Egypt's Hero?

Mohamed El Baradei and the Chance for Reform

Steven A. Cook
Council on Foreign Relations
March 26, 2010

STEVEN A. COOK is Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

In an essay in Foreign Affairs last spring, I wrote about the obstacles impeding the emergence of a more liberal polity in Egypt. Although popular demands for political change have intensified in the past decade, the prospects for reform remain dim.

Over the years, foreign observers have argued that Egyptians favor political change by parsing the statements and actions of Egyptian activists of all stripes: the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood, a small group of liberals, Nasserist holdovers, judges, bureaucrats, and labor protestors. But these observers have never been able to identify an actual pathway to political reform. In fact, Egypt’s political order has produced a system that seems impervious to change. The Egyptian regime of President Hosni Mubarak has proven adaptable to both internal and external pressures, not brittle and vulnerable to political challenges.

In the last six weeks, however, two new developments have emerged with the potential to affect Egypt’s political trajectory dramatically. In early March, Mubarak underwent an operation to remove either his gallbladder (according to the German hospital) or a benign tumor (as reported by the Egyptian press). He remained in intensive care for five days and continues to convalesce in Heidelberg University Hospital. Regardless of what ails him, Mubarak is now 81 years old, an age when people can die suddenly or never recover from seemingly routine illnesses or medical procedures. His extended stay in Germany has left many Egyptians wondering not only whether he will run for reelection in 2011 but who is actually running the country right now. Mubarak’s illness has served to only intensify the decade-long national discussion of who will be his ultimate successor. Although the mechanics of the transition appear to have been determined, there remains uncertainty about precisely who will follow Mubarak. Much of the publicly available evidence, however, suggests that it will be his second son, Gamal Mubarak.

Perhaps more important was the return to Egypt in February of Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), after a 12-year absence. A lawyer and diplomat by training, ElBaradei has always played the role of the ultimate international bureaucrat -- a somewhat dour technocrat whose ties to his native country seemed purposely tenuous, to allow him to more freely contribute to improving global governance. This makes it somewhat surprising that ElBaradei has caused a political sensation since his plane touched down in Cairo. Foreign news outlets estimated that as many as one thousand Egyptians turned out to welcome him home at Cairo’s airport -- and to implore him to run for president in Egypt’s 2011 elections (a significant number given the government’s record of intimidation and violence).

ElBaradei did not douse his supporters’ hopes. He coyly told the Egyptian and foreign press that he would consider running if the Egyptian government enacted electoral and party reforms to ensure truly free and fair elections. At the same time, he formed a new political organization called the National Front for Change, which encompasses a broad swath of Egypt’s fractious but largely ineffective opposition movement. For its part, the Muslim Brotherhood has signaled its support for the Front, although this is likely a tactical move, considering that the Islamists’ position in the political arena has recently become fragile under significant state pressure.

The creation of the Front, along with his tantalizing public statements, only amplified the ElBaradei phenomenon. By late February, Egyptian bloggers and journalists were reporting that one thousand people were joining ElBaradei’s Facebook page every ten minutes. This story is surely apocryphal, but it is nonetheless worth noting that ElBaradei currently has 82,069 Facebook supporters, compared to Gamal Mubarak’s 6,583. Media coverage has contributed to ElBaradei’s apparent popularity and to the anticipation over his next moves. In a sign of his evident prestige, street art celebrating ElBaradei has begun to appear in Cairo.

To be sure, the number of “friends” on a Facebook page is a crude metric of actual power or potential in Egypt’s highly circumscribed political environment. The institutions of the Egyptian state are geared toward maintaining the status quo, making it difficult for the opposition to organize. Moreover, aspiring reformers challenge the legitimacy of the state at their own peril. ElBaradei seems to understand this fact of Egyptian political life, which is why he will not commit to a presidential run. But he does appear to be the sort of political entrepreneur who can exploit the gap between regime rhetoric -- about economic growth, political reform, and social progress -- and empirical reality, which is dominated by political repression, poverty, substandard schools, and crumbling national infrastructure.

Of course, throughout Egypt’s modern history there have been others who have sought to play this role. Two of the most prominent are Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a human-rights and democracy activist, and Ayman Nour, an independent member of parliament, both of whom served time in prison as a result of their activism. The Egyptian state was easily able to neutralize Ibrahim and Nour with false allegations and farcical court dramas that many members of the Egyptian elite were willing to believe, either out of self-preservation or personal animus toward the defendants.

