Each year thousands of children are conscripted by governments, paramilitary groups, and guerrillas to serve as military combatants, human mine detectors, and sex slaves.
Don’t let the opportunity to have your say pass by - this is your world and you have a right to make yourself heard - do not simply sit back and think someone else will tackle this issue for you - we all need to get involved and make a difference.
An editorial in the Wall Street Journal says that by doing so, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has “called the bluff” of U.S. congressional leader Nancy Pelosi, who had seized on the issue as a reason for not proceeding forward with the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.
Oberstleutnant i. G. Jörg Barandat wies uns auf folgende Studie hin:
DOKUMENTATION DER TAGUNG DER KONRAD-ADENAUER-STIFTUNG (KAS) IN ZUSAMMENARBEIT MIT DEM BUND JÜDISCHER SOLDATEN (RJF) UND DEM ZENTRALRAT DER JUDEN IN DEUTSCHLAND.
In a statement yesterday, Senator Barack Obama congratulated Israel on its 60th Independence Day. “The United States will always stand with Israel to ensure it can defend itself against threat of terrorism and violence, from as close as Gaza and as far as Tehran,” Barack Obama said.
China and Japan inked a historic agreement and a “new starting point” for bilateral relations. The pledge, which comes after years of tense relations over wartime history and off-shore natural resources, establishes an annual summit between the nations.
Moscow and Washington signed a long-awaited nuclear cooperation agreement. The U.S. State Department said the deal will increase international joint venture opportunities in the civilian nuclear sector between Russia and the United States.
A Great Gift in an Unhappy Wrapping: Celebrating (Despite It All!) Israel at Sixty
by Dr. Eran Lerman
Former deputy chief of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) strategic intelligence planning and currently director of American Jewish Committee (AJC) Israel/Middle East office
Israeli citizens may be forgiven if they look askance at the wrappings in which the gifts and joys of Yom Ha-Atzmaut (Independence Day) 2008 - our sixtieth - come ensconced.
The prime minister is facing fresh investigations into his conduct (in his previous positions), and the newspapers, based on rumors and hints, suggest that this might amount to an indictment for graft. Our former president, having reneged on his plea bargain, may soon force upon us a long and ugly trial for sexual abuse and perhaps even rape. Divided counsels in the governing coalition give the demands of Shas, and the claims of ultra-Orthodoxy to define Jewish identity, additional leverage. The influence of powerful “oligarchs” is being felt in our corridors of governance.
And despite some remarkably brave decisions recently - for example, the successful raid on the Syrian/North Korean nuclear facility, made half-public by the U.S. administration briefing before Congress - some of the questions left lingering as to the conduct of the Second Lebanon War remain unanswered. The agony of Sderot goes on and on, and with it, the challenge posed by Hamas ascendancy in Gaza. Iran continues to defy the world, racing toward the bomb, and to spew hate and terror. The challenges we face are clear for all to see.
As Israelis gather in military cemeteries across the land on Yom Ha-Zikaron (Memorial Day), which quite deliberately precedes Independence Day, they remember the sacrifice of those who fell in that war, in the eight subsequent ones - if one counts the two eruptions of Palestinian violence and the War of Attrition of 1968-70, as well as the more “conventional” conflicts of 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1982 - and in the many acts of violence (as well as training accidents and other sad consequences of a prolonged military effort) in between. The unspoken, ever-powerful subtext, as always, but perhaps today with added force, is: Was it for a good cause? Are we worthy? This was expressed in a poem by Archibald MacLeish:
They say: We have given our lives
But until it is finished
no one can know what our lives gave.
They say: Our deaths are not ours: they are yours,
they will mean what you make them.
They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for
peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say,
it is you who must say this.
In a certain respect, however, we are perhaps unfortunately touched by a linguistic quirk of modern Hebrew usage. For reasons rooted in the years of our pre-independence struggle and the intense experience of emergence from the valley of death of the Holocaust into the sunlight of sovereignty, Israelis have come to use the term “ha-medina,” “the State,” as synonymous with “the Country.” (In fact, Israel’s official name is not the “Republic of Israel”-as it might have been, following a firm European tradition-but simply the State of Israel.)
While “the State” in its narrower sense-the established government and its exercise of its institutional powers-may leave much to be desired at this point in time, there is much to celebrate, and indeed, with all the pain involved, much to give meaning to the price paid by “The Young Dead Soldiers” - the title of MacLeish’s poem - and to the toils and strains of our own “greatest generation,” that of the young women and men, like my two parents, who stood at the brink in 1948 and, in a desperate struggle, made this country happen.
This is a time when we may, with good reason, look beyond the painful headlines and contemplate, not the state of the State, but the broader achievements of the country, and the Jewish people, in sixty years. Therein lies a very different story - of almost constant growth; of an ingathering that produced a vibrant and multihued society; of breathtaking economic breakthroughs; of scientific and technological impact way beyond our numbers in the world (in which Israelis are only one in a thousand); of artistic and literary creativity on par with that of much larger nations.
