JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Realism and the Arab peace initiative

By Uriel Heilman · December 9, 2008

The Arab states should help their Palestinian brethren set realistic, attainable goals rather than perpetuating unattainable fantasies that long have held back the Palestinian cause, Israel’s ambassador to Britain says.

2 Comments | Share This | Arab-Israeli Conflict

Sending the Lebanese a message

By Uriel Heilman · October 28, 2008

As Israel floats the idea of a non-aggression pact with Lebanon, Commentary magazine’s Michael Totten writes that even if the pact doesn’t work, it would do well to send a message to the Lebanese people that Israel isn’t interested in fighting them. That’s a message surprising number of people in Lebanon – probably the least anti-Israel of all Arab countries – don’t get to hear, Totten writes.

Israel is hardly well-liked in Lebanon, but neither is Hezbollah, and neither is Syria. Even though a non-aggression pact is likely to go nowhere right now, suggesting one to Lebanese may help clarify something: most Lebanese don’t actually know that Israelis prefer peace to war. They should, but they don’t. They’ve been soaked with so much disinformation and propaganda for so long, and there’s still a great deal of anger left over from Israel’s invasions in 1982 and 2006. Most of Hezbollah’s less fanatical supporters are drawn from the ranks of those who sincerely believe Israel is a threat to them and that Hezbollah is their only defense. This is nonsense on stilts – Israel wouldn’t have invaded Lebanon at all in 2006 if Hezbollah had not first attacked. But this perception persists nevertheless…

This should be obvious to most Lebanese, but I know from conversations with people across the political spectrum that it isn’t. Many don’t know whether they should support the Hezbollah-led “March 8” bloc in next year’s election, or whether they should support the “March 14” bloc led by those who kicked out the Syrians in 2005. The Syrian regime is currently pretending to be more benign that it really is by offering, for the first time ever, to establish diplomatic relations with Lebanon. Israelis are smart to signal, at the same time, that they sincerely do not mean Lebanese harm. No one in the Lebanese government or media will explain that to them. The “March 14” bloc is already sensitive to the near-constant accusation that it’s a “Zionist hand.” Israelis need to get that message out by themselves.

Public opinion on the idea of a peace treaty with Israel is mixed. Some want a peace treaty now. Some even want an alliance with Israel, although they tend to keep quiet about that and are far more likely to share that opinion off-the-record with me than they are with their fellow Lebanese. Others don’t want a peace treaty until outstanding issues–the supposed occupation of the Shebaa Farms, and the hundreds of thousands of unwanted and dangerous Palestinian refugees–are resolved. Even some otherwise sensible Lebanese I know wallow in conspiracy theories and believe Israelis want to conquer South Lebanon and steal water from the Litani River. Hezbollah’s hard-core supporters don’t ever want a peace treaty with Israel. But a non-aggression pact? An agreement that we’ll leave you alone if you leave us alone? Put that on a ballot in a popular referendum and it would pass overwhelmingly.

7 Comments | Share This | Arab world, Arab-Israeli Conflict, Israel

Unwilling executioners

By Uriel Heilman · October 20, 2008

More than half a century after a notorious massacre of Arab villagers by Israeli soldiers, Ha’aretz found some of the soldiers who refused to participate in the killings at Kafr Kassem and talked to them about why, and how, and what if.

On Oct. 29, 1956, eight members of the Border Police massacred 47 inhabitants of the Arab village of Kafr Qasem. They were later convicted of murder for obeying an illegal order, but were eventually pardoned. Ha’aretz talks to those who refused the order, including Nimrod Lampert, who describes it as a directive to ‘murder people in cold blood.’

0 Comments | Share This | Arab-Israeli Conflict, Israel

9/11 conspiracy

By Uriel Heilman · September 9, 2008

Western media – and many Western governments – largely have ignored the pernicious smears that have proliferated in the last eight years in the Arab world about 9/11 (calling them “conspiracy theories” gives them more credence than they deserve). Prime among them are that the Jews and Israelis knew about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in advance, did not show up to their jobs that day at the World Trade Center, and even perpetrated or orchestrated the attacks.

