Just Foreign Policy News
June 6, 2011
Support the Work of Just Foreign Policy
Go Straight to the News Summary
I) Actions and Featured Articles
Video: Just Foreign Policy Debates Libya War Powers
RT’s "CrossTalk": Is Obama’s power subject to the War Powers Act? CrossTalking with Robert Naiman, Dave Kopel and Leslie Vinjamuri.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIGUN_BIlTo
U.S. Boat to Gaza is a Quarter Jewish – "Not Too Shabby!"
The New York Times reports that a quarter of the passengers on the upcoming U.S. Boat to Gaza will be Jewish. Maybe it means that the Israeli authorities will have some compunction about shooting up our boat. Maybe it means an open contest of a construction of Jewish identity based on supporting the obstruction of Palestinian freedom, with a Jewish counter-narrative of universal human liberation.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/us-boat-to-gaza-is-a-quar_b_871928.html
*Action: Help Just Foreign Policy Get to Gaza:
Urge Hillary to Act to Protect the Passengers on the Flotilla
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/audacityofhope/hillarypetition
Donate to support our participation:
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate/audacityofhope
Help Support Our Advocacy for Peace and Diplomacy
The opponents of peace and diplomacy work every day. Help us be an effective counterweight.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate
II) Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Ollanta Humala won Peru’s presidential election and vowed the poor will share in the country’s new wealth, Reuters reports. Peru is a major metals exporter and one of the world’s fastest-growing economies over the past decade, but a third of its people are stuck in poverty and Humala has promised to spread around the benefits of the economic boom. One of Humala’s chief economics advisers, Felix Jimenez, seen as a possible central bank chief, insisted that investors have nothing to fear. "Our economic proposals are totally sensible: to maintain macroeconomic equilibrium, consolidate growth and create conditions for private domestic and foreign investment growth," he told Reuters.
2) The US said Monday it was ready to work with Peru’s president-elect, Ollanta Humala, AFP reports. "We are very willing to continue to work with him, just as we worked with the (current) Peruvian authorities," said Washington’s top diplomat for Latin America, Arturo Valenzuela. Attempting to squelch any suggestion of a rift in relations, Valenzuela congratulated the Peruvian people on an election day that was carried out in a "peaceful and exemplary" way. "The election was hard-fought, a near draw, but it demonstrates the maturity of Peruvian democracy that it has been able to achieve such an effective election day."
3) Obama’s national security team is contemplating troop reductions in Afghanistan steeper than those discussed even a few weeks ago, with some officials arguing such a change is justified by the rising cost of the war and the death of bin Laden, the New York Times reports. A sharp drawdown of troops is one of many options Obama is considering, the Times says. The latest strategy review is about far more than how many troops to take out in July, officials said. It is also about setting a final date by which all of the 30,000 surge troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan. A separate timetable would dictate the departure of all foreign troops by 2014, the Times says.
The pressure to show Democrats that the cost of the war is declining is intense, the Times says. The Penatagon says the war in Afghanistan costs about $2 billion a week.
4) Israeli forces fired at pro-Palestinian protesters on the Syrian frontier on Sunday as they tried to breach the border for the second time in three weeks, reflecting a new mode of popular struggle and deadly confrontation fueled by turmoil in the Arab world and the vacuum of stalled peace talks, the New York Times reports. The Syrian news agency SANA reported that 22 protesters had been killed and more than 350 had been wounded.
Protesters said they counted the day a success because they drew Israeli fire on unarmed demonstrators, generating outrage at Israel. That reaction is likely to increase international pressure on Israel to create the conditions for resumed negotiations with the Palestinians, and to bolster support in the UN for the Palestinian appeal for statehood, the Times says.
The young protesters, disillusioned with the stymied peace talks and continued Israeli settlement building, say they believe they have hit on a new tactic that at least achieves something, if at a cost, and they intend to repeat it. "The plan is to clash with the soldiers now," said Muhammad Abu al-Nassar, 25, who was protesting at a West Bank checkpoint. "We believe that unarmed popular resistance is the best form of ending the occupation."
5) The House of Representatives sent the Obama administration a strong, bipartisan rebuke on Friday for failing to make the case for war in Libya or seeking congressional authorization for military action, writes Senator Richard Lugar in the Washington Post. It is critical that the administration understand the significance of this vote, abandon its plans for a nonbinding resolution in the Senate and proceed to seek the requisite debate and authorization for the use of military force. The White House called the vote "unnecessary and unhelpful," but it has only itself to blame, Lugar writes. The administration faces bipartisan opposition in Congress because it has, for more than two months, sidestepped the clear constitutional and legislative intent that a president obtain congressional authorization to go to war.