Traveling in America recently, I was gratified to come upon the pride of place given to Israeli women artists in various forums - Sigalit Landau’s haunting work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and Yael Naim’s joyous music clip featured in the entertainment program on a prominent American airline. Surely they speak to a larger phenomenon, as do the imprints of Israeli technologies, from the disk-on-key flash drive to Intel chips; and as participants in AJC’s Annual Meeting last week heard from Shai Agassi, who wants Israel to lead to world in electric cars, the visionaries are still out there, even if they have moved from the meeting places of political movements and halls of government to the boardrooms of innovative corporations and the newly empowered gatherings of civil society and voluntary organizations.
An American Jewish intellectual recently took it upon himself to speculate whether Israel was “finished”-presumably because of the difficulty in solving the Palestinian problem. Similar sound bites emanate from Damascus and Tehran.
And yet the end of a phase in our history, and the loss of much of our political innocence, is just the beginning of a new chapter, possibly more energetic and more creative for being rooted in richer soil. America in 1836 was very much an unresolved set of contradictory propositions (and we must fervently hope that we shall not need to resort to what it took to sort them out, one score and seven years later). We have no ambition to emerge as a world power, as America already was by 1896.
But when our descendants in 2068 look upon this period of transition, they will little remember the political vicissitudes of the day, and will find instead the building blocks of an Israel that has become a creative force in her regional and Mediterranean environment and in the world community at large.
Reprinted with kindly permission of The American Jewish Committee.
Outgoing Russian President Vladimir Putin has defended plans to roll tanks and missiles through Moscow at the end of the week, declaring that the display is not intended to “threaten anyone.” It is the first time in many years Moscow’s Victory Day parade will include armaments.
Rwanda is calling for the United Nations to investigate allegations that the UN peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo was selling arms to rebels in the region in exchange for minerals.
The history of Palestinian refugees deserves international attention. So does the history of one million Jewish refugees from the Arab-Israel conflict. Yet the United Nations has devoted countless resolutions and debates to only one side of this story, completely ignoring the other.
For the first time ever in the UN Human Rights Council, at its recently concluded session, the suffering of Jewish refugees from Arab lands was also placed on the international agenda. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. Congress adopted a historic resolution recognizing that all victims of the conflict must be treated equally.
Racism and Historical Truth: Jewish Refugees from Arab Lands
UN Watch Oral Statement
Agenda Item 9: Interactive Dialogue with Special Rapporteur on Racism Doudou Diène
UN Human Rights Council, 7th Session, March 19, 2008
Delivered by Regina Bublil Waldman
Thank you, Mr. President.
We thank the Special Rapporteur for his work against racism, and address two areas of his report.
Dr. Diene, in Addendum 1 you mention Libya’s treatment of ethnic minorities. In Addenda 3 and 4, you envision a multicultural society based on two principles: respect for historical truth and non-discrimination against minorities.
As a victim of Libyan discrimination, I agree: only with historical truth can we build a better future.
Today I wear my traditional ethnic dress to celebrate my heritage, but also to mourn its destruction.
One million Jews lived in the Middle East at the turn of the century. Today, less than five thousand remain.
Their plight has been ignored by the international community.
Their story is my story.
In 1948, there were thirty-six thousand Jews living in Libya. Today, there are none.
During the 1967 war between Israel and her Arab neighbors, mobs took to the streets and shouted, “Edbah el Yehud!” - “Slaughter the Jews!”
They burned my father’s warehouse and came to burn our home.
An honorable Muslim neighbor stopped them, and saved our lives.
The government ordered the expulsion of all Jews from Libya, where my family had lived for hundreds of years. They confiscated our homes and all our assets.
We were given this one-way travel document - never allowed to return.
My family was put on a bus to the airport. The bus driver got out, and tried to burn the bus with us in it. We were rescued from death by two Christian friends.
I come here today bearing no hatred — only these historical truths:
Jews have been an indigenous people of the Middle East for over 2,500 years.
On the basis of race and religion, Arab regimes subjected Jews to arbitrary arrest, confiscation of property and expulsions. This is fully documented in this report by Justice for Jews from Arab Countries.
The UNHCR has ruled that Jews fleeing from Arab countries were ‘bona fide’ refugees, victims of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Dr. Diene, your report envisions a future of tolerance and equality. Applying the principles you set forth, we trust you will examine the actions of Libya and other Middle Eastern countries that forced out their Jewish minorities.
Like in South Africa, only the acknowledgment of truth and history will lead to reconciliation.
Newsweek International reports on France’s success in using small combat units to partner with different international military alliances.
