Snapshots of the evolving humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

 "I am deeply alarmed."

 Statement by U.N. Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon, Dec. 29:

 I am deeply alarmed by the current escalation of violence in and around Gaza. This is unacceptable. I have been repeatedly condemning the rocket attacks by Hamas militants against Israel. While recognizing Israel's right to defend itself, I have also condemned the excessive use of force by Israel in Gaza. The suffering caused to civilian populations as a result of the large-scale violence and destruction that have taken place over the past few days has saddened me profoundly. The frightening nature of what is happening on the ground, in particular its effects on children -- who are more than half of the population -- troubles me greatly. I have continuously stressed the need for strict observance of international humanitarian law... All this must stop. Both Israel and Hamas must halt their acts of violence and take all necessary measures to avoid civilian casualties. A ceasefire must be declared immediately.

 “The army has bombed dozens of houses, public buildings, and other structures…”

 Letter from B'tselem, Israeli human rights group, to Israeli government, Dec. 31:

 Since the beginning of the military operation in the Gaza Strip, on 27 December 2008, the army has bombed dozens of houses, public buildings, and other structures throughout the Gaza Strip. The principle of distinction, one of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, states that all parties engaged in combat must distinguish between civilian objects and military targets, and are forbidden to intentionally attack civilians and civilian objects. The First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions establishes two conditions that must be met for an object to be considered a legitimate military target: it must effectively contribute to military action and its total destruction or partial neutralization offers a clear military advantage. Despite this, other statements made by Israeli officials in recent days raise the suspicion that the army is not maintaining the requisite distinction in its attacks in Gaza... An examination of the sites that were bombed in recent days raises questions regarding the legality of targeting many of them. For example, the military bombed the main police building in Gaza and killed, according to reports, forty-two Palestinians who were in a training course and were standing in formation at the time of the bombing. Participants in the course study first-aid, handling of public disturbances, human rights, public-safety exercises, and so forth. Following the course, the police officers are assigned to various arms of the police force in Gaza responsible for maintaining public order.

 “There are no ‘safe' places in Gaza for civilians.”

 Statement by Amnesty International, Dec. 31:

 Israeli forces must bear in mind that there are no "safe" places in Gaza for civilians to seek shelter.  They know how densely populated the Jabalia Refugee Camp is and that the homes are mostly light structures with flimsy asbestos roofs and not able to withstand the effect of strikes. Strikes are virtually sure to kill and injure civilians. The Israeli army must not carry out attacks which pose a disproportionate risk to civilians. They must always choose  means and methods of attack that are least likely to harm civilians. We urge all parties not to target civilians and not to carry out indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks that put civilian lives in danger.

Examples:

On 27 December seven students from a school run by the United Nations were killed outside the school, just after lessons finished as they were trying to get home. The Israeli bombardment had first started at about 11.30 am on a Saturday, a day and time when the streets are very busy, particularly as children finish school just after midday, just as the initial bombardment was at its most intense.  Seven students from a UNRWA school were killed outside the school just after lessons finished and they were trying to get home.

On 27 December Muhammad al-Awadi finished his exam and left the al Carmel School in the Rimal district of downtown Gaza City, a school located near the al-Abbas police station in a residential district, at about 11.30 am to return to the orphanage where he lived with his brother Ahmed.  He was fatally wounded when a bomb was dropped on the Police station, just as he came out of the school.  Muhammad was treated in the ICU unit of Gaza City Hospital but died in the evening of 30 December.  This happened at the very beginning of the bombing campaign and was totally unexpected.  

On 28 December five sisters from the Baalousha family aged four to 17, (Jawhir, 4; Dina, 8; Samar, 12; Ikram, 14; and Tahrir, 17) were killed in their home in Jabalia Refugee Camp, located north of Gaza city in Gaza's most densely populated area.  Four other children siblings were injured when the mosque near their home was bombed, and theirs and several other homes were destroyed and damaged.

 “20,000 people a day have been without food that they expect.”

Associated Press story, Jan. 1:

 UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Gaza's 1.5 million residents are facing an "alarming" humanitarian situation under constant Israeli bombardment, with the main power plant shut down, overcrowded hospitals struggling to cope and very limited food supplies, U.N. officials said. The power plant shut down on Tuesday because Israel has blocked fuel delivery through the main pipeline since Dec. 26, U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said Wednesday. This has forced hospitals to use generators, which have limited fuel supplies, and left many of the 650,000 people in central and northern Gaza with power cuts of 16 hours a day or more, he said. "The situation remains alarming," Holmes said. "Hospitals are obviously still struggling very much to cope with the number of casualties. We have continued to get some medical supplies in and to help them cope, but this remains difficult and fragile." Karen Abu Zayd, commissioner of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which helps Palestinian refugees, told reporters by video link from Gaza that the agency has not distributed any food for two weeks because of the shortage of supplies and the Israeli bombardment. "I think that means that 20,000 people a day have been without food that they expect — and probably is the bulk of what they get," she said. "So people are doing pretty badly. Everyone we know is sharing whatever they have, not just with their families but with their neighbors."

 “There is no electricity at all in Gaza City.”

