Wait And See In The Middle East

Yesterday's meeting between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yielded little in public. Obama reaffirmed his commitment to a two-state solution, and pressed Israel to close settlements, while Netanyahu was obscure in his rhetoric, talking about a commitment to restart "peace talks" but more focused on the perceived threat from Iran. And he certainly didn't commit to stopping the settlement expansion, which disappointed Palestinian observers.

After meeting with President Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said he was ready to begin peace negotiations with the Palestinians "immediately." But he also reiterated positions that seem to restrict the scope of those talks -- namely that he would accept only a limited form of Palestinian self-government and that any talks would have to include Palestinian acceptance of Israel as a "Jewish state."

Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the conditions seemed to undermine any negotiations before they even started.

"There is a difference between being a tough negotiator and a non-negotiator. What I heard today was a non-negotiator," said Erekat, who added that Palestinians had been looking for Monday's meeting to produce some sense of progress -- whether a statement from Netanyahu about the restriction of settlements or on the establishment of a Palestinian state.

"He says that he wants me to govern myself by myself. I have one simple question: How can I do that when roadblocks are suffocating us in towns and refugee camps? When the army makes incursions wherever they want? When the demolition of homes continues?" Erekat said.

At the same time, in one of the more promising developments, Hamas has made overtures toward peace for the first time in its history.

Leaders of Hamas have begun reaching out to the West with conciliatory words, saying the Islamic militant group wants to be part of a Mideast solution and raising the possibility they would someday accept a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

In the most significant statement so far, Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal told British lawmakers recently that the group is open to "real peace." In Gaza, the Hamas government said last week it is ready to discuss "any approaches and proposals that can lead the region out of its current situation."

In a recent interview, Hamas lawmaker Yehiye Moussa said the group is "not demanding to destroy Israel." West Bank legislator Mahmoud Ramahi added that Hamas is ready to talk to the West — stressing the group has nothing in common with the virulently anti-Western al-Qaida.

Quite a reversal, when the partner for peace is in Palestine and not Israel. If Hamas can change its tone, surely Netanyahu can. But we don't know the extent of his commitment to peace, and what Obama has extracted from him.

Newt Gingrich's Burning Desire To Start Two New Wars

Good thing Newt Gingrich isn't fanning flames of discord between the United States and Israel or anything.

Former US House speaker Newt Gingrich on Sunday blasted the Obama administration for setting itself on a collision course with Israel and endangering the Jewish state, ahead of his address that day to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference.

"They are systematically setting up the most decisive confrontation that we've ever seen," the leading Republican politician told The Jerusalem Post, referring to news reports about the administration's approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"There's almost an eagerness to take on the Israeli government to make a point with the Arab world," he said.

He called US President Barack Obama's program of engagement on Iran a "fantasy," and his Middle East policies "very dangerous for Israel." He summed up Obama's approach as "the clearest adoption of weakness since Jimmy Carter."

That's just incredibly irresponsible talk, and Gingrich followed it up by comparing talking to Iran with talking to Hitler, as well as calling for two more wars in Iran and North Korea.

He comes from the serious, big-thinker wing of the Republican Party.

These are the views that did nothing but push Iran and North Korea further toward a nuclear weapons program under Bush and Cheney. They are both bad for American security and Israeli security. And they come on a day when, oddly enough, Middle East hopes were raised by Hamas' insistence that they have stopped rocket attacks, and their claim that they seek only a Palestinian state under 1967 borders (which intimates that they accept the existence of the Israeli state). Peace in the Middle East would harm Republican fortunes electorally, so they would rather sow belligerence, discord and terror.

I signed this J Street petition supporting the Obama Administration's agenda in the Middle East instead of failed policies that make us less safe. You should too.

Clinton's Middle East Adventure

Setting aside war policy, Barack Obama's strategy for dealing with the world, while secondary to current economic concerns, has been fairly good. He's delivered on the promise of using diplomacy over belligerence, most recently by sending envoys to Syria to hopefully break them out of Iran's sphere of influence, welcome them back in the world community, and move forward on an expected peace treaty between them and Israel. Obama's somewhat odd letter to Russia, seeking their help in controlling Iran's nuclear desires in exchange for removing missile defense, was a bit misunderstood. I think that the letter was part of an effort to reset US-Russian relations, and aside from Iran this includes strategic arms limitation talks and better economic cooperation. In 95% of the cases, you can see a fostering of better understanding with the nations of the world, a rejection of the unilateralism of the Bush years, and a move to a better path.

Then there's the other 5%. And that was highlighted by Hillary Clinton's Middle East trip this week. First, she arguably poisoned upcoming Iranian negotiations by expressing pessimism that they will be productive. I just don't understand why this is something you say out loud, even if the comments were in a private meeting and leaked (I wonder who leaked them - Dennis Ross?). Then there were her visits to Israel and the West Bank, which exuded both optimism for a solution and yet also a lack of even-handedness. She called the movement toward a Palestinian state inescapable, and the goal a comprehensive solution on all fronts. She also called plans by the Israelis to bulldoze Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem unhelpful, which they are. And yet, beyond the talk, in the first instance of tangible action at a donor's conference to rebuild Gaza, Clinton and the US limited and conditioned its aid package:

The Obama administration intends to spend most of a $900-million Palestinian aid package on support for the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, rather than in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip communities that were badly damaged in the recent weeks-long Israeli offensive, a State Department official said Sunday.

Robert A. Wood, the department's chief spokesman, said that about $300 million of the money would be spent on humanitarian relief for Gaza, and the remainder would help offset the Palestinian Authority's budget shortfall and fund its economic development, security and other projects in the West Bank. The authority is run by the more moderate Palestinian faction Fatah.

None of the money will go to rebuilding Gaza, even though the aid is to be announced today at an international donors conference convened by Egypt for reconstruction in the war-scarred seaside enclave.

This is the same kind of walling off of Hamas that has paradoxically improved their standing with their own people. Marc Lynch writes:

But her remarks suggest that rather than seize on the possibility of Palestinian reconciliation, Clinton prefers to double-down on the shopworn "West Bank first, Fatah only" policy which has been conspiciously failing for the last two years. The concrete manifestation: two-thirds of the U.S. contribution to the reconstruction of Gaza will go not to Gaza but to the West Bank.

I understand what Clinton is trying to do, and appreciate the challenges facing her team as it navigates this shattered environment. But her approach risks missing an important possible opportunity to reshuffle the deck. Clinton has been pouring cold water on the hopes that the Fatah-Hamas dialogue might lead to a workable national unity government by insisting that such a government would only be acceptable if it met the pre-existing Quartet conditions [...]

This all seems stuck in a bit of time-warp. It ignores the two year history of Israeli and Western failure under the identical discourse and policy to deliver meaningful benefits to the Palestinian Authority or the West Bank. It ignores the reality of Hamas power in Gaza, and the reality of Fatah's limited capabilities and legitimacy (which were not enhanced, shall we say, by Abbas's performance during the Gaza war). And it ignores the promise of the dramatic moves towards Arab reconciliation and the accomplishment of a tentative Hamas-Fatah accord last week.

It's an open question whether or not there are partners for peace on the Israeli side, particularly with a new conservative government coming in and rocket fire still falling. But sticking with Fatah and isolating Hamas, AGAIN, makes no sense from a tactical perspective. We've seen this movie before. And it not only ignores the promise of the two movements' reconciliation, it threatens to poison it.

The effects of Clinton's signals may already be starting to be felt. Abd al-Bari Atwan, editor of the leading "resistance camp" newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi, suggests that yesterday's comments by Mahmoud Abbas suggest that he is being emboldened by Clinton's approach to already move away from the lines of the Cairo accord. Reports are already trickling in about the Hamas-Fatah committee meetings get bogged down. And Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal reportedly repeated yesterday warnings by other members of the Saudi leadership yesterday that the Arab peace initiative would not be on offer to Israel forever.

This feels like a badly bungled opportunity based on stale thinking. I would have preferred the approach of Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair John Kerry, who called for direct investment in Gaza, an honest assessment of the corrosive nature of Israeli settlements, and a need to deal with the realities on both sides.

...Kerry's been pretty good on Iran and direct engagement, too.

Aid For Gaza

You want to know what will make the United States a global leader again? Moves like this. Granted, US provides the aid to Israel that supports the bombs and guns that destroyed Gaza in the first place, which gives us the responsibility to step up. In the future, we should rethink the consequences of that aid. But helping Gaza rebuild just makes sense. At $900 million dollars, this is ten times the amount that the Bush Administration earmarked for NGOs to work to rebuild Gaza in December.

