Regional News

I mentioned this in my Netanyahu visit post, but it's worth highlighting in more detail: B'Tselem has a new report out which concludes Israeli settlements occupy 42 percent of the total land area in the West Bank.

The actual construction in the settlements occupies just 55,479 dunam of land, roughly 1 percent of the total area of the West Bank. But B'Tselem argues, based on official state documents and maps, that the jurisdiction of the settlements -- including the various "regional councils" in the West Bank -- actually extends over 2.4 million dunam.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington today for a series of meetings at the White House. He'll hold one-on-one talks with US president Barack Obama before a "working lunch" with Obama, vice president Joseph Biden, and several other officials.

Obama's top priority during these talks will almost certainly be pushing for an extension to Israel's temporary West Bank settlement freeze, which is due to expire in September. The end of the freeze would forestall any possibility of direct talks between the Israelis ri the Palestinians.

"There has been a distinct improvement in the White House relationship with Israel since the last meeting" between Obama and Netanyahu on March 23, said Jonathan Spyer, a political scientist at Israel's Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. "Obama will be looking for a payback," perhaps in the form of an extension to the settlement freeze, Spyer said.

But from Netanyahu's perspective, the domestic politics of extending the freeze are... difficult, to say the least. His administration has nothing to show for the current freeze: Israeli-Palestinian "proximity talks" have yielded little concrete progress, save for a rumored land swap proposal offered by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.

(Updated below) Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to quietly mend fences with Turkey: He dispatched Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, his industry minister, on a secret "mediation" trip to Ankara, according to Israel's Channel 2 news.

Mark Perry strikes again over on Foreign Policy's Middle East Channel:

In a "Red Team" report issued on May 7 and entitled "Managing Hizballah and Hamas," senior CENTCOM intelligence officers question the current U.S. policy of isolating and marginalizing the two movements.

Perry reported in March that Gen. David Petraeus asked to include the West Bank and Gaza in CENTCOM's area of responsibility (some notes from a follow-up conversation I had with Perry are here). Today's report fits in the same vein: Military leaders, if not civilian policymakers, are starting to see the deep structural flaws in US policy in the Middle East.

I have to say, I'm a little skeptical of reports that Sirajuddin Haqqani, one of NATO's primary targets, got on a plane and flew to Kabul to meet with Hamid Karzai.

That's not to say negotiations aren't happening. Nick Schifrin reported for ABC News tonight that Karzai is holding indirect talks with Haqqani (should we call them proximity talks?) via Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence.

"We don't need to deal with Haqqani directly. We can deal with the ISI," says [a] senior Afghan government official.

Haqqani has well-documented ties to the ISI -- senior Pakistani officials have reportedly referred to his network as a "strategic asset" -- and Islamabad has recently claimed that it can "deliver" the Haqqani leadership to Karzai, according to the New York Times.

This was an unintentionally funny exchange from Al-Sharq Al-Awsat's interview with Iraqi vice president Tariq al-Hashemi (عربي):

Q: Which of the coalitions is closest to you in forming the government?

Hashemi: It is a coalition which is committed to the constitution and to the rules of democratic behavior. [...]

Q: So Iraqiyya is not close to any coalition?

The interviewer was clearly just trying to press him on an evasive answer, but given the events of the last three months, the question seems somewhat appropriate. Hashemi goes on to say that Iraqiyya will not take part in the goverment if it's excluded -- a fairly serious threat I can't recall Iraqiyya having made before.

Of course, whether or not they follow through is another story: We've heard a lot of rhetoric since March 7, and most of it is just political posturing.

In any event, should make for a fun time this afternoon when Nouri al-Maliki and Iyad Allawi hold their second post-election meeting.

The Palestinian boycott of settlement products is starting to have an impact -- but not just on settlers.

Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, went to a Ramallah supermarket yesterday to launch the PA's new inspection campaign. 66,000 shops across the West Bank will be checked for settlement goods. Those in compliance with the boycott will get a certificate; those in violation will receive a fine, potentially worth several thousands of dollars.

The latest UN quarterly report on Afghanistan concluded that the Afghan army and police are ahead of their interim training goals. US and NATO officials routinely cite those figures as evidence that they're making progress in Afghanistan.

But a new report from the US special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (SIGAR) concludes that NATO has overestimated the capabilities of those units.

