Middle East and North Africa

Palestinian Territories

  • Middle East and North Africa
    Abbas and the "Right of Return" Will Defeat John Kerry
    When the Kerry negotiations fail to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian peace, many observers in Europe and even some in the United States will attribute the disappointment to Israel and especially to “Israel’s right wing government” under Prime Minister Netanyahu. One can reach that conclusion only by ignoring many statements being made and positions being taken by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The most recent remarks were made to young Fatah activists on March 6th and available at the MEMRI web site. Abbas’s subject was the “refugee” issue and the “right of return.” Here is an excerpt of what he said: Every Palestinian, from Canada to Japan – that includes the Palestinians living abroad as well – will have to agree on the proposal. They will vote in favor or against. If they say "no," the proposal will not pass.…The Right of Return is a personal right. If you are a refugee, your son is a refugee as well. Perhaps you will decide to relinquish this right while your son decides not to, or vice versa. Your son is free to do so. When we say that this is a personal choice, it means that he can decide for himself. We will all be making a choice: One option is to remain where we are – in Jordan, in Syria, in Lebanon, and so on – and receive compensation…Of course…The second option is to go to another country, as part of an agreement. If someone wants to emigrate to Canada, he is free to do so. Wherever one goes, one remains a Palestinian. In this case, he will receive compensation as well. The third option is to decide to return to the Palestinian state, and to receive compensation. He can also decide to return to the State of Israel. In such a case, he will receive compensation and return….All the refugees who number 5 million today, along with their offspring, are considered 1948 refugees. There are no refugees who came from Nablus or Ramallah. They are all from Tiberius, Safed, Acre, Nazareth, Jaffa, Beersheba, and so on. This is a remarkable statement and it pretty much kills the chances for a peace deal. Here’s why: In any real negotiation, Israel and the PLO will need to make compromises and it’s obvious that the PLO will have to abandon the idea that five million Palestinians have the right to move to Israel. No Israeli government will ever sign a deal that would leave Israel a majority Arab country. As President Bush put it in 2004, “It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair, and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel.” By making the “right of return” a personal right for each Palestinian, Abbas is saying the PLO has no right to negotiate over it and no right to sign a agreement that defeats or even limits that “right.” If that’s really the PLO position, there will never be an agreement. Second, if Abbas doesn’t really mean it, he is narrowing his own negotiating room to near zero and obviously not preparing his on people for the compromises peace will entail. Third, his definition of “refugee” is as broad as it could possibly be. According to Abbas, a Palestinian who left Israel in 1948 or 1967 has the right to move to Israel or to decline, but his “no” does not even bind his own foreign-born children. His son, and presumably grandson, who have never set foot in Israel and may well have citizenship in (for example) Canada have their own separate rights to move to Israel. Five million separate choices, says Abbas. Fourth, Abbas has every one of those people receiving compensation. Those who move to Palestine get compensation; those who “return” to Israel get compensation; those who move to Canada or stay in Canada get compensation, and so on. So, the young man or woman born in Jordan or Canada and having full citizenship there, and staying there, gets compensation. It’s a nice fantasy for a politician to describe—every Palestinian takes part in this bonanza—but it is just that: a fantasy. Once again, it has nothing to do with actually making the choices peace will require nor with preparing Palestinians for the real future. Finally, there’s nothing wrong with having a referendum on a major national choice. The Swiss do it all the time, the UK may hold one on the EU, the Scots will have one on staying in the UK, and the Palestinians and Israelis may have referenda on any peace deal. The question is who gets to vote, and Abbas wants not only those living in the West Bank and Gaza and eligible to vote in Palestinian Authority elections to have that right, but “every Palestinian, from Canada to Japan.” He says there are five million refugees. When he was elected president in 2005, there were 800,000 voters and that was considered a two-thirds turnout, suggesting 1.2 million eligible voters. That means nearly four million Palestinians not living in the West Bank or Gaza would be eligible, according to Abbas, or perhaps a smaller number when people too young to vote are subtracted—but still several times more than the voters living in what will become Palestine. It is obvious that a peace deal of remarkable balance and generosity in many and varied ways, but not granting the “right of return” that Abbas says belongs to every single Palestinian “refugee,” might well be rejected by Palestinians now in Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. They have just been told, now in 2014 in the middle of peace negotiations, that Abbas will get them the right to move to Israel , and also been told that everyone will be getting compensation. If the final deal does not give them the ability to move to Israel, or they don’t think the compensation is adequate, they may well  vote no. So Abbas’s maneuver here, as we approach the Kerry deadline in April, makes a genuine peace agreement unrealistic and in fact impossible. The terms he has just set forth will never be met. Rather than preparing for peace, he is not only making it impossible for himself to sign a deal, but also setting out terms that will make it impossible for his successors  to sign a deal.  
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams March 13, 2014 Pressure Points
  • Middle East and North Africa
    The Cost of the "Peace Process"
    The goal of Secretary of State Kerry’s energetic diplomacy with the Israelis and Palestinians is the two-state solution, which means the establishment of an independent, sovereign Palestine living at peace with its neighbor Israel. Or is it? What’s missing in that sentence is the word "democratic." Do we care? Once upon a time, the United States worked hard to give Yasser Arafat, a terrorist and thief, a state to rule. That policy was changed in the George W. Bush administration, when we began to care not only about the borders of the new Palestine but was within those borders. Bush said he would not support establishment of a Palestinian state if that state would just be another dictatorship, another kleptocracy, another home for terrorism. Today we appear to be back in the Arafat period--without Arafat to be sure, but with the same lack of concern about events in the real Palestine. Consider the new January, 2014 report of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights. Some highlights: Cases of torture and ill treatment during detention continued. Furthermore, it increased in the centers of the Preventive Security Agency in the West Bank. ICHR received 56 complaints of torture and ill treatment, 36 of which occurred in the Gaza Strip and 19 in the West Bank. ICHR received complaints of violations of the right to appropriate legal procedures during detention in breach of guarantees to a fair trial, which are enshrined in the basic law. Some official security and civil authorities still refrain from implementing courts’ decisions or procrastinate their implementation. ICHR received 8 complaints in this regard in addition to 16 other previous decisions. Furthermore, one of the inmates remained in prison despite completing his sentence. ICHR received complaints concerning expropriation of citizens’ property by security agencies in the West Bank without judicial order. ICHR received a number of complaints of violations concerning the right to freedom of expression, press, peaceful assembly and academic freedoms. It also received a number of complaints concerning assaults on persons, public and private properties. There are plenty of other reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists noted that "Despite the immense differences between the Israeli government, Fatah, and Hamas, they shared a common trait in 2013: a consistent and troublesome record of silencing journalists who reported dissenting perspectives....Local human rights organizations reported that the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank also obstructed coverage of protests, especially those in support of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt." Human Rights Watch, which is notably unsympathetic to Israel, reported that In the West Bank, Palestinian Authority (PA) security services beat peaceful demonstrators, and arbitrarily detained and harassed scores of journalists. Credible allegations of torture committed by the PA’s security services persisted. One could go on. For example, it is widely believed that corruption in the Palestinian Authority has exploded since the departure of former prime minister Salam Fayyad, who fought it. Reports on PA corruption are numerous: see this one, for example, or the Sunday Times of London story in October reporting that "billions of euros in European aid to the Palestinians may have been misspent, squandered or lost to corruption, according to a damning report by the European Court of Auditors, the Luxembourg-based watchdog." So, the question again arises: do we care, or are we indifferent to what goes on within the borders Secretary Kerry is trying to negotiate? Has the United States reverted to the position we had in the 1990s, when Yasser Arafat visited the White House 13 times and our policy goal was to hand him a state, no questions asked? How can it possibly contribute to the building of a decent, peaceful, democratic Palestine for the United States to appear--or worse yet, to be--indifferent to the actual conduct of the Palestinian Authority? Secretary Kerry and other U.S. officials have spoken often about the negotiations and their goals, but I do not recall any honest discussion of the problem of growing corruption and lawlessness in the Palestinian Authority. State Department spokesmen issue statement after statement about Israeli settlement activity, seemingly whenever one brick is laid atop another, yet ignore these serious issues. What kind of Palestine is it that the United States is seeking to create?    