 Statement of Maher Najjar, Deputy Director, Palestinian Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, Jan. 4:

 Since the beginning of the military operation on December 27, 2008 and especially since the electricity and water systems were badly damaged in the start of the ground operation on January 3, 2008, we have been unable to provide water to well over 530,000 of Gaza's residents (approximately 400,000 people in Gaza City and the North, 100,000 people in Rafah, and 30,000 people in the Middle Area). In addition, because of the lack of fuel and electricity to sewage pumping stations, sewage is piling up in the streets and harming the health and safety of Gaza residents. There is an additional danger that the sewage lake in Beit Lahiya will overflow within a week, endangering the lives of 10,000 people living nearby...

 As of last night, there is no electricity at all in Gaza City. All lines feeding Gaza City from Israel have been shut down due to damage from the shelling and bombing. The local power plant has been shut down since December 30, due to lack of industrial diesel. As of today, the entire water and sewage system in Gaza City and the Northern Area is entirely dependent on backup generators run by diesel. In addition, two of the lines feeding electricity to Rafah, one from Israel and one from Egypt, have been damaged. I have no additional diesel reserves, and I cannot obtain additional diesel right now.  The water wells and sewage pumping stations that still have diesel will run out within a few days, others have none.

 “An Israeli ground operation in Gaza will likely mean intense combat in densely populated areas.”

 Statement by Human Rights Watch, Jan. 4:

 As an Israeli ground offensive in Gaza gets underway, both Israeli and Palestinian forces must address heightened civilian protection concerns because of likely combat in densely populated urban areas, Human Rights Watch said today. Both sides must stringently abide by the laws of war, including taking all feasible measures to avoid harm to civilians and facilitating access for humanitarian workers and medical personnel. Human Rights Watch investigations of previous ground operations in Gaza and the West Bank by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) found evidence of unlawful killings by Israeli forces. In addition, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups fired rockets or conducted other military operations from densely populated areas, placing civilians at risk of serious harm. An Israeli ground operation in Gaza will likely mean intense combat in densely populated areas, where the threat to civilians is substantial. The IDF and Hamas must take concrete steps to minimize the fighting's impact on civilians or the results could be catastrophic.

The IDF's last major ground operation in Gaza, from February 27 to March 3, 2008, killed 107 Palestinians, more than half of whom were civilians, and wounded more than 200. Two Israeli soldiers died. Human Rights Watch's detailed field investigation of that operation found serious violations by the IDF, including the killing of a wounded man getting treatment in an ambulance, the shooting deaths of two civilians on donkey carts, and the shooting and wounding of two men in IDF custody. In two cases, tank crews opened fire on unarmed civilians. All of these incidents took place in an area that was firmly under the control of the IDF. Palestinian medics and ambulance drivers also faced restrictions on their ability to treat the wounded and dead - both civilians and combatants - and came under fire that killed one medic.

In February-March 2008, as on other occasions, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups placed civilians at risk by firing rockets and mortars from densely populated areas and storing weapons in civilian structures. Those acts, too, violate the laws of war. Human Rights Watch said that during past hostilities both sides have failed to take adequate steps to remove civilians from areas where there was fighting, putting them at unnecessary risk.

 “Patients were lying everywhere.”

CNN report, Jan. 4:

 GAZA CITY (CNN) -- Gaza's main hospital, already overloaded with Palestinians wounded in the week-long Israeli air assault, has reached critical mass, according to a Norwegian doctor volunteering at Shifa Hospital. Word of health facilities being pushed to the limit came as Israel announced on Monday it was opening up border crossings to allow the flow of humanitarian goods into the Palestinian territory. "The injured patients are mainly civilians, a lot of children with dreadful injuries," Dr. Erik Fosse told CNN on Monday, estimating that 20 percent of the more than 500 people dead were children. "This figure is rising, and I think it has to do with the development of the war as it moves into the city," he added. After a weeklong series of air strikes, Israel launched a ground assault Saturday night. "We've had a steady stream (of patients) every day, but the last 24 hours has (seen) about triple the number of cases," Fosse said late Sunday. Fosse said that he estimated that about 30 percent of the casualties at Shifa Hospital on Sunday were children, both among the dead and wounded. The increase in casualties at Shifa followed Israel's ground incursion into Gaza, which it launched on Saturday night. Fosse said 50 patients were "severely wounded" when an Israeli air strike hit a food market in Gaza City. "We were operating in the corridors, patients were lying everywhere, and people were dying before they got treatment," he said.

 --By Scott MacLeod

 It's not easy to be an optimist living in the Middle East. The Gaza crisis is the latest damning testimony to the failure of Israelis, Palestinians, Arabs as well as outside parties like the U.S. and United Nations, to resolve a conflict that has now raged on for more than 60 bloody years. Or, for nearly 100 years, if you include the period of struggle dating back to the British Mandate.

 There's much to criticize in Israel's latest operations against Hamas.  Decades of military occupation and spread of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories provided the fertile ground for the rise of the radical Islamist faction Israel now seeks to crush. Israel's failure to finalize a historic deal with Yasser Arafat's nationalist party, and refusal to even continue peace talks for seven years, made it inevitable that Israel would face continual conflict with Palestinians, with Hamas increasingly in the forefront.  It was just as inevitable that Israel's security operations would kill untold numbers of civilians, further inflame hatreds in the region and never bring lasting peace for Israel.  Yet, there are some reasons to hope that the current Gaza operation, whether it's the Israeli government's design or not, may change the geopolitical map in favor of peace forces in the region. What follows is not a prediction so much as a wish that some hope might emerge from the dark days Gaza and its people are experiencing.

