Hizballah’s Push for Power

Posted on March 7, 2011 by jonathanspyer

The Guardian- 16/11/2006

Earlier this month, Hizballah General-Secretary Hassan Nasrallah issued an ultimatum to the Lebanese government of Fuad Siniora. Either, Nasrallah declared, his movement and its allies are granted a one-third blocking veto in the Lebanese Cabinet, or Hizballah supporters will be sent onto the streets to begin a campaign of public pressure. The Lebanese government understood the Hizballah threat as an attempt to prevent government approval of a proposal for an international tribunal to try those suspected of responsibility in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

The expiry date for the ultimatum has now passed. And five Shia ministers have resigned from the cabinet (along with one Christian associate of pro-Syrian President Emil Lahoud.)

Siniora, meanwhile, has called Hizballah’s bluff, mustering his depleted cabinet to approve the proposal for the establishment of the tribunal. And Lebanon is now nervously awaiting the next move from Hizballah, with the prospect of civil strife looming closer.

The Hizballah leader’s threat should not be seen as mere posturing. Rather, when taken together with the latest developments in Lebanon’s southern border area, it offers evidence that the Shi-ite movement is pursuing a joint military and political strategy which is now seriously threatening the shaky foundations of political order in Lebanon, and which may yet lead to renewed confrontation with Israel.

Southern Lebanon suffered very great damage in this summer’s war between Hizballah and Israel. Over 1,000 Lebanese were killed, and billions of dollars worth of losses incurred. But strategically, by surviving, Hizballah was able to cast the war as an achievement. And while discontent among non-Shia Lebanese is running high at having their country used as a launching-pad for the schemes of Hizballah and its regional backers, there are no indications that the movement has suffered any decline among its core constituency.

It was widely expected that the period following the conclusion of this summer’s war would see Hizballah holding back for a while, seeking to re-stock and replenish. But the latest developments suggest a greater urgency. Hizballah and its backers are currently riding a wave of adulation in much of the region for their perceived defiance of the west. Some have likened the current atmosphere to the fervent popular support for Saddam across the region after he invaded Kuwait in 1990. There have even been comparisons with the heyday of Arab nationalism in the 1950s and 1960s.

Hizballah and its patrons are men of calculation, as well as fervor. And the movement’s latest ratcheting up of the tension in Lebanon has its immediate roots in realpolitik. Destabilizing the Siniora government at the present time would serve to severely complicate the implementation of UN Resolution 1701 (rapidly becoming a dead letter thanks to the successful Syrian and Hizballah intimidation of international forces). And Syrian fears of the Hariri tribunal also undoubtedly play a key role in the timing of the latest provocations.

But these details should not obscure the larger picture. Hizballah’s latest agitation is evidence that the movement now considers itself a serious contender for power in Lebanon.

And, in the strategy being pursued by the movement, military activity goes hand in hand with political. Each strengthening the other.

Thus, reports indicate that Hizballah is stepping-up its campaign to re-build its damaged military infrastructure along the southern border area. This is taking place under the noses of the 12,000 strong UNIFIL force in the area. In open defiance of the calls for it to disarm in UN Security Council Resolutions 1559 and 1701, Hizballah is using reconstruction efforts as a cover for re-building the intricate system of tunnels and bunkers in Lebanon’s south which it used to telling effect in the summer war.

There is no evidence of serious effort by UNIFIL forces to interfere with this process. The UN forces have made clear that disarming Hizballah is not part of their mandate. The Lebanese army, meanwhile, as has been clear from the start, has neither the will nor the ability to act against Nasrallah’s men. The result is that the main role currently being played by UNIFIL is to act as a 12,000-strong armed audience to Hizballah’s rebuilding of its military capability in the south.

So – destabilization in the capital and rearmament in the south. Twin elements in a strategy designed to remove all obstacles to the ultimate objective of power. Power to be used in the pursuit of the radical Shia Islamist goals shared by Nasrallah and his patrons in the Teheran of the Ayatollahs.

The war between Hizballah and Israel in 2006 was inconclusive. It failed to settle the basic issue which lay behind its outbreak: An armed Islamist movement had succeeded in wresting partial sovereignty from the elected government in Beirut. It had acquired control over part of the sovereign territory of Lebanon, and the administration of that country’s southern border. And it was determined to use this capacity to pursue its own, unilaterally decided upon foreign policy. Hizballah was damaged but not destroyed in the war. Failure to insist on the permanent and total disarming of the movement has created an opening which Nasrallah is now aggressively seeking to widen.

Hizballah cannot be integrated into the peaceful, democratic political system desired by many Lebanese. The movement’s raison d’etre is the aggressive promotion of an absolutist idea. For as long as the advance of this movement remains unchecked, stability in Lebanon and between Lebanon and Israel will be an impossibility. The question now is whether Hizballah’s external and internal opponents will find the political will to act – decisively, and soon.

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Old-Think Rides Again

Posted on March 7, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Haaretz-27/11/2006

The curtain is now descending on United States and allied hopes that a democratic, stable Iraq might yet emerge from the 2003 invasion of that country. As the endgame is played out, one may glimpse the contours of the new thinking on key Mideast issues emerging to fill the vacuum left by the eclipse of the “regional democratization” project of which the new Iraq was intended to form the linchpin. This new thinking, it turns out, is not very new at all. It is also of direct relevance to Israel.

