The Obama Doctrine: Right is might

MICHAEL WILNER

After moving warships and shouting threats, inaction could damage American credibility. The question Obama wants answered is whether America will adopt the Obama Doctrine: that right is might, and justifies the use of force.

US President Barack Obama meeting with his national security staff, August 30, 2013. Photo: REUTERS/Pete Souza/White House/Handout

 

WASHINGTON - Ignored for over two years, the crisis in Syria has suddenly captured the world's attention.

Over 100,000 have died at the hands of a brutal dictator and the rebels fighting for his ouster. Women and children have been targeted indiscriminately by a shell of their former government. But it was the mass killing of 1,429 suburb dwellers, from a twilight gas attack on August 21, that crossed a bright red line for US President Barack Obama.

Over the last ten days, Obama's White House widely publicized a military buildup in the Mediterranean Sea that was closely watched around the world. His secretary of state made a forceful case that Syria's Bashar Assad must be punished for the use of chemical weapons. But in a truly shocking shift, Obama— ceding his authority implied by the War Powers Act, and exercised by many of his predecessors— risked much of his remaining political capital Saturday by challenging Congress to make his red line their own.


"Some things are more important than partisan differences," Obama said from the White House. "Now is the time to show the world that America keeps its commitments."

Obama's choice to let Congress vote on the authorization of force puts one of his biggest foreign policy decisions as president in the hands of a legislative body that cannot pass a budget, and that is currently threatening to shut down his government.

And yet, despite the risks, the decision has provided extraordinary insight into the type of president Barack Obama wants to be.

Commenting briefly and unscripted from the White House on Friday, Obama repeatedly mentioned that the murderer of "innocent children" must not go unpunished.

"This is our first task— caring for our children. It's our first job," Obama said last December in Newtown, Connecticut, after the mass shooting of twenty school children. "If we don't get that right, we don't get anything right. That's how, as a society, we will be judged."

In the fifth year of his presidency, we now have a foreign policy doctrine from Obama: that principled decisions, driven by fundamental good and contrasted by stark and evident evil, serve to reinforce the core national security interests of the United States, even when crippled by practical difficulties.

"Right makes might," he said Saturday on Syria, from the Rose Garden, "not the other way around."

He will now challenge Congress on a wholly different issue. But he does not have military contingencies on his side. The White House cannot separate the facts on the ground in Syria with the effects of a punitive strike on Assad regime resources, try as they might. He can only cite the principled notion that America, alone if need be, must stand for good in the world.

Disregarding the UN Security Council as a politicized body, Obama had accepted the responsibility to protect as a heavy but essential burden for the United States. He is using international politics as an opportunity to highlight core American ideals. But in order to state forcefully to the world that Americans won't stand for the gassing of innocents, and will not tolerate the proliferation or use of weapons of mass destruction, Congress must agree.

"Fatigue does not absolve us of our responsibility," Secretary John Kerry said from the State Department on Friday. "It is profoundly about who we are."
Perhaps that, to Obama, is another core governing principle in American foreign policy: that partisanship should end at the water's edge.

After moving warships and shouting threats, inaction could deliver a steep cost to American credibility around the world. The question Obama wants answered is whether America will adopt the Obama Doctrine: that right is might, and justifies the use of force.

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France: A "Secularism Charter" in Every School

Soeren Kern

"Nothing could be worse than posting a secularism charter on the wall and then the students see around them that what actually happens in school life is the exact opposite of what we tell them." — Philippe Tournier, Secretary General, French Teachers Union

The French government has announced a plan to post a "secularism charter" in all public schools in France by the end of September.
The document -- which is to appear in a prominent location in all of the 55,000 public schools in France -- would serve to remind students and teachers of a list of secular principles underpinning the separation of mosque and state.
Although the initiative has enjoyed a generally positive reception, many observers are saying they doubt the Socialist government of French President François Hollande will have the political willpower actually to enforce secular principles in French schools -- with or without a charter.

This skepticism stems from the fact that Muslim children constitute an increasingly large proportion of the 10 million students in the French public school system -- and because Muslim parents make up an increasingly important voting bloc in French politics. Muslims, in fact, cast the deciding vote that thrust Hollande into the Elysée Palace in May 2012.
French Education Minister Vincent Peillon, who announced the plan in an interview with the French daily newspaper L'Est Républicain on August 26, said, "Everyone is entitled to his opinion, but not to dispute lessons or to skip classes [for religious reasons]. The charter will be a reminder of [secular] principles. It will be posted in all schools in late September. The law provides for a moral and civic education that promotes freedom from judgment, the capacity to emancipate, and rights and duties. I want to see the return of those values of the [French] Republic in schools in 2013."
Although the final content of the charter will not be made public until the middle of September, a draft of the list which contains a total of 17 paragraphs has been circulating since July 11.
The first section of the draft list is entitled "The Republic is Secular," and consists of six rather straightforward paragraphs that mostly echo the French Constitution. Paragraph 2 of the draft, for example, states that, "France is a republic that is indivisible, secular, democratic and social. It ensures equality before the law, on the whole of its territory, for all citizens. It respects all creeds."
According to Paragraph 3, "The secular Republic is based upon the separation of religion and state. The state is neutral with regard to religious or spiritual beliefs. There is no state religion." Paragraph 4 states that "Secularism guarantees freedom of conscience for all. Everyone is free to believe or not to believe. It allows the free expression of his beliefs, respecting those of others within the limits of public order." And so on.
The second section of the list, entitled "The School is Secular," changes tack by directly confronting Muslim students who take to disrupting classes whenever they do not agree with their teachers on certain subjects.
Paragraph 14 states: "Lessons are secular. To ensure that students are as objectively open as possible to the diversity of worldviews as well as to the extent and accuracy of knowledge, no subject is a priori excluded from scientific and educational inquiry."
According to Paragraph 15, "No student may invoke religious or political convictions to challenge and/or to prevent a teacher from teaching certain parts of the curriculum." Paragraph 16 states that "the wearing of conspicuous symbols or dress by pupils as relates to their religious affiliation is prohibited in public schools."
The draft charter also states that "the secular school offers students the conditions to forge their own personality, exercise their free will and learn about citizenship. It protects them from proselytizing and from any pressure that prevents them from making their own choices."
Reactions to the announcement have been mixed, with some questioning if or how the measure will be enforced.
The Secretary General of the French Teachers Union, Philippe Tournier, told Radio Europe 1 that while he welcomed the secularism charter in principle, he worried about its implementation. "The intentions are quite positive, but the essential thing still remains: putting into force what [the charter] affirms," he said. "Nothing could be worse than posting a secularism charter on the wall, and then the students see around them that what actually happens in school life is the exact opposite of what we tell them."
A teacher named Yvon from the town of Les Mureaux in north-central France, who was also interviewed by Radio Europe 1 , said he hoped the measure was not just a political gimmick. "If it is a charter posted on the wall, teachers must be encouraged to enforce it in their daily classes," he said.
Peillon's predecessor as Education Minister, Luc-Marie Chatel , from the main opposition party in France, the center-right Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), expressed his tentative support for the charter: "I think it is a good idea. Any time we can give children a point of reference as to what the French Republic is, and what our values are, that is a good thing."
But UMP Chairwoman Michèle Tabarot accused the Hollande government of "lacking determination" when it comes to enforcing the separation of mosque and state.
In a statement, Tabarot said the "the reality is that in recent years, the Left has singularly lacked courage in the difficult fight to defend secularism. This is demonstrated by the fact that the current majority [in parliament] refused to pass the law banning the wearing of full face veils in public places when it was in opposition."

