Israel Never Has a Choice

According to the Israeli spokesperson, the vaunted IDF saw "a few hundreds" of protesters "trying" to reach the border between Syrian-controlled territory and Israeli-controlled territory on the Golan Heights, so "we had to open fire"...on civilians... in Syria.

"We had to open fire." One should feel pity for the poor IDF, which had to open fire to protect the barbed wire from being injured by evil protesters along the border between Syria and the Syrian land occupied by Israel. No other army in the world carries the burden of being forced to fire across international borders at civilians. Imagine how difficult it is to bear this burden!

Of course, Israel had to occupy the land, as well; the fact that Israelis go there for ski vacations is irrelevant. Israel had no choice but to occupy and retain the Golan Heights, just as it had no choice but to kill protesters, just as it has no choice but to run Palestinians out of their homes on the West Bank - isn't the Israeli population increasing? Israel also had to kill those nine protesters sailing in international waters toward Gaza on the Freedom Flotilla from Turkey. Not only were the nine an existential threat to Israel's exceptionalism, but Turkey, lately behaving rudely, had to be taught a lesson.

Now that the Rafah Gate is open (sorta), Israel will surely have to teach Egypt a lesson, too. And once those inconsiderate Palestinians get a victory at the U.N., Israel will no doubt have to teach Iran a lesson.

What Israel did is completely different than Assad murdering his protesters, Saleh murdering his protesters, Quaddafi murdering his protesters, Mubarak murdering his protesters, or Abdullah murdering his...ah...Bahrain's protesters. What Israel did is completely different from East Germany's old Stasi murdering people trying to get over the Wall. Those guys don't know an existential threat from a bagel.

Principles are involved here, and it is time that the people of the world stop whining. Being exceptional is a lot harder than you think.

War Party Attacks ex-Mossad Chief Dagan

Evading the crucial issue of how Israel might repair the self-inflicted damage to its national security and avoid blundering into a disastrous war with Iran, the Zionist right instead launches a personal attack on retired Mossad chief Dagan. Meanwhile, Iran calmly continues its emergence as a regional power.

Illustrating the degree to which some right-wing Israeli politicians are in denial about global realities, they have launched a campaign to attack Dagan for his honesty [Jerusalem Post June 6, 2011]. Science and Technology Minister Daniel Herschkowitz of the Zionist, nationalist, expansionist Habayit Hayehudi party even called for Dagan to be put on trial. Nothing is more threatening to those in denial than the truth, and nothing is more threatening to a nation’s security than being in denial.

Following the typical tactics of extremists attempting to stifle democratic dialogue, Herschkowitz accused Dagan, who was calling attention to a threat to Israeli security, of harming it! And the issue concerns only Dagan's expression of his personal opinion, not the revelation of secrets, as in the case of patriotic whistleblower Bradley Manning. To hear the militant right tell it, it is not the weakness that is to be feared but admitting and attempting to correct the weakness. Only denial, it seems, can be patriotic.

In the words of Haaretz commentator Gideon Levy, a man far wiser than most Israeli politicians:

He should be commended for his responsible and courageous act. If Dagan the civilian is worried, if he thinks it's a matter of a threat to our existence at our doorstep, it is not only his right to make himself heard, it is his supreme duty. He should attempt to stop it, to act as a gatekeeper. If he acted otherwise, he would have been abusing his role as former Mossad director.

Whether or not one agrees with the opinions of Dagan (or Landau or Ashkenazi) is, from the perspective of Israeli national security, not the point. The issue for Israeli national security is to discover the truth, and the best route to that goal ever discovered is the free marketplace of ideas. That marketplace is as rich in Israel as in any country on earth, the last great feature of the old Israeli democratic ideal that remains vibrant in the face of the ultra-right challenge for its private version of political correctness. Those who accuse the long-term former head of Mossad of treachery are seeking to replace the national debate over foreign policy he and Ashkenazy are promoting with such a private version of political correctness. When voicing one’s opinion in public becomes treachery, democracy is dead, and state security will soon follow.

Meanwhile, ex-Shin Bet director Avi Dichter and former senior Mossad official Rami Igra both spoke out in support of Dagan.

