On November 24, 1947, 61 years ago, the UN General Assembly decided to partition the remaining territory of the British mandate over Palestine into two independent states - one for the Jews and the other for the Arab Palestinians. We used the word “remaining” because of the fact that out of the territory of that British mandate was previously carved also the present Kingdom of Jordan.

The brute facts are that the Jews seized the opportunity and created the State of Israel, but the Islamic  world did not accept and the neighboring Arab States invaded and seized whatever land they could.

The facts are thus that a State of Palestine was not created - not because of an opposition from the Jewish side, BUT BECAUSE OF THE FACT THAT THE ARABS GRABBED WHAT THEY COULD. Yes, there were many wars since, and the Palestinians woke up and demanded their due. Nobody negates their right to a State if they can accept that history does not stand still, and what you refused or you were not allowed by your brothers to accept YESTERDAY, cannot become your negotiating position today.

On above basis, it is not that the Palestinians or their brothers in the Arab World discredited themselves on November 24, 2008 - it is the whole UN leadership that discredited themselves yesterday - See the photo bellow - it includes the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, President of the General Assembly, and the person who was left nameless by Ms. Bayefsky, the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, who happens to be an American who was put there on the UN leadership quota filled by President G.W. Bush -  the US diplomat  B. Lynn Pascoe (we found the ommission of this name disgusting as well).

Yes, what we find completely unforgiving was to celebrate at the UN - the British Mandate Partition Day with the flag of Palestine flying on stage - a non-State as of yet - while omitting the Israeli flag - a UN Full-Member State.
So, under Secretery-General Ban Ki-moon, and with the OK of the United States, probably thanks to the power of Arab Oil-States money, and the otherwise rational President of the General Assembly, a former foreign minister of Nicaragua, the UN made a PARODY of itself. How can one trust this bunch to do any better at these days of total collapse of the global economy? Will they just turn around and wax fine the MDG talk? Do they not understand that success requires first impartiality and that requires honesty - and not the bending to money?

For Immediate Release:
November 25, 2008
Contact:  Anne Bayefsky
(917) 488-1558
 anne at hudsonny.org

NEW YORK - The President of the UN General Assembly has launched an unprecedented attack on a UN member state from the Assembly podium. Going beyond even existing UN resolutions, Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann of Nicaragua accused Israel of apartheid and called for “a campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions” against it. Reminiscent of a classic antisemitic slur, Brockmann (himself a Roman Catholic priest and one-time official of the World Council of Churches) also claimed our Palestinian “brothers and sisters are being crucified” by Israel.

His remarks were made on November 24, 2008 during the UN Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. This annual event marks the adoption of the General Assembly’s partition resolution which called for the creation of a Jewish and an Arab state on November 29, 1947.

“Brockmann’s assault is a gross abuse of the position of Assembly President,” commented Anne Bayefsky, Editor of EYEontheUN. “He knows full well that his outrageous personal views will be translated into six languages and webcast around the world.” Brockmann assumed the Presidency in September 2008, having been nominated by the Latin American and Caribbean regional group.

Brockmann made the apartheid allegation twice in one day, once in the morning at the annual meeting of the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, and again in the General Assembly in the afternoon. In his words:
“I spoke this morning about apartheid and how Israeli policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories appear so similar to the apartheid of an earlier era, a continent away. I believe it is very important that we in the United Nations use this term. We must not be afraid to call something what it is. It is the United Nations, after all, that passed the International Convention against the Crime of Apartheid, making clear to all the world that such practices of official discrimination must be outlawed wherever they occur.”

“Brockmann’s call,” said Bayefsky, “was in effect, a call for the political destruction of Israel by means of the same strategy adopted against apartheid South Africa.” Brockmann said:

• “More than twenty years ago we in the United Nations took the lead from civil society when we agreed that sanctions were required to provide a non-violent means of pressuring South Africa…Today, perhaps we in the United Nations should consider following the lead of a new generation of civil society, who are calling for a similar non-violent campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel…”

The adoption of the 1947 partition resolution, accepted by Jews and rejected by Arabs, is now bemoaned by the UN. Former Secretary-General Kofi Annan described Palestinian Solidarity Day as “a day of mourning and a day of grief.” This year, as in years past, the UN used the occasion to fly only two flags, that of “Palestine” and that of the United Nations. Though the resolution was ostensibly the UN’s first commitment to a two-state solution, today the flag of the member state of Israel is left out.

The Palestinian flag is on the left, the United Nations flag on the right. Speakers from left to right who voiced no difficulty with the omission of the flag of Israel:

Riyad Malki, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Palestinian Authority; Jorge Urbina, Representative of the President of the Security Council; Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, President of the General Assembly; Paul Badji, Chairman of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People; Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations; H.M.G.S. Palihakkara, Chairman of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories; and the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs.

Monday, Nov. 24, 2008, The Japan Times online.

JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
G20’s shared crisis Obama’s first entree?

By TERUHIKO MANO

With the messages of “Change” and “Yes, we can,” Democratic Sen. Barack Obama won the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 4. Apparently aided by the financial crisis that unfolded under the Republican administration of George W. Bush, Obama scored a resounding victory that gave him more than double the number of Electoral College votes that went to the Republican candidate John McCain.

The election of the 47-year-old senator as the first black American president itself symbolizes a major change that has swept the U.S. What will be the global implications of this change, and how should Japan respond?

The new president will face a massive domestic challenge. He must dispel the financial uncertainties and rebuild the nation’s real economy.

Diplomatically, he will need to deliver his campaign promise to steer the country away from the Bush administration’s unilateral approaches and strive for closer cooperation with the rest of the world.

Unlike Bush, Obama will have the Democrats who have expanded their majorities in both houses of Congress in the November election.

Still, many of the challenges that he will face as he enters the White House, including unifying the multifaceted and complex American society, dealing with the credit uncertainties and the massive external imbalances, and pulling forces out of Iraq, will be hard to resolve in the immediate future. There will emerge new problems and international friction as he starts to take action.

