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Mideast roundup

By Uriel Heilman · September 11, 2008

• Ha’aretz has some details on some of the weapons it says the U.S. government denied Israel out of fear they’d be used to attack Iran. They include bunker-buster bombs, permission to use an air corridor over Iraq to fly to Iran, an advanced technological system and refueling planes, the report said.
• Gabriela Shalev, who this week officially began her job as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, came out swinging in her first public statement on the job. Responding to an Iranian protest of remarks by Israeli ministers that Israel could kidnap Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Shalev said: “It is absurd that Iran preaches morality to Israel,” and more.
• Following a boat trip to Gaza that thwarted Israel’s blockade of the strip and resulted in his arrest by Israeli authorities, the director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Jeff Halper, faces a major funding crisis. The European Union, which provided much of the funding for the controversial organization (which blames Israeli Jews for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict), is not renewing its grant to the group, NGO Monitor reports.
• Former Israeli national security adviser Giora Eiland is troubled about Israeli-Syrian negotiations. In a piece in Ynet, he writes: “The three most bothersome issues are as follows: The order of our actions, the absence of a genuine security assessment, and the disregard shown to the United States.”

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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.

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U.S. presence at Iran talks a ‘slap in the face’ for Israel

By Uriel Heilman · July 23, 2008

While JTA’s own Ron Kampeas reports that Jewish organizations were mostly satisfied with the Bush administration’s decision to attend multilateral talks with Iran last Saturday in Geneva, the Israelis, apparently, were not.

Ha’aretz’s Aluf Benn called the participation of U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns in the meeting, aimed at halting Iran’s installment of centrifuges that enrich uranium, an American slap in the face to Israel:

Israel, which considers aerial bombing an accepted solution for thwarting the nuclear armament plans of hostile states in the region, was very displeased. The feeling in Jerusalem is that time is running out and that, if Bush does not stop the operations of the uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz - with an American military strike or with American authorization of an Israeli operation - Iran will become a nuclear power.

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Regime change in Iran

By Uriel Heilman · July 21, 2008

An Op-Ed piece in Monday’s Wall Street Journal uses the A-word to describe President Bush’s shifting stance on Iran. In the piece, titled ”Now Bush is Appeasing Iran,” the American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin argues that the White House is propping up a failed administration (in Tehran, not Washington), by sending Undersecretary of State William Burns to talks with Iran’s nuclear negotiator about incentives for Tehran.

While Rubin focuses on how the Bush administration in effect is rewarding Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s bad behavior – “Diplomacy is not wrong, but President Bush’s reversal is diplomatic malpractice on a Carter-esque level that is breathing new life into a failing regime,” Rubin writes – the piece also sheds light on how the regime in Tehran is struggling: It’s late on payment of salaries to government workers, it’s unable to step up oil production and it has been forced to impose rolling blackouts to deal with an energy crisis. Meanwhile, the Iranian people are growing increasingly restive.

If anything, the Bush administration should be contributing to the weakening of Ahmadinejad’s regime, not buttressing it against collapse, Rubin writes:

As Ahmadinejad begins his re-election campaign, he can say he has successfully brought Washington to its knees through blunt defiance, murder of U.S. troops in Iraq, and Holocaust denial. Should he win re-election in 2009, he will have Mr. Bush’s whiplash diplomacy to thank for his greatest – and, given the state of his economy, perhaps only – victory.

Last week, John Bolton argued on the same page that it’s too late for sanctions to work. The former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, now also at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote:

We have almost certainly lost the race between giving “strong incentives” for Iran to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons, and its scientific and technological efforts to do just that. Swift, sweeping, effectively enforced sanctions might have made a difference five years ago. No longer. Existing sanctions have doubtless caused some pain, but Iran’s real economic woes stem from nearly 30 years of mismanagement by the Islamic Revolution.

More sanctions today (even assuming, heroically, support from Russia and China) will simply be too little, too late. While regime change in Tehran would be the preferable solution, there is almost no possibility of dislodging the mullahs in time. Had we done more in the past five years to support the discontented – the young, the non-Persian minorities and the economically disaffected – things might be different. Regime change, however, cannot be turned on and off like a light switch, although the difficulty of effecting it is no excuse not to do more now.

The real question at this late stage, says Bolton, is: “What will the U.S. do if Israel decides to initiate military action?”

