Reopening-- Italy, Spain, Saudi Arabia...

A Hajj gets much more crowded than a Trump rally-- or inauguration

I lived abroad for 7 years and I'm a "member" of the century club (meaning I've been to over 100 countries). When I was still in my twenties and people asked me to name my favorite countries, it would always be Afghanistan, Morocco, Nepal and Ceylon (since re-named Sri Lanka). Over the years the only constant has been Morocco. There's too much air pollution in Kathmandu to go back; too much violence in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka... well, I would go back for a 4th times but... but my favorites now would have to be Italy, France, Spain, Thailand, Bali, Morocco.

Two of my traveling buddies, Roland and David, keep asking when we can go out on the road again and where. For me, it's going to be not for a long time until I even leave my house for more than a hike in the hills behind it and a weekly trip-- in my beekeepers outfit-- to the grocery store. I don't see an airplane ride in my immediate future. But... I sure am hankering for the Monto neighborhood behind the Forum where Roland and I rented a two bedroom-two bathroom apartment in the Palazzo del Grillo last we were in Rome, a week for what it would cost for a night in an equivalent hotel. (As I wrote at my travel blog 10 years ago, we didn't have the Frette sheets or the fancy towels but with what you save, you can afford to buy them and take them home! And after a few days you start to feel like you're part of the neighborhood and that you're living a normal life, not just a time and space cut-out from reality.

Italy was badly hit by the pandemic. The country had 238,720 confirmed cases (9th worse in the world), 34,657 deaths (4th worst after the U.S., Brazil and the U.K.) and 3,948 cases per million, in the population (32nd worst in the world and about the same as Texas, except Texas is just at the beginning of its battle with the pandemic and Italy is pretty much finished).

Erica Firpo lives in Rome and writes for the Washington Post. Over the weekend she made the point that Rome is ready for visitors again but that the restaurants look different. "As Italy opens up to its residents, Europe and eventually the rest of the world," she wrote, "businesses in Rome are trying to figure out how to navigate an Eternal City without the daily traffic of tourists and full offices. The centro storico, Rome’s historic center, has long relied on tourism to support many of its restaurant and food services. Opening doors again isn’t easy; restaurants are experiencing a new atmosphere thanks to changed personalities and limited tourism. Some are investing in invigorating the local community, while others are simply trying to move forward. As Rome slowly acquaints itself with the city’s new landscape, these restaurants, cafes and markets are doing their best to evolve in the city’s new landscape.

Community first

RetroBottega one of the city’s innovators for its focus on materie prime (locally sourced, raw and organic fruit and vegetables), closed its restaurant, wine bar and pasta lab along with the rest of the country on March 8. Owners Giuseppe Lo Iudice and Alessandro Miocchi quickly pivoted to support the team that supports them, i.e. its staff and its farmers, and to support the historic center’s community.

“We reached out to the community that wasn’t able [or didn’t want] to shop in the supermarket, that wanted quality,” says RetroBottega’s Lo Iudice. Reconfiguring into RetroDelivery, a CSA-structured produce delivery service, RetroBottega reached out to local residents to offer fresh produce delivery via WhatsApp.

It wasn’t easy at first, but the neighborhood quickly caught on and loved the personalized grocery service with the RetroBottega vibe. Miocchi, the pasta brain, expanded the repertoire to include fresh bread, and now RetroDelivery delivers gourmet products, meat, fish, and freshly made pasta and breads thanks to a collaboration with Roscioli, as well as a local butcher and local fish vendor.

The Roscioli family, four generations of bakers, is one of the cornerstone’s of the Campo de’ Fiori neighborhood. Roscioli is now a local empire with a coffee shop, bakery and restaurant/gourmet delicatessen.

During the lockdown, while the closed-to-public cafe organized coffee deliveries, the bakery kept its doors open and provided home deliveries of such items as homemade yeast and pizza dough.

“Bread has a social weight; we have to provide it,” explains baker PierLuigi Roscioli. In fact, he personally delivered bread to his patrons, which inspired the community and showed that there was some normalcy in a surreal situation.

Aligning with RetroBottega was a natural fit for Roscioli, as both are dedicated to providing top-quality products and investing and supporting the local community by continuing to cater, in all senses of the word, to its needs.

“We are rooted in this neighborhood; we can’t abandon it. We grew up here. It was unfathomable to think that we wouldn’t stay open. For us, it’s not about economics, but it’s a duty to our community,” says PierLuigi.

A return to dining

All’aperto (alfresco dining) is one of every Romans favorite expressions. We love eating outside, but not every restaurant has that possibility, and the new social distancing regulations and personal hesitations make indoor dining an afterthought, at best.

RetroBottega reopened its restaurant, wine bar and pasta lab but not quite as it was before. Lo Iudice and Miocchi refocused their menu by creating pizzas-- inventive and made with prime materie and antipasti. Roscioli Salumeria, the brothers’ tiny restaurant, restructured its tables and, like everyone else, requires advance reservations.

It's not an ideal situation, and not helped by the fact that Romans are not as active as tourists in dining out. To some, this is the perfect time to experience restaurants whose wait lists are weeks long, but to restaurant owners, the next few months are a precarious tight rope.

One establishment that intensely feels the effects of the pandemic’s full stop is Pizzeria Remo a Testaccio, an inexpensive, cult-favorite pizzeria in the Testaccio neighborhood. Right now, the usually busy pizzeria is quiet. Regular clients are not interested in sitting inside, whether scared of being too close or offset by the summer heat, and for those that potentially want to return, they are dissuaded by social distancing settings that make dining a lot less fun.

“Unfortunately, most people come to the pizzeria as a group of friends and family, and now would have to sit distanced from each other. Are they going to tell jokes using WhatsApp?” asks partner Antonio Amato.

Roman constants

Rome is not Rome without gelato, and during the lockdown, many gelaterie teamed up with delivery services to provide the treat to homes all over the city. Giolitti, the 120-year-old gelateria best known for its 57 flavors as well as its crowds, was this journalist’s go-to delivery for cioccolato fondente (dark chocolate) during the lockdown.

Closing its doors completely was not an option, describes Nazareno Giolitti.

“Giolitti has only been closed only a half-day when my grandfather passed away and another half-day when my father passed away. Why? Because my grandparents always said we are public service. Our feelings come second to that of the people,” he says. Giolitti maintained its staff by alternately hours, and immediately focused on at home gelato delivery.

When Italy slowly opened, Giolitti was prepared with take away coffee drinks, pastries and gelato.

“We are a tradition. A line will return and it’s our responsibility to keep it organized,” Giolitti says. But Giolitti notes that as a heritage establishment that owns its space, the gelateria is luckier than most other businesses that are struggling to pay rents and salaries.

