Tag: West Bank and Gaza

A One State “Solution”

I have long been an admirer and supporter of the Oslo Accords, which set out a step-by-step roadmap for establishing peaceful relations between Israel and the West Bank and Gaza–a so called “Two State Solution.” The new HBO film, “Oslo” premiers today. Continuing the work started by my IMF colleague, Arne Petersen, I spent two years leading IMF technical assistance missions to Israel/WBGS to develop the Palestine Monetary Authority. “My travels to Jerusalem”  A growing consensus has concluded that the two-state solution is dead, and sadly I reluctantly agree. It has failed because of poor Palestinian leadership, Israeli governments (especially Benjamin Netanyahu’s) that were happy with the stalled status quo, and American governments that allowed the Israeli government to get away with it.

Israel has behaved like most other colonial powers of the last century and in many ways worse. It has populated its Occupied Territories with illegal Jewish settlements and has carved up the West Bank with walled off, exclusively Jewish highways that make normal life for the Palestinians impossible.  It is small wonder that Palestinian youth are fed up and revolting. It is either ignorance or dishonesty to blame the tensions on Hamas, the bad guys in Gaza–the Israeli prison of Palestinians between Egypt, the Mediterranean and Israel proper, and cut off from the rest of the West Bank. “How Israel lost the culture war”

But of course, Palestinians outnumber Jews in the land of Canaan despite seven decades of effort by Zionists to attract Jews from around the world to the new Israel. This threatens the Zionist dream of a democratic Jewish homeland. The starting point for a one-state or any other solution should be the insistence that Israel honor the human rights of all inhabitances of the land it controls, i.e., from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River. A recent report of the Human Rights Watch concludes that Israel is an Apartheid state. Large numbers of Jews around the world are offended by Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians as second-class citizens. The United States has embarrassed itself and undermined its moral standing by supporting the Israeli government’s behavior.  Fareed’s Global Briefing”

One state with a constitution that protects all of its residents equally should protect Jews as well as Palestinians to live and worship as they see fit. Such rights should not depend on having Jewish governments.  More Jews live in the United States than in Israel and such an arrangement works well for them here.

I remember well being driven from Gaza to Jerusalem in 1995 by an Arab Israeli cab driver. As we chatted about the situation in the area, he volunteered that “you know, the Palestinians and Jews are cousins.” I replied that “maybe they are even brothers.” He paused and replied: “No, brothers would not treat each other this way.”  “The Economist: Two States or One?”

Oslo: the Play

IMG_2150Yessar Arafat and Warren Coats in the PLO office in Gaza in February 1996.

Last night I saw the Round House Theater’s magnificent production of Oslo, the story of the secret meetings in Norway that led to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority.  It was a moving (heart wrenching) and balanced recounting of how these meetings achieved agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization on “land for peace” as it was called at the time after many years of failed official negotiations. I urge you to see it.

We heard the PLO negotiators lay out the Israeli theft of their homes and killings of their people and we heard the Israeli negotiators lay out the Palestinian attacks on Israelis and on the efforts of Jews to establish and secure an Israeli homeland.  For perspective, since the second intifada (between September 29, 2000 and January 31, 2018) at least 9,560 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis and 1,248 Israelis have been killed by Palestinians.  “The View from the West Bank”

The play focused on the unusual approach of these negotiations, which built on the development of trust and respect between the opposing negotiators and the agreement on achievable steps one step at a time. Between their long negotiating sessions in an isolated room near Oslo, they dinned, drank and bonded together. Unfortunately, the play fails to provide us with an overview of the resulting agreement, which applied the same step by step confidence building approach to the incremental establishment of a Palestinian government (the Palestinian Authority) and withdrawal of Israeli troops from the West Bank and Gaza. The PA was given governance authority for a limited number of functions in order—step by step—to build both institutional capacity and trust.

One of those functions was the establishment of the monetary authority (central bank). I led the IMF team that helped establish the Palestinian Monetary Authority and have many stories to tell of my many visits to Israel and the West Bank and Gaza in 1995-6 plus a number of visits in later years (most recently in December, 2011).

