December 24, 2010, 8:33 AM
Jingle Bells - The Bethlehem Version
Jingle Bells - The Bethlehem Version
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Print Permalink | Comments (0) | | Print Slouching towards Teheran
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A time to shout
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Bringing Bibi down
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Eldar co-authored his Guardian article with his comrade Carlo Strenger. It was their response to Erekat's declaration of eternal war. Permalink | Comments (8) | | Print The Israeli media's great discovery
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Friday, 24 December 2010
SHABBAT SHALOM!
In honor of Christmas, this week at Latma, the Hebrew-language satire site I run, we decided to do something special for our Christian friends around the world.
We produced a clip in English featuring a version of Jingle Bells that depicts the lives of Christians who live in the Muslim world as seen by Tawil Fadiha, the Palestinian Minister of Uncontrollable Rage.
Here it is. Please spread it far and wide.
And here is our entire weekly show, the Tribal Update.
Merry Christmas and best wishes from me and the whole team at Latma.
Latma is funded through contributions to the Center for Security Policy in Washington. If you would like to support our efforts, you can contribute by clicking here. It takes you to the online contribution page to the Center for Security Policy through Network for Good. To earmark your donation to Latma, please write "Latma" in the box marked "designation."
Unfortunately, for now, we can only accept donations from donors in the US. We are currently establishing an Israeli non-profit through which we will be able to accept donations from other countries. Watch this space for updates.
We produced a clip in English featuring a version of Jingle Bells that depicts the lives of Christians who live in the Muslim world as seen by Tawil Fadiha, the Palestinian Minister of Uncontrollable Rage.
Here it is. Please spread it far and wide.
And here is our entire weekly show, the Tribal Update.
Merry Christmas and best wishes from me and the whole team at Latma.
Latma is funded through contributions to the Center for Security Policy in Washington. If you would like to support our efforts, you can contribute by clicking here. It takes you to the online contribution page to the Center for Security Policy through Network for Good. To earmark your donation to Latma, please write "Latma" in the box marked "designation."
Unfortunately, for now, we can only accept donations from donors in the US. We are currently establishing an Israeli non-profit through which we will be able to accept donations from other countries. Watch this space for updates.
Two weeks ago, Iran scored a massive victory. Jordan, the West's most stable and loyal ally in the Arab world began slouching towards the Iranian Gomorrah.
On December 12, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei met with Jordanian King Abdullah II in Amman and extended a formal invitation from Ahmadinejad for him to pay a state visit to Iran. Abdullah accepted.
According to Iran's ISNA news agency, Mashei said that Abdullah's visit will begin a new page in bilateral relations and that, "the two countries hold massive potential to work together." Mashei added, "If Islamic states stand united, no country will be threatened."
For his part, Abdullah reportedly said that his country recognizes Iran's nuclear rights and supports its access to peaceful nuclear technology.
Abdullah was one of the first world leaders to sound the alarm on Iran. In 2004 Abdullah warned of a "Shiite crescent" extending from Iran to Iraq, through Syria to Lebanon. His words were well reported at the time. But his warning went unheeded.
In the intervening six years, reality has surpassed Abdullah's worst fears. Not only Lebanon and Syria have fallen under Iranian control. Iraq, Turkey, Qatar, Gaza and increasingly Oman, Yemen and Afghanistan are also either willing or unwilling members of the axis.
In the face of Iran's expanding web of influence and the mullahs' steady progress towards nuclear capability, Washington behaves as though there is no cause for concern. And the likes of Jordan are beside themselves.
In a WikiLeaks leaked cable from April 2009 written by US Ambassador to Jordan R. Stephen Beecroft, Jordan's frustration and concern over the Obama administration's incompetence in handling the Iranian threat was clear.
Beecroft wrote, "Jordan's leaders are careful not to be seen as dictating toward the US, but their comments betray a powerful undercurrent of doubt that the United States knows how to deal effectively with Iran."
On the one hand, Jordanian Senator Zaid Rifai beseeched US to bomb Iran's nuclear installations. Rifai said, "Bomb Iran, or live with an Iranian bomb. Sanctions, carrots, incentives won't matter."
