The Palestine-Israeli Conflict in regard to Zionist Practices

Abstract: There have been several political problems in the Middle East region. However, Jewish-laic Israeli state’s enlargement policies which caused a direct negative impact on Palestine-İsraeli relations has been the most important among those problems in the Arab-Muslim Middle East region. The mentioned conflict, which began along with the Zionist policies and intensified parallel to the establishment of Israel state, has become much more complex throughout the years. Following this process, several Arab-Israel wars have been experienced which resulted in huge loss for both sides. The peace plans aimed at terminating the conflict could not bring a permanent solution to the problem, on the contrary, along with those plans Israeli state could have enlarged its sphere of influence in the region. The conflict, that remained unsolved due to the clashing interests of the sides and due to the interventionist policies of the big powers, is being tried to be solved through the Road Map peace plan currently. However, just after the application of the first level of that last plan the clashes have increased., and İsraeli state has placed itself in a position which can not be controled easily. In this study, on the one hand, it was explained that the political attempts that the Jews had made from the second half of the 19th century along with the zionist policies to the establishment of the Israel state did affect Arab-Jewish relations in the Middle East region , on the other hand, it was also pointed out that in what ways three important Arab-Israeli wars and the peace plans/negotiation attempts affected Israeli state’s status and political stand in the Middle East region before both the Palestinians and the Arabs, and how the Israel state gained that political power in time in the region.
Key Words: Zionism, Palestine-Israeli conflict, Arab-Israeli wars, Palestine, peace process, Road Map. İntroduction: The Source of the Problem - Zionism and the Israeli Settlement Until the World War IIn the period until the World War I, not a İsraeli state or the enlargement policies of that state but only the efforts of the Jews so as to obtain a land and to settle on that land can be mentioned. The first of those efforts started with the application of Zionist policies. So, Zionism has been regarded as the most influencial among those efforts. “Zionism, as a European movement came to be seen initially as another attempt by Western imperialism to subordinate Muslims to Europeans and became even more threatening once it was realized that the Zionists wished to take part of, what had been Arab lands for centuries and remake it into a Jewish homeland” (Smith, 1996: 33-34).Modern Zionism dates back to the second half of the nineteenth century, which refers the wish to establish an independent Jewish existence in Palestine. That modern zionism differed from the traditional zionism, that traditional zionism sees the establishment of Jewish state as a religious reward that can be given only by the Yahweh. However, modern zionism is secular and aims to use political activity to establish Israel state. Mainly, the prosecutions Jewish people underwent, discrimination and hostility that is shown to them gave rise to zionism. Jews became more adherent to their distinctive community life, after the harsh reactions coming from society. Especially, attacks on Jewish communities in Russia and Eastern Europe made them more reluctant to leave the country and some Jews immigrated to Palestine. These reople begun to set up Jewish agricultural settlement which was supported by wealthy western Jews.Moreover, an important event took place for Jews, in 1897, that The First Zionist Congress was realised in Basel by Theodor Herzl. The founding elements of zionist policy were determined in that congress. The plan that Herzl proposed mainly conveyed the essence of decisions. According to this plan; an organized Jewish colonization in Palestine should be materialized, an internationally recognised legitimate right for the colonization of Palestine should be obtained, and the establishment of a permanent organization for Jewish people unity should be realised (Taylor, 2001: 18). The congress declared its goal as the creation of a home for the Jewish people in Palestine to be secured by public law. It was obvious that the main purpose of that congress was to create a Jewish State but it could not openly declare that, due to the probable reaction of the Ottoman Empire to the notion of a Jewish state on a land which it was controlling.During that time, Jewish imigrants in Palestine purchased lands by the aid of foreign consuls, despite the fact that Ottoman officials opposed those purchasings. Between 1904 and 1914 a second wave of Jewish imigration came to Palestine, that intensified the Jewish population in the region. Consequently, Arab people became worried about the increase in population of Jews. Despite the fact that Jewish settlement created a common discontentment among Arabs, no direct action was taken to stop Jewish settlement. There were just individual protests against those settlements. Zionist Movement During the World Wars I-IIFor the first years of war, Palestine had no strategic importance except for the fact that, after the war Palestine would be a buffer-zone between Syria and Lebanon under the control of French and British-held Egypt. However, after the Revolution in Russia, British was alarmed that Germany would then use all its power against the Entente Powers. As a result, Britain decided to support zionists in Palestine, in return to support of Jews in Russia would be gained and would take Russia back to war. Moreover, British government would gain the support of Jews in U.S.A., so Jewish lobby would urge U.S. government to join the war on the side of Entente powers. In order to get the support of Jews, foreign minister of Britain Arthur James Balfour sent a letter to the Jewish member of British parliament Lord Lionel Walter Rothchild on 2 November 1917. The following points were mentioned in the letter known as Balfour Decleration:“I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of his Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of symphaty with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to and approved by the Cabinet. His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it is being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. I should be Grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation” (Landen, 1970: 197 ; TIPH, 1997: 117-119).However, while Britain was backing Jews for independence, they also made promises to Arabs. Britain promised to support the independence of Arab states, thus Britain intended to promote Arab revolts against Turkish army, that would draw Turks from Suez Canal and weaken the Ottoman Empire in the region. It was obvious that such promises to both Arabs and Jews were contradictory, but Britain assumed that they would iron out conflicts among them, after the war.After the World War I, Syria and Lebanon were under the mandate of France, and Paletsine, Iraq, Trans-Jordan under the mandate of Britain. Britain was responsible for the administration of both Arabs and Jews in Palestine. However, during this period, Arabs were not represented equally, despite their majority population in the region but Jews became more influential and powerful in all departments of government, that gradually Arabs were excluded from economic and political life. Furthermore, land purchases by Jews increased. Due to the lack of capital, Arabs could not catch up with the economic development of Jews. Therefore Arabs had to sell their lands. Those new Jewish-owners did not want to see Arab tenants, peasants on their lands. These people were taken away from their lands and became landless and discontented