Middle East and North Africa

Palestinian Territories

  • Israel
    Hamas and Fatah: Does Familiarity Breed Non-Support?
    Palestinians have joked for years that West Bankers living under Fatah oppose Fatah, while those living in Gaza under Hamas rule oppose Hamas. Familiarity breeds contempt, it seems, or at least suppresses support. The most recent polling lends further credence to this view. A poll by Arab World Research and Development in Ramallah sampled 1,200 Palestinians from both Gaza and the West Bank, in the aftermath of the recent Gaza conflict and the UN General Assembly vote according "non-member state" status to "Palestine." As the story in The Times of Israel summed up results, 42% of West Bank respondents said they preferred the approach of Hamas to that of Fatah, as opposed to only 28% who preferred Fatah’s approach. Interestingly, more Gazans, 40%, said they preferred Fatah’s approach to that of Hamas, which rules over them. Thirty-seven percent of Gazans said Hamas’s approach was better. The polling on individual leaders shows the same pattern. The approval rating for PA president Abbas is slightly higher in Gaza than in the West Bank, while Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh has a disapproval rating of 29 percent in the West Bank and 41 percent in Gaza, and Khaled Meshal’s disapproval rating is also higher in Gaza than in the West Bank. Sadly, the Hamas "approach" of which Palestinians were apparently approving is war and terrorism instead of peace negotiations. In fact the poll found that "88 percent believe that the results of the confrontation in Gaza prove that armed struggle is the best means of achieving Palestinian independence." And unsurprisingly in view of that number, support for "a immediate return to negotiations with Israel" dropped. Meanwhile, support for Prime Minister Fayyad has also dropped, and the poll shows that Ismail Haniyeh noses him out now among all Palestinians. Making sense of all these numbers is difficult and some of the results appear inconsistent. But the most striking number is that the vast majority of Palestinians support Hamas’s "armed struggle," which is to say terrorism. The only good news here is that Hamas as an organization has not won the "hearts and minds" of a majority of Gazans during its five years of misrule. The very bad news is that it has apparently persuaded Palestinians that "armed struggle" is the way forward.
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams December 17, 2012 Pressure Points
  • Middle East and North Africa
    What Does Hamas Want?
    Frequently I have found that when I mention the odious Hamas "Charter" as the best insight into the group’s current goals, the response is that the Charter is nearly 25 years old and doesn’t mean much nowadays. In that context the words of Hamas’s two top leaders in the past few weeks deserve attention. On November 26, Mahmoud al-Zahhar (a Hamas co-founder and influential leader) said this "Anyone who wants to liberate Palestine by complaining [to the International Criminal Court] – I will send him handkerchiefs to wipe his tears. Whoever wants to really liberate Palestine should pick up a gun." Khaled Meshal is the top political leader of Hamas, and entered Gaza for the first time this weekend. Here are some of his remarks to a mass rally celebrating Hamas’s 25th anniversary: Palestine, from the river to the sea, from north to south, is our land. Not an inch of it can be conceded. We cannot recognize the legitimacy of Israel’s occupation of Palestine. There is no legitimacy to occupation, and therefore no legitimacy for Israel, no matter how long it will take. Liberating Palestine, all of Palestine, is a duty, a right and a goal....we will liberate [Jerusalem] inch by inch, stone by stone, Islamic and Christian holy places. Israel has no right in Jerusalem.... As to the recent UN vote giving "Palestine" the status of "non-member state," Meshal said: Liberation first, then the state. The real state is the product of liberation, not the product of negotiations. Holy war and armed resistance are the real and right path to liberation and recovery of rights. All these remarks suggest that the mentality that produced the Charter, a venomous anti-Semitic document that makes compromise impossible, remains dominant. For that reason, I wonder why anyone who seeks peace would promote reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas and seek to bring Hamas into the governing of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority. Given Hamas’s goals, such a role for the terrorist group would make Israeli-Palestinian cooperation impossible--not just peace negotiations but the day to day cooperation that exists with respect to the West Bank. The words of Meshal and al-Zahhar are also a reminder of why Hamas persists, year after year, in firing rockets, mortars, and missiles at civilian targets in Israel. Hamas commits terrorist acts because it is wedded to violence and terror, and believes them fully justified in pursuing its goal of driving the Jews out of what they call "Israel" and Hamas calls "Palestine." Meshal’s claim that "not an inch of it can be conceded" and Al-Zahhar’s urging to "pick up a gun" demonstrate yet again what Hamas wants and how it plans to get there.
