Mideast by Midwest

What Is Obama's Message for Tahrir Square?

2012-01-26T00:26:00.003-05:00

Mubarak, 2/1/2011

Originally published on Huffington Post

Last night, I attended the White House's State of the Union "tweet up," a gathering of a couple hundred new media addicts at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. We watched an "enhanced" version of the speech with all sorts of graphs and graphics, though I was too busy tweeting to watch. The scene at the #WHTweetup was geek chic, with most heads down busy clicking their thumbs on Apple products. Too bad the Middle East scarcely figured into the speech.

On the sidelines of the event I had the opportunity to have a few words with Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser for strategic communications. Rhodes was the author of Obama's Cairo speech, which has continued to frame the White House's approach to the region even as the tectonic plates have dramatically shifted in the interim. Here is the exclusive interview:

What is President Obama's message for Tahrir Square where Egyptians are gathering right now?

Ben Rhodes: We did a statement today. But basically tomorrow is an important day -- it's one year since the anniversary. We are taking a number of steps to support Egypt's transition to democracy. We've seen a number of important steps in recent days: the parliament; the announcement by [SCAF leader] Tantawi that they're going to get rid of the emergency law. So our message is [that] we support their transition. We're going to be there on the other side of it. We're supporting the government as they take steps to implement the transition, and we want to see them follow that road map. We want to see Egypt as a model for the rest of the region.

What about the rest of the region, which sees Washington supporting autocrats in other countries? We're about to host Yemeni President Saleh. We continue to support Bahrain, and the Jordanian king visited the White House last week.

Rhodes: We support a set of universal values that the president spoke about today -- a process of change in each of these countries. But it's going to be different in each of these countries.

How many times did he say "look" in the speech?

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mideastXmidwest

State of the Union: "the enhanced version"

2012-01-23T21:08:00.004-05:00

SOTU 2008

The State of the Union is always a fun event to peg a presidential portrait. To that end, I need to hit the drawing board tonight.

Tomorrow I'll be attending a White House Tweetup for #SOTU. Follow @MideastChannel and @mideastXmidwest for terse updates. Don't worry, I won't just transcribe the same remarks you'll be watching; I'll try to offer some savvy analysis...

The interactive part? Immediately following the speech, I'll have the opportunity to ask your questions to an exclusive panel of "senior advisors" -- that is, if you "mention" me on Twitter. Among the panelists: Ben Rhodes and ~~Mark Zuckerberg~~ [correction: Mark Zuckerman -- oops].

I'll be drawing some snazzy 'toons of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building's finest screening room, too. That's right -- we're going to be watching, "the enhanced version of the speech that features graphics, data and stats that highlight the issues the President is discussing live from South Court Auditorium." Get ready to geek out with me.

In the meantime, here is another SOTU 'toon:

Why do analysts feel compelled to always "grade" the president every January?

In which my transcription skills come in handy

2012-01-11T10:44:00.001-05:00

I sat down with Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's Executive Committee, at her Ramallah office. We shared a plate of "healthy stuff," fresh fruits and vegetables -- in contrast to the cigarette smoke-filled rooms of the Palestinian Authority's headquarters, the Muqata -- and discussed the PLO's strategies for 2012.

1. You were in Cairo three weeks ago for Fatah-Hamas reconciliation talks. How are the unity talks being affected by the Quartet's January 26 deadline?

Dr. Ashrawi: I don't even think about it as a deadline, because I would hate to link our own internal domestic issues to what the Quartet says. Frankly speaking, the Quartet hasn't been doing anything. It's just all show and no substance; all talk and no action. And I don't see why we should adopt their deadlines knowing that they're not doing anything, and all they're doing is asking us to negotiate. And they should know better because they are seeing what's happening on the ground.... We don't have anything against talks. But we have something against talks that are used for a pretext to provide Israel with cover -- legal cover, protection, and time to destroy the two-state solution.... Now either they rectify the negotiations, the so-called process, or we look for something else.

2. Is that "something else" a United Nations strategy?

David Levine's drawing of Dr. Ashrawi

Yes. We need to protect ourselves, we need to solidify and empower ourselves internally. We need to have peaceful, nonviolent resistance. We need to continue to build our institutions and work on unification. We need to repair our democracy. We need to have elections. All of these are internal issues. We need to work with the internationally community not just to get recognition but to get access - to all different instruments of accountability: legal, judicial, and so on.

I don't know why the whole world has to wax hysterical at our trying to get some accountability for Israel. Why do they insist that Israel has to be given preferential treatment and remain above the law? Of course we want to join all of the different U.N. organizations... And I don't see why everyone wants us ahead of time to promise that we won't hold Israel accountable. This is ridiculous. Why should we relinquish the victim's right to seek protection?

Keep reading at Huffington Post.

Dispatch from Area C

2011-12-30T12:55:00.001-05:00

My latest on Foreign Policy's Mideast Channel:

The last straw for Bedouin in Jerusalem's periphery?

View of dump from proposed re-location site

KHAN AL-AHMAR, WEST BANK -- United Nations officials have issued a warning that the Government of Israel's plans for Palestinian Bedouin communities living in Jerusalem's periphery could constitute "mass forcible transfers" and "grave breaches" of international law. A pending plan in the West Bank threatens to displace Khan al-Ahmar, a Bedouin village of refugees originally from Israel's south, pushed off their indigenous land in the early 1950's. Khan al-Ahmar lies on the side of a major West Bank thoroughfare and is sandwiched between the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumin and Jerusalem. This area is known as E1, an especially controversial 12 km patch of land where East Jerusalem would expand as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

It is impossible for Bedouins living here to obtain building permits from Israeli planning authorities, a situation that is not unique to Khan al-Ahmar. That Israeli officials consider Khan al-Ahmar's local community school, which educates over 70 children from surrounding villages, to be illegally constructed might spell its imminent destruction.

