Oslo at 20 years

Oslo 20 Years Later: Lessons Learned?

Jonathan S. Tobin | @tobincommentary 09.08.2013 - 9:00 PM

In my previous post, I noted the upcoming 20th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo Accords this week. Though the agreement has been a disaster for Israel, I speculated that though these results were eminently predictable—and were by critics of the Labor government that negotiated and signed the accords on the White House Lawn on September 13, 1993—it might have been inevitable that sooner or later Israel would test the intentions of the Palestinians. The question now is whether the Israelis and their American allies are prepared to draw the appropriate conclusions from the experiment.
What happened in the 1990s as the post-Oslo euphoria first receded and was then replaced by the horror of the terror war called the Second Intifada was the gradual realization that Western illusions about Palestinian nationalism were misplaced. Though Arafat signaled at the time that he viewed Oslo as merely a diplomatic ruse intended to help continue the conflict on more advantageous terms rather than a permanent peace, this was something that was largely ignored by those pushing the peace process. Though there is no going back to the pre-Oslo world, as Secretary of State John Kerry’s attempt to revive peace talks continues those who are calling for pressure on Israel to make concessions to Arafat’s successor need to wake up and stop making the same mistakes.

First among them is to stop pretending that the Palestinian leadership has embraced the cause of peace. The fact remains that Palestinian nationalism was born in the 20th century as a reaction to Zionism and the effort to reverse the verdict of history on 1948 remains their focus today. Until that changes, Israeli leaders and their American allies must understand that a conclusion to the conflict is not in the cards.
Throughout the 1990s as Oslo unraveled, American diplomats and even some Israeli politicians persisted in ignoring not only Palestinian violations of the accords but the campaign of incitement and hate against the Jewish state that was orchestrated by the Palestinian Authority in their media and the educational system they were given control of by the treaty signed on the White House Lawn. Turning a blind eye toward Arafat’s support for terrorism did not enhance the chances of peace. Doing so merely convinced the Palestinians they would pay no price for their intransigence and set the stage for the war of terrorist attrition that put an end to the illusion of Oslo. Repeating that error today as the incitement continues will only replicate those bloody results.
They must also stop buying into the myth that Israeli settlements remain the obstacle to peace. Both Oslo and the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza (not to mention the peace treaty with Egypt) have proved that Israeli governments are prepared to give up territory including the uprooting of longstanding Jewish communities. But doing so merely encouraged the Palestinians to believe that they could oust every settlement, if not the Jewish state itself, if they only hung tough. Rather than negotiate a compromise solution in good faith, they remain trapped in the idea that the Jewish presence on the land is the problem rather than face up to the need to abandon the century-old war on Zionism.
Prior to Oslo, both Americans and some Israeli leaders fundamentally misread Palestinian political culture. The late Yitzhak Rabin thought Arafat would be so eager for a state that he would fight Hamas without the hindrances of concern for human rights and legal niceties that hampered Israeli counter-terrorist strategies. That was a mistake since it not only wrongly attributed a desire for peace to Arafat but also underestimated the hold that a desire for Israel’s destruction had on both the people of the territories and the descendants of the 1948 refugees. Secretary Kerry seems locked in the same misapprehensions about Mahmoud Abbas and the current PA, fueled in no small measures by the same tactic of Palestinians saying one thing about peace to Western diplomats and media and something different to their own people.
So long as American diplomats remain focused on talks with Palestinian leaders who lack the will or the ability to negotiate a permanent end to the conflict rather than on the culture that makes such intransigence inevitable, we are doomed to both a cycle of Palestinian-initiated violence and diplomatic frustration.
If there is a disconnect between the myths about Palestinian intentions on the part of Americans (including many Jews) and the cynicism about the subject on the part of the overwhelming majority of Israelis it is because the latter have been paying attention to events in the last 20 years while the former have clung to their ill-informed illusions. That realistic attitude is a sign of sanity in an Israeli political system that often seems lacking in rationality. But Israelis need to understand something else that has happened since Oslo.
Israel has spent most of the last 20 years continually making concessions to the Palestinians starting with the Oslo empowerment of Arafat and climaxing in the Gaza withdrawal. But it has received scant credit from a world. The irony is that rather than these retreats (as well as a variety of other measures including the release of terrorist murderers such as the one that was extracted from the Netanyahu government in order to give Kerry the negotiations he craved) being rightly interpreted as a sign that Israel wanted peace and was willing to offer generous terms, they were viewed by most of the world as a sign of a guilty conscience. While many Israeli diplomats have believed that arguing for Jewish rights to the West Bank and even Jerusalem was counterproductive, a dispute between a party that only talked of its security rather than its rights is one that is bound to be lost.
This has fed a trend in which Israel’s delegitimization has increased since Oslo rather than diminishing. After Arafat turned down an independent state in almost all of the West Bank, Gaza, and part of Jerusalem, some Israelis thought their negative image would change. They were wrong. Palestinian intransigence, repeated twice more as they rejected even more generous offers in the years that followed, has not harmed their image or strengthened sympathy for Israel.
If that tide is to be stemmed, let alone reversed, it will require Israelis and their friends to stop playing defense about territorial disputes. They must cease merely discussing their desire for peace (genuine though it is) and begin again asserting the justice of their cause.
Should a sea change in Palestinian culture ever occur allowing a new generation of pragmatic leaders to make peace, they will find Israelis willing to deal. But until that happens, both Americans and Israelis would do well to lower their expectations. That is especially true for leaders like Kerry who seemed to have learned nothing from recent history. The euphoria about peace that followed the signing of the Oslo Accords was a trap that led to years of unnecessary bloodshed. In the years that follow this anniversary the test of statecraft in the Middle East will be in avoiding the pattern of self-deception that not only led to Oslo but also worsened its consequences

