Tag Archives: Turkey

Israel’s premier opportunist

Saying that Israel faces daunting challenges today and that those challenges will multiply and grow in the near future should not be construed as a partisan or ideological statement. Rather, it is a statement of fact.

It is also a fact that the greatest dangers facing Israel stem from President Barack Obama’s rapid withdrawal of the US from its position as the predominant power in the Middle East on the one hand, and from Iran’s rise as a nuclear power and regional power on the other.

These power shifts along with the Muslim Brotherhood’s rising power in Egypt; Turkey’s Islamist government’s regional ambitions; the rise of jihadist forces throughout the Persian Gulf; and the growing instability of the Syrian and Jordanian regimes, together constitute a threat environment unmatched in Israel’s history.

Alongside these conventional threats, Israel is the target of a sustained, escalating political campaign to delegitimize its right to exist and its right to defend itself by the Palestinians and the international Left. This campaign threatens Israel’s economy and prepares the ground for violent aggression against Israel by conditioning the West to believe that Israel deserves to be attacked.

Given the magnitude, multiplicity and complexity of the threats Israel faces, it would be reasonable to expect our leading politicians from all parties to place patriotism above partisanship and at least on the issues that are beyond dispute to work together to defend the country.

And it would seem reasonable to assume that the issues beyond dispute are Israel’s right to exist and defend itself as well as its need to deter or defeat its enemies.

Throughout most of the state’s 63 year history, opposition leaders have joined forces with the government to defend the country in times of trouble. Most recently, while serving as head of the opposition during Ehud Olmert’s tenure as prime minister, in 2006 Binyamin Netanyahu traveled to Europe at Olmert’s request and defended Israel’s war against Hezbollah.

During the course of hostilities, Netanyahu never criticized Olmert’s poor war leadership in public. He did not publicly criticize then-foreign minister Tzipi Livni’s scandalously incompetent handling of the cease-fire negotiations at the UN Security Council. Instead, Netanyahu communicated his criticism to Olmert behind closed doors. As he saw it, public criticism would diminish Olmert’s ability to win the war.

Shortly after Netanyahu took office in March 2009, the UN released its libelous Goldstone Report in which Olmert and his government were falsely accused of committing war crimes during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. Although Netanyahu himself was not mentioned or accused of anything, he led a staunch campaign to discredit the report.

Netanyahu didn’t act as he did because he wanted to help Kadima. He acted as he did because he realized that it was Israel, not Olmert and Livni, that was under attack. As prime minister and as opposition leader, it is his job to defend Israel from attack even when the most direct beneficiaries of his actions are his political rivals.

NETANYAHU’S DECENT behavior didn’t make him a hero. His behavior is the minimum we can and should expect from our elected officials, whether they are in the government or the opposition. We should be able to reasonably expect that those who seek public office with the declared intention of serving as national leaders will always put the national interest above their partisan interests when the two conflict.

Unfortunately, this fundamental, eminently reasonable expectation is being trampled by opposition leader Tzipi Livni today. Since taking the helm of the opposition, Livni has never been willing to recognize that foreign attacks on Netanyahu are quite often attacks on Israel.

Rather than acknowledge that attacks on the legitimacy of the democratically elected government of her country are attacks on her country, Livni has viewed every attack on Netanyahu as an opportunity to weaken his government.

In this vein, Livni has consistently sided with Obama, the Palestinians and the international Left against Netanyahu, and blamed Netanyahu for their attacks on Israel. For instance, when during his visit to the US in May, Netanyahu rejected Obama’s hostile call for Israel to retreat to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines, Livni defended Obama as a friend of Israel and accused Netanyahu of harming Israel’s ties to the US.

Indeed, Livni called for Netanyahu to resign.

Livni ignored Obama’s shocking renunciation of pledges his predecessor made to the Sharon government regarding Israel’s right to defensible borders and US rejection of the Palestinians’ demands for unlimited immigration to Israel and for Israel to vacate all the Israeli towns and villages built beyond the 1949 armistice lines.

Livni ignored the fact she herself demanded that the Palestinians renounce the so-called "right of return," and blamed Netanyahu for all the unpleasantness. As she put it, "A prime minister that harms the relationship with the US over something unsubstantial is harming Israel’s security and deterrence."

As for the Palestinians, as far as Livni is concerned, they can do no wrong while Netanyahu is in office. Although the Palestinian negotiations department documents that were leaked earlier this year to The Guardian show Livni arguing that the Palestinians have to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, since Netanyahu took office, she has abandoned this position in favor of blanket support for the Palestinians against Netanyahu.

In Livni’s world, the fact that the Palestinians have refused to hold negotiations with Israel for two years is an opportunity to attack Netanyahu.

The fact that her friends in Fatah just signed a unity deal with Hamas is insignificant. As for their bid to ditch the peace process and ask the UN to recognize a Palestinian state without peace with Israel – that too is an opportunity to attack Netanyahu.

Last month, Netanyahu told an interviewer that the conflict with the Palestinians is not about territory but about their rejection of Israel’s right to exist. He asserted that as a consequence, it will be impossible to resolve the conflict until they change their view of Israel.

As is her wont, Livni treated her opponent’s observation about an unpleasant reality as equivalent to creating that reality. Attacking Netanyahu from the Knesset podium she hissed, "Who are you to tell the citizens of Israel that they and their children, and later their children’s children, will continue to live by their swords forever? Who are you to bury the chances of a deal and of normal life here, after just a few hours in the room meant for negotiations you didn’t conduct?"

THEN THERE is Livni’s ardent support for far-Left organizations in Israel and abroad that work actively to undermine Israel’s legitimacy. Take J Street. It took less than a year for J Street to demonstrate that its claim that it is pro-Israel is a sham. J Street lobbied the US Congress not to impose sanctions on Iran. It lobbied the Obama administration to allow an anti-Israel resolution to pass at the UN Security Council. It has included advocates of the boycott, sanctions and divestment campaign against Israel at its annual conference. It supports several of the most anti- Israel members of Congress.

Due to J Street’s hostility, the government has rightly shunned it. But Livni has embraced it – mainly in a bid to make Netanyahu look petty.

In so doing, she has given legitimacy to a deeply hostile organization whose goals are far outside the mainstream of both Israeli public opinion and American public opinion.

Then there is her outspoken support for anti- Zionist Israeli and foreign organizations that participate in the international Left’s campaign to delegitimize Israel. Many of these groups worked with the Goldstone Commission and others to criminalize Kadima’s leadership – including Livni – as war criminals.

If it hadn’t been for Livni, last week the Knesset would have approved by a much wider margin an anti-boycott law that enjoyed support from across the political spectrum. Instead, it passed with the support of right-wing lawmakers alone.

The original anti-boycott bill was co-sponsored by Likud MK Ze’ev Elkin and Kadima MK Dalia Itzik. Several Kadima MKs were vocal advocates of legislation punishing those waging economic war against Israel.

For instance, Kadima MK Otniel Schneller said, "Those who oppose the bill with phony democratic claims are legitimizing the international trend of boycotting Israeli academia, culture and economics, thereby damaging the legitimacy of Israeli democracy and Jewish morals."

But Livni would have none of it.

Last week, Livni forbade Kadima MKs to support the legislation in any form, and then led the charge in attacking it with those very same "phony democratic claims."

By acting as she did, she didn’t merely hurt the government. She hurt the country. Now everyone from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, to B’Tselem, to the International Solidarity Movement will cite Livni’s position as proof that there is nothing wrong with waging economic warfare against Israel. They will quote her to claim it is reasonable to single Israel out from the rest of the nations of the world for delegitimization and divestment.

Livni insists that Kadima is not a leftist party and that she is not a leftist even as her positions are identical to those of the post-Zionist Meretz party.

Livni’s political rationale is clear. She knows that despite her protestations, no one other than her media supporters believes that Kadima is a centrist party. As a consequence, her only chance of forming a government is by capturing the entire leftist vote.

Although many Kadima MKs object to her positions and criticize her for being too radical, they realize they have no choice but to go along. If they want to remain in Kadima and in politics, they must appeal to Kadima’s voters – who are all on the Left.

This is why Livni’s rival for party leadership Shaul Mofaz has adopted a peace plan that is even more radical than Livni’s plan to give Fatah everything it wants. Mofaz’s plan is to recognize and seek to negotiate a settlement with Hamas.

Mofaz is no dove. But his only option for beating Livni in the Kadima leadership primary is to outflank her on the Left.

Livni has always been an opportunist. When Netanyahu brought her into the Knesset in 1999, she was a super hawk. When in 2004, then-prime minister Ariel Sharon adopted the far Left’s strategy of wholesale territorial surrender, Livni moved from junior minister to senior minister in less than two years by adopting the positions of the far Left.

Today, as she attacks Netanyahu for advancing positions that most Israelis agree with, she does so not because she believes Netanyahu is wrong. After all, she advanced many of the same positions when she was foreign minister. She attacks him because she wants to bring down his government so that she can have another shot at getting elected to replace him. That her behavior’s affects Israel’s ability to withstand political and military aggression is clearly of no concern to her.

It is hard to quantify the damage Livni’s opportunistic attacks on the government have already caused the country. As we move into an uncertain future, it is disconcerting to consider the damage Livni will cause with her shameless exploitation of Israel’s vulnerabilities for her own political gain.

 

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post. 

Rival Hegemons in Syria

Last Saturday, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah gave Hezbollah-backed Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati the political equivalent of a public thrashing. Last Thursday, Mikati gave a speech in which he tried to project an image of a leader of a government that has not abandoned the Western world completely. Mikati gave the impression that his Hezbollah-controlled government is not averse to cooperating with the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon. The Special Tribunal just indicted four Hezbollah operatives for their role in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

But on Saturday night, Nasrallah gave a speech in which he made clear that he has no intention whatsoever of cooperating with the Special Tribunal and that since he runs the show in Lebanon, Lebanon will not cooperate in any way with the UN judicial body. As an editorial at the NOW Lebanon website run by the anti- Hezbollah March 14 movement wrote, last Saturday night Nasrallah "demolished Mikati’s authority and the office from whence it comes, and used it as a rag to mop up what is left of Lebanese dignity."

The March 14 movement has tried to make the Special Tribunal the litmus test for Mikati’s legitimacy, demanding that his government either cooperate with the UN Special Tribunal, or resign. But the fact is that the March 14 movement is no match for Hezbollah. Its protests are not capable of dislodging the Iranian-controlled jihadist movement from power.

Just as it always has, the fate of Lebanon today lies in the hands of outside powers. Hezbollah rules the roost in Lebanon because it is backed by Syria and Iran. Unlike the US and France, Iran and Syria are willing to fight for their proxy’s control over Lebanon. And so their proxy controls Lebanon. It follows then that assuming the US and France will continue to betray their allies in the March 14 democracy movement, Hezbollah will be removed from power in Lebanon only if its outside sponsors are unseated.

And it is this prospect, more than the UN Special Tribunal, that is keeping Nasrallah up at nights.

Last month, France’s Le Figaro reported that Hezbollah has moved hundreds of long-range Iranian-built Zilzal and Fajr 3 and Fajr 4 missiles from its missile depots in Syria to Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. The missile transfer was due to Hezbollah’s fear that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime is on the verge of being toppled.

