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May
24, 2003
Gary
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Uri Avnery
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"Just Cause" or "Kill the Bastards"
Alexander Cockburn
Derrida's
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William S. Lind
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of the Game?
William Cook
Road to
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David Krieger
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Ilan
Pappe
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Standard Schaefer
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Long Live People's
Park!
Michael Greger, MD
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Elaine
Cassel
Tigar to
Ashcroft: "Secrecy is the Enemy of Democratic Govt."
Sam
Hamod
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Christopher Greeder
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Layoffs (poem)
Steve
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5/23
May
22, 2003
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Instant
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Ari Fleischer
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Saul
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End of the World and the Politics of Bush
Larry Kearney
Two Morning
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Chaos in Iraq: Just
What the US Wanted?
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Justice
Comes to Iraq
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Ali
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Faruqui
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Stew
Albert
Yale
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Al-Qaeda
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John
Chuckman
Blair's Awkward
Lies
Matt
Vidal
Corporate Media
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The Fine Print
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Robert
Fisk
Bush's Eternal
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Elaine Cassel
Clarence
Thomas, Still Whining After All These Years
Jonathan Freedland
Ann
Coulter's Appalling Magic
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O-Sam-a
May 17
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Smith
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Fear
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Robert
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Perry
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Chuckman
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Chaos
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More on Saudi
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Website of the Day
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Not by Western Standards
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William Lind
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The
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May 27,
2003
AIPAC Hijacks the Roadmap
How Israel's US
Lobby is Stacking the Deck
By JEFFREY BLANKFORT
It
would be a mistake to view the Israeli cabinet's narrow approval of the
Bush administration's "road map" on Sunday, (or Sharon's use of the word
"occupation") as steps towards resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict or
as a victory for President Bush. If there is any gloating to be done, it
will be by Israel's domestic US lobby and it will largely be done in
private.
Had the administration not surrendered on Friday to
Ariel Sharon's demands for significant revisions in the "road map," the
Israeli cabinet might not even have taken the vote. Moreover, the
president would not have been forced to make those concessions had not the
Israeli prime minister been backed solidly by the pro-Israel lobby and by
the majority of both houses of Congress. And thus, the supposedly
immutable "peace plan" has foundered at the starting gate.
As his part of the deal, and before the cabinet
vote, Sharon publicly accepted the plan's broad outlines, but not the
phased steps contained in the original which carried the stamp and
presumably the input of the "Quartet," (Britain, the European Union and
the Russians plus the US).
During the debate, Sharon told his cabinet that the
14 reservations about the plan that Israel presented to Washington were
not negotiable. (BBC, May 25) One that has been prominently mentioned is
Israel's refusal to recognize the right to return of Palestinians who were
expelled or who left in 1948, an issue that was not to be raised until the
"road map's" final phase.
Its prospects can best be understood by a metaphor
that arose from a press conference with Secretary of State Colin Powell
who up to Friday had been insisting that "no changes" would be made in the
"road map."
Faced with yet another humiliation at the hands of
the Israeli prime minister, Powell downplayed criticism that the US was
simply kicking the can down the road by agreeing to address Israel's
concerns "fully and seriously."
"At least we have a can in the road," Powell told
reporters. "We have to get started. And so the can is in the road now. We
will start moving it down the road with perhaps little kicks as opposed to
a 54-yarder."
"It's easy to say, why don't you solve this up front
- because you couldn't. You have to get started," Powell said, adding that
issues like dismantling some Israeli settlement outposts may be "very,
very difficult" to resolve. (Ha'aretz May 24). And if those are hard for
Powell to contemplate, one can imagine the problems the administration
will face if it attempts to deal seriously with those that can no longer
be euphemistically described as settlements and have become
well-established and well-populated towns that the US no longer considers
to be illegal.
