podesta_email_01121.txt

podesta-emails 3,295 words email

P17 P22 V11 V16 P19

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Israel and the Middle East News Update ------------------------------------------------------------ ** Tuesday, July 29 ------------------------------------------------------------ Headlines: * Hamas Denies Agreeing to 72-Hour Cease-Fire * Israel Strikes House of Hamas Gaza Leader, Digs in for Long Fight * Netanyahu: Demilitarization Must Be Part of the Solution * US Fuming Over Israeli Criticism of Kerry * US Lawmakers Back Israel Amid Gaza Fighting * Bennett: Destruction of Tunnels Not Enough, Hamas Must Be Defeated * MK Zoabi Banned from Knesset for Six Months * Turkish PM Erdogan Returning Jewish American Award Commentary: * Washington Post: “John Kerry’s Big Blunder in Seeking an Israel-Gaza Cease-Fire" - By David Ignatius * Times of Israel: “PM Wants Gaza Demilitarized, and the World Agrees — But How?” - By Raphael Ahren ** Jerusalem Post ------------------------------------------------------------ ** Hamas Denies Agreeing to 72-Hour Cease-Fire (http://www.jpost.com/Operation-Protective-Edge/PLO-official-Palestinians-prepared-to-announce-72-hour-cease-fire-369290) ------------------------------------------------------------ PLO official Yasser Abd Rabbo on Tuesday said all Palestinian factions were prepared to announce a unilateral 72-hour cease-fire in fighting between Israeli and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. According to Rabbo, the announcement was made with the consent of Hamas. Speaking at a press conference in Ramallah, Rabbo said the initiative for a three-day halt in fighting was based on a proposal by the UN's special envoy to the Middle East, Robert Serry. However, Hamas spokespersons have denied these reports and said they do not agree with this announcement and that a cease-fire cannot exist when Israeli forces are inside Gaza. ** Reuters ------------------------------------------------------------ ** Israel Strikes House of Hamas Gaza Leader, Digs in for Long Fight ------------------------------------------------------------ Israel knocked out Gaza's only power plant, flattened the home of its Islamist Hamas political leader and pounded dozens of other high-profile targets in the enclave on Tuesday, with no end in sight to more than three weeks of conflict. Health officials said at least 30 Palestinians were killed in some of heaviest bombardments from air, sea and land since the Israeli offensive began in response to Hamas rocket fire. The Israeli assault intensified following the deaths of 10 Israeli soldiers in cross-border attacks on Monday, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning of a long conflict ahead. See also, "Five IDF soldiers killed in Gaza as army death toll rises to 48" (Jerusalem Post) (http://www.jpost.com/Operation-Protective-Edge/Five-IDF-soldiers-killed-in-Gaza-as-army-death-toll-rises-to-48-369203) ** Ynet News ------------------------------------------------------------ ** Netanyahu: Demilitarization Must Be Part of The Solution (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4551383,00.html) ------------------------------------------------------------ Netanyahu was joined by Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon and IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz for a press conference in the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv. "We won't end the operation without neutralizing the tunnels, which were built for the purpose of destroying our citizens and killing our children," the prime minister said. "This is the first step in demilitarizing the Gaza Strip. It has to be a part of any solution, and the international community must demand that," he added. "There is no war most just than this. We knew we were going to have hard days. Today is one of those difficult and painful days," Netanyahu said, adding that "We must have patience and determination in our struggle against a murderous terror organization that seeks to annihilate us." See also, "Tunnels lead right to the heart of Israeli fear" (New York Times) (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/29/world/middleeast/tunnels-lead-right-to-heart-of-israeli-fear.html) ** Associated Press ------------------------------------------------------------ ** US Fuming Over Israeli Criticism of Kerry (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4551431,00.html) ------------------------------------------------------------ The Obama administration pushed back strongly Monday at a torrent of Israeli criticism over Secretary of State John Kerry's latest bid to secure a cease-fire with Hamas, accusing some in Israel of launching a "misinformation campaign" against the top American diplomat. "It's simply not the way partners and allies treat each other," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. Her comments were echoed by the White House, where officials said they were disappointed by Israeli reports that cast Kerry's efforts to negotiate a cease-fire as more favorable to Hamas. ** Associated Press ------------------------------------------------------------ ** US Lawmakers Back Israel Amid Gaza Fighting (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4551595,00.html) ------------------------------------------------------------ Members of Congress are falling over one another to show their support for Israel. While much of the rest of the world watches the Gaza war in horror and scrambles for a cease-fire, U.S. lawmakers are pressing the Obama administration to take no action that puts pressure on Israel to halt its military operations. Many even have criticized the administration's effort to stop the violence that has killed more than 1,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and more than 50 IDF soldiers and three civilians this month. "At times like this, people try to isolate Israel," House Speaker John Boehner said Monday. "We are here to stand with Israel, not just as a broker or observer but as a strong partner and a trusted ally. ** Ha'aretz ------------------------------------------------------------ ** Bennett: Destruction of Tunnels Not Enough, Hamas Must Be Defeated (http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.607836) ------------------------------------------------------------ Economy Minister Naftali Bennett lashed out at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday over the latter's stated policy regarding the goals of the war in Gaza. In a statement to the