class, also transfer of land to non-Arabs caused agitation among Arabs.Consequently, Arab riots broke out in 1929 against Jews. Head of the British commission responsible for investigation of riots, Walter Shaw stated not only the reasons of riots, but also the basis of Arab-Israeli conflict in general: “The fundamental cause (of the outbreak) is the Arab feeling of animosity and hostility towards the Jews consequent on the disoppointment of their political and national aspirations and fear for their economic future... The feeling as it exists today is based on the two-fold fear of the Arabs that by Jewish immigration and land purchases they may be deprived of their livelihood and placed under the economic domination of Jews” (Smith, 1996: 90).Enlargement of Israeli Influence in the Middle East: Establishment of Israel State and 1948-1967-1973 WarsAfter Nazi government’s oppressions on German Jews, another Jewish immigration wave came to Palestine. This event intensified Jewish population in Palestine, also led the enforcement of Arab discontent. On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly approved the plan that Palestine would be shared by two states to be established by Jews and Arabs, and that Jarusalem and nearby would be given an international status (Bilen, 1996:12-13). Despite the fact that Jewish population was minority on the land, the independence of Israel was declared on 14 May 1948 following the UN partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states.All Arab regimes including Palestinian leader of the time rejected the partition plan and woved to destroy Israel, and the first Arab-Israel War began (McKinley, 1972: 87). Early on 15 May 1948 regular troops from Egypt, Syria, Transjordan and Iraq entered Palestine to support the local Palestinian Arabs (www.megastories.com/mideast/wars/1948.htm,Israel’s War of Independence). By July 1949 Israel had repulsed the invasion, joined the UN, and been recognized by more than 50 governments around the world. In serious armistices with Egypt Jordan, Syria and Lebanon in 1949, Israel established borders similar to those of Palestine during the British mandate. Jordan retained the West Bank of the Jordan River, Egypt took over the administration of the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem was divided under Israeli and Jordanian rule. The Year 1949, in which the first Arab-Israel War ended, has many meanings for Palestinians. It means the year in which they lost their country, in which about 1.000.000 of the total Palestinian population of 1.4 million people became refugees (Benny, 1989: 297). So, during the war of 1948, Israeli gained some of territories held by Arabs, and expelled them from these territories. According to Israel officials, those Arabs who did not run away became today’s Israeli Arab citizens and those who fled became the seeds of the first wave of Palestinian Arab refugees (www.masada2000.org/historical.html, Palestinian Arab Refugees). “The Arabs rejected the legitimacy of the Jewish state, whereas the Israelis were determined to convince the Arabs that they could not threaten their existence. A new phase of the conflict now began, focusing on Arab-Israeli state and affected to a much greater degree than previously by great power rivalries and the contiuing confrontation between the Soviet bloc and the western powers” (Smith, 1996:148). It was obuious Arab aggression toward Israeli was because of their perception that Jews captured their homelands by the help of Western Imperialsm. So, Israeli was seen as a tool of imperialists in the region.An important event took place in the Middle East, after the revolution in Eygpt (1952), Eygpt defeated French-British-Israeli troops in Suez War. This event had two important results, one was that Eygpt gained prestige and became the leader of the Arab world, so Eygpt pursued an anti-Israeli policy, that it was an important side in Arab-Israeli conflict. Second results was that while British influence was lessened, Soviet and American influence increased.In the history of Arab-Israeli conflict, second important war occured in 1967, after the war of 1948. Six day war of 1967 was mainly the result of the Israel’s existence on Arabian lands. Another reason was the Eygpt’s anti-Israeli policy in order to gain power among Arab states. Eygpt, Syria and Jordan attacked Israelis. However, Israeli defeated Arab powers and Israeli armies conquered the West Bank, including the old city of Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and the Syrian Golan Heights, defeating the armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria. But more than that, Israel created a new reality in the Middle East and sowed the seeds for deep dissent within its own society, and ideological settlers quickly moved into the West Bank, Golan, and Gaza and created new settlements (www.megastories.com/mideast/wars/1948.htm, An Incredible Six Days). Today over 400.000 Israelis live on the land conquered in the 1967 war. The Six Day War had a profound effect on the Arab world and in its aftermanth many of the leaders held responsible for the defeat. It also led the increase of anti-Western feeling, since the West was seen as having supported Israel. It also led the restructure of the Arab guerilla movement and the emerge of the Palestinian state (www.historychanel.com, A Brief History of Palestine).Until the war of 1973 - the third important war in Arab-Israeli conflict - many clashes took place between Arabs and Israelis. On 6 October 1973, it was Israel’s turn to be taken by surprise, the October War between Israel and Arab states broke out. Egyptian forces blasted their way through the sand defenses built around the Israeli lines at the Suez Canal and succeeded in crossing the waterway (www.megastories.com/mideast/wars/1948.htm, Israel Caught On the Hop, 1973). The Arabs showed that they had improved their strategy since 1967. But in fact, it gave Egypt the political victory it needed to sue for peace with honor. Egyptian president Anwar Sadat went on to fly to Jerusalem in 1977 and became the first Arab leader to make peace with Israel. In 1979 Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt in a peace treaty that formally ended the 30 year state of war between the two countries. Egypt in return, recongnized Israel’s right to exist. Since then, Arab-Israeli conflict turned into the Palestine-Israeli conflict.Negotiation Attempts-Camp David Accords and the Advantages İsraeli State HadPrior to the 1973 war, efforts at peace negotiations between the Arabs and Israelis had been ineffective. After the war, there was a heightened sense of interest in resolving the outstanding issues between those actors. For Israel the 1973 war had shown that it was not invincible as the Arabs had been able to inflict a massive military blow to the country. For the Arab states and the Palestinians there was a strong desire to achieve some territorial adjustments (www.davem2.colf.edu, The Peace Process). The war also gave impetus to the international peace efforts in the region, as the European countries in particular began to interpret UN resolutions on the conflict in a more pro-Arab light. Also the United States now accepted the need to play in the peace process, both out of a desire to maintain regional stability but also to limit the changes of a superpower confrontation such as occurred during the 1973 war.The first major event in the peace process was the Camp David Accords of 1978. President Jimmy Carter invited President Sadat and Prime Minister Begin of Israel to the Camp David to aggree on a peace treaty. There were two parts, the first was a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. In the treaty, a formal peace was to be established, a definite border between two states was to be created, and there would be the beginnings of diplomatic