A woman in a headscarf and full-face covering at a demonstration in Paris, March 29, 2008. (Photo credit: Ernest Morales)

Tabarot was referring to the burqa ban, which was approved by the French Parliament in July 2010, even though most members of the opposition (Socialists, Communists and Greens) voted against the measure.
According to Tabarot, "Recently, the government has also refused to legislate a ban on wearing conspicuous signs in private nurseries. Once again, the French can therefore only see the intolerable gap between the words and deeds of the governing majority."
This is the second time in recent months that Peillon has courted controversy with a plan to reinforce secular values in French schools.
In April, Peillon announced a project for students in primary and secondary schools to debate "secular morality" [morale laïque] for one hour every week beginning in September 2015.
Peillon's original plan was for the subject to be taught as a separate subject with dedicated teachers. But after a wave of opposition from teachers, the plan was watered down, and discussion of secular values will now take the form of debates rather than formal teaching. Teachers will be given special training on how to lead debates on issues in which Islam takes a different position, and students will be evaluated individually based on their knowledge and behavior.
The debate over secularism in France has continued throughout 2013:
In August, the High Council of Integration [HCI], a government-funded research institute, recommended that the wearing of religious symbols -- such as crucifixes, Jewish skullcaps and Muslim headscarves -- should be banned in French universities to ease the "escalating religious tensions in all areas of university life."
In a 54-page report (PDF here), HCI says its research has shown that some universities have experienced problems from demands to be "excused from attendance for religious reasons... for separation of the sexes in lectures and seminars, instances of proselytizing, disagreements over the curriculum, and the wearing of religious clothes and symbols."
A law passed in 2004 prohibits the wearing or open display of religious symbols in all French schools and colleges, but does not apply to universities.
In January, a 24-year-old Tunisian student at the University of Nantes in western France was asked by her professor to remove her hijab when she arrived for class. After she refused, the professor asked her to leave the lecture. The student went immediately to complain to officials in the Faculty of Sciences; the professor was forced to apologize to the student.
In July, hundreds of Muslims in Paris went on a rioting spree to protest the enforcement of the burqa ban after police checked the identity of a Muslim woman who was illegally wearing a full-face Islamic veil in public. A similar outbreak of unrest occurred in June, when police stopped a 25-year-old woman for wearing a veil in Argenteuil, a suburb 12 kilometers (8 miles) northwest of Paris.
In March, a school in the town of Arveyres in south-western France said it would no longer offer a meat alternative to students who do not eat pork. According to French television TF1, 28 of the 180 children attending the school used to be offered a substitute meat when pork was on the menu.
The mayor of Arveyres, Benoît Gheysens, said the move was taken because of the cost of providing alternative meals, many of which went to waste. "Often children who did not take the substitute dinner complained and did not eat the pork. It distressed the staff to see how much food was wasted," Gheysens said. Muslim parents were enraged by the decision, and some responded by vandalizing Gheysens' car and harassing him after hours at his home.
Also in March, an appeals court in Paris overturned the sacking of a nursery school teacher for refusing to take off her Muslim headscarf at work. The landmark ruling involved Fatima Afif, a nursery assistant who was fired in 2008 by Baby Loup, a privately-run daycare center in Yvelines, a suburb of Paris.
Baby Loup has rules requiring its staff to maintain "philosophical, political and denominational neutrality" at work. But the court ruled that because the nursery is a private establishment, and it was not an "urgent professional necessity" that Afif remove her veil, the French "principle of secularism does not apply." According to the court, the principle cannot be invoked to deny "employees of private companies that do not perform a public service...the protections guaranteed them under the work code."
According to Eric Rocheblave, an employment lawyer interviewed by the weekly magazine L'Express on March 19, "This ruling is unheard of. It is the first time that the Court de cassation [the highest appeals court in France] has made a judgment on wearing the veil in a company. Therefore, it is a major decision in the context of French legal precedent and jurisprudence. The decision means that now, an employer can only restrict an employee's religious freedom if the practical functions of the job make it necessary."
French Interior Minister Manuel Valls condemned the court's decision, saying, "this puts secularism in France in doubt." UMP Deputy Eric Ciotti told French Television TF1 that the court's decision was "a severe blow against secularism" and a victory for "the claims of ethnic groups, to the detriment of republican values."
The former head of the official Equal Opportunities and Anti-Discrimination Commission, Jeanette Bougrab, told Radio Europe 1 that "This is a dark day for secularism in France…It is like a feeling of mourning. My republic is dying."

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.

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Bombing Into Unintended Consequences in Syria

Abigail R. Esman
Special to IPT News

http://www.investigativeproject.org/4145/guest-column-bombing-into-unintended-consequences

In the Netherlands these days, politicians discuss revoking the passports of citizens who join the opposition to Bashar al-Assad's government in Syria. In Belgium, the government threatens to revoke benefits for Belgian nationals who do the same. And in America, the New York Times reported only a month ago on the growing threat to the West as Western Muslims rush into the fight against Assad. In fact, only this past August 20, the Washington Free Beacon reported that "[s]ignificant numbers of American and European jihadists are traveling to Syria to join Islamist rebels, prompting new fears of a future wave of al Qaeda terror attacks in the United States and Europe, according to U.S. officials."

Among those known to U.S. counterterrorism forces and the FBI: Eric Harroun, 30, a former Army soldier from Phoenix, who was indicted this past June on charges of conspiring to assist a terrorist organization fighting alongside al Nusrah, described by the government as "an al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group in Syria"; and Nicole Lynn Mansfield, 33, a Muslim convert from Flint, Mich., reportedly "slain by Syrian government forces while fighting alongside rebels" in July.
Now, in response to the alleged chemical weapon attacks by Assad's government on Syrian civilians, American and European governments have begun strategizing for likely retaliatory strikes. The problem is that anything that hurts Assad, however inadvertently, benefits those same Islamist radicals we've all been worried about. It is tantamount to defending the very same forces that French Interior Minister Manuel Valls describes as "a ticking time bomb" for the launching of terrorist attacks in Europe and the United States.
Equally incredible is the fact that, in taking military action in Syria, America would effectively be standing on the same side as al-Qaeda affiliate groups who also support them. As counterterrorism consultants Flashpoint Partners recently reported, "the lion's share of foreign fighters who are dying in Syria are fighting with the most hardline organization involved in the uprising: Jabhat al-Nusra. The leader of Jabhat al-Nusra, Abu Mohammed al-Joulani, has recently publicly sworn allegiance to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and the group has been blacklisted as a branch of Al Qaeda in Iraq by the United States Government."
Even worse, just days ago, Al Nusra announced its own plans to "dispatch up to 1,000 rockets against Alawite villages in Syria," according to the Free Beacon. Would involving ourselves in Syria mean calling them our allies? Or would America find itself taking on a third position in what is already an impossible and unresolvable conflict? And if so, what position could that possibly be?
True, it is a proud and longstanding facet of the American psyche to intervene in the face of human suffering, to protect the citizens of the world from the abuses of their leaders. But the question Washington needs to consider as well is not just whether we can afford another war with a still-struggling economy and a military exhausted by two others. Nor is it simply whether we should be involving ourselves in a war against a country that has brought no direct threat to the U.S. The bigger question is whether, in Syria, we are ultimately aiding those who seek our destruction. Speaking to reporters for The Hill recently, former Congressman Dennis Kucinich put it in the clearest possible terms: "So what," he asked rhetorically, "we're about to become Al-Qaeda's air force now?"
U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., has also expressed reservations, based in large part on his own visit to Syria in February. "There were a number of people who came out of Damascus to meet with me," he told me, "and conditions have only gotten worse since then. You have brutal people involved – and what if they got our weapons? How would we control it all?"
The window of opportunity for safe involvement in Syria, he feels, closed about a year ago. "Maybe two years ago we knew who the Free Syrian Army was," he noted, "but now we don't. Maybe the CIA does, but I certainly don't." That uncertainty, for Wolf, is just a part of what makes the stakes so high. "It takes just two hours to drive from Jerusalem to Damascus," he said. "Now Jordan is in trouble. There are bombings in Lebanon. Egypt is in crisis. Syria is falling apart. What a war we'd be facing."
Abigail R. Esman, the author, most recently, of Radical State: How Jihad Is Winning Over Democracy in the West (Praeger, 2010), is a freelance writer based in New York and the Netherlands.

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Into The Fray: David Harris’s ‘stunning shortsightedness’

By MARTIN SHERMAN

 

It is becoming increasingly difficult to respond with any degree of courteous civility to the advocates of the so-called “two-state-solution” (TSS).