Giolitti is now fully reopened, and the line has returned.

Traditional cafes are the staple of any Italian city. They are where we meet and greet in the morning for a quick chat and fast counter service. Although bars and cafes have been open for nearly two months, the normal routine is nothing like before. Along with social distancing protocols, which reduce the amount of people at the counter, Rome updated business hours to three time slots during May and June, where non-food-related shops (like clothing) open at 11 a.m., which means less morning traffic from incoming staff.

Bar del Cappuccino, a beloved hole-in-the wall on Via Arenula, is waiting for the foot traffic to return, like every other bar in the city center.

“Our faithful clientele has returned. And since tourists aren’t traveling, we are reaching out to local businesses,” says owner Adriano Santoro, who keeps in touch with the local community with Facebook posts and offering home delivery as well as takeaway service. “We’re all waiting to see how this moves forward.”

It sounds she could be describing Los Feliz, the neighborhood in Los Angeles where I live and where things are slowly, in some cases fitfully, starting to reopen. I haven't even thought about going back to a restaurant myself and have a feeling it may be a very long time before I do. Spain, which was also devastated by the pandemic is also starting to reopen for tourists. Overall, it was the 6th worst-hit in terms of overall cases (293,584) and 6th worse in terms of deaths (28,324). There have been cases 6,279 per million, not as bad as the U.S. (7,210) but about the same as Alabama (6,123), which is spiking, while Spain is finishing up. Saturday Spain reported a diminishing 363 new cases, while Alabama reported a rising 547. Yesterday Spain ended its 3 months-long state of emergency "allowing in tourists from most of Europe," reported The Post, but warning that hygiene measures must be followed to avoid a second wave... The move will mean Spaniards can move around the country as normal and will allow some relief for the country’s decimated tourism industry. Tourists from Britain, who make up the largest proportion of visitors to Spain each year, will also be allowed to enter without a 14-day quarantine, Foreign Affairs Minister Arancha González Laya told the BBC. However, some on holiday may be put off by having to isolate for two weeks when they return to Britain, in line with current regulations. González Laya urged Britain to implement reciprocal measures. Spain will begin to welcome visitors from outside the European Union from July 1, depending on the level of outbreak in their home countries." (I think that means they will not be allowing U.S. visitors.

The Gulf States are all among the worst hit in the world, by any metric. These are the countries listed by cases per million and with their total cases in parentheses:

• Qatar- 31,485 cases per million, worst in the entire world (88,403 total cases)
• Bahrain- 13,187 (22,407)
• Kuwait- 9,439 (40,291)
• Oman- 6,091 (31,076)
• UAE- 4,582 (45,303)
• Saudi Arabia- 4,627 (161,005)
• Iran- 2,472 (207,525)
• Iraq- 813 (32,676)

1,267 Saudis have died. I've never been there and it isn't high up on my bucket-list since it isn't hospitable to non-Muslim tourists. But despite a seriously soaring case load, they're in the process of also reopening. Again, The Post reporting. As of yesterday curfews and other restrictions imposed to fight the pandemic, were ended after 73 days of lockdown. This is insane because their infection rate is rising and there is no metric that suggests they should be reopening.

The Post's Paul Schemm reported that "Travel to and from the country remains banned, as do gatherings of more than 50 people. Mask use will continue to be mandatory outside... Sports facilities have also been reopened, but there are strict social distancing and hygiene protocols meant to prevent the further spread of the virus. Taxi rides for instance will be permitted, but payment must be by credit card rather than cash. The 1,500 mosques in the city of Mecca, the focus of an annual pilgrimage by more than 2 million Muslims a year, also reopened on Sunday. Mosques elsewhere in the country had reopened last month. Authorities have not yet announced if the annual Hajj pilgrimage set for the end of July will go forward as normal, but it is widely expected to either be canceled or severely curtailed in numbers."

Allowing the Hajj-- if people came (2.5 million did last year)-- would have been the biggest super-spreader of the virus on earth. Today the government announced a "very limited number of pilgrims"-- and just people already living in Saudi Arabia-- will be participating. (Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei and Malaysia had already announced that their citizens would not be going on the Hajj this year.) The Saudis have been worried about riling up the psycho extremists (their version of the Trumpist base) for whom religion trumps health concerns. There are more than 7,400,000 foreign workers, many just one small step up from slaves, living in Saudi Arabia, the majority from India, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Pakistan and other poor South Asian countries. Most live in horribly overcrowded quarters and in ideal conditions for the virus to spread. The Saudis will put together a quota system allowing only certain numbers from each nationality to take part.

Everything Is Not Back To Normal Yet, But If We Pull Together And All Work Hard... Maybe Sometime In 2021

Death Of A Salesman by Nancy Ohanian

Americans so desperately want everything to go back to pre-pandemic normal that they're going to make the pandemic much worse. It's not a TV show with a happy ending; this reality could get a lot worse. In fact, it already is. There are still around 20,000 new confirmed cases in the U.S. everyday. With early frontline states New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Louisiana, Michigan, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland and Delaware starting to get the outbreak under control, focus has moved south and west and the new frontline states are California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Virginia, Tennessee, the Carolinas, the Dakotas, Arizona, New Mexico, Iowa, Nebaska, Arkansas and Wisconsin.

A few days ago a piece at Axios by Felix Salmon caught my attention. Largely because of weak, confused anti-government Republican governance, Americans are abandoning whatever there was of mask wearing and social distancing. Salmon noted that we're "about to embark upon the most momentous social experiment in living memory: What happens when you take laissez-faire economic principles and apply them to public health?" The central tenet of capitalism is that when millions of people make their own individual risk/reward calculations, the result is superior to top-down decision-making by the government. But that isn't what epidemiologists are saying about the pandemic, not with America continuing to see tens of thousands of new coronavirus cases every day. And not with so few of them resulting in a comprehensive contact-tracing review. "Given the amount of virus in the population,"he wrote, "there's a non-negligible probability that any of us could be unknowingly infectious today. Americans react to this uncertainty in line with their own idiosyncratic risk appetite. Younger folks, in particular, tend to be happier making riskier decisions, as do people like undercover police officers. As businesses reopen, decisions about things like whether to step into a crowded elevator will be made on a bottom-up rather than a top-down basis. Some people will be willing; others won't. (Both sides will view the other group as outliers.) Governors can't simply decree that business is back to usual. So long as a significant proportion of society is unwilling to resume economic activity, employment and GDP will remain depressed. Countries with more forceful and effective government responses have been able to bring the rate of infection down to a level at which most citizens can reasonably feel safe from the disease. That's not going to happen here-- and it's not going to happen in places like Brazil, India, or Mexico, either."