and economic interaction between two states. In return, Israel would withdraw from the Sinai, returning control of this land to Egypt. The second part, “A Framework for Peace in the Middle East” was an agreement to seek solutions to the regional issues that remained. The framework included a provision for a five year period of autonomy for the West Bank and Gaza during which time negotiations were to take place as to the final settlements of those areas.However, autonomy agreement was never implemented. In the Arab world, Sadat was branded a traitor. They saw Camp David as a separate peace with Israel, thereby weakening the unity of the Arab camp in its efforts to resolve other issues involving Israel. Sadat was later assassinated in 1981 in part because of Camp David. The removal of Egypt, the largest, and the most powerful Arab state guaranteed that no other Arab state would be willing to risque another war against Israel (www.davem2.colf.edu, The Peace Process).During the 1980’s, there was virtually no progress on the peace front between either Israel and the Palestinians or between Israel and the Arab states. On December 6, six Palestinian workers were killed in the Gaza Strip. It was the start of the Intifada, the revolution of the stones. In December 1987, the Intifada, the Palestine uprising in the occupied territories, began. Intifada is an Arabic world which means shaking. Palestinian youth were trying to shake off, or shake themselves free of 20 years of abject colonial humiliation by Israel. It was the movement of masses and the uprising in the occupied territories, after 20 years of Israeli rule, took everyone by surprise. Israel did not know how to react because it was difficult to denounce such a popular movement as the work of terrorists. After the Intifada 1.300 Palestinians, including 300 children, are said to have been killed, but the Palestinians had the sympathy of the world and also the Intifada pushed the PLO to moderate its position and moved them into a dialogue with the UN (www.megastories.com/mideast/wars/1948.htm, Intifada – Sticks and Stones and Broken Bones).Rabin and the Peace Process in the 1990s - The Madrid ConferenceThere was a resurgence of interest in the peace process following the 1991 Gulf War. The collapse of the Soviet Union as an Arab ally gave the signals of ending strategy which argued that Israel could be forced to negotiate due to the Arab strength. Also, the Palestinian support of Iraq during the Cold War had made it an international outcast. There were hopes that coming back to the negotiating table would generate positive feelings towards the Palestinians. Finally, a change in the Israeli government in 1992 brought into power a new leadership under Rabin, and that was considered to be more supportive for the peace process. One important effort towards those issues was the Madrid Talks of October 1991. The idea was to begin a series of bilateral negotiations between Israel and Palestine. The Madrid Conference in 1991 was important because, for the first time, the representatives of Palestine and Israel met together to discuss their problems and peace (Journal of Palestine Studies, 1993: 9). Overall, the Madrid process has made little headway, though multilateral working groups continued to operate. After the Madrid conference, Israel and Palestinians agreed to mutual recognition and limited self rule for Palestinians in Jericho and Gaza. They also agreed to conclude a permanent treaty that would resolve the status of Gaza and the West Bank. But the more difficult issues such as the status of Jerusalem and the rights of Palestinian refugees were postponed to other peace talks.Negotiations between Israel and Palestinians today are based on the principles set down in the 1993 accords (Declaration of Principles). In this accord, Israel and PLO announced a major breakthrough in their relations and Arafat recognized Israel’s right to exist, accepted UN resolutions 242 and 338, renounced terrorism and rejected the PLO Covenant calling for the destruction of Israel. In a following agreement known as Oslo II, Israel and Palestinians agreed to the holding of elections for a Palestine Council. Israeli also agreed to a withdrawal from the major cities of the West Bank, turning administration Palestinian National Authority. In exchange the Palestinians agreed to make efforts to guarantee the security of Israelis (Abu-Amr, 1994: 74-78).The positive attempts also continued in Ehud Barak period. By the mid year 2000, Clinton invited Barak and Arafat to a three way summit at Camp David, and the talks ended with no agreement, the two sides concentrated largely over the sovereignty and the control of Jerusalem. Since the election of Barak, there has been a renewed interest among all parties to move towards meaningful negotiations on a number of front. On the Palestinian-Israel track there have been a number of meetings between Barak and Arafat. In the recent Camp David talks, although the talks ended with no agreement, both parties seemed to be closer to a final solution.However something in the peace process has changed with the election of Ariel Sharon, the leader of hard-line Likud Party complicated the peace process. Since Sharon’s controversial Semtember 28, 2000 visit to the Temple Mount, more than 400 people were killed in violent clashes between Palestinians and Israel. Both sides blamed the other for the violence, and each held the other responsible for ending it. The internal Israeli politics are further complicating the peace process. Sharon has said he would not give the Palestinians any more territory than they now control under interim accords-42 percent of the West Bank and two thirds of Gaza. Sharon also said he would continue to seek peace with the Palestinians but not on the basis of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which led the current peace talks, or ideas proposed by former US president Bill Clinton before he left the office in January. Sharon’s there main focus is on security, different kind of peace process, and united Jerusalem. Although the Israeli public voted in protest against Mr. Barak’s handling of negotiations with the Palestinians, they did not vote against the peace process. Mr. Sharon’s campaign promises included bringing both security and peace, but he insists he will not talk to the Palestinians until their four-month old uprising ends. Palestinians groups, however, insists that the violence will continue.On the other hand, after the election of Sharon, Hamas (the military mean of Muslim Brothers) which is opposed to the peace process, increased its terrorist activities against Israel (Hürriyet News, 07.02.2001). Hamas is believed to be the most effective political movement in Gaza in which almost 750.000 Palastinians live. For Hamas, the main aim is that the land of Muslims should be free of Zionists and the only possible solution is jihad (Sel, 1993: 44-49).As cited in The Economist in April 2001, Yasser Arafat is held personally to blame not only for what is perceived as a historic missed opportunity, but also for the escalating violence. Military sources argue anonymously in the press over whether Mr. Arafat explicitly orders specific acts of terrorism, or merely condones the violence in general. The Palestinian leader had expressed readiness to discuss a joint Egyptian and Jordanian proposal, which was raised by Hosni Mubarak in his meeting with George Bush in Washington on April 2nd. The proposal amounts to a package of reciprocal measures. Israael would lift its siege of Palestinian areas, and the Palestinian security forces would resume cooperation with their Israeli counterparts (The Economist, April 7th-13th 2001: 45-46).Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat got calls from US President George W. Bush urging them to halt the violence in the Middle East. An independent, international committee headed by the former US Senator George Mitchell issued its Mideast report calling for a halt to the violence, a timetable for a return to negotiations(http://cnn.worldnews.printthis.clickability.com/pt/printThis?clickMap, May 23, 2001). Furthermore, the USA sent George Tenet, the CIA chief, to talk about how the ceasefire is to be monitored, and how to reinstate the long-lapsed ‘security cooperation’ between the two sides (The Economist, June 9th-15th 2001: 54). Tenet held separate talks with both sides as part of renewed US involvement in the Palastinian-Israeli crisis after Bush took Office in January, and also Tenet met Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Despite those international efforts and despite Sharon and Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat have publicly committed to breaking the cycle of violence, neither believes the other’s pledge. The Israelis were complaining that the Sharon Government has not done enough to protect the settlements from Palestinian attack. Many people regard Israel’s unilateral decleration of a ceasefire as a sign of weakness. There appeared little criticism of Arafat’s unilateral commitment to halt armed attacks against Israeli targets. But it has been made clear that Palestinians have a perceived right to continue to intifada or uprising with the aim of achieving an end to Israeli occupation. In eight months of violence, more than 480 Palestinians and nearly 110 Israelis died. The violence continued until September 11, 2001. A New Possibility For Israeli Enlargement - The Road MapThe Decleration of the Road Map, which was firstly mentioned by the U.S. president George W. Bush, in his speech dated 24 June 2002, appeared on April 30, 2003 following Israeli parliament elections and the end of Iraq War. That Road Map is aimed at the establishment of Palestine state and finding a permament solution to Arab-Israel conflict (http://www.palastinemonitor.org/special %20 section/road %20 map/Roadmap-fulltext.htm).The Road Map, prepared by the US, EU, Russian Federation and UK, includes a three-level period. (Dalgıç, 2003: 16-17). The first level contains the arrangements referring to the period between 24 June 2002 and May 2003. In that period it is assumed that Palestinian side would cease violation and the security cooperation between the sides would be restored based upon Tenet Plan. In that one-year period, while the Palestinian administration is to maintain detailed reforms such as the preparation of Palestine constitution and the realisation of free and fair elections. Israeli government is obliged to normalize the daily life of Palestinians, withdraw the lands occupied on 28 September 2000 and terminate the attempts in regard to the establishment of Jewish settlements. In the second level, which is between June-December 2003, the attempts would concentrate on the establishment of an independent Palestine state having temporary borders. In that level, following elections, economic development of Palestine would also be supported. The third level would contain the years 2004 and 2005. In 2005, Israel-Palestine talks would be provided in order to reach permanent status agreement. In those talks, refugees and the status of Jarusalem would be argued and ‘dual-state’ ideal which is based on the idea that Israel and independent, democratic Palestine would live in peace.Although the Road Map pretended to be different and more promising than the previous peace plans and negotiation attempts, just after declaration of the Road Map, both sides hesitated to fulfill the requirements and put forward their own demands. ConclusionCurrently, what will happen in the peace process is a controversial issue. There are five core issues that separate two sides. The first one is the fate of Jerusalem which is a city sacred to both sides and claimed by both sides as the capital. The second one is the status of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees and their descendants who want to return to the lands they lost when Israel became independent in 1948. The property loss and long years in exile have generated deep anger against Israel. So far, Mr. Arafat has remained firm on the right of return, and he has been backed by Arab leaders. However, it seems that Israel will never accept an influx of Palestinians that would change its character as homeland created for Jews. Probably the only return these refugees can hope is the chance to live in a small and crowded Palestinian state into the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The third issue which separates two sides is the borders of a Palestinian state. This also means that what security measures should be taken to ensure the safety of both people. The negative stand of some groups and political parties which have been against Palestine-Israel peace since the begining of peace process should be regarded as the fifth issue which seperates two sides. While in Palestine, those anti-peace process attempts depend on radical Islamist groups, in Israel, rightist and religious parties have been the source of those anti-peace process attempts. Since those groups and parties assume that they would directly be excluded from the system/order to be established along with the materialization of peace in the region, they do their utmost to prevent peace process. The last issue in peace process is the policy of global powers aimed at enlarging their sphere of influence through being a mediator between the conflicting sides. In order to have the possibility of intervention, they usually favour the continuity of conflict. By doing so, on the one hand, they shape the Middle East region according to their own desire, on the other hand, they convince the disputing sides that they would be unable to survive without the support of those big powers. So, this makes all peace plans invalid in time.To sum up, it can be said that since the begining of the establishment of İsraeli state and following each peace plan or any negotiation attempt while the Palestinians lost their strength, Israeli state succeeded to enlarge its sphere of influence in the Middle East region.ReferencesAbu-Amr, Ziad (1994) “The View from Palastine: In the Wake of the Agreement”, Journal of Palestine Studies, 23 (2).“After Tel Aviv Suicide Bomb”, The Economist, June 9th-15th 2001.Benny, Moris (1989) The Birth of Palestinian Refuge Problem 1947-1949, Cambridge University Press, New York.Bilen, Özden (1996) Orta Doğu’da Su Sorunları ve Türkiye, Tesav Vakfı Yy., Ankara.Dalgıç, Gökçe (2003) “Barış Sürecinde Yeni Bir Başlangıç? ‘Yol Haritası’”, Stratejik Analiz Dergisi, 4 (38).“Dark Shadows Over Israel and Palestine”, The Economist, April 7th-13th 2001, 45-46.Hürriyet News, 07.02.2001.Landen, Robert G. (1970) The Emergence of Modern Middle East Selected Readings. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co.McKinley, Webb (1972) Trouble in the Middle East, New York.Sel, Fatma (1993) “Filistin’de İslamın Yükselişi ve Örgütsel Hareketlilik”, Dünya ve İslam Dergisi.Smith, Charles D. (1996) Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, St. Martin’s Press, New York.Taylor, Alan R. (2001) İsrail’in Doğuşu 1897-1947 Siyonist Diplomasinin Analizi, Çev: Mesut Karaşahan, Üçüncü Basım, Pınar Yayınları, İstanbul.“The Oslo Agreement: An Interview with Nabil Shaath”, Journal of Palestine Studies, 22 (1), Spring 1993.Tiph (Temporary International Presence in the City of Hebron), Introduction Program for the New TIPH Members, Hebron, 1997.

Russians in the Soviet Union: rulers and victims

"When Russians try to understand what happened to them in the Soviet Union, they come up against an ineluctable paradox. The Soviet Union was both Russian and anti-Russian." The historian Geoffrey Hosking examines Russians' complex of strong, ambivalent and unresolved feelings about their national past.
When Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, declared in his "state of the nation" speech in April 2005 that "the collapse of the Soviet Union was the biggest geopolitical disaster of the (20th) century", his remarks were met in the west with horror. It was assumed that he was declaring openly his intention to recreate an authoritarian and overbearing imperial state. Actually, the background to his statement is more complicated than appears at first sight. Russians have good reason both to love and to hate the Soviet Union.To start with, the Soviet Union was a huge multi-ethnic state in most parts of which Russians had made their homes. For Russians the end of the Soviet Union was not emancipation (unlike the other nationalities) but deprivation. In some ways this was a purely practical matter. Which English person would welcome a development that required him or her to show a passport and make a customs declaration before visiting a relative in Glasgow or Cardiff?But it goes further than that. Russians are accustomed to being the leading people in a multi-national state that has universal aims. They are used both to dominating it and to sacrificing their immediate national interests to the state and its mission of resisting imperialism and creating an international socialist society. They are a messianic people (like the English at a recent period of history, and like the Americans today). The Soviet Union gave Russians greatness, but at terrible cost. They do not like to think their sacrifices were in vain. A messianic peopleOne characteristic of national messianism is that it subordinates the interests of the nation to those of the supranational mission. Or perhaps it would be truer to say that national identity is stretched or broadened to contain within itself a great purpose or project, within which it enfolds other peoples. But that project may well require serious sacrifices of the nation which is its principal protagonist. This is certainly true of the Russians in the Soviet Union: they bore the burdens of a great multinational state, tolerating a very modest standard of living in order to build modern industry and powerful armed forces, with the ultimate purpose of creating international socialism. In the first decade or so of the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" the Soviet leaders actually pursued an anti-Russian policy, deliberately discriminating against Russians in order to build a multinational community without leading or subordinate peoples. Lenin proclaimed "I declare war to the death on Great Russian chauvinism". He instituted the "affirmative action" programme known as korenizatsiia. Non-Russians were awarded their own administrative territories and accorded preference in educational and promotion policies to ensure that they could run their new mandates. Russian settlers were evicted from the north Caucasus and central Asia. Russians living in the Ukrainian SSR were required to send their children to Ukrainian-language schools – something many Russian parents bitterly objected to, since they looked down on Ukrainian as a farmyard dialect. During the 1930s, it is true, the emphasis of policy changed, and became less overtly anti-Russian. Stalin began to adopt the symbols of Russian culture and statehood as an adhesive to hold together the myriad peoples who might otherwise develop each in their own way. All the same, for the Russian people the 1930s were even more disastrous than the 1920s. Stalin endeavoured to destroy the two institutions that were at the heart of Russian national identity: the village commune and the Orthodox church. The destruction of the village commune was combined with the closure of most parish churches and the arrest of the priest. It was sometimes accompanied by symbolic desecration: in one case icons were lined up against a wall, sentenced to death and shot "for resisting kolkhoz construction".Why this deliberate vindictiveness towards harmless objects? Here we come to the heart of the problem of Russian messianism. The fact is that by the early 20th century there was not just one but two kinds of Russian messianism: one associated with the Orthodox church, the other with Russian socialism. Both intersected partially and imperfectly with the outlook and practices of the Russian peasant community. Peasants had supported the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917 because it offered them the chance to seize the land and drive out the landowners. Besides, it legitimated their view that they should run their own communities, that land was a common resource and that property was justified by labour. But among peasants that outlook was based partly on Christianity, partly on tradition, not on a socialist worldview. In the long run the communists could not tolerate rival visions of community, whether generated by the church or by the traditional peasant outlook. That is why in 1929-32 they closed churches, expropriated the peasants, deported the kulaks and set up collective farms making compulsory deliveries to the state. In doing this, the Communists were convinced they were fighting a great and glorious war. Lev Kopelev recalled from his days as a young party activist: "I was convinced that we were soldiers on an invisible front, waging war on kulak sabotage for the sake of bread the country needed for the five-year plan. For bread above all, but also for the souls of peasants whose attitudes had hardened through ignorance and low political consciousness ... not grasping the great truth of communism."Collectivisation squeezed the life out of the Russian village, which Tolstoy and Dostoevsky had regarded as the heart of the Russian nation. Peasants were subjected to a second serfdom: they were deprived of the passbooks necessary to resettle in the towns, required to work for low or non-existent pay and to deliver produce at artificially low prices to the state. Young men – who had a right to their passbooks when they did military service – would mostly leave the village, which as a result became home to women and old men. The number of children born there declined drastically. As old people died no one took over their homes, which remained derelict. When it came to the annual harvest, villagers could not cope. When I was a student at Moscow University in the mid-1960s, my colleagues had to begin their academic year in September with two or three weeks' hard labour gathering in the crops.The price of victoryThe Soviet Union has one uncontestable and undying claim to Russian patriotism: victory in the "Great Patriotic War" of 1941-45. Under Stalin's leadership – however defective in the early stages – the Russian people led the other peoples of the Soviet Union, and indeed of Europe, to triumph over Nazism, to the liberation of its surviving victims and to the creation of a peaceful if divided Europe. This was the high point of Russian – not just Soviet – history: never had the czars dominated central and eastern Europe to the same extent, nor made Russia one of the world's two superpowers.Nearly all Russians were justifiably proud of this achievement. Yet maintaining it over the following decades was to cost them dearly. During the later decades of the Soviet Union the Russians (and to some extent also the Ukrainians and Belarusians) bore the main burden of great-power status. The military-industrial complex required to sustain it was largely a Russian, or at least Slavic, monopoly. The language of command in the armed forces was Russian, and the traditions and symbolism of the fighting men also derived from Russian history and culture. The lion's share – about 75% - of military-industrial research and production was located in the RSFSR (Russian Republic), with a further 15% in Ukraine. Several major Russian cities – Gor'kii, Sverdlovsk, Perm', Kuibyshev – were closed to foreign visitors because they contained so many military factories and facilities. These and other cities suffered from severe pollution: smoke from fuel, effluent from industrial chemicals. Lake Baikal, the largest source of fresh water in the world, was poisoned by discharges from a cellulose factory designed to strengthen the tyres of bombers.A massive housing programme was launched to provide for the soldiers and industrial workers required to sustain great-power