Binyamin Netanyahu, Bill Clinton and Yasser Arafat Photo: REUTERS

Minister Naftali Bennett’s remarks, rejecting outright the vision of two states for two peoples, are stunningly shortsighted

– David Harris, American Jewish Committee executive director, June 17, 2013

Since we cannot defeat Israel in war, we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish a sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel

– Yasser Arafat, Jordanian TV, September 13, 1993 (the day he signed the Oslo Accords on the White House Lawn)

The idea of a two-state solution should be dead, today, because unfortunately a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria would bring about Israel’s demise
– Yuval Steinitz, The Jerusalem Post, September 14, 2008

It is becoming increasingly difficult to respond with any degree of courteous civility to the advocates of the socalled “two-state-solution” (TSS). Maintaining the shabby pretense is simply proving too perilous. The time has come to dispense with the false façade of social decorum and to call a spade, a spade, to deem the moronic, “moronic” and the myopic, “myopic.”

Dangerous, delusional dogma

This applies equally to longstanding supporters of this dangerous delusion, who resolutely refuse to acknowledge error – despite the manifest misery and mayhem its misguided pursuit has wrought; and to recent neophytes, who have inexplicably, and inexcusably, embraced this patently preposterous policy proposal – despite their past opposition to it being unequivocally vindicated.

Likewise, it applies to senior Israeli policy-makers, who have shown neither the necessary intellectual depth nor daring to formulate a cogent counterparadigm, and thus have been coerced into endorsing this disproven dogma; and to leaders of allegedly pro-Zionist organizations in the Diaspora – principally the US – who, whether for reasons of political naiveté, or social nicety, have perversely embraced the establishment of an illiberal Muslim tyranny as the litmus test of refined liberalism.

Belief in the inevitable implementation of the TSS-paradigm as the format for resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict has acquired the status of a quasi-religious article of faith, whose validity is self-evident, requiring no proof.

Any expressions of doubt as to its practical feasibility, or conceptual soundness, can be dismissed as misguided – even malicious – heresy, no matter how convincing the empirical evidence or compelling the analytical rationale on which they draw.

Similarly, any person expounding such “heretical doubts” must be belittled, berated and besmirched, no matter how powerful and persuasive the arguments for his/her case may be.

As evidence continues to accumulate, showing how implausible the pursuit of Palestinian statehood is almost certain to prove as a measure for attaining a peaceable resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the reaction of TSSadherents waxes evermore harsh and hysterical.

Shortsighted or starry-eyed?
Recently, a typical example of such reprehensible behavior was provided by David Harris, the executive director of the influential AJC.

Responding to a remark by Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett regarding Secretary of State John Kerry’s efforts to relaunch negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, Harris castigated him for dubbing endeavors to establish a Palestinian state as futile and having reached a dead-end.

Harris bristled at Bennett’s outright rejection of “the vision of two states for two peoples,” warning that it was “stunningly shortsighted” and “offers only the prospect of a dead-end strategy of endless conflict and growing isolation for Israel.”

Of course, quite the opposite is true. For over the past two post-Oslo decades, ever since Israel has accepted the notion of two states for two peoples, the conflict with the Palestinians has escalated and Israel’s isolation has increased – far beyond levels that existed when such an idea was considered a perfidious anathema.

Accordingly, it would be much closer to the truth to assert that anyone who still clings to the vision (read “nightmare”) of two states for two peoples is, at best, hopelessly – and hazardously – starry- eyed.

Complete claptrap

After all, given the physical devastation and the political delegitimization the pursuit of the TSS-“vision” has left in its wake, together with the high probability and horrendous cost of failure in the future, it would seem that it is its proponents – rather than its opponents – who are afflicted by shortsightedness, if not total sightlessness.

Even a cursory glance at the pre- and post-Oslo facts will expose Harris’s suggestion that the adoption of the TSS- “vision” will in any way act to reduce either conflict or international isolation as complete claptrap. With time, we tend to forget the woes this “noble” vision wrought on the nation.

So a brief reminder is appropriate.

With regard to the level of conflict, based on data from the Foreign Ministry, during the 12 years following the Oslo Agreement (1994-2005) the number of terror-related fatalities was almost six(!) times those incurred in the 12 years prior to it (1981-1992); and significantly higher than ALL terror-related fatalities in the 44 years following the War of Independence until the dawn of the Oslo-era (1949- 1992).

With regard to international isolation, contrary to prevailing urban legend, one would be hard pressed to find any state of substantial international standing that set up diplomatic relations with Israel after the conclusion of the Oslo Accords in September 1993.

For example, China, India and Russia, which together comprise almost 40 percent of humanity, and had long avoided diplomatic ties with Israel, opened embassies in the country almost two years previously – under the recalcitrant, rejectionist government of Yitzhak Shamir.

By contrast, a glance at the Foreign Ministry website will reveal that the vast majority of nations that established official contacts with Israel in the wake of the Oslo initiative were hardly of crucial importance to its international stature – with all due respect to exotic locations such as Andorra, Burkina Faso, Botswana, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Burundi, Cape Verde, Croatia, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Macedonia, Madagascar, Mauritania, Montenegro, Namibia, Nauru, Rwanda, San Marino, Sao Tome & Principe, Vanuatu and Zimbabwe – which make up the overwhelming bulk of the post- Oslo additions to countries maintaining diplomatic relations with Israel.

Woefully myopic or willfully blind?

Conversely – and perversely? – delegitimization of Israel appears to have intensified in the post-Oslo period.

For example, the infamous “Durban” series of conferences took place after Israel had adopted a TSS-compliant policy.

The 2001-Durban conference (Durban I) was held only a few months after Ehud Barak’s far-reaching peace offer to Arafat, and provided a high-profile platform for a myriad of anti-Israel NGOs to peddle their noxious wares.

The subsequent “Durban II” (Geneva, 2009) and “Durban III” (New York, 2011) conferences comprised the “Durban process” which one prominent authority characterized as follows: “The objective of the Durban process is to use human rights and international law terminology to isolate, demonize and delegitimize Israel... this process manifests itself in various ways: the academic boycott campaigns in the UK; a variety of boycotts in Scandinavian countries; divestment in churches and in Norway; ‘lawfare’ cases brought against Israelis in various European countries. All these take their mandate from the 2001 NGO Forum at the Durban Conference and... work toward reinforcing its resolutions.”

The egregious Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which is acquiring disturbing momentum of late, is a post-Oslo initiative, launched in mid-2005, just weeks prior to the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, and over a year after the hyperhawk Ariel Sharon declared that “we are willing to proceed toward its implementation: two states – Israel and a Palestinian state living side by side in tranquility, security and peace.”

How has Harris failed to see how counter-productive TSS-compliant policies have been? Is it woeful myopia? Or willful blindness?

Asinine arguments

Harris followed his anti-Bennett tirade with two opinion pieces, urging that we “Give the Peace Process a Chance,” which were (how should I put this?) stunningly shortsighted.

Although I did touch on the more glaring defects in Harris’s articles in my last column, his approach is so arch-typical of the asinine argumentation adopted by TSS-advocates that I feel it is essential to revisit them.

According to Harris, “Israel owe[s] itself the obligation to leave no stone unturned in seeing if a partner, absent yesterday, might somehow show up today. And if, miracle of miracles, the Palestinian leadership actually turns out to be a credible partner this time, then, of course, all the more reason to try.”

Wrong – and stunningly shortsighted! The supposed sincerity of the Palestine negotiating partner’s peaceable intentions is completely – or at least, largely-irrelevant to whether or not negotiations should be undertaken. What is far more pertinent is his ability – and that of any prospective successor – to honor them. Or does Harris feel comfortable with Israel making perilous concessions, if, as in Gaza, they could fall to radical extremists? Has he any way to ensure they will not? And if he can’t, isn’t he being wildly shortsighted in urging taking such risks?

Forlorn hope as strategy?

And should the talks fail, Harris would have us believe that “if the Palestinians once again prove they are unwilling partners, as they did in 2000-1 and again in 2008, let the world see who torpedoed a potential deal.”

Really? It is difficult to resist asking: “Myopic and amnesic?” Has Harris forgotten the wrenching concessions Israel has made over the past decades – the unrequited unilateral 10-month freeze on construction in the “settlements”; withdrawal from major populations centers in Judea-Samaria; unilateral evacuation of Gaza, and erasure of every vestige of Jewish presence there; the unearthing of its dead from their graves; the demolition of settlements in northern Samaria; permitting armed militias to deploy adjacent to its capital, within mortar range of its parliament?

