new national intelligence estimate regarding iran: released by the ajc on december 4, 2007

Recent Developments
A new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released today by 16 American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen.

Some commentators have portrayed the new report as disavowing previous estimates that Iran has an active secret arms program intended to transform raw material into nuclear weapons. They have also portrayed it as belying the American policy, which has sought to diplomatically isolate and impose bilateral and multilateral sanctions against Iran for its refusal to abide by its international obligation.

Not surprisingly, the Iranian regime welcomed the release of the report, saying that it refutes the allegations against Iran. An Iranian government spokesman stated that “U.S. officials have so far inflicted many damage to the Iranian nation by spearing lies against the country.” The Iranian foreign minister took a slightly more diplomatic approach saying, “It’s natural that we welcome it when those countries that in the past have questions and ambiguities about the case…now amend their views realistically.”

However, the Bush administration has stressed that NIE doesn’t lessen the urgency of the Iranian nuclear issue or suggest that the international community’s pressure should ease. During a White House press conference today, President Bush said: “I have said Iran is dangerous, and the NIE does not do anything to change my opinion about the danger Iran poses to the world.” The national security adviser said the estimate actually showed that suspicions about Iran’s intentions were warranted, as it had a weapons program in the first place.

AJC heard similar views from European interlocutors. A senior EU Iran expert who briefed AJC in Brussels this week said that in his and others’ judgment the Iranian nuclear program “doesn’t look like a civil program to us.” Views expressed by European officials support the conclusion that even if a military program had been suspended, the fact that uranium enrichment continues to be pursued so aggressively suggests weapons capability could still be achieved in a little over two years.

AJC Position
AJC continues to be profoundly concerned about the threat that Iran’s reckless regime poses to regional and global peace and security, in particular Tehran’s aggressive pursuit of nuclear arms capability.

Iran’s nuclear program is all the more dangerous because it is part of Iran’s broad push to extend its reach across the Middle East and beyond. Iran invests significant sums to underwrite terrorist organizations – using them as proxies to undermine Arab-Israeli relations, carry out attacks across the globe, and exert Iran’s political influence. The risk of a nuclear Iran is heightened by its president’s repeated calls to “wipe Israel off the map.”

AJC has welcomed the three Security Council Resolutions regarding Iran, adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which demand that Iran verifiably suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development. Iran has openly and blatantly defied these resolutions, thus undermining both the authority of the Security Council and the international non-proliferation regime.

The NIE states that in the recent past Iran had a military nuclear program, which Tehran has always denied; that Iran may have imported “some weapons-usable fissile material;” that it continues its uranium enrichment program - in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions; that centrifuge enrichment it employs “is how Iran probably could first produce enough fissile material for a weapon;” that there is no evidence Iran has made the “political decision to abandon a nuclear weapons objective;” and that Iran “probably would use covert facilities,” rather than declared (and potentially inspected) nuclear sites, to carry on a nuclear weapons program.

Meanwhile, Iran continues to develop other technology, including ever-longer-range missiles, with potentially ominous military applications.

The report suggests that aspects of Iran’s nuclear program may have been suspended in response to overwhelming international pressure. In light of Iran’s history of deceit, its ongoing nuclear enrichment program, its support for terrorism and its provocative statements and destabilizing actions across the Middle East, this is no time to lift the sanctions that may have restrained - or, it must be said, made harder to detect - certain aspects of Iran’s behavior.

The latest NIE provides no assurance that Iran, left to its ideologically driven policies and considerable resources, will behave responsibly; regrettably, that hasn’t been the Islamic Republic of Iran’s record.

In view of the above, the UN Security Council should adopt further measures regarding Iran, compelling that regime to comply with its international obligation. In the absence of an immediate Security Council action, responsible members of the international community, in particular the EU, should form a “coalition of the willing” to impose bilateral and multilateral sanctions until Tehran totally renounces its nuclear weapons program.

a very disturbing article about the recent “incident” in syria, published in the spectator (uk) on october 3, 2007, by douglas davis, former senior editor of the jerusalem post and james forsyth, online editor of the spectator

ajc welcomes demise of british academic boycott of israel
september 29, 2007

The American Jewish Committee today welcomed the announcement by Britain’s University and College Union (UCU) that it will not pursue a boycott of Israeli academics. The decision comes after the union’s legal advisors determined that such a boycott would be “unlawful” because it violates anti-discrimination legislation.

