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The seizure of mosques and a skyscraper yesterday was ostensibly because the rental income from the skyscraper was being sent to a bank in Iran which is allegedly used by the Iranian government to fund its covert (and denied) nuclear program. This is illegal by federal law, but it's interesting to see a double standard at work with respect to other US companies that run afoul of that law:

(19 July 2004) The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has been investigating Halliburton since 2001 to determine whether it violated the ban on U.S. companies doing business with Iran. The OFAC referred the case to the Justice Department in early July 2004, prompting the subpoena from the Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas. The subpoena requests Halliburton provide company documents pertaining to its business relationship with Iran.

Although federal law prohibits U.S. companies from trading with Iran, it does not forbid foreign subsidiaries from such business ties. Halliburton's Cayman Islands subsidiary sold $63 million worth of oil products to Iran in 2003. Earlier this year, the U.S. Senate tried to pass legislation prohibiting foreign subsidiaries of U.S. firms from trading with Iran, but the legislation was defeated, mostly along party lines.

As far as I recall, none of Haliburton's assets were seized by the Bush Administration back then.

I'm arguing here that we need more information to justify these actions. They may well be justified, but we must have transparency here or Obama's relationship with the muslim American community just died.

This is a bizarre development indeed:

Federal prosecutors Thursday took steps to seize four U.S. mosques and a Fifth Avenue skyscraper owned by a nonprofit Muslim organization long suspected of being secretly controlled by the Iranian government.

In what could prove to be one of the biggest counterterrorism seizures in U.S. history, prosecutors filed a civil complaint in federal court seeking the forfeiture of more than $500 million in assets of the Alavi Foundation and an alleged front company.

The assets include Islamic centers in New York City, Maryland, California and Houston, more than 100 acres in Virginia, and a 36-story office tower in New York.

(...)

Prosecutors said the Alavi Foundation, through a front company known as Assa Corp., illegally funneled millions in rental income back to Iran's state-owned Bank Melli. Bank Melli has been accused by a U.S. Treasury official of providing support for Iran's nuclear program, and it is illegal in the United States to do business with the bank.
Government officials have long suspected the foundation was an arm of the Iranian government; a 97-page complaint details involvement of several top officials in foundation business, including the country's deputy prime minister and ambassadors to the United Nations.

''For two decades, the Alavi Foundation's affairs have been directed by various Iranian officials, including Iranian ambassadors to the United Nations, in violation of a series of American laws,'' U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.

The problem I have with this is the conflation of Iran's nuclear program with "terrorism". In what sense is this a counter-terror action? As the article points out, these properties are in active use by the Shi'a muslim community, so regardless of where the ultimate money flows, these aren't pure terrorist front operations but genuine community resources. The basic argument here is that the skyscraper generates rental income, and some of that money goes to Iran. But most of it stays right here in the US:

The sleek, modern building, last valued at $570 million to $650 million in 2007, has served as an important source of income for the foundation over the past 36 years. The most recent tax records show the foundation earned $4.5 million from rents in 2007.

Rents collected from the building help fund the centers and other ventures, such as sending educational literature to imprisoned Muslims in the U.S. The foundation has also invested in dozens of mosques around the country and supported Iranian academics at prominent universities.

If federal prosecutors seize the skyscraper, the Alavi Foundation would have almost no way to continue supporting the Islamic centers, which house schools and mosques. That could leave a major void in Shiite communities, and hard feelings toward the FBI.

The Obama Administration better have an airtight case here to justify this. I'm reserving judgement for now but this opens up a huge pile of questions and issues. Naturally, if these weren't Iranians but say, an Israeli company taking the income to fund settlements in teh West Bank, the Odministration would not have dared.

Thin ice, Mr. President. At the very least, you just erased the Cairo speech from the pages of history. It better be worth it. We're watching.

Today is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. Today will see many hagiographic pieces about Reagan from the right, but there's real value in learning about the complex historical context, and not enough credit I think given to Gorbachev. For great reading on this momentous day's history, see this excellent piece (and photo gallery) at NPR's Morning Edition, and this introspective piece at the New York Times which really explores how the event serves as a blank slate.

Rather than engage in historical revisionism and the "credit" game, however, I am more intrigued by the lessons we can apply from the fall of the Wall going forward. I think that it teaches us that a people can not be severed by false boundaries, and that containing a group of people inside a giant fortress to restrict them as much from dangerous ideas as from physical movement is a fool's errand; ultimately, the more you constrain the human spirit, the higher the pressure builds for it to explode outwards.

The lessons apply quite well to the middle east, where walls and checkpoints enervate the West Bank and utterly isolate the Gaza Strip. The situation there is impossible to sustain indefinitely, but may persist for decades yet before ultimately boiling over. There's great cause for cynicism, especially if you value the idea of Israel as a Jewish homeland (and count me among the ranks of those who do believe Israel's existence is necessary). As I've argued before, Israel faces a dilemma (essentially, Democracy, Jewishness, and Greater Israel - pick two), but the walls which Israel has created to contain the Palestinians (both their physical mass as well as their own, equally legitimate aspirations towards statehood) are rapidly constraining Israel as well. Ultimately, Israel won't have the luxury of a choice, as the window for a two-state solution closes inexorably. The walls around (and within) Palestine may ultimately doom the idea of a Jewish homeland.

Until now, US policy towards Israeli settlements has been impotent. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas may well resign, leaving Israel without a partner for peace. If there is no meaningful progress, the frustration and disappointment may well boil over into a third intifada, which would be a disaster for everyone on both sides of the Green Line. It's time for President Obama to follow in Reagan's footsteps, and demand that these walls, too, fall.

Related reading - executive summary of the United Nations' Goldstone Report (PDF) and also this excellent lengthy article in the New Yorker about the Gaza war and the abduction of Gilad Shalit.

The Katie Couric interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was a classic example of how he changes the subject away from his own controversial statements. I don't think Ahmadinejad is a particularly evil man, just a typically corrupt and cynical politician who cultivates domestic support by inflaming populist sentiments among the conservative and uninformed populace, while abusing the powers of his office to deny that same populace their rights so as to maintain his grip on power. Meanwhile, he plays a different card in the foreign arena, to allow his sponsors (like Russia) plausible deniability. This is why he was never going to explicitly deny the Holocaust in his interview with Couric, but instead used the opportunity to ask what sounds like a reasonable question about focus. From the interview, here's his reply:

Ahmadinejad: [In] World War II, 60 million people were killed. Why are we just focusing on this special group alone?

We're sorry for all the 60 million people that lost their lives, equally. All of them were human beings. And it doesn't matter whether they were Christians or Jews or Buddhists or Muslims. They were killed. So, we're sorry for everyone.

Hey that sounds pretty reasonable, right? 60 million died, why are we focusing so much on just one-tenth of that number? The implication he is making, which is pure gravy to his uneducated populist base, is that the Jews are whiners who demand special treatment and recognition. But there's something very special about that 6 million indeed which he (knowingly) omits - the manner and intent of those deaths.

I am not minimizing the scale of death in WWII - one life is one life. In the conflict, around 15 million Russian civilians died, and add another 15 million dead Chinese on top of that. Up to 3 million German civilians were killed as well. Both sides, Allies and Axis, aimed their military machines at civilian populations, and what the ruthless mechanical slaughter started, war crimes committed by soldiers on the ground finished. It was the sheer scale of death - a crime against humanity inflicted upon itself, and a stain that will always taint the valor and heroism of those who served as a whole - which directly led to the enactment of the Geneva Conventions and (more importantly) the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

But all of this was war. That doesn't absolve it, but it does provide the causative context. In a real war, civilians die. What sets the Holocaust apart is that it wasn't war at all, but genocide. The 6 million Jews who died were not caught in the crossfire or bombed for strategic reasons. They weremarched into gas chanbers and executed like cattle, or roaches. In war, collateral damage deaths are counted with the full recognition by both soides, aggressor and victim alike, that the victims are human beings. It is that recognition of their humanity that lends them value as a target. There is, in the twisted logic of war, an honor being done to the victims of war. The Jews weren't afforded that honor, however - they were not killed in the context of war, but murdered.

6 million murders. All of one race, one group, one people. The intent was not strategic or tactical, but hatred. We have a word for this: evil. That's what sets the Holocaust apart from the rest.

As I've argued before, the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will entail only two of Democracy, Greater Israel, and Jewishness. In terms of the settlements policy, it seems that Israel has essentially picked the first two. President Obama's insistence that Israel freeze all settlements is in fact Israel's only chance to preserve its identity as a majority Jewish state. However, Prime Minister Netanyahu is still playing to his far-right base, vowing that the settlements will go on:

Israel's defense minister, Ehud Barak, authorized plans for 455 new housing units in Jewish settlements in the West Bank on Monday, in a move aimed at placating Israel's pro-settlement camp ahead of an expected construction freeze demanded by the Arab world and the United States.

(...) About 2,500 housing units are already under construction in the West Bank settlements. Israeli officials say they will be completed, regardless of any moratorium. They also say a moratorium will not apply to Jerusalem. The Palestinians claim the eastern part of the city as the capital of a future state.

It's clear that even a "freeze" will not be a true cessation of settlement buliding. The settlements are literally a colonial enterprise, with the aim of creating "facts on the ground" that compel the creation of Greater Israel. But the Palestinians will remain, and in the absence of a viable state of their own, are increasigly inclined to simply accept the reality of Greater Israel themselves:

After visiting the Middle East, [former US President] Carter said in an opinion article of The Washington Post newspaper the outcome was "more likely" than independent Israeli and Palestinian states being formed.

He said that one state was "obviously the goal of Israeli leaders who insist on colonising the West Bank and East Jerusalem".

However, he added: "A majority of the Palestinian leaders with whom we met are seriously considering acceptance of one state, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

'Nonviolent struggle'

"By renouncing the dream of an independent Palestine, they would become fellow citizens with their Jewish neighbours and then demand equal rights within a democracy.

"In this nonviolent civil rights struggle, their examples would be Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Junior and Nelson Mandela."

Carter, who commented that a two-state solution was "clearly preferable", said that Palestinian leaders had also considered the current demographics of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

"Non-Jews are already a slight majority of total citizens in this area, and within a few years Arabs will constitute a clear majority," he said.

Greater Israel cannot be Jewish, unless it completely renounces Democracy as well. The two-state solution is the only way that Israel can survive as an avowedly Jewish nation, but the settlements are a cancer that paradoxically eat away at the dream of a Jewish homeland even as they grow the physica boundaries of the state.