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Sunday, December 19, 2010

Obama After Two Years


| Sun Dec. 19, 2010 11:11 AM PST
Jonathan Bernstein has a question for us left-leaning types:
Think back to what you were thinking in November 2008, and in January 2009. As the 111th Congress winds down, what's your biggest disappointment of the things you expected to happen? Not your wish list, but the things you really expected to happen. What's your biggest happy surprise?
This is fairly easy for me, since I wrote a blog post on November 3, 2008, saying that I'd consider Obama's first term a success if he got three things done: (1) withdrawal from Iraq, (2) real healthcare reform, and (3) carbon pricing. "Get something serous done on those issues, and Obama's administration will be a big success. Fail on them, and it's not clear to me that any combination of other new programs will be enough to salvage it."
This leaves me in a pickle. Withdrawal from Iraq appears to be proceeding apace, and healthcare reform did indeed get passed. Carbon pricing, obviously, didn't. On the other hand, we can add a modest stimulus bill, a modest financial reform bill, and repeal of DADT to Obama's list of accomplishments. Does that make up for the failure of the carbon bill? Two years ago I said I didn't think any combination of other new programs would be enough to make up for failure on one of the big three, and that's a tough statement to walk back. So I guess I'd say I consider Obama's first term a success, but not a big success. How's that for weaseling?
As for happy surprises, I'm not sure I have any. I didn't expect miracles, but I did expect more from Obama, and I can't think of anything significant he passed that I wasn't expecting. Partly this was due to epic levels of Republican obstructionism, and partly it was due to Obama's native economic conservatism. On the other hand, I can think of two big disappointments that I didn't fully expect: the size of the buildup in Afghanistan and Obama's failure to rein in some of the civil liberties excesses of the Bush era. Again, I didn't expect miracles, but neither was I expecting 140,000 troops in Afghanistan or almost complete acquiescence to the national security posture of the Bush/Cheney administration.
So there you have it: on net, I'd call Obama a successful president, but not a hugely successful president. But he's still got six years left. There's still time to surprise us.

Bachmann kicks up fundraising storm and Senate speculation



By Hannah Brenton 12/19/10 03:19 PM ET
Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-Minn.) record-breaking fundraising is fueling speculation she is eyeing a run for the Senate in 2012 against first-term Democrat Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.).

Bachmann spokesman Doug Sachtleben left the door open to a possible Senate run in a statement to The Hill. He said the congresswoman is focused on serving her constituents, but “nothing’s off the table for the future.”

Bachmann, a media-savvy conservative who has seized the mantle of the Tea Party movement, cruised to reelection in the midterms and reclaimed her 6th district seat with a nearly 13-point win over state Sen. Tarryl Clark.

Bachmann brought in an eye-popping $13.2 million during the campaign, shattering the previous fundraising record for House candidates and eclipsing even the totals for many Senate campaigns, which are typically more expensive to run.

Klobuchar, for instance, raised just more than $9 million for her successful Senate run in 2006.

Bachmann’s national media presence has helped her build a network of grassroots support that few lawmakers can match. Almost all of her record-breaking midterm cash came from individual donors.

The power and prestige of the Senate might have strong appeal to Bachmann. Already a leader in the Tea Party movement — she founded the Congressional Tea Party Caucus — the congresswoman is openly ambitious. She vied for a House leadership position shortly after the November election, only to drop out when it became clear she did not have enough support to win.

Tony Sutton, Chairman of the Minnesota Republican Party, said Bachmann would be a “very strong” challenger to Klobuchar.

“I think she’d be a very powerful candidate and could definitely beat Amy Klobuchar. She’s certainly got the fundraising horsepower, the political organization skills, and she’s a great spokesperson,” Sutton said.

Sutton said Bachmann’s war chest would be an asset if she looks to the Senate.

“A U.S. Senate race is a lot about fundraising, and there’s no doubt Michele Bachmann’s proven her ability to raise money. And the kind of money raised in her congressional campaign would, in a Minnesota Senate race, be more than enough,” Sutton said.

Headed into 2011, Bachmann still has just less than $2 million in campaign cash in the bank, according to FEC records. Klobuchar has close to $1.4 million.