“A year into his first term, in fact, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is using his warm relations with Washington and his military’s strong record fighting in Africa and the Balkans to help re-establish France publicly and formally as a leading player in NATO, more than four decades after President Charles de Gaulle pulled out of the alliance’s integrated command and kicked its offices out of Paris. At the same time, he’s working to put France at the fore of a separate European Union defense force and extend its influence eastward to the Persian Gulf and South Asia. And if France really wants to project itself on the world stage this way, well, it couldn’t happen at a better time. U.S. forces are stretched thin, and there are only a handful of other armies with the training, the bases, the organization and, most important, the political will to kill and die in far corners of the planet to keep local wars from emerging into global threats. The shortlist includes the Brits-and the French, and that’s about it.”
Letters obtained by the New York Times indicate the U.S. Justice Department has told Congress that U.S. intelligence agencies trying to stop terrorist attacks may use interrogation practices that go beyond the bounds of international law. The JURIST legal blog explores.
In an op-ed for The Washington Post, former Pentagon official and president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations Leslie H. Gelb writes that dealing with bad guys is part of the “foreign policy business,” and outlines how to make deals with devils. A real issue: not whether to talk to “Bad Guys”, but how?
“Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman knew well about the sins of the Soviet Union, but they cooperated with the monstrous Joseph Stalin against an even bigger monster, Adolf Hitler. (Winston Churchill was similarly unsentimental: ‘If Hitler invaded Hell,’ he reportedly said, ‘I would at least make a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.’) President Richard M. Nixon was well aware of the tens of millions killed by Mao Zedong but figured that dealing with the Chinese leader would give him leverage against Moscow. Even Reagan married his condemnation of the Soviets with an all-out effort to negotiate far-reaching arms control agreements with them.”
General David H. Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, was tapped to head Centcom, the U.S. strategic command in the Middle East.
TIME takes a look at the promotion of the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and the intersection with the presidential campaign. Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who have called for a major troop withdrawal from Iraq, will need to vote in the coming weeks on Petraeus’ promotion. His presence will also raise questions about the long-term prospects for the surge strategy in Iraq as well as counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan.
Despite continuing reports of Sudanese involvement in the killing, rape, and displacement of many thousands in Darfur, the Khartoum regime was celebrated for its “cooperation” at the recently concluded session of the UN Human Rights Council.
Sudan’s allies from the African, Islamic groups and Non-Aligned blocs lined up to praise Khartoum, a position that was formalized in a consensus resolution welcoming the collaboration of the government of Sudan.
Gibreil Hamid, a survivor from Darfur, took the floor on behalf of UN Watch to confront the impunity granted to Sudan.
See full text below.
UN Watch Takes on Sudan and its Allies
UN Human Rights Council, 7th Session
Interactive Dialogue with UN Special Rapporteur on Sudan
UN Watch Statement Delivered by Gibreil Hamid, March 17, 2008
Thank you, Mr. President.
I speak on behalf of UN Watch. We thank the Special Rapporteur for her excellent work for the victims of Darfur.
Mr. President, I am from Darfur, and I know the truth about what is happening there. The truth can be found in today’s report.
The report shows how the Government of Sudan is violating human rights and international humanitarian law, with physical assaults, abductions and rape. In October, Government forces attacked Muhajiriya. People praying in a mosque were rounded up, and forty-eight civilians were killed. In November, Government planes dropped bombs on Habila. The attackers entered the villages, shooting, stealing animals and setting fire to houses.
On 2 December, in West Darfur, armed men attacked a group of ten women and girls. A sixteen-year-old girl from the group was gang raped, and at least three other women were whipped and beaten with axes. Police and soldiers refused to help.
Today’s report says that violence against women in Darfur is continuing. There is no improvement. There is no justice. The attackers enjoy immunity.
Mr. President, in the name of basic human rights, UN Watch urges Sudan to end these attacks against innocent civilians. UN Watch asks this Council to please stop praising Sudan for its “cooperation.” Mr. President, attacking little girls is not “cooperation.”
We wish to ask the rapporteur: What further action is she planning to protect the victims of Darfur?
In an article in the Financial Times, Richard Nathan Haass, president of The Council on Foreign Relations, argues that the age of unprecedented U.S. dominance is over. The transition to a nonpolar world will have mostly negative consequences for the United States.
“Why did it end? One explanation is history. States get better at generating and piecing together the human, financial and technological resources that lead to productivity and prosperity. The same holds for companies and other organisations. The rise of new powers cannot be stopped. The result is an ever larger number of actors able to exert influence regionally or globally. It is not that the US has grown weaker, but that many other entities have grown much stronger.”
