Just Foreign Policy News
March 16, 2010
Can President Obama Channel His Inner Rachel Corrie?
Today is the seventh anniversary of the death of Rachel Corrie in Gaza by Israeli government bulldozer, and the anniversary this year comes at a rare time in US-Israel relations, in which the US appears to put some real effort into establishing narrower boundaries for Israel’s behavior towards the Palestinians.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/513
J Street: Tell Congress to Stand with Biden in His Confrontation with Netanyahu
The Obama Administration is under attack for its condemnation of Israel’s provocative announcement during Vice President Biden’s trip to Israel last week. Tell Congress to stand with Biden. (You can change the text.)
https://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/2747/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1418
Americans for Peace Now: AIPAC doesn’t speak for me
Support President Obama’s position against the expansion of Israeli settlements with a letter to the editor. (You can change the text.)
http://capwiz.com/peacenow/issues/alert/?alertid=14815581
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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Israeli officials rejected demands by the Obama Administration to cancel a building project in East Jerusalem, the New York Times reports. Secretary of State Clinton said Washington expected action from Israel, and a key US demand is that Israel neither promote nor permit "provocative" acts, meaning anything that would disturb the atmosphere as Palestinians and Israelis prepare for indirect peace talks. That would include new building projects. "The Netanyahu government is trying to make Jerusalem indivisible so that it will not be possible to reach a solution based on two states for two peoples," Hagit Ofran of Peace Now charged.
2) History suggests that snubbing the US is not as politically beneficial to Israeli leaders as some US pundits have suggested, writes Scott Wilson in a news analysis for the Washington Post. In 1992 George H.W. Bush and Secretary of State Baker warned Israel against building in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The government of Yitzhak Shamir ignored the demand, and in response, Bush and Baker declined to guarantee $10 billion in loans Israel wanted to build housing for ex-Soviet immigrants. Neither side budged. But in elections that year, Shamir’s party lost, ending his political career. Many Israeli analysts attributed the defeat to his fight with the US. Bush lost his election that year, too, but largely because of the flagging U.S. economy and not his policy toward his Israel.
3) Gen. McChrystal has brought most Special Operations forces under his direct control, the New York Times reports. Only detainee operations and "very small numbers" of Special Operations forces, like the Army’s Delta Force and the Navy’s Seals, are exempted from the directive. Critics, including Afghan officials, human rights workers and some field commanders of conventional American forces, say that Special Operations forces have been responsible for a large number of the civilian casualties in Afghanistan. Afghan and UN officials blame Special Operations troops for most of the 596 civilian deaths attributed to coalition forces last year. A Special Forces unit called in attack helicopters that killed 27 civilians in three trucks on Feb. 21 in Oruzgan Province. Survivors of a Special Forces night raid Feb. 12 said insisted that Americans, who they said were not in uniform [and were therefore unlawful combatants – JFP], conducted the raid and the killings.
4) Gen. Petraeus will testify in Congress this week, The Hill reports. Pentagon officials said they wanted the $33 billion supplemental request approved by the end of May. Congress is expected to vote on the supplemental in mid-April.
5) Two months after the earthquake, and a third of the way to the July deadline to file for temporary protected status,, just 34,427 of the estimated 100,000 to 200,000 undocumented Haitians who were in the US before Jan. 12 have applied, the New York Times reports. Charitable groups blame the lag on the application fees, which total about $500; a broad coalition of charities called on the government to make it easier for applicants to have the fee waived.
6) The Pentagon said it was looking into allegations that a Defense Department official had set up an intelligence unit staffed by contractors to hunt insurgents in Afghanistan and Pakistan under the guise of social and cultural information-gathering, the Washington Post reports. A source close to the intelligence community said that "both the [CIA] and the Special Operations community . . . have been expressing grave concern for a long time."
