In January 2004, when I was a 25-year-old Canadian law student in New York, I decided to apply for an internship at the Israeli Consulate. Little did I know, the speechwriter for the Israeli delegation to the United Nations was quitting, and I was soon asked to fill the vacancy. It was just the beginning of a bizarre, revealing and often comical two and a half year journey into the nerve center of Israeli and Middle Eastern politics — a journey that grew even stranger with my transfer, the following year, to an even more unlikely job in Jerusalem, at the heart of the Israeli government.
On an excruciatingly slow August day in New York City, a resolution was coming up for consideration, apparently, at the U.N. General Assembly. There was almost nobody at the Israeli Mission, and those there already had their afternoons planned. “You should go,” one of my superiors said to me. “It won’t be a big deal. Just take notes.”
Nobody thought to explain to me what the resolution was about, and I didn’t think to ask, but I was happy to agree, having very little else to do at the time. And although I had not yet done it at a meeting of the General Assembly, I had gone on a few of these little note-taking missions at the U.N.’s other organs. I went to the meeting hall and took my seat at Israel‘s place, the little placard reading “ISRAEL” in front of me. Thankfully, Italy and Ireland were there, so I didn’t have to deal with Iran sitting — or refusing to sit — beside me, as I’d experienced at a previous meeting. There seemed to be more tension in the room than usual, and a few more people than would normally be present at a regular discussion. Something was clearly up.
Although I didn’t recognize him, the Italian representative greeted me and shook my hand. Then he leaned in and said, “So you know, the vote is definitely going to happen today after all.”
I smiled and nodded, as if I knew what he was talking about. But I was suddenly numb, thinking, “The vote? The vote? What vote? Nobody said anything about a vote!”
“So have you decided how you’re voting?” I asked, more than a little awkwardly. I had absolutely no idea how this sort of discussion normally progressed.
Clearly that was not how, because he gave me a strange look and nodded. “Yes, we’ve worked it out.”
I knew at very least that the “we” was not just the Italian delegation but the whole European Union, which always voted together on issues of foreign policy. Still, that cleared up nothing for me.
“Would you excuse me?” I said to the Italian as suavely as possible — which is to say not suavely at all — before darting out of the room to the hallway, clutching my cellphone. There were still lots of people streaming in, and many had not yet taken their seats, so I knew there was still some time and was not yet totally overcome by the situation.
I called the Israeli Mission, trying the extensions of various senior diplomats, but none of them picked up. Finally I reached the deputy ambassador’s secretary, and started to tell her about the situation, but the phone connection dropped. I had previously noticed that cellphone reception at the U.N. was terrible, but it had never really affected me until now. I tried again and was not able to get any signal whatsoever.
I swore quietly to myself, unsure what to do. This bad cellphone reception problem, I thought, probably didn’t affect most diplomats here quite as much because they probably actually knew what they were doing. I was not so lucky.
Racing back into the assembly hall, I scanned the room, noting that most people were now seated, and those in front who ran the meeting were clearly getting ready to proceed. Starting to get a bit desperate — “Should I vote at all? Will there be repercussions if I don’t vote? What are we even voting about?” — I looked around the room again, hoping that some solution to this problem would present itself. Then one did: the United States of America.
I knew that Israel usually voted along with the Americans, its closest ally and supporter. And since there were no Israelis around to tell me what to do, I figured that I might as well just ask the Americans.
I walked up to them, and after quickly confirming that their U.N. tags listed their country as the United States, I greeted the one who appeared to be the senior diplomat. He was in his mid- to late 50s and was quite clearly an important official from the State Department. Just as clearly to him, I was sure, I was a fool.
“Um, yeah,” I said, drawing out my words awkwardly and almost stuttering. “I’m, uh, representing Israel at this meeting.”
His brow furrowed a bit, and while still trying to remain diplomatic, he gave me a look that seemed to say, “What are you, 15?”
