President Mubarak’s “aged appearance and slurred speech”.

The cable, from August 2008, said: “Hacham was full of praise for Soliman, however, and noted that a ‘hot line’ set up between the MOD and Egyptian General Intelligence Service is now in daily use.

“Hacham noted that the Israelis believe Soliman is likely to serve as at least an interim President if Mubarak dies or is incapacitated.” The Tel Aviv diplomats added: “We defer to Embassy Cairo for analysis of Egyptian succession scenarios, but there is no question that Israel is most comfortable with the prospect of Omar Soliman.”

Elsewhere the documents disclose that Mr Suleiman was stung by Israeli criticism of Egypt’s inability to stop arms smugglers transporting weapons to Palestinian militants in Gaza. At one point he suggested that Israel send troops into the Egyptian border region of Philadelphi to “stop the smuggling”.

“In their moments of greatest frustration, [Egyptian Defence Minister] Tantawi and Soliman each have claimed that the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] would be ‘welcome’ to re-invade Philadelphi, if the IDF thought that would stop the smuggling,” the cable said.

The files suggest that Mr Suleiman wanted Hamas “isolated”, and thought Gaza should “go hungry but not starve”.

“We have a short time to reach peace,” he told US diplomats. “We need to wake up in the morning with no news of terrorism, no explosions, and no news of more deaths.”

Yesterday, Hosni Mubarak’s control of Egypt’s state media, a vital lynchpin of his 30-year presidency, started to slip as the country’s largest-circulation newspaper declared its support for the uprising.

Hoping to sap the momentum from street protests demanding his overthrow, the president has instructed his deputy to launch potentially protracted negotiations with secular and Islamist opposition parties. The talks continued for a second day yesterday without yielding a significant breakthrough.

But Mr Mubarak was dealt a significant setback as the state-controlled Al-Ahram, Egypt’s second oldest newspaper and one of the most famous publications in the Middle East, abandoned its long-standing slavish support for the regime.

In a front-page leading article, the newspaper hailed the “nobility” of the “revolution” and demanded the government embark on irreversible constitutional and legislative changes.

America’s Billion Dollar Intelligence Boondoggle

Arnaud de Borchgrave

The Jordanian “triple” agent bomber whose suicide killed seven CIA agents in Afghanistan December 30 was a physician and self-avowed jihadist whose virulent anti-Americanism was well-known in the capital city of Amman. Homam Khalil Abu Mallal al-Balawi, 33, “moderated” a Yemen-based, radical Islamic forum (Hisbah.net) on which he said his “ultimate dream in life is to die a martyr” in the jihad, or holy war, against the United States and Israel. On September 26, he vowed to avenge the killing of innocent women and children in Gaza.

Preaching about jihad, Balawi said on Hisbah.net, was not enough and that the time had come to practice what he preached. Married with two small children, Balawi was “one of the key al Qaeda spokesmen,” according to Mohammed Abu Rumman, a Jordanian analyst of pro-al Qaeda Web sites. “He was always calling for jihad against America and Israel,” he said.

Jihadist Web sites say Balawi’s action was revenge for CIA drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal areas that killed Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in August 2009. Benazir Bhutto e-mailed this reporter five days before her return to Pakistan on October 19, 2007, that Mehsud had ordered her assassination. Three hours after her arrival in Karachi, she narrowly escaped a bomb blast on her parade route back to her hometown. Bhutto was killed by a second bomb two months later. Balawi, believed by both Jordanian and American intelligence to be a “valuable asset,” has now appeared on the Internet with Mehsud’s cousin and successor, Hakimullah Mehsud, in a video filmed before his suicide mission.

Over recent decades, the CIA has spent several hundred million dollars developing Jordan’s General Intelligence Directorate. Al Qaeda Web sites described the intelligence coup as an “epic breakthrough” in penetrating both U.S. and Jordanian intelligence. Balawi was escorted to the fatal meeting by a Jordanian intelligence officer who was also killed in the explosion. He was a member of the royal family. King Abdullah II and a score of royals attended the funeral. The Jordanians led the CIA to expect precise information on the whereabouts of Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian doctor who is al Qaeda’s second in command.

