mens hairstyles 2011: Barry Rubin

Friday, July 29, 2011

Palestinian “Moderate” Shows Why Real Peace is Impossible At Present

By Barry Rubin

Nabil Shaath has given a fascinating and insightful interview that is well worth analyzing. But first let’s take a look at who Shaath is.

Supposedly, he is the archetypal Palestinian moderate. There was a time when the Western media ridiculed the Israeli declaration that he was a secret Fatah member. When Israel agreed to negotiate with non-PLO Palestinians, the PLO put his name forward although it knew, of course, that he was no such thing. Peace processors ridiculed Israel’s refusal to accept him.

Since 1994, he has held several high positions. He has been credibly accused, by Fatah militants who criticized Yasir Arafat’s corruption, of taking a lot of Palestinian Authority money for himself and his family.

Nevertheless, it is reasonable to call Shaath as moderate as anyone in the PA’s leadership, more moderate than the Fatah leadership. And what does Shaath say in an interview on July 13, 2011:

Nabil Shaath: The recognition of a [Palestinian] state…will make many things possible in the future. Eventually, we will be able to sign bilateral agreements with states, and this will enable us to exert pressure on Israel. At the end of the day, we want to exert pressure on Israel, in order to force it to recognize us and to leave our country. This is our long-term goal.”

In other words, the goal is not to come to a deal with Israel but to gain recognition from other countries which will pressure Israel and force it to give the PA what it wants. (Incidentally, this is pretty much Yasir Arafat’s strategy from 30 years ago, though he was using a higher level of violence in that process.)

But what does the phrase “leave our country” mean as a “long-term goal?” Does “leave our country” mean just the West Bank and east Jerusalem (pre-1967 borders without mutually agreed swaps) or wiping Israel off the map and replacing it with an Arab Muslim state? It’s ambiguous, isn’t it? So perhaps Shaath is a moderate (as advertised in the Western media? In this case, though, Shaath gives us an answer.

“[The recent French proposal, quite friendly to the Palestinians generally] reshaped the issue of the “Jewish state” into a formula that is also unacceptable to us-–two states for two peoples. They can describe Israel itself as a state for two peoples, but we will be a state for one people. The story of `two states for two peoples’ means that there will be a Jewish people over there and a Palestinian people here. We will never accept this….We will not sacrifice the 1.5 million Palestinians with Israeli citizenship who live within the 1948 borders, and we will never agree to a clause preventing the Palestinian refugees from returning to their country.”

In other words, Shaath, one of the most important and relatively moderate Palestinian Authority leaders, is against a two-state solution. First, there will be a Palestinian state “for one people,” that is an Arab, Muslim state. But there can be no recognition of Israel as a Jewish state because that implies a permanent peace. Shaath and the Palestinian leadership almost unanimously seek a second stage in which the “Palestinians with Israeli citizenship” plus the “returning…to their country” of Palestinian refugees will turn Israel into an Arab Muslim Palestinian part of Palestine.

This is merely a restatement of the “two-stage” solution of the PLO adopted forty years ago. No real progress in 40 years, despite all the disasters and potential lessons seen by the Palestinians! I have been very skeptical about the peace process, especially for the last 15 years, but I don’t think I’ve ever read anything that has so brought home to me why this is such a mirage because Shaath is so open about it and if anyone could be expected to support a real two-state solution it would be him.

Will anyone read and understand what Shaath is saying who believes that peace is at hand and that the Palestinian leadership is eager for a two-state solution?

Incidentally, Shaath also accurately reflected what many Arabs—including relatively moderate ones—think about U.S. policy. He sees Obama as weak: “President Obama will not make his presence felt in the coming 14 months….In practical terms, the US does not play a role any more in the Middle East, although it does not want to acknowledge or accept this….The US has no real presence.”

This observation is equally devastating. And again will it penetrate at all into much of the mass media? Guess you should be congratulating yourself that you read other sources.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and Middle East editor and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org. His articles published originally in places other than PajamasMedia can be found at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

The Very Low Standards of the "International Community"

By Barry Rubin

Israel is constantly urged to put its trust in the international community, an idea that hasn't worked out too well in the past. Now the UN special envoy for Lebanon has given another reason why Israel shouldn't take risks and make concessions based on the hope of support from international guarantees.

While he did about the best he could given his situation, Michael Williams, the British diplomat working for the UN in this job, said the UN-sponsored ceasefire that ended the Hizballah-Israel war in 2006 is holding up "very well."

Technically, this is quite true. There hasn't been a new war or cross-border attacks. But that's merely because Hizballah has been too busy taking over Lebanon successfully and preparing for the next war. As Williams admits, arms have flowed to Hizballah (from Syria, though he doesn't say that). Williams only says that Lebanon's borders are "porous," a wonderful diplomatic euphemism for state-sponsored arms smuggling. The Gaza Strip's borders with Egypt, by the way, have become porous in the same way.

Hizballah has also moved back into southern Lebanon--something the UN was supposed to prevent--and rebuilt its system of tunnels and military strongpoints. In five years, the UN force has never interfered with these Hizballah activities--not once.

Imagine if you will how UN and international guarantees would work with a Palestinian state. Would the General Assembly vote to condemn Palestine for breaking its commitments? Would any foreign force that was part of a peace agreement deal ever act forcefully to stop weapons or terrorists from crossing the border into Palestine? Would they fight to stop terrorists from crossing the border from Palestine into Israel?

Of course not. Yet that point is not taken into account by any Western government, academic study, or mass media coverage. But it is taken into account by Israel. Otherwise we will read about the UN special envoy for Israel-Palestine peacekeeping talking about how well things are going as incitement, terrorism, and violations of the agreement take place daily.

But here’s an example of what can be expected.

When you arrive at the 'Palestine in the Eyes of the Children of Martyrs (Shahids) Summer Camp' you are assigned to be in one of four groups, as a Palestinian Media Watch report translating the story about it in a PA-connected Palestinian newspaper:

Dalal Mughrabi group: In 1978 she led the most lethal terror attack in Israel's history, in which 37 civilians were killed, 12 of them children.

Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad) group: He was the head of the Black September terror group. He planned many terror attacks including the murder of two American diplomats in Sudan, as well as the murder of 11 Israeli athletes in the 1972 Munich Olympics

Abu Ali Mustafa group: General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). He planned numerous terror attacks against Israeli civilians.

Yasir Arafat group: He was boss for all of the others.

This is roughly the equivalent of a political group having a summer camp where children were put into an Anders Breivik group, the man who murdered adults and children in Norway. Such an organization would then not be very likely to receive huge amounts of Western funding, favorable media coverage, and the near-universal labeling as "moderates" while the people the gradates of the Anders Brevik group wanted to kill were vilified.

Yet this is a project not of Hamas but done by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and not just by the PA but under the sponsorship of everyone's favorite Palestinian moderate, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who visited the camp to participate in the closing ceremonies, which he also sponsored.

Now do keep in mind that the PA could easily name these groups after, say, Palestinian doctors and educators or even politicians of the past who weren't directly involved in anti-civilian terrorism. Arafat is going to be a name much used (though he was a disaster for the Palestinians as even many PA people admit privately) but Mughrabi has become Fatah's iconic terrorist and hero. The real argument being made to Palestinians is not, "We can get an independent state and raise living standards higher," but rather, "We can kill more Israelis than Hamas can."

Good news, though. If the PA is admitted to the UN as a member it can join UNICEF and receive UN money for….sending kids to summer camp.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and Middle East editor and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org. His articles published originally in places other than PajamasMedia can be found at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com