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From:  Ray Close
Date: Jan 25, 2008 3:20 PM
Subject: Dealing with terrorism
To: undisclosed-recipients

Friends:

Haviland Smith, the author of the essay attached below, is a very old and much-admired friend of mine, starting from prep school and college days more than fifty years ago, when we played lacrosse against each other (he for Exeter and Dartmouth, I for Deerfield and Princeton).  Our careers in the CIA were exactly contemporaneous, as well, and we have remained in touch since then.  Knowing how strongly I share identical opinions on the same subject, you will understand how much I admire and appreciate this essay by my old friend and colleague.
Ray

The wrong track on terror

By Haviland Smith

January 25, 2008

America needs to develop a rational policy for dealing with terrorism.

Almost everything we are doing today is counterproductive. Our actions and attitudes create more radical Muslim terrorists and encourage moderate Muslim passivity toward those terrorists and their operations.

Let us accept, for a moment, as true the Bush administration's claim that the techniques and tools that diminish our civil liberties at home and our reputation abroad are worth it because they have stopped terrorist attacks. Even then the argument fails, for such actions represent a tactical response to a strategic threat. They may stop the occasional attack, but they won't address the fundamental issue.

 
TO: Distinguished Recipients
FM: John Whitbeck
 
Twenty years ago today, the LOS ANGELES TIMES published my "Two States, One Holy Land" framework for peace. It was subsequently published a further 39 times, in various lengths and in the Arabic, Dutch, English, French, German and Hebrew languages, between then and 2000, after which Ariel Sharon and George W. Bush came to power and hope died.
 
In November 1993, two months after the "Oslo" Declaration of Principles was signed on the White House lawn, my framework for peace was the subject of a three-day conference in Cairo, attended by 24 prominent Israelis and Palestinians, including four Knesset members and Palestinian foreign minister Nabeel Shaath, under the sponsorship of The Middle East Institute (Washington). Since it was clear during this conference that my "condominium solution" for sharing Jerusalem in a context of peace and reconciliation, an integral component of my framework for peace, was difficult to comprehend, I developed an article elaborating on how it could be structured and work which was itself published 49 times, in various lengths and languages, between 1994 and 2000.
 

Dear readers,

What follows is a combined post about Gaza and Sderot from three JPN editors:
Rela Mazali, Sarah Anne Minkin and Lincoln Shlensky.

Sarah Anne writes:

Thoughts and feelings and questions about Sderot are always present when we talk
about Gaza. As we JPN editors have reported about the tightening of the siege on
Gaza, a number of readers have written to ask us – some with great urgency – to
respond to the ongoing, intensive rocket attacks targeting Sderot, the town
inside of Israel close to the Gaza border.

In a response to a reader, Rela writes:

From: "oliver miles
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 06:56:38 -0000
Subject: Lebanon

MEC Analytical Group

25 January 2008

Lebanon

We are grateful to Patrick Seale for his article below on the situation in Lebanon and the Syrian and other foreign influences affecting it.

Some readers may be interested in a long statement of position dated 15 January by Husain Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, at http://conflictsforum.org/2008/nasrallah-forecasts-the-prospect-of-coming-conflict , for which we are grateful to Peter Duffy. In it he analyses American policy as backed by oil companies, arms companies and Christian fundamentalism, of which he gives a sophisticated account which differentiates it from the overwhelming majority of Christians and "the heavenly religion called Christianity". He goes on to discuss it in relation to Iran, Palestine and (at length) Lebanon.

The Struggle for Lebanon

By Patrick Seale

25 January 2008 article

It does not look as if the long-running Lebanese crisis will be resolved any day soon. The main reason is that the election of a Lebanese President is not a purely Lebanese affair.

Numerous external powers want a say. To arrive at a consensus between them is no easy task. It will almost certainly need more time.

Amr Moussa, the Arab League secretary-general, has exhausted himself in a valiant attempt at mediation between rival Lebanese factions and their external backers -- so far, without success. These external powers include such regional rivals as Saudi Arabia and Iran, but also Egypt, France, the United States and even Israel (operating through the United States.)

However, in the Lebanese context, the most important of these external actors is Syria, because Syria views developments in Lebanon as a matter of life and death.  Rightly or wrongly, Syria feels it needs to exercise veto powers over the choice of a Lebanese President.