Newsletter No. 557
News-Analysis
March 21, 2007

 

A number of stories related to Israel and Palestine have appeared.

TOKYO WELCOMES NEW PALESTINIAN GOVERNMENT

Somewhat surprisingly, Tokyo has released a statement positively welcoming the new coalition government in Palestine between the PLO and Hamas.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has publicly called for governments around the world to maintain little or no contact with the Palestinian regime, saying that “Israel expects the international community to maintain the policy it has taken over the past year of isolating the Palestine Government… We can't have contact with members of a government that justifies resistance, or, in other words, terror.”

The MOFA statement seems to suggest that Tokyo is not interested in participating in any isolation scheme for the time being. Does this mean that the Japanese government is taking a stand against the Israeli call to isolate the new government? Or does it only indicate that Tokyo made its comments before appreciating what the Israeli position really was?

It is worth noting that even the Bush Administration seems hesitant to back Prime Minister Olmert on this one. Perhaps this is why Tokyo is being a little bolder than usual.

Statement on the Formation of a National Unity Government of the Palestinian Authority
March 18, 2007

1) The Government of Japan welcomes the formation of a National Unity Government of the Palestinian Authority as a result of the peace efforts by President Abbas on March 17.

2) It is Japan's strong hope that, under the principle of co-existence and co-prosperity between Israel and Palestine, the formation of the new government will lead to resumption of the Middle East Peace Process and cessation of the violence, and Japan will continue to closely follow the actual steps to be taken by the new government.

3) Japan continues to support the peace efforts by the parties concerned through political dialogues with the two sides, assistance to the Palestinians and measures to promote confidence building, in addition to promoting the concept of "Corridor for Peace and Prosperity", for the advancement of the Middle East Peace Process.

UNSC RESOLUTION 242? ...ERR, NEVER HEARD OF IT!

Some of the most revealing information continues to be produced at the MOFA press conferences with Deputy Press Secretary Tomohiko Taniguchi. This time it was an exchange with a reporter over the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Since Japan is famed for its adherence to UN Security Council resolutions, a reporter decided to press the MOFA spokesman on the well-known UNSC Resolution 242 -- one of the basic texts of the conflict, and a resolution that has been praised or cursed (depending on your point of view) in a thousand books and articles.

So what is Japan’s current stance on UNSC Resolution 242? Well, MOFA spokesman Taniguchi apparently has never heard of it!

It occurs to me that not only does this reflect miserably on the Japanese Foreign Ministry, which supposedly wants to be the peace-maker in the region, but what does it say about the Arab diplomats in Tokyo, that they would let any significant MOFA official forget UNSC Resolution 242?

MOFA Press Conference
March 20, 2007

Reporter: Thank you for this very impressive summary of very condensed activities that keeps us very busy all the time. Let me just go to your statement about the Palestinian national unity government. I remember reading that Japan appreciates the efforts for peace made by President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority. There is no mention of other parties' efforts for peace. Does that indicate anything?

Mr. Taniguchi: No. I did not mean anything like that. There has been a considerable amount of effort involving all the parties in the Palestinian Territories to create this national unity government, and what is to be stressed is that this is an important step forward for them to get themselves prepared for giving a new impetus to the Palestinian peace process.

Reporter: Palestinian peace process?

Mr. Taniguchi: Middle East peace process. I am sorry.

Reporter: Do you think also that the State of Israel should do its part and at least apply the UN resolutions, especially 242?

Mr. Taniguchi: Please state the question again.

Reporter: Do you think that Israel has also a duty or responsibility on its part to do what the international community adopted at the UN Security Council many years ago, such as Resolution 242?

Mr. Taniguchi: I cannot immediately remember what 242 was about.

Reporter: It is about withdrawal from the occupied territories, from the Republic of Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic and the Palestinian Territories. This is actually a condition put by King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia -- he was the Crown Prince when he made this initiative -- that if Israel applies this resolution, then the Arab countries will accept peace with Israel, but Israel has not accepted that resolution. Meanwhile, we always hear complaints or criticisms against the Palestinians as if they are responsible, but nobody is trying to force Israel to execute the resolutions in the same way that Iraq was forced to execute the UN resolutions. Do you think the time has come for the international community to make Israel apply all the resolutions that are preconditioned by the Arab moderate governments at least, to do the peace process you are supporting?

