Barry Rubin: Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Neo-Mandate Solution
For example, is the U.S. air force going to bomb a building in Gaza that is an open headquarter for Gaza rocket and terrorist attacks? Will it aggressively go after foreign fighters, even if those foreign fighters have attacked Americans? Will it send them to Guantanamo Bay? Will it respond to criticism in the UN? May I point out that U.S. counterterrorism policy has not been very aggressive of late.Israelis and Palestinians Don’t Share Kerry’s Optimism on Peace Talks
Think about Benghazi.
The United States will then have two choices:
1. The U.S. helps Israel, albeit with constant opposition, and alienates the Arab and Iranian and Turkish world.
2. The United States will gradually get tired of the burden and walk away from it.
In other words, Israel would not benefit from what can only be called "ObamaStrategicCare."
If you like it, no matter what you've heard, you can keep your strategic patron or plan, you can keep your ally (Obama), and you'll save money. No one will be able to take that away from you. (h/t NormanF)
While U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry returned from his Middle East trip last week with an optimistic message, following his latest attempt to foster progress in Israel-Palestinian peace talks and the presentation of a security proposal to both sides, Israelis and Palestinians aren’t sharing his positive outlook.Open letter to Secretary of State John Kerry
From Dec. 4-6, Kerry accompanied in Jerusalem and Ramallah by retired four-star Marine Gen. John Allen, the former U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Allen presented Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas with what Kerry and the State Department have carefully described as only “some thoughts” on the resolution of security issues that have been obstructing progress in negotiations.
Dear Mr. Secretary of State,Abbas Rejects Israeli Security Presence in the Jordan Valley
We don’t know each other personally, but in my position as assistant to the IDF chief of General Staff, I have been closely following your every move. When you met, as a senator, with Bashar Assad in Damascus, I was flabbergasted when you proclaimed that this was a great opportunity to make peace with Syria’s modern and moderate leader.
Over the past few months, I’ve been listening very closely to your speeches and statements about events in the Middle East and what actions you think Israel should take. I would like to describe to you a slightly different reality, one which I’ve experienced through the various senior IDF positions I’ve held, through the military reserve duty which I still actively carry out and from living with my family in Beit Horon, a community situated between Jerusalem and Modi’in (you’d probably call it a West Bank settlement) where we have been living alongside Palestinian neighbors for many years.
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has said that if Israel insists on maintaining security presence in the Jordan Valley, there will not be a peace agreement.The Palestinian refugees -- a reality check
Abbas added in the interview that all the Israeli “settlements” are located on “Palestinian land” and must be evicted in order for an agreement to be signed. He added that the PA leadership would agree to extend the current talks by one month, if serious progress is made during the nine-month period that was allocated by the Americans for the talks.
According to an August 1971 Ford Foundation report, by 1950 the majority of the Palestinian refugees began evacuating the camps and non-refugees moved in to benefit from UNRWA's services. For example, half of the population in the Jalazone refugee camp, near Ramallah, settled there after 1950.Palestinian teen killer of IDF soldier indicted
A November 17, 2003 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office documented that less than 33% of registered Palestinian refugees live in refugee camps.
A 16-year-old Palestinian was indicted on Thursday for the stabbing death of IDF soldier Eden Atias a month ago.Baby Avigail's Attackers Charged
Hussein Sharif Rawarda, a resident of the West Bank city of Jenin, stands accused of stabbing 19-year-old Atias multiple times in the neck on November 13. The attack took place on a bus in the northern town of Afula.
The indictment states that the seven youths attacked the car in which toddler Avigail Ben-Tzion was travelling, along with her mother and siblings, in a brutal attack on November 28.Exclusive: Israeli, Palestinian officials to coordinate civilian emergency responses
Avigail suffered serious head injuries and was admitted to Jerusalem's Hadassa Ein Kerem hospital. She was discharged three days later after her condition improved, and is currently recovering at home.
Israeli and Palestinian officials held a meeting in Hebron this week, the first of its kind, to improve joint coordination in responding to civilian emergencies such as fires and accidents, and to figure out ways to protect the local environment together.Palestinians slam Guatemalan president for visiting east Jerusalem
The understandings reached by the participants found expression already on Thursday, when two Palestinian bulldozers joined Israeli bulldozers in clearing routes 36 and 60 after a heavy snow storm blocked the two roads that serve Palestinian and Israeli drivers.
PLO Executive Committee member Saeb Erekat expressed “strong dissatisfaction with the response given by the Guatemalan Foreign Ministry regarding complaints made by the State of Palestine on the issue,” according to a statement issued by the PLO.Egypt destroys Hamas arms depots in Sinai
“We will not accept any attempt to legitimize Israel’s occupation policies, particularly in East Jerusalem,” Erekat was quoted as saying.
