Ben Smith's story in Politico today focuses on the emergence of a more critical stance on Israel from Media Matters and the Center for American Progress.  Or, as neoconservatve Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin interprets it, Smith  "blows the cover off the anti-Israel left and the Democrats’ favorite think tank, the Center for American Progress, which harbors many of its shrillest voices."

What's interesting about Smith's story is his evidence for this tonal shift at CAP and Media Matters -- namely, tweets and blog posts. 

The daily battle is waged in Media Matters’ emails, on CAP’s blogs, Middle East Progress and ThinkProgress and most of all on Twitter, where a Media Mattters official, MJ Rosenberg, regularly heaps vitriol on those who disagree as “Iraq war neocon liar” (the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg) or having “dual loyalties” to the U.S. and Israel (the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin). And while the Center for American Progress tends to walk a more careful line, warm words for Israel can be hard to find on its blogs....

CAP officials have told angry allies that the bloggers don’t speak for the organization, and senior fellow Brian Katulis – whose work is more standard Clinton-Democrat fare – stressed that in an email.

“I think there are different voices on the Think Progress blog and some individual analysts - and some of that work, especially the blog, is I think aimed at reporting on and reflecting one aspect of the diversity of the views among the broad progressive community,” he said. “But what one blogger or analyst may write isn’t necessarily indicative of what our policy recommendations are for the administration or Congress when I’m doing meetings with our friends in government.”

The director of CAP’s national security program, Ken Gude, also drew a distinction between the blog, which is CAP’s loudest megaphone, and its less confrontational policy work.

“There’s a distinction here that we have between the policy work that we do and the blogging work that we do,” he said. Middle East Progress “is clearly a progressive blog and it does respond to arguments that are made most forcefully by conservatives and it responds in that way.”....

But the fact remains that the Center’s most audible voices on the Middle East aren’t the former Clinton staffers who populate much of the organization, and they come from different foreign policy traditions. Duss, a confrontational presence on Twitter but typically a more careful blogger, places himself in what’s sometimes called the “realist” stream of American foreign policy (emphasis added). 

So, to sum up Smith's observations, what's driving this story is that when it comes to Israel, some of CAP and Media Matters analysts are really harsh on Twitter and pretty harsh on the blogs -- but the more substantive, traditional  policy work doesn't look like that at all, so it's being overblown. 

Rubin is having none of that: 

[T]he scandal here is that CAP houses and provides a blog for such sentiments....

CAP is promoting this and is responsible for the venomous output on its blogs.

The excuse that these voices don’t represent CAP’s views and aren’t attributable to CAP is ludicrous....

Imagine if the bloggers were writing about the inferiority of a racial group. They’d be gone in a nanosecond. In fact, those who fancy themselves as respectable think tankers and loyal Democrats are enablers of the scourge of anti-Semitic filth that flows through the hard left. CAP has a choice: Clean out the sewer or be prepared to take the approbation that goes with the association with Israel haters and those who peddle in anti-Semitic tripe.

I don't agree with Rubin's characterizations of the content -- the material in question is not anti-Semitic (though it's problematic and borderline offensive) and CAP ain't "hard left."  That said, she raises an interesting and valid point about what, exactly, is the output of a think tank.  Is it the more traditional policy analysis?  The blogs?  The individual Twitter feeds of its denizens?  In a Web 2.0 world, I have to wonder if the latter matters at least as much as the former (of course, the significance of tweets, etc., would have to apply to Rubin as well.  Her own ombudsman, for example, blasted her for re-tweeing a link to "reprehensible" blog post containing "incendiary rhetoric"). 

There's a lot to consider here -- how a think tank brands itself, whether policy analysts can freely express themselves without being associated with their day job, and exactly how policy analysis is crafted.  If, for example, someone develops a policy position in a path-dependent manner from instant tweet to somewhat-less-instant blog post to a memo/testimony that reifies those original statements, then Web 2.0 really matters.  If, however, time leads one to modify or recalibrate the initial response -- as the statement of Duss suggests -- then Web 2.0 still matters, but in a different way.  It matters only insomuch as the foreign policy community thinks that tweets and blog posts capture more attention and bandwidth than more conventional forms of policy analysis.

What do you think? 

The Weekly Standard's Daniel Halper reads through the fine print of a G-20 pool report: 

President Obama] entered the room at 1:15 and took to his left, heading to Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy. They chatted for a few seconds before British Prime minister David Cameron joined them. Hard to understand what they were saying amid the cameras noise. POTUS then took a stroll to Australian Premier Julia Gillard who got a hug as European president Herman van Rompuy, European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso and Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan were watching. Eventually the Europeans got a handshake but Erdogan got the hug treatment....

