By Barry Rubin
“How you laughed when I cried,
Each time we saw the tide,
Take our love letters from the sand.”
So went the 1931 song made famous by Pat Boone in 1957. And that’s what President Barack Obama’s been writing. Talking about his respect for Islam and distancing himself a bit from Israel and hoping that his love will be requited by relatively moderate Arab states.
It does have an amusing side. A very large part of the big U.S. strategy for the Middle East is that while demanding publicly Israel makes a unilateral concession about construction on existing settlements, he’s also politely privately asking Arab states to offer confidence-building measures toward Israel.
They won’t. Then what?
It reminds me of a conversation I had a few years back with a former deputy assistant secretary of state. She’s spent much of the Bill Clinton years travelling to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other Arab states trying to get them to help the peace process. Even, she begged, to give some money to Yasir Arafat’s Palestinian Authority. They did virtually nothing.
The message was (and is): it’s the job of the United States to deliver to us the diplomatic outcome we want, including forcing Israel to meet our demands; it’s our job to complain about it.
So Obama himself went to Saudi Arabia and got…nothing. Hillary Clinton went to the Gulf Arab states and got…nothing. U.S. envoy George Mitchell went to the United Arab Emirates, Syria, Bahrain, and Egypt and got…nothing.
And Obama, reportedly, wrote at least seven Arab states—including Morocco--asking them to show they wanted to make peace with Israel. He, too, will get nothing. Indeed, even if settlement construction were to freeze over he will get nothing.
The Saudis have already said they aren’t inclined to give anything.
Doesn’t everyone know this?
But consider how this is being carried out. First, the United States bashes Israel and demands a concession. Only then does it ask for some Arab quid pro quo. Why should they give anything when they would rather maintain a U.S.-Israel rift?
Of course, the pretense is that Israel hasn’t given enough, the same line that was used all through the 10-year-long 1990’s peace process era. But if Israel’s prime minister were to stand on his head and sing Um Kalthoum hits would that change anything? No.
Why? Well it’s called political analysis, a craft not much in favor in Western policymaking circles these days. Arab regimes need the conflict with Israel to stay in power, using it as diversion and excuse. Moreover, they know that any peace moves would provide ammunition to their Islamist foes and upset their masses who have been fed an anti-Israel diet for decades.
The main reported confidence-building gestures being asked of the Saudis is to let Israeli commercial airliners ly in Saudi airspace. Saudi Arabia is in a state of war with Israel. Can you imagine how the Saudi clerics and public would react to an announcement of such permission being granted?
Well, the regime can do so. Anybody who could make such a request has no comprehension of Middle East politics. Anyone who thinks that this would be possible if only Israel stopped building a few apartments on the West Bank has no comprehension of reality in general.
And why on top of that should Arab states do anything when Western criticism of Israel is at all-time high levels? They are, endless grumbling aside, rather pleased with that status quo.
Moreover, why do the other Arab states—outside of Egypt and Jordan which have benefitted from a signed document since they are immediate neighbors of Israel--need formal peace any way when the current no war, no peace suits them fine?
As for Syria, it’s doing just fine with its “resistance” philosophy, allied with Iran and trying to gobble up Lebanon once again. Conflict with Israel, at least in theory and through Lebanon, is one of the main assets of the Syrian regime.
So far, Obama has little to show for six months of effort: some sycophantic remarks by King Abdallah of Jordan, probably the least effective of Arab leaders and an op-ed piece by Bahrain's Crown Prince Shaikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa.
Let’s take another look at that op-ed piece. It has been made to sound good by Western media reporting but if you read it closely the text shows how unlikely Obama is to get anywhere. He wrote: "The reality is that peace is a process, contingent on a good idea but also requiring a great deal of campaigning--patiently and repeatedly targeting all relevant parties. This is where we as Arabs have not done enough to communicate directly with the people of Israel.
In other words, the Arabs haven’t done a good enough job propagandizing Israelis. There is no mention of negotiations. But if the Arab side has nothing much to offer what is it going to communicate? True, he added, “All sides need to take simultaneous, good-faith action if peace is to have a chance."
But he has no intention of doing so. And neither does anyone else.
What’s really interesting here is what Obama will do as the months pass and nobody in the Arab world seems willing to help him. He might say: Guess I was wrong. Not everyone’s so eager for peace as I thought.
Or he might say: If only those Israelis had stopped construction on settlements I’d have the Nobel Peace Prize by now.
But this is an old game, played repeatedly in the 1990s: if only Israel recognizes the PLO, turns over territory to it, lets 200,000 Palestinians return, stops expanding settlements, let’s the Palestinian regime have guns, gives free access to its workers, pulls out of southern Lebanon, pulls out of the Gaza Strip, etc., etc., etc., than everything will be fine.
And since so much evidence has disproven that the Arab states are yearning for peace and just need some gesture from Israel or invitation by the United States, why go on believing it?
Or as the song about writing letters like Obama’s put it:
“You made a vow that you would ever be true
But somehow that vow meant nothing to you.”
Can someone in this government please study the history of the issue they are purporting to solve?
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query airspace. Sort by date Show all posts
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Monday, July 27, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
The Middle East is a place where wishful thinking gets people killed but makes careers for politicians, diplomats, academics, and journalists
By Barry Rubin
The more things change, the more they remain the same, sayeth the French. The Bible states that there’s nothing new under the sun. Doing a television interview today made me reflect on the relationship of those concepts to the contemporary Middle East.
It is untrue of course that nothing changes in the region. Quite the contrary: consider the recent upheaval in Iran and a whole list of other events. In fact, there might be truth in the idea that big explosions in the region are more common than small, fundamental changes.
And yet people—today more than ever—yearn for change, especially in the West where “change” has become the most important cultural principle and the concept of tradition is the new curse word, heard far less often than the four-letter ones seeming to pepper every type of conversation, real –life or fictional.
