The fall of Saddam: some German coverage
Baghdad: German reporter joins in looting (ARD reporter Christoph Maria Froehder to the Sueddeutsche Zeitung)*:

...Outside, about fifty meters away, American tanks drove by [the German embassy]. Nobody stopped the looters. We were able to save three flags -- we'll send one to Joschka Fischer. [why not all three? -ed.] The mood has changed too. A couple of days ago we would be greeted as friends by Iraqis, if we told them we were Germans. "Schroeder good," the Iraqis would say. Now they tell us "Schroeder bad, Fischer bad."

Berlin: In the valley of the clueless (Christoph Schwennicke, Sueddeutsche Zeitung):

...The cabinet met in the morning, and as the devil wants it, important people aren't around on important days: Joschka Fischer was repairing the Middle East on Wednesday. His state minister Kerstin Mueller had quickly and sedulously prepared an Iraq status report, but didn't present it. There was a lack of chancellor interest, judging by Schroeder's reply to her offer: "No, skip it," he reportedly said.

Instead the mighty panel devoted itself to important questions like the misuse of 0190 phone numbers -- "very important, too!", as someone from the meeting was still insisting the next day. [...]

So at this point there was a fairly relaxed atmosphere in the Berlin Valley of the Clueless. The March 20 beginning of the war had been overslept too, for lack of a phone call from Washington. ... Arriving in his office at 3:35pm, the chancellor was updated by his staff... and zapped from channel to channel through the live coverage and summaries of the historic moments that were already being broadcast. [...]

Behind the nicely rebuilt facades, it's clear that Berlin is still wrestling with the new situation. In the security council the discussion at noon is about trips to the US, one by Development minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul and one by Hans Eichel to the World Bank and the IMF on the weekend, and a possible visit by [Defense minister] Peter Struck to Rumsfeld in early May. One will have to see how to rebuild cautiously on the rubble of this war.

Otherwise it's obvious that no one knows quite what it means in practical terms to say that one will not shirk participating in the reconstruction of Iraq. But -- in moments of profound change it takes a while to get back on track. That's no different in Berlin than it is in Baghdad.

Richard Herzinger, Die Zeit:

A victory for freedom ... But for the moment it should be noted: the USA and Great Britain have been pretty much right in estimating that the Iraqi regime was hollowed out, had no support in the populace, and would therefore be defeated relatively quickly. The war lasted exactly three weeks. [...]

It's already clear that Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder und Joschka Fischer were wrong when they characterized the Iraq war as an "irresponsible adventure."

Bernd Ulrich, Die Zeit:

...The Americans -- to take up their first argument -- were convinced that Saddam Hussein would never give up all his weapons via inspections. And they feared that he would work with terrorists. But this nightmare never really touched Europeans. The ugly truth is: Europe doesn't consider itself threatened by Osama bin Laden. And this war sharpens the difference. It makes the Americans even more the targets of terrorism.

Many Europeans were already appeasers in the Cold War -- with good reason. If the war had turned hot, they would have been the first victims. Back then we were detente politicians, because we were the most threatened. Today, by contrast, we're appeaser of the Arab nations, because we feel ourselves the least threatened. That's not solidarity. One can calculate all kinds of things in Berlin or Paris -- but then one should abandon the transatlantic rhetoric. [...]

Yes, this war breaks international law. The Americans should be criticized for that -- but so should international law. The world needs international law that protects people more than states, and the oppressed more than the oppressors. This is what should be negotiated.

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* My title, not Froehders, which was "Schroeder schlecht." On the other hand, Schwennicke really did title his article "In the valley of the clueless." [ahnungslos]
UPDATE: Argh! I should have headlined this as "German reporter loots own embassy," of course. Shoulda, woulda, coulda.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:54:00 PM -- |    

 

Barak's offer at Camp David
Benny Morris interviewed Ehud Barak about the year 2000 Camp David negotiations for a New York Review of Books article. An excerpt:

But in the West Bank, Barak says, the Palestinians were promised a continuous piece of sovereign territory except for a razor-thin Israeli wedge running from Jerusalem through from Maale Adumim to the Jordan River. Here, Palestinian territorial continuity would have been assured by a tunnel or bridge:

The Palestinians said that I [and Clinton] presented our proposals as a diktat, take it or leave it. This is a lie. Everything proposed was open to continued negotiations. They could have raised counter-proposals. But they never did.

