U.S. to get tougher with Israel?

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Geopolitical realities after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon will force the United States to back away from its relationship with Israel and favor Muslim allies such as Egypt and Jordan, as well as old foes like Iran and Syria. And Israel's guardian in Washington, the Jewish political lobby, is being challenged by a growing Muslim political power, according to STRATFOR, the private global intelligence company.

On the Sept. 28 one-year anniversary of the latest Palestinian uprising against Israel, King Abdullah II of Jordan met with President Bush to support the U.S. counter-terrorism campaign. The Bush administration was also courting Islamic support with separate meetings the previous day between Secretary of State Colin Powell, Abdullah and Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem.

The tenor of relations between Washington and Israel will change as the White House gives the Israeli government the diplomatic cold shoulder. The United States will also continue to put significant pressure on Israel to clamp down on the violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Depending on how the Israelis react, this may be the beginning of a sea change in U.S.-Israeli relations.

The United States is negotiating with Iran and Syria in the hope that they join the growing international anti-terror coalition, or at least remain neutral. Damascus and Tehran are both cooperating to a certain degree, believing that U.S. gratitude will allow them sufficient political leeway in the future.

In responding to the Sept. 11 attacks, Washington needs Muslim cooperation, especially in obtaining intelligence on fundamentalist groups. A coalition with Muslim support would also give the United States political cover in carrying out operations against countries like Afghanistan.

But Washington's close ties with Israel make such cooperation difficult. Some Muslim states are holding Washington's feet to the fire, hoping to reduce U.S. concessions to Israel. Other regimes such as Egypt and Jordan face massive domestic pressure from fundamentalists, and in order to cooperate, need Washington to visibly reduce its support for Israel in order to avoid destabilization.

Two factors have pushed the United States toward Israel over much of the last half-century: the Cold War and domestic political pressure from Jewish groups in the United States. But times have changed, and Israel will no longer be at the top of U.S. strategy in the Middle East.

American support for Israel during the Cold War owed much to simple geography. Former Soviet allies Syria and Iraq surrounded Turkey, a key U.S. military ally, and by pumping military and economic support into Israel, Washington was able to ease the pressure on Ankara. At the same time, Israel's proximity to the Suez Canal offered some measure of security for American shipping companies.

The easing of the Soviet threat negated some of Israel's strategic utility to the United States. In fact, the U.S. government had already begun backing away from Israel in the early 1990s, but the process was interrupted by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

The danger of domestic political consequences for a tough policy on Israel has been alleviated to a certain degree by the emergence of a Muslim voting bloc in the United States. In 1997 a group of national Islamic organizations formed the American Muslim Political Coordination Council, comprising the four largest Islamic organizations in the United States, to "bring Muslims off the political sidelines and onto the political playing field."

The group has made leaps and bounds in the past four years, and while Muslim political groups do not match their Jewish counterparts in funding or organization, they can match them in sheer potential voting power, according to William Martin, a religion and government professor at Rice University. Nearly all estimates place the numbers of Muslims in America at about more than 6 million. That amounts to about 3 percent of the population, similar to the number of Jews.

Martin said the key is that Muslim voters have shown a willingness to vote as a block. They did so in the last presidential election, giving George W. Bush about 70 percent of their vote after the coordination council endorsed him in late October.

That support included 28,000 key votes in Florida, compared to perhaps 6,000 for Gore. Large populations of Muslim voters live in key battleground states such as Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey.

The United States will still not completely abandon Israel. Washington needs access to Israel's human intelligence resources. The United States also won't ditch all the political, economic and military tools it uses to influence Israeli policy. And because the Israeli air and ground forces are the only significant military force between Germany and India, their support could become necessary if the U.S. military finds itself overextended.

But with the new calculus in both foreign and domestic policy, the United States is already putting more pressure on Israel. For example, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon became the focus of a recent withering White House push to approve a meeting between Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to discuss a cease-fire.

Restarting the Israeli-Palestinian talks became a high priority for the Bush administration following the terrorist attacks. The White House believes that a Peres-Arafat meeting could be a first step toward improving the atmosphere in the region, which is crucial to its bid to pull together a global coalition against terrorism, according to American diplomatic sources cited by Haaretz, the Israeli daily newspaper.

Powell called Arafat and Sharon repeatedly in recent days, urging them to hold the talks. Last week Sharon rejected Bush's request that he permit Peres to meet with Arafat and proposed instead Israeli help for the anti-terrorism coalition.

According to Haaretz, Bush told Sharon in no uncertain terms that he was the only leader to have turned down a request from the United States since the attacks. Bush reportedly said, "… when I ask you for A and you suggest B, I consider that a refusal."

Soon after the conversation, the groundwork was laid for Arafat's meeting with Peres this week. And Sharon, who earlier expressed reservations about joining the anti-terror coalition, in part because of fears about possible concessions to the Palestinians, later reversed his statements after talking with Bush.