It is an easy step from the wishful thinking for change to the assertion that change can happen if we only do such-and-such. This is certainly the trap that the U.S. administration is caught up in. While it is natural for a new government to believe it can accomplish everything—didn’t it say that its predecessors were numbskulls?—it is especially true for the Obama administration which used “change” as one of its keywords. And what does the other one, hope, mean? Why, to hope that things can change!
These reflections are prompted by a television interview I did today. There were three questions which follow a common pattern.
Question 1: Is there anything to the story in the London Sunday Times about the United States and Saudi Arabia talking of the possibility of Israel using Saudi airspace to hit Iranian nuclear installations?
Answer 1: Of course not! First of all, nothing in the Sunday Times about the Middle East ever comes true and it should never be used as a source. But if anyone involved in any way with Middle Eastern issues doesn’t understand why this particular story is such a ridiculous notion they should look for other employment.
Question 2: Is there anything to the story that the United States and Saudi Arabia are pressing Syria to demarcate its border with Lebanon so it is clear who the Shabaa Farms belong to?
Answer 2: Of course not! What should instead be highlighted is a scenario which tells you a huge amount about Middle East politics. Here is an accurate picture of the ridiculous situation:
Syrian clients in Lebanon—like Hizballah—are demanding that Israel turn over the Shabaa Farms as occupied Lebanese territory. Yet these groups’ own Syrian sponsor still claims that the territory is Syrian! Here we have an example of obvious propaganda-making falsification. Not too obvious for lots of people in the West to be taken in, though.
And to put the icing on the baklava—to coin a phrase—even though the UN already determined that Israel had withdrawn from all of Lebanon—i.e., that the Shabaa Farms are not Syrian territory--the Obama administration, in its opposite-to-infinite wisdom called for reopening the issue.
Question 3: Is there anything to the story that Obama might visit Syria soon?
Answer 3: Of course not! In fact, a high-ranking State Department official already denied it. Even Obama wouldn’t visit Syria without getting something small from Damascus beforehand. For a while the Syrians believed, and the administration gave them reason to do so, that the Americans would give them everything they wanted in exchange for nothing. The Syrian regime still has illusions on this point though they’re becoming aware that they’re wrong and are starting to get angry about it.
Of course the administration is returning the U.S. ambassador to Damascus at a time when it probably nows that the Syrian regime was directly involved in murdering former Lebanese prime minister and a dozen other politicians, judges, or journalists there. Isn't this pretty shameful?
All these questions have in common a belief that things are going to break open. They betray the unspoken assumption that peace, or cooperation, or moderation is inevitably on its way.
I stressed, and do so again, that I’m not saying this kind of thing because I’m a knee-jerk naysayer. Rather, this conclusion is based on a detailed analysis of the region’s realities, on what makes regimes tick, their worldview, and on the outside and internal constraints they face.
There is no good antidote for this kind of wishful thinking discussed here, but there is a good anecdote. On a radio interview I heard a year ago, former Secretary of State James Baker was bragging that when he was a current secretary of state he persuaded the Syrians to close down the terrorist group offices in Damascus. He was using this as an example of how one could deal with the Syrian regime.
Good example; bad conclusion. In fact, twenty years later the offices are still open. Proper conclusion: You can’t deal successfully diplomatically with the Syrians.
That doesn’t mean they don’t keep agreements in their interest. They haven’t attacked Israel directly since 1973….Because they know they would get smashed. (So instead they attack through Lebanon.) And they were perfectly happy when the United States supported their control over Lebanon, especially since they didn’t have to do much in exchange.
I’ve just read a brilliant book by a writer who is possibly the best political philosopher in the Arab world. It’s a good bookm but an hour after finishing it I was hit by how depressing that experience was. The author has many good and accurate proposals for fixing these societies’ problems. His logic is irrefutable; he gives examples of how others have made these strategies work. He even shows how some of them have been applied in the past in these countries.
And then it hits you: how unlikely any of these things would be done in the next few decades.
This author well understands that the solutions are all long-term. Yet the yearning for quick fixes all too often leads to the belief that quick fixes are possible, which produces policies based on this assumption, which leads to people getting killed and countries being devastated.
Come to think of it, the same point applies to the utopia-through-violence approach of the Islamists and many Arab nationalists, too.
“Abandon hope all ye who enter here” was Dante’s text for the sign that stood over the gates of Hell.
Whether or not the Middle East is the region of this world that most closely resembles that region of the underworld, it is still good advice for journalists, would-be peacemakers, and diplomats who deal with the region.
Only the substitution of mature, accurate analysis for bumbling hope can ensure the Middle East doesn’t change for the worse and give some expectation of it changing for the better.
For those of a literary turn, here's the Cary translation, Canto 3, of Dante explaining the inscription :
"All hope abandon ye who enter here."
"Such characters in colour dim I mark'd
Over a portal's lofty arch inscrib'd:
Whereat I thus [said]: ``Master [his guide, Virgil], these words import
Hard meaning." He as one prepar'd replied:
"Here thou must all distrust behind thee leave;
Here be vile fear extinguish'd. We are come
Where I have told thee we shall see the souls
To misery doom'd, who intellectual good
Have lost."
But why, why, my friends, were these particular people, referred to at the end of the passage (the first section of Hell Dante saw) doomed and have left behind all that is good in the human soul and spirit, according to Dante's work?
Because in the struggle between the two sides (in Heaven) they didn't choose between good and evil but only looked after what they--mistakenly--defined as their own interests!
How appropriate can you get considering how many leaders and nations say? Terrorism, the Iranian regime's suppression of democracy, the Syrian regime's murders in Lebanon, Hamas, Hizballah, antisemitism and intended genocide against Israel, radical Islamism, dictatorship, mistreatment of women. Not our problem!
