Jeffrey Goldberg

From the Guardian:

Recently I went to the theatre, as I am wont to do. The acting was impeccable, the direction insightful, the costumes fun, the music accomplished and the set damn sexy. Only the writing lacked salt.

It's not a parody, as one would be wont to think.

Hussein Ibish and Matt Duss address a question I brought up in this space last week: Just how powerful is Hamas in Gaza?

You're vs. Your: A surprising number of people don't understand the difference:

According to the Far News Agency, the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces has called for Israel's annihilation. I'm sure this a mistranslation, of course: What he probably meant to say was, "I would love the opportunity to visit Eilat because I understand the snorkeling is wonderful."

Addressing a defense gathering here in Tehran on Sunday, General (Hassan) Firouzabadi said that nations should realize the threats and dangers posed by the Zionist regime of Israel.

He reiterated the Iranian nation and Supreme Leader's emphasis on the necessity of support for the oppressed Palestinian nation and its causes, and noted, "The Iranian nation is standing for its cause that is the full annihilation of Israel."

The article goes on to inform us that:

Earlier this year, Supreme Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei stressed in explicit remarks Iran's direct involvement in the Palestinian and Lebanese confrontation with Israel, including the Lebanese Summer 2006 33-day resistance against the Zionist regime.

"Wherever Iran interferes, it announces it in a very straightforward manner. For instance, we interfered in confrontations against Israel, which resulted in the (Lebanese) victory in the 33-day war and (Palestinians' victory in) the 22-day (Gaza) war," Ayatollah Khamenei said, addressing millions of Friday Prayers worshippers on Tehran University Campus in February.

"In future too, we will support and help everyone who opposes the Zionist regime," the Leader underscored. "The Zionist regime is a real cancerous tumor that should be cut and will be cut, God Willing," Ayatollah Khamenei underscored.

I love that "underscored" business, by the way. "I'm going to murder all of you," the psychopath underscored.

Jonathan Spyer is not a romantic:

The nature of the regime created by Hamas in Gaza, and its strength and durability, has received insufficient attention in the West. This may have a political root: Western governments feel the need to keep alive the fiction of the long-dead peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. One of the necessary components of this is pretending that the historic split between nationalists and Islamists among the Palestinians has not really happened, or that it is a temporary glitch that will soon be reconciled. This fiction is necessary for peace process believers, because it enables them to continue to treat the West Bank Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas as the sole representative of the Palestinians.

But fiction it is. An Islamist one-party quasi-state has been built in Gaza over the last half-decade. The prospects for this enclave and its importance in the period ahead have been immeasurably strengthened by the advances made by Hamas' fellow Muslim Brotherhood branches in Egypt and elsewhere in the region.

I'm curious to see what Hussein Ibish says about this analysis. My fear is that Spyer is right, and that we will look back on this period as a transitional one, in which the Palestinian movement was thoroughly Islamicized, and in which Israel shifted further and further to the right. A reporter asked me earlier today how long I felt the two-state solution would be viable before it would be overcome by events. My answer was a kind of sidestep: There is no choice but the two-state solution, so therefore it doesn't have an expiration date. It has to be pursued until it is achieved. The other alternatives:
1) The six million Jews decide in some democratic fashion to dissolve their state and to seek a merger with the Palesitnians. The chance of this: Unlikely.
2) A third intifada, bloodier than the previous two, followed by repression, followed by bloodier uprisings, followed by repressions, leading to total, seemingly endless war.

I don't think we're at the point of explosion yet, but I'm feeling a bit grim these days. I realize that Peter Beinart and others believe that the key to peace is public, sustained pressure on the Israeli government to give up what it is not prepared to give up. But the Israeli government does not want to do what Peter and others want it to do because most Israelis don't want it to do this. Israelis see, over the past 12 years, two withdrawals, one from Lebanon and one from Gaza, that both ended-up empowering groups dedicated to Israel's destruction. They see Egypt moving toward Muslim Brotherhood rule; they see Lebanon as Hezbollah-occupied territory; they see Syria coming apart, to possibly reorganize itself as an Islamist state; and they see signs that Jordan's future is somewhat precarious as well. Then they ask: And you want to us to give up the high ground overlooking Tel Aviv?

The only interim solution is a kind of modified unilateralism, in which settlements are pulled back, leaving only the Israeli army on the high ground, until such time as its withdrawal can be negotiated. But I'm not betting on this one, either.

Here are two stories that will leave even the most committed cynic slack-jawed in wonder at America's promise, and also make you wonder if the people who think we should close our borders to immigrants are total idiots. (h/t Andrew Exum on the first story, Scott Stossel on the second).
This is from the AP, via Stars and Stripes:

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Orlando Morel was 6 years old when he and his mother left Haiti on a crowded small wooden boat destined for America. Now 24, Morel remembers the blue of the ocean everywhere. And the hunger.