Observe: A week ago, British Prime Minister Tony Blair laid down some clear parameters for the future direction of Mideast diplomacy. The “core” issue, said Blair, was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Movement in this area, the British prime minister told his audience, was the essential starting point in confronting the roots of the global terrorism that has emerged from the Middle East. From Israel/Palestine, he suggested, one might move on to Lebanon. In this way, Blair considered, the sources of anger used by Iran and Syria against the West would be stilled. In turn, the West could then offer a new “partnership” to Iran in return for giving up its nuclear ambitions. The threat, should Iran fail to comply, would be “isolation.” The recent trip by a senior British prime ministerial adviser to Syria suggests that the British government hopes to make a similar attractive offer of “partnership” to the Assad regime in Damascus.

Western policy in the Mideast, of course, is not determined in any European capital. Blair’s hopes for regional influence go via Washington. But there has rarely been a more welcoming environment for the flourishing of such thinking than that to be found in Washington today. Opponents and erstwhile associates of the Bush administration are scrambling to construct a new regional strategy from the ashes of the Iraq project. Engagement is all the rage. The influential Iraq Study Group (ISG) of former secretary of state James Baker and former Congressman Lee Hamilton consists largely of individuals who support the idea of a new “regional conference,” drawing in Syria and Iran, in the hope that they may use their influence to prevent further meltdown in Iraq, Lebanon and between Israelis and Palestinians. Secretary of Defense-designate Robert Gates is a long-term advocate of dialogue with Tehran. Former U.S. ambassador to Syria Edward Djerejian, who is expected to author the upcoming ISG report, is known to favor renewed closeness between the United States and Syria. President Bush, it is understood, currently opposes any major policy shift. But the way the winds are blowing is clear.

The problem with this thinking is that it exchanges one form of naivete for another. The previous version – which said that tomorrow, Middle Eastern political culture will be just like ours, once the small matter of democratization has been sorted out – is being discarded. In its place is emerging a view which asserts that seemingly problematic Middle Eastern leaders and regimes are already like us. So all we need to do to get them on our side is to offer a few inducements, a few incentives, and they will surely see the benefits of cooperation.

We have been here before. This is the thinking that underlay the failed peace process of the 1990s. But it is being revived in a region vastly more volatile and dangerous than that of a decade ago.

Such a view fails to cast a clear eye on how things look from Tehran and Damascus. For the revivalist ideologues in Iran, and the Alawi junta in Syria, things are currently going rather well. U.S.-induced democratization has run aground. Efforts to build a coherent coalition against the Iranian nuclear program seem to be going nowhere. And imaginations across the Arab world have been captured by the performance of Iranian/Syrian client organizations against the hated Zionist enemy. Why on earth would this be the time for compromise? Why stop when you’re winning?

But the poverty of Western policy thinking also has at its root a failure of imagination. It is the failure to comprehend that for the rising elite in Tehran, the Shia Islamist idea is a serious matter, not a mere decoration. The anti-Western sentiments, the long, bitter historical memories, the desire for the redress of perceived past wrongs are not merely ideological poses. They are the basis of political behavior. They will not be stilled by appeasement – though the holders of them will be keen to exploit and manipulate perceived weakness.

Policymakers in Israel would do well to pay careful heed to this revival of Mideast old-think in Western capitals. In addition to the sincerity of President Ahmadinejad’s desire to destroy Israel, keeping the focus on the Zionist entity has the added benefit of helping to downplay the Shia-Sunni divides that may yet derail Iran’s push for regional hegemony. Thus, in the first instance, the price of (not-to-be-delivered) “cooperation” is likely to be requested in Israeli currency.

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Don’t Expect Peace Soon

Posted on March 7, 2011 by jonathanspyer

The Guardian- 08/12/2006

Don’t expect peace soon: Hostile forces have to be defeated before any meaningful Middle East talks can take place.

Internal politics and wider regional strategy largely explain the sudden re-emergence of talk about conflict resolution between Israelis and Palestinians. The leading party in Israel’s government has been drifting, rudderless, since the conclusion of this summer’s war with Hizbullah. The big idea of prime minister Ehud Olmert’s Kadima party was unilateral disengagement, which was implemented in Gaza in 2005.

But the results have included: the transformation of Gaza into an armed camp as the result of massive smuggling of weapons; the victory of Hamas in Palestinian Authority elections in January, at least partially as a result of disengagement being depicted as an Israeli flight in the face of Palestinian military action; and the failure of Israel to achieve deterrence vis-à-vis Hamas-led Gaza, with the resulting launches of Qassam rockets.

The war with Hizbullah has helped to further damage the idea of unilateralism, at least for the moment, because of the perceived need for Israel to rebuild a strong deterrent stance, and the negative effect that disengagement is seen to have had in this regard.

The government of Israel has thus found itself lacking a strategic agenda in the past months. The renewed interest in negotiations based on the “road map” with a PA unity government led by Mahmoud Abbas is meant to fill this gap.