The PMA has developed into a well-run organization of which Palestinians (and those Israelis who see a successful Palestine government as important and necessary for their own security) can be proud.  It helped a great deal that the Bank of Israel and PMA developed good relations. Stanley Fischer was the governor of the BoI from 2005-13 and George Abed was governor of the PMA from 2005-7. They had both previously been colleagues at the IMF. “Jerusalem in August 2006”

It is with a broken heart that I watch Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, with help from American President Donald Trump, increasingly abandon the two state solution of the Oslo Agreement for an apartheid single state regime in which “democratic” Jewish control is preserved by denying what would become the majority Palestinian residents their right to vote. “The Future of Israel and Palestine”

 

The Future of Israel and Palestine

At an otherwise friendly dinner conversation at the home of Israeli friends, our host explained that Israel having taken over the West Bank and Gaza Strip (WBGS) in the 6 day war in 1967, i.e. having won the war fair and square, so to speak, the Palestinians and the rest of the world should accept that reality and move on. He was articulating the one state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem. The WBGS now belongs to and is part of Israel (though Israel did withdraw later from and gave up Gaza).

The Zionist movement’s goal of establishing a Jewish homeland, a Jewish nation, seemed fulfilled with the U.N.’s recognition of the new state of Israel in 1048. The commitment of its Jewish residents to building a democratic state required achieving and maintaining a Jewish majority in the population. Absorbing the West Bank into Israel presents some obvious challenges. If you are not familiar with the history of Israel, I urge you to read my summary of it: “View from the West Bank–A History of the Conflict”

One state for Israel and the West Bank would have a majority of Palestinians. The Jews around the world willing to move to Israel (the earlier strategy for obtaining a Jewish majority) have pretty much already done so and birth rates among the Palestinians are higher than among the Jews. Thus a consolidated, democratic, and Jewish state would require second-class citizenship for its Palestinian residence. A British journalist living in Nazareth, Israel explains this in more detail: “With-more-palestinians-than-jews-israel-waging-war-of-attrition”

Former President Jimmy Carter described this potential outcome in his 2006 book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” where he wrote: “The bottom line is this: Peace will come to Israel and the Middle East only when the Israeli government is willing to comply with international law, with the Roadmap for Peace, with official American policy, with the wishes of a majority of its own citizens — and honor its own previous commitments — by accepting its legal borders.” This reality is recognized by many Israeli and even endorsed by some: “Israeli minister-endorses-apartheid.”

An apartheid regime for Israel would be an affront to liberal democratic values not easily swallowed by the Jewish diaspora. In fact, it would not be acceptable at all. That argues for continued effort to agree on a two state solution. In the following article Ronald Lauder, President of the World Jewish Congress, makes the case for the two state solution that the U.S. and U.N have worked for until now (or perhaps until last year) as the only morally and practically acceptable solution to this problem: “Israel’s Self-Inflicted Wounds”.

What we are seeing now, however, is something much uglier. The third option to two states, or one apartheid state, is one state that has ethnically cleansed the unwanted Palestinians in order to preserve Jewish control in a democratic state. The increasingly corrupt regime of Bibi Netanyahu seems to be moving in this direction and uncritical U.S. support of whatever his government does is putting the U.S. at odds with the rest of the world. For a similar review, see: “The-strange-catharsis-of-hopelessness-in-Israel”

U.S. tacit support of continued construction of illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land was resoundingly rejected by the U.N. When President Trump moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem “The United Nations General Assembly voted… 128-9, with 35 abstentions, on a non-binding resolution condemning President Trump’s new policy recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel…. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told an emergency meeting of the General Assembly [that] ‘the United States will remember this day in which it was singled out for attack in the General Assembly for the very right of exercising our right as a sovereign nation.’” This is the language of a bully, not a world leader, and I was appalled and embarrassed for my country. “UN-votes-to-reject-US-decision-on-Jerusalem-despite-threats”

