Nation-Building

I remember reading one of the books by Tom Clancy in which Jack Ryan was credited with coming up with a solution for Middle East peace which was pointedly never actually detailed in the novel. It was just a way to give his character some foreign policy cred, but ended up like that mysterious suitcase in Pulp Fiction. I couldn't help but be reminded of that, though, when I read former New York mayor Ed Koch's innovative solution to resolving the status of Jerusalem . Instead of putting the hot-button issue of Jerusalem last on the agenda, the issue should be addressed first. If the Jerusalem question is solved, everything else should fall into place more easily. I believe there is a way to keep Jerusalem unified. I am talking not only of the old walled city, which is a very small part of the city of Jerusalem, but the whole city, east, west, north and south. [...] My suggestion is to situate the new Palestinian capital in that part of East Jerusalem that is occupied overwhelming...

It seems that every year, there's a breathless report that Iran is a year ortwo away from having nuclear weapons. Once again : Two of the nation's top military officials said Wednesday that Iran could produce bomb-grade fuel for at least one nuclear weapon within a year, but would most likely need two to five years to manufacture a workable atomic bomb. The time frame ... was roughly in line with the finding of a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate . That document, which is about to be updated, said that Iran would probably be able to produce a nuclear weapon between 2010 and 2015, while cautioning that there was no evidence that the Iranian government had decided to do so. (...) The generals offered a number of significant caveats about their assessment of Iran's capabilities. When asked, for example, how long it would take Iran to convert its current supplies of low-enriched uranium into bomb-grade material, General Burgess said, "The general consensus - not knowing ...

This is a pretty depressing assessment by Joel Rubin at Democracy Arsenal, who just returned from the Herzliya conference in Israel (the premier security summit attended by all major Israeli politicians). It was clear, after attending this conference, that the weight of a decade of American neoconservative failure in the Middle East had brought Israelis neither security nor peace of mind. This situation is problematic for Israeli political elites, who are also concerned that President Obama, unlike his predecessor, will not indulge conservative Israeli politicians in their greatest self-destructive behaviors anymore, especially when it comes to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Compounding this dilemma is the irony that the population supports a hard-line government, despite being frustrated by the policies that it is advancing. For example, the citizens of Tel Aviv loathe settlers, whose representatives hold sway over the Netanyahu government. While settlers hold on to thei...

Facebook is now the Virtual Front for the Israel-Palestine conflict. Facebook users residing in the highly controversial settlement of Maale Adumim were incensed when they discovered that they were listed as residing in "Palestine" by default. Reuters quotes one settler , Ari Zimmerman, as saying "I am a citizen of Israel, as are all of the other residents of Ariel. We do not live in 'Palestine', nor does anyone else." A Facebook group was quickly established in protest, called "Facebook Has No Right To Say I Live In Palestine" ( link ). In response, Palestinian Facebook users mobilized to create their own groups, including "Action against Facebook delisting "PALESTINE" as a country / Hometown" ( link ) and "Protest Facebook's categorisation of Israeli settlements as 'Israel'" ( link ). As with any online dispute that mirrors a real-world conflict, new groups are created and membership in these groups fluct...

Kudos to the President for making a clear and unambiguous statement : Mr. Bush praised the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, for honesty, but said he expected Israel to keep its promises to dismantle outposts illegal under Israeli law that were built after March 2001. “The Israeli government has said that they’re going to get rid of unauthorized settlements, and that’s what we expect, that’s what we’ve been told,” Mr. Bush said. “We expect them to honor their commitments.” Mr. Bush suggested that some Israeli settlements were bound to be kept by Israel in any peace agreement, which would define final borders. “But the unauthorized settlements, which is different from the authorized settlements, is an issue we’ve been very clear on,” he said. When Ariel Sharon was prime minister, he promised Mr. Bush personally that all Israeli outposts built after he took office in March 2001 would be dismantled before the next elections. Mr. Olmert was his deputy and said he would keep the commitme...

Scott MacLeod at TIME's Middle East blog notices something buried in Condoleeza Rice's recent testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee: In language that seemed a little blunter than usual, she stated categorically, "Israel must stop settlement expansion and remove unauthorized outposts." Palestinian leader Abbas and Arab diplomats have been complaining that Israel's settlement policy essentially is a sign of bad faith going into the peace conference. The bombshell came in the Q&A afterwards, when she warned that time was running out to negotiate a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Condi's specific words to that effect were, Our concern is growing that without a serious political prospect for the Palestinians that gives to moderate leaders a horizon that they can show to their people that indeed there is a two-state solution that is possible, we will lose the window for a two-state solution . As MacLeod notes, if that window c...