The Politics of Oil: How Russia Pursues Its Energy Dream in the Middle East

By Yuri Barman, AL SHARQ FORUM

The Politics

Against the backdrop of instability in the global energy industry, Moscow is seeking to consolidate its share of the oil and gas markets as well as ensure that its revenue stream from the oil trade does not thin out. With that in mind, Russia pursues a policy of engaging its natural rivals in the industry from the Middle East with the aim of dividing up the markets fairly and on mutually beneficial principles. Moscow negotiated an almost-impossible deal with Saudi Arabia to cut oil output and made peace with Turkey against all odds in order to protect its interests in the European gas market. These steps show that despite remaining ‘frenemies’ Russia and its regional counterparts find ways to maintain a balance in the global energy market.

In May 2009, Russian authorities released a new edition of their National Security Strategy,[1] which mentioned the issue of energy for the first time, elaborating on the opportunities and challenges it presented. The Strategy seems outdated only eight years later given the set of new threats that have emerged for Moscow in the meantime, but it does name the challenge of the increased delivery of energy from the Middle East to Europe as a major threat to Russia. This statement does not appear in any other Russian official document, including the 2030 Energy Strategy of the Russian Federation.[2] It draws the contours of the strategy that Moscow has chosen for engaging its regional partners. The saying “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer” is probably the best way to describe the Kremlin’s energy strategy in the Middle East.

Increasing domestic production of oil in the U.S. and the resulting reduction in imports of crude from the Gulf is changing the landscape of the energy industry in the Middle East. With instability in the oil markets, producers have become more pro-active in search of new customers, which presents a threat to Russia by challenging its oil and gas monopoly in Europe. But Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Iran are all also looking for stability in this troubled industry and are more willing to negotiate to divide up the energy market, something on which they are beginning to agree with Moscow. Massive oil and gas revenues allowed Russia to create a financial cushion of reserve funds in the 2000s that are proving to be extremely handy during crises such as the one it is experiencing at the moment. These reserves are depleting fast, however, with some estimates saying that one of the funds may run out by the end of 2017.[3] Moscow is therefore seeking to restore oil prices as well as create a predictable global energy market that would allow it to make long-term financial plans.

Energy as a Foreign Policy Tool

The 2015 oil glut exposed the perceived threat of Middle Eastern energy giants for Russia and intensified the competition for clients in Europe and Asia. Over the last two years, competitors from the Middle East have demonstrated their ambitions to increase deliveries of oil to Europe. There are several factors that have allowed these countries to start taking a larger share of Russia’s traditional market there. First of all, the low price of crude has made it economically unviable to store the resources, and incentivizing companies to sell it all sometimes means undercutting competitors. Second, the transportation of oil by sea is now extremely cheap, meaning that producers in the Middle East are more willing to fight for a share of the European market.

The European Union, whose 28 members make up the world’s largest natural gas imports market, has historically been among Russia’s most stable clients, importing up to 40 percent[4] of its gas and 36 percent[5] of crude from the country. The Baltic countries, as well as some states in Central Europe, until very recently imported all of their gas from Russia, making them fully dependent on its supplies and the political expectations attached. Following the crisis in Ukraine, the EU imposed several rounds of sanctions against Moscow and embarked on a plan to break its dependence on Russian energy resources by diversifying its portfolio of suppliers.

In 2015, Saudi Aramco was welcomed at Poland’s port at Gdansk to deliver its first-ever shipment of oil to the country in an attempt to contest Russia’s energy monopoly in Europe. This was followed by the signing of a permanent contract in May 2016.[6] After the partial lifting of sanctions against Iran, the country also moved on to exploring new opportunities in Europe by delivering 2 million barrels of crude to the newly-opened terminal in Gdansk. Elsewhere in Europe, Hungary, Russia’s fourth largest oil export market, increased its oil imports from Iraqi Kurdistan.

These newly emerged supply routes demonstrate how the oil glut is reshaping the oil market and how European customers are ready to go to great lengths to cut their energy dependence on Russia. While logistical complications will hardly allow Iran and Saudi Arabia to squeeze Russia out of the European market, their attempts to offer clients lower prices have sent an unsettling signal to Moscow. With oil and gas exports making up 50% of Russian budget revenue and the country’s GDP dropping from $2.1 trillion in 2014 to $1.2 trillion in 2016, maintaining its client portfolio is becoming an imperative for the country. Despite political disagreements and continuing heated arguments with the EU, what Moscow is pursuing is a freeze on the status quo in which Russian suppliers are able to dictate their own terms to European customers, and they continue to fight relentlessly to maintain this situation. This is the reason why Russia seeks to impose boundaries for “external” energy supplier. However, instead of negotiating this with the EU due to worsening relations, Moscow has decided to make a deal with emerging competitors from the Middle East.

In this context, Russia’s so-called energy pivot to Asia is a two-fold strategy whose objective is to make the country’s long-term energy planning more sustainable and predictable. China is the key pillar of this concept in East Asia, but Turkey arguably plays a crucial role in allowing Russia to expand its energy ambitions not only in Europe but also in the Middle East.

The Turkish Stream project signed by President Putin and President Erdogan on December 1, 2014, is a demonstration of this policy. The project, a 1,100-kilometer pipeline linking Russia with Turkey, will carry up to 63 billion cubic meters of natural gas per annum, most of which could be later transported through Turkey to Greece. It was proposed in order to replace the South Stream pipeline with Bulgaria, which Vladimir Putin scrapped due to the EU’s alleged lobbying against the project as part of Western sanctions against Russia.[7] Turkey’s rising natural gas demands underpin Russia’s ambition to become the sole provider of energy for the country[8]. Iran, as the second largest supplier, also sees Turkey as a prospective transport hub for gas deliveries to Europe, potentially pitting Moscow and Tehran against each other in competition for the EU market. The centrality of Turkey in Russia’s energy equation for Europe to a large extent explains why despite a temporary breakdown in relations Putin and Erdogan managed to bring about a thaw and put the Turkish Stream project back on the rails.

In pursuing a gas pipeline project with Turkey, the Kremlin also raises the ante in relations with the EU. As of yet, European capitals have not voiced a unanimous position on the prospect of receiving Russian gas through Turkish Stream. Once the pipeline is fully operational, however, Russia intends to cut gas transfers to Europe through Ukraine, one of the key points of contention between the two sides. Equally important is the fact that engaging Ankara in Russia’s energy equation essentially renders a number of other alternative pipeline projects for carrying natural gas to Europe through Turkey, such as Nabucco and the Qatar-Turkey pipeline, infeasible. By killing rival projects and ridding the EU of options to break its dependence on Russian gas, Moscow hopes to impose its own rules of the game on the European energy market, and Turkey will play a pivotal role in this strategy.

Energy Diplomacy

Russia’s idea of energy diplomacy is based on a motivation to strengthen communication and promote cooperation as well as competition and jointly maintain world energy market stability with major exporting countries. The Russian leadership sees clearly that a turbulent energy market is a boat that it shares with OPEC, and hence its fair regulation is based on the mutually accepted rules of the game would allow all energy producers to get a share of this increasingly shrinking pie.

Russia has considerable weight in exercising control over the oil market, but it remains a non-member of OPEC, a dominant player in the global market. The two have historically had a love-hate relationship: Russia is regularly invited to attend the cartel’s meetings and has pledged many times to cooperate with it on production cuts, but more often than not Moscow has reneged on its promises. This relationship should be seen through the lens of the Russia-Saudi dynamic, which might explain why Moscow has for a long time sent mixed signals to OPEC.

Russia and Saudi Arabia are natural rivals, constantly competing to be the world’s leading producer of oil. For a long time Riyadh has been a champion, producing more oil than any other country, but in May 2016 Russia surpassed Saudi Arabia by output. By November Russia was producing 11.2 million barrels a day (levels unseen since the fall of the Soviet Union) as opposed to 10.6 million for KSA.[9] This development came about at a time when both countries were in crucial talks to slash oil output in order to stimulate the world crude price. Both countries were clearly ramping up production ahead of the anticipated oil deal. As a result, it is from these production levels that Russia and Saudi Arabia reduced their outputs by 300,000 and 486,000 barrels respectively as part of the deal.[10] Russia essentially outsmarted its regional partners by delaying the deal and agreeing to it at the precise moment when its commitment would allow Russian companies to produce oil at the rates at which they did when prices were lower than they are today and still make a profit.

Following the deal to cut oil output, many have suggested that Russia may join OPEC now that it is expected to deliver on this agreement, but becoming a member of the cartel is not something Moscow envisions for itself. Russia recognizes that OPEC is an organization dominated by Saudi Arabia and it accepts that there cannot be two headliners in it. In fact, negotiating a deal on a par with Saudi Arabia only became possible because Russia is an outsider in this hierarchy. Moscow, however, has no intention of undermining the role of OPEC because in a playing field without the cartel’s restrictive rules Russia would likely be constantly catching up to Saudi Arabia in terms of output and access to markets.

