Netanyahu Steps In His Own Mess

Benjamin Netanyahu, with a looming date with Israeli voters, is doing his best to portray himself as the victor in Israel's 8-day, Operation Pillar of Defence but, in the minds of many Israelis, he's actually the loser.  Der Spiegel reports that a good many people, inside Israel and elsewhere, see the winners as Hamas and Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi.

"...the Israeli press is not joining Netanyahu in praising Netanyahu. To be sure, most analysts agree that the current ceasefire bringing the Israeli Gaza operation "Pillar of Defense" to a halt is a positive development due to the return of calm to southern Israel. But in the Israeli press, Netanyahu's name was not among the victors listed on Thursday morning. Rather, leading commentators in the country agree that the primary beneficiaries from the week-long clash are the Hamas leadership and Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, who negotiated the truce.

"A member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Morsi's summertime election had led to significant distrust in the West. Now, writes Anshel Pfeffer in the influential Israeli daily Haaretz, the crisis has propelled Mursi into the role of an important regional statesman. The proof: As the ceasefire was being finalized this week, US President Barack Obama telephoned with Morsi multiple times.
 
"Pfeffer emphasized that even Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman saw it necessary to thank Morsi for his role in bringing about a truce. Given Lieberman's hard-line stance, such a move counts as a mini-sensation in Israel. After all, the Israeli foreign minister is hardly a fan of Egypt or Hamas, having in the past called for the bombardment of the Aswan Dam and demanded that the Gaza Strip be treated as the Russians do Chechnya.

"Hamas too has managed to extract minor victories from the conflict, according to analysts. For one, the Islamist leaders of the Gaza Strip inserted a clause in the ceasefire agreement which calls for at least a partial lifting of the blockade Israel imposed on the Palestinian area after Hamas came to power in 2006. Furthermore, the fact that the Hamas leadership didn't collapse in the face of heavy bombardment, along with the fact that their rockets continued to rain down on Israel throughout the conflict, has been interpreted as a success.

"But even more important for the Islamists, according to Haaretz, is that their rockets were able to hit both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. And they were able to position themselves as a negotiating partner for the Israeli leadership, guaranteeing them a role as an actor in the Middle East for at least the immediate future.

"...Simon Shiffer, the veteran writer for Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, writes that Hamas has now become the most influential Palestinian power because Netanyahu has undertaken negotiations with them while ignoring the Palestinian Authority and its President Mahmoud Abbas."

All of which raises the question of how much damage Netanyahu has done to his and Israel's influence in Washington.   After all, Bibi did everything but stuff ballot boxes for Mitt Romney and yet utterly failed to deliver the American Jewish vote to the Republicans.  Now his second act was a complete blunder in Gaza.  Anyone think America is keen to support Netanyahu attacking Iran?

Hamas Flips, Turns on Assad, Backs Revolt

The Palestinian Islamic movement, Hamas, has had a long relationship with Syrian president Bashar al Assad.  That's now over.  Hamas has switched sides and now supports the Syrian revolt to overthrow Assad.


Hamas went public after nearly a year of equivocating as Assad's army, largely led by fellow members of the president's Alawite sect, has crushed mainly Sunni protesters and rebels.

In a Middle East split along sectarian lines between Shi'ite and Sunni Islam, the public abandonment of Assad casts immediate questions over Hamas's future ties with its principal backer Iran, which has stuck by its ally Assad, as well as with Iran's fellow Shi'ite allies in Lebanon's Hezbollah movement.

"I salute all the nations of the Arab Spring and I salute the heroic people of Syria who are striving for freedom, democracy and reform," Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, visiting Egypt from the Gaza Strip, told thousands of Friday worshippers at Cairo's al-Azhar mosque.

The move is seen by some as Hamas changing course to ally itself with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood instead of Lebanon's Hezbollah.

Extending an Open Hand to Hamas

Bush's idea of dealing with Hamas was to send in arms and money to spark a civil war among the Palestinians hoping to overthrow the Palestinian's democratically elected government.

Today's Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has brought Hamas a different message. Where Bush/Cheney said we won't deal with Hamas, Clinton has said we won't deal with Hamas unless...

"We will not deal with nor in any way fund a Palestinian government that includes Hamas unless and until Hamas has renounced violence, recognized Israel and agrees to follow the previous obligations of the Palestinian Authority," Clinton told the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs committee.

Clinton said she has made the U.S. position clear during conversations with Arab and other allies. The United States has pushed for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where an independent Palestinian state exists alongside Israel.
"We want to leave the door open" to including Hamas, Clinton said.

With that, Mrs. Clinton has very deftly put the ball right in the middle of Hamas' court.

Self-Defence? My Ass!

The Liberal Leader is all too glib in blaming the Gaza slaughter on Hamas. Watch this and make up your own mind whether Michael Ignatieff, and his supporters, really deserve to be allowed to take over the Liberal Party of Canada.



Fuck me! There are forces at work within our Liberal Party that ought to make our stomachs churn. I think that any decent Liberals ought to be asking Michael Ignatieff to explain his blanket condemnation of the Palestinians and his blanket absolution of Israel's assault on Palestinians to explain this. This man has lashed not only Canada but the Liberal Party to this insane brutality. It's time he defended himself - before he dares seek the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada.

http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1231888037.html

h/t Gene

Obama Will Talk With Hamas

I guess our political leaders didn't get the memo.

The Guardian is reporting that the Obama administration is willing to open back channel communications with Hamas.

There is no talk of Obama approving direct diplomatic negotiations with Hamas early on in his administration, but he is being urged by advisers to initiate low-level or clandestine approaches, and there is growing recognition in Washington that the policy of ostracising Hamas is counter-productive.

A tested course would be to start contacts through Hamas and the US intelligence services - similar to the secret process through which the US engaged with the PLO in the 1970s. Israel did not become aware of the contacts until much later.

The howls of outrage should arrive any moment. Obama, palling around with terrorists again. Sarah Palin was right. I can hear it now. It's the sort of thing the uber-right used to slam Pierre Trudeau with.

Bush Drops a Huge One Right Smack in the Middle of His Road Map

America's all-time Moron in Chief has just sent his Middle East peace initiative up in flames. His administration's own credibility is utterly gone and so is that of Fatah stooge Mahmoud Abbas.

Vanity Fair has dropped a bombshell - after Palestinian elections that led to victory for Hamas, Bush, Rice and deputy national security advisor Elliot Abrams backed an armed uprising under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan that sparked a civil war in Gaza.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804

The Vanity Fair link keeps going down. You can also find the article here:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030508A.shtml

The report seems more than plausible and it'll be enough to turn the Palestinians against Abbas. If he gets out with his life, he'll be lucky. Abbas, with a well earned reputation for corruption, now stands exposed as an American operative to boot.

Bush has issued a blanket denial - as if he had any other choice - but the damage is done. There's no more room for pretending to be an honest broker. His turn at the Middle East Wheel of Fortune is over but the way it ended, mired in scandal, will be a fitting legacy for his entire administration.

H/T to Red Jenny