Rabbis request Justice probe of AIPAC prosecution
More than 125 rabbis from across the denominations have signed a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting a Justice Department invesigation of why criminal charges were brought against former AIPAC employees Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman and whether "anti-Semitism and/or anti-Israel sentiments" played any role in the matter.
Organized by AMCHA -- The Coalition of Jewish Concerns, the letter says that the prosecution of Weissman and Rosen on charges of illegally passing classified information, which was dropped earlier this month, "should be reviewed because the handling of this matter has, in the opinion of many, placed a cloud of suspicion on the loyalties of Jews in the United States and raised questions about their patriotism" The letter, in addition to suggesting a number of questions that need to be asked in addition to the anti-Semitism issues -- such as why charges were brought under a rarely-used law that's more than 90 years old -- also asks for "recommendations on how to ensure that a similar unjust prosecution can be avoided in the future."
The full letter is after the jumpRead More >>>
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Obama and Netanyahu: The press conference
CSPAN has the full video.
Here's Ron Kampeas' initial report:
WASHINGTON (JTA) -- President Obama said he would reassess his policies of engagement with Iran by the end of this year.
Obama, who appeared before reporters Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after their first White House meeting, also said that the United States was considering all options in dealing with Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program.
"I assured the prime minister that we are not foreclosing a range of steps, including sanctions, in ensuring that Iran understands that we are serious," Obama said, following the 2 1/2-hour meeting, which also included close advisers to both leaders.
Netanyahu arrived in Washington hoping to find out how long the Obama administration was giving the Iranians to respond substantively to the president's offer of outreach.
After the meeting, Obama rejected "artificial deadlines" for engagement with Iran, but added, "We're not going to have to talk forever, we're not going to have a situation where talks become an excuse for inaction."
"We will probably be engaged and have an assesment by the end of the year."
Obama reiterated his commitment to a two-state solution, while Netayahu resolutely refused to commit to Palestinian statehood. Instead, Netanyanu again said Israel was serious about resuming the full range of negotiations with the Palestinians.
Obama said that both sides must abide by previous commitments, calling on the Palestinians to rein in violence against Israel, but also urging Netanyahu to stop settlement expansion and allow humanitarian goods into the Gaza Strip.
Both leaders said that Iranian and Israeli-Palestinian issues have a causal effect on one another, but rejected any formal linkage between the issues.
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Running late…
Still waiting for word on the results of the first Bibi-Obama White House meeting. All we know so far is that it went 30 minutes over -- and already the Israeli media is speculating. Here's Ha'aretz...
U.S. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched their first White House talks on Monday grappling with rare U.S.-Israeli differences over Middle East peacemaking and how to deal with Iran.
The meeting, which began at 5:30 P.M. (Israel time), was scheduled to end at 7 P.M. and was to be followed by a joint statement by the two leaders, but the meeting was prolonged by 30 minutes and the joint statement delayed.
It is not yet clear why the meeting was prolonged, but it raised speculations that perhaps a disagreement arose between the prime minister and the American president.
The key word: perhaps. As in ... we really have no idea, but why wait another hour or so to find out for sure when we can trigger a global Jewish panic?
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Wright, Ayers team up on Middle East
Outspoken Rev. Jeremiah Wright and former Weather Underground leader William Ayers now have something else in common besides links to President Obama. They both spent Sunday marching in favor of a "rethinking of the Mideast conflict," reports the Chicago Tribune:
The day before President Barack Obama was to meet with Israel's prime minister, community activists, clergy and residents marched through Oak Park on Sunday to call for a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
And they were led in their efforts by a politically provocative pair from Chicago: Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. and William Ayers.
The two men shared the stage for one of the first times at First United Church of Oak Park during a forum before the annual walk.
They urged a rethinking of the Mideast conflict, a shift in perspective that's not unlike the view espoused by Obama....
Organizers with the Committee for a Just Peace in Israel and Palestine said the two men, along with a Jewish activist and an Arab attorney, were invited for their work on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not their political notoriety. They did, though, draw a crowd of more than 400 that filled the church. ...
