Israel

Significant Middle East Developments Syria. Developments shifted back this week to the intense fighting in Syria, especially the siege of Homs. On Thursday, Syrian rebels announced their retreat from their Bab Amr stronghold in Homs, a day after Assad’s troops escalated their 26-day siege of the city and deployed elite troops of the Fourth Armored Division under the command of Bashar’s brother Maher to the city. In a rare move that was supported by both Russia and China, the UN Security Council issued a unanimous presidential statement “deploring” the humanitarian crisis. The statement also urged Syria to allow UN humanitarian aid chief Valerie Amos, who had been refused entry into the country, to be allowed to visit. The UN Human Rights Council also met on Thursday and adopted a resolution condemning Syria’s human rights violations, including the use of force against civilians and arbitrary executions. Only China, Russia, and Cuba voted against the resolution. Syria subsequently announced that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) would be permitted to deliver humanitarian aid to Homs/Syria. The Qatari prime minister said on Thursday that the time had come to “study all options to save the Syrian people.” Earlier in the week, President Moncef Marzouki said that Tunisia would offer Bashar al-Assad asylum as part of a negotiated settlement. The UN estimates that “well over 7,500 people” have been killed in Syria to date. Egypt. A group of foreign pro-democracy workers accused of fomenting unrest in Egypt that had been prevented from leaving the country were finally allowed to depart on Thursday, but only after nearly $5 million was posted in bail on their behalf. The group included over a dozen Americans, amongst them Sam LaHood, director of Egypt operations for the International Republican Institute and son of U.S. transportation secretary Ray LaHood. The Americans, who departed on a U.S. military jet, promised to return for trial. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a Senate hearing on Tuesday that “We’ve had a lot of very tough conversations and I think we are moving toward a resolution… But I don’t want to discuss it in great detail because it’s important that they know that we are continuing to push them but that we don’t necessarily put it out into the public arena yet.” Egypt also announced that the presidential elections will be held May 23-May 24. Absentee ballots will be accepted between May 11 and May 17 and the results will be announced on June 21. Noteworthy U.S. Foreign Policy Developments In the run-up to separate visits to Washington early next week by both Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres, U.S. officials spoke widely about Iran and various aspects of a possible military strike against the country’s nuclear facilities. On Wednesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney warned about the dangers of military action: “It is certainly the case--and I think we have been clear about this--that any military action in that region threatens greater instability in the region, threatens--as you point out, because Iran borders both Afghanistan and Iraq--we have civilian personnel in Iraq, we have military personnel as well as civilians in Afghanistan. There are all sorts of potential consequences to more military activity in that region and in Iran specifically.” Meanwhile, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to clairify Washington’s position in testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs. In response to a question about America’s response to Iran becoming a nuclear threshold state rather than actually possessing nuclear weapons, Clinton said: “It’s absolutely clear that the president’s policy is to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons capability.”  U.S. Air Force chief  Norton Schwartz pointed to the U.S. ability to act decisively against Iran, saying, “We have an operational capability and you wouldn’t want to be there when we used it,” when asked about the MOP (“bunker buster”) bomb. In an apparent attempt to bolster the sense that the U.S. was best positioned to handle the Iranian threat, U.S. officials told the Washington Post that Iran’s purportedly “impregnable” underground nuclear sites were indeed vulnerable to repeated aerial bombardment. Quotes of the Week “We should do whatever necessary to help them, including giving them weapons to defend themselves…I think they’re right to defend themselves by weapons and I think we should help these people by all means.” – Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani said during an official visit to Norway on Monday "Are we supporting Al-Qaeda in Syria? Hamas is now supporting the opposition. Are we supporting Hamas in Syria?" – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Sunday warning about the potential dangers of arming the rebels in Syria "Iraq backs change in Syria… [Syrians] must receive more freedom, and form a national unity government as a first step, and free elections should be held under Arab and UN supervision." – Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki told the Saudi newspaper Okaz While We Were Looking Elsewhere Yemen. Where do former dictators go when they are exiled? Former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh is still deciding. On Monday, aides to Saleh said that he plans to go into exile in Ethiopia. Saleh’s aides had originally expressed his desire to reside in Oman after he stopped