“Anyway,” I went on, leaning in so that nobody else would hear me, “I don’t really, exactly, know how I’m supposed to vote, and — ”
“You don’t know?” he asked incredulously.
“Not as such,” I said slowly, and paused for a second on this note. “There has been some miscommunication in the Israeli Mission today.”
He just nodded.
“Anyway,” I continued painfully, “I just wanted to know if you would mind telling me how you guys were going to vote.”
He looked around warily to make sure that nobody was around. Then he leaned in even closer to me. His two assistants did the same, until the four of us were essentially in a huddle on the floor of the assembly hall.
“This is just between you and us,” he warned me, and when I nodded, he whispered, “We’re voting no.”
Our huddle broke then, and I fought the urge to give the American diplomats a high-five.
“Thank you very much,” I told them instead.
“Good luck,” the senior diplomat said, and I walked away, aware that they were probably puzzling over the fact that Israel was now sending very young-looking North Americans to handle its diplomacy.
Heading to my seat, I thought, “No! They’re going to vote no! But what does that mean? No to what?” I was not about to ask the Americans to explain to me exactly what the resolution they were voting against was about, since that would make Israel look even more ridiculous, so I just made my way across the hall, trying to decide whether to vote the same way as they were.
Shortly after I got back to my seat, with the voting about to begin, I quickly tried my cellphone again. This time, miraculously, I managed to get through to someone with authority at the Israeli Mission. He didn’t know there was going to be a vote, or what the vote was about, but he said he’d find out and get back to me. He then hung up.
It was an astonishing moment of disorganization, but as I would see on a pretty regular basis, the maneuvers and accomplishments of the Israeli government could be as much a function of barely controlled chaos as one of shrewd planning and execution of policy.
After a few more seconds the vote was called, and there was no longer any choice but to go for it. I put my earpiece in and looked down at the three buttons — green, red and yellow. “Well,” I thought, “red it is.”
Literally moments after the vote I got a call on my cellphone. Now, of course, the reception was fine. On the other end of the line was one of the senior diplomats from the mission, speaking urgently.
“Greg,” he said, “are you still there?”
“Yes.”
“We found out what the resolution is about. Vote against it, OK?”
“Sure,” I said. “No problem.”
Only later did I find out that the resolution was about weapons of mass destruction.
At one point during my last week at the mission in May 2005, when I had stepped out of the office at lunchtime to run an errand, my cellphone rang with a call from the mission’s spokesperson.
“Greg,” she said, “I got another call from the Prime Minister’s Office.”
“What could it be now?” I wondered.
“Well,” she continued slowly, and I could tell by her voice that she was smiling. “The prime minister liked your speech, and so did his aides, and they want to know if you want to come work for him in Jerusalem.”
I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. I immediately felt exhilarated and confused. I was, of course, immensely flattered, and started wildly picturing where this unexpected turn could lead me — writing speeches and working for one of the most storied figures in international politics. Ariel Sharon was both hated and loved, but nobody denied his importance. The idea that I could work on his staff astounded me. And not just that, I thought, I could be doing this at a uniquely pivotal time in the Middle East‘s history, as he tried to implement the disengagement plan from Gaza and move Israel forward. It was a time when real, positive change could be brought about for both Israel and its neighbors, and my head spun with the possibilities of tangibly helping to make it happen.
I spoke to an aide to the prime minister, with whom I had recently worked on a speech, and he told me that the position they were offering me would soon be open. It included English speechwriting for the prime minister and a lot of work with the foreign media and other foreign organizations. The withdrawal from Gaza was coming, he said, and they needed all the help they could get. I would have to make the decision very soon so that they could begin the procedure of getting me on the prime minister’s staff. He suggested that early the next morning I speak to Ra’anan Gissin, Prime Minister Sharon’s spokesman and media advisor for English media. If I took the job, he’d be one of my supervisors.
