The True Perpetrators of The Antisemitic Attacks in Toulouse and Throughout the World

By Barry Rubin

What a tragic, evil joke. A drive-by shooter in the beautiful, almost magical, city of Toulouse, France, murders three Jewish children and a teacher in front of their school. Various VIPs issue statements about how terrible is this deed, how unspeakable.

And yet at that very moment, the next round of murders, the next slanderous and inciting antisemitic lies are being perpetrated by respectable people and institutions. There is no real soul-searching, no true effort to do better, no serious examination about how the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hysteria is paving the way to murder and potentially genocide.

Here are three examples of such deeds in nominally democratic countries—not Iran, not Syria, not Pakistan, where such things are even more intense—but in supposedly rational places.

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1. The Turkish editor

Meet Mahir Zeynalov, an editor at Today’s Zaman, a Turkish Islamic newspaper that is supposedly moderate. Meet the modern art of tweeting. Here is Zeynalov’s response to the murders:

Mahir Zeynalov ‏ @MahirZeynalov

Gunmen attack Jewish school in France, vandals attack Jewish cemetery in Poland, Jews burn mosques and Quran in Tunisia. What's wrong?

There are two ways to read this tweet. The more outrageous is this: How can it be wrong for gunmen to murder Jewish children or vandals attack a Jewish cemetery in Poland if Jews are burning mosques and Qurans in Tunisia. One act balances the other.

The other interpretation is this: What a world in which there is so much hatred! Gunmen murder Jewish children, vandals attack a Jewish cemetery, and Jews desecrate mosques and Muslim holy books.

Yet the second interpretation is almost as inciting to violence as the first. We know from many experiences—including Afghanistan right now—that anyone who burns or does anything to a Koran would set off massive riots and bloody killings. And as for burning a mosque, such a deed might well result in the massacre of every Jew living in Tunisia.

Tunisian Jews today are a couple of thousand terrified people who would run in the other direction if they saw a Koran in front of them lest they be accused of looking at it funny. What Zeyanlov has done is called a “blood libel,” a lie that might lead to the murder of Jews.

Now if some Muslim were to take seriously Zeyanlov’s tweet he would feel justified in murdering Jews, say children standing in front of their school.

2.  The Dutch cartoonist...

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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.

In 2011 U.S. Primacy in the Middle East Died; In 2012 The Funeral Will Be Held

“This is the end… Of our elaborate plans, the end, Of everything that stands…. No safety or surprise…. There’s danger on the edge of town….  And all the children are insane…. The West is the best…. But you will never follow me.” --“This is the End,” The Doors

