Egypt: There Goes the Army; There Goes the Free Media

By Barry Rubin

So can you write “Arab Spring,” "free elections," "democracy in Egypt," and such things 100 times? This just might be somewhat in contradiction to the fact that:

Muslim Brotherhood President al-Mursi has just removed the commanding generals of the Egyptian military. Does he have a right to do this? Who knows. There's no constitution but they have two choices: fight or surrender. I fear they will surrender. That means all we were told about not having to worry because the generals would restrain the Brotherhood was false. Moreover, the idea that the army, and hence the government, may fear to act lest they lose U.S. aid will also be false. Mursi has also removed a constitutional decree regarding parliament. He is now the democratically elected dictator of Egypt.

Behind the scenes note: Would Mursi dared have done this if he thought Obama would come down on him like a ton of bricks? Would the army give up if they thought America was behind it? No on both counts.

Muslim Brotherhood President al-Mursi has also  just named the editors of the top Egyptian newspaper and other media outlets. They are state-owned, you know, and there are a half-dozen good little independent newspapers.

But one of them, al-Destour (ironically meaning "The Constitution"),  has just had a full issue seized on charges of “fueling sedition” and “harming the president through phrases and wording punishable by law.” We know this through a report in the Middle East News Agency, the state-owned monopoly.

And what was the inflammatory report? That the Brotherhood was going to seize power and that liberals and the army should join together to stop the country from being turned into an Islamist regime.

To read the entire article click here.

Why is Israel More Prosperous Than the Palestinians: The Ultimate Demonstration of Media Bias

By Barry Rubin


In almost 40 years of studying these issues I’ve never seen a better case study of mass media bias and knee-jerk narrowness than an aspect of the current flap about what presidential candidate Mitt Romney said during his trip to Israel. I’m going to focus on a single point because it brings this problem into sharp focus.

If you truly understand what you are about to read, I don’t see how you can accord most of the mass media any credibility when it comes to Israel ever again. Briefly, Romney mentioned the gap between the Israeli and Palestinian economies—ironically, he vastly understated the gap—and attributed it to “culture” by which he meant, as Romney has said elsewhere, such things as democracy, individual liberty, free enterprise, and the rule of law.

But I’m not talking about Romney here or the media’s critique of him. What is interesting is this: How do you explain the reason why Israel is so more advanced in terms of economy, technology, and living standards? The media generally rejected Romney’s explanation and pretty much all made the same point. To quote the Associated Press story, that was:

“Comparison of the two economies did not take into account the stifling effect the Israeli occupation has had on the Palestinian economy in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem—areas Israel captured in 1967 where the Palestinians hope to establish a state.

"In the West Bank, Palestinians have only limited self-rule. Israel controls all border crossings in and out of the territory, and continues to restrict Palestinian trade and movement. Israel annexed east Jerusalem in 1967, but has invested much less heavily there than in Jewish west Jerusalem.”

Or, in other words, it’s all Israel’s fault. Yet in choosing to blame Israel, the media generally showed no interest at all in additional factors which are equally or more valid. 

I’m not suggesting that journalists and editors thought through the following list of factors and deliberately decided not to mention them. I think that these things never entered their minds. Yet how can that be? Some of these points require knowledge of the situation on the ground and its history. Still, many should be obvious to those who have read past newspaper accounts or just use logic, not to mention research.

Consider the points made below. You might count them for less but anyone honest should admit that they add up to a compelling case:

1.      The most devastating problem for the Palestinian economy has been the leadership’s refusal to make peace with Israel and to get a state. Most notably, the opportunities thrown away in 1948, 1979, and 2000 doomed both countries to years of suffering, casualties, and lower development. Today, in 2012, both Palestinian leaderships—Fatah and Hamas—continue this strategy.

2.      Statistics show major advances in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the period of Israeli occupation.  A lot of money also came in from Palestinians working in Israel (or to a surprising extent on the Jewish settlements).

3.      The media should be expected to explain why Israel interfered at all once, by around 1994, almost all West Bank and Gaza Palestinians were under Palestinian rule. The reason, of course, was Palestinian violence against Israel and Israelis. If there had not been such attacks, Israeli forces would not have set foot in Palestinian-ruled areas. Stability would have encouraged development and foreign investment. There would be no roadblocks. Incidentally, roadblocks and restrictions on travel have changed constantly and at times of relative quiet became almost non-existent. Of course, Israel maintained control of the borders to prevent weapons from coming in.

4.      There was a  large transfer of funds (as provided in the Oslo agreement but PA behavior did not make Israel violate the agreement) from Israel to the PA regarding refunds on customs' duties and workers' fringe benefits.

