Middle East news (really M.E.!)

[Pladio]

Well, finding more and more lol

Good one

http://www.gaza-sderot.blogspot.com/

 

[zahratustra]

The best-laid plans of mice and men...... If a part of the Israeli government's plan was that crippling Hamas will strengthen Abbas' Palestinian Authority, they seems to have been quite misguided.....
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/w...bl&ex=1232168400&en=f26292a9e53ee37f&ei=5087

 

[Pladio]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090116/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_mideast_divides_analysis

A nice analysis, I knew the Arab world was divided, but not agreeing on where to hold a summit is pretty petty.

 

[Prime Junta]

Yep, there's an interesting and not unlikely scenario: Abbas calls an election, Hamas wins (again) in a landslide. Then what?

 

[Prime Junta]

Some more reading: I just came across a short essay on the geopolitics of the Palestinians, which is IMO the single best, most succinct explanation of the Palestinian dilemma. It's also extremely pessimistic, and a quite a strong (implicit) argument that the two-state solution is fundamentally unworkable.

The author is one George Friedman, founder of Stratfor.

Therefore, the Palestinians are trapped four ways. First, they are trapped by the Israelis. Second, they are trapped by the Arab regimes. Third, they are trapped by geography, which makes any settlement a preface to dependency. Finally, they are trapped in the reality in which they exist, which rotates from the minimally bearable to the unbearable. Their choices are to give up autonomy and nationalism in favor of economic dependency, or retain autonomy and nationalism expressed through the only means they have — wars that they can at best survive, but can never win.

[ http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20...l_Analysis&utm_campaign=none&utm_medium=email ]

 

[Prime Junta]

Time for a little prognostication, perhaps. What next, indeed?

(1) The prospects for peace have been set back a great deal. Abbas and Fatah are weakened. Hamas is temporarily weakened, but its support among the Palestinians has been strengthened. The geopolitical realities outlined in the article I cited above continue to apply: Gaza still can't survive either without constant and massive aid from abroad or integration with the Israeli economy.

(2) The two-state solution may no longer be a viable option. I always believed that its chance of succeeding depended on quickly normalized relations between it and Israel that would lead to effective economic integration, followed by a quick rise in Palestinian living standards, and normalization of their security conditions, followed by gradual deepening of political cooperation. It's highly unlikely now that Israel will permit this even if a political two-state solution is reached. This means that even in this situation Gaza will remain a walled-off slum that's not capable of sustaining itself economically; its people will have nowhere to go and no prospects for a better life, which means that Hamas-style extremism will only grow stronger.

I'm now highly pessimistic of any stable peace being reached there over the next several years, no matter what the USA or the rest of the world does.

So, what possible stable end states can I imagine, and how could they be reached?

(1) The South African scenario: Israel continues to expand settlements over the next decade or two. Eventually it reaches a point where it has no choice but to annex the Palestinian territories and institute an official apartheid state. This turns the Palestinian struggle into a civil rights struggle. This lasts another decade, or two, after which the apartheid government is toppled, and a new, Palestinian-dominated one emerges, ostensibly based on equal rights for all before the law. What this government is like in reality is anybody's guess.

(2) The regional scenario. Israel pulls back from its settlements and imposes a two-state solution. Because of the reasons outlined above, Palestinian violence and extremism continues; the rockets keep falling. However, Israel reaches stable peace agreements with all of the established Arab states. Over the next several decades, relations with them improve from a cold peace to genuinely cordial. Following yet another shooting war, massive international aid payments result in Egypt absorbing Gaza and Jordan absorbing the West Bank, and the Arab countries hosting Palestinian refugees in naturalizing their inhabitants as citizens. The Arab states crack down on Palestinian extremism in a massive bloodbath, followed by partial dispersion of Palestinians in the Arab countries. The Palestinians become yet another diaspora people, destined to have their identity as a people absorbed in the wider Arab polity. The security guarantees provided by Egypt and Jordan and their cordial relations with Israel make it possible for Gaza to integrate economically with Israel, and the West Bank with both Jordan and Israel.

(3) The Endlösung scenario. Yisroel Beiteinu becomes the strongest political party in Israel. Following yet another round of violence, Israel escalates its use of force to genocidal levels. Arabs are violently expelled from Gaza and the West Bank as well as Israel proper; millions die, the rest become refugees. Israel is politically and economically isolated, as the rest of the world -- including the USA -- breaks with it. The educated and productive flee it. Its economy crashes. Living standards decline to third-world status. Another political upset ejects Yisroel Beiteinu. The new government puts its leaders on trial; several are executed for crimes against humanity. Consequently, the international community re-established relations with Israel. The reality created by the genocide on the ground cannot be changed, however; Israel is now an almost purely Jewish state. With the ethnic conflict gone, relations with the Arab world will gradually normalize.

