Rural Ruminations

[Originally published in the Rutland Herald and Barre Times-Argus.]

Israel and Hamas have both declared unilateral ceasefires in the Gaza. History would argue that it is highly unlikely that, barring external intervention, any sort of peace has much of a chance.

Perhaps understandably, Western criticism of Israel over their Gaza incursion has seemed concerned primarily with the carnage inflicted on the Palestinians. That carnage is at the very least unsettling, but the real issue is the highly destabilizing effect that the Israeli invasion is having on the Middle East.

Palestinians believe they have legitimate complaints about their situation today. Having had no tangible support outside the Muslim world for their aspirations, they have resorted to asymmetrical warfare and terrorism in an attempt to get some attention and help. On the other hand, Israelis, content with their lot and not receptive to desires to revisit Palestinian issues, wish only to have some peace without having homemade rockets rained down aimlessly on them from the Gaza strip.

Israel is an economic powerhouse. Palestine is an economic basket case. The Israelis have an efficient, western style military establishment which employs tanks, artillery, drone aircraft and helicopter gunships armed with high tech American rocketry. The Palestinians deploy Toyota pickups, poorly trained fighters, rudimentary unguided rockets and Soviet era Kalashnikov rifles.

We know what the Arab and Israeli people want. They have consistently polled in favor of peace.

Unfortunately, that is not what their leaders want. Hamas, the only democratically elected group in Palestine, want to “push the Israelis into the sea.” The Israelis want to destroy Hamas. They would prefer to deal with the Palestinian Authority, the weak, corrupt and generally reviled West Bank government which they see as a “reasonable” entity with which to negotiate the future of Palestine and stop the incessant rocket attacks.

So, the governments of Israel and Palestine are locked in a struggle which cannot be “won”. Despite that, Hamas has already declared a “heavenly victory.” If the Israelis leave one Hamas member alive who can launch a rocket at Israel, they cannot “win.” Hamas will not push Israel into the sea. At the end of the incursion and the onset of the ceasefire, neither side has achieved any of its long-term goals

Irrespective of how we in the West see the Gaza incursion, most Arabs/Muslims view it as a genocidal atrocity. The result is that the Gaza events are radicalizing the Arab/Muslim world, bringing daily increasing support to Hamas and radical Islam.

Any hope we have to deal successfully with our problems in Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Palestine and with terrorism, lies in not losing the support of that great majority of Arabs/Muslims who are moderate. We already have lost many as a result of our incursions into Afghanistan and Iraq. Gaza is rapidly making the situation worse and we are losing the battle for those moderates.

That puts in grave doubt the continued existence of the “moderate” Arab regimes that we call our allies. Unfortunately, when Mubarak in Egypt, the Kings in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, the Sheiks in the Gulf or any other “moderate” leader is threatened by a radicalized citizenry, the continued viability of even their form of moderation is doubtful.

Because of the paternalistic, non-democratic, often repressive nature of the rule of such “moderates”, the only alternative to them rests in a radical lslam of the sort proposed by the Muslim Brotherhood (philosophical godfather to Hamas and Hizballah), Al Qaida, the Taliban and the Iranian Mullahs. The rise of Muslim fundamentalism will surely be accompanied by the fall of “moderate,” secular Arab states.

The continued radicalization of Arab/Musllim citizens will promote the fundamentalist cause and essentially finish off most of our hopes for moderation and progress in the Middle East. This will be an ongoing, endless disaster for Israel and will make our struggles with radical Islam and fundamentalist terrorism even more difficult than they already are.

The Arabs and Israelis will not, repeat not, voluntarily solve these outstanding issues. Only sufficient pressure from moderate Islam, Europe, Asia, North America and the U.N. has any potential to lead to a solution. Unless that group is committed to finding an evenhanded, fair solution to the Palestine problem, there is not much hope for progress for Israel, America or our friends and allies.

Such a commitment requires spending political capital to overcome the dug-in positions of the antagonists. Most of the world is ready. America needs to get involved. Is the Obama administration prepared to spend such capital, where the Bush administration clearly was not? Does our currently diminished reputation in the world permit that? If not, can we recoup our old prestige?

If all the answers are negative, the future for America in that part of the world and, in the long run, for Israel, is indeed bleak.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in East and West Europe, the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff. He lives in Williston.

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[Originally published in the Barre Times-Argus and Rutland Herald.]