6) UN officials expect Afghanistan to make a serious effort to ask the Security Council to lift sanctions soon against more than 40 Taliban figures, the New York Times reports. Proponents of lifting the sanctions – a major demand of the Taliban for peace talks – say it would boost prospects for reconciliation. Western diplomats say the biggest obstacle to delisting would be Russia.
Richard Barrett, who acts as an adviser to the Security Council on the Taliban, said many of the Taliban figures on the list clearly no longer belong there. Some are already working with the Afghan government. Four of the sanctioned persons are members of the Afghan government’s High Peace Council, set up to pursue reconciliation with the Taliban, and a fifth works for the council’s secretariat.
Removal from the sanctions list is one of the three conditions cited by Taliban leaders for peace talks, along with the release of their prisoners and withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan. "This is one of the basic demands of the Taliban," said Muallavi Arsala Rahmani, a former Taliban minister of higher education who is one of those on the sanctions list. "I am also on the list, and I am a senator and a member of the High Peace Council," he said. "As long as you have these sanctions against people, you’ll never reach peace."
7) Fissures have opened within the Obama administration over CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, with the US ambassador to Pakistan and some top military leaders pushing to rein in the CIA’s aggressive pace of strikes, the Wall Street Journal reports. State Department and military officials now argue that the intense pace of the strikes risks destabilizing Pakistan, officials said.
Israel/Palestine
8) Thousands of people marched through Tel Aviv Saturday to express support for a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders, JTA reports. Sponsors of the march included Peace Now, Meretz, the Labor Party, Combatants for Peace, and Gush Shalom. The march was called "Netanyahu said no – We say yes to a Palestinian state." Marchers carried signs reading "Palestinian state – An Israeli interest," "Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies," "Bibi, recognize the Palestinians," and "Yes, we KEN." Ken is Hebrew for "yes."
9) Talk of an outbreak of a third intifada by the Palestinians against Israeli rule appears to be growing, but a growing number of voices predict that should it erupt, it would be non-violent, All Headline News reports. A recent poll by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion found that a majority of Palestinians (70.5%) in the West Bank and Gaza Strip believe a third intifada would break out if the deadlock in negotiations with Israel continues. The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research said in a recent poll that in the absence of negotiations some 25% preferred to resume armed conflict, while 18% would prefer non-violent confrontation with the Israelis. Another 33% were holding out for the UN to recognize a Palestinian state.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Left-Winger Humala Wins Peru Election, Markets Dive
Reuters, June 6, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2011/06/06/world/americas/international-us-peru-election.html
Lima – Left-wing former army commander Ollanta Humala won Peru’s presidential election and vowed the poor will share in the country’s new wealth but financial markets plunged on fears that he will ruin the economy.
[…] Kurt Burneo, a top economic adviser to Humala and a former central bank and finance ministry official tipped as a possible finance minister in the next government, said that those selling Peruvian assets would get burned. "Those speculating now are simply going to lose their money because everything is very solid," Burneo told Reuters.
He said Humala guarantees counter-cyclical fiscal policy, will respect the central bank’s independence as well as investments made by private companies, and will cut Peru’s debt-to-GDP ratio, now at around 22 percent.
Peru is a major metals exporter and one of the world’s fastest-growing economies over the past decade, but a third of its people are stuck in poverty and Humala has promised to spread around the benefits of the economic boom.
"We want economic growth with social inclusion," Humala, 48, told thousands of cheering supporters at a rally in downtown Lima that stretched into the early hours of Monday. "We can build a more just Peru for everybody."
Thousands of followers danced in jubilation, chanting "Humala Presidente! and "Fujimori never again."
After losing the 2006 election, Humala toned down his anti-capitalist policies to try to win over centrist voters.
He vows to run a balanced budget, bring experienced technocrats into his government and respect foreign investors who plan to spend $40 billion on extractive projects in Peru in the next decade. He also wants to give the poor a greater share of Peru’s natural resource wealth and end social conflicts over minerals and oil.
Another of Humala’s chief economics advisers, Felix Jimenez, who is seen as a possible central bank chief, insisted that investors have nothing to fear. "Our economic proposals are totally sensible: to maintain macroeconomic equilibrium, consolidate growth and create conditions for private domestic and foreign investment growth," he told Reuters.
Fujimori, 36, was favored by business leaders but many voters rejected her because her father is serving a 25-year prison sentence for corruption and using death squads to crack down on suspected leftists when he was president in the 1990s.
[…] Humala says the state must vigorously regulate the economy, although he has ruled out taking over private firms.
Some on Wall Street said the market had sold off too much. "We would frankly look for opportunities to add exposure. I think the market has probably overreacted a bit here," said Joyce Chang, global head of emerging markets research at J.P. Morgan.
Humala says he will only serve one term and emulate moderate leftists like Brazil’s former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
[…] He is likely to forge closer ties with Brazil’s center-left government, reinforcing Brazil’s growing influence in South America at a time of U.S. economic stagnation.
2) US says ready to work with Peru’s Humala
AFP, June 6, 2011
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i_Mljn6OEKEX_THVjL3MOllvsexA
San Salvador – The United States said Monday it was ready to work with Peru’s presumptive president-elect, leftist leader Ollanta Humala.
Amid fears of upheaval in the mineral-rich Andean nation, Washington’s top diplomat for Latin America, Arturo Valenzuela, said the United States was "very willing" to work with the controversial ex-military officer. "We are very willing to continue to work with him, just as we worked with the (current) Peruvian authorities," Valenzuela stated at a meeting of the Organization of American States in the Salvadoran capital.
[…] Attempting to squelch any suggestion of a rift in relations, Valenzuela congratulated the Peruvian people on an election day that was carried out in a "peaceful and exemplary" way. "The election was hard-fought, a near draw, but it demonstrates the maturity of Peruvian democracy that it has been able to achieve such an effective election day."
3) Steeper Pullout Is Raised as Option for Afghanistan
David E. Sanger, Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, New York Times, June 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/06/world/asia/06gates.html
Washington – President Obama’s national security team is contemplating troop reductions in Afghanistan that would be steeper than those discussed even a few weeks ago, with some officials arguing that such a change is justified by the rising cost of the war and the death of Osama bin Laden, which they called new "strategic considerations."
These new considerations, along with a desire to find new ways to press the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, to get more of his forces to take the lead, are combining to create a counterweight to an approach favored by the departing secretary of defense, Robert M. Gates, and top military commanders in the field. They want gradual cuts that would keep American forces at a much higher combat strength well into next year, senior administration officials said.
The cost of the war and Mr. Karzai’s uneven progress in getting his forces prepared have been latent issues since Mr. Obama took office. But in recent weeks they have gained greater political potency as Mr. Obama’s newly refashioned national security team takes up the crucial decision of the size and the pace of American troop cuts, administration and military officials said. Mr. Obama is expected to address these decisions in a speech to the nation this month, they said.
A sharp drawdown of troops is one of many options Mr. Obama is considering. The National Security Council is convening its monthly meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan on Monday, and although the debate over troop levels is operating on a separate track, the assessments from that meeting are likely to inform the decisions about the size of the force.
[…] Before the new thinking, American officials were anticipating an initial drawdown of 3,000 to 5,000 troops. Those advocating steeper troop reductions did not propose a withdrawal schedule.
[…] But the latest strategy review is about far more than how many troops to take out in July, Mr. Gates and other senior officials said over the weekend. It is also about setting a final date by which all of the 30,000 surge troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan.
A separate timetable would dictate the departure of all foreign troops by 2014, including about 70,000 troops who were there before the surge, as agreed to by NATO and the Afghan government.
[…] The decisions on force levels in Afghanistan could mirror how Mr. Obama handled the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. Senior Pentagon officials noted that after Mr. Obama set a firm deadline for dropping to 50,000 troops in Iraq, he then let his commanders in Baghdad manage the specifics of which units to order home and when. The argument over where to set those "bookends" promises to be one of the most consequential and contentious of Mr. Obama’s presidency. It also has major implications for his re-election bid.
At one end of the debate is Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and, presumably, a range of Mr. Obama’s political advisers, who opposed the surge in 2009 and want a rapid exit, keeping in place a force focused on counterterrorism and training.
At the other end is Mr. Gates, who leaves office at the end of the month and who won the 2009 debate over the troop surge along with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and senior commanders on the ground.