On the external level, the contents of the Baker-Hamilton report on Iraq point to a shifting US regional strategy, of which attempts at a revival of the Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic process form a part. The US is facing a dire situation in Iraq. The current idea is to “engage” with the region in order to recruit the good offices of regional players to help prevent further meltdown.

From this point of view, it matters little if there is coherence to the notion that dysfunction and strife in Iraq are in any way related to the separate matter of the Israelis and Palestinians. The point is that the people with whom the US now wishes to engage profess great interest in the Palestinian issue. So to get them on board, some semblance of movement on this front is necessary.

But is there nevertheless a chance for substantive progress? There is, sadly, little cause for optimism. Rather, the position of the Hamas-led government of Ismail Haniyeh has become entrenched by the latest developments.

From Hamas’s point of view, things are going rather well. Attempts to found the long-awaited unity government in the PA remain becalmed because of the refusal of Hamas to compromise on Israel’s right to exist, commitment to prior agreements, and abandoning terror.

The movement will present any deal for the release of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit as its own achievement. Following this, there will be no rush to further steps. Reports indicate that Hamas has found a way around economic sanctions, engaging in smuggling cash into PA areas. This money goes largely towards financing the movement’s charity and paramilitary structures. In the meantime, the ceasefire suits Hamas just fine, enabling it to replenish and re-arm. And to return to the fight at a time of its choosing.

The bottom line is that no substantive revival of the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians should be expected any time soon. Local and regional dynamics point to likely further confrontation. Behind the scenes, many of those involved acknowledge this. The speeches and exhortations have a rationale of their own. They serve the needs of various players. But one should not be dazzled by them. Forces hostile to peace and stability are on the rise among the Palestinians and their regional backers. Their defeat or containment are likely to precede any return to a genuine diplomatic process.

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The Anti-Israel Lobby

Posted on March 7, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Haaretz-07/02/2007

This week saw the launching of the Independent Jewish Voices initiative by a group of prominent left-of-center Jews in the U.K. The initiative intends, according to its founding statement, to “promote the expression of alternative Jewish voices.” Its sponsors believe that “individuals and groups within all communities should feel free to express their views on any issue of public concern without incurring accusations of disloyalty.” The signatories wish to contend that voices critical of Israel are receiving insufficient attention in British discussions of the Middle East. The claim is a strange one.

Do opponents of Israeli government policy in the U.K., Jewish or non-Jewish, truly feel that their arguments are not being heard? Is it really their contention that the British Jewish leadership is setting up “unwritten laws,” which establish the boundaries of what may or may not be discussed? If the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the main U.K. Jewish communal body, is indeed attempting to create unwritten laws and to foster anxiety to silence opponents of Israeli policy, it is doing a remarkably poor job. The public debate on Israel in the U.K. affords willing space to the most extreme of anti-Israel positions.

If we take, as an example, contributors to the Guardian, which published the IJV’s founding statement, Jews who have successfully found the courage to resist the Board of Deputies and its anxiety-inducing unwritten laws include Daphna Baram, who wrote in a recent op-ed that Israel is an “apartheid state”; Jacqueline Rose, whose book, as her Guardian interviewer reminded us, “draws tentative analogies between Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews,” and Ilan Pappe, the Israeli academic who recently wrote in support of a boycott of Israeli academia.

These opinions fit comfortably into parts of the British debate, in which denial of the right of Israel to exist and allegations of conspiracy theory are accepted within the parameters of polite discussion. British-born Jew Tony Judt, for example, was able to promote his thesis advocating the dismantling of the Jewish state in the London Review of Books.

If one expands the search for a moment to include non-Jewish opponents of Israel, it may be recalled that Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer found a home at the same title for their claim that the Jewish lobby controls U.S. foreign policy. The supposedly objective BBC Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen, considers Israel exclusively to blame for Palestinian internecine violence, according to a recent leaked memo. This is not to mention those open supporters of Palestinian suicide bombings who are regular fixtures in the British Middle East debate – such as Dr. Azzam Tamimi.

The U.K. has seen a number of public initiatives toward the delegitimization of the Jewish state in recent years. These have included the attempted lecturers’ boycott in 2005, a subsequent attempt at a similar boycott by architects and the demonstrations during last summer’s war in Lebanon, featuring support for a Shi’ite Islamist organization with the slogan “We are all Hezbollah now.” A number of Jewish organizations openly hostile to Israeli government policy already exist – such as Jews for Justice for the Palestinians, and the Jewish Forum for Justice and Human Rights. Such is the climate of debate in the U.K. on Israel.

In the midst of all this, the initiators of Independent Jewish Voices believe that “an oppressive and unhealthy atmosphere” has emerged, as a result of the Board of Deputies stifling anti-Israel opinions.

The Board of Deputies represents mainstream Anglo-Jewish opinion regarding Israel. Britain’s Jews, like Jewish communities throughout the world, are strongly pro-Israel. The large attendance at pro-Israel rallies held on two occasions in the last years is testament to this fact.