Obama’s economic policies of trying to support the middle- and low-income segment and narrow the rich-poor gap could lead him to take severe steps against countries like China and Japan that have large trade surpluses with the U.S. and are often seen as taking away job opportunities from American workers.

As was discussed during the Nov.15-16 Group of 20 summit in Washington to deal with the financial crisis, it is of course important for each country to take domestic steps to boost their own economy. But such efforts must be made in a concerted way if they are to contribute to easing the global financial uncertainties. While the United States, as the major “imbalance” power with a current account deficit, needs to reduce its overconsumption, nations with surpluses must also correct their dependency on exports as the engine of their growth.

Japan of course needs structural reforms to shift away from its export dependency to more consumer-oriented domestic growth. At some point during this financial crisis, there were optimistic views about “decoupling” — or the belief that even if the U.S. falls into recession, Japan can still export to the emerging economics like the BRICs (Brazil, India and China). But the simultaneous falls in stock markets in many countries clearly show that economies around the world are steadily becoming intertwined.

It doesn’t appear to be a logical option for resource-poor Japan to keep using raw materials for exports only to build up unstable dollar-denominated assets. On the contrary, Japan, facing a rapidly aging population, needs to focus more human resources, goods and money at home.

Also in response to the incoming U.S. administration’s policy of seeking greater diplomatic cooperation, Japan needs to end its passive attitude of dealing with the holes in its security policies only after coming under pressures from its allies. Instead, the nation should clarify its own international security policies and implement them.

The security alliance with the United States will continue to be important. But the policies of the U.S. itself will be changing, and it would only be natural for Japan, as a sovereign state, to take voluntary actions in response to changing international circumstances, including China’s military buildup and uncertainties surrounding North Korea.

More than six decades after the end of World War II, it is imperative for Japan to proactively take part in reforms of international institutions such as the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund, which are falling behind changes in global realities. It would be needless to repeat there is an imbalance between financial contributions among U.N. members and their powers.

Following the change to the float system in 1973, the IMF regime was left unattended without steps being taken against the dollar’s unstable exchange rates. The problem has been highlighted in the current crisis.

Climate change also requires immediate action. Crisis can create opportunities, and the G20 meeting in Washington can be a starting point for that. With more countries being involved, it becomes even more difficult to reach a consensus. Still, the fact that participants were able to put together a joint statement is an indication that these countries shared a sense of crisis. Oil producing countries, whose policies can destabilize world prices, should take part in the process.

The second such conference is to take place by April, and each participant needs to aim for a common goal of creating a new stable worldwide financial system for the 21st century.

Rather than trying to protect their vested interests and claim their rights, the countries need to take responsibility for operating and sharing the burdens of a new international regime. Following its WWII defeat, Japan was unable to take part in the creation of the postwar regime. Today, the very postwar regime is up for review, and Japan should not waste this opportunity by being mired in futile domestic political turmoil. It must not just focus on its narrow, short-term interests, and should contribute to the reconstruction of world peace and stability.

Teruhiko Mano is a professor at Seigakuin University Graduate School.

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Monday, Nov. 24, 2008, The Japan Times online.

Gulf states should step up — U.S. consumption can’t carry world

By TAKASHI KITAZUME
Staff writer

Persian Gulf countries with large accumulations of wealth can play an active role in reforming the international financial regime rocked by the ongoing global crisis, British experts told a recent symposium in Tokyo.

Paola Subacchi (right) and Vanessa Rossi, researchers from the Royal Institute of International Affairs, discuss the prospects for Gulf economies during a symposium held Nov. 12 at Keidanren Kaikan in Tokyo. SATOKO KAWASAKI PHOTO

The role of the Gulf region will also be important for the world to address the longer-term problem of continuing global imbalances — of the United States being the sole major driving engine of global growth, they said.

Two researchers from the Royal Institute of International Affairs were assessing the prospects for the Gulf economies and their possible roles for the world economy during the Nov. 12 symposium organized by Keizai Koho Center on the theme “Global financial turmoil: Gulf states as ‘white knights’?”

“The global economic order does not belong any more to the established developed countries,” and there is a “constant and progressive shift toward the inclusion of emerging market economies,” said Paola Subacchi, research director on international economics at the London-based institute, popularly known as Chatam House.

The presence of emerging economies, particularly China and some Gulf economies, was highlighted during the Nov. 15-16 meeting of leaders of the Group of 20 countries held in Washington to deal with the financial crisis.

Attention has focused on whether sovereign wealth funds of the Gulf countries would consider more acquisitions of distressed U.S. and European assets, but “the current mood actually is more toward including some of these countries in the larger debate on the reform of the international financial system,” Subacchi said.

The Gulf economies have experienced a large boom in recent years due to the high oil prices, which boosted infrastructure spending and investments in the region, Subacchi said.

And this boom is “very different” from a similar boom the region experienced from surging oil prices in the 1970s, “when the oil revenues were wasted rather than used in a productive way for development of the region,” she said.

Today, the Gulf economies have taken a “more regional approach,” in which “money tends to stay in the region, rather than being exported somewhere else, and there is a more private-sector approach” to using the oil revenue for productive investments, Subacchi said.

Vanessa Rossi, the institute’s senior research fellow for international economics, said emerging economies cannot be immune from the current global crisis. “There is no such thing as being able to ‘decouple’ in financial systems. We see all stock markets, all financial sectors affected by the crisis,” she said.

On Nov. 9, China unveiled a $586 billion stimulus package in an attempt to counter the impact of the global crisis on its growth.

Such efforts raise hopes that China may be able to maintain strong growth, Rossi said. “But I think the first priority for everybody in this crisis is looking after your own country’s growth, so this may be enough to keep China growing, but it’s not clear if it does the tricks for the whole world,” she noted.

There will also need to be more realism in assessing the prospect for the Gulf economies, given the recent fallback in the oil prices and the seriousness of the global crisis, Rossi said.

Still, Rossi pointed out, most of the Gulf countries have had “extremely prudent planning of oil prices and oil revenue” and their government budget has largely been based on crude oil prices of between $50 to $60 per barrel.

