|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on March 20th, 2010 Press Conference at the UN World Water Day Monday, 22 March, 2010 H.E. President of the UN General Assembly , H.E. Prime Minister of Tajikistan H.E. Jan Eliasson This high-level dialogue provides an important input to the preparatory process for the Summit on the Millennium Development Goals to be held on 20-22 September 2010, and feeds into the High-Level International Conference on water to be hosted by Tajikistan in June 2010. ————————- The problem with the above press conference, which is part of the daily UN Spokesperson’s Briefing to the Press, is that the UN General Assembly President is Ali Treki, the Foreign Minister of Libya who was declared practically non-person by the Schengen countries, so he is unwelcome to Europe {a President of the UNGA – mind you – no less}, and Oqil Ghaybulloyevich Oqilov, Prime Minister of Tajikistan, just recently host to Ahmedi-Nejad of Iran, and whose country is turning into a pro-Iranian satellite. The fact that the UN water conference will be held in Tajikistan must have to do something with the push for legitimization by some of the world’s less palatable regimes. That leaves the Honorable Jan Eliason, a friend from the days he served at the UN, and a friend of humanity, the only person worthwhile on that UN panel. We say this with full knowledge that water and climate change are indeed main problems for Libya and Tajikistan, but we just do not believe that the other two speakers on that dais have shown politically real interest in this topic. We are curious what journalists will show up and how far can questioning be allowed by the UN, and by the UN General Assembly, Spokesmen. ————————- Monday 04 January 2010 Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad laid wreath at the statue of Ismail Samani a former king here on Monday. After welcome ceremony held by Tajikistan’s Prime Minister Oqil Oqilov, Ahmadinejad started talks with his Tajik counterpart Imomali Rakhmon. During the talks, the two presidents signed three memoranda of understanding, two documents on cooperation and a statement on expansion of bilateral relations. Later in the day, Ahmadinejad is planned to deliver speech to a group of resident Iranians at Ibn Sina Hospital, built by Iran’s private sector in the country. He is also due to inaugurate an Iranology center in the Tajikistan’s medical university. —— Saturday 09 January 2010
The Iranian president was officially seen off by his Turkmen counterpart Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov. He was in Turkmenistan to attend the inaugural ceremony of the first phase of Iran-Turkmenistan’s second gas pipeline project. The 182-km pipeline was inaugurated by the Iranian and Turkmen presidents earlier on Wednesday. President Ahmadinejad was in the region on a three-day visit which had brought him earlier to Tajikistan. He discussed major bilateral, regional and international developments with senior Tajik and Turkmen officials. A number of agreements were also signed by Iranian officials and their Tajik and Turkmen counterparts for promotion of bilateral cooperation between Tehran and the two Central Asian capitals. —– Saturday 09 January 2010 President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad concluded his two-nation tour to the Central Asian region and arrived in Tehran on Wednesday afternoon. Upon his arrival, the Iranian president was welcomed by Supreme Leader’s Advisor for International Affairs Ali Akbar Velayati, 1st Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi as well as a number of high ranking officials and ministers. Speaking to reporters at the airport, President Ahmadinejad described his visits to Tajikistan and Turkmenistan as very fruitful and promising. He discussed major bilateral, regional and international developments with senior Tajik and Turkmen officials. A number of agreements were also signed by Iranian officials and their Tajik and Turkmen counterparts for promotion of bilateral cooperation between Tehran and the two Central Asian capital cities. —– Saturday 09 January 2010 President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here Thursday that world’s destiny will be decided in the Middle East. “Iran and Syria should in a joint mission establish new world order based on monotheism, justice and humanity,” President Ahmadinejad told Syrian parliament Speaker Mahmoud al-Abrash. He said the world is on verge of big developments and the tyrannical systems are fading. “Iran and Syria shoulder a crucial role in present juncture and their cooperation should further expand,” he added. The 30-year resistance of Iran and Syria is almost close to the victory stage, said the President, adding, “Resistance of nations, including Iran and Syria, has thwarted all the conspiracies of the imperialistic system in the political, economic, military and ideological domains.” The President went on to say that construction of the wall of separation in the occupied lands and of the steel war in Gaza all show the Zionist regime’s vulnerability. “The US government too will have to end up its interventions in the region and get its forces out of there.” Al-Abrash said in return that expansion of relations and cooperation among Muslim states, including Iran and Syria, has nullified enemy conspiracies.
———————————— For more information and the full programme of the day, please see: www.un.org Jonathan Rich, WaterAid, Tel.: +1 347 262 9115, Email: jonathan at jcrcommunications.com ————————————- Let the clean water flowBy CAROLINE BOIN, The Japan Times online, Saturday, March 20, 2010
LONDON — The 18th annual World Water Day (March 22) offers the same old problems and rejects the practical solutions. On Monday, 1 billion people will, as usual, spend the day without clean water and a third of humanity without adequate sanitation. As usual, some 3.5 million men, women and children will die from related diseases this year. Yet many nongovernment organizations and politicians still prefer ideology to ideas, spurning what the private sector delivers to the world’s poor. Activists often claim to be defending the poor from profit-maximizing corporations. But this has more to do with dogma than reality. Given that less than 10 percent of world water management is private, it is hard to see how they can blame corporations for poor supply. In fact, it is governments that mismanage water and misallocate it to political cronies and powerful lobbies such as farmers. The poor, in rural areas or slums, are left unconnected and unable to do much about it. Anti-privatization groups keep repeating that water should be provided by government but ignore that government has been the worst enemy of the poor. On another tack, the World Development Movement and similar groups claim that the private sector has done little for the poor, having connected only three million people in developing countries over the past 15 years. But this figure excludes Latin America and Southeast Asia where private water management — and the number of people getting water — has boomed since the 1990s. In Argentina, for example, privately managed areas got lower water prices, more connections and a drop in infectious diseases and child deaths. Activists have further misrepresented private supply by focusing on multinationals while ignoring the small-scale water vendors who get water to people whom governments have abandoned. In many African cities, they sell plastic water sachets to passersby, while in Paraguay 500 aguateros supply nearly half a million people using tankers and piped water. A World Bank researcher found in 1998 that “in most cities in developing countries, more than half the population gets basic water service from suppliers other than the incumbent official utility.” Country surveys suggest that the situation has changed little since then. The World Health Organization, like activists, disregards these “informal” water vendors, bottled water and tankers. It refuses to consider them as “improved water sources” as they are unregulated, unpredictable and allegedly incapable of serving a mass market. But to the hundreds of millions of people who rely on them, there is nothing incapable about private water providers. For many, they are the difference between life and death. Informal water vendors come in all types, but they all provide water for profit. Their clients are among the most poorly prepared to pay to protect their families from disease and to put their time to better use than searching for clean water. The success of these private water services throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia disproves the claim that the poor are too poor to pay for water and that the private sector has no incentive to serve them. In fact, the poor often pay more for water than those in prosperous areas with “formal” supplies. A World Bank survey of South American cities found that, on average, trucked water costs four to 10 times more than the public network’s price. In Kibera, the Nairobi slum of about 1 million people, jerry-can water sells at four times the average price in Kenya. Activists who accuse the private sector of putting profits before people should realize three things. First, water vendors would stop providing water and sanitation if they did not make a profit. Second, governments are largely to blame for the higher prices because they constrain or outlaw private supply. Finally, people buy from vendors willingly, often with a choice of suppliers. Water is severely under-priced in China, at around a third of the world average. As a consequence 300 million rural people have no safe drinking water. Where vendors do operate, people are prepared to pay up to 10 times the connected cost. The theme of this year’s World Water Day is quality, so legalizing the work of water vendors should be a priority. They could then own sources, land and infrastructure, get credit and expand operations, serving more people at cheaper rates with cleaner water. It is these small-scale ventures — not empty government promises — that can quickly improve water supplies for the poor. Caroline Boin is a project director at International Policy Network, London, which focuses on economic development.