(4) The "Did You See A Real Bright Light?" scenario. An international terrorist group acquires a small number of nuclear bombs, and sets them off in the major Israeli cities. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians die, millions are wounded or affected by radiation sickness, and the Israeli polity is destroyed. Most remaining Jews flee the ruins of the country, and the territory is put under temporary UN administration. A new state, composed of the surviving Palestinians and remaining Jews, is established on the terrain currently comprising Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. It normalizes relations with its neighbors and, over several decades, achieves something approaching normalcy.

(5) The "tick, tock, tick, tock" scenario. Permanent conflict for the next couple of centuries until the higher birth rate of Israeli Arabs turns them into a majority; following this, the Jews are voted out of power, and the West Bank and Gaza are peacefully absorbed into the state now called Palestine, which then joins the Arab League.

Any others you can think of? Which ones do you find are most likely?

 

[V7]

Israel maintains a strong blocade on the West Bank and Gaze playing Hamas and Fatah off against each other while making bloody incursions whenever the violence rises above a level they can support, Europe criticises but does nothing, America supplies the bombs and the Arab governments concentrate on proping up their own shaky grip on power. Israel reassures everyone its the Palestinians fault for being poor dirty terrorists. The situation will continue indefinatly until technology moves sufficiently in the Palestinians direction for them to destroy Israel, chances are whatever it looks like wouldn't be worth them celebrating.

Yeah I'm feeling gloomy tonight.

The positive alternative would look something like PJs last version.

 

[Prime Junta]

That looks pretty much like my Real Bright Light scenario, doesn't it? The only difference is that it's the Palestinians producing the Real Bright Light rather than an international terrorist organization.

I find this less likely, since nations very rarely knowingly commit suicide, even to take another one down with them, whereas an international terrorist group could easily consider the Palestinians as acceptable collateral damage for taking down Israel. Hell, everybody does.

 

[Benedict]

Any others you can think of? Which ones do you find are most likely?

6) Israel's increasing international isolation weakens its economy and military while the military of Iran & other neighbouring arab states grows to the point where the next time Israel's invaded it loses and loses badly.

 

[V7]

That looks pretty much like my Real Bright Light scenario, doesn't it? The only difference is that it's the Palestinians producing the Real Bright Light rather than an international terrorist organization.

I find this less likely, since nations very rarely knowingly commit suicide, even to take another one down with them, whereas an international terrorist group could easily consider the Palestinians as acceptable collateral damage for taking down Israel. Hell, everybody does.

I wasn't thinking the Palestinians using nukes, more along the lines of continued insurgancy with gradually increasing lethality. I don't see a Palestinian victory as likley at any point in the near future but I suspect that eventually demographics and weapons technology will get the better of Israel. I also suspect that if it does it will leave the country looking much like Lebanon after the civil war but lacking the enterpreneural outlook thats put Beriut back togather. Assuming that Israel doens't end up getting biblical with their own nukes.

Frankly I thnk the whole nucelar terrorism treat is highly exadgerated - they're hard to make and difficult to transport. I could think of some scenerios where Pakistan's might end up in the wrong hands but they'e all unlikely. I'd be far more concerned about biological weapons.

 

[dteowner]

[ http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20...l_Analysis&utm_campaign=none&utm_medium=email ]

Your link just dumps me to the "join up" screen. Fixable?

 

[Prime Junta]

Bugger, that site is really annoying in that way -- it has some free content, but it does do its damnedest to get you to "join up." Let me see...

...nope, not fixable.

If you give them their pound of flesh, though (i.e., your email address), you can see that free of charge. IMO it's worth it.

 

[Prime Junta]

I wasn't thinking the Palestinians using nukes, more along the lines of continued insurgancy with gradually increasing lethality. I don't see a Palestinian victory as likley at any point in the near future but I suspect that eventually demographics and weapons technology will get the better of Israel. I also suspect that if it does it will leave the country looking much like Lebanon after the civil war but lacking the enterpreneural outlook thats put Beriut back togather. Assuming that Israel doens't end up getting biblical with their own nukes.

I very much doubt weapons technology will ever make it possible for a poor insurgency to militarily beat a rich regular army. What it can do is make it possible for the poor insurgency to resist a rich regular army more effectively, and to make life in the country with the rich regular army increasingly uncomfortable. Demographics is like a glacier, though -- slow but relentless.