ElBaradei does not face the same vulnerability. What would seem to be his biggest weakness -- his long absence from Egypt while heading the IAEA -- is actually his greatest asset. His long tenure in Vienna means that the regime has nothing on him. It cannot taint him with charges of corruption, electoral malfeasance, financial chicanery, Islamist agitation, or of being a stooge of the United States. (In fact, ElBaradei clashed repeatedly with Washington while at the IAEA.) Considering his stature and the predatory nature of the Egyptian regime, ElBaradei’s file with Egypt’s domestic security services must be relatively thin.

Although initially surprised by the burst of interest surrounding ElBaradei, the Egyptian government has started to develop a strategy for containing his nascent political momentum. The first hint came from the Egyptian president, who told a German reporter in early March that his country “does not need a national hero.” Following suit, the country’s state-directed press has done what it can to discredit ElBaradei, suggesting that he provided the legal pretext for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and is now seeking to inflame ethnic and sectarian differences in Egypt.

But it has become clear that although it continues to try to cut ElBaradei down to size, the regime recognizes the difficulties of completely marginalizing him. In fact, Mubarak and his advisers may let ElBaradei agitate, organize, and even run for president. An ElBaradei candidacy could actually help the regime in one important way: without being totally disingenuous, Mubarak and others in government could use the existence of a credible presidential contender as a demonstration of Egypt’s political reforms.

At the same time, an ElBaradei candidacy would put enormous strains on Egypt’s historically fractious opposition, with the resulting splits playing into Mubarak’s hands. Not to mention that Egypt’s Interior Ministry is well versed in the dark arts of vote rigging -- though outright manipulation would be a more difficult endeavor if ElBaradei indeed proves to be a widely compelling candidate. The regime in Cairo needs to look no further than Tehran’s June 2009 electoral debacle to understand the risks involved.

The ElBaradei phenomenon has led to inevitable questions about what Washington should do. Some observers, including the editorial page of The Washington Post, have argued that ElBaradei’s return has created an environment in which the United States can play a positive role in advancing the cause of reform if the Obama administration approaches the ElBaradei “boomlet” with “less caution.” Such statements suggest that the Egyptian public cannot help itself and has no agency, interests, or politics of its own, thereby requiring Washington to intervene. This is demonstrably untrue, making such a policy prescription unwise.

Further, Egypt’s close relationship with the United States has become a critical and negative factor in Egyptian politics. The opposition has used these ties to delegitimize the regime, while the government has engaged in its own displays of anti-Americanism to insulate itself from such charges. If ElBaradei actually has a reasonable chance of fostering political reform in Egypt, then U.S. policymakers would best serve his cause by not acting strongly. Somewhat paradoxically, ElBaradei’s chilly relationship with the United States as IAEA chief only advances U.S. interests now.

It is not surprising that Mubarak cannot accurately read Egyptian society’s political desires and hopes. He is elderly, isolated, and has been out of touch for some time. Contrary to his recent declaration, Egyptians are looking for a hero. And they no longer want the false heroics of a discredited line of military officers. Instead, many seem deeply attracted to a bespectacled lawyer who appears to have the courage of his convictions. The ElBaradei sensation may end up being little more than a minor diversion in the eventual ascension of Gamal Mubarak to his father’s post, but it has revealed more than ever how thoroughly hollow and illegitimate the regime and its myths have become.

Egypt’s Spinster Epidemic

The Marriage Crisis That Wasn't

Reading a new book about Egypt's overblown "marriage crisis" at the beginning of the 20th century suggests that similar fears today may also be ungrounded.

BY URSULA LINDSEY

MARCH 19, 2010

FOREIGN POLICY

In 1932, Fikri Abaza, a young Egyptian editor and lawyer from a prominent family, gave a lecture at the American University in Cairo in which he announced his intention of remaining a bachelor. He had proposed to four women, he said, and four fathers had rejected his proposals on financial grounds.

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The next day, the young man's lecture was the "talk of the town," American University in Cairo professor Hanan Kholoussy tells us in her book For Better, For Worse: The Marriage Crisis That Made Modern Egypt. Yet Abaza's complaint was hardly unprecedented. As Kholoussy documents, it was emblematic of a debate that raged in early 20th-century Egypt around the supposed increase in bachelors. That debate has striking parallels with one going on today in Egypt, where another "marriage crisis" is supposedly looming -- one in which it is the rising number of "spinsters" that most troubles observers.

I say supposedly because in both cases, "crisis" may be an overstatement. The "marriage crisis" of today, like the one back then, might have more to do with public anxiety over sweeping societal changes than any catastrophic threat to the institution of marriage.

