http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/crude-rewrite-of-history-demonises-palestinians

It’s rare that a seemingly incontrovertible aspect of modern history suddenly gets a new interpretation. And it’s even rarer when that comes from a major national leader. But Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has recently posited that Adolf Hitler wasn’t primarily responsible for the Holocaust after all. The real culprit was, Mr Netanyahu claims, a Palestinian.

This is not just bad history. In a conflict in which false claims abound and drive incendiary rhetoric, it is a most unwelcome addition to the witches’ brew of incitement.

Before he met the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al Husseini, in Berlin in November 1941, according to Mr Netanyahu, Hitler was rather modest in his aspirations. Drawing on a claim already made in his 1993 book A Place about the Nations, Mr Netanyahu told the 37th World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem on October 20: “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time; he wanted to expel the Jews.” He asserts that it was Al Husseini who convinced Hitler to change his plans.

Apart from the fact that Hitler did meet Al Husseini, none of this is true. Not only had the mass killing of Jews commenced in the previous summer when Nazi forces invaded the Soviet Union, more importantly, it was not the Mufti of Jerusalem who brought Hitler and his henchmen to the decision to undertake a genocide against Jews. Hitler’s own fanatical anti-Semitism drove Nazi state officials to arrive at ever more lethal responses to the “Jewish Question”, culminating in the Final Solution.

Why then does Mr Netanyahu seek to exculpate Hitler and undermine an established historical premise? Simply put, he is rather cynically trying to reposition blame for the Holocaust on to the Palestinians.

Al Husseini was a reprehensible person and a terrible leader. He was also a Nazi sympathiser and a hater of the Jews. He saw Hitler as a foe of the British who had exiled him and of the Jews who were colonising Palestine, and he sought his support. Al Husseini does not appear to have gained much from his meeting with Hitler, and certainly not the public statement in support of Arab independence he wanted. Hitler probably took away even less from the meeting.

Blaming Al Husseini for the Holocaust is irresponsible and dangerous, as well as factually wrong. This marginal figure neither had the gravitas nor influence to persuade Hitler of the desirability of exterminating Jews, nor did Hitler need a push in that direction.

Following the war, Al Husseini was completely marginalised in Palestinian and Arab politics, owing to his miscalculations and delusions of grandeur. He died in relative obscurity, never having again reached a position of political influence. Far from being “revered” as Mr Netanyahu claims, he is generally ignored by Palestinians as an embarrassment and a failure. Even Hamas dismisses him in favour of his contemporary, Izzedine Al Qassam, whose memory they really do champion.

Mr Netanyahu’s historical revisionism is reflective of the kind of archetypal thinking for which his historian father, Benzion Netanyahu, a fiery revisionist zionist, was well known. In every generation, to this mindset, there is an “Amalek” seeking to destroy the Jews. The “Amalek” of the moment, of course, are Palestinians, and linking them as strongly as possible, and however mistakenly, to the Holocaust serves that paranoid narrative.

This is not only bad history. It makes for dangerous policy.

Palestinian leaders are often accused of inciting their followers to hatred on the basis of false historical claims, sometimes even including their own versions of Holocaust denial, and more typically a refusal to acknowledge a deep Jewish connection to Palestine or to the Western Wall. This can and does descend into a kind of demonisation that encourages violence and persuades Israelis that Palestinians are not ready for peace.

But Mr Netanyahu’s attempts to pin the Holocaust on the mufti are a barely concealed attempt to shift the blame for this great historical crime on to the Palestinians of today. Just as some today whitewash the ignominious history of Christian anti-Semitism in favour of a facile Islamophobia, so Mr Netanyahu has in stunning fashion lifted the yoke of historical responsibility for the Holocaust from the Nazis and placed it on the Palestinians.

No good can come of regarding the Palestinians as the embodiment of a Nazi-like existential threat to Jews. A statement such as this will further poison the waters in the region, which is boiling over in violence as it is. It will seriously erode the confidence needed to return to negotiations, which Israel needs if it is to remain meaningfully either Jewish or democratic, and which Palestinians need if they are to gain their freedom and independence. And it does a profound disservice to future generations, who are placed at risk of growing up with dangerously mistaken views of the past on the basis of which they will be inclined to act.

Simply put, Mr Netanyahu’s crude attempt to rewrite history demonises Palestinians, who’ve already suffered enough, and undermines the prospects for peace on which the future of both peoples depends.

Hussein Ibish is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington and David N Myers is the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Professor of Jewish History at UCLA

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/tunisia-shows-the-power-of-the-possible

On Friday the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the National Dialogue Quartet in Tunisia, a group of organisations that played a critical role in guiding the country towards stability with good governance and accountability. The choice is excellent and timely. It reminds the world of how much progress the country has made, how deep the challenges remain, and how much the international community has at stake in helping it to continue to move forward and avoid the pitfalls of violence, confrontation and corruption.

The four organisations are the Tunisian General Labour Union; the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts; the Tunisian Human Rights League and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers. But the Nobel committee rightly insisted that the award is for the quartet as a unit. This vital distinction recognises that what’s being rewarded is their willingness to work together and promote dialogue and cooperation. In another significant achievement, Tunisia has been recognised by the American NGO Freedom House as fully “free” in its latest report measuring civil rights and liberties around the world.

