Informed Comment

2 Bombings Rock Peshawar: Karzai Inaugurated

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:22:00 +0000

Two bombs rocked the northern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Thursday. The first, in the morning, targeted the city's courthouse. The suicide bomber, wearing a vest, was stopped by security before he could get into the building. He detonated his payload outside, killing 20 persons and wounding 50.

Thursday evening another bomber struck at a police vehicle, killing two policemen and wounding five civilians.

Aljazeera English explains 'why Peshawar'?

Analysts on GEO television Friday morning were saying that the Pakistani military is reluctant to take on the Mahsud tribe (the dominant one in South Waziristan) because they still view it as an asset. They also say that the Pakistani military is nervous about having diverted troops and resources to the North-West Frontier and away from the border with India. Islamabad fears that India will take advantage of this vulnerability. (Oh, yeah, like Manmohan Singh is going to roll tanks on Lahore. I mean, really.)

This was the first I had heard about a reluctance to take on the Mahsud, from which several important leaders of the Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan (Movement of Pakistani Taliban) sprang.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai was sworn in for a second term as president, and he and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appear to have made up, according to WaPo. Just like that.

A bombing near a city of southern Afghanistan targeted but missed a police convoy, but killed 10 others.

Tom Englehardt imagines the speech he wishes Barack Obama would give on Afghanistan.

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Cloughley: Defeating the Taliban in Pakistan's Tribal Areas

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:10:00 +0000

Brian Cloughley writes in a guest editorial for IC

When the Taliban insurrection in Pakistan began in earnest, in 2005, the Pakistan army did not have enough troops in North-West Frontier Province to combat the growing menace. It was not possible for the army and the paramilitary Frontier Corps to conduct operations without considerable reinforcement. In any event, the role of the lightly-armed Frontier Corps has always been more akin to policing than to engaging in conventional military operations. Dealing with inter-tribe skirmishes and cross-border smugglers is very different to combating organised bands of fanatics whose objective is total destruction of the state.

It was therefore decided to redeploy some units and formations from the eastern frontier to the west, but the main problem with the decision, no matter its appropriateness, was that troops facing India along the border and the Line of Control in Kashmir are skilled in conventional warfare tactics but not trained in counter insurgency (COIN). Retraining was essential if there was to be a properly conducted campaign against militants in the west of the country. The process requires much time and energy. (The British, for example, had to design a training programme lasting up to eight months before units were considered effective to fight the terrorist Irish Republican Army. The US belatedly dealt with a similar problem before deploying units to Iraq, having learned the hard way.)

But there is another important factor in Pakistan�s equation of redeploying troops: the attitude of India.

The Indian government and people reacted strongly to the terrorist attacks in Mumbai in September 2008, and blamed Pakistan for fostering those who carried them out. Many in India considered that Pakistan actually had some formal and official role in assisting the attackers, and most Indians � spurred by an active media � now firmly believe that Pakistan was involved. In this atmosphere it was tempting for politicians, especially those of ultra-nationalist persuasion, to beat war drums and threaten Pakistan with dire consequences if there were another terrorist outrage � which there is almost certain to be.

Although there was no reinforcement or movement of troops on the Indian side of the border after the Mumbai atrocities, Pakistan could not forget the major deployment, Operation Parakram, that took place in 2002 following a terrorist assault on the Indian Parliament in December 2001. There was no reason to be complacent concerning Indian intentions, given the similarity of the Mumbai and Delhi attacks and the ensuing rhetoric, and Pakistan�s armed forces were required to remain vigilant. There could be no question of lowering guard on the eastern border unless there were assurance from India that it would not engage in military action. This was not given.

Even after the initial outburst of anti-Pakistan bellicosity had died down, there came carefully composed but confrontational statements by major national figures who could not be ignored, and they came in a period of especial concern to Pakistan � the very time at which it was necessary to continue relocating troops from the eastern frontier area in order to combat the menace of terror and insurrection in the west.

On 4 June 2009 the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of India�s South-Western Air Command, Air Marshal KD Singh, declared that �In case of a misadventure by Pakistan in shape of major terrorist attack or the attack like the one we had on the Parliament, attack on our leader, a major city, public or hijacking an aircraft, can obviously lead to a reaction from India, which could be a short intense war.�

Then on 1 November 2009 India�s Home Minister, Mr Chidambaram, was reported as saying �I�ve been warning Pakistan not to play any more games. Let Mumbai be the last such game. If they carry out any more attacks on India, they will not only be defeated, but we will also retaliate with the force of a sledgehammer.�

The threat from Delhi, which many of us observers had considered to have been negligible, given the apparent pragmatism of the government of Dr Manmohan Singh, was spelled out in blunt and menacing terms. Given the prominence of those who warned so clearly of conflict, the prospect of an attack could not and cannot be treated lightly. For this reason many senior military officers in Pakistan argue that withdrawing units from the border could have serious consequences if India decided to engage in a �short, intense conventional war,� as a result of another terrorist attack. If there were strident enough allegations in India that the culprits had been trained in Pakistan, then there could be war. The army, the senior officers felt, would be failing in its duty if it dropped its guard along the frontier; so there had to be compromise, which, in military affairs as in most others, invariably results in a less-than-desirable solution.

The recent operations in the tribal areas, concentrating on South Waziristan, have necessarily been affected by the requirement to balance east and west troop numbers. It is much to the credit of the Pakistan army that it managed to restore peace in Swat and appears to be well on the way to effecting the same in South Waziristan. But the main challenge is to maintain control and prevent the insurgents from again taking over. Concurrently there is the requirement to speedily rebuild the 200 girls� schools that were destroyed by the fanatics, to implement a civilian-dominated justice system, and engage in large-scale social and economic development. This will take time, and, above all, commitment by skilled professionals whose security must be guaranteed, along with that of the population.

It should not be forgotten that there was no insurrection in the Tribal Areas before the US invasion of Afghanistan. Although the tribes were never pussy cats, and often there had to be firm action taken when they went over the top in inter-tribal squabbles or other mayhem, there was no Taliban control. That ascendancy developed as a result of a flow of vicious fanatics from Afghanistan who were displaced by US and �Coalition� operations. It is absurd for US experts to loudly condemn Pakistan for �failing to seal the border,� when there are tens of thousands of US troops along Afghanistan�s border with Pakistan. If they can�t seal it from their side, with all their hi-tech gadgets, how can anyone expect the Pakistan army to seal the Pakistan side?

The other thing that US experts might consider is keeping quiet. For the White House National Security Adviser to pronounce that Pakistan must now conduct military operations in North Waziristan is not just bizarre, it is insolent. The Pakistanis have had enough of people telling them what to do. Their military operations are being conducted with professionalism. It would be a good thing if a bit of professionalism and discretion were to be exercised by all the clever Washingtonians who drop into Islamabad to lecture those who are trying to cope with an emergency for which the US is largely to blame.

------------------------

Brian Cloughley's website is www. beecluff. com

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Al-Hashimi Vetoes Voter Bill; US military Suicides Spke

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:35:00 +0000

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, who is a Sunni Arab, has vetoed the election law recently passed by parliament. Iraq has a president (currently a Kurd, Jalal Talabani) and two vice presidents (the other is Adil Abdul Mahdi, a Shiite from the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq). Al-Hashimi reportedly dislikes being call the "Sunni vice president," but that is certainly how he acted with his veto. In the Iraqi constitution, the president and the two vice presidents function as a "presidential council" who are supposed to decide whether parliamentary legislation should be approved or not. Iraqi practice has been to read the constitution to require that the presidential council pass legislation unanimously, creating a veto power for each of the three members.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki (from the Shiite fundamentalist Da'wa or Islamic Mission Party) criticized al-Hashimi's move, calling it a "dire threat" to the political process. He asked the Iraqi High Electoral Commission to continue to prepare to have elections in January. The Commission, however, announced that it was halting all arrangements for the election "without delay." But the High Electoral Commission instead said that it was ceasing preparation for the elections, scheduled for mid-January.

The move threatens to postpone the elections and even to create a political vacuum and create a constitutional vacuum.

Al-Hashimi said he did not intend to veto the bill in toto, just the part of it that specifies that Iraqis in exile abroad will fill only 5% of seats. Since there are thought to be over a million Iraqi refugees in Syria and Jordan, and since most are Sunnis, this provision reduces the weight of the Sunni Arabs in the election. Al-Hashimi wants the proportion of seats set aside for expatriates and religious minorities set at 10% or 15% instead.

Al-Zaman writing in Arabic stressed that Gen. Ray Odierno said that no big decisions about the pace of American withdrawal have to be made until spring, 2010, so that a slight delay in the holding of the parliamentary election would not much affect US troops.

Aljazeera English has an interview with VPTariq al-Hashimi:

Reidar Visser has more on the electoral crisis.

Meanwhile, US military suicides are headed for a record, provoking dismay and puzzlement at the Pentagon.

Russia Today interviews Adam Kokus, an Iraq War veteran, on the spike in US military suicides:

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India decries joint US-China statement on Indo-Pak Relations

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:32:00 +0000

Since both the US and China have traditionally been allies of Pakistan, any joint US-China call for better relations between the two major countries in South Asia would likely irk New Delhi.

It did.

Given that the current Minister of External Affairs, S. M. Krishna, had a long political career representing Karnataka State, with its high-tech capital of Bangalore, he is associated the the confident and fast-growing new India and so might especially resent any hint of Chinese intervention in South Asia.

BBC: Africa population tops a billion

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:05:00 +0000

** Africa population tops a billion **
The number of people in Africa has passed the one billion mark, the UN Population Fund says in a report.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/africa/8366591.stm >

Pakistani Military Takes Taliban Strongholds; Maulana Fazlullah Surfaces in Afghanistan

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:45:00 +0000

David Kilcullen's bizarre prediction last spring that the Pakistani government could fall to the Taliban or al-Qaeda within six months was always downright looney, but recent events have underlined the extent of its daftness. The 650,000-strong Pakistani army has made mincemeat of the Pakistani Taliban wherever they have seriously taken them on.