Dagan’s topic—the implications of a potential Israeli attack on Iran—is of the utmost significance for the future of Israel. Over the last decade, Iran’s cautious, rational (Emily Landau’s term) foreign policy has enabled it to emerge as a regional player of rising stature despite its vicious behavior toward domestic political opponents of the regime. Tehran has skillfully exploited missteps by its Washington adversary to transform Iraq from its primary enemy into an ally and simultaneously has exploited missteps by Tel Aviv, which stumbled into a draw in an unnecessary adventure in Lebanon in 2006 and behaved with shameless barbarism in its attack on helpless Gaza in 2009, to seize the role of chief spokesman for Levantine justice. More, Tehran has deepened ties with Ankara even as Tel Aviv has needlessly wrecked its own ties with Ankara. More recently, Tehran has lauded the Arab Spring and improved ties with Egypt while Tel Aviv has once again harmed its own cause by playing the bitter rejected suitor bad-mouthing the new Cairo. The result of this decade of Iranian foreign policy success and Israeli foreign policy failure (all at the hands of the expansionist, right-wing Israeli war party) is that Israel now finds itself in desperate need of a serious national debate over its long-term national security. Instead of meeting the critique of national security thinkers such as Dagan, Ashkenazi, and Dichter with thoughtful counter-arguments, however, the Israeli Zionist militants prefer to change the subject and libel the messengers.

Foreign Policy Rationality in Iran and Israel

Israeli national security thinkers: Iran is dangerous because rational, while Israel is irrational and, therefore,...????

Emily B. Landau, director of the Arms Control and regional Security Program at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, has described Iran as a danger precisely because of its rational foreign policy process. She portrays Iran as moving carefully on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis to achieve its goals without either starting or provoking war. While such behavior may not be morally beyond question or a sign of love for others, the world would nevertheless be a better, safer place if all countries were so sophisticated. More to the point is a comparison between Iran as portrayed by Landau and Israel.

Where Iran works steadily to maximize its regional influence by means that avoid disaster, Israel lurches from one war to another, some against countries, some against colonial possessions. Where Iran bases its policy on taking only what it can get without provoking disaster, Israel relies on a policy of superior force and takes huge risks. Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon led to the creation of Hezbollah and a 20-year occupation until that same Hezbollah managed to drive Israel out, leaving Israel worse off than before. Israel took over Gaza, mistreated it, provoked it, has repeatedly attacked it, all for what benefit to Israel? Israel subverted the democratic electoral victory of Hamas in 2006 only to provoke Hamas into returning to violence. Each gratuitous Israeli resort to force seems to leave Israel less secure.

Contrast Israel’s behavior with that of Iran, which coolly watched as the U.S. destroyed its main adversary, Saddam, and then moved in politically and financially to gain lasting influence over its former enemy. Similarly, Iran actually aided the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, thus gaining for free the defeat of its Taliban enemy, after which it established cooperative relations with the new Afghan regime. Iran also managed to turn itself into the sponsor of Moqtada al Sadr, a militant patriot by no means easy to control, even as it worked with Moqtada’s political opponents in Baghdad. Then, while faced with enormous pressure over its nuclear policy, Iran smoothly launched an effort to establish close economic ties with NATO member Turkey, laying the groundwork for a long-term international hydrocarbon cartel that promises to give Iran significant influence in both the Mideast and West Europe; Israel, meanwhile, was wrecking its traditional ties to Turkey by murdering Turkish advocates of justice for the people of Gaza.

Landau’s analysis—both her warning that Iran is benefiting from its rational foreign policy and her silence on Israel’s erratic and self-defeating foreign policy-- should be read in the context of recent remarks criticizing Israeli foreign policy by recently retired Israeli national security decision-makers with hard-line reputations:

• Ex-Mossad chief Dagan’s warning that the Netanyahu regime has “poor judgment;”
• Ex-Army Chief General Gabi Ashkenazi reportedly warned that war with Iran would bring “disaster” to Israel in a successful effort to prevent Israel from launching an unprovoked attack in 2009.

Compared to Israel (a comparison Landau carefully avoids), Iran indeed looks like a rational, thoughtful, cautious actor, an actor that a conciliatory world could accommodate and do business with but one that should not be underestimated. Israel, in contrast, appears, even from the perspective of some of its own key national security thinkers, to be losing touch with reality.