When a piece of bread fell into the water, Morel quickly scooped it up. "I will never forget that taste," he said, recalling the salty, soggy bread.

Nor will he forget when the Coast Guard showed up in a white boat and rescued him, his mother and other passengers.

Eternally grateful, the rescue led Morel to join the Coast Guard, and on Wednesday he will graduate from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in Connecticut. He will serve on a cutter out of Florida whose mission will include migrant interdiction in the very waters where Morel was rescued nearly two decades ago.

"I can put myself in their shoes," said Morel, who can still speak Creole.

He says he would probably be dead had the Coast Guard not found him and his fellow migrants, who were lost and out of food. So, he's excited at the prospect of saving lives, just as his was saved.

"I don't think that anything I can do will be enough as payback," Morel said.

Read the whole thing; it's astonishing. Here's the second piece, from The Los Angeles Times:

NEW YORK-- For years, Gac Filipaj mopped floors, cleaned toilets and took out the trash at Columbia University.

A refugee from war-torn Yugoslavia, he eked out a living at the Ivy League school. But Sunday was payback time: The 52-year-old janitor donned a cap and gown to graduate with a bachelor's degree in classics.

As a Columbia employee, his classes were free. His favorite subject was the Roman philosopher and statesman Seneca, he said during a break from his work at Lerner Hall, the student union building he cleans.

"I love Seneca's letters because they're written in the spirit in which I was educated in my family: not to look for fame and fortune, but to have a simple, honest, honorable life," he said.

His graduation with honors capped a dozen years of study, including readings in ancient Latin and Greek.

"This is a man with great pride, whether he's doing custodial work or academics," said Peter Awn, dean of Columbia's School of General Studies and professor of Islamic studies. "He is immensely humble and grateful, but he's one individual who makes his own future."

Filipaj, now an American citizen, was accepted at Columbia after learning English. His mother tongue is Albanian.

An ethnic Albanian and Roman Catholic, he fled Montenegro in 1992 as a brutal civil war loomed. He was about to be drafted into the Yugoslav army led by Serbs, many of whom considered Albanians their enemy. He had nearly finished law school in Belgrade.:

Today is the day Palestinians commemorate the "Nakba," the "disaster" that brought about the rebirth of Israel. I'm an advocate of a Palestinian state on 100 percent of the West Bank and Gaza (with land swaps, obviously -- the nefarious Obama plan that the majority of Israelis also endorse) and of a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem, but what I won't do is label as a "nakba" a war that saw the 600,000 Jews of Palestine prevent their own slaughter at the hands of invading Arab armies.

The Middle East suffers today from the crucial mistakes made by Arab leaders in the late 1940s. The United Nations, you'll recall, voted to divide Palestine into two equal halves, one for a Jewish state, the other for an Arab state. The Jews accepted the plan; the Arab leadership, thinking its armies were strong enough to annihilate the Jews, invaded, and then proceeded to lose. As a consequence of the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians became refugees -- some were expelled by Jewish forces in the course of fighting, some fled, others were encouraged to leave by their leaders. Today, many of the descendants of these refugees are still warehoused in camps with the approval of the Arab states which, one might think, would have paid to resettle these descendants of refugees. Other refugee populations from the  tumultuous period following World War II have all been resettled, obviously.

The disaster, in other words, was the result of a series of mistakes made the leaders of the Arab states in 1948. There is not much recognition of this fact. Instead, those who romanticize the "nakba" argue that the Jews did not have a right to any slice of their historic homeland and that the Arabs were right to try to strangle the Jewish state at birth.

The Arab-Israeli parliamentarian Ahmed Tibi, speaking in commemoration of this day, said, "Recognition and empathy of the others' suffering is a lofty, humane value and a step towards peace between nations." This is absolutely true. Israelis should recognize that innocent Palestinians suffered because of their country's War of Independence. Palestinians today are not to blame for the current situation. But it is also true that men like Tibi should interrogate themselves about why the Palestinians became stateless. If Palestinian Arabs could bring themselves to recognize the simple fact that the Jewish people are from Palestine, much good would come.

This is not a commentary on Israel post-1967. The war that brought the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank under Israeli control in 1967 was not of Israel's making, but efforts following that war to colonize the land with Jewish settlers in order to deny it to a future Palestinian state, well, these efforts have been a nakba for everyone. I'm not arguing that without settlements there would today be a Palestinian state on the West Bank and peace throughout the land, but I do know the chance for peace would be much greater if Israel didn't succumb to temptation and settle these territories. But "The Nakba"? Palestinians should open themselves up to the idea that this nakba was avoidable. And if this Nakba had been avoided, a lot of other disasters would have been avoided, as well.

And speaking of nakbas, here is a report about another, more silent nabka, one that caused the movement of 850,000 people across the Middle East, but one that doesn't get that much attention, in part because these refugees were cared for by their brethren. Matti Friedman writes about a different nakba, a Jewish nakba.