“So these countries still have current account surpluses at this level of oil prices,” she said.

Rossi also noted that once the global economy gets back on a recovery phase — either by 2010 or 2011, oil prices are expected to rise again with the tight demand from emerging economies. “There is every reason to believe Asia and emerging market economies will again be able to pick up and grow strongly from the same factors” that pushed them up in recent years, and similar patterns of growth will boost resources and energy demand that “will feed into the oil prices and revenues for the Gulf area,” she said.

Today, the six states that form the Gulf Cooperation Council — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — combined are worth around $1 trillion in terms of gross domestic product, putting them within the world’s top 10 economies, Rossi noted.

These economies should be considered as a group because of their structural similarities and because “they will behave in the same way as regards (to) their effect on the world economy,” she said.

While the presence of the Gulf economies is also growing in the global financial arena, their weakness lies in their lack of development in the bond market system, Rossi noted.

“I think this is a particularly difficult issue if you want to become a financial center,” she said.

The Gulf region and Asia need to create an alternative to the U.S. and European bond markets to match their rising wealth, she added.

Development of the bond market system in the Gulf as well as in Asia is also important in terms of having a more balanced financial system for the world economy, Subacchi told the audience.

“The global imbalance is still there. . . . We are still in a situation where there are parts of the world which save too much, and parts of the world where there (is) still too much consumption, and we have not found a way to resolve this issue,” she said.

The other imbalance, Subacchi said, is that there is “only one engine for the world economy — the U.S. economy.” Seeking answers from the incoming U.S. administration to revive American consumption as the driving force of global growth “will be an unsatisfactory solution because the risk is to create a kind of situation that generated the crisis, where there is too much consumption and too little savings in the U.S.,” she pointed out.

In the near future, the big question will be how the world will come out of this crisis, “but in the longer term we need to focus on how to resolve these imbalances,” she said.

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Monday, Nov. 24, 2008, The Japan Times online.

THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Burst of U.S. bubble arouses old specters

By HIROAKI SATO
So the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has spoken: The “usual tools of economic policy — above all, the Federal Reserve’s ability to pump up the economy by cutting interest rates — have lost all traction” (”Depression Economics Return,” Nov. 14, The New York Times).

The article brought to mind my friend Takafusa Shioya’s conclusion in his book about the Japanese economic bubble that burst in 1989. Measures that had worked earlier did not work in dealing with the aftermath of the bubble. A top economic officer while in government, Shioya observed the policy struggle firsthand, often as part of it.

So, the worry now is that the United States might repeat the Great Depression. As this has come to the fore, the concern has receded that it might have to go through what Japan did after its bubble. Also, in place of the talk a few years ago of the onset of the decline of the American empire as President George W. Bush’s wars against Afghanistan and Iraq refused to go as planned, the talk today is of a “historic geopolitical shift” now that “the American free market creed has self-destructed.”

The latter judgment belongs to John Gray, a professor at the London School of Economics (”A shattering moment in America’s fall from power,” The Guardian, Sept. 28). I am in no position to pronounce anything as sweeping, but I was an eyewitness, in a way, of Japan’s economic rise and fall.

It is hard to remember this now, but in the 1980s Japan was depicted as an economic juggernaut about to swallow up the whole world, including the U.S. The most startling news still vivid in my memory was the Japanese purchase of the Exxon Building in late 1986 or, rather, the way The New York Times headlined this purchase on its front page. That building in Rockefeller Center — now simply identified by its street address — soars outside my window: My office is in the McGraw-Hill Building that stands right next to it.

When this was followed by the purchase of Rockefeller Center itself, it was as if the sky started to fall on Manhattan, nay, the U.S. of A. Saner voices said there was no need for the sky-is-falling talk because real estate investment simply means gaining the right to manage the property.

Still, there were self-mocking predictions that the star atop the famous Rockefeller Center Christmas tree would be replaced by the Mitsubishi logo, which, made up of three lozenges, looks like the atomic bomb shelter sign. Yes, the investor in Rockefeller Center was Mitsubishi Real Estate.

As fate would have it, I became the one to translate what I thought was Rockefeller Center’s last dunning letter to Mitsubishi. Mitsubishi was in arrears in paying monthly maintenance costs. When all the hoopla was over, the losses of Japanese investors in American real estate, it was said, went well beyond $1 trillion. But that was years later.

Japan’s economic insouciance was a spectacle to behold while it lasted. The rumor I heard later had it that Mitsui Real Estate, which bought the Exxon Building, did so without asking its price, while Mitsubishi bought Rockefeller Center (less than 40 percent of it, actually) simply out of rivalry.

The heading of a Time magazine article on the subject at the time caught the mood of the day very well: “I’ll Take Manhattan — and Waikiki.”

What enabled Japanese companies to behave like that? The bubble. There are a number of theories on what caused it. The majority seems to hold that it was prompted by the Plaza Accord of 1985 — an agreement to depreciate the dollar and appreciate the yen.

It worked wonders. The yen rose fast — from ¥221 to a dollar in 1985, to ¥160 in 1986, to ¥138 in 1987. That meant the prices of things in America were discounted by 40 percent for Japanese buyers in just two years. The Nikkei industrial average tripled in four years, from ¥13,113 in 1985 to ¥38,916 in 1989. Individuals became groggy. I heard a story of an ordinary Japanese citizen who bought an old castle in Germany.

There have been wild stories in America, too, of course, though I was mostly mesmerized by the improbable greed of corporate executives. One interesting thing, especially now that the American bubble has burst, is that “America has always had one economic policy for itself and another for the rest of the world,” as professor Gray puts it.

Examples are legion. Vis-a-vis Japan, the U.S. approach was dual. It preached the gospel of deregulation, even as it pressed for more regulation — both, where it suited itself.

In the meantime, the U.S. steadfastly deregulated. At the center of this deregulation was Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board from Presidents Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush. During his tenure spanning almost two decades, he remained a glad acolyte of Ayn Rand, refusing to regulate either derivatives or mortgage securitization.

The two “financial instruments” may best be described as sand castles built on sand castles.

