Hamas

After Farfur, the Mickey Mouse clone, is martyred on television, some are outraged while others question whether protecting children from exposure to violence is a functional notion in the wartorn territories.  read more »

The Middle East peace process, frozen to the point of lifelessness, may be starting to thaw.  read more »

In Iraq and in America, frustration turns to anger and despair.    read more »

TEL AVIV—It’s probably the most clichéd adjective used to describe the recent Israeli-Palestini  read more »

TEL AVIV—It’s probably the most clichéd adjective used to describe the recent Isr  read more »

Jimmy Carter's interviewers have repeatedly challenged him about Hamas: Why should Israel talk to Hamas when Hamas doesn't recognize Israel's right to exist? Carter answers by describing the democratic elections that brought Hamas to power.

He ought to cite the insight of his former NSA Zbig Brzezinski, who said on public television that as the Carter Administration geared up the Camp David process in '78, Israel was led by an extremist party, Likud, that refused to accept the existence of "Palestinians," let alone their right to a state. And yet the U.S. and the Egyptians talked to those extremists.

The Palestinians are not the only unreasonable people in this mess.

A lot of people have had trouble posting comments. I apologize, we're trying to work out the bugs. If you're ticked about it, email me and I'll get it on the blog.

Here is something that Richard Silverstein, whose progressive Jewish blog I recommend (Tikun Olam, http://www.richardsilverstein.com) tried to say about the question of Israel talking to Syria.

Responding to the comment: "Let Israel give up the Golan heights when you, Lester, Gene, and the rest of the Hasrallah/Hamas cheering sections move yourself, wives, children, and pets to the foot of the Golan heights, within artillery range."

No, how 'bout little Bill you move yr loved ones to Beit Hanun & suffer under IDF bombardment for a few nights to really whet yr appetite for those uber-Israel views of yours.

And btw, since you seem too ignorant to know otherwise, those Syrian Golan artillery batteries have been silent for 40 yrs. If Phil followed yr orders he & his loved would sleep well in their beds knowing that Syria was maintaining the peace on the Golan border. Richard Silverstein

GAZA—Ahmed Yousef got his doctorate in political science from Missouri’s Columbia State Universi  read more »

GAZA—Ahmed Yousef got his doctorate in political science from Missouri’s Columbia State  read more »

Watching the President of the United States try to fulfill his responsibilities at an international  read more »

Watching the President of the United States try to fulfill his responsibilities at an international  read more »

Tonight on the PBS NewsHour (yes I lead a boring life), Zbigniew Brzezinski made a brilliant analogy. He said that when the Carter Administration came to power, Brzezinski, national security adviser, dealt with the new Likud government and its Prime Minister Menachem Begin (who in the days of the British Mandate had led terror activities). Begin claimed that there was no such thing as a Palestinian and did not abide the possibility of a Palestinian state ever sharing Palestine with Israel. Notwithstanding the extremist background and attitudes, we talked to Likud.

Israel has shunned the new, democratically-elected government of Hamas (which enforced a moratorium on terrorist activity for over a year) because Hamas does not recognize Israel's existence. Brzezinski said that the U.S. is in exactly the same position as it was with Likud. We're a superpower with a keen interest in seeing an equitable solution in Palestine. We should talk to whoever we want to talk to.

(Thus the tail wags the dog. Or is Condi about to change things?)

When I went to Syria in January (to visit my wife's cousin who teaches in Damascus), I signed a visa application on which I had to check a box saying that I had never been to "Occupied Palestine." I'd never been to Israel; I checked the box. I didn't feel good about it.

Just now an angry Ambassador Ja'afari of Syria came out of the U.N. Security Council and condemned the Israeli occupation of Palestine that has gone on for "four decades." He was obviously referring to the occupation of the West Bank. I believe that this is an indication of Arab attitudes: that they are ready to accept the existence of Israel within the '67 borders. Even Hamas does, per the prisoners' proposal. Don't such signs relieve the "existential" fears?

Last night on Charlie Rose, the great Henry Siegman said that he had met recently with Hamas leaders in Beirut. He related Hamas's aims.

Hamas is prepared to explicitly recognize the state of Israel. But it cannot do so without Israel recognizing the legitimacy of the Palestinians' aspirations. That means a recognition of the Palestinians' right to a "viable state" in Gaza and the West Bank, within the '67 borders, and a recognition of the legitimacy as a negotiating point of the desire by Palestinian refugees to return to lands lost in Israel, even if they never get to return there.