 The Silver-Lining Scenario:

 --A pro-negotiations Israeli party, either the Kadima of Tzipi Livni or Labour of Ehud Barak (the defense minister directing the current operations), politically strengthened by the Gaza war, goes on to triumph in the Feb. 10 Israeli parliamentary elections over Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line Likud. Livni or Barak thus gets  a mandate to pick up the behind-the-scenes negotiations started a year ago between Kadima PM Ehud Olmert and Palestinan President Mahmoud Abbas.

 --Israel's devastation of Gaza severely weakens Hamas politically as well as militarily, giving a badly needed boost to Abbas, whose term as Palestinian president expires next week, and making it more difficult for Hamas to play its familiar spoiler role. 

 --President Barack Obama, forced by the Gaza crisis to plunge into Middle East diplomacy sooner rather than later, capitalizes on the geopolitical shift to re-launch a credible U.S.-sponsored peace process that bolsters Israeli and Palestinian moderates and begins to reverse diminishing popular Israeli and Palestinian support for a negotiated settlement.  

 --Encouraged by the return of credible U.S. diplomacy after an eight-year blight, Arab states, notably Saudi Arabia, make tangible moves in support of the Arab plan for peace with Israel. Syria, already involved in back-channel peace talks with Israel, and not wishing to be ostracized by the new Obama administration, plays ball. The Arab support in turn provides crucial additional political cover for Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, whose progress in turn encourages continued active diplomacy by the Obama administration. 

 --By Scott MacLeod

 The shoe throwing episode in Baghdad almost quaintly summed up the disaster the Bush administration leaves in its wake in Iraq--thousands dead in an ill-conceived and ill-planned invasion, thousands more dead in the explosion of sectarian and factional violence unleashed by the power vacuum, the strategic gains handed to Iran on a silver platter, the moral abomination of Abu Ghraib, and on and on. The "democracy" Bush created is one where Iraqi journalists exercise their rights of free expression by hurling potentially deadly objects at people they are quizzing at press conferences--in this case, the president of the United States, no less. It's hardly sufficient to say that that disgraceful gesture is a sign of Iraq's progress-- "things are better than they were under Saddam Hussein" is hardly the standard by which we should judge our performance in Iraq.

 But the more tragic wreckage Bush leaves behind is in Israel-Palestine, as evidenced by the latest spasm of violence including the latest and ultimately futile Israeli blitz on Gaza against Hamas with the inevitable victims of "collateral damage."  After too many Israeli invasions and incursions and bombing raids to count over the last six decades, somehow it's hard to be optimistic that the latest one will finally silence the Palestinian bombers and rocketers so Israelis can live in peace. The Bush administration's inexcusable neglect is partly responsible for the carnage we're seeing in Gaza today-- Katrina-like botch-ups are the legacy of this administration in the Middle East, too. Bringing peace to the Middle East is no easy task but it's a pathetic testimony if you don't even try. 

 The U.S. has the indispensable role to play in ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But after spending most of its two terms walking away from negotiations and aimlessly supporting unilateral moves by Israeli hard-liners, the huge death tolls and continuing bloodshed are not the only results of the mismanagement of America's role. Israeli and Palestinian politics have become more severely fragmented, making it more difficult to find leaders who can make necessary and courageous decisions and make them stick for peace. The latest unspeakable round of killing is as much about the factional jockeying for power as it is about anything else--it's surely not about liberating Palestine or winning the war on terrorism, is it?

 If there's anything good to come out of it, perhaps it's that the fighting on the eve of Barack Obama's inauguration as the next American president will further concentrate his mind on the need to get serious about U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East. A year ago, Bush convened the Annapolis peace conference in a clumsy, last-ditch effort to correct the mistake he made by abandoning U.S. mediation for nearly seven years. He optimistically predicted the parties would reach some kind of an agreement before he left office in January 2009. What happened instead? His legacy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the scene of dead and wounded on the streets of Gaza.

 --By Scott MacLeod

 Middle East watchers are trying to follow a behind the scenes contest for Barack Obama's ear when it comes to the region. The winner could become the incoming administration's single most influential advisor on the area--perhaps Obama's Middle East czar. Obama has properly emphasized that as president he will set the policy, and his subordinates will be tasked with implementing it. Yet his choice of Middle East guru-- a special envoy, or whatever the title may be-- will be an important signal of his inclinations. And given the complexities of the Middle East, and the complex intersection of those complexities with American politics nowadays, it's hard to exaggerate the influence such a position could have as the question of war and peace hangs in the balance in Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon and Iran.   

 Judging from press reports such as here, here and here, the contest includes among others two Obama campaign advisors with very different perspectives: Dennis Ross, Bill Clinton's Arab-Israeli negotiator, and Daniel Kurtzer, former U.S. ambassador to Egypt and Israel. Ross and Kurtzer are both Jewish; during the campaign, they sought to rally American Jewish voters wary of indications that Obama was lukewarm toward Israel. Each has influential supporters in the Beltway's foreign policy establishment.

 My take is that Ross would be a significant disappointment, Kurtzer an excellent choice. The contest, in fact, is more a tussle between two approaches to Middle East policy making than between individuals. The selection of a Dennis Ross would represent the past, which is to say the failure of U.S. policy in the region; Kurtzer would represent a change--a subtle change perhaps, but change nonetheless--given his frank acknowledgment of what has gone wrong with U.S. policy and a common sense prescription for getting it right. 