On Tuesday, for instance, Pakistani troops took the militant stronghold of Laddah, South Waziristan,, reporting that they found a large cache of jihadi literature, mainly in Arabic. The town, formerly of 10,000, appears to have been a training camp for guerrillas, including "Arabs and Uzbeks." The Pakistani arm's assault on the place left it in ruins, and all 10,000 civilian inhabitants had already fled, albeit the remaining militants put up a hard fight.

The BBC has the basics on South Waziristan and a map on which Laddah is visible:

Last week, the military similarly took Sararogha, of which there likewise doesn't seem to be much left. Islamabad says its troops killed 180 Taliban in the course of the campaign. The town is alleged to have been a center for the training of suicide bombers. The Taliban Movement of Pakistan had already done a lot of damage to its buildings in 2008 when they took it. The Pakistani military warned inhabitants to leave before they went in, and locals are eager to return, though it is doubtful much is left of their homes.

The 30,000 crack Pakistani troops fighting in South Waziristan are now focusing on the important city of Makin. They began the campaign in October and have rapidly swept the Taliban before them.

Aljazeera English has video on the taking of Sararogha

In a blow to Pakistan's hopes of finishing off the leadership of the Pakistani Taliban, it was announced Tuesday that Maulana Fazlullah, a leader of the Swat Taliban was not killed when the Pakistani army retook the valley, but rather has fled to Afghanistan.

On the other hand, the widespread rejoicing of the people of Swat over the defeat of the Taliban in their area, and the appearance of anti-Taliban banners there, augurs ill for Maulana Fazlullah's political future.

A motorbike bomber killed one person and injured 9 others on Tuesday, in an attack on the Deputy Inspector General there, Nizam Durrani. Durrani was among those injured in the attack, and is thought to have been the main target. Quetta is thought by US analysts to be the base of the "Old Taliban" of Mullah Omar, and the US has been pressuring Pakistani security officials to crack down on the "Quetta Shura" or board of directors. I wonder if Durrani was involved in such a crackdown and if this was the reply.

This site has video of the aftermath of the Quetta bombing

In the Khyber tribal area, Taliban blew up a village girls' school on Tuesday. The Taliban's ideology differs from mainstream Islam in disapproving of women knowing how to read and write; the male Taliban are often poor, rural males with a smattering of seminary study, and apparently they need someone to feel superior to, so women are it. In contrast, conservative Saudi Arabia has just opened a co-educational scientific and technical university.

Meanwhile, continued American drone strikes on Pakistan are upsetting to the Pakistani public, as Aljazeera English argues:

I.A. Khanzada argues against the drone strikes in The News.

And see Pratap Chatterjee at Tomdispatch.com on Afghanistan as a corrupt patronage machine.

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Palin and the Muslim Fundamentalists (Reprint Edn.)

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:09:00 +0000

Since she's back, so am I. Below is a reprint edition of my essay from September 2008 comparing Sarah Palin to Muslim fundamentalists on select issues.

Also check out Going Rouge: An American Nightmare from OR books, in which another of my Salon pieces on Palin is reprinted:

Salon.com
Tuesday, Sep 9, 2008 03:12 PDT
What's the difference between Palin and Muslim fundamentalists? Lipstick
A theocrat is a theocrat, whether Muslim or Christian.
By Juan Cole

John McCain announced that he was running for president to confront the "transcendent challenge" of the 21st century, "radical Islamic extremism," contrasting it with "stability, tolerance and democracy." But the values of his handpicked running mate, Sarah Palin, more resemble those of Muslim fundamentalists than they do those of the Founding Fathers. On censorship, the teaching of creationism in schools, reproductive rights, attributing government policy to God's will and climate change, Palin agrees with Hamas and Saudi Arabia rather than supporting tolerance and democratic precepts. What is the difference between Palin and a Muslim fundamentalist? Lipstick.

McCain pledged to work for peace based on "the transformative ideals on which we were founded." Tolerance and democracy require freedom of speech and the press, but while mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Palin inquired of the local librarian how to go about banning books that some of her constituents thought contained inappropriate language. She tried to fire the librarian for defying her. Book banning is common to fundamentalisms around the world, and the mind-set Palin displayed did not differ from that of the Hamas minister of education in the Palestinian government who banned a book of Palestinian folk tales for its sexually explicit language. In contrast, Thomas Jefferson wrote, "Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it."

Palin argued when running for governor that creationism should be taught in public schools, at taxpayers' expense, alongside real science. Antipathy to Darwin for providing an alternative to the creation stories of the Bible and the Quran has also become a feature of Muslim fundamentalism. Saudi Arabia prohibits the study, even in universities, of evolution, Freud and Marx. Malaysia has banned a translation of "The Origin of the Species." Likewise, fundamentalists in Turkey have pressured the government to teach creationism in the public schools. McCain has praised Turkey as an anchor of democracy in the region, but Turkey's secular traditions are under severe pressure from fundamentalists in that country. McCain does them no favors by choosing a running mate who wishes to destroy the First Amendment's establishment clause, which forbids the state to give official support to any particular theology. Turkish religious activists would thereby be enabled to cite an American precedent for their own quest to put religion back at the center of Ankara's public and foreign policies. . ,

Read the whole thing

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20-Year-Old Letterhead points to Israeli Forgery in Francop Affair

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:05:00 +0000

Iran's PressTV says it has caught Israel forging documents in an attempt to implicate Iran in arms smuggling.

The Israelis have been maintaining that a ship, the Francop, that their forces boarded near Cyprus originated in Iran and was bringing arms to Hizbullah and Hamas. Many US news outlets published the accompanying picture, which seemed to indicate that the arms were being supplied by the Ministry of the Sipah [i.e. of soldier].

The name of that ministry was changed 20 years ago, however, to the Ministry of Defense. One Iranian journalist opined, "So this begs the question of what the emblem of a nonexistent body was doing on the cargo?"

Syria had all along accused the Israeli operation of being a forgery

It is tempting to speculate as to how the Israelis got the letterhead of the Iranian Ministry of the Soldier. It should be remembered that in the 1980s, Israel was allied with Khomeini and received petroleum and other goods from Iran in return for helping against Iraq. It is likely during that era of good feeling that Israel received the letterhead, and whoever dredged it back up to plaster on the goods carried by the intercepted ship did not realize that in the meantime the Iranians had changed the name of the ministry concerned.

The Likud government is perfectly capable of such a diversionary tactic. Maybe it has a good explanation for all this. We'd like to hear it.

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Bombings, Corruption Plague Afghanistan; French Commander Targeted

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:44:00 +0000

The Times of London reports that French commanders meeting with local Afghan leaders northeast of Kabul were targeted by insurgents with rockets, which killed 12 Afghan civilians and wounded about 38. No French personnel appear to have come to harm, though the French Gen. Marcel Druart was in some danger. The Taliban claimed responsibility.

Also on Monday, Taliban attacked a checkpoint in southern Qandahar province, killing 8 policemen.

The addition of 40,000 US troops in Afghanistan would not only be unwise but might well break the bank, according to the NYT.

Russia Today interviews journalist David Axe, just back from Afghanistan, on the spiraling estimates of the likely cost of the war. He says a counter-insurgency strategy to protect all Afghans would take hundreds of thousands of troops and cost billions. He advises instead an 'ink spot' strategy to concentrate on a few hot spots.

Failed Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah told the Financial Times's German edition that if the international forces suddenly withdrew from his country, he feared that the Taliban would take over. For a prominent politician, he seems to have no faith whatsoever in the capacities of his own government.

Meanwhile, CBS recently did a report on corruption in the Afghan government and among warlords, which is called 'a bigger problem than the Taliban'-- a problem that extends to the brother of President Hamid Karzai.

Karzai maintains that he is setting up anti-corruption prosecution squads, with US and EU help.

But The Nation has just brought out a piece showing that the corruption is massive and that under these conditions, some US government money actually underwrites the Taliban.

The US special inspector-general for Afghanistan, Arnold Fields, talks with Eurasianet about the corruption and other issues in Afghanistan.

Alan Brody, a UN official who saw the rise of the Taliban with his own eyes in the 1990s, reflections on how we arrived at our current impasse.

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Neocons, Islamist Marxists attack Iranian-Americans as way of Getting at Obama

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:00:00 +0000

Daniel Luban shows that the assault on the National Iranian-American Council by the rightwing Israel lobbies and their allies in the People's Jihadi Organization [Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK or MKO)], a Marxist-Islamist political cult is actually an attempt to mortally wound the Obama administration. A strategist allegedly linked to the MEK, Hasan Daioleslam, wrote to uber-Neoconservative warmonger Kenneth Timmerman of the campaign against NIAC, �This is an integral part of any attack on Clinton and Obama."

The National Iranian-American Council, headed by Trita Parsi, has emerged as among the more effective community lobbies among any hyphenated Middle Eastern-American community. It represents sensible, middle class Iranian-Americans of the new generation. Because NIAC favors cautious engagement with Iran and opposes war on it or trying to break it up, the rightwing Israel lobbies and the Chalabi wannabes among Iranian-Americans want to destroy it. Neocon hatchet man Eli Lake made a run at the organization in a muddled op-ed for the Washington Times (which has some good journalists as well, but is Moonie-owned and typically skews right). MEK has its tentacles into Congress through effective fronts like IPC.

All Americans who support an end to the Eternal War scenario of the hawks, and who want an equitable peace with Iran, should join NIAC and/or send it money. If we let the Neocons and MEK destroy it, we will have no grounds to complain when President Palin conscripts our children and sends them to die in a fruitless war on Tehran.

And remember, the attack on NIAC is explicitly intended to wound Obama and pave the way for a President Palin.

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Palestinians Consider Going to the UNO for a State; Israeli Right threatens to Recognize its own Colonies in Retaliation

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:31:00 +0000

The Palestinian leadership is making medium-term preparations to go to the United Nations to ask for a declaration of a Palestinian state within 1967 borders (i.e. in the West Bank and Gaza).

The move comes because the Obama administration's attempts to kickstart the peace process have crashed and burned, as Elaf pointed out. The Obama team told far rightwing Likud Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that Israel was to cease creating new colonies on the West Bank in preparation for the resumption of talks. Netanyahu defied Obama, insisting that new Israeli squatter settlements would be started in the Palestinian West Bank.