More than 70 years after Abaza's public complaint, in the summer of 2006, Ghada Abdel Aal -- a then-27-year-old pharmacist -- started writing a blog with the tongue-in-cheek title I Want to Get Married. In her first post, she writes: "Stay with me and I'll tell you about my tribulations, so that you'll know everything we [unmarried women] put up with."

What follows is a tragicomic account of the unremitting pressure felt by an unwed woman to land a groom. Malicious neighbors and meddling relatives never tire of commiserating with Abdel Aal over her failure to get engaged. As for Abdel Aal's would-be suitors, they include a police officer who has government informants spy on her family, a man who already has two wives, and a suitor who interrupts their first meeting to watch a soccer match on TV.

Abdel Aal rails against the widespread belief that women themselves are to blame for their lack of marital prospects (people think, "the girl who delays [marrying] must have a flaw"). The blog is very funny, but it also conveys how exhausting and demeaning it is to be single in a society that works overtime to convince women "there is no success in any field that can take the place of marriage."

Abdel Aal's blog is a spirited defense of the unmarried woman, at a time when this category is increasingly the focus of public concern. Recently, Egypt's official statistics-gathering agency caused a furor when it announced that there were 13 million single men and women in the country, up from 9 million in the previous census. Its head found himself compelled to issue an official denial of his own agency's report, lowering the number of spinsters to just a few hundred thousand (and noting that the number of marriages had actually increased). Whatever the numbers, however, politicians and public opinion have latched onto the idea that bachelors and -- heaven help us! -- spinsters are proliferating.

Certainly, men and women across the region are getting married at a later age and, in some countries and socioeconomic groups, aren't marrying at all. Yet it's hard to gauge the true extent of the phenomenon, just as it was a hundred years ago. Kholoussy doesn't present figures on the incidence of marriage in early 20th-century Egypt (when many marriages may have gone unregistered). She suggests that the crisis was largely imaginary, but she also more or less argues that it doesn't matter -- that the debate offers a fascinating window into "contested national identity formation" and "visions of modern marriage." Still, the question of whether the crisis was based in fact seems relevant, and one wishes she had at least tried to answer it.

What she does do is show how marriage -- viewed by Egypt's small, newly educated, emerging middle class as a "microcosm of the nation" -- can become a focal point for discussing wider economic concerns, cultural changes, and political demands. In the first three decades of the 20th century, Egypt's economy was battered by a series of crises, including a drop in the price of cotton, World War I, and the Great Depression. Inflation was rampant, and many complained -- like Abaza -- that they could not afford to marry. Men were expected (just as they are today) to provide their new bride with an independent home, to support her in a style commensurate with her upbringing, and to pay a dowry that could be several times their yearly salary.

Some observers blamed women and their families for their exorbitant demands; others blamed bachelors for squandering their money at coffeehouses or with prostitutes. Writers in Egypt's burgeoning national press wondered whether the problem wasn't the lack of educated women, capable of being proper mates; others claimed that it was precisely women's education -- their new, forward, Western ways -- that deterred men from marriage. Critics suggested legislating a maximum, affordable dowry and levying a tax on bachelors.

At the time, Egypt was under British control, and the debate was framed in nationalist terms. The male ability to establish an independent household was seen as paralleling the Egyptian need to establish independence from colonial rule. To marry was a patriotic duty. "A man who does not marry is like a deserter from the army," wrote one prominent columnist quoted in Kholoussy's book. Highlighting the marriage crisis was a way to critique British rule and foreign capitalists' control of the economy. It also expressed Egyptian men's anxieties regarding their future and their degree of control -- both over the country and over their rapidly changing female compatriots.

Much has changed in Egypt since then -- but reading Kholoussy's book, one can't help but be struck by the parallels with today's "marriage crisis." The expense of marriage -- in a country where unemployment is high and wages abysmally low -- continues to be a huge stumbling block. According to one study, getting married in Egypt in the late 1990s cost about $6,000, or four times the average per capita GDP of $1,490. Today, a whole generation of young Egyptians is in limbo, waiting to amass the necessary funds to enter marriage and the "adult" stage of their lives.

In the earlier debate, Kholoussy tells us, marriage -- the only legitimate sexual outlet in Muslim culture -- was seen as necessary to pacify and discipline "the single male subject who ostensibly bred crime and rebellion." Today, observers worry that delayed marriage is a "social time bomb" and link it to, among other things, the increased incidences of sexual harassment and the rise in religiosity.