Objective articles about Palestine and Israel in the Israeli press are pretty commonplace. Israeli readers have ready access to all points of view. Haaretz, Israel’s oldest newspaper and one of its most influential, is a leader in presenting balanced commentary on and criticism of Israeli policy. It does so without censorship and with a clarity and passion that is rarely seen in mainstream American media.

Unfortunately, writing objectively about Palestine in the United States, which inevitably involves criticism of both Israel and Palestine, is akin to standing in the sights of a bazooka aimed by those Americans who have passionately pro-Israeli views on the subject.

Passionate and uncritical American supporters of Israel have long painted all criticism of Israel in the most negative light. Part of that campaign has involved labeling anyone who speaks out against Israeli policies or activities as “anti-Semitic.” While it is true that negative comments on Semites (Jews, Arabs and others) are anti-Semitic, negative comments on the country of Israel are not.

The power of the term makes its use highly inflammatory in our culture. We have reached the point where many in the media are reluctant to criticize any Israeli policy or activity, anticipating that they will be labeled as “anti-Semitic,” with all its ugly connotations. This produces a de facto censorship of criticism of Israel, even when such criticism is justified. Israel, like America or any other country in the history of the world, has done things that need to be examined and openly discussed.

When such discussion does appear in the American media, as in the recent case of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, two American scholars who severely criticized the “Israeli lobby” (passionate, doctrinaire and uncritical supporters of Israel) in the U.S. press, it is typically labeled as “anti-Semitic” and when it’s applied to a Jew, as “self-hating” by that same “Israeli lobby.”

So, America has a free press, but it’s not really free when it comes to open discussions of Israeli policies and activities. Sadly, the important ongoing battle against real, continuing anti-Semitism is undermined whenever opposition to Israeli government policies is automatically branded as anti-Semitic.

Given the importance to America of Israel and the Middle East, the ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip serves simply to remind all of us of the wholly unsatisfactory state of affairs in Palestine. Without a solution to the Palestine problem, America will be hard put to find favorable solutions to its problems with radical Muslim terrorism or with Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria or Pakistan. Arabs and Israelis will simply continue to kill each other indiscriminately, guaranteeing perpetual unrest in the entire Middle East.

At this moment, it would appear that those in power in Palestine and Israel are not prepared to respond to any of their own internal constituencies other than their most radical elements. Despite the existence of Fatah as a “moderating” voice in Palestine, Hamas remains openly dedicated to the ultimate destruction of Israel and is essentially at war with that country.

According to recent polls, 60 percent of Israelis would trade land for peace. Yet, the West Bank settlers and their Israeli and American supporters in and out of government, are totally unwilling to even discuss the issue of those settlements as part of any solution for the Palestine problem.

Those settlements, like the radical Arab policy of “pushing Israel into the sea,” will always be the key obstacles in any peace process. The Arab intent to annihilate Israel is totally unacceptable. The West Bank settlements have been declared illegal under international law. Neither policy is morally superior to the other: Each is wrong.

So, the shelling of Israel from Gaza and the retention and expansion of Israel’s illegal West Bank settlements continue simply to mollify the extremist elements on both sides who feel they will somehow lose if an agreement is reached.

What Americans need to understand is that a Palestine/Israel peace will come only when the West Bank settlements are gone and when Israel is accepted in the region and guaranteed peace and security by the extremists who would now annihilate her. There will be no peace without such accommodations, only endless conflict.

The original goals for Palestine and Israel included a land-for-peace deal and a two-state solution. They still represent the only fair answers for all sides. God knows, we condemn the Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel. If we cannot even rationally discuss the West Bank settlements in our “free” press without being labeled “anti-Semitic,” what hope is there for America to sponsor or even help with an equitable solution that is in the interest of all concerned parties, ourselves included?

Not much!

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA Station Chief who served in East and West Europe and the Middle East and as Chief of the Counterterrorism Staff. He lives in Williston.

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[Originally published in Nieman Watchdog.]

Why is finding fault with Israel seemingly off-limits in so much of the mainstream American media?

Objective articles about Palestine and Israel in the Israeli press are pretty commonplace. Israeli readers have ready access to all points of view. Haaretz, Israel’s oldest newspaper and one of its most influential, is a leader in presenting balanced commentary on and criticism of Israeli policy. It does so without censorship and with a clarity and passion that is rarely seen in mainstream American media.

