Israel Connections: September 2012

The Middle East remains a constant topic of pre-election politics. Be it Iran or the peace process. The media is full of rhetoric and debate. Some examples...

Josh Weintraub
Israel Advocacy and Awareness Chair

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Israeli Defense Chief Proposes West Bank Pullout if Peace Talks Remain Stalled

By Associated Press
September 24, 2012

The Washington Post

JERUSALEM - Israel's defense minister called for a unilateral pullout from much of the West Bank in published comments Monday, saying Israel must take "practical steps" if peace efforts with the Palestinians remain stalled.

The comments by Defense Minister Ehud Barak appeared to put him at odds with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has resisted making any major concessions to the Palestinians in the absence of peace talks. Negotiations have been deadlocked for nearly four years. Netanyahu's office declined comment.

Barak's proposal is unlikely to be implemented, at least in the near term. Netanyahu's coalition is dominated by hardliners who would be reluctant to embrace the plan. But Netanyahu is widely expected to call early elections in the coming weeks, and Barak may be trying to attract centrist voters to his party ahead of an upcoming campaign.

Speaking to the Israel Hayom newspaper, Barak called for uprooting dozens of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, but said Israel would keep major settlement "blocs."

These blocs, home to 80 to 90 percent of the settler population, are mostly located near the frontiers with Israel proper, though one of them, Ariel, is located deep inside the West Bank. Barak also said Israel would need to maintain a military presence along the West Bank's border with Jordan.

Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Israeli Threats, Nuclear Program and Syria

By David Ignatius

September 23, 2012

The Washington Post

NEW YORK- Iran may be on the firing line, but President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was as calmly combative as ever Sunday, dismissing Israel's military threats and predicting that nothing will happen in the nuclear talks until after the U.S. presidential elections.

In an interview on the eve of his visit to the United Nations, Ahmadinejad seemed unfazed by recent months of speculation about bombing strikes or by the precarious state of Tehran's allies in Damascus. Instead, he talked often about politics - including a reference to what he saw as the war-weariness of the American public.

The hour-long conversation was a case study in the bob-and-weave style, and unrelenting self-confidence, that has made Ahmadinejad a survivor in Iranian politics and a particular nemesis for critics in the U.S., Israel and the Arab world. While he expressed a willingness to negotiate on a range of subjects, he retreated into generalities when pressed about details. His tone was calm, even in discussing a potential clash with Israel.

"We, generally speaking, do not take very seriously the issue of the Zionists and the possible dangers emanating from them," he said early in the interview. "Of course, they would love to find a way for their own salvation by making a lot of noise and to raise stakes in order to save themselves. But I do not believe they will succeed."

If Israel Bombed Iran? The View from Washington D.C.

By Karim Sadjadpour & Blake Hounshell

September 21, 2012

The Washington Post

For months, Israel has threatened to strike Iran's nuclear sites. The United States has urged restraint. If such an operation were launched, how might Washington react?

President Obama is enjoying a quiet dinner with Michelle, Sasha and Malia at the White House residence on a Thursday evening in October when he gets the call.

Two dozen Israeli fighter jets have just entered Jordanian airspace, apparently en route to Iran, chief of staff Jack Lew tells him. They will enter Iranian airspace, via Iraq, in approximately 85 minutes.

"Damn it," Obama says under his breath. "Bibi told me he was going to hold off."

Within 45 minutes, the president's national security brain trust has convened in the Situation Room. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta informs the group that attempts to reach Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have so far failed but that Israeli military commanders are briefing the Pentagon on Israel's targets.

Panetta lays out the United States' options: either persuade Netanyahu to call it off, or shoot down the planes.

"Shooting down the planes is not an option!" Vice President Biden explodes. "Tell Bibi the president of the United States wants to talk to him now!"

Within minutes, Netanyahu's voice is heard on the speakerphone, and he immediately preempts any attempts to call off the mission.

If Israel Bombed Iran, What Would Life in Tel Aviv be like?

By Anat Berko

September 21, 2012

The Washington Post

For months, Israel has threatened to strike Iran's nuclear sites. The United States has urged restraint. If such an operation were launched, how might Tel Aviv react?

"Our pilots," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proclaims on the Channel 2 TV news, "carried out their difficult and dangerous task for the sake of the state of Israel. They have struck several Iranian nuclear facilities and have returned safely."

For months, Israeli officials had been debating whether a strike would be worth the risk. I'm relieved they have finally acted, but I worry: What if the reactors and other nuclear facilities, which are scattered throughout Iran, some buried deep underground, aren't entirely destroyed?

Outside my house in Tel Aviv, the early-morning stillness has been pierced by the sound of explosions; sirens lag behind the shrieks of incoming missiles. Military vehicles, loudspeakers mounted on their roofs, roll through the streets, announcing passwords that call up reserve soldiers - Israeli men and women who've completed their mandatory military service - joined by some volunteers. The soldiers hurry out of their homes, buttoning their uniforms and scattering to bases and missions across the country. The massacres of Jews and the piles of ash left by the Nazis are part of our collective memory. So we take responsibility for our own defense - of a land that is both a haven and a self-imposed ghetto for the Jewish people.

My husband, a volunteer beyond the age of his mandatory reserve duty, is called up to defend the home front. In the past, the Israel Defense Forces' preference for male over female reservists bothered me, but this time I am happy to stay home.

If Israel Bombed Iran? The new view from Tehran.

By Azadeh Moaveni

September 21, 2012

The Washington Post

For months, Israel has threatened to strike Iran's nuclear sites. The United States has urged restraint. If such an operation were launched, how might Tehran react?