Permalink |
| ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on February 10th, 2010 How Washington Can Really Help the Greens in Tehran . from: Trita Parsi. With the February 11 demonstrations around the corner, Washington is increasingly torn on whether and how to support the Iranian pro-democracy movement. Reality is that Washington’s history of involvement in Iran’s political affairs is not a pretty one. But between doing everything and doing nothing, there is a safe, effective third way. Alireza Nader of RAND and I write about that third path in Foreign Policy Magazine today. Trita Parsi, PhD Ever since last June’s disputed presidential election, Iran has been in the throes of change, with the nascent “green movement” protesting against an ever-more-authoritarian state. For months, Washington has asked itself: Should the United States actively push for regime change? Torn between the fear of ending up on the wrong side of history by being too cautious and the fear of ending up undermining the pro-democracy movement by being too aggressive, Barack Obama’s administration is playing a difficult balancing act. History shows that intervention is easier said than done. Past U.S. attempts to sway Iranian internal affairs — such as the CIA-fomented 1953 coup d’état against a democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh — have proven costly for U.S. interests. Most notably, Washington’s support for the shah fueled the 1979 Islamic Revolution, inspiring anti-Western movements in Pakistan, Egypt, and beyond. Second, the United States should avoid sanctions that put a burden on the Iranian people, rather than the Iranian government. Broad-based sanctions that hit the entire economy hurt common citizens far more than the powerful elites. Any new sanctions should demonstrate not only international discontent with the conduct of the Tehran government, but also an effort by the United States to keep from harming average Iranians. The shift toward targeted sanctions against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) — a 100,000-strong paramilitary and security force with significant business interests — is a welcome development. However, because the IRGC controls Iran’s official and underground economy, identifying sanctions that hurt only the IRGC while sparing the general population is difficult. Instead, U.S. and U.N. designation of specific individuals within the government and the IRGC responsible for the repression and human rights violations would make the sanctions both effective and truly targeted. Such designations would discourage foreign governments and companies from engaging with these individuals or conducting business with them and their affiliates, demonstrating to the regime that its domestic and foreign policies will have significant consequences. This would be helpful to the green movement in two ways. First, international focus on Iran’s human rights record makes it more difficult for Tehran to proceed with its abuses. For instance, the United States should support a special session on the human rights situation in Iran at the U.N. Human Rights Council. Second, it helps counter the Iranian government’s perception that the United States is willing to sacrifice the human rights and pro-democracy aspirations of the Iranian people for the sake of a nuclear deal. Finally (Fifth), Washington should exercise patience and view Iran as a long-term factor in shaping U.S. national security interests across the Middle East. The green movement will not and cannot adjust its action plan to suit the U.S. political timetable. But if patience is granted — which includes avoiding a singular focus on the nuclear issue at the expense of all other considerations — Washington will access a far greater potential for change. ——————- Trita Parsi is president of the National Iranian American Council and the 2010 recipient of the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. ======================== UPDATED: Washington will do just that !!! U.S. plans sanctions to hit Iran’s Revolutionary Guards http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/world/middleeast/10sanctions.html Permalink |
| ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on February 6th, 2010 DIRECT QUOTES: BASHAR ASSAD One note: a transcript of our talk, provided by Assad’s office, was generally accurate but it did not include an exchange we had about intelligence. A senior Syrian official had told me that, last year, Syria, which is on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, had renewed its sharing of intelligence on terrorism with the C.I.A. and with Britain’s MI6, after a request from Obama that was relayed by George Mitchell, the President’s envoy for the Middle East. (The White House declined to comment.) Assad said that he had agreed to do so, and then added that he also has warned Mitchell “that if nothing happens from the other side”—in terms of political progress—“we will stop it.” Quotes from our conversation follow. President Barack Obama: Bush gave Obama this big ball of fire, and it is burning, domestically and internationally. Obama, he does not know how to catch it. The approach has changed; no more dictations but more listening and more recognition of America’s problems around the world, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq. But at the same time there are no concrete results…. What we have is only the first step…. Maybe I am optimistic about Obama, but that does not mean that I am optimistic about other institutions that play negative or paralyzing role[s] to Obama. If you talk about four years, you have one year to learn and the last year to work for the next elections. So, you only have two years. The problem, with these complicated problems around the world, where the United States should play a role to find a solution, is that two years is a very short time…. Is it enough for somebody like Obama? Hillary Clinton: Some say that even Hilary Clinton does not support Obama. Some say she still has ambition to be President some day—that is what they say. The press conference of Hillary with [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu [in which she appeared to walk away from the Administration’s call for a freeze on settlements] was very bad, even for the image of the United States. Israel and the United States: To be biased and side with the Israelis, this is traditional for the United States; we do not expect them to be in the middle soon. So we can deal with this issue, and we can find a way if you want to talk about the peace process. But the vision does not seem to be clear on the U.S. side as to what they really want to happen in the Middle East. Negotiations with Israel: I have half a million Palestinians and they have been living here for three generations now. So, if you do not find a solution for them, then what peace you are talking about? What, I said, is the difference between peace and a peace treaty? Peace treaty is what you sign, but peace is when you have normal relations. So, you start with a peace treaty in order to achieve peace…. If they say you can have the entire Golan back, we will have a peace treaty. But they cannot expect me to give them the peace they expect…. You start with the land; you do not start with peace. The Israelis: You need a special dictionary for their terms…. They do not have any of the old generation who used to know what politics means, like Rabin and the others. That is why I said they are like children fighting each other, messing with the country; they do not know what to do. [The Israelis] wanted to destroy Hamas in the war [in December, 2008] and make Abu Mazen strong in the West Bank. Actually it is a police state, and they weakened Abu Mazen and made Hamas stronger. Now they wanted to destroy Hamas. But what is the substitute for Hamas? It is Al Qaeda, and they do not have a leader to talk to, to talk about anything. They are not ready to make dialogue. They [Al Qaeda] only want to die in the field. Europe and the Iranian nuclear negotiation: This is not European but Bush’s initiative adopted by the Europeans. The Europeans are like the postman; they pretend that they are not like this but they are like a postman; they are completely passive and I told them that. I told the French when I visited France. Iran: Imposing sanctions [on Iran] is a problem because they will not stop the program and they will accelerate it if you are suspicious. They can make problems to the Americans more than the other way around. If I am Ahmadinejad, I will not give all the uranium because I do not have a guarantee [in response to American and European insistence that most of Iran’s low-enriched uranium be sent abroad for further enrichment to make it usable for a research reactor, but not for a bomb]…. So, the only solution is that they can send you part and you send it back enriched, and then they send another part…. The only advice I can give to Obama: accept this Iranian proposal because this is very good and very realistic. [Note: the Iranian position appeared to be shifting this week.] Lebanon: The civil war in Lebanon could start in days; it does not take weeks or months; it could start just like this. One cannot feel assured about anything in Lebanon unless they change the whole system. Cooperating with the United States in Iraq: They [American officials] only talk about the borders; this is a very narrow-minded way. But we said yes. We said yes—and, you know, during Bush we used to say no, but when Mitchell came [as Obama’s envoy] I said O.K.… I told Mitchell by saying this is the first step and when find something positive from the American side we move to the next level…. We sent our delegation to the borders and [the Iraqis] did not come. Of course, the reason is that [Nouri] al-Maliki [the Prime Minister of Iraq] is against it. So far there is nothing, there is no cooperation about anything and even no real dialogue. George Mitchell: I told him, you were successful in Ireland, but this is different…. [Mitchell] is very keen to succeed. And he wants to do something good, but I compare with the situation in the United States: the Congress has not changed…. But the whole atmosphere is not positive towards the President in general. And that is why I think his envoys cannot succeed. Criticisms of some Israeli policies at the J-Street founding conference: Ahh … that is new!… But we should educate them that if they are worried about Israel, then the only thing that can protect Israel is peace, nothing else. No amount of airplanes or weapons could protect Israel, so they have to forget about that. Pakistan’s government: They supported [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai and realized he cannot deliver. I do not know why they supported him and why—nobody knows why. American power: Now the problem is that the United States is weaker, and the whole influential world is weak as well…. You always need power to do politics. Now nobody is doing politics…. So what you need is strong United States with good politics, not weaker United States. If you have weaker United States, it is not good for the balance of the world. Permalink |
| ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on January 29th, 2010 IPS Newsbriefs “The banking sector in general will take several years to recover and rebuild the regulatory capital that it’s lost over the past several years combined with higher regulatory capital requirements expected in the near future,” says John Dunlop, who heads the London Energy Project Finance desk at HSH Nordbank, a leading financer of renewable energy projects. “The effect will be to reduce the overall amount of debt finance coming from banks and going to all sectors, including renewables.” Some analysts, however, point out that concerns over climate change and declining fossil fuel reserves have resulted in government stimulus packages that could help project developers overcome the short-term financing drought. “There are certainly concerns about the economy, but I think that renewable energies are going to be a priority because they represent the future,” says Helene Pelosse, director-general of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). “Countries have to make choices and, since energy resources are limited, then this is the first field where they should invest.” Yet critics have charged that the Copenhagen Accord conspicuously failed to establish the source and mechanisms of this funding – an oversight that could ultimately derail efforts to mobilise financial resources. “Many who were not enthusiastic about the outcome of the conference have considered the talk about funding just a transient one,” Rashid Ahmed bin Fahad, the United Arab Emirates minister for environment and water, said during the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi last week. “The Accord did not clarify the sources of such funding, how the money is to be distributed and the systems by which these funds operate.” Kilian Baelz, acting director of the Regional Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (RCREEE), a Cairo-based energy policy think tank, says clean technology is “still high on the agenda” of many Middle East nations, though not all have the same political will or financial means. Oil-rich United Arab Emirates has shown no sign of abandoning its clean energy ambitions, which include the 22 billion dollar carbon-neutral Masdar City project. Other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia) appear to be proceeding with caution. “The small Gulf states have taken a more conservative approach towards lending to renewable energy projects,” says Baelz. “They have seen that their wealth is not guaranteed and that they are vulnerable to developments in the international market.” Permalink |
| ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on January 6th, 2010 From the latest news coming from Washington – “Under the new airport There may be a Jamaican convert to Islam who preached terrorism in the UK But what about Cuba? Fidel Castro is more atheist then Catholic, surely Mr. President, I watched Bolivia and Venezuela leaders speak in Copenhagen, Please start by taking him of that list! Having said the above – let us get now to the point – MR PRESIDENT - * * * * Please look – I am posting here four reference – links to news New Air Security Checks From 14 Nations to U.S. Draw Criticism In Yemen, U.S. Faces Leader Who Puts Family First Behind Afghan Bombing, an Agent With Many Loyalties Kenya Seeks to Deport Muslim Cleric to Jamaica ———————— THE UPDATE: We have received a comment on this post and it presents a very valid point supposedly made at the UN General Assembly by the Foreign Minister of Cuba: “I mean if they were going to include us, then they should have at least thrown in North Korea.” Even if the e-mail we received from ajay - akazif at gmail.com as presented by www. eggplantpost.com in http://eggplantpost.com/2010/01/05/cuba-… were a made up story, the argument holds water nevertheless. DID THE US INCLUDE CUBA ON THAT LIST BECAUSE IT WANTED TO AVOID BEING SEEN AS GOING AFTER A RAG-TAG OF ISLANIC COUNTRIES? Now, we believe that US security should be spoken here – not again US appeasement-for-oil please! Permalink |
| ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 9th, 2009 NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED COLUMNIST Green Shoots in Palestine II By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Ever since the collapse of the Oslo peace accords in 2000, and the horror-show violence that followed, there has been only one thing to say about the West Bank: Nothing ever changes here, except for the worst. That is just not the case anymore — much to my surprise. For Palestinians, long trapped between burgeoning Israeli settlements and an Israeli occupation army, subject to lawlessness in their own cities and the fecklessness of their own political leadership, life has clearly started to improve a bit, thanks to a new virtuous cycle: improved Palestinian policing that has led to more Palestinian investment and trade that has led to the Israeli Army dismantling more checkpoints in the West Bank that has led to more Palestinian travel and commerce. Because the West Bank today is largely hidden from Israelis by a wall, Israelis are just starting to learn from their own press what is going on there. On July 31, many Israelis were no doubt surprised to read this quote in the Maariv daily from Omar Hashim, deputy chairman of the Chamber of Commerce of Nablus, the commercial center of the West Bank: “Traders here are satisfied,” said Hashim. “Their sales are rising. They feel that life is returning to normal. There is a strong sense of optimism.” Make no mistake: Palestinians still want the Israeli occupation to end, and their own state to emerge, tomorrow. That is not going to happen. But for the first time since Oslo, there is an economic-security dynamic emerging on the ground in the West Bank that has the potential — the potential — to give the post-Yasir Arafat Palestinians another chance to build the sort of self-governing authority, army and economy that are prerequisites for securing their own independent state. A Palestinian peace partner for Israel may be taking shape again. The key to this rebirth was the recruitment, training and deployment of four battalions of new Palestinian National Security Forces — a move spearheaded by President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad of the Palestinian Authority. Trained in Jordan in a program paid for by the U.S., three of these battalions have fanned out since May 2008 and brought order to the major Palestinian towns: Nablus, Jericho, Hebron, Ramallah, Jenin and Bethlehem. These N.S.F. troops, who replaced either Israeli soldiers or Palestinian gangs, have been warmly received by the locals. Recently, N.S.F. forces wiped out a Hamas cell in Qalqilya, and took losses themselves. The death of the Hamas fighters drew nary a peep, but a memorial service for the N.S.F. soldiers killed drew thousands of people. For the first time, I’ve heard top Israeli military officers say these new Palestinian troops are professional and for real. The Israeli Army’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, has backed that up by taking down roughly two-thirds of the 41 manned checkpoints Israel set up around the West Bank, many since 2000, to stifle Palestinian suicide bombers. Those checkpoints — where Palestinians often had to wait for two hours to just pass from one city to the next and often could not drive their own cars through but had to go from cab to cab — choked Palestinian commerce. Israel is also again letting Israeli Arabs drive their own cars into the West Bank on Saturdays to shop. “You can feel the movement,” said Olfat Hammad, the associate director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, who lives in Nablus and works in Ramallah. “It is not a burden anymore to move around to Ramallah for business meetings and social meetings.” Nablus recently opened its first multiplex, “Cinema City,” as well as a multistory furniture mart designed to cater to Israelis. Ramallah’s real estate prices have skyrocketed. “I have had a 70 percent increase in sales,” Maariv quoted a Nablus shoe store owner as saying. “People are coming from the villages nearby, and from other cities in the West Bank and from Israel.” “Our people need to see we are governing ourselves and are not simply subcontractors for Israeli security,” Prime Minister Fayyad told me. Khalil Shikaki, a leading Palestinian pollster, added that Abbas and Fayyad want “to be seen as building a Palestinian state — not security without a state.” That is why “there has to be political progress alongside the security progress. Without it, it hurts them very much.” America must nurture this virtuous cycle: more money to train credible Palestinian troops, more encouragement for Israel’s risk-taking in eliminating checkpoints, more Palestinian economic growth and quicker negotiations on the contours of a Palestinian state in the West Bank. Hamas and Gaza can join later. Don’t wait for them. If we build it, they will come. Permalink |
| ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 3rd, 2009
Report: Iran Plane that Crashed Was Carrying Arms for Hizbullah – Nir Magal (Ynet News) Permalink |
| ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 29th, 2009 OBAMA BEGINS PRESSURING ARAB LEADERS ON DEAL WITH ISRAEL BY NATHAN GUTTMAN Freezing the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank was once seen as a unilateral Israeli obligation. But the Obama administration is now treating this as part of a package that will require concessions from Arab states as well. An intensified and more public focus on this idea appears to be one of the byproducts of U.S. President Barack Obama’s July 13 pledge to American Jewish communal representatives to address perceptions that he is pressuring only Israel. So far, the Arabs have been resistant. Still, in the wake of Obama’s White House meeting with the Jewish delegation, Israeli, American and Arab leaders have, to varying degrees, shifted their rhetoric in ways that reflect acceptance of a new principle of reciprocity. “The Americans now understand that if they get anything from us on the settlement issue, it will only be in the broader context of some kind of Arab return,” said an Israeli diplomat, echoing other similar comments from Israeli officials recently. The official added that talks between U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have focused on components of a two-sided deal that will include both a settlement freeze and reciprocal steps by Arab countries. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared to confirm this in a policy speech two days after Obama’s White House meeting with the Jewish representatives. “Progress toward peace cannot be the responsibility of the United States – or Israel – alone,” Clinton told the Council on Foreign Relations. “Arab states have a responsibility to support the Palestinian Authority with words and deeds, to take steps to improve relations with Israel and to prepare their publics to embrace peace and accept Israel’s place in the region.” A U.S. State Department official told the Forward that steps by the Arab parties were fundamental to Mitchell’s mission. “Special envoy Mitchell continues to engage in constructive conversations with all parties, including Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab states, on steps they could take to help create a climate in which to re-launch negotiations,” he said. At least some Arab parties to the peace process also now appear to accept this. “The price we pay will depend on what kind of a deal we get on the settlement issue,” said an Arab diplomat in response to questions about Israel’s stand. “In return for a symbolic compromise on the settlements, some Arab states will be willing to pay with some symbolic gestures.” But so far, the Obama administration appears stymied in its efforts to obtain a commitment to new concessions toward Israel by Arab states, even in the event of an Israeli commitment – nonexistent up to now, even conditionally – to a settlement freeze. The administration has been frustrated in particular in its quest for flexibility from Saudi Arabia. According to experts and diplomats, tensions between Washington and Riyadh were building even prior to Obama’s meeting with Jewish leaders, as a result of a June 3 meeting between Obama and King Abdullah in the Saudi capital. The meeting ended with a clear disagreement over the issue of Israel. “Why should the king of Saudi Arabia, who is the leader of the Muslim world and the imam of his Muslim community, give something of this nature