Barry Rubin sounds an upbeat note This week the European Union is offering Israel upgraded relations in 60 different areas, removing all obstacles against Israel having full access to European government-controlled markets and cooperation with nine EU agencies, including Europol and the European Space Agency. But let’s look deeper, specifically at the situation immediately on Israel’s borders, to see if things are as bad as they might seem. Lebanon: Neighboring Lebanon is governed by Hizballah and various clients of Syria and Iran. That’s not good. Yet let’s remember that Hizballah and its allies are now trembling over what might be the impending fall of their Syrian backer. How will they fare without the Damascus dictator behind them? A Sunni Muslim dominated Syrian regime might hate Israel but it will not love or help those who aided the government that was murdering them.And the Lebanese government has another problem. It wants to consolidate control over Lebanon and rule the country. [SEE ALSO Danon: PA’s UN Bid Means Israeli Sovereignty Bid] The carrots include a release of prisoners and support to help the Palestinians exploit the gas fields off Gaza, an official in the Prime Minister’s Office said Sunday. PA chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said he was unaware of any such offer. Support for the anti-Assad rebellion has been complicated by Syria’s Kurds moving to establish autonomy, raising Ankara’s fears about implications for Turkey’s domestic Kurdish challenge By PELIN TURGUT / ISTANBUL, TIME/WORLD For many years, the Kurdish tragedy was poignantly illustrated by the gifts and sweets stuffed through gaps in a barbed-wire fence, the babies held high and the news shared across the closed Syria-Turkey border. Every religious holiday saw thousands of people dressed in their finest line the border at dawn just to see their relatives on the other side of a boundary arbitrarily drawn by Britain and France after World War I. The nation states invented by the war’s victorious Western powers left the Kurds divided between Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, each of which sought to deny and suppress Kurdish identity. Hurriyet Daily News, a major Turkish newspaper, reported on July 31, 2012 that a “senior US official visiting Turkey says Washington does not anticipate an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria and they favor the protection of Syria’s territorial integrity.” The official, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Philip Gordon on a visit to Istanbul, stated that they (the U.S.) did not anticipate an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria’s future, adding that they favored the protection of Syria’s territorial integrity and explained it to Turkey in a clear way. Gordon added, “Syria has a huge priority for both of us (U.S. and Turkey). We are coordinating very well on the question of Syria. I think we have very similar interests.” That same day, Reuters reported on a telephone conversation President Obama initiated with his friend and designated sub-contractor in dealing with the Syrian crisis, Turkish Prime Minister (PM) Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In the talks, they discussed co-ordination of efforts to accelerate the process of political transition in Syria, including Bashar al-Assad leaving the administration, and the meeting of the Syrian people’s legitimate demands. Adar Cohen, current superintendent of civics education in the Education Ministry was dismissed from his post. Israel Hayom itemizes some items from the book he approved By Ted Belman Alan Dershowitz explains How Liberal Democrats who Support Israel Might Think about the Election by explaining his own views.
Is Israel isolated?
(Read more…)Israel offering incentives to the PA to drop the unilateral statehood gambit
(Read more…)How the Kurds Have Changed Turkey’s Calculations on Syria
(Read more…)The Obama-Erdogan Alliance
(Read more…)Post Zionism rejected from Civics course curriculum
Yisrael Hayom quoted passages from the textbook approved by Cohen that reflect the alleged “post-Zionist” approach. In one passage, the book says that there is a contradiction between Israel’s definition as a Jewish state and its obligation to give equal rights to all of its citizens. The book also says that “The establishment of Israel in 1948 turned the Arabs in the territory of Palestine-Israel from a majority into a minority.”
(Read more…)Dershowitz explains his support for Obama
I have also disagreed with presidents, both Republican and Democrat, who have suggested that Israel’s settlement policy is the major barrier to peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The major barrier has always been, and remains, the Palestinians’ unwillingness to recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people, to renounce their absurd claim to a so-called “right of return,” and to accept reasonable offers from Israel regarding the borders of the West Bank.Though I have long been opposed to Israel’s settlement policy on humanitarian and democratic grounds, I insist that the continuing occupation is largely the result of Palestinian refusal to accept the reasonable compromises offered by Prime Ministers Barak and Olmert.
(Read more…)
Ted Belman
Jerusalem, Israel
Tuesday, 7 August 2012
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