It is generally held in mainstream Jewish opinion that the Jewish state is currently passing through a moment of some danger. An aggressive, Islamist regime in Tehran is spreading Holocaust denial and openly calling for the destruction of Israel. This regime is currently seeking a nuclear capacity. It is also sponsoring proxy organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which are engaged in murderous violence against Israelis.

A climate of opinion has emerged, in which a shocking increase in anti-Semitic violence in the U.K. in the last year receives less than the attention it deserves, because the perpetrators are mainly emerging from within Britain’s Muslim communities.

In such a situation, unsurprisingly, individuals such as the Independent Jewish Voices initiators, who ignore these realities or who are in some cases sympathetic to the perpetrators, may find themselves treated in mainstream Jewish circles with less than the exquisite courtesy which is undoubtedly their due.

But as we have seen, mainstream outlets in the U.K. welcoming the contributions of Jews (and non-Jews) hostile to Israel are proliferating. There are broad swathes of contemporary British opinion in which a breezy dismissal of all Israeli and Jewish concerns is very much the bon ton. There have, indeed, rarely been better days to be a Jewish opponent of Israel in Britain.

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Hamas and the Rebirth of Illusion

Posted on March 7, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Haaretz-27/05/2005

A process of rethinking is currently taking place in British and American foreign policy establishments regarding Hamas. The movement’s ability to command high levels of popular support is giving credence to formerly fringe opinions that have long advocated rapprochement between the Western democracies and militant Islamism.

The shift is currently most advanced in Britain, though it is present in the United States, too. The group around former MI6 officer and European Union envoy Alistair Crooke is finding that its long-held view of the Hamas as a “national Palestinian movement centered on mobilizing a community to resist an illegal occupation” is now swaying mainstream opinion in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Crooke and Co. see Hamas as reflecting “fundamental issues of justice and democratic reform” in Palestinian politics.

There have been reports of an imminent major shift in British policy, toward open engagement with Palestinian Islamism. In the U.S., too, a growing number of veteran advocates of a similar position are using the space provided by reports of the “Arab Spring” to advance their views. The argument now made is, well, if elections are the answer, and Islamists win elections, then Islamists must be welcomed as partners. Thus, Mark Perry, of the Washington-based Alliance for Security, describes Hamas as one of a number of movements that have made the “historic choice” to “build their societies on values we hold dear – of justice and peace, of accountability and transparency.”

The trouble with this line of reasoning is that those using it are asking us to ignore the actual, openly proclaimed aims and practices of Hamas. This is a movement whose founding charter contains in its opening paragraph the following declaration: “Israel will rise and will remain until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors.” This is followed, in article seven, with the exhortation that “the time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!”

The charter goes on to advocate the creation of an Islamic state, aiming “to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine.” And declaring its ultimate goal as “Islam, the Prophet its model, the Koran its constitution.”

The actions of the movement in support of its goals are well known. They include an ongoing commitment to the practice of terror that brought chaos to Israel’s urban centers in the darkest days of the last five years. The list is long, and respect for the dead enjoins us occasionally to remind ourselves of it: The Park Hotel, Mike’s Place, the Dolphinarium, Sbarro and Moment are but a few of the names to be remembered.

But Hamas, with its commitment to the imposition of “Islam as a way of life,” is oppressive also to its own people. The movement has a long history of using violence to impose Islamic norms in areas where it holds sway. In particular, efforts to ensure the continued subjugation of women have characterized its activities. The recent murder of 20-year-old Yusra Azzami in Gaza by movement members is in line with this side of its activities. Azzami had been seen in the company of a young man (her fiance, it later became clear, which prompted a curious and half-hearted apology for her killing from Hamas spokesmen in the Strip).

In some ways, the atmosphere that Crooke, Perry and Co. wish to manufacture is redolent of the early days of the Oslo period. At that time, doubts raised regarding the willingness of Yasser Arafat’s leadership to reach a compromise peace with Israel were airily brushed aside. Those who pointed to incendiary statements by the PLO leadership, such as Arafat’s speech in a Johannesburg mosque in 1994 advocating continued holy war, were encouraged to develop greater political sophistication. One must differentiate the rhetoric from the reality, we were told. And we well recall when rhetoric and reality finally came together at the end of that illusory process in the autumn of 2000.

There is no doubt that the popular support enjoyed by radical Islamist forces raises a serious question for advocates of regional democratization. Hamas’ friends in the West wish to lever the confusion surrounding this matter to ensure a place for the movement at the table. But for progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and indeed broader regional democratization to be possible, it is essential that this confusion be dispelled.

History is replete with examples of movements that sought to combine the use of the tools of democracy with the substantive rejection of its goals, and the desire eventually to subvert and destroy it. The totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century were examples of this type. The continued health and existence of democracies required that they identify those threats in good time, and did not lack the will to act against them. Such requirements also hold for the threat represented by the Hamas, which seeks both to destroy Israel and to enslave the Palestinians.

It is therefore essential to make clear that the continued ascendance of this movement means the termination of hope for progress toward improved relations between the two peoples. The disarming of Hamas and the defeat of its ideas is the common, urgent interest of Israelis, Westerners and Palestinians alike.

