President Obama Demands a Meeting to Discuss His Grade

By Barry Rubin

Janice Fiamengo’s brilliant article, “The Unteachables: A Generation that Cannot Learn,” fits my past experience teaching at American universities. But I realized that her account applied perfectly to…something else.

Fiamengo writes that students are upset when teachers get tough on grading, “Offended pride and sulkiness replace the careless cheer of former days.”

They don’t get it when the professor points out the shortcomings in their papers . “But my work has always been praised before! Your criticisms are exaggerated!” And they may boast: “The general idea was good, wasn’t it? I’m better at the big ideas. On the details, well…”

And then if you don’t give in they become belligerent. As Fiamengo puts it:

“Their tendency is,…not to confront the problem directly but to hit back at its perceived source.…These students experience a range of negative reactions, including anger, anxiety, and depression.”

They are incapable of learning because they are can't deal constructively with criticism orr learn from failure.

Now does this sound familiar? It sounds exactly like President Barack Obama. So I wondered. Suppose I was Obama’s professor in a class called, “Being President 1” and I gave him an “F.” If he fails to improve his grade he won’t be allowed to continue for next term. Here’s how such a meeting might play out:

Me: Barack, I’m happy to discuss the grade  on your paper, `How to Fundamentally Transform America and Make It Fair' with you but I hope you listen carefully and learn how to improve."

Obama: There must be some mistake! I’ve always gotten an A+ from the media. I was admitted to Harvard! I was editor of the law review! And in 2008 I won the presidency and then the Nobel Peace Prize! I'm the smartest man in the world! The mass media--which can't find any occasion where I was everr wrong--and millions of people can't stop raving about how wonderful I am!

Click here to read the entire article.

A Sentence by the State Department Sentences The World to Disaster

By Barry Rubin

If I’ve ever seen a single sentence that spells disaster in the Middle East it’s this one:

“`People say things in a campaign and then when they get elected they actually have to govern,’ [U.S. State Department] spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.”

The specific context of this statement were remarks by the Obama Administration’s favorite Egyptian presidential candidate, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, in a debate. He called Israel racist, an enemy of Egypt, and a state based on occupation (that is, has no right to exist), then calling to alter the Egypt-Israel peace treaty.

Pay no attention to the man in front of the curtain, says Nuland, he doesn’t really mean it.  


-----------------------
We need your support. To make a tax-deductible donation to the GLORIA Center by PayPal or credit card: click Donate button: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com. Checks: "American Friends of IDC.” “For GLORIA Center” on memo line. Mail: American Friends of IDC, 116 East 16th St., 11th Fl., NY, NY 10003.

Please be subscriber 29,206. Put email address in upper right-hand box: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com
------------------------

The problem with this, like hundreds of other statements by the currently dominant worldview in the West, is that almost nobody is around in the mainstream media or academia to say: Wait a minute! In fact, I can make a very strong counter-argument that would persuade most people if they were allowed to hear it.

So let us parse Ms. Nuland’s sentence, which does accurately reflect U.S. foreign policy today and is indeed a death or prison sentence for many people in the Middle East. Nothing is easier, of course, than finding examples of politicians who did not keep their election promises. But that’s not what we are dealing with here. No, the case here is:

Do radical ideological movements say things in their campaigns to gain power, including election campaigns, which disappear due to the pragmatism forced by the need to govern?

Examples please?

I’ve heard this argument before, most notably in 1978-1979, when the Islamist revolution came to Iran. The Islamists have won every election since and have not been moderated by the need to govern. On the contrary, they have used their extremism to continue to govern.


For example, from the New York Times, February 16, 1979, an op-ed by Richard Falk:

“The depiction of Khomeini as fanatical, reactionary and the bearer of crude prejudices seems certainly and happily false.…To suppose that Ayatollah Khomeini is dissembling seems almost beyond belief.…Having created a new model of popular revolution based, for the most part, on nonviolent tactics, Iran may yet provide us with a desperately-needed model of humane governance for a third-world country.”

It is only poetic injustice that Falk, a man who totally misjudged the Iranian radical threat, has now been made by the UN the judge of Israel which is facing that same threat.