The more things change, the more they remain the same, sayeth the French. The Bible states that there’s nothing new under the sun. Doing a television interview today made me reflect on the relationship of those concepts to the contemporary Middle East.
It is untrue of course that nothing changes in the region. Quite the contrary: consider the recent upheaval in Iran and a whole list of other events. In fact, there might be truth in the idea that big explosions in the region are more common than small, fundamental changes.
And yet people—today more than ever—yearn for change, especially in the West where “change” has become the most important cultural principle and the concept of tradition is the new curse word, heard far less often than the four-letter ones seeming to pepper every type of conversation, real –life or fictional.
It is an easy step from the wishful thinking for change to the assertion that change can happen if we only do such-and-such. This is certainly the trap that the U.S. administration is caught up in. While it is natural for a new government to believe it can accomplish everything—didn’t it say that its predecessors were numbskulls?—it is especially true for the Obama administration which used “change” as one of its keywords. And what does the other one, hope, mean? Why, to hope that things can change!
These reflections are prompted by a television interview I did today. There were three questions which follow a common pattern.
Question 1: Is there anything to the story in the London Sunday Times about the United States and Saudi Arabia talking of the possibility of Israel using Saudi airspace to hit Iranian nuclear installations?
Answer 1: Of course not! First of all, nothing in the Sunday Times about the Middle East ever comes true and it should never be used as a source. But if anyone involved in any way with Middle Eastern issues doesn’t understand why this particular story is such a ridiculous notion they should look for other employment.
Question 2: Is there anything to the story that the United States and Saudi Arabia are pressing Syria to demarcate its border with Lebanon so it is clear who the Shabaa Farms belong to?
Answer 2: Of course not! What should instead be highlighted is a scenario which tells you a huge amount about Middle East politics. Here is an accurate picture of the ridiculous situation:
Syrian clients in Lebanon—like Hizballah—are demanding that Israel turn over the Shabaa Farms as occupied Lebanese territory. Yet these groups’ own Syrian sponsor still claims that the territory is Syrian! Here we have an example of obvious propaganda-making falsification. Not too obvious for lots of people in the West to be taken in, though.
And to put the icing on the baklava—to coin a phrase—even though the UN already determined that Israel had withdrawn from all of Lebanon—i.e., that the Shabaa Farms are not Syrian territory--the Obama administration, in its opposite-to-infinite wisdom called for reopening the issue.
Question 3: Is there anything to the story that Obama might visit Syria soon?
Answer 3: Of course not! In fact, a high-ranking State Department official already denied it. Even Obama wouldn’t visit Syria without getting something small from Damascus beforehand. For a while the Syrians believed, and the administration gave them reason to do so, that the Americans would give them everything they wanted in exchange for nothing. The Syrian regime still has illusions on this point though they’re becoming aware that they’re wrong and are starting to get angry about it.
Of course the administration is returning the U.S. ambassador to Damascus at a time when it probably nows that the Syrian regime was directly involved in murdering former Lebanese prime minister and a dozen other politicians, judges, or journalists there. Isn't this pretty shameful?
All these questions have in common a belief that things are going to break open. They betray the unspoken assumption that peace, or cooperation, or moderation is inevitably on its way.
I stressed, and do so again, that I’m not saying this kind of thing because I’m a knee-jerk naysayer. Rather, this conclusion is based on a detailed analysis of the region’s realities, on what makes regimes tick, their worldview, and on the outside and internal constraints they face.
There is no good antidote for this kind of wishful thinking discussed here, but there is a good anecdote. On a radio interview I heard a year ago, former Secretary of State James Baker was bragging that when he was a current secretary of state he persuaded the Syrians to close down the terrorist group offices in Damascus. He was using this as an example of how one could deal with the Syrian regime.
Good example; bad conclusion. In fact, twenty years later the offices are still open. Proper conclusion: You can’t deal successfully diplomatically with the Syrians.
That doesn’t mean they don’t keep agreements in their interest. They haven’t attacked Israel directly since 1973….Because they know they would get smashed. (So instead they attack through Lebanon.) And they were perfectly happy when the United States supported their control over Lebanon, especially since they didn’t have to do much in exchange.
I’ve just read a brilliant book by a writer who is possibly the best political philosopher in the Arab world. It’s a good bookm but an hour after finishing it I was hit by how depressing that experience was. The author has many good and accurate proposals for fixing these societies’ problems. His logic is irrefutable; he gives examples of how others have made these strategies work. He even shows how some of them have been applied in the past in these countries.
And then it hits you: how unlikely any of these things would be done in the next few decades.
This author well understands that the solutions are all long-term. Yet the yearning for quick fixes all too often leads to the belief that quick fixes are possible, which produces policies based on this assumption, which leads to people getting killed and countries being devastated.
Come to think of it, the same point applies to the utopia-through-violence approach of the Islamists and many Arab nationalists, too.
“Abandon hope all ye who enter here” was Dante’s text for the sign that stood over the gates of Hell.
Whether or not the Middle East is the region of this world that most closely resembles that region of the underworld, it is still good advice for journalists, would-be peacemakers, and diplomats who deal with the region.
Only the substitution of mature, accurate analysis for bumbling hope can ensure the Middle East doesn’t change for the worse and give some expectation of it changing for the better.
For those of a literary turn, here's the Cary translation, Canto 3, of Dante explaining the inscription :
"All hope abandon ye who enter here."
"Such characters in colour dim I mark'd
Over a portal's lofty arch inscrib'd:
Whereat I thus [said]: ``Master [his guide, Virgil], these words import
Hard meaning." He as one prepar'd replied:
"Here thou must all distrust behind thee leave;
Here be vile fear extinguish'd. We are come
Where I have told thee we shall see the souls
To misery doom'd, who intellectual good
Have lost."