status. Tall apartment blocks began to dominate the urban scene almost everywhere. They were impressive, and the new flats were hygienic and well-heated, but they were cramped, mostly far from the earth and fresh air, and in general not a good place to bring up children, especially if both parents were working. As Russia became - for the first time - a mainly urban country, its population ceased to grow and even began to decline. By the early 1970s the demographer Viktor Perevedentsev was warning that the Russian population was not reproducing itself. To do so, he calculated, each Russian couple needed to have an average of 2.65 children; the actual figure was 2.4 and in Moscow as low as 1.6. In the Caucasus and central Asia, however, the reproduction rate was much higher: more people there preserved their way of life better, lived in small towns and villages, in one or two-storey homes where children could easily play and relatives were nearby and able to look after them when needed. So Russians were gradually losing their demographic dominance, especially in the armed forces. In other ways too the Russians paid heavily for sustaining huge armed forces and the industry to provide for them. Their living standards remained very modest, and their needs for food, consumer goods, services and transport were met only skimpily – as they became increasingly aware when more contact with foreigners became possible. The quintessential Russian institution of these decades was the queue – for fresh fruit, television sets, furniture, shoe repairs, railway tickets, entitlements to something or other. Most items were cheap but scarce, so the queue became the normal method to ration them.When Russians try to understand what happened to them in the Soviet Union, they come up against an ineluctable paradox. The Soviet Union was both Russian and anti-Russian. Superpower status and the mission to save the world were purchased at the cost of national degradation. The Soviet model succeeded in certain ways: it educated the masses, it created modern industry, science and technology; it defeated the Germans at war. Yet it also precipitated a Russian demographic disaster, devastated Russian agriculture, demoralised the Russian peasantry, undermined the Russian church and paralysed Russian culture. Russians' feelings about the Soviet Union are both strong and ambivalent. And they are still unresolved. There has been no great turning-point at which Russia decisively dissociated itself from the Soviet Union and started a new path. There was no trial of the Soviet Communist Party for its crimes. Lenin was never moved from the mausoleum. Soviet symbols are still everywhere to be seen: the Russian army continues to march under a red banner with a star, though without a hammer and sickle. The incident which best illustrates this ambivalence came at the 2000 Olympic Games. The old Soviet national anthem had been dropped, and a new melody adopted – but without words, because no one could agree what they should be. As a result, victorious Russian athletes had nothing to sing when they stood on the podium, in contrast to their rivals from every other nation, and felt very embarrassed at their conspicuous silence. Putin therefore decided to bring back the old Soviet melody, but to new words – which by an exquisite irony were composed by the aged Sergei Mikhalkov, who fifty years earlier had written the abandoned words of the Soviet anthem.Russia, then, is both Soviet and anti-Soviet, at one and the same time. Stalin is still admired because he won the Great Patriotic War and (it is thought) cracked down on bureaucratic corruption – even though most people know perfectly well that he was a ruthless mass murderer. Memory always tends to embellish what we have lost, filtering out the repugnant and leaving undisturbed the agreeable. Russians' ambivalent attitude to their own history is likely to prove long-lasting.

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The American politics of Iraqi war

The Congressional testimony of the United States military commander in Iraq confirms that the "surge" is designed to serve George W Bush's domestic political ends, says Sidney Blumenthal.
Two years ago the Sunni sheiks leading the insurgency in Iraq's Anbar province approached the United States, offering to end the violence in exchange for a timetable establishing that US forces would withdraw from the country, a senior official at the highest level of the British government told me. Without some sort of negotiated deal that the Sunni leaders could brandish, they explained, they would not have the essential political justification for quelling the conflict. The British believed that the Sunni offer was being made in good faith and urged that it be accepted But according to the senior British source, President Bush rejected it out of hand, still certain that he could achieve a military victory. He saw any agreement with the Sunnis as tantamount to defeat, the British official said. And yet, even as the Sunnis were rebuffed, Bush continued to invest trust in the Shi'a-dominated Iraqi government to forge a political conciliation.A contradiction evadedOn 13 September 2007, in a nationally televised address from the Oval Office, billed officially as "The Return on Success", President Bush announced the withdrawal of 5,700 troops by Christmas and an additional 21,700 by July 2008, leaving the US force at the level it was before the "surge", through the presidential-election year, proving "sustainable security", according to Bush. As General David Petraeus did in his congressional testimony, Bush pointed to the turning of Sunni tribes against al-Qaida in Iraq in Anbar province as the key evidence of the surge's triumph, "a good example of how our strategy is working." But he did not discuss how he discarded the earlier Sunni offer to negotiate and dismissed the advice of the British government as he pursued the chimera of "victory." He also carefully neglected to observe that the Sunni action against al-Qaida in Iraq began independently before the surge, that it was never foreseen as part of the surge, that the Sunnis politically are more estranged than ever from the Shi'a-run government of Nouri al-Maliki, or that the US arming of the Sunnis may be a perverse preparation for the next phase of the Iraqi sectarian civil war in the likely absence of political power-sharing. Yet the assassination of the Sunni sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Risha on the day of Bush's speech compelled him to acknowledge it: "Earlier today, one of the brave tribal sheikhs who helped lead the revolt against al-Qaida was murdered."Bush's progress report, moreover, contradicted other realities. He claimed, "Iraq's national leaders are getting some things done", such as "sharing oil revenues with the provinces", and allowing "former Ba'athists to rejoin Iraq's military or receive government pensions." But these assertions were wishful thinking; neither of these events has happened. In fact, the deal on sharing oil revenue had collapsed that week. Bush went on to praise "the thirty-six nations who have troops on the ground in Iraq", despite the state department's most recent weekly report on Iraq observing that the remnant of the "coalition of the willing" consists of twenty-five countries supplying 11,685 troops - about a 7% augmentation of the US force. Bush also simply glided over the contradiction between his withdrawal of these 30,000 troops and his doomsday scenarios that withdrawing US forces will presage genocide on the scale of Cambodia.A performance preparedThe appearance of General Petraeus was staged to coincide with the sixth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Yet the emotional impact of the memorials has been overshadowed by the fresh casualty lists from Iraq. The day before this 11 September, two US soldiers from the 82nd airborne, who had joined five others in writing an op-ed article for the New York Times saying that the surge was not working, were killed in action. Yet Bush still sought to wring political gain out of the tragic memories of 9/11 as though his paradise lost - the national unity after 9/11 - could be regained.Artillery barrages of TV commercials seeking to soften public opinion preceded Petraeus's report. A new front group, Freedom's