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams February 13, 2014 Pressure Points
  • Middle East and North Africa
    "Soft Bigotry," Secretary Kerry, and the PLO
    Secretary of State Kerry continues to press forward in his negotiations with Israelis and Palestinians, seeking some sort of "framework" document that would be an acceptable basis for future negotiations. We’ve been here before: the "Roadmap" of 2003 was supposed to provide such a basis and was accepted--with reservations--by both sides. My guess is that Kerry will succeed, if success is defined as keeping both sides at the table. But what if success is defined as moving the Palestinians closer to having a decent, democratic political structure that can lay the foundation for eventual statehood? What has Kerry, and what has the Obama administration, demanded of the Israelis to move forward? At various times a freeze of all construction has been demanded, and for ten months prime minister Netanyahu complied. For this effort, which had a significant cost in Israel’s domestic politics, Israel and Netanyahu received no benefit. More recently, Israel has been pressured to release dozens of  convicted murderers from its prisons, at an even greater political cost. That cost was then increased several fold when the murderers were received by PLO chairman (and PA president) Abbas as honored citizens. And what has been demanded of the Palestinians? What will be demanded as part of the Kerry proposals? In my view, the answer is nothing--nothing at all. In a recent trip to the region I found universal agreement that in the last year corruption in the PA has increased greatly. The United States has not reacted in any way, thus delivering the message to Abbas that we do not care. The reception given to the murderers is just one piece of the overall picture of glorifying terrorism and terrorists, which continues apace. This is what is called "incitement" in the diplomatic lingo, and like its predecessors (including the Bush administration) the Obama administration complains occasionally but does nothing about it. And it is worth noting that Abbas was elected president in January 2005, and is in that sense in the tenth year of his four year term. There are no serious plans for elections, and once again the United States does not seem to care. So that’s the picture: in return for coming to the negotiating table, and now for staying at the table, we overlook everything else the PA/PLO does. We overlook the illegitimacy of the government, the glorification of terror, and the spreading corruption. The clear U.S. message is that nothing really counts but sitting down with Kerry and the Israelis. I have no doubt that whatever document Kerry produces will say something about "incitement" and perhaps even something about better "governance," a code word for reducing corruption.  And I have no doubt that six months later nothing will have changed. The Palestinians are not stupid and they can distinguish easily between real pressure and mere words. President Bush once noted the "soft bigotry of low expectations" in our domestic context, and the term is useful here. For it is bigotry to believe that more cannot realistically be expected from the Palestinians. And it is very damaging to any hope for a decent, democratic, independent state some day. Neither the political culture nor the institutions of democracy can be built this way. That was the great error of the Clinton administration, which dealt with Yasser Arafat as if he would one day be the George Washington of Palestine instead of the corrupt terrorist he was. The error is being repeated now, as we ask Abbas for one thing only--to sit at the table--and overlook all else. The irony here is that Abbas got his job as prime minister, in 2003, when the United States and the EU forced Arafat to create the post and fill it (and also put in Salam Fayyad as finance minister) because we came to believe that defining the borders of Palestine was not the prime goal. Instead, defining what would be within those borders was more important: was it to be a corrupt terrorist state, or one that was building toward a decent government under the rule of law? Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, Santayana famously said. Here we go again, drawing maps of border compromises when inside Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinians are further from developing the institutions they need than they were when Barack Obama came to office.    
