David Singer: Nuclear Knockout Not Nearly Nailed

"Nuclear Knockout Not Nearly Nailed" is the alliterative title of the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.


He writes:

President Obama seems to have been unduly optimistic in triumphantly proclaiming the success of the P5+1 talks with Iran in Lausanne.

Speaking from the White House President Obama announced:

“Today, the United States -- together with our allies and partners -- has reached a historic understanding with Iran, which, if fully implemented, will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon."

There was only “an understanding” – not even a piece of paper initialled by representatives of all the parties to the long and complex negotiations - that President Obama could wave to the waiting media setting out what that “understanding” was.

It did not take long to discover the reason explaining the absence of such an initialled document.

It turns out there are in fact two pieces of paper – one prepared by each side – but neither signed or agreed to by the other:

1. Parameters for a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran's Nuclear Program

2. Iranian Fact Sheet on the Nuclear Negotiations which was only published in Farsi – but has been subsequently translated into English - for which there does not appear to be an official Iranian Government translation.

The first and simplest question one needs to ask is – in what language will the final authorised version of the agreement be actually framed?

Will it be English or Farsi or both?

Can the nuances of language be properly translated from one language into another language so that the meaning of the words is absolutely identical in both versions?

Was this very basic issue even addressed at the Lausanne negotiations? No mention of it appears in either of the above documents.

Who is going to draft the agreement – supposed to be ready for signing on 30 June – the P5+1 or Iran?

The appearance of these above two documents supposedly recording their “understanding” have already revealed wide gaps in each party’s understanding of their understanding.

It can be reasonably concluded that the parties were indeed miles apart and that there is a lot more negotiating to do before a draft agreement can even be produced for discussion purposes – let alone signed in final form.

The differences between the two documents are stark on issues of major importance – as the Wall Street Journal points out:

1. On sanctions:

“The U.S. says sanctions relief will be phased, suspended, and tied to Iran’s compliance with the terms of the deal. Iran says the sanctions, once the final agreement is sealed, will end more quickly.”

2. On stockpiles:

“Iran says it will limit enrichment and its stockpile for 10 years, the U.S. says 15.”

3. On inspections:

“U.S.: The IAEA will have regular access to Iran’s nuclear facilities as well as the supply chain that supports Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran: The fact sheet doesn’t specifically mention access to facilities or inspections, but does say Iran would, on a voluntary and temporary basis, implement an “additional protocol” on access to nuclear facilities, “for the sake of transparency and confidence building.”

US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif reportedly held marathon negotiations through the night that ended after 6 a.m. on the morning of April 2, as they tried to overcome final gaps for a political accord on an Iran nuclear deal.

The result – two very different documents presenting two very different perspectives of what each side has taken away from the negotiations.

President Obama expressed his thanks:

“to our tireless -- and I mean tireless -- Secretary of State John Kerry and our entire negotiating team. They have worked so hard to make this progress.”

Progress?

The President must be joking.

By Their Words Ye Shall Know Them

And the pictures that they post, this (at left, and that at right below) by a co-founder of the "Free Gaza" movement.

 Remember the terrific article that British writer Howard Jacobson contributed to The Independent newspaper a couple of years ago about antisemitism and anti-Zionism?

Inter alia, it observed:

'....[I]t’s impossible to believe that an active anti-Semite wouldn’t – if only opportunistically – seek out somewhere to nestle in the manifold pleats of Israel-bashing, whether in generally diffuse anti-Zionism, or in more specific Boycott and Divestment Campaigns, Israeli Apartheid Weeks, End the Occupation movements and the like. Of course, you don’t have to hate Jews to hate Israel, but tell me that not a single Jew-hater finds the activity congenial, that criticising Israel can “never” be an expression of Jew-hating, not even when it takes the form of accusing Israeli soldiers of harvesting organs, then it follows that there’s no Jew-hating left....