Unfortunately, writing objectively about Palestine in the United States, which inevitably involves criticism of both Israel and Palestine, is akin to standing in the sights of a bazooka aimed by those Americans who have passionately pro-Israeli views on the subject.

Passionate and uncritical American supporters of Israel have long painted all criticism of Israel in the most negative light. Part of that campaign has involved labeling anyone who speaks out against Israeli policies or activities as “anti-Semitic.” While it is true that negative comments on Semites (Jews, Arabs and others) are anti-Semitic, negative comments on the country of Israel are not.

The power of the term makes its use highly inflammatory in our culture. We have reached the point where many in the media are reluctant to criticize any Israeli policy or activity, anticipating that they will be labeled as “anti-Semitic,” with all its ugly connotations. This produces a de facto censorship of criticism of Israel, even when such criticism is justified. Israel, like America or any other country in the history of the world, has done things that need to be examined and openly discussed.

When such discussion does appear in the American media, as in the recent case of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, two American scholars who severely criticized the “Israeli lobby” (passionate, doctrinaire and uncritical supporters of Israel) in the U.S. press, it is typically labeled as “anti-Semitic” and when it’s applied to a Jew, as “self-hating” by that same “Israeli lobby”.

So, America has a free press, but it’s not really free when it comes to open discussions of Israeli policies and activities. Sadly, the important ongoing battle against real, continuing anti-Semitism is undermined whenever opposition to Israeli government policies is automatically branded as anti-Semitic.

Given the importance to America of Israel and the Middle East, the ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip serves simply to remind all of us of the wholly unsatisfactory state of affairs in Palestine. Without a solution to the Palestine problem, America will be hard put to find favorable solutions to its problems with radical Muslim terrorism or with Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria or Pakistan. Arabs and Israelis will simply continue to kill each other indiscriminately, guaranteeing perpetual unrest in the entire Middle East.

At this moment, it would appear that those in power in Palestine and Israel are not prepared to respond to any of their own internal constituencies other than their most radical elements. Despite the existence of Fatah as a “moderating” voice in Palestine, Hamas remains openly dedicated to the ultimate destruction of Israel and is essentially at war with that country.

According to recent polls, 60 percent of Israelis would trade land for peace. Yet, the West Bank settlers and their Israeli and American supporters in and out of government, are totally unwilling to even discuss the issue of those settlements as part of any solution for the Palestine problem.

Those settlements, like the radical Arab policy of “pushing Israel into the sea,” will always be the key obstacles in any peace process. The Arab intent to annihilate Israel is totally unacceptable. The West Bank settlements have been declared illegal under international law. Neither policy is morally superior to the other: Each is wrong.

So, the shelling of Israel from Gaza and the retention and expansion of Israel’s illegal West Bank settlements continue simply to mollify the extremist elements on both sides who feel they will somehow “lose” if an agreement is reached.

What Americans need to understand is that a Palestine/Israel peace will come only when the West Bank settlements are gone and when Israel is accepted in the region and guaranteed peace and security by the extremists who would now annihilate her. There will be no peace without such accommodations, only endless conflict.

The original goals for Palestine and Israel included a land-for-peace deal and a two-state solution. They still represent the only fair answers for all sides. God knows, we condemn the Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel. If we cannot even rationally discuss the West Bank settlements in our “free” press without being labeled “anti-Semitic,” what hope is there for America to sponsor or even help with an equitable solution that is in the interest of all concerned parties, ourselves included?

Not much!

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[Originally published in the Barre Times-Argus and Rutland Herald.]

Israel is 60 years old. There are very few Americans who do not support the existence of Israel. America was there at Israel’s birth and has been its most consistent supporter over the last 60 years. We have stood up for them faithfully and consistently, both in the Middle East and in the U.N. Security Council.

The $64 billion question for Israel is, what does it want to be and how does it plan to accomplish its goals? Will it continue to expand into Palestine through its settlement policies? Is it to be a uni-national Jewish state or a bi-national democratic state?

During its first 20 years, Israel simply concentrated on the process of establishing itself. There wasn’t really much impeding that process. The Palestinians, who felt aggrieved because the creation of Israel forcefully ejected them from their homeland, were spread out as refugees in their own diaspora in the Middle East. It was not a happy time for them as they were never accepted or integrated into the countries on whose soil their refugee camps were built. They were politically noisy, but they certainly were no threat to Israel.

