The Latest from Israel-Gaza-Palestine (31 January)

Latest Post:The Turkey-Israel Clash on Gaza -The American Jewish Committee Joins In

11:20 p.m. Intriguing manoeuvres in Cairo. Earlier it was reported that Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas would be in Egypt on Sunday, at the same time that a Hamas delegation was in Egypt. Abbas' staff are now saying he will make an "unscheduled" stop in Cairo on Monday.

9:45 p.m. A potentially key development in the Middle East. I had heard, while in Dublin, of the high hopes of Obama officials for a breakthrough in relations with Syria. (You may recall that Damascus was an associate member of the Axis of Evil during the Dubya years, and the US pulled its ambassador after the 2005 killing of Lebanese leader Rafik Hariri by a car bomb.)

Well, today Syrian President Bashir al-Assad met a US Congressional delegation and called for a "positive" dialogue with Washington based on, echoing President Obama's Inaugural phrase, "common interests and mutual respect".

However, before getting too effusive about the "excellent beginning", as one Congressman called the meeting, US officials may want to note that part of Assad's manoeuvring is to get (and to take credit for) recognition of Hamas. So holding out the prospect of warmer relations with Washington, while it has many uses for Syria, is also being used as a lever in the Israel-Palestine process.

9:30 p.m. Egypt says it has installed cameras and motion sensors along the border with Gaza to stop smuggling through tunnels.



6:30 p.m. Palestinian Authorian leader Mahmoud Abbas, predictably, has rejected Hamas' calls for a dissolution of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and its replacement by a new umbrella Palestinian group: "[Hamas political director Khaled Meshaal's statements regarding the establishment of a new authority to replace the Palestine Liberation Organisation is an exercise in time-wasting. While he talks about establishing an organisation, he really wants to destroy what has been the voice (of the Palestinian people) for 44 years."

The PLO, founded in 1964, including Abbas' Fatah Party and other Palestinian political movements but not Hamas. Both Abbas and Hamas representatives are due in Cairo on Sunday for talks.

3:20 p.m. According to a Sydney reporter, the Israeli Ambassador to Australia has said,"The country's recent military offensives [in Gaza] were a preintroduction to the challenge Israel expects from a nuclear-equipped Iran within a year." Israel expects Tehran to "be at the point of no return" within 14 months.

3 p.m. Propaganda Story of the Day 2 (see 9:30 a.m.): Israeli military and officers are putting about the story that "an Iranian aid ship is now serving as a communications headquarters for Hamas".

The DEBKAfile, closely linked to Israeli services, added, "Iran has sent intelligence and Revolutionary Guards officers to Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, to help create a support system for the Iran Shahed's new communications purpose."

1:30 p.m. CNN's website has an update on the ongoing student demonstrations in Britain protesting the situation in Gaza. It's an article heavily tilted against the demos, focusing on the request of the National Union of Students call for an end to occupations and a supposed increase in hostility towards Jewish students.

10:25 a.m. Some good news. Despite the refusal of the BBC to air the Disaster Emergencies Committee appeal for aid to Gaza, the campaign has raised £3 million (more than $4 million) in its first week.

Morning Update (9:30 a.m.): Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is continuing his high-profile attack, which we've covered extensively, on Israel's policies in Gaza with an interview in The Washington Post: "Palestine today is an open-air prison."

Propaganda Story of the Day: The winner is in Israel's YNet News, "Thousands of al-Qaeda supporters active in Gaza". The sensationalist tale is based on information from two unnamed Palestinian sources.

A rocket from Gaza has landed near Ashkelon. There were no casualties.

This Week's Top Rationalisation of Killing: Michael Gerson on "Coercive Peace"

Michael Gerson, former speechwriter for former President GeorgeW. Bush, in today's Washington Post on the Israel-Gaza conflict:

We can try to imagine a world of diplomats without soldiers, but it would be no more peaceful than a society of therapists without policemen. Coercion is not the ultimate source of peace -- but peace is sometimes unachievable without it.

Footnote with Absolute No Irony Whatsoever --- George W. Bush, 2005 Inaugural Address (author: Michael Gerson):

From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this Earth has rights, and dignity and matchless value because they bear the image of the maker of heaven and Earth.

Today's Obamameter: The Latest in US Foreign Policy (30 January)

Current Obamameter Reading: Neutral

5:15 p.m. So you want to know the direction of US strategy in Afghanistan? Here's a big clue: the next American Ambassador to Afghanistan is not a diplomat. It's Lieutenant General Karl Eisenberry, who has done two tours of duty in the country, including a 18-month stint that ended in 2007.

This is the first time in my memory that a serving military officer has been appointed as an ambassador, and it effectively means that the military has locked down the key posts in the Afghan theater. Eikenberry will be working with the head of the Central Command, General David Petraeus, the US commander in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, supported in Washington by General James Jones, the National Security Advisor.

5 p.m. The Pentagon is beginning to define the escalation of US troops in Afghanistan. A combat brigade of 3700 troops deployed east of Kabul this week. Five more brigades, including one for training of Afghan forces, could eventually be sent out this year, and the orders for three of those brigades, including a Marine task force, may be issued next week.