To those who ask why Israel alone of all offending countries is to be boycotted, the answer comes back loud and clear from boycotters that because they cannot change the whole world, that is no reason not to try to change some small part of it, in this case the part where they feel they have the most chance of success, which also just happens to be the part that’s Jewish....

I’d call this implicit racism if I were a citizen of those circumambient Muslim countries that aren’t being boycotted – a tacit assumption that nothing can ever be done, say, about the persecution of women, the bombing of minorities, discrimination against Christians, the hanging of adulterers and homosexuals, and so on, because such things are intrinsic to their cultures ...'

 Well, I thought of that just now, when I read this:

As one indignant reader of the article has remarked:

 'I have pointed out to Ben White on his FB page that in my paper I had intended to read out at the Southampton Conference "Sadat at the Knesset November 1977, tectonic shift or lost opportunity" there is a clear line between the warm welcome he gives to Israel as a state in the region and the 1993 recognition of Israel by Chairman Arafat to PM Rabin and the subsequent Arab League Conferences in Beirut 2002 and Riyadh 2007. We are by no means just depending on the Balfour Declaration and San Remo or even the UN General Assembly Resolution on Partition in 1947.

 With due acknowledgement to WSC [Sir Winston Spencer Churchill] and [1960s British Labour Party leader] Hugh Gaitskell this is what I am telling Ben White in response to his saying we are ducking a fight."We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in Southampton, we shall fight in social media and in the press, we shall fight with growing strength and confidence in the justness of our cause, we shall defend the existence of Israel with all our might; we shall fight on the Radio and on TV we shall fight on Campus and at Speakers’ Corner , we shall fight fight and fight again to defend the country which is the sine qua non of our existence"'

And to quote another:

'What an ass. How conveniently he manages to leave out the invasion of Israel by 5 arab armies in 1947/1948. How conveniently he leaves out facts such as: Czechoslovakia was an amalgam of two distinct nationalities and has devolved to such; the USSR was an amalgam of many distinct nationalities and has devolved to such. So what is this ass suggesting? Replacing Jews with arabs? Or coming up with some ludicrous "bi-national" state that has never existed anywhere else, let alone successfully, and which is belied by the fact of the devolution of the USSR and Czechoslovakia.He also conveniently leaves out the splitting apart of Yugoslavia, anything but voluntary, and a devolution clearly based on ethnic differences, language differences AND religious differences. How it would have been so much more convenient for all these haters and fools had Hitler been 100% successful.'

Still Antisemitic After All These Years

It's been estimated that during the Second World War Bosnian Muslims comprised almost 12 per cent of the mainly Croatian Ustaše, the Nazi puppet regime that embarked on a ruthless extermination of Serbs, Romany people, and of course Jews, who then numbered between 14,000 and 22,000 in Bosnia.

For Bosniaks see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosniaks

But as Wikipedia states in its entry on the Mufti of Jerusalem:  

 "Among the Nazi leadership, the greatest interest in the idea of creating Muslim units under German command was shown by Heinrich Himmler, who viewed the Islamic world as a potential ally against the British Empire and regarded the Nazi-puppet Independent State of Croatia as a 'ridiculous state'.  Himmler had a romantic vision of Islam as a faith ‘fostering fearless soldiers’, and this probably played a significant role in his decision to raise three Muslim divisions under German leadership in the Balkans from Bosnian Muslims and Albanians: the 13th Handschar, the 21st Skanderberg, and the 23rd Kama (Shepherd's dagger)....   Dissatisfied with low enlistenment, Himmler asked the mufti to intervene. Husseini negotiated, made several requests, mostly ignored by the SS, and conducted several visits to the area.] His speeches and charismatic authority proved instrumental in improving enlistment notably....'

Sad to say, despite the small number of Jews living in their country today, antisemitism is clearly alive and well among some Bosnians.

In this shocking footage,

 "Bosnian fans meet a group of pro-Palestine demonstrators and after "Free Palestine" soon start chanting "Ubij, ubij Židove" ("Kill, kill the Jews!") in Vienna's central square (Stephansplatz) a few hours before the international friendly Austria - Bosnia&Herzegovina."