Seit dem 11. September, der neuen Zündstufe globalen Islamterrors, dauert die Flut der Veröffentlichungen über Islam und Islamismus sowie die Rolle des Westens im Konflikt mit dieser erweiterten Gewaltdimension ungebrochen an. Die charismatische Gestalt des Usama bin Ladin, die Stoßtruppaktion in Afghanistan und der Irakkrieg haben die Gründe und Hintergründe des islamischen Terrors indes nicht wirklich erhellen können, sondern die Spekulationen eher noch weiter angeheizt.
Unter den neueren Publikationen zu dieser schwierigen Thematik scheint eine Darstellung besonderes Furore gemacht zu haben. Gemeint ist Hatred’s Kingdom - übersetzt: Königreich des Hasses - ein Buch, das nicht nur seines provokanten Titels wegen den Weg in die Bestsellerliste der New York Times gefunden hat.
Autor des gefragten Werks ist Dore Gold, Israels ehemaliger UNO-Botschafter und außenpolitischer Berater des Ministerpräsidenten - also immerhin jemand mit Zugang zu Einsichten und Materialien, die über den einschlägigen Durchschnitt hinausgehen. Mit seiner Überschrift will Gold jene wahhabitische Islamform kennzeichnen, die der saudischen Monarchie als Herrschaftsideologie dient und in den letzten zwei Jahrzehnten durch eine wachsende Gewaltbereitschaft aufgefallen ist. Immer häufiger tritt Saudi-Arabien seither als Finanzier und Drahtzieher von Terrorgruppen und -aktionen auf, wobei nicht zuletzt drei Viertel der Attentäter des 11. September aus diesem Land kamen und sich auf den Koran beriefen. So stellt Gold den Wahhabismus, seine Geschichte und Entwicklung, ins Zentrum seiner Darstellung, und es lohnt sich, sie mitzuverfolgen.
Das saudische Königreich führt sich auf einen Loyalitätsvertrag zurück, den 1744 der Dynastiegründer Muh. Ibn Sa’ud und der Islamreformer Ibn Abdul-Wahhab abschlossen, um sich über die Wahrung der islamischen Glaubensordnung gegenseitig Schutz und Legitimation zuzusichern. Nach diversen Anläufen und zum Teil blutigen Kämpfen gegen Osmanen, Schiiten und später die Briten gelang es der Saudi-Dynastie schließlich, sich ab 1932 in der bis heute geltenden Form zu etablieren. Der wahhabitische Islam stützt sich auf eine extrem orthodoxe Tradition, die einen strengen Monotheismaus vertritt, und jede Abweichung unnachgiebig verfolgt.
Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts hatte sich die Wahhabiten-Bewegung mit den sogenannten “Hidjra-Brüdern” verbunden, die wie einst ihr Prophet nun in einen erneuerten Glauben hinausgehen und alle Götzendiener, vor allem die westlichen Eindringlinge, bekämpfen wollten. In Ägypten war parallel dazu eine weitere große Reformbewegung entstanden, aus der sich unter wahhabitischem Einfluß die bekannte Muslimbruderschaft bildete - bis heute die mit Abstand größte Einzelbewegung des Islam. Indem sie ein Wechselspiel aus sanften, offenen Sozialgruppen und harten, verdeckten Terrorkadern betreibt, bekämpft diese Gemeinschaft die aus ihrer Sicht unislamischen Regime und breitet sich zugleich in den wichtigen Ländern des Westens aus. Mit der Ideologie und Finanzkraft des saudischen Wahhabismus konnte sie eine wirkungsvolle Allianz eingehen, aus der schlagkräftige Terrorgruppen wie der ägyptische Djihad, die palästinensische Hamas und die globale Al-Qa’ida hervorgingen, die ihrerseits schließlich die USA zum Handeln zwang.
Gold versteht es - und darin liegt die Stärke des Buches - diesen nicht ganz einfachen Ablauf in plausiblen Stufen vor dem Leser zu entfalten. Dabei greift er im Überbau des Islam ein wenig zu kurz, wenn er sich mit der bekannten, nicht weniger ungeprüften Komfortfloskel der “Toleranz” begnügt, der zufolge “der Islam nicht das Problem” ist. Die historische Realität zeigt vielmehr, daß die scheinbare Toleranz des Islam - aktuell und historisch - nicht die große Masse der Nichtmuslime, sondern allenfalls deren Eliten betrifft, soweit deren Macht den Muslimen nutzbar gemacht werden kann. Ähnlich geht es dem Begriff des Djihad. Gold sieht zwar, daß die modernen Islamisten den Kampf praktizieren und Nichtmuslime ständig bedrohen oder sogar töten, führt dies jedoch auf den grassierenden Wahhabismus als pervertierte, zeitbedingte Sonderform des Islam und nicht auf dessen koranisch-historische Verhaltensstrukturen zurück. Während ihm also die Einordnung in den Gesamtkontext eher fehlt, bietet er eine Fülle von Zitaten an, die die Unmittelbarkeit der Ideologie verdeutlichen. So nimmt z.B. Abdullah Azzam, Schöpfer des weltweiten Djihad und Mentor des Usama bin Ladin, kein Blatt vor den Mund:
“Diejenigen, die glauben, daß Islam gedeihen und ohne Kampf und Blut siegen kann, haben keine Ahnung von der Natur dieser Religion!”