Some Japanese economists who take the view that the Plaza Accord of 1985 triggered the Japanese bubble call its bursting a “money haisen,” the defeat in the money war. The metaphor is apt. The Japanese economy, halved from 1944 to 1945, did not recover to the 1944 level until 1952. In the decade of the 1990s that followed the bursting of the bubble the economy rose barely by 10 percent in real terms. In fact, the U.S. did far better during the decade of the Great Depression; its economy rose by a respectable 30 percent.

Unlike the Japanese bubble, the bursting of the U.S. bubble is having global consequences. The Nikkei industrial average is already back to where it was at the start of the 1980s. The decade in which Japan was dreaded as an economic juggernaut is now a vanishing dream.

Translator and essayist Hiroaki Sato’s most recent book is “Japanese Women Poets: An Anthology.”

 

Hijacked Ship Holds $100 Million in Oil

By BARBARA SURK, AP

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (Nov. 18) - The owner of a Saudi oil supertanker hijacked by Somali pirates over the weekend said the company is working to win the release of the crew and vessel, which is carrying about $100 million in cargo.

Dubai-based Vela International Marine Ltd., a subsidiary of Saudi oil company Aramco, said in a statement Monday that company response teams have been created. The MV Sirius Star is the largest ship ever taken by Somali pirates, according to the U.S. Navy.

Dangerous Waters ? …. and How Many Boing 747 Can Feed This Ship? Then How Many Fish Can Kill This Ship?

Sirius Star: Somali pirates hijacked the oil tanker, here in an undated photo, about 450 nautical miles off the Kenyan coast Nov. 15. It is the farthest from shore Somali pirates have struck and is thought to be the largest ship ever hijacked. The aircraft-carrier-sized tanker, owned by Saudi oil company Aramco, was carrying crude oil. It can carry about 2 million barrels.

The statement gave no further details. Employees who answered the phone said no one was immediately available to comment and that Vela executives were meeting to discuss the situation. They declined to give their names.
The Navy said the brand-new MV Sirius Star, with a crew of 25, was seized far off the coast of Kenya on Saturday and the bandits were taking the ship to a Somali port known as a hub of pirate activity. It announced the hijacking on Monday when it first received the information.

The statement posted on Vela’s Web site late Monday said the ship was hijacked Sunday. The discrepancy could not immediately be explained.
Attacks by Somali pirates have surged this year as bandits have become bolder, better armed and capable of operating hundreds of miles from shore.

A coalition of warships from eight nations and from NATO and the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet is patrolling a critical zone in the Gulf of Aden leading to and from the Suez Canal. The gulf is where most of the more than 80 attacks this year have taken place.

The Saudi tanker, however, was seized far to the south of the patrolled zone, about 450 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa, Kenya, according to the U.S. Navy.

Maritime security experts said they have tracked a southward spread in piracy over the last several weeks into a vast area of the Indian Ocean, noting with alarm that the area would be almost impossible to patrol.
The U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet said Tuesday it was monitoring the situation but did not expect to send warships to surround the vessel as it has done with a Ukrainian ship loaded with tanks and other weaponry the was seized off the Somali coast on Sept. 25 and remains in pirate hands.

“I don’t anticipate any U.S. ships on station,” said Lt. Nathan Christensen, a spokesman for the 5th Fleet, speaking from its headquarters in Bahrain. He would not elaborate on how the Navy was watching the hijacked tanker.
“We remain deeply concerned because this attack represents a fundamental change in pirates’ ability to hijack bigger vessels farther out at sea,” he said.
The Sirius Star is the “largest pirated vessel in the region” to date, Christensen said.
At 1,080 feet, the Sirius Star is the length of an aircraft carrier and can carry about 2 million barrels of oil.
“We are very concerned that a (ship) of this size has been hijacked. We have safety concerns, security concerns, environmental concerns,” said Noel Choong, the head of the International Maritime Bureau’s regional piracy center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

“Of course, as long as there is no firm deterrent, pirates will continue to attack. The risk is low and returns are extremely high. You will see more and more of such attacks,” he told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Somali fishermen and witnesses on shore said the pirates apparently anchored the ship last night in Harardhere, a pirate stronghold some 265 miles by land from Eyl.

The Saudi tanker was just a few miles from shore Tuesday morning, said Abdinur Haji, a fisherman.
“As usual, I woke up at 3 a.m. and headed for the sea to fish, but I saw a very, very large ship anchored less than three miles off the shore,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
He said two small boats floated out to the ship and 18 men — presumably other pirates — climbed aboard with ropes woven into a ladder.

“I have been fishing here for three decades, but I have never seen a ship as big as this one,” he said. “There are dozens of spectators on shore trying to catch a glimpse of the large ship, which they can see with their naked eyes.”
Vela, the ship’s owner and operator, says it is one of the largest crude oil tanker companies in the world.

Including the Sirius Star, Vela owns and operates a fleet of 19 vessels classed as Very Large Crude Oil Carriers and five product tankers of various sizes. It transports supplies primarily between the Middle East, Europe and the U.S. Gulf Coast, according to the company’s Web site.

The Sirius Star was sailing under a Liberian flag and its crew includes citizens of Croatia, Britain, the Philippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia. A British Foreign Office spokesman said there were at least two British nationals on board.
Associated Press Writer Mohamed Olad Hassan contributed to this report from Mogadishu, Somalia.