Isn't this whole scene pretty standard for President Obama? The Europeans get a handshake and the Islamist Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan gets a hug (emphasis by Halper).

Michael Goldfarb -- Halper's colleague at the Weekly Standard -- goes further, tweeting this anecdote as an example of Obama "hugging enemies, abandoning allies." 

Yeah, I can't believe that Obama is hugging the personification of an America enemy like, like... a NATO treaty ally's head of government.  The same country that helped to bankroll the Libya anti-Gadhafi movement and is now creating an enclave for the Free Syrian Army. 

Yes, Erdogan has clearly made life difficult for another ally -- Israel. On the other hand, lots of America's allies make life difficult for other American allies (see: Gibraltar). That doesn't mean Turkey automatically gets its ally label revoked. If you look at the larger balance sheet of American interests, Turkey under Erdogan has been neither an enemy like Iran nor a frenemy like Pakistan.  It's been occasonally aggravating, but really, when it comes to the global political economy, western European leaders like Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy have been way more aggravatiing. 

So, yes, Michael Goldfarb has clearly gone Vizzini on the word "enemy." 

To take a step back here, however, Goldfarb's language raises an some interesting observations.  first, there's an awful lot of "friend/enemy" distinctions being made among GOP foreign policy commentators.  That's the one takeaway from Herman Cain's foreign policy statements to date.  The distinction sometimes useful -- from an American perspective, India is a friend but not an ally, while Pakistan is the reverse.  Still, by and large, friends and allies do overlap a lot.  Does this kind if language indicate a new GOP embrace of Carl Schmitt's worldview? 

Second, to be blunt about it, is Israel now America's ally uber alles?  If other countries disagree with Israel, does that mean, in Goldfarb's eyes, that they no longer qualify as either friend or ally?  Are there any other of America's friends that fall into this super-special status?  I really want to know. 

The Days of Rage seem to be persisting in Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak is gunning for 2011's Marie Antoinette Award for Most Clueless Political Response By a Leader, and Egyptian protestors have completely and repeatedly ignored the 4 PM curfew announced on Friday.  The police have withdrawn, the armed forces are out but not exactly stopping the protestors, and anyone vaguely related to Hosni Mubarak appears to have decided this was a swell time to shop at Harrod's.  The official U.S. take on the situation is to tap-dance as fast as humanly possible not say all that much. 

So.... what now?  What's going to happen?   Like I said last week -- and like Paul Krugman -- I don't know.  But having spent the morning watching the Sunday talk shows and the afternoon feverishly updating my Twitter feed, let me take this opportunity to ask as many provocative questions as I can: 

1)  Why is Mubarak toast?  Everyone assumes that the Egyptian leader is a dead man walking, and given his speech on Friday, I can understand that sentiment.  There are, however, remaining options for Mubarak to pursue, ranging from a full-blown 1989 Tiananmen square crackdown to a slow-motion 2009 Tehran-style crackdown. 

Obviously, these aren't remotely good options for anyone involved.  The first rule in political science, however, is that leaders want to stay in power, and Mubarak has given no indication that he wants to leave.  He could be packing up as I type this -- but 80-year old strongmen don't tend to faint at the first spot of trouble. 

The Days of Rage have clearly altered the future of Egypt -- Gamel Mubarak is not going to succeed his father.  How much additional change will take place is unclear. 

2)  Could the army crack down if it wanted to?  Contradicting my first question, the one thing I wonder is whether the Egyptian state has the capacity to crack down any more.  Egypt's internal security forces have failed miserably.  This leaves the army, an institution that has, to date, commanded respect across all walks of life in Egypt and refrained from direct internal coercion activities . 

The fact that jets buzzed Tahrir Dquare suggests two things.  First, the military is trying to signal to protestors to, you know, go home.  Second, the military might not have the available tools to make this point more effectively, and might not be able to efficiently dispatch protestors if so desired.  If this cable is accurate, the Egyptian military has long-focused on developing its conventional warfare capabilities, which is great for an armored attack in the desert and lousy for subduing a restive civilian population. 

I'm sure the military could restore order if necessary, but it would be a hugely inefficient enterprise.  The hit to their reputation would be massive. 

3)  Has U.S. influence over the situation increased and not decreased?  Again, lots of talk today about how U.S. can't really shape the outcome.  OK, except that I don't think the following statements add up:

a)  The Egyptian armed forces are now the central pillar propping up the Egyptian state;

b)  The Egyptian and American defense establishments have strong ties;

c)  U.S. aide to Egypt is roughly $3 billion a year;

d)  U.S. influence over the situation has waned.