The Palestinian leadership had made an Israeli settlement freeze a prerequisite for new talks, and so refused to sit down with the Israelis as long as the latter were stealing ever more Palestinian land.

Last week, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced that he might well not run for president again, given complete Israeli intransigence and expansionism.

Since the Netanyahu government is about the least likely government to negotiate a Palestinian state within 1967 borders you could imagine, the Palestinians are giving up any hopes that talks will lead anywhere. Moreover, since Netanyahu has secret plans to build thousands of further Israeli houses on Palestinian land in the next few years, time is short. If it has not already happened, the likelihood is that a Palestinian state will become impossible very shortly simply because the West Bank looks like Swiss cheese because of all the Israeli colonies on it.

A Palestinian state is important because the Palestinian people are stateless. Being without citizenship in a state leaves people vulnerable and without rights, since there is no state that will defend their rights. If someone just moved into your house while you were out watching a movie, you could ask the police of your town to remove them, with reference to the property deed that you filed with your municipal authorities. But if Israelis take over Palestinian land, the Palestinians have no one to complain to. The Israeli courts favor the colonizers and don't recognize Palestinian rights. Palestinians, being stateless, do not have the right to have rights. The children of stateless people often lack access to education and other services.

Even three years ago the situation was already dire, and it has gotten worse since then:

As such, the Palestinians are the most oppressed people in the world. There are other peoples who feel that they have the wrong citizenship and would like to secede, but at least they have a government and rights within that government's framework. They have someone to give them a passport, which Palestinians do not. There are other peoples that are in conflict and being killed in fair numbers. A not insignificant number of Palestinians has been killed by the Israelis, whether through often indiscriminate and disproportionate violence or through food and services blockades (a lot of Gazan children are stunted owing to the bad nutrition caused by the Israeli blockade of Gaza, which is an illegal collective punishment of noncombatants,including children.) But of course there are other groups that are killed in larger numbers. But I would argue that the psychological toll taken by the imposition of statelessness on a people is more debilitating than the knowledge that some of the group has been killed by oppressors.

European Jews themselves were made stateless by Nazi decree, as were millions of other Europeans (leftists were denaturalized by Franco in Spain, e.g.). In the post-WW II world, citizenship has become recognized as key to basic human dignity and civil rights. There are only about 12 million stateless now, and the Palestinians are the single largest group of them.

If there is not a two-state solution, with the Palestinians gaining citizenship in that way, then ultimately there will be a one-state solution, and Israel will over the long term be forced to take them on as Israeli citizens. Boycotts of an Apartheid situation will grow in Europe and elsewhere in the world, and Israel is vulnerable to such pressures. The US has so far backed even the worst Israeli policies to the hilt, but those days may be coming to an end, and anyway the US is now itself an indebted nation rather than a creditor. It is the creditors who are in the position to deny Israel access to world credit markets over time.

I know it is hard to imagine now the situation in 50 or 75 years, but I believe it will be increasingly unfavorable to Israel if the Palestinians are kept as chattel without basic rights deriving from citizenship. The rise of al-Qaeda and other radical movements is intimately linked to the oppression that the Palestinians suffer, and that wave of radicalization is not over. The Israeli and Neoconservative hawks who hoped that if Saddam were removed from Iraq, that Iraq would suddenly turn friendly to Israel have been proved fools. The ways in which Israel lost both the Lebanon war of 2006 and the Gaza War of Winter 2008-2009 in the court of world opinion are astonishing if the situation is compared to 1967, when the West supported Israel to the hilt in its war with Egypt. The trend lines are downward.

So if the Palestinians could get the UNO to declare a Palestinian state and pressure Israel over it, they would actually be doing the Israelis a huge favor.

The bully Netanyahu announced that if the Palestinians unilarerally declared a Palestinian state, then Israel would immediately formally annex the largest Israeli settlements on the West Bank. It is unclear why Netanyahu thinks a formal annexation would be meaningful. Israel has already de facto announced that territory and no one in Israel is even hypothetically offering to give it back. The question is not what has been annexed but what will be annexed. There is every reason to think that the Israeli far right will just steal all Palestinian land over time if this sham 'peace process' continues as it has since 1993.

Reuters has video on the Palestinian push at the UN for a state.

Aljazeera English reports on the Apartheid roads of the West Bank, on some of which Palestinians are forbidden to travel.

Aljazeera English interviews a Gazan ambulance driver about the events of the past three years.

The USG Open Source Center translates or paraphrases reports from the Palestinian press about Israeli attacks on Palestinians:

'IDF Wounds Gaza, W. Bank Farmers, Makes Arrests; Settlers Raid Hebron's Old City
West Bank & Gaza Strip -- OSC Summary
Sunday, November 15, 2009 . . .

IDF [Israeli Army] Wounds Gaza Farmer, Arrests 4 W. Bank Palestinians

Palestinian Information Center, website of HAMAS, in English reports at 1104 GMT on 15 November: "Israeli occupation forces (IOF) rounded up four Palestinian citizens in the districts of Bethlehem and Ramallah for interrogation at dawn Sunday (15 November), local sources reported. They added that IOF troops chased and wounded a Palestinian worker from Masliya village, east of Jenin city, also at an early hour on Sunday. They said that the soldiers fired at Khaled Abul Rub, 25, and wounded him in the feet while others were detained for working in 1948 occupied lands without permits. The Israeli occupation police said that they arrested 252 Palestinians from various West Bank districts over the past couple of days for working in the 1948 occupied lands without permits."

Bethlehem-based, independent Ma'an News Agency in English reports at 1349 GMT on 15 November: "A Palestinian farmer was injured by Israeli fire east of the town of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip on 15 November, medics said. According to medical sources at Beit Hanoun Hospital, the farmer sustained several gunshot wounds in both feet while he was tending his land. Local sources in Beit Hanoun identified the farmer as 28-year-old Mahmoud Za'anin." Israel Issues Demolition Notices for 9 Hebron Homes

Ma'an in English reports at 1311 GMT on 15 November: "Israeli forces distributed demolition warrants to nine Palestinian families from the Al-Hathalin area south of Hebron, near the Karmiel Israeli settlement. According to local resident Imad Al-Hathalin, the families in question recently sent letters to caretaker Prime Minister Salam Fayyad asking for his intervention to stop the demolitions from proceeding. Al-Hathalin explained that the demolition notices included residential homes and a chicken den."

Israeli Settlers Raid Old City of Hebron, Cause Damage

Palestinian Information Center in English reports at 1005 GMT on 15 November: "Jewish settlers wreaked havoc in the streets and homes in the Old City of Al-Khalil (Hebron) on 14 November that caused material damage to Palestinian citizens, local sources reported. They noted that the Jewish settlers started their rampage with a provocative march in the city streets that turned violent when the settlers attacked Palestinian homes and shops and assaulted their owners. Israeli occupation forces (IOF) were deployed in the alleys of the Old City of Al-Khalil and the Ibrahimi Mosque to protect the Jewish settlers while celebrating one of their feasts. In Yatta village, Al-Khalil district, a 65-year-old woman was injured along with three kids when eight Jewish settlers threw stones on them. The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) only a few days earlier delivered notifications to 12 citizens in the village warning them that their homes would be demolished. The IOA delivered similar notifications to 9 families in Rujaib village, Nablus district, on Saturday. The families appealed to human rights groups and the media to back their case, as tens of women and children inhabit those homes and implementing the oppressive decision would leave them in the open without shelter." '

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Peshawar Bombing Kills 12; Tablighi Turn against Taliban

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 05:06:00 +0000

The Taliban Movement of Pakistan launched another bombing in Peshawar on Saturday, killing 12 and wounding 30. The bomb-laden vehicle was stopped at a checkpoint by a vigilant policeman intent on stopping it from approaching sensitive sites, and the driver then detonated his payload. The policeman was killed, but he likely stopped a much larger tragedy. The Pakistani Taliban claimed that they carried out the attack, which followed on a massive bombing Friday of the provincial HQ of the Inter-Services Intelligence. They said the attacks would continue as long as the central government continued its campaign against them in South Waziristan.

Aljazeera English has video:

More from ITN:

The S. Waziristan campaign continued Friday-Saturday, leaving 7 guerrillas dead along with 4 Pakistani soldiers. Army Chief of Staff Ashfaq Pervez Kayani met with internally displaced persons chased from their homes by the fighting and pledged army help in returning them to their homes. Last spring-summer, the campaign in the Swat Valley displaced 2 million temporarily, but almost all have returned to their homes by now-- though the villages are worse for the wear, with schools and other facilities damaged. The Obama administration has pledged funds for rebuilding and resettlement, but Pakistani politicians complain that the monies have still not arrived.

Aljazeera English reports on the civilians displaced by the most recent round of fighting, in South Waziristan:

The Tablighi Jama'at is a Muslim revivalist movement begun in Delhi in 1924, which preaches mainly to other Muslims and tries to influence them toward the practice of a fundamentalist form of Islam. They are largely apolitical, but some observers have accused them or their offshoots of a connection to terrorism. Interestingly, this year the mood of the Tablighi Jama'at members gathered at Raiwind near Lahore is virulently anti-Taliban. I don't know if they are over-compensating with this Dawn journalist for the suspicions many observers have that they have ties to militants, or whether they, like most Pakistanis, are simply appalled at the mindless and destructive bombing campaign against other Pakistanis launched this summer and fall by the Pakistani Taliban. But it could be that the Taliban are showing where some kinds of fundamentalist revivalism leads, and the Tablighi Jama'at is pulling back in horror.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Durand Line, problems of corruption in the Afghan government continue, according to CBS.

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The Only Anchor

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 05:13:00 +0000

Attorney General Eric Holder announced Friday that some top al-Qaeda 9/11 conspirators will be tried by jury in New York not far from the scenes of devastation that they had wrought.

This decision by the Obama administration demonstrates faith in the American way of life, and a conviction that even the worst mass murderers can be dealt justice by democratic institutions.

Predictably, Republican critics vowed to fight the decision, since they much prefer to hold people forever without trial while torturing them, sort of the way some English kings did in North America before there was that pesky American constitution. In fact, on a whole range of issues, the contemporary Republican Party is a party of medieval romanticism. Its disquisitions on when the human person begins are theological in character and rooted in assumptions even a lot of medievals would have questioned. Its faith that bankers would never steal from us and so do not need to be regulated is a form of mysticism that medievals would have applied to saints. And its fascination with arbitrary arrest and imprisonment and with torture more recalls the star chambers of yore than the deliberations at Philadelphia over 200 years ago.

