As the Obama administration struggles
to find common ground with the Israeli government and the Palestinian leadership
grapples
with internal squabbles, one U.S. senator is proposing a host of ways to deepen
cooperation between the United States and Israel.
Sen. Mark Kirk
(R-IL) spent last week on what he calls "an intense fact-finding mission to
Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan," where he met with Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad,
Jordan's King Abdullah II, and many
others. In a soon-to-be-released
report, obtained in advance by The
Cable, he proposes a path forward for increased U.S.-Israeli defense
cooperation and lays out his views on how Congress should deal with the
thorniest issues of the U.S. approach to the Middle East.
Kirk is proposing an increased role for the Israeli Navy in
global anti-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean in cooperation with India. He
wants to vastly expand U.S.-Israeli cooperation on cyber security, beyond the
suspected cooperation on the Stuxnet worm that has delayed Iran's uranium
enrichment program. Kirk is also calling on the Joint Chiefs to review the
possibility of adapting Israel's "Iron Dome" short-range missile defense system
for use by the United States and NATO.
"We are stretched quite thin in the Indian Ocean and to have
Israeli support will be critical in managing and reducing the pirate threat,"
Kirk said in a Tuesday interview with The
Cable.
Regarding the stalled Middle East peace process, Kirk
maintains that the United States should reaffirm President George W. Bush's 2004 letter on borders, which
somewhat contradicts Obama's May
17 statement that borders should be based on 1967 lines with agreed swaps. Obama's
new language for the first time made it official U.S. policy what had long been
the Palestinian goal of using the 1967 lines as a basis for new borders.
Kirk's report also states that U.S. funding should not go to
a Palestinian government that includes Hamas, nor should the United States give
aid to the Palestinian Authority if it seeks a unilateral declaration of
statehood at the United Nations in September or fails to curb anti-Israel
incitement in Palestinian schools.
"It just seems extraordinarily difficult in the middle of
deficits and debt that we should borrow money from China to fund a Hamas-supported
government," Kirk said. "We would still support Palestinian schools and
hospitals, but the approximately $200 million in direct support to the PA would
be in jeopardy."
Kirk also wants the
United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to start transferring its management
of Palestinian health and education services over to the Palestinian government,
and for the State Department to designate the Turkish aid organization IHH,
which organized the flotilla of ships that tried to breach Israel's Gaza blockade
in May 2010, as a terrorist organization.
On his trip, Kirk also met with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, IDF Chief of Staff Benjamin Gantz, Mossad Chief Tamir Pardo, senior advisor to the
Israeli Prime Minister Ron Dermer,
Israeli Navy commander in chief Vice Admiral Eliezer Marum, Israeli Ministry of Defense Political-Military
Bureau Director Amos Gilead, Deputy
Israeli Prime Minister and Minister for Strategic Affairs Moshe Ya'alon, Israeli Prime Minister's Office spokesman Mark Regev, Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni, Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky and Jerusalem Post Palestinian Affairs correspondent Khaled Abu Toameh.
Human rights in Iran were also a big focus for Kirk on the
trip. The senator made a video with Sharansky, a former Soviet dissident, in
which Sharansky recited a list of dissidents who are currently imprisoned by
the Iranian regime.
Senator Kirk's proposal states that "an Israeli commitment to counter-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean would allow Israel to help protect India's west coast against piracy."
Mr. Kirk argues that not only would Israeli participation in CTF-151 provide a benefit to the United States, what with our "assets [being] stretched], it would also be an important source of legitimacy for the state of Israel at precisely the "time when anti-Israel political actors seek to isolate and delegitimize" it.
Apart from not explaining why India would need the help of a force one-third the size of its own navy in protecting its own coasts, it's curious indeed that Mr. Kirk -- himself a naval officer -- fails to note that it is the Arabian Sea, and not the Indian Ocean, that washes up along "India's west coast."
I'm sure this was an honest geographical error.
Surely it has nothing to do with the fact that if Israeli naval vessels were afloat in the Arabian Sea, they would be in a position to attack Iran via the Gulf of Oman, or with the fact that Iranian naval vessels have recently conducted operations of their own in the Indian Ocean.