Over tea -- and then coffee -- Id al-Jahalin, Khan al-Ahmar's spokesman, described the perilous nature of day-to-day life in his village. There is neither running water nor electricity from a central grid here, and trash is burned as there is no waste pick-up by Israeli public services. Provocations from neighboring settlers punctuate daily routines in this pastoralist community.

The proposed site for re-residence of this community is a newly flattened plot just outside of Jerusalem, less than 100 meters from the municipal garbage dump, and in clear violation of international health standards. A thousand tons of rubbish from the Jerusalem municipality and settlements are trucked to this dump daily, making it the largest refuse site in the West Bank. An armed guard sitting atop a watch tower prohibits visitors from entering the dump. But from the proposed relocation site, one can see pipes coming out of the trash mountain, where methane gas is released in order to limit the internal combustion occurring underground. CO2 levels here are also dangerously high, according to UN officials. Standing in the squalid relocation site for the Bedouin community, the putrid scent of the dump is unbearable.


Abu Chamis in Khan al-Ahmar

Maj. Guy Inbar, a spokesman for the Israeli Defense Ministry's administration office for the West Bank, would not provide a timeline for the development of these plots, only more than a stone's throw from the dump. He said that environmental tests for the site were currently underway. "Whether a rubbish dump, a golden palace, or even Paris, I don't want to go anywhere," said Jahalin, also known as Abu Chamis. "It's my right to have a village here. It's my right for my children to have an education, and for us to live in dignity like any other human beings."

The Jewish settlement of Maale Adumin has pushed for the immediate bulldozing of the school. They have cut off all contact with Khan al-Ahmar's residents since the educational facility's construction in 2009. Ultimately, the decision whether to raze the school and transfer the Bedouin population will fall under the jurisdiction of the Defense Ministry.

Under the Oslo accords, Israel exerts full civil, administrative, and military control over Area C, which consists of 60 percent of the West Bank. Even as Ramallah has attempted to expand its influence in Area C, the Palestinian Authority (PA) refused to build a school in Khan al-Ahmar in defiance of Israeli zoning regulations. This community is one of 20 Palestinian Bedouin villages in Area C that are unrecognized. And with access to only 1 percent of Area C for agrarian usage, Bedouin children shepherd livestock on the side of busy roads. An Italian NGO assisted in constructing the community's school out of tires, mud, and used falafel oil. It is situated between the ramshackle structures of the village, also built "illegally," according to authorities in Israel. Before the six classrooms were here, young Bedouin students had to travel as far as Jericho for basic schooling. Following much pressure, the PA has now provided teachers and a head-mistress for the education facility, but has provided little else. "We know the PA doesn't care about the people here, but they should at least care about the land," said Abu Chamis. "Since 1996, [PLO negotiator] Saeb Erakat has used this road [adjacent to Khan al-Ahmar]. Three or four years ago he actually had a puncture while driving on the road, and I fixed his tire for him. I invited him to come here, but he would not come and see our life."

There are other challenges facing Khan al-Ahmar, too. To understand how unwelcome this refugee Bedouin community is, one need only look at the sewage air vent from pipes leading from the adjacent settlement: the sewage ventilation is less than a meter from the school's restroom facilities. Recent expansion of the freeway has meant that the main road is creeping onto the little land the Jahalin tribe lives on. Khan al-Ahmar could easily be linked to the public services and utilities of the nearby settlements, according to one Western official in Tel Aviv. The Israeli government, however, has not even considered such an arrangement.

It seems that there are so many disturbances here that many in the Bedouin community have become normalized to basic violations of rights, including livestock theft at the hands of settlers. Furthermore, residents fear filing official complaints to the Israeli government -- even in extreme cases, like when Maale Adumin's cesspool has overflowed into Khan al-Ahmar. "Self-defense is being punished," Abu Chamis explained, going on to say that if one were to issue a complaint against the settlement that the village could face fines for the clean-up.

"It's quite clear that the plan for mass forcible transfer relates to settlement expansion, which is not just illegal under international law but also condemned by powerful U.N. member states, including some of Israel's closest allies," warned UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness. The European Union Security Council members issued a joint statement two days ago drawing attention to ongoing settlement growth in the West Bank. "The viability of the Palestinian state that we want to see and the two-state solution that is essential for Israel's long-term security are threatened by the systematic and deliberate expansion of settlements." Meanwhile, EU envoy Andrew Stanley has specifically raised the issue of road expansion in E1 to Israeli officials.

Khan al-Ahmar, located in E1

Maj. Inbar would not confirm whether there was a master plan for relocating Bedouin communities living outside Jerusalem and would not comment on the status of demolition plans for Khan al-Ahmar. Yet the Washington Post reports that a scheme to resettle up to 2,000 Bedouins is in the works.

If the Bedouin re-settlement plan moves forward, combined with Maale Adumin's attendant expansion, a wedge would be further driven through E1, cutting off Palestinian East Jerusalem from thousands of Palestinians living in the West Bank. This would effectively make it impossible for Jerusalem to be Palestine's capital in a two-state solution. "I think we have to build in E1 and elsewhere in Maale Adumin," Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz told the Jerusalem Post last week. "...[I]t is high time to tell our American friends that this is not the [moment in which] Israel should take into consideration any objections..."