Let us listen not to John Boehner of Ohio but to a Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson:

' "I consider [trial by jury] as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Paine, 1789. ME 7:408, Papers 15:269 '

Or here is John Adams:

"Representative government and trial by jury are the heart and lungs of liberty." - John Adams (1774)

Many Republicans oppose not only jury trials but even habeas corpus for the prisoners at Guantanamo (the right to apply to a court judge to be produced in court so that the authorities are forced to justify the prisoner's imprisonment). They do so on supposed national security grounds, just as the British kings used to. In fact, of course, these prisoners have no fresh information on plots and cannot possibly know anything of value to any contemporary terrorists at large, since they have been sequestered for so many years.

Here is what Thomas Jefferson had to say about the suspension of rights such as habeas corpus on national security grounds:

' "Why suspend the habeas corpus in insurrections and rebellions? The parties who may be arrested may be charged instantly with a well defined crime; of course, the judge will remand them. If the public safety requires that the government should have a man imprisoned on less probable testimony in those than in other emergencies, let him be taken and tried, retaken and retried, while the necessity continues, only giving him redress against the government for damages. Examine the history of England. See how few of the cases of the suspension of the habeas corpus law have been worthy of that suspension. They have been either real treasons, wherein the parties might as well have been charged at once, or sham plots, where it was shameful they should ever have been suspected. Yet for the few cases wherein the suspension of the habeas corpus has done real good, that operation is now become habitual and the minds of the nation almost prepared to live under its constant suspension." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1788. ME 7:97 '

Al-Qaeda number 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri mocked the US that real liberty ". . . is not the freedom of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib." The Republican way of dealing with terrorists gave enormous propaganda tools to al-Qaeda.

Obama just took those propaganda tools away from the enemy and began the process of repairing America's reputation and its fidelity to its own ideals.

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Taliban Bomb ISI HQ in Peshawar

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:10:00 +0000

AfPak continued to generate headlines and concerns on Friday morning.

In Peshawar, insurgents set off a huge bomb near the regional HQ of Inter-Services Intelligence. Early reports say that the death toll was above 15, and that dozens were wounded.

In Afghanistan itself, Aljazeera English reports on corruption in that country:

Retired four-star general and former army chief of staff Jack Keane frankly calls the brother of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, Ahmad Wali, a "thug" and says that the US is "on to him."

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Tripathi: Afghanistan and Presidential Dilemmas

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:50:00 +0000

Deepak Tripathi writes in a guest editorial for IC

News that the US ambassador to Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, has sent classified messages to Washington in the last few days, advising President Obama not to send more troops to Afghanistan, is dramatic both in its timing and substance. It came just as Obama was to hold further deliberations with his advisers on a new strategy for what is now described in Washington as the AfPak front. The substance of Eikenberry�s advice went directly against the plan the military commander in Afghanistan, General McChrystal, has been pushing for in recent months. Eikenberry�s intervention is highly significant. A Harvard and Stanford-educated general, he had served in Afghanistan twice before retiring and was immediately appointed America�s envoy in that country in April 2009. He has strong military credentials and President Obama�s ear�an effective counter to the Pentagon lobbying for ever-increasing military commitment to the war.

The contrary advice from Eikenberry may have annoyed General McChrystal. But it represents an established pattern by now: well orchestrated media reports originating from advocates of greater American involvement before every new strategy session, apparently intended to bounce the president into sending more troops; and President Obama finding a way to resist that pressure. Whatever criticisms are leveled against Obama over his perceived hesitation or dithering, these maneuvers within the administration point to his dilemmas at this juncture. For unlike George W Bush, an instinctive demolisher, Obama is a man of intellect, averse to war and more in tune with history.

The last two decades of the twentieth century were a period of exceptional savagery in Afghanistan. First, it was committed during Soviet occupation and the US-Soviet proxy war in the 1980s. Then came the West�s neglect of Afghanistan and the outbreak of a �war of all against all� following the collapse of Soviet and Afghan communism. The culture of violence to which powers great and small, and Afghan factions themselves, contributed got deeply ingrained in Afghan society. Violent human behavior was revealed in more frightening ways than before.

The opening decade of the new century brought the horror of 9/11 early. Its conclusion reminds us of the Soviet decade in Afghanistan and the American military era in Vietnam before the 1975 withdrawal. In 2009, the total strength of American and allied troops is more than 100,000, nearly as high as the number of Soviet troops in Afghanistan twenty years before. Already, it has become the bloodiest year for the US-led international forces, with numerous civilian deaths in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And General McChrystal wants 40,000 extra soldiers, warning his commander-in-chief that otherwise the mission would fail.

In his August 2009 report, General McChrystal presented to the Obama administration a list of �new objectives� in Afghanistan. Among them are: �discredit and diminish insurgent and their extremist allies� capability�; �promote the capability of, and confidence in, the Afghan National Security Forces�; and �maintain and increase international and public support for ISAF goal and policies� in Afghanistan. Those keeping a keen eye on the conflict might ask what has the international occupation force been doing for eight years and what is new in McChrystal�s objectives? His assessment further says that the international force has not adequately been executing the basics of counterinsurgency warfare. So more military (with civilian) resources must be committed.

General McChrystal�s remedy bears a striking resemblance to a letter written by Colonel K Tsagolov of the Soviet military to his defense minister Dmitry Yazov in August 1987. At a time when Soviet leader Gorbachev had decided to withdraw from Afghanistan after a failed invasion and occupation, Colonel Tsagolov, using Marxist jargon, wrote: �A deep political crisis of the Afghan society is obvious�The coalition of social forces continues to change in favor of the counter-revolution. The state regime is not capable of stopping the counter-revolution on its own.�

Colonel Tsagolov criticized the policy of national reconciliation being pursued by then president, Najibullah, at the Kremlin�s behest. Tsagolov observed that �our efforts over the last 8 years have not led to the expected results�; national reconciliation �has not led to a breakthrough in the military-political situation, and will not lead to one�. The �counter-revolution will not be satisfied with partial power today, knowing that tomorrow it can have it all�. Colonel Tsagolov�s recommended solution was to �help the progressive political forces� to preserve the �democratic content� of the country; and to �ensure future development of social processes� in Afghanistan �in the direction of our long-term interests�.

How did the US/ NATO war in Afghanistan become so brutal, falsifying the first impressions in the wake of an �easy victory� in overthrowing the Taliban regime? From the outset, one side in the new Afghan conflict has had overwhelming power and acquired impudence. But the underdog has had strength in numbers, prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice. Fear has lost its deterrent quality. Death is no more an unwelcome prospect. Life has to be endured, not enjoyed. And the rationality in martyrdom has replaced the rationality in survival among those who fight the occupation forces. Human beings are at their most dangerous when they no longer fear death. It explains the conduct of the suicide bomber.

The Afghanistan crisis has deteriorated in the absence of a credible strategy. Eight years after the US-led invasion of 2001, the futility of counterinsurgency resulting in the loss of more innocent lives than those of �terrorists� is plain to see. To succeed, a strategy must be not about killing, but about rebuilding. It should attract support rather than cause alienation. Its foundations must be based on a thorough understanding of the cultures and sensitivities of others and reasons of human pride.

There are choices other than McChrystal�s counterinsurgency plan to guide the international efforts: to persuade Pakistan�s military to relax its hold; to allow the democratic institutions and processes to develop; to fight corruption; and to encourage the rule of law. Above all, to save both Afghanistan and Pakistan from future generations of militants; to build effective systems of education that provide modern schools instead of religious madrasahs. The United States has a responsibility to play a vital role in all this. But it may only be possible if there is an acceptance in Washington that a coercive enterprise to remake a traditional society rarely succeeds.

----

Deepak Tripathi, former BBC correspondent in Afghanistan, is the author of two forthcoming books: Overcoming the Bush Legacy in Iraq and Afghanistan and Breeding Ground: Afghanistan and the Origins of Islamist Terrorism (Potomac Books, VA, 2010). He lives near London and his gmail moniker is DandATripathi.

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Obama Demands an End-Game before Committing Troops to Afghanistan

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:03:00 +0000

AP is reporting that President Barack Obama is declining to be rushed into committing to the Afghanistan War as an open-ended project, and wants a timetable for turning security duties over to the Afghanistan National Army.

AP says that the key intervention here came from US ambassador in Kabul, Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, who warned that the government of Hamid Karzai is not a reliable partner.

The BBC says that Eikenberry is against sending thousands of more troops, and he warned of corruption in the Karzai government. Gen. Stanley McChrystal is said to be fuming over the intervention.

Eikenberry is a China specialist who can not only speak but interpret Chinese, who has a Stanford MA in international affairs, and who served two tours in Afghanistan under Bush. His appointment as ambassador in Kabul had been a surprise, since the generals are not usually sent in as diplomats, and the US military was already well represented in US government counsels on Afghanistan. But now it appears that Obama cleverly put Eikenberry in as chief diplomat precisely because he is worldly and experienced in the country, and in a position to second-guess the Washington war hawks who always think that a victory is around the corner with just a few more troops.

Obama is said to have rejected all the plans so far presented to him, insofar as none leads to a foreseeable end-game.

If AP is right, this development is encouraging. All along, the things missing from Washington's plans for Afghanistan have been a firm, specific set of goals, a detailed means of attaining them, and a way to know when they have been attained.

How unlikely the big counter-insurgency dreams of some military analysts are to result in success is apparent in this recent Frontline report, in which the US military outpost in a village in Helmand never succeeds in getting the locals to open a single shop in the bazaar under US protection, and never succeeds in stopping the constant sniping at them by Taliban forces. (The thing the program never brings up is kinship, and how likely it is that some of the villagers are just first cousins of the "Taliban" firing on US troops).

