1. Despite the almost universal condemnation of PM Netanyahu’s speech, even by some of his supporters in the United States and Israel, it seems that Republican senators are not going to give up. One can only describe the letter by 47 Republican Senators to Iranian leaders as madness and even treason. Senator Tom Cotton who leads this initiative is deeply ignorant about the substance and about Iran.
2. They go against the wishes of President Obama and his negotiators and write to the supreme leader of Iran whom they have described as America’s worst enemy and worse than the ISIS with only one purpose: to torpedo the agreement. One should truly wonder at the honesty and sanity of such individuals.
3. Thankfully there are more moderate and thoughtful Americans who believe in the long-term interests of their country and the world, rather than being obsessed by the manufactured crisis by a foreign government or trying to score party points. (See links below).Read More »
The following question was asked to the ambassador of Israel to Sweden in one of the most respected programs on the Swedish Broadcasting (Sveriges Radio): “Do the Jews themselves carry any responsibility for the anti-Semitism we now see growing?”. (Translated by me from its official website). The ambassador refused to answer.
At the end of the program the responsible editor expressed a profound apology: “We wholeheartedly apologize for the question. It leads in the wrong direction and puts the guilt on individuals and unexposed groups”. The section was cut from the program recording although the original is stored in a public archive.
It seems like almost everyone in the media world agrees with this apology: “You should not ask such a question.” I agree. But we should ask “Does Israel carry any responsibility for the growing anti-Semitism?” Read More »
My reaction to Netanyahu’s theatrical performance yesterday in Congress led me to recall that the deepest thinkers turned against democracy in ancient Greece because of the susceptibility of the Athenian citizenry to demagogic oratory from opportunistic politicians. Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides all became sensitive to the degree to which the rhetoric of demagogues contributed to the decline, and eventual downfall, of ancient Athens. Yet even in the worst last days of Athens the demagogues who performed so destructively were at least homegrown!
It would have been inconceivable anywhere else than the United States for a controversial foreign leader to be welcomed before the legislative chamber to attack ongoing delicate diplomacy of the elected head of state. It is not merely a matter of the niceties of protocol as to whether the Speaker of the House was delinquent in not coordinating the invitation with the White House so as to agree on a date not so embarrassingly tied to Netanyahu’s bid for reelection on March 17, although such issues are not trivial.
More substantial, however, is what it tells us about this self-destructive embrace of a foreign leader that is unabashedly seeking to derail a critical foreign policy initiative clearly in the interest of the United States, the Middle East, and the world, and even Israel (although presumably not Netanyahu’s and Likud’s worldview).Read More »
After all the huffing and puffing and all the aroused expectations about the speech by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the joint session of US Congress, the speech proved a great disappointment and even an embarrassment. A great deal has already been written about it, and there is no need to repeat all that here. Here I only wish to draw attention to some of the glaring distortions in the speech and the harm that it can do to the cause of Iranian and Israeli rapprochement and, more importantly, to the cause of peace in the Middle East.
The speech was a cynical use of the US Congress for domestic electoral ambitions.
Recently, Netanyahu had been trailing the Zionist Camp leader Isaac Herzog in the number of projected seats in the forthcoming Israeli election. He certainly hoped that as the result of the publicity that his speech would generate he could reverse the trend. In the process, his intrusion into America’s domestic politics has deepened the divide between the Democrats and the Republicans and has introduced a strong element of partisanship to US relations with Israel. In other words, the speech was more about himself than the fate of the State of Israel or US-Israeli relations or international peace.
When Senator Lindsey Graham, a senior Republican senator, visited Jerusalem last December, he told the Israeli leader: “I’m here to tell you, Mr. Prime Minister, that the Congress will follow your lead… [on Iran].” (1) Therefore, it was no surprise when the Republican Majority leader asked Netanyahu to address a join session of Congress, for the third time, to issue his marching orders.
After President Obama’s State of the Union address, in which he indicated that he was working hard to resolve Iran’s nuclear dispute by peaceful means, House Speaker John A. Boehner decided to invite the head of a foreign state to address the Congress without informing the White House or even Minority Democratic leaders.
This was an act of gross discourtesy to the president, a violation of diplomatic protocol, and a clear departure from the US Constitution that puts the executive branch in charge of foreign policy and relations with foreign political leaders.Read More »
Western news media has feasted on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s talk and the reactions to it as a rare political spectacle rich in personalities in conflict. But the real story of Netanyahu’s speech is that he is continuing a long tradition in Israeli politics of demonising Iran to advance domestic and foreign policy interests.
The history of that practice, in which Netanyahu has played a central role going back nearly two decades, shows that it has been based on a conscious strategy of vastly exaggerating the threat from Iran.
In conjuring the spectre of Iranian genocide against Israelis, Netanyahu was playing two political games simultaneously. He was exploiting the fears of the Israeli population associated with the Holocaust to boost his electoral prospects while at the same time exploiting the readiness of most members of US Congress to support whatever Netanyahu orders on Iran policy.Read More »
Can anyone see an end to the upheavals in The Middle East and what can be done? My answer to the first question is “no” and my second is: “Wind the clock back to the days of the Ottoman Empire when vast stretches of the Middle East lived in relative peace under the benign rule of the sultans”.
The Ottoman Empire disintegrated because of its foolish decision to join the wrong side in World War 1. The French and British then carved up the Middle East to create the present day countries and to serve their interests (later oil).