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams December 9, 2012 Pressure Points
  • United States
    Voices From the Region: Egypt, Syria, Israel, Palestine, Iran, Iraq
    “I never thought I would say this, but even Mubarak was more savvy when he spoke in a time of crisis.” – Hossam Bahgat, executive director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights “I hope God will make me a martyr on the land of Palestine in Gaza.” – Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal after crossing into the Gaza Strip Friday for the first time "He is a little Stalin" – Rafi Ayalon, the father of Israeli deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon, said of Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman after his decision to drop Ayalon from the party list for the next Knesset “Al-Maliki is not talking about Iranian intervention in all Iraqi affairs, and we have not heard any response to Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp [IRGC] commander Qassem Soleimani’s statement that Iran has more influence than America in Iraq and that Washington should negotiate with Tehran, not Baghdad, regarding the situation in Iraq.” – Fugitive Iraqi vice president Tariq al-Hashemi “The airport is now full of armored vehicles and soldiers...Civilians who approach it now do so at their own risk.” - Nabil al-Amir, Syrian insurgent spokesman "I believe people are right to be very concerned…the way the process has been short-circuited” – UN human rights chief Navi Pillay on Egypt’s draft constitution Friday “Officially we say we are not dealing with them, but things are changing before our eyes…If Khaled Meshaal can deliver, believe you me, someone here will talk to him, even behind the scenes.” –Uzi Rabi, director of the Moshe Dayan Centre for Middle Eastern Studies “If I were in the place of authorities, I would not demand the lifting of the sanctions…I would instead tell our enemies to impose sanctions as much as they can, because we will discover our hidden capabilities… What we could not achieve in about two decades was achieved in one and a half years.” – General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, a senior commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard “Today, Egypt is rewriting the history of the whole Arab and Islamic nation…Egypt has begun returning to its role in leading the Arab nation after many years that had been wasted by the corrupted.” – Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh to a visiting Egyptian delegation
    Blog Post by Robert Danin December 8, 2012 Middle East Matters
  • Israel
    Much Ado About Little: the E-1 Controversy
    Dozens of governments, starting with our own, have denounced the Israeli announcement--made soon after the UN General Assembly vote last week--about more housing construction in Jerusalem and the West Bank. In particular, the Netanyahu government has been criticized for building housing in the area known as E-1. E-1 is the space between Jerusalem and the city of Ma’ale Adumim, with its population of 40,000. The Israeli security argument is simple: it is impossible to have Ma’ale Adumim connected to Jerusalem only by one road because that road can all too easily be blocked and communication between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim (and beyond to the Jordan valley and border) cut off. This argument has persuaded all Israeli prime ministers who have faced the question, starting with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. It can be argued in reply that they insisted on the right and intention to build eventually, but did not build--but the same is true today of the Netanyahu government. What the prime minister announced last week was permission to do zoning and planning, not permission to build one apartment. The argument against any Israeli construction in E-1 is that it would make a Palestinian state impossible because that state would lack contiguity. The contiguity argument cuts many ways: I can recall Israeli officials saying Ma’ale Adumim exists, has a population (of 35,000 back then), and must be contiguous to Israel. But the Palestinian argument suggests that because roads would need to go east of Ma’ale Adumim, or go over or under the Jerusalem-Ma’ale Adumim road, a state is impossible. That is a hard argument to prove. First, there is of course the UN vote: the celebrations in Ramallah reflected the UN decision that Palestine is a state already now, if not yet a UN member. Second, why would the construction of roads that fully permit north-south movement in the West Bank--for example, from Nablus to Bethlehem and Hebron--make mobility and economic activity impossible? That such roads must be available, and must be good enough to carry current and predicted future traffic quickly, is certain but hardly an impossible challenge. The argument over E-1 is not new, nor is planning there some sort of right-wing plot that reflects this particular Israeli coalition. As noted, every prime minister from the left has had precisely the same position, and all new units in the West Bank today must be approved by the Defense Minister, Ehud Barak. That does not make the Israeli position correct but puts it in a bit of perspective. The rest of the perspective is last week’s vote, which the United States, Israel, and numerous European countries urged the PLO not to insist on. Israel had long said it would take drastic steps if the PLO went forward, and had to do something in reaction. It has announced that it will apply tax funds owed to the Palestinian Authority to debts owed to the Israel Electric Corporation (debts that now amount to 800 million shekels, about $200 million) for electricity supplied, and has announced planning for E-1 and construction in the major settlement blocks and Jerusalem. Construction in the major blocks and in Jerusalem is hardly a surprise, and does not differ from the policy of Israel’s previous government under Prime Minister Olmert and the Kadima party. The deal reached between the Bush Administration and the government of Prime Minister Sharon in 2004 was to permit construction of additional housing units inside the major blocks and other settlements, but not the construction of new settlements or the physical expansion of existing ones. The current decision fits easily within those terms. The Obama administration has never accepted that agreement between the United States and Israel, but I mention it to show that Israel’s reaction to the Palestinian UN initiative is hardly excessive or surprising.