Chilly?

2011-12-06T18:58:00.007-05:00

Here's my take on Israel-US relations and where the Jewish community fits in, from The Guardian's Comment is Free:

The Israeli government has come under criticism from both the Obama administration and American Jewish communities over the past week – the latter focused on a bizarre advertisement campaign aimed at the US diaspora. The current Israeli government's insensitivity toward American Jews has gotten their attention, but whether forthcoming Knesset bills that are an affront to democratic values will cause similar alarm is yet to be seen.

Hillary Clinton, America's top diplomat, said at this past weekend's Saban Forum in Washington that she is "concerned over Israeli democracy", according to reports. Earlier in the week, prominent US communal organisations condemned a series of public-service announcements produced by the Israel's Ministry of Immigrant Absorption, which insinuated that Israeli citizens should not marry American Jews.

In one of the ads, a family split between the US and Israel shares a holiday rendezvous via Skype; when the Israeli grandparents ask their American granddaughter what holiday it is, she says that it's Christmas. "They will remain Israelis; their children won't," the ad's narrator advises. The campaign has since been withdrawn, but it is just one example of bad taste.


Clinton, by the author

More troubling is a forthcoming Knesset bill which would give the Israeli government new powers to regulate – or, more accurately, police – Israeli NGOs that receive foreign funding. The draft law would "revoke the right to income tax exemption" on such non-profits, and place a 45% tax rate on contributions from "a foreign state entity", to Israeli organisations, among other parameters scarcely seen in liberal democracies. Secretary of State Clinton was said to have criticised this piece of legislation as a threat to Israel's democratic institutions at last weekend's closed forum. She also drew attention to restrictions on women singing in public, according to Israeli news outlets. As for gender segregation on Jerusalem buses, Clinton called it "reminiscent of Rosa Parks".

One Israeli headline described US Defense Secretary Panetta's remarks at the same forum as "a slap on the face" to Netanyahu. Panetta warned against Israel's military option with regards to the Iranian nuclear program and advised Tel Aviv to "mend fences" with Egypt and Turkey. Panetta said that taking risks for peace with the Palestinians is "Israel's long-term security interest", despite the fact that talks between the two parties remain mired.

It is little surprise, perhaps, that a senior US official would be so forthcoming on security issues with Israel and the need to "get to the damn table", as Panetta put it. "The [Obama] administration has been making an ongoing strategic argument that Israel faces real, serious challenges," said Jeremy Ben-Ami, director of J Street, a group which has advocated that Washington take a bolder role in Middle East diplomacy.

Panetta's remarks do not indicate any sort of break; rather, they mesh with what former national security adviser Jim Jones and former Centcom commander General David Petraeus have said. That Clinton rebuked Israel's sequence of "anti-democratic" legislation, though, signals that Washington is taking note of the shrinking space for dissent in Israel. The past year has witnessed a variety of oppressive Knesset legislation, including laws targeting Israel's Palestinian-Arab minority and banning organised boycotts against the state.

Last week, an egregious Defamation Prohibition Law was passed, which "raise[s] the amount of punitive compensation for libel, without proof of actual damage", according to the Association for Civil Rights (ACRI) in Israel. If the NGO bill goes forward in Israel's parliament, watchdog groups like ACRI would be taxed at a punitive rate. In fact, a wide range of NGOs, today fully compliant with Israeli law, would suddenly come under an Orwellian regime.

"By focusing on individual flare-ups like the fuss over a minor ad campaign, the Israeli government is missing the bigger picture strategically," Ben-Ami told me. "American Jewish support for and connection to Israel will continue to erode over time if Israel isn't fully committed to the core values that bind the Jewish people together."

(go to the Guardian's site to read some comments...)

"Reporting from Change Square" at New America Foundation

2011-12-03T14:15:00.000-05:00

In case you missed the discussion I hosted on Thursday with Laura Kasinof and Mohammed Albasha on developments in Yemen, here's the archived video:

One step forward, two steps back

2011-11-30T16:54:00.003-05:00

"An anti-Saleh tribesman in Sana this month." via NYT

Here's a taste of my latest HuffPo piece:

Following 10 months of popular protests calling for his resignation, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh signed an agreement last week to transfer power to his vice president. It's unlikely, though, that a piece of paper will bring a peaceful transition to this beleaguered Arabian Peninsula state....

Since the agreement was signed, "plainclothes government thugs" shot dead at least five protesters in the capital. Meanwhile, "Yemeni troops appear to have unlawfully killed as many as 35 civilians in the city of Taizz," the country's third-largest, according to Human Rights Watch.

Alas, violence -- from state-sponsored forces to independent militias, not to mention drones strikes from the U.S. -- is commonplace in Yemen. That Saleh has returned to Sanaa and continues to issue statements as if he were in power -- even after accepting the deal in Riyadh -- is a perhaps a bigger threat to the transition than the continuing violence across the country.

For more, come listen to Laura Kasinof, a New York Times correspondent who has reported from Sanaa since 2009, as she reflects on Yemen's uprising tomorrow, December 1, at 12:15pm. We'll be live-streaming the discussion (here).

The Mendacious Mr. Netanyahu?

2011-11-16T14:02:00.000-05:00

My first blog at The Huffington Post:

By now you've heard that French President Nicholas Sarkozy -- without realizing that his microphone was live -- called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "a liar," at last week's G20 summit, according to reports.

Most Israelis would agree.