As the Obama administration's rhetoric shifts -- going from calling on Mubarak to take action to talk about "transition" -- I wonder whether the U.S. is simply following the situation on the ground, or whether the situation on the ground has allowed the administration to start exerting more leverage. 

4)  After Egypt, which country in the region is the most nervous?  This ain't Tunisia, it's the heart of the Arab Middle East.  Regime chage in Egypt will send shockwaves across Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria, Libya and Syria. 

That said, I suspect the most nervous country in the region will be Israel.  When I was there this summer listening to their top security experts, Egypt was barely mentioned.  The cornerstone of Israel's security was the notion that Egypt was a partner and not a threat.  A region in which Iran, Turkey and Egypt all adopt hostile attitudes towards the State of Israel is, let's say, not an ideal situation.  If both Turkey and Egypt look like democracies a year from now, that makes things even worse. 

5)  Is the Muslim Brotherhood really all that and a bag of chips?  The MB wasn't behind the latest protests, and it's not entirely clear how much support they actually command in Egypt. This hasn't stopped speculation about what an MB-led Egypt would look like.  While everyone is evoking what happened in Iran in 1979, I keep thinking that the Egyptian military is a lot more robust now than the Iranian military was back then.  Stratfor speculates otherwise, but they don't have much data to back up their claim.  I find it interesting that the MB threat has not deterred neoconservatives from supporting, at a minimum, regime change in Egypt. 

[So do you have any answers?--ed.  The U.S. should be pursuing a broad-spectrum policy of engaging any and every actor in Egypt right now, but the key is the military.  All available pressure -- including an aid cutoff -- should be put on that institution to not intervene and not attack civilians.  If that happens, I think that all the other dominoes fall.] 

My latest bloggingheads diavlog is with National Security Network's Heather Hurlburt.  We talk about the Park51 controversy and its effect on national security, the prospect for direct talks between Israel and Palestine, Iran's nuclear program, and what the hell is going on at the Cato Institute: 

Watch the whole thing, but my favorite clip comes at the end, in which Heather and I envisage how VH1 would make a Behind the Think Tanks program sound compelling:  "Against all odds, Heather Hurlburt had achieved influence and gravitas at NSN.  Unfortunately, her addiction to cable TV appearances would also cause her tragic downfall....."

 In a desperate, last-ditch effort to keep up with the President's pace of summer vacations, your humble blogger will be at an undisclosed locale and blogging at a more leisurely pace than normal (though I do hope to get to the Goldberg essay on Israel/US/Iran soon). 

I confess to being not much of a fiction reader in general, and I've already read my novel for the summer.  But I am looking forward to my non-fiction reading on this trip - it‘s a balanced mix of something old, something new, and a few things to think about in the wake of my Israel trip: 

1)  Harold James, The End of Globalization:  Lessons From the Great Depression.  As the economy starts heading into its second dip since the fall of 2008, it's worth contemplating whether the globalized economy we've taken for granted the past thirty years could really disintegrate.  It's certainly true that, to date, the Great Recession has not really upended the open rules of the global game.  A few more dips, however, and anything is possible.  James wrote this short book about a decade ago, using prior historical eras in which globalization has collapsed to ask whether it could happen again.  This, plus another look at Barry Eichengreen's Golden Fetters when I get back, should serve me well for the next month or so. 

2)  Jerry Z. Muller, Capitalism and the Jews.  To put it bluntly, why are the Jews so damn good at commerce?  How have philosophers explained this stereotype-that-contains-some-element-of-truth?  Why have some Jews rebelled against the market?  This interconnected collection of essays proffers some tentative answers to these questions.   

3)  Albert Hirschman, The Rhetoric of Reaction:  Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy.  If this summer's political to-dos have been about anything, they've been about how conservatives reactionaries have skillfully and not-so-skillfully used their rhetoric to push the public discourse in a direction that favors their arguments.  In this kind of environment, Hirschman's book seems especially trenchant.  Besides, in my humble opinion, every social scientist should read or re-read one of Albert Hirschman's books every year.  Hmmm.... question to readers:  which author do you think social scientists should read at least once a year?

4)  Dan Senor and Saul Singer, Start-up Nation:  The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle.  While I was in Israel, everyone and their Jewish mother kept telling me to read this book, which proffers to explain why Israel has transformed itself from socialist basketcase to entrepreneurial exemplar.  So, I'll take a look.  I've heard Singer's spiel on this, which among other things argues that Israeli entrepreneurs have a comparative advantage because of their esprit de corps that builds from their army experience.  This echoes some of Avner Greif's work about the Maghrebi traders.  That said, Greif's hypothesis is now open to question, and I'm not completely convinced about Senor and Singer's argument. 