to the Israelis for free?” asked Jamal Khashoggi, editor-in-chief of the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Watan. “This is a new idea that was probably developed by Israel’s friends in Washington.” Khashoggi said the Saudi monarch believes his 2002 peace initiative, supported by the entire Arab League, already offered concessions and showed the kingdom’s wish for peace. Israel never responded to the Saudi initiative. But in her speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Clinton said that embracing the 2002 Arab peace plan is not enough, and that concrete initial steps are needed now. The initiative, which Obama has cited as a helpful basis for discussion, commits the Arab world to an official peace agreement with Israel and normalized relations with it if Israel withdraws to its pre-1967 borders, accepts the establishment of a Palestinian state and resolves the issue of Palestinian refugees in accordance with United Nations resolutions. Those U.N. resolutions, however, appear to require the refugees’ return to homes in present-day Israel, constituting one of Israel’s principal objections to the proposal. America’s request for signs of normalization with Israel is now focused on symbolic steps. According to Arab and American diplomatic sources, Washington is now asking for the reopening of commercial interest offices of Oman, Qatar and Morocco in Israel and for permission for Israeli commercial airliners to fly over Gulf states, shortening flights from Israel to East Asia by several hours. Public overtures, such as a handshake with Israeli leaders, or providing tourist visas to Israelis seeking to visit Arab countries, are not on the table now, said an Arab diplomat with close knowledge of the talks. The diplomat stressed that such public gestures are viewed as being at the top of the scale of normalization and therefore will be kept for the final phase of the peace process. “The Arab consensus is that normalization is the last card they have to play,” the diplomat said. Prior to the emerging emphasis on reciprocity, Israel’s obligation to freeze the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank was understood to be an independent requirement of the so-called road map for Middle East peace. The 2002 road map, forged by the Bush administration with international partners, required Israel to “immediately” dismantle settlement outposts that even Israel classifies as unauthorized, and to freeze all settlement activity, including natural growth. The road map also requires the Palestinians to take concrete steps to halt terrorism and violence. But this, too, appears as an independent obligation, untied to any action by Israel. The new Sadat: The most significant sign thus far of Arab willingness to adopt America’s call for normalization has come from the small Gulf kingdom of Bahrain. In a July 16 op-ed published in The Washington Post, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, the Bahraini crown prince, called on Arab countries to reach out and communicate with Israel. “Essentially, we have not done a good enough job demonstrating to Israelis how our initiative can form part of a peace between equals in a troubled land holy to three great faiths,” Khalifa wrote. He went on to criticize Arabs who wish to perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so that Palestinian victims “can be manipulated as proxies.” The Bahraini leader also urged Arabs not to waste more time in waiting for Israelis to take the first step, calling this approach “small-minded.” Samuel Lewis, a former American ambassador to Israel who was directly involved in the Israeli-Egyptian peace talks in the late 1970s, equated Khalifa’s article to peace gestures made by Egyptian president Anwar Sadat before signing the treaty with Israel 30 years ago. “This is exactly the kind of message that an Arab leader gives both to the United States while at the same time aiming at other Arab leaders,” Lewis said in a July 17 conference call organized by Israel Policy Forum. Experts argue that the roots of the disagreement with Saudi Arabia, considered a linchpin for progress, go deeper. Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the Saudis are disappointed with many aspects of Obama’s policy: His drive for ending America’s dependency on foreign oil, the decision not to appoint a close confidant as ambassador to Saudi Arabia and choosing the route of diplomatic engagement with Iran. “There is a Saudi feeling that this administration does not recognize the importance of Saudi Arabia and does not appreciate them,” Alterman said. ————— further, Daniel Levy, Director, Middle East Task Force, New America Foundation and Senior Fellow, Prospects for Peace Initiative, The Century Foundation, informs us of a recent debate on the Economist’s website. The motion in question was: “This house believes that Barak Obama’s America is now an honest broker between Israel and the Arabs.” The content can be found at: http://www.economist.com/debate/overview… Permalink |
| ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 13th, 2009 Succession Issues Face Key U.S. Middle East Allies. WASHINGTON, Jul 12 (IPS) – Two key U.S. allies in the Arab world, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, are now both facing succession crises that may absorb, or even split, their political elites. This promises a period of political unpredictability ahead in both countries. It may well also complicate Pres. Barack Obama’s Israeli-Arab peace diplomacy, which is based centrally on the role these two large allies – and one smaller one, Jordan – can play in solving inter-Arab problems, reassuring Israelis, and helping to tempt everyone to the peace table. Since January, the head of Egypt’s military intelligence, Lieut.-Gen. Omar Suleiman, has been in charge of three key Middle East mediations. He has been mediating between Israel and the Palestinian movement Hamas over both strengthening the Gaza ceasefire and winning a prisoner exchange between them. He’s also been mediating a chronically elusive reconciliation between Hamas and the other big Palestinian movement, Fatah. Meanwhile, Washington is hoping this year, as always, that Saudi Arabia can buttress U.S. diplomacy with cash and some political leadership. Saudi Arabia has now won the support of all the relevant Arab leaderships, including Hamas’s political bureau, for a key 2002 peace initiative that promises Israel normal political and economic ties in return for a full Israeli withdrawal from lands occupied in 1967 and a fair resolution of Palestinian refugee claims. The Saudi king, Abdullah ibn Abdul-Aziz, will be 85 this August. His longstanding crown prince (and half-brother) Sultan ibn Abdul-Aziz, is 83, and was recently hospitalised for several weeks with suspected cancer. Earlier this year, King Abdullah named his 76-year-old half-brother Naif ibn Abdul-Aziz as “second deputy prime minister”, a position that places him a likely – but not certain -second in line to throne after Sultan. When King Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud, the founder of the modern Saudi state, died in 1953, he left some 37 sons from his 22 wives. Various of these sons have ruled the kingdom in turn since then. Mubarak has led Egypt’s 76 million people since 1981. Throughout those years he has always refused to name a vice-president. The leading military man mentioned for possible next president is none other than Omar Suleiman, the intelligence chief who has been conducting so much of Mubarak’s sensitive Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy. (It also remains possible that the military might throw its weight behind another “insider” candidate, not Suleiman.) The fact that Suleiman has been tasked by Pres. Mubarak with diplomatic jobs that are so important to the broader progress of Washington’s regional peace diplomacy means this diplomacy may well become entangled in any succession struggle that occurs in Cairo. Certainly, though Suleiman has been heading all three of these building-brick negotiations since late January, he has not succeeded in any of them yet. Egypt’s succession struggle is connected to the broader diplomacy in another way, too. Hamas has nearly always been closely aligned with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (MB), a broad, nonviolent Islamist movement that is the main challenger to Mubarak’s NDP. Mubarak has never allowed the MB to participate freely in Egypt’s regime-dominated politics, though during a brief and very partial democratic opening in 2005, its candidates won 88 of the 444 elected seats in the Egyptian parliament. If Suleiman succeeds in one or more of his diplomatic tasks, then Hamas would immediately gain much more international legitimacy as a valid participant in the broader peacemaking. Many NDP insiders fear that could reflect well on the MB, too. Ominously enough, the most recent round of reports about Mubarak’s failing health has been accompanied by new arrest campaigns against MB leaders and activists. It is possible that Egypt might see additional political heat during the coming summer months. Jordan is smaller and weaker than Egypt and Saudi Arabia. There at least, the ruling monarch, Abdullah II, has laid to rest – for now – the questions that once swirled around his succession. On Jul. 2 he appointed his son Prince Hussein as crown prince. Prince Hussein is only 15 years old. But since the king is only 47, there is a good chance the crown prince will not be taking over any time soon. (Or perhaps, ever. Back in 1999 when Jordan’s King Hussein died of cancer, in his very last days he revoked the appointment that his brother, Hassan, had held as crown prince since 1965; and he named Abdullah II his successor, instead.) But in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, political succession issues are now taking centre stage. *Helena Cobban is a veteran Middle East analyst and author. She blogs at www.JustWorldNews.org. ————–
North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong Il, is suffering from cancer of the pancreas and is in danger of dying of the disease, South Korean television reported this morning, the latest and most specific in a series of reports on the dictator’s health. The information, which was attributed by Yonhap Television News to unidentified Chinese and South Korean intelligence sources, is consistent with a report in a Japanese newspaper over the weekend that Mr Kim has a “serious pancreatic disorder”, and with television images from North Korea last week, in which he appeared a frail-looking Kim Jong Il, emaciated and slow on his feet. Mr Kim disappeared from public view for three months last year after what intelligence agencies assume was a stroke last August. Since then, judging from television footage of him, his health has declined. The South Korean intelligence agency has reported signs that Mr Kim is paving the way for his youngest son, Kim Jong Un to succeed him; unconfirmed reports have even had the 25-year old visiting Beijing to get to know officials of the closest thing North Korea has to an ally – China. All year, Pyongyang has staged a series of verbal and physical provocations, including the launch of an intercontinental rocket and an underground nuclear test, which suggest that it has abandoned expectations of negotiation with the international community in favour of whipping up nationalist fervour at home. Thee are no obvious signs are that Kim Jong Il is in anything less than complete control, but close examination of recent internal developments leads many Pyongyang-watchers to the conclusion that he is leaning towards military hardliners, and away from the more reform-oriented advisers whom he favoured in the middle of the present decade. ———— For Immediate Release from ETE ON THE UN: This article, by Anne Bayefsky, originally appeared in Forbes.