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The Long War Strategy

Posted on March 7, 2011 by jonathanspyer

The Guardian-11/06/2007

The decision by the University and College Union (UCU) to consider a boycott of Israel is the latest manifestation of a broader process which has been steadily gathering speed in the last half-decade: the converging of opinion on the Middle East conflict among members of two camps, who might ordinarily be considered to have little in common.

The two camps are the European radical left and supporters – both in Europe and here, in the region of Islamist states and organizations. The alliance is built around a joint commitment to Israel’s disappearance from the map.

Supporters of these streams sometimes gather together. The “anti-war” conference in Cairo in April of this year, attended by representatives of Hamas, Hizbullah and European extreme-left and Islamist groups, was organized jointly by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian Socialist Revolutionary party. Leaders of Respect – that joint venture of far-leftists and Muslim Brothers – were also in attendance.

But the important cross-pollination is taking place in the realm of ideas and strategies, rather than joint political organization.

Israel’s regional enemies are currently in a state of euphoria. The failures of the second Lebanon war, combined with the possibly imminent eclipse of US strategy in Iraq, and the emergence of Iran as an active sponsor and inspiration for radical Islamist organizations, have combined to produce in the region an atmosphere familiar to students of its history. This mood might aptly be termed “pre-conflict euphoria”. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent contention that the “countdown to Israel’s destruction has begun” perfectly captures it.

A previous manifestation of this phenomenon in the region took place in the period between Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in August, 1990, and his expulsion from there in Operation Desert Storm in January 1991. The atmosphere in Arab capitals prior to the war of June 1967, and the lionisation of the Palestinian guerrillas in 1968-70 are similar instances. On all these occasions, broad swathes of the intelligentsia and the people of a number of regional states came to believe that after many failures, they had finally found the blueprint for defeating Israel, and undoing the shame inherent in its creation.

Today, among those states, organizations and people in the region who reject Israel’s continued existence, there is a perception that the correct strategy for producing the eventual demise of the Jewish state has been found. The new strategy has been likened to the antique far-left doctrine of “prolonged popular war”.

According to this view, conventional battlefield confrontation is only one of a variety of means to be employed to achieve the desired end. Ongoing, demoralizing guerrilla attacks, which sap will and morale, the constant maintenance of conflict – with the intention of preventing successful societal development, and a parallel political strategy of delegitimisation and isolation – are all key ingredients. The perceived combination of sophistication and indefatigability represented by Hizbullah in Lebanon is a key model and source of inspiration in this.

Victory here is not predicated on a Syrian armored column entering Tel Aviv. The intention is to gradually whittle away at the various components of Israel’s strength. The goal is to make of Israel a “failed state”, in which the pursuit of normal life becomes impossible.

This is where the various international delegitimisation initiatives come in. Initiatives such as the UCU boycott are the result of the efforts of a fairly small number of people. The anti-Israel boycott campaign offers a chance for activists of fringe political organizations to “punch above their weight” and for a moment take centre stage. The people behind the latest move in Britain, for example, are members of a small far-left party – the Socialist Workers party.

But such figures have been able to emerge from eccentric obscurity precisely because of the current febrile mood regarding Israel and the Middle East conflict among significant parts of educated British opinion.

Thrilled by the militant challenge offered by the popular war strategy and its supporters, the boy-cotters wish to cast themselves in the mold of the anti-Vietnam war and anti-apartheid campaigners of the past. They will do their bit by cutting the ties of support linking the enemy entity to its western backers through commerce, trade, and cultural and educational links. Israel, in the analogy, is to play the unflattering role of Thieu’s doomed South Vietnamese republic, or the apartheid regime.

Ultimately, the followers of the strategy of prolonged popular war and their international cheerleaders are advocates of failed ideologies, backed by states whose achievements in the field of societal and economic development are modest in the extreme. Previous outbreaks of pre-conflict euphoria in 1967, 1970 and 1990-91, ended in defeat and humiliation. In all three of the previous cases cited, however, it is worth noting that the mood eventually faded as a result of a decisive military humiliation suffered by its main protagonists. This time, hopefully, another way will be found in time to deflate the ugly, politicidal alliance now gathering strength.

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Gaza – Year Zero

Posted on March 7, 2011 by jonathanspyer

The Guardian-22/06/2007

The Hamas coup that took place in Gaza last week is an event of historic importance. For the first time in the region, Islamist fighters took on the internationally recognized forces of a western-subsidized Arab nationalist client – and beat them hands down. Fatah was revealed to be the empty, corrupted shell that most Palestinians and many observers of Palestinian politics have known it to be for a long time. The implications of the bloody putsch in tiny, crowded Gaza have not yet presented themselves in full. But it is already possible to make a number of observations, and draw some tentative conclusions.

Three observations:

Firstly, the coup is the latest victory to be added to the considerable list of gains made by the Iranian-Syrian alliance in the last four years. Following on from what looks like the successful undermining of western policy in Iraq, the ongoing Syrian attempt at re-encroachment in Lebanon, the electoral triumph of Hamas in 2006, and the holding by Hezbollah of Israel to a bloody stalemate in 2006, the latest events will be a further indication to the Iran-led bloc that their way – the way of ‘muqawama’ (resistance) is the road to victory.