But why, why, my friends, were these particular people, referred to at the end of the passage (the first section of Hell Dante saw) doomed and have left behind all that is good in the human soul and spirit, according to Dante's work?
Because in the struggle between the two sides (in Heaven) they didn't choose between good and evil but only looked after what they--mistakenly--defined as their own interests!
How appropriate can you get considering how many leaders and nations say? Terrorism, the Iranian regime's suppression of democracy, the Syrian regime's murders in Lebanon, Hamas, Hizballah, antisemitism and intended genocide against Israel, radical Islamism, dictatorship, mistreatment of women. Not our problem!
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Israel Attacks Convoys Carrying Syrian Weapons to Hizballah
By Barry Rubin
This article is published on PJMedia.
Israeli air force F-16s attacked targets inside Syria while flying over Lebanon. Claims that these targets were chemical weapons were denied by Israeli sources. More likely they were long-range missiles being transported from Syria to Lebanon. While able to carry chemical warheads, they could also have been be used by Hizballah to target Israeli cities.
The weapons were being sent to Hizballah, the Lebanese terrorist group that is also a leading part of Lebanon’s government, for safe-keeping or possible use. In 2006, Israel successfully destroyed longer-range missiles that Hizballah was preparing to use against Israel. More recently, in January 2013, Israel attacked and destroyed facilities intended for the construction of nuclear weapons for Syria.
An Israeli official said that the weapons’ shipment could have potentially been “game-changing.”
Israeli sources also carefully stressed that the planes did not enter Syrian airspace. This statement was to reduce the likelihood of Syrian government retaliation or claims that Israel had gone to war with Syria.
The fact is that Israeli policy remains neutral on the Syrian civil war and this approach is unlikely to change. While there have been debates within the Israeli government over whether a government or rebel victory or long-term deadlock would be preferable from the standpoint of Israeli interests, no conclusion has been reached on this matter.
And, of course, this debate has been academic since Israel has no way to affect the outcome. From an Israeli government view, while the Assad regime has been unremittingly hostile and is allied with Iran, a takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood with freedom of action for hardline Salafi groups including al-Qaida is not clearly an improvement in the situation.
The rebels already control the Syrian side of the border with Israel, across from the Golan Heights. Their possession of advanced weapons—notably state-of-the-art anti-aircraft missiles—is worrisome. Israel also worries about Brotherhood-Salafist destabilization of Jordan, which is at peace with Israel.
Israel has also worried about the transfer of advanced weapons, especially chemical weapons, to Syria’s ally, Hizballah, for potential future use against Israel. As rebel forces have advanced closer to the places where these weapons are stored, the Syrian regime has been transferring some arms to Hizballah, reminiscent of the way that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein moved weapons to Syria when he was facing overthrow by a U.S.-led coalition in 2003. Of course, Israel equally worries about possible rebel—which means Brotherhood and Salafist—capture of these chemical weapons.
Here's Syrian television footage of a firing of the type of missiles involved.
ps: Note how everyone has forgotten the 2006 promise to Israel by the UN and United States to stop this kind of arms smuggling from Syria to Lebanon. None of the media coverage mentioned that Israel has to do something that the international community promised to do.
The next day there were large explosions near Damascus apparently caused by additional air strikes that set off the solid fuel in missiles or stored there.
Here's Syrian television footage of a firing of the type of missiles involved.
ps: Note how everyone has forgotten the 2006 promise to Israel by the UN and United States to stop this kind of arms smuggling from Syria to Lebanon. None of the media coverage mentioned that Israel has to do something that the international community promised to do.
The next day there were large explosions near Damascus apparently caused by additional air strikes that set off the solid fuel in missiles or stored there.
This article is published on PJMedia.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Alleged Israeli Mossad Animal Spy Use And How to Construct Successful Anti-Israel Blood Libels
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We rely on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation via PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, top right corner of this page: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/. By check: "American Friends of IDC.” “For GLORIA Center” on memo line. Mail: American Friends of IDC, 116 East 16th St., 11th Floor, NY, NY 10003.
By Barry Rubin
PART ONE: Using animals as intelligence agents
As the proud owner of three cats (or vice-versa as it often seems), I have not yet deployed them for intelligence use. However, to read various Middle Eastern newspapers, you would think that Israel is the world leader in having animal espionage agents. This is my list so far but tell me if I'm missing anything:
Egypt: sharks and poison jellyfish (shark attacks in Red Sea blamed on Israeli effort to damage Egyptian tourism. Potential joke: What's next? Sending in lawyers?).
West Bank: snakes; wild boars (Israeli settlers allegedly release poison snakes and other animals to bite Palestinians. Potential joke: Still working on that one.).
Iran: squirrels and possibly bunnies (Mossad squirrels cross border to gather information. Potential joke: A good choice given the nuts running Iran's Islamist regime.)
Saudi Arabia: vultures (Vulture flies into Saudi airspace having been tagged in a migraiton study by Israel university. Potential joke: Maybe the vulture went to Saudi Arabia because he knows something about the Saudi monarchies future.).
East Jerusalem: poison-resistance rats allegedly to chase out Arab residents.
Iraq: I am pleased to report that Israel is not being blamed for introducing man-eating badgers (sort of like a beaver with a bad attitude, right?) into Iraq. No, that's being blamed on the British.
Syria: Jellyfish.
Here's a study on the issue, including the llama and antelope forces.
Possible future phony animal stories:
Israel mobilizes large, antlered mammal and changes name of intelligence agency to the Moose-ad.