7) The White House has renewed its threat to veto the fiscal 2010 intelligence authorization bill over a provision that would force the administration to widen the circle of lawmakers who are informed about covert operations, the Washington Post reports. A provision would give the GAO to review practices and operations throughout the intelligence community also drew a veto threat. The provision would permit any committee of Congress with a claim of jurisdiction over an intelligence activity to request a GAO investigation of that activity.
Israel/Palestine
8) U.S. officials say they had extracted a secret promise from Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu not to allow any provocative steps in East Jerusalem, the Washington Post reports. Now the administration wants Netanyahu to make that deal public – and stick to it.
Venezuela
9) General Douglas Fraser, head of the US Southern Command, told a Senate hearing Thursday he had no evidence of links between Venezuela’s government and Colombian guerrilla groups, AFP reports. Arturo Valenzuela, assistant secretary of state for Latin American affairs, told another congressional panel Wednesday there had been some evidence of some kind of Venezuelan assistance to the FARC. Fraser, however, said he was aware only of "old evidence" of assistance. "But I don’t see that evidence. I can’t tell you specifically whether that continues or not," he said.
Mexico
10) Relentless violence in Ciudad Juárez has forced President Calderón to acknowledge that merely concentrating firepower on the drug gangs is not working, the New York Times reports. The Mexican government has begun refocusing much of its energy on attacking social issues in Ciudad Juárez, in what officials say privately could be an experiment for other Mexican cities that are consumed by drug violence.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Israel Rejects U.S. Demands on Building in East Jerusalem
Ethan Bronner, New York Times, March 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/world/middleeast/17mideast.html
Jerusalem – The discord between the United States and Israel over Jewish building in East Jerusalem deepened Tuesday with Israeli officials rejecting demands by Washington and expressing anger over the public upbraiding of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by the Obama administration. On a day of scattered – although, in spots, fierce – disturbances by Palestinians in East Jerusalem, news emerged that Israel was moving ahead with a second building project there. A notice on the Web site of the Israel Lands Authority invited developers to bid on construction of 309 new homes in the Jewish suburb of Neve Yaakov, in northeast Jerusalem.
A spokesman for the Jerusalem municipality said building and planning across the city were moving ahead. "For us, it is business as usual," the spokesman, Stephan Miller, said.
In the disturbances, several hundred Palestinian youths protesting Israeli control and construction in East Jerusalem set tires and garbage ablaze. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem for their future capital. The police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. About 10 people were seriously injured and about 60 arrested, the police said.
Israeli officials were also grappling with a storm of American anger. The Obama administration’s Middle East envoy, George J. Mitchell, said Tuesday that he would not come here this week as originally scheduled, meaning indirect peace talks with the Palestinians are now officially on hold. In Washington, pro-Israel activists were seeking help from friends in Congress and elsewhere.
[…] Mrs. Clinton said Washington expected action from Israel, and a key American demand is that Israel neither promote nor permit "provocative" acts, meaning anything that would disturb the atmosphere as Palestinians and Israelis prepare for indirect peace talks. That would include new building projects.
When Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was here last week, the government announced plans for 1600 new Jewish housing units for East Jerusalem, setting off the tumult.
Since Israel had recently taken other steps that the Americans considered provocative – declaring two sites in the occupied West Bank as Israeli heritage sites, announcing other large East Jerusalem housing construction projects, as well as a plan to remake an entire Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem – the announcement last week was viewed with particular severity, leading to a new, open American impatience with Israel.
Mr. Netanyahu said he had been taken by surprise by the housing announcement and apologized for its timing. He thought the problem was behind him after Mr. Biden left on Thursday.
But to the Obama administration, the issue is not principally one of timing. Mr. Obama and his aides say Mr. Netanyahu should have been in control of the construction process and that he should have done what was needed to stop it, according to officials in Jerusalem and Washington.
[…] David Axelrod, a top White House official, said on television on Sunday that the housing project announcement during the Biden visit "seemed calculated to undermine" the proximity talks, in which American officials plan to shuttle between Israeli leaders in Jerusalem and Palestinian leaders in Ramallah, in the West Bank.