But on the other hand, the Jordanians recognized that the Obama administration was committed to appeasing Iran and so tried to convince the Americans to ensure that their appeasement drive didn't come at the Arabs' expense.
Beecroft reported a clear warning from Abdullah. Abdullah cautioned that if the Arabs believe that the US was appeasing Iran at their expense, "that engagement will set off a stampede of Arab states looking to get ahead of the curve and reach their own separate peace with Teheran.
"King Abdullah counseled Special Envoy George Mitchell in February [2009] that direct US engagement with Iran at this time would just deepen intra-Arab schisms and that more 'countries without a backbone' would defect to the Iranian camp."
THAT WAS then. And since then, the Obama administration did nothing after Ahmadinejad and his henchmen stole the presidential election. It did nothing as they repressed the tens of millions of Iranians who demonstrated against the election fraud. The Obama administration did nothing as Iran conducted repeated war games along the Straits of Hormuz, progressed in its nuclear program, deepened its military alliances with Turkey and Venezuela and escalated its proxy war against the US and its allies in Afghanistan.
The Americans said nothing as Iran prevented the pro-US faction that won the Iraqi election from forming a government. They did nothing as Iran forced the reinstallation of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki despite his electoral defeat.
As Washington stood idly by in the face of Iran's aggression, Jordan and the other US-allied Arab states watched as Obama harassed Israel, announced his plan to withdraw all US forces from Iraq next year, appointed a new ambassador to Syria and approved more military aid to the Iranian-controlled Lebanese army. And Abdullah and the other Arabs watch now as the US is poised to begin yet a new round of appeasement talks with Iran next month.
Unlike the previous failed rounds of talks, the next failed round of talks will take place in Turkey. Iranian officials are already exulting that Turkish Prime Minister Recip Erdogan will act as Iran's protector in those talks, and so officially end any semblance of Iranian diplomatic isolation on the nuclear issue.
And so, just as Abdullah warned would happen, today he is leading Jordan into the ranks of "countries without a backbone," and making a separate peace with Ahmadinejad.
Jordan is a weak country. Its minority Hashemite regime has failed to dominate its Palestinian majority. And since its inception by the British in 1946, Jordan has depended on Western powers and Israel for its survival.
In acting as he is, Abdullah is following in his father's footsteps. The late King Hussein survived by watching the prevailing winds closely and always siding with the side he believed was strongest at any given time.
When Hussein believed that the West and Israel were weakening, he went with their enemies. He only rejoined the Western alliance after it defeated its foes, and so convinced him that it was stronger. Notable examples of this are his 1967 alliance with Egypt and Syria against Israel and his decision in 1990 to stand with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in the aftermath of Saddam's conquest of Kuwait.
IT IS often erroneously claimed that siding with the metaphorical stronger horse is primarily an Arab practice. In truth, everyone does it.
Take France for instance.
In another diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks, the US embassy in Paris reported that French President Nicolas Sarkozy thinks that the Palestinians are stronger than Israel. The report claimed that in Sarkozy's June 2009 meeting with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, he told the Israeli leader that he must surrender to all the Palestinian demands because in his view the Palestinians are stronger than Israel is.
Before Sarkozy took office, he was considered a great supporter of Israel and a personal friend of Netanyahu's. But since taking office, he has sided with the Palestinians against Israel. He has been friendly to Syria. Most recently, he agreed to sell one hundred advanced anti-tank missiles to the Hizbullah-controlled Lebanese military.
In light of his comment to Netanyahu it is clear that what motivates Sarkozy to act as he does is his analysis of the power balance between Israel and its enemies. Happily for Israel, Sarkozy is wrong. Israel is stronger than the Palestinians and has the capacity to defend itself effectively against its enemies.
Unhappily for Israel, Sarkozy's analysis is probably based in large part on arguments he has heard from the Israeli Left under Kadima. Over the past several years, Kadima leaders have managed to convince the country's best friends that Israel has no option other than surrender.
This is due to Kadima's obsession with demography and its demented plan for extricating Israel from what it considers predetermined demographic doom.
According to the likes of Kadima leader Tzipi Livni, the fact that there are 6 million Jews and 4 million Arabs west of the Jordan River means that Israel has no option other than surrendering Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem to the Palestinians. As far as Livni and her leftist comrades are concerned, it makes no difference that such a move will not decrease the number of Arabs west of the Jordan.
