Max Marder

Realism, Liberalism and Constructivism in Today's Middle East

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 13:57:24 -0400

It’s September, so it’s time for first year graduate (and undergraduate) students in International Affairs to delve into the heady worlds of Mearsheimer, Huntington, Doyle and Waltz. While provoking many an eye roll from sleep deprived students, the theories of Realism and Liberalism (and yes, even Constructivism) can be recast, reformulated, and combined in order to postulate about recent developments in the international system and the United States’ pursuit of the best response to them.

After being inundated with the theories of International Relations at the beginning of the semester, it’s tempting to let them loose in the chaotic realm of the practical.

In the Middle East, the principle change in the regional order since the end of the Cold War has been the empowerment of the Arab Street. Despite the recent setbacks of people-powered political progress, the movement away from autocracy that recently seemed impossible now looks inevitable.

As much as neo-realist Kenneth Waltz would loathe admitting it, there is a new currency of political power. Legitimacy is progressively replacing military capability as a determinant of the future of the Middle East.

A new grand strategy for United States policy in the Middle East can be articulated by employing the three main schools of International Relations theory. By focusing on the idea of legitimacy (Constructivism), the United States can peacefully promote the spread of democracy (Liberalism) in order to maintain its unrivaled hegemony in the international system (Realism).

Legitimacy comes from approval and consistency. A system of government is legitimate if it enjoys the support of a plurality of its citizens. In this sense, the one-party rule of Hosni Mubarak was illegitimate.

A policy is legitimate if it enjoys the approval of a majority of the people it affects. By this definition, the US invasion of Iraq was illegitimate, not only because many Iraqis disapproved, but also because the United States received considerable opprobrium from the Arab public writ large and the majority of the United Nations Security Council.

In this new environment of declining military utility and low-cost insurgency, a nation which is viewed as legitimate and consistent will meet less resistance from a newly empowered Arab public in while executing its policies.

Thus, it might behoove countries pursuing their “self-interest” to appear to be acting altruistically—in the best interests of the Arab Street. In other words, it may be in a country’s long-term interest to prioritize image above immediate interests and reputation above impassive, practical gains.

This recasting of Realism in the terms of Liberalism sounds pretentious and hoity-toity. After all, largely discredited American politicians have articulated similar sounding proposals. Neoconservative Charles Krauthammer favorably referred to the Bush administration’s Middle East policy as “democratic realism.” Condoleezza Rice said it was a combination of pragmatic realism and Wilsonian liberal theory.

But what I have in mind is much different, both theoretically and practically. Theoretically, the obvious flaw of the Bush doctrine was that the imposition of democracy undergirds the basic tenets of democracy itself. Future US administrations should never impose democracy by force but rather assist independent grassroots movements without poisoning—you guessed it—their legitimacy.

If the inevitable flow of history—despite periodic rapids, waterfalls and sea monsters— is headed toward democracy (I still see you, Fukuyama), Western powers and the United States in particular are acting with futility by erecting dams along the way. Democracy cannot be imposed, but nor can it be stifled when it produces victors that are perceived as anti-American, such as Mohammad Mossaddeq, Salvador Allende or Hamas.

Practically this far-sightedness would constitute a drastic shift in US foreign policy. The United States should be commended for its support for the protesters in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. However, it’s less than vigorous support for grassroots movements in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Territories has tarnished its image on the Arab Street, exposing American hypocrisy and selfishness.

As the US loses hearts and minds, so its diplomatic capital depreciates. Turkey has supported the Arab uprisings consistently, earning high approval ratings across the Arab world, which has translated to increased real power. Iran and Saudi Arabia have interpreted the uprisings selectively, choosing which to support and which to suppress. Which would the US rather be?

The alliance with Saudi Arabia is based solely on interests and artificiality. The political character of the Saudi state differs markedly from American liberal values, as the Riyadh-sponsored crackdown in Bahrain aptly demonstrated. Washington should consider if importing Saudi oil is more important than allowing its exports of Wahhabism. Not so far in the future, the alliance with Saudi Arabia will do the US more harm than good. Washington should act expediently to wean itself off the al-Sauds’ sclerotic regime and seductive energy.

Washington is not perceived as a legitimate neutral arbiter in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but as an enabler of Israel’s 45 year-old occupation. As prospects for a two-state solution have slimmed due to intractable settlement expansion, consecutive American administrations have been light on the criticism and heavy on the unconditional aid to the chagrin of the Muslim world.

Ending with a flurry of Constructivism, it must be said that the idea that domineering forces can be permitted to suppress a people’s right to dignity, honor, and control of its destiny is in its death throes. This principle is as true in Tunis, Cairo and Tripoli as it is in Riyadh, Manama, Tehran and Jerusalem.

The United States, if it wants to see an American Century, must see reputation, consistency, accommodation and legitimacy—and not just gun barrels and oil barrels—as determinants of power. Students of International Relations are taught that a hegemon is motivated to preserve the status quo. However, the status quo is changing whether the United States likes it or not.

The Arab public will outstrip royal families and one-party dictators as the region’s principle actors. With its global preeminence largely unrivaled, the United States should take this opportunity and make short-term sacrifices in order to maintain its long-term interests, a sentiment which admittedly is made difficult by short election cycles, political pandering and super PACs. For if the United States can well and truly align its interests and its ostensible values, Washington can establish a Benign Hegemony and avoid plummeting from the precipice of its own hypocrisy.

But then again, I’ve only been a graduate student for six days.

A Microcosm of a National Problem

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 18:41:00 -0400

Image from Times of Israel

Last Thursday night, a conflict between teenagers in West Jerusalem devolved into a mob attack, which left 17-year old Jamal Julani, a Palestinian, on the verge of death. Dozens of Israeli Jewish youth left Julani “unconscious and hospitalized,” according to a front-page story from the New York Times. In addition to the handful of attackers, hundreds of witnesses in Zion Square stood by and watched the beating, without intervening.

The Jewish suspects, a group ranging in age from 13 to 19 that included three girls, were unapologetic and remorseless. A 15 year-old held in custody declared: “For my part, he can die. He’s an Arab.”

Laudably, a plethora of Israeli columnists, academics and government officials condemned the attack in the starkest terms. Prime Minister Netanyahu has declared that “The State of Israel is a democratic state, an enlightened state, a state where when we come across acts such as these, the entire state and all of its leaders come out together against such phenomena, and we will continue to do so.”

However, Netanyahu went on to claim that Israel’s broad rejection of racism made it “unique” in its environment. “We are not prepared to tolerate racism in Israel,” he said.

But many of his fellow Israelis, even his fellow party members, have gone much further, averring that racism is already a problem in Israeli society.

Reuven Rivlin, a member of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party, visited Julani in the hospital. “We believed that incidents like this were on the fringes, but that is not the case,” said Rivlin, the Speaker of the Knesset. He called the attack a “microcosm of a national problem that could endanger Israeli democracy.”

Former Kadima chairwoman, Tzipi Livni, called the beating “part of a phenomenon that comes from increasingly extremist nationalism.”

Nimrod Aloni, the head of the Institute for Educational Thought at a Tel Aviv teachers college, also blamed national fundamentalism. “This comes from an entire culture that has been escalating toward an open and blunt language based on us being the chosen people who are allowed to do whatever we like,” he said.

According to a US State Department report, which for the first time labeled violence perpetrated by Jews against Palestinians as “terrorist incidents” (a label that Likud Vice Prime Minister, Moshe Ya’alon, agrees with), “Ten mosques were either vandalized or firebombed in Jerusalem and the West Bank during 2011…up from six in 2010 and one in 2009.”

The beating of Julani cannot be interpreted in a vacuum. It fits into a larger context—the “national problem” to which Rivlin is referring. Last Thursday’s beating was not senseless mob violence a la A Clockwork Orange, but can be understood as the result of the interplay between several cultural and political phenomena, including Israeli government policies, intractable segregation, and psychology.

Aided largely by the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, segregation between Israeli Jews and Palestinians, both within and without the Occupied Territories, is endemic. The occupation, and the separation wall which snakes through Palestinian villages in the West Bank, is a manifestation of the physical segregation between Jews and Arabs. However, it is the unseen types of segregation—psychological, educational, intellectual, and cultural—that are even more corrosive.

The phenomena Livni was referring to is not limited to walls, permits and checkpoints. Israeli Jews and Palestinians read different textbooks, consume different media, serve in different units, and have irreconcilable interpretations of history founded on dogmatic victimhood. Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs are separated by class too; the latter group having significantly lower levels of annual income.

It is in this environment that stereotyping, demonization and dehumanization are contagious and self-perpetuating. Israelis don’t interact enough with Palestinians, and vice versa, where their prejudices and preconceptions might be refuted. Furthermore, the urge to segregate is a self-fulfilling prophecy—a 2010 poll found that 50% of Israeli Jews between the ages of 15 and 18 would not want an Arab in their class.

Elusive forms of segregation are enabled and abetted by the occupation, as well as conflicting conceptions of identity and citizenship in a Jewish state. It is possible for a Palestinian to be an Israeli but it is impossible for a Palestinian to be a Jew. The occupation erodes the moral fabric of Israeli society further by conscripting its Jewish citizens, partly to militarily occupy the “Other” along ethnic and nationalist lines.

In this way, cultural separation and political separation constitute a feedback loop, reinforcing each other. A discriminatory allocation of resources and discrepancies in political rights promote feelings of cultural superiority and distinction from the Other. The opposite is also true.

President Shimon Peres and Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar have admirably proposed to add lessons about racism and violence to Israel’s educational curriculum. Sa’ar instructed teachers to discuss the beating with their students on Monday.

This would be a welcome development, especially considering the age of the perpetrators and the specter of increased racism toward Arabs among younger Israelis. But these educational measures alone cannot comprehensively solve the problems of racism and violence in Israeli society without addressing the cultural and political roots of the conflict.

The cross-spectrum denunciation from the Israeli body politic of the attack on Julani was swift and magnanimous. As always, politicians must now support their rhetoric with actions. Educational reforms espousing cultural tolerance would be a start.

But while culture and policy reinforce one another, it’s easier and quicker to bring about meaningful change in the latter. Political measures, like a legitimate freeze on the construction of illegal settlements leading to a return to earnest negotiations could build trust between Israelis and Palestinians reminiscent of 1993. Sweeping legislation aimed at securing equal rights and standards of living between Israeli Jews and Palestinians would also ameliorate political and socioeconomic inequality. But Israeli politicians also need to transcend their pervasive fears for security and lower the barriers for inclusivity—both physical and intangible—in the Israeli state.

The Fall of the King of Israel

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 14:09:00 -0400

Today, the leader of Israel’s largest party decided to withdraw from Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition. Only 70 days ago and with much fanfare, Shaul Mofaz, leader of Kadima, brought his party into the coalition, delaying elections and placing Netanyahu at the head of one of the largest unity governments in Israel history.

Kadima, which under Tzipi Livni was comfortable in the opposition, gave Netanyahu a coalition of 94 MKs in a 120-member Knesset. With 78% of the legislature in his government, obviously excluding Arab parties, Bibi was free to maneuver across the Israeli spectrum, since no party could unravel his coalition by jumping ship. Having this profound power led TIME magazine to proclaim Netanyahu: “The King of Israel.”

It was unclear at the time what Bibi would do with such overwhelming broad-based support. Many attempted to view the merger through the prism of the two largest political issues facing Israel: the peace process with the Palestinians and conflict with Iran.

Some said that Mofaz’s decision to bring Kadima into the coalition would allow for a more genuine overture toward the Palestinians while other argued that the mega-coalition could securely oversee a further expansion of the settlement enterprise, undaunted by international criticism and unconstrained by domestic forces. As for Iran, some of Washington’s war hawks cited the merger as proof of across-the-spectrum consensus for an attack against Iran. Other felt that Mofaz would reel in Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak.

Admittedly, 70 days ago, I was attempting to justify arguments for why the super-coalition would make an attack on Iran less likely (I had no such illusions about the peace process), a likely attempt to superimpose my worldview on an ambiguous political development. Yet surprisingly, the 70-day reign of the King of Israel and his motley coalition, and the reasons for its collapse, were unrelated to both Iran and the peace process.

Kadima and Netanyahu, in the end, failed to compromise on the issue of ultra-orthodox conscription in the army, an issue which Kadima had taken full ownership of over the last several months. The Tal Law, which the Israeli High Court ruled as unconstitutional, exempted ultra-orthodox citizens from national service.

The Court ruled that a replacement to the Tal Law be adopted by August 1st, with Kadima most fervently suggesting that the ultra-orthodox be drafted at the age of 18 like most other Israelis. Israeli public opinion is firmly with Mofaz and against the ultra-orthodox, who the majority of Israelis see as not pulling their weight.

Ultimately, Bibi was obstinate, refusing to meet Mofaz’s and Kadima’s position on national conscription. Several times over the last several weeks, Mofaz has threatened to leave the coalition, without prompting Netanyahu to make a serious change in policy.

Make no mistake; Mofaz has committed political suicide by leaving the government. Several members of his ranks will defect to Likud. Many other current Kadima MKs will form a new political party with former Kadima leader, Livni. And in the next round of elections; Kadima will take a pounding due to the emergence of other political forces with similar platforms, most notably commentator Yair Lapid. One reason why Bibi didn’t compromise with Kadima on national conscription is because he felt Mofaz wouldn’t dare leave. Mofaz’s political career and possibly the future of Kadima as a party will end as a result of his decision to leave the coalition.

Often, the personality and psychology of statesmen are overlooked in international affairs. But they help explain why both Netanyahu and Mofaz both took actions against the political self-interest.

Bibi cut Mofaz loose because he doesn’t want to submit to anyone, even when they are adopting a popular national position. The label “King of Israel” relates to Netanyahu’s quantifiable national support but also to his attitude. He is arrogant. He is smug. And he is a megalomaniac. He felt that Kadima and Mofaz were expendable and that his reign would continue, more or less the same as before. For his part, Mofaz didn’t leave for political gain but for his own dignity. His political career will suffer enormously, but the prideful Mofaz could no longer subjugate himself to Netanyahu’s intransigence.

The national unity coalition has disintegrated without addressing the status quo vis-à-vis the Palestinians. Israel’s position on Iran, too, has remained unchanged over the past 70 days. The ostensible catalyst for the merger, finding a replacement for the Tal Law, represents another promise unfulfilled. The experiment can officially be proclaimed a dismal failure.

The merger with Kadima, for the first time in this term as Prime Minister, ensured that Netanyahu wasn’t beholden to Shas, Yisrael Beitainu, and the other far-right and ultra-religious parties that peppered his formerly narrow coalition. Having a 94 member coalition effectively allowed Bibi a freebie: at some point, he could chose to break sharply from either the far-right or Kadima on an issue of national significance. He just used his lifeline. With Kadima gone, the ultra-nationalist and ultra-orthodox parties are no longer expendable, but have returned to being essential. Yet, as Michael Koplow notes, Bibi has slightly more flexibility than before the merger because of the handful of Kadima MKs that will now join Likud.

This is the circus of Israeli politics. Netanyahu suffers, Mofaz suffers more, the conscription compromise is destroyed, spurned Israeli social justice protesters are setting themselves on fire, and all the while the elephant in the room—the expansion of illegal settlements and the occupation of 3.5 million Palestinians—remains ignored. And with an election looming now, Netanyahu is likely to return to his previous method of populist distraction: pointing to the Iran threat.

The Paradox of Israeli Discrimination

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 16:56:38 -0400

In the last three weeks, two ostensibly contradictory rallies were held in Tel-Aviv.

First, on May 23^rd, more than one thousand Israelis gathered, calling for the expulsion of African migrants from the country. Many African asylum seekers, primarily from South Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea, were beaten in the streets. Politician Miri Regev from Likud, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s political party, referred to them as “infiltrators” and “a cancer in our body.” Subsequently, the Israeli Knesset passed a law permitting authorities to detain migrants without charge for up to three years. In response, a Human Rights Watch official said that “Israeli officials are not only adding rhetorical fuel to the xenophobic fire, but they now have a new law that punishes refugees in violation of international law.”

Two weeks later, in the same city, tens of thousands marched in Tel-Aviv’s annual Gay Pride Parade. The event attracted LGBT tourists from around the world. Earlier in the year, Tel-Aviv was rated the world’s best destination for gay travelers. In a blog post for the Huffington Post, Sharon Segal of the Israel Project wrote that “Israel has become one of the most progressive countries in the world and is recognized as the most tolerant country in the Middle East in legislating equality for sexual minorities and ensuring their civil and personal rights.”

This obvious asymmetry of civil and human rights begs the question: how can Israel be so progressive in its relations with the LGBT community yet so discriminatory to its racial and ethnic minorities?

In examining this phenomenon, it’s helpful to examine the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. In its Declaration, Israel’s founders promoted a vision of a “Jewish and democratic” state. This conflict between Jewishness and universal equality has been embedded in the fabric of Israel’s political culture ever since.

This dichotomy is enormously ambitious. To create a state that must, by definition, give preference to one religious and ethnic majority (Jewish) while maintaining equal rights for its minority citizens (democratic) requires a delicate balancing act on par with a tightrope walker.

Lately, the Israeli state and, arguably, many of its citizens, have been performing this balancing act with the grace and subtlety of an elephant. Not only are members of the Prime Minister’s party referring to African migrants as “a cancer,” but a majority of the Israeli Jewish public feels the same way. A third of Israeli Jews condone anti-migrant violence. The priority of maintaining equal rights for ethnic and religious minorities has been subjugated to the professed urgency of protecting Israel’s Jewish character and majority.

It is the preeminence of Jewish Israel over Democratic Israel in the Declaration’s dichotomy that explains why Israel is the most gay-friendly countries in the Middle East even while it coterminously espouses quasi-fascist rhetoric towards African refugees. It explains how another Likud MK can say that “an enemy state of infiltrators was established in Israel, and its capital is south Tel-Aviv,” the same city that was overwhelmingly voted the gay capital of the world.

To date, Israel has succeed in creating a society with a free market and a free press, but failed to engender true equality for its racial and ethnic minorities. In another recent event, Neve Shalom~Wahat al-Salam, the binational Israeli-Palestinian village in which I lived for six months, was attacked by right-wing Jewish settlers, who spray painted slogans such as “Death to Arabs” and “Kahane was right” on homes, schools and cars.

Supporters and lovers of Israel the world over need to ask themselves some serious questions: why have Russian Jewish immigrants been welcomed into Israeli society much more than Ethiopian Jewish immigrants? Why is it OK for Israel to grant citizenship to any Jew who wishes to make aliyah while it continues to build settlements—against the opposition of the United States, European Union and United Nations— on occupied Palestinian land, disenfranchising 3.5 million people?

Why has discrimination in Tel-Aviv against the LGBT community been successfully eliminated, while racism against Palestinians, Ethiopians Jews and African migrants is mainstream and ubiquitous? Quite possibly, the Israeli LGBT community would not be accepted with the same openness if its members weren’t Jewish and white.

The extreme polarity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict often prevents supporters of Israel from seeing the State’s shortcomings, and critics of Israel from seeing the State’s genuine accomplishments. It’s important to realize that the two events in Tel-Aviv—the ethnocentric and xenophobic treatment of African migrants and the open and progressive Gay Pride Parade—are equally prevalent threads of Israeli political culture.

The balanced vision of a “Jewish and democratic state” has yet to be realized; Jewish Israel is trumping Democratic Israel. The status quo in Israel today is closer to an ethnocracy, or in other words, “a democratic state just for Jews” and it’s time to correct this before Israel’s reputation as a liberal democracy is completely eroded.

Eight Reasons Why Israeli Politics are so Right-Wing

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 15:35:00 -0400

Israel was a country founded by socialists. David Ben-Gurion’s center-left Mapai Party dominated Israeli politics for its first thirty years. After ceding power to Likud for twenty years, the Labor Party under Yitzchak Rabin made a comeback, signing the Oslo Accords in 1993, which set an abstract framework for the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Almost twenty years later, in 2012, Israel is being governed by the most right-wing government in its history. The two-state solution is in a vegetative state and the ‘Israeli left’ is in the adjacent hospital bed. Israel’s Prime Minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, wins points at home for his obstinacy in the face of American pleas to halt settlement construction. There is support across the Israeli political spectrum for the separation wall between Israel and the West Bank, which separates Jews from Palestinians and restricts freedom of movement more than ever. Only a minority regard Israel’s unequal housing and immigration policies as illiberal.

There have been government sponsored campaigns to restrict and shut down left-wing and human rights organizations like the New Israel Fund and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. Israel’s Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman (who makes Netanyahu look like Rabin) says that leftist groups are “terrorist collaborators” while simultaneously suggesting that Israel support the PKK insurgency against Turkey, a former Israeli ally.

Most importantly of all, there is almost unanimous support for a vision of political Zionism that institutionally privileges Jews over non-Jews. In a country that was originally envisioned to be both “Jewish and democratic,” Jewish self-determination is sacrosanct while the self-determination of non-Jews has become irrelevant.

To properly analyze how far to the right the Israeli political spectrum has shifted, it helps to listen to Yair Lapid, a former journalist, who is preparing to enter Israeli politics and form his own party. Lapid told a business-academic forum at Tel-Aviv University that “the Palestinians right now are not ready to make peace with us….I don’t want to control three and a half million Palestinians because I’m an Israeli patriot, and I don’t want a state for all its citizens because I want a Jewish state.” Lapid has described Arabs as “sweaty baby-makers somewhere in the Middle East” who won’t stop killing each other.

In a letter to British academics calling for a boycott of Israel, Lapid wrote that if the occupation ended and the wall came down, he would be killed almost immediately. In fear mongering style that would make Dick Cheney blush, Lapid writes:

“Make no mistake. Should we do what the honorable British lecturers are demanding, I will die. Maybe not immediately but the waiting won’t be fun. It will take two or three months until my death (don’t worry; it won’t take longer than that). I will always ask myself how I am going to be killed. Will a Katyusha fall on my home burying me in the ruins? Will a suicide bomber explode his charge at the mall as I am buying my small daughter a pair of new shoes? Will someone run pass me with an axe on Allenby Street in Tel Aviv and slice off my head? Or maybe a sniper will take me down on my way to pick up my son from school?”

By all accounts, Lapid is a centrist in Israel.

So how did we get here? Why are Israeli politics so far to the right, that a person with views of Palestinians akin to Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich is considered a centrist?

Rabin’s assassination: Since Rabin was killed (by an ultra-nationalist right-wing Jew), Oslo has fallen apart. The left’s momentum was halted and pushed back. The opposition leader during Rabin’s administration was elected to office—Bibi Netanyahu.
The Second Intifadeh: Violent Palestinian protests against the occupation, in the form of suicide terrorism, caused the Israeli public to entrench. The protests started peacefully, but turned violent after thirteen Arab citizens of Israel were killed by Israeli security forces. In the years following the Intifadeh, concerns for security vastly trumped liberty. It was the Israeli 9/11 only slower. Despite the scarcity of victims of terrorism during the last decade, the Palestinian image has remained that of the inhumane suicide bomber of which Israel must be perpetually vigilant.
Mandatory military service: In a small nation of 7.5 million people, the majority has served in the army. Israeli Arabs are not required to serve in the military and many do not. Military service heightens nationalism and concerns for security. Older generations of Israelis primarily fought foreign wars against the Syrian, Egyptians and Jordanians. Today’s soldiers fight more domestically, protecting Jewish settlers and raiding Palestinian homes in Gaza and the West Bank. This nurtures a dangerous “us versus them” mentality. Israelis used to swear their oath in front of the Knesset building, Israel’s parliament. Now, they swear to protect Israel, the Jewish homeland, in front of the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
Religion: Israel is a Jewish state and its Jewish citizens tend to be religious. In Israel, the label “secular” does not mean “non-practicing” or “atheist” like it does in the United States. “Secular” Jews still go to synagogue and largely believe in God, while not following a strict interpretation of the Torah. For all of Lapid’s, Netanyahu’s and Sharon’s rhetoric about the demographic challenge of high Palestinian birthrates, within Israeli Jewish society, the ultra-Orthodox are by far the most fertile sect. Needless to say, firm religious beliefs breed socially conservative political beliefs. In Israel, this effect is magnified by a nationalism that is religiously conceived. 70% of Israelis believe that Jews are the Chosen People. Only 44% of Israeli Jews think that democratic values should trump Jewish law.
Fear and insecurity: Countries that are fearful and insecure tend to favor hardline leadership. Among other things, Israel was founded in order to keep Jews safe from a rapacious and anti-Semitic Europe. Israel was invaded by its neighbors in 1948 and 1973. The unique history of anti-Jewish discrimination explains the ostensible paradox: Israel feels ubiquitously insecure despite having a gargantuan military advantage over its enemies. The scepter of the Holocaust still looms large and Israelis tend to see threats, real or imagined, wherever they look (Palestinian ‘terrorists,’ Arab Spring ‘fundamentalists,’ and Iranian ‘lunatics’ pose just a few of them). While achieving a feeling of total security in Israel is a Sisyphean task, it has skewed the country’s politics to the right in the form of the occupation, separation wall, rigidity in peace negotiations, mandatory military service and the settlement project.
Rampant segregation: Institutional segregation and societal constraints have prevented Israeli and Palestinian citizens from cooperating with one another. As a provision of the Oslo Accords, Israelis can’t travel to Area A of the West Bank, the sector under Palestinian administration, which includes major West Bank metropolises like Ramallah, Nablus and Hebron. Israelis rarely meet Palestinians except as menial workers and Palestinians rarely meet Jews out of uniform. This makes it difficult for Israelis to dispel the myths and fears they have about Palestinians, and engenders a reality where Israelis perceive Palestinians as their enemies.
Selection bias: Since Israel is so young, every Jew in Israel is an immigrant, the child of an immigrant or the grandchild of an immigrant. Not all Jews decided to make aliyah and move to Israel. When analyzing Israeli society, it helps to think about what kind of person would choose to move to Israel. Many Jews move to Israel because of steadfast religious beliefs, which correlate with conservative politics. Other Jews immigrate to Israel because of anti-Semitism and religious persecution in Europe, Asia or Africa. The most recent wave of immigrants to Israel has been from the former Soviet Union, many of whom hold ultra-nationalist and authoritarian viewpoints, despite their low levels of religiosity. According to a poll in Haaretz newspaper of immigrants from the former USSR, 13% were prepared to cede any territory to the Palestinians, 66% think Arabs constitute a national security risk, and only 7% would be willing to have a Muslim Arab neighbor.
L’dor va’dor: From generation to generation, Israeli Jews are becoming more nationalist, more religious, and more right-wing. Young Israelis today are more unwilling to compromise with the Palestinians over Jerusalem than their parents were. A 2009 poll by the Israeli Democracy Institute found that Israeli Jews are more religious than they were in 1999. From 2000 to 2010, enrollment in ultra-Orthodox school rose 57%. Less than half of Israeli first graders are secular. Over the years, physical segregation between Jews and Arabs has worsened, but so has the segregation of their narratives and histories. Today’s generation of Israeli Jews are less likely to meet, understand and empathize with Palestinian youth. The history of the Palestinian presence in Israel before 1948 has been so thoroughly erased that today’s generation is oblivious of it.

There is a clear trajectory: Israeli is becoming more authoritarian and ethnocentric. It’s vital for Jews in the Diaspora, especially in the United States, to support a vision of a more liberal, democratic and egalitarian Israeli society. As special as Israel may be to the American Jewry, it would be an affront to rubber stamp Israeli policies that would be unthinkable if they were proposed in Washington. Our liberal and democratic tendencies must not stop at the water’s edge.

As things stand now, Israel is unequivocally heading for disaster. Empowered by the Arab Spring, Middle Eastern politics will be subject to the capriciousness of public opinion as never before. An Israel that is unwilling to reconcile with its Arab minority will find that its military superiority and ultra-nationalism won’t make Jerusalem safer—it will make it endangered.

Rethinking the UN Security Council

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:28:00 -0400

The United Nations is the most multilateral international organization on earth, yet its most powerful body is increasingly failing to represent the true balance of power in international affairs. A dramatic reconfiguration of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is necessary on both moral and practical grounds.