Instead of debating how much longer to continue five years of failed diplomacy, we should be intensively considering what cooperation the U.S. will extend to Israel before, during and after a strike on Iran. We will be blamed for the strike anyway, and certainly feel whatever negative consequences result, so there is compelling logic to make it as successful as possible. At a minimum, we should place no obstacles in Israel’s path, and facilitate its efforts where we can.

Meanwhile, the polling organization Rasmussen Reports released a new survey showing that 42 percent of Americans say that if Israel launches an attack against Iran, the United States should help Israel, while 46 percent say the United States should do nothing.

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L.A. Times: No to warmongering on Iran

By Uriel Heilman · July 3, 2008

In an editorial Thursday, the L.A. Times argues against U.S. acquiescence to an Israeli attack on Iran. The editorialists write:

There are a dozen reasons why “If you want to whack them, we’ve got your back” is the wrong message for the U.S. to send Israel, publicly or privately.

One is the increase in oil prices as a result of the war talk, which only enriches Iran. But here are two better ones: The consequences of an Israeli war with Iran are unpredictable, and it is nearly impossible to assess Iran’s ability to make good on its threats to retaliate against the United States, presumably through its terrorist proxy, Hezbollah. The last thing the U.S. needs now is more instability, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael G. Mullen said Wednesday. And while the odds may be low that diplomacy will solve the problem, we can’t know for sure because we haven’t tried it. Only the Europeans have. If bilateral talks with nuclear North Korea were acceptable to Bush, then why is it still anathema to talk with Iran?

The consequences of an Israeli war with Iran may be unpredictable, but the consequences for Israel of a nuclear-armed Iran are less unpredictable.

Sure, Iran might go nuclear and not attack the Jewish state, but is that a risk Israel can afford to take? Even if Iran held off from attacking Israel – which may be the likelier scenario, were Iran to go nuclear – the Islamic Republic would be able to brandish its nuclear threat over Israel like a mobster with a baseball bat. Is that something with which Israel would be able to live?

As for the oil reason, what’s worse: Expensive gas, or a nuclear-armed Iran? The warmongering serves the free world well, because it’s one more method to get Iran to quit its nuclear program that doesn’t involve actually bombing the place. Thus, regardless of whether or not President Bush actually would give Israel the green light to bomb Iran, it’s helpful that it appears as if he would.

For more on the degree to which rising oil prices are related to Iran-Israel tension, stay tuned for Ron Kampeas’ piece on the subject in JTA (coming out later today).

Meanwhile, Ha’aretz’s Avi Shavit writes that the scenario of Israel attacking Iran in the sunset of Bush’s presidency (which our Ron Kampeas wrote about here), may be far-fetched, but there’s so much at stake that Israel needs to get its ducks in a row just in case. The conclusion: Israel needs new elections now.

38 Comments | Share This | Bush, Iran, Israel

Preparing the battlefield in Iran, or exploring alternatives?

By Uriel Heilman · June 30, 2008

In his latest piece of “national security” reportage The New Yorker’s Sy Hersh uses insinuations and several leaps of logic to raise questions about the wisdom of the Bush administration’s apparent funding of covert activities designed to destabilize Iran’s religious leadership.

The headline and Hersh’s juxtapositions suggest that Hersh believes these activities are problematic and a sign that the Bush administration is “preparing the battlefield” for a U.S. attack against Iran.

But the activities also could be interpreted as just the opposite: The White House may be taking this action as an alternative to launching a full-out assault against the Islamic Republic and its suspected nuclear weapons program, and it may well prove more successful than an attack, sanctions or doing nothing.

Hersh makes several leaps of logic in his piece.

The first focuses on whether or not the White House’s initiative – $400 million worth of activities authorized by an executive order called a Presidential Finding – is for military activity to overthrow the regime in Tehran, and whether killing is an intrinsic or merely incidental part of the operations.

The anonymous administration sources cited in the story (they’re almost all anonymous in Hersh’s reporting) say the operations are not about killing:

As far as the C.I.A. was concerned, [a] former senior intelligence official said, “the over-all authorization includes killing, but it’s not as though that’s what they’re setting out to do. It’s about gathering information, enlisting support.”

The defensive-lethal language led some Democrats, according to congressional sources familiar with their views, to call in the director of the C.I.A., Air Force General Michael V. Hayden, for a special briefing. Hayden reassured the legislators that the language did nothing more than provide authority for Special Forces operatives on the ground in Iran to shoot their way out if they faced capture or harm.