Hamas’s relationship with Iran is of long-standing, dating back to the mid ’90s. And with the region currently polarizing into two rival blocs – the US and its allies and Iran and its clients – the movement is now conclusively choosing its side. Tens of Hamas fighters have journeyed to Iran for advanced training in Iran in the last months. The movement received pledges of $250 million from Teheran in the last year.

Secondly, Arab political establishments are aware of what is happening, are frightened by it, but have not yet developed a coherent response. Given their track record in responding decisively on other matters of import, optimism would be misplaced.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Aboul Gheit in a speech a few days ago asserted that Iranian aid to Hamas activities in Gaza posed a threat to Egyptian national security. Yasser Abd Rabbo, of Fatah, similarly told reporters that “Iran helped Hamas to lead a military coup against the legitimate Palestinian leadership and to control the Gaza Strip…Iran supports those hostile powers in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories in order to serve its regional interests on the expense of the peoples and nations of the region.”

So far so good. But take a closer look at Fatah on the West Bank, where we are told the successful alternative to Hamas-stan is to be built. Fatah failed signally to undertake desperately needed reforms after the 2006 election defeat. The result was the debacle of June, 2007. The movement remains disunited, riven by clan and factional interests, and colossally corrupt. The west and the government of Israel now want to shore up and finance this rotten structure. But no-one has explained why the result of this will be any different to last time around, when money disappeared into the labyrinthine corrupt structures established by Fatah, and ended up financing gold taps in PA officials’ bathrooms.

Thirdly -the regime Hamas is creating in Gaza will be one of prayer, poverty and bloody repression. Already, disturbing stories are beginning to filter out of the Strip – of unhindered attacks by Islamists on Christian sites in the Strip – such as the armed assault on the Rosary Sisters School and the Latin Church in Gaza City earlier this week. Of attacks on Internet cafes and coffee houses. And of extraordinary cruelties visited upon supporters of the old regime – Funeral processions attacked by armed Hamas gunmen, wounded men in Shifa hospital shot in the legs by Islamist fighters.

The Erez crossing yesterday was witness to a forlorn procession of former Fatah security men, and Russian citizens – mostly women whose government was evacuating them – all seeking a way out of Gaza. One Israeli Arab woman from Ramle, whose Gazan husband remained behind in the Strip, told an Israeli newspaper “I’m very scared…Hamas is cruel. They kill people as if they were birds.”
All of which, for Israel, leads to the following conclusion: The siege is drawing in. Iranian client militias are now arrayed to Israel’s south and north. Hamas in the south, Hizballah to the north. The mood in the pro-Iranian camp is one of purpose and steady gain. It is engaged in a long war among whose objectives is the destruction of Israel. Its followers feel the wind behind them.
Yet while it can educate a seemingly endless supply of young men willing to die and destroy, this camp is able to create only islands of poverty, repression and the rule of blood – from which people seek to flee. This remains the contradiction at its heart – a contradiction which is likely to see the currently ascendant energies of Iran and its allies finally dissipated in pointless destruction and defeat. In the meantime, Israel is watching events in Gaza and further afield carefully. The clash between the forces of the ‘muqawama’ and its enemies – the western democracies and their allies – has not yet reached its height.

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Reinforcing Failure

Posted on March 7, 2011 by jonathanspyer

The Guardian-29/06/2007

Israeli responses to the news that Tony Blair has accepted the post of Quartet Middle East Envoy have ranged from the warmly supportive, via the mildly bemused, to the downright opposed. The former British prime minister is generally regarded as warmly disposed to Israel. He has often expressed himself in this regard. Blair’s latest mission, however, is flawed in its very definition.

The current direction of western diplomacy vis a vis the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is based on support for the new PA government established by Mahmoud Abbas on the West Bank, following the Hamas coup in Gaza. The hope is to build a model of successful governance on the West Bank. This successful new PA government will then continue negotiations with Israel on the basis of the Road Map. The job description for Blair’s new post is tailored to this endeavor. Mr. Blair is to “help create viable and lasting government institutions representing all Palestinians, a robust economy, and a climate of law and order for the Palestinian people.”

Behind this bland, job-advert type prose (Mid-East envoy wanted for challenging position, responsibilities will include…) are two core items of faith, for which Blair has been a key proselytizer throughout his career. These are that ‘economics leads politics,’ and that external aid in creating institutions will produce political order, and responsible government and policy. That is: if only people are offered sufficient economic incentives, and if only enough money is poured into the creation of projects and institutions, then the result will be a responsible political entity, ready to do business in a rational manner with its neighbors. This belief formed the basis for the great efforts to secure Israeli-Palestinian peace in the 1990s. It is also, at least in the Mid-Eastern context, demonstrably wrong.

The recipient for the largesse which Tony Blair will seek to channel to the West Bank will be the Fatah movement of Mahmoud Abbas. This movement, according to all observers on the ground, does not consider that the historic defeats it has recently suffered are any reason for a major re-think. One hears, on the contrary, that there is fury among powerful factions in the movement at the appointment of non-Fatah technocrats such as Salam Fayad to key positions. The Fatah sense of entitlement, of being the ‘sole legitimate representative’ and the rest of it, remains. No grass-roots plan for reform of the movement exists or is likely to come into existence. The armed elements of Fatah, meanwhile, are continuing to operate without central direction from the movement’s leadership. They are today as much engaged in criminal activity as in political.

