What Barak and Mitchell talked about
Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak and U.S. special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell met in London Monday and they've put out a statement detailing the topics discussed. Settlements was on the agenda, but so was "steps by Arab states toward normalization with Israel":
Defense Minister Barak and Special Envoy Mitchell met today in London, following up their June 30 discussion in New York. They covered all aspects of Middle East peace and security. They re-affirmed their commitment to the common objective of a regional peace between Israel and the Palestinians, Syria, and Lebanon and the steps necessary to achieve it. These included measures on security and incitement by the Palestinians; steps by Arab states toward normalization with Israel; and, from Israel, actions on access and movement in the West Bank and on settlement activity. These constructive discussions will continue with Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Barak, and other Israeli officials in the near future.
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Are Bushies behind the understandings misunderstanding?
Shmuel Rosner, who never met an inconvenient truth he didn't like (and that's a big part of the reason I find Shmuel so likeable), writes here that the Bush administration is at least partly to blame for the current disagreement to disagree between the Netanyahu and Obama administrations over Bush-era understandings on settlements.
The outgoing Bush administration didn't inform the incoming Obama administration about the understandings with Israel regarding settlement construction -- but not because it was forgotten. It could not have been forgotten. Israel reminded. Officials in Jerusalem reminded officials in Washington -- reminded and asked -- that the "understandings" will be transmitted to the new administration in writing. However, the Bush administration has decided not to do such thing. It was a deliberate decision.
The story isn't going away: Benny Begin is the latest Israeli minister to go on the record demanding American compliance with the understandings.
Rosner's Jerusalem Post blog links to a much longer (and juicier) Hebrew story he penned at Ma'ariv, citing anonymous sources in Israel and Washington. Here are some of the points:
- Steve Hadley, Bush's national security adviser, was behind the adamant refusal to convey to the Obama administration the understanding that Israel could continue some "natural growth" in the settlements;
- The argument from within the former Bush administration has until now seemed to be one between Elliott Abrams, the former deputy national security adviser, who says the understandings should still hold, and Daniel Kurtzer, the former U.S. ambassador to Tel Aviv, who says the understandings are moot because the parameters of "natural growth" were never defined. (According to a key 2004 letter by Dov Weisglass, then the top adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the understandings hinged on defining the settlement borders and what constituted "natural growth." This never came about.) But, according to Shmuel, the Obama administration has consulted a number of Bush officials on the matter -- and Abrams pretty much stands alone. "Aside from Abrams, until now, not a single voice has been heard backing Israel's version," he writes.
- This does not mean Abrams is necessarily wrong, Rosner writes, but that "there are enough senior Bush administration officials who were not comfortable with how Israel functioned while Bush was in power." Rosner does not immediately explain what discomfited these officials, but further down, he says Bush and Sharon discussed the understandings in detail in 2003 (which would suggest that Kurtzer is at least partly mistaken -- i.e., that there were parameters) -- and then adds that it was Bush's subsequent impression that Israel was going well beyond the parameters. "What does Sharon think, that I'm stupid, that I don't understand the meaning of 'natural growth'?" Bush is said to have told an adviser.
A key cog in the Obama administration's adamant position that the understandings do not hold is Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, who is among those who believe Benjamin Netanyahu "is trying to pull a fast one." "Paranoids also are not lacking on the Israeli side," Shmuel drily notes. "It's a process that feeds itself." - Hillary Rodham Clinton's uncompromising posture, in particular, was the result of her frustration with the leaks campaign from the Israeli side, Rosner says.
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Biden on ‘This Week’: It is Israel’s ‘sovereign right’
Vice President Joe Biden made some waves in an interview yesterday with ABC's George Stephanopoulos by seeming to give a green light to Israel if it want to attack Iran. Here's the transcript of that portion of the interview:
STEPHANOPOULOS: And meanwhile, Prime Minister Netanyahu has made it pretty clear that he agreed with President Obama to give until the end of the year for this whole process of engagement to work. After that, he's prepared to make matters into his own hands.
Is that the right approach?
BIDEN: Look, Israel can determine for itself -- it's a sovereign nation -- what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Whether we agree or not?
BIDEN: Whether we agree or not. They're entitled to do that. Any sovereign nation is entitled to do that. But there is no pressure from any nation that's going to alter our behavior as to how to proceed.
What we believe is in the national interest of the United States, which we, coincidentally, believe is also in the interest of Israel and the whole world. And so there are separate issues.