5)  Peter Andreas and Kelly Greenhill, eds., Sex, Drugs and Body Counts:  The Politics of Numbers in Global Crime and Conflict.  Having  worked a bit on money laundering, I'm keenly aware of the ways in which bulls**t statistics become accepted as fact.  If some authoritative figure pulls a number out of thin air, the media will often repeat it to the point where it becomes gospel.  Andreas and Greenhill's edited volume takes a hard look at how some of these figures affect public policy debates.  Slate's Jack Shafer has already penned a paean to the book that I could never match, so just check out his praiseworthy review. 

Readers are encouraged to proffer their own nonfiction book recommendations in the comments.

Tel Aviv is a charming, modern, cosmopolitan city with a thriving high-tech sector, powder-sand beaches and the most temperate of seas.  Apparently, it is also the most insidious threat to the state of Israel.

You might think that Hamas or Hezbollah want to take out Tel Aviv.  Well, maybe, but right now it's the Israelis who have a beef with the lovely city on the Mediterranean Sea.  Simply put, the problem with Tel Aviv is that it's sucking up all of the young, secular Israelis from across the country.  As well it should - it offers good jobs and an easygoing lifestyle, like the Bay Area in the U.S. 

This migration within Israel creates a number of long-term policy headaches.  First, residents of Tel Aviv simply don't care that much about making peace with the Palestinian Authority, Syria, or the rest of the Arab world.  Tel Aviv is almost exclusively Jewish, it's too far south for Hezbollah to hit and too far north for Hamas to hit.  You can live in Tel Aviv and not think about long-term security concerns - which is exactly what most Israelis do.  This is the majority of the population, and they're politically apathetic. 

This leaves other parts of the country - most obviously Jerusalem and the West Bank settlements - to the rapidly growing ultra-Orthodox and those Israeli nationalists who believe in Greater Israel.  These are the people driving the Israeli government to expand settlement construction in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.  The short-term political logic is to appease the settler and ultra-Orthodox movements.  Both IDF officials and Israeli politicians know that at some point Israel will have to let go of most of this territory.  The demographics are already getting ugly.  One negotiator quoted Thomas Jefferson on this:  "We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other."

Finally, because of the rush to Tel Aviv, Israel isn't populating more strategic parts of its country, like the Negev or the Galilee.  Instead, they're expanding into the West Bank, which is pretty stupid because most (though not all) of that territory will be ceded to Palestine at some point.  Officials kept talking about creating a high-speed rail network to encourage more population spread away from Tel Aviv, but that's a ways off.  As the Palestinian population outpaces the growth of the Jewish population, there's going to be incentives to move to those areas.  One demographer worries about an expanding, J-shaped mass of Palestinians that shrinks Israel down to Tel Aviv and its environs.  That fear might be exaggerated, but it's similar to the Russian fear of Chinese expansion into Siberia.   

The longer this trend continues, the more the cosmopolitans of Tel Aviv will cede power to the ultra-orthodox and the ultra-nationalists.  That augurs badly for Israel's strategic situation. 

So what do the Palestinians think about all of this?  That will be the subject of my next post.

Earlier today, we were given a tour of the Green Line and the physical barrier that separates Isreal proper from the West Bank (note -- the Green Line and the location of the barrier are not the same thing, which is a source of furious and intractable debate some mild contestation among the interested parties.)

We were driven to an overlook that contrasted a small Israeli settlement with the Palestinian city of Qalqilya. The settlement looks like a leafy exurb in the middle of a lot of brown, dilapidated neighborhoods. In case you were wondering, the material incentive for settlement housing is that it's 40 percent cheaper than living in Tel Aviv, the climate is more temperate, and it's still close to the city.

Our tour guide was a former IDF brigadier general, and without getting into specifics let's just say that he knew an awful lot about the West Bank. He gave us a brief lecture explaining the humanitarian issues that arose with the creation of the barrier, the security gains that came from it, the economic disparity between the Palestinian cities and the settlements, and so forth.

As he was talking, a second tour group showed up and the other tour guide started talking, also in English. I sidled up to the edge of that group to listen. The second guide's spiel was rather different. He talked about the dangers of disengaging from the West Bank, because of the possibility of a takeover by either Hamas of Hezbollah. Instability in Iraq and Jordan were also mentioned as possibilities.