And there is good reason for Hezbollah’s concern. The breadth and depth of the anti-regime protests in Syria far overshadow the anti-regime protests in Egypt and Tunisia. As Victor Kotsev noted this week in the Asia Times, something like half a million people participated in the anti-regime demonstrations in Hama last Friday. Since, according to Syria’s 2009 census, Hama has just over 700,000 residents, the rate of public participation in the anti-regime protests dwarfs anything seen in any other Arab state since the anti-regime protests began last December.

According to Tariq Alhomayed, the editor in chief of Asharq Al-Awsat in English, Assad fired his provincial governor of Hama following last Friday’s demonstration for not shooting the demonstrators.

Assad’s move is yet another clear sign that he has no intention of compromising with his opponents. He will sooner destroy his country then let anyone else rule it.

And this makes sense. A son of the Alawite sect that makes up just 12 percent of Syria’s population, Assad has no serious support base in Syrian society outside his family-controlled military. He has repressed every group in his society including much of his own Alawite sect. As Syria expert Gary Gambill noted in Foreign Policy on Thursday, Assad has no post-regime prospects.

And so he can entertain no notion of compromise with his people.

Like Hezbollah, Assad’s ability to survive is also going to be determined elsewhere. To date, the US has backed Assad against the Syrian people and Europe has gone along. 

For their part, the Iranians and their Hezbollah proxies are actively working to ensure their favored outcome in Syria. In testimony before the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday, IDF Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi repeated his claim that Iran and Hezbollah are actively assisting Assad’s forces in killing and repressing the Syrian people. 

Kochavi explained, "The great motivation Iran and Hezbollah have to assist [Assad] comes from their deep worry regarding the implications these events might have, particularly losing control of their cooperation with the Syrians and having such events slide onto their own territories."

From Iran’s perspective, the prospect of a renewal of the Green Movement anti-regime protests is the gravest threat facing the regime today as it reaches the nuclear threshold. As Iran expert Michael Ledeen wrote this week at Pajamas Media, the Iranian regime itself is plagued by internal fissures due to escalating estrangement and rivalry between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and supreme dictator Ali Khamenei.

Their infighting can be compared to pirates arguing over the division of their stolen loot as their ship sinks to the bottom of the ocean. Iran’s economy is failing. Its inflation rate is around 50%. Its people hate the regime. Lacking the ability to win the public over through politics, since the Green Movement protests in 2009 the regime has simply terrorized the Iranian people into submission.

Their fear of their people has only grown since the anti-regime protests in the Arab world began last December. And in line with this heightened fear, the regime has tripled its rate of public executions since the start of the year.

The Iranian regime understands that if Syria falls, it is liable to lose its ability keep its people down. The Alawite-dominated Syrian military is far more loyal to the Assad regime than the Iranian army is to the Iranian regime. And there have already been defections from the Syrian army among the junior officer corps.

Fearing insubordination in the ranks of its military and Revolutionary Guards, in 2009 the regime reportedly brought Hezbollah operatives to Iran to kill anti-regime demonstrators. 

If Assad falls, Hezbollah will lose its logistical supply line from Iran. Moreover, Hezbollah will be so busy fending off challenges from no-longer-daunted Lebanese Sunnis empowered by their Syrian brethren, that its operatives will be less available to kill Iranian protesters. 

With the US compliant with Assad and maintaining its policy of appeasing the Iranian regime, the only outside government currently making an attempt to influence events in Syria is Turkey. Although it is being careful to couch its anti-Assad policy in the rhetoric of compromise, given Assad’s inability to make any deal with his opponents, simply by calling for him to compromise, the Turkish government is making it clear that it seeks Assad’s overthrow. Turkey’s talk of sending troops into Syria to protect civilians and its willingness to set up refugee camps for the Syrians from border towns fleeing the Assad regime’s goons, make clear that Ankara is vying to expand its sphere of influence to Damascus in a post-Assad Syria.

Ankara’s plans are all the more apparent when seen in the context of Turkish Prime Minister Recip Erdogan’s moves to reinstate Turkey as a regional hegemon along the lines of the Ottoman Empire. To this end, according to a report this week in The Hindu, since Erdogan’s Islamist AK Party formed its first government in 2003, it has been actively cultivating ties with Muslim Brotherhood movements throughout the region. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has deep ties to the Turkish government and the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood branch Hamas has been publicly supported by Erdogan’s government since 2006.

In the event that Turkey plays a significant role in a post-Assad Syria, it can be expected that the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood would fairly rapidly take control of the country.

Many commentators have argued that Turkey’s anti-Assad stance indicates that the recent warming of ties between Tehran and Ankara, (which among other things saw Erdogan siding with Iran against the US at the UN Security Council), is over.

But things in the Middle East are never cut and dried. While it is true that Turkey and Iran are rival hegemons, it is also true that they’re also allied hegemons. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Syria and Gaza have close ties to Hezbollah and Iran as well as to Turkey. Al-Qaida in Lebanon has close ties to Syria and working relationships with Hezbollah.

Then again, if Assad is overthrown, and his overthrow reinvigorates the Iranian Green revolution, given the pro-Western orientation of much of Iranian society, it is likely that at a minimum, Iran would drastically scale back its sponsorship of Hezbollah and other terror groups.

For Israel, Assad’s overthrow will be clear strategic gain in the short-and medium-term, even if a post-Assad Syrian government exchanges Syria’s Iranian overlords with Turkish overlords. Syria’s main threats to Israel stem from Assad’s support for Palestinian terrorists and Hezbollah, and from his ballistic missile and nuclear programs. While Turkey would perhaps maintain support for Palestinian terrorists and perhaps for Lebanese terrorists, it does not share Syria’s attraction to missiles and nuclear weapons as Iran does. Moreover, Ankara would not have a strong commitment to Hezbollah and so the major threat to Israel in Lebanon would be severely weakened.

Moreover, if Assad’s potential overthrow leads to increased revolutionary activities in Iran, the regime will have less time to devote to its nuclear program, and its nuclear installations will become more vulnerable to penetration and sabotage. A successor regime in Iran, seeking close ties with the West and be willing to pay for those ties by setting aside Iran’s nuclear program.

In the long-term, the reestablishment of a Turkish sphere of influence in the Arab world in Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and Egypt through the Muslim Brotherhood will be extremely dangerous for Israel. With its jihadist ideology, its powerful conventional military forces, its strong economy and its strategic ties to the US and Europe, Turkey’s rise as a regional hegemon would present Israel with a difficult challenge.

Despite the massive dimensions of the anti-regime protests, it is still impossible to know how the situation in Syria will pan out. This uncertainty is heightened by the US’s passivity in the face of the uprising against its worst foe in the Arab world.

Given the strategic opportunities and dangers the situation in Syria presents to it, Israel cannot be a bystander in the drama unfolding to its north. True, Israel does not have the power the US has to dictate the outcome. But to the extent it is able to influence events, Israel should actively assist the non-Islamist regime opponents in Syria. This includes first and foremost the Syrian Kurds, but also the non-Islamist Sunni business class, the Druse and the Christians who are all participating the anti-regime protests. Israel should also oppose Turkish military intervention in Syria and openly advocate the establishment of a democratic, federal government in Syria to replace Assad’s dictatorship.

It might not work. But if it does, the payoff will be extraordinary.

 

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post. 

 