Hijacked Ship Holds $100 Million in Oil

————–

The UN sensation  of the day as per Title of UN Wire:

From:        un.wire at smartbrief.com
Subject:       Pirates seize Saudi oil supertanker; Court to hear Croatia’s genocide case against Serbia
Date:       November 18, 2008

Pirates seize Saudi supertanker
Los Angeles Times (11/18)

Piracy abates in Southeast Asia
Piratical activity has dropped along the Asian coasts where it once proliferated, falling 11% from last year and 32% from 2006. Many of those attacks off Indonesia and throughout Southeast Asia were low-level attacks against small ships or incidents of petty theft of cargo. Naval patrols along the “littoral states” of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore are credited for the sharp decline. The New York Times (11/18)

From:      levy at tcf.org
Subject: Articles that may interest you
Date:      November 17, 2008

 First an interview for Atlantic Magazine, then an e-mail we got from Daniel Levy:

The Interview - Daniel Levy On Obama, Netanyahu and the Settlements. http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/a…

The e-mail based on an article in Haaretz: /www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1037283.html
As per Jeffrey Goldberg of Atlantic Magazine - November 17, 2008 - Daniel Levy, the director of the Middle East Initiative at the New America Foundation (which is run by a blogger, it should be noted) and the director of the Prospects for Peace initiative at the Century Foundation, is one of the smartest analysts of the Middle East conflict in Washington, or anywhere else. He often veers too left for my taste (on only one occasion, I believe, I veered too left for his taste), but he’s a rigorous thinker and is steeped in the painful and complicated details of the ongoing crisis. Levy, who keeps his own blog, of course, has been a player in negotiations through the 1990s, and brings real-world experience — and real Israeli experience — to the conversation. As we enter the Obama era, it seemed worthwhile to send Levy some questions:

Jeffrey Goldberg:  Are you a Zionist?

Daniel Levy: The answer is a yes, albeit a more complex yes than I’d like it to be.  I would describe myself as a Zionist on at least three levels.  First, and at the most practical level, having made aliyah to Israel from the U.K., taken up citizenship, and made my life there, my Zionism meets the more classical and exclusionary definitions.  Second, I do consider the Jews to be a people, and support that people’s right to self-determination in a nation-state, Israel.  Finally, and in many ways derived from both of the above, I consider Israel to be central to my own Jewishness and my identity–more than a religious affiliation, it’s a national and cultural affiliation to modern Israel, the language, to Tel Aviv, etc.

Where it gets complex is this–sixty years after the establishment of the state, and alongside all its accomplishments, the onus is now on Israel and its founding ideology, Zionism, to demonstrate in practice that it can be non-expansionist in territorial terms toward its neighbors, and that it can confer genuine equality on the non-Jewish citizens of the state.  Most troubling of course is that for more than two-thirds of its existence, Israel has imposed a hostile occupation on another people, the Palestinians of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, and to be blunt, that occupation will have to end for Israel to survive.  To the extent to which a Zionist narrative has been used to drive forward and justify the post-’67 settlement enterprise (and the discrimination within Israel), it is a Zionism that actually works against the interests of Israel, and not, of course, the Zionism that I am signing up for.

JG: You write about the occupation in a way that suggests you believe it was Israel’s fault from the outset.  Whose fault do you believe it is?  Put another way, do you think the Khartoum declaration of late 1967–the so-called “three noes” — set the stage for the tragedy that followed, or is it not relevant?

DL: The Khartoum noes represent a more complex issue than is often assumed.  The setting is, of course, after the ‘67 war, with Israel in control of vast swaths of Egyptian and Syrian territory, as well as the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.  Israel expresses a readiness to talk peace and understandably interprets the three noes of Khartoum as, well, being a negative answer.  But historians suggest it wasn’t that simple.  See this long quote below from pages 258-259 of Avi Shlaim’s book The Iron Wall:

“Israel’s leaders watched with keen anticipation to see what conclusions the Arab leaders would draw from their military defeat.  The conference ended with the adoption of the famous three noes of Khartoum: no recognition, no negotiation, and no peace with Israel.  On the face of it these declarations showed no sign of readiness for compromise, and this is how Israel interpreted them.  In fact, the conference was a victory for the Arab moderates who argued for trying to obtain the withdrawal of Israeli forces by political rather than military means.  Arab spokesmen interpreted the Khartoum declarations to mean no formal peace treaty, but not a rejection of a state of peace; no direct negotiations, but not a refusal to talk through third parties; and no de jure recognition of Israel, but acceptance of its existence as a state.  President Nasser and King Hussein set the tone at the summit and made it clear subsequently that they were prepared to go much further than ever before toward a settlement with Israel.  At Khartoum, Nasser and Hussein reached a genuine understanding and formed a united front against the hard-liners…The Khartoum summit thus marked a real turning point in Nasser’s attitude to Israel.  At Khartoum, Nasser advised, and indeed urged, King Hussein to explore the possibility of a peaceful settlement with Israel.  This was, of course, not known in Israel at the time.  As far as Israel was concerned, the Khartoum declarations closed every door and every window that might lead to a peace settlement.  On October 17 the cabinet took a decision that amounted to an official cancellation of the decision of 19 June.”

The famous three noes are explained as being an opening position and that Jordanian King Hussein actually had something of a mandate from Nasser’s Egypt to begin exploratory talks with Israel.  We know those took place.  We also now know that Egypt itself was putting out peace feelers prior to the 1973 Yom Kippur War.  In the end, of course, that Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty was reached, but only after another needless war–something that might unfortunately be repeated with Syria now.

***

But here’s the bigger picture: the UN in 1947 in UNGAR 181 calls for a division of mandatory Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state according to a territorial ratio of approximately 55 percent to 45 percent.  After the War of Independence, Israel is in control of not 55, but 78 percent of the land, and builds its state in that area.

After the ‘67 war, Israel controls 100 percent.  I would argue that Israel’s big achievement today is that we have reached a situation where the Arab world is saying yes to the 1949-67 division of 78:22–not the 1947 plan, but also not one centimeter more than the ‘67 lines.

Some may argue that if Israel already got a yes to 78 percent, we can surely get it to 80 percent, or 85 percent, or even more–I think that is neither realistic nor desirable, and in attempting to achieve it, we are liable to commit national suicide.

So my bottom line is that Israel needs to take yes for an answer, which means ending the occupation. And let’s face it, the fact that the occupation is so entrenched, especially the civilian settlements and their supportive infrastructure–none of that can be considered a sensible or legitimate response even to the traditional interpretation of the Khartoum noes.  Does it justify Palestinian violence?  No.  Is the post-’67 settlement enterprise a huge mistake for the Zionist project and an albatross around the neck of Israel?  Absolutely yes.