A full 60 percent of Israelis do not find Netanyahu to be "honest and trustworthy," according to a survey of 1000 Israelis, conducted by the New America Foundation's Middle East Task Force in 2009. Surprisingly, even among Israelis who respond favorably to their prime minister, 41 percent do not think he is truthful.

So, what's the big deal? Netanyahu's Israeli colleagues have not been shy in calling Netanyahu out either. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was quoted as saying, "A liar you were, and a liar you have remained," to Netanyahu's face, according to Sharon's son Gilad.

Dan Meridor, who now serves as minister of intelligence and atomic energy in Netanyahu's cabinet, has accused Netanyahu of "turning his lies into an art form."

Keep reading at Huff Po.

An increasingly irrelevant Mideast peace broker

2011-10-21T19:29:00.005-04:00

Here's my take on PM Salam Fayyad's visit to DC this week and where the "peace process" game stands, published at Inter Press Service:

WASHINGTON, Oct 21, 2011 (IPS) - While a growing number of influential voices here and in the region insist that the nearly 20-year, U.S.-sponsored "peace process" has reached its terminal phase, the administration of President Barack Obama remains committed to reviving direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

"…[M]oving forward, we want to see progress on the peace talks," State Department spokesman Mark Toner has emphasised repeatedly over the last two weeks, which have seen Washington's special envoy David Hale shuttling between Jerusalem and Ramallah.

"We want to see the two parties, the Palestinians and the Israelis, get back into direct negotiations. And that's where are our focus remains," he said.

But there is little reason at this point to believe that Washington's efforts will bear fruit.

That conclusion was reinforced here Wednesday night by none other than one of the process's strongest Palestinian advocates. In a speech at the annual gala of the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP), Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Salam Fayyad indicated no great eagerness on the part of his regime to resume talks with his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu.

"Our own assessment is that the conditions are not ripe at this juncture for a meaningful resumption of talks," Fayyad told the upper-crust crowd.
That has been the standard line of the Palestinians who broke off talks 13 months ago when Netanyahu rejected a U.S. offer of substantially more military aid, as well as a host of mostly security-related guarantees, if his government agreed to extend a partial moratorium on building or expanding settlements on Palestinian territory in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

That line has, if anything, grown firmer, particularly in the wake of last month's formal application to the U.N. Security Council by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, in his capacity as PLO chairman, to recognise Palestine as a U.N. member.

That Abbas followed through with the application over the vehement objections and a veto threat by Obama himself offered the clearest evidence to date of Washington's loss of influence over Palestinians, by far the weaker of the two parties in conflict.

And the fact that Netanyahu has shrugged off repeated U.S. objections to new settlement activity - including last week's announcement that it would build 8,000 new apartment units for Jewish settlers in occupied East Jerusalem - has made clear to all concerned that Washington enjoys little or no sway with the stronger.

"The notion that the U.S. has the wherewithal to get the parties to do what it wants them to do is …a thing of the past," according to Robert Malley, director of the International Crisis Group's Middle East and North Africa programme.

"The U.S. made demands that both parties felt free to ignore," he told a discussion at the New America Foundation (NAF) last week.

But even if both parties agreed to revive the "peace process", there's little indication that the long-sought two-state solution would be advanced at the negotiating table.

"When people don't know what to do, they go to negotiations," said Malley, who worked on the Israel-Palestine file at the Clinton White House. "[That's] probably the most unwise reason to go somewhere… [and is] a recipe for further polarising the situation and convincing the parties that there's no way out… [It is] a very short-term approach."

"For last 20 years, negotiations have not brought anything tangible for the Palestinians," Nadia Bilbassy, senior correspondent from the Middle East Broadcasting Center and a U.S.-based analyst originally from Gaza, told the NAF audience. In any event, she noted, while "both the (Obama) administration and the Israelis believe in the two- state solution, they don't have a vision for how to achieve it."


The U.S. is dead set on returning to the negotiating table.

Nor does it help that, despite an April reconciliation accord in principle between Abbas's Fatah and its Islamist rival, Hamas, the two main political parties remain deeply divided and unable to patch together a coalition government.

Hamas has been excluded from the "peace process" because it has not yet agreed to the three main conditions set by the U.S. and its Quartet partners, the U.N., Russia, and the European Union. They have demanded that the party, which beat Fatah in the PA's 2006 elections, reject violence, recognise Israel's right to exist, and accept previous treaties negotiated by the PLO.

Abbas received a major boost in popularity back home by defying Washington and then delivering a poignant speech on behalf of his cause and a two-state solution before the U.N. General Assembly.

But this week's prisoner exchange - an Egyptian- and Turkish-brokered deal between Israel and Hamas - has revived Hamas's fortunes at Abbas's expense, reminding everyone once again how little the PA has gained by committing themselves so devotedly to the nearly 20-year- old, U.S.-guided peace process.

The prisoner deal "levels [the] Hamas-Fatah playing field," according to Mouin Rabbani of Al-Shabaka, an international Palestinian policy network. Under the deal, Israel agreed to release 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one Israeli soldier captured by Hamas militants along the Gaza border five years ago.

The fact that Egypt and Turkey helped mediate the deal without any apparent support from the U.S. also underlined the degree to which Washington is no longer "indispensable" for getting things done and indicates that regional powers feel they have more freedom to assert their own interests independent of the U.S.

While both Hamas and Netanyahu praised the mediators, the White House reaction was more muted. "The connection between this and the peace process is not direct, at the very least," said White House spokesman Jay Carney. "The road to peace is through direct negotiations."

"[We] have to stop being such hypocritical advocates of pointless negotiations," Yossi Alpher, co-editor of the Israeli-Palestinian web magazine Bitter Lemons, said during his presentation to NAF.