5.      The well-documented incompetence and corruption of the Palestinian Authority. For example, there is no reliable body of law that a company could depend on there. Bribes determine who gets contracts. Literally billions of dollars have been stolen and mostly ended up in the European accounts of Palestinian leaders.

6.      And where did those billions of dollars come from? They came from foreign donors who showered huge amounts of money on a relatively small population. Yet, even aside from theft, the money was not used productively or to benefit the people.

7.      Because of the risks and attacks on Israel, the country stopped admitting Palestinian workers except for a far smaller number. Tens of thousands thus lost lucrative jobs and the PA could not replace these.

8.      The unequal status of women in the Palestinian society throws away up to one-half of the potential labor and talent that could otherwise have made a big contribution to development.

9.      And then there are the special factors relating to the Gaza Strip. Under the rule of Hamas, a group committing many acts of terror and openly calling for genocide against Israel, the emphasis was not put on economic development but on war-fighting. The shooting of rockets at Israel created an economic blockade. Note also, however, that Hamas also alienated the Mubarak regime in Egypt which also had no incentive to help it, instituting its own restrictions that were as intense as those of Israel.

10.  The Palestinian leadership generally antagonized Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other oil-rich Arab states that were consequently not interested in helping them develop.

11.  Finally, compare the Palestinians to the Egyptians, Jordanians, Syrians, or Lebanese. In those places the excuse of it’s all Israel’s fault is hard to sustain yet the Palestinians have done as well or better than those other Arabs who share a very similar political culture.  

12.  And incidentally remember that Israel also had to cope with war, terrorism, and defense needs unequaled by the burden faced by any other democratic state in the world. Moreover, it could not trade for most of its history with any of its neighbors--and commerce is still limited--or any of the countries in the Arabic-speaking world that surrounds it. In addition, it has almost no natural resources. So while Israel received a lot of U.S. aid most of that went into defense and not economic development. In other words, Israel's has handicaps as impressive (or almost as marked) as the Palestinian ones. 

My goal here was not so much to present these twelve points but to ask the question: Why is it that these factors were barely mentioned or not mentioned at all in the media analyses of Romney’s statement?

The answer, of course, is that most of the media is set on the blame-Israel argument. Yet even given this truth, why do they have to do so virtually 100 percent of the time with nothing about the other side of the issue? This applies to dozens of other questions such as why hasn't peace been achieved. And in this as in many other cases, they virtually take the PA's talking points as their themes and facts.

Often, one suspects there are a lot of people in the mass media and academia who are totally uninterested in presenting anything other than an anti-Israel narrative. This article doesn't mean to generalize about everyone, of course, but you who are doing that know who you are, and you readers know who they are! 

To read the entire article click here.

Our Foreign Correspondent Covers the Revolution

Note the following is satire, even though it is just about precisely what actually happens:  

A man stands in a square, somewhere in the Middle East, screaming slogans: “Jihad is the only way! Down with America! Death to Israel!” An American reporter approaches.

“Excuse me, sir, but I’m an American journalist and wonder if I might ask you some questions.”

“Sharia is the only…Oh, sure, just a moment.” The man clears his throat, “Long live democracy! Up with human rights!” He turns to the reporter, “Hi, my American friend. Have a nice day! What do you think of the Red Sox’s chances? Of course, they could use more depth in the bull pen!”

“I wanted to ask you what you think of America.”

“America? Very nice place. I might like to live there some day if I’m sent on a mission. We love Americans. We just don’t like their policies. They support Israel. They support our local dictator. If only they would change their ways we could be good friends.” He reaches into his pocket, “Have a sunflower seed!”

To read the entire article click here

New York Times coverage of Israel: What Comes After Ridiculously Biased?

By Barry Rubin

With the arrival of Jodi Rudoren as correspondent, New York Times coverage of Israel and related issues has now gone to a new level of ridiculous bias, especially after a predecessor who really did try to be fair.

 What is most impressive about Rudoren's record so far is that there is no attempt to give the faintest appearance of balance. She probably doesn't understand what that concept means. And she certainly knows that the editors and ombudsman won't hold her accountable.

We in Israel have grown used to media prejudice and, given our low expectations, probably accept more of it without complaint than anyone else in the world.

Yet the following lead was the absolute last straw for me, in an article entitled "Palestinians Go Hungry to Make Their Voices Heard":

"The newest heroes of the Palestinian cause are not burly young men hurling stones or wielding automatic weapons. They are gaunt adults, wrists in chains, starving themselves inside Israeli prisons."'

 This is not news coverage but revolutionary romanticism. And consider the implications:

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--The article does not tell us that they are in prison for a reason. These are overwhelmingly people who have murdered or tried to murder civilians during a period, by the way, when their supposed governmental representative, the Palestinian Authority, was not at war with Israel.

