France: Here Comes the Whitewash

By Barry Rubin

The murders in Toulouse should be a wake-up call for France and all of Europe. True, the assaults on Jews and French soldiers were three individual terror attacks perpetrated supposedly by a single individual. The more information that emerges, however, the clearer it becomes that this terrorist was well connected to a bigger al-Qaida network. 


Even more important, these shootings are among dozens of antisemitic incidents that happen daily in France and throughout Europe. A big story like the Toulouse attack can draw attention to a broader, dangerous political and social trend.

Or it can be treated as an isolated incident. Nothing to see here; move along; go back to sleep. Al-Qaida terrorists don't pull up in front of Jewish schools to murder teachers and students every day, right?

In the past, the mass media could be expected to present a debate on how to interpret this event but now all too often they give a monopoly to the whitewashers and the apologists. 



-----------------------
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 28,929. Put email address in upper right-hand box: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com
-----------------------

Phase one is to present any terrorist as a right-wing, neo-Nazi, or opponent of left-wing policies. If the terrorist is a Muslim, however, his own explanations—citing dominant interpretations of Islam and the goal of furthering an Islamist revolution—are ignored. Instead, he or they are presented as confused, psychologically disturbed individuals; victims of discrimination; or, in short, anything other than ideologically motivated revolutionaries.

Perhaps the leading “professional” apologist for France in this context is Justin Vaisse.  In an article in Foreign Policy, The "New Normal" in France?, he claims that Mohamed Merah, the Toulouse terrorist, is sort of a sad sack character who is merely seeking to take his fate into his own hands and to emerge as the defender of oppressed Muslims in France. In other words, he’s sort of a combination of self-help fanatic and crime-fighting superhero.

As for France itself, antisemitism is supposedly declining. There’s no problem and few major attacks on Jews. Everything is just fine. No need to make changes; no need to demand that Muslims teach tolerance and fight against extremists in their own ranks; no need to provide more protection for Jewish institutions. And no need for a real soul-searching about the constant demonization of Israel in the French media and, at times, schools.

Is this disgusting? Yes and it's also dangerous. The subhead on the article tells us the Toulouse attack is merely "a banal and fading version of extremism." To a Jewish ear, the word "banal" recalls the famous Hannah Arendt line about the "banality of evil" in the Holocaust, while the word "fading" means the problem is going away. 

It so happens that I have met Monsieur Vaisse and discussed these issues with him. At that time he was an advisor on Islam in the French government. Vaisse had just written a book saying that there was no real political problem regarding Muslims in France. The book was quickly translated into English and published by a prestigious Washington research center.

According to Vaisse, the entire difficulty lay with economic and social issues. The problem was that Muslims were poor and badly treated. If this were fixed then there would be no radicalism, Islamism, or terrorism.

I asked him: Accepting your premise for the moment, why should we possibly believe that France can solve the economic and social problems involved? There aren’t good jobs; there is no prospect of better housing and higher living standards. Government regulations discourage entrepreneurship. So in the context of your worldview, isn’t the prospect for more radicalization and violence?

He simply gave no serious answer. And this, I should add, was before the current international economic crash and the Paris riots.

But there’s more. A colleague asked Vaisse what sources he used in composing his study. Only French-language sources, he replied. My astonished colleague said that nothing could be understood without looking also at the Arabic material that French Muslims were writing and reading. In fact, this person added, there was an Arabic-language bookstore within five minutes’ walk of Vaisse’s office and we could go there right now and see the radical, antisemitic child-raising manuals being sold there. These books, my colleague added, weren’t just sitting on the shelves they were being bought and used.

Vaisse showed zero interest in this point.

For Vaisse, revolutionary Islamism is simply not a factor of any importance. While he correctly points out that many French Muslim activists aren't personally pious in their behavior (drinking alcohol, for example), this is besides the point. Islamism becomes a form of ethnic nationalism for them, justifying anti-Jewish and general anti-French actions.