I woke up at 6 the next morning, and still lying in bed, I called the Prime Minister’s Office. For several years now, beginning before I had become involved with the government, I had been watching Gissin on television. He was in his late 50s or early 60s, and in fast, clipped and heavily accented but fluent English, he had heatedly given the Israeli position in frequent appearances on all the major cable networks, always seeming hawkish and cantankerous.
“Yes, hello, hello,” he snapped into the phone.
“This is Gregory Levey,” I said, “calling from New York.”
“Yes; hello, Greg,” he barked quickly, and I had to move the phone away from my ear a little. He was yelling, and I didn’t know why. “You’re gonna come work for us? Work with me? We need you. It’s a very busy time here, and it’s going to get busier. Are you coming? When are you coming?”
He was talking nonstop and in rapid fire, and it was very difficult to get a word in.
“I’ve been watching you on television for years,” I said, rather lamely, “and it would definitely be interesting to work with you.”
“Yes, I’m on TV a lot. You know, let me tell you about this position. When I was in the paratroopers, we thought of ourselves as the advance guard, the guys who go in first, who don’t wait, who don’t take orders, who just go on ahead and look for dangers and opportunities. If you get injured, you deal with it, and you just go on. You know what I’m saying?”
I had absolutely no idea what he was saying, but that didn’t matter because he didn’t give me any time to respond anyway.
“That will be like you, Greg, in this position. You’ll just march on ahead as my sort of front line, looking out for me and the prime minister, for information and news we might need. I don’t need people who just want to take orders. I want them to take initiative, like a paratrooper.”
I tried to say something, but there was still no room for me in the conversation.
“Greg,” he continued at lightning speed. “There’s a lot to do. A lot of things to do. News comes in, and we just move. We don’t wait at all. If you wait, you get left behind. This is the Middle East. It’s not New York. In fact, sometimes we don’t even wait for news. We make it ourselves. Greg, I’ve got to go now, but we’re looking forward to seeing you here soon. We need your help. There’s a lot to do. OK? Bye.”
But even then, I had no idea of how much wilder the ride would get once I landed in Jerusalem a few weeks later.
In a resolution approved in January, the Republican National Committee characterized the United Nations’ Agenda 21 as “destructive strategies for sustainable development.” Included in this resolution was the RNC’s condemnation of the “insidious nature” of Agenda 21, and the recommendation by the RNC to adopt this resolution at the 2012 RNC Convention. An increasing backlash against this 19-year-old nonbinding U.N. plan shows how a conspiracy theory can become part of a major party’s platform.
How did a 40-chapter U.N. work plan on sustainable development, published in 1992, foster such a fervent backlash among conservative groups? Agenda 21, first revealed at the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, aimed to address environmental and development concerns through global partnership initiatives. While the plan covered everything from the sharing of educational resources to strategies for economic and environmental development, conservative groups have focused primarily on its fourth section — titled “the means for implementation” — as revealing Agenda 21’s true and, for them, insidious nature.
While a recent New York Times article described anti-Agenda 21 activism as emerging roughly two years ago, the roots of the Agenda 21 conspiracy theory go back at least a decade. As early as 2002 Dr. Stanley Monteith, a Santa Cruz County, Calif., physician, who runs the conservative Christian website Radio Liberty, hosted a series of lectures on the dangers of Agenda 21. An insurance salesperson named Joan Peros gave a nearly hour-long lecture on the perils of Agenda 21, warning, it “doesn’t matter which party is in power or control … some of our leaders totally understand and embrace the ushering in of a one-world order.”
The paranoia behind such fears was expressed by another guest lecturer on Monteith’s program, Jean Soderman, a self-professed former participant in Local Agenda 21 planning in Santa Cruz. When asked whether Agenda 21 would be worse than what Hitler did, she responded, “Yes. We are controlled by computers now and it has been said … that they have been trying this for two times already … first with Hitler, and it is going to be much, much worse.”
