Israel is at war with Hamas

Map showing the territory under Palestinian control and Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. Source: Public Domain.

David Ignatius is an associate editor and columnist for the Washington Post. He also co-hosts PostGlobal, an online discussion of international issues at Washingtonpost.com, with Fareed Zakaria. Capping several major awards in his field, Ignatius is the recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the International Committee for Foreign Journalism.

Unlike some of his colleagues in the media, Ignatius can be counted on to acknowledge at least two sides in every international conflict. In the current flare up of violence between Israel and Palestine, the press has most often portrayed Israel as the bad guy with little or no indication that Hamas, given to terrorist attacks on Israel, has played a role. Ignatius comes closer to an objective review of the ongoing crisis in the Middle East than any other media rep that I’ve come across since the conflict began.

In his analysis, Ignatius zeroes in on John Kerry’s handling of the hot-button situation:

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State John Kerry has made a significant mistake in how he's pursuing a Gaza cease-fire -- and it's not surprising that he has upset both the Israelis and some moderate Palestinians.

Kerry's error has been to put so much emphasis on achieving a quick halt to the bloodshed that he has solidified the role of Hamas, the intractable, unpopular Islamist group that leads Gaza, along with the two hard-line Islamist nations that are its key supporters, Qatar and Turkey. In the process, he has undercut not simply the Israelis but also the Egyptians and the Fatah movement that runs the Palestinian Authority, all of which want to see an end to Hamas rule in Gaza.

A wiser course, which Kerry rejected in his hunt for a quick diplomatic solution, would have been to negotiate the cease-fire through the Palestinian Authority, as part of its future role as the government of Gaza. Hamas agreed last April to bring the PA back to Gaza as part of a unity agreement with Fatah that was brokered by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Kerry has been motivated by two understandable short-term needs: First, he wants to stop the horrific slaughter in Gaza, with its heavy loss of life among Palestinian civilians, including children. Second, he seeks to fulfil the instructions of President Obama, who wants an immediate cease-fire and has become skeptical about solving the knotted Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Kerry's approach has ignited a firestorm in Israel, with commentators left and right accusing him of taking Hamas' side and betraying Israel. That criticism is unfair, and it prompted a complaint Sunday from Obama in a phone call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Kerry's mistake isn't any bias against Israel, but a bias in favor of an executable, short-term deal. A case can be made for this "kick the can down the road" approach, as I did last week in discussing Kerry's recent diplomatic negotiations over Iran's nuclear program and with rival political leaders in Afghanistan.

But Gaza has suffered from a generation of brutal expediency. Any deal that reinforces Hamas' stranglehold -- rather than building a path toward change of government, elections and eventual disarmament -- is misconceived. In the name of stopping bloodshed this week, it all but guarantees it in the future. That's why public opinion polls show a strong majority of Gazans back the idea of returning to Palestinian Authority control -- because they want an end to the cycle of intermittent warfare.

Israel has undermined its own cause with statements that appear to be insensitive to Palestinian loss of life. One example is Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer's claim that "the Israeli Defense Forces should be given the Nobel Peace Prize" for showing "unimaginable restraint," at a time when photos and videos provide wrenching evidence of civilian casualties in the densely packed cities of Gaza.

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The Obama years: a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?

Obama points to the Kansas delegation while giving his address at the
Democratic National Convention in 2004. Via Wikipedia.

 

 

In 2008, Barack Obama preached hope, not cynicism, but anyone who knows me is aware that I was cynical from day one about the young, inexperienced senator’s qualifications for the presidency – and besides I was a staunch Hillary Clinton supporter in the primary. Now I feel something akin to pity for our graying second-term president as he’s since learned the magic of his personality on display in Boston 10 years ago has not been sufficient to cure the world’s ills.

But here’s the thing, all things considered, I believe Obama has done a credible job so far in the Oval Office. Politico goes into depth, however, highlighting Obama’s “hits and blunders” on the tenth anniversary this Sunday, July 27, 2014 of his keynote speech at the Democratic Convention.