Mr. Taniguchi: You have just mentioned that Iraq had been forced to comply with the UN Security Council resolution. I am not so sure if a comparison can be made between the Iraqi situation and the Middle East peace process, but I think there is a strong indication that there is a growing will on both sides, the Israeli side and the Palestinian side, to once again reinvigorate the peace process. The Japanese Government is putting an enormous amount of hope on that seemingly new development.

Reporter: I understand from your answer that it is not the case that Japan has asked Israel to apply these resolutions.

Mr. Taniguchi: It is hard to answer one way or the other. The situation is evolving almost monthly and it is really hard for me to answer in a straightforward fashion whether or not the UN Security Council resolution, which is pretty much an old one, is to be applied fully to the current situation.

Reporter: So you mean if some resolutions are old they should be reconsidered?

Mr. Taniguchi: May I once again reiterate what I have just said. The Middle East peace process has undergone many ups and downs over the last couple of years, and we are now faced with a new situation where the Palestinian region is forming this unity government and that, I take it, as something giving a new impetus to the whole process. The process itself is moving forward, not necessarily as originally planned, and yet to a better direction at least. That is as much as I can say, albeit I have not answered your question directly, but you can tell what the Japanese Government is looking at it now.

Reporter: It is widely considered encouraging in the Arabic countries, the statement by Japan welcoming this government's establishment, so do you think the Japanese Government will be more proactive with this government to continue its traditional strong support for the Palestinians?

Mr. Taniguchi: I must say there was a degree of cautiousness on the side of the Japanese Government to talk to the Hamas-led government because we were not sure, for many months, whether or not the Hamas people would give up the means of violence to achieve their purpose, but you are now looking at the new government which I can say to you seems to be much, much more encouraging and therefore can give better room for both governments, the Japanese Government and the Palestinian Government, to talk directly to one another. You should be reminded, if I may, that in the Palestinian region Japan has been one of the largest donors and that stance, namely, to support the nation-building process of the Palestinian region, from the Japanese Government is definitely going to continue.

FOOD AID FOR PALESTINE REFUGEES

MOFA has just released the following official statement on March 19th:

1. The Government of Japan has decided to extend food aid of five million yen for the Palestine refugees, through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Notes to this effect were exchanged on March 18 (Sun)(March 18 local time) in Amman, Jordan, between Mr. Shigenobu Kato, Japanese Ambassador to Jordan, and Ms. Karen Koning Abuzayd, Commissioner-General of UNRWA.

2. The Middle East Peace Process is at a critical moment such as the forming of a Palestinian national unity government. In such circumstances, Japan decided this food aid in response to a request from UNRWA to improve the dire humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territories. UNRWA is planning to distribute wheat flour and lentils to about 350,000 Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

3. Japan's recent assistance to the Palestinians will come to a total of 140 million yen (12.6 million US dollars) including this Food Aid to improve the dire humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territories and to support President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority in his effort for peace. Japan will continue to engage positively in the efforts to bring about peace in the Middle East through measures to promote confidence building among the parties concerned and political dialogues with the two sides in addition to assistance to the Palestinians. On March 14 (Wed), Japan hosted the ministerial-level startup meeting for the Four-Party Consultative Unit in Tokyo for the concept of the "Corridor for Peace and Prosperity" which was attended by representatives of Israel, Palestine and Jordan.

JAPAN AS THE “ISRAEL OF EAST ASIA”

As most of you know, the Shingetsu Newsletter likes to take note of analogies that are made between Japan and the Islamic world. This also extends to Japan and Israel, since we regard Japanese-Jewish or Japanese-Israeli relations to be within our mandate as well.

The Korea Times published an opinion article that describes Japan as the “Israel of [East] Asia” in the context of the “comfort women” issue. What the author means to suggest by this analogy is that Japan is in danger of becoming as isolated and friendless in East Asia as he perceives Israel to be in West Asia.

However, it should be noted that other analogies have been made in the past between Japan and Israel, many of them meant to be positive.