The article reports that "Wright drew parallels between Trinity's part in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and the current campaign to bring about peace in the Mideast":
He recalled a small "free South Africa" sign that was erected outside the South Side congregation. Years later, a visiting politician who was imprisoned alongside Nelson Mandela thanked Trinity for its efforts that he and other political prisoners had heard about while in prison.
"I have faith that within your lifetime two citizens from the states of Israel and Palestine ... will be here in Oak Park saying to you, 'We heard of people in Chicago ... who did all they could to bring about a just peace,' " Wright said.
The remarks earned Wright a standing ovation and a handshake from Ayers, an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who spoke of the need to create a curriculum of questioning that reveals a "reality that is always messier, always more complicated." ...Ayers and Wright both paused to reflect with humor.
Ayers recalled feeling "support and solidarity" with Wright when he became a lightning rod during the presidential contest. Though he blasted the guilt by association, Ayers also poked fun at the "terrorist" label assigned to him and that of a "fiery preacher" given to Wright.
Wright likened some of the controversies and figures of the anti-apartheid struggle as being "almost as toxic as Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright are in the age of Obama."
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Bibi’s plum
An age ago, the summer of 1990 to be exact, my pal Bill Hutman got in trouble in his then-capacity as Jerusalem Post reporter because he had accurately reported Benjamin Netanyahu's racist gibe at the Arabs.
A little context: I was also at the Post, and this took place just after Saddam Hussein had ordered the Iraqi army into Kuwait, August or September of the year. The first Bush administration was already pressing Israel not to gear up for action; President Bush had launched his effort to build the international coalition that would force Saddam out of Kuwait.
Sometimes two opposing views can be right. Bush could not have pulled off one of the signature U.S. military victories of the postwar period if Israel got itself into the mix; Israel deferred to its closest ally, but at a cost to its deterrent capability. Israel's passivity fueled the first intifada and spurred forward Hezbollah, Hamas and Iranian militancy, and we see where that has led
Anyway, Bibi, then a deputy foreign minister, was meeting with a U.S. Jewish group and didn't realize a reporter was in the room. At the time, the official U.S. line was that the Saudis were holding Saddam back for the time being (although it was clear where Bush was headed). The Saudi army was seen as professional but no match for Saddam's massive Iran-war weathered force. (That turned out to be an overstatement as well.)
So one could -- if one were to twist oneself into a pretzel -- make the case that the Bush administration expected Israel to stay put while Saudi Arabia kept Saddam at bay. Bibi decided to make that point to the Jewish group, and with a joke about the Israel's reluctance to rely on a nation that hadn't yet learned how to build houses.
As in Arabs, tents, hahaha. Ha.
Bill published the story -- I was at the Post then too. We hadn't realized then (a year or so after the Histadrut had sold the paper) how beholden the new leadership at the Post -- David Radler, its owner, and the late David Bar Illan, its editorial page editor -- were to Netanyahu. (Bar-Illan eventually went on to become Prime Minister Netanyahu's chief of staff. And Netanyahu -- in a Post story bylined by Radler's daughter -- confessed his love for Radler. )
I sat in on the meeting where the then-editors told Bill that the paper was going to retract the story, even though his notes clearly backed up the quote. (Not long after this I was sacked for, basically, yelling at the editors at meetings like the one I sat in on with Bill.)
All this to say that I never, ever expected Benjamin Netanyahu tp begin a presentation to the U.S. President, "Look, I'd rather not bring this up, but the Saudis insisted I make this point."
That seems to be the thrust of analysis of how Bibi plans to argue for a tough posture vis-a-vis Iran today in his first meeting with President Obama since both men's election. (They met over a year ago, when Obama was a candidate and Bibi led the opposition.)
Here's Roger Cohen in yesterday's New York Times online edition:
But recent developments have envenomed things to the point that Arab diplomats troop daily into the State Department to warn that the U.S. quest for détente with Tehran is dangerous.
That point will be made with vigor by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he meets with President Obama Monday. After all, when Israelis and Arabs make common cause, surely the danger is real.
Here's Jeffrey Goldberg in Saturday's Times:
Talk of containing Iran after it acquires a nuclear capacity, however, does not make the Israelis (or Iran’s Arab adversaries, for that matter) happy and, in fact, might push them closer to executing a military strike.