More worrying are increasing signs that Netanyahu’s government is indeed pursuing the ethnic cleansing option. In addition to stealing Palestinian land in the West Bank for Israeli expansion, Israel has increasingly isolated and stifled the Palestinian economy. “Israel-Jewish-nation-state-bill”

Israel has occupied the West Bank for fifty years. Some of its treatment of its wards would be seen as human rights violations if committed by any other country. “Alabama-Israel-apartheid.” Recent Israeli laws are escalating such abusive treatment, allowing “the minister of interior to revoke the residency rights of any Palestinian in Jerusalem on grounds of a “breach of loyalty” to Israel.” “Israel-passes-law-strip-residency-Jerusalem’s-Palestinians”

Last December you may have watched the video of 17 year old Ahed Tamimi attacking two Israeli soldiers who had just shot her 15-year-old cousin Mohammed Tamimi in the head at close range with a rubber-coated steel bullet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YFen2KdqbU. The Israeli soldiers get points for staying cool. Ahed is now servicing eight months in prison after agreeing to a plea bargain. More recently (March 30, 2018) Israeli soldiers shot and killed 16 Palestinians on the Gaza Israeli border and wounded hundreds. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43593594 “Both UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini have called for an independent investigation. On Saturday, the United States blocked a draft UN Security Council statement urging restraint and calling for an investigation of the violence.” Such blind obedience to Netanyahu’s government does not service the U.S. or Israel well (not to mention the Palestinians). Israel rejected the call. “Israel-rejects-calls-independent-probe-Gaza-violence.”

To ours and Israel’s shame, ethnic cleansing seems to be winning out. During my many visits to Israel and the West Bank and Gaza I marveled at the open debate among Israelis of these issues and praised their free press. I wrote the following from Jerusalem 12 years ago and again praised the importance of a free journalism. “Jerusalem-in-august-2006″. I am now waiting for today’s tweet attacks from Mr. Fake News, and wondering if we are in danger of letting it slip away.

As a bonus, I recommend the following video discussion of these issues at the New America: “Ultimate-deal-or-ultimate-demise”

 

 

 

David M Friedman

PEOTUS Trump’s nomination of David M. Friedman as his ambassador to Israel is a very bad choice. It will perpetuate Israel’s refusal to take the steps it needs to take to be a secure and prosperous member of its neighborhood and will further discredit the U.S.’s reputation and influence in the Middle East.

If you are not familiar with the basic details of what is now generally referred to as the Israeli Palestinian conflict I urge you to read my summary of it written 11 years ago: https://works.bepress.com/warren_coats/26/ and take a look (it has pictures) of my blog from Jerusalem exactly five years ago today. https://wcoats.wordpress.com/2011/12/16/the-invented-palestinians/

Israel drove Palestinians from their homes in several wars decades ago because they wanted to establish a homeland for Jews that was both democratic and Jewish. After the horrors of the Holocaust, most of the world was sympathetic. But to be democratic and Jewish, the new occupants of Palestine needed to drive out most of the existing residents (Palestinians) in order to insure a Jewish majority. Fast forward to recent decades, most of the world has settled on a two state solution by which the exiled Palestinians would be given the West Bank and Gaze to rule but the several details requiring agreement were never fully worked out. Under the Oslo Accords, which provided a step-by-step process for implementing a two state solution, I led the IMF teams that set up the Palestine Monetary Authority.

The UN, U.S. and most of the world designated Israeli settlements in the West Bank by those Israelis wanting to take still more land from the Palestinians as illegal and urged the Israeli government to stop supporting them. They continue to expand.

“Friedman has been outspoken in describing as ‘legal’ Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which every U.S. administration since 1967 has considered illegitimate.”

“Trump-picks-a-supporter-of-west-bank-settlements-for-ambassador-to-Israel”/2016/12/15/ Washington Post. Israel itself is strongly divided on the issue. Many support a two state solution and making peace with their neighbors (giving up land for peace). Others want to expand Israel’s borders to encompass all of Palestine, relying on America’s military protection for its security.