Kholoussy shows how in the 1920s and 30s many argued that "the Westernization of Egyptian women was the real cause of the marriage crisis." Today, there are plenty of Egyptian conservatives ready to assert that the cause of the marriage crisis is that "girls nowadays don't seem to be concerned with getting married and raising a family; they want equality with men in building high-profile careers."

But there is a fundamental difference between the two marriage crises. In the first, the focus was on convincing men to marry, at a time when they were thought of as the only real agents in the matter. Today, the concern is just as much -- perhaps more -- with women. Kholoussy says that in the early 1900s, "Egyptians did not want to even speculate about the fate of a nation full of unwed women." Today, that speculation is rampant. And women themselves are discussing more openly than ever their choice to marry or remain single.

In 2008, an editor at a prestigious publishing house came across I Want to Get Married and turned it into a book. It was a sensation, selling one edition after another. Abdel Aal became a regular guest of Egypt's popular TV talk shows and now writes a column in one of the country's major newspapers. Meanwhile, women created a number of Facebook groups dedicated to fighting the stigma of being a "spinster" or simply explaining the many reasons why they hesitate to enter marriage. These include the determination to marry men with their same (dramatically expanding) educational and professional accomplishments and the fear of an unhappy union ending in divorce, which affects a third of Egyptian marriages in the first year and is governed by laws that remain deeply unfair to women.

So is there a marriage crisis in Egypt today? Certainly the phenomenon of delayed marriage in Egypt is real, and it's based on an entrenched mix of economic constraint and social expectation. But the hysteria over the rise of spinsters is probably no more than the product of a deep-seated anxiety over women's new roles and demands. A hundred years ago in Egypt, Kholoussy tells us, "women's foremost purpose was to become marriageable." For a growing and vocal minority of Egyptian women, this is no longer the case -- and that's not necessarily a crisis at all.

Ursula Lindsey is a Cairo-based freelance journalist and a contributor to the blog arabist.net.

Ex-spies still agitated over CIA's Afghan losses

By Jeff Stein
March 22, 2010; 1:10 PM ET
The Washington Post

Nearly three months after an al-Qaeda double agent obliterated an important CIA team in Afghanistan, veteran spies remain agitated over the incident and the agency’s seeming inability to fix longtime operational flaws.

The latest eruption over the Dec. 30 incident that killed seven CIA officers and contractors in a powerful suicide fireball comes from Robert Baer, the former clandestine operations officer who has been pillorying his former employer in books, articles and television interviews since shortly the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But other agency veterans have been weighing in as well, and increasingly, on the record.

Writing in the April issue of GQ magazine, Baer depicts a spy agency where "the operatives' sun started to set" in the 1990s and never recovered.

So it was that the spy agency sent an analyst to do an operative's work in Khost, in desolate southeast Afghanistan, last year. Traditionally, the CIA's station chiefs, or top agency officer in a country, and its base chiefs, deployed in outlying offices, were veteran case officers, or seasoned spy handlers.

But under a series of CIA directors starting in the mid-1990s, that began to change. Career intelligence analysts, like John O. Brennan, now President Obama's deputy national security adviser for homeland security and counterterrorism, who was station chief in Saudi Arabia from 1996 to 1999, were increasingly deployed to field positions.

And Khost was the badlands. The base chief's lack of operational experience, lethally mixed with a lack of rigorous supervision from senior officials from CIA headquarters on down, got her killed, Baer and others think.

"She was 45 years old and a divorced mother of three. She'd spent the vast majority of her career at a desk in Northern Virginia, where she studied al-Qaeda for more than a decade," writes Baer. (The Washington Post has not revealed her name at the request of the CIA.)

Baer adds:

"Michael Scheuer, her first boss in Alec Station, the CIA unit that tracked bin Laden, told me she had attended the operative's basic training course at the Farm, the agency's training facility, and that he considered her a good, smart officer. Another officer who knew her told me that despite her training at the Farm, she was always slotted to be a reports officer, someone who edits reports coming in from the field. She was never intended to meet and debrief informants."

Critics like Baer were not suggesting that the slain woman was anything less than a dedicated and first-rate analyst, who had spent years refining her understanding of al-Qaeda.

To the contrary, they said, CIA officials were to blame for giving her an operational assignment for which she was out of her depth.

On Friday, CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said that "the agency continues to take a close, exacting look at the Khost attack. This organization learns both from its successes and its setbacks."

"It’s strange, though," he added, "to see people—in some cases people who left here many years ago—posing as experts on operational tradecraft in the Afghan war zones."