 Ross' s deep personal role in past failed policy ought to be enough to disqualify him from any supremo role. You can read an exhaustive, self-serving account of Ross's statecraft in his 815-page memoir, The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace but here's my critical, very abbreviated version. He's already held the job of chief U.S. Middle East envoy for 12 years, through the Bush 41 and Clinton administrations, and wasn't very good at it. After the landmark Madrid peace conference, he and his bosses proved unable to coax Israelis and Palestinians toward an agreement; the Norwegians stepped in and secretly mediated the Oslo Accords between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat in 1993. By then, Ross's task was to implement the Oslo framework agreement, which envisioned a comprehensive and final peace deal by 1999. But Ross should take a large part of the responsibility for the mismanagement of the subsequent negotiations, which gradually dissolved into another Palestinian intifada, the worst spasm of violence in the conflict in 50 years, and the rise of the anti-negotiations Islamist Hamas group against Arafat's party. 

 Certainly, Arafat, Ehud Barak, Benjamin Netanyahu and Rabin's assassin, as well as Bill Clinton and other U.S. officials, deserve their proportional share of the blame. Yet, Ross's insistence on putting all the fault on Yasser Arafat--blaming himself and the Clinton administration only for trusting the Palestinian too much--is a testimony that is either disingenuous or breathtakingly self-absorbed. His palpable one-sidedness is why he remains completely distrusted by the Arabs he has negotiated with. Arabs always expected an American tilt toward Israel because of the strong U.S.-Israeli relationship; from bitter experience, they regard Ross as far too biased to be acceptable or successful as the "honest broker" for ending the conflict. "For far too long, many American officials involved in Arab-Israeli peacemaking, myself included, have acted as Israel's attorney, catering and coordinating with the Israelis at the expense of successful peace negotiations," Ross's longtime former deupty, Aaron David Miller, wrote in a devastating critique in the Washington Post in 2005. 

 Ross's past errors could be forgiven if they were not so deeply rooted in the flawed American policy for the Middle East that Ross has so helped  perpetuate. Put simply, the failed U.S. approach holds that Israel's military dominance gives it ultimate leverage in negotiations, and that the U.S. should not use its considerable influence to pressure Israel too much on key issues like Israel's occupation of Arab territories, activities of Jewish settlers, rights of Palestinian refugees and future sovereignty over Jerusalem. Locked in this outlook, Ross proved too tolerant of Israeli overreaching, too ambivalent about the rights and legitimate interests of Palestinians and too tone deaf to the impending collapse of the peace process with all its grave consequences. As Aaron David Miller wrote of U.S. diplomacy on Ross's watch: "Far too often, particularly when it came to Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy, our departure point was not what was needed to reach an agreement acceptable to both sides but what would pass with only one -- Israel."

 American policy has also more or less held that holding peace negotiations is effectively conditional on the cessation of violence and threats of violence against Israel. Accordingly, Ross seems to suggest in his recent writings that the U.S. confront and defeat Iran's growing power and ambitions in the Middle East--including Tehran's support for Hamas and Hizballah--before seriously tackling the vexing core issues of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute again. Ross's thinking echoes the failed neo-conservative logic that says reforming the Middle East will bring peace instead of the other way around. That's an approach sure to keep professional peace negotiators like Ross in business for ever--endlessly negotiating rather than actually achieving peace. When it comes to Iran, the U.S. has fought yet failed to extinguish the Islamic revolution in a winner-take-all strategy for 30 years, with the result that Iran has repeatedly won strategic gains all over the Middle East-- at the expense of both Israel and the U.S.  

 Kurtzer, in contrast, has recognized and written about the failure of U.S. policy over the years. He understands that brokering Arab-Israeli peace should be a signal priority, that U.S. peacemaking is not solely to assist allies but is the pursuit of America's own national strategic interests, that peace is a key to achieving other crucial goals like defeating Islamic radicalism, that Israel's strategic advantage doesn't remove the necessity of fulfilling Palestinian needs and that ultimately to be successful the U.S. must engage in demonstrably even-handed diplomacy. 

 In their 2008 book, Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East, Kurtzer and co-author Scott Lasensky cite America's "alarming pattern of mismanaged diplomacy" in the region since the end of the Cold War. "Flaws in U.S. diplomacy stretching back to the Clinton administration have contributed to the worst crisis in Arab-Israeli relations in a generation," they write. "This devastating failure has hurt U.S. interests and damaged our ability to gain cooperation from allies and key regional players. At the popular level, it has weakened the U.S. position in the region and on the world stage. It has also jeopardized our long-term investment in Arab-Israeli peace." 

 Make no mistake, Kurtzer-Lasensky warn, "Arab-Israeli peacemaking is crucial to our own  national security interests." They argue that the lack of peace has undermined the U.S. effort to combat Islamic radicalism and terrorism and to promote democracy and stability in the Arab world. At the same time, they say, America's commitment to Israel's security and well-being "is best served by moving toward, rather than away from, a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace settlement."

 Kurtzer-Lasensky are particularly dismissive of the Bush administration's tragic neglect of Arab-Israeli peace negotiations. But they are nonetheless damning of the Clinton administration's Ross-managed approach to Israeli-Palestinian talks, which they say was "hands off" for two years even after Oslo. "Early inaction by the president and his team, together with the administration's failure to hold Israelis and Palestinians accountable to the agreements they signed, were to have far-reaching consequences for the peace process and U.S. policy."