“J Street, the Washington-based [Jewish] organization that supports a two-state solution, said it was ‘vehemently opposed’ to the nomination. ‘As someone who has been a leading American friend of the settlement movement, who lacks any diplomatic or policy credentials . . . Friedman should be beyond the pale for Senators considering who should represent the United States in Israel,’ J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami said in a statement.

“Calling the proposed nomination ‘reckless,’ Ben-Ami said it puts ‘America’s reputation in the region and credibility around the world at risk. Senators should know that the majority of Jewish Americans oppose the views and the values this nominee represents….’”

“In a column for the Jerusalem Post before the election, Friedman wrote that…under president Trump, Israel will feel no pressure to make self-defeating concessions, America and Israel will enjoy unprecedented military and strategic cooperation, and there will be no daylight between the two countries.” [All quotes are from the same Post article linked above.]

This is just the sad point. Our blanket guarantee of military support for any policy (including illegal settlements, bombing Iran, etc.) that Israel might pursue has removed the incentive for Israel to make genuine peace with its neighbors and do right by the Palestinians (peace for land). The U.S. Senate should reject the Friedman nomination.

Romney on Culture

Mitt Romney is clearly an intelligent guy with an impressive business track record. This makes it all the more disturbing that while visiting Israel Romney felt called upon to blame the difference in living standards between Israel and the occupied West Bank and Gaza (WBG) on cultural differences. I will unpack the ignorance of this claim further on, but first, why did he do it?

We know that Romney is weak on foreign policy issues and regrettably influenced in this area by neocon advisors who tend to favor the one Israeli state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian problem favored by the Israeli right wing over American interests and policies. Since George W Bush American policy has explicitly supported a two state solution. Those unfamiliar with the history of these issues are urged to read my earlier blogs on the topic: “The View from the West Bank – a history of the conflict”, “Jerusalem in august 2006″, “Leaving Israel August 11 2006″. “The Invented Palestinians”.

The United States has a strong commitment to the military defense of Israel and it was appropriate for Romney to restate that commitment while visiting Israel. But it is neither in our national interest nor Israel’s to support or endorse every measure the current Israeli government might think up or take in relation to its neighbors. Israel’s well being depends on making a just peace with its neighbors and returning the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinians that live there. This is well known and accepted by most Israeli’s but not, apparently, by Romney’s neocon advisors. Given Romney’s lack of understanding in these issue, wisdom would have called for him to remain silent on the issue. So why did he say it, then deny it and than say it again?

First, what did he actually say? According to the Associated Press (“Romney outrages Palestinians by saying Jewish culture helps make Israel more successful”) on July 30 Romney told a breakfast meeting with wealthy donors at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem:  “As you come here and you see the GDP per capita, for instance, in Israel which is about $21,000 dollars, and compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality…. And as I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things.”

Saeb Erekat, a top Palestinian official told the AP: “What is this man doing here? Yesterday, he destroyed negotiations by saying Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, and today he is saying Israeli culture is more advanced than Palestinian culture. Isn’t this racism?”

The next day in an interview with Fox News’ Carl Cameran in Poland, Romney denied that he has spoken of the role of culture in the differences in income between Israel and Palestine. (Cameron interview of Romney) It did not take long for Romney to correct this misstatement in a National Review article under his name, “Culture does matter-Mitt Romney”: “During my recent trip to Israel, I had suggested that the choices a society makes about its culture play a role in creating prosperity, and that the significant disparity between Israeli and Palestinian living standards was powerfully influenced by it. In some quarters, that comment became the subject of controversy.”

So why did he say it?  Sadly Tom Friedman probably has it right in his July 31 column in the New York Times: “Why not in Vegas”  “Since the whole trip was not about learning anything but about how to satisfy the political whims of the right-wing, super pro-Bibi Netanyahu, American Jewish casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, why didn’t they just do the whole thing in Las Vegas? I mean, it was all about money anyway — how much Romney would abase himself by saying whatever the Israeli right wanted to hear and how big a jackpot of donations Adelson would shower on the Romney campaign in return.”

