Israel

Significant Middle East Developments Egypt. The National Salvation Front, Egypt’s newly formed opposition group headed by prominent figures Mohammed El Baradei, Hamdeen Sabahi, and Amre Moussa, urged followers yesterday to vote “no” on Saturday’s referendum on the draft constitution. They conditioned the opposition’s participation in the vote on full judicial oversight at all polling places, independent and international monitors, and adequate security. The government’s failure to deliver any of these elements could trigger a last-minute boycott. Meanwhile, the referendum has split the judiciary, with many judges refusing to participate at all. Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi last Saturday rescinded many elements of his November 22 decree that had placed himself above judicial review. He refused to budge on the timing of the referendum, however, and then quickly added a second decree the next day giving the military the right to arrest civilians and protect vital state institutions until after the referendum’s results are announced. Violent clashes between dueling protests of opponents and supporters of Morsi have left at least eight people dead and hundreds wounded so far. The referendum on the draft constitution began yesterday in Egyptian embassies and consulates abroad. Voting inside Egypt will begin Saturday, December 15, and conclude one week later on Saturday, December 22. On a separate front, after Morsi’s Sunday announcement of a new tax package prompted an outcry from opposition groups, Egyptian finance minister, Mumtaz el-Said, said on Tuesday that a crucial $4.8 billion International Monetary Fund loan would be delayed a month. Syria. In a dramatic shift in Russia’s position, deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov said today that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is losing control of the country and that the rebels may win. Bogdanov was quoted saying “one must look the facts in the face…Unfortunately, the victory of the Syrian opposition cannot be ruled out.” Meanwhile, NATO’s secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, echoed Bogdanov’s remarks by saying, “I think the regime in Damascus is approaching collapse…I think now it is only a question of time.” These stark assessments follow Tuesday’s decision in Marakesh by the “Friends of Syria,” a group including the United States and 113 other countries, to recognize Syria’s new opposition coalition as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people. Meanwhile the Syrian military reportedly have used Scud ballistic missiles for the first time since the outbreak of the conflict, firing at least six missiles against an army base overrun by rebels over the past week. White House spokesman Jay Carney called the use of Scud missiles “stunning, desperate and a completely disproportionate military escalation." While We Were Looking Elsewhere Iran. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived in Tehran today for the first talks on Iran’s nuclear program since August. There are no current plans for the inspectors to access the Parchin military complex or any other nuclear facility in Iran. Palestine. Hamas leader Khaled Meshal visited Gaza for the first time and pledged never to recognize Israel before a massive crowd in Gaza City on Saturday.  Meshal defiantly said that “Israel has no right in Jerusalem” and that “Holy war and armed resistance are the real and right path to liberation and recovery of rights.” Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas rejected Meshal’s incendiary speech today, saying “We recognized Israel in 1993…There is an agreement between Fatah and Hamas that recognizes the two-state solution. Meshal approved this agreement.” Lebanon. Violent clashes this week between Sunni Muslims and Alawites in the town of Tripoli left at least seventeen men dead. The current round of violence was sparked by video footage that reportedly showed the bodies of slain Lebanese Sunni fighters being defiled after they were ambushed last week just inside Syria where they were en route to fight with the opposition. Morocco. Abdessalem Yassine, the founder of Al Adl wa Ihsan, one of the largest opposition groups in Morocco, died today. Al Adl wa Ihsan brought its hundreds of thousands of followers t Morocco’s pro-democracy demonstrations in 2011. Bahrain. Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, Bahrain’s crown prince, renewed his call for national dialogue and an end to violent confrontations last Friday. Al-Wefaq, the main opposition group, welcomed the effort and said that it would participate, but that it wanted the results to be put to a referendum. This Week in History Friday, December 14, marks the twenty-fourth anniversary of Yasser Arafat’s historic statement in Geneva recognizing Israel’s right to exist and renouncing terrorism. On December 13, 1988, Arafat addressed the UN General Assembly to reaffirm his previous month’s Algiers declaration of independence wherein he declared Jerusalem the capital of Palestine proclaimed the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees, and the right to Palestinian self-determination. However, he failed to explicitly recognize Israel, leading the State Department to deem Arafat’s words insufficient for a bilateral dialogue. The next day, after heavy backchannel coaching, Arafat held a press conference in which he “clarified” his previous day’s statement. Arafat claimed that all states in the Middle East had the right to exist in peace, including the State of Israel, and he also renounced terrorism. On December 15, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 43/177, which affirmed the right of the Palestinian people to exercise their sovereignty over their territory occupied since 1967, and decided that the designation “Palestine” be used instead of the “Palestine Liberation Organization.”  The U.S. soon after entered into bilateral discussions with Arafat via the American ambassador in Tunis. That dialogue was subsequently terminated after a terrorist attack in Israel was traced back to the PLO.    