 As for the failure of the 2000 Camp David summit that Ross blames on Arafat, Kurtzer-Lasensky find fault all around. They say that Clinton's summit was "ill-conceived" and constituted the "most glaring failure" of Clinton's last-ditch diplomatic efforts in the Middle East. They describe a policy-making process that was "too insular and inhibited the development of U.S. positions on the core issues... the United States was unprepared, and our negotiators scrambled at the last minute to put together U.S. positions on complex issues such as Jerusalem and borders." 

 Kurtzer-Lasensky write that their Institute of Peace study group was repeatedly told that, at the Camp David summit, "the United States gave the Palestinians proposals that originated with Israel. In the words of a senior U.S. policymaker, the Clinton team allowed itself to be manipulated and relinquished too much control over U.S. policy." The book quotes a former Clinton official saying, "when it came to dealing with Jerusalem, there's some very embarrassing episodes that betrayed our lack of knowledge or bias." After the talks collapsed, Kurtzer-Lasensky write, "Clinton acceded to Barak's request to blame Arafat publicly...because of Barak's domestic political needs." 

 A problem with such a reflexively pro-Israel approach, as Kurtzer-Lasensky indicate elsewhere, is that a strong third-party mediating role is essential in order to overcome the Israeli strategic superiority that puts Palestinians at a negotiating disadvantage and therefore makes them warier of deal making. "Power dynamics in the Israeli-Palestininan conflict are deeply unbalanced," they explain. "Israel is an established sovereign state with a robust, thriving economy and a world-class military; Palestinians remain under occupation, bereft of effective public institutions, highly dependent on international economic assistance, lacking basic security, and incapable of providing the full measure of security to which Israelis are entitled... Left on their own, the parties cannot address the deep, structural impediments to peace."

 In Kurtzer-Lasensky's conclusion, they emphasize the importance of being seen as an honest broker if the U.S. is to achieve success in the Middle East. "The next president will need to ensure that the manner in which we conduct our diplomacy results in the peoples of the region sharing this perception." That's Statecraft 101, but it's been tragically lacking in the U.S.'s  Middle East diplomacy.

 --By Scott MacLeod/Cairo

 President-elect Obama is off to an encouraging start in the formulation and conduct of his policies for the Middle East. His appointment of his national security team this week strongly points to an end of the Bush era, characterized by ideology and military force, and the start of a new approach emphasizing greater pragmatism and diplomacy.

 What I liked more than the individual appointments was Obama's promise that while he would be a strong leader responsible for the ultimate decisions, he sought a vigorous debate among his advisors rather than a team of yes-men or conventional-wisdom preachers. George Bush also appointed strong personalities, but key officials like Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld proved poles apart in vision and approach. Moreover, while time will tell, Obama appears more thoughtful and self-assured in directing his best and brightest.

 I assembled this team because I'm a strong believer in strong personalities and strong opinions. I think that's how the best decisions are made. One of the dangers in a White House, based on my reading of history, is that you get wrapped up in groupthink and everybody agrees with everything and there's no discussion and there are no dissenting views. So I'm going to be welcoming a vigorous debate inside the White House. But understand, I will be setting policy as president. I will be responsible for the vision that this team carries out, and I expect them to implement that vision once decisions are made. So, as Harry Truman said, the buck will stop with me.

 Hillary Clinton brings minuses but also pluses as Obama's secretary of state.   Although she visited some 90 countries as First Lady and as U.S. senator, she lacks qualities that often determine success in the job like depth of foreign policy experience or a close personal relationship with the president. In recent years she's pandered to Israeli hard-liners and their U.S. supporters, raising the question whether she is suited to being an even-handed negotiator in the Israeli-Arab conflict--probably a crucial element in successfully addressing one of Obama's top foreign policy priorities. Hillary's taken a fairly tough stance on Iran, putting more stock in fashioning an anti-Iran alliance a la John McCain than in reaching compromises and understandings with Tehran. In the Senate, she voted for the effective green light that enabled the Bush administration to invade Iraq in 2003.

 But Hillary is more a political animal than a neo-con hawk. As First Lady, she famously called for a Palestinian state, something her husband never publicly did before the end of his presidency in 2001. Her reckless rhetoric on Iran--during her own presidential campaign this year, she rather un-diplomatically threatened to "obliterate" the country--belies her underlying goal of negotiating with rather than bombing Iran.

 Hillary undoubtedly developed some of her world view and foreign policy experiences in her husband's administration, but Bill's two terms weren't much to crow about when it comes to the Middle East. The Norwegians actually got the Israelis and Palestinians to work out the historic peace accord that was signed at the White House in 1993. Clinton allowed the negotiations to dangerously drift until the last year of his presidency, when he convened the ill-fated Camp David summit that collapsed into the worst Israeli-Palestinian violence in a half century. Meanwhile, Clinton's "dual containment" policy arguably set the stage for the subsequent crises with Iraq and Iran during the Bush administration. Sanctions on Iraq devastated Iraqi society in a way that contributed to the country's fratricidal crumbling after Bush's invasion toppled Saddam; the deaths and misery attributed to the sanctions also fanned anti-Americanism to a new level in the Arab world. At the same time, Clinton's focus on sanctioning Iran may have led the U.S. to blow a historic opportunity for a U.S.-Iranian rapprochement after the election of moderate Iranian President Mohammed Khatami in 1997. On the plus side, Bill Clinton was a strong proponent of diplomatic engagement in the Israeli-Arab dispute, and his administration did extend a noteworthy but ultimately spurned olive branch to the Islamic regime in Iran. 