This raises a key question. Quite apart from the
failings inherent in the document, itself, weighted as it is in Israel's
favor, it is difficult, at this point, to discern how much the effort of
the Bush administration to pursue the "road map" is one of substance as
opposed to appearances.
Every American president, beginning with Richard
Nixon and the Rogers Plan, has attempted to get Israel out of the
territories it seized in 1967, and every president since Jimmy Carter, has
attempted to get Israel to halt the building of Jewish settlements. Some
of these efforts have been more serious than others but all have failed.
Given the events of the past few days, the prospects of the current office
holder do not seem any better.
"What happened to all those nice plans?" asked
Israeli journalist and peace activist, Uri Avnery, back during the first
Bush's administration. (Ha'aretz, March 6, 1991).
"Israel's governments have mobilized the collective
power of US Jewry - which dominates Congress and the media to a large
degree - against them. Faced by this vigorous opposition, all the
presidents, great and small, football players and movie stars - folded one
after another." And so it appears to have happened once again.
By its efforts to be "more Bush than Bush," Israel's
officially registered lobby, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC), appears to have gotten its way. It wanted to appear to be
supportive of the "road map," while working to derail it . It managed this
trick by drawing on a speech that Dubya gave last June 24, in which he
expressed such strong and unqualified support for Israel that some
observers, like Robert Fisk, jokingly suggested that it might have been
written by Sharon.
Unlike, the "road map," it had no timetable and
placed the onus on the Palestinians to institute a new, democratic
government and end all "terrorist acts" before Israel was required to take
a single step.
Rather than openly criticizing the "road map," and
be seen as in opposition both to a popular president and to "peace," AIPAC
decided to get the members of both houses to sign a letter supporting the
"road map" as well as statements that Bush made in the June 24
speech.
Columnist Leonard Fein, apprised his readers of this
the May 2 Forward:
"For many weeks," he wrote, "there's been a campaign
to subvert the road map meaning, in context, to subvert the prospect of
resuming the peace process. Since the president is on record as endorsing
it, the subversion has taken ... the form of end runs rather than direct
attacks.
"Encouraged by AIPAC many members of Congress have
signed onto letters opposing any role for the quartet and insisting that
the Palestinians must fulfill all their obligations in the security realm
before the Israelis are called upon to act."
AIPAC's actions were not a secret, except that the
mainstream media wasn't looking. Its web site reported that, in the run-up
to the release of the "road map" letters were circulated in both houses,
urging Bush to "reaffirm his unshakable commitment to his June 24
principles" and to remain focused on Palestinian performance rather
setting any timetable.
When it comes to Israel, Washington plays host to
the strangest of bed mates. The Senate letter, which was signed by 88 of
the 100 senators, was sponsored by the liberals' darling, Barbara Boxer
and one of the liberals' anathemas, Mitch McConnell, along with Senators
Dick Durbin (D)
and John Ensign (R).
The House letter, initiated by Republicans Roy Blunt
and Henry Hyde and Democrats Stenny Hoyer and Tom Lantos, attracted 321
signatures.
The message to Bush, as described by Nathan Guttman
in Ha'aretz (May 19) was "cautious but clear. The congressmen say they
support the road map and want American intervention in the peace process
on basis of a two-state solution, but warn the administration not to make
too many demands on Israel before the Palestinians do their
part.
"Many are urging you [Bush] to short circuit this
process and to focus on timelines in achieving the road map benchmarks,"
they wrote. "We believe you will not be dissuaded and will focus instead
on real performance."
The letter, writes Guttman, "demands that the
Palestinians dismantle the terrorist infrastructure, restructure its
security apparatus, and provide more transparency and responsibility" on
the part of the Palestine Authority.
Guttman gave credit for this enormous support to
AIPAC. Although the letters have no formal status or legislative meaning,
Guttman points out, "the fact that so many congressmen, from both parties,
signed them should make it clear to the administration that Capitol Hill
firmly supports Israel and demands that the Palestinians fight
terror."
