Tribute to a dog

Max’s first piano recital (cuteness overload)

Steven Erlanger’s Iran Casts Shadow on Mideast Talks is an analysis that emphasizes the role of Iran in the Annapolis talks yesterday.
First he quotes a view from the Arab world

“There is a genuine concern and fear among political classes in the Arab world that the Islamic trend hasn’t reached its plateau,” said Hisham Melhem, the Washington bureau chief for Al Arabiya television. “They worry that Iran and its allies act as if this may be the beginning of the end of America’s moment in the Middle East.”Those concerns are linked in the minds of the region’s leaders to the Palestinian issue, he said. “They want to try for a resolution to an Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has always been the focal point for mobilization of Islamic and radical groups,” he said.

Then the Israeli view

Dan Gillerman, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, put it this way: “This is the summit of our hope and their fear. It’s our hope that at long last the Arab world will understand that the Israeli-Palestinian problem is not the core and can be solved, and their fear of Islamic extremism and Iran, which they call the Persian threat. This is what brought them here.”

Actually the way Amb Gillerman put it was the exact opposite of the way Melhem put it. The latter said that the Israeli/Palestinian issue is what strengthens Iran, the former said that it was Iran that made the Arabs engage Israel in Annapolis.
Aaron David Miller who was unable to shepherd through a final peace treaty during his decade in government weighed in too.

Aaron David Miller, a former negotiator for the Clinton administration, said that while he applauded the effort at Annapolis, he doubted that the Bush administration “has the will and skill” to pull off a peace treaty. “The chances for a Palestinian state in George Bush’s term are slim to none,” he said. But the Annapolis gathering does have important regional significance.“For the Arab centrists, the new Middle East is a nasty one, and the Palestinian issue resonates emotionally and deeply,” he said.

At the top of the article Erlanger laid out what was important though,

…there is enormous relief among the many Sunni Arab countries in attendance that the United States has re-engaged in what they see as the larger and more important battle for Muslim hearts and minds.

When, pray tell, will the Arabs engage in the all important battle for Israeli hearts and minds? I don’t think it’s started quite yet.

via memeorandum, similar thoughts at A blog for all

Other views:
The NYT - Starting from Annapolis

If there is any hope of pulling this off, Mr. Bush and his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, will have to invest their time, their reputation and their best arm-twisting, including offering bridging proposals to nudge both sides beyond their long-fixed positions. There’s no chance at all if Mr. Bush goes back to the sidelines.

This is a typically simplistic formulation. No amount of arm twisting over details will change anything unless there’s an Arab (not just Palestinian) change of heart.

Contentions - John Podhoretz - ANNAPOLIS: What It All Means

The open evidence so far indicates that the low-expectations summit has in fact met its low expectations, with the “lots of other nations present” business proving essentially meaningless except as a bragging point for the diplomats who got them there and a shopping opportunity for them and their wives at outlet malls and Tysons Corner. That doesn’t mean the State Department wouldn’t like it otherwise. But that doesn’t seem to be the story of this summit. If we’ve seen the worst of Annapolis — and I grant you we may not have; we won’t know for a few days — I think we can actually breathe a sigh of relief.

IOW, little ventured, something gained. (An aside: J-Pod’s making contentions int a “The Corner” wannabe. I think I preferred the discrete posts to the ongoing conversation.)

Washington Post - Glenn Kessler and Michael Abramowitz - Eyes Will Be on Bush At Talks on Mideast

When Bush first asked Rice to take over the State Department after the 2004 elections, during a weekend at Camp David, she quizzed him on only one policy issue: Was he willing to support the creation of a Palestinian state? The president gave an affirmative answer, which was important to her, according to people familiar with the conversation.”I wouldn’t be doing this if he weren’t deeply committed to it,” Rice told reporters last week. “I am his secretary of state.”

I guess this goes against the speculation (including mine), that this is an issue of “legacy.” Still what makes now such a propitious time?

Washington Post - David Ignatius - How Annapolis Helps

For starters, the document commits the parties to begin negotiations on a peace treaty “resolving all outstanding issues, including all core issues without exception.” The text unfortunately doesn’t specify what these unmentionables are, but negotiators understand that it does mean the two deal-breakers: Jerusalem and the right of return of Palestinian refugees. The prayers of Israelis that they wouldn’t have to talk about Jerusalem, and of Palestinians that they wouldn’t have to discuss the right of return, have not been answered.

