The Diplomatic Times Review

Recommended: ‘Jews Should Learn From African Americans and Move On’

Recommended: Martin Varsavsky’s January 19, 2009, essay at The Huffington Post headlined “Jews Should Learn From African Americans and Move On.” It’s thought provoking, timely and will likely result in widespread criticism of Mr. Varsavsky. But I’m sure he knew that when he wrote the post.

Technorati Tags: Martin Varsavsky,The Huffington Post,Jews,African-Americans

There Was No One to Stop Israel’s Attack on Gaza

On January 18, 2009, Gershom Gorenberg made the following observation at Haaretz.com about Israel’s war on Gaza:

The diplomatic timing for the war looked lovely. The U.S. president who loved military action was still in power, though fading into the shadows. The new president, dynamic and popular, hadn't yet entered office. There was no one to interfere, to pressure us to stop.” See “The war as warm-up act for Obama.”

He is absolutely right. Maybe that’s why Israel decided to halt the destruction of Gaza on the eve of President-Elect Barack Obama’s swearing in as the 44th President of the United States. Did Israeli leaders fear they would be told to stop the war?

Technorati Tags: Gershom Gorenberg,Haaretz.com,President Barack Obama,Israel's Gaza War

Gaza Bloggers Do What Journalists Can’t

“The Israeli offensive in Gaza reached its 18th day with Israel continuing to block access to the region for foreign journalists,” reports The Christian Science Monitor’s Kristen Chick in a January 13, 2009, report headlined “Gaza bloggers relay crisis to outside world.” “But bloggers in Gaza are chronicling the conflict with firsthand accounts of their experiences, giving outsiders a look at the unfolding humanitarian crisis.”

Ms. Chick quotes some of the bloggers and provides links to their blogs.

This post can also be found at The Blogging Journalists.

Technorati Tags: Gaza Bloggers,Journalists banned from Gaza,The Christian Science Monitor

Hillary Clinton’s Confirmation Hearing Set for January 13, 2009

On January 13, 2009, Hillary Rodham Clinton, President-Elect Barack Obama’s choice for U.S. Secretary of State, is scheduled to undergo a  confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, headed by Senator John F. Kerry. See “Obama, Clinton Plan to Retrieve Ex-Envoys, Keep Bush Official.”

Technorati Tags: President-Elect Barack Obama,Hillary Rodham Clinton

Bloggers Have Their Say About John Howard’s Stay at Blair House

The Canberra Times of Australia told its readers January 8, 2009, that, “US bloggers are up in arms over former Australian Prime Minister John Howard "bumping" president-elect Barack Obama from an official government guest house in Washington,” the U.S. capital. See “US blogs bitter about Howard's Blair House bump.” The Times reported:

Mr Howard will stay at Blair House the night before he receives the US [Presidential] Medal of Freedom from retiring President George W. Bush next week.

Mr Obama has been forced onto the Blair House waiting list until January 15 when he and his family will move in, five days before his inauguration as president.

The Obamas requested an early move-in at the 70,000-square-foot, 119-room mansion across the street from the White House, so their children could settle in to start school this week, The Washington Post reported.

But the incoming first family was told the residence had been booked out, so they took a suite at the nearby Hay-Adams Hotel.

The Times said, “President Bush has been the main target for criticism from bloggers to political sites.”

Question: Why couldn’t Mr. Howard stay at the Australian Embassy. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, another of Mr. Bush’s sidekicks in the invasion and occupation Iraq and another Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient designee, is staying at the British Embassy. He reportedly admitted that he didn’t want to be the one to bump Mr. Obama from Blair House.

Besides, as The Australian told its readers in its January 9, 2009, edition: “The Washington Post yesterday summed up the Blair House affair thus: "119 rooms, 70,000 square feet and one lucky Australian.” See “Fury as John Howard's end upsets Barack Obama's beginning.”  Also see “Blair House Mystery Solved: It's John Howard.”

Following is a list of worldwide newspaper articles on Mr. Howard’s stay at Blair House. What some bloggers are saying. What the U.S. media is saying.

Note: This post can also be found at The Blogging Journalist.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama,Obamas at Blair House,John Howard,Howard's Blair House Controversy,Presidential Medal of Freedom

Will Turkey’s Gaza Cease-fire Diplomacy Prove Effective?