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams December 3, 2012 Pressure Points
  • Palestinian Territories
    Nabil Sha’ath and the Sad Story of Palestinian "Leadership"
    Nabil Sha’ath has been a top Palestinian official for decades, serving as foreign minister, ambassador to the UN, planning minister, and in many other posts. He has been in the Fatah Party Central Committee and the Palestine Legislative Council. He accompanied Yasser Arafat to the United Nations as early as 1974. He was for years a key negotiator with Israel, and was a central figure in the PLO’s delegation at the Madrid Conference. My own experience with him was in 2003, when he was part of a Palestinian delegation to Washington. There he was one of several Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders who met with President Bush. Afterwards, Sha’ath told the press the following: President Bush said to all of us: ’I’m driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan. And I did, and then God would tell me, George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq... And I did. And now, again, I feel God’s words coming to me, Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East. And by God I’m gonna do it.’ As the White House said at the time, this was a complete fabrication. No other Palestinian who met with the President made such a claim, and Sha’ath was of course never alone with the President. It was simply false, start to finish. In the aftermath, the PA leaders were told not to bring Sha’ath to Washington in future visits because no one would see him. From 2003 to 2008 he stayed away, but I am told he has been around again in the last four years under a different U.S. president. If that is accurate it was a mistake for the Obama administration, for the problem with Sha’ath was not that he had insulted George Bush but that he had demonstrated he was simply untrustworthy. Sha’ath is back in the news. He was a member of the Palestinian delegation to the UN last week, has just published an op-ed in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, and went to Gaza  right after the recent fighting to give a speech that MEMRI reported. Here are some of the things he said to Israelis on November 29: The Palestinian leadership remains committed to the political process whereby all final status issues will be resolved through direct negotiations....The PLO will use every peaceful and diplomatic tool within the framework of international law....The enhancement of Palestine’s status is not an attempt to delegitimize Israel.... Now compare his remarks at a Hamas victory rally in Gaza on November 22: Congratulations to the martyrs, and Allah’s mercy upon the hero Ahmad Ja’bari and upon all the martyrs....The battle that you are waging has been going on for a hundred years. This people has been fighting for a hundred years to liberate its land, and to liberate Jerusalem. When you shout out that you are marching toward Jerusalem – well, this is exactly what your victory is doing....It is defending Jerusalem and Palestine in its entirety, by all means of resistance – by armed resistance, by political resistance, by going to the U.N., by solidarity – by all forms of confrontation with the enemy occupying our land. There is of course something ridiculous and grotesque about this portly and quite wealthy Ph.D. going to Gaza to cheer on Hamas terrorism. But it is not amusing to see someone who has long been a leading Fatah, PLO, and PA official embracing violence and terror. The man he calls a "hero and martyr," Jabari, led Hamas’s terrorist activities and helped oversee its takeover of Gaza--from the very PA that made Sha’ath a top official. Why is any of this worthy of note? Because the political failure of the Palestinian Authority--which is to say of the Fatah Party and of the PLO--against Hamas is significant. Since Arafat’s death in 2004, the leadership group has generally failed--to win the 2006 elections, to prevent Hamas from taking Gaza, to develop a new generation of uncorrupted and popular candidates, and to produce the underpinnings of a state. Such institutional and economic progress as has been made has largely been the work of Salam Fayyad, the PA prime minister, who is not even a member of Fatah and is deeply unpopular within its ranks. How can one explain the record of failure? It isn’t hard when one looks at Sha’ath and his own record, including his latest act down in Gaza. Why after all would Palestinians vote for a Fatah/PLO/PA leadership group that perpetuates itself in power decade after decade, and seems so lacking in commitment to its own professed principles that Hamas terror can be cheered? And, by the way, why would Israelis believe serious negotiations are possible with a Fatah/PLO/PA leadership when they hear Hamas being told "The battle that you are waging has been going on for a hundred years--" in other words, it is not about the 1967 borders or even the 1948 borders but about the right of Jews to live in Israel. The story of Nabil Sha’ath helps explain why Fatah is losing, and why the chances for peace seem dimmer these days than ever.