The full article is below:

The Israelization of Japan
By Jason Lim

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Since taking power in 2001, the Bush administration has been following the basic guidelines detailed in the Nye-Armitage report of 2000 that fundamentally elevated Japan’s geopolitical status to that of Great Britain in terms of American strategic interests.

Underlying the report was the judgment that China would be the U.S.’ main strategic competitor in Asia in the foreseeable future, and an active political and military alliance between the U.S. and Japan would act as a bulwark against China’s growing ability to project its political, economic, and military power in Asia while safeguarding American strategic interests in the region. Luckily, in Koizumi -- and now Abe -- Bush had found someone who was prepared to stake Japan’s future on a closer alignment with the U.S. and had enough political capital to push for gradual remilitarization of Japan despite significant domestic opposition.

Despite the apparent foresightedness of the Nye-Armitage blueprint, however, the actual success of the plan could be sabotaged by the U.S.’ shortsightedness in its failure to appreciate the specter of Japan’s imperial past that still haunts Asia. This specter was recently showcased by the controversy surrounding H. Res. 121, introduced by Rep. Mike Honda, calling on Japan to “formally acknowledge and apologize for the Japanese Imperial Armed Forces’ WWII-era coercion of some 200,000 young women -- known as ‘comfort women’ -- into sexual slavery.” This is the 8th reincarnation of this non-binding resolution; previous resolutions had all been torpedoed by determined Japanese lobbying efforts. However, it seems that the House leadership, including Nancy Pelosi, has officially come out in support of this version of the resolution, making it more probable that it will achieve passage in the House this time around.

In an unfortunate response driven by his effort to shore up his plummeting domestic support, Abe said that there was no “historical proof” that there was any coercion involved in recruiting the 200,000 comfort women as prostitutes in military brothels. In short, they were all prostitutes to begin with, each woman willingly serving up to twenty Japanese soldiers a day in stifling brothels. In effect, the women who have come forward bravely after decades of hidden shame and recently testified to their ordeals in the U.S. Congress are basically liars. In any case, if there was any coercion, it was the fault of the private contractors who recruited the women on behalf of the military. In other words, the Japanese government has really nothing to officially apologize for.

Abe grudgingly softened his statement later on, saying that he will nevertheless abide by the 1993 Kono statement that acknowledged a direct connection between comfort stations and the Japanese military. However, through this incident, Abe basically undid much of the goodwill he had achieved through his proactive visits to Beijing and Seoul last October as soon as he took office. In fact, the Japanese isolation from the rest of Asia, a process that markedly accelerated with Koizumi’s stubborn visits to Yasukuni Shrine, has grown even more severe.

Such isolation has an immediate and severe impact on the U.S.’ interest in Asia. If the U.S. continues to strengthen its military ties with Japan and even implicitly support a reworking of its pacifist constitution to allow a more robust and unfettered military without having Japan officially come to terms with its past, the intent of the Nye-Armitage blueprint of having Japan be the Great Britain of Asia will backfire. Instead of Great Britain, Japan might just as well turn out to be the Israel of Asia, perceived as an aggressor state surrounded by hostile, wronged nations eager to see its destruction whose only lifeline to survival, credibility, and continued aggression is its satellite-nation relationship with the only (and out of touch) superpower in the world.

Of course, the reality is far different from such perception. But perception is sometimes stronger than reality when it comes to international politics, especially in northeast Asia. A case in point is the recent six-way talks work group meeting between Japan and North Korea, in which North Korea compared its kidnapping of Japanese citizens in the last thirty years with the far greater abduction of hundreds of thousands of Korean citizens as forced laborers during Japanese colonial era. Although it’s comparing apples and oranges, Japan has allowed itself to be vulnerable to such emotional analogies by not officially coming to terms with its past and isolating itself further in the present through indefensible remarks and ill-advised actions.

The U.S., perhaps because it is such a pluralistic society, has often had problems underestimating the depth of historical-ethnic-religious conflicts, most recently in former Yugoslavia and now Iraq. Underestimating them in Asia would have far greater consequences. At the same time, because of its special relationship with Japan, the U.S. is in a unique position to begin a long-due process of having Japan officially come to terms with its past and nudging it more fully into taking a more central role in world affairs, with universal recognition if not support.

Jason Lim is a graduate student at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.