In an interview with The Washington Post published Sunday, CIA Director Leon Panetta said the attack was prompted by the administration's pursuit of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. "You can't just conduct the kind of aggressive operations we are conducting against the enemy and not expect that they are not going to try to retaliate," he said.

But a seasoned operative would have punched holes in her plan to bring Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi -- a Jordanian doctor who persuaded the CIA he could penetrate the top circles of al-Qaeda -- to the agency's base in Khost, counters Charles Faddis, a career operative who retired in 2008.

As it turned out, Balawi had been dispatched by al-Qaeda in Pakistan. When he was picked up by an agency security team, he stepped into the car wearing a suicide vest of explosives. They failed to pat him down -- another inexplicable lapse.

"It's not like we haven't picked up bad guys in bad parts of town before," said Faddis.

"The most inexplicable error was to have met Balawi by committee," writes Baer, whose exploits were dramatized in the George Clooney movie Syriana. "Informants should always be met one-on-one. Always."

A case officer would have never permitted such lapses, Faddis says.

"You have security guys to bring the guy in. They’re shooters, and God bless ‘em, they know how to shoot,” Faddis said in an interview. “But it’s the tradecraft that keeps you alive. And for that you need an experienced case officer in charge."

“A case officer is a god," Faddis added. "If he sniffs the air and says something doesn’t feel right and he calls the operation off, that’s it, it’s off. In this case, there wasn’t a serious case officer in charge."

Instead, desperate for a chance to get close to Osama Bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, agency officials from Khost up through Kabul to CIA headquarters in Langley -- at least a half dozen operations officials, at minimum -- failed to bullet-proof a pick-up plan that to veterans was as absurd then as it looks now.

And that's not counting the original sin of accepting Balawi as a real spy in the first place. The longtime anti-American doctor was served up by the Jordanian intelligence service, which claimed they had flipped him after a short stay in their custody.

The CIA bit -- hard.

Instead of eyeing Balawi like a Siamese cat might, toying with its prize, said one CIA veteran who asked not to be identified, it pounced on him like a happy golden retriever.

A U.S. official familiar with the operation defended the agency's handling of Balawi. "You have to strike a balance between your own safety and showing a measure—a measure—of respect for a source thought capable of unlocking some key doors. There was no rush or over-eagerness," the official maintained.

Back in 2002, a senior CIA official named Margaret Henoch fought vainly within the agency to derail its embrace of another bad source, the notorious "Curveball," an Iraqi exile who claimed Saddam Hussein possessed mobile biological weapons vans. That and other phony intelligence vetted by top CIA officials laid the foundation for the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq.

The CIA should have learned something from that, Henoch says.

"(I)t hasn't been fixed," Henoch said last week on the Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU-FM radio.

"I don't think they fixed the who-does-the-vetting" of potential spies, she added. "I think there are too many people who don't understand the basics of operational issues doing analytic work. I have a dear friend who was in the D.I. [directorate of intelligence] who says that a lot of the people over there don't understand they're in an intelligence agency instead of at a university."

According to multiple intelligence sources, no single, disinterested unit exists to vet the bona fides of potential recruits and challenge managers about the suitability of their targets.

"It's done by each branch or division manager," said one former CIA case officer, echoing others.

“It’s not being done the right way and there’s not enough of it," echoed Faddis, who among other assignments in a 25-year career led a CIA team into northern Iraq before the 2003 invasion. "I agree 100 per cent that it’s not being done, or not being done the right way."

Operational oversight was not helped by a switch at Kabul Station just prior to the Khost meeting. The outgoing CIA station chief, who had direct responsibility for the Khost base, was a former Army enlisted man dubbed "Spec-4" -- a low rank -- by case officers who held a dim view of his intelligence savvy. The man, whose name is not being revealed by The Post, has since been appointed chief of the CIA's Special Activities Division, responsible for special covert and paramilitary operations, a well-informed source said.

The CIA refused to confirm the assignment, but a U.S. official who demanded anonymity to discuss the outgoing station chief defended him.

“You’re talking about a very seasoned operations officer and a proven senior leader," the official said. "He’s had multiple tours overseas in a range of difficult environments. He’s no stranger to the collection of intelligence in battlefield settings, and he’s been decorated for valor.... His service in the early 1980s as an enlisted member of the Special Forces only added to his understanding of how things actually function on the ground."

Paradoxically, one of the key officials in the chain of command, the chief of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, has a reputation for being a stickler for details. (His name is being withheld from publication at CIA request.)

“He would have had a whole lot of conversations about what was to be done," said Faddis, who was head of the CTC's terrorist weapons of mass destruction unit when he retired two years ago. He called the CTC chief "very competent."