I mention Cohen and Goldberg because they've come to the same conclusion, and there's not a whole lot of love lost between them, as we have seen. But the truth is, this talk is permeating DC: "Israel backs engagement for now, but it wants a strict timetable for action -- and so, by the way, do the Arabs."
Myself, I'm not so sure.
Netanyahu is profoundly political, which means he operates in the short term. I'm not discounting his strategic thinking, which can be brilliant when he approaches it as an academic. As a politican, however, I've seen him, in GPS terms, focus more on how best to get to the next Interstate ramp than on the most efficient way of getting home. Off the top of my head, there's the pressing ahead with the Western Wall tunnel in 1996 (political gold in the short term, undermined Israel's claim to be a benevolnet arbiter of the holy sites in the long term); Bringing up Jonathan Pollard with President Clinton at the last minute at the 1997 Wye River talks (make hay with the right in the short term, blow a hole in his reputation as a reliable interlocutor in the long term.) Etc. Etc.
So what's he looking for? He's in political trouble already, barely a month in office, as Ori Nir of Americans for Peace Now lays out here. He needs a plum.
What plum has the Obama administration been holding back? The outlines of Dennis Ross' sticks-then-carrot approach to Iran. In other words, the sanctions program.
That's been obstructed in part by European reluctance to sign on to punitive third party sanctions, targeting companies that deal with Iran's enertgy sector. But I hear the Europeans like the idea of expanding sanctions on Iran's banking sector -- which in of themselves could seriously cripple the Islamic Republic's economy.
A taste of that -- a solid pledge to target, say, Iran's central bank should the outreach fail - would help propel Bibi past these rocky days back home.
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When Sara met Michelle—or didn’t
Seemingly desperate for a new angle on the increasingly popular narrative of estrangement between Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama -- the two will have their first tete-a-tete today at the White House -- Ha'aretz today ran two stories about Michelle Obama's apparent snub of the Israeli first lady, Sara Netanyahu. Word on the street is Sara wanted a meeting with Michelle, who was due to be in New York today for events at the Met and the American Ballet Theatre. Will she return and allow the Israelis to save face?
Yossi Sarid writes that he expects the meeting will take place, that the president's Mideast prioroties will prevail on Michelle, who would rather curtail her glamour evening in the Big Apple than be deemed responsible for the failure to achieve peace in the Holy Land. But that doesn't mean Sarid has any idea what Sara is doing in Washington in the first place.
Why, why does every such visit to Washington have to include a tinge of brazen effrontery and embarrassing pushiness? The prime minister is going for a "working visit," according to the official description; the trip will last all of two days; and it is not exactly clear what Sara will be doing there with him - unless this brief separation is like a living death for Benjamin Netanyahu, or his wife's good advice is absolutely essential in these exceptionally complex political and diplomatic circumstances.
Meanwhile, Meirav Michaeli has some words of advice for Sara, who has a contentious public persona in Israel. In a word, Get over it.
Don't be guided by this petty accounting. Don't run your life based on what they tell you, or what you're afraid they'll say about what you do. You are in a position of strength, in the spotlight, which you can use to benefit the many who need you. You are a child psychologist by profession; who knows as well as you how many children need the government's attention and care? Here you can pitch in and help. I have no doubt that the work you're doing on an individual basis is praiseworthy. But you have received what Michelle Obama calls "one of the best jobs in the world," because it can be used to help women change their lives.
For the record, as of 10:24 a.m. EST, the American Ballet Theatre was still touting Michelle's scheduled appearance on its website.
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Obama-Bibi: The Preview (UPDATED)
The pundits and papers are weighing in as Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu get set for their first White House meeting:
- Ha'aretz has put together slideshow of previous meetings between U.S. presidents and Israeli prime ministers. Plus columnist Aluf Benn weighs in with a piece titled "How does an Israeli diplomatic visit to the U.S. work?," outling the step-by-step standard protocol for such powwows. And Sunday the newspaper ran an editorial calling on Netanyahu to say "yes" to Obama: "Now Netanyahu must show he can set aside his ideological opposition to dividing the country and support for expanding settlements and, for the good of the state, strengthen relations with the United States and advance the peace process with the Palestinians and the Arab states. The Israeli public expects him to adjust his political stances to international reality. The Haaretz-Dialog survey published Friday showed a clear majority -- 57 percent -- wants Netanyahu to embrace the 'two states for two peoples' principle when meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama in the White House tomorrow."