In Ghana, with a 70% Christian population, he mentioned “good governance” seven times and added direct calls upon his audience to “make change from the bottom up.” He praised “people taking control of their destiny” and pressed “young people” to “hold your leaders accountable.” He made no such calls for action by the people of Arab states–despite the fact that not a single Arab country is “free,” according to the latest Freedom House global survey. Before the Muslim world Obama donned the role of apologist-in-chief. Over and over again his examples of shortfalls in the protection of rights and freedoms were American: the “prison at Guantanamo Bay,” “rules on charitable giving [that] have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation,” impediments to the “choice” of Muslim women to shroud their bodies. Christian Africa was to be treated to no such self-flagellation. In a rare tongue-lashing for Africans from any American president, he chastised: “It’s easy to point fingers and to pin the blame of these problems on others. Yes, a colonial map that made little sense helped to breed conflict … But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy … or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants … tribalism and patronage and nepotism … and … corruption.” He might equally have said to the Arab and Muslim world: “It’s easy to scapegoat Israel and blame your problems on the presence of Jews–albeit on a fraction of 1% of the territory inhabited by the Arab world–but Israel is not responsible for poverty, illiteracy, torture, trafficking, slavery and oppression rampant across your countries.” But he did not. In Ghana he pointed to specific heroes that had exposed human rights abuse, singling out by name a courageous investigative reporter. In Egypt, though journalists and bloggers are routinely threatened, jailed and worse, no such brave soul came to mind. In a Christian African nation he said, “If we are honest, for far too many Africans, conflict is a part of life, as constant as the sun. There are wars over land and wars over resources. And it is still far too easy for those without conscience to manipulate whole communities into fighting among faiths and tribes.” To the Arab and Muslim world he could have said: “Since the day of Israel’s birth Arab and Muslim countries have made conflict with Israel a part of life, warring over land and manipulating whole communities into fighting in the name of Islam to render the area Judenrein.” Instead, he turned on the only democracy in the Middle East and said the presence of Jews on Arab-claimed territory–settlements–is an affront to be “stopped.” It didn’t matter that agreements require ultimate ownership of this territory to be determined by negotiation or that apartheid Palestine is hardly a worthy pursuit. From Ghana he chided Africans: “No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, even if occasionally you sprinkle an election in there. And now is the time for that style of governance to end.” For an Arab and Muslim audience he cooed: “America will defend itself, respectful of the sovereignty of nations and the rule of law. And we will do so in partnership with Muslim communities, which are also threatened.” Ghanaians will likely turn the other cheek, secure enough to take it and even be grateful for the spotlight. But Obama’s double-standard is not a victimless crime. The disparity between the scolding he gave in Ghana and the love-in he held in Cairo illuminates an incoherent and dangerous agenda. In his lofty, but empty, rhetoric in Ghana, Obama promised “we must stand up to inhumanity in our midst,” pledged “a commitment … to sanction and stop” warmongers and embraced the Zimbabwe non-governmental organization that “braved brutal repression to stand up for the principle that a person’s vote is their sacred right.” These are devastating words for Iranians struggling valiantly to keep the hope of democracy alive but forced to bear witness to the contradiction. Betrayed, they have watched the Obama administration pledge to move forward on negotiations with illegally ensconced Iranian thugs–at the very same time their victims are being rounded up, tortured and readied for show-trials in advance of certain execution. On Friday, Obama, and the rest of the G-8 with his blessing, announced that thinking about more sanctions on Iran can wait until September. And then we can expect yet another round of Security Council dickering over minimalist responses to more Iranian stalling tactics–until an Iranian nuclear weapon is inevitable. Though it is 2,202 days since the U.N.’s atomic energy agency first declared that Iran was violating the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, Obama pretends legitimizing those same nuclear-proliferating fascists makes it more likely the clock will stop ticking. Iranians standing up for their allegedly “sacred rights” know Obama has it exactly backwards. Speechifying about “our interconnected world” and “common interests” in Ghana was cold comfort to the voices of Muslim dissidents and Jewish victims deserted in the Obama wilderness. Permalink |
| ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 3rd, 2009 The Japan Times, Saturday, July 4, 2009 Amano signals goal is to fight proliferation By GEORGE JAHN After the agency’s 35-nation board made its decision Thursday, Amano touched on the devastation that U.S. atomic bombs wreaked on his country in pledging to do his utmost to prevent the spread of nuclear arms. ElBaradei saw his agency vaulted into prominence during a high-profile 12-year tenure. North Korea left the nonproliferation fold to develop a nuclear weapons program on his watch, and his agency later launched probes to get to the bottom of suspicions it was trying to make atomic weapons. ElBaradei’s activist approach often rankled Washington, which had a strong preference for Amano, who was viewed by the United States as a technocrat amenable to pursuing a hard line on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Amano’s allusions to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki pointed to a deep commitment to nonproliferation. And Japan keenly shares the U.S. concerns about Pyongyang’s nuclear threat. Developing countries supported Amano’s rival, South African Abdul Samad Minty, who was considered ready to challenge the U.S. and the other nuclear powers on issues such as disarmament. They are generally supportive of Iran’s claims to having a right to nuclear power. An initial session in March ended inconclusively, and Thursday’s meeting went down to the wire, with Amano, 62, winning only in the fourth round. That and the fact that Amano barely eked out his victory, just clearing the required two-thirds majority, reflected a continuing divide between the two camps. The divisions have served as an obstacle in one of its key tasks — probing nations suspected of secret, possibly weapons-related, nuclear activities. While Amano was born after the U.S. nuclear strikes that ravaged Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, he alluded to those events in brief comments to reporters, suggesting that as a “national coming from Japan” he would work particularly hard to reduce the threat from atomic arms. Expanding on that theme in recent comments to Austrian daily Die Presse, he said he was “resolute in opposing the spread of nuclear arms because I am from a country that experienced Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” Now his country’s chief delegate to the IAEA, Amano was previously his country’s senior official for disarmament and related issues. Amano will be taking control of the IAEA at a particularly difficult time. Its nuclear investigations of Iran and Syria are both deadlocked, and it has no overview of North Korea, which is forging ahead with its nuclear arms program. ———– Saturday, July 4, 2009 VIENNA (Kyodo) Amano was voted in as first Asian head of IAEA in sixth round of ballots. Yukiya Amano, Japan’s ambassador to the Permanent Mission to the International Organizations in Vienna, was elected the next director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Thursday. Yukiya Amano Amano, 62, won against South Africa’s Abdul Samad Minty after six rounds of voting, making him the first IAEA chief from Asia. “For that, the solidarity of all the member states, countries from North and South, from East and West, is absolutely necessary,” he said. Amano also said he will demonstrate Japan’s efforts to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy. He will take the helm at the nuclear watchdog in December, after formal approval at its annual general meeting in September. Luis Echavarri from Spain dropped out of the voting process after the first round as he garnered the fewest votes. Neither Amano nor Minty could secure enough votes in each of the four following rounds to achieve the necessary two-thirds majority, with Amano falling just one vote short. However, in the sixth round, which was a straight yes and no vote on Amano, he finally managed to get a two-thirds majority, with 23 countries voting in favor and 11 voting against. One of the 35 countries eligible to vote abstained. Amano, who is married and speaks English and French fluently, joined the Foreign Ministry in 1972 and was appointed deputy director of its Disarmament Division in 1982. He held several different positions in the ministry, including director of the Nuclear Energy Division and director general for the Disarmament, Nonproliferation and Science Department, before being appointed to represent Japan at the International Organizations in Vienna in 2005. Japan backing was vital: The government was quick Friday to pledge full support to newly elected International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano, and may also make a financial endowment to the nuclear watchdog. Permalink |
| ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 21st, 2009 With Iran so prominent in the news these days, and with the UN again so low in what concerns its potential for doing any good in matters such as North Korea or Iran, I thought to dig into www.SustainabiliTank.info archives to see what we wrote when the UN General Assembly passed without actual vote, January 26, 2007, the resolution forbidding the denial of the Holocaust which some thought it was a vote of Cain against Ahmadi-Nejad – but was it? In the best case this was a vote of 104 UN member states which leaves out 88 States. Our posting at the time tried to analyze the actual vote for which the UN organization refused to give us country lists – after all too many of the UN officials were not exactly enthused with that effort led by just several of the more advanced US members. Rereading that posting makes for an interesting wake-up call even today. Also of interest, in the President’s the chair at the time at the UN Geneal Assembly sat an Arab Muslim woman -H.E. Sheikha Haya Rasheed Al Khalifa of the Royal Bahrain rulling family. The UN Resolution Against Holocaust Deniers: A Litmus Test To The Integrity Of The UN. Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on January 27th, 2007 Permalink |
| ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 8th, 2009 If you did not know yet – here comes another sign of intransigence on the part of Arabs that really are not interested at heart to let go of their Israel pet toy. Why miss an opportunity to ask your favorite question? Do we have here examples of people afraid that a solution of the conflict might leave them without jobs? would not the US be best advised to take off those two individuals from the Press list when there will be future Press events?
June 8, 2009, 5:14 PM
Two Arab Reporters Passed on Obama Interview to Avoid Israeli Journalist.