The Six Day War in 1967 changed all that. When the brief battle was over, the Israelis had occupied the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. In doing so, they had, at least for the moment, solved some of their military defense issues. On the other hand, they were occupying all of Palestine – a fact that would become increasingly problematic for them as time passed.

If Israel had chosen in 1967 to trade that land for peace with its Arab neighbors, the world would likely be very different today. The Arabs were ready for it, but Israel was not. Instead, what we have seen over the ensuing 40 years has been an Israel more interested in permanently occupying portions, if not ultimately all, of Palestine at the expense of peace with the Palestinians, and Arabs intent on destroying Israel.

The formulation for peace over the past 40 years has been Israel and Palestine living in side-by-side states in peace – the “two-state solution.” There were times during that period when it seemed it might be attained. But today, no one believes seriously that the two-state solution is viable. All one has to do is look carefully, not at the words, but at the actions of the participants and it becomes clear that no one wants such a solution. Why? Because, quite simply, those in charge in Israel want to increase their occupation of Palestinian territory through their settlement program and those really in charge in Palestine want to “throw the Israelis into the sea.”

It therefore seems unlikely, absent divine intervention, that the Arabs and Israelis will go for the two-state solution. Nevertheless, there is still movement on the Palestine issue which is and will continue to be demographically driven. These new realities will drive the Palestinians toward a one-state solution.

One of the most closely held secrets in Israel is a complete revelation of their demographics. How many Jews are there in Israel? How many Arabs? How many Jews immigrating? How many emigrating?

If one takes the combined population totals of all the souls living in Israel and Palestine, Israel contains about 5.7 million Jews (including settlers in Palestine) and 1.4 million Arabs and Palestine (including Gaza) has about 3.9 million Arabs. This adds up to a population breakdown of 5.7 million Jews and 5.3 million Arabs living in historical Palestine together.

The Palestine Arab birth rate is a little over 3 percent and the Israeli birthrate is about 1.7 percent. Arab births are now 63,000 per year greater than Israeli births. With 400,000 additional Arabs needed to equal the Israeli population, it will take six years and four months to get there at today’s birth rates. Some say that situation already exists.

If today’s Israel continues to occupy Palestine through its settlements, the point is not far off when Arabs will outnumber Jews in historical Palestine. If Israel manages to complete the walls separating Jews from Arabs, democracy will take a major hit. This reality is already creating serious tensions within Israel, which is, after all, at least within its pre-1967 borders, a democratic state.

This set of realities is extremely important for the future of Israel. Will Israel choose the democratic or the anti-democratic route? It is also very important for the United States and our current struggle with terrorism, as the lack of an equitable solution to the Israel/Palestine stalemate is an important element in the range of issues that motivate radical Islam against us.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served, inter alia, in East and West Europe and the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff. He lives in Williston.

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[Originally published in the Rutland Herald.]

In a recent presentation at Princeton, Jordan’s King Abdullah II made the following points: Fifty-seven out of 193 countries in the world with a total population greater than Europe and the United States combined, representing one-third of the members of the United Nations and for whose citizens the conflict in Palestine is the issue of their time, are not at peace with Israel today. He made no judgment, but simply asked, “What are the implications for global stability if this continues?”

In a subsequent comment Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made another strong pitch for the two-state solution of the Palestine problem. Given recent events, it would appear that this is simply another bit of wishful thinking from the Bush administration.

Israel professes to support a two-state solution, but don’t believe it. Their policy is driven by a desire not only to hold onto their existing West Bank settlements, which have been judged illegal under international law, but to continue to expand those settlements farther into the West Bank.

Palestinian policy is driven by Hamas, the group that wants bring an end to the existence of Israel — “to throw them into the sea.” The only party that really wants a solution to the problem is Fatah. They are the Palestinian group recognized by Israel and the United States as the rightful leaders of Palestine. As such, they are empowered, as far as the Israelis are concerned, to negotiate with them.

It’s important here not to forget or overlook the fact that Hamas won the most recent Palestine election, an election pushed on the reluctant Palestinians by the Bush administration. One might also recall that the Bush administration rejected the results, despite the fact that the election was judged independently to have been completely fair and democratic.