Dovere and Nather write:

Barack Obama’s Democratic National Convention keynote delivered 10 years ago Sunday evening started his journey to the White House.

Those 18 minutes in Boston reshaped American politics. Obama spent a long passage of his speech extolling Democratic nominee John Kerry, but he wasn’t the one whose presidential prospects most people left the Fleet Center buzzing about. Caught by surprise by a convention keynote that was actually worth watching, the crowd went wild. Even Hillary Clinton and Jesse Jackson were spotted clapping for him.

A decade later, the speech remains a road map to the Obama agenda — and the many places where he’s fallen short in his term and a half so far.

The parts that hold up well: transitioning from a manufacturing base, the pursuit of enemies (like Osama bin Laden), a cooperative economy, voting rights, solving the “health care crisis,” “a road to opportunity” for the middle class.

But parts come across as the oratorical equivalent of an embarrassing hairdo in a high school yearbook.
The line most associated with the speech — “there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America, there’s the United States of America” — is the part that’s probably held up the least well over time.
 

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A confounding reality: both the stories of the Palestinians and the Israelis are true

Secretary of State John Kerry meets with Secretary General Nabil Elaraby in Cairo to discuss the Israel-Palestine conflict. Photo courtesy of the State Department.

The headline in the Minneapolis StarTribune blares its devastating message: “UN school sheltering Palestinians in Gaza caught in cross-fire; 15 killed.” And so it goes. The Israelis and the Palestinians are at it again.

The AP reports:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israeli tank shells hit a compound housing a U.N. school in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing at least 15 people and wounding dozens who were seeking shelter from fierce clashes on the streets outside, Palestinian officials said, as Israel pressed forward with its 17-day war against the territory's Hamas rulers.

Hold on a bit, though, especially if you live in my neighborhood:

We have our privileges up here in the metropolitan Twin Cities area. Where else would you have the opportunity to gather on a university campus with a bunch of Christians, Muslims, and Jews and listen to first a couple of Palestinian-Americans, Hussein Khatib and Ziad Amra, describe what it was like for them to grow up in Palestine and a week later, hear Israeli-Americans, Mira Reinberg and Oren Gross, tell their stories?

The above presentations were followed up by Ron Young of The National Interreligious Leadership Initiative For Peace In The Middle East. Young gave an address titled Roads to Resolution: What is Our Role as Americans?

Thanks to the St. Paul Interfaith Network, it all happened in October 2010 at Hamline University. I left the event, which I covered for the St. Paul Examiner, with the deep down realization that the people of Palestine and Israel both yearn for peace. Even with the recent outbreak of war between those two countries, we need to remember it’s the people in power commanding the rockets, not those who are desperately trying to protect their loved ones.

Four years before the current raging flareup between Israel and Palestine, I wrote:

Although I brought a sketchy background on the perennial Middle East conflict to the conversation in Fall 2010, I could only feel compassion for both the Palestinian and Israeli presenters as it quickly became obvious that each had grown up in what must be described as a war zone in which violence might erupt at any moment.

Nevertheless, with the shadow of the holocaust in the background, Israeli speaker Mira Reinberg offered a profound word of wisdom. She advised against being imprisoned by history. Without suggesting that either Palestinians or Israelis dismiss the trauma they’ve experienced, she encouraged them to focus instead on the present and “build a life around or beside the trauma.”

In his address, Ron Young was determinedly optimistic about the prospects for peace in the Middle East. He cited a survey he’d done in 1985-6 in which he asked American Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religious leaders if they would join in an interreligious effort for peace between Palestine and Israel. He said they were almost unanimous in the affirmative without asking any questions about the politics in the region.

Young mentioned three parts to a message in resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.  He said,  “The first part of our message is ‘peace is possible’ and frankly, cynicism is one of the main enemies of that message.”