Frankly I thnk the whole nucelar terrorism treat is highly exadgerated - they're hard to make and difficult to transport. I could think of some scenerios where Pakistan's might end up in the wrong hands but they'e all unlikely. I'd be far more concerned about biological weapons.

And I think the bio-weapon threat is much, MUCH exaggerated. The Aum Shinri Kyo had top-notch technical expertise, millions of dollars, several years of working completely undisturbed. They made two anthrax attacks on Tokyo, one by spraying their weaponized anthrax spores over the city from a light plane, another by spraying them directly into the air from their office in a high-rise.

Nobody even noticed.

This was only discovered after they got disbanded following their nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subway.

Bioweapons are very, very difficult to produce and deploy in ways that cause more than isolated deaths. Nukes are the only WMD's worthy of the name. I find it extremely unlikely that the Palestinians would succeed where the Aum Shinri Kyo failed, with their far greater resources and better operating conditions (not to mention the apocalyptic outlook that actually had dying as a stated operational goal).

 

[Benedict]

Good article here from someone with some pretty close personal links to it all, and a reassuring perspective.

At Shuli's funeral last May, her son Jonathon, my brother-in-law, gave a speech. "Where are the doves?" he asked. "What is this land worth without someone with a vision? Nothing. Without doves it wasn't worth the struggle." Jonny is 34. He's an army reservist who is studying to be a neurologist and has a two-year-old son called Boaz. He didn't scream for blood at his mother's graveside, he screamed for peace.

 

[Prime Junta]

Ha! There was a link to a PDF version of it, which isn't behind authentication. Download it here: [ http://web.stratfor.com/images/writers/Geopolitics_of_Palestinians.pdf ]

 

[Pladio]

Long article, donwloaded it, but won't read till tonight or maybe tomorrow. thanks PJ.

 

[Prime Junta]

The diplomatic fallout is starting. Turkey's Abdullah Gul wants Israel barred from the UN until it complies with the resolutions: [ http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1056158.html ]

That's some pretty harsh language from Israel's traditional (and only) Muslim ally.

More harsh language from a British (Jewish) MP:

"The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt from Gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians," [MP Gerald Kaufman] said.

[ http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055922.html ]

I wonder if this will remain at the level of words, or will there be action as well? Something like this, perhaps:

Although there have been no reported cancellations of existing deals, the union of Turkish cooperatives, affiliated with the Turkish Agriculture Ministry, announced on its Web site Wednesday it would
place an embargo on financing purchases from Israel.

[ http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055751.html ]


Qatar and Mauretania sever diplomatic relations with Israel, and Syria declares that it is ending the indirect peace talks it has held with it:

[ http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/2009116151135307776.html ]

Somehow I think that it may take more than whining about "terrorism" and showing pictures of the Holocaust for Israel to repair the damage from this little escapade.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

Regarding scenarios, I would favor a simple status quo scenario. Israel will eventually be forced by international (mostly US) pressure to agree to a ceasefire. Since no Israel government seems to be possible without participation or aquiescence of the ultra right parties, the israel settlement situation in the westbank will not change, effectively crippling any chance for Fatah to take advantage of the momentary weakening of Hamas. Hamas will quickly rebuild its capacities, and resume and slowly expand the range of its missile fire. After a few years, we will see another little war more or less like the one right now.

One thing could really change the deadlock imho, and its not pretty: Iran getting and testing a nuclear weapon - this would result at least in a iranian/israel exchange of fire that could spiral into all kinds of stuff, very hard to predict.

 

[Pladio]

I read something about Israel saying it's the end of the campaign. I think they'll probably try to end it on the morning of the 20th ...

 

[V7]

I very much doubt weapons technology will ever make it possible for a poor insurgency to militarily beat a rich regular army. What it can do is make it possible for the poor insurgency to resist a rich regular army more effectively, and to make life in the country with the rich regular army increasingly uncomfortable. Demographics is like a glacier, though -- slow but relentless.

Again I'll disagree - its comes down to the lethality of the weaponry if Hamas reaches a point where its able to neutralise the IDF's armour and air power things will start to look very different (and AT and AA weapons are generally much less expensive than the tanks and aircraft they negate) - again I don't see that as a near term outcome but I think the trend is towards increasingly sophisticated weapons becoming more widespread.

How Israel would react to that sort of development is an open question, personally I don't think they'll try genocide.

thats my 50-100 years outlook - I don't think the situation on the ground will look much different from what it does not for the next couple of dacades.