Update on Diplomatic Initiatives

Officers of the EU Border Assistance Mission at Rafah at a Medal ceremony. 

The mission has been on standby since June 9, 2007 (EU BAM Rafah)

Israel has agreed to setting up a "humanitarian corridor," which amounts to a daily, unilateral cease fire around Gaza City, between 1 and 4 pm. This will take some of the pressure off the Foreign Ministry as the diplomatic initiatives being discussed by various powers multiply.

The Israeli cabinet's deferral of a vote (Ha'aretz English) on expanding the ground operation must also be viewed as an attempt to show Israel's interest in a cease fire rather than the continuation of war. However, the conditions for a cease fire to go into effect are strict: an end to rocket fire and a commitment by the powers to combating the arms smuggling in a viable and proactive manner. It's unlikely that these prerequisites can be met soon. For one, Hamas's latest statement rejecting  a permanent truce with Israel only serve to strengthen arguments against a cease fire. More importantly, the proposal to internationalize the struggle against the arms smuggling tunnels still faces Egyptian opposition. It will be difficult to arrive at a solution that significantly upgrades border security. No one will accept a return to the days when impotent EU monitors "observed" the Rafah crossing. Apparently, France and the U.S. are now cooperating to persuade Egypt to implement measures with teeth:

Meanwhile, the international diplomatic effort being led by the United States, France, Britain and Egypt is still focused on an initiative to deploy an international force of experts and troops that would assist Egyptian authorities in dealing with the tunnel system Hamas has built along the Philadelphi Route, which borders Sinai. 

According to a political source in Jerusalem, France and the U.S. are working hard on Egypt to get it to agree to the initiative. 

"If a solution is found, we will have no problem in immediately bringing the operation to an end," the Israeli source said (Ha'aretz). 

Can the Egyptians be convinced that the internationalization of the crossings is in their best interest?

My sense is that the Egyptians themselves do not want the fighting to end yet, and are hoping for further attacks on Hamas's military forces and political infrastructure:

Meanwhile, Egypt denied on Tuesday a report that President Hosni Mubarak had told European ministers on a peace mission that Hamas must not be allowed to win the ongoing war in Gaza. 

Haaretz reported on Tuesday that Mubarak made the comment on Monday to a visiting European Union delegation, which included several European foreign ministers. "If an Israeli newspaper published comments such as these, non-attributed, from a closed meeting, how credible can it be?" said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki (Ha'aretz).

European Division on Iran

It looks like Sarkozy and Kouchner have dramatically re-oriented French foreign policy on Iran. For the first time, the U.S. is getting rhetorical support from Europe in its attempts to ratchet up the pressure on the Iranian regime. The Germans, on the other hand, have been far more reluctant to endorse calls for more aggressive economic sanctions lately - in part, because as one of Iran's biggest trading partners, they have the most to lose.

In light of all this, I continue to be amazed by what passes for analysis at the Süddeutsche Zeitung. While the commentator acknowledges that German "skepticism" is based on economic interests, there is no attempt to explain Kouchner's logic or French interests in the matter. Instead, we get a vague mixture of a morality that sees all threats of military force as taboo and the condescension at which the German center-left excels: "Klug war es nicht" ([Kouchner's statement] was not very clever).

Making Hamas Palatable

Sergey Lavrov, 17 September 2004.
Photo by Mikhail Evstafiev

Until now, the Russians have maintained at least a posture of ambiguity about their position on the Mecca agreement and the resulting Palestinian unity government. That is to say, Russian President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov have pretended that they would toe the Quartet line, which demands that the Palestinian government recognize Israel before sanctions on it are lifted.

It seems that the Russians, too, have realized, like some of the European statesmen who have been pushing Israel to negotiate with Hamas, that the movement has no intention of conceding anything on the recognition front. To get around this significant obstacle, the Russians have now made it clear that they do not really care.