Washington appears to be pressing its point with the Sharon government by threatening Israeli pocketbooks. American officials are reviewing a proposal to immediately end all civilian aid to Israel, totaling nearly $900 million, in the context of a general review of America's foreign aid priorities, according to a senior Western diplomat cited by Haaretz.

U.S. civilian aid to Israel accounts for almost 1 percent of Israel's gross national product and is helping to keep the struggling Israeli economy out of recession. So far though, it appears U.S. military aid to Israel, which amounts to nearly $2 billion, would not be affected.

Please read the following, and tell me if you support the apparent plan to use the UN to help work out things between Israel and the Palestinians. You do agree that the UN is a "neutral broker" - don't you?:

Tuesday October 2, 10:03 PM

Bush says Palestinian state 'always' part of US vision

WASHINGTON, Oct 2 (AFP) - President George W. Bush said Tuesday that creating a Palestinian state has "always" been part of the US vision for peace in the Middle East as long as Israel's right to exist is respected.

"The idea of a Palestinian state has always been part of a vision, so long as the right to Israel to exist is respected," he told reporters in the White House Oval Office.

Bush also said he stood firmly behind a roadmap to peace crafted by an international panel headed by former US senator George Mitchell and said US officials were "working diligently" to end a year-long cycle of violence.

"First things first, when it comes to the Middle East, we've got to get to Mitchell," he said, calling those recommendations "a viable blueprint that most of the world agrees with is a necessary path to ultimately solving the problems of the Middle East.

His comments came as senior US officials said that Washington's plans to unveil a major Middle East peace initiative, including possible support for a Palestinian state, were stalled by the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

"We had started in fact to make more strenuous efforts in the Middle East," a senior State Department official said.

The official and others said the efforts were aimed at producing substantial progress -- particularly in the form of a meeting between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres -- by the annual UN General Assembly session that was postponed because of the attack on the World Trade Center.

"In the run up to the UN, the main thrust of the plan was to revolve around the meetings with Peres and Arafat," a second senior official said.

Arafat and Peres have in fact now met under heavy US pressure but a truce reached between them is increasingly fragile and the official said postponement of the UN session hurt the initiative.

"We had been looking at the UN session not as time to unveil a plan but to get some momentum," he said. "We haven't proceeded exactly as we might have after the attacks but the basic outline is still in play."

One official disputed accounts in The Washington Post and The New York Times that said Secretary of State Colin Powell was to have given in speech at the UN voicing US support for a Palestinian state -- the first time a Republican administration would have done so.

That official, close to Powell, said the secretary had not planned to make such a speech and that Bush's address to the world body was not intended to focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"The secretary doesn't make a a UN speech and the president's speech wasn't going to be a Middle East speech," the official said.

According to the Post, Powell would have laid out general principles for the settlement of the most difficult issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including determining final borders and the return and status of Palestinian refugees.

But, the daily said, a final decision had not yet been made and that some in the White House were hesitating over coming out in favor of Palestinian statehood.

The official close to Powell did confirm newspaper reports that a meeting between Bush and Arafat had been suggested and was being actively worked on.

"That was floating around at the time but it was not completely locked in," the official said, referring to the last days of August and early September when the United States was being criticized for a perceived lack of engagement in the region and for boycotting a UN racism conference over anti-Israel language.

The Times reported that the decision to move ahead with the new initiative was made in early September at a meeting of the National Security Council and that Bush, now preoccupied with forging a global coalition against terrorism, may still make a forceful declaration on the Middle East crisis.

The US leader dismissed those reports Tuesday as "speculation."

"What I'm telling you is, is that we are fully committed to the Mitchell process, and we are fully committed to working with both sides to bring the level of terror down to an acceptable level for both," he said.

"I fully understand that progress is made in centimeters in the Middle East. And we believe we're making some progress," Bush said.

A clear statement from the US administration in favor of a Palestinian state would meet demands from moderate Arab states that Washington has been trying to rally to its anti-terrorism campaign.

I believe you do know that STRATFOR is owned by Jews? Do you think they are ignorant of the Holy Land?

A close friend of mine who was the senior Army intelligence officer in Vietam for more than two years has been impressed with STRATFOR. They are normally very level-headed, and very thorough. I, however, will join with you in hoping they are wrong. Surely, they are.

And, I will agree with you that no one should jump to conclusions because of an article like this, but we should keep our heads up.

You apparently have inside knowledge about the "egg-heads" at STRATFOR, do you know why so many businessmen with overseas interests have so much confidence in them?

I found them way ahead of the national media when we were bombing the Serbs. I'm surprised that you automatically write them off. I hope your response isn't an indication that you will stand in opposition to the president if he is moving our country in a new direction.

I'm not surprised that you don't immediately swallow everything they state, anyone would be a fool to do that. But, a knee-jerk attitude that Jews probably know nothing about Israel? Which Government agency do you work for?

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