Israeli officials took umbrage at the suggestion that the announcement was aimed at sabotaging the talks that they say they have been pressing to start for months.
But government opponents say that the way East Jerusalem building has been proceeding is not random. As evidence, they cite the latest announcement for the suburb of Neve Yaakov, which was dated March 11th but just came to light on Tuesday when it was pointed out by the leftist group Peace Now. "The Netanyahu government is trying to make Jerusalem indivisible so that it will not be possible to reach a solution based on two states for two peoples," Hagit Ofran of Peace Now charged.
[…]
2) For Israeli leaders, snubbing the U.S. may not be a political win
Scott Wilson, Washington Post, Tuesday, March 16, 2010; 4:23 PM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/16/AR2010031602078.html
So who wins politically when the United States and Israel feud? The jury is out. But a look a history suggests that the politics of snubbing the United States is not as politically beneficial to Israeli leaders as some of the pundits here have suggested.
Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, reportedly told his consuls general this week that U.S.-Israeli relations were at their lowest point since 1975. That year Secretary of State Henry Kissinger pressed the center-left government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to abandon a pair of militarily important passes in the Sinai Peninsula.
Israel captured the Egyptian territory in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war and Kissinger wanted an Israeli good-faith gesture to promote a peace process between the countries. Rabin held firm for months, eventually agreeing under U.S. pressure to a withdrawal from the passes and a presence in the heights above them.
[…] But 1992 may be better point of reference for what happens to U.S. and Israeli leaders when they can’t get along. Then as now, an American president (George H.W. Bush) and his secretary of state (James A. Baker III) warned Israel against building in territories it captured in the 1967 war, specifically in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The pair was working to begin peace talks amid the first Palestinian intifada.
The Likud-led government of Yitzhak Shamir ignored the demand, and in response, Bush and Baker declined to guarantee $10 billion in loans that Israel needed to build housing for a wave of Soviet-state immigrants flooding into the country.
Neither side budged. But in parliamentary elections that year, Shamir’s party lost, effectively ending his political career. Many Israeli analysts attributed the defeat to his fight with the United States. Bush lost his election that year, too, but largely because of the flagging U.S. economy and not his policy toward his Israel.
[…] Why is Oren concerned? And why should Netanyahu share that concern?
First, it’s worth keeping in mind that opinion polls often show that a majority of Israelis supports the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. That is the Obama administration’s policy, which Israeli building in the territories severely undermines. Moreover, secular Israelis view religious settlers as a drain on the national treasury and certainly not worth a fight with a superpower ally that provides the Jewish state with $3 billion a year in military aid.
Next, think back to 1992. Picking a fight with the Bush administration cost Shamir his job. Who succeeded him as prime minister? Rabin, who immediately pledged to cease construction of what he called "political" settlements in the territories. Perhaps he, too, remembered 1975.
3) U.S. Is Reining In Special Forces In Afghanistan
Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Rod Nordland, New York Times, March 15, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/world/asia/16afghan.html
Kabul, Afghanistan – Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, has brought most American Special Operations forces under his direct control for the first time, out of concern over continued civilian casualties and disorganization among units in the field.
[…] Critics, including Afghan officials, human rights workers and some field commanders of conventional American forces, say that Special Operations forces have been responsible for a large number of the civilian casualties in Afghanistan and operate by their own rules.
Maj. Gen. Zahir Azimi, the chief spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defense, said that General McChrystal had told Afghan officials he was taking the action because of concern that some American units were not following his orders to make limiting civilian casualties a paramount objective.
"These special forces were not accountable to anyone in the country, but General McChrystal and we carried the burden of the guilt for the mistakes they committed," he said. "Whenever there was some problem with the special forces we didn’t know who to go to, it was muddled and unclear who was in charge."