What could have been done as recently as 12 years ago? Not invade Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and bring the house tumbling down, ruining nearly everyone’s well-being, breeding the conditions under which sectarian war between Sunni Islam and Shiite Islam flourishes and which became fertile ground for Al Qaeda and now their successor, the Islamic State (ISIS).
ISIS covers great swathes of Iraq and Syria and could well undermine the governments of Lebanon, Jordan and even Saudi Arabia. The decision of President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair to act on willfully distorted intelligence on Iraq’s supposed stock of weapons of mass destruction must be regarded as an unforgiveable crime against humanity.
The US and its Arab partners can’t bomb ISIS into submission any more than the US could the Vietcong. All outsiders can do is to sanction it (but avoiding the mistakes of the sanctions on Iraq when 30,000 children died as a result). It may take 10 years or more to win a favourable result.
The periphery of Europe will continue to be unstable until the big Western powers make a loud public promise not to expand NATO and to allow Ukraine to make Read More »
President Richard von Weizsäcker passed away 31 January and was very much celebrated in Germany for his brilliant presidency to normalize a Germany with a troubled past, even divided on top of that. But, by and large leaving out his global perspectives mentioned below.
His brother Car Friedrich was a nuclear physicist turned peace activist with a wonderful peace program, in one word: Weltinnenpolitik, world domestic policy (well, it depends on the country, some domestic policies are better than others; I would go for a Swiss coalition governance, federalism, direct democracy).
The president’s nephew Ernst Ulrich is an energy-environment leader, in Germany and through the UN in the world.
I have/had the privilege of knowing them all, and my tribute to Carl Friedrich when he passed away is an editorial dated 2 July 2012. Richard kindly sent greetings to the symposium on “Peace Studies and World Domestic Policy” on the occasion of my 80th birthday.
On March 3, 2015, The Telegraph and a few other major news surces broke the quite extraordinary story that the chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee – the body that decides who is awarded the Prize – former Norwegian PM Thorbjoern Jagland had been demoted; it’s the first time it has ever happened.
It was during his chairmanship the will of Alfred Nobel was ignored most systematically – e.g. by awarding the world’s allegedly most prestigious prize to President Obama, the EU and Chinese human rights (but pro-war) Liu Xiaobo.
It’s about 7 years ago that a small group of Scandinavian scholars decided to investigate how this prize is managed. The basic research can be found in a book by Norwegian lawyer and author, Fredrik S. Heffermehl, The Nobel Peace Prize: What Nobel Really Wanted which was the first major result of the group’s work. It documents how this prize is “prestigious” only for those who either a) have never read Alfred Nobe’s will; b) don’t believe it should be interpreted with respect for his motives and goals and c) have very little knowledge about peace and peace research.
Nobel’s formulation in his will is short and clear – the Peace Prize shall go “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” He calls such people “champions of peace”. More here.
Thus, the Nobel Peace Prize is not a do-good prize, not a human rights or environmental prize and not a pro-war prize. But it is a reward work for disarmament, anti-militarism and the abolition of warfare and people – be it politicians, scholars, activists – who are pro-peace, champions of peace. The legal challenges that the Nobel Peace Prize Watch has raised over the years can be found here.
The Nobel Peace Prize Watch
Over the years, the criticism of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee’s work has increased. Seven years ago, I cannot remember that any journalist who interviewed me about the Prize had read the will. Now about 75% of them seem to have before they call.
Fredrik Heffermehl, Oslo, and Tomas Magnusson, Gothenburg, have now established the Lay Down Your Arms Association which was incorporated and registered in Gothenburg, Sweden in 2014 with a Scandinavian and an International Advisory Board. The Association’s first project has been to set up the Nobel Peace Prize Watch where you can acquaint yourself with the Prize, its history, background, the criticism over time, etc.Read More »
It is far too simple to be merely outraged by the arrogant presumptuousness of today’s speech by the Israeli Prime Minister to a joint session of Congress two weeks prior to national elections in Israel. The Netanyahu visit has encouraged various forms of wishful thinking.
Perhaps, the most common one is to suppose that bump in the road of U.S./Israeli relations will lead to a foreign policy reset that is more in accord with American national interests (in the spirit of the Mearsheimer/Walt critique of the baneful influence of the Israeli lobby) or that it signifies the death knell of AIPAC or the permanent alienation of the Democratic Party from its knee jerk support for Israel.
In my view, none of these developments will happen in the wake of Netanyahu visit, no matter how obnoxious or divisive or inappropriate as his presence appears to be.
First of all, it is important to separate three main dimensions of the Netanyahu speech to Congress: Read More »
What is terrorism? Why do we talk much more about that than other types of deaths? Why is the word misused? What has nuclear weapons – that politicians and media hardly ever talk about – got to do with terror? Why should we all be careful not to exaggerate the phenomenon of terror?
10 x more terrorism than before 9/11
Tell you what: I’ve been critical of the ”war on terror” since September 12, 2001 and particularly since 10/7 when the war on Afghanistan started. If the War on Terror was the answer to 9/11, the U.S. and its friends asked the wrong questions.
Because, what has been the result?
According to U.S. statistics at the time, in the years up to the horrific crime in New York, about 1,000-1,500 people were hit by terror per year worldwide; 1/3 of whom died, the rest were wounded. Most of it happened in South America, some in Europe; small groups such as Baader-Meinhof.
Almost 3,000 were killed on 9/11, many nationalities, far from only American citizens. (About 30,000 die annually from shooting each other).
Today? About 18,000 were killed in terror in 2013.
Although data may not be directly comparable or definitions be the same, the difference between 1,500 and 18,000 cannot be explained by methodological and other variations.Read More »
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