Russia is more interested in maintaining its dominant position in the gas market given the fact that it holds the largest proven reserves of natural gas.[11] To that end, since the mid-2000s Moscow has been promoting the idea of a gas cartel with Russia as a leading country. The creation of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) in 2001 fell in line with Russia’s ambition to set quotas and prices in the gas industry alongside Iran. For a while, GECF was marketed around the world as a “gas OPEC” led by Russia, Iran and Qatar. But the project failed to kick off and now seems dead. Unlike Qatar, which sells LNG gas at spot prices, Russia prefers to sign long-term contracts with its clients. The absence of an integrated global gas market and the lack of coordination over output and trade policies in that regard are key reasons why the GECF remains a discussion platform without binding commitments.[12]

As per the Russian Energy Strategy, the country pursues the goal of mutually beneficial cooperation in the energy industry with partners around the world, foremost in the Middle East. Cooperation, however, is something that Russia is still rediscovering in the wider region. Historically the Soviet Union played a role of a mentor for regional allies, helping them develop their own extraction industries, not for profit but in order to buy the loyalty of non-aligned states. Over 350 energy projects were implemented by the USSR in Egypt, Iraq, Algeria, Syria, Libya and Yemen.[13] The Soviet Union financed a bulk of these projects as well as introducing its indigenous exploration and extraction technologies to these countries. Today the balance of power has shifted and so have Russian energy priorities in the region. Inadvertently, it has to look to the Gulf for new business opportunities.

Despite the ongoing fight with Saudi Arabia and Qatar for leadership in the energy market Russia has managed to compartmentalize its relationship with them and pursue joint energy projects. This strategy is not only profit-driven but also helps make respective markets interdependent to minimize risks and deter unhealthy competition. Over the past five years, the Russian government has been exploring opportunities to secure oil and gas investments from the Gulf, a policy stimulated not only by falling levels of Western investment, but also by the desire to integrate the Russian energy industry into the global market. In December 2016, Russian oil giant Rosneft secured a $5 billion investment from Qatar,[14] the largest energy deal the country has entered into with a GCC state. UAE’s Mubadala Petroleum and Rosneft are also nearing a deal to jointly explore two oilfields in Eastern Siberia.[15] The Russian Direct Investment Fund in the meantime has set up a number of partnerships with GCC sovereign wealth funds, securing multi-billion investment pledge agreements with them, including in the energy sector. These include Mubadala, Kuwait Investment Authority, Saudi Public Investment Fund, Qatar Holding and others.

Russian energy companies have also developed an extensive portfolio of projects elsewhere in the region. Its three leading energy companies, Rosneft, Gazprom and privately-owned Lukoil, significantly increased their stakes in oil and gas projects across the region before the oil glut. Often building upon the heritage of Soviet energy cooperation, Russia is engaging in promising projects in Egypt,[16] Iraq (including in Kurdistan),[17] Libya,[18] and Iran.[19]

Nuclear power has also come to prominence in the Russian energy strategy. This industry, concentrated in the hands of just one state company, Rosatom, is a pivotal element of Russia’s policy to gradually loosen its dependence on oil and gas. Moscow also increasingly relies of its nuclear industry to engage partners around the world, since Rosatom is just one of the few global companies able to handle the full cycle of constructing nuclear power plants and servicing them. There has been tremendous interest in the Russian nuclear industry from the Middle East: Almost all regional powers, whether oil-producing and not, have reached out to Rosatom to explore the prospects of cooperation. Moscow has taken note of the growing interest and perceives its nuclear industry as an effective foreign policy tool. Rosatom made a huge leap in marketing its nuclear energy in the Middle East in spring 2016, opening its first regional office in Dubai. This office will oversee ongoing projects in Egypt, Iran, Jordan, and Turkey, as well as the UAE. Saudi Arabia, which has ambitious plans to build 16 reactors by 2032, has also reached out to Russia and forged a deal to promote nuclear cooperation in 2016[20] which may see Moscow build Saudi nuclear infrastructure from scratch.

Endnotes

[1] The National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation to 2020, Approved By Decree of the President Of the Russian Federation, 12 May 2009 No. 537. http://rustrans.wikidot.com/russia-s-national-security-strategy-to-2020

[2] Energy Strategy of the Russian Federation, Approved By Decree of the President Of the Russian Federation, 13 November 2009 No. 1715-r. http://minenergo.gov.ru/node/1026

[3] Will Worley, Russia ‘could run out of cash reserves over the next year’, The Independent, September 17, 2016. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-money-reserve-fund-2017-assets-oil-prices-recession-sanctions-a7313236.html

[4] How can Europe break its dependence on Russian energy, Debating Europe, June 14, 2016. http://www.debatingeurope.eu/2016/06/14/how-can-europe-break-its-dependence-on-russian-energy/#.WKMHQhJ97LY

[5] 80% of EU oil imports now supplied by non-European companies – study, Transport and Environment, July 11, 2016.https://www.transportenvironment.org/press/80-eu-oil-imports-now-supplied-non-european-companies-%E2%80%93-study

[6] Saudi Aramco enters Baltic market with oil supply deal with Polish PKN, Reuters, June, 2016. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pkn-poland-aramco-int-idUSKCN0YO02X

[7] Stanley Reed and James Kanter, Putin’s Surprise Call to Scrap South Stream Gas Pipeline Leaves Europe Reeling, New York Times, December 2, 2014 https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/business/south-stream-pipeline-cancellation-fallout.html?_r=0

[8] As of now Russia pipes in 60 percent of Turkey’s total gas use, while Iran and Azerbaijan supply 20 percent and 13 percent respectively. (Jude Klement, Turkey’s Rising Natural Gas Demand Needs U.S. LNG, Forbes, February 7, 2016. http://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2016/02/07/turkeys-rising-natural-gas-demand-needs-u-s-lng/#19845bd22ac7)

[9] Tsvetana Paraskova, Russia To Cut From November’s 11.231 Million Bpd Output, OilPrice December 2, 2016. http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Russia-To-Cut-From-Novembers-11231-Million-Bpd-Output4926.html

[10] Tyler Durden, Here Are The Details From The OPEC Production Cut Deal, Zero Hedge, November 30, 2016. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-30/opec-said-reach-agreement-cut-output-12mmbpd

[11] OPEC Annual Statistical Bulletin, 2015. http://www.opec.org/opec_web/static_files_project/media/downloads/publications/ASB2015.pdf

[12] Martin Vladimirov, Why is a natural gas OPEC not possible? Johns Hopkins University-SAIS Bologna, 2013. http://www.jhubc.it/ADMISSIONSBLOGDOCUMENTS/Mvladimiro%20MA_Thesis.pdf

[13] Aleksandr Shumilin, Energy Strategy of Russia and the United States, Moscow, 2008, p. 50

[14] Marc Champion and Javier Blas, Putin’s Oil and Gas Deals Magnify Military Power in Middle East, Bloomberg, December 20, 2016. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-20/putin-s-oil-and-gas-deals-magnify-military-power-in-middle-east

[15] Rosneft Signed more than 50 Agreements at St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Rosneft, May 24, 2014. https://www.rosneft.com/press/today/item/175533/

[16] In December 2016, Rosneft bought a 35 percent share in the largest natural gas project in the Mediterranean, off the Egyptian coast, for $1.13 billion.

[17] Since 2009, Lukoil and Gazprom have won a number of large contracts in Iraq, including at West Qurna. In 2012, Gazprom Neft signed two deals with Iraqi Kurdistan, making it the fourth major oil company to enter the region

[18] Gazprom and Tatneft both invested up to $200 million in oil exploration in Libya before the Arab Spring.

[19] In August 2014, the Russian Ministry of Energy announced an oil-for-goods deal with Iran worth $1.5 billion per month. Under the proposed terms, approximately 500,000 barrels of Iranian oil per day would be provided at a discount in exchange for Russian goods and services.

[20] Russia shows interest in Saudi Arabia’s reactor plans, Al Arabiya, August 17, 2016. https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2016/08/17/Russia-shows-interest-in-Saudi-Arabia-s-reactor-plans-.html

Anti-Progressivism is not Anti-Semitism: Shame on Those Who Smear Sebastian Gorka 

 Bruce Abramson and Jeff Ballabon  

  The Jewish Press  March 2, 2017

http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/anti-progressivism-is-not-anti-semitism-shame-on-those-who-smear-sebastian-gorka/2017/03/02/

The hatchet job against the Trump Administration continues. The most recent victim is Sebastian Gorka, a member of Trump’s inner circle. The charge is (surprise!) anti-Semitism. And the behavior of Jewish progressives leading the attack is shameful.

Since President Trump announced his candidacy, his detractors have slandered him—and his supporters—as every kind of hatemonger known to progressivism. The most recent manufactured charges involve anti-Semitism. As we detailed for the Institute for The Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy (ISGAP), the so-called “evidence” is farcical. Orthodox Jews highly sensitive to real anti-Semitism remain among Trump’s strongest supporters. Their response to the anti-Trump attacks has been a simultaneously snappy and gloomy addition to the pantheon of Jewish humor: What’s the difference between Donald Trump and Jewish leftists? Trump’s grandchildren are Jewish.

