Troy: Obama Must Learn from History to Make History

Troy: "Reading history accurately does not negate Palestinian aspirations or
frustrations. They must be addressed....The Palestinians[,however,] must stop trying again and again to destroy the Jewish State. Peace processors must stop trying again and again to demand
Israeli concessions without explaining what has changed, what new understandings, what new safeguards, are in place this time. And Israelis must be open to seeing changes within Palestinian society and within a renewed peace process."

http://giltroyzionism.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/obama-history-middle-east/

Obama Must Learn from History to Make History
By Gil Troy, The Jerusalem Post, 7-7-10

Despite the warm words and attempts at progress when President Barack Obama hosted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the “make up summit” Tuesday, Obama still does not get it. Stale ideas and boilerplate rhetoric are not enough. President Obama must learn from history to make history. To rebuild Israel’s confidence in him, and in peace processes, Obama should acknowledge the unhappy history of the last ten years – and explain what will change if Israel takes risks for peace, yet again.

The tone deafness of those who claim to seek peace is astounding. Their inability to see what Israelis see and to feel Israel’s pain blocks progress. Most Israelis are stuck. They feel burned by a decade and a half of peace-making and negotiation which yielded ten years of violence, harsh criticism, and attacks on Israel’s very legitimacy.

Israelis – and their supporters — connect the dots, seeing how Ehud Barak’s hasty, chaotic withdrawal from Southern Lebanon in May, 2000 and Barak’s generous offer during the Camp David negotiations that summer telegraphed weakness, resulting in Palestinian terrorism that murdered over one thousand innocent Israelis –many of whom lived within Israel’s Green Line, the post-1949 border. They remember that the 2005 Gaza Disengagement was supposed to bring peace but instead intensified the rain of rockets on towns and kibbutzim also within Israel’s Green Line. They resent that when Israelis finally defended themselves in Lebanon against Hezbollah attacks in 2006 and in Gaza against Hamas attacks in late 2008 and early 2009, they were pilloried. Just last week, the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who supports Israel, made the harsh, ahistorical, inaccurate and immoral comparison between Israel’s acts of self-defense in those two wars, and Syria’s systematic massacre of as many as 30,000 Muslim dissidents at Hama in 1982, by claiming Israel was following Syria’s brutal “Hama Rules.” If peace-making efforts result in war, terrorism, and delegitimization, most Israelis prefer safer stalemates to disastrous breakthroughs.

These recent traumas resonate with a deeper understanding of Israeli and Palestinian history. In his important new book, “Palestine Betrayed,” Professor Efraim Karsh of King’s College London demonstrates that the Palestinian violence which trashed the Oslo hopes of the 1990s was paralleled by the Palestinian violence which killed earlier hopes for peace in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Professor Karsh is one of those annoying historians who researches in archives to recreate the past rather than simply regurgitating today’s conventional wisdom. He shows that the Arabs living in Palestine – many of whom enjoyed warm, productive, and profitable relations with their Jewish neighbors – were betrayed by radical leaders, especially the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. Husseini’s harsh anti-Zionism laced with Hitlerite anti-Semitism rejected the Zionist calls for coexistence, triggering what Palestinians now call the “Nakba,” their catastrophe.

Neither the conflict nor the catastrophe was inevitable. “Had the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs been left to their own devices, they would most probably have been content to get on with their lives and take advantage of the opportunities afforded by the growing Jewish presence in the country,” Karsh proves. Instead, Husseini and others tapped into Islam’s radical potential, incited violence, and took a “zero-sum approach that assigned to the Jews no national or collective rights whatever.”