Ex-Mossad Chief Warns of “Poor Judgment” of Netanyahu

Step-by-step, recently retired Israeli national security officials are exposing the threat to Israeli national security posed by the Netanyahu faction.

Freeing Palestinians…to Save Israeli Democracy

A Palestinian state would not only offer justice to Palestinians but restore Israel's weakening democracy and consolidate Israel's security by strengthening the emerging Arab center.

Gaza Update

The opening of the Rafah border today has weakened the Israeli stranglehold, but Israel's barbaric collective punishment policy remains, for the moment at least, more or less intact.

Rafah: Opening the Gate to Mideast Change

Cairo has just taken the initiative, upping the ante for all those trying to woo her: Rafah will be opened. Now for the devil in the details: let the bidding begin.

Wooing Cairo

Everyone now wants to be friends with Egypt; to put it differently, everyone now wants to push Egypt to remake itself in a way convenient to them: Riyadh and Tel Aviv missing the nice, safe old dictatorship; Tehran searching for entrée into the Mideast community without having to bow down to Washington; Ankara looking to buttress its position as leader of the moderate middle. Meanwhile, Cairo’s face is properly veiled, as she considers her options.*

The Suitors.   Riyadh crassly flashed its wealth, first allegedly threatening economic punishment of Egypt were Egypt to pursue Mubarak and then offering a big ring (economic aid) at a price (“security”) that could be read as an insulting attempt to interfere in Egypt’s delicate domestic affairs, where the issue is not security but liberty. Riyadh also allowed Mubarak to make a speech on Saudi TV that widely irritated Egyptian reformers; Cairo’s investigation of a Saudi billionaire’s land deals in Egypt suggested a lack of proper deference to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.

Tel Aviv’s influence over Cairo remains palpable, but a cautious Cairo has slightly softened its own blockade of Gaza (which still buttresses that of Israel), and a Cairo-sponsored Hamas-Fatah deal that leaves Tel Aviv out of the loop is breaking news. With the collapse of the Hamas-Israel ceasefire, it seems unlikely that Cairo can continue to keep the Gaza issue on the back burner. A newly free Egyptian populace demonstrated against Israel’s attack on Gaza on April 8 and again on April 12, and the newly independent Egyptian daily Al Ahram reported the events. Indeed, an Egyptian diplomat has reportedly stated that changes in Egyptian rules governing the Rafah border crossing, now that long-time critic of Mubarak’s Gaza policy--Nabil El-Arabi--is the new Egyptian foreign minister, are imminent. Tel Aviv needs a zero-based foreign policy rethink.

The tone of ties with Tehran has already improved, with the passage of Iranian warships through the Suez Canal in February and Foreign Minister El-Arabi’s recent public advocacy of the reestablishment of official relations. But Ankara has already traveled this path with Tehran, obtaining few Iranian concessions in return. Tehran needs to decide if it wants inclusion in a new Mideast that may be less dependent on Washington but still hardly “on Tehran’s side” or whether it prefers the status of remaining outsider and troublemaker.

Ankara faces both an opportunity and a trap. As Davutoglu’s discussions with the new Egyptian civilian leadership on April 10 illustrate, Turkey and Egypt can cooperate to resolve a host of regional problems, with Gaza perhaps the key test, assuming they can avoid falling into the trap of competing for leadership of a moderate bloc at the expense of substantive accomplishments.

Cairo’s Calculus. Egypt now has the opportunity to step into the limelight, with all those suitors precisely when Washington, having overplayed its regional hand, is nursing its wounds, struggling with the effects of mismanaged imperialist adventures and a mismanaged domestic economy. Whatever Egypt may lack in terms of money, oil, or military power, Egypt now has pride, stands center-stage with de facto leadership of the emerging bloc of post-dictator states, and has more flexibility than any other regional state: Cairo’s moment has arrived.