The Orthodox response is hardly idiosyncratic. Donald Trump has been so familiar, and so friendly, for so long that the predictable leftist scaremongering has been far less effective than usual. Because the President’s aides are less familiar, however, they are more vulnerable. The first target, Steve Bannon, was so off base that the ADL, which had led the attack, was forced to issue a humiliating retraction; its relentless search for evidence of Bannon’s alleged anti-Semitism came up completely empty.

Enter Sebastian Gorka. Gorka, whose family suffered through fascism and communism in Hungary, is proud of his ancestral roots; the paparazzi have spotted him wearing historical Hungarian medals. Furthermore, when the Iron Curtain fell in the early 1990s, Gorka left the comfort of London to help Hungary transition from the Warsaw Pact to NATO. Because his politics have always been conservative, many of his closest Hungarian allies and affiliations were right of center. And, as those closely familiar with his work in Hungary have stated in no uncertain terms “Gorka has a decades-long record as an opponent of anti-Semitism, xenophobia and anti-American sentiment in Hungary and fought to undermine elements on the political right—even going as far as helping launch a political party to push conservative voters away from anti-Semitic parties.”

Nonetheless, the flagship progressive American Jewish publication, The Forward, exploited America’s unfamiliarity with Gorka’s work as an opening for character assassination. First, it seems that some of Gorka’s connections in Hungary—though not Gorka himself—were also connected to other people or organizations that had taken anti-Semitic positions or actions. Though Gorka’s personal track record is strongly pro-Jewish and pro-Israel, The Forward focused on the records of selected associates of his associates rather than to his own work. By that standard, nobody who has ever associated with any American political party could escape charges of anti-Semitism.

The Forward’s scramble to make its case latched on to Gorka’s medals, and assigned them its own biased interpretation of their meaning. But as Breitbart’s Joel Pollak, an Orthodox Jew and Gorka’s former colleague explained, that bias is badly misplaced. Different Hungarian regimes used those medals in different ways, and Gorka’s family history is consistent only with positive associations. To put the matter into an American context, making a case against Gorka’s medals is like insisting that anyone who visits the Jefferson Memorial is celebrating slavery, or the FDR Memorial is celebrating the internment of Japanese citizens and the refusal to admit Jewish refugees from Hitler. Such conclusions are beyond absurd; they’re offensive.

When Jewish progressives ambivalent about the Palestinian flags at this summer’s Democratic National Convention feign outrage at obscure Hungarian symbols, there is more to the story than meets the eye. The alleged evidence of anti-Semitism in Trump’s circle is such thin gruel that it has become necessary to ask what is driving it. The Forward provided the answer—courtesy of former KKK leader David Duke. According to Duke, “[Jewish groups] define an anti-Semite as someone, anyone, who opposes the organized Jewish agenda.” Duke claimed that Trump qualifies, and The Forward approvingly embraced Duke’s analysis to confirm its own biases.

Tragically, Duke’s description is not groundless—and it is a far greater condemnation of American Jewish leadership on today’s left than of the president, Steve Bannon, or Seb Gorka. Too many Jewish progressive activists equate Jewishness with what they term “social justice,” chauvinistically label this political agenda “Jewish values,” and see all opposition to progressive politics and policies as an attack on their “Jewish values.”

Because Trump, Bannon, and Gorka oppose the progressive agenda, Jewish progressives portray – and may truly see – them as inherently anti-Semitic. Perversely, the progressive Jewish equation of progressive values with Jewish values turns leftists with long histories of animosity towards the Jews into pro-Jewish advocates. This bizarre bit of logic explains how progressive Jews could attack the Trump team for anti-Semitism while endorsing Louis Farrakhan’s former spokesman, Keith Ellison, to lead the DNC. In a new twist on the ways that Jews can become our own worst enemies, progressive members of our tribe have discovered abnegation: they reject as anti-Jewish those most concerned with Jewish survival, and embrace as pro-Jewish those who subscribe to the vilest anti-Jewish conspiracy theories.

Progressive Jewish Americans abusing Jewish history to score cheap political points are poisoning political discourse, dismissing the pain that Jews have suffered throughout history, masking the frightening rise in global anti-Semitism, embarrassing the Jewish community, harming the Jews of Israel, and defaming fine Americans. In an era where Democrats embrace openly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel leaders and movements, the Jewish left has launched this witch hunt against individuals – like Trump, Bannon, and Gorka – who are actively working to protect not only all Americans, but particularly the Jews, including the often-targeted Jews of Israel.

We are pained to have to write such an article, but the left’s slander of decent people who have committed their lives to helping Jews is now out of control. It is an embarrassment, a distraction, and an affront to those chafing beneath, or fighting, the very real anti-Semitism that genuinely threatens our people.

Bruce Abramson and Jeff Ballabon

Bruce Abramson, a technology lawyer in private practice in NYC (www.bdabramson.com), is a Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research. Jeff Ballabon is CEO of B2 Strategic (www.b2strategic.com) and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Statesmanship and Diplomacy.

THE UPHILL BATTLE OVER RETURNING TO JERUSALEM

BYDAVID PARSONS   Jerusalem Post FEBRUARY 25, 2017 

The uphill battle over returning to Jerusalem

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/The-uphill-battle-over-returning-to-Jerusalem-482581

Will the Trump administration do good on its early promise to move the US embassy to Jerusalem? And if so, what effect would it have on Israel and the region?

Everyone is waiting to see if US President Donald Trump will keep his campaign pledge to move the American embassy to Jerusalem.

Those opposed to this move warn of impending rage and upheaval in the region. Many proponents have quickly grown impatient, saying Trump should have acted on day one of his presidency. /6943/JPost_2017/Desktop/Special_ONLY/Article_In_Read_Outstream_TOP

I remain optimistic it will happen soon and firmly believe it is time for the US to finally rectify this historic injustice by leading the nations back up to Jerusalem and recognizing the city as Israel’s capital. I offer this hopeful forecast as someone who has been engaged in the uphill diplomatic battle over Jerusalem for over 25 years.

In fact, I drafted the initial version of the bill which eventually became the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995. Thus, I know from the inside the long history of this debate in Washington, the arguments pro and con, and the key players involved.

It was the cerebral senator Daniel P. Moynihan (D-New York) who first started pushing for the embassy move in the early 1980s. He was considered a good friend of Israel, though some suggested he was just exploiting the embassy issue to embarrass the Reagan administration. Regardless, Moynihan deserves credit for putting the issue of Jerusalem on the map in Congress, as strong bipartisan majorities in both Houses began passing annual resolutions in support of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Still, in the decades since numerous politicians have played political football with Jerusalem.

One clear example is Bill Clinton, who promised to move the embassy in his initial run for the White House only to break his word as president. Both George W. Bush and Barack Obama impulsively followed suit, courting Jewish voters and donors with campaign vows on Jerusalem and only to renege once in office. Meanwhile, whatever party occupies the Oval Office, count on the opposing party to be making hay over Jerusalem in Congress.

Such was the case in January 1995, when both Houses of Congress came under Republican control for the first time in decades. The Gingrich revolution had just swept in many new conservative congressmen committed to his “Contract with America.” At the time, I was registered with Congress as a pro-Israel lobbyist for a Christian organization called CIPAC, and we sensed a shift on Capitol Hill concerning the Jerusalem issue. There was growing interest in Congress to switch from toothless resolutions to an actual bill mandating the move of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Israel was engaged in good-faith negotiations with the Palestinians under the Oslo process, and many saw the embassy move as a reward for Israel’s taking risks for peace or as an incentive to pursue Oslo further.

Even senator Bob Dole (R-Kansas), who lacked any real pro-Israel credentials, was jousting with fellow presidential hopeful senator Phil Gramm (R-Texas) over who would move the embassy faster. I also will never forget the day when House speaker Newt Gingrich addressed Arab threats of violence over an embassy move with his famously incorrect rejoinder: “They ought to grow up.”

So we decided to press the issue in Congress that year. I helped organize three sets of lobby days that winter and spring, bringing in several hundred Jewish and Christian activists each time to urge members of Congress to support a bill for moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. By May of 1995, we had blanketed all 538 offices in the House and Senate with our message.

Meantime, we identified senator Jon Kyl (R-Arizona) as our preferred champion of this effort. He had always stood out as a truly principled supporter of Israel, including as an early advocate of funding for US-Israeli joint missile defense systems. We were convinced of Kyl’s sincerity on the embassy question when we arranged a meeting for him with Kare Kristiansen, the Norwegian statesman who had just resigned from the Nobel Peace Prize Committee over its feting of Yasser Arafat. The two veteran leaders were in full accord that moving our respective embassies to Jerusalem deserved top priority. Afterwards, Kyl asked us to prepare a draft bill for his consideration.

So together with CIPAC founder Richard Hellman, I crafted a proposed law with three operative provisions: 1) Immediate US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital; 2) Immediately placing the US ambassador to Israel in the capital; and 3) Begin planning for a new embassy building to be constructed at a later date. I also authored a supporting policy memorandum as well as a constitutional law brief on the legislative branch’s shared authority with the executive on this matter.