It makes no difference to the Israeli Left that the Palestinian state they hope to build will - with their consent -- bring in millions more Arabs as immigrants into the landmass west of the Jordan River and so quickly render Jews a minority, making war a foregone conclusion.
In short, through their asinine demographic argument - with which they surrender all Israeli claims to the capital city, and to strategically vital land that Israel has valid legal and historical claims to -- Livni and her colleagues tell the likes of Sarkozy that not only is Israel weaker than the Palestinians. They tell these erstwhile friends that Israel is doomed to destruction and there is no reason for them to support it.
Based on these claims, Sarkozy's decision to make a separate peace with Iran through its Palestinian, Syrian and Hizbullah proxies makes sense.
It is important to bear this in mind when one considers the reason that the campaign to delegitimize Israel is gaining momentum. Given the Israeli-fuelled sense among key governments that Israel is a lost cause, as they see it, they have no reason to defend Israel from its detractors. From their perspective, their interests are better served by either standing on the sidelines or turning on Israel the weak horse.
ALL THIS is not to say that the Left is purposely sinking the ship of state. It is simply a victim of its own success. The Left has convinced Europe and the Arabs that it is dedicated to appeasement.
The Left believed that by convincing the Arabs and the Europeans that Israel is serious about appeasing its enemies that they would make an alliance with the Jewish state. And since Europe is stronger than Israel, and the Arabs are a threat to Israel, by winning their favor, the Left believed it would strengthen Israel.
What the Left failed to recognize is that Europe and the Arabs would rather cut a deal with Iran than defend themselves against it. A surrendering Israel is of no use to them. They only like Israel when it wins.
And now that weakness has pushed Jordan over the edge.
The lesson of all of this for Israel is clear. For the past 17 years, in the throes of the Left's strategic blindness, Israel has spent its time emphasizing its weaknesses and its enemies' strengths. This practice must be reversed. Israel must now concentrate on its strengths and its enemies' weaknesses.
For instance, Israel has a stronger claim to the disputed territories that the Palestinians. And Israel is stronger than the Palestinians by every possible measuring rod.
On their side, not only are the Palestinians militarily weak, they have nothing to offer anyone. Because the Palestinian national cause has far more to do with destroying Israel than building a Palestinian state, the Palestinian track record is one of destruction not creation. And this destructive tendency expresses itself on every front.
Iran too is far less powerful than it looks. From the Stuxnet worm, to a faltering economy, from increased domestic sabotage to the continuing opposition bid to overthrow the regime, Iran's soft underbelly is exposed. And it is getting softer all the time.
In contrast, Israel has a stable government. And its economic, technological and military power is constantly growing. Israel is a force to be reckoned with.
Jordan's move into the Iranian camp is not inexorable. Nor is Lebanon's or even Syria's. True, much to the Left's dismay, Israel lacks the option of joining the "countries without a backbone."
But we have a better option. We are strong and we can get stronger. And our enemies have weaknesses and we can weaken them still further.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.
The new campaign calling for the release of Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard from prison in the US is in many ways a curious development. Pollard was arrested in 1985 and convicted on one count of transferring classified information to Israel during his service in US Naval Intelligence. He pleaded guilty to the charge in the framework of a plea bargain in which the US attorney pledged not to request a life sentence.
Despite this, Pollard was sentenced to life. So far, he has served 25 years, much of it in solitary confinement and in maximum security prisons. His health is poor. He has repeatedly expressed remorse for his crime.
Pollard's sentence and the treatment he has received are grossly disproportionate to the sentences and treatment meted out to agents of other friendly foreign governments caught stealing classified information in the US. Their average sentence is seven years in prison. They tend to serve their sentences in minimum or medium security prisons and are routinely released after four years.
The only offenders who have received similar sentences are Soviet spies Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames. While Pollard transferred documents to Israel over a period of 18 months, both Ames and Hanssen served the Soviets - the US's primary enemy - for decades. Their espionage led to the death of multiple US agents operating behind the Iron Curtain.
Pollard was given a life sentence because then secretary of defense Caspar Weinberger wrote a classified victim impact assessment to the sentencing judge in which he insinuated that he had transferred information to the Soviet Union as well as to Israel. Weinberger reportedly attributed the deaths of US agents to Pollard's activities.
