Iran, Syria tauten grip on Lebanon
Debka File
Tehran and Damascus are going all out to get their hooks into Lebanon’s Christian politicians and wean them away from their’ traditional ties with the West. President Michel Suleiman this week accepted an Iranian invitation to visit Tehran this month, while another Lebanese Christian leader, Hizballah’s ally Gen. Michel Aoun, arranged to visit Damascus.
DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources report that the Iranians are forging ahead with a campaign to bind the region’s Christian minorities to their Shiite wagon for challenging Sunni domination. Their first quarry is Lebanon’s powerful community.
Arrangements were finalized Monday with the Iranian ambassador in Beirut Reza Shibani for president Suleiman to spend two days in Tehran on Nov. 24-25. Aoun will visit Damascus at the same time. Their country is meanwhile encircled by Syrian military forces, a factual pointer to Bashar Assad’s real intentions regarding peace.
Although these developments bode ill for Israel too, they was left out of the sweeping 2009 prognosis which the Israeli Military Intelligence chief Maj. Amos Yadlin delivered in Tel Aviv Monday, Nov. 17. Neither did he look ahead to the likelihood that Iran would be able to assemble a nuclear weapon next year, notwithstanding more than a decade of international diplomacy and sanctions.
Senior Israeli intelligence circles commented that the evaluations heard from Yadlin Monday were less attuned to reality than to the estimated positions of the incoming US president Barack Obama’s Middle East team and Olmert-Livni policies. Like them, he omitted to address the agendas which Tehran and Damascus are actively pursuing.
Tehran launched its pursuit of Christian minorities by inviting the Lebanese Maronite leader Aoun to Tehran on Oct. 13, through Hizballah’s good offices.
The gambit worked: The Lebanese leader returned home proclaiming Iran the strongest world power between the Persian Gulf and China and predicting that his trip would bear fruit in six months. In the first week of November, Tehran heaped full honors on the Lebanon’s ex-president, the pro-Syrian Christian Emil Lahoud, when he arrived with a 60-man retinue.
Michel Sleiman can expect no less.
The assumption in Israeli ruling circles that Syria as peace partner will deliver a “Lebanese dowry” is therefore fallacious. Assad plans to squeeze whatever he can from Israel and the new US administration in the coin of territory and backing for his regime, while not giving up an iota of his schemes with Tehran. For now, no one is paying attention to the Syrian-Iranian jaws snapping shut on Lebanon.
http://www2.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5719
Israeli, Palestinian Political Mazes Hamper Peace
Written by Yaniv Berman
A year has passed since the leaders of the United States, Israel and the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) met in Annapolis, pledging to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by the end of 2008.
A year has passed and nothing is left of the occasion except for memories of warm handshakes and camera flashes.
An ironic chain of events has made the conclusion of 2008 coincide with the (probable) ending of the careers of all three leaders.
Reaching a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians has been on the agendas of all leaders in the U.S.-Israeli-Palestinian triangle since the early 1990s.
U.S. president Bill Clinton shed a tear over the grave of Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995 for his peace efforts. Two years earlier, Clinton had stood beside Rabin and PLO leader Yassir Arafat, as they signed the historic Oslo Accords, which brought to life the Palestinian Authority.
Oslo was supposed to resolve the main issues of the conflict between the two sides in a gradual manner, over a five-year period. During those five years, one Israeli premier was assassinated and his replacement, Binyamin Netanyahu, was unable to reach the Promised Land with his Palestinian partner/opponent Arafat.
Since then, the Middle East has witnessed a number of failed peace initiatives, beginning with the Camp David summit in 2000, continuing with the Saudi initiatives of 2002 and 2007, and ending with Annapolis 2007.
Of course, Annapolis was the starting point of a series of talks that officially continue to this day, but on the ground nothing has changed.
The question is: will anything change, and if so – by whom, and when?
Two elaborate mazes on the Israeli and the Palestinian arenas are painfully interwoven into one another, creating a Gordian knot. In order to cut the knot, two leaders – an Israeli and a Palestinian – have not only to achieve reconciliation between their nations but also to guarantee in advance that they have enough power within their own constituencies to implement an agreement if and when it comes.
The Palestinian maze
Mahmoud 'Abbas was elected chairman of the P.A. in January 2005, a few weeks after the death of Arafat, the Palestinians' legendary leader. 'Abbas won 62 percent of the votes after Fatah's rival Islamic party, Hamas, boycotted the elections and presented no candidate of its own.
After his election, 'Abbas, who also replaced Arafat as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and leader of Fatah, called on the Palestinians to halt their violence against Israel. A year later, in March 2006, 'Abbas suffered a heavy blow in the parliamentary elections, as the majority of voters supported Hamas over his Fatah party.
Much to the dismay of 'Abbas, as well as of Israel and the United States, Hamas was thereafter in control of the Palestinian parliament. The democratic experiment in the newly established P.A. ended with an Islamic resistance movement in power. Soon after, a Hamas-Fatah unity government was established, headed by Hamas’ Isma'il Haniyya.