This dysfunctional system has a proven track record of absorbing international generosity, and producing from it a huge mess, accompanied by sonorous excuses.

The eclipse of US and British hopes for rapid ‘democratization’ in the region, and the fear of rising Islamism, have led to a desire to fall back on western regional clients, in the hope that they may contribute their proven skills maintaining stability. The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and Mubarak’s Egypt, for all their many flaws, are plausible performers of this role. The current desire is to include Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas under this rubric. But the evidence indicates that Fatah is simply not capable of performing such a role. While the attempt takes place, meanwhile, the Iranian-backed Islamist organizations of Hamas and Islamic Jihad will be building their own infrastructures on the West Bank – almost certainly largely unmolested by the forces of the new Fatah government.

Israel’s strategy of unilateralism was meant to be a response to this absence of a partner capable of taking decisions and producing results. But the alarming growth of Iranian-backed Islamism in the neighborhood has placed this strategy on ice. It may be that de facto arrangements drawing Jordan further into the West Bank, – and a joint Israeli and Egyptian facing down of the Islamist statelet in Gaza – will prove the only sustainable path in the dark moment which the region is now passing through.

Before this, however, we are in for the latest installment of the Fatah show. There will be international meetings, clicking cameras, handshakes on staircases, solemn commitments. There will be pathos. There will be Hanan Ashrawi. And on the ground, the same political culture that received previous Quartet envoy James Wolfensohn’s gift of 4,000 greenhouses in Gaza in September, 2005, and then stood by as they were looted and destroyed by a mob, will dictate the course of events.

Former Prime Minister Blair is about to become the west’s point man in the effort to turn the Fatah-led West Bank into a model of successful governance. His friendship toward Israel is without doubt genuinely felt. Given the challenges that await, and given that the lecture circuit and more-time-with-the-family were also options, one can only greet his new choice of employment with the kind of affection mixed with concern that one reserves for true, if slightly mis-guided friends.

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Appearance is Everything

Posted on March 7, 2011 by jonathanspyer

The Guardian- 08/08/2007

US Secretary of State Condolleeza Rice has now completed her four day trip to the Middle East. Dr. Rice was evidently well-pleased at what she found, describing herself as “impressed by the seriousness of (Olmert and Abbas) to really advance this two state solution.” A number of commentators have remarked on the similarity between the current moment and the days of the Oslo peace process. A notable difference, however, is that during Oslo one had the sense that the protagonists, or at least some of them, really believed they were on the way to making peace in the Middle East. This time around, the whole thing has a strained, slightly unreal sense to it. What lies behind this?

First, it’s crucial to understand the regional backdrop. The war in Iraq has ushered in a new Middle East. Unfortunately, it isn’t the new Middle East that the war’s planners had hoped for. The new regional dispensation is one characterized by a contest between the United States and its allies on the one hand, and Iran and its clients on the other. This has brought a rapid end to hopes for regional democratization, and a return to older methods and conceptions of the region.

The revived ‘peace process’ is part of a rearguard action intended to solidify the ranks of the regional opponents of Iran and of revolutionary Islamism. The so-called axis of moderation – Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan – do not wish, by aligning with the US and Israel, to leave Iran and its allies to champion the cause of the Palestinians – still the greatest ‘legitimating card’ in regional politics. There is therefore a need for something to seem to be happening on the Israeli-Palestinian track.

But the chances of all this actually leading anywhere – as protagonists from both sides will tell you behind the scenes – are close to zero. Why?

Firstly, because the two leaders, Olmert and Abbas, lack credibility with their respective publics. Indeed, a sizable part of Abbas’s public currently lives under the rival Palestinian Authority maintained by Hamas in Gaza. The very existence of that authority raises the question of in whose name exactly will Abbas and Fayad be negotiating, and who will feel bound by any agreement they might reach.

Olmert, meanwhile, has been deeply unpopular among the Israeli public since the Lebanon War last year, and surely lacks the authority that would be required to order the large scale removal of West Bank Jewish communities as part of any deal. Olmert needs to give his own government – rudderless for the last year – a defining task, and the revived peace process seems tailor-made for the purpose. But again, the current government of Israel can do appearance, but not substance, on this issue.

Secondly, there is the more fundamental issue of intention. The peace process of the 1990s collapsed not because of a misunderstanding, but because of the fundamentally irreconcilable positions of the sides – most crucially, on the issue of the Palestinian refugees of 1948 and their descendants. The Israeli left thought that the Palestinian ‘right of return’ was a sort of metaphor, which required only a bit of empathy and a few ritual expressions of guilt to be satisfied. They found out they were wrong. The issue of the refugees remains the single most defining element of Palestinian nationalism. It is also an issue on which Israel cannot concede without ceasing to exist as the expression of the national rights of the Jews – its very raison d’etre.