There is one troubling component, that money will be set aside for the Palestinian Authority but not for Hamas, a punitive, naked effort to increase Fatah's standing amongst the population, one that has been battered by the invasion into Gaza. Because this appropriation has to go through Congress, there isn't much of another way, though I'd prefer it all go to NGOs. And there are additional issues:

But even if the bulk of the money goes to Gaza, it will do little good unless Israel first opens the border crossing into the territory, said Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, a research organization in Washington.

“It’s a good effort, but the money can’t be spent unless materials can get into Gaza,” Mr. Levy said. “The next step is opening the border crossings, and that requires more than just signing a check.”

J Street concurs with Levy's analysis:

J Street is encouraged by reports that the Administration will pledge $900 million in humanitarian aid for Gaza reconstruction to ease the ever deepening humanitarian crisis and to enable the civilian population to rebuild in the wake of recent Israeli military operations.

This aid is critical to urgently addressing the widening humanitarian crisis in Gaza and for creating a situation in which a sustainable ceasefire can take hold. It is, however, only a first step. In order to leverage the aid’s impact, we must address the underlying causes of the humanitarian crisis in order to achieve a broader ceasefire. This means opening border crossings for all materials necessary for reconstruction, as well as bringing an end to arms smuggling and rocket attacks on Israel.

If the White House can get the crossings open, they will have earned some trust among the Palestinians. Of course, with Netanyahu looming as the new Israeli Prime Minister, it's difficult to see where any of this goes.

Election 2009!

No, not here, you can put your Sarah Palin dolls back. Actually, I'm talking about Israel, which holds elections next week amid uncertainty following the war in Gaza. There's been lots of mudslinging and no substance in the campaigns, but the Gaza assault obviously looms as the biggest issue. When Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak launched the attacks it was cynically seen as a bid to raise their hopes for the election for their respective parties, Kadima and Labor. Predictably, the war only strengthened Hamas inside Palestine, with Fatah completely discredited by its people for tacit collusion with the Israelis. In addition, the war appears to have strengthened far-right extremist Avigdor Lieberman - no relation to Joe - of the Yisrael Beitenu (Israel Our Home) Party, kind of the Israeli Pat Buchanan, who is running on loyalty oaths:

Lieberman is campaigning on the slogan "Without loyalty, there is no citizenship," promising a new bill requiring all Palestinians with Israeli passports to swear loyalty to the Jewish state or lose their citizenship. He advocates carving out part of the Galilee that is home to Arab Israeli villages and handing it over to Palestinian control.

His critics among the Israeli left and in the country's 20% Arab minority are widespread. "Here we have a racist immigrant who is fighting against the residents of the land, the natives," said Ahmad Tibi, an Arab Israeli MP. Yossi Sarid, a former leftwing MP, said: "What's the difference between his party and all the fascist parties in Europe? It's the same message, the same technique, taking advantage of the same fears."

But among a growing number of Israelis his policies resonate. Polls today suggested he might win as many as 19 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, putting him ahead even of the Labour party.

Paradoxically, this appears to be helping Livni and the Kadima Party, as the batshit right Lieberman is taking votes from the merely far right Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud Party. This could mean that Kadima would be able to pick the governing coalition and not Likud, which would increase the prospects of peace exponentially, although with Fatah basically discredited and far-right populist sentiment on the rise, those prospects look bleak.

All of which re-emphasizes the point that the Gaza war was truly dumb, and distressing to anyone who wishes for peace. After 1,300 dead and thousands of buildings destroyed, extremists are taking over both sides of the divide. Hamas is so radicalized that they are confiscating UN relief supplies, and Israel is taking seriously the candidate calling for loyalty oaths, which is ironic as all get out. Time is running out for a peace deal, and that's probably true no matter who is elected. George Mitchell and Barack Obama (who offered $20 million in Gaza relief this week) have their work cut out for them.

Strong Steps Backwards and Forwards On The Middle East

The Israeli assault on Gaza has ended. 50,000 Gazans are homeless and 21,000 buildings are destroyed. And at least 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis are dead. And for what? Nobody seems to know, other than killing for killing's sake.

Elad Katzir, a potato farmer, was nervous as he drove through the lush fields, agreeing to stop the car only behind clumps of trees or bushes as cover in case of sniper fire. By one thicket, nestled among wildflowers, was a memorial to a soldier who was shot dead here while on patrol seven years ago.

“I do not feel any victory,” Mr. Katzir said. “I still do not feel safe.” [...]

“So they changed the security situation for the next six months, bravo,” said another potato farmer, Eyal Barad. He added, “They should have gone on longer and finished the job.”

After such a tremendous show of force, many Israelis were hoping to see a more definitive picture of victory, like a scene of Hamas leaders coming out of their bunkers and raising a white flag. At the very least, several said, Israel should not have left Gaza without Gilad Shalit, the Israeli corporal who was captured in a cross-border raid and taken into the Palestinian enclave in 2006 and has been held hostage by Hamas ever since.

There was no job to finish. The strategic interests in the assault were obscure. Hamas was never going to be destroyed because their destruction would have required a mass annihilation of the entire area. So they are predictably holding victory rallies and restoring order to the community. Meanwhile, the more moderate Fatah has been significantly weakened by the events, making more remote the possibility of their partnership in a peaceful solution.

Israel's 22-day assault on Hamas-ruled Gaza made the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority look ineffective and marginalized, unable to stop the carnage. Popular support for its peace talks with Israel, already declining, now seems weaker than ever.

And a tentative cease-fire that left Hamas still in charge of Gaza threatens to reinforce the rift between the Palestinian territories, further setting back hopes for a settlement of the decades-old Middle East conflict.

At an Arab summit in Kuwait on Monday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas pleaded for a revival of the power-sharing arrangement that broke apart in 2007 when Hamas, an armed Islamist movement, ousted his secular Fatah forces from Gaza in a ruthless factional fight.

He called for immediate talks between the two factions to form a "unity government" to rebuild the war-devastated territory, organize elections and negotiate peace with Israel [...]

But the authority has no means to reassert its presence in Gaza without the consent of Hamas. And although Hamas said it was open to a new power-sharing deal, it seemed in no hurry to strike one with Abbas, whom one Hamas official dismissed as "a full partner" in the Israeli assault.

"Hamas will be much less powerful militarily against Israel but significantly stronger against Fatah," said Ghassan Khatib, an independent Palestinian analyst in Ramallah. "No one will challenge its control of Gaza. It is in much less need of a unity government."

All of this is really bad news, and the outcome of 1,300 dead Gazans will not be overcome in a day or a week or maybe a year. But the Obama Administration is starting to move in the right direction. President Obama called leaders in the Middle East today, including Mahmoud Abbas, to "communicate his commitment to active engagement in pursuit of Arab-Israeli peace from the beginning of his term, and to express his hope for their continued cooperation and leadership." He talked about a major rebuilding effort in Gaza, taken hand-in-hand with Fatah, which I think would be smart. While the Saudis have pledged $1bn in aid much more is needed, as well as the open flow of supplies and medicine into the Strip. The US could gain lots of goodwill among Palestinian citizens by being a part of this effort.

(UPDATE: Also, this could backfire heavily. As noted above, the Palestinian Authority is viewed with deep suspicion in Gaza, and if they enter with the US to help rebuild, this could confirm the suspicions that the PA are colluders, and ruin their long-term credibility. Still, I don't know how that can get much worse at this point, so they might as well try to use some carrots. This is how Hamas got the people on their side, after all - by attending to their needs.)

In addition, there are rumors that George Mitchell will be the US envoy to the Middle East, and he is the model of an honest broker with a proven record of bringing warring factions together in the interest of peace. Not to mention he has studied the region and has some good ideas for steps forward.

Mr. Mitchell, 75, was appointed in 2000, in the waning days of the Clinton administration, to lead an international commission to investigate the causes of violence in the Middle East. He released a report in the spring of 2001, during the early days of the Bush administration, that called for a freeze on Israeli settlements in the West Bank and a Palestinian crackdown on terrorism.

Other Middle East specialists said Sunday that if Mr. Mitchell was named to the job, he would be seen by both sides as a tougher but more balanced negotiator than recent envoys, which could make some Israelis nervous. Mr. Mitchell has Lebanese as well as Irish roots: his father, Joseph Kilroy, was an orphan adopted by a Lebanese family whose Arabic name had been anglicized to Mitchell, and Mr. Mitchell was raised a Maronite Catholic by his Lebanese mother.