So statesmanship, diplomacy, American national interest had nothing to do with it. So maybe Romney actually understood how stupid his comments were. But let me walk us through the facts.

First, Palestinians and non Arab Israelis are first cousins racially. So this can’t be what Romney had in mind. Religiously, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the three great monotheistic religions, with Islam the most recent in that evolutionary chain, all share cultures of individual responsibility and work ethic. So it is hard to see Romney’s point in this area. My point is not that culture is unimportant, though calling in “everything” is clearly wrong. My point is that anyone who knows anything about Israel and the WBG, knows that it does not apply there. A very informative and well worth reading criticism of Romney’s statement is in Fareed Zakaria’s Aug 2, Washington Post op-ed, “Capitalism not culture drives economies”.

If Romney had driven the short, but time consuming, distance from Jerusalem to the temporary Palestinian capital in Ramallah, he would have seen some of the physical evidence of how Israel is choking the economies of the occupied, land locked West Bank and the blockaded Gaza Strip (high concrete walls cutting through Palestinian farms, check points blocking the movement of people and commerce, illegal Israeli settlement on Palestinian lands, etc.). I would have thought that a man of Romney’s intelligence would chose to remain silent on these deeply explosive issues until he could consult a more balanced group of foreign policy experts. Sadly he seems to have put politics above national interest.

Leaving Israel, August 11, 2006

This is the re-posting of an earlier note:

Hi from Home

Sorry for two notes so close together, but travel conditions today warrant an update after British authorities arrested 24 terrorists who planned to blow up 10 planes over the Atlantic yesterday. I left Israel this morning on Lufthansa with the Governor of the PMA heading for Washington DC. We assumed that we were on the same flights all the way. Thus in Frankfurt I followed him to his gate. After one hour of extra security procedures we arrived at the gate to discover that we were on different flights and I was in the wrong terminal. Thus I passed through another security check point in the correct area and boarded my flight. To my disappointment the plane lacked the sleeper seats I was expecting. I am afraid that I grumbled about it to the steward. Half an hour later my name was called along with 5 other first class passengers and informed that we were being moved to another flight using a 747 with proper seats. The steward whispered that it was because of my complaint. This, however, meant that we had to go through the original security check point yet again. This time they took away my toothpaste and other similar items from my PC bag. They were not impressed when I told them that all of these items had passed through there three hours earlier. Go figure. Anyway, I am home safe (except for the security warning about demonstrations in Washington against US support of Israel’s war against Lebanon).

I would like to share with you the experience last week of one of my fellow advisors at the Palestine Monetary Authority (PMA). He was leaving Gaza, where the PMA has a branch, to return to Ramallah where I was working when he and his driver come under fire from an Israeli tank. This occurred at the Palestinian side check point of the border crossing from Gaza into Israel (the only way to get to the other part of Palestine in the West Bank). The gun fire lasted three hours during which he spoke by phone from the floor of his car to the Governor of the PMA and the U.S. Embassy. He is a fellow American and was born and raised in Virginia. You will be shocked, as he and I were, at what the American Embassy said to him. The woman on the phone said that his name, Akram Baker, sounded Arabic and asked if he was of Palestinian decent. He said yes. She asked what he was doing in Gaza and informed him that the Israeli government does not want American’s of Palestinian decent in Gaza and that the U.S. government would not help him. Israel basically keeps Palestinians living in Gaza prisoners within Gaza and makes it very difficult for Palestinians to enter and leave Gaza. The PMA Governor contacted the Palestinian President Abbas who got the Israelis to call off their tank. We seem to have a new second class American citizen.

