• Obama to Jewish Leaders: "Search Your Souls" on Israel's Seriousness for Making Peace - Ben Harris
  In an hour-long meeting Tuesday with about 50 representatives from the Jewish community's chief foreign policy umbrella group, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, President Obama reportedly urged Jewish leaders to "search your souls" over Israel's seriousness about making peace. While top leaders welcomed the meeting and noted the president's affirmation of his "deep commitment to Israel's security," several participants told JTA that the president also implied that Israel bears primary responsibility for advancing the peace process. Obama also reportedly said that the Arab sections of Jerusalem would not remain in Israeli hands as part of any peace deal. (JTA)
      See also At Jewish Leaders' Meeting, Concern on Israel - Ben Smith
  A person briefed on the meeting said it was cordial but didn't offer any movement in some leaders' unease over American frustration with Israel's stand on settlement construction. Another source in the room said Obama made the case to the group that the current turmoil in the region is the beginning of a transformation that, in the medium, 10-year term, seeks peace. Obama also got a lot of thanks for last week's veto at the UN. (Politico)
      See also Supplemental Statement on Meeting with President Obama
  Contrary to certain public reports, the meeting was conducted in an atmosphere of warmth, friendship and openness and there was no expression of hostility toward Israel or its government. The President acknowledged the wide range of opinion within the American Jewish community and the possibility that not all of those present would agree with each of his tactical decisions. (Conference of Presidents, 2March2011)
• Options for Ousting Gaddafi Look Limited
  The Obama administration is tempering its tough talk on Libya with a dose of reality, explaining that even a no-fly zone over the country would require a military attack on Moammar Gaddafi's regime. Administration efforts to rein in "loose talk" about military options to force Gaddafi from power were an acknowledgment that the options for international action to stem the violence appeared highly limited.
      "A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defenses," Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a congressional panel Wednesday. The unspoken subtext was that with U.S. forces already deeply committed in Afghanistan, still winding down military operations in Iraq, and on the watch for surprises in Iran and elsewhere in the region, the risks associated with military action in Libya might be unacceptable. (AP)
      See also Photo Gallery: Upheaval in Libya (Atlantic Monthly)
• Two U.S. Airmen Killed in Germany by Muslim Gunman - Greg Jaffe and Julie Tate
  A gunman opened fire on a bus full of U.S. Air Force personnel outside Frankfurt International Airport on Wednesday, killing two airmen and wounding two others. The gunman, Arif Uka, 21, a Kosovar Albanian and a devout Muslim who worked at the airport, shouted "Allahu akbar," or "God is great" in Arabic, before firing at the bus and continued to scream the phrase as he was detained, witnesses reported. (Washington Post)

• A Trophy to Be Proud Of - Editorial
  On Tuesday near the security fence in southern Gaza, the miniature Trophy system, fixed onto all IDF tanks in the Gaza sector, recognized that a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) had been launched at one of the tanks. Trophy intercepted the RPG with a neutralizer and blew up the incoming projectile in mid-air. This was the first time that anti-tank fire had been successfully intercepted under real combat zone conditions, and the implications cannot be overestimated.
      The proven effectiveness of the Israeli breakthrough is a game-changer. In the Second Lebanon War in 2006, dozens of Israeli tanks were struck and 19 crewmen were killed by Hizbullah anti-tank rockets. The newest Israeli contribution to the modern battlefield will eventually not only save more Israeli lives, but the lives of many Americans too. (Jerusalem Post)
• Sweden: We Won't Unilaterally Recognize Palestinian State - Herb Keinon
  Sweden is not considering unilaterally recognizing a Palestinian state within the 1967 lines, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt told the Jerusalem Post on Wednesday. Bildt's comments are significant because Sweden is widely considered in Jerusalem as being among the most pro-Palestinian states in the EU.
      Bildt said the "most fundamental definition of a state" is that it controls its own territory, and that the Palestinians won't control their own territory unless there is an agreement with Israel. Noting that the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean "is not that big," Bildt said the reality is that a Palestinian state will have "to be in close cooperation with Israel."  (Jerusalem Post)
• The Palestinian Authority's Political Offensive Against the State of Israel
  The State of Israel has continued its engagement in improving and strengthening the Palestinian economy and continues its concession-making policy to the Palestinian Authority (PA) in a wide range of fields (including civil, infrastructural, economic, commercial, political and security-related matters). It has reduced the number of security roadblocks from 44 to 16.
      Yet the PA continues to press for Israel's condemnation in international forums. It continues to foster a culture of glorifying terrorists who are responsible for the murders of countless innocent Israeli civilians. (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