But, of course, the issue of Israel’s right to exist is not something that the Palestinians (or the Arab world) have to address.

Shmuel Rosner - Ha’aretz - To Palestine via the side road

Meanwhile, off the main road, the fate of the Palestinian state will be decided - at a conference of the donor states - by nurturing orderly institutions and by quietly deploying the Palestinian Authority’s security forces street by street. The accusation constantly hurled at Arafat - that he did nothing during his term of office to improve the sewage system or transportation or life in the territories - is a charge that Abbas and even more so his prime minister Salam Fayyad have to avoid. The kind of talks Fayyad is holding with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in the company of babysitter Tony Blair, are the key to genuine progress toward a Palestinian state. The commotion caused by the other subjects is a smoke screen that makes it possible for them to work, for the time being, in relative quiet.

Rosner argues that we ought to ignore the political maneuvering and pay attention to the changes on the ground. This is refreshing, for he isn’t overemphasizing the political. Still he seems to minimize the important political aspects too. Will Abbas (and his PA) continue to convince his people that Israeli is illegitimate? If so it really doesn’t matter how well the sanitation system is running, terror will continue. Will Olmert continue to insist that he’s right and ignore his electorate despite shaky coalition? Further concessions are going to be unpopular and Olmert has shown little inclination to convince the populace of the rightness of his actions. Really all depends on 1) his ability to keep his coalition together and 2) the PA showing (against all previous experience) that it is committed to peaceful coexistence.

The Jerusalem Post - Make Annapolis Work

Today, Bush and Olmert are to meet precisely on this topic. It will be the most important meeting of this diplomatic mission, even if it is not officially part of the Annapolis conference. At this meeting, Bush needs to hear from Olmert that Israel cannot accept a nuclear Iran, while Olmert needs to hear from Bush that neither can the US and, no less importantly, how Iran will be stopped. The extremists who cast a shadow over Annapolis and who impelled it, cannot be defeated otherwise.

In other words the main goal of Annapolis is to stop Iran. Apparently, even if military means are necessary.

Dennis Ross - USA Today - The Day after Annapolis

The road map dates from 2003 and has been moribund since. The obligations of the first phase — Israelis freezing all settlement activity and removing the impediments to Palestinian mobility, and Palestinians beginning to dismantle terrorist infrastructure and reforming their institutions — have altogether different meanings on the two sides. Each party defines its obligations minimally and the other side’s obligations maximally.

Dennis Ross - like Aaron David Miller - spent the better part of two administrations peace processing and he accomplished as much as President Bush did. He may not want anyone to look too closely at his record. (Yes, Oslo occurred during his tenure but 1) the basics of Olso were agreed upon before American got involved and 2) I don’t know that anyone would argue that Oslo was a major disaster.)

Yes, each party does what he says, but the idea that Israel ought to be increasing Palestinian mobility when the Palestinians are supporting terror is suicidal. Besides abandoning terror isn’t simply a procedural issue, it was the very basis of Oslo. The PLO would abandon terror and become legitimate. The former didn’t happen but the latter did. For Ross to put dismantling the “terror infrastucture” on the same level as any of the demands on Israel is disingenuous.

Dan Diker - Jerusalem Post - Peace Parks and Pipe Dreams

Political and economic peace making with the Palestinians can not be driven by Israeli, US and European enthusiasm alone. The Palestinian middle class must build its own economy free of threats by Palestinian terror groups and financial control by local warlords. But Israel and the international community must stop undermining the real chance for Palestinian economic development by forcing economic projects on the Palestinians before they secure their own cities and towns and establish a framework for a safe viable civil society, based on an empowered and peaceful middle and professional class.

Reasons why Rosner’s idea won’t work.

For me, I’d like to believe that Rosner is right, but the infrastructure and security arguments have been made before. I just don’t believe that Abbas and Fayyad are any more interested in co-existence than Arafat was. They owe their power and positions - no matter how precarious they are now - to rejectionism. That is the ideology of Palestinian nationalism.

