The following is an op-ed I wrote for The New York Jewish Week.  Click here to view it online.

At a time of great concern about young American Jews identifying positively with Israel, study-abroad programs in Israel for U.S. college students should be a great benefit. But while these opportunities provide exposure to Hebrew language skills and immersion in Israeli society, they also foster a disconnect. The fact is that diaspora and Israeli students rarely meet in the classroom.

American University senior Samantha Levine studies Conflict Resolution, and she hoped that attending university in Haifa last fall would give her valuable exposure to a unique community. Her experience left her disenchanted.

“I was hoping that in a class called ‘Arab-Israeli Relations’ the program would think to bring an Israeli and a Palestinian to class, but instead we just sat at our desks and did nothing to incorporate our surroundings,” she said. “The international school was a bubble, and I felt really secluded.”

Levine’s dissatisfaction is not a new phenomenon. The 626 students interviewed by the American Jewish Committee in the late 1980s for its study on North American Jewish students at Hebrew University’s Rothberg International School (RIS) “commented that their Israeli experience could have been more rewarding if more contacts were established with Israeli students.” Hebrew University sociologist Erik Cohen found in 1993 that 83 percent of students wanted to study in Israel to improve their Hebrew skills, and that 64 percent wanted to gain Israeli friends. These days, there is little potential for interactions with native speakers because international students are sequestered in stand-alone international schools.

One problem is structural. The schools have strict policies regarding the option of taking classes within the regular university, and rightfully so. It is unreasonable to expect Israeli universities to conduct a wide variety of classes in English for the benefit of a few hundred. Tel Aviv University and the University of Haifa allow international students to take some of their classes through the regular university provided they demonstrate an advanced level of Hebrew. But scheduling issues in the Israeli and American academic calendars limit the available options.

Hebrew University does not allow international students to take classes in its regular departments. In fact, the RIS building has its own library, computer room and cafeteria, so students only venture into the regular university to buy their books at the beginning of the semester. Despite this imposed separation, RIS created a new option, Spring in Jerusalem, which ran for the first time last year. Twenty courses taught in English were offered in different Hebrew University departments, and some were presented in a shorter format to account for the longer Israeli semester. Each participant took at least two of those courses together with Israeli students.

Spring in Jerusalem offers a feasible solution to the segregation between American and Israeli students, but it needs to be expanded. Offering courses in departments like Jewish Studies, which appeal to both Israeli and American students, would help to close the divide. Instead of being elective, all international students enrolled in study-abroad programs at Israeli universities should be required to take these classes. This would increase face-to-face contact and encourage extracurricular interaction.

A second issue is the age and experience gaps between Israeli and American university students. Israeli students are generally at least two to three years older than their American peers, and they have already spent a few years performing their mandatory service for the Israel Defense Forces. Eager to spend time with friends and family on weekends, and often holding down part-time jobs while attending school, the Israeli students approach the university experience in a pragmatic, career-oriented way. As a result Israeli campuses lack the kind of vibrant extracurricular campus life familiar to most American students.

These gaps may be wide, but it is possible to narrow them. Hebrew language classes at the international schools are underused outlets for Israeli-American interaction. They are taught by Israeli teachers, but Israeli peers are best suited to introduce international students to the Hebrew of the street. Israeli students should be used as teaching assistants or conversation partners.

There are extracurricular avenues to integration as well. Programming around Jewish holidays would be particularly effective, since a 2001 survey by Tel Aviv University education experts Smadar Donitsa-Schmidt and Maggie Vadish indicated that North American students saw Jewishness as the link between themselves and Israelis. Jewish activities would also attract American Orthodox students who typically come to Israel with their social infrastructures already in place.

Until study-abroad programs in Israel encourage face-to-face interaction between American and Israeli students both inside and outside the classroom, they will continue to face a problem with integration. American college students investing a semester or year to study abroad in Israel are tomorrow’s policy-makers and community leaders, and they are hungry for an understanding of Israeli language and culture that can come only from interacting with their Israeli peers.

Allison Good is a senior at Vassar College.

Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic recently wrote that it is “actually possible that one day Israelis — Jewish Israelis — would choose to give up democracy to maintain Israel’s Jewish voting majority.”  He points to an “addiction to West Bank settlements,” the possibility that the “Putin-like Avigdor Lieberman” will become prime minister, and the increasing influence of voting blocs like ultra-Orthodox Jews, “working-class religious Sephardim,” and Russian immigrants.