The same kind of thing was said throughout the 1990s. Yasir Arafat will be moderated by having to pave roads and collect the garbage. Power is inevitably moderating and ideology is meaningless. No, that’s not true and history shows it isn’t true.

Were the Communists moderated by being in power? Well not in the USSR, maybe a bit after 70 years. And not in China, well yes more than a bit after only about a half-century. We’re still waiting for Cuba and North Korea, both between five and six decades old. Add in such examples as the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Ba’th Party in Syria or Iraq, and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

It is important to understand why this isn’t true. There are some dangerously false assumptions in Ms. Nuland’s simple sentence.

She is assuming that radical movements are saying things to please voters in the same way that American politicians do. But American politicians are overwhelmingly unideological. Deep down, few of them think that ideas matter. 

But what if they sincerely and passionately believed that every plank on their platform was ordered by the supreme being and that this was in fact the only reason their political party existed?

Suppose their rivals were willing and able to destroy their careers or even kill them if they showed they were  phony in their devotion?

And suppose a large portion of the masses took all of this seriously and meant to hold them to their promises?

And suppose they truly believed themselves that instituting Sharia law--perhaps at most with a slightly more liberal interpretation here and a few exceptions there--was the only way to govern?

In other words, there are lots of reasons for radicals to remain radicals in government. And, after all, that is what usually happens.

But that’s not all by a long shot. What happens when those who actually have to govern fail to make things better and to satisfy the masses’ aspirations? Then they really need those things said in the campaign: the demagoguery, scapegoating, and impossible demands. 

At this point, these kinds of things aren't just forgotten promises, they are magical solutions that are vital for governance! Instead of falling or facing serious internal conflict due to its failures, the regime puts itself at the head of the masses marching against evil foreign enemies onto whom it puts the blame for these failures.

Let's suppose that Egypt elects a "moderate Islamist" as president. Will he call out the army to suppress his Salafist supporters when they burn down churches, assassinate secularists, or help Hamas attack Israel and set off a war? Does the fact that this person would not have a single reliable vote in parliament affect things at all?

What do these wishful-thinking observers believe must happen to throw their views into question? Presumably Egyptian presidential candidates would have to come onto the stage drooling, wearing horns and a tail, and screaming, "Kill! Kill!"   


--------------------
Barry Rubin, Israel: An Introduction (Yale University Press) is the first comprehensive book providing a well-rounded introduction to Israel, a definitive account of the nation's past, its often controversial present, and much more. It presents a clear and detailed view of the country’s land, people, history, society, politics, economics, and culture. This book is written for general readers and students who may have little knowledge but even well-informed readers tell us they’ve learned new things.Please click here to purchase your copy and get moreinformation on the book. 
-------------------------

Meanwhile, back in Egypt, Aboul Fotouh is not the worst person who might be elected president and he probably would restrain to a small degree the speed of transformation to a radical Islamist regime. But in an interview with an Egyptian station, Abul Fotouh has also just said that while he is against “terrorism” Usama bin Ladin was not a terrorist, that the United States only called him one in order to “hit Muslim interests,”  and that the killing of bin Ladin was an “act of state terrorism.” In other words, he’s saying September 11 wasn't an act of terrorism but that Obama’s policy is anti-Muslim and terrorist.

Have no illusions.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center  and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

The Middle East: Brave New World or Scary New Master?

By Barry Rubin

“How many goodly creatures are there here!How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,That has such people in't!”

 “Caliban has a new master….Freedom, hey-day! hey-day, freedom! freedom, hey-day, freedom!”

--William Shakespeare, “The Tempest

If you want a sense of where the Middle East is going, consider this viewpoint from an unlikely source. Suat Kiniklioglu is not just a member of the Turkish Parliament for the ruling (Islamist) AK party, he’s a member of the party’s Central Executive Committee and deputy chair of the party’s foreign affairs commission. In other words, he’s a very important person in Turkey’s ruling establishment and especially foreign policy.

Yet rather than take an optimistic view about the advance of Islamic politics in the region, he’s very worried, worried enough to write a column entitled, “Back to a Barbarian Age” in the May 16 edition of the Islamist newspaper, Today’s Zaman.

