New York Time's Iran normalization scenario

Roger Cohen doesn't claim this scenario comes from Mohamed El Baradei, but there is that implication since the context is a description of a long interview.

Here's the scenario he or they come up with:

Iran ceases military support for Hamas and Hezbollah; adopts a “Malaysian” approach to Israel (non-recognition and non-interference); agrees to work for stability in Iraq and Afghanistan; accepts intrusive International Atomic Energy Agency verification of a limited nuclear program for peaceful ends only; promises to fight Al Qaeda terrorism; and commits to improving its human rights record.

The United States commits itself to the Islamic Republic’s security and endorses its pivotal regional role; accepts Iran’s right to operate a limited enrichment facility with several hundred centrifuges for research purposes; agrees to Iran acquiring a new nuclear power reactor from the French; promises to back the country’s entry into the World Trade Organization; returns seized Iranian assets; lifts all sanctions; and notes past Iranian statements that it will endorse a two-state solution acceptable to the Palestinians.

I don't know if Iran would accept a deal like this if it was offered. The entire issue from both sides hinges on what a "Malaysian" approach to Israel entails in detail. The US plan for Palestine is to starve the Palestinians unless and until they vote in a way that arguably can be interpreted as acceptance of a two state solution, or arguably can be interpreted as acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state.

The Shah would have stood back and watched that process. The Egyptians have accepted a role in advancing this process, contrary to the sensibilities of the Egyptian people - the price of this being US acceptance and support for a permanent family-led dictatorship Mubarak and his progeny. Malaysia is much farther away from Israel than Iran is, but if Malaysia was geographically in Iran's position it would be acting a lot more like Iran does now than like Saudi Arabia.

Standing back and watching the US and Israel further pressure the Palestinians would be a difficult arrangement for Iran to accept exactly because it is contrary to the Iranian idea of justice. Unless the deal includes some provision for changing what seems to be the US plan of having the Palestinians approve a two state solution under duress. The plan would have to include a provision for what happens if the Palestinians do not vote for a two state solution.
In other words, this deal requires an actual agreement between Iran and the US on the ultimate resolution of the Israel dispute.

From the US/Israeli point of view, once sanctions break, they are difficult to reinstate. Once US companies have contracts with Iran, profits are being made and offices opened, the US has few options if covert, then increasingly open, aid begins flowing again from Iran to the Palestinians. The Saudis and Egyptians, if they do not trade on terms better than Iran's with the West, will feel pressure to at least match Iran in supporting the Palestinians.

A deal like this, before an agreement on the outcome of the Israel conflict, would be a huge strategic defeat for Israel and would render Israel's remaining a Jewish state non-viable over the long term.

It is good to see scenarios at least fleshed out specifically. Statements about "grand bargains" without details hide the real difficulties that may actually be impassable. In that sense Cohen has performed a service.

Roger Cohen of the New York Times seems to have taken the lead role in selling a rapprochement between the US and Iran to the US decision-making community. This new role, if memory serves, began after the beginning of the Obama administration. It is possible that this is an indicator that there is a serious intention of recasting the US/Iranian relationship. Friends of Israel are right to feel threatened by such a recasting. Friends of the Palestinians watch this with cautious optimism. We'll see where it goes.

Do Jews control US foreign policy?

Juan Cole on the pro-Israel lobby specifically:

The strength of these lobbies comes from their passionate commitment to their cause, from excellent organizing skills, and from their ability to unify around it across religious and ideological boundaries, and above all from ability to leverage support serially on issues from likely allies. Thus, the leadership can arrange for millions of protest emails to be sent by evangelical Christians as well as by Jewish congregations. The New Republic takes the same side as Commentary. They succeed even though their most passionate projects are not supported, and are even opposed, by probably a majority of the American Jewish community. I doubt much hangs on money per se; real lobbying is often a relatively inexpensive affair. But behind-the-scenes concurrence of big players like the military-industrial complex on the desirability for a war is crucial if you are a lobby trying to get up a war for other reasons. They are very good at getting their way, and can think and plan carefully a good decade out, and have virtually no effective opposition, which is the real secret of their strength. Did Obama get even 5,000 emails complaining that he did not stand by Freeman? And that would be a tiny number compared to what Freeman's opponents can muster.

Matt Yglesias on lobbies in general:

[On the subject of statistics showing broad popular support for farm subsidies, though experts use it as the classic economic case of an intensely interested and dedicated group prevailing to create laws that have greater but more widely dispersed costs on the rest of the population]

Still, it seems to indicate that this is a bit more than a question of a narrow group blocking change. What may be happening is that since farm subsidies have passionate defenders in both parties, a wide swathe of people are accustomed to seeing them endorsed by leaders they trust.

With these illustrations of the lobbying process in mind, I'd like to address the mechanisms by which US policy has become today, I'd say very counter productively for US interests generally, committed to ensuring the viability of Israel as a Jewish state.

There are some mostly Jewish supporters of Israel who reflexively identify very personally with the idea that there is and should be a Jewish state in Palestine. Some of those friends of Israel perceive any expression of doubt in the justice of Israel's creation, existence or maintenance as attacks on them personally and attacks on Judaism in general. This feeling of attack leads to a sincere belief that the person who triggered this feeling hates Jews and is anti-Semitic. To a reader disposed to feel this way, I can only imagine that this essay will be perceived as claiming Jews have perniciously taken advantage of non-Jews. I'll say in advance that that is not my argument and not my belief. While I do not agree that there should be a Jewish state in Palestine, I do not mean that as an attack on the reader, the Jewish religion or the Jewish people of Israel.

At its base, the pro-Israel lobby is a regular lobby, not different from the corn products lobby or the lobby of American retired people. Regular lobbies exist because they are effective at steering policy in the fields they care about. To that base of being a generic lobby, there are some other factors that make the pro-Israel lobby especially effective. They are, in order of importance: the fact that US Jews are a particularly wealthy, well educated and influential group generally, defensiveness around charges of anti-Semitism on the part of some US non-Jews, racism on the parts of some US non-Jews, and convergent beliefs on the part of some US Christians.

The textbook explanation of what lobbies represent is that in situations where there are concentrated benefits to a policy and dispersed costs, those who would reap the benefits are more strongly motivated to enact that policy than those who would pay the costs are to prevent the policy. Agricultural subsidies are one widely used example, they slightly increase the level of taxes for the entire economy, but they direct large payments to the farmers. Another common example is steel tariffs. They increase the costs of many goods, impacting nearly every consumer but increase the amount of resources the economy directs at a smaller segment of the economy.

Often it can be shown that the total of the costs, the amount more that the consumers pay for food or appliances using steel, if added up, are greater than the totaled up benefits to the farmers or participants in the steel producing industry. This is not to say that the farmers or steel makers are immoral in any way. To the degree it is a defect, it is a defect inherent in a political system in which the subjects are able to participate freely. Nobody ever says the prescription is to ban lobbies or attack them for being lobbies.

On the other hand, a supporter of steel tariffs could tell a story about people who work in the steel industry who have money to go to Disneyland, and point to others who get haircuts and claim that steel tariffs are broadly beneficial because of the income they ultimately direct towards California amusement parks and barbers. While it is true that even distortions of the economy can be shown to be locally beneficial to other aspects of the economy, that is not an argument that overall the steel tariffs that clearly benefit steel-towns in Pennsylvania are primarily enacted to advance the interests of amusement parks.

We often read that Israel, for example, was able to return the Sinai to Egypt which helped turn Egypt pro-American. Other than Israel, there had never been a reason for Egypt not to be pro-American. Like a farmer helping the economy by getting a haircut partly using government payments, the barber, overall, would have been better off paying less in taxes. Purely from the standpoint of relations with Egypt, the US would have been far, far better off never supporting Israel in the first place.

It is not anti-farmer, just as it is not anti-Semitic to ask the question, if the lobby isn't delivering higher profits to the farms than what would be reflected by market mechanisms, then what is it doing? This is nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to be defensive about, nothing to deny. That is what interest groups do in democracies.

In addition to the fact that the pro-Israel lobby is a lobby, and it pressures policy in a consistent direction away from where it would be in the absence of the lobby, the pro-Israel lobby is especially effective for several reasons. One is that many US Jews feel a strong personal attachment to Israel. Jewish Americans are, in total, the United States' most wealthy ethnic group. They are disproportionately represented in US politics and in some cultural spheres of influence.

The disproportionate Jewish representation in politics is multiplied by the fact that Middle East foreign policy feels more important to many US Jews than it does to many US non-Jews and therefore attracts a further disproportionate Jewish representation in especially that aspect of US foreign policy.