Israel's friends in Congress have not relied simply
on a letter. "Language codifying the president's policy was included in
the FY03 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill, passed as part of the
Omnibus Appropriations bill signed into law by the president in
February.
The Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish
American Organizations which generally lobbies the Executive Branch while
AIPAC takes care of Congress, came out against the road map, but
supposedly does not want to appear to be disagreeing with the president.
Yet its own chair, Mortimer Zuckerman, owner of the NY Daily News and the
US News & World Report, blasted the road map in an editorial in the
magazine on March 17, headlining it as "The Road Map to
nowhere."
Zuckerman, soon to step down from his chairmanship,
is keeping up the attack. In an editorial to be published in the June 2
edition of US News, he writes that, "Washington... having gone to war to
eliminate a rogue terrorist regime, can hardly now support the creation of
a new Palestinian terrorist state, with its history of contacts with
terrorist networks from all over the world."
The conference's executive director, Malcolm
Hoenlein has been more subtle, telling the Washington Post (April 30),
that ,"We want to see a process begin that has a real chance to succeed.
We think the principles enunciated by the president in his June 24 speech
would do that, and there are elements in the road map that contradict
that."
Illustrating the divisions that exist within the
organized Jewish community, the same article reported that 14 major Jewish
philanthropists had voiced strong support for the "road map."
These big donors, who included Edgar M. Bronfman,
president of the World Jewish Congress, said in a letter, to congressional
leaders that the plan "provides Israel with a distinct opportunity to
escape the bloody status quo" of the past 2 1/2 years.
"The people who signed this letter are disturbed
that the message the administration is getting from other parts of the
Jewish community is opposition to the president's plan, when it should be
enthusiastic support," said Jonathan Jacoby, with Americans for Peace Now,
who helped organize the letter's signers.
These "peaceniks" should not be confused with
supporters of the Palestinian cause. What the differences among the
majority of the Jewish community reflect is a struggle that escalated
during the Clinton administration between liberal Zionists, such as Martin
Indyk and Dennis Ross whom the president brought into the State Department
and into the Middle East negotiating process, and the right-wing Zionists
represented most noticeably by the Zionist Association of America's
bulldog of a chair, Morton Klein and the dozen or more Jewish neo-cons who
brought us the Gulf War and who now engaged in stoking the fires against
Iran and Syria in Israel's behalf.
Klein, speaking in Berkeley in the first week of
May, repeated what has become his mantra on the issue. "This road map is a
disaster," he said. "It cannot and will not work. It's further appeasing
terrorism." (No. California Jewish Bulletin, May 15)
The liberal wing of the Jewish community is very
willing to see the establishment of a truncated, demilitarized Palestinian
Bantustan under Israel's control and which would be subservient to US
interests as well, while the right-wing backs Sharon's Likud and even
further right parties and their goal of a Greater Israel. At the moment,
they are clearly in the ascendancy in the US as they are in
Israel.
The spate of suicide bombings that followed the
meeting of Sharon with Mohammed Abbas (Abu Mazen), led to an escalation of
warnings to Bush from both the Likudniks and their Christian evangelical
allies against pursuing the "road map", including a group of Born Agains
organized by former White House aide Gary Bauer, president of American
Values.
At the same time, supporters of the "road map" were
also upping their efforts, arguing that the latest violence proved the
urgency of steps to bring the two sides together. Forty members of
Congress submitted a letter to Bush last week urging him to press forward
with the "road map" while separately, 100 major Democratic donors and
activists, organized by the Israel Policy Forum, signed a letter to the
party's nine presidential contenders urging them to back the president's
plan.
The Forward's Ori Nir noted out (May 23) that "The
flurry of pro- and anti-road map activity pointed to a paradoxical dilemma
facing the president as he plans his next moves: His strongest opposition
comes from political allies whose enmity could cost him in 2004, while his
strongest support comes from liberal groups that are unlikely to reward
him politically for his efforts."