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams November 30, 2012 Pressure Points
  • Israel
    The UN Honor Roll
    The honor roll of countries that voted with the United States and Israel against the PLO’s foolish initiative in the UN General Assembly  is small. In addition to the Pacific island nations that always vote with the United States, there are only Canada, Panama, and the Czech Republic. Good for them for resisting the temptation to abstain, which is what was done by forty-one countries. Some were predictable, while others were disappointments: Australia, Germany, and Colombia, for example. The overwhelming majority for the resolution comes as no surprise, for there is an automatic majority in the General Assembly for anything viewed as anti-Israel. Combine the Islamic Conference countries and the so-called Non-Aligned, and anything can pass--no matter how counter-productive. Those few who voted no along with the United States voted right, and should be proud of their votes. It would be nice if the president called the Canadian, Czech, and Panamanian leaders to thank them.    
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams November 30, 2012 Pressure Points
  • International Organizations
    Palestinian Statehood at the UN
    The quest by Palestinian officials for statehood recognition could have major repercussions for the Mideast peace process. This Backgrounder outlines the potential impact of the UN vote.
    Backgrounder by Robert McMahon and Jonathan Masters November 30, 2012
  • United States
    Palestine’s Muddled Statehood Strategy
    If all goes according to plan, the UN General Assembly will vote on Thursday or soon after to accord Palestine “non-member observer state status” in the United Nations. According to Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority and chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization who initiated the effort, it is intended to enhance the Palestinians’ leverage in future negotiations with Israel. Writing in the New York Times on May 16, 2011, Abbas explained his rationale: “Palestine would be negotiating from the position of one United Nations member whose territory is militarily occupied by another, and not as a vanquished people.” The fundamental problem with Abbas’ approach is that rather than encourage such talks, his U.N. gambit is more likely to delay, if not undermine, the prospects for negotiations that would lead to genuine Palestinian statehood and peace with Israel anytime in the immediate future. The Palestinians’ approach at the United Nations sends two conflicting messages at the same time. On the one hand, Abbas claims he wishes to cooperate with Israel and resolve Israeli-Palestinian differences peacefully. All he is trying to do, he says, is gain some negotiating leverage. Yet at the same time, the Palestinians are conveying the message that their efforts are a punitive unilateral act designed to confront Israel, rather than cooperate with it down the road. This is dangerous for the Palestinians, given that Israel possesses a preponderance of power and controls the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. The confrontational perception was fortified in the past few days when the Palestinians reportedly rejected U.S. and Israeli efforts to temper the resolution and denude it of the one thing Israelis fear most and Palestinians deny as its intent: the ability to challenge Israel and individual Israelis in international fora, most notably the International Criminal Court (ICC). For months, the Palestinians had said they were willing to provide assurances that they would not challenge Israel in the ICC. But when asked in recent days, the Palestinians refused to alter the text to state that they would not approach the ICC to file charges against Israeli officials. Instead, the Palestinians suggested they would provide an oral guarantee that they would not file changes at the ICC for the next six months. Rather than provide solace, this Palestinian offer only reinforced the sense that the statehood bid is a way to confront Israelis with punitive actions if a settlement is not reached according to a Palestinian-imposed timeline. In the face of such an approach, and coming as Israel moves into the heat of an election campaign, the effect of the U.N. resolution will be to harden Israeli prime minister Netanyahu’s attitudes towards concessions to the Palestinians, not encourage them. It will likely trigger Israeli punitive measures, such as withholding Palestinian tax remittances, constrained movement and access within the West Bank, and possibly unilateral Israeli moves to annex West Bank territory. At a minimum, we can expect accelerated Israeli settlement activity. The United States is also likely to be very unhappy with President Abbas when the UN votes. President Obama has urged the Palestinians for over a year not to push a vote at the United