He said the second part is that the U.S. role is essential even though, the U.S. is closer to Israel than it is to Palestine. He explained, “Many Palestinians understand that because the U.S. is closer to Israel, it is the only country in the world that can help Israel overcome its own reluctance and fears to make the compromises necessary.”

The third part, Young said, is that talks are going on now between Palestinians and Israelis.
Young mentioned “resources on the ground” available to those engaged in the peace process, including the Parents Circle, Seeds of Peace, and religious institutions in the Holy Land. He also mentioned groups in Washington now working together to promote resolution of the Middle East conflict.
Young reminded his listeners that both the stories by the Palestinian speakers and the Israeli speakers were true. He said, “That’s part of the confounding reality of this conflict – both stories are true.”

Read my complete article at the Examiner.

A wave to sister bloggers from 2008 who supported Hillary

High marks in foreign policy with Hillary as SoS.

All of the online chatter about a potential Hillary Clinton run in 2016 is naturally triggering a flashback to 2008, but not necessarily to the Democratic primary or its outcome. Instead, it’s kind of a nostalgia trip in which I’m remembering with affection sister bloggers across the Internet who went all out in support of Hillary. And I’m wondering where they are now and what they’re thinking about in the run up to 2016. Here’s a wave from Virginia at Katalusis to Heidi Li at Heidi Li’s Potpourri, Stray Yellar Dog, Lady Boomer NYC, Puma for Life, Tennessee Guerilla Women, Cine’s World, and other online Hillary supporters too numerous to mention.

In the meantime, John Fetter, co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus, has published a thought-provoking piece on what a Hillary Clinton presidency might look like. But first, let me remind Fetter that the Obama Administration’s poll ranking in foreign policy was much higher when Clinton was SoS, than it is now with John Kerry holding that top cabinet post.

In one of the most enduring images from the lead-up to the 2008 Democratic primaries, frontrunner Hillary Clinton appeared in a rogue political ad as Big Brother.

It was a take-off on the infamous 1984 Super Bowl commercial that pitted upstart Apple against Big Blue (IBM) and urged consumers to "Think Different." In the campaign makeover two decades later, Clinton is intoning political platitudes on a screen in front of an audience of grey worker drones. A young woman races down the aisle, her Obama T-shirt ablaze with color in a black-and-white world, and launches a hammer at the screen. It explodes, and Clinton disappears. The ad is titled "Vote Different."

Like Apple, Obama styled himself as the younger, hipper, more unconventional alternative to the staid mainstream choice. Obama was so much of an outsider that many believed he'd been born outside the United States, while Clinton, the former first lady, was a consummate insider. He opposed the Iraq War while she voted for it. He embraced "purple America," while she was as Big Blue as you could get. He was a swirl of different flavors, while she was plain vanilla.

Each of these contrasts broke down on closer examination. But in part because he cultivated this image of a disrupter in the mold of Steve Jobs, Obama went on to win the Iowa primary, the Democratic Party nomination, and the presidency. Hillary Clinton had to content herself with secretary of state.

Seven years later, Clinton is considering another run at the presidency. Once again, she is the dominant brand in the marketplace, the one to beat. Just as IBM borrowed some of Apple's shine to reconnect with consumers -- adopting for example a more user-friendly interface -- Hillary will try, if she declares her candidacy, to capitalize on whatever remains of Obama's popularity to become America's first woman president. The right, without an obvious candidate to support, has already poured money into efforts like the website Washington Free Beacon to disrupt her candidacy. Several potential insurgents on the left -- Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders -- are waiting off stage.

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Comparing Hillary's and Liz's recently published books

The Washington Post's Dan Balz does more than compare the recently published books by Hillary Clinton, Hard Choices, and Elizabeth Warren, A Fighting Chance. Balz also discusses each woman's biography and her qualifications for the Oval Office in case either Hillary or Liz chooses to run.