To all these the Palestinians responded with Judeocidal terror and Judeophobic incitement.

Surely, if after all this, the penny still hasn’t dropped, what possible reason is there for any farsighted person to believe the offer of further concessions will do the trick? Or is Harris suggesting forlorn hope as a national strategy?

Negotiating Strategy vs social pandering

According to Harris, “Israel must never hesitate to show up at any serious negotiating table.”

It is of course questionable whether the current coerced talks, with an unrepresentative and aging PA president, in office now for almost nine years of his elected four-year term and whose continued incumbency is far from certain, comprises a “serious negotiating table.”

However, putting that thorny issue aside, it is difficult to imagine any worse a negotiating strategy than declaring almost unconditional willingness to negotiate – especially in the Middle East.

Nothing could better induce one’s counterparts to harden their position, escalate their intransigence and make wildly unreasonable demands, like releasing over 100 convicted killers as a precondition to deign to participate in talks.

Hardly a formula for success – unless of course what is really important is social acceptability in bon-ton liberal circles rather than the actual results of the negotiations.

Surely all but the shortsighted can grasp this?

Sound political science
I could go on rebutting nearly every sentence in Harris’s shallow articles, and virtually every shortsighted idea he raises in them, but constraints of time and space are upon me, and I must desist.

So let me conclude with the following categorical declaration: Given the infinitesimal geographical distances from major Israeli population centers and the topographical dominance over vital Israeli infrastructure any Palestinian state would have, Harris’s prescription for “the need for extraordinarily careful attention to security arrangements in any two-state deal” is little more than lip service, designed to fob off profound concerns which in reality can never be satisfied.

Indeed, I would challenge him to produce the outlines of anything remotely approaching a workable – and durable – formula for such “carefully attended security arrangements.”

I am sure he will find that none exists.

In the final analysis, between the River and the Sea there will exist either exclusive Jewish sovereignty or exclusive Arab sovereignty. The side that will prevail is the side whose national will is the stronger and whose political vision is the sharper.

This is not right-wing extremism or religious fanaticism.

It is merely sound political science – and farsighted prudence.

Martin Sherman (www.martinsherman.net) is the founder and executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies (www.strategic-israel.org)

 

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Israel's only two options

Caroline Glick

 

Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas is in Europe this week seeking to convince the Spanish and Norwegian governments to support the Palestinian bid to sidestep negotiations with Israel and have the UN General Assembly recognize Palestinian sovereignty over Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem in addition to Gaza.

The Palestinians know that without US support, their initiative will fail to gain Security Council support and therefore have no legal weight. But they believe that if they push hard enough, Israel's control over these areas will eventually unravel and they will gain control over them without ever accepting Israel's right to exist.

Fatah's UN gambit, along with its unity deal with Hamas, makes clear that the time has come for Israel to finally face the facts: There are only two realistic options for dealing with Judea and Samaria.

Either the Palestinians will take control of Judea and Samaria, or Israel will annex them.

If the Palestinians take control, they will establish a terror state in the areas, which - like their terror state in Gaza - will use its territory as a starting point for continued war against Israel.

It isn't only Israel's experience with post-withdrawal Gaza and South Lebanon that make it clear that a post-withdrawal Palestinian-controlled Judea and Samaria will become a terror state. The Palestinians themselves make no bones about this.

In a Palestinian public opinion survey released last week by The Israel Project, 65 percent of Palestinians said they believe that they should conduct negotiations with Israel. But before we get excited, we need to read the fine print.

According to the survey, those two-thirds of Palestinians believe that talks should not lead to the establishment of the State of Palestine next to Israel and at peace with the Jewish state. They believe the establishment of "Palestine" next to Israel should serve as a means for continuing their war against Israel. The goal of that war is to destroy what's left of Israel after the "peace" treaty and gobble it into "Palestine."

That is, 66% of Palestinians believe "peace" talks with Israel should be conducted in bad faith.

Moreover, three-quarters deny Jewish ties to Jerusalem, and 80% support Islamic jihad against Jews as called for in the Hamas charter; 73% support the annihilation of the Jewish people as called for in the Hamas charter on the basis of Islamic scripture.

As bad as Israel's experience with post-withdrawal Gaza and South Lebanon has been, Israel's prospects with a post-withdrawal Judea and Samaria will be far worse. It isn't simply that withdrawal will invite aggression from Judea and Samaria. It will invite foreign Arab armies to invade the rump Jewish state.

Unlike the post-withdrawal situation with Gaza and South Lebanon, without Judea and Samaria, Israel would not have the territorial depth and topographical advantage to defend itself from invasion from the east.

Moreover, the establishment of the second Palestinian terror state after Gaza in Judea and Samaria would embolden some of Israel's Arab citizens in the Galilee and the Negev as well as in Jaffa, Lod, Haifa and beyond to escalate their already declared irredentist plans to demand autonomy or unification with whatever Palestinian terror state they choose.

Living under the constant threat of invasion from the east (and the south, from a Muslim Brotherhood-controlled Egyptian army moving through the Sinai and Gaza), Israel would likely be deterred from taking concerted action against its treacherous Arab citizens.

As then-prime minister Ariel Sharon warned in 2001, the situation would be analogous to the plight of Czechoslovakia in the 1930s. Just as the Nazis deterred the Czech government from acting against its traitorous German minority in the Sudetenland in the 1930s, so Arab states (and a nuclear Iran), supporting the Palestinian terror states in Judea and Samaria and in Gaza, would make it impossible for Israel to enforce its sovereign rights on its remaining territory.

Israel's destruction would be all but preordained.

The second option is for Israel to annex Judea and Samaria, complete with its hostile Arab population.

Absorbing the Arab population of Judea and Samaria would increase Israel's Arab minority from 20% to 33% of the overall population. This is true whether or not Israel grants them full citizenship with voting rights or permanent residency without them.

Obviously such a scenario would present Israel with new and complex legal, social and law enforcement challenges. But it would also provide Israel with substantial advantages and opportunities.

Israel would have to consider its electoral laws and weigh the prospect of moving from a proportional representation system to a direct, district system. It would have to begin enforcing its laws toward its Arab citizens in a manner identical to the way it enforces its laws against its Jewish citizens. This includes everything from administrative laws concerning building to criminal statutes related to treason. It would have to ensure that Arab schoolchildren are no longer indoctrinated to hate Jews, despite the fact that according to the Israel Project survey, 53% of Palestinians support such anti-Semitic indoctrination in the classroom.

These steps would be difficult to enact.

On the other side, annexing Judea and Samaria holds unmistakable advantages for Israel. For instance, Israel would regain complete military control over the areas. Israel ceded much of this control to the PLO in 1996.

The Palestinian armies Israel agreed to allow the PLO to field have played a central role in the Palestinian terror machine. They have also played a key role in indoctrinating Palestinian society to seek and work toward Israel's destruction. By bringing about the disbanding of these terror forces, Israel would go a long way toward securing its citizens from attack.

Furthermore, by asserting its sovereign rights to its heartland, for the first time since 1967, Israel would be adopting an unambiguous position around which its citizens and supporters could rally. Annexation would also finally free Israel's politicians and diplomats to tell the truth about the pathological nature of Palestinian nationalism and about the rank hypocrisy and anti-Semitism at the heart of much of the international Left's campaigns on behalf of the Palestinians.

No, annexation won't be easy. But then again, the alternative is national suicide.

And again, these are the only options. Either the Palestinians form a terror state from which it will wage war against the shrunken, indefensible Jewish state, or Israel expands the size of the Jewish state.

Since 1967, Israel has refused to accept the fact that these are the only two options available. Instead, successive governments and the nation as a whole have set their hopes on imaginary third options. For the Left, this option has been the fantasy of a two-state solution. This "solution" involves the Palestinians controlling some or all of the lands Israel took over from Jordan and Egypt in the Six Day War, establishing a state, and all of us living happily ever after.

Given the Palestinians' overwhelming, consistent and violent support for the destruction of Israel in any size, this leftist fantasy never had a leg to stand on.

And since 1993, when the Rabin government adopted the Left's fantasy as state policy, more than 2,000 Israelis have been killed in its pursuit.