The real priorities for Russia lie in throwing a stick in the spokes of the U.S., and in ingratiating themselves with the Palestinians and their Arab supporters, at no real cost to themselves (the Russians could care less about what happens in Gaza, the West Bank, and in Israel). These aims require a lifting of the sanctions against Hamas - without placing such exacting requirements on the Palestinians as recognizing the existence of the Zionist entity. Hence, it is enough to dangle the promise of a cessation of Qassam firing - a hudna of unknown duration. If that doesn't work out, no one will ever really expect Russia to bear responsibility for its enforcement anyway.

Nevertheless, it must be at least a little embarrassing to have Khaled Meshal, the head of Hamas's political wing in Damascus, say, in Moscow, that the organization will not recognize Israel, immediately after a Russian announcement of support. After all, according to a February 26 statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry,

There was reaffirmed on the Russian side the position in favor of the achievement of an inter-Palestinian consensus with due regard to the well-known criteria of the Middle East Quartet of international mediators and restoration of the Palestinians' peace dialogue with Israel on an international legal basis (emphasis added; Russian MFA).

To then have the organization's Gaza spokesman Ismail Radwan declare that "We have not given up in any way our position regarding the territory of Palestine," and a different Hamas figure announce that

[Hamas's] position is clear. All the land of Palestine [from the sea to the river] belongs to the Palestinians and Israel is the enemy. However, [Hamas's] political horizon offers a hudna for 15-20 years, in return for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders, the return of the refugees and the release of the prisoners (Ha'aretz),

makes it difficult to render the Russian decision in terms consistent with Quartet policy. This is where Chirac comes to the rescue. In a move that is all too typical of his foreign policy in the Middle East, the French president has announced that he will push the E.U. to support the new unity government - no matter what, it seems. It remains to be seen which way the Germans will swing; the Christian Democrats are staking out a pro-American, anti-Putin position, while the Social Democrats have been following the old Schröder line (see my previous post on this).

ADDENDUM: Avi Isaharoff and Amos Harel argue not only that "Hamas is still Hamas" but that the organization has basically already defeated Fatah. There is no doubt that it will get only stronger in the future. Even if international sanctions persist, the money will come either from Iran or from the Saudis. My only hope at this point is that the Iranians pour so much of their oil revenue into Gaza that the mullahs go bankrupt.

Russia and the Mecca Agreement

Putin and King Abdullah (Photo: Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia)

It remains to be seen how long the Saudi-brokered Mecca agreement between Fatah and Hamas will last. The new unity government has not been formed yet, and the success of the transition to it represents the first test of this document. The other, equally significant test that the agreement faces is the international response.

The motivations behind the Saudis' mediation efforts were at least three-fold. For one, they continue earlier efforts by the Saudis, most notably the peace plan of 2002, to seize the initiative to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli and Arab-Israeli conflicts, with an eye to both the Arab street and the West. Two, the Mecca agreement was an attempt to reassert Saudi influence over the Palestinians, especially as Iran and Syria have made claims to sponsorship over Hamas and Islamic Jihad. And finally, the Saudi government might be hoping to force the Americans and the Israelis to back down on their demands that Hamas recognize Israel's right to exist, thereby providing a ticket for the movement's entry onto the world stage.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, currently on a trip to Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states has long been pushing for Israel to drop its objections to Hamas. He immediately hailed the Mecca agreement, and used the opportunity once again to undermine the policy of the U.S. and the EU. In so doing, Putin may be ingratiating himself simultaneously to the Saudis and to the Palestinians, as well as their backers. The question is now whether the Europeans, many of whom (with the exception of the Germans) have long been critical of the recognition demands anyway, will side with Russia or Israel and the Americans.