• How the Arabs Turned Shame into Liberty - Fouad Ajami
  Over the decades, Arabs took the dictators' bait, chanted their names and believed their promises. They averted their gazes from the great crimes. Out of malice or bigotry, that old "Arab street" had nothing to say about the terror inflicted on Shiites and Kurds in Iraq, for Saddam Hussein was beloved by the crowds, a pan-Arab hero, an enforcer of Sunni interests. Nor did many Arabs take notice in 1978 when Imam Musa al-Sadr, the leader of the Shiites of Lebanon, disappeared while on a visit to Libya.
      In the 1950s and 1960s, rulers rose and fell with regularity. Monarchs were overthrown with relative ease as new men, from more humble social classes, rose to power through the military and through radical political parties. By the 1980s, a new political creature had taken hold: repressive "national security states" with awesome means of control and terror. The new men were pitiless, they killed with abandon; a world of cruelty had settled upon the Arabs. Fear was now the glue of politics. Today's rebellions are animated, above all, by a desire to be cleansed of the stain and the guilt of having given in to the despots for so long. The writer is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. (New York Times)
• The Indefensible Case for Withdrawal - Ari Harow
  Despite the Arab street's clear demands for regime change, there are still those who insist that an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank is the recipe for regional stability. In reality, moves to delegitimize our presence in Judea and Samaria, and ultimately to hasten our withdrawal to the 1967 armistice lines, would prove catastrophe for democratic hopes in the region. If there is to be any progress, it must be grounded in the concept of defensible borders.
      A withdrawal to the indefensible 1967 armistice lines is a risk we simply can't afford to take, and which the likes of Hamas are all too eager to exploit. A pullout from the West Bank would surely only encourage the Iranian-inspired fundamentalists who hope to add our eastern flank to the trophies of Gaza and Lebanon. Regionally, other extremist forces such as the Muslim Brotherhood would gain inspiration from a perceived Israeli capitulation, fuelling their own appetite for power in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and other countries. A pullback to the 1967 lines would leave the region's only genuine democracy exposed at a time of immense uncertainty. In doing so, reconciliation and genuine peace would become even more unlikely.
      Any future Israeli-Palestinian talks must therefore be predicated on the necessity of defensible borders. The writer served as bureau chief to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Jerusalem Post)

Israel a Model for Arab Success - Lee Smith (Tablet)

• In order to survive, Arab and Muslim societies are going to have to forget about the notion of an Islamic alternative to modernity and will instead have to adopt what they have typically described as Western values but are in reality the universal values of political modernity.
• The Arab model for success is not Iran, or Turkey, but Israel, the one country in the region that lives those values. Last year Israel ranked 17th out of 58 of the world's most economically developed nations, while the country's economy was rated the most durable in the face of crises and rated first in investments in research and development centers.
• The college graduates who took to the streets in Cairo to protest their lack of opportunity are simply not prepared to compete with the rest of the world. The only scenario is for them to become more like Israel.
• The longer the Arabs continue to make Israel the focus of rejectionism and hatred, the more impossible it will become for them to arrest the death-spiral of their societies and economies. The inability of Western observers who claim to care about the fate of these societies and their people to make this point clearly and repeatedly has only damaged the cause of Arab social and political development.