Now this was a curious statement, given that Hezbollah is Shiite and based in Lebanon -- they have a tacit alliance with Hamas, but would be unlikely to find hospitable ground in the West Bank under any contingency.

It turns out that this tour was run by -- wait for it -- AIPAC. The guide was shepherding a group of Hispanic politicians around the country.

Take from this what you will.

Israel is a special country, and getting there is part of its special nature.  If you choose to come, here are some useful travel tips that might make your voyage a more pleasant one: 

Get to your gate on the early side.  All trips to Israel involve a second - and to my eyes, at least - completely superfluous security check at the gate.  I say superfluous because it seemed to be an exact duplicate of the security screening required to get to the gate in the first place.  So, just to be clear, this is bad redundancy, not good redundancy.

Once on the plane, immediately be prepared for a high-stress effort to get the plane out of the gate.  The reason is that most planes flying to Tel Aviv have a fair number of Orthodox Jewish families on board.  Given that the average size of such a family is about five kids, there are a lot of child seats that need to be installed, seat-swapping that needs to be done, and so forth.  On my flight, as well as Goldie's, Marty's,  and B-Woww's, the flight attendants went to 11 on the panic meter because the plane couldn't leave the gate unless everyone was sitting down, and inevitably someone wasn't sitting down.  Frantic warnings about missing slot times for takeoff will ensure.  In all likelihood, the plane will settle down just at the last moment possible.

Go to the bathroom about 45 minutes before landing - because you're not allowed to get out of your seat for the last thirty minutes on a flight to Israel. 

Israel is a member of the OECD, which means it has OECD levels of traffic.  It will take some time to get from the airport to your hotel.  The traffic signs are in Hebrew, Arabic and English, with many in Russian as well.  Some of the English translations can be very direct.  Next to one power line, it simply said, "Danger of Death." 

As for Tel Aviv itself, my only useful geopolitical observation is that I've discovered the real reason that the U.S. embassy will never relocate from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  Presidents repeatedly pledge to make this move, but it never happens. 

Hard-bitten realpolitik types will explain that this is because of the ill will that such a move would engender within the Arab world.  Ha!!  The real reason is that the current U.S. embassy is located on some prime beachfront property next to the big hotels.  If I was a Foreign Service Officer assigned to Tel Aviv, I'd do everything in my power to prevent moving the embassy away from a beach with powdery sand, warm Mediterranean waters, and bikinis and Speedos as far as the eye can see.  It doesn't even matter if there's ever an Israeli-Palestinian peace - bureaucratic politics will keep that embassy right where it is. 

Fortunately for embassy officials, and unfortunately for almost everyone else, there won't be a peace anytime soon.  More on that in my next update.   

Ben Smith reports that China is facing mounting pressure because of its refusal to condemn North Korea for its sinking of the Cheonan: 

For while much about the incident remains unclear, a day of carefully parsed statements from Zhongnanhai and the Foreign Ministry left at least one irrefutable aftershock: With much of the world expressing fury over the attack, the contrast with Beijing's muted response could not have been more striking. 

 

“The situation is that they’re so isolated right now that it’s not only that we’re the only ones who will stick up for them,” said an Chinese official. “We’re the only ones who believe them – and what they’re saying is true.”

Oh, wait, you know what?  I might have mixed up some of the words in that cut and paste.  Here's the original:

For while much about the incident remains unclear, a day of carefully parsed statements from the White House and State Department left at least one irrefutable aftershock: With much of the world expressing fury over the raid, the contrast with Washington’s muted response could not have been more striking. 

 

“The situation is that they’re so isolated right now that it’s not only that we’re the only ones who will stick up for them,” said an American official. “We’re the only ones who believe them – and what they’re saying is true.”

Whoops, my bad.  It's a good thing there are no similarities whatsoever between the two situations, or readers could have been confused. 

Look this is bad for Israel, and it's going to get worse.  Stratfor's George Friedman makes a trenchant point here:

With roughly the population of Houston, Texas, Israel is just not large enough to withstand extended isolation, meaning this event has profound geopolitical implications.

Public opinion matters where issues are not of fundamental interest to a nation. Israel is not a fundamental interest to other nations. The ability to generate public antipathy to Israel can therefore reshape Israeli relations with countries critical to Israel. For example, a redefinition of U.S.-Israeli relations will have much less effect on the United States than on Israel. The Obama administration, already irritated by the Israelis, might now see a shift in U.S. public opinion that will open the way to a new U.S.-Israeli relationship disadvantageous to Israel.

The Israelis will argue that this is all unfair, as they were provoked... they seem to think that the issue is whose logic is correct. But the issue actually is, whose logic will be heard? As with a tank battle or an airstrike, this sort of warfare has nothing to do with fairness. It has to do with controlling public perception and using that public perception to shape foreign policy around the world. In this case, the issue will be whether the deaths were necessary. The Israeli argument of provocation will have limited traction.

Internationally, there is little doubt that the incident will generate a firestorm. Certainly, Turkey will break cooperation with Israel. Opinion in Europe will likely harden. And public opinion in the United States — by far the most important in the equation — might shift to a “plague-on-both-your-houses” position.

This is serious, because you have people like Jim Henley minimizing the threat to Israel: 

Israel not only no longer faces any enemies who pose an existential threat, it doesn’t even have enemies who can thwart any strongly held Israeli policy aim.  No state is going to go to war to “destroy Israel.” I doubt any state particularly wants to. Certainly no state that might want to can do so. But beyond that, no state is going to go to war on behalf of the Palestinians and the Palestinians lack the power to launch an effective war on their own behalf.

Henley is  correct about the current military balance of power, but the notion that Israel has no existential threats to worry about is absurd.  The people who control Gaza don't recognize Israel's right to exist, and there's a government in the region that keeps talking about wanting to wipe the country off the face of the map.  They're not powerful enough at present to take action -- but that hardly means that they won't take such action in the future should they acquire greater capabilities. 

All of this is taking place at a moment when Turkey is pivoting against Israel and IDF tactics are exposed as counterproductive.  As Judah Grunstein notes:

This creates a vicious circle with regard to the emphasis on liberty of action, since the IDF's deterrence is no longer based on its Entebbe-era veneer of Mission Impossible-like efficiency, but rather on the knowledge that the Israeli government is willing to use overwhelming and disproportionate force against all provocations, regardless of their threat level.

In conclusion, I agree with an awful lot of what Max Boot says on this: 

Israel cannot afford to become another South Africa, Burma, or North Korea. Come to think of it, even South Africa couldn’t afford to become South Africa: an international pariah regime. It was too democratic and too Western to bear such isolation indefinitely in the way that absolute dictatorships like Burma or North Korea can. The international embargo ultimately led to a crisis of confidence within Afrikaner leadership circles and to the negotiated end to the racist regime. Israel, I stress, is no South Africa: it is not an apartheid regime. It is in fact the most liberal and democratic regime in the region, offering Arabs more rights than they are offered in any of its immediate neighbors. And Israel is, mercifully, not yet subject to the kind of international opprobrium that South Africa (rightly) received. Unfortunately, it is heading in that direction....

That doesn’t mean [Israel] should refrain from legitimate acts of self-defense (such as killing Hamas big shots or retaliating for Hamas rocket strikes), but it should be ultra careful to manage public perceptions of its actions. Unfortunately, the Israeli Defense Forces have always shown more competence at tactical kinetic operations than at information operations. That deficiency was revealed during the 2006 war with Hezbollah and now more recently in the botched raid on the Gaza ships. Granted, Israel is getting better about managing the consequences of its actions; the IDF gets kudos for posting video of the raid online quickly and making some naval commandos available for interviews. But if Israel were strategically smarter, it would have avoided the raid altogether, with all the possibilities of something going wrong, and used more stealthy means to prevent the Hamas activists from reaching their objective. The IDF should be mindful of the French experience in Algeria and the American experience in Vietnam: it is possible to win every battle and still lose the war.

Developing.... in a precipitously bad way for Israel. 

Passover begins this evening, and with it comes the Four Questions that are asked at the Seder every year.  Contra Slate's Micharl Rubiner, a good Seder should have some lively debate. 

I bring this up because Ethan Bronner's news analysis in the New York Times today nicely captures divisions within the United States and Israel over the importance of the peace process going forward.  It also suggests two more questions that should be asked: 

[T]wo main issues are keeping American-Israeli tensions on the front burner: disagreement on the effects of what happens in Jerusalem on the rest of the Middle East, and the strength of the Palestinian leadership.  

The Obama administration considers establishing a Palestinian state central to other regional goals; it also believes that the Palestinians, led by Mr. Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, are ready to run a country. The Netanyahu government disagrees on both counts. It thinks the issue of Palestinian statehood has little effect on broader American concerns and is also dubious about the ability of the Palestinians to create an entity that can resist a radical takeover.

So, my questions to you: 

1)  Do you believe that the Israel/Palestine issue is central to wider regional policy concerns?

2)  Is the current Palestinian leadership capable of running an independent Palestine?

Discuss. 

Commentary's Jennifer Rubin is reacting way out of proportion to David Axelrod's tour of the Sunday morning talk shows.  That said, she's got a germ of a good point:

David Axelrod — a political operative who now seems at the center of foreign-policy formulation (more on this later) — went on the Fox, ABC, and NBC Sunday talk shows to repeat how insulted the Obami were over Israeli building in Jerusalem and what an affront this was to them....

[I]t might have something to do with the fact that Axelrod and the Chicago pols are running foreign policy. It’s attack, attack, attack — just as they do any domestic critic.

Quibble away with Rubin's characterization of "Chicago pols," but she does raise a decent question:  why on God's green earth is the Obama equivalent of Karl Rove talking about foreign policy in public? 

Since the VP trip from Hell, it's clear that the Obama administration has ratcheted up the rhetoric in private, in public, in press leaks and through multilateral channels to their Israeli counterparts.  Given what transpired, it's entirely appropriate that the Obama administration make its displeasure felt publicly. 

Why Axelrod, however?  Sure, the Sunday morning talk shows wanted to talk health care as well.  And it's true that Axelrod, thought of as pro-Israel, could send a tough signal.  Still, couldn't the administration have sent Hillary Clinton to one of the Sunday morning talk shows instead?  Wouldn't she have been the more appropriate spokesman. 

I've spent enought time inside the Beltway to be leery of the gossipy tidbits I collect when I'm down there.  That said, there was one persistent drumbeat I heard during my last sojourn -- that Axelrod and the political advisors were acting as Obama's foreign policy gatekeepers.  

Now, I am shocked, shocked, that politicians are thinking about foreign policy in a political manner.  That said, there is a balance to be struck between political and policy advisors.  Even David Frum admitted that this balance got out of whack during the Bush administration.  I'd like to see things return to to the pre-21st century equilibrium.  It would be disturbing if the new equilibrium is that someone like David Axelrod becomes the foreign policy czar.

UPDATE:  You know what's particularly galling about this?  When the political operatives fail to do their job and point out politically useful things to do in order to augment American foreign policy:   

As an unusual public showdown between the Israeli and American administrations plays out, Hill sources say leading Congressional Democrats would be with the administration on this but would really like to get a phone call from Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell, currently en route back to the Middle East to try to salvage Israeli-Palestinian proximity talks.

As former Senate Majority Leader, Mitchell has credibility with the Senators, one staffer said. It would be really helpful if he makes some phone calls from the plane, to say we really need you to stay with the administration, we are trying to push the peace process forward, and if he would articulate some sort of vision, of where this next sort of piece of tactical fight is going.

This is not the first time one has heard this from Hill Democrats that they are feeling a bit in the dark, but at such a tense moment, it is hard not to be astonished that the administration was not working the phones to the Hill all weekend. 

"Same exact mistake of the first two Clinton years with majorities in both Houses," one Washington Democratic foreign policy hand said. "You'd think they would have learned the lesson of 'never take your allies for granted' at least after this year." 

Anyone else intrigued by this BBC report? 

Imposing more sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme would not be a quick enough solution, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister has said.

Prince Saud al-Faisal said the threat posed by Iran demanded a "more immediate solution" than sanctions....

Speaking at a joint Riyadh news conference with Mrs Clinton, Prince Saud said: "Sanctions are a long-term solution. They may work, we can't judge.

"But we see the issue in the shorter term maybe because we are closer to the threat... So we need an immediate resolution rather than a gradual resolution."

While the Saudi minister did not detail his vision of a quick solution in public, it is likely that options were discussed behind closed doors in the meeting between Mrs Clinton and King Abdullah, says the BBC's Kim Ghattas, who is travelling with the top US diplomat.

Um.... beyond appeasement, what exactly are the policies that could lead to an "immediate resolution" of the Iranian nuclear program?  

Seriously, I'm stumped on this point.  All of the possible "immediate" options on the table -- Israeli airstrike, a Saudi deterrent capability -- seem equally ludicrous. 

UPDATE:  This Financial Times story by Abeer Allam appears to be an attempt at clarification:

Saudi foreign policy official told the French press agency on Tuesday that the kingdom was not advocating military action when Prince Saud said that sanctions were not a solution.

Riyadh was arguing that the Middle East peace process was a faster and more effective means to ease tensions in the region, the official said.

”There is no point in our spending all our time on sanctions which will not have an effect in the short term. We need something more tangible,” the offical told AFP.

”We don’t want a military strike ... A military strike, we still believe, will be very counterproductive,” he said. (emphasis added)

Um..... I agree that sanctions are not a quick fix, but does anyone, anywhere believe that the Middle East peace process will be faster than other policy options?  Anyone? 