With the already-deployed brigade, the three to be deployed, and 5000 support forces, the US will be adding 25,000 troops to the Afghan theatre by mid-summer. That is an increase of about 60 percent in the American troop level: currently there are 19,000 soldiers under American command and 17,000 in NATO's International Security Assistance Force.



1:30 p.m. The US has called North Korea's rhetoric towards South Korea (see 7 a.m.) "distinctly not helpful".

1 p.m. The US Government has expressed scepticism over a deal for power-sharing in Zimbabwe between current President Robert Mugabe and the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai: ""What is important here is actions and not words. We want to see real, serious power-sharing by the Mugabe regime."

7 a.m. (Washington time): North Korea is not exactly in line with President Obama's "reach-out" strategy, scrapping all accords with South Korea. "There is neither a way to improve (relations) nor hope to bring them on track," stated the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, "Inter-Korean relations have reached the brink of a war."

CNN, meanwhile, is paying close attention to the row between Turkey and Israel at the Davos Economic Forum. Ali Yenidunya has posted an analysis for Enduring America.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has said at Davos that Tehran is ready to work with President Obama. We're keeping a close eye on this, as there is talk of a secret US-Iran meeting next week --- we'll be posting on that later.

Trying to close one of the notorious chapters in the Iraq War story, Baghdad has refused to renew the license of the US security company Blackwater.

The Latest on Turkey, Israel, and the Crash in Davos (Video and Analysis)

Latest Post:The Turkey-Israel Clash on Gaza -The American Jewish Committee Joins In

Israeli President Shimon Peres says he has had an "amicable" telephone conversation with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan: "I called him up and said, yes, it's nothing against you, nothing against Turkey. We consider you as a friend." Peres added that he had answered "unfounded accusations".

Erdogan, meanwhile, told a conference Friday afternoon: "Nobody has the right to wish that an incident in which 1,300 people died and 5,000 people were injured be ignored.” Even more significant was his linkage of Turkey's emerging role in the Middle East with his domestic political position. Citing the "fundamental slogan" of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish state, “Peace at home, Peace in the world”, he continued, "This is why we mediated between Israel-Syria and Israel-Palestine; we played an active role in the solution of Lebanon conflict.”



Erdogan was careful to express his position as one of opposition to violence and killing, rather than an opposition to Tel Aviv: "We do not blame Israel, the Israeli people and Jews.…We are against anti-Semitism…” He may, however, be facing a challenge from the Turkish military. Brigadier Metin Gurak, the Chief of the Communication Department of the General Staff declared that it was essential to act "in accordance with the national interests" in terms of Turkey’s bilateral military relations with others.

Scenes of thousands of Gazans gathering on streets to show support for Erdogan divided media and the public in Turkey. While some accused the Prime Minister of not putting sufficient emphasis on the "terrorist" identity of Hamas, others appreciated his "determined" and "idealist" posture on the stage in Davos.

Enduring America Exclusive: Secret US-Iran Talks in Near-Future?

"Engagement" may be more than rhetoric: it appears that US and Iranian representatives may be meeting --- very, very quietly --- as early as next week.



Last Monday, an Iranian newspaper closely linked with former President Khatami, Yari News, reported, "Secret talks between Tehran and Washington are about to be ‎held at a European capital." ‎Specifically, "discussions are to be held between Mojtaba ‎Samareh Hashemi, representing Ahmadinejad, and William Perry, representing Obama." ‎Samareh Hashemi is a former Foreign Ministry official who is now a senior advisor to Iranian President Ahmadinejad; Perry is a former US Secretary of Defense and an advisor to the Obama 2008 campaign.

Initially, after a reader pointed us to the story, we treated it as just one of many rumours flying about in the first days of the Obama Administration. But then we put this together with the news, announced yesterday, that US representatives were travelling to Berlin next week for meetings on Iran with China, Russia, Britain, Germany, and France.

And then just now, we found this on "The Cable", a blog associated with the journal Foreign Policy:

Several sources told The Cable that the informal dialogue between senior Americans and the Iranians was much more robust in recent months than has been previously reported. Over the past year, our sources confirmed, former Defense Secretary William Perry and a group of high-level U.S. nuclear nonproliferation specialists and U.S. experts on Iran held a series of meetings in European cities with Iranian officials under the auspices of the Pugwash group.

Pugwash, an activist group committed to nuclear disarmament, convened four meetings, one of which was in the Hague in August and another in Vienna in December. The Iranian delegation included Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The American side included Perry as well as Robert Einhorn, a former Assistant Secretary of State and advisor on non-proliferation to the Hillary Clinton and then Obama campaigns. Einhorn, now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is expected to be named Undersecretary of State for Arms Control.

There are a number of cautions around both the Pugwash report and Yari News's claim of a government-to-government meeting. Einhorn has denied his involvement in any talks with Iran, and Samareh Hashemi has denied any participation in forthcoming discussions. A US Government official damped down any expectations based on past contacts:

[The Pugwash process] is just more of the same "Track II" activities that so many of the participants love to think of as secret talks. There are a number of these things going on and it's hard to keep them straight....Absolutely nothing to do with government to government.