“We are gratified that the UCU recognized that any boycott against Israel is an act of prejudice,” said AJC Executive Director David A. Harris. “Others who have been considering similarly discriminatory measures against Israel should heed the UCU’s decision.”

Harris praised the group of scholars and activists worldwide, particularly in the United Kingdom, United States and Israel, who have been actively opposing the UCU boycott measure since it was adopted in May.

“Of special importance are the more than 450 American university presidents who endorsed Columbia University President Lee Bollinger’s powerful statement against the boycott,” said Harris.

brief excerpt from the weekly briefing by dr. eran lerman, director ajc israel/middle east office
september 18, 2007

……”In the minds of many Israelis, as we search our souls at this time of reckoning, another set of questions requires close attention, closer to each of our homes and deep in the heart of our collective endeavor. Are we in danger of losing not only our strategic safety but our internal cohesion? Is there still a “we” that we as Israelis - and the Jewish People - can speak of with certainty?”

read entire article

excerpt from daniel gordis’ “dispatches from an anxious state”:

“Gentlemen, bow your heads.” Thirty-five years after I used to hear that phrase in Assembly each eighth-grade morning, I still remember the scene clearly. Several hundred of us Middle School and High School students, boys more than gentlemen, in our coats and ties, beginning our day at the private school I attended for a couple of years in Baltimore. The school day started with Assembly, which, in turn, always ended with the Lord’s Prayer. And just before the Prayer, the Headmaster would say, sternly but not unkindly, “Gentlemen, bow your heads.”

I didn’t bow my head. In the two years that I spent at that (quite excellent) school, I experimented with a few alternatives. At first, I tried the “slump,” which allowed me to keep my head up, but to have it no higher than anyone else’s bowed head, so I wouldn’t be terribly conspicuous. That worked for a while. But the simplest mode, I eventually discovered, was simply to sit in my chair, and not bow my head. That, after all, my parents had told me, was the deal they’d cut on my behalf with the School when I’d been admitted.

That latter pose, which worked well in some ways, did, however, succeed in getting me summoned to a conversation with the Chaplain. He was a nice fellow, collar and all, and took me aside one day to explain that there was really nothing Christian about the Lord’s Prayer. “Thy Kingdom come,” he assured me, was nothing that Jews didn’t also pray for. It might not be a bad idea, he came close to suggesting, just to say the prayer.

I was a pretty timid eighth grader, just back from two years of living in Israel. Now enrolled in this very palpably not-terribly-Jewish school, I was quite conscious of the fact that I was not the typical student there. Still, somehow, timidity notwithstanding, I made it clear that the Lord’s Prayer was not for me. I seem to recall mentioning, in what was undoubtedly a quivering stammer, that given that it came from Matthew and Luke, it wasn’t really all that ecumenical.

Father Whoever-He-Was was very nice, and let the matter drop.

I’ve been thinking of those Assemblies and Father Whoever-He-Was lately. Not because I’ve suddenly decided to make the Lord’s Prayer part of my morning liturgy, but because I have come to admire what that school did in those Assemblies. They never forced me to say the Prayer. Nor did they really pressure me. They’d admitted me (and a number of other Jews) to the school, and we were treated with extraordinary respect. But, at the same time, what was then the pervasive Christian character of the school (my impression is that the School’s changed a bit since) was never something that they felt they had to hide just because we Jews were enrolled there. They were who they were we were welcome to study there, but what the School stood for wasn’t up for grabs.

It was, I thought, eminently fair.

