"Sacking" of Washington Mid East Hand Points Up Growing Rift Between D.C. Ideology and Israeli Pragmatism
| Sun May. 11, 2008 8:13 PM PDT
Former Clinton administration Middle East peace negotiator Rob Malley now heads the Middle East program of the International Crisis Group, an international conflict resolution nongovernmental organization. He has also been one of many informal advisers to Barack Obama's campaign.
Through his work at ICG, Malley has talked with Hamas officials, according to a report in Sunday's Times of London. Which is not so surprising given ICG's conflict resolution mission. But because of that revelation, the paper reports, Malley has been officially "sacked" as an informal adviser to the Obama campaign:
One of Barack Obama's Middle East policy advisers disclosed yesterday that he had held meetings with the militant Palestinian group Hamas – prompting the likely Democratic nominee to sever all links with him.
Robert Malley told The Times that he had been in regular contact with Hamas, which controls Gaza and is listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organisation. Such talks, he stressed, were related to his work for a conflict resolution think-tank and had no connection with his position on Mr Obama's Middle East advisory council.
"I've never hidden the fact that in my job with the International Crisis Group I meet all kinds of people," he added.
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Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for Mr. Obama, responded swiftly: "Rob Malley has, like hundreds of other experts, provided informal advice to the campaign in the past. He has no formal role in the campaign and he will not play any role in the future."
Contacted for comment, Malley stressed the same point. "I am not and in fact never was really an [Obama] adviser," he emailed.
In a previous interview, Malley explained his position on Hamas. "It is not an issue of whether the US should talk to Hamas," Malley told me. "That is not in the cards."
"What I do think is, we need to question a policy that has been in place for two and a half years which by any measure, including the measure the [Bush] administration set up to assess its policy, has been an outright failure," Malley continued. "It has not gotten Hamas to accept preconditions [of recognizing Israel]. It hasn't stopped violence or deterred Hamas from launching violence. It has not weakened Hamas' hold militarily or politically. It hasn't strengthened moderates whose credibility is hemorraghing and who are viewed as being on the side of Israel and the US. It has not advanced the peace process."
"By any standard, and I am even prepared to accept the administration's own measure, this has been a bankrupt policy," Malley concluded. "At a minimum, that warrants an honest discussion on alternatives."
Here in Israel, Malley's position--that the current Israeli-Hamas stand off warrants an honest discussion of alternatives--has been advocated by many former Israeli security and diplomatic veterans from the right and the left. Chief among them is former Israeli intelligence chief Efraim Halevy.
"We have to reckon with Hamas as an element in the equation," Halevy told me recently. "Now whether this has to be done by direct talks with Hamas is a question of methodology, mechanics -- not the principle. The principle is we have to engage them. ...At the moment, neither side wants to speak with the other. But every side wants to engage the other...Hamas is willing to act as an element in the equation."
Halevy's view is by no means universal in Israel. But increasingly it is being expressed by various Israeli political and security figures. "Given that the current policy of containment has not quelled the violence across its border, Israel should opt for another way," Israeli Knesset member Yossi Beilin, chairman of the left-leaning Meretz-Yachad party, recently argued in the Washington Post. "The only option that I see serving the cause of peace is to enter into a dialogue with Hamas through a third party in order to reach a cease-fire." (The Israeli left, more invested in Palestinian moderates due to their years negotiating together, came more recently to the position of the need to engage in some form with Hamas than Israel's right wing realists, as Malley characterized the Halevy camp).
The call for indirect talks with Hamas coming from a growing number of Israeli security veterans is hardly based on sympathy for Hamas' tactics or ideology. "I am not enamored of them," Halevy stressed. "I think they are a bunch of people who are very cruel at times. ... But I am not sure that there's so much difference between the methods Fatah uses and those used by Hamas."
Halevy also points out that it was the Bush administration that pushed both the Israeli government and Palestinian Authority leadership to allow Hamas to run in Palestinian elections which Hamas won. "This [Bush] administration, which says it has a principled approach [of not talking to terrorists], is the very administration that in 2006 twisted the arm of the Israeli government and of the Palestinian authorities and forced them both to accept Hamas as a participant in the elections," Halevy told me. "When the result of the election was a surprise – by the way to Hamas itself – the immediate reaction was, 'Okay, We don't like this result, so we'll change the rules.' They are inconsistent. The administration is inconsistent in its approach."
And not only inconsistent, the former Mossad chief says, but ineffectual: "If this administration believes it is possible to bring about the end of Hamas as a political or military force, then okay. But this is not what is being said today. If you ask in Washington, 'Can Hamas can be destroyed?' No one in Washington says that....I don't hear either from Israeli hawks or American hawks any message that they have a solution in hand."