I have spent a great deal of time in the past four years interviewing people born and raised in Aleppo, Syria. Some of these people, most of whom are now in their eighties, are descended from families with roots in Aleppo going back more than two millennia, to Roman times. None of them lives there now.

On November 30, 1947, a day after the United Nations voted to partition Palestine into two states, one for Arabs and one for Jews, Aleppo erupted. Mobs stalked Jewish neighborhoods, looting houses and burning synagogues; one man I interviewed remembered fleeing his home, a barefoot nine-year-old, moments before it was set on fire. Abetted by the government, the rioters burned 50 Jewish shops, five schools, 18 synagogues and an unknown number of homes. The next day the Jewish community's wealthiest families fled, and in the following months the rest began sneaking out in small groups, most of them headed to the new state of Israel. They forfeited their property, and faced imprisonment or torture if they were caught. Some disappeared en route. But the risk seemed worthwhile: in Damascus, the capital, rioters killed 13 Jews, including eight children, in August 1948, and there were similar events in other Arab cities.

At the time of the UN vote, there were about 10,000 Jews in Aleppo. By the mid-1950s there were 2,000, living in fear of the security forces and the mob. By the early 1990s no more than a handful remained, and today there are none. Similar scripts played out across the Islamic world. Some 850,000 Jews were forced from their homes.

Read the whole thing.

Here's the quote of the day (from yesterday), from a story by the New York Times' man in Tehran, Thomas Erdbrinck:

"Without violating any international laws or the nonproliferation treaty, we have managed to bypass the red lines the West created for us," said Hamidreza Taraghi, an adviser to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is close to the negotiating team.

There's been a lot of happy talk about the possibilities of real breakthrough at the upcoming P5 + 1 talks in Baghdad next week, in which the members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany, try to steer Iran to an off-ramp. I've even been cautiously pessimistic (as opposed to vociferously pessimistic). But I keep hearing this little whisper from them that know: "The Iranians are better at negotiating than the West."

The Israelis are aware of this, and are worried that Iran will game the system until the point at which they have entered the so-called "zone of immunity," in which their nuclear program is so hardened and buried that no Israeli attack could set it back. This is precisely the worry of the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, and President Obama is keenly aware of Barak's worry. This is from my Bloomberg View column today:

Obama believes that Barak, and not Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is the Israeli leader agitating most vociferously for a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, a strike the Obama administration thinks would be grossly premature and quite possibly catastrophic. (Your humble columnist concurs with this assessment.)

If Barak sees these talks as productive -- especially in light of evidence that the U.S. and its allies are doing a credible job of keeping Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold -- then Obama will have successfully pushed off an Israeli strike, at least until after the U.S. presidential election in November.

Barak has made clear that he seeks one thing above all in the nuclear talks: for Iran to shut down its formerly secret nuclear enrichment facility at Fordo, near the city of Qom. Obama has made Barak's preoccupation with Fordo his own.

Anthony Cordesman of the The Center for International and Strategic Studies has published an extremely thorough report about Iran's nuclear program that should quell the doubts of those who believe that Iran's nuclear pursuits are benign or even TBD. The report, based on close readings of past IAEA reports as well as other declassified documents, paints a very sober, Monday-ruining kind of picture about the advanced scope of the Iranian program, the inadequacy of the current P5+1 agenda, and the limited efficacy of a potential strike on the program.

This report, taken with last week's news of the suspicious scrubbing of an Iranian nuclear site (along with the release yesterday of a drawing of an even more suspicious explosives containment chamber), have raised considerable alarm. In Haaretz, Anshel Pfeffer writes about the report in an article that, in the spirit of Israeli subtlety, is titled "The most important report on nuclear Iran that you are likely to read." A bit of the summary here:

Anyone who believes that Iran is not yet actively pursuing a nuclear-weapons program and merely developing the capabilities is committing an act of willful delusion. The intelligence supplied to the IAEA and verified by different "member countries," is clear on that Iran has been working on a wide range of projects for over a decade, all of which are specifically aimed at acquiring the capabilities necessary not only to enrich uranium to weapons-grade, but to assemble a nuclear advice that can be launched by long-range missile. Talk of a fatwa against nuclear weapons is just that: talk.

Despite sanctions and international monitoring, Iran has received highly specialized instruments and equipment, benefited from the knowledge of foreign nuclear weapons designers and made impressive advance in its own scientific centers, so as to be able to carry out most of the necessary testing for a nuclear device, without actually creating a nuclear detonation. There has also been preparation for an actual nuclear test.

Ahmed Rashid, writing in Haaretz, outlines what he sees as a highly likely response in the Muslim world to an Israeli, or American, strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. It's a worst-case scenario, but nevertheless a plausible one (h/t Hussein Ibish). Rashid says the locus of rage would be in Shia communities, but Sunnis might also erupt, as well. By the way, if someone has a compelling counter-argument, please send it along. Rashid:

In countries that border Iran, such as Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, all of which are subject to a powerful U.S. military or political presence, Iran, to protect itself against possible American incursions or sabotage, has trained local militants to attack U.S. targets in their respective countries in the event of any attack on Iran. This program had its origins during the second term of the Bush administration, when Vice President Dick Cheney spoke openly about attacking Iran. Iran organized and planned for retaliatory attacks against U.S. targets everywhere that it was in a position to arm and fund clandestine groups.

Thus, the Shia protest in the Muslim world would likely be organized and widespread, and would target Americans and Israelis, and include major acts of terrorism and extreme violence.

At the same time, anti-Americanism is reaching dangerous levels in predominantly Sunni countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan. Both countries have extremist Sunni groups that engage in terrorism, as well as conservative Islamic parties that participate in electoral politics. Any attack on Iran could see a merging of all these Sunni elements as well as of the broader Sunni population, and one could expect widespread anger in the streets.

Such widespread and angry protests could make it almost impossible for Americans or Israelis to travel, work or do business across the Arab world and the Indian subcontinent. Such protests would almost invariably wipe out the gains and aspirations of the democratic movements within the Arab Spring countries, and lead to a reinforcing of Islamic fundamentalist parties, which could be expected to jump on the anti-American bandwagon. Widespread Sunni protests would invariably make the U.S. and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan planned for 2014 much more difficult and possibly lead to the strengthening of the Taliban. It also could lead to a possible new intifada among the Palestinians, who in any case see little hope of an agreement with Israel on a two-state solution.

Sorry about the slow output here, I'm tied-up at the moment working on a longer piece for The Atlantic, plus Peter Beinart and I have to plan our gay wedding (picking a rabbi has been difficult, but I have a feeling that President Obama might agree to perform a civil ceremony -- or semi-civil ceremony, at least) but here are a few of things worth reading:

1) Talya Minsberg's piece on the Atlantic.com about the new Israeli ban on underweight models. V. interesting;

2) Aaron David Miller on how to successfully negotiate a peace deal;

3) A story about an 18-month-old child on the TSA's no-fly-list (really);

4) This argument, from the International Crisis Group, about why a hiatus in the Middle East peace process is actually a good thing;

5) A report from Noah Shachtman and Spencer Ackerman about certifiably insane ideas floating around a Defense Department staff college;

6) David Makovsky's analysis of the new Israeli governing coalition, in which he argues that Iran is a key to understanding why Netanyahu brought onboard Shaul Mofaz;

7) And this piece, it which it is noticed that The Atlantic runs a lot of articles about men and their shortcomings.

Jonathan Tobin writes in praise of my Bloomberg View column yesterday, in which I noted that the Obama Administration is rhetorically quite opposed to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad's slaughter of his own citizens, but that it doesn't match the rhetoric with actions that would hasten Assad's departure. Tobin contrasts my understanding of Obama's inaction on Syria with my views on Administration policy toward Iran:

This is, after all, the same Jeffrey Goldberg who has consistently sought to assure friends of Israel that President Obama's stance on Iran is more than mere rhetoric though, in fact, it has consisted of little but a collection of ominous adverbs punctuated by defenses of engagement and diplomacy since he took office. Granted, the president has reluctantly embraced sanctions on Iran (though he was way behind France and Britain on this score), but it is fairly obvious that he did so only to maneuver Israel into a situation where it could not attack the Islamist regime on its own.

Goldberg rightly dismisses the notion that Obama's rhetoric about Syria consists of anything more than lip service, yet he believes Obama can be trusted to eventually escalate his stance on the Islamist ayatollahs from rhetoric to action. When people wonder why many in Israel have little faith in the president's word on Iran, especially once he gets the "flexibility" that a second term would provide, perhaps we should refer them to Goldberg's column on the administration's verbal offensive against Assad.

The reason I criticize Obama's Syria policy and don't criticize his Iran policy is that they are two different policies.  Obama, in my opinion, has been resolute in seeking crippling sanctions against the Iranian regime; he has supported many acts of subterfuge and sabotage against Iran's nuclear program; he has supported a strong Israeli defense and he has funded various anti-missile programs that directly aid Israel; and he has gone on record numerous times saying that he will not allow Iran to cross the nuclear threshold. The Syria policy flummoxes me, for the obvious reason that the downfall of the Assad regime would be very damaging to its Iranian ally. I hope Obama toughens his Syria policy. But what he's doing in Iran is different than what he's doing in Syria. If you don't believe me, ask the leadership of the Israeli defense establishment, many of whom believe Obama when he suggests he will stop Iran by force, if necessary, from developing nuclear weapons.