So it was interesting to see The New York Times take up the subject in a piece Tuesday by Michael Slackman about what in Cairo has become “conventional wisdom” about the attacks. After briefly reviewing the lies, Slackman writes:

It is easy for Americans to dismiss such thinking as bizarre. But that would miss a point that people in this part of the world think Western leaders, especially in Washington, need to understand: That such ideas persist represents the first failure in the fight against terrorism — the inability to convince people here that the United States is, indeed, waging a campaign against terrorism, not a crusade against Muslims.

It goes beyond that, however. Smears and conspiracy theories about the West long preceded the 9/11 attacks, and they have followed on unrelated and more recent subjects. Arabs commonly believe Israel infected Egyptian children with AIDS, that the two bars on the Israeli flag represent the goal of Jewish dominion over all the land between the Nile and Euphrates rivers, and that Jewish interest in the genocide in Darfur is part of a plan to occupy Sudan and, eventually, the entire Arab world.

It’s important not to let such attitudes go unheeded, because they are a sign of how disconnected from reality much of the Arab world is and how much needs to be done in order to lay the groundwork for peace, particular between the Arab world and Israel. Pretending such attitudes do not exist only set the peacemakers up for failure, partly by ignoring the factors that drive so many Arabs to embrace the radical and rejectionist ideologies of Hamas, Hezbollah and others.

On a semi-related note, here’s what Jeffrey Goldberg is thinking about 9/11: The next mega-attack in America will be a dirty bomb, and Barack Obama and John McCain had better focus much more attention on deterring this nuclear attack.

The next president must do one thing, and one thing only, if he is to be judged a success: He must prevent Al Qaeda, or a Qaeda imitator, from gaining control of a nuclear device and detonating it in America. Everything else — Fannie Mae, health care reform, energy independence, the budget shortfall in Wasilla, Alaska — is commentary.

5 Comments | Share This | Arab world, Arab-Israeli Conflict, Israel

Mughniyeh museum

By Uriel Heilman · September 3, 2008

Here’s what they’re teaching the kiddies in southern Lebanon: Revere terrorist masterminds.

The New York Times and Ha’aretz both have stories on a new museum in Nabatiye, Lebanon, devoted to glorifying Hezbollah chief Imad Mughniyeh, who was assassinated in February in Syria by unknown assailants.

The museum exhibits Mughniyeh’s personal effects, including his blood-stained clothes, broken Israeli tanks, fake skeletons and a portrayal of the after-life. Chalk it up as yet another monument to the culture of death among Islamic extremist groups in the Middle East.

Click here for more photos of the exhibit.

0 Comments | Share This | Arab-Israeli Conflict

Lip service only on Palestine, and ignoring Darfur

By Uriel Heilman · August 15, 2008

Martin Peretz of The New Republic calls the Arabs out for their hypocrisy for paying lip service to the Palestinian cause while refusing to bankroll it, and for ignoring the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. He writes:

The fact is, of course, that the other Arabs do not care a fig for Palestine, not a fig. Even with their lush surplus of petroleum cash, the oil Arabs do not pay their self-assessed tax for Palestine…

The Palestine national movement is a fraud. Internecine killing has taken far more Arab lives than armed encounters with the Israelis. It is full of pomp but no ordinary circumstance…

How can the Arabs feign such great agitation about the unfortunate Palestinians when they maintain such composure about the truly bitter fate of the Darfuris? It is the blood of their blood who are committing the genocide. It is their diplomats who protect the murderers, pass it all off as if it were nothing when it is the rankest mass blood-letting in a decade. Sudan is the fault line of the Muslim world, the racial fault-line. Whatever standing the African Muslims of Darfur command as pious supplicants before Allah, they have none before his Arab servants. Apparently, this does not trouble the conscience of Islam. They are otherwise engaged in the hyper-drama of Palestine.

0 Comments | Share This | Arab-Israeli Conflict, Muslims

Why the U.S. should support Israel-Syria talks

By Uriel Heilman · July 29, 2008

With the Bush administration seemingly reticent to wholeheartedly endorse Israel-Syria peace talks, the Israel Policy Forum offers a paper – crafted by former U.S. ambassadors to Middle East countries, among others – focusing on what the United States stands to gain from Israeli-Syrian détente.