It's perhaps not surprising that pragmatism has taken hold more quickly in some quarters of Israel than in Washington where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains highly abstract, ideological and politicized. After all, it is Israelis who are being killed by Hamas shells and rockets every week, and Palestinians who are suffering under an Israeli siege of Gaza and being killed in Israeli military operations against Hamas -- not Americans. But maybe the new strain of pragmatism being promoted within the Israeli security and diplomatic establishment will eventually seep into Washington's discourse in coming months.
Comments
Good for Obama. Obama is his own person and knows what he is doing and doesn't want to get involved any more than he has to with the failed policies and the people who failed the policies in the RIGHT WING Clinton/Bush administrations. To me the following quote from the above post is the essence of the Middle East problems not being solved already:
"This [Bush] administration, which says it has a principled approach [of not talking to terrorists], is the very administration that in 2006 twisted the arm of the Israeli government and of the Palestinian authorities and forced them both to accept Hamas as a participant in the elections," Halevy told me. "When the result of the election was a surprise ? by the way to Hamas itself ? the immediate reaction was 'Okay, We don't like this result, so we'll change the rules.' They are inconsistent. The [Bush] administration is inconsistent in its approach."
And, the Bush administration's approach is the same DLC RIGHT WING approach of the Clinton administration and would be the same DLC RIGHT WING approach of another Clinton administration.
There is HOPE in the NEW Obama administration.
Good for Obama. Obama is his own person and knows what he is doing and doesn't want to get involved any more than he has to with the failed policies and the people who failed the policies in the RIGHT WING Clinton/Bush administrations. To me the following quote from the above post is the essence of the Middle East problems not being solved already:
"This [Bush] administration, which says it has a principled approach [of not talking to terrorists], is the very administration that in 2006 twisted the arm of the Israeli government and of the Palestinian authorities and forced them both to accept Hamas as a participant in the elections," Halevy told me. "When the result of the election was a surprise ? by the way to Hamas itself ? the immediate reaction was 'Okay, We don't like this result, so we'll change the rules.' They are inconsistent. The [Bush] administration is inconsistent in its approach."
And, the Bush administration's approach is the same DLC RIGHT WING approach of the Clinton administration and would be the same DLC RIGHT WING approach of another Clinton administration.
There is HOPE in the NEW Obama administration.
Good for Obama. Obama is his own person and knows what he is doing and doesn't want to get involved any more than he has to with the failed policies and the people who failed the policies in the RIGHT WING Clinton/Bush administrations. To me the following quote from the above post is the essence of the Middle East problems not being solved already:
"This [Bush] administration, which says it has a principled approach [of not talking to terrorists], is the very administration that in 2006 twisted the arm of the Israeli government and of the Palestinian authorities and forced them both to accept Hamas as a participant in the elections," Halevy told me. "When the result of the election was a surprise by the way to Hamas itself the immediate reaction was 'Okay, We don't like this result, so we'll change the rules.' They are inconsistent. The [Bush] administration is inconsistent in its approach."
And, the Bush administration's approach is the same DLC RIGHT WING approach of the Clinton administration and would be the same DLC RIGHT WING approach of another Clinton administration.
There is HOPE in the NEW Obama administration.
Submitted by Eric Ferguson (not verified) on Sun May. 11, 2008 10:36 PM PDT.
I suppose the necessities of electioneering mean even someone who seems as free from DC beltway groupthink as Obama can't state the obvious, at least not where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the issue: you can't pick other people's leaders. Hamas controls, Gaza, and that's a fact highly unlikely to change. If Hamas is in charge, we have to talk to them, just like we have to talk to Fatah, like they have to talk to each other, just like we all have to talk to Ehud Olmerht or whoever replaces him as prime minister. What a crying shame that anyone admitting this basic reality must be cut off from any presidential candidate.
I agree with the slant of the article and with the sentiments that Eric Ferguson expressed above. However, I can see why the Obama campaign followed this course. As successful in some quarters as the main stream media has been in insinuating that Obama is suspect as Muslim or terrorist-leaning, with the wide and smart swath of Americans who sit down to be out-Foxed every evening, this reaction seems logical. He needs to keep some tangible and defensible distance from this thing AT LEAST UNTIL ELECTED. If he gets the White House, then he should use his position to open up those conversations. It's a shame he wasn't able to distance himself from Malley without really burning the bridge there - perhaps he hasn't. It would be invaluable for him to be open to the mission of ICG after election day, but the Malley admission would have just been used to hurt his campaign. I think it more admirable in principle to say, "Malley isn't some sort of Hamas sympathizer, he just wisely knows that you can't hope to see any resolutions when you stick your fingers in your ears and hold your breath. Thus, we will continue to have our relationship with Mr. Malley, who contributes much to the strength of our campaign." As a matter of fact, I partially wish they had taken that tactic. Still, as I've said before, I think it would just have been spun out of control into another "Obama = Terrorist Threat" story. He's rightly cautious.