"These guys" - the pro-road map liberals - "are not
Bush's friends," said Dr. Mandell Ganchrow, executive vice president of
the hawkish Religious Zionists of America, and head of his own pro-Israel
political action committee..
He predicted that the White House would pay more
attention to the condemnations of the "road map" that emerged from a
gathering of right-wing Jewish and Christian activists in Washington on
May 18. Billed as the "Interfaith Zionist Leadership Summit," the event
drew about 400 participants and was sponsored by Jewish and Christian
groups that oppose the creation of a Palestinian state.
And it matters not, that as Fein points out, "the
fact that the road map is plainly "frontloaded," demanding much more of
the Palestinians than of the Israelis in its early phases, [and that] the
Palestinians have indicated their acceptance of it while Prime Minister
Sharon has interposed 14 specific objections."
And as Fein notes, "Sharon is hardly alone: The
Jewish gurus of this administration, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle,
William Kristol and others along with Vice President Cheney and Donald
Rumsfeld who not long ago referred to the West Bank as 'so-called occupied
territories' oppose this and presumably any reasonable alternative road
map." Moreover, he adds, "The heavies of AEI (American Enterprise
Institute) [where we find Perle again] oppose it."
In fact, by declaring that settlements built
illegally after March 2001 must be removed, the "road map" implies that
those built earlier are legitimate. By calling for Israel to halt the
killing of civilians, it affords tacit approval for the continued
assassination of whomever Israel considers a "terrorist," while placing
the Palestinian Authority in charge of eliminating any armed resistance to
the continuing occupation.
Moreover, nothing is mentioned about Israel's
building of the massive wall that has already confiscated yet more
Palestinian land. That the questions of the right of return of Palestinian
refugees and the status of Jerusalem are put off to the road map's last
phase seems to indicate that the "road map" was designed as a means to end
the Intifada and the notion of a Palestinian state of any dimensions
emerging at the end is little more than a
chimera.
This illusion has even been incorporated into
Congressional legislation. On May 16, the Forward, reported that the House
International Relations Committee had unanimously approved an amendment to
next year's State Department authorization bill, promising direct American
financial aid to a reformed, peaceful Palestinian state once it is
established.
The amendment, reportedly supported by both AIPAC
and Americans for Peace Now, ostensibly endorses Bush's two-state approach
to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and declares that "a stable
and peaceful Palestinian state is necessary to achieve the security that
Israel longs for."
Declaring that "the United States has an interest in
a Middle East in which two states - Israel and Palestine - will live side
by side in peace and security," the bill, as reported by the Forward,
calls on Israel to "take concrete steps in support of the emergence of a
viable, credible Palestinian state."
It was introduced by Lantos and Gary Ackerman of New
York, two of the Sharon regime's strongest backers in the House and
Illinois's Henry Hyde, no slouch himself when coddling Israeli
interests.
Congressional staffers cited by the Forward
described the bill, expected to "easily sail through" both houses of
Congress, as an attempt to "codify" Bush's Middle East speech of June 24,
2002, which set out conditions for creation of a Palestinian
state.
The bill's conditions, however, notes the Forward,
are more explicit than those in the speech.
It says Washington should recognize the Palestinian
state only after a new Palestinian leadership is elected, after the
Palestinians cease terrorism and incitement, take counter-terrorism
measures in full cooperation with Israel, and ensure democracy and rule of
law.
The enactment of the strict conditions appeared to
be a victory for Israel, wrote the Forward, which also viewed the
president's speech as being tougher on the Palestinians than the road
map.
The Christian Science Monitor (May 19) suggested
that Bush could use economic leverage on Israel to accede to the road
map's schedule. It pointed out that "Congress acted last month to help the
Israeli economy with a $1 billion grant in military assistance and $9
billion in loan guarantees. That's on top of the usual $2.7 billion in
annual aid to Israel."