We can argue about the history, but the imperative today is to seize the opportunity to entrench the ‘67 borders, a two-state reality, and to end the occupation (with agreed, minor, and mutual land swaps involving the West Bank and East Jerusalem, but respecting the 78:22 principle).

***

JG: Man, you know nothing turns me on more than long quotations from Avi Shlaim.  There’s an unbiased observer for you.  Anyway, next question: Who’s to blame today?  Or put another way, why is the process so locked-down right now: Israeli political paralysis, Palestinian religious extremism, the continued presence of settlements in the West Bank, American disinterest, all of the above?

DL: In answer to your latest delightful question, I’m not too keen on playing the blame game.  I could agree to all of the reasons you gave and add lots more.  But I think we need to get beyond who is to blame and to think constructively and creatively about how to get out of this mess.  The situation is not good.  Neither Israelis nor Palestinians benefit, and while scoring points can always be fun, it doesn’t get us very far.  In fact, I would even say that blame is secondary to a bigger problem which is that we are locked into a process that is increasingly incapable of delivering–and we need to recognize that.

I would suggest that there are two basic design faults to what we call the peace process, whether that be Oslo or Annapolis or everything in between.  One, the two parties have gone about as far as they’re going to go to finding solutions in bilateral negotiations.  What is left to do–the final points of closure on core issues–is obviously the hardest bit, and I don’t think the parties can do that alone, especially not with the current leaderships one both sides.  There is almost a perverse incentive at work to postpone hard decisions and to negotiate indefinitely–that is the path of least resistance in terms of domestic politics for Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Two, the Palestinians are expected to successfully build their own economy, security forces and institutions of governance while in a pre-state condition of pervasive foreign (Israel) occupation that includes an expanding civilian settler population–that needs to be protected by the IDF.  The idea is that the Palestinians prove themselves and then Israel makes progress–it has not and cannot work that way.

So both sides are struck.  The process suffers from the laws of diminishing returns as we keep trying this failed and flawed method and it does no favors to Israel as it creates circumstances in which we are unable to extract ourselves from a predicament which severely damages our interests.  I would suggest that what we need now is effective external intervention to break this impasse, and realistically this would have to be U.S.-led.

JG: Okay, external intervention is needed.  What, exactly, does President Obama do?  How does he get the Israelis to remove settlements?  How does he strengthen the PA and marginalize Gaza?

DL: To an extent, it does depend on what kind of an Israeli government an Obama presidency is working with.  If the Israeli leadership at the time is not clear in its willingness to remove settlements, withdraw on the West Bank, and implement a two-state solution, then I would recommend not investing in a peace process just for appearances’ sake.  Such a process would, after all, not succeed, further undermining both hope and credibility, and the last thing we need is another failed process.  Under such circumstances–and most people will assume that this is the scenario of a Netanyahu premiership (although I’d at least test the proposition that Netanyahu can be a pragmatist after all)–I would suggest that the Obama administration makes its explicit declarative intention as being to keep the two-state option alive and viable.  That means focusing on preventing new settlements, outposts, and settlement-expansion (and also on allowing the Palestinians to reconstitute a reformed PLO and Palestinian national movement).  A singular American focus on settlements–and that can be lots of talking and monitoring and upbraiding, it doesn’t have to be linking aid–can have a fascinating, liberating, and even decisive impact on the internal Israeli debate about settlements.  The Obamaites could also ask Bill Clinton a thing or two about handling Netanyahu, as he played no minor role in Netanyahu’s first term as PM being cut short to barely 30 months.

On the other hand, if one is dealing with an Israeli government that has identified an Israeli national interest and even Israel’s survival with a West Bank withdrawal, two-state solution, and settlement removal–as is the case with the outgoing Olmert government and with Prime Ministerial candidate Tzipi Livni, then I’d suggest a different tack.  The key in this scenario would be for the U.S. to come up with creative ways for addressing the legitimate Israeli concerns regarding what happens in the territories from which Israel withdraws–how does one guarantee a predictability of especially security, but also of governance outcomes once Israel and the IDF is no longer there.  So it’s about providing compelling, attractive, and even enticing answers to the questions that postpone the needed Israeli withdrawal.

I say creative because the current way to answer that question is all about building Palestinian capacity without changing the basic circumstances.  And I am convinced that cannot work.  The alternative package that the U.S. would have to take a lead in putting together would lean heavily on an international role for a period of time in the newly de-occupied Palestinian state–with a particular focus on guaranteeing security-related issues.  Yes, I am talking about an international force, but only once there’s an agreed border and as a post-occupation partial replacement for the IDF–and the U.S. would not be the main provider of troops (numbers anyway are not large).

That’s the kind of plan the new administration should be thinking about, while in addition, American diplomatic engagement would also almost certainly be needed to finalize an Israeli-Palestinian agreement (American proposals and hard work to carry the sides across the finishing line), and additional incentives, both bilateral and international as appropriate, for both parties–including in the security arena, costs of relocating settlers, and Palestinian refugee compensation.

As for the PA, Gaza, etc., virtually everything we have done so far in supposedly strengthening the moderates and intervening on behalf of one side has been either counter-productive or ineffective.  One can’t marginalize Gaza –it’s part of the two-state solution.  And we’re most certainly going to have to bring Hamas inside the tent to make this work.  I think that’s doable and the first imperative for the U.S. is to leave the Palestinians to do their own internal politics, and to reconstitute their own reformed national movement.  I’m not suggesting U.S. mediation, but the removal of what amounts to a U.S. veto on Palestinian national reconciliation.  Our basic demand from a newly unified Palestinian national leadership should be: no use of terror and agreement on an authorized interlocutor for U.S.-mediated peace talks with Israel.

None of this will be easy, including the internal Palestinian stuff.  The Egyptians are working on that right now, but the prospects are not good, although they would be improved if the U.S. sent signals that they approve of these talks, and if other actors, such as the Saudis, were encouraged to support these mediation efforts.

That’s enough for now.  There is of course much more to say on what needs to be done on the regional level, and of how to use the Arab Peace Initiative as a central ingredient for peace making and as an incentive for Israel.  But let’s save that for later.