The fact that the Jewish community is wealthy somewhat increases the amount of resources available to the pro-Israel lobby. Two factors may be as important or more important in the special effectiveness of the pro-Israel lobby in strengthening the US commitment to the long-term existence of a Jewish state. One is that even non-Jewish members of the US foreign policy community develop their careers working disproportionately with Jewish members of that community.

By engaging daily with people who feel a strong attachment to Israel, non-Jewish Americans who work in Middle East policy often are shaped in the development of their views to be more pro-Israel than Americans who do not work in that field are.

The second factor is that supporters of Israel have played a gate-keeper role in the dissemination of information about the Middle East to Americans. Just as many people get their views on agricultural policy from people they trust but who have been guided by the agriculture lobby, many US citizens get their ideas of the Middle East from sources that have some bias towards the existence of a Jewish state.

This is not pernicious or the result of some conspiracy held in secret lodges somewhere. But if the people who care enough to become experts exhibit a bias, that bias can be extended throughout the population. Parenthetically, one impact of the internet is that there is a larger and more representative group of gatekeepers now. It is now commonly understood that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not threaten Israel with genocide with the "wiped off the map" statement. Ten years earlier it would have been far easier for a story that disparaged one of Israel's rivals to stand undisputed.

So I hope it is not perceived as anti-Semitic that I argue that Jewish Americans are well placed to form the basis of an especially effective lobby. Another factor in making the lobby more effective than it otherwise would be is that many non-Jewish Americans are defensive about charges of anti-Semitism. Jewish people often sincerely perceive attacks on Israel as attacks on themselves, as attacks on Judaism, and therefore anti-Semitism by definition.

Rational or irrational, it is uncomfortable to be sincerely accused of anti-Semitism. To avoid this accusation, non-Jewish Americans often are willing to go further out of their way to defend the existence of a Jewish state than they would in the absence of this potential accusation.

Another factor is that some Americans, not most but an amount that is still significant even if less than when Israel was founded, identify with Israeli Jews more closely than they do with Palestinian Arabs. Possibly Islam is perceived as more "foreign" to Americans than Judaism. Possibly the fact that many of Israel's Jews descend from Europeans while Arabs are "browner" triggers the ability of some US racists to empathize more strongly with Israel's Jews than they do with Arabs.

10% of the US electorate still believe the false story that Barack Obama is Muslim, this story was only spread as true by people (whether pro-Clinton or pro-McCain) who believed that being Muslim would convince some voters to oppose Obama. Possibly that can serve as an estimate of the pervasiveness of anti-Muslim bigotry in the US. It is not overwhelming and could not explain US support for Israel by itself, but it is a factor to consider.

The last factor that strengthens the effectiveness of the pro-Israel lobby is that support for Israel aligns with the religious beliefs of some Christians. Much is said about the idea that prophecy must be fulfilled according to some beliefs. Beyond that, Christian churches use the Old Testament of the Bible, which relates the story of the Jewish people and forms part of the holy books of today's Jews as a primary text. Christians do not have a similar relationship with any Muslim book. Even beyond prophecy Islam may well be more religiously foreign to US Christians than Judaism.

The United States has the right to dedicate its resources to ensuring that Israel has a permanent Jewish majority if it chooses. This course that the United States is currently taking, to the detriment of its other foreign policy interests, has so far been extraordinarily expensive and has caused a tremendous amount of misery in the region. The misery ranges from the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who went without purified water during Iraq's sanctions, to those Iranians who are unemployed because of US efforts to deny capital to the Iranian economy, to the Egyptians who are not able to participate in their political system, as well as the Saudis and Jordanians - with US support and connivance. US efforts to ensure that none of Israel's neighbors are ever in a position to effectively challenge Israel's legitimacy as a Jewish state takes a very large toll on the people of the region.

Tempering down the reaction throughout the region to the US taking the position it takes is hugely expensive, far in excess of the 3 or so billion in direct or nearly direct transfers to Israel every year. 9/11 was in large part a strike from Israel's region in reaction to US policies aimed at ensuring the long-term viability of Israel as a Jewish state. No other region of the world is nearly as hostile towards the US as that region. The US efforts to manage this regional hostility, including the costs of occupying both Iraq and Afghanistan, and also including the pressures the US is putting on Pakistan, are costs the US bears basically because of the effectiveness of the pro-Israel lobby.

A cheaper, and less miserable alternative for everyone in the region would be advocacy of a South Africa-style one-person one-vote non-ethnic settlement of the Israel dispute.

So to answer the question of the title, Jews do not control America in crude caricature way that friends of Israel often dismiss as anti-Semitic. But US foreign policy is consistently guided further in the direction of defending the existence and viability of a Jewish state than it would if there was no lobby. The lobby is very effective at moving the United States away from policies that would better align with US interests and its core values.

Why Israel will not bomb Iran

David Samuels at Slate thinks Israel will bomb Iran.

The short version of his theory is that Israel is willing to trade a Palestinian state for the continuance of its regional nuclear monopoly and that this is a trade the US will be willing to accept. He goes further that most people in the Middle East, meaning most of the Arab states will be happy with such a trade.

The longer version of his theory is that Israel helps the US by trading concessions to Arab states for Arab cooperation with the US. Meaning the Arabs are more cooperative with the US than they would otherwise be because every once in a while the US can pressure Israel into giving them something they want. An attack would continue this relationship.

The short version of the theory is bizarre. Let's start with the idea that the Arabs would support such an action on Israel's part. Every public pronouncement regarding either hostilities or military action by either Israel or the US against Iran from every Arab capital has been negative. Samuels, in a common argument, claims that the Arabs secretly want Iran to be attacked and secretly accept and even support Israel's nuclear monopoly. Who are these dictators supposedly lying to and why? The Saudi king holds the Iranian president's hand. No member of the Saudi delegation would acknowledge the presence of any member of the Israeli delegation at Annapolis.

The Arab states are politically backwards. Their bufoonery has reached such a level that supporters of Zionism feel comfortable speaking for them. But while they are ineffective opponents of Zionism, and they are clowns, they are opponents of Zionism to the best of their abilities.

Anyway, when Arabs officially speak about US hostility against Iran or about the potential of a military strike against Iran, it is unanimously to say hostilities should be toned down, a compromise should be reached in which Iran does not build a nuclear weapon. No Arab has agreed with the Israeli line that Iran must not have enrichment or the capability to make a weapon in theory. They have nobody that they must lie to. When they publicly oppose a strike it is because they really oppose a strike.

Second, let's talk about the idea that Israel could cede enough territory to the Palestinians that they would accept a state on the remainder on terms acceptable to Israel after Israel bombs Iran. Even if Abbas accepts the disjointed cantons Israel is willing to offer the Palestinians, the Palestinians will not endorse that in a referendum. No external borders, no trade independent of Israel or Israeli proxies, no control of water resources or their airspace. This is not a state, and there is no indication that the Palestinians would accept this type of reservation. But each of the terms mentioned is a necessity from Israel's point of view, for the viability of Israel as a Jewish state.

Any state the Palestinians would accept would be in a position to critically threaten Israel's future as a Jewish state. Any state emasculated enough not to be a threat, would not have the sovereignty necessary for Palestinians to endorse it. Bombing Iran does not change this equation. The Saudis would have no problem making sure the Palestinians have plenty of money for weapons once they have a state independent enough to continue the fight to restore Palestine to Muslim rule.

The longer version of his theory is more bizarre. If there was no Israel the US wouldn't be able to buy limited cooperation from Egypt in exchange for Gaza. But if there was no Israel, the US would have open and willing cooperation from Egypt, even an Egyptian democracy for free. Trade with the US has just as much potential to improve the quality of life of Egyptians as it does of Singaporeans. The USSR was a communist, militantly atheist power. The most religious region in the world during the cold war could only have entertained the idea of aligning with militant atheists against a country that is majority "people of the book" because that country supported Israel and Israel's dispossession of the Palestinians.

I'm not sure what Samuels thinks Israel allows the US to give Saudi Arabia, but the Saudi alliance with the US is a source of shame in that country and the motivating factor behind the threat militant Islamists pose against the country that, other than its relationship with the US and relatively friendly relations with Israel, has spent most of its history, including today, as the most fundamentalist Islamic country in the world.

If the US was to turn its back on the idea that Israel should have a Jewish majority, the Saudis could promote their relationship with the US with pride, even stupidly attempting to take credit for any US turnaround. It would end the Saudi dispute with militant Islam in a stroke, and there would no longer be any reason for the Saudis to hide their relationship with the US. The Saudis cuold even reopen US bases on their territory.