Goldberg concludes that he hopes his observations are merely an exaggeration of the problem, but we must look to recent data for an accurate picture of the current reality, and for that I turn to the 2010 Israeli Democratic Index, which was published in November.

Electoral Power: “Only 20% of the Israeli public feel they have the ability to influence government policy to a large extent or to some extent.  A total of 48% feel that they lack any influence — a figure that has remained unchanged for several years…Only 43% of the respondents believe that ‘elections are a good way to make the government pay attention to the people’s views’ — a steep drop compared to 58% in 2009.”

Support for Democracy: “A total of 63% are dissatisfied with its performance…some 27% of Israelis feel that Israel is ‘too democratic’…Among those respondents who define themselves as right-wingers, 36% share this view…Some 60% of the public support he notion that ‘a few strong leaders can be more useful to the country than all the discussions and laws’…FSU immigrants support this statement more than long-time Israelis.”

Political Systems: “Almost half (44%) agreed with the view that a strong leadership is preferable to the Knesset and elections, and some 59% favor a different non-democratic political system, namely, a government made up of experts, who would make decisions on the basis of professional considerations.  Nevertheless, 89% of the public still believe that democracy is the most desirable form of government for Israel.”

Integrity and the Rule of Law: “A total of 85% feel that corruption in Israel is rampant…half the public (50%) are of the opinion that politicians are in politics solely for personal gain..  The most skeptical group in this regard are FSU immigrants.”

Freedom of Expression: “42% maintain that freedom of expression is exercised in Israel to an impressive degree, while a sizeable minority (39%) believe that…there is too much freedom of expression in Israel.”

Equality for Minorities: “The survey found that 54% of Jewish Israelis support full equality of rights between Jews and Arabs…53% of Jews agree with the statement that the government should encourage Arab emigration from Israel…70% of Israeli Jews are opposed to having Arab parties join the government.”

Trust in the Government: “Only 33% of respondents expressed a sense of trust in the government, and only 37% have faith in the Knesset…84% of the Jewish public feel that the government does a poor job of handling the country’s problems…political parties…are trusted by only 25% of respondents…In 2003, for example, the public’s trust in the institutions surveyed stood at 60% and above…among the Jewish public, trust in the IDF stands at 90%, crossing political and ideological lines.”

Summary: “According to the figures, the public’s views regarding civil rights in Israel have remained largely unaltered: The Jewish public believes that fateful decisions for the state should be made by a Jewish majority, and that the state is even entitled to encourage Arab emigration…we have observed significant gaps between the opinions of long-time Israelis and FSU immigrants on this issue.  The latter have emerged as one of the less liberal groups in Israel.”

The Character of the State of Israel: “‘Israel is defined as a Jewish and democratic state.  Which part of this definition is more important to you personally?’  It emerged that among the Israeli public as a whole, the highest percentage (43%)consider both parts of the definition to be equally important; 31% designate the Jewish component as having greater importance, and only 20% feel similarly about the democratic component…’Jewish and democratic’ garners a majority among traditional (56%) and secular Jews (54%).”

Jewish-Arab Relations: “Te idea that citizenship is a legal status that confers equality has only been partly internalized…only 51% of the general public in Israel are in favor of ‘full equality of rights between Jewish and Arab citizens in Israel…Among the Jewish public, 54% support full equality of rights.”

Summary: “Democracy is the name of the game even in states that are decidedly undemocratic in practice…in reality, major gaps can be discerned between theory and practice…A sizeable majority of Israeli citizens are avowed supporters of the democratic idea…but roughly one half of the public is willing to waive the exercise of democratic principles in exchange for improvement in the area of law and order…Israeli democracy earns a less than passing grade from its citizens.”

Thus, it appears that democracy in Israel is more complicated than Goldberg’s apocalyptic prediction.

I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to write about the possibility of another presidential summit aimed at negotiating a final settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, so thank you Aaron David Miller for giving me an entry point.  Miller, a former Middle East negotiator for the US, claims that President Barack Obama can “avoid his predecessors’ mistakes” and “act as a transformative agent in international politics” if he takes into account “the two unasked questions of Camp David.”

First, are the two leaders willing, able, and ready to make the big decisions on the big territorial issues and on the identity issues of Jerusalem and refugees? And, second, is Obama himself willing, able, and ready to do what’s necessary to be tough, reassuring, and fair — using ample amounts of honey and vinegar to try to make the deal?

These are important questions, but they barely scratch the surface; in order to get to the crux of the matter we must look to conflict resolution theory.

The concept of ripeness has become integral to understanding the conditions for successful international mediation.  According to theorist Michael Greig, “ripe moments are commonly conceived of as periods of time under which conflict management is most likely to be achieved.”  Renowned expert William Zartman says ripeness is “characterized by the parties’ realization that they have reached ‘the point of no return’ and can no longer escalate their way to victory, optimally reinforced by an impending or narrowly avoided catastrophe to produce a deadlock and a deadline, plus the presence of valid spokesmen for the parties and the perception of each party that a way out is present.”

During the Oslo process it was obvious that neither party intended to back down.  The costs endured by the disputants did not persuade either to make a sincere attempt at solving the core issues of Jerusalem or refugees.  Waves of violence against Israelis did not act as impending catastrophes, nor did the construction of the security fence.  There was no way out, either.  Yasser Arafat wanted an independent Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem, and Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak had ideological and political reasons for refusing that option.  Clinton himself did not even vocally address the issue of Jerusalem until the last days of the Camp David summit when he realized he would lose a historical opportunity.

The real test of ripeness comes from Jacob Bercovitch’s argument that “it is possible to have more than one ripe moment in the life cycle of conflicts, and…a mediator with leverage, can facilitate another ripe moment.” After Netanyahu reneged on further redeployments in the West Bank, after Arafat failed to fulfill Palestinian security guarantees, and after Barak abandoned Oslo to attempt a bilateral treaty with Syria, Clinton tried to create another ripe moment at Camp David.

What Clinton failed to understand was that he did not and could not create ripeness.  He did not fully understand the religious and ideological implications of Jerusalem.  He did not recognize that Arafat was never prepared to accept anything less than a Palestinian state, or that Barak was posturing.  After all, the former president did write in his memoir that “Both sides clearly wanted a deal,” even though Arafat would not back down from insisting on sovereignty over all of East Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount.  Clinton proposed several preposterous formulas on Jerusalem that both sides rejected, indicating that even if ripeness had been a possibility Clinton did not have a handle on how to leverage his power.

Therefore, I will ask my own two questions: First, can President Obama create another ripe moment after his failed strategy of pushing Israel towards a building freeze to move forward on border talks, and will his attempt take the shape of a Camp David do-over?  And second, can ripeness be artificially created at this point?

I want to believe that Obama can do what Clinton could not, but I have never been optimistic about American mediation or the potential for ripeness.  It certainly does not help that Obama has yet to make a presidential trip to Israel, or that he is mistaken about Netanyahu.  The prime minister ignited controversy when he announced construction in Har Homa in 1998, and he did it again during Vice President Biden’s visit this year.  Obama may love Salam Fayyad, but the Fayyad-Abbas brand of Palestinian politics is not so popular these days.

This is all to say that the current American administration is idealistic to the point that is disregards the facts on the ground, which means that Obama is no different from any other American president.  Special envoy George Mitchell has resorted once again to indirect talks, Netanyahu will continue to build in East Jerusalem, and the Palestinians will keep pushing for a unilateral declaration of an independent state.  If the US cannot recognize its hideous blunders, there is little hope that it can continue on as a mediator in the Middle East.

I now post my blogs to the Jerusalem Post website at http://blogs.jpost.com/content/carrots-and-sticks. CLICK HERE.

So there’s this weird relationship between Jews and evangelical Christians in America.  The evangelicals are Zionists because they know that once all of the Jews are safely settled in Israel the Messiah will come and us Jews will all be converted.  It’s called milliennialism, and it’s a huge money-maker for organizations like AIPAC and the Zionist Organization of America.  Jerry Falwell was a chief Christian Zionist, and yet he also purported that Jews and Muslims can’t go to heaven.  Even though it’s uneasy and positively nauseating, the true Jewish hawks still maintain a relationship with others like Falwell for political reasons.

A similar parallel is emerging with Israel’s right and European radical populist movements such as France’s Front National, Britain’s National Front and UK Independence Party, the Netherlands’ Dutch Party for Freedom, and believe me, the list goes on and on.  Post-9/11, these groups have gained increasing influence in local, regional, national, and EU legislatures, and they create formidable blocs.  We all remember the shock when Jean-Marie Le Pen advanced to the second round of the French presidential election in 2002, but the reality is that radical populism has become mainstream.