The result was a “repeated Arab resort to violence” which worked initially, securing British concessions. Ultimately, however, turning to terror and spurning compromises betrayed the Palestinian Arabs, as hundreds of thousands lost their homes due to the violence their leaders instigated. In the late 1940s, unlike today, Karsh shows, neither the Palestinians nor objective observers called “the collapse and dispersion of Palestinian Arab society … a systematic dispossession of Arabs by Jews.” As the British diplomat Sir John Troutbeck reported after his fact-finding mission to Gaza in 1949, the refugees “express no bitterness against the Jews” but “they speak with the utmost bitterness of the Egyptians and other Arab states. ‘We know who our enemies are,’ they will say … referring to their Arab brothers who, they declare, persuaded them unnecessarily to leave their homes…” Subsequently, Yasir Arafat, Hamas, and other Palestinian elites replicated their predecessors’ mistakes, preferring to target the Jewish State rather than accepting any compromise, which begins by first accepting a Jewish presence in a tiny geographic slice of the vast Middle East Arabs control.

Karsh’s must-read book reminds us how much of the Palestinian narrative delegitimizing Israel even Israel’s supporters have absorbed.

Reading history accurately does not negate Palestinian aspirations or frustrations. They must be addressed. Still, understanding their origins might help policy-makers ratchet down the rhetoric – and the demands. Moreover, by emphasizing that the conflict was not inevitable, Professor Karsh reassures us that the conflict might be solvable today.

Albert Einstein defined insanity as “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  The Palestinians must stop trying again and again to destroy the Jewish State. Peace processors must stop trying again and again to demand Israeli concessions without explaining what has changed, what new understandings, what new safeguards, are in place this time. And Israelis must be open to seeing changes within Palestinian society and within a renewed peace process.

President Obama and his advisers must begin by acknowledging the last decade’s failures. They must help end Palestinian incitement. They and the Palestinians must prove that Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s initial steps toward state-building represent an historic change within Palestinian political culture from seeking Israel’s destruction to seeking Palestinian redemption.

For all their mistakes, most Israelis repeatedly have been willing to accept painful compromises, to risk for peace. If Obama wants a big Middle Eastern win, he must show he understands what went wrong in the past and offer substantive proposals guaranteeing future success.  All of us who seek peace should wish him luck. But none of us should settle for presidential rhetoric instead of new, constructive, Palestinian realities.
----------------

Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University in Montreal and a Shalom Hartman Research Fellow in Jerusalem. The author of “Why I Am A Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today,”he is also the author of “The Reagan Revolution: A Very Short Introduction.”

Netanyahu: Relationship with Washington stable and strong

Prime Minister tells cabinet that he will head to Egypt on Tuesday to meet with Mubarak on move toward direct talks with Palestinians.
By Barak Ravid   Ha'aretz  July 11, 2010

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will head to Egypt on Tuesday to discuss with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak a possible move toward direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

 "On Tuesday, I will meet President Mubarak in Cairo. It will be our fifth meeting in the space of a year. I hope to work together with him to promote direct talks with the Palestinians," Netanyahu said in public remarks at a cabinet meeting.

At the start of the weekly meeting, Netanyahu briefed the ministers on his upcoming trip to Egypt, as well as his recent visit to Washington, where he met with U.S. President Barack Obama. Netanyahu told the ministers that his relationship with Washington was stable and strong.

Netanyahu added that the U.S. administration understands Israel's security needs and that he had asked Obama to help in efforts to secure the release of abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said during the meeting that Netanyahu's Washington visit and its aftermath were very significant in light of recent doubts regarding the U.S.'s support for Israel. "As members of the cabinet," Barak said, "it is important that we understand that only by progressing with momentum toward a diplomatic plan and direct peace talks, while maintaining Israel's security interests, can we avoid the diplomatic siege that threatens to isolate Israel."

Israel and the Palestinians are currently negotiating indirectly through Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell. Netanyahu promised publicly in Washington to take "concrete steps" within weeks to persuade the Palestinians to upgrade the peace talks.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu was set to embark on a series of meetings with the forum of seven senior ministers in an effort to agree on a package of confidence-building measures aimed at convincing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to agree to direct negotiations with Israel.

Among the measures being considered, in accordance with American and Palestinian requests, will be an end to IDF operations in a number of Palestinian cities in the West Bank.