If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do that. That is not our choice.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But just to be clear here, if the Israelis decide Iran is an existential threat, they have to take out the nuclear program, militarily the United States will not stand in the way?
BIDEN: Look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination, if they make a determination that they're existentially threatened and their survival is threatened by another country.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You say we can't dictate, but we can, if we choose to, deny over-flight rights here in Iraq. We can stand in the way of a military strike.
BIDEN: I'm not going to speculate, George, on those issues, other than to say Israel has a right to determine what's in its interests, and we have a right and we will determine what's in our interests.
The White House subsequently said Biden's statement was not a change in policy, reported the Los Angeles Times:
White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said Biden was not signaling any change of approach on Iran or Israel.
"The vice president refused to engage hypotheticals, and he made clear that our policy has not changed," Vietor said. "Our friends and allies, including Israel, know that the president believes that now is the time to explore direct diplomatic options."
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Obama: Plan A is still diplomacy, Israel: Plan B needed
The New York Times reports today that President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden say that the crackdown on opposition leaders in Iran will not deter them from seeking to engage the country’s top leadership in direct negotiations.
In an interview with The New York Times, a day before his scheduled departure for Moscow on Sunday, Mr. Obama said he had “grave concern” about the arrests and intimidation of Iran’s opposition leaders, but insisted, as he has throughout the Iranian crisis, that the repression would not close the door on negotiations with the Iranian government.
“We’ve got some fixed national security interests in Iran not developing nuclear weapons, in not exporting terrorism, and we have offered a pathway for Iran to rejoining the international community,” Mr. Obama said. ...
Before Iran’s disputed election on June 12, the president’s top aides say, they received back-channel indications from Iran — from emissaries who claimed to represent the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — that the country would respond to Mr. Obama’s overtures this summer. But the crackdown and the divisions among senior clerics about the legitimacy of the election and Ayatollah Khamenei’s credibility have changed the political dynamics. Senior administration officials said they have heard nothing from Iran’s leaders.
The administration, meanwhile, has been preparing for two opposite possibilities: One in which the Iranian leadership seeks to regain a measure of legitimacy by taking up Mr. Obama’s offer to talk — a situation that could put Washington in the uncomfortable position of giving credibility to a government whose actions Mr. Obama has deplored — or one in which Iran rejects negotiations. Mr. Obama told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in May that if there were no progress on the Iranian nuclear issue by the year’s end, the administration would turn to other steps, including sanctions. Mr. Obama hinted at an even shorter schedule during the interview on Saturday.
“We will have to assess in coming weeks and months the degree to which they are willing to walk through that door,” he said.
Israeli officials have a different take on the events unfolding in Iran, according to Ha'aretz:
Israel is urging the United States and other countries to start preparing now for the possibility that Washington's proposed dialogue with Iran will fail, by readying a "Plan B" that includes "paralyzing sanctions" and other measures against Tehran.
The U.S. has resisted this idea so far.
The Israeli messages - sent against the background of the recent unrest in Iran - have been delivered to the White House, the State Department and senior officials in the U.S. intelligence community by senior officials in the Prime Minister's Office and the Foreign Ministry. Similar messages have been sent to senior officials in Germany, Russia, France and Japan.
Israel's argument is that if the Americans are indeed committed to imposing "paralyzing sanctions" on Iran should the dialogue fail - as both U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have said in the past - the work of drafting these sanctions must begin now.
"Israel is adjusting its messages to the new circumstances created by the unrest in Iran," a senior government official said. "These things must be stated clearly now so that there is no confusion about our position."
Before the protests in Iran began, the official explained, Israel's assessment was that the planned American-Iranian dialogue had little chance of succeeding. But in light of the protests, and the need of Iranian hard-liners to shore up their rule, Israel's intelligence community believes the chances of the dialogue even beginning, much less succeeding, are near zero. ...
Read the full story.
Meanwhile, The Associated Press reports that a senior Iranian parliamentary official said Monday that Iran is ready to take "real and decisive" action if Israel attacks its nuclear facilities.
The remarks by Alaeddin Broujerdi, the head of Iran's parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy, came after U.S. Vice President Joe Biden signaled that Washington would not try to prevent any such Israeli assault.
"Both the U.S. and Israel are aware of the consequence of an erroneous decision," Broujerdi told reporters at the Iranian Embassy in Tokyo.
"I believe our response will be real and decisive," Broujerdi said. He declined to elaborate. ...
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