Detailliert schildert der Autor, wie sich der saudische Herrschaftsverbund aus Königsfamilie und Imamschaft über die 80er und 90er Jahre schrittweise radikalisiert und dabei von den USA als Führungsmacht abgekoppelt hat. Immer entschiedener schaltet sich die Islamische Weltliga, eine 1962 gegründete Organisation, in die islamweite Verbreitung des wahhabitischen Islam ein. Ihre wichtigsten Arme sind dabei die World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) und die International Islamic Relief Organisation (IIRO), die mit ihren sozialen und humanitären Fassaden als perfekte Tarnsysteme für die weltweite Versorgung der Kontaktstellen mit Propaganda, Logistik und Finanzen genutzt werden. Während sie nach außen das in den 90er Jahren abkühlende Verhältnis zu den USA verbal zu wahren suchen, bauen die Saudis nach innen ihr Netz von Terrorzellen, Moscheen und diversen Organisationen global aus. In den Jahren 1995/96 schwenkt auch Usama bin Ladin wieder in die Kooperation mit der saudischen Führung ein, nachdem deren Aggressivität gegenüber dem Westen sich seinen Standards angenähert hat. Beide Seiten haben eingesehen, daß sie in der - noch verdeckten - Bündelung von Terrorexpertise und Kapital ihre Erfolgschance sowohl in komplexen Projekten wie der Zerstörung des World Trade Center als auch im Zukunftskampf gegen den Westen überhaupt verbessern können.
Allerdings läßt Gold die Beiträge nur ahnen, welche die US-Regierungen und Geheimdienste zu dieser Entwicklung geleistet haben. Kontakte zu führenden Saudi-Familien und Terrorfinanziers sowie die Kooperation mit zahlreichen Extremisten ließen sie zu stillen Teilnehmern am islamischen Radikalisierungsprozeß werden, so daß sie auch die Ausbreitung der Terrorgruppen im eigenen Lande viel zu lange duldeten. Exakt das gleiche Phänomen läßt sich auch im deutschen “Dialog” erkennen, der unbeirrt mit Vertretern aus dem saudischen Gewaltumfeld geführt wird. In diesem Sinne konnten die “Friedensmärsche” vor und während des Irakkrieges nicht nur als Demonstration gegen die USA und Israel, sondern vor allem als Parteinahme für den terrorbereiten und frauenfeindlichen Islamismus saudischer Prägung dienen. Wie ungleich sich dabei der Blick durch die Dialogbrillen gestaltet, faßt Mekka-Scheich Ahmad Siami für die islamische Meinungsherrschaft zusammen:
“Dieser Papst, der Kopf der Katholischen Kirche, und diejenigen, die ihm im Ruf nach der Einheit der Religionen folgen, sind die Nachkommen der spanischen Inquisitoren, die die Muslime höchst abscheulich folterten … Sie sind die Abkömmlinge der Kreuzfahrer im islamischen Osten, die zahllose Muslime töteten und deren Frauen gefangennahmen. Sie sind die Täter der Massenmorde von Bosnien-Herzegowina, Kosovo, Indonesien und Tschetschenien … Können wir von diesen mörderischen Wölfen Mitleid erwarten?”
Mit den islamistischen Terrorpredigern wächst eine paranoide und zugleich totalitäre Herausforderung heran, deren Sprengkraft für die westlichen Demokratien kaum überschätzt werden kann. Oft versagen jedoch deren Prüfmechanismen schon bei ihren eigenen “Verantwortlichen”. Viele von ihnen verkennen die Wurzeln des islamischen Radikalismus umso bereitwilliger, je überzeugender dessen Vertreter ihnen die Zuckerbrotformeln von der “Religion des Friedens” oder auch finanzielle Zuwendungen verabfolgen. Sie könnten also selbst zu dem “Problem” werden, das der Islam in ihren Augen nicht ist. Dennoch sind sie vor Allahs Korrekturpeitsche keineswegs sicher, wie sie der einflußreiche Mekka-Scheich Ghazawi beschreibt:
“Der Terror, d.h. die Erzeugung von Entsetzen, die nach islamischem Gesetz erlaubt ist, besteht in der Einschüchterung der Feiglinge und Heuchler, der Säkularisten und Abweichler, die nach Allahs Gesetz zu bestrafen sind … Der Begriff “Terror”, den die (westlichen) Medien verwenden, entspricht dem Djihad für Allah, und Djihad ist die Spitze des Islam”.