In addition, this is no transient "second-generation" phenomenon. For over time, the radicalism is passed on to the third generation through Islamic schools, mosques, and indoctrination at home. In effect, France and other countries are turning themselves into permanently unstable bi-national states.   

Incidentally, in the Netherlands—in contrast to France—Jewish groups successfully protested the sale of these child-raising manuals telling parents to teach their kids that Jews were evil and should be extirpated. The Dutch government responded by ordering little strips of white paper be glued over the offending passages. My host then showed me, with a flick of his finger, how easily these paste-overs could be removed and the sections calling for the killing of Jews be read.

Now consider this point. I am unaware of a single incident in Europe or North America when a non-Muslim attacked Muslims with guns or bombs in an attempt to kill the maximum number possible. Probably, you could find a couple of such cases but it won’t be easy and they won’t be many. It is the Jews who are being targeted as a group by many levels of violence and intimidation. This is a secret to nobody except Western governments, “experts,” and much of the mass media.

I have listened in France to discussions among Jews over what parts of their cities were still safe to live in and which were too dangerous. The key factor is whether you are wealthy enough to move away from the threats. I’ve heard Jewish parents discussing their kids' traumatic experiences in the public schools. 

French Jews are either leaving France or at least buying homes in Israel. Aside from reports in mostly Jewish media, I know about this because I hear more French being spoken in Tel Aviv streets. My real estate agent friend has a growing number of French clients, some of whom leave their families in Israel and commute to work in France. These people know what’s actually going on in France and other countries.  

Der Speigel interviews, Daniel Ben-Simon, an expert who explains there are, "hundreds of anti-Semitic incidents" a year, committed mainly by Arab immigrants. Indeed, the teacher and his two children murdered in Toulouse were French Jews who had emigrated to Israel until he had been persuaded to return to France to work in the school.   

So while we will be told to listen to Vaisse and such people, these reassuring lies have nothing to do with reality.  

This is not just a matter of misinformation. Such falsehoods encourage governments and institutions not to prepare, not to change their ways, not to learn from bloody experience, to continue denying the very existence of an antisemitic problem. And that means there will occasionally be more such tragedies but also hundreds of incitements to antisemitism, blood libels against Israel, assaults, threats, and other acts of anti-Jewish hatred that you will never hear about. 

Hiding the truth only ensures that the problem grows and the tragedies are repeated. And unfortunately that is precisely what's happening.

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 is published in the Jerusalem Post. The version here is better. Please read and link to my version here. 

  

Surprise! Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Seeks Islamist Dictatorship

This article is published in PajamasMedia. The text is presented here for your convenience.

By Barry Rubin

It shouldn't be a surprise that the Muslim Brotherhood wants an Islamist state in Egypt. After all, that's been its goal since the organization was founded almost 75 years ago, a goal from which it is never deviated for one minute.

Yet some people are shocked, shocked, to see revolutionary Islamism going on. Still, something positive may come out of the Brotherhood leaders' loose lips.


Two Brotherhood leaders, Mahmoud Ezzat, the deputy Supreme Guide, and Saad al-Husseiny, announced the group's two-stage strategy, though I'm expressing it here in my words:

Phase one: Use its new Freedom and Justice Party to build a broad base of support. Do well in a couple of elections. take 30 percent of parliament, lay the basis for an Islamist state in the new constitution.

Phase two: Use anti-Western and anti-Israel demagoguery, preach Islamism in every possible way, indoctrinate young people, watch as a more secular regime fails, and then establish a radical Islamist state with the full array of special punishments, killing of converts, jihad against Israel, etc.


As always happens with Islamists, success breeds arrogance. The Brotherhood was trying to pretend moderation--a tactic that has worked brilliantly with Western journalists--and keep its mouth shut. But once things started looking good, its leaders couldn't stop themselves from bragging about their future total triumph.

Meanwhile, France's Foreign Minister Alain Juppe has announced that France is ready to talk to all Muslim Brotherhood groups. There are two particular problems here. First, using logic to analyze the foreign minister's position goes like this:

--France's government says that the country will talk with all groups that have renounced violence.