One can certainly understand why. Tunisia has adopted a new constitution by consensus, which is not perfect but which balances various interests in a constructive and reasonable manner that generally defaults towards protecting individual rights, including for women. It has held a series of free and fair, and genuinely contested, elections, with real campaigning and robust national debates about policy differences.

Even more significantly, last year came the peaceful transfer of power between the former troika government led by the Islamist Ennahda party and a new administration led by their secular rivals, the Nidaa Tounes party. The quartet played a crucial role in arranging for the most recent elections and then brokering this peaceful transfer of power.

Tunisians are an intelligent people, as demonstrated again by the reaction to the Nobel Prize. The general response has been expressions of pride, but almost immediately followed up by requests for international help. The thoughtful message being communicated is: “Thank you very much for this pat on the back, but what we really need is systematic help with our economy and counterterrorism efforts, which, by the way, are inextricably linked.”

The West and those Arab countries that are in a position to help, including Gulf countries, ought to do as much as possible to respond to this call. Tunisia is a model, not for revolution (which it really didn’t have, at least in the classical sense), but for evolution through dialogue, which is what actually took place after Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the former president, was deposed.

If Tunisia’s experiment succeeds, it will be a major demonstration that evolution by consensus works better for everyone than revolution by force. The alternative model lies just across the border in Libya, where competing governments are fighting over everything. ISIL terrorists have just raised their hideous black banner over Sirte, the home town of former dictator Muammar Qaddafi, where they are starting to impose their demented form of fanatical misrule.

ISIL is a major threat to Tunisia, which has contributed more foreign fighters to the group than almost any other country. There is also a significant threat from several home-grown terrorist organisations, as was recently demonstrated by the attempted assassination of Ridha Charfeddine, a Nidaa Tounes MP. The country is still reeling from the 2013 assassinations of non-Islamist politicians Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi which helped bring down the Ennahda-led troika government. Earlier this year, over 50 people were killed in two major attacks by extremists in recent months, both of which targeted tourists and the crucial tourism industry.

Tunisia also desperately needs growth. Its private sector remains bogged down in excessive bureaucracy and interference by the government. It also needs help in the continuing struggle against corruption, which remains a huge challenge to both economic growth and political and social stability. The West ought to move quickly to establish free-trade agreements with Tunisia, and help it implement mechanisms to promote international investment. Investment conferences have proven effective in other cases. Arab states, too, can do more by way of both aid and direct foreign investment in Tunisia’s economy.

Both the West and the Arab world must recognise that promoting economic vitality in Tunisia constitutes a major counterterrorism initiative, as well as support for a positive, constructive model for change in the Arab world and, for that matter, Africa. In the Arab world today the areas dominated by ISIL fanatics occupy one dystopian extreme, and while Tunisia is hardly a utopia, it offers a better alternative.

Tunisia’s solutions are specific to Tunisia’s problems, and are not made for export. But the Tunisian example shows what’s generally possible when dialogue and compromise prevail over confrontation and violence. Tunisia deserves support for its own sake. But it’s also an important model of constructive Arab politics that all responsible actors should be clamouring to support and which cannot be allowed to fail.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/20/opinion/putins-partition-plan-for-syria.html?ref=opinion

WASHINGTON — Taking advantage of the paralysis of American policy in Syria, Russia’s dramatic escalation of military activity in that country seeks to reorder the strategic landscape of the Middle East.

Few appear to grasp the full scope of what Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, is attempting. This is partly because, in theory, this should be beyond Russia’s capabilities. But Mr. Putin cannily senses an opportunity, at the very least, to restore Russia to the role in the Middle East that it lost in the 1970s.

Russia’s intervention anticipates a resolution of the Syrian conflict through de facto partition. The Reuters news agency reports that, months ago, Iran proposed the joint offensive, now underway, to save the dictatorship of President Bashar al-Assad from imminent collapse. Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ elite Quds Force, is depicted poring over maps of Syria with Russian officials in the Kremlin.

Russian firepower is aimed at securing the larger, western part of the rump Syrian state that is still controlled by Mr. Assad — in particular the air and naval bases near Latakia and Tartus. And aside from forays into northern trouble spots like Aleppo, Iranian and Hezbollah forces will mostly concentrate on the lower half of this strip, which runs from the Lebanese border through Qalamoun, up to Damascus, and from there to the port cities and coastal heartland of the Alawites, the Syrian Shiite sect loyal to Mr. Assad.

For all of the talk of combating the Islamic State, Russia’s real aim is to push back rebel groups and secure this ministate. Given what Mr. Assad’s allies are willing to do to salvage this “Little Syria” — compared with the limited intervention being considered by Mr. Putin’s international antagonists — this is probably an achievable goal.

Such a partition of Syria would leave other parts of the country in the hands of nationalist and Islamist rebels, a Kurdish area in the north, perhaps some smaller enclaves and, most ominously, the “caliphate” of the Islamic State in the north and east. Despite Kremlin propaganda, the Islamic State is already among the biggest winners from the Russian intervention.

At the end of last week, for example, the group took advantage of Russian airstrikes, some 90 percent of which have reportedly targetedother rebel groups, and captured several villages near Aleppo. The militants also killed some of Iran’s most senior commanders in Syria, including Brig. Gen. Hossein Hamedani. These advances are realizing Mr. Assad’s goal of making the choice for both Syrians and the world at large appear to be between him and the jihadists.