Israel, today as always, is a strategic liability for the US, not an asset. It is a burden that is undertaken for emotional but not logical reasons. Not only the emotional attachment US Jews feel towards Israel - but that is a very important part of the story, including the fact that most US non-Jews are apathetic towards the region which vastly increases the influence of Israel's enthusiastic supporters. There is also an emotional connection US non-Jews, especially non-Jews of European descent, feel towards the Israeli state whose leadership is also mostly of European descent.

These emotional reasons for US support for Israel greatly outweigh the narrative Samuels attempts to draw of Israel somehow helping the US accomplish policy goals in the region. The Saudis would gladly be open, enthusiastic US clients if not for Israel, and they would actually be a strategic asset in many, many ways.

Samuel's theories are weird, but the most important reason Israel will not bomb Iran have nothing to do with the bizarreness and falseness of Samuel's theories. The most important reason Israel willl not bomb Iran is because bombing Iran would hurt the US and Israel far more than they would help. This is also the reason Arab states officially, and sincerely, are trying to dissuade any US attacks or escalations of hostility.

I've seen it argued that bombing Iran may actually accelerate Iran's nuclear program. It is not true that Iran would be able to immediately rebuild its nuclear stocks if attacked. On the other hand, Iran is not planning on having weapons in the short or medium term any way. But it is true that an attack on Iran would give Iran a moral basis for an all-out war against the US and US interests in various parts of the region. Iran expects to damage the US severely in this war.

First Iran will attack the US presence in the gulf. The advanced missiles China and Russia have sold Iran may not succeed in sinking a US warship causing a mass-casualty event, but they might. If it's done in the immediate aftermath of an Israeli bombing of Iran part of the blame for these casualties will be correctly laid at the foot of Israel by the American public. Israel's main advantage in the US arena of popular opinion is that its supporters are enthusiastic while most Americans do not care enough to find neutral viewpoints.

Second, Iran will attack the US position in Iraq. Iran certainly has the ability to return us to the days when 100 US soldiers died a month in Iraq. The kill rate went beneath a dozen or two per month for the entire campaign season, but Americans still want to get out of Iraq. When it goes back up, and there is no maybe this time, Americans will not only want to leave Iraq more urgently, but they rightly will blame Israel for the fact that the exit will now be under fire with heavier than necessary US losses.

Third, Iran will attack the US position in Afghanistan. An Iranian-Pakistani alliance, while under the table, will make the US position in that country unsustainable and may well bring death rates up to those in Iraq. The US is more willing to remain in Afghanistan than in Iraq, but the US will be expending a lot more resources there and losing a lot more lives than it was before Israel's attack. And Israel will no longer have the luxury of being low on the list of priorities for Americans who do not have an inherent empathy with that nation.

Fourth, Iran will attack shipping and oil installations. Iran cannot close the flow of oil, but it can certainly raise the price of oil as it transits. It may be able to reduce Saudi production with missile strikes. The increase in oil price during an already severe recession in the West will have a large impact on economies, not only in the US but even more in Asia and Europe. That this price increase will follow immediately Israel's strike against Iran will decrease Israel's support around the world more than the attack on Gaza did.

Lastly, Iran will attack Israel. Will an Iranian missile hit Dimona? Maybe. Surely it will not render it destroyed beyond repair. It will be a symbolic strike. The real strike against Israel will be the price it imposes on the US for being Israel's enabler.

Hopefully Israel will not be drawn into attacking Syria, Hezbollah or Hamas after any bombing. Israel's sense of legitimacy will already be tested by the punishment the rest of the world feels from Israel's action. Attacking anyone directly only will produce massacres against civilians which are bad enough during normal times, but if this happens at the same time a world recession is worsened because of Israel, there is a real chance it could rapidly push opposition to Israel over the edge.

Samuels thinks Israel could trade the destruction of Iran's nuclear program for a Palestinian state. Iran thinks Israel could force Iran to trade its nuclear program for the expulsion of the US from Iraq and an open Iranian client there, an alliance with Pakistan for an Afghan client and a severe blow to the legitimacy of the Zionist project, in other words substantial progress from Iran's point of view towards a one-state solution which, even if Jews remain on the territory as a political minority with full rights, would represent Iran's greatest foreign policy victory since its revolution.

It would also clear the way for Iran to move forward without any sanctions and rebuild its nuclear program into one like Brazil's or Japan's, which would be fine because with a Muslim-majority Israel, Iran would have perfectly fine relations with its neighbors and no need for a nuclear weapon.

Samuels thinks this would be a bad trade for Iran and a good trade for Israel, as a Jewish state. I disagree completely. I think Iranians also disagree and I think US decisionmakers disagree. I actually think Israeli decisionmakers disagree.

But it probably wouldn't even get there. Israel would ask for permission to attack and be denied that permission. If Israel tries to attack anyway, the US would smartly prevent Israeli jets from crossing US airspace. Likely it would not have to shoot any Israeli jets down, but before watching the entire US position in the region dissolve, the US would probably shoot every participating Israeli jet out of the sky.

Why the incessant focus on Israel?

I have nothing to add. I came across this link at MoonofAlabama.org and thought there should be some reference to it here.

Why the incessant focus on Israel? The question is usually rhetorical and designed to elicit defensiveness rather than, say, an answer. With so many worse conflicts raging around the world, the idea goes, a fixation on the Israeli treatment of Palestinians is suspicious.

The charge is not that anti-Semites obsess about Israel -- of course, they do: it's that a critical focus is symptomatic of that ancient brand of hatred. The Harvard legal scholar, Alan Dershowitz, won't hesitate to bring up David Duke's endorsement of the Walt-Mearsheimer thesis as proof. The logic is somewhat novel, since I don't recall anti-Apartheid activists having to justify Idi Amin Dada’s alignment on the matter. There are two distinct questions to answer: one is why Westerners fixate on the I/P conflict; the other is why they should.

Read the whole thing.

One quibble, which is probably smaller than it looks.

Since World War II, the US has supported nearly every non-Communist tyranny against the aspirations of the people. Are the Palestinians so different from the Chileans, the Nicaraguans, the Guatemalans, the Salvadorans, the Greeks, the Timorese, and the Vietnamese that the US should make an exception for them?

This rule has numerous exceptions - Nasser, Hussein, Assad (to hear the US tell it, Khomeini and Ahmadinejad should also be on the list of exceptions) - related to the US' support for the Zionist project.

This is a point that is not made often enough. Nigeria, Venezuela, Colombia, Cambodia are US imperialism as usual. US intervention in the Middle East attempting to ensure the viability of Jewish domination of at least part of Palestine is drastically more extensive and resource draining than its interventions anywhere else. Post Communism, US intervention has been trivial everywhere else compared to against potential strategic threats to Israel.

I'll close with a reminder that US advocacy of a one state solution is not only more in line with American values, but would be less expensive, not a little less expensive but orders of magnitude less expensive, than trying to ensure that the Muslim world which rejects the legitimacy of a Jewish state is never in a position to threaten Israel's viability.

Obama on al Qaeda and Palestine

A question and answer session with European students. Obama was asked what the US expects from European countries with respect to the war on terror. In short, his answer is that Europe should support US actions against organizations like al Qaeda, specifically its military and political actions in Afganistan.
This part has gotten some attention:

It is going to be a very difficult challenge. Al Qaeda is still bent on carrying out terrorist activity. It is-- al Qaeda is still bent on carrying out terrorist activity. It is, you know, don't fool yourselves because some people say, well, you know, if we changed our policies with respect to Israeli/Palestinian conflict or if we were more respectful towards the Muslim world, suddenly, these organizations would stop threatening us.

That's just not the case. It is true that we have to change our behavior in showing the Muslim world greater respect and changing our language and changing our tone. It is true that we have to work very hard for Israeli/Palestinian peace.

But what is also true is that these organizations are willing to kill innocent people because of a twisted distorted ideology and we, as democracies and as people who value human life, can't allow those organizations to operate.

To the degree these assertions have any meaning at all, they are false. Bin Laden said that the al Qaeda targeted the US instead of Sweden because the US pursues negative policies in the region, that Sweden does not. These policies - the US intervention in Lebanon; US support and military presense in Saudi Arabia; US support for brutal dictatorships in Egypt and Jordan; the US sanctions, invasion and later occupation of Iraq and US direct support in all its forms for Israel are all reasonably tied to the US' goal of ensuring Israel's viability in the face of widely held regional opposition.

A public US commitment to a one state solution would turn the Middle East to a different, vastly less difficult, and better place by the standards of US interests and values tomorrow.