It is not clear what Mrs. Clinton’s position is now as the internal debate is rejoined, and Mr. Obama’s team has changed considerably in the past 18 months. Thomas E. Donilon, appointed national security adviser last fall, was leery of the surge and is likely to lean toward a speedier withdrawal, colleagues say.
[…] In the past, when administration officials were asked about the pace of withdrawal, they often said it would depend on "conditions on the ground" – in other words, assessments of the strength of the Taliban, the pace at which Afghan troops and police are prepared to take over and the progress of the economic and political rebuilding of the country. "Most of those would weigh in favor of staying longer," one senior official said.
But the growing list of so-called strategic considerations amounts to countervailing factors, senior officials said. Mr. Obama has said his goal is to dismantle Al Qaeda so that it can never use Afghanistan again to initiate a Sept. 11-style attack.
With the killing of Bin Laden, and with other members of the terrorist group on the run as American officials pick up clues from data seized at the Bin Laden compound, Mr. Obama can argue that Al Qaeda is much diminished.
The pressure to show Democrats that the cost of the war is declining is intense – so intense that Mr. Gates, during his travels, warned against undercutting a decade-long investment by cutting budgets too rapidly.
The Penatagon says the war in Afghanistan costs about $2 billion a week.
4) Israeli Soldiers Shoot at Protesters on Syrian Border
Isabel Kershner, New York Times, June 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/06/world/middleeast/06mideast.html
Jerusalem – Israeli forces fired at pro-Palestinian protesters on the Syrian frontier on Sunday as they tried to breach the border for the second time in three weeks, reflecting a new mode of popular struggle and deadly confrontation fueled by turmoil in the Arab world and the vacuum of stalled peace talks.
Wave after wave of protesters, mainly Palestinians from refugee camps in Syria, approached the frontier with the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Israeli soldiers opened fire on those who crossed a new trench and tried to attack the border fence near the towns of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights and Quneitra in Syria.
By nightfall, the Syrian news agency SANA reported that 22 protesters had been killed and more than 350 had been wounded. Israeli officials said that they had no information on casualties but suggested that the Syrian figures were exaggerated.
Even so, it was the worst bloodshed in the Golan Heights since Israel and Syria fought a war there in 1973.
The protest, on the anniversary of the start of the 1967 Middle East war, followed a larger, coordinated assault by demonstrators three weeks ago on four fronts – Syria, Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank – and attempts on two others, Egypt and Jordan, that were thwarted by those governments.
This time, Lebanon and the Hamas government in Gaza kept protesters away from their borders, and the turnout was low in the West Bank.
The focus was on Syria, where thousands of protesters tried to force their way across the border. Syria’s decision to allow the protest appeared to reflect a calculated strategy to divert attention from its own antigovernment uprising.
Still, the protesters said they counted the day a success because they drew Israeli fire on unarmed demonstrators, generating outrage at Israel. At a time when the peace process is already strained, that reaction is likely to increase international pressure on Israel to create the conditions for resumed negotiations with the Palestinians, and to bolster support in the United Nations for the Palestinian appeal for statehood.
The young protesters, disillusioned with the stymied peace talks and continued Israeli settlement building, say they believe they have hit on a new tactic that at least achieves something, if at a cost, and they intend to repeat it. "The plan is to clash with the soldiers now," said Muhammad Abu al-Nassar, 25, who was protesting at a West Bank checkpoint. "We believe that unarmed popular resistance is the best form of ending the occupation."
[…] Israel has rejected the idea of talks based on the 1967 lines and has not yet responded to a French proposal to attend a peace conference in Paris next month. In the absence of talks, the Palestinian leadership plans to seek international recognition for statehood at the United Nations this fall.
The protesters see the failure of talks as justification for a renewed unarmed struggle. But whether border-crashing will become the tactic of choice for a new intifada, or uprising, was unclear.
[…] Inspired by the so-called Arab Spring and aided by social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, the protesters hope their approach will catch on. "What we are seeing now are trial runs," Ehud Yaari, a leading Arab affairs analyst, said in an interview. "They have reached the conclusion that there is a powerful weapon that had not been used so far."
5) The Obama administration’s dangerous course on Libya
Senator Richard Lugar, Washington Post, June 5
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-obama-administrations-dangerous-course-on-libya/2011/06/03/AGDD3mJH_story.html
[Lugar is the ranking member on Senate Foreign Relations.]