Israel organizes attacks my massive female felines thus allowing Arabic headline writers to warn of the Zionist-lioness conspiracy
My advice is, stick to really "credible" propaganda like having one unidentified witness claiming Israel massacred hundreds at Jenin or insisting that a woman was killed at a demonstration by inhaling tear gas even though she wasn't even there and tear gas doesn't kill people.
Here are some other guidelines:
PART TWO: How to make up successful anti-Israel blood libels.
LESSON ONE: Use up-to-date, scientific-seeming falsehoods
Wrong way: Claim Israelis are passing out poison chewing gum.
Maybe: Claim Israelis are poisoning wells. Worked in Middle Ages but not so well when Suha Arafat said it to Hilary Clinton.
Right Way: Claim Israelis are firing phosphorus to burn up Gazans and putting phosphorus and poison into tear gas so that one woman far away is killed while demonstrators next to the tear gas are totally uninjured. Still nonsense but sounds more scientific.
Right Way: London Sunday Times reporting that Israel has developed a bomb that only kills Arabs. (The reporter who wrote that is still employed by the newspaper.)
LESSON TWO: Avoid outdated obviously antisemitic references and use sympathy-getting ones.
Wrong way: Claim that Jews are killing little children to turn them into matzohs. (Still plays in Saudi Arabia but not elsewhere.)
Maybe: Claim that Israelis are killing little children to use their organs. (Works in Sweden, Iran, Syria, and Turkey but not so good for most of the West.)
Right Way: Claim that Israelis are killing little children even if the kid moves on the video after he is supposedly dead, there's no blood, and a dozen more contradictions. (Excellent! Most people still think Muhammad al-Dura was murdered by Israel even after a French court ruled the story is ridiculous.)
LESSON THREE: Know your audience and adjust the message appropriately.
Arab/Muslim audience: Israel carried out the September 11 attacks, heroic Muslims carried out the September 11 attacks as part of the war against Israel (no need to choose one). Israel is an American stooge; America is an Israeli stooge (no need to choose one). Israel is the imperialistic state of evil Jews. Israel is blocking (choose one) a. The success of Arab nationalism creating a radical, anti-Western region. b. The success of revolutionary Islamism creating a radical, anti-Western, anti-Christian region. Israel should be wiped off the map.
European audience: Israel is an American stooge; Israel violates human rights.
Western mainstream audience: Israel violates human rights.
Western liberal/social democratic audience: Israel is right-wing.
American neo-fascist, antisemitic audience: America is an Israeli stooge.
Western Jewish audience: Israel is not perfect. (This is incredibly effective in many circles.)
SUMMARY
See, you have to have some minimally credible story to get all the world's most respected newspapers to repeat your lies without any evidence at all. But don't worry, that level of minimal credibility is really, really low.
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). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
We rely on your contributions. Tax-deductible donation via PayPal or credit card: click Donate button, top right corner of this page: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/. By check: "American Friends of IDC.” “For GLORIA Center” on memo line. Mail: American Friends of IDC, 116 East 16th St., 11th Floor, NY, NY 10003.
By Barry Rubin
PART ONE: Using animals as intelligence agents
As the proud owner of three cats (or vice-versa as it often seems), I have not yet deployed them for intelligence use. However, to read various Middle Eastern newspapers, you would think that Israel is the world leader in having animal espionage agents. This is my list so far but tell me if I'm missing anything:
Egypt: sharks and poison jellyfish (shark attacks in Red Sea blamed on Israeli effort to damage Egyptian tourism. Potential joke: What's next? Sending in lawyers?).
West Bank: snakes; wild boars (Israeli settlers allegedly release poison snakes and other animals to bite Palestinians. Potential joke: Still working on that one.).
Iran: squirrels and possibly bunnies (Mossad squirrels cross border to gather information. Potential joke: A good choice given the nuts running Iran's Islamist regime.)
Saudi Arabia: vultures (Vulture flies into Saudi airspace having been tagged in a migraiton study by Israel university. Potential joke: Maybe the vulture went to Saudi Arabia because he knows something about the Saudi monarchies future.).
East Jerusalem: poison-resistance rats allegedly to chase out Arab residents.
Iraq: I am pleased to report that Israel is not being blamed for introducing man-eating badgers (sort of like a beaver with a bad attitude, right?) into Iraq. No, that's being blamed on the British.
Syria: Jellyfish.
Here's a study on the issue, including the llama and antelope forces.
Possible future phony animal stories:
Israel mobilizes large, antlered mammal and changes name of intelligence agency to the Moose-ad.
Israel organizes attacks my massive female felines thus allowing Arabic headline writers to warn of the Zionist-lioness conspiracy
My advice is, stick to really "credible" propaganda like having one unidentified witness claiming Israel massacred hundreds at Jenin or insisting that a woman was killed at a demonstration by inhaling tear gas even though she wasn't even there and tear gas doesn't kill people.
Here are some other guidelines:
PART TWO: How to make up successful anti-Israel blood libels.
LESSON ONE: Use up-to-date, scientific-seeming falsehoods
Wrong way: Claim Israelis are passing out poison chewing gum.
Maybe: Claim Israelis are poisoning wells. Worked in Middle Ages but not so well when Suha Arafat said it to Hilary Clinton.
Right Way: Claim Israelis are firing phosphorus to burn up Gazans and putting phosphorus and poison into tear gas so that one woman far away is killed while demonstrators next to the tear gas are totally uninjured. Still nonsense but sounds more scientific.
Right Way: London Sunday Times reporting that Israel has developed a bomb that only kills Arabs. (The reporter who wrote that is still employed by the newspaper.)
LESSON TWO: Avoid outdated obviously antisemitic references and use sympathy-getting ones.
Wrong way: Claim that Jews are killing little children to turn them into matzohs. (Still plays in Saudi Arabia but not elsewhere.)
