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January 29th, 2021 
Awake Goy Biden administration’s first signals on the Middle East
The new Joe Biden administration has begun issuing policy statements about the Middle East and the clear signs are that it will do nothing to try to revive the so-called peace process, and it’s not going to try all that hard on the Iran deal either. Biden obviously has a lot on his plate. But it appears he has told his State Department staff, I’m not spending any political capital to fight the Israel lobby, or the centrist branch of it that wields influence inside the Democratic Party.
Yesterday acting-US ambassador Richard Mills spoke to the United Nations Security Council and said Yes we’re all for the two-state solution (because it ensures “Israel’s future as a democratic and Jewish state, while upholding the Palestinian people’s legitimate aspirations”– whatever that means) but two states won’t happen any time soon so, We are for a managed conflict. No negotiations.
Unfortunately, as I think we’ve heard, the respective leaderships are far apart on final-status issues, Israeli and Palestinian politics are fraught, and trust between the two sides is at a nadir. However, these realities do not relieve Member States of the responsibility of trying to preserve the viability of a two-state solution.
That’s managed conflict, keeping the status quo on a back burner.
In this vein, the United States will urge Israel’s government and the Palestinian Authority to avoid unilateral steps that make a two-state solution more difficult, such as annexation of territory, settlement activity, demolitions, incitement to violence, and providing compensation for individuals imprisoned for acts of terrorism.
The State Department is being purposely vague about settlements. And Mills promised that the U.S. would continue to defend Israel in international fora such as the U.N. and ICC.
At the centrist Israel lobby group Israel Policy Forum, Michael Koplow justly takes credit for the Biden approach (based on a paper he wrote with Ilan Goldenberg and Israel lobbyist Tamara Cofman Wittes) and notes the departure from even lip service to negotiations:
Nowhere in Mills’s comments did he say that the U.S. seeks to conduct or oversee talks between the two sides, nor did he call for the parties to return to the negotiating table… it marks a significant shift from the approach taken by the Trump, Obama, Bush, and Clinton administrations. It also does away with standard talking points on the conflict that everyone knows by heart as they have been at the center of presidential and Congressional statements for years.
The only win for Palestinians here is that the U.S. will work to reopen the U.S. Consulate-General in Jerusalem and the PLO mission in Washington.
Iran deal
The news on the Iran deal isn’t much better. Don’t hold your breath.
Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s first press conference yesterday put the onus on Iran. Even though the U.S. broke the deal in 2018, Blinken says we can’t trust the Iranians to comply with the deal.
[I]f Iran comes back into full compliance with its obligations under the JCPOA, the United States would do the same thing and then we would use that as a platform to build, with our allies and partners, what we called a longer and stronger agreement and to deal with a number of other issues that are deeply problematic in the relationship with Iran.
But we are a long ways from that point. Iran is out of compliance on a number of fronts. And it would take some time, should it make the decision to do so, for it to come back into compliance in time for us then to assess whether it was meeting its obligations. So we’re not – we’re not there yet to say the least.
Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, sought to correct Blinken on who needs to take first step.
Reality check for @SecBlinken:
The US -violated JCPOA [Iran deal]
-blocked food/medicine to Iranians
-punished adherence to UNSCR 2231 [UN Security Council Resolution urging members to cooperate with Iran and lift sanctions]
Throughout that sordid mess, Iran -abided by JCPOA -only took foreseen remedial measures
Now, who should take 1st step? Never forget Trump’s maximum failure.
Justin Logan at the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at Catholic University endorses the Iranian narrative here.
“This is dumb from Blinken. The reason Iran is out of compliance is because the US left the deal in May 2018. Iran slowly walked out of the deal, abjuring its obligations in January 2020 after the US assassinated an Iranian general…If you want to make an argument that the Trump administration’s moves won you leverage, which you now would like to use, make that argument. But Blinken issued pablum from his first press conference. Not encouraging.
My impression of Blinken’s remarks is that the right-wing Israel lobby has won with Biden. They’ve said, You take on the Iran deal, we’re going to make life difficult for you. Sen. Robert Menendez made that clear at Blinken’s confirmation hearing. So did the Democratic Majority for Israel group, Don’t jump back into the deal.
The rightwing Israel lobby is already trying to crush/discredit Biden’s choice as special envoy on Iran, Rob Malley. The left-center bloc in the Democratic Party — J Street and Realists — are pushing back in a strong letter. “Those who accuse Malley of sympathy for the Islamic Republic have no grasp of – or no interest in– true diplomacy, which requires a level-headed understanding of the other side’s motivations..”
They’re right, but why is this even necessary? Well Israel doesn’t like the appointment. Partly because Malley once blamed Israel for the breakdown of the peace process. This episode again shows the power of the rightwing Israel lobby on the Democratic side.
Yes, J Street is doing great work to try to revive the deal, and telling Biden that Jews have your back. But Biden saw how much political capital Barack Obama had to spend to get the deal in the second term of his administration, and he can’t spend that right now.
Sen. Gary Peters, beloved of AIPAC
And speaking of the Senate, Chuck Schumer has picked Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan to run the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Peters is beloved of AIPAC, and works with Republican Tom Cotton to promote Defense Department cooperation on high-tech weaponry with Israel. This is Schumer working with the Israel lobby and shutting the door on the progressive wing of the party in 2022. I guess Peters is not going to push any members of the Squad, to run for Senate…
Israel’s lawyer is hard at work
In yet another signal of the Democratic-center Israel lobby’s opposition to the Iran deal, former Obama aide Dennis Ross urges Biden not to get back into the deal, and blames Iran of course. “Iran is trying to force itself onto the agenda with provocative actions because they want sanctions relief.” Ross wants to exploit the Trump-era sanctions on Iran to get better terms.