Russia’s unspoken but unmistakable message is that Moscow is trying one— and perhaps the only— way of ending the conflict by means of a Lebanese-style segregation of Syria into zones controlled by rival militias. To Washington’s perennial concern in any Middle Eastern imbroglio, “Tell me how this ends,” Moscow responds: The Syrian conflict will be “resolved” on Russia’s terms, even if Mr. Assad proves dispensable to the Kremlin in the long run.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration’s desire to see the conflict end without actually doing anything itself means that, as Bloomberg Viewsuggested recently, there is a group of senior American officials prepared to go along with the Russian plan. After all, America’s own policy in Syria has rapidly moved from tragedy to farce. The latest fiasco was the cancellation of the $500 million military training program for anti-Islamic State rebels that produced barely a handful of fighters on the ground.

So if Moscow has a policy, and Washington doesn’t, why not just support that?

Beyond the fact that it’s absurd to hope that Mr. Putin’s approach is likely to benefit American interests, giving way to Russia’s policy would, in effect, entail abandoning the fight against the Islamic State in Syria. And the militants cannot be effectively countered in Iraq alone. So what this final, ignominious capitulation would really mean is that not only would Mr. Assad (or some Russian-appointed successor) menace Syrians for the foreseeable future, but so too would the Islamic State.

No wonder Gen. John R. Allen, America’s envoy to the international coalition against the Islamic State, recently announced his resignation. Being in charge of a farce is bad enough; no one can accept being the front for a fraud.

Even worse, viewed through a broader regional framework, American acquiescence to this Russian initiative would ultimately mean an accommodation with a major reshaping of the strategic order in the Middle East. Moscow is clearly trying to accomplish the creation of a powerful alliance with Iran, Iraq, Hezbollah, “Little Syria” and others. To secure this new compact, Russia is willing to risk not only confrontation with the West, but also its recently improved relations with other regional powers like Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

There’s no good reason Washington should go along with any of this. Russia is manifestly less powerful militarily, economically and diplomatically than the United States. But it’s no longer a matter of capabilities; it’s become a matter of will. On paper, Russia is in no position to barge into the Middle East and throw its weight around. But after the interference in Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea and the Syrian chemical weapons debacle, Mr. Putin correctly judged that nobody would stop him.

Mr. Putin is canny enough to know that he is already overstretched, faces potential quagmires and has core differences with putative allies like Iran. So, at any given moment, he’ll be ready to pocket his gains and do a deal with the Americans — from an already advantageous position.

The remaining question is: How far will he be allowed to go? At the moment, the astonishing answer appears to be: all the way.

http://www.agsiw.org/rushin-to-syria-riyadh-pledges-to-counter-moscows-sudden-escalation/#

The civil conflict in Syria has been a major concern for many Gulf Arab states since the outbreak of the uprising against the Baathist dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad over four years ago. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Kuwait, among others, have been some of Assad’s leading regional opponents and strong proponents of regime change in Damascus. They have therefore reacted strongly to Russia’s escalation in Syria and are among the harshest critics of Moscow’s direct intervention into the conflict by conducting airstrikes against rebel groups and building up Russian ground forces. These developments will likely encourage a deeper engagement by Gulf Arab countries in the Syrian conflict in the coming months.

Saudi Arabia and its allies see Syria, along with Yemen, as the key battlegrounds against rising Iranian hegemony in the Arab world. Moreover there is a powerful moral indignation against the tactics of the Assad regime. His forces are widely blamed for hundreds of thousands of deaths, and millions of displaced Syrian civilians, the large majority of them Sunni Muslim Arabs. This is the overriding context through which the Gulf states view the Syrian conflict and its outcome. These countries have funded both political and paramilitary opposition movements in an effort to promote a change of government in Syria. They have also joined the coalition led by the United States countering the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and Saudi and Emirati warplanes have been involved in bombing attacks against targets in Syria as part of that effort. But the Gulf countries have not introduced any of their own ground forces into the conflict, nor are they likely to do so in the foreseeable future. They readily admit to funding nationalist and some Islamist rebels, but deny supporting the al-Qaeda franchise in Syria, al-Nusra Front. On the ground, however, distinctions between rebel groups and their frequently shifting alliances and coalitions are often amorphous, difficult to track, and overlapping.

The anti-ISIL and anti-Assad coalition of Gulf Arab states and NATO powers has taken a strong, unified stance against the Russian intervention (which the Syrian opposition now refers to as an “occupation” of Syrian territory by Russia). Several Gulf countries signed a joint statement along with the United States, Britain, France, Germany, and Turkey accusing Russia of a “further escalation” of the conflict and warning that its actions would promote terrorism and extremism. The statement, which was published on the German Foreign Ministry website, said, in part, “We express our deep concern with regard to the Russian military build-up in Syria and especially the attacks by the Russian Air Force on Hama, Homs and Idlib since yesterday which led to civilian casualties and did not target Daesh.” It continued, “We call on the Russian Federation to immediately cease its attacks on the Syrian opposition and civilians.”