Evil J Street loses power

Leftist Roots Trump Obama for J Street

Jonathan S. Tobin | @tobincommentary 09.09.2013 - 2:45 PM

The irony is delicious. In the fall of 2008, the leaders of the J Street lobby boldly asserted their group’s coming preeminence as the leading voice in Washington about Israel over the more established AIPAC. The reason for that confidence was J Street’s close ties to the incoming Obama administration. Pointing to the huge majority of Jewish votes won by the Democrat in the 2008 election, J Street not only claimed that its views were more representative of American Jewry but that it would serve as a necessary pro-Obama counterweight to what they falsely claimed was an AIPAC that favored Republicans. But fast forward to September 2013 and the reality of the alignment of these two groups is vastly different from what J Street propagandists were saying a few years ago. Not only is J Street a shadow of the liberal behemoth that some expected would lead the discussion about the Middle East, disconnected from public opinion in Israel and bereft of influence on Capitol Hill or in the White House. It is also at odds with the man they once served as his main Jewish cheerleaders.
While AIPAC has reacted to the president’s puzzling decision to pass off responsibility to Congress for a strike on Syria by mobilizing its resources to back him up on the issue, J Street is standing on the sidelines of a vote that will have huge implications for the future of U.S. influence in the Middle East. In doing so, J Street is not only burning what’s left of its bridges to an administration that they’ve been out of step with for the past two years. It’s also showing that their leftist roots as the Jewish rump of the MoveOn.org movement trumps their loyalty to the president or to the cause of human rights.