Barak explains Arafat's "lie" about "bantustans" as stemming from his fear that "when reasonable Palestinian citizens would come to know the real content of Clinton's proposal and map, showing what 92 percent of the West Bank means, they would have said: 'Mr. Chairman, why didn't you take it?'" (emphasis added)

This partly supports a Palestine Orient House map (via MidEast Web), showing two Israeli wedge-and-corridors through the West Bank: a northern one via Ariel and Shilo and a southern one via Maale Adumim and Shilo. A Israeli-controlled Jordan river corridor connects these two, resulting in at least three major Palestinian West Bank "islands" bounded by relatively narrow Israeli corridors or the Israeli "mainland." Calling these "bantustans" is only a slight exaggeration (the South African bantustans were a bit more far-flung)-- assuming for a moment that the Orient House maps accurately reflect Camp David discussions.

As noted, the Morris article suggests they at least got it partly right, by arguably describing the map's southern corridor. Barak and the Palestine House maps thus seem to agree on one thing: the West Bank was to be gerrymandered, to preserve at least some of the Israeli settlements. The accuracy of descriptions like "razor-thin" (Barak) and "bantustan" (Arafat) is in the eye of the beholder.

Given the fluid situation at the summit described by most participants, it's possible that the two versions of the West Bank refer to two different proposals floated at the summit; of course, it's also possible one or the other (or both) are inaccurate in its details. But assuming (as I do) that Barak isn't lying, the offer he described to Morris would have further subdivided a Palestine already split between the West Bank and Gaza -- and preserved a string of galling settlements through the center of the West Bank.

I'm writing about this as part of an ongoing conversation with Gil "Israeli Guy" Shterzer, who took mild exception to my offhand description of the Barak offer as a "patchwork territory criss-crossed by Israeli roads and zones." In his comments, Gil said, "I'll take Barak's word in any given time, especially when the countering is Arafat's word, and we all know his credibility."

Well, here is Barak's word. It may not amount to the "criss-crossed patchwork" I described, but it's not difficult to understand why Palestinians weren't overjoyed by the idea. At any rate, I still hope the "People's Voice" proposal gains support. posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:06:00 PM -- |    

 

Keep your eyes off the ball...
...says honorable blogparent Matt Welch; I hear and obey:

4/7: ANC gets two-thirds majority in South Africa's Parliament; Prime Minister (and noted HIV/AIDS scholar) Thabo Mbeki now has the power to rewrite the South African constitution. (via UK blog Conservative Commentary)

4/7: Israel allows a settlement in Palestinian Jerusalem (same story referred to below).

4/8: China blocks North Korea resolution in Security Council.

4/9: Hundreds dead in Congo massacres.

...and much, much more, via Daniel Drezner, on Cuba, Belarus, Zimbabwe, etcetera!

...unless you're in ...

4/7: Palo Alto, where the City Council is considering a ban on eye-rolling. (via Educated Guesswork)

posted by Thomas Nephew at 6:02:00 PM -- |    

 

Comical Saeed
David Aaronovitch, one of my favorite British columnists, on ex?-Minister of Information Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf (in "Me and Labour: is it time to tie the knot?"):

No one cares about the demise of the previously mentioned Chemical Ali (now there, Tam, was a war criminal for you!), but I'm rather hoping that if one Saddamite survives the war in Iraq, it will be Comical Saeed, the information minister.

His has been an amazing act - Goebbels meets Groucho Marx. Remember, "There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!"? Or, "The Americans are not at the airport, they are 100km away!"? And my favourite, when asked whether he had seen Saddam Hussein, "Have I seen him? This question is none of your business!"

For nearly three weeks, almost unaided, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf has faced hundreds of foreign media types, and conjured up vast, imaginary legions of resisting Saddam-loving Iraqis and certain annihilation for the invaders. His very imperturbability has suggested to many that he knew something that they didn't, that the emperor was armoured from head to foot. How does he do it?

I really like the title "Minister of Information." You can't stop me: I am now Minister of Information. My taxes are done, and I will get a refund. SARS is vanquished. Same for HIV. -- Have I seen Cheney? This question is none of your business! posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:45:00 PM -- |    

 
Good riddance


It was just a statue, admittedly. But whether or not Saddam is dead, Iraqis felt safe enough to start knocking his statues down, and joyously did so. That news, and the all-but-complete defeat of Saddam, seems to have been an eye-opener in the Arab media, judging by items like this one in a Washington Post roundup of Arab reactions:

Arab News: The pride the Arabs felt in the initial stages of the invasion, before those legendary 'pockets of resistance' halting the advance of the world's only superpower were revealed as a myth, has been replaced by immense shame and humiliation. The images of US soldiers taking a picnic in the heart of Baghdad will haunt the Arab psyche for generations to come.