The biggest daily spikes are no longer in Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Belgium or any of the European countries that were hit so hard right off the bat. These are the countries with the biggest one-day reports-- over a thousand-- Thursday (first number) and Friday (second number):

• Brazil +31,890... +30,136
• U.S. +22,268... +25,393
• India +9,889... +9,471
• Russia +8,831... +8,726
• Pakistan +4,801... +3,985
• Chile +4,664... +4,207
• Peru +4,284... +4,202
• Mexico +3,912... +4,442
• Iran +3,574... +2,886
• South Africa +3,267... +2,642
• Bangladesh +2,423... +2,828
• Saudi Arabia +1,975... +2,591
• U.K. +1,805... +1,650
• Colombia +1,766... +1,515
• Qatar +1,581... +1,754
• Egypt +1,152... +1,358
• Sweden +1,080... +1,056

Salmon noted that as bad as the global picture is-- and it is really bad outside of Western Europe and East Asia-- "the U.S. has failed to hammer down the rate of new infections, which remain around 20,000 per day even as most states begin to come out of lockdown. Some states, such as Arizona [plus Texas and Florida], are seeing new record highs, even as the National Institutes of Health warns that a warm and humid summer won't help dampen the spread of the disease.





I keep talking with people who want to end sheltering in place for themselves. Big mistake-- not just for themselves and their circles, but for society. There is a safe way to reopen and an unsafe way. Trump's excuse for "leadership" is guaranteeing that the U.S. is reopening in the least safe way possible. Look at the new cases in the original half dozen worst hit western European nations:

• Spain +318
• Italy +518
• Germany +491
• France +611
• Belgium +140
• Netherlands +210

Compare that to the half dozen Trump states that have most strenuously ignored social distancing and safe practices and safe reopening guidelines:

• Texas +2,080
• Florida +1,305
• Georgia +774
• Arizona +1,579
• Iowa +355
• South Carolina +448

Drew Jones wrote an interesting piece about airplane travel for the Washington Post yesterday. After having resumed flights just over a week ago, Lion Air just down again yesterday. The company said that did so because passengers refused to follow health protocols.

According to data from [Indonesia's] Central Statistics Agency, domestic flight volume was down 82 percent in April, with 838,100 passenger on flights, compared with 4.6 million in March. International travel numbers were worse, with a 95 percent drop in passengers leading to 26,000 fliers last month as opposed to 558,700 in the month of March.

Lion Air has promised to monitor the coronavirus outbreak to keep the company’s “flight operations under applicable provisions of safety and security aspects,” and to “continue to implement health protocols according to the provisions” that prevent the spread of covid-19, but for now there’s no date set for when air travel will resume.

This week, Business Traveller reported that American Airlines is resuming flights from Dallas to Dublin July 7 and from Charlotte, LAX, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Raleigh to London beginning August 5-- as well as flights from Charlotte to Munich, JFK to Paris and Madrid, Miami to Madrid Rio and Sao Paulo, Chicago to Athens, Barcelona and Dublin, and Philadelphia to Madrid and Zurich. There is already one daily flight from JFK to Heathrow operating. American is also restarting many domestic flights and reopening some of their Admirals Club lounges-- as well as offering double their virtually worthless AAdvantage miles for customers who are crazy enough to fly before September 30 (and book during June).

Turkish Airlines resumed domestic flights this week-- despite serious and ongoing COVID-spikes-- and will start flying to 40 counties this month. Although the pandemic is out of control in much of the Middle East, Emirati, Emirates and Etihad Airlines are all flying internationally again. New confirmed cases in the Middle East reported yesterday:

• Iran +2,886 (1,992 cases per million)
• Saudi Arabia +2,591 (2,753 cases per million)
• Qatar +1,754 (23,326 cases per million)
• Egypt +1,348 (304 cases per million)
• Turkey +930 (1,998 cases per million)
• Oman +770 (2,960 cases per million)
• Iraq +1,006 (245 cases per million)
• UAE +624 (3,809 cases per million)
• Kuwait +723 (7,183 cases per million)
• Bahrain +539 (8,155 cases per million)

Although Israel, which has been relatively strict about social distancing rules and has made some good progress in containing the pandemic, doesn't allow non-Israelis to enter the country, Air Canada, Delta, Lufthansa and Wizz (a neo-Nazi airline based in Budapest) have restarted flights to Tel-Aviv. (United never stopped flying there.) Israelis who fly into the country must self-quarantine for 2 weeks. Israel is considering allowing non-citizens to start flying into the country again June 15.

Bernie Seeks To Re-exert American World Leadership Where Trump Has Abandoned It Entirely-- And Dangerously

George Washington's Continental Army "manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over airports."

On July 4, Trump congratulated the Revolutionary Army for taking over the airports in 1781. A week earlier Foreign Affairs published a piece by Bernie Sanders, Ending America’s Endless War-- We Must Stop Giving Terrorists Exactly What They Want. He wrote that we've "been at war for too long. Even today, we seem to be preparing for a new war with Iran, which would be the worst yet." He expressed deep concern how Trump's moves against Iran, and Iran’s moves in response, could put us in direct conflict-- intentionally or not. "We should all understand that a war with Iran,"he continued, "would be many times worse than the Iraq war. U.S. military leaders and security experts have repeatedly told us that. If the United States were to attack Iran, Tehran could use its proxies to retaliate against U.S. troops and partners in Iraq, Syria, Israel, and the Persian Gulf area. The result would be the further, unimaginable destabilization of the Middle East, with wars that go on year after year and likely cost trillions of dollars." Bernie called for taking a step back and rethinking "what we are doing, both in Iran and in the broader Middle East. In the nearly two decades since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the United States has made a series of costly blunders that have not only weakened our democracy but also undermined our leadership. We need a foreign policy that focuses on core U.S. interests, clarifies our commitment to democratic values both at home and abroad, and privileges diplomacy and working collectively with allies to address shared security concerns."

The United States invaded Afghanistan in response to the worst terrorist attack in our country’s history, and with a specific purpose: to bring justice to those who planned the 9/11 attacks and those who supported them, and to make sure that such an attack would never happen again. Our military has now been in Afghanistan for nearly 18 years.

Instead of staying focused on those who attacked us, President George W. Bush’s administration chose to declare a global “war on terror” in order justify its 2003 invasion of Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. The war on terror has turned into an endless war. We will soon have troops fighting in Afghanistan who were not even born on September 11, 2001. We have fathers who completed tours of duty there, only to be followed by their sons and daughters. Withdrawing from Afghanistan is something we must do. My administration will not make critical foreign-policy decisions like this one via tweet, as our current president does. We will work closely with our partners and allies to design a serious diplomatic and political strategy to stabilize the region, promote more effective and accountable governance, and ensure that threats do not re-emerge after we leave.

