Dear President Lula, Again
I wrote to you in the spring, deeply concerned about President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's scheduled visit to Brasilia on May 6. Thankfully, that visit did not take place. Sadly, it is now slated to occur next month. Mr. President, please reconsider. You are a widely admired political leader. Brazil, under your guidance, has rapidly emerged on the world stage, to quote you, as a "first-rate citizen" of the international community. Why would you wish to confer your considerable prestige on Ahmadinejad, who craves it but surely does not deserve it? And why would Brazil, today a towering bastion of democratic values, seek closer ties with Iran, your polar opposite? Mr. President, you spoke passionately at the UN a few weeks ago about the kind of world you seek to build. You called for the preservation and expansion of human rights. Under the current regime, however, Iran has trampled on human rights - flagrantly, brutally, repeatedly. You expressed support for disarmament and non-proliferation. Under the current regime, however, Iran is rapidly arming and is violating binding UN Security Council resolutions and International Atomic Energy Agency guidelines on nuclear proliferation. You appealed for a confrontation with terrorism "without stigmatizing ethnic groups and religions." Under the current regime, however, Iran actively promotes and funds terrorism and has targeted specific ethnic groups and religions, including the Jewish community in your own backyard, South America. And you articulated a vision of a two-state solution, a Palestinian state living alongside Israel. Under the current regime, however, Iran seeks a world without Israel, pure and simple. In other words, Mr. President, not only does Iran not share your core views, it actively opposes them. Business as usual with Iran?
The decisive month has arrived. Or has it? G-8 leaders, meeting in July, declared September the time for reviewing Iran's nuclear status and making tough decisions. Key G-20, G-8, and P-5+1 (the permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany) meetings are being held in the coming weeks. By the way, the sixth anniversary of the failed EU-initiated talks with Iran also falls this month. That dialogue began when Iran was in a much weaker position. Having just witnessed the military might of the United States on display in neighboring Iraq, it had to wonder if it was to be the next target. By employing masterfully well-timed winks, feints and nods, the Iranians kept the Europeans engaged, while expanding the number of their centrifuges and moving ever closer to mastering the nuclear fuel cycle. Meanwhile, the US position in Iraq rapidly changed from towering strength to fear of a drawn-out conflict. In addition, this month also marks one year since the UN Security Council adopted its last resolution, a toothless measure urging Teheran to comply with previous resolutions on its nuclear program. Recognizing that Moscow and Beijing weren't willing to up the ante at the time, other member states couldn't enact a new set of sanctions. All along, the Europeans, joined by the Russians, insisted that the EU and UN tracks weren't going to yield results unless Washington changed course, shifting from a policy of belligerence to engagement with Teheran. Shortly after January 20, that's precisely what the US did, even going so far as to reaffirm that stance within days of the discredited Iranian election in June. Nearly eight months of that new posture haven't done the trick, either. No, things have just gone from bad to worse. Understanding Israel
Almost every responsible political leader today expresses a desire to contribute to peace in the Middle East. Easier said than done. A real effort to promote peace requires an understanding of what motivates the parties to the conflict. I can't say I quite get what makes the Palestinians tick. Like the late statesman Abba Eban, I haven't grasped why Palestinian leaders never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. But I do believe that anyone who genuinely seeks peace, or who aspires to be a friend of the Israeli people, should consider four key factors that inform the Israeli worldview. First, geography. The throwaway line these days is that geography no longer matters in an era of long-range missiles. Not so fast. As the late Sir Isaiah Berlin famously quipped, "The Jews have enjoyed rather too much history and too little geography." Israel is a small country, about the size of New Jersey or Wales, and barely two-thirds the size of Belgium. To put it into context, Egypt is approximately fifty times larger than Israel, Saudi Arabia a hundred times. And there's more. Until its 1967 war for survival, Israel's borders, which were nothing more than the armistice lines from the 1948 War of Independence, were nine miles at their narrowest point, near the country's midsection and most populous area. When President George W. Bush first saw that narrow width from the vantage point of a helicopter, he was reported to have said, "There are some driveways in Texas longer than Israel is wide." Why North Korea matters
The news this week of a North Korean nuclear test is profoundly worrisome for three reasons. First, the nature of the regime is such that all assumptions of what we call rational state behavior are off the table. North Korea, under the iron fist of Kim Jong-il - or the "Great Leader," as he is officially called in his country - is highly dangerous. Recent history has shown that promises and pledges to outside parties mean little to him. Rather, the perception that his country is capable of doing anything is arguably his strongest weapon. And he may well be right. The regime's nuclear and ballistic missile programs are moving ahead in the face of a global strategy that alternately assails and appeases North Korea. What's the IOI - "If Only Israel" - syndrome?