Significant Middle East Developments Egypt. Tens of thousands of protesters poured into Cairo’s Tahrir Square today to demonstrate against Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi and the draft constitution that was approved late last night by the Islamist-dominated constituent assembly. The proposed document is slated to go to Morsi tomorrow for his approval and an announcement of a date for a popular referendum. More than two hundred thousand people took to the streets on Tuesday against Morsi’s decree last week that granted him and the constituent assembly the power to operate outside the purview of judicial review. Despite Morsi’s decree, the Supreme Constitutional Court is set to rule on Sunday whether or not to dissolve the Constituent Assembly. It is not clear what impact such a move would have on the proposed draft constitution. Palestine and Israel. The UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly yesterday to upgrade Palestine to the status of non-member observer state. There were 138 votes in favor, 9 against and 41 abstentions. The United States and Israel led the vocal minority against recognition that included Canada and the Czech Republic, while the United Kingdom and Germany abstained. France led a contingent of EU countries in favor of the upgrade. Before the vote, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas addressed the UN body in strong language, saying: “What permits the Israeli Government to blatantly continue with its aggressive policies and the perpetration of war crimes stems from its conviction that it is above the international law and that it has immunity from accountability and consequences. This belief, unfortunately, is bolstered by the failure by some to condemn and demand the cessation of its violations and crimes and by positions that equate the victim and the executioner.” Following the vote, Secretary of State Clinton called the move “unfortunate and counterproductive.” Today, in retaliation for the Palestinian move, Israel’s inner cabinet approved the construction of three thousand new housing units in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, including in the critical area known as E-1 that connects Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim. The White House immediately called the settlement move “counterproductive,” reiterating longstanding U.S. opposition to building at E-1, and said that it could make it harder to bring Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table. Syria. Fighting between rebels and regime forces continued today near the Damascus International airport, disrupting flights in and out of the country after violence closed the airport yesterday. The government apparently cut off the country’s internet services yesterday and today, stoking fear that the regime may be ramping up for an even greater escalation. The Syrian opposition has reportedly made significant gains fighting in recent weeks, including overrunning military bases and striking targets in Damascus with greater frequency. U.S. officials have said that Washington is moving closer towards recognizing the Syrian opposition. An announcement to that effect may be made when Secretary Clinton attends the next Friends of Syria meeting in Morocco on December 12. While We Were Looking Elsewhere Kuwait. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Kuwait City today in protest of tomorrow’s national assembly election. The opposition is boycotting the election, angry over the emir’s decision last month to change Kuwait’s multi-vote system in which everyone could vote for four candidates to a one-vote-one-person system. Jordan. Protests against fuel price hikes erupted in Amman today following Friday prayer. Former prime minister Ahmad Obeidat joined the protesters while urging them to focus on reform, saying “We did not come here today to flex muscle. We came here to defend our constitutional rights. We will stick to our demand of reforming the regime.” Iran. The U.S. Senate approved new sanctions on Iran today, despite White House objections that the new penalties may undermine sanctions already in place. New sanctions will target Iran’s energy, ports, shipping, and shipbuilding sectors, as well as the metals trade. Meanwhile, Iran’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar Soltaneih, said today that if bombed, Iran could withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This Week in History Yesterday marked the sixty-fifth anniversary of the UN vote to partition the territory of Palestine between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean (Transjordan, originally part of Palestine, had been established in 1946). On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 181 calling for the establishment of two independent states, one Arab and one Jewish, with a special international regime for the city of Jerusalem. Britain, which had occupied Palestine in 1917 and governed it under a League of Nations mandate, turned to the UN in February 1947 asking it to recommend a future course of action. The subsequent Special Committee on Palestine made two recommendations: a majority report recommended partition, and a minority recommended a federal state. The majority plan was approved on November 27 by a vote of 33 in favor, 13 opposed, and ten abstentions. The resolution recommending partition was accepted by the Jewish Agency for Palestine but rejected by the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee. Civil war broke out immediately between the two communities in Palestine, turning into the first full-fledged regional war in May 1948 when British forces evacuated Palestine and the Jewish community there declared independence. The 1947 resolution formed the basis for Israel’s independence, and was cited by the PLO in 1988 as the basis for Palestine’s Declaration of Independence. Yesterday’s General Assembly resolution granting Palestine non-member observer state status at the United Nations cited Resolution 181 as one source for its basis.  