The "Swift Boaters" are still going to spin it as "Sleeper Muslim Terrorist running for President."
Still, it is refreshing to see that (a) key elements in Israel are advocating realistic policies (as Eric stated, we CAN'T pick other people's leaders) with regard to Hamas and (b) an Obama Administration will be able to take advantage of working on this issue with a much more balanced perspective than we've had in many years.
Jimmy Carter didn't have to wait for vindication nearly as long as I feared he would.
MarthaA: Good for Obama. Obama is his own person and knows what he is doing and doesn't want to get involved any more than he has to with the failed policies and the people who failed the policies in the RIGHT WING Clinton/Bush administrations.
Like most Obama supporters, you think you know what you're talking about. Were you even an adult during the Clinton administration? If you were, and you paid attention, you would have noticed that Clinton had to deal with a Republican-controlled congress, who obviously stymied most of his progressive agenda. I can't wait for Obama to become president, so all of his sycophants like you can be crushed when he doesn't do all the things he's promising. Guess that will mean he's taking the DLC RIGHT WING approach too, whatever that is.
Carter and his former National Security Adisor support Obama. Ron Paul supports Obama's middle east ideas as well. Carter in his book "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid" , pg 209, "...(I)n the United States, Israeli government decisions are rarely questioned, voices from Jerusalem dominate in our media..." In other words, Zionists dominate the US media. "At the same time, political leaders and news media in Europe are highly critical of Israeli policies, affecting public attitudes." "Citizens in 15 European nations, indicate that Israel was considered to be the top threat to world peace."
In Arron David Miller's book, "The Much Too Promised Land", he states that "no ethnic group has the power and focus of the American-Jewish community." "Today you cannot be successful in American politics and not be good on Israel." London review of books, The Israel Lobby , by John Mearsheimer(U of Chicago)and Stephen Walt(Harvard U) (book endorsed by former Carter Security Advisor Brzezinski)"Thanks in part to the influence Jewish voters have on presidential elections, the Lobby also has significant leverage over the executive branch. Although they make up fewer than 3 per cent of the population, they make large campaign donations to candidates from both parties. The Washington Post once estimated that Democratic presidential candidates 'depend on Jewish supporters to supply as much as 60 per cent of the money'. And because Jewish voters have high turn-out rates and are concentrated in key states like California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania, presidential candidates go to great lengths not to antagonize them."
To my knowledge Hamas has never fired bombs into the USA but , has done so consistently into Isreal.I recall that Humas got it's start in 1968 Olympics murdering Israeli athletes.Their leader , the Rat Arafat carried on his murdering with his group ,Hamas .The USA state department has not won a war since WWII but continues to poke their noses into every country in the world invited or not .If an outside force can make peace , go for it .Our diplomates could not negotiate the closing of a chicken house door in a hurricane .
Hillman:
I am old enough I even remember the Eisenhower administration. Clinton registered Democrat and was elected a Democrat, but was the best REPUBLICAN president EVER, so says the former United States Economist, Alan Greenspan, and Alan Greenspan knows. Clinton opened the road to fascism for the RIGHT WING EXTREMISTS with the one sided REPUBLICAN trade agreements in favor of large capitalists.
The Clinton's didn't even own a home when they started in politics and now the Clinton's have received $192,000,000. reportable income last year. Their politics has been quite profitable. Hillary is in debt $20 Million for her campaign, but out of their $192 MILLION, the financing of $20 MILLION for her candidacy is a piece of cake.
The DLC is the REPUBLICAN WING of the Democratic Party of which both Bill and Hillary are members. The DLC REPUBLICAN Wing of the Democratic Party IS what has caused the split in the Democratic Party.
Obama when elected can get rid of the REPUBLICAN WING of the Democratic Party and it is my HOPE that he will, so the party will not be split.
The DLC is the RIGHT WEB Democratic Leadership Council led by REPUBLICAN CAPITALISTS.
It is time for the DLC to change their name to the RLC and move on over to the REPUBLICAN PARTY that they represent.
If you want to find out about the Democratic Leadership Council, look up DLC Right Web in Google and you will have to do some reading to find out, but it is worth the read.