Watch, created at the instigation of the White House, funded by Bush's political financiers (including prominent members of the Scooter Libby defence fund) and directed by Dan Senor (former press secretary for the catastrophic Coalition Provisional Authority), launched a series of ads that were a pastiche of past Republican themes. Children in small-town America were depicted raising a flag, a scene plagiarised from Ronald Reagan's 1984 "Morning Again in America" commercial. Then fragments of Bush's 2004 campaign washed up like messages in bottles. Soldiers who had lost limbs in Iraq segued into pictures of the burning World Trade Center as words appeared on the screen: "They attacked us." A soldier said, "We're winning on the ground in Iraq. It's no time to quit." A bereaved woman whose uncle died as a fireman in the twin towers and whose husband was killed in Iraq spoke as words flashed on the screen: "More attacks." "Surrender is not an option." In another ad, a marine in a wheelchair said, "To hear Congress talk about surrendering really makes me angry." After these poisons were injected into the atmosphere, Petraeus emerged from behind the curtain as the sober voice of reason.Seated side by side, Petraeus and U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker presented less a united front than the antipodes of Bush's strategy. Both men were great stone faces, droning and dull, their lack of affect serving as masks for their onerous tasks. Instead of complementing each other, the men's testimonies made plain the surge's strategic incoherence. Deploying the classic euphemisms and misdirections of diplomacy, Crocker demolished, intentionally or not, whatever Petraeus sought to achieve with his dazzling display of dubious statistics. Then, in response to a single pointed question, Petraeus conceded the emptiness of his performance. He aimed friendly-fire at himself."War is the extension of politics by other means", wrote the great military strategist Karl von Clausewitz. As a military operation the surge was intended to produce political power sharing and reconciliation. But Crocker disclosed that the military had not achieved these ends. Not only are the political benchmarks that the Iraqi government and the Bush administration established unmet, but they may never be realised. Crocker could attach no period of time to these goals. He could only suggest that there should be no benchmarks. "Some of the more promising political developments at the national level", Crocker said, "are neither measured in benchmarks nor visible to those far from Baghdad." In other words, the evidence is anecdotal, scattered and uncertain. Asked when political reconciliation might occur, he replied, "I could not put a timeline on it or a target date ... How long that is going to take and, frankly, even ultimately whether it will succeed, I can't predict." Crocker's version of Bush's policy was Waiting for Godot.Petraeus, meanwhile, meticulously unveiled an array of metrics attempting to demonstrate that the surge had succeeded in lowering the level of sectarian violence and civilian casualties. But his effort to gain empirical ground was greeted with widespread scepticism because his statistics were in dispute. The national-intelligence estimate released on 23 August stated: "The level of overall violence, including attacks on and casualties among civilians, remains high." The government accountability office (GAO) report of 4 September stated that the aim of "reducing the level of sectarian violence in Iraq and eliminating militia control of local security" was "not met", and that "there was no clear and reliable evidence that the level of sectarian violence was reduced and that militia control of local security was eliminated."GAO comptroller-general David Walker testified before the Senate foreign- relations committee that "there are several different sources within the administration on violence, and those sources do not agree" and that "part of the problem that we had in reaching a conclusion about sectarian violence is there are multiple sources showing different levels of violence with different trends." And the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq, chaired by retired General James L Jones and created by Congress, reported: "The Iraqi Police Service is incapable today of providing security at a level sufficient to protect Iraqi neighborhoods from insurgents and sectarian violence."Petraeus's presentation relied on the power of PowerPoint, but it was less than overwhelming. He had to plead that his statistics were valid even as he refused to reveal his full methodology. As it was, the strangeness of his categories - a bullet to the back of the head entitled the victim to be registered as a civilian casualty, but a bullet to the front of the head did not, putting the victim into an insurgent casualty category - suggested arbitrary classification, political wilfulness and subjectivity.A general trappedIn any case, Crocker's description of the Iraqi political void made Petraeus's claim of progress appear absurd. Petraeus was left dangling, flourishing numbers about tactics unrelated to the strategy. The ambassador consigned the general to a Clausewitzian twilight zone.The highly credentialed and qualified Petraeus has a doctorate from Princeton and has written a recent report on the history of counterinsurgency. But he has apparently not studied the case of Colin Powell, whose sterling reputation and military expertise were appropriated by Bush for political purposes and who, after his utility was exhausted, was abandoned on the side of the road. The real frontline where Petraeus found himself was more political than military.If the surge has no connection to political goals in Iraq, it still has strategic political goals, just not in Iraq. The surge is the military means to Bush's political ends at home. "So now I'm an October-November man", Bush told his authorised biographer, Robert Draper, in Dead Certain. "I'm playing for October-November." The rollout of the Petraeus report is the last major political offensive of the Bush administration. Petraeus's reputation is the token for buying precious time for an unpopular president. The Democratic Congress lacks sufficient majorities to alter Bush's policy. Petraeus's show is staged to keep Republicans, on the edge of sheer panic, from defecting en masse. Through Petraeus, Bush is locking in the congressional leaders and the Republican presidential candidates behind his policy. The general has been wound up as a mechanism for Bush's endgame - perpetuating the president's Iraq policy until the conclusion of his term and assigning responsibility for "victory" or "defeat" to his successor. In his address, Bush made explicit his goal to hand off the Iraq war to the next president, describing it as an "engagement that extends beyond my presidency." In his analogising to the Vietnam war, Bush has begun to lay the basis for a stab-in-the-back, who-lost-Iraq debate, a poisonous legacy.Senator John Warner, the Virginia Republican who announced his retirement on 31 August and who has called for disengaging from Iraq, asked Petraeus a simple and obvious question about Bush's policy, one that Bush likes to answer: "Do you feel that that [strategy] is making America safer?" Unexpectedly, Petraeus paused. "I believe this is indeed the best course of action to achieve our objectives in Iraq", he finally replied, carefully sidestepping a direct response. So Warner repeated his question: "Does the [Iraq war] make America safer?" Again Petraeus paused before answering, "I don't know, actually. I have not sat down and sorted it out in my own mind."In the end, Petraeus could not convince even himself. Petraeus has lost his battle. Crocker has revealed the strategy as hollow. But the policy goes on.*Sidney Blumenthal is a former assistant and senior adviser to President Clinton. He is the author of How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime (Princeton University Press, 2006). He writes a column for Salon.

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The Iran-Israel cold war

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s new president, has called for the extinction of Israel. But the Islamic Republic and the Jewish state were not always enemies, explains Trita Parsi.