The Russian escalation in Syria puts Saudi Arabia in a somewhat awkward position. The Saudis have been reaching out to Russia for better ties in an effort to widen their support base beyond the traditional intensive reliance on the United States and as an alternative source of trade, weapons sales, and military technology. The most recent effort in that direction was the visit to Moscow in July by a very senior Saudi delegation led by Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. These meetings produced agreements strengthening military and energy ties. However, Saudi Arabia’s strong stance on Syria has left it little choice but to be harshly critical of the unexpectedly aggressive Russian moves. Indeed, Riyadh’s reaction has gone further than most other members of the coalition in warning Moscow of the consequences of its adventure and insisting on the need to counter Russia’s aim of securing the Assad regime.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir wistfully recalled the more positive “atmosphere that prevailed two months ago” when he visited Russia, which has dissipated as “all of a sudden Russia stepped up its military role in Syria and announced its political position backing Assad.” He said, categorically, that in Syria, “the solution does not depend on Russia.” Instead, he said, there were two options for the future in Syria. “One option is a political process where there would be a transitional council,” which he called “the preferred option.” Or, he continued, “the other option is a military option, which also would end with the removal of Bashar al-Assad from power. This could be a more lengthy process and a more destructive process, but the choice is entirely that of Bashar al-Assad.”

Jubeir did not outline what a “military option” would look like, or what the specific Saudi role might be. But his formulation suggests a fundamental change in the Saudi approach of trying to secure regime change in Damascus, and indicates that nothing that has transpired so far constitutes a full-fledged iteration of this military option. He noted that Saudi Arabia already supports the Free Syrian Army and other moderate rebel groups, and that such support from Riyadh and elsewhere “will continue and intensify.” Beyond that, he hinted, “Whatever we may or may not do we’re not talking about.”

Saudi Arabia speaks for many of its Gulf Cooperation Council allies on Syria, an issue in which the heterogeneity and division of opinion that is often a hallmark of GCC perspectives is less prevalent. Most of the Gulf Arab states have been strong supporters of the rebellion while opposing extremists, especially ISIL. The strong Gulf support for the Syrian opposition disrupted an emerging but mistaken narrative holding that Arab monarchies, especially in the Gulf, were taking a straightforward “counterrevolutionary” line on the “Arab Spring” uprisings, rather than evaluating each case according to their national interests. The Saudi position, which indicates a willingness to intensify the Gulf engagement in Syria and support for the opposition, comes in the context of the development of a more assertive and proactive regional security posture by Riyadh and a number of its allies including the UAE and Qatar. The most dramatic manifestation of this evolving proactive security doctrine is the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia and its allies are hedging on their practical response to the Russian escalation. But a more robust Gulf engagement in Syria in the coming months was extremely likely anyway, given the new policy direction being crafted, especially in Saudi Arabia. Moscow’s direct military intervention in the Syrian conflict on behalf of the Assad dictatorship, which is Iran’s most important client in the Arab world, will undoubtedly prompt a reevaluation among Gulf countries. But it is likely to only increase their determination to do as much as possible within the scope of prudence and their capabilities to thwart the Russian goal of maintaining the dictatorship, and instead focus on securing regime change either through a political agreement or a rebel victory.

Gulf countries have few means of directly pressuring Russia. But they will undoubtedly join with Western and other countries in pushing for a strong diplomatic response against the Russian escalation. Moreover, they will probably continue to press, along with others, for the creation of no-fly zones, safe havens for refugees and similar measures. These steps would dovetail with European and border state concerns about the flood of refugees coming out of the Syrian conflict. Refugee safe havens might serve a dual purpose, and, if implemented thoughtfully, could certainly constitute a political and even military blow to both the dictatorship and ISIL. No-fly zones are an even more direct means of denying the regime the full benefits of its air power. In addition to Turkey and the Gulf states, U.S. Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton, as well as some Republican presidential candidates, is calling for no-fly zones in Syria. However the presence of Russian warplanes over the Syrian skies and, presumably, enhanced air defenses on the ground, will only strengthen the already established opposition to such measures by the U.S. military leadership. Therefore the United States, which would be indispensable to success, is unlikely to participate in such an initiative under current circumstances.

ISIL remains an alarming wildcard, but the Gulf countries are likely to stick to their guns that only by confronting the dictatorship and ISIL simultaneously can the conflict end and peace be restored to Syria. Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies will continue to push Washington to recognize that Assad is as much of a threat as ISIL and to therefore take a more proactive role in trying to shape both the nature and the eventual outcome of the Syrian conflict. The Obama administration seems to remain convinced that while the Assad regime has lost all legitimacy and must go, the dangers of the sudden collapse of governance institutions in the country – a lesson derived from bitter U.S. experience in Iraq in the past decade – mean that he must not go precipitously. This viewpoint, which could be sympathetically called complex or uncharitably deemed self-contradictory, has certainly militated against any U.S. policy that directly confronts the Assad regime. Gulf countries and others argue that in effect this approach has meant ceding the field to Assad’s backers such as Iran, Hizballah, and now Russia.

The GCC countries also point out that relative U.S. inaction on Syria, and its at least perceived disengagement from the region, meant that Washington was not only “taken aback” (as U.S. officials themselves put it) by the new Russian military offensive, but also appears to have been surprised by the recently announced intelligence-sharing agreement Iraq reached with Russia, Iran, and Syria. Riyadh and its allies are sure to note that this is not only another development that strengthens Iran’s hand at the expense of the Gulf states, but that it is harmful to U.S. interests as well. Whether or not a change of heart in Washington takes place, the Gulf Arab counties appear more determined than ever to confront and thwart Iran in Syria. Russia’s direct intervention only raises the stakes. The introduction by the Arab Gulf states of their own ground forces into the Syrian conflict is a remote contingency, but everything short of that now appears to be very much on the table.