The mere hesitation of Cairo to commit herself creates a new regional fluidity: where diplomacy in the old Mideast tended to be zero-sum, it can now be positive-sum. Done carefully, Cairo can have her cake (independence) and eat it too (cooperation with Iran and Turkey, continued U.S. aid, peace with Israel, pride, status, and regional influence). Extremists, from Zionist expansionists to Salafi jihadists, won’t find such an outcome to be “positive-sum,” but all regional societies eventually will.

Ankara needs help making the case for a policy of good neighborliness to replace the old confrontationalism. Tehran needs the security guarantee of friendly ties with a major Sunni state to break the Arab-Israeli-U.S. front that has been opposing it. Saudi Arabia may find that it too has needs – the support of an independent regional power, rather than just a handful of sheikdom clients. Washington needs the cooperation of a Sunni power that is moderate, democratic, popular, and successful: what better antidote to jihadi terror could one imagine?

Storm Clouds.

So the storybook romance, in this case, is that the beautiful girl should marry no one, date everyone! But storm clouds darken the horizon:

Gaza. Israel has been playing Nazi Germany to Gaza’s Warsaw Ghetto. That approach is not working. Gaza, both literally as an incubator of extremism and figuratively as a global symbol of oppression, is a terrorism factory. If a new Egypt actually does emerge (not yet certain), Gaza will be an intolerable contradiction with an obvious “solution:” opening the Rafah border crossing. Can Cairo manage the instability that might result?

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Positive-Sum Vision on Palestine

"With this united Palestinian [government] Israel can negotiate for real, can carry through the implementation of UN Resolution 181 of 1947 which called for an Israeli and a Palestinian state"

[Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabeel Arabi, Israeli National News.]

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Zero-Sum Israeli Policy

"My sense is that if Israel continues to ignore international calls for achieving peace on a just basis, and allowing the Palestinians to establish their state, there will be more and more bitter and negative feelings towards Israel, and the difference now, after January 25 [when the uprising began], is that no government in Egypt will be able to ignore those feelings'' [Hossam Zaki, senior advisor to Egyptian foreign minister]

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The Egyptian Economy. If Egypt’s revolution produces a democracy without economic progress, the democracy will quickly give way to chaos, zenophobia, fundamentalism, chauvinism or some other process of desperation. Total GNP and corporate profits are not the issue; payoff for the population is.

Egypt’s Governance. Notwithstanding all the bravery by Egyptian democracy protesters over the last five months, the prospects of Egypt achieving responsible governance remain dim. With military aid pouring in from Washington and economic aid pouring in from Riyadh, the temptation on the part of the “temporary” military dictatorship to hold onto political power will be hard to resist.

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Start With the Military Council

"You want a revolution in Egypt? You can't have one with Tantawi as the leader.  An Egyptian revolution would require the removal of the Egyptian military council which serves by order of the US/Israel.  You want to remove all appointees of Mubarak?  Don't start with the Ministry of Agriculture.  You will get there later. Start with the Military Council."  [As'ad AbuKhalil, Angry Arab News Service.]

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The Army is Fooling the People

Tahrir Square protests are starting up again, amid rising condemnation of Egypt's self-appointed military dictatorship. According to a protester, "The army is fooling the people." [Heba Fahmy, Daily News Egypt.]

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Iran’s Neo-Cons. What highly factionalized Tehran really wants remains unclear. Although working with Ankara and Cairo might be a deal attractive to Tehran national security types, it would also come at a domestic political cost to the anti-Saddam war generation of “Iranian neo-cons,” a political clique exploiting Palestine’s plight to pad their own resumes. An Ankara-Tehran-Cairo partnership could trim Israel’s sails, but such a partnership would require Tehran to make hard choices.

Bahrain. Repression of dissent in Bahrain will empower hard-line Iranians, making more likely sectarian violence and an Iranian-Saudi military clash. Riyadh’s Bahraini chickens will come home to roost, undermining efforts to promote regional compromise.

Revenge of the Fanatics. Fanatics, extremists, those who believe that only those who obey are “friends,” will seek to punish Cairo for moderation; Egypt will need to get its own house in order quickly in order to keep its balance.

Yemen. Yemen is a disaster unfolding before our eyes and a potential trap that could once again entangle a reactionary Riyadh with a progressive Cairo. Alternatively, a post-Saleh Yemen could conceivably join Egypt and Tunisia in a new progressive bloc that, given well managed coordination with Turkey, could revolutionize Mideast politics.