Siegman said the "heart" of the disagreement between Israel and Hamas remains the definition of the borders of the Palestinian state. "[Hamas is] convinced that the overriding strategic goal of [the ruling Kadema party] continues to be setting unilaterally a permanent border, resolving the issues without Palestinian involvement, and consequently they have despaired of returning to the peace process."

Siegman's points underscore the importance of a forceful and independent American role here to end this conflict. His points also underscore what Stephen Walt said about opposing the pro-Israel lobby on C-Span the other day, "[The Israel/Palestine conflict] is a national security priority for the United States, given the role that it plays in contributing to Islamic radicalism and anti-Americanism generally... The U.S. has never been willing to do anything to halt Israel's settlement policy. Many Israelis now regard [that policy] as a tragic mistake."

In today's Financial Times, Henry Siegman states that Israel is trying to annex large portions of the West Bank and thereby frustrate plans for a true Palestinian state. "The issue is not whether Hamas recognises Israel," Siegman says. It is whether Israel recognizes the right of Palestinians to statehood. Hamas, he points out, has in spite of its rhetoric not launched suicide bombers against Israel in over a year. Meanwhile, Israel continues to baffle and crush Palestinian hopes for a state.

Three points:

1. Once again, this bold statement, by an American, did not—could not— appear in an American newspaper. It had to appear in Europe. What does this mean? That Americans continue to maintain one-dimensional understanding of Israel. Americans' ideas of Israeli history and policy are "a fantasy built on a fantasy," Tony Kushner told me earlier this year. Reality requires frank discussion, including even Jews like Siegman and Kushner (whose honorary degree from Brandeis, recognizing his work as a playwright, became a rallying point for rightwing opposition!). Americans don't get frank discussion.

2. Siegman is a brave man. He headed the American Jewish Congress for 16 years. He is now the Council on Foreign Relations' leading expert on the Middle East. He speaks out again and again on these matters and has suffered god only knows how much threat and vituperation.

3. As the vision of a Palestinian state dissolves, the left will migrate slowly but inevitably toward another ideal: a one-state pluralistic solution.

Florida Rabbi Bruce Warshal takes on Jewish neocons in the St. Louis Jewish Light, in an article accepting the truth of much of Mearsheimer-Walt's Israel lobby paper. Here's the money quote:

400 rabbis, including myself, signed a letter sponsored by Brit Tzedek v'Shalom that appeared in the Forward this past month. It was a mildly liberal statement that proclaimed that "we are deeply troubled by the recent victory of Hamas," but went on to urge "indirect assistance to the Palestinian people via NGO's, with the appropriate conditions to ensure that it does not reach the hands of terrorists." Pretty mild stuff. Yet pulpit rabbis across this country who signed the letter have reported a concerted effort to silence them. The letter has been branded a "piece of back-stabbing abandonment of the Jews of Israel." Synagogue boards have been pressured to silence their rabbis by that loose coalition called the "Israel Lobby."

Just another example of the Jewish establishment stifling any discussion of Israel that does not conform to the neo-conservative tenets of AIPAC and its cohorts. Beware of these self-appointed guardians of Israel and Jewish values. In the end they will destroy everything that makes Judaism a compassionate religion, and if in their zeal they do not destroy Israel, they certainly will not make it more secure.

That's wonderful, standing up for the compassionate religion. Are we seeing a little perestroika in establishment Jewish opinion?

In his State of the Union address, President George W.  read more »

Tom Suozzi swung by Aipac's northeast regional dinner last night, and while chatter at the pro-Israel event was mostly about Hamas, the more domestic-minded raised eyebrows at who was helping steer the County Executive's through the crowd: Governor Pataki's Jewish liason, Karen Paikin.

The Pataki aide "was telling anyone in earshot, 'Isn't he great?'" a reader writes.  read more »

Our delightful friends, the Saudi Arabians, are making plans to disinvite our troops from their soil  read more »

Jesse Jackson had a close call last week, narrowly missing being publicly exposed as a staunch frien  read more »

For a speech that inspired great internal debate among his aides, George W.  read more »

I hadn't been to Israel since my grandmother's death eight years ago.  read more »

Disappointed, yes; surprised, no. Grieving, yes; angry, yes. Defeated, no.  read more »