What is this barbarianism? It consists of rising group hatred and looking down on others as culturally inferior and uncivilized. One might think he’s about to launch still another attack on the West as evil, imperialistic, and anti-Muslim. Not at all.

His complaint is:

“We are now back to the very primordial identities that once dominated our political behavior and determined the group to which we belonged or were seen as belonging. We are no longer socialists, conservatives or liberals. These days we are first judged by what tribe we belong to and more increasingly what faith we believe in.”

Yes, he continues, “I am constantly reminded in Europe and the US that I am a Muslim.” It is interesting to not that he was born in Germany and clearly that played a role in making him identify himself as a Muslim (and not just a Turk) that he ended up in the AK party.

But his complaints are about the Middle East:

“When I travel in the Middle East, I am reminded that I am a Sunni. The Middle East is being ravaged by barbarians who want to divide the world into Sunni and Shiite. We can no longer make any political assessment without entertaining these ethnic, religious and sectarian identities. We are truly back to the Middle Ages. All of our accumulated knowledge, sophistication and political culture seems to have been lost. The Middle East is pervaded and increasingly infected by the sectarian rivalry between the Shiite Persians and the Wahhabi Saudis, who are now fighting proxy wars all over the region. As if we are all in agreement with the Saudis’ extremely harsh interpretation of Wahhabism, we Sunnis find ourselves in the same camp.”

-----------------------

We need your support. To make a tax-deductible donation to the GLORIA Center by PayPal or credit card: click Donate button: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com. Checks: "American Friends of IDC.” “For GLORIA Center” on memo line. Mail: American Friends of IDC, 116 East 16th St., 11th Fl., NY, NY 10003.

Please be subscriber 29,206. Put email address in upper right-hand box. 

------------------------

Note what he’s saying here. On one hand, there  is a Shia bloc led by Iran; on the other is a hardline Sunni Islamism which he blames on Saudi Arabia but might just as well refer to the Muslim Brotherhood. These two camps are now waging war in Syria for their “primordial and primitive agenda.” These “barbarians” (Islamists) “have blatantly hijacked the push for a normal democratic order in Syria,” instead committing acts of terrorism that must be condemned

And then he concludes: “With all its sins and shortcomings, the secular order we [Turks] established over the last eight decades has taken hold and promises to support our sociopolitical order.”

Why would a leading figure in an Islamist party identify the era of rising Islamism as a “great shame…[in which the Middle East ] fell prey to the thirst of barbarian bloodshed”?.

-------------------------------

Barry Rubin, Israel: An Introduction (Yale University Press) is the first comprehensive book providing a well-rounded introduction to Israel, a definitive account of the nation's past, its often controversial present, and much more. It presents a clear and detailed view of the country’s land, people, history, society, politics, economics, and culture. This book is written for general readers and students who may have little knowledge but even well-informed readers tell us they’ve learned new things.Please click here to purchase your copy and get more information on the book. http://www.gloria-center.org/israel-an-introduction/

---------------------------------

To read the entire articlle, click here.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center  and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

Two Obama Administration Scandals on Syria?

By Barry Rubin

When a delegation of Syrian Kurdish rebels recently visited Washington DC, the State Department met them to ask for a favor. What was it? The Obama Administration urged them to join the Syrian National Council (SNC), the organization created by the U.S. government through Turkey to lead the movement and receive Western aid for all Syrian opposition groups.

But the Turkish Islamist regime, which Obama put in charge of forming the SNC, put the Muslim Brotherhood in control, a fact I pointed out within hours of the announcement of the SNC leadership's names.

Now that several SNC leaders have resigned complaining about Brotherhood domination, followed by some Arab journalists pointing out the obvious Brotherhood domination at the SNC’s last meeting, that reality is clear. But the implications of such an incredibly foolish policy—America putting an anti-American, antisemitic group into the “official” leadership of Syria’s rebels—have never been properly examined as a case study for Obama’s disastrous Middle East policy.