Weinberger's accusations were proven false with the subsequent arrests of Hanssen and Ames. As it turned out, the damage Weinberger ascribed to Pollard was actually caused by their espionage.
OVER THE past five years, and with increased urgency over the past several months, several former senior US officials who had in depth knowledge of Pollard's activities have called for his immediate release. Former CIA director R. James Woolsey has stated that, contrary to Weinberger's allegations, none of the documents Pollard stole were transferred to the Soviets or any other country. A few months ago, former senator Dennis DeConcini, a past chairman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, sent a letter to President Barack Obama asking him to immediately release Pollard from prison. And in October, Lawrence Korb, who served as assistant secretary of defense under Weinberger, became one of the most outspoken champions for Pollard's release. Korb currently works for the Center for American Progress, which is closely allied with the Obama White House.
The renewed interest in Pollard's plight has garnered a great deal of attention in the local media as well. After Korb's initial call for Pollard's release in an op-ed published in The Los Angeles Times in October, Ma'arivpublished a cover story in its weekend news supplement about Pollard's suffering. Reporter Ben Caspit demanded that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu formally request that Obama commute Pollard's sentence and release him from prison.
Ma'ariv's article caused a spike in media coverage of Pollard in November. And this month, Pollard was back in the news when the government intervened to help his former wife Ann and her father make aliya after the consulate in New York discovered they were both ill and living in poverty.
Public pressure on Netanyahu seems to be working. Before Monday, Netanyahu refused to make any public statements regarding Pollard. At his recent meeting with Obama, he refused to deliver a letter signed by 109 of the Knesset's 120 members formally requesting Pollard's release. On the other hand, heavy public pressure caused Netanyahu to initially agree to speak at Monday's rally for Pollard's release at the Knesset. Netanyahu canceled his appearance at the last moment however, and insisted on sufficing with a private meeting with Korb and Pollard's wife Esther. Obviously more pressure can and should be applied.*
On the face of things, it seems that this is a particularly inauspicious time to renew the campaign to release Pollard. This is true first of all because of the nature of the current president who is the only one with the power to release him.
By now there is little question that Obama is the most hostile US leader Israel has faced. It is hard to imagine the circumstances in which he would agree to do something for Israel that his vastly more sympathetic predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton refused to do.
In light of Obama's attitude, at first blush it makes more sense to try to advance Pollard's case through quiet diplomacy. This is the argument that cabinet secretary Zvi Hauser made in testimony before the Knesset earlier this month. Hauser appeared before the State Control Committee to respond to State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss' recommendation that Netanyahu set up a ministerial committee to oversee a public, formal campaign calling for Pollard's release.
But on second thought, the current campaign is eminently sensible. To understand why, we must consider the relative benefits of quiet, behind the scenes diplomacy and loud, public diplomacy.
Quiet diplomacy works well when all sides share a perception of joint interests and when its exposure is likely to change that perception. For instance, Israel and its Arab neighbors perceive a shared interest in blocking Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. But given the nature of Arab politics, that perception, which enables the likes of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain to work with Israel on preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons, disappears the moment cooperation is made public.
Likewise, Lebanon's Sunnis and Christians share an interest with Israel in defeating Hizbullah. But their ability to work with Israel on defeating Hizbullah is destroyed the moment such work becomes public.
Quiet diplomacy does not work when there is no perception of shared interests. For instance, regimes that repress human rights to maintain their grip on power have little interest in cooperating with free societies, when the latter demand that they free political dissidents from prison. Quiet diplomacy in the field of human rights between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War never succeeded, because the Soviets realized that opening up their tyranny to domestic criticism would destroy the system.
And today, as Cairo's fake parliamentary elections and Teheran's continued repression of democracy protesters shows, the Obama administration's quiet diplomacy with the Muslim world regarding human rights and democracy has utterly failed.
It is in cases like this where public, noisy diplomacy comes in handy. Public campaigns are helpful when one government wishes to persuade another to do something it doesn't want to do. Last week we received a reminder of the effectiveness of such behavior with the publication of protocols of meetings held by president Richard Nixon in the Oval Office.