Alpher, former director of the Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University and a long-time supporter of the two-state solution, has embraced the U.N. approach, although he admits it is more unpredictable.

"Once you start internationalising this conflict, it's a slippery slope and you don't know what comes next," he told the NAF audience, adding that Israel should itself take the lead in recognising Palestine.

If it did so, the conflict would become a state-to-state issue and, as such, more manageable, he argued, because it would help balance the abiding asymmetry between the two peoples. Still, a multilateral role would be essential to the process, he argued.

"I could imagine a situation in which Israel welcomes an international force to get rid of these people (in Jewish settlements and outposts in the occupied territories) and thereby reduce the risk …of strife between Israelis," he said.

Adding to the growing irrelevance of Washington's hopes to revive the peace process are recent actions by the pro-Israel lawmakers in the U.S. Congress, who vowed to punish Abbas if he pursued his statehood bid at the U.N.

While technocrats in the Security Council review his statehood application, key Republican lawmakers have placed holds on 192 million dollars in humanitarian aid to the occupied territories and another 150 million dollars in security assistance to the PA.

The Republican-controlled House Foreign Affairs Committee has even approved bills that would cut off all U.S. funding to U.N. agencies that grant recognition to Palestine, actions that provoked at least one strongly pro-Israel Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham, to suggest that Washington could lose whatever leverage it has left to influence the Palestinians.

"For the first time, there is a broad recognition of the emptiness of the American claim that the U.S. is uniquely qualified to bring the Israel-Palestine conflict to an end," said Henry Siegman, a former executive director of the American Jewish Congress and director of the U.S.-Middle East Project (USMEP) at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Plus Ça Change… Israel-Palestine after September at the U.N.

2011-10-14T18:53:00.002-04:00

Originally published at Foreign Policy

Today I hosted an interesting panel with Yossi Alpher, Rob Malley, and Nadia Bilbassy at the think tank. Malley urged the audience to "Curb Your Enthusiasm." Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Will post a video of the discussion once its archived. In the meantime, here is one of my favorite Mideast cartoons...

Lulav diplomacy

2011-10-06T23:07:00.004-04:00

My talmudic take on Succot and Egyptian-Israeli relations in Haaretz:

"Palm fronds and political thickets"

In late August, after extended verbal clashes between Israel and Egypt, which followed a deadly terror attack on Israel emanating from Sinai and Israel's aggressive response to it, a Saudi newspaper already foresaw "the ghost of a new crisis ... on the horizons of the two countries." No, the paper wasn't anticipating an Egyptian mob's shocking September 9 siege of Israel's Cairo embassy. Rather, it was the effects of a ban issued by the Egyptian agriculture minister on the export of lulavs, a key ingredient in the observance of the festival of Sukkot.

Egyptian palm-frond production is big business. Israel imports somewhere between 600,000 and 700,000 lulavs annually and has come to depend on Egypt's crop for Sukkot. This year's harvest holiday, which begins next Wednesday evening, comes as Israel is still coming to terms with the Egypt emerging in a post-Mubarak era.

It's not the first time that lulav sales have been a bone of contention. Egypt stopped exports to Israel in 2005, claiming that harvest of palm fronds hurt date output. A year later, though only a short time after the Second Lebanon War, Cairo and Jerusalem were able to find a quiet solution to the lulav issue, according to a confidential missive from the U.S. Embassy in Cairo in 2006, revealed by Wikileaks. "[D]espite the suspension of the [Egypt-Israel agricultural] working group's activities," Ambassador Frank Ricciardone reported to Washington, "Egypt would permit export of 500,000 palm fronds to Israel in time for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot."

American officials continue to show an interest in this vexing issue. Last week, U.S. Representative Howard Berman of California wrote to Egypt's U.S. ambassador, imploring him "to take all necessary steps to prevent any disruption in the supply of lulavs" to Israel, many of which are re-exported to America. Berman suggested that "the ban ... was imposed for purely political reasons," and that's likely the case. But is it possible the congressman was not seeing the palm grove for the trees?

If Egypt uses this important Jewish religious symbol to express its displeasure with Israel, it's also true that so long as Mubarak was in charge, Israel enjoyed Egyptian complicity in its blockade of Gaza and its overall strategy vis-a-vis the Palestinians.

Now that Mubarak is gone, Israel can expect relations with its Arab neighbor to bump along from crisis to crisis. Already, in addition to the border attack near Eilat, and Israel's response, which left five Egyptians dead, and the embassy invasion, we have seen repeated attacks on the pipeline carrying Egyptian natural gas across Sinai to Israel.

Mubarak was willing to cooperate with Israel, but he was encouraged to do so by Washington, which provided gargantuan military and aid packages to both parties. Now, the situation is different, and the United States is concerned. This week, Leon Panetta made his first trip as defense secretary to Egypt and, in his words, to an "increasingly isolated" Israel. His mission: "to ask them how we can be helpful in trying to improve those relations." Yet Panetta did not even succeed in securing the release of Ilan Grapel, an American-born Israeli student imprisoned in Cairo on charges of being a Mossad agent. Under Mubarak, such an incident would have been handled behind the scenes.

We can take comfort in the fact that a full 71 percent of Egyptians want to uphold "the legal state of peace" with Israel. But rest assured that, whatever party triumphs in the long-awaited Egyptian elections (legislative elections are set for late next month ), day-to-day functioning of that pact will look different afterward. In the meantime, the ruling military junta is discovering its leverage over Jerusalem. With more than half of Egyptians favoring an end of natural gas sales to Israel, expect the renegotiation of energy agreements - at the very least.