--They were in fact "burly young men...wielding automatic weapons" when thrown into prison after trials. Most of them admit--indeed brag about--their crimes and make it clear that they would continue such deeds if released.

--Consequently, these people are NOT heroes to Palestinians, a macho society generally, because they are pitiful, gaunt, and starving but because they were heroes of an armed struggle defined in genocidal terms.

--The Palestinian Authority and Hamas holds these people as role models to young people so that they will be inspired to grow up to kill more Israelis.

--"Gaunt adults, wrists in chains" seems pulled from the nineteenth century novels of Victor Hugo.

--Remember, these are the people still in prison because of the bloodiness of their crimes after Israel has released hundreds of others in prisoner exchanges or amnesties designed to indicate good will and promote negotiations.  They are still in jost ail not out of cruelty or even out of a sense of justice and self-defense but because they generally are the most merciless in deliberately slaying those who are weak and helpless.

--The author's goal is to make readers say, "Those horrible Israelis are so mean and repressive, mistreating those poor people! We must do something!" And it is to make Jewish readers to say, "We must distance ourselves from this evil country (or government) that so betrays basic Jewish principles of mercy and justice." The former call for pressuring Israel in order to hurt it; the latter urge pressuring Israel for its own good and talk about a crisis of Zionism in producing such a terrible system.    

To read the entire article 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.

Exclusive: An Islamist Nazi Collaborator is Transformed into a Moderate

By Barry Rubin

Suppose you read in the Washington Post about a democratic politician who was a refugee from persecution by a dictatorship. Would you be surprised to learn that he was in fact a vicious antisemite, a radical Islamist, and—by the way—a wanted war criminal for his collaboration with the Nazis?

In fact, all of the facts about this politician are easily available in the public record. The man in question is Maarouf al-Dawalibi, whose son, Nofal, has now declared himself leader of a Syrian “government in exile.” I don't want to be unfair to the Washington Post, which in this case merely reports what someone told it and had no reason to research this specific point.

Still, this story amply illustrates the daily misrepresentation and apologies for revolutionary Islamism  so common in the media, academia, and among Western government officials. It also shows how a naive West is repeatedly duped and how knowledge of Middle East is so shallow among the supposed experts and pundits.

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According to the Post:

“[Nofal] al-Dawalibi said his father, Maarouf, was the `last freely elected prime minister’ in Syria, in 1961, but was later jailed and fled to Saudi Arabia two years later, where he became an adviser to the royal family.”

So who was Maarouf? According to official German  documents and U.S. Army war crimes’ investigators, he was a Nazi agent stationed in Paris, working for the grand mufti, Amin al-Husaini, and on Berlin’s payroll during World War Two. A secret U.S. intelligence document of June 17, 1945, puts Maarouf al-Dawalibi on the wanted list of war criminals. Somehow he eluded capture.

To read the entire article 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.

The Moderate U.S. Establishment Position? That the Muslim Brotherhood Might Be Moderate

[Also hear me interviewed on Middle East developments here at the 14 minute mark.]

By Barry Rubin

The Washington Post continues to talk relatively sensibly about Middle East developments. And yet its latest editorial also shows the type of contortions necessary to avoid facing the awful truth of the situation in the region.

The editorial concludes:

“Election results notwithstanding, it seems clear that the vast majority of Egyptians as well as Tunisians seek economic progress and respect for human rights, and not a theocracy. Secular citizens and minorities, who make up a large part of the population, will not accept discrimination. Islamic movements will succeed in government, and retain their following, only if they recognize those realities.”

Really? Let’s consider this text as it reveals precisely how the Obama Administration and the conventional wisdom in the U.S. policy establishment thinks about these issues:

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“Election results notwithstanding, it seems clear that the vast majority of Egyptians as well as Tunisians seek economic progress and respect for human rights, and not a theocracy.”

Then why did they vote so much for radical Islamist parties? I know that one can consult some polls to say that the people’s main concern is economic betterment but that also requires ignoring other polls where enthusiastic support for Sharia is shown.

Moreover, the case can be made that they think Islamists will do a better job of managing the economy for various reasons, including the (probably true) assumption that they are less corrupt, belief that they will follow populist policies that will more directly benefit the masses, impose order through repression (less crime when you cut off limbs), and expectation that they will bring a higher degree of equality and social justice.

As for “respect for human rights” does this mean that they advocate equality for women and Christians; think people should have the freedom of speech to criticize Islam or even to offer interpretations of Islam contrary to those of the most powerful (and radical) clerics? This is a fantasy, based on the belief that Middle Eastern Muslims—once one gets beyond clothes, food, and customs—think just like Americans.