Michael Shaw, also from Santa Cruz and founder of the anti-Agenda 21 website Freedom Advocates, gave a lecture in 2006 at the Eagle Forum Conference in Santa Rosa, titled “Speaking of Agenda 21.” Shaw spoke about the loss of property rights through the ruse of “sustainable development,” and described Agenda 21 as “political globalists … moving toward a form of … state capitalism. It is an assault on land and that is where we have to stand up and protect our land.”
The anti-Agenda 21 critique entered the conservative mainstream in an October 2009 article in the American Thinker. Scott Strzelcky and Richard Rothschild charged that, through the implementation of “smart growth” initiatives, Agenda 21 would force people to relocate into highly urbanized areas — what anti-Agenda 21 activists commonly describe as “stack ‘em and pack ‘em” housing, evoking the image of Soviet-era East Berlin apartments. According to Strzelcky and Rothschild, Agenda 21 will ultimately lead to the demise of the suburban way of life.
Such concerns over the loss of private property rights are not a new phenomenon in the United States. The Wise Use movement in the West of the late 1980s brought together farmers, loggers, industries, religious groups, libertarians and conservatives to oppose the Endangered Species Act and other federal environment laws. According to investigative journalist Jeffery St. Clair, the Wise Use members saw themselves as players in “a high-stakes-chess game” against the environmental movement, whose members were “overtly carrying out a sinister master plan, a vast socialist experiment to depopulate the rural West.” When asked about the evolution of property rights movements, Jeffery St. Clair told me, “in the West, many of the Tea Party activists are the same old Wise Users in new hairstyles.”
But while the Wise Use movement centered around protecting rural and federal lands from perceived government encroachment, anti-Agenda 21 activists are concerned that private property, for them an extension of one’s liberties and freedoms, will cease to exist entirely.
The movement really took off in July 2011 after Glenn Beck devoted a show to those “who had mastered the art of hiding it in plain sight and then dismissing it as a joke.” Beck held up a copy of United Nations Earth Summit Agenda 21. “Sustainable development is just a really nice way of saying centralized control over all of human life on Planet Earth,” he stated. “Whenever you start unraveling this, it is like an onion … its real intentions are being masked with environmental issues.”
With his patented chalkboard, Beck drew the web of connections that has been fueling Agenda 21 panic ever since: the activities of a group called the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, known as ICLEI — or Local Agenda 21. Started in San Francisco in 1990, ICLEI’s primary goal is to provide consultation, training and information to support sustainable development at the local level. For Anti-Agenda 21 activists, ICLEI is the real enemy.
As Andrew Cohen wrote in a recent article for the Atlantic:
You would think that the Tea Party, with its disdain for large government, would be delighted with the ICLEI’s emphasis on “locally designed initiatives.” No. To the “Agender” crowd, as they are called, the ICLEI is the local instrument by which the UN forces its “sustainability” agenda upon the U.S.
It’s only within the last few months that the New York Times and the Atlantic have reported on this backlash by anti-Agenda 21 activists against local planning projects. Recently in Florida, a Tea Party group in Citrus County argued against the restriction of boating rights in Kings Bay (designed to protect the Kings Bay manatees). Edna Mattos, the leader of the Citrus County Tea Party Patriots, cited Agenda 21 as being behind this proposed restriction.
At the same time, Agenda 21 has become a talking point for presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich. Speaking in South Carolina on the perils of Agenda 21, Gingrich decried what he called “taking control of your private property and turning it into a publicly controlled property.” Gingrich has also proposed an executive order “to cease all federal funding of any kind of activity that relates to United Nations Agenda 21.” In addition, bills publicly condemning Agenda 21 have been introduced by Republican state representatives in Tennessee, New Hampshire and Georgia.
Anti-Agenda 21 rhetoric not only plays into fears over the declining suburban lifestyle, but has changed the vocabulary of city planners. Many of the planners that I have spoken with are taking to heart Andrew Whittemon’s recommendations to take the concerns of Agenda 21 more seriously and to speak more clearly.