Minnesota Republicans are already lining up behind Bachmann as their first choice to take on Klobuchar. Public Policy Polling (PPP) found 36 percent of Republican primary voters surveyed wanted the congresswoman to be their Senate candidate, followed by outgoing Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty at 20 percent and former Sen. Norm Coleman at 14 percent.

But Bachmann would face a difficult battle against the incumbent senator. Klobuchar is popular with Minnesota voters, and polls of a potential match-up with Bachmann give the current senator the edge. PPP, for example, found Klobuchar leading Bachmann 56 to 39 in the hypothetical race.

Klobuchar spokesman Linden Zakula did not wish to comment directly on a possible challenge from Bachmann.

“The last election just concluded in our state and the senator believes that Minnesotans want their elected officials to get to work — not focus on the next election,” Zakula said. “The senator has spent the last four years working hard for the people of Minnesota, and that’s what she’ll continue to do.”

Kathryn Pearson, a professor of political science at the University of Minnesota, said it would be a close race against Klobuchar and was certain Bachmann “would capture the Republican nomination” if she ran.

“I think it would be a competitive race. Both candidates are skilled fundraisers. Congresswoman Bachmann motivates donors both in Minnesota and across the country, and so she would raise more than enough money to get her message out,” Pearson said.

But Pearson cautioned that Bachmann could have trouble winning over independent voters in the state.

“It would be difficult for Congresswoman Bachmann, given her high-profile role in the Tea Party and as an outspoken conservative, to appeal to swing voters Sen. Klobuchar captured in 2006,” Pearson said.

Reid, Senate Dems plan to move START arms treaty as soon as Wednesday

By Alexander Bolton 12/14/10 12:58 PM ET

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) plans to bring the New START Treaty to the floor as soon as Wednesday and is confident he can secure 67 votes to ratify it.
“We could get to the START Treaty as soon as tomorrow,” said Jim Manley, Reid’s spokesman. “I believe there are the votes to ratify the treaty.”
Ratification of START would be a major victory for President Obama, who has pushed it as one of his highest priorities since the midterm election.
Sen. Jon Kyl (Ariz.), the lead GOP negotiator with the administration on START, has said there isn’t enough time for the Senate to ratify the treaty in the lame-duck session. But Republicans face some pressure to support the deal, which has the support of every living former secretary of State, as well as the military.

Reid plans to consider a continuing resolution to fund the government through fiscal year 2011 or an omnibus spending bill simultaneously with the treaty. The treaty and the spending measures would be put on separate, parallel tracks.
It’s not certain, however, when the continuing resolution or the omnibus might hit the floor. Democratic aides said that could happen Thursday.
Reid hopes to hold a final vote Tuesday evening on the $858 billion bipartisan tax package. That would likely require opponents of the deal to waive some of the 30 hours that rules require to elapse between votes to cut of debate and final passage.
If opponents refuse to yield back time, the earliest the Senate could vote to send the tax package to the House would be after 12:30 a.m. on Wednesday.
Reid also plans to hold a vote on a standalone measure repealing the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which bars openly gay military service members.

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    Taking back Sen. Kennedy's old seat a top priority for Democrats in 2012


    By Michael O’Brien 12/15/10 06:00 AM ET
    BOSTON — Democrats are seeking to make amends in Massachusetts after Scott Brown’s (R) stunning election to the Senate last January.
    Party members and labor groups in the state said that beating Brown will likely be their top priority in 2012, presenting them an opportunity to reclaim the late Sen. Edward Kennedy’s (D) longtime seat.
    Brown also represents one of the few pickup opportunities for Democrats, who’ll be defending 23 Senate seats in the coming election.