General McChrystal has made reducing civilian casualties a cornerstone of his new counterinsurgency strategy, and his campaign has had some success: last year, civilian deaths attributed to the United States military were cut by 28 percent, although there were 596 civilian deaths attributed to coalition forces, according to United Nations figures. Afghan and United Nations officials blame Special Operations troops for most of those deaths.
"In most of the cases of civilian casualties, special forces are involved," said Mohammed Iqbal Safi, head of the defense committee in the Afghan Parliament, who participated in joint United States-Afghan investigations of civilian casualties last year. "We’re always finding out they are not obeying the rules that other forces have to in Afghanistan."
"These forces often operate with little or no accountability and exacerbate the anger and resentment felt by communities," the Human Rights Office of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan wrote in its report on protection of civilians for 2009.
[…] Admiral Smith said that General McChrystal had issued the new directive on Special Operations forces within "the last two or three weeks." While it is being circulated for comment within the military and has not been formally announced, General McChrystal has already put it into practical effect, he said.
Only detainee operations and "very small numbers of U.S. S.O.F.," or Special Operations forces, are exempted from the directive, Admiral Smith said. That is believed to include elite groups like the Army’s Delta Force and the Navy’s Seals.
[…] On Feb. 21 in Oruzgan Province, a small Special Operations forces unit heard that a group of Taliban were heading their way and called for air support. Attack helicopters killed 27 civilians in three trucks, mistaking them for the Taliban.
Military video appeared to show the victims were civilians, and no weapons were recovered from them. "What I saw on that video would not have led me to pull the trigger," one NATO official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with his department’s rules. "It was one of the worst things I’ve seen in a while."
General McChrystal promptly apologized for the Oruzgan episode, both directly to Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, and in a videotaped statement released to local television stations.
On Feb. 12 in a village near Gardez, in Paktia Province, Afghan police special forces paired with American Special Operations forces raided a house late at night looking for two Taliban suspects, and instead killed a local police chief and a district prosecutor when they came out, armed with Kalashnikov rifles, to investigate. Three women who came to their aid, according to interviews with family members and friends, were also killed; one was a pregnant mother of 10, the other a pregnant mother of 6.
A press release from the International Security Assistance Force, as NATO’s force here is known, said at first that the three women had been discovered bound and gagged, apparently killed execution style. NATO officials now say their bodies were wrapped in traditional manner before burial. Admiral Smith said Afghan forces fired the shots in the compound.
"The regret is that two innocent males died," Admiral Smith said. "The women, I’m not sure anyone will ever know how they died." He added, however, "I don’t know that there are any forensics that show bullet penetrations of the women or blood from the women." He said they showed signs of puncture and slashing wounds from a knife, and appeared to have died several hours before the arrival of the assault force. In respect for Afghan customs, autopsies are not carried out on civilian victims, he said.
Interviews with relatives and family friends give a starkly different account and described an American cover-up. They say a large number of people had gathered for a party in honor of the birth of a grandson of the owner of the house, Hajji Sharaf Udin. After most had gone to sleep, the police commander, Mr. Udin’s son, Mohammed Daoud, went out to investigate the arrival of armed men and was shot fatally.
When a second son, Mohammed Zahir, went out to talk to the Americans because he spoke some English, he too was shot and killed. The three women – Mr. Udin’s 19-year-old granddaughter, Gulalai; his 37-year-old daughter, Saleha, the mother of 10 children; and his daughter-in-law, Shirin, the mother of six – were all gunned down when they tried to help the victims, these witnesses claimed.
All the survivors interviewed insisted that Americans, who they said were not in uniform, conducted the raid and the killings, and entered the compound before Afghan forces. Among the witnesses was Sayid Mohammed Mal, vice chancellor of Gardez University, whose son’s fiancée, Gulalai, was killed. "They were killed by the Americans," he said. "If the government doesn’t listen to us, I have 50 family members, I’ll bring them all to Gardez roundabout and we’ll pour petrol on ourselves and burn ourselves to death."
