A group of Israeli human rights organizations on Wednesday said Israel's behavior in Gaza represents "blatant violation of the laws of warfare and raises the suspicion, which we ask be investigated, of the commission of war crimes."

The debate underscores the asymmetry of the conflict. On one side, Israel possesses a modern military, the strongest in the Middle East, with overwhelming firepower and the stated aim of sparing innocent Palestinian lives when it can, but above all protecting Israelis by crushing Hamas. On the other side, Hamas is an Islamist movement with a militia that has been badly damaged by the Israeli assault but that continues to fire rockets indiscriminately into Israeli civilian areas, as it has for eight years. It operates from within the civilian population in Gaza's densely packed cities and refugee camps.

Caught in between are the bulk of Gaza's 1.5 million residents, who are trapped in the narrow coastal strip with limited access to food, electricity and water as the war rages around them.

Harb stood in the street of the southern town of Rafah with his wife and six children and looked on as his neighborhood was systematically turned to rubble. His family had been warned to leave, he said, but in Gaza there is nowhere to go. The street seemed the safest place to ride out the airstrikes that landed like an earthquake every five minutes, each one sending a thick black plume into the sky from the spot of ground where a house once stood.

Some of the houses, Harb acknowledged, had concealed tunnels used by Hamas to smuggle weapons from Egypt. But most, he said, did not.  "They were destroying all the houses," said Harb, 44. "And if you stayed in your house, you died in your house."

Martha Myers, CARE's country director for the Palestinian territories, said Israel knows that deaths are inevitable when it unleashes massive amounts of firepower in a place as packed as Gaza, where about half the population is 16 or younger. "Gaza is a room crowded with children," she said.

By Fred Hiatt | The Washington Post

President Bush has soured many Americans, and especially many Democrats, on democracy promotion. His after-the-fact invocation of democracy as a rationale for war when no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq; his abandonment of democrats in Egypt and elsewhere after his extravagant promises, in his 2005 inaugural address, to spread liberty across the globe; and his betrayal of liberal ideals in America's treatment of foreign detainees -- all this tainted his "freedom agenda" for many.

Corruption can be a scourge in democracies or dictatorships. But it is more likely to fester when people have no way to hold their rulers accountable. People die of hunger in North Korea because of Kim Jong Il, not infertile land; they are dying of cholera in Zimbabwe because of Robert Mugabe's misrule, and grants to improve the water supply won't help much as long as he remains. Institutions such as a free press and independent judiciary are, as Clinton noted, crucial -- but if you delay elections until dictators have allowed such institutions to emerge you will wait, in most countries, forever.

It is heartening that Obama already has ordered, as he told us, a "thorough review" of the nation's aid and democracy programs. Questions of sequencing, of where the United States can help and where it can't, are complex and surely vary case by case.

In the end, given Obama's understanding of the world and America's moral role in it, I believe he will keep self-governance as a priority. He'll be swayed not only by the research that shows democracies do a better job in the long run delivering prosperity and peace but also by an even more powerful argument: the dignity of man. Every human, no matter how rich or poor, wants and is entitled to a say in his or her government. And very few would willingly accept a delay in enjoying that natural-born right, no matter how well intentioned the reason.

Full article

By ROGER COHEN

The Obama team is tight with information, but I've got the scoop on the senior advisers he's gathered to push a new Middle East policy as the Gaza war rages: Shibley Telhami, Vali Nasr, Fawaz Gerges, Fouad Moughrabi and James Zogby.

This group of distinguished Arab-American and Iranian-American scholars, with wide regional experience, is intended to signal a U.S. willingness to think anew about the Middle East, with greater cultural sensitivity to both sides, and a keen eye on whether uncritical support for Israel has been helpful.

O.K., forget the above, I've let my imagination run away with me. Barack Obama has no plans for this line-up on the Israeli-Palestinian problem and Iran.

In fact, the people likely to play significant roles on the Middle East in the Obama Administration read rather differently.

They include Dennis Ross (the veteran Clinton administration Mideast peace envoy who may now extend his brief to Iran); James Steinberg (as deputy secretary of state); Dan Kurtzer (the former U.S. ambassador to Israel); Dan Shapiro (a longtime aide to Obama); and Martin Indyk (another former ambassador to Israel who is close to the incoming secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.)

Now, I have nothing against smart, driven, liberal, Jewish (or half-Jewish) males; I've looked in the mirror. I know or have talked to all these guys, except Shapiro. They're knowledgeable, broad-minded and determined. Still, on the diversity front they fall short. On the change-you-can-believe-in front, they also leave something to be desired.

In an adulatory piece in Newsweek, Michael Hirsh wrote: "Ross's previous experience as the indefatigable point man during the failed Oslo process, as well as the main negotiator with Syria, make him uniquely suited for a major renewal of U.S. policy on nearly every front."

Really? I wonder about the capacity for "major renewal" of someone who has failed for so long.

It seems that among liberal democracies, it is only in the U.S .Congress that a defense against terror that results in the slaying of hundreds of Palestinian children is not cause for agonized soul-searching. In my view, such Israeli "defense" has crossed the line.

"We are all opposed to terrorism," Telhami said. "But how does that enlighten you about how to move forward?"

Full Article

 
 
President-elect Obama is being bombarded with advice about what to do about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Four prominent analysts and practitioners take a look at what the new president should not do as he copes with the first major foreign policy challenge of his presidency and examine what realistic options he does have.
 
 
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
9:00am - 11:00am
6th Floor Flom Auditorium
Woodrow Wilson Center

Please RSVP to mep@wilsoncenter.org