What would we have been told in 1952, that most Arabs didn’t support radical Arab nationalism but really wanted democracy and human rights instead?

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.

Combatting Media Manipulation: Just Say “No”

Apology: On the February 27 subscription feed I had the wrong link to the full article for this. As given at the end of this article, this is the correct link:

By Barry Rubin

I don’t understand—and I haven’t seen anyone even try to explain it—why the Republican presidential candidates keep subjecting themselves to politically partisan, hostile journalists being in control their debates.  These journalists have been highly partisan previously and seem to shield President Obama from criticism and go on the offensive to try, for example, to turn the whole debate into the pretense that these candidates want to make birth control pills illegal.

Why didn’t these candidates just get together, especially now that there are only four left, to choose their own panel, say with each of them picking one questioner? And whenever Newt Gingrich challenged the premises--and honesty--of the questioners, he was met with wild applause because both the mass media's bias and the need to challenge it openly couldn't be more obvious.

But, you might ask, does it make sense to go to war with the mass media? Of course not, unless it is already at war with you. Nothing like this has been seen in America for a century or even two. The main newspapers and television networks are determined to reelect Obama, promote the currently dominant leftist (not liberal) ideas without limit and to smear or slander critics.

Why is this so effective? Because roughly half of the American population doesn't even realize it's happening. They think the news media is fair and at least as balanced as it was 10 or 20 or 30 years ago. Consequently, Obama is a big success, the economy is recovering, man-made global warming is the biggest problem facing the planet, and the president's enemies are a bunch of racist, reactionary, stupid people. We will get a clearer picture of the exact proportions on the first Tuesday in November.

The consciously dishonest transformation of an assault on the Catholic church's freedom of religion into a plot to stop the sale of birth control is a prime example. The 100 percent effort to perform character assassination on Republican candidates compared to the near zero level of criticism regarding Obama and his team is another. The downplaying and misinformation regarding scandals from the pre-election Bill Ayers and Reverend Jeremiah Wright issues through the "green energy" rip-offs and the "Fast and Furious" operation is still another.   You can, no doubt, think of more.

If you haven’t heard the video of Reverend Franklin Graham on television it is one of those moments when the mass media most obviously cross the line into pure propaganda. Graham was repeatedly asked whether he thought President Obama was a Christian and kept explaining the answer was "yes." He accepts Obama’s saying he was a Christian. But Graham also noted that, according to his own religious beliefs no one could determine someone else’s credentials in that regard, and only Obama knew in his heart whether he was truly a Christian.

Graham didn’t quite get the point—which concerns the difference between a nominal Christian and someone who has a deep personal commitment to live by that religion--across clearly. But any honest person should have understood his meaning. Yet there was a massive media assault afterward twisting his words and falsely asserting that Graham said Obama wasn’t a Christian.

What really startled me, however, was that in a later interview Graham added a critical point. He recounted that he was told beforehand the interview was going to be about the persecution of Christian by Muslim extremists in various countries. That’s why he agreed to do it, Graham explained. Under the circumstances, he was right in accepting the interview—since this is an issue virtually never covered in the mass media—but wrong in letting himself be manipulated.

Click here to read the entire article

Debate in the Mainstream Arabic-Speaking Universe: Only One Flavor Available

Debate in the Mainstream Arabic-Speaking Universe: Only One Flavor Available

A couple enters a diner. Man: What have you got?

Waitress: Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam; spam bacon sausage and spam; spam egg spam spam bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam,,,,or Lobster Thermidor au Crevette with a Mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spam.

Wife: Have you got anything without spam?

Waitress: Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.

--Monty Python "spam skit"

By Barry Rubin

Westerners tend to believe that the debate in the Arabic-speaking universe is sort of like debate in the West. Despite differences there is supposedly pragmatism, a strong sense of reality, and the underlying desire for material prosperity, stability, and peace. Of course, such things exist but often there is a strong element of fantasy and a powerful dose of hatred. Consequently, the policies and results are commensurate with that input.

And remember that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that al-Jazira is a source we should look to for real news. Here is an example of a recent al-Jazira program. The Russian guest is a vicious antisemite who writes articles accusing Israel of being responsible for all of the world's problems and especially those of the Middle East. He supports the Syrian regime. The Arab guest is a supporter of the Syrian revolution. But both of these men--who are on the opposite side-- agree that the Jews are behind everything!

Oh, yes, and they also agree that America is the other source of all evil. The Russian says that the United States is financing the revolution against the Assad regime while the Arab says the United States is keeping Assad in power.  The Arab guest argues that the Zionists, who originally came from Russia, are killing Syrians; the Russian says that only Russian weapons have saved Syria from the evil Zionists.