So, why have Assembles and Father Whoever-He-Was suddenly re-entered my consciousness? Actually, it has nothing to do with Baltimore, or Middle School, or even Christianity. Rather, it has everything to do with Israeli Arabs and some documents that they’ve recent published on the kind of state that they’d like Israel to become. And I’ve begun wondering if Jewish Israelis have the courage of the convictions that that school had about its Christianity – to know what it stood for, to state it with pride, and not to pretend otherwise even for those who weren’t Christians.

article continues here

thank you, steve c 

A full-page AJC ad in today’s New York Times lists nearly 300 college and university presidents who have endorsed a powerful statement by Columbia University President Lee Bollinger denouncing the United Kingdom’s University and College Union’s decision to promote a boycott of Israeli educational institutions.

Bollinger’s statement is reproduced in the ad, published as a public service by AJC.

“As a citizen, I am profoundly disturbed by the recent vote by Britain’s new University and College Union to advance a boycott against Israeli academic institutions. As a university professor and president, I find this idea utterly antithetical to the fundamental values of the academy, where we will not hold intellectual exchange hostage to the political disagreements of the moment. In seeking to quarantine Israeli universities and scholars, this vote threatens every university committed to fostering scholarly and cultural exchanges that lead to enlightenment, empathy, and a much-needed international marketplace of ideas.

At Columbia, I am proud to say that we embrace Israeli scholars and universities that the UCU is now all too eager to isolate - as we embrace scholars from many countries regardless of divergent views on their government’s policies. Therefore, if the British UCU is intent on pursuing its deeply misguided policy, then it should add Columbia to its boycott list, for we do not intend to draw distinctions between our mission and that of the universities you are seeking to punish. Boycott us, then, for we gladly stand together with our many colleagues in British, American and Israeli universities against such intellectually shoddy and politically biased attempts to hijack the central mission of higher education.”
- - Lee Bollinger, President, Columbia University

More presidents have since added their names, including the leaders of Johns Hopkins, NYU, Northeastern, Temple and the University of Iowa. The full list will be updated daily on the AJC website.

David Harris, in his nationally broadcast radio message, has urged other presidents to join. Harold Shapiro, president emeritus of Princeton University and one of the organizers of the protest, is serving as contact person for the campaign.

I have just returned from a remarkable experience: Brandeis in the Berkshires, an intensive study of modern Israel, co-sponsored by AJC.

Modern Israeli politics, society, and culture were addressed for the purpose of furthering knowledge and understanding of Israel as a Jewish state, as a liberal democracy, and as part of the larger narrative of modern Jewish history. The intensity of the group’s participation and commitment was especially poignant, in light of recent and increasing intellectual attacks upon American and American Jewish support for Israel.

I will be posting further personal observations, as well as sharing some source materials. I return to Seattle inspired and challenged. More informed. And the usual, more unsettled, too.

Complexity should officially become our middle name.

khaled abu toameh
from the jerusalem post
june 15, 2007

Why did the Gaza Strip fall so easily and quickly into the hands of Hamas? How come Fatah, which has more than 40,000 armed men there, was defeated despite the millions of dollars and the large amounts of weapons that it received over the past year and a half?

These are only some of the questions that decision-makers in Washington and many European capitals have been asking in the wake of the “military coup” staged by Hamas in the Gaza Strip this week.

While these decision-makers may have been caught by surprise by the Hamas victories, for many Palestinians - particularly those living in the Gaza Strip - the writing has long been on the wall.

Fatah lost the battle for the Gaza Strip not because it had fewer soldiers and weapons, but because it lost the confidence and support of many Palestinians a long time ago.

The decline of Fatah actually began with the day Yasser Arafat died in November 2004.

Since then, Fatah has been dealt one blow after another.

The biggest disaster occurred in January 2006, when Fatah was defeated by Hamas in the parliamentary elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Fatah lost the vote mainly because of its leaders’ involvement in rampant corruption and abuse of power.

Mahmoud Abbas, who succeeded Arafat in January 2005, had run on a platform that promised Palestinians an end to corruption, mismanagement and nepotism. That’s why more than 60 percent of the Palestinians then gave him a mandate.

But after Abbas came to power, he did almost nothing to fulfill his pledges. Instead of fighting corruption, he surrounded himself with symbols of corruption and former Arafat cronies.