The same could be said for the US adopting Sweden's policy of relativly inactivity and/or neutrality, but that would not be necessary as the US could instead use far fewer resources than it is expending now to ensure and guarantee protection of individual Jewish rights and property in Israel while still ending its state of conflict with the region.

The idea that al Qaeda's views and activities have nothing at all to do with US policy is clearly and wildly false though. Al Qaeda would still be terrorist, but it wouldn't be targeting the US, which would make a big difference from a US point of view. The US is not spending hundreds of billions of dollars confronting Tamil terrorists, the PKK/Pejak or the MEK (I'm leaving the IDF aside for now, but it is far from unanimous in the region that the IDF is not a terrorist organization) not because those organizations do not have twisted ideologies, but because those organizations do not have direct disputes with US policies.

If Obama gave it a second's worth of thought, he'd abandon that claim.

Obama's speech in Turkey

I don't know if this counts as the major speech in a Muslim capital or if there will be a new one open to the public. When I heard the idea, I thought of a speech comparable to that given in Germany when Barack was a candidate, with hundreds of thousands in the audience watching from a public square. This speech before Turkey's Parliament does meet the requirements, and was itself a step forward in US communications with the Muslim world.
It was a wide-ranging speech. Delivered more to Turkey than to the Muslim world at large, but there was a message in the speech for the Muslim world as a whole. Juan Cole's thoughts here. My attention was caught by his discussion of the Israel/Palestine dispute.

In the Middle East, we share the goal of a lasting peace between Israel and its neighbors. Let me be clear: The United States strongly supports the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security. That is a goal shared by Palestinians, Israelis, and people of goodwill around the world. That is a goal that the parties agreed to in the road map and at Annapolis. That is a goal that I will actively pursue as President of the United States.
We know the road ahead will be difficult. Both Israelis and Palestinians must take steps that are necessary to build confidence and trust. Both Israelis and Palestinians, both must live up to the commitments they have made. Both must overcome longstanding passions and the politics of the moment to make progress towards a secure and lasting peace.
The United States and Turkey can help the Palestinians and Israelis make this journey. Like the United States, Turkey has been a friend and partner in Israel's quest for security. And like the United States, you seek a future of opportunity and statehood for the Palestinians. So now, working together, we must not give into pessimism and mistrust. We must pursue every opportunity for progress, as you've done by supporting negotiations between Syria and Israel. We must extend a hand to those Palestinians who are in need, while helping them strengthen their own institutions. We must reject the use of terror, and recognize that Israel's security concerns are legitimate.

Noting two things he said:
"The United States strongly supports the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security." To say the United States supports there at least being a Jewish state is a severe understatement. The United States is committing a huge amount of resources, an amount difficult to calculate, into its project of ensuring Jewish demographic dominance, as an ethnic group, of Israel. US support for two states is much less intense. The US supports two states, or at least negotiations to that end that can continue indefinitely as a means to the end of making palatable an otherwise acceptable status quo. Meaning, for example, the starvation of Palestinians in Gaza, from Israel's point of view is necessary to protect Israel's long-term Jewish identity. That is not an acceptable reason to starve Palestinians according to US values, so the US accomodates their starvation in support of its goal of two states.
The two-state negotiating process is, as it has always been, a kind of fiction necessary to make otherwise unacceptable pro-Israel policies align with principles or values that are acceptable by US and Western standards. Obama announces here that he is continuing this fiction which is far from surprising given the boundaries within which Obama must work.
"Palestinians, Israelis, and people of goodwill around the world" a curiously meaningless phrase. The Palestinians who go along with the Israeli/US negotiation arrangements have very poor democratic credentials. I guess that should always be said when a statement like this is made, but it is so widely known that the hypocrisy of using Abbas to speak for Palestinians doesn't deserve much more discussion. Recent polls show substantial, probably majority support for a one-state solution among Palestinians. The US policy is effectively to starve the Palestinians until they change their opinion. More interesting to me is "people of goodwill". Obama isn't saying that everyone who supports two states is a person of goodwill. He isn't saying that everyone who opposes two states is not a person of goodwill. He isn't saying anything but he's saying nothing in a way that puts his position in a positive light. Curiously meaningless.

***

Overall the speech was vague enough that it gives a sense of the US position on the Israel/Palestine conflict without being offensive to a region of people who see the dispute drastically differently from the US. That was the needle Obama had to thread. Obama did all he could possibly do without drastically changing the US approach to the dispute.

If this is true, US/Iran relations are in the process of being restored

This would be a major shift if expressed by the President or the Executive Branch explicitly.

Regarding Iran, the Obama administration is preparing the ground for a policy distinguishing between Iran's right to have nuclear technology, including uranium enrichment done under international supervision, and the actual building of a nuclear weapon.

I've never seen a coherent argument that Iran doesn't have a right to enrich uranium, or even that as a punishment for previously failures to meet safeguard agreement obligations that Iran has a legal responsibility to either limit its access to technology going forward or even take what were originally explicitly described as voluntary and non-legally binding steps to build confidence in its program.
I've seen it argued that once a security council resolution was passed, Iran then had a legal responsibility to follow it. This argument always struck me as problematic. For one thing the Security Council resolution actually requires Iran to ratify the Additional Protocols of the NPT just as clearly as it demands a suspension for the duration of talks. The Additional Protocols impose a separate set of obligations that, by its own terms and by the terms of the original NPT, can only be valid of separately ratified. It is an entire separate and further treaty.
If the Security Council has the authority to demand a member nation ratify a treaty, why not force Israel, India and Pakistan to ratify the NPT?
And further, why not force any non-Security Council nation to ratify any arbitrary treaty. Do non-Security Council nations have any sovereignty that can withstand a Security Council obligation? An answer of no is difficult to accept. If the answer is yes or no it is at least understandable that Iran rejects Security Council resolutions that would substantially compromise Iran's sovereignty in a way that is very discriminatorily applied.
Anyway, Obama is a lawyer and maybe, maybe - this has been leaked but not released officially - his administration has come to the view that while talks are to be encouraged, Iran does have the legal right to enrich uranium.
This would mark a huge break from previous policy and a major step away from Israel-first policy in the region.

BBC Timeline of Palestinian Conflict

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/03/v3_ip_timeline/html/default.stm

Saved for future reference.

Both Arab and Jewish sides prepared for the coming confrontation by mobilising forces. The first "clearing" operations were conducted against Palestinian villages by Jewish forces in December.

Polls of Two State Solution among Palestinians

http://www.najah.edu/index.php?news_id=4262&&page=1393

Do you support or reject the creation of two states on the historic land of Palestine (a Palestinian state and Israel)?

Total West Bank Gaza Strip
I support
42.5 41.7 43.8
I reject
54.3 56.2 51.0
No opinion/I do not know
3.2 2.1 5.2
Total
100.0 100.0 100.0

http://jmcc.org/publicpoll/results/2009/index.htm

Q.11 Some believe that a two-state formula is the favored solution for the Israeli –Palestinian conflict, while others believe that historic Palestine cannot be divided and thus the favored solution is a bi-national state on all of Palestine where Palestinians and Israelis enjoy equal representation and rights. Which of these solutions do you prefer?

Total West Bank Gaza
n= 1198 n= 758 n= 440
Two-state solution : an Israeli and a Palestinian
54.8 57.1 50.9
Bi-national state on all of historic Palestine
18.4 19.8 15.9
Palestinian State * 10.7 4.7 20.9
Islamic State * 1.6 1.8 1.1
Others 0.7 1.0 0.5
No solution 10.0 12.1 6.4
I don’t know 2.7 2.5 3.0
No answer 1.1 1.0 1.3

* These answers were not included as part of the options read to the interviewee.

http://www.fafo.no/ais/middeast/opt/opinionpolls/poll2009.html

1.23 Hopes for a future political solution of the conflict with Israel

One state with equal rights for all 20
One Islamic state 33
Two states 35
Three states 3
Don't know 9

It certainly overstates the case to say that Palestinians clearly prefer a two state solution to a one state solution. The jmcc.org poll, that I've seen used to advance that argument, strikes me as having a weird description of a binational state, with its explicit statement of equal representation for Palestinians and Israelis. My immediate interpretation of that was that regardless of population, Jews ("Israelis") would be kept at political parity with non-Jews in the scenario contemplated, even if that meant giving them disproportionate political power to their votes. In that poll, interestingly, over 10% of respondents spontaneously offered different one-state solutions.