    “If you had to project right now, it’s top of the ticket in Massachusetts,” said state Democratic Party Chairman John Walsh of Brown.
    And while Brown’s staff publicly argues that it’s far too early to be talking about the 2012 election, it’s begun quietly assembling an organization to withstand the coming firestorm.
    Brown has established a relatively centrist position after almost a year in the Senate. He defied the Tea Party, the grassroots group that helped him win election, by backing the tax-cut extension compromise brokered by President Obama and congressional Republicans.
    He also broke with his party on Wall Street reform; a repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell”; and several other key votes.
    He had almost $7 million in cash on hand at the end of September, according to Federal Election Commission reports, and he’s already been the target of an attack ad. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee launched an online ad to criticize Brown for voting against the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for just middle-income families.
    Meanwhile, Brown’s political opponents in Massachusetts have spent much of the past year learning from the mistakes of January’s special election, when the highly touted Democrat in the race, state Attorney General Martha Coakley, lost. The defeat was stinging to liberals and supporters of healthcare reform and galvanizing for members of the Tea Party movement.
    Tim Sullivan, the communications director of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, said there was plenty of blame to go around for Democrats losing a seat they held for more than 50 years.
    “Everybody involved in that race deserves a share of the pie,” he said.
    Unionized voters broke for Brown to an unusual degree in that race. Brown had been endorsed as a state senator by the AFL-CIO, and managed to perform relatively well with those voters, despite the AFL-CIO’s and other unions’ endorsements of Coakley.
    The labor community won’t get caught flat-footed this time around, Sullivan asserted.
    “It’s just a matter of having enough time and the methods to put the facts in front of them [union voters],” Sullivan explained.
    Brown’s critics point to his occasional votes against extending unemployment insurance — like other Republicans, Brown demanded those bills be paid for with spending cuts —and his decision to withhold support for Wall Street reform until a $19 billion bank fee was withdrawn — while accepting donations from Wall Street high-rollers.
    But Brown’s advisers contend that Democrats’ attacks have largely fallen flat. The image of the barn coat-wearing, red truck-driving everyman-turned-senator has stayed with Brown, they say.
    The senator will look to cement that image when he releases his memoirs in February. That book, advisers to Brown said, would reveal more about his hardscrabble upbringing.
    Brown’s also steadily built a more sophisticated team going into 2012. John Cook, a veteran fundraiser for Republicans in Massachusetts, has signed on as finance director for Brown’s reelection effort.
    The other major variable in the race will be the fate of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s (R) presidential campaign. Romney hasn’t officially announced his 2012 plans, but a number of veterans of his 2008 campaign were instrumental in Brown’s win last January. On one hand, their concentration on the former governor’s presidential ambitions could distract from Brown’s effort. On the other, Romney partisans argue that their boss, if he snags the Republican nomination in 2012, would give Brown an added boost against whichever Democrat snags the nomination.
    Brown’s people are also excited that his wife, Gail Huff, will be able to hit the campaign trail on the senator’s behalf. A longtime broadcaster in Boston who left her job after her husband’s election, Huff is seen as a potential asset as a surrogate for Brown on the campaign trail.
    Figuring out which Democrat will eventually face Brown is another variable.
    “I think there will be a lot of people who will be talking with family and friends over the holiday,” Walsh said.
    Contenders for the seat could include various members of the state’s congressional delegation, such as Democratic Reps. Michael Capuano, Edward Markey, Niki Tsongas, Barney Frank or Stephen Lynch.
    Virtually all of those candidates would be better than Brown, said Sullivan, who noted in particular that Lynch, a former labor lawyer who angered a number of allies by voting against healthcare reform, had “mended to some degree” his relationship with labor in the state.
    The specter of a member of the Kennedy family entering the race also hangs over the Democratic field. Vicki Kennedy, the widow of the senator, passed on running for the seat, and it’s not clear that any other member of the clan might seek to reclaim the so-called “Kennedy seat.”
    “As of now, all the family members say no,” Walsh said. “I don’t think anybody gives any lead pipe guarantees.”

    Rockefeller, Murkowski eyeing chances to block EPA climate rules next year


    By Ben Geman 12/19/10 02:18 PM ET
    Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) believes the new Congress will be “much more likely” to approve his legislation that would halt looming Environmental Protection Agency climate change rules.

    Rockefeller wants to delay rules – which will begin phasing-in next month – to curb emissions from power plants, refineries and other industrial plants, butnever got a vote on his measure this year.

    “The House will be that way and the Senate will be more inclined to be that way,” Rockefeller told The Hill in the Capitol Saturday, a reference to gains by GOP lawmakers hostile to climate rules. Rockefeller plans to immediately reintroduce the bill when the new Congress starts, he said.
    “We will just keep going right at it,” he said.