Instead of ending the anarchy and lawlessness, he promoted notorious warlords, and for the first time, the number of Palestinians killed in internal fighting under Abbas was higher than those killed by Israel. And instead of dismantling gangs and militias, whose members had long been terrorizing the Palestinian public, Abbas rewarded many of them by granting them “military” ranks and placing them on his payroll.

Many voters who went to the ballot boxes in January 2006 wanted to punish Abbas and his Fatah faction for having failed to improve their living conditions on all fronts.

That’s why they voted for Hamas. Even some Christians are said to have cast their ballots for Hamas. The name of the game back then was: Let’s punish these Fatah thieves and thugs who have been stealing our money and terrorizing us for so many years.

On the eve of the 2006 election, Hamas knew exactly what the Palestinians wanted: an end to financial corruption and good governance. That’s why Hamas ran under the banner of Change and Reform. That’s also why Hamas put on its list of candidates doctors, university professors, engineers, pharmacists and lawyers. By contrast, the Fatah list did not come up with any new faces.

Hamas won because its leaders promised the Palestinians good governance and an end to anarchy and lawlessness. Hamas also won because there was still a large percentage of Palestinians who believed that “Islam is the solution.”

US-backed efforts to undermine the Hamas-led government over the past 16 months have failed, largely because most Palestinians clearly do not regard Fatah as a better alternative to Hamas. In the aftermath of its defeat in the 2006 election, Fatah failed to draw the conclusions and get rid of all the icons of corruption among its top brass. Moreover, Fatah did not engage in any kind of internal reforms, and representatives of the young generation remained marginalized.

Even if free and democratic elections were held tomorrow in the Palestinian territories, it is highly unlikely that Palestinians would vote for the same people they voted out in 2006. Besides, many Palestinians would argue that Hamas did not fail in government; from day one, no one actually gave them a chance to rule.

By openly embracing Abbas and Fatah, Washington has caused them grave damage. The weapons and funds that were supposed to boost Fatah ahead of a confrontation with Hamas have only increased Hamas’s popularity on the streets of the Gaza Strip. The public support for Fatah made Abbas and Muhammed Dahlan look, in the eyes of many Palestinians, like Antoine Lahad, the former commander of the pro-Israeli South Lebanon Army. And when a Palestinian sees that the Americans are trying to bring down his democratically-elected government, his sympathies go straight to the government and not to those allegedly involved in the conspiracy.

The writing was on the wall because Hamas had already inflicted heavy casualties on Fatah in previous rounds of fighting over the past year. In addition, it was clear that Hamas was eventually going to take over the entire Gaza Strip, because of the anarchy and disunity among the Fatah-controlled Palestinian security forces and their commanders. It was obvious that Fatah was going to lose, because the masses were not going to take to the streets to defend leaders living in villas and driving luxury cars.

by yaakov katz
jerusalem post
june 11, 2007

Israel’s successful launch of the Ofek 7 on Monday should not be taken lightly. While Israel has proven numerous times that it has the ability to independently develop, manufacture and launch satellites into space, the timing of Monday’s launch was difficult to ignore.

read entire article

statement by president lee c. bollinger of columbia university on the boycott of israeli academics by british university & college union
june 11, 2007

“As a citizen, I am profoundly disturbed by the recent vote by Britain’s new University and College Union to advance a boycott against Israeli academic institutions. As a university professor and president, I find this idea utterly antithetical to the fundamental values of the academy, where we will not hold intellectual exchange hostage to the political disagreements of the moment. In seeking to quarantine Israeli universities and scholars this vote threatens every university committed to fostering scholarly and cultural exchanges that lead to enlightenment, empathy, and a much-needed international marketplace of ideas.

At Columbia I am proud to say that we embrace Israeli scholars and universities that the UCU is now all too eager to isolate - as we embrace scholars from many countries regardless of divergent views on their governments’ policies. Therefore, if the British UCU is intent on pursuing its deeply misguided policy, then it should add Columbia to its boycott list, for we do not intend to draw distinctions between our mission and that of the universities you are seeking to punish. Boycott us, then, for we gladly stand together with our many colleagues in British, American and Israeli universities against such intellectually shoddy and politically biased attempts to hijack the central mission of higher education.”

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