(Also at this site on Youtube in installments ; here is part 1 from that series:

Here is the beginning of an interview I did recently with Metro Times with a link to the full piece. (Note there is a minor transcription error-- I said 13 Federally Administered Tribal Areas, not 15):

' Metro Times: By most accounts, the debate in the White House right now isn't over whether to escalate or de-escalate the war in Afghanistan, but rather over how many more troops to send there. If you were talking to the president right now instead of us, what would you say to him?

Juan Cole: If you are going to accomplish anything in Afghanistan, you need a very light footprint.

MT: What would that footprint look like?

Cole: Let's back up and talk about what the goal is in Afghanistan. Your strategy and your tactics are going to come out of your goal. I'm a little bit afraid that, in regard to the goal, you see a lot of mission creep. The goal has become standing up an Afghan government and an Afghan military that's relatively stable and can control the country. There's a lot of state-building involved in that.

I am a severe skeptic on this score. I don't think that's a proper goal for the U.S. military. I think we are dealing with a tribal society of people who, as a matter of course, are organized by clan and have feuds with each other, and feuds with other tribes, and feuds with their cousins. I think that Washington misinterprets this feuding as Talibanism, and thinks that if you put a lot of troops in there, you can pacify the country and settle it down.

I just think it is a misreading of the character of the country. Afghanistan is a country where localism is important, where people don't like the central government coming in and bothering them. There's a sense in which the communist government of the 1980s, backed by the Soviet Union, wanted to drag Afghanistan kicking and screaming into the late 20th century, and to do that you had to impose central government policy on the countryside and on the villagers. And the villagers rose up and kicked the Soviets and the communists out. They were outraged, in part, against the centralizing tendency of Kabul.

So, I just think that Afghanistan is a country that needs a light touch. You just have to accept that there's going to be a certain amount of disorder in the countryside as long as people are organized tribally. And if you put 100,000 or 150,000 Western troops in there, that's just more people to feud with.

MT: Given all that, what do you think success in Afghanistan would entail?

Cole: If you are asking what I think is a plausible goal, I'd say it is training an Afghan army and police force as best you can. But you are just going to have to accept that it's going to be a weak government. You can shore it up to some extent, but you need to shore it up behind the scenes. It can't be seen to be a puppet government, because that will undermine its legitimacy.

A government that can provide more services to people is good. Road building is good. Encouraging the markets to open is good. But as far as fighting what the U.S. is calling Taliban, they are really just regional warlords. They might have a tactical alliance with the old Taliban of Mullah Omar, but it's a mistake to sweep them all up into a single category . . . '

Read the whole thing.

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Veterans Day

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:19:00 +0000

The most patriotic way to honor future veterans of foreign wars is not to create any unnecessarily.

Bombing in Charsadda Kills 34

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:03:00 +0000

A suicide bomber detonated his payload in a market in Charsadda, a half hour drive northeast of Peshawar in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. LAT quotes PM Yousuf Reza Gilani saying that the bombing was a desperate response to the success of the Pakistani army's campaign against the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan.

Reuters has video.

The violence also has a local political significance. In the February 2008 parliamentary elections, the Awami National Party, a secular Pashtun party, became very popular and won the province. In the run-up to that victory, in January, 2008, hard line devotees of political Islam set off a bomb at an ANP rally in Charsadda that killed 20 persons. From 2003 until 2008, the North-West Frontier Province was ruled by the United Action Council (Urdu acronym MMA), a coalition of 6 small fundamentalist parties that included at least one party close to the Taliban, despite its willingness to sit on parliament under Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

The fundamentalists resent having been displaced by the secular Pashtun sub-nationalist ANP, and this bombing of Charsadda is probably a further piece of thuggery aimed at punishing the Pashtuns for voting secular. Asfandiyar Wali Khan, the president of the Awami National Party, and other high provincial officials condemned the attack. Wali Khan said, "These barbaric elements have no religion and faith. The government is determined to eliminate terrorism and our struggle will continue."

Such violence is often read in the West as a confirmation of the bigotted view that Muslims in general are unusually violent. Even in Pakistan, it is read as a sign of alleged Pashtun tendencies to violence and barbarism. In fact, a bombing like that in Charsadda is part of a low-intensity, drawn-out civil war among the Pashtuns themselves, with a small rural radical fringe targetting urban, ideologically moderate groups and institutions.

In fact, the Awami National Party has its origins in Pashtun support for Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent campaign for independence from the British; that is, it began as a pacifist party. The idea of pacifist Pashtuns is so preposterous in today's atmosphere of anti-Pashtun prejudice that it is typically missing from journalistic accounts of politics in the NWFP.

Meanwhile, the fighting in South Waziristan continues, with Pakistan claiming to have killed 12 militants on Tuesday.

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Hikmatyar: Bin Laden Alive; Suggests Taliban/al-Qaeda Split

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:47:00 +0000

Afghan insurgent and former prime minister Gulbadin Hikmatyar has told Aljazeera that Usama Bin Laden is alive and well. Hikmatyar, once the recipient of 20 percent of all the funds disbursed by US intelligence for fighting the Soviets, is now fighting US troops in eastern Afghanistan. He condemned bombings against the Pakistani military, saying that only foreign, non-Muslim troops should be targeted. He also said his group refuses to coordinate with the Haqqani Network, a rival fundamentalist militia. He said that US troops could be given safe passage to leave Afghanistan if they would agree to go.

Online News reports of Hikmatyar: "he said that Taliban government came to end in Afghanistan due to the wrong strategy of Al-Qaeeda."

This open criticism of Bin Laden by Hikmatyar points to a larger split between al-Qaeda on the one hand, and the Taliban & other insurgents on the other.

Analysts worried about al-Qaeda taking back over Qandahar should consider another possibility, which is that the neo-Taliban and neo-Mujahidin won't be so stupid as to tolerate Arab al-Qaeda types in Afghanistan. As Hikmatyar noted, the mass murderers after all got Mulla Omar overthrown and exiled.

Note that the old Taliban and other insurgents are alleged by the US to control 10-15 percent of Afghanistan. Yet Jim Jones says there are less than 100 al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan.

Ipso facto neo-Talibanism does not imply the return of al-Qaeda.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday NATO announced that it had killed 140 Taliban in the northern Qunduz province during the first week of November.

As the nation awaits President Barack Obama's decision on Afghanistan strategy, it should not be forgotten that the country's poor and displaced face a hard and sometimes fatal winter. The Australian ABC reports:

Also, check out two recent strong essays on Afghanistan at Tomdispatch.com, by Nick Turse and by Dahr Jamail and Sarah Lazare.

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Iraqi Parliament Passes Electoral Law; Obama hails move toward Indpendence; Kurdistan wins on Kirkuk

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:43:00 +0000

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that the Iraqi parliament approved the electoral law to govern the elections scheduled for early next year. The vote was 141 in favor out of what Al-Zaman said were 175 attending (the Iraqi parliament has 275 seats, so a simple majority is 138). AFP estimated attending MPs at 195.

President Barack Obama hailed the vote as "an important milestone as the Iraqi people continue to take responsibility for their future." In other words, it means to the Obama administration that the time when they can get out of Iraq is nearer. US ambassador Christopher Hill is said to have played a key mediating role in pushing the law through after it was voted on and failed to pass numerous times.

Update: Steve Clemons reports that Vice President Joe Biden played a cental role in the negotiations. Clemons stresses his calls with Kurdistan president Massoud Barzani. But since the legislation was a big win for the Kurds, the hard talk must have been with Arab leaders such as PM Nuri al-Maliki, who gave up a lot on Kirkuk.

The Kurdistan Alliance scored a major victory insofar as the law agrees to use the 2009 voting rolls for the polls in Kirkuk Province. The Kurdistan Regional Government began as a provincial confederacy incorporating 3 of Iraq's 18 provinces, but over time the original provincial administrations and borders were erased, leaving the KRG as a super-province in its own right. Kurdistan wishes to incorporate into itself a fourth province, oil-rich Kirkuk, which has a mixed population of Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs. Turkmen and Arabs on the whole do not wish to become part of Kurdistan. There has been enormous Kurdish immigration into Kirkuk in recent years. Kurds say these immigrants had been in Kirkuk but were expelled by Saddam, who brought up Arabs to Arabize the province.

But there were lots of Arabs in Kirkuk before Arabization, and probably a significant proportion of new Kurdish immigrants were not traditionally residents there. Arabs and Turkmen also charge that the current voting rolls are full of fraudulent names, as Kurds have attempted to pack the registration list. The Arab and Turkmen members of parliament had wanted the 2004 electoral rolls used, to offset the likelihood of a Kurdish landslide in Kirkuk province that might set the stage for its full incorporation into the Kurdistan Regional Government. The compromise is that the Kirkuk electoral rolls will be subject to special scrutiny. If at least 5% of voter registration in a district is found fraudulent, then any 55 parliamentarians may call for a recount.

Al-Zaman says that during the moments when the vote was taken and the results announced, the chamber was in chaos. Some members of parliament doubted that the measure actually received 141 votes. The Kurdistan Alliance MPs went wild with joy at the passage of the law in this form.

Some members of parliament objected to a provision whereby displaced Iraqi outside their own original places of residence are not allowed to vote. Given the ethnic cleansing of so many Sunni Arabs of Baghdad and environs this provision probably hurts the Sunni Arab parties. Critics of the measure said it was unconstitutional, since the Iraqi constitution does not tie voting rights for citizens to place of residence.

The election had been scheduled for January 16, but it is now set for January 23. Ambassador Hill is reportedly pushing hard for that date as final.

Nevertheless, al-Zaman reports that the Iraqi High Commission says that this law was enacted too late to hold the election on time. He is requesting a 3-month delay, to April 16. This delay would affect Americans, since the US military is being kept in Iraq at this point primarily so that it can lock down the country for 3 days to allow voters to go to the polls without being blown up. Delaying the date of the election might delay the timeline for taking troops out of the country. This delay is no doubt what spurred Ambassador Hill to insist that January 23 is the firm date. Constitutionally, moreover, the election must take place in January.

The law calls for a system wherein voters vote for candidates by name, though these are part of an electoral list or party. This system should not be confused with the US and British open voting, wherein one can vote for candidates regardless of their party or even vote for independents. In Iraq, the party lists still put up the candidates. Iraqis contrast this "Modified List" system to the closed list system that had been used for previous elections, where voters only have the option of choosing an electoral list or party when they vote, but had no control over which candidates the victorious party would seat in parliament.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the spiritual leader of Iraqi Shiites, had campaigned hard for a modified list system, appearing to believe that the closed list encourages sectarianism, and that it is undemocratic insofar as it detracted from popular sovereignty (the people should have a say in particular politicians elected and not just which party gets to choose them).

