Shimon Peres -Various


Shimon Peres died at age 93 this week. He was one of the founding fathers of the Israel state and held virtually every key government post at one time or another, President, Prime Minister, Minister of Defense, Foreign Minister and the list goes on. There are links to two articles below, one positive from the Globe and Mail, and one negative written by Robert Fisk. They are not included in an effort to produce balance. More so, they are included to provide a glimpse into the man’s complex and at times contradictory career. He has been one of Israel’s most consistent advocates for a political solution to Israel’s conflict with the Arabs and the Palestinians. He is also widely praised for his role in the 1990s peace process and he was critical of the violence that followed its failure. However, his views were ‘hawkish’ when he was young and he supported the settlement project in the 1970s. He also ordered the 1996 invasion of Southern Lebanon (Operation Grapes of Wrath) and presided over the shelling of civilians in the UN compound of Qana. Observers tend to focus on on dimension of his career or the other, but both sides were integral to who he was.

Shimon Peres, guiding hand behind Israel-PLO peace pact, dies at 93

“…the middling politician and accidental prime minister was a true champion in another arena that shaped the history of modern Israel. Mr. Peres was the guiding hand behind the historic peace agreement signed between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1993. And while that agreement so far has failed to lead to an independent Palestinian state and a peace treaty between it and Israel, the Oslo Accords, as it is known, remains the starting point for any two-state solution to this long-standing conflict.”

“As early as 1980, his “Gaza first” solution proposed returning the Gaza Strip to Arab control. And he had conceived a grand outline that would see the Middle East remodelled on the European Community, complete with a common market.

He also recognized that in the early 1990s, following the Gulf War, there was a real opening. In his book The New Middle East, he wrote: “We had reached one of those rare critical junctures that enable discerning statesmen to make a quantum leap in their thinking – and perhaps turn the tide of history.”…”






The Rabin assassination, 20 years later -Various Sources




Did Rabin assassination kill the best chance for peace? -BBC




20 Years After Rabin, Israeli Politics Have Shifted -NYTimes






The Iran Nuclear Deal: World Reaction -various


Reaction to the deal has been fairly predictable:

1. The Canadian government is deeply skeptical, and Canadian sanctions will remain in place.

2. The Persian Gulf States have also been skeptical, particularly the Saudis. Saudi press statements offered half-hearted support:
“King Salman told Mr. Obama that he “hopes reaching a final and binding agreement would lead to improving security and stability in the region and the world,” the Saudi state news agency said.”
“Jamal Khashoggi, a veteran Saudi journalist and political commentator, said the Saudis would be undeterred by any potential Western softening toward Tehran. The Kingdom “is still now going to handle Iran’s expansionism. It’s not going to leave that in the hands of the Americans.”

3. In Israel Prime Minister Netenyahu was bluntly critical, but interestingly, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, formerly the head of military intelligence, had a more nuanced view:


Read more:

4. According to the Republicans: “Obama’s dangerous deal with Iran rewards an enemy, undermines our allies and threatens our safety.” And they are demanding congress be allowed to review it.

The question now is what can they do to derail it? They have some options:

“Members of Congress can hold hearings, calling witnesses to testify about the dangers of the agreement and in this way “embarrass the administration,” he said. Witnesses could testify about the dangers of an agreement, for example, and about flaws in the administration strategy.

Members of Congress could refuse to appropriate funds necessary for an agreement with Iran to go into effect. This would delay – and perhaps derail – the agreement. There are other options, too.

On 14 April members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are planning to vote on Senator Bob Corker’s bipartisan Iran nuclear agreement review act, as it’s known. This would give members of Congress 60 days after a nuclear deal is reached to decide if they want to waive sanctions against Iran.

…. members of Congress could decide to up the ante and impose “pretty draconian new sanctions”, NYU School of Law’s Zachary Goldman said. It would be hard, since they’d need the support of two-thirds of both the US Senate and the US House of Representatives to over-ride a presidential veto. Both houses are Republican-controlled but they would need Democrat votes.”

Considering there are still important negotiations required before the deal is completely done, this has the potential to undermine or at least complicate the deal.

Just as worrying, Republican pressure will force Obama to go top great lengths to justify the deal to congress. As he does so, he will have to characterize the deal as an American win and Iranian loss. This will make it harder for Rouhani to sell the deal in Tehran. In fact, the Iranian press is already claiming that Obama is lying about the nature of the deal:

Israeli Mossad Goes Rogue, Warns U.S. on Iran Sanctions






The Crisis in U.S.-Israel Relations Is Officially Here -The Atlantic



People have been have been talking about the “crisis in American-Israeli” relations since Obama’s election, and it usually has not amounted to much. This time however, “a senior Obama administration official” is quoted as using a number of derogatory terms to insult Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Confession: I had to look up the term “Aspergery”.
Of course, like most diplomatic tiffs, this may get swept under the rug pretty quickly. The White House is already disputing they are the source of the insults (see: White House Distances Itself from Netanyahu ‘Chickenshit’ Comment, If, as the Atlantic article suggests, the Obama administration tables “a public, full lay-down of the administration’s vision for a two-state solution, including maps delineating Israel’s borders” based on the 1967 borders, then that will be a real crisis.