The FAFO poll comes to me via Debka. I'm not sure to what degree "one state with equal rights for all" necessarily contradicts "one Islamic state". Most supporters of Zionism today describe Israel other than the occupied territories as a Jewish state with equal rights for all. After the return of refugees to the territory if not to their original homes, there would be a stable Muslim majority rendering the state "Islamic" in whatever way Israel is "Jewish" now.

But one state certainly outpolls two states in the abstract. From there it only becomes more pronounced because any two state solution approved by Israel would have severe limitations on the sovereignty of the Palestinian state. To present the types of solutions actually offered would further decrease the popularity of a two-state solution.

Tony Blair: There Will Be A Big Fight

I've come across this idea before:

"The alternative to a two-state solution is a one-state solution. If there is a one-state solution there is going to be a big fight," said Blair, the representative of the Quartet of international mediators in the Middle East.

The idea that "a big fight" necessarily follows from the proposition that there will not be a specifically Jewish state in Palestine.

I think this idea is wrong. I cannot envision how this "big fight" is supposed to happen. I'm also intrigues by the question of why Tony Blair would believe this, or why he would say it if he does not believe it.

I can only imagine that the idea is that there is a threat that Israel is to be forced to incorporate the territory and populations of the occupied territories, that Israel will expel the Palestinians to Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and/or Syria, which would cause a war somewhere.

I can't think of anyone anywhere that I expect to support another Israeli expulsion of Arabs now or in the future. The United States would be the most supportive, but expulsion for ethnic reasons? That violently goes against the US' claimed ideals. It is comparable to US actions with respect to the Native Americans, but those actions are universally in the US looked upon with disdain. It is doubtful that the US would support similar action today, especially overseas.

Of course, Israel's neighbors would oppose such a step. I guess this is where the war supposedly would come from. Israel would not be in a position to "win" the war, by effectively driving the Arabs out without a lot of outside support. Israel's leadership would take the level of outside support into account in the decision to make such an attempt. The question really is would Israel's decision makers believe the necessary Western support would be forthcoming. I'll repeat that I doubt it.

So does Tony Blair believe Israel's leaders would expect Western support in expelling Palestinians?

My best guess is that he hasn't thought it through. I'm sure he would never say in public that he would support an expulsion because that would be in such violent opposition to the ideals of the people he represents.

A more correct statement by Blair may have been: "If two states fails, there may be a big fight if Israel expects that it can expel Arabs with at least tacit Western support."

Could Israel expect at least tacit Western support for an expulsion? I very strongly doubt it. In which case the alternative to two states is actually a relatively peaceful transition to a negotiated one state settlement.

Juan Cole: One State Solution Increasingly the Likelihood

Juan Cole giving a presentation with the Washington Note's Steve Clemmons. This is the first time I've come across him discussing the possibility of a one state solution. Juan Cole is in the liberal end of mainstream US thought about the Middle East, and the idea of a post Zionist arrangement is not unthinkable to him and apparently to at least that part of the US foreign policy community.

Isolated Statement:

23:23
So, I think personally that Israeli policy is digging its own grave and I think increasingly the likelihood is that you will have a one state solution ultimately.

Wider Context:

20:13
The situation in Palestine has deteriorated even since Obama has been in office, which isn’t very long. People tend to forget this it hasn’t been very long as I speak.

But a recent Lancet report came out suggesting that the Israeli blockade, which is a blockade of the civilian population, half of whom are children doesn’t let enough food in and there’s actual malnourishment among Gazan children There’s even evidence of stunting Some 10% of the children are stunted and in some parts of Northern Gaza is 30%.

This is a humanitarian disaster and it is the result of deliberate policy It is a war crime. You may not, in international law, collectively punish a population by half-starving its children to get a political result

And of course it’s been revealed that the Israelis have plans for 75,000 new housing units in the West Bank

And then the American side, Secretary of state Hillary Clinton says, we’re going to restart the peace process. I don’t understand. How would you have a peace process when there is ongoing land theft by one side of the other Even George W. Bush late in his term said the West Bank looks like Swiss cheese. That’s not a basis for a state.

And I admit this is a very tough nut to crack as are the issues that the United States has with Iran, but I think they’re actually all connected because if you really could make progress towards pace in the Levant, a lot of the problems the United States has with Iran would go away. I mean Gaza isn’t going to be interested in Iranian support if it’s not under that kind of blockade.

How to get forward on that Israel Palestine issue is a real question.

Now you have a very right wing government forming in Israel which has typically rejected the whole idea of giving back the West Bank and was opposed to the troop withdrawal from Gaza. So Obama is not going to have much to work with.

It seems to me that that issue will continue to fester. It will continue to cause terrorism And I believe that If you have a long term apartheid regime in the West Bank and the continued blockade of Gaza by the Israelis that ultimately the international community will begin imposing sanctions on Israel and I don’t believe that Israel will be able to withstand those sanctions. That is to say its economy is actually pretty dependent on its relationships economic, technological and diplomatic with Europe.

23:23
So, I think personally that Israeli policy is digging its own grave and I think increasingly the likelihood is that you will have a one state solution ultimately.

What’s not recognized in the United States typically is that the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are stateless. And it’s not acceptable for them to remain stateless. The minimum necessity for a dignified life in the contemporary world is citizenship in a state. Without citizenship, without a state an individual has no real rights. And you can see this because Palestinian property is being taken at will every day.

And how do you even travel? You have to depend on the good will of countries to recognize your Laissez-Passer.

So it's not acceptable that 3 and a half million people in the West Bank and Gaza should be without citizenship nor that the ones, refugees in Lebanon and elsewhere should remain that way.

And you know it’s ironic because in 1938, 39 when Hitler took the Sudetenland, he stripped the Jews in Czechoslovakia, in the part of Czechoslovakia they took, from citizenship and they became stateless. And at the same time in 1939 the British government issued the white paper in which it called for restrictions on Jewish emigration to Palestine. And there was an uproar that you have now 100,000 newly stateless Jews and the British are not letting them to go to the one place where they could get papers. So statelessness was a human rights issue in 1938, 39. Statelessness should be a human rights issue today.

So I admit that the new administration has a set of tall orders before it.

Obama's Speech in Muslim Capital

Barack Obama has promised to make a major speech in a Muslim-majority country in his first 100 days in office, which would mean April or May.

The easiest and safest bet will be that the speech will be comparable to the Nowruz speech, speaking vaguely and in general about respect, ideals such as democracy, opposition to terrorism and peace with neighbors (implying but not openly saying Israel).

He'll go as far as to endorse what he'll describe as a "just two state solution" to the dispute between Zionism and the Palestinians, then he may go further than most American public officials go, essentially to the limit of allowable discourse on the Palestinian issue by a United States politician, by saying he expects Israel to make sacrifices to bring this two state solution about.

For the US' sake I hope he does not go much deeper into the subject of Israel than that. Americans generally do not understand how far out of step their views on Israel are in the region. I have not seen any indication that Obama is significantly more self-aware than other American leaders. While we are safe in expecting there will be no Condoleeza Rice "Birth Pangs" moment in the speech, any full throated defense of Zionism or Israel will play into the hands of Bin Laden and Ahmadinejad.

There will likely be something like "we should move beyond the injustices of the past" which begins to be offensive as there are refugees and an occupation today and a recent mass killing of civilians in Gaza. He may go further and discuss "supposed injustices" instead of injustices, which would be worse. Pretty much from there, the more detail in which he states his or the US' positions on Israel, the more irreconcilable the country he represents will appear to be.

Bush had the luxury that it was widely understood that representative Americans are more moderate than he is. Obama does not, Obama is correctly understood to be the most balanced politician on the Middle East that the United States is for now capable of producing.

His problem is that in truth, his positions are not fundamentally different from George Bush's. The danger of speaking specifically about the disputes between the US and the Muslim world is that he will unwittingly prove hard-liners right that the United States is a country of vulgar and less vulgar people who think like Bush.

Most likely that won't happen. Most likely we'll get a nice, sufficiently vague speech that will be moderately well received but will not change the degree of opposition to the US in the region.

Friends of Israel speak for Arabs

It is a constant irritation the degree to which supporters of Israel feel licensed to explain the secretly held positions of Arabs, which are, lo and behold, supportive of Israel, or of Israel's position on whatever topic is at hand.

Moon of Alabama - a site I can't believe I've gone this long without putting on my blogroll - has issued the definitive rebuttal of this phenomenon earlier this year, in much more detail than I've ever been bothered to delve in what always strikes me as a ridiculous assertion. Anyway, please read it if you have not already. The entry is called "Arab 'Fear' Of 'Nuclear Iran'?"

Most recently I see this over at Debka, but it has been a constant occurrence for years now.

