Kaya, the royal dog

by Uri Avnery — Gush Shalom

The spectacle is almost bizarre: a political party refuses to accept new members. And not just a few individuals, but tens of thousands. And not just any party, but the Likud (“Unification”), the main force in Israel’s governing coalition.

Strange? But there is method in this madness. It may soon come before Israel’s highest court.

The present leaders of the party, Binyamin Netanyahu and his fellows, are afraid that the people who are now seeking to register as Likud members are really settlers in the occupied territories, who want to take over the Likud, while in practice remaining loyal to their own parties, which are even more extremist.

One of the present Likud members of the Knesset has submitted a bill that may well be unique in the world. It arises from the fear that these new Likud members will not vote for the Likud in the general elections. To counter this possibility, the bill says that when a new member registers in the Likud party, their name will be struck from the general election voter registry, and they will be recorded as having voted for the Likud.

This is manifestly unconstitutional, since it negates the secrecy of the ballot. The legal advisor of the Knesset will probably block it. If not, it will go to the Supreme Court.

This all shows that the Likud is really a curious kind of bird. And not from today.

Years ago, a leading French journalist came to me during an Israeli election campaign. I directed him to an election rally of Menachem Begin’s.

When he came back he was bewildered. “I don’t understand it,” he exclaimed. “When he was talking about the Arabs, he sounded like a rabid fascist. When he was talking about social affairs, he sounded like a moderate liberal. How can this fit together?”

“Begin is not a great thinker,” I explained to him. “All the ideology of the Likud goes back to Vladimir Jabotinsky.”

Vladimir (or Ze’ev) Jabotinsky was the founder of the “revisionist” party, the parent of the Herut Party, which was the parent of the present-day Likud. He was born in 1880 in Odessa in the Ukraine. When he was young man he was sent as a journalist to Italy, a country that had attained its freedom not so long before.

The Italian liberation movement was an unusual mixture of extreme patriotism and liberal social ideas. This fixed the young Jabotinsky’s political outlook for life.

He was a very captivating person, extremely gifted in several fields. He wrote a novel (about the Biblical hero Samson), translated Edgar Allen Poe’s poems into Hebrew, was a brilliant orator and gifted journalist, wrote songs and much more. In World War I he helped form Jewish battalions in the British army and was a junior officer in the conquest of Palestine.

A few years later the British partitioned Palestine and set up the separate Arab emirate of Transjordan. Jabotinsky objected and founded the ultra-Zionist “Revisionist Party,” which demanded the “revision” of this decision.

Jabotinsky loathed the dour, socialist “pioneers” who dominated the Zionist community in Palestine and who hated him. I suspect that he was not too unhappy when the British kicked him out of the country. David Ben-Gurion called him “fascist” — though, as an Italy-lover, Jabotinsky loathed Benito Mussolini.

During those years Jabotinsky was a globe-trotting agitator, who wrote a weekly article which I read piously. I admired his clear, logical style. His movement grew in several countries, especially Poland.

In Palestine, Jabotinsky’s Revisionist movement remained a small and isolated minority. However, when violent Jewish-Arab clashes broke out, his movement established the Irgun, an armed underground organization. Jabotinsky was its nominal commander-in-chief. Largely because of him, I joined when I was hardly 15 years old.

In early 1939, Jabotinsky’s followers around the world assembled in Warsaw. The clouds of war were already gathering, but Jabotinsky proclaimed that war was impossible — modern arms were much too murderous. When one of his Polish followers, a youngster called Menachem Begin, dared to contradict him, the leader acidly responded: “Sir, if I had your convictions, I would jump into the Vistula!”

However, World War II did indeed break out. Jabotinsky fled to the United States, were he died aged 59 of a heart attack. Begin, who had not jumped into the river, eventually reached Palestine and was appointed commander of the Irgun, which became one of the most successful terrorist organizations in the world.

