Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas sat down for a lengthy interview with Ha'aretz yesterday and said he's willing to negotiate a final-status peace agreement with Israel -- if the Israeli government implements a complete settlement freeze, including the entire West Bank and East Jerusalem.
But he says he's now willing to accept a secret settlement freeze, one that Israel would implement but never declare publicly.
Israel's Channel 10 news reported yesterday on the peace deal Ehud Olmert offered to the Palestinian Authority in 2008. The channel also described a separate deal offered by then-foreign minister Tzipi Livni, which was apparently less generous than Olmert's offer.
Both reports come just days after Olmert's lengthy interview with The Australian (which we analyzed last week).
So here's my question. The Israeli PR machine is obviously trying hard to push this story; why? Olmert, I'm sure, is trying to rehabilitate his corruption-stained image. But is there a broader political goal here, too? Like trying to portray the PA as obstructionist?
You can see the broad outlines of Netanyahu's 2010 strategy emerging: He claims that the PA ignored his unprecedented partial settlement freeze, just like it ignored Olmert's and Livni's peace offerings in 2008; he condemns it for refusing to negotiate; and he writes off any further meaningful talks.
The Australian ran a heavily sympathetic 3,200-word profile of former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert over the weekend. (It's truly one of the most lopsided articles I've ever read.)
Olmert's positions are fairly predictable. He defends the 2006 war in Lebanon and the 2009 war in Gaza; he calls the Goldstone Report a "moral indignity"; he speaks highly of both Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas.
One thing we haven't really discussed, amidst the latest round of rumors about a possible deal for Gilad Shalit's release, is the political ramifications of such a deal within Israel.
Shalit's plight has taken an outsized role in Israeli politics and public life, so his release, by itself, would give Netanyahu a big political boost. But there's a potential complication: If yesterday's press reports are accurate, Netanyahu will be releasing hundreds of Palestinian militants to secure Shalit's release.
Say, remember a couple years ago, when a building on the Syrian Euphrates mysteriously blew up, and it took several days before we finally started figuring out that the Israelis had done something naughty?
Well, the alleged al-Kibar nuclear reactor complex, or as the blogosphere arms control and nuclear physics nerds prefer to call it, the Box On Euphrates (BOE), is back in the news again, courtesy of a lengthy article posted last week on Der Spiegel's Web site.
In it, reporters Erich Follath and Holger Stark retrace the steps that led to "Operation Orchard," the Sept. 6, 2007, act of war that neither aggressor nor victim want to talk about. Though much of the piece is a clip job, and Follath and Stark aren't able to solve the riddle of what was actual going on at al-Kibar, they add a few intriguing data points and break some news: They claim that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is considering acknowledging his country's nuclear program in a move that, like Muammar al-Qadhafi's, could earn a warm embrace from the West.
Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert's corruption trial was delayed until February during its first court proceedings this morning.
Today's hearing was largely technical; it will be months or years before attorneys introduce any of the evidence against Olmert. He is the first Israeli prime minister to stand trial.
Olmert is accused of accepting envelopes stuffed with cash from an American businessman, Morris Talansky. He also allegedly double-billed charities and a government ministry for official trips he took when he was a cabinet minister.
Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has the distinction of being the first Israeli prime minister indicted on criminal charges.
Olmert is accused of accepting funds from an American supporter, hiding funds from the government, and double-billing for overseas trips. He stepped down earlier this year over the corruption charges, which relate to his time as mayor of Jerusalem and a cabinet minister -- not his stint as prime minister.
Olmert will probably face a prison term if he's convicted. Several other Israeli ministers convicted on corruption charges this year have received three- to-five-year sentences.
Now maybe the prosecutor's office has time to work on Avigdor Lieberman's case?
Marc Lynch takes a look at the dire pronouncements of the failure of Obama's Israel policies -- from such objective observers as former AIPAC official Steve Rosen, former Bush administration official Elliott Abrams, former Bush official Michael Doran, and former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert -- and calls bullshit.
This is concern trolling, advice from those who aren't worried that he'll fail, they want him to fail. The new line, it seems to me, is rooted in Netanyahu's chosen strategy of confrontation with Obama. He has shaken up the old way of doing things, and the old way of doing things feels shaken. So its partisans are trying to shape a narrative that Obama is unfairly hostile to Israel and that he is failing.
Lynch is right, but the Obama administration needs to do something about the perception that it is failing. Central to this is explaining why a settlement freeze is important. We've heard a lot of alarmist talk about how it will weaken Israel's security, tear families asunder, make it impossible to build new kindergartens, etc. I can't remember the last time I heard a high-ranking Obama official debunk those bogus concerns and explain why a freeze is beneficial.
A strong push for a settlement freeze is the right policy. Now Obama needs to get out there and sell it.
The G-8 gave Iran a September deadline to resume negotiations with the West over its nuclear program. French president Nicolas Sarkozy said Iran could face tougher economic sanctions if it misses the deadline; the G-8 countries decided not to impose new sanctions during yesterday's meeting.
A bomb blast south of Kabul killed 25 people yesterday. At least nine of the victims of the massive truck bomb were students from a school in Afghanistan's Logar province. Afghan police say the truck was probably headed to Kabul, but it overturned along the road and detonated in Logar.