Right after Washington signed its nuclear contracts with Saudi Arabia and the UAR, an official in region remarked: "The clear message to Iran is: If Tehran insists on pursuing its nuclear program, we the Arab countries in the region are going to have one, too although without enrichment."

"Although without enrichment?", then what message would that be sending? This is a really stupid statement that would be unlikely to appear no matter how lightly sourced from any government outside of the Arab world.

Monarchy is the most ineffective remaining leadership structure on Earth. I guess it was viable when at a time when education and the associated selection mechanisms were far more expensive than they are now.

Selecting a leader in advance allows that leader to be given the highest quality education a society is capable of offering, but carries the cost that the leader selected is not particularly likely to be internally talented.

In a world where education was expensive for everybody and monarchies competed against monarchies the cost of not elevating a nation's most talented individuals to leadership was bearable. It is not any more, except that the United States, the world's richest nation and the nation that devotes by far the most resources to furthering the Zionist cause, offers Arab monarchies a form of life support.

Ostensibly the support is for the relatively pro-Zionist stances these monarchies effectively take, even if their rhetoric does not match their positions. But more than that, if Israel is surrounded by millions of people who believe its creation was an injustice and that could effectively pressure Israel to accept the refugees and abandon it's Jewish identity, then having those people under poor leadership is an advantage in itself.

I'm sure these Arab monarchies perceive themselves as cleverly engaging a long-term struggle against Israel, but that they are smart enough to accommodate the reality that the United States is the most powerful country in the world and it favors Israel. Actually, the Arabs states, because they have pre-modern leadership structures are inherently easy for modern states to outmaneuver.

Until these leadership structures are modernized, which would entail a defeat of the regimes themselves and of the efforts and resources the US expends to maintain these regimes, the Arab states are and will continue to be non-issues in world affairs.

A bunch of retarded children who, if anyone cared to stoop to the level that they actually wants to take their candy, can just walk over and trade it for dust.

Effective governments, aligned or opposed, would speak for themselves. Debka could never claim to be the mouthpiece of the Chinese, Russian, Turkish or Iranian governments. None of those four have perfectly democratic leadership structures, but each has a competitive structure, in which the leader is the winner of a competition set up to elevate the person among millions whose talents and values match the standards and values of a substantial, nationalistic and somewhat objective group of judges - even if the judges are not the direct input of the people ruled.

Happenings in the Greater Middle East

Egypt:
Debka is publishing claims that Egypt believes the recent attacks on Western tourists in Egypt were orchestrated by an Iranian agent or agents. There would be a lot for Iran to lose, and this has little to no upside potential for Iran that I can see. So I doubt it. Iran has both resources and the tactical skill to intervene far more effectively in Egyptian domestic affairs than this, if it was to want to try to influence Egyptian domestic affairs.

Egypt has one major issue that anyone outside of Egypt would care about - who will replace Mubarak. The US, on Israel's behalf is devoting and will devote tremendous resources to ensuring it is someone who, contrary to the wishes of Egypt's people, will, like Mubarak, follow policies acceptable to Israel.

Iran probably will not be able to compete with the US in Egypt when Mubarak dies, knows it, and therefore has no reason to sink resources in that country.

Egypt is trying to exert as much pressure on Hamas as possible to effectively recognize Israel or relinquish power in favor of the US/Israeli favorite Abbas. But Egyptians understand that the amount of pressure they can bare on Hamas is less than before Israel's December/January attacks.

If Egypt had not signed its treaty with Israel, it would not have gotten the Sinai back and would not now be in a position to break Israel's blockade on Gaza. Part of the agreement was that Egypt would not militarize the Sinai which means Israel could retake it if Israel felt it necessary. Israel's failure to hold hostile territory both in Lebanon and Gaza throws Israel's ability to retake the Sinai for any long period into question, but Egypt is right that some of its critics do not appreciate Egypt's position.

On the other hand, an Egyptian democracy, though it would not have signed the peace treaty in 1980, would certainly allow more goods to pass into Gaza today than Mubarak is. An indefinite dictatorship in Egypt is part of the cost of keeping Israel Jewish, and that cost is not generally accounted for when considering how expensive Israel's Jewish majority is to its American patrons.

Palestine:
Fayyad resigned and Clinton immediately told Israeli newspapers that she wants him back in any unity government. A clumsy move by Clinton that turns Fayyad into Abbas in one stroke.

Fayyad said he was resigning for the good of the Palestinian people. Hillary called him a liar, and she would know. Fayyad now will either publicly withdraw from consideration for a position in any unity government or he is a US/Israeli stooge, clear for everyone to see.

Israel:
Israel is stalling. In general and in most specific current situations. I'm not sure Shalit is alive, but Israel is in no hurry to get him back and for now likes the status quo in Gaza more than any other plausible outcome. The clock is somewhat stopped on everything until it is clear who speaks for Israel's government. Israel's calculation or at least hope is that the status quo is one in which the Palestinians are becoming more and more demoralized.

Long term, I don't believe it is possible for Israel to remain a majority Jewish state. The Arab population is still growing and Israel's neighbors have populations that are becoming more, not less, hostile to Israel. But from Israel's point of view, lasting as a Jewish state for 40 years is not the same as lasting 20 years. Even if they look the same 50 years from now.

Israel's best long-term strategy is to eek out as many years as possible until, maybe ten years from now, maybe 30, maybe 50 years from now a ball drops and Israel is forced to accept an Arab political majority. And who knows? Maybe they'll be able to change something fundamental between now and then.

Lebanon:
I've read in two different places that Western strategists believe Iran and Syria do not have resources to support Hezbollah's election campaign and therefore Lebanon's election will produce a pro-US government. I'll believe it if I see it. Hezbollah will retain its veto, I'm nearly certain. Will anti-US parties have enough influence to force reforms in the voting system? If not, Hezbollah can wait.

Britain also is talking directly with Hezbollah. Essentially the West is less hostile to that party than it was under Bush. That is good news for them, if only slightly.

Syria:
Western commentators are making a lot of the Hariri tribunals. I'm not seeing why. They may, probably won't, but may be able to get Assad out. If they do, they'll get someone just as anti-Israel as he is. If not more. Like Iran cannot compete with the US in Egypt, the US cannot compete with Iran, in maneuvering a succession, in Syria.

But there are talks and the West is notably, if slightly less hostile to Syria than it was under Bush.

Saudi Arabia:
The Saudis seem to be taking a strong anti-Iran line. It is hard to tell because the Saudis do a very poor job of communicating their positions. But if Iran removes a substantial amount of its sanctions while retaining its support for anti-Israel groups, Saudi Arabia will be forced, no forced is wrong because ideologically that is what they would prefer, but Saudi Arabia will also increase its support either for the same groups or aligned groups. Saudi Arabia will also join Iran in challenging Israel's nuclear monopoly if Iran can do that at a reasonable cost. Not because of an Iranian threat (Iran offered to supply any Muslim country with centrifuges itself) but because the price the West can exact will have gone down.

The Saudis are to a degree misunderstood by their critics in a way similar to Egypt. The Saudi strategy is to wait, applying fairly steady pressure on Israel but while avoiding direct confrontation with the West.

The problem is this strategy is too clever by half. All this time the Saudis think they are slowly but surely squeezing Zionism they are aligning with Israel against whomever Israel perceives as its most threatening enemy of the moment.

The Saudis would prefer Israel succumbing to an Arab majority 50 years from now, if over these 50 years, they get to dress up and have fun talking big to the West about how rich and important they are, to Israel succumbing sooner but with the West hostile to them. If left to the Saudis though, Israel would get 1000 years of being 50 years away.

Iran:
There are conflicting signals being released about Iran. The West will be less hostile than it was under Bush. How much less hostile? We won't know until we see.

Obama does not personally have the energy to be very active on Iran now. Reports are continuous that he is physically exhausted by domestic events. I expect to see slow moves toward reducing hostility.

The administration, by its default policy, is now trying to trade opening with Iran for international support for stricter sanctions. I'm not sure what Russia and China will be willing to give.

This can get tricky because if Iran feels threatened, it will make Iraq, Afghanistan and maybe Pakistan much more difficult for the US, and Russia and China know this and don't want this. We'll see.

Iraq:
Obama really plans on pulling out. This is like Condoleeza Rice and Bush calling for 2006 elections in Palestine. He really doesn't understand the extent to which a post-occupation Iraq will oppose the US vision of the region. Good. But I don't know what the scramble will look like when the US realizes what happened.

Afghanistan:
We're reading repeatedly that the US believes it is losing in Afghanistan. I guess now is the time it is possible to say such things, since it can be blamed on the previous administration. This is a massive effort to lower expectations. Good.