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/pas-bombshell-was-a-bluff-so-what-is-next#full

It was a sad and sorry spectacle, but entirely symptomatic of the slow-burning crisis facing the Palestinian national movement. Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority and chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, rose at the UN general assembly last week to deliver a much-ballyhooed “ultimatum” to Israel. It was initially hyped as a “bombshell”. Then expectations were lowered to the “dramatic”.

In the event it was a largely meaningless announcement that Palestinians are no longer bound by the Oslo Accords because – as is perfectly true – Israel has systematically violated them to the point of mockery.

But, practically speaking, what does that mean? It’s one thing to say one feels no longer bound by the terms of an agreement and quite another to start changing the day-to-day practices that have been shaped by ongoing realities.

There’s no basis for expecting Mr Abbas to cease security cooperation in the West Bank between the PA and Israeli authorities. These arrangements are politically very difficult for Palestinians. At some level they do aid the occupiers, and co-operating in any significant way with the forces of the status quo is both humiliating and galling.

But there’s no questioning the practical value to both sides of these arrangements, or the severe dangers and difficulties that would be courted if they were permanently suspended. Therefore, as a practical matter, it makes no sense for Palestinians – in their own pragmatic interests – to abandon this cooperation even if it would be emotionally satisfying and politically popular.

Security cooperation is only one example of the many daily arrangements under the Oslo framework that pose a stark choice for Palestinians. Is it better to abandon these systems merely to spite the Israeli occupiers even though that would create much more severe problems for Palestinians themselves and offer no plausible benefits at all?

Non-cooperation is one way of pushing back against occupation, but it’s hard to imagine that giving up on the limited forms of self-government Palestinians have created in the past 30 years would do more to harm Israel than themselves. The Israelis have many options. But their own self-rule is one of the few tools Palestinians have which, as former PA prime minister Salam Fayyad’s policies briefly but convincingly demonstrated, can be used to both develop society and promote international expectations for Palestinian statehood. Giving it up in favour of a return to direct occupation would be painful for Israel but catastrophic for Palestinians at every register from daily life to the prospects for independence. Therefore, it won’t happen.

Meanwhile, the world moves on, impervious to the Palestinian conundrum. Benjamin Netanyahu devoted almost all of his own UN speech to Iran. Indeed, he frequently gives major addresses without mentioning the Palestinians at all. Mr Netanyahu’s government is obviously opposed to the prospect of Palestinian statehood, even in theory, despite his protestations to the contrary. His offer to negotiate without conditions is the height of cynicism.

Mr Netanyahu’s real policy is amply illustrated by his government’s outrageous plan to legally recognise five wildcat settlement outposts, including hundreds of buildings constructed in violation of even Israel’s own laws and on privately-owned Palestinian land.

The Arab world, too, is focused on other matters. And the United States not only seems to have lost interest in brokering peace, doubts are now raised regarding its own long-term commitment to a two-state outcome. Major Jewish American groups like ­AIPAC, J-Street and Americans for Peace Now are focused on, and squabbling about, Iran and the nuclear deal, not anything to do with the Palestinians.

The Palestinian leadership does not know what to do. Its options are so limited, and its ability to craft creative alternatives so restricted, that it has all but given up. Both will and imagination seem exhausted. Hamas’s approach offers nothing but adding considerable human suffering to further failure. Its misrule in Gaza is so bad it now faces creeping encroachment by ISIL.

In the West Bank, events are being driven by the brutal logic of reciprocal violence embedded in the occupation. A settler couple were shot dead in front of their four young children by unknown gunmen. Militant settlers carried out reprisal attacks on Palestinian homes and vehicles.

While it would make no sense for Palestinians to dismantle their own nascent national institutions, however imperfect they may be, Israel cannot expect that another wave of massive violence would be manageable or containable. Any such delusion would be an even greater failure of political and social imagination.

The UN says six Israelis and 24 Palestinians have been killed in the simmering tensions in the occupied territories this year. That’s a small but sobering reminder of how the violence at the core of relations between occupiers and occupied inevitably bubbles to the surface even when no one welcomes it.

Mr Abbas was bluffing in New York. Israel knows this. His speech might as well never have been delivered. But what faces both parties in any system defined by violence, and by dominance and subordination with no end in sight, is no mystery and no bluff.

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/anti-muslim-bigotry-has-no-place-in-united-states

After several days of rhetorical flailing, Ben Carson, a physician running for the Republican Party nomination for US president, finally settled on his rationalisation for opposing a Muslim American president. Having first said that he “absolutely would not agree” with the prospect, Mr Carson explained that what he is actually opposed to is theocracy. “If you’re a Christian and you’re running for president and you want to make this into a theocracy, I’m not going to support you,” he insisted.

Mr Carson now claims his stigmatising of Muslims as uniquely ineligible for chief executive was a boilerplate defence of political secularism that would be embraced by an overwhelming majority of Americans. Had he simply taken a clear stance against theocracy from the outset, there would have been no controversy. Almost no one in the US favours establishing a theocracy, and Mr Carson’s opposition to that is about as unobjectionable as anything in American political culture.

Indeed, Article VI of the constitution as originally drafted stated that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States”. Some of its opponents at the time openly fretted that, because of this clause, “Mahometans might obtain offices among us, and that the senators and representatives might all be pagans”, or that it might “open a door for Jews, Turks and infidels”. Nonetheless, the US constitution was ratified and Article VI has never been challenged, either legally or politically. At least in theory.