Whittemon, a professor of planning at the University of Texas, Arlington, said, “Planners can avoid conflict by being explicit about the most direct harms coming to residents and businesses, giving attention to local solutions, and certainly dropping the jargon.”
The impact of the movement is already felt. One city planner I spoke with, who wished to remain anonymous, told me: “The Agenda 21 accusations that we hear in public meetings are the most counterproductive to reaching consensus or middle ground in land use planning. So we are staying away from using words like ‘sustainable development.’”
A top Palestinian official said Wednesday that President Mahmoud Abbas had no plans to agree to a delayed vote on his bid for membership in the United Nations, rejecting mounting pressure from the United States and France.
The Palestinians plan to submit their letter of application on Friday when Abbas is to speak to the U.N. General Assembly, but he faced a withering lack of support as the world body opened its annual meeting. President Barack Obama said there could be no “shortcuts” in the quest for Middle East peace, a message that was echoed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
“We will not allow any political manoeuvring on this issue,” said Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to Abbas and former chief of negotiations.
Erekat said Abbas had made that plain in discussions with all parties involved over the last three days of meetings in the lead-up to the annual UN global gathering of presidents, heads of state and ruling royalty.
Sarkozy proposed a one-year timetable Wednesday for Israel and the Palestinians to reach a peace accord, part of a concerted push with the United States to steer the Palestinians away from an application for U.N. membership.
Sarkozy spoke shortly after Obama warned against action on the Palestinian bid before there was a peace agreement. He said negotiations, not U.N. declarations, were essential to a lasting peace.
While Obama stopped short of calling directly for the Palestinians to drop their bid for full membership — an effort the U.S. has vowed to veto in the Security Council — Sarkozy sounded a more compromising tone and urged each side, and the international community, to approach the deadlocked process with new ideas and tactics.
“Let us cease our endless debates on the parameters and let us begin negotiations and adopt a precise and ambitious timetable,” Sarkozy told the leaders and officials gathered at the U.N. “Sixty years without moving one centimeter forward, doesn’t that suggest that we should change the method and the scheduling here?”
“Let’s have one month to resume discussions, six months to find agreement on borders and security, one year to reach a definitive agreement,” he said.
A senior European Union official said the proposal laid out by Sarkozy matched one by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton during a meeting with EU foreign ministers on Tuesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions.
Abbas’ push for full membership, which he has said would be submitted on Friday, has dominated this year’s U.N. meeting, pushing the U.S. and Israel against a wall of international sympathy for Palestinians. While the full membership bid would meet with a certain U.S. veto in the Security Council, assuming the Palestinians muster enough votes to have it approved, they have succeeded in bringing the issue again to the forefront of the world’s political discussions after years of failed negotiations, bickering and sporadic outbreaks of violence.
Sarkozy said that by setting preconditions, “we doom ourselves to failure. … There must be no preconditions.”
It remained unclear whether the latest proposal would be enough to avert a showdown over statehood that has consumed the U.N. over the past few days and sparked a frenzy of last-minute diplomatic door-knocking by the Israelis and the Palestinians, as well as a flurry of discussions between the Quartet of Mideast negotiators — the U.S., the E.U., the U.N. and Russia.
But the proposal outlined by Sarkozy received a warmer welcome from the Palestinians than Obama’s comments.
Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior Abbas aide, told The Associated Press that the Palestinians “appreciate the speech and the positions included in that speech.”
“The Palestinian leadership will study seriously the positions and the ideas in that speech,” he said.
Obama’s remarks, however, drew a lukewarm response, with the Palestinian delegation wearing stern and disapproving looks as the U.S. president spoke.
“Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the United Nations — if it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now,” the president told U.N. delegates. “Ultimately, it is the Israelis and the Palestinians who must live side by side. Ultimately, it is the Israelis and the Palestinians — not us — who must reach agreement on the issues that divide them.”