(This article was first published on 28 October 2005)
The inexperienced Iranian president has done it again. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s comments in a speech on 26 October – before an audience of 4,000 students attending a Tehran conference on “The World Without Zionism” – have understandably been met by widespread international condemnation. Understandably so, for Ahmadinejad talked of “wiping the state of Israel off the map" and predicted that “the new wave of attacks in Palestine will erase this stain from the face of Islam."The question is whether his provocative remarks indicate a more aggressive Iranian policy against the Jewish state or whether they were merely another sign of Ahmadinejad’s inability to grasp the implications of his proclamations. After the Iranian revolution of 1979, the Ayatollah Khomeini-led Iran of the 1980s routinely called for Israel’s destruction. In practice, however, Iranian strategic interests during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88 coincided on many points with those of Israel, and Iran was very careful to avoid direct confrontation with Israel in this period.“We never wanted to get directly involved in the fights against Israel,” Alavi Tabar, an Iranian revolutionary close to Khomeini, explained to me over tea and cookies at his Tehran office in 2004. Iranian passivity on Israel had everything to do with the war with Iraq and Iran’s strategic imperatives.Abbas Maleki, Iran’s former deputy foreign and education minister (1989-97), told me: “Iranian decision-makers were very clever not to substitute or replace Israel as a direct threat to Iran. Because at that time, Iraq was the threat.” Between interest and ideologyIndeed, the Israelis recognised the difference between Iran’s rhetoric and its policy, and treated Iran as a potential regional ally – regardless of the nature of its regime and its rhetoric. While Khomeini called Israel a “cancerous tumour”, the Israelis – and particularly Shimon Peres, successively Israel’s prime minister and foreign minister (1984-88) – were lobbying Washington to boost Iran’s defenses and bring Tehran “back into the western fold.” In 1982, Ariel Sharon (then Israeli’s defence minister) proudly announced on NBC that Israel would continue to sell arms to Iran – in spite of an American ban on such sales. It was then that Iran routinely introduced resolutions to expel Israel from the United Nations – to which the Israelis responded by selling more arms to the Khomeini regime.In that period, Iran’s strategic imperatives and its rhetorical objectives clashed – and repeatedly, the ideology of the revolutionaries was sidelined by realist calculations. As a result, Iran huffed and puffed, but did very little against Israel. All of this changed by the mid-1990s as the cold war ended in anti-climax. Iran’s ideological and strategic goals began to converge, and as a result Iranian rhetoric against Israel began to be accompanied by anti-Israeli actions. The Iranians operated against Israel in order to defeat what they perceived to be the likely consequence of Arab-Israeli peace and the materialisation of Peres’s vision for a “new middle east”, which entailed Iran’s prolonged isolation and exclusion from regional affairs. According to Martin Indyk, the brainchild behind the “dual containment” policy, Tehran’s perception was correct. “The more we succeeded in making peace, the more isolated [Iran and the rogue states] would become, the more we succeeded in containing [Iran], the more possible it would be to make peace. So they had an incentive to do us in on the peace process in order to defeat our policy of containment,” he explained to me.The Israeli reversalBut it wasn’t Iran that turned the Israeli-Iranian cold war warm – it was Israel. In October 1992, prior to Iran’s material support for Palestinian rejectionists, the Shimon Peres/Yitzhak Rabin government undertook a major campaign to depict Iran and Shi’a Islamic fundamentalism as a global threat. Even though Iran was weak militarily after the devastating war with Iraq, Rabin told Israel’s Knesset (parliament) in 1993 that Israel’s “struggle against murderous Islamic terror” was “meant to awaken the world which is lying in slumber” of the dangers of Shi’a fundamentalism. “Death is at our doorstep”, Rabin said of Iran – though he only five years earlier dismissed Iran’s rhetoric as inconsequential. The Israeli reversal on Iran was partially motivated by the fear that its strategic importance would diminish significantly in the post-cold war middle east if the then president (1989-97) Hashemi Rafsanjani’s outreach to the Bush Sr administration was successful. Also, the geopolitical map of the middle east had changed. Israel no longer needed Iran to balance Iraq and the Arabs – rather, Iran was now a potentially powerful regional player who could become a threat. And according to Israel’s military doctrine, potential threats are to be treated as existing threats. More than a year after Israel’s efforts to isolate and weaken Iran began, Tehran embarked on a retaliation campaign. Itamar Rabinovich, a close advisor to Rabin, told me that “Iran began to engage in anti-Israeli global terrorism with the destruction in Argentina, in 1994. Terrorism as a global issue became a big issue from our point of view with Iran since 1994.” The soldier-politician Amnon Lipkin-Shahak verified this: “The first time we witness Iranian fingerprints in activities against, not Israelis, but more Jews than Israel was in Argentina. This was the first time [that] there was a clear Iranian fingerprint. Suddenly we saw more and more indirect Iranian involvement in what was going on inside Israel.”Iran targeted the peace process precisely because it was the weakest link in what Tehran perceived as a US-Israeli strategy of building a new middle east order based on Iran’s exclusion and isolation. Between rhetoric and realityThere are similarities between Iran’s strategic situation in 1994 and in 2005. Tehran is yet again facing intensified United States efforts to isolate it through the threat of a Security Council referral over its nuclear plans (in 1994, the issue was the peace process and dual containment). But the key difference is that Iran today has many tools at its disposal to counter such isolation efforts. In 1994, Iran only had the peace process to undermine; today it has Iraq, Afghanistan, and the oil card. The Mohammad Khatami years (1997-2005) in Iran saw a recognition that Iran’s radical position and statements had contributed to the very same isolation Iran was trying to escape from. In consequence, Khatami considerably lowered Iran’s rhetoric, realising that the country could not expect the international community to make a distinction between Iran’s rhetoric and its operational policy. After all, escalating its opposition to Israel would only add to Iran’s headaches and strengthen the case of a Security Council referral. Even if Iran only intensified its rhetoric on Israel and refrained from action, it would not matter – Iran would face greater international resolve to sanction, isolate and distrust it. In this light, Ahmadinejad’s speech is a gift for those who aim to put Iran on the Security Council agenda, as the unprecedented reaction of the Europeans clearly indicates.Ahmadinejad’s comments are irresponsible and repulsive, but there is little to suggest that they reflect a deliberate policy shift. Rather, the historic pattern of the Israeli-Iranian rivalry indicates that the former Tehran mayor committed yet another faux pas in the international arena.Again, the ineptitude of Tehran has proven to be the primary source of Iran’s many problems.*Trita Parsi is researching for a doctorate at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. Also by Trita Parsi in openDemocracy, a contribution to a post-election symposium, “Iran’s conservative triumph” (June 2005) Also in openDemocracy, Mohsen Sazegara, Kaveh Ehsani, Mansour Farhang, Mehrangiz Kar and other Iranian analysts debate the strategies and prospects for Iranian democracy

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