Israel’s Palace Coup Plotters

On Monday, saboteurs bombed the Egyptian gas pipeline to Israel for the third time since former president Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in February. The move was just another reminder that Israel today faces the most daunting and complex threat spectrum it has ever seen.
From Egypt to Turkey to Iran to the international Left to the Obama administration, Israel faces a mix of military and political challenges that threaten its very existence on multiple levels. To meet these challenges, it is vital for the government and people of Israel to stand strong, unified and determined. The approaching storm will test our resilience as we have never been tested before.
Unfortunately, even if the government is competent, and even if the nation stands strong, there is reason to fear that Israel will fail to successfully withstand the dangers gathering against it. Unelected, unrepresentative and irresponsible senior government officials are liable to take actions that undermine the government’s ability to protect the country and weaken the public’s morale and unity of purpose.
Over the past week, we received two reminders of how dire the situation is. The first reminder relates to institutional impediments to the government’s freedom of action in preventing Iran from fielding a nuclear arsenal.
Since the beginning of his first term as prime minister 15 years ago, Binyamin Netanyahu has consistently warned that the greatest dangers Israel faces stem from the forces of global jihad generally and the Iranian regime and its nuclear program specifically. After taking office for the second time in 2009, Netanyahu made blocking Iran’s rise to nuclear power his top priority. He ordered the heads of the Mossad and the IDF to prepare plans to attack Iran’s nuclear installations.
Last Friday, Haaretz reported that former Mossad chief Meir Dagan and former IDF chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi refused to obey his order. Rather than prepare strike plans, Dagan and Ashkenazi warned that such a strike would foment a regional war. That is, rather than do their jobs, they made excuses for failing to fulfill their duty to obey Israel’s elected leadership.
Not wanting to take them on directly, Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak decided to wait them out. Dagan and Ashkenazi were both set to finish their terms at the beginning of the year, and Netanyahu and Barak figured they could replace them with commanders who would abide by the government’s wishes. Specifically, Barak and Netanyahu believed that by replacing Ashkenazi with his deputy Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant, they would have a military leader willing and able to take on the central challenge of preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power.
Barak announced last August that Galant would replace Ashkenazi as IDF chief in January. Galant’s appointment was approved by the government and by the Senior Appointments Commission. But in late January, the government was forced to cancel it. And this week we received new indications that Galant’s appointment fell victim to what has been likened to a palace coup. That is, the government was denied its right to choose its military leader by a group of senior officials who deliberately usurped that power from the government.
In January, we learned that Ashkenazi’s close associate Lt.-Col. (ret.) Boaz Harpaz had forged a document that was transferred by Ashkenazi’s office to Channel 2. The forgery purported to be a memo written for Galant by the public relations firm owned by Eyal Arad – Kadima’s public relations guru. The forged memo detailed a public relations campaign that would discredit Galant’s rivals and Ashkenazi, and so pave the way for Galant’s appointment as chief of General Staff. Channel 2’s broadcast of the memo seriously harmed Galant’s public image.
The police opened an investigation, and Harpaz admitted to forging the document. Despite revelations that Harpaz was in intensive, continuous contact with Ashkenazi’s wife Ronit and had a longstanding close friendship with Ashkenazi himself, the Military Advocate- General decided not to investigate Ashkenazi or any other officer about their ties to Harpaz and his forged document.
Over the weekend, Yediot Aharonot reported that last week Harpaz underwent two lengthy interrogations by State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss. Harpaz is reportedly divulging information about his connections to Ashkenazi.
Despite Harpaz’s own admission that he forged the document, Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein has abstained, to date, from indicting him. Although jarring, Weinstein’s actions are not surprising. It was Weinstein who personally overturned Galant’s appointment in January.
Harpaz’s defamatory memo wasn’t the only thing working against Galant’s appointment. A previously unknown environmental group called the Green Movement filed a petition with the Supreme Court calling for the cancellation of Galant’s appointment because in the past he had used the state lands around his family homestead in Moshav Amikam without permission. Since his actions were administrative infractions rather than criminal acts, the Senior Appointments Commission concluded that he was fit to serve as chief of staff.
Weinstein felt differently. Claiming that he had ethical problems with Galant’s behavior, Weinstein refused to defend the appointment to the Supreme Court. Weinstein’s announcement forced the government to cancel Galant’s appointment.
Ashkenazi’s chosen successor,Maj.-Gen. Benny Gantz, whom Barak had previously eliminated from the running, was appointed instead.
Perhaps due to fear that Gantz might not stand up to Netanyahu and Barak as he and Ashkenazi did, Dagan shocked the country last month by launching an unprecedented public attack against Netanyahu and Barak. His clear aim was to discredit the option of an Israeli military strike against Iran.
According to Haaretz, Dagan was motivated by his desire to cover up his failure to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Also according to Haaretz, Ashkenazi, together with recently retired IDF intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin, supported Dagan’s attacks through off-record briefings.
It is impossible for the public to know what is going on behind closed doors. We cannot know whether a worthy general’s rivals’ successful campaign to discredit him has doomed the country to another three years of defeatist, incompetent stewardship of the IDF – and what’s worse, to a nuclear-armed Iran. What we do know is that a handful of unelected civil servants took it upon themselves to undermine the government’s ability to lead the country.
The government is not the only target on the runaway clerks’ target list. Members of the nationalist camp are also subject to systematic campaigns of criminalization and demoralization.
This week we were witness to the troubling spectacle of senior rabbis being dragged into police stations for questioning. Their purported crime involves writing blurbs praising a religious book written by another rabbi.
The book in question is reportedly a highly controversial tome that sets out the religious precepts governing the killing of enemies of Israel in times of war and peace. It was authored by Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira from Yitzhar.
Several leftist organizations filed a complaint against the book, claiming that it incites murder of non-Jews. Shapira was arrested and brought before the district court for arraignment in leg shackles and handcuffs last year.
And over the past several days, Rabbis Dov Lior and Ya’acov Yosef have been arrested and questioned by police for the blurbs they authored that were published in the book.
It is hard to know the basis for the complaint. Generally Israeli law stipulates that there has to be a tangible connection between incendiary words and the likely commission of the crime they incite. No such connection seems to exist in the case of Shapira’s book.
In the wake of Lior’s arrest, his students staged raucous, enraged protests against the State Attorney’s Office and the Supreme Court. For their part, senior prosecutors announced that no one in Israel is above the law. And this is true enough.
Unfortunately they do not practice what they preach. In arresting the rabbis, the police were acting in accordance with their instructions from Assistant Attorney-General for Special Projects Shai Nitzan.
The bulk of Nitzan’s duties revolve around applying the law in a discriminatory manner against the Israeli Right.
Following Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination in 1995, then-attorney-general Michael Ben-Yair established Nitzan’s position. The position was specifically geared toward criminalizing Israelis who live beyond the 1949 armistice lines.
Among other things, the assistant attorney general for special projects oversees the operation of an inter-agency group called the Task Force for Law Enforcement against Israelis in Judea and Samaria.
The task force was officially canceled in 1998 by the government, acting on the advice of then-attorney-general Elyakim Rubenstein. Rubenstein argued that the task force’s mission of enforcing specific laws against a specific population group was inherently discriminatory.
In breach of the government decision, the task force has continued to meet regularly. Nitzan has overseen its activities since he was promoted to his position in 2005.
In 2009, MK Ze’ev Elkin convened a special Knesset hearing on the activities of Nitzan’s task force. According to an Arutz 7 report of the proceedings, he subpoenaed protocols from the meetings and found that its activities were deeply prejudicial and politically motivated. Among other things, the protocols disclosed that the task force members were required to file a minimum monthly quota of five criminal complaints against Israelis in Judea and Samaria suspected of building violations.
The quota system is doubly prejudicial. First, by making investigations an institutional requirement rather than a function of the suspected commission of specific illegal acts, it is an invitation for frivolous prosecutions and official harassment. 
Second, inside the 1949 armistice lines, the general practice is to treat building violations as administrative rather than criminal offenses. By using a different practice for Israelis living outside the armistice lines, Nitzan and his team members enacted a separate legal regime for a select group of citizens, thus undermining the foundations of the rule of law.
Elkin’s 2009 hearing made no difference. And after Lior’s arrest last week, Elkin again demanded its disbanding in accordance with the government decision and the rule of law. And no doubt, the legal fraternity will continue to ignore his calls.
Through their behavior, the legal fraternity is not merely making a mockery of the rule of law. They are undermining the social fabric of the country.
As for the government, the senior civil service’s erosion of the governing authority of the political leadership has risen to critical levels. As Galant’s scuttled appointment and Dagan’s and Ashkenazi’s behavior regarding Iran’s nuclear program make clear, we have reached the point where due to the subversion of senior officials, our elected leaders are denied the ability to perform their primary function of defending the country.
This state of affairs has simply got to end. The government and the Knesset need to put a stop to it. At the end of the day, the ayatollahs, the sheikhs, the UN and the anarchists are not our greatest challenge. Our leaders and our people can stand up to them. Our greatest challenge is to stand up to unelected officials who have taken it upon themselves to discredit the cause of victory, embrace weakness, and destroy our sense of national purpose.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

A do or die moment

Every day, major stories come out of the Middle East. And behind each of these stories are major developments that deserve of our attention and, more often than not, our intense concern. Just this week, major stories have come out of Syria, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, Yemen and Pakistan that are all deeply disconcerting.

In Syria, dictator Bashar Assad’s violent repression of the popular revolt against his tyrannical, minority regime has exposed the Syrian leader as a vicious murderer. While there is some room for hope that the Syrian people may successfully overthrow him, given the US’s refusal to provide any tangible assistance to the regime opponents, it is hard to see how such a happy future could come about.

For his part, Assad is the beneficiary of a steady stream of support from the Iranian regime. The mullahs and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards will ensure that he never runs out of bullets to kill his people.

As to the Palestinian Authority, this week’s Fatah-Hamas coalition negotiations in Cairo revealed the depth and breadth of Hamas’s control over the unity government now being formed. Despite massive American pressure, Hamas successfully vetoed Fatah’s bid to retain Salam Fayyad as prime minister in the unity government.

Moreover, in the face of significant international pressure, Hamas maintains its refusal to accept the so-called Quartet conditions of recognizing Israel, ending terrorism and agreeing to respect all previous agreements signed between the Palestinians and Israel.

Given Hamas’s maintenance of its annihilationist goals toward Israel and Fatah’s inability to convince Hamas to accept its minimal demands, it is obvious that Hamas is the stronger force in the Palestinian unity government. It is also clear that this government will not under any circumstances agree to make peace with Israel.

AND YET, in the face of these realities, US President Barack Obama is intensifying his pressure on Israel to agree to the now-powerless Fatah’s preconditions for negotiating. Indeed, he has adopted Fatah’s preconditions as his own.

Obama is demanding that Israel agree to surrender its right to defensible borders by insisting that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu accept the pre-1967 boundaries – that is the 1949 armistice lines – as the starting point for future negotiations. Since Obama surely recognizes that a Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority will not accept Israeli control over anything from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to the Jordan Valley, he knows that he is requiring that Israel surrender its right to defensible borders before it even begins negotiating.

It is not surprising that the unity talks that crowned Hamas the king of Palestinian politics have taken place in post-Mubarak Egypt. Despite the rosy, post-Mubarak scenarios put forward during the revolution in January by American liberal and neo-conservative intellectuals, post- Mubarak Egypt is shaping up to be a dangerous, frightening place.

With the supposedly liberal Wafd Party merging with the Muslim Brotherhood this week, the Brotherhood took a significant step toward consolidating its rise to political leadership of the country in the elections scheduled for September.

The ruling military junta’s decision to arrest Israeli-American Ilan Grapel on trumped-up espionage charges last week is just one more signal that post-Mubarak Egypt is turning its back on Egypt’s peace with Israel.

And as The Washington Times reported last week, the US has been reduced to begging the Egyptian military authorities to re-arrest a number of top jihadist terrorists freed from Egyptian prisons in the aftermath of Hosni Mubarak’s ouster. Yet, not only have the terrorists not been re-jailed, some of them have formed new political parties and are slated to run in September’s elections. Clearly, the US is also being betrayed by the new regime.

If the Muslim Brotherhood controls the next Egyptian government, Egypt will join Lebanon and Turkey as the newest member of the growing club of nations ruled by Islamic radicals. This week, Lebanon’s Hezbollah-appointed Prime Minister Najib Mikati finally formed his Hezbollah- controlled government.

Hezbollah has now officially swallowed Lebanon. The regional and indeed global repercussions of the development are simply mind-boggling.

Then there is Turkey. This week, the Turks went to the polls and re-elected Prime Minister Recip Erdogan and his radical Islamic AKP party to lead the country for a third term. In his victory speech, Erdogan signaled his Islamist and neoimperialist ambitions by stating that former Ottoman empire-controlled cities from Sarajevo to Jerusalem, from Damascus to Beirut to Ramallah should all be cheering his victory. Turkish intellectuals like Sinan Ulgen, who heads the Istanbul-based Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies, are arguing for a more independent Turkish role within NATO.

Both nuclear-armed Pakistan and Yemen are quickly approaching the day when they will be led by al Qaida or its affiliates. The forced departure of Yemini President Ali Abdullah Saleh two weeks ago after he was wounded in an attack on the Presidential Palace was seen as a major victory for al Qaida. Al Qaida forces continue to attack government installations in Aden and other cities throughout the country.

As for Pakistan, the US’s assassination of Osama bin Laden last month exposed the dirty secret of Pakistani military collaboration with al Qaida for all to see. This week’s arrest of five Pakistanis accused of acting as informants to the US in its bid to locate the al Qaida chief is further proof – if any was needed – that the $21 billion in military and economic assistance the US has showered on Pakistan since 2002 has bought it precious little in the way of strategic support or partnership from Islamabad. Recent reports indicate increased concern that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal may eventually fall under the control of al Qaida sympathizers.

AMAZINGLY, WHILE all of these developments are alarming, and while all of them have justifiably dominated much of the coverage of the Middle East in recent weeks and months, the fact is that all of them pale in comparison to what is happening in Iran. And this story is receiving only scant and generally superficial attention from the international media and the major governments of the Western world.

Monday, The Wall Street Journal editorialists summarized the major developments on this front. First, last week the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency released previously classified sections of its latest report on Iran. The report says that in the last six months, Tehran enriched 970 kilos of uranium to reactor-grade levels, bringing its publicly known stockpile of low enriched uranium to 4,105 kilos.

Iran also has enriched 56.7 kilos of uranium to the 20% level, from which it is a relatively simple matter to increase enrichment levels to the 90% needed to make a nuclear bomb.

Iran has also installed upgraded centrifuges in its until recently secret enrichment facility at Qom.

Rand Corporation scholar Gregory S. Jones wrote this month that Iran has reached nuclear breakout capacity. In his words, "Iran can now produce a weapons’s worth (20 kilograms) of HEU [weapons-grade uranium] any time it wishes. With Iran’s current number of operating centrifuges, the batch recycling process would take about two months."

Apparently owing to their certainty that Iran is an unstoppable nuclear power, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards took their guard down in a recent issue of their in-house journal. The magazine published an article describing the day after Iran performs a nuclear test.