"He has no use for middle managers of any kind," added Faddis. "It’s his strength and his weakness …He reads all the cable traffic, and if you work for him, you’re supposed to, too. Woe to you if you don’t.”

“I would have thought that he would have been down on the weeds on this thing, if only because there wasn’t a case officer in charge” of the Khost base, Faddis added.

Because that’s his style?

“Exactly."

In another irony, Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Dianne Feinstein of California, demanded that Panetta retain career operations officer Stephen R. Kappes as his deputy because of his experience in clandestine matters.

At the top, at least, this was the CIA's A-Team.

Amid searing criticism after the disaster, Panetta wrote an opinion piece for The Washington Post saying the grievous losses in Khost were the cost of doing business in a bad part of the world.

"We have found no consolation ... in public commentary suggesting that those who gave their lives somehow brought it upon themselves because of 'poor tradecraft,'" Panetta wrote. "That's like saying Marines who die in a firefight brought it upon themselves because they have poor war-fighting skills."

No, say many CIA veterans, unanimously. it's saying Marines can die because of poor leadership.

Panetta's remarks, which were intended to cool the anger over Khost, only incensed old hands, some of whom thought someone in the organization should pay at least a small price for the deaths of their colleagues on the bitter plains of Khost.

But none expected it.

“I heard reference to some a review of some kind, but that’s all," Faddis said, "Nobody thinks heads are going to roll."

Baer said it was "tempting" to think the CIA was beyond repair, emphasizing that the country needs a first-rate intelligence service, however daunting a task that has proven to be.

"The United States still needs a civilian intelligence agency. (The military cannot be trusted to oversee all intelligence-gathering on its own.)," he wrote for GQ. "But the CIA—and especially the directorate of operations—It must be stripped down to its studs and rebuilt with a renewed sense of mission and purpose."

"It should start by getting the amateurs out of the field," Baer added. "And then it should impose professional standards of training and experience—the kind it upheld with great success in the past. If it doesn't, we're going to see a lot more Khosts."

CIA spokesman Gimigliano dismissed the complaints of Baer and other ex-operatives. "They don’t have all the facts of this case, yet they criticize those who were on the front lines on December 30th, including some whose lives were taken."

Such criticism, the spokesman said, is "disgraceful."

In the fight over settlements, who are Israel's real friends?

By Stephen M. Walt
The Washington Post
Sunday, March 21, 2010; B04

When Vice President Biden arrived in Israel on March 8, seeking to smooth U.S. ties with the Netanyahu government and jump-start peace talks, he began by reaffirming America's "absolute, total, unvarnished commitment to Israel's security." The nearly simultaneous announcement by Israel that it plans to build another 1,600 homes in disputed East Jerusalem was not the warm embrace he was expecting.

Biden's riposte -- that Israel's actions threaten U.S. interests in the region and possibly endanger U.S. military forces there -- was a rare public admission that U.S. and Israeli interests are not identical. And the predictable accusations that followed the diplomatic slap heard 'round the world have exposed a growing rift in the pro-Israel community in the United States, between supporters of a two-state solution and defenders of the status quo.

On one side stands the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), whose annual policy conference begins Sunday, along with other hard-line groups such as the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Anti-Defamation League. Over the past week, they've questioned the Obama administration's handling of the dispute and portrayed the president as insufficiently supportive of the Jewish state.

On the other side groups such as J Street and Americans for Peace Now, which have defended the administration's position and called for firm U.S. leadership to end the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

In this case, it is the latter organizations and President Obama who have Israel's and America's true interests at heart. Whatever you think of its strategy or its tactics, the Obama administration is genuinely committed to achieving a two-state solution, which is hardly an act of hostility toward Israel. On the contrary, for Obama to keep this difficult and time-consuming issue on his already crowded agenda is an extraordinary act of friendship -- especially when friendship means speaking difficult truths.

Here's why: Both former prime minister Ehud Olmert and current Defense Minister Ehud Barak have warned that if the two-state solution fails, then Israel can remain a Jewish-majority state only by denying voting rights to most of the Palestinians under its control. In Barak's words, Israel would become an "apartheid state."

Instead of helping Israel drive off that cliff, the Obama administration is trying to prevent that outcome. It knows that the relentless expansion of Israel's settlements makes a two-state solution impossible and that an end to building is essential. That includes East Jerusalem, whose annexation by Israel is not recognized by the United States (or anyone else).

A two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in the United States' strategic interest as well. "The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel," Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week. "Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples . . . [and] al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support. The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world."