    Ascendant House Republicans are also vowing to block EPA climate rules and other pollution regulations they call “job-killing.”

    Rockefeller, however, said he’s concerned about overreach, noting he supports emissions standards for vehicles.

    “The thing I have to look at is to make sure that it doesn’t go too far,” he said. “I don’t think you get rid of EPA. I just don’t know what the Tea Party-types are going to do, but I know they are going to try and abolish a lot of agencies.”

    Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is also mulling new efforts to block EPA rules next year.

    “I do think we will have an opportunity in the brand new Congress. I know that there are an awful lot of folks on the House side that are looking at this. They don’t want the EPA moving either. So I think we are going to have some neighbors over on the other side working with us to advance something,” she told The Hill in the Capitol Saturday.

    Murkowski tried a different tactic than Rockefeller – and a more aggressive one – to block EPA climate rules earlier this year.

    She sponsored a “resolution of disapproval” that would have nullified EPA’s “endangerment finding” that greenhouse gases threaten humans, which is the legal underpinning for all EPA climate rules.

    The use of the Congressional Review Act – which provides Congress an avenue to block final agency rules – ensured her a floor vote in June, but she fell short in a 47-53 vote when 51 backers were needed.

    The Congressional Review Act has been used successfully just once since it was enacted in the mid-1990s, but House Republicans may launch new efforts under the statute, and could also seek to block EPA with riders on spending bills.

    Resolutions under the Act face an easier pathway to the Senate floor than other bills and can’t be filibustered.

    Murkowski said she is evaluating her options. “Whether or not we use that tool again or go different direction is uncertain at this point,” she said.

    Murkowski sees GOP traction for ‘clean’ energy standard


    By Ben Geman 12/19/10 09:31 AM ET

    Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said Saturday that a “clean” energy standard for electric utilities could gain traction among Republicans in the next Congress even though it would create a new federal mandate.
    Murkowski, the top GOP member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said the standard should allow wide discretion for states and regions, which would help build support.

    “I think there is a level of flexibility that allows you to achieve the goal of reduced [greenhouse gas] emissions, but gives you the ability to determine what it is you are going to do and how you are going to do it. I don’t think that is a mandate that scares people away,” she told The Hill in the Capitol. “I think you can have a pretty good conversation.”
    The Alaska Republican is among the lawmakers backing the idea of requiring the nation’s utilities to supply escalating amounts of power from low-carbon sources like new nuclear power plants, renewables, and coal plants if they can trap emissions (a technology that’s not yet commercialized).
    The “clean” standard gained new cachet when Energy Secretary Steven Chu recently called for talks with Congress on the idea in the wake of cap-and-trade’s demise. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is also weighing a proposal, and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) has called the idea an area with potential for bipartisan cooperation
    Largely Democratic proposals for a more narrowly crafted “renewable electricity standard” have sputtered.
    Murkowski said a broader “clean” standard would address regional imbalances in the amount of renewable resources available. Southwestern lawmakers in particular have complained that a renewables mandate would be too difficult to meet and open their states up to noncompliance costs, although environmentalists disagree that the region lacks enough renewable sources.
    “It is a mandate in the sense that this is the direction that we want to go as a country, but you determine in your region what works for you. One of the problems with a renewable energy standard was in some parts of the country there was not an even playing field,” Murkowski said. 
    “Allow a region, a state, to kind of focus on the art of the possible, and if they don’t have geothermal resources for instance, or the wind energy, let them focus on nuclear, let them focus on those ways they can meet that," she added.
    Murkowski said she was supportive of the idea before energy discussions became “mired” in battles over cap-and-trade as the top option for curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
    “I am kind of excited to be looking to how we can move towards a clean energy standard. Let’s figure out how we can facilitate more in the nuclear field, how we can really focus on these clean energy sources which ultimately do reduce our greenhouse gas emissions,” she said.
    “We have now been kind of freed up because we are no longer focused on cap-and-trade as the sole policy initiative,” Murkowski said.



    Police: Stabbing was probably a terror attack

    Photo by: Courtesy



    By MELANIE LIDMAN AND YAAKOV LAPPIN
    19/12/2010

    “We are still looking at all directions, continuing the investigation,” says police spokesman, after US woman found dead near J'lem.