The appointment of Mr. Mitchell would be a strong suggestion “that Obama is going to free himself of the exclusive relationship that we’ve had with the Israelis,” said Aaron David Miller, a public policy analyst at the Woodrow Wilson International Center.

“This is the clearest indication to me that they’re trying to inject more balance into the Israeli-U.S. relationship,” he said.

Freezing the settlements is needed urgently, it's a major obstacle to peace right now in my view. Mitchell would signal all that is said above, but also an aggressiveness to pursue peace right from the beginning.

On a non-Obama-related note, the Israeli Supreme Court overturned the ban on Arab parties from participating in elections, which removes what would be a nasty bit of discrimination inside Israel. They are facing pressure from both inside and outside now to reject the knee-jerk reactionary stances of the past and press for peace. However, the February elections, with Benjamin Netanyahu lurking as a possible victor, will be crucial.

...Shorter Abe Foxman: George Mitchell would be bad for the Middle East because he's too fair and even-handed. Wait, that's not "shorter," that's exactly what he said. Abe, um, you said that out loud.

They Call It Blowback

Nobody could have anticipated that Israel couldn't bomb its way to peace with Palestine.

Israel hoped that the war in Gaza would not only cripple Hamas, but eventually strengthen its secular rival, the Palestinian Authority, and even allow it to claw its way back into Gaza.

But with each day, the authority, its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, and its leading party, Fatah, seem increasingly beleaguered and marginalized, even in the Palestinian cities of the West Bank, which they control. Protesters accuse Mr. Abbas of not doing enough to stop the carnage in Gaza — indeed, his own police officers have used clubs and tear gas against those same protesters.

The more bombs in Gaza, the more Hamas’s support seems to be growing at the expense of the Palestinian Authority, already considered corrupt and distant from average Palestinians.

“The Palestinian Authority is one of the main losers in this war,” said Ghassan Khatib, an independent Palestinian analyst in the West Bank city of Ramallah. “How can it make gains in a war in which it is one of the casualties?”

This is a pretty familiar outcome - what rises from the ashes of an attack like this is typically not more moderate or agreeable to the offensive power. Fatah was already disliked and now they are seen to be cooperating, either directly or indirectly, with the bombing of civilians.

I bring this up because Tom Friedman can't bother to read his own paper or talk to any regional expert, and would rather just tell the Palestinians to suck on this.

Israel’s counterstrategy was to use its Air Force to pummel Hezbollah and, while not directly targeting the Lebanese civilians with whom Hezbollah was intertwined, to inflict substantial property damage and collateral casualties on Lebanon at large. It was not pretty, but it was logical. Israel basically said that when dealing with a nonstate actor, Hezbollah, nested among civilians, the only long-term source of deterrence was to exact enough pain on the civilians — the families and employers of the militants — to restrain Hezbollah in the future. […] In Gaza, I still can’t tell if Israel is trying to eradicate Hamas or trying to “educate” Hamas, by inflicting a heavy death toll on Hamas militants and heavy pain on the Gaza population. If it is out to destroy Hamas, casualties will be horrific and the aftermath could be Somalia-like chaos. If it is out to educate Hamas, Israel may have achieved its aims.

Yes, it is quite educational to murder women and children, and it almost always leads to a more learned and chastened militant group. Just read any history book. I guess the theory of "education" doesn't extend to Friedman, who can't seem to learn that collective punishment induces radicalism and rage.

Very. Serious. Monster.

Fleet's In

Israel warned Gaza residents to expect "heightened warfare," as if they've been showing restraint until now. This probably means that they're gearing up for ground operations inside Gaza City, which is incredibly dense. As if residents could evacuate their homes if "terrorist elements" are nearby. In an area the size of Providence, RI sibjected to aerial bombardment, mortars and tanks.

By the way, it's not like the Israelis haven't already targeted Gaza:

Intense firefights had already forced Shahin and his family to abandon their home north of Gaza City and seek refuge with relatives in the Shati camp. He said dogs were eating corpses in the streets of his old neighborhood. Gazans have seen firsthand the power of Israel's military many times over the years, he said. "But this time, it's different. It's awful. It's like a monster attack."

Meanwhile, here's your tax dollars at work.

The U.S. is seeking to hire a merchant ship to deliver hundreds of tons of arms to Israel from Greece later this month, tender documents seen by Reuters show.

The U.S. Navy's Military Sealift Command (MSC) said the ship was to carry 325 standard 20-foot containers of what is listed as "ammunition" on two separate journeys from the Greek port of Astakos to the Israeli port of Ashdod in mid-to-late January.

A "hazardous material" designation on the manifest mentions explosive substances and detonators, but no other details were given.

Appalling. And this is why the United States cannot be blameless for the fighting, nor surprised when the result is increased hostility toward the United States. Just because Israel "had to do something" doesn't mean they had to do this, nor does it mean that we have to provide material support.

Although, I have to say, Bush made the right call here:

President Bush deflected a secret request by Israel last year for specialized bunker-busting bombs it wanted for an attack on Iran’s main nuclear complex and told the Israelis that he had authorized new covert action intended to sabotage Iran’s suspected effort to develop nuclear weapons, according to senior American and foreign officials.

White House officials never conclusively determined whether Israel had decided to go ahead with the strike before the United States protested, or whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel was trying to goad the White House into more decisive action before Mr. Bush left office. But the Bush administration was particularly alarmed by an Israeli request to fly over Iraq to reach Iran’s major nuclear complex at Natanz, where the country’s only known uranium enrichment plant is located.

The White House denied that request outright, American officials said, and the Israelis backed off their plans, at least temporarily. But the tense exchanges also prompted the White House to step up intelligence-sharing with Israel and brief Israeli officials on new American efforts to subtly sabotage Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, a major covert program that Mr. Bush is about to hand off to President-elect Barack Obama.

This actually sounds a little too neat to me, like it was leaked by Bush loyalists to prove he's not a madman or something. Or, since Robert Gates emerges as the hero, convincing Bush that an overt attack would be catastrophic, it could have been pushed by his people to give him a bit of a halo going into his new role under Obama. Finally, it forces Obama to have to continue the covert program or risk leaks from the same people that Iran has been strengthened, etc.

All that said, I'm glad nobody gave Israel a bunker buster. Just look what they're doing with conventional weapons already.

Carnage Breeds Carnage

Despite the UN call for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, the airstrikes and rocket attacks continued this week. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has now urged a cease-fire and called for an international force in Gaza, with Palestinians manning the border.

Israel would be right to accept this. They are in a war they cannot win, without a real political strategy for victory, either:

I spent the morning at a lecture organized by GWU's outstanding Homeland Security Policy Institute's Ambassador's Roundtable Series featuring Israel's Ambassador to the United States Sallai Meridor. It was a profoundly dismaying experience. Because if Ambassador Meridor is taken at his word, then Israel has no strategy in Gaza.

Asked three times by audience members, Meridor simply could not offer any plausible explanation as to how its military campaign in Gaza would achieve its stated goals. Indeed, he at times seemed to offer this absence of strategy as a virtue, as evidence that the war had been forced upon Israel rather than chosen: "we have no grand political scheme... we were forced to defend ourselves to provide better security, period." With current estimates of 550 Palestinians dead and 2500 wounded, and the region in turmoil, the absence of strategy is not a virtue.

That's a stunning admission. They are dropping bombs and creating hundreds of martyrs in the hope that... what, that their families will not be angered enough to fight back? And we wonder why they hate us. There's this defensive argument that Israel couldn't stand by in the face of the rocket attacks. That only makes sense if you don't recognize that the attacks have INCREASED since the bombs began to fall. And without a plan to dismantle Hamas, the group will declare victory and grow more radicalized.

Of course, Israel cannot say publicly that their war is a domestic political matter, one that sadly, is working. But it's most certainly not working in the court of public opinion. Even in the U.S., as Matt Yglesias notes, there has been a much more evenhanded effort of the complex situation in the media. You can actually find a wide perspective on the conflict, from the aforementioned Time cover and this WaPo op-ed, musing about the efficacy of the action from a strategic sense, to a harsher tone in John Mearsheimer in Newsweek to these New York Times op-eds and this from Jimmy Carter and this from Juan Cole. And then there's this incredibly insightful story in the new Foreign Policy blog, again from Marc Lynch, that really makes clear how epic a mistake this attack has been:

Ayman al-Zawahiri has finally weighed in on behalf of al-Qaeda over the Gaza crisis, calling it part of the West's war on Islam and calling on Muslims everywhere to attack Western and Israeli targets. He sounds about as happy as I can remember hearing him of late. He probably can't believe his luck.