[…] Mr. Safi, the Parliament member, expressed concern that with the continued exemption of some Special Operations units from the directive, the problem of civilian casualties would continue. "If they are excluded, naturally it means the same thing will happen," he said. "If there are individuals who do not obey McChrystal, then what are they doing in this country?"
General McChrystal addressed that concern in the interview. "There are no operators in this country that I am not absolutely comfortable do exactly what I want them to do," he said. "So I don’t have any complaints about that, particularly after the latest change."
[…]
4) Petraeus To Make Rounds On Capitol Hill
Roxana Tiron, The Hill, 03/15/10 06:00 AM ET
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/86667-petraeus-to-make-rounds-on-capitol-hill
The head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. David Petraeus, will make the rounds in Congress this week – drawing more congressional attention to the war in Afghanistan and the troop-withdrawal process from Iraq.
Petraeus will speak to the Appropriations Defense subcommittee behind closed doors on Tuesday and be part of public hearings before the Senate and House Armed Services committees on Wednesday.
[…].
The hearings this week come just days after the House defeated Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s (D-Ohio) resolution to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. The hearings likely will serve as the basis for the lawmakers’ decisions on approving the remainder of the 2010 emergency war supplemental and fully funding the needs of the military for fiscal 2011. Pentagon officials said they wanted the $33 billion supplemental request approved by the end of May. Congress is expected to vote on the supplemental in mid-April.
5) Immigration Offer Draws Few Haitians
Anne Barnard, New York Times, March 15, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/nyregion/16haiti.html
Within days of the devastating earthquake in Haiti on Jan. 12, the United States government declared that Haitians living illegally in the United States were eligible for temporary protected status, a special immigration designation that temporarily allows them to work here legally.
While advocates and government officials alike said that this was one of the most effective ways to get help to needy quake victims, the number of applicants has fallen short of expectations.
Two months after the earthquake, and a third of the way to the July deadline to file for the special status, just 34,427 of the estimated 100,000 to 200,000 undocumented Haitians who were in the United States before Jan. 12 have applied, said the Department of Homeland Security. The protected status allows 18 months of legally working.
Charitable groups blame the lag on the application fees, which total about $500. The average monthly amount that Haitians abroad send to relatives in Haiti – a pillar of the country’s economy – is just $150, according to the Inter-American Development Bank. On Monday, a broad coalition of charities called on the government to make it easier for applicants to have the fee waived.
Haitians who are granted the special immigration designation could add as much as $1 billion to the Haitian economy over the next three years, Hunton & Williams, a law firm for Catholic Charities Immigration Legal Services, wrote in a letter backed by the Episcopal bishop of Haiti and 49 American charity groups. The letter was sent to Congress and the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, which administers the program.
Applicants for the special status are usually working class and, because they are working illegally, may not be receiving fair wages, said Debi Sanders, a government liaison for Catholic Charities Immigration Legal Services.
[…] Ms. Sanders said the charities were optimistic that the government would adopt their suggestion to make the fee waiver process simpler, because department officials have told advocates privately that they want to see more applications.
[…]
6) Pentagon To Probe Intelligence Unit’s Ties To Contractors
Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, Tuesday, March 16, 2010; A04 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/15/AR2010031504151.html
The Pentagon said Monday that it was looking into allegations that a Defense Department official had set up an intelligence unit staffed by contractors to hunt insurgents in Afghanistan and Pakistan under the guise of social and cultural information-gathering.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman declined to confirm or deny whether a criminal investigation had been opened into activities by Michael D. Furlong, a former Special Operations officer who now works as a senior civilian officer for the Joint Information Operations Warfare Center at Lackland Air Force Base, Tex.
Furlong’s operation, which included numerous former intelligence and Special Operations officials now in the private sector, raised hackles at the CIA, where it was considered "a semi-independent intelligence-collection operation in a war zone," according to a U.S. official familiar with the agency’s concerns. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that it was "not apparent who authorized" the operation but that the "potential for disaster" was obvious.
