An Interview with Dr. Asher Susser

By: Matt Gordner

Egypt’s failure to broker an effective reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah makes it a strong probability that the January elections will be considered illegitimate by the Palestinian people – that is, if they happen at all. Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) recently declared that the elections will be postponed pending more suitable national conditions. This, of course, renders the possibility of a virtual three state arrangement a viable reality for Israelis and Palestinians in the near future.
 

For a number of reasons, the speeches delivered this summer by Obama, Netanyahu, and Fayyad promised to bear fruit. Instead, they withered on the vine.
 

For years Qatar has energetically sought to pursue autonomous regional policies, balancing their friendly relations with Iran while hosting America’s regional headquarters and cooperating with other Gulf states.  In 1995, they opened low-level diplomatic relations with Israel during the Oslo peace process, becoming one of the first Arab states to do so without a peace agreement with Israel.

Qatar’s renewed quest for a stronger regional role began to take shape in 2006 during the summer war between Israel and Hezbollah. The war served to highlight the differences between the moderate and radical camps led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and Iran and Syria respectively. Following the crisis, Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jasim made camp with the moderates and even called on Lebanon to negotiate a peace agreement with Israel.  This move, needless to say, did not sit well with Iran and Syria.

The following is an article I wrote for the American Foreign Policy Council.  The original is available here on their website.

Israel’s nearly three week-long offensive against the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip ended days before the inauguration of Barack Obama as president in Washington. Now, attention in the U.S. and Israeli governments turns to the thorny questions of how to create a durable ceasefire, keep Hamas isolated, and ensure that it cannot rearm. And, as policymakers in Washington are beginning to find out, doing so requires solving the issue of the smuggling tunnels that run from Egypt to Gaza.

By: Michael Sharnoff

This article by Middle East Opinion contributor, Michael Sharnoff was first published at the Palestine-Israel Journal. The writer is a Research Associate at the Jewish Policy Center in Washington, DC.

For seven years, Israel has endured thousands of indiscriminate rocket attacks against its civilian population by Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip. Until now, Israel had demonstrated uncommon restraint. Yet, many professors of Middle East Studies ignore these realities. In recent days, three prominent professors have demonstrated why their field is now viewed as politicized and in decline.

The following is the U.S.-Israeli agreement to combat arms smuggling into Gaza - the result of Israel's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's meetings in Washington on January 16, 2009:

Recalling the steadfast commitment of the United States to Israel's security, including secure, defensible borders, and to preserve and strengthen Israel's capability to deter and defend itself, by itself, against any threat or possible combination of threats;

Reaffirming that such commitment is reflected in the security, military and intelligence cooperation between the United States and Israel, the Strategic Dialogue between them, and the level and kind of assistance provided by the United States to Israel;

Over the years, the game in Gaza has had a familiar ring to it: Hamas launches rockets toward Israeli population centers and Israel responds with a pinpoint strike of its own. Every so often, civilians are killed on both sides. The outside world, meanwhile, yawns with indifference.

No longer. The expiration of its six-month ceasefire with Israel earlier in December prompted Hamas to resume large-scale hostilities, launching hundreds of rockets against Israeli civilian population centers. However, over the past week, Israel’s government has demonstrated unequivocally that it is no longer prepared to simply implement piecemeal responses, as it has done for years against the de facto Islamist government in Gaza.  Instead, it has launched a major offensive, Operation Cast Lead, that Defense Minister Ehud Barak has announced could last weeks if not months. So, what can Israel now hope to achieve politically by using its military?

Below is a blog that I thought was worth posting from my colleague, James Robbins, Senior Fellow in National Security Affairs at the American Foreign Policy Council.  It covers the absurd notions of proportionality that have been buzzing around newsrooms with Israel's offensive in Gaza.  The original is posted here.

By: James Robbins

Criticism of Israel for using excessive force in combating Hamas in Gaza fails to make several critical distinctions between the contesting parties. Hamas chose not to renew the six-month ceasefire that had created a modicum of peace ("state of calm," officially) in the area. Hamas then resumed indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets in Israel. Israel’s response, by way of contrast, seeks to target only Hamas and its infrastructure, and any civilian casualties are unintended, unwanted, and usually the result of Hamas placing its weapons and command posts in civilian neighborhoods.

With the expiration of the six-month lull in Hamas rocket fire into Israel, the IDF is set to invade Gaza and attack Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure.  There are several reasons for the timing of Israel’s operation.  Firstly, many in Israel’s security establishment never signed on to the purpose of the cease-fire to begin with.  It merely granted Hamas a respite from Israeli attacks while giving them the opportunity rearm and better train themselves.  For two years, since Hamas’s takeover of Gaza in 2007, they have been working hard to develop their military power with Iranian assistance using Hizballah as a model.  The new rockets they have smuggled in pieces through tunnels from Egypt now have the capacity to strike the outskirts Beersheba.  Since more fighting is inevitable given Hamas’s pledge to destroy the Jewish state, it is better to attack when they have fewer weapons at their disposal.  A ceasefire only works in Hamas’s favor.

Unlike the June 15, 2008 article headline in the New York Times, "A Year Reshapes Hamas and Gaza," the body of the article testifies to the fact that neither are the case.

The article's author, Ethan Bronner, tries to demonstrate that the "long-term truce" that Hamas would offer if Israel merely agreed to return to the 1967 borders (in other words, give up front all that Hamas wants in return for a temporary truce) is a major advancement on their part. 

Furthermore, Bronner concedes that this new Hamas position is not so different from the rest of the Arab world's view on peace talks with Israel.  That is, a peace deal is temporary because Israel exists as a fact and is therefore recognized.  It is not because they want peace or because Israel is accepted.  It is simply a recognition of an unfortunate fact with the desire to see the state destroyed later, once Arab power is restored to its imagined, past glory: