Rob Malley "Sacked" from Obama Campaign? Puleeze!!!

Leave it to Shmuel Rosner, Haaretz's out-of-touch rightwing US correspondent, to fall for a cooked-up story from the London Times about Rob Malley's being "sacked" from the Obama campaign. Rosner "reported" the story here. Since Malley never served in the Obama campaign, he couldn't have been sacked from it. He has acted as an informal advisor in the past and no doubt he will in the future, along with several others. Because of the McCain's campaign effort to tie Obama with Malley, Malley formally "severed all ties" on Friday with the campaign. This is nothing more than a media gimmick to puncture McCain's campaign. As for McCain, well, he obviously has "lost his bearings," not because he is old, but because he is dumb.

The London Times story was that after the McCain campaign pointed out that Malley talked with Hamas, he was fired. I suppose that the Brits can be forgiven for completely misinterpreting the following remark of Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for Mr. Obama

Rob Malley has, like hundreds of other experts, provided informal advice to the campaign in the past. He has no formal role in the campaign and he will not play any role in the future

So if Malley never had a formal role in the campaign, then how can he be "sacked" from it? Note that LaBolt didn't say that Malley hadn't given advice in the past nor would he in the future, only that he wouldn't play a role in the campaign. It's comforting to know that Malley won't be overseeing campaign strategy for Obama. Duh!

I can't blame the Brits for manufacturing news. But Rosner, who could pick up the phone from his Suburban Maryland home and call Malley, should know better. His pathetic attempts to deflate Obama (usually with question marks, so as to appear as if he himself doesn't necessarily buy the rumors, e.g., "Will Jews support Obama?" or "Is International Support Hurting Obama?") haven't reaped any fruit.

The McCain folks are trying to dig up Obama's past associations with -- God forbid --Rashid Khalidi to smear him with the Jews. Well, I am on record saying that I hope the Jews don't vote for Obama, so that he can elected without our help and then not be beholden to us. But the truth is that Jews will vote overwhelmingly for Obama -- mark my words -- much to the chagrin of the rightwingers, and to the detriment of the Palestinians.

As Obama's political career has taken off, he has distanced himself from the Palestinians to win elections and to get the Jewish vote. That's just what politicians do. When the Palestinians have the political clout that the Jews do, then things may change, but when will that happen?

For Obama's abandonment of the Palestinians after initial expression of sympathy, see today's Times. But anybody who reads the Electronic Intifada has known about that for some time.

As for "talking to Hamas"...everybody knows that Hamas is a major player, and that the United States (and the Quartet) erred by boycotting the democratically-elected Palestinian Authority. You don't need Rob Malley to understand the drift of the following passage:

"...in setting rigid, all-or nothing preconditions for engagement after the [Palestinians parliament] election, US diplomacy was perceived as confusing the positions of Hamas as a movement with the actions of the elected Palestinians government. The preconditions adopted by the Quartet closed off diplomacy."

That is a direct slap at US and Israeli policy of non-engagement with the Hamas-led PA government. And it is not made by Rob Malley, but by Daniel C. Kurtzer and Scott Lasensky in their book, "Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace." (p. 72)

Dan Kurtzer will no doubt play a major role in the Middle East policy of the Obama administration -- but McCain's Jewish Republicans find Malley easier to go after now.

Man, are they aiming at the wrong guy. Ed Lasky at the American Thinker rightly senses that Kurtzer's views differ significantly -- and, in his eyes, dangerously -- from the views of previous administrations under which Kurtzer served. That is because those administrations failed abysmally in their Middle East policy. Still, don't expect anything but a change in tone from an Obama administration on the Middle East, Kurtzer or no Kurtzer.

Still, that will be welcome.

The Deep Rift Between Jim Baker's "Jewboys"

Back in the late 80's and early 90's they were called, "Baker's Jewboys" -- the policy team of Dennis Ross, Aaron Miller, and Dan Kurtzer that helped orchestrate the modestly successful Middle East policy of George H. W. Bush, culminating in the Madrid Conference. The trio were reviled by elements of the Jewish community as self-hating Jews that betrayed Israel (I remember them being called "court Jews" by some Israelis.) Members of the Zionist tribe could understand a Texas goy like Jim Baker pressuring Shamir over the loan guarantees...but how could he be aided and abetted by a team of Jewish policy experts?