***

JG: Over the next four years, what are the chances that we’ll see another Arab-Israeli war, in either Lebanon, Gaza or the West Bank?

DL: Unfortunately, the chances of another war are not insignificant, although there is no inevitability to there being further war and if we act smart this outcome can be avoided.  However, if one looks at the trajectory of hostility to Israel, instability in the region, and misguided Israeli policies, then that makes for a worrying trend line.

Hezbollah, of course, maintains its own militia in Lebanon and that would be the focus of any future Israeli-Lebanon clash–as it was two years ago.  I would argue that the smartest move Israel could make regarding Lebanon would be to remove those excuses (or reasons) that Hezbollah uses to justify its maintenance of an independent armed capacity that actually resonate inside Lebanese politics.

What would that mean?  Israel could hand over the Shebaa Farms (which are of no value and which Israel has no intention of keeping anyway), could start ending IDF over flights of Lebanon, and could allow the Lebanese armed forces to equip itself as a more serious national army (although not with offensive capacities that would threaten Israel).  These measures would create a situation whereby Hezbollah would be faced with a dilemma, as its justifications for its current military posture would be removed.  Hezbollah would then have to rely on external explanations (such as the Palestinian cause), or risk being seen as explicitly serving an Iranian, not Lebanese, agenda.  Such moves by Israel would actually limit Hezbollah’s room for maneuver, and I would suggest that they would make future clashes less likely.  Of course, Hezbollah and the state machinery of Lebanon may become indistinguishable–Hezbollah is already part of the government and could assume a more leading role.  But in most ways that only complicates their decision-making further when it comes to entering conflict with Israel.  Bottom line: there are things Israel, the U.S., and the international community can be doing to help stabilize Lebanon, to limit Hezbollah’s choices, and to make confrontation less likely.

On the Palestinian front, there is ongoing, if often low-intensity, conflicts. If anything the default position is still the war footing.  The current ceasefire is testimony to that–a secession of hostilities of limited duration.

Absent a resolution to the basic conflicts, new rounds of violence, whether more or less intense, can be expected to break out.  Netanyahu’s suggestion for economic peace is of course a joke and will certainly not prevent this violence.  But as I discussed earlier, the Annapolis model is also not working and that too will collapse into violence (and expect some of the Palestinian security forces to be involved in the violence) if its failings are not corrected.  The most important preventive action to be taken in this regard would be to remove the casus belli and to end the 1967 occupation with the kind of provisions and in the fashion that I described above.

Of course, that does not mean there will be no threat to Israel’s security, or that everyone will be happy, but: 1, this is a precondition without which further conflict is pretty much guaranteed; and 2, it offers the most promising sustainable security environment for Israel and places Israel in a far stronger position to deal with future threats (defending Israel from an agreed upon border, no settlers to protect, increased regional and international legitimacy, basic neutralizing of Palestinian grievance narrative, etc.).

In addition, there are other threat scenarios–Syria may not wait forever for a peace deal, neither Egyptian nor Jordanian stability are guaranteed, and Iranian bellicose rhetoric continues–but Israel is in a far better position to manage all of these if we can get beyond our current occupation predicament with the Palestinians, and if we can do that then I think Israel will have an answer for any of these uncertainties.  I believe we can get it right; I’m just deeply worried that we won’t.

_____________________

The above assumes a two State Solution of the Israeli Palestinian conflict which entails first a solution of the internal conflict of the Palestinians, and which presents the danger that rather then Hamas led Gaza becoming a PLO led component of the Palestinian Southern entity, the Palestinian Northern entity of the West Bank, becomes a Hamas dominated entity as well - and the whole Palestinian State becomes more of a problem then the expected solution.

At SustainabiliTank.info we rather believe in a three States Solution, where Israel makes its agreements with the West Bank and leaves the rebellious “Hamas-in-Gaza” which we like to call - Hamasstan - plainly hanging in the air until someone creates internally  the sense needed to bring them to the table under a formula already proved in the other/larger entity that was created first. We believe this to be a better staged evolution then the one described without such stages by David Levy.  ( PJ at SustainabiliTank.com )

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Four Middle East Crises on Obama’s Horizon.
By Daniel Levy, in Haaretz of November 16, 2008.

No one should be surprised that president-elect Barack Obama’s first press conference, three days after his historic November 4th victory, was devoted almost exclusively to the economy. Obama was also quick to remind reporters that there is only one president at a time, and his turn does not begin until January 20. Israel’s upcoming February 11 election? Recent American presidents have had a decidedly mixed record of intervention in Israeli elections. President Bill Clinton hastily convened the March 1996 Summit of Peacemakers at Sharm el-Sheikh, but it did not save Shimon Peres in the polls that May. Clinton was more effective in ensnaring a peace-shy prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the Wye River Memorandum - paving the way to Netanyahu’s downfall and Ehud Barak’s May 1999 election victory. Before that, president George H.W. Bush tripped up Yitzhak Shamir on the issue of settlements, assisting Yitzhak Rabin in Israel’s 1992 vote.

A new president, however, is unlikely to dip his hand in the shark-infested waters of Israeli politics, certainly not on Day 1, especially since the possible impact would be hard to predict. The Obama team would be best advised to simply remind Israelis of its own standpoint: a commitment to two states and to advancing the peace process “from the minute I’m sworn into office” (Obama in Amman, July 2008). To forget this pledge until after February 10 would in itself be an intervention of sorts, and an unwelcome one. Will Kadima, Labor or Meretz be able to ride the wave of Obama expectations? That will be for them to attempt and for the voters to decide.

- (2) Another upcoming Middle East election the new American president will have to navigate is in Iran, where presidential polls are scheduled for June 2009. The tricky balancing act here will be, on the one hand, not to lose time testing direct engagement with Iran, an Obama election pledge, while, at the same time, doing nothing that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could use to strengthen his own re-election efforts. Paradoxically, a less threatening, more open-for-business tone from the U.S. may be the best way to undermine Ahmadinejad. Direct talks with Ahmadinejad are very unlikely to feature on the immediate Obama to-do list, and would almost certainly be ill advised. In any event, he is not the key address for diplomatic approaches. That would more likely be supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Expect discreet feelers and exploratory contacts with key Khamenei confidants, such as Ali Akbar Velayati and Ali Larijani, and expect not to know that they are taking place.