The legislators were far from convinced. One congressman subsequently wrote a personal letter to President Bush insisting that “no lethal action, period” had been authorized within Iran’s borders. As of June, he had received no answer.

Members of Congress have expressed skepticism in the past about the information provided by the White House.

So has Hersh.

But isn’t this what the doves have been pushing for all along? They’d prefer the White House provide support for regime change in Iran from the inside, rather than seeing the U.S. adapt the hawks’ call to attack Iran head-on.

The survival of the current regime in Iran isn’t a partisan issue. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans want to see the perpetuation of a government that supports and sponsors terrorist groups, threatens U.N. member states (Israel and some Persian Gulf countries, including Bahrain), has nuclear ambitions, and on a daily basis persecutes and represses its own citizens.

So what’s the problem with the White House spending $400 million a year to try and change that in a less destructive and costly way than a frontal attack?

Here’s where Hersh makes a couple of leaps of logic. He assumes the executive order is about mounting lethal operations against Iranian security forces, and he assumes U.S. forces are undertaking just that. Since he hasn’t been able to turn up any concrete evidence to support that claim, he writes his piece in such a way as to insinuate that U.S. agents in Iran are involved in deadly attacks against Iranian authorities. Watch carefully for how he does this:

• In recent months, according to the Iranian media, there has been a surge in violence in Iran; it is impossible at this early stage, however, to credit [Joint Special Operations Command] or C.I.A. activities, or to assess their impact on the Iranian leadership.

(emphasis added)

It could not be learned whether there has been American involvement in any specific incident in Iran, but, according to Gardiner, the Iranians have begun publicly blaming the U.S., Great Britain, and, more recently, the C.I.A. for some incidents.

(Well, if Iran publicly blames the U.S., then it must be true...)

Hersh is forced to acknowledge that U.S. forces may not be attacking Iranian authorities directly, but supporting anti-government insurgent groups much the way U.S. forces aided surrogates in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Many of the activities may be being carried out by dissidents in Iran, and not by Americans in the field.

("May be being carried out?” Where’s Hersh’s evidence to the contrary?)

Then Hersh mounts the argument against the strategy of supporting anti-Iranian military activity, using academics and other quotables as proxies (and omitting contrasting voices):

Relying heavily on a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, Sam Gardiner, “who has taught strategy at the National War College and now conducts war games centered on Iran for the federal government, think tanks, and universities,” Hersh promotes the idea that “the violence, rather than weakening Iran’s religious government, may generate support for it.”

Hersh goes on:

A strategy of using ethnic minorities to undermine Iran is flawed, according to Vali Nasr, who teaches international politics at Tufts University and is also a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The White House’s reliance on questionable operatives, and on plans involving possible lethal action inside Iran, has created anger as well as anxiety within the Special Operations and intelligence communities.

Hersh’s source? An anonymous “Pentagon consultant who is involved in the war on terror,” who says:

“We’ve had wonderful results in the Horn of Africa with the use of surrogates and false flags—basic counterintelligence and counter-insurgency tactics. And we’re beginning to tie them in knots in Afghanistan. But the White House is going to kill the program if they use it to go after Iran. It’s one thing to engage in selective strikes and assassinations in Waziristan and another in Iran. The White House believes that one size fits all, but the legal issues surrounding extrajudicial killings in Waziristan are less of a problem because Al Qaeda and the Taliban cross the border into Afghanistan and back again, often with U.S. and NATO forces in hot pursuit. The situation is not nearly as clear in the Iranian case. All the considerations—judicial, strategic, and political—are different in Iran.”

Finally, Hersh uses U.S. opinion polls to argue against the anti-government activities he believes are taking place in Iran. He cites a Gallup poll from November 2007 that showed that only 18 percent of those polled favored U.S. military action against Iran, as opposed to 73 percent who favored economic action and diplomacy.

It’s a bit disingenuous to cite this poll, however, when the question – “What do you think the United States should do to get Iran to shut down its nuclear program: Take military action against Iran or rely mainly on economic and diplomatic efforts?” – likely prompted respondents to assume Gallup was asking about a major U.S. strike against Iran, not the type of covert operations Hersh describes in his article.

Ominously, Hersh warns that U.S. public opinion could shift in favor of a war against Iran, if the administration manipulates them the right way. Concluding, he notes that both John McCain and Barack Obama have said they’d keep the threat of military action against Iran on the table.