That J Street should be aligning itself with the isolationists on both the left and the right against the administration shouldn’t be any surprise. Despite their boasts about representing the mainstream of Jewish opinion in this country, it has always been a creature of the isolationist left. Though opposition to Syria intervention is widely unpopular, J Street might have been expected to rally to President Obama’s side in what is probably the most crucial moment of his second term. If Congress fails to grant him authority to attack Syria his credibility is shot at home and abroad and we might as well hang a sign around his neck saying “lame duck.”
But the MoveOn.org crowd from which J Street sprung does not share the president’s apparent ambivalence about the use of U.S. power even when used against a Syrian dictator who has used chemical weapons against his own people. They are always against it. While J Street belatedly condemned Syria’s use of chemical weapons their outrage over this crime wasn’t enough to convince the leaders of the group to back up the president whose stands on Israel once enthralled them.
I deplore J Street’s belief that the U.S should use its status as Israel’s only ally to pressure it to make concessions to a Palestinian Authority that has repeatedly demonstrated its unwillingness to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn. But do they think America’s capacity to use its influence in the Middle East will be enhanced by the evisceration of Obama’s ability to lead on foreign affairs by Congress? It is that reason that the pro-Israel community in this country which largely disagrees with J Street’s calls for pressure on Israel has weighed in on the president’s behalf. AIPAC was loath to involve itself in the squabble in Syria because it rightly felt that Israel favored neither side in the Syrian civil war. But a United States that is no longer capable of stepping up to punish those who use weapons of mass destruction in this manner is also an America that has been effectively rendered irrelevant in the Middle East. No matter what you think about the fighting in Syria or about the peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, that should be a big problem for those who purport to speak for pro-Israel opinion in this country.
Nevertheless, it should be conceded that J Street’s opposition to Obama on Syria wouldn’t decrease its influence in Washington. That’s because it has none. Though it has been cheering wildly for Secretary of State John Kerry’s efforts to restart peace talks, it’s been out of touch with the administration’s attitude toward Israel since the beginning of 2012 when the president began a Jewish “charm offensive” in order to help his reelection. J Street loved it when Obama was picking fights with Israel during his first three years in office, but even then it was clear the White House understood just how insignificant a player the group was. That it must now look to AIPAC for help on Syria again demonstrates not only the mainstream lobby’s importance but also how foolish J Street’s attacks on it have been.
When push comes to shove, it appears J Street’s core beliefs about the illegitimacy of American power will always trump its claim to want to bolster Israel or even Obama. If few have noticed that they’ve abandoned the president, it’s largely because their hard-core ideological approach to issues always rendered it a marginal force even in Democratic councils, let alone the public square they once thought to dominate.

Bibi's greetings

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ushered in the Jewish new year on Wednesday with a message of strength and unity.

In a video issued by the Prime Minister's Office, Netanyahu said that the Jews "defied the laws of history" and "Jewish unity is a major part of our collective strength."

He expressed confidence "that Jewish communities will continue to stand by Israel" and Israel would do the same for them.

He also touched on some of the hot button issues of the moment, saying that Iran's nuclear program must be stopped, and any peace with the Palestinians must be "real and enduring." In the face of regional upheaval, he said, "we remain an oasis of democracy, stability, tolerance, and liberty."

More than anything, Netanyahu's message was one of faith in Israel and the Jewish people's capacity to survive and prosper. "Together," he said, "we can continue to achieve great things for Jewish people and the world.... Shana tova umetuka. It means a good year and a sweet new year. I hope you have both." 

Why are the Jews asked to do the heavy lifting?

on Syria, Obama has convinced AIPAC, AJC RJC etc to lobby for the attack. I'm for punishing Assad for this,, but guess who will get the blame if things go wrong? And then, credibility with Congress will be reduced when the REAL issue, Iran, comes up
edlasky@att.net
"AIPAC, ADL, and the RJC have signed onto the push to get Congress to approve giving the President authority to take military action in Syria.

As has been reported by various news outlets, the pro-Israel lobby was “asked” by the White House to use (up?) its influence in Congress to push this issue.

Already this has revived charges of Jewish control of American foreign policy.

This was a canard that emerged during the Iraq War-though Bush did not “ask” Jewish groups to become involved AT ALL-and Jewish groups remain uninvolved and silent.