Fatah advocates the two-state solution, but they have a real problem. Hamas, which rules in Gaza, would prefer the end of the Jewish state and oppose negotiations. That means that any time Hamas feels threatened by what it sees to be progress toward the two-state solution, all it has to do is lob a few missiles into Israel, await the inevitable retaliatory Israeli air and ground attacks, and watch Fatah, the main negotiators with Israel, call off further negotiations. As much as they might like to continue the negotiations, under such conditions, Fatah has to call them off or appear totally insensitive to the woes of their Gazan cousins. Hamas has a de facto veto over the negotiations.

And we sit back and tell the antagonists that they have to negotiate a solution — preferably a two-state solution. We say this to the two main players, Israel and Hamas, neither of which wants any kind of solution at all. We do this because just about everyone in the world who cares what is really going on knows that the Palestine impasse, replete with rocketing and retaliatory incursions, is, as King Abdullah says, a major threat to global security. It is a threat because they are using live ammunition and killing each other. These kinds of spats have a way of getting out of hand, and they are happening in a part of the word where all of the people see these events as existential threats. None of that is a good bet for peace.

From an American perspective, this situation, with all its attendant emotionalism, is highly threatening to our interests in the region. It also fuels Muslim hatred of the United States, as they view us, rightly or wrongly, as the main protector of Israel. This is always listed as one of the major factors that spurred al-Qaida to its 9/11 attacks, so it really is in our interest to try to reach an equitable settlement.

The problem is that the antagonists will not negotiate a peace themselves. They will accept peace only if it is forced on them. There is no country in the world other than America that has the clout with Israel to urge them into a fair agreement, but it is difficult to see how, given the realities of our own internal politics, we would be prepared to do that. It seems strange to say, but unless we are prepared to act totally uncharacteristically, the world is probably doomed to an indefinite continuation of the highly dangerous and threatening status quo in the Palestine situation.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in Eastern and Western Europe and the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff. He lives in Williston.

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[Originally published in the Rutland Herald.]

Here we are in the midst of yet another Middle East summit meeting, the purpose of which, as always, is to find a solution to the persistent Palestine problem. So far, for a variety of reasons, nothing conclusive has come from these meetings. Nevertheless, it does present the United States with one more opportunity to look at its national interests in the region and then, hopefully, decide on a policy that serves those interests.

U.S. policy on the Palestine issue has been pretty consistent, at least since the 1967 war. We have supported Israel on virtually every substantive issue of importance. We have vetoed over two dozen resolutions in the U.N. Security Council that have condemned Israel for one thing or another, and we have supported or at least turned a blind eye to their Gaza and West Bank settlement policies, which have been deemed illegal under international law.

The “land for peace” solution is still on the table. That idea was incorporated in 1967 in U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 in the aftermath of the six day Arab-Israeli War. Under “land for peace,” the Palestinians would get back roughly their pre-1967 borders, and the Israelis would get peace, security and recognition of their national legitimacy. The West Bank settlements are important in the upcoming summit meeting because in order to satisfy “land for peace,” Israel would have to give them up. There is broad traditional support for such a solution in Europe and in the U.N. General Assembly.

Some Palestinians who would like to throw the Israelis into the sea and some Israelis, particularly Israeli settlers, oppose that formula. They are supported here in America by the more fervent Israeli supporters, including many American Jewish Zionists, as well as substantial numbers of fundamentalist Christians — the “Christian Zionists” — who believe the second coming of Christ will not happen until Israel occupies the entire West Bank. The settlements lead to just such a situation.

Israelis are far better informed on this issue than Americans simply because there is a passionate, ongoing, public debate in Israel on the subject. There is virtually no discussion of it here in America. The issue of the settlements is at the heart of Israeli national interests. The real question here is whether or not continued American support for the settlements is in the U.S. national interest.

Osama bin Laden probably doesn’t care much about the plight of the Palestinians. What he cares about is the eradication of western influence in the lands of Islam. And yet, the resolution of the Palestine issue is at the heart of America’s issues, not only in the Middle East, but in its overall dealings with fundamentalist Muslim terrorism. The Palestine issue is not a cause of our problems with terrorism, but it is a constant irritant. As long as Muslims continue to believe that the Palestinians are being wronged by the Israelis and by extension by a pro-Israel ally, the United States, the Muslim world will remain a rich recruiting ground for terrorist foot soldiers as well as for political and financial support from a sector of the moderate Muslim world which is not naturally aligned with the fundamentalists.