In practice, of course, all American presidents to date, with one exception, have been Protestant Christians (and all, again with one exception, have been white males). When John F Kennedy was running for the presidency in 1960, he had to overcome the same kind of vicious anti-Catholic bigotry that helped sink the 1928 Democratic nominee, Al Smith.

Both Smith and Kennedy were the target of dark insinuations, and sometimes overt accusations, that a Catholic could not be trusted to make decisions as president from an independent, American point of view. They would always be subordinate to the church, the clergy and, particularly, the Pope. Any real Catholic, true to his religion, the bigots argued, would have no choice but to defer to the divinely ordained authorities they follow as a matter of faith.

To be a good American, or at least a good American president, this pseudo-logic held, required one to be a bad Catholic. A Catholic president would have to choose between his country and his church. They would at least govern theocratically, if not directly try to impose a theocracy.

Smith let the issue linger too long, and addressed it ineffectively. Anti-Catholic bigotry was so strong that there is no doubt his religious affiliation significantly contributed to his overwhelming defeat at the hands of Herbert Hoover. Kennedy, by contrast, tackled the issue directly and convinced the public that his religious identity would not influence his decision-making as the president of a secular republic “that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish”.

Mr Carson’s remarks spring from a now-familiar Islamophobic discourse that suggests that Muslims, similarly, cannot have an independent political identity or agenda and must be driven entirely by religious motivations. This discourse is based on a caricature of mainstream Islam which holds, among other things – as both Mr Carson and his senior campaign officials have recently insisted – that Islam commands that all people of other faiths must be killed and that lying is a religious duty.

The essential claim, previously levelled routinely at Catholics and Jews, is that one can be either a bad Muslim and a good American, or a good Muslim and a bad American, but not a good American and a good Muslim. Ironically, Mr Carson’s intolerant outburst has been supported by a small group of prominent Catholic Americans like Pat Buchanan and Bill O’Reilly.

Moreover, if there is a genuine constituency in the United States that actually yearns for the creation of a theocracy, it’s not among Muslim Americans. It’s on the Republican Christian religious right, exactly where Mr Carson has his own political base. “Christian Dominionists”, as they are called by their advocates seek an America governed exclusively by Christians ruling according to religious law, and are a small but significant, and apparently growing, factor in the Republican Party.

Mr Carson himself appears to hold some suggestive religious views. He condemns scientific discoveries about the Big Bang and evolution, implying they are “satanic” in origin. He recently, and indefensibly, characterised the United States as “a Judeo-Christian nation”, whatever that might be. That comment alone brings him perilously close to his own standard for ineligibility.

Almost all Americans, undoubtedly including a large majority of Muslim Americans, would agree that anyone seeking to replace the constitution with a theocracy is unfit to be president. Mr Carson may not be a full-blown Christian Dominionist, but he’s far too close for the comfort of anyone who truly values government that is neutral on religious matters. His anti-Muslim bigotry alone hardly promises neutrality. If Mr Carson’s argument undermine anyone’s candidacy, it’s surely his own.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/opinion/a-saudi-american-reset.html?ref=international&_r=0

WASHINGTON — After more than two years of perceived slights and supposed snubs, the new contours of a revitalized but evolving partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia are beginning to take shape. This month’s visit to Washington by King Salman solidified the defense and security aspects of this new version of an old relationship. The Saudis are also strongly pushing an economic agenda as the centerpiece of what King Salman identified as a “new strategic alliance for the 21st century.”

Last May, when President Obama hosted leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council for a summit meeting at Camp David, the Saudi monarch was conspicuously absent. The talk then of a “snub” missed two crucial points. First, the Saudis were trying to ensure that the Camp David meeting was the beginning, not the end, of a new conversation. Second, King Salman did not want to share center stage in his first major trip abroad as king with figures like the deputy prime minister of Oman.

The Persian Gulf states’ primary concerns in the wake of the Iran nuclear deal were that a windfall of income from sanctions relief, as well as the diplomatic legitimacy conferred by the agreement, could empower and embolden Tehran. But when it became clear that they had obtained all the assurances they were likely to get from Washington, and that the agreement was going to be implemented no matter what they said, the gulf states endorsed the Iran nuclear agreement in a joint statement issued with Secretary of State John Kerry on Aug. 3.

Now that it’s clear that the nuclear agreement will be implemented, both the United States and Iran are forced to consider one another’s policies on issues beyond the nuclear question. This brings American perspectives much more in line with the Saudi government’s views.

In a Sept. 2 letter to Congress, Mr. Kerry strongly condemned Iran’s regional behavior and said that the United States had “no illusion that this behavior will change.” He added that America’s partnership with the gulf states “will remain at the core of our regional security strategy,” and is “our most effective tool.”

But there is a new hierarchy of values at work in the security component of the partnership. Saudi Arabia has adopted a more independent and assertive regional posture, most visibly expressed in the Arab intervention in Yemen, which recently claimed the lives of 45 Emirati, 10 Saudi and five Bahraini soldiers.

The United States has been supportive of the intervention, though quietly concerned about its long-term ramifications and the humanitarian impact. Despite misgivings, the United States ispreparing to resupply Saudi Arabia with thousands of precision-guided munitions to replenish stocks exhausted by the Yemen campaign. The Pentagon recently approved the sale of 600 Patriot defense missiles, valued at $5.4 billion.

Deals are also being finalized on two Lockheed Martin frigates, priced at over $1 billion, and 10 MH-60R helicopters, at $1.9 billion. This is all on top of a 20-year arms-sales agreement, sealed in 2010 and worth $60 billion.