I stopped reading after I got to this: "prompting the likely Democratic nominee to sever all links with him." There was no point since we all know the U.S. Israel 'lobby' and it's 'FRIENDS' registered REPUBLICAN after they finished their pact with the devil. Thanks alot for the natural disasters in the world....they won't stop until you do.....but we already knew that didn't we?
Aaron:
Jimmy Carter was going to talk to Hamas, if so, possibly Jimmy Carter has told Obama.
There hasn't been anyone except Jimmy Carter even trying to work for peace. The "Project For The New American Century" that all right wingers, including the DLC Republican right wingers in the Democratic Party, are following is a plan to stir up war and keep war stirred up. War is capital to the right wing military industrial complex. Right wingers lose the war revenue stream with peace. Peace makes them no money. Left wingers [liberals] work to promote peace and Right wingers [conservatives] work to promote war --- sad, but true.
Chuckmehan,with all due respect,I do believe that Hamas didn't cause the murdering of the Israeli athletes in Germany in 1972 & not 1968 because Hamas did not exist back then,Black September group was responsable and it long gone now.Believe it or not,Hamas was created & supported by Israel in order to creat problems to the secular groups of Arafat and you can
read the book"Devil's Game"
to learn how & why those organizations were created ?
Don't count on it Martha,
I have a bad feeling about our election system because if the Republicans found themselves in the corner they might go for plan B which is, base on the fact that the American people don't like to change horses during the race
So,two months before the election the VP Chaney might
decides to resign for health reason which would be acceptable by the people and the president will ask John McCain to replace him.
Wow. Hamas "shelling" is actually Hamas firing mostly non-lethal home-made rockets. Any claim that Israelis are dying "every week" is ludicrous. Retaliation comes in the form of airstrikes by the Israeli wing of the US military and wipes out Palestinians seven or ten or fifteen at a time, and entire towns, day in and day out, but, hell, the dead were all terrorists. If they weren't Israel wouldn't have killed them, ipso facto.
Of course, it never occurred to anyone in power that the separate roads and curfews and papers searches, and the economic stranglehold, amount to apartheid (and apologists in Washington, on KStreet, and in Tel Aviv sounded like Squealer and Napoleon when Jimmy Carter pointed this out) that might kind of annoy the indigenous people. Why can't Palestinians just be like good Navajo and drink their lives away on the rez?
Ultimately, it seems the solution will be killing large numbers of Palestinians and reducing the rest to some form of abject servitude and subhuman existence. Noble experiment. Westward, ho, Israel.
There will be no peace on Middle East before Jewish community (both in USA and in Israel) change its policy towards occupied Palestinians and start to consider them as equal human beings. Some of the people are willing to express their opinions and to influence other without knowing much about this conflict (like Chuckmehan, who mixed secular Fatah - lead by christian Jaser Arafat), not knowing that for example the first pan-Arab Bat'h party was established by Michael Aflaq, a Sorbonne-educated Syrian christian... If you go through history of Israel-Palestine conflict you will understand that those who claim themselfs as "democrats" are nothing but killers in uniform, and those who are "terrorist" are only trying to defend their home and families. If you visit web page:http://www.shovrimshtika.org/index_e.asp you will find Israeli soldiers testemony, if you visit UN web site you will find more than 30 UN Security Council resolutions waiting for Israel to fulfil them... Than you can shape some of your views and to give honest comments. Regards!
The U.S. King-Crane (1919)report stated: 90% of Palestine's inhabitants were non Jewish & did NOT want a Jewish state in Palestine.
Israeli Arab group Adalah recently proposes a new 'multi-cultural' constitution.
Arab Knesset members will be able to bring about the disqualification of bills that impinge on the rights of Arabs, and classifies the State of Israel as a "bilingual and multicultural" country rather than a Jewish state. Consider that he or she may honestly be offended by their flag having a Jewish star in it. Would not most American Jews (among others) be troubled if the U.S. flag had a Christian cross on it? Consider that he or she may honestly be offended by their national anthem referring to the land, as the land of the Jews. Consider that he or she may honestly feel discriminated against because, legal equality aside, he or she IS discriminated against. Israeli-Arabs will want full equality in Israel. Any minority citizen of any State wants no less. It sounds fair. Why do so many Israelis, Jews, and supporters of Israel look for a dark hiding place when confronted with the truth of discrimination? I think it is because Jews understand what it is to be discriminated against, and have a deep desire that discrimination against all people throughout the planet be eliminated. Discrimination against Arab-Israelis is not fair. As supporters of Israel, it is necessary to accept and admit, without nuance, that some discrimination against Arab-Israelis is 100% true. Let us not be racists and stop discrimination at home(Israel). Support the multi-cultural constitution.