When the State of Israel was born, Begin became the leader of the opposition and a stickler for democracy. He discarded the “revisionist” party and created his own Herut (“Freedom”) party, at the head of which he lost eight consecutive election campaigns.

When he reached power at last, in 1977, he surprised the world by making peace with Egypt, the most powerful Arab country. I was not surprised at all.

Begin was not a brilliant personality like Jabotinsky. He followed his master religiously. Jabotinsky’s ideology was geographical: “Eretz Israel on both sides of the Jordan.” The map did not include the Sinai peninsula, so Begin had no qualms about giving it back to Egypt. (It also did not include the Golan heights, which Begin would have returned to Syria without hesitation.)

With time, Begin and his followers forgot about the land beyond the Jordan river. They still sang the song written by Jabotinsky (“The Jordan has two banks — the one belongs to us and so does the other”), but realpolitik is stronger than songs. The Kingdom of Jordan is now one of Israel’s most important allies, and Israel has saved it from extinction several times.

However, the claim that Jordan, like the West Bank, must be part of the Jewish State appears prominently in the Likud party program. Everybody had forgotten this long ago, until this week.

Binyamin Netanyahu’s assistants, who are fighting to prevent the “new applicants” from becoming members of their party, demand that they declare their full acceptance of all parts of the official Likud program — including the demand that Jordan become a part of Israel.

AS A personality, Netanyahu is far below Begin, much as Begin was far below Jabotinsky. There never was a whiff of personal misbehavior about Begin, who was famous for his modest standard life-style, after risking his life every minute for years. Netanyahu is surrounded by a strong smell of corruption. Several investigations against him and his wife Sarah are in progress, each of which could well land him in prison.

Jabotinsky would have looked upon him with disgust.

However…

A Jewish joke tells about the death of the rich man in the ghetto. According to custom, somebody had to eulogize him, presenting him positively. Nobody could be found to fulfill this duty. At long last, one man volunteered.

“We all know that Rabbi Moshe was a loathsome person,” he said, “stinking rich, mean and cruel. But compared to his son, he was an angel!”

Something like this is happening in Israel now. The spotlight is on Ya’ir, Netanyahu’s 26-year old elder son.

“Bibi” has already been in power for 12 nonconsecutive years and behaves like a king. “Sarah’le,” his wife, behaves like a queen, in the style of Marie-Antoinette. In popular parlance, Ya’ir is the “crown-prince.”

A very unruly prince. He lives with his parents in the official residence and behaves like a spoiled brat. He is trailed everywhere by bodyguards provided by the state. He has no visible job. And during the last few days, he has become notorious.

Like Donald the Trump, Ya’ir spews abusive comments in all directions on the internet. For example, he calls “The New Israel Fund,” a foundation that supports leftist groups, “The New Fund for the Destruction of Israel.”

The latest episode concerns the by-law that orders dog owners to pick up the excrement of their animals in public places. Ya’ir was walking the royal dog, the now famous Kaya, without picking up her excrement in the street. When a lady stopped him and demanded that he follow the law, he made a lewd gesture — which the lady duly photographed.

Jabotinsky, Begin, Bibi, Ya’ir — quelle difference!

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Trump’s “new” strategy in Afghanistan is doomed to fail

by Alon Ben-Meir

President Trump’s new strategy that would presumably win the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan is doomed to fail, just like Bush’s and Obama’s before him. At best, the reported dispatch of an additional 4,000 American troops as recommended by his security chiefs will prevent the total collapse of Afghanistan and thwart the Taliban from winning. Given the complex nature of the conflict, however, the status quo will not change in any significant way.

One might think that after 16 years, the United States should have learned that the Taliban will not be defeated. The only solution rests on a negotiated agreement with the Taliban while inviting the Afghan tribes to do the heavy lifting, as they are the only party who can effectively work with the Taliban to reach an enduring agreement. Together, they can fight against the various terrorist groups that have converged on Afghanistan, because they want to end foreign interventions that have done nothing but cause socio-political havoc and instability since the Soviet invasion in 1979.