Israel's assault on Gaza has really created an almost unbelievable no-lose situation for al-Qaeda. If Hamas "wins", then al-Qaeda gets to share in the benefits of the political losses incurred by its Western and Arab enemies (Zawahiri mentions Mubarak and the Saudis in this tape, but not the Jordanians) and can try to take advantage of the political upheavals which could follow. If Hamas "loses", al-Qaeda still wins. It will shed no tears at seeing one of its bitterest and most dangerous rivals take a beating at Israel's hands or losing control of a government that they have consistently decried as illegitimate and misguided. Either way, the Gaza crisis guarantees that a far more radicalized Islamic world will face the incoming Obama administration -- potentially severely blunting the challenge which al-Qaeda clearly felt after the election (hence Zawahiri's attempt to pre-emptively discredit Obama by declaring the attack Obama's "gift" to Muslims).

The way this crisis is playing out shows the bankruptcy and strategic dangers of trying to simply reduce Hamas to part of an undifferentiated "global terrorist front". The Muslim Brotherhood, from whence Hamas evolved twenty years ago, is no friend of the United States or Israel but is nevertheless one of al-Qaeda's fiercest rivals. Zawahiri himself penned one of the most famous anti-Brotherhood tracts, Bitter Harvest. Over the last few years, the doctrinal and political conflict between the Brotherhood and al-Qaeda's salafi-jihadism has become one of the most active fault-lines in Islamist politics. As ‘Abu Qandahar’ wrote on al-Qaeda's key al-Ekhlaas forum in October 2007, the "Islamic world is divided between two projects, jihad and Ikhwan [Brotherhood]." [...]

From al-Qaeda's perspective, therefore, Israel's assault on Gaza is an unmitigated blessing. The images flooding the Arab and world media have already discredited moderates, fueled outrage, and pushed the center of political gravity towards more hard-line and radical positions. As in past crises, Islamists of all stripes are outbidding each other, competing to "lead" the popular outrage, while "moderates" are silent or jumping on the bandwagon. Governments are under pressure, most people are glued to al-Jazeera's coverage (and, from what anyone can tell, ignoring stations that don't offer similar coverage), the internet is flooded with horrifying images, and people are angry and mobilized against Israel, the United States, and their own governments. That's the kind of world al-Qaeda likes to see.

Nothing makes America and Israel more safe than a more radicalized world that is more receptive to violent extremism. While Jonathan Singer disputes this reading of the Zawahiri message, it's indisputable that the extreme violence Israel has unleashed does not breed compliance, but anger.

Sadly, this broader perspective has not extended to the political elite, who competed with one another to create the more unblinkingly pro-Israel resolution in Congress. While more House members rejected the resolution this time than the pro-Israel resolution during the Lebanon war in 2006, there is still a one-sided debate in Washington when it comes to these matters. There were rumblings that the incoming Administration is prepared to negotiate with Hamas, but the reality of that is probably much less than meets the eye. I think we're finally having a broader conversation in this country when it comes to Israel, with those advocating for peace through intelligence at least publicly vocal, but it's going to take a while to narrow the gap between that conversation and the one inside the Beltway.

The War In Gaza

The news out of Gaza is quite terrible. Israeli forces have moved deeply inside the strip and bisected the country. To soften up the defenses from Hamas, the ground invasion was preceded by a shock and awe artillery strike and aerial bombing, which allegedly included banned weaponry.

The ground invasion was preceded by large-scale artillery shelling from around 4 P.M., intended to "soften" the targets as artillery batteries deployed along the Strip in recent days began bombarding Hamas targets and open areas near the border. Hundreds of shells were fired, including cluster bombs aimed at open areas.

Cluster bombs are nasty, and most of the deaths from them typically are civilians who step on unexploded ordnance. There are other credible reports that the IDF has used white phosphorous, which is a banned substance.

One example of this is the use of White Phosphorus rounds in a way where the phosphorus does not burn off before it hits the ground. Phosphorus burns more or less on contact with air, and keeps burning until deprived of oxygen. People who suffer phosphorus burns not only have terrible burns, but they absorb the phosphorus through the skin, and suffer acute phosphorus poisoning. This used to be more common than it is, because phosphorus was used in friction matches and in industrial processes, it was sold for rat poison. During World War II, it was dropped on London as part of "the blitz." In the 1940's it was called by one journal article a menace to public health after noting that 50% of the people admitted for phosphorous poisoning died, as compared to 6% of all other non-alcohol poisonings.

So while using phosphorus rounds itself isn't against the relevant treaties, using it in a way that takes advantage of its toxic qualities makes it a chemical weapon, and it is completely inconsistent with any claim to be cautious or worrying about civilian loss of life to use it in a populated area, and allowing it to fall to the ground.

FDL has more.

Aside from the atrocities (which really shouldn't be put aside), I'm still wondering what Israel hopes to achieve. The standard claim is that they want to stop the rocket fire into Sderot and points south from Hamas. But outside of emptying Gaza of people, I can't see how this ground invasion will actually accomplish that. Not even the residents of Southern Israel think so.

"It's the same as usual," Peled, the community's security coordinator, said as he stood in a wheat field examining the mangled remains of a 19mm Qassam rocket that had slammed down minutes before. "They probably built this one just a couple days ago. It's brand new."

Since the Israeli offensive began nine days ago, the country's leaders have insisted that Israel's largest military operation in Gaza since its troops withdrew in 2005 would not stop until it ended the Hamas rocket fire. But residents of southern Israel have no such expectations. The rockets, they say, will go on despite what Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak described as an "all-out war" on the armed Islamist group that runs Gaza [...]

Most of the Qassams, Katyushas and mortar shells fired from Gaza have fallen without causing damage. But four Israelis have been killed in the barrage, while other strikes have caused injuries or destroyed buildings. Cities once believed to be beyond the range of rocket fire from Gaza -- including Ashdod and Beersheba -- have been hit regularly in the past week.

"I hope the invasion succeeds," said Peled, 65, who is responsible for finding the rockets after they land and making sure they have detonated. "But after so many years, it's difficult to believe this will work."

In fact, even if Hamas is disarms and overthrown - which Israel has stated is NOT their policy - there are other radical elements inside Gaza who could be strengthened by a weakened Hamas. The Salafists would be even worse than Hamas to deal with on Israel's southern border (think Al Qaeda in Palestine), and indeed the history of this conflict is a radical actor in the Palestinian territories replaced by an even more radical adversary. We have this notion that there is one radical Islamist unified front, but it's not true, and picking winners and losers often has unintended consequences.

Instead of airstrikes and ground attacks, why not talk to the enemy, as this former head of Mossad suggests.

The former head of the Mossad intelligence service, Ephraim Halevy, argues that ultimately it may be in Israel's interest to negotiate with Hamas if it helps to curb Hamas's political influence.

Alpher agrees that Israel should talk to Hamas. "Hamas doesn't want to talk to us ... just as Hezbollah doesn't want to talk to us, they don't recognise us. But as a strategic approach to Hamas, the offer to talk and recognise is another viable option which we have not taken."

Obviously, with an election coming in Israel, this is not going to happen. But ultimately, it's the only end to the conflict, and one wonders if the Israelis are learning from their losing of the propaganda war inside the United States, that bluster and neoconservative maneuvering has no home anywhere in the world anymore.

Ground War

Israel has moved ground troops into Gaza. They could not achieve their goals through long-range bombing alone, no matter how precision. In fact, it was completely unclear what they were trying to achieve with the air assault, other than inflaming the entire Arab street. As for the goals of the ground attack:

The Israeli military said in a statement that the objective of the ground campaign was “to destroy the terrorist infrastructure of Hamas,” the militant Islamic group that controls the area, “while taking control of some of the rocket launching sites” that Hamas uses to fire at southern Israel.

I just don't know how that can be accomplished. A ground attack on Gaza is equivalent to a ground attack on New York City in many respects. The area is dense, meaning that civilians will certainly be at risk (and dropping leaflets telling them to get out of harm's way when they are blockaded from moving anywhere is almost comically cruel). In addition, the Hamas "infrastructure," consisting of crudely made rockets, could be literally anywhere in the tightly packed strip. So unless the goal is regime change or mass death, I don't see how they can be successful. And Tzipi Livni has said that Israel is not seeking regime change.

This is a replay of the 2006 invasion of Lebanon, which also ended poorly, with Hezbollah able to claim victory after the ground war failed to achieve murky objectives. The result will not make Israel safer or move us toward peace.