The Security Council is comprised of five permanent members— the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Russia and China—and ten elected non-permanent members which rotate every two years. The Council first met in 1946, and its permanent members were determined largely because of the result of World War II. They have remained unchanged since. Crucially, the five permanent members have the right to singularly veto any resolution proposed in the UNSC.

While the permanent members have stayed constant, the world has not. Germany and Japan have long since been forgiven by the international community and reintegrated into most multilateral institutions. Africa and South America have thrown off the shackles of colonialism and begun to forge a new path independent of Europe and the United States. Prosperous and modern nations like Brazil and Ghana lead the charge. India has become the first democracy with over a billion citizens.

Because of its charge to maintain international peace and security, the Council is often forced to make expedited decisions. Thus it is impractical for every country in the community of nations to be represented in the UNSC, despite a moral inclination towards inclusivity.

Still, power in the UNSC should be more diffuse. There are more nations which deserve permanent seats. Abolishing the veto would allow more progress on global issues, which permanent members forestall based on their capricious short-term interests.

It’s true that in a sense, adding more permanent members would be an arbitrary undertaking. What criteria would be evaluated to decide if a nation would be worthy of a seat or not? However, enshrining the preeminence of the victors of a 67 year-old war is arbitrary as well.

Many possible candidates for permanent seats have problems at home. India is still developing economically and is locked in a seemingly intractable conflict with Pakistan. South Korea’s conflict with the North seems similarly endless. Turkey has not successfully reconciled with its Kurdish minority. South Africa still has problems with racial equality. Japan’s economy has been stagnant for two decades.

That being said, the five permanent members themselves are not without their own issues. The United States recently invaded Iraq despite Security Council disapproval. Russia did the same in 2008 by invading Georgia. France and Britain’s imperial actions of the past are still affecting large swaths of the planet, from the Horn of Africa to Southeast Asia, without the punishment that befell Germany and Japan. China and Russia have notable shortcomings in areas of political freedom and electoral openness.

Veto power is problematic when global security is threatened by any of the permanent members of the Council. The American veto prevents UNSC resolutions critical of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands. China’s veto prevents just legislation on Taiwan and Tibet. Russia’s veto is vexing when addressing Moscow’s aggressiveness in the Caucasus. Vetoes have been wielded to shield unsavory regimes friendly to Beijing and Moscow, like Iran, Sudan and Syria. All the while, the institution of the veto itself remains anathema to the spirit of consensus and cooperation exemplified by the UN.

Concerns about the utility of the Security Council mirror issues with international institutions more generally. Many of them preserve antiquated and dangerous North-South and developed-developing dichotomies. To this day, the World Bank must be directed by an American and the International Monetary Fund by a European. The integration and interconnectedness of the UNSC and global security is incomplete without broader representation.

As challenges arise to the conception of nation-states, our international institutions must be more united. The Eurozone crisis was not caused by Europe’s desire to integrate economically but by only engaging in its project half-heartedly, unifying monetarily but not fiscally. The UNSC as is breeds brinkmanship and not consensus, since vetoes can override popular resolutions.

Increasingly, developing powers will take on more responsibility in shaping global affairs. To stymie their ability to do so would be both immoral and imprudent. Permanent membership should expand to ten members with the inclusion of India, Brazil, Ghana, Germany and Japan. The UNSC can remain a 15-nation body if the number of non-permanent members is decreased from ten to five. A mechanism must be set up to add or subtract “permanent” members based on shifts in the international balance of power. In lieu of a veto, resolutions should pass in the retooled UNSC only with the approval of a majority of the non-permanent seats and a supermajority (80%) of the permanent seats.

Of course, the P5 aren’t likely to voluntarily expand the membership of their exclusive club or curb their own privileged status. Altruism rarely enters the calculus of international affairs. Yet the arithmetic of global politics is changing. We’re entering a Post-American World, to use Fareed Zakaria’s parlance. The P5 is a vestige of the mid-twentieth century international system. In many cases, the veto actually works against the interests of its wielder. Countless American vetoes on resolutions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have upheld an artificially imbalanced reality to the chagrin of the majority of the world, especially its 1.3 billion Muslims, making Washington unpopular and unloved. China and Russia’s recent vetoes, which have protected the government of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, have seen furious reactions from diplomats and anyone sympathetic to the Syrian opposition.

In a world where liberalism is becoming the new realism, and countries’ long-term self-interest may be best served by encouraging openness, transparency, cooperation and self-determination, the P5 would do well to jettison the archaic structure of the UN Security Council and let new nations play in their clubhouse.

Fool Me Twice, Shame on You

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:06:54 -0500

Two articles regarding Iran’s nuclear program appeared in the New York Times yesterday. They could not have been more opposite.

The first article by Scott Shane, entitled “In Din over Iran, Echoes of Iraq War,” made a compelling case that the coverage and rhetoric vis-à-vis Iran is eerily similar to statements and logic espoused in 2003 before the invasion of Iraq. The author asks why, in “what by some measures is the longest period of war” in the United States’ history, “is there already a new whiff of gunpowder in the air?”

The article, refreshingly, goes so far as to criticize the New York Times own coverage of Iran in recent weeks. The article warns that journalists may be overstating Iran’s nuclear weapons progress and capability.

In the same issue, an article entitled “Nuclear Inspectors Say Iran Mission Has Failed” by David E. Sanger and Alan Cowell categorically ignored all of the warnings of Shane’s article. The title of the article portends a crisis, while it concedes in the body that International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors were only denied access to one of Iran’s nuclear sites, a minor site at Parchin. IAEA inspectors remain active in the country and have access to Iran’s major reactors at Natanz and Isfahan.

Crucially, Iran would need to expel almost every IAEA inspector before making overt attempts to develop their nuclear weapons program, which for now remains only hypothetical. Sanger and Cowell’s article even quotes the IAEA (emphasis mine) as saying activity at Parchin consist of “strong indicators of possible weapons development.” Israeli and American intelligence officials have testified that Iran has not yet made the decision to weaponize.

In media coverage, phrasing, even of a single word, can frame an article in a decisive light. Shane’s article says “the oratory of American politicians has become more bellicose and Iran has responded for the most part defiantly.” The first phrase of this sentence is hard to argue with, especially after last night’s CNN Republican Presidential Debate in which candidates Gingrich, Romney and Santorum lined up to threaten Iran with military action in defense of Israel. Referring to military options regarding Iran, Mitt Romney said “They’re not just on the table. They’re in our hand.”

This contrasts with a passage from Sanger and Cowell article: “Iran struck an increasingly bellicose tone on Tuesday, with an Iranian official warning that the country would take pre-emptive action against perceived foes if it felt its national interests were threatened.” It would be difficult to find a country on earth that wouldn’t take the same actions to prevent threats to its national security. But the word “bellicose” changes the perception of the statement, the article, and Iran’s intentions drastically.

Their article concludes with a quote from Iran’s deputy armed forces head, “Our strategy now is that if we feel our enemies want to endanger Iran’s national interests, and want to decide to do that, we will act without waiting for their actions.” While this statement would not raise an eyebrow if it were made by an American, Israeli or European official, Sanger and Cowell characterize it and demonstrating “a new level of aggressiveness” from Iran.

Worrisomely, while both articles used the word bellicose in different contexts, Shane’s article is considered “news analysis” while Sanger and Cowell’s article passes for objective, expository reporting. Since Shane’s article was published, its title has been changed from “In Din over Iran, Echoes of Iraq War” to the tamer “In Din over Iran, Rattling Sabers Echo.”

Phrasing and framing matter a great deal in journalism because small details can change our perception of an issue. An article in Foreign Policy uses recent polling data on Iran to make this point clear with a recent PEW survey that said 58% of Americans would approve of war with Iran while 30% would be opposed. Only 17% of Americans, according to a CNN/ORC poll wanted to go war with Iran.

What explains the stark discrepancy? PEW asked is more important to “prevent Iran from developing weapons, even if it means taking military action” than to “avoid military conflict, even if Iran may develop nuclear weapons” while CNN/ORC asked if Americans would support “military action right now.”

Special consideration must be given to phrasing and coverage of Iran amidst this time of increased tension. The foreign policy debate has shifted from repeating commitments that all options are on the table, up to and including military force, to taking some important options off the table. Diplomacy has all but been scrapped, as Trita Parsi makes clear in his new book A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran. Harsh, crippling sanctions, which are largely counterproductive, perversely pass as diplomacy today.

As for true diplomacy? A bipartisan group of senators wrote in a letter to President Obama that renewed talks with Iran over its nuclear program would be a “dangerous distraction,” allowing Iran more time to proliferate.

The same senators aver that containment of a nuclear Iran should be taken off the table. It is ominous that Congress is attempting to limit the President and the State Department’s options in the biggest foreign policy crisis of President Obama’s first term. The legislation “urges the President to reaffirm the unacceptability of an Iran with nuclear-weapons capability and oppose any policy that would rely on containment as an option in response to the Iranian nuclear threat.” In an excellent article, MJ Rosenberg states that “Presidents need latitude to make decisions affecting matters of national security …But, in the case of Iran, the rules are changing.”

The word capability makes the legislation particularly distressing. The determination of whether or not Iran has nuclear weapons capability is subject to semantics and subjectivity. What defines capability? The worry is that this ambiguous red line, which the senators maintain should be enforced martially, could be judged to have been violated at any moment.

Many American politicians misunderstand Iran, and view it through Orientalist shaded glasses. Joe Lieberman has gone so far as to say that Iran can’t be contained like the Soviet Union was contained. Really? The second-tier regional power Iran? Certainly the Soviet Union, a global juggernaut with a vast nuclear arsenal and gargantuan reach was a more difficult opponent to contain. Newt Gingrich called Iran a “dictatorship” in last night’s debate. Even if that were true (Iran is more of a multi-institutional theocracy), he wrongly thinks the dictator is President Ahmadinejad and not Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

Fortunately, the Obama administration has handled the situation coolly enough thus far, maintaining that military options are on the table while making it clear that war is not the preferred course of action. General Martin Dempsey, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Israel that an attack on Iran would be “destabilizing” and “not prudent.” Israeli officials characterized Dempsey as “serving Iran’s interests.”

Congress and the GOP presidential candidates are attempting to use Iran as an issue to make Obama look weak, despite the testimonies of the American military and intelligence communities which largely play down the Iran threat.

It seems like behind the scenes, Obama hasn’t given Netanyahu the green light that he would need to carry out an effective attack on Iran. Netanyahu might still call Obama’s bluff, knowing that it would be hard for Obama to resist populist pressure to declare war with November looming. The Israeli Prime Minister knows all too well that he’ll have much less leverage during a second-term Obama presidency.

Perhaps the most tragic thing about the Iran warmongering is that the Iranian regime’s actual crimes are being overshadowed. The Ayatollahs have detained journalists and political dissidents, tortured prisoners, rigged elections, restricted civil liberties and killed protesters. If war with Iran is forthcoming, it will be for the wrong reasons.

The saber rattling, assassinations, threats and retaliations have made war in 2012 a distinct possibility. Furthermore, the truculent rhetoric during election season has provided a powder keg. We can only hope that the Lusitania doesn’t sink and Archduke Franz Ferdinand doesn’t get assassinated.

Four Lessons to Learn from Khader Adnan

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:46:00 -0500

The case of Khader Adnan doesn’t seem to fit into the mainstream narrative of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The popular conception of the conflict is that an Israeli state must restrict liberty in order to protect its security against violent Palestinian resistance. But Mr. Adnan’s method of resistance creates more headaches for Israeli authorities than bombs or rockets. Detained on December 18^th, Mr. Adnan has refused to eat until he is charged or released.

Mr. Adnan’s case has brought attention to the practice of administrative detention, under which a suspect can be detained indefinitely without charge or trial. The practice is not limited to Israel and the Occupied Territories but has been used in Northern Ireland, South Africa, the United States at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere.

Mr. Adnan’s case has garnered extraordinary attention on Twitter and social media, yet on the 65^th day of his hunger strike, he remains in administrative detention. His case has been appealed to the Israeli High Court, and is slated for the docket on Thursday.

He may not live long enough to have his case heard, and even if he does, the Court may send him back to prison, upholding the precedent set in 1967 that suspects can be held without a charge as long as there is secret evidence indicating that the suspect presents a present danger to national or regional security.

Mr. Adnan has survived so far but his death is imminent. A charge or his release does not appear forthcoming.

There are at least four important lessons to learn from Khader Adnan, who has vowed that his “dignity is more precious than food.”

1) Administrative Detention must end: Legal or not, administrative detention is a deplorable and amoral practice which allows for anyone to be arrested and held so long as evidence is presumed to exist. Mr. Adnan’s case is reminiscent of K. in Franz Kafka’s The Trial, in which a man is arrested and must mount his own defense without having any idea of what he is being accused of. Mr. Adnan is purportedly a high-ranking member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and has been arrested several times previously. A spokesman for the Israeli military said that administrative detention “is a tool used when information pertaining to a case is based on sensitive sources that cannot be released.” It’s not difficult to see how this authority could be abused. Perversely, in recent days, Israeli authorities have used the United States’ practices at Guantanamo Bay as justification for the detention of Mr. Adnan and 306 other Palestinian prisoners. That precedent, along with dozens of other reasons, makes it difficult for the United States to pressure Israel to treat Mr. Adnan fairly and justly. If Mr. Adnan is, in fact, a criminal, the Israeli authorities should charge him. If there is no charge, he should be released. Mr. Adnan’s bravery and steadfastness has brought heretofore unseen attention to the practice of administrative detention and if Adnan dies before he is charged or released, Israel will have brought much more pressure on itself as a result of its own intransigence.

2) The Palestinian government looks just as bad as the Israeli government: It may be difficult to fathom, but the Palestinian Authority is as wont to stand up for Adnan’s rights as the Israeli government is. Mr. Adnan’s previous detention was administered by the Palestinian Authority, not the Israeli government, under starkly similar terms. In fact, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Mr. Adnan’s arrest in December was carried out in conjunction with Palestinian security forces. One of the most abhorrent myths that has been maintained over the last decade is that the Palestinian leadership is violent and obdurate towards Israel. Quite the contrary. The Palestine Papers leaked last year show that the Palestinian Authority was willing to make compromises that the vast majority of Palestinians found to be undignified. The Palestinian Authority managed to recover its popularity after the UN bid in September, but its legitimacy among Palestinians has been diminishing for quite some time. President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad don’t have the revolutionary street cred of their predecessors, despite their state building efforts. It’s important to understand that criticism of the Palestinian Authority comes from two sides. Some think that the Palestinian Authority is violent and stubborn, refusing to negotiate with Israel—a position held by many Israelis and their supporters abroad. On the other hand, many Palestinians feel that the PA has sold them out. They feel that the PA pursues reconciliation deals and negotiations which inevitably go nowhere while settlements expand throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In light of Mr. Adnan’s detention, it’s important to understand this criticism of the Palestinian Authority as well.