In Sydney, Anti-Israel Academic Riemer Rants About Islamophobia

Here's how a little pack of British anti-Israel diehards spent Easter Saturday, outside Arsenal's Highbury ground prior to the match with Liverpool, demanding that Israel be expelled from FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association):

On 4 April in Australia, though, fanatics were out in force.   Rallies in Australian capital cities against the perceived islamification of Australia (below, the view from Adelaide's John Bolton) were countered by "anti-racist" campaigners, most of whom appear to be far-leftists.

Photo credit: T.Illtis

Has the young Sydney woman in the photo not heard how the Taliban treats women and girls, or does she just not give a damn?  Ah, but then the ever-perverse left, even the "feminists" of the species, have a strange habit of tolerating in the West's enemies what they would not for one second tolerate in men of their own backgrounds, and of shutting their eyes and ears to accounts of Islamic misogyny by women who have been victims of it.

That many if not most of these Aussie counter-demonstrators are anti-Israel can surely be taken for granted.

After all, the Socialist Alliance and its ilk is known for its demonisation of Israel and its support for anti-Israel initiatives.

The woman convening this counter-demonstration in Sydney against the "racist" rally simultaneously taking place in Martin Place enthusiastically mentioned his pro-BDS stance in her warm welcome to Dr Nick Riemer, one of Associate Professor Jake Lynch's chief academic supporters at Sydney University, who can be seen on this video from around 4.34 raging against "Islamophobia" and "xenophobia" and of course the Abbott government:

At the end of the rally the woman in charge (who like pro-Palestine feminist Melbourne councillor Sue Bolton in this footage of the corresponding Melbourne counter-demo neatly avoids the issue of Islamic misogyny by some typical leftist verbal gymnastics) warns participants to be vigilant for louts, especially drunken louts, from the other side.

Truth to tell, some of the types on both sides look as though they should be avoided in narrow alleys, and not only during the hours of darkness.  

At the Adelaide "racist" rally,  one of the"islamophobes" (not Jewish) carries an Israeli flag.

photo credit: adelaidenow.com.au

"These Treacherous Snakes ... Bellydancing For Netanyahu"

Gorgeous George on what goes on in the casinos and bordellos of London and why the Saudi rulers "have nothing to do with Islam":

Hat tip: Ian

Incidentally, while on the subject of Saudi Arabia and Shi'ites versus Sunnis, here's a rather clever cartoon (h/t Bruce's Mideast Soundbites):

David Singer: Obama Admits Defeat On Renewed Negotiations For Two-State Solution

Here is the latest article by Australian lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.  It is entitled "Palestine – Obama Admits Defeat On Renewed Negotiations For Two-State Solution".

Writes David Singer:

President Obama has finally admitted the death of any renewed negotiations for a two-state solution between Israel and the PLO for the next several years, telling the media on 24 March:

“there still does not appear to be a prospect of a meaningful framework established that would lead to a Palestinian state even if there were a whole range of conditions and security requirements that might be phased in over a long period of time -- which was always the presumption.”

President Obama has apparently accepted Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s contention that such negotiations are not possible whilst conflicts involving radical Islam rage in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen.

President Obama had until now placed his faith in such negotiations:

“Now, I have said repeatedly that core issues can only be negotiated in direct talks between the parties.” 

The rise of Islamic State in June 2014 has created a new ballgame and new dynamic.

Islamic State’s possible spill-over into Gaza and the West Bank cannot be ignored by Obama when Israel is being requested by Obama to withdraw from part of the West Bank and cede part of its own sovereign territory to the PLO in accordance with President Obama’s vision enunciated in May 2011: 

“... the United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine. The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps - so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.” 