Maybe: Claim that Israelis are killing little children to use their organs. (Works in Sweden, Iran, Syria, and Turkey but not so good for most of the West.)
Right Way: Claim that Israelis are killing little children even if the kid moves on the video after he is supposedly dead, there's no blood, and a dozen more contradictions. (Excellent! Most people still think Muhammad al-Dura was murdered by Israel even after a French court ruled the story is ridiculous.)
LESSON THREE: Know your audience and adjust the message appropriately.
Arab/Muslim audience: Israel carried out the September 11 attacks, heroic Muslims carried out the September 11 attacks as part of the war against Israel (no need to choose one). Israel is an American stooge; America is an Israeli stooge (no need to choose one). Israel is the imperialistic state of evil Jews. Israel is blocking (choose one) a. The success of Arab nationalism creating a radical, anti-Western region. b. The success of revolutionary Islamism creating a radical, anti-Western, anti-Christian region. Israel should be wiped off the map.
European audience: Israel is an American stooge; Israel violates human rights.
Western mainstream audience: Israel violates human rights.
Western liberal/social democratic audience: Israel is right-wing.
American neo-fascist, antisemitic audience: America is an Israeli stooge.
Western Jewish audience: Israel is not perfect. (This is incredibly effective in many circles.)
SUMMARY
See, you have to have some minimally credible story to get all the world's most respected newspapers to repeat your lies without any evidence at all. But don't worry, that level of minimal credibility is really, really low.
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). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Prime Minister Netanyahu's Speech: Why There's No Peace, How Peace Can be Achieved
By Barry Rubin
In a much-awaited speech about his new government’s foreign policy, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained Israel’s situation, experience, and views. Other countries, especially those which think they have all the answers for making peace, should pay close attention. They might actually learn something.
In a recent interview, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated:
“We do have a view about Israel's security. We see historical, demographic, political, technological trends that are very troubling as to Israel's future.”
This was a most peculiar thing for a secretary of state to say. In effect, she claims that the United States knows best for Israel. I cannot imagine an American secretary of state saying such a thing about any other country in the world in this manner.
But the truth is that this administration doesn’t know at all what's best for Israel. (Whether it even knows what's best for the United States is a very doubtful proposition.) It simply doesn’t understand the realities of the region, the nature of Palestinian movements and their goals, and lots of other things. Several European countries are the same in this respect.
In the current American administration there seem to be two strains of thinking that amount to the same thing. They either think that Israel is so strong it can afford to make huge concessions or that Israel is so weak that it must make huge concessions.
This is the massive misunderstanding—compounded by hostility and divergent national interests—that Netanyahu set out to address.
First, he tried to explain the Iranian threat, and his timing—immediately following an intensification of that country’s dictatorship and hard-line regime—showed that he and others in Israel who have been warning about the government in Tehran have been (unfortunately) quite correct.
“The greatest danger confronting Israel, the Middle East, the entire world and human race, is the nexus between radical Islam and nuclear weapons.”
The greatest danger confronting Israel, etc., is not the Palestinian problem, nor is it Islamophobia, nor an insufficient supply of American apologies and empathy.
Netanyahu stresses that he agrees with President Barack Obama on “the idea of a regional peace that he is leading….I share the President’s desire to bring about a new era of reconciliation in our region.” He also stressed the importance of economic cooperation in the region.
By the way, conscious of the disastrous, albeit well-intentioned, proposal by then Prime Minister Shimon Peres for a “new Middle East” sounding as if Israeli technology would combine with Arab labor and money, Netanyahu phrased the idea in a much more modest way, making clear that Israel could learn from Arab developmental successes in the Gulf.
Regarding the Palestinian issue, Netanyahu made the following points:
--Let’s start “negotiations immediately, without preconditions.”
--His government will observe all its previous “international commitments and expects” the Palestinians to do the same.
--“I do not want war. No one in Israel wants war.”
He then asked a key question, one that the current U.S. government and many in Europe seem simply not to understand:
“If the advantages of peace are so evident, we must ask ourselves why peace remains so remote, even as our hand remains outstretched to peace. Why has this conflict continued for more than sixty years? In order to bring an end to the conflict, we must give an honest and forthright answer to the question: What is the root of the conflict?”
Reviewing the history of the conflict, he showed that it continued because, “The Arabs rejected any Jewish state, in any borders. Those who think that the continued enmity toward Israel is a product of our presence in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, [are] confusing cause and consequence.”
Let me pause here to explain what I knew beforehand and saw after the speech: the media reports focus on Netanyahu accepting the idea of a Palestinian state. This is a good thing to have recognized, but what is truly important is his effort to explain the Israeli interpretation of the conflict.
Speaking of the Palestinians he accurately said: “The closer we get to an agreement with them, the further they retreat and raise demands that are inconsistent with a true desire to end the conflict."
“Many good people have told us that withdrawal from territories is the key to peace with the Palestinians. Well, we withdrew. But the fact is that every withdrawal was met with massive waves of terror, by suicide bombers and thousands of missiles.”
This is the core Israel experience since the signing of the agreement with the PLO in 1993.
“We tried to withdraw with an agreement and without an agreement. We tried a partial withdrawal and a full withdrawal. In 2000 and again last year, Israel proposed an almost total withdrawal in exchange for an end to the conflict, and twice our offers were rejected.
“We evacuated every last inch of the Gaza strip, we uprooted tens of settlements and evicted thousands of Israelis from their homes, and in response we received a hail of missiles on our cities, towns and children.
“The claim that territorial withdrawals will bring peace with the Palestinians, or at least advance peace, has up till now not stood the test of reality.”
In fact, his arguments are so brief, clear, and accurate it is hard to resist just quoting what he said:
“In addition to this, Hamas in the south, like Hezbollah in the north, repeatedly proclaims their commitment to “liberate” the Israeli cities of Ashkelon, Beersheba, Acre and Haifa.