A two-state solution wouldn't solve all U.S. challenges in the region, but it would make it easier to address most of them. It is also the best guarantee of Israel's long-term future. By showing real backbone this time and explaining to the American people why his approach is the right one, Obama could advance U.S. interests and be a true friend to the Jewish state.

AIPAC and the other groups supporting the status quo disagree. They think it is acceptable for Israel to continue expanding its control over Palestinian lands and believe that the United States should back Israel's actions unconditionally. And Christian Zionist organizations go further: They want Israel to control these lands forever because they think that will hasten the Second Coming.

Such groups are false friends of Israel, because the actions and stances they prefer will keep Israel on its dangerous path. They are also poor judges of U.S. interests, because the policies they favor aid terrorist recruitment, enhance Iran's influence in the region and make it harder to build effective coalitions with other Mideast states.

Speakers at the AIPAC conference will undoubtedly defend the special relationship and warn Washington against putting pressure on Israel. But this short-sighted approach would be a disaster for all sides. In her scheduled address to the conference, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton should reaffirm the U.S. commitment to Israel's existence but make it crystal clear that Washington will no longer tolerate Israel's self-defeating policy on settlements. She should explain unambiguously that Israel faces a choice: It can end the occupation, embrace a genuine two-state solution, preserve its democratic and Jewish character and remain a cherished U.S. ally. Or it can continue the occupation of the West Bank and the siege of Gaza -- a course that will eventually force it to abandon either its Jewish character or its democratic principles, and jeopardize its standing with its most important partner.

Israel's friends in America have a choice to make, too. The current crisis will get smoothed over, but more are bound to occur so long as the Palestinians do not have a viable state of their own.

The best way to prevent recurring fights between Washington and Jerusalem is for key groups in the pro-Israel community to back Obama's vision of "two states for two peoples" and to support him when he presses both sides to make peace. It would be wonderful if AIPAC and other like-minded groups put their considerable clout behind this vision, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Stephen M. Walt is the Belfer professor of international affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and a co-author of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy." This essay is adapted from his blog at http://walt.foreignpolicy.com.

Biden said: "You don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist. I also see myself as a Zionist."

US Vice President Joseph Biden First Visiting Foreign Dignitary to Lay Wreath at Tomb of Theodor Herzl

US Vice President Joe Biden, with wife Dr. Jill Biden, lay a wreath at the tomb of Theodor Herzl on Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem within the framework of activities to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Herzl. Jewish Agency March 11, 2010 / 25 Adar 5770 US Vice President Joe Biden was the first visiting foreign dignitary to lay a wreath at the tomb of Theodor Herzl on Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem within the framework of activities to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Herzl. Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, visited Mt. Herzl on Tuesday March 9, 2010. They were accompanied by World Zionist Organization Executive member Adv. Hagai Meirom and Director of the Mount Herzl site Jacob Gispan. The World Zionist Organization is responsible for the maintenance and development of Mt. Herzl and operates the adjacent Herzl Museum and educational center. Merom gave Biden a copy of Herzl's book, Altneuland, a novel devoted to Zionism. In response Biden said: "You don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist. I also see myself as a Zionist." Biden said he grew up in a Christian home in which his father taught him about the values of the Jewish people and that they are entitled to their own country. He said he participated in several meetings of the World Zionist Organization and assisted in raising funds for the organization. In the guest book near Herzl's grave, Biden wrote that he felt "profound respect for the man of vision." On June 15, 2010, the 36th Zionist Congress of the World Zionist Organization will convene in Jerusalem, 113 years since the First Zionist Congress in 1897.

US Lawmakers Stand Up Against Obama for Israel

By Hana Levi Julian

March 20. 2010 "IsraelNN" Mar. 18, 2010 -- U.S. Congressional lawmakers have flooded the White House and the media with letters and news releases complaining about the Obama administration’s unprecedented scolding of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. This, following an Israeli announcement last week that a routine housing project was proceeding apace in eastern Jerusalem.

Politicians from across the political spectrum called on President Barack Obama and his aides to tone down their attacks on Israel and start using a more even-handed approach when dealing with the Palestinian Authority.

Many pointed out the lopsided double standard used by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joseph Biden in harshly condemning Israel’s routine announcement of a zoning approval for new housing in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood in northwestern (mistakenly called east by most of the media) Jerusalem – a three-year-old project.

Their criticism was delivered as the PA government dedicated a public square to the memory of a brutal murderer who in 1979 led the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history, slaughtering 37 innocent civilians, including children.