3) Palestinian non-violent resistance is alive and well: An even more destructive meme/myth relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that all Palestinian resistance is violent. Frequently, discourse relating to the conflict arrives at the question: “Where is the Palestinian Gandhi?” The answer is that there are many of them, yet they haven’t gotten the attention they deserve. Gandhi’s hunger strike in 1932 lasted for 21 days. Adnan’s has already lasted three times as long. There are weekly non-violent protests in Sheikh Jarrah and Beit Umar, and have been for years. More famously, a village called Budrus staged numerous peaceful protests against the construction of the separation wall through their town—and emerged successful. A slew of Palestinian political prisoners went on a hunger strike last September and many of the other prisoners held under administrative detention have launched hunger strikes and fasts in solidarity with Mr. Adnan. In the twenty years between 1967 (when the practice of administrative detention began) and the outbreak of the First Intifadeh twenty years later, the majority of Palestinian resistance was non-violent. There was little bloodshed in the post-Oslo years as well. In the ten years since the Second Intifadeh, resistance from the West Bank has largely been civil and non-violent. The world and the main stream media must pay more attention to Palestinian non-violence and extirpate the tendency to perceive Palestinians as terrorists and suicide bombers.

4) Social media can’t do everything: Assuming that Mr. Adnan’s hunger strike kills him before he is charged or released, his death will be a tragedy. It will also highlight areas of activism which social media has difficulty promoting tangible change: criminal justice, national security and foreign policy. For the last week, information and awareness about Khader Adnan has been ubiquitous on Twitter, often attaining the status of the highest trending story worldwide. Yesterday, information was aggregated using the hashtag “#KhaderExists.” Today it is “#HungerStrikingFor65Days.” While the attention Mr. Adnan has garnered on social media is vital, it is unlikely to change the outcome of his case. Only on the 65^th day of his hunger strike did the New York Times run a story on Adnan mentioning him by name. While trending hashtags might help to answer the question about where the Palestinian Gandhi is, Mr. Adnan is much more likely to become a Palestinian Troy Davis. Over the last year or two, social media campaigns have been instrumental in ousting dictators, uncovering corruption and winning elections. Most recently, social media and digital activism were paramount in pressuring Congress not to adopt SOPA/PIPA and lobbying the Susan G. Komen Foundation to reinstitute its support of Planned Parenthood. However, it seems that social media is less successful at promoting change in individual criminal cases and on foreign policy. It’s much easier to use social media to change Congress than the State Department. For better or worse, legal proceedings and foreign policy are mostly conducted by unelected and materially disinterested bodies, which aren’t as elastic when there’s a public outcry. As our understanding of the political power of social media evolves, Khader Adnan’s story could well become a case study.

UPDATE: Perhaps due to the increasingly fervent attention to his case, the Israeli authorities have moved Khader Adnan’s appeal up two days, from Thursday to Tuesday. Hopefully his urgent petition to be either charged or released will be met.

Is Israel Held to a Double Standard?

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 04:03:00 -0500

It’s very common for defenders of Israel to claim that the Jewish state comes under attack unfairly, and that its conduct is held to a double standard. On Sunday, the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg repeated this claim, criticizing pro-Palestinian groups (‘anti-Israel’ groups, in Goldberg’s parlance) for boycotting an Israeli theater company’s performance of the Merchant of Venice at the Globe Theater in London. Goldberg writes:

“Does it surprise anyone that the controversy centers not on the anti-Semitic aspects of the play, but on the (anti-Semitic) demands of anti-Israel activists to scapegoat Israel by boycotting its cultural exports?…Chinese artists seldom, if ever, provoke widespread calls for boycott, even though China is engaged in a systematic campaign to wipe-out Tibetan culture, and, more to the point, Tibetans.”

Unfortunately, Goldberg’s comparison of Israel to China is a false analogy, and his argument that Israel is subject to a double standard is simplistic and misleading.

Goldberg attributes the willingness to boycott an Israeli theater company, rather than a Chinese one, to anti-Semitism. However, as difficult as it may be, it is necessary to distinguish between criticism of the Israeli government and racism against Jews. It’s disingenuous for Goldberg to insinuate that boycotts of Israeli products, companies, or “cultural exports” stems from hatred of Jews rather than Israeli policy, chiefly the occupation of the Palestinian territories. It is possible to have problems with Israelis and not with Jews.

Goldberg also fails to mention that the initiative to boycott Israeli products falls under the umbrella of the Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions movement (BDS), possibly the largest manifestation of Palestinian civil non-violent resistance in history. BDS calls for”a campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law and Palestinian rights.”

The suicide terror tactics of the Second Intifadeh and Hamas’ rocket fire from Gaza have largely been condemned by the international community. Yet today, the vast majority of Palestinian resistance to Israeli rule is peaceful. In line with the success of non-violent protest during the Arab Spring, and in pursuit of reconciliation with Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Party, even Hamas has stated that its commitment will be to non-violent resistance. To equate the BDS movement with anti-Semitism is to put it on a level playing field with Palestinian terrorism of years past.

Many ask “where is the Palestinian Gandhi?” Wherever he is, Jeff Goldberg considers him an anti-Semite. If the boycott of an Israeli theater performance in London is anti-Semitic, it’s hard to imagine what form of Palestinian resistance isn’t.

There are many reasons that have nothing to do with racism that explain why an Israeli performance would face calls for boycott while a Chinese one wouldn’t. Most obvious is that Israel holds elections and China does not. It’s easy to see why boycotting a nation of 8 million potential voters would be more likely to bring about policy shifts than a boycott of a nation of 1.3 billion people and the Communist Party. In Israel, citizens are both voters and soldiers. They have more ownership over their government and its decisions than Chinese citizens.

Supporters of Israel must stop pointing to Chinese, Zimbabwean, Iranian or Saudi transgressions as excuses for the Jewish State’s shortcomings. Goldberg’s tacit argument that Tibetans are more victimized than Palestinians is callous and irrelevant. Israel should seek to be the best that it can be, regardless of its peers in the community of nations.

Israel shouldn’t worry about double standards and hold itself to a common, moral and egalitarian standard—as a nation that views itself as Western democracy. It’s possible that Israel’s human rights record is better than Beijing’s, but it would be difficult to argue that there isn’t room for improvement.

The Fallacy of Applying the 'Turkish Model' to Egypt, Arab Spring

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 17:03:00 -0500

As the Arab Spring enters its second year, democratic transitions in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and Libya are still evolving towards uncertain ends. One of the most ubiquitous hopes for these countries in metamorphosis, expressed especially in the case of Egypt, is that they develop the “Turkish Model” for democracy. However, the construct of the “Turkish Model,” especially as a prototype for fledgling Arab democracies is fallacious and a naïve oversimplification, demonstrating a misunderstanding of Turkish history. The Turkish system has evolved over many years because of circumstances endemic to Turkey, and cannot simply be applied overnight elsewhere.

The allure of the “Turkish Model” is self-evident. Turkey, like the Arab countries in transition, is a majority Muslim nation. For centuries, there was (and in some places, there still is) a belief that democracy was incompatible with Islam—that Muslims were not civilized enough for representative government. The Orientalist myopia of the past still frames how the Middle East is seen. Thus as Egypt seeks to evolve into a democracy, its model is thought to naturally be the Muslim country that has achieved the most advanced democratic system.

To be clear, if Egypt could become as progressive and prosperous as Turkey, it would constitute an unquestioned victory for the Egyptian people and the Arab Spring. Turkey is a regional powerhouse. Its leaders have set the goal of making it one of the world’s ten biggest economies by 2023, the Turkish state’s centennial, and they might just achieve their goal. Turkey holds free and fair elections, has a robust parliamentary system, and peaceful transitions of power. These are all accomplishments which Egypt should aspire to.

However, Egypt’s path to success must be different than Turkey’s because the two countries have vastly different political cultures and histories. Furthermore, the “Turkish Model” is an artificial construct—it doesn’t exist. Turkey’s democratic system is 89 years in the making. It developed in an unplanned and unexpected fashion. Moreover, there are several aspects of the “Turkish Model” that Egypt and other nascent Arab democracies should not seek to emulate.

First of all, Turkey, despite being a majority Sunni Muslim nation, is not an Arab country. It emerged from the vestiges of the Ottoman Empire and was established in 1923. To properly understand Turkish political culture, it’s essential to understand how the state was established.

The Ottoman Empire, the “Sick Man of Europe,” was carved up after its defeat in World War I. During the War, the Arab population of the Ottoman Empire revolted against the Turkish center with the assistance of the British, most famously depicted by the movie Lawrence of Arabia. After the Ottoman defeat, the Arabs broke away from the Empire under Western mandates, eventually forming independent sovereign states.

All that was left was the Anatolian Peninsula, which was chopped up and divided as stipulated by the 1920 Treaty of Sevres between Greece, France and Britain, leaving an independent Kurdistan and Armenia and only a truncated Turkish state. Most of this territory was gained back through the Turkish War of Independence led by Mustafa Kemal and enshrined in the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.

But the decline of the Ottoman Empire, World War I and the Treaty of Sevres left an indelible mark on the Turks. These events have shaped Turkey and continue to today. They represent the aspect of the elusive “Turkish Model” that cannot be replicated in Egypt or elsewhere, even though Egypt’s colonial past and the Suez crisis in 1956, among several other events, have also left a deep-seated distrust of the West.

Dubbed “Sevres syndrome,” the first several decades of the Turkish Republic were marked by extreme paranoia and xenophobia directed at the Great Powers. For the vast majority of Turkish history, Turks have not trusted their Arab neighbors because of their treachery during World War I, thinking of themselves more on the level of sophisticated Europeans than ‘inferior’ Arabs. The Turkish state has also, for most of its history, been virulently secular. Mustafa Kemal, better known as Ataturk, is reviled by some pious Muslims for abolishing the Caliphate, the Sunni Muslim version of the papacy.

The political culture of the burgeoning Turkish Republic was a reaction against Ottoman multiculturalism, as well as state religion. Having lost the vast majority of its non-Turkish territory and population, the state hunkered down in a bunker of Turkish ethnocentrism. Despite Turkey’s progress over the years, its relationship with its Kurdish minority should not be duplicated as an archetype for Egyptian Sunnis treatment of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority. As evidenced by the strong Islamist showing in Egyptian elections, the country is moving in the opposite direction, regarding the relationship of mosque and state, compared to Turkey in 1923.

Partly due to the legacy of the War for Independence and Ataturk himself, and also unique processes within the Turkish body politic, the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) had significant autonomy and power over foreign policy, arguably up until the last year or two. Even though it was trusted as one of Turkey’s most democratic institutions, the TAF overthrew three civilian governments in 1960, 1971 and 1980. The clandestine influence of the TAF and the unelected elite in Turkish politics earned the name the “deep state.” Needless to say, this should hardly be a model for Egypt, whose Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) is trying precisely to secure analogous independence from civilian oversight.

In 1997, the army and the secular elite forced out Turkey’s first Islamist Prime Minister, Necmettin Erbakan. In power for a year, he was repeatedly embarrassed, forced to sign legislation banning headscarves in schools and pledging military cooperation with Israel.

Turkey’s geography has also shaped its identity and prevents parallel comparisons. Turkey sees itself as Western and Eastern, European and Asian, and Middle Eastern and Central Asian. Egypt, with the Suez Canal, is the gateway to the Mediterranean and a bridge between the Levant and Africa. But this geopolitical reality is unique from Turkey’s. In fact, perhaps the most influential process in the last two decades of Turkish politics has been its quest for European Union ascension—something that is irrelevant for Egypt and other Arab Spring countries.

The urge to call for Egypt to adopt the Turkish model rests on the fact that Turkey is a majority Muslim country with a functioning democracy and impressive economic growth. Both Egypt and Turkey are built on the ruins of once great empires. The similarities end there. Egypt’s first elections have given Islamists an overwhelming mandate to rule. Turkey has been ruled by “Islamists” for only 11 of its 89 years.

Turkey’s electoral system is also unfit for Egypt. Turkey’s system has always favored and cultivated strong executives, which may not be best for Egypt after decades of Nasser and Mubarak. Turkey also has an especially high threshold—a party must win 10% of the vote to be represented in parliament. This may work for Turkey but would be poisonous for a young democracy like Egypt. Egypt has numerous small political parties and, more importantly, will develop more in the coming years as its democracy evolves and different political groups become more organized.

It has taken almost a century for Turkey to reach the high stature it has today. But the state still has issues. A lasting reconciliation with the Kurds has proved elusive. Turkey is one of the more dangerous places to be a journalist (on par with Egypt). The so-called Ergenekon case, which was launched after an alleged coup plot by the army against the ruling AK Party, has been a labyrinthine tragedy for the rule of law.

Driven by healthy domestic demand, low interest rates, economic liberalization and innovative industry, the mildly Islamist AKP has turned Turkey into an economic power. The AKP has piggybacked on the growth of Turkish city centers that started in the 1980s, expanding the economy far beyond Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. The development of the “Anatolian Tigers,” Denizli, Gaziantep, Kayseri, Bursa, Kocaeli, and Kahramanmara, should be a model for reforming the Arab world’s sclerotic and corrupt economic systems that have stagnated under autocratic rule.

Turkey’s democratic credentials are very impressive but the “Turkish Model” is a fallacy—a phantom which cannot be so easily applied to Egypt or other Arab Spring countries. The Turkish system is a product of the country’s unique history, political culture and 89 years of development. Turkey’s legacy of militant secularism, martial autonomy, and ethnic marginalization cannot and should not be a model across the board. Many in the Arab world admire Turkey and view its Prime Minister, Recip Tayyep Erdogan, positively. Turkey will be a vital partner and ally for Egypt, Tunisia and Libya as they develop.