But the US does not really have a dispute with anybody in Afghanistan other than its support for Zionism. This Global War Over the Legitimacy of Israel is proving to be an expensive war for the US.

Pakistan:
Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan. I believe that people all over the world have a fundamental right to make their own mistakes, learn from them and demonstrate they learned from them in democratic processes.

I didn't like that Zardari won the election. I'm sure the US did all it could to push the election his way. But I also think the martydom of his wife allowed him to win by a genuine expression of support from his people. I do not think Sharif should resort to violence until Zardari suspends elections or flagrantly breaks a law of that magnitude.

On the other hand, I think the long protest march planned by Sharif is a valid and good expression of protest. The US is continuing to apply pressure on Pakistan to retain a pro-US leader such as Zardari and to insulate him from democratic pressure.

This tension between the US and the people of Pakistan over the rulership of Pakistan has the potential to be very devastating to Pakistan and very expensive to the US.

As always, a democratic Pakistan, even one that is sympathetic to Bin Laden, would not be a threat to the US but for the US identification with Israel. The disastrous chaos I hope we do not see but fear we might turn out to be another high cost of the war Israel's patrons are waging against the Arab and Muslim world on Israel's behalf.

Turkey:
Erdogan is one of the best politicians in the world today, clearly the best in the Muslim world. I'm not sure of the exact numbers of the upcoming elections in Turkey, and he may have more resources allayed against him than before but if anyone can turn Turkey into a representative Muslim democracy that sets its own foreign policy democratically, it is him. I'm somewhat optimistic about Turkey over the medium term.

Arguments for Zionism: Responses

I come across a finite number of rationalizations or arguments for various aspects of the Zionist project and thought I'd put responses to those that I've come across in one place.

I very strongly request comments, additions and criticisms of this post. After several months of tweaking, I expect to post a far better version of this.

If anyone is able to entirely rewrite any of the responses, I would gladly replace my language with yours, within reason.

1. Jews were expelled by the Romans
The Romans were not a settler empire. The Romans conquered Spain, England, Germany, Egypt and other areas, replaced the rulers with a leadership structure loyal to Rome and left the inhabitants in place. Of Jews evacuated when Rome sacked Jerusalem, some may have gone far away but there is no reason most would not have stayed relatively close, other parts of Palestine or what are now Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon or Syria. There is no record of Romans ever expelling all or most Jews from the area now known as Palestine, and that had never been Roman practice anywhere, even after putting down rebellions. Judaism was a diasporic religion long before the Roman conquest. By the time of that conquest the number of Jews outside of Palestine likely already surpassed the number of Jews inside. After Roman conquests, the ethnic composition of conquered territories remained essentially unchanged. Over centuries some of the original Jewish inhabitants of the territory converted to other religions, Christianity, Islam or others, some left, other people migrated in. Some of the descendents of the Jewish inhabitants from before the Roman conquest remained continuously in Palestine even until the present day. Some descendents are Jews, some are descendents of Jews who converted along the way to Islam or Christianity and are now seen as Arabs. The idea that Jews were forced out of Palestine by the Romans to make way for another population in a process comparable to the expulsion of Arabs 1948 to allow a sufficiently majority Jewish state is simply false.

2. Arabs are also foreigners to Palestine
The Arabs were also not a settler empire. The Arabs conquered what are now known as Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Sudan and other places, replaced the rulers with a leadership structure loyal to the ideals and culture of Arabia and left the inhabitants in place. These inhabitants, after learning the Arabic language and accepting the Arabs’ religion became known as Arabs themselves. The Egyptian population is now considered Arab. There was no large-scale replacement of the original inhabitants with settlers from Arabia. Egyptians became Arab when the original inhabitants adopted the Arab language and culture and converted to Islam. The Syrians became “Arabs” mostly through conversion. The Palestinians, including some descendents of Jewish Palestinians, became Arabs the same way everyone else in that area became Arab.

3. According to Mark Twain, the land that became Israel was nearly barren
There is a famous quotation from Mark Twain that traveling in Palestine he noticed that the land was “nearly barren”. Nearly barren doesn’t have much meaning other than “not uninhabited”. Does he mean less populated than New York or St. Louis at Twain’s time? Does he mean the population was less dense than the population of Native Americans whose dispossession from their lands the US was completing as he wrote? Taken on its face, Twain’s claim only means that there were some people in the territory. Other more careful studies of the population from around that time indicate that the population had a vast Arab majority. Even if the area only had ten people, that is enough that they had a right to reject an outside effort to give the territory to an outside group as that outside group’s homeland.

4. There is no historic Palestine. The land that became Israel was colonized by the Arab, Ottoman, British and other Empires.
The inhabitants of the territory, regardless of who ruled it, had and have a right not to be displaced. Further they have a right, if they choose, to remove their foreign colonial rulers.

5. The 1948 UN allocation was reasonable
The UN allocation clearly allocated land disproportionally to the Jewish state. The Arabs believed that in terms of the value of the land the allocation process was also skewed in favor of the Jewish portion. The Arabs also believed that regardless of the allocation, the Zionist movement was stockpiling weapons with Western help, to immediately cease more land and expel much of the Arab population the Jewish partition. Zionist theorists of the time did not believe a stable Jewish democracy state could be built with the slim majority The UN was an explicitly colonialist institution at the time. As it partitioned Palestine, the UN also decreed that the Congo would be restored to Belgian ownership, Vietnam and Algeria to French ownership and other colonial holdings to their European rulers. Arabs were over two-thirds of the population of the territory and if they did not believe the allocation was reasonable, then the allocation was not reasonable. The UN had no more right to determine for the Palestinians in the Jewish partition that they should be under Jewish rule than they had to determine that Angola should be under Portuguese rule.

6. There was no alternative available in 1948
The best alternative then would have been a one-state arrangement in which every individual has equality protection before the law and equal political power.

7. Jordan was given to the Arabs so all of Palestine should have been given to Jews
All of Palestine had a 2 to 1 non-Jewish majority. The people of Palestine had a right to reject the creation of a Jewish state on their territory and the violation of that right was an injustice.

8. The Palestinian refugees of 1948 left hoping the Arabs would win
People leave war zones for their safety. I'm sure they did hope a Jewish state would be prevented from being established on their homeland, but that does not mean they relinquish their human right to flee to safety and return.

9. Israel hosts refugees from Muslim countries
Some immigrants to Israel were refugees, others went voluntarily or were pulled by Israelis. A lot of immigrants came from countries such as the US and European countries that clearly are not refugees. Some were, some were not, none left war zones comparable to Palestine in 1948, but a right to return or compensation is the individual right of any Jew who left any Arab, Muslim or any other state involuntarily.

10. Israel’s war for independence was a war of self-defense
Israel fired first. The first organized military actions were perpetrated by Jewish military groups, in many cases against Arab civilians, months before any Arab organized military even began preparing to intervene.

11. Israel’s subsequent wars were wars of self-defense
Using the rule that the first party to fire started the war, Israel fought a war of self defense in 1973. The US invasion of Iraq was described as self-defense by its architects. Japan believed it was forced to bomb Pearl Harbor in self defense. The side that fires first started the war is a rule that is generally accepted to apply to every conflict other than wars involving Israel.

12. Descendants of refugees should not be eligible for refugee status
This is a difference of opinion between supporters of Israel and most of the people in the region. The fact of the matter is that Jordan and Egypt are lead by dictators who are nearly comically subservient to pro-Zionist interests. But they are not accepting the refugees. The argument that these refugees should be accepted by Israel is stronger than the argument that they should be accepted in Egypt, Jordan, Syria or Lebanon since none of these are the states they or their relatives fled. Since the founding ideal of Israel is that a group that had a sovereign state in that territory thousands of years earlier had a right to return, it is hypocritical, and certainly seems hypocritical in the region to say that descendants from 60 years ago should not have a right to return because they are of the wrong ethnicity.

13. Israel was a strategic asset for the US during the cold war
The USSR was a militantly atheistic country. For religious reasons, the Middle East would have much more naturally aligned with the US against the USSR in that struggle. Middle Eastern actors always displayed a level of discomfort in engagements with Russia because atheists are very strongly condemned in the Muslim religion. Nasser, before the 1967 war with Israel told an audience of trade unionists that the only reason he aligned with the USSR is because the USSR took a better stance than the US and the US’ NATO allies with respect to Israel. The United States was able to maintain the cooperation of many Middle Eastern dictatorships despite the unpopularity of its ties with Israel, but from Israel’s inception, US goals have been more difficult to reach in the region because of Israel.

