Recently in Middle East Category

The chatter about Obama and the Jews is likely to increase as the nomination fights heads into the final weeks. Josh Marshall reviews a number of the charges here (with more in his piece.) Here's one:

If things continue on their current trajectory and Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee we should get used to much more of the still largely subterranean effort to scare Jews and broader portions of the electorate into believing that Obama is anti-Israel. The truth is that there's little apparent difference between Obama's position and Hillary's or, for that matter, anyone else in the mainstream of the Democratic party or most of the non-Taliban wing of Republican party. Here's a relatively mild example of the effort -- a story in the New York Sun about how Obama supporter Zbigniew Brzezinski (the article calls him an 'advisor' -- he's probably something between a supporter and advisor) is leading a delegation to Syria sponsored by the highly controversial left-wing Rand Corporation.

The Forward explores why Jews split their vote on Super Tuesday.

But more interesting to me has been the backlash in the Jewish community to the anti-Israel fearmongering that often surrounds the Jewish vote. My email box recently filled with two examples. This from a 43-year-old rabbi in Atlanta.

This week, I became aware of a something very disturbing. Senator Barack Obama has been characterized as a closet Muslim parading as a member of a Christian Church opposed to the State of Israel. It is part of a pattern of vicious lies circulated on the Internet. This slanderous attack has been reported in a number of Jewish news publications. In the name of honesty and justice, I am sharing this Open Letter to the Jewish Community so that you will not be fooled or deceived by thses horrific tactics. We Jews, as much as any group, understand how injurious a vicious lie can be.

Another from the head of United Jewish Committee.

As leaders of the Jewish community, none of whose organizations will endorse or oppose any candidate for President, we feel compelled to speak out against certain rhetoric and tactics in the current campaign that we find particularly abhorrent. Of particular concern, over the past several weeks, many in our community have received hateful emails that use falsehood and innuendo to mischaracterize Senator Barack Obama's religious beliefs and who he is as a person.

These tactics attempt to drive a wedge between our community and a presidential candidate based on despicable and false attacks and innuendo based on religion. We reject these efforts to manipulate members of our community into supporting or opposing candidates.

Attempts of this sort to mislead and inflame voters should not be part of our political discourse and should be rebuffed by all who believe in our democracy. Jewish voters, like all voters, should support whichever candidate they believe would make the best president. We urge everyone to make that decision based on the factual records of these candidates, and nothing less.

These notes may be dismissed as coming from Obama supporters, though neither letter writer identifies himself as such. I've certainly heard grumblings about Obama from inside the Jewish community in the last year. But I'm hopeful that this backlash against the Muslim rumors and chatter about Obama's pastor's pro-Palestinian stance is another sign that the Jewish community can have a civilized conversation about a candidate's positions in the Middle East without succumbing to outmoded kneejack reactions.

I'm pleased to report that many PBS stations will be begin to air all three hours of WALKING THE BIBLE with BRUCE FEILER this week. Check local listings. There's little uniformity on PBS stations, but I know that the show will air in New York and Seattle on Thursday nights at 8; in Boston on Friday nights at 10; in San Francisco this Thursday from 8 - 11; in Washington Christmas Eve from 9 to midnight. Many stations will air only on their HD channels.

Here is a compendium of previews that someone uploaded onto YouTube. If it's not being broadcast in your community, you can purchase the DVD at PBS or Amazon.com.

The American press, predictably, is portraying the summit in Annapolis in strictly Bush v. Clinton terms. Clinton got engaged and failed, Bush is not getting engaged... and will also fail. It's doomed to failure without outside pressure. I'm not sure I agree with this.

The Israeli press, equally predictably, is viewing it differently, and it's important that we understand what they're saying. And that is: Bush is a groupie of Israel and, with the possibly exception of Giuliani, that is not likely to be the case next time, so better do something now in favorable terms or face a harsh reality in 2009 or beyond. There are problems with this point of view, too (if peace today is so favorable to Israel the Palestinians will balk) but I think it's a smarter way to view the event. Here's Yoel Marcus in Haaretz:

Bush's road map has tangled up everything in a knot with its sequential demands: Before commencing permanent status talks, the Palestinians are supposed to halt terror and dismantle the terror organizations, and Israel is supposed to evacuate outposts in the territories. These demands have set the proverbial dog running in circles, chasing its own tail. Sly foxes like Sharon and Olmert have embraced the road map on the supposition that the Palestinians are not capable of ending terror.