One such meeting involved a conversation between Nixon and secretary of state Henry Kissinger following a meeting with prime minister Golda Meir. She had asked Nixon to support the Jackson-Vanek amendment that linked US economic assistance to the USSR to the latter's willingness to permit Jews to emigrate. Kissinger opposed the request, telling Nixon, "The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern."
On the face of it, Kissinger was right. Using humanitarian considerations to weaken Soviet tyranny probably didn't help US arms control negotiators score points with Leonid Brezhnev. But on a deeper lever, he was completely wrong.
The Jackson-Vanek amendment not only forced the Soviets to permit limited emigration of Jews. It started a process of opening the Soviet system, which ended up destroying the regime just a decade later.
SINCE TAKING office, Obama has only used public diplomacy in the Middle East to convince one government to take action it believed was antithetical to its interests. Last year he waged a forceful, unrelenting public diplomacy campaign to convince Netanyahu to abrogate Jewish property rights in Judea and Samaria. And it worked.
Although it harmed the sacrosanct pillar of Zionism that Jewish rights are nonnegotiable, although it weakened Netanyahu's standing with his party and voters and although it empowered the Palestinians to expand their political war against Israel on the international stage, Netanyahu gave in. The public pressure Obama exerted on him compelled him to act against his interests.
The US is not an evil empire. And it is hard to see how a clear demand for Pollard's release on humanitarian grounds will have any fundamental impact on its nature.
And that is fine. But the fact is that Obama has no interest in freeing a suffering Israeli agent who was railroaded by Weinberger and remains in prison due to the efforts of Israelhaters who wrongly insist he did untold damage to US national security. Indeed, many of Pollard's detractors are members of Obama's political camp.
Israel can't expect a lot of help on this from American Jews, although they stand to be major secondary beneficiaries if Pollard is released. The impact of his case on the US Jewish community has been debilitating. Although the US and Israel are strategic allies which share many of the same interests and fight the same enemies, Israel's detractors in the US foreign policy community use the Pollard case as an excuse for questioning the loyalty and patriotism of American Jews who serve in the US government and support Israel. His continued incarceration casts a long shadow over American Jewry.
The odds are poor that a public campaign to win Pollard's release will succeed. But if Israel is going to do anything at all, its actions should be concentrated in the public realm. As we have seen, quiet diplomacy, the strategy the Netanyahu government tried until now, will never get him out of jail.
And Israel must act. Pollard's unfair, unjustified and discriminatory sentence and treatment are a dismal symbol of Jewish vulnerability. His personal suffering is inhumane, real and unrelenting. He needs us to stand up for him.
And so we must. And so we will. The time has come, against all odds to shout that Pollard must be freed. Now.
*Tuesday afternoon Netanyahu announced he will formally request that Obama release Pollard.
Over the past week, two writers published columns in foreign newspapers. One received wall to wall coverage in Israel. The other was completely ignored. The contrasting fortunes of the articles are a key to understanding the central challenges to Israel's democratic order.
Last Friday, Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian Authority's chief peace negotiator with Israel published an op-ed in Britain's Guardian newspaper in which he declared eternal war on the Jewish state. This he did by asserting that any peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians that does not permit the immigration of some 7 million foreign Arabs to Israel will be "completely untenable."
So as far as the supposedly moderate chief Palestinian negotiator is concerned, a peace deal in which Israel cedes Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem to the Palestinians as the Israeli Left desires will not be sufficient for the Palestinians. Unless Israel also agrees to commit national suicide by accepting 7 million foreign Arabs as citizens, the Palestinians will continue to wage their war. With or without a Palestinian state, as long as Israel exists, the Palestinians will continue to seek its destruction.
The second article was Tom Friedman's latest column in the New York Times. Throughout his interminable career, Friedman has identified with Israel's radical Left and so been the bane of all non-leftist governments. In his latest screed, he compared Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to someone in the throes of an LSD trip. Friedman harangued Netanyahu for failing to convince his cabinet to agree to the Obama administration's demand to abrogate Jewish property rights in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem for another 90 days. He argued that by doing so, Israel - with some help from the Palestinians - is destroying all chance of peace.
So on the one hand, the chief Palestinian negotiator declared eternal war. And on the other hand, Friedman condemned Netanyahu -- for the gazillionth time.