And the beat goes on. Yesterday, Iran successfully launched a second spy satellite into space.

The launch indicates that Iran is acquiring greater prowess in developing intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities. Such capabilities along with Iran’s nuclear program and global ambitions constitute a clear and present danger to Europe and the US.

Iran’s steady progress toward a nuclear arsenal was made all the more frightening in the face of the recent comments by retired Mossad director Meir Dagan. In a shocking breach of protocol and in apparent violation of the law, the man who until a few months ago stood at the helm of Israel’s efforts to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions attempted to take Israel’s military option for striking Iran’s nuclear installations off the table. In press interviews, Dagan stated that it would be disastrous for Israel to strike Iran’s nuclear installations.

Dagan failed to note that it would be far more disastrous to allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.

At this point, it is inarguable that the policy of sanctioning Iran favored by the US and Europe has failed to dampen Iran’s commitment to developing nuclear weapons. It has also failed to significantly slow Iran’s progress towards the atom bomb. Obviously, the only possible way to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons at this late hour is to attack its nuclear installations.

For years, Israel’s governments have taken a back seat to Washington on Iran. From Ariel Sharon to Ehud Olmert to Netanyahu, since Iran’s nuclear program was first revealed in 2003, Israel has allowed itself to believe that the US could be trusted to take the greatest threat to Israel’s survival off the table.

The belief that the US would lead a military strike against Iran was always based more on blind faith than fact. When, in 2003, George W.

Bush decided to work through the UN Security Council on the issue. despite Russia’s open assistance to Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and China’s growing addiction to Iranian natural gas, it was already apparent that the US was not serious about preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. And when, in late 2007, the US’s National Intelligence Assessment published the demonstrably false claim that Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003, it became clear to anyone willing to see that the US had decided not to take any significant action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

This dire state of affairs was reinforced with the inauguration of Obama as US president in 2009.

Obama’s sole policy for dealing with the nuclear weapons-seeking and openly genocidal Iranian regime is appeasement. And Obama doesn’t seek to appease the mullahs in order to convince them to end their nuclear program.

For Obama, appeasement is an end in and of itself. This is why – even after Iran has spurned all his offers of appeasement and has been caught red-handed repeatedly aiding Iraqi and Afghan forces killing US servicemen, and despite Iran’s swift progress toward a nuclear arsenal – Obama refuses to even state openly that he would use force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

What this means is that – as was the case in May 1967, when the combined Arab armies gathered with the express purpose of wiping the Jewish state off the map – today again, Israel is alone at its hour of greatest peril. All of the lesser threats now gathering from Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey will become insurmountable if Iran becomes a nuclear power.

As was the case in May 1967, Israel has arrived at a do-or-die moment. And we should all pray for the strength and courage of our leaders, our soldiers and our nation at this time.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Netanyahu’s time to choose

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s response to the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority’s peace deal with Hamas would be funny if it weren’t tragic. Immediately after the news broke of the deal Netanyahu announced, "The PA must choose either peace with Israel or peace with Hamas. There is no possibility for peace with both."

Netanyahu’s statement is funny because it is completely absurd. The PA has chosen.

The PA made the choice in 2000 when it rejected Israel’s offer of peace and Palestinian statehood and joined forces with Hamas to wage a terror war against Israel.

The PA made the choice in 2005 again when it responded to Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza with a tenfold increase in the number of rockets and missiles it fired on Israeli civilian targets in the Negev.

The Palestinians made the choice in 2006, when they elected Hamas to rule over them.

They made the choice in March 2007 when Fatah and Hamas signed their first unity deal.

The PA made the choice in 2008 when Abbas rejected then-prime minister Ehud Olmert’s offer of statehood and peace.

The PA made the choice in 2010 when it refused to reinstate peace negotiations with Netanyahu; began peace negotiations with Hamas; and escalated its plan to establish an independent state without peace with Israel.

Now the PA has again made the choice by signing the newest peace deal with Hamas.

IN A real sense, Netanyahu’s call for the PA to choose is the political equivalent of a man telling his wife she must choose between him and her lover, after she has left home, shacked up and had five children with her new man.

It is a pathetic joke.

But worse than a pathetic joke, it is a national tragedy. It is a tragedy that after more than a decade of the PA choosing war with Israel and peace with Hamas, Israel’s leaders are still incapable of accepting reality and walking away. It is a tragedy that Israel’s leaders cannot find the courage to say the joke of the peace process is really a deadly serious war process whose end is Israel’s destruction, and that Israel is done with playing along.

There are many reasons that Netanyahu is incapable of stating the truth and ending the 18- year policy nightmare in which Israel is an active partner in its own demise. One of the main reasons is that like his predecessors, Netanyahu has come to believe the myth that Israel’s international standing is totally dependent on its being perceived as trying to make peace with the Palestinians.

According to this myth – which has been the central pillar of Israel’s foreign policy and domestic politics since Yitzhak Rabin first accepted the PLO as a legitimate actor in 1993 – it doesn’t matter how obvious it is that the Palestinians are uninterested in peaceful coexistence with Israel. It doesn’t matter how openly they wage their war to destroy Israel. 

Irrespective of the nakedness of Palestinian bad faith, seven successive governments have adopted the view that the only thing that stands between Israel and international pariah status is its leaders’ ability to persuade the so-called international community that Israel is serious about appeasing the Palestinians.

For the past several months, this profoundly neurotic perception of Israel’s options has fed our leaders’ hysterical response to the Palestinians’ plan to unilaterally declare independence.

The Palestinian plan itself discredits the idea that they are interested in anything other than destroying Israel. The plan is to get the UN to recognize a Palestinian state in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and Gaza outside the framework of a peace treaty with Israel. The PA will first attempt to get the Security Council to endorse an independent "Palestine." If the Obama administration vetoes the move, then the PA will ask the General Assembly to take action. Given the makeup of the General Assembly, it is all but certain that the Palestinians will get their resolution.

THE QUESTION is, does this matter? 

Everyone from Defense Minister Ehud Barak to hard-left, post-Zionist retreads like Shulamit Aloni and Avrum Burg says it does. They tell us that if this passes, Israel will face international opprobrium if its citizens or military personnel so much as breathe in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem without Palestinian permission.

These prophets of doom warn that Israel has but one hope for saving itself from diplomatic death: Netanyahu must stand before the world and pledge to give Israel’s heartland and capital to the Palestinians.

And according to helpful Obama administration officials, everything revolves around Netanyahu’s ability to convince the EU-3 – British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel – that he is serious about appeasing the Palestinians. If he doesn’t offer up Israel’s crown jewels in his speech before the US Congress next month, administration officials warn that the EU powers will go with the Palestinians.

And if they go with the Palestinians, well, things could get ugly for Israel.

Happily, these warnings are completely ridiculous. UN General Assembly resolutions have no legal weight. Even if every General Assembly member except Israel votes in favor of a resolution recognizing "Palestine," all the Palestinians will have achieved is another non-binding resolution, with no force of law, asserting the same thing that thousands of UN resolutions already assert. Namely, it will claim falsely that Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and Gaza are Palestinian territory to which Israel has no right. Israel will be free to ignore this resolution, just as it has been free to ignore its predecessors.

The threat of international isolation is also wildly exaggerated. Today, Israel is more diplomatically isolated than it has been at any time in its 63-year history. With the Obama administration treating the construction of homes for Jews in Jerusalem as a greater affront to the cause of world peace than the wholesale massacre of hundreds of Iranian and Syrian protesters by regime goons, Israel has never faced a more hostile international climate. And yet, despite its frosty reception from the White House to Whitehall, life in Israel has never been better.

According to the latest data released by the Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel’s economy grew 7.8 percent in the last quarter of 2010.

International trade is rising steeply. In the first quarter of 2011, exports rose 27.3%. They grew 19.9% in the final quarter of last year. Imports rose 34.7% between January and March, and 38.9% in the last quarter of 2010.

The Israel-bashing EU remains Israel’s largest trading partner. And even as Turkey embraced Hamas and Iran as allies, its trade with Israel reached an all time high last year.

These trade data expose a truth that the doom and gloomers are unwilling to notice: For the vast majority of Israelis the threat of international isolation is empty.

The same people telling us to commit suicide now lest we face the firing squad in September would also have us believe that the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement is the single greatest threat to the economy. But that lie was put paid this month with the demise of the Australian town of Marrickville’s BDS-inspired boycott.

Last December, the anti-Israel coalition running the town council voted to institute a trade, sports and academic boycott against Israel. Two weeks ago the council was forced to cancel its decision after it learned that it would cost $3.4 million to institute it. Cheaper Israeli products and services would have to be replaced with more expensive non-Israeli ones.

Both Israel’s booming foreign trade and the swift demise of the Marrickville boycott movement demonstrate that the specter of international isolation in the event that Israel extricates itself from the Palestinian peace process charade is nothing more than a bluff. The notion that Israel will be worse off it Netanyahu admits that Abbas has again chosen war against the Jews over peace with us has no credibility.

SO WHAT is preventing Netanyahu and his colleagues in the government from acknowledging this happy truth? Two factors are at play here. The first is our inability to understand power politics. Our leaders believe that the likes of Sarkozy, Cameron and Merkel are serious when they tell us that Israel needs to prove it is serious about peace in order to enable them to vote against a Palestinian statehood resolution at the UN. But they are not serious. Nothing that Israel does will have any impact on their votes.

When the Europeans forge their policies towards Israel they are moved by one thing only: the US.

Since 1967, the Europeans have consistently been more pro-Palestinian than the US. Now, with the Obama administration demonstrating unprecedented hostility towards Israel, there is no way that the Europeans will suddenly shift to Israel’s side. So when European leaders tell Israelis that we need to convince them we are serious about peace, they aren’t being serious. They are looking for an excuse to be even more hostile. If Israel offers the store to Abbas, then the likes of Cameron, Merkel and Sarkozy will not only recognize "Palestine" at the UN, (because after all, they cannot be expected to be more pro-Israel than the Israeli government that just surrendered), they will recognize Hamas. Because that’s the next step.

It would seem that Israel’s leaders should have gotten wise to this game years ago. And the fact that they haven’t can be blamed on the second factor keeping their sanity in check: the Israeli Left. The only group of Israelis directly impacted by the BDS movement is the Israeli Left. Its members – from university lecturers to anti-Zionist has-been politicians, artists, actors and hack writers – are the only members of Israeli society who have a personal stake in a decision by their leftist counterparts in the US or Europe or Australia or any other pretty vacation/sabbatical spots to boycott Israelis.

And because the movement threatens them, they have taken it upon themselves to scare the rest of us into taking this ridiculous charade seriously. So it was that last week a group of washed-up radicals gathered in Tel Aviv outside the hall where David Ben-Gurion proclaimed Israeli independence, and declared the independence of "Palestine." They knew their followers in the media would make a big deal of their agitprop and use it as another means of demoralizing the public into believing we can do nothing but embrace our enemies’ cause against our country.

The time has come for the vast majority of Israelis who aren’t interested in the Nobel Prize for Literature or a sabbatical at Berkeley or the University of Trondheim to call a spade a spade. The BDS haters have no leverage. A degree from Bar-Ilan is more valuable than a degree from Oxford. And no matter how much these people hate Israel, they will continue to buy our technologies and contract our researchers, because Cambridge is no longer capable of producing the same quality of scholarship as the Technion.