-----------------------

We need your support. To make a tax-deductible donation to the GLORIA Center by PayPal or credit card: click Donate button: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com. Checks: "American Friends of IDC.” “For GLORIA Center” on memo line. Mail: American Friends of IDC, 116 East 16th St., 11th Fl., NY, NY 10003.

Please be subscriber 29,206. Put email address in upper right-hand box: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com
------------------------

The Kurds had walked out of the talks that formed the SNC last year when they saw how Islamists would be in control. Not only do they oppose Islamism itself but they also see the Brotherhood as an Arabizing and centralizing group that would impose a regime that was oppressive toward the non-Arab Kurds.

Now, with the Obama Administration ignoring their concerns, the new U.S. effort so backfired that the enraged Kurds in the delegation spoke for the first time of breaking up Syria altogether!

To sum up, Obama policy has strengthened the Islamist forces in the opposition and fragmented the rebels, thus helping preserve a radical anti-American Syrian regime that is an ally of Iran or helping make any revolution more likely to produce a radical anti-American Syrian Islamist regime that will be an ally of an Islamist Egypt.’

Now comes a very peculiar story in the Washington Post.... 

Click here to read the entire article.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center  and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

Turkey’s Middle East Policy of Seeking To Gobble, Gobble Up the Middle East Makes Enemies of Everyone

"Countries may vary, but civilization is one, and for a nation to progress, it must take part in this one civilization. The decline of the Ottomans began when, proud of their triumphs over the West, they cut their ties with the European nations. This was a mistake which we will not repeat."   --Kemal Ataturk, 1924

By Barry Rubin

Spinning in his grave, indeed. for now his successors not only think they can revive a Turkish-ruled imperium but have made the very mistake of turning their backs on the West that the republic's founder rightly saw as the downfall of that earlier incarnation of his country. I'd change Ataturk's wording slightly: the Ottomans turned their backs on the modern world then being developed in the West while still forming alliances with European powers.

Once upon a time there was a country named Turkey whose republic was created by Kemal Ataturk who famously said: “Peace at home; peace abroad.”

He and the Turkish people had seen their Ottoman Empire collapse after failing to modernize, engaging in chauvinistic nationalism (under the Young Turks), and entering an unnecessary war that led to 20 percent of its population dead  and the country prostrate.

And so Ataturk and his colleagues saved the country based on two basic principles: at home, joining Western civilization through modernization and secularization; abroad, avoiding foreign ambitions and conflicts. Whatever their faults, they did a remarkable job. Turkey made steady progress far in excess of what happened in Iran or the Arabic-speaking world.

But then came the regime of the Justice and Development Party. Pretending to be moderate and democratic it was actually a radical Islamist party seeking to -- if I may coin a phrase -- fundamentally transform Turkey. This regime was not moderate but merely patient in achieving its radical goals.

It insisted that under its rule Turkey would be everyone’s friend and no one’s enemy. And President Barack Obama thought this would be a great model for the Middle East. In fact, though, the regime didn't see everyone as an equal friend. It preferred the company of Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah.

Soon, as events developed in the region, the veneer of modesty boiled away and the aggressive ambition was revealed. And that ambition was expressed most clearly by the devious Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu to parliament in late April:

We will manage the wave of change in the Middle East. Just as the ideal we have in our minds about Turkey, we have an ideal of a new Middle East. We will be the leader and the spokesperson of a new peaceful order, no matter what they say.

Wow. Off with the “everyone’s buddy” image and out comes the raving would-be dictator over the Middle East. But the problem is that there are these people called “Arabs” who don’t want to be bossed around by a Turk, even if they both are Sunni Muslims. In addition, those Arabs have their own ambitions. So when they hear stuff like this they become even more angry and suspicious.

-----------------------

We need your support. To make a tax-deductible donation to the GLORIA Center by PayPal or credit card: click Donate button: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com. Checks: "American Friends of IDC.” “For GLORIA Center” on memo line. Mail: American Friends of IDC, 116 East 16th St., 11th Fl., NY, NY 10003.