The House of Representatives sent the Obama administration a strong, bipartisan rebuke on Friday for failing to make the case for war in Libya or seeking congressional authorization for military action. It is critical that the administration understand the significance of this vote, abandon its plans for a nonbinding resolution in the Senate and proceed to seek the requisite debate and authorization for the use of military force, as I have advocated for nearly three months.
The White House called the vote "unnecessary and unhelpful," but it has only itself to blame. The administration faces bipartisan opposition in Congress because it has, for more than two months, sidestepped the clear constitutional and legislative intent that a president obtain congressional authorization to go to war.
At the time that President Obama was seeking endorsement for military action at the United Nations, he didn’t seek a congressional declaration of war, as specified in Article I of the Constitution. After the fighting began and U.S. planes and missiles had attacked Libyan targets, the president still declined to seek congressional approval.
The president promised that he would act consistent with the War Powers Resolution, which requires congressional approval to continue military action beyond 60 days after it commences, and to consult closely with Congress. These commitments have gone unfulfilled. The administration even barred Defense Department officials from testifying at a public hearing and canceled a private briefing for senators by a Marine general. This disdain for Congress and constitutional principles led to Friday’s nonbinding House resolution.
Belatedly, the president and his allies are trying to establish congressional endorsement for the war through a nonbinding Senate resolution approving "the limited use of military force by the United States in Libya." But this illustration of the president’s go-it-alone attitude would set a dangerous precedent.
These "sense of the Senate" resolutions are most often used to commemorate non-controversial events such as last month’s resolution celebrating National Train Day – not to authorize a war. The resolution would have no force of law and would not have to be passed by the House. Nonetheless, it would be touted by the administration as evidence of congressional approval for the war.
Passing this resolution would be a profound mistake that would lower the standard for congressional authorization for the use of military force and would forfeit the Senate’s own constitutional role. By setting this precedent in the interests of expediency, Congress would make it far more likely that future presidents will deem a nonbinding vote in one house as sufficient to initiate or continue a war, or marginalize Congress’s involvement in far more consequential war-making decisions than we face now in Libya.
Further, because the president has not made his case to Congress, the American people have no clear understanding of the U.S. interests at stake in Libya, how much this will cost and what other priorities will have to be sacrificed.
Even the goals of the conflict remain unclear. The United Nations sanctioned only protection of civilians, and in March the president said, "Broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake." But at the Group of Eight summit in France last month he declared that the aim was to ensure that the Libyan people will be "finally free of 40 years of tyranny." Is the United States obligated to participate in Libya’s reconstruction?
The Founding Fathers gave Congress the power to declare war for good reason: It forces the president to present his case in detail to the American public, allows for a robust debate to examine that case and helps build broad political support to commit American blood and treasure overseas. Little of that has happened here.
The nonbinding House resolution called on the president to issue a report to Congress answering 20 important questions about Libya. If the administration is wise enough to provide these answers promptly, that would be an example of the consultation that has so far been lacking.
Waging war is the most serious business our nation does. Obtaining congressional approval for war is not simple. But because getting out of wars is so difficult, the Founders did not intend that getting into them should be easy. The president should take the lesson from the House vote, retract his endorsement of the Senate resolution and propose a joint resolution with the force of law. Such steps would signal his willingness finally to engage Congress on the Libyan war and be the starting point for a real debate in both houses.
6) Afghans Want Sanctions Lifted On Taliban Figures
Rod Nordland, New York Times, June 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/world/asia/05afghan.html
Kabul, Afghanistan – United Nations officials expect Afghanistan to make a serious effort to ask the Security Council to lift sanctions soon against more than 40 Taliban figures – more than a fourth of all those who are now on the organization’s blacklist of Al Qaeda and Taliban members.
Richard Barrett, coordinator of the Al Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee’s monitoring team, said during a visit here Saturday that he expected more than 40 Taliban names would be presented to the Security Council on June 16 for a decision on whether they should be removed from the blacklist. It includes 138 Taliban names.
Proponents of lifting the sanctions – a major demand of the Taliban for peace talks – say it would boost prospects for reconciliation. Those who are on the list are barred from traveling outside the country, and their bank accounts are supposed to be frozen.