Saudi Arabia seeks to add a new major economic component to the relationship. The main new initiative in the recent Washington visit was a road map for greater American involvement in the Saudi economy. The Saudi Economic and Development Council, led by the deputy crown prince (who is also the king’s son), presented detailed proposals for investments in mining, oil and gas, retail sales, entertainment, housing, infrastructure, banking and technical services, all including incentives and concessions for American companies, and valued at many hundreds of billions of dollars over the next five years.

In this new relationship, however, new wrinkles are inevitably emerging.

The newfound independence of Saudi security doctrine is simultaneously reassuring and worrying to Washington. Under the rubric of burden sharing, it is warmly welcomed. But more autonomous Saudi decision making makes Washington uneasy, particularly since, when things go wrong, the United States will still have to deal with the fallout.

Saudi Arabia remains dismayed by the lack of American engagement on Syria. Riyadh is likely to intensify efforts to influence events in Syria, particularly as Iran and Russia step up their support for President Bashar al-Assad. As the United States seeks more Saudi support in the battle against the Islamic State, Saudi Arabia will argue that the brutality of the Assad dictatorship drives support for the terrorists. They will push for a strategy of confronting both simultaneously, however difficult that may be.

The Saudis have already been acting independently in Syria. If they now perceive their Yemen campaign to be a success and the United States to be trapped by inaction, they may be prepared to take bolder, more risky action against Mr. Assad in the coming year.

But if Syria remains a source of tension, that is because the United States and Saudi Arabia ultimately need each other’s cooperation. The former Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, described the partnership as a “Muslim marriage,” meaning that while the two are committed to each other, the relationship is not necessarily exclusive. The limitations of that approach became apparent during the recent period of relative estrangement.

Saudi Arabia can flirt with countries like Russia, China and France, but, as they have recognized, Washington is indispensable. And despite the perseverance of arguments that Riyadh is a greater source of extremism than Tehran — something no serving American official ever discusses — Saudi Arabia remains a crucial American ally in opposing both Iran and regional extremists like the Islamic State.

This is hardly the first time the American-Saudi alliance has been strained. And this time, the basis of the partnership has been modified. Both sides have clearly found there’s no plausible alternative and have come home to each other again.

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/tit-for-tat-violence-is-new-normal-in-occupied-territory

The ongoing surge of violence among Palestinians in the occupied territories, particularly East Jerusalem, is leaderless, spontaneous and concentrated among youths. It was unanticipated, in that no one predicted the specific time, place or nature of the spasm. But it’s hardly surprising.

The context is the utter desperation of the Palestinian cause. Palestinians are convinced that Israel has abandoned any notion of a two-state solution, if it ever genuinely considered it in the first place (which most Palestinians very much doubt). Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government seems determined to expand the occupation and the settlements, and to be adamantly opposed to Palestinian statehood.

Palestinians, especially the youth, have also despaired about their own leadership. They don’t believe negotiations can succeed. And they have learnt that United Nations or International Criminal Court initiatives don’t change anything on the ground, or, at best, will yield results over many years but have no immediate impact.

They also understand that the Hamas approach of conflict only yields greater suffering, and that in any violent confrontation Palestinians invariably suffer more than Israelis. And they are convinced that the United States lacks the will to confront Israel over the occupation in general and settlements in particular. Finally, they understand that most other Arab societies are wrapped up in urgent crises such as Syria, Iraq and Libya, and the fight against ISIL. Their cause may not be abandoned, but Palestinians know it is very much on the Arab back burner.

Palestinians have rarely felt so isolated and bereft of options. The era when economic and social progress might have compensated for slow progress towards independence and an end to the occupation has passed. Former prime minister Salam Fayyad was ousted and his state and institution building programme abandoned by the Palestinian Authority and international community.

Palestinians would be wise to resurrect Mr Fayyad’s policies, as many lecture them to do. But the Israeli and western cut-off of aid to the PA after the UN initiatives was crucial to discrediting and ultimately destroying his constructive policies and forcing Mr Fayyad’s resignation. Moreover, that programme was always a parallel track to diplomatic and political progress towards independence. His bottom-up approach was never considered to be a substitute for top-down efforts to end the occupation, as Mr Fayyad himself always emphasised.

The current combination of political paralysis, diplomatic impasse, intensifying occupation, international disengagement, and social and economic dysfunctionality means that many, especially young, Palestinians have a keen sense of nothing left to lose.

Most Palestinians no longer feel like stakeholders in almost any aspect of the status quo. All that most Palestinians can really believe in these days is their own nuclear family, and, perhaps, their extended family or village community. Palestinians don’t, and just can’t, believe in their discredited national leadership, extremist groups like Hamas, or any other broader social or political grouping.

The Israeli message to Palestinians is: “You are defeated and subjugated, now accept your lot.” Palestinian political parties are essentially saying: “We are your champions, but we have no idea how to make your lives better or what to do to advance your national agenda.”

The world community is basically saying: “We will get back to you when Israel seems interested in diplomacy, otherwise here are some palliative words and minimal aid.” The Arab world has no real message for the Palestinians, being profoundly wrapped up in other matters.

All of this explains why Israelis and Palestinians might be on the verge of either another explosion of violence, or, more probably, a “new normal” characterised by tit-for-tat violence that does not constitute a gigantic eruption but a new daily grind of reciprocal brutality.