    Saturday’s stabbing and murder attack in the forest near Beit Shemesh was probably a terror attack, police said on Sunday.

    The police investigation is still underway into the attack that wounded Givat Zeev resident Kay Wilson, an olah from Great Britian, and killed her friend Kristine Luken, as they were hiking in the wooded hills west of Jerusalem.
    “We are still looking at all directions, still continuing the investigation, and questioning people who may have seen them,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told the Post. “The main direction is that this was a nationalistic attack, though we haven’t ruled out possibilities of criminal incident.”

    “There have been no claims by [terrorist] organizations,” Rosenfeld added. He said that the investigation was a double-pronged approach between police investigation and information from intelligence organizations.


    The body of Kristine Luken, an American citizen living in England who was visiting Israel, was found south of Mata, approximately 400 meters from the road between Mata and Beit Shemesh, police said. Her body was discovered around 6:30 AM.

    Kay Wilson, a tour guide who worked part time for Shoresh Tours, a Messianic tour company, was seriously wounded and handcuffed, but managed to drag herself to the road. At the road she saw two families, who called the police. After giving a brief recount of the incident, Magen David Adom evacuated her to Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem.

    On Sunday, police investigators interviewed her in her hospital bed for several hours. Her condition is improving and she is expected to leave the hospital in two to three days, a Hadassah spokesman said.

    “[Wilson] had her hands tied up, and she was stabbed pretty bad in the upper part of her body,” Rosenfeld said. “The obvious intention was to have her killed. This was not something where they were just trying to take her purse. It was a serious crime scene. We’re talking about two women walking around Jerusalem forest, we’re not even talking about Judea and Samaria.”

    Several hundred people took part in a massive search overnight Saturday for Luken, which included units made up of rescue dogs, army combat units, police helicopters, mounted police, and several hundred police officers.

    After the body was found, police remained at the scene of the crime for an additional three hours, combing the area for any information.

    The security level had not been raised in the Jerusalem area as of Sunday, though police were coordinating with security in the villages around Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh to be extra vigilant. Rosenfeld said the police were waiting for “concrete answers” before updating security procedures.

    Wilson described her ordeal, telling Hebrew media from her hospital bed how her attacker removed her Star of David necklace before proceeding to stab her in the chest where her pendulum had been resting.

    Wilson and Luken had been hiking in the woods when two Arab men asked Wilson for water in Hebrew, she said.

    After they disappeared from view, Wilson became uneasy about their intentions, and told Luken they should return to Mata.

    As they walked towards the village, the attackers pounced on the two women, stabbing them both repeatedly. Wilson said her attacker had used a knife with a huge blade, adding that it looked like a bread knife. Wilson managed to produce a small blade on her own that she carried for self defense, she said, and stabbed her attacker once, according to her account.

    But after being stabbed again and again, Wilson fell to the floor and played dead, as she waited for the suspects to leave. She provided harrowing descriptions of hearing her friend struggle for breath before dying of her injuries on the ground beside her.

    After a few minutes, Wilson found that she was able to stand up, and walked towards Mata. She saw a passing car but was unable to shout out due to breathing difficulties. She then found a family sitting in a park, and turned around to show them that her hands had been bound. The family then alerted police.

    US woman's body found in Jerusalem-Beit Shemesh area

    Photo by: Israel Police



    By JPOST.COM STAFF, YAAKOV LAPPIN, JUDY SIEGEL, ME
    19/12/2010

    Police launch homicide investigation; 2nd woman, Kaye Susan Wilson, alerts police after escaping attackers with hands bound, stab wounds.

    The body of Christine Logan, who went missing in the Beit Shemesh-Jerusalem area, was found early Sunday morning after police and IDF searched all Saturday night, fearing she had been kidnapped in a nationalistically motivated incident.

    The search, which was joined by volunteers, was launched after another woman, Kaye Susan Wilson reported being attacked by two Arab men in a forest near Mata, located outside Jerusalem, within the Green Line. Wilson was found with her hands bound and several stab wounds to her chest and back. Logan's body was found several hundred meters from the road between Mata and Beit Shemesh.
    Police have launched a homicide investigation.