But politically, what’s needed for Egypt is not a Turkish model, but an Egyptian one—a strong legislature, low threshold, weak executive, full civilian control and a strict commitment to minority and human rights. Egypt can learn lessons from Turkey, but needs to blaze its own trail.

Why the UNSC Resolution on Syria is Thoroughly Doomed to Fail

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:52:00 -0500

Politics and economics are complicated pursuits, and as such, everyone from experts to casual conversationalists has a tendency to compare complicated phenomena to comparable incidents, hoping to inject some order into the chaos. Is Occupy Wall Street like the Tea Party? Is the financial crisis of 2008 like the Great Depression? Is Egypt like Tunisia? Is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad like Adolf Hitler?

These questions make for interesting debates but often obfuscate the matter at hand, reducing policy dilemmas to a cost-benefit analysis based on the most recent problem of a similar nature. Policymakers in economics and politics tend too often to make such simplifying comparisons. Too often our decisions are based on preventing the previous crisis instead of forecasting the next one.

This type of thinking is now being applied to the crisis in Syria from two different angles. There is currently a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution on the docket that would call for President Bashar Assad to step down and transfer power to his deputy.

On one side, the Russian Foreign Ministry, led by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, argues against the resolution on the grounds that it will precipitate an international military intervention akin to that in Libya.

Coterminously, the United States and its European allies are supporting the measure, which would pave the way for a government of national unity. A similar deal has been implemented in Yemen. By no means is it unanimously popular or is it ensured to be effective. Brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the agreement has facilitated the departure of Yemen’s President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, into exile.

Here’s the problem: Syria is not Libya and Syria is not Yemen. Assad is neither Qaddafi nor Saleh.

Let’s start with Russia. Ostensibly its opposition to the UNSC resolution condemning Bashar Assad, who has killed well over 5500 of his citizens, amounts to invoking the sovereignty of a nation-state. The Libyan intervention irked the Russians, who felt that they were duped into supporting regime change by supporting a measure which was cloaked as a mandate to protect civilians. “I don’t think Russian policy is about asking people to step down. Regime change is not our profession,” said FM Lavrov.

The differences between Syria and Libya are staggering. A no-fly zone would not be the method of intervention in Syria since the majority of the fighting is waged on the ground and in urban environments laden with civilians. There is no unified armed Syrian rebellion. The Syrian crisis has lasted much longer and claimed more lives than the Libyan crisis when NATO intervened. The Libyan intervention swung the tide in favor of the rebels whereas an intervention in Syria would have much more of a burden in ousting Mr. Assad. Assad wears suits and Qaddafi wore eccentric tunics. Et cetera.

Not least of all, the resolution on the table regarding Syria would not necessarily lead to intervention at all. Few in Washington or Brussels are keen on intervention right now, not to mention some of the Syrian opposition. Russia has negotiated, offering support for resolutions condemning Assad so long as they equate the President with those protesting against him and proscribe any sort of future intervention. Other members of the UNSC have rejected the Russian counteroffer on the grounds that it would set a precedent for binding future resolutions.

The Russian invocation of Libya as a justification for opposing a resolution calling for Bashar al Assad to step down is disingenuous. Moscow wasn’t fooled into thinking the Libyan intervention wouldn’t put pressure on Qaddafi. The Colonel was simply less of an asset to Russian interests than is Mr. Assad.

Just as Chinese internet censors blocked the word ‘jasmine’ from internet searches after Zine el Abidine Ben Ali fled Tunisia, Russia does not want to lend support to a principle (UNSC resolutions calling for regime change) that could trouble its own undemocratic leadership in the future. The Syrian port of Tarsus is also the Russian navy’s only outlet to the Mediterranean Sea and the Putin regime accrues lucrative profits from arms sales and other business with Damascus. With his return to the Kremlin approaching, Mr. Putin can win points by defying the West.

As for the other side of the coin, the resolution itself (besides the fact that it won’t transcend a Russian veto) is tragically flawed. It is modeled after the GCC-brokered peace deal, implemented on January 22^nd, aimed at ending the political crisis in Yemen.

Yet the resolution has hardly ended the crisis definitively. Under the terms of the agreement, Yemen’s President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, has left the country in order to seek “medical treatment” in the United States. He transferred power to his longtime deputy, which the Syrian UNSC resolution would also stipulate. In return he received immunity from prosecution.

There are a plethora of problems with the deal. Most importantly, it doesn’t bar Saleh from returning to Yemen or participating substantially in the upcoming “government of national unity.” He says that he will return to Sana’a after his treatment. Also, his deputy and vice-president, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, is the sole candidate in Yemen’s upcoming presidential elections on February 21^st—hardly a sign of sweeping reform.

Furthermore, Saleh only accepted the GCC deal because it granted him immunity—as approved by the Yemeni parliament, which has enraged the street. It is morally dubious, and perhaps politically unstable, for Saleh not to face retribution for ordering the deaths of peaceful protesters.

What’s most galling about the debates among Security Council diplomats over the resolution and its wording is that nothing Bashar Assad has said or done over the past 11 months would indicate that he’d ever accept a Saleh-like deal. He was resolute and defiant in his speech on January 10^th. He’s made it abundantly clear that reform, exile and surrender are not options—especially since he can cling to power with the army’s support so long as the international community supports non-intervention. As Tony Karon writes in TIME, “Assad is not about to heed a resolution put before the Security Council by the Arab League — and backed by Western powers — that bluntly demands his surrender, because that outcome does not reflect the balance of forces on the ground.”

What we have on our hands with Syria is a resolution, modeled simplistically after a highly flawed deal that treated a murderous autocrat gently, which will be vetoed by Russia, and would not have been accepted by Bashar al Assad anyway. Ironically, it seems that the Russians are rejecting a resolution on the grounds that its reminiscent of action that was largely successful (Libya) while the US and Europe are supporting it because it’s evocative of a measure that’s thoroughly problematic (GCC deal in Yemen).

So what should be done?

First, enough of the erroneous comparisons to other countries. We must learn from history but not be constrained by it. Many of the objections to foreign intervention in Syria are based on specious comparisons to Iraq circa 2003 (similar warnings were aired about Libya). Again, the differences are profound, not least of all because the Arab League has been somewhat punitive in dealing with Syria and could yet support more robust measures to dislodge Assad. Syria is not Libya, nor Yemen, nor Iraq.

Secondly, the United Nations is probably a dead end. Moscow and Beijing are not keen on intervention in Syria, and their vetoes would preclude a consensus for such action.

Thirdly, it’s not enough to condemn Assad and say that his fall is inevitable. As Steven Cook argues in the Atlantic, “if the international community wants to see the end of the Assad regime, as virtually everyone claims, then it is likely going to require outside intervention. Nothing that anyone has thrown at Damascus has altered its behavior.” These are indeed valid arguments against intervention, the most compelling being that the Syrian opposition has yet to unanimously embrace the idea itself. Cook rightly asks “at what point in the body count is international intervention deemed to be an acceptably worthwhile option that can have a positive effect on the situation? After Assad has killed 6,000 people? 7,000? 10,000? 20,000?”

In conclusion, once the situation evolves to the point where the Syrian opposition calls categorically for international help, the world must be ready to answer. Those who have bashed Assad verbally must be ready to act. Most of the Syrian National Council (SNC) now endorses intervention of some kind, but the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change (NCC) is much more wary. An American-European-Arab League-Turkish cooperative effort is not unimaginable. It would circumvent Russia and China’s vetoes, as well as concerns about Western imperialism, the other most compelling argument against intervention. Moscow and Tehran may have allies in Damascus, but they would be unlikely to wage a proxy war to cement Assad’s rule in the face of an international coalition with broad legitimacy.

Other opponents of intervention say that military action in Syria is against US interests. “Let Syrians work it out,” the logic goes, or “we have enough problems of our own.” However, the toppling of the Assad regime is in the US interest—in the short-term, Iran would grieve the loss of its biggest ally. But on a more important and more abstract note, intervention is in the US interest precisely because it’s not in the US interest.

I’ll explain.

The US must alter its image in the Middle East—which is endemic and loathed—away from being a frigid manipulator solely in pursuit of its own self-interest. Liberalism is the new realism. It is in the United States’ long-term self-interest to forge a more positive relationship with the Arab street, the future stakeholders of Middle Eastern political affairs. Shadi Hamid writes that we must undertake the “difficult work of re-orienting U.S. foreign policy, to align ourselves, finally, with our own ideals.”

Most toxic is the thinking that Assad is the least worst option for Syria’s future. There are better alternatives than having his rule reach 2013, which would likely leave another 5,500 or more dead in his wake.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has beseeched the global community, and the UNSC, to resolve the Syrian crisis. Quoted in an article in Al Ahram, “The Council, he said, must be ‘united this time, speak and act in a coherent manner…reflecting the urgent wishes and aspirations of the Syrian people.’” Unfortunately, neither the Council nor the international community is united or speaking coherently at the moment.

Israeli Feminism, Misogyny and Ignoring the Elephant in the Room

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:57:00 -0500

There has been a great deal of outrage in Israel and among American Jews about the discrimination of women by ultra-Orthodox haredim in recent weeks. In a front page New York Times article, the list of recent transgressions is concisely summarized.

“organizers of a conference last week on women’s health and Jewish law barred women from speaking from the podium, leading at least eight speakers to cancel; ultra-Orthodox men spit on an 8-year-old girl whom they deemed immodestly dressed; the chief rabbi of the air force resigned his post because the army declined to excuse ultra-Orthodox soldiers from attending events where female singers perform; protesters depicted the Jerusalem police commander as Hitler on posters because he instructed public bus lines with mixed-sex seating to drive through ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods; vandals blacked out women’s faces on Jerusalem billboards.”

While the increased misogyny in Israel eerily portends a crisis for feminism in Israel, the outpouring of anger and condemnation of discriminatory acts against women highlights a social triumph for women’s rights here. From Prime Minister Netanyahu to flash mob dancers in Beit Shemesh, the vast majority of Israeli society has been firm: women should be regarded equally to men.

The Times article also paints these recent events as an exploding crisis that could not have been predicted. Segregation of men and women in many public spaces in Israel is nothing new. Man and wife have not been able to touch the Western Wall together since the Six Day War.

The article also makes it seem like the haredim’s privileges in Israeli society had been neglected and that most of the anger towards the ultra-Orthodox in Israel is centered on feminism. Both claims are hardly true.

The haredim have been a powerful special interest group for decades. In 1948 when the state was declared, David Ben-Gurion cut a deal with the 10,000 or so ultra-Orthodox between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The pious opposed the declaration of the state of Israel (many still do) because they respect no authority but God’s. Ben-Gurion offered the ultra-Orthodox exemptions from military service and significant welfare in exchange for tacit acceptance of statehood. This allowed the haredim to have large families and study Torah instead of finding employment.

Those 10,000 ultra-Orthodox have turned into 10% of the state—almost one million people. The rest of Israeli society is well aware of this. For most Israelis, issues with the haredim are about economics and nationalism. The outrage towards them has more to do with the ultra-Orthodox living off a state for which they don’t have to perform military service. Also due to Israel’s fractured parliamentary electoral system, ultra-Orthodox parties, like Shas and Yahadut HaTorah, can wield disproportionately large power in the Knesset. Religious parties are almost always included in Israeli coalition governments, and threaten to retract their support for the ruling government if the haredi community isn’t made certain token gestures.

Discrimination against women is one of many symptoms of the increased power and numbers of the ultra-Orthodox and the widening rift between them and the Israeli majority. In short, the divide between the ultra-Orthodox and the rest of Israeli society is not new, nor is it limited to, or even centered around feminism.

Even so, the recent acts of discrimination are a huge threat to Israel’s image, if not its liberalism. It has caused so much of an uproar in Israel, not only because of the injustice of the acts themselves, but because chauvinism mitigates Israel’s ability to take the moral high ground vis-à-vis its neighbors.

Doctrinaire defenders of the Israeli state often make the (not untrue) claim that women and homosexuals have more rights in Israel than in most Muslim and Arab countries. Recently, Tel-Aviv was named the best destination for homosexual vacationers. That being said, these defenses of Israeli liberalism highlight two opposing tendencies in Israeli society: ignoring the elephant in the room and Arabizing/Muslimizing the problem.

The fact remains that Palestinian homosexuals are harassed at checkpoints and Palestinian women are abused, displaced and under military occupation—not because they are women or homosexuals, but because they are Palestinian. Victories in certain liberal arenas do not make up for disastrous failures in others. Skeptics of Israeli liberalism do not mention failures in gay rights or women’s rights, but are rightfully concerned about racism and ethnocentrism.

In the midst of the hullabaloo surrounding women’s rights in Israel, far less attention has been paid to growing racism against the Ethiopian minority. In the town of Kiryat Malakhi, white residents have made a pledge to stop renting or selling homes to Ethiopian Jews. In mid-January, thousands of Ethiopians protested against the discriminatory practices in Israel that have left many of them feeling like aliens in their own country.

There is even more pronounced discrimination against Israel’s Arab minority, comprising approximately 20% of the state’s citizenry. Of course, Arab citizens of Israel have it much better than Palestinians living under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, but the point is that this isn’t a high standard.

To trumpet Israel’s social record on women’s rights and gay rights as a hallmark of a truly liberal state is to ignore the elephant in the room. Discrimination against racial and ethnic minorities should be opposed and protested with the same vigor as discrimination against women and homosexuals. A student’s academic merit cannot be discerned solely from his high scores in math and science if he’s failing history class.

The claim that Israel has a better women’s rights and gay rights record than its Arab neighbors is ubiquitous. Part of the outrage towards ultra-religious misogynistic practices has to do with Israeli society’s desire to defend and separate itself from similar practices in countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran.

This is the phenomenon of Arabizing or Muslimizing the problem. The argument goes that Israeli Arabs are more free and prosperous than Iranians or Egyptians. However, it is not absolute rights or wealth that is relevant for Israeli Arabs, but their status relative to Israeli Jews. Inequality itself is a social ill. Israeli Arabs and Israeli Ethiopians are rightfully protesting their marginalization relative to the rest of Israeli society.