President Bush has consistently supported the two-state solution- of Israeli and Palestinian states living side by side, undergirded by the precept of “land for peace.” He seems to be politically isolated in that position. In the recent debates between both Republicans and Democrats, no candidate comes to mind who supports “land for peace.” This may well be because none of those individuals believes in such a solution. It also may be because of the generally held perception in American politics that a candidate who is not 100 percent supportive of Israeli national interests cannot be elected to significant national public office.

Israeli and American national interests, where they often coincide, are not always identical. In the case of “land for peace,” and despite varying but persistent support in Israel over the past 40 years, they are quite divergent. If a settlement of the Palestine issue leads to a two-state solution in which both states are absolutely guaranteed the right to exist in peace and security, then it is in American national interest to support that solution with more than words. Anything we can do to diminish support for Muslim terrorism is in our national interest. The Israeli settlements are not.

This kind of opportunity doesn’t come around very often, and it is critical to support it when it does, particularly when non-support is likely to increase our problems with fundamentalist Muslim terrorism.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in Eastern and Western Europe, Lebanon and Iran and as chief of the agency’s counterterrorism staff. He lives in Williston.

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[Originally published in The Valley News.]

The spit between Hamas and Fatah in Palestine is now a reality.  For many Americans, Fatah is good because it is secular and Hamas is bad because it is Islamist.

In early 2006, at the insistence of the Bush Administration and against the wishes of both Hamas and Fatah, a free, democratic, Palestine election was held.  Hamas won handily, taking control of the parliament.

Hamas won because Fatah, the party of Yasser Arafat which had ruled Palestine since the 1967 war, had become corrupt, wildly inefficient and unresponsive to its people.  In marked contrast, Hamas had developed a strong infrastructure in Palestine.  They established extensive welfare programs and  funded schools, orphanages, and health clinics.  Palestinians voted for Hamas because they represented the only change for the better available to them, not necessarily because they supported Hamas’ violent and bellicose, anti-Israel terrorist policies.

In short, in the process of implementing its one-size-fits-all policy of democratizing the Arabs, the Bush Administration forced an unwanted democratic election on the Palestinians – and its friends lost!  The Israeli, US and European Union response was to immediately hold up hundreds of million dollars designated for Palestine.

This does our image no good anywhere in the World.  On the one hand, the Bush administration talks incessantly about establishing democracy in the Muslim world.  On the other hand, when enabled by a democratic election, the Palestinians voted out the American “friends” (Fatah) and voted in our “enemies” (Hamas).   We responded by stopping our financial and political support of Palestine for 16 months, or until lour “friends” took over the West Bank again.  We look totally hypocritical and cynical.

Despite presidential rhetoric, America will continue to support unelected, undemocratic governments like those in Egypt and most of the rest of the Arab world.  This administration will push for a democratic process only where they think it would work to their advantage.  They will not, however, support a government that is Islamist, even if it is elected under democratic rules spelled out by the United States.  By any objective standard, that’s hypocrisy.

This mess in Palestine reveals almost limitless problems.  The administration is trying to bring democracy to the Middle East.  In the process of doing that they have shown that there are limits to the results they will accept.  What does this say about our relations with Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and the countries of the Maghreb.  None of them can be considered democratic.   But those that support the United States would appear to be getting a pass.  Those who do not, like Syria and Iran, do appear to be on our hit list.

If that’s the case, then what are the prospects for an Arab who lives in one of those “friendly” countries and fervently wishes to live in a democratic environment?  Basically, he has no good choices.  America won’t support him because the tyrants who rule over him are America’s “friends”.  Where home-grown Islamist movements exist in abundance, democratic movements do not .  So, basically we have presented him with a Hobson’s choice of living under a secular tyrant (his present life) or an Islamist tyrant (his alternate possibility).

Undemocratic states friendly to the US have a very real strategic problem.  As long as they continue to support us and remain undemocratic, they build resentment among their own people.  How long will their support of American policy protect them from their own internal opposition groups when such support moves them higher and higher on the Jihadists’ hit lists?

Whether you think America is in the Middle East because of oil or Israel, or for any other imaginable reason, our current policy is only creating more and more problems for us.  The Middle East is on the cusp of turmoil.  Iraq is a mess.  Turkey grows more and more apprehensive (and bellicose) about the Iraqi Kurds.  Lebanon seems headed back into civil war.  The Palestine situation is increasingly dangerous.  America becomes daily more warlike about Iran and Syria, where we have no good military options.