Our final set of lobby days for the proposed embassy bill took place in May 1995, just days before AIPAC’s annual policy conference in Washington. That week, Kyl informed a CIPAC gathering on Capitol Hill that he would be submitting our bill in the Senate, but he first wanted the head of his party, senator Dole, to come on as co-sponsor.

The next day, Kyl confirmed that Dole was on board and would actually introduce the bill. Then on the eve of their policy conference, AIPAC convened their 33-member executive committee and faced questions on why Dole was set to proffer a Jerusalem embassy bill they had not been lobbying for. The AIPAC staff in Washington admitted they had been “outflanked” by others and would now begin pushing for the embassy bill.

The next week, Dole duly introduced the Jerusalem Embassy Act along with the esteemed senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii). But the Dole-Inouye bill was different from our original draft.

AIPAC had evidently provided Dole with a version setting forth a timetable for building a new embassy, to be completed by May 1999. The bill did contain “teeth” in that it withheld a certain percentage of State Department funding to operate their missions overseas if the timetable was not met. But it was now tied to the Oslo peace process in that it was timed to coincide with what many hoped would be a successful conclusion of the Oslo final-status talks scheduled for 1999.

In response, the Clinton administration threatened to veto the bill. So the strategy on the Hill focused on getting at least 67 co-sponsors in the Senate to demonstrate they could override a presidential veto. Over the summer, 60 senators signed on as co-sponsors but finding those last few endorsements proved elusive. Eventually, senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) came forward with a package deal offering to bring on 10 Democratic senators to make the bill veto-proof, but she insisted on adding a waiver authority giving the president power to suspend the bill’s provisions every six months if he certified to Congress that it was in America’s “national security interests.”

Feinstein’s legislative assistant for foreign policy issues at that time was Dan Shapiro, later the US ambassador to Israel, and our sources in Congress claimed he played a central role in arranging this package deal. As the true originator of the bill, Kyl was asked to agree to the waiver provision and he reluctantly did so to ensure passage.

Yet we instantly understood the waiver provision was intended to essentially gut the bill, since it removed any means for congressional enforcement. That has proven to be the case, as every president since has exercised the waiver authority even though they each made campaign pledges to move the embassy.

In recent years, several bills have been introduced in Congress to remove that presidential waiver authority, but none has passed yet. Upon his retirement from a distinguished career in both the House and Senate spanning over 25 years, Kyl gave an interview to The Jerusalem Post in which he admitted that his biggest regret in office was agreeing to add the waiver provision to the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995.

In late 1995, I left Washington for Jerusalem on a three-month assignment with the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem. I returned two years later to take up a full-time position with the Christian Embassy and have been on staff ever since. The ICEJ was launched in 1980 when the last 13 national embassies left Jerusalem for Tel Aviv under threat of an Arab oil embargo. We were founded on the principle of Christian recognition of the ancient Jewish claim and connection to Jerusalem, the eternal capital of Israel. I continue to advocate for all nations to move their embassies to Jerusalem, and am optimistic that President Trump will be the first US president to finally keep his campaign pledge and move the American embassy here.

The case for moving the Embassy could not be clearer. In 1950, Israel declared Jerusalem to be its capital and placed its primary government institutions in the city. This despite the fact that Jewish western Jerusalem was still precariously surrounded at the time by hostile Arab forces. Yet this courageous decision reflected the deep spiritual, historic and cultural significance which the Jewish people have attached to the city for over 3,000 years now.

In the ensuing seven decades, the international community has generally extended de facto recognition to Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, in that nearly all visiting heads of state and other foreign officials come to Jerusalem to conduct business with their Israeli counterparts. This includes even Arab leaders, such as Anwar Sadat, who made his historic peace mission to Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv. Palestinian leaders Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas also have held numerous meetings with Israeli leaders in Jerusalem, and even attended the state funerals of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres on Mount Herzl.

However, the US and other nations have refused to extend de jure recognition to Jerusalem. This is a gross anomaly in that Israel is the only country where the US embassy is not located in the capital city chosen by the host country. This diplomatic slight goes even deeper, as the US has never even recognized any part of west Jerusalem as belonging to Israel.

The origins of this unjust policy can be found in the United Nations Partition Plan of 1947, which called for dividing Mandatory Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state, but with Jerusalem set aside as a corpus separatum under international supervision. This UN decision to “internationalize” the city reflected a certain colonialist attitude toward the new Jewish state, as well as the religious bias of many Christian and Muslim leaders who were reluctant to see the holy sites of Jerusalem placed under Jewish control. Even so, it is often overlooked that the UN Partition Plan specifically provided for a city-wide referendum within 10 years allowing local residents to decide the fate of the city. So the internationalization of Jerusalem was never intended as a permanent measure. Nonetheless, president Harry Truman embraced the concept, setting a course for US policy on the city which has since drifted into folly.

After the city was reunited in June 1967, there has been a continuing effort to deny Israel and the Jewish people their rightful place in Jerusalem under other pretexts. In recent decades, the US has joined the international community in stressing the need to be neutral when it comes to Jerusalem, so as not to prejudge the outcome of negotiations over the city between Israel and the Palestinians.

But this is a disingenuous argument as many nations – including the US – have located their senior envoys to the Palestinians, some at the ambassadorial level, in Jerusalem, while their Israeli equivalents sit in Tel Aviv.

Further, the UN Security Council’s recent Resolution 2334 thoroughly contradicts this even-handed approach by declaring east Jerusalem to be “occupied Palestinian territory.”

Thus, the UN itself has deliberately prejudged the outcome of talks over the future status of Jerusalem, and there is an urgent need for the US and other nations to rectify this major diplomatic blunder.

This leaves only one remaining excuse for the nations to still refuse to move their embassies to Jerusalem, and that is fear of the potentially violent Arab and Islamic response. This attitude of weakness is reflected in the way every US president so far has exercised the waiver authority added at the last minute to the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, delaying the embassy move every six months on the grounds that it is in US “national security interests.”

This is not a policy based on principle, fairness or historical right, but solely on timidity over the possible Arab/ Islamic reaction, and it has effectively granted the Palestinians a veto over US decision-making.

The time has come to finally right this wrong by the US recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving its embassy here. This show of resolve by the Trump administration would not only remove a regrettable diplomatic stain, but also signal the Palestinians that the time for compromise has come. It also would send a message to the entire world that America stands by its allies and that peace and progress for the region will no longer be a hostage of fear and intimidation.

Surely, there will be no harm to the outcome of peace talks if the US embassy is relocated to west Jerusalem. All parties know this sector of the city will remain part of Israel in any final-status agreement. Nor is anyone seriously looking for a return to that dismal era from 1948 to 1967 when the city was forcibly divided. And Israel can still work out a way to share an open and united Jerusalem with the Palestinians.

Certainly, Jerusalem must be kept open for all those with faith in God.

But the Jewish people are the proper custodians of the city. Christians and Muslims can trust the Jewish people in this regard, because their own Hebrew scriptures demand that they maintain the city as a “house of prayer for all peoples” (Isaiah 56:7). Israel has guaranteed religious freedom in its Declaration of Independence, and is committed to maintaining the status quo with regards to the city’s holy sites. In fact, of all the sovereign rulers over Jerusalem down through the centuries, Israel has compiled the best track record in ensuring religious access and freedom of worship in the city.

So while some Muslim extremists might vent their rage and threaten violence, we should not take all the recent warnings of chaos and destruction as a given. Jerusalem remains a sensitive issue, but the Trump administration has a unique opportunity this year to lead a group of freedom-loving, democratic nations back up to Jerusalem.

Such a collective return to the city would demonstrate the rightness of this move and thereby serve to defuse tensions in the region.

The author is an attorney, ordained minister and Middle East specialist who serves as vice president and senior spokesman for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem.

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5 FORMER US AMBASSADORS TO ISRAEL WHO CRITICIZED NOMINEE FRIEDMAN ARE HOSTILE TO ISRAEL/SUPPORTED IRAN DEAL Morton A. Klein February 19, 2017

It’s important to examine the harmful records and anti-Israel actions of the five leftwing, hostile-to-Israel, pro-Iran deal former U.S. Ambassadors to Israel who signed a coordinated letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unfairly and falsely maligning Ambassador-nominee David Friedman.  The five signatories – Thomas Pickering, Daniel Kurtzer, Edward Walker, Jr., James Cunningham, and William Harrop – damaged U.S.-Israel relations and exacerbated the situation in the Middle East.  At least several of them have financial or other ties to hostile-to-Israel groups.

Revealingly, the very same five former ambassadors signed a letter in July 2015 promoting the Iran deal (which provided Iran with a path to a nuclear bomb and $150 billion to fund its terrorist operations throughout the world).  (“Former US Ambassadors to Israel Back Iran Deal,” by Deb Riechmann, Times of Israel, July 27, 2015.)

Thomas Pickering (Ambassador 1985-1988) has a long record of pro-Iranian regime, pro-Palestinian-Arab, friendly to Hamas, and problematic anti-Israel activism.