Neither Biden nor Clinton came out with any public statement condemning the PA’s decision to go ahead with the ceremony naming a public square in the terrorist’s honor, nor the PA decision to follow up with a public study day in her memory two days later.

In a letter dated Wednesday, March 17, ten members of Congress told the president, “While your Administration clamors over the announcement of a proposed residential development years away from completion, Iran continues to develop its nuclear weapons capability and Hamas and Hizbullah rearm and reenergize. Remarks made by your Cabinet and advisors embolden Israel’s enemies – who are wholly committed to destroying the Jewish State – and undermine the critical relationship we have with our strongest ally for democracy and peace in the Middle East.”

Senator: Move US Embassy to Jerusalem
“It’s hard to see how spending a weekend condemning Israel for a zoning decision in its capital city amounts to a positive step towards peace,” U.S. Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) said dryly in a separate statement. “Rather than launching verbal attacks on our staunch ally and friend, it would be far more worthwhile for this Administration to expend the effort planning for the transfer of our embassy to Jerusalem and tackling the growing Iranian nuclear threat.”

U.S. Representative John Boozman (R-AR) went further, saying, “The Administration has lost focus on what has been the cornerstone of our foreign policy in the Middle East. We have an unbreakable bond with Israel, but the Administration is systematically eroding that relationship. The lack of clear objective and strategy by the Administration challenges and poses a security threat both in the Middle East as well as to our national security.”

In Obama's own party, U.S. Representative Shelley Berkley (D-NV) sent out a particularly scathing statement about the Administration’s “irresponsible overreaction” to Israel’s Interior Ministry’s awkward timing of its zoning announcement, which Obama advisor David Axelrod termed an “insult” and an “affront.” Berkley noted, “No doubt the administration’s overwrought rhetoric is designed to try to appease Palestinian politicians and convince them the U.S. is an honest partner in the peace process by seizing every available opportunity to criticize the actions of our ally Israel."

“That strategy also includes ignoring the myriad provocations by Palestinian leaders that make pursuing peace such a long and arduous process,” Berkley pointed out. “Where, I ask, was the Administration’s outrage over the arrest and month-long incarceration by Hamas of a British journalist who was investigating arms-smuggling into Gaza? Where was the outrage when the Palestinian Authority this week named a town square after a woman who helped carry out a massive terror attack against Israel? It has been the PA who has refused to participate in talks for over a year, not the government of Israel. Yet once again, no concern was lodged by the Administration. And, all the while, Hamas restocks its terror arsenal and fires rockets into Israel.”

Shelley added that the U.S. should be pursuing a process of fairness, “not a policy of constant appeasement and reinforcement of the Palestinians’ failings as legitimate partners in the peace process.”

The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) published a complete list of the politicians who issued statements in support of Israel.

U.S. Senate

Republicans

Arizona - John McCain (R-AZ)

Kansas - Sam Brownback (R-KS)

Nebraska - Mike Johanns (R-NE)

Independent

Connecticut - Joe Lieberman (I-CT)

Democrats

Maryland - Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD)

New York - Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)

Pennsylvania - Arlen Specter (D-PA)

U.S. House of Representatives

Republicans

Arizona - John Boozman (R-AR)

California - Mary Bono Mack (R-CA)

David Dreier (R-CA)

Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)

Florida - Gus Bilirakis (R-FL)

Connie Mack (R-FL)

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL)

Georgia - Tom Price (R-GA)

Ohio - Jim Jordan (R-OH)

John Boehner (R-OH)

Illinois - Mark Kirk (R-IL)

Indiana - Dan Burton (R-IN)

Mike Pence (R-IN)

Mark Souder (R-IN)

Kansas - Todd Tiahrt (R-KS)

Oregon - Greg Walden (R-OR)

Michigan - Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI)

Texas - John Carter (R-TX)

Pete Sessions (R-TX)

Virginia - Eric Cantor (R-VA)

Washington - Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA)

Democrats

California – Howard L. Berman (D-CA)

Florida - Ron Klein (D-FL)

Illinois - Mike Quigley (D-IL)

Michigan - Gary Peters (D-MI)

New Jersey - John Adler (D-NJ)

Robert Andrews (D-NJ)

Steve Rothman (D-NJ)

New York - Gary Ackerman (D-NY)

Eliot Engel (D-NY)

Steve Israel (D-NY)

Nita Lowey (D-NY)

Kevin McCarthy (D-NY)

Anthony Weiner (D-NY)

Nevada - Shelley Berkley (D-NV)

Pennsylvania - Chris Carney (D-PA)

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