And characteristically, the Israeli media ignored Erekat's article and gave Friedman's screed around-the-clock coverage.
DESPITE ITS hysteria, the media has not fooled the public. The Israeli people don't need to hear about Erekat's declaration of war to know that the supposedly moderate Fatah party is just as committed to Israel's destruction as Hamas. Israelis know that the majority of terrorist attacks carried out by the Palestinians since 2000 have been conducted by Fatah. They know that the US- and EU-financed and trained Palestinian security services commanded the Palestinian jihad that began in 2000. They know that Fatah is behind much of the political warfare being carried out today against Israel throughout the world.
The disparity between the pubic and the media comes across very clearly in a poll released last week by the Brookings Institute. A mere eight percent of Israelis believe that Israel and the Palestinians will achieve a lasting peace in the next five years. 91percent of Israeli Jews and 88 percent of Israeli Arabs think either that more time is needed or that there will never be peace.
Despite the sentiments of the public, there is a class of Israeli leaders that acts as though peace is just around the corner and that the public expects them to deliver it. Not unlike Friedman, for the most part these politicians argue that the Israeli government bears either sole responsibility or the lion's share of responsibility for the absence of peace.
Consequently, they argue that all that is required to achieve peace is an Israeli leader willing to do what it takes to make it happen.
Over the weekend, opposition leader Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister and Labor Party leader Ehud Barak were in Washington for the annual Middle East peace process conclave at the Brookings Institute's Saban Forum. In their addresses to the forum and in media interviews, both politicians followed the Israeli media's lead by ignoring Erekat and parroting Friedman.
Barak brazenly rejected the policies of the government he serves by calling for the division of Jerusalem in the framework of a final peace accord with the Palesstinians.
As for Livni, she eschewed every semblance of propriety during her stay in the US capital. During a joint appearance on ABC's "This Week," with the unelected Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad, Livni viciously attacked the Netanyahu government. Livni criticized Netanyahu for not accepting the Obama administration's call to abrogate Jewish property rights. She attacked him for not forming a leftist government with Kadima and Labor. She made it clear that she doesn't believe that Netanyahu is interested in peace.
Echoing Barak's assertion at the Saban Forum that being a Zionist means supporting a Palestinian state, Livni argued that by surrendering to the Palestinians, and agreeing to every US demand, Israel is advancing its own existential interests.
On the so-called Palestinian refugee issue, while stipulating that Israel could not accept immigration of foreign Arabs to its truncated borders, she said nothing about Erekat's Guardian article. And she voiced no objection when Fayyad intimated that a Palestinian compromise on this issue is not in the offing.
From Livni's perspective, the only one acting in bad faith is Netanyahu.
Barak and Livni's behavior was not wrong simply because it is classless to attack your country's elected leadership while visiting in foreign lands. It was wrong because in behaving as they did, they showed extraordinary disrespect for the 92 percent of Israelis who do not share their professed belief that peace is just around the corner.
So what were they after in Washington? Why did they embrace the views of a mere 8 percent of the electorate while treating 92 percent of their countrymen with contempt? And why did they choose to launch their assault on the government from Washington?
IN TRUTH Barak and Livni were simply following what has become the standard operating procedure for leftist politicians over the past twenty years. They were playing to two constituencies that they prize more than they prize the public.
They were playing to the US administration and the Israeli media.
Barak is an old hand at this game. During Netanyahu's first tenure as prime minister, Barak used then president Bill Clinton to bring down Netanyahu's government and get himself elected in his place. After Barak made clear that he would be far more accommodating towards Yassir Arafat than Netanyahu was, Clinton went out of his way to demonize and isolate Netanyahu. He pressured Netanyahu's coalition partners to abandon his government. And when Netanyahu's government finally fell, Clinton dispatched his senior political strategists James Carville, Stanley Greenberg and Robert Schrum to run Barak's campaign.
Since Netanyahu appointed him Defense Minister, Barak has been racking up frequent flier miles on the Tel-Aviv-Washington line. Barak travels to Washington at least once a month. Amazingly, he always happens to come home with recommendations consonant with the administration's whims.