Obama showed solidarity with Israel, not mentioning a return to the borders before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war in which Israel annexed territory. The remarks may rile some in the Arab world where mass uprisings against authoritarian regimes have also sparked a new measure of anti-U.S. sentiment. Obama’s words also stood in stark contrast to the image he left behind when he addressed the Muslim world from Cairo in 2009, pledging to improve relations and cooperation.
Senior Palestinian officials said Abbas will reiterate to Obama his decision to move forward with the application for membership that will be submitted to the Security Council. But they also said that the Palestinians seek to cooperate with the U.S. and will be ready to return to the negotiating table once a solid foundation for talks was in place.
Nabil Abu Redeineh said that “peace in the Middle East needs an immediate end of the Israeli occupation” and that the U.S. needs to pressure Israel to immediately withdraw from lands annexed in 1967. The Palestinians are ready to return to talks “the minute Israel accepts” those borders and stops settlement building, he said.
Obama was scheduled to meet later Wednesday with Abbas.
He met earlier in the day with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
With Obama at his side, the Israeli premier said the Palestinian bid to appeal directly to the U.N. was a short cut that “will not succeed.” Netanyahu also lauded Obama for speaking up on principle.
The issue of Palestinian statehood has gained new momentum in the Arab world amid the so-called Arab Spring uprisings that have ousted the leaders of Egypt, Tunisia and Libya and laid the still rocky foundations for a new era of freedom and democratic nations in a region dominated by dictators, monarchs and other entrenched regimes.
Associated Press writers Mohammed Daraghmeh, Amy Teibel and Julie Pace in New York contributed reporting.
BOSTON — President Obama should not veto Palestinian national aspirations in the United Nations Security Council.
The president is not wrong in thinking that this would be better handled in negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel. It would be wonderful if Israel itself were to sponsor a Palestinian state, but this is not going to happen as long as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in power.
He has spent his entire career trying to avoid Palestinian statehood with delaying tactics and maneuvers — seemingly willing to negotiate everything anywhere, but in reality putting up every obstacle he can in the path of peace and permanent settlement with the Palestinians.
Not that the Palestinians are guiltless in this stand off. They have had offers and opportunities they have not taken. But the entire Middle East is now in a state of flux and transition, and, as a practical matter, to try to keep the Palestinians frozen in their status as an occupied people without political rights is to ask for serious trouble — both for Israel and the U.S. The next Intifada will be far more destructive than the last two.
As a moral matter it is simply time to let the Palestinians have their state just as Harry Truman recognized that the Jews, after all they had been through in Europe in World War II, should have their state in 1948.
Many Israelis understand this. Former Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told The New York Times that “the world is tired of this conflict and angry at us because we are viewed as conquerors, ruling over another people. If I were Bibi Netanyahu I would recognize a Palestinian State. We would then negotiate borders and security.” But Netanyahu comes from the so-called “Revisionist” wing of Zionism that is reluctant to give up any part of what they consider the biblical land of Israel.
When David Ben Gurion on May 14th, 1948, declared that the state of Israel would come into being at midnight, America responded with de-facto recognition almost immediately. But the Soviet Union came through first with de-jure recognition, something the U.S. did not grant until an elected government had been formed in January of 1949.
Even with the two superpowers onboard, the U.N. Security Council did not grant Israel U.N. membership until May 11, 1949 — a full year after the state was declared — and after a long fight to physically secure its borders.
Palestine might come into being in reverse order — declare sovereignty now, gain admittance to the U.N., and then negotiate the borders with Israel, as Ben-Eliezer suggested.
There are many who say there are dangers involved in a Palestinian state, and they are right, just as those in Truman’s State Department, including George C. Marshall, were right in warning that the creation of a Jewish state would cause a sea of troubles.