Nations. Indeed, Obama called Abbas on November 11, just days after the U.S. elections, to ask the Palestinian president to give the American president time to prepare his policies for a second term. Abbas clearly and inauspiciously rebuffed him in a gesture that will no doubt figure into Obama’s calculations for his upcoming Middle East policies. Moreover, the Congress is likely to suspend U.S. aid to the Palestinians. Yet Abbas sees no viable alternative in front of him. Prime Minister Netanyahu, who three and a half years ago professed his support for a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside Israel in his heralded Bar-Illan University speech, never offered a clear strategy or plan for moving forward. President Obama, in May 2011, laid out a vision for a peace agreement delineating Palestine’s borders and Israeli-Palestinian security arrangements. Yet rather than pursue that vision, the president launched no diplomatic effort to realize it. After the United Nations vote, Abbas will presumably return to his West Bank headquarters where the realities will be exactly as he left them: Israel occupies all of Jerusalem and the majority of the West Bank. Nothing that happens in New York will have changed that. The Palestinians will have forfeited their 65-year long moral claim as that of a stateless people. Now, they will have a virtual state, but not one where it counts--on the ground. Given all the downsides of pursuing this statehood gambit, why is Abbas moving forward with this less than airtight strategy? Clearly, he calculates that the costs of inaction are even greater than all the moves’ inherent risks. With Hamas having just confronted Israel with short and medium term missiles, backing down from the diplomatic effort he has pursued over the year and a half, could be politically suicidal. Moreover, as he enters his twilight years as the Palestinian’s leader, he no doubt seeks some sort of legacy achievement. Thus, a symbolic victory in New York, albeit one that changes nothing on the ground in Palestine, is still better than no action at all. Such an accomplishment is likely to be pyrrhic and short lived. The challenge then will be to prevent the action in New York from further damaging the prospects for a more coherent approach that could lead to a lasting peace between Israel and a genuine Palestinian state.
    Blog Post by Robert Danin November 28, 2012 Middle East Matters
  • Israel
    The "Palestine" Vote at the United Nations
    Tomorrow the UN General Assembly is scheduled to vote on "non-member state" status for "Palestine." That vote will lift the status of the PLO, which is now an observer, but will do nothing for Palestinians. I’ve discussed this issue in detail in a previous post, and argued that Israeli and American reactions should not be excessive. This is a foolish move by the PLO leadership but not necessarily a very consequential one. It all depends on what follows: does the PLO, now called "Palestine" at the UN General Assembly, engage in "lawfare" against Israel? Does it rush to the International Criminal Court [ICC] to seek indictments of every Israeli general? Recently the Israeli government has taken this same view, that the vote matters less than the PLO’s actions after it has taken place. National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror told Meet The Press that the PLO move was “mostly symbolic.” Asked how Israel would respond, he said “We will have to wait and see what he [PLO Chairman and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] does with it, and then act.” That’s smart, and the United States and the European nations should be advising Abbas to cool it. Every UN agency "Palestine" joins will quickly be bankrupt, for the United States will withdraw from each as we have withdrawn from UNESCO--and in most we pay 22 percent of the budget, a shortfall the PLO’s champions have not offered to make up. Moves in the ICC will gain Abbas one day’s notice in the Palestinian press but more permanently embitter relations with Israel. And two can play the same game: if he wishes to act against Israel under color of international law, Israel can ask why he is committing acts of aggression against it week after week. I refer to rockets out of Gaza, which "Palestine" claims as part of its sovereign territory. If Palestine is a state, and he leads it, surely he and his government are responsible for such terrorism. Of course the likely reply is that he doesn’t rule Gaza and in fact can’t even visit there. True--but this only shows how ridiculous is the General Assembly’s insistence on calling "Palestine" a state and him its leader. Nothing so dramatizes the fact that "Palestine" is not a state than this UN vote. It is a tragedy for Palestinians that instead of actually building a decent, prosperous, democratic state, their leaders and their self-proclaimed well-wishers abroad seek this melodrama in Turtle Bay.