A second source close to the intelligence community said that "both the [CIA] and the Special Operations community . . . have been expressing grave concern for a long time. Why he was able to keep his job, much less continue this program, is a mystery."
Unease about Furlong rose to the highest levels of the intelligence agency, with several briefings provided to CIA Director Leon Panetta.
Although the military apparently terminated the operation late last year, Geoff Morrell, spokesman for Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, said Monday night that the Pentagon was "in the process of trying to get to the bottom" of the allegations "and determine if any policy or legal guidelines were ignored." If so, he said, "the department will take immediate corrective action and quickly pursue accountability through appropriate channels."
[…]
7) Renewed Veto Threat On Security Proposal
Walter Pincus, Washington Post, Tuesday, March 16, 2010; A04 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/15/AR2010031503720.html
The White House has renewed its threat to veto the fiscal 2010 intelligence authorization bill over a provision that would force the administration to widen the circle of lawmakers who are informed about covert operations and other sensitive activities.
When the bill passed the House on Feb. 25, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Tex.), hailed it for improving "congressional oversight by strengthening certain disclosure requirements of intelligence activities to the House and Senate intelligence committees." Lawmakers had spent the previous six months working out provisions that the White House still opposes.
Under the House plan, which is similar to one passed by the Senate, the White House would have to inform all members of both intelligence committees of the "main features" of activities disclosed in detail to the Gang of Eight – the speaker and minority leader of the House, the majority and minority leaders of the Senate, and the chairmen and ranking minority members of the Senate and House intelligence committees.
In a letter sent to the senior members of the intelligence panels, Office of Management and Budget Director Peter R. Orszag said Gang of Eight notifications are made in only "the most limited of circumstances" affecting "vital interests" of the United States, arguing that the new requirement would "undermine the president’s authority and responsibility to protect sensitive national security information."
[…] Orszag wrote that the notification provisions were one of three items in the bills that would draw a veto recommendation from the president’s advisers. Another such provision would give the Government Accountability Office legal authority to review practices and operations throughout the intelligence community. The White House contends that broadening the GAO’s purview would upset current relations with the office, which already has access to some intelligence activity, and adversely affect oversight relationships between the committees and the community. The provision would also permit any committee of Congress with an arguable claim of jurisdiction over an intelligence activity to request a GAO investigation of that activity.
[…]
Israel/Palestine
8) U.S. pushing Netanyahu to accept demands for peace talks
Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, Tuesday, March 16, 2010; A07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/15/AR2010031503462.html
In an effort to get peace talks back on track, the Obama administration is pressing Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to reverse last week’s approval of 1,600 housing units in a disputed area of Jerusalem, make a substantial gesture toward the Palestinians, and publicly declare that all of the "core issues" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the status of Jerusalem, be included in upcoming talks, U.S. officials said.
The three demands, relayed on Friday by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in a tense phone call with Netanyahu, have not been publicly disclosed by the administration. But Israel is expected to provide a formal response on Tuesday. U.S. officials are casting it as a test of Netanyahu’s commitment to the relationship between the United States and Israel.
"We have to have guarantees that these kinds of things will not happen again," said a senior U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. "If he is unwilling to make that kind of commitment, it raises the questions of how committed he is to negotiations – and it raises the question of how committed he is to the relationship between Israel and the United States."
The official said that the Obama administration views the success of the Middle East peace talks as central to the national security interests of the United States and that any failure by Netanyahu to fully embrace the talks would be viewed negatively. "He says he is serious about engaging in peace talks," the official said. "We are putting that to the test."
The administration’s unusually blunt criticism of the longtime U.S. ally – prompted by the housing announcement during Vice President Biden’s visit to Israel – has alarmed pro-Israel groups and led to criticism from some U.S. lawmakers. The administration’s special peace envoy, former senator George J. Mitchell, was due to arrive in Israel early this week to launch indirect talks between the two sides, but the trip is on hold pending the Israeli response. "We want to make sure that we have the commitment from both sides that, when he travels, we can make progress," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.