there in January en route to New York but he has reportedly not received an answer yet. Saleh is under great pressure to leave Yemen after returning for the inauguration of his former deputy, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. Jordan. King Abdullah on Wednesday pardoned a political activist who had been arrested last month for setting fire to a picture of the monarch. On Thursday, Ahmad Abbadi, a controversial former member of Parliament, who had been arrested in January for urging a revolt, was released on bail. Human Rights Watch had called for his charges to be dropped on Tuesday calling them a violation of freedom of expression. Kuwait. A number of Kuwaiti youth activist groups have merged into a single political movement, called the Democratic Civil Movement (DCM), in an effort to intensify reform campaigns. One of the group’s founders announced that the aim of DCM “is to press for fundamental democratic reforms to achieve a full parliamentary system in Kuwait.” Israel. Israel unveiled a new underground bomb shelter in Tel Aviv with the capacity to hold two thousand people. Israeli officials have been bolstering shelters and emergency services in recent months. Oman. Oman’s state news agency reported the country’s second major cabinet reshuffle in a year on Wednesday. Oman’s Sultan Qaboos sacked and replaced the information and justice ministers. This Week in History This week marks the fifty-sixth year of Morocco’s independence from France. On March 2, 1956, French and Moroccan officials signed the provisional Franco-Moroccan Agreement in Paris, thereby granting the North African country its full independence. Morocco had been under French control since 1912, although certain areas in the “Spanish Sahara” had been treated as a Spanish protectorate. Spain quickly followed France’s example and reached a corresponding agreement with Morocco on April 7, 1956, bringing an end to the Spanish protectorate as well. In the months following Morocco’s independence, Sultan Muhammad V oversaw the transition to a constitutional monarchy with a Consultative Assembly. The sultan adopted the title of king in August of 1957. Poll of the Week According to a University of Maryland and Israeli Dahaf Institute opinion poll, a majority of Israelis oppose an Israeli strike on Iran carried out unilaterally and without U.S. backing.  The poll suggested that 34 percent of five hundred Israelis surveyed believed that Israel should not strike Iran. Forty-two percent said an attack should only be carried out if the United States supported the decision, and only 19 percent believed Israel should attack Iran without U.S. support.

While the “Friends of Syria” were meeting in Tunis last week, Hamas was separately taking its own steps to disavow the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. In a significant move, Hamas officials announced last Friday—in Egypt as well as in Gaza—its break with the Assad regime. Hamas’ strategic realignment affects the Middle East chessboard, both regionally and within Palestinian politics. Hamas’ abandonment of its long-time Alawite backers further deepens the Middle East fault line between the Sunni and Shiite worlds. Hamas has now aligned itself with its Sunni brethren already united against the Assad regime. Syria’s Middle East backers are now down to Shiite Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and Iran. Iranian officials are upset with Hamas, and it is not clear if Tehran will continue to supply Hamas with money and weapons. Iran’s leaders could not have helped notice that worshipers in Egypt, where the break was announced, responded by chanting, “No Hezbollah and no Iran. The Syrian revolution is an Arab revolution.” Indeed, the symbolism and locale of Hamas’ leader Ismail Haniyeh’s announcement of the break—before a crowd of thousands at Cairo’s al-Azhar Mosque—is noteworthy. Hamas, originally an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, has now even closer aligned itself with these ideological soulmates, who now hold the largest number of seats in the parliament in Cairo. Indeed, one byproduct of the Egyptian revolution and the subsequent elections has been to swing greater Egyptian support over the Palestine question toward Hamas and away from Mahmoud Abbas and his PLO, which had enjoyed strong support and patronage from former president Hosni Mubarak. Hamas has now aligned itself fully with the sentiments of the region’s Arab uprisings. Here, Haniyeh’s comments were revealing: “I salute all the nations of the Arab Spring and I salute the heroic people of Syria who are striving for freedom, democracy, and reform.” In contrast, PLO and PA leader Mahmoud Abbas has largely been silent about the Arab uprisings in general, and the situation in Syria in particular. The loss of Mubarak—Abbas’s patron in negotiations with Israel—was a blow for the Palestinian leader, as Egypt no longer exerts the kind of heavy pressure on Hamas as it did under Mubarak to accede to Abbas and his Fatah party. The small Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) remains the only Sunni organization still supportive of Syria, with the possible exception of a few largely ossified Palestinian splinter groups. Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shalah has pledged to retain PIJ headquarters in Damascus. One side effect of this will be the exacerbation of tensions in Gaza between the ruling Hamas and the even more militant PIJ, which has used violence against Israel as a way to challenge Hamas’ primacy. Israel regularly retaliates militarily against Hamas facilities for Islamic Jihad rocket and mortar strikes into Israel, arguing that Hamas claims to rule the Gaza strip and is therefore responsible. This generally helps incentivize Hamas to take steps to keep PIJ quiet. Hamas also faces other challenges. Having lost its external base in Syria, it has yet to find a new one. Only Qatar, so far, has been willing to offer itself up as a potential home for Hamas’ headquarters. Moreover, the past year’s regional changes have exacerbated internal rifts within Hamas over doctrinal as well as tactical issues. This has been most apparent in the differing attitudes adopted within Hamas towards the unity deal signed last month between Hamas external leader Khaled Meshal and Mahmoud Abbas in Doha. Hamas’ break with Syria has not been accompanied by a fundamental ideological shift. While some within Hamas hint at a move towards “popular struggle,” that tactical shift has not been universally accepted and remains highly contentious. For now at least, the organization remains committed to Israel’s destruction by means of armed resistance. Moreover, and at a deeper level, Hamas believes that long regional trends are breaking their way. Islamist parties have gained power in Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco. Many believe Hamas’ ideological soulmates, the Muslim Brotherhood, will emerge strengthened if not empowered, in Syria. Many in Hamas will argue that they need not change, since it is the Middle East that is changing more to their liking. In the immediate period ahead at least, they well may be right.

Significant Middle East Developments Syria. The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a new resolution Thursday calling for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to end the brutal attacks on the Syrian people. Initial vote counts indicate the resolution received 137 votes in favor, twelve against, and seventeen abstentions. The vote came as the Syrian military stepped up its assault against opposition strongholds, including severe bombardments of Homs, Hama, and Deraa. The resolution backs an Arab League peace plan announced last weekend, but without its call for a joint Arab League-UN peacekeeping force of three thousand (my analysis on that available here). Just before the UNGA vote, UN secretary general Ban ki-Moon said that “we see almost a certain crime against humanity” being committed in Syria. Meanwhile, France announced that it is negotiating with Russia over a new UN Security Council draft resolution and has also expressed a desire to create humanitarian corridors to aid civilians, an idea that has not been universally accepted--most notably by Turkey, which shares a 566-mile border with Syria. Tunisia will host a conference of the “Friends of Syria” contact group on February 24 for nations seeking to forge an international consensus on ending the violence in Syria. Earlier in the week, Bashar al-Assad announced a series of token reforms and a national referendum to be held on February 26. Russia welcomed the move while Syria’s opposition and most countries derided it as too little too late. Iran. Iran announced on Wednesday that it was willing to resume talks with the P5+1 group, which consists of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (United States, Russia, China, Britain, and France) plus Germany. The announcement came  in the form of a letter from the senior Iranian nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, responding to an October letter from EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton in which she had invited Iran to a new round of talks. French foreign minister Alain Juppe said on Thursday that the Iranian letter “remains ambiguous, but constitutes the start of opening up from Iran which says it is ready to talk about its nuclear program.” The offer to resume talks came as Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced breakthroughs in Iran’s nuclear program. Israel. Israeli officials were attacked in India, Georgia, and Thailand. On Monday a magnetic bomb was attached to the car of an Israeli diplomat’s wife in New Delhi and exploded, wounding the Israeli while killing several others; a bomb affixed to an Israeli embassy worker’s car was discovered and successfully defused in Tiblisi. On Tuesday, a third attempted attack on Israeli diplomats was discovered in Bangkok when explosives were set off by mistake in a house by a man carrying a bomb. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Iran and Hezbollah for the attacks, a sentiment that was reiterated by Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak following the Thailand blasts. Two Iranian nationals were detained by Thai police, while a third was arrested in Malaysia. Thai police and the Israeli ambassador to Thailand said that the similarities between the explosive devices found in Bangkok to the ones used in the previous day’s attacks suggest that the attacks were connected. Noteworthy U.S. Foreign Policy Developments On Monday, President Obama proposed his budget for the next fiscal year and requested that Egypt’s military aid remain at $1.3 billion, the same level as recent years, despite the ongoing tension over Egypt’s preventing U.S. NGO officials from leaving the country. The crisis has led some members of Congress to call for cutting the aid completely. General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with