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams November 28, 2012 Pressure Points
  • Israel
    Voices From the Region: Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Gaza
    “God’s will and elections made me the captain of this ship.” – Mohamed Morsi “Every single political group in the country is now divided over this — is this decree revolutionary justice or building a new dictatorship? Should we align ourselves with folool or should we be revolutionary purists? Is it a conflict between the Muslim Brotherhood and the pro-Mubarak judiciary, or is this the beginning of a fascist regime in the making?” – Rabab el-Mahdi, an activist and professor at the American University in Cairo “The one thing I can tell you is this: in the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, whenever bad things happened in the region, people would question Jordan’s stability. But they’re all gone, and we’re still here.” – Jordanian foreign minister Nasser Judeh “It’s the first time in seventy years I feel proud and my head is high...It’s a great victory for the people of Palestine.” – Mohammed Rajah, a Gaza refugee “Frankly, I have to say kudos to Netanyahu, and I don’t usually pay him compliments. I think he got the best out of a bad situation.” – Gadi Wolfsen, professor at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel “They believe only in Islam. Our affiliation is with our country. We want a modern  state. How can we believe the Muslim Brotherhood will take it for us?" – Dr. Ali Abdul Hafiz, former Brotherhood member and now an opponent “We are against calls for regime change...We have called, and always will call, for regime reform and democratic reforms.” – Hamzah Mansour, Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood leader “[We] don’t want to create another Mubarak…The only way is to show that we are very angry and to let this president and any other president know that we won’t do whatever they want to do.” – Nigad al-Boraei, a prominent human-rights lawyer
    Blog Post by Robert Danin November 27, 2012 Middle East Matters
  • United States
    Critical Tests for Egypt and the United States
    The scenario is all too familiar: Violence erupts between Israel and Hamas. The U.S. President calls his Egyptian counterpart and asks for help in managing the crisis. The voice from Cairo assures the American president that Egypt will do everything to help calm the situation and immediately steps in to mediate between the parties. This last time was different, however, since the Egyptian at the end of the phone line was not the strongman Hosni Mubarak but rather his post-revolutionary successor, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Muhammad Morsi. By most accounts, Morsi acted admirably in helping to bring about the cease-fire, working closely with Barack Obama in some half-dozen extended telephone calls.  Indeed, the level of U.S.-Egyptian cooperation might suggest that little, if anything, had changed back from the days when Washington called upon Mubarak to help out with various Middle East crises.  Let’s hope that’s not the case. The crisis in Gaza provided a critical initial foreign policy test for the new post-revolutionary government headed by President Morsi. Egypt, for its part, demonstrated that its national interests trumped the ideological affinities of the Muslim Brotherhood. Aside from pulling its ambassador from Tel Aviv, the Egyptians responded to the outbreak of violence by working with Israel, not against it, to help mediate the crisis. And behind the scenes, the Egyptians clearly put pressure on the Hamas leadership to show flexibility and stand down rather than escalate the crisis and risk an Israeli ground invasion into Gaza. Note that Egypt also continues to enforce its part of Gaza’s “siege” by preventing the free flow of goods and people at Rafah. The benefits of Cairo’s recent approach are clear: it preserved its peace accord with Israel, thereby providing strategic stability for Egypt. At the same time, assertive diplomacy allowed Cairo to re-emerge as a regional fulcrum and power broker. By playing a lead role in brokering a cease-fire, Cairo also helped prevent a protracted and more deadly conflict, one that would have strained Egypt’s ability to simultaneously maintain its peace with Israel and its relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideological soul-mates in Hamas. Morsi will no doubt remind Obama of all this when he soon pays a visit at the White House.  Tempting though it might be, Washington would be making a tremendous mistake were it to lapse back into the old, dysfunctional habit of the pre-revolutionary period whereby Egypt worked to preserve the regional status quo in exchange for American largesse. While bilateral cooperation is desirable and necessary, it should not form the entirety of the bilateral relationship. The two countries must work to establish a healthier and more honest relationship based on the mutual interests of the United States and the Egyptian people. This means that while Washington must acknowledge the benefits of Egypt’s recent behavior, it must also recognize that the “new Egypt” behaves out of self-interest. So too must the United States. Regional stability is an important American interest. But with Egypt at the forefront of the dramatic transitions taking place in the Arab world, Washington also has a strong interest in promoting democratic norms and institution building in post-revolutionary Egypt.  Today’s decree by President Morsi, arrogating further powers to himself above the powers of the courts, is a challenge to the revolution’s aspirations and to a real democratic transition. It represents Mubarakism without Mubarak. This is a moment of profound opportunity for the United States in the Middle East, one in which Washington can demonstrate its support for the aspirations of the Egyptian people for dignity, democratic participation, self-governance, and accountable leaders. To do so, the United States cannot return to the old Faustian bargain in which Egyptian strongmen cooperated with the U.S. on regional issues in order to buy quiet from Washington for a free-hand at home. President Morsi did well on Gaza. He must also do well at home.