“Territorial withdrawals have not lessened the hatred, and to our regret, Palestinian moderates are not yet ready to say the simple words: Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people, and it will stay that way.”
And so Netanyahu explains what the Palestinian side must do if it wants peace and if it truly wants a state alongside Israel. Here are the steps needed:
First, “A fundamental prerequisite for ending the conflict is a public, binding and unequivocal Palestinian recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people.”
Second, “There must also be a clear understanding that the Palestinian refugee problem will be resolved outside Israel’s borders. For it is clear that any demand for resettling Palestinian refugees within Israel undermines Israel’s continued existence as the state of the Jewish people.”
Third, “The territory under Palestinian control must be demilitarized with ironclad security provisions for Israel.” Otherwise, “There is a real danger that an armed Palestinian state would emerge that would become another terrorist base against the Jewish state, such as the one in Gaza….In order to achieve peace, we must ensure that Palestinians will not be able to import missiles into their territory, to field an army, to close their airspace to us, or to make pacts with the likes of Hezbollah and Iran….Without this, sooner or later, these territories will become another Hamastan. And that we cannot accept.”
And here is the key sentence of the speech: “I told President Obama when I was in Washington that if we could agree on the substance, then the terminology would not pose a problem.”
If these conditions are met, “Then we will be ready in a future peace agreement to reach a solution where a demilitarized Palestinian state exists alongside the Jewish state.”
There are two other issues the speech addressed. Regarding a freeze on construction in settlements, he politely refused.
The other point was a polite, indirect response to Obama’s Cairo speech and an assertion of Israel’s strength.
“Our people have already proven that we can do the impossible. Over the past 61 years, while constantly defending our existence, we have performed wonders. Our microchips are powering the world’s computers. Our medicines are treating diseases once considered incurable. Our drip irrigation is bringing arid lands back to life across the globe. And Israeli scientists are expanding the boundaries of human knowledge.”
Israel does not have any desperate need, to say the least, for more unilateral concessions. Time is on Israel’s side. It is the other side which faces disaster—social breakdown, economic stagnation, high levels of civil conflict.
Netanyahu concluded with an explanation of why Israel exists. While Obama probably did not intend this, he fell into the trap of defining Israel as the product of the Holocaust. Netanyahu responded:
“The right of the Jewish people to a state in the land of Israel does not derive from the catastrophes that have plagued our people. True, for 2000 years the Jewish people suffered expulsions, pogroms, blood libels, and massacres which culminated in a Holocaust- a suffering which has no parallel in human history.
“There are those who say that if the Holocaust had not occurred, the state of Israel would never have been established. But I say that if the state of Israel would have been established earlier, the Holocaust would not have occurred.
“This tragic history of powerlessness explains why the Jewish people need a sovereign power of self-defense.
“But our right to build our sovereign state here, in the land of Israel, arises from one simple fact: this is the homeland of the Jewish people; this is where our identity was forged.”
He concluded by quoting Israel’s Declaration of Independence but he specifically mentioned Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion as the author, a note of profound bipartisanship that few non-Israelis can understand.
“The Jewish people arose in the land of Israel and it was here that its spiritual, religious and political character was shaped. Here they attained their sovereignty, and here they bequeathed to the world their national and cultural treasures, and the most eternal of books.”
I think it is accurate to say that this speech expressed the most profound consensus in Israel on these issues and that the country will fully back up its prime minister on this policy. It is also a view of the region and the conflict far more accurate than that usually purveyed by others, both those who claim to have Israel’s “best interests” at heart, and those who would “wipe it off the map.”
Here's the speech on video.
In a much-awaited speech about his new government’s foreign policy, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained Israel’s situation, experience, and views. Other countries, especially those which think they have all the answers for making peace, should pay close attention. They might actually learn something.
In a recent interview, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated:
“We do have a view about Israel's security. We see historical, demographic, political, technological trends that are very troubling as to Israel's future.”
This was a most peculiar thing for a secretary of state to say. In effect, she claims that the United States knows best for Israel. I cannot imagine an American secretary of state saying such a thing about any other country in the world in this manner.
But the truth is that this administration doesn’t know at all what's best for Israel. (Whether it even knows what's best for the United States is a very doubtful proposition.) It simply doesn’t understand the realities of the region, the nature of Palestinian movements and their goals, and lots of other things. Several European countries are the same in this respect.
In the current American administration there seem to be two strains of thinking that amount to the same thing. They either think that Israel is so strong it can afford to make huge concessions or that Israel is so weak that it must make huge concessions.
This is the massive misunderstanding—compounded by hostility and divergent national interests—that Netanyahu set out to address.
First, he tried to explain the Iranian threat, and his timing—immediately following an intensification of that country’s dictatorship and hard-line regime—showed that he and others in Israel who have been warning about the government in Tehran have been (unfortunately) quite correct.
“The greatest danger confronting Israel, the Middle East, the entire world and human race, is the nexus between radical Islam and nuclear weapons.”
The greatest danger confronting Israel, etc., is not the Palestinian problem, nor is it Islamophobia, nor an insufficient supply of American apologies and empathy.
Netanyahu stresses that he agrees with President Barack Obama on “the idea of a regional peace that he is leading….I share the President’s desire to bring about a new era of reconciliation in our region.” He also stressed the importance of economic cooperation in the region.
By the way, conscious of the disastrous, albeit well-intentioned, proposal by then Prime Minister Shimon Peres for a “new Middle East” sounding as if Israeli technology would combine with Arab labor and money, Netanyahu phrased the idea in a much more modest way, making clear that Israel could learn from Arab developmental successes in the Gulf.
Regarding the Palestinian issue, Netanyahu made the following points:
--Let’s start “negotiations immediately, without preconditions.”