American policy is hated for what Muslims see as its support of undemocratic Muslim regimes; the stationing of US troops on holy Muslim soil in Saudi Arabia; our occupation of Iraq and what they see as America’s constantly lopsided support of Israel at the expense of the Palestinians.

These are the issues that motivate terrorism.  None of them is being effectively addressed.  As long as our present policies persist, our problems will grow.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA Station Chief who served in Europe, Lebanon and Iran and as Chief of the Counterterrorism Staff.  He lives in Williston.

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[Originally published in The Valley News.]

Given President Bush’s total lack of viable options in Iraq, it seems likely that history will judge him harshly for his foreign policy of pre-emptive unilateralism. This failure, combined with the continuing instability in Afghanistan and a world that regards his policies with scorn, must be deeply troubling for a president who reportedly is concerned about his “legacy.”

However, there remains one move that Bush could make that has the potential for counterbalancing the disaster in Iraq, not to mention his administration’s other failures. Bush could pull out all the stops in facilitating peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. If he is prepared to really use American power and influence, he could make it work. Of course, he would have to overcome two major problems: the vow of some Palestinians and Arabs to push the Israelis into the sea, and the current Israeli government’s clear desire to keep and perhaps even ultimately increase settlements on the West Bank.

American and Israeli national interests have a great deal in common, starting with the continued viability of the state of Israel. However, they are not always identical. Our interests regarding the West Bank settlements definitely don’t converge. We cannot support Israel’s plans to defy virtually the rest of the world by clinging to its settlements in the West Bank.

Over the years, a majority of Israelis have indicated they have no desire to keep or expand those settlements, preferring to trade them for peace. Polls of Israelis consistently show that a solid majority would not take part in any protest activity against evacuating the settlements if it brought the country peace. Even among those who describe themselves as right-wingers, healthy majorities have voiced this opinion.

This notion that the two states of Palestine and Israel can live peacefully side by side has been out there since 1967. It has from time to time been an attainable goal. The problem is that during those 39 years, no U.S. president has been prepared to spend the U.S. and international political capital required to tell both sides what they would have to do to reach such a peace.

The critical issue here is whether or not America has been so damaged by its foreign policy of pre-emptive unilateralism that it no longer has the standing and influence required to broker a Middle East peace. The big issue is the settlements.  Without an end to those settlements, there will be no peace.

Only America has the influence with Israel that might persuade it to trade the settlements for peace. Despite broad support for this policy in Israel, any U.S. president who pursues this course of action invites the wrath of the Israel lobby and other Americans who unquestioningly and unstintingly support Israeli settlement policy. Only a lame duck president could undertake this task with any hope of success.

Things in the Middle East have gotten so bad that something positive might be accomplished. In fact, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has recently made a peace overture toward the Palestinians, declaring a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and promising to release frozen funds to the Palestinian Authority, free Palestinian prisoners and ease checkpoints if Palestinians choose the path of peace. About the same time, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has had meetings with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas. Things seem to be stirring out there.

he Israelis are smarting from a defeat suffered at the hands of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which Israelis regard as nothing more than a terrorist group. The Olmert government might be persuaded that in the 60 years of Israel’s existence, military force has never brought peace or security. For their part, the Palestinians are desperate. It’s all well and good that Hezbollah beat up on the Israelis in Lebanon, but life is miserable in Gaza and the West Bank. Palestinians are bombed, shelled and daily humiliated by Israel. The situation is now so bad that, according to current polls, two thirds to three quarters of Palestinians and Israelis would like to have negotiations.

Add to this mix a U.S. president who is desperate to salvage his reputation. If Bush were to become involved in an attempt to solve the Israel-Palestine problem, the prospects for this much delayed, desperately needed peace might be a bit brighter. If he could muster and use the necessary, and probably still available political capital, he might solve this decades-old dilemma. That would be an accomplishment for which he — or anyone on this planet — could be proud, the kind of success that could earn him a Nobel Prize and which could completely overshadow his failures in Iraq. Considering that longstanding grievances against Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands are a major motive in radical Muslim terrorism, it might even bring a diminution of many of our problems with that plague.

Haviland Smith retired as a CIA station chief in 1980. He served in East and West Europe and the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff. He lives in Williston, Vt.

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