Clearly, Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is not yet confident in its rule. The storming of the Israeli Embassy, for instance, might be seen as the military allowing demonstrators to let off steam, while diverting attention from the fact that the junta is unelected and is itself a target of protest.

The sooner Israel's government internalizes the fact that it can no longer manage the "Egypt file" on a strictly bilateral basis, the better. A post-Tahrir Square regime will inevitably be more responsive to public opinion and, as such, committed to pushing those issues most likely to ruffle Israeli diplomatic feathers, chief among them Palestinian independence. (It should be remembered that the Camp David Accords included in their framework a call to resolve "the Palestinian problem in all of its aspects." )

In this sense, and considering the season, perhaps Israel would do well to think of its treaty with Egypt in terms of an etrog, that other essential Sukkot accessory. Any damage to the pitom - the stem - makes the costly fruit un-kosher. If the Camp David Accords are not cushioned by smart strategy and are instead taken for granted - which would be akin to the pitom getting knocked off - I fear that Israel won't be able to make sweet jam out of that spoiled citron.

Talking with BBC about the drone that killed Awlaki

2011-10-03T20:25:00.007-04:00

How will Anwar al-Awlaki's death impact al Qaeda—and US-Yemen relations?

That's what I talked to BBC5 about on Friday. Listen here.

There's plenty of controversy over the illegality of drone strikes. But what I find interesting is the timing of Awlaki's death—the targeted killing of the prominent cleric comes just a week after beleaguered Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh returned home from rehab in Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile in Sana'a, protests are ongoing and are increasingly being met by brutal violence at the hands of Saleh supporters.

But US-Yemen counter-terror cooperation has never been better. Laura Kasinof reports from Sana'a:

A high-ranking Yemeni official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that Yemen had provided the United States with intelligence on the location of the cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed by an American drone strike on Friday.

And for more some cartoons of the US's shadow war in Yemen, here you go.

April in Paris, September in DC

2011-09-27T00:26:00.000-04:00

The Bohemian Caverns Jazz Orchestra.

No countries for old men

2011-09-09T01:02:00.001-04:00

Still working on my caricatures of Perry, Romney, Bachmann, et al, so this old sketch will have to do for now. It's little image of Qatari and Libyan brotherhood from a 2008 Mideast by Midwest post entitled, "Club Meddling: Gaddafi skips the Paris summit and wins out."

For Ali Farzat

2011-08-30T10:49:00.001-04:00

This was first published at The Arabist -- in solidarity with Ali Ferzat, the brave Syrian cartoonist who was seized and tortured by Bashar al-Assad's thugs.

Juicy leaks on Israel, Egypt, and the minutia of Mideast politicking

2011-08-26T11:05:00.012-04:00

Fountain of leaks: Assange, the Duchamp of our time?

I spent yesterday digging deep into the latest cache of diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks. Here are some of the gems, which first appeared on @MideastChannel's twitter feed:

Great aside from 2006 cable... "Note:

Egypt

is the primary source of palm fronds for Succot to Israel." wikileaks.org/cable/2006/08/…

Egypt

& Israel trade shmatas, "fabric imported from

China

to be manufactured in Egy and then sent back 2 Isrl 4 resale" wikileaks.org/cable/2008/08/…

Israel

's labor mvment "no longer sell an idea about the state's obligation to its citizens; they sell insurance." wikileaks.org/cable/2005/11/…

Lieberman meets Lieberman: "Avigdor bemoaned lack of #Israeli leadership, harking back to the Begin era" wikileaks.org/cable/2006/04/…

Uh, good luck with that.... "Cancer Fight in Middle East Focuses on Tobacco, Awareness" wikileaks.org/cable/2005/04/…

Amb raised #Egyptian ban on US poultry exports, noting that... connection with [H1N1] outbreaks in US was unscientific. wikileaks.org/cable/2006/11/…

embassy in Tel Aviv details

Israel

's medical marijuana policy and synthetic THC therein wikileaks.org/cable/2006/12/…

MB on 9/11: "#Brotherhood issued a statement of shock,expressing regret @ this attck agst all human values" wikileaks.org/cable/2008/08/…

Beware of "Dead Sea cosmetics and skincare industry fraud" in US malls, writes

embassy in Tel Aviv wikileaks.org/cable/2009/02/… #Israel

Special Rep for #NPT Christopher Ford assured #Egypt that US supports "call for a #WMD-free Middle East" wikileaks.org/cable/2007/04/…

advocacy for a WMD-free Middle East?! wikileaks.org/cable/2008/09/…

"Thank General Soliman...for excellent intelligence cooperation and reaffirm

U.S.

commitment to #Egypt's security." wikileaks.org/cable/2009/03/…

Really?!

embassy says to Sen Lieberman in 2009 -- #Egypt's "Economic reform has been, on the whole, a success story" wikileaks.org/cable/2009/02/…

It turns out State Dept listens to @FoEMidEast: "Biblical River Jordan Now Sewage-Laden, Drying Up" wikileaks.org/cable/2005/03/…

"Awad held a press conf @ his mission in which he glowered at a pack of chortling journalists and brandished a pistol." wikileaks.org/cable/2006/04/…

Why doesn't this cable abt #Israel's ascension to OECD mention the OPT? Violation of bribery convention discussed tho. wikileaks.org/cable/2008/09/…

So many demarches to thwart the "Goldstone report," so little time. This one is US to Democ Repub of