 My main concern about Hillary's appointment is that it may signal Obama's inclination to bring Clinton administration "government in waiting" retreads back into government to pursue the same approaches to Middle East problems they tried during the 1990s without too much success. Yet, Obama's selection of Robert Gates to continue as Defense Secretary, of retired General Jim Jones to be national security advisor and of Susan Rice to be U.N. ambassador should temper such concerns.

 Gates and Jones are seasoned pragmatists who are formidable figures in global security circles, whose presence will do much to begin the task of rebuilding America's credibility and moral standing in international affairs. Gates has earned bipartisan confidence and global respect for his handling of post-Rumsfeld Iraq, and can be counted on to balance Obama's pledge of withdrawing U.S. troops in 16 months with the need to guard against politically expedient moves that could cause greater instability in Iraq or the region. Jones, a former U.S. Marine Corps commandant and NATO supreme allied commander, brings recent experience in both the Iraq and Israel-Palestinian issues that make him a particularly good choice for his position right now. As a Bush administration special envoy to the Middle East, he authored a report on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that reportedly was harsh on the Israeli government and criticized U.S. agencies for botching coordination of their assistance to Palestinian security forces. Susan Rice (no relation, in case you wondered, to Condoleezza Rice), is much less experienced than Hillary, Gates or Jones. At just 44, however, she has already served in the Clinton administration as assistant secretary of state for African affairs. She will use her positions as a strong proponent of international cooperation and a close Obama advisor to achieve more effective cooperation between Washington and the United Nations.

 --By Scott MacLeod/Cairo

It could be easy to have a little chuckle at the expense of the Beirut Marathon. For most of the 30,000 people who participated on Sunday, the race was more like a 10K walkathon and excuse to show of the latest fashion in tight jeans and trainers. It's also probably the only major world marathon where people stop to take each other's photographs right in front of the finish line. 

But it's also a bracing example of the kind of mass participatory civil event that makes Lebanon such a wonderful place. Could you imagine staging a marathon in smoggy, chaotic Cairo? And where else in the Middle East outside of Israel can you see such such a broad array of non-sectarian, non-political activist groups with causes ranging from AIDS, cancer, drug addiction, drunk driving, or the disabled all in one place? And for a country that no so long ago was being victimized by a campaign of terrorist bombings, hitting the pavement in such a big, vulnerable crowd was a small act of bravery. 

Moreover, for all my snide condescension about couch potatoes turned into road warriors for the day, guess who was the pseudo-jock who blew out his hamstrings after just 5k?

-- Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut

IN Gaza, food's going fast.

Photo credit: MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/Getty Images

As you sit down to a Thanksgiving feast, please spare a thought for the starving Palestinians of Gaza. There are 1.5 million of them, most of them living hand to mouth, or on UN handouts, because Israel has them under siege.

It's a vicious cycle, one that's being repeated every few months or so. The Islamic militants do something crazy, Israel strikes back, the militants fire missiles into southern Israel and then the entry points into Gaza slam shut.  Food and the basic necessities of life are squeezed off to the barest minimum.

And who suffers? Not the militants, not Hamas nor Islamic Jihad. As usual, it's the people of Gaza who are dazed with hunger. My friend Azmi, who has diabetes, tells me he is running out of insulin, and he can't find any pharmacy or hospital that still has supplies.

Dialysis machines are breaking down in the hospital (the rare moments when there's electricity to run them) and there are no spare parts to replace them.  Bakeries have run out of flour. “I've been to the Cairo zoo,” says Azmi, “and I swear those animals are treated better there than we humans are in Gaza.”

Many stories are written about the smugglers' tunnels that honeycomb Gaza's southern border with Egypt. We write about how the smugglers bring Viagra and tiger cubs through the tunnels, as though Gaza were some big exotic shopping mall, a Neiman Marcus on the Mediterranean. But the truth his, all the stuff coming through the tunnel is expensive because it is taxed by the smugglers, and beyond the reach of most Gazans.

In the Third Act of this sorry performance, the international community and the UN start complaining loudly, and Israel lets in a few dozen trucks of food, or turns the fuel spigot on for a few hours to reduce the international outcry and show what good guys they are. That's what happened today. The Israelis let in 40 trucks. It's hardly enough. At a minimum, says Chris Guness, an UNRWA spokesman, “We need to bring in 15 trucks a day, every day.” Adds UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Palestinian Territories Maxwell Gaylard, “This is an assault on human dignity with severe humanitarian implications.”

Then we have Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, obviously irritated by Gaza questions during his valedictory tour to Washington. He dismissed the near-famine in Gaza as nothing more than the whining of a few cry-babies, as if he expected them to make souffles out of sand, soups from stone.

Israel wants to draw a curtain around Gaza so nobody can see how it's punishing the Palestinians. That's why, for the past two weeks, they've barred the foreign press from entering Gaza.  The reason, says the Israeli military, is that catch-all phrase “security”, and it is pronounced with arrogant solemnity as if to say ‘Take it from us, we have our very good reasons. Don't challenge us.”

Well, the foreign press did challenge the Israeli government. We took the matter to the high court, petitioned Olmert and got our editors to write letters of complaint. Some journalists talk of chartering a boat from Cyprus and trying to run the Israeli naval blockade. These are desperate tries, but this is  a violation of the press's freedom, and the world's right to know. This is the sort of shameful attitude you might expect from Zimbabwe's Dictator Robert Mugabe, not Israel. Please.