The importance of bringing America into the talks is no small thing, the authors write. Only the U.S. can offer Syria the incentives and western embrace it requires to drop its position within Iran’s sphere of influence – just as only the U.S. could offer Egypt an alternative for Soviet backing at the time of the Israel-Egypt peace accord.

The authors write:

By setting aside the diplomatic “tool box,” however, the Bush administration seems to be signaling a preference for defeat over dialogue when it comes to the prospect of engaging the regime of President Assad.

As a practical matter, therefore, the question of what to do about Israeli-Syrian peace talks may well fall squarely on whoever occupies the Oval Office on the afternoon of January 20, 2009. We think the following factors are worth considering:

* As Iraq shows signs of gradually stabilizing, American-Syrian talks might yield agreements producing substantial benefits for the government in Baghdad while helping to relieve Syria of the enormous Iraqi refugee burden it is carrying.

* If there is a degree of genuineness in this Turkish-Syrian-Israeli initiative, the parties can conduct their respective “due diligence” processes and tackle some technical negotiating details without American assistance between now and early 2009. While we would like to see the Bush administration convert an apparent demand for American facilitation services into a gain for U.S. foreign policy objectives, we suspect the president prefers a different course.

* Contrary to the apparent beliefs of the Assad regime, a new American president—Republican or Democrat—will not automatically sign up to the proposition that the United States should dive into Israeli-Syrian talks forthwith and approach the bilateral relationship with Damascus with a blank slate. Iraq and Lebanon will be inherited issues. If Syria wants a positive relationship with Washington, cooperation over Iraq and an accommodation over Lebanon are essential. The new administration would do well to define what it wants, when it wants it, and what it is prepared to give in return. In short, tough-minded and disciplined diplomacy should come back into vogue—it is a tool of American power that no American commander-in-chief should be reluctant to use.

* If Damascus proves unwilling to be helpful with Iraq and determined to restore its suzerainty over Lebanon, it will be difficult for any American administration to obtain the requisite domestic political support to play an active role in helping Syria, through facilitation and mediation, recover the lands it lost to Israel in 1967.

* The dilemma for which Damascus holds an important key is that notwithstanding its bad relationship with Washington, a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace is essential to American national security interests. As the United States tries to rebuild its image, influence, and prestige in the Arab and Muslim worlds, the quality of its efforts to bring about a comprehensive peace between Israel and all of its neighbors will be of transcendent importance. While no American need ever apologize for the special relationship between the United States and Israel and while no one need ever doubt the depth and permanency of America’s commitment to Israel’s security, it is important that the United States be seen as striving for peace and justice in the Arab-Israeli context. Without sacrificing any legitimate national security interest, Syria—if it wants a good relationship with Washington and if it wants a vital American role in its discussions with Israel—can help make it possible for the next president (and even this one) to pursue a peace whose achievement would disappoint only Osama bin Laden, his disciples, like-minded extremists, and Iran.

Therefore, success of the Turkey mediated Israeli-Syrian talks would promote vital US interests in the region.  If the current US administration is not prepared to facilitate and join them, we urge the next president to do so as soon as possible after he takes office.

0 Comments | Share This | Arab-Israeli Conflict, Bush, Israel, syria

Kristof’s argument

By Uriel Heilman · July 25, 2008

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof engages in a debate about Israel with readers who take issue with his call for the U.S. to give Israel “tough love” – which, as he outlines it, would include such things as U.S. insistence on a 100 percent West Bank settlement freeze.

In the back-and-forth with readers, Kristof says the West Bank security fence should not be built on Palestinian land, indicated that Jews don’t necessarily have a right to live in Hebron, notes that more Palestinian minors have been killed by Israelis in recent years than vice versa and suggests that Israel has not done all it can to secure its long term future by negotiating with its Arab neighbors.

His arguments leave more than a few holes (e.g. there’s a difference between civilian victims of terrorism and bystanders killed in counterterrorist operations), but you can point them out if you’d like by commenting below or responding to Kristof on his blog or Facebook page.