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams February 2, 2014 Pressure Points
  • United States
    This Week: Syria’s Negotiations, Egypt’s Entrenchment, and Iran’s Inspections
    Significant Developments Syria. The first ever talks between the Syrian opposition and the Assad regime continue in Switzerland, with the Syrian government hinting yesterday it may be willing to accede to the 2012 Geneva I communique as a road map for the future. However, the Damascus government and the Syrian opposition fundamentally disagree over how to implement the document and its call for a political transition in Syria. Today, representatives from the Syrian government and opposition exchanged bitter accusations of responsibility for Syria’s violence. UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi expressed “some satisfaction” that the two sides have not walked out, reflecting the low expectations for the talks’ initial round. This first phase of direct face-to-face talks that began last Friday is set to finish tomorrow and will be followed by a weeklong break. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch released a new report today that documents the Syrian government’s razing of entire neighborhoods in Damascus and Hama. Ole Solvang, an emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch, described the demolitions as “wiping entire neighborhoods off the map.” Egypt. Defense Minister Abdel Fatah al-Sisi was endorsed by Egypt’s top military commanders for a potential presidential bid on Monday. The official endorsement by Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces came a few hours after interim president Adly Mansour promoted al-Sisi to the position of field marshal, the highest rank in the Egyptian Army. The generals also declared that Sisi’s broad public backing has made his candidacy an “obligation.” Meanwhile, Former president Morsi on Tuesday made his second appearance since his arrest following the July 3 military takeover in Egypt. Morsi sat locked in a soundproof glass cage that impeded him from speaking during most of the day’s proceedings. The Cairo Criminal Court charged twenty Al Jazeera reporters yesterday of joining or aiding a terrorist group. A statement released by prosecutors claimed that the journalists had released images to assist the Muslim Brotherhood in influencing international opinion. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said that, “The government’s targeting of journalists and others on spurious claims is wrong and demonstrates an egregious disregard for the protection of basic rights and freedoms.” Iran. UN nuclear inspectors reportedly visited an Iranian uranium mine yesterday, marking the first International Atomic Energy Agency visit to an Iranian uranium facility in nearly a decade. Allowing IAEA access to Gchine represents one of six steps that Iran agreed to under the November 11 cooperation agreement with the agency. President Obama argued against new Iran sanctions in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, saying that, “For the sake of our national security, we must give diplomacy a chance to succeed.” He acknowledged that sanctions had made a deal with Iran possible, but warned Congress that he would veto any new sanctions bill. U.S. Foreign Policy Syria. Reuters reported on Tuesday that the United States is supplying “light arms” to moderate Syrian rebels and that Congress has approved funding for further deliveries through September 30, the end of the fiscal year. Lawmakers reportedly approved the funding in classified sections of defense funding legislation. The unclassified defense appropriations bill was passed in late December, but it is unclear when the closed door vote on supplying arms occurred. Israel-Palestine. Saeb Erekat, the chief negotiator for the Palestinian Authority, visited Washington on Tuesday to discuss the ongoing peace negotiations. Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to present the parties with a draft framework agreement sometime in the next few weeks. Israeli negotiators—Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Yitzhak Molcho—visited Washington last week to meet Kerry. Jordan. U.S. deputy secretary of state William Burns was received by King Abdullah on Wednesday when the two reportedly discussed regional developments and Arab-Israeli peace efforts. Speaking about the Syrian peace talks in Geneva at a press conference, Burns said that it is “the beginning of a long and difficult process aimed at political transition” and that “the key will remain the transition to a new leadership.” The White House announced yesterday that President Obama will meet King Abdullah on February 14 at the Annenberg Estate in Rancho Mirage, California. While We Are Looking Elsewhere Tunisia. A new technocratic government headed by interim prime minister Medhi Jomaa was sworn in yesterday, coming on the heels of the country’s official adoption of a new constitution on Monday. Earlier this week, Jomaa appealed to the international community, stating that “this sensitive phase of democratic transition…will need some economic reforms and sources of financing.”  The IMF announced today the release of a $500 million loan that had been delayed for months due to political instability. Iraq. Six suicide bombers attacked the Iraqi transportation ministry in Baghdad today, killing at least twenty-four people. While no group has claimed responsibility, Iraqi security officials blamed the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which is an al-Qaeda linked group that seized control of Fallujah earlier this month. Yemen.  Following the conclusion ceremony of reconciliation talks on Saturday, Yemeni president Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi assigned a newly-formed committee on Monday with the task of exploring options to transform Yemen into a federation. The committee will explore dividing the country into two or six zones. The result will be written into a new constitution scheduled to be completed within a year. Libya. New fighting erupted in the city of Sebha on Tuesday between supporters of former ruler Muammar Qaddafi and government forces and former rebels. The clash was sparked by the arrival of government reinforcements deployed to dislodge the Qaddafi supporters from several positions in the urban area. Israel-Palestine. Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said in an interview on Tuesday that he would accept a gradual three-year Israeli withdrawal from the occupied West Bank. Abbas was reportedly responding to Israeli defense minister Moshe Yaalon’s challenge on the effectiveness of the Palestinian leader’s security commitments. “I am saying that clearly: whoever proposes 10 or 15 years for a transition period does not want to withdraw,” Abbas stated. “We say that a transitional period not exceed three years, during which Israel can withdraw gradually.” The interview was broadcast at the Institute for National Security Studies conference in Tel Aviv. Meanwhile, the Shin Bet and Israeli police have arrested sixteen East Jerusalem residents on suspicion of funding Hamas activity in the city. Authorities suspect that Hamas has been funding an educational program in Jerusalem’s Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount area, paying Muslims to stay in the area in order to increase the Islamic presence there.
    Blog Post by Robert Danin January 30, 2014 Middle East Matters
  • Middle East and North Africa
    Aiming for Israeli-Palestinian Peace
    Secretary of State Kerry continues his energetic efforts to get the Israelis and Palestinians to sign a comprehensive peace agreement. In a new Policy Innovation Memo for the Council, I argue that such an agreement is not possible right now and that there’s a better way forward. The memo begins this way: The Obama administration is fostering Israeli-Palestinian negotiations aimed at a full and final peace agreement. While the talks last they help calm the regional political situation, but they do nothing to improve Palestinian daily life or help build the institutions of a future Palestinian state. If they fail, as all past efforts have, they may leave behind frustration and bitterness. Even so, negotiations should not be abandoned, but should be buttressed by a simultaneous effort to undertake pragmatic steps that support Palestinian institutions, improve life in the West Bank, and strengthen the Palestinian Authority (PA) against Hamas. The cost of our focus on a comprehensive agreement has been that the United States has rarely pushed hard for immediate, meaningful, on-the-ground changes. We think we are "aiming high" and that "aiming low" shows insufficient ambition, but realistic moves that help prepare the Palestinian people for statehood are in fact a better bet than the search for that elusive handshake on the White House lawn. The memo offers some concrete suggestions for U.S. policy, and concludes this way: While today’s political-level peace negotiations can provide an essential umbrella for pragmatic steps, focusing solely on achieving a full final status agreement is too risky. Practical on-the-ground improvements are beneficial in themselves and can improve chances for an eventual negotiated settlement. They will also strengthen the PA and its ability to engage in the compromises any full peace agreement will require. Supporting the construction of a Palestinian state from the ground up, strengthening Palestinian institutions, and seeking pragmatic Israeli-Palestinian cooperation should be the center of U.S. policy now, not the handmaiden to a policy aimed at a comprehensive but currently unattainable final peace agreement. The full text is found here.