The day before this incident one of the PMA employees in Gaza and her daughter were killed by an overhead Israeli helicopter. Akram asked me how I would define terrorism and answered his own question by saying the UN defines it as terrorizing (intimidating, frightening, even murdering) civilians in order to promote some political or ideological goal. Doesn’t that describe, Akram asked, Israel’s continued use of collective guilt and pressure against Palestinians to pressure their government to control terrorists in their own midst. For example, placing dozens and dozens of check points throughout the West Bank to make it difficult for Palestinians to travel around their own homeland (I had to go through two permanent check points every morning and again every afternoon between East Jerusalem and Ramallah—all in the West Bank—plus the occasional impromptu ones). Or closing the border to Palestinian day workers in Israel whenever a suicide bomber blows himself up in Israel? Or by arresting Palestinians legally and fairly elected to the Palestine National Authority (PNA) Parliament for simply being members of the Hamas political party because some terrorists affiliated with some members of Hamas held an Israeli solder. Or by destroying vast parts of Lebanon’s infrastructure and killing over a thousand of its men, women, and children to punish them (Christians included) for not being tougher against Hezbollah fighters in their midst (before the current war, a majority of Lebanese opposed Hezbollah and now a majority support them). Or, killing the PMA employee and her daughter as they walked down the street because they “tolerated” Palestinian terrorists in their midst who held an Israeli solder hostage.

For Palestinians, Akram said, Israeli solders are terrorists. That is why Palestinian children sometimes throw stones at the Israeli solders as they drive through their neighborhoods. It is the only weapon they have. A few become suicide bombers.

But what is Israel to do to defend itself when so many of its neighbors do not accept its right to exist. Become a better neighbor perhaps? But what does it mean that many Arabs do not accept Israel’s “right to exist?” This is a sanitized reference to the desire of many Palestinians to drive Israelis back off the land they took from Palestinians in 1948 and 1967. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other Palestinian terrorists are the small minority that cannot get over that historical fact and move on. Most Palestinians—everyone I have ever met—have moved on and would just like the Israelis to withdraw from the territories the UN demands them return (West Bank and Gaza) so that they can get on with their lives. In fact, like almost all political movements anywhere, Hamas really simply wants to govern like any other political party and has separated itself from its militant wing (sounds like the IRA of old). It is in Israel’s interest to make normal political participation more rewarding for Hamas than terrorism—to let Hamas or any other elected government succeed or fail on their merits and to hold them accountable for their performance. Israel and the rest of us should do all possible to help the Palestinian government succeed. A successful Palestine would be a safer neighbor for Israel. Instead, Israel has stopped transferring the taxes it collects for the Palestine government on imports through Israel, proliferated walls and checkpoints throughout the West Bank and made proper administration by the Palestinian government impossible. Now the failure of the PNA will be blamed on the U.S. and Israel. When will they ever learn,… when will they ever learn.

Jerusalem in August 2006

This note was written in August 2006 following the earlier (October 2005) posting of a brief history of the Israeli Palestinian conflict: “The View from the West Bank – a history of the conflict”

Hi from Jerusalem (East Jerusalem for those of you in the know),

After leading the IMF technical assistance teams that helped establish the Palestine Monetary Authority in 1995 and 96, I returned a year ago to prepare a blue print for the steps needed for the PMA to introduce its own currency some time in the (ever more) distant future. People in the West Bank and Gaze largely use the Israeli shekel and to a lesser extent the Jordanian dinar for payments and contracts. Keeping the notes in good condition and clearing checks in shekel requires arrangements with Israeli banks. These banks recently notified the PMA that they intend to end these arrangements soon. I have returned to help the PMA figure out what to do.

The political situation in and around Israel has gone from bad to worse, to much worse. You may substitute Iraq for Israel in the previous sentence as well. When Palestinians democratically elected representatives of Hamas in enough numbers to take over the government of the West Bank and Gaze (the Palestine National Authority) from the ineffective and corrupt government of Al-Fatah (Arafat’s party), political life for Israel and the West became more complicated. The military wing of Hamas is on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations, as is Hezbollah, the Lebanese terrorist group sponsored by Iran and Syria. Hezbollah also has democratically elected representatives in the Lebanese Parliament.

Israel is now at war with Hezbollah and more or less with Hamas. At least one well-known American commentator argued that Israel has a moral right to defend its borders and thus to attack Lebanon (its bombs have fallen on far more than its Hezbollah enemy). This totally and tragically misses the point. Israel is again acting against its own interests, which in the case of Hezbollah is to help build a strong Lebanese government and army that can disarm Hezbollah (as demanded by the UN) and enforce a peaceful and secure border with Israel.