By Barry Rubin Here’s your basic problem for 2012-2013: In the Middle East, the vultures are coming home to roost.  Of course, the main cause of developments in the region is the long, failed legacy of radical Arab nationalism which is now being replaced by what we’ll be calling in 20 or 30 years the long failed legacy of revolutionary Islamism. But the secondary cause is the mistaken policy of President Barack Obama. Let’s make a list of his costly errors . --By putting the priority on Muslim identity, as he did in the Cairo speech and elsewhere, Obama helped empower Islamism over nationalism and democratic choices. --By pressing for revolutionary change in Egypt, Obama helped bring a radical Islamist regime to Egypt, the Arab world’s most important country, leading it to break the alliance with the United States and move toward heightened belligerency—possibly war—with Israel. --By pressing for revolutionary change in Egypt, Obama helped bring to power a regime allied to Hamas, providing that regime in the Gaza Strip with unlimited arms, money, and terrorist reinforcements and thus bringing renewed armed conflict with Israel. Let me stop here a moment and respond to the claim that Obama couldn’t have done much on this issue. Of course, if we look at the demonstrations on the ground that seems a sensible argument. But the key pressure point was the U.S. ability to affect decisions taken by Egypt’s elite and military in January and early February 2011 to give up and even join the revolution. ----------------------- 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 28,905. Put email address in upper right-hand box: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com ----------------------- U.S. encouragement and pressure—as the State Department wanted to do at the time—would have allowed a post-Mubarak transition with some reforms rather than an all-out revolution.  There’s an interesting parallel to Iran in 1978, when almost year-long inaction by the Carter Administration helped create a situation producing the Islamic revolution there. --By overthrowing the horrible Muammar Qadhafi, however much that can be justified by the evil nature of the old regime, Obama handed power over to radical forces, not consciously or intentionally but inevitably given the reality of that country.   We already see such signs as a refusal to cooperate with the Lockerbie bombing investigation and the destruction of Christian and Jewish graveyards. --By failing to help the Iranian opposition, not taking a strong stance when the election was stolen, and doing nothing serious about Iran’s nuclear program for more than two years, the Obama Administration has helped create a situation in which either Israel will attack Iran or Iran will get nuclear weapons. Or both. --By never criticizing or seriously pressuring the Palestinian Authority (as it sought unilateral independence at the UN, allied itself with Hamas, and refused to negotiate with Israel) the Obama Administration made the “peace process” absolutely, positively dead. --By backing Islamist forces in the Syrian opposition instead of helping the democratic opposition, the Obama Administration is making most likely the worst possible outcome: either a continued pro-Iran, anti-American regime in Damascus or an Islamist takeover there. --In failing to help U.S. allies, Obama has alienated the few remaining states that sought American protection against revolutionary Islamism to the point that they know they are on their own and must either retreat before the radicals, or make their own deals. --In distancing itself from Israel, the Obama Administration has emboldened radicals to escalate operations against that country and persuaded the less radical to go along with them. --By embracing an Islamist regime in Turkey, Obama has allowed that government to continue with its agenda of transforming Turkey while disproving the opposition’s argument that radical policies at home and abroad might damage the country’s standing in Washington. --By showing so much weakness (which it portrays as friendliness, sympathy, multilateralism, and cultural sensitivity), the Obama Administration has convinced the radical, anti-American forces that the United States is weak and ripe for collapse. Listen to what the Islamists in the region actually say. This is the government and this is the policy portrayed as successful merely because good intelligence officers located Usama bin Ladin and courageous Navy Seals killed him. This is the government that portrays itself as the best friend of Israel even as it undermines Israel’s security because Obama keeps saying how much he supports Israel and “allows” continued congressionally mandated aid to go to that country. With best friends like this who needs enemies? Nothing could be more ridiculous than these assurances of success while the Middle East burns, while U.S. standing and interests there are in sharp decline. The “funny” thing about all of this is that virtually everyone in the region itself knows that everything written above is true even as virtually everyone in the “mainstream” discussion in the United States denies it. Any possibility that Obama’s policy might not bring disaster in the Middle East died in 2011. In 2012 we’re going to see the funeral. 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. This article was published in a different version in the Jerusalem Post. Please read and link to my version.

Whether He Likes it or Not: Why Obama’s Policy Will Eventually Bring War with Iran

"A statesman has not to make history. But if ever in the events around him he hears the sweep of the  mantle of God he must jump up and catch at its hem." --Bismarck

By Barry Rubin

President Barack Obama hasn’t changed but the situation has, in part due to his actions. Obama will do everything possible to escape confrontation with Iran but events, reinforced by his own statements and of course by Iranian behavior, will one day, if he is still in office, force him in that direction. Obama is not a capable enough statesman to grab the hem of the mantle of God, but he has managed--to coin a phrase--to entangle himself helplessly into it.

As usual, Shakespeare said it best, in "Hamlet":

"For 'tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard, and it shall go hard"

The word "petard" in Hamlet did not refer to clothing but to a landmine that blew up the sapper who laid it. In other words, a tool intended for one purpose turned against its creator despite his efforts and intentions

I've already written a satirical article to make this point and now this piece makes the same argument in a serious style.

The debate over whether Obama is Israel’s “best friend” or just faking for electoral purposes misses the point. The personality or even the intentions of the man who lives in the White House are not necessarily the main factor shaping international events.  Often, what he says and does determines outcomes in ways he never intended.

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In his AIPAC speech, Obama set forward a simple strategic approach: either Iran will stop developing nuclear weapon or an Israeli attack is justified. Whatever his intentions, that gives a green light to Israel for such an operation. The only question is the timing and it certainly won’t be this year.

Much of the discussion over the speeches of Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the AIPAC meeting has revolved around false issues:

--The claim from the pro-Obama camp that Obama heroically reined in Netanyahu and prevented an Israeli attack on Iran right now. That’s a fantasy. Among other factors, Israeli leaders always knew that they didn’t have U.S. or international  support for an attack and preparations were by no means ready.