It was not long before Israel detained many of Hamas’ MPs and ministers, removing from the movement its power base in the democratic arena. Hamas blamed Fatah for cooperating with the Zionist regime and the political feud between the two rival movements soon spread to the streets.
In June 2007, a six-day Hamas armed coup in Gaza created a new situation in the Palestinian territories. The Gaza Strip came under the complete control of Hamas, while the West Bank remained under the control of the Fatah-affiliated P.A. security organizations.
Reconciliation efforts between Hamas and Fatah have thus far failed, paralyzing the Palestinian political arena. Still maintaining that the government under its rule is the legitimate one, Hamas refuses to recognize the caretaker government, which was established by 'Abbas in Ramallah.
Hamas also declared it would not regard the presidency of 'Abbas as legitimate after January 9, 2009. The movement claims that under the Palestinian Basic Law, presidential elections should be held every four years, and since the last elections were conducted on January 9 2005, 'Abbas has no right to stay in power.
Fatah, on the other hand, clings to a change its MPs made in 2007 in the Elections Law, according to which the presidential and legislative elections should be held at the same time, namely in 2010.
"If reconciliation efforts between Hamas and Fatah continue to fail, there will not be elections next year," Dr. Naji Shurab, a professor of political science at the Al-Azhar University in Gaza, told The Media Line.
This will create an intolerable situation, in which the Palestinians will not only have two governments, but also two presidents, Shurab warns.
By refusing to recognize ‘Abbas' presidency for another year, Hamas will turn to the Basic Law, which stipulates that if a new president is not elected after four years, the parliament speaker becomes president for 60 days until new elections are held.
Hamas, says Shurab, will in that case declare deputy speaker Ahmad Bahr the de-facto president, as Speaker Hasan Dweik is currently detained in an Israeli jail. Bahr, as well as Dweik, are both members of Hamas.
This will further aggravate the fragmentation between Hamas and Fatah, Shurab predicts.
"Suppose that Bahr agrees to become president. What guarantees are there that new presidential elections would be held after 60 days?" asks Shurab.
The answer, of course, is that under such conditions, no elections can take place and the Palestinian political arena will remain paralyzed.
The plot, however, thickens. According to all signs, Palestinian political experts predict that if 'Abbas completes his controversial five-year term in office in January 2010, he would not run for a second term.
Then, Fatah would face a grave leadership crisis. With no powerful leaders in the party, Fatah would not be able to present a serious candidate for the next presidential elections, whenever these might be held.
The only possible Fatah candidate, who also has the respect of many in Hamas, is former Fatah leader in the West Bank, Marwan Barghouthi. Opinion polls conducted in recent years and months have shown that Barghouthi is the most popular figure both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
There is one problem, however. In 2002, Barghouthi was arrested by Israel and was sentenced to five consecutive life-terms for his role in the multiple killings of Israelis.
Barghouthi has since supported both the negotiations with Israel and the reconciliation efforts between Hamas and Fatah. Recognizing his important role in Palestinian politics and his apparent change of heart regarding the Palestinian violence against Israel, several Israeli politicians, including Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, have called for Barghouthi’s release for the sake of peace. Israel, however, refuses to free him.
The Israeli maze
Israel's political arena today is in a state of near chaos. It is run by a caretaker premier and an impossible coalition government, which comprises Left, Right and centrist parties. The next parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place only in February 2009, and according to recent statements made by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, many things could change by that time on the Palestinian (and Syrian) negotiation fronts.
On July 30, 2008, Olmert resigned under the weight of multiple corruption scandals. Olmert, however, is still heading a caretaker government, which according to Israeli law enjoys all the authority of a regular government, and is even protected from a parliamentary no-confidence vote.
Usually, during a caretaker government period, no critical decisions are made, so as not to obligate the future government to controversial moves. This, however, is far from what Olmert has in mind. In the past few weeks, Olmert has repeatedly announced that peace with the Arabs means ceding east Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and returning to the pre-1967 borders – all heretofore redlines for any government negotiator.
'Abbas, for his part, has also pledged to continue his efforts to sign a peace treaty for as long as he is in power.
Any concession of territories under Israeli sovereignty has to be approved by a public referendum, Prof. Amnon Rubinstein, one of Israel's leading experts on constitutional law, recently told The Media Line. But therein lies some of the wiggle-room available to Olmert: no law has yet been enacted that defines what such a referendum is and what percentage of the population must vote in favor in order for the referendum to pass.
The issue of sovereignty is also key to the discussion. The Golan Heights and east Jerusalem have been formally annexed by acts of parliament and are therefore, according to Israeli law, under the sovereignty of the state of Israel. The entire West Bank – exclusive of east Jerusalem – however, is under military rule, and therefore not considered to be under Israel’s sovereignty.
So while this leaves the all-important practical issue of whether a deal without east Jerusalem would even be considered by the Palestinians, it nevertheless removes a major legal impediment from Olmert's path.
All of this concerns the two leading candidates to replace Olmert as the next premier: Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who is also the new leader of the ruling party Qadima, and Binyamin Netanyahu, chairman of the opposition Likud Party.