Social comparisons are unhealthy and erroneous. Israel’s liberal credentials aren’t immaculate just because women and gays are better off in Tel-Aviv than in Tehran. In keeping with the previous analogy, parents often tell their children not to compare their academic achievements to their classmates. We want our children to be the best that they can be, regardless of their peers. This is not about holding Israel up to a higher standard. It is simply holding Israel to a common moral, democratic standard.

This phenomenon has a political dimension as well. Palestinians often argue that they are paying the price for Nazi and Arab crimes. Israeli politicians, diplomats and journalists use the phrase “surrounded by enemies” to describe Israel’s perpetual feeling of danger and insecurity. Israelis have been traumatized by invasions by its Arab neighbors in 1948 and 1973. Yet it’s unclear why this is so often used as justification for the occupation of the Palestinians. More recently, fear of a nuclear Iran and the rise of political Islam during the Arab Spring are the new justifications trumping domestic concerns about cultivating a more just and equitable state of affairs for the Palestinians. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has looked at Israel’s neighborhood and said “this is not the time for peace.” One might ask: if not now, when?

In the social sphere, it’s argued by the AIPAC crowd and the Israeli right (and often the center and left as well) that Israel is so liberally superior to its neighbors on social issues that any criticism of Israeli liberalism is nit-picky at best and anti-Semitic at worst. This is dangerous. Israel should aspire to improve its record where it’s deficient.

Women are still doing well in Israel and further inroads by the forces of patriarchy and sexism should be swiftly and justly fought. The groundswell of activism in Israel has been profoundly inspiring during the last year, from the J14 protests for social justice in Tel-Aviv to the women’s rights demonstrations in Beit Shemesh. Yet it’s been shocking how often these rallies in the name of justice and equality have ignored the 3.5 million stateless Palestinians, separated from the water grid, their land, and any sense of optimism.

Ultimately, the biggest threat to Israeli democracy is not misogyny or an Iranian bomb, but its conduct toward the Palestinians and its inability to secure its future due to hyperbolized fear of its present.

Assassination in Iran and Western Hypocrisy Regarding "Terrorism"

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 10:18:00 -0500

The assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Rowshan on June 11^th has sparked a full-on international espionage murder mystery. Iran has accused the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel of the assassination, claiming it has evidence that the CIA was involved. An Israeli intelligence official was quoted as saying that he “doesn’t feel sad” about Rowshan’s death. A proxy organization may have been employed to carry out the operation, like the Iranian Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) or the Pakistan-based Jundallah network.

The assassination has come at a tense time in American-Israeli-Iranian relations. The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency’s report on Iran in November stoked fresh fears in Washington and Jerusalem of a nuclear Tehran. Israel threatened to launch a preemptive war to disarm Iran. Ever since, Washington has been walking a tightrope. The Obama administration has been attempting to restrain their allies from launching a catastrophic war while assuring Jerusalem that the military option remained “on the table.”

On New Year’s Eve, nudged by the Israelis, President Obama approved the toughest round of sanctions against Iran to date, restricting transactions with Iran’s Central Bank. The escalation prompted renewed brinkmanship. Iran threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway through which 20% of the world’s oil passes daily.

The sanctions have inflicted marked damage on Iran’s economy, but are unlikely to achieve their ostensible goal of forcing disarmament or unseating the regime.

The assassination also makes Iran less likely to engage in genuine diplomacy over its nuclear program. Partly due to the severe depreciation of the Iranian rial and endemic inflation, Iran agreed to hold fresh talks, mediated by Turkey, with the P5+1—the permanent five members of the UN Security Council (the United States, United Kingdom, France, China and Russia) and Germany.

Before the assassination, the talks would be unlikely to supply a breakthrough. Now, they’ve entered the same realm of futility as the latest Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Amman.

It’s difficult to negotiate when people are being killed and conflict is worsening. The Syrian opposition won’t enter into dialogue while Bashar al-Assad’s regime is killing protestors. The Palestinian Authority won’t enter into negotiations with Israel until settlement construction, which illegally claims Palestinian land, is frozen. The least Tehran could ask for in entering into negotiations would be for its scientists not to be bombed during Tehran’s morning rush hour.

Rowshan is the fifth Iranian nuclear scientist to be killed in the last two years. American and Israeli media and politicians make ubiquitous references to Iran being irrational, aggressive and violent. The Jerusalem Post even has its very own page devoted to the ‘Iran Threat’ on its website. However, despite targeted killings, sanctions and computer viruses, Iran and its proxies have not declared war on the United States or Israel.

This latest row between Iran and the West also highlights some of the inherent hypocrisies in the West’s conception of “terrorism.”

Since September 11^th, the state has had a monopoly on the definition of terrorism. It seems that governments, particularly Western ones, cannot be guilty of such a crime. However, upon further scrutiny, it’s unclear how American military campaigns of “shock and awe” and Israeli military campaigns that include “collateral damage,” both of which incur thousands of civilian deaths, don’t constitute terrorism. This claim has been most ardently presented by Naomi Klein in her book, the Shock Doctrine, which claims that the aims of terrorism and “shock and awe” military tactics are eerily similar.

Neoconservative Jonathan S. Tobin, writing in Commentary magazine, says that killing Iranian nuclear scientists is not terrorism, since it could avert a “dangerous and possibly catastrophic development.” He claims that Iran placed itself “outside the law” and that President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu can be forgiven for forgoing any “legal niceties.” Tobin also makes the obligatory fearmongering reference to the Nazis, averring that such assassinations must be untaken to avoid a “potential second Holocaust.” Never mind that Israeli Defense Minister Barak has already claimed that Iran doesn’t pose an existential threat to Israel.

It’s far more likely that an Iranian bomb would pose a threat to unrivaled American and Israeli hegemony in the Middle East than the entire population of the Jewish State.

Tobin clearly misses the double standard. For him, even if a Western government employed a known terrorist organization like the MEK to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists, it’s not terrorism because the Iranians “must be stopped before they kill.” In a sense, he is saying they (the Iranians) are the terrorists, we (the West)cannot be such.

Furthermore, all of Iran’s nuclear crimes, Tobin himself declares to be hypothetical, potential, or possible. Certainly many terrorist attacks have been perpetrated against the West for hypothetical and potential crimes. Far more have been executed for very real grievances. Whoever is responsible for Rowshan’s assassination is not providing moral superiority, but moral ambiguity.

This double standard regarding terrorism was exposed even further on Friday. Mark Perry reported in Foreign Policy that Israel’s intelligence organization, Mossad, enlisted the help of Jundallah, a Pakistani-based Sunni extremist organization, in killing Iranians in the past. Even more galling was that Mossad recruited Jundallah operatives in a “false flag” operation, in which the Israelis claimed to be CIA.

The murder of an Iranian scientist in cold blood is clearly an act of terrorism, state-sponsored or otherwise. The judgment of an act should be based on the act itself and not who perpetrated it. Would it be considered terrorism if the MEK killed Rowshan without any backing from a Western state? Would it be considered terrorism if Iranian intelligence operatives assassinated an Israeli or American nuclear scientist?

American or Israeli (or maybe Saudi Arabian) influence is likely in Rowshan’s death. Not only is the act wrong, illegal and uncivilized but it’s counterproductive in its probable aim of derailing the Iranian nuclear program. In fact, the assassination will only make it clearer to Tehran that it needs a nuclear weapon to act as a deterrent against these actions.

Iranians feel like there’s a Western conspiracy to destabilize their country and that they are under siege. When taking note of the facts—crippling sanctions, targeted assassinations, cyber-attacks and a nuclear-armed Israel, Pakistan and North Korea—it’s hard to blame them.

Such assassinations are not going to cause Iran to disarm. Rowshan, like most of his colleagues, were trained at universities in Iran and are therefore replaceable. These acts of terrorism, which Secretary of State Clinton swore no responsibility, should be swiftly condemned and disposed of as acceptable policy. They are far more likely to precipitate a devastating war than a peaceful and subservient Iran.

The Day After the Two-State Solution

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:44:00 -0500

There has been much debate in Israeli and American media during the last year about whether or not the two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is dead. Most of these analyses miss the point: that a two-state solution, even if it were forged tomorrow and agreed upon by both sides, would present significant future challenges for both Israel and the nascent hypothetical Palestinian state it would be living alongside.

If a political deal were to (miraculously) be struck to create a Palestinian state, newspapers around the world would doubtless celebrate the end of the tumultuous Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But they would be wrong. Here’s the letter I would write to the Editor:

Dear Editor,

Today, will always be remembered—and for good reason. It has produced an iconic photograph, of the Israeli Prime Minister and Palestinian President shaking hands to mark their historic agreement, which will finally establish a sovereign Palestinian state. However, your article referred to the accord as the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I would aver that this is the end of the territorial conflict between governments, but not the end of the psychological conflict between peoples.

Today’s events have not ended the conflict, but have reframed it. Our political, civil, and religious leaders now have a new set of challenges to face. The physical separation barrier dividing Israelis from Palestinians has come down, but the real obstacles have always been the intangible ones within our hearts and minds.

The two biggest impediments to Israeli-Palestinian peace have been insecurity and segregation. Israeli insecurity, founded on two thousand years of persecution, drove the occupation. Israelis felt threatened, despite having asymmetric power. Palestinian insecurity has prevented activists from seeking cooperative projects with open-minded Israelis for fear of normalizing the occupation.

Insecurity has begotten segregation, institutionalized and self-executed. The physical separation of people precipitated the segregation of narratives, histories, and identities. The ‘other’ became the enemy. When Israelis and Palestinians couldn’t meet each other, demonization and stereotyping flourished. Parallel narratives—one Israeli and one Palestinian—were perpetuated in each society’s newspapers, textbooks, and culture, never meeting in the middle.

True stability has not been achieved yet. Israelis and Palestinians must not seek recluse in their respective states. This will only exacerbate insecurity and segregation, resulting in real instability and a renewal of hostilities. Both sides must take care to meet one another and recognize one another’s side of the story before a new chapter of peace and security can begin in earnest.

Bashar al-Assad's Speech and What's Next for the Syrian Revolution

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:02:08 -0500

This morning, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad gave his third public speech since the revolution against his rule began 11 months ago. Unsurprisingly, the mustachioed dictator unleashed all of the most hackneyed themes from the Arab Tyrant’s Manual, emphasizing repeatedly over the course of his brutal 90 minute filibuster foreign interference in Syrian affairs should be blamed for the protracted political crisis.

The dull and monotonous Assad weaved indecipherably between blaming the West, “terrorists,” Gulf interference, the Muslim Brotherhood, Israel, Al Jazeera and Arab traitors for the injustice in his country which has seen more than 6000 people die since February. Assad brilliantly intertwined the same themes promulgated in the past by Saddam, Muammar, and Hosni into his marathon performance.

Users on Twitter commented that the members of the audience were being put to sleep by Bashar’s soporific invective, awakening only to rounds of applause that seemed to be issued by command.

His father Hafez would be proud.

Assad’s contradictions were numerous. His scapegoats were abundant. He pledged to reform but then said that “terrorists” must be crushed with an iron fist. He belittled the Arab League for “betraying” Syria, the “heart of the Arab League,” while still welcoming an inter-Arab resolution to the conflict. He blamed all of the West and Arab hypocrites for the conflict before asserting that Syria was secure and had “many friends.”

He used many common platitudes from the Arab dictator playbook—so much so that it seems entirely possible that Bashar’s father Hafez or the late Qaddafi could’ve written his speech. He numerously returned to the topic of the Palestinians, trying to take ownership of a cause he’s never genuinely championed while disparaging Israel. Ostensibly this tactic was an attempt to attract broad appeal from the rest of the Muslim world. Too bad that trick has been tried time and time again to no avail.

He spent much of the speech attempting to construct an Arab and Islamic legitimacy that he’s never truly had. Any pedigree he did have surely disappeared during the perpetual violence of the last year, at least in most people’s consideration. He spoke perplexing about “Arabism,” insinuating in ultra-nationalist terms that Syria was the paragon of Arab honor and culture and that the Arab League and critics of his regime were non-Arabs and Orientalists.

At one point, Assad praised Syria’s burgeoning olive harvested industry. Later, he ridiculed the opposition for destroying the world renowned Syrian education system’s attendance rates. He said that a government of national unity was not needed because Syria was not divided. It seemed that his accusations and logic were so ludicrous that no one, not even Assad himself, could possibly agree with it in earnest.

From his circuitous diatribes and steadfast commitment to his own innocence, it is now clearer than ever that reform is not an option in Syria. Activists reported that during Assad’s speech, a handful of protesters had been killed. Assad left no room for his own exit, making vague references to allowing more parties into the system and a constitutional referendum in the spring. So far the only registered party other than his own is another Baathist party. His ramblings validate the unfortunate fact that the Arab League observer mission served no other purpose other than to buy him more time.

He framed the crisis as being a race between “terrorists and reformists.” He claimed that he’s been opening up the country since he came to power in 2000. Most of the Syrian protesters would say that they are the ‘reformers,’ the government the ‘terrorists.’

So what does this all mean? Essentially, that nothing has changed. Given Assad’s bombastic pontifications, few are likely to have changed the perception they had of him this time yesterday. Assad won’t back down. Peaceful protesters will continue to die. And Assad’s doctrinaire commitment to his categorical rightness suggests that the violence will escalate.

It’s hard to see how the speech could have helped Mr. Assad. Similar speeches by his colleagues, Mubarak and Qaddafi, rallied more support for the opposition against them. The hope is that the actors who have the power to change the tide of the crisis will realize once and for all that Bashar has no motivation to negotiate or forge a peaceful, political solution to the crisis. In essence, he has said that the only way he will leave power is by taking the Qaddafi option.

An inter-Arab solution is undoubtedly the ideal option. We can hope against hope that the Arab League has seen Assad’s speech and rethought their hesitancy to act. We can hope against hope that the Foreign Ministries in Moscow and Beijing are alight with activity. Perhaps there will be renewed expediency in the Security Council.

A Kurdish activist, quoted in an article in Al Jazeera, put it well: “The president’s speech led Syria into a new era of bloodshed. From his words I understood that the coming days will be bloodier with even more security and military crackdown. I was gambling on a very small window of hope but now I can say there is no hope from the regime and no hope for Assad to make real reforms.”