I don't want their shame or humiliation. Most of the reactions in the article were like that: grudging admissions of what couldn't be denied, then expressions of shame that were more meant as threats than as insights. Why be surprised? A lot has been invested in seeing the United States as the problem, not Saddam. The most important impact won't be on Arab media editorials or op-ed columns, at least not right away. It will be on fellow Arabs watching Iraqi joy at Saddam's fall with their own eyes.



This is not to gloat. No one should dare to gloat when children have been maimed, killed, and orphaned -- even if other children have been freed from jail, and yet others spared future abuse as hostages or worse. No one should gloat when many of the Iraqi troops killed in battle were little more than blackmail victims used as cannon fodder by their masters.

At least this war has been swift so far, thanks to the training and courage of the coalition soldiers who've fought it and the nations who equipped them. But this war was also terrible, because wars are always terrible. It isn't over yet, either: Baghdad alone is a big place, and Iraq probably still has a lot of surviving hard-core Baathists and Saddam supporters.*

And while the absence of confirmed WMD discoveries so far may not bother everyone, I'll confess it bothers me. That story isn't over yet, of course, and there will be half-convincing explanations for their absence. But as little as it matters to anyone besides myself, and whether it's inconsistent of me or not: I'll have some nagging doubts if nothing turns up, even if Iraqi non-cooperation itself provided a legitimate basis for this war and a danger signal for the years to come.

I'll push aside all misgivings and regrets for now: it was simply great to see those people pull down that statue, to see the jubilation in Baghdad, Sulaimaniyah, Basra, and elsewhere over the past days. Iraqi freedom is a precondition to restoring Iraq's place among the decent nations, a condition at least on a par with the presence or absence of weapons of mass destruction. Even knowing that a lot of necessary next steps lie ahead: the liberation of Iraq from Saddam is the necessary first step. Credit to all who deserve it, from Bush and Blair through Rumsfeld to Franks and the soldiers who made it happen. Congratulations, and thank you.

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*UPDATE 4/10: ...so that Tikrit may be a tougher fight. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:40:00 PM -- |    

 
Another alternative Palestinian (and Israeli) agenda
While we're on the subject: it turns out that Aziz Poonawalla posted an article ("basic needs and desires of all peoples") about the Israeli-Palestinian issue on Sunday, too.

Aziz argues for a bi-national single state, an even more idealistic solution than the Nusseibeh-Ayalon "People's Voice" initiative I described. This approach is laid out in detail by a group called the Alternative Palestinian Agenda (APA), whose initiative proposes reconfiguring Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip as a federal union of three U.S.-state-like regions: 1) majority Jewish areas within pre 1967 Israel, 2) West Bank/Gaza/other majority Arab areas, and 3) Jerusalem. The APA provides maps of "Palestine-Israel" and Jerusalem to illustrate their proposal. There would be a single Senate, Parliament, Supreme Court, currency, and military. A great number of additional details are presented in the APA proposal -- all the way to a gun ban and anti-discrimination commissions -- but these seem the most critical.

This bi-national state solution at least makes the Nusseibeh-Ayalon idea seem attainable and feasible. I won't pretend to have followed Aziz' arguments in detail yet, this is more of a "go take a look" post in that respect.

My initial reaction is that this plan and proponents like Aziz choose to ignore what the state of Israel means to Israelis, at least as this non-Jew and non-Israeli understands it. That would be Israel as a place apart, as a refuge for Jews and Judaism. This may be wrong on my part, or it may be wrong, on some level, for Israelis to cling to such views at the expense of fresh thinking like the APA initiative..

Be that as it may, I think a single-state solution like the APA's would be overwhelmingly rejected by Israeli voters. Given the history of Israel, it would seem a surrender of what Israel has come to mean to many of its defenders. That's no reason to not try -- unless the political resources might be better spent elsewhere. I have the feeling Palestinians would reject such a plan by a similar margin, and for similar reasons: they don't want to be part of a nation, they want to be a nation of their own, period. But I don't know.