    Blog Post by Robert Danin November 22, 2012 Middle East Matters
  • Middle East and North Africa
    Amnesty International and Hamas
    The current conflict between Hamas (and other terrorist groups) and Israel has brought out the worst  in Amnesty International. Amnesty has taken a position that can only be called anti-Israel, treating the terrorists and Israel with an "evenhandedness" that bespeaks deep biases. The story is well told at the web site of NGO Monitor, an NGO set up precisely to catch self-proclaimedly neutral human rights organizations doing just what Amnesty is doing: taking sides, and in this case taking sides with terrorists. As NGO Monitor summarizes, During the weeks of escalation in rocket attacks prior to the Israeli response, Amnesty International failed to issue a single statement condemning the firing of scores of rockets by Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups at Israeli civilians in southern Israel, demonstrating Amnesty’s lack of regard for Israeli human rights. Amnesty has repeatedly blamed Israel alone for “re-igniting the conflict.” Amnesty asks for two remarkable things in its November 19th statement. One is for the International Criminal Court to take up the Goldstone Report and seek war crimes prosecutions based on it. No notice whatsoever is taken by Amnesty of Goldstone’s own "reconsideration" (largely a recantation) of his own report, in which he notes that We know a lot more today about what happened in the Gaza war of 2008-09 than we did when I chaired the fact-finding mission appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council that produced what has come to be known as the Goldstone Report. If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document. The second remarkable Amnesty demand is that “The UN Security Council should meet urgently to impose an international arms embargo on Israel, Hamas, and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza.” There is Israel, under attack by terrorists launching hundreds and hundreds of missiles and rockets into its territory--not just this week but all year, year after year; threatened by an Iranian regime that states its wish to wipe the Jewish state off the map; in a legal state of war with Syria to its north...Well, one could go on. And Amnesty seeks an arms embargo that would prevent Israel from seeking the means to defend itself. All that in the name of "human rights. " It gets even worse, as NGO Monitor reports: One example of this lack of professionalism is Kristyan Benedict, a staff blogger at Amnesty-UK and Middle East campaign manager. He has used his Twitter account for anti-Israel rants and antisemitic jokes, including a November 19 tweet, “Louise Ellman, Robert Halfon & Luciana Berger walk into a bar....each orders a round of B52s (inspired by @KarlreMarks Bar quips) #Gaza.” The three people he appears to characterize as warmongers are British Members of Parliament, all of whom are Jewish. Amnesty is, by such hostility toward and one-sided treatment of Israel, and by its employment of individuals who show such hostility not only to Israel but to Jews more generally, destroying its own reputation. Is there no one on the Amnesty International board to complain, and to demand that objectivity and fairness be restored?
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams November 21, 2012 Pressure Points
  • Israel
    Still Think Middle East Peace Doesn’t Matter?
    The article below was originally published here on ForeignPolicy.com on Monday, November 19, 2012. I look forward to reading your comments.  Everyone knew it was coming. Once the giddy days of the Arab uprising had passed, it was the subject of discussion at almost every roundtable, panel discussion, and bull session among Middle East analysts: What about Gaza? How would Arab governments, newly responsive to their people, handle a replay of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, the bloody offensive in Gaza that commenced almost exactly four years ago? At the time, U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration and President-elect Barack Obama’s team could rely on figures like Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordanian King Abdullah II to help contain the conflict and ensure that the status quo remained, even after the Israel Defense Forces withdrew their tanks and the rockets stopped flying. That was another era. The dynamics of the Israel-Hamas conflict that led to the current fighting are similar to those of 2008, but nothing else is. With citizens throughout the region demanding a reversal of the policies of the past, observers of the region implicitly understood that the Arab world’s leaders -- both old and new -- would face great pressure to demonstrate that they are responsive to public opinion and hold Israel and the United States "accountable" for their actions. At those bull sessions -- invariably called, "The Middle East Undergoing Change: Strategic Implications" or something equally snooze-inducing -- the response to a new Gaza war was often shrugs, sighs, and raised eyebrows. The body language meant: "Let’s hope nothing happens so that we don’t have to think about it." Continue reading here...    
    Blog Post by Steven A. Cook November 20, 2012 From the Potomac to the Euphrates
  • Israel
    Israel’s Latest War With Hamas
    The Gaza conflict has been brewing for a while, and although Egypt and others are working to deescalate it, there are no guarantees, says CFR’s Steven Cook.