But just to end our military interventions in these places is not enough. We need to rethink the militaristic approach that has undermined the United States’ moral authority, caused allies to question our ability to lead, drained our tax coffers, and corroded our own democracy. We must never again engage in torture or indefinite detention, and we must limit the use of drone strikes that too often result in high numbers of civilian casualties, boosting the very terrorist organizations that we aim to defeat. And we must seriously reinvest in diplomacy and development aid, both of which have been allowed to atrophy under the current administration. Addressing issues like civil and religious tension, corruption, and lack of opportunity before these conditions give rise to conflict can eliminate the need to address them militarily in the future.

Terrorism is a very real threat, which requires robust diplomatic efforts, intelligence cooperation with allies and partners, and yes, sometimes military action. But as an organizing framework, the global war on terror has been a disaster for our country. Orienting U.S. national-security strategy around terrorism essentially allowed a few thousand violent extremists to dictate the foreign policy of the most powerful nation on earth. We responded to terrorists by giving them exactly what they wanted.

The war on terror has also been staggeringly wasteful. According to the most recent study by the Costs of War Project at Brown University, it will have cost American taxpayers more than $4.9 trillion through the end of this fiscal year. Factoring in the future health-care costs of veterans injured in post-9/11 wars, the bill will be closer to $6 trillion. And even after this enormous expense, the world has more terrorists now, not fewer. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, there were nearly four times as many Sunni Islamic militants operating around the world in November 2018 as on September 11, 2001. That is no coincidence: the way the United States and its partners have prosecuted this war has caused widespread resentment and anger, which helps those terrorists recruit.

The war on terror has come with huge opportunity costs as well-- things we haven’t been able to do because we were mired in costly overseas conflicts. Competitors like China and Russia have exploited our forever wars to expand their economic and political influence around the world. In China, an inner circle led by President Xi Jinping has steadily consolidated power, clamping down on domestic political freedom while aggressively promoting its version of authoritarian capitalism abroad. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has a grandiose vision of restoring the power that Moscow commanded in the Soviet era, something he knows he cannot achieve. But what he can do, what he is trying to do, is to destroy the alliance of liberal democracies in Europe and North America that stand in the way of Russian resurgence.

Endless wars help the powerful to draw attention away from economic corruption. In today’s globalized economy, wealth and income inequality are vast and growing. The world’s top one percent possess more wealth than the bottom 99 percent, and a small number of huge financial institutions wield enormous power over the lives of billions of people. Multinational corporations and rich people have stashed more than $21 trillion in offshore bank accounts in order to avoid paying their fair share in taxes. Then they turn around and demand that their governments impose austerity agendas on working families. In industrialized countries, many have begun to question whether democracy can actually deliver for them. They work longer hours for lower wages than they used to. At the same time, they see big money buying elections, and the political and economic elite growing wealthier, even as the their own children’s future dims.

Too often, political leaders exploit these fears, stoking resentment and fanning ethnic and racial hatred among those who are struggling. We see this very clearly in our own country, coming from the highest level of our government. When our elected leaders, pundits, and cable news personalities promote relentless fear-mongering about Muslim terrorists, they inevitably create a climate of fear and suspicion around Muslim American citizens-- a climate in which demagogues like Trump can thrive. By turning our immigration debate into a debate about Americans’ personal security, we have conflated one policy conundrum with another and subjected all those who seek a better life in the United States to xenophobia and defamation. There is a straight line from the decision to reorient U.S. national-security strategy around terrorism after 9/11 to placing migrant children in cages on our southern border.

All the while, truly severe looming threats like climate change have failed to capture much-needed attention and commitment. The scientific community is virtually unanimous in telling us that climate change is real, that it is caused by human activity, and that it is already doing devastating harm throughout the world. If we don’t act boldly to address the climate crisis, we are all but certain to see more drought, more floods, more extreme weather disturbances, more acidification of oceans whose levels are rising, and, because of resultant mass migration, more threats to global stability and security. According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we only have about 12 years to take action before a rise in the planet’s temperature will cause irreversible damage.

Climate change is a clear example of an issue on which American leadership can make a difference-- and from which our endless entanglements in the Middle East have diverted crucial resources and attention. Europe cannot address this problem alone. Nor can China. Nor can the United States. This crisis calls out for strong international cooperation if we are to leave our children and grandchildren a planet that is healthy and habitable. American leadership-- and the economic and scientific advantages that only America can offer-- can and must facilitate this effort.

Enough is enough. In March, we had a historic vote in both houses of Congress to end U.S. military involvement in Yemen’s civil war. This vote demonstrated strong bipartisan concern over unconstitutional and unauthorized wars, and it served as an important reminder that Congress must reassert its constitutional authority over the use of military force. I was one of those who opposed the Iraq war. Trump claims he opposed it too, but, in truth, he only did so after the fact. Trump campaigned on getting the United States out of “endless war,” but his administration is taking us down a path that makes another war more likely. We can and we must pursue a different option.

The American people don’t want endless war. Neither do we want a foreign policy that is based on the logic that led to those wars and corroded our democracy: a logic that privileges military tools over diplomatic ones, aggressive unilateralism over multilateral engagement, and acquiescence to our undemocratic partners over the pursuit of core interests alongside democratic allies who truly share our values. We have to view the terrorism threat through the proper scope, rather than allowing it to dominate our view of the world. The time has come to envision a new form of American engagement: one in which the United States leads not in war-making but in bringing people together to find shared solutions to our shared concerns. American power should be measured not by our ability to blow things up, but by our ability to build on our common humanity, harnessing our technology and enormous wealth to create a better life for all people.

Bonus-- and please note how a defensive and angry Joe Biden didn't even try to answer Maddow's question-- which was, after all, about why anyone should trust his always terrible judgment:

The Two-State Solution Is Dead. What Next?

Control of the region recently called Palestine from 2000 BCE to the present (source; click to enlarge)

by Thomas Neuburger

There are two possible futures for Israel and Palestine: one close to the vision of Isaiah — “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” — and one reminiscent of the prophecy of the Sibyl of Virgil’s Aeneid: “wars, horrendous wars,” the Jordan “foaming with tides of blood.” It’s a simple choice. Let’s choose peace.
     —Presidential candidate Mike Gravel (source)

The part of the Middle East formerly known as Palestine is lost as a two-state region. The Israelis are "systematically" driving toward a single regional state: the State of Israel. Below is a map showing Israel proper, the West Bank region, Palestinian population centers and the growing incursion of Israeli settlements which are "eating" the West Bank.

"A State Department map shows Palestinian population centers in the West Bank. Obama was surprised to see how 'systematic' the Israelis had been at cutting them off from one another." (source, click to enlarge)

The outcome of this long process of territorial integration, barring any implementation of an alternative to the "two-state solution," will be as Mike Gravel says, "horrendous war, the Jordan foaming with blood." The monomaniacal drive by Israel's leaders to recover the western part of their Iron Age kingdom has now made peace impossible, sans intervention.