Balz has written an intriguing piece, and one item that caught my eye was his reference to the unfavorable comparison of Hillary's record as SOS with John Kerry's. Balz points out that today, "The comparisons between Kerry’s record and Clinton’s look far different than they did at the beginning of this year."

Balz's post at the The Take, is well-worth reading:

It’s always been said that you can’t tell a book by its cover. But sometimes book titles reveal something about authors. That’s certainly the case for two notable Democrats, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Warren’s book, published this past week, is called “A Fighting Chance.” Clinton’s book, a memoir of her four years as secretary of state, is due out in June under the title “Hard Choices.” Warren’s title is aspirational, hinting at the world as it might be, a place where power would be more equitably distributed. Clinton’s title conveys a world in which the ideal and the real clash constantly and in which progress can be maddeningly slow.

Clinton is widely assumed to be running for president in 2016; Warren spent the week of her book tour saying she is not. But as two of the Democratic Party’s brightest stars, they are destined to play central roles in shaping the party’s direction after the Obama presidency ends. Whether they end up as rivals for the Democratic nomination is beside the point.

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"Only politicians and defense contractors want this war"

Syrian President Bashar Assad

US President Barack Obama

We should all be engaged in some hard thinking this week as the Obama Administration goes all out to convince us that launching a war with Syria is the "last resort" available in responding to Assad's alleged use of chemical weapons on his own people.

Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass puts the matter into perspective:

Dogs aren't as beloved in Syria as they are here. In the Middle East, our four-footed friends are generally considered unclean. They don't live inside houses. They're not allowed near a kitchen.
And they don't legislate war policy or decide the fate of millions of people.
 
But watching President Barack Obama stumble through his news conference from the G-20 summit last week and trying to talk us into war with Syria, I couldn't help thinking about dogs.

It was a stupid thought, yes, but I didn't put it there. One of the president's men put it there. A guy named David Axelrod, who brought it up on Twitter.

Axelrod, the Democratic mouthpiece of Chicago mayors, is the guy who aligned himself with an inexperienced Illinois legislative back-bencher and ended up installing him in the White House.

And after the president announced he would seek congressional approval for military strikes against Syria, Axelrod signaled his journalists by spinning them a tweet.

"Big move by POTUS," read Axelrod's tweet. "Consistent with his principles. Congress is now the dog that caught the car. Should be a fascinating week!"

Consistent with his principles? Like the drone strikes? Like the NSA surveillance? Like the IRS investigations of conservative groups? Like no answers about the dead from Benghazi? All those principles?

If Axelrod thought last week was fascinating, this week should be even more entertaining. The president doesn't have the votes in Congress for his war in Syria, but he'll try to make his case in a national television address scheduled for Tuesday.

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Good question: has there ever been a successful humanitarian intervention?

In case you're wondering where Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was when the Obama Administration began its drumbeat to war with Syria, it's important to remember that Hagel's nomination as defense secretary was originally opposed by his own party members as he was described as anti-interventionist. That could be the reason he appears to have been left out of the current war preparations.

At the Christian Century, Steve Thorngate raises more than one good question about the Obama Administration's drumbeat to war with Syria. Leading off his thoughtful analysis of the wisdom of pursuing "nebulous and unlikely goals via deadly, expensive missiles that are all too concrete," Thorngate writes:

This weekend President Obama surprised everyone by choosing to seek permission now rather than forgiveness later on the Syria front. While the congressional leadership quickly got behind Obama’s plan for a military strike, it’ll be a harder sell for others on both sides of the aisle.

James Fallows is impressed with Obama’s decision to go to Congress. So, presumably, are the almost 40,000 people who signed this MoveOn petition. And sure: if your main concern is (1) constitutionality, (2) the growing power of the executive branch, and/or (3) legislators’ ability to make a lot of noise about (1) and (2) without having to actually record a vote one way or the other, then this is welcome news.

But as always, it’s tempting to let the politics on this side of the world overshadow the death and destruction on that side. Waiting for congressional authorization is good. Better still: not pursuing nebulous and unlikely goals via deadly, expensive missiles that are all too concrete.

Last year, Steven Cook called for intervention in Syria, arguing that the situation was not as different from Libya as anti-interventionists insisted. Now he’s changed his mind: the situation is Syria has deteriorated so much that intervention “would advance Syria’s dissolution.”

But even if the comparison to Libya still holds, the intervention in Libya was not the unqualified success we’ve often heard about, as Freddie deBoer explains. Writing from liberal interventionists’ left flank, deBoer aims to expose the limited value of their good intentions; R. R. Reno does the same from the right. They’re both correct. As this n+1 editorial—reposted from the time of the intervention in Libya—puts it, “that there has never been a successful humanitarian intervention does not mean that there cannot be one in the future. But the evidence is piling up.”

Of course, the Obama administration isn’t calling this a humanitarian intervention. We’re not considering missile strikes to protect Syrian people; we’re doing it to punish Assad for using chemical weapons and to enforce the international norm against their use. But this isn’t as simple as it sounds, either. William Polk argues that chemical weapons are everywhere and their use isn’t as rare as we think. And Richard Price is skeptical that Assad has eroded the anti-CW norm:

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Where has Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel been?

Sec. of State Kerry and Sec. of Defense Hagel, May 2013 (public domain).

Secretary of State John Kerry's mug, along with his pronouncements on the case for a military strike against Syria, have been all over the media in the past several days. It's almost enough to make you forget the State Department's primary responsibilities are traditionally in diplomacy; whereas, the Defense Department, currently led by Secretary Chuck Hagel, is responsible for military matters.

In all of the excitement in the wake of Obama's threat to bomb Syria and Kerry's somber "making the case" for the president, Defense Secretary Hagel had not been heard from - not publicly, at least - until Reuters reported that along with Kerry, he will be making conference calls. You have to note that Kerry's name is listed first:

(Reuters) - Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, and other senior U.S. national security officials will hold conference calls about Syria on Saturday afternoon with the Senate Democratic Caucus as well as the Senate Republican Conference, a White House official said.
The calls, which will be unclassified, are part of "the Administration's consultations regarding the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons in Syria on August 21," the official said.

Here's the question: has our secretary of defense been left out of the process in Obama's war-making efforts and if so, why?

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Hillary's breakneck pace as secretary of state

Hillary Clinton will continue to serve as secretary of state until the end of January when her successor John Kerry will take over.This is good news for it will give Hillary the opportunity to say a proper good by to the State Department and the Obama Administration before departing for a much needed rest. In the meantime, of course, her fans continue to urge her to run for president again in 2016.

Mark Landler at the NY Times reports that  Hillary's recent concussion and subsequent blood clot have added to fears that her work has "taken its toll." Landler writes:

WASHINGTON — When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton fractured her right elbow after slipping in a State Department garage in June 2009, she returned to work in just a few days. Her arm in a sling, she juggled speeches and a trip to India and Thailand with physical therapy, rebuilding a joint held together with wire and pins.  

 It was vivid evidence of Mrs. Clinton’s indomitable stamina and work ethic — as a first lady, senator, presidential candidate and, for the past four years, the most widely traveled secretary of state in American history. 

 But after a fall at home in December that caused a concussion, and a subsequent diagnosis of a blood clot in her head, it has taken much longer for Mrs. Clinton to bounce back. She was released from a hospital in New York on Wednesday, accompanied by her daughter, Chelsea, and her husband, former President Bill Clinton. On Thursday, she told colleagues that she hoped to be in the office next week. 

Her health scare, though, has reinforced the concerns of friends and colleagues that the years of punishing work and travel have taken a heavy toll. Even among her peers at the highest levels of government, Mrs. Clinton, 65, is renowned for her grueling schedule. Over the past four years, she was on the road for 401 days and spent the equivalent of 87 full days on a plane, according to the State Department’s Web site.  

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Sen. Kerry boasts of the willingness of Supercommittee Democrats to cut “entitlements”

Photo from Kerry's website.

Speaking of entitlements, Sen. Kerry, why doesn’t the supercommittee follow Rep.  Giffords’ advice and cut the salaries of members of Congress?

That would likely be too hard to pass, unlike slashes to Medicare and Social Security that both Democrats and Republicans are so fond of debating these days.

Guess it makes our congressional leaders seem courageous and bipartisan to go after society’s most vulnerable.

In a post by Bryan Tau at Politico, Kerry boasts of the willingness of the Democratic members of the Supercommittee to cut “entitlements”- note how Kerry's use of this derogatory term avoids mentioning specific safety net programs that benefit seniors and other low income folks.

Tau’s post concludes:

Democrats made an unprecedented offer to cut entitlements, and Republicans refused, Kerry said.

"We are not a tax-cutting committee. We're a deficit-reduction committee," Kerry said. "Everybody out there has said to us 'Go big. Do $4 trillion.' We Democrats put a $4 trillion deal on the table and it included huge, hard, tough, horrible reductions on the sacred cows and things that we have been accused of not being willing to do. We put it out there."

Read the entire post:

John Kerry's sensible, forward-looking advice on the Egyptian uprising

Sen. John Kerry, Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, offers some sound advice to both the besieged President Mubarak and the Obama Administration in responding to the crisis in Egypt:

EVEN if the protests shaking Egypt subside in the coming days, the chaos of the last week has forever changed the relationship between the Egyptian people and their government. The anger and aspirations propelling a diverse range of citizens into the streets will not disappear without sweeping changes in the social compact between the people and the government — and these events also call for changes in the relationship between the United States and a stalwart Arab ally.

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Politico Readers Choose Hillary for Secretary of State by Wide Margin

And the Winner is: Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State with 42% of 4,330 votes cast at Politico. Bill Richardson came in second with 26% as shown below.

Hillary Rodham Clinton 42 %
Richard Holbrooke 4 %
John Kerry 9 %
Colin Powell 13 %
Bill Richardson 26 %
Other 7 %

Results are based off 4330 votes
Reference Story

Will Hillary Clinton Be Obama’s Secretary of State?

I’ve had my differences with NY Times op-ed columnist Gail Collins this election year, and I was holding my breath as I read today’s column expecting the usual slap at Hillary Clinton. It never happened. Collins is totally onboard with the Clinton for Secretary of State movement.

“On Friday, a speaker at the City University of New York Women’s Leadership Conference mentioned the story about Hillary’s possible appointment and several hundred women burst into applause. All around the country, the news reminded old Hillary supporters of a nagging pang of disappointment, the feeling that the great election bandwagon had left something behind.

“Good luck telling them that it’s actually going to be John Kerry.

“While there are many excellent arguments for offering Clinton the job, one of the best is that until now, Senator Kerry was supposed to be the front-runner for State. Does that sound right, people? When one is out searching for the nation’s top diplomat, does it make sense to pick a guy who gets low scores in sociability? Although Kerry has many excellent qualities and his children appear to be very fond of him, if there was a contest for Senator You Would Least Want to Have a Cup of Coffee With, he would be a good bet for top 10. Politicians often brag that they never forget a name, but Kerry is one of those guys who can’t even remember a face.

“Clinton is the exact opposite. Plunk her down anywhere and she’ll catch sight of somebody who she met at the Conference of Concerned Problem-Solvers and engage them in a spirited dialogue on what’s going on with that muskrat preservation project in East Engorvia. And she can do that abroad, too, since — as was mentioned a time or two during her campaign — she has already visited 82 countries.

“True, there’s 112 countries to go before she runs the table. All the more incentive for her to make sure Obama gets a second term. And on a slightly more elevated level, there’s the fact that the rest of the world would be thrilled with her appointment. She would give our diplomatic outreach a power and gravitas that it hasn’t had for years.”

You owe it to yourself to read the entire column, which you’ll find right here.