A careful study of the rhetoric emanating from the Obama Administration on the subject of Bashar al-Assad's brutalization of his people shows a distressing gap -- a yawning gap, a chasm, even -- between what the Administration says and what it does. What it does is not much. There are plenty of excellent reasons, of course, why the U.S. should not want to involve its own forces in the conflict, but there's a great deal the U.S. could do short of direct military intervention to help speed the downfall of the regime. The regime's end would have an obvious humanitarian impact, and it would also be of strategic use to the U.S. But American sanctions have been comparatively weak, and there is hardly any attempt to create safe zones, or to help Syrian opposition forces organize.

In my Bloomberg View column this week, I look at the U.S. campaign against Bashar, which is mainly waged through the deployment of very strong adjectives and adverbs. The words the Administration uses to describe Bashar's crimes are appropriate, but they long ago began to ring hollow:

Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, became a point person in deploying the full might of the American thesaurus. On Nov. 28, Rice accused Assad of perpetrating "outrageous and now well-documented atrocities," and noted that the "patience" of the international community had "evaporated." On Feb. 7, she reported Assad was now "off the reservation."

On Feb. 9, Rice said the world was "horrified to watch the violence" in Syria. On Feb. 23, she said the Syrian government "has accelerated the killing of its people," and the violence "has continued unabated for nearly a year at a breathtaking scale." On April 2, she spoke of Assad's "massive intensification of violence." She also said she expected the Syrian government would implement a UN-negotiated cease-fire "without any conditions or codicils." (The word "codicil" is known to strike fear in the hearts of dictators.)

Rice later said "a moment of truth" was coming up "very soon." It is hard to imagine the Assad regime can take such punishment much longer.

You can read the rest of it here.

The largest opposition party in Israel, Kadima, just joined Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu's coalition, obviating the need for elections in September, and turning Bibi into something akin to what only Iran has previously had: a Supreme Leader. (Granted, one supreme leader came to power democratically, and the other did not.)  Bibi now stands to be the strongest prime minister of Israel in recent history. The newly-elected leader of Kadima, Shaul Mofaz, recently said he would never in a million years join a coalition with Netanyahu, so this was inevitable, I guess. Speculation is rampant about why Bibi brought in Mofaz. Here are some scenarios:

1) Bibi is forming the closest thing he can to a national unity government in order to strike Iran if he feels the upcoming P5 + 1 talks about Iran's nuclear program have failed. Mofaz is on record against a raid, but his support would be important, and no doubt Netanyahu (and his sidekick, Ehud Barak, the defense minister) could convince him that it is necessary, if they come to the conclusion that they have to act.

2) Bibi wanted to reduce the power of his party's right-wing by diluting it with the centrists of Kadima; this he has now done. This gives him slightly more flexibility to reopen negotiations with the Palestinians. Do not, however, hold your breath waiting for meaningful negotiations. I wish he would go forward, of course, because Netanyahu is the only Israeli politician who could deliver 75 percent of Israel's Jewish population to a compromise deal.

3) Bibi wanted to kill the Left, in particular a new party, Yesh Atid ("There is a Future"), and the Labor party, whose apoplectic leader, Shelly Yacimovich, just accused Bibi and Mofaz of being very "masculine," which is not the most effective insult in Israel. The "There is a Future" Party has a dubious future, and Yacimovich, though now the head of the opposition, is, at best, a speed bump.

4) Bibi wanted as broad a coalition as possible so that he could reform the way ultra-Orthodox men are drafted into the army without fearing the loss of his ultra-Orthodox coallition partners.

5) Bibi wants  to euthanize Kadima -- a Likud offshoot -- and bring its members back to the party. Mofaz knew he would get slaughtered in upcoming elections, so is more than happy to subcontract out his future to Bibi.

6) Bibi wants to be able to say to President Obama: More than three-quarters of the Knesset is with me. I am Israel. 

7) All of these things, with a special emphasis on numbers 1 and 6.

Bibi Netanyahu seems to have solidified his coalition through 2013 by bringing in the Kadima Party, formerly headed by his arch-foe Tzipi Livni, now headed by his not-so-arch foe Shaul Mofaz. If the reports out of Israel are true, this means no election September 4, and it means that Netanyahu can proceed apace with whatever he's thinking about doing re: Iran's nuclear sites. This is not to say that he brought Kadima into his coalition to clear the way for an attack; Mofaz -- Iranian-born, by the way -- is on record as opposing an Iran strike, though people I speak to say he would back such a strike in a crunch (namely, if he saw proof Iran was rapidly approaching the "zone of immunity," in which it could enrich uranium in impregnable bunkers). In any case, all this happened because Livni lost the leadership of Kadima. She and Netanyahu could not have coexisted in the same government. On the Let, there seems to be some unhappiness on the left about this deal:

Meretz head Zahava Gal-On expressed outrage over the surprise move, calling it a "mega-stinking maneuver by a prime minister who wants to avoid elections and a desperate opposition chairman facing a crash."

Mega-stinking! That's much worse than regular stinking.