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams January 15, 2014 Pressure Points
  • Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
    The Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations: Aiming "Low" or "High"
    The Obama administration is fostering Israeli-Palestinian negotiations aimed at a full and final peace agreement. While the talks last they help calm the regional political situation, but they do nothing to improve Palestinian daily life or help build the institutions of a future Palestinian state. If they fail, as all past efforts have, they may leave behind frustration and bitterness. Even so, negotiations should not be abandoned, but should be buttressed by a simultaneous effort to undertake pragmatic steps that support Palestinian institutions, improve life in the West Bank, and strengthen the Palestinian Authority (PA) against Hamas. While today's political-level peace negotiations can provide an essential umbrella for such steps, focusing solely on achieving a full "final status agreement" is too risky. Practical "on-the-ground" improvements are beneficial in themselves and can improve chances for an eventual negotiated settlement. Moreover, because such steps do not violate the interests of the Israeli or Palestinian sides, they can be pursued without continuing the top-level U.S. intervention that other and often higher U.S. policy priorities may require. The Cost of "Aiming High" At least since the Oslo Accords in 1993, Washington has sought to broker a comprehensive peace agreement to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab conflict. Those efforts have failed, and they have damaged the prestige of both U.S. administrations and Palestinian leaders. Had the moderate leadership that emerged under President Mahmoud Abbas and former prime minister Salam Fayyad achieved a peace agreement and created a Palestinian state, it would have been greatly strengthened vis-à-vis Hamas and other terrorist groups. When this failed to occur, the PA's main argument against Hamas—that Hamas could only deliver violence, while they could deliver a state—was weakened. The United States has contributed to this problem by "aiming high." The cost of Washington's focus on a comprehensive agreement has been that it has rarely pushed hard for immediate, on-the-ground changes that would be meaningful to Palestinians—such as more jobs in Israel or more control over larger areas of the West Bank. Such changes do not reflect a lack of ambition or vision; rather, they can be characterized as "preparing for statehood," and would suggest to Palestinians that their affairs are being competently handled by the current leadership and that they have much to lose from the violent actions and extreme politics of terrorist groups. The United States can, as a matter of policy, seek both a long-term, comprehensive deal and take incremental, preparatory steps. But top officials have limited time and energy, and focusing on the former has crowded out the latter. The rebalancing of policy from focusing exclusively on a final and comprehensive deal to examining preparatory steps as well means more than just rearranging diplomatic talking points. It requires reorienting U.S. policy after decades of aiming high and falling short. It also requires a new understanding of how a Palestinian state will be built: not at the United Nations or even at the negotiating table but, rather, in the West Bank. While the U.S. timetable of nine months to negotiate a full peace agreement and the longer time needed for pragmatic steps to bear fruit appear out of sequence, the opposite is true. A final peace agreement will take many years, and the effects of practical steps can be felt far sooner. And because such steps do not threaten Israeli security or the PA's role in the West Bank, they should be agreeable to both sides. Negotiations and Practical Steps Taking incremental steps is not an argument against seeking comprehensive peace negotiations. The renewal of peace negotiations is useful, if only to demonstrate that the ultimate goal of a comprehensive agreement has not been abandoned. But it is unlikely that new negotiations will make progress in the near future; the most any Israeli government seems able to offer is less than the least any Palestinian government seems able to accept. The United States should help the PA emerge from a state of financial crisis. The PA depends on foreign aid for survival, because it cannot pay salaries or provide public services on its meager tax revenues. This objective will require maintaining U.S. aid at current levels, pressing the EU to do the same, and pushing Arab oil-exporting countries to provide additional aid. It will also mean pressing Israel to transfer PA tax monies it has intermittently withheld since the Palestinian statehood initiative in the United Nations. A bankrupt PA that cannot pay salaries will not survive. The United States should encourage Israel to take further steps to improve the Palestinian economy. In the last four years, Israel has removed some barriers and checkpoints that interfere with mobility in the West Bank, granted permission for Israeli Arabs to shop there, and created more opportunities for residents there to work in Israel. In September 2013, with negotiations under way, Israel granted five thousand more work permits, and during Ramadan it permitted hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to enter Israel to shop, visit holy sites, and meet with family members. It should be a top priority of U.S. policy to seek the continuation and enlargement of these steps. Israel should limit construction in settlements to the major blocs that, in all previous negotiations, have been understood that Israel will keep. The logic is obvious: limiting construction to the major blocs would signal that Israel does intend ultimately to enter into an agreement that establishes a Palestinian state in the rest of the West Bank. Israeli coalition politics makes achieving these limits difficult, but the United States will have a better chance if it drops the politically impossible demand that Israel cease construction in Jerusalem and all the major blocs and focus instead on outlying settlements. Israel should minimize its incursions in Palestinian territory and undertake only those with significant security payoffs. In areas of the West Bank, Palestinians feel the Israeli presence outside of settlements through their interactions with Israeli security forces: the Israeli Defense Force, police, and Shin Bet (the Israel Security Agency). Raids in urban areas are particularly likely to result in violence, as they have on several occasions in 2013. Such incidents severely damage essential Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation. The United States should publicly ask for explanations by the government of Israel when such raids do occur. The United States should encourage Israeli security forces and courts to prevent and penalize settler violence against Palestinians, which has increased in recent years. The United States should seek investigations and prosecutions of such incidents. The United States should be willing to criticize and sometimes penalize the PA whenever it glorifies violence or those who have committed acts of terror. This issue, known as preventing "incitement," goes to the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian relationship and the chances for peace. The U.S. government should publicly criticize actions that glorify violence and terror, and demand PA responses that address U.S. criticism. Financial penalties undermine U.S. efforts to help the West Bank economy but can drive home the message to the PA that this issue is viewed as serious. Given U.S. aid levels of over $400 million per year, penalties of several million dollars in the direct budget support portion (roughly $200 million) will not bankrupt the PA; conversely, the absence of them sends the message that such conduct does not matter or that U.S. complaints may be ignored. Hamas will denounce practical steps as "making the occupation more tolerable." But, in fact, steps that improve life for Palestinians and help them build state institutions are beneficial in themselves and create a positive background for serious talks and improve their chances of success. Moreover, such steps would help the PA demonstrate its efficacy to the Palestinian people today, when it cannot deliver statehood (and indeed when Fayyad's departure suggests that the PA may be hard put to deliver clean and effective governance); it will need that credibility to sell the compromises that any final status agreement will entail. None of this will transform the Palestinian political situation, but it can at least prevent a further deterioration in PA popularity. Those who focus instead on achieving a comprehensive peace are allowing their hopes to crowd out the pragmatic steps that are the most realistic path forward. The Next Three Years While today's political-level peace negotiations can provide an essential umbrella for pragmatic steps, focusing solely on achieving a full final status agreement is too risky. Practical on-the-ground improvements are beneficial in themselves and can improve chances for an eventual negotiated settlement. They will also strengthen the PA and its ability to engage in the compromises any full peace agreement will require. Supporting the construction of a Palestinian state from the ground up, strengthening Palestinian institutions, and seeking pragmatic Israeli-Palestinian cooperation should be the center of U.S. policy now, not the handmaiden to a policy aimed at a comprehensive but currently unattainable final peace agreement.