Egyptian field marshal Hussein Tantawi on Saturday to discuss a range of security-related issues including the issue of U.S. NGOs. While Egyptian and U.S. officials were positive about the meeting, an Australian reporter and a U.S. student were detained the same day on suspicion of distributing cash to incite unrest. They were released on Monday but barred from leaving the country pending further investigation. On Wednesday, the U.S. embassy in Cairo declared that Washington is not trying to destabilize Egypt, but Rashad al-Bayoumi, deputy guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, published an article on the Muslim Brotherhood website in which he said, “The American-Zionist scheme cannot rest if the heralds of freedom hover over the Arab and Islamic societies, which is why this ambassador was chosen to incite sedition in Egypt.” And on Thursday, Essam al-Erian, the vice chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, warned that the U.S. aid “was one of the commitments of the parties that signed the peace agreement so if there is a breach from one side it gives the right of review to the parties.” Quotes of the Week “I have no problem with the Muslim Brotherhood staying as it is now. But if we allow a group with a particular objective to exist and operate without being registered or monitored by the government, we should give that right to all other segments in society.” – Adel Ramadan, a human rights lawyer with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said earlier this week following a request by a leftist lawmaker to question the government over the Muslim Brotherhood’s “illegal” status "In a sense there is no ’opposition’ in Bahrain, as the phrase implies one unified bloc with the same views.” – Bahrain’s king Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa on Monday to the German news magazine Der Spiegel “[The] gun is our only response to Zionist regime [sic]. In time, we have come to understand that we can obtain our goals only through fighting and armed resistance and no compromise should be made with the enemy." – Hamas “prime minister” Ismail Haniyeh said on Monday as reported by the Iranian news agency ISNA "It’s actually quite laughable--it makes a mockery of the Syrian revolution." – White House spokesperson Jay Carney aboard Air Force One on Wednesday about President Bashar al-Assad’s proposed February 26 national referendum "I will tell him that Russia is isolating itself within the international community... and it is not a good thing for her to isolate herself to this extent." – French foreign minister Alain Juppe said on Wednesday about trying to persuade Russia to support a resolution on Syria at the United Nations While We Were Looking Elsewhere Bahrain. February 14 marked the one-year anniversary of uprisings in Bahrain. Protesters marked the anniversary with several demonstrations throughout the small island country although armored vehicles and security forces prevented demonstrators from marching to Pearl Square in Manama—the site where the first protests emerged last year. Some thirty people were arrested on the suspicion of being protesters including prominent actor Nabeel Rajab and six U.S. activists. They were in the country as a part of a Witness Bahrain group to observe how police deal with demonstrations. Libya. This week also marked the one-year anniversary of the beginning of Libya’s uprising. On February 17, 2011, protests began that led to civil war and the eventual ouster of Muammar Qaddafi who had been in power since 1969. Libya is now grappling with the fallout. A report released yesterday by Amnesty International identified militias in Libya as being “out of control” and a huge source of instability in the country: "Armed militias operating across Libya commit widespread human rights abuses with impunity, fueling insecurity and hindering the rebuilding of state institutions." The current governing body, the National Transitional Council, is struggling to exert authority over the militias and to incorporate the rebel fighters into official state security forces. These efforts have moved slowly and have seen mixed success. Parliamentary elections are scheduled to be held in June. This Week in History Tomorrow marks the sixtieth anniversary of Turkey’s membership in NATO. Turkey joined NATO on February 18, 1952 in a move that set off the alignment of its military along Western lines. Turkey would go on to play a critical role during the Cold War by aiding in the containment of the Soviet Union. Turkey has played an active role in a number of NATO missions, including those in Afghanistan, Libya, and the Balkans. Though Turkey was initially hesitant about the NATO-led intervention in Libya, it ultimately relented and played an active role in the effort. Statistic of the Week  A recent Gallup poll found that Iranians are more likely to approve of Iran developing its nuclear power capabilities for non-military use (57%) than for military use (40%). Iranians are more mixed about military use, which Iran insists it is not pursuing, with 40% approving and 35% disapproving. Nearly one in four did not express an opinion either way.

Soner Cagaptay reflects on what it might take to get Russia to back the Syrian opposition. Zvika Krieger writes on The Atlantic about the debate on cutting U.S. aid to Egypt and what that might mean for Israel. Moha Ennaji on Today’s Zaman discusses the need for Islamist movements in North Africa to leave the past behind.