These parties are nationalist, white, anti-immigration, anti-Muslim, pro-law and order, and they emphasize a return to traditional family values.  They are extreme Romantics of the worst sort, xenophobes stuck in the rhetoric of the nineteenth century.  The National Vanguard would be the American equivalent.

While not outwardly anti-Semitic, it is safe to say that radical populists are not so friendly to Jews.  But the best part?  They also love Israel.  As an article in Haaretz recently noted,

And within the self-proclaimed pro-Israel populist radical right of Western Europe, such as the Dutch Party for Freedom and a faction of the Sweden Democrats, there is a tendency to demand certain conditions from the Jewish population, primarily that they should support “their only defenders against anti-Semitic Islam.”

This type of ethnic-specific loyalty requirement has been propagated by Swedish MP Kent Ekeroth, who simultaneously defends his party’s anti-kosher and anti-circumcision policies and accuses Swedish Jews of demanding respect for Zionism, while not respecting what he sees as its Swedish equivalent.

European populists like Israel.  They kinda-sorta like/dislike Jews.  They detest immigrants, the Muslims and Roma in particular.  Hungary’s Jobbik party, for example, “proposes to build permanent guarded internment camps for Roma.”  France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, recently deported a slew of Roma because their gypsy camps are illegal.  Not that it does anything, since Roma are EU citizens and can therefore go right back to France.  In the 1930s and 1940s European Jewry was in a similar position of being the scourge of Europe, but now the Jews are a model population for the Muslims because they’ve assimilated.

Enter politician and legislative representative Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom who has a most interesting visage (Google him for images, I promise you won’t be disappointed).  His “anti-Muslim polemics in march shot his PVV party to election success…where it is now the third largest parliamentary party.”  Member of Knesset Aryeh Eldad of the super-nationalist National Union party, however, has welcomed him with open arms.  Eldad either already hosted or will host a conference this month, and as Haaretz reported in November, he said that “‘Wilders supports the program and will present [to the conference] his view that establishing a Palestinian state on the Western bank of the River Jordan will pose an existential threat to Israel.’”  Even better, Wilders’ policies apparently include “introducing Israeli-type ‘administrative detention’ or arrest without trial, banning the building of mosques and suspending immigration of non-Western foreigners to the Netherlands, has in the past angered the Jordanian government with his Jordan-is-Palestine rhetoric and claims that Jerusalem is the “main front protecting the West” from Islam.”

The National Union party must seriously consider what seems like an impending alignment with European radical populists who love Israel because they hate Islam, and yet they also barely stand Jews.  I’m sure Wilders has colleagues all over Europe who would be happy to publicly echo his Jordan-is-Palestine idea.  Radical populists do not equate the Jewish People with Israel, which in post-modern theory is great, but in this context it’s very disturbing since they are essentially appropriating the Jews in their fight against Islam.  I really do wonder what Netanyahu thinks about all of this, and I hope he has taken notice.  More important, how can Israel’s right even stand to communicate with people like Wilders?  Is he the lesser of two evils?

I don’t know what this means for Israel, or if it means anything at all, but this is definitely something I did not see coming.  Israel truly is a country of failed ideologies if its hardcore Zionists are collaborating with the would-be fascists in Europe.

The European Union seems to be losing some of its foreign policy mojo, if it ever had any in the first place.  In 1986, the then-European Community signed the Single European Act, which in addition to providing for the free movement of goods, services, capital, and people, also committed to the creation of a common foreign and security policy.  Even though this revolutionary cession of sovereignty was supposed to herald in a Europe that could compete with the United States, the EU has yet to become a major player in international politics.  The EU has never mediated a conflict, does not have a standing army, and in general seems to be no more powerful than the United Nations.

It comes as no surprise that a supranational organization with such convoluted and misunderstood institutions and interesting rules cannot hold its own on the international stage.  Take the current economic crisis and the devaluation of the Euro, for example.  The EU is barred from collecting revenues of any sort, and now Greece and Ireland, and maybe Portugal and Spain in the future, are getting all sorts of bailout money from France and Germany because they couldn’t hold up their end of the eurozone bargain.