And there are those who say that the Palestinian problem is exaggerated, that it doesn’t really matter if they remain an occupied people, because giving them their freedom would not solve all the issues of the Middle East or placate Islamic extremists. And they, too, are right. Giving the Palestinians their state would not solve all the issues of the Middle East, but it would surely help. Again and again, year in and year out, the centrality of the Palestinian problem never goes away. Even General David Petraeus, from his command post in Afghanistan, recognized that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians was hurting America’s war efforts as far away as Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Richard Perle and David Frum, in their book, “An End to Evil, How to Win the War on Terror,” submit that “in the Arab and Muslim World, the Palestinian issue has never been about compassion, mercy, or even justice. First and always, this issue has been about vengeance…”, i.e., “the destruction of Israel and the re-conquest of the Holy Land.” This might be true of some, but this is akin to saying the Jews in Israel want to take over Jordan just because that was an original “revisionist” goal back in 1947, or because David Ben Gurion once put feelers out to the British and French in 1956 that Jordan should be divided up between Israel and Iraq. Yes, some Arabs still might want to destroy Israel, just as some Israelis want to expel all the Palestinians, but that does not represent the vast majority nor government policy in either Israel or the Arab world.
The Obama administration tried its best to talk the Palestinians out of going to the United Nations to legitimize their state but failed. Given the administration’s record, this failure was entirely predictable. Obama came into office seeming to promise a renewed energy toward trying to solve the Palestinian problem, following President Bush’s near-total support for whatever Israel wanted.
Obama went eyeball to eyeball with Netanyahu over settlements, and the Palestinians saw that Obama blinked first. It was obvious then that Obama might talk a good game, but that the Israeli tail was always going to wag the American dog. The sight of Netanyahu who, having defied and insulted the American president, addressing a joint session of Congress with congressmen and senators of both parties jumping to their feet like jack-in-the-boxes to show their support, was all anyone needed to understand Israel’s power in the American Congress.
The Democratic Party has to be mindful of pro-Zionist political support. But it is in America’s strategic interest, and ultimately in Israel’s interest too, to lance the boil of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
If it was the right thing to do to recognize the state of Israel when it was first born, it is time now to grant the same rights and privileges to the Palestinian people. The Obama administration is always talking about being on the right side of history in the Middle East. The United States could abstain, if it must, but vetoing Palestinian nationalist aspirations would put us on the wrong side of history.
The last fugitive sought by the U.N. Balkan war crimes tribunal was arrested by Serbian authorities Wednesday, answering intense international demands for his capture and boosting the country’s hopes of becoming a candidate for European Union membership.
Former Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic was taken into custody as he met a man delivering him money in a forest in a mountainous region of northern Serbia where many of his relatives live, authorities said. He had dramatically changed his appearance and was armed but did not resist, they said.
Hours later, Hadzic was brought in for questioning at the war crimes court in the capital Belgrade, a key step toward his extradition to the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. His lawyer said Hadzic will not appeal the process, paving the way for a quick extradition, possibly within the next few days.
State TV footage showed Hadzic entering the courtroom escorted by guards. He walked slowly, slightly hunched, wearing a gray shirt, short hair and a mustache. His black beard had been shaved.
An unknown figure before the 1991-1995 ethnic war for control of Croatia, Hadzic suddenly rose to prominence through his links to Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic’s secret police. Put in charge of the self-styled Serb ministate in eastern Croatia, he was seen as a pawn of criminal gangs that collaborated heavily with the secret police and made huge profits from smuggled cars, gasoline and cigarettes.
The Hague tribunal indicted him in 2004 on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity including the murder, torture, deportation and forcible transfer of Croats and other non-Serbs from the territories he controlled.
Less than two months after the capture of Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic, Serbia’s Western-leaning president announced live on national television that “Serbia has concluded its most difficult chapter in the cooperation with the Hague Tribunal.”
“It was our moral duty,” President Boris Tadic said. “We have done this for the sake of citizens of Serbia, we have done this for the sake of the victims amongst other nations, we have done this for the sake of reconciliation, we have done this for the sake of establishing credibility of all societies, not only Serbian society.”
