Is Mike Huckabee Crazy?

Mike Huckabee – erstwhile Republican presidential hopeful – has lost it.

On a junket paid for by a questionable charity run out of New York, the former Governor of Arkansas and Southern Baptist pastor made the following statements while standing in the West Bank:

“The question is should the Palestinians have a place to call their own? Yes, I have no problem with that, should it be in the middle of the Jewish homeland? That's what I think has to be honestly assessed as virtually unrealistic."

Few in the foreign policy blogosphere have really acknowledged just how significant these statements are.

Glenn Greenwald yesterday brought out the comparison between Huckabee “bashing” US policies on foreign soil and Al Gore doing something similar while in Saudi Arabia back in 2006. The particular hypocrisy Greenwald points to is the lax response when it’s a Republican doing the bashing and it’s an excellent point but it’s one of style and not substance.

Huckabee is rejecting the policy that the United States has endorsed since the Occupation began. He is rejecting what most States and most Israelis support. He is, instead, endorsing quite explicitly the ethnic cleansing of The West Bank.

The continued expansion of settlements like the ones Huckabee toured this week is what, to use his words makes a Palestinian state “virtually unrealistic”. Claiming that the Israelis have a “god given right” to live wherever they so chose in whatever he means by “Jewish homeland” flies in the face of agreed upon parameters of international law and, ultimately, common sense.

Richard Silverstein does an excellent job in Tikun Olam at deconstructing where Huckabee is coming from (and more importantly, where his funds are coming from).

In the end one could argue that the inability for any progress to be made on a solution to the conflict makes Huckabee’s assertions the reality anyway. The difference of course, is that the principle that Palestinians have rights in their land – be it full democratic rights of a single state solution or the self-determination of a two-state solution – is still the foundation for discussions. What Huckabee wants is the end of discussions, the military suppression and transfer of Palestinian Muslim and Christians alike, and ultimately an ethnically pure Jewish state.

Elliot Abrams Defends Settlements in the Washington Post

I recently revisited an op-ed piece Elliot Abrams’ wrote in April for the Washington Post in which he argues that the settlement freeze is a red herring for Arab-Israeli peace. Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and was the deputy national security advisor for Near East and North African Affairs in the George W. Bush White House. While that last job position should be alarming to anyone who follows American involvement in the Middle East, anyone familiar with Abrams’ resume is probably already aware that he lacks much credibility. He was convicted for lying to Congress nearly 20 years ago during their Iran-Contra investigation. His track record in Central America – where he allegedly covered up atrocious violence perpetrated by right-wing Governments – apparently provided a solid foreign relations background for dealing with the Middle East.

His take on an Israeli settlement freeze is shockingly ignorant of what it’s actually like in the Occupied Territories and contains a number of falsehoods as well. He argues that while Israel hasn’t always “kept to the rules” concerning settlements (no new ones, no financial incentives to move to one, no new construction except within boundaries of pre-existing ones) it doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t matter because it won’t affect a final negotiation presumably because Palestinians would have to take land in the Negev desert in exchange for the land on which settlements have been built. He suggests that this is the deal offered to the Palestinians by Ehud Barak in 2000 and Olmert in 2009.

But Abrams shows a stunning ignorance of both history and geography. Firstly, the deals offered by Barak and Olmert for “between 94 and 98 percent” of the Occupied Territories were horrible deals that the PA had to reject. Without getting into the specifics, the territory offered to the Palestinians wasn’t contiguous, creating a series of mini-states similar to their current situation. This setup has been accurately compared to the Bantustans of South Africa. One of the reasons these Cantons would need to be created is to sustain the Israeli-only network of roads that connect Israel proper with their settlements within the Occupied Territories. To suggest that the settlements have no impact on even the idea of land swap is completely disingenuous.

Secondly, the settlements in the Occupied Territories do not have the same value to warrant a one for one land swap with Israeli territory in the Negev desert. Israeli settlements are constructed close to or on top of the few fresh water reservoirs in the region. According to Israeli Human Rights group B’Tselem, Israelis consume five and a half times more water than their Palestinian neighbors on a per capita basis making the control of water a primary driver in settlement policy. Abrams knows this but he’s hoping the average Washington Post reader doesn’t. This problem has been left out of discussions about land swaps since the Barak “offer” was made in the hope that public opinion would see the failure of such a deal as Palestinian intransigence.

Lastly, Abrams is suggests that it doesn’t matter that Israel continues to violate the “rules” that he helped create (during the Bush administration’s Road Map phase). That most settlement expansions “do not affect much Palestinian life” is another fallacy. Palestinians, and the Arab world in general, look to the settlements as an example of Israel’s unwillingness to make even the smallest of concessions. Freezing settlement expansion is literally the easiest thing Israel will have to do if they really want a peace with the Palestinians. It doesn’t involve serious existential questions about Jerusalem or the compensation and return of refugees. It’s continually cited by the UN, the Quartet and most heads of state as the single most pressing issue and yet Israel is still unwilling to stop settlement expansion. What, I wonder, will happen when they have to actually remove some settlements?