    Policy Innovation Memorandum by Elliott Abrams January 13, 2014
  • United States
    Israel’s Ariel Sharon: Always Seizing the Offensive
    Former prime minister Ariel Sharon began every meeting I ever attended with U.S. officials with a greeting that always made me chuckle: “You are mostly welcome.” That welcome revealed his flawed English and perfectly reflected his ambivalence and apprehension about American efforts: He recognized that the United States was the best friend Israel had ever known. But he was ever suspicious that Washington might pressure him into something he did not want to do. Sharon could wipe the floor with U.S. diplomats he didn’t want to hear from, blocking them from enunciating a single talking point by subjecting them to a lengthy discourse on centuries of Jewish suffering. But I also witnessed a painfully shy man largely silent through lunch with the U.S. president, allowing his longstanding and deeply trusted aide, Dov Weissglas, carry the discussion with hilarious anecdotes. One of the most important lessons that Sharon applied to the battlefield and to politics was that Israel had to seize the initiative, not simply react to events. He, more than any, appreciated the country’s basic security dilemma: while possessing a strong and highly motivated army, Israel is dwarfed in size and numbers by an inhospitable region. For him, taking the initiative was the enduring legacy of Jewish history, of his military experience, and of his political success. With the country’s narrow waist of just fifteen kilometers and lack of territorial depth, Sharon embodied the doctrine of taking the offensive and rapidly moving the battle deep into enemy territory. This notion informed Sharon’s battlefield tactics in the 1948 war, his leadership of the infamous Unit 101, his inventive battlefield leadership in Sinai during the 1956 and 1967 wars, and the controversial invasion of Lebanon to eradicate the PLO from Beirut in 1982. The means were sometimes brutal and bloody. But Sharon applied the lesson of seizing the initiative to the political arena as well. As prime minister, Sharon unilaterally withdrew Israeli troops and some eight thousand settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005. The move was bold and wrenching for the country. Sharon was forced to leave the Likud and form a new party to do it. But after seeing negotiations with the Palestinians fall apart, Sharon had become convinced that the United States or the international community would present Israel with peace plans he did not like. So he upended everything by launching his Gaza initiative, reversing his longstanding commitment to Israel’s presence there when he calculated that the costs of occupation far outweighed the benefits. I suspect that were Sharon with us today, he would come up with an imaginative initiative to drive efforts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and counter the danger to his country posed by efforts to isolate or delegitimize Israel in various international fora and organizations. Sharon would likely calculate that for Israel to have maximum influence internationally to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions, it would require a daring new approach that had been fully coordinated in advance with the United States. Moreover, as his former advisers readily concede today, Sharon would recognize that the Palestinian Authority is successfully doing the one thing he always wanted them to do: taking real responsibility for fighting terrorism and providing security for themselves, and by extension Israel. We can never know how Sharon would have led Israel in today’s tumultuous Middle East. But we can be fairly certain that he would have not been purely reactive, given his view that the best defense was a strong offense. Somehow, it is likely he would have initiated a bold approach, most likely one that seems inconceivable to the rest of us today.
    Blog Post by Robert Danin January 11, 2014 Middle East Matters
  • United States
    This Week: Syrian Pre-Negotiations, Egyptian Convictions, and more U.S. Shuttle Diplomacy
    Significant Developments Syria. Representatives from various Syrian opposition groups-- including some Islamist factions-- met in Cordoba, Spain today to try to forge common ground before the scheduled peace talks with the Assad regime on January 22 in Switzerland. Secretary of State John Kerry floated the idea earlier this week that Iran could play a role from the sidelines, saying that, “Can their mission that is already in Geneva...be there in order to help the process? It may be that there are ways that could happen.” Meanwhile, the first shipment of chemical weapons materials were shipped out of Latakia on Tuesday, a week after the initial December 31 deadline. Bassam Sabbagh, Syria’s representative to the OPCW, alleged yesterday that rebels had carried out two unsuccessful attacks again chemical weapons depots. Also yesterday, Russia blocked a British-drafted Security Council statement that would have expressed outrage over the Assad regime’s brutal airstrikes in Aleppo that have reportedly killed more than 700 people since December 15. The UN’s human rights office announced on Tuesday that it has stopped updating the death toll from Syria’s civil war because of the inability to verify information. The last official count was of at least 100,000 people killed in July. Egypt. Egyptian courts today convicted 113 supporters of ousted president Morsi for destroying property and violating the recently passed protest law. Morsi’s own trial was postponed yesterday by Egyptian authorities who claimed inclement weather prevented Morsi’s transportation from Alexandria to Cairo. The new trial date is February 1. Meanwhile, Egypt’s foreign ministry summoned the Iranian charge d’affaires on Monday to protest earlier comments by an Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson expressing Iran’s concern about the rise in violence in Egypt. At least seventeen people were killed last Friday when supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood clashed with police. U.S. Foreign Policy Israel-Palestine. U.S. ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro told Israel Radio on Tuesday that Secretary of State Kerry would likely present a draft framework for continued negotiations in a few weeks or a month. Shapiro’s comments came a day after Kerry finished his tenth trip to Israel and the West Bank in a quest for a comprehensive peace agreement. Israeli prime minister Netanyahu reportedly refused Kerry’s request to agree to a formula to allow some Palestinian refugees to return. Kerry is slated to return to the Middle East next week, but a stop in Israel, earlier hinted at by U.S. officials, was not included on the announced travel itinerary. Saudi Arabian and Jordan.  In stops in Amman and Riyadh, Secretary of State Kerry reportedly asked the kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia to support Israel’s demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, a senior Israeli official said Tuesday. Kerry is reportedly exploring urging the Arab Peace Initiative committee to adopt adding language recognizing Israel as a Jewish State when he meets with API representatives next week in Paris. Libya. According to the New York Times, the State Department is preparing to officially apply the terrorist designation to two Libyan militant organizations and one individual in connection to the attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi. The designations would apply to Ansar al-Sharia of Benghazi, Ansar al-Sharia of Derna and to Ahmed Abu Khattala, who is thought to have played a key role in the attack. The designation would allow U.S. officials to freeze financial assets. While We Were Looking Elsewhere Tunisia. Interim prime minister Ali Larayedh resigned today to make way for an independent caretaker government. Larayedh’s resignation is part of an agreement that the ruling Islamist Ennahda made with the opposition to hand over power after a new constitution had been written and an electoral commission had been set up to oversee elections. An independent authority was established yesterday to oversee new elections and the new constitution is on track to be approved by the January 14 deadline. Industry Minister Mehdi Jomaa will replace Larayedh and is expected to present his new cabinet next week. Iran. Iran and the EU held talks in Geneva today about implementing the November interim nuclear agreement. U.S. nuclear negotiator Wendy Sherman was also in Geneva for the talks. However, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said just hours before that the talks showed the “enmity of America against Iran, Iranians, Islam and Muslims.” Libya. Prime Minister Ali Zeidan announced yesterday that he will reshuffle his cabinet in the next two weeks and bring in technocrats and independents. Members of the General National Congress tried to pass a no confidence vote on Tuesday, but discussions have been pushed back to next week.  