    On Saturday, Wilson said she had escaped her attackers and managed to reach Mata, where she met two families in a park. They contacted emergency services.

    Wilson, 46, a tour guide, made aliya from Great Britain in 1991, and lives in Givat Ze'ev.

    Her stab wounds were superficial and she did not lose a lot of blood, according to a spokesman at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem. She suffered moderate-to-light injuries, and was treated in the trauma unit.

    The spokesman refused to give any more details, saying the case was in police hands, and declined to let doctors speak to the press.

    Kaye remained conscious on the way to the hospital, Magen David Adom paramedics said.

    “She described being attacked, tied up and stabbed by two Arab men,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

    “She did not know who they were, or what the reason for the attack was. We are examining whether this is a nationalistic stabbing, but other leads are being examined as well,” Rosenfeld said.

    Security forces were highly concerned for Logan's safety. The IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) became involved in the search and the investigation as concern mounted on Saturday night.

    Police sealed off Route 375 near Mata in both directions, erected roadblocks in the Jerusalem area, and scrambled helicopters to assist in the search.

    Jerusalem district police chief Cmdr. Aharon Franco told reporters during a press briefing in the area that searchers were being guided by descriptions of Logan given by Wilson.

    Israel Police Insp.-Gen. David Cohen traveled to a mobile command and control center set up by Jerusalem police to coordinate operations, and the IDF dispatched additional forces to help comb the area.

    Yaakov Lappin and Melanie Lidman contributed to this report

    Arab Peace Initiative – clarifications needed


    Photo by: Associated Press



    By ITAMAR RABINOVICH
    16/12/2010

    The main problem raised by the text is its open-ended approach to the refugee issue.

    The Arab Peace Initiative in its 2002 and 2007 incarnations has met with two categories of responses in Israel.

    The Right has denounced and rejected it for several reasons.

    It is opposed to the notion of withdrawal to the 1967 lines, it is opposed to withdrawal from the Golan Heights that is implied thereby and it is skeptical and critical of the fashion in which the issue of the “right of return” is dealt with by the API.

    To Israeli skeptics, the API represents yet another, more sophisticated attempt to push Israel into a settlement that would entail an Israeli commitment for full withdrawal while keeping open the issues of the Palestinian refugees and the demand for a full “return” as well as the question of full recognition of Israel and its legitimacy.

    Israeli policy-makers and analysts who do believe in Israel-Arab and Israeli-Palestinian peace take a more complex view of the API. They recognize the value of the Arab consensus endorsing the settlement and its Israeli-Palestinian component in particular, and feel that a full reconciliation with the Arab world would help the Israeli public and political system deal with the agonizing concessions that such an agreement would entail.

    But those Israelis who see the sunny side of the API cannot ignore either the problems posed by its text or the other issues and questions that it raises.

    In this regard, the main problem raised by the text is its open-ended approach to the refugee issue. The 2002 Beirut summit final communiqué (though not the actual summit resolution as then published) was quite explicit and disappointing in this regard. It demanded full implementation of “the right of return of the Palestinian refugees based on the resolutions of international legitimacy and international law including General Assembly Resolution 194” and rejected “any solution that includes their settlement away from their homes.”

    This clearly was unacceptable to Israel and to a significant portion of the international community, and was superseded in 2007 by a reaffirmation of the 2002 resolution: “The Arab League further calls upon Israel to affirm...

    Achievement of a just solution to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194” and “assures the rejection of all forms of Palestinian patriation which conflict with the special circumstances of the Arab host countries.”

    These formulations represent significant improvements over the 2002 communique, but they still leave important issues in need of clarification.

    FIRST, IN the history of the Arab- Israel conflict, “just” has been an Arab term representing the need (from an Arab perspective) to rectify the original “injustice” of 1948. It is important to clarify whether this is still a code word or merely a relic of traditional rhetoric.

    Second, it is important to clarify what the reference to General Assembly Resolution 194 stands for: an elegant retreat from the traditional demand of “return” or a clever way to exit through the main door merely in order to return through the back window.