14. Israel is a strategic asset for the US today
Israel borders countries that do not have large supplies of oil or an ability to block oil flow from the Persian Gulf. But Israel inflames opinions of the populations of countries that are strategically important to the United States. Israel has never used its military, in 60 years, to assist in securing either supplies or transport of oil. Israel makes alliances more difficult and expensive to maintain, but for example, could not participate in the US invasion of Iraq. There really is no fundamental dispute between either Arab Nationalism or Islamism and the West other than the legitimacy of Israel.

15. The dispute is perpetuated by Arab leaders who want to divert attention from their failures
Iran was ruled by a US-installed stooge for a generation, but Iranians still do not accept Israel’s legitimacy. Saudi Arabia would prefer its people to de-prioritize the Palestinian conflict, since Saudi Arabia often sides with Israel against the wishes of the Saudi people. Jordan and Egypt have sponsored government campaigns explicitly to persuade their people that cooperation with Israel against other Arabs is an expression of putting their country first. No poll in any country ruled by relatively pro-Israel leaders has shown these efforts to be effective.

16. There are two legitimate national causes that must be accommodated at least with a Jewish state.
It is difficult to believe that in 1890 Jews who were a small minority of the population of the territory had a legitimate national right to a state in that territory. This claim would be comparable to a claim that Scientologists in the United States have a national right to a state comprised of some US territory. It is more difficult to believe that European Jews of 1890, some descendants of converts, some descendants of people who left Palestine voluntarily and some descendants of people removed by force thousands of years earlier, had a national right to a state in that territory. That is comparable to a claim that an American group believing in Norse mythology have a legitimate right a homeland in Scandinavia, even at the cost of displacing the current population of mostly Christians and atheists there. Today, Jews in Palestine have a right to remain in safety. But they do not have a human or national right to a permanent political majority any more than White Americans have a right to a permanently White US presidency.

17. Every other nation has a state
Many distinct ethnic groups and religions comparable to Jews do not have sovereign states. Mormons, Kurds, Zoroastrians, Afrikaaners, African-Americans, Blackfoot Native American Indians. This statement relies on a strange definition of “nation” to mean groups of people that have states, plus Jews whether Jews have a state or not. There is no reasonable definition of "nation" for which Jews are the only "nation" without a state.

18. It is possible for Palestinians to convert to Judaism
It is effectively impossible for Palestinians to convert to Judaism to get a right to return to Israel as citizens. Conversions to Judaism in Israel must go through a far more stringent and arbitrary process than conversions to Judaism in Western countries. Very few or no Palestinians have successfully converted to Judaism despite the obvious material advantages such a conversion could give them.

19. Other countries have an ethnic basis
The problem with Israel is not its ethnic basis. The first problem is that there is a large group of people that wants to return, but cannot because it is of the wrong ethnic group. The second problem is that preventing the people of the region who agree that the refugees should be able to return from expressing their will requires vast expenditures of resources by the US and other Western countries that leads to a tremendous amount of oppression and misery throughout the region. Israel’s victims are more than the 5 or so million non-Jews living under occupation and the 4 million refugees outside of occupied territories. They include the 80 million Egyptians, 6 million Jordanians and 25 million Saudis forced to live under pro-US dictatorships, shored up by US intelligence organizations, in order to keep the region safe for Israel. They also include the millions of Iranians whose economy the US has steadily attempted to thwart since the Iranian revolution to ensure Iran has fewer resources with which it could confront Israel.

20. There are dozens of Muslim countries but only one Jewish country
There are no Mormon countries. There is no universal principle that every religion should have a certain number of countries where it should be the majority.

21. Israel is small compared to non-Jewish land in the region
There is no size smaller than which it is not an injustice to displace one group of people to make room for an ethnic homeland of another group of people.

22. Israel is the only democracy in the region
Including people under Israeli control but excluded from Israel’s political process, Israel disenfranchises nearly a majority of its people because of their ethnicity. The United States also supports dictatorship and opposes democratic reforms that would make Israel’s neighbor more reflective of the commonly held belief among their people that Israel as a Jewish state is illegitimate

23. Israel is an economic miracle
Israel has been the recipient of many economic and trade advantages from the West, beyond the annual billions of dollars that are directly given to that country. Israel trades with the West on better terms than its neighbors, possibly because of Western decisions that Israel should have an economic lead over its neighbors.

24. Opposition to Israel is anti-Semitic
It seems that way to people emotionally tied to Israel. Really anti-Zionist arguments are no more inherently anti-Semitic than anti-Apartheid activism is anti-Afrikaaner. However, people who identify emotionally with Israel do feel attacked when anyone expresses doubt about the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state. While this may not be a rational feeling, it is a valid feeling that should be anticipated and respected. Those who advocate ending Israel's status as an ethnic state should take extra care to express that they do not believe that Jews are inherently bad in any way and that they do not harbor animosity against the Jewish religion, ethnic group or Jewish individuals. Attacks on Zionism often create the honestly held but usually incorrect perception that the source of the attacks hates Jews.

25. Martin Luther King, Jr. said anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism
He may have, in which case he was wrong. None of his recorded speeches indicates such a view. Of all of the things he wrote, he never himself wrote that on paper. There is a purported letter that is now widely understood to be a hoax, that never appeared in the magazine to which it is attributed. There is a recollection of a supporter of Zionism of King supposedly saying something similar at a dinner party. King is not recorded as being in the Cambridge area at the time the dinner party in Cambridge supposedly occured. One of King's associates recalled a private conversation but first discussed the memory publicly decades later. Possibly King felt that way. He never wrote it down in his own voice. If he felt that way he is just as mistaken as anyone else who feels that way. There is still no inherent animosity towards Jews required to believe there should not be an explicitly Jewish state in Palestine created at the expense and against the will of Palestine's non-Jewish residents.

26. The Hamas charter calls for killing Jews
Hamas’ charter notes a passage in the Koran in which Arabs kill Jews. The passage taken alone does not specify if these are Jewish civilians or soldiers. Elsewhere the Koran explicitly forbids killing civilians. The interpretation most consistent with the Koran on the whole is that these are soldiers. Nothing in the that passage, anywhere else in the Koran or the Hamas charter indicates that it should be interpreted as meaning all Jews will or should be killed. Hamas officials have repeatedly stated that Jews who choose should be free to live safely in an Islamic state. There is no reason to believe Hamas would not be able to impose its views even in an single state in which all the refugees vote assuming Jews would vote against them, but a constitution could be designed, as constitutions have been designed in many places throughout the world, that protects Jewish rights and has individual protections that cannot be outvoted by a majority.

27. Israel is the only way to prevent discrimination against Jews
Israel is not today a safer place for Jews than many other places, including the United States. Discrimination is a serious problem that cannot be solved by trying to carve majority states for every ethnic group that has or could suffer discrimination.

28. Abandoning Israel would lead to regional wars
This is a failure of imagination. A commitment to a orderly and gradual move to a one-person one-vote state including refugees over a set period of between a decade and a generation would end the source of the dispute over Zionism. Hamas and other anti-Zionist groups accept that they will not defeat Israel in the short term and have already offered a hudna, or to stop fighting for an extended period. A commitment to, at a set point in the somewhat near future, end Israel's Jewish-majority status could end all fighting against Israel this year.

29. Jews would be forcibly removed in any non-Zionist outcome
This is clearly false. It is easy to draw an outcome that does not require Jews to be removed. Jews would have a right to leave. And Middle Eastern opponents of Zionism often make the point that if the United States believes it is critical that there be a homeland with a guaranteed Jewish majority, Jewish political rule and automatic acceptance of Jewish refugees, the United States can set aside some of its own territory for that. If there is a Palestinian majority, Jewish people who do not mind living in a state with a non-Jewish majority in Palestine would of course be free to remain.

30. Jews do not want to, and should not be asked to take the risk that they might be oppressed in a post-Zionist Israel
Israel cannot defend its status as an ethnic Jewish state on its own. Israel requires huge sacrifices from its patrons. There are many costs involved in the US and its allies ensuring that Israel has the military and economic advantages over its neighbors it needs to be safe. For example, in terms of missed opportunities for trade and resources devoted to ensuring that Iran does not become more able to comfortably confront Israel, or the costs of helping Egypt's unpopular but relatively pro-Israel dictator remain in power, or the moral cost of allying with nations that openly torture any of their own anti-Zionist citizens such as Jordan, it would probably be probably more efficient for the US to use fewer resources to arrange a long-term guarantee of the individual rights of Jews in a non-Jewish majority state.