The Arab speaker, however, has the last word, explaining that he hates Russia and all of the West, too, and promises that "millions of Chechens, Afghans, and Syrians" will take revenge by killing a lot of Russians in the future.

Is the pro-revolution Arab guest speaking on behalf of the Syrian revolution and showing us what it would be like if it took power? Maybe yes; maybe no. But the irony is that the Obama Administration collaborated with Turkey in pushing a pro-Islamist opposition leadership. The revolutionaries have largely rejected this leadership. Maybe you can't be "more Catholic than the Pope," but the Obama Administration has succeeded in being more Islamist than the Syrian revolutionaries.

Click here to read the entire article

The World Media Goes Bonkers: An Israel-Attacks-Iran Case Study

http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2012/02/world-media-goes-bonkers-israel-attacks.html

The World Media Goes Bonkers: An Israel-Attacks-Iran Case Study

By Barry Rubin

For the second time in a few months we have seen a crazy global Israel-About-to-Attack-Iran Story. I don't want to go into all of the details but this tale is an example of how the media has just lost it completely due to a combination of laziness (reporters don't really do research or check sources); agenda; ignorance; and good old sensationalism. Partly, too, it arises from the difficulty of the mass media in dealing with the Internet media era and the difficulty of the Internet media in achieving decent journalistic standards.

A couple of months ago a level of hysteria was reached on the basis of three stories:

--A Jerusalem Post article, which could have been published just about any time in the last five years, saying that the Israeli air force was practicing fo ran attack on Iran.

--An interview with a former Israeli intelligence official who opposes attacking Iran saying that Israel had decided not to attack Iran but worrying that the prime minister might want to reopen discussion of the issue.

--A sensationalistic article in an Arab newspaper with no Israeli inside sources speculating that an attack was going to happen.

Out of this was built a worldwide story claiming something was going to happen that wasn't. It was quickly shown to be wrong but no lesson was learned.

Now we've just been through phase two. A Washington Post columnist, not known for his accuracy, claimed that the U.S. defense secretary said that Israel was about to attack. This was immediately accepted as if the cabinet member had said so publicly when the supposed statement was completely unproven.  The man in question, Leon Panetta, denied the story.

Within a few days President Barack Obama said he knew Israel was not going to attack Iran. Think of what that means. Israeli leaders and American intelligence assessments have been daily reporting that no attack was imminent. If Obama knew it, Panetta knew it.

It is true that a respected Israeli journalist wrote an article based on interviews in which he concluded that some day Israel would attack. But my reading of the article concludes that those interviewed are clearly expressing concern and trying to influence Western policy by saying: Do something so we don't have to attack Iran some day. 

If Israel was about to attack, he wouldn't have written the article at all. 

And consistent Israeli statements to the contrary were simply ignored. The most important was by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak who said what everyone knew: Israel would only attack if Iran had deliverable nuclear weapons, no decision had been made, and that was well in the future.

I could go on but what is lacking here is the equivalent of common sense.  There are many good reasons why Israel won't attack Iran now which I have presented already. To its credit, the Los Angeles Times finally came up with a story noting that Israelis were "bemused" by all the hysteria that ran totally contrary to what they knew.

People have written about why Israel should not attack Iran but very few have written about why Israel would not attack Iran at this time. There has been indifference to all of the totally known factors involved regarding this decision.

In the end, the issue is one of fact. It is easily observable that Israel has not attacked Iran and still has not done so on any given date in the future. Yet what does this say about media coverage and public debate over other stories, especially international ones?

Doesn't anybody think there's a lesson to be learned in that fact that they were just plain wrong? Just as they were wrong about the Israel-Palestinian peace process progressing, Syria becoming moderate, the "Arab Spring," and so many other things? Might all these errors prompt some reconsideration of premises and methods?

The Muslim Brotherhood Moderation Myth Revealed, Then Quickly Dropped Down the Memory Hole

Amazing--an NYT reporter admits the truth about the Muslim Brotherhood and then quickly reburies it.

By Barry Rubin

It is amazing how mass media coverage of the Middle East switches gears and implicitly admits to having been wrong while continuing with the same themes. Or sometimes, buried deep inside an article, there's a flash of truth that conflicts with everything else that's been said, even by the same reporter. But then the light goes out; the stygian dark returns; and it was as if that flash had never taken place.

In working on a new edition of my book, Islamic Fundamentalists in Egyptian Politics, I have reviewed media coverage from January 2011 to the present. It is virtually impossible to find a single reference--and certainly not directly from a journalist--saying that the Muslim Brotherhood was a radical group.