The left, of course, doesn't matter very much in Israel these days. (This unity government is a particular challenge for a new party created by the television personality Yair Lapid.)  For Mofaz, this is a deal that saves his party until it can be reintegrated into the Likud (Kadima, created by the former prime minister and Likud splittist Ariel Sharon, hasn't had much reason to exist) and Bibi gets stability. And stability is what he likes, for its own sake, and also because he would want to lead as broad a coalition as possible should the Iran issue come to a head.

The prominent Israeli commentator Amnon Abramovich argues that Prime Minister Netanyahu's decision to go for early electons -- now scheduled for September 4 -- means that Netanyahu (and his defense minister, Ehud Barak), will still have plenty of time to launch a preemptive strike before the American presidential election in early November:

After the September elections, which all polls show Netanyahu winning easily, he will head a transition government for several weeks while a new coalition is formed. During that period, Netanyahu "will not be beholden to the voters," and will be free to take decisions on Iran that many Israelis might not support, Abramovich said....

And finally, said Abramovich, the September-October period would see Obama, who has publicly urged more patience in allowing diplomacy and sanctions to have their impact on Iran, in the final stages of the presidential election campaign, with a consequent reduced capacity to try to pressure Israel into holding off military intervention.

Obama, "on the eve of elections, won't dare criticize Israel," said Abramovich. From Netanyahu's point of view, "the conditions would be fantastic."

Seems doubtful to me, for what it's worth. Too many moving parts, too many risks involved -- Netanyahu doesn't like risk (especially when compared to his militarily adventurous predecessors) and the timeline is very short. It's hard to believe he would order a (cataclysmic, IMO) strike on Iran while trying to build a governing coalition for his next term.  I also tend to think he would not order a strike during Obama's second term, should Obama win reelection. Abramovich is right that Obama would have a hard time being critical of Israel before the upcoming American election. But he would be freer to punish Israel after. What I wouldn't rule out is a Netanyahu-ordered strike before he goes to elections. Not immediately -- he needs to see what America can accomplish in the upcoming negotiations with Iran (my prediction: nothing much), but sometime after that, especially if intelligence suggests that Iran is moving centrifuges into the hardened facility at Fordow at a more rapid clip. But an October surprise? Not probable. 

Andrew Sullivan and I hugged it out at at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner last weekend (and we have witnesses, in case anyone doubts it). We do this from time to time, but it doesn't mean that he's going to stop thinking I'm some sort of apologist for fascism, or that I'm going to stop thinking he holds Israel to a ridiculous triple-standard. It's always nice to see him, though. Don't ask me to explain why.

Nevertheless, I wish I had known last weekend what I know this weekend, which is that the  Equality Forum 2012 Summit meeting in Philadelphia, the largest gathering of LGBT civil rights activists in the country, has made Israel its "featured country," and it hosted the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, at its convention yesterday.  I would have loved to have shared this news with Andrew, who is, of course, one of the most influential thinkers on gay rights in the world.

The honor granted to Israel by the Equality Forum comes after Gaycities.com named Tel Aviv the best gay city in the world for 2011. I suspect this recognition derives not only from the fact that gay Tel Avivis, and gay visitors, find the place so welcoming and open, but because Tel Aviv is also a refuge of sorts for gay Palestinians, who, if they lived the lives they were meant to live in their home cities and villages, would risk isolation, excoriation and even death.  (Here is an interesting piece from the Times of Israel about Tel Aviv's "Palestinian Queer Party.") My impression is that fair-minded gay rights activists know that Israel is the one place in the Middle East in which gays and lesbians can serve in their armies and run for elective office and have domestic partnership rights, and most gay rights activists judge Israel not against a utopian standard but the standards of its neighborhood -- and the standards of its foremost adversary, Iran, where men have been executed for the state for being gay. (Read this report from Human Rights Watch if you want to know just how atrocious is the level of anti-gay persecution in Iran.)

Now there are some people who say that Israel is engaged in "pink-washing," an attempt to convince the world to ignore the plight of the Palestinians by focusing on how progressive Israel can be toward the LGBT community. Israel's tolerance for gays, of course, long pre-dates the modern leftist anti-Israel delegitimization movement, which makes "pink-washing" one of its main charges, and, in any case, a society can't be forced by its government to be accepting of gays of lesbians simply by explaining that tolerance makes for good propaganda. And most important: It's not pink-washing if it's true, and it is true that Israel is a pretty good place to be if you are gay. Israel is progressive on matters related to gays and lesbians because it is, still, an essentially liberal, free and democratic state. There are forces lined-up on the right side of the political spectrum trying very hard to turn Israel into an illiberal place, and they must be fought. But I do not think they will win.

Here's an excerpt from the Globes story on Michael Oren's speech to the Equality Forum:

Oren mentioned three cases that highlight Israel's liberal attitude toward the LBGT community: two women IDF soldiers who harassed a lesbian soldier were sentence by a military court to prison; and an Israeli diplomat, who received a top posting in Europe, asked and received without further ado full rights for his partner; and the Israeli government did not capitulate to intense pressure from religious parties to cancel the Jerusalem Gay Pride parade, which was held to great success under heavy police protection.