--France's government says that the country will talk with all Muslim Brotherhood groups.

--Therefore, France's government says that all Muslim Brotherhood groups have renounced violence.

The last statement is, of course, untrue. The Egyptian and Jordanian Muslim Brotherhoods--and one coud add the Palestinian Brotherhood, better known as Hamas, too--have not renounced violence. They openly and daily advocate violence against Israel, and the Egyptian Brotherhood has also called for jihad against the United States.

Concluding that the Brotherhood is now a pacifist group thus totally discounts any threat from it.

Second, Juppe said--in words that echoed Obama--that France was fooled by Arab leaders (Egypt? Jordan? Saudi Arabia?) who said that revolutionary Islamists were a threat. "We believed them," Juppe explained, "and now we can see the result."

So the Brotherhood is non-violent, non-threatening, and doesn't seek a radical Islamist regime. That's a basis for disaster if used by Western policy to set strategy in the Middle East. And that's precisely what most Western decisionmakers seem to think. 

But something good may come from this. With the Brotherhood acting arrogant, other groups are uniting against it. This candor might well weaken the Islamists over the next year or so, though their longer-term prospects for seizing power are still very real.

Engaging Iran: You’re Doing a Great Job….At Losing the Battle

By Barry Rubin

Have these people no shame? One meeting with Iran at which the Iranian regime mentions a possible commitment to give up its nuclear fuel, then denies having said any such thing, and they are ready to surrender.

On the basis of what even he calls a “wind of medium optimism,” French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner says, "We no longer want to talk of sanctions." Remember that even before the meeting he said that sanctions were “dangerous”

In fact, the more one studies what happened in the Geneva meeting and afterward, the more it looks as if the Iranian regime gave nothing.

Even the New York Times is starting to get it and points out that the trick is even more obvious because--guess what, though no newspaper has previously mentioned this in connection with the Geneva meeting--the Iranians have done precisely the same thing before!:

"This is not the first time that Western officials have left discussions with their Iranian counterparts thinking they had a deal, only to see it melt away. In 2007, European diplomats said they thought they had wrung a concession from Iran on the same issue, enriching uranium outside the country for use in Iranian reactors, only to have Iran’s supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, reject the idea as an infringement of Iran’s sovereignty."

Yet with this small and old trick, the Iranian regime has thrown its supposed foes into utter confusion. The plan to raise sanctions at the G-20 meeting is now gone and past. The allied forces, about whose unity Obama brags, have been divided.

And what is most ridiculous, Obama's National Security Advisor Jim Jones--who is disappointing even people in the Administration--is actually put into the position of defending the Iranian regime! He told Face the Nation program October 4, 2009:

“We now have an Iran that is willing to come to the table”

Well, hey, they can't be all bad can they? Does he understand that Iran has been coming to the table now for about six years, lying and stalling all that time?

As for Kouchner, look, monsieur dude, if you’re going to surrender at least make them work at it a bit!

Right way: Germany invades France. Fight a few weeks, then surrender, collaborate, and turn over all your Jews to be exterminated.

Wrong way: Announce ahead of time Iran is doing you a favor by accepting your surrender. Then give in when they just hint at doing something.

Ok, I admit writing that wasn’t fair to France. But one of the reasons it is so unfair is one of the many bizarre elements in this story. France is simultaneously the toughest and the weakest of the European states on Iran depending on who's talking. Is it that Kouchner and President Sarkozy are at odds? One would think that the statements on the question come from two totally different governments.

But the basic point remains accurate. At least some of the Western powers—unfortunately, I fear this includes the United States—just can’t wait to make a deal with Iran and they aren’t even all that concerned to make it look good.

Those of you who read this blog may recall my dispatches about my son’s soccer (football) experiences. In their last game, they lost 10-0 after which the coach told them that they really played well.

I’m concerned that U.S. foreign policy is the equivalent of that team and the media-academic complex has become a mirror image of that coach.

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 latest books are 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). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.