And it is well past time for our leaders to stop playing this fool’s game. We don’t need anyone’s favors. Abbas has made his choice.

Now it is time for Netanyahu to choose.

 

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

 

Turkey’s cautionary tale

Today’s Turkey is a cautionary tale for the West. But Western leaders are loath to consider its lessons.

Ever since Turkey’s Islamist Justice and Development AKP party under Recip Tayip Erdogan won the November 2002 elections, Western officials have upheld the AKP, Erdogan and his colleagues as proof that political Islam is consonant with democratic values. During Erdogan’s June 2005 visit to the White House, for instance, then-president George W. Bush praised Turkish democracy as "an important example for the people in the broader Middle East."

Unfortunately, nine years into the AKP’s "democratic" regime it is clear that Erdogan and his colleagues’ embrace of the language and tools of democracy was a mile wide and an inch thick. They used democracy to gain power. Now that they have power, they are systematically destroying freedom in their country.

Turkey ranks 138th in the international media freedom group Reporters Sans Frontieres country index on press freedom. Sixty-eight journalists are languishing in Turkish jails for the crime of doing their job. The most recent round-up of reporters occurred in early March. And it is demonstrative of Turkey’s Islamist leaders’ exploitation of democratic freedoms in the service of their tyrannical ends.

As Der Spiegel reported last week, veteran journalists Ahmet Sik from the far-left Radikal newspaper and Nedim Sener from the highbrow Milliyet journal were among those rounded up. As radical leftists, both men oppose the AKP’s Islamist politics. But they shared its interest in weakening the Turkish military.

The Left opposed the military’s constitutional role as the overseer of Turkish democracy because the military used that role to persecute leftists. The AKP party opposed the military’s power because it blocked the party’s path to Islamizing Turkish society and politics. When the AKP turned its guns on the military it used leftist journalists to support its actions.

This collusion came to a head in 2007. In a bid to destroy the legitimacy of the military, the AKP regime has engaged in unprecedented levels of wiretapping of the communications of senior serving and retired generals.

This wiretapping operation preceded the exposure in 2007 of the so-called Ergenekon conspiracy in which senior military commanders, journalists, television personalities, entertainers and businesspeople have been implicated in an alleged attempt to topple the AKP government. As part of the Ergenekon investigation, over the past four years, hundreds of non-Islamist leaders from generals to journalists have been arrested and held without trial.

Ironically, Sik, who is now accused of membership in the Ergenekon plot, was an editor at the leftist weekly magazine Notka that "broke" the conspiracy story.

As Der Spiegel notes, the arrest of Sik and Sener shows that the AKP’s early embrace of investigative reporters and championing of a free press was purely opportunistic. Once Sik, Sener and the other 66 jailed reporters had finished discrediting the military, the regime had no need for them. Indeed, they became a threat.

Both Sik and Sener have recently written books documenting how Turkey’s version of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Fetulah Gulen network, has taken over the country’s security services.

In an interview this month with the opposition Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review, former Turkish president Suleyman Demirel warned that the AKP has established "an empire of fear" in Turkey.

TURKEY’S DESCENT into Islamist tyranny has not simply destroyed freedom in Turkey. It has transformed Turkey’s strategic posture in a manner that is disastrous for the West. And yet, in this arena as well, the West refuses to notice what is happening.

Earlier this week the US Ambassador to Ankara Francis Ricciardone gave an interview to the Turkish media in which he romantically upheld the US-Turkish partnership. As he put it, "Our interests are similar. Even if we have different methods and targets, our strategic vision is the same."

Sadly, there is no way to square this declaration with Turkish policy.

This week it was reported that NATO member Turkey is opening something akin to a Taliban diplomatic mission in Ankara. Turkey supports Hamas and Hizbullah. It has begun training the Syrian military. It supports Iran’s nuclear weapons program. It has become the Iranian regime’s economic lifeline by allowing the mullahs to use Turkish markets to bypass the UN sanctions regime.

In less than 10 years, the AKP regime has dismantled Turkey’s strategic alliance with Israel. It has inculcated the formerly tolerant if not pro- Israel Turkish public with virulent anti-Semitism. It is this systematic indoctrination to Jew-hatred that has emboldened Turkish leaders to announce publicly that they support going to war against Israel.

The Turkish government stands behind the al- Qaida- and Hamas- linked IHH group. IHH organized last year’s pro-Hamas flotilla to Gaza in which IHH members brutally attacked IDF naval commandoes engaged in a lawful mission to maintain Israel’s lawful maritime blockade of Gaza’s coast. With the support of the Turkish government, IHH is now planning an even larger flotilla to assault Israel’s blockade of Gaza next month.

Actually, in a sign of the intimacy of its ties to the AKP regime, this week IHH announced it is considering postponing the next pro-Hamas flotilla in order to ensure that its illegal pro-terror campaign will not harm the AKP’s electoral prospects in Turkey’s national elections scheduled for June.

American and other Western officials have argued that it would be wrong to distance their governments from Turkey or in any way censure the NATO member because doing so will only strengthen the anti-Western forces in the anti- Western government. Instead, Western leaders have done everything they can to appease Erdogan.

The US even allowed him to invade Iraqi Kurdistan.

Unfortunately, this appeasement policy has only harmed the West and NATO. Take the behavior of NATO’s Secretary-General and former Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. As Denmark’s prime minister, Rasmussen stood up boldly to the Islamists when they demanded that he apologize for the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten’s publication of caricatures of Muhammad in 2005. Yet when Turkey threatened to veto his appointment as NATO secretary-general in 2009 over the Islamists’ rejection of free speech, Rasmussen abandoned his strong defense of Western liberal values to placate the Turks.

In a humiliating speech Rasmussen said, "I was deeply distressed that the cartoons were seen by many Muslims as an attempt by Denmark to mark or insult or behave disrespectfully towards Islam or the Prophet Muhammad… I respect Islam as one of the world’s major religions as well as its religious symbols."

Rasmussen then proceeded to appoint Turks to key positions in the alliance.

Far from reining in Turkey’s anti-Western policies, by maintaining Turkey in NATO Western powers have been forced to curtail their own defense of their interests.

NATO’s incoherent mission in Libya is case in point. It can be argued that Germany’s large and increasingly radicalized Turkish minority played a role in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to risk her country’s good ties with Britain and France and refuse to support the Libyan mission. So, too, it was reportedly due to President Barack Obama’s deference to Turkey that the US failed to support the anti-regime forces until Gaddafi organized a counteroffensive against them. So if as appears increasingly likely, Gaddafi is able to survive the NATO-backed insurgents’ bid to overthrow him, he will owe his survival in no small measure to Erdogan.

TURKEY IS a cautionary tale for the West, which is now faced with the prospect of AKP-like regimes from Egypt to Tunisia to Jordan to the Persian Gulf. And the real issue that Western leaders must address is how things in Turkey were permitted to deteriorate to the point they have without any US or European official lifting a finger to stem the Islamist tide? The answer, it would seem, is a combination of professional laziness and cultural weakness. This mix of factors is also on display in the US’s behavior toward the revolutionary forces active throughout much of the Arab world.

Professional laziness stands at the root of the West’s decision not to contend with the unpleasant truth that the AKP is an Islamist party whose basic ideology has more in common with Osama bin Laden’s values than with George Washington’s. This truth was always available. Erdogan and his colleagues did not make any special efforts to hide what they stand for.

The West chose not to pay attention because its senior officials knew if they did, they would have to do something. They would have had to distance themselves from Turkey, remove Turkey from NATO and seek to contain the power of the Erdogan regime. And this would have been hard and unpleasant.

So, too, they knew that if they noticed the nature of the AKP they would have to throw themselves deep into Turkish society and defend the superiority of Western values over Islamist values. They would have had to locate and support Turkish leaders who are willing to adopt Western values and then cultivate, fund and empower them. This also would have been hard and unpleasant.

Likewise, in post-Mubarak Egypt, it is easier to believe fairy tales about Facebook revolutions and Westernized student leaders than face the harsh truth that from Amr Moussa to Mohamed ElBaradei to Yousef Qaradawi there are no leaders in post-Mubarak Egypt who support the peace with Israel or believe that Egypt has common interests with Israel and the US. There are no potential leaders in Egypt who share Western values of individual liberty and human rights.

And as in Turkey, the price for recognizing these inconvenient facts is taking effective action to counter them. As in Turkey, the West will be forced to do hard things like develop a policy of containing rather than engaging Egypt, and of identifying and cultivating forces in Egyptian society that are willing to embrace John Locke, John Stuart Mill and Adam Smith over Hassan al-Banna and Qaradawi.

Rather than do any of these hard things, Western leaders have lied to themselves about the nature of these forces and regimes. They have told themselves that there is no problem with the likes of Erdogan and his Egyptian cohorts, and opted to limit their meddling in the internal affairs of others to endless attempts to undermine and overthrow successive pro- Western, democratic, non-leftist governments in Israel. These governments, they have argued, must be replaced by leftist parties in order to feed the West’s fantasy that all the problems of the region, all its Qaradawis and Erdogans, will magically become Thomas Jeffersons and John Adamses if Israel would just cut a deal with the PLO.

This fantasy is convenient for lazy Western cultural cowards. They know that there will be no pushback for their policies. Israel won’t attack them. And by pretending the Islamists share their values and strategic interests they are free to take no action to defend their values and strategic interests from Islamist assault.

But while this strategy has been convenient for policymakers, it has done great damage to their countries. The growing menace that is Islamist Turkey teaches us that professional laziness and cultural squeamishness are recipes for strategic disasters.

 

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post. 

 

UN intervention into Libya an ominous precedent for Israel

There are many reasons to be worried about the bridge-leap the Obama Administration has just undertaken in its war with Muammar Gaddafi.   How it will all end is just one of them.

Particularly concerning is the prospect that what we might call the Gaddafi Precedent will be used in the not-to-distant future to justify and threaten the use of U.S. military forces against an American ally: Israel.

Here’s how such a seemingly impossible scenario might eventuate:

It begins with the Palestinian Authority seeking a UN Security Council resolution that would recognize its unilateral declaration of statehood.  Three top female officials in the Obama administration reprise roles they played in the Council’s recent action on Libya: U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, a vehement critic of Israel, urges that the United States support (or at least not veto) the Palestinians’ gambit.  She is supported by the senior director for multilateral affairs at the National Security Council, Samantha Power, who in the past argued for landing a "mammoth force" of American troops to protect the Palestinians from Israel.  Ditto Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose unalloyed sympathy for the Palestinian cause dates back at least to her days as First Lady.

This resolution enjoys the support of the other four veto-wielding Security Council members – Russia, China, Britain and France – as well as the all of the other non-permanent members except India, which joins the United States in abstaining.  As a result, it is adopted with overwhelming support from what is known as the "international community."

With a stroke of the UN’s collective pen, substantial numbers of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israeli citizens find themselves on the wrong side of internationally recognized borders.  The Palestinian Authority (PA) insists on its longstanding position:  The sovereign territory of Palestine must be rid of all Jews. 

The Israeli government refuses to evacuate the oft-condemned "settlements" now on Palestinian land, or to remove the IDF personnel, checkpoints and facilities rightly seen as vital to protecting their inhabitants and, for that matter, the Jewish State itself.