So his attitude is that since we imposed sanctions after we ended the agreement, we should use the sanctions we imposed on the Iranians for more leverage. The foreign policy establishment– or at least a big chunk of it– has no sense of morality. It is all about power and bullying. And of course the very same people think giving Israel billions each year is fine, but boycotting Israel is antisemitc.
And Dennis Ross is held in high regard. The NPR show “Fresh Air” gave “Israel’s lawyer” the better part of an hour to trash the “Palestinian narrative” and host Dave Davies gushed over Ross: “God, I have to say, I marvel at your ability to visualize moves on the diplomatic chessboard still.” So much for the liberal media when it comes to Israel.
Apartheid Marches On!
Of course, Israel likes the signals from the Biden administration that Biden doesn’t want a confrontation with Netanyahu, and so Israel is moving right along on consolidating one apartheid state.
Benjamin Netanyahu is campaigning for the March 23 election by trying to grab Palestinian voters. His latest ad appeals explicitly to Jews and Arabs and Muslim voters, notably in this image of a Jewish woman hugging an Arab woman. Captioned, “Yehudim” and “Aravim.”
Amazingly, the ad then says that Israel brought Arabs and Jews (and Druze and Bedouin and Mizrahim) together to “one state.” Medina ahad. And it pictures just one state between river and sea.
J Street is concerned:
De jure annexation may be on hold, but Netanyahu’s new ad confirms that he views occupied Palestinian territory as if it’s already Israel — even while millions of Palestinians living there don’t have the rights of Israeli citizens.
Americans for Peace Now points out the hypocrisies:
Are all the people who criticized @RashidaTlaib for the map on her wall going to apologize now? After all, Bibi says it is one state…
Netanyahu is picturing the political reality in Israel and Palestine. There is one state between the river and the sea and it’s an apartheid state, because the West Bank and Gaza contains bantustans for Palestinians with no rights. An Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, said so on January 12:
“a regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.”
That’s pretty straightforward, you’d think. But Joshua Gold and I pointed out the many ways that liberal Zionists like J Street are ignoring the B’Tselem report. They just can’t acknowledge this reality, or even try to argue with it, because it means they’d have to support BDS.
That battle is coming to the Democratic Party. Ilhan Omar has mounted a vigorous defense of BDS as a movement for Palestinian rights. “BDS opposes Israel’s denial of Palestinian rights & dignity. People are entitled to express their views in this country and should support this nonviolent movement.”
While DMFI– AIPAC’s arm in the Democratic Party– says that BDS is “antisemitic.” And J Street has also characterized BDS as antisemitic.
Turns out it’s a lot easier to damn a Palestinian human rights campaign than apartheid!
Some have been pointing out the unfairness of the fact that it takes an Israeli group to bring the “apartheid” label home. After all, there have been Israeli Apartheid Weeks on campus organized by Palestinian solidarity supporters for many years, with detailed explanations of why the shoe fits. Writes Yara Hawari of Al-Shabaka: “The media fanfare around this paper highlights the structures of power in knowledge production. In order for our lived experience to be recognised as legitimise in the eyes of the international community it has to be said by someone other than us. And preferably by an Israeli.”
Vaccine apartheid
Speaking of Congress and apartheid, the IMEU denounces Israel’s policy of “vaccine apartheid.” IMEU features four congresspeople speaking out against Israel’s selective policy of giving vaccinations to Israelis but denying them to areas under occupation. Jamaal Bowman and Joaquin Castro both say Israel has an obligation to provide vaccines to those living under occupation. While Rashida Tlaib has said the policy shows that Israel is a “racist state.” Rep. Marie Newman of Illinois also opposes the Israeli policy.
Israel’s new ambassador to the U.S., Gilad Erdan
Finally, a hot take. Noah Kulwin says the U.S. should reject the credentials of Israel’s new ambassador to Washington, Gilad Erdan, because he supervised interference in U.S. politics.
Gilad Erdan [is]… a Likud Party apparatchik whose previous post was serving as Netanyahu’s chief of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs… I’m disturbed by the fact no one seems to be ringing any alarm bells about Erdan’s new position in Washington. It’s clear that Joe Biden should reject Erdan’s credentials, and at least keep him professionally confined to his United Nations job. Why?Because Erdan’s previous ministry was involved in covert surveillance on American citizens, on American soil, while he was in charge.
Kulwin cites the famous Al Jazeera Israel lobby documentary, suppressed by the Qatari government, in which an Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs official brags of covert activities in the U.S. focused on digging up dirt on pro-Palestinian activists: “data gathering, information analysis, working on activist organization, money trail.” EI characterized the Ministry’s work as efforts to “spy on, smear and intimidate US citizens who support Palestinian human rights, especially BDS.”
Somehow I don’t think Biden will take Kulwin’s advice. Though our own efforts to question former ambassador Daniel Shapiro’s bona fides for the Biden administration, because he lives in Tel Aviv and works for an Israeli think tank, may have gotten some traction…
Michael Arria will be coming back next week. This has been fun.
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