Here is a quick list of things that I believe will happen more quickly than a successful Middle East peace process:

1)  Cold fusion;

2)  Bermuda wins gold medal in men's luge;

3)  Miley Cyrus nominated for Best Actress Oscar

The Christian Science Monitor's Yigal Schliefer reports on a less-than-productive meeting between Israel and Turkey:

A diplomatic spat is threatening to worsen Israel’s strained relations with Turkey, traditionally one of its most important allies in the region. The rift exposes growing Israeli frustration with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who in a bid to increase Turkey’s regional standing has increasingly spoken out against Israel.

This latest crisis included a showdown at Israel’s Foreign Ministry, where Turkey’s ambassador was summoned to explain Mr. Erdogan’s recent harsh criticism, as well as a TV show that portrayed Israeli intelligence agents holding a woman and her baby hostage.

Breaking with diplomatic protocol, Israeli officials failed to include the customary Turkish flag on the table between them and the Turkish ambassador, whom they seated on a low couch. To rub it in, they instructed the press members in attendance to note that they were sitting in higher chairs and the usual diplomatic niceties were conspicuously absent.

“The message was, ‘We’ve had enough,’” says Ephraim Inbar, an expert on Turkey-Israel relations at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University. “Erdogan has taken things too far. It might have not been the best treatment for an ambassador, but it came from the gut. The signal is that we’re not going to take it anymore.” (emphasis added)

Yes, because heaping petty humiliations on another country will always shift their attitude in a more favorable direction.

Beyond Erdogan's statements -- which, from the Israeli perspective, are probably infuriating -- the proximate motivation for the meeting appears to be the depiction of Israelis on a 24-style show broadcast in Turkey.   Let me repeat that -- the Israeli Foreign Ministry is cheesed off about a Turkish television show. 

So, is this just Israeli overreaction?  Stupidity?  According to Ha'aretz's Barak Ravid, it's a bit more complicated than that: 

Senior officials in his own ministry say Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is trying to foil the scheduled visit of Defense Minister Ehud Barak to Ankara following renewed tensions in relations between the two countries. Barak is scheduled to travel to Turkey on Sunday for an official visit in which he will meet with Turkey's defense and foreign ministers....

"There's a feeling Lieberman wants to heat things up before Barak's visit to Turkey," a senior Foreign Ministry official said. "Everything that took place yesterday was part of Lieberman's political agenda."

This raises a very troubling question:  what does it say about the state of Israel's body politic that Avigdor Lieberman thinks he can enhance his political position by snubbing one of the few semi-friendly countries in the region? 

UPDATE:  This was such a picayune slight that I'm sure it will all blow over.  Oh, wait....

In the past 24 hours, there's been some interesting stuff coming out on both North Korea and Israel. 

On the North Korea issue, Bob Gates' chat with an FT reporter is worth reading just to savor the man's obvious efforts to signal to the North Koreans that they can't control the agenda.  However, Mark Landler and David Sanger's New York Times story today suggests that China is thinking about putting the economic and financial hurt on North Korea. 

Meanwhile, the United States and Israel appear to be at loggerheads on the question of West Bank settlements.  This is particularly interesting: 

[T]he tenor of Mrs. Clinton’s comments Wednesday indicated to some analysts that the Obama administration was unlikely to budge from its position, even at the risk of putting Mr. Netanyahu’s government into jeopardy.

“She is stripping away whatever nuance, or whatever fig leaf, that would have allowed a deeply ideological government to make a settlement deal that is politically acceptable at home,” said Aaron David Miller, a public policy analyst at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “They’ve concluded, ‘We’re going to force a change in behavior.’”

Within the Israeli government, however, there is a consensus that the ever-growing settler population must be accommodated.

No one is talking about sanctions just yet on Israel, but the historical precedent here is telling.  The last time the U.S. sanctioned Israel was in 1991 on the question of housing settlements.  The eventual result was the fall of the Yitzhak Shamir government. 

So China is contemplating sanctions against North Korea, and the United States a step away from doing the same thing vis-a-vis Israel.  This highlights a cruel irony when it comes to the use of economic pressure -- it works on your friends a lot better than it does against your foes. 

[I see where this is going.  Stop it!--ed.]  Of course, countries are understandably more reluctant to pressure their allies than their adversaries.  [I'm warning you!--ed.]  Why, it's almost like there's a paradox when it comes to economic sanctions.  [All right, that's it, this ridiculously self-promotional blog post is over!!--ed.]

UPDATE:  Ed Morse and Michael Makovsky have an excellent essay in The New Republic on the prospects of sanctioning Iran.