Israel’s best posture on this is surely to avoid any public disagreement with the U.S. on Iran, to ensure that Israel has input into the agenda for talks, and to give American-Iranian negotiations a real chance, as the best option for addressing our concerns.

- (3) For Syria, a two-year waiting game ends on Inauguration Day. President Bashar al-Assad apparently decided some time ago that his best bet was to wait out the implacable opposition of French president Jacques Chirac and American president Bush. Syria has recently prepared for this day, for instance by relaunching peace talks with Israel via Turkish mediation, by assuming a constructive role regarding Lebanon, and by moving closer to Europe, most notably to Chirac’s successor, Nicolas Sarkozy.

In some senses, Syria is seen as low-hanging fruit for a U.S. re-engagement that would reshuffle Middle East alliances in its favor. After all, Syria is a relevant player when it comes to Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and the Palestinian arena. A reorientation of Syria’s policies will not take place overnight or following a brief diplomatic flirtation. But a new approach to U.S.-Syria bilateral relations, with reasonably calibrated benchmarks and including American support for Israeli-Syrian talks, stands a good chance of success. Look out for early indications of that change.

- (4) Finally, how to deal with Palestinian internal politics? One of the more devastating legacies of the Bush years was the failure to constructively navigate the Palestinian transition away from the strongman rule of Yasser Arafat and the single-party domination of Fatah. A stable Palestine and sustainable peace and security for Palestinians and Israelis cannot be built on a divided Palestinian house. The American position has been one of encouraging Palestinian division. That needs to change urgently, not by an Obama administration directly engaging Hamas, but by it discreetly signaling an end to the American veto on Palestinian national reconciliation along lines similar to the Saudi-brokered Mecca deal of February 2007. Given the stop-start Palestinian talks now being brokered by Egypt, there might be some urgency to the American policy re-think on this issue - the peace process is deeply flawed in its absence.

- (5) Of course, Iraq will loom largest when president-elect Obama turns his attention to the Middle East - and therein lies the core challenge: Will the next administration, unlike its predecessor, appreciate both the extent and the nature of the interconnectivity between the region’s varied crises? The signs at least are encouraging.

Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at the New America and Century Foundations, was previously an adviser in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, and the lead Israeli drafter of the Geneva Initiative.

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As we said earlier - we do not think that the internal reconciliation within the Palestinian side should be allowed to hold back attempt at progress in the other areas. We really do not believe that the administration of Gaza will change before there is a success with the  easier dialogue between Israel and a Palestinian West-Bank entity.  The problem is that settlements were removed from Gaza, but this made things worse.

World leaders attending the G20 Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy on Nobember 15, 2008 in Washington, DC - As Leaders Wrestle With Economy and Developing Nations Get Ringside Seats - the Subject is Left in the Lap of the Non-Present US President #44. He Was Given 101 Days to Present Suggestions.

Sunday 16 November 2008

As per analysis by Mark Landler of The New York Times:

World leaders attending the G20 Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy on Nobember 15, 2008 in Washington, DC.
Washington - Facing the gravest global economic crisis in many decades, the leaders of 20 countries agreed Saturday to work more closely to reinvigorate their economies, but put off the thornier questions of how to overhaul regulation until next year, effectively giving a major assignment to the Obama administration.

Though the proposals were cast as ambitious reform, they mainly reflected steps that the countries were already undertaking. What remained to be seen was whether, working with a new White House, they will cast aside their political and economic differences to come up with dramatic changes.

The leaders planned their next meeting for April 30, 101 days after President-elect Barack Obama takes office.

***

Meeting here, in the capital of the country where the crisis began, leaders from the United States, France, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and other nations began an effort that the countries said would be a far-reaching reform of the institutions that have governed global markets since World War II.

In a five-page communiqué that mixed broad principles with specific steps to be tackled in the next three months, the Group of 20 pledged to bolster supervision of banks and credit-rating agencies, to scrutinize executive pay at firms, and to use fiscal and monetary policies to cushion the blow of a downturn that is hitting countries around the world.

Pushed by President Bush, who convened the gathering at the suggestion of President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, the leaders reaffirmed their commitment to free markets and trade.

But the statement also laid blame for the crisis at the doorstep of the United States, saying governments “in some advanced countries” had taken inadequate steps to prevent a buildup of risk.

The meeting laid out a roadmap for overhauling financial regulations that would postpone most of the difficult decisions until Mr. Obama is in office.

***

Those measures include setting up a so-called college of supervisors, which would share information about global financial institutions, and a plan to harmonize accounting standards. Mr. Bush cited a proposal to move the trading of credit-default swaps, a financial instrument that has been blamed for some of the recent upheaval, into a central clearinghouse, which would allow regulators to monitor risk.

“A meeting is not going to solve the world’s problems,” Mr. Bush said after the leaders adjourned. But he added, “I will tell you: I thought this was a very successful meeting.”

Mr. Bush said his administration had thoroughly briefed the president- elect about this process, and that he wished Mr. Obama the best in confronting the economic problems.

How world leaders approached the Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy - as Mr. Bush called the meeting - had a lot to do with how the financial crisis affected their political fortunes.

For Mr. Bush, the upheaval delivered a final blow to an administration staggering under an unpopular war in Iraq and a weakening economy. With Mr. Obama watching from Chicago, Mr. Bush was not even the most sought-after American at the meeting. Instead, leaders from Mexico to Turkey lined up to meet two emissaries sent by Mr. Obama.

Mr. Sarkozy, on the other hand, only became president of France last year, after the seeds of the crisis had been planted. His call for greater regulation plays into France’s historical preferences for a robust state role in the market, making Mr. Sarkozy an ideal point man for the effort.

“Sarkozy i