Choking the life out of the Gazans isn't going to make them turn against their Hamas overlords. On the contrary, says my friend Azmi, “Everything that Israeli does isn't harming Hamas in Gaza. It's making them stronger.”  Starving Palestinians and depriving them of medicine certainly isn't going to make them like Israelis, or their supporters in Washington, any better.

Happy Thanksgiving.

By Tim McGirk/Jerusalem

 All eyes in the Middle East are on what President-elect Obama is going to do about the region's multiple problems. Expectations are huge, partly because of the miserable failures of the Bush administration, partly because of some positive signals that Obama sent during the campaign.

 Obama's going to be getting a lot of advice, but he should take a good look at two Op-Eds that appeared in the last week.

 The first is a Washington Post piece by Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security advisors for Republican and Democratic presidents, respectively. They argue that despite the depressing state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, "the opportunity for success has never been greater." They suggest that by giving the conflict immediate and determined attention, Obama could create a new dynamic that ushers in a pro-peace government in Israel's February election and sees Hamas joining the peace process so as not to be left out of the new momentum.

 The current weakness of Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, they argue, 

 ...can be overcome by the president speaking out clearly and forcefully about the fundamental principles of the peace process; he also must press the case with steady determination. That initiative should then be followed -- not preceded -- by the appointment of a high-level dignitary to pursue the process on the president's behalf, a process based on the enunciated presidential guidelines. Such a presidential initiative should instantly galvanize support, both domestic and international, and provide great encouragement to the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.

 Scowcroft and Brzezinski also underline a point that is often obscured by opponents of peace or by negotiators more in love with the peace process than in a peace solution that will require real compromises and political fallout:

 The major elements of an agreement are well known. A key element in any new initiative would be for the U.S. president to declare publicly what, in the view of this country, the basic parameters of a fair and enduring peace ought to be. These should contain four principal elements: 1967 borders, with minor, reciprocal and agreed-upon modifications; compensation in lieu of the right of return for Palestinian refugees; Jerusalem as real home to two capitals; and a nonmilitarized Palestinian state.

 The other Op-Ed is the syndicated Washington Week column by James Zogby, president of the Arab-American Institute. Zogby argues that the Arabs shouldn't wait for Obama to do it all, but rather ought to get started before Obama's inauguration in helping create more favorable conditions for Obama to work with. Specifically, he says Arab states should sweeten the Arab peace plan, which has created increasing interest in the U.S. and Israel, and push Fatah and Hamas toward a unity government that will speak for all Palestinians and earn the respect of the international community.

 If we are to be honest with ourselves, we must acknowledge that when Obama takes the oath of office on January 20th, he is likely to find a rather unappetizing situation laid out before him in the Middle East.

 If nothing changes in the next two months, the Palestinian house will still be divided, and the Israelis will still have no government and no clear mandate (elections, there, will occur on February 10th, and all signs point to either a hard-line Netanyahu victory or the cobbling together of a weak centrist-led coalition).

 Therefore, the question before the new Administration will be: can anything be done?, and, if so, how to start. Because I believe that steps can be taken on the Arab side to put their house in order before January 20th, the region's leadership ought to use the next two months' time wisely.

 I would propose the creation of a rather massive multi-billion dollar "Peace and Reconciliation Incentive Fund" that would provide immediate relief and job-creating investment... The bottom line purpose of the fund is to support the Palestinian people and to create the incentive and pressure for their divided leaderships to agree on a new government which, with Arab backing, is ready and able to make peace.

 In addition, the Arab League, instead of merely reaffirming their 2002 and 2007 peace plan, would do well to enlarge upon it by putting, as it were, "meat on the bones". They could, for example, spell out in greater detail the types of investment and/or trade incentives that would accompany final peace and/or normalization. And they could even create a staged sequencing (for example, with the signing of an Israeli-Palestinian framework, stage one will occur; with removal settlements and checkpoints in compliance with agreement, stage two will occur, etc.). The Arab plan has attracted interest not only with the incoming U.S. Administration, but among many in Israel, as well. Spelling out, therefore, the benefits and vision that accompany final peace would be of enormous benefit.

 I agree with Scowcroft and Brzezinski, that "the opportunity for success has never been greater," and, as they warn, "the costs of failure [have never been] more severe." Obama needs to keep that in mind as he ponders the Middle East quagmire.

 --By Scott MacLeod/Cairo

 Qatar continues to show the way. The tiny Gulf country over the weekend inaugurated the magnificent Museum of Islamic Art, taking another step in its quest to promote a cultural renaissance in the Arab world and provide a bridge between civilizations. One of the finest collections ever assembled, the museum showcases the beauty and the genius of more than 1,500 years of Islamic civilization. 

Emir of Qatar and Sheikha Mozah PHOTO BY Tom Stoddart--Reportage/Getty

 Qatar's purpose was summed up at the gala celebration Saturday night in Doha by museum authority chairperson Sheikha Mayassa, daughter of the emir and his wife, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al-Missned: "We aspire to highlight the peaceful and sublime civilization of Islam, which continues to call for tolerance and coexistence among peoples."