Condoleezza Rice is the one who urged Bush to cut this Gordian knot with an international conference attended by the Quartet, the moderate Arab countries, and anyone supportive of peace in the Middle East. The conference thus created sponsorship for the two-states-for-two-peoples solution, a return to 1967 borders, and the creation of settlement blocs based on territorial exchange. Israel, which has always been traumatized by the idea of an imposed solution, received a promise from Bush that the Annapolis summit would only sponsor the talks, and not twist Israel's arm.

The summit in its current configuration, with Syria represented by a deputy minister (half coffee/half tea) has divided the world into good guys and bad guys, and isolated Iran and Hamas. For Bush, that is already a major accomplishment, says Americologist Zvi Rafiah.

As far as the talks themselves are concerned, it is still up to the Palestinians to prove that they're on the side of the good guys. The presence of the moderate Arab states is meant to back up Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. That is important not only for Abbas, but also for Israel.

We have never had a president like George W. Bush, and chances are we will never have another. If we reach an agreement, we are not only clinching a deal with Mahmoud Abbas, but with the whole of the moderate Arab world. On the other hand, Israel could find itself under pressure and sanctions from the whole of the international community if it fails to open up and engage in a serious discussion of core issues, as Olmert promised to do a few weeks ago.

It is doubtful that America's next president will be as friendly and supportive as Bush, who can be trusted not to pressure us on issues that compromise Israel's security and survival. So whatever can be achieved we must try to achieve now, while Bush is still at the helm. We are not going to be able to fool all of the people all of the time.

Bush showed his hypocrisy by criticizing Nancy Pelosi for talking to Syria ("aiding and abetting the enemy," "signalling to Syria they are part of the international community") then inviting Syria to U.S. NAVAL HEADQUARTERS, but having the moderate Arab states there was Condi's big coup. If there is peace, or even intermediate steps toward peace, the Arab world has pre-signed on to supporting it. The reason for that, of course, is that a weakened Iraq has strengthened Iran and its cronies Hezbollah and Hamas, and the Arab world fears all of them.

For better or worse, Annapolis was the first event of the post-war-in-Iraq-Middle East, which is one reason why the participants didn't exactly know how to act -- and another reason we have no choice but to give it a chance.

Just in time for Annapolis, a new coalition of liberal Jewish groups tries to reclaim grown long-since lost to the anti-peace crowd in Israel.

I was asked recently to wade into the debate over The Israel Lobby, the controversial book about the influence of the Christian- and Jewish- fueled Washington lobby the supports the State of Israel (and is also said to have fueled the war in Iraq and is said to be fueling the heavy-breathing around Iran). As part of my preparation, I read a wonderful article just out in the Chronicle of Higher Education that explores the motivations behind the book and what many critics have decried as its questionable scholarship. This is especially surprising, the piece suggests, considering that the two are giants in the world of "realist foreign policy," in which the exercise of power is considered an integral part of international affairs and a particular lobbying group not all that important. Here's how the article summarizes the book.

In essence, Mearsheimer and Walt argue that America's uncritical and uncompromising support of Israel is not in America's interests. It stimulates the spread of anti-American sentiment in the Muslim and Arab worlds and fuels terrorism. They charge the Israel lobby — a coalition of individuals and groups, some of them Jewish, some evangelical Christian — with playing a key role in pushing for the invasion of Iraq as well as driving a policy of confrontation with Syria and Iran.

But the most troublesome characteristic of the Israel lobby's influence, according to Mearsheimer and Walt, is the fact that its existence goes largely unremarked on in the American media. They claim that is the result of the lobby's successful efforts to stifle and marginalize serious discussion about Israel in America.

The two authors readily admit that the Israel Lobby is an exception to their previous theories of international relations. But that hasn't stopped critics. As a scholar at Stanford reports in the piece. "I am deeply puzzled that they have applied their considerable intellectual talents to such an execrable exercise."

So why do it? The Chronicle: "The theory enjoying the most credence holds that their crusading zeal against the Israel lobby is fueled by lingering resentment from the period leading up to the invasion of Iraq, when Mearsheimer and Walt were high-profile critics of the Bush administration's policy of militarized regime change."