The charges of dual loyalty dissipated because the Jewish community had not issued any call to arms and was not asked to use its influence in Congress. There were no “smoking guns” that would lead people to believe Jewish Americans were pushing for war.

Now that has changed and the conspiracy theorists are already charged up.

Example: A simple edit of a New York Times story that mentioned AIPAC was deleted because it was redundant from a previous day’s story about Congress and Syria (see this Politico column http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/09/ny-times-scraps-aipac-from-syria-story-171669.html)

This elicited a series of  stories about AIPAC controlling the media and forcing the mention of AIPAC out of New York Times. These included outlets with fairly large readership (among them were The Daily Beast (Newsweek), Slate Magazine, The Nation, Politico, etc.).

Even the Atlantic has gone off the deep-end: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/09/03/u-s-credibility-not-israel-lobby-will-decide-syria-vote/#more-832549
There was never much doubt that sooner or later any debate about U.S. action on Syria would get around to an effort to drag the “Israel Lobby” canard out of the closet. While some on the right are wrongly characterizing the case for striking the Assad regime’s ability to use chemical weapons as Obama’s war for “al-Qaeda in Syria,” some on the left are back to riding their own favorite hobbyhorses and blaming the whole thing on Israel. That’s the upshot of a piece published on the Atlantic’s website in which James Fallows posted a lengthy quote from William R. Polk in which the author and former State Department staffer seeks not only to claim that the proof of chemical weapons was cooked up by Israel but that the Jewish state used chemical weapons in Lebanon and Gaza. Suffice it to say the former charge is contradicted by the large body of evidence about what happened in Syria that has been made public in the last week as the impact of the most recent use of chemical weapons by Assad became clear. The latter charges are simply lies.
That such weak and nasty stuff should get an airing at the Atlantic is troubling. But it is just as unfortunate to read accounts in other mainstream outlets such as the New York Times that the Obama administration appears to be counting on supporters of Israel to pull the president’s chestnuts out of the fire on Syria. While Israel certainly has an interest in the survival of American influence in the Middle East, the idea of shifting the discussion from one that revolves around America’s credibility and national security to one that seeks to parse the decision as either good or bad for the Jewish state is a profound misreading of the administration’s problem. No endorsement from Israel or AIPAC can substitute for the ability of the president and his team to articulate a case for the sort of action that they know they must take


So my question is-since Jewish organizations have been drafted into this effort in Congress (that will once again lead to anti-Semitism) where are all those Arab-American groups? Why don’t we read articles about them working on Congressmen? Why hasn’t the White House “asked” them to become involved in this effort? After all, it is their people being murdered by the tens of thousands. At the very least it would reduce charges about Jews and Israel and Washington-even if Arab-American groups don’t have as much sway as other groups.

But they remain out of the picture."