Please be subscriber 29,206. Put email address in upper right-hand box: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com

------------------------

  

“No matter what they say,” intones Davutoğlu, a man who has gone even further in addressing his party’s convention in a closed meeting where he said that somebody ought to run the Middle East so why not him and his colleagues. Since his speech was reported in a U.S. embassy message it was available to the White House. Yet it has been Obama’s naiveté about Turkey that has even further puffed up the arrogance of such people.

Click here to read the entire article.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center  and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

A Greek Tragedy: The EU at Colonus

http://pjmedia.com/barryrubin/2012/05/14/a-greek-tragedy-the-eu-at-colonus/

OEDIPUS: "I will be mute, and thou shalt guide my steps

Into the covert from the public road,
Till I have learned their drift. A prudent man
Will ever shape his course by what he learns."

--Sophocles, “Oedipus at Colonus”

By Barry Rubin

Greek Chorus: We have had a living standard high indeed

Though we could not afford that stuff at all,

Now we demand that you for all this pay

Or else the entire Euro’s going to fall!

EU: Oh, I have been blind for all too long

Sending to you all that cash you sought,

And now in a crisis deep and grave

I’m able to comprehend all you have wrought!

Germany: Ach! What more can I do or say?

True, I was once the aggressor cruel and brutal,

Yet does that mean I must always pay and pay,

For your entitlements, bureaucracy, vacations long?

Greek Chorus: Yes, it does indeed!

And in my hand I hold a knife so sharp

That will be plunged first into your currency

And then into my own breast!

We’ve just had elections you know

And communists and fascists now empowered

So set ye not conditions on the cash

Or to you all we will give quite a bash!

EU: True it is that I once had such dreams

All in harmony under a Brussels’ elite

Of happy family from Atlantic to the Urals,

Now it’s all just Cerberus’ leavings at my feet!

Germany: Now let me get this straight.

You want us to give you money without end

And no conditions either put on it

So you can just go on and spend and spend?

Greek Chorus: Yes that about sums it up.

Hey, Zeus can you do something bold

To pull our spanakopita out of the fire?

Zeus (descending from heaven on a fiery chariot)

Well, warlike Ares is in the Middle East quite busy

While Athena full-time must hold press conferences to deny

That Obama is the embodiment of her wisdom.

And Mercury made bad investments in Internet start-ups.

EU: Oh, glorious welfare state!

I thought you could go on forever and never bend,

Money pouring out and votes forever in,

Without a thought to the production end!

Zeus: But now the limit has been clearly reached

And looting all the rich—or Germans--is no solution.

Greek Chorus (breaking in) then revolution!

Zeus (continues): While bureaucrats and rulers will not be impeached

By their own hand, thus distress spreads throughout the entire land.

Oh, we are in a pickle, what can we do

In order to save the EU?

France’s New President: Oh, it is all so simple

As clear as Aphrodite’s dimple!

Just raise the taxes on the rich and

Put no limit on immigration.

Higher wages and forbid firing

Keep vacations long, the work-week short

And touch no hair on any bureaucrat’s head

Don’t worry and drink lots of wine instead!

Germany: Gott im himmel, no!

From me then all the funds will flow?

France, Greek Chorus, Spain, Portugal, etc: Yes, indeed!

So with the bail-outs let’s proceed!

Zeus: This cannot end well

I must SMS Pluto right away

To open up more real estate in Hell!

[All exit]

The Obama Government Backs the Atrocity-Producing Forces So How Will it Stop Atrocities?

By Barry Rubin

How can one write satire when the Obama Administration has created an Atrocities Prevention Board to prevent mass murder and genocide at the same time as it has been largely supporting the forces most likely to commit mass murder and genocide? We can almost call these regimes the Organization of Atrocity-Exporting States (OAES). 

With the exception of Libya—an issue I’m not going to debate in this article--the Obama Administration has been distinguished by its accommodation with those who have committed and are most likely to commit atrocities.

For example, Obama gave a speech in Afghanistan welcoming into political life those members of the Taliban who would renounce violence and obey Afghan law or, more accurately, those who would say such things for just long enough for the American military to leave the country. But the administration has been negotiating with a Taliban that has done neither and has no intention to stopping its violence or accepting the current regime. It has committed past atrocities, including complicity in the September 11 attack which would presumably be pardoned.  No matter what it pretended, the Taliban would put Afghans under an oppressive regime again if—or should I say as soon as—it has the chance. My June 2011 article on Obama's Afghanistan policy remains quite relevant.