Pickering is a member of the American Iranian Council (AIC) board of directors.  AIC promoted the dangerous Iran deal; now insists that the U.S. must “fully implement” the Iran deal (while ignoring Iran’s violations); opposes U.S. sanctions for Iran’s violations of UN Security Council Resolution 2331; and opposes designating as terrorist organizations the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corp and Muslim Brotherhood – despite the fact that both groups support terror throughout the world.

In Pickering’s bombshell secret December 18, 2011 email to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Pickering recommended undermining Israel by secretly employing NGOs (including Peace Now) and Palestinian-Arab women to foment and carry out massive demonstrations “against all aspects of the occupation” (meaning against Israel) including against “roadblocks, land confiscations, new settlement activity, [and] around military government installations,” in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Area C  (the portion of Judea and Samaria administered by Israel) and Palestinian-Arab-controlled areas – to exert “continuing pressure” on Israel’s leaders to give in to Palestinian-Arab demands.  Shockingly, Pickering also mentioned potential advantages of a Middle East war (apparently an Arab or Iranian war against Israel), but then opined that war was much too dangerous “with all that is happening there – despite the fact that it might be a game changer.”  (See Pickering’s email; and “JPost – Obama’s Disgraceful Covert War Against Israel,” by Caroline Glick, Jan. 18, 2016; and “Ex-Ambassador Pitched Clinton Secret Plan to Spark Palestinian Protests,” by Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon & Fox News, Jan. 11, 2016.)

Pickering’s April 8, 2014 Op-ed in Politico, co-authored with the notoriously anti-Israel Zbigniew Brzezinski (entitled “Stand Firm, John Kerry”), also revealed Pickering’s one-sided, leftwing anti-Israel views.  Pickering justified violence against Jews by falsely calling Israel’s presence in the lawfully designated Jewish homelands in Judea/Samaria “illegal land grabs . . . that will trigger renewed violence.”   Pickering’s Op-ed also falsely claimed that Israel already possesses “78% of Palestine.”  (In fact, Israel has only 22% of the British “Mandate for Palestine” – despite the fact that all of the mandate was lawfully designated for the Jewish homeland.)  Pickering also condemned Netanyahu’s peace overtures as “morally unacceptable”; insisted that Israel should have no presence in the Jordan Valley (an area that is in fact vital for Israel’s security); expressed support for the pre-1967 lines (which would be suicidal for Israel); falsely portrayed the Palestinian-Arabs as having made significant concessions; and urged the Obama administration to be tougher on Israel.

And in July 2009, Pickering secretly met with senior leaders of designated terrorist organization Hamas to discuss “easing the Israeli siege of Gaza” – a euphemism for ending Israel’s lawful weapons blockade of Gaza to prevent Hamas from importing more missiles to fire at Israeli Jewish kindergartens.  (There is no Israeli “siege.”)  Pickering engaged Hamas without permission from the U.S. administration.  (“Former U.S. Officials Talk With Hamas,” Politico, Apr. 2, 2010.)

Daniel Kurtzer (Ambassador 2001-2005) has a long record of hostility to Israel.   His statements, policies and actions have provoked criticism from Israeli and American Jewish leaders, including the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir; the Labor Party’s former Israeli negotiator and ambassador Itamar Rabinovitch; former AIPAC Executive Director Morris Amitay; and leading Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot.  (See “ZOA: Sen. Obama Should Rescind Appointment of Daniel Kurtzer As Middle East Adviser,” Apr. 16, 2008.)

Israel National News explained: “Kurtzer’s bias goes all the way back to his graduate school days. In his Ph.D. dissertation (Columbia University, 1976), Kurtzer said Israel’s counter-terror actions were the “catalysts to interstate violence,” and blamed Israel for “the radicalization of the Palestinians to violence” (p.253).  Throughout the dissertation, Kurtzer referred to Palestinian Arab terrorists as “guerrillas,” not as terrorists–even though he was discussing the groups that carried out such horrific massacres as the Lod Airport massacre of Puerto Rican tourists and the slaughter of Israeli athletes (including an American) at the Munich Olympics.”  (“Should Daniel Kurtzer Be America´s Next Ambassador to Israel?, Israel Nat’l News, July 24, 2001.)  (The article concluded after reviewing Kurtzer’s lifelong hostile-to-Israel activities: “Daniel Kurtzer represents the old, tired, and failed policy of fruitlessly trying to appease Yasir Arafat and his terrorist dictatorship.”)

Former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir recalled that: “Kurtzer frequently pressured Israel to make one-sided concessions to the Arabs; he constantly blamed Israel for the absence of Mideast peace, and paid little or no attention to the fact that the Palestinians were carrying out terrorist attacks and openly calling for the destruction of Israel.”  (Id.)

Kurtzer hasn’t changed, and apparently still believes that the U.S. should force a deal that would endanger Israel’s existence down Israel’s throat.  During an Al Jazeera special television program marking the 20th Anniversary of the failed Oslo Accords in 2013, after he was asked what could be done to place more “serious pressure” on Israel, Kurtzer responded: “I have made the argument publically that the United States should now lay out very strong parameters that define quite narrowly the issues still to be negotiated. . . And then expect the parties not taking no for an answer.”  (“Transcript: The Peace Process,” Al Jazeera, Aug. 26, 2013.)

This past December (2016), after the Obama administration engineered and assured the passage of the extraordinarily anti-Israel UNSC Resolution 2334, instead of condemning the terrible UNSC Resolution, Kurtzer condemned Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s reaction as “nasty,” “unprecedented,” and “not proper and unacceptable.”  (Netanyahu had merely disclosed that Israel had unequivocal proof that the Obama administration had orchestrated the anti-Israel resolution.)  (“Former US ambassador to Israel Criticizes Netanyahu’s ‘Nasty’ UN Reaction,” AP, DW, Dec. 26, 2016.)

It is remarkably hypocritical that after Kurtzer accused Israel’s Prime Minister of being “nasty,” Kurtzner attacked Ambassador-nominee David Friedman as “not diplomatic.”  Kurtzer is obviously not a judge of what is or isn’t diplomatic.

Moreover, Kurtzer has a habit of accusing those who disagree with his extreme anti-Israel views of being “not diplomatic.”   In mid-2015, Kurtzer leveled such charges against Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer and former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren.  Kurtzer stated that Ambassador Oren, “appears to be following in the footsteps of his successor, Ron Dermer, who has prized Israeli politics above the diplomacy that he was appointed to practice.” (“Ex-U.S. Envoy Daniel Kurtzer Blasts Oren’s ‘Astounding’ Obama Criticism,” Haaretz, June 24, 2015.)

Kurtzer also blasted Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer earlier in 2015, in unpleasant graphic terms, after Congress invited Netanyahu to address Congress regarding Iran, saying: “He [Dermer]’s a political operative, he’s not really an ambassador. . . What he did was totally unacceptable from a standpoint of diplomacy. . . He [Dermer] has soiled his pad; who’s he going to work with?” (“Administration Official Criticizes Israeli Ambassador Over Netanyahu Visit,” by Julie Hirschfeld Davis, NY Times, Jan. 28, 2015.)

And speaking of diplomacy, in 2014, Kurtzer wrote that it “would demean American diplomacy” to release Jonathan Pollard.   Kurtzer did not care that Pollard was in extremely ill health after being incarcerated under brutal conditions in U.S. prison for 29 years – decades longer than any similarly situated spy.  Ironically, in the very same article, Kurtzer demanded that Israel must live up to commitments to release imprisoned Palestinian-Arab terrorists who had been convicted of murdering innocent Israeli civilians (a far worse crime than what Pollard had done).  (“Releasing Pollard: Don’t Do It, Mr. Secretary, by Daniel Kurtzer, The American Interest, Apr. 1, 2014.)

Sadly, Kurtzer’s “diplomacy” has consisted of closing his eyes to or excusing Palestinian Arab terrorism, and pushing for dangerous Palestinian-Arab “rights.”  During Kurtzer’s tenure at the State Department in 1988, a time when the PLO was engaged in constant terrorism against Israel, Kurtzer kept (falsely) insisting “that the PLO under Yasir Arafat was moving in a moderate direction.”  Kurtzer became “a key figure in the process of formulating” the U.S. decision to recognize the PLO in December 1988.  Israel National News noted that “Kurtzer’s claim of PLO “moderation” proved to be completely mistaken, because the PLO continued its terrorism and in early 1990, the U.S. broke off its dealings with Arafat.”  (See “Should Daniel Kurtzer Be America´s Next Ambassador to Israel?, Israel Nat’l News, July 24, 2001, quoting “Washington Talk: State Department; Wordsmiths of the Mideast Move, by Robert Pear, NY Times, Jan. 13, 1989.)

Morris Amitay, former executive director of AIPAC, said: “Kurtzer has a track record of . . . pushing for Palestinian rights. . . . He will use his Jewishness as a protective cover for his anti-Israel views.”  (“Likely Nomination of Orthodox Jew As U.S. Ambassador Splits U.S. Jews,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 29, 2001.)

Kurtzer was also the principal author of one of the most significant anti-Israel statements of U.S. policy in the Middle East, a speech by Secretary of State George Shultz to a conference at the Wye Plantation in Maryland in 1988, in which he said that “The legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, including political rights, must be recognized and addressed.”

Kurtzer’s book “Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East” (co-authored with Scott Lasensky), praised former Secretary of State James Baker, who applied ruthless pressure on Israel and held Israel responsible for obstacles to peace.   Kurtzer and Lasensky also claimed that America falsely labeled Arafat and the Palestinian-Arab leadership as responsible for the collapse of the Oslo process – a claim contradicted by virtually all American officials engaged in the 2000 Camp David and Taba negotiations, including President Clinton and Middle East envoy Dennis Ross.

In addition, in their book, Kurtzer and Lasensky condemned Bush 43 for being too “deferential” to Israel.  Kurtzer and Lasensky stated that Presdient Bush: “proved overly deferential to the stated political problems of the Israeli government while tending to turn a blind eye towards domestic constraints on the Arab side. (page 34).  (See “Obama’s New Foreign Policy Advisor Daniel Kurtzer,” by Ed Lasky, American Thinker, Apr. 10, 2008.)

In yet another display of Kurtzer’s own lack of diplomacy, Kurtzer publicly interfered with, falsely insulted and criticized Israel’s internal budgetary policy.  Kurtzer stated, “Instead of taking care of the disabled and or economic development, Israel is investing in Jewish settlements, which should be dismantled.”  This led a member of Israel’s Knesset (parliament), Zwi Hendel, to denounce Kurtzer on the Knesset floor.  MK Hendel stated: “No Israeli diplomat would be allowed to act as he [Kurtzer] does. . . I have the right to criticize this little Jew who is interfering in our internal affairs.”  (“Embassy Row: Denouncing Kurtzer,” Washington Times, January 9, 2002.)

Kurtzer also rebuked Israeli negotiators for being insufficiently concessionary:  The Israeli Labor government’s then-ambassador to the U.S., Itamar Rabinovitch, described a “stormy dispute” between Kurtzer and the head of Israel´s negotiating team, in which “Kurtzer thought that Israel was not going far enough with the Palestinians.  There were sharp exchanges between them [and Kurtzer] rebuked” the Israeli negotiators. (“ZOA: Sen. Obama Should Rescind Appointment of Daniel Kurtzer As Middle East Adviser,” Apr. 16, 2008, quoting Haaretz, April 6, 2001.)

Kurtzer also had a “vocal conflict” with an Israeli government official in Philadelphia in the summer of 1990, after Kurtzer “attacked the Israeli government for refusing to include the PLO in the peace process [and] said that this constituted the main obstacle to peace.” (Id.)

Kurtzer also criticized Israeli strikes at Palestinian terrorists.  In August 2001, Kurtzer publicly criticized Israel for striking at Abu Ali Mustafa, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which over the years has murdered at least 14 American citizens and numerous Israelis.  The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations issued a statement on August 28, 2001 saying it was “surprised and dismayed” that Kurtzer “felt compelled to raise the issue with Prime Minister Sharon,” yet “we did not hear of any similar actions when American citizens were the victims of terror attacks over the past few months.” Indeed, just hours after Kurtzer‘s statement, an American Jew, Ben Dansker, was shot and wounded by Arafat´s terrorists near the town of Rogalit – yet Kurtzer made no statement about the attack.  (Id.)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has said more than once that with Jews like Kurtzer, it is impossible to build a healthy relationship between Israel and the United States.”  (Id.)

“Kurtzer‘s poor relations with Jerusalem’s political bureaus reached a new climax” in 1990, when he authored a speech by James Baker strongly criticizing Israel, which was delivered at an AIPAC conference, “causing a commotion among the conference participants . . .  A Jewish community leader told Kurtzer [shortly afterwards], ‘Your children will bear the consequences of the Israeli policy you are encouraging.’”  (Id.)

Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot editorialized on Kurtzer’s malign influence: “Possibly more than any other U.S. State Department official, Kurtzer has been instrumental in promoting the goals of the Palestinians and in raising their afflictions to the center of the U.S. policymakers’ agenda.” (“ZOA: Sen. Obama Should Rescind Appointment of Daniel Kurtzer As Middle East Adviser,” Apr. 16, 2008, quoting Yediot Ahronot, Aug. 9, 1991.)

Edward Walker, Jr. (Ambassador 1997 – Jan. 2000) won acclaim throughout the Arab world when he wrote an Op-ed in the Washington Post during the Second Intifada, condemning Israel for its targeted assassinations of Hamas terrorists plotting attacks on Israeli civilians.  (Palestinian-Arab terrorists murdered close to 2,000 innocent Israelis and injured 10,000 innocent Israelis during the Second Intifada.)  In Walker’s view, providing “due process” to terrorists ensconced in the midst of hostile territory was more important than stopping attacks on innocent Israeli and other civilians.  Walker’s Op-ed also made an immoral “moral equivalence” between Israel’s defensive actions and murders carried out by hostile Arab regimes.  (“No Exceptions for Israel,” by Edward Walker, Jr., Washington Post, Aug. 21, 2001.)

Impressed with Walker’s anti-Israel Op-ed, Egyptian weekly Roz Al-Youssuf’s editor-in-chief enthusiastically wrote: “together with us [Edward Walker] wages the cruel battle against the Israeli lobby and Israel’s claims and deceits.”  (MEMRI Analysis, Nov. 22, 2001.)

Although Walker acknowledges that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, Walker has also defended and justified Hezbollah attacks on non-civilian Israelis.  Walker told Egyptian paper Al-Mussawar that one of Hezbollah’s roles is as “a resistance movement legitimately fighting the Israeli occupation in southern Lebanon. All of Hezbollah’s attacks against Israeli forces are legitimate acts of resistance, not terrorism.”  (Id.)   Walker reiterated this view in another interview, saying: “The Lebanese government claims that Hezbollah are not terrorists because they were engaged in legitimate resistance against Israel, which was in occupation of southern Lebanon. In that specific case, I happen to agree with them. What Hezbollah did in south Lebanon was not terrorism; it was resistance, because it was directed solely at military targets.”  Walker ignored the fact that Israel’s presence in southern Lebanon at that time was necessary to stop deadly Hezbollah attacks on innocent Israeli civilians living in northern Israel which had made normal life in northern Israel impossible.   (Middle East Quarterly Interview, Spring 2002.)

Walker also served as president of the pro-Arab, unfriendly-to-Israel Middle East Institute (MEI).  MEI’s website blog defended Hezbollah for its 2015 raid and murder of two Israeli soldiers and a UN peacekeeper; approvingly wrote about anti-Israel UNSC Resolution 2334 and former Secretary Kerry’s speech condemning Israel; complained that during the 2014 Gaza war many Arab regimes were “silent” (instead of rushing to help Hamas), that the PA was not simultaneously rioting in the “West Bank” (to make life difficult for Israel on two fronts); and, MEI promotes J Street conferences.  Walker also served in posts in Arab nations throughout the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, the UAE, Egypt and Tunisia).

As with the rest of this gang of five, Walker also promoted the horrible Iran deal.

James Cunningham (Ambassador from 2008-2011) also has a pro-Iran, pro-Palestinian-Arab, anti-Israel record.  As noted above, Cunningham promoted the catastrophic Iran deal.

During his previous tenure as Deputy U.S. Representative to the United Nations, Cunningham condemned a 2004 Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) operation to stop attacks emanating from Gaza. On behalf of the U.S., Cunningham abstained on UN Security Council Resolution 1544 (May 19, 2004), which viciously and unfairly condemned Israel’s defensive actions.  Cunningham’s abstention was tantamount to a “yes” vote, and enabled this anti-Israel resolution’s passage.  After the vote, Cunningham criticized Israel, saying that the IDF operation “worsened the humanitarian situation and resulted in confrontation between Israeli forces and Palestinians.”  Cunningham also pushed for Israel to withdraw from Gaza, stating that these events were a “reminder of the wisdom of Israel disengaging from Gaza and having its security presence replaced by reformed Palestinian security forces.” (“U.N. Security Council Critical of Israeli Operations in Gaza,” by Judy Aita, Washington File United Nations Correspondent, Washington File, May 20, 2004.)  Israel did withdraw from Gaza the following year (2005) – which resulted in Hamas lobbing 19,000 rockets at innocent Israelis over the next decade.  So much for Cunningham’s “wisdom.”

Interestingly, Cunningham’s lack of expertise was noted when Cunningham became the U.S. Ambassador to Israel.  (See “New US Envoy To Israel Announced,” by Herb Keinon, Jerusalem Post, July 2, 2008: “One official noted that Cunningham, although he did deal with Middle East issues at the UN, is not considered a Middle East expert.”)

William Harrop (Ambassador 1992 – May 1993) revealed his anti-Israel and leftwing prejudices during a recent interview, in which Harrop proclaimed that Israeli “occupation” is the “principal problem.”   Harrop ignored that the real problem is Palestinian-Arabs’ unrelenting goal of destroying Israel.  (“An Interview With William C. Harrop,” by Maria Livingston, Foreign Service Journal, Sept. 2015.)