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports that the number of seats in parliament will be expanded from 275 to 310 by this law.

The passage of the electoral law now allows Iraq to proceed on something like the timeline envisaged for it in the Status of Forces Agreement. If the election is held on January 23, there will probably be months of wrangling over who will be the new prime minister. But that indecision should not be a bar to withdrawing US troops, who are continuing to come out of Iraq ahead of schedule.

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Ibish: "Against a One-State Solution"

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:10:00 +0000

Hussein Ibish writes in a guest commentary for Informed Comment

Last Thursday on Informed Comment, Juan Cole uttered a powerful cris de coeur about prospects for a two-state agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, echoing warnings by chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat that if Israeli colonization continues, Palestinians may switch to demanding equal rights in a single state. Such pessimism is not only justified, it is requisite given the difficulties facing the prospects for peace, and can only be intensified by a similarly despairing announcement by Pres. Abbas that, because of Israel's refusal move seriously towards peace, he would not seek another term in office.

Erekat's statement, while unusual, is hardly unprecedented from senior Palestinian and PLO figures. Similar "threats" to abandon the quest to end the occupation in favor of a single-state agenda have been issued several times in the past as I describe in my new book, What's Wrong with the One-State Agenda? In 2008, former Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei and other leading Palestinians, including the "Palestine Strategy Study Group," expressed similar views.

In contrast with the one-state rhetoric among pro-Palestinian activists in the West, which generally holds Palestinian independence to be both unachievable and undesirable, Palestinians in the occupied territories who raise this specter generally do so as a tactic designed to compel greater seriousness by Israel on negotiations and warn about the consequences of a failure to achieve a two-state agreement. Erekat's comments clearly reflected this. In his speech Abbas declared that he was personally fed up but that everything in his experience indicated that a two-state agreement is possible.

These two versions of one-state rhetoric may one day merge into a unified agenda, but for now they remain distinct phenomena, most clearly divided by their ultimate goal: Palestinian leaders still seek independence and an end to the occupation, aims that are angrily rejected as insufficient and even outrageous by many diasporic one-state advocates.

Under the present circumstances it seems most probable that if the strategy of the secular-nationalist forces in Palestine were to collapse or be abandoned, the main beneficiaries would not be one-state advocates. The real political contest among Palestinians is between the nationalists and the Islamists, and the declining fortunes of either almost axiomatically advances the interests of the other.

Even if Palestinians were somehow to abandon their long-standing national aim of independence, avoid their national movement becoming entirely dominated by Islamists, and adopt the goal of equal rights in a post-nationalist state, it is very hard to imagine that this would leave them in an improved strategic position.

A noted one-state advocate has accused me of suggesting an interview with the Atlantic website that "the one-state solution is bad because Jews don't want it." This is to misread not only my analysis but the fundamental political reality, which is extremely simple: a one-state solution will be impossible as long as an overwhelming or even a solid majority of Jewish Israelis don't want it. The added irony is that most one-state advocates have not only done nothing to try to create a message that can appeal to mainstream Israelis, they have crafted one that encourages the greatest possible fear and suspicion.

In reality, it's almost impossible to imagine a one-state "solution," although it's certainly possible to envisage a one-state outcome. The distinction is crucial: the second formulation recognizes the incredible amount of brutality, violence and mutual exhaustion that would be required for both parties to surrender their cherished national agendas to some formula for post-nationalist power-sharing in relatively equal numbers. Consider the violence of the past 60 years, without any real dent in the nationalist fervor of either party, and then try to imagine what would be required to actually get them to abandon these ideals.

One should be under no illusions that the final abandonment of a two-state agenda will give way to a campaign of nonviolent resistance, boycotts and sanctions that will somehow succeed in bringing Israel to its knees. The alternative to an agenda of negotiations is crystal clear: increasing conflict, violence and occupation that is increasingly dominated by religious fanatics on both sides. The religious right is well-positioned in both societies, ready to lead a battle to the death between bearded fanatics over holy places and the will of God.

We face a simple choice: either a slow, gradual and, yes, painful, inching towards a two-state agreement, or war, conflict and occupation into the foreseeable future, very possibly leading to a catastrophe. Despairing, giving up and walking away is too irresponsible for anyone with the best interests of Palestinians, Israelis and Americans at heart. This is an existentialist crisis we are facing, like Beckett's suicidal unnnamable: we can't go on, we'll go on.

Cries of despair are intellectually and morally justified and, perhaps, necessary, but the only rational policy for all responsible parties is to avoid calamity and continue to somehow try to find a way to make the only plausible peaceful solution work.

Hussein Ibish is a Senior Fellow for the American Task Force on Palestine and blogs at www. ibishblog. com.

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Baradei says Inspectors found 'Nothing;' But Israeli Attack Plans not Tabled

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:49:00 +0000

Outgoing head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Muhammad Elbaradei, said that UN inspectors this week discovered "nothing to be worried about" at a new nuclear enrichment facility that is being built in a mountain near Qom. He added, "The idea was to use it as a bunker under the mountain to protect things. It's a hole in a mountain."

Nevertheless, Rupert Murdoch's Sky News is reporting that Israel is actively making plans to attack Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities. Here is the Sky News video:

France 24 reports on Iran's nuclear enrichment efforts:

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Mahmoud Abbas Threatens to Step Down in Light of Ongoing Israeli Colonization of West Bank

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:33:00 +0000

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas says he wants to stand down and he declines to run in the upcoming Palestine Authority elections. The decision came in the wake of the US failure to convince the Israelis to halt colonization of the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem. It also followed a series of embarrassing flip-flops by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who praised hard line right wing PM Netanyahu for his efforts in favor of the peace process. Even for a diplomatic statement, this tack is is a little embarrassing in its obsequiousness toward Netanyahu, who has undermined the peace process at every turn and rejects out of hand the US demand that he freeze settlements. Reactions of Arab allies of the US were sharp.

The USG Open Source Center paraphrase an article in al-Ray (Jordan) reacting to the Obama administration letting Netanyahu off the hook with regard to settling Jews in East Jerusalem (which often means expelling Palestinians from their homes):

'Amman Al-Ra'y in Arabic, a Jordanian daily of widest circulation; partially owned by the government, publishes an article by columnist and former Jordanian information minister Salih al-Qallab on page 48, in which Al-Qallab first quotes the statements made by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Morocco about the partial freeze of settlement activity [i.e. not frozen in Jerusalem.] Al-Qallab says that the Americans should understand that "no Palestinian official, either now or in the future, can enter into any negotiations while Jerusalem is excluded from these negotiations, especially since it is no longer possible to repeat the previous formulas of negotiation. The aim this time is the final-status issues, which have been delayed for more than 15 years and cannot be delayed now for a single emoment." Al-Qallab adds: "What the Americans do not know while dealing with this extremely sensitive issue is that Palestine, for the Arabs and Muslims, is Jerusalem, and that Jerusalem is the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. This is what makes Mahmud Abbas adopt this hard-line stand." '

Aljazeera English reports on Israeli confiscation of Palestinians' homes. The evictions are carried out with the full cooperation and encouragement of the Israeli government.

Aljazeera English reports on Mahmoud Abbas's refusal to run for the presidency of the Palestine Authority

in 2010.

Aljazeera English points out that the stance of Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration, that the Palestinians had to negotiate with the Israelis while the Israelis were stealing their land, lead Abbas to step down.

The USG Open Source Center translated remarks of chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat, Abbas's colleague:

' Erekat Critical of Clinton's Remarks on Settlements, Rejects US Guarantees
"Erekat Says: President Abbas Does Not Cling to Power, has Options -- Ma'an headline
Ma'an News Agency
Friday, November 6, 2009
Document Type: OSC Translated Text

Bethlehem, 5 November (Ma'an)-- Dr Saeb Erekat, head of the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department, has warnedthat the entire peace process is at a critical juncture and that the Palestineside is not short of options. He emphasized that there will be no negotiationswithout a cessation of settlement construction.

On statements that President Mahmud Abbas will not run for presidential elections, Erekat said: "The issueis not Abu-Mazin (Mahmud Abbas). The President is an ordinary citizen. The President makes every effort to achieve the hopes of his people. However, underthe present circumstances, if Israel continues its settlement activity and theUnited States does not compel Israel to stop settlement construction and resume the negotiations where they left off, the President does not cling to power. The president has options. Perhaps a moment will come when he speaks frankly to the people and questions the usefulness of elections and other things."

At a press conference at the premises of the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department in Al-Birah today, Erekat stressed that there are no compromise solutions when it comes to settlements. He considered US Secretary of State Hillary's backpedaling on her statement praising Israel for making "unprecedented" concessions on settlement construction as "not enough."

Erekat said: "If the US administration cannot compel Israel to stop settlements for natural growth in Jerusalem, the commitment to the establishment of a Palestinian state within 24 months remains mere talk." He stressed that the US administration must declare Israel the obstructionist side if it does not commit to the road map obligations. He pointed out that the negotiations did not start this year,but reached a very advanced stage in December 2008 between Abbas and Olmert. He added: "We demand that the negotiations resume where they left off." He continued: "The US administration calls for the restart of the negotiations because it knows it cannot obtain a commitment from Netanyahu that the negotiations will resume where they left off."

Erekat expressed surprise by Netanyahu's statement that a cessation of settlement construction is a new Palestinian condition, saying this shows Netanyahu's disregard for the roadmap.

Erekat explained that Netanyahu's plan to build 3,000 new settlement housing units, the exclusion of Jerusalem (from a settlement freeze), and the continuation of public buildings and infrastructure projects, means for those who say that Netanyahu's stance is"unprecedented" that in 2010 and 2011 the size of settlements will be more than in 2008 and 2009 because the size of settlements in Jerusalem is 37 percent of the size of settlements in the rest of the West Bank.