- Herb Keinon (Jerusalem Post): Summit meetings at this level have two components, a policy component and a personal one. In this case the personal component - since this is the first meeting of the two men since they have taken over leadership of their respective countries - is no less important, and perhaps even more important, then the policy component. Netanyahu understands this, and will strive -- according to senior officials -- to develop a positive relationship based on mutual trust. Netanyahu understands this particularly well, especially since he failed to develop that type of relationship during his first tenure as prime minister with then-president Bill Clinton. Netanyahu would do well to take a page out of Ariel Sharon's playbook. Sharon, during his first meetings with then-US president George W. Bush, said that while Israel and the US would not always see eye to eye, 'there would be no surprises,' and that he would be frank with the US and 'do what he said he would do and always mean what he said' to the US president. Though there will be those pundits who will parse every phrase, and scrutinize every piece of 'body language' when Netanyahu and Obama come before the cameras following their meeting on Monday, it will be difficult to judge at this time whether the two 'clicked.' That will only be apparent to the public with time."
- Jackson Diehl (Washington Post): "Today Barack Obama will begin a diplomatic relationship that is likely to be as complex, as vexing and possibly as troubled as any he will have during the first years of his presidency. His meeting at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu won't produce the blow-up some expect; a smooth veneer of harmony is more likely. Yet it will quietly inaugurate a contest of wills between two very different politicians -- one that could help determine whether the Middle East shifts toward an era of negotiation and detente, or of deepening conflict. ... Sometime in the next few months, one of these men may give way. Obama could come to accept that frontal confrontation is the only option for Iran and that Middle East peace talks must take a back seat to it; Iranian behavior could well make such a conclusion inescapable. Or Netanyahu could abandon his campaign pledges and offer the Golan Heights to Syria. Perhaps an incipient initiative to broaden the Middle East peace process so that Israel bargains across the board with Palestinians and Arab states over a comprehensive settlement will take on momentum, with help from Jordan's King Abdullah. An equally likely scenario, however, is that Obama and Netanyahu will simply thwart each other -- to the delight of their common enemies. The resulting friction would be more dangerous for Netanyahu, who learned a decade ago that an Israeli prime minister who falls out with Washington cannot easily survive in office. If he is to succeed in the Middle East, Obama may need to use that leverage. He can start now by reaffirming U.S. support for Israel -- while leaving room for distinction between the country and its prime minister."
- Jeffrey Goldberg (New York Times): "When the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visits the White House on Monday for his first stage-setting visit, he will carry with him an agenda that clashes insistently with that of President Obama. Mr. Obama wants Mr. Netanyahu to endorse the creation of a Palestinian state. Mr. Netanyahu wants something else entirely: the president’s agreement that Iran must be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons."
- Daniel Pipes: "Question: How deep runs Obama's antipathy toward the Jewish state? Some predictions: (1) Iran being Netanyahu's top priority, he will avoid a crisis by mouthing the words 'two-state solution' and agreeing to diplomacy with the Palestinian Authority. (2) Democrats too will be on their best behavior, checking their alienation through Netanyahu¹s visit, momentarily averting a meltdown. (3) Obama, who has plenty of problems on his hands, does not need a fight with Israel and its supporters. His move to the center, however tactical, will last through the Netanyahu visit. Short term prospects, then, hold out more continuity than change in US-Israel relations. Those concerned with Israel's security will prematurely breathe a sigh of relief -- premature because the status quo is fragile and US relations with Israel could rapidly unravel."
- Shmuel Rosner: "It was very convenient for Israel to have 16 years in which two consecutive Presidents (Clinton, Bush) that were also great friends. Israel can not and should not delude itself into thinking that all future American Presidents will be as friendly as those two. If Obama proves to be a 'friend,' and not a 'great friend,' that's fine."
- Reuel Marc Gerecht (Wall Street Journal): "Can the United States and its European allies peacefully prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons? And if not, would Israel try to do so militarily, even if doing so greatly angered President Barack Obama? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington today. These questions could well make or break his premiership and Mr. Obama's presidency"
- Ori Nir of Americans for Peace Now: Right wing Israeli politicians once believed that they can score popularity points domestically if they demonstrate national honor by standing up to American presidents. Israelis and their leaders know better now. With hemorrhaging popularity, Netanyahu will not want to be portrayed in Israel as jeopardizing Israel’s relationship with Washington. Netanyahu wants his visit to Washington to be a success. To portray it as a successful visit, he may be willing to demonstrate flexibility. The question is whether the Obama administration would be able to follow up on the narrow openings that Netanyahu may offer on Monday and broaden those cracks to push through them a diplomatic breakthrough."
- Roger Cohen (New York Times): So here’s what Obama should say to Netanyahu when he says Arab states have identical fears over Iran: “We’re aware of this, Mr. Prime Minister, which is why we sent Defense Secretary Robert Gates and others to reassure Arab allies. But the U.S. interest is not served by the Mideast status quo. Our interest lies in new region-wide security arrangements that promote a two-state peace, end 30 years of non-communication with Iran, and ultimately afford Israel a brighter future. You can’t build settlements and expect Iran’s influence to diminish.” When Netanyahu demurs, Obama should add: “And you know what the Arabs tell me in private? That Israeli use of force against Iran would be a disaster. And that it’s impossible to tell Iran it can’t have nukes when Israel has them. They say that’s a double standard. And you know what? They may have a point.”
- Max Boot (Commentary): an Obama administration official, pressed as to why prospects for peace talks are not unreservedly bleak, told me privately that Bibi might be prepared to do a “Nixon in China”–i.e., to make concessions from the right. That is what Menachem Begin did in the Camp David talks. But the historical figure we should be invoking is not Nixon, Carter, or any other U.S. president. It is Anwar Sadat. ...Where, oh where, is the Palestinian Sadat–i.e., a responsible negotiating partner who can make peace and mean it? Until such a statesman arises, there is little or nothing that either Israeli or American leaders can do to bring a final resolution of the never-ending peace process.
- Mitchell Bard of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise: Netanyahu will not clash with Obama because he understands the United States and America’s interests in the region. They may disagree over Israel’s settlement policy, but this is nothing new; it is an issue that has been contentious for almost four decades. This will hardly overshadow the far more extensive areas of agreement on the desirability of continuing negotiations with the Palestinians and the threat posed by Iran.Some people are hung up on trying to get Netanyahu to say the magic words “two state solution” as if the mere utterance would bring an end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The phrase is meaningless, particularly in the present context where a civil war is ongoing among the factions of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas, which seeks the destruction of Israel, controls Gaza and hopes to take over the West Bank. Fatah is desperately clinging to power in the West Bank, but cannot negotiate or implement any agreement with Israel. Obama cannot change the Palestinian reality so it will do no good for him to pressure Israel to make concessions that will not be reciprocated.
- Mustafa Baghouti (Los Angeles Times): Icannot recall a more important meeting between an American president and an Israeli prime minister than today's meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Will the Obama administration have the courage to challenge Netanyahu, or will all the talk of change dissolve in the face of a concerted one-two punch from Netanyahu and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee? I am increasingly convinced that if Obama fails to speak out now, it will doom the two-state solution forever. Further fiddling in Washington -- after eight years of it -- will consign Jerusalem, the West Bank and the two-state solution to an Israeli expansionism that will overwhelm the ability of cartographers to concoct a viable Palestinian state.
- Finally, what's Netanyahu bringing the president as a gift? A Mark Twain book, reports Haaretz: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be presenting U.S. President Barack Obama with a copy of "Pleasure Excursion to the Holy Land," from Mark Twain's book "The Innocents Abroad," when they meet in Washington today. Netanyahu received the book, along with a newly published version in Hebrew (translated by Oded Peled), from the Kinneret Zmora-Bitan publishing house. In his travel memoir, Twain describes a 1867 trip to the Land of Israel, which he finds a backward and desolate place devoid of culture or law. "Renowned Jerusalem itself, the stateliest name in history, has lost all its ancient grandeur, and is become a pauper village," he states, calling it a country where prosperity had died out, a place of lost splendor and beauty where joy has turned to sorrow, and where silence and death prevail in its holy places.
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