I have to applaud Lois Capps for being an American leader willing to reject internal pressure and make an independent judgment of the situation:

"Obviously, Israel has the absolute right to defend itself from Hamas terrorists and other threats to its security. The ongoing rocket attacks on Israel are unacceptable and must be stopped. However, I fear the current military operation in Gaza represents a vastly disproportionate response that will further destabilize the region.

"Simple humanity demands that we grieve for the dead Palestinian child as much as we mourn the dead Israeli child. The numbers of dead and injured in Gaza, and the televised images of the humanitarian crisis now unfolding are truly shocking. And while this renewed state of war is clearly a tragedy for the Palestinian people, it will also bring a renewed state of fear in Israel because the threat of another wave of suicide bombing in Israeli cities is all too real.

"As a Member of Congress strongly dedicated to Israel's security, I believe an immediate ceasefire is necessary. And since this eruption of violence in Gaza is so clearly detrimental to U.S. national interests, I call upon both President Bush and President-elect Obama to use their influence to push both sides to stop shooting and renew the ceasefire."

We need an immediate cease-fire on all sides. An international force to maintain it, with Palestinians responsible for border crossings, would be a good step.

The Continuing Sadness In Gaza

Just so you're up to date, Israel has dropped a one-ton bomb on a top Hamas leader, killing him and 18 others. Today airstrikes are destroying homes and mosques, and they are massing lots of infantry and artillery at the border in preparation for a ground assault. Meanwhile, it's pretty clear that civilians are being killed and many more are threatened through either bombardment or the lack of resources.

There was no sign of a ceasefire on the seventh day of the conflict, in which at least 425 Palestinians have been killed and 2,000 wounded. Four Israeli civilians have been killed by Palestinian rockets fired from Gaza, which strike southern cities at random.

A United Nations agency said the civilian death toll in Gaza was over 25 percent of the total killed in the violence. A leading Palestinian human rights group put it at 40 percent.

Israel and Hamas are violating the laws of war by deliberately attacking civilians, which is why any cease-fire must apply to both sides. These are war crimes by definition.

Rocket attacks on Israeli towns by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups that do not discriminate between civilians and military targets violate the laws of war, while a rising number of the hundreds of Israeli bombings in Gaza since December 27, 2008, appear to be unlawful attacks causing civilian casualties. Additionally, Israel's severe limitations on the movement of non-military goods and people into and out of Gaza, including fuel and medical supplies, constitutes collective punishment, also in violation of the laws of war.

"Firing rockets into civilian areas with the intent to harm and terrorize Israelis has no justification whatsoever, regardless of Israel's actions in Gaza," said Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa division. "At the same time, Israel should not target individuals and institutions in Gaza solely because they are part of the Hamas-run political authority, including ordinary police. Only attacks on military targets are permissible, and only in a manner that minimizes civilian casualties."

It should be easy enough for any American politician concerned with the rule of law to say this, but it is not, as lawmakers of both parties remain in lockstep behind uncritical support of Israel. The public is divided on the subject and recognizes the contours of the debate. In official Washington, that is verboten.

Meanwhile, the strikes are meeting their expected objective - to bolster a Kadima/Labor victory in the next Israeli elections. The center-left parties have already gained relative to the Likud on the right. The question at this point is whether or not there's any difference.

So Much For The Truce

Despite international pressure, Israel attacked Gaza for a fifth straight day, and the death toll rose to 390, including at least 60 civilians.

On Tuesday, France urged Israel to halt its operation for 48 hours. Calls for an immediate cease-fire have also come from the U.S., the European Union, the U.N. and Russia.

Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert discussed the idea of a two-day truce with his defense and foreign ministers overnight, but the trio decided to pursue the punishing aerial campaign.

Olmert told ministers Israel launched the operation to fundamentally change the situation in the south, and would not leave the job half done with a unilateral cease-fire.

"If conditions ripen to the point that we assess they promise a safer existence in southern Israel, we will consider it. We're not they're yet," Olmert said, according to a participant in the meeting who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was closed.

The main targets today were the underground smuggling tunnels. Those aren't merely responsible for weapons; during the blockade, they've been responsible for food and medicine.

Airstrikes cannot contain an insurgency, no matter how many bombs are provided by allies (your tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen). If the goal truly is to eliminate Hamas, Israel will have to go in on the ground. The problem is that this is precisely what Hamas wants.

The operation's goals, as defined by the cabinet, are "creating a different long-term security situation in the south, while bolstering Israel's deterrence." The IDF does not interpret this to mean a complete end to the rocket fire, as it considers this impossible. Rather, its goal is to eliminate Hamas' desire to attack Israel. The bombing campaign has so far dealt a severe blow to Hamas.

However, ground forces are already in place for the next phase. The Gazan mud will make it harder for tanks and armored personnel carriers to maneuver, and Hamas has clearly been preparing its defense for months. Thus any ground operation will entail many casualties, which is one of the government's considerations in deciding how the operation should proceed [...]

As for the Palestinians, they plan to declare victory regardless of what happens. If the IDF withdraws rapidly, without a ground operation and without having seriously reduced the rocket fire, Hamas will boast that it survived and Israel blinked first.

But Hamas officials and analysts said Monday that the organization would actually like Israel to launch a ground operation; it hopes this would let it inflict such heavy losses on Israeli tanks and infantry that Israel would flee with its tail between its legs.

Just as the Second Lebanon War did, the current war will have far-reaching consequences for the balance of forces in the Middle East. First, it has brought the conflict between Hamas and Egypt into the open, which could influence domestic developments in Egypt. To some degree, it has also reignited the conflict between Arab moderates, led by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and the extremists, led by non-Arab Iran. In Lebanon, it is already clear which side won. In Gaza, we will learn the answer in the coming days or weeks.

This is what is so mistaken about the attacks; they have revived Hamas, which had a negative profile in the Middle East, not weakened them. They were losing support inside Palestine as well as the situation in Gaza deteriorated because of the blockade. Hamas came to power through their attention to and aid of the people. They weren't able to carry that out so they lost popularity. They also were unable to transition from a militant entity to a political entity. So in a way, the attacks have been symbiotic.

That's why, as the six-month cease-fire with Israel came to an end, Hamas calculated -- it seems correctly -- that it had nothing to gain by continuing the truce; if it had, its credentials as a resistance movement would have been no different from those of Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah. Unable to secure an open border and an end to the Israeli siege, while refusing to share or give up power to Abbas, Hamas could have had no route to renewed public favor.

For different reasons, Hamas and Israel both gave up on the cease-fire, preferring instead to climb over corpses to reach their political goals. One side wants to resuscitate its public support by appearing to be a heroic resister, while the other, on the eve of elections, wants to show toughness to a public unhappy with the nuisance of the Qassam rockets [...]

While it is not apparent how this violent confrontation will end, it is abundantly clear that the Islamic Hamas movement has been brought back from near political defeat while moderate Arab leaders have been forced to back away from their support for any reconciliation with Israel.

Just so sad.

The Demonization Principle

I don't want to paint too broad a brush, but talking to a defender of Israel's "right to self-defense" by creating more terrorists inevitably comes down to the proposition that Arabs are animals.

Whether the Gaza Palestinians can ever have a truly civil society is another question, the answer to which — given the Arab societies that surround them — is probably ‘no.’

Again, this isn't a blanket statement. The narrowness of opinion in the United States on the topic of Israel certainly accounts for a lot of misconceptions. Thankfully this is starting to thaw, and people are much more open to a variety of opinion on the subject, even if their political leaders aren't. The conservative, AIPAC-led lock on Israel policy has been diminshed by the emergence of J Street.

Eventually, however, the hardcore rightists (like "liberal" magazine editor Marty Peretz, responsible for the above quote) have to come up with a framework to justify their behavior. And when marginalization through calling the other side "terrorists" isn't enough - a a common tactic designed by those in power to determine what is legal and illegal for those out of power - they have to widen and deepen the marginalization. And so you get the depiction of the other as animals.

Not only is this execrable, it has a real negative impact on the security of the Israeli people. By considering Palestinians subhuman and incapable of civilization, Israel's defenders inflame the Arab world and give Hamas and the Palestinian people no reason to do anything but continue to lob rockets.

I guess there's a "truce" that may be offered, to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza (not the boat the Israelis attacked yesterday, I guess) and give Hamas a "chance" to stop the rocket attacks. Given this rhetoric, if you were a Palestinian, why would you believe the Israelis?