Erekat said: "Exclusion of Jerusalem (from a settlement freeze) means the continuing political pillaging of Jerusalem and the continuing settlement construction in it to achieve Netanyahu's goal of increasing the number of settlers in East Jerusalem to 28,000 by 2011." He pointed out there is an Israeli plan to reduce the number of Arabs in Jerusalem, who now constitute 32 percent of the number of the population in Jerusalem, to 12 percent by 2020. He also pointed out that a temporary freeze on settlement construction, a la Netanyahu, willincrease the number of settlements by 2.8 percent and will increase the number of settlement housing units in the West Bank and Jerusalem by 28 percent.

Erekat held the Israeli government responsible for the non-resumption of negotiations, even if tries to twist facts, as usual.

Erekat called on the Arabs who want US guarantees (before Israel and the PA resume negotiations) "not to search for a fig leaf because we do not need a fig leaf. The US administration offered us guarantees in which it says that settlements are illegal and that itrejects the annexation of Jerusalem. In spite of the moral importance of these guarantees, from the practical point of view they are not cashable. We want the US administration to compel the Israeli government to implement its obligations because the Palestinian side has implemented its obligations." . . .

On elections, Erekat emphasized that the Palestinians have other options. He pointed out that Israel is obstructing the peace process and HAMAS is opposing elections. Hecalled on HAMAS and all those who stand behind it to side with the interests of the Palestinian people and to sign the reconciliation paper without conditions.He said: "We are not short of options. If the two-state option is excluded, there is the option of a one-state, as happened in South Africa. The situation in the West Bank is worse than it was in South Africa."

(Description of Source: Bethlehem Ma'an News Agency in Arabic -- Website of independent, leading Palestinian news agency; funded by the Dutch and Danish Foreign Ministries; URL: http://www.maannews.net/)

End/ (Not Continued)

Right Wing & Settler Press in Israel Denounce Peace Process, Goldstone

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:06:00 +0000

The USG Open Source Center translates or paraphrases statements from the right wing and settler Israeli press

Highlights: Review of Israeli Right-Wing, Settlement Commentaries 16 Oct-3 Nov 09
The following are highlights of reports in right-wing and settlement news websites carried by the Israeli media between 16 October and 3 November.
Israel -- OSC Summary
Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Posters advertising an event in memory of ultra-nationalist rabbi Meir Kahane have appeared throughout Jeursalem recently. (Jerusalem Post photo, caption) Peace Process Is 'Final Solution' Perpetrated by Knesset 'Judenrat' Cartoon by Ronny Gordon, posted on Arutz Sheva on 31 Oct, shows Clinton searching for the peace process, while the peace dove lies liefelessly nearby.

In an 800-word commentary entitled "A Judenrat, Right-Wing or Left-Wing, Is Still the Judenrat!" published 17 October on the Kahana Hay website, Y Rosen writes: "War is being waged in the information arena. They are trying to impose a suicidal path on the Jews, to talk them into an organized march into the gas chambers of the 'peace process.' It is noteworthy that the Israeli Government (regardless of whether right-wing or left-wing) has adopted all the functions of the Judenrat on this issue and is openly pursuing a defeatist course. The construction of yet another, 23d Arab state on the territory of 0.1% of the territory of the Middle East has only one purpose: the Final Solution. Therefore, everyone who is talking about more concessions, who sits at the negotiation table with terrorists, or who panders to Muslim expansion is the enemy! The only thing that should be discussed is an exchange of refugees, specifically: the removal of Arabs and their descendents from the territory of Israel, where they suffer and blow themselves up, to the 22 Arab states! The conflict will be forever resolved!" "If you want to remain among the living, form your own forces of self-rule! Do not lend support to the Judenrat and understand: They are your enemies! The most dangerous wolves are wolves in sheep's clothing. The most dangerous SS officers are the ones who escaped to Israel with the documents of their victims and are sitting in the Knesset! By participating in elections, you are legitimizing the system of lawlessness in the country!" "No mandate for the Judenrat! Boycott the villains!" (Kahana Hay in Russian -- Website of Rabbi Me'ir Kahane's followers; URL: http://kahane-hi.info)
Cont'd (click below or on "comments")

World 'Hatred' of Israel Promoted by Leaders' Willingness To Make Sacrifices for Peace Gary Cooperberg's 21 October commentary, entitled "Why do the Nations Hate Israel?" argues: "The Jewish people is physical proof of the existence of G-d. It is this very fact which causes so many to hate us." "When the leaders of Israel seek to make Israel like all of the other nations and insist that we are not a product of Divine intervention, they only encourage those who wish Israel would just disappear. No other country in the world ever compromised on its very existence. No other country in the world would as much as suggest building a new county upon its own soil, especially for enemies who seek its destruction. Our leaders have fallen into a trap of their own making by engaging in a so-called 'peace process' which, in fact, is a process of self destruction."

"Yet, despite our hapless leaders, and despite the overwhelming number of enemies who actively seek our destruction, the Jewish State continues not merely to exist, but to grow and thrive! This too is clear proof of Divine intervention. There is simply no other explanation. Yet most choose not to see. They prefer to continue their denial of our Creator. As such their hatred for the Jewish State grows and is encouraged by the willingness of our leaders to 'make sacrifices for peace.'

"No power on Earth can destroy Israel. Those who seek her destruction will themselves be destroyed. The only genuine peace process is the one leading to Biblical Redemption which the rebirth of the Jewish nation upon her ancient soil clearly portends. Those who stand against logic by standing with the tiny Jewish State for Biblical, not political, reasons will survive. Those who don't won't. The Exile is coming to an end. It cannot co-exist with Redemption. Jews have an opportunity to express their faith in G-d by coming home now. No one knows how long that opportunity will last before the choice is taken away and either they will escape from an unwelcome Exile, or perish within it." (Hebron A Voice From Hebron in English -- Website operated by Qiryat Arba Yeshiva spokesman Gary Cooperberg, representing right-wing settler views; URL: http://www.projectshofar.org)

Judaism-Based Policies To Be Israel's 'Lifeline' Moshe Feiglin's commentary, entitled "The Land of Israel in Exchange for Goldstone," posted on the Jewish Leadership' s website on 22 October, says: There is something positive that is coming out of the Goldstone debacle. The State of Israel has its back to the wall and is being forced to re-think its basic assumptions. The 'normalcy' idea is officially bankrupt. The commentators and pundits are still attempting to blame the IDF or Israel's diplomatic efforts. 'We should have cooperated with Goldstone,' they say. But here and there, we already see individual journalists, like Ari Shavit in Ha'aretz, who at least understand that the problem is not tactical, but rather the essential negation of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.
"Understandably, the solutions that they suggest are the very same 'political processes' that have brought us to this crisis. Their horizons are as broad as an ant's. But as the crisis continues, wider and wider circles in Israeli society will begin to listen to the voices outside the media bubble. Policies that base their justice on Judaism will become Israel's lifeline." (Ginot Shomron Jewish Leadership in Hebrew -- Website of Jewish Leadership movement, led by Likud member Moshe Feiglin; URL: http://he.manhigut.org) Israel 'on Brink of Annihilation,' Can Win by Losing Hope in 'Earthly Friends'

Cartoon by Roni Gordon, posted on Arutz Sheva on 24 October, shows the HAMAS bull goring PA leader Abbas.

Samson Blinded

features a commentary entitled "Iran or Armageddon?" on 24 October, asserting: "In the past decades, history has continually repeated the same story with Jews, as if to teach us a lesson. First, we had a carbon copy of Exodus: the Promised Land lay open and European Jews refused to leave for it. Just as 4/5 refused to leave Egypt and perished, a similar proportion died in Europe. Only the Hebrews hardened by decades of roaming the Sinai desert entered the land; the Israeli pioneers were likewise different from the Exile type of Jews. Like in Egypt, our murderers and oppressors were ultimately ravaged. Both times, we were a step from total annihilation: The first time it was the Pharaoh's order to kill male babies, and later the standoff between the Egyptian army and the Jewish crowd at the Reed Sea shore; the next time it was the Holocaust.

"Two years after the slaughter, Jews still refused to build a Jewish state, relying rather on socialist idolatry; and they were slapped with the 1947--1948 war of survival. In 1967, the entire nation again appeared in danger of annihilation: it had been conveniently gathered from all corners of the earth so that Syrians and Egyptians could easily eliminate it. In both wars, Jews won only after they lost hope in any earthly friends: the US arms embargo in 1947 and arm-twisting in 1967 assured their annihilation.

"Now here comes Ahmadinejad, eerily similar to his German counterpart: a clown, a charismatic leader, a gifted speaker, completely irrational, and openly professing his genocidal aims. The world wonders what he has in mind, refusing to listen to his clear words. Iran strives for regional dominance, perhaps world dominance, as it builds Shiite beachheads even in the Far East and Africa. Iran symbolically picked up where the Germans left off: at creating a nuclear bomb.

"Again, Jews are on the brink of annihilation with the whole world against us: no one supports our strike on Iran. We can win this round by losing all hope in our earthly friends." (Samson Blinded in English -- Website operated by "Obadiah Shoher," pen name for a USSR-born "veteran politician" calling for action against Arabs and the Israeli left and citing Rabbi Kahana as a model; URL: http://samsonblinded.org) Obama 'Unaffected by Demonic Evil,' Believes He Can Make Ahmadinezhad 'Mirror Image of His Own Amorphous Self' Prof Paul Eidelberg 26 October commentary, entitled "Mirror-Imaging: What Does Obama See in Ahmadinezhad?" expounds on Iran President Ahmadinezhad's actions and sums up: "This is the Ahmadinejad that was allowed entry in the United States to address the United Nations--a venue for diseased and decadent minds. Ahmadinejad is one of the most admired leaders of Islamdom. He is the patron of Hezbollah and Hamas. An obtuse judge in South Africa -- I have other names for him -- did not know that Israel's war in Gaza, and previously in Lebanon, was actually a war that Israel alone has waged against of Iran.
"To conclude this discussion of Ahmadinejad, I must link him to Barack Obama. Year after year, Obama heard his preacher say 'God damn America.' This did not offend him. Nor was he offended by Ahmadinejad's imprecation "Death to America." Alas, Americans have elected a president who does not love America or its Founding Fathers, who is fond of disparaging America abroad, who tries to befriend America's enemies, above all Ahmadinejad. Obama's hatred of America has been confirmed by newly released writings of his from Columbia University. But this is not all.