Hamid has been awake since midnight, when Israeli bombs struck the Tehran Nuclear Research Center in nearby Amirabad. The boom reverberated throughout the city nearby, sending plumes of smoke into the night. Sirens punctuated the hours till the gray-pink dawn. With the Internet down, Hamid crouches before Radio Tehran, which reports that key nuclear sites at Arak, Natanz and Isfahan have also been hit.

He is surprised that the Israeli planes skipped Fordow, the site built under a fortified mountain near Qom. The war games that he and his colleagues conducted last summer at Shahid Beheshti University, where he teaches political science, placed the Fordow facility at the top of the expected strike list. Recently a military commander called Israel's threats "hollow" and another said Iran would "welcome" an attack. He thinks about these men now, wondering whether they feel pleased or, like him, dead sick with terror.

Hamid walks to the supermarket on the corner. A crowd of people, some of them his neighbors, presses against the windows and bangs on the door, shouting for the owner to open. Shopping has been tense ever since sanctions turned chicken into a luxury good, but today everyone is frantic. When the owner admits them, anxious shoppers sweep cookies off the shelves. A young woman screams that her baby is allergic to milk: "Where is the formula?" Hamid backs away from the shop.

Understanding Arab Anger

Violence must be confronted, but the underlying issues are ripe for continued diplomacy

By Shibley Telhami

September 18, 2012

The Baltimore Sun

With all the protests and violence in Arab and Muslim countries generated by a despicable and demeaning film about Islam, here is a sobering prediction: There will be more such films and clips, they will be even more provocative, and they will generate even more violent reaction among Arabs and Muslims. And no matter who is behind them, many will see the hands of Israel and the United States.

Yet this is not time for panic but for steady and intensive diplomacy.

This is an easy prediction to make. In the era of the information revolution, any 12-year-old can produce a short film and post it online. There is no shortage of racists, bigots or individuals with sinister goals.

And consider this payoff of a relatively cheap product with minor efforts: disruption of regional and global priorities, affecting U.S. relations with Arab and Muslim countries, influencing internal dynamics in the Middle East and possibly even affecting the outcome of U.S. elections. It is too easy and too tempting, even for those with low personal stakes - and especially for those with higher stakes.

The Arab and Muslim reaction is predictable enough. The people who mobilize and act violently are by no means majorities, but the issues of Islam and the prophet Muhammad touch raw nerves across Arab and Muslim societies so that meaningful calls for calm will remain limited. Coming after a decade during which Muslims felt their religion and values under assault, the empowerment of the Arab uprisings will most likely only bring more people into the public square - and some with more than peaceful anger. Who will stop them?

'Red line' Folly

By Fareed Zakaria

September 12, 2012

The Washington Post

Underneath the headlines of the presidential campaign, there are growing signs that we are moving toward another war in the Middle East. This week Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly scolded the United States for refusing to draw a "red line" on Iran's nuclear program that, if crossed, would commit Washington to military strikes. He added that he would not accept a "red light" placed in front of Israel. Unless something dramatic changes its course, Israel is on a path to strike Iran's nuclear facilities in the next six to nine months.

Israel's rhetoric over the past year had seemed, to me, designed to force the international community into action and the United States into hyper-action. It worked in the sense that international sanctions and isolation of Iran are at their highest point ever. But Iran has not surrendered, and Israel seems to view any other scenario as unacceptable. Last month, an Israeli "decision maker" - widely reported to be Defense Minister Ehud Barak - gave a revealing interview to the newspaper Haaretz in which he implied that Israel could not wait for the United States to act and might not be able to wait until next spring before taking matters into its own hands.

The "decision maker" made the point that Israel might find itself more hamstrung if Mitt Romney were elected in November. "[H]istory shows that presidents do not undertake dramatic operations in their first year in office unless forced to," he said. This strikes me as an accurate reading of the likely scenario that a Romney administration would view economic policy as its urgent preoccupation upon taking office.

Nuclear Mullahs

By Bill Keller

September 9, 2012

The New York Times

IRAN has returned to the front pages after a summer hiatus. Negotiations aimed at preventing the dreaded Persian Bomb have resumed their desultory course. Iran, although suffering from the international sanctions choreographed by the Obama administration, keeps adding new arrays of centrifuges while insisting the program is strictly nonmilitary. Israel is - or maybe isn't - edging closer to a unilateral strike. The U.S., we learn from The Times's reliable David Sanger, is considering more and bigger bouts of cybersabotage. Meanwhile, the mullahs are shipping arms to their embattled fellow despots in Syria.

This strikes me as a good time to address an unnerving question that confronts any concerned student of this subject: Can we live with a nuclear Iran? Given a choice of raining bunker-busting munitions on Iran's underground enrichment facilities, or, alternatively, containing a nuclear-armed Iran with the sobering threat of annihilation, which is the less bad option? As the slogan goes in Israel: "Bomb? Or The Bomb?"

The prevailing view now is that a nuclear Iran cannot be safely contained. On this point both President Obama and Mitt Romney agree. They can hardly say otherwise; to even hint that a nuclear Iran is acceptable would undermine the efforts aimed at preventing that outcome. But I tend to think they mean it.

However, there are serious, thoughtful people who are willing to contemplate a nuclear Iran, kept in check by the time-tested assurance of retaliatory destruction. If the U.S. arsenal deterred the Soviet Union for decades of cold war and now keeps North Korea's nukes in their silos, if India and Pakistan have kept each other in a nuclear stalemate, why would Iran not be similarly deterred by the certainty that using nuclear weapons would bring a hellish reprisal?