At the time, Dan Kurtzer was my neighbor and fellow congregant in the Kemp Mill Synagogue, a breakaway shul that had rented a suburban house for services. Dan is a modern orthodox Jew, a former dean at Yeshiva University, and would become in the nineties -- after Ross cut him out of the peace process, according to Miller -- a distinguished US ambassador to Egypt and Israel. His ambassadorial residence in Cairo was strictly kosher, and I was privileged to visit him when he took up residence as ambassador in Herzeliyah. Dan is deeply committed to the Jewish state. At the time of his tzuris with elements in the American Jewish community, his middle son was studying in a West Bank yeshiva. Kurtzer was not exactly the poster-child for the "Self-hating Jew Club." But in this country if you don't kow-tow to the Israel Lobby and the often self-destructive policies of the Israeli government, you are liable to be called "a self-hating Jew" by pork-eating ignoramuses who mistake ethnic chauvinism for Judaism.

Ross, Miller, and Kurtzer have now all published post mortems for their failed efforts to secure Middle East peace. You would think that these three folks would be pretty much in agreement over who was responsible, right? Guess again. Whereas Ross's book, The Missing Peace, is, in my opinion, a self-serving memoir that places the blame squarely on Arafat and the Palestinians, the books by Kurtzer and Miller, while not absolving Arafat of responsibility, place much of the blame on the Americans, especially Clinton (and Ross), for playing favorites. America became under Clinton, to use the title of Aaron Miller's 2005 op-ed for which he was excoriated, "Israel's Lawyer." If there is any hope for a renewed diplomatic process, both Miller and Kurtzer conclude in their respective books that America must become the honest broker it was during the administration of George H. W. Bush. (Well, relative to the Clinton administration, anyway.)

One example: In Kurtzer's Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace (co-authored with Scott Lasensky) we learn that future US policy should be to

"Build a diverse and experienced negotiating team steeped in regional and functional expertise; encourage open debate and collaboration within the government. A dysfunctional policy process should not be tolerated"

It is clear from Kurtzer and Lasensky's "commentary" that the above lesson was learned well by Jim Baker but entirely missed by Clinton's secretaries of state, Christopher and Albright. Ross, who was appointed to be a special Middle East coordinator by Clinton, did not encourage debate and collaboration. The Clinton policy team is accused by Kurtzer and Lasensky of being "dysfunctional," without any knowledge in Arab culture, a serious drawback especially at Camp David II.

"There was no expert on our team on Islam or Muslim perspectives," said a former Clinton administration official, "[so] when it came to dealing with Jerusalem, there's some very embarrassing episodes that betrayed our lack of knowledge or bias."

Aaron Miller, in his intriguing new book, The Much Too Promised Land makes a similar accusation against the Clinton policy team (of which he was a member). He waxes nostalgiac about Bush 41 and Secretary Baker, as he criticizes the Clinton administration. And why? Simply because the US, under Clinton and Ross, acted as "Israel's lawyer", abandoning all pretence at being an honest broker. In not-so-diplomatic language, he castigates Ross's "driving ambition to succeed and to exert control." Most significantly, he blames Ross for cutting Kurtzer out of the peace-process team in 1994.

Dan's departure in my view was a major loss. We needed his honesty, balance, and creativity, particularly in the mid-1990's and in the run-up to Camp David."

Miller sums up to my mind the fundamental problem of Ross's approach as follows:

Dennis, like myself, had a inherent tendency to see the world of Arab-Israeli politics first from Israel's vantage point rather than from that of the Palestinians. Not that he didn't understand Arab or Palestinian sensitivities. But his own strong Jewish identity, and his commitment to Israel's security combined with something else: a deep conviction that if you couldn't gain Israel's confidence, you have zero chance of erecting any kind of peace process. And to Dennis, achieving this goal required a degree of coordination with the Israeli's, sensitivity toward their substantive concerns, and public defense of their positions. Baker's good judgment and toughness balanced and controlled this inclination, which was not the case under Clinton.