If the two-state idea is dead, what alternatives are left? Just one. Below I list the main points of presidential candidate Mike Gravel's proposal, offered as the only non-military, non-ethnic-cleansing way forward. Is this solution "practical"? No, it's not, in the sense that the current leaders of the U.S., Israel and Palestine will not accept it.

But yes, it is practical, in the sense that a bloodbath in the region — and it will come to that — a bloodbath that will wash over all of the Middle East, is the only other alternative. If a war of this magnitude is itself "impractical" in the extreme, Gravel's solution is imminently practical. I, like Gravel, see this as the only way out.

Here are Gravel's main points, as offered in a recent Mondoweiss piece:

• Move toward creating a secular, democratic binational state — "Most American diplomats will, in their more candid hours, admit that the two-state idea is long dead. Prudence dictates that America acknowledge that on the world stage and begin the search for other solutions. The most obvious and humane path forward is the creation of a secular, democratic, binational state with equal rights for all. That is the model the U.S. government, with its partners in the region, should work toward and publicly highlight as the ideal outcome."

Gravel recognizes that the above proposal would disappoint everyone in the region. Yet it's the only peaceful way forward: "Both visions serve an abstract nationalism rather than the actual needs of Israelis and Palestinians living in the area, and a state along the lines of the idealized United States model, one with no prized ethnicity or religious character, is the solution all those seeking a humanitarian alternative should support. There would be no need for the byzantine arrangements (land swaps, dual city ownership, etc.) upon which most attempts to resolve the conflict have hinged: it would simply be the decision—an admittedly difficult one—to live together, Muslim, Jew, and Christian, in a peaceful, democratic, egalitarian society."

• Force AIPAC and similar pro-Israel groups to register as foreign lobbies — "The first step should be mandating that AIPAC register as a foreign lobby under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). AIPAC manages to skirt American laws about foreign lobbying by claiming that it represents Americans who happen to support Israel. But the shockingly close ties between the governing Likud Party and AIPAC give a lie to this legal fiction; AIPAC will always stand closer to Israeli interests than American ones. Such an arrangement would prevent AIPAC from influencing American elections, and would require it to report all of its contacts with Congress, along with details of its spending, to the Department of Justice."

The point about preventing influence in American elections is important — the present arrangement skirts very close to the line marked by our present panic over "foreign interference in our democracy," if it doesn't cross well over it. Without Israeli influence in the U.S. electoral process, a wider world of foreign policy and peace-making options is open to us.

Yes, I know this proposal is anathema in the current environment — witness the immediate and bipartisan vilification of Rep. Ilhan Omar — but Gravel merely says out loud what everyone in D.C. knows, but won't repeat with a microphone nearby. Nevertheless, we in the "reality-based community" should acknowledge this fact.

• End military support for Israel — "Next, the U.S. should end military aid to Israel, citing the Israeli military’s complicity in crimes against the Palestinian people. It should call for a gradual demilitarization of Israel and Palestine, and should be clear with the Israeli government that the days of Israel-right-or-wrong are over. Future outrages by either side will receive an even-handed response without bias. Accordingly, it should demand that Israel bring itself into compliance with international law and end the harassment of dissidents..."

This proposal, actually two proposals in one, is highly controversial to say the least. Cries of "but Israel needs to be able to defend itself" will be loud enough to cause deafness. In response, I would add to Gravel's call my own proposal that we end all military support in the region. Note that ending U.S. military aid does not mean immediate disarmament for any of these nations; far from it. Israel can do quite nicely without U.S. dollars swelling their military coffers — and besides, as the only nuclear-tipped army in the region, it still has the deciding advantage.

The region's militarization, in fact, underscores the importance of the second part of his proposal, a "gradual demilitarization of Israel and Palestine." Recall again the aforementioned atrocities and "crimes against the Palestinian people." Those do have to stop or be made to stop. If they don't, the region is on the road to ethnic cleansing, and that won't end well for anyone, including the U.S. and Europe.

It's a simple choice: demilitarize or keep on the current path. There's no middle ground. Once the main goal is shifted to a peaceful secular state, the need for demilitarization between Israelis and Palestinians is inescapable.

• Finally, end U.S. attempts to stifle BDS, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement — "the U.S. should refuse to take unconstitutional steps to stifle BDS. Whatever one’s personal thoughts on BDS, an individual or group’s decision not to associate with another group or country is a legitimate exercise of the freedoms of speech and association guaranteed by the Constitution, and using the power of the government to influence those decisions is wrong. Senators Amy Klobuchar and Cory Booker should be ashamed of themselves for supporting federal laws to restrict BDS. (It is perhaps no coincidence that Booker and the president of AIPAC 'text message back and forth like teenagers,' by Booker’s own admission.)"

Bottom Line

If peace in the Palestinian region is the goal, and if you're clear-headed about what it will take to get there, these are the most practical steps, and in fact the only ones, no matter how objectionable they will be to everyone involved in the conflict.

First, the goal must recognized realities on the ground. If a two-state solution is impossible, the only alternatives are an increasingly cleansed Greater Israel, with intifada after growing intifada revenging within its borders, or a peaceful secular state. One cannot have a religion-dominated Israel as the only state in the region and still have peace. One may as well want a bird that can fly to the moon.

Next, if the second alternative, a peaceful secular state, is to be achieved with U.S. leadership, the U.S. political process much be cleared of the protected intervention of the Israel lobby. If not, its paid politicians will win almost every battle, neutering every attempt at make peace, until peace itself is a dream of the past and war is the fact on the ground, the "foaming tide of blood" Gravel seeks to avoid.

Neither of the alternatives, a one-state region dominated by religion and cleansing, or a one-state region of diversity and tolerance, will be achieved without great pain. But I were the one choosing between them, a road that leads to a foaming tide of blood would be last on the list, if it even made the list at all.
    

Should An Ignorant Twerp Like Jared Kushner Be Allowed To Muck Around In U.S. Foreign Policy?

Hisham Melhem is a respected Lebanese-American journalist, Washington bureau chief for Al Arabiya, After his post on Friday, Mohammed Bin Salman; A Prince Who Should Not Become a King, he should forget ever going near a Saudi consulate anywhere, let alone Istanbul. "The praise heaped on Mohammed Bin Salman as the new awaited Saudi reformer the West has been longing for until the murder of Khashoggi," wrote Melhem, "says a lot about the naiveté of western analysts and journalists than about the crown prince, who fancied himself as a modernizer seeking to end some of Saudi Arabia’s backward and 'primitive practices' such as banning women from driving, but never pretended to be a political reformer. In recent decades, some American politicians, pundits and even scholars have pinned their hopes on Arab would-be reformers, mainly because they were young, their wives did not wear hijabs, spoke English and looked westernized 'like us.' Gamal Mubarak in Egypt, and  Bashar al-Assad in Syria come to mind."