9 Comments | Share This | Arab-Israeli Conflict, Israel, Settlements

Making the tough choices

By Uriel Heilman · July 22, 2008

Shlomo Avineri, a former director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry and now a professor of political science at Hebrew University, writes in Ha’aretz that it’s time to restore sanity to Israel’s negotiations over its captive soldiers:

Anyone looking in from the outside at the emotional turmoil and media circus surrounding the return of the bodies of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser would likely have concluded that Israel is run not by the government but by families worried about the fate of their loved ones. Since the matter of Gilad Shalit has still not been solved, it is worth returning some sanity to the public debate, and not to repeat our mistakes.

He made the same argument in Ha’aretz last week.

3 Comments | Share This | Arab-Israeli Conflict, Israel

The day after: Israel reacts

By Uriel Heilman · July 17, 2008

The day after Israel’s prisoner swap deal with Hezbollah, there was pain and anger in the Jewish state.

• Ari Shavit in Ha’aretz:

  Here are the results of Israel’s war against Hezbollah so far. Hezbollah is bringing home a living murderer, and Israel is bringing home two dead soldiers - over whose capture it sacrificed 160 other soldiers and civilians.

  Hezbollah celebrates a symbolic victory, and Israel is in ideological crisis.

  Hezbollah has won almost complete political control over Lebanon, and Israel wallows in irrevocable political chaos.

  Hezbollah is armed with 40,000 rockets threatening most of Israel’s territory, while Israel has no response.

  Hezbollah increases its firepower four or five times, and Israel remains feebly silent.

  You can read on, but it doesn’t get any less depressing.

• Shlomo Avineri in Ha’aretz wrote, “It is clear that there are a few general principles that apply to these types of negotiations, and that Israel did not observe them.”

  The government made a grave mistake when it allowed itself to follow public opinion, which treated the abducted soldiers like little Jewish boys kidnapped by Cossacks rather than soldiers in the army of the Jewish state. The government must tell the public and the families with total conviction that it will do everything in its power to free the soldiers within the boundaries of Israel’s overall interests - but not “everything.” Just as the government has the right to send soldiers into battle, and perhaps to their deaths, so too does it have the right to view the abductees’ fate in the framework of the state’s broader strategic interests.
  



• A Jerusalem Post editorial focused on the contrasting images yesterday from the two sides, Israel and Lebanon:

  Hizbullah’s greatest loss, perhaps, has been its standing in the eyes of principled people everywhere, who can now see the difference between a political culture that valorizes brutality and celebrates a killer as its national conscience, and one that manages a quiet dignity even in the most trying of times.

• Ynet’s Uri Orbach writes an open letter to the Lebanese people:

  It has been 30 years yet you still cannot distinguish between a national hero and a-child killer. For you, it’s enough that someone killed a Jew, even if it happens to be a young girl from Nahariya, in order for you to welcome him with great honor…

  With every proud display and rally for your heroes, you are being taken over the by Hizbullah gang, headed by the cannibal of bodies, Sheikh Nasrallah. The fire coming out of this bramble has been eating up Lebanon’s cedars for years now.

  Nasrallah is a man who reveals his true face even when in hiding; he is the man who also exposes your true face.

• Israel Harel of Ha’aretz: “This was no way to fulfill our duty and bring home the boys - by letting a terrorist organization string us along, right up to the last second.” Calling the swap a “humiliating and exorbitantly expensive deal,” Harel writes that “the Shalit deal, could be - if the media keep hurtling with no brakes - much more difficult and expensive than the sad ending of the Regev and Goldwasser deal.”

  A moral society doesn’t let terrorists abuse it. A moral society doesn’t give in to immoral extortion and doesn’t pay a price that endangers the future of its soldiers and civilians, while sowing the seeds for the next abductions and ensuing concessions. A strong moral society - as we still are - teaches the kidnappers a lesson and leads them to the painful conclusion that kidnapping doesn’t pay.

9 Comments | Share This | Arab-Israeli Conflict, Israel