Hamas and Fatah bury the hatchet (temporarily), forging a united front and promising democratic elections in the new Palestine.  There, as in Gaza (and probably elsewhere in the wake of the so-called "Arab awakening"), the winner will likely be the Muslim Brotherhood, whose Palestinian franchise is Hamas).

The unified Palestinian proto-government then seeks international help to "liberate" their land.  As with the Gaddafi Precedent, the first to act is the Arab League.  Its members unanimously endorse the use of force to protect the "Palestinian people" and end the occupation of the West Bank by the Israelis.

Turkey (which is still a NATO ally, despite its ever-more-aggressive embrace of Islamism) is joined by Britain and France – two European nations increasingly hostile to Israel – in applauding this initiative in the interest of promoting "peace."  They call on the UN Security Council to authorize such steps as might be necessary to enforce the Arab League’s bidding.

Once again, Team Obama’s leading ladies – Mesdames Clinton, Power and Rice – align to support the "will of the international community."  They exemplify, and are prepared to enforce, the President’s willingness to subordinate U.S. sovereignty to the dictates of transnationalism and his personal hostility towards Israel.  The concerns of Mr. Obama’s political advisors about alienating Jewish voters on the eve of the 2012 election are trumped by presidential sympathy for the Palestinian right to a homeland. 

Accordingly, hard as it may be to believe given the United States’ longstanding role as Israel’s principal ally and protector, Mr. Obama acts, in accordance with the Gaddafi Precedent.  He warns Israel that it must immediately take steps to dismantle its unwanted presence inside the internationally recognized State of Palestine, lest it face the sort of U.S.-enabled "coalition" military measures now underway in Libya.  In this case, they would be aimed at neutralizing IDF forces on the West Bank – and beyond, if necessary – in order to fulfill the "will of the international community."

Of course, such steps would not result in the ostensibly desired end-game, namely "two states living side by side in peace and security."  If the current attack on Libya entails the distinct possibility of unintended (or at least unforeseen) consequences, application of the Gaddafi Precedent to Israel seems certain to produce a very different outcome than the two-state "solution":  Under present and foreseeable circumstances, it will unleash a new regional war, with possible worldwide repercussions.  

At the moment, it seems unlikely that the first application in Libya of the Gaddafi Precedent will have results consistent with U.S. interests.  Even if a positive outcome is somehow forthcoming there, should Barack Obama and his anti-Israel troika of female advisors be allowed, based on that precedent, to realize the foregoing hypothetical scenario, they would surely precipitate a new international conflagration, one fraught with truly horrific repercussions – for Israel, for the United States and for freedom-loving people elsewhere. 

A Congress that was effectively sidelined by Team Obama in the current crisis had better engage fully, decisively and quickly if it is to head off such a disastrous reprise.

 

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy, a columnist for the Washington Times and host of the nationally syndicated program, Secure Freedom Radio, heard in Washington weeknights at 9:00 p.m. on WRC 1260 AM.

 

The new Middle East

A new Middle East is upon us and its primary beneficiary couldn’t be happier.

In a speech Monday in the Iranian city of Kermanshah, Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Politburo Chief General Yadollah Javani crowed, "Iran’s pivotal role in the New Middle East is undeniable. Today the Islamic Revolution of the Iranian nation enjoys such a power, honor and respect in the world that all nations and governments wish to have such a ruling system."

Iran’s leaders have eagerly thrown their newfound weight around. For instance, Iran is challenging Saudi Arabia’s ability to guarantee the stability of global oil markets.

For generations, the stability of global oil supplies has been guaranteed by Saudi Arabia’s reserve capacity that could be relied on to make up for any shocks to those supplies due to political unrest or other factors. When Libya’s teetering dictator Muammar Ghaddafi decided to shut down Libya’s oil exports last month, the oil markets reacted with a sharp increase in prices. The very next day the Saudis announced they would make up the shortfall from Libya’s withdrawal from the export market.

In the old Middle East, the Saudi statement would never have been questioned. Oil suppliers and purchasers alike accepted the arrangement whereby Saudi Arabian reserves – defended by the US military — served as the guarantor of the oil economy. But in the New Middle East, Iran feels comfortable questioning the Saudi role.

On Thursday Iran’s Oil Minister Massoud Mirkazemi urged Saudi Arabia to refrain from increasing production. Mirkazemi argued that since the OPEC oil cartel has not discussed increasing supplies, Saudi Arabia had no right to increase its oil output.

True, Iran’s veiled threat did not stop Saudi Arabia from increasing its oil production by 500,000 barrels per day. But the fact that Iran feels comfortable telling the Saudis what they can and cannot do with their oil demonstrates the mullocracy’s new sense of empowerment.

And it makes sense. With each passing day, the Iranian regime is actively destabilizing Saudi Arabia’s neighbors and increasing its influence over Saudi Arabia’s Shiite minority in the kingdom’s Eastern Province where most of its oil is located.

Moved by the political unrest in Bahrain and Yemen, Saudi regime opponents including Saudi’s Shiite minority have stepped up their acts of political opposition. The Saudi royal family has sought to literally buy off its opponents by showering its subjects with billions of dollars in new subsidies and payoffs. But still the tide of dissent rises.

Saudi regime opponents have scheduled political protests for March 11 and March 20. In an attempt to blunt the force of the demonstrations, Saudi security forces arrested Tawfiq al-Amir, a prominent Shiite cleric from the Eastern Province. On February 25 al-Amir delivered a sermon calling for the transformation of the kingdom into a constitutional monarchy.

Iran has used his arrest to pressure the Saudi regime. In an interview with Iran’s Fars news agency this week, Iranian parliamentarian and regime heavyweight Mohammed Dehqan warned the Saudis not to try to quell the growing unrest. As he put it, the Saudi leaders "should know that the Saudi people have become vigilant and do not allow the rulers of the country to commit any possible crime against them."

Dehqan continued, "Considering that the developments in Bahrain and Yemen affect the situation in Saudi Arabia, the [regime] feels grave danger and interferes in the internal affairs of these states."

Dehqan’s statement is indicative of the mullahs’ confidence in the direction the region is taking. In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged that Iran is deeply involved in all the anti-regime protests and movements from Egypt to Yemen to Bahrain and beyond.

"Either directly or through proxies, they are constantly trying to influence events. They have a very active diplomatic foreign policy outreach," Clinton said.

Iranian officials, Hizbullah and Hamas terrorists and other Iranian agents have played pivotal roles in the anti-regime movements in Yemen and Bahrain. Their operations are the product of Iran’s long running policy of developing close ties to opposition figures in these countries as well as in Egypt, Kuwait, Oman and Morocco. These long-developed ties are reaping great rewards for Iran today. Not only do these connections give the Iranians the ability to influence the policies of post-revolutionary allied regimes. They give the mullahs and their allies the ability to intimidate the likes of the Saudi and Bahraini royals and force them to appease Iran’s allies.

THIS MEANS that Iran’s mullahs win no matter how the revolts pan out. If weakened regimes maintain power by appeasing Iran’s allies in the opposition – as they are trying to do in Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Algeria, Bahrain, Oman and Yemen — then Iranian influence over the weakened regimes will grow substantially. And if Iran’s allies topple the regimes, then Iran’s influence will increase even more steeply.

Moreover, Iran’s preference for proxy wars and asymmetric battles is served well by the current instability. Iran’s proxies – from Hizbullah to al Qaida to Hamas – operate best in weak states. From Hizbullah’s operations in South Lebanon in the 1980s and 1990s, to the Iranian-sponsored Iraqi insurgents in recent years and beyond, Iran has exploited weak central authorities to undermine pro-Western governments, weaken Israel and diminish US regional influence.

In the midst of Egypt’s revolutionary violence, Iran quickly deployed its Hamas proxies to the Sinai. Since Mubarak’s fall, Iran has worked intensively to expand its proxy forces’ capacity to operate freely in the Sinai.

Recognition of Iran’s expanded power is fast altering the international community’s perception of the regional balance of forces. Russia’s announcement last Saturday that it will sell Syria the supersonic Yakhont anti-ship cruise missile was a testament to Iran’s rising regional power and the US’s loss of power.

Russia signed a deal to provide the missiles to Syria in 2007. But Moscow abstained from supplying them until now – just after Iran sailed its naval ships unmolested to Syria through the Suez Canal and signed a naval treaty with Syria effectively fusing the Iranian and Syrian navies. So too, Russia’s announcement that it sides with Iran’s ally Turkey in its support for reducing UN Security Council sanctions against Iran indicates that the US no longer has the regional posture necessary to contain Iran on the international stage.

Iran’s increased regional power and its concomitant expanded leverage in international oil markets will make it impossible for the US to win UN Security Council support for more stringent sanctions against Tehran. Obviously UN Security Council sanctioned military action against Iran’s nuclear installations is out of the question.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration has failed completely to understand what is happening. Clinton told the Congress and the Senate that Iran’s increased power means that the US should continue to arm and fund Iran’s allies and support the so-called democratic forces that are allied with Iran.

So it was that Clinton told the Senate that the Obama administration thinks it is essential to continue to supply the Hizbullah-controlled Lebanese military with US arms Clinton claimed that she couldn’t say what Hizbullah control over the Lebanese government meant regarding the future of US ties to Lebanon.

So too, while Palestinian Authority leaders burn President Barack Obama in effigy and seek to form a unity government with Iran’s Hamas proxy, Clinton gave an impassioned defense of US funding for the PA to the House Foreign Relations Committee this week.

Clinton’s behavior bespeaks a stunning failure to understand the basic realities she and the State Department she leads are supposed to shape. Her lack of comprehension is matched only by her colleague Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ lack of shame and nerve. In a press conference this week, Gates claimed that Iran is weakened by the populist waves in the Arab world because Iran’s leaders are violently oppressing their political opponents.

In light of the Obama administration’s refusal to use US military force for even the most minor missions – like evacuating US citizens from Libya – without UN approval, it is apparent that the US will not use armed force against Iran for as long as Obama is in power.

And given the administration’s refusal to expend any effort to protect US interests and allies in the region lest the US be accused of acting like a superpower, it is clear that US allies like the Saudis will not be able to depend on America to defend the regime. This is the case despite the fact that its overthrow would threaten the US’s core regional interests.

AGAINST THIS backdrop, it is clear that the only way to curb Iran’s influence in the region and so strike a major blow against its rising Shiite-Sunni jihadist alliance is to actively support the pro-democracy regime opponents in Iran’s Green movement. The only chance of preventing Iran from plunging the region into war and bloodshed is if the regime is overthrown.

So long as the Iranian regime remains in power, it will be that much harder for the Egyptians to build an open democracy or for the Saudis to open the kingdom to liberal voices and influences. The same is true of virtually every country in the region.

Iran is the primary regional engine of war, terror, nuclear proliferation and instability. As long as the regime survives, it will be difficult for liberal forces in the region to gain strength and influence.

On February 24, the mullahs reportedly arrested opposition leaders Mir Hossain Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi along with their wives. It took the Obama administration several days to even acknowledge the arrests, let alone denounce them.

In the face of massive regime violence, Iran’s anti-regime protesters are out in force in cities throughout the country demanding their freedom and a new regime. And yet, aside from paying lip service to their bravery, neither the US nor any other government has come forward to help them.