Abandoning territory – as Israel did in Gaza in 2005 – will require ironclad security guarantees.
President Obama’s pledge to degrade and destroy Islamic State is a work in progress that could take up to three years – as Secretary of State John Kerry openly admitted last September at a NATO Summit attended by President Obama and himself.

Six months later Kerry’s assessment has been thrown into serious doubt by Syria’s President Assad – who in a rare interview with 60 Minutes on 30 March declared: 

"Actually ISIS [Islamic State] has expanded since the beginning of strikes – not like some Americans want to sugar coat the situation - to say that it is getting better, ISIS [Islamic State] is being defeated and so-on. Actually No – they have more recruits. Suggested estimates say they have 1000 recruits every month in Syria and Iraq. They are expanding in Libya and many Al-Qaeda affiliated organisations have announced their allegiance to ISIS.” 

Israel cannot possibly be expected in these circumstances to negotiate with the PLO on establishing secure and recognized borders as stipulated by President Obama and Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 – until Islamic State is finally degraded and destroyed.

President Obama has announced he is going back to the drawing board.

“the evaluation that’s taking place is specific to what happens between the Israelis and Palestinians going forward. We’ll continue to engage the Israeli government as well as the Palestinians, and ask them where they are interested in going and how do they see this issue being resolved. But what we can’t do is pretend that there’s a possibility of something that’s not there. And we can’t continue to premise our public diplomacy based on something that everybody knows is not going to happen at least in the next several years.” 

President Obama should – in such evaluation process – seriously explore the possibility of first demanding that President Mahmoud Abbas call presidential and parliamentary elections in Gaza and the West Bank – last held in 2005 and 2006 respectively.

Let democracy replace these repressive dictatorships. 

The Daphne Anson blog wishes all Jewish readers Chag Pesach Sameach, and all Christian readers a Happy Easter.

Pimping Hamas Propaganda: BBC's Bowen Blows Khaled Meshaal's Trumpet

For the BBC's scandalously biased "Middle East editor" Jeremy Bowen, as for other employees of Britain's bloated left-leaning "national broadcaster" including members of Bowen's equally biased team, the Guardian and Ha'aretz are clearly the go-to newspapers for opinion pieces regarding Israel.

Those two newspapers typify, of course, the jaundiced opinions of the Beeboids (as the Biased BBC website terms the Corporation's hacks) themselves.

Bowen, Danahar, Donnison and the rest of the bunch can be relied upon to tweet and bignote (without any countervailing balance) articles in those papers that present Israel in a bad light.

Bowen and his cronies give far too much publicity to Ha'aretz, which is after all a newspaper with a comparably small circulation in its own country, and one widely despised by pro-Israel opinion as a propaganda rag that is helping to undermine and demonise Israel, especially Netanyahu's Israel,  abroad.

The BBC aids and abets that  undermining and demonising  by serving up to viewers, listeners, and, in particular,  Twitter followers, such partisan items as these (eyes, er, left) which appear among Bowen's currently visible tweets.

Not surprisingly, many people who do not share the Beeboids' hostility to Israel, people who believe that the BBC should honour its obligations to present news untainted by political slant,  half-truths, and factual errors, are fuming over its Today radio broadcast in which Khalid Meshaal of the genocidal terrorist group Hamas was allowed by Bowen to get away with propaganda and falsehoods.

See http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32060613

 Thus (and this is not an April Fool's Day "joke"), under the headline 'Hamas leader Meshaal Warns of Israeli "extremism"after elections' we learn from the BBC:

'The political leader of the militant Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas says the results of Israel's elections will further diminish hopes for peace.

Khaled Meshaal told the BBC the victory of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party and its right-wing allies meant there would be "more extremism".'

He said Hamas was not looking for any escalation, but would defend itself....

In an interview with BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen in Qatar, Mr Meshaal said attacks on Israel would continue "as long as there is occupation, aggression, war and killing". But he stressed that Hamas was "careful to respect international humanitarian law and to target only military targets.'