I have a couple of other feelings as well, though. The first one is that 9/11 has put Americans and Israelis in a similar psychological boat; Americans can't be said not to "get it" about terrorism, the existential threat affecting Israeli lives and politics every day. The second is that both the historic American support for Israel and the current expenditure of blood and treasure in Iraq has earned the United States a seat at the Israeli table as a road map to peace is drawn.

As I write, "Operation Iraqi Freedom" is knocking down a threat not just to ourselves, but also to Israel, and at real cost and risk to the United States. Americans have thereby earned a deeper right than ever to make demands of Israel: an end to the settlements, serious consideration of the Bush administration "road map,"* and creativity in arriving at an equitable solution, or at least a reasonable cease-fire, for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Given the Iraqi defeat, the United States and Israel couldn't be reasonably thought to be dealing from a position of weakness or as a reward to terrorism/intimidation, a common argument against negotiations.

But progress seems to be stuck in reverse gear. On Monday, the Guardian reported that the Israeli government permitted a settlement in heretofore off-limits Palestinian Jerusalem. The United States should respond unfavorably, bluntly, and painfully. These days, it's at least nice to see a way to save a little money.**

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* This speech refers to a prior June 24, 2002 speech. While it emphasized the need for Palestinian reforms and the end of support for terrorism, it also contained language directed at the Israeli government.
** Data via this Jewish Virtual Library discussion.
TECH 4/11: In case anyone ever cares: for some reason the automatic permalink for this item remains wrong. Here is the correct permalink. posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:12:00 AM -- |    

 

"The People's Voice"
Hamifkad Haleumi, or the "People's Voice," is an initiative trying to create grass-roots support for a "two states" political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is headed by the Palestinian Sari Nusseibeh of Al Quds University and Ami Ayalon, a retired Israeli high military official, who have the goal of collecting one million signatures online or otherwise, from the two peoples. From the "Statement of Principles":

Permanent borders between the two states will be agreed upon on the basis of the June 4, 1967 lines, UN resolutions, and the Arab peace initiative (known as the Saudi initiative). [...]

After establishment of the agreed borders, no settlers will remain in the Palestinian State. [...]

Palestinian refugees will return only to the State of Palestine; Jews will return only to the State of Israel. [...]

The Palestinian State will be demilitarized and the international community will guarantee its security and independence.

I learned of this a few weeks ago via "Israeli Guy" Gil Shterzer, who comments:

...I'm pretty skeptic but I sure wish it will succeed. I signed the petition and if you are an Israeli you can sign as well over here.

As folks have commented on Gil's blog, it's a little disappointing the Arabic language version of the site is still under construction. In her comments, on the other hand, Diane Moon is dismissive, calling it a "public relations stunt" and urging Gil to "stop trying to get Arabs to like you." Gil replies,

The point here is not to show that we are nice but to clarify what Israel is willing to compromise on and on what Israel isn't willing to compromise.

Another reason for this campaign is to shake the Israel public out of its numbness. The people here have gloomed into apathy.

There's not much about "Hamifkad Haleumi" on the web; I've found you'll have better luck Googling about this using the words"Nusseibeh Ayalon," via which I found this highly negative assessment --"Palestinian rights in the document shredder" -- by "Electronic Intifada" writer Ali Abunimah. Mr. Abunimah is mainly upset about the agreement to give up the Palestinian right of return to lands under Israeli control, and about the details of the Jerusalem partition. Yehudith Harel of Gush Shalom, an Israeli peace group, makes similar criticisms.

As near as I can tell, the plan at least doesn't repeat the Barak error of presenting the Palestinians with a patchwork territory criss-crossed by Israeli roads and zones. The full withdrawal of settlers seems like a major concession under the circumstances, and compensation is envisioned for Palestinians who lose the right of return. Since this is something the agreement envisions being ratified by the governments of the two peoples, it seems like this is not an abrogation of rights, as Abunimah charges, or an evasion of responsibility, as Harel claims.

I'm with Mr. Shterzer: I hope this agreement receives support.

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UPDATE, 4/8: Gil updates the story: Nusseibeh and Ayalon are seeking an endorsement from the Israeli president, Moshe Katsav, according to an item in Ha'aretz. Katsav's post is largely ceremonial, but it's still a nice touch.

Gil also gently chides me for being a "bit misinformed describing Barak’s offer in Camp David"; see the comments to his post, where I present some evidence -- and he rebuts fairly effectively. More on this little historical dispute soon. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:09:00 PM -- |