Much has been written about Mohammed Bin Salman as a ‘reformer’, but most of the focus was on the ‘historic’ decision to allow women to drive, (a decision any new ruler was expected to take) to open up movie theatres, and to allow men and women for the first time to watch together sport competitions. The crown prince was praised because he wanted to diversify the ‘one crop economy’ and make it less dependent on hydrocarbon production, through greater foreign investment, an issue the Saudi elites have been discussing for years. At best these measures are necessary for any nation to survive let alone thrive in the modern world. But there was not a single serious decision to politically empower the population, or to open the public sphere even very slightly.

In fact the short reign of Mohammed Bin Salman has been more despotic that previous rulers. No former Saudi Monarch has amassed the executive powers, political, military and economic that the crown prince has concentrated in his hands except for the founder of the ruling dynasty King Abdul-Aziz Al Saud. His brief tenure has been marked by periodic campaigns of repression. Long before the murder of Khashoggi, scores of writers, intellectuals and clerics were arrested for daring to object to the crown prince’s decisions. Many are still languishing in jails with no formal charges. Even some of the women activists who pushed hard for years to lift the ban on women driving, were incarcerated on trumped up charges of ‘treason’. Women are allowed to drive now-- but the crown prince would like them to think that this is because of his magnanimity, and not their struggle-- but they are still subject to the misogynistic and atavistic female guardianship system, which treat adult women regardless of their high education and accomplishment as legal minors.

In keeping with the playbook of despots all over the world seeking to consolidate their political power, Mohammed Bin Salman declared a campaign against corruption, as the most effective way to get rid of or intimidate his real and potential foes. He arbitrarily arrested hundreds of royals, former government officials and wealthy businessmen and incarcerated them at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh. Most were later released after singing confessions and giving up large portions of their ill-gotten gains. During the same year the crown prince purchased a yacht worth $550 million, and bought a $300 million château in France. When Norah O’Donnell of CBS’ 60 Minutes asked him about these outlandish purchases, the 32 year old prince simply answered “As far as my private expenses, I’m a rich person and not a poor person.” This putsch against royals and other once influential and wealthy Saudis is unprecedented. The Crown Prince’s victims will lie in wait for his next major stumble before they pounce on him. Indeed uneasy lies the head that wears the royal keffiyeh.

In ancient Rome, emperors, senators and notables used the concept and practice of panem et circenses-- bread and circuses-- to appease and distract the Plebeians from political involvement by providing cheap bread and entertainment in the form of gladiatorial combats in the numerous colosseums throughout the Empire. By making sure his plebeians are relatively doing well economically, and by entertaining them in movie theatres and providing them modern sports combats, Mohammed Bin Salman is hoping that his Saudi version of bread and circuses will serve as a distraction to his people so that he will continue to consolidate his power, while pretending to be a visionary modernizer.

...Nothing in the tumultuous short reign of Mohammed Bin Salman shows that he is capable of learning from his blunders. Before he reached the age of thirty three he had already cut a trail of blood and tears. The democracies of the world, particularly the United States should shun him and treat him as the pariah that he is. Mohammed Bin Salman is one crown prince who should not become a king.

The Trumps, of course, have no intention of either shunning MBS or treating him as a pariah. Kushner-in-law-- the Regime's Middle East point person-- has spent lots of time on the phone with him, texting him and e-mailing him, synchronizing their bullshit. According to a 4 man team, reporting for the NY Times yesterday, Kushner and Bin Salman, both in their 30s, are all palsy-walsy... and many inside and outside the Trump Regime feel Kushner is being played. John Kelly, recognizing that Kushner is a dope with an unjustifiably high opinion of his capacities tried to reimpose longstanding procedures stipulating that National Security Council staff members should participate in all calls with foreign leaders, which didn't stop Kushner-in-lawe from carrying on his private correspondence with the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia.

The exchanges continued even after the Oct. 2 killing of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist who was ambushed and dismembered by Saudi agents, according to two former senior American officials and the two people briefed by the Saudis.

As the killing set off a firestorm around the world and American intelligence agencies concluded that it was ordered by Prince Mohammed, Mr. Kushner became the prince’s most important defender inside the White House, people familiar with its internal deliberations say.

Mr. Kushner’s support for Prince Mohammed in the moment of crisis is a striking demonstration of a singular bond that has helped draw President Trump into an embrace of Saudi Arabia as one of his most important international allies.

But the ties between Mr. Kushner and Prince Mohammed did not happen on their own. The prince and his advisers, eager to enlist American support for his hawkish policies in the region and for his own consolidation of power, cultivated the relationship with Mr. Kushner for more than two years, according to documents, emails and text messages reviewed by the New York Times.

A delegation of Saudis close to the prince visited the United States as early as the month Mr. Trump was elected, the documents show, and brought back a report identifying Mr. Kushner as a crucial focal point in the courtship of the new administration. He brought to the job scant knowledge about the region, a transactional mind-set and an intense focus on reaching a deal with the Palestinians that met Israel’s demands, the delegation noted.

Even then, before the inauguration, the Saudis were trying to position themselves as essential allies who could help the Trump administration fulfill its campaign pledges. In addition to offering to help resolve the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians, the Saudis offered hundreds of billions of dollars in deals to buy American weapons and invest in American infrastructure. Mr. Trump later announced versions of some of these items with great fanfare when he made his first foreign trip: to an Arab-Islamic summit in Riyadh, the Saudi capital. The Saudis had extended that invitation during the delegation’s November 2016 visit.

“The inner circle is predominantly deal makers who lack familiarity with political customs and deep institutions, and they support Jared Kushner,” the Saudi delegation wrote of the incoming administration in a slide presentation obtained by the Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar, which provided it to The Times. Several Americans who spoke with the delegation confirmed the slide presentation’s accounts of the discussions.

The courtship of Mr. Kushner appears to have worked.

Only a few months after Mr. Trump moved into the White House, Mr. Kushner was inquiring about the Saudi royal succession process and whether the United States could influence it, raising fears among senior officials that he sought to help Prince Mohammed, who was not yet the crown prince, vault ahead in the line for the throne, two former senior White House officials said. American diplomats and intelligence officials feared that the Trump administration might be seen as playing favorites in the delicate internal politics of the Saudi royal family, the officials said.