Within Israel it is well known that Netanyahu is a great talker who makes Israel’s case most effectively. At the same time it is widely understood that he is also a man who doesn’t like action so much and certainly has never been a high risk-taker or advocate of military adventures.

The actual content of Israeli government statements has been: We are not eager for a war but we might have to attack some day unless you get tougher on Iran. That is precisely what has happened. Israel won its point, getting the world to be tougher on Iran and to move a big step toward accepting the necessity of an Israeli attack in future.

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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 Obama Administration's Pro-Islamist Syrian Opposition "Leadership" is Collapsing

By Barry Rubin

Five months ago, I wrote here and here detailing how the U.S. government collaborated in creating an anti-American, Islamist-dominated leadership for the Syrian revolution. This leadership group, assembled by the Islamist Turkish regime as the Obama government’s subcontractor, failed immediately. Now it is collapsing openly.

Of the nineteen announced members of the top leadership, I explained, ten of them were Islamists, either Muslim Brotherhood or Salafist. A reliable Syrian opposition source tells me that two more members are secretly Islamist tools. This was far in excess of the proportion of those forces in the revolution. In short, the U.S. government was helping to turn Syria’s revolution over to the Islamists. If this group had succeeded, the West would be facing still another radical Islamist regime that hated the West, wanted to go to war with Israel, and would be imposing a new dictatorship on its country.

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But the Syrian National Council (SNC) has failed. The Islamist angle and the Obama Administration's responsibility for this fiasco is being far underplayed.

Several SNC members, including Kamal al-Labwani and Haitham Maleh, have announced their resignations. They are both elderly veteran dissidents who are not Islamists. The reason being given most often for this crack-up is that the group’s leadership is “autocratic," excluding most of the membership from any role in decision-making. Leaving aside the element of personal ambition, however, why is it autocratic? Because it is imposing the Muslim Brotherhood line rather than responding to the preferences of the activists within Syria, that’s why.

As the New York Times admits, al-Labwani, “accused Muslim Brotherhood members within the exile opposition of `monopolizing funding and military support.’” Yet there is not a word about how the Obama Administration pushed this Brotherhood-dominated leadership onto the Syrian opposition.

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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.

Egypt is a Volcano, The West Snoozes, But Israel Won't Play the Role of Pompeii

“Interchangeable ever were the terms of abuse with which the aggressor discredits those about to be ravaged!”

--Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano

By Barry Rubin

Reality: Those who are, or will soon be, governing Egypt view themselves as being at war with Israel for all practical purposes.  It matters relatively little that there is still a peace treaty. In Cairo, there are no thoughts of peace.

This is the second biggest disaster of the “Arab Spring.” The same applies to the Egyptian government’s attitude to the United States. That is the biggest disaster.

It is a disaster that U.S. policymakers and journalists have not even begun to recognize, much less counter.

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Here’s the latest example. The Egyptian parliament voted unanimously to demand the expulsion of Israel’s ambassador and the halt of all natural gas exports to Israel. Isn't going to happen? Well, not this month. Of course, the military junta is still in control, but it won’t be by the end of June. And then the deluge begins.

The mechanics of this step are especially significant. The parliament’s Arab affairs committee issued a report that stated:

"Revolutionary Egypt will never be a friend, partner or ally of the Zionist entity (Israel), which we consider to be the number one enemy of Egypt and the Arab nation. It will deal with that entity as an enemy, and the Egyptian government is hereby called upon to review all its relations and accords with that enemy."

It’s rather difficult to be at peace with your “number one enemy” isn’t it, especially when you treat it as an enemy in all aspects of policy? And in this report and successful resolution, Israel is referred to as an “entity” and not a state thirty years after the two countries made peace and “ended” their conflict. That's the same term used by Iran, Hamas, and Hizballah.

The report also endorses Palestinian resistance "in all its kinds and forms" against Israel's "aggressive policies." That is an endorsement of terrorism and of Hamas firing rockets, missiles, and mortars from the Gaza Strip. If, for example, a Palestinian were to get inside an Israeli kindergarten and machinegun all the toddlers that would be justified in the eyes of Egypt’s new rulers. And that's no exaggeration.

In a sense, then, this is a declaration of war. Oh, it isn’t a formal war with the Egyptian military building up its forces in eastern Sinai or launching a cross-border attack. But war nonetheless.

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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.