I shudder at those who argue that (if you are strong enough) you just need to smash your enemies. Be tough. They don’t seem to live in the same world I do. Can the Shi’a Muslim Iraqis who now dominate the Iraqi government really wipe out all Sunni Muslim terrorists in Iraq or can the Sunni and Christian Lebanese and the Jewish Israeli’s really wipe out the Shi’a Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon? Walid Jumblatt, the leader of Lebanon’s Druze community and a harsh critic of Hezbollah stated Saturday that “We have to acknowledge that they [Hezbollah] have defeated the Israelis….” Being tough and launching war on Hezbollah/Lebanon has greatly weakened Israel (militarily, economically, and politically), just as the miscalculated U.S. attack on Iraq has weakened America (militarily, economically, and politically). These acts of war have weakened the security of both of our countries, not strengthened it.

Wars between tribes and religious factions can only be “won” diplomatically. The infamous Hatfields and McCoys ended their vicious cycle of feuding only when they mutually came to accept that they would never succeed in totally exterminating the other. There would always be a son, or a relative, or a friend of a son left somewhere to carry on the hatred and revenge. The famous feud ended only when a combination of carrots and sticks and harsh experience led both sides to accept a credible truce as the best that they could do. Read or watch again Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and weep.

A few weeks ago I watched a TV reality show called “The Nanny” (please done ask me why). In the show the well-meaning and conscientious parents of three little monsters were sinking into despair as their spoiled and confused kids walked all over them. The parents were not dumb, but they were failing as parents. My first reaction was that the Third Geneva Convention (on the Treatment of Prisoners of War) should be suspended for these awful brats. Where is George W when we could really use him? The British Nanny brought in to save this family, was wise indeed. She found as many ways to pull out and encourage the cooperation of the children (carrots) as she did to establish clearer and more consistent rules and punishments for violating them (sticks). In short, she found the right balance of incentives that encouraged these children to redirect their considerable energies into positive and pleasant behavior that became a joy to be around. It was brilliant. It is what societies need as well—values and rules under which everyone can get along. I am sure that you have seen perfectly behaved but regimented and dull children and laud, rude and out of control ones and said to yourself, please don’t make me have to be around either.

My boss in Baghdad emailed me last week: “Please don’t go to Jerusalem.  I don’t think that you will be safe there.  Come back to Baghdad.” She has quit a sense of humor. The security situation in Iraq has finally degenerated beyond my comfort level and I have not returned to Baghdad since December despite many requests to do so. I have been highly critical of that war, when we should be fighting Al-Quaeda in Afghanistan and elsewhere (they didn’t exist in Iraq until we attacked it). And I have been even more critical of our ineffective follow-on efforts to establish a stable democracy there. However, there is one aspect of our conduct of that war I am proud of.

Every war has produced atrocities (torture, rape, murder, etc). It is a tragic and unavoidable part of war. We are again seeing examples of this ugly fact with the revelations of the killing of 24 Iraqis, mainly women and children, by American Marines in Haditha in the heat of war. The rape of an Iraqi girl and murder of her family by an American solder (Steven D. Green) in Mahmoudiya was purely criminal. Four of his U.S. Army buddies have also been arrested in connection with those crimes. Iraqis are not surprised that Americans have done these things (in very limited quantities). But they are surprised at the openness with which we expose and punish them. We can be very proud of that. It gives credence to our belief that we try to live by high principles.

Our principles of government revere openness and honesty—what more recently has come to be known as “transparency.” We can thank our free press for making that principle meaningful. While the most professional, well-trained, and well armed military in the history of mankind protects our freedom from attacks from abroad, the most professional and dedicated press in the world protects us from attacks on your freedom at home. Our practice of transparency is the ultimate check and balance on government (or corporate or labor) abuse. When combined with the high standards that guide our military leaders, transparency has helped contain the abuses of power that exist in every military, police force, and government. Three cheers for our free press.

I hope that all is well with you.

Warren