“Turkey's frenetic diplomacy to win a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas reflects its new-found clout in the Middle East and is also driven to appease a public opinion infuriated by the mounting death toll of civilians,” contends Reuters’ Ibon Villelabeitia in a January 7, 2009, news analysis headlined “Clout, politics behind Turkish diplomacy over Gaza.”

The analysis, which has “additional reporting by Zerin Elci and editing by Samia Nakhoul, says “Turkey, a predominantly Muslim but secular country with good ties with Israel, has been playing a busy role in trying to bridge Arab division and broker a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.”

Iason Athanasiadis at The Washington Times, reporting from Istanbul in a January 5, 2009, dispatch,  concluded that, “Israel's Gaza offensive may have benefits for Turkey, bolstering its diplomatic profile in what some commentators call "neo-Ottomanism" and a Turkish newspaper hailed as a "golden age" for Turkish diplomacy. See “Gaza crisis spurs Turkish diplomacy.”

“On New Year's Eve,”Iason Athanasiadis noted, “ Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan launched a tour of the region. He visited Syria, Jordan and Egypt before concluding his trip Saturday [January 10, 2009] in Saudi Arabia.

Todays Zaman reporter Ali Aslan Kilic, writing from Ankara, Turkey, notes that, “Turkish politicians, intellectuals and non-governmental organizations have demanded that the government take stronger measures against Israel and not just words.” See “Turks urge government to take concrete measures against Israel.”

“The suggested measures, which found their way to the mass media, include a range of items from complete cessation of diplomatic, military and economic relations with Israel to economic sanctions,” Mr Kilic reported January 7, 2009..

Meanwhile, Israel is not pleased with Turkey’s opposition to its campaign in Gaza against Hamas, which has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians. See “Show of Israeli faith despite setbacks after crisis in Gaza.”

’To say the least, we cannot support the position Turkey has taken throughout the Gaza crisis,” declares Gabby Levy, Israel's Ambassador to Ankara, in an article by Fulya Özerkan in Turkey’s Hurriyet DailyNews.com. “We certainly express dissatisfaction with some of the statements made by the Turkish Foreign Ministry.”

Technorati Tags: Turkey's Middle East Dipplomacy,Israel,Gaza,Palestinians

Did Israel Take Obama’s Statement on Gaza As A Warning?

Haaretz correspondent Aluf Benn reports in a January 7, 2009, article in the Israeli paper Haaretz headlined “Obama's warning to Israel:

Israel's governing "troika" met yesterday in order to find a way out of the conundrum Israel finds itself in, following the bombing of the school in Jabalya, where dozens of Palestinian civilians were killed. The character of the meeting had already been marked by the warning Israel received from U.S. president-elect, Barack Obama, who broke his silence on the fighting in Gaza and made it clear that he will have a great deal more to say after his inauguration.

The announcement from the Bush White House that for the time being Israel could carry on its offensive was little consolation. Obama made it clear that starting on January 20 the rules of American involvement in the region will change, and his administration will be a lot more active in pushing the diplomatic process between Israel and the Arabs forward.

Mr. Benn said, “Obama's timing, after the strike on the school, signals the direction the U.S. will turn in its attitude to the region: It will support Israel, but will oppose any harming of Palestinian civilians. This means that Israel will find it difficult to close the crossings into the Gaza Strip at will.”

A more even-handed policy would be timely and refreshing. The Bush Administration’s Middle East policy has been so 19th and 20th century, meaning colonial.

Technorati Tags: Obama's Warning to Israel,Aluf Benn,Israel,Haaretz.com,Gaza,Palestinians

Moshe Arens: Israel Has Reached a Crucial Stage in Gaza

Professor Moshe Arens, who served as Israeli Defense Minister on three occasions and also as Foreign Minister and Minister Without Portfolio, made the following observation in a January 7, 2009, article in the Israeli publication Haaretz:

We have reached a crucial stage in the IDF's operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. If we are not careful, we may have defeat staring us in the face - another defeat, after the fiasco of the Second Lebanon War. This time at the hands of Hamas, a terrorist organization even smaller and weaker than Hezbollah.

If you want to read the entire article, please see “The task at hand.”