Cairo’s Tipping Point.

Washington can play a critical supporting role by guiding rather than opposing change. It should stake out a position in support of Bahraini democracy that will offer Bahraini dissenters an alternative to putting themselves in the hands of Iran. Washington needs to demonstrate that ties with the U.S. can translate into a better life for a mistreated population and, specifically, for a Shi’i majority. Equally urgent is a solution for Gaza that would remove Israel from the equation, accept Hamas as the political party currently in charge, and provide Hamas with the means to govern well in return for mutual security along the Gaza-Israel border. Washington’s standards for interacting with Damascus and Sana’a also need to be brought into sync.

Whether Washington helps or hinders, Cairo now finds herself at a tipping point. She can try to hand victory back to the counter-revolution, thereby encouraging empire-builders and advocates of the Zionist garrison state while empowering both Iranian rejectionists and militant Sunnis to whom many embittered moderates will feel forced to turn. The rising frustration of Tahrir Square activists at the self-appointed Cairo military government’s agonizing crawl toward democracy, Cairo’s endless toying with a pro-Palestinian policy regarding its joint border with Gaza, and Cairo’s acceptance of a massive economic aid package with God knows what secret strings attached from arch-conservative Riyadh all illustrate the obstacles facing Egyptians who advocate change. Clearly, the danger of Egypt tipping back into dictatorship remains very real.

Alternatively, Cairo can make Egypt the center of a new moderate, democratizing movement to offer the Mideast a positive-sum vision of progress for all of Egyptian society and for the whole Mideast. Cairo can tip toward a combination of domestic democratization and foreign policy independence based on Arab nationalism.

May she choose wisely.

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*My thanks to Media With Conscience for publishing a shorter version of this article.

Readings

Barak Barfi argues that Cairo has no choice, financially, but to bow down to Riyadh.

Ramzy Baroud argues that Cairo is still treating Gazans at Rafah like "animals."

Question of the Day: Who Is the Real Friend of Americans?

Listen carefully the next time "your representatives" open their mouths...

Hard-core conservative McConnell defended his vote to keep giving $2B in federal welfare to Big Oil in a quarter when Big Oil profits hit $36B, with 20 million Americans unemployed, by saying it would defend the US from Chavez! I kid you not; some people actually believe this stuff.

Considering that Chavez is the guy who keeps faithfully selling oil to us and who gave discounted or free gasoline to the American poor a couple years back, while Tony Hayward was CEO of BP when BP poisoned the Gulf of Mexico, the question for the day is:

Who is a better friend of the US – Chavez or Tony Hayward?

Israeli Hidden Agenda On Iran

For examples of Israeli hidden agendas regarding Iran, see Trita Parsi's new article, which also discusses the cost of having hidden agendas. Sometimes, they can box you in. I discussed hidden agendas in theoretical terms here. Parsi also exposes inter alia how servile the U.S. media can be.

Parsi notes:

the huffing and puffing ensured that the American military option remained on the table; that Washington would not deviate from the Israeli red line of rejecting uranium enrichment on Iranian soil; and that the Iranian nuclear program was kept at the top of the international community's agenda.  

He also notes:

Inflating the Iranian threat served several purposes domestically. It provided Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres a rationale to push for peace with the Palestinians in the 1990s, while more recently Benjamin Netanyahu has used it to resist pressure from Washington to do just that. But the domestic benefits came at the price of limiting Israel's options and flexibility vis-à-vis Iran. As Israeli politicians built up the Iranian threat and established a near-consensus that Tehran constituted an existential threat, it became increasingly difficult for any Israeli politician to walk back the threat depiction without losing critical political capital at home. As a result, there was a steady escalation of the threat depiction from Iran and no clear ways to de-escalate.

Inter alia, one can also see something that is extremely important to Americans but denied by virtually all its politicians - the danger to U.S. national security of having an alliance with a country like Israel. It is one thing that Israeli politicians would play dangerous games with hidden agendas risking their own country's security and threatening an adversary, but this game tricked a lot of naive U.S. politicians and thus harmed U.S. security as well, and Israel is supposed to be a friend of the U.S.