The weapons depots constituted the Islamist group’s logistic rear front, and the Egyptians reportedly also shut down arms workshops in Sheikh Zuweid which produced arms for Hamas.US Poll: 84% Think Iran Stalling to Build Nukes
Near those workshops, Hamas also operated firing ranges for testing rockets in the months before the Egyptian campaign, the officials said.
Obama's move is in contradiction to the public will expressed in the poll, which revealed 77% of Americans support the ongoing 6 month negotiations "while imposing sanctions and increas[ing] financial pressure and sanctions." In fact, only 14% said they would vote for a senator that would reduce pressure on Iran during negotiations.US hits firms over Iran as sanctions debate goes on
Furthermore, the poll discovered that there is deep-seated distrust over the intentions of the Iranian regime. Only 7% trust the Iranian claim that their nuclear program is peaceful.
The United States targeted more than two dozen companies and people on Thursday for evading sanctions against Iran, an effort by the Obama administration to show it will enforce existing law even as it presses Congress to hold off on additional measures while world powers pursue a comprehensive nuclear deal with Tehran.Iran halts nuclear talks for ‘consultations’
The action freezes the US assets of firms in Panama, Singapore, Ukraine and elsewhere for maintaining covert business with Iran’s national tanker company. Other companies involved directly in the proliferation of material useful for weapons of mass destruction also were blacklisted from the US market. American citizens are banned from any transactions with the listed individuals and firms.
“The Iranian negotiators interrupted the talks with the P5+1 [Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany] for consultations in Tehran,” the Islamic Republic New Agency (IRNA) reported Friday.UN panel: Sanctions against Iran must be enforced despite Geneva deal
AFP reported Friday that the decision to halt the talks came hours after Washington blacklisted a dozen overseas companies and individuals for evading US sanctions on Iran.
Australia's UN Ambassador Gary Quinlan told the 15-nation Security Council that a Nov. 24 interim deal between Iran and six world powers, which offers Iran limited sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program, did not affect countries' legal obligations to implement UN measures.Iran Insists on Delivery of S-300 Defense System From Russia
"The Security Council measures ... remain in effect; and States have an obligation to implement them duly," Quinlan said in his latest 90-day report. "It is only by a Security Council decision that these measures can be modified or terminated, and, until then, member states are obligated to enforce them."
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Tehran will not drop its 2007 deal with Moscow to pay $800 million for the Russian-made S-300 air defense system missile shield, semi-official state news agency FARS reported on Thursday.Wife of Pastor Imprisoned in Iran Says U.S. Government Abandoned Her Husband
The deal was formally scrapped in 2010 by then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, “who was unilaterally expanding on sanctions against Iran imposed by the UN Security Council,” in the words of FARS. Iran filed a $4 billion lawsuit against Russia in the international arbitration court in Geneva, which is still pending.
Naghmeh Abedini told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that she was dismayed after learning that her husband’s imprisonment was not raised during the recent nuclear negotiations between Iran, the United States, and other world powers.Final UN report confirms chemical weapons used multiple times in Syria
Saeed Abedini was detained last year for starting Christian house churches in Iran and was later sentenced to eight years in prison for “undermining the national security of Iran.”
Chemical weapons were likely used in five out of seven attacks investigated by UN experts in Syria, where a 2 1/2-year civil war has killed more than 100,000 people, according to the final report of a UN inquiry published on Thursday.Al Qaeda Pushes Kurdish Population Transfer in Syria
The UN investigators said the deadly nerve agent sarin was likely used in four of the incidents, in one case on a large scale.
The report noted that in several cases the victims included government soldiers and civilians, though it was not always possible to establish with certainty any direct links between the attacks, the victims and the alleged sites of the incidents.
The Syrian human rights organization Al Masrad reports that Al Qaeda affiliated Da'ash (the Islamic state in Iraq in Syria) fighters are expelling Kurdish families from their homes in a number of north Syrian communities, settling families of the organization's fighters in their stead.Sharia Law Less Prominent, But Still in Egypt’s Draft Constitution
According to eye witnesses, Da'ash fighters gave the families short notice to abandon their homes, leaving many of them without a roof over their heads and in difficult conditions.
The draft constitution eliminates the 2012 Muslim Brotherhood constitution’s Article 219, which defined aspects of Sharia law on which legislation could be based. Article 219 and other aspects of the 2012 constitution led many liberal and Christian leaders to boycott the Muslim Brotherhood government, culminating in popular protests and the military’s ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.Massive Explosion Rocks Egyptian Police Camp
Nevertheless, remaining in the new draft constitution is Article 2, which states that the principles of Sharia “the main source of legislation.”
On Thursday an Egyptian security forces camp in Ismailiya, near the Sinai Peninsula, was targeted by a massive explosion, leaving at least 35 policemen injured. Officials told Al Jazeera the bombing was followed by gunshots.
Ismailiya and the surrounding Sinai areas have witnessed regular attacks on police and military. In October, another security headquarters was attacked in Ismailiya, leaving 5 soldiers dead.