It's the misguided notion, peddled in the name of Israel's best interests by some in the diplomatic, academic, and media worlds, that if only Israel did this or that, peace with its neighbors would be at hand. But since it doesn't, then Israel constitutes the principal, perhaps only, real obstacle to a new day in the Middle East. Striking, isn't it? Poor Israel. If only it had the visual acuity of these "enlightened" souls, then all would be hunky-dory. After all, according to them, Israel holds all the cards, yet refuses to play them. The thinking goes: Why can't those shortsighted Israelis figure out what needs to be done - it's so obvious to us, isn't it? - so the conflict can be brought to a screeching halt? Tragedy masquerading as farce
It was tragedy masquerading as farce. There was the Iranian president addressing the Durban Review Conference in Geneva. Perhaps there was no better symbol of all that had gone wrong with a process originally designed to advance the anti-racism struggle than seeing the world's bigot-in-chief at the podium. And the fact that the hall doubles as the venue for the UN Human Rights Council made a further mockery of his appearance - and of the institution itself. Dear Chancellor Schroeder
Dear Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, You billed it as a private visit to Iran. But, as a media-savvy former chancellor of Germany, Europe's largest and most powerful country, you had to know that your recent trip to Teheran wouldn't go unnoticed, especially when you opted to meet with Iran's notorious president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Take Hamas at its word
There's the story of the mother determined that her five-year-old child should one day be headed for a top college. She decided to pump him with new vocabulary words at every opportunity. When little Charlie came home from school one day, his mother promptly asked, "Charlie, what's the difference between ignorance and indifference?" Totally uninterested, he shrugged his shoulders and muttered, "I don't know and I don't care." At times, that's the sense I get about today's response to Hamas. It's as if there is an ignorance - perhaps a willful ignorance, perhaps just intellectual laziness - about what Hamas, which rules Gaza, really means. No, it is not just another political party in some far-off place, but something far more ominous. Ten worst news stories of 2008
This year, it wasn't difficult to identify candidates for the worst new stories. The challenge was limiting them to ten. Here's my list: An ethical meltdown An Israeli prime minister compelled to leave office, on the heels of an Israeli president who was obliged to leave his post under a cloud in 2007, sent another disturbing message that all is not well in Israeli politics. The Bernie Madoff story, embodying greed and fraud to the Nth degree, inflicted more harm this year on the Jewish world than all of our external enemies combined. And the front-page stories on the accusations against Agriprocessors, the kosher meat plant in Iowa charged with massive labor violations, triggered shock and embarrassment. For a people whose mission statement puts a moral code front and center, clearly, there's remedial work to be done. Israel at 60: reasons to celebrate
Israel is about to mark its sixtieth anniversary. Some friends say they're in no mood to celebrate. The timing isn't right, they complain. The country's political circuitry is overloaded. Danger lurks on the Gaza and Lebanon borders. Iran's nuclear ambitions - and annihilationist threats - loom large. Disputes over the current peace talks with the Palestinian Authority are daily fare. Israel continues to take a beating in UN forums. The drumbeat of anti-Zionism grows louder. A fractious social climate creates long-term and seemingly insoluble fissures between Arab and Jew, not to mention Jew and Jew. And global market volatility spells trouble for the Israeli economy. All true, perhaps. But the story mustn't end there. Milestone anniversaries offer the chance to step back, however briefly, from the news of the moment and take stock of the larger picture. |
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