Spend some time talking with Mearsheimer and Walt, and it immediately becomes apparent that they are animated by a rather exalted belief in the critical role scholars should play in a democratic society. They use phrases like "speak truth to power" without a hint of irony or self-consciousness. "The reason we have great universities and tenured professors at those universities is to allow those individuals to enter into the marketplace of ideas and engage powerful policy makers," says Mearsheimer. A few weeks later, he adds, "At the high end of the academic enterprise, you should be asking important questions and providing answers to those questions that challenge the conventional wisdom."

Newt Gingrich shut down the U.S. government in part because he was offended President Clinton asked him to get off the back of the plane. Great sins come from minor personal affronts. (The Chronicle relates the story of a NYT Oped by the authors before the Iraq war that went ignored.) Could being shuned by the Jewish Establishment be part of the motivation for The Israel Lobby?

As the discussion on Beliefnet the last week suggests, the Religious Right clearly seems to be a definitional moment in the United States. Part of it is the parade of sex scandals in recent months. Part of it is the...

While we're on the topic of the Holocaust, a group of Jews is reenacting the Exodus from France 60 years ago in one of the more embarrassing bungled attempts by the British to maintain harmony in Palestine. The episode was...

Dick Cheney's comments over the weekend that Iran would face "serious consequences" for its nuclear actions -- the same words he used in advance of the war in Iraq -- faced a quick smackdown from the new chairman of the...

I'm back from the Aegean and brief stops in Athens (my first), the islands of Hydra, Mykonos (above), and Rhodes, as well as Marmaris, Turkey. I was on board a yacht with around fifty real estate professionals and their...

A race for the gutter in Washington this week, as United States congressmen trip over themselves to stoke the flames of the religious wars. So a question: Who is a greater threat to America's security, AIPAC, which Democratic Congressman Jim...

The NYT jumps on genital mutiliation bandwagon, so to speak, with an article about how Egyptians are bonding together to fight so-called Female Genital Mutilation. This at the same time that a trial is underway in Washington State on the...

America is at war with itself over Iran, or at least the Administration is. Over the weekend, I saw multiple reports about infighting in the U.S. government between the bomb-them-now hardliners under Dick Cheney and the talk-to-them-and-wait moderates under Rice....

The question of how much the Internet will change the Middle East, or other dictatorships, has swirled in recent years. Egyptians authorities have clamped down on bloggers in a number of high-profile cases. But news seeks light, as Cairo is...

A sudden surge in talk about bombing Iran in coming weeks. My email box got a few hits this weekend from friends pointing to articles about the idea that the U.S. might bomb Iran in coming weeks. The talk seems...

I'm usually skeptical of any claims to have a "million man" march, or a "million moms," or any such magic number. But a friend of mine seems to have some momentum for a "million voices" to speak up in favor...

When I went to Iraq a few years ago for WHERE GOD WAS BORN, I drove from the Garden of Eden and Abraham's birthplace in the extreme south of the country to Nimrod and Nineveh in the extreme north. Now,...

Josh Marshall on the outing of a demented Foreign Service officer:It seems that 20-year career Foreign Service officer Patrick Syring wasn't cut out for bringing America's message of tolerance, peace and democracy to the Middle East. Last summer, while the...

The debate over Jimmy Carter's book may have been only the beginning. The war over the Israel Lobby is already underway in advance of a new book, and counter book, being published this September. I haven't read the books, so...

An alarming day. This article confirms what I've been hearing: That he's the odds on favorite to be Israel's next PM. Having lived in Israel during some of his last tenure, I find him troubling, morally questionable, and frighteningly doctrainaire....

A minor melee on Friday outside the popular Jaffa Gate (described here and here), the main entrance to the Old City, killed one and wounded ten more. I always say that Jerusalem is a living laboratory of coexistence. Just the...

Few people I know believe any more in the old "land for peace" formula for Middle East peace. There's simply no more trust among Israelis that the Palestinians could deliver that peace even if it were agreed to, or that...

I linked to this article yesterday and there was some confusion about what I wrote, so I'm starting from scratch. One joy of my two trips to Iran in recent years was plunging deep into the Jewish community. At 35,000,...

Our instructions were to show up at the Northwest Appointment Gate at 8:55 AM on Friday morning. My parents had flown up from Georgia; Mrs. Feiler Faster and I had made our way down from New York. My Dad had...

Where are the moderate Muslims? Everywhere, apparently. A new study by Pew shows that support for suicide bombings has been cut in half in many parts of the Muslim world. Most notably, the survey finds large and growing numbers of...