As my colleague Jeff Zeleny reported last week, immediately after his speech in Cairo last week, President Obama sat down for a group interview with reporters from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Malaysia and Indonesia. On Friday, Politico’s Ben Smith noted that the roundtable was supposed to have included reporters from two other Arab countries, Lebanon and Syria, but they apparently passed on the chance to sit down Mr. Obama when they realized that they would be sitting next to Nahum Barnea, an Israeli columnist. According to a translation of the Hebrew-language column Mr. Barnea wrote for the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth on Friday, three other Arab reporters were happy to sit next to him around a circular table and fire questions at Mr. Obama: The original group had eight. The Syrian did not show after hearing that a reporter from Israel had been invited. The Lebanese, Naoum Sarkis, had been sitting with us all at the front of the hall but when he realized where I was from and whom I was representing, he passed on the opportunity and fled. The others accepted the edict with respect, and some even happily. They included Jamal Khashoggi of Saudi Arbaia, Fahmi el-Awadi and Magdy el-Galad of Egypt, Wafa Amr, a Palestinian woman who works in Israel, Shahnaz Habib of Malysia and Bambang Harimurti of Indonesia, who were flown by the Americans all the way from the Far East. A transcript of the group interview on the White House Web site makes no mention of the missing reporters, but it does reveal that Mr. Obama answered a question about “dealing with the hawks in the current Israeli government,” by suggesting that Israel’s new, conservative prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, might have an opportunity to play a more constructive role than a more liberal leader: I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu will recognize the strategic need to deal with this issue. And that in some ways he may have an opportunity that a labor or more left leader might not have. There’s the famous example of Richard Nixon going to China. A Democrat couldn’t have gone to China. A liberal couldn’t have gone to China. But a big, anti-communist like Richard Nixon could open that door. Now, it’s conceivable that Prime Minister Netanyahu can play that same role. Permalink |
| ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 7th, 2009
No, not that peace process — not the one between Israelis and Palestinians. That one’s probably beyond diplomacy. No, I’m talking about the peace process that is much more strategically important — the one inside Iraq. The most valuable thing that Mrs. Clinton could do right now is to spearhead a sustained effort — along with the U.N., the European Union and Iraq’s neighbors — to resolve the lingering disputes between Iraqi factions before we complete our withdrawal. (We’ll be out of Iraq’s cities by June 30 and the whole country by the close of 2011.) ————– I have never bought the argument that Iraq was the bad war, Afghanistan the good war and Pakistan the necessary war. Folks, they’re all one war with different fronts. It’s a war within the Arab-Muslim world between progressive and anti-modernist forces over how this faith community is going to adapt to modernity — modern education, consensual politics, the balance between religion and state and the rights of women. Any decent outcome in Iraq would bolster all the progressive forces by creating an example of something that does not exist in the Middle East today — an independent, democratizing Arab-Muslim state. Rightly or wrongly, we stepped into the middle of this war of ideas in the Arab-Muslim world in 2003 when we decapitated the Iraqi regime, wiped away its authoritarian political structure and went about clumsily midwifing something that the modern Arab world has never seen before — a horizontal dialogue between the constituent communities of an Arab state. In Iraq’s case, that is primarily Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. —————- At first, this dialogue took place primarily through violence. Liberated from Saddam’s iron fist, each Iraqi community tested its strength against the others, saying in effect: “Show me what you got, baby.” The violence was horrific and ultimately exhausting for all. So now we’ve entered a period of negotiations over how Iraq will be governed. But it’s unfinished and violence could easily return. And that brings me to Secretary Clinton. I do not believe the argument that Iraqis will not allow us to help mediate their disputes — whether over Kirkuk, oil-sharing or federalism. For years now, our president, secretary of state and secretary of defense have flown into Iraq, met the leaders for a few hours and then flown away, not to return for months. We need a more serious, weighty effort. Hate the war, hate Bush, but don’t hate the idea of trying our best to finish this right. Ultimately, which way Iraq goes will depend on whether its elites decide to use their freedom to loot their country or to rebuild it. That’s still unclear. But we still have a chance to push things there in the right direction, and a huge interest in doing so. Mrs. Clinton is a serious person; this is a serious job. I hope she does it. —————- We thought this was a terrific article – indeed it might be the most realistic article showing the path that the US can take in Iraq – a true effort to get the Iraqis to see that if they stick together all of them could turn into winners – this without further bloodshed. Now, to the rest of the Middle East, with the existing governments, the US does not have indeed real leverage, whatever we might have thought on this before the speech. OK – so the speech shows the way, and the kings and dictators must come up with first steps that then Israel can be asked to reciprocate. No! No! and No! begets a simple No! and there is no move from the present dead point. Then, being Sunday, we watched to see who will pick up the Friedman article among the Sunday TV pundits – and you know what – nobody. Only Fareed Zakharia, without mentioning Thomas Friedman said that the one place where the US has now real influence – Iraq – was deemphasized in the Cairo speech, like Iran was not emphasized beyond the regional nuclear impact. That was it – one remark in the GPS/CNN program and nobody picked it up! All programs belabored the Palestinian/Israeli settlements problem, and some – that is the Republican pundits – said that Obama bowed his head before the Muslim World while forgeting the one friend the US has in the region – Israel. Then, the foreigners on the programs, even when presented as disenters in their countries, ganged up on Israel i.e. they would want to see a denuclearized Middle East – that is a denuclearized Israel as well. The Israeli on that program just smiled. ——————– on the other hand, Anne Bayefsky, of National Review online of today, among many things we disagree with, had also something that must give us a pose to think. She writes: - In the name of “freedom of religion” he {that is President Obama} chose to “welcome efforts like Saudi Arabian King Abdullah’s interfaith dialogue.” The Saudi Arabian government criminalizes the public practice of any religion but Islam. This manufactured human-rights fantasy has done a tremendous disservice to the oppressed across the Arab and Muslim world. Permalink |
| ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 5th, 2009 We found an excellent article that explains Lebanon’s political situation: http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/leb… please read it while waiting to see what will happen after the June 7, 2009 election. The June 5, 2006 OpenDemocracy.net article starts: “Lebanon’s parliamentary elections on 7 June 2009 find the country at a point where its (and especially Beirut’s) confessional system both tear and temper its complex reality. The campaign has been dominated by the sharp divide between the Hizbollah-led, “March 8″ pro-Iranian opposition and the pro-United States “March 14″ side. At the climax, it appears that the elections may not break the political impasse between the two camps – and that no cabinet will be able to govern without the consent of the opposition. At the same time, the spectre of renewed internal conflict and regional upheaval is emerging.” Interesting, France that established Lebanon as a State for the Christian Maronites, carved out from their part of the “Levant” that was created after the fall of the Turkish Empire following WWI, and the original carving up of the region between France and Britain, are not mentioned in the article at all. Today it is a Syrian – US competition, with Israel moving in and out whenever provoked. Will a possible US-Syrian detente, as required before a US withdrawal from Iraq, help also solve the Lebanon nightmare? Now, we will wait and see. President Obama did not mention Lebanon in his Cairo speech – it just cannot be judged by a US-Muslim conversation – it is much more complicated when the system requires that the 128 Member Parliament be made up by by two halves: sixty-four Christian representatives, (thirty-four Maronite, fourteen Greek Orthodox, eight Greek Catholic, five Armenian Orthodox, one Armenian Catholic, one Evangelical, and one candidate representing various further minorities, including the remaining Jews) – and sixty-four Muslim representatives (twenty-seven Sunni, twenty-seven Shi’a, eight Druze, and two Alawite), but the political leanings of these confessional members, and the voting districts’ compositions, allow for a free-for-all with a history of Syrian inspired gerry-mandering. With most Muslims being rather Shi’a, and considering the power of the Hizbolah army, their official 27 members of Parliament does not get close to their real power these days. Permalink |
| ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 5th, 2009 White House Sends Long-Term Presence To Jerusalem The Pulse Alex Fishman in Yedioth Ahronoth: Next week the high commissioner, George Mitchell, is to return. But this time he is not coming alone. He will be arriving with a whole organization aimed at executing Barack Obama’s policies for the Middle East. George Mitchell is no longer going solo. He has appointed four deputies. The first, David Hale, from the State Department, will reside regularly in Jerusalem. The second, Mara Rudman, served as chief of staff of the National Security Council under Clinton and was extremely active in the New America Foundation which concerns itself a great deal with providing aid for the Palestinians. She will be stationed in Washington and coordinate the administration’s activity with the representative in Jerusalem. The third is a former military man, Fred Hoff, an expert on Syrian affairs. He has a clear world vision, which states that the US administration must reach a deal with Syria before withdrawing from Iraq. George Mitchell himself will arrive in Damascus, for the first time, already in the next few weeks. Until now Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman visited there twice. These visits signify an upgrading in talks between the United States and Syria. The fourth figure is the region’s military advisor, US Security Coordinator Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, who is building the Palestinian Authority’s military forces. Just recently he and the defense minister agreed to continue to expand the forces operating in the West Bank. Mitchell’s organization was established in order to channel all of American policy towards Israel and the surrounding countries into one conduit. To unite this into one coordinated voice encompassing all branches of government. The embassy in Tel Aviv will provide services, and the consul in Jerusalem, whose working relations with the Palestinians were not exactly to their satisfaction, has been replaced by one of the State Department’s stars, former head of the Israel and Palestinian desk: Daniel Rubinstein. The days of a shuttle envoy, who waits to have meetings set up with Israel officials, asks questions and waits for answers that often fail to come, have passed. From now on we’re talking about a permanent presence, with presidential authority, which executes the White House policy, gets updates from the field, follows implementation of policy from up close and reports directly to the president on an ongoing, daily basis. A front line branch office of the White House. Permalink |
| ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on May 1st, 2009 LALE SARIÄ°BRAHÄ°MOÄžLU Joint Turkish-Syrian land exercises launched along the border region and a defense cooperation agreement signed on the same day, April 27, have irked Israel, particularly sparking concern that these two developments may alienate Israel. Israeli Ambassador to Turkey, Gabby Levy told the media during an Israeli Independence Day reception on April 28 that his country has been following the exercises closely to understand exactly what they entail. Levy’s comment came following Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s criticism of the joint land exercises. But Turkish Chief of General Staff Gen. Ä°lker BaÅŸbuÄŸ, taking a question on the issue yesterday during the second long press conference he has called in less than 15 days, said in a rather tough tone: “We [the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK)] are not interested in Israel’s reaction. This is an exercise taking place between Turkey and Syria.” He also explained that while they are small-scale exercises, they are important since they are the first of their kind conducted jointly by the neighboring countries. BaÅŸbuÄŸ’s tone, however, hinted that he was nervous about the reaction of Israel, a country Turkey has close military and defense industry ties with even though relations have soured since Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan’s standoff with Israel over the latter’s assault on Gaza in January. Gen. BaÅŸbuÄŸ’s remarks also carried a message to ease Israeli concerns, stating that the Turkish-Syrian small-scale land exercises are not directed against third parties. The Turkish military’s senior-level participation at the Israeli Independence Day reception in Ankara on April 28 also signaled that the TSK is not at odds with Israel. According to a statement released by the Turkish General Staff last Monday, Turkish and Syrian border units are, for the first time, conducting unit exchange exercises, which are due to end today, to strengthen friendship, cooperation and confidence between the two countries. The aim is to improve the training and interoperability of the units of both countries. Parallel to this process, Turkey and Syria signed a defense industry cooperation agreement on the sidelines of the four-day 9th International Defence Industry Fair (IDEF’09), due to end today in Ä°stanbul. Turkey’s policy of establishing confidence with its neighbors is not new. Depending on the level of political relations, Turkey has created a more positive environment with its neighbors. The first steps to this end came in the early 1990s, soon after the demise of the Soviet Union, when Turkey signed confidence-building agreements with its former Cold War foes Romania and Bulgaria, with which it shares its northwestern border, while holding small-scale exercises with those countries, including the exchange of border units. The Turkish military’s joint land exercises with Syria are a reflection of the ongoing improvement of Turkey’s political relations with its southern and eastern neighbors rather than any policy targeting third parties. As a sign of the increased trust established between Turkey and Syria, Damascus responded positively several years ago to a Turkish request made on behalf of the US to stop shipping arms and sending people to Iraq to fight along with insurgents against US-led coalition forces. This event, among many others which we do not know about, may also explain Syria’s increased trust in Turkey, which perhaps made it possible for Israeli-Syrian peace talks to take place under Turkish mediation before they broke down following Turkey’s reaction to Israel’s Gaza assault. Recent remarks made by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to Asharq Al-Awsat, an Arabic daily published in London, that the closest Israel and Syria had come to a peace agreement was under Turkish mediation support the increased level of confidence reached between Ankara and Damascus. Despite their ups and downs, ties between Turkey and Israel are irreversible and will continue to develop in the political, economic and military fields. Permalink |
| ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on March 4th, 2009 Washington Ends Diplomatic Embargo Against Syria. The trip, which will be undertaken by Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Jeffrey Feltman and Daniel Shapiro, a senior staffer on the National Security Council who also served as one of Obama’s top Mideast advisers during his presidential campaign, was announced by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Jerusalem. “American engagement with Syria, both on bilateral U.S.-Syria issues and in support of Israel-Syria negotiations, is critically important in determining whether the role Syria plays in the future will be positive or not,” she said. But other experts here suggested that, while both Washington and Damascus have been positioning themselves for engagement since Obama’s election in November, finding common ground on key issues, including reviving the Israeli-Syrian peace track, may prove difficult, particularly if Washington presses President Bashar al-Assad hard to end his alliance with Iran and support for Hamas and Hezbollah. Nonetheless, Landis hailed the decision as long overdue, noting that, even if engagement does not result in major changes in the strategic orientations of either Washington or Damascus, it can lead to “much greater stability in the region over the medium term” and “sustains hope among Arab leaders who had begun to despair after the Gaza war, the economic crisis, and the right’s (election) victory in Israel that the promise of change represented by Obama was not going to work out.” Under Bush, relations between the U.S. and Syria went from bad to worse. Damascus opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and was subsequently accused by Washington of actively supporting the Sunni insurgency against the occupation. In 2005, the U.S. pulled its ambassador from Damascus to protest the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and, one year later, a top White House official reportedly urged the Olmert government to extend its war against Hezbollah into Syria. In 2007, Washington praised Israel’s bombing of what it alleged was a secret Syrian nuclear reactor and subsequently rejected Olmert’s pleas to join Turkey in mediating peace talks between his government and Damascus. During his presidential campaign, Obama strongly criticised Bush’s refusal to engage Damascus and pledged on several occasions to reverse the policy, particularly with respect to U.S. involvement in any renewed peace effort between Syria and Israel. Last Thursday, Feltman, who previously served as Washington’s ambassador in Beirut, met for two hours with Syrian ambassador Imad Moustapha, effectively ending what had been a multi-year boycott. On the eve of Tuesday’s announcement, Clinton exchanged words and shook hands with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem during the Gaza donor conference Monday in Sharm al Sheikh, Egypt.
Syria is particularly eager to get back into Washington’s good graces in order, above all to help revive its economy which remains hard-hit by the imposition of U.S. sanctions under the five-year-old Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act (SALSA), according to Bassam Haddad, a Syria expert at George Mason University here. Assad will also no doubt press Washington’s envoys on Obama’s interest in the Israel-Syrian peace track which, if successful, could result in the return – albeit over a lengthy interim period – of the Golan Heights which were seized by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Prospects for progress along that track have diminished since last month’s Israeli elections which are likely to result in the formation of a right-wing government headed by former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who campaigned against the Golan’s return to Syria. Nonetheless, Obama may be prepared to exert pressure on Netanyahu to bring him to the table. Obama’s Special Envoy on Arab-Israeli peace, former Sen. George Mitchell, met earlier this week in Ankara with senior Turkish officials who had mediated the Israeli-Syrian talks before joining Clinton who is herself scheduled to meet Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey Saturday. One of Mitchell’s former aides who may soon rejoin his staff, Frederic Hof, just published a detailed roadmap on “Mapping Peace Between Syria and Israel” this week for the U.S. Institute of Peace. “What seems to be in the air is that there will be some kind of attempt to yank Syria out of Iran’s orbit in return for lifting the Syrian Accountability Act, pushing Israel harder on (returning) the Golan, and a guarantee that the international tribunal (in The Hague) will not harm Syria in a significant way,” said Haddad. “But my personal opinion is that Assad won’t break with Iran because it doesn’t believe that the U.S. and the West is committed to the regime’s long-term stability, which is what it’s primarily concerned with.” *Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/. Permalink |
| ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on March 2nd, 2009 Leading article: Blair’s visit to Gaza opens a door that must not be closed The Independent of London, Leading Article, Monday, 2 March 2009. Tony Blair’s first visit to Gaza yesterday as envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East, comprising the EU, America, the UN and Russia, could not have been more timely. Weeks after the end of Israel’s 22-day military offensive in Gaza, the work of reconstruction is being held up by two separate, albeit related, issues. Related articles – Donors to pledge billions in Gaza aid One is the unwillingness of the two states adjoining Gaza – Israel and Egypt – to open their borders freely to the passage of aid convoys. This is partly because they fear that deliveries of such innocent-sounding materials as sand and concrete might not always be used to rebuild houses but could be used to build weapons and bombs; also because Israel and Egypt are loath to do anything that suggests even a tacit recognition of the Hamas-run authority in Gaza. It is not easy to square this circle, one of the results of which is to leave families in Gaza camping in the rubble of their ruined homes. Indeed, the wish to rebuild Gaza, but not give Hamas the legitimacy it seeks in the process, is a dilemma that will be in the fronts of the minds of the representatives of all the donor states attending the aid conference on Gaza which opens today in Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt. The Europeans, while maintaining their official boycott of Hamas, will nevertheless want to see more pressure being applied on Israel’s government, at the very least over the question of allowing greater access for humanitarian aid deliveries. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, making her first trip to the region as Barack Obama’s Secretary of State, will be offering a large cheque for Gaza’s reconstruction – up to $900m ( £629m), reportedly. This is almost one-third of what the Palestinian Authority estimates is the total “bill” for the Gaza conflict. But at the same time, she has made it clear that the handover of this money is conditional on Hamas renouncing terrorism and recognising Israel. While none of these points is easy to square with any of the others, the mere fact that Mr Blair has gone to Gaza, hot on the heels of other key Western leaders including Javier Solana, the EU’s foreign policy chief, shows that everyone accepts that progress cannot be made towards a comprehensive Middle East peace by pretending Gaza – or its Hamas government – do not exist. In fact, the parameters of the Blair trip illustrate the dilemmas Western leaders encounter when trying to draw a line between a principled rejection of Hamas’s Islamist ideology and sensible recognition of facts on the ground. While Mr Blair was careful to meet no Hamas officials on his visit, it is equally clear that his team must have arranged the trip with officials from Gaza’s Hamas government. Such compromises should not be seen as messy or hypocritical but as necessary and pragmatic elements of a new more nuanced policy. So far, the West’s approach of totally isolating Hamas has failed totally to weaken the Islamists’ grip on Gaza. If Mr Blair’s trip, and those of others, signals the start of a more direct and active involvement on the part of the West in the affairs of the Gaza Strip, that can only be to the good. —————- Clinton Dives Into Arab-Israeli Peacemaking. Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in the Middle East on Sunday, delving into Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking for the first time at an international donors conference for Gaza. The United States is expected to pledge more than $900 million at Monday’s one-day conference in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. The funds are aimed at post-conflict recovery in Gaza after Israel’s military offensive in December. Washington also wants the money to bolster Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and has stipulated no U.S. funds will go through the militant group Hamas, which rules Gaza while Abbas’ Fatah movement runs the Israeli-occupied West Bank. “I will be announcing a commitment to a significant aid package, but it will only be spent if we determine that our goals can be furthered rather than undermined or subverted,” Clinton told Voice of America in an interview taped on Friday. She did not speak to reporters during the flight to Egypt. “All the pledges of aid this conference is expected to produce will be worth next to nothing if the donors do not demand that Israel open the borders to commercial goods as well as humanitarian essentials,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.
“There is not a lot of pressure that can be applied at a time when there is a government still in formation,” said Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think-tank. Clinton plans to meet Benjamin Netanyahu, the hawkish Israeli prime minister-designate who on Saturday abandoned efforts to form a broad coalition government with centrist Tzipi Livni, who has been involved in U.S.-brokered peace talks. Livni has accused Netanyahu of insufficient commitment to the talks, and her decision not to form a government weakens Clinton’s effort to kick-start the peace process her husband, former President Bill Clinton, failed to deliver on. Silvan Shalom, a Netanyahu ally, told Reuters the Likud leader would engage in dialogue with the Palestinians but would not agree in advance to the two-state solution advocated by the international powers since the Oslo accords of 1993. “This is a sensitive time in Israeli politics as they seek to form a government, but I will take the opportunity to reaffirm the strength of the U.S.-Israel relationship and talk about the best way to move peace forward,” said Clinton. Palestinian groups are taking part in Egyptian-mediated reconciliation talks. Clinton, who will travel to the West Bank, said the United States could only accept Hamas in a unity government if it met three conditions. Those are to recognize Israel, sign on to previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements and renounce violence – conditions Hamas has refused to accept. “Otherwise, I don’t think it will result in the kind of positive step forward either for the Palestinian people or as a vehicle for a reinvigorated effort to obtain peace that leads to a Palestinian state,” Clinton said.