Is there a substantive basis for supposing that even among the narrow circles around Abbas and Fayad, the idea of the real-life realization of the ‘right of return’ has been transcended? Well, there was the much reported fact that the guidelines of the new PA government spoke only of a ‘just and agreed upon solution to the refugee problem’, rather than openly demanding the ‘return’ of the 1948 refugees and their descendants to Israel. But the current – relative – flexibility of Fatah is a product of its extreme weakness, not of any historic compromise. And with this movement currently engaged in a battle with the Islamist Hamas for the leadership of Palestinian nationalism, it is unimaginable that it would be prepared to compromise on this defining element of Palestinian identity.

So there you have it. Various influential parties have an interest in the appearance of a peace process. So the appearance of a peace process there shall be. But there has been no substantive shift in the underlying geology of the conflict to really merit the latest outburst of diplomacy. Rather, it is motivated by regional and internal political factors not directly related to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Given this, the likelihood is that a great deal of process is about to take place, but that peace will remain elusive.

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Coalition agreement not Withstanding, Hizbullah will continue to hold Sway in Lebanon

Posted on March 7, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Jerusalem Post- 13/11/2009

Following statements from both government and opposition sides in Lebanon over the weekend, it now looks likely that Prime Minister-elect Saad Hariri will announce the formation of a new governing coalition in the next few days.

The announcement that a deal has been reached on a unity government was made by the Hizbullah-led March 8 opposition movement after a meeting on Friday.

The details of the deal have not yet been made clear, but it appears that the main stumbling blocks have been overcome.

The formation of a new government will bring to an end four months of political paralysis in Lebanon, following the victory of the pro-western March 14 coalition in general elections in June.

However, the new government will have no bearing on the key political fact looming over Lebanon today: namely, the existence of a parallel state maintained by Hizbullah, which makes its decisions without consulting the nominal rulers of the country.

The deadlock regarding the formation of the government was itself related to the agenda of the Hizbullah parallel state. It is worth remembering that agreement for the formula of cabinet appointments was reached in July. But this agreement solved little.

Hariri was determined to prevent the opposition from obtaining veto power in the new government. To exercise a veto over cabinet decisions, the opposition needed to control at least 11 portfolios in the 30-member cabinet – that is, one-third plus one of the cabinet seats.

In July, both sides accepted a formula of 15 portfolios for the March 14 coalition, 10 for the opposition, and five to be appointed by President Michel Suleiman.

The key issue then became the identity of the ministers to be appointed by the president. If only one of them were to be inclined toward the opposition, this would mean that Hizbullah would effectively have kept the veto it exercised before June. Since the final names have not yet been announced, it is too soon to draw any firm conclusions in this regard.

It looks likely, however, that Hariri has compromised in another key area.

Hariri announced after the election that he was determined to keep the Telecommunications Ministry for his party. The Hizbullah-led opposition was equally determined to obtain this portfolio for themselves.

Hizbullah maintains a large-scale independent communications network which is an essential part of its military stance vis a vis Israel. Its determination to keep this network away from government scrutiny was one of the factors that triggered the fighting in Beirut in May 2008.

Hizbullah at that time acted decisively to prevent any government interference with its independent communications. Possessing the telecommunications ministry is a way to ensure no further possible unwanted scrutiny.

Reports suggest that Hariri has conceded this portfolio to the opposition. The prime minister-elect has apparently prevailed in his demand that Jebran Bassil, son-in-law of former Gen. Michel Aoun, not occupy this post. But the portfolio looks set to go instead to another member of Aoun’s party, which is aligned with Hizbullah.

Hizbullah itself, it appears, will have two posts in the new cabinet.

Hariri, in a recent statement to the media, sought to display his Arab nationalist colors, asserting that Hizbullah would be in the cabinet, whether Israel liked it or not. It is also the case that Hizbullah will continue to do what it wants in Lebanon – whether Saad Hariri likes it or not.

In the May 2008 fighting, Hizbullah reconfirmed that its parallel structures are off limits to the government of Lebanon. It did this by demonstrating its effective monopoly of the means of violence.

Such a monopoly remains the ultimate source of political power. This was the case before the June elections, remained the case after them, and will remain so regardless of the precise coalition arithmetic.

As the seizure of the Francop arms ship last week showed, Hizbullah and its backers are busily engaged in preparing for the next round of fighting with Israel. The precise timing and nature of the conflict to come will be determined without reference to the wishes of the new Lebanese cabinet, whatever its eventual makeup.

A report in a British newspaper on Sunday quoted Hizbullah fighters as openly admitting the extent of their rearmament efforts. In a statement which says much more about who makes the key decisions in Lebanon than any details regarding the coalition, a Hizbullah gunman was quoted as saying “Sure, we are rearming, we have even said that we have far more rockets and missiles than we did in 2006.”

This statement confirms Israeli assessments. By making it, the unnamed Hizbullah man cheerfully shows his contempt for Security Council Resolution 1701, the UN forces deployed to enforce it, and those Lebanese who might want their country to be something other than a springboard for war.

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun, as a famous Chinese leader once said. In Lebanon, the guns are in the hands of Hizbullah.

This is the salient point. All else is detail.

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