The flotilla disaster has already chewed up a month or so of the four months earmarked for Israeli-Palestinian proximity talks.

And the Likud party delivered a reminder today that the window for talks is unlikely to be extended: The party's central committee voted in favor of resuming settlement construction when the 10-month West Bank settlement freeze expires in September.

And he's planning to go back. There's nothing I can add. Just... watch (h/t Andrew Exum).

Brookings has a new paper out -- it's two papers in one, really -- examining the role of madrassas (religious schools) in promoting militancy in Pakistan, and the interplay between education and conflict.

The educational system in Pakistan is a mess, due in part to the federal nature of the education system. Literacy is 54 percent nationwide, a figure that masks great regional and gender disparities (less than 10 percent of women in Balochistan can read, for example). 6.8 million children between the ages of five and nine are not in school; less than one-fourth of girls finish primary school.

Iran's semi-official Fars news agency claimed yesterday that Israeli helicopters and/or cargo planes unloaded military equipment "meant for attacking a Muslim state" at an airport in northwestern Saudi Arabia.

According to the report, the IDF built a military base approximately 9 km (5.5 miles) from Tabuk, and while Israeli planes landed there on June 18 and 19, all civilian flights were cancelled at the local airport.

It's an impossible-to-verify report, much like the Times of London's recent claim that Saudi Arabia granted Israel overflight rights to bomb Iran. But we can add a bit of context.

No blogging yesterday while I worked on a couple of reported projects -- so I'll spare you any day-after thoughts on President Obama's choice to replace Gen. Stanley McChrystal with Gen. David Petraeus. You've read enough of those already, I'm sure.

Instead, let's pivot back to what's actually happening in Afghanistan. As I said in my Al-Jazeera piece about McChrystal's departure, the change of command isn't likely to mean a major change in strategy: McChrystal was hardly the only counterinsurgency believer in the military, and many elements of his "new strategy" actually began under his predecessor, Gen. David McKiernan.

(Updated w/article excerpt) I just finished reading the new Rolling Stone profile on Gen. Stanley McChrystal that's generating so much controversy. (It's not yet available online; if you're interested in a copy, e-mail me.)

Here's my quick reaction: Very little about the article is surprising! I think we all knew that McChrystal has a tense relationship with Karl Eikenberry; that he didn't think much of vice president Joe Biden's light-footprint counterterrorism strategy; that the military command feels hamstrung by the summer 2011 withdrawal timeline; and so on.

This post will be about yesterday's decision to revive the "King's Garden" plan in East Jerusalem's Silwan neighborhood, which would demolish 22 Palestinian homes to make way for a tourist center. First, though, a bit of media criticism.

Dozens of people were beaten and arrested yesterday by Egyptian riot police during an anti-police brutality demonstration in downtown Cairo (who said irony was dead?).

The protest was one of many following the murder of Khaled Said, the Egyptian man allegedly beaten to death by police after shooting a video of police officers involved in a drug deal.

This weekend's electricity protests in Basra might spark a renewed bid for autonomy in southern Iraq: Jabbar Amin, the chairman of the provincial council, said yesterday that he wants to create a Basra autonomous region (عربي) to "improve the services provided to residents of the province."

I don't want to speculate too much here about the recidivism rate in Saudi Arabia's terrorist rehabilitation program; I'm working on a longer reported piece on the subject and I don't want to get too far ahead of myself.

But a few early thoughts. The story here is that 20 percent of the "Guantanamo alumni" returned to terrorism after completing the rehab program -- compared to just 9.5 percent of the non-GTMO population.

The Israeli security cabinet met earlier today and announced (some of) the details of its plan to ease the Gaza blockade.

Today's announcement from the cabinet was more detailed than last week's, which merely declared Israel's intent to loosen the blockade. But it still doesn't say exactly which goods will be barred from Gaza; whether businesses in Gaza will be allowed to resume exports; or whether the looser blockade will include looser rules on the movement of people.

It's a small step, but nonetheless it's objectively a good thing. After the jump: A statement from the White House, issued a few minutes after the Israeli decision.

A group of female activists is preparing a ship full of women, called the Mariam, which is scheduled to leave Lebanon for Gaza in the coming days. Or maybe not.

The Israeli government has already warned the United Nations that it will use "all necessary force" to stop the ship. Israel has also linked the ship to Hizballah, but the group denied any connection to the flotilla in a statement released Friday.