Bombing To The Brink

If someone wants to explain to me the strategic case for Israel's bombardment of Gaza, I'm all ears. The Israeli Ambassador to the UN says they want to destroy completely a terrorist gang. This is the typical fallacy of believing that there are a finite amount of "terrorists," and that bombing and belligerence doesn't create anyone else to rally to their cause. Instead, destroying Gaza and killing civilians just rallies the Palestinians behind Hamas' cause. What is happening there right now is the biggest recruiting poster for jihadism that you can muster. Read the words of Mustapha Barghouti, a secular Palestinian lawmaker.

First and foremost, missiles do not differentiate people by their political affiliation; they simply kill everyone in their path. Israel knows this, and so do Palestinians. What Israel also knows, but is not saying publicly, is how much their recent actions will actually strengthen Hamas - whose message of resistance and revenge is being echoed by the angry and grieving.

The targets of the strike, police and not Hamas militants, give us some clue as to Israel's mistaken intention. They are hoping to create anarchy in the Strip by removing the pillar of law and order.

This is radicalizing the entire region. It threatens Israeli security and American security. The claim is to stop the airstrikes but they have continued in earnest since the bombing began. Eventually, the fighting will end and Hamas will still be standing and they will rhetorically claim to have fought off the great beast, much like Lebanon did in 2006. How anyone can claim that Israel has learned from their failure in Lebanon is beyond me. There may have been more planning, but no better strategy to move toward peace, just a method to better fight the last war. This looks to be the result of all that planning:

First, Israel is about to exhaust obvious and legitimate military targets, especially those available for aerial bombardment, even under their broadest interpretation. Admittedly Hamas never seriously tried to separate its political and military wings--unlike, say, the Basque nationalist ETA (who have had both the clandestine ETA and various incarnations of the Hari Batasuna Party) or the Irish Republicans (who had the IRA and the Sinn Fein Party), partly because it does not really have a political strategy distinct from its military one. Even so, bombing Hamas police stations and Hamas's organizational structure is different from striking the Hamas broadcasting center, let alone the Islamic University in Gaza City. Attacking distinctly civilian targets and the infrastructure of civil life is a potential war crime. It is also counterproductive. The number of civilian casualties will rise, and the international community will be mobilized to chip away at the immunity Israel now seems to possess in targeting Hamas [...]

It appears that Israeli political leaders and military planners labor under the illusion that there is a military “solution” to Hamas. The extended military operation in Gaza is expected to serve as a pedagogical tool for moderating or eliminating Hamas. But this will not work, and the idea that a ground invasion of Gaza could actually eliminate Hamas as a force in Palestinian politics is delusional. The Israeli approach is every bit as driven by militarism as Hamas’ strategy is. Beyond a certain point, it can serve no realistic political goals. In fact, I would offer a concise definition for militarism as not knowing when to stop. Israel is in danger of recapitulating in Gaza the last few weeks of the war against Hezbollah, which increasingly turned into a war against Lebanon.

Peace will come from a commitment from each side to respecting one another's sovereignty, not from trying to bomb one side or the other into submission. Bombing stregthens the most extremist worldviews of either side. Wisdom comes from breaking the cycle of violence and making concessions for peace. What's sick is that the current Prime Minister knows this, and has articulated it in public:

I read the reports of our generals and I say, "how have they not learned a single thing?" Once, a very senior official told me, "They're still living in the War of Independence and the Sinai Campaign." With them it's all about tanks, about controlling territories or controlled territories, holding this or that hill. But these things are worthless.

The peace process is now, of course, in ruins. It's unclear who the partners will be on either side, and the mutual hatred as a result of these actions will fester for maybe a generation. There is no outside pressure on either side to cease-fire, as the Bush Administration plays out the string on ideological grounds.

I don't know what else to say right now. It makes you sick.

Prospects For Peace Held On The Sidelines

Israeli warplanes hit targets in Gaza for a third day today, as fighting continues in the greatest loss of life in the Arab-Israeli conflict since the 1967 War. The Defense Minister Ehud Barak calls it a "war to the bitter end," and his Labor Party is predictably hoping to capitalize in the polls with his high profile in the operation. Comparisons are being made to Guernica and many are holding supportive Arab regimes responsible for their complicity.

It's a terrible situation and there needs to be an immediate cease-fire. The lack of any substantive debate in the United States, which arms and funds and supports the Israeli state directly, leads to the most extreme and politically-motivated elements to drive the action in the Middle East. Obama is deferring to Bush at his own peril. He justifies the attacks at peril not just to his agenda but to any positive outlook on his character.

“If somebody was sending rockets into my house, where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that,” he told reporters in Sderot, a small city on the edge of Gaza that has been hit repeatedly by rocket fire. “And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.”

This was back in July, but the statement is coming back to haunt him now. This is a complete misreading of the timeline of events. If the sole action here was that the cease-fire ended and Hamas immediately began lobbing rockets, that would be one thing. But that reading neglects the blockade that Israel has used to turn Hamas-led Gaza into a virtual prison, stopping food and even medical supplies from entering the Strip. Blockades violate international law and cause humanitarian disasters. Any reading that gives either side sole moral authority or culpability is flawed.

The point is simple: You can argue, as Israel is arguing, that their air strikes are a response to Hamas's missiles. But to the Palestinians, Hamas's missiles were a response to the blockade (under international law, a blockade is indeed an act of war). Israel, of course, would argue that the blockade was a response to Hamas's past attacks. And Hamas would argue that past attacks were a response to Israel's unceasing oppression of the Palestinian people. And Israel would argue that...

The provocations and cassus belli travel as far back as anyone might care to trace. And whether you believe Israel, the Palestinians, or the international partitioners originally at fault, starting the clock on December 10th, when the ceasefire expired and Hamas's missiles crashed into the fields around Sderot, is merely an Israeli press strategy. This is the latest tactic in an ongoing struggle over land and freedom and security and money and politics and religion and elections and oppression. It did not begin with the rockets, and it will not end with this attack.

So Obama essentially endorsing the Israeli PR narrative before the fact is a tragic mistake that will sap his ability to act as an honest broker. And the impact is to cause more hatred and radicalism against Israel, and by proxy the United States. Only by not responding to violence with more violence in a tit-for-tat fashion can there ever be Middle Eastern security. Events like this only feed terrorism, they do not stop it. If Obama really wanted to promote the cause of Middle Eastern peace he would not be using the language of justification.

Ultimately, you wage peace with peace. The Annapolis framework is obviously dead for now, and the rage this has caused throughout the Middle East might even end Mahmoud Abbas' potential role as a partner. But as I've said, most of the progress in this conflict has come from the insistence of outside actors with leverage, like Clinton and Carter. If Obama wants to follow in that tradition, he not only has to come off the sidelines, he has to recognize - and articulate - the concerns of both sides.

...this is a good point as well, and one I've made in the past.

All those who insist that the United States should "solve" the problem should explain how. And if they can't do that, then maybe they should take some quiet time.

I guess Potter Stewart's statement about obscenity ("I'll know it when I see it") applies here, and I certainly know what a solution DOESN'T look like when I see it. Bombing Hamas to get them to stop hating you is NOT a solution. Neither is unquestioningly backing up Israel for bombing Hamas to get them to stop hating them. Or preferring to say nothing. To the extent that progress HAS been made, and there is a model for it, it's been through committed engagement over a number of years. It's obviously not going to happen overnight after this siege.

Instant Arab-Israeli Conflict Resolution!

I think Greg Mitchell's post - harassing the US government, media and "liberal bloggers" for being silent on the Israeli attacks on Gaza - is incredibly unfair, and I would still say that if I didn't write something about it yesterday. First, he provides absolutely no examples of this silence, at least in the blogosphere. And in fact, Firedoglake has had excellent coverage, along with plenty of other foreign policy sites. Second, saying "bloggers are silent" is just a ridiculous construction, as if all political bloggers, with their varied areas of expertise, are a completely like-minded entity who have the some thoughts and experiences on all subjects. I don't really want to know Nate Silver's take on the effectiveness of Hamas mortar attacks. I'm sure he can articulate an opinion, but there's no reason to demand one. Some people know enough to stick to the topics about which they are conversant and comfortable.

Unfortunately, I am not one of those people. So I'm all too happy to give an opinion, although I recognize that nobody has an off-the-shelf solution to an intractable conflict that has lasted thousands of years, and a shade over 60 in its current incarnation. But when pressed, I would say that Israel's attacks are disproportionate, especially considering that they are in response to Hamas crude rocket attacks that have killed nobody. There is nothing that Israel is doing that will put them in any better position for peace. Inside Palestine and throughout the Arab world, hundreds of thousands if not millions will become more radicalized by this series of events, and if the IDF should "neutralize" Hamas, what will rise in its wake will be even more extreme and dedicated to Israel's destruction. Hamas itself was a product of Israel trying to find a counterbalance to the PLO (Tel Aviv aided them with direct and indirect funding). Israel has never been successful in choosing its partner for peace in Palestine, and trying to wipe out Hamas to make a deal with Fatah is just as likely to fail.