Not only has the Left's third option fantasy facilitated the Palestinian terror machine's ability to kill Jews, it has empowered their propaganda war against Israel.

Israel's pursuit of the nonexistent two-state solution has eroded its own international position to a degree unprecedented in its history.

Last week's meeting of the so-called Middle East Quartet ended without a final statement. It isn't that its members couldn't agree on the need to establish "Palestine" in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem. That was a no-brainer. The Quartet members couldn't agree on the need to accept the Jewish state. Russia reportedly rejected wording that would have enjoined the Palestinians to accept the Jewish state's right to exist as part of a peace treaty.

And this was eminently foreseeable. The unhinged two-state solution makes Israel's legitimacy contingent on the establishment of a Palestinian state. And it put the burden to establish a Palestinian state on Israel.

Since everyone except Israel and the US always accepted the establishment of a Palestinian state, and no one except Israel and the US always accepted the existence of the Jewish state, by making its own legitimacy dependent on Palestinian statehood, Israel started the clock running on its own demonization.

The longer Israel allows its very right to exist to be contingent on the establishment of another terror state committed to its destruction, the less the nations of the world will feel obliged to accept its right to exist.

As for the Right, its leaders have embraced imaginary third options of their own. Either Jordan would come in and save us, or the Palestinians would come to like us, or something.

The one thing that both the Left's fantasy option and the Right's fantasy option share is their belief that the Palestinians or the Arabs as a whole will eventually change. Both sides' imaginary third options maintain that with sufficient inducements or time, the Arabs will change their behavior and drop their goal of destroying Israel.

Our 44-year dalliance in fantasyland has not simply weakened us militarily and diplomatically. It has torn us apart internally by surrendering the debate to the two ideological fringes of the political spectrum. Actually, to be precise, we have surrendered 99% of our public discourse to the radical Left and 1% to the radical Right.

The Left's control over the discourse has caused its ideological opposite's numbers to increasingly disengage from the state. That would be bad enough, but the Palestinians' inarguable bad faith and continued commitment to Israel's destruction have driven the far Left far off the cliff of reason and rationality.

Unable to convince their fellow Israelis that their two-state pipe dream will bring peace, the Israeli Left has joined forces with the international Left in its increasingly shrill campaigns to delegitimize the country's right to exist and undermine its ability to defend itself.

This sorry state of affairs is exemplified today by the radical Left's hysterical response to the Knesset's passage last week of the anti-boycott law. The comparatively mild law makes it a civil offense to solicit boycotts against Israel. It bars people engaged in economic warfare against Israel from getting government benefits and makes them liable to punitive damages in civil suits.

The Left's hysterical public relations campaign to demonize the law and its supporters as fascists and seek its overthrow through the Supreme Court makes clear that the Left will wage war against its own country in pursuit of its delusion.

But aside from driving the public discourse into the depths of ideological madness, Israel's embrace of fantasy has made it impossible for us to conduct a sober-minded discussion of our only real options. The time has come to debate these two options, choose one, and move forward.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post. 

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Rethinking the Two-State Solution

PolicyWatch 1408

 

 

Giora Eiland and Martin Indyk

Also available in العربية

Policy #1408
October 3, 2008-reposted Aug. 31, 2013

On September 23, 2008, Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Giora Eiland and Ambassador Martin Indyk addressed a Policy Forum luncheon at The Washington Institute. General Eiland is former head of the Israeli National Security Council and currently a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. Ambassador Indyk directs the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. The following is a rapporteur’s summary of their remarks.


GIORA EILAND
Within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lies a paradox. Although the two-state solution is well known and widely accepted, and although there is international consensus regarding the need for it, little progress has been made to that end. This means that neither side desires the solution nor is willing to take the necessary risks to move forward and come to an agreement. Ultimately, the most the Israeli government can offer the Palestinians -- and survive politically -- is far less than what any Palestinian leadership can accept. As such, there is a gap between the two sides that continues to widen as the years go on.

In many aspects, the current situation is worse than it was eight years ago. In 2000, there were three leaders who were both determined and capable of reaching an agreement: U.S. president Bill Clinton, Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. That type of leadership is missing today. In addition, while the two sides enjoyed a reasonable level of security, cooperation, and trust in 2000, the subsequent intifada has created a completely different situation on the ground today. The rise of Hamas also poses a serious threat to any potential solution. Hamas was an opposition group in 2000, and the Palestinian Authority was capable of acting against its will. Today, it seems that even if Hamas were to lose control of Gaza and its majority in the Palestinian legislature, it would be strong enough politically and militarily to undermine any political agreement. Finally, there are a growing number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank that the Israeli government may not be willing or even capable of evacuating.

On what basis can one believe that what failed eight years ago during optimal circumstances could possibly be successful today when the situation is much worse? It has become clear that the conventional two-state solution -- the establishment of two independent states between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea -- is not attractive enough for either side to move forward. Thus, in order to avoid prolonging the conflict, it is necessary to modify the solution in the hope of persuading both parties to take additional risks or make further concessions.

One variation is to give Jordan security responsibility for the West Bank. It would be preferable to give this role to Jordan rather than to the Palestinian Authority for one main reason: Hamas. There is valid concern that if a Palestinian state were established in the West Bank, Hamas would inevitably gain control. Contracting out the security responsibility to Jordan while ensuring Palestinian political autonomy could prevent the threat Hamas poses to Israel. Moreover, in light of Hamas's control of Gaza, if a state were established in the West Bank, Palestinians might be more prepared to live under Jordan than Hamas.

The other alternative is a regional solution. The conventional two-state solution leaves two major problems unsolved: the daunting prospect of evacuating roughly 100,000 Israelis from the West Bank and Gaza's lack of the necessary land and resources to be part of a viable state. Ultimately, the need is for more space -- the one thing the Arab world can provide. Thus, the problem could be solved with a multilateral land swap involving Egypt, Israel, and the Palestinian territories. Egypt could cede a modest amount of land to significantly increase the size of the Gaza Strip. Israel would then keep a percentage of the West Bank equal to the amount of land being given by Egypt to Gaza. In return, Israel would grant an equivalent part of the Negev desert to Egypt and create a direct corridor from Egypt to Jordan.

Although many of the core issues of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict are difficult, the main inhibitors are territory and security. The piece of land in question is simply too small and too inadequate to satisfy both sides, and it is up to neighboring states to make their own contributions if a two-state solution is to succeed. If this option does not seem feasible, it is necessary to come up with alternative resolutions to the conflict. Bridging the ever widening gap between the two sides will be impossible if the obsession with only one solution persists. Instead of continuing with the same approach that has repeatedly failed in the past, it is time to explore other possibilities. Otherwise, the solution will continue to elude us -- even though everybody wants it.

MARTIN INDYK
Although Giora Eiland offers interesting ideas, they are not viable options. His challenge to provide alternative solutions is important, but he takes a quintessentially Western approach to the situation. Americans are drawn to it out of the belief that every problem has a solution, but his solutions are inherently flawed.

In terms of the Jordanian option, ultimately no Jordanian government would be willing to take over from Israel the responsibility for policing Palestinians. West Bank Palestinians pose a demographic threat to Jordanians. Furthermore, Eiland moves past the issue of Palestinian identity too quickly in suggesting that Palestinians in the West Bank would be willing to accept a Jordanian national identity. It is highly doubtful the Palestinians would easily consent to this. As for the regional option, Arab states have historically been unwilling to engage in this type of solution. Given Egypt's insistence that the tiny Sinai border area of Taba be brought to international arbitration in the 1980s, it is unrealistic to expect the Egyptians to willingly give up any territory in the Sinai for the sake of their Palestinian neighbors.

At this point, it seems that Israelis and Palestinians cannot achieve a two-state solution alone; third-party intervention is necessary to establish a lasting peace. Egypt and Jordan -- the two Arab neighbors most directly affected by this situation -- are contributing, but perhaps less than Washington would like. Still, from Egypt's role in negotiating a ceasefire and policing the border with Gaza, to Jordan's training of Palestinian security services, their contributions should not be underestimated. Their involvement is helping create circumstances that may make a two-state solution more viable. We must try to support those who have the will to make peace and strengthen their capabilities. We have helped the Jordanians, but while some progress is being made, that assistance is not enough. The participation of the rest of the Arab states is essential to moving the process forward.