Instead we were told daily that it was moderate, pragmatic, against violence, not really anti-American, and so on. We were told that it was full of moderates and factions, especially of young people.

Instead, the narrative is being falsely shaped in this way:

--The Brotherhood is protecting Egypt from the even more radical Salafists so the West should support them.

--The real battle is between the military and the civilians so the Brotherhood is--or, at least, if it chooses to be--the champion of democracy against the armed forces. Supposedly, then, the liberal Egyptians will be grateful to the Islamist group even as it crushes them.

Now, in a new article, New York Times correspondent Robert Worth tells the story of Mohamed Beltagy, a beloved and heroic (according to Worth) Muslim Brotherhood figure who opposes repression by the military. Worth doesn't tell us that the Brotherhood supports the repression because it helps it to get rid of moderate--though politically inept--rivals. It is, however, clear that people like Beltagy have no real influence in the Brotherhood. In other words, if there are moderates they are marginal in a party that has almost half the seats in parliament.

But then--suddenly!--there's this amazing admission stuck way down in the story and not highlighted in any way:

Read the entire article by clicking here

This Is What Democracy Looks Like?: Hating America and Rejecting Peace with Israel Portrayed as Virtuous

Summary:
Wow! The New York Times tells us that by rejecting peace with Israel the Arab revolts PROVE they are moderate!
Mubarak was a sell-out to Zionism and imperialism!
And continuing to fight the Arab-Israeli conflict will bring stable democracy!

Meanwhile, nobody notices or understands that this is not reporting but propaganda pushing the Islamist and radical nationalist program.

By Barry Rubin

It’s fascinating to see not only the Middle East going backward but Western analysts and officials cheering on a return to even more war and terrorism. A good example is, “In Tumult, New Hope for Palestinian Cause,”by Anthony Shadid and David D. Kirkpatrick in the New York Times.

Let’s take one sentence at a time and see what it tells us:

“In all the tumult of the Arab revolts, one of the most striking manifestations of change is a rejuvenated embrace of the Palestinian cause.”

Wasn’t it a few weeks ago that the alleged lack of obsession with the Arab-Israeli conflict was a sign of progress toward moderation and democracy? Now we are told the exact opposite! And nobody in the mass media even notes that this is a contradiction!

Read it all

Take Lebanon for Example (Hizballah Did): There's Something About a New York Times Editorial...

By Barry Rubin

...that truly embodies the spirit of the era. And in this era the mainstream spirit is to ignore reality and construct a fantasyland. Case in point (as Rod Serling used to say on The Twilight Zone), an editorial entitled "The Long Pursuit of Justice in Lebanon." The editorial deals with the fact that four Hizballah figures, one of them very senior, have been indicted by the international tribunal for their involvement in assassinating former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

The editorial is six paragraphs long. It tells us that Hizballah is:

Read more

New York Times Bites Israel By Lying About the "Flytilla"

By Barry Rubin

Saying that the New York Times misreported on the Middle East in a way deliberately intended to be biased against Israel is like writing an article with the headline, "Dog Bites Man!" Still, since this behavior is so often unintentionally humorous, I can't resist quoting the lead of the newspaper's main story on the "flytilla" attempt to disrupt Israel's airport and air travel:

Read more

Thomas Friedman, Courtier, Not Expert, Calls for Revolution in Israel?

By Barry Rubin

The article explains Friedman's new themes--which seem to echo those of Obama and to be the new anti-Israel line: Those Israelis are stupid and stubborn. If only they knew their own interests they would do whatever Obama wanted and accept a Palestinian state right away (for virtually nothing in return). Oh yes, and in the words of the ever-elegant Friedman, saying Obama is anti-Israel is "Crap."

Actually, I think the word "crap" best describes the Obama administration's perceptions of the Middle East, policies toward the region, and handling of Israel-Palestinian issues. The difference is that I can prove my case and Friedman can't prove his.

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NY Times "Scoop": Israel Claims Media Coverage is Unfair

By Barry Rubin

Sometimes when one of the better reporters around tries to be fair the result shows up the low quality of Middle East coverage generally. In an article on the Gaza Strip, Israeli policy, and the flotilla of anti-Israel, pro-Hamas activists, the New York Times informs us:

"Israel’s relationship with the foreign news media has grown strained in recent years; the country increasingly believes that foreign portrayals of its conflict with the Palestinians are harsh and one-sided."

Since Israelis have been quite aware of media bias since the mid-1980s and provided hundreds (thousands) of examples this should not exactly be a discovery. But American newspaper readers or television watchers are rarely informed of this fact by the very institutions that stand accused of bias, ignorance, and just plain bad reporting.

A detailed analysis of how the flotilla, the Gaza Strip, and Israel's policy is being covered.