The Russian declarations about the Mecca agreement should be seen in conjunction with Putin's recent anti-American tirade at the Munich security conference. Russia is clearly trying to play spoiler wherever it can, in order to increase its bargaining power vis-a-vis the U.S., especially in the former Soviet Union but also when it comes to economic interests at large. But to be effective at obstructing American policy aims, Russia cannot do without the Europeans. We saw the potential of a Moscow-Berlin-Paris alliance in the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Since then, however, Franco-American relations have improved significantly, and the leading candidates for the upcoming French presidential elections are unlikely to move closer to Putin. In Germany, the return of the Christian Democratic Party, led by Angela Merkel, to power, has resulted in the reconstruction of the transatlantic alliance between Washington and Berlin, undoing the damage to it done by Gerhard Schröder's SPD government. Merkel, moreover, is deeply suspicious of Putin's ambitions and his moves in Russia, the Caucasus, and in East Central Europe. All this does not bode well for Russia's aims to get Berlin and Paris to play spoiler and obstruct American policy in the Middle East with it.

Finally, unlike the Arabs and the post-colonialists in the West, Germany's elite still believes that Israel as a Jewish and democratic state has a right to exist. Whereas among European and American academics, Israel is an anachronism or a great injustice (the Naqba is equivalent to the Holocaust, declares a recent op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor), German elites take very seriously the implications of Hamas's refusal to recognize Israel; a refusal which plainly reveals the maximalist intentions of large parts of the Palestinian nationalist movement unto the present day.

The Jewish Vote in France

Segolene Royale (photo from her official web site)

The JTA has a piece on the Jewish vote in the French presidential race. A number of French Jews interviewed in the article who identified themselves as backers of the Socialists are voting for Nicolas Sarkozy, the Gaullist candidate this time. The conclusion of the reporter's analysis, apparently based on the opinion of one Michael Sebban, a 38-year-old high school philosophy teacher, is that French Jews are not so much voting for Sarkozy as against the Socialist candidate Segolene Royale. The reason cited: her inexperience in foreign policy, especially when it comes to the Middle East.

The article rather uncritically parrots the line that Royale is anti-Israel. As we have reported previously (see bottom), this is simply not true. The JTA article also paints Royal 's Middle East trip as a debacle. That was certainly not the Israeli impression - see Daniel Ben-Simon's feature in Ha'aretz, "Diplomatic neophyte? No way," written in the wake of the Segolene craze that swept through Israel when Royal visited the country.

Of course, the French Socialist party is hardly a great friend of Israel - but neither is Chirac's Union pour un Mouvement Populaire. For the classical UMP line one only has to look at Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie's work during and after the Lebanon war.

One of the top priorities for French Jews, as the JTA article also suggests, is fighting crime and antisemitic attacks, especially in the suburbs that are home to large populations of North African immigrants and their children. Much of France's Jewish population is also North African. In the past, the Jewish and Muslim Algerians, Tunisians, and Moroccans may have cooperated on social issues, but that era has come to an end with the explosion of attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions since 2000. Sarkozy has been unequivocal in his efforts to combat crime and assaults on Jews. This stance, combined with his support for Israel, have endeared him even to those traditionally aligned with the Socialists. French Jews, like American Jews, have traditionally voted for the left. It remains to be seen whether they will continue voting Socialist (just as American Jews have continued voting for the Democrats) or switch over to the Gaullists.

The chic of Israel Bashing

Bar Refa'eli makes French writer hot
Two days ago, I found myself in dire need of some divertissement on my long trans-Atlantic flight from Tel Aviv to Montreal via Paris. The first few hours of my flight went quite well. I passed the time enjoying my Air France dinner, watching another ridiculous movie ("Nacho Libre") and reading a stack of newspapers. Tired of Le Figaro and the Herald Tribune, I got up and went to the magazine stack where I picked up a copy of the weekly Le Point. Gracing the first page was a picture of none other than the somewhat controversial Israeli super-model, Bar Refa'eli. The piece accompanying the picture was a fluffy article by Patrick Besson about his summer vacation in Serbia. In addition to several patronizing and mocking remarks about Serbia’s transition to democracy, most of the one-page piece was devoted to an oh-so supercilious "analysis" of the Serbian "press", the focus being on the local version of Elle magazine. Refa’eli figured into the story because she happens to have been on the front cover of the magazine’s August edition and because her first name drew Besson’s attention. In a rather lame bit of French humour, Besson, who is exalted as a star of French satire on a French foreign ministry web site, writes that he could not help but be attracted by a woman whose first name is "Bar" (haha).