Related Articles

How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian disaster -- Guardian, United Kingdom

Obama's warning to Israel -- Ha'aretz, Israel

Analysis: The Obama factor in the Gaza equation -- Jerusalem Post, Israel

The risk of complications –- Haaretz Editorial, Israel

As truce efforts grow, Israel mulls expanding Gaza ground op -- Ha'aretz, Israel

IDF: Shelled UN school in Gaza used as hideout by Hamas -- Ha'aretz, Israel

Technorati Tags: Moshe Arens,Israel Defense Force,Hamas,Hezbollah,Second Lebanon War

‘Once Again, Israel Has Opened The Gates Of Hell To The Palestinians’

Robert Fisk, The Independent of London’s Middle East correspondent who “has spent more than 30 years living in and reporting from the region,” raises thought-provoking questions in the January 7, 2009 Independent Online about Israel’s hand in the deaths of thousands of Palestinian civilians  over the years. These are questions that many western journalists wouldn’t dare discuss for fear of being called anti-Semitic or for ideological reasons. See “Robert Fisk: Why do they hate the West so much, we will ask.” He writes:

So once again, Israel has opened the gates of hell to the Palestinians. Forty civilian refugees dead in a United Nations school, three more in another. Not bad for a night's work in Gaza by the army that believes in "purity of arms". But why should we be surprised?

Have we forgotten the 17,500 dead – almost all civilians, most of them children and women – in Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon; the 1,700 Palestinian civilian dead in the Sabra-Chatila massacre; the 1996 Qana massacre of 106 Lebanese civilian refugees, more than half of them children, at a UN base; the massacre of the Marwahin refugees who were ordered from their homes by the Israelis in 2006 then slaughtered by an Israeli helicopter crew; the 1,000 dead of that same 2006 bombardment and Lebanese invasion, almost all of them civilians?

Mr. Fisk said, “What is amazing is that so many Western leaders, so many presidents and prime ministers and, I fear, so many editors and journalists, bought the old lie; that Israelis take such great care to avoid civilian casualties. "Israel makes every possible effort to avoid civilian casualties," yet another Israeli ambassador said only hours before the Gaza massacre. And every president and prime minister who repeated this mendacity as an excuse to avoid a ceasefire has the blood of last night's butchery on their hands. Had [U.S. President] George Bush had the courage to demand an immediate ceasefire 48 hours earlier, those 40 civilians, the old and the women and children, would be alive.”

There is more, and I highly recommend it.

Technorati Tags: Robert Fisk,The Independent,Israel,Palestinians,The U.S. and Israel,The West and Israel,The West and Palestinians

Obama’s Answer To a Question About Gaza

On January 6, 2009, President-Elect Barack Obama finally made a public statement on Israel’s war on Gaza. It came at the end of a news conference on his economic stimulus plan at his Washington, DC-transition office.

“Obviously, I am deeply concerned about the conflict that's taking place there,” he said. “I'm being fully briefed and monitored - monitoring the situation on a day-to-day basis. The loss of civilian life in Gaza and in Israel is a source of deep concern for me.”

Below in its entirety is what he said on Gaza:

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President-elect. You're being put under a lot of pressure internationally to get more involved in the situation in Gaza. I understand you think there should only be one president at a time, but what do you have to say to the Israelis and the Palestinians who are fighting and dying in Gaza?

OBAMA: As I've said before, when it comes to foreign policy, I think the need to adhere to one president at a time is particularly important. In domestic policy, Democrats, Republicans, we can have arguments back and forth about what tax policies are going to be. When it comes to international affairs, other countries are looking to see who speaks for America. Right now, President George Bush, as president of the United States, speaks on behalf of the U.S. government and the American people when it comes to international affairs.

Obviously, I am deeply concerned about the conflict that's taking place there. I'm being fully briefed and monitored - monitoring the situation on a day-to-day basis. The loss of civilian life in Gaza and in Israel is a source of deep concern for me.

And after January 20th, I am going to have plenty to say about the issue. And I am not backing away at all from what I said during the campaign, that I - starting at the beginning of our administration, we are going to engage effectively and consistently in trying to resolve the conflicts that exist in the Middle East.

That's something that I'm committed to. I think it's not only right for the people in that region; most importantly, it's right for the national security of the American people and the stability that is so important to this country. So on January 20th, you will be hearing directly from me and my opinions on this issue. Until then, my job is to monitor the situation and put together the best possible national security team so that we hit the ground running once we are responsible for national security issues.

Mr. Obama has been widely criticized for his silence. See “Mr. Obama’s Deafening Silence on Gaza.”

Source: The New York Times.com

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama on Gaza,Israel's War on Gaza,Hamas,Obama Criticized on Gaza