I don’t believe that there can be peace until there is an acceptance of Israel. At best the process started in Annapolis will cause no real harm to Israel’s standing or security.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Ralph Peters has weighed in on Annapolis with No Lasting Peace. (Judeopundit rightly credits it with having “with numerous Mark Steyn-style one-liners.”)

What happens in the course of Middle East “peace” talks under such circumstances? Whether the American administration is Republican or Democrat, it pressures Israel for concessions - since the Arabs won’t make any. Prisoner releases precede each summit; territorial handovers come under discussion.For their parts, Arab leaders and their representatives assume we’re sufficiently honored if they just show up. We hear no end of nonsense about the great political risks they’re taking, etc. We’re suckers for any fat guy in a white robe with an oil can.

Today’s session in Annapolis may or may not result in a we-the-undersigned statement or a few unenforceable commitments. And yes, there’s merit just in bringing folks together and keeping them talking. But the baseline difficulty is that we want to solve problems for people who don’t really want those problems solved.

Who doesn’t want the problem solved?

Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah Party, for example, couldn’t accept a genuine peace tomorrow morning - even though Hamas’ coup in Gaza has put them up against the wall. Their problem? The most successful jobs program in the Arab world has been Palestinian “resistance” to Israel.

In Context adds an insight to to Peters’ column

What Peters doesn’t say but certainly appears to understand is that Israel does want the problems solved — just not at the expense of her own annihilation. Understandable, you would think, as Israel is the party with the burgeoning First World hi-tech society just waiting for a respite from the terror and antipathy of her neighbors for a chance to show what she can really do. But it’s a hard sell, nonetheless. It’s far easier for many to believe that Israel has actually grown fond of the checkpoints, the fences, the reserve duty, the funerals and the “occupation.” Go figure.

Jack’s Shack emphasizes Peters’ point that the Bush administration seems to be copying the Clinton administration by seeking a legacy. Something, he observed earlier, is an awful motive for pursuing an foreign policy project of this magnitude.
On the other hand, JudeoPundit sees a difference

The one place I would quibble is the assumption that Bush is repeating Clinton’s failed legacy-quest. True, the determination to plow in such barren pastures begs for some sort of explanation, but I don’t think Bush is desperate for a legacy. If he is, the joke is on him, isn’t it? I think rather that Bush continues to follow his foreign-policy assumptions. He is convinced, as he has often said, that everyone, without exception, yearns for freedom and a better life. By all rights, the United States should be able to lead a movement for peace, freedom, and sanity. This would require, however, a unity of the left and right worldwide that is no more likely to come about than the Palestinians are to act in their own self-interest.

Seraphic Secret praises Peters for not being

seduced by the mass delusions of the State Department

.Meanwhile what’s really needed is a change of heart. This is something that PM Olmert was all too willing to accommodate without a reciprocal one from the other side.

UPDATE: via memeorandum
Excellent comments from PowerLine, Done with Mirrors, The New York Sun Jules Crittenden and others.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

If you’re going to forge money and try to pass it off as legit, you should probably not go for the top dollar. Especially when it doesn’t exist.

Police say a man tried to open an account with a $1 million bill, which does not exist. The teller refused and called police while the man started to curse at bank workers, said Aiken County Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Michael Frank.

Alexander D. Smith, 31, of Augusta, Ga., was charged with disorderly conduct and two counts of forgery, Frank said.

The question here: Is he that stupid, or that daring, that he thought he could get away with it?

I’m voting for stupid.

And so it turns out that Annapolis has achieved just about nothing. Well, except cause more media outlets, pundits, and world leaders to put the lion’s share of the blame for any failure on Israel. Reuters has a roundup of Arab opinion.

Lebanon’s former telecommunications minister Essam Noman, writing in the opposition al-Akhbar newspaper, said the United States had succeeded in “dragging the Arabs to a diplomatic talkfest”.

Notice how the subject of peace is treated as a horrible thing.

Ghassan Charbel, editor of the London-based Al-Hayat daily, said Arab states had gone to Annapolis without illusions.

“They know that Israel wants to negotiate without being ready to pay the price of the solution. And they are aware that the Israeli negotiator will ask the Palestinian Authority for (conditions) it cannot provide,” he wrote in an editorial.