"As I pointed out at the beginning of the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama has been tainted by the university-bred doctrine of moral relativism. Hence he is intellectually and emotionally unaffected by demonic evil. Moreover, by denying objective moral standards, relativists readily succumb to egoism or arrogance -- the arrogance of ignorance. This is why Obama believes he can make Ahmadinejad, a necrophiliac, a mirror image of his own amorphous self!" (Jerusalem Foundation for Constitutional Democracy in English -- Website of right-wing group led by Professor Paul Eidelberg, promoting a constitution based on Jewish principles, electoral and judicial reforms, and a free-market economy; URL: http://www.foundation1.org)

Temple Mount, Not Goldstone Will Restore Israel's Legitimacy Moshe Feiglin's 29 October commentary, entitled "From the Temple Mount to Goldstone and Back," asks: "From where do we draw our moral justification? What is the point that, in its absence, our right to exist as a sovereign nation in our Land comes into question? 'He who rules the Mount rules the Land,' wrote the poet of rebuke and faith, Uri Tzvi Greenberg. When the State of Israel descended from the Temple Mount and gave it to the Moslem wakf immediately after its liberation, it charted the course to Goldstone."

"The encouraging part of this story is that those who understand the source of the problem also know how to deal with the Goldstone Report. A commission of inquiry will not restore Israel's moral justification. But a house of worship for Jews on the Temple Mount will." 'Entire Army' Filling 'Whims' of 'Leftist Politicians,' Do 'Work of the Enemy' A 29 October commentary by Rabbi Sholom Dov Volpo of SOS, entitled "Cut Off the Army Away From Politics? Now You Remembered?" charges: "After the two dear soldiers were sentenced to 20 days of detention (for protesting the Gaza disengagement at a military ceremony), the Chief of Staff announced that this matter would not be tolerated, that 'the army must disconnect from politics.' But the ears of the glorious commander apparently do not hear what he himself was talking about. An entire army is mobilized to fill the whims of a few leftist politicians. Instead of protecting the people of Israel and country, they do the work of the enemy, and expel Jews from the inheritance of their fathers." (Zefat Our Land of Israel in Hebrew -- Website of right-wing Habad group acting against territorial concessions, led by prominent rabbis and affiliated with National Union party; URL: http://www.sos-israel.com)

Palestinian State Without Final Status Accord To Augment Region's Instability Dr Aaron Lerner's "weekly commentary," entitled "Palestinian State Without Final Status Agreement Recipe For Disaster," disseminated on 29 October, maintains: "Who would gain from the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state before an agreement is reached on final status issues? President Shimon Peres claims that this will somehow promote peace and stability, but he doesn't offer much substance to his argument beyond a 'best case assumption' that things will be so good for the Palestinians when they have a sovereign state that they will bend over backwards to behave themselves.

"This is a pretty insulting take on the will and determination of the Palestinians to achieve their aspirations. It doesn't require much imagination to come up with a Palestinian plan of action to exploit Palestinian sovereignty to facilitate increasing security and other pressures against the Jewish State. And this with most of the world 'understanding' if not downright accepting and even applauding the argument that the Palestinians had every right to continue with their 'struggle against the occupation' given that final borders and other key issues had yet to be agreed upon.

"Israel's enemies would come to the aid of sovereign Palestine on a scale magnitudes greater than current clandestine operations. Israel's friends would counsel the Jewish State to show more 'flexibility' and accept various Palestinian demands, in order to bring peace, arguing that 'after going so far and making so much progress' (aka concessions) it would be irresponsible for Israel to jeopardize this by taking a 'hard line.'

"All this while Israeli security operations would be subject to even greater international review, criticism and even sanctions as they are carried out within sovereign Palestine. And let's not forget that a sovereign state is a sovereign state even if it should violate the conditions under which it was formed.

"When Mr. Peres makes this proposal he shows himself to be more an anarchist than a diplomat. And the last thing we need in this region is to add to its instability." (Kfar Saba Independent Media Review & Analysis -- Website of Dr Aaron Lerner, right-leaning analyst of Arab-Israeli relations; URL: http://www.imra.org.il) MK: Foreign Workers Should Be Deported To Preserve State's Jewish Character A 30 October commentary by MK Ya'aqov Katz, the National Union Party leader, published in Arutz Sheva Online under the title "Deporting Illegals," says: "The status of the children of the foreign workers who have swamped Israel's shores legally and illegally is only one aspect of a complex, growing problem exacerbated by the infiltration of fleeing refugees and illegal transients who find their way to our already beleaguered country. This problem is reaching crisis proportions and therefore was the subject of a heated meeting last week at the Knesset Committee that was created to deal with the issue."

"Behind the battle to keep foreign workers and their children here are left wing groups who wish to turn Israel into a 'land of all its citizens,' that is, not specifically a Jewish homeland. The high fertility rate of National Religious and Haredi families has galvanized them into action. We who see Israel as the land of the Jewish People must act as well. This does not in any way negate the natural, humanitarian values of our people, but is simply a way to ensure that this country, earned with blood and tears, continues to be what it was created to be." UNESCO Acting as 'Arab League' An unattributed 31 October commentary on the website of One Jerusalem, entitled "United Nations Agency Boosts Arab Claims to Jerusalem," charges: "If one needed any more proof that UNESCO is an Arab League you can just read the statement that Jerusalem was chosen to highlight the Palestinian cause.

"UNESCO, which is charged with preserving historic sites should be protesting the Muslim campaign to rid the Temple Mount of archaeological evidence that Solomon's Temple existed. Their destruction of precious materials on the Temple Mount is greater than the Taliban destroying the Buddhas in Afghanistan. But while the world condemned the Taliban destruction the world is silent when the Muslims destroy Jewish and Christian History." (One Jerusalem in English -- Website of right-wing Israeli-US group seeking to keep Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty, funded by donations; URL: http://www.onejerusalem.org http://www.onejerusalem.org )

Erekat Sees One-State Solution if Settlements are not Halted

noreply@blogger.com (Juan Cole) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:57:00 +0000

Saeb Erekat, chief of the Palestine Liberation Organization Steering Committee, said Wednesday that Palestine Authority president Mahmoud Abbas should be frank with the Palestinian people and admit to them that there is no possibility of a two-state solution given continued Israeli colonization of the West Bank.

It is morally and ethically unconscionable to leave millions of Palestinians in a condition of statelessness, in which they have no rights (Warren Burger defined citizenship as the 'right to have rights' as my colleague Margaret "Peggy" Sommers pointed out in her new book). Therefore, if there isn't going to be a 2-state solution, there will have to be a one-state solution, in which Israel gives citizenship to the Palestinians. (As it is, 20% of Israelis are Palestinian Arabs and that proportion will grow to 33% by 2030 if they are not expelled by sometime Moldavian night club bouncer and now foreign minister of Israel, Avigdor Lieberman.)

Aljazeera English has a video interview with Saree Makdisi on Erekat's statement:

The Israeli colonies in the West Bank are actively encouraged by the Israeli government. Haaretz reported last winter on a hitherto secret database on the settlements kept by the Israeli government:

' An analysis of the data reveals that, in the vast majority of the settlements - about 75 percent - construction, sometimes on a large scale, has been carried out without the appropriate permits or contrary to the permits that were issued. The database also shows that, in more than 30 settlements, extensive construction of buildings and infrastructure (roads, schools, synagogues, yeshivas and even police
stations) has been carried out on private lands belonging to Palestinian West Bank residents. . .

the settlements in which massive construction has taken place on private Palestinian lands. Entire neighborhoods built without permits or on private lands are inseparable parts of the settlements. The sense of dissonance only intensifies when you find that municipal offices, police and fire stations were also built upon and currently operate on lands that belong to Palestinians. '

The USG Open Source Center translated some of what Erekat said in an interview with Al-Hayat published on Sunday:

' Erekat: Difficult Meeting

In his turn, Erekat has stressed to Al-Hayah that the meeting with Clinton was "frank and difficult." Erekat added that Abbas insisted that if the US Administration wanted to resume the peace process, then it would have to compel Israel to halt the settlements, including the natural growth, and to start the negotiations from where they stopped in 2008. Erekat added: "It is very clear that the US side has only achieved from Israel stances that reject its commitment to halt the settlements, and hence the US Administration, as chairman of the International Quartet, has to reveal the side that refuses and hinders the launch of the peace process, namely Israel."

Erekat continued: "If the US Administration cannot compel Israel to halt the construction of settlements, who will believe that it will be able to compel Israel to withdraw to the borders of 4 June 1967, to withdraw from Eastern Jerusalem, and to resolve the issue of the refugees according to the UN resolutions, with Resolution No. 194 at their forefront?"

Erekat stressed that Abbas, in his meeting with Clinton, reiterated his rejection of "the Palestinian state with interim borders," and also rejected Netanyahu's proposals of constructing 3,000 housing units in the settlements, and excluding Jerusalem from any agreement on the settlements; he said "this is rejected chapter and verse."

Erekat attributed the difficulty in yesterday's meeting between Abbas and Clinton to the Israeli stances rejecting the implementation of its commitments stipulated by the "Road Map." Erekat stressed that the US Administration would have to reveal the side that hinders the resumption of the negotiations.

In reply to a question by Al-Hayah about whether Clinton exerted yesterday any pressure on Abbas, Erekat said: The issue has nothing to do with pressure, but with interests. He pointed out that President Obama, in his meeting with Abbas in May 2009, described the establishment of an independent Palestinian State within 24 months as "US higher interest."

Erekat added: "The United States has 230,000 soldiers in the region. If it thinks that it can solve the problems through the use of Marines and through wars, then it is completely mistaken." Erekat stressed: This region needs to drain the quagmire of the Israeli occupation as an introduction to security and stability. He continued: "Here, we are talking about a system of interests. We have shown all possible preparations to fulfill all our commitments, but the Israeli side has not yet recognized its commitments." '

I think the whole thing is over with. I can't see a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank as it is now configured, and I can't imagine the Netanyahu government halting settlements.

End/ (Not Continued)