Once again in his speech, Obama made the deadly error of claiming that, in effect, al-Qaida is America's only real enemy in the world. Even the Taliban (whose name he cannot pronounce correctly) is redeemable, though it answered him with a suicide attack in Kabul. As for Obama's other claims (international consensus for stability in South Asia, etc) he can't even get Pakistan to stop supporting the Taliban and concealing al-Qaida leaders. And India has been treated by Obama in a manner reminiscent of his policy toward Israel.

So is his administration working to prevent atrocities and is al-Qaida America's only enemy?

Let's start with the terrorist group Hamas which governs the Gaza Strip and has committed atrocities, keeps trying to do so, and openly advocates genocide against both Israel and Jews. The Obama Administration has opposed a serious effort to overthrow it, has accepted de facto its coalition with the Palestinian Authority, and pressed Israel in the past to reduce sanctions to a minimum.

-----------------------
We need your support. To make a tax-deductible donation to the GLORIA Center by PayPal or credit card: click Donate button: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com. Checks: "American Friends of IDC.” “For GLORIA Center” on memo line. Mail: American Friends of IDC, 116 East 16th St., 11th Fl., NY, NY 10003.


Please be subscriber 29,206. Put email address in upper right-hand box: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com
------------------------

Regarding Lebanon, the Obama Administration has ignored a law precluding interaction and aid to a government that includes a group—like Hizballah—on the State Department terrorism list. It has not been bothered by investigations showing Hizballah involvement in assassinations in Lebanon.  The 2006 UN ceasefire, in which the United States played a leading role, promises to keep Hizballah from building up a military zone in the south and to help prevent its importing weapons from Syria. Yet this has not prevented U.S. officials from dallying with Hizballah.

Among others, General David Petraeus, Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker have testified in detail about how Hizballah has committed terrorist attacks against Americans in Iraq and elsewhere in addition to training terrorists.

In Syria, the Administration didn't just engage but actually rewarded the Arabic-speaking world's worst dictatorship. On one notable occasion, junior administration staffers visiting Damascus sitting within screaming distance of the prisons known for torture, tweeted away about what a good time they were having and how great the coffee tasted.  And what about the Muslim Brotherhood, elected by the graduating class at Terrorism High School the group most likely to succeed in committing really big atrocities? Every day its leaders and publications pour out bloodthirsty hate and support for violence. And every day the Western mass media tells us it is moderate and has renounced violence.

--------------------------------

Barry Rubin, Israel: An Introduction (Yale University Press) is the first comprehensive book providing a well-rounded introduction to Israel, a definitive account of the nation's past, its often controversial present, and much more. It presents a clear and detailed view of the country’s land, people, history, society, politics, economics, and culture. This book is written for general readers and students who may have little knowledge but even well-informed readers tell us they’ve learned new things.Please click here to purchase your copy and get more information on the book. http://www.gloria-center.org/israel-an-introduction/

-------------------------------

I could go on to recount the White House’s softness on Sudan, arguably the most atrocity-generating government in the world. Obama has, however, announced his profound opposition to the Lord’s Resistance Army, an east African group that has not surfaced for years. It apparently has two advantages: it isn’t revolutionary Islamist and it probably doesn’t exist any more.

The Board is to be headed by Samantha Power whose pre-Libya ideas about atrocities seemed to revolve largely around blaming Israel exclusively.  Meanwhile, the U.S. government continues to participate and legitimize a UN human rights' council run by and for atrocity-producing states. It has been largely silent on Iran, late and ineffective on Syria, has worked to save the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip and empower the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and was on the wrong side in the Sudan and a number of other countries.

That all of this was announced at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC adds to the bad taste and bad faith of the whole enterprise. And by the word “enterprise” I’m not just referring to the Atrocity Prevention Board.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center  and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

A version of this article was published in the Jerusalem Post. I own the rights and ask you to read and link to the version here.