In Europa, wo die großen Parteien bzw. Kommission und Ministerrat die Institutionen der Politik, des Rechts und der Medien bereits weitgehend vereinnahmt haben, hat das islamische Politsystem unter dem Schutz der Religionsfreiheit bislang eine nähere Prüfung verhindern können, wie auch der sorglose Umgang mit dem EU-Beitritt der Türkei zeigt.
Golds Buch macht freilich deutlich, dass an diesem Punkt das “Königreich des Hasses” und seine aggressive Ideologie einen neuen Spaltungsvorgang verstärken könnte, der Europa zunehmend von Amerika trennt.
Mit freundlicher Genehmigung von Dr. Hans-Peter Raddatz.
The Christian Science Monitor reports on a new U.S. military initiative called the Africa Partnership Station and U.S. efforts to train soldiers in western Africa.
“America now gets more than 15 percent of its oil from Africa, a figure expected to grow to one quarter by 2015, and West Africa is an oil-rich region. ‘We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t in US interests,’ concedes Nowell but he argues that oil is only one component part. Ninety percent of commerce is by sea so a stable and secure maritime environment is good for the US.”
In an effort to draw attention to Switzerland’s $30 billion energy deal with the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism - Iran - the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has taken out advertisements in major international newspapers and in leading Swiss dailies with a message to the Swiss government that, “When you finance a terrorist state, you finance terrorism.”
The series of ADL ads, appeared on April 8, 2008 in The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Sun. Additional ads will appear in Switzerland in Le Matin Bleu and Le Temps and Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
ADL is concerned that Iran’s profits from the energy deal could help the regime to accelerate and complete its nuclear weapons program and provide tens of thousands of additional missiles to Hezbollah and Hamas, two terrorist groups and sworn enemies of Israel who routinely benefit from Tehran’s largess.
These concerns about the Swiss-Iran energy deal, as well as Switzerland’s foreign policy record vis-à-vis Israel, are explained in the following op-ed by Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director.
Swiss Err on Iran, Israel
by Abraham H. Foxman
National Director of the Anti-Defamation League
This article originally appeared in the JTA on April 7, 2008
Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey’s visit to Tehran was billed as an opportunity to deliver a stern message about the need for Iran to end its human rights violations and its threats to destroy Israel. This was according to the government’s official announcement of her March 17 diplomatic visit.
As a secondary matter, the announcement noted, Calmy-Rey would attend the signing of a gas deal between Iran and a Swiss energy company.
But Calmy-Rey herself inadvertently exposed the flimsy human rights pretext when she acknowledged on the day of her departure that she was traveling to Tehran in response to Iran’s invitation.
It is highly unlikely that Iran invited Switzerland’s foreign minister to chat about Iran’s bleak record on human rights or its belligerent statements about Israel. The real purpose of the visit, which included photo ops with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was to raise the profile of a $28 billion energy deal, one that has consequences for Iran’s continued pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability.
The Swiss are not alone in signing gas contracts with Iran, but the size of the deal and its timing so soon after the latest round of United Nations sanctions will surely encourage Iran on its march toward nuclear weapons and in its defiance of international demands to stop enriching uranium.
If Switzerland were committed to ending the Iranian nuclear threat, it would join with other responsible countries to reinforce the isolation of the ayatollahs’ regime. If Switzerland were serious about supporting an effective strategy, it would join the movement to target Iran’s energy industry.
This gas deal is just the latest example of Swiss actions that are out of step with the West’s determination to confront Iran and commitment to the security of Israel.
Switzerland joined Saudi Arabia, Cuba and other dictatorships in support of the U.N. Human Rights Council resolution that condemned Israel’s reaction to the rockets from Gaza while ignoring the actions of Iran’s terrorist client, Hamas. The resolution was so biased that Canada, an international leader in human rights promotion, voted against it, and every European Union member of the council abstained.
The Swiss ambassador feebly explained that the importance of condemning Israel’s alleged wrongdoing outweighed all other considerations.
That decision logically followed from Switzerland’s apparent policy of censuring all Israeli military operations, no matter how justified. In their condemnations, the Swiss invariably invoke international humanitarian law, with which they are closely associated as the depository for the four Geneva Conventions. Missing, though, is evidence of understanding the proper application of those laws of war.
In one egregious example, Israel’s 2006 raid on a Palestinian prison in Jericho was denounced for “violat[ing] the principle of proportionality.” In that incident, Israeli soldiers had surrounded the prison, in which armed terrorists, including the assassins of an Israeli government minister, were granted free reign and permitted to communicate with the outside world.
One prisoner and one prison guard were killed in an exchange of fire, but the terrorists and other Palestinian prisoners were convinced to surrender without any further hostilities. Even that successful operation the Swiss condemned as a disproportionate use of force.