    Third, in the API statement that a just solution would be “agreed upon,” Israel is presumably given a veto over any idea or measure that it finds unacceptable. But what happens when Israel vetoes Palestinian or other Arab demands: a stalemate and crisis or further movement forward? Fourth is the issue of “patriation.”

    Much ink has been spilled by Israeli experts who have debated in recent years whether the Arabic “tawtin” stands for patriation or for the granting of citizenship.


    There is a clear contradiction between the apparent waiving of the “right of return” and the rejection of “tawtin.”

    If the refugees and their offspring would not return to Israel proper but would also not be settled in the Arab world, where would they end up? The final 2007 version refers more coherently to “the special circumstances” of the host countries and may be directed at the specific case of Lebanon, but it could also open the way for countries like Syria and Iraq to raise objections.

    SO MUCH for textual analysis, which has its own importance, particularly in a region and in the context of a conflict where words and symbols are so potent. But it is equally important to look at the API as a potential tool for moving on in the peace process. The first step to be taken by Israel is to offer a serious response to the API.

    Whatever its flaws, the API has been a major step and it deserves a serious Israeli response.

    Israel then needs to create some distance between the Arab League and the actual peace process. PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) committed a grave mistake by bringing the Arab League back into the process after Yasser Arafat’s successful effort to guarantee the “independence of Palestinian decision-making.”

    The Arab supporters of a Palestinian- Israeli settlement should be kept at a safe distance from meddling in the process, but close enough to be summoned to endorse controversial Palestinian decisions and concessions.

    Once the process begins to roll, the need would arise to turn the brief general language of the API into the concrete language of a plan of action. It would likewise be important to separate the Syrian and Palestinian components of the issue.

    The API includes an insistence on Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines in the Golan, too. Realistically, the present Israeli government (and future ones as well) will not be able to deal simultaneously with withdrawals in the Golan and the West Bank. The diplomatic challenge would be finding a formula for keeping one party engaged while progress is made with the other.

    The time would then come to probe the refugee issues. The difficulties are well known. Moderate Palestinians tell their Israeli counterparts that they are only interested in the principle of “return” and in the actual return of a small number. This is not acceptable to the mainstream of Israeli moderates.

    They are not interested in a “principle” that smears Israel with an “original sin,” nor are they interested in accepting even a small number of Palestinians into a country grappling with its relationship with an Arab minority of 20 percent that will soon enough amount to 25%.

    Israel will have to be crystal clear and firm on this issue. There are ways in which Israel can demonstrate its empathy and take part in a rehabilitation effort, but it cannot and must not accept the principle of “return” or endorse its own “original sin.”

    Israel successfully absorbed the Jewish communities of the Arab world. The massive refugee issues of the immediate post-World War II years, whether in Europe or in Southeast Asia, have all been resolved and practically forgotten. Now it is time to resolve the Palestinian refugee issue on a rational, practical basis.

    Any effort to keep it simmering or to adhere to open-ended formulae will not be acceptable.

    Another issue concerns the position of Hamas and other Islamist groups. Some recent statements by Ismail Haniyeh may indicate a change and an apparent willingness to endorse the notion of a political settlement. Closer scrutiny raises serious doubts. If a formula for moving on with the Palestinian mainstream is found, the position of Hamas and its ramifications should be checked thoroughly.

    IN PRACTICAL terms, the following steps should be taken.

    Israel should coordinate its response and strategy with the United States. It should then announce that it is responding to the API and seeks to clarify some fundamental issues and questions and to turn a terse text into the potential basis for a new effort. It should insist on a practical separation of the Palestinian and Syrian tracks and on sequencing them, not as a ploy (as many in the Arab world see it) but as a practical necessity.

    Such an Israeli response to the API would not be a panacea. It would not eliminate all the difficulties that have obstructed efforts to revive the peace process in recent years. But it could be a very fruitful first step.

    Itamar Rabinovich, Israel’s former ambassador in Washington and chief negotiator with Syria, is professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University and distinguished global professor at New York University. He is the author most recently of The View from Damascus. This article was originally published on www.bitterlemons- api.org and is reprinted by permission.

    Bradley Manning's Life Behind Bars

    by Denver Nicks
    December 17, 2010 | 6:36am