In his indictment Hadzic is accused of responsibility for the 1991 leveling of Vukovar, said to be the first European city entirely destroyed since World War II.
In one of the worst massacres in the Croatian conflict, Serb forces seized at least 264 non-Serbs from Vukovar Hospital after a three-month siege of the city, took them to a nearby pig farm, tortured, shot and buried them in an unmarked mass grave.
A month before about 20 kilometers (12.43 miles) southwest of Vukovar, about 50 Croats who had been detained for forced labor were made to walk through a minefield to render it safe for the Serbs, according to the indictment.
“Upon reaching the minefield, the detainees were forced to enter the minefield and sweep their feet in front of them to clear the field of mines,” it said.
Hadzic worked with paramilitary forces that became notorious for their brutality, including the “Tigers,” led by Zeljko Raznatovic, known as Arkan. In that same month of October 1991, Arkan’s men captured 28 civilians from a police facility in Dalj, tortured them and threw their bodies in the Danube. Arkan was assassinated in a Belgrade hotel in 2000.
Serge Brammertz, chief prosecutor of the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal, said the arrests of Mladic and Hadzic “mark a long-awaited step forward in Serbia’s cooperation.”
EU leaders immediately welcomed the arrest and saluted “the determination and commitment” of Tadic’s government.
“This is a further important step for Serbia in realizing its European perspective and equally crucial for international justice,” said a joint statement by EU president Herman Van Rompuy, European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barrios and foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.
A tribunal statement said Hadzic will be transferred to The Hague as soon as judicial procedures are completed in Serbia. That normally takes several days.
He will then be brought before a judge to hear a reading of the 14 charges against him. He may enter a plea or delay for a month.
Tribunal president O-Gon Kwon said the arrest was a milestone in the history of the court, which has indicted 161 leaders from the former Yugoslavia since it was created in 1993 at the height of the fighting.
The tribunal has been under U.N. pressure to wind up its cases and close its doors.
Serbian security police found out that Hadzic was meeting a money courier and arrested him Wednesday morning outside the village of Krusedol, Serbian war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic told reports.
Until this week, Tadic said, Serbian officials did not know where Goran Hadzic was, despite suspicions that he had been sheltered by former allies.
In the past, Hadzic had narrowly escaped arrest, apparently due to tips from within the Serbian security authorities. Serbia’s post-war authorities have for years faced accusations that they are not doing enough to hunt down the war crimes suspects.
Serbia, widely viewed as the main culprit for the wars in the Balkans, has been working to reintegrate into the international community following years of sanctions and pariah status in the 1990s.
Milosevic was extradited to the Hague tribunal in 2001 and died there in 2006, while on trial for genocide.
Along with Mladic, Serbia has also arrested war crimes fugitives Radovan Karadzic. Both are currently facing war crimes charges in the Hague.
Dusan Stojanovic and Slobodan Lekic contributed.
McMansions endangered from on high (Credit: iStockphoto/Dmitry Galanternik) 
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas holds his hands to his face as U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during the 66th session of the General Assembly at United Nations headquarters Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2011. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)(Credit: AP/Seth Wenig) 
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, left, meets with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the Millennium Hotel in New York during the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2011. (AP Photo/Andrew Burton)(Credit: AP) 
A Palestinian waves a flag during a demonstration in the West Bank, Friday, Sept. 9, 2011 
FILE - In this Feb. 6, 1993 file photo, Goran Hadzic, who heads representatives of the Krajina Serbs, talks with reporters at the United Nations in New York, United States. It has been reported on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 by Serbian TV station B92 that authorities have arrested Goran Hadzic, the last remaining fugitive sought by the U.N. war crimes court. Hadzic has been on the run for eight years. He is wanted for atrocities stemming from the 1991-1995 war in Croatia. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)(Credit: AP) 