Of course, that's probably not even their goal. These attacks are far more likely a cause of petty internal politics. National elections will be held Feb. 10, and the hawkish Likuds are leading opinion polls. And so the Kadima/Labor alliance, both for their own reasons, are putting themselves to the right of Likud to win votes, no matter that hundreds die in the process. Both the Defense Minister and the Foreign Minister are seeking to run the country, leading this conflict inexorably toward further escalation. There were wider strikes today and preparations for a ground invasion.

On some level, Mitchell is correct. There is a narrow band of opinion in the United States about the Arab-Israeli conflict, something I am all too familiar with as a Jewish-American. In Israel editorialists and opinion makers are far more willing to criticize their own country's actions than we are willing to do with Israel. And yet, what happens in Israel is irrevocably tied to the United States, and treating the situation with kid gloves or silence does nobody any good, particularly those in the region feeling the impacts of endless conflict.

Here’s the bad news folks – America is involved, up to its eyeballs actually. Today, after Israeli air-strikes that killed over 200 Palestinians in Gaza, the Middle East is again seething with rage. Recruiters to the most radical of causes are again cashing in. If Osama Bin Laden is indeed a cave-dweller these days then U.S. intel should be listening out for a booming echo of laughter. Demonstrations across the Arab world and contributors to the ever-proliferating Arabic language news media and blogosphere hold the U.S., and not just Israel, responsible for what happened today (and that is a position taken, for good reasons, by sensible folk, not hard-liners). America’s allies in the region are again running for cover. America’s standing, its interests and security are all deeply affected. The U.S.-Israel relationship per se is not to blame (that is something I support), the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict is – and thankfully we can do something about that.

What I know is that while there has never been much progress in any negotiated two-state solution, what peace has been made in the Middle East, the treaties with Egypt and Jordan, have been a direct result of US engagement at the Presidential levels. Only when the United States makes an honest effort to broker peace has anything realistically been accomplished, though it has often fallen short. Recent US policy in the region has been terrible, creating the conditions for the rise of hamas by forcing elections and then trying to shut out a major coalition reflecting the popular will by supporting the blockade in Gaza and working to overthrow a popularly elected party. There needs to be a major effort undertaken to reverse that and carve out the kinds of gains that Presidents Carter and Clinton were able to achieve, building toward a greater peace which has been sadly damaged by this week's events.

But there is a bigger picture – and it is staring at the incoming Obama administration. Today’s events should be ‘exhibit A’ in why the next U.S. Government cannot leave the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to fester or try to ‘manage’ it – as long as it remains unresolved, it has a nasty habit of forcing itself onto the agenda. That can happen on terms dictated to the U.S. by the region (bad) or the U.S. can seek to set its own terms (far preferable). The new administration needs to embark upon a course of forceful regional diplomacy that breaks fundamentally from past efforts. A consensus of sorts is emerging in the U.S. foreign policy establishment that this conflict needs to be resolved – evidenced in the findings of a recent Brookings/Council of Foreign Relations Report or the powerful statements coming from elder statesmen like Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, themselves building on the findings of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group. It will require tenacity and bold ideas – in framing the solution, bringing in previously excluded actors, creating mechanisms to implement a deal (such as international forces) and utilizing the Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative – but the alternative is far worse, its what we see today and it guarantees ongoing instability in a region of paramount importance to the United States.

This is the problem with a Presidential election that largely sidestepped issues of foreign policy. I understand that a coming global depression will tend to do that, but instead of offering the forceful liberal alternative to neoconservative foreign policy that he hinted toward at points in the campaign, Barack Obama was content to advocate for certain goals or tactics without an underlying vision. Because of the narrowness of traditional US opinion on the subject, the natural inclination for Democrats unwilling to buck powerful lobbying interests is to repeat warmed-over Bush-lite talking points about Israel's right to self-defense and cautiously step away from the real work that needs to be done to help repair the region. Obama's failure to even come up with a statement yet is an example of this caution. That would be a grave mistake, as the hatred developed through this conflict spreads throughout the world, recruits extremists willing to use terrorism, and degrades our national security. The neoconservative idea that "the forces of good" can bomb and kill their way to dominance with no repercussions is ignorant, and official silence does presume a concurrence with that idea.

I fault no one for trying to make sense of this seemingly impossible situation before commenting, and think that it's bizarre to hold bloggers, of all people, to the standard of having to articulate something. But the newly elected leaders don't have that luxury. They must act - and in the process offer a new vision for foreign policy in the post-Bush age.

One Last War Before 2008 Ends

You could see these Israeli strikes on Gaza coming.

Israeli warplanes retaliating for rocket fire from the Gaza Strip pounded dozens of security compounds across the Hamas-ruled territory in unprecedented waves of airstrikes Saturday, killing more than 200 people and wounding nearly 400 in the single bloodiest day of fighting in years.

Most of those killed were security men, but an unknown number of civilians were also among the dead. Hamas said all of its security installations were hit, threatened to resume suicide attacks, and sent at least 70 rockets and mortar shells crashing into Israeli border communities, according to the Israeli military. One Israeli was killed and at least six people were hurt.

With so many wounded, the Palestinian death toll was likely to rise.

Ehud Barak, the Defense Minister who as Prime Minister came very close to a peace agreement with the Palestinians, is quoted as saying "There is a time for calm and there is a time for fighting, and now is the time for fighting." So this is going to go on, as Israel seeks to take Hamas out permanently. Expect assassination attempts of Hamas leaders and Hamas counterstrikes, maybe suicide bombs. The cycle of violence continues.

It's hard to have much else to say in these moments. This is the consequence of the United States pressing for elections when Hamas was fated to win, leading to a civil war inside Palestine. Israel's reaction, to wall off Gaza and turn it into a virtual prison, was a human rights disaster. This spate of attacks will ramp up anti-Israeli sentiment in the Arab world and destabilize the Middle East further. And full-scale bombing like this was insufficient to take out Hezbollah in Lebanon.

More here and here.

World Report

Been a while since I got into this.

• Iraq: The speaker of the Parliament has been officially ousted in a move that doesn't seem to bother anyone, not even the speaker, who was kind of a loose cannon. But if anything, it's a symbol of the political power plays that have gripped the country for the past six months, leading into provincial elections. The Prime Minister is surely consolidating power, using a narrow amount of goodwill engendered by security gains to muscle his competition for power. Maliki wants a strong central government because he's at the head of it, while the Sunni and Kurdish factions want their own authority and independence.

“Maliki is monopolizing all the political, security and economic decisions,” said Omar Abdul Sattar, a Sunni member of Parliament. He listed political parties that he said were turning against the prime minister, including a powerful Shiite party, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which is fighting Mr. Maliki’s drive to centralize power in Baghdad and pushing to give more to the provinces — where the party has important power bases, particularly in the south. “It’s simply the story of the transformation from a democratic prime minister into a dictator,” he said.

Given Iraq's history with dictatorships, and the fractious nature of ethnic and sectarian divides in the country, this is a natural state of affairs, which is why the hopeful talk of democratic transformation in the heart of the Middle East was always such rubbish. We invaded Iraq to remove a dictator so they could eventually install another one, this time with a more overtly religious cast. Not that Iraq was a threat to the United States beforehand, but it's hard to see how this made our country any safer, especially when factoring in the human and financial costs.

• Israel: I'm very worried that full-scale fighting is about to break out between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Hamas ended its cease-fire last week, and has been lobbing dozens of rockets into Israeli territory. Since Hamas' electoral victory, Israel has sealed off the Gaza strip, turning it into essentially a large prison. Egypt, which has been offering aid and assistance to the Palestinians in Gaza, wants to mediate a truce, but I don't think it's likely. There is a faction in Israel that sees crushing Hamas as part of the road to peace - and that's the LESS hawkish faction! This is going to explode in the next several days. Very worrying.

• Japan: The Pacific Rim nation is mired in another deep recession, as industrial output cratered and deflation appeared imminent. Japan was growing largely on the back of American consumption of their goods the past few years, and so this was inevitable. As America's rise back to prominence is tied to stimulating a home-grown industrial base, it's hard to see how Asian nations like this improve unless we give up and try to return to an unsustainable consumption model again.