There is a Middle Eastern country that lately finds itself enmeshed in a large degree of controversy.  A non-Arab democracy founded by a cadre of westernizing secularists, it has committed a number of diplomatic missteps.  The country’s initial response to unrest in the Arab world was to back the ruling authoritarian leaders, which proved a mistake.  It also finds its relations with a critical neighbor and trading partner quickly and severely deteriorating in the wake of the Arab Spring, which is challenging for a number of reasons, not least of which that it relied on this neighbor to be its gateway to the Arab world.  The country is dealing with a number of serious foreign policy problems, the most severe being a national liberation movement that seeks an independent state.  The government’s policy toward this movement has been muddled at best, ranging from periods of negotiation and concessions to large scale military operations against militants.  Currently, the government insists that the movement is a violent one driven by a terrorist organization, and it has taken a hardline approach that has brought international condemnation in the wake of airstrikes that have killed civilians and failed to curtail the group’s popularity among its constituent population. A combination of support for government military action in the wake of terrorist attacks and a party in power headed by a nationalist prime minister has led to policies that are eroding the quality of the country’s democracy.  Restrictions on freedom of expression and suspicion of politically motivated tax and licensing decisions against independent media outlets that have been critical of the government have not been encouraging.  There have also been high profile rifts between the civilian government and the army, with former military and intelligence officials warning that the prime minister and his cabinet are taking actions that are not in the country’s best interests.  The country has had a series of unfortunate diplomatic snafus, in which members of the government have publicly lectured or embarrassed foreign dignitaries, including President Obama and Vice President Biden.  Despite being a vital ally of the United States with a strong relationship based on decades of military and intelligence cooperation, the country’s relations with the U.S. are shakier than they have been in years. It should be fairly obvious at this point which country I am referring to, right?  As it happens, that depends on your perspective (or perhaps on your political leanings) – the country described above is either unmistakably Israel or unmistakably Turkey.  The similarities between the two are striking, and the history of friendship and cooperation between Ankara and Jerusalem should point to an eventual rapprochement.  Events in Iran and Syria make incentives for cooperation stronger than ever.  Yet Israel and Turkey are not close to mending their dysfunctional relationship, and politics in both countries run the risk of turning the split into a permanent one.  This would have disastrous consequences, as the bilateral relationship between the two countries is about to take on an outsized importance as the clamor for war with Iran grows and the turmoil in Syria escalates.  The reality is that there is a small window of opportunity for reconciliation, and now is the optimal time for both sides to get past their differences. While ideally the similarities between the two make it easier for the two countries to get along, the dynamics of the relationship actually operate to push Turkey and Israel further apart.  Israel’s occupation of the West Bank allows Ankara to view its own treatment of the Kurds as comparatively benign and thus not as a pressing problem requiring an immediate solution, while Israel sees its recent spate of illiberal parliamentary bills as trifling compared to Turkey’s imprisonment of journalists and self-censoring press.  Rather than empathizing with a former ally facing a similar set of challenges, the rhetoric on both sides increasingly views the other with scorn, unaware of the ironic emperor-has-no-clothes-on dynamic at work. It is critical that Israel and Turkey start cooperating to mitigate the challenges coming down the road from Syria and Iran.  As full-blown civil war in Syria becomes more likely, Israel and Turkey stand to be the two countries with the most to lose.  Each has benefited from Syrian stability, with Turkey doing billions of dollars in trade and Israel enjoying relative quiet on its northern border, but this stability has ended.  Turkey has already been dealing with a steady flow of Syrian refugees, and the IDF chief of staff announced a few weeks ago that Israel was preparing for a refugee crisis in the Golan Heights.  A coordinated effort on the part of Ankara and Jerusalem will make dealing with a crisis easier, particularly when the fighting in Syria ends and refugees need to be repatriated.  A united stand against Assad by his two most powerful neighbors might also provide a needed boost to the opposition. More pressingly, Iranian threats to close the Straits of Hormuz and the decision by the EU to embargo Iranian oil make a military confrontation in the Persian Gulf a growing possibility, and a higher level of trust between Turkey and Israel is critical to assuaging Israeli nerves.  The NATO X-Band early warning radar system that went online in Turkey in mid-January should theoretically provide the Israelis with a renewed sense of security, but instead it has become a point of contention in the wake of Israeli fears that Turkey will not alert it should there be an Iranian missile attack.  