It’s a shame Abrams couldn’t have retired like his former boss. Surely his twenty plus years of screwing up other countries has left him with a nice nest egg?

Israel: America can keep its money

Haaretz is reporting that the Israeli Finance Minister is not just dismissive of the possibility that the US could withhold loan guarantees worth billions of dollars but doubts that the state of Israel even needs them.

"I don't see any limitations on the horizon. It's not time to be concerned about that" said the Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, "I don't see any need to use them in the near future.”

This comes as a response to the increased tension between the US and Israel over the latter’s plan to move ahead with an illegal settlement construction in the West Bank despite condemnation from President Obama.

Relating back to my post yesterday, I’m not sure if this is Israel calling Obama’s bluff on economic sanctions (not that he’s even suggested them… yet) or if this is a reflection of the relative influence Israel now has over the United States. I’m sure the tough talk (tough in a teenager sort of way: “I don’t even need your stupid allowance Dad!”) has been mandated by Netanyahu and the chorus of “no other country can dictate Israeli policy” that we saw yesterday seems to suggest such a position. But it is interesting that Israel seems to be pushing this issue rather than simply continuing its settlement expansion while trying not to draw American ire. This is starting to look to me like a fight Netanyahu thinks he needs to start. Which in turn begs the question: Is this a fight he can win?

Israel: No "Subidiary" of Another State

Israeli politicians are up in arms at the increasing chorus of international leaders who argue that the proposed settlement construction in occupied East Jerusalem should be stopped.
Haaretz quotes…
Prime Minister Netanyahu: “Israel will not agree to edicts [American, European, Russian] of this kind in East Jerusalem”.
Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon: Israel has an “indisputable” right to build anywhere in East Jerusalem.
Minister of Internal Affairs Eli Yishai: “Israel's government is not a subsidiary of any other world government […] Israel’s Government [is] free to build anywhere in Israel”.
Science Minster Daniel Hershkowitz: “Israel must reject international pressure and the challenges to its sovereignty in Jerusalem”.
It appears that the coalition government is clearly behind the Prime Minister in his refusal to submit to the pressure being put on it by the United States, Russia, France and Germany. And to be honest with you, when it comes to Russia and France, I don’t really blame them. What has either done for Israel recently? The Germans are a curious case in that there are few Western countries who try as hard as the Germans do to stay out of Israel’s affairs and the strong statement from the head of the German Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee suggests that this trend may be slowly changing or it may be an indication of this issue’s importance.
But that of course brings me to the United States. While the Europeans (and Russians even more so) have always posed as a minor irritant in the side of Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians (nothing says rebuke like a polite discussion with an Ambassador) as long as their objections remain dissociated from economic sanctions they have little bite in their mute bark. The Americans, on the other hand, are different. I’m particularly struck by Eli Yishai’s assertions that Israel is no “subsidiary” of another state.
Israel takes billions of dollars annually in economic and military aide from the Americans and does little in return. Israel’s inhumane actions towards the Palestinians have endangered the security of the United States enormously. As the financier of Israeli militarism the United States gets little but the unwanted association of their weapons technologies with civilian deaths.
In reality, the relationship between the US and Israel seems to be asymmetrical but not in the way you’d think. If the Israeli’s continue to defy Obama’s claim that the settlement of East Jerusalem is an impediment to peace it would seem that we’ve entered the era where Israeli influence over American policy is as powerful if not more than American influence over Israel’s.

Slate.com: "What does a house in an Israeli settlement go for these days?"

Slate.com is running a feature titled "Beautiful Two Bedroom on One Disputed Acre: How Much Does and Israeli Settlement Home Cost?"

Answer: Apparently not much.

http://www.slate.com/id/2220531/

Israel to continue settlement expansion

Israel has given a giant middle finger to Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton by announcing that they will continue to expand their illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories. This comes despite a clear demand from Obama and his Secretary of State in the last week on the suspension of construction taking place there. The Israeli government is trying to spin its policy as "natural growth" of existing settlements. This is, obviously, an attempt to distract the reality that whether its a new apartment bloc for 500 new settler families in Ariel (the largest of settlements with more than two hundred thousand residents) or a new settlement around East Jerusalem, the outcome of locating more colonists in what would ostensibly be the territory of a future independent Palestinian state is the same. That is, of course, if the Israeli government had any intention at all of seeing such a state exist.

It will be interesting to see how the US will respond to this pretty blatant incitement. Obama and Clinton made it clear well before this announcement by the Israelis, that the "natural growth" argument wasn't valid. Obama's demand of Netanyahu last week when they met in the White House was as unambiguous as you can get (ie. stop all settlement construction now). Some are saying that this might be the first true test of Obama's finesse in foreign policy (not withstanding, I guess, the calamity in AfPak - that new and ever so jargony term for Afghanistan-Pakistan). And while he has shown to be willing to take Israel to task - I suppose by making unambiguous statements on things like settlements - I'm not really convinced that he has many cards to play at this point.