If all goes according to plan, the UN General Assembly will vote on Thursday or soon after to accord Palestine “non-member observer state status” in the United Nations. According to Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority and chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization who initiated the effort, it is intended to enhance the Palestinians’ leverage in future negotiations with Israel. Writing in the New York Times on May 16, 2011, Abbas explained his rationale: “Palestine would be negotiating from the position of one United Nations member whose territory is militarily occupied by another, and not as a vanquished people.” The fundamental problem with Abbas’ approach is that rather than encourage such talks, his U.N. gambit is more likely to delay, if not undermine, the prospects for negotiations that would lead to genuine Palestinian statehood and peace with Israel anytime in the immediate future. The Palestinians’ approach at the United Nations sends two conflicting messages at the same time. On the one hand, Abbas claims he wishes to cooperate with Israel and resolve Israeli-Palestinian differences peacefully. All he is trying to do, he says, is gain some negotiating leverage. Yet at the same time, the Palestinians are conveying the message that their efforts are a punitive unilateral act designed to confront Israel, rather than cooperate with it down the road. This is dangerous for the Palestinians, given that Israel possesses a preponderance of power and controls the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. The confrontational perception was fortified in the past few days when the Palestinians reportedly rejected U.S. and Israeli efforts to temper the resolution and denude it of the one thing Israelis fear most and Palestinians deny as its intent: the ability to challenge Israel and individual Israelis in international fora, most notably the International Criminal Court (ICC). For months, the Palestinians had said they were willing to provide assurances that they would not challenge Israel in the ICC. But when asked in recent days, the Palestinians refused to alter the text to state that they would not approach the ICC to file charges against Israeli officials. Instead, the Palestinians suggested they would provide an oral guarantee that they would not file changes at the ICC for the next six months. Rather than provide solace, this Palestinian offer only reinforced the sense that the statehood bid is a way to confront Israelis with punitive actions if a settlement is not reached according to a Palestinian-imposed timeline. In the face of such an approach, and coming as Israel moves into the heat of an election campaign, the effect of the U.N. resolution will be to harden Israeli prime minister Netanyahu’s attitudes towards concessions to the Palestinians, not encourage them. It will likely trigger Israeli punitive measures, such as withholding Palestinian tax remittances, constrained movement and access within the West Bank, and possibly unilateral Israeli moves to annex West Bank territory. At a minimum, we can expect accelerated Israeli settlement activity. The United States is also likely to be very unhappy with President Abbas when the UN votes. President Obama has urged the Palestinians for over a year not to push a vote at the United Nations. Indeed, Obama called Abbas on November 11, just days after the U.S. elections, to ask the Palestinian president to give the American president time to prepare his policies for a second term. Abbas clearly and inauspiciously rebuffed him in a gesture that will no doubt figure into Obama’s calculations for his upcoming Middle East policies. Moreover, the Congress is likely to suspend U.S. aid to the Palestinians. Yet Abbas sees no viable alternative in front of him. Prime Minister Netanyahu, who three and a half years ago professed his support for a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside Israel in his heralded Bar-Illan University speech, never offered a clear strategy or plan for moving forward. President Obama, in May 2011, laid out a vision for a peace agreement delineating Palestine’s borders and Israeli-Palestinian security arrangements. Yet rather than pursue that vision, the president launched no diplomatic effort to realize it. After the United Nations vote, Abbas will presumably return to his West Bank headquarters where the realities will be exactly as he left them: Israel occupies all of Jerusalem and the majority of the West Bank. Nothing that happens in New York will have changed that. The Palestinians will have forfeited their 65-year long moral claim as that of a stateless people. Now, they will have a virtual state, but not one where it counts--on the ground. Given all the downsides of pursuing this statehood gambit, why is Abbas moving forward with this less than airtight strategy? Clearly, he calculates that the costs of inaction are even greater than all the moves’ inherent risks. With Hamas having just confronted Israel with short and medium term missiles, backing down from the diplomatic effort he has pursued over the year and a half, could be politically suicidal. Moreover, as he enters his twilight years as the Palestinian’s leader, he no doubt seeks some sort of legacy achievement. Thus, a symbolic victory in New York, albeit one that changes nothing on the ground in Palestine, is still better than no action at all. Such an accomplishment is likely to be pyrrhic and short lived. The challenge then will be to prevent the action in New York from further damaging the prospects for a more coherent approach that could lead to a lasting peace between Israel and a genuine Palestinian state.