"Our activists have faced many challenges, but they can build on a solid foundation of liberty," said Oren. "Today, Israel's LBGT community is part of the country's diverse and thriving social fabric. Together, we are soldiers, professors, legislators, judges, factory workers, members of the medical professions, and teachers. Together, we are not gays, heterosexuals, bisexuals, or transgenders, but proud Israelis."

Oren added, "In fact, two Palestinian organizations that are fighting for LBGT rights in the West Bank, operate out of Israel because they cannot operate freely in the Palestinian Authority."

Oren said that it is not difficult to be more liberal than Israel's neighbors, adding that Israel must be more advanced not only in the region, but in the world. "We must never cease our efforts to remove the remaining obstacles to total equal rights in Israel. We must ensure that these rights are guaranteed in law, and we must ensure that abuse at school, intolerance by certain religious circles, and public prejudice become unacceptable. Period," he said.

UPDATE: Yes, I'm aware Andrew called Sarah Schulman's infamous pinkwashing op-ed for The New York Times nonsense. What Andrew doesn't do is acknowledge that Israel's treatment of LGBT issues has larger meaning. In other words, Israel's treatment of gay people is reflective of Israel's treatment of other minorities among its citizens -- and that its citizens, all of its citizens, have rights unheard of across the greater Middle East. And yes, of course, the occupation is a shame, and Israel must decide whether or not it is going to extend democratic rights to the Palestinians of the West Bank or let them go free, but the truth of the matter, as Carlo Strenger put it in an eloquent piece for Haaretz not long ago, is that we risk stripping language of meaning when we say we are "appalled" by Israel's behavior, and also "appalled" by Syria's behavior. My only request of people like Andrew Sullivan is that they gain some perspective.

UPDATE #2: A Goldblog reader suggests I'm setting the bar too low, by asking critics like Andrew Sullivan to compare Israel's record to Iran's:

You are right to highlight how much more tolerant Israel is than its neighbors toward the LGBT community. The same argument can be made about Israel's treatment of racial minorities and the disabled. But let's face it: it is easy to be more tolerant than Iran or Saudi Arabia. A more compelling argument can be made on Israel's behalf, namely, that it is also more tolerant than many *Western* countries. This is certainly true for gay rights. Speech in Israel is, arguably, freer than in the US. Arabs are, arguably, better integrated into Israeli society than into French society. Etc etc.

In short the proper bar to judge Israel is not by its neighborhood, but by North America and Europe. And Israel does pretty well by comparison.   

Adam Yauch, MCA from the Beastie Boys, has died. A huge performer and creative force, a deeply committed friend of Tibet, and a continual inspiration for outer-borough Jewish boys. Here he is in Sabotage, as Sir Stewart Wallace:

 

I'll leave it to others to parse Ben Bernanke's policies. Instead, I'll do the crucial work of parsing Ben Bernanke's beard. This is from my Atlantic advice column, "What's Your Problem?": My answer, which follows the question from reader W.B., was prepared with the assistance of the magazine's Sarah Yager, who did the relentless reporting necessary to break this story wide open:

As hard as I try, I cannot get my beard (which I have had for 44 years) to look as perfect as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's. Does he have a stylist work on his every morning, or is it fake?

W.B., Seattle, Wash.

Dear W.B.,

It is not well known that Ben Bernanke's doctoral thesis, "Long-Term Commitments, Dynamic Optimization, and the Business Cycle," contained a separate appendix titled "Caring for Your Luscious Chin Curtain." You are right that Bernanke has an ostentatiously silky and highly civilized beard. In fact, the chairman's personality finds fullest expression in his beard. Also in his many gang tattoos. I did not know much about his beard, however, so I assigned the research-and-analysis division of "What's Your Problem?" to learn more.

Bernanke's grooming needs are met by a barber named Lenny Gilleo, whose shop is located at Federal Reserve headquarters, in Washington, D.C. Gilleo tells us that he shapes and trims Bernanke's beard every three or four weeks, but he did not mention any secret techniques or the use of any particular grooming products. Of possibly greater interest to the nonbearded public: Gilleo, who has cut the hair of the past five Fed chairmen, says there is no fixed price at his barbershop. Payment is a "whatever-you-choose type of thing." If this principle were applied broadly across the American economy, chaos would ensue. Actually, this principle was put into practice already, during the years leading up to the subprime-mortgage crisis.

Jim Fallows has once again done a service to humanity (or at least the slice of humanity that reads The Atlantic) by framing some of the key questions about the Iranian-Israeli conundrum. You should read his entire post before you read what I'm about to say. But in essence, Jim is asking a straightforward question: Are the odds of an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities lower today than they were a month ago? Jim points to various developments, including and especially the P5 + 1 talks between the major powers and Iran that have not yet borne fruit, but have not yet not borne fruit, either, as well as statements from various Israeli security leaders (and others) who have been critical of what they see as Benjamin Netanyahu's rush to unilateral military action.