What Israel is looking for is an end to armed attacks on its citizens. These are the “conditions” that the PA can’t provide.

Arabs questioned whether Bush would push Israel hard enough to stop occupying and building settlements on Palestinian lands.

“The Palestinians … want realistic moves on the ground, and that is where the U.S. faces the challenge if it is genuinely interested in salvaging its lost credibility,” said the English-language Gulf Today paper in the United Arab Emirates.

I’m halfway through the article and still waiting to see a single acknowledgement that the Palestinians must end terror attacks against Israel.

The Saudi daily al-Watan urged Washington to exert pressure on its Israeli ally, instead of “pressuring the party that has offered a solution”, referring to a Saudi-inspired Arab plan for peace and full ties with Israel if it returns to 1967 borders.

Olmert’s call for Arab states to forge ties with Israel now, rather than at the end of negotiations, drew negative responses.

“If normalisation between the two parties is placed before an agreement on the solutions, this is a sign that failure is coming,” said an editorial in the Saudi newspaper al-Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister attended the Annapolis talks, but kept his promise to avoid handshakes with Israelis.

Nope. Not a word about the Palestinians’ responsibility for ending attacks on Israel. And when you do find it, you find it in the most idiotic suggestion I have ever read, in what passes for a newsmagazine: Time’s Scott Macleod is perfectly willing to sacrifice Israeli lives to make peace.

One way to defeat the spoilers this time is to ignore any violence they sponsor and persevere toward the goal of a comprehensive Arab-Israeli settlement. Such an approach has merit, given that a majority of Israelis and Arabs desire peace and thus opponents could be scorned for prolonging misery and hopelessness. The problem is that Olmert and Abbas are politically very weak, thanks to past failures in peace and war, and will find it difficult to behave like statesmen in the event of new violence.

You got that? If a Hamas or PIJ terrorist blows himself up in a market, murdering and wounding dozens of Israeli men, women, and children, Israel should just ignore it and push forward with making peace with Fatah. And if it turns out that Al-Aqsa, which is part of the ruling Fatah government, took part in it? That Palestinian police helped effect the attack? Well, ignore that, too. Because it’s far more important that Palestinians have a state than that they stop murdering Jews.

Oh, it gets worse. After Hamas launches the murderous attacks, we are told that Israel should still ignore those attacks and negotiate with the murderers. We won’t be quoting that part of the article, because, well, it’s beyond stupid, and our collective IQ will go down for having read it.

The AP has given us a new boilerplate for the occasion. See if you can pick out the villain in this paragraph:

The Palestinians believe Israel is not ready for total peace and Olmert will face a difficult time politically as any deal takes shape. Meantime, Abbas is seen as reliable, but also weak and a leader who can’t in the end deliver on an agreement.

Notice the language. Israel is “not ready for peace,” and Abbas is “reliable, but also weak.” The problem is that Israel doesn’t want peace. The Palestinians do, but they can’t force it on their people. Get it? It’s not their fault. But Israel? Israel “is not ready for total peace.”

May I ask a question? WTF does that mean? Who says Israel isn’t ready for peace? Why is Israel not ready for peace?

What. Utter. Bullshit.

Israel is literally dying for peace, but the Palestinians are unwilling to make peace. Poll after poll shows that they don’t want two states, they want one. Poll after poll shows that they’re perfectly happy to keep on supporting suicide bombers, and that “resistance” is the best way to achieve their state—because, after all, it was “resistance,” not negotiations, that gave them Gaza. And apparently, the Palestinians don’t care if they live in a repressive theocracy, just as long as they’re not living with Jews.

The only good thing that came out of Annapolis is the fact that Olmert will lose his ruling coalition if he tries to force an agreement that most Israelis don’t want. I think Jerusalem is going to remain undivided for a while longer.

No, wait. There’s more good news that came out of Annapolis. The sky isn’t falling, as some people would have us believe.

Not yet, anyway. Have some faith, people.

Thomas Friedman makes some good points in Oasis or Mirage? He notes that the players in Annapolis were motivated more by fear than by love. Unlike others, he attaches a lot significance to the missing handshake.