Meanwhile, Zeidan also warned that Libya may sink oil tankers trying to enter eastern ports seized by armed rebels after the Libyan navy fired shots over the weekend to ward off a tanker headed toward the rebel-held ports. The Cyrenaica regional authority, which is seeking more autonomy in eastern Libya, took over three oil ports six months ago. Jordan. Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein, the Jordanian ambassador to the United Nations, called on UNSC members to visit Syrian refugee camps in Jordan on Monday in his first address to the press since Jordan assumed the rotating presidency of the UNSC. Prince Hussein also noted that, “there should not be a use of veto in certain situations where there is genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes." Iraq. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki predicted victory in a televised address yesterday as the Iraqi army prepared to launch a major offensive against al-Qaeda militants who hold parts of Fallujah. Maliki acknowledged international support, saying that it is “giving us the confidence that we are moving on the right course.” Last week, members of the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which is also battling both Assad’s regime and more moderate rebels in Syria, overran parts of Fallujah and another city in Anbar province. Kuwait. Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah swore in seven new cabinet ministers on Tuesday, including a new oil minister. The cabinet reshuffle follows an order from Kuwaiti emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah. It is the sixth cabinet since Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah was appointed in November 2011. Gaza-West Bank. The Hamas government in Gaza released seven imprisoned members of Fatah yesterday in an effort to promote reconciliation. On Monday, Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh announced that Fatah members could return to Gaza “without any preconditions,” but Ahmad Assad, a Fatah spokesman, dismissed the announcement as “superficial.” Bahrain. The Bahraini government suspended reconciliation talks with the Shiite opposition yesterday. The talks began last February, but five major opposition groups stopped attending meetings in September in protest of the arrest of Khalil al-Marzouq, a prominent member of main opposition group al-Wefaq.
    Blog Post by Robert Danin January 9, 2014 Middle East Matters
  • Middle East and North Africa
    Confidence-destroying Measures
    Working toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, negotiators always seek "confidence-building measures" or CBMs. These moves are supposed to show good faith and convince the other side to undertake equal steps, or perhaps even more important to show the other side’s good faith. Today the Kerry negotiations use prisoner releases as such a CBM, designed mostly to keep PLO chairman Abbas at the conference table. But the prisoner releases are not CBMs; they are CDMs, confidence-destroying measures. With some American pressure, Prime Minister Netanyahu has released a third tranche of long-serving security prisoners --murderers, to be exact. The first thing this does is diminish confidence in the United States. After all, we never do this; we never release murderers or terrorists from our prisons for political reasons. That we expect Israel to do so teaches Israelis that we will ask Israel to take risks we would not take, and do not fully understand the security situation they face. And the releases certainly diminish confidence in the Palestinians as peace partners. Today’s Daily Telegraph in London explains why: Twenty-six inmates incarcerated since before the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords were given a hero’s welcome in the West Bank city of Ramallah after being freed from Israeli custody early on Tuesday. They were the third of four batches of prisoners Israel agreed to release last July, as part of the price for re-starting long-stalled peace talks with the Palestinians. But scenes of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, kissing and hugging each prisoner after their release provoked revulsion in Israel, with critics complaining that most of the inmates had been convicted of murdering Israelis. "Each one of us sees this and we ask ourselves, can we make peace with these people, who welcome murderers with flowers as if they were heroes," Silvan Shalom, the Israeli regional development minister, told Israel Radio. "If these are their heroes, if this is what they show the young generation, that these loathsome murderers are heroes, can we make peace with them? What kind of education is this for children?" Who is being released? Here are some of the stories, from the Jerusalem Post: Damouni Saad Mohammed Ahmed will be released to the Gaza Strip this week more than 20 years after he was convicted of taking part in the brutal lynching of IDF reservist Amnon Pomerantz, who took a wrong turn into a refugee camp in the coastal territory in 1990 – he was beaten to death before his car was set alight by firebombs. Shakir Alifu Musbach Nufal will be released to his home in the West Bank this week, some 27 years after he was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the kidnapping and murder of then- 21-year-old IDF soldier Shaltiel Akiva on Passover night in 1985. Two Fatah terrorists, Samarin Mustafa Kalib Asrar and Kra’an Azat Musa Musa, were convicted in the 1992 abduction and murder of Israeli soldier Tzvi Klein in the West Bank in 1992. Yosef Mahmad Haza Haza was only 17 when he and a friend murdered hikers Leah Elmakayis and Yossi Eliyahu at a forest on the Gilboa mountain range in 1985. Abed al Raba Nimr Jabril Issa is also set to be released following his conviction for the murder of hikers Revital Seri and Ron Levy in 1984. Fatah member Abu-Dahila Hasan Atik Sharif will be released to the West Bank 21 years after his arrest for the murder of Avi Osher, who employed him for 15 years at his Jordan Valley farm before Sharif beat and stabbed him to death. The list includes Amer Massoud Issa Rajib, one of those convicted in the murder of Ian Feinberg, who was hacked and shot to death in April 1993 in the Gaza Strip, where he had been working on economic revitalization plans for the area. One can perhaps forgive a murderer’s family for greeting him with kisses; one cannot forgive the highest authorities of the PA and PLO for doing so, and Silvan Shalom is right in asking what lesson this teaches all Palestinians. Palestinian leaders refuse to make any moral distinctions, separating those who committed crimes of violence from those who did not nor even --the very least that might be expected-- separating those who killed soldiers from those who killed civilians. The official Palestinian glorification of those who murdered Israelis is now the backdrop to Secretary’s arrival in Israel today to advance "peace."  
