Yes You Can, Mr. President

The views shared on The Mideast Peace Pulse are those of the author(s) and not those of Israel Policy Forum.

Israel Policy Forum Announces its Next Chapter with Middle East Progress

By Israel Policy Forum
Tuesday, January 19, 2010 - 3:52pm

Dear Friends and Supporters of Israel Policy Forum:

On behalf of Israel Policy Forum (IPF), including our President Peter Joseph and Chair Larry Zicklin, I am pleased to inform you that IPF is embarking on its next chapter. 

2010 Must Be Showtime for Mideast Peace

By David Halperin
Assistant Director, IPF - NY
Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - 12:27pm

As 2009 draws to a close, we are bombarded by the annual litany of commentary features recapping the year in Hollywood movies to the year in international conflict, and everything in between.

When it comes to the Middle East peace process, current conventional wisdom suggests the 2009 recap might go something like this: 

US-Iran Negotiations: Simulation Exercise at INSS

By Institute for National Security Studies
Tuesday, December 29, 2009 - 9:45am

Ephraim Asculai, Emily B. Landau, and Tamar Malz-Ginzburg

INSS Insight No. 154, December 29, 2009

Despite the tendency to denote any simulation exercise on security issues a "war game," the recent simulation designed and held at INSS did not focus on the option of a military attack. Rather, it developed the scenario of a bilateral US-Iranian negotiation over Iran's nuclear program.

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Did Israel Intentionally Undermine Obama's Outreach To Iran?

MJ Rosenberg
former Washington Director of Policy Analysis, Israel Policy Forum
Posted March 21, 2009 - 9:14am

Yesterday, when the New York Times inexplicably gave Shimon Peres' insulting message to Iran equal play with President Obama''s, I thought it might be no coincidence.

Peres, who is an uberhawk on Iran, suddenly sends "greetings" to the Iranian people urging them to rise up against their government at the same moment that Obama respectfully addressed the "Islamic Republic of Iran" with the most conciliatory US message in decades.  Coincidence? Maybe.

Of course, the Iranians would not view it that way.  They would see America and Israel playing "good cop, bad cop," diminishing the effect of Obama's remarkable overture.

I hear that the White House is furious.   

Today's Times reports that when asked about the Israeli move, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, "I know we notified our allies about our message last evening," saying he did not know if the Israelis had been notified.

Of course, they were.  No other ally is as concerned about Iran as Israel so Jerusalem must have been at the top of the list of those notified.

Did it respond with a hasty and insulting message iin order to kill the effect of President Obama's?  If so, it was a serious breach.  If the shoe was on the other foot, Jerusalem would go ballistic.

Some reporter needs to develop a tick-tock on this one. We need to know what happened.  If it was an innocent coincidence, fine.  If it wasn't, it bodes ill for any US attempt to mend relations with Iran (and prevent an Iranian bomb diplomatically rather than by attempting and failing through military means).

 

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Messages to Iran

Submitted by Leanderthal on March 24, 2009 - 11:05am.

 M.J.

I continue to be heartened as I read the views of you and your IPF colleagues.  I only wish that the MSM gave you guys at least the same space as the Neocon/AIPAC people.

Seems as though the editorial boards of the Times and WaPo are not your friends. As for the AP, Geesh!

I've tried to keep the Chas Freeman tragedy alive on my own little blog,

http://leesvoicecryinginthewilderness.blogspot.com.

I was disgusted that Obama left him to twist in the wind by making no public comment on the character assassination. 

Lee, Cape Cod

aka Leanderthal, Lighthouse Keeper

 

 

 

Obama video: "coordinated" with Israel or co-opted by Peres?

Submitted by Profco on March 22, 2009 - 10:24am.

Great column, MJ.  Keep us posted on whether the "coordinator" is ever found.

Gibbs does not sound particularly furious to me. I wish he did, and I also wish I knew the experts who dared to actual suggest the "potential to dilute the effect" of Peres' message and why they are not being quoted in their own names.  The chilling effect of the Chas Freeman brouhaha perhaps?  If only Dennis Ross would have been subject to the same scrutiny!

I've been monitoring this saga as it unfolds, and have very little doubt that Shimon Peres' subversion of Obama's Nowruz message was as deliberate as it was destructive.  It is also obvious that Peres' surprise address to Iranians to overthrow their elected leaders

 

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