Nevertheless, the progress since Israel made peace with Egypt prevails over the aforementioned obstacles. At a minimum, Israel enjoys peace with Egypt and Jordan, and Israeli governments have made great strides in accepting the two-state solution. Also, although Hamas is ascendant, one can argue that it is gradually coming to terms with Israel's reality, as demonstrated by the informal ceasefires negotiated with Israel in Gaza. Furthermore, most of the problems Eiland raises are actually amenable to solutions, but require political will on both sides. Obstacles such as the mass evacuation of Israeli settlers and the refugee problem are not insurmountable. They require courageous leadership and a willingness to speak the truth to one's people.

The more doubts that are raised and the more alternatives that are offered, the better the two-state solution looks. Palestinian and Israeli governments have had serious negotiations in the past year and have arrived back at the point they were in 2000 after the development of the Clinton parameters. This progression proves the viability of the basic ideas that Clinton presented eight years ago. In the long term, this is not the moment to abandon the two-state solution: It is the time to inject the effort with greater urgency.

This rapporteur's summary was prepared by Sana Mahmood.

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The Two State Concept is Wrong

David Ha'ivri

This might come as a surprise to some, but many Israelis do not believe that establishing a Palestinian state is the right thing to do… Some Israeli leaders feel that they can only depend on the Palestinians for one thing - their dedication to getting in the way of any permanent resolution. The truth is that in that one area, they do have a very impressive track record. 

PA is teaching hate in their schools. The PA chairman insists that Jews will not be allowed to live in the Palestinian state in his vision…

For the past 20 years, the international community has been pouring billions of dollars into the Palestinian Authority. A great part of these massive international funds found their way into the pockets of PLO functionaries who became wealthy as a result. Part of these funds contributed to monthly pensions that the PA pays convicted terrorists in Israeli jails…

These points only show the tip of the iceberg of corruption and failure springing from the Oslo concept of establishing a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River. The idea is not going to lead the area to peace and prosperity, and so far it has only caused more misery.  It is time to acknowledge that the Oslo path was wrong the route to choose. Other alternatives must be considered... (There are other options, no one is interested to even look at them!)

Food for Thought by Steven Shamrak

International anti-Israel propaganda is conducted on many levels. One of them is subliminal brainwashing of the general public. Have you noticed that most news programs and travel guides about Israel begin with showing a picture of the Al-AqsaMosque? This technique is called “priming” and it is used to delegitimise the Jewish claim to our ancestral land. It is like Jews praying at the Western Wall do not exist!

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Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood supporters place X marks on Coptic homes

Jihad Watch

The Christian Copts of Shubra al-Khaima, Egypt, are in a “state of panic and terror” as “a number of supporters of ousted President Muhammad Morsi have been placing markings on Christian homes in the area for [future] targeting.”
Speaking anonymously, one Copt from the region told Veto News agency that they “recently noticed strange movements in the streets. When they went to inspect, they discovered large numbers of bearded men, who began to quicken their steps. They tried to catch up with them but couldn’t. When they returned, they discovered “X” marks in black on the homes of Copts, separating them out [from Muslim homes].”


Such markings are likely in preparation for the Brotherhood’s scheduled mass protests, or terrorist rallies, for Friday, so they know which homes to attack, plunder and/or burn as they call for the return of Muslim Brotherhood rule in Egypt.

Incidentally, the last time a minority was singled out, including with markings and badges, a genocidal holocaust soon followed. Thus, and once again, the Obama-supported Muslim Brotherhood proves itself to be a fascistic, supremacist regime.

Posted by Raymond 

Categories:

• Coptic Christians,
• Egypt,
• Muslim Brotherhood,
• Muslim persecution of Christians

Tags:

• Copts,
• Egypt,
• Muslim Brotherhood

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5 Comments

| Leave a comment

duh_swami | August 30, 2013 10:55 AM | Reply

Paint over those X's and in the middle of the night, when no one is looking, paint the same marks on Mahoundian homes.

Holy Prophet APF | August 30, 2013 11:00 AM | Reply

Given that we fund much of Egypt with our taxpayer dollars, why not threaten to cut them off if they don't quit terrorizing the Copts?
We made the threat for our Mo-Bro-Hood allies being victimized by a military coup, can't the same threat be made to put an end to religious mass murder?

George replied to comment from duh_swami | August 30, 2013 11:41 AM | Reply

Great idea, Mr. Swami! Or, just paint that big 'X' on every house in town and see if allah can sort THAT out...

Jay Boo | August 30, 2013 12:45 PM | Reply

These are the same people that NPR have been fawning over for months.
Secretary Kerry shame on you too.

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The Kurds Can Lead a Reborn Syria, At Peace With ALL of Her Neighbors

Robert B. Sklaroff and Sherkoh Abbas

As this is being composed, American ships are rushing to the Levant, presumably preparing to launch a bombing-campaign in reaction to the mass-gassing that Assad again directed at his citizenry. Although pundits could analyze the reasons for—and consequences of—the delay of this effort, it is only necessary to “get into the weeds” far enough to identify how a “coalition of the willing” can quickly be assembled to stop the slaughter…and to build a stable, peaceful Syrian society. The Kurds have been issuing humanitarian appeals to the international community to save the Syrian Kurds, but it finally seems their plight is finally being “heard”…or maybe not! In any case, the way breaking-events may be placed within a larger context is explored at the end of this op-ed.

Minority ethnic and religious groups hope to create a secular democratic federal republic led by secular Sunni Kurds, Arabs, Alawi moderates, Christians, Druze, and Turkmen.  Kurds played a substantial role as Syria gained independence from France; inasmuch as they are the country’s second largest ethnic group, the Kurds can play a very positive, democratic role in forging its future. That is the goal of the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria (KURDNAS), assisted by US Syrian Sunni reformer Dr. M. Zhudi Jasser, a cause that is being advanced via the Syrian Democratic Coalition.  This would both recognize that Arabs constitute ~57% of the country’s population of 22 million, and the desire of the rest of the population to exercise equal-rights.

This essay summarizes the forces-at-play, the pressures being exerted upon the Syrian Kurds, and the urgency that the Kurds feel threatens their survival.  Because Kurds have been consistently friendly to America and Europe, they feel it is in the best interests of the United States and the international community to lend them support—both humanitarian and military—as they attempt to survive the surrounding bloodbath.

The Players

Bashar Assad’s Alawites are Shia or related to it and, thus, feel naturally allied with their Iranian patrons. That this sect numbers only 5-6 million worldwide—2.2 million of whom dominate the Syrian government—illustrates the success Bashar’s father, Hafez, enjoyed since 1971, ensuring the rest of the 22.5 million population (excluding Palestinian Arabs encamped therein) remained under his iron-clad grip. Indeed, until recently, he aggressively attempted to extend his hegemony into dominating contiguous Lebanon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria#Ethnic_groups

After the “Arab Spring” triggered a civil war that has claimed 100,000+ lives during the past 2 ½ years, Sunni radicals have allegedly grown to dominate the “rebels,” even as factions thereof have conflicted. Specifically, al-Qaeda elements have emerged, thereby quelling enthusiasm among Westerners (USA/EU) to provide unbridled support. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), affiliated with al-Qaeda, sponsors the most active militant group of Arab Nationalists/Islamists in Syria, al Nusra. Most of its support is derived from Gulf Arab States and Turkey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war

Upwards of 38-50 million Kurds (encompassing those tracing their genealogy to the Middle East) reside throughout Southwest Asia; this population is in-flux, as war-induced emigration has prompted many to flock temporarily into Turkey, Jordan and Iraq. Although predominantly residing in NE-Syria (a region rich in agriculture and natural resources), they live throughout Syria, as illustrated by the existence of the aptly-named Kurdish Mountain on Syrian coast in NW-Syria to Aleppo in the North. (This is a continuous area along the Turkish border.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurd_Mountain

The Kurds constitute the largest non-Arab ethnic group; their language is based on Farsi, the Persian language (recalling that Cyrus the Great was a Kurd). They have, therefore, dominated convocations of disenfranchised populations seeking to piece-together provisional governments; these meetings have been held primarily in Washington, D.C. during the past half-decade, and they have counterpointed events sponsored by the Muslim Brotherhood that have harbored a comparable goal. In addition, although the “official” tabulation is that the Kurds constitute 15% of Syria (~3.3 million), another 16% have been “Arabized.”  [see Will There Be Room for Kurds and Other Minorities in a Post-Assad Syria?] 