• Somalia: The President of the transitional (read: powerless) government is resigning. By next year, I gather that you will see the Islamic Courts Union back in power here. Ethiopia will pull all their forces out in the next few weeks, and there is little to stop the ICU. And so a US-sponsored war will have produced nothing but more bloodshed and the rise of a powerful cadre of pirates, who reduced global economic trade through thievery. It was a shortsighted solution lacking a regional context, and it failed totally.

• Guinea: I'm not going to lie and say that I am perfectly well-versed about Guinea (not to be confused with Guinea-Bissau or Papua New Guinea), but they've had a coup by a military junta, which is the 10,834th of the military-led coups in Africa since, oh, last week. The latest in Guinea followed the death of a longtime dictator, Lansana Conte. The cycle of coups and state-sponsored repression is so commonplace on the continent, that it's hard to find a glimmer of hope. The African Union is simply not a strong enough institution to deter the practice.

• Europe: European leaders are talking about accepting some Guantanamo detainees as a gesture of goodwill toward the new President. Obama is going to have a global honeymoon period where he can really get a lot accomplished, and closing Gitmo should be at the top of that list as pertaining to foreign policy. One possible red flag is the persistence of Robert Gates at the helm of the Defense Department. He is being sued by Guantanamo detainee lawyers for signing a false affidavit that allowed him to sidestep disclosure of torture. That will not help any charm offensive. Pro Publica has a good roundup of the year in Gitmo here.

Obama, Clinton and Israel

I should probably get around to discussing the Obama national security team, and since this is such a big story I'll go one by one. In general terms, I'd agree with many in this story in being OK with the picks, but there are also some associated concerns.

Hillary Clinton is obviously the most formidable choice. Madeleine Albright is someone she practically shadowed while First Lady, so if you liked how Albright handled the job (and I'm not sure I totally did), you'll like Clinton. While both were greatly competent in their duties, both have tendencies to the right of where common perception thought Barack Obama's foreign policy would go. And personnel does have an effect on policy - someone like Hillary Clinton will not be solely an instrument of the President's will, and how she fills out Foggy Bottom will have impacts for progressives well into the future. Because of the media's obsession with the rapprochement of Clinton and Obama - and their rapport doesn't seem to me to be a problem worth thinking about at all - we're not hearing enough about the consequences for foreign policy from this move. But that's the key question for the world.

Clinton is not only more hawkish than Obama – she’s also more politically risk-averse: disinclined to tackle entrenched interest groups or challenge conventional wisdom. Clinton represents a segment of the Democratic party that spent the years after September 11 fretting intensely over whether Democrats seemed sufficiently “tough” – worried about a replay of the 1970s, when Democratic anti-war sentiment scared off the public.

Obama and his younger supporters took a distinctly post-September 11 perspective, in which insufficient backbone in standing up to Bush’s reckless policies was the party’s primary sin. To many, this was the central appeal of Obama’s candidacy. This important distinction between the Clinton and Obama approaches was reflected in their campaigns: Obama staffers spoke explicitly to me and others about their desire to take advantage of the shift in public sentiment in the wake of the Iraq disaster to move beyond the politics of toughness and enact dramatic shifts in America’s relationship to the world.

For all the speculation about Obama’s offer to Clinton, there has been no real account of the rationale or motivations for his decision – at least not beyond vague, and endlessly repeated, references to Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, Team of Rivals, a profile of the cabinet Abraham Lincoln assembled under wildly different circumstances. The transition team has done very little to outline the substantive agenda it expects a Clinton-led State Department to tackle, and indeed, perhaps the ongoing financial crisis will mean any bold new foreign initiatives will be put on the back-burner.

What is unclear at this point is whether Clinton joining the Obama team means that Clinton has gained faith in Obama’s approach, or that Obama has lost faith in his own. The very fact of Obama’s election would seem to tilt things in his direction: there was a consistent trajectory to their disagreements, and Obama was on the right side – a judgment vindicated by his victories over both Clinton and McCain. It’s not merely that he won, but that winning demonstrates his supposedly “risky” positions were not so risky after all.

That's true of a lot of these picks, and particularly at State. Yesterday Obama said that his team will "help America lead by moral example":

In this uncertain world, the time has come for a new beginning -- a new dawn of American leadership to overcome the challenges of the 21st century, and to seize the opportunities embedded in those challenges. To succeed, we must pursue a new strategy that skillfully uses, balances, and integrates all elements of American power: our military and diplomacy; our intelligence and law enforcement; our economy and the power of our moral example.

The team that we have assembled here today is uniquely suited to do just that. They share my pragmatism about the use of power, and my sense of purpose about America's role as a leader in the world.

It's a nice set of lines, and it outlines a sort of consensus between the realistic strand of Bush 41's foreign policy and the liberal belief in diplomacy, soft power and human rights. But the disconnect between the old thinkers on the right side of that consensus and the bold thinking he proposed during the campaign doesn't make a lot of sense. Risk-averse establishmentarians aren't the best choice to enact risky maneuvers, and I don't buy the argument that this gives Obama "cover" on the right to push forward a bold agenda. In fact, it's far more likely that Obama isn't very bold at all, and will slide into the foreign policy consensus despite it being the one issue where he pulled away from it during the campaign.

There is one region of the world where Clinton and Obama can prove that the foreign policy consensus has indeed changed for the better, and that is in the Middle East. The Israel/Palestine question is fundamental to peace in the region, but at this point the overall belief is that very little will change from the perspective of Arabs, Israelis and Iranians.

“Anyone would be better than the last administration,” said Diaa Rashwan, an Egyptian political analyst. “But I don’t think there will be real change in the Middle East.”

He said Mr Obama’s entourage contained many pro-Israeli politicians and analysts. Any major policy shift would focus on Iraq and perhaps Iran, not the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

“Obama will try to make a big change in Iraq,” Mr Rashwan said, alluding to the next president’s promise to withdraw troops within 16 months of taking office on Jan 20. “He can’t make two big changes in the same area... It would be suicide.”

Politically, I don't think that's true. The withdrawal is being mandated through an agreement with the Iraqis, basically taking that off the table politically. There is space to deal honestly with the Israelis and Palestinians and broker a lasting peace. The question is whether or not the will is there. Clearly Clinton has the perception of being on the Israeli's side in the conflict, supporting the wall along the West Bank and rejecting negotiations with Gaza, and that perception alone is going to harm her efforts. Nevertheless, she has shown a desire to implement big projects, from the ill-fated health care plan to her Presidential run, and fulfilling the legacy begun by her husband is commensurate with the big contribution she wants to implement. This is a major opportunity and J Street is right to press the Obama Administration to make it a priority. As Matt Stoller says.

My sense of the conflict is that, though there are many obstacles to peace, domestic US politics in the form of AIPAC has always been the elephant in the room. There are signs the group itself is moderating, the political environment has become much more favorable for diplomatic work and the Clinton's have the credibility and gravitas to work on a two state solution without worrying about upsetting right-wing Jews.

Clinton believed in Presidential destiny, and not content to just be a Senator from New York, Hillary Clinton can certainly translate this desire 'go big' into another realm by solving the dominant problem in the Middle East. I hope she does.

I think this gets the domestic politics right - my fear is the politics inside Israel right now. Gaza is currently under siege, as the Palestinian Authority and Israel conspire to marginalize Hamas, and the consequences of that move are unpredictable. Likudnik Benjamin Netanyahu may become Prime Minister within a month, and while he's running on a campaign for change (he basically stole Obama's website), it's hard to see how you could keep the peace process going with him in power.

I guess there's always the argument that you need a Nixon to go to China, that you need someone with impeccable security credentials on the Israeli side to make a lasting peace. That's one of abiding tragedies of Ariel Sharon's stroke. (It's ironic that Netanyahu, who's got a thin national security resume by Israeli standards, should be seen in that light since verbal and policy aggression are his only real calling cards. But that's another story ...) But Netanyahu is not only the voice of Israeli territorial maximalism, albeit in its current more limited form, he's also fundamentally unreliable person -- a charlatan.

For those of us who are heartened to finally have an administration that realizes this issue is as critical as it is, it's a very disheartening prospect on the horizon.

Netanyahu is promising rapid economic growth in the occupied territories as a precursor to peace, but it's not a new strategy and without an ideological shift it cannot produce results. Palestinians with "full stomachs" will not moderate their beliefs unless they are no longer occupied. It's irrelevant to the peace process.

I fear that Obama and Clinton, constrained by external events, will take the path of least resistance in the Middle East, focus on issues outside the Arab-Israeli conflict, and do little to improve our standing in the region. On the other hand, if they want to signal a "new dawn" in global leadership, they can go to Jerusalem and fight for peace.