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams January 1, 2014 Pressure Points
  • Middle East and North Africa
    Protests About Palestinians
    There were protests this week about some construction notices issued by the Government of Israel. In tandem with the release of murderers from Israeli prisons--something the United States has indefensibly pushed--the Netanyahu government has sought to appease complaints within Israel by announcing new construction in settlements. Mind you, whether the construction will actually take place, or when, is unclear; the protests come nevertheless. The New York Times reported that Palestinian leaders threatened that any new settlement activity could lead them to seek membership and sue Israel in the International Criminal Court, a move they had promised not to take during peace talks that started this summer. European diplomats warned the Israelis in a series of high-level meetings over the past week against pairing the prisoner release with a construction announcement, as was done twice before. The Jerusalem Post reported that The European Union will strongly object to any new announcements of Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank, a senior EU diplomat told Channel 10....The unnamed diplomat said "there will be very little understanding from the European governments" if Israel plans to announce further construction beyond the Green Line next week following the release of a third group of Palestinian security prisoners. "Israel needs expect a harsh reaction from the European governments if it intends to go in that direction," the official said. What makes these threats and protests noteworthy is the context. For the Daily Star of Beirut reported this today: At least 15 Palestinians have died of hunger since September in a besieged refugee camp in the Syrian capital Damascus, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees told AFP on Monday. "Reports have come in over the weekend that at least five Palestinian refugees in the besieged refugee camp of Yarmuk in Damascus have died because of malnutrition, bringing the total number of reported cases to 15," UN Relief and Works Agency spokesman Chris Gunness told AFP. He warned of a deteriorating situation in the camp, where some 20,000 Palestinians are trapped, with limited food and medical supplies. No threats from the EU about this. No reports of a "harsh reaction." No "series of high level meetings." Israel announces plans for constructing homes and the threat to Palestinians gets the EU into high gear. In Syria, Palestinians starve to death and no one at "high levels" in Europe appears to notice. This is not "new news," of course; it has long been obvious that most of the tears about the suffering of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are crocodile tears. But the events this week certainly drive the point home: more attention is paid, more protests are lodged, when Israel issues a press release than when Syria starves Palestinians to death.  
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams December 31, 2013 Pressure Points
  • Palestinian Territories
    Arafat and al-Jazeera: Manufacturing Trouble
    This week Russian experts added their voices to those of French experts who had examined Yasser Arafat’s remains to determine if he was poisoned. "French experts have ruled out a theory that Yasser Arafat was killed by poisoning," AFP reported several weeks ago. Now BBC reports that "Announcing its conclusions on Thursday, the head of Russia’s Federal Medical-Biological Agency (FMBA), Vladimir Uiba, said ’Yasser Arafat died not from the effects of radiation but of natural causes.’" But the third team, the Swiss, came to a different conclusion--that Arafat might have been poisoned. The striking thing about the Swiss "investigation" is that it was inspired and financed by al-Jazeera. The report itself is on al-Jazeera stationery, and the opening lines reveal that the entire thing was invented by al-Jazeera. At al-Jazeera’s web site, here, huge amounts of attention are devoted to proving that Arafat was poisoned. There are an amazing 41 "news" stories and documents listed under the headline "Al Jazeera Investigates: Killing Arafat." The other teams were not bought and paid for by al-Jazeera and they reached the opposite conclusion. In fact this recent hullabaloo about how Arafat died represents not new science or new evidence, but an effort by al-Jazeera to create trouble. It is yet another proof that al-Jazeera continued to operate in 2013 without the restraints of a normal news medium and should not be regarded as one. The government of Qatar --which owns al-Jazeera-- changed during this year; there is a new emir and some speculation that he will rein in Qatari foreign policy. Thus far he has not reined in al-Jazeera, and its pretensions to be a Middle Eastern version of CNN or BBC should be rejected. This entire Arafat/poisoning affair shows us that al-Jazeera continues to pursue political goals and to manufacture what it hopes to persuade us is "news."    
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams December 26, 2013 Pressure Points
  • Middle East and North Africa
    The Kerry Negotiations
    Secretary of State Kerry continues his "peace process" efforts at hammering out a comprehensive deal, or at least a framework deal, between Israelis and Palestinians. Two recent articles are reminders that he is unlikely to succeed. In the first, The Arab League says it rejects a continued Israeli troop presence on the eastern border of a future state of Palestine, a proposal Palestinians say was floated by the U.S. earlier this month. Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby said Saturday no peace deal would work with Israeli presence in a Palestinian state. Why is this critical? Because Palestinian president Abbas is hiding behind the Arab League, as the second article shows: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas informed the Arab League about the upcoming proposal, saying it would contain US suggestions regarding the borders of the future Palestinian state, Sbeih said. Abbas told the League that "once he receives the American proposal he will not respond but will present it to Arab nations to make a joint decision." In other words, Abbas won’t anger Kerry by saying "no." He will have the Arab League say no, and then he can tell Kerry "my hands are tied." That second article, from the Palestinian news agency Ma’an, also sets out Abbas’s views: - Abbas would accept a Palestinian state with the entirety of East Jerusalem as its capital, with limited land swaps as long as the lands being traded were of equal value. - He would accept an incremental withdrawal of Israeli troops from Palestinian land, allowing them up to three years to leave. - He would reject the idea of any permanent Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley, but would welcome an international peacekeeping presence. - He would refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. - He would reject any interim agreement, calling instead for a final solution. - He would reject any proposal that required Palestine to be an unarmed state, but said he would not get involved in an "arms race." Perhaps those are negotiating positions, meant to abandoned as soon as real talks begin, but I doubt it--and that is why a comprehensive deal between Israel and the PLO is not in the cards. For example when Abbas talks of "the entirety of east Jerusalem" he includes areas that Israel will not give up--and perhaps he even means the Western Wall and Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, which were after all part of Jordanian-ruled Jerusalem until 1967. If he rejects an interim agreement, he is rejecting the only form of agreement that’s realistic today. And as to Palestinian arms, it has been agreed for many years that a Palestinian state would have to be "demilitarized." It isn’t clear what that means, nor what he means by rejecting "unarmed." It has long been understood that that state would have police forces and some equivalent to a national gendarmerie, but would not have an air force or an army with heavy weaponry--and would not have military alliances with other states that could threaten Israel. The only good news here is Abbas’s statement that while Israel could not have a "permanent" military presence in the Jordan Valley, he appears to understand that withdrawal will not be immediate.  Abbas suggests three years; Secretary Kerry has apparently suggested 10 or 15. Of greater interest are the news stories reporting that it was not Israel but Jordan that convinced Kerry that the IDF must stay that long to protect the security of Israel, Jordan, and the new state of Palestine. It must have been a wake-up call for Kerry to hear that line not in Jerusalem, but in Amman. Kerry is apparently seeking a sort of "framework agreement," meaning that he understands a comprehensive agreement is currently impossible but the Palestinians won’t accept an interim agreement. In my view a framework agreement is a bad choice. Here’s why: in a final agreement both sides make extremely difficult concessions and compromises but get a lot for it. The Palestinians in theory get their sovereign state, and the Israelis get peace with all the Arab states and an end of the conflict and all claims against them. In a framework agreement, the concessions and compromises are announced so the political cost is very high--but neither side gets anything for it. They pay the price and get no reward for doing so. Why would any political leader go for that? It has been suggested that if Kerry outlines a framework agreement and the sides both reject it (i.e., say they cannot accept all of it), the EU will introduce the text as a UN resolution. That’s plausible, but where does it get anyone? Not one step closer to peace.  