 Nothing illustrates the latter point better than the decision to commission the Chinese-born American architect, I.M. Pei, who is 91, to design the museum as the last significant work of his fabled career. Pei spoke of how the challenge took him on a journey of discovery through the Islamic world, during which he studied the life of the Prophet Mohammed and visited jewels of Islamic architecture such as the Ibn Tulun mosque in Cairo. Thanking the emir for the opportunity, he described how the experience of learning about the Islamic world had enriched his life.

Museum of Islamic Art, by I.M. Pei

 Besides a permanent celebration of Islamic culture, the museum intends to take an active role in promoting knowledge and understanding through educational programs and international conferences. The museum is a pet project of the emir, whose 13-year reign has been marked by an ambitious effort, with Sheikha Mozah often playing a leading role, to promote political and social reform in Qatar, the Gulf and the greater Arab world. 

 Among Qatar's accomplishments to date are the establishment of al-Jazeera satellite channel as the first major independent Arab news organization, and the creation of Education City, a campus that has drawn branches of some of America's finest universities, including Georgetown, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon and Texas A&M, to the Middle East. You can see Qatar's progress as the cultural equivalent of the tourism bonanza in neighboring Dubai. While the emir was opening the Museum of Islamic Art, Dubai's royals were attending last weekend's gala opening of another of their mega resorts, Palm Island Jumeirah and its flagship hotel, the Atlantis.  

 The Museum of Islamic Art, which will be joined by additional museums in Doha, reflects Qatar's drive to put itself on the global cultural map. Last weekend was also the occasion for announcing a long-term partnership with actor Robert De Niro's Tribeca Film Festival. The plans are still being worked out, but Qatar will host the first Tribeca Film Festifval Doha next November hosted by the Museum of Islamic Art. Although with a Qatari twist, the festival will be patterned after the New York version in its mission to bring together the global film industry, diverse audiences and engage the local community. 

Geometric Interior of Museum of Islamic Art

 The Tribeca festival was established after 9/11 in an effort to revive the economy and spirit of downtown New York where the World Trade Center had stood before being destroyed by Muslim terrorists. After Saturday night's fireworks at the Museum of Islamic Art, Jane Rosenthal, one of DeNiro's co-founders, told me one of her motivations for the Qatar-Tribeca partnership was to create a better understanding with the Arab world. 

 "Very few film festivals are born because of an act of war," she said. "I feel, as New Yorkers, we have to try to understand Islam and the Arabic culture in a more profound way. If it can help change a few minds, that's great. If it can make a few people laugh and have a good time, that's also great. If it can educate a little bit, hey, that's even better."

 Qatar's new museum and film festival won't bridge all the cultural gaps, but their creators deserve our thanks and encouragement for trying to make the world a better place.

 --By Scott MacLeod/Cairo

British Foreign secretary David Miliband's trip to Syria earlier this week -- the highest level-level British visit in eight years -- was the latest sign of Syria's ongoing rehabilitation from a pariah nation to a regional player. Ever since Syria began a round of indirect peace talks with Israel, a string of European leaders have broken with the Bush administration efforts to isolate Syria and have found their own roads to Damascus. Syria has an "essential role" to play in the stability of the Middle East, Miliband said, and urged Syria to continue the talks, which have been stalled by the resignation of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert two months ago.

But yesterday, the International Atomic Energy Agency served up a reminder of just how difficult it will be for the Syria and the West to kiss and make up. The IAEA released a report yesterday which said that its investigation of the military site in eastern Syria which the Israelis bombed in September 2007 turned up evidence that could support claims by the Bush administration that Syria was trying to develop an undeclared nuclear reactor. In particular, the IAEA said that they found traces of processed uranium -- rather than depleted uranium, which might have come from Israeli munitions that destroyed the site -- and remains of a cooling system that matches the requirements for a nuclear reactor.  Since Syria is a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the IAEA -- which overseas enforcement of the NPT  -- has asked to widen its investigation.

In which case, the IAEA wouldn''t be the only international body bearing down upon the government of Syrian president Bashar al Assad. A UN Tribunal in the Hague is due to begin its proceedings into the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri sometime in December. So far the UN investigation into that 2005 assassination and other attacks in Lebanon has focused on high ranking officials in the Assad regime. While these investigations don't pose an immediate threat to Syrian government, they aren't going away quietly.

But even by themselves, negotiations between Syria and the West won't be easy. For one thing, The US and Israel expect that a key component of any agreement would require Damascus to end its strategic relationship with Tehran, and stop supporting of anti-Israeli militant groups such as Hizballah and Hamas. But it's that strategic partnership – which began when Syria was the first country to recognize the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979 – that has helped the Assad regime survive all those years as a Western pariah. Though a peace deal with peace deal with Israel sweetened with a Western package of aid and expertise would put Syria solidly on the path to sustainable development, it would require an leap of faith unlike how the Syrian government normally operates. As one Syrian official with direct knowledge of the Israel file told me: “In Syria, you're considered a bad politician unless you have five or six options." Instead, the Syrian government sees the Israeli track not so much as an end in of itself but as a confidence building measure and prelude to a grand bargain between Syria and Iran on the one hand and America and its allies allies on the other that would redraw the balance of power in the Middle East, the official said. And while the Syrians are more than glad to see the backside of the Bush White House, they may be in for a rude awakening when Obama administration takes over. The ever-short American attention span is shifting further East, away from Syria and Iraq and the Levant and towards to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obama may not try to isolate Syria, but he also may not have time to listen.

--Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut