Showing posts with label war on terror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label war on terror. Show all posts
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
9/11, ten years later, reflections
Seeing the images from the ceremonies commemorating the tragedy of 9/11, a sense of strength came from them. I don’t know what is the nature of that strength but it felt like a good strength.
The events of 9/11 were hard on us in Israel. At the time we were caught in a wave of suicide bombings. Therefore we thought that finally the world understands under what kind of terror we were living under. But this was quickly overwhelmed by the dispiriting realization that there is no getting away from the rule of this terror. But there is a way to get away. Fighting back, denying them the military high ground and the moral high ground.
“Terrorism is the weapon of the weak.” There are still a lot of people that believe in this nonsense, isn’t it? Bin Laden wasn’t weak or poor, he was rich, Ghadafi is still filthy rich, and Arafat? He made money out of terrorism, lots of it.
When there is an onslaught of terrorism, always look for the corrupt rich guy/s.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
US Israel relationships: the making of the Israeli exclamation mark, part 1, Obama’s triple inheritance
Fifth in a series of seven
parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7Why Israelis don’t trust president Obama?
Why the most likely answer to the question, “Do you trust president Obama?” coming from Israel, especially during mid 2010, is not just ‘no,’ but ’no!’?
A part of the explanation is the role of the media and the Internet, explained here and here. The other part is the Palestinian component. Two other parts have to do with president Obama, and they are explained in this article and the following one.
The survey quoted by Katie Couric in the Benjamin Netanyahu interview on July 7 2010, said 71% of Israeli Jews don’t like president Obama. The word ‘like’ is a general term that does not disclose the causes of this emotion. Another survey made around that time by the 'Dahaf Institute', had found out that 24% of Israelis consider president Obama an anti-Semite. A finding that is considered unprecedented.
[The 'Dahaf Institute' is a leading Israeli marketing and research firm known for its political and social surveys. This survey was published in the current affairs program ‘Shovrim Kelim’ in the Knesset Channel, the cable channel of the Israeli parliament. This TV program is hosted by the head of the institute Dr. Mina Tzemach and Roni Milo, the former mayor of Tel – Aviv and former government minister.]
Given the history of the Jewish people, there are always those who see all foreign heads of states as anti-Semites, so some percentage of suspicious people is always expected, but 24% is considered to be higher then usual. At the same time it hardly represents the entire 71%. What it is more likely is that this is an indicator of the general feelings at the time of the survey, June 2010. If the majority of Israeli Jews don’t trust president Obama, a greater percentage than usual is more likely to believe he is an anti Semite. Others will see him as pro-Palestinian, or point to the ideological differences between him and Prime Minister Netanyahu as the source of policies many couldn’t understand and could not trust. And the lack of it is what all these explanations have in common.
Those who are writing off the entire 71% as people that regard president Obama as an anti-Semite are making life easy for themselves. Just as they do when they put heavy weight on the president’s middle name, Hussein, as the cause of the Israelis’ apprehension. Hussein is a common name in the Middle East, and Israelis encounter it on many different occasions. On one side there was Saddam Hussein of Iraq, who promised to burn half of Israel, after his long war with Iran ended. On the other side there was the late king Hussein of Jordan. He is the second Arab head of state to sign a peace agreement with Israel, and a moderate ruler who survived most of his radical enemies. This achievement gave him the respect of many people including a lot of Israelis. When on March 13 1997 a Jordanian soldier murdered 7 Israeli schoolgirls in Naharayim on the Israeli Jordanian border, the king came to Israel with his royal entourage to visit the families of the victims, to express his condolences and to condemn the act. It was an act that showed determination, courage and leadership and left a strong impact on the Israeli public, even among those who hate Arabs.
So while this middle name did create some unease, it did not create the wave of panic the extreme right in Israel tried to make from it, and that the Israel-bashers claim exist. There were other more serious factors. As explained earlier in this series some of the causes are inherited from the previous administrations. The collapse of the Oslo accords during the tenure of Bill Clinton, and Hamas’ takeover of Gaza after the disengagement from Gaza, had demonstrated to the Israelis the limits of the power of the office of the American presidency. It cannot make the Palestinians want peace. Since eventually all peace processes boils down to the intentions of the adversaries.
But just as Barack Obama is the heir of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, he is also the representative of the large camp of George W. Bush’s critics. And that large camp wasn’t made up just of the American Democratic Party and its supporters. As the protest against the Iraq War grew in the United States and across the world, the Democratic Party and most of the mainstream American left failed to distinguish between those who opposed the war because of reasons of legality and strategic wisdom, and those who opposed it simply because they hate America and oppose everything the United States does. An important characteristic of that last group is that they hate Israel as well, burning Israeli flags alongside American flags. But Israelis did notice this. They saw on television and on the Internet, George W. Bush subjected to vile spectacles of hatred, were his effigy was burned, lynched, and he himself was compared to Hitler. All that was done by people that hated Israel and its elected leaders in the same fashion. This naturally created sympathy for him and helped bolster his image as the only foreign had of state sticking up for Israel at a time Israelis were attacked at their streets and in their homes. But the inability of the mainstream American left to separate themselves from those expressions of hate created suspicion towards them. And since Barack Obama is the elected leader of the Democratic Party, he inherited that as well.
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| Bush-hate fest, a small sample |
And then there is Barack Obama’s personal inheritance, the only one discussed in the mainstream media. That inheritance is his past association with the reverend Jeremiah Wright, a known Israel-basher, and former PLO adviser and major BDS campaigner professor Rashid Khalidi.
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Jeremiah Wright and Rashid Khalidi |
Were president Obama and his advisers aware of these apprehensions?
The later? Most likely. The others? Unknown.
The desire to bridge this suspicion is probably part of the reason for the huge military and political investment in Israel’s security. This investment includes weaponry, joint training of the two countries armed forces, the acceptance of Israel to the OECD, the financing of Iron Dome, And the backing Israel’s policy of nuclear ambiguity. The most important support is the constant pressure on the international community regarding the Iranian threat. Part of the reason for all of this is to overcome the said mistrust. But the huge effort behind them shows a commitment to Israel’s security, because without it such an effort would not have been possible. Others may dispute this, but this dispute is largely due to ideological convictions, and as consequence of the turmoil that had taken place in March 2010. Turmoil that had taken place because commitment is not enough to win over a people’s trust, understanding them is needed in order to translate that commitment to tangible terms. This, the American administration failed to do. They understood that Iran is the biggest strategic threat to Israel, but sidelined the fact that most of the actual killing of Israelis was done by Iran’s Palestinians and Lebanese proxies.
Dvar Dea
US Israel relationships a seven parts series:
The public debate, correcting a favorable picture
The public debate, Israel and the war on terror
The Palestinian component
The right wing component
The Israeli exclamation mark, Obama's triple inheritance
The Israeli exclamation mark, unbalancing outreach w go-between
The peace process' beggars' choice
US Israel relationships: The public debate, Israel and the war on terror
Second in a series of seven
parts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7During the Ramat Shlomo crisis, which was considered at the time the lowest point in the history of US Israel relationships, a problematic accusation circulated in the mainstream media. This was the accusation attributed to General Petraeus that claimed that Israeli policies are killing American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. As he himself had explained it to Philip Klein of the Spectator, it was taken out of context. And how often do public figures use the “taken out of context” defense when the media support their alleged views and not lash out at them? As he explained:
“There’s a 56-page document that we submitted that has a statement in it that describes various factors that influence the strategic context in which we operate and among those we listed the Mideast peace process, ... We noted in there that there was a perception at times that America sides with Israel and so forth. And I mean, that is a perception. It is there. I don’t think that’s disputable. But I think people inferred from what that said and then repeated it a couple of times and bloggers picked it up and spun it. And I think that has been unhelpful, frankly.”
One item out of a list long enough to fit 56 pages, not the single item, not THE item, one item out of many, everything else was the work of bloggers and probably spin doctors.
General Petraeus’ explanation is the reliable one for two reasons. First, it is his account of his own work. It is not the version of some self-appointed somebody who claims to have inside knowledge as if he or she wrote the general’s documents. Second, in the complex realities of every region, cause and effect are not that straightforward, whether it is South East Asia during the Vietnam War, or Western Europe during the Cold War. In the Middle East strategic planners must take into account stability of governments, economic disparity, religious and ethnic tension, illiteracy, gender discrimination, tribalism, and more. Just have a look at Yemen, where most of these problems exist. There we find a large presence of Al Qaeda, the Al Qaeda that sent Umar Farrouk Abdulmutallab to attack the United States during Christmas 2009. They were able to form a large presence there because the country suffers from all the above-mentioned weaknesses and because they were chased out of other countries. Israel was not a factor since Yemen always had a hardline position against Israel.
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| General Petraeus |
While there is no question that the Israeli – Palestinian conflict does interact with terrorism, history and reality do not accommodate those who claim Israeli policies are at fault. As history shows us, it can easily be seen as the other way around. That is, progress in the peace process brings about a rise in terrorist activity. The best example is the murder of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981 as a direct result of the successful peace negotiations with Israel. Moreover, the spike in Al Qaeda attacks on American targets in the 1990s, from the first attack on the Twin Towers to the planning of the second attack, occurred when the Oslo peace process was on an upswing. And recently, the murder of 4 Israeli civilians, one of them a pregnant woman, by Hamas, on august the 31st, just before the talks were about to begin in Washington D. C.
It is quite possible that recruiters for terrorist organizations can use the Israeli Palestinian conflict as a means of persuasion and recruitment. However, it is equally possible for them to use a successful peace process. They can always argue that the Palestinians and the whole Arab/Muslim nation are being cheated. For all terrorist organizations the peace process itself is a threat. And any progress made will motivate them to do more harm, whether they are Jews, Palestinians or international Jihadists.
When it comes to the safety of American troops, history can argue the opposite as well, making the case that safety for American troops can result in casualties for Israel. In 1991 many Israelis agreed, reluctantly, not to respond against repeated Scud missile attacks by Saddam Hussein. That allowed President George Bush Sr. to maintain the American led multinational coalition needed to liberate Kuwait, another enemy of Israel, from Iraqi occupation. Fortunately the casualties among Israeli civilians were low. However, in 2001 and 2002 Israeli citizens were not so lucky.
Following the 9/11 attacks, the United States and its NATO allies were at war in Afghanistan. At the time Israel was in the midst of a horrific wave of suicide bombings and other mass murder attacks that had already killed more than 150 Israelis. Israel had every right to respond to those attacks, but international pressure kept her from responding effectively. There was more than one reason for that pressure, but the most effective pressure comes from the closest ally. After 9/11 this ally needed Israel to restrain itself in face of this brutal violence. This restraint was needed in order to help the United-States get the cooperation needed from major regional players, to launch an effective campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Israeli citizens suffered, horrifically, so that Americans will be safer on the mainland and on the battlefield. But when the monthly death toll in Israel peaked at 130 in March 2002, Israel could no longer afford agreeing to that pressure, and effectively began exercising its right to defend its citizens, in what was known as operation “Defensive Shield”. The United States and its NATO allies did not like the fact the Israeli army had returned to the West Bank and its major cities, but they did not pressure Israel to withdraw. With a NATO backed regime established in Afghanistan they did not need to restrain itself any more against the brutal provocation. Instead they began to establish a reliable Palestinian security force that will serve the purpose of the peace process.
Comparing death tolls, “how many Americans died for Israel?” or “how many Israelis died for America,” is the language of conflict; it is not the language of alliance. Allies help bring down each other’s death toll. The American administration is helping financing “Iron Dome” to protect Israeli population centers, and Israeli technologies are helping protect American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. And at the same time they work to bridge the different sets of priorities each of them has as separate sovereign nations. Cracks are surely to come, as they surely will be overcome. But in this context this inserted language of conflict has the affect of slander, creating bitterness and suspicion when cooperation and communication are needed. Bordering on cheap sensationalism it also creates a simplistic and unrepresentative picture of the peace process, unbecoming the gravity and complexity of the problems entangling it. Not to mention disrespectful of the dead. When the mainstream media adopt this form of conversation it becomes a tragedy primarily for those who seek to advance the peace process. While the mainstream media are not where negotiations take place, they do affect public opinion. Public opinion can support the peace process as happened in the days following Sadat’s historic visit to Jerusalem. It can, alternatively burden it when tension, suspicion and mistrust, the inevitable obstacles to peace, are amplified, amplified by misguided concepts and probably hostile disinformation campaigns. These are, to borrow a quote from General Petraeus, “unhelpful.”
Dvar Dea,
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US Israel relationships a seven parts series:
The public debate, correcting a favorable picture
The public debate, Israel and the war on terror
The Palestinian component
The right wing component
The Israeli exclamation mark, Obama's triple inheritance
The Israeli exclamation mark, unbalancing outreach w go-between
The peace process' beggars' choice
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