 

Iranian/CIA spy: Tehran will attack Israel, Europe, Gulf States if not stopped.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3917748,00.html

 Iranian turned US spy: Tehran will attack Israel

Former Revolutionary Guard member who relayed its secret operations to CIA for 10 years says Iran will commit 'most horrendous suicide bombing in human history' if not stopped
Dudi Cohen

A former fighter in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) turned US spy offered a rare glance into one of the most complex countries in the Middle East.


During a conference held at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy on Friday, Reza Kahlili (pseudonym) estimated that Iran will eventually attack Israel, Europe and the Persian Gulf states. He called for a preemptive strike on the regime in Tehran, but not on the Iranian people or the country's infrastructure.


Kahlili accused the Obama Administration of being naïve. According to him, the American overtures are viewed by the Iranian regime as a sign of weakness, while the Iranian people consider the efforts to engage the regime an act of betrayal against their struggle for freedom.



Click here to listen to Kahlili speak at conference: http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC07.php?CID=535


"This is a messianic regime. There should be no doubt – they are going to commit the most horrendous suicide bombing in human history. They will attack Israel, European capitals, and (the) Persian Gulf region at the same time," said Kahlili in one of his first public appearances to promote his new book "A Time To Betray: The Astonishing Double Life of a CIA Agent inside the Revolutionary Guards of Iran".



Kahlili said he joined the Revolutionary Guard following the Islamic revolution of 1979, but volunteered to work for the CIA when he became disillusioned with the Khomeini regime after witnessing acts of rape, torture and murder.


Kahlili, arrived at the conference wearing a surgical mask, sunglasses and a baseball cap to conceal his identity. Out of concern for his safety, as well as that of his family inside Iran, his voice was also disguised.


For 10 years, under the code name "Wally," he relayed the secret operations of the IRGC back to American intelligence, eventually fleeing to the United States. In the aftermath of 9/11, Kahlili reestablished contact with his sources in Iran and began once again providing information to the CIA, according to the Washington Institute.

Hoenlein's radio commentary: The Obama/Netanyahu meeting, Palestinian reactions, Iran <7/8/10>

  Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice Chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, is excellent at interpreting and explaining Jewish current events. 

 

He is given an opportunity to do so weekly on The John Batchelor Show, on WABC radio, available over the internet.   Hoenlein's radio commentary is excellent and worth hearing.

 

On Thursday night, Hoenlein analyzed the meeting, this week, between President Obama and Israeli PM Netanyahu -- an event that Hoenlein characterizes as very positive.  He also talks about the Palestinian leadership's reaction to that meeting.  And later in the program talks about the main problem he sees: that of dealing with Iran.

 

Please listen to some or all of the conversation,  employing the links below.  

//Mark Finkelstein jcrc@dmjfed.org

 

Thursday, 07/08/10 -  John Batchelor  Show  10pm  segment 

GUESTS: Co-host Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents; David Pollock, Washington Institute; Boaz Ganor, Lauder School of Government

Listen  http://wabcradio.com/FlashPlayer/default.asp?SPID=33447&ID=1869241

 or Download this show   http://wabcradio.com/getpodcast.aspx?sid=33447&lid=5145&id=1869242&source=1&url=http://podloc.andomedia.com/dloadTrack.mp3?prm=10803xhttp://podfuse-dl.andomedia.com/800185/podfuse-origin.andomedia.com/citadel_origin/pods/WABC/WABC-Batchelor/jbs_070810a.mp3

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Thursday, 07/08/10 - Batchelor 11pm  segment 

GUESTS: Co-host Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents; Bob Zimmerman, author; Ann Marlowe, Hudson Institute

Listen  http://wabcradio.com/FlashPlayer/default.asp?SPID=33447&ID=1869240

 or Download this show    http://wabcradio.com/getpodcast.aspx?sid=33447&lid=5145&id=1869240&source=1&url=http://podloc.andomedia.com/dloadTrack.mp3?prm=10803xhttp://podfuse-dl.andomedia.com/800185/podfuse-origin.andomedia.com/citadel_origin/pods/WABC/WABC-Batchelor/jbs_070810c.mp3