Besson, who turns out to be a real connoisseur of women’s magazines (perhaps he should write for Elle, rather than a news magazine that competes with L’Express), devotes an entire paragraph to Refa'eli. I personally don’t care much for Refa'eli, her Victoria’s Secret commercials or her acting. What caught my attention was the way in which Besson used Ref'aeli in his story as a cover for some hard core Israel bashing. Talking about Refa'eli’s newest project, Besson writes:

”Elle [Refa'eli] tourne son premier film en Afrique du Sud où il n'y a plus d’apartheid, ce qui risqué de la surprendre car dans son pays il y en a encore un.”

She is shooting her first film in South Africa where there is no longer any apartheid, something that might surprise her given that it still exists in her country

I don’t want to get into the injustice of the apartheid lie. Anyone who thinks that accusing Israel of being an apartheid state is a legitimate critique can look up my earlier post on the subject or look up a piece published in the Guardian last year by former South African anti-apartheid activist Benjamin Pogrund. What disgusts me in Besson's writing is the glibness with which he bashes Israel. For him, it's another colourful comment for his "pastiche". Besson feels no need to reflect about his words, because for him, bashing Israel is as banal and chic as putting down a super-model. To me, this article is another indication of Israel’s dire position. The apartheid myth is an attack on Israel's legitimacy and its use by Besson in a mainstream news magazine attests to the fact that it resonates with the French public. What makes the whole thing rather ominous is that I can think of very few other countries that would be so readily demonized by people like Besson, other than the United States. To many Europeans, Israel is already a pariah state. How much longer will it take until the first European governments begin to openly support a boycott of Israel?

Special Friends: France and Lebanon

The extremely close ties between France and Lebanon were on display Monday as French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin traveled to Beirut, the highest ranking emissary of any state to make the trip amidst the Israeli bombardment. In public comments, De Villepin has expressed his solidarity with the Lebanese people and called for "une trêve humanitaire immédiate [an immediate humanitarian peace pact]."

Indeed the French exercise great influence over the Lebanese. So it was particularly interesting to learn of the subtly crafted French position in today's editorial in Le Monde. While Jacques Chirac has denounced the disproportionality of Israeli reprisals, his recriminations of Israel have been muted. He has saved some of his harshest criticism for Hezbullah and its sponsor states (whom M. Chirac, treading lightly on Russian sensibilities in St. Petersburg, declined to name). As it turns out, former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated in February 2005 by agents widely considered linked to Syria and pro-Syrian Lebanese elements, was Chirac's "meilleur ami étranger [best foreign friend]." His death had a profound effect on Chirac, and a rapprochement of American and French and interests in the region followed.

When the smoke clears, Chirac wants Hezbullah disarmed in fulfillment of UN Security Council Resolution 1559. That is definite, and that is good for Israel, the US, and the prospects for peace in the Middle East. In Le Monde's analysis, Natalie Nougayrède writes:

Jacques Chirac est arrivé à la conviction qu'aucun gouvernement démocratique ne sera viable au Liban, ni capable d'exercer sa souveraineté sur tout le territoire, s'il n'est pas mis fin à la capacité de nuisance du Hezbollah. [Jacques Chirac has arrived at the conclusion that no democratic government will be viable in Lebanon nor capable of exercising its sovereignty over all of its territory if it does not put an end to Hezbollah's capacity to cause trouble].