--His government will observe all its previous “international commitments and expects” the Palestinians to do the same.
--“I do not want war. No one in Israel wants war.”
He then asked a key question, one that the current U.S. government and many in Europe seem simply not to understand:
“If the advantages of peace are so evident, we must ask ourselves why peace remains so remote, even as our hand remains outstretched to peace. Why has this conflict continued for more than sixty years? In order to bring an end to the conflict, we must give an honest and forthright answer to the question: What is the root of the conflict?”
Reviewing the history of the conflict, he showed that it continued because, “The Arabs rejected any Jewish state, in any borders. Those who think that the continued enmity toward Israel is a product of our presence in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, [are] confusing cause and consequence.”
Let me pause here to explain what I knew beforehand and saw after the speech: the media reports focus on Netanyahu accepting the idea of a Palestinian state. This is a good thing to have recognized, but what is truly important is his effort to explain the Israeli interpretation of the conflict.
Speaking of the Palestinians he accurately said: “The closer we get to an agreement with them, the further they retreat and raise demands that are inconsistent with a true desire to end the conflict."
“Many good people have told us that withdrawal from territories is the key to peace with the Palestinians. Well, we withdrew. But the fact is that every withdrawal was met with massive waves of terror, by suicide bombers and thousands of missiles.”
This is the core Israel experience since the signing of the agreement with the PLO in 1993.
“We tried to withdraw with an agreement and without an agreement. We tried a partial withdrawal and a full withdrawal. In 2000 and again last year, Israel proposed an almost total withdrawal in exchange for an end to the conflict, and twice our offers were rejected.
“We evacuated every last inch of the Gaza strip, we uprooted tens of settlements and evicted thousands of Israelis from their homes, and in response we received a hail of missiles on our cities, towns and children.
“The claim that territorial withdrawals will bring peace with the Palestinians, or at least advance peace, has up till now not stood the test of reality.”
In fact, his arguments are so brief, clear, and accurate it is hard to resist just quoting what he said:
“In addition to this, Hamas in the south, like Hezbollah in the north, repeatedly proclaims their commitment to “liberate” the Israeli cities of Ashkelon, Beersheba, Acre and Haifa.
“Territorial withdrawals have not lessened the hatred, and to our regret, Palestinian moderates are not yet ready to say the simple words: Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people, and it will stay that way.”
And so Netanyahu explains what the Palestinian side must do if it wants peace and if it truly wants a state alongside Israel. Here are the steps needed:
First, “A fundamental prerequisite for ending the conflict is a public, binding and unequivocal Palestinian recognition of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people.”
Second, “There must also be a clear understanding that the Palestinian refugee problem will be resolved outside Israel’s borders. For it is clear that any demand for resettling Palestinian refugees within Israel undermines Israel’s continued existence as the state of the Jewish people.”
Third, “The territory under Palestinian control must be demilitarized with ironclad security provisions for Israel.” Otherwise, “There is a real danger that an armed Palestinian state would emerge that would become another terrorist base against the Jewish state, such as the one in Gaza….In order to achieve peace, we must ensure that Palestinians will not be able to import missiles into their territory, to field an army, to close their airspace to us, or to make pacts with the likes of Hezbollah and Iran….Without this, sooner or later, these territories will become another Hamastan. And that we cannot accept.”
And here is the key sentence of the speech: “I told President Obama when I was in Washington that if we could agree on the substance, then the terminology would not pose a problem.”
If these conditions are met, “Then we will be ready in a future peace agreement to reach a solution where a demilitarized Palestinian state exists alongside the Jewish state.”
There are two other issues the speech addressed. Regarding a freeze on construction in settlements, he politely refused.
The other point was a polite, indirect response to Obama’s Cairo speech and an assertion of Israel’s strength.
“Our people have already proven that we can do the impossible. Over the past 61 years, while constantly defending our existence, we have performed wonders. Our microchips are powering the world’s computers. Our medicines are treating diseases once considered incurable. Our drip irrigation is bringing arid lands back to life across the globe. And Israeli scientists are expanding the boundaries of human knowledge.”
Israel does not have any desperate need, to say the least, for more unilateral concessions. Time is on Israel’s side. It is the other side which faces disaster—social breakdown, economic stagnation, high levels of civil conflict.
Netanyahu concluded with an explanation of why Israel exists. While Obama probably did not intend this, he fell into the trap of defining Israel as the product of the Holocaust. Netanyahu responded:
“The right of the Jewish people to a state in the land of Israel does not derive from the catastrophes that have plagued our people. True, for 2000 years the Jewish people suffered expulsions, pogroms, blood libels, and massacres which culminated in a Holocaust- a suffering which has no parallel in human history.
“There are those who say that if the Holocaust had not occurred, the state of Israel would never have been established. But I say that if the state of Israel would have been established earlier, the Holocaust would not have occurred.
“This tragic history of powerlessness explains why the Jewish people need a sovereign power of self-defense.
“But our right to build our sovereign state here, in the land of Israel, arises from one simple fact: this is the homeland of the Jewish people; this is where our identity was forged.”
He concluded by quoting Israel’s Declaration of Independence but he specifically mentioned Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion as the author, a note of profound bipartisanship that few non-Israelis can understand.
“The Jewish people arose in the land of Israel and it was here that its spiritual, religious and political character was shaped. Here they attained their sovereignty, and here they bequeathed to the world their national and cultural treasures, and the most eternal of books.”
I think it is accurate to say that this speech expressed the most profound consensus in Israel on these issues and that the country will fully back up its prime minister on this policy. It is also a view of the region and the conflict far more accurate than that usually purveyed by others, both those who claim to have Israel’s “best interests” at heart, and those who would “wipe it off the map.”
Here's the speech on video.
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