In subsequent posts, I will be citing more from the books by Kurtzer and Lasensky, and by Aaron Miller. There are must-reads for my readers, especially for American Jewish liberals who cheered the American involvement in the peace process. Miller's book, in particular, is the most important book yet to be written on American's attempts to broker mideast peace, (And, by the way, the book is highly entertaining. I found myself laughing out loud occasionally.)

For when you get down to it, the peace-process team under two US presidents was composed of three talented individuals, all Jews, and all liberal Zionists.

Now we know -- from Kurtzer and from Miller, two-thirds of the trio -- that America, Israel, and the Palestinians would have been better served by a more diverse team.

Apparently, Dennis Ross, whose failure was spectacular, still doesn't get it.

The Rob Malley Affair -- Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk, Sandy Berger, Aaron Miller, and Dan Kurtzer Respond To Martin Peretz et al.

Dan Fleshler posted a letter on Realistic Dove which is a must-read. The letter is from the entire Clinton Israel-Palestinian peace-process team defending former Clinton Middle East advisor Robert Malley from the slurs and defamations of republicans and gruff old liberal-hawks like the New Republic's publisher, Martin Peretz.

Malley, as you may know, co-wrote a highly influential analysis of Camp David in the New York Review of Books that challenged the Israeli spin. The article, which drew front-page coverage in Israel, also provoked a bigoted and embarrassing response from Ehud Barak and Benny Morris. That was quite nice collateral damage.

OK, so you don't have to agree with Malley. Ross didn't, and he wrote a respectful letter to the NYRB about it. But from there to write, as Marty Peretz did,

Malley, who has written several deceitful articles in The New York Review of Books, is a rabid hater of Israel. No question about it

shows how delusional Peretz is. Look, I feel sorry for Peretz; he has run the New Republic into the ground, the readership is at an all-time low, and his support for Obama is apparently motivated by his hatred for the Clintons. He will lose, and lose big, if Obama wins. And now he is getting dissed by the entire Clinton Middle East team -- and rightfully so.

I had lunch with Malley last Shabbat. He seemed to be miffed by the attacks, although he is old enough to know that anybody who deviates a bit from the Israel orthodoxy will be considered by the a.k.'s "a rabid hater of Israel." It would be inappropriate for me to blog about what we discussed around the Shabbat table. But this much I will say: I gave Malley every opportunity I could to criticize Dennis Ross's handling of the Clinton peace process, or his performance at Camp David. I raised what I thought were obvious questions about US bias towards the liberal-Zionist position and the failure of the US to be an honest broker. He did not take the bait. On the contrary, somewhat to my surprise, he refused to be drawn in. He disagreed with Ross, whom he considers a friend, but he consistently took the high road. And I don't think he was just playing the diplomat, either. That reflects a certain nobility of character that makes Peretz's scurrilous attack all the more demeaning for Peretz.

Malley now works at a Washington think-tank called the International Crisis Group. In the weeks to come I will comment on some of their position-papers on Israel-Palestine. Some are well-worth reading.

Well, there are Rob Malley's in this world, and then there are Marty Peretzes.

I try to stand with the former.

Oh, heck, I'll save you all a click. Here is the letter:

Over the past several weeks, a series of vicious, personal attacks have been launched against one of our colleagues, Robert Malley, who served as President Clinton's Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli affairs. They claim that he harbours an anti-Israeli agenda and has sought to undermine Israel's security. These attacks are unfair, inappropriate and wrong. They are an effort to undermine the credibility of a talented public servant who has worked tirelessly over the years to promote Arab-Israeli peace and US national interests. They must stop.

We have real differences among us about how best to conduct US policy toward the Middle East and what is the right way to build a lasting two-state solution that protects Israel's security. But whatever differences do exist, there is no disagreement among us on one core issue that transcends partisan or other divides: that the US should not and will not do anything to undermine Israel's safety or the special relationship between our two nations. We have worked with Rob closely over the years and have no doubt he shares this view and has acted consistent with it.

We face a critical period in the Middle East that demands sustained, determined and far-sighted engagement by the United States. It is not a time for scurrilous attacks against someone who deserves our respect.

The letter is signed by Sandy Berger, Den Kurtzer, Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk, and Aaron Miller.