http://www.newenglishreview.org/print.cfm?pg=custpage&frm=7937&sec_id=115831

The Kurds

Syrian Kurds seek support from the international community, lest they be forced to continue to divide loyalties among four regional countries…each with competing interests. Having remained staunchly pro-American, such loyalty merits the urgent provision of robust assistance, if for no other reason than to assist the United States in pursuit of the weapons-of-mass-destruction (primarily chemical) that serve as Assad’s ultimate military “stick.” There is general agreement that they must be secured before Islamic Terrorists are able to acquire them, and the Kurds serve as natural allies in this effort.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdish_people

One could argue that, at the end of the day, a region in North-NE-Syria could serve as a semi-autonomous region but—until matters have been settled throughout the country—any territory currently occupied by the Kurds is vulnerable to attack from all sides. Thus, factions have become aligned with contiguous nations, even as the neighboring countries themselves enjoy quasi-alliances with more distant entities; for example, the Saudis have supplied the rebels via Turkey, as America seems to be doing through Jordan. This discussion excludes review of how Assad is vigorously propped-up by Iran and Russia.

http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/08/25/netanyahu-ties-syria-chemical-attack-to-iran-says-assad-is-full-iranian-client/

Assad’s Strangulation Strategy

Tragic conditions have arisen in The Kurdish Region of Syria (primarily in the north and northeast), which had been a safe haven for more than 4 million people during the past 2 years, including ½ million recently-displaced Syrians.  Kurds have called upon the conscience of the international community to act forcefully to prevent (or, at least) to reduce the deaths, destruction, and starvation that is occurring due to the lack of food, electricity, medicine and cooking and heating fuels. If humanitarian aid is not received very soon, thousands of people will die due to starvation, illness, and dropping temperature. All the UN aid goes to non-Kurdish Areas that are controlled by MB-led radicals

This has occurred as a result of what several parties have done, for several reasons:

During the past four decades, Assad’s totalitarian regime has changed the ethnic demography of the region by implanting Arab settlers in the region and making the region economically dependent on the rest of Syria. Economic development was disallowed, infrastructure was ignored, the region’s resources (like gas and oil) were extracted, and reinvestment in the region was impermissible.  Thus, despite the fact that the region is a breadbasket and constitutes Syria’s only source of gas and oil, it became necessary to import key-supplies (medicine, food, fuel, etc.) from the rest of Syria.

During the Syrian revolution, the regime transferred all food resources (wheat, grains, etc.) from the region to their own areas (emptying the region of food resources) and no assistance, processed food, fuels, etc. were sent back throughout this past year.  This was designed to force the Kurds to take the regime’s side by only providing minimal assistance for loyalists.

Recently, however, the regime lost control of the main routes to the region to radical Islamist rebels armed by groups aligned with myriad al-Qaeda movements (Jabhat al Nassra, Arab radical tribes lead by Nawaf al-Bashar, Arab tribes belonging to the regime, and Jihadists). After they cut-off the supply routes (for all goods, including medicine, food, fuel, etc.), they confiscated or destroyed them, so as to force Kurds to take their side of the conflict.

Assad, assisted by Arab settlers in the Kurdish Region and groups like the PYD [vide infra], closed border crossings (like Qamishli and Derek); similarly, radical Islamic movements or Salafist groups assumed control of other border crossings that are now being used to advantage the interests of Turkey.  On the Eastern border, Assad’s supply lines from Iran/Iraq to Syria—routed via the Kurdish Region of Syria—were disrupted by al-Qaeda groups.   As a result, the isolated Kurdish region faces famine; the lack of electricity, seeds, and fuel for heating or transportation has led to the failure of land cultivation, for at least half of this year’s crop was not even planted.

The Kurdish region has been besieged economically because of its peaceful democratic revolution. Because they hope to resolve the civil war democratically (and have, thereby, stayed away from Islamic radicalism and political dictatorships), they are targeted by extremists on both ends of the political spectrum. Because commerce has virtually ceased, no salaries are being paid and prices have increased more than 10-fold during the past year. Also, non-Kurds receive international support from the UN, Qatar, and many Arab Counties, whereas Syrian Kurds have been given only empty promises from the KRG government in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

Indeed, local doctors report they are receiving dozens of children daily who are on the brink of death due to diseases, starvation and weather-related illness.  Because the Kurdish Region lives in darkness and extreme cold temperatures, people have been forced to heat themselves by cutting-down trees and burning wooden furniture; most schools are closed because their wooden seats have been burned.

The Kurdish Factions

Thus, some familiarity with how this has transpired serves to enlighten those who attempt to conjure how matters will play-out. As noted, three factions have emerged (KDP, PUK, and PKK), although only ~30% of Kurds are politically aligned with any of them; the others have understandably attempted merely to survive the conflict, but all seek a post-Assad government that will not be oppressive and that, instead, will allow them to become stakeholders in Syria’s future and promote a decentralized, democratic federalized Syria in which the Syrian Kurdish Region will enjoy self-rule. This general summary of the prevailing situation in the Kurdistan Region of Syria mainstreams both expectations for the moment and visions for the foreseeable future. Essentially, inasmuch as the Kurds irritate both Assad and al-Qaeda, the natural alliance of the Kurds with America should be exploited to optimize promotion of human rights, representative democracy, and regional stability…thereby preventing radicalization of the Middle East.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/04/fighting_the_next_war.html

The factions are aligned (by myriad pathways) with the four regional countries (Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria), each of which is to be represented at a (Russia-inspired) proposed Kurdistan National Conference in Erbil. The government of Iraqi Kurdistan—the KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government)—is based in Erbil and plans to have “independent” representation thereat, but it is anticipated to be aligned with Baghdad which, in turn, will probably accommodate the interests of fellow-Shiites leading Syria (Assad); and it appears that, as America withdraws therefrom, Iraq will increasingly abide by the interests of Iran. 

The KRG’s coalition government consists of the KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party) aligned with Syria and Turkey and the PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan) aligned with Syria and Iran; because neither is supported by America, they are attempting to retain whatever power is available via these relationships, thereby sacrificing the interests of the Syrian Kurds. In fact, this state of affairs has been noted by most Syrian Kurds from KNC, by Kurdnas, and by independent observers; this is why Syrian Kurds seek outside help for the region.

http://www.krg.org/p/p.aspx?l=12&s=030000&r=314&p=224

Another faction is the PKK, which had dominated the conflict in eastern Turkey with Ankara; that effort appears to have died-down, as attention of both entities has turned southward. The PKK has also been bifurcated into unofficial political entities.  One is currently working with Turkey to resolve the Kurdish issue therein; it is anticipated that it will yield minimal cultural rights (and will prop-up Erdogan), for discussion is being led by the political leader of PKK, Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned.   The other has morphed into the military wing of PKK led by Cemil Bayik, and it is currently working with Assad and Iran to support PYD (Democratic Union Party).  PYD is linked to PKK’s military wing, but  neither its name nor its Charter/Constitution mentions Kurds; rather, Bayik promotes a radical socialist Stalinist ideology in support of Assad.

http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/20082013

The PYD is ostensibly more militant, but it supports Assad (and Iran) and thus does not enjoy widespread support among Kurds; it has watched Assad deny fundamental life-support (food, water, electricity) to the Kurds, causing prices to have become inflated to levels 5-10 times the levels throughout the rest of Syria. This oppression (and staged fighting) promulgated by the Assad-PYD alliance explains why, during the past eight months—unlike Christians and Arabs (even those who have arrived as refugees from other war-torn villages)—more than 300,000 Kurds have emigrated and/or fled to Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey. While experiencing this turmoil, they are trying to escape from tyranny imposed by PYD, al-Qaeda groups and Assad’s forces.