Switzerland hasn’t been content to undermine Israel’s right to self-defense. Calmy-Rey has also tried to undercut Israel’s diplomacy. Brazenly disregarding Israel’s sovereignty and democratically elected government, Switzerland sponsored negotiations between private Israeli and Palestinian individuals, known as the Geneva Accord.
Unlike the Oslo negotiations, which were backed by the Israeli government after the first couple of private meetings, the Swiss project was officially rejected by Israel and the Swiss ambassador summoned to receive a protest.
Regardless of the content of the resulting document, the Swiss action represented an inexcusable intrusion by a foreign government in the peace process and an end run around the “road map” that reflected the will of the international community and demanded an end to Palestinian terrorism as a condition of further Israeli steps.
Some of the above examples of unfriendly behavior toward Israel could be explained away as soft-headed do-goodism. But one incident in particular punctures that theory.
In December 2006, Tehran hosted its infamous Holocaust denial conference, which responsible nations condemned unequivocally. Switzerland’s reaction was different. A week after the Tehran conference, Calmy-Rey met with Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Said Jalili in Switzerland.
According to the Swiss government’s minutes of the meeting, subsequently leaked to the Swiss press, she proposed that “a seminar about different perceptions of the Holocaust could be organized in one of the Geneva centers.” Public outrage killed that idea, but the fact that Calmy-Rey made the proposal provided encouragement to the Holocaust deniers in Iran and elsewhere.
In the battles against the Nazi regime during World War II and communism during the Cold War, Switzerland pursued its narrow self-interest by professing neutrality.
Today the Swiss appear to be taking the same approach in the current global war against the radical Islamist threat, spearheaded by Iran, which menaces Israel’s existence and the security of the West. But neutrality isn’t an option. And for Switzerland, a country that takes pride in its liberal democracy and claims to have learned from its history, it shouldn’t even be considered.
The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world’s leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.
Christian Lequesne, Professor für Internationale Politik am Pariser Institut für Politische Studien (IEP) und an der London School of Economics (LSE), verfasste eine ausgewogene Analyse der außenpolitischen Bilanz des einstigen Staatspräsidenten Frankreichs Jacques Chirac.
“In die Zeit der zwölfjährigen Präsidentschaft von Jacques Chirac (1995-2007) fielen mit der sich verstärkenden Globalisierung, der EU-Erweiterung und der damit verbundenen Krise der europäischen Integration sowie der Zunahme des internationalen Terrorismus wichtige Veränderungen in den internationalen Beziehungen.
Im Bereich der Außenpolitik war Chirac ein Präsident, der auf manchen Feldern dem gaullistischen Erbe treu war und sich gleichzeitig in anderen Fragen von diesem doktrinären Erbe frei gemacht hat. So stand er für eine Amerika-, Russland-, China- oder Afrika-Politik, die sich an den Paradigmen der Multipolarität beziehungsweise der traditionell gaullistischen »Françafrique«-Politik orientierte. Andererseits trug er, vom gaullistischen Erbe abweichend, die Stärkung der europäischen Institutionen im Verfassungsvertrag mit.”
A new report from the Rand Corporation looks at Turkey as a strategic ally of the United States of America in its security operations across the Middle East. It says a shifting focus in Turkish interests should command the attention of U.S. policymakers.
“Turkey has long been an important U.S. ally, but especially with the end of the Cold War, the relationship has been changing. Divergences between U.S. and Turkish interests have grown, in part because of Turkey’s relationships with its neighbors and the tension between its Western identity and its Middle Eastern orientation. Further, relations with the European Union have also deteriorated of late. As a result, Ankara has come to feel that it can no longer rely on its traditional allies, and Turkey is likely to be a more difficult and less predictable partner in the future. While Turkey will continue to want good ties to the United States, it is likely to be drawn more heavily into the Middle East by the Kurdish issue and Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Consequently, the tension between Turkey’s Western identity and Middle Eastern orientation is likely to grow even more.”
Responding to Zbigniew Brzezinski, Max Boot, foreign policy adviser to the McCain campaign, writes in The Washington Post that “an early American departure is the last thing that most Iraqis or their elected representatives want”, and urges the U.S. to learn from the mistakes made in Vietnam.
“Why am I not reassured by Zbigniew Brzezinski’s breezy assurance in Sunday’s Outlook section that ‘forecasts of regional catastrophe’ after an American pullout from Iraq are as overblown as similar predictions made prior to our pullout from South Vietnam? Perhaps because the fall of Saigon in 1975 really was a catastrophe. Another domino fell at virtually the same time - Cambodia.
Estimates vary, but a safe bet is that some two million people died in the killing fields of Cambodia. In South Vietnam, the death toll was lower, but hundreds of thousands were consigned to harsh ‘reeducation’ camps where many perished, and hundreds of thousands more risked their lives to flee as boat people. [...] I, for one, hope that we do not betray our allies in Iraq as we did in Southeast Asia”
Opposition parties are also claiming to have won Zimbabwe’s presidential election, though officials still have yet to release official results, but Business Day reports that Mugabe has now admitted defeat to a close circle of advisers.