No one has supplied Iran’s embattled revolutionaries with proxy servers after the regime brought down their Internet communications networks. No one has given them arms. No one has demanded that Iran be thrown out of all UN bodies pending the regime’s release of the Moussavis and Karroubis and the thousands of political prisoners being tortured in the mullahs’ jails. No one has stepped up to fund around-the-clock anti-regime broadcasts into Iran to help regime opponents organize and coordinate their operations.

Certainly no one has discussed instituting a no fly zone over Iran to protect the protesters.

With steeply rising oil prices and the real prospect of al Qaida taking over Yemen, Iranian proxies taking over Bahrain, and the Muslim Brotherhood controlling Egypt, some Americans are recognizing that not all revolutions are Washingtonian.

But there is a high likelihood that an Iranian revolution would be. At a minimum, a democratic Iran would be far less dangerous to the region and the world than the current regime.

The Iranians are right. We are moving into a new Middle East. And if the mullahs aren’t overthrown, the New Middle East will be a very dark and dangerous place.

 

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

How to make Egypt safe for democracy

Hosni Mubarak’s resignation as president of Egypt, after thirty years of authoritarian rule, is a major seismic event in the unstable Middle East. Although not as shattering as the 1981 assassination of his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, Mubarak’s departure may actually pose more of a challenge to Egypt’s long-ruling military than either Sadat’s murder or the natural death of Gamal Nasser, the first officer in the modern military line after the 1952 overthrow of King Farouk.  The "regime" thereafter was the military itself; while Mubarak was obviously its apex in recent years, the military establishment as a whole governed, not just one man.  

When Nasser and Sadat died, the collective military leadership knew its next step: have another military leader succeed his fallen predecessor.  That outcome seems very unlikely today, although not impossible.  In the short term, the military’s highest body, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, is in charge, having dissolved parliament and suspended the constitution, pending parliamentary and presidential elections to be scheduled. Whether there is a larger, longer-term political role for Egypt’s military (as in Pakistan and Turkey) remains to be seen.

Commentators and historians will debate what actually sparked the demonstrations that brought Mubarak down, but for now the most likely explanation is that they were essentially spontaneous, initiated by the demonstrations in Tunisia against the despised Ben Ali government, fuelled by social networks like Twitter and Facebook and more broadly through the internet and email.  As in many Third World countries, youth unemployment, especially among those with "university" educations, was widespread; opportunities seemed limited; and 6,000 years of bureaucratic government weighed heavily on the people.  

But the critical political motivator was almost certainly opposition to Mubarak’s long-feared effort to have his son Gamal succeed him in yet another well-rigged Egyptian election.  The elder Mubarak, 82 and ailing, was not likely to run again, but the idea of pharaonic succession was more than most Egyptians could tolerate.  Significantly, opposition included Egypt’s armed forces: Gamal had never been part of the military, unlike his father, a former commander of the Air Force. Combined with obviously fixed parliamentary elections last November, Mubarak the Second was simply unacceptable.

The spontaneity of the street turmoil was confirmed by the absence of leaders, either from among the demonstrators, or from Egyptian intellectuals, existing opposition political figures, or media moths like Mohammed el-Baradei, former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who rushed back to Egypt from Vienna to speak English to the Western press and unsuccessfully claim leadership of the rising tide of protest.

Although far from certain, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (the "Ikhwan") probably did not instigate the demonstrations, and may well have been caught off guard like so many others.  But the Brotherhood, although legally banned in Egypt for decades and living in a shadow world politically, was nonetheless a major factor in what happened next. It remains well-organised, tightly disciplined, and clear in its Islamicist agenda.  On the first Friday after the demonstrations began, the Ikhwan’s mullahs used the Friday prayers to call its followers into the streets, substantially increasing both the size of the demonstrations and their intensity.  

The Brotherhood had already been active in the scheduled September presidential elections, moving close to a formal endorsement of el-Baradei’s candidacy, a seemingly odd coalition between a collection of medieval, theocratic radicals and, in effect, a European social democrat. Nonetheless, the alliance served both parties, giving the Ikhwan entrée to the Western media and a role in opposition to Mubarak.  Even before the demonstrations began, el-Baradei had announced support for the Hamas autocracy in the Gaza Strip and for ending all sanctions against Hamas:  "Open the borders, end the blockade!" he told Der Spiegel last July. Since Hamas is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Brotherhood, this was a critical point. Ending Egypt’s blockade of its border with Gaza (the little-known and sporadically effective counterpart to Israel’s blockade) would allow free transit between Gaza and Egypt, thereby facilitating the transfer of operatives, weapons and finance from Hamas’s major backer: Iran.

As the days passed in Egypt, the Obama Administration went through a public agony of confused, contradictory, and inconsistent responses.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton opened the public torrent of words by observing that Mubarak’s government was stable, and Vice-President Biden chimed in that it was not a dictatorship.  Within days, however, President Obama himself was telling Mubarak privately and publicly that the "transition" to democracy had to begin "now", enabling his press avatars to leak furiously that Mubarak must resign immediately. Within less than a week, the White House endorsed Mubarak remaining in office until the end of his term in September, a line replaced just days later by renewed insistence on Mubarak’s immediate departure from office.

This foolish, endless public commentary was an all-too transparent effort to stay on top of the news cycle, and to portray the US President as directing events rather than merely responding to them. As a consequence, Obama’s credibility was undercut everywhere.  By trying to please everyone, he ended up pleasing no one. The truly important communications, entirely off the media’s radar, were between the Pentagon and Egypt’s military, urging restraint while also trying to understand the shifting dynamics on Egypt’s streets and behind closed doors, where the key political negotiations were taking place. Unfortunately, Obama’s public twisting and turnings have obscured the important, beneficial impact of these invisible lines of communication between Washington and Cairo. 

The issue now, of course, is what happens next. The West can justifiably be optimistic about the legitimate aspirations for freedom and true democracy many demonstrators in Egypt and elsewhere expressed. Tunisia, for example, now seems the most likely candidate to make a successful transition from authoritarian rule to truly representative government. But a pragmatic assessment of the situation in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East nonetheless underlines the daunting obstacles in the way of that transformation. Moreover, critical US national security interests, such as the stability of the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement, Egypt’s 35-year strategic alignment with America following Sadat’s pivot away from the Soviet Union, and the fate of the Arabian Peninsula’s oil-and gas-producing regimes, justifiably weigh in the balance for Washington’s decision-makers, and the West as a whole.

Many others also have strategic interests at risk. Suddenly, one of the foundations of Israel’s security, the Camp David Accords, is potentially imperiled. Pro-Western Arab governments, particularly monarchies from Morocco to the Gulf, see their stability endangered. They watched in dismay the way in which Obama treated Mubarak, loyalty to unappealing allies in trouble not having been a strong suit in Washington for many years. If the White House threw Mubarak "under the bus", they wondered, what would be their fate if they faced internal turmoil? And concern whether loyalty was a principle that counted in Washington was not confined to the Middle East, but extended globally.

Conceptually, of course America supports democracy for all people; how could we do otherwise? But in international politics, as in life, key moral principles and deeply held philosophical values can conflict. Statesmen necessarily face deeply unappealing choices which academics and commentators in their suburban literary redoubts are spared. Sad to say, it is comforting but utterly unrealistic to believe that pursuing one value to the effective exclusion of the others will nonetheless result in all being reconciled satisfactorily.

Advocating democracy and actually building it are two radically different things. Jeane Kirkpatrick’s 1979 Commentary article, "Dictatorships and Double Standards," which first brought her to the attention of prospective presidential candidate Ronald Reagan, deftly skewered Jimmy Carter’s handling of two earlier regime crises, which may have uneasy parallels with what is transpiring in Egypt. Kirkpatrick’s characteristic honesty made famous the argument that pro-Western authoritarian governments had at least the potential for a gradual transformation to democracy, something no repressive communist government had ever done. But Kirkpatrick’s thesis was more profound than simply a Cold War polemic; she explained eloquently why proclaiming support for democratic ideals in no way guaranteed implementing them successfully. Her case studies were the Shah’s government in Iran and the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua, replaced, respectively by ayatollahs in Tehran and Sandinistas in Managua. We thus moved from two authoritarian, pro-US regimes to two even more authoritarian, anti-US regimes, partially thanks to Carter’s bungling.  The lesson was plain.

Kirkpatrick quoted approvingly from John Stuart Mill’s magisterial essay, "Considerations on Representative Government", in which Mill described three preconditions for such governments to succeed: "One, that the people should be willing to receive it; two, that they should be willing and able to do what is necessary for its preservation; three, that they should be willing and able to fulfill the duties and discharge the functions which it imposes on them." Americans have their own version of this insight, a perhaps apocryphal tale occurring in Philadelphia after the secret, closed-session drafting of the Constitution in 1787. As the story goes, a woman approached Ben Franklin on the street and said, "Well, Doctor, what have you given us, a republic or a monarchy?"  To which Franklin reportedly replied, "A republic, Madam, if you can keep it."

Today’s world is filled with failed efforts at democratisation. Russia has passed from totalitarianism, into democracy, and now seems to be passing right out again, regressing to authoritarianism or worse, although seemingly not of the communist variety. Lebanon’s Cedar Revolution has been hijacked by Hizbollah, the Shi’ite terrorist group armed and financed by Iran. And in Gaza, Hamas, albeit Sunni, is similarly armed and financed by Iran. In short, the forms and processes of democracy can produce substantively decidedly illiberal results, as Mussolini’s Fascisti and Hitler’s Brown Shirts should have amply warned us in the last century.

Moreover, beyond the issue of Egypt’s future government, broader US national security interests have legitimate – and enormous – claims. Americans may admire Woodrow Wilson’s aspirations to make the world safe for democracy, but they actually follow Theodore Roosevelt’s devastating response: "First and foremost, we are to make the world safe for ourselves." Attention to US strategic interests is not evidence of indifference to democracy, but a recognition that America’s democracy itself requires its leaders to do what nation states exist to do, and as its Constitution specifically admonishes, to "provide for the common defence".

Ironically, once Egyptian demonstrators verged on toppling Mubarak, the Obama Administration suddenly found virtue in demonstrations in Iran, with ringing statements by Vice-President Biden and others. By contrast, after Iran’s fraudulent 2009 presidential election, the White House had been silent or even supportive of Ahmadinejad’s election "victory", so desperate was it to engage Tehran in negotiations over its nuclear weapons program. Obama’s sustained unwillingness to acknowledge, let alone endorse, the protesters in Iran against their totalitarian, theocratic military rulers provoked enormous criticism, which obviously stung the hyper-media-conscious White House. But while being rhetorically ahead of the media spin cycle is a mark of success at the Obama White House, as in so many other cases, rhetoric is all there is.  Mistaking rhetoric for action is the Obama Administration’s hallmark.

So, today’s pressing question for Egypt is what steps the new military rulers should take. First, there should not be a rush to elections. It was a fatal mistake for Palestinians when the Bush Administration, reading supposedly irrefutable polls that Hamas could not win, scheduled elections in 2006 that allowed Hamas to do just that. Democracy is a culture, a way of life, as Mill and Kirkpatrick recognised, not simply the counting of votes. Any realistic assessment of Egypt’s "opposition" shows it to be weak, disorganised, and indifferently led. Moving to early elections, as the Muslim Brotherhood wants, will not bring the Age of Aquarius, but only benefit those factions with existing political infrastructures, which is a formula for domination by the Brotherhood. Far better to proceed when the true democrats are ready, which may not be soon enough for some, but which is unambiguously the more pro-democratic course. 

Second, participation in the elections, whenever scheduled, should be limited to real political parties. From Mussolini to Putin, from Hamas to Hezbollah, terrorists, totalitarians and their ilk masquerading as political parties do not really believe in representative government. Banning such faux-democrats from participating in the legitimate political process until they become true political parties is entirely legitimate, and may well be critical to avert disaster.  America did so for decades by outlawing the Communist Party, as post-World War II Germany did with the National Socialists. Thus, for President Obama to say, as he did, that the transition "must bring all of Egypt’s voices to the table" is not only naive, but fundamentally dangerous.  

In order to join legitimate political parties in contesting elections, we asked in Lebanon and in Palestinian elections that terrorists had to renounce violence (and mean it), give up their weapons, and abjure the prospect of resorting to force if they didn’t like the outcome. Sadly, we did not insist on these standards, and the results in Lebanon and Gaza prove our mistake. We should not repeat these errors, although Obama seems well on the way to doing so.

Third, the West should provide material assistance to those truly committed to a free and open society. In days of yore, the United States supplied extensive clandestine assistance to prevent communist takeovers in post-World War II elections in France, Italy and elsewhere. Undoubtedly, the Obama Administration is too fastidious for such Cold War-style behaviour, but perhaps overt, democratic institution-building assistance is not too much to ask. Advocates of doing nothing will argue that Western assistance, overt or covert, will "taint" the real democrats, and should therefore be avoided. Of course, there are always excuses for doing nothing. At a minimum, we should let Egyptians themselves decide whether they will be "tainted" with outside assistance; if they can live with the taint, so should we.

Fourth, Egypt’s military must restore and extend stability, setting an example throughout the Middle East, thereby allowing whatever progress toward a truly democratic culture to emerge. Egypt’s military will require political space in the months ahead. The Pentagon’s continuing close relationship with Egypt’s military should give us confidence that the right message about civilian control over the military is getting through.  One of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces’ first announcements was that it would honour Egypt’s international obligations, presumably including Camp David. This is important and reassuring internationally, but hardly dispositive of what future governments will do.  

The 1990s were filled with visions of a "new Middle East" that would transform the "cold peace" Israel had achieved with Egypt and Jordan into broader economic and security ties, and that would extend to other Arab countries too. That vision was stillborn, but there is little doubt that we are now going to see a new Middle East whether we like it or not, and whether or not it will be better than what it replaces. Alea iacta est – "the die has been cast" – and it may be long years before it comes to rest.

 

Obama’s devastatingly mixed signals

For better or worse, each passing day the Middle East is becoming more unstable. Regimes that have clung to power for decades are now being overthrown and threatened. Others are preemptively cracking down on their opponents or seeking to appease them.

While no one can say with certainty what the future will bring to the radically altered Middle Eastern landscape, it is becoming increasingly apparent that US influence over events here will be dramatically diminished.

This assessment is based on the widespread view that the Obama administration has failed to articulate a coherent policy for contending with the rising populist tides.

Last Friday’s UN Security Council vote was a case in point. On the one hand, the US vetoed a Lebanese-sponsored resolution that criminalized Israel’s policy of permitting Jews to exercise their property rights in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. On the other, after vetoing the resolution, US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned their own actions and explained why what they did was wrong.

As Rice put it in her explanation of the vote: "We reject in the strongest terms the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity. For more than four decades, Israeli settlement activity in territories occupied in 1967 has undermined Israel’s security and corroded hopes for peace and stability in the region. Continued settlement activity violates Israel’s international commitments, devastates trust between the parties, and threatens the prospects for peace….

"While we agree with our fellow Council members – and indeed, with the wider world – about the folly and illegitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity, we think it unwise for this Council to attempt to resolve the core issues that divide Israelis and Palestinians. We therefore regrettably have opposed this draft resolution."

It is important at the outset to point out that Rice’s claims are either wrong or debatable. Israel has not committed itself to barring Jews from exercising property rights in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. Permitting Jewish construction in these areas does not violate Israel’s international commitments.

Moreover, there is no firm international legal basis for declaring Jewish neighborhoods and villages in these areas illegal.

It is far from clear that Jewish neighborhoods, cities and villages in these areas harm prospects for peace or undermine trust between Israelis and Arabs. Jews built far more homes back when Israel was signing agreements with the Palestinians.

Finally, it is far easier to form a coherent argument explaining how these communities strengthen Israel’s security than an argument that they endanger it.

But beyond the basic falseness of Rice’s statement, her condemnation of her own vote to veto the resolution, and Clinton’s similar statements, serve to send a series of messages to the states in the region that are devastating to America’s regional posture.

Friday’s Security Council vote marked a new peak in the Fatah-controlled, US-sponsored Palestinian Authority’s political war against Israel. The war’s aim is to delegitimize the Jewish state in order to foment its collapse on the model of apartheid South Africa.

To advance this aim, the Palestinians seek to isolate Israel internationally by criminalizing it in international arenas. The Palestinians have made intense use of all UN bodies to achieve their goal. With automatic majorities in nearly every UN body, the most obvious impediment to the Palestinians’ bid to criminalize Israel and thus bring about its international isolation is the US’s Security Council veto.

Since the Palestinians first began using the UN to criminalize Israel in the 1970s, it has been the consistent policy of all US administrations to use the Security Council veto to either vote down anti-Israel initiatives or remove them from the agenda by threatening to veto them.

But then came US President Barack Obama with his expressed interest in reconciling the US with the anti- American and anti-Israel majorities in all UN bodies. To this end, Obama has refused to commit himself to using the veto to prevent the criminalization of Israel.

Capitalizing on Obama’s position, the Palestinians tried to make it as hard and politically costly as possible for Obama to support Israel.

Friday’s vote was months in the making and it was clearly inspired by the Obama administration’s own policies.

Since entering office, the president has been outspoken in his view that Jews must be denied their property rights in Jerusalem neighborhoods outside the 1949 armistice lines, and in Judea and Samaria. Obama has repeatedly plunged US-Israel relations into crisis with his unprecedented demand that the Netanyahu government adopt his discriminatory policies and deny Jews the right to their property in these areas.

Obama’s obsession with barring Jewish property rights provided the Palestinians with the opening to undermine US support for Israel at the Security Council. By putting forward a resolution condemning Israel for upholding Jewish property rights, the Palestinians forced Obama to choose between his principles and the US alliance with Israel.

As the Palestinians rightly saw things, the resolution put them in a win-win situation. Had he allowed the resolution to pass, Obama would have given the Palestinians a strategic victory. If he vetoed the resolution, he would be decried as a hypocrite and thus provide the Palestinians with new justification for refusing to participate in US-mediated negotiations with Israel. Since their goal is to delegitimize Israel, the Palestinians have no interest in negotiating a peace deal with its government.

IN THE weeks leading up to Friday’s vote, both houses of the US Congress made it absolutely clear to Obama that abandoning Israel would be unacceptable. Obama and Clinton received letter after letter signed by hundreds of congressmen and scores of senators demanding that he stand with Israel. Recognizing the legislators were simply reflecting the overwhelming support Israel enjoys from the American public, Obama was forced to veto the resolution.

Had he been interested in preventing Friday’s vote, he certainly had ample means to do so. He could have told Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas months ago that the administration would veto any anti-Israel resolution brought before the Security Council. Even if Abbas had insisted on pushing forward with the resolution, a strong, consistent message from the administration would have minimized the significance of the event.

Obama could also have used the Security Council’s deliberations on the resolution as a means of advancing US regional influence. The resolution was sponsored by Lebanon, today controlled by Hezbollah – an illegal terrorist organization.

Obama could have capitalized on this fact not only to justify his veto, but to force the subject of Hezbollah control over Lebanon onto the UN agenda. Such a move would have advanced US interests twice. It would have insulated Obama from Palestinian rebuke and it would have demonstrated that the US has not accepted Iranian colonization of Lebanon through its Hezbollah proxy.

BUT INSTEAD, the administration adopted a policy it openly hated and then condemned its own behavior. In so doing, it sent four deeply problematic messages to the region.

First, it signaled that it is deeply unserious.

Second, it signaled to the Palestinians that, while blocked by popular US support for Israel from joining them, the administration supports the PA’s political war against Israel. That is, Obama told the Palestinians to continue this war against Israel.

Third, the administration told Israel – and all its other allies – that in the era of Obama, the US is not a credible ally. Not only does this message weaken America’s allies, it emboldens the likes of Iran and Syria and the Muslim Brotherhood who are increasingly convinced that the US will not stand by its allies in a pinch.

Finally, by standing by as Abbas pushed forward with the resolution despite Obama’s repeatedly stated opposition, the president showed all actors in the region that there is no price to be paid for defying the US. Obama did not announce that he is ending US financial support for Fatah. He did not state that the US is ending its training of the Fatah forces. Instead, he sent Rice before the cameras to tell the world that he agrees with the Palestinians, who just slapped him in the face.

The question is why is the administration behaving this way? The obvious answer is that it really does side with the Arabs against Israel. Strengthening this view is the fact that since taking office, Obama has been consistently hostile to Israel and its strategic interests.

There is another possible explanation, however: That the administration is simply too incompetent to understand the significance of its actions. This explanation appears increasingly credible in light of the US’s ham-fisted handling of the revolutions raging throughout the Arab world.

In Egypt, the administration did not simply show America’s closest ally in the Arab world the door. By legitimizing the Muslim Brotherhood, Obama has paved the way for the next Egyptian crisis.

At the latest, this crisis will occur in September with the scheduled elections. At that point, three scenarios will arise.

1. The ruling military junta may cancel the elections and foment another rebellion.

2. If the military permits free and fair elections, the Muslim Brotherhood will become the most potent force in Egypt due to its unmatched organizational capacity.

After the elections the Muslim Brotherhood may adopt the model of Turkey’s Islamist AKP party and move Egypt into the Iranian camp while pretending it is still a US ally.

3. After the elections, the Muslim Brotherhood may adopt the Khomeinist model and foment an Islamic revolution in Egypt.

IN ALL these scenarios, America’s strategic interests will be placed in jeopardy. But presently, it is far from clear that the Obama administration recognizes that these are the consequences of the policies it adopted.

Then there is Saudi Arabia. By supporting the anti- Mubarak forces in Egypt and the Iranian-backed demonstrators in Bahrain and Yemen, the administration has destroyed the US alliance with the Saudis.

This may or may not be a positive development. Saudi Arabia has been one of the most radicalizing forces in the Middle East at the same time that it has been the steady engine behind the world’s oil economy.

Whether wrecking the US-Saudi alliance is a good thing or a bad thing, it’s unlikely that the current US government recognizes either that it has been destroyed, or that this has happened in large measure as a consequence of the administration’s behavior.

From an Israeli perspective, whether motivated by an animus towards Israel or extraordinary incompetence, the Obama administration’s Middle East policies offer one message.

We can only rely on ourselves and so we’d better strengthen ourselves as much as possible as quickly as possible in every possible way.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.