press, Bennett publicly countered Netanyahu's declarations of demolishing Hamas' terror tunnels as the primary goal of the operation – saying that it was the "defeat of Hamas" that Israel should consider as the ultimate target of the war. Bennett nevertheless said that he did not support a full reoccupation of the Gaza Strip. Israel must operate in order to "forcefully root out Hamas' faith in its ability to win." ** Jerusalem Post ------------------------------------------------------------ ** MK Zoabi Banned from Knesset for Six Months (http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Zoabi-banned-from-Knesset-for-six-months-369288) ------------------------------------------------------------ MK Haneen Zoabi (Balad) will be banned from all parliamentary activity except voting for the next six months, following a Knesset Ethics Committee ruling Tuesday on complaints by Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein and other lawmakers. Zoabi's punishment will take effect on Wednesday, the last day of voting before the Knesset goes on recess until October, at which point she will not be able to make speeches, submit parliamentary questions or initiate debates in committees or the plenary. ** Ynet News ------------------------------------------------------------ ** Turkish PM Erdogan Returning Jewish American Award (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4551831,00.html) ------------------------------------------------------------ Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is returning an award given to him by a Jewish American group in 2004, after the group asked for it back because of comments he made regarding the conflict in Gaza. Turkey's US ambassador wrote to Jack Rosen, president of the American Jewish Congress, on Erdogan's behalf saying that because of Israel's actions in Gaza and "the regrettable stance" of the American Jewish Congress, Erdogan "will be glad to return the award." The letter, dated July 27, was made available Tuesday. Last week, Rosen described Erdogan as "arguably the most virulent anti-Israel leader in the world." He said Erdogan was given the Profile of Courage award for working for a peaceful solution in the Middle East his commitment to protecting Turkey's Jewish citizens. ** Washington Post – July 28, 2014 ------------------------------------------------------------ ** John Kerry’s Big Blunder in Seeking an Israel-Gaza Cease-Fire ------------------------------------------------------------ By David Ignatius 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 authority 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 fulfill 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’s 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 rather 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’s 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 the claim of Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, 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. Kerry’s initial plan was to support Egypt’s demand that Hamas accept a cease-fire. When Hamas balked at surrender and it was clear that Egypt lacked the clout to make the deal stick, Kerry turned to Turkey and Qatar, which as friends and financial backers of Hamas had more leverage. That put the deal first and a stable solution to Gaza’s problems second. The deal blew up anyway, victim of Israeli and Palestinian inability to get to yes. By turning to Turkey and Qatar, Kerry also enhanced their position in the regional power game. That’s contrary to the interests and desires of the United States’ traditional allies, such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the moderate Palestinian camp headed by Abbas. If Kerry has been shortsighted about seeking a path toward a more stable Gaza, so has Netanyahu’s government. The Israeli prime minister denounced the Palestinian unity agreement forged by Abbas last spring, even though it opened the way for an alternative non-Hamas government. More important, Netanyahu consistently has failed to give Palestinian moderates the concessions that might enhance their power in both the West Bank and Gaza. When Palestinians heard Netanyahu say recently that Israel must maintain military control of the West Bank for decades, they ask: What’s the point of negotiating a two-state solution? Does Netanyahu really want a months-long, house-to-house military campaign in Gaza that could push Israeli casualties above a thousand and effectively mean re-occupation of the territory? If not, he had better figure out a way to empower Palestinian moderates who, with international help, can build something different in Gaza. Whether Kerry gets a permanent cease-fire or not, the same basic issue will haunt Gaza going forward, which is how to establish the Palestinian Authority as a responsible government that actually controls the territory. Israelis fear that the authority might operate on the Lebanese model — with Hamas maintaining a deadly militia, just as Hezbollah does in Beirut. That’s the right long-term question to be negotiating — and it’s where Kerry should be spending U.S. diplomatic capital, rather than in another pursuit of the interim deal. ** Times of Israel – July 29, 2014 ------------------------------------------------------------ ** PM Wants Gaza Demilitarized, and the World Agrees — But How? (http://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-wants-gaza-demilitarized-and-the-world-agrees-but-how/) ------------------------------------------------------------ By Raphael Ahren In the early days of Operation Protective Edge, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defined the campaign’s objective as “the restoration of quiet to Israel’s citizens while inflicting a severe blow to terrorist infrastructure in Gaza.” He deliberately formulated his goals vaguely to be able to declare victory and stop the operation at any given moment. But since the start of the ground operation, as the extent of the terror tunnels became apparent and more and more Israeli soldiers were being killed, he has modified his goal in a way that makes it much harder for Israel to actually meet the operation’s evolved objective: the demilitarization of Gaza. Aware of the anticipated international backlash, and guided by his cautious and unadventurous nature, Netanyahu does not seek to reoccupy the strip or topple Hamas. It is hard, therefore, to see how Israel can succeed in the new goal. For how else, short of ousting Hamas, do you go about demilitarizing a highly militarized territory ruled by a ruthless, well-entrenched, Iranian-backed terrorist organization whose very raison d’etre is armed struggle to destroy the Jewish state? Netanyahu spoke explicitly about the goal of partial demilitarization for the first time on July 15. “We agreed to the Egyptian [ceasefire] proposal in order to give an opportunity for the demilitarization of the [Gaza] Strip — from missiles, from rockets and from tunnels — through diplomatic means,” he said in a statement. Addressing the Israeli public on Monday evening, July 28, he reiterated his call: “The process of preventing the arming of the terrorist organization and demilitarizing the Gaza Strip must be part of any solution,” he said. Earlier during the day, in a phone conversation with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Netanyahu mentioned that Israel’s security needs include Gaza’s demilitarization — “according to the principle laid down in the interim agreements with the Palestinians.” Netanyahu was referring to “Oslo II,” the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Article XIV states that except for the arms of the Palestinian police and those of the Israel Defense Forces, “no organization, group or individual in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip shall manufacture, sell, acquire, possess, import or otherwise introduce into the West Bank or the Gaza Strip any firearms, ammunition, weapons, explosives, gunpowder or any related equipment.” Over the last week, Netanyahu has repeated his call for the demilitarization of Gaza in interviews and meetings with world leaders. He has had some success: the international community has generally endorsed his demand. Canadian Ambassador to the UN Guillermo Rishchynski, for instance, on Thursday called for the complete “disarmament of Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups operating in Gaza, including the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.” The Palestinian Authority must follow through on its commitment to remove “existing stockpiles of thousands of largely Iranian-supplied missiles nestled and shielded amidst the homes, grocers and schools of Palestinians,” Rishchynski told the UN Security Council. “It means that Hamas fighters put down their arms and embrace the peace process.” A laudable goal, but not very realistic. Even US Secretary of State John Kerry, after being harshly criticized by Israelis for his recent efforts to broker a ceasefire, on Monday declared that demilitarizing Hamas needs to be part of any framework that ends the current conflict. “We also believe that any process to resolve the crisis in Gaza in a lasting and meaningful way must lead to the disarmament of Hamas and all terrorist groups. And we will work closely with Israel and regional partners and the international community in support of this goal,” he said in Washington. Kerry’s statement signaled a significant concession to Jerusalem. The ceasefire proposal — or draft, as the State Department later described it — that he submitted to the Israeli cabinet on Friday did not even hint at demilitarizing Hamas. Kerry’s boss — President Barack Obama – had not gone as far as calling for Hamas to be stripped of its weapons in the framework of a solution to the current crisis. On Sunday, in a phone call to Netanyahu during which he called for an immediate and unconditional humanitarian ceasefire, Obama merely said that, “ultimately, any lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must ensure the disarmament of terrorist groups and the demilitarization of Gaza.” Now that everyone (bar Hamas and Islamic Jihad) agrees that Gaza needs to be demilitarized, the question is how? Netanyahu seems thoroughly disinclined to choose the military route. Too many Israeli soldiers have already died in Gaza, and to “finish the job” would cost many more lives. Israel will not end Operation Protective Edge “without neutralizing the tunnels,” he said Monday. Demilitarizing Gaza “must be part of any solution,” he asserted, but hinted that this was the world’s duty more than Israel’s. “The international community needs to demand this explicitly.” The prime minister repeatedly alluded to diplomatic efforts to demilitarize Gaza, but so far has failed to explain how exactly this might work. There is no diplomatic mechanism that would convince Hamas and Islamic Jihad to simply “put down their arms and embrace the peace process,” as the Canadian ambassador to the UN desired. MK Shaul Mofaz, a former defense minister, actually proposed an interesting approach. In a working paper published earlier this month, he argues that just as Syria was forced to give up its arsenal of chemical weapons, so should the international community impel Hamas into giving up its arms. The plan calls for a $50 billion investment in Gaza in return for Hamas’s compliance and seeks to involve a host of regional and global leaders. In the paper, entitled “The Demilitarization of the Gaza Strip: The Proper Endpoint for Israel of Operation Protective Edge,” Mofaz, also an ex-IDF chief of staff, writes that months of diplomatic legwork would be required to rally the likes of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the US to the framework of the deal. PA President Mahmoud Abbas, he wrote, would likely “want to lend a hand to this sort of move and he should be involved in the process.” Mofaz has presented his plan to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and Netanyahu’s National Security Adviser Yossi Cohen. But so far neither the prime minister nor any other leader has publicly adopted the plan. But nor have they offered any other concrete proposal for how the demilitarization of Gaza could be achieved in the near future. Trying to take away Hamas’s massive arsenal of guns and drones, Kassam, Grad, Fajr-3, Fajr-5, M-75 and M302 rockets, is not going to be a walk in the park, whether you choose the military or the diplomatic approach. “We say for the millionth time,” Hamas official Izzat Al-Rishq warned Monday, responding to Obama’s call for the demilitarization of Gaza, “those who try to take our weapons, we will take their life.” ============================================================ S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace 633 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, 5th Floor, Washington, DC 20004 ** www.centerpeace.org (http://www.centerpeace.org) 2014 S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, All rights reserved. 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