It was the biggest CIA disaster since April 18, 1983, when a Hezbollah suicide truck driver detonated 2,000 pounds of explosives in front of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 63, wounding 120 and wiping out the entire CIA station, including the agency’s top Middle East analyst and regional director, Robert C. Ames, and the station chief. Six months later two more Hezbollah trucks exploded killing 241 U.S. Marines and 58 French soldiers; President Reagan then ordered a U.S. military withdrawal from Lebanon.

Former CIA field operatives, loath to critique the lack of tradecraft at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan, did just that. Balawi got out of his vehicle and walked into the base with one hand in his pocket, which should have aroused immediate alarm. But it wasn’t until he was surrounded by CIA officers that they decided to pat him down. The concealed hand then triggered the suicide vest bomb under his clothes.

Khost was a key anti-terror CIA facility that coordinated pilotless drone strikes against al Qaeda and the Taliban a few miles away in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas. It was also a center for recruiting and debriefing informants. Drone strikes have killed almost 700 since Aug. 28, 2009, and have exacerbated already inflamed anti-U.S. sentiments throughout Pakistan. President Asif Ali Zardari says drones are radicalizing more people to side with the Taliban. Offstage, however, drones have the support of the Pakistani High Command.

Balawi had been arrested as an al Qaeda sympathizer in Jordan and was then recruited by GID, long a closer partner of the CIA. In the 1970s King Hussein was receiving $4 million a year from the CIA, the conduit chosen by the king to fund the vest-pocket war that had broken out between South Yemen, a pro-Soviet Marxist state, and pro-Western North Yemen.

It was a costly blunder for America’s IC. The 17-agency Intelligence Community (including the 2,000-strong Director of National Intelligence) and the Defense Intelligence Agency – with its Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard intelligence components – now number 200,000 and spend $80 billion a year. For budgetary purposes, they are regrouped into three principal categories:

* The National Foreign Intelligence Program, which includes the CIA; the FBI’s foreign counterintelligence and intelligence activities; the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research; the Department of Energy Office of Intelligence; the Treasury Department’s Office of Intelligence Support. Also funded in part by NFIP are the National Reconnaissance Office for designing, building and deploying spy satellites, and the National Security Agency, which monitors, collects and deciphers worldwide electronic and cyber intel, known as SIGINT; the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, whose mission is to make high-resolution digital maps for military operations; and the Defense Intelligence Agency for defense-wide intelligence.

* Joint Military Intelligence Program and Tactical Intelligence and Related Activities that fund a wide variety of highly secret military activities.

* The National Counter-terrorism Center, which sorts through and analyzes almost 10,000 reports in each 120-hour shift, from HUMINT (human intelligence) to satellite and other electronic sources, and matches the information against terrorist watch and no-fly lists of more than half a million names. NASA’s global collections also flow into the Center.

NCTC received the CIA intelligence about the would-be Nigerian terrorist caught on Christmas Day in Detroit, after his father told the CIA at the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria he was alarmed about his son’s extreme views and that he was in Yemen. But the dots – among millions of dots – didn’t immediately connect to the British dots that revoked the same Nigerian’s visa. The glitch was in the transliteration of non-English names.

In the decade since September 11, 2001, the U.S. Intelligence Community, including payments to contractors such as SAIC, Boeing and BAE, has spent close to $1 trillion. But no amount of taxpayer money can repair the self-inflicted damage done at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Afghanistan. John le Carre’s George Smiley, we never were. James Bond? Not since the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Arnaud de Borchgrave, a member of the Atlantic Council, is editor-at-large at UPI and the Washington Times. This essay was syndicated by UPI as “Billion Dollar Boondoggle.” Photo montage: TIME.