On the second day of the NATO summit in Bucharest, French President Nicolas Sarkozy indicated he intends to have France rejoin NATO’s military command, which it quit in 1966 under Général De Gaulle, and said he will make a formal decision by the end of the year. Nicolas Sarkozy also said France was prepared to deploy some 800 troops to eastern Afghanistan.
“As Arab summits go, the recent one in Damascus surely rates as the lowest ever,” writes Dr. Eran Lerman, former deputy chief of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) strategic intelligence planning and currently director of American Jewish Committee (AJC) Israel/Middle East office. Lerman describes the lack of serious participation in the summit as a sign that the Iran-Syria connection is creating a “cold war” among Arab nations.
by Dr. Eran Lerman
As Arab summits go, the recent one in Damascus surely rates as the lowest ever. In fact, despite the attendance of a few leaders from the Gulf States and the Maghreb, it could barely be dignified by the elevated term “summit,” given that the key figures in Arab affairs - President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah II of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, President Massoud Barzani of the Kurdistan regional government in Iraq, and even the prime minister of what the Syrians condescendingly call “sisterly Lebanon” - made their absence conspicuously obvious.
(External meddling has created the sad limbo in which there is no president of Lebanon at the present-which is precisely the reason why the host, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, is in the doghouse as far as the Saudis and the Egyptians are concerned.)
The Saudis - backed, as Syria loudly complained, by a firm American position - have gone so far as to express their anger in two distinctive ways:
- They were represented at the summit by the lowest-ranking official they could send without avoiding the gathering altogether - their ambassador to the Arab League institutions in Cairo;
- They scheduled a major speech by His Majesty for the very moment when other TV stations in the region carried live Bashar al-Assad’s opening statement.
To those familiar with the intricacies of the regional game, these were telling signs of conflict. There were others. This week, the Lebanese government under Fuad Siniora made open its allegations of Syrian complicity in the bitterly fought Fatah al-Islam insurgency in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon last year. The Arab media is rife with accusations of conspiracy and destabilization campaigns on both sides. Much of the U.S. vice president’s visit had to do with these escalating tensions; and so, too, does the recent outbreak of fighting in Basra, and the ongoing crisis in Gaza. A new cognitive map of the Middle East is emerging, which in some ways is entirely different and in other ways reminiscent of past rivalries.
For students of regional politics in the 1970s, Malcolm Kerr’s The Arab Cold War was an essential part of their education; written wisely and with a touch of refreshing irony, it chronicled the manner in which Gamal Abdel Nasser’s ambitions, and the fears of the monarchies and other regimes he sought to destabilize, gradually became intertwined with the broader global conflict of the time. Soon, the ironies made way for bitter tragedies, with the bloodthirsty coup in Iraq in 1958 being the harbinger of things to come.
By the 1990s, all this was history-as was the Soviet Union; but while many good people hoped that peace would now be made inevitable by the New World Order, other conflicts soon emerged to fill the void. Kerr himself, as Fouad Ajami touchingly tells us in The Dream Palace of the Arabs, fell to an assassin, as did several of the leading figures of his beloved American University of Beirut. (His son went on to become a star of American college basketball, far from the turmoil that claimed his father’s life.)
A new breed of killers came on the scene, driven by a fanatical perversion of religion - modern revolutionary Islamist totalitarianism, somewhat ridiculously referred to as “fundamentalism” - making some of the iniquities of the Cold War era look trivial by comparison.
It took the rise of Iran as a focal point for these movements to turn the post-Cold War crisis in the region into something that closely resembles the dynamics of the old Cold War - but with Tehran and the ambitions of the Islamic Revolution now playing the role once reserved for the Soviets as the revisionist challenger of the existing order. Offering a vision of the future radically different from that of the West - regimented, released from the lusts and moral depravities of free societies, and with the “stain” of Israel expunged from the map-Iran and her allies are openly challenging not only the “Zionist entity” and the “Great Satan,” but the entire regional power structure; and would do so much more vehemently and dangerously would a nuclear umbrella be shielding them.
Now, as the Damascus fiasco surely shows, the existing order has decided to fight back-perhaps sending a signal to those in the West who seriously think about a “grand bargain” with the likes of Iran’s leader Ali Khamene’i (who stands over the head of President Mahmoud Ahamadinejad, who shows no interest in accommodating the opinions of the world). Such a “détente” bargain, if it is to include a historic concession by Iran on the nuclear front-and unless backed by a very robust alternative course of action, if Iran refuses to come to terms - would almost by necessity carry a terrible price tag: the abandonment of the Gulf regimes, and the Arab monarchies and pro-Western regimes, to their sad fate at the hands of Ir
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