––-

My problem with this piece isn’t the implicit criticism of the strategy of using covert operatives to weaken the Iranian regime’s stranglehold on its people, though that strategy seems prudent and timely, especially given the alternatives (full-out war or doing nothing). Nor is it impossible that the administration is doing the things Hersh attributes to it.

My problem is that Hersh’s piece isn’t supported by the facts he presents, the reporting is one-sided, the piece is selective in its reliance on questionable anonymous sources, and it’s an opinion essay parading as journalism. Hersh’s story leaves the reader with a sense of great alarm about a strategy – whose manifestation is unclear, and which may or may not be in use – to challenge Iranian power.

If this really were what was going to bring the U.S. to war against Iran (the conclusion that Hersh wants you to be afraid of), why is the administration only spending a lousy 400 million bucks on it?

What do you think? Read the piece and let me know.

6 Comments | Share This | Bush, International, Iran, Politics

Joe Klein plays the dual loyalty card

By Ami Eden · June 27, 2008

Time magazine columnist Joe Klein has triggered a firestorm with a recent blog post asserting that the neocons and Joe Lieberman’s support for the Iraq war and tough action against Iran raises questions about dual loyalty:

The fact that a great many Jewish neoconservatives – people like Joe Lieberman and the crowd over at Commentary – plumped for this war, and now for an even more foolish assault on Iran, raised the question of divided loyalties: using U.S. military power, U.S. lives and money, to make the world safe for Israel.

He also seemed to endorse the theory that the president and vice president are sending American troops to die in order to boost oil company profits:

And then there is the question – made manifest by the no-bid contracts offered U.S. oil companies by the Iraqis – of two oil executives, Bush and Cheney, securing a new source of business for their Texas buddies.

The column drew swift criticism from members of the Commentary crowd, including Peter Wehner and Jennifer Rubin.

Klein fired back:

Then, what can one say about Jennifer Rubin, who accuses me of antisemitism? I must say that’s rather thrilling coming from the Commentary crowd. You want evidence of divided loyalties? How about the “benign domino theory” that so many Jewish neoconservatives talked to me about–off the record, of course–in the runup to the Iraq war, the idea that Israel’s security could be won by taking out Saddam, which would set off a cascade of disaster for Israel’s enemies in the region? As my grandmother would say, feh! Do you actually deny that the casus belli that dare not speak its name wasn’t, as I wrote in February 2003, a desire to make the world safe for Israel? Why the rush now to bomb Iran, a country that poses some threat to Israel but none–for the moment–to the United States...unless we go ahead, attack it, and the mullahs unleash Hezbollah terrorists against us? Do you really believe the mullahs would stage a nuclear attack on Israel, destroying the third most holy site in Islam and killing untold numbers of Muslims? I am not ruling out the use of force against Iran–it may come to that–but you folks seem to embrace it gleefully.

Furthermore, as a Jew, I find it offensive that the American Jewish Committee would support such an ideologically unbalanced publication as Commentary, one that spouts a Likudnik bellicosity that is out of sync with the beliefs of the vast majority of American Jews. A question to all concerned: When was the last time you opposed a policy, any policy, of the Israeli government–other than one that attempted to move toward peace?

Before I could tweak him, Klein was able to post this correction: “The American Jewish Committee is no longer associated with Commentary, thank God.”

As for when the last time a prominent neocon opposed a “policy, any policy, of the Israeli government – other than one that attempted to move toward peace"… How about Doug Feith playing a main, if not lead, role in cracking down on Israeli arms deals with China? It’s hard to think of any other issue that caused a bigger problem in U.S.-Israeli relations during the Bush administration – and Feith reportedly was the one delivering the hammer on Jerusalem.

This isn’t just a case of overlooking an example. There is a larger point here: Feith and his ideological brethren may have what Klein thinks is a crazy world view, but it is just that – a world view, as in China and Taiwan, Contras and Sandinistas, etc.

As for the question of fighting a war to make Israel safe, it may or may not be a bad idea – but plenty of non-Jews support the concept and it wouldn’t be the only time the United States determined that it was in America’s interest to take up arms to aid an ally. So why the talk about “dual loyalty”? At least Tim Russert was polite – and responsible – enough to raise the issue in a form of a question, and allow for a response.

Bonus: The O.U.’s D.C. blog has audio of McCain ripping Klein.