Interestingly, during the same interview, Harrop admitted that he had no experience in the Middle East prior to what he called his “surprising appointment” as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.  Harrop further admitted: “I’m not sure I did all that well there, to be honest.”  After admitting to his own lack of qualifications and the poor job he did as U.S. Ambassador to Israel, it is the height of audacity for Harrop to now try to pass judgment on an Ambassador-nominee with far more knowledge of Middle East issues than Harrop had.

Harrop also noted during his Foreign Service Journal interview that the U.S. Ambassador post to Israel is perhaps less important than ambassadorships to other countries, because “much of the work is done in personal telephone calls between the U.S. president or the Secretary of State and the prime minister, so you’re often paddling about trying to catch up on what’s happening instead of being the one who makes things happen.”

In another interview on August 24, 1993, for The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, Harrop repeatedly referred to Likud as “hard right”; complained that former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon tried to “justify his ‘settlement policy’”; further condemned Likud as “disingenuous about the peace process” and “not serious about negotiations . . . which I think in retrospect was reprehensible”; and criticized the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations” as an entity that was set up to “rationalize” the “world” of Jewish groups in the U.S.

During the same interview, Harrop also excused former Secretary of State James Baker’s “F–k the Jews” remark as merely “the kind of thing that politicians say privately.”  And yet now, Harrop hypocritically condemns Ambassador-nominee David Friedman for far less egregious remarks said as a private citizen.

And as mentioned above, Harrop joined in promoting the dangerous Iran deal in 2015.

Accordingly, the letter criticizing Ambassador-nominee Friedman, signed by these five biased former ambassadors, deserves no credence.  In fact, the letter deserves our repudiation and disgust.

THE TRUMP-NETANYAHU ALLIANCE

BYCAROLINE B. GLICK Jerusalem Post  FEBRUARY 17, 2017

The two-state model is widely viewed as the formula for Middle East peace. But the fact of the matter is that it makes peace impossible to achieve, by holding normal relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors hostage to grandiose peace deals.


When they met on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin were both walking wounded.

Netanyahu arrived in Washington the center of a criminal investigation the chief characteristic of which is that selected details of the probe are regularly leaked to the media by anonymous sources who cannot be challenged or held to account.

These anonymous sources, from inside the police and state prosecution, use hand-picked reporters who all share a visceral hatred of Netanyahu, to present a version of the probe to the public that besmirches Netanyahu and his family.

The prospect that Netanyahu may face indictment weakens his position in his party. Likud ministers, unsure of the future, but certain that they cannot challenge the credibility of unnamed sources without risking their own reputations and political futures, refuse to stand with Netanyahu and defend him. And so, with each additional anonymously sourced, incriminating story, the prime minister finds his political power diminished.

As for Trump, he met with Netanyahu two days after his loyal national security adviser, Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Michael Flynn, was forced to resign.

Flynn’s resignation was the culmination of a continuous campaign of defamation waged against him that began even before Trump was elected.

Flynn rose to national prominence in 2014 after then-president Barack Obama, who promoted him and appointed him to head the Defense Intelligence Agency, summarily fired him. Obama fired Flynn because the general opposed his nuclear deal with Iran, and opposed his supportive view of the Muslim Brotherhood, among other things. Since he was forced into early retirement, Flynn became an outspoken critic of the politicization of US intelligence agencies under the Obama administration.

The campaign against Flynn was based on highly classified information regarding conversations Flynn held with Russia’s ambassador to the US during the transition process in December. Under US law, intelligence agencies are prohibited from divulging the identity of US citizens whose conversations with foreign intelligence targets are intercepted.

The law is in place for good reason. As Eli Lake wrote in Bloomberg on Tuesday, “Selectively disclosing details of private conversations monitored by the FBI or NSA gives the permanent state the power to destroy reputations from the cloak of anonymity. This is what police states do.”

In the event, an FBI investigation of the conversations after they were leaked concluded that Flynn did nothing illegal in his dealings with the Russian ambassador. But criminalizing Flynn was never the object of the leaks – making him politically toxic was the aim. And it was accomplished on Monday when he resigned.

It appears likely that Trump became convinced that by sacrificing Flynn, he would end the insurrection US intelligence operatives are waging against his presidency. But as The New York Times made clear on Wednesday, the opposite is true.

Following Flynn’s resignation, the same intelligence sources that caused his downfall told sympathetic reporters that they have the top secret transcripts of conversations that other Trump staffers held with Russian regime officials. The fact that the transcripts indicate no wrongdoing on the part of any of Trump’s staffers is neither here nor there. The drumbeat of defamation will continue.

Flynn was the first target. But he will not be the last.

Selective leaks are not the only way that the permanent state intends to hamstring Trump. On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that US intelligence agencies are hiding intelligence from the White House.

On Thursday, without provocation or legal requirement, the FBI released records from a 45-year-old civil rights investigation of the Trump family’s real estate firm.

And of course, the decision by radical courts to block implementation of Trump’s executive order on immigration to the US from seven terrorism-stricken states shows that empowered political foes in the legal establishment intend to prevent him from governing.

To a certain degree, Trump’s first month in office bears a striking similarly to Netanyahu’s first term in office 20 years ago. When Netanyahu was first elected prime minister in 1996, he was an inexperienced politician. Before winning the election, Netanyahu had never held a cabinet level appointment.

Netanyahu, who opposed the phony peace process with the PLO, was viewed as the root of all evil by Israel’s security and legal establishment whose members had adopted the two-state formula as their catechism. After he was elected they joined forces to subvert his authority.

In 1997, the legal fraternity, in alliance with the media, alleged that Netanyahu’s decision to appoint Likud attorney Ronnie Bar-On attorney-general was the product of a criminal deal he cooked up with then-interior minister Arye Deri. In the fullness of time, the allegations were exposed as utterly groundless. But at the time, they sufficed to torpedo Bar- On’s appointment. More important, the fake Bar-On scandal gave the legal fraternity the opportunity to turn the relationship between the attorney-general and the government on its head. Following the affair, the legal fraternity coerced a weakened Netanyahu to transfer the authority to select the attorney-general to the legal fraternity. Moreover, Netanyahu agreed to subordinate the government to the attorney-general’s legal decisions.

Then there was the security establishment. From the beginning the military establishment set out to block efforts by Netanyahu to diminish the centrality of the peace process with the PLO in Israel’s strategic planning. The fact that the security establishment was not faithfully serving Netanyahu and his government was exposed for all to see in September 1996, when the PLO-led Palestinian Authority launched a terrorist campaign against Israel following Netanyahu’s decision to order the opening of a subterranean tunnel spanning the walls of the Temple Mount.

Rather than taking responsibility for failing to either foresee or quell the terrorist offensive, Israel’s security brass blamed Netanyahu for the PLO’s murder spree.

Instead of standing up to the rebellious bureaucracies, Netanyahu caved in. Consequently, he lost his base, and in 1999 he lost his office.

In a way, Netanyahu had no choice. He had no allies with the power to help him. The Clinton administration was implacably opposed to him and worked openly with the Israeli deep state to unseat him. The media hated him even more than they hate him today.

Trump’s decision to allow Flynn to resign was a dangerous sign that he is beginning to follow the same pattern of behavior that led to the failure of Netanyahu’s first term.

But his press conference with Netanyahu on Wednesday signaled that Trump may yet turn things around and gain control over the rebellious bureaucracy by leaning on an ally that wants him to succeed and needs him to succeed in order to survive himself.

From the statements they made at the joint press conference, it is clear that Trump and Netanyahu have decided to build an alliance. Its purpose is twofold. First, by working together, they can defeat the common foes of their countries. And second, the success of their joint efforts will bring about the defeat of their bureaucratic enemies.

The most significant development to come out of the Trump-Netanyahu press conference was their refusal to endorse the two-state policy doctrine. This was a necessary move.

The only way to build a working alliance between the US and Israel – as opposed to the declarative alliance that exists at public ceremonies – is for both leaders to abandon the two-state paradigm for policy- making.

The two-state formula has been the foundation of US Middle East policy for a generation. It has also been the foundation of the tribal identity of the Israeli Left – led by the military and legal fraternities and the media.

The two-state model is widely viewed as the formula for Middle East peace. But the fact of the matter is that it makes peace impossible to achieve, by holding normal relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors hostage to grandiose peace deals.

Even worse, the two-state model is based on an anti-Israel and anti-US assumption that makes it impossible for either to advance their strategic interests vis-à-vis the Islamic world.

The basic idea behind the two-state paradigm is that the establishment of a PLO state is a precondition for winning the war against Islamic terrorism.

So long as Israel refuses to cede sufficient territory to appease the PLO, victory will be impossible, because the absence of a PLO state so angers Muslims that they will continue killing their enemies.

The defeatist notion that “there is no military solution” to terrorism that dominates the American and Israeli strategic discourses is based on the two-state model.

Given that at the heart of the two-state model is the conviction that Israel is to blame for the presence of Islamic terrorism and extremism, and that the only way to proceed is to establish a terrorism- supporting PLO state, it naturally follows that the policy’s adherents in the US cannot see any real purpose for the US alliance with Israel. It is also natural that they fail to see any potential for a regional alliance led by the US and joined by Israel and the Sunni states based on the common goals of defeating Iran and radical Islamic terrorist enclaves.