[…] The Obama administration had originally sought a halt to all settlement activity in the West Bank – and also in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as the site of a future capital but which Israel annexed in a move not recognized by other nations. The United States accepted a 10-month moratorium, with caveats that excluded East Jerusalem and existing projects in the West Bank. But U.S. officials believed they had extracted a secret promise from Netanyahu not to allow any provocative steps in East Jerusalem.
Now, in effect, the administration wants Netanyahu to make that deal public – and stick to it. "He has to take a firm stand to prevent similar kinds of announcements that will have a negative effect on negotiations," the official said.
[…]
Venezuela
9) US general sees no Venezuela-guerrilla link
AFP, March 11, 2010
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iLRc4xRTwzEnD6Uz55LRaUOiT4Lg
Washington – The general in charge of US military activities in Latin America said Thursday he had no evidence of links between Venezuela’s leftist government and Colombian and Basque guerrilla groups. "We have not seen any connections specifically that I can verify that there has been a direct government-to-terrorist connection," General Douglas Fraser, head of the US Southern Command, told a Senate hearing.
"We have continued to watch very closely for any connections between illicit and terrorist organization activity within the region," he said. "We are concerned about it. I’m skeptical. I continue to watch for it."
Fraser’s comments follow charges by a Spanish judge linking alleged assassination plots in Spain by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Basque separatist group ETA to Venezuelan "governmental support." Venezuela has rejected the charges, which raised tensions with Spain.
Arturo Valenzuela, the assistant secretary of state responsible for Latin American affairs, told another congressional panel Wednesday there had been some evidence of some kind of Venezuelan assistance to the FARC. Fraser, however, said he was aware only of "old evidence" of assistance. "But I don’t see that evidence. I can’t tell you specifically whether that continues or not," he said.
Mexico
10) Mexican President in Juárez
Elisabeth Malkin and Ginger Thompson, New York Times, March 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/world/americas/17juarez.html
Ciudad Juárez, Mexico – The Mexican president, Felipe Calderón, faced formidable challenges and a frustrated populace as he arrived Tuesday in this violence-scarred border town, where nearly 500 people have been killed this year alone – including three connected to the United States Consulate who were gunned down over the weekend.
Mr. Calderón, along with several cabinet members and the United States ambassador to Mexico, is to meet privately with the federal police, then inaugurate a scholarship program to keep students from dropping out and update citizen groups on the government’s steps to curb the drug-related violence that is a near-daily fact of life here.
But there was a sense that Mr. Calderón was arriving with little more than promises. Protesters had begun massing at the hotel where Mr. Calderon was to make a televised speech, Reuters reported.
"We are fed up, Mr. President," read a front-page editorial in the city’s leading newspaper, El Diario de Juárez. "Nothing has changed." It excoriated what it called the government’s failed attempts to prevent crime and "the useless structure of its federal and state prosecutors."
The relentless violence here has forced Mr. Calderón to acknowledge that merely concentrating firepower on the drug gangs is not working. In an about-face, the Mexican government has begun refocusing much of its energy on attacking social issues in Ciudad Juárez, in what officials say privately could be an experiment for other Mexican cities that are consumed by drug violence. American officials say they have encouraged and supported the new approach, pointing to the lack of opportunity here.
[…] The tipping point in the reconsideration of Mr. Calderón’s strategy occurred five weeks ago, when gunmen killed 15 people, most of them students celebrating a birthday party. After Mr. Calderón was forced to back down from his initial claim that the victims were gang members settling accounts, his government began to outline a list of social programs to help the embattled residents of this city reclaim their streets.
[…] "There are two myths that have fallen here in Juárez," said Lalas Tapia, a local teacher who organized a protest for Mr. Calderón’s visit involving many families who have lost members to the drug wars. "It’s not true that the violence is just between the drug gangs," he said Monday. "And this will not end soon. It has already been two years."
—
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
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