Permalink |
| ### |
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on February 1st, 2009 Why did President Obama Chose to speak with an Arab TV in his first interview to a foreign media?
The answer is as he said himself: He has Moslem members of his family and he lived in Islamic countries. Beyond that he has a double job to perform – he has to communicate to the Islamic World that Americans are not their enemies, and to the Americans that there are valuable, honorable Muslims that just want to live their simple lives in peace.
He wants the Muslims to see in him someone really ready to listen, and do the right thing for simple people wherever. He will be speaking to Iran – if they are ready to unclench the fist, they will find that he is ready for conversation.
Nick Robertson – the International correspondent for CNN, says that people in the Middle East wanted to hear these words – so, it is a positive opening. Asked if the Saudis are receptive to the US opening discussions with Iran, Nick Robertson said that the Arab World wants to see that Iran does not go to an expansionist phase – so they would rather see a diplomatic opening.
President Obama spoke to Hisham Melhem of Al Arabiya, a media group that was established on March 3, 2003 in order to be a direct competitor of Qatar-based Al Jazeera. I remember how the Washington-based correspondent for Al Arabiya, came to the UN in New York to introduce this venture at the UN Correspondents’ Association Club, and the Arabs and Pakistanis were saying this is an American undercover organization. In effect, at the time the head of UNCA was a Pakistani.
According to a 2008 New York Times profile of Al Arabiya director Abdul Rahman al-Rashed, the station was founded “to cure Arab television of its penchant for radical politics and violence,” with Al Jazeera as its main target. Mr. Rashed alleged that Arab television’s coverage of militant groups was overly friendly. “You have to remember, it was television that made bin Laden into a celebrity,” Rashed said. “That made Al Qaeda, and its recruiting, and this is how violence spread throughout the region.”
The international news station, Al Arabiya, is based in Dubai Media City, United Arab Emirates, and is partly owned by the Saudi-controlled broadcaster Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC). Actually, the original investment in Al Arabiya was $300 million by MBC, with Lebanon’s Hariri Group, and other investors from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, so, in reality this is as well a Lebanese company – with connection to other Hariri investments in media and air traffic. The Middle East in the name of the company standing indeed for Lebanon. Al Arabiya broadcasts 24 hours a day with news updated at the top of the hour. The free-to-air channel carries news, current affairs, business and financial markets, sports, talk shows, and documentaries. It is consistently rated among the top pan-Arab stations by Middle East audiences. Mr. Rashed said Al Arabiya works to describe incidents of Islamist violence with neutral, non-supportive language. He also said the station had pushed Al Jazeera to be more critical of the insurgency in Iraq. “Now Al Jazeera is a very soft, reasonable station when it comes to the Iraqis,” he said. He said Al Arabiya has, in turn, drawn accusations of pro-American or pro-Saudi bias, in part due to MBC’s Saudi ownership.
On January 26, 2009 President of the United States Barack Obama gave his first formal interview as president to the television channel to Hisham Melhem, the Washington based head of Al Arabiya.
Hisham Melhem has appeared many times on US TV channels, including the Charlie Rose program where he appeared with American and Israeli officials – http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/1506
Today, February 1, 2009, Mr. Hisham Melhem was already a member of the Mclaughlin Gang. We assume that he will now be recognized as the best conduit to the President’s approach to the Middle East. We understood that he is also writing for a print media in Lebanon. On Mclaughlin he did not participate only on Middle East issues, but he got involved in questions of how to move forward the US economy. He clearly believes in capitalism, and said capitalism is strong in Lebanon, and made all the right comments – that even Bush understood at the end that government must intervene.
While the perennial right end of the panel – Monica Crawley took the old Cheney positions on everything, calling Obama a “classical liberal big-government Democrat” Melhem actually saw things much like we see them. Melhem came through much more to the center.
Furthermore, he predicted that the promised trip of Obama to a Muslim capital within the first 100 days of his presidency, will be to Indonesia. This makes sense – it will be seen sort of a second home-coming – like the one to Kenya. This while previous media reports were suggesting that the trip will be to the conventional address – to Morocco.
From the internet we got the following:
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
United States President Barack Obama chose to give his first interview as president to the Arabic satellite news channel Al Arabiya, with veteran journalist Hisham Melhem succeeding in getting the interview of the century. Like thousands of other journalists, Melhem … More
Tuesday, 27 January 2009
In his first interview since taking office, President Barack Obama told Arab satellite station Al Arabiya that Americans are not the enemy of the Muslim world and said Israel and the Palestinians should resume peace negotiations. “My job to the Muslim world is to … More
And as per http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2009/01/29/65264.html Thursday, January 29, 2009
First interview choice met with excitement, enthusiasm
Obama reaches Arabs, Muslims via Al Arabiya, DUBAI (Courtney C. Radsch)
When American President Barack Obama decided to give the first interview of his presidency to an Arab station, Al Arabiya, he knew that his choice of venues would become a story in and of itself and send a message to Americans and the Arab world about the direction his administration would take. In his inaugural address Obama reiterated his desire to engage with the Muslim world and pursue a different approach to foreign policy than his predecessor, and as several analysts and commentators have noted, the best way to do this was to speak directly to his target audience through their media.
Permalink |
| ### | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on January 28th, 2009 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2009 MIDEAST: A Tale of Two Summits. Analysis by Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani for IPS. CAIRO, Jan 27, 2009 – Despite declarations of Arab unity at a recent economic summit, Egyptian commentators say that fundamental differences between rival Arab camps – especially over the issue of Palestine – are far from over. “The deep divisions currently plaguing the Arab world cannot be solved over the course of an official state luncheon,” Mohamed Abu Al-Hadid, political analyst and chairman of the board of the state-owned Dar Al-Tahrir publishing house wrote in official daily Al-Gomhouriya Thursday (Jan. 22). Regional heavyweights Egypt and Saudi Arabia, however, declined to attend. Instead, they announced their intention to discuss the crisis at a scheduled Arab economic summit in Kuwait three days later. The move highlighted the longstanding divide among AL members, which pits Washington’s “moderate” Arab allies – including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan – against those opposed to U.S. policy in the region.
Abbas recognises Israel and insists on holding U.S.-sponsored negotiations with Israeli counterparts, despite the abject failure of talks to realise even modest Palestinian demands. By contrast, Hamas – democratically elected in 2006 – rejects Israel’s legitimacy, cleaving instead to a strategy of armed resistance. Israel’s 2006 war on southern Lebanon fostered similar divisions, with Washington’s Arab allies supporting the U.S.-backed Beirut government against Lebanese resistance faction Hizbullah. Israel’s recent war on the Gaza Strip – which lasted from Dec. 27 to Jan. 17 and resulted in more than 1,300 Palestinian deaths – aggravated the longstanding rift. According to Nabil Abdel Fattah, assistant director at the semi-official Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, the decision by Egypt and Saudi Arabia to avoid Doha reflected “conflicts over how to deal with the crisis” then playing out in Gaza. “Qatar wanted to take a very tough stand against Israel,” Abdel Fattah told IPS. “The moderate states, meanwhile, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, wanted to adopt a more nuanced approach in hope of persuading Israel to halt hostilities.” In the absence of leading “moderate” representatives, the Doha meeting took a relatively strong stand against the Israeli aggression in Gaza, with both Qatar and Mauritania announcing the suspension of official relations with Israel. In a joint declaration, participants urged Arab countries to cut all ties and break off all peace talks with Israel, which they charged with committing war crimes. The statement also demanded that Israel “cease its assault on Gaza and leave unconditionally,” and called for the immediate reopening of the embattled enclave’s borders. Speaking at the meeting, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad described the 2002 Arab peace initiative – which offers full Arab recognition of Israel in exchange for key Palestinian demands – as “dead”. He went on to say that Syria had called off indirect talks with Israel, launched last year through Turkish mediators.
“Qatar has tried to take a leading role in the region, and Egypt and Saudi Arabia see this as an infringement on their own diplomatic roles,” he said. “Egypt also fears that Qatar might be acting as a mask for Iranian and Syrian influence.” On the summit’s first day, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdelaziz hosted a formal luncheon for the leaders of Kuwait, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Qatar. At the conclusion of the closed-door event, attendees announced they had turned a “new page” of Arab reconciliation, declaring an end of traditional rivalries, particularly those between Egypt and Qatar and between Syria and Saudi Arabia. “We turned a new page for the good of the Arab world,” Qatari PM Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem told satellite news channel Al-Jazeera shortly afterwards. The following day, Arab leaders announced the establishment of a sizable financial trust for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, along with a number of other joint economic projects. In a final statement, longstanding political differences between participants were downplayed or avoided. Most local commentators, meanwhile, doubted the sincerity of the abrupt expressions of unity heard at the conference. “These declarations don’t amount to real reconciliation,” said Abdel Fattah. “The same old divisions remain – over Israel, the role of the Palestinian resistance and the role of non-Arab neighbours in the region.” According to Abdelhalim Kandil, editor-in-chief of independent weekly Sout Al-Umma, the issue of Arab division is largely illusory, “since both camps appear to be on the U.S.-Israeli doorstep, albeit to differing degrees.” “All these regimes are fully aware that there is no difference between Israel and the U.S.,” Kandil wrote Jan. 19. “Yet despite the massacres taking place in Gaza, none of them ever considered cutting relations with Washington or expelling the U.S. military presence from their respective countries.” He added: “This, of course, is because the U.S. is in the region expressly to protect these regimes.” Permalink |
| ### |