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My Own Private 1984: Why Is Saying the Muslim Brotherhood is Radical A Controversial Claim?

By Barry Rubin

In 2003, I and the publication I edit, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, became the world's biggest story for two or three days. Last week I became a "story" without knowing it until later.

A very strange experience in which a hugely popular television show and a prestigious fact-checking site war over my article without ever consulting or mentioning me that illustrates the mondo bizarro in which we live.  

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Never Forget the Power of the Mass Media to Distort Reality

By Barry Rubin

[Name withheld] is one of the kindest and most generous people I've ever known. [Name withheld] is well-educated and is an open-minded liberal. [Name withheld] is not Jewish but is friendly to Israel. Yesterday there was a column in the Washington Post claiming--on ridiculously distorted arguments--that Glenn Beck is an antisemite. For two years I've been listening to Beck on television and radio as part of a research project on understanding the new conservative debate (with special reference to the Middle East and Israel) and explaining it to Israelis. I know, then, that while Glenn Beck sometimes makes silly mistakes on details he often has a better grasp of Middle East issues than the mainstream media. The charge against him is not only profoundly false but based on such a distortion of everything he has said and done for many years that one can only assume that the Washington Post author was consciously lying.

To find out how the goodhearted individual and the badhearted lie come together, read more.

Syrian Regime Flak Calls for Mass Murder; West Does Nothing

By Barry Rubin

Here is the real Middle East not the Fantasyland of the Obama Administration about President Bashar al-Asad as a reformer or the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. This is how things really work.

Taleb Ibrahim is a pro-regime propagandist frequently portrayed as a "political analyst" or some objective thinker in the international mass media. But speaking in Arabic he cuts loose, explaining that killing protestors is a duty because they are Israeli agents. Thus, those demonstrating against the government must be smashed, wiped out so a better future can be built for Syria.

The regime in Damascus is carrying out mass murder and calling for more killing yet Western governments still stand by and not only do nothing, they say nothing.

Meanwhile, despite an international military assault on Libya, dictator Muammar al-Qadhafi is still there, another sign of Western impotence. Hizballah was allowed to defeat the West by returning to southern Lebanon and smuggling in all the weapons it wanted from Syria (without any condemnation of Syria for violating the U.S.-sponsored, UN-mandated ceasefire. Iran zips along toward nuclear weapons; Islamist terror spreads in Egypt. The UN-mandated international investigation of terrorism in Lebanon doesn't advance toward indicting Syria.

Yet we are told either that everything is going great or that the problems are inexplicable.

Has there ever been such a gap between reality and perception? The fascinating question here is how far things will go and how many people will be dead before there is the beginning of some comprehension that Obama and his advisors are dead wrong while most of the mass media has no idea what it's talking about.

The Myth That Contemporary Western Mass Media Help Understand the World: An Example on Pakistan

This article is published in PajamasMedia.

By Barry Rubin

People ask me why I write so much and I explain that I don’t want to do so but keep coming across such important events, missed stories, and outrageous nonsense that I feel compelled to say something. So it is in this case.

Here’s the problem: a remarkable amount of what's written on the Middle East in the mass media—and certainly the efforts to analyze it as opposed to reporting events—is nonsensical. It makes the region harder to understand. It misleads the reader.

An example is Anatol Lieven, “5 Myths about Pakistan,” Washington Post, June 5, 2011. Lieven is a professor at Kings College London and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. He has just written a book on Pakistan.

One of the techniques often employed in the creation of the Fantasy Middle East is to misstate totally the issues at stake. Note the use of that technique in Lieven's article.

Alleged Myth One: Pakistan is a U.S. ally in the war on terrorism.”

Pakistan, he writes, just follows its own interests. Sometimes it’s helpful and sometimes it isn’t. Fair enough, that’s what allies generally do. But the policy question is: whether Pakistan is helpful often enough to merit being treated like an ally and given huge amounts of aid. The answer is”no.” Neither the question nor the answer is addressed.

Incidentally, it’s pretty outrageous that Lieven suggests that Pakistan supports the Taliban because India is inciting other groups in Afghanistan to seize power. Yet since Pakistan’s policy has been the same for 30 years--it has long supported radical Islamist forces in Afghanistan--how can India be to blame for relatively recent policies? To bash India for Pakistan's behavior in Afghanistan is absurd.

If a country supports to a major degree the two groups that attacked America on September 11—the Taliban and al-Qaida—plus is a major sponsor of terrorism against India, the answer to question 1 isn’t “Sometimes” but "Definitely not!"

Alleged Myth 2: ”Pakistan is an ally of the Taliban.”

