Daily News Brief — July 22, 2010

Five U.S. governors visit Iraq, say conditions are improving

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, one of five governors to visit Iraq, said President Obama’s goal of reducing American troops to 50,000 by Sept. 1 is reasonable. Governors from Massachusetts, Minnesota, South Dakota and Vermont also accompanied on the trip.

“It is my sense that the United States will clearly meet the goal to get down to 50,000 troops by Sept. 1,” said Nixon. “At the same time we’re doing that, the country is getting safer and there have been fewer security incidents.”

Despite improving conditions, a car bomb killed at least 15 people in Diyala, northeast of Baghdad, in the third fatal bombing attack there this week.

A top U.S. commander in Iraq said American troops in Kurdistan would likely be the last to the leave at the end of 2011 due to continuing Arab-Kurdish disputes. General Ray Odierno said tensions between the Arabs and Kurds in northern Iraq is the largest single threat to Iraq’s stability.

• Gazan kids try to set a record for the number of basketballs bounced.
• Israelis and Palestinians dispute the killing of a Palestinian in the West Bank.
• Five Yemeni soldiers are killed by an al-Qaeda ambush.
• An Arab man is attacked for talking to a Jewish girl.
• Gazans launch their first economic development project since Hamas took over.

Palestinians scuffle with Israeli soldiers in the West Bank village of Lubban al-Gharbi on July 21, 2010 after Israeli forces demolished two houses and four shops that were built without the army’s permit near a road leading to the nearby Jewish settlement of Beit Arieh (Abbas Momani/AFP/Getty Images).

Arguments & Analysis

‘Why Palestinians Will Not Hold Elections, at Least for Now’ (Omran Risheq, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace)  The Palestinian Authority’s recent decision to postpone local elections is largely indicative of a Fatah movement, and political establishment in general, in dissarray. The political stagnation in both the West Bank and Gaza, and the continued inability (or unwillingness) to seek national reconciliation has lead to increased stagnation and authoritarianism in Palestinian politics.

‘Israel: Strategic Asset or Liability’ (Chas Freeman and Robert Satloff debate, The Nixon Center) In their debate hosted by the Nixon Center, Chas Freeman argued that Israel’s strategic utility to the interests of the U.S. is an open question at best, especially given the large amount of U.S. foreign aid flowing into the country (the most given to any country by the U.S.). As such, in the last decades, the relationship has continually hampered other strategic interests of the U.S. Meanwhile, Robert Satloff argued that on a whole range of issues–economic, military strategy, technology, counter terrorism methods, etc.–the relationship with Israel is a unique and beneficial one, serving U.S. interests in the region in a way that no other country does.

‘He impersonated a human’ (Gideon Levy, Haaretz)  The recent case of Sabbar Kashur, convicted in Israel of ‘deceit rape’ for pretending to be Jewish to a Jewish woman, underscores the degree of inequality rampant in Israeli society. Rather than a case of sound legal principles, the episode was nothing more than a demonstration of crass, unjustified identity politics.

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