Only minutes after Assad left the podium at Damascus University, Burhan Ghalioun, the leader of the opposition Syrian National Council, gave a press conference. Ghalioun, whose chairmanship of the opposition group had just been extended for another month, said in no uncertain terms that Assad was in denial.

The Paris-based activist said that Assad was attempting to divide Syrians, and that the faith the opposition had in the Arab League had evaporated. He vowed to bring the matter to the Security Council once again while the opposition persisted in popular resistance to the regime in cooperation with the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change and the Free Syrian Army, a group of defectors from the army.

Expect more turbulence, because there’s no end in sight.

Fears of an "Islamist Winter" in Egypt are Overstated

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 08:46:00 -0500

With the reemergence of violence in Egypt since Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, many are worried that the Arab Spring may turn into an “Islamist Winter.” These fears are misguided. The Arab Spring will bring beneficial changes to Egypt in the long-term, but not without a significant amount of short-term turbulence .

There are many disparate groups vying for power in post-revolutionary (or inter-revolutionary) Egypt. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) is overseeing the transition. However, in an effort ostensibly to prevent chaos, SCAF has instituted an elaborately complicated electoral process, tried civilians in military courts, detained bloggers, and maintained the hated “emergency laws.”

The Muslim Brotherhood will dominate the new Egyptian parliament. The group has a violent past but has been moderated when it has been included in government, like in 1970s Jordan. The Brotherhood is keener on a coalition with secular liberal parties than the ultra-conservative Salafists.

The young, liberal, and predominately secular forces which drove the revolution have been outmaneuvered at the polls. Egypt is a religiously conservative country and the Muslim Brotherhood had considerable grassroots connections and political infrastructure in place years before the revolution.

Ultimately, given the events of early 2011, whatever government is in power in Egypt will henceforth be accountable to its people. The Brotherhood and the Salafists will come to power first, but their religious credentials will be meaningless if they cannot create jobs and growth.

SCAF has lost its legitimacy. Popularity garnered from refusing to fire on civilians in Tahrir in February has disappeared in the wake of renewed repression and violence. The liberals, with their revolutionary mandate, and the Islamists with their electoral one are pressuring SCAF to genuinely transition to civilian rule.

That road will be bumpy. Egyptians are divided on many issues, especially religious ones. Yet an equilibrium will be found. In fact, these divisions are endemic in a healthy democracy.

A people-powered Egypt will, initially, be more hostile to the United States and Israel. However, this is more natural and stable than the artificial and sycophantic relationship under Mubarak. Without the Egyptian dictator’s corrupt and nepotistic approach to economics, Egypt will grow once its politics become tamer. Its democratic project will win it friends in the West and with both nascent (Tunisia) and established (Turkey) Middle Eastern democracies. Yet it may be a case of taking one step back before taking two steps forward.

Permaculture and Enviro-Political Activism in the West Bank

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 10:22:26 -0500

In the Occupied Territories, the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is ubiquitous. The black cisterns atop the vast majority of Palestinian roofs and the periodic flow of potable water to the West Bank are juxtaposed against the swimming pools and lush gardens a few kilometers away highlights the asymmetry between the two sides of the Green Line.

In this respect, the tenets of Bustan Qaraaqa are unique revolutionaries. Bustan Qaraaqa, Arabic for ‘Tortoise Garden,’ is a permaculture farm in Beit Sahour, a Palestinian town adjacent to Bethlehem. The Welsh expatriate neo-hippies who run the show focus their energies primarily on the environmental aspects of the conflict rather than the political, social or territorial ones.

Appropriately their blog is entitled “Green Intifadeh.”

Permaculture is an approach to living that emphasizes genuine sustainability. By connecting different elements of the farm to one another, Bustan Qaraaqa manages to operate an inexpensive, environmentally friendly model of living for others in the West Bank and elsewhere to emulate.

Everything about Bustan Qaraaqa is surprising—from its hidden location in the confusing labyrinth of Beit Sahour’s uneven streets to having to search in the dark for the compost toilet at night. The farm has constructed rooftops and solar panels from used bottles. Dishes are soaked in a still solution of water and used lemons.

Sleeping accommodations for volunteers and visitors are constructed from recycled tires. The perpetually expanding garden features a vast diversity of native and non-native trees, plants and vegetables to protect against the vulnerability of monocultures to pests (attention: United States Food and Drug Administration).

Among the farm’s most inventive and self-sustaining projects is its aquaponics system. In one area of the farm, plants are not grown in soil, but in plastic containers filled with water. Instead of hydroponic gardening, which requires artificial light and chemicals to provide plants with nutrients, aquaponics uses a different type of fertilizer.

The drainage system which provides the water for the plants is connected to a fish tank. The fish are fed, their waste fertilizes the plants, and the water is drained and cycled back to the fish tank (their website calls the initiative “eFISHient”). The plants in the aquaponic system require three times less water than if they were planted in soil. And of course, the residents of Bustan Qaraaqa can eat the fish once they’ve grown big enough.

The farm’s environmental approach is intertwined with an element of political activism. According to the Bustan Qaraaqa website, “the aim of the project is to propagate a grassroots environmental movement in the Palestinian Territories to address the problems of food insecurity and environmental degradation…problems that are going unaddressed as a result of the ongoing Israeli military occupation which impedes effective development.”

Many of the farm’s innovative projects are adopted by other farms and households in the West Bank. The farm’s residents also conduct various educational initiatives to raise environmental awareness.

The farm’s synthesis of permaculture, environmental innovation and political activism attract a motley group of curious people to the periphery of Beit Sahour. One such volunteer is Muna, a Palestinian East Jerusalemite who works as an Environment & Water consultant. Muna, who was not making her first trip to Bustan Qaraaqa, explained to the rest of the volunteers at the farm how water, the environment and politics are inexorably connected in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Since Israel/Palestine is not blessed (or cursed) with oil or natural gas, the “resources being fought over are land and water,” she said. “There is probably enough water for everybody, but it is not fairly distributed.” Most of the water Israelis use originates outside of Israel, either in neighboring countries or the Palestinian territories.

The Oslo Accords, signed between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1993, set a basic framework between the two sides for a two state solution. After an impasse that has lasted the last 18 years, both Israelis and Palestinians are growing disillusioned with the Accords, feeling like the other side has broken their promises. Muna explained that Oslo has cemented asymmetric water allocation for Palestinians.

“Under Oslo, Israel has jurisdiction over the water from the Lake of Tiberius and the Jordan River Valley. Then Israel sells back the water to the Palestinians. 18 villages don’t have enough water to drink, and most of the territories’ taps only work two or three days a week.”

“A joint commission of Israelis and Palestinians was set up to allocate the distribution of water. But most proposals [for a more equitable distribution of resources] are rejected.”

On Saturday morning, a Welsh resident of the farm and Muna led four other Palestinian volunteers, a German, a Frenchman and two Americans to a hill on the outskirts of Bethlehem for some field work.

The group visited the land of a Palestinian farmer whose story is similar to that of so many others. From the hilltop, the volunteers could look down on the man’s land, with an Israeli military outpost, a burgeoning settlement and the separation barrier in the background. The path of the wall is set to continue straight through the farmer’s fields, which would place his home on the Israeli side of the wall, separating him from Bethlehem, his crop and his identity.

The wall has been under construction for almost a decade, since the aftermath of the Second Intifadeh, ostensibly for security reasons. The Palestinians protest that the wall is built on Palestinian land. The length of the separation wall is already more than twice as long as the Green Line, snaking to and fro in the West Bank accommodating Israeli settlements and dispossessing Palestinian land.

The farmer from Bethlehem, in addition to being threatened by the wall, often has his trees uprooted by the Israeli settlers who live less than a kilometer away. The settlements in which they live have been strategically built directly between Bethlehem and nearby East Jerusalem.

The volunteers from Bustan Qaraaqa were armed for battle with an unexpected set of weapons—shovels, pick axes and a variety of saplings of species of particularly prickly trees. The volunteers spent several hours planting cacti and the thorny saplings around the periphery of the farmer’s land, to discourage encroachment by the settlers.

Clearly the permaculture farm’s distinctive approach to living mirrors its unorthodox political tactics. In fighting the occupation, Bustan Qaraaqa undoubtedly gives “biological warfare” a whole new meaning.

Why Sanctions Against Iran are Counterproductive

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 08:15:00 -0500

A new round of sanctions against Tehran, signed into law this weekend, have caused the Iranian rial to plummet to historic lows, depreciating 12% against the dollar. The conventional wisdom is that this is a sign that the sanctions are working. But this conclusion is a misconception given what the Obama administration and its European allies want to achieve.

Sanctions are an economic weapon for a political purpose. Hurting the Iranian economy is not enough when the goals of the sanctions are to destabilize the regime or at the very least force it to dismantle its nuclear weapons program. While the sanctions are undoubtedly affecting Iran’s economy, they are unlikely to achieve their political aims and will probably hurt Western economies in the process.

The biggest threat to the Iranian regime is not Western sanctions but its own citizens. The Green Revolution in 2009 posed the biggest challenge to clerical rule in 30 years. The Arab Spring has demonstrated the power of the people in deposing their autocratic leaders themselves.

US interference in Iranian affairs is only counterproductive. Western and Iranian leaders are equally blameworthy for the economic crisis, which has been a distraction from political activism instead of a generator of one. Iranians are running to trade rials into Swiss francs instead of planning revolutions.

The sanctions, which target Iran’s central bank (in some circles, an act of war in itself), effectively forces global actors to choose: Iranian petroleum or business with American financial institutions. Because of the fragility of the global economy, many US allies like Japan, India and South Korea face an impossible choice.

The sanctions will irk the Turks, Iran’s neighbor and trading partner, who have advocated for fuel swaps instead of aggressive sanctions in dealing with Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Ankara imports a third of its oil from Iran, which it sees as a hedge against dependency on Russian energy.

This says nothing of the irritation this will cause Russia and China, both permanent members of the Security Council, and critics of past rounds of sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Middle East expert Juan Cole goes so far as to make the compelling point that while the sanctions, if effective, could reduce Iran’s income from oil and hurt the regime, the devaluation of its currency would help make Iran’s exports more affordable and attractive. Cole also points out that the US may grant exceptions to allies who are dependent on Iranian energy and that non-NATO members, primarily Russia and China, will be able to circumvent the sanctions, easing pressure on the regime.

Importantly, this round of sanctions had resulted from—and will perpetuate—a feedback loop of Iranian-Western confrontation that at worst will result in a catastrophic war. Case in point, in response to the new sanctions this week, Iran has test fired cruise missiles, launched naval exercises in the Gulf, and threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, the shipping lane through which a sixth of the world’s oil passes.

It’s also sad that Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the ire of the West for almost two decades, always takes center stage over Iran’s deplorable human rights record, the source of much more death and suffering. Fraudulent elections, violent repression of dissent and torture will continue to cause more injustice than an Iranian nuke ever will. In this sense, the aggression towards Iran is for all the wrong reasons. Like the Iraq War, which unseated a vicious and genocidal dictator, the campaign against Iran is really about Western self-interest, regional hegemony and power politics instead of human rights.

Unfortunately, this round of sanctions and the vitriol from the campaign trail fits into the Iranian leadership’s narrative perfectly. They see themselves as the heirs of the great Persian legacy, entitled to recognition as a great civilization. In this narrative, it has been Western intervention and power, from 17^th and 18^th century imperialism; to the 1953 CIA and MI-6 coup against democratically elected Mohammad Mosaddeq; to helping Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War, which has hurt Iran. To the Iranians, they are under siege from the West. The West is doing little to refute that claim.

Iranians ask: if the Americans, Israelis, North Koreans and Pakistanis can have nuclear weapons, why not us?

Tragically, this Kafkaesque maelstrom of attrition could easily lead to war over Iran’s nuclear program. Many of the neoconservative advocates of the Iraq War, leading Republican presidential candidates, and Israeli leaders are calling for a preventative strike against Tehran.

While the Iranian regime may be brutal, it is not suicidal. The Ayatollahs aren’t crazier than the decision-makers in North Korea or Pakistan. Even Israeli Defense Minister and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak has said that an Iranian weapon isn’t an existential threat to Israel.

Iran’s pursuit of a weapon is not based on a desire to annihilate Israel, which would in turn ensure its own destruction. Iran’s nuclear ambitions ostensibly stem from three things: national (and civilizational Persian) pride, preventing invasion and attaining regional hegemony vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia and Turkey. The Iranian nuclear program under the Shah (and revitalized in the 1980s partly by Green Movement leader Mir Hussein Mousavi) saw it as a counterweight to Iraq.

In effect, going to war with Iran would transform a situation which would cause zero casualties (a nonexistent, imaginary Iranian nuclear strike) into a war which would cause thousands of Israeli and American lives and possibly send the global economy back into the cellar. Furthermore, war would be unlikely to prevent Iran from continuing or restarting its nuclear progress once the dust settled.

The Iranian nuclear program is spread throughout the country and located underground. American and Israeli officials have testified that it would be difficult, even in a full-scale invasion, to dismantle the entire program, especially while Israel would be absorbing thousands of rockets and long-range ballistic missiles fired by Hezbollah and the Iranian military.

Green Movement members have even stressed that a military attack would sideline the domestic opposition to clerical rule and help to solidify support for the regime.

What is clear (and also impossible in an election year) is that, if robust diplomacy fails, the US must be prepared for the eventuality that Iran will achieve nuclear breakout capacity if it wishes. War and sanctions won’t deter the regime. The clerics have seen what happened to Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi after he surrendered his program. They have seen how the late Kim Jong Il successful outmaneuvered the West using enriched uranium as leverage. American aggression will only harden the theocracy’s nuclear resolve.

In short, sanctions will hurt the Iranian economy but not its leadership or its nuclear weapons and in the process, the US is further damaging the prospect of rapprochement with Iran, its relationship with key allies and its own economy.

The inflation and economic crisis in Iran is much more pronounced than it has been after other rounds of sanctions. Because of this, Tehran has simultaneously issued military threats and signaled that it was ready to resume talks on its nuclear program with the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany that stalled in January. The economic downturn in Iran gives the 5+1 parties some moderate leverage, especially since Iran’s military threats are not credible. Yet the Kim-Qaddafi case studies demonstrate why it’s likely that Iran will stomach the sanctions and keep the centrifuges running.