...“The relationship between Jared Kushner and Mohammed bin Salman constitutes the foundation of the Trump policy not just toward Saudi Arabia but toward the region,” said Martin Indyk, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former Middle East envoy. The administration’s reliance on the Saudis in the peace process, its support for the kingdom’s feud with Qatar, an American ally, and its backing of the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen, he said, all grew out of “that bromance.”

Before the 2016 presidential race, Mr. Kushner’s most extensive exposure to the Middle East was through Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was a Kushner family friend, and the Kushners had contributed heavily to Israeli nonprofits supporting Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank.

But the Arab rulers of the oil-rich Persian Gulf mainly figured in Mr. Kushner’s life as investors in American real estate, the Kushner family business.

So Tom Barrack, a Lebanese-American real estate investor with close ties to both Mr. Trump and the Gulf rulers, set out during the campaign to introduce Mr. Kushner to his associates as a useful ally.

“You will love him and he agrees with our agenda!” Mr. Barrack wrote in May 2016 in an email to the Emirati ambassador in Washington, Youssef Otaiba.

Mr. Otaiba soon positioned himself as an informal adviser on the region to Mr. Kushner.

“Thanks to you, I am in constant contact with Jared and that has been extremely helpful,” Mr. Otaiba wrote to Mr. Barrack in the first months after Mr. Trump took office.

...Top aides to Saudi Arabia’s Prince Mohammed also met with Mr. Kushner on a trip to New York in November 2016, after the election... The delegation made special note of what it characterized as Mr. Kushner’s ignorance of Saudi Arabia.

“Kushner made clear his lack of familiarity with the history of Saudi-American relations and he asked about its support for terrorism,” the team noted in the slide presentation prepared for Riyadh. “After the discussion, he expressed his satisfaction with what was explained about the Saudi role in fighting terrorism” and what the Saudis said was their international leadership in fighting Islamist extremism.

Mr. Kushner, the Saudi report said, also questioned the delegation’s motives, asking whether the group had always been interested in working with Mr. Trump. As a candidate, Mr. Trump had promised to ban Muslim immigrants from entering the United States and had singled out Saudi Arabia as a dangerous influence.

“Kushner wondered about Saudi Arabia’s desire for partnership and whether it came from opportunity or worry, and he wondered as well if it was specific to this American administration or whether it was presented to Hillary Clinton (for example: women driving),” read another slide, next to a photograph of Mr. Kushner.

But Mr. Kushner was clear about his own priorities, the report said. “The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was among the most important issues to draw Kushner’s attention,” the delegation reported, and therefore the best way to win him over.

“The Palestinian issue first: there is still no clear plan for the American administration toward the Middle East,” the delegation wrote, “except that the central interest is finding a historic solution to support the stability of Israel and solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

To cultivate ties with the Trump team, the Saudis had prepared a long list of initiatives that they said would help Mr. Trump deliver for his supporters.

Seizing on Mr. Trump’s campaign vows for the “extreme vetting” of immigrants, the Saudi delegation proposed “establishing an intelligence and data” exchange “to help the American administration carry out its strategy of investigating those requesting residency (extreme vetting),” according to an Arabic version of a presentation for the Trump team.

And the delegation pledged “high-level coordination with the new American administration” to help with “defeating extremist thought.”

Several of the Saudi proposals were evidently welcomed.

One was a “joint center to fight the ideology of extremism and terrorism.” President Trump helped inaugurate a Saudi version of the center on his trip to Riyadh the following May.

Another Saudi proposal outlined what the Trump administration later called “an Arab NATO.” In their presentation, the Saudis described it as an Islamic military coalition of tens of thousands of troops “ready when the president-elect wishes to deploy them.”

Other initiatives appeared timed to Mr. Trump’s first term in office, like proposals to spend $50 billion over four years on American defense contracts, to increase Saudi investment in the United States to $200 billion over four years, and to invest, with other Gulf states, up to $100 billion in American infrastructure.

...Israel had long argued to American diplomats that Saudi Arabia’s influence in the region made it essential to any peace deal, and the Israelis were developing high hopes for Prince Mohammed because of his hawkish views toward Iran and his general iconoclasm (he would later make several statements, like affirming the Israeli “right” to land, that were notably more sympathetic to the Israeli position than those of other Saudi leaders.)

Within weeks of Mr. Trump’s move into the White House, Mr. Kushner had embraced the delegation’s proposal for the president to visit Riyadh, convinced by then that the alliance with Saudi Arabia would be crucial in his plans for the region, according to a person who discussed it with Mr. Kushner and a second person familiar with his plans.

The secretary of state at the time, Rex W. Tillerson, opposed the idea. It would link the administration too closely to Riyadh, these people said, giving up flexibility and leverage. Mr. Trump initially saw little benefit either, according to a person involved in his deliberations.

But by the time of the inauguration Mr. Kushner was already arguing that under the influence of Prince Mohammed, Saudi Arabia could play a pivotal role in advancing a Middle East peace deal, according to three people familiar with his thinking. That would be the president’s legacy, Mr. Kushner argued, according to a person involved in the discussions.

It was around the time of the White House visit in March 2017 that senior officials in the State Department and the Pentagon began to worry about the one-on-one communications between Prince Mohammed-- who is known to favor the online messaging service WhatsApp-- and Mr. Kushner. “There was a risk the Saudis were playing him,” one former White House official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Two later face-to-face encounters with Mr. Kushner preceded key turning points in Prince Mohammed’s consolidation of power.

Shortly after Mr. Kushner visited Riyadh with the president in May 2017, Prince Mohammed orchestrated the ouster of his older cousin, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, removing him from control of the Saudi Interior Ministry and replacing him as crown prince. Prince Mohammed also announced a Saudi-led blockade of its neighbor and rival Qatar, the host of a major American air base.

And days after Mr. Kushner made an unannounced visit to Riyadh in the fall of 2017, the crown prince summarily detained about 200 wealthy Saudis, including several of his royal cousins, in a Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh.

After each play for power, President Trump publicly praised Prince Mohammed.

One former White House official argued that Mr. Kushner’s personal ties to Prince Mohammed had sometimes been an asset. At one point, for example, the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen had blocked a critical port, cutting off humanitarian and medical supplies. The national security adviser at the time, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, suggested that Mr. Kushner call Prince Mohammed to address the issue, the official said, and General McMaster believed Mr. Kushner’s intercession had helped persuade the Saudis to loosen the restrictions.

White House officials also say that Mr. Kushner has formal conversations with many other leaders in the region. And previous administrations have also had close ties to the Saudi government.

Since the uproar over Mr. Khashoggi’s killing, the Trump administration has acknowledged only one conversation between Mr. Kushner and Prince Mohammed: an Oct. 10 telephone call joined by John R. Bolton, the national security adviser. The Americans “asked for more details and for the Saudi government to be transparent in the investigation process,” the White House said in a statement.