L'shana tova to ALL Jews

To modern, ultra & just plain Orthodox Jews, Haredi Jews, Mitnagdim,
Conservative, Conservadox, Reform & ConForm Jews, Gartel Jews,
non-Gartel Jews, Jews with sheitels & without, Tichel Jews, Sheitel,
tichel & hat Jews, adult & child Jews, Frum from birth Jews, Baalei
Teshuva, Satmar, Bucharen, Agudah, black hat, kipa s'ruga, Mir, Munkacs, Belz,
Beta Yisrael, Bobov, Chaim Berlin, Y.U. Jews, payos in front of the
ear Jews, payos in back of the ear Jews, kipa only in shul/ hat in
shul/ no shul at all Jews, Mizrachi Jews, Jews by choice, Robe on
Friday night Jews, Likud Jews, Labor Jews, Meimad Jews, Ten Lost
Tribes Jews, cardiac Jews, Irish Jews, Black Jews, White Jews,
Rav Nachman Jews, Rav Shlomo Jews, Reb Chaim Jews, Neturei Karta Jews, Hasidim, Telz, Lakewood & Ner Yisrael Jews, Chofetz Chaim Jews,
Zaftig Jews, skinny Jews, Celebrity Jews, Generation X,Y & Z Jews, NCSY Jews, Solomon Schechter Jews, Chinuch Atzmai Jews, Fackenheim Jews,
Yitz Greenberg Jews, Kahane Jews, Feminist Jews, Chauvinist Jews,
egalitarian Jews, traditional Jews, Kaddish-zuger Jews, political
Jews, intellectual Jews, ignorant Jews, Shinui Jews, Shas Jews, Israeli Jews, American Jews, Persian Jews, Russ Jews, Galitzianers, Litvaks,  Birthright Jews, single Jews, married Jews, wish I was married Jews, Scandinavian Jews, South of the Border Jews, Italian Jews, Bald Jews, Hairy Jews, Canadian Jews, Latino Jews, Ladino Jews, Jews in kapatas, Jews in T-shirts, Jews in sandals, Jews in gym shoes, Jews in cowboy boots, Hungarian Jews, Czech Jews, Jews on the Hungarian-Czech Border Jews, Ashkenazim, Sefardim, Yemenite Jews, Afrikaaner Jews, Romanian Jews, Zionists, non-Zionists, anti-Zionists, post-Zionists, Jews with an accent, Jews who speak perfect Midwestern English Hebrew, Native American Jews, Anglo-Saxon Jews, French Jews, German Jews,
Greek Jews, Indian Jews, Chinese Jews, Wannabee Jews, Conspiracy Theory Jews, Japanese Jews, Shayna Punim Jews, Meesekite Jews, Closet Jews, Shnorrers, Baalei Tzedaka, Tzadikim, Baynonim, Rashaim, Chevra, kvetching Jews, Guta Neshama Jews, Vizhnitzer, Ger,
Gerer, Chabadnik, Kohenim, Levi'im, Yisraelim, Machers, Mavens, &
Pashet Jews, EVERYKIND of Jew in this vast Universe:
May we all unite - without a fight!
And together ignite G-D's Great Light.
May we see a sweet and blessed year together with a true peace!!!

Rabbi Schools Obama

President faces tough questions during traditional

Rosh Hashanah phone call with American rabbis

Israeli dismayed by Obama, his gross incompetence

Israeli dismayed by Obama, his gross incompetence

Israeli leaders largely held their tongues after President Obama announced Saturday that he would seek congressional approval before striking Syria.
But privately, as David Horovitz reports at Times of Israel, Israeli leaders are stunned and deeply worried that Obama's decision to put off action in Syria means no future attack in Iran.

the president has set a precedent, in seeking an authorization from Congress that he had no legal requirement to seek — and that Congress was not loudly demanding — that may complicate, delay or even rule out credible action to thwart a challenge that dwarfs Assad’s chemical weapons capability: Iran’s drive to nuclear weapons.
At the very least, Obama has given Assad more time to ensure that any eventual strike causes a minimum of damage, and to claim initial victory in facing down the United States. At the very least, too, Obama has led the Iranians to believe that presidential promises to prevent them attaining nuclear weapons need not necessarily be taken at face value.

Horovitz concludes that Israeli leaders hope that Barack Obama wakes up and remembers that America is the most powerful military force in the world and has acted out of moral duty to prevent carnage in the world before.
But that maybe asking too much of a president who looks to Europe, and not America's great traditions, for his guidance.

Obama's staggering incompetence
Thinking Through Our Syrian Options
Peter Wehner | @Peter_Wehner 09.01.2013 - 12:15 PM

On the lead-up to a likely strike against Syria by the United States, there are some things most of us can agree on.

One is that Bashar al-Assad is a malevolent figure. Two, a de minimis strike–one that is mostly symbolic and does nothing to alter the course of the war–is worse ...than doing nothing. And three, President Obama has handled the Syrian situation with staggering incompetence.