7 Comments | Share This | Bush, Iran, Iraq, Israel, pro-Israel lobby

Celebrating 60 years of American-Israeli friendship

By Daniel Sieradski · May 15, 2008

Last night, the President’s Conference reached its climax with an event celebrating the historic relationship between Israel and the United States.  In their successive addresses, which were interspersed with musical and (more questionable) dance performances, President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and the event’s chair, American casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, celebrated the uniqueness of the U.S.-Israel relationship, expressed gratitude for America’s commitment to Israeli security, and lavished praise upon U.S. President George W. Bush, the evening’s guest of honor, whom they characterized as the most supportive U.S. President Israel has ever known.  Their remarks, which were met with thunderous applause, preceded a brief address by President Bush, who linked the destinies of the U.S. and Israel through their shared commitment to bringing peace to the Middle East. The full audio of each speech follows.

President Shimon Peres

[audio:/images/archive/051408_tomorrow_peres.mp3]

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert

[audio:/images/archive/051408_tomorrow_olmert.mp3]

Mr. & Mrs. Sheldon Adelson

[audio:/images/archive/051408_tomorrow_adelson.mp3]

U.S. President George W. Bush

[audio:/images/archive/051408_tomorrow_bush.mp3]

President Bush receives one of several standing ovations

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1 Comment | Share This | Bush, Israel, Podcast

Sheldon Adelson: White knight or white elephant?

By Ami Eden · April 11, 2008

Laura Rozen of Mother Jones reports that some conservative activists are disappointed with the organization launched by casino mogul Sheldon Adelson to generate support for President Bush’s Iraq policy:

In Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, foreign-policy hawks thought they had found the conservative answer to liberal philanthropist George Soros: a deep-pocketed benefactor eager to dole out generous sums to right-leaning advocacy groups and grassroots campaigns. Adelson’s largesse, they believed, would underwrite the further advancement of conservative causes—particularly those regarding national security—and allow conservatives to do well-financed battle with ideological adversaries such as MoveOn.org. …

So last year, when Adelson helped to establish Freedom’s Watch, a group that late last summer launched a $15 million media campaign in support of the U.S. troop surge in Iraq, hopes were high—both for Adelson and for Freedom’s Watch. As former White House press secretary and Freedom’s Watch official Ari Fleischer put it in August, “The cavalry is coming.”

Almost eight months later, some Freedom’s Watch watchers are wondering whether some of the cavalry got lost. Even as the group has mounted a new campaign to coincide with General David Petraeus’ testimony on Iraq to Congress this week, there has been conservative grumbling about Freedom’s Watch—and Adelson. And several Freedom’s Watch staffers, including its first president, Bradley Blakeman, have left the group. Now Washington conservatives are worrying that Adelson may not be the white knight they had wished for.

In not-for-attribution interviews, a few conservative think tank hands and activists expressed frustration that Freedom’s Watch has yet to develop a comprehensive strategy, and they gripe that it has been slow to set up a MoveOn-style infrastructure. Freedom’s Watch hasn’t realized its full potential, they say, in part because Adelson overly involves himself in the group’s decision-making and won’t heed the good advice of…well, people like them.

4 Comments | Share This | Bush, Iraq, Politics

Hamas behaving badly

By Ami Eden · April 1, 2008

The New York Times has a front-page story today on Hamas incitement against Israel and Jews:

In the Katib Wilayat mosque one recent Friday, the imam was discussing the wiliness of the Jew.

“Jews are a people who cannot be trusted,” Imam Yousif al-Zahar of Hamas told the faithful. “They have been traitors to all agreements — go back to history. Their fate is their vanishing. Look what they are doing to us.”

At Al Omari mosque, the imam cursed the Jews and the “Crusaders,” or Christians, and the Danes, for reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. He referred to Jews as “the brothers of apes and pigs,” while the Hamas television station, Al Aksa, praises suicide bombing and holy war until Palestine is free of Jewish control.

Its videos praise fighters and rocket-launching teams; its broadcasts insult the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, for talking to Israel and the United States; its children’s programs praise “martyrdom,” teach what it calls the perfidy of the Jews and the need to end Israeli occupation over Palestinian land, meaning any part of the state of Israel.

Such incitement against Israel and Jews was supposed to be banned under the 1993 Oslo accords and the 2003 “road map” peace plan. While the Palestinian Authority under Fatah has made significant, if imperfect efforts to end incitement, Hamas, no party to those agreements, feels no such restraint.

Plus this clip, from MEMRI, of a puppet show on Hamas television, in which an Arab child tells President Bush that the White House has been turned into a great mosque and then stabs the U.S. leader to death.

2 Comments | Share This | Bush, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, video