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WPost: Obama's new ME course has promise

 

President Obama's new Middle East course has promise

Thursday, July 8, 2010; A14   Washington Post editorial  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/07/AR2010070704479.html?wprss=rss_print/editorialpages

FOR MUCH of the past 15 months, President Obama sought to advance his goal of a Middle East peace settlement through public pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. The results were mixed. Mr. Netanyahu made significant concessions to the White House, including announcing for the first time his acceptance of Palestinian statehood and imposing a 10-month freeze on new construction in West Bank settlements. But Mr. Obama's attempt to insist on further Israeli retreats in Jerusalem and his aides' sometimes-harsh rhetoric produced a backlash both in Israel and in Washington -- and encouraged Palestinians to escalate their own demands.

With U.S. midterm elections looming, Mr. Obama tried a different tack Tuesday, showering Mr. Netanyahu with public praise and encouragement during a White House visit. The president said he believes that the Israeli leader "wants peace," praised his "restraint" on settlements and joined with him in calling on Palestinians to begin direct peace negotiations by September, when the settlement freeze expires. This switch may look craven to some of Israel's critics -- but in fact it is smart. By reaffirming U.S. support for Israel and pressing for direct talks, Mr. Obama has created an opportunity to put both Palestinian leaders and Mr. Netanyahu to the test and to discover who is serious and who is not about a two-state settlement.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been assuring the administration's envoys that he is ready to make peace. But until now he has been under no pressure to deliver. Instead Mr. Abbas has watched from the sidelines as Mr. Obama battled with Mr. Netanyahu, while raising his demands on settlements to match those of the Obama administration. Palestinians have hoped that the United States would extract further concessions from Israel or announce its own plan for a final settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. Now Mr. Abbas has a choice: Begin direct negotiations in exchange for prisoner releases and other "confidence-building measures" that Mr. Netanyahu has been offering -- or show himself to be not so ready for peace, after all.

If talks begin, Mr. Netanyahu, too, will be challenged. Mr. Obama's counterproductive focus on issues such as Jewish housing in Jerusalem has allowed the Israeli leader to rally domestic support and delay spelling out where he stands on truly central questions, such as the borders of a Palestinian state and whether Jerusalem will be its capital. Mr. Netanyahu says that he needs guarantees that the West Bank will not become a base for Iranian influence and missiles aimed at Israel, as have southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. That's not an unreasonable demand. But what will he offer Mr. Abbas in return? Only direct negotiations between the parties will make that plain.

Netanyahu: Put aside preconditions, start negotiating an end to the conflict

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/israeli-pm-peace-palestinians-11105210

ADL Welcomes Justice Department Suit Against Arizona Anti-Immigration Law

New York, NY, July 6, 2010 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) welcomed the lawsuit filed today by the U.S. Department of Justice against Arizona's harsh new anti-immigrant law.

 

Robert G. Sugarman, ADL National Chair, and Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement:

ADL welcomes the Justice Department's action to prevent the ill-advised Arizona law from taking effect later this month.

 

Immigration is a national issue, and a federal responsibility.  Rather than allow states to adopt a patchwork of disparate immigration policies, we strongly support comprehensive immigration reform that will provide a unified and focused approach to strengthen border security in a workable and humane manner.

 

The Arizona law poorly serves both our security and our values as a nation of immigrants.  Like the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police and many law enforcement organizations, we are concerned that the new law is likely to result in discrimination and more mistrust between the Latino community and the local law enforcement agencies entrusted with protecting them.

The League filed its own amicus brief last month challenging the law, arguing that enforcement of the "ill-conceived and misguided" Arizona law will irreparably damage law enforcement's ability to protect Arizona residents.

 

ADL has taken a lead role in exposing the virulent anti-immigrant and xenophobic rhetoric that has risen to the surface as part of the national debate over immigration and has documented the anti-immigrant discrimination and hate violence that this atmosphere fosters.