In other words, the two-state formula dooms its adherents to strategic myopia and defeatism while holding their strategic and national interests hostage to the PLO.

The insanity at the heart of the two-state formula, and the US and Israeli public’s desire to make a clear break with the strategic defeats of the past generation, makes its abandonment a clear choice for both Trump and Netanyahu. Abandoning it wins them support and credibility from their political bases when they need their supporters to rally to their side. And to the extent they are able to implement more constructive policies to defeat the forces of radical Islam, they will weaken the establishments that are working to undermine them.

By leaning on Netanyahu to help him to secure victories against the forces of radical Islam, and so putting paid to the bureaucracy’s most beloved policy paradigm, Trump can both secure his base and weaken his opponents.

So, too, by developing a substantive alliance with the Trump administration and increasing Trump’s chance of political survival and success, Netanyahu gains a formidable partner and makes it more difficult for the legal fraternity and its media flacks to bring about his indictment and fall.

Amazingly then, to a significant degree, the survival of both leaders is tied up with their success in keeping their promises to their voters and defeating their foes – domestic and foreign.

www.CarolineGlick.com

Is Israel Top Military Aid Recipient?

MICHAEL RUBIN Commentary FEB. 14, 2017

There is more than one way to calculate U.S. foreign aid.

It has become a rhetorical staple for many—in the progressive left, among the libertarian and isolationist right, and among anti-Israel obsessives—that Israel benefits disproportionately from U.S. military aid and assistance. In the wake of a ten-year $36 billion deal negotiated by the Obama administration in its final months, The Atlantic tackled the subject:

Voters, however, have more mixed views on this kind of support. While more than 60 percent of Americans were more sympathetic to Israel than the Palestinians in a 2016 Gallup poll, sympathies differed along partisan lines, with around half of Democrats being more sympathetic to Israelis versus nearly 80 percent of Republicans. In a separate Brookings poll, roughly half of Democrats who responded said Israel has too much influence on the United States government. Boycott, divest, and sanction movements, which call on organizations in the United States and abroad to cut their financial ties with Israel, have long been popular on college campuses, although somewhat marginal; this year, however, they got a boost from the Black Lives Matter movement, which included statements against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in its recently released policy platform. In general, young Americans are far less sympathetic toward Israel than their older peers: A 2014 Gallup poll found that only half of those aged 18 to 34 favored Israel in the Israel-Palestine conflict, “compared with 58 percent of 35- to 54-year-olds and 74 percent of those 55 and older.” Bernie Sanders, who was extremely popular among young people during the Democratic primary season, controversially criticized Israel, winning “applause and cheers” from the audience at one debate for saying, “If we pursue justice and peace, we are going to have to say that Netanyahu is not right all of the time.” All of this creates an odd backdrop for a historic military-spending deal….

But is it fair to say that Israel really receives more military aid than any other ally?

An important new paper by the Began-Sadat Center’s Professor Hillel Frisch questions the notion that Israel is really the top recipient of U.S. military aid when the real cost of other methods of military assistance is calculated. He explains:

There are 150,500 American troops stationed in seventy countries around the globe…. [Every] 800-1,000 American soldiers stationed abroad represent US$565-665 million of aid to the country in which they are located. Once the real costs are calculated, the largest aid recipient is revealed to be Japan, where 48,828 US military personnel are stationed. This translates into a US military aid package of over US$27 billion (calculated according to Vine’s lower estimation). Germany, with 37,704 US troops on its soil, receives aid equivalent to around US$21 billion; South Korea, with 27,553 US troops, receives over US$15 billion; and Italy receives at least US$6 billion.

That means, Frisch explains:

Japan’s US military aid package is nine times larger than that of Israel, Germany’s is seven times larger, and Italy’s is twice as large. The multipliers are even greater for Egypt. Even the Lilliputian Gulf states, Kuwait and Bahrain, whose American bases are home to over 5,000 US military personnel apiece, receive military aid almost equal to what Israel receives.

But even that does not factor in the cost of the air and sea patrols with which the United States defends NATO countries even when they do not host a U.S. base and America’s Asian allies:

US air and naval forces constantly patrol the Northern, Baltic, and China Seas to protect American allies in Europe and in the Pacific – at American expense. Glimpses of the scale of these operations are afforded by incidents like the shadowing of a Russian ship in the Baltics, near run-ins between Chinese Coast Guard ships and US Navy ships dispatched to challenge Chinese claims in the South China Sea, and near collisions between US Air Force planes and their Chinese counterparts in the same area.

The point Frisch highlights—and one that many in Congress inherently understand—is that Israel does not request nor require such assistance. “…No U.S. plane has ever flown to protect Israel’s airspace. No U.S. Navy ship patrols to protect Israel’s coast. And most importantly, no U.S. military personnel are put at risk to ensure Israel’s safety,” he wrote.

It is a useful point, and one often lost in the increasingly polemical debate about the U.S.-Israel relationship. Why it is lost to the debate is another question. Israeli diplomacy—including in the United States—is at best clumsy and often ham-fisted. Too many Israeli intellectuals let alone politicians prefer to argue with each other about the trees rather than recognize that the entire forest is in danger. And, generations of American students have no real understanding of how the U.S. military or defense actually works.

U.S. assistance should never be considered an entitlement. For those unfamiliar with security issues in the Middle East, it is easy to look at Israel’s receipt of U.S. aid and consider it money down the drain, but it is anything but: Rather, as politicians consider the cost of overseas deployments and basing and ask fundamental questions about whether allies in NATO or East Asia are pulling their own weight, the U.S. defense relationship with Israel should be seen as a model to emulate rather than one to eliminate.

The Delusion of the “Two-State Solution”

By Joel Fishman  Feb 2017

For some time, the slogan of the so-called “Two-State Solution,” has constantly been presented in the media as a desirable goal, one that Israel and the Palestinians should implement in the interest of peace. Whenever one raises this idea, it is implied that Israel should make major sacrifices in exchange for an unclear benefit. During the Obama administration, Secretary of State, John Kerry, bitterly accused the Government of Israel of not being committed to the “Two State Solution,” and even last week in London, Prime Minister Theresa May declared that she favored the “Two-State Solution.” She asked Prime Minster Netanyahu if he were also committed to this formula. For his part, the Prime Minister did not respond directly but stated that Israel is committed to peace.

This proposition completely lacks merit. The PLO first introduced the “Two-State Solution” formula as a stratagem, and its real purpose has been to conceal their true aims and those of their successor, the Palestinian Authority. Those who launched the idea of the “Two State Solution” intended that it be understood differently by the Israelis, — their potential victims, — and other well-meaning outsiders who seemingly would want a fair solution to this war.

During the war in Vietnam, the North Vietnamese originally launched the “Two-State” formula in order to disguise their strategic goal. They adopted a strategy of phases which, by devoting attention to the intermediate stages of their struggle, would enable them to reach their goal by gradual steps. Their real intention was that North Vietnam would conquer South Vietnam, but they spoke of the “Two-State Solution,” a tactic whose purpose was to mislead world public opinion. In the end, Communist North Vietnam subdued and conquered South Vietnam, and in 1975 the last Americans fled by helicopter from the rooftop of their embassy in Saigon. This was a major defeat both for the South Vietnamese and for the United States of America.

During the early 1970s Salah Khalaf, known as Abu Iyad, led a PLO delegation to Hanoi to learn from the North Vietnamese. There, they met the legendary General Vo Nguyen Giap and political advisors who coached them on presenting their case and changing their image of being terrorists in world public opinion. Abu Iyad described this important visit in his book, My Home, My Land (which he published with Eric Rouleau in 1978). Abu Iyad recounted that the North Vietnamese advised the Palestinians to devote attention to the intermediate stages of their war and to accept the need for “provisional sacrifices.” “Without ever referring explicitly to Fatah or the PLO, the Politbureau members gave a long exposé of the various stages in the Vietnamese People’s struggle, explaining why they had had to resign themselves to various concessions, sometimes important ones such as the division of the country into two separate, independent states.”

Independently, in 1997 Yossef Bodansky, an intelligence analyst, published more information on this meeting. “The Vietnamese suggested that seemingly accepting ‘the division of the land between two independent states,’ without stressing that this was only an interim phase, would neutralize the PLO’s opponents in the West.”

We live in a high-technology culture of sound bites and SMS’s, of quick and simple communication, of oneline messages, and such habits discourage the public from the careful study of past experience. In order to understand what is wrong here, we must remember the history of this slogan, which was designed from the start to be a swindle. It began as a tool of political warfare, and its purpose never changed. Its potency has remained, because people do not know the past or have been lulled to sleep.

By tracing and documenting the origin of the term, we can know with certainty that it is a fraud, and those who advance it cannot wish Israel well. For the same reason, no Israeli who wishes his country well should ever advocate the “Two State Solution.” Its program means nothing less than the politicide of Israel. The idea may have been fashionable during the Oslo era, but it is still necessary to listen carefully to what the enemy is saying and what he means.

Dr. Joel Fishman is a member of a research center in Jerusalem