The Palestinians have increasingly turned to the UN and the EU to back their calls for a unilateral Palestinian state, and both institutions in general take a stance that favors the establishment of one.  As a practical idealist,I know that the survival of a state depends on recognition by real-world superpowers like the US and China, not by artificial supranational constructs that are themselves in serious trouble.  Do you even know who the EU’s foreign policy chief is?  It’s Catherine Ashton, a British Labour politician and the First-Vice-President of the European Commission.

As the EU continues to align itself with US foreign policy, Monday’s announcement from member states’ foreign ministers that “The EU affirms its readiness to contribute to a negotiated solution on all final status issues…The EU will not recognize any changes to the pre-1967 borders, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties…A negotiated settlement must allow the two States to live side by side in peace and security.”  Of course, the statement also condemns the illegal settlements and the situation in Gaza, but this is a big move away from supporting, albeit quietly, a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state.  The statement was released shortly after the House of Representatives passed a resolution opposing unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood.

At the end of the day, does it really matter what the EU says about the Middle East?  Member states like France and Germany will always be powerful players regardless of whether or not the EU survives.  Germany tried to mediate the release of Gilad Shalit, while France tried its hand at Israel-Syria talks.  Does Netanyahu, or any leader in the Middle East for that matter, really care about the opinions of former Soviet states, which are still in the process of nation-building themselves, and tiny countries like Malta and Cyprus?  It’s clear that the common foreign policy in this case ended up following the American line.  The question remains whether this trend will continue.

Apparently, there was a “little-reported giant gas leak in Azerbaijan”  experienced by BP just 18 months before the Deepwater Horizon disaster.  The leak in Azerbaijan “happened at the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshi (ACG) field, Azerbaijan’s largest producing oil field in the Caspian where vast undeveloped gas reserves also lie. BP is the operator and largest shareholder in the consortium, which includes US companies Chevron, ExxonMobil and Hess (formerly Amerada Hess), as well as Norwegian firm Statoil and Azerbaijani state owned oil company Socar.”  The Guardian reports that there are “striking resemblances” between the two incidents, according to a series of cables published by WikiLeaks.

September 26, 2008: ACG Operator BP has been exceptionally circumspect in disseminating information about the ACG gas leak, both to the public and to its ACG partners. However, after talking with BP and other sources, Embassy has pieced together the following picture:

- On September 17 bubbles appeared in the waters around the Central Azeri (CA) Platform, one of the major platforms in Azerbaijan’s offshore ACG oil mega-field and the platform’s gas detector alarm went off, signaling the presence of abnormally high levels of gas in the water around the platform (reftel).

- Shortly thereafter, a related gas-reinjection well (B-17) for Central Azeri had a blowout, expelling water, mud and gas.

October 8, 2008: ” [BP Azerbaijan President Bill] Schrader said that the September 17th shutdown of the Central Azeri (CA) platform, in which the “red button” was pressed after detection of a gas leak on the Central Azeri Platform that led to the evacuation of 211 platform workers off the platform, was the largest such emergency evacuation in BP’s history. Given the explosive potential, BP was quite fortunate to have been able to evacuate everyone safely and to prevent any gas ignition…Due to the blowout of a gas-injection well there was “a lot of mud” on the platform, which BP would analyze to help find the cause of the blowout and gas leak.”

January 15, 2009: “BP has restarted oil production from CA and is about to start re-injecting gas again in the Central Azeri field. It has closed off a “few suspect wells” from which they think a bad cement job caused the leaking gas (which is actually good news, since had it been a reservoir leak the damage would have been potentially non-repairable, whereas now all BP has to do is fix the cement job around a few wells, a hard and expensive job to be sure, but preferable to losing the platform).”

This all smells fishy to me: mud on the platform, faulty cement, safety problems, BP refusing to share information.  Hopefully any country that has fields operated by BP will take a serious look at the similarities and conduct its own investigation.  It’s time to put international pressure on BP, folks.  Azerbaijan doesn’t exactly have a Ken Feinberg or a $20 million claims fund to help out the people affected by the leak.  Being an ex-Soviet satellite state dependent on oil and gas production, Azerbaijan has no way to obtain the resources or clout it would have needed to set up commissions or make Tony Hayward look bad.  How did the media miss Azerbaijan when it went to town on the Deepwater Horizon?

Oh, and in another cable the president of Azerbaijan accused BP of stealing $10 billion in oil.  Not sure if it’s true or just another bit of Soviet paranoia, but I wouldn’t be surprised either way.