The list of mistakes by Mr. Obama includes, but is by no means limited to, declaring two years ago that Assad must go (and doing nothing to achieve that end); declaring one year ago that if Syria used chemical weapons it would be crossing a “red line” that would constitute a “game changer” (Assad crossed the “red line,” for months nothing happened, and whatever Obama does, he’s made it clear it will not constitute a “game changer”); signaling to our enemies, in advance, the details of our expected operation–thereby making a strike, if it occurs, the most telegraphed and reluctant military action in American history; doing a miserable job building a coalition to support a military strike (Obama’s “coalition of the willing” might include all of two nations); doing a miserable job building support among the American people (they are decidedly unenthusiastic about a military intervention in Syria); and signaling he was going to bypass congressional authorization for military use of force before reversing course and declaring on Saturday that he would seek authorization–but only after Congress returns from its summer recess (thereby sending the message to Congress, the American public, and the world that there’s no real urgency to a strike, despite the secretary of state saying that what Syria has done is “morally obscene”). This is Keystone Cops material.

That said, where there is a real difference of opinion, including among conservatives, is whether an effective show of force that would alter the balance of power in Syria would be worthwhile.

Some military analysts, like (retired) General Jack Keane, believe the more moderate and secular rebel forces (like the Free Syrian Army) are in fairly strong shape and, if given the training and arms they need, could emerge as a powerful force in a post-Assad Syria. Others, like Colonel Ralph Peters, believe the rebel forces that are strongest in Syria right now and most likely to emerge as dominant in a post-Assad Syria are al-Qaeda affiliates like Jabhat al-Nusra. I will admit it’s unclear to me–and I suspect fairly unclear to almost everyone else–what would happen if Assad left the scene. Which makes knowing what to do, and what to counsel, difficult.

So what is the best outcome we can reasonable hope for? What is the worst outcome we should be most prepared for? What are the odds of each one happening? How likely, and in what ways, will Syria retaliate? How reliable is the FSA? Is Jabhat al-Nusra (an al-Qaeda affiliate) “generally acknowledged to be the most effective force fighting al-Assad,” in the words of CNN’s Peter Bergen? If the (relatively) moderate rebels did receive the aid they need, what are their chances of success? And what would success look like? Taking control of Syria (which is hardly likely)? Taking control of parts of Syria? Participating in a coalition government? Comprised of whom?

These are just some of the difficult, and largely unknowable, questions one has to ask prior to endorsing a military strike.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There would be a significant cost to doing nothing in Syria. There could be significant benefits if we act militarily (including delivering a damaging blow to Syria’s sponsor states, Iran and Russia, as well as to Hezbollah). And it’s also possible that things could be worse–from the standpoint of America, Israel and the region–if Assad is attacked and/or overthrown and jihadists emerge in a dominant position. “The hard truth is that the fires in Syria will blaze for some time to come,” according to Ambassador Ryan Crocker. “Like a major forest fire, the most we can do is hope to contain it.”

In all of this I’m reminded of what Henry Kissinger wrote in his memoir White House Years:

Statesmanship requires above all a sense of nuance and proportion, the ability to perceive the essential among a mass of apparent facts, and an intuition as to which of many equally plausible hypotheses about the future is likely to prove true.

Barack Obama has no such perception and intuition; he has proved to be singularly inept at such presidential decision-making. But we cannot unwind what has happened. We are where we are. Syria is a nation that has been ripped apart. The window for a useful American intervention may have closed. And even if it hasn’t, it would require a strategic thinker and statesman of remarkable skill to deal with a dozen moving parts, all which need to be carefully calibrated, in order to help Syria heal; in order for a stable, non-sectarian and non-virulent regime to emerge.

It’s much clearer to me what we shouldn’t do than what we now should do. I suppose that’s sometimes where we find ourselves living in this most untidy world. And when it comes to predicting the course of events and anticipating various contingencies, especially in the Middle East, modesty is probably more appropriate than certitude