“God’s will and elections made me the captain of this ship.” – Mohamed Morsi “Every single political group in the country is now divided over this — is this decree revolutionary justice or building a new dictatorship? Should we align ourselves with folool or should we be revolutionary purists? Is it a conflict between the Muslim Brotherhood and the pro-Mubarak judiciary, or is this the beginning of a fascist regime in the making?” – Rabab el-Mahdi, an activist and professor at the American University in Cairo “The one thing I can tell you is this: in the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, whenever bad things happened in the region, people would question Jordan’s stability. But they’re all gone, and we’re still here.” – Jordanian foreign minister Nasser Judeh “It’s the first time in seventy years I feel proud and my head is high...It’s a great victory for the people of Palestine.” – Mohammed Rajah, a Gaza refugee “Frankly, I have to say kudos to Netanyahu, and I don’t usually pay him compliments. I think he got the best out of a bad situation.” – Gadi Wolfsen, professor at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel “They believe only in Islam. Our affiliation is with our country. We want a modern  state. How can we believe the Muslim Brotherhood will take it for us?" – Dr. Ali Abdul Hafiz, former Brotherhood member and now an opponent “We are against calls for regime change...We have called, and always will call, for regime reform and democratic reforms.” – Hamzah Mansour, Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood leader “[We] don’t want to create another Mubarak…The only way is to show that we are very angry and to let this president and any other president know that we won’t do whatever they want to do.” – Nigad al-Boraei, a prominent human-rights lawyer

A prominent Israeli general, who subsequently became a politician, once told me: “In our politics there is ‘dead,’ ‘dead and buried,’ and ‘dead and buried and never coming back.’” It is important to keep these distinctions in mind when considering Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s announcement today that he will retire from Israeli political life and not run in the country’s upcoming parliamentary election next January 22. Barak’s move today most likely reflects more than his professed desire to spend more time with his family. Barak, having broken from the Labor party in January 2011 to form the Atzmaut (Independence) party, today leads a party of just five seats in the Knesset that is part of Netanyahu’s coalition. Polls suggest that Atzmaut may not win any seats in the next election, or only a few at best. Hence, when it would come to forming the next Israeli government, Barak under Atzmaut would bring little if anything to the coalition building table. Rather than being drummed out of Israeli politics at the polls, Barak today decided to step out on his own terms. But that doesn’t mean he is gone. His political assets are not his political base, which is virtually non-existent, but his reputation as Israel’s most highly decorated general, his standing as a former prime minister, and most importantly, his personal relationship commanding now Prime Minister Netanyahu in an elite commando unit many years ago. Barak and Netanyahu are very close when it comes to issues pertaining to national security and defense. While their political relationship has endured some ups and downs recently, there is little doubt that at its core there is a longstanding relationship of mutual respect. Barak may be done with electoral politics, but he has positioned himself well to serve, if asked, as the defense minister in the next Israeli government if it is led, as is expected, by a reelected Benjamin Netanyahu. In such a capacity, he would not be beholden to any party or serve in the parliament. He would owe his political life solely to the men who appointed him—Netanyahu and the current foreign minister and Netanyahu’s partner  going into the new elections, Avigdor Lieberman.  Netanyahu would value Barak’s military and government experience, especially as they near the end game in the struggle to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Politically, Netanyahu and Lieberman may well calculate that having Barak in the position, without a political affiliation, is beneficial to them. It keeps other would-be rivals contained within their own party and prevents them from seeking a more prominent place from which to challenge Netanyahu or Lieberman’s political supremacy. All this is pure speculation and these could indeed be Barak’s waning days in public service. But Barak left the door open when he reacted to the notion of his possible return as a non-elected defense minister at a press conference today by saying the question was “irrelevant.” Barak’s electoral future may be over for now. But that doesn’t mean he won’t be coming back to government service soon.