It's probably just a coincidence that by encouraging such out-of-area deployments -- simply to help legitimize the State of Israel, mind you, a goal Mr. Kirk knows would generally be well-received in the U.S. -- and by proposing a burden-sharing arrangement that plays to an American electorate said to be eager for cost-cutting, Mr. Kirk's policy would also just so happen to enhance Israel's ability to strike Iran.
The fact that it would also be a dangerous act of brinksmanship, creating the possibility of a high-seas encounter between Iranian and Israeli naval vessels, seems not to have occurred to the Senator.
Russel B
The last I checked the Arabian Sea was part of the Indian Ocean. Has something changed?
Why is there a need to "legitimize" Israel. I thought that Israel is legit since 1948.
Has the UN decision been annulled?
And why is it OK to have Iranian navy in the Red Sea but not OK to have Israeli Navy in the Arabian Sea? Double standards God forbid?
"Indian Ocean" provides a nice bit of cover - after all, it's very large and goes very nearly as far south as Antarctica. Nothing threatening about IDF naval vessels at the South Pole, eh?
"Arabian Sea," which is quite a bit more to the point, would strike people as being rather near "Arabia," wouldn't it?
I don't think there is a need to "legitimize" Israel -- Kirk apparently does, since his proposal for deploying IDF naval vessels is intended to counter those who "delegitimize" Israel. Well, what's the opposite of "to delegitimize?"
Why would Iranian naval vessels be in the Arabian Sea? Because the Gulf of Oman, which connects the Arabian Sea to the Persian Gulf, includes Iranian territorial waters?
But the faux-pretension in your question, "Double Standards?" really tips your hand, doesn't it? Why would the U.S. and the Soviet Union have invested so much time and effort in establishing a regime for encounters between their respective naval vessels if this was simply a matter of "double standards?"
Because the U.S. and the Soviet Union recognized that uncontrolled encounters between their ships could lead to serious and undesirable consequences. Now if you are proposing that Israel sit down and negotiate an at-sea regime with Iran to avoid the escalation such encounters can lead to, I think you've got a great idea there.
But somehow I suspect you wouldn't propose such a negotiation, which leads one to conclude that you are rather keen on the idea of seeing an already unstable strategic interaction made more so.
I know this guy has taken over $1 million from pro Isreal PACs, but he should stop playing unofficial diplomate and put America first second and third. The dollar is close to calapse and somehow he thinks it's a good idea to go glad handing around the globe.
If a private citizen did this sort of non-sense he would have to register as a representative of a foreign power.
Shame on Senator Kirk! The US Navy ought to be escorting the aid ships to break Israel's starvation blockade of Gaza just as American aircraft helped to break the Soviet starvation blockade of West Berlin in 1949. In both cases a conquering tyrant sought to starve the blockaded people into surrendering their elected government and accepting foreign rule.
Has Senator Kirk forgotten his history? Has Senator Kirk decided to ignore the opinion of the majority of the American people who support the creation of a Palestinian state and an end to the blockade?
Has Senator Kirk forgotten that Israel murdered a 19-year old American in cold blood in international waters only a year ago on the previous aid flotilla?
Has Senator Kirk forgotten who it is he is supposed to work for in his haste to serve his Israeli masters?
No government can serve two masters, and a government that serves Israel cannot serve the American people.
A friend to Israel is no friend of America.
America needs leaders who will put America first, second, and third.
if Israeli naval vessels were afloat in the Arabian Sea, they would be in a position to attack Iran via the Gulf of Oman, or with the fact that Iranian naval vessels have recently conducted operations of their own in the Indian Ocean. It's probably sázkové kanceláre just a coincidence that by encouraging such out-of-area deployments< simply to help legitimize the State of Israel, mind you, a goal Mr. Kirk knows would generally be well-received in the U.S. and by proposing a burden-sharing arrangement that plays to an American electorate said to be eager for cost-cutting
Josh Rogin reports on national security and foreign policy from the Pentagon to Foggy Bottom, the White House to Embassy Row, for The Cable.
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