The only pointed and correct statement Trump made in his “new strategy” is that the US should not undertake the practice of nation-building, and certainly not dictate how the Afghan people live their lives and govern themselves. The United States, with the support of the tribes, should focus on combating terrorism, especially from al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other radical extremist groups.

The Taliban should receive a clear signal that they are an important part of the new strategy to reach a peace accord, provided they demonstrate their willingness to negotiate in earnest, knowing that otherwise they will have to continue to be engaged in an intractable fight against US forces without any chance of succeeding.

It is true and necessary for the United States to develop strategic partnerships, especially with India and Pakistan, to help in the fight against terrorism, and use its political, economic, and military assets to that end. However, whereas India would be willing to partner with the United States, it is not a given that the besieged Pakistani government will be able to fully commit itself even if it chooses to, because a) the ongoing political turmoil in Islamabad prevents the development of a cohesive policy to combat the plethora of terrorist groups, which makes the task extremely difficult; and b) Pakistan does not want to fight the Taliban knowing that they will sooner or later be a part of the Afghan government (if not in control of it), with which they have to coexist.

For these reasons, it is naïve to think that after 16 years of fighting, dispatching an additional military force of 4,000 soldiers will change anything. In fact, at its peak over 100,000 American soldiers were unable to dramatically change the dynamic of the conflict and create a sustainable political and security structure that would allow US troops to leave.

No one in the Trump administration, including the Pentagon, is offering any convincing argument that additional forces would win the war. At best, they can arrest the continuing advances of the Taliban, which is now in control of nearly half the country.

Although Trump correctly shifted away from a time-based approach and instead linked it to progress made on the ground, this effort will succeed only if the US immediately embraces peace talks while fighting foreign terrorist groups.

To be sure, there will not be a military solution to the Afghan war. Trump has now the opportunity to change the dynamic of the conflict by looking at the Taliban not as the enemy, but as the partner in the search for a sustainable solution.

The sooner the United States accepts this reality the better, so that the US can focus on a practical outcome that can emerge only through negotiations with moderate elements of the Taliban and with full participation of the tribal leaders.

In a conversation I had with Ajmal Khan Zazai, tribal leader and Paramount Chief of Paktia province in Afghanistan (which I discussed in a previous article in July), he noted that previous American military approaches have never had a chance of succeeding, due to their “[obsession] with their version of ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’… They don’t believe in homegrown or Afghan local solutions led by the tribes…” He emphasized the fact that “Afghanistan is a tribal country, the tribes are the past, present, and the future.” I fully agree that excluding the tribes from this battle against violent extremism, including al-Qaeda and ISIS, will simply not work.

To prevent repeating past mistakes, the Trump administration must now reach out to the tribal chiefs and together develop a strategy that would allow the Taliban to fully participate in peace talks with the objective of reaching a long-term solution.

The chiefs would require US financial assistance to the tune of four to five hundred million dollars a year, over a few years (which is a fraction of what we spend today). The purpose of this would be to recruit and train their own militia to fight their own battles against the assortment of terrorists.

Under such a scenario, the Taliban will have to commit themselves to fight, alongside the Afghan military, against all extremist and terror groups, particularly al-Qaeda and ISIS. Once the Taliban becomes a part of the government, they would develop a vested interest in the stability of Afghanistan, and will have every reason to prevent Pakistan and Iran, in particular, from meddling in the internal affairs of their country.

To be sure, the Taliban are Afghan nationals and will not be dislodged from their own land; likewise, the support of the tribes is essential as they want to take matters into their hands. They know that time is on their side because no foreign power has ever been able to conquer Afghanistan, dominate the country, and change the Afghans’ way of life.

Every foreign power was forced to eventually leave because they could not sustain their conquest or domination. If the US wants to end this debilitating war, it must focus on local forces for a permanent solution and leave Afghanistan sooner than later with some dignity.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

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Volatile Panama

Now we have had the first major Odebrecht-related arrest related to the last PRD administration, a money laundering case against Martín Torrijos’s main man in charge of fighting money laundering. We can expect all sorts of foot dragging and obstructions to continue through the upcoming election cycle.