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams December 23, 2013 Pressure Points
  • Israel
    Crucial Stage for Mideast Talks
    As Israelis and Palestinians balk at compromises pushed by the United States, Secretary of State John Kerry is back in the region trying to keep talks on track, says CFR’s Robert Danin.
    Interview with Robert Danin and Bernard Gwertzman December 11, 2013
  • United States
    Israel’s Three UN Allies
    Just over a week ago the UN General Assembly voted to call 2014 the  ”International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.” The vote was 100 for to 7 against, with 56 abstentions.  This is a standard outcome in the General Assembly where Israel is concerned. The General Assembly passed an additional five resolutions about Israel, maintaining its obsessive, ridiculous, and indefensible record of attacking the Jewish State. Who were the six countries that voted with Israel? Three were Pacific Island nations: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau.  And three were (begging the pardon of those tiny island states) "real" countries: the United States, Australia, and Canada. Once upon a time Israel got some votes in Latin America but those days are past, and the EU tends to vote as a bloc most of the time and to find consensus only on abstention. The votes of Canada and Australia are particularly worthy of note. Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Foreign Minister John Baird, Canada has proved to be a resolute and determined friend of Israel. Australia under Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard was not, but as in Canada elections have consequences. The new prime minister, Tony Abbott, sworn in on September 28th, and new Foreign Minister Julie Bishop have swung Australia back to the position of the previous conservative government of John Howard. As the newspaper The Australian editorialized, TONY Abbott and Julie Bishop intend to reverse the anti-Israel direction in Australia’s voting pattern in UN resolutions that Kevin Rudd oversaw as prime minister and foreign minister, and which Bob Carr continued. This is an immensely important sign of the Coalition government’s values and direction. Canberra will revert to the voting pattern established by John Howard and [foreign minister] Alexander Downer: less ambiguous, less apologetic, more straightforward in support of the only democracy in the Middle East. It is shameful to see the General Assembly continuing to single out Israel for malign attention, and shameful that so many democracies choose to abstain on resolutions that merit an easy "No" vote. But Israel can be proud of the three great democracies that voted with her, as we can be proud to be one of them.    
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams December 10, 2013 Pressure Points
  • Palestinian Territories
    Palestinians From Syria: The Worst Treatment of All
    There are over 500,000 Palestinian "refugees" in Syria, as counted by the UN agency handling Palestinian "refugees," the UN Relief and Works Agency or UNRWA. The quotation marks are especially apt in this case, for the great majority of the "refugees" were born in Syria and have lived there all their lives. Only under UNRWA’s definitions of "refugee" (Palestinians who left what is now Israel in 1948, and all of their descendants until the end of time) would they qualify. According to UNRWA: Palestine refugees in Syria have been severely affected by the armed conflict in the country, with virtually all their residential areas experiencing armed engagements or the use of heavy weapons. The number of Palestine refugees in need of assistance in Syria is rapidly approaching the total population of 529,000 registered refugees. Over half have already been displaced from their homes. How are neighboring Arab countries reacting? Here is what UNRWA says about Jordan: The Government of Jordan announced a policy of non-entry to Palestinians fleeing the Syria conflict in early 2013. This  stemmed the flow of Palestine refugees from Syria towards Jordan and compounded the extreme vulnerability of Palestinians seeking safety in Syria, as well as that of those who managed to enter Jordan.   Then there’s Lebanon: "The Lebanese have made it clear they don’t want to see more than a certain number of people coming here," a high-ranking aid official told [the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs] on condition of anonymity....Officially both Jordan and Lebanon are keeping their borders open for all refugees from Syria. But unlike Syrians, who can freely enter Lebanon for up to six months, Palestinians receive only a one-week residency permit. Once that expires, they must pay 50,000 LBP (US$33) each month to renew it. How about Egypt? Here is a Reuters story dated today: After escaping shelling in Damascus and terrifying bloodshed at sea, 14 month-old Palestinian twin girls are now among hundreds of people living in limbo in grimy Egyptian police stations, with no end in sight to their plight. Of the 2 million people who fled Syria’s civil war, none may have it worse than Palestinians, who have known no other home than Syria but do not have Syrian citizenship and have therefore been denied even the basic rights secured for other refugees. The United Nations says the Egyptian government has refused it permission to register Palestinians from Syria as refugees and give them the yellow card that allows them to settle. As a result, hundreds of Palestinians civilians have ended up detained in police stations, with no place else to go.... If the family were Syrian citizens, once detained they would most likely have been permitted to leave Egypt for refugee camps in other countries in the region, says Human Rights Watch....The overwhelming majority of the Palestinians have never set foot in the Palestinian territories and have considered Syria their only home. But Egypt refuses to allow the United Nations refugee agency to treat them like other refugees from Syria. "It is the view of the government of Egypt that Palestinians fall outside of UNHCR’s mandate," said Teddy Leposky, a UNHCR spokesman in Cairo. "UNHCR has therefore not been able to provide assistance or advocate effectively on behalf of Palestinian refugees in Egypt." In one sense this is an old story: Arab states using the Palestinian issue against Israel often treat Palestinians badly. Jordan is the only country that has given them full citizenship rights. But there is another story here: the way UNRWA’s special treatment of Palestinians has backfired. It is not just a whim that the government of Egypt does not allow UNHCR to treat Palestinians the way it treats all other refugees, for in fact Palestinians are the only refugees over whom UNHCR has never had jurisdiction. When those fleeing Syria attend UNHCR or UNRWA schools, or receive medical attention at UNHCR or UNRWA clinics, that division is perpetuated and deepened. Once upon a time Palestinians thought this special status was a great boon. For Palestinians fleeing Syria it’s hard to see it that way today. UNRWA can now add to its achievement of perpetuating "Palestinian refugee" status the achievement of separating Palestinians from all other Syrian refugees. And now we can use the word refugee without quotation marks, for we are speaking of people born and raised in Syria and now driven from their homes there. This is just another piece of evidence that UNRWA has outlived its usefulness and is doing more harm than good for Palestinians.  
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams November 19, 2013 Pressure Points