 And we also find (same page) "Analysis" from the execrable Bowen (remember this howler from him regarding the Muslim Brotherhood?):

 'Khaled Meshaal looked to be in good health. "Keep fit to keep on resisting," he joked before the interview.

He was noticeably slimmer than when we last met in Damascus, before he relocated to Doha with his staff. For years, President Bashar al-Assad gave Mr Meshaal an HQ and protection. But he said "when we were asked to side with the regime against the will of the people, we refused."

Most of the armed rebels in Syria are, like Hamas, Sunni Muslims. Mr Meshaal rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's accusation that Hamas was the same as the jihadist groups Islamic State and al-Qaeda, condemning them as un-Islamic.

He seemed to be calibrating his comments on the conflict with Israel to catch the prevailing mood of anger towards Mr Netanyahu in the White House, after his sharp turn to the ultra-nationalist Israeli Right in the last days of the election campaign.

Mr Meshaal called for a sovereign independent Palestinian state and an end to the occupation of land captured in the 1967 Middle East war. So did the White House chief of staff earlier this week.

The Palestinians, he asserted, had shown that they were "flexible, serious and keen to achieve a just and rightful peace".

"But Israel killed the peace process," he added, blaming Mr Netanyahu's outgoing government, along with "extremist forces" in Israel, for the collapse of the US-brokered direct negotiations last year.

"Israeli policies have always been bad, but today the Israeli Right is on the rise, and that produced Netanyahu's victory in the last election. So it is going to get more difficult and we will see more extremism in the Israeli mentality."'

Although Hamas has opposed years of on-off peace talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, Mr Meshaal said he and the group had agreed to accept the boundaries which existed before the 1967 Middle East war as the basis for those of a future Palestinian state.

Mr Meshaal urged the international community to grant the Palestinians full recognition at the United Nations. He noted Mr Netanyahu's pre-election vow not to allow a Palestinian state, which was criticised by US President Barack Obama.

The Israeli leader has since insisted that he was not rejecting a two-state solution outright, but that he believed it was impossible right now.'

He cited the Palestinians' refusal to recognise Israel as a Jewish state and last year's reconciliation deal between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement and Hamas, as well as the rise of Islamist extremism in the region.

Following his re-election, Mr Netanyahu said: "Our hand is held out in peace to our Palestinian neighbours and the people of Israel know that real peace - and our future - will only be assured if Israel is strong."

In his interview, Mr Meshaal dismissed statements by Mr Netanyahu and others in Israel that compared Hamas to jihadist groups like Islamic State and al-Qaeda.

 '"This is an obvious Israeli game," he said. "They are trying to be on the same page as the West and the US administration - that they are together in the 'War on Terror'."'Hamas, he added, was "an active resistance with a just cause, battling the occupier."

 "Others practice violence under the name of jihad, which we condemn. And this is not Islam. Islam encourages its followers to fight those who occupy their land and their sacred places. But Islam does not allow killing innocent people, civilians, or killing based on identity, belief and different views, political or religious."

(The above is also available here)

Prominent among the critics of this disturbing piece of propaganda for and from a genocidal terror organisation is Arnold Roth, whose fifteen-old-daughter Malki fell victim to terrorism in Jerusalem in 2001.

Begins Arnold Roth in an indignant, heartfelt post:

"Jeremy Bowen and his minders at the BBC today provides the sleek arch-terrorist Khaled Meshaal with an invaluable platform (not for the first time) for marketing the jihadist program of his outlawed Hamas terror organization to an international audience, safe from the threat of incisive or even semi-informed questions. Despotic, thuggish 'militant' terrorists world-wide must be green with envy."

 Read the rest of Arnold Roth's post here

And as someone has pointed out privately, Meshaal in this slimy, infuriating interview

"claimed to be following in the footsteps of World War Two resistance movements in Europe. Bowen did not point out that the various resistance movements did not go after the civilian population, the women and children, of the occupying power."

 Update: Don't miss BBC Watch's analysis of this latest outbreak of Bowenitis