Unresolved questions would likely hound Panama’s largest political party, notwithstanding all denials. The overarching national scandal is likely to affect the chances of not only that party but also of the independents who served in that administration or who were appointees of that administration. The two leading names put forward as possible PRD presidential nominees will be touched, perhaps only obliquely. People will want to know more about Zulay Rodríguez’s role in the courts during legendarily thuggish days. People will want to know what Nito Cortizo knew when he was Torrijos’s agriculture minister and what he did about it. The same would apply to former tourism minister Rubén Blades if he runs as an independent. Another set of corruption-related questions — what she knew and what she did about not only Odebrecht but also about David Murcia Guzmán’s activities and influence and about the mass poisoning case, to name a few salient matters — ought to haunt the independent candidacy of Ana Matilde Gómez.

Perhaps questions will be answered to the voters’ satisfaction. Perhaps all political factions in all branches of government, plus all of the rival rabiblanco media, will come to an agreement to suppress any and all such questions. But in these days of social media and the emergence of many small media from the rubble of the broken old advertising-supported news business paradigm, the fax and bochinche networks of late Noriega times that were the backbone of the 1989 Endara landslide will seem crude and ineffective indeed. A tacit agreement to squelch the uncomfortable questions is more likely to damage already malfunctioning institutions than to preserve them.

All of which leaves Panama without any obvious easy answers. Can a poorly educated nation do its homework and solve a problem? If not we will be falling into a dangerous place.

Trump and his bedrock base

He got 46.1 percent of the vote, and a poll in the wake of the neofascist disturbances in Virginia say that 64 percent of those who voted for Trump are standing by him. That’s less than 30 percent of the electorate, but other polls give Trump an approval rating that’s a few points higher. Such Republican leaders as both former presidents Bush and the leaders of both houses of Congress are distancing themselves from the president. His presidency may or may not survive and the nation and world have good reason to fear that he might start a war to distract attention and rally more support.

The core of Trump’s supporters, however, would likely follow him through all that. About one in seven American voters believes in “end times religion,” that the apocalypse draws nigh. These people tend to be hard right voters. Catastrophic war, environmental destruction, social breakdown, schools that don’t teach, crumbling infrastructures, malfunctioning institutions — none of these things faze them because they think it’s all going to end anyway. And they are something like about one-third to one-half of Trump’s diehard base.

Are these religious fanatics outnumbered in the ranks of core Trump supporters by racial fanatics? Trump comes from a white racist family and got to the presidency by waging a years-long racist campaign, including his championing of the Birther hoax and a call to execute black and Hispanic youths who were wrongly accused of an infamous crime in New York City’s Central Park. For Trump to abandon and condemn Ku Klux Klan politics would be for him to turn his back on the faith in which he was raised.

Subsets of the racial and religious fanatics in the Trump base, but also including a few folks who are neither racists nor bigots, are people who are very concerned about immigration. In this field Trump has accomplished more than in any other. However, the negative effects are beginning to be felt, the old well paid industrial jobs that left the Rust Belt have not come back and likely won’t and America’s isolation in the world is just beginning to unfold. Perhaps some spectacular crime by an immigrant will energize or dissipate this part of the Trump base.

Because most of Trump’s hardcore base lives in alternative social and media universes of their own, whatever setbacks come their way those scenes will be with us for years to come. But they will only be able to maintain political power by the cancellation or rigging of democracy, or by alliances with those whom they presently insult. The gerrymandering is already with us and the battle over vote suppression is already joined and will become far more intense.

Trump the man is going to fall, and his core political base is headed toward marginalization and widespread ridicule. But what comes next for Americans depends on who can inspire enough of a fragmented society by which positive message. That’s the big question mark of our times.

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