The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, announced even before he got to Annapolis that there would be no handshakes with any Israelis. Too bad. A handshake alone is not going to get Israel to give back the West Bank. But a surprising gesture of humanity, like a simple handshake from a Saudi leader to an Israeli leader, would actually go a long way toward convincing Israelis that there is something new here, that it’s not just about the Arabs being afraid of Iran, but that they’re actually willing to coexist with Israel. Ditto Israel. Why not surprise Palestinians with a generous gesture on prisoners or roadblocks? Has the stingy old way worked so well?The Israeli-Palestinian peace process has been so starved of emotional content since the Rabin assassination that it has no connection to average people anymore. It’s just words — a bunch of gobbledygook about “road maps.” The Saudis are experts at telling America that it has to be more serious. Is it too much to ask the Saudis to make our job a little easier by shaking an Israeli leader’s hand?

The bottom line is that if Prince Saud al-Faisal had, say, refused to greet Secretary Rice because of her gender or her skin color he would have been (rightly) excoriated as a bigot and considered beyond the pale. But somehow treating a Jew as if he has cooties is acceptable. (Just as the Prince got a pass because of the object of his scorn, he also got a pass because he’s an Arab. Could you imagine a head of state from Europe getting a pass for refusing to shake Olmert’s hand?)
So yes I’m glad that Friedman mentioned it, but he underplays its importance.

The other surprise we need to see is moderates going all the way. Moderates who are not willing to risk political suicide to achieve their ends are never going to defeat extremists who are willing to commit physical suicide.The reason that Mr. Rabin and Mr. Sadat were so threatening to extremists is because they were moderates ready to go all the way — a rare breed. I understand that no leader today wants to stick his neck out. They have reason to be afraid, but they have no reason to believe they’ll make history any other way.

(This is a variation on Friedman’s concept of a “fanatical moderate.” Of course in Friedman’s view, Yossi Beilin is a “fanatical moderate.” I would argue that he is the former but not the latter.)

One mistake he makes here is claiming that Mahmoud Abbas is a moderate. He is not.

While it’s not clear, I suspect that Friedman’s made a second mistake. His definition of “extremist” and “moderate” will be defined by how committed each party is to the outlines of the Geneva Accord. As he wrote in his “fanatical moderate” column

The Geneva Accord fleshes out the peace initiative first outlined by President Clinton. You don’t have to accept every word to see its basic wisdom and fairness: In return for peace with Israel, the Palestinians get a nonmilitarized state in the West Bank and Gaza. They also get the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem and sovereignty over the Temple Mount, but under a permanent international security force, with full Jewish access. The Israelis get to keep settlements housing about 300,000 of the 400,000 Jews in the West Bank (in return for an equivalent amount of land from Israel), including virtually all the new Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem built in the Arab side of the city. About 30,000 Palestinian refugees get to return to their homes in Israel proper, and all refugees receive compensation. Polls show 35 to 40 percent of Israelis and Palestinians already support the deal, without either government having endorsed it.

I hardly think this is a moderate position as it rewards the Palestinians for rejecting Camp David and launching a terror war against Israel. (The rejection of Camp David was not just Arafat but encouraged by such “allies” as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.) Friedman of course knows that this is the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict just as he knew that an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon would lead to the dissolution of Hezbollah.

But even if we assume that this position is moderate, how would Friedman treat PM Olmert if he hesitated on some issue due to continued Palestinian non-compliance? Would Olmert still be a moderate? Or would he become an extremist in Friedman’s eyes?

Friedman’s categories of “moderate” and “extremist” are simply terms dividing actors into those who agree with him and those who don’t. Other than that, they have no real meaning. And when it comes to hesitations along the way I have no doubt who Friedman will characterize as an extremist and to whom he will give a pass.

UPDATE: via memeorandum
PrariePundit points out that Iran will be selling a different fear.

The question to be answered is whether the parties will do anything with the momentum that the conference is suppose to generate. It is possible, but the real fear that prevents an agreement is the Muslim religious bigotry that has pushed the conflict to begin with That will be the counter fear that Iran and its allies will be pushing.

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The “exploding Palestinians” that he refers to later didn’t start until two months after the Camp David summit. So we’re not out of the woods yet.Crossposted on Soccer Dad.