By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – While the world fixes on developments in the Israel-Palestinian conflict—such as Tuesday’s trade of captured Israeli soldier Gilad
Shalit for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, some with blood on their hands— other important developments in the Middle East go unrecognized by the world media, especially a growing rivalry between Iran and Turkey.
This was the assessment of Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, in a telephone
interview Tuesday in anticipation of his appearance as the featured speaker Tuesday evening, Oct. 25, at the Men’s Event of the Jewish Federation of San
Diego County, to be held at the Broadway Pier Cruise Terminal.
Hoenlein said he plans to explore in depth the implications of the Turkish-Iranian rivalry during his speech at the fundraising event. But to share the flavor of his talk, he said that the leaders of both Iran and Turkey have dreams of reestablishing their nation’s past glories, respectively desiring to reincarnate the Persian and Ottoman Empires. In as much as the two territories at different times in history occupied the same Middle Eastern region, the two aspirations
are mutually exclusive. Because Iran is a Shi’ite power and Turkey a Sunni one, conflict appears between the two empire-builders appears inevitable, even though Turkey and Iran, for reasons of mutual convenience, now support each other.
He said the two countries have been cooperating in efforts to frustrate banking sanctions against Iran, with Turkey “making a lot of money out of it,” and also have attempted to win over Arab allies by championing Islamism and denouncing Israel.
At the same time, however, there is competition. Whereas Iran continues to be supportive of Syria, Turkey has denounced the Assad regime in the wake of its military crackdowns and arrests of Syrian protestors. Turkey even has threatened military action against Syria.
In Latin America, meanwhile, “Turkey is now opening airplane routes after Iran closed them down,” Hoenlein said, concluding “this rivalry is a very serious
factor, and we don’t know yet all the implications.”
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations is an umbrella organization and roundtable at which the leaders of many Jewish
organizations meet to share information on a regular basis. As the executive of the organization, Hoenlein is in a better position than most to keep track of developments in the United States and throughout the world affecting Jewish interests.
He had stayed up throughout the early morning hours New York time to watch on television Gilad Shalit’s return to the open arms of Israel after more than
five years of Hamas captivity in Gaza, acknowledging at the beginning of the interivew that he was a bit fatigued. However, he tackled an interviewer’s questions with detailed answers.
Was the trade of Shalit for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel a good deal or a bad one? Hoenlein was asked during the interview.
“Israel has always put value on human life and dignity,” he replied. Furthermore, Israel has “pledged to every soldier that it will do everything possible to bring them back, and they are living up to that commitment.” Anyone who knows Israel’s security concerns realizes it was not an easy decision for
the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to make. “The history of it is a recitivism rate of 50 percent, meaning that of those who were released in the past, 50 percent went back to acts of terror, and many of those released were responsible for the deaths of many Israelis.”
Notwithstanding the high price, Hoenlein said, the trade for Shalit was supported by a majority of Israelis, all of whom could empathize with the need to
liberate a son or a brother.
He added that the deal that Netanyahu made with the Palestinians was not substantially different—at least not in terms of the number of Palestinian
prisoners – that had been the subject of negotiations between former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Hamas. The fact that Israel and Hamas reached agreement this time—with some changes in the number of so-called “high value” prisoners included in the Palestinian contingent—may have resulted from a confluence of factors in the region, he suggested.
Among these was the fact that Hamas wanted to regain public opinion leadership and momentum among Palestinians after President Mahmoud Abbas of the rival Palestinian Authority made headlines, and gathered support, with his formal bid, now pending, for the United Nations to recognize Palestinian statehood over Israel’s objections, Hoenlein said.
In the Hamas-Irael negotiations, “Germany played a helpful role as a mediator; they have worked on this for a long time,” Hoenlein said. “The Egyptians also were very helpful. For them it was important to add to their prestige at a time when Egypt is going through these changes since the removal of (former President Hosni) Mubarek. It sort of reasserts the centrality of their role (in the Middle East) to pull this off. We don’t know what will happen after the election (in Egypt); perhaps if the Moslem Brotherhood really gains a significant position it could limit what future governments could do.”
Another factor that may have prompted Hamas to accept the deal was the fact that its leader, Khaled Meshaal, who lives in Syria, is “on notice that if Assad falls, he may have to leave” and would no longer have a safe haven there, Hoenlein said “So for them, if they have to move, they know by making this deal, it enhances the possibility that someone else would take them. As long as Shalit was not released it made it more difficult.”
Did domestic demonstrations in Israel also play a role in persuading Netanyahu to make a deal?
“Look,” replied Hoenlein, “they have been negotiating this for many years, so it is not really tied to any domestic situation…. Obviously it helps
Netanyahu when a vast majority of the people support him, but there is also the risk—God forbid—that there is a terrorist attack, using these people. It would be a political liability.”
Hoenlein was asked to describe the status of the Palestinian bid at the U.N. for statehood, and to indicate how he thought it might play out.
“I think that we may see some sort of movement by Abbas now to regain the central position away from Hamas by moving to the General Assembly, because
right now at the Security Council he does not have the nine necessary affirmative votes for it to pass,” Hoenlein said. “Even were it to pass, he knows the United States would veto it. So he is not going to get it through the Security Council. He may wait until the elections of the Security Council, which are later this month, to see if the next group of members will be more amenable to the Palestinian application.
“But he has two alternatives,” Hoenlein continued. “One is to go to the General Assembly for elevated status there, perhaps enough to qualify them to be able to go to the International Criminal Court, which has always been one of their major goals, because he wants to bring war crimes and other charges against Israel. You have to be a member state to do it, but the leader (Luis Moreno Ocampo) of the International Criminal Court has said that even if they get Non-Member Observer State Status, they would be eligible to come before the International Criminal Court to bring charges.”
“Second, (there is) that which already has started with UNESCO, and that is going to the specialized agencies and applying for membership and trying to create de facto equivalence of membership by gaining recognition and admission to these specialized agencies. This still does not create a state, and even if you get recognition, and the General Assembly votes, it doesn’t change anything on the ground except that it could trigger a cut in U.S. aid (to the Palestinians), significant cuts. The Congress voted overwhelmingly, unanimously in the Senate, and 406-7 in the House, and the (Palestinian) people are going to ask, ‘What has changed? Why did we lose this aid?” which is vital to them, ‘if nothing has changed, why did we put ourselves through this. if there is no change on the ground?’ They don’t have borders, they don’t have the infrastructure of a state; you don’t have a lot of things that determines a state, that a state requires.
“So passing in the General Assembly could leave them in a position of having to answer that,” Hoenlein said. “Having raised expectations, they also could raise frustrations and that is a volatile thing.”
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com