Turkey’s refusal to honor any non-UN sanctions on Iran also leads Israel to fear that Turkey is becoming a barrier to efforts aimed at preventing Iranian nuclear capability, and an improvement in bilateral relations would go a long way toward convincing Jerusalem that Turkey has no intention of being complicit in any theoretical Iranian attack and in turn would reduce the risk of an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. The reconciliation talks last fall, and the aid each provided in the wake of natural disasters – the Israeli forest fires in Carmel and the Turkish earthquakes in Van – provide some optimism upon which to build, and for the first time since the flotilla fiasco the political environment appears favorable for a reset in the relationship.  Prime Minister Erdoğan’s AKP won a resounding electoral victory in June, obviating the need to continue the hardline rhetoric against Israel that was an effective campaign tool.  Prime Minister Netanyahu is enjoying record popularity at home and polls show his Likud party increasing their share in the Knesset were elections to be held today, giving him the necessary wiggle room to cut a deal with Turkey.  The improving U.S. economy along with the weak Republican presidential field also provide an incentive for Netanyahu to make some overtures to Obama before he wins a second term, and reconciliation with Turkey is low hanging fruit. Turkey and Israel have too much in common and too many shared interests to continue their feud.  The two countries need to put aside their differences and resume their military and diplomatic cooperation now before events in the region doom their relationship permanently. Michael J. Koplow is a doctoral candidate in Government at Georgetown University, where he focuses on Middle East politics and democratization. His work has appeared in Foreign Policy, Security Studies, The Atlantic, and the New York Times.

Once upon a time, progress toward Israeli-Palestinian peace was thought to require reform of Palestinian political institutions. Creation of the post of Palestinian Authority (PA) prime minister, separate from that of PA president, was viewed as a milestone. On March 14, 2003, President Bush marked creation of the prime minister post in a press conference: the Palestinian Authority has created the new position of Prime Minister. Israeli and Palestinian leaders and other governments in the region now have a chance to move forward with determination and with good faith. To be a credible and responsible partner, the new Palestinian Prime Minister must hold a position of real authority. We expect that such a Palestinian Prime Minister will be confirmed soon. Immediately upon confirmation, the road map for peace will be given to the Palestinians and the Israelis… This week Hamas and Fatah negotiated some sort of "unity" or "reconciliation" agreement, and the PA/Fatah negotiator was none other than the prime minister of whom Bush was speaking nine years ago: Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas became president of the PA after the death of Arafat, and is now in the seventh year of his four year term. Times have changed, as my CFR colleague Rob Danin has noted: In an innovation that apparently violates the Palestinian Basic Law, the two sides agreed that Mahmoud Abbas would serve as both president and prime minister of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Recall, the PA’s prime minister position was established in 2003 and Abbas was appointed to that post to reduce the absolute powers of the presidency, then in Yassir Arafat’s hands. Ironically, it is now Abbas as president who is seeking to claim back what he once tried to take away. Nicely put. And Rob is right: Article 45 of the Basic Law says “The President of the National Authority shall appoint the Prime Minister and authorize the latter to constitute his government.  The President shall have the right to dismiss the Prime Minister or to accept his resignation and to request him to convene the Council of Ministers.” But of course, Abbas will not hold absolute power in his hands, for when it comes to Gaza he will have no power at all. It is rumored that under the deal there will be a deputy prime minister for the West Bank and one for Gaza, so in essence Hamas will still rule Gaza while Fatah rules the West Bank. Why then go through the contortions of this “reconciliation” agreement? For one thing the Amir of Qatar brought Abbas and the Hamas leader Khaled Meshal to Doha, and the Amir has many means of persuasion, particularly for folks whose bank accounts are thin. For another, no Palestinian leader likes to be cast as “against reconciliation,” so it is usually easier to go along. And anyway, just as the previous “reconciliation” efforts failed, this one can be allowed to fail as well if it becomes troublesome for the participants. But there is a price to pay for these theatrics, for no one can seriously expect Israel to negotiate peace with a combined Fatah-Hamas team when Hamas is dedicated to Israel’s destruction. It is not the PA but the PLO that formally negotiates with Israel, and one of the most damaging aspects of the “reconciliation” agreement is that Hamas is supposed to join the PLO. Once it does, all but the most ardent peace-processors will have to admit the negotiations track is truly frozen. Yes, perhaps Hamas will magically take that occasion to abandon its previous hatred of Jews and Israel, abandon terrorism, and declare itself ready for peace with Israel. If so, let’s all go back to Camp David or Annapolis for another round. If not, if Hamas is admitted into the PA government and the PLO as the terrorist group it is today, let’s acknowledge that the Palestinian leadership has turned away from any genuine effort to negotiate peace.    

Shadi Hamid on The Atlantic makes a case for intervention in Syria. Speaker of the newly-elected People’s Assembly in Egypt gives his first address to parliament. Walter Russell Mead writes about the “bluffs” of Iran and Israel. Mehmet Ali Birand asks questions about term limitations in Turkey and what that means going forward.  

Over the course of the Obama administration, Washington’s objectives for Israeli-Palestinian peace have shifted dramatically. President Obama took office seeking to resolve the conflict within two years. Deeming it a “national security objective” and one of his highest priorities, he immediately appointed Senator George Mitchell his special Middle East envoy. Three years later, Mitchell is no longer in the position, and the president is no longer seeking to resolve the conflict. In May of last year, the president lowered his sights, calling for Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate on just two of the core final status peace issues—borders and security arrangements—while deferring talks on some other thorny issues, such as the final disposition of Jerusalem or the fate of the Palestinian refugees. Curiously, after articulating the basis for a borders-for-security deal rather than dispatch his envoy to the Middle East, the president effectively shelved the issue. Frustrated with both Israeli prime minister Netanyahu and Palestinian president Abbas and consumed with other regional issues like Egypt, Libya, and the Arab uprisings, the Obama administration has downgraded the priority of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. Indeed, the administration has shifted from conflict resolution to conflict management. Once the president is sworn in on January 20, 2013, he will no doubt have to confront the question of how to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is probably safe to say that the century-old dispute will not have been resolved by then. Whether he wants to or not, come next January, the president will be forced to make some decisions about how best to approach the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Will the president, regardless of who he is, renew Obama’s original pledge and try to resolve the conflict? Or will he instead seek simply to manage it? The context in which he tackles this question will no doubt be dramatically different given. I address these questions as part of CFR’s Campaign 2012, a series of video briefings on the top foreign policy issues debated in the run-up to the 2012 U.S. elections. Check out the video below (also available on YouTube here), and please post a response suggesting what you think are the challenges the president is likely to face. http://youtu.be/XSahUPpljNc

Significant Middle East Developments Syria. President Bashar al-Assad gave a rare and defiant speech on Tuesday in which he once again blamed foreign conspirators, lashed out against other Arab states, and vowed to keep fighting ‘terrorists.’ I analyze his speech in a previous blog post available here. The Syrian National Council responded by pledging to continue the revolution and called for the Arab League to refer their plan to the United Nations Security Council. The Arab League continued to vacillate, deciding in an emergency meeting last Saturday to send more observers to Syria, only to then put off the decision on Wednesday after regime supporters attacked some observers. Two monitors quit this week, one citing gross humanitarian violations by the Syrian government. However, the Arab League itself remains divided. Algeria’s foreign minister said on Wednesday that the Syrian regime has taken measures to defuse the crisis and that it is the arming of the opposition that threatens further violence. Meanwhile, a French journalist, Gilles Jacquier, was killed when a shell exploded among a group of reporters on a government sponsored tour in Homs. He is the first Western reporter to die in Syria during the uprising. France immediately demanded an inquiry into the incident. Iran. A nuclear scientist, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, was killed on Tuesday when a magnetic bomb attached to his car exploded, making him the fourth Iranian nuclear expert to be targeted and the third to be killed in the past two years. Iran immediately blamed Israel and the United States and asked the UN on Wednesday for the killings to be condemned “in the strongest terms” as “inhumane terrorist acts.” The Obama administration strongly condemned the assassination and emphatically denied any U.S. involvement. The Iranian newspaper Kayhan, supervised by the Office of the Supreme Leader, called for retaliation against Israel. Jordan. King Abdullah is scheduled to meet President Obama at the White House on Tuesday, January 17. Meanwhile, Islamists continue to gain some of their former influence under the new government of Prime Minister Awn Khasawneh, the jurist who was appointed to improve the government’s relations with the opposition. This week, control of the charity Islamic Center was ceded back to the Muslim Brotherhood after being taken away in 2006. The center provides assistance to thousands of needy families has been central to the Muslim Brotherhood’s efforts to build support and image. Also this week in Jordan, a second protester publicly