These 5+1 countries should make a genuine diplomatic effort to get Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions. Fuel-swap deals proposed by Brazil and Turkey that were lambasted in the West should be reconsidered.

If diplomacy fails, cost of containing a nuclear Iran, in both blood and gold, are minimal compared to war. The United States’ best chance to bring down the Iranian regime is to step back, and let the Ayatollahs’ (and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’) mismanagement and repressive policies bring themselves down.

Iran has been a loser from the Arab Spring. There is little enthusiasm for the Iranian model in North Africa or the Levant. The massive anti-regime protests by the Green Movement in 2009 had nothing to do with sanctions or US pressure. If the United States and the Western powers are patient, the winds of change might just blow further East. Until then, sanction will prove counterproductive, despite being infinitely preferable to war. The Catch-22 with Iran is that Western efforts towards regime change fall into step with the regime’s narrative and make the Ayatollahs stronger.

US Considers Granting Visa to Yemeni Dictator Saleh

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 07:33:15 -0500

In a diplomatic dilemma for the White House and President Obama, a visa request is being considered to admit Yemen’s Head of State, the wily Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has violently quelled popular revolts to end his 33 year rule, into the United States.

In a classic case of politicians saying something, and meaning another, Saleh and the US government completely disagree about the purpose of his visit.

“What we’re looking at now is a request to come to the United States for the sole purpose of medical treatment,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. “That permission has not been granted yet.”

Saleh denies that his visit would have anything to do with his medical condition. According to an Al Jazeera English report, Saleh has said “I will go to the United States. Not for treatment, because I’m fine, but to get away from the attention, cameras, and allow the unity government to properly prepare for elections.

Ironically, the underlying US motivation for granting the visa has more to do with Saleh’s professed concern about Yemen’s stability, and the success of the upcoming elections, scheduled for February 21^st.

The United States is still mulling over the decision, contrary to reports that Saleh’s application has already been approved. Saleh would not be granted asylum and his stay in the US would be temporary.

Saleh, a renowned manipulator, is unlikely to have suddenly become altruistic. Protesters in Sana’a, the Yemeni capital, worry that his US visit is simply another tactical maneuver, and that his return to Yemen is imminent.

Saleh has been a US ally in the “War on Terror,” and his transatlantic trip could help to shift attention to Yemen’s presidential elections, which are in less than two months. However, Saleh has also been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of protesters, who are still fighting and dying for the revolution. For them, Yemen’s political conflict will only be solved once Saleh is prosecuted and his friends and family, most notably his son Ahmed, leave positions of power.

For the US, perception may be more important than reality, as admitting Saleh would appear to the Arab street as providing cover to a man with blood on his hands.

There is a precedent for such a decision causing outrage in the Middle East. President Carter’s 1979 decision to allow the exiled Shah of Iran into the US for “medical treatment” was one thing that precipitated the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran and the subsequent hostage crisis.

The tremors of the Arab revolts rippled out from its epicenter in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia to Change Square in Sana’a earlier this year. President Saleh has deftly negotiated the challenge to his power, playing up his utility to the United States as a counterweight to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The state’s Republic Guards, led by Saleh’s son Ahmed, killed hundreds of young protesters.

Saleh survived an assassination attempt in June and went to Saudi Arabia for three months for treatment. During that time, Saleh balked at the last moment on three separate occasions to sign peace deals which would lead to a political transition, buying himself months of time collectively.

He finally signed the GCC deal in November to the applause of international political leaders but to the frustration of many Yemeni activists, who demand Saleh’s prosecution and for his allies to leave power.

Many in Yemen thought Saleh would be out of the picture once he fled to Saudi Arabia, but he managed to retain influence and his surprising return to Sana’a in September sparked renewed violence.

There are fears that Saleh’s trip to the United States, for medical reasons or otherwise, is nothing more than déjà vu. According to Al Arabiyya, Saleh’s “opponents…lament that he has continued to wield influence through loyalists and relatives remaining in positions of power, and many fear he may find a way to continue his rule.”

Ibrahim Sharqieh, a scholar at the Brooking Institution in Doha, writes that no matter what happens, “Military and security institutions must also be restructured. The GCC transition agreement states that a committee will look into this issue, raising an important question: Will the regime itself change, or will Saleh simply be removed from power while the regime remains intact?”

Ultimately Saleh’s visa request prompts a complex cost benefit analysis for American policymakers. What’s more important: the benefit of Yemeni stability ahead of elections or the detriment to the US image as a result of protecting Saleh from prosecution?

Saleh’s fate has distracted from the elections, set to occur within 90 days of his transfer of power to his Vice President, as stipulated by the November’s GCC-brokered peace deal, which saw him cede power in exchange for immunity and keeping his title as head of state. The election currently has only one candidate nominated— Vice President Hadi. In this sense, Saleh’s proposed trip to the US may help to shift much-needed attention to the elections.

As one activist writes, “The issue is not that Vice president Hadi is running for presidency; the people want fair election and therefore he has the right to run. The primary issue is the reports that 1. The parliament of Yemen has voted by consensus to close nominations for early presidential election. 2. There is only one candidate running… It seems they are merely changing faces and not the actual regime structure.”

As far as the US is concerned, the long-term consequences of admitting Saleh could be substantial. The GCC peace deal, praise by politicians around the world, is very unpopular with the Yemeni street because it grants Saleh immunity from prosecution. The peace deal still hangs by a thread.

Even though the US is adamant that Saleh’s visit would be temporal and medical in nature, it would stir of memories of Saleh’s coziness with American leaders over the past three decades.

As democracy and civic engagement sweep the Arab world, an important national security concern for the United States is its popularity with the Arab street. According to a recently released survey of public opinion across the Arab world by the University of Maryland and the Brookings Institution, 89% of Arabs support the opposition in Yemen against Saleh. 52% of Arabs are discouraged by Obama’s foreign policy in 2011, up from 15% in 2009.

Furthermore, US insistence that Saleh’s visit would only be for “legitimate medical treatment,” and that the decision was not political, is rather cynical. As one user asks on Twitter, “will the US also consider taking in all the injured due to #Saleh’s aggression towards the people of #Yemen?”

By rejecting Saleh’s visa request, the Obama administration would be siding with the majority of the Arab street—the future leaders of the region.

The debate also represents a philosophical dilemma between consequentialist and moralist conceptions of justice.

The consequentialist, or utilitarian, would argue that allowing Saleh to leave Yemen would save lives and produce a consequence of the greatest good for the greatest number. A moralist, or Kantian, might argue that, consequences aside, justice would only be executed if Saleh stood trial for his crimes, even though this would create short-term turbulence.

Two things are clear: Ali Abdullah Saleh and his allies must leave political life in Yemen permanently as a prerequisite to genuine stability. The GCC brokered peace deal has not ensured that and neither will an American visa for medical treatment. The second thing is that whatever the Obama administration decides, the GOP presidential nominees will vehemently disagree with it.

Disentangling Criticism of Israel from Anti-Semitism

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 09:29:43 -0500

If you’ve only read Caroline Glick in the Jerusalem Post and Eli Lake in the Weekly Standard over the past couple of weeks, you’d have to conclude that there was one thing that New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, Time magazine columnist Joe Klein, US Ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman, Secretary of Defense Panetta, Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama had in common: they’re all anti-Semites!

Never mind the fact that some of the members of this esteemed club are Jewish. But all of them made the mistake of criticizing the policies of the state of Israel or highlighting the very real power that the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has on American foreign policy.

It’s high time to disentangle anti-Semitism from criticism of Israeli government policy or AIPAC.

Gutman made the mistake of saying that some manifestations of anti-Semitism are “born of and reflecting the tension between Israel, the Palestinian Territories and neighboring Arab states in the Middle East over the continuing Israeli-Palestinian problem.” His statement was largely vilified and misrepresented in Israeli media and on the US GOP primary trail.

Popular Israeli columnist Glick, in an article in the Jerusalem Post, says that Gutman “effectively denied the existence of anti-Semitism in Europe” and that he, Obama, Clinton and Panetta all engage in “classical anti-Semitic behavior.” Never mind that the Obama Administration backed Israel at the United Nation and has given billions of dollars in unconditional annual aid to the Israeli military. Glick concludes by saying that the United States under Obama is an ally of Israel no more, yet the Israeli Defense Forces don’t seem to be in a hurry to return the money.

Friedman was harangued for the following quote in his December 13^th column, “Newt, Mitt, Bibi and Vladimir”:

“I sure hope that Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.”

Never mind that Friedman is Jewish, an unabashed supporter of the Jewish state and a donor to pro-Israel causes. As MJ Rosenberg said in subsequent article, “If Tom Friedman is an anti-Semite, there is no such thing; the charge has simply lost its meaning.”

Friedman later backed down from his comments slightly. “In retrospect I probably should have used a more precise term like ‘engineered’ by the Israel lobby — a term that does not suggest grand conspiracy theories that I don’t subscribe to. It would have helped people focus on my argument, which I stand by 100 percent.”

Friedman’s comments and ensuing disparagement are particularly problematic when AIPAC does have undeniable influence in the American body politic. This is not because it’s a Jewish organization, but because in the plutocracy that is 2011 America, Congress is beholden to any number of special interests from the Cuban lobby, to the NRA and from Exxon-Mobil to Goldman Sachs.

Should Friedman have rephrased his comment in a more sensitive manner? Probably. It is unhelpful to say Jewish or Israel lobby instead of AIPAC. But this is a matter of semantics which highlights the hypersensitivity of recent accusations of anti-Semitism which border on absurdity worthy of a Vaclav Havel play.

A similar case study can be found with Time columnist Joe Klein (another Jew) commenting that he didn’t want Americans to be sent to war in Iran to destroy Tehran’s nuclear program. “It’s another thing entirely to send American kids off to war, yet again, to fight for Israel’s national security,” says Klein.

Friedman and Klein’s statements have come under intense scrutiny, and articles in Commentary Magazine by Jonathan Tobin and in the Weekly Standard by Lake regard them as “the new anti-Semitism,” full with references to the blood libels and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

This tendency to use the anti-Semite label so frequently is deeply troubling. First of all, it prevents legitimate and necessary questioning of Israeli government and AIPAC policy. Secondly, calling Tom Friedman or President Obama anti-Semites is nothing short of charity to actual anti-Semites. The accusation is becoming cheapened and thoroughly adulterated.

On September 23^rd, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke in front of the United Nations General Assembly “On behalf of Israel and the Jewish people.” This may not seem very strange but many people would raise an eyebrow, or gasp in horror, if any person claimed to speak on behalf of the entire world’s Christians. Netanyahu, Glick and Lake would have a heart attack of anyone truly spoke on behalf of all of the world’s Muslims.

This highlights a peculiar phenomenon in which Israel and the Jewish people are one, yet dissent professed by American Jews is intolerable.

It is also peculiar that in the United States, civil disobedience, questioning of government decision-making and criticism of politicians is considered a patriotic virtue. In the end, Israel is a state, Netanyahu is a politician, and AIPAC is made up of human beings. None of them are infallible. One should be able to question the decisions the Israeli government makes without worrying about being slandered as an anti-Semite.

This is particularly distressing in the cases of Friedman, Klein, Rosenberg and Gutman. All of them are Jewish (remember, Netanyahu is speaking on their behalf) and are still being accused as new anti-Semites. Give me a break.

Anti-Semitism is real. It still exists. Yet it becomes more difficult to regard it as a threat when everyone and their mother is considered a Jew-hating bigot.

There is also a tendency to say that anti-Semitism is a unique and exceptional type of racism. It has festered for thousands of years since the death of Christ. It has followed Jews into the Diaspora and taken many forms, from conspiracy theories about control of banks, to the Protocols, to blaming the Jews for the Black Death, right up to the Holocaust and the present day. The argument goes that most forms of racism knock down the victim, to make them feel inferior, while anti-Semitism attributes great power to the Jews.

Yet every form of racism or hate has its particular idiosyncrasies, stereotypes and manifestations. Anti-Semitism isn’t any more exceptional than anti-black racism or homophobia. All of the individual wells of bigotry and discrimination connect to the same aquifer of hate in the depths of the world.

Audre Lorde, a Caribbean-American writer and activist put it perfectly in her essay “There is no Hierarchy of Oppressions.” Lorde—who is black, female and homosexual—said that she “cannot afford to believe that freedom from intolerance is the right of only one particular group. And I cannot afford to choose between the fronts upon which I must battle these forces of discrimination, wherever they appear to destroy me. And when they appear to destroy me, it will not be long before they appear to destroy you.”

The charges of anti-Semitism leveled at President Obama (who also takes flak for being Pro-Zionist, a Nazi, and a socialist, depending on the hater), Friedman, Klein, etc. obscure cases like the murder of Ilan Halimi, a French Jew who was stalked and kidnapped because he was presumed to be rich, or Mordechai Molozhenov, a Yeshiva student stabbed and wounded for his religious faith in August 2005 in Kyiv by attackers who were later charged with being guilty only of “hooliganism.”

Perhaps Glick, Lake, Commentary and the Weekly Standard’s biggest crime has been to make the accusation of anti-Semitism almost irrelevant. If their concern was about discrimination and justice instead of their unconditionally pro-Netanyahu agenda, they’d mention Halimi or Molozhenov, or any number of other genuine victims of other forms of racism, discrimination or oppression. There is too much real suffering in the world to level such trumped up charges at journalists and politicians.

Meanwhile, the State of Israel continues to make some of the Jewish people it speaks in behalf of ashamed of its conduct. It launches ad campaigns questioning the Jewishness of American Jews, encouraging them to immigrate to Israel, as it slams European allies of being “irrelevant” and meddling in Israel’s affairs. Discrimination against women on religious and secular grounds is all over the headlines. Its Foreign Minister has hailed the fairness of Russia’s recent elections and isn’t even trying to pursue a peace deal with the Palestinians. Israeli Knesset bills are trying to silence human rights organizations which receive funding from the United Nations and the European Union. The list goes on. And of course, as 2012 rolls around, the occupation will enter its 45^th year.

Criticism of the State of Israel, which after all, is a government run by human beings, must be disentangled from anti-Semitism. If it makes me an anti-Semite for saying so, so be it.