Removal from the list would require unanimous support from the Security Council. Western diplomats say the biggest obstacle to delisting would be that Russia, which in the past has threatened to exercise its veto to stop de-listing the Taliban, would do so this time. The Russians cite Taliban training for Chechen rebels and their role in heroin trafficking to Russia.
Mr. Barrett, who acts as an adviser to the Security Council on the Taliban and Al Qaeda, said many of the Taliban figures on the list clearly no longer belong there. Some have died; others are already working with the current Afghan government.
Four of the sanctioned persons are members of the Afghan government’s High Peace Council, set up to pursue reconciliation with the Taliban, and a fifth works for the council’s secretariat, Mr. Barrett said. "Is it logical to have members of the High Peace Council on the list?" he asked. "It seems a bit odd at least."
If even a fourth of the 40 names are delisted, it will be more than have been removed in the past two years of efforts by Afghan officials. Last year, seven Taliban were removed from the list, which at its peak had 142 Taliban members on it, but another three were added. There are more than 500 names in all, but the rest are Qaeda figures.
[…] "I don’t think anybody’s talking about a blanket delisting," Mr. Barrett said. "This is all selective, it’s all being done to clean up the list, to make the list a more useful representation of the threat." Removal from the sanctions list is one of the three conditions cited by Taliban leaders for peace talks, along with the release of their prisoners and withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan.
"This is one of the basic demands of the Taliban," said Muallavi Arsala Rahmani, a former Taliban minister of higher education who is one of those on the sanctions list. "I am also on the list, and I am a senator and a member of the High Peace Council," he said. "As long as you have these sanctions against people, you’ll never reach peace."
[…]
7) Pakistan drone attacks split US officials
US ambassador to Pakistan and some top military leaders pushing to rein in CIA’s aggressive pace of strikes
Adam Entous, Siobhan Gorman and Matthew Rosenberg, Wall Street Journal, June 4, 2011
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011%5C06%5C05%5Cstory_5-6-2011_pg1_6
[the article is behind a paywall on the WSJ site – the link is to a reprint in Pakistan of the first part of the text – JFP.]
Washington – Fissures have opened within the Obama administration over the drone programme targeting terrorists in Pakistan, with the US ambassador to Pakistan and some top military leaders pushing to rein in the Central Intelligence Agency’s aggressive pace of strikes.
Such a move would roll back, at least temporarily, a programme that US President Barack Obama dramatically expanded soon after taking office, making it one of the US’s main weapons against the Pakistan-based terrorists fighting coalition troops in Afghanistan.
The programme has angered Pakistan. The debate over drones comes as the two sides try to repair relations badly frayed by the shooting deaths of two Pakistanis by CIA contractor Raymond Davis in January, a wave of particularly lethal drone strikes following Davis’s release from Pakistani custody in March, and the clandestine US raid that killed Osama bin Laden on May 2.
The White House’s National Security Council debated a slowdown in drone strikes in a meeting on Thursday, a US official said. At the meeting, CIA Director Leon Panetta made the case for maintaining the current programme, the official said, arguing that it remains the US’s best weapon against al Qaeda and its allies. The result of the meeting – the first high-level debate within the Obama administration over how aggressively to pursue the CIA’s targeted-killing programme – was a decision to continue the programme as is for now, the official said.
Another official, who supports a slowdown, said the discussions about revamping the programme would continue, alongside talks with Pakistan, which is lobbying to rein in the drone strikes.
Most US officials, including those urging a slowdown, agree the CIA strikes using the pilotless aircraft have been one of Washington’s most effective tools in the fight against terrorists hiding out in Pakistan. The weapons have killed some top al Qaeda and Taliban leaders and left terrorists off balance in a swath of mountainous territory along the Afghan border with Pakistan where they once operated with near impunity. No one in the administration is advocating an outright halt to the programme.
Yet an increasingly prominent group of State Department and military officials now argue behind closed doors that the intense pace of the strikes aggravates an already troubled alliance with Pakistan and, ultimately, risks destabilising the nuclear-armed country, said current and former officials familiar with the discussions.
US Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter, backed by top military officers and other State Department officials, wants the strikes to be more judicious, and argues that Pakistan’s views need to be given greater weight if the fight against terrorism is to succeed, said current and former US officials.
[…] Now Islamabad is lobbying Washington in public and private to curtail the strikes because of Pakistani complaints that they take a high civilian death toll.
Lt Gen Asif Yasin Malik, who commands Pakistani forces in the country’s northwest, said in an interview that drone strikes are making it harder to win allies among tribal leaders.