Jim writes, "Please tell me that my 'war is not at hand' inference is correct. Or, if you can't in good conscience do that, please tell me how you read this recent news."

Jim: War is not at hand, though not mainly for the reasons you outlined. It is true that it would be very difficult for Netanyahu to launch an attack on Iran's facilities while these negotiations are taking place (the next round is scheduled to begin on May 23) -- or, more to the point, it would be difficult for Netanyahu to launch a strike if Barack Obama were to indicate publicly, after the next round, that he thinks the negotiations were going somewhere, and should be given time to work. (My prediction: Obama says this almost no matter what happens, because it's in his short-term interest to push off international crises until after November, though, of course, he can't be made to look like a patsy, which is what Mitt Romney will call him almost no matter what happens).

Another prediction: the negotiations probably won't work, since it is in the Iranian regime's best interest to preserve a latent nuclear capability. They do watch the news in Tehran, and they know what happened to the nuke-less Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi at the hands of the Americans).

And it also true that many Israeli figures, including the former prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and the former head of the Shabak, the Israeli internal security service, have come out strongly against the Netanyahu govenrment on the issue of Iran (The former Shabak head, Yuval Diskin, joins the former Mossad head, Meir Dagan, in the camp of those who say they believe a preemptive attack would be foolish.)

Three observations about this phenomenon before I move to the other looming issue:

1) These ex-security chiefs are saying what they are saying because they believe that Netanyahu (and the defense minister, Ehud Barak), are dead serious about a strike on Iran. There's no reason for them to come out the way hey have if they thought Netanyahu was bluffing. Whenever one of them launches a public attack on the current government,  I assume (perhaps wrongly) that they have specific information, or at least a good sense, that Netanyahu and Barak have moved closer to a decision, and so are trying to stop them from advancing toward a strike. So, from a certain perspective, this should make you nervous.

2) These men aren't saints, motivated solely by pure selflessness. They seem to desire political careers of their own, and so their critiques have to seen in this light.

3) It doesn't matter that much what they say. Ehud Olmert is a disgraced ex-prime minister, who unlike Netanyahu, has taken Israel into controversial wars. As for the ex-security chiefs, think about this in the American context for a minute. Assume that Barack Obama is contemplating launching some sort of strike in the Middle East (actually, he is, against Iran, but next year, or the year after). Now assume that there is a public debate about Obama's presumed plan, and a series of former CIA directors come out against the plan. Does Obama dump the idea simply because Michael Hayden went on Meet the Press to denounce it? What if ex-generals come out and call Obama an idiot? Does Obama change his national security strategy because Tommy Franks doesn't like it? don't think so. 

One permutation: It is thought that men like Diskin and Dagan are speaking for intelligence officials still inside the system, men who are still reporting to Netanyahu. Let's assume, as is reasonable, that Tamir Pardo, the current head of the Mossad, is opposed to a unilateral strike against Iran. He makes his case to Netanyahu, and Netanyahu rejects it. Does Pardo resign? Probably not. Does he help carry out Netanyahu's decision? Yes, he does, as does Benny Gantz, the current IDF chief of staff, who also has some qualms about the time-line. The simple fact remains: The prime minister and the defense minister are the ones who will make this decision, with the backing of their cabinet. Everything else is commentary.

And now for the most important reason you might be able to breathe easy: Netanyahu is appear to be going for early elections. He's popular right now, the opposition is weak, and he looks to be going to try to solidify his hold on power, and possibly re-order his coalition, to bring in centrist parties and dump some of the lunatics in his cabinet. It makes little political sense for him to launch an attack on Iran in the run-up to an election. He's a fairly cautious man (again, look at his record of going to war vs. that of Ehud Olmert), and in any case, the election campaign will coincide with the P5 + 1 talks.

The question to ask at the current moment is: When exactly will these elections take place, if they take place? If they're held in August, and assuming that Netanyahu will be able to form a government in four-to-eight weeks, this will take us into late September, or early October. Still time, in other words, to launch an attack before the American presidential election. But if the Israeli elections aren't scheduled until September, then it looks as if he wouldn't have time to launch an attack. And, as I've written before, if Netanyahu doesn't launch an attack before November, then I doubt he'll launch an attack at all.

All of this is good news if you, like me, think that the question of military intervention should be pushed off, and if you, like me, believe that President Obama is sincere in saying that he will not allow Iran to cross the nuclear threshold. Because this is the ultimate question: If Netanyahu believes that Obama "has Israel's back," as the President has said, then there's no need for Israel to do anything precipitous or unilateral.

P.S. I haven't yet dealt with the impact on Netanyahu of his father's death (a relationship -- the ideological component, at least -- I wrote about here) but I will.