All three non-Syrian Kurd groups harm Syrian Kurds by trying to control them and, then, to reduce their rights through their support of Iran (PUK), Turkey (KDP) and Syria (PYD/PUK/KDP). Specifically, the KDP is trying to link them along the Sunni Crescent that runs through Turkey, abiding by the Syrian National Coalition (dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood) which controls the Free Syrian Army (FSA); meanwhile, the PYD and the PUK from Iraq are trying to link them along the Shia Crescent that runs through Syria, abiding by the wishes of Syria (and Iran).

Assad’s Military Strategy

Assad and his allies (Iran, KRG, PYD=PKK) are fighting Radical Islamists and their allies (ISIS and al-Nusra), although infighting among rebel elements occasionally arises. Assad is trying to convince the Kurds to support PYD as the Representative of the Kurds while Islamists are recruiting Kurds to support regime-infiltrated groups such al-Nusra. Assad has wanted to show the international community that only he can keep the country unified, stop ethnic/sectarian wars, ensure al-Qaeda does not obtain WMD (chemical and biological), and fight infidels (Zionists, Americans and Kurds).  It does appear unlikely, now, that he will be able to maintain this façade after having engaged in chemical warfare.

Cemil Bayik, who orchestrates what is happening in Syrian Kurdistan, is the real military leader/commander of PKK (and thus, controls PYD).  Presumably, his recent relocation from Qandil Mountain via Mousal to Kurdistan of Syria (Qamishly) was facilitated by the KRG and Iran/Iraq. He is working with Assad (and Iraq and Iran) to exert control over the Kurdish Region of Syria by clearing the Syrian-Iraqi Border from unfriendly groups, thereby opening a supply line from Iraq/Iran to the Syrian eastern border, abutting Iraq; in the process, he would prevent Kurds from leaving. He is also echoing Assad’s argument [amplified by Russia and China] that America is unjustifiably trying to split Syria and thus to create ethnic division between Arabs and Kurds. Other groups linked to al-Qaeda that worked with Assad during the Iraq War convey the same message to Arabs (coordinated by Assad/Iraq/Iran).

In short, Assad is trying to change the narrative from focusing on a Syrian revolution against him to the need for Arabs to oppose Kurds vis-à-vis Hezbollah and PYD.  Now that Hezbollah had helped Assad in efforts to re-take Homs), Hezbollah would be free to wreak worldwide havoc, while the PYD would be dispatched to fight on the Iraq/Syrian border to create national movements against the Kurds, reduce pressure on the regime, and rally Kurdish support against Syrian oppositions. 

Meanwhile, opposition-rebels are trying to accuse the Kurds of being separatists, supporters of the PYD, and even Assad supporters; as evidence, they claim the PYD tried to split the Kurdish Region from Syria (in coordination with Assad!) to create a quasi-independent entity; this imaginative plot necessitates that all parties—including the Kurdistan region in federal Iraq—are working against Syrian Kurds to keep Assad in power, per Iran’s request.

And, pursuant to this scenario, the Kurdish political movement and the Kurdish “street” would have to be sold on the notion that massive regional migration (even from liberated Kurdish areas) would have occurred due to the liberation. To puncture this argument, Kurds would merely have to note that emigration had suddenly exploded; whereas, more than a half-century of Pan-Arab Baathist Arabization policy against the Kurds had prompted fewer than 250,000 Kurds to move from Syrian Kurdistan, more than 300,000 Kurds had become refuges (in Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey) after less than one year of PYD-control over Syrian Kurds. Indeed, why would having been liberated trigger massive migration?

Action-Items

That is why most Syrian Kurds, the Kurdnas, and the KNC seek help from the international community; neither the KRG nor nearby countries can be believed or trusted. Kurds hope other countries would enthusiastically support the Syrian revolution and robustly appreciate why it would be preferable for Kurds to assume leadership thereof; Kurds could effectively stabilize the Syrian conflict (stopping the violence) and gently promote a representative democracy (protecting WMD). It is now intuitive that Assad can no longer control Syria’s (secretly maintained) chemical weapons, and it is now clear Assad has been promoting ethnic/sectarian civil wars to distract his citizenry from addressing his thuggery.  Because Syrian opposition-rebels cannot be assumed to promise a meaningful improvement over the status-quo regarding democracy and Kurdish Rights, this type of paradigm-shift is long overdue.

The risk of generating policy based on upon word-of-mouth is ever-present, but it is possible that Putin has deviated privately from his public stance—reiterated on August 25, 2013 @ 6:05 p.m.—namely, that “Russia issued a stark warning today against renewed calls for foreign military intervention in Syria after an alleged chemical weapons attack near Damascus last week.” Thus, to whatever degree he may be attempting to goad America into launching some type of limited air-campaign (rather than, for example, imposing a no-fly-zone) may harbor a “public relations” component, for he does not appear to have agreed to any serious move to oust Assad.  Perhaps any degree of concurrence with the United States, therefore, may placate others who would want him—somehow—to accept the potential for “consequences” to ensue after Assad has unabashedly crossed a neon-lit “red line.” 

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/08/russia-compares-syria-war-drums-to-iraq-invasion-warns-of-consequences-of-intervention/

A second “breaking report” that has emerged suggests that Syrian Kurds aligned with the KNC may have been forced to join the SNC, symbolized by the fact that “The Democratic Union Party (PYD) flag was replaced by the Kurdish National Council flag in the northern Syrian town of Ras al-Ayn early on July 26.” Perhaps Syrian Kurds are being forced to accept joining the SNC because Iraqi Kurds failed to help them while PYD and Assad were undermining their interests and the FSA and Islamists were attacking them. Indeed, the “price” ethnic Kurds may be forced to pay for American intervention—of whatever ilk—may be agreement to a shotgun-marriage with other political entities functioning under the auspices of the Muslim Brotherhood. 

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/kurdish-national-council-flag-replaces-pyd-flag-in-syrian-town.aspx?pageID=238&nid=51455

These ideas have been explored further in a recent essay by a Middle East Expert, Joseph Puder:

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/joseph-puder/syria-an-alternative-choice/

In summary, assistance had been requested that could be delivered in a number of ways:

·                     Provide political and economic support to the Syrian Kurdistan Federal Region.

·                     Ensure humanitarian aid can be delivered to the Kurds by pressuring Turkey and Iraq to open border crossings under their control and under the control of Turkey’s aligned Salafist groups.

·                     Ensure humanitarian aid can be delivered to the Kurds through Qamishli International Airport.

·                     Declare the Kurdish Region as a military exclusion and no-fly zone (both for the current regime and for radicals) for humanitarian purposes.

·                     Distribute any/all assistance delivered to Iraqi Kurdistan via the UN (rather than through the KRG, which is riddled with corruption).

·                     Declare PYD as a non-Kurdish entity, for it does not represent Kurds (and instead, is linked to PKK, which America has declared a terrorist organization).

·                     Declare as “terrorist” any entity in the Syrian opposition from SNC to FSA that supports attacks on Kurds (for such assaults on unarmed civilians constitute ethnic cleansing).

Those who claim that there is only one choice in this matter (arming Assad or the “Rebels”) must be helped to view the conflict within a larger context; opposition is not homogeneous. Although facets of the below-depiction of the dynamics affecting the region may be disputed, its clear message (in addition to suggesting America often “has no clue”) is that this is a multidimensional conundrum that must be viewed from the perspective of satisfying fundamental American interests. In this case, acting upon humanitarian concerns urgently would dovetail with the need to help long-term friends of the United States who can be depended upon to help others build a modern Syria that is at-peace with its neighbors.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/08/26/the-middle-east-explained-in-one-sort-of-terrifying-chart/

{*-Dr. Sherkoh Abbas is president of the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria He may be contacted at sherkoh@gmail.com. Dr. Sklaroff is a hematologist, oncologist and internist. He may be contacted at rsklaroff@gmail.com.  Their prior analysis of this issue (“The Road To Iran Runs Through Kurdistan – And Starts In Syria”) was initially published on 4/15/2008 (http://www.doctor-bob.biz/AA-Political%20Essays/Foreign%20Affairs/kurdistan.htm) and was reprinted on 3/6/2013 (http://www.israpundit.com/archives/53330).  An extended-interview of Dr. Abbas (which includes elaborative demographic information) was published in June, 2012 (http://www.newenglishreview.org/print.cfm?pg=custpage&frm=7937&sec_id=115831).}

Thanks Ted Belman

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