Repressive?

The Knesset has passed a first reading of a bill that makes it illegal to say that Israel is not a "Jewish State". Kind of tough for the million and a half Israeli Arabs who want to maintain some sort of sense of identity. Kind of tough for freedom of expression too. Israel's new right wing government may become more oppresive than most Israelis are used to. Israel used to be a liberal free-thinking sort of place. Curiously they're also making it illegal to say Israel is not a democracy. For why for goodness sake?

Swiss Role?

King Abdullah has been holding talks with the Swiss President on Mid East Peace Process issues - whgich is interesting given the fact that we are about to have our annual NCF peace process conference in Caux, Switzerland. Maybe we can get the Swiss to open the thing. The Swiss have a unique role because they are not trapped - like the EU - by the "three conditions" nad can speak to Hamas - which they have been doing most effectively.

Talks between Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah and Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz yesterday focused on the Middle East peace process and security concerns with special reference to the global financial crisis.

Hurrying the End Game

Peacenik Tony Klug is an inspirational character if a little naive sometimes. He's come out with the idea that the Israelis should submit their wish list and the Palestinians theirs and the Quartet arbitrate the outcome. Well, that's a rough idea of it - the full thing is on the link below. Point is (in my view) that we are on the long road to peace and there's no longer the same opportunity for a quick fix. We have to deal with the status quo I guess until the next war. Peace, if the State of Israel is to survive in an era of mutually assured destruction, has become inevitable. But not yet. We must now work towards a ten year timescale rather than a ten month timescale.

There is room for quick fixes like the one Tony propounds - but we should no longer depend on them.

UN accuses Israel of 'negligence or recklessness'

Well, the UN are certainly going to be more unpopular than before in Israel - if that were possible:

A United Nations inquiry today accused the Israeli military of "negligence or recklessness" in its conduct of the January war in Gaza and said the organisation should press claims for reparations for deaths and damage.

The first investigation into the three-week war by anyone other than human rights researchers and journalists held the Israeli government responsible in seven separate cases in which UN property was damaged and UN staff and other civilians were hurt or killed.

Israel / USA heading for a clash

Ephraim Sneh sends his article suggesting that Israel and the USA may be heading for a clash. Which is something we have been predicting - virtually unavoidable given a right wing government in Israel and a left wing government in the States and a tough-as-nails US Secretary of State:

Glimmers of concern have recently crept into conversations with various American officials about a possible clash between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government. On the one hand, the U.S. president has reiterated his intention to implement an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement based on the existence of two independent states. On the other hand, official voices in the Israeli government are heralding an attempt to evade, thwart or at least delay such a move.

Israel is happy

Tamar Hermann's excellent "Peace Index" is out again. Some of the findings are surprising:

On the eve of the state of Israel’s 61st Independence Day, despite all the security, economic, social, and political difficulties and despite the gloomy analyses in the media, the Jewish public is in a very good mood, with over 80% defining their personal mood as “very good” or “moderately good.” About two-thirds also assess the mood of the public as a whole as “very good” or “moderately good.” A segmentation of the answers to the questions on personal mood by voting for the Knesset shows that 75% or more of the voters for all the parties define their mood as well as the national mood as “very good” or “moderately good”; the exception is the voters for Torah Judaism, only half (personal) and about one-quarter (national) of whom feel that way.
A segmentation of the data by age, sex, religiosity, and income showed no gaps between the different groups. In other words, statistically at least, what we have here is a significant finding.

Netanyahu rather slow on the uptake

Seems Netanyahu is doing nothing fast. No policies. No idea where he is going. In a complete muddle infact. Israel has always been badly governed or there'd have been peace decades ago. Difficult to see Obama changing things - and certainly not Bibi:

Obama has a plan for the restructuring of the Middle East, and one of its elements is an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on “Two States for Two Peoples”. Netanyahu argues that he is not in a position to respond, because he has no plan of his own yet. After all, he is quite new in office. Now he is working on such a plan. Very soon, in a week, or a month, or a year, he will have a plan, a real plan, and he will present it to Obama.