Congo

.... wikileaks.org/cable/2009/11/…

"Israeli immigration practices r limiting W Bank enterprises' ability to conduct business"+restrictions on work permits wikileaks.org/cable/2009/10/…

Hey US officials in

Israel

-- Post via Israel National Road Safety Authority says no texting and driving! wikileaks.org/cable/2010/02/…

Israeli "interlocutors continued 2 press for the opportunity 2review the QME report prior 2 its submission 2 Congress" wikileaks.org/cable/2009/07/…

Scenesetter for SCAF policy: "Maintaining the status quo on #Egypt's FMF is 1st & foremost on Tantawi's agenda." wikileaks.org/cable/2006/03/…

@MideastChannel

Craving some legitimacy? "#Mubarak declared... he was 'begging' others to participate in the presidential elections." wikileaks.org/cable/2005/03/…

2006:"Saudi Arabia has believed&still believes in the right of people in a state of occupation to engage in resistance" wikileaks.org/cable/2006/07/…

If leadership change were 2occur at some future point, Dagan and his team predicted that Asad's successor would come from within the elites

"Despite Bashar's weakness, Dagan did not predict that he would be driven from power any time soon." wikileaks.org/cable/2005/06/…

"On a personal note, Mubarak mentioned that a date has not yet been set for his wedding to fiancee Khadija el-Gammal." wikileaks.org/cable/2006/08/…

Bahrain

pledges "concrete steps to help implement... educ, econ, and scientific partnerships" viz BHO's Cairo speech - but not democ reforms wikileaks.org/cable/2009/07/…

Jul 2008: Kerry meets with Mubarak and talks about the whole region and beyond--- except for

Egypt

! wikileaks.org/cable/2008/07/…

Soliman to Petraeus:"It is hard, but I am always optimistic. I consider myself a patient man,but I am losing patience" wikileaks.org/cable/2009/07/…

Mubarak seems 2 be trusting 2 God and the inertia of military and civ. security services to ensure orderly transition. wikileaks.org/cable/2009/01/…

Moussa complained that altho Bush in 2002 had called for a Palest state by end of '05, we were still far from that goal wikileaks.org/cable/2008/10/…

ShinBet not concerned that Hamas cld use shekels 2purchase any materials from abroad that could be used for terrorism wikileaks.org/cable/2010/02/…

"In terms of atmospherics... #Israeli delegation was "shocked" by #Mubarak's aged appearance and slurred speech." wikileaks.org/cable/2008/08/…

Hitting peak recession

2011-08-04T22:36:00.001-04:00

Not another great recession.

This summer's jam -- hands down

2011-07-18T13:51:00.001-04:00

Sketchbook: Visions of My Brain

2011-06-29T21:57:00.000-04:00

h/t Emma Darvick who coined the tagline, "Visions of My Brain."
Check out her awesome art blog.

Afghani-tooning

2011-06-27T23:12:00.005-04:00


The Washington Note

Ramirez in today's Examiner

Not sure why, but I picked up the Washington Examiner today. It featured this annoying cartoon on Obama's approach to Afghanistan---as if "staying the course" would save the day.

Matt Bors drew the perfect antidote, though it's a password protected image, so you'll have to check out his blog rather than view it at Mideast by Midwest.

For good measure, here's the cartoon I drew at the time of Obama's last serious Afghanistan policy speech, though hopefully the crystal ball, at last, will foretell a future without US troops there.

Portrait of Dutch Derringer

2011-06-26T21:44:00.000-04:00

In Bahrain: A Gulf Between US Interests and Values

2011-05-26T11:34:00.002-04:00

Here's a short op-ed I have up today on The Fresh Outlook, an online newspaper from the UK. Please excuse the British (mis)spellings!

President Obama snatched the headlines last week as he attempted to set the tone for US strategy in a period of fluidity and political change across the Middle East. Pre-empting accusations of the hypocritical nature of US foreign policy, Obama offered this humble reflection on America's position globally: “There will be times when our short term interests do not align perfectly with our long term vision of the region.”

In the speech, Obama covered the whole gambit of challenges facing America in a region where democratic protest movements are teetering on the “stable” authoritarian regimes of yesteryear. One of those challenges was a country that the president has never discussed publicly: the Kingdom of Bahrain.

While couching his comments in a commitment to Bahrain’s security, the president, in principle, stood on the side of reform. On the government of Bahrain’s repressive response to peaceful protest, he warned: “…[M]ass arrests and brute force are at odds with the universal rights of Bahrain's citizens, and will not make legitimate calls for reform go away. The only way forward is for the government and opposition to engage in a dialogue, and you can't have a real dialogue when parts of the peaceful opposition are in jail.”

Indeed, Obama delivered a slap on the wrist of Bahrain’s royal family, the Sunni ruling elite of the small Gulf kingdom with a majority Shiite population. But with Bahraini forces having cleared the Pearl Roundabout of protesters in March, much of the damage by that regime has already been done.

In the last months, government forces have defied intentional law, deliberately targeting medical workers and ambulances associated with opposition groups. 1,000 Bahrainis have been incarcerated, most of them Shiite. All the while, Saudi tanks have been stationed in Bahrain as part of a “State of National Safety”, which in reality has translated into a brutal and arbitrary sectarian crackdown on Shiite communities. The Bahraini rulers have claimed the spectre of Iranian interference, a rather hollow excuse for such grave human rights violations (and an excuse not backed by facts - according to a 2009 survey, the majority of Bahraini Shia reject the notion of a government based on religion a la Iran).