The scenario is all too familiar: Violence erupts between Israel and Hamas. The U.S. President calls his Egyptian counterpart and asks for help in managing the crisis. The voice from Cairo assures the American president that Egypt will do everything to help calm the situation and immediately steps in to mediate between the parties. This last time was different, however, since the Egyptian at the end of the phone line was not the strongman Hosni Mubarak but rather his post-revolutionary successor, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Muhammad Morsi. By most accounts, Morsi acted admirably in helping to bring about the cease-fire, working closely with Barack Obama in some half-dozen extended telephone calls.  Indeed, the level of U.S.-Egyptian cooperation might suggest that little, if anything, had changed back from the days when Washington called upon Mubarak to help out with various Middle East crises.  Let’s hope that’s not the case. The crisis in Gaza provided a critical initial foreign policy test for the new post-revolutionary government headed by President Morsi. Egypt, for its part, demonstrated that its national interests trumped the ideological affinities of the Muslim Brotherhood. Aside from pulling its ambassador from Tel Aviv, the Egyptians responded to the outbreak of violence by working with Israel, not against it, to help mediate the crisis. And behind the scenes, the Egyptians clearly put pressure on the Hamas leadership to show flexibility and stand down rather than escalate the crisis and risk an Israeli ground invasion into Gaza. Note that Egypt also continues to enforce its part of Gaza’s “siege” by preventing the free flow of goods and people at Rafah. The benefits of Cairo’s recent approach are clear: it preserved its peace accord with Israel, thereby providing strategic stability for Egypt. At the same time, assertive diplomacy allowed Cairo to re-emerge as a regional fulcrum and power broker. By playing a lead role in brokering a cease-fire, Cairo also helped prevent a protracted and more deadly conflict, one that would have strained Egypt’s ability to simultaneously maintain its peace with Israel and its relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideological soul-mates in Hamas. Morsi will no doubt remind Obama of all this when he soon pays a visit at the White House.  Tempting though it might be, Washington would be making a tremendous mistake were it to lapse back into the old, dysfunctional habit of the pre-revolutionary period whereby Egypt worked to preserve the regional status quo in exchange for American largesse. While bilateral cooperation is desirable and necessary, it should not form the entirety of the bilateral relationship. The two countries must work to establish a healthier and more honest relationship based on the mutual interests of the United States and the Egyptian people. This means that while Washington must acknowledge the benefits of Egypt’s recent behavior, it must also recognize that the “new Egypt” behaves out of self-interest. So too must the United States. Regional stability is an important American interest. But with Egypt at the forefront of the dramatic transitions taking place in the Arab world, Washington also has a strong interest in promoting democratic norms and institution building in post-revolutionary Egypt.  Today’s decree by President Morsi, arrogating further powers to himself above the powers of the courts, is a challenge to the revolution’s aspirations and to a real democratic transition. It represents Mubarakism without Mubarak. This is a moment of profound opportunity for the United States in the Middle East, one in which Washington can demonstrate its support for the aspirations of the Egyptian people for dignity, democratic participation, self-governance, and accountable leaders. To do so, the United States cannot return to the old Faustian bargain in which Egyptian strongmen cooperated with the U.S. on regional issues in order to buy quiet from Washington for a free-hand at home. President Morsi did well on Gaza. He must also do well at home.

The article below was originally published here on ForeignPolicy.com on Monday, November 19, 2012. I look forward to reading your comments.  Everyone knew it was coming. Once the giddy days of the Arab uprising had passed, it was the subject of discussion at almost every roundtable, panel discussion, and bull session among Middle East analysts: What about Gaza? How would Arab governments, newly responsive to their people, handle a replay of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, the bloody offensive in Gaza that commenced almost exactly four years ago? At the time, U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration and President-elect Barack Obama’s team could rely on figures like Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordanian King Abdullah II to help contain the conflict and ensure that the status quo remained, even after the Israel Defense Forces withdrew their tanks and the rockets stopped flying. That was another era. The dynamics of the Israel-Hamas conflict that led to the current fighting are similar to those of 2008, but nothing else is. With citizens throughout the region demanding a reversal of the policies of the past, observers of the region implicitly understood that the Arab world’s leaders -- both old and new -- would face great pressure to demonstrate that they are responsive to public opinion and hold Israel and the United States "accountable" for their actions. At those bull sessions -- invariably called, "The Middle East Undergoing Change: Strategic Implications" or something equally snooze-inducing -- the response to a new Gaza war was often shrugs, sighs, and raised eyebrows. The body language meant: "Let’s hope nothing happens so that we don’t have to think about it." Continue reading here...