[…]
Israel/Palestine
8) Tel Aviv demonstrators call for Palestinian state
JTA, June 5, 2011
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/06/05/3088018/tel-aviv-rally-supports-palestinian-state
Jerusalem – About 5,000 people marched through central Tel Aviv to express support for a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders.
The march on Saturday night was sponsored by several left-wing political parties and organizations, including Peace Now, Meretz, Hadash, the Labor Party, the National Left, the Peace NGO Forum, Combatants for Peace, Gush Shalom and Other Voice. Israeli media outlets estimated the number of protesters at about 5,000; organizers said 20,000 people participated.
The march was called "Netanyahu said no – We say yes to a Palestinian state." Marchers carried signs reading "Palestinian state – An Israeli interest," "Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies," "Bibi, recognize the Palestinians," and "Yes, we KEN." Ken is Hebrew for "yes."
9) Some Palestinian youth predict next intifada will be non-violent
All Headline News, June 6, 2011
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/90050659?Some%20Palestinian%20youth%20predict%20next%20intifada%20will%20be%20non-violent
Talk of an outbreak of a third intifada (uprising) by the Palestinians against Israeli rule appears to be growing, but a growing number of voices predict that should it erupt, it would be a much more non-violent form of protest.
"If there is a third intifada, I am not sure, but if there is a third Intifada, we will try to make it a non-violent intifada," Ahmed Nazzal, a political science at Al Quds University, told The Media Line.
He said that between 1923 and 2000 the Palestinians had conducted over 20 "revolts" or intifadas but to no avail. "All these intifadas just failed. And now we will try what happened in the Arab world, the non-violent demonstrations. It’s better."
The bristling, co-ed campus of Al-Quds University on the outskirts of Jerusalem was abuzz with students wrapping up the semester’s classes. Still, the students reflected on the changes sweeping the Arab world, pondering whether it could happen here.
"I am inspired because this gives us the push to go ahead in our relations with the Israelis with no forces and with no killings and no nothing. We can protest as peacefully as they did and we can gain our rights," said Shahd Taweel, an English major. "I am scared because I don’t know what is going to happen after this revolution."
[…] A recent poll by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion found that a majority of Palestinians (70.5%) in the West Bank and Gaza Strip believe a third intifada would break out if the deadlock in negotiations with Israel continues.
A similar poll last May found that 72.2% of Palestinians opposed a third intifada. Pollsters believe the flip resulted from the impact of popular movements in the Arab world and increased use of social networks to like Facebook to rally Palestinian youth.
The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) said that in a recent poll an overwhelming 92% of Palestinian youth sympathized with demonstrations in the Arab world and that two-thirds expect this development to have a positive impact on Palestinian conditions.
Ominously, the survey also found that in the absence of negotiations some 25% preferred to resume armed conflict, while just 18% would prefer non-violent confrontation with the Israelis. Another 33% were holding out for the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state.
The so-called "First Intifada" which erupted in 1987 and unofficially ended with the Oslo peace accords in 1993 was a popular uprising against Israeli rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. While about 1,100 Palestinians and 160 Israelis were killed in the clashes, it was also marked by internecine Arab violence that saw another 1,000 Palestinians slain as suspected collaborators.
The Second Intifada, a much bloodier period, erupted in September 2000. By the time it was considered over in 2006, over 6,500 Palestinians and 1,100 Israelis had been killed, mainly due to the widespread use of weapons and suicide bombers; and Israel’s firm response.
"No, I don’t’ think there is going to be a ‘Third Intifada.’ People are tired of killing each other and people are sick of death," said Taweel, the English major. "If there is going to be another intifada it is going to be one of peaceful protest rather than killing — what happened in the first and second intifada — because that was bad more than it was good for us."
Ahmed Nazzal said he had "many, many Jewish friends" but had a problem with the Israeli government. He is holding out hope that U.S. President Obama would come through with support for a Palestinian state.
"We are looking to make a state in September and I am so excited as a Palestinian and a student of political science and as an activist," Nazzal said. "This revolution inspires us here in Palestine. They always said that the Arab world is not democratic, but we will make our democracy."
–
Just Foreign Policy is a membership organization devoted to reforming US foreign policy so it reflects the values and interests of the majority of Americans. The archive of the Just Foreign Policy News is here:
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/blog/dailynews