"The $1 billion grant was automatically made
available to Israel. It even allows $263 million of that money to be used
to buy Israeli military goods. No leverage there.
"But the loan guarantees, available over three
years, depend on a presidential determination that Israel is following
proper economic policies to restrain its budget, shrink the public sector,
and encourage the private sector. Bush can, if he chooses, withhold
portions of the loan if Israel continues to spend money on the heavily
subsidized Jewish settlements.
"Israel needs the loan guarantees to cover its
sizable budget deficit and help repay older Israeli bonds."
Such pressure, however, isn't likely. In the May 2
Forward, Ori Nir writes that, "American assurances to Israel under the
road map are far more extensive than have been publicly
disclosed."
"In a letter expressing understandings about the
road map, the United States guarantees that it, not Europe or the United
Nations, will oversee the monitoring of Palestinian compliance with the
plan on security matters. Senior administration officials also have made a
point of assuring Israel and its American supporters in recent weeks that
any significant progress toward Palestinian statehood will depend on a
cessation of Palestinian terrorism."
What the article didn't mention but what apparently
was its source was a less publicized visit to Israel, before that of Colin
Powell, by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and Elliot Abrams,
who, thanks
to Rice's influence, had been appointed by Bush to
be the NSC's Director of Near East and North African Affairs.
On May 18, before Sharon's visit had been canceled,
the New York Post reported that Rice and Abrams were part of a White House
delegation that secretly visited Israel a fortnight earlier to get the
prime minister's views on the "road map."
He couldn't have had a more receptive audience.
Abrams, of Iran-Contra infamy, is a long-time Likud supporter. And while
there, Rice told Yediot Aharanot that the "security of Israel is the key
to security of the world." As if more was necessary, she added, among
other things, that she feels "a deep bond to Israel."
The three-day tour by the Americans was described by
Sharon as "the most serious White House team to visit Israel in many
years," and was intended to set the stage for what would have his eighth
meeting with Bush, during which Sharon told the Post, he has enjoyed "the
friendliest and most fruitful relations the White House ever had with an
Israeli government."
A statement from Israel's Gush Shalom, on May 18,
presumably with input from Uri Avnery, noted that," In his time as Prime
Minister, Sharon had already neatly disposed of numerous international
diplomatic proposals: the Mitchell Report, the Tenet Paper and the Zinni
Paper, the Saudi Initiative - to name only the best known.
"Still, the 'road map' initially seemed to tax his
considerable talents: a paper bearing the combined imprimatur of the US,
EU, Russia and the UN, which had been at the top of the diplomatic agenda
for nearly a year, which was formally launched with the personal
sponsorship of the US President fresh from victory in Iraq and which was
immediately accepted in its entirety and without reservations by the
Palestinian side.
"Yet none of this seemed to deter Sharon from
industriously - and, as seems at the moment, successfully - subverting and
overturning that initiative, too."
As if to underscore Gush Shalom's statement, an
unidentified administration official was quoted in the New York Times (May
21) as asking, "How many special envoys have gone out there and had their
reputations ruined.
Where are we going to find somebody to do it when
the chances are so poor?"
Jeffrey Blankfort is the former editor of the Middle East Labor Bulletin and
currently hosts radio programs on KZYX in Mendocino, CA and KPOO in San
Francisco. He can be reached at:
jab@tucradio.org
Yesterday's
Features
Standard Schaefer
Lifting the
Sanctions: Who Benefits?
Ron
Jacobs
Long Live People's
Park!
Michael Greger, MD
Return of Mad Cow:
US Beef Supply at Risk
Elaine
Cassel
Tigar to
Ashcroft: "Secrecy is the Enemy of Democratic Govt."
Sam
Hamod
The Shi'a of
Iraq
Christopher Greeder
After the
Layoffs (poem)
Alexander Cockburn
Derrida's
Double Life
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog
5/23
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