    Interview with Bernard Gwertzman November 19, 2012
  • Israel
    The Israel-Hamas Conflict’s Unintended Consequences
    By Israel’s accounting, Operation Pillar of Defense has achieved many if not most of its major objectives: assassinating Hamas’ long-sought after military mastermind Ahmed Jaabari and other top officials, destroying much of Hamas’ long-range arsenal of imported Iranian-produced Fajr-5 missiles, and eliminating other significant high-value military targets. Despite this, however, a number of unintended consequences have already emerged, ranging from boosting Hamas’ prominence, undermining its isolation, further weakening the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas, and diverting regional attention from Syria. Fundamentally, the operation -- an outgrowth of a rapid escalation of the past year’s episodic firing of rockets from Gaza into southern Israel and IDF strikes against limited targets -- appears to have an been the unintended consequence of Hamas’ miscalculation: The organization apparently determined it could build up long-range rockets in Gaza and allow its truce with Israel to erode without incurring a significant price. Over the past year, Hamas, the de facto ruler in Gaza, allowed even more militant groups to launch mortars and rockets into southern Israel seemingly thinking that Israel’s response would be limited. The fact that its military leader, Jaabari, felt confident enough to let strict operational security lapse and leave himself vulnerable to an Israeli strike while riding in an unprotected vehicle reflects that. But rather than marginalize Hamas, Israel’s operation so far has only enhanced the centrality of that organization. That by-product is entirely consistent with Israel’s aim -- to compel Hamas to take responsibility for developments in Gaza. As in the 2009 Cast Lead operation, Israel’s goal now is not to destroy Hamas, but to compel it to behave more responsibly and keep order in Gaza. Much of the mortar fire over the past year against southern Israel has been launched by groups more radical than Hamas. By holding Hamas responsible, Israel inadvertently bolsters Hamas’ standing and legitimacy as the ultimate power-broker and arbiter in Gaza. Yet this objective of forcing Hamas’ responsibility has unintentionally contributed to undermining Israel’s longstanding objective of keeping Hamas isolated internationally, if not regionally. With the United States, Israel, and other countries urging Egypt to rein in the Gaza leaders, Hamas’ centrality as the locus of decision-making grows rather than diminishes. This then encourages other Middle East leaders to accelerate their rush to Gaza, while skipping Ramallah, to court Hamas’ leadership. This Qatari, Turkish, Tunisian, and Egyptian courting of Hamas has the unintended consequence of further eroding the stature of the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas, a Palestinian leader avowedly committed to the non-violent path. By bypassing Ramallah and President Abbas, they further marginalize the moderate leaders as the proper address for resolving problems. This still leaves the Ramallah based Palestinian Authority shouldering much of the burden for the situation in Gaza by being the largest source of sustenance for the Strip’s wage-earners. It also has the unintended consequence of boosting the diplomatic standing of Islamist supporters: Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey. The fact that Israel has acted with considerable restraint compared to its conduct of Operation Cast Lead has created conditions boosting Hamas’ domestic popularity, at least for now. Gazans have sustained the majority of the casualties and damage so far, and don’t expect to beat the Israelis militarily. Just causing the Israelis pain -- piercing the "Tel Aviv bubble" and lashing out against Israeli Jerusalem -- is seen as a tactical achievement, so long as it does not incur demonstrable defeat or the populace overwhelming loss. That perception is why, in addition to taking out Hamas’ increased military capabilities in Gaza, Israel feels the need to strike a decisive psychological blow -- an aim that may well prove elusive. The current conflict will also have the further unintended effect of reinforcing President Abbas’ determination to seek non-member state status at the end of the month. In Palestinian eyes right now, it is Hamas that is seen to be taking action, not Abbas. Abbas thus no doubt feels all the more compelled to carry out his threat to resume his U.N. gambit, despite strong American, Israeli and other international opposition. A final unintended consequence of the conflict has been to eclipse the regional and international focus on Syria, where hundreds of people have been slaughtered on a daily basis for the past year and a half. Assad will likely exploit this by ratcheting up his brutality against Syrian rebels and civilians while eyes are gazed elsewhere. While the course of Operation Pillar of Defense is still to be played out, we can be sure that it will be filled with surprises.
    Blog Post by Robert Danin November 19, 2012 Middle East Matters