Chirac's conviction has important implications. First, the French certainly won't be putting undue pressure on Israel in the coming days to ease up on genuine Hezbullah targets. And second, if there is to be a new UN force in Lebanon, whether in the south, or, as Kofi Annan seems to imply, elsewhere in the country as the Lebanese army itself deploys in the Hezbullah-controlled south, there is a serious force of will on the Security Council to give this UN deployment some teeth. After all, I think most can agree that it won't be the Israeli Air Force alone that finally disarms Hezbullah.

"Envie de lui péter la gueule"

Recent developments are out in the Zidane-Materazzi controversy that don't yet have anything to do with the Jewish world or the Middle East -- though I should mention that Kishkushim will be the first to correct those who would call Zidane an Arab (dirty or otherwise) and remind them that he is a Kabyle. What's more, some have called the Kabyles the "new Jews of Algeria."

The Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera, reports that FIFA, world soccer's governing body, bowing to pressure from the likes of SOS Racisme and Zizou's cousin Mokhtar Haddad, will launch a probe into the circumstances surrounding the headbutt.

The SOS call didn't alarm me as much as this comment from Mr. Haddad: "We think he either called him a terrorist or a son of Harkis [Algerians who fought on the side of France during the Algerian war of independence]."

Meanwhile, French defender William Gallas has declared his support for Zizou. The Frenchman says there is only one thing to do with these Italians: "crack their faces open."

I'm confused. Materazzi says he isn't cultivated enough to know what an Islamic terrorist is, but he knows what a Harki is? Rather than try to solve this puzzle, Jennie has suggested that we perform some tests to see how bad a headbutt to the thoracic zone hurts in an attempt to establish whether Materazzi is as good an actor as the French coach Raymond Domenech.

It's Over

The Tragic Fall of Zinedine Zidane

The world's greatest sporting event came to an end today, as Italy defeated France on penalty shots. It is an understatement to say that France has an image-problem in Israel. Thus, it was no big surprise that many Israelis were cheering for Italy. Nevertheless, the French team's hard work and especially the leadership of Zinedine Zidane had earned les bleues the grudging respect of many football fans here. All this admiration, however stinting, was erased at the end of tonight's game, when "some dark force," as the Israeli commentator put it, took over the retiring 34-year-old. After an exchange of words with Marco Materazzi, Zidane knocked the Italian player to the ground with a brutal head-butt to the chest, and then went on playing as if nothing had happened (though half a minute later he began to take off his arm band). I think it is not an exaggeration to call Zidane's head-butt and his red card in the second overtime period a tragedy - in the Shakespearean sense. It was painful to see this hero fall so low. From that point on, I could not watch the game without a deep sense of disappointment.

To be fair, even in Israel, and even after Zidane's self-destructive antics, there were a few voices that continued to support France - perhaps davka this tortured outburst of rage enamored the player to a few. One fan at the cafe where I was watching the game, on Ben Yehuda Street in Tel Aviv, kept repeating that Zidane was no frayer - the popular and infamous Israeli expression for a "sucker." One fan added the old adage that "you can take the boy out of the 'hood, but you can't take the 'hood out of the boy." But most of the cafes and bars on the street erupted in controlled applause and cheering when Italy clinched the cup.

Other local reactions: one fan, who seems to have been an immigrant from South America, kept insisting that the French team was not "French" - pointing at players like Makalele, Thierry, and, of course, Zidane. His neighbor seemed genuinely perturbed at this, and a small argument broke out. Strangely enough, the South American also repeated several times that he was "for the blacks," and that he liked them much more than the French. It was nevertheless a perverse observation. For all of France's social and ethnic tensions, the composition of its team seems much more "normal" than that of Italy or Germany, for example. I wonder what the South American thinks about Abbas Suan, the Israeli Arab who was one of the national team's star players during the World Cup qualifying stages.