The occupation essentially is a system of discipline and control of millions of disenfranchised people by a foreign army whose main task is to facilitate and protect a predatory programme of ongoing and illegal colonisation. This reality is ugly, and many westerners recoil from acknowledging it. But it is a fact. For most Palestinians living under the occupation, this core reality now defines everything, since there is no longer anything to offset the violence built into the occupation.

Consequently, violence – whether from Palestinian youths, militant groups like Hamas, settler vigilantes or Israel’s army – almost exclusively characterises the relationship between these two peoples at almost every register. The occupation is inherently violent. It is impossible to imagine a “peaceful” settlement project. The settlements depend on a social order defined by the constant threat of violence.

The emerging “new normal” – characterised on the Palestinian side by spontaneous acts of violence mainly by youths, and on the Israeli side by settler vigilantes and trigger-happy soldiers – is yet another reminder that the status quo is neither manageable nor containable.

In the absence of any framework or timeline for ending it, this violent occupation will inevitably erupt into ever more dangerous spasms of physical confrontation with potentially devastating consequences for the region and the world.

http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/obama-must-start-leading-and-stop-dithering-in-syria

The awful truth about American policy towards the war in Syria – the most dangerous, destabilising and tragic conflict in the world – was summed up last week by the astounding revelation that there are only nine American-trained rebels currently fighting in Syria.

Last week in these pages, I noted that Russia is getting a free pass in much of the Arab world for sponsoring and enabling Bashar Al Assad, who is primarily responsible for the hundreds of thousands of dead, and millions of displaced, Syrian civilians, and the destruction of much of the country. Russia’s criminal culpability as the primary handmaiden of the destruction of Syria even outstrips Iran’s far more widely recognised malfeasance.

America’s Syria policy, exemplified by the single-digit numbers of US-trained fighters on the ground, is in no sense a comparable tragedy. But it is certainly a farce.

The paltry amount of $500 million was allocated by the US congress for the training. fifty four rebels were selected, with nine now reportedly fighting in Syria under the terms of the programme. Forget about The Six Million Dollar Man of 1970s TV fame, each of these fighters cost more than $55 million.

It’s not just embarrassing, worse than useless, and a gigantic waste of money. It’s incontrovertible evidence of a policy in desperate free fall.

From the outset, American inaction has ensured that the wrong-headed idea that there is no one to work with on the ground in Syria has increasingly become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s still not too late to build such a force, but it grows ever more difficult to achieve, particularly given the depth of this recent failure.

Obama administration policy, which emphasises the need to avoid the collapse of governance institutions in Syria, such as they are, militates against any confrontation with the Assad regime. Never mind that it is formal US policy that he has lost all legitimacy and must go.

Perhaps a sham programme that pretends to be training people to influence events on the ground while actually attempting no such thing is the perfect embodiment of a policy that purports to oppose the continuation of a government when it actually does not wish to see it go, at least just yet. If Mr Al Assad were the only issue, this tragicomedy might actually be comprehensible.

But the United States has a stated policy of seeking to “degrade and ultimately defeat” ISIL. American and international attention to the menace of ISIL was captured when the organisation rampaged through Iraq in 2014. Washington clearly has an “Iraq-first” policy when it comes to ISIL.

But ISIL’s base and headquarters are in Syria. It cannot be defeated in Iraq alone, and the “Iraq-first” approach all but guarantees it will survive as a potent force. ISIL might even be driven out of most of Iraq, but spread into new areas from its Syrian base. Indeed, ISIL’s regional influence is expanding, while the effort to drive it out of Iraq is making a little headway.

Obviously ISIL has to be confronted in Syria, even if the real goal is some form of containment. Air power alone will do little to “degrade”, let alone “defeat”, these fanatics. Ground forces are indisputably essential. And all honest observers admit any use of forces perceived to be supporting the Assad regime will only strengthen ISIL’s hand and drive more Syrian Sunnis into their camp.

These incontrovertible facts led to the training programme that has just been exposed as a combination of cynical fraud and embarrassing fiasco.

Sadly this is all a continuation of the approach that led to the shameful backtracking over Barack Obama’s chemical weapons “red line” in 2013. After repeated instances of chemical attacks on civilians by the regime, instead of being punished, Mr Al Assad was actually rewarded with an agreement in which he promised to relinquish and destroy all of his chemical weapons.

He suddenly emerged as a partner with the United States in the accord, with all the diplomatic legitimacy that implies, and the agreement clearly required him to keep control of all the areas of the country necessary to implement it.

Now there is considerable evidence Mr Al Assad has been again using chlorine bombs. Washington’s mighty response? Quietly suggesting a UN inquiry.

Russia has defended its policies in Syria as open and honest. Indeed, Moscow makes no pretence of doing anything other than funding and supporting its Syrian client’s mass murder and mass displacement, though it preposterously rationalises it as counterterrorism.

The United States, by contrast, has no meaningful policy in Syria. Any doubts about that, even after the chemical weapons travesty, have surely been dispelled by this parody of a training programme.

American apathy has continuously made matters worse and limited Washington’s own options. But it’s never too late. History doesn’t stop and events continue to unfold. People will always respond to carrots and sticks.

The trouble is that a coherent policy requires a desired outcome, and the United States doesn’t seem to know what, within the realm of the possible, it wants to see happen in Syria. This inexplicable and inexcusable confusion is the proximate cause of America’s Syria policy crisis. Washington, and the world, cannot afford any more of this self-defeating dithering.