Bahrain is one of those instances where US interests and values have not lined up. With the US' Fifth Fleet docked on Bahrain’s shores – and over 2,200 Americans living off the base – the furthest Obama can go is wagging his finger. This is important real estate. For Washington, having a fleet in the Gulf is a given. Even as the Bahraini government violates its citizens’ basic rights, the long-term sustainability of the US naval base has barely been questioned.

If Bahrain does not end its brutal tactics against democratic activists, what will the US do? Sure, it’s easy to reprimand Syria or Iran for being repressive towards protesters because those countries aren’t exactly on great terms with the US. Passing congressional sanctions against Syria and Iran is standard fare. But it’s much more difficult to convince Bahrain, “a longstanding partner", to heed unwanted advice.

A parallel might be drawn to Egypt’s now deposed President Honsi Mubarak. Despite the significant strategic partnership which Mubarak’s Egypt represented for the US, when the regime went too far the Obama administration decided to support the protesters’ democratic aspirations. It’s a move for which Saudi Arabian leadership has yet to forgive President Obama. Meanwhile, the Obama administration has adopted a softened position on reform in Saudi Arabia - a country conspicuously absent from Obama’s Mideast speech.

As Washington sends high-level State Department officials to convey the urgency of reform to Manama, there is little indication that the Bahraini Sunni ruling elite will pursue a negotiated and just resolution to the current conflict. Many protestors will be standing trial in military, rather than civilian, courts (and at least one such activist appeared in court last week bearing obvious signs of torture). About 30 people have been killed by government forces since February (a huge number in a country of 500,000 Bahrainis, with about the same amount of foreign workers). No efforts to investigate these illegal attacks have been undertaken by the government. With such a track record, it seems likely that the kingdom’s leadership will stick to its sectarian guns rather than commit to a new era of political cooperation with Shiites.

If the Bahraini regime refuses to heed Washington’s advice, will the Obama administration determine that Bahrain’s authoritarian regime is simply the quid-pro-quo for keeping the Fifth Fleet in its cosy home?

As Obama said last week: “We have the chance to show that America values the dignity of the street vendor in Tunisia more than the raw power of the dictator,” referring to the individual who sparked the Tunisian revolution and, in turn, the Arab Spring. However, if Washington chooses to ignore the dark side of its military presence in Bahrain - and continues both its implicit and overt support for the repressive Bahraini regime - then US values and interests will remain very much out of synch in the post-Tahrir Square Middle East.

greatest hits

2011-04-25T10:15:00.000-04:00

Today's my birthday, so here's one of my favorite cartoons, ever.

Keeping It Brief

2011-04-07T20:51:00.001-04:00

Here are today's must-reads from the Middle East Channel brief:

'Building the Palestinian State: Sustaining Growth, Institutions, and Service Delivery' (World Bank, Economic Monitoring Report to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee)
The World Bank released its annual report to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC), a consortium of donor bodies which support the Palestinian Authority, in advance of their meeting next week in Brussels. In assessing the state of the Palestinian economy and the institutions that would underpin a future Palestinian state, Mariam J. Sherman, World Bank Country Director for the West Bank and Gaza, said, "Action is required by all parties -- Israel, the PA and the donor community -- but the closure regime remains the most substantial obstacle to Palestinian economic viability." Among the report's conclusions: "The economic growth observed in the West Bank and Gaza is arguably donor-driven, and sustainable growth remains hampered by Israeli restrictions on access to land, water, a range of raw materials, and export markets, to name a few".

Our avatar for @mideastchannel

'Popular Protests in North Africa and the Middle East (III): The Bahrain Revolt' (International Crisis Group)
The trajectory of Bahrain's protest movement will certainly be a bellwether for how the West will operate with friendly autocrats in a post-Mubarak era. While visiting Riyadh yesterday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told a reporter that he did not raise the issue of Saudi military presence in Bahrain in his meeting with King Adbullah. According to ICG, "Manama's crackdown and Saudi Arabia's military intervention are dangerous moves that could stamp out hopes for peaceful transition in Bahrain." The report also looks at the "largely unfounded" fear of an Iranian "takeover" in Bahrain.
In addition to a stock-taking of the major players in Bahrain, the report offers this takeaway:
Given the level of distrust, involvement of a credible third party facilitator appears to be both essential and urgent. The goal would be to work out a plan for gradual but genuine reform toward a constitutional monarchy, with real parliamentary powers and redress of sectarian discrimination. In this context, Saudi Arabia and the other contributing Gulf states should withdraw their security forces and equipment from the island. Protesters should continue to use peaceful means to express their grievances and demands while agreeing to negotiate with the regime.
Meanwhile, a new NOREF report, 'Consequences of the political deadlock in Bahrain on reforms in the Gulf,' assesses the unrest in light of the "Manama Spring" of the 1990s.

'Tunisian Labor Leaders Reflect Upon Revolt' (Chris Toensing, Middle East Report)
Chris Toensing, executive director of MERIP, recently interviewed key leaders fromTunisia's labor federation, the Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail, on political and labor developments since Ben Ali's ouster. According to Abdellatif Hamrouni, secretary-general of the country's federation of public works employees, "[O]ne of the issues each of us in Tunisia faces is how to get rid of self-censorship. Even now that Ben Ali is gone, two months later, we still feel that we are practicing it sometimes. We have all learned to speak in code. And we have learned to doubt everyone-even, sometimes, ourselves."

Sketchbook: Tidal Basin Blossoms

2011-04-06T00:17:00.001-04:00

Oh cherry blossoms -- I'm not usually a sucker for them, but this year I'm into it. And that means summer is almost here. It's stoop season.