But American officials and a Saudi briefed on their conversations said that Mr. Kushner and Prince Mohammed have continued to chat informally. According to the Saudi, Mr. Kushner has offered the crown prince advice about how to weather the storm, urging him to resolve his conflicts around the region and avoid further embarrassments.

Few of the Saudi promises have amounted to much. The effectiveness of the counterterrorism center in Riyadh remains doubtful. After offering $50 billion in new weapons contracts, the Saudis have signed only letters of interest or intent without any firm deals. After proposing to marshal up to $100 billion in investments in American infrastructure, the Saudis have announced an investment of only $20 billion.

Inside the White House, Mr. Kushner has continued to argue that the president needs to stand by Prince Mohammed because he remains essential to the administration’s broader Middle East strategy, according to people familiar with the deliberations.

Whether Prince Mohammed can fulfill that role, however, remains to be seen. His initial approaches to the Palestinians were rejected by their leaders, and their resistance stiffened after the Trump administration recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital without waiting for a negotiated agreement on the city’s status.

Now the prince’s father, King Salman, 82, who is still the official head of state, has appeared to resist Mr. Kushner’s Middle East peace plans as well.

“The Palestinian issue will remain our primary issue,” the king declared in a speech last month, “until the Palestinian people receive all of their legal rights.”

Netanyahu, Putin And Trump-- Jockeying For Power In Syria

by Reese Erlich

Russian bombs rained down on towns of southern Syria as an estimated 320,000 civilians fled for their lives. Over the past several weeks tens of thousands walked to the Jordanian and Israeli borders hoping to escape the onslaught.

Rula Amin, a spokesperson for the UN refugee agency UNHCR, based in Jordan, told me the displaced people left their homes with few belongings and are sleeping in the desert. “They need shelter, food, drinking water-- and mostly, they need protection.”

“We appeal for an immediate cessation in hostilities and for a safe, unimpeded access to the displaced population that desperately needs assistance,” she said.

The crisis began in June when Syrian President Bashar al Assad, along with his Russian and Iranian allies, sought to recapture southern Syria, which has been under rebel control for five years. Russia negotiated the surrender of some rebel groups in early July. It’s not yet clear, according to the UNHCR, whether significant number of civilians can return to their homes.

Five countries are currently fighting in Syria. Russia, Iran, the United States, and Turkey have stationed troops. Israel regularly drops bombs and fires missiles.

President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will discuss Syria at their Helsinki summit July 16. The Trump administration is pressuring Russia to reduce the Iranian role in Syria, but will not likely succeed, according to Professor Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.

“Iran is there to stay,” he told me. “Russia is not going to kick Iran out.”

A visit to Daraa

To understand the current crisis, let’s go back to 2011 when I reported from the southern Syrian city of Daraa. I tagged along with some Ukrainian TV journalists on an official tour of the city where the uprising had begun. Government minders claimed the Syrian people supported Assad and that Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United States had instigated the rebellion.

We visited an elementary school where adorable children recited their lessons in unison. Then, seeing the foreign reporters, many began chanting, “Freedom, Freedom,” the slogan of the anti-Assad opposition. Teachers led other students in chanting “Syria, Syria,” to show support for Assad.

The Assad officials blanched as the civil war divisions were on full display for foreign reporters. “The political chasm has reached the schools,” my government translator said. “First graders are now politically motivated.”

For roughly that first year, the Syrian government faced a popular uprising from a broad spectrum of religious and political opposition, part of the Arab Spring. Foreign powers did not create the rebellion, but they were very happy to take advantage of the regime’s lack of popularity to push their own agendas.

CIA steps in

By 2012 the CIA coordinated with Jordanian, gulf states, and Israeli intelligence to fund rebel groups known collectively as  the Free Syrian Army. The United States set up the secret Military Operations Command in Amman, Jordan, and by 2013 was providing an array of arms, ammunition and supplies to the FSA.

The CIA spent $1 billion per year arming rebels in southern Syria. The Pentagon spent another $500 million per year in northern Syria. Washington claimed to be training only “moderate rebels.” But the US-backed militias had no popular support. In several incidents US-trained rebels turned their weapons over to al Qaeda affiliated insurgents.

Nabil al Sharif, a former Jordanian media affairs minister, told me, “This whole program of aiding moderates has failed miserably.”

Israel’s role

As darkness fell one night in 2014, I drove along a dirt road and stopped at a spot in Israel overlooking the Syrian border fence in the Golan. Israel had seized the Golan from Syria in the 1967 Six Day War and illegally annexed it in 1981.

On the night of my visit, artillery and machine gun tracer fire illuminated the fighting among three opposing armed groups: the Syrian Army, the FSA and the Al Qaeda affiliate known as al Nusra. At that point Israel was backing the FSA against the other two forces.

Israel always claimed it was neutral in the Syrian civil war; it only provided humanitarian aid and treated wounded Syrian civilians. In reality Tel Aviv backs rebels who can be used to help Israel keep permanent control of the Golan.

Rainfall from the Golan area is critical to replenishing the Jordan River and supplies one-third of Israel’s drinking water. “The Golan is key for Israel’s water supply,” noted Professor Landis.

Building on the Trump administration’s decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, Israeli leaders now want the United States to formally recognize its annexation of the Golan, which is seen as illegal by other countries.

“This is a moment of tremendous weakness for Syria and Israel wants to take full advantage,” said Landis.

Initially Israeli leaders backed the FSA to keep Assad from coming back to power. When the military tide turned in Assad’s favor in 2015, Tel Aviv sought to prevent Iran and the Lebanese group Hezbollah from establishing a military presence close to the occupied Golan.

Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Research Fellow at the Israeli think tank The Forum for Regional Thinking, wrote “Israeli policy-makers would be content with a Syrian regime takeover of southern Syria, as long as Iranian proxies are kept from the border fence.”

Backroom deals

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met three times over the past six months with Putin to work out a deal on Syria. So far the Israelis have continued to bomb Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria, and the Russians have not responded militarily. I think that’s angered the Iranians.

The Iranian military sees its presence in Syria as a deterrent against a U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. It continues to arm Hezbollah with Iranian made missiles.

”This is part of Iran’s homeland security,” said Landis.

Of course civilians in Syria don’t care much about Iran’s internal security, nor that any of the other intervening powers. Nobody has clean hands in Syria. The outside powers push their own interests to the detriment of the Syrian people.

We’ll see if anything significant about Syria comes out of the Putin-Trump summit. But don’t hold your breath. While foreign powers continue their squabbles, Syrian civilians pay the price.

Reese Erlich’s syndicated column, Foreign Correspondent, appears every two weeks. He is author of Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect.

Follow him on Twitter, @ReeseErlich; friend him on Facebook; and visit his webpage.