Livni was similarly richly rewarded for her willingness to attack Netanyahu while sitting next to Fayyad on American television. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton treated Livni like the most esteemed politician in Israel. Clinton steadfastly ignored the fact that 91 percent of Israelis think Livni's views are utter nonsense. And after accusing Netanyahu of lacking the courage to embrace the cause of peace, Clinton ostentatiously hosted Livni for an hour-long private meeting.
Livni's party Kadima is a media creation. Whereas every other political party in Israel was formed by citizens who felt they needed to organize politically to empower their voices, Kadima was the brainchild of the media. The media colluded with Likud leaders who were disenchanted with their voters. The likes of Ha'aretz, Yediot Ahronot and Channel Two convinced these Likud politicians to join forces with breakaways from the Labor party, who also held their voters in contempt.
As Barak's rise to power in 1999 makes clear, the media's bid to demonize the Right and undermine Israel's alliance with the US in the hopes of restoring the Left to power is nothing new. But this week, a leading media siren was kind enough to expose the media's entire strategy for disenfranchising the public. Ha'aretz's veteran columnist Akiva Eldar performed this service in a pair of articles published Tuesday in theGuardian and Ha'aretz.
Eldar's main message to Erekat was that he should keep his plans to himself. Certainly he shouldn't be blabbing about them in a place the Israeli public was liable to see them. It could wreck the media's entire plan to discredit the government.
Eldar and Strenger scolded, "Erekat''s article is disappointing. He is not just a private citizen, but the Palestinian Authority's chief negotiator, and he knows Israel and its internal dynamics very well. He knows that raising the right of return at this moment plays into the hands of Israel's right wing: they will be able to say: 'We always told you so: the two-state solution is just a Palestinian plot to incorporate the Jewish state into the Greater State of Palestine.'"
But then again, as Eldar showed in his article in Ha'aretz, Erekat doesn't really have anything to worry about. Eldar and his comrades will keep the Israeli public in the dark about Erekat's determination to destroy Israel.
Ignoring completely what Erekat wrote, Eldar's column in Ha'aretz started where Friedman's ended. He placed all the blame for the absence of a peace process on Netanyahu's shoulders. He accused Netanyahu of destroying Israel's alliance with the US by not embracing Obama's latest request to abrogate Jewish property rights in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. He then claimed that due to Netanyahu's behavior, the Obama administration has decided to follow in the Clinton administration's footsteps and overthrow his government.
As Eldar put it, "When Clinton recently invited Kadima leader Tzipi Livni to a private meeting, this signified an unofficial announcement that Netanyahu's account in Washington has been closed."
He continued, "Twelve years ago, when Hillary Clinton's husband realized that... [Netanyahu] had no intention of honoring his signature (on the Wye River Accord with Yasser Arafat), that was Netanyahu's last stop before being sent back to his villa in Caesarea."
So this is the game. The media and the US administration are again colluding with the Israeli Left's political leadership to overthrow the Netanyahu government. They are willfully ignoring both the will of Israel's voters and the declared commitment of their favorite "moderate" Palestinians to fight Israel until it is destroyed in order to blame the absence of peace on Netanyahu.
THIS GAME can stop. But two things must happen first.
The Obama administration and the US foreign policy establishment that supports it must pay a price for seeking to undermine the elected government of the US's most important strategic ally in the region. And Israeli voters - who gave Kadima more mandates in the Knesset than any other party in the last elections - must abandon Livni and her Astroturf party.
Until these things begin to happen we can expect our media to continue to collude with their American partners, and with Livni and Barak to undermine the will of the public.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.
We also follow the geographical confusion of our two favorite suicide bombers - Jamil and Awad, present the soft underbelly of The State of Tel Aviv's support for cultural independence for Israel's Arab minority, and Flock Builder, our senior media muckraker has a nightmare.
I hope you enjoy this action packed show.
Latma is funded through contributions to the Center for Security Policy in Washington. If you would like to support our efforts, you can contribute by clicking here. It takes you to the online contribution page to the Center for Security Policy through Network for Good. To earmark your donation to Latma, please write "Latma" in the box marked "designation."
Unfortunately, for now, we can only accept donations from donors in the US. We are currently establishing an Israeli non-profit through which we will be able to accept donations from other countries. Watch this space for updates.
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