immolated himself to protest financial woes. Noteworthy U.S. Foreign Policy Developments The United States continues attempts to drum up international support for more robust sanctions targeting Iran’s oil exports. While Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was rebuffed in Beijing, he seems to have met with greater success in Japan, which announced on Thursday that it will scale back its imports of Iranian oil. The EU, a significant importer of Iranian oil, is also likely to pass sanctions on Iran’s oil, with Denmark predicting sanctions by the end of January. The new law that Obama signed on December 31 will punish foreign financial institutions that conduct business with Iran. The United States held its highest-level talks yet with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt on Wednesday, when visiting deputy secretary of state William Burns met with leaders of the Freedom and Justice Party. The meeting represents Washington’s shift in policy toward accommodation of the reality that Islamists are coming to power across the region. Quotes of the Week "We have had contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood over the decades through our embassy in Cairo. " – U.S. deputy secretary of state William Burns in an interview on Wednesday with CBC TV “It incites violence and confrontation between the parties. It’s a sort of denial of reality.” – French foreign minister Alain Juppe said Tuesday on Bashar al-Assad’s recent speech “I don’t know who settled the score with the Iranian scientist, but I certainly am not shedding a tear.”- Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai, the chief military spokesman for the IDF, in a Facebook statement. “I withdrew because I found myself serving the (Syrian) regime… I was giving the regime a greater chance to continue its killing and I could not prevent that… I spent more than fifteen days in Homs… I saw scenes of horror, burnt bodies… I cannot leave behind my humanity in this sort of situation.” – Anwar Malek, an Algerian member of the Arab League observer mission on why he chose to quit the mission on Tuesday While We Were Looking Elsewhere Yemen. On Sunday, Yemen’s cabinet approved a draft law granting former president Ali Abdullah Saleh and anyone who worked under him immunity from prosecution for crimes committed during his rule. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch all called on the Yemeni parliament to reject the law as it allows for the evasion of justice. Thousands of Yemenis protested on Thursday against granting Saleh immunity, however the U.S. State Department defended the law saying it had to be passed as it was a crucial part of the GCC-brokered power transfer agreement. Libya. The Libyan interim government requested and was granted an extension by the ICC until January 23 to clarify the legal status of Seif al-Islam, Muammar Qaddafi’s notorious son. Libya and the ICC are wrestling over whether Qaddafi will be tried in Libya or at The Hague. The question of how to deal with former leaders of oppressive regimes will continue to be a major issue in the Middle East as Hosni Mubarak’s trial drags on in Egypt, Ali Abdullah Saleh remains evasive about his plans to leave Yemen, and of course Bashar al-Assad clings to power as his troops kill forty Syrians a day. Gaza. Hamas “prime minister” Ismail Haniyeha returned on Tuesday from his first international trip since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007. He visited Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, and Turkey, and held meeting with senior officials. He is slated to take a second trip later this month to Iran, Qatar, and other Muslim countries. This Week in History January 11 marked the tenth anniversary of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp’s opening. The Bush administration established the facility in 2002 to hold what it dubbed “unlawful enemy combatants” from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and later Iraq. Upon its establishment, then secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld said: “unlawful combatants do not have rights under the Geneva Convention.” From the 1970s until the mid-1990s, Guantanamo Bay was used exclusively as a naval base to house Cuban and Haitian refugees intercepted on the high seas. On January 22, 2009, President Obama announced that the detention facility would be closed within the year. However, in January of 2011, Obama signed the 2011 Defense Authorization Bill which effectively stopped the closure of the detention facility. British prime minister David Cameron announced on Tuesday that Britain was working “very hard” with the United States to help close Guantanamo Bay, though its actual closure is not within sight. Statistic of the Week More than a third (37 percent) of the Palestinian public report that their support for Hamas has increased since the landmark prisoner swap deal last October in which more than one thousand Palestinian prisoners were exchanged for Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit. Only 10 percent of the Palestinian public report that their support for Hamas has fallen. These statistics are taken from a quarterly survey carried out by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research released on Tuesday.