Olmert Pitches Convergence Plan to the Europeans

An honor guard for Olmert in France (Channel 1)

It is not clear what Israeli PM Ehud Olmert hoped to get out of his trip to Europe other than crumpets and croissants. So far, Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac have reacted almost identically to Olmert's declarations about the great concessions he is prepared to make as part of his "convergence" plan: with tired indifference. Contrary to Le Monde, which imagined another instance of Anglo-American perfidy, speculating that

son plan dit de "regroupement" ("convergence" en anglais) ... aurait reçu les soutiens de MM. Bush et Blair [Olmert's "regroupement," or "convergence" plan in English, has received the support of Bush and Blair]

Blair actually did not endorse the convergence plan at all (see Aluf Benn's column in Ha'aretz for an analysis of the British position).

Olmert's plan envisions the "realignment" or bringing into Israel of most West Bank settlements, as well as the inclusion of some land beyond the 1967 borders to make the large, nearby settlement blocs continguous with the pre-1967 lines. It represents the second stage of the withdrawal from the territories acquired by Israel as part of the Six-Day War.

While Blair and Chirac did not express enthusiasm for convergence, they also have not expressed overt opposition to Olmert's plan. Rather, they have chosen to chant the old mantra of negotiated settlements, which Olmert has been clever enough to make a central part of his addresses as well. A unilateral solution, he emphasized several times, would only result if no partner could be found. Along the way, he repeated Israel's desire to work with Abbas, while stressing his opposition to dealing with Hamas, which still has not recognized the Jewish state's right to exist. This latter position too went unopposed by the Europeans. Here it is relevant to note the "overwhelmingly negative" perception of Hamas among Europeans reported in a recent poll by The Israel Project.

The withdrawal from the West Bank will be far more complicated than the "disengagement" from the Gaza strip. This is obviously true with respect to the number of people and settlements that will be evacuated, as well as with regard to the issue of final borders. But on the international front too, certain difficulties loom ominously. The Europeans will balk at recognizing the convergence as a withdrawal "from territories occupied in 1967" without serious efforts at negotiations with the Palestinians. And there is the rub. There is, as of yet, no partner on the Palestinian side who would accept Olmert's plan. Thus, if Israel hopes to attain international recognition of its new borders through another series of unilateral moves, it had better think again.

Legislative Stalling Prevents Vote on French Bill against Genocide-Denial

A protest in France against Turkey's admission
to the EU, September 2005 (courtesy of AP-Photolur)

Some of you may know that France is one of the few countries that officially recognizes the Armenian genocide perpetrated by Turkish soldiers and irregulars during World War I. Following on that law, which was passed in 2001, when the PS (Socialists) had a majority in the Assemblé Nationale, opposition politicians proposed a bill outlawing the denial of the genocide. Such a law is currently on the books with regard to the Shoah; the fine is 45,000 euros. However, it seems that the ruling UMP (Gaullists) deliberately limited time for discussion of the bill, preventing legislators from voting on it yesterday. As a result, the resolution has been shelved until October. This followed French Foreign Minister Douste-Blazy's public opposition to the bill, reported by AFP:

"If adopted, this text would be seen as an unfriendly gesture by the great majority of the Turkish people," he told lawmakers, warning its adoption would have "serious political consequences and weaken our position not only in Turkey but across the entire region."

As I have mentioned before, Israel unfortunately does not recognize the Armenian genocide. You can probably imagine how important it is for the Armenian people to have Jewish and Israeli support for recognition. Perhaps we can make it happen, soon and in our days.

In a recent interview, the Executive Director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, Professor Israel Charny remarked that

"There are three people in our state, who openly speak of the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey. These are Professor Yair Auron, Yossi Sarid and I. All others keep silent due to political considerations. Israel is in an Islamic circle and most importantly it depends on Turkey in water supplies. Proceeding from this the Israeli Government is silent on the events in 1915. Though Israeli chief rabbi Yona Metzger visited Tsitsernakaberd Memorial in Yerevan and in fact recognized the tragedy in 1915 as a genocide, which is a good precedent. The chief rabbi has much influence, but he does not represent the Israeli Government."