According to recent polls, after the February elections Livni and Netanyahu will head the two largest parties. Israelis vote for a party list rather than for a candidate. The head of the party that garners the greatest number of seats in the 120-seat parliament is usually given the mandate to form a government and serves as prime minister. The decision as to whether or not to give him/her the mandate, is the president's, who also has to take into consideration which party would have a better chance of assembling a stable coalition.
When Qadima was established in 2006, it was mostly comprised of legislators who left the Likud Party, including Livni. Its political platform (which was drafted by Livni herself) stated that Palestinian refugees would not be allowed to enter Israel, and that Israel would never give up parts of unified Jerusalem or the large Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank.
This platform was more or less similar to the Likud Party's platform, but since then much has changed.
"What was once a redline has turned today, in the best case scenario, into a starting negotiating point; and in the worst case scenario – as presented by Olmert's latest statements – the redline was totally forgotten even before the negotiation began," MP Ze'ev Elkin, a disappointed member of Qadima, told The Media Line.
According to Elkin, the difference between Olmert (the former chairman of Qadima) and Livni (the incumbent chairman) is tactical, not strategic. Olmert has already expressed in public his willingness to give up east Jerusalem, the Golan and almost the whole of the West Bank. Livni, says Elkin, has not revealed this in public, but will do just the same come negotiation time.
MP Elkin make known that his disappointment with Qadima's views forced him to decide not to run in its ranks in the next elections.
"Before I made this decision, I held private talks with Livni, during which we devoted much attention to the issue of Jerusalem. Her views regarding a unified Jerusalem were not calming, to say the least," Elkin said.
For his part, Likud chairman Netanyahu made it clear that if elected prime minister, he would not agree to have the issue of Jerusalem brought to the negotiating table.
What does the future hold?
In a speech in early November, ‘Abbas said he would continue the negotiations on the basis of all or nothing. This meant that if his partner would not agree to compromise on all issues, including Jerusalem, in order to reach a comprehensive agreement, the discussions would not continue.
How the Israeli-Palestinian talks will proceed, we will know only after the Israeli elections establish the new parliamentary balance of power.
If the Likud Party becomes the biggest party, Netanyahu has already announced he would strive to form a broad coalition, including left-wing parties.
If Qadima, headed by Livni, wins more votes, it would form a center-left coalition, adding, most probably, at least one right-wing party.
The identity of the prime minister and the ruling party will be key to how negotiations with the Palestinians will look. Nevertheless, even with Livni as premier, a strong right-wing party in her coalition might also hamper her intentions to continue the talks.
Meanwhile, it is also obvious that as long as the P.A. continues to suffer from an internal rift, it cannot present one front vis-à-vis Israel. In such a case, even if ‘Abbas and Olmert were able to reach an agreement by February, there would be no guarantees for its implementation.
http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=23347
France wants post-EU presidency financial summit
PHILIPPA RUNNER
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - France has unveiled plans for a post-French EU presidency financial summit, despite the Czech Republic's sensitivity over its upcoming chairmanship of the EU.
The Elysee Palace on Tuesday (18 November) formally announced an "international summit" to be held in Paris on 8 January, entitled "New World: Values, Development and Regulation," continuing France's ambition to create a "new model" for capitalism in the wake of the global financial crisis.
The meeting is to bring together international leaders as well as intellectuals such as economist Joseph Stiglitz and philosopher Francis Fukuyama and will be co-chaired by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and former British PM Tony Blair.
The move comes after a G20 summit in Washington last weekend fell short of EU hopes to tighten global financial regulation.
The new Paris meeting is the latest in a long line of high-powered events organised by France since it took over the EU helm in July. An EU presidency normally hosts two EU summits, but Mr Sarkozy has already added one extraordinary Georgia war summit, one special financial crisis summit, a eurozone summit and a G4 financial summit.
French officials in October proposed that the eurozone should form an "economic government" led by Mr Sarkozy after the French EU presidency expires in December in order to maintain the "impetus, the energy" of the Elysee Palace's efforts.
Mr Sarkozy and Mr Blair have also been floated as candidates for the Lisbon treaty-envisaged job of permanent EU president.
But the Czech Republic has resented any suggestions that a small, new EU state cannot lead the bloc in times of crisis.
Prague has also rejected MEPs' accusations that it will be a lame duck presidency because it is split over ratification of the Lisbon treaty and because the ruling ODS party suffered defeats in local elections last month.
"Nobody can take the presidency away from the Czech Republic," Czech deputy prime minister Alexandr Vondra said in October on the eurozone government idea.
Prague also plans to hold two extraordinary summits during its EU chairmanship, one on the Eastern Partnership of deeper integration with the EU's post-Soviet neighbours and one to greet new US President Barack Obama.
French public policies minister Eric Besson toned down the language of the French president's original statement on the 8 January event when talking to the Associated Press on Tuesday.
The meeting will be a "conference" not a summit, he said. "It's not an operational and decision-making colloquium."