Could the fire in the Carmel lead to a reconciliation between Israel and Turkey (Been living under a rock for the past few days?  Here’s the low-down.)  Well, apparently Turkish and Israeli officials met in Geneva yesterday in an attempt to mend the ties that were broken when the Mavi Mara freedom flotilla showed up in Gaza in May.  Turkey is one of the several countries that sent firefighting aircraft to Israel to help contain the fire, and a few days ago Prime Minister Netanyahu phoned Prime Minister Erdogan to thank him.  It was the first time the two had spoken since Netanyahu took office, so yeah, pretty monumental.  According to Haaretz:

The Israeli and Turkish diplomats speculated that in an agreement, Israel would apologize to Turkey for the events of the Gaza flotilla and compensate it accordingly, and in exchange Turkey would return its ambassador to Tel-Aviv and agree to appoint a new Israeli envoy in Ankara.

Israel and Turkey need each other, and the backdrop of the Carmel fire is as good a reason as any to get back on track with bilateral relations.  A year or so ago Turkey tried its hand at mediating between Israel and Syria, and while that didn’t work out, I think Turkey still has potential as an indispensable channel for communication between Israel and Syria and possibly between Israel and Iran, should the two choose to go the negotiating route.  Better relations between Israel and Turkey will also reinstate Turkey as the top destination for vacationing Israelis.

On the other hand, Israelis seem to be very disappointed with Netanyahu’s handling of the fire as a national emergency.  Forty-two people, including Haifa’s police chief, died in the blaze, and almost 20,000 were evacuated from their homes.  Netanyahu has ordered the State Comptroller to compile a report on the fire.  It will be issued Wednesday, but in the meantime other reports reveal the state of Israel’s firefighting capacity.  A report by the comptroller in 2007, for example, says that “the fire service is the weakest of Israel’s rescue forces,” and “another report, issued earlier this year, stated that the situation of the fire service had significantly deteriorated in the time since the first report.”  As Aluf Ben reveals in his Haaretz editorial, Israeli firefighting forces also underperformed during the Second Lebanon War in 2006:

“The firefighting facilities in Israel lack a central command and control system,” the comptroller stated in one of the main findings of the probe into the firefighters’ performance in the north during the 2006 Lebanon war.

Israel has 1,532 firefighters’ positions. In 2005 only 1,375 of them were filled, and only 345 of them in the north, which had 40 vehicles instead of the 63 required.

Another problem is “a severe shortage of water filling sites for the vehicles in the forested area. Only 2 of 40 planned sites were set up, due to budgetary difficulties.”

Israelis are frustrated, and rightfully so.  What to do?  Apparently, an option is to call it “Netanyahu’s Katrina,” as one columnist has done.  Netanyahu = Bush, and interior minister Yishai = Brownie.  Perfect.  Netanyahu is rolling up his shirtsleeves for a more “working man” image and changing the color of his shirt from white to blue.  Unfortunately, I don’t know enough about the situation in terms of public relations and communications, but people are definitely angry about it.

So how did the fire start?  A 14-year-old from the Druze village of Usfiya, was recently arrested and today admitted to accidentally starting the fire by “smoking a Hookah pipe in the forest, and later disposing the burning piece of coal into an open area in the woods, which caused a fire to erupt.”  If this is true, the fire is a case of negligence, not arson.  But that didn’t stop news outlets like Arutz Sheva from speculating that the fire might be a terrorist attack.  And so it goes.

I love WikiLeaks just as much as the next wonk, but Julian Assange (the guy behind it all) is crazy.  It’s not just the fact that he’s wanted by Interpol for rape, even though that by itself is pretty awful and Roman Polanski-esque.  In an interview with TIME published yesterday, Assange went on a diatribe about how WikiLeaks is going to result in a new world order.  On the Middle East:

But looking at what we can, I can see that there is a tremendous rearrangement of viewings about many different countries. And so that will result in some new kind of harmonization [variant: harm minimization]. And we can see the Israeli Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu coming out with a very interesting statement that leaders should speak in public like they do in private whenever they can. He believes that the result of this publication, which makes the sentiments of many privately held beliefs public, are promising a pretty good [indecipherable] will lead to some kind of increase in the peace process in the Middle East and particularly in relation to Iran. I just noticed today Iran has agreed to nuclear talks. Maybe that’s coincidence or maybe it’s coming out of this process, but it’s certainly not being canceled by this process.