Again, Lieven turns this into a “straw man” argument. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t, he says. But the real answer is "yes," if one is talking about the Afghan Taliban, which is what the United States is mainly concerned about! It is only an enemy of the [Pakistani] Taliban that tries to take over Pakistan. So, again, Pakistan IS an ally of the [Afghan] Taliban, the group--along with al-Qaida--that the United States gives it billions of dollars to fight against!

Alleged Myth 3: “Islamist revolution is coming to Pakistan.”

Why is this a myth? Because, says Lieven, less than one-fifth of Pakistanis view the Taliban favorably in a poll. As if, that’s the only Islamist group! He cites one Pew poll number but other polls and other questions show a remarkably high level of support for Islamism among Pakistanis. Putting such a spin on one item and leaving out others verges, to put it politely, on deliberate dishonesty.

Indeed, a recent Pew poll shows that Pakistanis support Islamism by a whopping 47 to 15 percent margin. Thus, this argument that Pakistanis don't want Islamism is a total myth. That's why Lieven misrepresents the issue to "prove" that Pakistanis don't want the Taliban's specific brand of Islamism.

I'm not saying that Pakistan will have a radical Islamist revolution. But it is certainly possible. If Turkey and Egypt can become Islamist, surely Pakistan could do so.

Alleged Myth 4 “Massive U.S. aid lets Washington dictate Pakistani policy.”

This one really made me angry. Nobody seriously argues such a thing. The real issue is whether the large amount of aid and support the United States gives Pakistan provides some American leverage to get Pakistan to do things that the United States wants and needs to be done. If this aid does no good at all then it shouldn’t be given in the first place.

The correct formulation is: Does giving Pakistan massive aid provide Washington with any ability at all to have the slightest effect on Pakistani policy.” If billions of dollars cannot even get them to help find Usama bin Laden what good are they?

Alleged Myth 5 “Pakistan, not Afghanistan, is the front in the war on terrorism.”

The front? I don’t know anyone who says this either. That's just a phony issue. The real question is: Does Pakistan provide really positive aid in fighting terrorism or not? But if one frames the question in that way the answer is not likely to be in the affirmative, which is presumably why this question isn't asked.

So what’s the bottom line? The author writes what he's been setting up for that entire misleading essay:

“None of this means that the United States should pursue more aggressive policies against Pakistan to win the war on terrorism….Any U.S. action that endangered the stability of the Pakistani government would be insane.”

In other words, U.S. policy is just fine and there's no need to change anything. Who cares if they support the Taliban, hide al-Qaida leaders, and launch terrorist attacks on India? Just keep sending them money and keep giving them support.

Precisely the same argument has and will be used to rationalize such things as:

U.S. aid and support to the Palestinian Authority (even if it refuses to negotiate or make peace and brings Hamas into the government);

Turkey (despite its regime's growing support for Iran,

Syria (the regime supposedly wants to reform itself and you can't expect it to abandon the alliance with Iran so who cares if they shoot down thousands of unarmed citizens and help terrorist groups along with opposing U.S. policies and interests);

Lebanon (even if Hizballah will be in the government and the country is dominated by Syria and Iran);

and no doubt soon Egypt (with a radical nationalist-Islamist regime that will be against the United States.

You can easily adjust the five "myths" to suit each circumstance. Indeed, if Iran's leaders didn't keep "stubbornly" refusing to make some phony deal on their nuclear program the Obama administration and many "experts" would no doubt be advocating the same ideas about Iran, too.

Why was that article written? Like so many, to turn something obvious through "sophistication" into a brain-dead conclusion. Let's state it briefly to make the point stand out:

High-ranking elements in Pakistan have just got caught hiding Usama bin Ladin, the world's number-one wanted terrorist who killed 3000 Americans on September 11and have repeatedly been caught helping bin Ladin's enablers, the Afghan Taliban, and terrorists murdering people in India. No apology, no investigation, no change of policy by Pakistan.

The expert recommendation? U.S. policy toward Pakistan shouldn't change at all.

This is the foolishness dressed up with deception and double-talk that so often substitutes for serious debate in America's mass media today.

I would call the kind of article I'm analyzing here not only “misinformation” but ”anti-information.” In other words, the person reading it would be worse informed afterward than they were beforehand!

And the same goes for much—most? Almost all?—of the material of this nature in the mass media. Not only do we face this propaganda barrage but contrary opinions are generally  barred from mass media publication or broadcast altogether.

What I've done with this article and others can be done with many of the items on the Middle East that appear daily in prestigious publications. It's not just about getting details wrong, it's about total misdirection. A few minutes of serious analysis can totally demolish what they are saying while exposing their hidden (wrong) assumptions.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/ 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). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org. His PajamaMedia columns are mirrored and other articles available at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.